McElhone and Janssen could each have taken the other's roles in Rounders, X-Men, Taken or Californication; a third actress on that corner is described but not named, and Eva Green and Olga Kurylenko are ruled out. — Bill Simmons
The hosts wonder whether McElhone and Janssen like each other, and call it a good Ringer piece. — Bill Simmons
When has De Niro convincingly thrown anything? Raging Bull is set aside, Godfather 2, Midnight Run, Cape Fear and Goodfellas are debated, and The Irishman's beating scene is the funniest. — Bill Simmons
Keanu and Swayze look like real football players in Point Break, unlike De Niro; he gets chased down by Pacino at the end, and The Fan is another example. — Bill Simmons
What was in the briefcase? Best guess is nuclear codes or plutonium, with the Russians wanting it at the fringe of the Cold War and Seamus able to blow up the peace process. — Bill Simmons
The first pick is Malkovich, to the other's surprise: his character is the most memorable and most quoted, still the phrasing used at tables today; this is not Damon's or Norton's biggest movie, not what John Dahl is best remembered for, Famke Jansen (as transcribed) was about to be in a superhero franchise and Turturro has bigger films, but for men of a couple of generations this is where Malkovich went for it.
The counter-pick is Damon: an old-school Tom Cruise role that just needs a star, since Mike McD is a mediocre law student with the wrong friend who likes poker and yet makes you care; Affleck, Leo, Brad Pitt and Clooney would not pull it off, with Norton ironically the only other choice.
The reply is that Damon was going to be fine regardless and a movie-star part is inherently blank, never too far or too good; another candidate is Koppelman and Levine, since few TV or movie writers are known to normal people, Steve Zalian (as transcribed) aside, and even Succession's Jesse Armstrong or Veep's David Mandel lack public profile.
Koppelman and Levine positioned themselves well in the guys' pop culture world of the late nineties and probably won, since they have thriving careers and made something people love; Damon loses initially but retroactively the Good Will Hunting, Ripley, Rounders run is an all-timer, and the best rewatchables are movies where the major players are in their sweet spot, as Damon and Norton were.
The category is loaded for this movie: John Malkovich as Teddy KGB, Famke Jansen (as transcribed), John Turturro as Knish, Martin Landau with only three scenes who has to be mentioned, and the actor who played Grandma (as transcribed), Michael Rispoli, saved for the Joey Pants Award.
Both agree there is only one answer, 'pay this man his fucking money', KGB: he is in the opening and closing scenes, maybe three in all, and his NBA box score is 12 minutes with 35 points, 10 rebounds and seven blocked shots.
Famke Jansen (as transcribed) gets a shout-out and a case that she should have been Joe with another Russian character invented; Knish should not be overlooked either, with some of the greatest lines, representing lifetime grinders, based on a real man named Joel Bagels (as transcribed) whom Koppelman and Levine wrote about in 2014, whose real-life line was 'women are the rake'.
The sauna confrontation where Knish refuses Mike McD the money is loved and the clip is played: two grand buys a day, Knish will not chase cards or pipe dreams of winning the World Series on ESPN because he owes rent, alimony and child support and his kids eat, offering calls and a place to stay instead.
Knish is almost not a heat check because he is in too many scenes, whereas Malkovich is in two or two and a half, the ultimate Deion Weirder (as transcribed) and a fucking heat check.
Gretchen Maul's (as transcribed) wet-blanket girlfriend Joe and her performance; the judges' instant hand-reading scene; Mike McD not hooking up with Famke Janssen's character
Gretchen Mala (as transcribed) plays the stereotypical wet-blanket girlfriend, a staple of 80s and 90s sports movies for undermining the hero: a girlfriend or wife who does not believe in what he is doing.
A Mount Rushmore of wet-blanket girlfriends: Adrian Balboa in Rocky IV, who quits on Rocky and shows up belatedly in Russia, leaving one host still in go-fuck-yourself-Adrian mode; Myra Fleener in Hoosiers, the number one, subject of an old ESPN magazine column, with no idea why Gene Hackman liked her.
A theory: many men do not know how to write female characters, so they pour their own relationship anxieties into a figure who is holding the hero back, which is why so many movies have a woman you cannot place; the last Rushmore member is Ned Braden's wife in Slapshot (as transcribed), a tough hang who even throws it at Paul Newman.
The defense from Koppelman and Levine, given in a back-and-forth with one host: Damon's girlfriend was originally in only three scenes, and a law-school best friend named Atkinson, a counterpoint to Worm, was in the script until the studio made them merge Joe and Atkinson and boost Joe, leaving her inessential and simply in Worm's way.
Not a great performance either, though she rallied in the 2000s; she is flat-out bad and unlikable here, around the time of the Vanity Fair cover anointing her the next ingenue when she had made little more than Donnie Brasco, and hers is the only stretch where the movie loses its rhythm.
The judges' card scene, which both like, has aged worst: Mike McD standing for eight to fourteen seconds and reading everyone's hand is not believable, even if Koppelman and Levine claim to have seen it happen; the clip is played; such reads take hours of study.
The judges' game is not Texas Hold'em, perhaps a seven-card stud variant with many cards showing, which makes the reads more plausible, and the judges' cards are never shown, so he might have missed some; it sets him up as a savant, a reach one host is fine with.
Martin Lando's (as transcribed) character is described as a cross between a law professor, Confucius, the fairy godmother and Red Arbeck (as transcribed); not a great character but essential, and the bar scene where he pours gin and tells the yeshiva story is loved; movies like this need an old guy, as Charlie Pierce was for Grantland.
Mike McD not hooking up with Famke Jansen (as transcribed) is called the biggest flaw of the movie and maybe of a host's life, raised with Koppelman and Levine multiple times: his girlfriend has moved out, he is home alone watching an old World Series of Poker, she comes over about Worm's tab and makes a hard pass, and he says now is not the time, which is called inexplicable and indefensible.
Her character is the manic poker dream girl, after the manic pixie dream girl of Penny Lane and the Zooey Deschanel movies: beautiful, a Bond girl three years earlier, works at the Chesterfield and recounts World Series hands; the case against is that he loves Joe, is trying to go straight, and Petra represents the old version of him.
On rewatch the hosts think the two should simply have gotten together; Koppelman and Levine admit it is their biggest mistake, prompting a joke about adding a scene for the 25th anniversary; for one host it is the what's aged the worst, and the explanation offered does not convince him.
