In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:27:51Read transcript
- Malkovich saying the title in the movie, two different times, is a favorite thing and the hallmark of Bruckheimer movies, like 'welcome to the Rock'; the hosts imagine Bruckheimer reading the script in the bathtub and jotting a note that nobody says the title.
- Nick Cage has aged the best: he has become a punching bag, but people forget he won an Oscar and was an awesome action hero in the 90s, holding the Grantland action-hero championship belt for two or three years; unlike 80s action guys such as Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Seagal, he, Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson were actors before they were action heroes, and he rattles off post-murder one-liners like the bunny line.
- The secret of the movie is that ridiculous things happen but the characters are played by smart, good actors buying in: Cusack, Malkovich, Ving, Buscemi and Cage are all great, and Malkovich is 100% evil, believing everything he is saying.
- Cage's hair has aged the best, this being the best year for it: thinning, so he grew it out wavy, with no explanation for going from high and tight out of the army to an outrageous mullet in prison while bettering himself and learning Spanish, looking like a bass tech for Poison.
- Chappelle has aged incredibly well, and there is more racially charged humor than remembered, which one host flatly labels racist, including a lot of characters using a slur for each other; Chappelle is nonetheless very funny. The Cyrus kill line 'Cy... anara' (transcribed 'Sigh! Anatta'), which he had prepared and was waiting for someone to call him Cy, is another thing that aged best.
- The Buscemi and Cage exchange after Cage comes back up from the kill below is played as a clip: whether working 50 hours a week for 50 years and hoping to die before the indignity of the toilet is insane. Buscemi goes to nine other levels, 'most murders are a crime of necessity rather than desire', and would give the greatest TED talk; a host admits that movies mocking people for having a job hurt his feelings, as with Heat.
- Malkovich has aged the best for this host, on his run of villains like In the Line of Fire, really in the pocket as the heavy, funny, smart and scary, knowing exactly how far to go; it was a great period when action movies stopped requiring jacked-up Jose Canseco types and instead hired incredible drama actors to elevate stupid material for less money than the action guys cost. — Chris Ryan
- The trend started with Rickman in Die Hard and led to Lithgow and Malkovich; asked which Malkovich role comes to mind first, the answers are In the Line of Fire, Dangerous Liaisons and Teddy KGB, with Con Air right underneath; he looks the same in every movie yet his characters feel different, as in the Killing Fields, and Mile 22 gets a thumbs up with reservations.
- For another host the best is Nick Cage.