Tommy Lee Jones could play a blue-collar contractor; Dustin Hoffman offers a Kramer vs. Kramer callback but is judged too odd and insufficiently competitive romantically. — Mina Kimes
Nolte is rejected. Cheating in a basketball movie prompts alternatives from White Men Can’t Jump and Above the Rim. — Bill Simmons
Mary McDonnell and Bob Knight are rejected, with Knight’s 1987 championship after A Season on the Brink recalled as an alternative.
Flunking television in college is accepted, followed by a joke about doing it again in 1996. — Chris Ryan
Rick Fox’s brief role is placed in a strong acting run including Eddie, He Got Game and Oz, leading to a joke about an Oz rewatch. — Bill Simmons
The Gambler remains the choice for basketball point-shaving scenes. Uncut Gems is suggested for sports betting but distinguished from point shaving. — Chris Ryan
If widened to taking a dive in sports films, The Longest Yard and the devastating ending of The Color of Money are considered. — Bill Simmons
Shaq and Penny as a pair are rejected, but Shaq as an actor is accepted emphatically. — Bill Simmons
Bob Cousy and Rick Pitino as actors are accepted; Algiers is introduced with another joke about how difficult it is to reach. — Bill Simmons
Blue Chips is named a favorite college basketball movie for capturing a generation of players, though 1970s films including Fast Break remain an alternative preference. — Van Lathan
Recruiting-scene competition includes Moneyball’s first-base pitch to Chris Pratt’s character. — Van Lathan
Hoosiers’ apparently indifferent approach to Jimmy Chitwood is preferred as another recruiting scene. — Chris Ryan
He Got Game’s sexually charged Tech visit is another recruiting-scene choice.
Jenny is proposed as an apex movie ex-wife for helping with tape, recruiting and emotional support while remaining physically separate from Pete. — Chris Ryan
Jenny is compared with the wet-blanket sports-movie partner tradition; her final disappointment is defended because she has the film’s moral conscience. — Chris Ryan
Untouchable is one preference; another favors a six-hour series in 1980 or the present to explore psychological transformation more deeply. — Chris Ryan
Remaking is resisted because the unresolved meanings and period context give the film lasting force, and using an openly gay cop could remove the original ambiguity. — Wesley Morris
The painting; Coldplay's Sparks; Isla Fisher; Bradley Cooper as Sack Lodge; the Wilson and Vaughn banter; the soundtrack; the wealthy DC-area setting; Bradley Cooper shooting Vince Vaughn with birdshot months before Dick Cheney's hunting accident
The painting still really makes one host laugh, and Coldplay's Sparks might be the band's best song 15 years later and a perfect part of the movie; a host recalls hearing it in college and expecting a different kind of band, with Sparks here and Don't Panic in Garden State becoming part of those movies.
Isla Fisher has probably never been better; she did a karaoke version of this role in Tag this year, people thought she would be a huge movie star before she married Sasha Baron Cohen (as transcribed) and got sidetracked, and worst case she should have had a seven-year sitcom; the pronunciation of her first name is corrected.
Bradley Cooper as a preppy dick plays well against his later backstory: after Alias he worried about being typecast as a nice guy, and Sack Lodge is a Hall of Fame dick with no redeeming quality, talking about other women and sharing the private eye conversation with Trapster; if made in 2018 he would have a line about golfing with Don Jr.
It is hard to believe nobody knew Cooper would be a star; one host watched Alias religiously and found his best-friend role bland and one-note; he was only 30 here and graduated from Georgetown in 97, and unlike Vaughn and Wilson he took control of his career, from All About Steve, Valentine's Day and the A Team through Limitless, Place Beyond the Pines and Silver Linings, aiming to be Warren Beatty, Redford or Eastwood.
Limitless is when one host believed in Cooper, since a premise that stupid only works if you like the lead; he has withstood Aloha, Burnt, Joy and the barely released Serena, and a Burnt digression follows: one host's wife loves kitchen movies like Under the Tuscan Sun, Unfaithful and No Reservations, Cooper is good in Burnt even though the movie does not work, and Daniel Brühl is the maitre d'.
Cooper saved his career with voice acting: Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy without the green screen work Chris Pratt does, and the boyfriend's voice in 10 Cloverfield Lane; the Hangover sequels were his torn ACL, with Hangover 3 excruciating.
While researching A Star Is Born, a host read that Cooper talked to Clint Eastwood about directing while making Sniper and was told Clint did Play Misty for Me at 41; the hosts love the heat check of entering the Clint conversation, are all in on the directing career and the coming promo tour in a denim jacket, and note Clint is making The Mule.
Also aged well: the Wilson and Vaughn repartee; a pretty good soundtrack for a broad Hollywood comedy, with In the Summertime on the bicycles, Rod Stewart's Stay With Me and the Coldplay song as big set pieces; and the wealthy DC area in summertime, which was supposed to be Boston and Cape Cod around the Kennedy compound, though you cannot tell it was 130 degrees when they filmed.
A late addition: Bradley Cooper shooting Vince Vaughn in the backside with birdshot approximately eight months before Dick Cheney shot somebody in the face in a similar environment.
Matt Damon would go for it but is too smart and it would not work. Brad Pitt has basically done this part in seven movies and is Forrest Gump, which one host kind of likes, though he might be too handsome and would need a bad haircut; crew-cut Brad Pitt is not as handsome as blonde-haired Brad Pitt.
Who is the ordinary-guy movie star of the 2000s, since Hanks is the embodiment of the everyman and easier to relate to? Ryan Reynolds is too handsome; Hanks is a regular guy rather than ugly and knows his regular-guy appeal; Chris Pratt has it but is jacked, so a non-jacked Chris Pratt would work. Hanks got skinny for Philadelphia, a good career move.
