The obvious one is the chemistry between Gosling and McAdams, astonishing and all-time, and partly luck since the casting had to be right; it makes the hosts sad they are no longer together, and Gosling told GQ after the breakup that women yelled at him on the street for breaking up with her because of this movie.
Movies like this raise the question of whether acting is real or whether magic moments are just captured on camera; the half-assed research spills early: the two did not like each other on set and fought a lot, a big blowout reportedly made things better, and he seemed to arrive ready to be a serious actor throwing fastballs that she threw right back.
The Nick Cassavetes part is a weird movie for him to make and the best he has made; his credits include She's So Lovely, a much darker love triangle, John Q, Alpha Dog and The Other Woman with a Kate Upton performance called a historical moment.
Gina Rollins (as transcribed) is his mom, as the son of Gina Rollins and John Cassavetes, and an anecdote has James Garner breaking up when the director called 'okay, mom, action'; he is the star of the DVD extras and the source of the trivia cited later, and he gets immense credit for casting McAdams and Gosling after a long search for her.
Rachel McAdams in general: so good, looks amazing, an incredible performance; asked to choose between Allie and Regina George, one host picks Regina George as the historical, impactful one while loving this performance and her wavy hair.
Asked which role is preferred, the performance caught this viewer a little off guard on rewatch; Regina George is the more iconic character but it is hard to say, and Allie might be liked more. — Andrew Gruttadaro
Allie seems like a better hang and really fun, loves to swim, with so much of the opening montage spent jumping into water, though she is a little fungible, whereas Regina is strong in her convictions even when they are suspect.
Incorporating Charleston is nominated because Charleston in 2019 is really having a moment. — Juliet Litman
The counter puts Charleston under what aged worst: there is too much plantation stuff, everyone in a service role, nurse or household staff, is black, which is glaring and uncomfortable now, a bizarre choice especially at the retirement home, where the one white person is a male doctor.
The movie is a period piece: set in the 40s, so the costumes and references never age, which works fifteen years later; there are almost no references beyond the war, Walt Whitman and the cotton trade.
The structure is really good: whatever one thinks of the dementia plot or the writing in the notebook itself, which seems terrible with respect to Ali Hamilton, the pacing keeps you in young Noah and Ali's world so that you forget James Garner and Gina Rollins (as transcribed) until halfway, and by the time you learn who they are you are invested enough to buy a ridiculous device; one host could not even work out what the notebook was.
Asked about the old-people side, the device is appreciated, but by the time it is revealed that they are them it loses its power. — Andrew Gruttadaro
You realise it is her when she plays the piano and him much later; nobody remembers first finding out, possibly spoiled, yet it still makes one host cry at the end; producer Craig is cited as loving the old people, the framing gives gravitas to the younger story, and nobody can imagine reading the Nicholas Sparks novel, so it is an achievement.
Marsden is a really good hit, not really famous when the movie came out, who went on to be a rom-com guy and now a guy who dies in sci-fi movies.
It starts his career as the other guy, the passed-over guy, but the movie makes you root for Lon and feel bad for him, putting him with Dempsey in Sweet Home Alabama, Karen on The Office and just below Keanu in Something's Gotta Give, where Diane Keaton should have chosen Keanu Reeves.
Deciding, the hosts first propose the old-people device, then remember the chemistry, and settle on giving it to the sex scene described at length earlier, so the chemistry wins in the form of that scene; other nominees were McAdams's performance, Charleston, the period setting, the old-people structure and Marsden's inclusion; a joke proposes a video bonus breaking down the choreography on a telestrator.
Who won the movie cannot really be run because it is obviously Keanu, so the wrinkle is who won the movie that was not Keanu.
Common is the non-Keanu winner: a big look and a big win, because he made Cassian seem like a cool, important character to the series, an iconic foe almost up to John's standards even though nothing is learned about him.
An unexpected consequence: the speaker's father saw Common introduced as a rapper, maybe at a basketball game, and asked whether his son knew Common was a rapper. — Bill Simmons
The father needs a copy of Like Water for Chocolate and The Sixth Sense produced by DJ Premier, having thought Common was a movie assassin or an AI spokesman; his Sonos played Coldplay for three years, and a 300-song 1998-2005 rap playlist would leave him super confused.
Whether Cassian is dead is uncertain since he was never seen dying, so he could return in John Wick 3 or appear in the Starz show as a flashback set a couple of years before Chapter 2, rolling around the Continental.
This is an interesting Keanu conversation: Matrix 1 or 2 had to be his peak, though the comeback is impressive enough to suggest an Apex Comeback Mountain; another argues for Speed, since in 99 he was not at his most powerful, and he turned down Speed 2, a smart move that was a bad one for Jason Patrick (as transcribed); regardless, it is not this film and nobody's Apex Mountain.
The joking nominations are The Lake House for Keanu, and Hardball, for which one host made a strong case because of the death of G Baby; Diane Lane in Hardball as the hot schoolteacher attracted to a degenerate gambler is certainly not her peak, which is The Perfect Storm, quoted with 'You and me, Bobby'; her real peak will come when she appears on the podcast, which a marker from the wife may forbid.
Body count 116; Keanu trained three months in judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, marksmanship and driving and did 95% of the stunts; the Rome DJ is La Casovania (as transcribed), who scored both films; the back tattoo means fortune favors the brave; 'So I guess you have a choice' echoes the Matrix films; the dog is an American bully; Common has played a contract killer four times; the religious vocabulary; Winston's 11111 order matches JFK's executive order; the Bowery King as the Motel 6 to the Continental's five-star
The body count is put at 116, though it is unclear how anyone counts, since karate chops to the neck leave people down but not obviously dead; the working assumption is that everyone who comes into contact with him dies, which prompts a Game of Thrones aside about Jon Snow's Valyrian sword.
Keanu trained for three months in judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, marksmanship and driving and did 95% of the stunts; the DJ at the Rome party is La Casovania (as transcribed), a favorite who wrote music for both films; the Latin tattooed on his back, 'fortis fortuna adio vet' (as transcribed), means fortune favors the brave, and Keanu's 'So I guess you have a choice' to Fishburne echoes a constant theme of their Matrix trilogy, which one host is not in on.
The dog is an American bully, similar to the Staffordshire bull terrier; Common has played a contract killer four times, including Run All Night in 2015, Smoking Aces and Wanted.
The film is full of religious and biblical terminology: Santino means the little saint, there is a stabbing of the devil in the back, a descent into hell and an excommunicado, and the assassins play like a chivalrous Knights Templar brotherhood.
Winston's order of 11111 at the end is the same number as JFK's June 1963 executive order on obstructions of justice in Alabama, five months before his assassination, which leads to jokes about revealing who killed JFK on minute 48 of a John Wick pod and a request to finally do JFK, perhaps in season four.
The director explained the homeless network as a sub-world: if the Continental is the five-star where rich assassins go, there had to be a Motel 6, which became Fishburne's people.
John Wick loves his wife, his dog and his car; add two kids and that is one host, who likes two of his three dogs and is told to free Olivia; it is called super weird that weirdos secretly relate to the most evil assassin in history, and another host relates too, since Wick has a dog, a car and principles but a lonely life.
Why Common is so loyal to Gianna is questioned, since he seems out for revenge rather than the seven million; he was down in the nightclub because she told him to go upstairs and greet the guests, a poor choice on her part, and he is blamed the way Brett Brown is blamed for the Sixers loss.
The two rules that cannot be broken, no blood on Continental grounds and every marker must be honored, are a pick: out-there rules that people stick to, with an almost childlike tag or capture-the-flag logic where arcane expansions get added; the whole construction of the Continental and its mythology with its cool figures is called genius.
The gearing-up sequence has aged well: the tailor in the back of the Chinese laundromat, the weapon sommelier in Italy asking how his tasting is, even the bank, the whole secret alternate universe.
The Continental drink scene with Common is loved because the two men are trying to kill each other and then have a cocktail, with Common made to drink gin from a tall glass and looking like a dork; the Gianna scene is creepy but great, with a weird vibe, and it took a couple of viewings to understand that he shoots her to save her from hell, with a great overhead shot of the blood pooling.
Chad Stahelski directed all three films and the first was co-directed with David Leitch, who went on to Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde and the forthcoming Hobbs and Shaw; both were Keanu's stuntmen for years, Chad on The Matrix, and the cinematographer made Danish genre movies before becoming the key cinematographer for the director of The Shape of Water, so a pulpy, bloody movie is made by brilliant artisans, which is the sweet spot; the joke is John Wick 2 is Shape of Water except entertaining.
The honor of the contract killers and the markers ties it to a Western or samurai movie, a classical action setup where a promise must be kept and even the killing has to be done a certain way; caring about Gianna not going to hell shows a moral guy, and honor and codes are called classic Long Island.
Putting a contract out like buying a stock or calling an operator has aged well; if the world were real one host would bet on it, Common at plus 700, though bookies would never take bets on the undefeated Wick, the Kevin Durant or the Mountain of assassins.
The Continental is picked as a world to live in, Soho House for assassins and a rich-guy hangout, though at 800 dollars a night nobody needs a Labrador in the lobby, like a Kempton (as transcribed); Lance Reddick from The Wire as the concierge has a shaky accent; the red leather bar is one of the favorite movie bars, with hotel bars around Columbus Circle the closest New York equivalents; a boutique hotel renaming itself the Continental would be ballsy, a promo stay has been done, and the Intercontinental chain makes the name confusing.
No movie ever set up a sequel better than the end of John Wick 2, the best version of wanting the next one now.
Ian McShane as Winston is the best use of his late-period speechifying, a great guy to hand three pages of dialogue; he would have won the Dion Waiters for John Wick 1, which the show never covered; here he shows up in three key sequences and explains the mythology, making rather than giving the rules.
Compared with over-plotted Marvel, Game of Thrones and J.J. Abrams movies stitched together, the simplicity has aged best: an understandable story with time to embellish, no comic-book or Wikipedia homework, and an exception to the fear of telling simple stories that cannot spawn five sequels.
McShane calling him Jonathan is both condescending and respectful, like someone calling you Christopher; everything McShane says is a rhetorical question.
Shea Serrano calls the speaker Seanathan, which he thinks started after John Wick came out (transcribed as 'won'), and it is in his face all the time. — Sean Fennessey
The final agreement is the whole concept of the Continental, the markers and this world, with the coins as part of it: how much they are worth, how many he has, how heavy they are and why they never fall out when he rolls around.
It is tough: one host would say Vin Diesel but could be talked into Paul Walker, who is beautiful in this movie, with Letty a close third; the argument lands on Brian over Dom because when part two was made only one of the two was in it, and it was not Dom.
The other host's case for Vin Diesel: Paul Walker was already a known quantity, basically a blonde Keanu Reeves bound for Keanu Reeves parts, devastatingly handsome, loved as Lance Harbor in Varsity Blues and the reason one couple saw The Skulls in the theater; Vin Diesel, never seen in Pitch Black, owned the screen in every scene in what was really his first signature movie.
By the end you know that guy is a star; Knock Around Guys, from friends Koppelman and Levine, with its 500 speech, confirmed Vin Diesel would be around for twenty years; the closing thought is that if the measure is who was most overpowering in every scene, it is Dom, electric from the moment he looks over his shoulder at the fight.
Bullock inspires interest in her other films, whereas Reeves inspires another viewing of Speed; this distinction supports the Bullock choice. — Bill Simmons
Annie is praised as likable, heroic, and a real character rather than a gratuitous romantic addition. — Bill Simmons
Was the combination of Speed and the O.J. chase the greatest summer for Los Angeles freeways? — Bill Simmons
Young Nick Cage as Jack is judged worse but more interesting; he could not supply the steady, polite cop.
Replacing Cage with Reeves in the films heard as Conair and Face Off is rejected; both are considered perfect Cage vehicles. — Bill Simmons
Face/Off’s spouse failing to recognize intimate differences is questioned; knowingly accepting the substitute is floated as a counterreading. — Bill Simmons
The Terminator, Speed, Face/Off, Cliffhanger, Die Hard, and First Blood are nominated as great action titles.
Die Hard and The Terminator receive explicit title preferences; Speed is praised too.
Minimum Speed is reported as an original title and mocked as inferior.
The film reportedly won Oscars for sound editing and sound mixing.
Reeves reportedly performed ninety percent of his stunts, including a secretly practiced Jaguar-to-bus jump that surprised the director. — Bill Simmons
The surprise-jump story is challenged as publicity exaggeration because a shot requires coordination; doing the jump itself remains believable.
Going under the bus is rejected as something Reeves did himself; even at five miles per hour, he could die.
An original script reportedly revealed Harry as the villain; the betrayal is enthusiastically welcomed as a remake possibility.
Joss Whedon is credited with script-doctor dialogue, including Gigantor.
Bullock reportedly learned to drive a bus and is praised as convincing behind the wheel.
