Asked what would compel reading a Nicholas Sparks book, the answer is a lot of money, probably the only thing. — Andrew Gruttadaro
Asked the same, the answer is that the gist comes through from the movies and there are enough Southern or beach authors already on the list. — Amanda Dobbins
Nicholas Sparks recently got in trouble for bigoted remarks in an email and apologized; it comes through in this movie, which does not make his books necessary reading.
To one host this is absolutely McAdams's Apex Mountain, more than Mean Girls, for her charm and infectious energy; but the standing rule from Bill is that Apex Mountain is not subjective, it is about the point in the career, so the hosts do the objective peak first and an emotional assessment after.
The objective peak argued is Wedding Crashers, the big movie after Mean Girls and The Notebook; a wedding-crashers joke doubles as a Red Eye joke; she may not have capitalized on the moment but came back with an Oscar nomination for Spotlight and Morning Glory, a great 21st-century rom-com on Hulu.
A third voice also goes with The Notebook, making it two of three for this film over the Wedding Crashers argument, conceding Wedding Crashers is undeniable movies-wise, because the real-life relationship made them celebrities and they were dating by the time Wedding Crashers came out in summer 2005; the MTV kiss recreation is floated as her apex moment.
In the Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts sense of turning acting parts into celebrity, the moment is a soaring high for her and Gosling together; subjectively The Notebook is one host's personal McAdams apex, especially on rewatch, and she was that host's winner of the movie.
She is so skinny in this movie, perhaps too skinny; the clothes are great and flattering, the kind of 40s things you would see in Brooklyn now, which should have gone under what aged best as part of the period-piece idea.
James Garner told Gosling 'I don't do accents, kid'; Gosling moved to South Carolina before filming; Gosling made furniture to prepare; the leads disliked each other on set; Cassavetes directed his mother Gina Rollins (as transcribed); the trivia comes from the DVD commentary
Asked for the anecdote, Gosling tried to get real actor-to-actor with James Garner, asking what accent he was going to do, and Garner apparently told him 'I don't do accents, kid' and that accents are stupid. — Andrew Gruttadaro
The hosts side with Team James Gardner (as transcribed); Gosling also raised his blue eyes against Garner's brown and the response was that he did not care; Garner seemed to have no time for him.
Asked whether the affection for Gosling survives the deep-theater-kid contact-lens matching, the answer is that this is the part of Gosling we try not to acknowledge: there is weird indie-band, indie-movie Gosling and funny, charming Gosling, a one-for-them, one-for-me approach, and the pesky method kid who writes extreme character biographies and journals, so a Noah notebook surely exists in the archives. — Amanda Dobbins
More research: Gosling moved to South Carolina before the movie to get comfortable with the terrain, which would be weirder if he were not Canadian, though he spent time in Florida for the Mickey Mouse Club as a Disney kid; he contains multitudes, as Walt Whitman would say.
Gosling also started making furniture to prepare for the role. — Andrew Gruttadaro
The furniture is a fun wrinkle that one host wishes there were more of, while another thinks one close-up on the beautiful furniture in his workshop was the right amount; whether that is how he pays the bills is unknown and parked for picking nits.
Earlier: the two leads did not like each other on set and fought a lot, and a big blowout apparently made things better.
Earlier: Gina Rollins (as transcribed) is the director's mother, James Garner would break when the director called 'okay, mom, action', and the director dominates the DVD commentary, the source of the trivia the hosts cite.
Quite a few actresses wished they had gotten Allie; Jessica Biel is the most vocal, having called it in an interview the film that got away, though one host no longer acknowledges Jessica Biel.
Britney Spears would have been terrible, and with Justin Timberlake rumored as Noah a Justin-and-Britney Notebook was probably considered; she is a really bad actress who has never had chemistry with anyone, said with respect; Reese Witherspoon may not be a true rumor, and Ashley Judd would have been too old.
Timberlake is not a good actor but fun in The Social Network; he later worked with Nick Cassavetes in Alpha Dog with Emile Hirsch, a time capsule of 2006 that nobody saw.
Steven Spielberg apparently wanted to direct this with Tom Cruise starring, which prompts a wish to ask Spielberg what attracted him, with the war part the guess, and a joke that Kevin Connolly would have fared better; the timing is first placed right after Jerry Maguire, then corrected to around 2002, after Eyes Wide Shut and the Nicole divorce, coming off Minority Report and Vanilla Sky.
Cruise's Noah would be a different take that would not make the movie work, though possibly accurate to the script, and not the romantic movie we know; the what-ifs are fun because where they landed is so perfect, Gosling was famously cast first, and a DVD extra shows McAdams coming in for her read looking even younger.
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.
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 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.
