The guy who did the score and played the ghost is called pretty high up there, without being chosen.
Rose Byrne wins it for one participant for a really good mother-in-terror performance.
James Wan is another pick: he changed the course of his career and the horror genre by refusing to be pigeonholed as the Saw guy.
A case is made for Lynn Shay, who went from That Guy to the star of the series and a horror linchpin; the wording is hedged and not counted as a ballot.
Unnoticed figures in photos and drawings; Barbara Hershey's character withholding the family history; the mother's protection standards; kids going into attics; Josh staying late to grade papers
Barbara Hershey's character sitting on the family history instead of telling her son is raised early as a nit; a parent would mention a ghost in every photo before their kids had kids.
How nobody notices the weird figure in the pictures, or the figure in the kid's drawings, is a red flag.
Rose Byrne's character is called a terrible mother whose protection standards were too low: she should refuse the new house and have everyone sleep in one room.
The son has brought home zero demon drawings despite watching hundreds of horror movies, and the mothering in this movie was pretty bad. — Bill Simmons
How Elise knows Dalton can astral travel is raised as a nit but disputed: a reply says she knew the father and went through it before, and mediums get a lot of leeway, like the Poltergeist medium.
Whether 600 dollars per exorcism can pay the bills is questioned; a Patreon pod is the joke answer.
Little kids do not go into creepy attics; a follow-up asks whether Dalton goes up because he is already called there, and heredity versus the fall is left a chicken-or-egg question.
Patrick Wilson's character staying to grade papers while his family is terrorized would mean the divorce papers are signed; he is a high school teacher, not working the Mueller Report.
James Wan is first argued to be at Apex because this breaks him out of the Saw pigeonhole and opens every door; Furious 7 is raised as a challenge.
The Conjuring is then accepted as Wan's Apex instead: it made three times as much, cost 20 million, is a better movie and a bigger contribution, and it leads to Furious.
The Conjuring franchise is preferred; Insidious was abandoned around the third film, and doing Insidious before The Conjuring on the podcast would have made more sense.
A joke imagines Wan living somewhere bright with no creaks rather than a Victorian mansion in Echo Park.
Apex Mountain for astral traveling is raised, noting Behind Her Eyes, without an answer.
Joseph Beshara is affirmed as at Apex Mountain, as both the demon and the score, likened to Johnny Greenwood acting in There Will Be Blood.
The house is rated an eight and a half as a creepy house against a 10 for the Amityville Horror house, whose lit attic windows look like eyes.
Patrick Wilson's horror IMDb (three Insidious films, two Conjurings, Annabelle Comes Home, The Nun, Lakeview Terrace, Young Adult) makes him an underappreciated Scream King or "horror daddy" to Jamie Lee Curtis's Scream Queen.
Barbara Hershey has something inherently creepy and grave about her, as in The Natural as the lady in black and even in Beaches.
Rose Byrne is utterly believable from the start, working on her songs, which makes you care about her.
What they squeezed out of such a small budget is both an aged-best and aged-worst point.
Insidious is a great word, added as a forgotten aged-best point.
The first listed scene is the kid falling off the ladder in the attic, which sets everything up; the attic works because of its high ceiling, trickling light and a ladder to another level, and the furnace is in the attic too.
A childhood attic is likened to the Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse, and a family once heard running noises in their attic that the kids hoped was a ghost; an exterminator found rats that came up the ivy.
The Conjuring is a basement, East Coast movie while this is an attic, West Coast movie; creaky craftsman houses, also used well in Mike Flanagan's second Ouija movie, are underused in haunted house films.
The first evil baby monitor scene is next; a baby monitor that is always on and suddenly carries a strange voice works every time.
After the move, figures seen in and dancing through the new house in broad daylight, with the Tiny Tim needle drop, make the family realize the thing followed them; daylight can be scarier than 3 a.m.
The idea that the people, not the house, are haunted answers the usual question of why a family does not just move.
The revelation "it's not the house that's haunted, it's your son" is an always-great swerve.
The gas mask scene follows, then the face licker showing up when all hell breaks loose; her old-school analog ghost-detecting equipment, shared with Specs and Tucker, is loved.
The ghost figures noticed in the photographs is another listed scene, and Patrick Wilson saving his son is the last.
Favorite scene is the séance with the gas mask, with a shout-out to Rose Byrne uncovering the handprint on the sheets, which starts as worry that he is bleeding. — Chris Ryan
Two Barbara Hershey scenes matter; the kitchen-table scene brings the first demon reveal crouched behind Patrick Wilson, remembered as one of the scariest scenes seen in a theater, with a spilled Coke.
The whole gas mask scene with the face licker and the translating of what the spirits say is named as a favorite: "I'm going with that."
Rogen: no, or maybe; Superbad and Knocked Up were bigger, though a $200 million movie off an $18 million budget and Sausage Party two years later argue maybe.
Pineapple Express was the height of his clout, leading to Green Hornet; the Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express run was his apex.
The clout from this hit was used to make The Interview.
The Interview is impossible to watch objectively; it has funny moments and Randall Park, but something feels off, like watching a Chadwick Boseman movie now. — Sean Fennessey
Apex for frat movies: Revenge of the Nerds, Old School and Animal House are the candidates, and Animal House is the winner; no PCU.
Efron: the case for yes, since coming out of this it felt like a lot would happen, leading to Baywatch and We Are Your Friends.
Efron's body: he is still doing fine; the body is a repeated talking point, like Schwarzenegger.
Rose Byrne is a reliable number two who makes films like Insidious better, making it a tough call.
No for Byrne: she is just consistent; this and Bridesmaids unlocked a decade of comedies like Spy. — Chris Ryan
Another vote says yes for Byrne because of Insidious and then this the next year.
Dave Franco: not yet; the hot take is that it's coming, citing The Rental and The Disaster Artist.
McLovin: no.
Abercrombie & Fitch in movies: yes, it has never been in a better scene.
The Abercrombie scene prompts greeter jokes and a joke that it was a dug-up William Goldman ending.
The couple's chemistry is really good and could have gone wrong in the wrong hands; trained actors are often the best people for movies like this.
Bridesmaids had already shown what Rose Byrne could do, and research for that episode found people surprised she could do comedy.
Byrne is floated as the most versatile actor of her generation: serious dramas, superhero movies, broad comedies and TV, always good.
She is called underrated with the most versatility; Nicole Kidman in the Hawaii comedy seemed to be trying, while Byrne could have made only comedies.
The stunt casting of Mintz-Plasse works: heavier, grown out and older-looking, a deliberate break from the McLovin spell.
Dave Franco's intentional boners, about three in the movie, are hilarious; a son first saw the movie during the pandemic and was angry he had not been shown it sooner.
The opening 'taking it to Bonertown' exchange kills, and the airbag gimmick is hilarious.
The soundtrack is essential, as with The Hangover, and the frat-party music choices were really good.
The music captures the 2008-2015 pop moment of Missy Elliott, Flo Rida and Kesha that played at any gathering of more than 20 people. — Sean Fennessey
Craig weighs in with a Flo Rida comment, prompting a joke about whether Flo Rida beats Bob Dylan.
Agreement follows: an Australian is just an Australian, and she is funnier in this movie because she did not have to worry about her accent.
The accent sets up jokes such as her thinking the Kudrow character is called Dean, and one reference is enough to account for it; strained American accents may inhibit improv.
Jon Hamm: definitely, with Mad Men and The Town happening at the same time.
Melissa McCarthy is a tough one; The Heat is praised, and this is called her best performance, though her New York Times best-actors-of-the-century listing is debated.
Maya Rudolph: not her apex; her SNL stretch and The Good Place judge run rank higher.
Rose Byrne: no; Neighbors is more likely. Apatow: probably not, since he did not direct it.
For wedding movies it is a finals between My Best Friend's Wedding and this, possibly adding Wedding Crashers.
Paul Feig, who created Freaks and Geeks and made Ghostbusters, definitely peaked here critically and commercially.
For shit scenes in movies, Succession and Harold and Kumar are cited and it deserves a follow-up pod, but this would be the peak; it is agreed as Apex Mountain for diarrhea in a movie.
A Lamar Jackson aside becomes the joke podcast Leave Lamar Alone.
Chris O'Dowd: yes, joked against Thor: The Dark World.
Wilson Phillips peaked in the early 90s, but the film gives them a belated or second Apex Mountain.
The cop is the weak spot of the movie; none of his scenes had come up among the memorable ones, unlike Hamm's perfectly written part.
A friendly cop joking about shooting people would not appear in 2020.
His motivation is unclear: he runs radar traps all day, has an Irish accent, and buys $200 of baking supplies after one night.
In the baking scene he was trying to be sweet but was presumptuous; Chris O'Dowd is Irish and was reportedly meant to be American until they kept his real voice.
Rebel Wilson and Rose Byrne are Australian; O'Dowd and Byrne are good together in Juliet, Naked.
The cop was also one participant's recasting nomination, deferred to that category.
The Apatow formula of a rock bottom with about 27 minutes left and a late rally feels familiar from other movies.
The runtime is too long; movies and documentaries should be the right length, not padded by 20 minutes.
Funny People is loved but clearly 30 minutes too long; Apatow's best scenes come in the first two-thirds.
Agreement that the final third runs long; Apatow throws a great first six innings, joked as a Blake Snow outing.
Giving out puppies as party favors is irresponsible, and Megan keeps them in her van during the party; the scene is worth it, and the pink berets make the callback pay off.
The first hangout lunch between Annie and Lillian opens the category, with Annie's penis impression called first class and possibly improvised.
Apatow understood the value of four-minute hangout scenes establishing why characters are friends, a template later seen even in The Hangover.
Jill Clayburgh, a major late-70s star, plays Annie's mom; her chicken-coop scene is longer in the extended version, and the character was toned down after she died.
The dueling engagement-party speeches were largely improvised; Rose Byrne invented fake Thai and a sensible Thai sentence was dubbed in.
The rest of the engagement party works too: Megan's introduction (dolphin telepathy, "I survived. I thrived.") and Annie being repeatedly paired with random men, where everyone else, not Annie, raises her single status.
The speeches push secondhand mortification until guests are holding their glasses up waiting to drink.
Asked about memorable wedding speeches, one participant recalls a best-man speech for best friend Jeff 23-24 years earlier that ended on hoping to someday find what the couple had.
Every character introduction before the speeches is distinct and funny, including Rita on her teenage boys and Becca with her husband after a Disneyland honeymoon.
Rose Byrne is one of the most underrated aspects of the film, also great in Neighbors (on the 2021 schedule); the dueling speeches felt more cringe-inducing than the bridal-shop scene.
Per the research, Byrne had been a dramatic actress hired as a Glenn Close-type villain foil, with nobody knowing she was this funny; she has the hardest, passive-aggressive part.
The food-poisoning dress-fitting scene is the iconic one; it was not in the shooting script and was added after Apatow and Paul Feig pushed for one more physical-comedy scene.
Setup details include the stray dog at the Brazilian restaurant and theme suggestions of Pixar from Becca and Fight Club from Megan.
The gross-out sequence was written in one participant's outline under most rewatchable scene before the rewatch; favorite lines include "I just need to get off this white carpet" and "Look away."
Annie refusing to concede anything to Helen, looking worse with each cut and inching a Jordan almond toward her mouth, may be the funniest part.
It is one of the funniest scenes of all time for any age; after it was shown to a five-year-old son, "look away" became a household running joke.
The immaculate white bridal shop makes the chaos funnier.
Asked which sick character they would be, one participant picks the character who throws up on someone else; another says they would be the "look away" character, like a dog that avoids eye contact.
Megan should have owned using the sink; the janitor's next-morning cleanup was on one participant's unanswerable-questions list.
The plane trip, a spouse's favorite scene, is a great 10 minutes: McCarthy's air-marshal bit and Annie escalating to "Welcome to Germany."
Good ensembles work in any pairing, compared with the Russo brothers' pairings in Infinity War and Endgame; seating Rita and Becca together to discuss their sex lives is a delight.
The film shows up in gifs a lot, like Anchorman: "look away" and Annie's sarcastic reply to Helen's Vegas restaurant offer.
Planes are not funny places, especially since 9/11 and now the pandemic, so unlocking comedy there works.
Annie getting fired over the fight with the teenage girl at the store is a smaller favorite.
The bridal shower, including the bleached-asshole exchange, is another set piece; Lillian's "talk behind my back like a normal person" line is praised, and Megan takes the golden retriever puppies home.
Megan's pep talk, which opens with Annie watching Cast Away, is nominated as a quieter pick blending humor and heart.
McCarthy was the film's stunning revelation; she was an improv legend largely unknown to the public, compared with a John Belushi documentary, and was nominated for an Oscar.
Annie repeatedly driving past the cop to get his attention is a spouse's favorite.
Jon Hamm's scenes are flagged as a likely heat check, including the "open for biz" lap-nap line.
