Is It Time to Ban Bicycling at Night?
The Desertification of Seattle Has Begun
Elevator or Hellevator? Maybe Take the Stairs
The Jim Rose Circus & Jake "the Snake" Roberts Hit the Showbox Next Week
Last weekend, Seattlest revisited the other Shorewood High School for our 20-year reunion. And it's been 20 years since Lloyd Dobler and Diane Court left Lakeside High, so on our flight to Milwaukee, we got reacquainted with Cameron Crowe's Say Anything.... Singles gets the Seattle-centric attention, but Say Anything... is the movie where Seattle first caught our eye, several years before we actually moved to the land of the Gas 'n' Sip.
FACT: Seattle landmarks in the film include the Alaskan Way Viaduct, Auditorium Cleaners, Wallingford Custom Framing, Westlake Center (identified in the movie as Bell Square), the Guild 45th (showing Cusack's Tapeheads), and Waiting for the Interurban, which we're pretty sure Diane and her father drive by the wrong way.
FACT: Does Stone Gossard count as a local landmark? He almost made it into the film as a taxi driver flirting with Diane on her way to graduation. He actually made it into Singles.
FACT: Lloyd Dobler could've been played by Kirk Cameron, Robert Downey, Jr., or Christian Slater. Diane Court could've been Jennifer Connelly. Lawrence Kasdan could've directed. And Rebecca—a.k.a. Lloyd's friend who isn't Corey or D.C.—could've been played by Julia Roberts. Instead she's played by Pamela Segall, now Pamela Adlon and probably most famous for being the voice of Bobby Hill on King of the Hill.
FACT: The boombox scene gets all the attention, but according to Ione Skye, if she hadn't been dating Anthony Kiedis and Cusack hadn't been in love with someone else, they would've gone home together after they filmed the sequence where Lloyd teaches Diane how to drive. Ah, the romance of stick shift.
FACT: Speaking of the boombox scene, the shot used in the film was the last take of the last shot on the last day of filming. And it took a while to figure out what song would be playing. In the screenplay, Crowe said it was Billy Idol's "To Be a Lover." On set, Cusack was blasting Fishbone's "Turn the Other Way." At some point, Crowe asked the Smithereens to write a song. They came up with "A Girl Like You," but Crowe pulled it from the film because the lyrics mirrored the plot too closely. (It was the Smithereens' first top 40 hit, though, when it came out on the album 11.) Crowe stumbled across "In Your Eyes" on a wedding mix tape he'd made for his wife, and Peter Gabriel agreed to let them include it once the studio sent him a copy Say Anything... instead of the John Belushi bio-pic Wired, their initial shipping error. And at first, during the scene when Lloyd is leaving his sister's apartment to go to England with Diane, they were going to play "In Your Eyes" again, but Cusack and Crowe decided that was "too pussy." So we get the Replacements' "Within Your Reach" instead.
FACT: "The rain on my car is a baptism," a line we quote occasionally for no real reason when it rains while we're driving, was inspired by a line in Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns. We'd long suspected it, but were glad to hear Crowe confirm it.
FACT: Say Anything... hit cult status when it was released on video. The studio wasn't sure who would want to see the film, but Siskel and Ebert gave it two enthusiastic thumbs up and goosed its box-office performance. Pauline Kael was another fan, admiring Crowe's gift for "oddity and fringe moments."
OPINION: Say Anything... is one of the great Hollywood romances, teen or no (screw you, AFI!). We figure Lloyd and Diane are celebrating 20 years together in some alternate reality while Mr. Court can make do with the pen.
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
Have you read the first chapter of Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, And Cocoa Puffs? Klosterman uses John Cusack/Lloyd Dobler, and by extension "Say Anything," to explain (sort of) why our media-saturated generation will never be able to truly love. It's depressing.
Awesome post. Say Anything was the first movie that attracted me to Seattle as well. Though it was a tour of Singles' sites I took when I first came out to visit that girl (no Diane Cort, she) prior to moving here. I've always loved it, Diane Cort and Lloyd Dobbler.
I read that chapter in Klosterman's book, only one I did read as I got sick of his tone, and actually tend to agree. Or did. Till I found actual, real love. Klosterman's so damn cynical. Really, is life that bad? I think not (though I did when that girl did what she did. Buy some drinks tonight and I'll tell ya the story.
'Cause we all want to marry a Lloyd Dobler and that's unrealistic? I just re-watched "Say Anything" and, you know what? That obessive mono-focus on being Diane Court's Boyfriend (oh, and kickboxing, the sport of the future) is too ambition-less for me. Lloyd Dobler is a broad sketch of a romantic ideal, a blank canvas-- would you really want to have a conversation with the man, though? That said, John Cusack is HOT. Always was, always will be.
You know, I just re-watched that trailer... The boombox scene put me right back in that place of believing in true, perfect, everlasting love with some magical person. I realized that at a certain point in life, Klosterman was right: That movie did make real love impossible. In high school through my mid 20s, it was all about that magic, perfect love you find out there. That Girl. But in HS until you're 25, things are much more black and white and a relationship is either perfect or not. There is no in between.
After a few heartbreaks and a few good but not great relationships, life really does become shades of gray and letting go of that perfect ideal is not only possible, it's welcome.
Lloyd and Diane are likely still together and probably really happy about it, but I doubt the fire still burns as intensely for them as it did in high school. They've grown up, life has moved on and they've changed. They're still in love, but it's not the end all be all of life. And being that in love now (in my mid-30s) sounds exhausting to be honest. I desperately love my wife, but not to the exclusion of all else. Nor would I want to.
So I wonder what Klosterman's life was like when he wrote that. How old was he? Does he still think like that? If so, and he's past 25 or so, I find it kind of sad that he thinks real love has to be Lloyd and Diane for most people. Because most people I know now, they don't want or need love like that.
Great quote that I didn't include because jesus, this was long enough already:
Cusack and Crowe were out promoting Say Anything.... A woman came up to Cusack and asked, "Aren't you Lloyd Dobler?" "On my better days, I'm Lloyd Dobler," he replied. And Crowe stole that line for Almost Famous: "On my better days I'm Russell Hammond from Stillwater."
And I can see Klosterman's point. On the other hand, I've been married for ten years, so part of me wants to say Chuck, Why can't you be in love? How hard is it to decide to be in love and stay in love for a while?
On another note, much as I love this movie -- and I love it a lot -- I can't help but think it might have been just a teensy bit better with Jennifer Connelly as Diane. Then again, she did The Hot Spot around the same time. Silver linings...
@GroundedGirl: The point of the Klosterman chapter was that stories like "Say Anything" set us up for Ultimate Romantic Disappointment, which I think is true -- however I don't, in my heart of hearts, agree with his final conclusion that therefore we are not able to love or receive love. It's a funny book, though.
Sidenote: even as a straight lady myself, I honestly think Joan's sexier than John. And Maggie's hotter than Jake, on the Gyllenhaal side of things.
Charles, you're on... I must hear that story!
James: amazing post, I love these 7 Astounding Facts concoctions of yours!
one of my fave movies...unfortunately all of the shots involving the actors were in around in LA -
yep...it's true...
the facts seems "borrowed" from IMDB.com
another factoid...the couple walking in "bell square" was Nancy Wilson and the Director...
"I gave her my heart, and I she gave me a p-p-pen"
i've actually never seen that movie. does that mean i'm fired? or just that i have to move back to florida?
Kim, you should rent it. I think you have to have seen it during a certain psychological developmental stage in order for it to have full Dobler Effect on you, so you'll be safe.
@thesoze: The IMDb only says "a song by Fishbone." Here at Seattlest, we went the extra mile to tell you which song by Fishbone.
Kim, don't let the less-than-stellar trailer throw you off. It's a great movie.
Really, rent it now and watch it before Happy Hour. It's just... amazing.
The 80's was a great era for "teen movies".
No wonder todays teens are so screwed up.
What do they have for date movies now?
Superbad! I think Michael Cera's bringing back the teen movie, seriously.
Yeah, I was just talking with a friend about his new one coming out. Which seems 'dumb' according to his lady, but that's what I like. Dumb movies based around a kick ass music.
The movie is titled, "Endless Playlist" or something like that. Far too lazy to use google.
As much as I love Lloyd Dobler, for me there's no sweeter, more hilarious, or earnest a boy than Duckie in Pretty in Pink. I pose the "Duckie or Lloyd" question to my friends all the time, though, and Lloyd normally cleans up.