What’s Aged the Worst?
Runtime; Garrison family scenes; 'I should have loved you more' line; Costner's accent; magic bullet theory; Pesci's performance
In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 01:24:27Read transcript
- The movie is called too long at three hours and eight minutes; another disagrees, nearly naming three-hour movies as what aged best.
- Cut the Sissy Spacek scenes: nobody cares about Garrison's family, compared to the domestic scenes in Donnie Brasco where the wife drags the hero away.
- Liz Garrison's big contribution is telling the housekeeper to get hold of herself; Spacek has no good scene, and she yells at Jim over his JFK nightmares.
- Counterpoint: the family scenes carry 'daddy never keeps his promises' and the trauma of the American male lied to by the American father; the reply is that the fatherhood style has aged the worst.
- It should have been an assassination movie; a parenting tangent follows, then the argument that a movie about an obsessive must show the cost of obsession, with agreement that the scenes are badly written and could be cut.
- Stone is said to have cared about making Garrison a well-rounded role Costner would want; the Kathleen Quinlan role in Apollo 13 works because her husband is in a spaceship.
- Worst line: Garrison saying 'I should have loved you more' as he and his wife are about to have sex.
- Tangent: Kay's return scene in The Godfather is called the worst scene of the best movie ever by one participant and defended as perfect by others.
- Costner's accent goes in and out, better than his Prince of Thieves accent and like Bull Durham in the courtroom; Pesci's is worse; a courtroom line echoes The Untouchables.
- The hosts say the magic bullet theory has been pretty much debunked over how Connolly was sitting, while Stone's documentary still argues the trajectory; one participant still believes in four bullets.
- Last: Pesci, liked far less by two participants; conflating homosexuality with the mafia and anti-communist soldiers is called whacked, and one cannot suspend disbelief with Pesci's baggage in the role.