Lines put forward: 'I'm Castor Troy' (as transcribed Caster Trey) from the clip already shown; evil Travolta's 'it's like looking in the mirror, but not', a really good Travolta line; and his throwaway 'lies, mistrust, mixed messages, this is turning into a real marriage', offered as a senior high school yearbook quote.
Also 'Sean, we've been living together as man and wife for a week', which is devastating and very uncomfortable, and the actual last line of the movie, 'Dad, I'm sorry I shot you'.
Gives an honorable mention to Travolta with Cage's soul going into Dominique Swain's room, seeing her pack of cigarettes and that she is listening to the James Brown song about a brand new bag, lighting one and saying 'there will be a lot of changes around here' before walking out; that is his favorite line. — Chris Ryan
Picks a different one: six years after the elite uber terrorist killed his son at the carousel, Sean Archer has become the worst boss ever, and when asked to give the agents a break says 'we'll take a break when the case breaks'. — Jason Concepcion
Has two Travolta lines from the church standoff at the very end: Travolta telling the Cage-faced Archer, who is mad that he killed his kid, to either get over it or kill himself rather than take it so personally; and, as the two-man standoff grows person by person to a dozen guns pointed at everyone, 'what a predicament', the best line in the whole movie for him. — Shea Serrano
Another host might vote for 'what a predicament' too, since it was exactly a predicament.
Nominees: Nick Cassavetes as Dietrich, Gina Gershon, Dominique Swain as the daughter, Alessandro Navola (as transcribed) as the brother Pollux, a choice the host does not condone, CCH Pounder, who gets burned to death along with Robert Wisdom's Bunny Colvin from The Wire, Thomas Jane, Todd Parker in Boogie Nights, as one of the prisoners, and the actor who played Machine in 8mm and Sabaka (as transcribed) in The Wire, who escapes with Cage and is one host's favorite.
Margaret Cho gets an honorable mention; the hosts cannot believe she is in it as comic relief with one joke, a terrible line about a transplant for the stick up someone's rear.
Picks the brother Pollux because of his weird voice, doing the ten million dollars line. — Jason Concepcion
Another host has the prisoner Sabaka (as transcribed), our dude whom the others like too.
Another goes with CCH Pounder because she smokes in every scene she is in, including inside the medical lab during the face transplant, then puts her cigarette out on the comatose patient, which is never okay.
The surgery haircut with the face off; the wife not picking Travolta up from the hospital; adopting the homicidal maniac's son unannounced; the dove-filled church funeral; the opening carousel and the sniper drinking from a straw
Nominees begin with the entire movie, opening credits to the end, Cage making crazy faces in prison, Dietrich and Cage laughing at each other Austin Powers style, and the box with absinthe, molly and Chiclets.
At the end Travolta is in surgery for a couple of weeks after being thrown off a boat and badly injured, and his wife is working at her desk at home when he comes in rather than picking him up or waiting at the hospital; a friend from Jimmy's show, Dave Damoshek (as transcribed), used to do an office bit about it: oh, is it Tuesday, I thought it was Monday, it's your husband, he just got his face back.
Cage wakes from the coma with his face off, and the hosts work out what counts as face: eyelids, nose and lips yes, ears no; nobody is watching him, he is immediately fine, there are somehow cigarettes and a telephone, and his face sits in a bowl of saline solution under a spotlight like a Hall of Fame plaque (as transcribed 'plus').
The clip of his phone call is played, imagining getting that call; the henchmen bring in a doctor who asks what he wants him to do, as if there were any question with the face over there; then Cage, with no lips or face, smokes a cigarette, the most ridiculous part of the movie since he has no nose and would have to hold it in his teeth.
Adds two nominees: the denouement at a dove-filled church outside Hermosa, there because Sean Archer's boss has a heart attack exacerbated by Archer breaking his sternum, followed by a funeral like the papal conclave with incense, singing monks, a Marine guard salute and a thousand doves; and CCH Pounder's two options, put an agent in Pollux's cell or switch your face with his, with no other brainstorm. — Chris Ryan
Picks the opening of the movie: Travolta on the carousel rubbing his son's lips and hugging him very closely, then the first look at Cage as Castor through the sniper scope, the mustache that looks like carpeting, drinking through a straw like a Diet Pepsi before killing a man. — Jason Concepcion
Castor Troy is a terrorist for hire, a kind of friendly independent terrorist with no clear employer who is owed ten million dollars; another bit has them looking at the 1997 internet, really cut scenes from a Sega Genesis game with something about Croatia going on.
Another pick is the surgery: in the middle of a super complex procedure lasering the face off and putting it on another man, they first take the face off and then give him a haircut over an open wound, trimming it up.
A host hands out medals: bronze to the haircut with the face off, silver to the wife not picking him up from the hospital, and gold to Archer adopting the homicidal maniac's son without clearing it with his wife, just coming home with the child; then Dominique Swain touches the kid's lips, which is how you get into the family.
The early CGI and obvious stunt doubles; the father-daughter sexual tension and everything with Dominique Swain; the deception of Travolta's wife, named plainly as rape; the caress-heavy lip touching; the Pollux performance; the improvised sibling kiss
The CGI is early and needed to be better, especially for a scene shown later, and there is obvious stunt-double work where Cage suddenly has way more hair than three seconds earlier, looking like Kiki Vandelway (as transcribed).
The brother-sister kiss between Dietrich and Gina Gershon's character was improvised on set by Gershon and Nick Cassavetes, improv incest to add a little salt to the relationship, and the director (transcribed as John Lewis) reportedly said go with it.
There is a lot of weird touching of the lips of people you do not know, three different times; it is a caress-heavy movie. Pollux Troy was a nice juicy role where the hosts wanted more, did not think the performance was good, and note there is a reason the actor was not seen again.
The sexual tension between Cage wearing Travolta's face and Travolta's daughter is flat-out disarming and uncomfortable, not super comfortable in 97 and more uncomfortable as the years pass, down to putting on a Tricky album for Dominique Swain.
Swain's character is a Hong-Kong director's idea of a goth teenager: a little more eyeliner, a fake nose ring, blonde and otherwise a regular person, supposedly on the edge.
Travolta agreeing to switch faces has not really changed the world, and the film glossed over Travolta's big chin cleft and Cage's rat-like teeth, although the characters joke about the chin and tease each other about the love handles.
Says the whole father-daughter thing is an L for everyone involved, everything with Dominique Swain, down to the end when her father brings home a strange boy to replace the child who died and she suddenly dresses like she just went to American Eagle because everything is fine now. — Chris Ryan
Picks something from the aged-best list, the plot point in which Cage's character, wearing Travolta's face, has sex with the wife under false pretenses, which he names plainly as secretly raping her and says is literally what happened. — Shea Serrano
Others agree that is literally what happened and you cannot do that; in the 90s it was supposed to be funny and now it is not, and one host who is still going with the CGI is made to feel bad about it.
