THE CATEGORY
CABINET

They name Marathon Man as the best diamond movie.

They narrowed the field to the female supporting performances and landed on Kelly Lynch as the pick.

They choose Ali Larter as the supporting-performance winner over Luke Wilson and others because she leaves the biggest impression in a short run.

They narrow it to Delroy Lindo and Donnie Wahlberg, and Van gives the award to Delroy for his scene-stealing crisis-manager energy.

They debate Joe Galloway's competence and writing, but never settle on a clean numeric verdict.

The room agrees Sam Weinberg is checked out for much of the trial and effectively mails it in.

They flirt with the idea of blame, but the room ultimately rejects the notion that Santiago deserved to die.

They raise unanswered lore questions about why Carol Anne was targeted and how the haunting would be seen online today.

They agree the franchise should have gone further, arguing the series needed bigger additions and different settings to keep growing.

They discuss movies whose lines or moments escaped the film and became shorthand in culture, with The Town cited as a modern example.

Bill cited Brubaker as an earlier example of the slow clap.

Mallory argues the movie is one of the rare cases where a better sex scene is unnecessary because the desire is the point.

They joke that a football-game set piece would have fit the movie and add energy to the setting.

They felt the movie should have added an L.A. sports beat like basketball or beach volleyball.

They noted the movie doesn't really have a sex scene and did not land on a clear answer.

The dining-room killings are treated as one of the film's great execution set pieces, even if not formally isolated as a named category.

They wonder aloud about vampire entry rules for cars versus houses and never settle it definitively.

They conclude Trent probably does not make it long-term and ends up back in a service job rather than a lasting acting career.

They propose scoring stunts by how much they would hurt in real life, but no film or stunt is crowned outright.

They decide the most painful-looking beat is the ugly electrocution and head-trauma finale stretch.

The courtroom wins for its striking two-level setup.

They choose the oil-drilling work as the most convincing bit of technical realism in the film.

They cite milk-from-the-carton as an Apex Mountain-style gag and seem to treat Anchorman as the benchmark example.

The hosts name The World According to Garp as the apex example of the genre, with Parenthood discussed as a lesser cousin.

After kicking around a few options, they land on Little John Looney as the most Boston character.

They single out Bond’s post-stunt line as the episode’s worst cringey quote.

They agree the movie's synthesizer cues are among the most foreboding of the era.

They clearly make Co the flex-category winner for being improbably glamorous and capable in the jungle.

They estimate the film’s body count at 51, with some uncertainty about how many deaths Tech Noir accounts for.

They place the film at the top of the evil-roommate subgenre, with Hedy as the model version of the trope.

The hosts treat Bill as the obvious recurring target for the mispronunciation award and joke that it would go to him almost every time.

The category is used loosely for transformation stories, with Clueless and dance-contest movie makeovers getting the strongest mention.

They joke about needing a correction category for misquoted lines and movie facts, but do not formalize a winner.

The hosts treat Rollerball as the example for invented sports in movies.

They choose The Martian as the better fantasy-style follow-up for Damon-at-his-smartest energy.

They debate team-by-team value and generally treat Peter as the top Average Joes asset.

Bill cites its emotional ending and franchise execution as a peak rewatch experience.

They share production facts about mafia involvement, the morgue shoot, the protests, the disclaimer, and the missing footage.

They identify it as the franchise peak before the series got too ambitious.

They use Richard Price's reporting and place-name research as the main behind-the-scenes fact.

The helicopter impact kill is singled out as the most memorable death effect.

They choose Charlotte’s stuck speech as the movie’s best quote, with the self-knowledge line as the centerpiece.

Among Little League baseball scenes, the hosts settle on Bad News Bears and Breaking Training as the top example.

They like the premise of identifying the scene or line that sells the movie, but they do not lock in a final system.

The clearest nit is that Mitch’s baseball footage is obviously shaky, with a few smaller continuity and realism complaints following behind.

They turn the house’s rancid smell into the joke category and agree it must have been unbearable.

Mallory chose a porn-parody version of the movie, with 'Best in Blow' as the clear favorite title.

After bouncing through several examples, they settle on Night Moves as the better Florida Keys movie.