Animatronic fish; the real Linda Greenlaw; the families' lawsuit; discrepancies with the real events; Beau Goldman writing credit; Clooney's practical jokes
The research says none of the fish were real; they were rubber or animatronic, and no fish were harmed. — Bill Simmons
The research says the real Linda Greenlaw, Mastrantonio's character, turned to swordfishing in 2008 as part of a Discovery Channel series. — Bill Simmons
The research says family members of Billy Tyne and Dale Murphy did not like the movie and sued Time Warner in 2000, and the case did not go anywhere. — Bill Simmons
The discrepancies cited are that Linda never placed a distress call and that there was no romance between the Clooney and Mastrantonio characters. — Chris Ryan
The hosts suggest the Tyne family objected because, as they describe it, the boat was already heading back when the storm hit, and they say Greenlaw did not see it as arrogance; they note that version is less dramatic. — Chris Ryan
A triumphant score contrasts with an on-screen Billy Tyne portrayed as a captain driven to oblivion. — Chris Ryan
The research says Beau Goldman received an on-screen co-writing credit. — Chris Ryan
The research says Clooney played practical jokes on set that Hawks, Wahlberg and Diane Lane called funny without specifics; water movies are said to be miserable to film. — Bill Simmons
The segment says Ben Affleck was originally sought to play Wahlberg's character and said no, and Nick Cage signed on but backed out because of other commitments. — Bill Simmons
Cage is suggested as a good Billy or a Captain Ahab, or as the old guy at the bar. — Bill Simmons
Gloucester; Reed Rothschild and Dirk Diggler reunion; Wahlberg's accent, facial hair and attitude; smoking on deck; the music; the Riley-Fickner feud; crow's nest interactions; Ironside's payout scene
Gloucester is picked as an underrated part of Massachusetts; the shooting locations are guessed as partly Dedham and largely Gloucester, and the crow's nest is thought to exist in real life. — Bill Simmons
Riley and Walberg reunite four years after Boogie Nights, framed as a Reed Rothschild and Dirk Diggler reunion. — Bill Simmons
A joke proposes a Jack Horner fake trailer recasting Perfect Storm footage as a Boogie Nights porn film. — Bill Simmons
Walberg's accent, facial hair and attitude are called a tour de force, and John Hawks is also mentioned. — Bill Simmons
The crew smoking cigarettes on deck is a favorite; the boat must have smelled terrible from dead fish and chili. — Bill Simmons
The music is praised for matching the tension on the boat. — Bill Simmons
The Riley-Fickner feud is liked because it is never explained, just two men sick of each other in close quarters, which adds tension; a deleted scene has Riley handing Fickner a phone with "a dead man on the other line."
Fickner is hard to see as anyone but his Armageddon character. — Bill Simmons
The early crow's nest interactions, including the old man at the bar telling war stories, are picked.
Ironside's payout scene shows how small the margins are and why the crew risks their lives to make rent. — Chris Ryan
The crow's nest scene where Clooney tells the crew they are going back out introduces Diane Lane and many characters. — Bill Simmons
The crow's nest bar is called the happiest bar ever on the North Shore; a real North Shore bar would be quiet, with Red Sox games on, smoking and drinking, a sign the director was not from there. — Bill Simmons
Clooney's speech to Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio's Linda is another pick; he delivers it with no Boston accent, and the dialect coach is called one of the big losers of the movie. — Bill Simmons
The walkthrough also picks Wahlberg and Clooney together as the boat sets sail, Fickner saving Riley after he goes overboard, Clooney driving through the storm and blowtorching the anchor off, and Wahlberg saving John Hawks. — Bill Simmons
The boat flipping through a wave and the sun coming out, with Clooney saying they made it, is praised as heartbreaking because it is a false reprieve. — Chris Ryan
The most rewatchable scene is when the wave actually crushes them. — Bill Simmons
It is called the best scene in the movie, with a question whether "rewatchable" fits something so dark. — Chris Ryan
A first viewing without knowing the real story made the sun going back behind the clouds devastating; in 2000 the ending could still be kept secret. — Bill Simmons
The last hour is called really strong, though much of the Coast Guard material is not liked. — Chris Ryan
Robert Downey Jr., in his lost years right after Natural Born Killers, is floated, perhaps a little old for Hunter; it would have been a cool moment for him. — Chris Ryan
Not having Cuba Gooding in the sub as semi-comic relief is called a huge miss. — Bill Simmons
What was Lee High School's 1976 football record? Did Randy Floyd play? Who did Randy Floyd take to the senior prom? Why didn't Jason London have a bigger career? How good was that Aerosmith concert?
Lee High School's 1976 record is guessed at 9-3 or 10-3: not going to state, but in the mix after making the tournament in the last week; the program was big enough for a real football coach with coordinators and a player personnel liaison pushing the oath, but not Friday Night Lights-level national emergency stakes.
Randy Floyd is believed to have played, since he came back; his senior prom date was probably Joey Lauren Adams, unless they broke up over Jodie making a move, though monogamy was fluid and Jodie irresistible; Joey Lauren Adams was so drunk the night she and Parker Posey fell down together that she may never have gotten that information.
Why Jason London did not have a bigger career: he is a cipher, fine in an important part but not someone you leave wanting to see more of; being great in a high school movie does not translate to playing people in their 20s or 30s, since those parts let you play a type with your own personality without being an antihero, so many John Hughes and Dazed actors never had huge careers.
A counter: one host's wife loves Randy Pink Floyd, character and actor alike, says she is not alone and did not understand why he lacked a bigger career, and the host adds a call for justice for Pink; in the movie he was a game manager like Ryan Tannehill, never asked to do too much though he is the thread to everyone, after earlier comparisons to Fran Tarkenton and Johnny Manziel.
Hypotheticals of a better actor as Pink: Mark Wahlberg as a Texas quarterback would have given Randy Pink Floyd an edge in the woods; Leo, in the perfect age range, would have been great but would have overpowered the movie and made it about Pink, and part of the film's perfection is that so many of its actors never went on to sully it with later fame; still, it is argued that it is a better movie with Leo in it and they win if Leo is in it.
How good was that Aerosmith concert: 1976 was two months after Rocks came out and the band was headed to the Cotton Bowl, so it would have been awesome; research confirmed Aerosmith played Texas three times that year, so Linklater must have checked, and the Back in the Saddle era explains the obsession with tickets.
1976 was a top-four music year with many artists at the music version of Apex Mountain, and concerts mattered because they were the only way to see anything; much popular music, like Stevie Wonder and funk, is absent because the setting is Texas; the cars probably had 8-tracks rather than cassettes, which is what the imagined ZZ Top record would have played on.
Catherine Han is a yes, a hundred percent: this put her on the map in the greatest way possible in a movie people rewatch all the time.
Will Ferrell is a no: after a clarification that Apex Mountain means the greatest moment of a career rather than just comedic performances, a host still thinks Anchorman is it, he was in the middle of a great run, and he was still at the tail end of SNL, having played Bush for a couple of years.
Adam McKay gets a yes at first, the peak of his powers, making an iconic comedy out of nothing, with no plot, that let him do whatever he wants; then The Big Short, $140 million and a Best Director nomination, is raised and the same host changes his mind and goes Big Short, while another thinks McKay has not hit his apex yet and it is in front of him, citing the jittery Big Short camera work in Succession even though the show is mostly creator Jesse Armstrong's handiwork.
Adam Scott gets a hundred percent from one host; another would instead name Eastbound and Down, where his agent Pat Anderson is mind-blowing in two and a half scenes, with the black-credit-card exchange with John Hawkes recited up to its crude punchline; Will Ferrell's Ashley Schaefer BMW plums speech from the same show gets a shout-out, and without Step BrothersScott would not have been unleashed as a comedy dick in that role.
For Reilly, Boogie Nights and Magnolia are offered, with Days of Thunder and Talladega Nights in the conversation; one host calls him his least favorite part of Magnolia and would cut the whole character, Walk Hard is mentioned, and Boogie Nights is given as the answer for his exercise dance behind the glass during the Mark Wahlberg song before Feel the Heat.
Luke and Owen Wilson were originally slated to play the Malloy brothers, eventually played by Scott Kahn (as transcribed) and Casey Affleck; they could not do the movie because they had to shoot Tenenbaums, and two of the hosts spent ten minutes on this the day before.
The Wilsons would have been an infusion of Bottle Rocket, but more twee, with more emphasis on the pitter patter of their speech; they also had bigger profiles in 2001 than Kahn and Affleck and might have taken shine from the top three, like needing an Iguodala and a David West on the roster.
Owen can play dumb better than Luke; the Mormon twins' gags are supposed to be stupid so you laugh at and with them, and the Wilsons might have made it too pretentious or arch; this is the only what-if one host would have been okay with, since the brothers are comic relief, and the hosts are glad Tenenbaums got made.
Joel and Ethan Coen were reportedly also up for the Malloy brothers; one host wants documentation because the Coens in front of the camera seems implausible, while another likes it given the stories of them living with Holly Hunter and Frances McDormand after college, but agrees it is too inside-joke.
Ralph Fiennes, whom one host presumed was up for Basher on the strength of In Bruges, was actually one of three possible Terry Benedicts; he has done villains, including he who shall not be named; as Benedict it would scramble the allegiances because it is too close to English Patient and you might want Julia to be with Ray Files (as transcribed), when you need to be on Danny's side.
Alan Arkin was originally going to play Saul, the role played by Carl Reiner, which would have been fine; Mike Myers was attached to the cast; one of the earliest articles about Brad Pitt circling the film, a 2000 Hollywood Reporter Variety piece, has Johnny Depp playing Linus.
One host is against Depp, enjoying him only in What's Eating Over Grape (as transcribed) and finding the rest overacting; another was a fan in 2000, before Willy Wonka and Pirates of the Caribbean, but not at the right frequency for this movie: a darkness, the same handsome vibe as Pitt, and impossible to picture in glasses, a baseball hat and a parka in Chicago getting dunked on, since he never wants to blend in and would want to be bald with a snaggle tooth.
Mark Wahlberg was also attached to play Linus and had a weird reaction after the fact; a question to Amanda about the Julia Roberts role turns up no other what-ifs.
Bruce Willis was reportedly, on specious evidence, in contention for Danny Ocean, which would be an entirely different movie because Clooney anchors the whole thing; his absence set up a favorite Ocean's 12 cameo, where he arrives mid-heist while Julia Roberts' Tess is pretending to be Julia Roberts, with a SpongeBob pillow, as commentary on 2000s celebrity; the hosts are glad he turned the role down, and Ocean's 12 made one like Julia Roberts even more.
Earlier, in the intro: Mark Wahlberg, initially slated to play Linus, was salty after release, saying he went off and made Planet of the Apes and The Truth About Charlie, which both sucked, rather than sit around patting George on the back.
The one really interesting casting what-if: the role was originally offered to Denzel Washington, who in a GQ interview named Seven and Michael Clayton as the two roles he most regretted turning down, and who was scared off by Tony Gilroy being a first-time director.
Denzel later played a lawyer for the other Gilroy brother, Dan Gilroy, in last year's Roman J. Israel, thought underrated or misunderstood and remembered mostly for his Best Actor nomination.
Denzel is really good at playing exasperated, so his version would have been a different take: Clooney is not exasperated but conflicted in a repressed way, whereas Denzel would have been much more 'what do you want me to do?' — Justin Charity
Asked for a Michael Clayton line in a Denzel voice, the request gets a flat no, but the 'I'm not the guy you kill. I'm the guy you buy' line is delivered anyway and called incredible.
Denzel is thought better in films like Crimson Tide or Malcolm X where he leans into his charisma, though his choices show he likes playing downtrodden, beaten-down, morally compromised people, as in Inside Man from around the same time, the film one participant watched right before seeing Michael Clayton for the first time.
Asked who else could be imagined as Michael Clayton, the answer is that this is a very hard one to recast because everybody seems really well cast. — Lindsay Zoladz
Mark Wahlberg as Michael Clayton is floated and knocked down: he would try to play the hero too much, whereas Clooney's performance is never triumphant, dejected and tired in the cab at the end rather than smiling, and Wahlberg would look for the noble firefighter element; the proposer confesses the suggestion was meant partly as comedy, since Wahlberg's weird, confused tone could have made a funny alternative take.
Chris Cooper as Marty Bach: there is a running list of aughts films that either have Chris Cooper in them or are defined by the fact that they should have, and this people-in-suits, corruption-everywhere, racing-to-do-the-thing film is a classic Chris Cooper movie. — Justin Charity
Chris Cooper would be allowed as Barry but not as Marty, because Pollack in that role is a classic look.
What actress plays Sean's wife in a flashback? How long did Will stay with Skylar, and what became of Will, Chucky, Casey Affleck's and Cole Hauser's characters? Why have Damon and Affleck not made another movie together, and why was Affleck not in Ocean's Eleven? Is this the best Boston movie of all time?
The block opens with the remake-as-series question, recorded separately.
If there were a flashback with Robin Williams and his wife, what actress plays her: Deborah Winger (as transcribed) is offered; she has to look like a lifelong Boston lady; Amy Ryan from The Wire, Bonnie Bedelia, not Boston-y enough, and jokes of Conan O'Brien and Mark Wahlberg.
How long did Will stay with Skylar, presuming he makes it to Stanford and finds her, which as a genius on early internet message boards he would: a semester, or three or four good weeks before it falls apart when they get drunk and she says you told me you didn't love me; Lambeau would have to be Will's reference since nobody else knows about him.
What happens to these people: Will becomes an asshole hedge fund manager and Chucky becomes Matt Patricia, Sharpie in his hat, crunching tape for Belichick; or Will shows up, she is happy, they go to a Stanford party where a kid makes fun of his accent, Will beats the shit out of him and goes to jail, she bails him out and within three weeks they have broken up; twisted further, it becomes a prison movie, a shot caller situation where he joins a gang and, being a genius, figures out how to break out, Good Will Hunting 2 in jail in Palo Alto.
Or he obviously becomes a tech billionaire, a Steve Jobs-ian figure in late-90s Northern California with a doctor wife-to-be and a difficult childhood; or he becomes Sean, a therapist, which one host refuses; or they realize it will not last, he goes back to Boston, Sean has died of a heart attack and he works construction, that friend; or 15 years later stories of his crimes and anger come out; or Chucky fulfills his promise to kill him and it becomes Face Off across Boston, Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Will.
What if Good Will Hunting 2 had been The Town, with Damon's life having failed; whether Affleck tried to convince Damon to take the Renner part is debated, and whether Damon can play that kind of crazy at all, since Talented Mr. Ripley was reactionary crazy, with the hosts directly challenging his acting.
Why have these two not made another movie together: they went separate ways professionally, have a Showtime show coming that is basically a Wire for Boston, and the Fritz Peterson Yankees wife-swap movie fell through; Affleck has proven a great director and there is a great writer in Damon who should try again instead of The Great Wall; a theory that Affleck does not want to because Damon does not look cool anymore, or is mad he was cut out of Ocean's Eleven; whether Ben would have improved those movies in Casey's place or as the Andy Garcia role, though he needed to be older.
Zach Mack (as transcribed) is asked which of the five sequels he liked most, picking Chris's; the prison pitch and Hunting Will are recalled, plus Will Hunting with a shotgun and a beard in 2018; if Skyler tells him to get lost in Palo Alto, does he spin out, become a custodian at Stanford waiting for her, which is creepy, or go Zuckerberg and create Facebook, you'll see, Erica Albright.
The biggest criticism of the movie has been that it's not your fault is treated like a cure for abuse the film takes pains to establish, a guy putting cigarettes out on him, so that he hops in a car knowing how to love; if he is cured he is wealthy and with Skylar, if it moved too fast they break up after three weeks and he becomes a shot caller, still damaged and violent.
Chucky now is 42 and leading or assistant foreman of his uncle's construction crew; Southie is much nicer and his crap house is worth five times as much, so he stayed or sold; maybe he took over the bar with Cole; Cole Hauser owns an auto shop and got murdered by an IRA customer, or was the muscle in a different Boston crew; Casey Affleck moved to LA to see Will, stayed, became a comedian and lives in the pool house; Will's friends came out within a year and it went badly.
Asked how badly the visit went: Cole killed the guy, and they buried the body. — Shea Serrano
The alternative is that the guys get arrested by TSA getting off the plane at LAX, too tanked, and are put on a jail plane back to Boston without seeing Will.
Last question, probably answerable: is this the best Boston movie of all time; The Friends of Eddie Coyle is one host's favorite; another does not really care about Boston, having been three times without knowing Cambridge from Boston, and would rather watch The Departed; the qualifications for a city's signature movie are that it is awesome, uses the city, is authentic and could only have taken place there, like Rocky and Creed for Philly; the final three are The Departed, Good Will Hunting and The Verdict, with The Town fourth.
Friends of Eddie Coyle is liked here too, with a sense one is being forgotten; the first hour of Social Network is a really good Boston movie. — Chris Ryan
The Departed did not shoot much in Boston and Good Will Hunting shot a lot in Toronto, like Den of Thieves, set across LA but shot in Atlanta; the answer given is The Verdict, which uses the city best and has the authenticity, with Good Will Hunting very close, a 1A and 1B.
Earlier, the film is called possibly the best Boston movie ever, on the short list, a discussion saved for later.
