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Internal Affairs
Internal Affairs
So I Married an Axe Murderer
So I Married an Axe Murderer
The Vanishing
The Vanishing
The Vanishing
Film credit
Nancy Travis
Stats
- Episodes featuring their films
- 3
- Movies in this archive
- 3
Rewatchables episodes featuring Nancy Travis’s films
So I Married an Axe Murderer
1993 film
Bill Simmons · Chris Ryan · Sean Fennessey
Aired October 17, 2023
Displaying all 3 episodes
Mentioned in discussions
Apex Mountain
Richard Gere and Andy Garcia in 1990; cops sleeping with partners’ wives; slapping.
In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 01:17:32Read transcript
- Gere is affirmed for the 1990 combination with Pretty Woman, and Garcia for the same year's Godfather Part III combination.
- Billy Baldwin is rejected in favor of Backdraft or the film described as Thief of Hearts in the transcript.
- The Valley receives a suggested case for looking cool and wild, contrasted with Boogie Nights and Magnolia.
- Dirty Los Angeles cops is debated against Colors, The Onion Field and L.A. Confidential. Internal affairs and cops moonlighting as hitmen are floated without a clear final declaration.
- Nancy Travis loses to So I Married an Axe Murderer; Metcalf and Sciorra are rejected; Faye Grant gets only a probable yes. — Bill Simmons
- Imagining one's wife with another man loses to Indecent Proposal after comparisons with The Best Man, The Big Picture and Unfaithful. — Van Lathan
- Cops sleeping with partners' wives and slapping in movies receive affirmative answers.
- Gere is tentatively proposed as the apex of an attractive villain, without a firm conclusion.
In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:59:36Read transcript
- Swap Annabella Sciorra and Nancy Travis: Sciorra's passion and contrast with Peck would strengthen Raymond's marriage story.
- Christopher Reeve is an intriguing against-type option; Don Johnson has the right appeal, though his acting range is questioned. Harrison Ford is another preferred alternative.
- Denzel Washington could play Peck, but the racial dynamics would make a substantially different movie.
- Ryan Gosling is the modern Peck choice, with Murder by Numbers recalled as evidence he can play a villain.
What’s Aged the Best?
Evidence planting; menswear and haircuts; Los Angeles; Figgis; Metcalf; marriage tension; co-parenting; revised ending; mall security; cuckolding.
In the discussion (13)
Approx. transcript time · 00:45:11Read transcript
- Evidence planting remains an effective fictional device, especially before ubiquitous cameras and phones.
- The good investigator beginning to resemble the corrupt man he pursues. — Bill Simmons
- Off-duty menswear, including Gere's polo and sunglasses, remains contemporary. — Chris Ryan
- Figgis contributing music and appearing as Nancy Travis's dinner companion. — Chris Ryan
- Los Angeles as a vibrant crime-film setting, and Gere and Garcia's early-1990s haircuts. — Bill Simmons
- Laurie Metcalf excels despite a limited role and has strong chemistry with Garcia. — Bill Simmons
- The unusual sexual slang root, made ironic by Peck's affair with Van's wife.
- Unfinished suburban developments as crime-film locations and suspiciously expensive houses revealing corruption.
- Faye Grant's performance and the tense Garcia–Travis marriage, with her sexual frustration and his fixation on work. — Bill Simmons
- Peck's unconventional co-parenting and the dirty-cop excuse that a woman is his informant.
- Replacing the convoluted original ending, with a threatened assault, shooting, window fall and apparent drowning, after hostile test reactions. — Bill Simmons
- Xander Berkeley as Rudy and cops forced to work second jobs as mall security.
- The cuckolding theme is much more widely recognized in contemporary culture.
In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:36:56Read transcript
- Rear Window and Suspicion are proposed, the latter for its suspicious-spouse plot. — Sean Fennessey
- The Vanishing is proposed for a Nancy Travis double bill. — Bill Simmons
Apex Mountain
Nancy Travis; Scotland; early-1990s San Francisco; haggis (probable); Weekly World News; beat poetry
In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 01:21:49Read transcript
- Myers is rejected as being at his peak here. — Bill Simmons
- Travis is accepted for this film alongside The Vanishing, before her television career. — Bill Simmons
- Scotland is accepted for a 1990s run including Teenage Fanclub, the Euros, this film, Braveheart and Trainspotting. — Bill Simmons
- Pre-Silicon Valley San Francisco is accepted. — Bill Simmons
- Charlie’s maroon Volkswagen Karmann Ghia is admired, with its year and possible Kill Bill connection unresolved. — Bill Simmons
- Haggis receives a probable yes; a participant says this is where they learned about it.
- Weekly World News is accepted for its use in the plot. — Bill Simmons
- LaPaglia’s television show is preferred as his peak. — Bill Simmons
- McEwan’s Export beer is raised, with uncertainty about whether it is real.
- Scottish weddings are left uncertain; McEwan’s is corrected to a real beer.
- Beat poetry in movies is accepted.
Elisabeth Shue Inventing Cold Fusion Award
Nancy Travis as a butcher
The panel proposes a new category here.
In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:53:24Read transcript
- Nancy Travis as a butcher receives the newly proposed award; her training, career history and knife skills are questioned.
- The proposed Elisabeth Shue electrochemist name is reconsidered in favor of Denise Richards’s Dr. Christmas Jones; Nicole Kidman in Days of Thunder and The Peacemaker supplies comparisons.
Apex Mountain
Nancy Travis, characters named Barney or Cousins, full-service gas stations, and Seattle
In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:52:12Read transcript
- Nancy Travis is placed near an early-1990s peak, though Internal Affairs and So I Married an Axe Murderer compete. — Bill Simmons
- Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland, Sandra Bullock, and director George Sluzer receive no verdicts. — Bill Simmons
- The Infinity bracelet is rejected. — Bill Simmons
- Barney Cousins ranks at least third among characters named Barney and perhaps higher among characters surnamed Cousins. — Bill Simmons
- Coffee is rejected for Apex Mountain. — Bill Simmons
- Full-service spacious gas stations receive a plausible apex case. — Bill Simmons
- Seattle receives a case based on a run near Singles and Say Anything. — Bill Simmons
Recasting Couch
Keep Sandra Bullock as the missing woman and Nancy Travis as the partner
In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:49:34Read transcript
- Switching the two female leads is proposed as the recasting question. — Chris Ryan
- Bullock is kept as the vivid person the audience misses. — Bill Simmons
- Travis is credited with selling a woman who realizes her partner never escaped his obsession. — Bill Simmons
What’s Aged the Best?
Barney’s setup, the anagram, Jeff’s pathetic obsession, smoking as instant trauma shorthand, the villain name, early Bullock and Sutherland, and odd relationship lines
In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:36:56Read transcript
- Barney’s craziness is established before the movie shifts into Diane and Jeff’s story. — Bill Simmons
- Diane Shaver is identified as an anagram of “she vanished.” — Bill Simmons
- Jeff’s attack on Rita for leaving makes his pathetic obsession unusually vivid. — Bill Simmons
- Kiefer lighting a cigarette as soon as Diane disappears is praised as compact trauma shorthand. — Bill Simmons
- Barney Cousins is called an excellent villain name. — Bill Simmons
- The film captures Sandra Bullock immediately before Speed and Kiefer Sutherland before his later action-star identity. — Bill Simmons
- Nancy Travis’s line about no secrets “in the heart or on the lips” is preserved as memorably strange. — Bill Simmons
Displaying all 9 discussions
