‹ All people

Film credit

Michael Rapaport

Also referred to as Michael Rapport, Michael Rappaport, Rappaport

Stats

Episodes featuring their films
4
Movies in this archive
4

Rewatchables episodes featuring Michael Rapaport’s films

Hitch

2005 film

Bill Simmons · Van Lathan · Mina Kimes

Aired July 21, 2026

Cop Land

1997 film

Bill Simmons · Chris Ryan · Sean Fennessey

Aired June 2, 2022

Higher Learning

1995 film

Bill Simmons · Van Lathan · Wesley Morris

Aired February 19, 2020

True Romance

1993 film

Bill Simmons · Chris Ryan · Sean Fennessey

Aired September 20, 2018

Displaying all 4 episodes

Mentioned in discussions

Hitch The Rewatchables
Hitch

What’s Aged the Worst?

Michael Rapaport as a likable friend; extravagant courtship; assaults; tabloid office; pacing and allergy sequence.

Flex pick · Mina Kimes

In the discussion (10)
Approx. transcript time · 01:12:45Read transcript
  • Michael Rapaport playing a likable friend is selected by Mina under an explicitly cued flex. — Mina Kimes
  • The luxurious, unrealistic tabloid office is criticized.
  • Hitch’s elaborate first-date planning and walkie-talkies are criticized as potentially creepy now.
  • The response is defended as depending on whether the recipient already likes the man.
  • The seven o’clock meeting time is judged stranger than the jet skis. — Van Lathan
  • Women striking men and the food fight are criticized as conduct contemporary movies would avoid. — Van Lathan
  • Hitch choosing Sara rather than the Paula Patton character is criticized.
  • The middle of the movie drags when Kevin James is absent. — Bill Simmons
  • The food-allergy comedy is criticized. — Bill Simmons
  • The extreme portrayal of Albert as a man who could win Allegra is judged less believable now.
Hitch The Rewatchables
Hitch

Most Rewatchable Scene

Dance lessons and first date; Albert attacking Hitch; opening principles; bar; jet skis; wedding.

In the discussion (26)
Approx. transcript time · 00:40:34Read transcript
  • The opening montage of Hitch’s principles is proposed.
  • The broom metaphor is accepted as fine. — Bill Simmons
  • The claim that communication is 30 percent tone and 60 percent body language is doubted. — Bill Simmons
  • The rule that a woman’s best friend must approve is endorsed and debated through personal examples.
  • The bar conversation and flashback are proposed. — Bill Simmons
  • Michael Rapaport’s single-scene role and unclear brother-in-law connection are separate observations about the bar sequence.
  • The Paula Patton bar appearance and her star potential receive extended praise.
  • Albert quitting in the boardroom while Hitch coaches from behind a door is proposed.
  • Hitch rescuing Eva Mendes’s character from Chip is proposed as a classic smooth entrance.
  • The walkie-talkie invitation is proposed. — Van Lathan
  • The Sunday timing is praised as a calculated way around Friday and Saturday refusal. — Van Lathan
  • Hitch is said to use the walkie-talkie partly because Sara’s coworkers will hear and react. — Van Lathan
  • The Hudson River jet-ski portion of the date is proposed. — Mina Kimes
  • The Ellis Island reveal is proposed for its surprising butcher joke and Hitch’s planning failure.
  • The early dance montage is proposed. — Bill Simmons
  • The allergy scene is proposed; later, the food-allergy material is said not to work. — Bill Simmons
  • Albert’s Knicks date and attempted kiss are proposed. — Bill Simmons
  • The apartment food fight is proposed. — Van Lathan
  • The food fight is separately criticized as aggression that would not play the same way now. — Van Lathan
  • Speed dating is proposed.
  • A reported post-pandemic speed-dating resurgence undercuts the idea that the activity is purely a 2005 relic.
  • Will Smith and Eva Mendes are compared to two hot aliens placed among the speed-dating losers. — Mina Kimes
  • Hitch pleading for Albert on Allegra’s boat is proposed.
  • The wedding and end-credit dancing are proposed.
  • Hitch pleading Albert’s case before Albert attacks him is selected as the funniest moment. — Van Lathan
  • The dance lesson intercut with Albert’s first date is the consensus selection. — Mina Kimes
Higher Learning

Apex Mountain

Busta Rhymes’s movie career (likely apex)

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 01:20:01Read transcript
  • Love & Basketball is favored as Omar Epps's career apex, with The Wood and ER also considered.
  • Higher Learning is considered a plausible Michael Rapaport apex, with a later television role also recalled but not clearly named.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer is preferred as Kristy Swanson's apex.
  • PCU is favored over Higher Learning as the apex for mid-1990s college-campus culture.
  • Higher Learning is considered Busta Rhymes's likely movie apex after Belly is correctly rejected as a film he appeared in.
  • John Singleton's apex is debated between Higher Learning's career leverage and Rosewood's stronger filmmaking, while Boyz n the Hood remains his best movie to one participant. — Van Lathan
  • Rosewood opening opposite Booty Call is cited as evidence that Singleton had less industry leverage by then. — Van Lathan
Higher Learning

Half-Assed Internet Research

The shooting's inspiration, cast backgrounds, deliberate isolation of Rapaport, and Kristy Swanson's politics

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 01:18:35Read transcript
In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:15:48Read transcript
  • Michael Rapaport's climactic repeated declarations are proposed as the only clear overacting winner.
  • One participant defends the scene as a believable collapse into repeated rhetoric. — Van Lathan
  • The group outvotes that objection and confirms Rapaport.
  • Malik's immediate reaction to Deja's death is offered as an alternate overacting candidate.
Higher Learning

What’s Aged the Best?

The national-anthem scene, Remy's radicalization, Malik's Columbus speech, Fudge's look, and Fishburne's immigrant-professor perspective

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:55:07Read transcript
  • The national-anthem exchange is judged startlingly prescient in light of Colin Kaepernick's later protest. — Van Lathan
  • Remy's progression from isolation into white nationalism is called the film's strongest structural achievement. — Bill Simmons
  • Malik's Columbus speech is singled out as one of Omar Epps's better acting moments despite some theatricality. — Bill Simmons
  • Fudge's Afro is praised as a deliberate identity marker that was unusual in 1995. — Bill Simmons
  • Malik's statement that racism has become more mental than physical is treated as a point the film articulated unusually early. — Bill Simmons
  • Professor Phipps is read as an immigrant voice emphasizing opportunity and effort rather than the inherited racism confronting Black Americans.
  • Michael Rapaport's physical choices are praised as convincing isolation by some participants and criticized as inert by another. — Wesley Morris
In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:07:34Read transcript
True Romance The Rewatchables
In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 01:00:29Read transcript
  • There are individually probably five Dion Waiters winners, like an Oscar category where every nominee could win; Val Kilmer cannot crack the top five and sits sixth; his Elvis is fine, and his 1993 of The Real McCoy, Tombstone with the all-time Doc Holliday, and this is incredible; a Doors episode is offered to Chris Iron (as transcribed) whenever he is ready.
  • The field: Gary Oldman's Drexel, the white pimp who thinks he is black; Brad Pitt's Floyd, so great it spawned Pineapple Express; Christopher Walken pulling off a Sicilian; Gandolfini as the most evil hitman; Hopper counts with only two scenes; and a surprise entry, Saul Rubinek; Pinchot is left out for having too big a part, and Kilmer (as transcribed: 'Kim') and Rappaport are in too many scenes.
  • A Pinchot tangent: he got the script finishing Perfect Strangers, was Serge in both Beverly Hills Cop films, the roller coaster scene was shot over two days with the cast throwing up or sedated, and his run from Risky Business through Perfect Strangers to this is not bad; he became a punching bag unfairly, like Andrew McCarthy, light comic actors who could star in 1989 but not 1999; the elevator scene with Sizemore and Penn bluffing Elliot is great.
  • A Walken question: his only two Tarantino scenes are the watch speech in Pulp Fiction and this one, which is nuts; a Pulp Fiction episode would spend thirty minutes on the watch speech.
  • Rubinek is shouted out for a Joel Silver impersonation at the height of Joel Silver on cocaine, doing the most with the least while Oldman, Gandolfini and Pitt had a lot to work with in their parts, smoking and driving on the PCH asking Elliot why he is calling on a Sunday.
  • Cannot really decide for the first time; it is something between Pitt, Rubinek or Walken, and Oldman is loved too. — Chris Ryan
  • Oldman is in three scenes and out of control and might have the line of the movie with white boy day; one host has Saul Rubinek in a walk because he has never done anything else, which is where another wanted to go; all the other characters' actors went on to Oscars and Emmys, while Rubinek's highlight reel starts here.
  • Rubinek did not know he was doing Joel Silver; the character is written as just a producer and Tony Scott, who hated Silver, made him Silver, so Scott gets a lot of credit for molding the performance; it probably hurt Rubinek's career.
  • Rubinek is the eleventh man who should not be able to score twenty points in seven minutes, the definition of the award; favorite moments are the taunt about knowing Elliot's name, the Body Bags 2 taste line and the 357,000 dollars someone is stealing; he was 20 to 1 heading in with Oldman applauding in the stands, Twitter expected Floyd or Drexel, but watched closely Rubinek is the correct winner.
  • Earlier the cast is called the best Dion Waiters field the show has had, better than Heat, with Sam Jackson, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman and Saul Rubinek in five-minutes-or-less performances; it is self-aware, actors knowing they have six pages and lighting them on fire, which Craig the producer, seeing it for the first time, noticed.
  • During aged best, the Lee Donowitz discussion is saved for a fascinating Dion Waiters argument.
True Romance The Rewatchables
In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:57:21Read transcript
  • Two candidates: Ed Lauder (as transcribed), Eddie Albert's sidekick quarterback in The Longest Yard, the head coach in Youngblood, in a hundred sports movies, the bald lieutenant type of the seventies and eighties and the lieutenant here; and Saul Rubinek, whose name people do not know though they know him from things, with the 'I treated you like a son' tirade quoted; he is not Mandy Patankin (as transcribed), he is a that guy, and he wins.
  • This is the iconic Saul Rubinek performance to end all his performances, so it goes in Joey Pants while he stays eligible for Dion Waiters; two more are thrown out, Victor Argo as one of Walken's men and Conchata Farrell (as transcribed) as the casting agent at Michael Rappaport's audition, with the 'thanks so much, Mr. Ritchie' brush-off.
Displaying all 10 discussions

Films in the archive