Rewatchables Reference

• Winner: The 10-12 minute scene where Hannah goes to Jacob's apartment – from the Dirty Dancing lift through the romance. Bill: 'The best romantic comedy scene in 20 years.' Mina agrees it's the romance scene first, finale second.
• Craig picks the backyard fight scene where all the storylines collide. Van picks the Dirty Dancing scene specifically.
• Other nominees: the opening scene ('I want a divorce' + jumping out of the car), Jacob meets Hannah at the bar, the cuckolding monologue, the shopping makeover montage.

• Van: The cast assembled at that particular time – young flamethrowers Stone and Gosling alongside steady lovable faces in Carell and Moore, plus Kevin Bacon and Marisa Tomei. That cast from that particular time is the most 2011 thing.
• Mina: Gosling's whole metrosexual vibe – the too-tight suits, making cocktails, the GQ look. Craig notes the clothing advice has aged so poorly that Steve Carell's character (New Balances, baggy jeans, loose polo) now dresses how people dress today.
• Bill's five things: dads driving their babysitter home, seeing the new Twilight movie by yourself, a text about Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher being happy, answering machine messages, and a babysitter giving nude photos to a 14-year-old as a plot device.
• Craig's flex: Robbie saying 'Mom, relax, it's your husband, not Al Qaeda' – Bin Laden was killed three months before the movie came out. The most 13-year-old boy thing to say in 2011.

• Van: Choosing between couples in divorce – 'feels like you're asked to do this once every six months in Los Angeles.' Also: the Westfield Century City Mall, which Van calls one of the best aged things in his entire Rewatchables career.
• Bill: Kevin Bacon as a romantic antagonist – he does this every 9-10 years (Picture Perfect). Also Jonah Bobo's kid performance as the 14-year-old.
• Mina: The jokes in this movie have aged really well – side comments, physical comedy, the office cancer cheer. She says she often struggles with 1995-2015 comedy rewatches but this one holds up.
• Bill: This is a really good Valley movie – you feel like you're in Valley/LA, which you don't get a lot in movies.

Bill: Steve Carell and Julianne Moore sitting in chairs far apart with the chair between them – 'just a really, really nice shot' showing the emotional distance.

• Winner: '(I've Had) The Time of My Life' from Dirty Dancing – the obvious Dirty Dancing homage in the romance scene.
• Mina also highlights the Talking Heads playing while Carell sneaks to the house at night to water the lawn.
• Kid Cudi's 'Pursuit of Happiness' also noted.

• Bill: Hannah never running into her dad at the bar – 'this should be hanging over the entire movie.' If his daughter is of age to go out, and he's at singles bars, this would be half his conversations.
• Craig: Ryan Gosling going to the same bar 4 nights a week – everyone would know about him. Van agrees: he's 'harvesting this place nightly, that's going to get around.'
• Mina: In LA, there wouldn't be a bar where 20-somethings and 40-somethings both go. Bill says it would switch ages around 8 PM.

• All the babysitter stuff – giving nude photos to an 8th grader. 'It just wouldn't fly now, period.' Bill understands why they did it (the movie is through the son's POV) but says now there'd be 'a 2,500-word Slate piece the next day.'
• Steve Carell saying 'nobody says cuckold anymore' – Craig notes this has aged the worst because now 'everybody says that.'
• Mina: The babysitter being in love with Steve Carell – 'I don't think that's believable, especially the size 44 version who doesn't care how he looks.'

• Mina: The chemistry between Gosling and Emma Stone is better in 'Crazy, Stupid, Love' than in La La Land. She's dying on this hill.
• Van: Does marriage need a halftime? The movie is the story of a marriage halftime – Moore initiates it with Lindhagen, then Carell gets his own halftime (9 women), and they come back together to finish the game.

Marisa Tomei – the 'Dionne Waiters Award.' She's into it, three scenes just killing it. Bill describes her as still a timeless beauty alongside the young flamethrowers.

• Bill: Lisa Lapira as Liz, Emma Stone's friend – from Fast & Furious 4. 'Good call, she's funny, great line deliveries.' Bill never knew her name before.
• John Carroll Lynch mentioned but not eligible – 'permanent status' that guy from 'Fargo' and 'Zodiac'.
• Mina mentions Skylar Gisondo from Booksmart as 'one of my favorite that guys of all time.'

• Bill: Would move the movie from LA to Phoenix or Scottsdale – someplace where it makes more sense that everyone goes to the same bar. 'It really should be somewhere warmer with an outdoor mall.'
• Van's flex: David Lindhagen should have been Black. Top pick: Keenen Ivory Wayans ('he made 5 fewer movies than I wanted'). Also floated: Giancarlo Esposito (Mina says too sinister – 'the reason Kevin Bacon works is he's just the right amount of handsome'), Chris Rock (chews up too much scenery), Ice-T (no), Dennis Haysbert (too old).

• Emma Stone had a full-scale PTSD meltdown during the Dirty Dancing lift – Gosling described it as 'a possum falling out of a tree trying to scratch her eyes out.' She broke both arms falling off high bars in gymnastics at age 7 and had a flashback. They used a body double – you can see the obvious cut.
• Emma Stone was three days older than Analeigh Tipton (the babysitter) in real life.
• Filming locations: Westfield Century City Mall, Ventura Blvd, Hollywood Hills, Taft High School, Grant High School in Van Nuys, El Torito Grill at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, Equinox in Woodland Hills.

• Ryan Gosling: Bill and Van say La La Land (after that movie he could make whatever he wanted). Mina makes a case for Ken in Barbie. But the combination of this + Drive in the same year (2011) was incredible.
• Steve Carell: Mid-2000s – The Office plus Little Miss Sunshine coming off 40 Year Old Virgin and Anchorman. Oscar nomination for Little Miss Sunshine.
• Julianne Moore: Late 90s, post-'Boogie Nights'. Emma Stone: not sure. Singles bars in 21st century movies. Vodka cranberries as a plot device.
• Westfield Century City Mall: Bill says Apex Mountain is '2026!' – Van says it's one of the best things in modern society that keeps getting better. Gosling goes back there in Barbie.

Bill: Probably Spielberg. 'Scorsese's version of this movie would be pretty crazy – somebody's hiding cocaine at some point.'

• Bill: Why does an 8th-grade boy need a babysitter? 'The 8th grader could absolutely watch his little sister.'
• Craig: Everyone goes to the same bar in LA – 'there's 400 bars.' Bill says this is 'a huge nitpick.' Bill would set the movie in a smaller city for this reason.
• Ages are all over the place: Carell and Moore are supposed to be 44 but the actors are clearly in their 50s. They had Emma Stone's character at 17, making a 23-year-old with a 6-year-old sibling. Mina: 'They had to compress all the ages.'
• Bad stunt double cut in the Dirty Dancing scene – it's an obvious non-Emma Stone in the wide shot.

Bill: Could spend more time with each character, not against it. Feels like an Apple show. Mina says it feels like a Ted Lasso-type Bill Lawrence show. Bill: 'And then you're watching it going, that probably just should have been a movie.'

Gosling could have snuck into Best Supporting Actor. 2011 nominees included Christopher Plummer (won for Beginners), Max von Sydow, Nick Nolte (Warrior), Kenneth Branagh, and Jonah Hill ('Moneyball'). Everyone agrees Gosling was better than Jonah Hill in 'Moneyball'. Mina: 'His performance is comparable to his in Barbie.' But the Oscars don't do comedies.

• Bill: Was the babysitter eventually arrested? She gave nude photos to a 13-year-old.
• Bill: What was Jacob's job? He worked out and went to a bar – that was his whole life. 'He might have been more of a bad person than we realized.' Mina: 'Trust fund guy – what do trust funders do all day?'

Bill: Definitely NOT the photos. Beyond that, had trouble with this one.

• Craig: Straws are phallic – Ryan Gosling pointing out how drinking a vodka cranberry through a straw looks. Craig says his whole friend group stopped drinking with straws after this movie.
• Van: The meanest thing anyone's ever said to you is your wife cheated because you lost sight of what it took to keep her content as a man, husband, and lover. 'That'll make you take your vitamins right there.'

• Mina: La La Land – 'Watch them back-to-back and tell me which movie Gosling and Stone have better chemistry in.'
• Van: 'Pretty Woman' – great companion piece for the shopping/makeover elements.
• Bill: Focus – same directors (Ficarra and Requa), taps into Will Smith's romantic side that no other movie did. Margot Robbie brought something out of him.

Gosling – unanimous from Bill, Van, and Mina. 'It's his movie.' Craig: 'He wins almost every movie he's in.' They struggle to think of a movie where Gosling doesn't win (maybe The Big Short, but even there he's stealing every scene).

Craig: 'The best ROM com of the 2000s and the defining ROM com of my generation.' Gosling's character deeply influenced his male perspective as a 17-year-old – searched online for months trying to find his exact sunglasses ($250, didn't buy them), V-necks, his haircut, started drinking old fashioneds. Also highlights the sneaky-great scene of Carell looking through the window at night on the phone.