Is it Leo's: Django is a hell of a lot darker than being a shithead on Wall Street and arguably more impressive; The Revenant was a make-good after people were angry he had no Oscar, great for its natural-light shooting as much as for him; there is not enough separation between the roles to call this his peak, and Titanic is arguably the apex since he was the most popular person in the world, though one host has still never seen it.
The Aviator is incredible, but apex is also about what he can do in the business; the run is listed, Body of Lies, Catch Me If You Can, Gangs of New York, which one host would fight for every day while wishing for a version without Cameron Diaz, a take judged too hot, then The Departed, Blood Diamond, Revolutionary Road, Shutter Island, Inception, J. Edgar as the only true dud in an old-man suit, Django and Gatsby, with every performance preferable to The Revenant, the classic Oscar thing.
So it is not Leo's and not Scorsese's; Bernthal gets a personal yes from one host, and it only might be Jonah's, which stops short of a yes.
Could Amanda be a stepmom? Would she move to England and stay? Does Graham travel with his glasses? Would Iris really let Jack Black pick something from her eyelash? Were two suitcases enough for Amanda's wardrobe? Did she buy the outfit she wore to Graham's house?
Cameron Diaz's character Amanda as a stepmom: nobody can imagine it; she would dress the girls in cute clothes and try hard, but it would be tough; perhaps she moves to England, wonders what she did, and works through it rather than flying home to her beautiful house and high-profile career, since she was unhappy there and already came back once.
Does Jude Law leave his glasses at his sister's house or travel with them for any big night out? He is assumed to be a low-grade, on-off glasses wearer, a dad around 40, with them in his suit pocket, and he looks so hot in them.
Would anyone let a stranger who just drove through the door in, or let Jack Black, in the Santa Ana winds, lean right in breathing on Kate Winslet's face to pick something from her eyelash? The hosts would recoil.
Were Cameron Diaz's two suitcases enough for five jackets, bulky shoes and boots, even allowing for compact light cashmere layers?
Did she buy the outfit she wore to his house, a long pencil skirt with a thick rhinestone belt and a beautiful top, since she expected no men there? She only dresses in pajamas or structured formal clothes, and maybe she packed everything she owns with weird expectations of England.
A 10-episode Netflix remake gets an enthusiastic yes from everyone, do it right now; the draw is seeing Iris and Jack Black break up, which is expected in two months or five months, while Jude Law and Cameron Diaz are assumed to have a future.
"Iris, in the movies, we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason you're behaving like the best friend."
The pick is Arthur's line to Iris that in the movies there are leading ladies and best friends, that she is a leading lady but behaving like the best friend; the others immediately agree it is the best one. — Kari Simmons
The runner-up is the Santa Anas line, that when the Santa Anas blow all bets are off and anything can happen; Cameron Diaz's 'we should probably have sex if you want to' answered by Jude Law's 'is that a trick question' is also liked as actually funny; the Arthur line is confirmed as definitely it.
A Telegraph wedding reporter owning that cottage; nobody has family at Christmas; Christmas Day and Boxing Day skipped; no vetting for the home swap; the bad-at-sex plot line; 'great' as Amanda's only adjective; Jude Law's daughters having cell phones; Jude Law too tan and too available; Iris's frumpy tan wardrobe; no rain, only snow; Santa Anas in December; the red bikini; the airport drive on the PCH; the driver who stops short of the cottage; everyone dropping their jobs
A wedding reporter for the Telegraph owning a picturesque cottage on par with the Brentwood mansion is a forever rom-com trope; the 40-minute commute is appreciated but not bought, unless it is family money.
Where are these people's families? Everyone just goes away for Christmas with no parents, siblings or obligations; Jude Law did not even know Kate Winslet was gone, though she made the plan the night before and tried to tell him; even Eli Wallach has no grandkids or nieces around.
For a movie called The Holiday with Christmas music and a Christmas Eve scene where Jack Black finds his girlfriend with someone else, Christmas Day is fast-forwarded through, Boxing Day is never mentioned, and there are no Christmas trees except at Jude Law's house; a Hanukkah dinner and the British sense of holiday as vacation may explain the broader appeal, but why skip Christmas Day.
There is no vetting process for the home swap: they are just IMing like AOL in 1999, a sweet meet cute reminiscent of You've Got Mail, with no key exchange, house cleaning or preparation, and an assumption that neither will rip the other's house apart.
Cameron Diaz's sex life as a plot line is baffling: her long-term boyfriend called her bad at sex and they stayed together, so why is she surprised he cheated; Jude Law then affirms her several times as a rebuke to the other guy; they had not had sex in a year, so what does he know.
Giving a competent character 'I'm really bad at sex' as her relatable flaw, like making rom-com women fall down, is called sexist and super weird; she raises it just before sex with a man she never expects to see again, and a solutions-oriented L.A. woman would have taken classes and done reading.
'Great' is the only adjective Cameron Diaz's character knows, from the magical tent to the day; it is called bad writing, or a sign she lacks words for happiness and has not been around children, but the movie does not lean into her being a vapid L.A. person.
In 2006 Jude Law's daughters, both under five, have their own cell phones to call him; a mother on the panel says her kids got phones around 11 when they started club sports, and iPads would be more plausible when cell phones had been mainstream for only five years.
Jude Law randomly stays out all night at Cameron Diaz's while his kids are home, with grandparents mentioned but never seen; he is logistically too available; the phones are probably a basic error needed so the names on the phone make the Sophie and Olivia reveal work.
Craig pointed out that Jude Law is very tan for a man in England in mid-December, blamed on Talented Mr. Ripley eight years before; Kate Winslet's wardrobe is too many tans, whites and creams, Diane Keaton's Something's Gotta Give clothes made frumpy, even though she looks like old Hollywood glamour in the pool one-piece, which reads as bad studio notes about making her relatable.
It never rains in the movie, it only snows, which the director's commentary says never even sticks in England and had to be made to stick; London is paralyzed on the rare snow days, so give us the England rain, and Jude Law would still be hot wet.
Do the Santa Anas really last to December? Peak season is now, in November; they can happen but the film uses them because people do not know, and the commentary says they were added because Santa Anas blew during filming.
Jasper's line about the little red bikini that unties at the back makes no sense since all little bikinis tie at the back, unless she owns two red bikinis, one front-clasp and one tie-back.
The drive from the airport somehow ends up on the PCH heading south from Malibu, then Ocean onto San Vicente with a Sunset sign planted to make Santa Monica look like Bel Air; something was wrong there, but it is a great view.
The black-car driver refuses to drive down to the Cotswolds house, making her drag her suitcase a mile and a half in heels and nearly die, which never happens; Cameron Diaz reportedly called this her most physical film because of the running, and interviews fixated on her hitting her head on the beam.
How does Iris get up to her own home if the cab driver would not? She has Amanda's Mini since they exchange cars, but it does not track with the cab; the driver is not a five-star rating.
A late nitpick: they all have involved jobs and just drop everything, with Catherine Hahn, John Krasinski and the trailer people never heard from again; L.A. does shut down from mid-December to New Year's, but for a society reporter with Christmas Eve weddings and parties it is less believable.
During the scene discussion, Jude Law's daughters seemed too well adjusted for having lost their mother a year ago, flagged for the nitpick section.
During aged-best, pulling onto Sunset off the PCH from the airport with no cars around was flagged as a nitpick for later.
Jason Segel is nominated for the Miles role and wins over a skeptic on the strength of his Dracula puppet opera; Emilia Clarke, Daenerys Targaryen, would be fantastic as Iris.
Kate Hudson could have been Cameron Diaz, contemporaneously accurate with the L.A.-ness and rom-com chops and maybe better at the sappiness, though that would mean McConaughey in Jude Law's job, which needs a British accent; Wedding Planner McConaughey is still loved.
Eddie Redmayne is rejected as not hot enough and too direct; Colin Firth could do it with Hugh Grant-style aloofness, having done the messed-up Love Actually plot where he is helpless and says I love you; but nobody is as hot, and the movie does not work without Jude Law, who brings it all together.
While still on casting, one host had an idea to recast Jack Black: Matt Dillon, good looking, slightly older and funny in Something About Mary and Beautiful Girls, though always a jerk and not plausibly musical; or Jason Segel, who sings, likes to be dramatic, and whose Knocked Up and Sarah Marshall characters would fit the movie.
The overacting award, nearly skipped, goes to Jack Black by agreement.
Cameron Diaz bugged one host with her esophageal spasms, pronouncing esophagus with a soft G, and her trying to cry, moments that feel like 'calm down, we get it, you have emotional issues'.
Her opening fight with Ed Burns, where they shriek at each other and nobody believes either cares, is proposed to make it a shared award; the clip is played and she was always visibly acting, perhaps because the character is out of her element in England.
Earlier, during the casting discussion, Jack Black's performance was already called a little overacting.
Dustin Hoffman wandered onto the Blockbuster shoot as a friend of Nancy Meyers; the chateau lunch interior is the Greystone Mansion; Iris's cottage was built in a field in Surrey with the interiors on soundstages; it snowed during the shoot; Amanda's house exterior is near the Huntington Gardens in San Marino; Iris is also the name of one of Jude Law's daughters
Dustin Hoffman was walking down the street, saw a movie shoot at a Blockbuster, and because Nancy Meyers is his friend they put him in the scene; it may have been in Larchmont, since there was a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf next door back then.
The beautiful chateau lunch scene was filmed inside the Greystone Mansion with a different home as exterior; Kate Winslet's England house was completely built in a field in Surrey, with soundstages for the interiors, which is where much of the $85 million went, and it snowed during the shoot, which is rare.
The exterior of Cameron Diaz's house is near the Huntington Gardens in San Marino by Pasadena; Iris, Kate Winslet's character, is also the name of one of Jude Law's daughters, which one website suggested was deliberate but could not be confirmed; Iris and Graham sound like siblings.
Apex Mountain is defined, with Craig asked to correct it, as the point of most objective power in a career, not a personal favorite, given the context of the movie and the movie itself; all four stars and Nancy Meyers are to be assessed.
Cameron Diaz is a firm no: 2006 is the very beginning of her slowing down, her peak being the plateau from There's Something About Mary in 1998 through Charlie's Angels and Shrek in 2001, before Vanilla Sky and Gangs of New York; on this press tour she described going movie to movie without stopping, and she has since retired from acting.
Jack Black is argued as the one yes: this follows School of Rock in 2003, King Kong and Tenacious D, and he peters off afterward into voice work and the Goosebumps movies; another host says his apex is School of Rock, the one movie associated with him, and the panel settles on the 2002 to 2006 run as peak Jack Black.
Kate Winslet is on the rise rather than at her apex: she has had many peaks, Titanic catapulted her, nobody thinks The Holiday is her best work, and she won her Oscar in 2008, after this, for The Reader, called a terrible movie, the same year as Revolutionary Road.
Jude Law's apex of hotness is debated between this movie, as rich, handsome, jazz-loving dad Graham Simpkins, and The Talented Mr. Ripley in a rowboat in Italy wearing linens; his career apex is Ripley, with an Oscar nomination, after which it was a gradual decline through Closer, Cold Mountain and I Heart Huckabees without ever carrying a movie, Alfie being a non-hit during the Sienna Miller scandal.
An argument that Jude Law is in his apex now, doing whatever he wants in The Young Pope, the Harry Potter spinoff and Marvel movies, is heard, but for actual power and hotness it is Talented Mr. Ripley, which should get its own episode at 20 years old this December.
Nancy Meyers's apex is not this but likely Something's Gotta Give, a critical breakthrough with Keaton, Jack Nicholson and Keanu Reeves in 2003 when studio comedies still made money, plus Frances McDormand and Jon Favreau in a really good cast; Home Again is her daughter's movie that she produced; so the only possible apex here, and probably not even, is Jack Black.
The unnamed newsroom friend who tells Iris nobody is friends with an ex who cheats on them is liked for extreme real talk; Ed Burns, Cameron Diaz's ex, is added to the list with an explicit 'I would say he wins it', and Eli Wallach is also chosen as so great in the movie.
The award is explained as the heat check, coming in for a short time and going off; Kate Winslet has three men, the ex Jasper (Rufus Sewell, a waste of time), Arthur and Jack Black, but Jack Black is billed as a star and Eli Wallach is not on the poster, which becomes the new eligibility definition.
Dustin Hoffman is questioned since he is in for five seconds, and it is hard because these people are in it so briefly; one pick lands on Lohan out of a soft spot for her.
The guest's pick is Katherine Hahn, out of love for her: the character name Bristol Farms is such an L.A. name, and her small part here looks tiny next to all the later work; there are a lot of great small roles for extremely famous people. — Kari Simmons
There are few casting what-ifs because Nancy Meyers insisted she wrote it with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz in mind and cast Jack Black very early; her quoted reasoning is that he is not Clark Gable but adorable and lovable, what most guys look like if they are lucky, and deserves a great girl, so she fixed him up with Kate Winslet.
The reply is that all of that is true except why make him sing weird movie scores like Driving Miss Daisy in a Blockbuster with goofy faces, which is a turn-off and lowering standards rather than everyman; if he were not coming off Tenacious D and School of Rock, when his persona was a guy who sings in movies, it might have been different.
The character is annoying, with a little overacting, a friend rather than someone to kiss; one host rooted for Kate Winslet to end up with Arthur, since Miles believes he is in a relationship with a dumb actress (played by 'Shannon Sossman' as transcribed, of 40 Days and 40 Nights) until five minutes before the end.
Counterpoint: the Cameron Diaz movie is better than the Kate Winslet movie, but a pretty, smart, funny girl liking a guy who seems to have no business dating her makes one host like them more; the objection is restated as the character and the lack of chemistry, not Jack Black's looks, and Kate Winslet, who is very good and makes acting look easy, is made to settle for the friend.
Interviews all insist Meyers had the two women in mind and wanted a character for someone like Jack Black; for Jude Law some things were changed, and the way Cameron Diaz and Nancy Meyers talk about him taking the role carries the subtext of whether Jude Law can play a good, appealing, endearing guy.
Writing a script for Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Kate Winslet and Jack Black and simply getting them says a lot about Meyers's power, rare for any director let alone a woman director; or she is very good at controlling the narrative and would not let other names into the conversation.
The newspaper; Blockbuster and the DVD collection; the BlackBerrys and international calling; the Coffee Bean frappuccino; the decor of the Los Angeles house; Jack Black as a romantic interest
The newspaper, Blockbuster, the DVD collection and the BlackBerrys have aged the worst, though one host misses her BlackBerry Curve from 2009, great for texting and email and not the internet; BlackBerry peaked in 2008 so 2006 was slightly early.
The phones raise questions about international dialing rates, especially when Kate Winslet is going between Cameron Diaz and Jude Law on the phone, though these are unbelievably wealthy people in perfect mansions who fly off on a whim; the international plan is seamless now but was not 13 years ago.
Jack Black handing Kate Winslet a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf frappuccino as the best drink in town, remembered from Mary Kate and Ashley tabloid coverage around 2003 and 2004, is funny now that Coffee Bean has pulled out of many places and people are more health conscious; his two dollops of whipped cream show she does not care either.
The director's commentary says the Cotswold house was dressed with lots of candy to make Iris warm and less concerned with being a size two, which the frumpy L.A. outfits confirm.
The decor of Amanda's home has aged the worst: bowls of spray-painted dried artichokes, not pine cones, around the exterior and real artichokes inside, couches like office hotel chic, Pier 1 dressing, built-ins but nothing rich or luxurious, unlike the lived-in house in It's Complicated.
The commentary confirms the interior was a built set, including a bathroom for the bed-jumping scene (Kate Winslet's idea to jump on the bed) that was never used; the budget was $85 million against about $200 million worldwide, pretty well for a rom-com in 2006.
The England house is far more memorable: the little staircase, the mini fireplace, the coziness three L.A. residents long for; Cameron Diaz wearing her hat and mittens inside is a very L.A. thing since nowhere is well heated. In general the movie aged well.
A bomb is thrown in: Jack Black as a romantic interest does not stand in 2019, even if he was having a School of Rock moment and offers something for everybody next to Jude Law.
