The Birdcage (1996)

The Birdcage is Steve's pick, and it's not close: this is a movie he and his wife Heather have been quoting to each since they first met, Steve having fallen in love with it as a theater kid in high school. Nic, on the other hand, had never seen it, despite a stated lifelong allegiance to who he now insists on calling "Bobby Williams" (a nickname that is, delightfully, sticking around for good).

The 1996 comedy sends the dads to a South Beach drag club where Armond Goldman (Robin Williams) and his partner Albert (Nathan Lane) have to butch things up fast when their son brings home a senator's daughter. Steve and Nic get a kick out of the crash course in masculinity that follows: pinky down, don't dribble the mustard, and please, for the love of God, walk like John Wayne (who, it turns out, walked hella gay the whole time). Hank Azaria's Agador provides steady comic relief, and one particularly unhinged batch of sweet and sour peasant soup nearly gets referenced as often as the mustard bit does.

Both dads agree Val, the son, is close to unbearable, though they land in very different places on the film as a whole this time around, more so than usual. Steve leans hard into the nostalgia, loving the parent-child dynamic even as he flags a couple of Robin Williams lines that hit differently in hindsight. Nic, watching cold and giving it his usual two-pass treatment, finds himself fighting a "Mrs. Doubtfire curse," where some of the best possible gags in this movie feel like they already happened in the other film few years earlier.

Wine tannins get a genuinely educational aside, Christine Baranski gets her due, and by the time everyone's in drag sneaking past the paparazzi, this one's earned its spot as a South Beach classic.

Come on, Gloria.