The opening murder and police arrival are scene candidates; the stained sheets and acknowledged maid prompt competing jokes about whether the bed was unwashed or the victim unusually prolific. — Bill Simmons
The opening murder’s bodily logistics prompt further speculation, including repeated encounters that night.
The panel identifies Stone as the opening-scene performer, with concealed hair or a wig creating uncertainty about the killer. — Chris Ryan
The manner of Johnny Boz’s death prompts a comic comparison with Tyrion Lannister’s preferred death and appreciation of the opening police dialogue. — Bill Simmons
The first house visit is a scene candidate, praised for the drive, house, landscaping and Catherine’s commanding dialogue; the house receives the scene-stealing-location pick, with the nightclub offered as an alternative. — Bill Simmons
The second visit and car ride are scene candidates, with Catherine controlling the cigarette exchange and describing her detective novel; Stinson Beach is contrasted with the house’s reported Carmel filming location. — Mallory Rubin
The interrogation is praised as an iconic 1990s scene; Wayne Knight’s possible Jurassic Park casting connection is explicitly uncertain, and Catherine’s provocative dialogue and leg-crossing are highlighted. — Bill Simmons
The interrogation is argued to establish both Catherine’s intelligence and danger while using sexual attraction to make Nick’s continued pursuit believable to the audience. — Van Lathan
The assistant district attorney’s disappearance prompts an unanswerable-question joke; the interrogation’s lighting and staging are likened to a gallery display that places the men under Catherine’s control. — Mallory Rubin
Stone’s memoir account says she removed underwear for lighting without knowing the intended shot, considered legal action after seeing it and ultimately accepted it with reservations; the discussion presents the filming story as contested. — Mallory Rubin
The car chase is praised; Catherine’s ice-pick use, kiss with Roxy and knowledge of Nick’s past make another house visit memorable. — Bill Simmons
The nightclub is a favorite scene: Nick’s relapse into cigarettes and drinking, his age and sweater, the crowded cocaine-filled bathroom, Roxy’s presence and Douglas’s awkward attempt to appear sexy drive the comedy. — Bill Simmons
The central sex scene is praised for mirroring the opening murder’s scarf and bed imagery, maintaining danger amid erotic spectacle; a later-life rewatch also prompts concern about the performers’ backs. — Mallory Rubin
The following-day visit is a scene candidate because Catherine punctures Nick’s pride by calling the encounter only a good beginning and revealing Roxy has seen other partners. — Mallory Rubin
Nick’s next-day confidence and styling are compared with Danny Zuko before Catherine deflates him. — Bill Simmons
Final scene preferences split among the nightclub, the central sex scene and the interrogation; the ending is also a candidate, with no unanimous choice. — Van Lathan
The Beth encounter is acknowledged as problematic while being interpreted as an immediate sign of Nick’s transformation after meeting Catherine.
Costner: no; his peak is still Dances With Wolves, which won all the Oscars and made him the new Warren Beatty, with no argument. — Bill Simmons
Oliver Stone: it might be this, since he got a studio to fund an assassination movie with his made-up theory and made The Doors and JFK in the same year; called a really good case. — Bill Simmons
JFK assassination conspiracies peaked in the early 90s: agreed. — Bill Simmons
Michael Rooker: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is his high point, with Henry and JFK in about a two-year span when it was all happening for him. — Bill Simmons
Henry is recommended as a realistic, disturbing film; one participant recalls seeing it before a game at a theater near BU with seven other men; tangent: Henry and One False Move as a never-sleep-again home double feature.
Rooker being the most normal-seeming character shows how crazy the movie is; his LBJ argument scene is called absurd and possibly cut down.
Rooker is praised in Cliffhanger and now in the MCU; one participant has met with him.
Wayne Knight, no question: Newman at the same time and Jurassic around then.
The Zepruder (as transcribed) film as Apex Mountain: yes, with a reference to the Time-Life building.
Also joked about: the Cowboys doing well in '91, and a Zupruder (as transcribed) NFT pushed by Gary Vee. — Brian Koppelman
Richardson: a filmography spanning Stone's films from Salvador through Nixon, John Sales (as transcribed), Scorsese and Tarantino; at the top of his game here; a jab that he's no Gordon Willis, but flexible with a distinctive blown-out overhead light.
J.O. Sanders plays one of Costner's two cohorts who quits and shows up in the courtroom at the end; he has been in a million things and resembles a True Detective character. — Bill Simmons
Peter Maloney, the medical examiner, is also in The Thing and is recognizable once seen. — Chris Ryan
Oswald's wife, played by the actress who was a Russian doctor on Melrose Place (Dr. Katia Petrovna), is named as Bita Posniak (as transcribed); she is said to have read all 26 volumes of the Warren Report.
George C. Scott is floated as a great, angrier X, but Sutherland's bemused X is called perfect.
Gary Oldman as Oswald; Seinfeld spoof; Pesci-Tommy Lee Jones wig battle; Kevin Bacon's career revival; Oliver Stone's Dave cameo; Tommy Lee Jones in gold paint; Dealey Plaza recreation; John Williams score; New Orleans setting; specter of JFK; character actors in tiny roles
Offered as number one: Oldman as Oswald is creepy, great, and looks like Oswald.
Oldman must have shot much of his material separately with Stone; a 'Gary Oldman cut' as a standalone Oswald movie is wished for. — Chris Ryan
Deleted-scene story: Oldman asked Stone to point the camera at him late at night for an elegiac Oswald monologue; Stone shot him in a casket and planned to end the film with it before making a different call; it can be found on YouTube. — Brian Koppelman
The 1992 Seinfeld spoof 'The Boyfriend' features Wayne Knight and Keith Hernandez; Hernandez is praised and then jabbed as possibly a QAnon guy.
'The Boyfriend' is remembered as the episode that showed Seinfeld would be the biggest show, with the spitter bit called lights out. — Bill Simmons
Bacon is said to call the film a turning point that reignited his career, leading to A Few Good Men. — Bill Simmons
Stone's self-deprecating cameo in Dave two years later has aged best for one participant. — Bill Simmons
Tommy Lee in gold paint getting slapped by Pesci in a Dangerous Liaisons outfit is praised as the good version of a wild idea, unlike a cut Nicholson idea in The Departed; Tommy Lee doing it is what makes it great. — Bill Simmons
Objection: the same scene bumps against what's aged worst, the film's attitude about homosexuality, called retrograde and unacceptable; the counterpoint is that it was part of Garrison's case against Shaw and that era's judgment. — Brian Koppelman
Stone recreated the assassination in Dealey Plaza, spending $4 million to restore it to 1963 conditions and reroute traffic; Sutherland and Costner memorized their monologues. — Bill Simmons
Debate on whether acting is mostly memory: one participant says no, the camera reveals compelling people like Sutherland and memorizing matters more in theater; it is jokingly settled at 70% memory. — Brian Koppelman
John Williams's score and New Orleans as a setting are named.
The specter of JFK himself: the speech that opens Stone's documentary, the Caesar-like shot in the X speech and the still photograph of Kennedy.
A rare combo team vote goes to the Ben and Jerry's guys, Pamer and Mostel, with agreement that they are great in every scene.
A 1991 blockbuster scene hinging on pairing ice creams with meals is a riveting 90 seconds and a parody of Western showdowns, though the flavors like rum raisin are basic.
The ice-cream scene almost made the most rewatchable scenes list.
Mostel is more this character than Billy Madison's principal, got weirdly market corrected by Wayne Knight, and should have been in Jurassic.
