Ray Allen and Spike Lee are reported to have discussed a de facto sequel, but one participant says it will not happen. — Bill Simmons
The observed Rosario Dawson is reported as eighteen and sexually inexperienced during production, with a later statement that she first had sex at twenty. — Bill Simmons
The opening song is identified as John Henry. — Bill Simmons
John Henry is described as a Black folk hero and steel driver who beat a machine but died. — Van Lathan
The panel interprets that labor story as a deliberate man-versus-machine frame for the opening.
Kobe Bryant, Stephon Marbury, Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady, and Allen Iverson are discussed as alternatives to Ray Allen, whose maturity and size are ultimately defended.
A talented prospect having only Georgetown or community college as options is implausible; St.John’s, Iona and other schools should be interested.
Kyle should recognize the recruiting figures by senior year, although a recent four-inch growth spurt might explain his late emergence. — Van Lathan
Nutso’s rooftop death has inconsistent barriers and implausible glass placement; playing in varsity jackets is also questioned.
The coach should have delivered the Georgetown letter earlier; Kyle’s uncertain team choice explains the timing but invites suspicion he might withhold it. — Bill Simmons
Motaw commits eight counted old-style flagrants plus further modern violations without being ejected. — Van Lathan
The tournament’s relationship to the high-school season and mixed warm/cold-weather clothing makes the timeline unclear. — Bill Simmons
The easily shattered rooftop backboard and inconsistent walls do not explain Nutso’s fall; drugs and Shep’s responsibility remain uncertain.
Kyle Lee Watson sounds implausible beside contemporary New York prospects; the name seems more like a country singer or serial killer, perhaps only serving one joke.
Georgetown’s scout watching repeated bad performances makes little sense when the school should already know it wants the prospect. — Bill Simmons
The ending is compared with the 2013 NBA Finals; the Ray Allen comeback is jokingly considered less realistic. — Bill Simmons
A park shooting and police response seem plausible, but sending Motaw on a public killing mission seems foolish.
Motaw handling the ball late is questioned, then defended because prior dialogue establishes him as the threatened star player. — Bill Simmons
Monarch High School and its Panthers nickname feel unlike New York public schools named after public figures.
The opening bank robbery, 1990s Detroit with the Cronk Jim and Emmanuel Stewart, and the color changes have aged well. — Bill Simmons
Clooney's strategy of robbing banks without a gun is admired. — Bill Simmons
The Dennis Farina and Lopez scenes: as her father he adds color without cliche, is too important for the Joey Pants award, and immediately knew she was into the guy. — Bill Simmons
Great nicknames: Dick the Ripper for Albert Brooks's character and Snoopy the boxer, who hates the name. — Bill Simmons
Catherine Caner is great in a couple of scenes, part of a 1998-99 run of Out of Sight, Your Friends and Neighbors, 8mm and Being John Malkovich. — Bill Simmons
Ving Rhames's 93-98 run (Dave, Pulp Fiction, ER, Kiss of Death, Mission Impossible, Rosewood, Conair, Out of Sight) is called automatic and compared to Ray Allen; his later commercial voice work now takes one speaker out of some line readings.
Rhames can be really scary yet also Clooney's believable loyal best friend. — Bill Simmons
A speaker's father repeated the 'get medieval' line for about a year. — Ryen Russillo
The DJ David Holmes score is really good. — Bill Simmons
Clooney's line asking whether anyone has done one last big score and gone on to live the good life holds up; only Fast and Furious pulled that off. — Bill Simmons
Agreeing on the last-score line: even on the big score the crew is dumb, one robbing steaks and White Boy Bob tripping and shooting himself; Cheddar Bob is joked to be his younger brother. — Bill Lawrence
Six rewatchable scenes are offered, starting with the opening kids' game set to Candy Girl: the hat coming off, the boys' reaction, Quincy talking himself into playing, the foul and her touching the scar. — Bill Simmons
The soundtrack is praised (New Edition, Maxwell, Guy, Roger Troutman and more); Black-movie soundtracks of the era were often better than the movies and people rushed to buy the CDs. — Jemele Hill
The film opens with Al Green's Love and Happiness; Spotify playlists collect the soundtrack, including Simply Red's Holding Back the Years and the MTV Unplugged remake of This Woman's Work. — Bill Simmons
Monica getting the USC letter and going through the window to Quincy is the second pick; the championship game is mentioned as a possible rewatch too. — Bill Simmons
Monica taking the charge at USC to win the game and the locker-room and weightlifting scenes make the team feel real, compared to women's teams known at Holy Cross. — Bill Simmons
The response adds that the scenes show how competitive women can be, as A League of Their Own did, with the tension between Monica and Sidra, the senior whose job she is after, as a nice subplot. — Jemele Hill
The six-minute overseas stretch in Barcelona is a pick: it looks glamorous, but the underlying theme is that playing abroad with a coach yelling in Spanish was the only option for women's basketball; the other participant agrees it belongs. — Bill Simmons
Sidra's line that the Italians love Black women is described by the hosts as a common topic among Black women traveling in Europe, dubbed the Josephine Baker syndrome, both truism and stereotype. — Jemele Hill
The kitchen scene where Monica's mother slaps her is called probably the best-acted scene in the movie, paying off the mother character. — Bill Simmons
The mother-daughter tension is praised as real and making the turnaround rewarding; mothers and daughters are joked to be natural enemies. — Jemele Hill
The famous ending is the sixth pick: the one-on-one for his heart, Lathan's acting, Omar removing the brace, the You Make a Fool of Me song, the loss for Monica, and the jump to the WNBA game with her hyphenated jersey; called a great last 10 minutes. — Bill Simmons
The final game is judged solid though not Ray Allen versus Denzel in He Got Game; they pulled it off. — Bill Simmons
A beef on game point: Quincy shoves Monica down and dunks on her, called a microcosm of their relationship; the counterview is that he had hit rock bottom and needed a win, and in 2020 he would probably just shoot a three. — Jemele Hill
The second participant picks the argument over Quincy going pro, capturing the pressure on successful women to choose between a relationship and a career. — Jemele Hill
Monica being benched for showboating after the pull-up three is another pick, a teachable moment that starts her evolution as a teammate, along with her taking the charge, a selfless payoff. — Jemele Hill
The final stated choice is the last 10 minutes, from the basketball game to the WNBA ending; the packed Staples Center crowd raises doubts that early WNBA games drew like that. — Jemele Hill
Operation Kino is not a subtle code name; Nazi security at the premiere is lax with a mountain of nitrate film and visible dynamite; Hickox calls Pabst German when he is Austrian; Wilhelm's table cannot hear the switch to English; Bridget leaves her shoe and a signed napkin behind; the developer is threatened on top of flammable film; the 'Hans out of a million' line; Hitler fetching his own gum; Shoshana's filmed message is in English
One host has no nits; another opens with a big one: Kino is the German word for movie theater, so Operation Kino is not a subtle code name for a mission anyone overhearing could figure out; OPSEC for the Nazis is not high order, with everybody important put in a theater the size of the Bowery Ballroom guarded by little more than Wanda, where any Italian filmmaker can walk in off the street.
Rewatching, a host was briefly confused about why Landa let the two Italians into the theater, having forgotten that he purposefully allows them to bring the dynamite in to take care of the Nazi command; the nit is that his decision is already made, though his following through on killing Bridget in the interrogation delays the realization until his exchange with Aldo.
What about everybody else in the security unit: there is a mountain-sized pile of flammable film and literal dynamite around people's legs, visible to the naked eye on the stairs, which prompts a John Hamm (as transcribed) joke and a reprimand for having dick on the brain.
Two explanations offered: it is the end of the war and the Nazis have checked out, their famous rigor fallen away, or the movie is bad; the hosts take the first, since you cannot get 90 minutes into a rewatch and decide the movie is bad because the Germans lacked security.
Hickox is said to have been writing a book on G.W. Pabst, whom he calls German, but Pabst is Austrian, just like Hitler, and he still got the cosign from Fennec (as transcribed) and Churchill despite the error; when fact checkers at the Ringer make mistakes, the response is 'there's the door' and a photo of John Hamm (as transcribed) to go.
Wilhelm's table at the Maximilian birthday celebration cannot hear the next table and is not suspicious at the switch to English, even though the scene's tension rests on the others in the room being mortal peril; the party freely conducts a sensitive conversation and the neighbors hear none of it, and things go awry only because Hellstrom enters after they yell at Wilhelm and because of the strange accent; Wilhelm's drunkenness is perfect, like hitting peach schnapps at a high school party.
Without wanting to be insensitive about being shot in the leg, a host objects that Bridget, in agony and terror, leaves behind not only her high-fashion footwear but a napkin bearing her kiss and signature; the defenses are that this is just movies, she is not a trained agent who knows how to clean a scene, and Aldo needed to get out of Dodge rather than sweep the room.
The Landa-as-Sherlock-Holmes affectation of pipe, hat and uniform is loved, but is it Sherlock Holmes if her name is literally on the napkin; maybe he is not as smart as he thinks, and the modern version is sending a tweet instead of a DM, like the Ray Allen tweet he said was hacked; she should have signed BVH; Landa's clout score and self-edited wiki page are joked about.
The nitrate film is extremely flammable, yet Shoshana and Marcel throw the developer onto what is basically a bomb to convince him and threaten to put an axe in his skull; the 'Hans out of a million' line (as transcribed) does not make sense; and a host cannot shake Hitler having to get up in the middle of the movie to get his own gum when nobody will fetch it for him.
Teased by name that the Hitler gum complaint will be the social pull-quote for the episode, the host answers that this is a category of the podcast and she is taking the mission seriously. — Mallory Rubin
It is odd that Shoshana's message in the film is in English given how little of the movie is; it is a filmic flourish and an obvious homage to The Wizard of Oz, her face created in light through the smoke, and English makes the movie's most critical sentiment easiest for the intended audience, with the victory over Germany seen as the victory of the English-speaking West; whether it also says Americans are the best filmmakers is doubted, since Tarantino might favor the Italians or the Japanese, and the movie is about how we define ourselves.
Earlier, during internet research, a host saves one item for picking nits while another admits to having no nits to pick at all.
