12. S1m0ne

My guest for this month is Serenity Caldwell, and she’s joined me to discuss the film she chose for me, the 2002 American science-fiction romantic comedy film S1m0ne. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly.

Show notes:

Andrew Niccol, who directed this film, is also married to its star, Rachel Roberts
Al Pacino is an actor, perhaps you’ve heard of him
Gattaca is also a film by Andrew Niccol
Alphaville is the film we discussed on the previous episode of this podcast
The dot-com era was a period where tech companies with no future got lots of money, completely unlike today
Second Life is a virtual reality world that you can run around in
One of the more notable things about Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is its ridiculously long title
The first Lord of the Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001
3.5" hard drives are still used as internal storage in slow computers
The Mac Pro and PowerMac G4 are both computers from Apple, they are both relatively recent
5.25" floppies on the other hand, haven’t been used regularly in a very, very long time
Hackers is a phenomenal film about, well, hacking
An SNL parody of this film would probably just be this film
John Cassavetes was an actor and director, and a pioneer of American independent film
Michelangelo Antonioni made quite a few masterpieces with a monochromatic color palette
Notting Hill is a 1999 film starting Julia Roberts, written by the guy who wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral
Roberto Rossellini was an Italian neorealist director
The Auteur theory is a vision of cinema where the director is the sole voice of the film
The Crow is seriously every goth kids dream
The stars of The Force Awakens, including Daisy Ridley, are newly famous, and dealing with it in interesting ways
People Magazine is a celebrity “news” periodical
Rebecca Romijn is also in this film, in a tiny but fun role
Jason Schwartzman is a national treasure, and can do no wrong
We are in the 2016 presidential election cycle, and Donald Trump is a leading candidate. We’ve clearly gone crazy
I am huge Catherine Keener fan, but man is she misused here
This film stars a young Evan Rachel Wood, she’s great
Winona Ryder is probably the best thing about this entire film
Seriously, there are three versions of A Star is Born already, and a fourth is in the works
42nd Street is another film about the process of stardom
The Tupac Shakur hologram at Coachella was so creepy
Jean-Luc Godard directed Alphaville, among many others
Niccol only wrote The Truman Show. It was directed by Peter Weir, who also made Picnic at Hanging Rock and Dead Poets Society, among others
Niccol’s did direct In Time with Justin Timberlake, as well as The Host, and Good Kill, none of which I’ve heard of
We should do an alternate episode where Siri is our main guest for this film
Go check out The Incomparable, they have some seriously great podcasts

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