‘The Sting’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey

8:27Sean Fennessey:Not the worst idea ever. Scott Carradine is amazing. We can beat her tonight.

8:32Chris Ryan:I don't understand. Why is Hollywood failing?

8:36Bill Simmons:We made a movie for Yes fans. I think the answer is actually, you stumbled on it with Chalamet. It's probably Chalamet and Leo. Even though the ages are a little different.

8:48Sean Fennessey:They're 20 years apart. Leo's 50 now.

8:50Bill Simmons:But Leo was here and Chalamet was here. Now Chalamet is very close.

8:55Sean Fennessey:And he is, of course, playing the Leo playbook. He asked him for advice. Leo gave him the advice. No superhero shit. No drugs. All that stuff. That was the advice that he gave him.

9:04Bill Simmons:Did Chalamet actually say that on the record?

9:06Sean Fennessey:I think he did, right?

9:07Chris Ryan:I think it was like no drugs, no soup, no capes. No capes, yeah. Or something like that.

9:11Bill Simmons:Don't have something called the Pussy Posse. Maybe don't call it like anything like that, but do it anyway.

9:17Chris Ryan:Just be like my group of friends. Yeah. Me and my buddies.

9:21Bill Simmons:Leo's like, there's these rich guys that will just fly you on their jets. Just make friends with as many of them as possible and then you don't have to pay for anything. Jets and yachts. That's where this is. That's a really good idea. They love, Tom Brady's like, yeah, that's some jets and yachts. best con movies ever I don't know if this is the best but it has to be mentioned it's almost like when we talk about best actresses ever and it's like you gotta mention Meryl Streep

9:44Sean Fennessey:is it the first? I don't know

9:48Chris Ryan:I think it might be the first there are I think obviously the con man is like a staple of crime literature and like fiction from before this but like this is super this is definitely popularized the con man as something in popular culture

10:03Sean Fennessey:I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I watched an interview with Redford where he talked about the movie and he said that when he read the script, he was like, there has never been a movie in this world before. Wow. And that's unusual. Yeah. Like it's really hard to tap into a new unseen space. And I love con man movies. I've talked about them over the years, how much I love them. House of Games, like one of my favorite movies of all time. But I couldn't think of something specifically set amongst these kinds of guys before this movie.

10:31Bill Simmons:You know who's in House of Games?

10:34Sean Fennessey:I wanted to be a nurse.

10:37Chris Ryan:Who were these people?

10:40Sean Fennessey:Lindsey Krauss.

10:41Chris Ryan:Yeah. I can't believe Lindsey Krauss and Robert Shaw are like, we don't have to say what we're imitating.

10:50Bill Simmons:Quietly unbelievable IMDb for her.

10:52Chris Ryan:Oh, yeah. She's amazing. She's even in all the president's men.

10:55Bill Simmons:Yeah, she is. Hey, you used to go out with the guy who had the list of creep people. And then they kind of bullied her into giving her the list. are we Lindsay Krauss month? We're not re-presidenting? So I watched it this weekend and my wife was furious. Why? Why? Because she's like really again?

11:16Sean Fennessey:Did you know that they put it in theaters? That it's like in theaters this weekend and it was not related to Redford's passing it was just that it was I guess it's an anniversary is it the 50 year anniversary of the movie? Can't be. It's back in movie theaters.

11:28Bill Simmons:In theaters I think this weekend or by the time people hear this maybe it won't be that movie's still banging

11:36Sean Fennessey:I'm ready to be president

11:38Bill Simmons:Criterion the channel which you did something for with Allman they're really they found their stride in 2025 they had 70s like thrillers whatever and they had like nine of them including all the president's men it's a pretty sick program it looks good and there's always like one or two where I'm like what's this Jeff Bridges movie Jeff Bridges 1979 I don't even know what that is

12:00Sean Fennessey:that's Winter Kills right yeah

12:02Chris Ryan:is that about a president getting assassinated

12:04Sean Fennessey:it's like kind of a satire of those movies it's not as like hardcore as the parallax viewer

12:08Bill Simmons:could we talk them into rewatchables movies we can't do because they don't exist month Eddie and the Cruisers, The Sure Thing Kiss of Death with Nick Cage because they're unavailable anywhere irreconcilable differences, just unavailable

12:21Chris Ryan:is Eddie and the Cruisers not on Tubi? it's not available it played once on like Cinemax a couple months ago or actually AMC one of them yeah And I taped it and was just like, hey, Eddie and the Cruisers literally is broadcast once a year.

12:38Sean Fennessey:But you guys were responsible for getting Pump Up the Volume back onto streaming after you did the episode.

12:44Bill Simmons:And it was on Criterion, too.

12:45Chris Ryan:Yeah, that's what we're just trying to spread the word. Movies that don't exist.

12:48Bill Simmons:We've been complaining about Kiss to Death and some of these other ones for a while. But Ciara and I have Eddie and the Cruisers recorded on cable. But if we did rewatchables, nobody would be able to see it. When House and Jack over here, we're going to be Revenge of the Nerds. it's not available. Is it not? Nowhere.

13:04Sean Fennessey:I wonder if it's because some of the material in that has. You think Revenge of the Nerds has been canceled? You think Anthony Edwards

13:09Bill Simmons:used some of his ER movie? He's like, we're getting rid of this one. Could be. Could be. It's a goner. Best con movies. The Sting, Ocean's Eleven, Focus, Catch Me If You Can, Color Money, House of Games, Trading Places. Mm-hmm. I would start with those seven. There's a bunch more. Like The Grifters and the Yeeke, going and going. But I think that's in the vicinity and it usually involves a swerve. I think what's interesting with The Sting, it's telling you what the chapters of, it's now where the setup. It's kind of walking through it, but in the most fun way possible because they have these amazing cards and it's one of many reasons why I won Best Picture.

13:46Bill Simmons:It's just really well put together.

13:47Sean Fennessey:Such a good lingo movie. Incredible. Constantly dropping little vocabulary words that make you understand what you're inside of. And you can never, like I couldn't tell, I was like, is this based on something that is real? were these real cons?

14:00Chris Ryan:Yeah, I think a lot of the stuff when Twist is putting together the team of con men is actually drawn from like, you know, books and stuff about that. But you don't get usual suspects without this. You know what I mean? You don't get like the lingo.

14:14Bill Simmons:So that's technically a con movie. So there's basically two versions of a con movie. I think Focus is the traditional con movie and then usual suspects, ones that have a swerve.

14:24Sean Fennessey:Right, like a crime thriller

14:25Chris Ryan:that has a con at the root of it. Like Spanish Prisoner. Man, it's like really, really, really really into this world.

14:30Bill Simmons:So would you, let me solo with CR for a second. Go ahead, by all means. I know you'll have some thoughts. I'm going to let CR cook. I'm going to put something on the oven for CR.

14:40Sean Fennessey:I've spent so much time listening to just you guys talking about movies. I feel very comfortable in this space. If you could write a heist movie

14:49Bill Simmons:or a con movie, and it's like the one script you ever wrote and it would actually get made and be really good, what's more appealing to you? Heist movie or con movie? I think a heist movie yeah I'd say I knew that was going to be his answer

15:02Chris Ryan:honestly I don't think I'm smart enough to write a con movie like sometimes when I watch these you're not nefarious enough well it's just like I don't think that my brain works in five steps ahead logic which all of these movies essentially they rely on one person knowing like all the different permutations of someone's reaction to a situation and I think you can kind of undo the stitching on con movies pretty easily, but my brain doesn't work that way. My brain works like, we're not here for your money. We're here for the bank's money. Your money's in short. Don't try to be a hero.

15:38Bill Simmons:Sean would be a con movie.

15:40Sean Fennessey:Undoubtedly. And it would have multiple poker scenes? Well, it's a nice little sprinkle on top that games of chance are often a part of con men movies. But I also like puzzles, and I like mazes, and I like magic. Like those are things that I'm actually, that sounds maybe the dorkiest thing I've ever said, but I do like all three of those things sincerely. You know, I'm just a man who likes a puzzle.

16:04Bill Simmons:Is this a resume to be in the Prestige rewatchables?

16:08Sean Fennessey:I mean, I love the Prestige. That's like by far one of my favorite Nolan films. It's a good one. But those worlds are really fun and con men movies kind of bring in all of those worlds. Like you get to saw stuff. I do empathize though with what Chris is saying, which is you have to be extremely smart to be able to devise a good con, especially one that makes sense in a movie. Like, it's one thing to con a guy out of money in real life, and you can read some of the books that this movie is based on, but to actually make it a coherent, plotted narrative experience, I think is pretty challenging.

16:39Sean Fennessey:That's why there's so few of these movies.

16:40Chris Ryan:Do you think that the nature of our digital life experience now has pretty much killed the possibility of a con movie? Because there's so much conning going on. Yeah, because the second you get set up, you could just start a Reddit thread and be like, Has anyone ever had somebody come up and ask them for nuclear secrets? You know, like, and also so much of like what we would consider conning or a con 30 or 40 years ago is now phishing emails or your Amazon delivery just needs your social security number. Please call this like. Yeah.

17:11Sean Fennessey:What it was, you know, obviously the origins of cons is in confidence and confidence men. But I would argue that it is now about conspiracy. Like that's really more than the realm of what the cons you find are. like, here's the Ethiopian prince who needs$10 ,000. Please wire him this way immediately. The guy had a compelling story.

17:27Bill Simmons:Is it possible people are just smarter now too? It's hard for me to say that they are smarter right now. Well, no, because you had the experience of decades and decades of hearing stories about, you know, that's why like the Balmer-Quippers thing is such a fun story to talk about. I think they have more access to information.

17:45Chris Ryan:They have more access to information than they've ever had. And I wouldn't necessarily say that makes people smarter.

17:51Sean Fennessey:I think it's the same exact premise, though. Savier? Like, confidence men lull people into a sense of security. And we are definitely in a time where we're, like, constantly being lulled into a false sense of security. And that's why people, like, give their money away or fall prey to really influential people or whatever is happening right now. So, I don't know. I feel like it's all kind of the same. Like, everybody is usually the same. They want to feel safe.

18:14Bill Simmons:The bomber story. So, we're taping this on the 22nd. So, who knows if there's, like, big revelations in the next week. But the Balmer story, if you feel like he actually didn't try to circumvent the calorie cap, it's basically a con story. That's what Mark Cuban's been arguing. He's like, these guys were con artists. They defrauded all of these people. They did all this. We've seen like with the Hak Tua girl when she did her pull the rug move. Those are basically these short cons. So the cons now are just kind of less fun and more aggressive versus like something like this where it's like, we're going to do a con.

18:50Bill Simmons:I'm going to have 30 people in my fake racetrack parlor. We're going to call fake games. I don't know. It was just more fun back then.

18:57Chris Ryan:Well, I think the great thing about this sting is that it starts out as basically a pickpocket movie. It starts out. It's a creative germ, as David Worthinger wrote it. It was researching pickpockets for a different screenplay. But Luther and Hooker's original kind of move is essentially a glorified pickpocket job. And then each step he takes, Gondorf kind of shows him there's so many levels to this where you can have like a 20 guy team. You can have fake storefronts. You can have fake wiretaps. And that's just that's what makes it so rewatchable is to just go down the rabbit hole with those guys.

19:30Sean Fennessey:I have a question for both of you guys about this. How comfortable are you lying to people's faces? because like my wife says, this is a likely story, she cannot lie. Like when she, she gives her, she has lots of tells, I would say. That's interesting. You know, and the big part of being a good con man is never breaking, never revealing.

19:51Bill Simmons:I feel like there's, there's so many bad karma things that go with lying. That's true. Like really aggressively lying. I am always in the back of my head thinking about that, but I would have a lot of trouble just lying to somebody's face. There's two distinctions though.

20:01Chris Ryan:Number one is like, there's the version of lying that you lie when you're like, what time did you get home last night? Or like, why is this broken? And you're like, I have no idea. And you definitely know. Then there's the version of the line that these guys do, which is more like theater and also crucially often directed at people who quote unquote deserve it. Like I never took him, you know, what's hookers like all mad that he would be accused of taking up, like taking off winos. He's like, I've never robbed a wino. Like I go after guys who deserve it.

20:33Bill Simmons:You like the code of honor of con artists. Yeah. Why can you lie? Well, you like playing poker where all you do is lie in poker.

20:40Sean Fennessey:I like that. I like the way that Chris framed it, which is like in the theater of something, I think I feel comfortable. In like the conversation about like who broke the toilet seat or whatever, let's, you know, I'm not as comfortable with that.

20:50Bill Simmons:Just wait till your kids get older. There's a lot of lies that happen. Yeah.

20:54Sean Fennessey:I'm starting to feel that already.

20:55Bill Simmons:Yeah. I didn't leave the fridge open. It's like you definitely did.

20:59Chris Ryan:You're on camera. Heard you at midnight, go downstairs,

21:03Bill Simmons:and the fridge was open after you did it. No, I didn't. That's a lot of that.

21:08Chris Ryan:I have no idea who ordered all these Christy Canyon films. But that person was probably just curious about her work. A man of taste.

21:16Bill Simmons:Yeah, the hotel porn order pay-per-view. What a great era that was. I didn't order this. What?

21:20Sean Fennessey:$74.

21:22Bill Simmons:What is this? So this thing is a triple con movie. What's a triple con movie? There's three cons happening simultaneously. obviously, Celino, the waitress, who's actually the assassin hired to kill Hooker, Redford turning on Newman, but then he actually doesn't. And then the feds breaking up the bedding, but they're actually not the feds. So basically everyone in the movie is lying to somebody. And the hardest thing to pull off with the audience is that I have to be surprised at the end that they, oh, it's like one of those. Yes. Focus had a great thing with that, with the Super Bowl. when they elaborate on.

22:01Bill Simmons:That's early in the film. Yeah, the Super Bowl and Will Smith. It's the best part of that movie. Pick that jersey. It's like just an awesome 20 minutes and then he gets rid of Margot Robbie, but that's like by far the best part of the movie.

22:12Sean Fennessey:Yeah. I mean, they're hard to do because this movie, maybe because it's so old and also is set in a time even 50 years before that, we don't, we're not as suspicious of every single decision that's being made. Like we want to be on the emotional journey with the characters. So we're not doubting them. The challenge of a confidence man movie now is like, you have to suspect everything that the person says is bullshit. Yeah. And a lot of like matchstick men kind of undercuts this by having a lead character who, you know, is struggling with something. And so you're like, it complicates our ability to trust them or not, but it's really hard to make a present day version of these kinds of movies.

22:51Chris Ryan:I don't know whether this played this way in the early seventies, but one of the ingenious things about this film is that when you're watching it, it's like, they cast somebody as Selino who you're like maybe that's just a waitress. Even now, even after seeing this movie dozens of times, I still forget. Like when you first meet the waitress, you're just like, yeah, she just seems like a waitress working at a Depression-era diner. You don't think that is the one lady hitman. I have a lot of questions about her though.

23:19Sean Fennessey:I feel like for unanswerables or picking nits, there's a lot to explore there.

23:22Bill Simmons:A loose waitress is what she was. Man's knocking on her door at two in the morning. He's just lonely. Eat that door locked. I'm lonely just like you.

23:31Sean Fennessey:She's working strategically though.

23:33Bill Simmons:Well, we don't know that when it happens. We're like, wow, this is Redford. I know he's handsome, but come on. Paul Newman. You've all heard of him. In a slump since Butch Cassidy heading into this movie.

23:47Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

23:49Bill Simmons:WUSA? Woosa? What's that movie?

23:51Sean Fennessey:It's a movie about a radio talk show host, conservative radio talk show host. that is eerily prescient about media, but the movie itself is not good.

24:03Bill Simmons:Sometimes a great notion. That didn't do well.

24:05Sean Fennessey:That's very underrated, in my opinion, just for the record. We just did a Paul Newman episode like six months ago, and I rewatched every single movie ever made. He directed that movie. It's really good. Adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel.

24:14Bill Simmons:Pocket money.

24:15Sean Fennessey:Bad.

24:16Bill Simmons:Judge Roy Bean, solid. Yes. Pretty good. By the way, easily just, hey, Netflix, just make that a prestige show. Just put a judge somewhere in the South. Who would you cast? frontier justice being just like kyle chandler i didn't have to spend a lot of money perfect great kyle chandler is just gonna kill some guys his own way and and then uh the mcintosh man

24:37Sean Fennessey:yeah not as successful that's his second movie in a row with john houston and uh he plays an irish spy that's right well it gets worse because he turned down dirty harry because he thought it

24:48Bill Simmons:was too right wing but recommended eastwood right recommended eastwood that would that have worked

24:53Sean Fennessey:for you?

24:54Bill Simmons:No. I think it worked out great for everybody. Too expensive for French Connection. That's one where maybe you've shaved the salary. He would have been in

25:03Sean Fennessey:Popeye Doyle?

25:04Bill Simmons:Yeah. Yeah, cut the salary on that one and just do French Connection.

25:08Sean Fennessey:Acumen is so perfect.

25:10Bill Simmons:Supposed to be in Paper Moon and did not work. Did not work out. Signed on, the producers gave him top billing,$500K and a profit percentage. But Redford also got 500k. I don't know if he got a proper percentage.

25:24Chris Ryan:Worked out pretty well for Newman.

25:25Bill Simmons:This was the last of this 50s, 60s era Newman, and then he starts in the mid-70s, he's moving towards Slapshot Verdict Newman.

25:35Sean Fennessey:That was going to be one of my takes, was that this is the first installment in old Paul Newman. You know, where his hair is more gray, the mustache, like it's a new era.

25:43Chris Ryan:It's a compromise, though, I think, because the original version of the story is like, he's supposed to be fat and old. and he's supposed to be like basically giving the keys to hooker and is not in the movie very much, apparently in the original script. And then Newman was like, I'll do it. But like, I get a lot more minutes played on. I got a lot more time on the court and a lot more shots.

26:05Bill Simmons:I mean, just the poker scene alone. It's worth it. Paul Newman, it's like for his time, not to mention the movie was a massive success, but that nine minutes, he's just cooking all time cooking. Sorry, I was taking a crap. That's an incredible line. And then Redford, which I guess we probably should have talked about him more at the top since it's Redford Month, but we have five movies to talk about it. But he's in the middle of one of the best five-year runs of all time. The Candidate, Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, The Sting, Great Gatsby. They re-released Butch Sundance, That Crush. Great Water Pepper didn't do great.

26:39Bill Simmons:Three Days of the Condor, All the President's Men, all in five years.

26:42Sean Fennessey:Unbelievable.

26:42Bill Simmons:Unreal. And by the time All the President's Men happens, he's a producer on the film. he's starting to get his tentacles out he's thinking about directing you know i was going

26:52Chris Ryan:to ask you guys both big william goldman readers and william goldman writes so well about star power yeah and the way that it emerges i don't know you would probably know better than me at what the timeline is but these guys essentially are like i know that if i sign on this movie gets made this movie gets a really good runway a really good runway to success were people like that using their power in the 60s is this like kind of a new phenomenon in the 70s that goes along with new Hollywood. 100 % new phenomenon.

27:20Bill Simmons:I actually think Redford is in the running for maybe inventing it.

27:23Sean Fennessey:Well, I think he, I think like John Wayne could do this. Like John Wayne could, but what John Wayne 80 % of the time would be like, let's just get John Ford to do it. You know, like he had his teams and stars have their teams and the people that they like to work with and Howard Hawks and George Cukor and all these like well-known figures. Redford in particular, this movie I think is the perfect movie to have that conversation about because, and I'm sure you have this in the notes, but David Ward who wrote the movie and Julia Phillips and Michael Phillips the producers and Tony Bill basically brought the movie to Redford and they were like what do you think and David Ward said he was going to direct the movie it was going to be his first film as a director and Redford was like nah this movie is too complicated we need a real master craftsman to make this movie work and he went to George Roy Hill who they just made Butch Casting Our fucking guy George Roy Hill and he used that power that you're talking about to basically decline on the movie.

28:19Sean Fennessey:And he says that George Roy Hill got his hands on the script. My theory is that he passed this script to George Roy Hill. Seems kind of likely. And that George Roy Hill was like, hey guys, I'm interested in this movie. And then all of a sudden the studio is like, oh my God, we could get George Roy Hill and Robert Redford together and they have Paul Newman's phone number? Let's do that.

28:38Chris Ryan:They have great stories on the 4K of this, has a great making of, where they have completely opposing memories of how the movie came together. Like, Newman's like, oh, they're at my apartment, and they're twisting my arm, and I'm like, guys, I don't know. And then an elevator skips a floor, and I'm like, all right, I'll do it. And then Redford's like, I have no memory of an elevator. It seems like Paul Newman wanted to see this movie. And he's like, his mind is going, what can you do?

29:06Bill Simmons:Yeah, well, this is a real problem with Redford and Goldman, one of the many reasons they had such a feud. but Redford came up with this whole alternate version of All the President's Men in the early 2010s. And basically, it was like Goldman wrote one script and I did everything. But I do think he had that side of him, which I think it was a little prickly in some ways in Hollywood because he would just be like, somebody brought me this script, we'll cut that guy out. He's very cutthroat.

29:34Sean Fennessey:Yes.

29:35Bill Simmons:In a way that I think more actors probably are now.

29:39Sean Fennessey:The thing is, the kind of apology for it is he was so shrewd. Like he really had great taste. And when he would take a movie like away from someone, he was often putting it in the hands of another really good artist. So it's easy to kind of make allowances for it because he just made so many good movies in a row over a 20 year period of time that he was kind of able to get away with being as intense with this stuff as you're saying.

30:01Chris Ryan:I guess Beatty becomes this at a certain point, right? Nicholson.

30:05Bill Simmons:Beatty was way more transparent about it though.

30:08Chris Ryan:Yeah.

30:08Bill Simmons:Like I think he really frustrated a lot of people and was famous on lollygagging around with scripts and being way more cutthroat overtly than Redford was. I think Redford was way more Michael Corleone-ish.

30:20Chris Ryan:Yeah.

30:20Bill Simmons:Like, we got to get this guy out.

30:22Chris Ryan:And it's like, there's stories about Beatty taking like two years to say no to something. Yeah.

30:25Bill Simmons:And he wanted to kind of lead everyone along on everything. Both of them had the same, not issue, but they always wanted to be the hero. Redford was very, very calculated. There was that famous story about him and the verdict. where he's like, that guy's a loser. We got to make him less of a loser. And they're like, the guy is a loser. That's how we're making the movie. And he's like, well, I'm out.

30:48Sean Fennessey:Yeah, Redford, I feel like both in front of the camera and behind the scenes throughout his entire career really worked hard to burnish this vision of dignity, right? That he was very rarely - And a moral compass. Yeah, exactly. That there was something kind of moving him forward through the universe that was very powerful. And that made him a great star, not always a great actor because he didn't always play characters that you could empathize with. He always just felt so heroic and magical and perfect. And that is probably why he's never been in my personal mega pantheon. He's not a top five actor for me because he makes a similar kind of movie over a long period of time.

31:26Bill Simmons:Top five choice actor, though.

31:27Sean Fennessey:Yeah, he made great movies.

31:29Chris Ryan:I think that Cruz is more part of his lineage, whereas I guess DiCaprio would be more of the Newman lineage of like, I'm really looking for provocative work to work with really interesting filmmakers. I'll turn my trust over to them and have them depict me how they see fit. I think Redford was like, if people are going to pay to come see a Robert Redford movie, Robert Redford needs to do these five things. And it wasn't as locked in as Eastwood, but it was pretty, you're right. I don't remember the names of a lot of Redford characters, but I remember the movies perfectly.

32:06Bill Simmons:Well, he had a couple moves with the characters, right? Because for a while, he's playing the 1970s versions of the Cruise roles, right? Downhill Racer is a Cruise character. The candidate, you could have seen Cruise potentially in that. It would have been a little bit of a push for him. But Three Days of the Condor is a classic Cruise movie. I think Cruise easily could have been Hooker. But then he also, he had that...

32:31Chris Ryan:He arguably is Hooker in Color of Money. You know what I mean?

32:34Bill Simmons:Yeah, but that's, I think, the thing that Sean's hitting at, that there was a spot he wouldn't go to. Even like he does Brubaker, it's basically Robert Redford. It's the thing that I think separates Denzel from him, is Denzel every once in a while will just fucking go for it with some role where you're like, wow, Denzel.

32:52Sean Fennessey:I mean, he almost never did something morally reprehensible on screen. No. Literally, not until he was in a Marvel movie. I know.

33:01Bill Simmons:Would Redford have been in Out of Time?

33:02Chris Ryan:Would Redford have been in flight? Right.

33:06Sean Fennessey:Yeah. I think the candidate is interesting because that guy is kind of an empty suit for the whole movie. And then that incredible conclusion where you're like, what do we do now? Is morally complicated. But he doesn't kill a guy in cold blood. He doesn't throw a woman down the stairs. In the 70s, all these guys were making Pacino and De Niro. They were playing these really complicated men. and he was always like he was the spirit of America it was a changing America but he was like a positive force in the world

33:38Bill Simmons:he wouldn't have played Neil Macaulay no he was Roy Hobbs

33:41Chris Ryan:he wasn't Neil Macaulay he did Rob Banks in the Hot Rock yeah he did Rob Banks one time one of my favorites of his

33:48Bill Simmons:yeah he's really good in this movie it's the most it's the hardest he's worked I think in a movie from a charisma look at my personality look at And I don't think after this movie, I don't remember him doing that again. Like, Waldo Pepper, I think, was a little charismatic, but not like this. This guy's like, this is the most fun role in the movie, and you wouldn't have normally, you would have expected Newman to have it, you know?

34:14Sean Fennessey:I can't remember too many movies where he smiles this much.

34:17Bill Simmons:Yeah.

34:18Chris Ryan:I mean, this is a real, like, it's hard to pick nits with this movie because it just looks like the people making it are having the time of their life. And you parasocially are like, just want to hang out. If you guys wanted to do an hour-long version of those guys drinking Schlitz and trying to figure out what con to run, I probably would have watched it.

34:38Bill Simmons:Let's take a break and we'll talk about Robert Shaw. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Life is full of decisions, big and small. Like, let's not throw it to A.J. Brown this week. It's a small decision. Big decision. Let's try to beat the Cowboys. Sometimes you make a decision you can really, really stand behind. I'm trying to think like, I guess when we formed a ringer and we were like, we feel like we can pull this off. We don't care if we're independent. We feel like podcasts could be a big thing of this. And we'll see where it goes. Trusted our guts. Yeah. Used to bind us. Spent a lot of time together.

35:16Bill Simmons:Just brainstorming, figuring out stuff. State Farm gets it. Making confident choices can make all the difference. That's why with the State Farm Personal Price Plan, you can choose the right amount of coverage to create an affordable price for you. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. Robert Shaw, the third piece of this movie.

35:49Bill Simmons:This is not just a Newman and Redford movie. It needs Robert Shaw. Robert Shaw is only 45 in this movie.

35:55Sean Fennessey:Unbelievable.

35:56Bill Simmons:Are you older than Robert Shaw in this movie? I'm older than Robert Shaw. You're older than Robert Shaw in this movie. Not quite.

36:00Sean Fennessey:I'm getting there. I got more gray hair than he does, though.

36:02Bill Simmons:Robert Shaw, 45.

36:04Sean Fennessey:I think he polishes his hair with the shoe shine.

36:07Bill Simmons:Robert Shaw makes The Sting, Pelham 1, 2, 3, Jaws, Robin and Marion, Black Sunday in the Deep in five years, and then just dies in 1978 of basically natural causes.

36:17Chris Ryan:He dies in 50 because his body was just like, we're done. we're done can I take a half ass international research and put it up here yeah after they finish filming this movie apparently oh I had this

36:27Bill Simmons:in the Steven Seagal shitting themselves award for

36:29Chris Ryan:George Roy Hill and Robert Shaw go to West Ireland to party and go on like a one week pub crawl bender that ends with Robert Shaw in his underwear playing a guy in ping pong screaming one more game you bastard and then he fucking dies

36:46Sean Fennessey:so Shaw was in that class of guys with Richard Harris and Peter O'Toole and Oliver Reed who just like absolutely drank themselves to death. Yeah, yeah. Just could not stop drinking. And some of them, like Oliver Reed made it to like 75. And was drinking like shots with the Gladiator cast, yeah.

37:03Bill Simmons:Yeah, Hill said he kind of like passed out after a day and a half and then woke up and heard Sean in his underwear screaming at some dude playing ping pong. These guys are like, we did all the Jaws stuff about him daring Dreyfuss and like basically like bullying him to climb up to the top of the boat and then they had to intervene and like, dude, we're not doing this.

37:25Sean Fennessey:Isn't it so funny though? Like he's obviously a very decorated actor. He's in A Man for All Seasons, right? He's one of the great movie actors. But the more his like life physically is getting out of control, the more exciting it is to watch him in a movie. Like the more of a mess he becomes, the more like it's just Quint is intoxicating when he's on screen in that movie. Same thing with this movie. I mean, he's like kind of a one-dimensional bad guy in this movie. He's just angry the whole movie. But there's just something about him that you can't look away from.

37:53Bill Simmons:Angry and gullible. I tried to do as much Shaw research as possible. Sadly, I couldn't find a lot more than the Jaws thing. But one of the things was Sean Connery was like his natural rival.

38:05Sean Fennessey:Oh, yeah.

38:06Bill Simmons:He hated Sean Connery and felt like they were basically bird and magic. What was it? From Russian with Love. Yeah, they went up against each other.

38:13Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

38:14Bill Simmons:And it was like the Scottish-Irish thing. but it was just like, that guy's in my way. It's like one of those same things. I was just having 20 drinks a day. That whole scene

38:22Chris Ryan:in From Russia With Love where he's like, I'm basically your, like he's pretending to be his like counterpart. And it's like, this guy could have been Bond.

38:30Bill Simmons:This is crazy. I miss the days when a 45-year-old could look like him. Yeah. Like, Sean McVay is like 45. You think about it in that context. Robert Shaw looks like he's in his mid-60s in this movie.

38:46Sean Fennessey:Well, think of the, just the timbre of his voice. It just sounds like he was born in 1740.

38:51Chris Ryan:I'm also trying to imagine Robert Shaw wearing joggers

38:55Sean Fennessey:and crushing tape.

38:57Bill Simmons:Yeah, and a voyeur. Yeah. So he dies in 1978. And let's just say there wasn't like a big police investigation on maybe what happened. They're like, yeah, Robert finally died. Just getting after it. Supporting cast, Eileen Brennan, Ray Walston, Charles Durning, and our guy Jack Kehoe. we have another category for it we'll get to later. But Robert Earl Jones is Luther. Yeah. Father of James Earl Jones. Yeah. Who was like kind of, kind of in a whole bunch of shit for a while. Like 30s, 40s, 50s.

39:28Sean Fennessey:He's kind of playing the James Earl Jones part in this movie. Yeah. You know, you can see that they have a connection.

39:33Bill Simmons:So we mentioned the title cards and then Scott Joplin's The Entertainer was adapted by your guy Marv Hamlish.

39:40Sean Fennessey:What a year for Marv.

39:41Bill Simmons:Marv had a huge year. Incredible 1973. The way we were in this,

39:44Chris Ryan:multiple Oscars. He's Barbara's guy, right? He's always tinkling the ivories for bats. Among many other people's guy.

39:50Bill Simmons:And then it was based apparently maybe on this book in 1940, The Big Con.

39:57Sean Fennessey:Yeah, David Marr.

39:58Bill Simmons:Who then sued them. And David S. Ward was still mad about it. David S. Ward, we have that category sometimes where I think you might be involved in the Wikipedia in this because there's a lot of - Some specific details. Very specific. Although there was no way they plagiarized the book, They had to settle to avoid the publicity. It was one of those.

40:17Chris Ryan:And then his wife won the Bel Air Forest competition. It's like, really? Okay.

40:23Bill Simmons:Very strange IMDb, though, because eventually he writes Major League, the program, and Sleepless in Seattle. It just becomes like... He said he was inspired to write this thing while researching pickpockets. Wait, is this David Ward's fifth attached rewatchables? I think it is. We don't have a screenwriter rankings yet, but...

40:41Sean Fennessey:Well, and when you do the Milagro-Beanfield war, later on in Redford Month. There we go. Yeah, we'll have six David Ward films.

40:48Bill Simmons:This movie won seven Oscars. Best Picture and Director, writing, editing score, costume design, production design, 10 nominations, had a top 10 song and a hit soundtrack.

40:58Sean Fennessey:This is one of the higher percentages Academy Awards-wise.

41:01Bill Simmons:70%.

41:02Sean Fennessey:Yeah, seven out of 10 is pretty good. There are a couple movies that have won 11 out of 12.

41:05Bill Simmons:Are you good with this over American Graffiti and The Exorcist? I'm not.

41:10Sean Fennessey:I'm not. It's not better than either of those films in my opinion and The Exorcist not winning is a goddamn nightmare.

41:15Bill Simmons:Yeah.

41:15Sean Fennessey:One of my hottest takes is The Exorcist.

41:17Bill Simmons:I knew we'd get into it at some point and I think we did this when we did The Exorcist. We all like this thing.

41:22Chris Ryan:I like this thing. It's tough because like the sting for what it is is perfect. But The Exorcist is a way more important movie. How about the fact they came out on the same day? Fucking hell.

41:33Bill Simmons:Remember when we had movies? We're coming back.

41:37Sean Fennessey:We're doing great. Movies are doing great. We're doing great. We're never going to have

41:40Bill Simmons:comedies anymore but we're doing great.

41:41Sean Fennessey:Can I pitch one of my takes at you? Yeah. December 1973 at the movies. Here are the films that were released. Serpico, the French animated movie Fantastic Planet in the Criterion Collection. The Wicker Man, The Three Musketeers, The Last Detail, Papillon, Woody Allen's Sleeper, Amarcard, the Fellini movie. Then on Christmas Day, Magnum Force, the Dirty Harry sequel, The Sting, and The Exorcist. Is that the best month in movie history?

42:06Bill Simmons:It's right when movies probably mattered the most for entertainment. What do you want for Christmas?

42:12Chris Ryan:Let me go to the movies for nine hours.

42:14Bill Simmons:That's insane.

42:15Chris Ryan:Yeah.

42:15Sean Fennessey:And all, I mean, you know, the year itself is also amazing. It's like, that's Paper Moon. That's American Graffiti, as you said. There's a ton of other great stuff. But that month in particular is mind-blowing.

42:25Bill Simmons:Best directing, George Royale wins. He beats Lucas Bergman Friedkin Bertolucci. Some scalps that year, man. Heavy hitters. And then Redford, only nomination ever for acting. Does not win. This is crazy.

42:39Chris Ryan:I didn't know this until I was reading about this thing. I couldn't believe that.

42:44Bill Simmons:I'll wait for my hottest take. Okay. Jack Lemmon wins for Save the Tiger. How are we feeling about that one now?

42:52Sean Fennessey:I mean, this is part of the long domino history of makeup awards where he probably should have won for The Apartment or Days of Wine and Roses or something like that. And because he didn't, Pacino doesn't win for Serpico, which is a sin. He should have won for Serpico. and then Pacino doesn't win until Scent of a Woman.

43:10Bill Simmons:Then Joel Embiid beat Jokic that year. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm getting confused.

43:14Sean Fennessey:I mean, same problem.

43:14Chris Ryan:Exact same problem. Are you... So you think Pacino over Nicholson for Last Detail?

43:21Sean Fennessey:It's okay for me to accept that because Nicholson wins for One Foot of the Cuckoo's Nest two years later.

43:27Bill Simmons:Pacino for Serpico. Come on.

43:29Sean Fennessey:Last Detail is incredible. I love both.

43:31Bill Simmons:We have to do Pacino before Pacino dies. I don't like that we did Red... We needed a death to trigger Redford month. Two for the money. Looking for Richard. Two for the money is I'm gambling month. We already had that one planned out.

43:44Chris Ryan:I'm gambling again. I'm gambling again. I'm gambling.

43:48Bill Simmons:What else is in Pacino month? Well, there's a bunch of good ones left. Yeah. We have some Dog Day Afternoon we haven't done yet. We haven't done Scarface.

43:56Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Well, yeah. Wow.

43:57Bill Simmons:There's some big ones left. $5.5 million budget for this movie made$257 million. that would be like

44:05Chris Ryan:900 million now right one of the most profitable movies I think they said

44:08Bill Simmons:if you adjusted it it's like the biggest non um IP movie probably ever

44:14Sean Fennessey:although there is a sequel

44:16Bill Simmons:so we don't talk about the sequel okay uh second biggest movie in 73 Exorcist was first Graffiti was third Redford had two of the top five our guy Raj Raj Roger Ebert four stars bang said one of the most stylish movies of the year really enjoyed it you know who didn't enjoy it Pauly and Kale aw we have fuck you Raj and now we have settled down Pauline. She wrote, meant to be roguishly charming entertainment and that's how most of the audience takes it. But I found it visually claustrophobic and totally mechanical. It keeps cranking on section after section and it doesn't have a good spirit. Cranking on you say?

44:53Bill Simmons:These plebs liked it but not me. Let me ask you a question. I mean this is why Pauline's stuff was so fun to read because half the time you're just like come on!

45:01Sean Fennessey:Do you think you would be friends with Pauline?

45:05Chris Ryan:He would definitely have tried to hire Pauline Cale.

45:08Sean Fennessey:Well, that's for sure. But would you, because you would have been like, God damn, didn't see this one coming. You love when someone just curveballs you.

45:13Bill Simmons:I mean, she probably had the most zags of any critic of all time.

45:17Sean Fennessey:Yeah, but she had her guys too. She had her people.

45:20Bill Simmons:I would have absolutely tried to hire. I would have been friends with her and there probably would have been multiple times where we didn't talk.

45:26Sean Fennessey:Yes.

45:27Chris Ryan:Two grudge holders.

45:29Sean Fennessey:Yes.

45:29Chris Ryan:Yeah. Like she would have. You would send Sean a note saying, you can't let Pauline write stuff like this.

45:34Sean Fennessey:I need you to call Pauline and tell her she's fucking wrong about this thing. Tell Pauline, we can't have this. You running The New Yorker in 1973 would be amazing.

45:43Bill Simmons:Yeah. I would have been off for the Zags, but there's just sometimes where she was just, she just got, she just put her shoes in the ground.

45:51Chris Ryan:Just imagine Bill editing Cy Hirsch.

45:54Bill Simmons:Well, Wesley Zags, I always loved the Wesley Zags. At least he put some thought into them. A Zag artist. I mean, her pieces are amazing to read.

46:02Sean Fennessey:They're amazing. It just seems like they're written from another planet. Can you think of the best read?

46:05Bill Simmons:Visually claustrophobic is such like a weird, how do you even come up with that?

46:09Chris Ryan:Well, so I would say that it's a film where he was inspired by 1930s movies to not have a lot of extras in it. And there are several scenes where it's like, late at night, there's only three people in this diner.

46:20Sean Fennessey:It's also because those movies were all made on sound stages and they chose to shoot this movie on sound stages. And so it's a fake world. Like you're in somebody's dream idea of a 1935 movie instead of what 1935 actually looked like. Nothing is worn down. Nothing feels real. It's all this kind of like elevated production design. So I get what she's saying, but I don't know. The movie is pretty loose and fun. Like it doesn't feel claustrophobic at all.

46:44Bill Simmons:I just love that all her takes. I think I go back and read them sometimes. I really enjoy it. She just is like, here are my thoughts. Like nobody does that anymore. So yeah, she would have driven me crazy. I would have been mad at her like three times, but ultimately I would have loved having her in my life.

46:59Chris Ryan:Do you think Pauline Kael would have liked one battle after another? I know that she would have. Oh, that's nice.

47:03Bill Simmons:You know that she would have. Interesting. You talked to her in a Ouija board?

47:06Sean Fennessey:There's so many things in it that are like the things that turned her on.

47:11Bill Simmons:Yeah. All right, let's see the most rewatchable scene. The first con, the switch in the pants with Luther. It's great stuff.

47:20Sean Fennessey:Guy comes up to you.

47:22Chris Ryan:This isn't going to work, though.

47:24Sean Fennessey:It's 1936. Give me all the money in your breast pocket.

47:29Bill Simmons:Yeah.

47:30Sean Fennessey:And I want to show you what I'm going to do with it. What are you doing? What are you doing?

47:36Chris Ryan:You're the one who carries cash still.

47:38Sean Fennessey:I think I only have$10 in my pocket. I used to carry like$500 every day, but I don't do that anymore.

47:42Bill Simmons:I always had no less than$400 on me.

47:45Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

47:45Bill Simmons:I was just in Boston for eight days. I never used a dollar bill.

47:50Sean Fennessey:That's what I was going to say. aside from tipping people, when's the last time you, like when's the last time you handed someone 20 bucks to pay for something?

47:55Bill Simmons:Yeah, you can't do this thing now because it would be like, you'd be like stealing somebody's Wi-Fi. Yeah, exactly.

48:00Sean Fennessey:Give me your social security number.

48:02Bill Simmons:A Bitcoin sting would suck. That's my take.

48:06Chris Ryan:Wasn't that what, no, that's not what the runner runner was about, right? The Affleck thing? Yeah, that one.

48:13Bill Simmons:Yeah.

48:13Chris Ryan:I don't recall.

48:15Bill Simmons:I really like this scene. It's a good way to kick the movie off.

48:17Sean Fennessey:Yep.

48:19Bill Simmons:fast forward about 35 minutes to Lonagane pickpocketed on the train Newman showing off card tricks to Redford the gin trick which I know CR still obeys

48:29Chris Ryan:and then Newman playing poker

48:31Bill Simmons:I think this whole 10 minutes is just he's gotta like make that one long giant scene.

48:36Sean Fennessey:Always drink gin with a Mark kid they can't tell if you cut it yeah

48:40Bill Simmons:great stuff.

48:41Sean Fennessey:So you're skipping over Hooker loses at roulette

48:48Bill Simmons:We can put it in. It makes me mad because I know that they're establishing that he's a loser and compulsive, but I just don't think you would bet the$3 ,000 right away. You can't be a good gambler and a bad gambler at the same time. You're having a night out. It's like, I had this for nitpicks for later. You're making$500 a hand. You're spreading it out. You're not just doing that.

49:13Chris Ryan:It's also good because even though he's hit this big payday, you might as well just light the money on fire. He doesn't know what to do with it. It needs to be a more significant victory than cash.

49:24Sean Fennessey:What about the scene when Hooker gives Snyder, Charles Durning the counterfeit money? I like that scene. I actually don't have a lot of rewatchable scenes, but I do like both of those scenes. Okay. They're like world establishes.

49:34Bill Simmons:Yeah, I was trying to scale it down for the rewatchable scenes. I like both of those though. The poker, there's some nitpicks with the poker we can get into later, but I really enjoy this scene and Newman's hilarious. and... So fun. And somehow ends up with four jacks. It's hilarious in this. Give me the deck with the threes and nines. Would you think it was all threes and nines?

49:57Sean Fennessey:I don't know enough about poker to even guess. I don't even know how they could have arranged that. And obviously, what did he have? He had his jacks up his sleeve, I suppose, for the big win.

50:06Bill Simmons:Yeah, because he kept doing...

50:08Chris Ryan:Yeah, he's up against his body.

50:10Bill Simmons:Somehow.

50:11Chris Ryan:His comic acting in that scene is so great. He's just like... looking behind him.

50:15Bill Simmons:I was trying to think how many stars ever are as good in that scene as he is. Like, you really need to have the right amount of charisma. You gotta be kind of a scumbag, but I'm still rooting for you. He doesn't get his ass kicked, which is important. You know, he's pushing the line. There's something... Just not a lot of dudes. Leo, Wolf of Wall Street, Leo is a little bit in that thing. That's a good one, sure.

50:37Sean Fennessey:There's something

50:41Sean Fennessey:interesting about Newman with that because he was a functioning alcoholic for like 30 years. And he would drink like 12 beers a day. And the whole thing with dipping his face in the cold water. And he does it in three other movies.

50:56Chris Ryan:Ruffalo does it in Task. Does he really?

50:58Sean Fennessey:Yeah. That's a thing that he did every day because he drank every day. And in that scene, he's playing drunk. But he spent his whole life pretending he wasn't drunk. So there's like a really interesting dynamic going on there.

51:13Chris Ryan:Is he loaded during movies, like when you're watching him?

51:15Sean Fennessey:I assume not when he's filming. I mean, the stories are legion of him just crushing every day.

51:22Bill Simmons:And now he lives on in the spirit of my mom.

51:29Bill Simmons:Sorry. Not sorry.

51:34Bill Simmons:Hooker sells Lonigan on Double Crossing Newman. It's like, whoa. In the train. Is this real? Is this not real? What's going on here? the fake blue note race that Shaw wins really good stuff we're entering this whole other world in the movie Newman Redford have a good scene with the revenges for sucker scene so why are you doing it seems worthwhile doesn't it I just like seeing them in a scene Salino the assistant gets killed I think CR was a little sweet on Salino yeah not a traditional Hollywood beauty

52:07Chris Ryan:it's 2am we're both lonely blue plate special between us. Well, she's been around. Yeah. She could show you some things. Sure. Yeah. She's going to silence her.

52:17Bill Simmons:Her getting killed is a good... Wait, what? She's the assassin. Yeah. And then the final con. Really good stuff. You're not going to stick around for your share. Nah, I'd only blow it. My favorite's the poker scene. That's my most rewatchable.

52:29Chris Ryan:The poker's pretty high up there. I honestly have one. My most rewatchable scene you did not mention, which is the first time Gondorf and Hooker meet. And Gondorf's way hungover. Yeah. He's like Luther said I could learn from you. I already know how to drink. Every line is perfect. The two of them jousting is perfect. The obvious affection that they have for each other, but also you kind of can't decide whose movie this is going to be in that scene, and you never really figure it out. I love Newman in that scene. What do you have?

53:00Sean Fennessey:It's a great pick. I would do the poker scene as well for obvious poker reasons.

53:04Bill Simmons:What's the most 1973 thing about this movie? It's a hard one because it's set in 1936 Chicago, but I still have an answer.

53:11Sean Fennessey:I have one thing. So, this is a movie about the Depression, but it seems like a charming throwback because enough time has passed, generationally, that it can seem fun. Like, this would be if there was a movie in 2062 about right now. You'd be like, oh, there's some, like, isn't that interesting? Whereas, like, living here right now, we're like, we live in hell right now. It's a weird time to be alive. But when enough time passes, what feels like the worst thing in the universe has a kind of charm.

53:47Bill Simmons:I thought you were going to mention Eddington there.

53:51Sean Fennessey:I mean, part of the reason why I like that movie is because I've seen very few movies that are like, it's as bad as it seems. You know what I mean?

53:59Bill Simmons:I want to do, I want to do a family rom-com about how much weirdly fun the first two months of COVID was because you just stuck with your wife and kids it was the most time I spent with my kids probably ever for the rest of my life and now I'm nostalgic for it but we were Paul fearing for death and we couldn't leave our house

54:17Sean Fennessey:you were at the perfect time in your life though I was, it was great ask a parent who had like a 4 year old and a 1 year old what it was like to have kids then I didn't say it was rational

54:26Bill Simmons:every part of COVID was horrible but the one thing was like we were all kind of hanging out you were trying to get through it

54:32Chris Ryan:you were like right at the precipice of Empty Nest I was doing some seasonal cleaning of my house and came across like a bunch of the, what we thought were like suitable masks from really early COVID, but it's just like, some woman made it on Etsy. And it's just like, it says like, we'll get through this together, knit across the front.

54:54Bill Simmons:Yeah.

54:55Chris Ryan:Air just flying into it. I had like a fucking Liverpool, like what's the thing, the survivor that they get?

55:01Sean Fennessey:Oh, the buffs.

55:02Chris Ryan:Yeah, I had a Liverpool buff and I was like, this will keep me safe from the novel coronavirus. you've had COVID what eight times now how many times have you had it I think I still have it yeah

55:13Bill Simmons:you were talking to Newsom a lot back then that's right me and Gav like Gavin said stay away from the beaches it can really spread there off the water

55:20Sean Fennessey:how's your pod with Gav going yeah surprisingly hasn't been picked up by Spotify I don't know it's only a few that's funny

55:27Bill Simmons:I have for the most 1973 thing Robert Shaw not seeming like he's 65 years old because he's actually 45 I just think that's a different era of actor yeah you see all these dudes and you're like and then payphones how it's like a nostalgic version of the payphone in these movies and now payphone I just see I notice payphones when I see them in movies now because they're so far removed from society

55:56Sean Fennessey:it is weird to see one there is one in one battle after another actually in a pivotal scene in the movie but yeah I mean when's the last time you saw one in the wild I can't even remember.

56:07Chris Ryan:I've seen them in Philly, but they're like completely stripped for parts to the extent that there are any parts in there.

56:12Bill Simmons:Did you write any payphones in the task when you were working on the episodes? What's age the best? What do you got, CR?

56:20Chris Ryan:Well, let's see. You know what? Sean mentioned something about

56:26Chris Ryan:looking back romantically on the 1930s. And I did feel like the thing that's maybe age the best about this movie is that it inverts everything it's about. so it's like a movie about the depression but all these guys are dressed really snazzy yeah and they're like in cool bars and there's money flying around cash yeah this is a movie about like an incredibly anxious tight situation and everybody is cool as shit nobody's like i haven't had a meal in eight days yeah nobody's like man i'm really sweating this what if we fuck up it's like hey kid what's the worst that could happen he could kill you and it's like that's what makes it work the stakes are so high but the guys are so cool and you watch this you're like This is just everything from Ocean's Eleven is just drawn directly from this.

57:08Chris Ryan:It's a great take.

57:09Bill Simmons:Good one. I have great clothes in this movie. The three-piece suits and fedoras. Just really enjoyable. Apparently, it started a little fashion trend in the 73-74 range with the suits.

57:21Sean Fennessey:Would you ever do an episode of this show where we had to dress up like the costume? Yeah, from the movies.

57:27Bill Simmons:We dressed like golfers for Tin Cup. That was fun. Yeah, I don't know if... You did? Well, we just were like wearing... Okay.

57:34Chris Ryan:House just dressed the way House dresses. We just dress like House, basically.

57:38Bill Simmons:I have fixing races, counterfeit money, cheating at poker.

57:47Sean Fennessey:These are all very much still alive.

57:49Bill Simmons:All these things that just seem like they were way easier to do once upon a time. And now it will be way harder. It made me think like, you know, Jontae Porter's probably watching this going, Man, in 1936, I really could have been cooking. He would have cooked back then. People would believe anything. Just give them fake money. They wouldn't look at it.

58:09Chris Ryan:It is funny. It's an easier time. Are you ever on a group text about a game and you're watching it on cable, so you're ahead by a minute? Yeah. Yesterday, I was watching the Eagles on cable, but Andy and Zach were watching on YouTube TV. I kept being like, holy shit. They'd be like, we're not there yet. You could be like, no, not Jalen Hurts. I just watched him die for a minute

58:34Sean Fennessey:I thought you were going to bring

58:35Chris Ryan:That looked like his knee That's non-contact You hate to see that

58:40Sean Fennessey:I thought you were going to bring up how easy it was to identify Tony point shaving in blue chips You know, it's like That was 35 years ago And it was like We just watched the VHS tape And it was very clear that he was doing it

58:50Bill Simmons:No, no, man Not Tony Redford running He spends a lot of time running in this world He does He does really good form yeah Cruz I'm just gonna do this later I'm happy to do it now just best A-list acting runner Redford vs. Cruz I think Redford has a real case

59:11Sean Fennessey:also kind of underrated in the great athlete stars Reynolds and Cruz and all these guys who do all this stuff but skiing baseball you know I guess he doesn't appear in the legend of Bagger Vance but that's a golf movie somewhere Gilbert Arenas is like Redford was a bucket

59:30Bill Simmons:Who's a better runner than Cruz? Are they in the finals for sprinting? Cruz versus Redford? In the sprinting A-list finals? Is there anybody else?

59:38Chris Ryan:The question is whether or not Redford can go straight into tumbling the way Cruz does in the firm. You know, straight into, like, somersaults.

59:45Bill Simmons:I mean, the firm, for 10 minutes, Cruz is sprinting. Yes. He sprints into an office, jumps out of a window, sprints, goes to that tram thing, sprints again. sprints to Arkansas, basically. I think he's still the goat.

1:00:00Sean Fennessey:He's the goat of running.

1:00:01Bill Simmons:Here's another one. What's age the best? Pretending to be drunker than you are when you're gambling. I know Sean's done this.

1:00:07Sean Fennessey:Have you? I haven't. It's not really my thing. Because I'm just not a big talker at the table.

1:00:11Bill Simmons:I don't talk a lot of shit. How about characters named Horseface Lee, Slim Miller, Suitcase Murphy, The Boon Kid, Daffy Burke, Limehouse Chappy? I was wondering whether you would put this group up against the Goodfellas nicknames. They're really good. Big Alabama,

1:00:28Chris Ryan:Cryin' Jonesy. Big Alabama, crucially from New Orleans, though.

1:00:32Bill Simmons:Right. And then we have...

1:00:33Sean Fennessey:Nothing on Mickey two times.

1:00:36Bill Simmons:We also have a Leroy and a Luther and a Hooker.

1:00:38Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

1:00:40Bill Simmons:Yeah. Pickpocketing. It's aged the best? Has aged the best. I think it's an underutilized movie device at this point. Maybe because it should almost be phone pocketing instead of wallets.

1:00:51Sean Fennessey:Pick Up on South Street, Sam Fuller movie, incredible pickpocketing scene, and then Linus from Ocean's Eleven. Yeah. an all-time pickpocketer.

1:00:58Bill Simmons:Another 48 hours, really good pickpocketing scene. Saving it for movies I like to hate watch month. What's age the best? Any train trip with stars where you feel like something might happen? Oh, yeah. The trading places corollary. Love it. It's like, oh, we're going to be on a train for a little while.

1:01:14Chris Ryan:This would be good.

1:01:15Sean Fennessey:That's great.

1:01:17Chris Ryan:You and Sal should do Guess the Lines, but like from LA to San Diego.

1:01:22Bill Simmons:Shaw limps in this movie because he injured his leg playing handball. That was the official explanation. And they just told him to use the limp for the character.

1:01:32Sean Fennessey:You just fell down a staircase after nine scotches.

1:01:35Bill Simmons:What we know about Robert Shaw, would you go with door A handball, a handball accident or door B? Yeah. Thor B, 38 drinks on a Sunday night and fell down a flight of stairs. I don't know.

1:01:47Chris Ryan:What's age the best? Not only Schlitz in bottles. Schlitz was the biggest beer in America in the 30s, but also guys drinking beers because it's too early to start drinking in the morning. So they'll have like a beer for breakfast.

1:02:01Sean Fennessey:Right.

1:02:02Chris Ryan:Right. That's what I do. Do you think that just everybody before like 1964 was shithoused the entire day? I mean, that's basically what Batman's about.

1:02:10Sean Fennessey:Can we talk, let's talk about drinking for a second.

1:02:12Bill Simmons:But then they all died when they were like 51.

1:02:14Chris Ryan:Okay, this is my thing. They got the most out of life though.

1:02:17Sean Fennessey:I know you don't, you don't drink as much as you did when you were in your 20s and 30s, right? Fair to say? God, no. So not even close. Fair to say. Definitely not. So neither do I. And I know you don't either, right? I mean. You've never been a huge, a tonnage drinker. I still drink five days a week.

1:02:33Bill Simmons:CR's in black tar heroin now.

1:02:35Sean Fennessey:That's right. Just cleaner. What happens to your body where you get to a certain age and then they're like, if you cross the two drink thresholds and they're like, no, I will make this really hard on you the next day in a way that you never, ever understood it. What is the, because these guys who we're talking about when I was growing up, I was like, well, this is what men do. They have eight drinks and it's fine. But then you learn a little bit more about life and more or less you die at 50 in your sleep when you drink this way. Like it's just not, or playing handball. Yeah.

1:03:05Bill Simmons:I think it's pretty simple. The more you drink, the worse you sleep. And the worse you sleep, the faster you die.

1:03:12Sean Fennessey:Okay. I'll go with that because I definitely sleep much worse when I drink now as opposed to even 10 years ago.

1:03:18Bill Simmons:Well, especially if you're having like two, three glasses of wine, just the sugar from that if you're having a little later. I mean, we were talking, I saw a bunch of my, a bunch of buddies this summer for different reasons, including my old high school buddies. We were talking about how I would all of us would we would drink Jack and Cokes but then I would have like six Marlboro Lights and I'd have eight Jack and Cokes and then I would wonder why like I woke up at 4.30 in the morning well then I would clean out some Moroccans playing pool but I'd wake up at 4 in the morning with my like thinking I was going to have a heart attack like oh really that's maybe an eight Cokes yeah an eight Cokes and cigarettes

1:04:02Sean Fennessey:it is like a real a confrontation with middle age though where you're like i had two and a half drinks and i've awoken at 4 a.m and i'm like sweating yeah whereas in the past that was like i agree with you but i

1:04:15Chris Ryan:do think that there's something there's like a an environmental thing where it's like if you're very aware of what it's going to do and everybody's having conversations like this like oh my sleep my sleep do you think any man before the vietnam war talked about what kind of sleep they were getting.

1:04:31Sean Fennessey:Yeah, that's a good point.

1:04:32Chris Ryan:Not that I want to go back to that. I'm just saying that like, if you were just like, I have to suffer in silence. Right. I woke up three times to pee.

1:04:38Sean Fennessey:The greatest generation did not need to listen to the Huberman lab podcast. That was not important to them.

1:04:44Bill Simmons:Robert Shaw apparently was a huge infrared sauna guy though. Yeah. That's what he said.

1:04:48Sean Fennessey:But Redford looks like a guy who's never had a drink in his life.

1:04:51Bill Simmons:Yeah.

1:04:51Sean Fennessey:Newman, part of what's so interesting about him is he was so, so beautiful and always so fit, even though he was drinking a case of beer. That's because he took pure sunlight. You know? That's right. Yeah, he swam in infested rivers. Strong constitution.

1:05:06Bill Simmons:There's one other what's age the best, and I encourage people to go watch this on YouTube. Liz Taylor presents the best picture for this thing. Yeah. Liz Taylor, I'm not saying she's the hottest woman of all time, but just make sure you mention her from 58 to 70. Mention her who? Yeah. If the conversation's being had, just bring her up. Okay. But in 73? she looks great

1:05:30Chris Ryan:this is getting a little like your Sinatra take go ahead

1:05:34Bill Simmons:Sinatra was the coolest person ever lived yeah definitely I won that argument everyone says yeah everyone says that

1:05:43Chris Ryan:people are saying

1:05:45Bill Simmons:I won it wasn't an argument Liz Taylor still looks like lights out of 1973 goes up to do best picture the streaker had just happened and she's frazzled by the streaker and trying to get through the things and she stops at one point and she's like I'm sorry I'm still a little whatever and then gets through it the sting wins and then one of them is like I can't believe, oh Julia Phillips I can't believe I'm up here with Liz Taylor and you hear Liz Taylor like happily laughing it's just like, it's very Hollywood-y everything about the Oscars back then it wasn't as polished as now and it's just like everybody's just going, they're probably all bomb before they get there.

1:06:27Bill Simmons:They're not worried about the red carpet being interviewed by somebody.

1:06:31Sean Fennessey:Yeah, in 73, Liz Taylor, I think at that point, had been married to Richard Burton, the other world-class drinker, the Welsh

1:06:38Bill Simmons:titan of getting hammered. All the dudes from back then. So then Pacino, who was nominated for Best Actor, he had a whole story about he didn't realize the category was televised, and he was zonked out and drunk. He took a Xanax or something, right? Yeah, and thought it was an hour-long show, and it was three hours. so by the third hour he had to pee he didn't know whether he could get up

1:06:58Sean Fennessey:how does Al Pacino not know how long the Oscars are in 1974 I don't know there have been two Godfather movies that he is the star of that were he's nominated I don't think he was that if you're on volume

1:07:12Bill Simmons:you're just like I guess he was saying he hoped he didn't win because he thought he was like incoherent but he like

1:07:17Sean Fennessey:he was treating the Oscars like it was a Starbucks drive-thru he's like I'm gonna wrap this up in like 20 minutes we'll be back out on the road it's like you've been to the Oscars like five times.

1:07:26Bill Simmons:This sounds like the best Oscars you could have gone to. It sounds like it was the craziest. The Streaker was fun.

1:07:33Sean Fennessey:Where does David Niven rank in your all-time hosts? Because he was the host and he was the one who had that crack about the shortcomings with the Streaker.

1:07:41Bill Simmons:I have him low.

1:07:42Sean Fennessey:Low. Because he was British?

1:07:44Chris Ryan:Yeah. David, I think, put close some bars with Robert.

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1:09:43Bill Simmons:Visit taxact.com to learn more. Conditions apply. See taxact.com for details. For sure. Oh, yeah. For sure. We'll take one more break, and then we'll do the mini categories. Okay. Big Kahuna Burger Award for Best Use Food and Drink. The fake gin. Who beat that? I had the blue plate special. Plus, we learned something.

1:10:05Chris Ryan:Oh. Have you guys ever had a blue plate? What was on it? I don't know. He should have had the meatloaf, but she was like, it wouldn't be much better.

1:10:13Bill Simmons:that was my dad's podcast that we never gave him at the ringer that's right the blue plate special I was gonna call it great shot go to word most cinematic shot what do you have

1:10:21Chris Ryan:I actually went off book here and did wonderful edit Willie for William Reynolds Hollywood editor who did a sound of music see our zagging like Pauline Kale right now Godfather just the use of wipes you know makes the movie kind of feel like softer than it probably would have been it's very gritty content but it's like a very beautiful like great edit Willie yeah that's great cut wonderful edit Willie

1:10:45Bill Simmons:wonderful edit Willie

1:10:46Sean Fennessey:yeah he uses the iris transition as well right where the screen shrinks down

1:10:50Bill Simmons:good one kid cutty pursuit of happiness word uh it's gotta be the entertainer yeah yes Chess Rockwell Brock Lendersworth best character name I mean I mentioned 30 of them Johnny Hooker's really solid though Henry Gondorf

1:11:03Sean Fennessey:I feel like you hear that name and I can see Newman in my head right away

1:11:06Chris Ryan:I do think if you were gonna close your eyes and think of an Irish mobster Dale Lodigan is like as close as you could get pretty good

1:11:12Bill Simmons:What do you have for a flex category?

1:11:15Chris Ryan:I had Den of Thieves, Benny Hanna, War for Scene Stealing Location is the Carousel Whorehouse. You love a good whorehouse in a movie.

1:11:23Sean Fennessey:Now, is the idea there that you get a ride on the ride? Like, what's the... I think that there's a little bit of...

1:11:29Chris Ryan:Is there some cross promo? Yeah, but I also just really love the idea that it was like, the girls aren't busy tonight. Can they ride the carousel? Can you imagine just going downstairs seeing a bunch of hookers on...

1:11:38Sean Fennessey:You really got to, like, wipe down those horses on the carousel. I don't think in the 1930s they were worried about. They didn't have like disinfectant that they would put on there? Transmission that way.

1:11:46Bill Simmons:Okay, got it. There's parts of the 1930s that just sounded great.

1:11:51Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

1:11:51Chris Ryan:90 % of people having to clap.

1:11:53Bill Simmons:Siflitic whorehouses. Yeah. That part, baby. Yeah.

1:12:00Chris Ryan:Drinking 16 Schlitzes.

1:12:02Bill Simmons:Yeah, those Schlitz in the bottle look really tasty.

1:12:04Sean Fennessey:I love to take half a million dollars off of an Irish gangster. Yeah. That sounds really fun.

1:12:08Bill Simmons:Butch's girlfriend award for week link of the film.

1:12:11Sean Fennessey:I have one

1:12:12Bill Simmons:yeah I have one too

1:12:14Chris Ryan:so there's like a it's hard to explain this but there is a subplot of two other hitmen pursuing Hooker it's Cole and Sullivan and they're supposed to be taken off the job by Lonegan who puts Salino on the job but they stay on it and it just gets confusing and it's really a hat on a hat it's unnecessary to have yet another team of hitmen chasing him and it just really creates more running for Redford. So on 30th rewatch, I was like, I could do without Colton Sullivan. It doesn't really do anything for the movie. Do you have anything?

1:12:48Sean Fennessey:I don't really think any of the performances are bad. Do you have somebody that you want to point to that doesn't really work? If you say Eileen Brennan, I'm walking out.

1:12:57Bill Simmons:No, I liked her. I did have the question, how is there not a 1936 babe in this movie? What are we doing? Yeah, well, you get the

1:13:08Sean Fennessey:striptease name at the beginning.

1:13:10Bill Simmons:film yeah so just some of the people we had in the 73 range we had young jane alexander we julie christie sitting there for one scene yeah we diane lad we tuesday weld like we had we had the we had the troops we could have pulled something off george way hill was not interested he's like this is a guy's movie i want everybody to look like 1936 people and that's it it would be unlikely

1:13:34Sean Fennessey:i guess at the time for a woman to be a more elaborate part of the con but that's where you'd want to see. You want a woman who would kind of ensnare

1:13:44Chris Ryan:Doyle. Maybe Lonegan has a girlfriend that Hooker's going after. The mistress. Sure. Yeah, definitely.

1:13:51Sean Fennessey:That's where we get Christy Canyon.

1:13:53Bill Simmons:That's right. Well, maybe what's Newman's character's name? Gandalf? Gondorf.

1:13:58Sean Fennessey:Gandalf. Gandalf the Grey. James Gandalfini. He's an incredible wizard.

1:14:02Bill Simmons:Maybe he goes and he's going to get food by himself and he sees somebody who works in a bookstore.

1:14:08Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Yeah.

1:14:09Bill Simmons:Does one of those. It's like, why are you so interested in what I do, lady? That's right. You just have one of those scenes.

1:14:14Sean Fennessey:Catherine Ross, a little reunion from Butch Cassidy. It's a book about horses. What's age the worst?

1:14:18Bill Simmons:The sequel. You mentioned it earlier. It's really awful. Mac Davis is in it. Jackie Gleason.

1:14:24Sean Fennessey:The one thing is, Jackie Gleason is perfect for Gondorf as he is written in the script. Yeah. Aging, heavyset, really insinuating and knowing. Don't defend this thing, too. I'm just saying, like, you could have seen a world where this movie was Gleason and Redford, and that would have been coherent. It would have been a different kind of a movie, but it would have been coherent.

1:14:46Bill Simmons:80s HBO and 80s cable, The Sting and The Sting 2 were on a lot. And The Sting 2 is really bad. And it was on for a while, for a couple years, unfortunately. A few racial slurs in this movie, not awesome. It's slow in an endearing 70s way, but it is a little slow. It's shaggy. I don't know if my son Ben Simmons is making it two plus hours.

1:15:08Sean Fennessey:After the Blue Note scene, it kind of takes its time to get to the big finale. Well, because it's like they insist on doing another

1:15:14Chris Ryan:bet before the sting.

1:15:15Sean Fennessey:Yeah, where he's got to get more information. A long time. Yeah, there's a lot of Ray Walston helping him set up the situation. And who's the other guy? Twist? Twist, yes. Kid Twist.

1:15:28Bill Simmons:This is what it said in Wikipedia about the author of the big cons selling them and settling out of court for$600 ,000. This is just the Wikipedia excerpt. Universal settled out of court for$600 ,000. Irking Ward, who resented the presumption of guilt implied by an out-of-court settlement done for business expediency. I didn't know that there was a whole cottage industry of people

1:15:52Chris Ryan:who kind of trail behind big scripts to make these plagiarism accusations.

1:15:58Sean Fennessey:We just saw this, right? With the Dave Franco, Alison Brie movie together. there was a big suit about the plot of that movie being lifted from another writer.

1:16:06Bill Simmons:I wanted to sue to get my 100 minutes back. The movie fucking sucked. Listen. I wasn't a big fan either. I didn't sue when they stole The Purge from me. They literally stole The Purge. They stole it? Yeah. I created The Purge. The Purge.

1:16:20Sean Fennessey:The Purge. You filing an injunction against Blumhouse?

1:16:23Bill Simmons:Kevin Wildes and I half-picked ideas. I did the whole idea about Leapier. It's interesting what you could claim. You know? Diaries. I said on Leap Year, there are no rules, no crimes. It's one day. I did a whole thing about it. And then the purge happened. Don't you know Grillo? Can you ask him about it? No, I didn't. You know. No bad ideas in a brainstorm. But yeah, you're right. This is a cottage industry.

1:16:47Sean Fennessey:Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, if you want to shift the sort of business strategy of the ringer full stop to you suing guys who had ideas that you had 10 years earlier.

1:16:57Bill Simmons:You watch the idea of Leap Year and you watch the purge. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. They also apparently plagiarized some 1958 Maverick television series episode with James Garner. Oh. There was some stuff online about that.

1:17:11Chris Ryan:Another great con man movie, Maverick. Inspired by Orson Welles radio play, The Three Lives of Harry Lyme, there's some similarities apparently in the story.

1:17:19Bill Simmons:It's a con movie. Overacting word. Redford dialing up like two or three times here in uncharacteristically for Redford Ways. Kehoe? Well, that's his thing, though, right?

1:17:32Chris Ryan:Kehoe kind of... Come on, Chester!

1:17:34Sean Fennessey:Yeah, yeah. But even before he's doing the con, you know, like in the bar with Charles Durning, he's laying it on.

1:17:42Chris Ryan:Oh, yeah, he enrolled in detective school. Yeah. I got Lonegan being like, the name's Lonegan. Don't you forget it.

1:17:50Bill Simmons:Did you think C.R. would be talking like Robert Shaw this whole movie? I was hoping. This whole pod?

1:17:54Chris Ryan:I'm just glad we're not doing Irish Mob Month now. What else would be in the mix there? State of Grace.

1:17:58Sean Fennessey:in Bruges.

1:18:00Chris Ryan:Yeah, in Bruges, yeah. Got a fourth one? No, not off the top of my head. Do you? I guess the Irishman. Yeah, sure. That works.

1:18:11Bill Simmons:It does work. You have a flex category.

1:18:16Sean Fennessey:I'm going to call my own number and do a criteria orgasm.

1:18:19Bill Simmons:You know, I had it, just in case you didn't do it, I had it for later, but let's do it.

1:18:23Sean Fennessey:So the rigged black 22 on the roulette wheel, where Hooker loses in that scene early in the movie is the same spot that Rick Blaine uses for both Captain Renault and the Bulgarian couple to set them up to win in Casablanca. A very purposeful homage to Casablanca.

1:18:41Bill Simmons:Wow.

1:18:41Sean Fennessey:It's a good one.

1:18:42Bill Simmons:Criteriorgasm. Yeah. The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. How does take a word?

1:18:51Chris Ryan:I have one. I have one as well. I kind of tip my hand with the, this is an all-time classic, but it should not have won Best Picture.

1:18:58Bill Simmons:Yeah, okay. I don't even think that's that hot of a take.

1:19:01Chris Ryan:I wonder if this movie is less rewatchable. I shouldn't say I wonder. It's the hottest take. This movie would be less rewatchable but more interesting if Gondorf betrayed Hooker or vice versa. There was some actual real tension and it wasn't all like play acting.

1:19:17Sean Fennessey:I think it's great successes because of the spirited vibe you walk out of the movie on. It's happy and you're like, yeah, we did it. I think this is not my hottest take but it is something that I felt watching it. I think this movie is best seen every 10 years because you made this point earlier. If you forget a few of the plot moments, it's more fun. If you forget that the FBI is fake. Yes, exactly. Because if you know the FBI is fake,

1:19:41Chris Ryan:you're kind of like, all right.

1:19:42Sean Fennessey:Or if you forget Salino. I just forgot Salino. Yeah. I had forgotten. I forgot. I hadn't seen it in nine or 10 years.

1:19:48Chris Ryan:I remember that there was an alleyway shooting where Redford thinks somebody is walking towards him and then they get killed, but I couldn't remember. There's someone's even...

1:19:54Bill Simmons:Every 10 years club. Yeah.

1:19:56Sean Fennessey:Usual suspects. Another good example. The more details you forget, the more fun it is to revisit. My hottest take is, even though it's his only nomination, this wouldn't make my top 10 performances for Redford. And I think he's better in many other movies. And it's weird that he was never acknowledged as a great actor. Because he's great in a lot of movies.

1:20:14Chris Ryan:Can you think of the example of the, I can't believe he wasn't nominated for this?

1:20:17Sean Fennessey:Three Days of the Condor to me is one where it's like, that's a really tough performance. And he's like, he's a guy, he's like a, if you compare what he does versus Beatty in the parallax view, Beatty is like incoherent. That's a super cool movie but the performance that Newman gives, that Redford gives is so interesting in that movie. Plus he's iconic in The Natural. Stuff like that that like how did he not get recognized for those kinds of movies and I love him in this and I think he's really fun. I just think he's a little too old and Newman is a little too young and so him being like the kid again, he's like 32.

1:20:51Chris Ryan:and Newman's supposed to be in his...

1:20:53Bill Simmons:That's the whole Redford did that for most of his career, always playing somebody he was 10 years old to play. You know, re-watching All the Presidents, he's fucking amazing in that movie.

1:21:05Sean Fennessey:Another one he would have been great for.

1:21:07Bill Simmons:But unfortunately, that was like the most low... I guess he probably could have took Giancarlo Giannini's spot. Yeah. Was that for Seven Beauties? I thought he was so good in that movie. That one long scene when he calls... He calls Kenneth Gall, whatever. He's doing the little illustrations. But then the other guy calls, and then he has to put the guy on hold, and it's just all one shot, and it's like seven minutes. Is that I have a wife and a child and a dog and a cat? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's fucking crushing it. One nomination is weird. It's a tough one, though, because we do this with sports sometimes when somebody only wins however many MVPs, and we're like, how did that happen?

1:21:47Bill Simmons:Like Kobe. They do this with Kobe, and it's like, well, go through. because there's probably one more he should have won, but other than that...

1:21:54Sean Fennessey:I mean, Embiid, how did he only win one?

1:21:57Bill Simmons:Yeah, I don't want to deal with Embiid. My hottest take, so there's a setup for this. There's a story about Newman and Redford drove Porsches and loved them. They're both big car guys. And they became lifelong friends. They loved each other. They actually looked for a third movie forever, never found it. At one point, they lived a mile from each other in Connecticut, and they're like legitimate boys. And one day, Newman stole Redford's Porsche on the set and hid the car and made Redford think someone stole it. And then it was revealed that, no, no, here it is. Aha, big laugh. He also had all of these pranks with George Roy Hill that went back and forth and led to him sawing George Roy Hill's desk in half.

1:22:45Bill Simmons:And then he basically won the pranks. Did Clooney get all his prank shit from these guys? This is my hottest take. Where did we go wrong where pranks stopped being cool and just became fucking weird? Because in the 70s, everyone had a great time with pranks.

1:23:01Chris Ryan:But it would be workplace harassment.

1:23:03Bill Simmons:And now it feels like, yeah, it's workplace harassment or somebody trying too hard.

1:23:08Sean Fennessey:As you know, my active favorite current meme by far is utter woke nonsense. And I share that meme as often as I can. And being anti-prank is utter woke nonsense in my mind.

1:23:17Bill Simmons:Like if CR snuck in your house and stole all of your Blu-rays.

1:23:21Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

1:23:22Bill Simmons:That would take a long time. All right. He stole, stole like whatever he thought your favorite section were. All my grails. Yeah. And you just lost your mind. And then it was like, no, I actually have them. Ha ha ha ha. You'd be like, you fucking psycho. Why'd you do that?

1:23:36Sean Fennessey:Like something shifted with pranks. I would call the police and tell him that I was robbed.

1:23:41Bill Simmons:I don't know whether the internet changed the tenor of pranks. Yeah. or was Ashton Kutcher's Punk'd when he made Justin Timberlake cry that time that's right

1:23:49Chris Ryan:yeah but somewhere between

1:23:51Bill Simmons:Punk'd and now pranks stop being cool

1:23:53Chris Ryan:you're not a big prank guy I don't know I think that would be the level of like I would have a hard time lying like doing pulling off a prank but I do find it interesting the idea of like I think we're all just worried about like if I just sawed a desk in half at Spotify would I just immediately like not have access to Slack you know like

1:24:11Bill Simmons:saw Jeff Chow's desk in half like what happened to Sarah he's playing a prank yeah casting what ifs Jack Nicholson offered the lead role turned it down his quote afterwards was I had enough business acumen to know this thing was gonna be a huge hit but Chinatown and The Last Detail were more interesting films to me just sucking up the show it all worked out yeah

1:24:31Sean Fennessey:it's hard to argue at that point I do think he would have crushed this movie

1:24:36Bill Simmons:it's the kind of movie I wish he had made in the 70s or 80s that he just didn't

1:24:40Sean Fennessey:he just has so much native charm he would have been great

1:24:45Bill Simmons:Sterling Hayden turned down the role of Doyle. Didn't want to shave his beard off. Richard Boone.

1:24:51Sean Fennessey:Sterling Hayden also dropped that. We are going like, yeah, deep, deep back.

1:24:56Bill Simmons:Best that guy word. It's got to be Jack Kehoe. I think we're probably the only three people who know he's Jack Kehoe, right?

1:25:03Chris Ryan:Yeah, the only other candidate I had was Charles Deercop, who's Lonegan's bodyguard, Floyd. Oh, the guy who never talks? I have him in a later guy. The guy with the squish nose.

1:25:12Bill Simmons:I love that guy.

1:25:12Chris Ryan:That guy's great. he's in Butch Cassidy and the guy he's like on the putting green with him he's like if this guy sees me yes

1:25:18Bill Simmons:so Jack Keogh is that guy from Midnight Run to me yeah and I gotta say I didn't officially know his name until I researched this so maybe I better go get some donuts

1:25:28Sean Fennessey:the only other guy is Harold Gould as Kid Twist who was the guy from the Golden Girls to me

1:25:34Chris Ryan:oh yeah

1:25:35Sean Fennessey:he was on and was he on Mod he was on another show in the 70s as well but I knew him as the guy from Golden Girls

1:25:42Bill Simmons:better go get us some donuts Dion Waiter's award that's great news Jack Lonegan's henchman we'd mention him Luther basically two scenes Selina the assassin I think Brandon's eligible and I really like her in this movie she's great

1:26:00Chris Ryan:you don't think she's in too much of it maybe she is

1:26:02Bill Simmons:so the answer is probably the henchman who doesn't I don't think have a speaking line

1:26:07Sean Fennessey:I wanted to put up Dana Elkar as the FBI agent Hulk. I feel like he's really good because when you first meet him, you totally buy him. The movie is really good at selling you on the FBI's thing. Of course the FBI would be set up in this abandoned warehouse. That's just what the FBI does. But then in fact you see that it's actually easier to set up a false plan here. And Gondor says in the beginning

1:26:27Chris Ryan:the feds are on to me and all that stuff.

1:26:29Bill Simmons:I think my vote goes to the henchman. He has no role and no lines and somehow stands out even when he's behind Newman in the poker scene and he's just got that look on his face. It's just, I think it's really hard to stand out with no lines. Recasting couch director of City. Can I offer you Jane Alexander as Salino the Assassin? Yeah, sure. Okay.

1:26:51Sean Fennessey:Just a few years before all the presidents been. Yeah.

1:26:56Bill Simmons:Half-assern research. Hill really wanted this to feel like the 1930s, watched a bunch of gangster films and realized none of them had extras. And that's why this movie, the street seemed so empty.

1:27:07Chris Ryan:That's why Pauline thought it was claustrophobic, yeah.

1:27:08Bill Simmons:yeah which I thought was really interesting because this movie really didn't need extras but now if they made it it would be like Gangs of New York there's just people everywhere yeah

1:27:17Sean Fennessey:that is interesting I mean I it never really bothered me it never occurred to me why is this not bustling Chicago the way I'd hoped it just it feels manufactured on purpose yes yeah

1:27:27Bill Simmons:a lot of the cars in this movie were real period cars

1:27:32Chris Ryan:and Tony Bill got a lot of them right

1:27:34Bill Simmons:the producer found some of them um Snyder rejects Billy's drink by pouring it on her hand and it was an accident and they improv'd it and Eileen Brennan was annoyed. There you go. The movies filmed in the diner is the same diner that they use for Back to the Future when Marty McFly meets his father and calls Doc Brown because it's right on that universal lot. Which I don't know if you've ever been to.

1:28:00Sean Fennessey:I have. But it's pretty cool.

1:28:03Bill Simmons:It's a great tour. and then Redford had a broken right thumb from a skiing accident and was supposed to be in a cast but didn't have one and is using a lot of stuff that isn't with his right thumb during the movie

1:28:17Sean Fennessey:wow the downhill racer returns yeah

1:28:19Bill Simmons:this is what Robert Shaw said about Newman they all recognized Newman to be sure everyone would come up and kind of swoon over him but they didn't in Redford's case not at all

1:28:32Chris Ryan:do you think he's just fucking with Redford? That's a weird story. Obviously didn't like Redford.

1:28:38Bill Simmons:Marv Hamlisch, three Oscars that year. And he's like, I'm going to dominate the next 30 years. Who could possibly come in and take my spot? And John Williams was like, here I come.

1:28:50Sean Fennessey:So Marv's Oscar for this movie is a weird one because it's best scoring adapted.

1:28:55Chris Ryan:Yeah, which is adapting Scott Joplin's music.

1:28:58Sean Fennessey:Yeah, which is not something that exists anymore and you don't hear about that. In fact, if you're adapting previously used music, you are ineligible for the best score Oscars.

1:29:05Bill Simmons:He's like, what if it goes da-da-da-da-da-da-da? They're like, yeah, Marv. Write that out.

1:29:11Sean Fennessey:I did like that tidbit that Ward said where he thought this should be like a 1930s Chicago blues movie. Yeah. You know, he wanted it to sound a certain way. And that Hooker growing up with like

1:29:21Chris Ryan:black friends, yeah.

1:29:22Sean Fennessey:And that George Roy Hill was like, actually, no, it's ragtime music. That's what we should be playing even though it takes, you know, that music was popular 20 years before this movie takes place.

1:29:31Bill Simmons:Julia Phillips' first woman to be nominated for and win the Academy Award as a producer for Best Picture.

1:29:37Chris Ryan:She has a great... And wrote a book. Yeah, and she has a great anecdote about if you don't... Everybody negotiated the font or the thickness of their name in the credit except for the producers and it wound up being very, very thin. So it just seems like everybody else is more important than them.

1:29:54Bill Simmons:And then she tried to snort the font. Bradford.

1:29:58Sean Fennessey:Gotta laugh out and go, I don't know. Yeah, you like that.

1:30:06Bill Simmons:Newman and Redford had one issue, according to Julia Phillips, because Redford was always late. He was at least 40 minutes to an hour late every day on the set, which was apparently a Redford thing for his whole career. And she said, one day Newman tore him apart for it. Paul is the bigger star, and he said something like, what are you, a movie star? And then Redford started showing up just 20 minutes late instead of 40. and

1:30:30Chris Ryan:what do you think Redford was doing? Power move

1:30:33Bill Simmons:Julia said it was a psychological flaw compulsion to not be on time comes with the mantle being a star I did a film with Steve McQueen same thing

1:30:43Sean Fennessey:power move you like it? maybe I'll pick it up going forward

1:30:48Bill Simmons:Sean shows up at 4 o 'clock for our rewatch sorry we just finished tapping I'm here now Apex Mountain Newman in no no I don't know what it was but it wasn't this

1:31:05Bill Simmons:cool hand loop it's somewhere in the 60s mid 60s Redford I think yes Oscar and then this 70s run probably he's wrapped up 72 73 I think this is like the specific moment where he could do whatever the fuck he wanted he's like

1:31:21Chris Ryan:I call the shots on what I make I'll work with who I want

1:31:25Bill Simmons:I'll get the I'm the first call Yep.

1:31:27Sean Fennessey:Way We Were and this movie, same year. They're both two of the 10 biggest movies of the year, and he's nominated for an Academy Award.

1:31:34Bill Simmons:This would be a good championship belt to figure out, is First Call. Who had the First Call championship belt? Redford is now, after this thing, first call for like, I would say three, four years.

1:31:45Chris Ryan:Do you think DiCaprio is still first call, or is he first call for a certain kind of movie? No, I think he's held the belt for 25 years.

1:31:52Bill Simmons:I think Chalamet's first call now.

1:31:54Sean Fennessey:I don't. I don't think so. I don't Timothy Sheldon there's no proof that he can open a movie by himself

1:32:00Bill Simmons:but Leo's in his 50s now he's 50

1:32:03Sean Fennessey:and we're now getting like a real tough test of whether or not he still can but Killers of the Flower Moon which is like four hours long made over 150 million dollars worldwide like that's crazy and everybody knew

1:32:13Chris Ryan:it was going to be on streaming yes so you think Leo is still first call I do I think the Heat 2 thing is remarkable because I think it was just like this movie literally can't happen unless he does it if he's doing it.

1:32:26Sean Fennessey:And it's been true since Titanic that he's had that belt. So that's almost, what is that, 28 years? That's how Blood Diamond got made. You don't think Brad Pitt ever...

1:32:35Bill Simmons:That's how Body of Lies got made. You don't think Brad Pitt ever grabbed it for a split second?

1:32:39Sean Fennessey:Not really. I mean, F1 is Brad Pitt's biggest movie of all time.

1:32:45Bill Simmons:So Leo's had it since... Brad Pitt makes a lot of weird movies, yeah. Maybe it wouldn't be a good podcast. It's probably more fun than the 70s, 80s.

1:32:53Sean Fennessey:70s and 80s, I think, is a lot of fun because you've got Schwarzenegger and Stallone, and you've got those battles. You've got Bruce Willis. You've got all those guys. Cruz is in there for a while. You've got so many people. But I think Leo has so thoroughly dominated because he's also been able to play anywhere from 20 to 50 in that time.

1:33:09Chris Ryan:And he was ascendant right when Cruz became All I Do is Mission Impossible and weird. Harrison Ford got it after Witness.

1:33:18Bill Simmons:I think in 84 he had it, and then Costner came on his corner a little bit. but uh yeah hanks probably has it for a minute yeah oh no question yeah the 93 to 90 he kind

1:33:29Chris Ryan:of took it from denzel i think still does to some extent have it or have had had it you're shaking

1:33:35Bill Simmons:your head well i don't know if he ever completely had it but he he did have the thing where you had

1:33:39Sean Fennessey:a lot of scripts that were written for white guys and then they would then either denzel got his hands on it or some agent was like what if it was denzel and then they would have to refashion the entire movie around him which is a really specific kind of power but not the same as the Leo thing.

1:33:53Chris Ryan:Yeah, Alonzo originally white. Yeah.

1:33:55Sean Fennessey:It was originally they were flipped roles. It was going to be Ethan Hawke. Well, that was Eddie Murphy

1:33:59Bill Simmons:with Beverly Hills Cop. Yeah. It was written first alone. Well, anyway, Redford I think grabbed first call.

1:34:05Sean Fennessey:Is it also Apex Mountain for George Roy Hill?

1:34:09Bill Simmons:I think it is because he wins Best Director. Now he has this and Butch. He can do whatever the fuck he wants after that.

1:34:15Chris Ryan:He has Waldo Pepper after this?

1:34:16Bill Simmons:Yeah.

1:34:17Chris Ryan:Scott Joplin. yeah probably I don't think a lot of people knew ragtime music before this not a ton of people yeah and Marvelous Marv Hamlish

1:34:28Bill Simmons:yeah definitely

1:34:29Sean Fennessey:probably definitely

1:34:31Bill Simmons:Eileen Brennan

1:34:33Sean Fennessey:I would say Clue I love her in Clue she's amazing in Last Picture Show it's weird

1:34:38Bill Simmons:I would say Private Benjamin great in that too because she is she nominated for that I think she might have been she was nominated she was awesome you might be right

1:34:46Chris Ryan:I guess that would probably be it she really just like walks up and down a hallway in the studio. She's incredible, but she doesn't... She just has great presence.

1:34:51Sean Fennessey:She's a good screen star.

1:34:52Chris Ryan:It's also awesome every time she leaves a room, Newman, like, stares at the door for, like, a beat. Yeah. That's his soulmate. Yeah.

1:34:59Bill Simmons:She has a very 1930s kind of face and look, too.

1:35:03Sean Fennessey:She's a good fit for the madam in 1930.

1:35:07Bill Simmons:1930s Chicago movies? More than Untouchables, right?

1:35:12Chris Ryan:The Public Enemy, probably.

1:35:14Bill Simmons:I would say Untouchables. Yeah. How about Madams with a heart of gold? I don't know pull your list out of your pocket who's on there

1:35:23Chris Ryan:Madem's of the Heart of Gold my unmade Christy Canyon miniseries

1:35:28Bill Simmons:so here was an Apex Mountain Schlitz in the 1930s was apparently by far the biggest beer in the world did it have a

1:35:35Chris Ryan:I wonder if it had a 70s pop after this though might have

1:35:39Bill Simmons:yeah I remember there were a lot of Schlitz commercials in the 70s for sports it was like the last hurrah especially for Bruins games

1:35:49Sean Fennessey:Schlitz is still they still make Schlitz yeah yeah they do

1:35:52Bill Simmons:I mean by the time I was in college Schlitz was like we only have 10 bucks let's get a case of Schlitz let's get a case of Schlitz

1:35:58Sean Fennessey:I feel like Schmitz Gay the SNL was based on Schlitz kind of like torpedoed Schlitz a little bit they probably did

1:36:06Bill Simmons:Robert Shaw no con movies I think yeah because certainly the most successful one

1:36:14Sean Fennessey:it's not the one that I want I would go to first to watch a con movie. But it kind of created the genre. It did and kind of invented it, yeah.

1:36:24Bill Simmons:And then, man, that's it. Cruise or Hanks? Cruise.

1:36:28Sean Fennessey:For which part? For Hooker. See, this is my answer. It's Cruise and Hanks. This would be the perfect Cruise and Hanks movie.

1:36:35Chris Ryan:But using two timelines. No.

1:36:38Sean Fennessey:No, Hanks is Gandalf.

1:36:40Chris Ryan:Hanks is Gandalf.

1:36:42Sean Fennessey:Hanks is Gandalf and Tom Cruise is Frodo. and they have to return the ring to Mordor and put it in the volcano. And Lonegan is Sauron.

1:36:52Bill Simmons:That's right. So Hanks is Newman and Cruz is Johnny Hooker. And what year is this? Like 1998? Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. Late 90s. Yeah, I think that's the answer.

1:37:01Chris Ryan:Our first tie for Cruz and Hanks. Hanks is older than Cruz in real life. Yeah.

1:37:06Sean Fennessey:Yes. I want to say Hanks is like 68. Is he? And Cruz is 60, right? Is that right? I thought Cruz was older. I thought Cruz is older than 60.

1:37:15Bill Simmons:Let's look it up. Cruz is at least 60. Hanks was doing... Tom Cruz is 63. Hanks is at least 67, 68. Because he was in Bosom Buddies in like 1980.

1:37:29Sean Fennessey:Tom Hanks is 69.

1:37:31Bill Simmons:Yeah.

1:37:31Sean Fennessey:Wow. So they're actually, I mean, I think Newman and Redford were like 10 or 11 years apart. So it's not that far.

1:37:37Chris Ryan:Scorsese or Spielberg? I have Scorsese for the grit and Spielberg for the wonder of the movie. Should they have made this movie together? A co-director? Another tie.

1:37:48Bill Simmons:No, I think this is Scorsese. Okay.

1:37:51Sean Fennessey:Yeah. There's something... There's a lot more stabbing. There's something very winning about the tone that George Roy Hill can hit that I feel like only Spielberg knows. Spielberg, he does movie magic. When the movie's over, you're like...

1:38:04Bill Simmons:Although Spielberg did catch... No, no, he didn't do Catch Me for Ken.

1:38:07Chris Ryan:He did. Yeah, he did. He did. I think it would also be Spielberg, I think would be adept on the universal backlot. You know? Yes, for sure. Because he wants to be in Chicago.

1:38:15Bill Simmons:If he did it, it would have had the feel of Catch Me If You Can. Which is a great movie. Yeah. Which role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played? Clearly Lonegan with some sort of Irish accent. Yeah, 100%. It would have been awesome. Pick a nits. Some poker missteps, guys. Let's do it. Tell us all about it. There's some splash in the pot

1:38:33Chris Ryan:out of order. I thought the calls were off. You don't think Lonegan could be like, I will splash the pot whenever the fuck I want.

1:38:43Bill Simmons:They're not going in order.

1:38:47Sean Fennessey:I have a related picking net about the game, which is if the conductor is just back there for the whole game. He's the bank? Who's taking care of the train?

1:38:55Chris Ryan:I think he's like a concierge guy. I think he's the conductor. No, he's like ticket-taking, isn't he? Isn't that the whole thing?

1:39:03Bill Simmons:I thought he was the conductor, but he obviously had an assistant conductor. Okay, yeah. Well, slacking. Yeah, just something's off about the rhythm of it. I think more people are calling, checking.

1:39:16Sean Fennessey:Yeah. You know. That's, but I like the way that Gondorf bullies everybody at the table.

1:39:23Bill Simmons:Yeah.

1:39:23Sean Fennessey:It's a good strategy.

1:39:25Chris Ryan:I have a... Keep pushing the action. Lonegan has had dudes killed. Yeah. I think he notices there are no entry or exit wounds on Hooker. Okay. That's good.

1:39:34Sean Fennessey:I have, does Lonegan really have no way of checking whether or not there's a New Hampshire horse race? These are obviously fake horse races, right? No, they're real horse races, right? But would he not look in the newspaper the next day to confirm the results of the race? There's so many things. If you go into the cons, you have to assume that Lonegan is like, okay, I guess I got worked and accepts it. Right.

1:39:59Bill Simmons:There were newspapers in 1936.

1:40:02Chris Ryan:Ray Walston's reading a real wire, isn't he? like they are real races or no i thought they were imagined because they're controlling the action but he's like oh we can't use this one it's four to one we can't use this one it's six to like i thought they made up the races because it lonigan is going to do one for us lonigan's going to do the second bet when he's like i need to do another small bet before i do the big bet and they're like we don't have a horse that comes in like if this horse hits we're going to get cleaned out so we have to basically stall him and make it so that he can't place his bet i think that's because they're taking real results so that the next day lonagan will see blue note one you know but it's just delayed i i but i don't understand how they have like the whole fake walls the fake like wiretapping thing with twist so it is it is a complicated element of it but i always thought that they were real races and then that would be the kiss off would be like he's like shit i guess i just placed the wrong bet and then the fbi read it right picking it eileen brennan's job so running a whorehouse day-to-day yeah but also available

1:41:14Bill Simmons:for to help her friends with elaborate con artist scams yeah yeah i think madam has basically travis hunter she can play offense and defense yeah yeah i think you have flexible hours you need a good number two at the whorehouse.

1:41:29Chris Ryan:I also feel like the way that life works in that world is that you are up all night long and then you sleep from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

1:41:40Bill Simmons:It's like bartending.

1:41:42Chris Ryan:Working as a madam? Or as a con man. So not a lot of like, hey, I'm just out here getting some lunch errands done.

1:41:48Bill Simmons:Here's my biggest one. How many extras in the betting parlor? Like 30? They're all in on the con job?

1:41:56Chris Ryan:They said that he needs at least 20 guys.

1:41:57Sean Fennessey:Yeah, so what percentage do they get from the final take of 500 grand? Yeah, let's say splitting

1:42:03Bill Simmons:I don't know, everybody gets 1 % of 500 grand? Yeah, and then

1:42:09Chris Ryan:It's a good day's work.

1:42:10Bill Simmons:Then the other guys are splitting half. Not one of these people are a threat to just be like I bet I could make more if I go tell Lon again this is going on. It's a good question. You're just trusting these 30 people in the con world. Not one of them is going to scam you?

1:42:24Chris Ryan:I think IMDB did the math where it's if this takes place in the 1930s, $500 ,000 would be adjusted for inflation, $9.2 million in 2020.

1:42:35Sean Fennessey:That's a lot of money to be walking around with.

1:42:36Bill Simmons:Yeah, I had. I did the same thing. It was almost$11 million, they said. Which is less than Dorian Finney-Smith is going to make on the Rockets this year.

1:42:47Sean Fennessey:Do you see Fred?

1:42:50Bill Simmons:Yeah, I did. R.I.P. Sequel, prequel, Prestige TV, all by cast are untouchable.

1:42:57Chris Ryan:maybe Prestige? Are you interested? I'm interested in them on the run. I would be interested in... From Lonegan?

1:43:04Bill Simmons:Like a sequel?

1:43:05Chris Ryan:Yeah. Lonegan, also like the temptation of pulling something again, knowing that they have this skill, this level of skill.

1:43:14Sean Fennessey:I wrote down Prestige TV. I feel like a Burn Notice-style show every week, Gondorf and Hooker running a new scam. What about Gandalf? Gandalf and Frodo running scams. Those scamps.

1:43:24Chris Ryan:After you get the ring, what do you do next?

1:43:27Sean Fennessey:Yeah, seriously. Con guys. Now what? Like an existential drama? Sort of like Sopranos, but in the world of... Tall wizard, short hobbit. Yeah, Middle Earth.

1:43:34Bill Simmons:Is this movie better with Wayne Jacobs, Danny Trejo, Mad Dog Russo, Doris Burke, Buffalo Bill, Sam Jackson, Nell, Byron Mayo, Tony Romo, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Long Legs, or Wilford Brimley in The Firm? We haven't done Long Legs in a while, guys. he would have loved to come look at Murphy what do you have CR?

1:43:58Chris Ryan:Mad Dog hanging out in the in the wired the horse race parlor be like Mike everybody knows Blue Note's never done much he's just there to round out the field Mike what's Lottigan doing bending forth and now I can't sit

1:44:13Sean Fennessey:I don't even know if that's a good Mad Dog Mike and the dog whenever they would talk about horse racing immediately turn the channel yeah immediately turn it off

1:44:20Bill Simmons:I mean Mike there's Blue Note Hasn't won a race in eight months There's Lonegan just betting on him Something's fishy, Mike

1:44:30Bill Simmons:I thought for sure you were going to do Wayne Jenkins on that one No, I'm saving him

1:44:34Sean Fennessey:God damn I feel like the guy who would crush in this environment is Byron Mayo You've got scams You've got whores You've got, you know

1:44:45Bill Simmons:Hey Selina, I know you're an assassin but there's something lingering in those pants. Just one Oscar who gets it. It's the movie.

1:44:57Sean Fennessey:You think best picture? Well, I mean, well, George Roy Hill? I wrote George Roy Hill. He got it. He got it. The movie is tough because of its competition. In and of itself.

1:45:08Bill Simmons:And that's a good point. So if we're doing just one Oscar. Hamlish? I have it.

1:45:13Chris Ryan:I had Ward. Marv Ham? Ward. Yeah, because they said that after the couple of drafts, Once they changed the amount that Newman was in it, I think Newman says they didn't change four words shooting it.

1:45:27Bill Simmons:Also, widely considered one of the great scripts. Like that aspiring screenwriter study and the structure of it and everything. Yeah, I like that. That's good. Good one. Probably unanswerable questions. We did everything, I think. I got one.

1:45:39Chris Ryan:What was Doyle's handicap? Golfing. Well, he's putting in forest. There is no rule. to those greens. So I don't know what 1930s golf is like.

1:45:52Bill Simmons:His handicap was his handball injury from the limp when he was playing handball and he tumbled over. I think he cheated a lot. Yeah. You do. Yeah, a lot of kicking the ball out of the rough.

1:46:00Sean Fennessey:Oh, yeah. This isn't an OB.

1:46:02Bill Simmons:Yeah.

1:46:02Sean Fennessey:I found my ball. I don't know.

1:46:05Bill Simmons:It had that kind of crazy drunk Irish strength, though. Yeah. I'd probably say like a 15. Big hitter?

1:46:10Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Yeah.

1:46:11Bill Simmons:Big hitter, probably swore on the course.

1:46:13Sean Fennessey:Percenting, though, you know, it's not getting as much distance. Short game a little off, though, right? Kind of kicking the ball. Yeah. Exploded out of a couple caddies.

1:46:20Bill Simmons:What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie? I went with all the poker chips from the poker scene. It would be really impressive. Yeah, I said Henry's playing cards. Yeah, something from the poker I think would be the move. The wallet's interesting. Oh, yeah. The alligator wallet. Counterfeit money in there.

1:46:37Chris Ryan:I like that one. I would be... I think I would feel like my life amounted to something if I could ever pull off overall tank top fedora. The way that Paul Newman does when he's going through how they're going to set up Lonigan and he's just rocking fucking overalls.

1:46:52Sean Fennessey:Will I ever see you in a tank top like that?

1:46:57Chris Ryan:Don't

1:46:58Bill Simmons:blow yourself out, CR. Coach Finstack or best life lesson. Revenge is for suckers?

1:47:04Sean Fennessey:Yeah. I wrote you have to keep this con even after you take his money. He can't know you took him. Just like basically never give away the game.

1:47:13Chris Ryan:I have the Lonigan line where he's talking to Floyd on the putting green. Take a look at that face, Floyd, because if he ever finds out I can be beat by one lousy grifter, I'll have to kill him and every other hood who wants to muscle in on my Chicago operation. It's kind of how you pod, you know? That's how I feel. Yeah.

1:47:31Bill Simmons:I also, I wrote down, I don't know enough about killing to kill him. Yep. I just thought it was a good line. David S. Ward. Good stuff. Cranking it. What do we have left? We have... Double feature? Double feature. What do you got? Question Sundays. you could double con do focus yeah oceans 11 you could do the hot rock too because it's a kind of

1:47:54Sean Fennessey:like redford style right around the same time kind of similarly breezy and fun and there's a

1:48:00Chris Ryan:you know bank heist that is really cool do you want to give people a hint of what the next redford and redford month is they can well we got to do who won the movie first okay who won the movie Newman.

1:48:11Sean Fennessey:I think it's Redford. Because Redford walks out smelling like gold in this movie. I think it's Redford Tiff. Okay.

1:48:18Bill Simmons:I think there's a George Roy Hill case, though. Mm-hmm. To have this and Butch.

1:48:26Chris Ryan:Do you wish they made more movies together? Or are you glad that they went two for two perfect? Newman and Redford? Yeah, and Hill. Yeah. You know, I was thinking about this, because there's this weird stretch of, with both guys post slap shot for newman and then redford for like three years doesn't really do

1:48:44Bill Simmons:anything and then does electric horseman with jane fonda which is one of the weirdest star

1:48:48Chris Ryan:movies he falls into a weird run i guess probably when he starts to get more involved in like his causes and charities or whatever but then he starts doing like he does he directs he does

1:48:57Bill Simmons:brubaker he does uh the natural there's some space from 78 to 84 where i felt like they could have

1:49:04Sean Fennessey:been detectives or something see i was gonna say a little bit older because i think if let's say you just take these movies off the board completely for each of the three of them. Take Legal Eagles out. We don't need it. Take... Wesley loves that movie. Take Fat Man and Little Boy out from Newman. We don't need it. We have Oppenheimer now. We don't need that movie. And take out Funny Farm, which is George Roy Hill's last movie. So you've got 1987. Hold on a second.

1:49:29Bill Simmons:Did you just extinguish Funny Farm?

1:49:30Sean Fennessey:I deleted it. I deleted it from culture.

1:49:33Bill Simmons:That's a horrible take.

1:49:34Sean Fennessey:Funny Farm. Funny Farm's great. It is not great. Oh my God. It is not great.

1:49:38Bill Simmons:Funny Farm's amazing

1:49:41Sean Fennessey:This is an age gap thing

1:49:42Bill Simmons:No, Van Lathan loves that movie too He's been pushing for it I can't remember the last time I saw Funny Farm

1:49:47Chris Ryan:Chubby Cheese? Funny Farm's good

1:49:49Sean Fennessey:You would rather have Funny Farm over a reunion of Redford and Newman? Why can't I have Funny Farm and the reunion? Why do I have to pick? Because George Roy Hill makes World According to Garp Which I know you love But somewhere in 85, 86

1:50:01Bill Simmons:They could have all done a movie

1:50:03Chris Ryan:Yeah, they could have I'm with you on Legal Eagles I would get rid of that Get rid of that they could have done something around color of money everybody's minted color of money like 87 how about this

1:50:15Bill Simmons:could Newman have been Max Mercer in the natural

1:50:18Chris Ryan:well the thing is the reason why they're so interesting is that Newman doesn't ever want to give an inch he doesn't want to be the old guy turning it over to Redford I just don't think he would play that part in the natural yeah

1:50:34Sean Fennessey:yeah I don't know. That's a weird time for Redford. His 80s are kind of funky.

1:50:39Bill Simmons:Can we put both guys in Top Gun? Sure. One of them is the Tom Skerritt part, and then we just create another one for the other guy. Paul Newman would be an awesome Viper. There's both in there. Paul Newman would have been amazing. Yeah, it just never happened. Slightly overqualified for Viper, yeah. Yeah. I think it's something where they're aging detectives in the 80s, and it's... Where the point of life both of them were is there probably would have been some sort of like moral... Let's just put them in Black Rain. I mean...

1:51:10Chris Ryan:Or I could have seen Redford showing up in something like Nobody's Fool.

1:51:15Sean Fennessey:Oh, for sure. Yeah, and he made some of his own versions of movies like that. Yeah. But I think Newman had an ultimately more interesting final 10 years, but there are a couple of like late period Redford movies. You like All is Lost though. All is Lost is great. Old Man and the Gun is great. But like...

1:51:31Bill Simmons:Well, Old Man and the Gun was supposed to be Newman and he was too old. at that point. But Redford is perfect for it.

1:51:36Chris Ryan:I mean, he's perfect in that movie.

1:51:37Bill Simmons:What did you,

1:51:37Chris Ryan:weren't you tweeting about a company we keep, company you keep, like the other day? And then Bill was like, what are you doing? Yeah, right before he died, I was like. It was like right as the football started.

1:51:47Sean Fennessey:I was just on YouTube, just doing my thing. Just looking at stuff.

1:51:51Bill Simmons:All right, to end the pod, producer Craig Horlbeck usually lets us know what he thought of the movie. He's not here today because big road trip for the fantasy football show. But he sat in on the whole pod and now we're gonna get your thoughts. What were your thoughts?

1:52:03Chris Ryan:uh i so i have seen this thing i saw it 10 years ago in college and so you guys saying that you should see it every 10 10 years i think really rang true because i didn't i forgot about the fbi thing being fake or being a part of the con and i forgot about uh seleno in the diner i thought that was just a relationship that hooker was having so it completely worked on me but i loved it 10 years ago i loved it even more now i but for me the best movies the movies that i like the most are the ones that are that succeed commercially and critically they kind of like hit that perfect middle and i think this is the best example of that i love that the whole thing's filmed on a set like you can tell the whole time but to me it just proves that if if you have like talented people and a good script like you can make anything work this whole movie is just like five people running around a set in a back lot and it looks it looks like a painting it looks like an edward hopper painting it's it's it's unbelievable um i i it's pretty impressive to be how cinematic this movie feels considering most of it is just in tiny little rooms and fake sets that you can clearly

1:53:05Sean Fennessey:feel ourselves yeah take that pauline kill the president of cinema is too claustrophobic for

1:53:10Chris Ryan:craig yeah no this movie's amazing also i the dialogue i you guys touched on it a little bit but i realized watching this movie there are like 50 20 to 30 30 phrases that i just don't know what they're saying without context. Like, I don't know if it's like every hundred years jargon resets, but I wrote down a couple of lines here of things that people say, I'm going to read them. Okay. Dookie, we're setting up a wire store on the North side. I'm going to need a 20 man boost right away. These men have got to be quill and everything will be Jake. I just know when he's going to run his chum, make his sting, get the pinch.

1:53:46Chris Ryan:I hear the mark is some big New York wheel like that could be gen z slang i have no idea what that shit means yeah yeah you know what i mean that was the skibbity toilet of 1930 doyle honigan slays yeah what is what do we think wheel

1:53:59Bill Simmons:is like somebody with money i guess like a whale yeah yeah like a whale high roller but like i

1:54:05Sean Fennessey:didn't i've never heard quill these men have to be quill and everything is going to be jake yeah

1:54:08Chris Ryan:they have to be perfect there's also like plenty of lines that you are you can decipher them but the way that they are delivered is so good like when the guy who sets up the wire store for them and they're like, you want a flat rate or percentage? And he's like, who's the mark? And they're like, Doyle Lottigan. He's like, flat rate. Yeah.

1:54:25Sean Fennessey:Love that part.

1:54:27Bill Simmons:I miss the nicknames too. I just don't think we're good at nicknames in the same way anymore. Like if Justin Fields was jumping Justin Fields or something, you'd just have more confidence in him.

1:54:38Sean Fennessey:Yeah, flopping Justin Fields. Night train. What was the name Georgia Justin at Ohio State?

1:54:42Chris Ryan:Yeah. Who was the guy giving out suits when he was recruiting them to be a part of the con team? Was it Twist? I love that if you made it, you got a suit. That was cool. Kid twist. Go pick yourself out a suit.

1:54:53Bill Simmons:You called Danny Kelly DK. Even that was an exciting name. But think if you had named him Twist.

1:54:59Sean Fennessey:Well, you got to be careful. Because remember, their show used to be called The Dan to See Football Podcast. Yeah, true. Didn't hang in there too long.

1:55:06Chris Ryan:One of the worst decisions we've ever had at The Ringer. I got to be honest.

1:55:09Bill Simmons:I think I was involved in a decision. I believe you're the author of the name. I think I might have came up with that. I think I was an affirming vote.

1:55:15Sean Fennessey:Well, you're the author of the show in some ways. so it's okay.

1:55:18Bill Simmons:It was a double terrible idea because it was a terrible name but it also then you couldn't search for fantasy as you searched for pods. It really was not as strong as you. It would auto-correct you away from fantasy every time you typed it in. Listen, even the greats can't bat a thousand. That's right.

1:55:33Sean Fennessey:Even Gondorf missed,

1:55:35Bill Simmons:you know? And Gandalf. And Gandalf. What is the Redford movie you're hoping we do the most on Redford Month, Greg?

1:55:41Chris Ryan:Condor. Yeah, me too.

1:55:43Bill Simmons:Yeah, Condor's sick. Yeah. Because it would have been

1:55:47Chris Ryan:all the presidents men but we've already done that

1:55:48Bill Simmons:the only problem with Condor is if Faye Dunaway

1:55:52Sean Fennessey:is throwing 140

1:55:53Chris Ryan:and that she gets kidnapped and slapped around the only problem is

1:55:55Bill Simmons:we do need it for 70s conspiracy movie month and we just other guys would have to step up it's time to step up Warren Beatty like Travion Henderson

1:56:08Chris Ryan:after Ramondre's two fumbles that's the thing

1:56:10Bill Simmons:after we wave Ramondre it's like Travion's gotta step up now so if we lose Condor yeah you're doing Really? Like, is Black Sunday ready? Like, it's one of those.

1:56:19Sean Fennessey:Great question, but we could return to Robert Shaw

1:56:21Bill Simmons:with Black Sunday. That's true. One of his final performances. So if we waste the Condor chip,

1:56:28Chris Ryan:you have to decide, is it Redford or Conspiracy? What matters more to you? Or could you have both and they both matter equally? Yeah, but they could layer onto each other. The last Redford could be the first Conspiracy. Oh, that's good. It's like how Spotify songs now blend into one another. We could do that.

1:56:42Bill Simmons:Oh, Goes right into Conspiracy Month? Yeah. Oh, I like that idea.

1:56:47Sean Fennessey:It's a nice way to spend a chilly November with a paranoid thriller.

1:56:51Bill Simmons:Good idea. Craig, safe travels. Thanks to Gahal as well. Thanks to Ronik. You can watch all of these on our Ringer Movies YouTube channel. And Redford Month, four left. Maybe it'll bleed into 70s Conspiracy Month. Really interesting idea. Thanks, CR. Thanks, Sean. Thanks, Bill.

1:57:21We'll be right back.