Why wasn't Kevin Pollak a bigger star? A bad job by his agent; he could have had a Caddyshack-type comedy. — Bill Simmons
The detective's next day at the office after blowing the case is imagined, including seeing his face at the fax and a reassignment to parking tickets. — Bill Simmons
Did Soze marry again? Probably not; he keeps no attachments. — Bill Simmons
Soze versus Neil McCauley is raised; a host built a greatest-teams chapter of his basketball book around the Soze mindset, and Marcus Smart is said to be in the Soze zone. — Bill Simmons
The boat plot is hard to follow; why not a simpler way to get the witness than a massive San Pedro gunfight? The reply is that it kills all his enemies at once, as a sociopath would. — Chris Ryan
Turkish piss streams: definitely at Apex. — Chris Ryan
Gabriel Byrne: no, his Apex is Miller's Crossing, plus marrying Ellen Barkin; one host has never been a fan and says he plays the same guy in every movie. — Bill Simmons
Kevin Pollak: yes, with A Few Good Men behind him, a hit, and talk-show popularity. — Bill Simmons
Del Toro: no. Palminteri: yes, because his juice got the movie funded. Spacey: no, despite an unbelievable 1995. — Bill Simmons
Peter Greene: yes, after Pulp Fiction in 1994 and this film in 1995, though his career then went the other way. — Bill Simmons
Turkish crime lords: none bigger; the Taken 2 villain is in the mix but does not top Kaiser. — Chris Ryan
The limp is proposed as the greatest limp ever filmed, and agreed. — Chris Ryan
Best twist in movie history is called impossible to say, with Chinatown still ahead. — Chris Ryan
The Baldwin brothers as a troika: Alec a near-top star after his Tom Clancy movie, Billy given every shot after Sliver, Flatliners and Backdraft, and Stephen's piece arriving with this film; both hosts agree. — Bill Simmons
Schiavelli is selected for three train-ghost scenes.
Whoopi and Swayze are ineligible as leads; a speaker still wants an honorary Swayze mention for making a dead observer compelling. This leads to a tentative most-with-least category idea, compared with Kevin Pollak in A Few Good Men, not a separately adopted award.
Nominees start with Cruise swinging a softball bat and drunk Cruise, which may not be unintentional, though it is funny to watch him play drunk when he has clearly never had a drink.
More nominees: randomly anti-Semitic Jessup ('You, Lieutenant Weinberg'), Kendrick's one laugh, Kevin Pollack asking why she likes the Marines so much and Joe Galloway answering 'because they stand on a wall and they say, nothing's gonna hurt you tonight not on my watch', Bacon leaving the hoops game, and Amazon billing Wolfgang Bodison first.
The presenter's choice is Bacon leaving the hoops game: walking into a pickup game and shouting about doctored logbooks is a life dream, the players protest 'what the hell, Jack' at 10-8, and his slick ballet-like half turn is called Footloose training.
The hallway scene where she says they are going to do this and he answers no, you're not, is also very good Bacon.
Asked for a pick, another goes with Galloway's 'they stand on a wall' answer, noting the panel keeps dancing around the Galloway question.
A third pick is Cruise holding a bat, with a subsection for him shooting Nerf basketballs while asking 'where's my bat?', two sports at once.
Cruise's screen sports: hustling basketball in Cocktail with a shot like a six-year-old's, a suspicion he was a wrestler, All the Right Moves, football and a future Super Bowl in Oblivion, a catch in War in the Worlds (as transcribed), and volleyball in Top Gun in jeans on the beach.
His softball swing is too fast: the tight shot has him hitting ball after ball like a batting machine; the early grounders are fine, but the batting practice when Joe comes to talk is not.
A favorite nineties screenwriting trope: after 'you don't even know me', a character recites the other's résumé from memory, which one host plans to try on Amanda in their next argument.
JT Walsh gets an 'Apex for me for sure' and a second yes calling it his most infamous role, prompting a joke about how seriously the question was taken.
Aaron Sorkin is close but not the apex, a nice view but not the top; the first season of The West Wing and The Social Network are his apex, this film is likened to his 63-point Michael Jordan game with not a bad scene in it, and Moneyball is set aside because he rewrote somebody else's script.
Kevin Pollack is a no because of The Usual Suspects, which another agrees with.
Kevin Bacon is a no from one panelist, who calls him great and underrated here but notes how many films he has made, with The River Wild mentioned; another says no too, theorizing his bad haircut was deliberate so he would not distract from Cruise, like Kiefer's haircut, and puts his apex at Footloose, also liking him in Mystic River.
A third panelist disagrees with both and says this is Bacon's apex: not a meaty part but memorable, likable, with a dash of unintentional comedy, and hard to imagine anyone from that era, such as Matt Dillon, playing it without competing with Cruise.
Bacon was taking smaller parts in bigger movies then, as in JFK; though he is on the prosecuting side backing Jessup, he has some morality, saying he does not think the guys deserve jail but does not make that call; after an aside that his leaving the pickup game is unforgivable, a 'yes' for him is restated, possibly by the same panelist.
Wolfgang Bodesen (as transcribed) is a yes: 'that's the Apex for Wolfgang. I wish him well.'
Jack Nicholson's career overall draws four 'No' answers; then 'Late Jack Nicholson. Yes.' is offered, with one voice naming As Good as It Gets, and challenged over The Departed the late-career yes holds, because the Departed performance with its accent as a Whitey Bulger figure is called out of control and the weak link of that film.
Tom Cruise gets two yeses, with this chosen over Cocktail and a 'this or The Firm' aside; no one else in 30 years could bring this mix of unintentional comedy, good acting, sarcasm and bravado, Leo DiCaprio could not, though Matt Damon ten years later might have.
A TV version is planned for next year with Alec Baldwin, who is called amazing, but Caffey has not been cast; James Franco was rumored, a terrible idea, since the part needs an airhead who is really smart, a lawyer who plays softball, attractive but not a romantic lead; Demi Moore is left off the list as the nadir of her career.
Kiefer Sutherland clipped Marines while driving a Jeep; Ebert gave it two and a half stars; Nicholson did 40 to 50 takes of the code red scene; it cost $30 million and made $230 million; Jason Alexander was meant to play Sam Weinberg; Sorkin wrote it on bar napkins and bought an early Macintosh with his roommates; Dawson's actor was Reiner's assistant; Sorkin cameos as a lawyer at the bar
Kiefer Sutherland drove the military Jeep so badly that he clipped a couple of Marines and scenes had to be redone, though he drives in only one scene, perhaps rewritten so Noah Wiley drove.
Ebert's two-and-a-half-star review, which said the film telegraphed the ending, is noted and rejected.
Nicholson did 40 to 50 takes of the 'you can't handle the truth' code red scene and kept performing during everyone else's coverage, telling the crew he loves to act, which becomes a joke about loving to podcast.
Unlike productions full of casting stories and disasters, nothing went wrong here: it cost 30 million, made 230 million, Nicholson cost a lot, everyone calls it their best experience, and Reiner's directing is joked down to pointing the camera at the movie stars.
Jason Alexander was supposed to play Sam Weinberg until season 2 of Seinfeld was picked up; Plan B was Kevin Pollard (as transcribed).
Sorkin wrote it on bar napkins at a bar off Broadway, he and his roommates chipped in to buy an early Macintosh to write the script, and Dawson was Reiner's assistant.
Sorkin was a bartender and appears in the film as the lawyer at the bar; the hosts like writers and directors showing up in their own movies, citing Oliver Stone as a football announcer and Scorsese playing the creepiest guy, though Sorkin has ten seconds too much dialogue, out of focus but clearly audible.
