What’s Aged the Best?
Young Eddie Murphy's performance as Reggie Hammond
In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:28:30Read transcript
- Nominees are young Eddie Murphy, James Remar as Gans, and James Horner's soundtrack crossed with San Francisco; the score is one of the all-timers, and some of it was reused in Commando three years later to one host's annoyance; Horner likes his steel drums and scored much of one host's movie childhood, including, as recalled, Alien, Aliens and Terminator.
- The three-minute cue before the subway stakeout, when they wait outside the parking garage in the morning, with the clarinet, is wanted as the theme for the BS podcast, with an appeal to James Horner's estate to hand it over. — Bill Simmons
- The Torchy's scene has aged phenomenally; the Police's Roxanne is a time capsule that would have been a baffling intro if the song had fallen out of popularity, but it turned out to be one of the most iconic songs of the era; a Walkman-with-microphone memory and the thought that Dexys Midnight Runners there could have gone very wrong.
- The Busboys have aged really well, leaving the question of why they never made it; the final scene, when Reggie finally gets laid and comes out to find Jack waiting with the car, the exchange about the money ending with Reggie wanting only enough for a new car, and Reggie stealing Jack's lighter and getting caught, is incredibly well written; the pick is Reggie, the Eddie Murphy performance, and the other agrees on young Eddie.
- A bar-band tangent: every city had its own Huey Lewis ripoff, like the Young Rumblers in Philly, and the Busboys songs all seem to be about going downtown for new shoes or being back in town, written to land a Friday residency at a place like Torchy's or Roman's rather than to write the White Album; both songs could have been Blues Brothers numbers; the country band at Torchy's was pretty good too, and young Eddie is reaffirmed.
- Without stepping on the Gans section to come, James Remar is one of the great psycho-on-the-loose characters, maybe number one among realistic ones, a man a prostitute character says prefers shooting cops to sex and who has been in jail three years; competition is thin, perhaps Tommy Lee Jones in Under Siege ten years later, since eighties villains were slick businessmen like Alan Rickman in Die Hard.