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I'm late to the party, but it took me 3 days to get through this movie! It felt soooo long; I couldn't believe it was only 90-ish minutes. And I'm so glad I read about the timeline/structure of the movie - otherwise I would've been so confused. Even with knowing the timeline gimmick, I was confused at times about what was going on and when. I didn't think the 2 leads had a lot of chemistry on screen - but I don't know how much of that is due to the songs feeling so flat. There isn't a hook I can recall from the soundtrack. Oh, in the beginning of the movie, I paused on the closeup of the Dear Cathy letter and the contents made me cringe - and this guy is supposed to be a writer? But, but, later, we find out the letter is the lyrics to a song! Unghhhhh, no thanks. However, I did like the orchestration of the music - very cello/bass heavy. And finally, I don't understand why the guy couldn't go to parties by himself? Pull up your grownup panties (and boy did we see a lot of his underwear) and stop dragging your wife to places against her wishes!

Yeah. Didn't he have her number to text her?

Here you go! I took a ss. I hope she burns it.

Oh and speaking of his letter, that reminds me of another thing that annoyed me about him. In Cathy's case, we could literally see her talent on screen as an actress, but in that guy's case, he's the one who tells us he's gonna be the next Philip Roth or something and all we had to go by was that divorce letter and his Shmuel story? During the Shmuel song, btw, I'm pretty sure I blacked out and was brought to consciousness only when he turned on the Christmas lights.

He was not very likable, that's for sure. His worst offense - to me - was when he stopped suddenly in the bike lane without a hand signal. Obviously he's satan.

Oh god yeah this definitely brings the memory of him singing it all back. I hate this guy.

I would've even taken a phone call over that shit tbh. Also, he said he closed the bank account. Does this mean that he is cutting her off? So she's just left penniless cause clearly we all know she really couldn't get a job except the camp in Ohio so this motherfucker just writes her a letter saying oh I'm leaving and btw you have no money. I hope she gets some sweet sweet alimony.

God I'm still so mad at him! WHO THE FUCK WRITES A LETTER TO DIVORCE YOUR WIFE?!

I still stand by my statement that Jeremy Jordan has zero charm. (Sorry Sara) I already forgot the lyrics to his song as he was writing, so what did the letter say?

Bug mane ID officially leaked. Where the fuck is the video!

TOM SCHARPLING and THE DOUGHBOYS come to the studio and get tricked by The Boys.

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I laughed out loud when Cathy was like, "Oh it was so long," cause I was literally thinking the same thing.

Aw Paul I love you too! I'm so glad you agreed with me that it's so weird that WHM doesn't recognize these cops lol!

Bad boys 4 life? You don't say...

The purple Hayes thing reminded me of a fun thing you can do when you are singing along to this year. Instead of I played videogames in a drunken haze, you can sing I played videogames with Sean and Hayes Try it if you want.

Port Natalieman

Whoah man... That guy really got juked!

Hard. Thx

Good lord you just created a character!

Little Italy is mindblowing. Every minute there's something else to scream about. The fact that it's a Canadian Little Italy yet thick New York accents abound. The Indian characters put there just for the cheap jokes. Mr. Puzo buying pizza with "Mario" on his shirt. (Mario Puzo created The Godfather.) "Special appearance by Jane Seymour" and you knew instantly this was gonna be a doozy. The pizza tossing dad who clearly has never tossed pizza dough. The pervy female cop came completely out of nowhere. It seemed like they were going for a Melissa McCarthy-esque thing. It's all too much.

I agree, I think it's a fantastic script, and Amy and Paul glossed over the dialogue here when they spent some time praising it in Double Indemnity, which I'm much less a fan of. Double Indemnity has some great lines, but I always thought they were too written, and no one would actually talk that way. In Sunset Blvd, the witty repartee seems more believable to me. I'll also vouch for how good Whatever Happened To Baby Jane is, though I don't agree with Amy that it's better than Sunset Blvd. There's a great conversation to be had about the two films together though, and I've always thought that Bette Davis's performance as Jane, particularly in crafting the makeup and hair, was inspired by Gloria Swanson as Norma. Jane is essentially the more horror movie version of Norma. When Norma performs her old bits, it's more cute than sad. When Jane performs her old bits, it's quite unsettling. A couple other connections to real-life that weren't mentioned in the podcast: when Norma visits DeMille on set, the film DeMille is directing was actually the film he was directing in reality at the time, Samson and Delilah, which went on to get nominated for five Oscars the same year as Sunset Blvd, and the two films were actually pitted against each other for Best Score. Also, I think there were more similarities between Gloria Swanson and Norma than Amy and Paul and Alicia implied. Listening to the podcast, it seemed like they were saying that Gloria Swanson was getting plenty of steady work, but in reality, her film career had fizzled out at age 35. Between 1934 and the 1950 release of Sunset Blvd, she only appeared in one feature-length film. (I don't know the details about this break, though it seems suspicious that she signed a contract with MGM in 1934 and she immediately stopped booking film work. I also don't know if she was doing stage acting during this time like Bette Davis did before Baby Jane.) At any rate, this is one of my favorite films and will probably end up in the top 10 on my list, so pretty close to the #16 position it holds on the AFI list. (I currently have it at #4).

Just remember: this was based on the author's life.