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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

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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1:12:49

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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1:23:20

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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1:24:19

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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