The category is framed as having two winners, something not normally done in this category. — Bill Simmons
Vernon Wells, who played Bennett and is remembered from Weird Science, is named first, but is later said not to have won the Joey Pants Award. — Bill Simmons
David Patrick Kelly is one of the best ever in the category, known as the Warriors gang leader and Luther in 48 Hours, and seen in The Crow, Crooklyn and John Wick; the award is given to him. — Bill Simmons
The flight attendant who says the flight will take exactly 11 hours is another candidate: she played Bruce Willis's wife in The Last Boy Scout and Teela ('Tila' in the transcript) in the Dolph Lundgren He-Man movie, but nobody could recall her name. — Kyle Brandt
Clive Owen: yes; 2006 with Children of Men and Inside Man was his apex, among the best two-film years ever.
Jodie Foster in the 21st century: yes, though Flight Plan was a big hit.
Juicy Fruit gets a yes as its best use in a movie, after wondering whether Chuck Yeager chewed it in The Right Stuff.
Gangst is genocide, the in-film video game, also gets a yes.
For fixers, Winston Wolf is apex over Michael Clayton, and Foster's character, who proves ineffective, ranks third.
Bruce Willis's girlfriend in Pulp Fiction is the apex of worst movie girlfriends, with a promise to rip that stretch apart in an in-person Pulp Fiction episode after the pandemic.
On whether it is apex for post-Heat heist movies, the answer is only that it is "in the carousel," mocked as a non-answer. — Chris Ryan
Candidates weighed include Den of Thieves, The Dark Knight, Logan Lucky, Hell or High Water, Widows, Baby Driver, The Town and Fast Five.
The final ranking puts The Town first, Fast Five second and Inside Man third, with Den of Thieves fourth.
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
Willis has a second-summit case because he converts extraordinary leverage into this film, The Sixth Sense, and Unbreakable, though Die Hard remains his stricter apex. — Bill Simmons
Bay uses Armageddon’s success to obtain total freedom and Pearl Harbor-scale resources; all agree this accumulation of power is the Baypex.
The 150-minute runtime, Twin Towers image, training premise, Affleck’s replacement teeth, weaker romance, Rockhound’s sexual behavior, and the Godzilla swipe
Criterion inclusion is jokingly treated as an objection and then defended as recognition of an important movie. — Bill Simmons
At roughly 150 minutes the film could lose about 20 minutes, despite a playful desire for even more. — Bill Simmons
A burning Twin Tower in the opening destruction now reads as eerie and sobering. — Bill Simmons
The failure to train astronauts as drillers is a premise-breaking problem that Bay never resolves, though one defense distinguishes mathematical space training from embodied drilling instinct. — Bill Simmons
Bruce Willis’s hairpiece is mostly defended, but Affleck’s $20,000 set of enlarged white teeth is a conspicuous Bay-driven transformation. — Bill Simmons
One host rejects the Affleck/Tyler love scenes, while Rockhound’s repeated interest in barely adult women is described as not surviving to 2020.
Bay’s extended opening insult aimed at the competing Godzilla film remains inexplicably petty.
Andy Garcia is proposed for Terry Benedict's speech to Virgil and Turk and for stabbing people with his cane; a tight field is debated. — Amanda Dobbins
Virgil's thank-you down the table is a favorite shot.
Eddie Izard (as transcribed) and Robbie Coltrane are raised but may be too famous.
Others agree on Willis; Jared Harris as Basher's engineer is praised as Soderbergh catching him years before Chernobyl, and Willis keeps the award.
Toe for Grace's (as transcribed) one scene is mentioned afterward as an overlooked nominee. — Chris Ryan
The reunion of the crew is nominated; Scott Khan (as transcribed) is called really good, and the 'it was one job that we did together' proprietary-stance exchange is quoted, with a take where a cast member cracks up kept in. — Chris Ryan
The breakdown of the Vanderwood heist is nominated for Damon objecting to calling someone a freak and invoking Emily Dickinson; it plays like an Altman scene of overlapping dialogue, and subtitles reveal Pitt muttering 'don't touch my food.' — Chris Ryan
The Matsui meeting with Robbie Coltrane is a five-minute scene in which no one knows what anyone is saying, capped by Damon reciting the lyrics to Kashmir. — Chris Ryan
The train-station banter about how old Rusty is ('How old do you think I am?') is nominated. — Chris Ryan
Rusty and Danny getting drunk on red wine and watching Happy Days dubbed in Italian is nominated, with praise for the Potsie dubbing. — Chris Ryan
Bruce Willis in the hotel, the whole Tess-comes-to-Rome stretch, the Faberge theft and the Night Fox's capoeira dance all feed the last 25 minutes before the final reveals. — Chris Ryan
The reintroduction of the crew is singled out, especially Danny in the bank at the start, which has Thomas Crown Affair energy; his choosing not to rob the bank pivots the film from a grittier American tale to an international extravaganza. — Sean Fennessey
The bank opening is also a nod to the start of Out of Sight; Rusty visiting Tover Grace (as transcribed) and the matador-suit stand-up routine are further nominees. — Sean Fennessey
The film's title cards and timelines do not add up, but it is a movie of flashing moments, such as the Night Fox's story about Lamarca and the American businessman played by producer Jerry Weintraub. — Sean Fennessey
Cherry Jones's moment with Damon in the truck ('You told Dad') is one of the funniest in the film, as is her chewing gum when she enters the jail cell.
Runners-up: the Matsui meeting as a distillation of these movies, with Clooney's deadpan stillness and Damon's Kashmir timing, and Pitt and Clooney watching Happy Days, which this participant's husband called a beautiful movie about male intimacy. — Amanda Dobbins
The Happy Days scene is inverted minutes later when Rusty bares his soul and a tired Danny pays him no attention. — Amanda Dobbins
The pick is the whole Tess-goes-to-Rome sequence; another voice says it would be their pick too, and the bit is described as a whiteboard idea the movie was built around.
The bit is a genuine risk, compared to Curb Your Enthusiasm casting real people as bad versions of themselves; the meta aspect is suggested as why Bill wanted this as a flawed rewatchable. — Sean Fennessey
Viewers either find it delightful or ask whether Danny looks just like George Clooney if Tess looks like Julia Roberts; the message-board reading is mocked.
The scene needs outside knowledge: Damon recounting The Sixth Sense to Bruce Willis, Julia Roberts's husband's real name being Danny, and the real name of Willis's daughter Tallulah. — Amanda Dobbins
Damon's and Roberts's reactions when Willis walks in make the scene; Roberts's face is called possibly some of the greatest American acting, and they reportedly tried 23 versions of the scene. — Chris Ryan
The Marcy publicist exchange is praised for its specificity about studio versus personal publicists on a European press tour.
Tess's accent coaching and the Cockney accent draw a Dick Van Dyke comparison.
The Julia Roberts hotel scene is declared the most rewatchable scene, with the whole Tess experience close behind. — Chris Ryan
Roberts is underused in the first film, but here she joins the crew as the 12th, as in the paint-mixing 'too much ox blood' moment.
What happens with Denzel's daughters; best Pennsylvania action movie; whether Rosario Dawson has had her apex role; what if the train restarted after the ending
What is going on with Denzel's daughters? They are working through college, delightfully happy and unexplored, worthy of a spin-off.
Best Pennsylvania action movie: this one over Striking Distance, a Bruce Willis Pittsburgh Coast Guard movie that might work better as a 10-episode Netflix show. — Bill Simmons
Asked whether anyone has fully unlocked Rosario Dawson, the answer is no: she has charm and audience connection but needs a movie built around her. — Quentin Tarantino
She is likened to NBA players who never found the right situation; she was great in Clerks II, and plays the Ed Harris Apollo 13 part here.
Death Proof is raised; she is one of the three heroes of its second half rather than the lead.
Ideas include a Kramer vs. Kramer or Silkwood-type role, versus a genre movie that makes her a movie star, such as a speculative book about a plot to poison Roosevelt that was given to her.
Late addition: what if the movie ended with the train starting again after the press conference? — Bill Simmons
Leonardo DiCaprio was supposed to play Hans Landa, which would have meant doing the movie in English since he could not have learned German and French in time, though the joke is that a guy who slept in a carved-out bear might have taught himself.
Michael Fassbender tried out for Landa a couple of times and was heartbroken, then got the call that he had Hickox at the expense of Simon Pegg, who chose Tintin instead, a sliding-doors moment the hosts call very tough since they love Pegg.
Adam Sandler was rumored to play the Bear Jew and would have nailed the Teddy Williams thing; Nastasha Kinski (as transcribed) was initially going to play Bridget but turned it down, so Kruger got the role, and Kinski, 10 or 15 years older, would have been more a Marlene Dietrich aging starlet; Kruger is so good in the movie.
This is a generation of actors who grew up on Tarantino: Fassbender and friends put on a stage version of Reservoir Dogs in Dublin, and Simon Pegg sat alone in a hotel room anguished over choosing between Spielberg's obvious blockbuster and Tarantino's World War II movie.
Tarantino struggled over casting Melanie Laurent because he thought she was too famous and wanted to discover someone new; she insisted she was not famous and convinced him.
Tarantino met Pitt at Chateau Miraval, where Pitt lived with Angelina Jolie, and they discussed Aldo over a night and five bottles of the estate's own Pink Floyd rose before he accepted, so the rose was a critical factor.
This was the first time Tarantino worked with an in-his-prime movie star rather than rediscovering an underappreciated asset, and everything since, Django, Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has used stars in their sweet spot, so it may have been more of a risk for Tarantino than for Pitt; complicating things, the Weinstein Company produced and distributed the film, and Pitt, who had refused to work with Weinstein for years over Gwyneth Paltrow, did so because he wanted to work with Tarantino.
Possibly half-assed research rather than a casting what-if: an early iteration when Tarantino first conceived the project was rumored to include Sylvester Stallone as Aldo, Bruce Willis as Donnie Donowitz and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hugo Stiglitz, which would make sense for a late-90s script.
Earlier, during the tavern discussion, Fassbender is said to have tried out for Landa five times, and a host wants to discuss in Casting What-Ifs how both careers would have gone with him as Landa.
Mila Kunis auditioned for Knocked Up and lost the role to Katherine Heigl, but Apatow filed her away and she got this one; whether Hathaway was also up for that part is not remembered, which raises the question of whether Knocked Up would have been better with Kunis.
One host is not a fan of Katherine Heigl on screen in movies or television, with no disrespect to the human being, while another is a big fan of her in Knocked Up; the case against her is that Heigl is not funny, Kunis is, and nobody bought that she would ever be interested in Seth Rogen.
The rebuttal is that re-engineering the casting is like saying the New Testament would be better with Bruce Willis, though it is a clear case of picking one actress over the other; Heigl works perfectly as a specific, annoying kind of person, and one host was ready for them to break up the whole time.
Aldous Snow (transcribed as Algiers Snow) was written with Charlie Hunnam in mind, who had Apatow history from Undeclared, and was entirely rewritten for Russell Brand; one host suspects it was not written at all and Brand simply did the role.
Earlier, during the intro, the note that Kunis had gone for the Katherine Heigl part in Knocked Up was explicitly parked for Casting What-Ifs.
Malkovich saying the title in the movie, two different times, is a favorite thing and the hallmark of Bruckheimer movies, like 'welcome to the Rock'; the hosts imagine Bruckheimer reading the script in the bathtub and jotting a note that nobody says the title.
Nick Cage has aged the best: he has become a punching bag, but people forget he won an Oscar and was an awesome action hero in the 90s, holding the Grantland action-hero championship belt for two or three years; unlike 80s action guys such as Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Seagal, he, Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson were actors before they were action heroes, and he rattles off post-murder one-liners like the bunny line.
The secret of the movie is that ridiculous things happen but the characters are played by smart, good actors buying in: Cusack, Malkovich, Ving, Buscemi and Cage are all great, and Malkovich is 100% evil, believing everything he is saying.
Cage's hair has aged the best, this being the best year for it: thinning, so he grew it out wavy, with no explanation for going from high and tight out of the army to an outrageous mullet in prison while bettering himself and learning Spanish, looking like a bass tech for Poison.
Chappelle has aged incredibly well, and there is more racially charged humor than remembered, which one host flatly labels racist, including a lot of characters using a slur for each other; Chappelle is nonetheless very funny. The Cyrus kill line 'Cy... anara' (transcribed 'Sigh! Anatta'), which he had prepared and was waiting for someone to call him Cy, is another thing that aged best.
The Buscemi and Cage exchange after Cage comes back up from the kill below is played as a clip: whether working 50 hours a week for 50 years and hoping to die before the indignity of the toilet is insane. Buscemi goes to nine other levels, 'most murders are a crime of necessity rather than desire', and would give the greatest TED talk; a host admits that movies mocking people for having a job hurt his feelings, as with Heat.
Malkovich has aged the best for this host, on his run of villains like In the Line of Fire, really in the pocket as the heavy, funny, smart and scary, knowing exactly how far to go; it was a great period when action movies stopped requiring jacked-up Jose Canseco types and instead hired incredible drama actors to elevate stupid material for less money than the action guys cost. — Chris Ryan
The trend started with Rickman in Die Hard and led to Lithgow and Malkovich; asked which Malkovich role comes to mind first, the answers are In the Line of Fire, Dangerous Liaisons and Teddy KGB, with Con Air right underneath; he looks the same in every movie yet his characters feel different, as in the Killing Fields, and Mile 22 gets a thumbs up with reservations.
