Homeexchange.com is the first item: living in someone else's home on a whim was not mainstream in 2006, maybe a two-week rental, but it has been totally validated by the last five years and is as seamless now as the movie made it look, with the show-up-and-see-what-you-find thrill or the wish you had picked a hotel.
Los Angeles at Christmas is truly underrated and the movie did it justice: quiet with no traffic, a coat at night and warm sun by day, Christmas music playing; the drive onto Sunset off the PCH with no cars is saved as a nitpick.
Celebrating the art of movie trailers has aged well: in 2006 trailers were still corny voiceover work, but the film knew they mattered, the Ringer now runs a trailer bracket, Cameron Diaz's 'that's why they pay me the big bucks' moment with the Lindsay Lohan trailer shows the cynical side, and 'now it looks like a hit' with Katherine Hahn and John Krasinski shows the movie invested in the changing landscape.
The Hans Zimmer score is very lovely and the soundtrack, with the White Stripes for the bed dance, James Taylor's Merry Little Christmas, the Phil Spector Christmas album and a 'Neretha Franklin' (as transcribed) cover of You Send Me, cues every song perfectly; Zoe, picked up from the train, recognized the music in the car, and it conveys a feeling that is very Nancy Meyers.
Jude Law's handsomeness is timeless, as is how he dresses, the hot tweedy British guy; men in L.A. all dress the same, so England or Boston professors would raise the odds, and only Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is as defined by one person's hotness.
Jude Law is objectively hotter than Hugh Grant but gives the same tweedy appeal as Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral, which one host calls the hottest Hugh Grant ever at a too-impressionable age, while another never believed Grant as a heartthrob; the panel agrees Jude Law definitely aged the best.
The L.A. house has aged very well: the exterior is a Wallace Neff house in San Marino by Pasadena, seen when Cameron Diaz talks to Ed Burns from the balcony, classic Spanish architecture and a dream L.A. home.
The video store scene is the obvious nominee but nobody on the panel loves it: it is Jack Black's signature scene, at a Blockbuster that looks like the west side, explaining movies to Kate Winslet through their scores while Dustin Hoffman stands annoyed in the same row; the 'Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio' clip is played, in which the dialogue says it was written for the movie as a score.
The key objection is that he is singing the scores rather than playing them, with vowels no other human has made; on a date it would be an absolute pass, yet it is still an iconic scene in the movie.
Graham and Amanda's first morning after is nominated with a clip: Cameron Diaz absolutely shines, a little awkward, doing the screwball thing she is good at, although the cadence of the banter is a bit odd, and her trying not to seem too into him is a relatable position.
Diaz's power is the very physical, goofy comedy, so the together control freak is not funny Cameron Diaz and it feels more natural once she is allowed to be weird; the scene is also uncomfortable because Jude Law is so hot, in the greatest glasses ever, early to the plastic-glasses trend before Warby Parker, a hot dad who is a distraction in every scene.
The scene where Cameron Diaz goes to Jude Law's house and learns Sophie and Olivia are his daughters, not other women, is another nominee: the two British girls are the cutest kids and call both adults out, though they seem too well adjusted a year after their mother died; it is summed up as 'Jude Law as a dad', doing the napkin face, crafted in a lab to appeal to a certain type of person, with a nice house too.
On the Kate Winslet side, Iris picking up Arthur to go to the WGA, helping him walk in the pool, the Hanukkah dinner with his old friends, and the last scene where he gives her a corsage (clip played) are liked, with the Arthur plot line preferred to Winslet's other plot lines as a real L.A. story of befriending a neighbor; still, nothing contends with Jude Law and Cameron Diaz.
Cameron Diaz driving to the town, terrified of hitting cars, just missing Jude Law on his bike and pulling up at the little grocery store, then alone in the cottage swigging wine in a beanie hat and reading, is called a favorite and solo funny Cameron Diaz.
The opening joke is Jason Segel's dick as Apex Mountain, met with doubt that it is the apex and the suggestion it has more to grow since it was cold in the studio; the hosts suspect the 'six to midnight' line from Jonah Hill's character, possibly only in the unrated version, is Segel's own note to anyone asking about his dick.
Segel himself is Apex Mountain, no question: he is on How I Met Your Mother and is the writer and star of a movie, and it is not getting any better for him than right here.
His career did not go where one host expected: he seemed headed for an Albert Brooks type lane, and the film recalls Modern Romance, Brooks' second movie, a persona loosely based on himself about the relationship between men and women, goofy yet sincere; Segel never kept making those crypto-autobiographical broad comedies.
After The Muppets he co-wrote The Five-Year Engagement and Sex Tape with Cameron Diaz, played David Foster Wallace in The End of the Tour in 2015, and appeared in This Is 40, This Is the End and Bad Teacher; one host thinks he had some issues, and ten years on a CBS show for seven months a year will slow a film career.
It is strange when somebody writes a really good movie and does not keep doing it, as with Affleck and Damon never writing another film together after Good Wanting (as transcribed); maybe you make too much money, and in interviews Segel comes across as thoughtful and reflective about his place in Hollywood.
Segel was a successful high school basketball player at Harvard Westlake and a teammate of Jason Collins; his How I Met Your Mother character's nickname White Chocolate comes from that, his real nickname was Dr. Dunk, and the hosts hope he writes something and gets a second act.
Nobody else qualifies: Mila Kunis did even bigger and better things after this, Kristen Bell obviously did, and so did all the bit players; Billy Baldwin's peak was Sliver, not this.
The first answer is Rupert Everett, a lasting, scene-stealing performance, illustrated with his 'maybe there won't be marriage, maybe there won't be sex, but by God there'll be dancing' clip.
The counter-pick is Julia: a case exists for all three, and the film establishes Cameron Diaz as someone who can go toe-to-toe with the top actress of her generation, but this is Julia's comeback A plus list movie that sets up the run to America's sweetheart and her Oscar; the others agree a case can be made for the other two.
Cam is great and rules; no other actress went toe-to-toe with Julia in her extended prime, and in Ocean's Eleven and Ocean's 12 she does not interact with any women, as if she learned from Cameron Diaz; Stepmom with Susan Sarandon is remembered as a weird 1998 movie she loses and should not have taken.
Was she the worst maid of honor of all time? Does every woman want a perfect gay best friend? When did Cameron Diaz cut Julia Roberts out of their lives? Do Kimmy and Michael stay married? Does Julianne die alone, and how many marriages does she have?
Was she the worst maid of honor of all time: she could only have been worse by killing the bride, injuring someone or actually stealing the husband; against Anne Hathaway in Rachel's Getting Married (as transcribed), Hathaway has the excuse of being a family member fresh out of rehab, so Julia Roberts, a stranger parachuting in to ruin a wedding, is worse, and Rosemary DeWitt (as transcribed) would be a better sister than anyone here.
Does every woman want a perfect gay best friend like Rupert Everett: definitely, he seems like the dream, though one host already has a great one; a spouse's old idea for a Friendster-style service matching married women with gay best friends spawns a rom-com pitch about a man who pretends to be gay to join it and must later confess he is in love, which the hosts claim for The Ringer.
When did Cameron Diaz officially cut Julia Roberts out: one guess is on the honeymoon; another thinks the savvier Kimmy phases her out over a couple of months, playing hurt rather than confrontational; a third imagines one super-awkward dinner when Julianne is in town tasting plates, after which they never see her again.
Julianne is probably not in love with Michael; the point is that she is a narcissist who gets infatuated, and the story is about letting go, so she goes home ashamed, pissed that she lost and missing her friend rather than heartbroken for a year.
Do they stay married: no; Kimmy drops out of school at 20 to follow a sports writer, within a couple of years he takes the job at her father's company she and her dad discussed, lives in Chicago near the parents, is miserable, they fight and it falls apart.
Does Julianne die alone and does she ever marry: the over-under on marriages is two, a panic marriage within 18 months and a quick divorce, a second marriage with a kid that ends by 40 after therapy and some emotional growth, then a cohabiting partner as an AARP member.
The missing career chapter: around 2008 or 2009 the food movement takes off and the gorgeous unicorn food critic becomes a star with her own travel show rivaling Tony Bourdain's, 'On the road with Julianne', a Netflix series that could be the sequel.
"I am a dangerous criminal person. I do bad things to honest people"; "it's so against God's plan"; "You're never gonna be Jell-O"; "Choose me, marry me"
The first nominees are 'I am a dangerous criminal person. I do bad things to honest people' and Rupert Everett's excited 'it's so against God's plan' when everyone thinks he is her fiance; he is really good in this.
At the brunch Julia Roberts plays go-between with the creme brulee metaphor: he wants Jell-O, Cameron Diaz's character offers to be Jell-O, and Julia's reply that she is never going to be Jell-O is a line one host thinks about a lot.
The 'choose me, marry me' speech is defended as great and quite emotional, even though the later 'just a girl standing in front of a boy' line became the iconic Julia Roberts speech; Meredith Gray (as transcribed) says almost exactly this to Derek and perfects it.
What kind of sports writer Michael is; a $39,000 salary against billionaire spending; a 20-year-old dropping out to marry after a month or two; a best friend given three to five days' notice; a four-day wedding ending Sunday night in a church; the Sunday pre-wedding brunch; a drop-dead-gorgeous New York food critic with a book at 28; Kimmy having no maid of honor; the ugly purple bridesmaid dress; 'you're the only person I trust'; the welcoming billionaire family
What kind of sports writer was Michael: a generalist, a gamer, maybe regional, since all the references are Texas, San Antonio and College Station; making about $39,000 a year in 1997 while she gives up everything to follow him, except they are spending billionaire money and hitting up dad.
The entire relationship timeline makes no sense: a month or two and they are getting married, she is 20 and dropping out of college, the parents would have stopped it and never thrown a wedding; a sub-nitpick is billionaires being this nice.
Julianne gets Michael's call the Wednesday night before his wedding, giving his supposed best friend three to five days' notice; a real best friend would have been told earlier and told when he met someone, and the pact needed caveats built in; the film half-covers it with her not checking her phone machine while on a book tour as a food critic.
The wedding itself is a four-day affair starting Thursday with a Sunday night church wedding, which makes no sense: they are not Jewish, and billionaires could have gotten the Saturday church spot; a Catholic explanation about a 6 p.m. Sunday slot after the holy window is offered and dismissed.
A brunch the Sunday morning before the wedding asks too much of guests, though one host likes being fed and prefers a pre-wedding brunch where attendance is required to the annoying post-wedding one; another's stepmother insisted on a 9 a.m. Sunday brunch where everyone was hungover and kids ran around.
The food critic nitpick: a New York food critic at 28 who has already written a book is ridiculous, the opening scene gets criticism backwards by having the waiter present the plate to the critic rather than her dining incognito, her 'inventive and confident' verdict is terrible criticism, and a drop-dead gorgeous 28-year-old critic is not a real thing, since the job takes 20 years to get.
Every choice about the food critic job was 100 percent wrong; the climactic jab that she is a loser food critic treats having a job as a bad thing from someone dropping out of college at 20, and the plate presentation is as absurd as a sports writer interviewing batters at home plate between pitches; when a critic comes in, the restaurant pretends she is not there.
Cameron Diaz has no maid of honor because hers broke her pelvis line dancing in Abilene and there is no backup; one host likes it as a strategic move revealing she does not trust Julia Roberts and is neutralizing her by cutting off her recourse, while another cannot invest in someone with no backup friend and thinks she should have demanded more for her own wedding.
TV and movies always skip the fact that the person getting married has no friends, as when Dylan McKay marries Tony (as transcribed) on 90210 with bridesmaids he met two weeks earlier, or the unseen bridesmaids on Succession in seafoam green like Julia Roberts' non-wedding to Kiefer Sutherland, a detail that teaches you she is a bad person.
The purple bridesmaid dress has the ugliest possible color and sparkles on the halter; and when Kimmy tells Julia Roberts she is the only person she trusts, that is not true, which the defender calls smart; how close could the friends have been if he waited until three days before the wedding.
Her whole family being billionaires who run Chicago yet are nice and welcoming to a sports writer does not hold, though the dad does have an intimidating conversation about how much he makes; being 20 and dropping out of the best schools is the one nit a host cannot get past, a waste of money if you never graduate.
Asked whether this is the Apex Mountain of rom-coms, the first answers are a flat no, twice, before the hosts call it essential to the genre, top five for one, the first to twist the rom-com gimmick and the last place the genre could go; whether it is the apex before the genre went downhill draws only a maybe, a case could be made, and a flat not convinced.
The twist and the respect for the rom-com form are liked, since it gets the impulse to see people together before twisting it; Notting Hill in 1999 is raised as a further meta-commentary that is really Julia Roberts' life, with her playing a bad person there too.
Rupert Everett is a 100 percent yes, an iconic performance and the breakout element the movie needed alongside the comeback star and the second star; he went on to the Madonna movie, which has not aged well, had James Bond talk about whether he could be the first gay Bond, and this remains his most mainstream and most fun performance beside period pieces like Madness of King George and The Importance of Being Earnest.
Cameron Diaz is not at her apex here, though she is really good; her apex is There's Something About Mary, a massive movie that arguably deserved an Oscar nomination and made her a gigantic star, after which she dated Matt Dillon and entered the Us Weekly stream.
Her dating history is called rough by one host because it never worked out, and impressive by another: Justin Timberlake, the baseball player known as A Rod, a broken nose surfing; the JT age gap is compared to Sandra Bullock and Ryan Gosling.
Julia Roberts is a yes: Pretty Woman blew her up, but this movie re-established her as the most bankable, A plus list actress, set up the next five years and led to her Oscar, so it righted the ship; one voice finds that reasonable, and Ocean's Eleven is floated for her astonishing but not lead role.
Chicago as an Apex Mountain is rejected as insulting; Dermot Mulroney is a yes for sure, since it never got better, or worse, for him.
An early aside calls 1997 and this film arguably the apex of rom-coms, the top of the crescendo, after which the genre went off a cliff a little.
Before the categories, one host previews that Cameron Diaz's Apex Mountain is There's Something About Mary, a role nobody else could have played as likable, funny and slapstick.
Rupert Everett is ruled ineligible because he is in too many scenes, and so is Cameron Diaz; one host picks Carrie Preston, who answers the phone at the end and talks about her sister licking the ice sculpture of the David, and calls her a good CBS sitcom and drama actress now on a CBS show transcribed as 'The Good Way'.
Paul Giamatti's big scene as the hotel bellhop who has a life talk with Julia is the most empathetic he has ever been on screen, really strong, though the hosts now have too much history with him and half expected him to take her to an S&M parlor.
Another host's choice is the three helium kids, a very small amount of screen time but phenomenal; the Carrie Preston voter sticks with Carrie Preston.
The award is for the person whose name you do not know but whom you recognize; the answer is Cameron Diaz's mom, one of those actresses, and her father as well, since the parents are both those people; the dad is in so many 90s movies and got all the roles Robert Lugia (as transcribed) did not get.
Rachel Griffiths and Carrie Preston are also in the wedding party, both loved, from Six Feet Under and Brothers and Sisters; the mother's name is looked up and is Susan Sullivan.
Julia's preceding run is read out as Dying Young, Hook, The Player, Pelican Brief, I Love Trouble, Ready to Wear, Something to Talk About, Mary Riley (as transcribed), Michael Collins and Everyone Says I Love You, a seven-year drought; Hook was a phenomenon nobody was happy with, and Pelican Brief is enjoyable but now feels 45 years old and slow, a solid cable movie.
Calista Flockhart turning down both roles is read from IMDb trivia and doubted, dated to the peak first-year Ally McBeal era, which has not aged well; the Drew Barrymore item seems true: she lost out to Cameron Diaz because Julia really pushed for Diaz.
Julia Roberts and Drew Barrymore have never been in a movie together, inviting speculation about an early-90s love triangle nobody knows about; one host has a lot of warmth toward Drew Barrymore.
Billed as one of the great casting what-ifs the three have ever done: Ed Burns turned down the Dermot Mulroney lead role; the reaction is that it would be a way better movie, with one host needing a glass of water over Ed Burns and noting a husband's celebrity doppelganger is Ed Burns; he is called very handsome but too serious.
Ed Burns would be more believable and an upgrade, clearly smarter than Dermot Mulroney; but if Michael is smart the whole house of cards collapses, since he is supposed to be confused while Julia and Cam carry the show, and Ed Burns would not put up with her and would stop the email; the counter is that every Ed Burns character is a moron, like the dumb cab driver in She's the One.
Ed Burns is still married to Christy Tarlington (as transcribed), an iconic, inspiring couple, and it is a shame he skipped this movie because it would have been good for his career; one host is teased as a huge Ed Burns fan for whom he, rather than Michael B., may be the one.
Michael's job at Sport Magazine; a rich 20-year-old dropping out of school for a sports writer; the baseball-and-Spurs confusion; Julia pretending to marry a gay man; the ring-sucking moment; Dermot Mulroney's vacant performance; forging the email; the easy access to a billionaire's email; Julia staying on as maid of honor; the gift-of-the-song speech and the bathroom hug; Michael forgiving her
Michael's big job is at Sport Magazine, which even in the late 90s was not a thing any more; one host assumed it was made up or meant to be Sports Illustrated, but it was the biggest magazine of the 50s and 60s, still good in the 70s, dying in the 80s and done by the 90s, and probably the only magazine the film could get the rights to; one host had a subscription in 2000.
Rich girl Cameron Diaz drops out of school at 20 to follow a sports writer, which a host who was a sports writer in the mid-90s calls a low-paying job nobody would drop out to follow around crappy Major League Baseball games; the film also shifts confusingly between baseball and the San Antonio Spurs, which should have counted as foreshadowing the San Antonio dynasty under what's aged the best, since they had not yet won a title.
Julia pretending she is marrying a gay guy remains the major flaw: it does not age well, anyone believing it is insane, and she would have mentioned an engagement to her alleged best friend.
The moment where he sucks the ring off Julia's finger strikes one host as weird, overly sexual and over the top, to the point that the pair might as well have just started kissing; another host says there is sexual chemistry in the movie and that this is the role Dermot Mulroney is supposed to play, and the objector concedes it is fine even if scientifically it may not work.
There are inconsistencies in Dermot Mulroney's moral compass, which may be true to life with a hot man; one host says he looks great in The Family Stone and is adorable but a terrible actor whose motivations are never clear, while another says you are not supposed to know, he is confused, and his cute, vacant look is the point and it works.
Forging the email the night before the wedding to try to get him fired is an actual evil act that goes too far and makes you hope the character dies alone; it was not okay in 1997 either, but it plays worse now.
What has not aged well is how easily she accesses a billionaire's email by wandering into his office, and the idea that he wrote drafts for his assistant to send; it belongs in a video of great moments from 1994 to 1997 when people did not understand the internet, leading to You Got Mail (as transcribed), called the most dated movie of the last 20 years, one that feels like it came out in the 1800s, though a happier, safer time.
She remains the maid of honor despite everything, which is beyond a nitpick; one host likes that the film reveals Kimmy is weirded out, sees the threat and is keeping her close to neutralize her, while another says she should not be at the wedding at all and should be escorted off the property.
Her wedding speech points out that she got them no gift and then hands them the song that was her special song with the guy, and Cameron Diaz's character is totally cool with it; the real problem is the bathroom fight ending with Cameron Diaz giving her a hug, when a truce for appearances would do, though at the wedding she goes along with it because rich people do not air problems in public.
Him forgiving her after she explains she sent an email from his father-in-law's account to get him fired is a deal breaker; you do not come back as friends after that, and if you are Cameron Diaz she has to go, her number deleted, probably immediately after the wedding; the thought is held for later.
