Jeremy

An oft-mentioned film that made a huge impression on Mark in his early teens, when it was a supporting feature with Breakheart Pass.

The film's becoming a topic was a typical example of Wittertainment at its most Wittertaining. The release of Rocky Balboa prompted one listener to muse on the films that the original Rocky beat to the Oscar back in 1976 - specifically, they mentioned Taxi Driver and All The President's Men. (This particular listener asked Mark about other Oscar travesties, and Mark replied with his well-worn line about 1990, when Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture and everything else released that year didn't, but that isn't important here). However, another listener was miffed that Network had been left off the list of great movies that Rocky beat, and they wondered if this demonstrated that Network was now a forgotten film. Mark suggested that Network was not forgotten, but had simply been eclipsed by the much more quotable Broadcast News. Nevertheless, the suggestions of other films believed forgotten - One From The Heart, Being There - began to pile in. Mark disagreed with all of them, and to show what a really forgotten film was, he mentioned Jeremy. Simon asked what it was about, and Mark opened his heart.

Jeremy then cropped up in conversation in 2009 with the release of Adventureland, a film that Mark had expected to hate - it was from the Judd Apatapatow stable; it was from the director of Superbad; it starred Jesse Eisenberg from The Squid And The Whale - and found himself utterly charmed by, mostly because it reminded him very much of Jeremy.

Mark recommended Jeremy to Joss Whedon when he visited the show to promote Much Ado About Nothing.

A backfire of enormous proportions ensued when Mark played the theme song, Blue Balloon, for Simon, who described it as "truly awful".

There is an online campaign to nudge Simon to watch Jeremy: [1], though given Mark's gift to Simon of the Luis Buñuel box set seemingly remains pristine to this day, no breath should be held.