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The Rewatchables ·

Step Brothers

year 2008decade 00sdirector Adam McKaygenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennessey
All 13 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 22:34

The drum-set scene through the backyard fight

Four nominees are thrown out first: the first dinner scene with the whole family together, start to finish great, where John C. Reilly makes Will Ferrell cry and which ends with Ferrell going to shake Richard Jenkins's hand (as transcribed, 'Richard Jacobs') and slowly pulling it away; the drum scene, a masterpiece that keeps going until the fight in the yard and Mary Steenberg's (as transcribed) profane line; the bunk beds breaking, still funny the hundredth time; and the boat video.

Also floated: the Catalina mixer song and that whole moment; the grounding after the drum set, where the couch exchange between Jenkins and Steenburgen and Reilly and Ferrell is mind-blowing because the two are visibly throwing lines out; Adam Scott's Derek popping his head up into the treehouse, with 'I haven't had a carb since 2004' called one of the best lines in the movie and an obvious body double for the abs; and the porno-magazine time-machine bit leading up to it.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 55:25

"It's a fucking Catalina wine mixer, man"

There are too many contenders to choose from; the legacy quote is held to be the Catalina wine mixer line, which anyone who loves the movie can throw out anywhere, and 'did we just become best friends' is a pretty big one too; picking a best quote is called impossible because the movie is all quotes.

The film

Step Brothers (2008)

Directed by Adam McKay · Drama

98 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Will Ferrell Brennan Huff, the 39-year-old layabout son of Nancy. Bryce Hurless plays Brennan's young self.
John C. Reilly Dale Doback, the 40-year-old layabout son of Robert
Richard Jenkins Dr. Robert Doback, Dale's widowed father and a medical doctor
Mary Steenburgen Nancy Huff, Brennan's divorced mother, with whom Robert is remarried
Adam Scott Derek Huff, Brennan's successful but arrogant younger brother. Dmitri Schuyler-Linch plays Derek's young self
Kathryn Hahn Alice Huff, Derek's lonely wife who engages in a sexual affair with Dale
Andrea Savage Denise, Brennan's therapist and eventual love interest
Rob Riggle Randy, Derek's best friend who works under him at a helicopter leasing company
Lurie Poston Tommy Huff, Derek and Alice's oldest child and son
Elizabeth Yozamp Tiffany Huff, Derek and Alice's youngest child and daughter
Logan Manus Chris Gardocki, the juvenile leader of a group of bullies and Dale's nemesis

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

22:34

Most Rewatchable Scene

The drum-set scene through the backyard fight; the treehouse scene with Derek; the grounding scene on the couch

The drum-set scene through the backyard fight; the treehouse scene with Derek; the grounding scene on the couch

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:22:34Read transcript
  • Four nominees are thrown out first: the first dinner scene with the whole family together, start to finish great, where John C. Reilly makes Will Ferrell cry and which ends with Ferrell going to shake Richard Jenkins's hand (as transcribed, 'Richard Jacobs') and slowly pulling it away; the drum scene, a masterpiece that keeps going until the fight in the yard and Mary Steenberg's (as transcribed) profane line; the bunk beds breaking, still funny the hundredth time; and the boat video.
  • Also floated: the Catalina mixer song and that whole moment; the grounding after the drum set, where the couch exchange between Jenkins and Steenburgen and Reilly and Ferrell is mind-blowing because the two are visibly throwing lines out; Adam Scott's Derek popping his head up into the treehouse, with 'I haven't had a carb since 2004' called one of the best lines in the movie and an obvious body double for the abs; and the porno-magazine time-machine bit leading up to it.
  • The film is thought of as micro moments rather than scenes, a movie of lines and dialogue; the job interview is added, and a 2 Chainz song called Trap Back stops in the middle to play the audio of the pan scene for a minute and a half, ending on 'get out of my office', taken as proof that movie dialogue can be dropped into a song and loved.
  • Will Ferrell is called weirdly influential on that period of rap, basically inventing Watch the Throne; Kanye loves him and famously quoted 'don't lose your dinosaur' in an interview with Zach Barron (as transcribed).
  • One pick is the drum scene, played as a clip from the accusation about the touched drum set through the threat to put his testicles on it, and taken as the winner all the way through the fight.
  • The fake testicles got significant space in Alan Siegel's oral history: they cost a few thousand dollars by one account and twenty thousand by the half-assed internet research, the designer warned McKay a really nice set would be expensive and McKay told him to do what he needed, and Ferrell asked to keep them and brings them out for dinner parties.
  • A second pick is the treehouse, with Derek's 'I don't have a problem, Dale. Actually, I have the opposite of a problem. I made over 550K last year' read out as proof that Adam Scott is an amazing dickhead; a third pick is the scene when they get grounded.
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27:47

What’s Aged the Worst?

The gay-slur jokes

The gay-slur jokes

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 00:27:47Read transcript
  • Not a lot has aged badly, but the film sits at the tail end of the era before gay slurs left comedies; they stand out here, though The Hangover is far more guilty and Superbad has them too, and around 2010, once Twitter let people mobilize, the joke became unmakeable.
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27:47

Casting What-Ifs

Jon Hamm and Thomas Lennon auditioned for Derek before Adam Scott was cast; the film was built around Ferrell and Rei...

Jon Hamm and Thomas Lennon auditioned for Derek before Adam Scott was cast; the film was built around Ferrell and Reilly, so there were few other what-ifs

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:27:47Read transcript
  • The movie started with John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell and then went and found actors, so the only real what-if is Derek, for which Jon Hamm and Thomas Lennon auditioned during Mad Men (as transcribed, 'Badman'); something in Adam Scott's audition won them over.
  • Hamm as Derek is called one of the better what-ifs the show has had, more intimidating and still funny, but Adam Scott has something evil and punchable about him, and it would be scary to punch Hamm.
  • Scott told the oral history he modeled Derek on moneyed, douchey people he found online and in the Rob Report (as transcribed), a guy who reads a magazine with a speedboat on the cover; the name-drops at the first dinner are all people who seem douchey, Mark Cuban as 'the cubes', Chad Michael Murray, Bobby Flay and Seal, plus the Dane Cook pay-per-view, and being name-dropped by Derek is a tough beat.
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30:00

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Catherine Han (as transcribed)

Catherine Han (as transcribed)

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:30:00Read transcript
  • A host has never been happier to do the award until the show gets to Boogie Nights; the film is full of heat checks, a second unit whose box score would be crazy, lots of Rondo lines of nine assists, seven boards and four steals.
  • Nominees: Rob Riggle, in what felt like the first time seeing him, also the cop in The Hangover; Andrea Savage; the little kid bully; Derek's son singing; and Horatio Sands (as transcribed) as the eighties Billy Joel cover-band singer.
  • Catherine Han not only wins but is argued to be one of the great heat checks the show has ever discussed: five scenes and about seven minutes, one of the funniest movie performances ever; McKay said her first scene, where she gets turned on after John C. Reilly punched Derek and basically mounts him, was the greatest acting performance he has witnessed, and the key is that she commits, delivering an explicit come-on like a lunatic.
  • The hosts do not understand why she is not a bigger star, allowing that she had kids and that actresses often get fewer roles; she is never bad, phenomenal in Bad Moms, a huge hit, and in Afternoon Delight, joined the Jill Soloway universe with Transparent and I Love Dick, but never led a successful show or movie, which is called a failure not on her.
  • An aside asks whether the scene where Randy has a heart attack is in the final movie; it is not, and the cut scene is played, in which Randy's heart stops for a moment, he says he saw his grandmother and asks Derek whether he saw his Nana on the way in, with Derek checking that he is okay.
  • There are not ten seconds in the movie where Catherine Han is not funny; she gets it.
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33:37

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

Andrea Savage

Andrea Savage

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:33:37Read transcript
  • The award is explained as the person you like from a movie without knowing their name; Andrea Savage is the one who ends up with Will Ferrell here, and she is really good in The House, an underrated film that prompted a host to look her up and learn she had kids and checked out for years; she now has the TruTV show I'm Sorry, is a friend of The Watch and came on the Thrones show.
  • Per the oral history she was originally in Party Down with Adam Scott but got pregnant and had to leave the show, which went to Lizzie Kaplan (as transcribed); she is really funny in this movie and a good Joey Pants.
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33:37

Half-Assed Internet Research

John C. Reilly cried real tears in the divorce scene; Boats and Hoes was written by Dr. Luke, who had been the SNL gu...

John C. Reilly cried real tears in the divorce scene; Boats and Hoes was written by Dr. Luke, who had been the SNL guitarist; Ferrell did his own singing and Reilly his own drumming at the Catalina Wine Mixer; Adam Scott lip-synced Sweet Child O' Mine in the van; the dinosaur monologue was ad-libbed by Jenkins and McKay in two takes; the prosthetic testicles reportedly cost up to $20,000

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:33:37Read transcript
  • John C. Reilly really cried during the divorce scene, real tears in a real acting performance; asked as a child of divorce whether the scene landed, a host answers a hundred percent; Han starts crying too and calls him honey, prompting Adam Scott (as transcribed, 'Dan Scott') to ask why she is calling him honey.
  • Boats and Hoes was made by the controversial Dr. Luke, which the hosts suspect traces to his years as the Saturday Night Live guitarist when McKay and Ferrell were on the show; Ferrell did his own singing and Reilly all the drumming at the Catalina Wine Mixer, and Ferrell's operatic performance (transcribed as 'Porti Volare') is weirdly good, opera rather than a pop song, from a crazy talented man.
  • Adam Scott lip-synced Sweet Child O' Mine, the one guy in the van doing so, which a host never noticed until armed with the tidbit; the a cappella Guns N' Roses rendition is also called one of the most rewatchable scenes.
  • The dinosaur monologue was ad-libbed by Jenkins and McKay during a throw-anything session and shot in only two takes; McKay promised Jenkins he would not use it, and before the screening Jenkins asked whether he had used it and learned it was in. It is called an awesome scene that arguably belonged among the most rewatchable, a favorite three-character exchange in which Jenkins's character planned to be a doctor for a while and then go back to being a dinosaur, Brennan asking how that is even a skill, and Dale telling him a human could never be a dinosaur.
  • Stepped on early during the scene discussion: the half-assed internet research found claims that the prosthetic testicles cost $20,000, against the few thousand dollars in the oral history.
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40:47

Apex Mountain

Catherine Han (as transcribed); Adam Scott (1 yes, 1 for Eastbound and Down); Adam McKay (one yes, proposer shifted t...

Catherine Han (as transcribed); Adam Scott (1 yes, 1 for Eastbound and Down); Adam McKay (one yes, proposer shifted to The Big Short)

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:40:47Read transcript
  • Catherine Han is a yes, a hundred percent: this put her on the map in the greatest way possible in a movie people rewatch all the time.
  • Will Ferrell is a no: after a clarification that Apex Mountain means the greatest moment of a career rather than just comedic performances, a host still thinks Anchorman is it, he was in the middle of a great run, and he was still at the tail end of SNL, having played Bush for a couple of years.
  • Adam McKay gets a yes at first, the peak of his powers, making an iconic comedy out of nothing, with no plot, that let him do whatever he wants; then The Big Short, $140 million and a Best Director nomination, is raised and the same host changes his mind and goes Big Short, while another thinks McKay has not hit his apex yet and it is in front of him, citing the jittery Big Short camera work in Succession even though the show is mostly creator Jesse Armstrong's handiwork.
  • Adam Scott gets a hundred percent from one host; another would instead name Eastbound and Down, where his agent Pat Anderson is mind-blowing in two and a half scenes, with the black-credit-card exchange with John Hawkes recited up to its crude punchline; Will Ferrell's Ashley Schaefer BMW plums speech from the same show gets a shout-out, and without Step Brothers Scott would not have been unleashed as a comedy dick in that role.
  • Mary Steenburgen is a no, though she gives good stuff and is beautiful at around sixty; Richard Jenkins is a no; John C. Reilly is a no.
  • For Reilly, Boogie Nights and Magnolia are offered, with Days of Thunder and Talladega Nights in the conversation; one host calls him his least favorite part of Magnolia and would cut the whole character, Walk Hard is mentioned, and Boogie Nights is given as the answer for his exercise dance behind the glass during the Mark Wahlberg song before Feel the Heat.
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48:40

Is This Movie Better With…?

Yes

Yes

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:48:40Read transcript
  • Trejo could have been in this movie, sure, why not; the audience, via a couple of emails, is ready to retire the Danny Trejo category and the hosts kill it on the spot, since the lesson is always that Trejo should be in every movie, with Call Me by Your Name imagined as the exception, and even there it would be hilarious if he rented the bikes or cut the riders off in a pickup truck.
  • Listeners are invited to email themailbag at the ringer to decide the next, more polarizing figure for the 'would this movie be better off with blank' category; Adam Scott and Catherine Han are floated, though she would make any movie better, and an on-air invitation is extended to her to come do podcasts.
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51:46

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

Richard Jenkins or Rob Riggle

Richard Jenkins or Rob Riggle

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:51:46Read transcript
  • Richard Jenkins is proposed and contested: one host insists he is not overacting in this movie, another counters that he does a couple of times, that they knew, and that he gets really mad in the kitchen.
  • Riggle overacts, but that is Riggle's whole thing, and this was the first time he did the bit now familiar from his real-estate commercials; the Kobayashi line is still funny, and the pals are funny too.
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52:19

Picking Nits

The brothers needed a couple more minutes of backstory on becoming employed and living on their own; the cops would b...

The brothers needed a couple more minutes of backstory on becoming employed and living on their own; the cops would be called to that house far more often; the Catalina Island scenes are visibly shot on the Malibu and Laguna Beach cliffs, which is called intentional rather than a nit

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:52:19Read transcript
  • The only nit for one host is needing two more minutes of backstory on both brothers becoming successfully employed and living on their own; another liked those beats, basically Ferrell discovering mid-dump that he should buy Charmin; a further nit is that the cops would be called to that house more often given all the late-night noise.
  • A prequel hypothetical, Brennan and Dale at ages 21 to 35 before they met, finds no answer: no twenty-year-olds are funny like that, Michael Cera would just be different, and it would be better to see known dramatic actors like Robert Pattinson and Zac Efron try it; turning Stranger Things season 3 into a Step Brothers prequel is joked about, and a Cobra Kai style ten-years-later movie is preferred by one host.
  • Not counted as a nit because it is funny and intentional: having lived in Southern California, a host finds it hilarious that the Catalina Island material is clearly shot on the cliffs of Malibu and Laguna Beach, which look nothing like Catalina; another suspects they could not get a permit to shoot on Catalina.
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55:25

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie

"It's a fucking Catalina wine mixer, man"; "Did we just become best friends"; "Why do you have Randy Jackson's autogr...

"It's a fucking Catalina wine mixer, man"; "Did we just become best friends"; "Why do you have Randy Jackson's autograph on a martial arts weapon?"

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:55:25Read transcript
  • There are too many contenders to choose from; the legacy quote is held to be the Catalina wine mixer line, which anyone who loves the movie can throw out anywhere, and 'did we just become best friends' is a pretty big one too; picking a best quote is called impossible because the movie is all quotes.
  • The Randy Jackson martial-arts-weapon question is offered as being as good as any quote in any movie; every Derek line is funny, including a crude line about helping out his friends and his flattery of Richard Jenkins while trying to sell the house, and his first name-drop of Mark Cuban as 'the cubes' before listing douchey 2008 celebrities and the Dane Cook pay-per-view.
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56:00

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Did Will Ferrell's character really last with the therapist? Should they make Step Brothers 2? Is there a comedy whos...

Did Will Ferrell's character really last with the therapist? Should they make Step Brothers 2? Is there a comedy whose sequel is better than the original?

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:56:00Read transcript
  • Whether Will Ferrell's character really lasted with the therapist is waved off because it is a comedy, with a guarantee that Andrea Savage would be in any Step Brothers 2.
  • Asked whether they should make Step Brothers 2, two hosts say no, though one clarifies that does not mean not going; the challenge to name a comedy whose second film tops the first draws Godfather 2 as a joke, Another 48 Hours and Beverly Hills Cop 2 as nos, 'the clumps' (as transcribed) as a tease, and the observation that there was never a Stripes 2.
  • The Equalizer is named as a sequel better than its first film. — Bill Simmons
  • After the Equalizer tease, the defense is that it is really good, with Denzel Washington as a Lyft driver in Boston.
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56:57

Who Won the Movie?

Adam McKay

Adam McKay

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:56:57Read transcript
  • The first picks split between Farrell (as transcribed) and Riley (as transcribed), the latter because Reilly got Walk Hard out of this movie; the case for Ferrell is that his influence on everybody in the movie is palpable, inviting them along on the journey.
  • A request to name Han and Scott together is refused as a procedural move; the counter is that Ferrell was going to be funny no matter what, so winning would require an extraordinary Ferrell performance, while Reilly matched him coming in from drama in a way Ferrell could not reverse opposite Daniel Day Lewis, so the degree of difficulty favors Reilly.
  • Since the two performances are dead even, McKay is raised and the oral history would argue it is him; the hosts settle on McKay as the non-controversial consensus pick, with a shout-out to John C. Reilly for stepping into comedies when he is not a comedian, or perhaps a comedian miscast his whole career, and a joke that he should not have been the catcher in For Love of the Game.
Podcast choices
Speaker not identified
Will Ferrell
Speaker not identified
John C. Reilly
Speaker not identified
Adam McKay
Speaker not identified
Adam McKay
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More from the conversation

Listeners picked Step Brothers over a Tom Cruise movie TBD in a Twitter poll the host expected Cruise to win in a walk; the lesson is that Step Brothers is really popular, and that the two most rewatchable Cruise films, Jerry Maguire and A Few Good Men, were already done. Collateral is promised anyway, since every twenty episodes two of the hosts get a movie only they care about, prompting jokes about a subscription Michael Mann podcast and a four-hour Blackhat director's cut.
Approx. transcript time · 00:00:15Read transcript
The Ringer ran an oral history of the film that Tuesday, and a host's own podcast interview with Will Ferrell about Step Brothers from the previous summer, ten or twelve minutes, will be appended to the end of this episode.
Approx. transcript time · 00:01:37Read transcript
The film's brilliance was belated, taking about two years to catch on; the theory, which Adam McKay endorsed, is Will Ferrell fatigue, like a LeBron season where voters put him fifth for MVP, plus cable repeats. It gets funnier on each viewing, nearly every scene is funny with none of the valleys of Bill Murray films like Stripes, and every transitional moment is used to make the brothers seem more certifiable.
Approx. transcript time · 00:01:54Read transcript
Step Brothers is called the last truly canonical Will Ferrell movie, the one that goes on his Hall of Fame plaque, closing the 2001-2008 run from Zoolander through Old School, Elf, Anchorman, Kicking and Screaming, Bewitched, Talladega Nights, Blades of Glory and Semi-Pro; Bewitched, with Nicole Kidman, was a big-budget, high-concept failure.
Approx. transcript time · 00:03:13Read transcript
Comparable runs: Jim Carrey 1994 to 2000 and Adam Sandler 1995 to 1999; comedians have a four-to-five-year shelf life leading movies, from Bill Murray's Meatballs-to-Ghostbusters stretch on, before audiences figure them out like a pitcher or they go dramatic; Eddie Murphy's 1982 to 1988 is the gold standard yet only seven years. Ferrell joined SNL in October 1995 and did not take off in films until 2001, after which the McKay-Ferrell school and the Vince Vaughn and Wilson brothers wave made a great run of comedies.
Approx. transcript time · 00:04:36Read transcript
One host is picked out as the Sandler guy; Big Daddy came out as a host was coming of age, someone likes Sandler and was a man-child at the time, and Big Daddy is called flat out still a good movie worth riding for, with a good Jon Stewart performance.
Approx. transcript time · 00:04:51Read transcript
Who is Will Ferrell today: commercially probably Kevin Hart, with Tiffany Haddish a bet on future performance after one and a half movies and Night School coming; asked about Bateman, a host answers that the Emmy nominee is saving his talents for Ozark. There is no center of the comedy universe, the Rogan (as transcribed) period has passed, and films like Tag and Game Night chase the loose, improv-heavy Ferrell style without him; Melissa McCarthy is in the conversation, with Bridesmaids and Girls Trip called the funniest performances of the decade.
Approx. transcript time · 00:06:37Read transcript
Comedy has migrated into other genres, Deadpool 2, Guardians and Ant-Man and the Wasp as much as Game Night or Blockers; the SNL feeder system broke down this decade, delivering some female stars but no translatable Ferrell or Sandler; Kate McKinnon's The Spy Who Dumped Me is a test, Bill Hader could have ripped off a Jim Carrey run had he wanted it, and Sandberg (as transcribed) might have had a run, but Hot Rod and Popstar were cult favorites and box-office failures.
Approx. transcript time · 00:08:28Read transcript
Ferrell almost never works alone, always with a Vince Vaughn, Amy Poehler, John C. Reilly or John Heder as a number two; aligning with Adam McKay, the big winner of the oral history, was his other smart move. McKay is called the best comedy director we have, the Harold Ramis of his generation, who has graduated from comedies, though Succession and The Big Short are funnier than most comedies and his Dick Cheney film Backseat is coming; he and Ferrell have about the highest approval rating in L.A. along with Mike Schur.
Approx. transcript time · 00:10:56Read transcript
McKay and Ferrell find talent and unleash it: Catherine Han here, and Adam Scott, who had seemed like the third guy in a drama and found a second comedic life between this and Eastbound; Anchorman made Steve Carell and Paul Rudd famous. Apatow is another everyone loves working with; both camps blow up scenes that are not working and yell for funnier lines, and this film is not really a movie with a story so much as a wait for something wild in every scene.
Approx. transcript time · 00:12:15Read transcript
Per McKay in the oral history, the genesis was wanting to see a movie where bunk beds collapse, then little kids beating up grown men and a memory of a kid on his block threatening an adult; a SeaWorld sequence was cut and reused for Anchorman 2, and the seeds became two grown men living at home. Later improv comedies feel scriptless, with obligatory plot stretches like Blockers' hotel run, whereas even this film's plot business, the Catalina wine mixer, is as funny as the set pieces.
Approx. transcript time · 00:13:35Read transcript
Anchorman also gained steam after a modest release, which a host noticed from emails to his 2009 movie-quotes column; Step Brothers took five or six years, though one host was quoting the house of learned doctors within two. The genius is stupid people insisting they are smart, and John C. Reilly, one of the greatest living character actors, was asked to go toe-to-toe with the funniest movie actor in the world and sometimes won.
Approx. transcript time · 00:15:07Read transcript
They shot two full Anchormans and a million feet of film here, enough for a four-hour Step Brothers one host would watch on a loop, with twenty-minute scenes cut; another is torn, since the Anchorman deleted scenes messed with the movie in his head, and Boogie Nights has his favorite deleted scenes. McKay knows when to cut, and the 95-minute film needs to be short because there is no plot or stakes.
Approx. transcript time · 00:16:27Read transcript
The film did well but not unbelievably well at the box office, then sold four million DVDs and Blu-rays at the height of that era, perhaps another $70 million; one host still owns more than a thousand discs while another kept fifty, including multiple Halloweens.
Approx. transcript time · 00:18:51Read transcript
Richard Jenkins gets a few minutes: the clip of Dale laying out a scenario in which Nancy, seeing him after a shower, trades the old bull for the young calf, until Jenkins's character tells him to shut up; a character actor for a hundred years, always somebody's husband, the bad guy or the lawyer, in Outside Providence, Absolute Power, Flirting with Disaster, Me Myself and Irene, and the assistant coach in Eddie, a shockingly decent rewatchable.
Approx. transcript time · 00:37:03Read transcript
2008 was Jenkins's wild year: Burn After Reading, Step Brothers, his biggest hit, and The Visitor from Tom McCarthy, which earned a Best Actor nomination; since then he has been a fixture in prestige films like The Shape of Water, was on Six Feet Under, is good in Friends with Benefits as Justin Timberlake's father with Alzheimer's, in Killing Them Softly as the lawyer and in Jack Reacher, did uncredited voice work for Ruffalo in Spotlight, and is a favorite in Cabin in the Woods; a belated renaissance past fifty that rarely happens.
Approx. transcript time · 00:38:57Read transcript
A hierarchy of Will Ferrell movies: one host now puts this first, ahead of Anchorman, because it has no skippable parts, though Anchorman meant more at a time when speaking in its quotes hurt his sex life; lists given are Anchorman, Step Brothers, Old School, Zoolander, and this, Anchorman, Old School; Wedding Crashers' meatloaf cameo is one of the great heat checks and is requested for the show, Elf gets a shout-out for a brother, and Zoolander slipped through the cracks by opening right after 9/11.
Approx. transcript time · 00:41:36Read transcript
The Other Guys is a genius idea not executed as well as hoped, too much like a real cop movie, with Wahlberg seemingly unsure whether he was parodying himself; but without it McKay could not have made The Big Short, since it is a satire of the financial crisis and an indictment of big banking hidden in a cop movie.
Approx. transcript time · 00:43:13Read transcript
Reilly is one of the funniest comedy actors of the last twenty-five years despite rarely doing comedies: a trained actor who figured out comedy rather than a comedian, which is rare because most actors are self-serious, as with Jeremy Renner in Tag, Dustin Hoffman, or De Niro, who is funny in Midnight Run because he thinks it is a drama. Commitment to the emotional truth is why Reilly, Ferrell on SNL and this movie work, with Ferrell's Wake Up and Smile sketch and the Dodge Stratus and dog-training bits as examples, and McKay treats absurdity as documentary.
Approx. transcript time · 00:47:36Read transcript
A host who never approaches celebrities bulldozed over to Catherine Han at a pre-awards party, with friend Daniel Kellison who knew her, and had a stammering ten-minute conversation; she was super nice.
Approx. transcript time · 00:50:59Read transcript
Anchorman 2 is complicated: great stuff and lights-out stretches, but it derails for twenty minutes when he is blind, a bit that should have been a deleted scene; the Step Brothers oral history shows they usually knew what to cut and this was the one time they did not. It plays constantly on Epix, which only one host seems to have.
Approx. transcript time · 00:54:08Read transcript
A Magnolia take: the film needs thirty minutes cut, which means losing a character entirely, and Reilly's is the one with the worst arc, which Paul Thomas Anderson, who has said it is too long, might agree with; a host's mother, whose favorite movies are Magnolia and Sex, Lies, and Videotape and whose favorite actors are Mickey Rourke and Richard Gere, loves a damaged pretty boy and is proposed as a guest for a Magnolia episode; the damaged-pretty-boy quip is turned on Chris Ryan with an Unfaithful episode in mind.
Approx. transcript time · 00:59:13Read transcript
Diane Lane is called the favorite actress of the last thirty years who was not a bigger deal: a blindingly bad Boston accent in The Perfect Storm, but a rare appeal to both men and women, from The Outsiders and her breakout A Little Romance, directed by George Roy Hill with Olivier; a host would happily introduce himself to her at a party with full-name direct address, joked at Sean Fennessey's expense.
Approx. transcript time · 01:00:35Read transcript
Next week is Midnight Run for its thirtieth anniversary, the other hosts' turn after the poll, and the episode signs off with a 'shut the fuck up' aimed at Chris Ryan.
Approx. transcript time · 01:02:25Read transcript