Sunshine Ronnie Bass has got to be the heat check for one host, who notes he is barely in the movie, about six scenes; another has Petey, Donald Faison, and is told Petey does not count because the award needs a low minute total and Petey is in the whole movie.
Petey is a bad teammate who ghosted the team twice and still claims glory both times, with Gosling the good guy who just wants to dance; one host is out on Pete while loving Faison.
The case for Sunshine: he shows up 60 percent into the movie with maybe nine lines, and it is all physical, football prowess and charisma; like fight confidence in a fighting movie, he has sports confidence, with the posture of somebody who has flipped a person before, and Kid Perdue (as transcribed) was apparently a stud high school football and basketball player in Georgia.
Still going Petey regardless of the rules.
Asked as the tiebreaker, the answer is Sunshine. — Rembert Browne
Sunshine felt like he was in more of the movie than he is because he is a takeaway moment; he could not arrive before camp because Louie already fills the white-guy-in-the-middle role; Kate Bosworth is considered since she is only in four scenes, but they are not great.
The actor who plays Gary Bourdier (as transcribed) is so good in Sons of Anarchy that he reads as two different people; one host never watched that show, Googled him and found crazy facial hair, and had assumed the actor died when Bertier did; the character is who Gary would have become if he had not been paralyzed.
The soundtrack has aged the best: John Fogarty (as transcribed) faded into classic rock yet ended up in twelve movies, any retro sports movie must use Credence (as transcribed); Blue starts singing four times in the first 22 minutes, Julius tells him to shut up in front of the white people, and the film has a Ryan Murphy quality with Marvin Gazebob (as transcribed), James Taylor, the Temptations, Cat Stevens, Sly Stone and Spirit in the Sky.
The Titan Spirit theme, played in the room, makes a host well up; it has been used in countless World Series, Super Bowl and NBA telecasts and at the 2008 Democratic National Convention after Barack Obama's nomination and his victory speech, so the hosts joke that Obama does not become president without Coach Boone, which one host learned only from the research.
Denzel tossing the banana to the opposing coach always gets a laugh with his little smirk, and the hosts marvel that he carried a banana in his pocket all game.
Ray the Racist is a perfect villain who does not just hold racism but loves it, stalking shirtless around the locker room as if he might kill somebody; he is a made-up character, and a certain short, strong-chinned type of actor is cast for the over-the-top racist, which Matt Damon transcended in School Ties but Burgess Jenkins did not.
Kate Bosworth plays the racist token wet-blanket girlfriend who still looks great in every scene and comes around to Julius at the end; the hosts debate how many days later Julius and she would get together, with one saying never because of Gary, another saying within a week, and Ray the Racist judged the better match for her.
The racists are power-ranked: Gosling's dad screaming at Yost is a number one seed with racism from eight angles, the racist coach, the brick thrower, every opposing player and the assistant coach who walks out of the diner leaving Yost with the bill.
Being attracted to Kate Bosworth here is ruled a no because she plays a high schooler, though everybody in the film is eight years older than high school; the final picks are the Titan Spirit theme, with its arc from sports telecasts to the Obama election, and the cast, which got more famous yet still feels like these characters rather than Avon Barksdale or the Gone in 60 Seconds guy; the gulf between Denzel and the second most famous person in the 2000 cast is gigantic.
If Emma and Ray had a kid, the hosts guess he would be one of the tiki-torch people, a legacy Klansman buying rifles at Walmart.
The first five minutes and opening credits are liked for setting everything up and introducing a whole bunch of people, which is actual work; the funeral opening tips its hand that somebody dies and you forget it completely until the string is pulled at the end, though the players look like they aged far more than a decade, with Wood Harris in a bald toupee.
The end-of-film updates make almost everyone a municipal employee, and the cemetery walk is called a rip-off of Saving Private Ryan from two years earlier.
Julius and Gary yelling at each other, with the 'I'm going to get mine' and 'attitude reflect leadership, Captain' exchange, is nominated: it makes you care about both of them before you know whose side you are on.
The Gettysburg speech is nominated as unreal, manipulative and yet an incredible coach move; the film came out right before one host reached high school and every coach then wanted to be Coach Boone, denying water; coaches could make up stats, as Boone does with his older brothers.
The 'I don't care if you like each other, but you will respect each other' speech is given to a staff every year by one host, and it leads to the practice where the team finally comes together with 'left side, strong side', after which, the next morning, racism is over, until the bus drop-off shows it is not.
Donald Faison's Petey being switched to defense, the comeback, and Sunshine trying to buy everybody dinner at the segregated diner are nominated; the diner scene is called exceptionally well done because Ronnie Bass's 'I didn't know' against Petey's 'I told you' is smart commentary on how white people receive what black people are telling them.
The Boone and Yost confrontation about coddling, with 'the world don't give a damn how sensitive these kids are, especially the young black kids', is paired with the diner as two parallel moments that hold up, still real in 2019, and the only scene where the two coaches are not just trading 'worry about your offense'.
Rev getting hurt and Ronnie Bass coming in is a really good minute and a half, with the 'when I was 15 I lost my mother and my father in the same month' speech; the soundtrack introduced one host to rock music such as Credence and Fogarty (as transcribed) at twelve, and Sunshine throwing a defender over him is called arguably the best block in sports movie history, with the Samoan lineman's block in Innecessary Roughness (as transcribed) offered as a rival.
The last 80 seconds of the championship game are riveting to one host and awful and inexplicable to another: up four with a minute twenty left, the team runs a play, the runner fumbles, and like Hoosiers it is a sports-movie trope; the final play pairs up every white-black relationship at once, with Ronnie blocking for Rev and the two daughters in the stands, which the hosts joke led 37 years later to President Obama.
Yost's 'you were the right man for the job' and Denzel's 'you're a Hall of Famer in my book' close two hours of movie, and the hosts would gladly trade a real Hall of Fame induction for Denzel saying it, suggesting he go on Cameo for 50,000 a message.
The locker room mama-joke scene with Lou Elastic (as transcribed) is a massive one: Bertier is serious at first, then realizes it is a mama joke, Sunshine kisses him, Gosling dances in his own world, and Ray is overwhelmed by the progress and has to get out of there.
Asked for the most rewatchable scene, the pick is 'left side, strong side': it gives goosebumps every time, texting ten people 'left side' gets seven 'strong side' replies, and Gettysburg into that practice is a strong five and a half minutes; smaller favorites are Denzel arguing about the veer with his daughter over game tape and Julius visiting Gary's house, where a cop praises him and he lifts the mom, since the film is built from one-minute vignettes rather than ten-minute scenes.
Denzel calling Bertier and Ray the Racist Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in front of everyone, clapping all by himself, is so much fun it should have been added to the most rewatchable scene.
One answer is Rachel McAdams, already much loved in this movie and so good; the case for Gosling is that he gets the best lines, since all the quotes are his, but he would not be this great without her, a performance in reaction, watching chemistry like science; she is the dynamic force.
Asked to fight back, Gosling is the one setting the tone for the relationship and she has to hit the balls back; she fully matches him, but another actor who would not go to this place would not give us this relationship. — Andrew Gruttadaro
They are so well matched that neither would be who they are without the other; the host who picked McAdams holds that she steals it with her charisma but it is really a perfect pair.
Before any nominees, the question is whether a scene without both Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams can even make a case, such as Joan Allen taking Allie to see the boyfriend that never was; the answer is no, that belongs in a different category, so this is a Noah and Allie podcast, young Noah and Allie, with old Noah and Allie saved for later.
The first nominee is the first date: they lie down in the empty street, almost get hit by a car, then dance while Gosling hums 'I'll be seeing you'; it is called one of the more romantic movie scenes of the 21st century, the insistence on dancing is sweet, he is a trained dancer from the Mickey Mouse Club, and the scene is the purest expression of the chemistry that animates the movie.
Asked whether the scene works because of their chemistry or because of Ryan Gosling, the answer is both: they are really magnetic with each other, and McAdams's reactions and the way she plays off him in that scene are really good. — Andrew Gruttadaro
Her guffawing when they almost get hit by a car seems not to fit her character but makes it whole; her charm jumps off the screen, the role is written as feisty and she is the aggressive one, both characters keep catching each other on the back foot, so you watch them discovering each other in real time and the credit cannot all go to Gosling.
Gosling looks so young, more like his Remember the Titans character than at any other point, which he was fresh off; the next nominee is the montage of them falling in love that culminates on the beach with 'if you're a bird, I'm a bird'.
Asked where the bird scene ranks among tearjerkers, the answer is that it is up there: the weird conversation about being birds takes you aback and then turns out to be beautiful. — Andrew Gruttadaro
The hosts remember having to explain 'if you're a bird, I'm a bird' to Chris Ryan; the movie got a second life on the Internet, like Mean Girls two months earlier, and the line became a meme, though for one host and her college roommates who watched it constantly it was already something they said to each other, and the movie became a thing partly because college kids who loved it then started using the internet.
Next nominee: Allie first arrives at the restored house, having come from Charleston, where both actors moved beforehand to get familiar with the city, which is read as very Canadian; she is awkward, he barely speaks, she tries to drive off and hits the fence and ends up staying; the clip is played, and this is the scene nominated, not the next-day scene.
The next-day scene follows: the blue dress she then wears for most of the movie, the birds, the rain, 'why didn't you write me', 'I wrote you every day for 365 days', building to 'it wasn't over, it still isn't over' and the kiss and sex in the house, the most famous scene from the movie; he catches her on an inhalation when he kisses her.
The choreography of the sex scene is elaborate, with confusion about why he keeps his pants on to walk upstairs, emphasis on stripping down one stocking at a time, and heavy blocking from the dock to their falling asleep; the heart of the movie rests on their chemistry here and they hit the fiery tone, though one host is distracted by how easily he pulls the boat out of the water.
They won Best Kiss at the MTV Movie Awards and reenacted the kiss on stage, where she wore a strapless bustier-type top and looked incredible, very 2005; the appearance came two years after they filmed the movie.
Next nominee: after the outing with her mom she returns flustered, they have their last big fight and he says 'I want all of you'; it is called the most powerful Ryan Gosling moment, the source code for what he becomes, and the start of his habit of yelling random words of emphasis; he dominates the scene because she barely speaks, and the gregarious Noah of the opening never returns after the break, a thought parked for a later category.
Asked whether any nominee has been forgotten, the Ferris wheel is offered, and later it is confirmed as the only other one on the list. — Andrew Gruttadaro
The Ferris wheel is good but happens too early in the movie to have been seen multiple times on cable; one host realised she had never seen the first five minutes or the opening credits with the man rowing a boat, so the objection is a technicality; the scene is up there but the passion has not been established yet.
Asked for a number one, the pick is 'it still isn't over': the most famous scene, but if you turn the movie on within twenty or thirty minutes of it you have to keep watching until you see it. — Amanda Dobbins
Asked for a most rewatchable scene, the answer is agreement that it is hardly an argument. — Andrew Gruttadaro
A bad Alzheimer's joke compares the compulsion to keep watching with Allie's condition.
Another voice rides hard for the fight scene and has great affection for the first date, called the most romantic five minutes of cinema of the past two decades, but in terms of rewatchability it is 'it still isn't over'.
Asked whom they would swap in, from only the first film, one host admits a lot of problems with Jordana Brewster as the series goes along but thought she was pretty good here; the other has no problems with her in any of the movies and answers a 'she can't act' jab with the franchise's five-billion-dollar gross as proof the actors are pretty good.
The proposal is Ryan Gosling as Jesse, since the guy who plays Jesse looks like a slightly less attractive Gosling; the other host agrees the Jesse part could have been improved, Vince is perfect and cannot be touched, and Leon obviously did not work since he was written out after the first one.
Asked whether this is the Apex Mountain of rom-coms, the first answers are a flat no, twice, before the hosts call it essential to the genre, top five for one, the first to twist the rom-com gimmick and the last place the genre could go; whether it is the apex before the genre went downhill draws only a maybe, a case could be made, and a flat not convinced.
The twist and the respect for the rom-com form are liked, since it gets the impulse to see people together before twisting it; Notting Hill in 1999 is raised as a further meta-commentary that is really Julia Roberts' life, with her playing a bad person there too.
Rupert Everett is a 100 percent yes, an iconic performance and the breakout element the movie needed alongside the comeback star and the second star; he went on to the Madonna movie, which has not aged well, had James Bond talk about whether he could be the first gay Bond, and this remains his most mainstream and most fun performance beside period pieces like Madness of King George and The Importance of Being Earnest.
Cameron Diaz is not at her apex here, though she is really good; her apex is There's Something About Mary, a massive movie that arguably deserved an Oscar nomination and made her a gigantic star, after which she dated Matt Dillon and entered the Us Weekly stream.
Her dating history is called rough by one host because it never worked out, and impressive by another: Justin Timberlake, the baseball player known as A Rod, a broken nose surfing; the JT age gap is compared to Sandra Bullock and Ryan Gosling.
Julia Roberts is a yes: Pretty Woman blew her up, but this movie re-established her as the most bankable, A plus list actress, set up the next five years and led to her Oscar, so it righted the ship; one voice finds that reasonable, and Ocean's Eleven is floated for her astonishing but not lead role.
Chicago as an Apex Mountain is rejected as insulting; Dermot Mulroney is a yes for sure, since it never got better, or worse, for him.
An early aside calls 1997 and this film arguably the apex of rom-coms, the top of the crescendo, after which the genre went off a cliff a little.
Before the categories, one host previews that Cameron Diaz's Apex Mountain is There's Something About Mary, a role nobody else could have played as likable, funny and slapstick.
