Would watch a prequel about Jim's entire USC film school stint, every class. — Chris Ryan
Did they always have such telling books lying around, like Mailer's Armies of the Night next to the TV, with every title visible; jokes about Bill's own set-dressed books.
Eddie and the Cruisers, definitely, is the best use of an Arthur Rimbaud book. — Chris Ryan
Was Madsen's character a Roger Corman type? Answer: an actual hanger-on in Warhol and Paul Morrissey art porn. — Bill Simmons
Irish cop in Milwaukee; Annie's hospitalization; hungriest bakery item; the cake left for Nathan; Ted's wealth and his number one and two; Annie's mom and Bill; Rita and Becca in Vegas; getting drunk so fast; the future of Annie's bakery
How did a cop with an Irish accent end up in Milwaukee? — Bill Simmons
Should Annie have been briefly hospitalized after the shower? One says yes; the others were lukewarm, one saying Annie was going through life's normal ebbs and flows. — Bill Simmons
Asked which bakery item made them hungriest, the answer is the cake Annie left for Nathan; how many days did it sit out with raccoons before he ate it? — Mallory Rubin
Nobody would leave a cake out; leaving it there was a show. — Mallory Rubin
What is the source of Ted's wealth, and if Annie was number three, who were numbers one and two? — Mallory Rubin
What happened between Annie's mom and Bill after she set them up? He was expected as a wedding callback; the Air Marshal callback is the best. — Mina Kimes
What happens between Rita and Becca if the plane reaches Vegas?
How did they get drunk so fast on the plane? Altitude is suggested.
What is the future of Annie's bakery: does she reopen with Nathan under the cock baby name? A bachelorette-party bakery called Cockbaby is pitched as a business idea.
The final unanswerable is Annie's own question: why is an Irish cop in Milwaukee? — Mina Kimes
Is final opus good? Wacky guitar/music-teacher ambition and triumphant-but-cheesy Disney ride sound;Soren California preferred to world version aside.
Principal Walters more uptight than Little Bill because latter works on porn sets;Boogie Nights script-reading joke.
Coach secretly gay hypothesis opposed by different women evidence and lack of prior thought;modern dance/service/era cues speculative only. — Bill Simmons
Would restored program ending improve film? Governor could provide budget,Portland music cuts doubted.
Why invite firing principal and why would he attend final goodbye? — Bill Simmons
Rowena absent from finale;wife excluded her imagined,New York success/failure unknown and possible followup movie. — Bill Simmons
Coltrane Gershwin Holland name criticized;imagined drive-home Rowena argument with all-black cast button,Sam Jackson and Regina King preferred to Megan Good.
The hosts report that Sorkin later admitted writing the screenplay high on crack cocaine, locked in the Four Seasons in LA while also developing Sports Night. — Bill Simmons
The news is met with shock and the joke that it explains why nobody finishes a sentence in his movies; he is still called a fantastic writer. — Van Lathan
Two participants say they already knew; his substance issues are described as documented and continuing for a while. — Van Lathan
The hosts say sources conflict on whether the White House set was built for Dave or for this movie and reused for Nixon and Independence Day; the bedrooms are said to match The West Wing but not Dave. — Bill Simmons
The hosts say Spin City came out of someone seeing this movie. — Bill Simmons
The hosts report Fox kept his Parkinson's secret, hiding his shaking left hand in his pocket. — Bill Simmons
The hosts report Reiner followed Bill Clinton around the White House for two days for research. — Bill Simmons
Emilio and Luann's chemistry; leather-jacket outfit; Wendy and Lisa score; Dylan-Dylan contest; Gangsta's Paradise video; Raul and Emilio performances; the 'what about us' moment
The opening credits list the score by Wendy and Lisa of the Revolution, which sounds a little Purple Rain-ish. — Bill Simmons
The Dylan-Dylan contest, though it never happened in real life, is good teaching. — Bill Simmons
The host reads that the Gangsta's Paradise video was directed by Antoine Fuqua, and quotes Coolio recalling that Pfeiffer seemed nervous around his crew but killed it in two takes. — Bill Simmons
Emilio's actor, Wade Dominguez, is praised alongside Raul; the host reads that Dominguez died in 1998 of respiratory failure, quotes the actor who played Raul recalling him as nice, vulnerable and insecure, and says he would have become a household name. — Bill Simmons
After Emilio's death she decides to leave, and Raul's 'what about us' reflects a real teaching experience: focusing on one kid until another student points it out. — Shea Serrano
The same dynamic occurs in youth sports when a coach centers everything on the best kid; one participant recalls a teammate named Will whom everything was designed around, and Bill is teased as the kind of coach who would do that. — Van Lathan
A former student named Emilio, once barred from his other classes and kept in one teacher's room all day, still keeps in touch and is having a baby girl. — Shea Serrano
Wendy is dressed like a 1950s librarian, and making her weight a plot point is odd. — Chris Ryan
Billy's attraction to Wendy is inexplicable given his wife and bar habits; she is called miscast. — Bill Simmons
Andrew McCarthy is called miscast, with unintentional comedy through the roof; the other host likes him in the film. — Bill Simmons
The actor's smoking as Kevin looks learned the day before filming, and Kevin is compared to Troy in Reality Bites, though Troy's friendships make more sense. — Bill Simmons
Nobody notices Kevin is in love with Leslie, and Alec's cheating seems constant. — Chris Ryan
The Dale and Kirby plot has aged far worse than anything involving Kevin. — Chris Ryan
Kirby is a stalker: the rain-soaked black-tie arrival likened to Buffalo Bill, sniffing the pillow, and leaving his own party to drive three hours to the ski house. — Bill Simmons
Kirby has no other plot beyond law school, the DUI help, switching jobs and returning to law school; he takes bar orders as if nothing happened. — Bill Simmons
Dale's understanding boyfriend at the ski house, who even starts Kirby's car, is ridiculous. — Bill Simmons
The apartments are too glamorous for 22-year-olds; Schumacher is quoted saying youth movies deserved stars, clothes, sets and cars, and that glamour was very much his concept. — Bill Simmons
Too much time goes to Wendy's family with Martin Balsam instead of Jules; in a 10-episode version viewers would skip the Wendy episode. — Chris Ryan
“Love should have brought your ass home last night”; “Don’t get pussy-whipped, whip that pussy”; “I’m giving you my Mac Daddy vibe”; the love-as-disease exchange
One objection is that the dinner sequence was shoehorned into the story and is not needed for the plot, even though its comic digression is pleasurable. — Wesley Morris
The scene evokes Black theater and its later Tyler Perry counterpart, bringing class tensions into the comedy. — Wesley Morris
The chitlins in a wealthy household and Angela being asked to handle them are described as a collision of Black culture and snobbery. — Wesley Morris
Cable and streaming rewatch value; Chadwick Boseman as Vontae Mack; the versatile-linebacker profile; ESPN draft-telecast integration; Frank Langella as the owner; the Browns' draft-day chaos; Kevin Costner's throwback performance; NFL media cameos
The movie has aged best as a cable, on-demand, streaming or airplane movie that maybe never needed a theatrical release, like Million Dollar Arm, which the host helped produce. — Bill Simmons
In 2020 it would be a Netflix movie released two weeks before the NFL draft. — Bill Simmons
Split screen is offered as aged best because so much of the film is phone calls. — Bill Simmons
The split screens are countered as aged worst: the logic from the making-of is sound, but the effect is distracting and dated; the first host stays pro split screen. — Mallory Rubin
Chadwick Bozeman as Vante Mac comes across super likable and realistic despite limited screen time, though he is the smallest guy in several rooms. — Mallory Rubin
His undersized, versatile build is added as aged best for the era of flexible defenders, citing Derwin James and Isaiah Simmons falling in the recent draft. — Mallory Rubin
The ESPN telecast is used well, even Berman; filming at the actual 2013 draft at Radio City with real analysts and Goodell captures the event, plus good helicopter shots. — Mallory Rubin
Dennis Leary as a head coach is kind of liked and seen as realistic. — Mallory Rubin
Frank Langella as the owner is great, his second sports-owner role after Eddie, reunited with Kevin Dunn from Dave, and wearing sunglasses almost throughout. — Bill Simmons
The Browns doing crazy things on draft day has obviously aged best. — Bill Simmons
Sonny's "don't Twitter" advice is called aged best by one host; the co-host has it as aged worst because the NFL now wants players building online personas, though she backs never-tweet advice. — Mallory Rubin
Jacksonville having a terrible GM is offered as aged best; the co-host cites Jalen Ramsey and Josh Allen but notes the real 2014 Jags took Blake Bordell's. — Bill Simmons
Costner in a sports movie is the top aged-best item: he is undefeated, the Michael Jordan of sports movies, and the only actor the movie works with; Brad Pitt and Denzel are floated as the only alternatives. — Mallory Rubin
The NFL media cameos, including Chris Berman, Rich Eisen, John Gruden and Mike Mayock, are called aged best by both hosts. — Mallory Rubin
Choosing is hard because the whole movie is rewatchable. — Bill Simmons
The first Hackman-Denzel meeting, where Hackman compares horses to high school girls, has the two feeling each other out; Denzel realizes he needs to keep his guard up with this guy. — Bill Simmons
The semi-confrontation after the kitchen fire and the missile drill is where the sparring really begins, with Ramsey's speech about the unified chain of command and not questioning each other in front of the crew.
Calling a missile drill during a fire is joked to be a Bill Simmons move, like a 7 a.m. text or an emergency pod after an earthquake; the reply is that sometimes you have to run the missile drill.
The Silver Surfer argument with Danny Nucci's sailor is called clearly a Tarantino pop-culture scene; a little dated and not fully understood, but enjoyable. — Bill Simmons
The blow-up where Denzel relieves Hackman is praised for its overlapping speeches; the hosts say Lieutenant Zimmer was named as an homage to Hans Zimmer.
Hackman is guessed at 5-11; camera tricks sometimes make him look taller than Denzel, which is joked to be a Top Gun habit of Tony Scott's. — Bill Simmons
Quick cuts show the crew paralyzed watching; on rewatch, Hunter starts questioning the captain in public as soon as the fire happens. — Bill Simmons
A 'coming up next' take argues Hunter was in the wrong: in the military chain of command you never question the lead dog with other people around, so he loses Hackman from that point. — Bill Simmons
A counter-question asks whether Ramsey deliberately draws out Hunter's defiance; Hunter keeps asking why, echoing the Clausewitz exchange.
Because Ramsey hired Hunter, an early scene showing Hunter was not his choice would explain the testing; the counterpoint is that time was short while Radchenko fueled his missiles. — Bill Simmons
The torpedo attack, with the sub hit, water coming in and depths called out, is a hacky but necessary submarine-movie beat; from around there the last hour plays nearly in real time. — Bill Simmons
The bilge-bay 'Seal the bay' scene has Rick Schroder really going for it, joked to be how he got NYPD Blue.
Viggo, very young and baby-faced, is great and pivotal, though his accent pops with little Dutch-like flourishes.
'You don't put on a condom unless you want to fuck' is called Chris's favorite line, prompting HR and WordPress jokes.
Other lines include the one about only two sides to a mutiny, and Denzel gets several yearbook-ready lines. — Bill Simmons
Matt Craven and Rocky Carroll are perfect as the officers running envelopes down hallways; Carroll was known as Joey from Rock on Fox, and both later spent years on NCIS.
Hackman taking the boat back includes Denzel's extra second-and-a-half stare at Viggo. — Bill Simmons
One pick is the final confrontation: Hackman hitting him, the 'God help you if you're wrong' exchange, the three-minute wait for the radio, and the final message reveal, called seven unassailable minutes. — Bill Simmons
Another pick is the first mutiny, for the overlapping dialogue while the missiles are fueled; the stallions scene is acknowledged as the famous one.
A further voice agrees the first mutiny is the favorite part and the turning point, starting when Ramsey yells 'Mr. Hunter, I've made a decision... shut the fuck up!' — Sean Fennessey
The line is joked about for Zoom meetings; NBA owners most likely to yell it include Tillman Fertitta and Mickey Arison. — Sean Fennessey
For Rob Lowe, this movie is rejected because of the 1980s hair; older appearances in The West Wing or Parks and Recreation are preferred. — Bill Simmons
For Demi Moore, G.I. Jane, The Substance, and Indecent Proposal are proposed. — Mallory Rubin
Indecent Proposal receives the strongest support. — Bill Simmons
The flex selection praises the dinner scene’s real romantic chemistry and imagines Reitman being delighted by unexpectedly strong acting. — Kyle Brandt
The selection receives agreement and a proud reaction. — Kyle Brandt
The clean air protest question about which one drew the cock and balls is chosen as best quote, with jokes about saying it in the Ringer bullpen. — Chris Ryan
An additional craziest-quote flex selects Time to meet God, with Just lay back and let it happen, baby as another candidate. A pre-recording joke about the first line is recalled.
A flex quote nomination singles out the exchange about the mother’s friend cheering Rick up after his father died, followed immediately by a change of subject. — Bill Simmons
The best-quote flex is recalled as the exchange about sex with the mother’s friend. — Bill Simmons
