‘She’s the One’ With Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Wesley Morris

14:17Sean Fennessey:that was before he didn't start making movies yeah

14:20Bill Simmons:She was like his sounding board for the first two movies.

14:23Sean Fennessey:That was his girlfriend in like 1990. I don't know if they... I'm not saying that Lauren Holly and he fell in love on the set. Whatever happened, he's made movies with people he's fallen in love with.

14:35Bill Simmons:Heather Graham was Sidewalks in New York. I'm not sure if they were together at that point. But yeah. Craig, when you listen to all of this, your generation doesn't have the same fear of commitment. It's kind of different. They have other fears. Yeah, we have other fears. We have other things to worry about, I guess I would say. Y 'all ain't fucking. We got, like, buying a house is pretty hard. Not having no houses, no babies. Like, we're committed to our phones. And each other. True. And each other in some way. And anxiety and social media. Roving gangs of young people. I have a house, a baby, a marriage.

15:09Sean Fennessey:Like, think of all these things that I've gotten, all these fears I've gotten over, and you're stuck. That's right. You're stuck. No, you're married. You got married. Craig got married.

15:17Bill Simmons:It's funny. I watched Reality Bites which we've already done on this pod and I watched only the last like 40 minutes of it it was just on I was like you know what I'm staying for the U2 song because this is just a really good U2 and then I really got into it and Ethan Hawke he sings that Violent Femme song and it's just fucking intense and it's really good and he disappears and then at the end she's gonna go get in a cab to go find him but he's in the street and he just goes to this monologue he's like my father died but that's not why I'm telling you this and blah blah blah And then I realized You're gonna make me cry Then I realized What All I Wanted was To be with you Because I love you And they hug And then all of a sudden They're playing Like Lisa Loeb And I was like This shit worked For years That was on Turner Classic Movies Like three weeks ago That's so crazy And I watched it It's really good I On the one hand It's so 1993 Slash four Yeah But on the other hand like I had never first of all there's a few things that you need to know about me I would never in a million years have chosen Ethan Hawk I would have chosen Ben Stiller and made a mistake but that's kind of the point of that movie is in your 20s you think Ethan Hawk is the one who should win and as you get older you're like yeah Ben Stiller had some good points but Ethan Hawk wins that movie because he is it's a performance

16:44Sean Fennessey:right and It's unfair because he gets the final monologue and he looks like Ethan Hawke. So it's not, it's imbalanced.

16:52Bill Simmons:And he's perfect 1993, 94. Looks like he hasn't showered in two weeks. Doesn't care if he ever has a job because he's too cool.

16:59Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

17:00Bill Simmons:He's too cool to care about that. The kissing in that movie too. It's like real kissing. And a lot of, you just know the cigarette breath was just coming on both sides. Well, the smoking. They're just fucking inhaling cigarettes in that movie. Winona Wider's like she's lighting the next one and they're not smoking like the the parsley cinnamon cigarettes no these are fucking Marlboro Reds well this movie She's the One is also a smoking movie so much smoking so much smoking but the point is like to bring it back to She's the One these this was like a really intense time we didn't have we didn't have the internet yet nobody kind of knew what was going to happen and we would just spend a lot of time reflecting talking getting fixated on things and and this movie kind of fits into that where he gets married in 24 hours.

17:47Bill Simmons:His brother's like, what the? You fucking married her? Like, I don't know. It seems conceited, but now it'd be like, did you hear Craig got married to some girl he met in a cab? He'd be like, what? Yeah. This would be like a Reddit thread. Yeah.

17:59Sean Fennessey:I think this is also, it's a symptom of a time where I think commitment was expected to happen much earlier in people's lives. Like, that is one thing that has materially changed. I don't think people who are younger now are afraid of getting married. I think they just know to take their time a little bit. Yeah. And, you know, I got married in my 20s, but I was pretty unusual amongst my friends. And this is a movie where I don't even, how, Mike McGlone's character is 25 in this movie? He's acting like he's 40 years old. Yeah, I would have. Making half a million a year?

18:27Bill Simmons:45. No.

18:28Sean Fennessey:You're making half a million a year, aren't you? Yeah. And I think he says he's 25 in that scene, his father-in-law, right? So there's something about that, too. And, like, that's kind of the crisis of Winona Ryder's character in Reality Bites is, like, she has to choose between these two. She just graduated. What is she choosing? It's such an interesting set of models, right? Because the reality bites. Gen X resistance is all about not being a boomer. Like obeying. It's zagging at all times. I won't do what daddy tells me to do.

19:05Bill Simmons:I'm just not going to do it. Well, that's our beloved kicking and screaming. It's another one like that. These guys are just trying to delay being adults. we're just going to stay in college even though we don't go to college anymore and still go to the parties well what's interesting to me about She's the One is there is a value system at work that is not it is a Gen X movie on the one hand but it's also to me it feels transitional to like this moment right like every character in this movie every man in this movie is basically right now they either stormed the Capitol. Fox News is on all day.

19:46Bill Simmons:Yeah. Yeah, the dad's definitely watching Fox News. You know, Mike McGlone is like operating a crypto camp. Yeah, Mike McGlone might be going to jail at some point. Yeah, there's definitely some like... He might actually have... He might have been pardoned. Do you know what I mean? He might have already received his pardon. Or he's in Wolf of Wall Street, the real life version of it as it's happening. Right. in 10 years.

20:10Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I see the movie like so close to the bone because the attitudes of the guys in the movie are just so similar. So similar. I mean, it's eerily accurate to how people from Long Island act. And like the sort of like the performed masculinity that is barely hiding in security. Like the Mike McGlone character is what, which is like a big farcical kind of broad comic character, but is also like eerie documentary about three generations of Irish-American men on the island. It is so accurate. Ed Byrne's character is the one where I'm like, who is this guy? That's the one that is a little bit... that I find fascinating.

20:50Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Because that guy is like, he's kind of bohemian. He's kind of Gen X and like laid back. He should be living in Silver Lake. Yeah.

20:58Bill Simmons:Trying to like write a book. But he doesn't have any talents or skills. Yeah, true. He doesn't want... Or at least none that he does. He doesn't want anything and he doesn't... He knows what he doesn't want, which is, to your point, Bill, Super Gen X, right? I know what I'm rejecting, but I don't know what I'm embracing. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And I have always found Edward Burns really fascinating because I think that whatever the void is in this character is also true for the movies themselves. And to me, like great hang, but, but you're kind of wondering what, what's the last two hours doing?

21:45Well, I mean, I think he might be a mirror in some way. I don't, I don't know. Like he doesn't, his ambitions are not grand. He doesn't want to be the greatest or the best. He just wants to work. Right. To me, this is a wild way to think about a film career, but this is the guy who is essentially like I build houses for a living. I love building houses. You know, somebody will live in this little house that I built. Maybe I'll build a big house. But like, I don't know how to do anything else. So this is what I do. And I'm going to do the same thing. What has he made? I count it. It's like 15 movies.

22:28Still going. He's got a movie this year. It's some, it's the same movie every time. I liked The Family of McMullen. I enjoyed it. His movies are perfectly pleasant. I watched it to talk to you guys. And it's interesting watching him evolve, but only, it's not evolution, it's age, right? He's becoming more seasoned, but he hasn't changed, right? This is a very, we've never, I can't think of a director who's had this similar, Henry Jaglum is a director that comes to mind. We're like, Henry Jaglum has a thing, right? He is making movies about Beverly Hills people, more or less, right? Yeah. Like the lives of a particular class of Angelinos.

23:18The movies are kind of all the same movie. He gets fixated on actresses and they become the star of the movie. Then you never see them again. There's not a lot of variation in tone. Sometimes the movies are funny, but most of the time they're embarrassing. but every once in a while the clock will the clock is right twice a day and Edward Burns to me has become one of those people where like you can go in there and there'll be something there and clearly the people who love working with him love working with him because he seems like a great person

23:54Bill Simmons:well isn't the best way to capture that the fact that a lot of the people who are in this movie these are like the best versions of them he has a way of getting really good performances. Like, we'll talk about Aniston and Diaz in this, but I mean, we can talk about Diaz now or do it later, but I just think Diaz… Let's save it for later. We'll save it for later, but I think she's incredible. What she's doing in this movie is like, almost like a what if for her career. If nobody's ever asked her to do what she's doing. I feel like it's… One other movie has any given Sunday. Oh, like the harshness.

24:28Bill Simmons:Yeah.

24:28Sean Fennessey:Like the sharpness

24:29Bill Simmons:that she can bring. This is kind of… Because the thing with her is she can be there something about Mary she can be the dead son of my best friend's wedding or she can be this character this is by far the most interesting version of her where she's like I'm a fucking ice queen I'm a killer

24:43Sean Fennessey:I mean the counselor

24:45Bill Simmons:you're in trouble with me y 'all know y 'all know I think

24:48Sean Fennessey:that's a version of that too that is that is an all time performance it goes with the European the European bombshells that is the best version of that that an American person has done Cameron Diaz and the counselor. Y 'all haven't seen it? Well, and then McGlone. I had so much stock. You can't believe how much stock I had.

25:10Bill Simmons:I looked at his IMDB and it's like, this was really the peak and I don't really understand what happened. I don't know why he wasn't on CSI for like 11 years.

25:18Sean Fennessey:I don't. I mean, I have some takes about him in the categories. The brother.

25:23Bill Simmons:Yeah, Francis. Would you, just watching this movie, would you have expected him to at least have been on Law and Order for like nine years? We'll save my thoughts. Okay.

25:33Sean Fennessey:Can't wait. I mean, obviously, he just gets to do a tremendous amount of shit talking in the movie. And so, as a teenager, when I saw the movie, I was like, there's something very attractive here. It's very Randall and Clerks. Yeah. It's like some guy just gets to just have all the funny lines, even though he's kind of the buffoon of the movie. He still gets so many heaters. And you can feel Ed Burns' id going right into McGlone, which is really fun. And I really just wish they made more movies together. because he writes really well for him. The same way that I always thought Kevin Smith wrote so well for Jason Lee.

26:04Sean Fennessey:And Jason Lee is never better. Oh, that's good. Only in every Kevin Smith movie. He's so great. Well, it's like Chris Eichmann. Same thing. Chris Eichmann in all the, in that trilogy of Whit Stillman movies is so, so good. But McGlone, I mean, he obviously is best known now for his work in commercials. That that, it's the Geico character, right? And documentary narration. Oh my God, he's in the Geico ass. That's what he's been doing for the past 10 years.

26:30Bill Simmons:And he's done a lot of documentary narration stuff.

26:32Sean Fennessey:He's a war narrator in the Geico commercials. Oh my God. And so I'm sure he's got a very comfortable, cool life. And he was an interesting representative of like a certain kind of like post-Gordon Gecko stockbrokery aspirational. It's like pre-Wolf of Wall Street, post-Michael Douglas. Guy, black dark suit, slick back hair. there's a very like Irish American thing too in this movie where like all these guys have great hair they're all way too pale you know they're all like they think they're fucking the man you know deep down they're really guilt riddled little dick energy this whole movie is just little dick energy the whole thing is like Irish curse meets Irish goodbye like that is the that is the like the subtitle or the alternate title for the movie yeah Cameron Diaz

27:19Bill Simmons:does the orgasm thing she faked it I didn't have to fake with Papa and then she holds up the three Wait, can I just say one quick Mike McGlone reading? There's a moment where he comes over. I guess I'll just set this up.

27:42Edward, Mickey meets Heather. She gets into his cab. Oh, and they show up at the house. They used to be married. he comes over to the house to get this television set that he left there you know old school you know not old school but like the last of those

28:02Bill Simmons:big big fat ones square tube cathode ray cathode tube TVs comes over to get it she's trying to get with him he's like I'm not what are we doing shame on you I'm taking this not really that heavy TV and I'm walking out of here But he does, you do see him entertaining it. He thinks about it. Three seconds. But he, you know what's funny is, he is a good actor, but there's something, there's like one more gear in the, in the watching a character try to work out whether or not to do something that's not happening here that registers to me as a viewer of these people as, as indifferent. right he should be considering this but I just don't think he is in the wrong world he is trying to find some other place to be I mean Bill maybe it is maybe he should be here he should be in California but I don't know nothing interests him here but how does this tie into McGlone so he takes the TV the TV is living in his place McGlone comes over one day because he knows from Heather that the TV's gone.

29:24And he's worried this guy and his brother fucked his girlfriend. You're right. Did you? Let me do some not that low-key sleuthing to find out whether or not my brother fucked my mistress, but it's really his ex.

29:37Bill Simmons:Yeah. And he's like, why would you even go back there for that TV? That's pathetic. And he's like, it's like you're... Oh my God, I can't even read my own handwriting. It's like, basically, you can't afford a new TV. And then he kind of trails off. And it's kind of like the way he trails off, it's like you can't afford a new TV. And there's like a, there's like a, you know, that he doesn't even say or like a haunt. Like, yeah, there's so much hilarious, regular guy judgment in that not big a deal detail. Yeah. And the way that he does it is just, it's just chef's kiss. and he's kind of dumbfounded.

30:22He's kind of embarrassed for his brother, but he also doesn't really know why he's fixated on this TV except he just wants to know if his brother fucked his mistress.

30:31Sean Fennessey:Yeah, he circles back to it later in the movie when they're having an argument and he's like, Mr. Loser cab driver can't afford a new TV. It's this status symbol to him and he's like, the only thing that really matters to me is money and being the cock of the walk. My brother, who doesn't really have the same ambitions that I do, even though he's older than me. He's a loser. I'm better than him. It's important for me to be better than him. It is like you always do the boss and you think you're better than me. Long Island has that. We have a little bit. We don't live in the city. We're very provincial.

31:00Sean Fennessey:It's very blue collar. There's this constant desire to go up a level and to be better than people. And McGlone is just very good at representing that energy.

31:10Bill Simmons:It's a shame that David Chase never tapped into him for a Sopranos season. Oh, yeah. There's just so much good money that's left on the table for him. There's got to be a story there. There's got to be a story. I don't know.

31:22Sean Fennessey:Sometimes it doesn't happen. Sometimes it just doesn't happen. You mean he went to a bunch of auditions and the part went to like Vincent D 'Onofrio? There's like a Charlie Sheen versus him.

31:32Bill Simmons:I feel like it's a little closer than maybe if you really think about it. Oh, interesting. He just could have been in Two and a Half Men for 10 years. Wow. Just being... I just don't understand why he wasn't on... He's such a natural TV actor.

31:45Sean Fennessey:He is.

31:45Bill Simmons:Could you see him for 10 straight Thursdays? Well, it's funny that, I mean, I got fixated on what that TV was really doing, you know, as a metaphor. Erection proxy? Well, no, just like the movie's ambitions in some way. Do you know what I mean? Like the confusion of like how far down or in to go.

32:08Sean Fennessey:Yeah. And it just really, this movie, without the application of some critical and emotional pressure from us, it kind of does kind of live on the surface. But I was saying as we were walking into Bill, it's a great rewatchables for me, and I watched it 50 times on cable television growing up, because it is on the surface. It's a movie of lines of dialogue that you remember. It's a series of episodic sequences. The stakes are so low in this movie.

32:35Bill Simmons:I mean, what are really the stakes? she might go to Paris and not bring him oh man and he's got to figure out if he's getting divorced or not his brother bunch of beautiful 20 somethings

32:46Sean Fennessey:stuff's probably going to work out for no matter what it's a very low octane movie but it's very enjoyable I did want to just say one thing about what you were describing about Burns as an actor and maybe we can kind of think of some examples when do you want me to do my Ed Burns impression after you describe it I used to do one too so Robert Redford is not a great actor but he is a great screen presence and he figured out one thing and I've thought about this a lot because we did a Hall of Fame last year. I've watched every movie he's ever made. He understood that he was at his best when he was in pursuit of moral superiority.

33:18Sean Fennessey:That he could kind of represent something decent about the world. And all of his best movies are him operating in that mold. Edward Burns didn't really figure out what that thing is that he should represent to distract from his beauty. So when you're watching him, you're like, this guy doesn't have any problems. He's married to Christy Turlington. Like what emotional crisis could really be happening that could be bringing him down to this place? And I feel this a little bit when I'm watching this movie. When this movie is, when I'm watching this movie, I'm like, let's get away from Ed Burns and Maxine Bonds.

33:48Sean Fennessey:We got to go back to Mike McGlone and Jennifer Aniston. That's where the real heat, the weirdness is. When John Mahoney's spinning wisdom about what it's like to be a man in America, I want to go back to that part. There's no, and I like Ed Burns on screen, but that character's kind of nothing. He's bringing just like, just presence, but not psychology to the character. Yes, yes, yes, yes. It's a weird thing because he invented the world. It's his movie. Yeah, I can see why you'd think that.

34:16Bill Simmons:You know, I'm just trying to be in a movie. Just trying to do my thing. What's wrong with that? It's so funny because that is the thing that, especially in this movie, more than the other ones because I've seen like half of the Edward Burns collection, maybe a little bit more than half. And this... This is like... You can feel him trying to channel Woody Allen here. Like Woody Allen, the actor, right? There are like... What this guy who... Is he older? Is Mickey older than Francis? So he's 27? Yeah. It's probably like 26 and 25. 27-year-old man from his part of Long Island really talking about degenerates.

35:08Do you know what I mean? Like, there's something about the, you know, the stuttering, the repetition, the stuttering that isn't really the way you're searching for a thought. It's just you're doing a bit. And I really love the imitation here because it's the last person you would think would be interested in impersonating Woody Allen, which is kind of what's fascinating about Edward Burns as an actor to me.

35:35Sean Fennessey:This is going to sound like a broad stroke, but here's the thing. With Woody Allen, it's neurosis. With Edward Burns, it's angst. And that is the difference between Jewish American, Irish American, at least where I come from. The Irish Americans are like a little angry about something. And in Edward Burns' performance, when he really comes to life, he's like, what the fuck are you talking about? like he's got a little bit of there's a little bit of heat underneath Woody Allen is never aggressive in that way in his performances because it's not a natural component to his character that he created on screen he's already up

36:10Bill Simmons:Ed Burns is like even keel, even keel, even keel and when he snaps you really feel it because he's not supposed to snap but I think everywhere else he literally knocks somebody out in this movie

36:22Sean Fennessey:he's physical in a way that Woody Allen would never be it is his brother And it's like such a stage punch. But I just, you know, the thing is... Get up, Dorothy. To your point, I feel like the thing... There are a few things underneath this movie that, you know, we can talk about. But the movie is kind of... It doesn't know how to be anything other than what it is. And so there are these subtexts that the movie wants to, thinks it's satisfied by making them textual. Like, Francis, the best, I mean, well, we can talk about this later when we get to the categories, but the is Francis gay storyline is very compelling because he should just be gay.

37:13He should just, he should just be gay. I mean, he wears cologne. Right, I mean, the thing, the signifiers of gayness are absurd, except, I mean, Sean, you can speak to the cultural assumptions about what makes a man a fag, right? Yeah. And that was a huge aspect of the way I grew up. I mean, as a person who knew he was gay.

37:38Bill Simmons:Not wanting to have sex with Jennifer Aniston in 95 would certainly have been maybe a red flag. Except we know he's fucking Cameron Diaz. I don't know why you can't do both. But again, this is the Catholic. Like this to me is, is like where the Woody Allen, I think. You don't want to cheat on your wife with your girlfriend. Well, I mean, it's interesting. Like Madonna whore never gets explored in, in Irish American work, but as a Catholic, that's a province of, of the, of the Catholic condition, whether you're in Italy or here, but it is essentially what's happening here. Right.

38:16Sean Fennessey:It's also like a mimic of what's in Brothers McMullen where the older brother in that movie is cheating on Connie Britton and you're like, you have Connie Britton at home. Like, what are you doing? Who's the mistress in that movie?

38:27Bill Simmons:I forget the name of the actress. It's Ed Burns' flaw because he's just surrounded by beautiful women at all times. So this is just normal to him. But that kind of makes it interesting to me, right? Like, this is why I wish that Frances had just been gay. Because, but I also do believe that there is a kind of curse that we've talked about this on this like in these conversations about these movies there is a heterosexual curse right like we're being governed right now by a heterosexual curse these are all men who like given their druthers would all be having sex with each other but they are cursed to be they're cursed to be attracted to women

39:08Sean Fennessey:and you've pierced the veil in an interesting way I'm not signing off on this take but I admire it I think that this movie would have really benefited by taking the risk of just having somebody be gay or bisexual or something that makes them more interesting than a regular human person the only thing that bisexuality is Leslie Mann's character that's right that's a missed opportunity and that's also to me that idea is actually broached in Chasing Amy in an interesting way oh my god these are two guys who are in love with each other it's more than broached that's the movie right so and the kind of duality between the genders and their feelings towards each other and the way that those things collide or don't collide I think is explored more interestingly in that movie to me this movie is much more male fantasy like I think the whole movie all around is male fantasy and Burns gives a lot of the anxiety to the other character and he doesn't take it on.

40:09Sean Fennessey:But in this movie, look at the women that he casts in this movie. I mean, Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz, Maxine Bonds, and Leslie Mann, and Amanda Peet. And Amanda Peet! All of whom, I mean, they all are so beautiful in this movie. And they're so appealing in each slightly different registers for a certain kind of guy. They're all a different kind of guy.

40:35Bill Simmons:I have some material on this. Okay. I'll bet you do. We just drove straight into your wheelhouse. This is the best-looking collection of women ever in a movie. I wrote down, this is the 2012 OKC Thunder rom-coms. We're wondering why they had to be broken up. Why did you have to trade James Harden? I also wrote down, I was around the age of everyone in the movie and needed oxygen at the halfway point. I didn't even know who to be in love with the most I mean you have Aniston she's after season two of Friends everyone in their 20s is in love with her from the first two seasons of Friends but then Cameron Diaz who'd already been in The Mask and a couple other things in love with her too then they bring Amanda Peet and Leslie Mann out of nowhere and Maxine Baines who we'd already seen from Brothers McMullen it's just like this is an embarrassment of riches What we have known Amanda Pete and Leslie Mann from anything else, this is the first time we would have seen that work.

41:37Bill Simmons:Yeah, this was like pretty early for both of them. Because I didn't remember when I saw this originally. We got to keep going on this, but we got to take one break. Evening, buyer's remorse. Buy a new car? I'll be moving in. Let's get started. Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana. You what? Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it. So there's no... No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyer's rejoice. I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it. Buyer's rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana.

42:12Sean Fennessey:Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com.

42:15Bill Simmons:This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Boar's Head just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means planning your whole day around it. presenting the Friars Turkey Breast only from Boar's Head. A backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftsmanship behind every bite. Boar's Head, committed to craft since 1905. Aniston, her first movie, this one. She is the most scorching female star in the world at this point from the first two seasons of Friends.

42:52Bill Simmons:From the first two seasons of Friends.

42:54Sean Fennessey:But no disrespect to Leprechaun, please. That's really where she broke through. the horror film

42:59Bill Simmons:Fair her first movie after her career took off filmed between season one and season two and everybody's getting her hair every guy's in love with her we have no backstory with her with that whole cast the only person we knew was Courtney Cox and I wrote this down too single handedly the reason I saw this movie in the theater wow yeah true star power yeah I probably would have gone anyway because I didn't have a lot going on in 1996 Did Brothers McMullen get into your atmosphere? I saw it, but I didn't have a lot going on in 1995 either. But 96, it was like, oh my God. Especially if you saw the ad, it was like, everybody looks great in this movie.

43:42Bill Simmons:Ed Burns, I'm going. Great job. But Burns said, I knew who she was, hadn't seen the show. I rented, I didn't rent, I bought Independent Ed, the book that he wrote about all of the movies he made. and then there were some good interviews. He could not figure out how to cast this role or the Cameron Diaz role. And Aniston came in and killed that role. We can talk about the mechanics of having a sexually frustrated wife who looked like Aniston later. And then Cameron Diaz. So I mentioned the smoking hot, callous, ice queen bitch, which she tapped into. Rita Hayworth and Gilda. Okay. That's kind of what they're going for, Like those 1940s, I should stay away from this person, but I can't.

44:32Bill Simmons:Burns said, everyone else we auditioned did a real breathy Marilyn Monroe, but she got it. She knew the character would be a little more vulnerable. I don't know who's better in this movie, so I'm going to ask you guys.

44:43Sean Fennessey:Between Aniston and Diaz?

44:44Bill Simmons:Yeah. In terms of performance? Yeah.

44:46Sean Fennessey:Oh, well, it's Diaz. Yeah, Diaz by a mile, I think. I mean, Jennifer Aniston is sort of making the most of a not-quite-stock part.

44:57Bill Simmons:but because but that's the case though because she's got nothing to work with and I think it's a really good character it is like I like it I like her relationship with her family like those scenes are nice

45:08Sean Fennessey:I agree I would but again it's meaningful it's not nothing to me that he goes through a lot of rigmarole to go get that television set and haul it back to his apartment from her from Cameron Diaz's place there's so many like there are things that are familiar to me from television relationships. Yeah. It's a symbol of something bigger. The thing that makes it a movie is you've got these relationships intercut with each other. I'll also say I think the best parts of the performance that Burns is giving is opposite Diaz. The scene that Wesley talked about when he goes up to the room and then near the end of the film, which is one of my favorite scenes in the movie, when the two of them are back together and they have an almost wordless scene.

45:55Bill Simmons:Right. it's the last like 40 seconds they're not talking and she physically like kind of moves closer to

46:02Sean Fennessey:him in that scene i was like oh this is this is like who edward burns could have been as a director like this is so good the camera is very gently moving they're getting closer and closer and then the camera's getting closer and then she reaches for something right she reaches you think she's reaching to him and she's getting him his coat i love that scene burns is like it looks like it's all happening. In that sequence, you're like, oh man, maybe he's not Woody Allen, but he's something different. I don't think he really ever gets back to that moment in his filmmaking career, but part of it is because she has such gravity as a screen presence.

46:36Sean Fennessey:And she's bringing out something good in everybody in this movie. She's just a really good counterpoint to honestly so many of the good male stars of the 90s and 2000s. Oh yeah. No, I mean, when used properly, when properly cast, even when miscast, right? You think about Gangs in New York. The time she's having makes that DiCaprio performance a lot more interesting to me than if they had cast the part right in some way.

47:05Bill Simmons:We talked about this when we did There's Something About Mary. I think she's become legitimately underrated as an actress. Totally agree. I've been saying this the whole time. She might be the most underrated one. Because remember, we always were fascinated by Gwyneth Paltrow. Yeah. And how we thought she was, this was a big when Wesley and I got to know each other and became friends. So it was like one of our passion points that we shared. Like she fucking had it. She had it cooking for years and kind of let control of the steering wheel. And Diaz, like you look back at her career now, it's all kinds of movies and really, really fun characters.

47:38Bill Simmons:And she took some chances. I never say this. And then she made movies like The Holiday and you know, something about Mary, like massive hits. I believe when Night and Day came out, somebody, when I was at the Globe, wanted to know if I wanted to write about Tom Cruise something. And I was like, no. I want to write about Cameron Diaz. Right. Because Cameron Diaz is a way more interesting person for Tom Cruise to be hanging out with. Like, it just makes all the sense in the world. And for as professional as Tom Cruise's, I would love to know so hard what it was like for him to work with a person who seems to just be making it up.

48:26Yeah. Like, takes direction well, but just doesn't.

48:31Sean Fennessey:I'm a huge Vanilla Sky Defender, and I feel like she really has him on his back heels in that movie. And the scenes between the two of them, especially she's starting to lose it.

48:39Bill Simmons:That's another one.

48:40Sean Fennessey:In that movie. another I forgot about that one she's so good in that movie

48:44Bill Simmons:I just bought that on 4k to get ready for our Vanilla Sky rewatchables

48:47Sean Fennessey:I just think that's such an interesting movie and honestly like picture another actress in her kind of age range in that part of Vanilla Sky and it doesn't work nearly as well because her beauty and her intensity is what makes that stuff so good and that movie was like a reunion of that and it's supposed to be like a meet cute adventure movie that doesn't totally work

49:07Bill Simmons:but she's working it But this is what's interesting about her when you compare her to Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, whoever, Sandra Bullock, where she could easily just be the rom-com lead who you're like, I love that person. I would want to spend my life with her. But she could also be the fucking crazy... She could have been the girl in Obsession, right? She has that. Oh my god, don't do that to us. Don't do that to us, Bill. She has this version in this movie. She could be like the goofy Charlie's Angels lady. But the thing about Cameron Diaz, it is very important to say, in the same way that you very brilliantly nailed the thing that Burns, that separates Burns from a person like Redford and then Allen, the thing about Cameron Diaz that could never allow her to be Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, or Sandra Bullock is Cameron Diaz is down to fuck.

50:06Sean Fennessey:Pure sex appeal. Cameron Diaz understands what sex is she likes using it Diaz and DTF

50:20I mean I just think

50:25Sean Fennessey:she played a lot of characters who were like that and it's not I mean but even initially it didn't feel great because it felt like the movies didn't care that there was a person attached to the body. Right. You know, I think the thing that made her charming in something about Mary was she somehow managed to transcend the objectification of the part. And the Farrelly's wrote something for her to surmount, right? But even in something like Bad Teacher, that's a great movie star movie. And her stardom in that film in like Charlie's Angels, you know a dozen other movies are completely predicated upon her prowess as an actor who understands how to play being sexy you know who else has that?

51:18Bill Simmons:Kidman yes you could have put Cameron Diaz in Eyes Wide Shut and I don't know if it doesn't work I don't know if it works with Cruz

51:30Sean Fennessey:she's not as refined as Kidman which I think is part of that We've never seen her try to do something like that. You don't even have to go that far.

51:38Bill Simmons:So you disagree with me? Cameron Diaz doesn't have the one thing, the thing that makes Diaz more interesting in some way than Bullock, Ryan, and Roberts, all of whom I have either come to love or just love from birth. Or Reese Witherspoon's another one. Or Reese Witherspoon.

51:57She's a cut different from them because of the sex. what keeps her from being kidman is she's not willing to go completely insane right she doesn't have the crazy hair well maybe what's like the craziest sex thing she's ever had I think that well I mean if you want to be explicit it's the counselor when she fucks the car right I mean that's one of

52:22Sean Fennessey:the craziest but it's not she had to get there it's not basic instinct

52:26Bill Simmons:Craig wasn't expecting that answer the counselor when she fucked the car Craig's like I mean she literally

52:33Sean Fennessey:she literally octopus tentacles the car I mean what does that mean? I'm not gonna explain to you you just gotta see it Craig go watch the film you gotta see it it is one of the great performances is that an accurate description of what she does? oh a thousand percent a little beautiful but I think that it's one of those she had to she had to get there I don't think that she had that performance in her when she was doing Charlie's Angels she didn't understand to your point though I don't know that she didn't understand it. Her career and how we think about her career, which is really interesting.

53:03Sean Fennessey:And this is kind of like, I think this is really the meeting point of our interest in movies, exactly what we're doing right here. Yeah. She spent 10 years making Charlie's Angels movies and sex farces. That was where she kind of threw, and The Counselor isn't a sex farce, but it is too. But it is. It's a sex tape and Bad Teacher and those movies. And then she retired and she stopped making movies and she took basically seven or eight years completely off her movies. Now she's come back to do a couple Netflix movies since then, but going away and not really pursuing this work in her early 50s means that we don't think about her in the same way and then she kind of gets diminished but her body of work I totally agree with you super interesting pretty varied took a lot of chances better than Julia Roberts

53:46Bill Simmons:I think if you're going totality of it this is like one of those when I go on basketball reference and I'm like wow Chris Paul made 13 All-NBA teams I thought it was eight yeah but interestingly I like I like where you're I like this I like this comparison but Julia Roberts is still gonna win for me well cause cause her pretty woman just beats everything but also also they went head to head in my best friend's wedding

54:14Sean Fennessey:she doesn't but Karen Diaz doesn't have a Brockovich she doesn't have a like prestige star part Oscar winner or Charlie Wilson's war well she doesn't have that either but Julia you guys Julia Roberts coming out on 4k I saw that putting proors in now I didn't order it

54:34Bill Simmons:I showed some restraint a non-order a non-order okay oh my god um well let me just like Julia Roberts doesn't have Julia Roberts the thing that makes her great is that she had a persona to she had a much more elastic and well-established persona both to exploit and then subvert right she was she She could just sleep with the anime and you got it. It's like, oh, Julia's in danger in this one. Is she just a straight romantic comedy person? No, she's Mary Riley. She never was. Right. Well, she was Mary Riley. And she was Tinkerbell in Hook. But that was sort of like the... That was a kind of misuse of the thing that made her great.

55:21Like Cameron Day is the Gangs of New York.

55:23Sean Fennessey:It's just bombshell versus America, sweetheart. They're two different identities that film actresses get slotted into and how you subvert them both. It's more challenging for the bombshell to subvert because your appeal is predicated on your looks, not on your essence. And so I think Cameron Diaz actually has a harder job, even though Julia Roberts is a greater and more important star in the history of movies.

55:44Bill Simmons:Here's a good way to frame it. Which one would your wife be less likely to say, yeah, you can give her a ride home? I don't think my wife would let me drive either of these women home. Cameron Diaz would be the longer pause. Meanwhile, Maxine Baines. Maxine Baines. It's tough. Is it Bonds or Baines?

56:05Sean Fennessey:I always thought it was Bonds, but I don't know.

56:06Bill Simmons:Bonds, Catherine. Maxine Bonds. I don't know. Harold Baines? Maxine Bonds? She created the rare character that I can't describe at all. Oh, this is a great... Tells you all you need to know. I love this. Hey, describe that Maxine Bonds character in one sentence. It's like... What do you mean? She's going to study at the Sorbonne.

56:26Sean Fennessey:Study what? I don't know.

56:27Bill Simmons:Is she flady? Is she sarcastic? Is she hard? Like, I just don't know what this character is. And it's probably the biggest flaw of the movie. She gets... I mean, she isn't... Well, we're talking about this as a male fantasy, right? I guess I... It's what's unclear to me is what the fantasy is. Right? Because the real fantasy is my brother is my best friend. Right? Because there's so many scenes where, like, they have the fight in his apartment, Mick and Francis. They have the fight in his apartment where, you know, Francis breaks down and says, you know, I feel terrible. You know, I feel like everything is closing in on me.

57:15This divorce is really wrecking me. And Mickey's like, you know what your problem is? you're a terrible person. You're cheating on your wife. That's what you should feel bad about. You're living a lie. The next scene, they're in the park. They're like walking what is it? Brooklyn Bridge or like the Brooklyn Promenade? The Brooklyn Heights Promenade? Like, they're together again. And they're having a, they're bonding some more. I mean, so you can say what the fantasy is. I just think that one of the things

57:48Bill Simmons:So you're saying it's a relationship between the brothers and Maxine buns a thousand percent i just don't i just don't know that it matters what any of these women are describing to dad like what's she like she's earnest i mean it's really just good hang the

58:04Sean Fennessey:same is true for her performance in brothers mcpollin she's just not a good actress and it's i think it's okay to say that she does she has no real depth as an actress and so she cannot provide character to what's written on the page which is the opposite of so many of the other actresses that are in this movie.

58:18Bill Simmons:And the problem is there's every, the four other actors in this movie, even the two that don't have a lot to do. Oh, four, yeah, four. Are all lights out. Like, Leslie Mann's like, oh, this person's going to be a star. Amanda Peay, you're like, oh, this person has it.

58:33Sean Fennessey:So Maxine Bonds was in Brothers McMullen because she was dating Ed Burns at the time. She was the first person who read everything that he wrote. And he said during the making of that movie, the reason I cast her in that part as the girl who his character falls in love with is because I knew she would show up to work every time we were shooting. I didn't have to worry about that. She was reliable? Yeah, which is like kind of a tough thing to hear a lot.

58:54Bill Simmons:That's what Craig said about Heifetz.

58:56Sean Fennessey:He always shows up. I knew he'd host every pod we did. You're always there, Danny H. And so, you know, you can look at her other work. She didn't do a lot of other notable work. She's just not a very gifted performer. And she's getting blown off the screen by a bunch of people who are red hot in their careers.

59:14Bill Simmons:I have a recasting couch that I'll just do now for this. I think if Maxine Bonds and Leslie Mann just switch roles and Leslie Mann is in the cab, it's a better movie. Well, Leslie Mann is great. Because then she's just doing weird Leslie Mann the whole movie and quirky, and you're just like, oh, I get it. But she just pops off the screen. This is a quirky stay away, but I can't stay away. And now it makes a lot more sense.

59:36Sean Fennessey:Her line readings in this movie are so good. You're like, this is a trained actor when you're watching her.

59:42Bill Simmons:Burns said that she was in one scene and he deliberately wrote two extra scenes that weren't in the script. because he had to get her in. Wait, we have to get quickly to... This is the last piece of my rundown before we get to categories. Gen X indie darlings. Because Ed Burns is right smack dab in the middle of this. Sean laid out the story. I have a page on this. The older class, the seniors in this high school are Tarantino and Soderbergh and Linklater. And then I think the juniors and sophomores are Kevin Smith, Ed Burns, Rodriguez, Baumbach, and Wes Anderson. I would throw Whit Stillman in there Was he a senior or a junior?

1:00:20Bill Simmons:He's a senior Wes Anderson, did you say Wes Anderson? Yeah, I think he's a junior but he stayed back a year Soderbergh? Soderbergh's a senior Yeah, and he was 19 when he graduated Yeah, Sex, Lies and Videotape Sex, Lies and Videotape is what launches this It's also on this movie's mind Totally But again it doesn't have a fetish. It doesn't have a deep, dark secret. That's Ed Burns' that's the secret sauce with him. I just want to be a good hang and talk and some people who are conflicted about relationship stuff and then 98 minutes later we're all going to live happily ever after and ride off on a boat.

1:01:02Sean Fennessey:Yeah. It's a dinner party movie. You know? You go to a good dinner party and you're like, we had like three or four really interesting conversations. Yeah. And then you walk away and you're like, well, that was over. and it was just a nice night. I had a glass and a half of Pinot Noir. There's also some dinner parties where you're just like... This is boring. Did I say that? Oh, sure. Did that just happen? Did you see the invite? I mean, yes. But again, that movie somehow doesn't go far enough. Yeah, maybe. I really like that movie. That movie is also a kind of conversation with this movie.

1:01:37Bill Simmons:So that high school I mentioned of Gen X Indie Darlings, really generation. I mean, John Singleton and Maddie Rich. I mean, there's like another. I just made a list of like Nicole Hall of Center. there Noah Baumbach did you say Baumbach? He did. Okay. I'm just throwing some newer names. Yeah it's weird because Singleton the first movie Not indie. No but the first movie first movie was young or whatever but then he just he could make whatever movie he wanted after that. Went right to Hollywood. Right. I don't Ed Burns even for this I think he had a $3 million budget. You know Baumbach probably didn't have a big budget for the entire 90s.

1:02:14Sean Fennessey:It's worth noting too I think that to your point about the Sundance indie guys Brothers McFarlane and this movie were distributed by Fox Searchlight and Fox Searchlight, the first movie they ever distributed was Brothers McFarlane. Fox Searchlight still exists. It was kind of the rise of the indie shingle under major studio organization. And so Disney had already bought Miramax. And so every studio basically over time decides we need a smaller branch inside of our building that looks for these kinds of movies and markets them because they can make a lot of money. Paramount Vantage. Vantage, yeah.

1:02:47Sean Fennessey:You know, you've got like all of these various things. Not all of them worked out, but Searchlight is still around. Searchlight is still putting out good movies.

1:02:53Bill Simmons:I actually, I was going to do this later, but this was in Independent Ed, which I bought on Apple Books for like$6.99, which was really interesting about, he makes this movie, Fox Searchlight. They're like, you're our fucking guy. We love you. And they film the movie. His agents get involved. Oh, the agents. So they want to do the next movie. This is what he writes. The agents. My agents decided to negotiate a Woody Allen type deal for me in the studio. A put deal. Which basically stipulated that Fox Searchlight would greenlight any script I wanted to make sight unseen. As long as the budget was under$15 million starting with the next movie you make.

1:03:33Bill Simmons:Five zero? Fifteen. Fifteen. Okay. So he was like, are we sure we want to do this? Like they've been really good to me. Why are we playing hardball? agents says no no you have the leverage now let's do it says he has a tense phone call with tom rothman who said what happened didn't we do goodbye you and a really uncomfortable lunch with the fox entertainment chairman who said bill mechanic who said why would you ask for this i thought you were part of the family and he was like look it's my team so fox search like gets mad kind of buries she's the one and then doesn't bid on the third movie and he has this whole thing in his book about it.

1:04:11Bill Simmons:Like, I didn't know any better. I just trusted these stupid agents I had. The lesson is always is agents are the fucking worst. Like, just, you and I just had a conversation about agents before we started having this conversation. It's, like, just be careful out there.

1:04:25Sean Fennessey:Yeah. It's a tricky one. I think if Ed Burns' next couple of movies were better, he might not look back on this in quite the same way. That's just, that's a little bit of a harsh way of describing it.

1:04:35Bill Simmons:Well, because the next one

1:04:36Sean Fennessey:is No Looking Back,

1:04:37Bill Simmons:which did not do well with Lauren Holly. But in the moment, that was such an upsetting thing to Tom Rothman. And it was confusing. Yeah, but also like executives

1:04:50Sean Fennessey:saying like you were a part of the family is also like... I get that part. Classic movie shit. That's movie shit, yeah. So he said... So what's the right thing to do? It's got to be somewhere in the middle. It's got to be like, you need to pay me more or give me a little bit more flexibility and I'll make my movie with you. Like that, and the agent should also know that that's what the client wants. There's always a middle ground.

1:05:08Bill Simmons:But he was in his mid-20s. The move would have been to go out with Tom Rothman and blah, blah, blah. But he said, she's the one still went on to gross 9.5 million with Searchlight's biggest hit that year. But the message was clear. I had blown it. Then the studio passed on his next movie, which was called Long Time. Nothing new. And so he got it back. He moves to LA. He does sidewalks in New York and then gets his mojo back in a real way. It's important to say that like between like among those three movies, he manages to play like a meaningful role. And that's what the agents told him. He's in Saving Private Ryan and a couple others because they're like, you're a lead actor.

1:05:46Bill Simmons:Like, go this way. But he hasn't sort of.

1:05:49Sean Fennessey:I like him in Saving Private Ryan. Yeah, he's great. I think he's doing an old school 1940s World War II actor. And I think Spielberg knew that face.

1:05:59Bill Simmons:He's Robert Ryan. Yep. Our guy, Steve Spielberg. Yes. We all hung out with him in 2026. good friend of all of us can we say that

1:06:08Sean Fennessey:our guy our guy our guy Steven Spielberg the greatest director of all time

1:06:13Bill Simmons:you know who wasn't Ed Burns' guy Roger Ebert two stars although this movie disappointed me it did not disheart me about Edward Burns as an actor or filmmaker he knows how to move a scene and he has a nice feel for the ground level human touches that make his character real she's the one plays like an overhaul of the brothers McMullen with a larger budget and it's time for him to move on. This was how I felt when I saw it. It felt in the vicinity of Brothers McMullen in a way like not, kind of not new enough.

1:06:45Sean Fennessey:You're right.

1:06:46Bill Simmons:It's like a little bit of a remake in some ways of the first movie.

1:06:49Sean Fennessey:The difference is, the biggest difference to me is the characterization of McGlone. Because McGlone in McMullen is this really kind of tortured, faithful, Catholic young man.

1:07:01Bill Simmons:Yeah. And in this movie,

1:07:04Sean Fennessey:he's Catholic and he believes in these things because of his religion but he's really kind of a shit heel of a guy and to me the broadness of that character I think is really effective like I think he really is really entertaining in this movie I know Craig's gonna say something negative against him and I'm gonna get in front of that right now but don't do it Craig I think actually it's something that Burns like missed out on going forward in his movies his movies get like a little bit more sincere and serious yes and they're not as funny as the funniest stuff in this movie is. Well, I think he started living a life too.

1:07:39Right? I mean, I think that he's always trying to find a way to keep the movies... to have some cultural osmosis happening in them.

1:07:52Bill Simmons:We're taking one more break. I'm going to go to the bathroom because of mold. Then we're going to come back and do the categories. Wonderful. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods. It's hot out there, folks. whether you're planning a family road trip, backyard barbecues, or a watch party, you'll find everything you need to beat the heat with the quality you expect from Whole Foods Market. Find sales on best of summer fruit, stock up on cooler friendly drinks, and discover no antibiotics ever meets for the grill. You know, something like a New York strip steak, plus made in-house kebabs, skewers, and sausages.

1:08:23Bill Simmons:Shop Whole Foods Market in-store or online. Get your first delivery free with Prime. Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by NOS Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat, and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard-fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of NOS Energy. High-performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage and pedal-to-the-metal human horsepower for the streets. Go ahead. Crack open a can of NOS Energy and get after it. The categories.

1:09:00Bill Simmons:3 million 13 million dollar revenue from this movie by the way so this movie was successful categories quickly just some scenes most rewatchable scene when we meet the fighting Fitzpatricks where's your sister all that stuff and then the brother comes out that first scene basically that movie was supposed to be called the fighting Fitzpatricks right I remember that the cab ride the Aniston and McGlone arguing about sex and Mick showing up at The New Bride. That's fun. Mick picking up Cameron Diaz and going to get his TV back would be my first legitimate rewatch. The first one I wrote down was

1:09:36Sean Fennessey:Heather shows up in Mickey's cab.

1:09:38Bill Simmons:Yeah, this is when the movie goes up a level. You're the only English-speaking white guy driving a cab in New York. We're like, oh, so she's a mean person. This is good. Let's go. She's on it. You know what, Heather? I got to imagine it beats sucking dick for a living. Depends on whose dick it is. This is the best character of all time. I mean, the one great thing about this character is, in a different movie, she would have to atone for, she would either deny that she did it. Right. No, she doesn't care. Or she'd have, or the plot would force her into atonement.

1:10:13Sean Fennessey:Is she the hero of this movie is a question you can ask.

1:10:16Bill Simmons:It's like, Sharon Stone has some basic instinct too. I thought about Sharon Stone. These characters that are just like, I have no blood in my body, so keep trying to cut me. There's nothing will come out.

1:10:26Sean Fennessey:I would say Heather shows a little more vulnerability than the psychotic serial murderer Catherine Trammell.

1:10:34Bill Simmons:Never known. Never convicted. But if she showed up at Nikki's front door, and she certainly could do that, if she just wound up in basic instinct. Yeah. Basic instinct-er. I like how you called him Nikki. Nikki, right? His name is Nikki. Nick but you called him Nikki which was her pet name for him like he went a whole other level I would believe it she'd know what to do

1:11:01Sean Fennessey:Heather I think we see a couple of well here's the thing with Heather Heather loves Mickey now she cheated on Mickey but she was engaged to Mickey I think she likes Mickey the most maybe not and she's obviously a very transactional person because she marries a wealthy guy who treats her nicely and gives her orgasms but sounds like a how old is that guy did she say is he 60 I hope he's older than me I don't know can I just say one of my favorite things we haven't even done this he's like 40 years old this isn't the Floyd Gondoli but it's in the realm which is anytime Mike McGlone describes somebody as an animal he does it like three times in this movie he's an animal and he says

1:11:41Bill Simmons:that about Papa it's great another rewatch while McGlone arguing the concept of a down cycle which is great we're just in a down cycle the Aniston Pete McGlone three three people scene and Pete's just we're gonna talk about her in a second yeah his tits are bigger than mine the second Mickey Heather scene that goes right into our guy Frank Vincent oh yeah badgering Aniston about his sex life were you excited to see Frank Vincent love Frank Vincent he's so good is it ever a time when it's like oh no Frank Vincent's here is that where it said it's ever been said but can I just say something about jeans what world does Frank Vincent and Anita Gillette produce Jennifer Aniston you know I thought about this too I think she I kind of bought it I think she thought about it like how do I make sense with these two great characters what about Amanda Peet though you mean you think that Amanda Peet oh yes I believe that she could be the offspring of that couple that I believe Frank Vincent

1:12:47Sean Fennessey:throwing 106 miles an hour in this movie he's really good.

1:12:51Bill Simmons:It's going to be a fun day on Waiters. We also have when Mick and Heather are together the second time we get the maybe we made a mistake when it's just our hero just like, no man, don't fall for this. This is going to go so badly. I would have fallen for it. Is Francis Gay montage right into breaking up with Aniston? The cologne part. We mentioned that earlier. That's the number one. Mick finds out Franny's with Heather. That's where we get the how do you like that Mr. Loser cab driver who can't afford a TV. We get the boxing gloves. You are an ugly bitch. I pity you. You've said that to CR.

1:13:29Sean Fennessey:My absolute favorite line in the movie. Actually, my second favorite line in the movie. You are an ugly bitch. I pity you. Then he gets punched. The perfect elocution.

1:13:39Bill Simmons:The whole scene at the end that we talked about, which is my pick. You don't love her because she's unlovable. Like a hooker? no not like a hooker she was a hooker and then McGowan storms off she's still in the apartment by the way probably listening she I mean but there's no evidence that she was but also the performance is so she holds on to so much that there's a world where she might have been listening why are you rooting for in this movie it's like rooting for the murderer in a true crime documentary or something like oh I hope if he just could stop at the post office he could get out of this but what does she do that's bad.

1:14:19Bill Simmons:She does nothing. She's so thorny. She does nothing bad. Well, she's intentionally, she gives the watch to Mike McGlone. She's fucking with these guys. She's, this is now, she's like a cat just playing with two people now.

1:14:31Sean Fennessey:Yeah, she's fucking with these guys. But I think that the movie, there are times when it feels like the movie really does not like women. Where it's like, it's a little rough on the female characters. And it is a very mid-90s thing. And then there's other times where you're like, he definitely affords Heather more agency, power, and happiness than this kind of character would ever usually get in a movie. Oh, a thousand percent. So it's super complicated. She'd be dead by the end of a different movie. Right, usually that woman like that gets punished. Yeah. And she, like, gets to go marry some rich guy.

1:15:00Sean Fennessey:Yeah, Papa. Which she wanted, right? Right. She made the choice. She got what in the world of this movie she wanted. But she still has two brothers who are assholes calling her a whore in her own house. Yeah, but look how they wind up.

1:15:13Bill Simmons:Yeah. My most rewatchable is that scene when they're sizing each other up silently for 30 seconds. I just think that scene's awesome. Love it. What do you have? Oh, the montage. I mean, the is he gay montage. Yeah. Which also has the best filmmaking. I mean, you know, it's not like... That's the most Woody Allen. It's like movie making 101. But there's just like a paint like...

1:15:34Sean Fennessey:Two shot, two shot, two shot matching. Yeah, of a camera panning across the screen and they got to get the lines out in enough time for the camera to get from one side of the screen to the other side of the screen.

1:15:43Bill Simmons:Are you ugly bitch? I pity you as your favorite or something else?

1:15:47Sean Fennessey:I like that that unspoken scene between Heather and Mickey but the other one I love is after Franny goes back to try to reunite with Heather and she tells him that she's engaged to Papa and that she gets in the car and he closes the car door and he says thanks for the memories you ruined my life yeah that is such a 90s indie movie thing to do that's in the trailer right like and I remember it from the trailer

1:16:13Bill Simmons:I had that for the Ruffalo Hannah Rubenstein Partridge over acting. You ruined my life. He really goes for it. No, motherfucker. What's the most 96 thing about this movie, Wesley? Oh, man. I can give you a couple options. Oh, the hair. The hair, for sure. I mean, also, was the haircut trademarked? Because you'll notice in the Jennifer Aniston's haircut, I should say. She did the Rachel haircut for like a year and a half. Second half of season one and then all season two. You'll notice it's not fully Rachel did this movie. It's like, half of it is. Like there's some clause in the contract that says you can't have a full Rachel.

1:16:51You can do a half a Rachel. So the hair is like flatter on one side than it is on the other. I don't know. It's just a thing you notice because it was that important, that haircut.

1:17:04Bill Simmons:Beautiful. She just looks... She's just 10 out of 10 in this movie. She's also so relaxed. I have that as most 1996 thing in this movie. She just looks amazing. the TV that Ed Burns wants back all movie the giant TV I'd say yes when you see TVs like that are you just like what the fuck were they doing 30 years ago yes I remember that we used to have TVs like that but it's not even the TV it's like the concept of needing to go back to get the TV because the TV is so valuable it's so 90s like now it's like obviously just be grabbing a plasma yeah TVs are so cheap and you can just like toss them away and like the fact of that was like I gotta go back for the TV three years later how much did it weigh like he's really carrying it yeah those were heavy I knew how heavy they really were 30 pounds he's holding that TV for like 5 minutes at some point I think it's a good hollowed out I also had somebody driving a cab not an Uber and then this is my favorite one a femme fatale character named Heather we have no Heathers anymore

1:18:09Sean Fennessey:Heathers are gone I have a related one, which is that in this movie, there are young people who are named Connie, Francis, Mickey, and Renee. Renee's another one. Show me a single one of those people under the age of 20 right now. Maybe a Francis. There's probably a Francis. I'm telling you. Maybe that's a family name. Yeah. But I mean, those are... And a Francis who's known as Franny, which I don't... Is that like a Salinger-esque nod? It could be, but I think that the way that they deal with trying to feminize... uh franny and micky well franny and micky but definitely fran right like they franny francis i mean i wrote down all they call him sister they call him none they call him princess barbara they call him dorothy they he's upset that he wasn't the best man at the wedding what man in the history of weddings is upset because he wasn't the best man at the wedding i mean even if it's true that there's one or two this is a feminization this is another one of my takes which is that in this movie he's looking at Woody Allen movies but he's like what if I made Tony Roberts the lead and Woody Allen the sidekick oh yeah and like so he's playing Tony Roberts and his brother's playing Woody Allen I love this

1:19:21Bill Simmons:flood gun dolly butter on my ass lollipops in my mouth the word for something I just enjoy what do you have Sean?

1:19:28Sean Fennessey:I have a really important thing I love to see Irish Americans accurately portrayed on screen as guilt riddled sanctimonious weirdos who've been fucked up by their parents it's just something I enjoy something I relate to that's a good one I figured I figured you might have that one I just think that like is he gay it's just like I just I just even when it's not true I don't even need in this movie I need somebody to be gay Ed Burns is listening to this right now like what the fuck I was just making a movie

1:20:01Bill Simmons:about guys trying to get laid in their mid-twenties what's this guy doing

1:20:04Sean Fennessey:I do think he knows what he's doing the Franny thing is very real where it's like yeah I just think that the movie, I would love to know how far they took his sexuality before. Because the only reason he's straight in this movie and not anything else is because it's almost a plot device. It's the only way to connect Heather to the brothers.

1:20:28Bill Simmons:Do you think they should have done an ending like Pacino shaving and cruising? Mike McGlone just staring in the mirror? It's so funny that you're saying that because I just feel like... Wesley's into it. He's like, yeah, I actually think they should have. If this movie had some... Because this movie came out at a really great time for indie gay movies, right? This movie didn't need to be gay. I'm just saying that gayness is on its mind, right? The perception of what kind of man you are if you do or don't do the following 25 things. So what if... But you're mis... the mid-90s was it was not in the forefront of how anyone was thinking i remember seeing chasing amy in a theater with on a date and not seeing the gay thing at all until she brought it up at the end and then being like what the fuck's going on like literally being blindsided by it like a like a shamalan plot twist i just couldn't i was like what what happened in this movie but but now i watch i'm like how did i miss this there's an hour and a half but it's in the infrastructure of the work itself.

1:21:33You're right,

1:21:34Sean Fennessey:but the problem with, from my experience, the problem with that idea, to literalize it, is he probably would be, if not cast out of his family, they would not have the same dynamic. The sort of the, because his father is such a small-minded person. He's like, borderline bigoted towards Maxine Bonds who might be from the islands. Oh my God, from the islands. But that's real shit, man. I mean, that is the most Long Island thing in this movie.

1:21:57Bill Simmons:That's her best scene in the movie when he's like trying to find out where she's from. Yes. What's the exact line? It's like, yeah, she's from the island. And Edward Burns is like, Rhode Island? Yeah. I mean, that is foreign territory.

1:22:14Sean Fennessey:Mahoney also puts this movie on his back for about 20 minutes. He's like, I got this. Clear out. Don't worry. Oh, yeah. But he does have that moment, though, when he's talking to Francis where he's like, it would be fine if you were. Yeah. It'd be fine if you were. and he has a moment where he's like, but I'm not. Yeah. Right. But I'm not. Right. I don't know. I just have, having had that conversation with people in my life about my, it just seems like, I don't know. I'm relating to this and a whole other. Also, I mean, can I just say, I've had sex with Francis. Do you know what I mean? Like, I've had sex with Francis.

1:22:51That guy. I've had sex with him. Compelling argument. Multiple times. Got it. Like, it's not like, I'm not like grasping at straws. I am also bringing my life experience to this bitch too, boys. I'm just saying. To me, it was an Irish curse,

1:23:07Bill Simmons:but this is a decent counterargument. Yeah, I think it... I always thought it was an Irish curse. Yes. My deep down fear is I can't satisfy this lady who is being satisfied by Papa. Yes. I'm not even... And my wife's in the bathroom with a vibrator. Also, the fear of sex in this movie... is also, it's such a conservative, it's a really conservative movie in this sense too. Yeah,

1:23:32Sean Fennessey:all that stuff is very literally in Brothers McMullen. There are conversations about the hangups about Irish Catholic guys and what they're supposed to, like, you know, McGlone in Brothers McMullen is like, you know, it's almost like if I masturbated as much as I wanted to, I would be banished to hell instantaneously. You know, that stuff is on Burns' mind big time.

1:23:53Bill Simmons:My Floyd Gondali is the gimmick of never seeing the mom which is the advice some movies and TV shows use. I like that. It's just really good. We never see her. There's one time we had to, but we never know what she looks like anything. And it's, I don't know. I appreciate it.

1:24:07Sean Fennessey:I like it too.

1:24:08Bill Simmons:What's age the best? We mentioned Diaz and Aniston. McGlone and Burns is ball busting brothers, but butting heads. I wrote John Mahoney exclamation point. Really enjoy that guy. Yeah. He's no longer with us. He was great. He's always great. I've always wanted to ask you this. where was his say anything Oscar nomination? Like that was a crowded year and I go back 89. So that would have been actually you know Aiello

1:24:41Denzel won that was a year that Morgan Freeman should have been nominated but it was so crazy that he didn't even make the cut. He was in Dauvery with Driving Miss Daisy. Anyway Mahoney should have been

1:24:55Bill Simmons:How do you feel about Dan Aykroyd and driving Miss Daisy getting an Oscar nomination? He took about three people's Oscar nominations. Abomination. Marlon Brando in a dry white season? Oof. I mean, I'm sorry. Oh, my guy, Martin Landau in Crimes of Misdemeanors. Oh, yes. Just watched it. Did you? Little rewatchable scouting. You know that's one of my movies. Oh, I love it. That was the year when I really started to get artsy-fartsy with movies. That was one of my first ones where I was like, here's what Woody's trying to do here. I was like 19 Woody's trying in that scene I'm just like talking out of my ass I watch that movie every two years every three years I watch it because I'm just like am I am I is it is this is this not my hottest take my hottest Woody Allen take is I think that's his best movie oh that's not a hot take at all

1:25:45Sean Fennessey:it's definitely in the conversation it's almost I mean I'm not going to say inarguable but it's got Orbach well it's so good

1:25:51Bill Simmons:we fucking killed her

1:25:52Sean Fennessey:what do you want she's gone the problem's gone the single reason it's so good is because it's both strains of Woody it's very funny starring Woody Allen comedy all the Alan Alda is hilarious in that movie and then the you know the murder plot and the the psychology is is legitimately it's like all the good parts of interiors mapped onto a suspense given given Hitchcock it's so comedy is tragedy

1:26:20Bill Simmons:plus time yeah but he shows in the documentary that is one of the funniest and woody allen's like dying laughing he's putting mussolini in it i love that movie we we gotta do that one it is one i'm putting the audience on crime you've never seen it right no that's that's part of my what's

1:26:39Sean Fennessey:age the the best in the movie is that at this time i do think that new york needed an inheritor of woody allen's throne of his legacy and like there's a lot of people who picked up on it Bombac, Spike Lee, like a lot of people kind of like grab pieces of it, but he's going for, he's going

1:26:55Bill Simmons:for that crown. That's my mom's biggest critique of the rewatchables is that we haven't done a Woody Allen month and I'm like, well, not ruling it out, but there's some complications even in Crimes of Misdemeanors there's a little girl that he's hanging out with, multiple scenes I think it's very doable because you're bringing the problems into the room I think that's why I would have to be like finding a sponsor might be tough but we'll work on it

1:27:20Sean Fennessey:the movies hold up I watched Love and Death last night for a Diane Keaton episode that we're doing I mean the movies hold up they just hold up can I just say the thing about Edward Burns though as a person who loves Woody Allen he does is he doesn't have a crimes and misdemeanors in him

1:27:36Bill Simmons:no because he's yeah he's a nice guy he's he's not dark seems like a good guy is is Burns too is Burns too nice Is Burns too nice? Is he too good a person to...

1:27:49Sean Fennessey:He's got a great life. But he's made 15 films, married to Chrissy Turlington, probably has a beautiful family. Does that... I mean, okay, fine. We're just three schmucks talking about movies on a podcast. He's fucking living the life. He went to Ireland to make that golf movie, and I'm like, that seems like a good idea to me.

1:28:06Bill Simmons:Yeah, I was jealous of that idea. Even in the McMullen sequel, like Tracee Ellis Ross is randomly in that movie for a few scenes she's great yeah she's great and he could just pull out like these great things out of just these random people they pop into those movies but again I think in his in his in his every fiber there's more there there is something you're challenging him there's maybe a big chill for him down the road like his 35th anniversary college movie a couple more the Long Island dad having a rule no woman on the boat that's my life lesson no woman on the boat it's just understood in the 1990s by the way people would have said that and nobody would have questioned it dad said no woman on the boat brothers settling arguments with boxing gloves was my other one anything else?

1:29:00Bill Simmons:what's age the best? I have a question smoking that's my next category The Sean Penn I brought my own pack award for excellence in on-screen smoking. Mike McGlone.

1:29:15Sean Fennessey:I'll tell you, Pete is ripping some heaters, though.

1:29:17Bill Simmons:Pete, I have as well. Aniston, I gave her and Pete combined the Edie Falco and Copland Award for character that got three times hotter when they were smoking.

1:29:26Sean Fennessey:Pete's throwing off some vicious energy. I have a Pete section for later. I've got a lot of movie pet peeves. And I've never smoked a cigarette. I grew up in a house with smokers. I know you guys. I just feel CR like... You smoke?

1:29:39Bill Simmons:I don't smoke, no. Both my parents smoked

1:29:41Sean Fennessey:until I was like 15. CR's gonna come through

1:29:43Bill Simmons:the window right now like the lady in Obsession just come flying through.

1:29:46Sean Fennessey:I've got a camera facing down on us. I call bullshit on 70 % of smoking in movies. Oh, yeah. It's like tooth brushing. It's like nobody's ever done this before, but you're gonna pretend for two hours that you know how? Wesley, this is the secret passion of this podcast. Smoking scenes. you know though who's a great smoker I don't know if she smokes in real life Jennifer Aniston knows how to smoke a cigarette she does smoke in real life

1:30:16Bill Simmons:she does she did for a long time what yeah oh my god well she oh wow she's a fucking hot actress who smokes cigarettes

1:30:24Sean Fennessey:what are you talking about that's never happened but I don't believe Amanda Peet is a smoker in this movie I believe Jennifer Aniston as a smoker in this movie

1:30:32Bill Simmons:I believe in everything Amanda Peet did me too fine fine a captivating presence. Jennifer Anderson smoking in this movie is exquisite. You know what? It's patient and it's just part of what she's doing and she's not thinking about it. No. It's like an extra finger on her hand. But also she takes real drag. She's not puffing. And interestingly, the only person not smoking is Edward Burns. Right. Does he have a cigar at some point? I don't even think he has a cigar in this movie. They should have had Maxine Bond smoke because at least her character would have been doing something. Big Kahuna Burger where best use of food and drink.

1:31:06Bill Simmons:Just a lot of bottled beer in this movie.

1:31:09Sean Fennessey:Yes.

1:31:10Bill Simmons:There's a...

1:31:11Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Is that a Long Island thing? Is it cooler? Long Island and bottles versus drafts? What's going on? I think they're definitely communicating like, this family drinks Budweiser. They drink Budweiser original. Like, that is what they drink. Yeah, it's the first thing you see.

1:31:23Bill Simmons:We drink Big Globe Ultra on the reruns.

1:31:24Sean Fennessey:There's also a very prominent Coca-Cola can right in the middle of Mickey's apartment that's like, I'm America. That's got to be what the character is doing. That might have been an extra 50K. There was one weird beer scene, though, that jumped out to me where at the bar that Hope works at...

1:31:37Bill Simmons:Great bar, by the way. A man named Mickey Fitzpatrick drinks a canned Guinness. An Irish man named Mickey Fitzpatrick. It's a Guinness out of a can.

1:31:45Sean Fennessey:There's an even worse one. Yeah, you would do tap. I'm like, he's not doing that. When they're down on the shore with Jennifer Aniston's parents, Francis is drinking an ice house. And I'm like, in what? I mean, I guess that's what that family would have. I did notice that as well. A little weird. What is ice house?

1:32:00Bill Simmons:It's a low-tier water. Well, relate it. Can I go back to the smoking for one second? What does it mean to smoke Merits? Or smoke... That's the brand here. A lot of cigarette history for me in the 90s. Merits. What do Merits say about you? Merits were like Marlboro Lights, but they lasted a little longer, but same kind of people felt like they were a little better for you than the Marlboro Reds or the hard camels. Basically, the hierarchy was Camelite, Marlboro Light, Merits. And if you're bumming cigarettes off girls outside bars... Merritt's or Marlboro Lights were probably the two that they were going to have.

1:32:38Okay.

1:32:38Bill Simmons:Yeah. Because Merritt is very apparent in this movie. Yeah, Merritt's were good ones. I had a Merritt stage.

1:32:43Sean Fennessey:My dad smoked Parliaments. My mom smoked Winstons. I remember thinking that that was a tough scene. Smaller box on the Merritt's.

1:32:49Bill Simmons:That was always good. Fitting in jeans. Oh, interesting. Not that I'd know. The Great Shot Gordor were most cinematic shot. That shot when they're in the brothers or it's like dusk and they're walking with the water behind them. It's actually like very... The park shot. Yeah, it's a very good shot. I like that.

1:33:06Sean Fennessey:I think also Maxine Bond's leaning forward in the cab and you're getting them in a two shot while he's driving. I was like, this is pretty clever. I don't know if I've seen this before.

1:33:15Bill Simmons:What do we have for the Sean Fentasy Award for stealth homage that gives every movie nerd a criteria orgasm? Sorry, I gotta find it again. A category that was immortalized during Steven Spielberg's appearance. It really was.

1:33:27Sean Fennessey:He was delighted. John Mahoney, Anita Gillette, and Robert Weil all starred together in another New York romance called Moonstruck which this movie is very clearly a kind of continuation of at least in terms of what it's interested in most which is like I think I love that it's like all the Burns movies are about the impossibility and the inevitability of relationships like they're they're all about that and Moonstruck is the same thing it's a perfect I mean it's a much better movie than this movie but I love that he's kind of like tipping his cap towards that. I think his love... I think the other thing that's sort of wonderful and frustrating about him as a filmmaker is he's so clearly ardent about the movies he loves and has been shaped by so many of them.

1:34:23And I didn't even think about that until you said it. I didn't make the connection among all three of those characters. all three of those actors. I don't know. It's very touching. Yeah.

1:34:37Bill Simmons:He loves New York movies. Kid Cudi, Pursuit of Happiness, where Best Needle Drop, the Petty song right after McGlone and Anniston meet Mickey's Bride. And I forgot to mention Tom Petty at the top. Yeah. Who's a huge part of this movie. We got so sidetracked in so many different ways that this Tom Petty part where Tom Petty apparently liked Brothers McMullen, Burns met with him, hey, you might give me a song. and he had just done, what did he do, Wildflowers? Yeah, this is like, it was going to be a double album then it wasn't. He's like, I got all these songs. He's like, what about this one? It was great.

1:35:10Bill Simmons:What about this one? Great. My wife who loves this movie, one of the reasons I'm doing this because it's been on a lot now. It's, it's hard like Tom Petty is the star of the movie. He just keeps popping in. He's in the middle of this

1:35:21Sean Fennessey:incredible resurgence as a star. I mean,

1:35:23Bill Simmons:he was like a massive star on MTV at this time. And his music fits the movie, makes sense. It pops in at the right times. There's not enough of it, though. I wish there were two more songs. There's some flavoring. You know what I mean? There's some petty song flavoring in the score. It's bookended by Walls, which is a great song.

1:35:41Sean Fennessey:It's one of his great 90s hits. But then it doesn't use it as score, really. It just is interstitial music that gets you from one sequence to another.

1:35:50Bill Simmons:It fits into this 90s songs that we're in. Kicking and Screaming had the Freddie Johnson song. I know I got a bad reputation all these like kind of indie a guy like in a guitar like just angsty or like petty I love Freedy Johnson I really haven't thought about that guy in 30 years

1:36:11Sean Fennessey:that was his big hit yeah didn't Petty not write the title song though wasn't it the world party guy who Carl Wallinger I think he wrote She's the One and so Petty is covering I wasn't even thinking about that. And then that led to him doing the whole album?

1:36:32Bill Simmons:That was my take that enraged CR and Yassi more than anything anyone's ever said. About World Party? World Party. The replacements with worst PR. Yassi almost had a stroke. I love that. I'm not.

1:36:43Sean Fennessey:Yassi almost had a stroke. Don't encourage him, please. Listen, Bang, one of my favorite albums. I love Goodbye Jumbo. Great album.

1:36:51Bill Simmons:Great album. How about the Reality Bites song? I mean, great song. When you come back to me, one of the best pop in a movie songs. I'm sorry. Yeah. Just bad PR. Way down now. Way down now? Way down. Yeah, come on. I mean, I love Carl Wallinger. Was there a better title for this movie? I'm going to say no. I like She's the One.

1:37:11Sean Fennessey:Either Irish Goodbye. Irish Goodbye. Or Irish Curse. I love Irish Goodbye. Irish Goodbye. Craig's the king of titles. Those are both better, I think. But now, doesn't Lindsay Lohan have a movie called? Irish Wish. Oh, Irish Wish. Which is not a thing. What is that? It's a movie where she plays a leprechaun. No. For real? No, she goes to Ireland.

1:37:33Bill Simmons:It's like a Christmas. It's a shame to admit I've seen it. It's like a Christmas rom-com. Yeah, my wife watched it. Speaking of, I mean, the queen of Long Island, Lindsay Lohan, of course.

1:37:41Sean Fennessey:You know, this is, it's all connected. Irish Goodbye is a great title. She's from Long Island? Of course, yeah. She's a goddess to those of us who were in our 20s. I like Irish Goodbye. Wesley, you have a flex category.

1:37:52Bill Simmons:What'd you pick? do you remember no okay why don't you just keep moving what uh now you don't need it i'm gonna keep moving okay the butch's girlfriend award for weak link of the film is mike mcglone not wanting to have sex with jennifer anderson in 1995 he's a down cycle you could almost rename the butch's girlfriend to i don't want to have sex with jennifer anderson in 1995 yeah again franny's down cycle could also be a title for this this is an actual quote that's a very spanking the monkey, like, 90s indie American title. He says this about Jennifer Aniston in 1995. It's like you've been driving a 74 Buick your whole life.

1:38:35Bill Simmons:Then you find yourself behind the wheel of a brand new Porsche. It's like, what are you talking about? To her face. Why did Jennifer Aniston

1:38:43Sean Fennessey:want this part? I don't know. It's kind of weird. No, no, no, no. She would not have been... She wasn't... she's got a very complicated relationship to the movies, right? Yeah, she made a lot of bad ones. She quite miraculously never got market corrected, but she was constantly downstream of Julia Roberts, who was still at her peak, and Sandra Bullock, who was getting the don't wants to Julia Roberts. Yeah, but you're leaving out one thing. She was on the biggest show of the last 30 years. But she, but they all, I mean. it's really tough to break out from that but she was so clearly being set up as the person who was gonna continue

1:39:30Bill Simmons:but was Brangelina good or bad for this?

1:39:34Sean Fennessey:I think it was it made her a bigger movie star but she just didn't make good movies she just didn't make good movies she made like 20 bad movies the thing that happened was the movies kept changing I think she was unlucky taste matters man she didn't pick good parts in the beginning and she didn't really pick good parts at the end Where the Millers is solid. Sure. But that's also later. Yeah, and that's her playing off of her sex appeal. Picture perfect. I mean, the mustard movie is what I always call it. It's just, I honestly believe there was, I mean, Meg Ryan was still at her peak. Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts.

1:40:11What was she going to do? Reese Witherspoon took her.

1:40:13Bill Simmons:I think Reese Witherspoon market corrected her as an actress. Probably, but Reese doesn't show up to like 99. I know but that's when Aniston's start like they're trying to push her as a star that's true she's just got too many she can't break through because the walls before her are too formidable like she it just makes sense that it didn't happen

1:40:32Sean Fennessey:the best movie she's ever been in is office space oh well and also the movies are terrible but those horrible bosses movies she's great yeah and those movies are huge she became a big star she's good and we're the Miller she did you know the breakup was a big hit like she did eventually become the thing like you wrote about Out in the 90s, we were just like, when is this going to happen for her? I remember you writing about that. Yes, yes. Because she wasn't picking the right stuff. But she just, I don't know. Unlike our girl, Cameron Diaz, who just made great choices for like 15 years.

1:41:01Bill Simmons:Yeah, she tried stuff. Also, when Cameron Diaz missed, she was back 15 minutes later in something that hit. What's age the worst? We've hit most of this stuff. But there's this whole part where Maxine Bonds is trying to be jealous because he went to the apartment and it's like, oh, my girlfriend's getting jealous. It's just bad. That doesn't work. It is bad. It doesn't work. And the whole thing with her going to France and she might come and Leslie Mann, are you in love with her? Are you not in love with her? I thought I was going. Did you guys have a relationship? It's just, we needed like three more scenes.

1:41:36Bill Simmons:Again, it's like to Sean's point, it's just not psychological enough. It just isn't, you know, because sometimes those Woody Allen movies aren't very deep either. And yet his influences are so much... They come with a psychological complexity.

1:41:57Sean Fennessey:Yeah, it's classical literature. It's Bergman and Fellini. But even when it's those throwaway movies like Melinda and Melinda, which comes after this movie, but I just think that his source materials are so much richer that even when he has no idea why he's making a movie except he too likes to build houses, there's something there that's appealing one way or another and this is his second movie to be fair to Edward Burns it just isn't it doesn't have enough of even an accidental subtext

1:42:33Bill Simmons:and then what's the age of the worst the you could make a case the way you know it's from the male perspective there's a misogynistic case you could go if you want to get excited Well, the things that Mickey is saying to Heather in this movie. I get it. I don't even believe this guy believes those things. I just think he's hurt and lashing out. Yeah. Trying to hurt her back.

1:42:56Sean Fennessey:Because he's not like that to any other character in the movie. Even his brother, who he has a lot of problems with. You can see he has more affection for it.

1:43:02Bill Simmons:What do you have for a flex category?

1:43:05Sean Fennessey:I'll tell you. Hold on. You also can't underrate what it must feel like to feel cuckolded in that masculinity environment. I don't know. I mean, to have everybody else know. It's an elegant segue to my flex category, which is the Dennis Peck relationship test. Yes. You were doing that too? Could Dennis have broken up the main relationship? Of course, Richard Gere from Internal Affairs could break up every single relationship in this movie. I wrote down he would go four for four and hit for the cycle, Dennis Peck. These are facts. Hope, Renee, Heather, John Mahoney's wife. No question. Leslie Mann, you keep going.

1:43:43Bill Simmons:don't let him you know what we're talking about right also Richard Gere in internal affairs also Fran come on well Fran too he could have turned everybody that would have been for sport yeah he would have thrown that in but at what I counted just to say he did it also there are moments in this movie where to me Edward Burns looks like Richard Gere do you know what I mean like there's a there's a

1:44:08Sean Fennessey:dewy squinty pretty boy yeah I mean there is a Gearness to him

1:44:12Bill Simmons:Dennis Peck could have spent three seconds with the Aniston character and be like, hey, why don't we take a walk? Yeah, done deal. Why done? Closed deal. Did they ever work together? Richard Gere and Jennifer Aniston? I don't think so. Richard Gere and Cameron Diaz? Hollywood, what were you doing? What were you doing? Gere didn't make enough movies during that run of where he just should have been Dennis Peck and nine other movies. Yeah. Oh, God. Or that should have been just the TV show spin-off, Dennis Peck. Dennis each week he breaks up somebody's marriage the CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford hottest take award I'll start

1:44:54Bill Simmons:I think skanky smoking hardcore Long Island Amanda Peet is the hottest woman in this movie she is throwing 138 miles an hour which I don't think anyone has ever done before every single moment she's just blowing everyone off the screen. It's unbelievable. Sean, is this how I feel about Blake Lively in the town? She's throwing Ben Shelton serves, is what you're saying here? Is this the ultimate Long Island girl ever? And she's obviously not even from Long Island, but what's going on here?

1:45:26Sean Fennessey:I'm married to a Long Island girl. There's a very special elixir. It's a dangerous elixir. These girls fucked with a lot of my friends over the years. but I mean one obviously I think the ringer writ large we kind of all got a crush on Amanda Peet right Amanda Peet is kind of she's in 100 % approval territory I'm going to our 75th anniversary team I think she'll be but when she's talking like Denise who I went to high school with like using the exact voice that all the girls I went to high school with are using it does kind of get underneath your skin in an exciting way listen I wish I could say I was immune to Amanda to pee but I'm not but I do love listening to men talk about her because you guys get really giddy and it's different from all the other actors Amanda I mean just listening to

1:46:22Bill Simmons:men talk about you know even on your friends and neighbors now like she just doesn't give a shit she'll just she's up for whatever that's what and she's been that way her whole career she's just ready to roll she's up for whatever whatever you want to do straight talking

1:46:34Sean Fennessey:no bullshit evidently intelligent but not uptight or pretentious in any way even she did

1:46:40Bill Simmons:somebody's podcast recently and she I saw the clips from that and it's like she's just even the best at this yeah I would love to see that I've never really experienced her much in the wild like off of what's your number one Amanda Peet thing that jumps to mind when you think of Amanda Peet god that's a good question something's gotta give I don't know yeah whole nine yards good one whole nine yards whole nine yards All nine yards. Because that's what, like, three years later? That's three years after this movie? Yeah. I mean, they really figured out... I mean, this movie is responsible, I think.

1:47:13Launches a lot of ships. Right, right.

1:47:15Bill Simmons:This movie's the 92 Dream Team. They should have made fucking cups. They should have... Oh, my God, Bill! They should have made cups! Oh, the benefit of...

1:47:26Sean Fennessey:I would have wanted, like, a special collector's Connie Britton cup as well. You know, can we just honorarily add Connie Britton to this?

1:47:34Bill Simmons:Burns just has exquisite taste. The Burns Universe cups. Sidewalks to New York Heather Graham. Burns taste in ladies is just super special.

1:47:42Sean Fennessey:Lauren Holly.

1:47:43Bill Simmons:I mean, the Ed Burns collector cups. He's like really tapped right into the cortex of my brain. He got her at her moment. I knew her from the soaps. Lauren Holly was my girl from All My Children. He made this movie about divorced people in their 50s that, of course, I saw. because I support Ed Burns. Miller's The Marriage, right? Yeah. Yeah, I saw it.

1:48:03Sean Fennessey:It's interesting. It's kind of bad, but kind of good.

1:48:05Bill Simmons:Who's the... Exactly. But it's, I want to say Gretchen Maul. Gretchen Maul's in it, yeah. And she plays like an ex-indie rock star. Gretchen Maul. Another one. Just like, we all know what happened, right? Yes. But the tragedy is every time you see her in something, you're like, God damn it. Yeah.

1:48:27Sean Fennessey:She did good stuff in the 2000s too when she got kind of free from some of that baggage. Oh, gosh. Is it Julianna Margulies as well in that movie too? Yes, yes. Where he's like, actually, remember, she's really hot. Don't forget, she's hot too. Like, he just has a weird radar.

1:48:41Bill Simmons:The thing with Gretchen Maul, she was in the American Gigolo TV series with Bernthal that only me and Mallory watched. Oh, I watched it. I mean, again, like, I'll watch... Gretchen Maul was great in that. I'll watch it do anything. All right, we'll keep going. Unless you have a hottest take you want to unleash.

1:48:58Sean Fennessey:I have one.

1:48:59Bill Simmons:Okay.

1:48:59Sean Fennessey:If Edward Burns hired a better co-writer, he'd be Noah Baumbach right now.

1:49:05Bill Simmons:Yeah, I don't even know how hot that is. I think you're right.

1:49:09Sean Fennessey:I agree. There was an opportunity for him to go right into that space. And he is a little held back by what I will describe as something that I find very relatable, which is like, he's just a little normie. You know, the same way that I was like, you know what? I'm going to get married. I'm looking forward to getting married. I'm looking forward to buying a house. Like there's something kind of bred into you on Long Island about a very comfortable, regular lifestyle. And he never gets too uncomfortable. Whereas Baumbach, when he's at his best, he's like, you know what? I'm going to show you the worst fucking side of every person I've ever met that is super special.

1:49:42Sean Fennessey:And if he could have tapped into that, he would have been a much bigger and more interesting filmmaker.

1:49:45Bill Simmons:So Ed Burns wouldn't have had a scene of somebody smearing their semen onto library books? No. The answer is no, Bill. That's exactly what I'm talking about. if we had introduced Joe Esterhaus to Ed Burns in like 1995 magic would have happened but he saw those movies too and he made a choice he did right like I mean there's a world where if I really wanted to be a filmmaker I'm probably well I don't know what I'm doing but I'm definitely bringing more jagged edge into whatever it is than Woody Allen that's why you love From Hell Month so much I'm sorry we left you at it From Hell Month you don't live here I didn't need to be part of that because I felt like That was one of the great Ringer rewatchable months of my life.

1:50:31Sean Fennessey:We got the rare text from Wesley on domestic disturbance. He was like, gentlemen, thank you. That was great. I mean, I'm holding for, what's the one in my queue that I haven't listened to yet? Pacific Heights. Pacific Heights. I mean, terrible movie. Domestic disturbance.

1:50:46Bill Simmons:My texts were half, I can't believe you did that movie, and half, thank you for doing that movie. Which I think summed it up. Casting with ifs. Byrne said for the two lead female roles This was from his book Independent Ed Between LA and New York we auditioned Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez Heather Graham, Amanda Peet, Ann Hatch Lauren Hill and Jennifer Garner Stop it Lauren Hill? And Jennifer Garner Basically everybody wanted to be in Ed Byrne's second movie I have some hot actress parts That's what I'm saying about Anderson He was a thing He was a thing.

1:51:24Sean Fennessey:Lauren Hill and Jennifer Lopez just did my head in in this movie.

1:51:29Bill Simmons:Jennifer Lopez playing the Cameron Diaz character would not have been interesting. Intriguing. Right. No. Yeah. Would have worked. And then the other thing he said, Amanda Redford, Renee's sister, came in with her hair teased, chewing gum, speaking with a thick Long Island accent. I said, that girl's great. She's the real deal. She's like the girls I grew up with. And the casting director said, that's all I put on. That's not her accent. She's from New York City. She graduated from Columbia. And they're like, she's got it. But yeah, she just did it. Legend.

1:51:59Sean Fennessey:Just trailing off thinking about her.

1:52:01Bill Simmons:And then for the theme song, they tried to get the wallflower of Sixth Avenue heartache. Oh, another banger. A fucking banger of the song before they went down the petty road. But that, you could have put all the wallflower songs in there and this movie works. Stronger on you. Stronger on me. And it's on the knee. So then he has the old Tom Petty thing and Ed Burns wrote, So he gets all of these songs from Tom Petty and he writes, this was as good a start as you can have in Hollywood. I thought this was always how it was going to be. Oh. Fade to commercial.

1:52:36Sean Fennessey:That's heartbreaking. He tells a story about getting pulled aside immediately after the Q &A at the first screening of the Brothers McMullen. And he said there were people lined up out the door of the theater, all along the theater. And that once, I guess maybe a friend or representation came over to him and they were just like, don't, you have to realize it will never be like this again. That this is the absolute peak of this kind of experience. So cherish this moment in real time. And, you know, that was kind of true.

1:53:04Bill Simmons:I have a question. Sage Steele said that to me during NBA countdown once.

1:53:09Sean Fennessey:And was she right?

1:53:11Bill Simmons:No, kidding. I have a question. I mean, I guess this is a, this is a, like, I guess this might be unanswerable. This might be going later. Is this for the movie? It's for the movie. But I mean, it's not related. It's kind of in the zone of what we're talking about here. Like, I just wonder what his... Does he talk about Saving Private Ryan in Independent Ed? Yeah, they talked about he's trying to establish he can also be a leading actor. Because they felt like that. Basically, but he's doing it because they're like, this will help your movies. How are your profiles as an actor? But did he learn anything from spending all that time on the greatest American...

1:53:45He did.

1:53:45Bill Simmons:He writes about that. Yeah, he did. Okay. Because I just would love to know more about that. Best that guy award? it honestly might be Mike McGlone I think most people know him just as the guy from these movies and might not even know what his name is

1:53:59Sean Fennessey:I have two people Robert Weill well I'll get to him in a second Robert Weill who is Mr. DeLuca the hardware store owner he's in Moonstruck Saturday Night Fever and then Malachi McCourt the chauffeur oh sure who is in Brewster's Millions he is Frank McCourt and D 'Angelo's Ashes author's brother. And the McCourt brothers are, you know, a very famous group of guys, you know, storytellers. They all wrote memoirs. They were kind of fixtures in New York City for a long period of time.

1:54:34Bill Simmons:Dion Waiters, we have Frank Vincent, Leslie Mann, or Amanda Peet.

1:54:39Sean Fennessey:I have Frank Vincent and Amanda Peet. What do you have, Craig? I think it's Pete. I think it's Pete. I think it's Pete. Great. I mean, but I just will pour one out for Frank Vincent because he just is so... Like, he's never been asked to not kill somebody or not threaten to kill somebody. And yet that energy, he's bringing that energy to this part and it's all aimed at whether Francis has what it takes to be with his little girl. The part, the second scene that he's in where he's like, this down cycle nonsense. I've been with your mother for 35 years. Never had a down cycle in my life.

1:55:18Bill Simmons:Every morning. the daughter's like, no! It's great stuff. Recasting Couch Director City. I mentioned how Leslie Mann's switch roles with Maxine were probably better off. What if I gave you the mother of Jennifer Aniston and Amanda Pete in this movie, Susan Sarandon, just for kicks and giggles? Oh, no. Then you're tipping it over into like, it's too much. Because the movie came out the year after she won the Oscar. Like, you're just completely changing. How about Kathleen Turner? Oh. This is after Serial Mom. How about a little Diane Keaton? Great movie. That's Marvin's Room era, Diane Keaton. Too much.

1:55:59A little too waspy, I think. I was just trying to think of somebody who would be a name. How about Talia Shire? No. Oh, interesting. Interesting. Now I've caught your attention.

1:56:09Sean Fennessey:Talia Shire as Jennifer Anderson and Amanda Peet's mom. I'm kind of into that. That's interesting. Because the thing that's great about this movie is nobody is too big at this point to tip the movie over. That was a very Bill Simmons poll. How about Talia Shire as the third recommendation? Yeah, that's good.

1:56:26Bill Simmons:She could have been really mad at the end because the dad killed Mike McGlone. I know you did this. Oh, Craig, you have a flex, but you already did it? It was Peck. It was Peck just cleaning up on all the beta males in this movie. Half-faceted research, we did all of it. Apex Mountain Eddie Burns. Ed Burns, yes. Oh, yeah. Maxine Bonds, Baines, yes. Amanda Peet, no. Mike McGlone, yes. Yes. Yeah. Cameron Diaz, no. No. John Mahoney, no. Although, he's on Frasier in this era.

1:57:05Sean Fennessey:He's kind of at his… It's already happened. Consistent apex. It's already happened. Isn't 96 also Primal Fear? Season Primal Fear he plays. Yep. Maybe it was his apex. Yeah.

1:57:18Bill Simmons:Long Island just in general is this Apex Mountain

1:57:22Sean Fennessey:for Long Island

1:57:23Bill Simmons:yeah what is Apex Mountain for Long Island Sean

1:57:25Sean Fennessey:I would have to say not when Colin Jost bought the fucking ferry like 80 81 82 when the Islanders go for three in a row and the Islanders win the trio Stanley Cups oh interesting four Stanley Cups excuse me that right that time

1:57:41Bill Simmons:right after Amityville Horror that's a little bit after that

1:57:45Sean Fennessey:yeah Amityville Horror is not.

1:57:47Bill Simmons:Amityville Horror comes out in 79, then the Islanders go on and run.

1:57:51Sean Fennessey:It's pretty good times. Amityville Horror is not related to Apex Mountain, though. That's a bad thing that happened. Like, that's not. That's the only reason I ever wanted to go to Long Island. To see the house. I mean, Nancy Meyers. Oh. Something's got to give. Is that something's got to give, or is it? No. Yeah, something's got to give. No. It's the, isn't the Meryl Streep one? Meryl Streep. It's complicated. It's complicated. Isn't that Long Island? Am I crazy? Something's got to give us Long Island. You can't remember what I'm saying. Oh, no, you're right. You're right. I think something's got to give it.

1:58:16If we don't know, the answer is no. Something's got to give us the Hamptons. It's complicated as Santa Barbara.

1:58:21Sean Fennessey:Right. So here's the thing. The Hamptons is not Long Island. Like, the Hamptons is on Long Island, but that's not a Long Island movie. You know what I mean? It's culturally different.

1:58:29Bill Simmons:So Long Island not claiming the White Party with Michael Rubin.

1:58:32Sean Fennessey:No. And like, if the Fitzgerald family in this movie doesn't go to the Hamptons, they go to Montauk. Right. There's a big difference. They can't afford to go to the Hamptons. These are blue-collar people.

1:58:42Bill Simmons:I was so confused by this whole part of New York that one time on the internets, I went on and I looked at a map to try to really figure out where everything was. Because I was just, it's like, Long Island's here, Brooklyn's here. You've really... But Long Island's not part of the Hamptons. I look at a Long Island map once a month. I landed in New York and people are like, go that way and this, and I just... Well, that's the thing. So I actually had to figure it out in my head where everything was.

1:59:06Sean Fennessey:Yeah, Brooklyn is part of the contiguous island, but it's not a part of what's delineated as Long Island, The Hamptons is officially part of Long Island and Suffolk County, but nobody would ever consider it that. It's its own thing. It's its own thing. Plus, we haven't even talked North Shore, South Shore, which, you know, you could read that in F. Scott Fitzgerald. You can also read it in Nelson DeMille novels in my dad's house. Like, there's a whole, it's a subculture. It's like the Hamptons with, is like Brentwood here.

1:59:32Bill Simmons:Right. It's here, but it's fucking over there. It's not really. For people like Craig. It's for the elite. Yeah. Yeah. In my apartment, yeah. Brentwood's way down there Okay Couple more categories And then we'll go The Ed Norton Reverse Dunk Award For did this movie Need a random sports scene I can't believe There's no trip To a Knicks game Can I offer you You know what I mean Can I offer you An Islanders game Can I offer you A par 3 9 hole Something Golfing event Something Can I offer you A pick up basketball game Where they're on different teams Where does this family play? I'll bet you they shot one of these.

2:00:12He's from Valley Stream.

2:00:14Sean Fennessey:Right? So I'm trying to think of what golf course. I mean, would he play at the Dixills public golf course? I mean, yeah, I guess. But Beth Page is like, that's a once a year. I like golf. And they wouldn't be that good at it. Got a spring for it. For the Muni course. Smoking cigars. It's really hard. These guys probably suck at golf. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I just wouldn't. They definitely are not good at golf. They're not good. They like playing at school. Get there! Yeah, exactly. A lot of those. What's wrong with me?

2:00:39Bill Simmons:All right, a couple more. Cruiser Hanks?

2:00:43Sean Fennessey:It's both of them, obviously. It's Hanks. Hanks is Mickey and Tom is Fanny. Oh, God. Yeah. Oh. I had Cruiser. It's 1996?

2:00:53Bill Simmons:I had Cruiser as Mike McGlone. Yeah, no doubt. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Can you? Just being agonized. I'm torn, though.

2:01:03Sean Fennessey:Did Edward Burns need to be the star of his movies? That's another interesting question. I like Ed Burns. I do too.

2:01:10Bill Simmons:He needed a writer for the Ed Burns scenes to come in. He needed William Goldman to come in and just rewrite. This is a great question.

2:01:17Sean Fennessey:But if he decides what I'm going to do is I'm going to write parts for movie stars. Yeah. Instead of I'm going to make Woody Allen movies where it's kind of my world of people that I star in. Are things different? If he could have kept getting... If he could have kept pulling what he pulled here, right? And the way everybody wanted to work with Woody Allen. or if he had a Diane Wiest or a Judy Davis somebody who could come in on any movie he needs them to come in on and just dunk dunkity dunk dunk dunk

2:01:47Bill Simmons:yeah or Mia Farrow or Mia Farrow for a while anyway I mean she's in Crimes and Misdemeanors I mean she's I mean and also just like under everything about Mia Farrow as an actor has become to me underrated and I think that the way she functions in a lot of the Woody Allen movies is especially underappreciated. Next category is the Catherine Tramiel would you throw your life away for this obvious stay away word. I just wrote yes and then I put in parentheses fill in whatever I think four of them.

2:02:22Sean Fennessey:Aniston is not a stay away. She seems like a really down to earth cool girl in the movie. Her character. Her character's not weird. She has a vibrator I guess. The others you know.

2:02:32Bill Simmons:You're getting Frank Vincent with her though. Good point. Amanda Peay's character. You go straight to the follow-up. No, but the obvious one, Cameron Diaz is the one for this. They kind of balance each other out. Cameron Diaz, would you throw your lap for it? Also, can I just raise an interesting question here? Like, I think the more interesting movie here would have been if Mike McGlone was sleeping with Amanda Peay. Why is he not sleeping with Amanda Peay? That should have been the last 20 minutes. That's the missing scene in this movie. I had that in unanswerable questions. When did he start fucking Amanda Peet?

2:03:06Bill Simmons:And it's probably the sequel of this movie.

2:03:08Sean Fennessey:Well, that's when he gets murdered by Frank Vincent. Yeah. And that would be the end of that.

2:03:11Bill Simmons:And Frank kills him. Then it's a From Hell movie, right? Then it's like... It's the father-in-law. He would have been almost as mad as... Yeah. It's the father-in-law. Almost as mad as when Vito came out of the closet. In season five of Sopranos. Season six, whatever. Yeah. Oh, Vito, Vito. Poor Vito. What was his name? Poor Vito. Johnny Cakes? Johnny... Vito and Johnny Cakes. Yeah, Johnny Cakes. Made a hell of a pancake.

2:03:34Sean Fennessey:man almost time for a Sopranos rewatch can't wait the greatest thing we've produced picky nits

2:03:41Bill Simmons:a drifter cab driver just got married in 24 hours but now he's drawing the line and maybe moving to Paris with his new bride I think this is another important thing to say about what what Edward Burns just doesn't have an interest in doing right that question slash sentence is like that movie whatever that movie is is not this movie, right? That movie sounds weird and dangerous and cute. I mean, but not cute at all. It sounds like something freaky could happen. Yeah. This is not... The exploration of the relationships here do not have a capacity for very human things like darkness, fetish,

2:04:28Sean Fennessey:real sexual risk. Well, it's like you were saying. It's just like some of the other stuff. it's a device. Like him getting married in 24 hours to a girl that he doesn't know is just a way to get his character to a different place and to draw this other because he just seems least interested in that relationship the dynamics of it the threat of what it is or is not to other people.

2:04:49Bill Simmons:He definitely got bored of her about eight states and was like fuck. Wish we hadn't gotten married. Why didn't Cameron Diaz's character have better choices than an old sugar daddy and a married Long Island goon? I need to see the sugar daddy though. There wasn't one more guy she could have met at a bar and been like, hey, how about this guy? We need to see the guy. How did the creepy hardware store guy steal John Mahoney's wife? Great question.

2:05:14Sean Fennessey:I think he's very loving and affectionate and shows her the attention that she needs at this time in her life. I love that detail. That, to me, is my favorite detail in this movie. And it's proof that he is a good writer. It's nice and specific. It's just like the great story that he tells in Brothers McMullen about how his mother goes back to Ireland to be with her beloved. it that's a great moment in McMullen too he does have this kind of Irish storyteller it's almost like he's better writing about older people than the people that are his age I also think that the mother thing is kind of the unexplored dimension in his work somehow and I don't know if it's like that work is being worked out through the the the way these characters are being deployed is really about the mother relationship I don't know he does tell a story about getting to introduce his mom to Robert Redford and that being a real thrill when he's got McMullen at Sundance

2:06:03Bill Simmons:Heather just married Papa in the morning out of nowhere so yeah I got married this morning we don't know she really did it oh we don't know she really did it interesting I mean she's done so many other underhanded sneaky things we don't know she really did it any other nitpicks

2:06:20Sean Fennessey:no there is that there's a paragraph in Ebert's review that features like five consecutive plot logic character motivation questions that is just like Like, he just kind of takes the movie down fully with that one graph. Even though I find this movie incredibly enjoyable. It's not, it doesn't really hold up to investigation. What does he ask? And then, one of the ones that Bill just asked. The sort of like, this guy who's a cab driver met this girl 24 hours later. You know, that whole thing is just, it's so undeveloped.

2:06:51Bill Simmons:Not to mention driving. She's going to fly. She has a plane ticket. She's like, I'd much rather drive with you from New York to, where was it? New Orleans? It's a long fucking flight. That's like 15 hours. How does Mickey afford that apartment?

2:07:03Sean Fennessey:You know, like, what are these guys' lives?

2:07:07Bill Simmons:Sequel, prequel, prestige, TVL, Blackcast, or Untouchable. This is an Apple TV show in 2026. Oh, yeah. I don't think there's any question. Is this movie better than Wayne Jenkins, Fergie the Florist, St. Louis, Robert Evers, Dr. Charles Nichols, Ted Levine, or someone else? I have Sean Fantasy as the third Fitzpatrick brother here. 13 year old Sean

2:07:30Sean Fennessey:yeah looking up to these idiot older brothers you know it's interesting this guy's my hero having a little brother having an even littler brother here I was wishing for some for there to be some Seanny go start up the boat hold on dad

2:07:46Bill Simmons:I'm finishing this Woody Allen movie where were the Lucas Hedges of like 1996 that would have been good he could have like flirted with Amanda Pete yeah I just feel like there is a character you make a run in Amanda Pete no question yes he would have you think it better than me Amanda Pete yeah somehow there's a character missing here

2:08:04Sean Fennessey:yeah that's interesting

2:08:05Bill Simmons:you could have made it I'm gonna clock that thank you just one Oscar who gets it Cameron Diaz

2:08:10Sean Fennessey:I wrote down Mike McGlone I don't even care I just I absolutely love Franny I can't disagree with anything Wesley's saying I'm not saying he's the best actor of all time he's doing he's like he's in a Preston Sturgis movie He's doing a big comic broad performance. And it's funny. I think he's really funny. No, I mean, I think the also more than, I mean, I think the thing that I love about Mike McGlone and Edward Burns is like, they really are in a way we'll never probably have again. These real archetypal continuations of the beginning of the movies, or at least Hollywood movies. Like they belong in the 30s.

2:08:51They belong in the 40s. and I don't know. I mean, I don't know what Edward Burns knows about himself, but I think the thing he's trying to avoid is being pigeonholed as a person responsible for visually being on that continuum, right? Like performing that. But it's very satisfying to experience McGlone as a person who really knows that there is like a hundred movies he could have been in if he was born in 1919 instead of, you know, 1970 or whatever.

2:09:34Bill Simmons:Zouan, oh, yeah. Zouan Neoward, what happened the next day? I think, I don't think Ed Burns and Maxine Bond stay together in real life or in this movie. Hope and Mickey break up. That's what I wrote down. Probably unanswerable questions. I only wrote down one. Was Ed Burns a good actor? yes in this movie or was Ed Burns a good actor

2:09:55Sean Fennessey:I think he is a good screen presence I think you like watching him I think he's a little hard to root for because he doesn't let himself be flawed enough or weird enough you know I think he needed the pressure I would say you know I lost I had a oh I wrote it down the last movie he's only acted for himself since 2012

2:10:18Bill Simmons:well he has not been in anybody else's movies but directed by anyone yeah right yeah so i think that in the way that you wonder what things would have been like had he worked with another with if his co-writer had been did you say noah bombach no i said he could have been in that no he could have right if he had the right co-writer co-writer i think it'd be interesting if he were interested in if acting were a thing that were important to him and i don't know that it is or isn't but he clearly doesn't do it as often as he's doing the directing himself but what if he just kept working what if like once a year he just made a movie with one of the great directors well he's in the holiday right yes and he's playing

2:11:05Sean Fennessey:kind of a dirt bag in the holiday and it's like Nancy Miner sees him and she sees a guy who's made all the mistakes he lets her like control him Yes. And he doesn't do that to himself in his movies. He's always a little bit more genteel.

2:11:21Bill Simmons:I think the answer is yes. It's a little unanswerable though because we've never seen him test himself. It wasn't like he's like, I'm making this movie. It's talented Mr. Ripley. I'm going to play Tom Ripley. No, he doesn't do that. Yeah, like he just, there's a level he couldn't have gone to. But what if he did want that? I don't know.

2:11:36Sean Fennessey:What did you have for an answer, bro? He's such a fascinating person. Did you have one? Did Ed Burns blow it by failing to stick with McGlone? And then does this movie love or hate women? is something that I think is like an open question. It's got a very uneasy relationship with... Uneasy.

2:11:50Bill Simmons:I think that's just the mid-90s. But how old is he in this movie? 27, 28 range, yeah. I mean, so he's just really become developmentally an adult. I think that there is... I mean, it's important to me. Like, how old are the people making my art when they're making it? Because it matters. because it means you are primed to see the world a particular way.

2:12:16Sean Fennessey:It's true, but it's a movie that's called She's the One, but it doesn't answer the question of who is the one. The one what, though? The one what?

2:12:23Bill Simmons:So he's 27 when he made the movie, 28 when it was released.

2:12:27Sean Fennessey:If we assume that it's the romantic one, the final one, and the movie ends with him and his wife on a boat together, who is his real-life girlfriend, and they break up within a year of this movie being made, it kind of undercuts a lot of the ideas in the movie too. The actual story

2:12:43Bill Simmons:is not as exciting. He just really liked the Bruce Springsteen song. Right. He thought it would be a good title. Right. Do you think

2:12:49Sean Fennessey:The Fighting Fitzgeralds is better?

2:12:51Bill Simmons:Yes. I don't mind she's the one, but Irish Goodbye was the best one. Irish Goodbye is great. Fighting Fitzpatrick's is too close to Brothers McMullen, I'm assuming, so they just found something. Memorability you'd want from this movie other than the TV, maybe the fishing rods? I don't know. Boxing Gloves. Boxing Gloves is good. Okay. The Watch. The Watch. to watch. Hello. Thank you, Craig. Finstock Miyagi, Best Worst Life Lesson. Where the down cycle would you have? No women on the boat. No women on the boat.

2:13:18Sean Fennessey:Don't get all sensitive on me now, Barbara.

2:13:22Bill Simmons:Double feature choices, Brothers McBowen. Look what I wrote down. Crimes of misdemeanors. Wow. Interesting. Say more about that.

2:13:33Sean Fennessey:I mean, I wrote this down last night. I didn't write this down when you were talking about it. I think that he's trying to do a dramedy in this movie. And he's struggling with the drama. Somebody needs to die. Yeah. Somebody needs to die. Cameron Diaz needs to... I mean, at the end of the day, we love that she doesn't suffer and she's the winner of the movie. Oh, sorry. I don't know if I want to step on who won the movie. But like, no. That's our next category. And that's really the question. He's trying to do something that has gravitas and has laughs. Crimes and Misdemeanors is the ultimate movie that has those two things working.

2:14:10I love that. I would go... I would stay in the era and I would pair this with Walking and Talking. Nicole Hall centers a movie with Anne Heche and Catherine Keener about two friends. This is in each other movie. It's a good one. I haven't seen that one in a while. He makes each other movies, right? Like, we are here for each other. We need each other. If I don't have you, I don't know who I am. We can have a fight

2:14:36Bill Simmons:and we'll be together in the next scene again like it didn't happen. It doesn't matter because we've got each other. So you had Diaz winning the movie? Cameron Diaz is your winner. I had Diaz as well but I really agonized about McGlone or Tom Petty because I think you could make a case for either. I think there's also a case to say Edward Burns won the movie because he got look what he did. Look what he did. Look what this movie did. So long term Ed Burns short term Cameron Diaz short term Cameron Diaz long term I think Edward Burns is your winner.

2:15:05Sean Fennessey:I think Edward Burns made a movie for a major studio with these huge stars, or would soon be huge stars. Would soon be huge stars. That really kind of confirms him. And whether you like or don't like the next 13 movies he makes, he's been in the firmament of American moviemaking for a long time now. And he's still making movies. Also, he's making movies about people that barely have a cinema. Do you know what I mean?

2:15:34Bill Simmons:Everyone in Long Island and the Hamptons. But this was the thing with the brothers McMullen, though. Nobody got my joke. Wait, what did you say? I said he's making movies for everyone in Long Island and the Hamptons. I forgot.

2:15:44Sean Fennessey:I had one last take on this, which is like the Long Island Director Hall of Fame. Oh, please. I can't even. I don't know if I could do this. So, I mean, there's one who stands. Are there porn directors in this? No. Just straight through. I didn't go that deep. Okay. I didn't go all that deep in general, literally or figuratively. but I mean Francis Ford Coppola of course is number one he's from Long Island? Francis Ford Coppola graduated from North Grade Neck High School now he went to military school stick with Sean Fennessey I think he was born in Detroit because his father played in an orchestra that was funded I think by Ford Motors but he mostly grew up on Long Island it's a good number one number two I mean it's John Cassavetes born in New York City but mostly grew up on Long Island number three is Apatow hmm who's from Cyosset, owned it proudly, has had an amazing career, one of the most influential people the last 30 years in movies.

2:16:40Sean Fennessey:Burns, Hal Hartley, who is kind of the flip side of Ed Burns. Where in Long Island is he from? That's a good, Lindenhurst. Okay. He's from Lindenhurst. And a lot of these guys are from like the Five Towns area, Nassau County, not really my neck of the woods. Hal Hartley's a great one because that's in the movies. And Hal Hartley and Edward Burns are like these kind of weird mirror images of each other. You know, like all the stuff that we wish Ed Burns has, Hal Hartley has. Hal Hartley's doing and like overdoing. And Hal Hartley could maybe use a little bit of what Ed Burns has. And then the last couple, Ted Demme.

2:17:12Oh.

2:17:13Sean Fennessey:Who is a really good filmmaker who died very young. Howard Deutsch. And the famed artist Cindy Sherman who directed one movie. Wait, she's from? She's from Long Island as well. And Jack Horner. Well, she's out and she's a Hamptons person. Jack Horner.

2:17:29Bill Simmons:Jack Horner for Boogie Nets it's the best film I've ever made it's the one they're going to remember he feels like he's where was Jack Horner from

2:17:38Sean Fennessey:do you think Jack was from like Ohio and he invented himself as Jack Horner in Los Angeles or was he like born and bred in the valley

2:17:47Bill Simmons:no because he was late 50s probably you're not living in the valley in like 1951 when are we going to re-boogie we did two parts

2:17:57Sean Fennessey:I'm ready to go right now. It's the 30th. Oh my God, guys. I'll do it every year. I'll do it every year.

2:18:03Bill Simmons:You know what was funny? I was thinking for the 30th anniversary, if we just blind, nobody was allowed to prep. I don't even have an iPad. You should have tricked us. If we just go, and we just try to do it.

2:18:13Sean Fennessey:You should have pulled the come over to my house. I want to do something trick. Maybe I will. I don't even know. Blind boogie nights. Is this even, why are you making it seem like this would be like a hard thing to do? It would be so easy. It just, it's like. It really wouldn't be hard at all.

2:18:25Bill Simmons:I could have done it with She's the One.

2:18:26Sean Fennessey:So if I could do it with She's the One.

2:18:28Bill Simmons:This is going to be the saddest part of the podcast when Craig gives his take on She's the One. Oh, boy. Here we go. I just want to say I did enjoy listening to you all talk about what it meant to you guys when this movie came out, exploring the themes, the pieces of the film that you appreciated. Oh, my God. I'm about to get a deal. What a windup that was. I wrote down two things. I wrote, From Hell Month continues with the script from hell. And then I wrote, Ah, to be a tall, decent-looking white man in the 90s with a little bit of talent. I mean, so not a fan. I don't know. I mean, look. This might have been a You Had to Be There movie.

2:19:04I watched it with Liz, and I just felt— I don't disagree with you guys that, like, the themes are interesting and are, like, fun to talk about. I genuinely just felt like the writing and the acting in this movie is, like, just pretty clunky and blocky. And it was just, like— It just—it didn't really land. I don't know if it's because I'm viewing it more from, like, the objective.

2:19:22Bill Simmons:Wow. This might be his least favorite of the year. I'm like, I have no relationship to this time, this place, these people, like any of it really. So it's like 30 years later when you don't have the attachment of your whole, you know, like we are viewing it from completely different prisms.

2:19:37Sean Fennessey:But like you literally had to be in Valley Stream on Long Island to get this movie in some ways. In some ways. I mean, I don't know. Cause I am, I am with Craig. I just feel like the thing that would, well, there are two reasons that I was excited to talk to you guys about of this movie. One is I love I mean, I love listening to straight men talk about women period. It's just when it's like legit and from the heart. You love authentic talk. I just, I enjoy it because they're...

2:20:11Bill Simmons:Like my Dream Team Cups analogy that was really why you flew across country to do this pod. Like top five bills. Okay, great. Thank you. It's a fun movie to chew on.

2:20:21Sean Fennessey:I don't disagree with that. it's great because it's a cosmology movie, right? It's about, it's the constellation of stars and how they all fit together. Like it sets up so many good discussion points. But I'm being dead serious when I say, I legitimately think that McGlone saying, what does he say? You're an ugly fuck. I pity you. Like I legitimately laugh at that every time he says it. There's a couple of good lines. I like when Anderson and him get, when he's like, I'm having an affair and I want to get divorced. And she just goes, who is he? Who is he? Yeah. Who is he? And she plays it really flat.

2:20:54I thought that was really good. No, she's great. I mean, that's a great moment.

2:20:57Bill Simmons:Craig, I get it. We didn't expect you to like this one. No. I'm not even positive I liked it when I saw it in the theater, but it just kind of grew on me. I really think it's not great. I also think that the moment in time of it is... I just like revisiting this moment. And that's why we had to do the podcast. Thinking about Edward Burns and what he means, what he meant. the place he occupies that nobody else... There just is nobody like him. You know what it would be if it was NBA? It would be the Twitter montage of Ed Byrne highlights where it would be like, Ed Byrne was a problem! It would be all the best parts of his movies.

2:21:34Bill Simmons:It's all shots of him walking through

2:21:37Sean Fennessey:parks with the hottest actresses of the late 1990s. He's got a great eye for talent. The really unkind way of framing this is that you mentioned those indie stars and kind of that group of people who came before him. And all of those people, in one sense or another, were really transgressive and complicated, like filmmakers who made violent movies or these really frank movies that had these hard, dark themes. And Edward Burns was the logical conclusion of that time because he was the guy who movie executives felt most comfortable wrapping their arms around and saying, I want to have my own Woody Allen.

2:22:14Sean Fennessey:I want to have my safe, handsome, East Coast neuroses movie. And this kind of also signals the end of that era. The era of Sunday Night's Day just kind of ends with Edward Burns in a way. And if you hear Tom Rothman talk about getting Brothers McMullen and how much it meant to him, there's an interview with him on the Brothers McMullen Blu-ray. You know, he's like, this is like him discovering Dennis Hopper or something. He's like, I found the next great voice. And I do think that that plays a big part in kind of understanding the context and why these movies took off.

2:22:52Bill Simmons:You made the key point, though. You talk about some of the other guys we mentioned in the indie film high school, the seniors and the juniors. Like, Baumbach made a bunch of weird movies after kicking and screaming. Like, it took him a while, and he really took all kinds of chances all over the place. Oh, some truly strange Soderbergh. Same thing. Oh, yeah. he goes into like he's just all over the place Ed Barnes was like I can throw this splitter I can get it over in the strike zone 98 % of the time and this is my pitch and I'm gonna throw it I also think that there is a kind of he's resisting something too right like this this movie Brothers McMullen comes out during this like very important this other very important moment for American independent movies which is the Scuzz era right And there's no world in which a different, like, Schmedward Schmerz isn't out here doing, like, you know, rape, rob, and drive away.

2:23:53No. 15 times.

2:23:55Sean Fennessey:No. Right? But he is so determined to uphold this other value system. He's raised in the Catholic Church. He goes to church every Sunday, just like I did. And he loved Woody Allen. Yeah, and he loved Woody Allen.

2:24:04Bill Simmons:Just wanted to capture New York and relationships and people walking outside talking about stuff.

2:24:08Sean Fennessey:Walking outside. Well, I think Brothers McWhellen is 75 % exteriors so he didn't have to pay for lights, which I thought was such a great idea that he had no money. That movie cost$20 ,000. He had no money to pay for lighting.

2:24:20Bill Simmons:Well, we learned today that Ed Burns is maybe underrated, maybe properly rated, or maybe overrated. I will say one other thing. We learned that this movie had a bunch of great-looking females in it, and we learned that Craig doesn't care about independent film. That's right. So the three things we've learned. He's not a supporter of just people in their mid-20s just trying to catch a break. We gave it an earnest try, Liz and I, and halfway through we're like, I just don't think this is landing. I'll just say one other thing. I respect it. I buried a very important leader. It's not that important, but I was on a Sundance jury.

2:24:57Sean Fennessey:I thought you were going to say I've been in a 20-year committed relationship with Mike McGlone.

2:25:03A boy can dream. That would have been an amazing end to this. A boy can dream. No, I was on a Sundance jury with Tom Rothman and Edward Burns. Yeah. And it was the jury that gave Coogler the Fruitvale Station. Oh, wow. What a fucking flex. He, they were, I mean, I think the hatchet's been buried. I don't know what, I don't know how Edward Burns is writing about it in the book. But they really believed in Ryan Coogler. I will just say that they - they really did that was also what happened to that guy? who? Ryan Coogler I don't know I don't know everything everything yeah he made a she's the one

2:25:51Sean Fennessey:and he disappeared forever everything yeah but I mean I will give I will give them both credit but that Rothman talks about this a lot where it's like you basically and I wish he did this at fucking Sony and he doesn't do it and if you're listening to this Tom Rothman fucking open up an independent division and support it like it is not just Sony Pictures Classics but like investing in the filmmaker was the whole thing this is how hollywood got so good in the 90s is they made these bets on these people and they let them make two three four five six movies yeah and if you don't do that then you're not going to get better movies you made the point about bomb back it's the same thing i don't want to get on my high horse too much but i really think this matters and like if those guys in a jury room can believe in kugler then why did kugler not get a five picture deal immediately from a studio that was like do whatever you want you're the future nobody fucking does that why are you asking why kugler didn't because i mean i know I know why, but it's not as though...

2:26:40I know, but writ large, it is extremely frustrating. Well, also, what would it look... We're watching in real time right now what it looks like to not do that with these directors.

2:26:54Bill Simmons:We're watching in real time because these movies are making money. They follow the money. Right now, Obsession, Backrooms, all these things. Does he have a five-picture deal? Is he doing... He does. And isn't the next thing he's doing... I know too much about this. What am I allowed to say? Like a Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

2:27:14Sean Fennessey:He signed up for an A24 movie, but he's more than likely going to make his next couple of movies. You're talking about an obsession guy? I'm talking about Curry Barker. Yeah. More than likely going to make his next two movies with Blumhouse Universal. But like... And some of that was done beforehand. And some of that is being done in the aftermath of the success of the movie. And I'm not saying we should go back to 1945 where somebody is in a lifetime contract with a movie studio. but it's more like you have an executive that executive is your guy and that person takes care of you the example I cited all last year was Mike DeLuca who was just like I'm bringing in PTA for Boogie Nights he's getting to make Magnolia I believe in him fully and then you cut to 30 years later and he's the person who is willing to pay for one battle after another

2:27:54Bill Simmons:the flip side of that is when it's like I believe in Maggie Gyllenhaal and the bride's gonna be awesome and then the bride doesn't work but that's the business though but then they get scared off and they're like oh shit no no no no

2:28:04Sean Fennessey:no no this is the same thing that mike deluca does mike deluca signed up maggie jillenhall to do her next movie at warner brothers because that's how he rolls he's one of the only executives who is like i'm betting on the filmmaker more than any other thing and sometimes you miss and it's okay sometimes because she she definitely swung at that pitch i and i i liked the effort i was like the movie doesn't work but i liked that she tried they said afterwards like we would

2:28:28Bill Simmons:back that movie a hundred times out of a hundred she had a good vision for it right to me that's the thing sometimes we paid for it yeah that's just the movies that's what i'm saying like you go back to the bride and like at the end of the year it's gonna look different than it did at the beginning of the year that's just gonna play in a whole different way when you watch it in december versus watching it when the stakes were high and she was up against emerald finnell i'm not saying it's gonna make it a great movie but i'm saying there will be some there it it subtexts will be more apparent. Like, the badge, we can talk about like why it doesn't work.

2:29:02I watched seven more minutes

2:29:03Bill Simmons:of Babylon. I'm at the 52-minute mark now. You're informally making your way through Babylon? Every year I watch seven more minutes. I'm almost at the one-third point.

2:29:15Sean Fennessey:Honestly. I mean this sincerely. I know it's been a complicated week, but shame on you. Shame on you. You gotta just finish this. Babylon's good. I don't believe you don't like Babylon. I'll give another chance. I mean, we don't need to go, I don't need to do this on Daniel. I like Shazelle. He's been getting some shots. He's got enough. He's been getting some shots. He's not somebody who hasn't been getting a chance. But I think the Mordor director should get chances the way that he gets chances to try things. Because also, until this year with these two guys, and who knows how that's going to turn out, we weren't having this conversation.

2:29:44No. We were talking about how it had died.

2:29:47Sean Fennessey:No, but I did talk about it. We might have even, the three of us, or another group of us might have talked about how Sinner's Weapons in F1 isn't a mistake. Like, it's not, it's that this was something clearly that audiences wanted. That they wanted original movies with new stories that didn't have to be like, oh, you've never seen a movie with vampires, or you've never seen a race car driver movie. But that making them new and not making them attached to something old is something that we want right now. I also think that we throw weapons, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I included them among those three.

2:30:19Yeah.

2:30:19Bill Simmons:Unfortunately, at least half of them were horror related, which I don't think is an accident. I agree with you. does your generation still go into more movies or less movies lately I mean the numbers suggest more like people under 35 we're going to more movies now and I think the end of the superhero era is going to help is half of the reason why all this is happening that's what my kids say too

2:30:39Sean Fennessey:100 %

2:30:40Bill Simmons:my kids were always going to the movies from the moment they could drive but I feel like they're more excited about the movies they're going to versus like well yeah we saw whatever IP feels old now Jurassic Park feels old now. And I do feel like it's finally time for new stuff to come in. It took 15 fucking years for us to get to this point. You know what I mean? Wesley and I saw, what did we see together? Was it a King Kong movie or Planet of the Apes? Oh. What did we see? It was the Samuel Jackson. Yeah, we saw one of those. The Sam Jackson King Kong. Wesley was in town. Oh, yeah. We're like, all right, let's go to that.

2:31:15Skull Island? Yeah, that one.

2:31:16Bill Simmons:Yeah, there was no other movie to go to. It's like, all right, let's fucking go to Skull Island. So depressing. That's 10 years ago. Yeah. I do think we're in an action glut because I feel like action was filled in by superheroes for so long. A lot of the action franchises like John Wick are kind of over. We don't really have any good action franchises going right now. It's like Mission Impossible, all these. You know why? Because we don't have the actors. Well, yeah. Well, this was obvious. I didn't want to put this on the table. Is the original action boom going to come next? Some other original genres doing okay.

2:31:44You've got to go see The Furious.

2:31:45Sean Fennessey:Yeah, yeah. You've got to see The Furious. Now, that's obviously... We need more guys like that guy. Chinese Thai production. Yes, we have no action. It is wide open right now.

2:31:55Bill Simmons:He's staring at you right now, holding a gun and looking at you, Sean.

2:31:58Sean Fennessey:I know. I love him so much.

2:31:59Bill Simmons:There's none of me right now. But this poster is saying, I was here. I was here. Like, what? I just don't know. Because also, the thing about Die Hard, and this is important to say, McTiernan? Is that what you're looking at? Joel Silver? It's got a screen. Oh, yeah.

2:32:19Sean Fennessey:Yeah, yeah. It's got a screen play. And it's got interesting people. Like, this guy, why is he a movie star? Do you know what I mean? Like, there's so many reasons this should not have worked. Hart Bochner. Right, Hart Bochner. Oh, Hart Bochner.

2:32:35Bill Simmons:Hart Bochner. Coked out of his mind. Great stuff. We're overdue to do it again. Wesley, true pleasure. Thanks for coming to see us. Sean Fentasy, thank you. Craig, I'd still thank you, even though you didn't like our movie. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahau. anybody else Matt Matt we have no theme this month but we do have a couple other good movies coming this month so stay tuned for the rewatchables