Meredith receives both the Elisabeth Shue Oxford electrochemist award and the Vincent Chase job-competence award. Her pageant background seems a stretch for a senior technology role, though unspecified later education is offered as a possibility. — Bill Simmons
Meredith is seen as an operator who surpasses more qualified colleagues, but her cost-cutting product failure and elaborate, recorded attempt to frame Tom make the case that she is bad at the job. — Bill Simmons
Meredith receives both the Elisabeth Shue Oxford electrochemist award and the Vincent Chase job-competence award. Her pageant background seems a stretch for a senior technology role, though unspecified later education is offered as a possibility. — Bill Simmons
The Elisabeth Shue Oxford electrochemist award goes to Annabelle: a beautiful, financially independent bar owner inexplicably single and cheerleading for little pay. A joking erotic-thriller sequel imagines her stalking Shane, riffing on the missed-date scene and Fatal Attraction. — Bill Simmons
Tia Carrere as Juno Skinner, an ancient-Persian antiquities specialist, receives the Elisabeth Shue Oxford Electrochemist award. The role is compared with Bond’s implausibly credentialed glamorous women. — Bill Simmons
Carrere is praised as underused after Wayne’s World, but her True Lies performance is challenged as an unconvincing mysterious badass reliant on holding champagne. Showdown in Little Tokyo is preferred as an example of her appeal.
Fifty years of results seem impossible to fit into the thin almanac; a larger book would not work as a pocket-sized plot object. — Bill Simmons
Fox and Elisabeth Shue look too old for teenage roles; advancing Marty to college or young adulthood would help. — Bill Simmons
Biff's precise memory of receiving the almanac and Marty's childhood knowledge of the manure crash seem implausible. — Cousin Sal
Marty's casual rooftop drop onto the hovering DeLorean requires extraordinary nerve and coordination.
Doc risks a close encounter with his earlier self despite his strict warnings about others meeting themselves.
Marty's newly central chicken sensitivity feels invented; loser or a short joke would be a more credible trigger.
Doc condemns knowing one's destiny despite surviving because he read Marty's letter and wore a bulletproof vest. — Cousin Sal
A local robbery should not lead USA Today's front page, even if its real-time updating is appealing. — Cousin Sal
Marty could identify himself by fingerprints as Jennifer's husband and retrieve her rather than breaking into the house. — Cousin Sal
Western Union preserving and delivering the letter after seventy years is implausibly reliable. — Bill Simmons
Biff's growing power should change sporting outcomes and invalidate the almanac, perhaps after his first win. — Chris Ryan
Biff's national celebrity sits oddly with building his casino only in his hometown. — Cousin Sal
The second manure humiliation might make young Biff violently retaliate rather than leave a repaired timeline. — Cousin Sal
Old Biff returns to the same future after changing the past, conflicting with alternate-timeline rules; the fact that young Biff has not yet bet is offered as a possible defense. — Bill Simmons
The World Series is implausibly finished by October 20. — Bill Simmons
Doc and Marty could address present problems directly, or use their extraordinary invention to prevent major historical tragedies rather than fix their own family.
Jennifer is unnecessarily brought along, sedated and abandoned; an early exit from the malfunctioning car could remove her more cleanly.
Doc leaves the time-machine keys in the car. — Bill Simmons
Leaving Einstein in suspended animation seems cruel and wastes a potential canine contribution; returning him home would be simple. — Bill Simmons
The Libyans from the first movie disappear from the story.
Biff foolishly exposes the almanac in his winning-race photograph. — Bill Simmons
Biff's casino residence is too dark and ordinary for his enormous wealth. — Bill Simmons
Why would Griff need clumsy Marty Jr. for the robbery? Using him as the fall guy resolves the objection. — Bill Simmons
Marty absorbs punishing blows from Biff while hanging beside the car without being incapacitated. — Cousin Sal
Kelly Lynch's implausibly glamorous, single small-town emergency doctor wins the rarely used Elisabeth Shue scientist award. Her past with Wesley is ambiguous rather than clearly a relationship. — Bill Simmons
Nancy Travis as a butcher receives the newly proposed award; her training, career history and knife skills are questioned.
The proposed Elisabeth Shue electrochemist name is reconsidered in favor of Denise Richards’s Dr. Christmas Jones; Nicole Kidman in Days of Thunder and The Peacemaker supplies comparisons.
Cruise and Coughlin bartending; Uncle Pat's never-buy-a-drink rule; Addicted to Love; Elisabeth Shue; the passed-out friend diagnosis; Roger Donaldson's late-80s run; Cruise playing basketball; the soundtrack
Cruise and Coughlin bartending comes first: nothing beats Cruise fired up in a quirky role, and nobody else would have taken bottle flipping so seriously. — Bill Simmons
Of all Cruise's mastered skills, this participant would most want to see him play nine ball. — Chris Ryan
Cruise approaches roles by asking what skill he can acquire, unlike Daniel Day Lewis asking who he can become. — Sean Fennessey
Brian and Coughlin are called really bad, slow bartenders who make drinks for no one while 80 people wait. — Chris Ryan
A nit pulled forward: the claim that bartenders make money for bars by pouring less, but they spill liquor everywhere while flipping bottles. — Bill Simmons
Uncle Pat's rule never to buy anyone a drink has aged well and is a smart business strategy.
New York buybacks are common; as a former bartender, topping up drinks for bigger tips steals from the bar, which is why an owner like Pat would not do it. — Bill Simmons
Pat had no real growth plan: he accepts free labor from Brian and takes a dollar or two off the bar as tips. — Bill Simmons
Addicted to Love and Shue, an 80s goddess, are listed, with Cocktail as a more adult Shue after The Karate Kid and Adventures in Babysitting. — Bill Simmons
Cruise leaving 40 paying customers to glance at Shue's passed-out friend and declare her fine always gets a laugh. — Bill Simmons
Funnier still, Shue abandons that friend for days, and the friend turns out to have gone home to New York. — Chris Ryan
Roger Donaldson's late 80s, No Way Out and Cocktail, is listed; No Way Out is called perhaps the most rewatchable 80s action thriller.
Cruise playing basketball is listed, part of a tour of his screen athletics from All the Right Moves to The Firm's running and tumbling. — Bill Simmons
Cruise is judged undeniably a good athlete but the fit, uncoordinated crew-type rather than a varsity basketball player, compared with a high-school swimmer. — Sean Fennessey
The basketball scene has Cruise going perfect from the field; the Philip Seymour Hoffman scene is called a direct parody, and "Ryan's Law" is proposed as never going five for five in a movie basketball scene.
The soundtrack did very well and made the Bobby McFerrin song a thing; it pairs 1950s rock callbacks with 80s songs like Kokomo. — Sean Fennessey
Asked for a final aged-best answer, the music is chosen. — Bill Simmons
