Scene candidates include the divorce/car exit and Jacob meeting Hannah. Lady Bird is compared to the car exit; Jacob’s confidence under rejection divides interpretation. — Bill Simmons
The friends choosing sides in divorce and John Carroll Lynch’s breakup scene are praised as an underexplored social dynamic. — Bill Simmons
The male makeover montage is praised for humor, effective styling and Cal’s renewed self-respect; other makeover films are compared and the already-attractive-woman trope criticized. Carell changing weight is explicitly speculation. — Bill Simmons
Scene candidates include pickup training, Robbie raising Bacon’s chair, Tomei’s bar encounter and the teacher reveal. Tomei receives a playful long-term-crush honor. — Bill Simmons
Hannah returning to Jacob’s house is praised for the Dirty Dancing lift, humor, surprising vulnerability and a believable connection built in minutes; whether they have sex remains inferred rather than shown. — Bill Simmons
The actors’ chemistry prompts discussion of on-set relationships and spouses, including Mr. & Mrs. Smith as a comparison; speculation is not film fact. — Bill Simmons
The converging backyard fight and Bacon’s arrival are praised. The graduation speech is rejected by one host as too sweet, with other school-ending films discussed. — Bill Simmons
The romantic Dirty Dancing sequence wins the scene majority, with a dissenting preference for the backyard fight. — Mina Kimes
A late scene candidate is Cal’s nighttime phone call while looking through the window; Talking Heads during lawn watering is an additional needle-drop choice, with no song title stated here.
More favorites: Philip Baker Hall as Sherwood, the handwriting specialist who starts drinking a little; Clea Duvall, with a great heat-check scene; John Goetz (as transcribed), from Blood Simple, as the Chronicle editor; and Anthony Edwards, fantastic and unexpected.
One pick gives the award specifically to Cox, with the Melvin Belli phone-call clip played, 'Is there something I can call you that's a little less ominous?', for making the most of his few moments, the television interview, the sincere attempt to offer the caller a lifeline, and the way he physically takes the incredible screaming sound.
Jimmy Simpson (as transcribed), who plays the shooting victim at the start and returns at the end, prompts a detail: the character is Mike Mageau, and when the name is reported over the Vallejo PD wire it is said aloud in the newsroom as 'Mayhew', so the film intentionally misleads in a way that was probably true to how it was said, an obsessive Fincherism; James LeGroix (as transcribed) is good and weird, and Zach Granier (as transcribed), the boss in Fight Club, runs the Vallejo police department.
A second pick is Elias Codius (as transcribed) as Detective Mullinax (as transcribed), a great real name: a that-guy who can shoot when given the ball, known to the hosts' generation as Casey from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a guy who looks like a cop and rarely gets a stage this large, and a great serial killer in Fallen with Denzel Washington, directed by Gregory Hoblitz (as transcribed).
Asked directly for a winner, a third pick is John Carroll Lynch as Arthur Lee Allen, with the 'Nobody calls me Arthur' clip: the role basically made the second half of his career, he directed the last film starring Harry Dean Stan (as transcribed) this year, and he is a well-known theater actor remembered as Norm in bed with Francis McNormand (as transcribed) at the end of Fargo.
Asked whether the film still works with a huge star like Anthony Hopkins as Arthur, the answer is not as well: it has to be a face whose physical presence unsettles because you feel you could have seen him without knowing why, since viewers bring previous films into the room and would read a famous actor as an important part; the misdirect succeeds because the only place to remember Lynch is Fargo, where Norm is a completely different, friendly disposition.
Later, the Ioni Sky (as transcribed) roadside scene is called another Dion Waiters performance and the hardest scene for one host to watch.
