Poppy-Fields Movie Couch Of Fame: Clueless
YOU try driving in platforms.
How poppy-fields-ish is Clueless? When I explained the concept to my father, this is the movie he thought of as an exemplar. This is a man who reads Coin World for funsies.
Still not convinced? Jody makes the case:
- lengthy? 97 min
- familiar/frequent? It goes in spurts. Sometimes it seems like it is on every single weekend and then I will go about 6 months without seeing it at all.
- classic/award-winner? None of the “big” ones; a few screenplay nods and MTV Movie statues.
- “Greetings, Professor Falken” (big payoff/long-shot victory a la WarGames)? She gets the guy and her BFF!
- “Wanna have a catch?” (Pavlovian tear-jerk; anything with dads opens the ducts for this guy)? Not so much…
- quote-fest? Yes, at least at my house! “You see how picky I am about my shoes and they only go on my feet.”
- caper-ish or -adjacent camaraderie? Cher and Dionne take pity on a new girl and give her a montage make-over.
- “forget you, melon farmer” (you own it, but will still watch bowdlerized TV verzh) Yes! I do own it and will re-watch it every time it is on TBS.
It’s hard to believe Clueless is almost 20 years old; perhaps it’s the Austen basis that gives it that timeless quality. Perhaps it’s simply that awesome. Whatever it is, it gets my vote: I also own it, but will always watch to the end whenever it’s on cable. It’s endlessly quotable, has a handful of happy endings, and despite a certain squishiness in its PFM numbers — not very long, not very censorable, not prone to inducing weepies — it’s somehow a fantastic exemplar of the poppy-field effect.
And Paul Rudd was and is “a Baldwin.”
Readers: are you going to be way harsh, or is Clueless getting a cushion?
Jody, you’ve won a shirt from the TN store; thanks so much for submitting!
Update, 9/28/14: It’s in there!
The Poppy-Fields Movie Couch Of Fame is here. To nominate your own PFM, email bunting at tomatonation dot com with a rundown of the criteria and your argument for why it deserves a cushion. If I use your entry, free loot shall be thine.
Tags: Alicia Silverstone Clueless movies Paul Rudd poppy-fields movies Stacey Dash the fam
Asking if I should second this nomination is like asking if Christian is a “disco-dancing, Oscar Wilde-reading, Streisand ticket-holding friend of Dorothy…” Yes, even! Love this flick. Love. Slightly heinous 90’s fashions notwithstanding, it’s eminently quotable, Cher is someone you want to root for, and Rudd was (and still is) so, so cute.
No contest. Does anyone not like this movie? My dad, the most curmudgeonly manly man you can imagine, LOVED this movie.
Without question! Whenever a guy doesn’t call for no apparent reason, my BFF and I will still ask each other, “Did I stumble into some bad lighting?”
I just made my husband watch this for my birthday! He had never seen it! But I love this movie and “That was way harsh, Ty” has been a solid part of my vocabulary since I first saw it.
So good!!
“You’re a virgin…who CAN’T DRIVE.” Sold.
That movie is so good, and so nicely balanced out by Dan Hedaya’s grumpiness. Bonus points for Wallace Shawn and Twink Caplan, who were adorable.
“If it’s a concussion, you have to keep her conscious, okay? Ask her questions!” “What’s 7 times 11?” “STUFF SHE KNOWS!”
I just quoted my favorite line from this movie the other day: “Anything happens to my daughter, I got a .45 and a shovel, I doubt anybody would miss you.” Done.
Love love love times one million. I worked in a video store when this came out and it was SO AWESOME that it was clean enough to play on the TV while we were open. I probably watched it 3 times a week for a few months and never got tired of it. I just explained a “Monet” to my boyfriend’s kids:
Tai: Do you think she’s pretty?
Cher: No, she’s a full-on Monet.
Tai: What’s a Monet?
Cher: It’s like a painting, see? From far away, it’s OK, but up close, it’s a big old mess. Let’s ask a guy. Christian, what do you think of Amber?
Christian: Hagsville.
Cher: See?
Bonus it’s on Netflix instant watch.
It is scary how much this movie is ingrained in my psyche. My name is Tylia, so i will say “That was way harsh Ty!” to myself when I’m overly critical.
I have also used “She’s a full-on Monet see!” but I said at the Legion of Honor about a Monet! I’m amazed a rend in the space-time continuum didn’t open up and suck us all in.
And yes, that’s exactly where my Paul Rudd fetish started, but my love for the whole cast bloomed in that movie too. Jeremy Sisto! I mean are you kidding me? Donald Faizon, Breckin Meyer. Just gah!
My sister and I would quote this back and forth to each other at the dinner table. “May I remind you, it does not say R.S.V.P. on the Statue of Liberty!” Awesome.
Also: http://www.designsponge.com/2011/09/living-in-clueless.html The cookie dough! Heh.
Whenever I make a slightly rolling stop in my car, I always think “I totally paused”. Every single time. I’m still close to my ex-stepdaughter and 100% agree “you divorce wives not children”. Truer words were never spoken. My sister got to see some of the cast and Amy Heckerling on a talk show promoting the movie before it came out. I made her describe everything and everyone.
Random note that I love how the publicity photo was clearly done with all the actors in the same room at the same time? Not heads photoshopped onto bodies that don’t exist in the same space-time continuum? Come back, mid-90s!
Just watched this on tv last night when it came on even though it’s already saved on my dvr. Couldn’t look away.
When my life long girlfriends or sister and I are hurt with each other a deadly serious “way harsh Tai” is still the go to quote that immediately flags someone’s stepped over the line.
The soundtrack is also a classic. My best friend said she knew her new boyfriend was the future husband when she found out he had the CD. When they moved in together she was excited to be a “2 Clueless Soundtrack household!”. 12 years and 3 children later, they still pull it out for parties.
And I have to tell this story because it is awesome. The publicists for Clueless must have worked Alicia Silverstone like a dog with that movie because she came to Brisbane Australia to do a premiere, which I went to. The after party was at a great club called Grand Orbit and I was in the ladies room redoing my makeup – it was 1995, we wore a lot of makeup – and she came in and chatted to me and lent me her lipstick and she was just so lovely. I told her we loved the movie and she said “did you really?” like she really wanted to know. And then we chatted about the clothes!!! The nineties… There were some great times.
If you don’t vote for this, you’re toe up.
I moved into new place recently that is off Larsh street. I say “That was way Larsh, Tai” every time I make the turn to go home.
I introduced my freshman-year roommate to Clueless while being amazed that she hadn’t seen it before since it was required viewing at pretty much every sleepover in middle school. She didn’t like it! She thought Cher was too whiny. I was like, “That was the point! She grows as a person!”
We managed to stay friends after that, but it was rough going.
My family first got cable right when this movie came out, and it got wall-to-wall coverage/advertising on MTV, which I watched nonstop. However heinous the 90s fashions were, it was a notable departure from a few years of grunge and a put-together look like Cher’s was part of the appeal.
I saw that movie, in the theater, 4 or 5 times my sophomore year of college. Love, love, love.
Another vote for yes. No quoting, but I will watch it even on commercial TV (OK, I tend to time delay so I can fast forward the ads). Great movie.
Yes, yes, a million times yes. Even my husband likes it. This is a universally great movie to put on when you want to veg out on a Sunday. Love.
Boy, I don’t know. I will dare to be the voice of dissent. I’ve got it as a miss on 4 out of the 8 categories (sorry, 97 minutes is just not length for a movie and I don’t know that I’m buying it on the caper-ish or adjacent camaraderie. the montage probably isn’t enough for me. while it’s not really-award-winning, I will put it in the classic category with an acknowledgement that a movie like this is never going to get the respect it deserve from critics at the time). Not sure I can put it on the couch at 50%…
That said, it was ubiquitous for quite some time and still pops up fairly often 20 years later. and it’s undeniably a quote-fest. (I know quite a few off this movie and it was never really my thing) The cast is pretty remarkable too, and they spun the thing off into a tv show!
But I’d still probably say no on HoF status. But I tend to be a smaller HoF kind of guy.
I caught it on cable this weekend, and the censoring/editing was pretty bad. “I’ve got a .45 and a shovel…” was cut, as was most of the “I think I remember Mel Gibson accurately…” dialogue in the car with Josh’s college girlfriend. They show Josh smirking, but no context. I swear there were also some non-curse words bleeped out randomly. Boo.
Used to quote “I think I remember Mel Gibson accurately…” under my breath during college Shakespeare courses. I own TWO copies of this on DVD, the original and the 10th Anniversary Whatever edition. Also, these days I’m a “litigator, which is the scariest kind of lawyer….”
Jody who “made the case” here. I have found my people! Glad to know that I am not the only one quoting a movie so many years later.
But Josh, don’t forget, in the “capers” category, you also get her long-con matchmaking of the teachers in order to up her speech grade.
I bet if we all work together, we could reprint the whole script right here in the comments section! I’ll start:
“Okay, so you’re probably going, ‘Is this like a Noxzema commercial or what?'”
I see what you’re saying, @Josh. The problem with the criteria is that they don’t always apply; as I said in my initial entry, GONE WITH THE WIND should be a slam dunk based on the list, and yet I hate that flick and will dial right past it.
They’re more of a way to begin a conversation about why a given movie glues us to the couch until the end than black-letter law — and not every PFM nominee is going to work on everyone. But it’s fun to talk about!
And on that note: I think CLUELESS is in.
This one’s a classic in it’s own way. I loved it when I first saw it in the theaters (so many years ago now… *sigh*) and I still love it. IN. Also: Paul Rudd. Just gets better looking. Amazing.
Ugh. Just realized I misused an apostrophe. “Its own way.” I apologize. :(
I’m probably being too sabermetric about it! :P
For me this would be one of those HoF cases where I’d be, “Not getting my vote, but I’m sure not going to get up in anyone else’s face for voting for it.” But the discussion IS what’s fun about these!
The expressions “Surfing the crimson wave” and “Sporadicus” still get thrown around at my house and I’m the only one here who’s even seen this thing.
Possibly the most across-the-board adorable cast in recent memory. Silverstone’s line-reading of “As if!” in itself is a perfect thing.
My partner and I just watched this – I had never seen it before, but I just read Emma, so my partner said I had to see Clueless. I loved it. It’s horrible and adorable at the same time. On one hand I rolled my eyes a lot, on the other I enjoyed it very much. It’s absurd in a nice way. I suspect it’s going on the feel good-list together with Legally blonde, it’s got the same feeling somehow.
“May I remind you that it does NOT say RSVP on the Statue of Liberty?”
I vote yea and now I am watching this on Netflix!