Happy 25th anniversary to Reality Bites, the movie that not only defined Generation X but made it cool to make out to Baby, I Love Your Way while slurping a Big Gulp. Ben Stillers directorial debut encapsulated what it was like to be a twenty-something in 1994, from Gap promotions and toilet-paper coffee filters to AIDS scares and coming out to your family.
One of the most memorable scenes in the film is when the gang gets stoned and Lelaina (Winona Ryder) suggests they purchase food with her fathers gas card. They proceed to stock up on Pringles, Minute Maid and other munchie snacks.
Evian is nave spelled backwards! Janeane Garofalos character Vickie says excitedly, right before she begs the cashier to turn up the volume when she hears the signature bass line of the Knacks My Sharona. Lelaina, Vickie and Sammy (Steve Zahn) dance around the shop, as Troy (Ethan Hawke) stands at the counter looking annoyed. They scream so loud at the chorus that the cashier scolds them.
Flashback: Steve Perry Makes a Shocking Return to the Stage in 2014Flashback: Jackson Browne Performs a Heart-Wrenching 'Late for the Sky' in 1976The Making of the 'Woodstock' Documentary10 Things You Didn't Know About the Beatles' Music
Released in June 1979, My Sharona was the Knacks first single and became an instant hit, the fastest debut release to go gold since the Beatles I Want to Hold Your Hand. Amazingly, the lead vocals were recorded in one take. The whole thing was very spontaneous, producer Mike Chapman told Rolling Stone in 1979. That song took no more than three hours to record.
Sharona Alperin was 17 years old when the Knacks late singer and co-writer Doug Fieger, who died in 2010, wrote the song about her. (Shes even featured on the cover of the single in a white tank top, clutching a copy of the bands first album,Get the Knack.) With lyrics like Never gonna stop, give it up, such a dirty mind/I always get it up, for the touch of the younger kind, the seductive New Wave hit might seem extremely creepy and inappropriate today. Fieger attempted to explain this in 2005, when he claimed that not only was he just 25 at the time he wrote it, but that My Sharona is in fact written from the perspective of a teenager: Its just an honest song about a 14-year-old boy, he said.
The Reality Bites scene the song soundtracks turned out to be one of the 1994 films highlights. When we shot at night, I figured it was OK to have a cocktail first, Garofalo recalledlast year. So in my trailer freezer, I had vodka chilling which didnt hurt my mood when it came to doing scenes like the dance to My Sharona at the gas station. I remember laughing a lot doing that.
The cast of Reality Bites will reunite at a 25th-anniversary screening this spring at the Tribeca Film Festival. Reality Bites was a formative experience in my life, Stiller in a statement. Looking forward to seeing the whole cast, and possibly changing the ending so Michael gets Lelaina.