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William Goldman

Also referred to as Goldman, Bill Goldman, Bill

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Good Will Hunting The Rewatchables
Good Will Hunting

Half-Assed Internet Research

The Public Garden bench is now a Robin Williams memorial; a gay sex scene was written into the script to test whether anyone read it; Williams insisted on the L Street bar and ad-libbed the wife story and 'Son of a bitch, he stole my line'; Sean was based on Damon's mother and Affleck's father; Gus Van Sant painted the painting in Sean's office; Skylar was based on Damon's Harvard ex; Damon and Minnie Driver dated through the shoot and the Oscars; Terrence Malick suggested the ending

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 01:03:33Read transcript
  • The Boston Public Garden park bench where 3,000 people watched the scene is now a memorial to Robin Williams, after people put flowers there when he died; one host lived for ten years a six-minute walk from Bunker Hill Community College, where Sean taught.
  • For a while the screenplay contained a gay sex scene between Will and Sean in his office, written to see if anybody was actually reading the script during the year Castle Rock would not buy it and they feared it had become poison; nobody noticed until Harvey Weinstein, who told them to get rid of it.
  • Robin Williams insisted on the L Street bar after being mobbed scouting it and loving the energy, though his scene was not filmed there; he ad-libbed the story about his wife farting, which is why Matt Damon laughed so hard, and son of a bitch, he stole my line, which was supposed to be him reading the note and nodding; Williams was a genius with a complicated reputation because of bad movies.
  • Robin Williams's character was based on a mix of Damon's mom and Affleck's dad; Gus Van Sant painted the painting in Sean's office; Skyler is based on Damon's ex-girlfriend from Harvard; Damon and Minnie Driver dated from halfway through the movie through the Oscars and had a bad breakup two months later, he apparently dumping her; the hosts decline to discuss the two adjudicating each other on Twitter.
  • One host's wife called Minnie Driver bad, the reason the movie has not aged as well, and did not believe the relationship; the hosts disagree and think she is really good, though she rightfully did not become the huge star people expected; another host's wife came in for the middle and said the two have no chemistry even after hearing they dated a year in real life.
  • The hosts feel they are in love at that table; on a very small sample size women may see no chemistry where men do; the knick-knack store googly glasses moment, the Magic 8 ball scene with her NBA jokes, the organic chemistry scene and the piano speech all argue they are in love or amazing performers; she has not been in many movies, unlike a Gwyneth Paltrow with a 20-year history that would color it; one host claims she won the Oscar for this (she was in fact nominated), as evidence people felt that way at the time.
  • One more research bit: in the original script Will and Skylar leave town together; through a friend of the Affleck family Ben and Matt met Terrence Malick, who had read it and said Will should chase her, she is gone and he has to go find her, so Malick is the reason for the ending, one of many lucky notes and ad-libs that pushed the movie up levels.
  • Why did Rob Reiner, William Goldman and Terrence Malick want to help two unfamous guys when people struggle in Hollywood for 25 years, and this is the only movie Harvey Weinstein did not chop up as he saw fit; they had some success already, unlike Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, though Vaughn was in Rudy as Jamie O'Hara; the only guess is that people sensed they were headed somewhere and wanted to be thanked.
Good Will Hunting The Rewatchables
Good Will Hunting

Most Rewatchable Scene

The Red Sox Game Six story in Sean's office; the Harvard bar scene with Clark; the playground fight; Chucky's construction-site speech

In the discussion (13)
Approx. transcript time · 00:20:51Read transcript
  • The host could not narrow the categories to five or six because this is not just a great movie but the quintessential cable movie, on some channel for 20 years and constantly tested by people coming in partway; the nominees are the slow-motion playground fight, the battle with Ponytail Guy, the I Will End You scene, the park bench monologue, Pudge Fisk, the twelve-minute stretch from Will laying into Lambo through the baseball glove and the shepherd scene, the Chucky construction best-part-of-my-day scene, It's Not Your Fault, and Chucky realizing Will left.
  • The Red Sox story, the Pudge Fisk story, is the scene you stay for when you come in with five minutes: funny coming from a Philly fan, relatable, with a twist you know is coming; Damon cracking up and getting genuinely locked in shows the connection being made without talking about therapy, the physical acting Robin Williams does is great, and the filmmaking cuts in the game footage and the overhead shot of him reenacting the scene. — Chris Ryan
  • In the overhead shot the furniture is set up like the bases; the filmmakers were not sure they would get the baseball footage, having licensed nothing at that point, and Harvey Weinstein had to make it happen, because the scene would not work as well without the baseball.
  • The issue with the scene is that nobody who loves the Red Sox gives up a Game Six ticket at Fenway after only two World Series in 28 years, in 67 and 46, however much he likes the girl; it is the same problem as Fever Pitch, where Jimmy Fallon gives up fourth-row tickets for Drew Barrymore; this host would have been the friend saying there is no way you skip this game, and concludes Sean was an artsy-fartsy smart guy whose friends were like Jerry Lambeau and not real Red Sox fans, which the others call a take and a half and compare to a limousine liberal quoting Leo from The Departed.
  • The ponytail scene with Clark sets the movie in motion and is the only nominee that gives a bit of what makes every character great: Ben Affleck charming and funny without being threatening, Minnie Driver making her little comment to Clark that makes Matt Damon smile, Damon flexing for the first real time how much smarter he is, not wanting to do it and being forced into it to save his friend, and the quick Casey Affleck shot, boy, he's wicked smart; there is no way to skip past that scene. — Shea Serrano
  • The nitpick with the Clark scene is that Affleck and Cole Hauser would throw down with Ponytail Guy immediately, before it ever gets to the Will Hunting part, since these are guys who randomly drive by a playground and fight five guys; the hosts also ask why it matters that Casey is bouncing at a bar in Cambridge, concluding the Southie guys wanted to try a new bar, mix it up and make fun of people, and that it is a totally realistic Boston scene of people drifting from neighborhood to neighborhood.
  • Why a local group from Southie would want a Harvard bar: a different type of girl than they are used to, and they cut the line because the bouncer lets them in; yet inside it is not populated and is basically a sports bar with Papa Shot (as transcribed) and Bud Light, though Harvard Square had popular holes in the wall like Charlie's; one host recalls the townies-versus-college-kids separation in Huntsville, Texas, and those guys looking for conflict is the point, with Cole Hauser punching that guy in the face immediately.
  • An honorable mention is the Retainer scene, Ben Affleck flexing in front of the three guys; this was way more Ben Affleck's movie than remembered, so funny, charming and weird that it is a shame he is not this actor all the time; the scene responded to most is the fight, though it is so short it may not draw you in on cable, and it is the weirdest thing ever, since why are they fighting these guys. — Sean Fennessey
  • Will fights the guy because he got picked on in kindergarten; Will Hunting should be in prison for life, and when the judge, who is not Vonnegut but an actor who was a member of Whitey Bulger's Winter Hill gang, reads the rap sheet of assault, grand theft auto, larceny and mayhem, this guy clearly cannot be let out to clean hallways; a Gus Van Sant fight scene is not something that crosses your mind, and Casey Affleck's face as he falls to the punch is phenomenal.
  • One host's single favorite is the Chucky construction scene, when Chucky gets mad at Will for still being there and says before he knows it he will be 50 and still doing this: a Massachusetts thing of living and dying in your parents' house, with Chucky the perfect character whose friends are the most important thing to him, down to the casual mention of still watching Patriots games, nuances William Goldman never could have written; Affleck had been ready to do that scene for years and nailed it in the first take, doing two more takes but the first was used.
  • The construction speech is mostly shot over Affleck's shoulder going in on Damon across the hood of the car, not the usual framing for a memorable scene, so you expect Damon to have a big rebuttal and he does not; the clip is played, from 'it'd be an insult to us if you're still here in 20 years' through the best part of my day being the ten seconds hoping Will will not be there.
  • Part of the rewatch pleasure is the 20 years of history with Damon and Affleck, who are both obviously stars in this movie, like an NBA team with two future superstars; the script started with Damon at Harvard, based on his relationship with a woman named Skyler, before he brought it to Ben, and the movie forecasts the tension of what happens when one of them makes it and the other does not.
  • The last eight or nine minutes are as rewatchable as any movie's ending: Will saying goodbye to Sean, Sean and Lambeau getting a beer, Chucky going to pick him up and finding him gone, and the credits rolling over the car with Elliot Smith; the hosts cannot place the highway, which feels like the Mass Pike but was probably outside Toronto.
The Dark Knight The Rewatchables
The Dark Knight

Apex Mountain

Heath Ledger; Aaron Eckhart; Christopher Nolan, for cultural impact; Christian Bale, as a movie star only

In the discussion (16)
Approx. transcript time · 00:53:11Read transcript
  • Heath Ledger is Apex Mountain, with the 'all part of the plan' speech performed; this and Brokeback are his two shining achievements, he is an all-time great American, or Australian, actor, the performance is burned into the brains of a generation, and he has kind of ruined comic book villains.
  • Tangent: basically all other comic book villains are bad or problematic; Marvel punted with various space monsters, Thanos is a rip-off of Darkseid, and apart from Magneto there is no psychological depth to apply.
  • Two exceptions are offered: Magneto, especially the Fassbender iteration, and Sam Raimi's Dr. Octopus as played by Alfred Molina in the second Spider-Man, good for the opposite reason to Ledger because he is vulnerable, with a story about his wife driving him mad. — Sean Fennessey
  • There are only a handful of great villains, Anton Chagru (as transcribed), Hannibal Lecter and the Joker; a great villain thinks he is the hero, which cannot apply to a cartoon Nazi like the Red Skull, while the Joker understands he is the flip side of Batman; Lex Luthor was left on the table, Gene Hackman's version a great movie character if schlocky.
  • Taken on its face, Ledger's Joker literally asks the audience why they care about anything, lighting a mountain of money on fire, which pokes at the heroism and financial motivations of these movies.
  • Bale is the most interesting Apex question: his only huge non-ensemble success is Batman, Big Short and American Hustle were ensembles and his top-lined films are strange, a couple of Malicks and Scott Coopers; The Fighter is arguably his greatest role, one host personally picks Empire of the Sun though he was a child, and some are partial to American Psycho.
  • The vote is American Psycho: he is extraordinarily well suited to that role and not to Bruce Wayne; this host has never liked his Batman, finding many of his choices grating, particularly the voice. — Sean Fennessey
  • Does the movie work without Ledger: no. Not being all the way in on Christian Bale, with American Psycho his most interesting and The Fighter his most realized performance, leads to this not being Apex Mountain for him as a performance, though probably as a movie star, a framing that is agreed to.
  • American Psycho is also picked, as an investigation of the dark side of the handsome, square-jawed movie-star image, where Bruce Wayne is a blank mirror for the far more interesting Joker; the tonal similarity between Bane's and Bruce's voices is part of why Dark Knight Rises did not resonate.
  • Batman might be the hardest role in movies: a performer with any sense of irony cannot play Bruce Wayne, which is why Bale's funny American Psycho turn and Affleck's larded irony are problems; Keaton did a good job and nobody has tried the snappy Adam West version.
  • Aaron Eckhart's canon is read out: In the Company of Men, Any Given Sunday, Erin Brockovich (as transcribed, Aaron Brockovich), The Core, Thank You for Smoking, Battle for Los Angeles, President Benjamin Asher in Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen, and Jeff Skiles, Sully's loyal co-pilot.
  • Is Harvey Dent Apex Mountain for Eckhart: yes, citing a Twitter meme that one of the great movie moments is Dent not recognizing the Joker in the hospital until the surgical mask comes off, a scene liked a lot, with the comment that it is a good scene for Eckhart too and a huge flex for Ledger, every line of his great; Eckhart is a pretty good actor, a really good number two, and well cast and good here.
  • Maggie Gyllenhaal: no, that goes to The Honorable Woman or Secretary, and she is phenomenal in The Deuce.
  • Nolan: in terms of cultural impact, yes; whether it is his best movie splits the room among Dunkirk, Inception, and Dark Knight first with Inception second; what he accomplishes even in fits and starts is above almost all his peers, he can be John Ford, Howard Hawks or Spielberg, which is why one host is harder on him than on anyone.
  • Does Nolan need a David Coop (as transcribed) or William Goldman to write his scripts, the way Andy Reid needs a time-management coach; his Dark Knight dialogue is more comic-booky than remembered, telling you the theme of each scene, and the set pieces hold the movie up while seams show in the small moments.
  • Nolan and Fincher together would be the greatest filmmaker of all time, since Fincher cares about the precision of intimate one-on-one scenes while Nolan's set pieces are incredible but he does not know how two people talk to each other; another host accepts comic-book corniness but finds the plotting of almost all his movies too convoluted for no reason, charming only in Memento.
The Silence of the Lambs The Rewatchables
The Silence of the Lambs

Half-Assed Internet Research

Hopkins mocked Foster's Southern accent in their first scene; James Gumm combines Ed Gein, Ted Bundy and Gary Hednick (as transcribed); Gene Siskel gave the film a negative review; Brooke Smith gained 25 pounds for Catherine Martin; Goodbye Horses replaced a Bob Seger song and Ted Levine insisted on the dance; Levine and Scott Glenn did extensive research; the story was inspired by Robert Keppel and Ted Bundy; William Goldman got Demme to cut a 12-minute Crawford-Clarice sequence

In the discussion (10)
Approx. transcript time · 00:33:36Read transcript
  • According to Jodie Foster, Hopkins improvised mocking her Southern accent during their first meeting, so her horrified reaction is genuine; the hosts love when good actors unsettle their scene partners, and the accent is called not great and one of several problems with her performance.
  • James Gumm ('Jame Gum' variously as transcribed) combines three real killers: Ed Gein, who skinned victims, Ted Bundy, who escaped and killed again, and Gary Hednick (as transcribed), who kept captives in a basement pit.
  • Gene Siskel gave the film a negative review, and one host calls Siskel the movie equivalent of the host's perpetual disagreements with Greenwald.
  • Brooke Smith, who played Catherine Martin, gained 25 pounds for her first major role, and the hosts wonder whether she deserved a supporting actress nomination.
  • The dance song Goodbye Horses by Q Lazarus was originally supposed to be a Bob Seger song, which one host is glad it was not; the hosts joke about how men their age would react if it came on in a bar.
  • Ted Levine insisted the dance scene be in the film, and the screenwriter did not know it would be until he saw it; it was improvised, Levine needed two drinks first, and he researched by visiting trans bars and talking to people.
  • Scott Glenn researched child murder cases and worked with the real-life model for Crawford, with tempestuous political arguments because Glenn opposed capital punishment; a host jokes that Glenn then murdered him.
  • The story was inspired by the relationship between University of Washington criminology professor and profiler Robert Keppel and Ted Bundy, which is how the Green River killer was caught.
  • The second host's research, from a Deadline oral history: after an LA screening, William Goldman told Demme to cut a filmed 12-minute sequence in which the attorney general chews out Crawford and Clarice, kicks her out of the academy and takes him off the case; Demme and the editor resisted, cut it anyway, and the film became a tight hour and 54 minutes.
  • Goldman is also credited with telling the Good Will Hunting writers to drop the second half where Will becomes a spy; the host found the Goldman story the most interesting, the Hackman material having been covered.
Displaying discussions 13 - 16 of 16 in total