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Screen Generation
A show covering the films distributed under Sony’s label Screen Gems. Join host Evan Hughes every week for commentary on films that are forgotten, and some that spawn franchises.
New episodes every Saturday
Screen Generation
Arlington Road
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Arlington Road directed by Mark Pellington, starring Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack.
Hello and welcome to the second episode of Screen Generation. I am and will be your host, Evan Hughes. Today we are talking about the 1999 film Arlington Road, and this movie has legs. Not only as an adult option in theaters for folks that were hoping to avoid pod races and gun guns, but also when word of mouth made it kind of a rental hit. This movie was made by Lakeshore, and it had intended to be distributed by Polygram, which is Universal's Parent Company. There are a few mess-ups during production, but at the time, the studio is considered an acquisition offer, and the marketing department basically gives away the plot of this film in the trailer. So Lakeshore is thinking, you know, we spent 30 million on this, uh, let's buy it back and we'll try to find someone else to distribute it for us. Sony, who is new to the business but has the handy Screen Gems label, choose to buy the rights for $6 million. And then they do just about the same thing. They give away with the advertising the entire plot of the story, the twist. And this is this makes rewatching it kind of fresh. Because I didn't see the trailer before I saw the movie, I just watched the movie, and it I'm betting it anyone who caught this on TV probably had a better time than people in the theater. All right. This is an age of twist endings. Uh, usual suspects, primal fear, bone collector, sixth sense, and my favorite conspiracy theory. And this might be a twist of my own. I love Mel Gibson. I mean, obviously for his horrendous politics, but more importantly, as an actor and a director, shoot, I love Clint Eastwood as well. I have such a soft spot for artists that let you down. And uh, in the same way, I think I like George Clooney, but I would love for him to shut the hell up. Separating an artist from the projects that hundreds of people worked on is important. I left out the Fincher movie 7 for my previous list of twists. Previous list of twists, that's fun to say. Because I left it out because Kevin Spacey erasure is real and warranted, and it's pretty undeniable the quality of a movie is amplified when he's in the cast, but he's it's a good thing not to uh use him as an example of uh what you would like to see in a movie. Arlington wrote, hey, that's what this episode is about. Uh, if you come into the movie without knowing how it goes, it absolutely kind of delivers. But the more you think about it, it's the strangest terror plot ever conceived. The motives of the terrorists are not clear, and I can't go further without ruining the plot, which is uh what I'm about to go over. The difference this movie has from previously covered limbo is the movie was based on a current issue that 25 years later is still an issue. Arlington Road is a terrorism movie that was made before 9-11. It's coming out at a time when the largest threat currently was coming from inside the house. So the Univarmor around now gets caught. There's the Olympic Park uh bombing and Oklahoma City, which is this movie's made in parallel. Um, so the story, homegrown terrorism in a suburban community near our nation's capital, it's a good pitch. And at the at the time the topic was very irrelevant. I guess in a parabolic arc, it's sort of relevant again. Two things do not age well in this movie. It's just a sign of the age the movie was made and what we consider progress. Tim Robbins is building a mall, which may have we've made we've made them obsolete with online shopping and the anti-socialization of the youths. Lastly, the reflecting pool in the Lincoln Memorial has water in it, which our current very competent administration can't seem to crack. Hey, it's not the most original take, but Donald Trump has ruined so many staples of films depicting the United States of America. Every helicopter, drone, or establishing shot of the White House is now evidence or like a sad symbol of an American institution being destroyed. I know I mentioned 9-11 a lot, like a Harmontown audience, but in a way, it's that like only terrorists could forever change the New York City skyline, he has ruined the White House, which according to race must be his favorite house. But also consider that every person from now on who has to play the president has an important question to ask themselves. Do you play it like a stiff, respectable, honestly pretty boring commander-in-chief? Or do you play the pussy grabber? It's weird, but the stakes are sort of removed in an intense action thriller if the president's an idiot. Spaceball is an idiocracy joke about this, but he's slowly ruining everything I enjoy or, I don't know, thought was traditional. Mark Pellington is the second hot filmmaker that Screen Gems has landed. His previous film, Going All the Way in 1998, blew up in Sundance. The cast of that film either became stars, fizzled out, or were assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. Pellington is an interesting guy, but it as with most independent filmmakers in the 90s, they're putting out comedies, dramas, and thrillers because CGI is still an expensive Hollywood delicacy. This movie has a loaded cast. With the exclusion of the opening scene, it's shot very clean. Tim Robbins uh has all sorts of range, but it does seem like this flavor is a role that will start to like occur or reoccur. When he gets creepy in a movie, it's in this movie, it's reminiscent of when he's creepy in Mystic River or uh Spielberg's War of the Worlds. And I think this is a disservice because I find him very funny and uh believably sweet. Matt Damon does this too, where they're like, why would they do this cameo performance? And I think the real thing is because he's a game, it's fun. So um here's him uh in a small part in Anchorman.
SPEAKER_03Not so fast, you ingre! Public news team is taking a break from its flex drive to kick some ass. No commercials, no mercy!
SPEAKER_00And here's him in Tenacious D in the pick of destiny.
SPEAKER_03Get the fuck out of here!
SPEAKER_07Nice to look forward now. Doctor picked over here, nice to over a whole.
SPEAKER_01Then you might as well kill us, man. Because there is no way in hell we're giving you this fucking pick.
SPEAKER_07Okay. So be it. Come over here. I'm going to fucking stab you.
SPEAKER_00What? No. I mean, he's funny, he's got range. I I really like that um uh he's paired with uh Joan Cusack because he's worked with John Cusack like twice, and then he high fidelity and tape heads. But um and I think it's sad because I like him, I like his causes. I I think roles like like this really stopped him from being Shawshank or Hudsucker or Bull Durham again. And to me, he has too much range to be typecast as a creep, which he's still doing today. His creepiness has extended to Apple TV's silo, uh, where he's metastasized for three seasons. Slight tangent about dystopian entertainment. It was always a popular thing in science fiction literature, but the prevalence of people living in underground bunkers in pop culture is a sign of the optimism for the future. Amazon has Fallout, Hulu has paradise, the possibility of a future ruined by meaningless conflict and unrestricted capitalism is more likely an outcome than a far-fetched reality. Oh shit, Twisted Metal, another video game property, also exists in a totally real streaming service called Peacock. It's almost like because we can't have a Mad Max show, we get these diet soda versions. Um, the same way that I hate Tim Robbins being shorthand for creepy, sometimes he is just that. Uh, I'm gonna play um uh a clip. You tell me if it's from this movie or not.
SPEAKER_04Governments are no more than men and women trying to do what is right in situations where too often so much is wrong. It is within this context that we often have to ask ourselves difficult questions. What would you do if someone wanted to destroy your country? What lines would you cross to protect what is precious to you? When the potential for violence surrounds you and the fear is everywhere, what actions might be considered justified that otherwise wouldn't be?
SPEAKER_00Actually, that's not. That is uh Robbins using his own words, uh promoting a movie called Catch a Fire, working with Amnesty International.
SPEAKER_04Please visit Amnesty International's website to learn more and take action.
SPEAKER_00Right, sometimes he's intense. It's it's interesting because also uh um uh I love his advocacy. So um uh while I was watching Enterprise on UPN, uh I uh he would come up uh advocating for local libraries. So I uh I let's play that.
SPEAKER_04Can you name the one place where you have access to nearly everything on the web and imprint and even have personal assistance to help find what you're looking for? It's right in your backyard, the library. Libraries have always been places for education and self-help. Today, they're at the forefront of the information age. Come see what's new at your library.
SPEAKER_00See, not so creepy. He's a good dude. Jeff Bridges is so handsome, you forget Rooster Cogburn and him are the same dude. And the dude's the same dude, whoa. Wait. The year before Bridges does Lebowski, and uh, like it's it has a lackluster critical response, which shouldn't have been a concern because the Conn brothers rarely miss. And being we're a podcast about distribution, that movie was practically mispackaged. But to see the transformation of Bridges from the dude to Professor McTerrorism is pretty amazing. And those characters unrecognizable, the parallels are pretty strong from the Lebowski to Arlington Road. So let's get up, bust out our Venn diagram, and I'm gonna only do the overlapping part, the compare, not the contrast. So one, put it in the center. It's a kidnapping plot. There's it's not even like it's not even a main thing, it's a subplot. And then uh hit him two, um, phalange amputation? I'm struggling because amputation suggests like a medical procedure. In Lebowski it's toes, in Arlington Road, it's fingers, and three, bridges. Just like a good metaphor, he connects the gaps between these films, and at both he's like acting at a 10. Just a wild performance. And I have one really big question about the opening scene, but I cannot arrive at it until I ruin this movie's plot. So I'm going to do that. So I'm not the biggest um Blake Snyder fan. Uh I think Save the Cat actually teaches the uh screenwriter some bad habits, but I think Pope in the Pool floats when it's cool, so um this movie has a great score, and I'm gonna play some uh some of the soundtrack over the synopsis, so hang on. So the film starts following a blonde child uh walking mid-street and the sound of children's voices in the background gently applying peer pressure. Driving home, Jeff Bridges stops in his neighborhood to speak to the child, and it's revealed he has injured his hand and it's bleeding profusely. You don't get to see the wound, and the editing style is really confusing, probably just because it's a traumatic situation. Um, cut to Bridges, uh taking him to the emergency room where he meets the his parents. Tim Robbins, who's a structural engineer, and Joan Cusack, who's a homemaker and she's an absolute fox in this movie. Um apparently they live across from one another. The children in the neighborhood pooled their fireworks, and their son was lighting the fuse when boom. Something in Bridges' performance hits that the trauma of the injured child triggered something internal, and we learned him and his son, played by Spencer Clark, who you might remember from uh Gladiator, and he's the son in Unbreakable. Um and his son are still mourning the loss of Bridges' wife, who was an FBI agent killed in the field. Despite their children being a fingerless pyromaniac, Bridges allows his son to start a friendship with his neighbor's children and they begin a Boy Scouts-esque extracurricular activity. The household is chaotic and friendly. Bridges, his son, and his new girlfriend, paid by the gorgeous Hope Davis, find comfort in having like a close connection and actually having friends that they can walk to. Bridges is described as a professor in conversation, but once you see a lecture he's giving, you realize studying extremism has fully unhinged him. And it's the beginning of every time he expresses concern or asks for help, people are just like, maybe you should stop teaching that crazy class, Mr. Crazy Man. It's frustrating and it builds attention really well. Um the paranoia is all seated at like a barbecue early in the relationship where Robbins gives Bridges his life story with a few specific bullet points, and everyone is dialed up to a nine in this movie. So after a beer or two, Robbins is like, tell me about your dead cop wife. And Fingerless is going full Nazi and like with a little pillow for it. Bridges uh becomes Benoit Blanc for uh like five minutes and starts using microfiche to find out how Robbins changed his name and tried to blow up a government building with a pipe bomb, but he's not a terrorist. If anything, Bridges is professor terrorism and he's a hammer, and everyone looks like a terrorist nail now. So the scouts go camping, and here's where the story not to say it falls apart, it actually starts going somewhere. Hope Davis sees Robbins changed vehicles at the mall. Malls, man. I try to try to think like how would like a young Bridges, malls, man, and then an old Bridges, Malls, man! Tony Stark made this in a mall with scraps. Okay, sorry. Um she follows him, Robbins is uh up to some shady business, he calls Bridges on a payphone and turns around, bam, Joan Cusack. To talk about Cusack in this movie, it is a great role for her. She sort of loses her recognizable speech delivery, and you can turn on this Stepford wife performance. It's it's really good. Um watching this makes me think that she'd be really good doing the Kathy Bates part in misery. There's something incredibly sinister about weaponizing how polite she is. And especially because she is so affiliated with beloved children's properties, it's amazing her being so off-menu. Later that night, horrible uh local broadcast of a car accident on super small TV, and yes, kids, TVs were square in the 90s. This movie is now hopeless, meaning they got Davis as soon as she started believing Bridges. And so, Bridges is consoled by the people who obviously murdered her. A convenient series of events has Bridges uh learning of a plot to blow up the FBI headquarters with explosive vans, which he must stop himself because to oh noes, they have the kid from Gladiator. There's a well-shot and destructive chase scene, good driving sequences bookend this movie. It starts with a bang and ends exciting as well. And at the end of this chase, it seems Bridges lost the shell game because the van he's following to the J. Erger Hoover building doesn't have his son or a bomb in it, but his car does. And the film ends with uh Bridges' son leaving a distant family new coverage. Bridges is a lone terrorist upset with the wrongful death of his wife. One of his students is clearly a part of Robinson's conspiracy, which is a great moment. And then Robinson Cusack and Fingerless are uh selling their house, you know, to scout the next target. My question is did Robinson Cusack blow off Fingerless's hand? Like just to meet the neighbor? That's not a good plan. Make a casserole or go across the street. Our kids are the same age, they can play. You don't have to do that. Like it it's the strangest opening because it it it what it does is it does show you that um uh bridges will react before thinking. And so during something traumatic, he just uh immediately activated himself and decided to act. And with that, you can see how it's like, oh, maybe we could trick him into delivering the explosive for us. But my bigger question is it like, kid, hold on to the M80, close your hand, be a good boy, now light it. And it's just like rub some dirt on it, Brady. Oh, yeah, fingerless's name is Brady, but I know you don't care. Um now, not to out myself as a monster, but I would do everything in my power to avoid a child in the street. With a very high success rate, I avoid children. It is uh insane to hinge the success of your terrorist plot on an excitable Jeff Bridges who doesn't think before he acts, as I said. If we're to believe the story, this terrorist group is identifying people who have understandable grievances with the government and then pinning the attacks on them. Shoot, let's just do this. It's a quick history lesson. Osama bin Laden had a goal for the 9-11 attacks to destroy a symbol of capitalism and to draw us in an unwinnable conflict. The years following the attacks were breeding grounds for conspiracy theories, the most popular being the US government knew or were cooperating with the terrorists to slowly rob us of our freedoms and enable the government to set up a police state. Score one for the people with aluminum hats. Alright, like uh incredible prediction. I It doesn't matter if it's true or not, because standing at the finish line, we have a private police force, disappearing people, and surveillance in every streetlight. This movie is like a guy who teaches people to identify red flags, but it turns out he's actually colorblind and falls for like the stupidest trick. It feels clever when the credits are rolling, but I should have not paid as much attention to this. It's it's just not coming together like the usual suspects. Which is something to keep in mind, because the guy who wrote the script does eventually go on to work with Christopher Macquarie. The guy's name is Aaron Kruger, it's not spelled the way you think it is, but um uh it's Ren E-H-R-E-N, not A-A-Ron. And I have a pretty low opinion of him, which I don't want to be rude, but uh because his movies have functional scripts, but they are pretty charmless. I also hope this doesn't hurt his feelings, but uh I don't think rich people care what I think. Um here are some of his credits. Example Aaron Kruger is credited on Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen.
SPEAKER_05You have fought for Optimus, our last descendant, with courage and with sacrifice, the virtues of a leader. A leader worthy of our secret. The matrix of leadership is not found, it is earned.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Kruger is credited on Transformers Dark of the Moon. For today, in the name of freedom, we take the battle to them. Aaron Kruger is credited on Transformers Age of Extinction. Come on, B, take him out. I mean, I guess the point I'm trying to make is with that much sound design, how much of a a use do you have for a script? Like how much do you need it? Bam! Pew pew pew pew pew pew pew. I love sound design too, but also I like a good script, and I don't think this guy can write one. He also wrote the whitewashy Ghost in the Shell adaptation bomb, but the two most recent titles are egregious. He's credited for Top Gun Maverick and F1. Two movies that reverse engineer a plot around set pieces and have a room of dudes writing. I understand I'm not showing a ton of respect, but he's doing fine in Hollywood. He doesn't need this podcast kissing his ass. And his movies are the strongest argument for AI to destroy this industry. I think Pellington does a very good job. Mark Pellington does a very good job pacing this movie, and it's I I was gonna say it's kind of his flavor. He's a prolific music video director, shot a ton of documentaries, which makes me think he just loves following bands around. Some filmmakers are pretty honest that documentaries are often an excuse to get access and have a reason to hang around interesting people. His film work is very serious, straightforward, and doesn't have the stylized editing and needle drops that Fincher or as we'll see in a few films, Guy Ritchie with Snatch. That movie is dictated and paced by the music. There is a a gloomy theme to Pellington's work. He shot U2's one, Pearl Jams, Jeremy, and his movies are usually about characters experiencing loss. Soon we'll cover the Mothman Prophecies, which is another one of his films with a grieving husband. Henry Poole's here, it's like a sad guy, you know, terminal prognosis, Jesus in a wall, I melt with you, sad guys doing drugs, maybe offing themselves. But especially with the sophomore 2, there were distributed under screen gems, they made plenty of money, and they had a name for themselves. And the box office wasn't the only measurement of success at this time. Especially for smaller budget movies like this. At the time, it was a golden age of video rentals, and eventually cable channels needed something to play, so this became a staple on TV. I watched this as God intended on Tubi with an advertisement every 15 minutes. It was really jarring how a hymns ad would stop all momentum that this movie was building. For that reason, I've ended up buying most of the gems on DVD, and secondhand market for these things is pretty laughable. Most are very cheap. Some of them are worth 50 cents. Uh, an example, I got five Resident Evil movies for $4. Now I gave last week, I gave Limbo a seven. Uh, despite the bummer ending, this is a comfortable eight. This movie is good. It's great if you don't think about it as much as I have. And when I find it, it will be joining my collection, and I look forward to revisiting it. Maybe in, you know, sooner than 25 years. Now, thank you for listening to Screen Generation. I'm your host, Evan Hughes. Join me next week for my first cursed film, Black and White, by James Tobak.
SPEAKER_02My name is Sam Doniger, and this is my husband, Terry Doniger, and I'm a freelance documentary filmmaker. I'm doing a project on white high school kids who imitate black hip hop life.
SPEAKER_10Can you change who you are? If you're black, can you bleach your life? Just so young. If you're white, can you die? That's where you've been, Troy.
SPEAKER_09Hi, Daddy. I've been at the library.
SPEAKER_10Oh, I've told you. If you must wear that ridiculous go-to, do it not in my house. Life is just crazy, man. Can you be ghetto without living in a ghetto?
SPEAKER_08What do you think these white people really want from us? Trying to imitate us, trying to rap, trying to dress black?
SPEAKER_10Can it be? All so simple. It ain't that simple. You know what I mean? Can you look within and embrace your soul or not?
SPEAKER_06I'm here to sell records for you. If I do the video, it's gonna cross over. He's gonna make it look like it's Hollywood, even though it ain't Hollywood. Dean, right? Yeah. Point guard on the writer team. I just wondered if you wanted to make uh $50,000.
SPEAKER_08I think they think they're gonna get some kind of life force.
SPEAKER_02I wanna tell me what the crew can offer you. They offer us like safety.
SPEAKER_08You offer me $50,000 to throw a game. Should I do it or not?
SPEAKER_06Just be true to yourself. Is that Mike Tyson?
SPEAKER_05I'm on parole, brother. Only dream you reporting when that's happening.
SPEAKER_10You can look at me as long as you want.
SPEAKER_01Trust me, what did I do? I didn't know that you knew these people. Why don't you get back downtown? Why don't you do it?
SPEAKER_10I don't want to pretend anymore.
SPEAKER_01Richard, I'm gay. Okay, Richard does not care.
SPEAKER_10But I'll always be me and you always be you.
SPEAKER_04I'm just trying to give you a reality check on how you're living right now.
SPEAKER_09White people are as different from each other as black people.
SPEAKER_01What are you gonna do? Kill a guy who's myself tonight. Don't feel no problem.
SPEAKER_10You gonna do it? Yeah. You can't send no child to do a man's job.
SPEAKER_09Yo, yo, relax.
SPEAKER_02I can do whatever I want. I'm a kid in America. Let me just introduce myself to you. In all honesty, I'm a fan of the family.
SPEAKER_06This time I'm from a different culture. Want me to turn it off? This is not a study of animals.
SPEAKER_02It's off. You've got beautiful eyes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I am not looking forward to that, but I think I found a perfect guest, uh, if there ever was one. And uh as usual, thank you for listening. Resist the administration, refuse AI, and I'll see you next week.