The Incredibles (2004) + Bardstown Bourbon Company Mars: Season 11 Premiere & New Format Reveal

Season 11 begins, and Bob and Brad have finally cracked the format they've been chasing for ten seasons. The plan: 10 AFI-canon films across the year, each one kicking off a three-movie mini-program built by chaining "Let's Make It a Double" picks. They use the premiere to establish the rules, knock back a Bardstown Distillery Reserve release that lands at a rare 45/50 from both hosts, and make the unanimous case that The Incredibles is the best superhero movie ever made — full stop, not just one of them.

Season 11, the new format. With nearly 400 movies behind them, Bob and Brad have accepted that they're not going to finish the AFI Top 100 the slow way and have decided to lean into chaos instead. Ten films anchor the season; after each one, Brad picks the next double (he's the designated chaos agent — "noted plan wrecker Brad Gee" — picking first every time), and Bob picks the third film in the chain. The third film doesn't have to relate to the first one. They're also keeping their Thanksgiving and Christmas slots, which brings the season's total back up toward their usual 32-movie bracket. Bob, with his characteristic mid-thirties candor, announces on air that he's going to be drinking gin and tonics for most of the season since he can't pound brown liquor the way he used to. Brad calls this cowardice. They open Brad's bottle of Bardstown Mars anyway.

The Incredibles, 2004. Bob arrives with what he flags as a hot take: this is "pound for pound, the best movie that Pixar has ever produced," and he'd point film school students at it as a masterclass in directing for animation. Brad Bird is the only Pixar writer-director with sole script credit, and you can feel it — the movie isn't really a superhero film, it's a 1960s Sean Connery-era James Bond movie that happens to have superpowers in it, and Bob argues that's the secret. Setting it in a retro-futuristic '60s lets Bird sidestep the modern superhero movie's biggest problem (AI villains, sprawl, weightless stakes) in favor of tactile, low-fi spy-thriller mechanics: pens that explode, lava waterfalls, robots that are basically a sphere with legs. He walks through specific Spielberg-indebted shots — the underwater swoop after the missile strike, the Edna-to-Helen push that works like a Brian De Palma rack — and lands on the take that if you're going to steal, steal from Spielberg. Brad agrees, and adds that Frozone's silhouette and Samuel L. Jackson's read make him one of the most efficiently designed characters in the Pixar catalog. Both hosts single out Holly Hunter as MVP and gently roast Craig T. Nelson for sounding like he was recorded under duress (which he sort of was — Jason Lee did Syndrome in six days; Nelson's sessions stretched over two years). Edna Mode gets her own beat: Bob makes the case that Brad Bird's vocal performance is a Peter Sellers Dr. Strangelove echo, and that her design is a direct lift from costume designer Edith Head. Both score it 10/10.

Bardstown Distillery Reserve Mars. A bespoke (Brad takes a moment with that word) blend of Kentucky straight bourbon and Japanese single malt — 77% bourbon, 23% Japanese whisky, co-aged for a year after blending. The two Kentucky bourbons are 10 years old; the two Japanese malts are five years old, one finished in Sakura wood and one in plum liqueur barrels. 109.8 proof, 375ml, $100 MSRP at the distillery (it'd run closer to $200 elsewhere as a luxury pour, and Brad spends a good minute making the case that the 375ml format is the right size for a once-a-year purchase). On the nose, both hosts land on cherry and almond, with Bob also getting a peanut butter porter / Irish red stout character he describes as "almond cake with cherries on top." The palate brings dried plum, raisins, candied almond, and an underneath layer of vanilla pudding (Brad) or caramelized barley cereal (Bob, who tries and fails to remember a budget cereal called Dragon Puffs). The finish dives into baking spices, marshmallow, and black pepper, with just a touch of the Japanese-malt char-ash on Bob's back end. Bob ranks it the second-best Bardstown they've reviewed behind the Cathedral French Oak — pantheon-tier — and floats it as a candidate for whiskey of the year for 2026. Brad calls it a double gold, no questions asked.

Two Facts and a Falsehood + Let's Make It a Double. Brad's three claims about The Incredibles: that three of Bird's four children voiced minor roles, that Bird cast Sarah Vowell as Violet after hearing her on This American Life, and that the cel-animated end-credits sequence reflects Bird's original pitch for the film. Bob picks number one as the lie — correctly. The real falsehood: Bird only has three children, not four, so the invented "daughter Amy" never voiced Kari the babysitter. (Son Michael did voice Tony Rydinger; son Nathan did voice the kid who sees Mr. Incredible lift the car.) For Let's Make It a Double, Brad's torn between Big Hero 6 (a film Bob has never seen) and You Only Live Twice (a heavy inspiration for the Incredibles). He picks Big Hero 6. Bob's third film in the chain is a secret until next week.

Final Scores: Bardstown Distillery Reserve Mars

• Bob: 9 nose · 9 taste · 8.5 finish · 9 balance · 9.5 value · 45/50
• Brad: 8.5 nose · 8.5 taste · 9 finish · 10 balance · 9 value · 45/50
• Combined: 45/50 — well clear of the F&W 35/50 recommendation threshold. The rare bottle where both hosts independently land at 90/100. Bob's current frontrunner for whiskey of the year.

Final Scores: The Incredibles

• Bob: 10/10 — the best movie about superheroes ever made
• Brad: 10/10 — "I can't imagine a single moment of this movie that could be made better"