The Happy swing is athletic and hard to pull off; Sandler golfs but is not thought to be very good.
The Nealon scene is called the best use of Kevin Nealon in a movie, and he should appear in every movie.
Aged-best items include the ninth-green sprinkler trick and Tuesday's Gone.
The "go to your home" outburst is something everyone says when playing golf. — Bill Simmons
"Just tap it in" applies to a lot of life.
Alan Covert's homeless caddy is called the best; he is in every Sandler movie.
Julie Bowen is named; everyone had a crush on her, and her "Happy, look out" yell sticks. — Bill Simmons
Shooter McGavin is called perhaps the number one sports movie villain, with details like his phony Portland interview and turned back before introductions.
A real-life Shooter is compared to Brooks Kepka and Nick Faldo.
Ben Stiller's orderly, the air conditioner falling, the piano in the reborn happy place and the alligator fight are added.
Whether the role helped McDonald's career is questioned, since he worried about typecasting as a villain.
The Subway tie-in is called probably the best-aged thing and a legitimately good commercial.
Opening credits; Kevin Nealon energy scene; unresolved: auction scene, batting cage with Chubbs, Bob Barker fight (one later switched to the opening credits; picker unidentified)
A coin flip settles that the opening credits count as their own candidate; they include the hockey footage, the skate line, Happy with his dad and the fake-penis rake and gas-pump sequence. — Bill Simmons
The opening origin story is called insane and dark: the mother moves to Egypt, the father dies at a hockey game, and Richard Kiel takes a nail in the head.
A child's first viewing of the gas-pump bit and the first documented "you think you better than me" are recalled; the credits are scored with Tuesday's Gone. — Bill Simmons
Tuesday's Gone is called the best Skinner song; it was also used in a 1993 film rendered 'days and confused' in the transcript, and the band got a bump from Sweet Home Alabama in Forrest Gump.
The girlfriend breakup is called a direct rip-off of Stripes, still amazing in execution.
The Waterbury Open double bogey with the shirt off and Jump Around is a candidate, along with the driving-range invitation and the batting cage.
The Chubbs alligator line is a favorite joke. — Bill Simmons
The clubhouse scene with the gold jackets and the ninth-green sprinkler trick is called the best. — Bill Simmons
The Bob Barker fight at the Pepsi Pro Am is a candidate; Barker's real boxing stance and the MTV Movie Awards best fight are recalled.
The happy place, tainted and pure, is a candidate, and Julie Bowen is called a rocket ship from that scene.
Joe Flaherty's Red Lobster subplot with Shooter, Frankenstein's foot, the auction scene and the Ben Stiller subplot are added as candidates.
The Bob Barker scene is called the best and most rewatchable, including Barker getting madder in the build-up. — Bill Simmons
The first picks named are the auction scene, the batting cage with Chubbs, and Barker.
One participant switches their pick to the opening credits, and another says they might do the same; who switched is not identified.
The Kevin Nealon energy scene is called a favorite and was a constant reference on the Uncut Gems set.
During a later category, one participant says the rewatchable went to Barker, and another asks whether they changed the rewatchable to the opening sequence; the question is not answered.
Holly Hunter is named at once, in one of the toughest calls the show has had, because nobody can be substituted for her and the movie is not as good or the same without her; the same is felt about the Albert Brooks part, and he is called the biggest loser within the movie.
William Hurt can be removed from contention because Jeff Bridges could have played the part 95 percent as well; Brooks is the biggest loser because he gets neither the woman nor the job and tells her he loves her knowing it will make no difference, unlike Ben Stiller in Reality Bites, who thinks he should get the girl, and the character seems to feel she deserves the good-looking mannequin; he could not be replaced even though many would think they could do that role.
A case is made for Jim Brooks winning the movie, since this kind of film, a modern love triangle trying to say something, feels very 40s, a Cary Grant version or expert-level Neil Simon, and nobody had made one since the 70s, when people thought the form was gone.
Brooks is an original voice whose influences, Preston Sturges, Sid Caesar, Neil Simon, Woody Allen, 60s sitcoms and Norman Lear, are all visible at once, and Cameron Crowe spent the next fifteen years making his version after Brooks took him under his wing and produced his films; the Brooks case is acknowledged but the vote goes to Holly Hunter, a performance and character unique to her, helped by her height, since only a five-foot-one actress like Kristen Chenoweth (as transcribed) or Linda Hunt could substitute; the closing joke is that the audience is the winner.
Winona Ryder receives a positive verdict, with Heathers raised as the strongest competing film.
A pro-Reality Bites argument points to the shot from this film used in an eventual Oscar memorial montage.
Ethan Hawke is rejected here because Training Day brought an Oscar nomination and broader career choice.
A competing suggestion places Hawke’s apex in the present and speculates that The Purge may have given him unusual financial leverage, while explicitly admitting that claim is not known as fact. — Chris Ryan
A Brooklyn pasta-shop anecdote about Hawke debating whether a character was Nick Cave or Jeff Tweedy is jokingly proposed as his apex.
After the transcript form “You too,” the response calls another title the movie about them and thanks Ben Stiller, but gives no clear yes or no. — Chris Ryan
Lisa Loeb receives an unqualified positive verdict.
The Super Big Gulp is rejected as too forced a script device.
Renée Zellweger appears briefly as the woman Troy kisses near the beginning.
Helen Childress began the script at nineteen, revised it for three years through roughly seventy drafts, and drew on friends’ personalities and experiences.
Beth by Kiss was the intended song for Michael’s car scene, but Stiller could not secure the rights.
A real Troy Dyer sued in 2005 after a DVD commentary said the characters came from Childress’s friends; the matter settled with a written statement that he was not the portrayed character.
Hackman's name was left off the poster over Cruise's above-the-title deal; the ending differs from the book; Tripplehorn dated Ben Stiller for six years; Pollack voices the prison warden; a 2012 TV series continued the story; the Hyatt Regency Grand Cayman was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan; Hackman has not made a film since 2004
Gene Hackman's name did not appear on the release poster because Cruise's Paramount deal allowed only his name above the title; Hackman asked to be removed entirely and appears only in the end credits.
The ending differs significantly from the book, where Mitch swindles ten million from the firm and there is a manhunt; Jeanne Tripplehorn dated Ben Stiller for six years, and the hosts think she was a nineties face who had a better career than remembered, including Big Love, with one calling her better than Holly Hunter here.
Sidney Pollack voices the prison warden on the phone to Ed Harris's agent; a 2012 TV series picked up Mitch ten years later; the Cayman hotel was the Hyatt Regency Grand Cayman, destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and later demolished.
Hackman's last film was Welcome to Mooseport in 2004; Grantland accidentally made people think he had died through a headline Sean Fennessey wrote; Tarantino wanted him for the Robert Forster role in Jackie Brown; a 2018 bicycling article shows him at 88 riding an electric bike in New Mexico.
