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Mr. Mom The Rewatchables
Mr. Mom

Picking Nits

Nobody cares less about her kids than Carolyn; Jack losing all three kids in the grocery store; the terrible Schooner Tuna ad; the filthy house; the kids' advanced understanding of their parents' employment

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:50:50Read transcript
  • Does anyone care less about her kids than Terry Garr: she could come home to two kids instead of three and not notice for a day and a half; Keaton losing all his kids in the grocery store is defended as realistic by a host whose wife lost their son Ben in a London park for eleven minutes in 2012, since kids are like dogs and just run off.
  • Home Alone is raised as the most ridiculous version of leaving a kid behind, with the counter that people were not attached at the hip to their children then; the point is that she is a terrible parent, not a terrible mom, since getting a job does not stop you reading a bedtime story once.
  • The Schooner Tuna ad they end up with is really terrible and could have been made three percent better; the clip is played, and the hosts again conclude they ran out of time and film, though it gets the point across.
  • The house is disgustingly dirty, and Carolyn would at least notice that even if she missed a kid; the kids also seem to have an advanced understanding of their parents' employment status, which kids do not care about.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Who would play Butch and Sundance if the film were made from scratch today?

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:18:30Read transcript
  • The one question is who plays these two if the movie never existed and they start from scratch in 2019, though going decade by decade would be more fun; Matt and Ben are not a bad idea, but perhaps a 2009 idea since they are older now, unless aging fits a story about the times changing under their feet.
  • Butch should be older, as Newman was 13 or 14 years older than Redford, so Damon as Butch and Affleck as Sundance would draw them in; Clooney and Pitt are floated, with Pitt able to play either part, though both are mid-50s; one participant wants men who have had a whole life of robbing trains before being chased to South America.
  • Pitt has done Jesse James; Tom Cruise is floated; Denzel and his son would need to be closer in age, with his son recalled as a USC receiver who did a stint with the Rams; Gosling and Leo are paired, Leo more a Sundance but Butch next to Gosling; both parts need someone truly famous; one participant would give anything to have written it; Ethan Hawke is named a great Butch, a chatterbox who talks his way out of anything, and Ryan Reynolds too.
Gone Girl The Rewatchables
Gone Girl

Probably Unanswerable Questions

How many YouTube views would the clip of Amy returning covered in blood have? What would a Gone Girl sequel look like? What will the baby's life be like? Did no one hear them in the bookshop? Was there any fluffing? What would have happened if Nick had left? Did Amy go to Desi's knowing what she would do? Who are Tanner Bolt's two guys? What happened to Bleecker the cat?

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 01:37:16Read transcript
  • Amy's return to Nick's house in front of the cameras: estimates start at 25 million YouTube views and climb to 125 million, since it would be the craziest clip of all time and a national story.
  • Rosamund Pike has mentioned rumors of a Gone Girl sequel she would be interested in; it could be the ten-episode Netflix show, the further adventures of Amy Dunn (as transcribed) orchestrating something else the internet would hate, or a pitched Gone Girl 2 in which Amy, Ben and their Damien-like daughter visit a carnival and cartel members shoot up the place over Affleck's bad drug deal, a Den of Thieves or Peppermint crossover, or Gone Boy with a five-year-old kidnapped at the carnival.
  • What their kid's life will be like: good at soccer and an Ivy League school, against the reminder that Amy is a psychopath, not crazy in the casual euphemistic sense, the star of a future Mindhunter season, so the child would not be happy.
  • Did no one hear them in the bookshop, with a person very close by; asked what they would do if they heard, the hosts would walk away, maybe taking out a few books first; a call to bring out Ben Affleck to demonstrate how he pulled it off ends the section.
  • Asked, as a question just for her, whether there was any fluffing, she is glad it was brought up, has been wondering about it, and thinks there had to be a little. — Mallory Rubin
  • Whether Amy went to Desi's knowing what she would do the whole time, or decided once she lost her money, is parked as an interesting unanswerable question.
  • What would have happened if Nick had left: fear of exposure of things he had done, fear that she would do something like kill his sister, or the baby, which one host calls the only thing that makes him stay, while another senses an ambiguity in the conversation with Margot that he wants to be with her.
  • Leftover questions: Tanner Bolt's two guys he keeps mentioning could have filled thirty minutes; and what happened to Bleecker the cat, who is said to be thriving, or to have run away and been hit by a car.
The Town The Rewatchables
The Town

Blake Lively Story Time

Two research anecdotes cover Lively’s month with Charlestown locals and her surprise that Affleck knew Matt Damon.

The panel proposes a new category here.

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:10:03Read transcript
  • The panel explicitly proposes Blake Lively Story Time as a new category for this episode. — Bill Simmons
  • Lively reportedly spent a month with Charlestown locals in apartments and bars. — Bill Simmons
  • Affleck recalled Lively asking how he knew “Jason Bourne” after seeing Damon’s childhood home. — Bill Simmons
  • The anecdote is interpreted as a generational break from the Matt-and-Ben publicity era. — Bill Simmons
In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:19:43Read transcript
In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:11:30Read transcript
  • The smoking question, Run that baby, Follow the money, notebook demand, danger warning, Haldeman rebuke, and First Amendment speech are nominated — Bill Simmons
  • Follow the money is identified as the iconic line — Bill Simmons
  • The Ben Bradlee phone message, paranoia line, and demand to hype with facts are further favorites
Good Will Hunting

Probably Unanswerable Questions

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?

In the discussion (16)
Approx. transcript time · 01:20:25Read transcript
  • 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.
Good Will Hunting

Half-Assed Internet Research

The Public Garden bench is now a Robin Williams memorial; a gay sex scene was written into the script to test whether anyone read it; Williams insisted on the L Street bar and ad-libbed the wife story and 'Son of a bitch, he stole my line'; Sean was based on Damon's mother and Affleck's father; Gus Van Sant painted the painting in Sean's office; Skylar was based on Damon's Harvard ex; Damon and Minnie Driver dated through the shoot and the Oscars; Terrence Malick suggested the ending

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 01:03:33Read transcript
  • The Boston Public Garden park bench where 3,000 people watched the scene is now a memorial to Robin Williams, after people put flowers there when he died; one host lived for ten years a six-minute walk from Bunker Hill Community College, where Sean taught.
  • For a while the screenplay contained a gay sex scene between Will and Sean in his office, written to see if anybody was actually reading the script during the year Castle Rock would not buy it and they feared it had become poison; nobody noticed until Harvey Weinstein, who told them to get rid of it.
  • Robin Williams insisted on the L Street bar after being mobbed scouting it and loving the energy, though his scene was not filmed there; he ad-libbed the story about his wife farting, which is why Matt Damon laughed so hard, and son of a bitch, he stole my line, which was supposed to be him reading the note and nodding; Williams was a genius with a complicated reputation because of bad movies.
  • Robin Williams's character was based on a mix of Damon's mom and Affleck's dad; Gus Van Sant painted the painting in Sean's office; Skyler is based on Damon's ex-girlfriend from Harvard; Damon and Minnie Driver dated from halfway through the movie through the Oscars and had a bad breakup two months later, he apparently dumping her; the hosts decline to discuss the two adjudicating each other on Twitter.
  • One host's wife called Minnie Driver bad, the reason the movie has not aged as well, and did not believe the relationship; the hosts disagree and think she is really good, though she rightfully did not become the huge star people expected; another host's wife came in for the middle and said the two have no chemistry even after hearing they dated a year in real life.
  • The hosts feel they are in love at that table; on a very small sample size women may see no chemistry where men do; the knick-knack store googly glasses moment, the Magic 8 ball scene with her NBA jokes, the organic chemistry scene and the piano speech all argue they are in love or amazing performers; she has not been in many movies, unlike a Gwyneth Paltrow with a 20-year history that would color it; one host claims she won the Oscar for this (she was in fact nominated), as evidence people felt that way at the time.
  • One more research bit: in the original script Will and Skylar leave town together; through a friend of the Affleck family Ben and Matt met Terrence Malick, who had read it and said Will should chase her, she is gone and he has to go find her, so Malick is the reason for the ending, one of many lucky notes and ad-libs that pushed the movie up levels.
  • Why did Rob Reiner, William Goldman and Terrence Malick want to help two unfamous guys when people struggle in Hollywood for 25 years, and this is the only movie Harvey Weinstein did not chop up as he saw fit; they had some success already, unlike Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, though Vaughn was in Rudy as Jamie O'Hara; the only guess is that people sensed they were headed somewhere and wanted to be thanked.
Good Will Hunting

What’s Aged the Worst?

Robin Williams's Boston accent; Matt Damon's frosted tips; the Miramax logo in the opening credits; Will's breakup with Skylar; the screenplay Oscar win over Boogie Nights; the length, especially the two long jokes when Skylar meets Will's friends

In the discussion (12)
Approx. transcript time · 00:45:13Read transcript
  • Robin Williams's Boston accent is not great and gets a little New York, though some hosts have no ear for it and thought they were all fine; one host says his own accent is gone and only comes out when drunk.
  • Asked who has the best on-screen Boston accent, the answer is Matt Damon's Will Hunting, the gold standard in the history of movies, better than Wahlberg in The Departed, because the attitude, being ready to fight at all times, is half of it and Damon figured that out more than anyone.
  • Matt Damon's hair has not aged well; he has talked about regretting the frosted tips and would probably spend money to CGI it away; one host had the same haircut without the tips and thinks it belongs to the mid nineties.
  • The Miramax logo in the opening credits; Will's breakup with Skylar, I don't love you, has not so much aged badly as remained a rough, physical three minutes that is hard to watch.
  • Good Will Hunting winning Best Screenplay over Boogie Nights: both are Oscar-worthy with a hundred memorable lines and great characterization, something has to win, and one host prefers Boogie Nights as a movie but calls it close and says this movie holds up.
  • Asked to choose for the Oscar between Robin Williams and Robert Forster in Jackie Brown, the answer is that the Forster performance is amazing, Jackie Brown is really great, and this is not even the number one movie to have given Robin Williams an Oscar for. — Sean Fennessey
  • Films Williams should have won for are then thrown out, apparently by more than one voice: Dead Poets, Fisher King, Garp, Good Morning Vietnam, all those movies.
  • Asked Boogie Nights screenplay or Good Will Hunting screenplay, the answer is Good Will Hunting. — Shea Serrano
  • Looking up the 1989 Oscars, Williams was nominated for Best Actor for Dead Poets against Kenneth Branagh, Morgan Freeman and Tom Cruise, with Daniel Day Lewis winning for My Left Foot; in supporting he would have faced Martin Landau, Marlon Brando, Dan Aykroyd, Danny Aiello and Denzel in Glory, so he was not winning an Oscar either way.
  • It is long: from a rewatchable standpoint, when Skylar meets Will's buddies and the two long jokes come, you know the jokes after 50 viewings and it drags.
  • That is a great Skylar scene and there is not enough of her; the great part is not the joke but watching everybody else, the awkwardness, realizing this is the woman he is going to marry, the see-about-a-girl scene playing out in real time with the friends. — Shea Serrano
  • Others agree it is a necessary scene that only gets a little slow in a movie of about 2:05; Casey Affleck needling Ben back and forth is loved, as are scenes of people talking in bars and diners, and bombed out of his tree has been quoted for 20 years; the alternate jokes on YouTube were all funny; Damon's long barn story in Saving Private Ryan is called the worst part of that movie, though it is supposed to be bad because the guy is a dipshit.
Good Will Hunting

Casting What-Ifs

Castle Rock wanted Brad Pitt and Leo as Will and Chucky; Mel Gibson was attached to direct; Jeff Bridges or Dustin Hoffman imagined as Sean; Michael Mann wanted to direct the pair as car thieves and replace Damon

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:38:01Read transcript
  • Castle Rock wanted to replace Matt and Ben with Leo and Brad, and Mel Gibson producing and directing would have been weird.
  • Nobody else seems to have been seriously considered for Sean until the tail end; there is an argument that Williams is more replaceable than Damon and Affleck, yet the movie is completely different with Jeff Bridges or Dustin Hoffman, and nobody else gets the community college bit about Freud doing cocaine, which must have been freestyled from his 70s stand-up.
  • After Gibson dropped out, Michael Mann wanted to direct, making the two slightly different, as car thieves; he also wanted to replace Matt Damon, which is why it went no further; the hosts joke about James Caan or a Hemsworth and tell Mann to buy the rights and remake it.
  • Earlier context: at Castle Rock the roles were at one point meant for Brad Pitt and Leo in a twice-as-long script whose second half had Chucky and Will on the run from the CIA; Mel Gibson was attached and developing it after Braveheart, and the writers asked him to let them have it back because they needed to make it faster.
Good Will Hunting

Most Rewatchable Scene

The Red Sox Game Six story in Sean's office; the Harvard bar scene with Clark; the playground fight; Chucky's construction-site speech

In the discussion (13)
Approx. transcript time · 00:20:51Read transcript
  • The host could not narrow the categories to five or six because this is not just a great movie but the quintessential cable movie, on some channel for 20 years and constantly tested by people coming in partway; the nominees are the slow-motion playground fight, the battle with Ponytail Guy, the I Will End You scene, the park bench monologue, Pudge Fisk, the twelve-minute stretch from Will laying into Lambo through the baseball glove and the shepherd scene, the Chucky construction best-part-of-my-day scene, It's Not Your Fault, and Chucky realizing Will left.
  • The Red Sox story, the Pudge Fisk story, is the scene you stay for when you come in with five minutes: funny coming from a Philly fan, relatable, with a twist you know is coming; Damon cracking up and getting genuinely locked in shows the connection being made without talking about therapy, the physical acting Robin Williams does is great, and the filmmaking cuts in the game footage and the overhead shot of him reenacting the scene. — Chris Ryan
  • In the overhead shot the furniture is set up like the bases; the filmmakers were not sure they would get the baseball footage, having licensed nothing at that point, and Harvey Weinstein had to make it happen, because the scene would not work as well without the baseball.
  • The issue with the scene is that nobody who loves the Red Sox gives up a Game Six ticket at Fenway after only two World Series in 28 years, in 67 and 46, however much he likes the girl; it is the same problem as Fever Pitch, where Jimmy Fallon gives up fourth-row tickets for Drew Barrymore; this host would have been the friend saying there is no way you skip this game, and concludes Sean was an artsy-fartsy smart guy whose friends were like Jerry Lambeau and not real Red Sox fans, which the others call a take and a half and compare to a limousine liberal quoting Leo from The Departed.
  • The ponytail scene with Clark sets the movie in motion and is the only nominee that gives a bit of what makes every character great: Ben Affleck charming and funny without being threatening, Minnie Driver making her little comment to Clark that makes Matt Damon smile, Damon flexing for the first real time how much smarter he is, not wanting to do it and being forced into it to save his friend, and the quick Casey Affleck shot, boy, he's wicked smart; there is no way to skip past that scene. — Shea Serrano
  • The nitpick with the Clark scene is that Affleck and Cole Hauser would throw down with Ponytail Guy immediately, before it ever gets to the Will Hunting part, since these are guys who randomly drive by a playground and fight five guys; the hosts also ask why it matters that Casey is bouncing at a bar in Cambridge, concluding the Southie guys wanted to try a new bar, mix it up and make fun of people, and that it is a totally realistic Boston scene of people drifting from neighborhood to neighborhood.
  • Why a local group from Southie would want a Harvard bar: a different type of girl than they are used to, and they cut the line because the bouncer lets them in; yet inside it is not populated and is basically a sports bar with Papa Shot (as transcribed) and Bud Light, though Harvard Square had popular holes in the wall like Charlie's; one host recalls the townies-versus-college-kids separation in Huntsville, Texas, and those guys looking for conflict is the point, with Cole Hauser punching that guy in the face immediately.
  • An honorable mention is the Retainer scene, Ben Affleck flexing in front of the three guys; this was way more Ben Affleck's movie than remembered, so funny, charming and weird that it is a shame he is not this actor all the time; the scene responded to most is the fight, though it is so short it may not draw you in on cable, and it is the weirdest thing ever, since why are they fighting these guys. — Sean Fennessey
  • Will fights the guy because he got picked on in kindergarten; Will Hunting should be in prison for life, and when the judge, who is not Vonnegut but an actor who was a member of Whitey Bulger's Winter Hill gang, reads the rap sheet of assault, grand theft auto, larceny and mayhem, this guy clearly cannot be let out to clean hallways; a Gus Van Sant fight scene is not something that crosses your mind, and Casey Affleck's face as he falls to the punch is phenomenal.
  • One host's single favorite is the Chucky construction scene, when Chucky gets mad at Will for still being there and says before he knows it he will be 50 and still doing this: a Massachusetts thing of living and dying in your parents' house, with Chucky the perfect character whose friends are the most important thing to him, down to the casual mention of still watching Patriots games, nuances William Goldman never could have written; Affleck had been ready to do that scene for years and nailed it in the first take, doing two more takes but the first was used.
  • The construction speech is mostly shot over Affleck's shoulder going in on Damon across the hood of the car, not the usual framing for a memorable scene, so you expect Damon to have a big rebuttal and he does not; the clip is played, from 'it'd be an insult to us if you're still here in 20 years' through the best part of my day being the ten seconds hoping Will will not be there.
  • Part of the rewatch pleasure is the 20 years of history with Damon and Affleck, who are both obviously stars in this movie, like an NBA team with two future superstars; the script started with Damon at Harvard, based on his relationship with a woman named Skyler, before he brought it to Ben, and the movie forecasts the tension of what happens when one of them makes it and the other does not.
  • The last eight or nine minutes are as rewatchable as any movie's ending: Will saying goodbye to Sean, Sean and Lambeau getting a beer, Chucky going to pick him up and finding him gone, and the credits rolling over the car with Elliot Smith; the hosts cannot place the highway, which feels like the Mass Pike but was probably outside Toronto.
48 Hrs. The Rewatchables
In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:44:37Read transcript
  • Not since the Heat episode have there been this many nominees: James Remar as Gans; Sonny Landham as Billy Bear, whose box score is likened to Ben Wallace in 2006, seventeen rebounds and five blocks in nine minutes, plus forty; and Jonathan Banks as the cop who gets shot, with the plea not to give Gans the gun.
  • Brian James as Kehoe (transcribed 'Keough') is hated because he becomes the bad guy in Another 48 Hours; Olivia Brown, future Miami Vice star, plays the girl who falls for Reggie Hammond in a minute.
  • One host names James Remar the winner; the other disputes it and goes with Frank McRae as Captain Hayden, quoting his suspension-and-review-board tirade; a tangent on great angry captains includes Cobb in Beverly Hills Cop; McRae is a great eighties cop captain who played the cop in about five movies and surprisingly never demands Jack's gun and badge here.
  • The Remar pick stands and the choice is respected as what makes the category great; the objection is that Gans is so evil, though believably and never-not evil, killing something like nine cops over five hundred thousand dollars because he likes it.
Displaying discussions 37 - 48 of 48 in total