‹ All movies

The Rewatchables · July 13, 2018

Step Brothers

host Bill Simmons host Chris Ryan host Sean Fennessey

What aged worst: The gay-slur jokes

All 13 categories

Who won the movie Adam McKay
Dion Waiters Award Catherine Han (as transcribed)
“That Guy” Award Andrea Savage

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

IMDb Letterboxd JustWatch

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

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.

Share this discussion More Most Rewatchable Scene answers

27:47

What’s Aged the Worst?

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.

Share this discussion More What’s Aged the Worst? answers

30:00

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

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.

Share this discussion More The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance answers

33:37

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

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.

Share this discussion More The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award answers

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.

Share this discussion More Apex Mountain answers

48:40

Is This Movie Better With…?

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.

Share this discussion More Is This Movie Better With…? answers

51:46

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

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.

Share this discussion More The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award answers

56:57

Who Won the Movie?

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

Share this discussion More Who Won the Movie? answers