Reely Bernie Faves: Kicking and Screaming (1995)

Otis? Did you even read the book?

Yes… no.

Kicking and Screaming (1995) is a brainy indie flick from the 90s that places wit above rom-com and Gen X-subject chatter before semblance of plot. Calling it a “talky” François Truffaut-influenced study of yuppy slackerdom is fair, but dismissing the likability of each character isn’t humane.

Grover, Max, Otis, and Skippy are postgraduates who’d rather work at a video store, fill out crosswords, or converse with the philosophizing bartender than find their compass. Their stagnation is a small slice of life that may be relatable to some or comical relief to others. Either way, the results are charming, sobering, and deadpan hilarious.

Is that a pajama top?

No… yes.

Between all the tweed sports jacket solipsism and lazy but insightful procrastination is my favorite screenplay.

Are you wearing mascara?

No… yes.

The sharp, poignant lines come from a rookie filmmaker in twenty-five-year-old Noah Baumbach, who would later make his mainstream mark with Greenberg (2010), Marriage Story (2019), and Barbie (2023):

Max: I’m too nostalgic. I’ll admit it.

Skippy: We graduated four months ago. What can you possibly be nostalgic for?

Max: I’m nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I’ve begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I’m reminiscing this right now. I can’t go to the bar because I’ve already looked back on it in my memory… and I didn’t have a good time.

Grover: Ok, the way I see it, if we were an old couple, dated for years, graduated, away from all these scholastic complications, and I reached over and kissed you, you wouldn’t say a word. You’d be delighted, probably. But, if I was to do that now, it’d be quite forward, and if I did it the first time we ever met, you probably would hit me.
Jane: What do you mean?
Grover: I just wish we were an old couple so I could do that.

Max: This shouldn’t be done. This guy would rather be bow hunting. Don’t upset him because he’d already rather be bow hunting and any additional aggravation…

Oh, I’ve been to Prague. Well, I haven’t “been to Prague” been to Prague, but I know that thing, that, “Stop shaving your armpits, read the Unbearable Lightness of Being, date a sculptor, now I know how bad American coffee is thing…”

On paper, the dialogue is open to interpretation, making for scrappy execution and playbacks that get better with each viewing. It is truly a disgrace to only see Kicking and Screaming once. There are simply too many words, lines, and overlaps to appreciate the first time around.

As philosophizing bartender Chet (Eric Stoltz) would put it: “If Plato is a fine red wine, then Aristotle is a dry martini.”

Of course, my favorite line also comes from Chet: “How do you make God laugh? Make a plan.”

Kicking and Screaming boasts a killer soundtrack with Blondie, the Pixies, Nick Drake, and Freedy Johnston’s “Bad Reputation.”

During my college days, I didn’t necessarily see a reflection of myself in these clumsy postgrads, but I enjoyed drifting vicariously through their lives. Kicking and Screaming was my favorite movie to share with my best bud. We’d recite the lines between classes on a daily basis.

Noah Baumbach’s debut is all about waiting before making a big decision, and within that waiting are some of the most endearing moments in a person’s life.

This was an overlooked, underrated indie of the 90s and so much more to me then and now.

Have you seen it?

Reely Bernie Faves:

1. Amadeus (1984)

2. Magnolia (1999)

3. Poltergeist (1982)

4. Pulp Fiction (1994)

5. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

6. The Godfather Part II (1974)

7. Weekend at Bernie’s (1989)

8. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

9. Goodfellas (1990)

10. Nosferatu (1922)

11. Pollock (2000)

12. Kicking and Screaming (1995)

13. Jaws (1975)

14. Fargo (1996)

15. Citizen Kane (1941)

16. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

17. The Endless Summer (1966)

18. Back to the Future (1985)

19. Angel Heart (1987)

20. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

21. The Goonies (1985)

22. Trainspotting (1996)

23. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

24. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

25. Bambi (1942)

26. The Paradise Lost Trilogy (1996-2011)

27. Psycho (1960)

28. Parenthood (1989)

29. Swingers (1996)

30. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

31. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

32. Smoke (1995)

33. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

34. A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

35. Edward Scissorhands (1990)

36. City of God (2002)

37. 1917 (2019)

38. Black Swan (2010)

39. School of Rock (2003)

40. Mulholland Drive (2001)

41. Groundhog Day (1993)

42. If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

43. The Greatest Showman (2017)

44. National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)

45. The Florida Project (2017)

46. Cinema Paradiso (1988)

47. So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)

48. Shadowlands (1993)

49. Steve Jobs (2015)

50. ¡Three Amigos! (1986)

40 thoughts on “Reely Bernie Faves: Kicking and Screaming (1995)”

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  1. Pingback: 23/10 – 29/10/23 Stay Young, Kicking and Screaming & Ol’ Halloween! | Observation Blogger

  2. I’ve watched a little of marriage story. I found it too poignant and slow paced. But I’m no expert movie reviewer. I think I watched the opening scene of kicking and screaming. Is that the one where two somewhat pretentious writers are in a relationship and are wondering where it’s going while noting down their sentences for a future novel? I found it funny in a weird way. I might watch it sometime.

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    1. Yeah, that’s the one, and, yes, pretentious is fair for sure. The characters end up needing a hug toward the end, so the snottiness tends to die down a bit. It’s funny, sad, insightful, and scrappy. It took me several takes to fully appreciate 🙂 Thanks for reading and saying hi!

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    1. Not sure you’ll like it. Remember the explosion of dialogue-filled indies of the 90s like Metropolitan, The Brothers McMullen, or anything Hal Hartley? I was in my twenties then and just soaked it up. Kicking and Screaming is a piece of me.

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  4. How had I not heard of, let alone seen this movie?! Trying to find the trailer on YT even took some doing because I had to get past the Ferrell ‘Mozzaball’. Back in the ol’ days I would do the Pirate Bay thang to see this. I don’t do that anymore, so I just hope I am reborn to watch this in the next life. Even the pool guy (Jim Carrey-ish) from Seinfeld is in this! Wowee. Thanks for bringing this one to my attention Bernie.

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    1. I knew the title would cause confusion with that 2005 soccer movie atrocity, but I also knew it might conjure 90s indie flick nostalgia for others. Even Baumbach’s knack for glib isn’t as prevalent today as it was in this number. This is a personal beloved for sure. I’ll watch it with you at the next level in life 🙂 Thanks, Matt. Great catch on the pool guy actor, haha!

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            2. You said I would like your No1 pick. I don’t even want to hazard because that could potentially be demeaning. ‘All good things come to those who wait’ There is an old biblical message hidden in all that, which is sacred and I’m not going to defile it now lol

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            5. Without spoiling anything, it is definitely in my Top 10, but I won’t say what rank. My Top 10 was the toughest to configure, but I feel good about it. It starts tomorrow!

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            6. I loved watching PTA talk about Magnolia, probably more so than the movie. But Cruise in his small part is amazing. Personally, I would have put Boogie Nights, Phantom Thread, There will be Blood (Citizen Kane with Oil), and The Master above it…
              Remember what I said about defiling haha

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            8. What I admire so much about PTA is his candour and willingness to discuss his creative process unlike other genius’ in the art-making arena. He’s the real deal. The following is longwinded, so excuse its verbosity Bernie:
              I think in the scene of The Master (at the cinema) where PTA hits the home run:

              ‘We don’t arrive at the end and say, ‘Oh Freddy Quell (Joaquin Phoenix’s character) is a better person for thinking this or behaving like that’. That despite such a profound kinship between the two egomaniacs, the movie and the characters essentially ends where it begun. They seem to be souls touched but as easily untouched by each other and those around them. To me the Joaquin Phoenix character is the alter ego of Hoffman’s Cult Leader character which is alluded to in the last scene between them. ‘If you leave me now, in the next life you will be my sworn enemy‘.

              It dawned upon me in a later viewing of the movie when Freddy Quell is watching a movie in a cinema and Lancaster Dodd happens to call him out of the blue, that Paul Thomas Anderson like Dodd is having his way with us. Anderson in his director’s hat and The Master (The Lancaster Dodd character) are one of the same puppeteer. Dodd is pulling Freddy’s strings and we the audience like Freddy are going wherever he motions us. The irony is like the charismatic cult leader Lancaster Dodd in the movie, Anderson is seemingly making this up as he goes along. But he is The Master and we (the audience) are his loyal followers. Even if he sends Freddy from wooden paneled wall to window and back over and over again we like Freddy go along too despite how futile or meaningless the exercise may appear. He is the Master after all.

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            9. I really like this parallel, and PTA is one to throw his audience in there with no self-preservation. I only saw The Master once and really liked it, primarily for the cult intrigue, Hoffman’s performance, Joaquin along with him, and the buddy theme gone awry. From your analysis, I am encouraged to see it again for sure. I miss Hoffman. Puppet away, PTA!

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            10. Yes, Hoffman was a huge loss. Too many great movies to mention where he sprung to life.. In the Master, where him and Joaquin are in the gaol (and Joaquin’s reactions with the toilet were unrehearsed) is the stuff of ‘buddy theme gone awry’. Great description Bernie!

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            13. You are semi-correct. Kubrick is always ****/***** for me. So close to engrossing, but he finds a way to get in his own way, and he needs to learn how to befriend an editor, haha!

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            14. That sounds an awful like what Scorsese needed in his latest movie. An editor I mean. It was like seeing George Lucas making the prequals of SW without someone to reign him in. But I must admit I didn’t see an editing problem in Kubrick’s movies, may be Barry Lyndon, but I’m no way an expert on his stuff.

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            15. Mind you, like he did with The Irishman, Scorsese admitted he wanted to appeal to the streamer audience of this generation by making a 3+ hour production, which essentially feels like the ever so popular tv dramas that conquer today’s industry.

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            16. Let’s keep this between you and me ok? lol. Scorsese to my mind went ‘virtual signalling’ BIG TIME in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’. Also it felt a drawn out movie-doco, which I would have preferred seeing as a ‘pure-doco’. I wanted to be entertained and I wasn’t after 90 minutes… and left the cinema after 2 hours and a half (and I’ve never done that at the cinema..ever).
              To my mind Scorsese made a bad remake (for American Indian causes) of an awesome movie ‘Mississippi Burning’.
              It was just so predictable and longwinded. Nothing to see here. I’m still sad about it, to be honest.

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            17. Oh, sweet—I didn’t even know you had seen it already! I have not. Your synopsis doesn’t surprise me yet intrigues me just the same. I’ll probably wait until it is on rent (we don’t have Apple anymore). I’m—like you—an old school Scorsese fan. He has lost his edge since Gangsters of New York, I think. I’m glad you warned me. I’ve only been 50/50 interested in this one. Last movie I walked out of: Triangle of Sadness, haha! There is nothing worse than that feeling after seeing a really bad movie or having your expectations drained that much!

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            18. Like you, it didn’t surprise me going into it, that Scorsese literally fell to the mob (haha) based on the preview. But, I thought..it’s Scorsese… Surely he’s above all that BS. No he’s not. It’s fkn sad. Yes, ‘draining’ is the apt description.

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  5. Okay. At first I thought this was going to be the Will Farrell time waster from 2005. I know. It robbed an hour and 35 minutes of precious breathing time from my wife and I.

    But I couldn’t imagine this to be amongst your most coveted.

    This one looks quite tasty. Must check it out.

    You, as ever, rawkk, sir.

    Hard.

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    1. I figured there would be confusion there. I couldn’t stand the 2005 disaster, which doesn’t deserve the title.

      This 90s indie is a dialogue wonder, full of so many one-liners, it’s impossible to “get it” once.

      No robbing of time from this one, I promise.

      Best,
      RB

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