A Rewatchables Summer Mailbag!

Key takeaways

• New category proposals dominate the episode: a "Danny McBride Best Character Entrance Award," a "Dion Waiters Plus" tier for near-rename-worthy performances, a "Playing Yourself" category (Keanu in Always Be My Maybe, Malkovich in Being John Malkovich), and a "Sharon Stone Going Going Gone" award for the moment a movie asks you to suspend all disbelief.
• "Apex Mountain" for cities sparked debate — which year was each city at its cultural/sports peak? Boston 2004 and Seattle 1993 got easy agreement; San Francisco 2016 did not (consensus leaned late '70s or mid-'90s).
• Peter Stormare may have the strangest actor résumé in history: woodchippered Steve Buscemi, eaten by dinosaur, ear bitten off by John Goodman, swapped Tom Cruise's eyeballs, directed snuff films, helped George Costanza preserve his Frogger high score.
• The Sasha Jensen correction: The award for "why didn't this actor become a bigger star?" has been called the "Sasha Jenkins Award" for years — the actor's actual name is Sasha Jensen. They debated keeping the wrong name because it proves the point.
• The Ringer's 10-year anniversary prompted reflection: 2016 was one of the wildest years in sports history (Warriors' 73-win collapse, Cubs World Series, KD to Golden State, Cavaliers comeback), and Simmons revealed he spent months thinking he was having a breakdown — it turned out his contact lenses were too strong after his prescription improved in his mid-40s.

People, organizations, products, and links mentioned

• Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Craig Horlbeck — hosts/producer
• Peter Stormare — actor with the praised résumé (Fargo, Armageddon, Mission: Impossible 2, 8mm, Seinfeld)
• Michael Madsen — compared unfavorably to Stormare
• Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross — cited as possible all-time Dion Waiters performance
• Phil Michael Thomas (Tubbs on Miami Vice) — discussed re: why he didn't become a bigger star
• Daniel Day-Lewis — compared (controversially) to James Harden; never won Best Picture
• Sharon Stone — claimed to have hit a home run at Dodger Stadium during a Simmons interview
• Diane Keaton / Kay Adams in The Godfather — Simmons doubles down on "bad character" take
• Sasha Jensen (Dazed and Confused) — the award has had the wrong name for years
• FanDuel Predicts — sponsor
• The Ringer — celebrating ~10 years
• Against All Odds (1984) — flagged as a proto-There's Something About Mary
• Miami Vice Season 1 — discussed as a summer rewatch; starter kit episodes named: two-part pilot, Calderon's Revenge, Golden Triangle, Glades, the Bruce Willis domestic-violence arms dealer episode, Milk Run, Smuggler's Blues

Notable moments

• On Peter Stormare: "He's woodchippering people to death. He's directing snuff films. He's replacing eyeballs... Cruise is just the best at everything he does. Best bartender, best pilot, best spy."
• On the Sasha Jensen revelation: "We've been saying the wrong name the entire time." — "I think we keep it. It's funnier that it's Sasha Jenkins."
• On the Dan McBride entrance category — Reggie Hammond singing the Police in 48 Hrs., Todd Parker's zoom-in entrance in Boogie Nights, and Lester Bangs doing Iggy Pop in Almost Famous were the standout nominees.
• Simmons's eyesight story: he spent months thinking he had a brain tumor while launching the Ringer and doing his HBO show; it was just his contacts being too strong after his prescription improved.

Time saved

Runtime is listed as unknown, but based on transcript density (~54 minutes of content), this summary saves you roughly 50 minutes of listening.