The car scene where they are parked on the cliff is flagged as one you would not want to be watching at your girlfriend's house on VHS in 1984.
Asked about the He Got Game prostitute award (as transcribed) for the scene you can't watch with your parents, the answer is that no movie has two of them; rewatching with a dad, a participant just fast-forwarded over both.
The Great Shock Order Award (as transcribed) is clearly the rally: Steph finds out his buddy knocked up his girlfriend and is not going to USA (as transcribed), the fireworks and confetti go off, and Cruise stands in the doorway with the confetti falling; everything in the movie looks great.
Later, at Great Shot Gordo, the smokestacks against the hills of western Pennsylvania are called the expected answer, but the pick given instead is the nipple-to-nipple shot.
The two selections, Cruise in the doorway with the confetti falling at the rally and the nipple-to-nipple shot, are never settled into one shared choice.
Bosco is offered first, then Terry O'Quinn, recognizable as John Locke because Lost was a massive show.
Cruise's brother in the movie (Cruz's brother as transcribed) is also called a pretty big that guy, having been in Hardcore with George C. Scott, which the show has done.
Earlier, Leon, the star receiver, is called a goated (as transcribed 'goaded') Rewatchables that guy for this, Cliffhanger and Above the Rim, a Hall of Fame case who goes by one name only.
Bosco's buddy is offered for his only line: when the question is why Nickerson did not take the safety and punt it away, he answers because he's an asshole and he hates losing to these rich pricks; all three loved the take-the-safety line, which is never in movies.
The winner is given as Bosco unless it goes to Camp Scadabo (as transcribed) of Walnut High, who rips it up; Salvucci was wanted here but has too many scenes.
During the game discussion, Camp Scadabo (as transcribed), who takes over the game for Walnut Heights when it starts raining, is called a possible Dion Waiters contestant: a high school player with no chance in the pros who is lopsided for now.
Ebert gave it three stars, welcoming, after junk high school movies where kids chop each other up and visit whorehouses in Mexico, a movie that remembers most teenagers are vulnerable, unsure, sincere and fundamentally decent.
A Raj joke follows, along with a crack that Tom Cruise's last movie had a whorehouse in a house in the north suburbs.
Cruise staring out the window in the opening gets the award for being absolutely ripped, at Sly Stallone Rocky IV levels of 3% body fat; among 300 categories it is still a favorite.
The opening scene comes first: the credits, the theme song's all-the-right-moves lyrics sung by Jennifer Warrens (as transcribed) and Chris Thompson, and Cruise staring out the window outside Pittsburgh.
Movies from 83 to 86 peaked with bad title songs, like Just One of the Guys and No Way Out, apparently from a producer's note to work the title into the chorus; even John Hughes did it in Weird Science, where Thomas Tolby (as transcribed) got the note.
The locker room scene where the team dances and the coach joins for a second before saying okay ladies is called the precursor of the Top Gun locker room scene: guys in underwear thrusting their hips, with three or four players who look to be in their mid-30s.
In the recruiting scene Steph is cocky, saying there are other schools he would rather look at first, and his dad warns he hopes he knows what he is doing; it is called hubris for a little Serbian corner.
The coach's quitter and loser speech and the drills on the practice field could have gone six, seven or eight more minutes.
An overhead crane shot of a running back and a cornerback running into each other with the crowns of their heads startles a participant now coaching seventh and eighth grade tackle football, who figured both were paralyzed or at least concussed.
Steph's hit at practice, which has everyone running laps, is called complete pass interference for a cornerback supposed to be going div one.
The stretch from the Bulldogs pep rally, where Steph finds out Bri is having a kid, into the bus ride set to The Last Stand by Doug Cahan (as transcribed) may not get better in the 80s; the song reads like a list of big-game sports cliches written to a note.
It keeps cooking with touching the 1960 ball, Salvucci flipping out about the tape roll, Cruise hitting his head on the wall and the coach's crazy speech that probably crosses a line, an incredible 10 minutes.
The bus ride into the other team's town, with Brian's tear as he thinks about the baby and the 10 tackles he still has to make, gave a participant chills and positive PTSD back to 1996.
The game is called a filet mignon of high school football that skips from halftime to the last four minutes; the Cruise dive tackle, Rifleman's deep throw to Leon and the Cruise pick six follow, and the pass on the pick six looks fake while the run after it looks good.
The best take of the celebration being Steph yelling in your face Walnut Heights is called a tough one; then Cruise gets an egregious pass interference call and the goal line stand is awesome.
The last 12 seconds recall a recent Vanderbilt and NC State game; everyone watching thinks QB sneak, take the safety and punt, a guy in the bar scene says exactly that, and botching it is why Nickerson was never going to be a head coach.
As a regular on First Take, a participant imagines Stephen A. demanding the coach be fired before he gets to the bus.
One fix is to have the team up by one so the safety option is gone, though it was pouring rain; the ending seemed egregious even in eighth or ninth grade, and the score confused a participant because a field goal is never shown.
What Dan Quinn did with the Commanders last week, leading to a tie, may have been even worse at the professional level.
Salvucci, the backup running back wound tight after the tape tantrum, gets the game in his hands; Rifleman should have taken the snap and fallen forward, as the coach realizes lying in bed that night.
The worst scene in the movie is Nickerson at the chalkboard, up all night, announcing a 6-2 defense no one has tried; six-man fronts were not revolutionary, since Notre Dame won the national title in 1977 with one.
Riley's big run comes on a draw play that fools the 6-2 stack monster, and the kickoff team in three-point stances, the rustic jerseys and the chunky white halfback wearing 41 are loved.
Steph's 'full house, you fucking bastards' call on fourth and goal and the Walnut Heights lineman's 'we're coming after your ass, Riley', answered 'do it, man, make me happy', sound like real high school shit talk.
By contrast, the wordy taunt from the offensive lineman in The Program is fake; a 17-year-old talks in six words or less.
After the loss Salvucci is the one crying, and a locker room like that is devastating because after your last game you never put on pads again.
Nickerson gets mad at Salvucci, Cruise sticks up for him, and the coach, not wrong that they should have practiced what he taught and held on to the ball, says it in front of 36 teammates and kicks Steph off the team.
Steph sticking up for Salvucci and the dap-up afterward are called his coolest moment, while nobody in real life would coach the way Nickerson handles it, putting his own choke on a helpless kid.
The scene is shot with Cruise in tears by the squat rack against the wall, and the bullying pushes Salvucci toward an armed robbery within a month.
The Pittsburgh pub scene, with Bosco holding court playing pool like an emergency pod, could have run 10 more minutes, and the coach shoots Steph down when he goes to apologize the next day.
The ending gets Blue Skies Forever because they couldn't get Bob Seeger (as transcribed), and the credits oddly lead with the soundtrack.
Asked for the most rewatchable, a participant is never turning the Walnut Heights game off because it is the actual football, and the other agrees.
When Steph gets mad at the coach on the street, asking who in the hell gave him that power, he calls him just a high school football coach, not God, and a typing teacher, which earns the award.
Candidates are young Tom Cruise, virginity as a major plot point, the opening theme song and the production company, Lucille Ball Productions, called the winner unless it is the unibrows.
The old school 80s unibrows almost seem like a bit, and paired with the high school mustache and chest hair they make a fearsome duo.
As a deep cut, a player at the back of the bus wears a Rick Mahorn Beef Brothers cap, the Washington Bullets pair Johnny Most called McNasty and McFilthy after the 82 playoffs against the Celtics, who have since done a Beef Brothers pod.
One pick is the football team in the locker room getting ready before a big game, which works every time however bad the movie, with Any Given Sunday probably the peak: the guy hitting his head against a wall, guys getting taped up, the nervous guy and the fake energy guy, like the war-paint scenes in Rambo and Commando.
The other is the Christmas concert near the end, where they rip cigs and beers in the school auditorium, which would have meant suspension even in the 90s.
The Ampipe Bulldogs; Vinny's desk trick; Brian's Penguins-Flyers honeymoon; the 80s coaching; the poster; the phone-free pep rally; Bosco; Jennifer Warnes
The Ampipe Bulldogs, from American Pipe and Steel, comes first, and Vinny's desk trick has aged the best and the worst.
Brian announcing a honeymoon in Pittsburgh at an ordinary December Penguins Flyers game is called incredible, along with the 80s coaching stuff and the poster of Cruise in the letter jacket, whose tagline bangs you over the head.
The pep rally made a participant nostalgic for kids living in the moment with nobody on their phones, and for a coach's speech that now would be instantly on Instagram for the other team to see.
Bosco is called incredible, an evil Buddy Garrity and the perfect western Pennsylvania Steelers fan; his actor, Jim, directed Days of Our Lives while a participant was on it and was cool about the love scenes.
Jennifer Warnes's career was new to both: one participant had no idea despite being on the higher end of dumb pop culture knowledge, and the other knew nothing about it either, having thought her name was Jennifer Warren and that Jennifer Grey sang Time of My Life.
Jennifer Warnes won an Oscar in 1979 for a song in Norma Rae, was nominated in 81 for Ragtime, and sang Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong with Joe Cocker, an Oscar, a Grammy and a number one hit.
She also sang this movie's theme in 83, the Growing Pains theme in 1985, called one of the two best sitcom themes with Family Ties, and Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing in 1987, for three Oscars and two Grammys over nine years.
