The childhood opening credits are praised for casting children who resemble neither lead and for the superglue revenge against a predatory crossing guard. — Bill Simmons
The frat-house prank works through fake police calls, robbery, and a blunt final insult.
Chevy Chase's first doctor scene is praised for coldly rejecting the heart-transplant patient before trying to sell a hospital bed. — Bill Simmons
Don Rickles' hospital-room insults are praised as a concentrated comic performance.
The Men in Black pornography scene wins laughs by pushing a thin premise into blunt absurdity. — Bill Simmons
The dead-hooker trunk reveal is praised for escalating through the remote-controlled trunk openings and a remembered Saigon story. — Bill Simmons
The dead-fish revenge sustains a silent pose while violence occurs offscreen, recalling an older broad-comedy serial. — Sean Fennessey
The jail scene remains funny across repeated viewings because the lecture about respect collides with the more painful assault.
Chris Farley's skunk release is described as an unnerving, fully committed burst of comic chaos. — Bill Simmons
The abrupt ending and final line about the doctor's death are praised for refusing a normal resolution. — Bill Simmons
The first 32 minutes are called unassailable: everything during the day is rewatchable until they get in the car with the guy who hits Jonah Hill and the movie shifts to night. — Bill Simmons
The opening phone call is smart and well crafted; Michael finishes the call five feet away before getting in the car, classic best-friend stuff from the call-only era before texting. — Bill Simmons
The Vagtastic Voyage debuts here, with a co-host joked to be its patient-zero, platinum-club subscriber.
Planning which porn site to subscribe to once he gets to college, including the line about who directs the porn he watches, is singled out as funny. — Chris Ryan
The mom cameo and the tits/teeth exchange are called very high-schooly. — Bill Simmons
A favorite comedy mode, traced to Chevy Chase, is someone doing something inappropriate behind a person who does not know; Jonah's home ec monologue about never needing to make tiramisu is the example.
The dick-drawings confession goes all in; Evan Goldberg's brother drew hundreds of them, and the Ghostbusters lunchbox treasure chest is a classic.
The driver's license scene unleashing McLovin is so funny; it was also the screen-test scene on YouTube, and Jonah's anger ("between that and Muhammad") makes it.
A Ringer piece says Jonah was mad at Mintz-Plasse, who did not care and stepped on his lines.
Seth telling Evan he got invited to the party has the most great Jonah Hill lines in two minutes: calm down Greg it's soccer, iron chef of pounding vag, Seth's own dressing, DTF.
Worked-up Jonah is compared to Chris Farley's energy; he could have done 20 more years of it and does some in Funny People. — Bill Simmons
The whole liquor store sequence could go in; the Seth dream sequence buying vodka is proposed, and at the party Seth coins the verb "perioded." — Bill Simmons
A favorite Hader scene is his bar explanation of his marriage and group sex on the wedding night, guessed to be ad-libbed; McLovin getting cockblocked by the cops, the cops generally, and the ending are also praised. — Bill Simmons
The Coke party with Kevin Corrigan's brother-from-Scottsdale speech is called the most rewatchable scene, better than Boogie Nights, with Cera singing These Eyes compared to Damian Lillard in a fourth quarter. — Chris Ryan
After an invitation to Sean, the dream sequence is chosen for Jonah's line readings such as "That would be lovely."
The stretch of McLovin buying booze, the robbery, Michaels and Slater interviewing Mindy and McLovin, the Seth-Evan lube fight and Joe Lo Truglio hitting Seth is called a favorite 15-minute stint. — Sean Fennessey
The following party scene captures the high school feeling of being somewhere with older kids where you are not supposed to be.
Agreement on the 15-minute stretch, adding the breast-reduction and "warlocks" riff and the plan to go down on her for several hours. — Bill Simmons
Bruce Willis gets a thumbs up with doubts, and his Look Who's Talking voice work is praised. — Shea Serrano
Tim Allen has said Pixar wanted Jim Carrey for Buzz and Paul Newman for Woody but could not afford them, meant to reflect new Hollywood taking over old; Newman later voiced Doc Hudson in Cars. — Sean Fennessey
Michael O'Keefe is at Apex, coming off The Great Santini into the funniest movie of the year; with Tim Hutton he was a young actor to watch before Sean Penn's class eclipsed them. — Bill Simmons
Dangerfield's Apex is placed in the mid-80s with Back to School, when he became a draw, plus HBO specials breaking Sam Kinnison and Bill Maher; both participants agree. — Bill Simmons
Ted Knight: career-wise no, since Mary Tyler Moore is his Apex, but retroactively this became his legacy; Too Close for Comfort gets love. — Bill Simmons
Cocaine is argued as at Apex, before its damage was widely known and while it fueled the film's disjointed creativity; the other participant is uncomfortable placing it on the mountain. — Bill Simmons
Baby Ruth bars peak with Goonies instead. — Sean Fennessey
Golf is argued for 1980, citing Jack Nicholas winning two majors, Tom Watson the British and a rising star taking the Masters; the Tiger Woods Mike Douglas appearance is checked; the reply is a hesitant "yes, I guess." — Bill Simmons
Rourke on that era's cocaine-fueled set would have been ugly; Danny is good when Smales tries to hit him with the golf club. — Sean Fennessey
Michelle Pfeiffer reportedly turned down Lacey because she did not want to be naked; she could have pulled it off, though she never played a character that frisky. — Bill Simmons
Pfeiffer and Rourke as Lacey and Danny would be a different movie, an Adrian Line erotic thriller; Rourke would compete with Ty, and O'Keefe landing Lacey should feel like a stretch. — Bill Simmons
Producer Peters is said to claim he had Bo Derek for Lacey before 10 and Ramis rejected it; Lacey is assumed to be about 25 and Danny about 17 or 18. — Bill Simmons
These movies shifted American comedy from a Jewish writing tradition toward Irish Catholic voices; Danny's eight-kid family is loosely based on the Murray family, and the young caddy landing Lacey set a template. — Sean Fennessey
Don Rickles was considered for Al; he is judged too mean and perhaps better as Judge Smales. — Bill Simmons
Pink Floyd was wanted for the music and declined, thankfully; Ramis's left-of-center interests like Zen Buddhism are noted, and Kenny Loggins came through instead. — Sean Fennessey
The category is hard because the movie is made of so many mini scenes. — Bill Simmons
Ty golfing with Danny ("You take drugs, Danny?" "Every day." "Good."), the kuder preference test and "Be the ball" are lights out; seeing Chevy Chase on a golf course in 1980 after his SNL run was a treat, and Danny caddying for Ty could run for an hour. — Bill Simmons
Some scenes, such as the Dalai Lama story, were held for What's Aged the Best, which causes confusion over what to spoil. — Bill Simmons
At the country club dinner Judge Smales's outfit is compared to a train-set locomotive, a Lego figure and a comic-book yacht captain. — Bill Simmons
Dangerfield's character rips off insults within about a minute: the steak with jockey marks, somebody stepped on a duck, and "now I know why tigers eat their young." — Bill Simmons
Ty meeting Lacey shows good chemistry; Spalding drinking half-finished cocktails recalls real teenagers who did that, followed by talk of accidentally drinking something with a cigarette butt in it and Spalding vomiting in the car. — Bill Simmons
The Baby Ruth pool scene is an all-timer that brought the house down in the theater, with nitpicks saved for later. — Bill Simmons
Ty and Lacey's date is five minutes of Fletch-style riffing: no listing for Mr. Wonderful, the Vietnam exchange, the uncle who molests collies, the coked-out "born to love you" song and the massage oil; the only nitpick is where the cocaine was. — Bill Simmons
Chevy crafted a new comic persona, the highest-level asshole you like, with no character interacting in a human way. — Sean Fennessey
The Cinderella story is bunched with the bishop asking Carl to carry his bag and insisting on playing through the storm in the best game of his life. — Bill Simmons
The Cinderella speech is said to have been invented on the spot after Ramis pitched the rhythm of announcers at the end of a basketball game and told him to act like a six-year-old. — Sean Fennessey
The bishop is Henry Wilcoxon, described as an iconic actor of the 1930s and 40s, a Cecil B. DeMille regular in Mrs. Miniver and The Greatest Show on Earth, in the high-level character-actor zone. — Sean Fennessey
His last line was thought to be "rat farts" as lightning strikes, but he appears once more, drunk at the bar declaring there is no God; Carl walking away and dropping the bag is underrated. — Bill Simmons
Ty running into Carl ("cannonball") includes the Briar address exchange and "we have a pool and a pond; pond be good for you." — Bill Simmons
The final pick is the Smales kid picking his nose while the guys bet on it, which has made the speaker laugh from age 10 to 50, especially the double-or-nothing and "he was hungry." — Bill Simmons
The movie has every type of humor; the attendant who cleans shoes and gets mad at Ted Knight runs the action on the nose-picking bet. — Bill Simmons
Dangerfield's arrival with Wang is offered too: the hat on the mannequin that Smales is wearing, "worst-looking hat I ever saw", and "Wang, it's a parking lot."
None of the picks involve Danny, Denunzio or Maggie, even though theoretically that is the movie. — Sean Fennessey
After wavering between the nose-picking and Ty running into Carl, the second pick is Carl and Ty together in Carl's place, likened to seeing LeBron and Steph teamed up in an all-star game. — Sean Fennessey
Murray and Chase are said to have had animosity after a famous backstage fight before Chase hosted SNL, possibly why they initially had no scenes together. — Bill Simmons
Kareem gets a yes for 1985: the title won in Boston Garden, Finals MVP 14 years after 1971, the scoring record, his autobiography, and Fletch. — Bill Simmons
Pushback: being in Fletch is not his apex; 1980, with the Magic title and Airplane, is called the correct answer, and his college years and 1971 Bucks are also raised. — Bill Simmons
Chick Hearn may have hit his apex with the 85 title and his Fletch scene, joked as getting his street named. — Bill Simmons
The Fletch jersey becoming something people wore is not quite an apex; Venice's apex would be White Men Can't Jump. — Bill Simmons
The other apex is the beer cans, great beer drinking by Chevy; newspapers and investigative reporting get a 'maybe'.
Peter, played by Jack Davenport, is the role to recast: an early Colin Farrell is floated though maybe too young, with a wish for a future star to make it six instead of five. — Bill Simmons
