today on You're watching a movie with Silas Lindenstein It's a film club

edition.

And I am joined by my good friend and comedian Emmett Montgomery.

And we're going to talk about one of his favorite comedies,

Booksmart.

Hello,

everybody, and welcome to You're watching a movie with Silas Linden Star.

And I'm your host, Silas Lindenstein.

Welcome. And today is a film club edition.

And my guest for this film club is a good friend of mine,

comedian Emmett Montgomery.

He is here to talk about one of his favorite films,

one that he says he believes is one of the funniest films

to him in life the last decade.

Booksmart. It's a 2019 film.

If you haven't heard that, you haven't heard about it.

Go watch it.

And then come back here

and listen to it, because it's going to be a spoiler filled episode.

Or if you if you don't care about spoilers, go ahead and listen.

But you've been warned.

We're going to talk about it beginning, middle and end.

So, yeah, we talk about it full length with spoilers. So

enjoy, enjoy that.

Emmett He's a he's a long time friend of mine.

He's appeared on my show, The Real Nerds of Comedy.

He was on the last one here in Emerald City Comic-Con in 2020.

For right now.

He was on the first one like eight years ago

and I've had him on shows quite, quite a bit.

He's been a guest on a podcast that I've done,

and so I've been wanting to have him on to talk about films He gave me to.

This is the one we decided to talk about.

I decided I want to want to share.

So he's kind of the yeah,

I think he's like the father of Seattle comedy.

He's like, He's everywhere.

Everyone knows him. He's very supportive. He's wonderful.

If you want to check him out, he's at the Joke Tellers Union every second

and fourth Wednesday at the clock out lounge here in the Seattle area.

He just headlined the Capitol Hill Comedy Club Comedy

bar here in, um, in Seattle.

And if you do want to hear an hour of jokes from him,

you know, you have to follow

him on Facebook or the Instagrams here where he's going to be next.

But he is very bookable for shows and classes and other weirdness.

He's always producing or involved in something new.

So I was excited to see what his latest things are.

So if you're not a fan of his,

I think this podcast will

will be the beginning of your journey to, to, to,

to, to loving Emmett Montgomery.

Anyway, yeah, Booksmart we're here.

Uh, got this record recorded via Zoom.

So you.

You ready? I'm ready.

So we're going to check out at least watch the trailer first.

It's really good.

So here we are, Film Club

with my guest, Eamon Montgomery, discussing the film Booksmart.

one of the things that this algorithm

thing is showing me and why I think this

film club is so important

is movies like Booksmart

because how did I miss this?

The algorithm.

No algorithm told me to watch this,

and and suddenly I'm like,

Well, what I wanna say, Hey, I want Allen Iverson,

whoever you go by a you don't know me

because you would have told me about Booksmart.

So for those of you new to film club.

So my guest here, Emma montgomery, nationally recognized

comedian who happens to live in Seattle.

He's my guest today.

Today's film club suggestion was the movie Booksmart.

As you know, I asked you I asked my friends like, hey, what are you three?

Give me three, your favorite films or something like that.

And I usually pick one.

And this time

Emmett said, This is one of what I think.

I think I don't want to misquote you, but you said you think it is

one of the funniest recent comedies out that has been out.

Yeah. And

Mandy,

right?

What's that

I was all about?

I was all about that.

And I still want to do one about that. Um,

right,

right.

So, like,

I was a

Yeah,

well, well, okay, so

does sum it up real quick.

Directed by Olivia Wilde.

The logline on it is academic overachievers Amy and Molly

keeping their noses to the grindstone, gave them a leg up

on their high school peers.

But on the eve of graduation, the best friends suddenly realize

they may have missed out on the special moments of their teenage years,

determined to make up for lost time, the girls decided to cram

four years of not to be most fun into one night, a chaotic adventure

that no amount of book smarts could prepare them for.

It was released on March 10th of 2019.

It had a budget of 6 million.

Very small, small, very small.

Even for 2019 box office actually at $25 million.

So I'm not sure these years I hear

usually it's double whatever the budget was for marketing, right?

So it probably cost about 12 million.

So it turned a little bit of a profit.

I mean, 12 million, even if you just go 12 million,

I mean, that's not

stubborn to sneeze at.

I think it starred

Beanie Feldstein and Caitlin Dever

and that has.

Yeah, but Lisa Kudrow's in it, Will Forte, Jason Sudeikis, who's in everything.

Yeah.

Oh, Oh,

yeah, yeah.

Now Oh,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah.

I, I absolutely loved this film.

Like, I'm not going to beat around the bush.

Like, I laughed so much.

It was hard to read.

I was trying to remember like, when do I laugh at a

movie this hard by myself?

Because that's a, that's a judgment to write.

I God, I would have loved to have seen this in a theater full of people.

It it was like

and I think I related like, I related to both like

I missed out.

I kind of

I missed out on high school

a lot, but not necessarily for grades.

It was more out of fear.

Like I just didn't want to get in trouble.

I didn't want to be in trouble.

So I missed out on some things doing that.

I worked a lot

and I get to the the realization when she thinks that,

like I'm going to Yale and no one else,

no one else is here

to find out other kids are going to Yale that actually had fun.

And which also

I mean, I was thinking this like, you know, that's not binary either.

Like, if you had fun, you might not have been able to get to Yale.

This person might just be exceedingly gifted.

And that's why they can do it right?

American Pie

a Superbad.

Yeah,

there are no, no,

I was just still I was just so still I am.

What?

Yeah,

but you said.

Did you say Sister?

Is that Jonah Hill?

Sister

four In real life.

And now I'm looking at her and going, Oh,

now am I going to find Jonah Hill attractive.

I don't.

Well, I have half sisters who I was.

The name is Jonah Hill.

The fake name or is their name fake?

Remember that?

So that's true. Probably,

yeah.

Yeah.

Uh huh.

Right, Right.

Yeah,

yeah. Mm.

Yeah.

Now, Molly,

the main girl going to Yale, she is one of the thing

I thought was interesting was like, people painted her as a nerd, right?

But she had to be somewhat she was somewhat popular

because she's class president,

so. Well, she's class president.

Yeah.

And I mean, to do that, you have to have some degree of you get.

You're not unlikable.

You're not unlikable. No. So she wasn't.

But like, I was trying to think of who in my school

she would have been because we but we only had like 60 people.

So it was hard to

narrow that in.

Yeah.

Mm hmm.

But you wouldn't

have yourself put you as, like, say, like I was in the popular.

You go.

Yeah.

Mm hmm.

Well, I mean, memories of,

like, in a book club, you don't necessarily

go through the whole thing, but I think you talk about, like, themes of it's

or about backstage stuff or behind the scenes.

Well,

so, I mean, what do you what do you think, Number one,

what do you think of the lesson of the film?

It's do you think it is?

It is what the plot is,

too. Like.

Do you think the lesson is, is the film set?

Is the film's lesson

to not wait till graduation

the party like, is it?

Yeah,

Yeah,

yeah.

Mm hmm.

Which one?

The bath, the bathroom scene?

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah.

Okay.

Yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah, I.

I couldn't help watching this with having a 16 year old daughter

and watching this movie,

and I know she's had this ideas of what high school should be like and

being kind of disappointed that it's maybe a little more boring than she expected.

It's.

But also, I mean,

this is way tougher to navigate

in high school now than for me.

I don't know. Maybe it's

maybe partly because it's a

it's interesting because you your sexuality can be open there.

It's so open that people don't know

like you don't even talk about it like it doesn't come up.

Right.

And, man, that's even harder.

Like, it could be anything.

And so you just trying to give hints, right?

Without it being.

I love that there was no shame.

Like, I mean, he's probably the first teen movie in forever

that didn't treat

being gay is something that they would have been

ashamed of or having the come out like nobody had to come out.

Right.

It was just very accepted that she was This is this.

Yeah, this is the way.

Yeah I like

I like seeing Yeah,

yeah,

yeah, yes,

yeah,

yeah.

In one night.

Mm. Yeah,

yeah.

So there's a 1919 2019.

Yeah.

This.

Okay.

Well I wanted to talk about that I thought was super cool

in the shooting of it, so most of it was shot at night.

Um, Olivia

So Olivia Wilde was a working mom,

but she in the mornings after filming, she would take the time

to bring her children to school,

like, so she would take the kids to school

for a while.

She tried to do like it couldn't last thing, and I just thought that was so.

I thought that was such a great thing to think about.

Like, Man, you can't even direct a film

without getting out of your duties as a woman, right?

You still know you're making.

Oh, making a movie.

I'm guessing Spielberg didn't take his kids to school a lot

while he's shooting E.T. or whatever.

Probably gone.

I like that.

And then,

well, I just thought it was the animated

doll sequence.

It took five months to shoot.

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess that's true.

Yeah.

I don't know why, but this one seemed a little more bizarre.

Well, okay, I'm saying this in a good way.

Like it seemed

the animated sequences seemed

almost like this seems like a different movie.

Like, what are you doing?

But it it did not take me out of the film,

which I expected it to.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah.

Well, too.

Too convenient.

Was it too can was it too convenient for.

See, I was more bothered by the graduation

being the next day and how I was like well it's, it's graduation.

There's like no parents here.

It's just for kids.

I'll tell you out there in the world.

Right,

right, right, right.

I know, I know.

Well, I just see the end of

they said apply to the parents.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

You, you makes me think with that statement that,

like, about the third act problem.

I wonder if that is one of the big issues

that differentiates the great comedies from the,

the mediocre because like

I was talking recently about the, I did a review on this movie on Hulu

that I absolutely loved the whole movie until the last 15 minutes.

And um,

I forget the name of it now, but it's about the assassin game

where they're like trying to kill them

in a and Kendrick's in it and someone else's first movie,

but they're trying to kill them as part of a dark web game and oh

yeah, I don't remember the name, but.

But then I was so infuriated by how it ended because it was so stupid

that I think like because like, had a potential of being like,

if you just stick this landing, you're going to be a great comedy.

And it did it.

And so now I like, I can't even remember the name of it because I'm so mad.

Yeah,

yeah,

yeah.

Oh, bottoms.

Oh, I love bottoms.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah, yeah.

Oh easily. Yeah.

But yeah,

yeah I, yeah

it is.

Well I do, I do think well American fiction.

I actually didn't think of it as a comedy until they started calling it

a comedy and like, Yeah, I mean I guess I wouldn't call it a drama.

It's a little more real.

Just it feels that's a little more lifelike, where, like, Booksmart is

it has the exact complete exaggerations to go, Well, this is a clear comedy.

I would never confuse it with anything.

It's not a dramedy dramedy.

Hey, well,

I love I enjoyed The Blackening quite a bit, but I think

I could actually get that not getting all audiences

as much as they got me, I, I laughed quite a bit there.

That but Booksmart anyway, Booksmart we're on the um, it's interesting.

We talked about that there was no villain because I didn't actually

think about that.

And so I was like,

was the villain themselves?

Are they their own?

Was she our own worst enemy or they were own villains, or were

Yeah, like

cause the guy, the, the people, the people who wronged them

didn't do anything wrong.

They did nothing wrong.

They didn't I mean, you could argue that maybe she started getting led

on a little bit, but also from her point of view.

So she may have been like, yeah, I'm no, I wasn't flirting.

I wasn't flirting. I was just being nice.

This is the first time this is the first time we've ever had

a good conversation. I'm

yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

right.

Yeah.

Oh, oh, yeah.

I will say I was like or,

you know, as a 20 cheerleader.

20, Right.

Like, Sure, sure.

Okay.

Wait, was that a thing in the movie?

Was he really 20?

I thought she was just getting him

to say that to justify what she was about to do.

So he was okay.

So it's only it's it's only creepy, not illegal.

Oh, okay.

Right.

Okay.

That's funny.

Okay. I was good.

You did? You did.

Because I.

I did actually think about that going like,

you know, like this absolutely

would not have full flown if it was reverse gendered.

Now, not cool at all.

Like, how come or how come we're excusing this right now?

Like,

she's likable, but

I haven't seen it.

I haven't seen it.

Oh, watch it.

Oh, no.

Yeah,

yeah.

Oh, yeah.

There isn't

there. There is a heist.

There is a funny thing about school.

I don't know. Just

I talked to my daughter about this, about like, you know,

like when she doesn't want to do something with her family or whatever,

and I'm like, you know,

look at how much your friendships have changed in the last couple of years.

You're not going to see these people again, Like don't

don't create bad situation for people that you're going to spend your life with.

And oh,

yeah, and yeah, some people stay friends in high school.

It takes a lot.

You know, once during your thirties, forties, it's a lot harder.

Most people see it as growth that you're not friends with your high school

people anymore.

Oh it's it it is end it is high

school is such the the nothing

you will never gather in a group just because they're your neighbors

and play with them again the way you will in high school.

You just won't.

Okay.

I could see that,

right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

No or

Oh, really?

That's funny.

Yeah. Mm.

Nobody was.

Nobody was.

Yeah. No.

Mm. Yeah,

Yeah.

Well,

yeah,

yeah,

I, I had not,

I had not thought about

the potential inside of that, of, of working a, a video rental

and seeing the demographics that are by renting certain movies.

That's I don't really thought of that is,

that's probably gave you some interesting insights on movies.

All right of the last thing I want to point out about, uh,

this film is some of the accolades,

because we are not the only ones who

liked it. Uh,

best first film.

It won. Awesome film critic society.

It won.

Glad awards, wide release, Outstanding Film.

It won Hollywood Film Awards.

Hollywood Breakthrough Director, Independent Spirit Awards.

First time Director.

Los Angeles Online Film Critic Society.

Best Picture.

Best Supporting Actress.

Best Female Director.

Best Original Screenplay Best Indie Film Online Film Critics Award.

Best Debut Feature. Olivia Wilde.

It garnered a lot of and those are just wins.

It also got a lot of nominations

from all over it.

It it did really well.

So I'm again, I'm like, so shocked

that I didn't

hear about it.

They didn't like I mean, I, I heard about it.

I had heard about and I wanted to see it.

But 2019, I'm still like, okay, 2019

That means it was 2000 to 2018.

My son was born.

So that means I was still in that first year about when it came out.

I can't see movies.

I'm I'm, I'm barely making it through the day,

let alone on.

Yeah,

yeah,

yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Well,

because they're giving you.

Hmm. Oh, I'm a little glad they left it.

I mean, I worry sometimes.

I worry most of the time if I see a sequel.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Does he get another kiss?

Well,

yeah.

I think this idea.

I think this has a lasting power.

I think it'll have a

I think it'll age much better than Superbad. Did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, but

yeah,

yeah, I'm.

I might have missed that there, Emmett It was wonderful

having you on the show for Booksmart.

Thank you for recommending the movie to me up.

And hopefully from here opening it up to a broad selection of

of folks.

Yeah.

Yeah we will do Mandy will do Mandy.

Yeah.

so thank you for coming on and thank you audience for listening

and thank you for watching a movie with.

Silas Lindenstein.