The marshmallow mascot, ghost movies, Ernie Hudson, Rick Moranis, New York Public Library scenes, dog transformations, occult architecture, and ghost combat each receive separate apex checks.
Ghostbusters narrowly beats Ghost as the apex ghost movie, with Poltergeist and newer horror franchises also considered.
Ghostbusters is considered Ernie Hudson's best-known role, while Oz is noted as substantial work; Honey, I Shrunk the Kids beats it for Moranis.
The movie is favored as the apex of ghost combat after Ghosts of Mars is raised as an alternative.
Chevy Chase and Garry Shandling are discussed as earlier possibilities, with Chase considered a good fit; Woody Allen is considered too old. — Bill Simmons
Stone reportedly wanted both Harriet and Rose and left when refused; the dual-role idea is admired. — Bill Simmons
Myers reportedly wanted Dan Aykroyd as his friend, but Coneheads conflicted.
Towering Little League pop fly; Martin playing 35; baseball positioning; uninjured car-crash couple; sexual content; Moranis’s classroom song; developed sex photos
Moved up from picking nits: the first baseman explodes into the outfield impossibly fast under a pop fly that hangs for about fifteen seconds. — Bill Simmons
A 32-mile-per-hour pitch and a weak batter could not produce that pop fly, and the first baseman is a slow slugger type rather than a quick first baseman like John Olerud.
The biggest nitpick is that Martin, 44 and looking older, plays a 35-year-old; he is called miscast despite being great.
If Gil is 35 with a nine-year-old, he would be about fifty at the college graduation yet appears elderly with a cane. — Van Lathan
A generational talent gap is suggested between the Hanks-Keaton group and Martin; Dan Aykroyd or Bill Murray might have fit, but the character should have been written older, which would also sharpen the late pregnancy. — Bill Simmons
The team’s best player would pitch or play shortstop rather than first base; Lou’s grievance comes from Gil’s positioning of Kevin, and a manager could simply move the left fielder to second. — Bill Simmons
Gil or his wife should have been hurt in the car accident, although the nature of the crash is unclear.
The film pushes the limits of its rating with a vibrator, pornography, oral sex and sex photographs.
Rick Moranis singing in the classroom is called a least-favorite, overly long scene. — Bill Simmons
Developing sex photographs at a local shop seems implausible; developers reportedly refused to print some photos. — Bill Simmons
Farley could win for five scenes, which is what makes him great. — Bill Simmons
Aykroyd is picked and seconded: he reportedly filmed his scenes in two days, with strange hair and a Chicago-meets-Coneheads accent, and his motivation is unclear; he definitely wins. — Bill Simmons
As the host sees it, this was when Aykroyd moved to a new career phase and resurfaced doing Bob Dole on SNL. — Bill Simmons
Aykroyd works as a cameo guy, as in Grosse Pointe Blank; here he is sillier, but the weirdly political, Rust Belt movie needs his Zelensky character as the evil corporation face opposed to what Farley believes in. — Sean Fennessey
He was not evil enough and should have been 20 percent more Vince McMahon; the movie has no clear villain beyond one loudmouth foreman. — Cousin Sal
Per the host's read of his IMDb, Aykroyd stayed busy with about four productions a year from 1994 to 2001, which changes perceptions of him. — Cousin Sal
Robin Williams's Boston accent; Matt Damon's frosted tips; the Miramax logo in the opening credits; Will's breakup with Skylar; the screenplay Oscar win over Boogie Nights; the length, especially the two long jokes when Skylar meets Will's friends
Robin Williams's Boston accent is not great and gets a little New York, though some hosts have no ear for it and thought they were all fine; one host says his own accent is gone and only comes out when drunk.
Asked who has the best on-screen Boston accent, the answer is Matt Damon's Will Hunting, the gold standard in the history of movies, better than Wahlberg in The Departed, because the attitude, being ready to fight at all times, is half of it and Damon figured that out more than anyone.
Matt Damon's hair has not aged well; he has talked about regretting the frosted tips and would probably spend money to CGI it away; one host had the same haircut without the tips and thinks it belongs to the mid nineties.
The Miramax logo in the opening credits; Will's breakup with Skylar, I don't love you, has not so much aged badly as remained a rough, physical three minutes that is hard to watch.
Good Will Hunting winning Best Screenplay over Boogie Nights: both are Oscar-worthy with a hundred memorable lines and great characterization, something has to win, and one host prefers Boogie Nights as a movie but calls it close and says this movie holds up.
Asked to choose for the Oscar between Robin Williams and Robert Forster in Jackie Brown, the answer is that the Forster performance is amazing, Jackie Brown is really great, and this is not even the number one movie to have given Robin Williams an Oscar for. — Sean Fennessey
Films Williams should have won for are then thrown out, apparently by more than one voice: Dead Poets, Fisher King, Garp, Good Morning Vietnam, all those movies.
It is long: from a rewatchable standpoint, when Skylar meets Will's buddies and the two long jokes come, you know the jokes after 50 viewings and it drags.
That is a great Skylar scene and there is not enough of her; the great part is not the joke but watching everybody else, the awkwardness, realizing this is the woman he is going to marry, the see-about-a-girl scene playing out in real time with the friends. — Shea Serrano
Others agree it is a necessary scene that only gets a little slow in a movie of about 2:05; Casey Affleck needling Ben back and forth is loved, as are scenes of people talking in bars and diners, and bombed out of his tree has been quoted for 20 years; the alternate jokes on YouTube were all funny; Damon's long barn story in Saving Private Ryan is called the worst part of that movie, though it is supposed to be bad because the guy is a dipshit.
Eddie Murphy: one host says yes, ahead of Beverly Hills Cop; the other thinks Cop was his Apex Mountain as a better overall performance carried alone, answered with the forty-and-twenty-five box score he puts up here; after Cop, without Nolte or Dan Aykroyd beside him, he and Michael Jackson were the two biggest stars in the world, and both films rank above Trading Places.
Nick Nolte: no; Blue Chips and Prince of Tides are floated, Prince of Tides for success, North Dallas 40 as probably his best performance since you believe he played in the NFL, plus Rich Man, Poor Man watched by fifty million, Cape Fear and Who Will Stop the Rain; a lot of really good work but nothing definitively incredible, so no apex.
Walter Hill: The Long Riders, his Western about the James gang from around the same time, is raised first, but this film is called very high and 'this one' is the answer given; San Francisco is a great movie character rarely maximized like this, with Mrs. Doubtfire, Pacific Heights, Dirty Harry and Bullitt as other San Francisco movies, and the film captures the city's old cow-town backwater quality.
Sonny Landham: no, Predator is his apex, cutting his chest with a knife and waiting for the predator, on the same bill as Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers and Ventura, his political mentor; James Remar: one hundred percent yes, though one host's wife wanted Sex and the City named instead.
Remar is also great in The Warriors, and Gans has an ignominious ending, roughing up the female cop for no reason, which flips the audience from liking a badass to recoiling; he works constantly, turning up in What Lies Beneath at two in the morning; Olivia Brown's apex was Miami Vice; Frank McRae topped out here.
