Rewatchables Reference

• Winner (unanimous): The porn party scene. Includes 'Don't say and stuff – just say they're doing anal,' the killer bees joke, Gosling going over the deck, the mermaids, the can't-speak Abbott and Costello bit, and a shootout.
• Bill: The opening credits with overhead LA right into a car going through a house. Also the bathroom scene where Gosling is on the toilet with his pants down trying to kick the door and hold the gun. 'Just hilarious. Great job by him.'
• Rob: Jackson beats up March – 'shut up unless you're me' plus Gosling trying to get the gun out of the cookie jar and getting punched in the face. Also the elevator scene with the Hitler joke and Gosling's vibrating eyes.
• Also discussed: Chet the kid on the bike bragging about his anatomy ('I got a big Dick'), the bowling alley scene with Holly hiring Healy to beat up Janet, dumping the body over the fence at the dinner party, the hot tub shooting, and the Nixon story payoff at the auto show.

• Bill changed this to 'Most 1977 Thing About This Movie.' Nominees: Gas shortage, killer bees in Brazil, smog rallies, Sunset Blvd landmarks (Tower Records, Comedy Store, Robert Klein), and guys shaving in their cars with electric razors.
• Winner: A killer named John Boy. Bill: 'The Waltons was a massive show in the 70s.' Craig knew who John Boy was. Also strong: the 1978 auto show.
• Rob (as 2016): The sheer number of R-rated comedies that year – 'Neighbors 2', Deadpool, 'Everybody Wants Some!!', 'Edge of Seventeen', Sausage Party, Bad Moms, 'The Nice Guys'. Rob: 'We get maybe one of these now. It's just gone.'

• Bill: 70s LA as a setting, young Margaret Qualley's subsequent superstardom, the 'don't say and stuff' line, Russell Crowe claiming he put on extra weight for the role ('that's like when Shaq would come back from the summer'). Also treating kids like adults in the 70s – Holly drives, 12-year-olds babysit other kids for six hours.
• CR: Los Angeles itself – the porn, strip clubs, dive bars, hotel bars. The Burbank Airport Hotel with the Flight Deck bar. Also the running Janet jokes and Gosling talking about kids like they're adults and friends.
• Rob: Gosling himself – 'he was a star then, but he is something else now.' Also being suspicious of major corporations. Craig: The overhead shot of Keith David hitting the pool deck.

• Craig: Keith David hitting the pool deck – the overhead shot of the impact, where 'he just turns into red.'
• CR: The overhead shot of Gosling falling into the pool. Craig also highlighted the kid at the sink with the car tumbling down the hill in the background during the opening.

• Bill's nominees: Kiss 'I Was Made for Lovin' You' or 'Rock and Roll All Nite,' America 'A Horse with No Name,' and Kool and the Gang 'Get Down on It' (the band at the party).
• Rob: Earth, Wind & Fire 'September' at the porn party. Also Al Green on the closing credits – CR agreed it's 'awesome.'
• Craig: A band playing on the roof of a party is 'pretty cool.'

• Bill and CR: Holly March – the incredibly savvy 13-year-old girl with a heart of gold is a movie trope. CR: 'Is this movie better, worse, or the same if Holly stays home for half the adventures?'
• Rob: Kim Basinger – 'the one thing in this movie that's a little off register that kind of takes me out of it.' The contrast with Talia Da Costa, who feels of a piece with everything, makes Basinger stick out even more.
• Rob's counter on Holly: Her purpose is to nudge Healy – without her, 'he's murdering everybody they run into.' The turn of the heart of the movie comes through her being there.

• CR: An element of 'Den of Thieves' downtown Atlanta to some of the exterior shots of LA. 'The streets are a little too narrow, there's too much foliage.' Sometimes you can tell it's not LA.
• Bill: Struggled to find anything. 'It's a perfect movie.' Also had Kim Basinger – she doesn't seem to know what movie she's in. Every time she's on screen, 'it's another movie happening.' Bill: 'She thinks she's in LA Confidential again.'

• Bill: Russell Crowe was the Shaquille O'Neal of actors. Hall of Fame potential visible early. Career apex from 2000 to 2002 – three Best Actor nominations in a row (like Shaq's three Finals MVPs). Couldn't stay in shape, kind of didn't totally want it. 'The Nice Guys' as the sidekick with Wade is Crowe's Miami title. Still a Pantheon guy but left a little on the table.
• Rob: This is the best Russell Crowe has ever been, period. 'He is the action star of this movie. He is genuinely hilarious. He's the beating heart that rounds out the whole movie.' Got pushback from Bill, who thinks proof of life was Crowe's chemistry apex.
• CR's backup: The action comedy is the genre most people love that is the hardest to make well. 'I can count on one hand successful action comedies over the last decade.' Nominees for the century: 'The Nice Guys', 'Pineapple Express', 'Hot Fuzz', the Cornetto trilogy.

Bill: Not many – the big story is that both leads read the script and immediately committed. 'I'll do it if he does it' doesn't really seem to happen that often. 'We never hear the research where the guy's like, I'll do it if Rob does it, and Rob's like, no thanks.'

• Bill: Blueface (Beau Knapp) dialing it up the whole time. Rob: 'Is Beau Knapp not just doing Sacha Baron Cohen as Blueface?' CR: 'Every time this movie comes on, I was like, is Sacha Baron Cohen in this movie?'
• Also: Margaret Qualley's monologue where she starts screaming 'it's not a porn!' Bill: 'She just starts screaming for some reason.'

• Bill: Keith David (stealth) and Beau Knapp as Blueface – 'he's one of those guys, I didn't even know where he's from.'
• CR: Lois Smith as the old lady with the Coke-bottle glasses. Rob: 'Meg from Twister! Oh, that's who that was.'
• Craig's Dion Waiters: Muriel Telo as Misty Mountains. Also Blueface. But the real Dion Waiters pick is Chet the kid on the bike – Craig: 'Best acting I've ever seen in my life. It's a wrap.'

• Craig: The kid on the bike – 'Best acting I've ever seen in my life.' The kid has maybe 30 seconds on screen bragging about his anatomy and steals the entire movie. '$20, it's a wrap.'
• CR called the kid's performance 'up there with Jacob Tremblay in terms of young acting.' Bill: 'How did anyone keep a straight face during that?'

• Kim Basinger's role: Bill floated Holly Hunter, Frances McDormand, Diane Lane, Sharon Stone, Demi Moore. Winner: Rob's suggestion of Andie MacDowell – Qualley's actual mother. Bill: 'Rob, you fucking did it. You redeemed yourself from the Nirvana episode.'
• CR: In the behind-the-scenes footage, Matt Bomer says 'this movie is fucking funny,' while Basinger seems to think she's in 'a very complicated story about LA and crime.' Bill: 'She thinks she's in LA Confidential again.'

• Bill: Shot in downtown Atlanta. Russell Crowe on Howard Stern said this was one of two films where he wished there was a sequel (the other being 'LA Confidential'). The book Holly reads is 'A Cat Among the Pigeons' by Agatha Christie.
• Rob: Gosling got into Abbott and Costello because his parents couldn't afford Blockbuster – the only movies he could get were from the public library.
• Bill: Robert Downey Jr. has an uncredited cameo as the dead body Sid Shattuck. Shane Black was the bridge to Downey's comeback – he couldn't get insured for 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' in the mid-2000s, then later did 'Iron Man 3' together.

• Ryan Gosling: This plus 'La La Land' in 2016. Bill: 'This is the definition of it.' Post-Barbie was more of a Curry 2022 situation – still impressive but not quite the apex.
• Russell Crowe: For Rob and nobody else. Bill still thinks Gladiator era was the apex. Rob pushed back: 'Could you plug another actor in and say the same thing? I'd still be like, let's go.'
• Keith David fight scenes: Still 'They Live.' Bill initially second-guessed himself before confirming Keith David was indeed in 'They Live' with Roddy Piper. Shane Black: Writing 'Lethal Weapon' is still his apex. Angourie Rice: Too early to say.
• 1977 in general: 'The greatest year we've ever produced.' Bill was born that year. Star Wars, Reggie Jackson. Breaking a window going wrong: Probably the peak. 1967 red Mustang with a white convertible top: Pretty good for a movie.

Clearly Scorsese. Unanimous. CR: 'Way more coke at the party, no daughter, just want to get way darker, way more fucked up.' Rob: 'Has Spielberg ever done something as getting his hands dirty as this? I can't think of anything.'

• Bill's Hall of Fame nitpick: Gosling twice in the movie is in a body of water and then smokes a cigarette five minutes later. 'Those cigarettes are wet, not lighting. No chance. The whole pack's a wrap.'
• CR: 13-year-old kids driving in 1977, especially with manual steering. Bill: 'I'm not even sure this was happening in 1977.' CR: 'Do you have that upper body strength to control a car?'
• Bill: How did Amelia land on their car and not die immediately? Craig clarified she climbed down a fire escape and jumped about 15 feet. How did they get into Misty Mountains' house so easily days after the murder with evidence still sitting there?
• CR: Complete absence of cops – they show up way after the fact and never detain Jackson and March despite seven dead bodies. Also the convoluted plot: the catalytic converter Detroit layer is 'a little too much garnish on the sandwich.'
• Rob: Healy pulling together the whole case because he saw a suit on a rack in the office that one time. 'Maybe a bit much, but they basically always catch a break because they're lucky.'

• CR: Shane Black originally envisioned it as a CBS TV series, but 'I don't think you get Gosling and Crowe to do this' for TV. Would accept a Netflix Sherlock-style format – three episodes every three or four years. 'That would be awesome.'
• Bill: The sequel idea – Nice Guys in Mexico. Crowe and Gosling both wanted it. Also floated mid-80s Simpson/Bruckheimer cocaine Hollywood era. Craig: David Ellison now owns Warner Brothers – 'I feel like he'd be into this.'

• Bill: Wayne Jenkins, Fergie the Florist, Zane Lowe, Robert Loggia. CR did a Zane Lowe impression interviewing John Boy: 'You're named after a Walton character, but what are you going to do to forge your own character? I see that mole as your power.'
• Best hang: CR would spend the night hanging out with Gosling in a bar. Rob is one legal substance away from being on board with Amelia's anti-corporate speech. Worst hang: Chet – 'I'm a projectionalist.'
• Blueface is the worst cross-country drive companion. Holly is probably the best hang of everyone in the movie.

• Bill: How long did the Nice Guys agency keep going before Jackson Healy died of a massive heart attack? What happened the next day with the film reel – was it a huge story? Did Kim Basinger face any real consequences?
• CR: They never saved Amelia – she's unceremoniously shot and left in the street. Also: the entire plan of making a porn movie with an environmental message to show at an auto show is 'a horrible plan – just send it to a news station.'

• Changed to 'secret handshake memorabilia' – items you have to really love the movie to get.
• CR: The navy blue mesh Dodgers hat Gosling wears for two scenes. 'I can't find a navy blue Dodgers mesh hat, 70s or otherwise.' Also a blow-up poster of the Jackson and Holland Detective Agency ad in all its 'Filipino or maybe Mexican' glory.
• Rob: Pink cow Post-It notes to mark important meetings. 'We're in business.'
• Bill: A Misty Mountains poster. Also 'How do you like my car, big boy?'

Bill: 'Sometimes you just win.' Rob: 'Sometimes there are two ways to look at something.'

• Bill: 'The Other Guys' – Nice Guys then Other Guys for a 'guys night.'
• CR: 'No Sudden Move' (Soderbergh) – a crime film that also brings in the Detroit part.
• Rob: 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' feels too easy. Would go drama-comedy like 'Michael Clayton' or 'The Pelican Brief' – another corporate conspiracy movie.

• Gosling (unanimous). Craig: 'This is just an all-timer for me. The best comedy of the last 10 years. The buddy cop dark action comedy is my number one favorite genre.' Loved that it kills Margaret Qualley, throws Jessica through a glass window, and has no love interest – 'it's perfect to me.'
• Rob: Gosling 'sells everything so hard and so well.' Also the script – 'that's probably the second' winner. CR: 'A lot of what's great about this movie are his reactions' – moments that wouldn't jump off the page but are hilarious the way Gosling delivers them.

• Craig created the Kobe Bryant Shoving Pau Gasol Award for best tone-setting opening scene. Shane Black has the belt: 'Lethal Weapon' starts with a stripper suicide off a hotel, 'The Last Boy Scout' starts with a football player pulling a gun, and 'The Nice Guys' starts with a car through a house. 'No one knows how to open a movie quite like Shane Black.'
• Craig: His favorite movie of the last 10 years. The best comedy since 2016. Loves that there's no love interest and no kiss at the end – 'it's just about these two guys.' 'I rewatch it every couple years. Everybody I've watched it with likes it. It's universally beloved. Fuck Angry Birds.'