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The Rewatchables ·

Remember the Titans

year 2000decade 00sdirector Boaz Yakingenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Shea Serranohost Rembert Browne
All 15 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 27:05

The 'left side, strong side' practice scene

The first five minutes and opening credits are liked for setting everything up and introducing a whole bunch of people, which is actual work; the funeral opening tips its hand that somebody dies and you forget it completely until the string is pulled at the end, though the players look like they aged far more than a decade, with Wood Harris in a bald toupee.

The end-of-film updates make almost everyone a municipal employee, and the cemetery walk is called a rip-off of Saving Private Ryan from two years earlier.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:20:37

"You're overcooking my grits, Coach"

The field is narrowed to a great trio: 'you're overcooking my grits, Coach', from the scene demanding a job for Coach Tyrell; 'water is for washing blood off that uniform, and you don't get no blood on my uniform'; and 'I don't scratch my head unless it itches, and I don't dance unless I hear some music'.

The film

Remember the Titans (2000)

Directed by Boaz Yakin · Drama

113 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Denzel Washington Herman Boone
Will Patton Bill Yoast
Wood Harris Julius Campbell
Ryan Hurst Gerry Bertier
Donald Faison Petey Jones
Ethan Suplee Louie Lastik
Nicole Ari Parker Carol Boone
Hayden Panettiere Sheryl Yoast
Kip Pardue Ronnie "Sunshine" Bass
Craig Kirkwood Jerry "Rev" Harris
Kate Bosworth Emma Hoyt
Ryan Gosling Alan Bosley
Burgess Jenkins Ray Budds
Earl C. Poitier Darryl "Blue" Stanton
Neal Ghant Frankie Glascoe
Gregory Alan-Williams Paul "Doc" Hines

Everything from the episode

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

27:05

Most Rewatchable Scene

The 'left side, strong side' practice scene

The 'left side, strong side' practice scene

In the discussion (13)
Approx. transcript time · 00:27:05Read transcript
  • The first five minutes and opening credits are liked for setting everything up and introducing a whole bunch of people, which is actual work; the funeral opening tips its hand that somebody dies and you forget it completely until the string is pulled at the end, though the players look like they aged far more than a decade, with Wood Harris in a bald toupee.
  • The end-of-film updates make almost everyone a municipal employee, and the cemetery walk is called a rip-off of Saving Private Ryan from two years earlier.
  • Julius and Gary yelling at each other, with the 'I'm going to get mine' and 'attitude reflect leadership, Captain' exchange, is nominated: it makes you care about both of them before you know whose side you are on.
  • The Gettysburg speech is nominated as unreal, manipulative and yet an incredible coach move; the film came out right before one host reached high school and every coach then wanted to be Coach Boone, denying water; coaches could make up stats, as Boone does with his older brothers.
  • The 'I don't care if you like each other, but you will respect each other' speech is given to a staff every year by one host, and it leads to the practice where the team finally comes together with 'left side, strong side', after which, the next morning, racism is over, until the bus drop-off shows it is not.
  • Donald Faison's Petey being switched to defense, the comeback, and Sunshine trying to buy everybody dinner at the segregated diner are nominated; the diner scene is called exceptionally well done because Ronnie Bass's 'I didn't know' against Petey's 'I told you' is smart commentary on how white people receive what black people are telling them.
  • The Boone and Yost confrontation about coddling, with 'the world don't give a damn how sensitive these kids are, especially the young black kids', is paired with the diner as two parallel moments that hold up, still real in 2019, and the only scene where the two coaches are not just trading 'worry about your offense'.
  • Rev getting hurt and Ronnie Bass coming in is a really good minute and a half, with the 'when I was 15 I lost my mother and my father in the same month' speech; the soundtrack introduced one host to rock music such as Credence and Fogarty (as transcribed) at twelve, and Sunshine throwing a defender over him is called arguably the best block in sports movie history, with the Samoan lineman's block in Innecessary Roughness (as transcribed) offered as a rival.
  • The last 80 seconds of the championship game are riveting to one host and awful and inexplicable to another: up four with a minute twenty left, the team runs a play, the runner fumbles, and like Hoosiers it is a sports-movie trope; the final play pairs up every white-black relationship at once, with Ronnie blocking for Rev and the two daughters in the stands, which the hosts joke led 37 years later to President Obama.
  • Yost's 'you were the right man for the job' and Denzel's 'you're a Hall of Famer in my book' close two hours of movie, and the hosts would gladly trade a real Hall of Fame induction for Denzel saying it, suggesting he go on Cameo for 50,000 a message.
  • The locker room mama-joke scene with Lou Elastic (as transcribed) is a massive one: Bertier is serious at first, then realizes it is a mama joke, Sunshine kisses him, Gosling dances in his own world, and Ray is overwhelmed by the progress and has to get out of there.
  • Asked for the most rewatchable scene, the pick is 'left side, strong side': it gives goosebumps every time, texting ten people 'left side' gets seven 'strong side' replies, and Gettysburg into that practice is a strong five and a half minutes; smaller favorites are Denzel arguing about the veer with his daughter over game tape and Julius visiting Gary's house, where a cop praises him and he lifts the mom, since the film is built from one-minute vignettes rather than ten-minute scenes.
  • Denzel calling Bertier and Ray the Racist Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in front of everyone, clapping all by himself, is so much fun it should have been added to the most rewatchable scene.
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46:00

What’s Aged the Best?

The soundtrack; the Titan Spirit theme; Denzel tossing the banana to the opposing coach; Ray the Racist as villain; K...

The soundtrack; the Titan Spirit theme; Denzel tossing the banana to the opposing coach; Ray the Racist as villain; Kate Bosworth; the cast

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:46:00Read transcript
  • The actor who plays Gary Bourdier (as transcribed) is so good in Sons of Anarchy that he reads as two different people; one host never watched that show, Googled him and found crazy facial hair, and had assumed the actor died when Bertier did; the character is who Gary would have become if he had not been paralyzed.
  • The soundtrack has aged the best: John Fogarty (as transcribed) faded into classic rock yet ended up in twelve movies, any retro sports movie must use Credence (as transcribed); Blue starts singing four times in the first 22 minutes, Julius tells him to shut up in front of the white people, and the film has a Ryan Murphy quality with Marvin Gazebob (as transcribed), James Taylor, the Temptations, Cat Stevens, Sly Stone and Spirit in the Sky.
  • The Titan Spirit theme, played in the room, makes a host well up; it has been used in countless World Series, Super Bowl and NBA telecasts and at the 2008 Democratic National Convention after Barack Obama's nomination and his victory speech, so the hosts joke that Obama does not become president without Coach Boone, which one host learned only from the research.
  • Denzel tossing the banana to the opposing coach always gets a laugh with his little smirk, and the hosts marvel that he carried a banana in his pocket all game.
  • Ray the Racist is a perfect villain who does not just hold racism but loves it, stalking shirtless around the locker room as if he might kill somebody; he is a made-up character, and a certain short, strong-chinned type of actor is cast for the over-the-top racist, which Matt Damon transcended in School Ties but Burgess Jenkins did not.
  • Kate Bosworth plays the racist token wet-blanket girlfriend who still looks great in every scene and comes around to Julius at the end; the hosts debate how many days later Julius and she would get together, with one saying never because of Gary, another saying within a week, and Ray the Racist judged the better match for her.
  • The racists are power-ranked: Gosling's dad screaming at Yost is a number one seed with racism from eight angles, the racist coach, the brick thrower, every opposing player and the assistant coach who walks out of the diner leaving Yost with the bill.
  • Being attracted to Kate Bosworth here is ruled a no because she plays a high schooler, though everybody in the film is eight years older than high school; the final picks are the Titan Spirit theme, with its arc from sports telecasts to the Obama election, and the cast, which got more famous yet still feels like these characters rather than Avon Barksdale or the Gone in 60 Seconds guy; the gulf between Denzel and the second most famous person in the 2000 cast is gigantic.
  • If Emma and Ray had a kid, the hosts guess he would be one of the tiki-torch people, a legacy Klansman buying rifles at Walmart.
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57:58

What’s Aged the Worst?

The 'in Virginia football is a way of life' opening lifted from Varsity Blues; Virginia sold as a big football state;...

The 'in Virginia football is a way of life' opening lifted from Varsity Blues; Virginia sold as a big football state; Hayden Panettiere's coach's daughter (disputed); the 'this is not a democracy' line; Gary's paralysis getting no extra scene; locker-room singing; football scenes shot too close; the racist-officiating subplot; Will Patton's 'remember the night they played the Titans' line; bending the real-life facts

In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 00:57:58Read transcript
  • The first line, 'in Virginia football is a way of life', is exactly how Varsity Blues started a year earlier with Texas; treating Virginia as a southern football state has not aged well since it is at most the eighth most important football state in the South, and 'we play 3A here' sounds like babies to a Texan used to 5A.
  • Fewer than ten states could claim football as a way of life: Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Nebraska, not Maine.
  • Hayden Panettiere's coach's daughter is nominated as the worst for dialing up an annoying know-it-all, but another host argues she knew her stuff and the Titans lose the championship without her sensing her dad needed to ask Boone for help; the hosts joke that a tiny white woman is why Obama got elected.
  • The 'this is not a democracy, this is a dictatorship and I am the law' line is weak from the screenwriter who gave us 'left side, strong side' and four or five incredible lines, and could have been workshopped.
  • After Gary is paralyzed and Julius visits, the film drops him; it needed one more scene, an Oscar-clip moment with the nurse, and the hosts ask whether we are done with characters singing Ain't No Mountain High Enough in a locker room.
  • Some football scenes were filmed too close and needed more wide shots; the racist officiating in the semifinals, with Yost confronting the referee, is corny and the ref gives up his racism very quickly, though the film needs white-ally moments by the end.
  • Will Patton's 'make sure they remember forever the night they played the Titans' speech divides the hosts: one wanted the line given to Denzel, another says let the chef cook since he is talking to his own defense, and Denzel was not coaching the defense until the championship.
  • As the tiebreaker, the issue with the line is that it is so big and he never says 'the Titans', going 'the time they played the Titans' with eight more words, which was hated. — Rembert Browne
  • The line is bad because it is the name of the movie and the actor is clearly going for the movie show; the hosts love when somebody says the title during the movie, like Travolta in Face Off, and Will Patton is defended as great in the moment because he has learned from Boone; Gary pointing at the coach after a play in the semifinals is another bad part.
  • Bending all the facts from real life is another thing that aged worst.
  • Will ignore the fact-bending forever; as far as he is concerned this is like The Social Network and that is how Facebook was founded. — Shea Serrano
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1:05:10

Casting What-Ifs

No casting what-ifs found

No casting what-ifs found

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:05:10Read transcript
  • No casting what-ifs could be found for the award.
  • While looking for casting what-ifs, one host assumed the producers went to Ed Harris first and ended up with Will Patton, which might have happened.
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1:05:10

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

The actress who plays Coach Boone's wife (Becky Barnett in Boogie Nights)

The actress who plays Coach Boone's wife (Becky Barnett in Boogie Nights)

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:05:10Read transcript
  • The award goes to the that guy or that gal you recognize without knowing the name; Blue is nominated since he just became Blue, the singing serial killer with a machete on CSI, while Ethan Supley (as transcribed) is ruled not a that guy because he is Ethan Supley.
  • The nominee for the winner is Boone's wife, who barely has any work to do here but is Becky Barnett, one of the porn people with Don Cheadle in Boogie Nights; nobody offers a better that person.
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1:06:03

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

Will Patton

Will Patton

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 01:06:03Read transcript
  • The overacting award has to go to the 'you make sure they remember' speech; one host hates both of the others for it, and the hosts say the line needed an editor, Sean Fittenden (as transcribed), to end at 'they remember the Titans'.
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1:06:33

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Kip Pardue as Sunshine (Ronnie Bass)

Kip Pardue as Sunshine (Ronnie Bass)

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 01:06:33Read transcript
  • Sunshine Ronnie Bass has got to be the heat check for one host, who notes he is barely in the movie, about six scenes; another has Petey, Donald Faison, and is told Petey does not count because the award needs a low minute total and Petey is in the whole movie.
  • Petey is a bad teammate who ghosted the team twice and still claims glory both times, with Gosling the good guy who just wants to dance; one host is out on Pete while loving Faison.
  • The case for Sunshine: he shows up 60 percent into the movie with maybe nine lines, and it is all physical, football prowess and charisma; like fight confidence in a fighting movie, he has sports confidence, with the posture of somebody who has flipped a person before, and Kid Perdue (as transcribed) was apparently a stud high school football and basketball player in Georgia.
  • Still going Petey regardless of the rules.
  • Asked as the tiebreaker, the answer is Sunshine. — Rembert Browne
  • Sunshine felt like he was in more of the movie than he is because he is a takeaway moment; he could not arrive before camp because Louie already fills the white-guy-in-the-middle role; Kate Bosworth is considered since she is only in four scenes, but they are not great.
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1:10:01

Recasting Couch

Ed Harris for Will Patton

Ed Harris for Will Patton

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:10:01Read transcript
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1:11:29

Half-Assed Internet Research

Director Boaz Yakin knew nothing about football and was sent by Bruckheimer to a two-week football camp; filmed in Ge...

Director Boaz Yakin knew nothing about football and was sent by Bruckheimer to a two-week football camp; filmed in Georgia, not Alexandria, with school interiors at a rival of one host's high school; LeBron James's favorite movie; the real Coach Boone was disliked and players quit; the 1971 Titans went 13-0 and ranked second nationally with nine shutouts; the comeback game was mid-season, not the state final; every opponent was already integrated; Bertier's accident came after the season; Yoast had four daughters; a toilet, not a brick, went through Boone's window

In the discussion (10)
Approx. transcript time · 01:11:29Read transcript
  • Director Boaz Yakin was hired knowing nothing about American football, so producer Jerry Bruckheimer arranged for him to attend a two-week football camp, after which he resumed full-speed work; the hosts call that full-ass research.
  • The film was not shot in Alexandria but in various locations in Georgia; the high school interiors are at one of a host's rival high schools, Drew Dills (as transcribed), around the corner.
  • Remember the Titans is LeBron James's favorite movie alongside The Hunger Games, making this a black excellence movie destined for Black History Month.
  • Everything big in the film is fake: the real Coach Boone was kind of a dick, people were not fans of him, many players believed his coaching had no correlation to their success, found it too harsh and quit; the film hints at it only in the exchange about his chest-pounding.
  • Watching again, one host has Denzel blindness but thinks Yost was the better coach and tactician while Boone was the better leader; another insists there is no way, since Yost panicked when the opponent came out in shotgun at halftime of the championship.
  • Feels under attack from both sides. — Shea Serrano
  • The 1971 Titans were ranked second in the nation, finished 13-0, won every game by a blowout with nine shutouts, and the big comeback happened mid-season while the state championship was a rout; the hosts compare it to making a movie where the Rams-Chiefs game was the Super Bowl.
  • Boone's line that the other schools are all white and do not worry about race was false, since every school they faced had already been integrated, an unnecessary lie to one host.
  • Gary Bourdier's (as transcribed) accident still hurts every viewing, but in real life it happened after the season, leaving the banquet honoring the undefeated team; that change is the one a host most wishes had not been made, and Yost actually had four daughters, only one used in the movie.
  • The brick through Coach Boone's window was in real life a porcelain toilet; you can tell how much somebody hates you by the size of the object they throw, which is offered as a high school yearbook quote; the $30 million budget made $136 million.
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1:12:49

Apex Mountain

Disney's sappy sports-movie formula; the actor who plays Blue; the actor who plays Racist Ray; Kip Pardue; Hayden Pan...

Disney's sappy sports-movie formula; the actor who plays Blue; the actor who plays Racist Ray; Kip Pardue; Hayden Panettiere

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:12:49Read transcript
  • This might be the height of sappy Disney sports movies, the go-to one people mention first, bigger and better than Miracle; Disney figured out the formula here and kept doing it with The Rookie and Miracle, with Mighty Ducks the other competitor and Angels in the Outfield the sappy comparison; Denzel lowering his guard and putting his daughter over his shoulder brings tears.
  • A soft spot for McFarlane USA (as transcribed), a Kevin Costner white-savior movie with Mexicans in a sports movie, is called justifiable; it was a tweener between theatrical sports movies and streaming, and Costner's Black and White came out the same year, which, with Draft Day where he saved the Browns, cannibalized it.
  • Everybody else went on to do something better except Blue, so it is Blue's Apex Mountain; Apex is defined as the height of a career, when they have the most juice.
  • It is probably Racist Ray's high spot and low spot, Kit Pardue's (as transcribed) too, and Panettiere's best role even if some would say Heroes.
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1:15:20

Picking Nits

Yoast and Boone never connect outside football; a live TV crew at a 1971 high school final; no prevent defense on the...

Yoast and Boone never connect outside football; a live TV crew at a 1971 high school final; no prevent defense on the last play; Boone discussing Lastik's test scores in front of the room; the last play not shown; advanced fumbles; the single grape on Denzel's spoon; the Gettysburg death toll; the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis introduction

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 01:15:20Read transcript
  • A producer would have had the most notes on Yost and Denzel, two ships passing in the night who connect only through dropping off the daughters, though that may be how dads become friends; a TV crew broadcasting the championship live in 1971 is doubted; and the other team should have been in a prevent defense with 20 seconds left instead of leaving nobody for 50 yards.
  • Picking nits is always the worst part of the Rewatchables for him. — Shea Serrano
  • The nits are out of love, since the hosts have seen the movie so many times they have to pick it apart; another nit is Coach Boone telling Lou Elastic (as transcribed) to send his test scores in the middle of a dead-silent room, which is where Disney went too far.
  • Agrees the last play was shot badly, since he wanted to see the run down the sideline and expected a penalty callback; in Texas a fumble could not be advanced and the film advances a couple; and in the camp cafeteria Denzel talks holding a spoon with one single grape and no fruit cup. — Shea Serrano
  • A historical nit: 8 million people did not die at Gettysburg; and Denzel calling Bertier and Ray the Racist Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in front of everyone would have started a race riot, or one of the racist dads would have shot him.
  • The last play is absurd: from their own 24 they run a double reverse and Ronnie Bass blocks two people on his own; every final play in these movies is absurd, from Little Giants' annexation of Puerto Rico and the knuckle puck in Mighty Ducks 2 to Varsity Blues and the hook and ladder in Friday Night Lights.
  • Earlier, while still on the championship, the hosts question the strategy: up by four with a minute twenty, the Titans had timeouts since one was called to get Rev in, and the runner carried the ball straight up like a deer in headlights before fumbling, which, like the leading team in Hoosiers running plays while ahead, is a sports-movie trope.
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1:20:37

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

"You're overcooking my grits, Coach"; "You don't get no blood on my uniform"; "I don't scratch my head unless it itch...

"You're overcooking my grits, Coach"; "You don't get no blood on my uniform"; "I don't scratch my head unless it itches, and I don't dance unless I hear music"; "Attitude reflect leadership, Captain"; "You fumble the football, and I will break my foot off in your John Brown hind parts"; "Water is for cowards"; "I'm a dark-skinned cracker"

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:20:37Read transcript
  • The field is narrowed to a great trio: 'you're overcooking my grits, Coach', from the scene demanding a job for Coach Tyrell; 'water is for washing blood off that uniform, and you don't get no blood on my uniform'; and 'I don't scratch my head unless it itches, and I don't dance unless I hear some music'.
  • Also loved: 'attitude reflect leadership, Captain' and the 'we will be perfect in every aspect of the game' speech ending in 'I will break my foot off in your John Brown hind parts, and then you will run a mile', called perfection and another line the screenwriter punched himself in the shoulder for.
  • Two more favorites are the 'water is for cowards, water makes you weak' exchange, which is the opposite of what water does, and Rev's 'light-skinned brother' answered by Julius with 'I'm a dark-skinned cracker'; water is for cowards could also go under aged worst, like concussions are for cowards.
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1:23:20

Sequel, Prequel, Limited Series, or All-Black Remake

Yes, as a ten-episode Netflix series

Yes, as a ten-episode Netflix series

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 01:23:20Read transcript
  • Yes: the hosts would absolutely watch a ten-episode Netflix remake and one would love to write it, addressing Reed Hastings.
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1:23:20

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Who is the best sports-movie quarterback of all time? Would a parody of this movie be far off from the actual movie?

Who is the best sports-movie quarterback of all time? Would a parody of this movie be far off from the actual movie?

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:23:20Read transcript
  • Everybody has taken a crack at the best sports-movie quarterback; Ronnie Bass is a two seed, with the host still iffy on his pitch, while the Rifleman in All the Right Moves is the best quarterback one host has seen in movies or real life.
  • Across all movies the one seed is Willie Beeman (as transcribed), built by Jamie Foxx studying Aaron Brooks highlights for two years, who foreshadowed where the position went with Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen.
  • Would a parody, like Hot Shots for Top Gun, be far off from the actual movie? No; just change the music, since it is already a hilarious movie and Ray the Racist is comically racist, practically wearing a hood in the locker room.
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1:24:19

Who Won the Movie?

Progress

Progress

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 01:24:19Read transcript
  • There is only one answer among Denzel, racism or President Obama, and it is progress, because that is why we got Obama and the movie solved everything; a case could be made for Obama, who owned the movie by bookending his nomination and victory with its music, which stuns one host.
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More from the conversation

Requested the movie for about four years: Denzel Washington, perhaps the greatest actor of the last two generations, as head coach of a football team working its way through integration is all he needs from any movie.
Approx. transcript time · 00:01:47Read transcript
Showed the film to a new wife and twenty minutes in wondered whether the honeymoon was over; had only ever caught it halfway through on TV and thought of it as a classic, and by the end it was still great but not the same movie remembered.
Approx. transcript time · 00:02:17Read transcript
One host creamed the movie on Page 2 in 2004 as hacky and cliche, while conceding it made money and is one of the few sports movies you can watch with your kids; now with two kids who love it, he has talked himself into it, though the facts are off and the characters poorly drawn while the football scenes are very good.
Approx. transcript time · 00:03:04Read transcript
Complains that, as with Reggie Miller, every invitation to discuss something he loves turns into ten minutes of the host shitting on it.
Approx. transcript time · 00:03:51Read transcript
The based-on-a-true-story label is attacked with an astronaut analogy, since so much about the coach does not line up; one host watched it twice in 48 hours without looking up facts and had assumed every single thing happened, like people who take JFK as what happened; it is called a movie about compromise, important and glad it exists.
Approx. transcript time · 00:03:51Read transcript
Whether this belongs with Denzel's important movies like Malcolm X, sports Malcolm X with the rifle, is debated: one view is he is not all in the way he was in He Got Game or Training Day, more LeBron getting 35 in Sacramento; the other is that he is really great, feels like a coach, and the Petey stare-down pulls you in, while the Disney no-cursing script makes him funnier than remembered.
Approx. transcript time · 00:05:23Read transcript
Two years after Fallen ended with a demon escaping into a cat, Denzel makes any material work, as in John Q, which was built around a father-son speech to a dying kid; like LeBron with the 2018 Cavs he puts up 29, 10 and 12 in twelve movies; in 2000 nobody else could do this role, not Jamie Foxx until 2008 or Samuel Jackson, who would scream; Training Day was eye-opening as a different character.
Approx. transcript time · 00:07:18Read transcript
A tangent on the WB show All American, a fish-out-of-water football show with Omar Epps as the coach, cast because he looks like Mike Tomlin; with Denzel as that coach it would be the greatest show ever.
Approx. transcript time · 00:10:10Read transcript
The premise: Yost is angling for the Virginia football Hall of Fame, which prompts talk of state halls of fame in Georgia and Texas; integration in 1971 demotes Yost for Boone; basing it on a true story gives credibility and makes it less Hallmarky, and in 2000 there was no infinite internet to fact-check it.
Approx. transcript time · 00:11:12Read transcript
What we want from a football movie: Friday Night Lights showed game action best, Any Given Sunday zoomed all the way in like being seasick on a boat, the 1974 Longest Yard went wide like television, Varsity Blues and The Replacements had good scenes; this film sits beside Mighty Ducks, and a Disney sports movie needs an enemy with one oaf of a man, as when Petey is switched to defense and figures out linebacker instantly.
Approx. transcript time · 00:17:10Read transcript
Filed at a 2001 Blockbuster it goes under sports movie, with White Men Can't Jump, or better Disney movie next to The Lion King, since the hosts will not credit it as a race movie; there are no N-words, only monkeys, cracker and animal talk, and one host salivates at the idea of Denzel cursing as Boone.
Approx. transcript time · 00:19:19Read transcript
The $30 million budget made $136 million in an era from 1997 to 2006 of one-star sports movies kept under $30 million with a sellable premise, like Varsity Blues with Vanderbeek (as transcribed) or Mike Tolan's (as transcribed) Coach Carter with Sam Jackson, ending around The Rock's Gridiron Gang.
Approx. transcript time · 00:21:18Read transcript
Real people stand out on rewatch: Wood Harris, Avon Barksdale, as a feel-good Julius; Ryan Gosling in his first big role, terrible at football and there because of his racist dad, dancing like Bob Fosse in the field routine; in 2000 Kip Pardue as Sunshine was the white guy to pick over Gosling and Ryan Hurst, but after Driven with Burt Reynolds he vanished until Mad Men; Ethan Supley (as transcribed) had a comeback on My Name is Earl.
Approx. transcript time · 00:22:18Read transcript
Shea's third book, Movies and Other Things, is out October 8, the day of release, as the first title of the Ringer Books imprint, with a tour from New York through LA, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Chicago and Detroit; the favorite chapter builds the perfect movie heist crew, and Den of Thieves is next week's episode.
Approx. transcript time · 00:25:29Read transcript
The last plays in sports movies are all absurd, from Little Giants' annexation of Puerto Rico and the knuckle puck to Varsity Blues and Friday Night Lights; Pete Berg mailed one host the Friday Night Lights pilot, the host questioned why Matt Saracen threw a Hail Mary from his own 40 after getting the ball back with 40 seconds, and Berg never talked to him again.
Approx. transcript time · 00:40:43Read transcript
Where do the mean racist kids in the convertible drive on a Friday night in Virginia? As in Karate Kid, it is always a convertible with lots of people in the back and somebody insulted, and it was somewhere Berthier (as transcribed) once loved to go.
Approx. transcript time · 01:09:30Read transcript
When the hosts first worked for their boss he gave them Denzel's exact speech, drop a pass and you write a blog post, write a mile, which is why Rem was sent across America to write a column every day on his iPhone, turning up at Chacho's in Houston at 2:30 in the morning.
Approx. transcript time · 01:21:38Read transcript