Cold Open And Cocktail Talk

SPEAKER_03 0:00

What are we drinking, by the way?

SPEAKER_07 0:02

This is the Meet Me in Man Talk. Man talk?

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Montauk. Montauk.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:07

Man talk. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

But after one mind eraser, it's a man talking man talking.

SPEAKER_07 0:33

Greetings

Welcome And Film Setup

SPEAKER_07 0:34

andor salutations and welcome to Imbibe Cinema. The Imbibe Cinema podcast is brought to you by the Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival, otherwise known as Bwiff. I'm Jonathan C. Leggett, along with my co-host, Trisha Leggett, as well as our producer, Michael Nolans. And tonight we are pleased to welcome our special guest, Mark Muzinski. Fresh out of the writer's room. In this episode, we are going to be discussing the 2004 Dark Romance, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Dark Romance. That's at least what Imdeba says.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

Imdebah.

SPEAKER_07 1:08

Imdebu says. Interesting. Fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

I would never think of it as a dark romance.

SPEAKER_07 1:14

It calls it a dark romance epic, psychological drama, romantic epic, sci-fi epic, drama romance.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

And this is what I love about genre. It just means let's give you all the words. Instead of it's it's not like, oh, it's this, it's it's just a whole bunch of things. Do you remember back in the day before maybe people that could listen to this were born? Um when you would go to like Blockbuster and you would go for the movie, and you're like, it's not under, it's not under dramas, but it's and then you'd find it in comedies, and you're like, that's a drama. Or you'd find, you know, something in it's like it's in musicals. It's not a musical. How do they file this stuff?

SPEAKER_07 1:54

I I know we've discussed this previously, but like the bear being a comedy or musical is uh although I will say I mean to me it makes sense to consider this a dark romance. It is not a like happy romance. I mean, they it's not a rom-com. No, it is not a rom com. It's funny. Um, but you know, there's dark moments and dark elements and the original.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

There's no murder.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Wow. I that's I think of dark romance. I guess I'm I'm sort of conflating it with like dark academia and that sort of thing. Okay. Like I think of like brooding sort of gothic. Maybe there's like a hot professor or something.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

And somebody's a vampire.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

But I guess they're they're not sucking blood, they're just sucking memories. Yeah, yeah. They're way more destructive. There you go.

SPEAKER_07 2:42

We found the darkness. Um,

Meet Me In Montauk Drink

SPEAKER_07 2:44

the cocktail uh we are imbibing is called the Meet Me in Montauk, uh, which consists of gin, clementine, lemon juice, simple syrup, yellow chartreuse, and champagne. Uh uh Mark is also drinking, and I have also already partaken of one of these, uh, something called the Mind Eraser, uh, which is vodka. Um I've already forgotten. See, this is the that's how effective it is.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Uh vodka Kahlua and club soda, I think was the the original. But you you have your own concoction. What what exactly are you drinking again? So I tried the vodka one and I was like, this is fine, but I'm not a huge vodka fan. So I just I made the same thing but with Kraken Rum, which kind of goes well with the Kahlua sort of pirate version. A spicy coffee.

SPEAKER_07 3:30

All right. Uh look for the episode recap link in our show notes where you'll also find a written summary of our discussion along with the picture of the cocktail and the ingredients needed to make your own Meet Me and Man Talk at home. All right.

First Watch Reactions And Context

SPEAKER_07 3:44

So um I think this was my first actual watch of uh uh this movie. I believe I know I I had seen bits und pieces, uh, but I had never seen it like, you know, uh sitting down and and and just enjoying the entire thing. So this was uh quite the trip for me, but I know that uh the the three of you had all seen this movie uh previously. This this obviously came out in 2004. Uh we were drastically younger uh and uh potentially different people. Uh, you know, Mark, uh can you speak towards this film from a now and then uh perspective?

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Yeah, well, it's funny, watching it. The other thing that I did, I read the script and I also watched the trailer. And in watching the trailer, realized that I first saw this trailer because Mike Noins, uh esteemed producer of this podcast, uh showed me this trailer.

SPEAKER_07 4:39

Oh, that's fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Um, and then I must have seen it in theaters. I would have been in college. Yep. I must have gone to the little independent movie theater, which was like the castle theater to watch it. But I I remember seeing the trailer for this, and I was like, this is great. This the premise of this movie is it's like slight sci-fi bend to it, which I was totally in for, but most importantly, it had just hard emo vibes. Um and the trailer, the trailer music is Mr. Blue Sky.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Yes, yes, by ELO.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

What's what I thought was crazy is the beginning of the trailer is actually just a promotion for the fake company in the movie that erases your mind. It plays like a like kind of like a low-rent commercial.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Which is perfect.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

And then it and then it goes into the trailer where you see all the people involved. But I think for me, this was very much uh the exact vibe that I was probably immersed in and exuding at this time. For all in like in retrospect, the now part of it is like, ooh, I'm glad I don't feel as much kinship anymore. That's fair. But it was weird, it was like jumping into a time capsule of both like music, fashion, yeah, and just attitude, I'd say more than anything. Yeah, 2000s attitude of that time period.

Reframing Clementine And Red Flags

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Like the first thing that struck me, I definitely at the time viewed Clem's character in like not too different from say the way Natalie Portman is in Garden State, like right pinnacle of this Manic Pixie Dream Girl thing. In watching it again, I was like, she has a real serious drinking problem and like is in a lot of pain a lot of the time. Yes. Um and it struck me how willing I was as a little whiny emo boy in a uh frumpy sweater to think of that as like cute character stuff. Whereas now I would be like, she's still, you know, wonderful as a person, but I'd be like, oh, do you want to talk about anything?

SPEAKER_07 6:58

Yeah, there's there's two yellow or potentially even red flags.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

And one of them I don't think that actually ever really gets addressed in the film is the potatoes. But there's like a vast collection of dressed-up potatoes.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Yeah, she has a number of peccadillos. Which and I don't want it's like I'm not saying this in a sense of like uh judging her for it, but like looking back, it's interesting how much of that I was just able to gloss over in the name of like, look at her fun hair, and she's so spontaneous.

SPEAKER_07 7:29

Yes, perfect example is just you, you know, we we we've been watching films with our daughters, um, and we've been watching a number of films that like we watched as kids. Um, because if we're gonna be traumatized, so should they might as well I mean like we grew up to be f functioning members of society, um, arguably. But uh, you know, so we're we've been watching a number of films with with our daughters, and there's a number of times that we're like, whoa, how was this considered a PG 13? Or how it's how how did we not like you know there's a lot of Ghostbusters that's very adult. So, I mean, it's you know, you there's there's a lot that gets uh just right over the head, depending on your age. And again, the from an introspective standpoint, when you're in your twenties and you're still in, you know, college or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Yeah, drinking is fun, not a problem. And then years later you're like, that's a problem.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

And I think for me it was I was feeling the Joel side of things of this like, ugh, I don't know what my where my life is going, and like like it would be really nice if some really like cool, fun person just decided to love me unconditionally for a while. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

I mean, I I I I had a very similar response to it watching it again now because it has been a very, very long time, at least a decade, since I've seen this movie.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

But I also love like the very beginning where he's uh he just like runs off the uh platform to the other train and hops on and he goes, I yeah. And and he says, I'm not an spontaneous person, I don't do that. And it was this like compulsion to go there, and that she was compelled to go there. And

How Erasure Changes Behavior

SPEAKER_01 9:12

and then looking back at it, I'm like, my mind goes, How many of the patients show up because part of their brain is looking for something that's missing? And you have these people who are like wandering around like beyond why did I walk into this room?

SPEAKER_07 9:26

It it seems like it's not a very frequent thing for something to go wrong during the yes. That's and I wonder how much of uh the situation is because um he understands what is going on to a level, you know, he he's he's seen the the woman who he's trying to erase um forget him 100%. And so there's pushback from him because you also have Elijah Wood, who is replaying some of the greatest hits because he's trying to use Joel's memories to sway Clementine. He's trying to date Clementine and and use the things that she fallen in love with. I'm wondering if that's the reason she's also pushing back.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

There were scenes that were edited out just because in the course of editing it was like this isn't really about this this story's about. So we're gonna trim the fat. And uh it was uh other people having their memories erased, and it was like one of them was uh like a vet who it was PTSD he was trying to get rid of, and one of them was a woman who had been uh abused as a child, and she was trying to get rid of that. Um, and so like things that you're like, well, that's really deep-seated trauma. Like, I could see why you would do that and not, you know, I have this relationship that is toxic.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

It's funny, I I think of it as such a Charlie Kaufman movie, yes, but he is only one of the writers on it, and I couldn't find if he came in later or he started it. Like, I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

No, I think it was the original idea was somebody that was French.

SPEAKER_07 11:10

Pierre. Yes, Pierre. Bismuth.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Yeah. He was talking to somebody and they were venting about an uh bad relationship, and he's like, Well, would it have been better if he just erased it? And then that kind of stuck in his mind, and then he brought it up uh in conversation with Gondry. Yes, and then they brought Kaufman in, I believe. But I could be wrong because my research has been erased by my drink.

SPEAKER_07 11:36

Dang, girl.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

You've only started sipping it. Oh well, okay,

A Literary Movie And The Ending

SPEAKER_01 11:40

fine. Menopause. How about that?

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Um, the other thing that struck me about this is that part of what made it stand out to me when I watched it initially, is that I hadn't I hadn't seen a lot of movies that for lack of a better word were like literary. Like you have to work a little bit to track what's happening in it.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah, you have to actively really be paying attention.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

And most of what I had watched prior to this, or what I at least did, like internalized from childhood to then was like Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones and Star Wars, lots and lots of Star Wars and Die Hard and action movies and all sorts of or the movies that you know we we would make in high school. Um but this was the first, and that's this says more about me than maybe it does about Eternal Sunshine, but this was definitely like one of the more literary films I had seen to that point, and the thing that hit me hardest was that it captured a sense of um I don't know, for I guess like optimistic nihilism in the end. The sense that like they are they understand the cycle that they're in, but they're just gonna try again anyway. Um that despite any other things about the movie that I might quibble with later, like that was really eye-opening to me, and I think probably to this day defines a lot of my outlook on the world.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Wow. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

I mean like not that it necessarily came from this movie, but like this movie was like sometimes sometimes things are like crazy or weird or bad or inevitable, but like you can choose even if it seems dumb to keep going.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah. Well, and I mean, for me, that ending this time round made me think of all those people, and I was one of them once, uh, who get into a relationship and then they break up and then they get back together again, and then they break up and they get back together again, and it's like, well, this time it'll be different. And then at some point you have to go, Oh, maybe it there's a reason I'm not seeing for why this isn't working out. And and that there are people who they don't realize they're in that cycle. And yet it was very interesting that it was like, this is an act of choice. We know this is probably not gonna end well, but love isn't is it's the journey, it's not the destination, and it's worth the heartbreak to be in this space again. Um, and that's pretty, that's nice.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Well, and the funny thing is, like, I I think exactly what you're saying, like this time around, I can acknowledge the sort of philosophical version of it that I was just saying, but in practice, I was like, you guys might actually just be happier if you walked away. Yeah. Um, but like in the sense that like romance is kind of one of the few realms that have that, if if you've gone through it enough times with the same person.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

This is what happens when a tornado meets a volcano, right? No, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 14:52

Uh the thing, I guess, that I was really feeling more maybe this time. Relationships were still very like new to me, probably when I first saw this movie. And um, and having, you know, the memory, no matter how like there's good and bad memories, and the memory, no matter how bad, that's really important to grow as a person. And so one of the things that it was like, yes, I do think that they should probably go separate ways, but like their lives need to go through this. Perhaps it's something that they need maybe 20 years later. They're gonna need whatever experience they get out of here, good or bad. Yep, correct. And it's going to make their life more fulfilling in some surprising way.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Right, because you learn from your mistakes.

SPEAKER_07 15:40

You learn from don't learn from your mistakes, you are doomed to repeat that. Yes.

Why Painful Memories Matter

SPEAKER_01 15:47

One of the things that I thought was really beautiful watching at this time was when he's fighting, losing her. Yeah. Right. And and even even the bad memories are suddenly becoming like there's so few left, and he's just holding on to anything. Yeah. And then he has this moment of surrender, and it's just we're gonna enjoy what we have while we have it.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

And it's so much like dying, right? It's it's so much like fighting death and then just accepting and seeing the beauty of life in those moments that you've seen that in film and or in different stories. But I I love the idea of having this uh have a uh this love story have being its own existence, its own life, yeah, and then it and then we're getting to see it die in a way that you wouldn't if it wasn't told to us this way. Yes, and it makes it so much more tragic and beautiful. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

In that moment that you're describing, like he's very alive and present. Yes. And in a way, the saddest he is the entire movie is like right at the beginning when he's like looks in his diary and there's just two years missing.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yeah. And he's like, I don't do anything. Uh like that's when he's kind of at his worst. And it it was a what a really great way of showing the exactly, I think, Mike, what you're saying initially, of like the value of those memories. Yeah. That the value of that experience.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

Well, and that line where he says, I actually wrote this down. That line where he says, Um, it appears this, uh, this is my first entry in two years. Yeah. The word appears really, I don't know, for whatever reason, I was like, that's interesting that you use the word appears. Like, you know that there's something wrong. Yeah. Like something's not right. Um, and I'm I don't think I noticed that.

SPEAKER_07 17:48

He feels like he's somebody who gets lost in a journal. And for him to be lost in thinking he's being lost in a journal and realize that there's two years that he has just not done it. I mean, that makes that makes sense. He is very introverted. Uh she is the extrovert in that in that relationship, in fact, almost uh too much so for him. Uh in the fact that when he's not feeling like he wants to go out, and she does go out, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

In every relationship, there's the fun one and the quiet one.

SPEAKER_07 18:21

Which is funny because you're not quiet.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

And John, you're not fun.

SPEAKER_07 18:29

Oh damn. Ah. But but see, that's the thing, is that like I I know that you are introverted.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Yes, I would rather stay home.

SPEAKER_07 18:38

Yes. Which is funny, because actually there are m times when I am introverted um and would want to stay home. Uh but you know, when it comes to going out, once I'm out, yeah, I I I I soak up the the extroverted nature that is uh dinner and a show.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Um You are dinner and a show.

SPEAKER_07 18:59

But uh so are you, and that's the funniest thing is that uh He's just trying to stay married.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

He's so romantic. So romantic.

SPEAKER_07 19:08

Romance. Romance.

Music As Sense Memory Time Capsule

SPEAKER_07 19:10

Um I I think when it comes to you know, sense memory is is hugely important. Um and uh I feel like there's times where songs uh can speak to volumes uh to us where we can hear a song and immediately remember back to a time. Um I think that uh you know the the the songs that they use in this movie uh are fantastic to take us back to uh the time of 2004. Uh Mark, uh, you know, is there anything about the the music that specifically speaks to you?

SPEAKER_00 19:43

I I think for me, the music in a lot of ways was the engine of the time capsule. Uh the music and like the clothing and the attitudes of the people, but like the yeah, there's this um the like everybody's gotta learn sometime song that I didn't even realize I first heard in this movie. But like that whole vibe, there's a couple other music cues that weren't necessarily even the like needle drop existing songs that I'm like, I know this music, but I had no idea this is what I know it from.

SPEAKER_03 20:23

Right. Right. Like, did did I seek out this song after I saw this movie? Because I can't imagine I heard this song before I saw this movie.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Fascinating. The things we don't even think of as of a time at the time. In a world where everything was an emo level of seven, and this movie was like an eight or nine, it just seemed like leaning into the trend. And if now we're at an emo level of four, you're like, whoa, nine is very high.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

I love how while he's trying to save her memory, she's constantly talking about how tired she is and how she doesn't want to run anymore.

SPEAKER_07 21:03

Yes. Although again, that's his memory, that's himself. She is him.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Right. She's him having a conversation with himself, really. Right. Because you are all the people in your mind. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

You contain multitudes.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Oh. If I had to watch this again, what I actually want to watch for is how is she different when she's not in his mind?

SPEAKER_01 21:29

That's fair.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Like, how is the his projection of her shaping? Because like when I watch the movie, you I just sort of see her as like one continuous character, but that's not actually what's happening.

SPEAKER_07 21:41

No, there's actually very few scenes with her as her, and in those, she seems so chaotic and frenetic.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Like, yeah, just uh the her memory being so scarred because of all the pieces that are removed.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Because she's because she's with past. Patrick, but like everything feels wrong, and she's like, What is happening?

Patrick’s Creepiness And Sadness

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Yeah, but she's chasing moments that she's lived boy.

SPEAKER_03 22:07

Patrick and his his really creepy Serena de Bergerac moments where he's like, I'm just gonna I will say, okay, so about Patrick, one of the things that I didn't like, there's a lot of details I didn't remember about the side characters. Okay. Um and so Patrick, um I feel like I was more like, this guy's a creep the first time that I saw it. And this time I was like, he does not know who he is. Yeah. He has zero confidence. Zero confidence. I was much more like, what's wrong with you, Patrick? Yeah, you do these things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 22:50

Still a creeper, but so yeah, sad in the sense that like you, yeah, you're that there's there's some void you are trying to fill right now.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Yeah. Right? Where Mark Ruffalo, you're like, God, he's so young. What? He's such a baby. They're all so young. But but he's he's the straight man, he's he's the one who's like just there to do the job.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Yep. Do you believe that he didn't know about the Kirsten Dunst affair with their boss?

SPEAKER_01 23:19

I guess you could say what he could lie just because he's hoping to, but I don't think there's any hope of that continuing, so why not confess? Um, I don't think he did. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 23:31

Oh, I I'm with you. I feel like he he's kind of one of the few earnest people in the movie. Yeah. It felt like he gave just enough detail that I was like, yeah, you know what? I could see you still trying to date this woman.

SPEAKER_07 23:46

I saw you I saw you guys together a couple times, and then all of a sudden you stopped, and uh I thought maybe it was just over and was not a problem. Yeah, I I agree. I I and even being you know, somebody who helps erase mines, I can see him not going to that leap and being like, she's been erased.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

Yeah, I think because he was kind of asked twice there at the end, and I think he he lied the first time, and then I think he told the truth the second time.

SPEAKER_06 24:17

Ooh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:17

I think when he was like, No, I didn't know. I think he suspected that this is what was going on, much more than he led on. Oh, okay. There are these moments, especially on multiple watches, where you can see him like cringing about this yeah, Howard coming over. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Yeah, but it's not just, I mean, it's a the boss has to come. And then you look like a bear.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

There was more to it than that person.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Okay. Well, and she openly gushes over the guy, even yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Yeah. I think he has a uh definitely is a little jealous of how on a pedestal she puts Howard. Yeah. Um, Mike, kind of to your point, like he says she looked happy with a secret. You know, what did you think that secret was, buddy? But I also think uh somewhat thematically for the movie, he also had feel like he at some point had feelings for her. He seems to genuinely like her, and I think he consciously or unconsciously let himself get blinded by that.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Kind of like I don't want to know what happened with them because I want to have this relationship with her.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Right, or I want to believe that's in my head so that I don't look too closely at it.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

Well, so another question I have is because I don't think I don't think I've asked myself this question in previous watches. Um, did they have sex while he's sleeping?

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Yeah. Um, I guess they did. Um I think it was cut from the film, and the dance scene was improvised, and that made it in.

SPEAKER_03 25:51

Okay. Because I was like, wait, I don't remember them being naked. I remember them dancing in their underwear. And then on this watch, I was like, whoa, whoa, they're naked.

SPEAKER_05 26:01

Well, I mean, they were raiding his liquor cabinet, they were raiding his refrigerator, they were stoned.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Yeah, they were marijuana. Like they were having a that was a hardcore party, and and yet um he's still like monitoring the process. Like, I got I got one eye, one, one hand on the steering wheel still.

SPEAKER_07 26:19

He's supposed to be in rough automation at that point. Again, like it seems like he is one of the first times it has gone the second time that this has gone off the rail.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 26:32

Regardless.

SPEAKER_03 26:33

It was my my naivete as a 19-year-old kid. I did not put that together.

unknown 26:40

I just didn't put that together.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

That's like that's messed up.

SPEAKER_07 26:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

That's super messed up.

SPEAKER_07 26:47

Yeah, they're having sex while a dude is unconscious in the other room. Or actually, not even in the other room, like uh the the next chair. Uh anyway, uh, we're gonna take a few moments to fill our glasses and get ready to imbibe more after this.

Voicemail Feature And Subscribe Plug

SPEAKER_03 27:02

Hey Michael, I got some cool news. You got some cool news? I love cool news. What's the news? Our listeners can actually send us a voicemail now, and I'm thinking that maybe this will work better than text.

SPEAKER_06 27:15

You think you think that the reason was because they had to actually like type things where now they can actually speak to us?

SPEAKER_03 27:20

Right. The cool thing is now they can actually leave us a voicemail and then we can play that voicemail on the show. And then answer that voicemail. In real time. In real time. So well, almost real time. Yes, well. Subject. Sub real time. Sub real time. In our real time. Yes. Not their real time.

SPEAKER_06 27:40

Not their real time.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

But yeah, so they can leave us a voicemail with their film suggestions or what they think that we should cover on the show that we haven't yet.

SPEAKER_06 27:48

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:49

I think that would be pretty cool. Or they could even like just say, hey, you know, you talked about this movie and you didn't talk about this, and I think you should be talking about this.

SPEAKER_06 27:57

That's more than fair.

SPEAKER_03 27:59

And but then we can address that. So yeah, they should totally do that.

SPEAKER_06 28:02

It's audience interaction.

SPEAKER_07 28:04

All right, so so uh, yeah, not only can you leave us a text, but you can also leave us uh uh a full voicemail, and we will be able to uh hear and respond to either your text or your voicemails.

unknown 28:18

Perfect.

SPEAKER_07 28:20

I'm Jonathan C. Leggett, and I'm here along with Trisha Legg, as well as Michael Nogans and our special guest, Mark Muzinski. And we are discussing the uh eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. Enjoying this podcast? Please subscribe or follow us on your favorite podcast providers to get the new episodes as soon as we release them. Rate, leave us a review and help the show reach that larger audience. And you can also follow Imbibe Cinema on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Letterboxd. And we want to hear your thoughts on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or any of the other films that we have reviewed uh this season, or films that we have not yet reviewed this season, or next season. Let us know your thoughts on films that we maybe should be uh uh uh pairing a cocktail with and drinking exorbitant amounts of alcohol. Uh not exorbitant.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Right. We have to imbibe responsibly.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

Responsible responsible job.

SPEAKER_07 29:26

Yes, drinking responsible amounts.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

And I don't want to give notes, but can I just you are acting the shit out of it? Right? It's like I'm not sure if it's the desperation coming through or if this is a William Shatner kind of take on that. It was very Shakespearean.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

Your thoughts on eternal sunshine of the phone. I love it.

SPEAKER_07 29:55

Uh well that yeah, thank you. I I mean, uh once an actor, always an actor. I I I don't I didn't think I was overacting, but uh that's what a mind eraser and champagne will do to you.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

There you go.

SPEAKER_07 30:09

Uh look for our link in the show notes to send us a text uh or leave us a voicemail, and we'll make sure to take time uh during the break of our next episode to discuss.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Yes, and dear listener, if you feel like you just need to comment on us needing professional help, you can leave that message to okay.

SPEAKER_07 30:33

All right, so um uh let's take act two here uh by storm. Um

What Would You Erase

SPEAKER_07 30:40

is there uh uh a thing, memory, person, place, thing, or other that you would uh want to erase from your mind?

SPEAKER_00 30:55

As the guest, do I have to answer first?

SPEAKER_07 30:57

Is that the I mean but Mark, if if you feel if you feel that you have one, uh uh go for it.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

For me personally, one of the things about having a kid is realizing that like if anything in my life had changed up to that moment that even delayed you know things like a minute, it would have been a different child. Yeah, right. And retroactively, like that the infinite uniqueness of that makes it sort of hard to regret anything that came before.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

Yes, well done. Yes, and make sure that you get to play this part of the podcast on Father's Day so everybody knows how incredible you are.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

My wife and daughter might want to erase plenty of stuff that I've done.

SPEAKER_07 31:50

I know that I am uh one of those individuals, uh Trisha likes to uh uh uh call it out periodically, that who is plagued uh where all of a sudden, like I'll be in the shower or something like that, and just uh uh something I once said or or once did will uh strike me, and I'll do one of those um like shiver moments where all of a sudden you're like, and you're like, whoa, well, are you okay? It's like, oh yeah, no, I was just remembering something I stupidly said at one point. Um and I think uh similar to you, Mark, in in the sense that like I, you know, I I hate uh uh that there are instances where I can look back and go, like, you know, I am the villain in somebody's story. I am I am just a jerk uh at a convenience store who is uh making fun of somebody, you know, and it's like uh you know though those are moments of my youth uh that I I I would love to take out of somebody else's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Um that I'm a hundred percent that doesn't affect my daughter. Correct. I want to erase all the embarrassing stuff I've done from everyone's from everybody else's mind.

SPEAKER_07 32:58

Like those still make me who I am, um, and I feel that like I I am a better person because of shitty mistakes in my youth, where like, you know, I I I just said something that was rude. Um but like to know that those are moments that give me shivers and pause now are things that now prevent me from ever doing that again. Um and I feel like, you know, to to try to erase any of those moments, you're then destined to repeat them, that you are more likely to be a jackass as an older individual if you haven't felt the shame of being a jackass in your youth.

SPEAKER_03 33:43

I mean, I I I I'm feeling the the same thing. I feel like having the perspective of looking back on moments that are not flattering, choices that I've made, things like that, but like looking at them like that was a growth moment that you don't realize in the moment.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Uh I I have a unique gift to forget things. Uh I s uh I don't know, maybe I think a good portion of my life is in the cloud.

unknown 34:13

I don't know where I was. Buffering?

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Yeah, it's just buffering.

SPEAKER_07 34:18

The witch cloud.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Right? And I mean, yes, that's a good point. The Apple cloud or just ether. No, in the ether. It's it it's a metaphoric cloud, John.

SPEAKER_07 34:29

Oh. Not a metaphysical.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Not really. No, and it will come, it will come back when I'm being judged. And it'll be like, remember this? And I'm like, no, I don't oh, I do.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

Shit.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Um because other than that, I think I will punish myself repeatedly living like reliving a scene over and over and over in my head until it is it's um until it's just like the worst version anybody could possibly have of that moment. And then uh John will say, You're in your head, and then I'll go, Nope, and then I'll see those people again, and they'll look like we've had normal engagements, and I'm like, oh, maybe that was in my head.

Script Changes And Darker Subplots

SPEAKER_07 35:14

All right. So, you know, Mark, you had mentioned that you actually have a copy of the script, and you did say that it was a a script that was closer to production. How how close to uh script was the final cut?

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Uh it was fairly close. There were a couple differences. Um the voiceover at the beginning was different. Uh like the stuff about not being spontaneous and Valentine's Day, I don't believe was there. I want to say the voiceover started with him uh opening the notebook and being like, Oh, I haven't written anything in two years. Oh, okay. Okay. And then I think there were some rearrangements. There were definitely some cuts. There was more stuff with um Naomi, like his ex. Oh, okay. I think they even have a scene.

SPEAKER_05 36:05

We never seen, ever hear anything of. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

In the version of the script, I had, I believe it's implied that he ran into her the night before and they like hooked up or something.

SPEAKER_07 36:18

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

And then uh the other thing that really stuck out to me was in the final cut of the movie, Kirsten Dunst says when she's playing the tape of herself.

SPEAKER_07 36:33

Yes, asking for the erasure.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Yeah, sorta. She's like torn, she's very ambivalent toward it. Yeah. And Howard is like, you said you wanted this, so you didn't want to, and then it she's sort of like, Oh, Howie, and then it cuts out. Um, in the script, it goes about two lines further, and those two lines reveal that she had been pregnant and possibly had been pressured to terminate the pregnancy by Howard, and that that was a big trigger to wanting to erase it was to forget that she that she had done it.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Oh wow, that would have been so like that Howard would not have been a likable character.

SPEAKER_03 37:16

Not that he was necessarily liking, but right. That's interesting that they chose not to do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

Yeah. And I want I mean, it it keeps it focused on the romantic relationship in a way that I can see, and it also avoids a very hot button issue.

SPEAKER_03 37:36

Yeah, people that would have uh liked the movie that we have and would have hated the movie if it had made that choice.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

Yeah, so I I so I I don't know. I'm I it could also just be like they cut it for time. Like there's a million reasons it could have gone that way. Or maybe they never even shot it that way.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Um, but that obviously was a notable change where I was like, wow, that is an extra layer to that relationship.

Lighting Choices And Vanishing Worlds

SPEAKER_02 38:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

The lighting was something that I really did notice, and that way, especially when everything's disappearing, everything is going dark. There's a lot of spotlight, I mean a spotless mind, but there's a lot of like uh a spotlight or a flashlight or very limited lighting. And there's a lot of uh natural lighting um that or the illusion thereof in it um that makes it feel very realistic. And and then of course, like uh there's the starkness to uh a lot of it um because of the winter and how it shot. It seems very desolate.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

Yeah, I think it was probably one of the the first movies I remember seeing where it it really felt like they were shooting with practical lighting.

SPEAKER_07 38:55

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:56

The other part that I I did connect with with the spotlight um at the end of the movie when they're in the house and she's got the flashlight.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:06

I wonder if that was the thought with the spotlight like were leading to that, and that was like the hints to that leading out clever.

SPEAKER_07 39:17

One of the things I think that that stunned me, again, this was my first time really viewing this movie.

Practical Effects Over CGI

SPEAKER_07 39:23

But specifically, they didn't use CGI. Um the the shrinking Joel uh when he's a little child, that they use the exact same uh forced perspective uh that they did for Elf, um, where you know just somebody is further away from from the camera. But like uh disappearing rooms, uh, when environments dissolve, uh, the actors are instructed to literally stand up and move out of frame. Uh the one that that that uh got me was the books.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_07 39:54

All these books, they're in the Barnes and Noble, and all these books uh are you know have have names and everything, and all of a sudden they start just blanking out. Uh, and apparently that was an illusion uh that books are suddenly it was used by uh the crew having uh specially blanked out books, and I think that they were just lighting them so that they looked like books.

SPEAKER_03 40:17

See, and I just assumed that that was you know, some post effects were called into play because I I couldn't figure out how you could. How you would do that, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Oh, and the face, Patrick's face, the distortion of the face where he's trying to see his face and he can't because his memory, yeah, because his memory can't because it he doesn't I don't think he ever saw Patrick.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

I never saw his face. That was the that was the that was the most of his face that he's seen.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Yeah. Which is so creepy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Yeah, all of that makes it so much more like tangible. Yeah. And also like, I don't know if gritty or gri I really liked the uh I don't know what you'd even call it, like, because it's not quite retro future. I feel like if someone made this movie now, the special effects would be like inception. It was like my other comp for like interior of your mind kind of thing. And and all of the technology would look like it came from an Apple store. Correct. And I love that like Lacuna had essentially the the like resources and staff and office space of like a pretty good small dental practice.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

Right, yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 41:31

I love the amount of cords that are needed for everything. Like I was thinking, would you really trust these people with your mind?

SPEAKER_00 41:41

Because you think, like, in a practical way, if someone had developed this technology, I I feel like it it would be, you know, there'd be like venture capital investors and all sorts of stuff. Sharks. They didn't remember to fund it. I don't know why. This is the seventh time I've pitched you. That's how you know.

Jim Carrey’s Physical Performance

SPEAKER_00 42:07

I I was really the thing that struck me on this viewing of it about Jim Carrey is how much control he has over his face.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Because there's a lot of shots that are like like lips to eyebrows, close-ups. Yeah. And he there's like one that I'm remembering where it's like he's like, his eyes like pop open just the right amount to show that he's like surprised, and then his pupils go like whoop, whoop, and it's like the timing of it is like so precise, and everything else on his face is like perfectly still. And it's and like to his credit, it's more than it's not explicitly his face. Like, there's like other moments, there's like a moment where he like walks outside and sees the scratch on his car, but he doesn't know like what it's from. Yep. And like the way he just does this, like I don't he's just very the character is very embodied. Yes, yeah. For you know, I'd say for better. Because so much of what he's doing is just moping that it's nice that he's physical.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

You're right, it is very unique, and yet it is very natural. It it doesn't come across like weird, as it is just this is who this person is, and it doesn't seem odd.

SPEAKER_07 43:26

Mark,

Guest Updates And Closing Cheers

SPEAKER_07 43:27

what have what have you got coming out uh that uh our our listeners uh should should keep an eye out for or an ear out for?

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Keep all the senses out. You may not be able to taste it, but probably the easiest to access is I have been so lucky to have been writing on the Dexter franchise and this latest iteration of it, um, Dexter Resurrection, season two comes out. I don't know if it's public when it comes out yet, but soon. And uh it's great, it's coming soon, and uh it's awesome, it's really fun.

SPEAKER_07 44:05

And we'll be watching. Yes. Wish you the best. Same. And uh we'll talk soon.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Cheers.