A Few Good Men The Rewatchables August 10, 2017

Unintentional Comedy Award

Kevin Bacon leaving the hoops game; Joe Galloway's 'they stand on a wall' answer; Tom Cruise holding a bat

In the discussion (9)

Approx. transcript time · 00:26:32Read transcript

Nominees start with Cruise swinging a softball bat and drunk Cruise, which may not be unintentional, though it is funny to watch him play drunk when he has clearly never had a drink.
More nominees: randomly anti-Semitic Jessup ('You, Lieutenant Weinberg'), Kendrick's one laugh, Kevin Pollack asking why she likes the Marines so much and Joe Galloway answering 'because they stand on a wall and they say, nothing's gonna hurt you tonight not on my watch', Bacon leaving the hoops game, and Amazon billing Wolfgang Bodison first.
The presenter's choice is Bacon leaving the hoops game: walking into a pickup game and shouting about doctored logbooks is a life dream, the players protest 'what the hell, Jack' at 10-8, and his slick ballet-like half turn is called Footloose training.
The hallway scene where she says they are going to do this and he answers no, you're not, is also very good Bacon.
Asked for a pick, another goes with Galloway's 'they stand on a wall' answer, noting the panel keeps dancing around the Galloway question.
A third pick is Cruise holding a bat, with a subsection for him shooting Nerf basketballs while asking 'where's my bat?', two sports at once.
Cruise's screen sports: hustling basketball in Cocktail with a shot like a six-year-old's, a suspicion he was a wrestler, All the Right Moves, football and a future Super Bowl in Oblivion, a catch in War in the Worlds (as transcribed), and volleyball in Top Gun in jeans on the beach.
His softball swing is too fast: the tight shot has him hitting ball after ball like a batting machine; the early grounders are fine, but the batting practice when Joe comes to talk is not.
A favorite nineties screenwriting trope: after 'you don't even know me', a character recites the other's résumé from memory, which one host plans to try on Amanda in their next argument.