The sex-worker cheerleaders are praised for comic energy and television-friendly spice, compared with turn-of-the-century media culture.
Changed sports-labor discussions are an aged-best theme. The hosts recall the lost promise of the 1994 baseball season, the 1999 NBA lockout, and a canceled hockey season as shifts in their relationship to sports.
Keith David as union leader is praised, with speculation that his brief role may have lost scenes in editing.
Orlando Jones’s football-as-gun celebration is praised and tentatively linked to The Last Boy Scout.
The blue Washington hats are praised as desirable merchandise.
Reeves reportedly took less money to enable Hackman's casting, prompting praise for his public reputation and jokes hoping he never disappoints fans; hypothetical misconduct is not a factual allegation.
The never-was insult aimed at Falco is praised for cutting deeply.
Madden and Summerall now provide nostalgic pleasure and football credibility, compared with Vin Scully in For Love of the Game; what once seemed like a cash-in has aged well.
The kicker smoking during games is praised for commitment to the gag.
Hoosiers jokes during Hackman’s coaching scenes are enjoyed.
The cheerleader paired with the deaf player is an aged-best choice.
Shane Footsteps Falco is praised as a nickname, interpreted through fear of sacks and compared with Jim Everett.
Reeves's athletic build and throwing motion make him credible at quarterback, with Scott Mitchell and Tua comparisons. A bad throwing clip from an unspecified Amanda Bynes movie is contrasted without identifying its actor.
Madden and Summerall's commentary over Shane approaching Annabelle, then blending into game coverage with Every Breath You Take, is praised as inventive. A supposed explicit deleted scene is clearly a joke.
Number one: Amanda Bynes's character as a negatively portrayed Christian, recalling One Tree Hill's clean teens.
Marianne resonated because a Fellowship of Christian Athletes group at the speaker's school behaved just like her and got meaner through high school. — Shea Serrano
Bynes is super funny and a really good actress, which makes her not taking pride in the work sad. — Shea Serrano
Marianne's group is partly plot necessity, needing teens believably outraged by one instance of sex; the speaker also had FCA and got sex education through a strain of Christianity, and understood the choice as a nod to The Scarlet Letter and puritanical heritage. — Amanda Dobbins
The rose-petal sex-ed demonstration is recalled.
Very pro-Amanda Bynes and fond of the performance, but tying Marianne's busybody ideology to her Christianity felt like stereotyping; coming from the Upper West Side and a large public school, Christianity just gets a bad rap in media. — Juliet Litman
A joke offers to email an FCA application to make her postgraduate chapter chairman.
The movie gets away with a fundamental problem: that a virginity rumor would be a scandal, would not be shut down immediately on Facebook, and would not become uglier bullying; it falls apart if you think too hard.
A teen movie in 2020 would address bullying; here the biggest slight is being forgotten, though Marianne is clearly the bully.
Olive being unfazed by Marianne continues the Tracy Flick line through Booksmart's Beanie Feldstein character; the formerly ignored now hold the power, a self-described reading-too-far.
Nominated for aged worst: the Mrs. Griffith and Micah plotline, where the guidance counselor sleeps with an of-age student, gives him chlamydia, and her marriage to Thomas Haden Church's teacher ends; unnecessary even if the movie telegraphs it is wrong.
The most sympathy goes to Thomas Haden Church's character, whose marriage is ruined while everyone else is fine. — Juliet Litman
Chip, Olive's undeveloped adopted little brother: Tucci's adoption jokes, like asking where he is from originally, feel aimed at the audience rather than a 10-year-old.
Everything tied to Huckleberry Finn is super weird: Olive's line about not knowing anyone who snuck off with a hulking black man and the ending where Brandon runs off with his black boyfriend are called offensive and dehumanizing, a bizarre characterization of the novel that could easily have been edited out.
