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The Rewatchables · February 3, 2018

Varsity Blues

host Bill Simmons host Shea Serrano host Jason Concepcion host Mallory Rubin

What aged best: The football scenes, including the hurry-up, no-huddle spread offense
What aged worst: Tweeter (2 of 3 spoken picks)
Biggest nit: No coaches once Kilmer walks out

All 13 categories

Who won the movie James Van Der Beek

Most Rewatchable Scene · 13:09

The team turning on Coach Kilmer in the locker room (2 of 3 spoken picks)

Nominees: Mox coming off the bench to save the game after reading Vonnegut and watching his buddy blow out his knee; the whipped cream sundae; the 'I don't want your life' speech; the team turning on Coach Kilmer; Dawson's big halftime speech; the punt block; and the hook and ladder play, with the joke that Billy Bob is not on the punt block team because he is constantly concussed.

One pick is the whipped cream bikini, which the host will stop for every time as basic human instinct, even though it lasts two seconds.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 41:19

"I don't want your life"

Setting 'I don't want your life' aside as the given, nominees include 'I'm back' and 'Puke and rally', one of which is called a good high school senior yearbook quote, and Kilmer's crude insult of Mox's father, admired as the perfect insult.

The film

Varsity Blues (1999)

Directed by Brian Robbins · Drama

106 minutes

IMDb Letterboxd JustWatch

Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Cast credits have not been imported yet.

Everything from the episode

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

7:52

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Ali Larder as Darcy (as transcribed; Ali Larter)

In the discussion (8)

Approx. transcript time · 00:07:52Read transcript

The first category is introduced as the Dion Waiters Award for best heat check performance by a role player; nominees open with Scott Conn (as transcribed) as Tweeter, described as Wes Welker crossed with Charlie Sheen and as a blatant rip-off of Mac Davis's character in North Dallas 40, then Amy Smart as Jules, the wet-blanket girlfriend who exists to bring the hero down, with Crank, Crank 2 with Jason Statham and Road Trip recalled.
Asked for Amy Smart thoughts, has none at first, then offers one: she is great in Butterfly Effect. — Shea Serrano
Ali Larder (as transcribed) as Lance's original girlfriend who switches her attention to Mox in the hospital before Lance has even been operated on; her line that this is not about love but about her future is respected as honest, her dream of going to FSU and Tallahassee is mocked, and her debut is compared to Magic Johnson in the 1980 finals.
Billy Bob is called the greatest fat guy in sports movie history, with a debate over whether he has a last name at all, since he is once called William Robert; the last nominee is Miss Davis, the teacher slash stripper.
Asked who wins, first tries John Voight (as transcribed), then gives Ali Larder. — Shea Serrano
Voight is ruled ineligible as a starter who is too big for the award; Larder is called 100% the answer, since nothing is a bigger heat check than the whipped cream bikini, the scene friends told you to see the movie for; an underrated Darcy moment at the party, suggesting the dryer do the work, is debated as noise cover versus an assist.
In the whipped cream scene something is visibly taped on to cover her rear when she walks up from the side, odd modesty given the rest of the costume and a scene where a fat guy throws up hot dogs into the washer; nobody at a football party does laundry; she has only about seven scenes, two on the dryer and one changing in the car on the way from the hospital where her boyfriend's knee was torn up.
Agreement that it is Allie Larder, but Scott Conn's performance should not be slept on: of anyone in the movie he was the spin-off candidate, and a Tweeter half-hour sitcom on Fox would have absolutely worked.

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13:09

Most Rewatchable Scene

The team turning on Coach Kilmer in the locker room (2 of 3 spoken picks)

In the discussion (4)

Approx. transcript time · 00:13:09Read transcript

Nominees: Mox coming off the bench to save the game after reading Vonnegut and watching his buddy blow out his knee; the whipped cream sundae; the 'I don't want your life' speech; the team turning on Coach Kilmer; Dawson's big halftime speech; the punt block; and the hook and ladder play, with the joke that Billy Bob is not on the punt block team because he is constantly concussed.
One pick is the whipped cream bikini, which the host will stop for every time as basic human instinct, even though it lasts two seconds.
Two others take the locker room fight, making it two of the three spoken picks while the fourth panelist never states one; they love the revenge and the rebellion: after the running back pops his hamstring Kilmer, by now fully evil, says to shoot him up and get him back out there, and Van Der Beek, Scott Kahn (as transcribed) and Paul Walker decide to stop it.
The hosts cannot see why Kilmer was built up as a great coach with two state titles in thirty years, which would get him fired in Texas when Coach Eric Taylor won two in four, yet the stadium and everything in town is named after him; the diner confrontation after the strip joint is recalled, and the answer to why everyone fears him is that he is a Nazi plugged into the white supremacy group.

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15:22

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

James Van Der Beek's 'I don't want your life' scene

In the discussion (5)

Approx. transcript time · 00:15:22Read transcript

A new category named for Mark Ruffalo dialing it up in Spotlight; there is said to be only one obvious nominee, the 'I don't want your life' scene, and the clip is played.
The Texas accents are very tough; Paul Walker's is super thick in his first scene telling Billy Bob he has a dream and by the end he is in Fast and the Furious.
Two hosts perform the father-son exchange, one as the dad and one as Dawson; the reading runs well past the promised two lines, with an admission of getting caught up and being unable to stop, and a quip about being the father of a starting quarterback.
A dad debate follows: he is called both a great, supportive dad and a terrible one; the billboard was built by boosters, whoever Buddy Garrity is for the Coyotes; the one mark against him is answering the free Brown acceptance with the Friday game plan, defended as what a dad saving $300,000 would do, since he knows your life in West Canaan is ruined if you play badly.
Mox's dad looks like Ed Werder of ESPN and Paul Walker's dad like Chris Cooper, as if the film could not afford the real ones; a second nomination for the overacting award is the scene of the dads making the boys throw the ball, deciding the best quarterback in Texas by a three-yard throw.

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18:38

What’s Aged the Best?

The football scenes, including the hurry-up, no-huddle spread offense

In the discussion (11)

Approx. transcript time · 00:18:38Read transcript

The football scenes are shockingly good, and football is called the best sport to film.
Asked why she is skeptical, offers a take that is a football thing and an indictment of how the movie handles football: the hurry-up, no-huddle spread offense has aged best, but the film implies Jonathan Moxon invents the spread, when his one passing reference to Mississippi Valley State putting up points covers Archie Cooley's late-80s spread innovation, so acting as if Lance and Mox invented it is ludicrous. — Mallory Rubin
The film acts as if Mox is Gus Malzahn; a favorite scene is Paul Walker as the new coach diagramming the play while Mox jumps in with the idea and Billy Bob is baffled; the clip is played, five wide receivers, no tight ends, no huddles, and someone asks whether this is how the Patriots beat the Falcons.
The question of why no assistant coach is coaching the game is raised and parked for nitpicks.
The football is pre-concussion-era, helmet to helmet; a case is made that the concussions aged best, since Billy Bob is concussed in the first five minutes and forced to play by Jon Voight, Lance gets hurt, and the film teaches care with concussions, whereas the NFL took ten more years to acknowledge them and only by 2012, thirteen years later, barred players from returning in the same game; someone should have brought the commissioner a DVD.
Objects that the argument sounds like saying concussions are not bad until the quarterback gets hurt. — Shea Serrano
The late-90s soundtrack is the last nominee, a post-Lithium era with Foo Fighters, Fastball, Collective Soul, Third Eye Blind, Loudmouth and The Offspring.
Asked what aged best, goes with the football scenes for the reasons just outlined. — Jason Concepcion
Picks the spread offense: despite the problems with how it is introduced and who gets credit, going with five receivers and winning the game holds up. — Mallory Rubin
Goes along with the same answer. — Shea Serrano
Not a lot aged well, which is why everyone gives the same answer; football is better to film than basketball, which rarely works and cannot hide a bad dribbler, or baseball, which is too boring.

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24:35

What’s Aged the Worst?

Tweeter (2 of 3 spoken picks)

In the discussion (9)

Approx. transcript time · 00:24:35Read transcript

The team heads to a strip joint, is entertained by their teacher and stays till dawn; high school students in a small town would already know she strips, and they swear to keep her secret while telling the whole team.
The strip club is the Landing Strip, also used in Friday Night Lights and the name of a real one in Houston near the airport, which sets up a James Harden and Rockets joke.
Tweeter's philosophies on women, and on everything, have not aged well: he climbs out of a car full of naked women and advises Mox that beers, shots and pills are all it takes, and is asked by Mox whether he is ready for prison.
Billy Bob's title-winning hook and ladder is not realistic, though Friday Night Lights won its championship with the same play; the clip is cued and narrated, with Tweeter lateraling to Billy Bob, who catches it in slow motion and stares at it with no defender near him, then carries a pile of tacklers across the plane, continuing the tradition of no high school team being able to tackle.
Also aging badly is running the hook and ladder from the 17-yard line at 17 to 14 instead of kicking a field goal to force overtime; the explanation is that there was no coach and plays were called by committee.
Asked what aged worst, answers Tweeter, since you cringe through everything he says. — Jason Concepcion
A case is made that concussion protocol aged worst: even Mox, the civilized one reading Slaughterhouse-Five at practice and bound for Brown, insists the test must be true-or-false questions.
Asked whether it is the same thing, confirms it has to be Tweeter, since there are too many things, including a line he sings about breaking a girl's jaw after she broke his heart. — Shea Serrano
Tweeter thus takes two of the three spoken picks, with the fourth panelist never stating one; he is 5'4" yet averages fifteen catches a game as the whole offense, and the film's secret is that he is bad, dropping a ball before Lance is hurt and failing to get out of bounds at the end; part of why he is a star is that every player except Wendell is white, which did not age well.

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33:58

Apex Mountain

Billy Bob's actor; James Van Der Beek (one yes, one no)

In the discussion (5)

Approx. transcript time · 00:33:58Read transcript

Apex Mountain is explained as whether anyone's career peaked with the movie; one host says yes for James Van Der Beek, on Dawson's Creek, leading a football movie and winning Teen Choice and MTV Movie Awards, while another asks whether his second life as a meme counts as more impactful.
Thinks Dawson goes on for many more years and becomes a sensation for tweens, which is what he is still most associated with, so his apex is the later Dawson years. — Mallory Rubin
Scott Kahn (as transcribed) is a no, with Hawaii Five-0 and the Oceans movie; Ali Larder is a no, with the Final Destinations, fighting Beyonce and Heroes; Amy Smart was already covered; John Voight (as transcribed) is a no, having won an Oscar for Midnight Cowboy in 1969 and fathered Angelina Jolie, with the joke that Anaconda, alongside Ice Cube, is his apex.
Billy Bob, sadly, is a yes: this was his apex.
Paul Walker is a no, not even close; this paved the way for one of the host's favorite apexes, and he is so beautiful and pristine here that everyone would have guessed he would be the biggest star from the movie.

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40:47

Is This Movie Better With…?

Yes: Danny Trejo as Reyes' dad in the stands

In the discussion (2)

Approx. transcript time · 00:40:47Read transcript

Yes, because there are no Latinos in a movie set in Texas, countered by the Reyes and Gonzalez names on the back of jerseys, which one host dressed as for Halloween two years running; yes also because adults were needed to coach at the end and he could have been one.
Asked who Danny Trejo would be, answers that he is Reyes' dad, in the stands. — Shea Serrano

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47:20

Who Won the Movie?

James Van Der Beek

In the discussion (2)

Approx. transcript time · 00:47:20Read transcript

Candidates are Vanderbeek, Billy Bob, Bud Kilmer, Allie Larder or other; Vanderbeek is named immediately as surprisingly good on rewatch, charming, confident and talented; one host is relieved not to be out on a limb alone, and another agrees he was good after disliking the film on first viewing.
Imagine having to wear those wide-leg jeans and convince people you are an elite athlete, a point saved from what aged worst.

Podcast choices

Speaker not identified: James Van Der Beek

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