Sadly, all this cold has sapped my brain of writing inspirations. So yet another link for you. This is a good one, though.
Grantland offers up the oral history of all oral histories: an insiders’ tale of the making of the movie Swingers. It’s great, although not nearly long enough for extreme devotees of the flick. Still, plenty of great tidbits, including this story about the inspiration for the closing scene of the movie.
Vaughn: I went back to Chicago to see my parents before I started filming Swingers and I was at the airport, waiting to fly back to Los Angeles, sitting down, waiting. And there was a gentleman in line to get his boarding pass. But it appeared to me that he kept waving at me and smiling at me and giggling and it made me uncomfortable. At first I thought, How do I know this guy? But he’s doing it in a very kind of babyish way, it feels a little weird. And he just was very confident the way that he did it. And he kept moving through the line very slowly, and so I tried to look at him like You’re crazy, or laugh, like Ohhhhh. But nothing like this seemed to deter him from wanting to engage me in this kind of a flirtatious, little-kid way. So when he finally got his ticket, he began to walk toward me. And I’m like, Oh jeez, this guy is really coming over here. And then he stopped and he picked up a baby that was sitting in a chair that I couldn’t see from my vantage point.
Love it!
As I told some folks today, I’ve probably watched Swingers more than any non-holiday movie in my life. Fletch might be close, but Swingers was the go-to movie when we stumbled home after last call in the late-90s and early-00s. It was the get in the mood movie before going out. And I often just put it on as I did other things around my apartment, almost like background music. It’s been years since I’ve watched it, though. That may need to change this week.