What’s Aged the Best?
Lisa Eilbacher as Jenny Summers (disputed); Jenny's red Mercedes convertible; the title; Harold Faltermeyer's score and the soundtrack; the Mumford Phys Ed t-shirt and cropped sweatshirts; Taggart and Rosewood; Murphy's early run of good directors; the rival cop duo
In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 00:41:27Read transcript
- One host is still in love with Jenny Summers, played by Lisa Eilbach (as transcribed); the objection is not to the actress but to Hollywood casting interchangeable blondes with the same Kate Capshaw haircut, and another did not recognize her at all; what one host wants from the token female character in an Eddie Murphy movie is to dress well, laugh at his jokes and look great.
- She is not a love interest for either man, though she tried with Eddie, which is saved for later; she is serious about her career and it costs her nothing, and her damselification is believable because she insists on driving to the warehouse; 'great character' is countered with 'definitely not a great character' since nothing motivates her, she works at a coke lord's art gallery, and the Jenny, Tandino and Axel triangle of friendship makes no sense.
- Jenny is called a TV actress annihilated by everyone else on screen who did nothing afterward because she cannot hold the screen; a joke pitch imagines a Jenny Summers sequel in Don Simpson's office; she may be the first female gallerist in a movie.
- The defense of Jenny Summers is framed as a 15-year-old's crush recalled in the past tense. — Bill Simmons
- Jenny Summers' red Mercedes-Benz convertible is a dope car you cannot see anymore and is hard to keep in shape; in Beverly Hills they just take whatever car is closest; the little back seat is the Mikey spot.
- The title is great, as if they came up with it before they had a script; Harold Faltemeyer's run through Top Gun and Fletch is admired, the score fit an era of synth musicians like Howard Jones and Wang Chung.
- Faltermeyer is credited alongside Hans Zimmer on Top Gun Maverick, presumably because they use his themes; the soundtrack with The Heat Is On, Neutron Dance, Stir It Up and Nasty Girl is strong.
- Martin Brest draws 'the less said the better' from one host and a Midnight Run defense from another, who calls it a perfect movie and credits Brest with two of the best comedies of all time, alongside Gigi (as transcribed) and Son of a Woman (as transcribed); it is hard to know how much credit he gets here beyond being smart enough to let Eddie ad-lib, and Midnight Run also does not work without its two stars.
- The Mumford Phys Ed t-shirts were really a thing in the mid 80s with no internet to buy them, and the high school was flooded with requests; the Lions jacket in Cop 2 was intentional merchandising; the cropped sweatshirts, like the Josh Brolin Goonies look, are almost as iconic, and the hosts tease one of them about adopting cropped sweats.
- Taggart and Rosewood have aged best because this lays the groundwork for two heroic performances in Beverly Hills Cop 2 that could have been nominated; a key to Murphy is that, apart from Brest, he mostly worked with good directors early: Walter Hill, Tony Scott, Robert Townsend, John Landis, even Michael Ritchie on The Golden Child; Cop 3 is best left unmentioned.
- The 'not gonna fall for the banana in the tailpipe' guy is enjoyed for setting it up earlier with the first team insult for Taggart, and the hosts miss the mid-80s cop movie rivalry duo with sarcastic comments; Eilbacher is put back in by a second and declared a law, with 'Eilbacher Mountain' floated.