Counterforce

It had been suggested to Conrad Noir and Marco Sparks that they were the last two people on the face of the planet who had not seen Swingers, the 1996 Doug Liman-directed film starring Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn, Heather Graham, and Ron Livingston, so… they watched it. This is the excerpts from their commentary while viewing…

Conrad Noir: Wow. Jon Favreau. Look how tiny he was way back when.

Marco Sparks: Yeah, he got really big since this, didn’t he?

Conrad: Yeah, really big. Like a combination of fat big and working out/compensating big.

Marco Sparks: Also, he looks like a child molester. Big or small, he looks like he shouldn’t be allowed near a daycare.

Conrad: I’m going to confess something to you here…

Marco: Oh, this is going to be juicy…

Conrad: I actually really, really, really, really like big band music.

Marco: …

Conrad: And stuff like… Frank Sinatra? I like Frank Sinatra.

Marco: That was not a juicy tidbit.

Conrad: What did they call him?

Marco: The Chairman.

Conrad: Not The Boss?

Marco: What? No. Springsteen is The Boss. Sinatra – Ol’ Blue Eyes – was The Chairman.

Conrad: The Chairman sounds cooler. Has more prestige.

Marco: Well, I think it all goes back to The Boss’ blue collar roots.

Conrad: Either way, I like that shit. Not Springsteen, but… The Chairman. And big band music. And like jazz, too.

Marco: What a sexy fact.

Conrad: “The guy behind the guy behind the guy.” Yeah, I like that.

Marco: Yeah, that’s good. I’m going to start referring to you as that.

Conrad: Nah.

Marco: No? Why not?

Conrad: Cause… Just nah.

Conrad: When you first mentioned that you wanted to watch Swingers today I forgot about this movie and thought you meant something else entirely.

Marco: Like what? Oh, like some movie about actual swingers? Like, at a swingers’ party?

Conrad: Yeah, something more polyamorous.

Marco: Sorry, this isn’t The Ice Storm.

Conrad and Marco: KEY PARTY!

Marco: Okay, we’re like 20 minutes into this thing so far. Vince Vaughn: Money or not?

Conrad: Ehhh. Are you asking if I actually think he or his style is cool?

Marco: Yeah, sure.

Conrad: Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? His style is all geared towards getting these “beautiful babies,” right?

Marco: “Beautiful babies.” How condescending.

Conrad: Yeah, How child molester-ish. But, anyway, it doesn’t matter… his style, or whatever. It’s all kind of shallow. All that matters is if it works, it seems.

Marco: True, true. Also, I would never use the “money” slang how they do.

Conrad: How do you mean?

Marco: For example, look at what you’re wearing there. Nice shirt. Nice pants. They look costly, but in a good way. To me, that’s money. Richhhhh.

Conrad: So, in other words, “blinging?”

Marco: Yes, right. Although the bling impies that you have the physical objects of wealth hanging upon thyself, like perhaps you just returned from Jacob The Jeweler.

Conrad: What a weird reference, but I get you.

Marco: I’m just saying here: A billionaire probably dresses a lot different from me or you, right?

Conrad: Sure, though if I was rich, I’d dress however the fuck I wanted. I wouldn’t care. I’d be Hugh Hefner if I had the cash to back up telling people to fuck off.

Marco: I’d dress like a cross between The Dude and a hobo and maybe a Scottish person.

Conrad: What?!

Marco: But I digress… If I tell you that you look “so money,” and even to the point that you don’t even realize it yourself, I’m saying, that you look bling-tastic, though not necessarily because of the chain around your neck or the ice on your grill or other places. But I wouldn’t use it in reference to how good I think your skeezy 90s greaser look is or anything like that.

Marco: Hey, that girl is cute.

Conrad: Yeah, she is. Good make up.

Marco: Yeah.

Conrad: She’s a Dorothy.

Marco: A what? Oh. I get it.

Marco: No, Favreau, you scum, shut up about your ex-girlfriend!

Conrad: This has happened to me before.

Marco: Going on about an ex in front of a new girl?

Conrad: No, no, no. But me and a buddy at two girls’ house. Only, the two girls were so ghetto. And the one that was designated “mine,” well, I had nothing to talk to this girl about.

Marco: Right. So what’d you do?

Conrad: I told her I was going to the bathroom.

Marco: Uh, okay.

Conrad: Yeah, then I snuck out the window and walked home.

Marco: Wow.

Conrad: Yeah, man, that was a long walk.

Marco: Watching this reminds me of how much I like Liman’s second film, Go.

Conrad: Yeah, it’s good… Wait, what did they say that guy’s name was?

Marco: A boy named Sue? Ha ha.

Conrad: What is that? Besides a stupid name, is that a Johnny Cash thing?

Marco: Yeah. The Man In Black.

Marco: Look at this fucking hair!

Conrad: Yeah, 90s styles were not great.

Marco: And bowling shirts! Bowling shirts! Arrrghhhh!

Conrad: Arrgghhh!

Marco: Aagggrrrghhh!

(Collective groaning and griping about 90s hip fashion continues for a moment or two.)

Conrad: They just look like stupid greasers.

Marco: Emphasis on the stupid, perhaps. To me, the only place – at least now – where you should see bowling shirts is maybe in a bowling alley or at, like, a Big Lebowski festival or something.

Conrad: Ron Livingston has had such a weird career.

Marco: Yeah, seriously. Him and Doug Liman both, though Liman got a little more of what he deserved. But Livingston doesn’t look like he belongs in this time period, you know?

Conrad: Then what time period does it look like he belongs in?

Marco: Better left unexplored. I like how he gives all the good advice in this film. But this goes back to what I’ve always been saying…

Conrad: Which is?

Marco: You shouldn’t trust a guy named Trent. A “Trent” is going to be an asshole. It’s guaranteed.

Conrad: Look at this shit. You people always have that one black guy you associate with, don’t you?

Marco: Wait, “you people?”

Conrad: And in this particular case, that one black guy just happens to be that dude from Becker.

Marco: Thanks to Tarantino, this is a scene you saw in every 90s independent movie: A bunch of characters sitting around a table, usually at a diner, talking about technical aspects of a 70s movie while the camera pans around them.

Conrad: Dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick!

Marco: 37 dicks!

Conrad: The 90s auteurs had some penis issues, yo.

Marco: You said it, man.

Conrad: Who is this chick? She seems familiar.

Marco: I think it’s… Brooke Langton? From Melose Place? She looks kind of like Franka Potente, right?

Conrad: Melrose Place? Oh, yeah,  yeah! I wonder if she’ll be in the new Melrose Place.

Marco: Okay, so this right here, this is the genesis of Vince Vaughn’s entire career…

Conrad: Oh? This is your exegesis on the protean career of Vince Vaughn?

Marco: Yes, but not so protean. In every film, he’s basically the kind of sleazy guy who is always giving you pep talks to do something fairly self destructive, not to much for his amusement, but just because he’s a bit off.

Conrad: Yeah, I can see that.

Marco: And the thing about Vince Vaughn is he’s a team player. He’s Magic Johnson. He’s only as good as what he gets. That’s why Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers works, but not so much in something like The Break Up.

Conrad: The Break Up was like watching a man trying to juggle some pianos while painting with his toes on a trampoline while his pants were around his ankles.

Marco: I fully support that analogy.

Conrad: So you’re from California. Did you ever hang with a crew that was packing heat?

Marco: No, well… yes, but Fav’s got a point here. People live in California because they don’t want to live and be carjacked in New York and also because they’re better than everyone else.

Conrad: Yeah, you’re from California. That’s for sure.

Marco: When one of your buddies whips out a gun that he has for no reason, it’s time to call it a night.

Conrad: I feel like white people in the 90s loved to reference Compton and Boyz In The Hood. Black gangster culture was such a weird museum peice for your kind back then.

Marco: “My kind?”

Conrad: Wow.

Marco: Oh no.

Conrad: This is perhaps one of the most humanly uncomfortable scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie.

Marco: I’ve spent a lot of time in the city of angels over all of my years, and maybe it’s because of the movies, but at the same time, I feel like the movies portray it very accurately: There’s something sleazy happening there. As much fun as you’re having, parts of it are always shallow and hollow and you always feel like you’ve just come back from doing something horrible.

Conrad: You’re talking like… Bret Easton Ellis mashed up with film noir?

Marco: Yeah. And you’re stuck in traffic the whole time.

Conrad: Right, right.

Marco: It’s like 100 miles of freeway connecting little cities together, but as a government cover to deconstruct part of human interaction or something.

Conrad: But the sun is always shining there. Ron Livingston just said that.

Marco: Yes, true, but it’s like too bright. It’s hangover sunshine. The kind where you feel like you’re too close to the sun.

Marco: Ugh.

Conrad: What?

Marco: Fuck.

Conrad: What?

Marco: Fucking… shit, man.

Conrad: What the fuck are going on about?

Marco: Fucking… Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.

Conrad: Oh. Yeah?

Marco: Man, I thought I escaped this time in my life.

Conrad: Yeah.

Marco: I fucking hate swing music.

Conrad: Yeah, I don’t like it either.

Marco: No, no, no. I fucking hate it. I hate Brian Seltzer!

Conrad: Actually, it’s Brian Setzer.

Marco: Hate!

Conrad: Okay. I understand. I don’t like swing music either. Or rockabilly music.

Marco: Rockabilly! Hate!

Conrad: Though I do like psychobilly.

Marco: Yeah, punkabilly and psychobilly is okay.

Conrad: Like the Reverend Horton Heat.

Marco: Yeah, but… Oh, is that Heather Graham?

Conrad: Hell yeah, it is.

Marco: I feel like Heather Graham deserved such a better career than the one she got, you know?

Conrad: Goddamn, she’s hot.

Marco: Yeah, there’s definitely that.

Conrad: She just looks crazy. But in a hot way. Like something insane is about to happen when she walks into the room.

Marco: Like in Killing Me Softly?

Conrad: Is that movie good? I’ve seen the pictures online but never saw it.

Marco: Eh… Look, I’ll put it this way: It was erotic.

Conrad: Suck it, Lady MacBeth. That sounds like the Heather Graham I like.

Marco: She just has that light in her eyes. And yet, you get the feeling people want to cast her as a sexbot, like a living, excited sexbot.

Conrad: Stop right there before I get turned on.

Conrad: Oh man, this diner scene…

Marco: Yeah?

Conrad: Yeah, it just got real. There are too many people still like this.

Marco: And Vince Vaughn is one of them.

Conrad: Yeah, but it’s funny. It’s all good.

Conrad: This movie is very accurate in it’s depiction of a bunch of asshole guys just hanging out and bar hopping and trying to pick up “beautiful babies.”

Marco: I dislike that term. “Beautiful babies.” I mean, it’s all kind of demeaning, right? But “beautiful babies?” That’s no good.

Conrad: Uh… sure, but yeah. This movie feels authentic to me, to a degree.

Marco: I’m surprised that these guys aren’t trying to go home with any girls. I mean, this is still Los Angeles, right?

Conrad: Well, personally, I don’t want to fuck every girl I meet out at bars.

Marco: Really?

Conrad: (after an interestingly long pause) …No. Plus, it sets a bad precedent.

Marco: Sure, sure. Also, he’s getting home and it’s not even 3 in the morning. That’s a bit early, right?

Conrad: Well, yeah, I guess. I mean, if I have to work in the moning, I may get home around then, but typically, I’d keep vampire hours if I was out “partying” with the “boys.”

Marco: Let’s go party then.

Conrad: I’m not sure you’re money enough to handle the beautiful babies hunt.

Marco: I think the resolution to the girlfriend back home situation to be somewhat realistic/believable. Do you concur?

Conrad: Yeah, I guess.

Marco: I mean, I was actually siding with this unseen girlfriend back east for most of the film…

Conrad: You dislike Favreau that much?

Marco: Dislike? No, that’s too harsh. I dislike the situation in Iran or the recession, things like that. Favreau is just an ugly man, and I therefore think the girlfriend back east was just pityfucking him for those six years.

Conrad: Real talk.

Marco: And she “misses” him? Misses him? What, like the desert misses the rain? Please.

Conrad: Right.

Marco: But then she said she left him for a guy named Pierre. That’s cold blooded. That’s unforgivable. Am I wrong?

Conrad: You are not wrong. And Heather Graham.

Marco: And Heather Graham. Yes, sir.

Conrad: I think we’re in agreement there.

Marco: I think we are. I remember that this movie was always so talked about back in the 90s, like one of those big hyped things, you know the kind that supposedly contained the rules?

Conrad: The rules?

Marco: For like… “The Cool.” Like Dazed And Confused. Or Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Lost In Translation. These are the rules, for “the cool.” This is how things are. This movie is fine, not bad at all, but “the cool?” I just don’t know.

Conrad: Yeah, I get you. “The cool” is not always what it’s cracked up to be.

Marco: Uh huh.

Conrad: That Vince Vaughn is a funny, silly man. I feel like we should’ve gotten drunk before watching this.

Marco: Perhaps some of us already are.