Apatow receives one opening choice, but two favor Rogen: proving he could lead this hit opened future starring opportunities, amplified by Superbad’s writing success. — Bill Simmons
His off-camera partnership with his off-camera best friend adds to the sense that he was doing more than the visible ensemble. — Juliet Litman
Apatow’s representative credit divides Knocked Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and his likely personal choice Freaks and Geeks; Superbad is preferred for Rogen. Heigl is excluded from the hypothetical Hall of Fame. — Bill Simmons
Heigl is an emphatic yes, compared with Vincent Chase’s Aquaman peak; naming the category after that fictional example is floated for future workshopping. — Bill Simmons
Rogen is rejected because his career continued rising, though carrying this unconventional leading role, producing with Goldberg and releasing Superbad made 2007 remarkable. — Bill Simmons
Apatow is a strong qualified yes for his leverage across Knocked Up and Superbad’s nearby release. — Bill Simmons
Segel, Hill, Rudd and Baruchel are rejected; Mann prompts admiration but This Is 40 is preferred for leading a major movie. — Bill Simmons
Matsui is an arguable yes and fantasy sports in movies may peak here; The League is television, while baseball’s historical primacy is debated against football’s mid-2000 s rise. — Bill Simmons
Unplanned-pregnancy movies receive an affirmative belated nomination, with She’s Having a Baby considered and Juno dismissed as a personal dislike. — Bill Simmons
Hill’s explosive yelling and late hospital-wheelchair antics rescue stretches of the movie; the Apatow children and affectionate sister relationship are also praised.
The failed Mr.Skin imitation is a funny premise, though younger viewers may miss the reference and the friends should already know the original site. — Bill Simmons
The supporting cast’s future prominence stands out: Hader, Robinson, Jeong, Franco, Carell, Scott and Novak; Ramis’s father cameo and Hader’s Dom DeLuise insult also delight. — Bill Simmons
The smoking gas mask now evokes Laremy Tunsil and is credited with inspiring inventive ways to smoke. — Bill Simmons
This Is 40’s later existence is an interesting bookend; Debbie and Pete’s Brentwood house and coastal interiors still look desirable, and Rogen’s sweetness impresses. — Juliet Litman
Segel’s casual nudity, a referee for ping-pong and the Matthew Fox insult are additional picks.
The mid-2000 s E! celebrity machine and Seacrest’s unexpected self-mocking rant are praised, including the Jessica Simpson joke.
Heigl and Lohan are proposed as unrealized major stars; Heigl’s broken relationships with the Apatow group and Shonda Rhimes are presented as particularly difficult to recover from. — Bill Simmons
Flesh of the Stars is preferred as a business name to the creepy-sounding Mr.Skin. — Bill Simmons
Abortion is proposed as the sensible decision for the characters given Ben’s unemployment and immaturity, with the joke that the movie would end after 28 minutes.
Carell and Apatow are the first calls, followed by a request to make the case. — Bill Simmons
Case for Apatow: a respected writer-producer not yet considered a comedy auteur, this kicked off 10 years of him at the center of American movie comedy, minted stars, earned critical respect, and the movie itself has aged well. — Sean Fennessey
Agreement: Apatow was a high lottery pick whose shows, including Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, were canceled, and this became a massive hit that minted people and set up a comedy revolution begun with Anchorman. — Bill Simmons
Carell's success probably would have happened anyway because The Office became a phenomenon. — Bill Simmons
Counterpoint on Carell: the movie's success may have given The Office runway, with a blockbuster star going back to TV like a reverse Caruso. — Chris Ryan
Producer Craig is asked for his pick; the reply is transcribed as 'Hamilton's probably the right call', which is unresolved, and he is teased as a brown-noser.
Steve Carell, definitely: the movie becomes a smash hit and he has The Office, the pinnacle of anyone's comedy career. — Bill Simmons
Apatow is a no, to be litigated later; one could argue Knocked Up. — Bill Simmons
Catherine Keener: after a decade as a respected indie actress peaking in 8mm, a smash hit makes this as good as it gets; she was also in Capote that year as Harper Lee, which is called a good call. — Bill Simmons
Virgins in general prompt jokes about Last American Virgin, a Virgin Week with Last Temptation of Christ and A Midnight Clear, and making Craig watch with Liz; that movie ends with James Ingram. — Bill Simmons
The Six Million Dollar Man action figures are definitely at Apex Mountain. — Sean Fennessey
Paul Rudd is first a no, but he gets praise: Brian Fantana in Anchorman, carrying stretches of this movie, his SmartTech meltdown and his souls-connected poker speech; one voice says you could make the case this is his Apex. — Sean Fennessey
Counter: Ant Man, from about 2014 or 2015, was great and a huge hit; the other host just doesn't like comic book movies and is teased about Munich. — Bill Simmons
Malco: 'Yeah. Has to be.'
Tech stores like Best Buy are raised as an Apex for that era; the reply calls it one of the speaker's unanswerable questions, with SmartTech badly run like a Boston chain and Circuit City, stores run by jackasses, as with Vince Vaughn's character in Old School. — Bill Simmons
Asia's ironic phase: not the band's Apex, since the speaker says they won four or five Grammys one year, but the move into ironic 'Heat of the Moment' appreciation 20 years later; the hosts joke they are already in their own ironic phase. — Bill Simmons
Shandling's ending idea; champagne for a million feet of film; withheld American Humane credit; Leslie Mann's drunk footage; repurposed Staples set; influence on The Office
The host reports Gary Shandling came up with the ending, per Apatow, noting it was important to show Andy having better sex because he was in love, which led to the musical number. — Bill Simmons
The host reports the film company does send champagne whenever someone shoots a million feet of film. — Bill Simmons
The host reports the American Humane Association withheld its no-animals-harmed line because several tropical fish were accidentally killed; the hosts joke that the credit has no effect on release, making it an animal snuff film. — Bill Simmons
The host reports Leslie Mann got drunk at a club with Seth Rogen and her friend Denise, who filmed her, and she used that footage for the scene; outtakes show Apatow feeding her lines. — Bill Simmons
The host reports the electronics store was not a set but a Staples that had just shut down. — Bill Simmons
The host reports the movie changed The Office: after a first season where Carell's character felt too nasty and menacing, seeing him as a buffoon here led them to incorporate more of that. — Bill Simmons
Raised early from the Unanswerable Questions list: was 1999 the year the anti-hero was officially born, with Ripley, Tony Soprano and the Fight Club guys, followed by The Shield and The Wire? — Bill Simmons
A counterpoint cites Dirty Harry in the 1970s; the hosts joke about whether Dirty Harry is a good cop and call that era the vigilante era of Death Wish and Dirty Harry, close to anti-heroes but protective. — Bill Simmons
Would you rather be with Marge or the cute Italian girl? One participant is out on both and is called boring; another loves Sylvana; another wants Marge and mocks Sylvana's haircut.
Dickie is said to have been on the right path, playing his options in the 1950s while knowing he would marry Marge, until the plan fell apart.
Marge is picked because she can make a martini, has great style and is a writer; whether her novel was bad becomes a joke about writing about rich people in Italy, with a joke that she ends up on Mad Men involved with Don Draper.
Another participant prefers Blanchett's character, wealthy but self-hating and vulnerable, recalling her lines about packing lightly and about only being comfortable around others who have money and despise it.
Did Dickie ever think of hooking up with Tom? You are meant to think it crossed his mind, since he is a sensualist who wants to try everything. — Sean Fennessey
Do you root for Tom? Having seen it so often, one participant roots for no one, but compares rooting for bad people in Natural Born Killers; nearly everyone around Ripley except maybe Marge is not a good person, which partly justifies his choices to the audience. — Sean Fennessey
Have you ever been a Dickie or a Tom, someone looked up to aggressively or someone desperate to be another person, perhaps as a teenager? — Sean Fennessey
The My Brilliant Friend novels set in Naples (author transcribed 'Fronte') are cited as a female version of this obsessive friendship without the murder; that portrayal is rejected as not what female friendship is, while this film's unhealthy obsession is more relatable. — Amanda Dobbins
One participant's Dickies would be Jude Law and people in movies, reflecting a fixation on famous and rich people; charismatic-tornado characters are the ones remembered.
Jude Law presents the idealized mid-century American life of wealth, beauty and choosing to do nothing but sleep with beautiful women, listen to jazz and sail.
Will the name Marge ever come back? The Simpsons pretty much ended it; Maud is floated, which Judd Apatow tried, and old 1920s-30s names may return after the Olivia and Ava generation. — Bill Simmons
Margo is loved and already in rotation, and Paltrow's Tenenbaums character is a Margot; Jenny is pushed for a comeback since there are no Jennys under 15, drawing a Forrest Gump tease. — Bill Simmons
A Dickie comeback is wanted, though names with obvious bullying potential are now avoided; a Richie at the Ringer has never been called Dickie.
Young Gandolfini: he is basically auditioning for Tony Soprano, and this and his Get Shorty role (transcribed 'bare') are the two poles of that character, sweet, charming, evil, menacing and violent; the film was one of the first DVDs a host bought, so he was always the guy from this movie.
Floyd, who gives the directions down Beachwood to the Beverly Ambassador, was an A++ in the nineties and the DVD era, a spirit animal for anyone getting baked at two in the morning; the whole idea of Pineapple Express came from Judd Apatow and company loving Floyd and asking what would have happened if he chased the Italians.
Unlike Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder working to go viral, Pitt just lies on the couch with a couple of improv lines; the Floyd stuff is largely improvised, as are Hopper's eggplant and Walken's cantaloupe lines; Floyd is the most important character because he gets everyone together for the shootout, and 'don't condescend me' is a favorite line.
Brad Pitt has an alternate path as one of the great character actors, fifteen non-essential but memorable parts up through Burn After Reading, but he was so handsome he had to be a leading man; Seven is a character he put thought into before material started being created for him; the Tarantino relationship continues through Inglourious Bastards and the coming Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Dennis Hopper is so likable that even the Speed villain was hard to root against; the Clarence-Clifford scene is economical writing, 'you're just like your mother', three years apart, a recovering alcoholic who only has a Seven Up, telling you why Clarence would throw it all away; two lines are lifted, 'you're just like your mother' from Hopper's own line in Rumblefish and the beer line from The Last Picture Show.
Pre-internet, movie quotes and pulling from the past mattered more; a host's column threw in movie lines because that is how he and his friends connected, and Twitter gifs have given it a renaissance.
Sizemore and Penn together are the twelve-episode Fox cop show we never got; the hosts saw a Reitman live read at the Ace Hotel with Slater and Arquette, the Duplass brothers as the cops, J.K. Simmons as the estranged father, Kevin Pollack as Walken's part, Jon Favreau as Gandolfini's, Keegan-Michael Key and Paul Scheer as Drexel and Elliot Blitzer, May Whitman in several parts and Jason Segel as Floyd.
Coming Home in a Body Bag is funny right on the heels of forty Vietnam movies; Saul Rubinek's Lee Donowitz as Joel Silver, Bronson Pinchot as his assistant, Boris the bodyguard who hates cops, and Dick Ritchie constantly asking whether the producer knows he is an actor; Donowitz is one of a host's favorite movie characters, saved for the Dion Waiters argument.
The Hans Zimmer score is distinct and gives the movie levity; according to a host it is based on a composition from the 1500s by Carl Orff that Terrence Malick used in Badlands, which Zimmer redoes as an homage, and Arquette's opening voiceover mimics the Badlands voiceover; the film pulls the best parts of other things.
Asked for a single best out of all of it, one goes with the way it looks, the peak of Tony Scott's neon vision of urban America; another is still responding to the dialogue, over the top and offensive on purpose because it is pulp; a third says Gandolfini, like watching Michael Jordan at North Carolina.
