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Usher

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The Replacements The Rewatchables
The Replacements

What’s Aged the Worst?

Old Ebert/Bill reviews; Gary Glitter; Michael Jace; coaches’ suits

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 01:09:24Read transcript
  • Ebert’s criticism of Madden and Summerall is rejected as an aged-worst take. — Bill Simmons
  • The earlier review calling Favreau’s performance career-ending is retracted; his later success and this performance are now appreciated. — Bill Simmons
  • The Gary Glitter song is an aged-worst choice because of the performer’s history. — Bill Simmons
  • The hosts discuss Michael Jace’s murder conviction as a disturbing contrast with his character’s fear of returning to prison. — Van Lathan
  • A host recalls recognizing Jace while he was serving as an usher at an Oasis church on Wilshire. — Van Lathan
  • Thick as Thieves is recommended in a tangent recalling Alec Baldwin, Michael Jai White, Janeane Garofalo, and Andre Braugher; some character details are tentative. — Van Lathan
  • The host recalls having spoken with Jace and then learning of his arrest while working at TMZ. The segment’s proposed fun-fact title is rejected as inappropriate to its subject. — Van Lathan
  • Coaches wearing suits is added as an aged-worst observation, with Mike Nolan's unsuccessful revival blamed for ending the look. — Van Lathan
Meet the Parents The Rewatchables
Meet the Parents

Picking Nits

Puff cassette; toilet; roof cigarette; rushed engagement; secret proposal; usher; borrowed clothes; painted cat; volleyball injury and positions

In the discussion (12)
Approx. transcript time · 00:32:33Read transcript
  • Playing Puff the Magic Dragon on cassette during an ordinary drive is strange even for 2000. — Kyle Brandt
  • Giving a guest a basement room whose toilet cannot be flushed is inhospitable and leaves an obvious practical problem. — Bill Simmons
  • Lighting a cigarette while retrieving a cat from an in-law’s roof seems an extreme and unnecessary expression of nicotine dependence. — Bill Simmons
  • A wedding only two weeks after the engagement is implausibly fast. — Kyle Brandt
  • Greg intends to propose after ten months without meeting Pam’s highly involved parents. — Bill Simmons
  • Children would not reliably keep the planned proposal secret. — Bill Simmons
  • Making Greg an usher immediately after meeting and belittling him is odd. — Kyle Brandt
  • Greg should buy basic clothes instead of borrowing family underwear; his spending elsewhere shows he can afford it. — Kyle Brandt
  • The toilet should be repaired or labeled; interpreting it as Jack’s deliberate boyfriend test is speculative. — Bill Simmons
  • Painting the substitute cat’s tail is indefensible. — Craig Horlbeck
  • The volleyball victim does not raise her hands, and the quantity of blood seems excessive for the injury later shown. — Bill Simmons
  • The much taller Rebhorn should defend the net rather than Stiller. — Kyle Brandt
The Natural The Rewatchables
The Natural

What’s Aged the Best?

Red and Pop (Farnsworth and Brimley), or the Randy Newman score

In the discussion (10)
Approx. transcript time · 00:45:11Read transcript
  • The incredible cast: three Oscar winners in Redford, Duvall and Basinger, nominees Glenn Close, Barbara Hershey and Richard Farnsworth, plus Robert Prosky, Michael Madsen and Joe Don Baker; Madsen was never one host's thing, though a college friend stuck by him through his problems and still mourns Bump.
  • Basinger is in the final eight of a most-beautiful-woman-in-a-movie bracket, and her constant lip licking raises whether it is deliberate or just her essence; Diane Lane in Unfaithful is a similar case.
  • Brimley and Farnsworth as Pop and Red are perfect and some of the best stuff in the movie; it is sobering that Brimley was the same age as one host is now yet seems 78, and only about two years older than Redford in real life.
  • Hobbs played semi-pro ball for the Hebrew Oilers, prompting a hunt for t-shirts on Cafe Press or Redbubble; the Randy Newman score was Oscar-nominated, is instantly associated with the film, and gets yanked for NBA and World Series montages.
  • Basinger is named again, with a nod to Alec Baldwin and their handsome couple; Max Mercy, who never played sports but makes it more fun to watch, is a model for sports media, and the hosts imagine him resisting digital media at the New York Daily News, still drawing cartoons, before being wooed by Sirius for Mad Dog Radio or a podcast.
  • John Rhodes, the Pittsburgh lefty who is a Roy Hobbs spitting image with a good throwing motion, is great casting, and the slow-motion shot of the guys flying out of the dugout after the homer is an all-time favorite.
  • Roy Hobbs is a three-true-outcomes player for the modern era, homering, striking out or walking, like 2003 Bonds or a nine-WAR player with a 184 wRC+, though his defensive value would be poor since he is slow and unwieldy and his side hurts every time he reaches for a ball.
  • The old-school baseball fashion and aesthetics, especially the Cubs uniforms, have aged wonderfully, even though the heavy fire-retardant uniforms look as warm as wildling furs.
  • Iris as an independent spirit and trailblazing feminist: Roy gets her pregnant in the barn, proposes romantic bullshit and never returns, and she raises the boy alone in Chicago with a nice apartment, a job and a drugstore where they know her name, can get an usher to deliver a note, and still gets the guy at the end.
  • The final pick is Red and Pop, with a wish for 30 minutes of deleted dugout ad-libs or a mic'd-up game, or else the iconic score.
True Romance The Rewatchables
True Romance

Casting What-Ifs

Tarantino wanted Joan Cusack as Alabama; Tony Scott wanted Drew Barrymore; Jack Black (as transcribed: 'Jack Plack') was cut as a theater usher; Val Kilmer wanted Clarence; Tom Sizemore was first cast in Gandolfini's role and recommended Gandolfini

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:52:43Read transcript
  • Tarantino wanted Joan Cusack for Alabama in the late-eighties script, which one host calls genius from the man who put John Travolta in Pulp Fiction; another doubts she has the sex appeal for the character, though she is sexy in The Addams Family, reviving a sixty-episode argument over whether she could pull off a sexy role.
  • Tony Scott, misnamed Ridley at first, wanted Drew Barrymore; a year before Mad Love she could have pulled off Alabama, had career baggage from drug and alcohol trouble, and might have become a star of the A list from it, whereas the film, which only made twelve million (as transcribed: '$12 billion'), did not propel Arquette, who is iconic in it and had a host's high school girlfriend curling her hair the same way.
  • Alabama is totally fake, a creation like the manic pixie dream girls discussed a few episodes ago; on the commentary Tarantino is unembarrassed about not having a girlfriend until 25 and inventing his dream girl, one who watches kung fu movies, eats chicken, drinks beer, smokes and is funny; Arquette was the perfect actress to embody it.
  • Jack Black (as transcribed: 'Jack Plack') was cut as an usher in the kung fu theater; Val Kilmer desperately wanted Clarence, but Tarantino originally saw the role as a David Carradine type, an older loser, so a Kilmer version would have been a man approaching middle age rather than a cool guy at a Detroit comic book store.
  • Tom Sizemore was initially cast in Gandolfini's role, was not comfortable with the scene beating up Arquette, asked to play the cop instead and recommended Gandolfini because they had been in a play together, giving him his big break.
  • A riff on Sizemore's heat check against De Niro in Heat, 'for me, the action is the juice', with the long dramatic pause, an ISO Michael Mann keeps giving him, Sizemore as Michael Mann's Joe Akeem Noah (as transcribed); what does not add up is that a year later he played the disgusting warden in Natural Born Killers, so perhaps domestic violence in his past, dating Heidi Fleiss and substance abuse made the scene hit too close.
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