‘To Live and Die in L.A.’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey

16:43Bill Simmons:You know you're in L.A., but it doesn't, it feels like in L.A. that there's no Hollywood shit. You think about the difference So this and Beverly Hills Cop, which comes out the year before. And it's might as well be two different locations. Yeah. I mean, they shoot like one or two things in, in like around where Beverly Center is. Yeah. And then Waxman's supposed to live in Pasadena. But other than that, it's mostly like down by like downtown or south of that or out in Long Beach or out wherever. It's one of the cool things about our life because like Swingers does that too, 11 years later. Just takes you into this different part of Hollywood and all these little tiny fringe pieces of it.

17:19Bill Simmons:It's fucking cool.

17:20Sean Fennessey:This was my huge case for Crime 101, which I just feel like, you know, it was like a solid movie, but it's shot in LA and there are so many moments in that movie where you can recognize the city that we live in. This would probably be less recognizable to anybody who was living in Beverly Hills at the time, though.

17:35Bill Simmons:What did you say was your sweet spot when Artis film in dingy places? When Esthetes, yeah, go to dingy places, yeah. High art, low culture. Like high art, low culture. So could the jet season qualify for this or no? You could have just you could have been like that's a great point Sean thanks for your contributions Thank you

17:49Sean Fennessey:No there's no there's no artistic soul in the Jets that's why they're just low culture

17:56Bill Simmons:Friedkin almost had a 10 picture 100 million dollar deal with 20th Century Fox the studio got purchased by Rupert Murdoch and it fell through so he was back to be a movie by movie and optioned this Gerald Pettovich Pettovich Pettovich who makes a cameo in the beginning Secret Service agent who had this whole thing laid out. Friedkin added the opening terrorist sequence, which we'll talk about in a second, the car chase, and then focused earlier on Chance and Masters. William Peterson, Willem Dafoe. Nobody knew who the fuck these guys were when they make this movie. And the Peterson thing's unbelievable.

18:34Bill Simmons:He's a Chicago stage actor, talks him into doing it. He's 33. Nobody knows who he is. He's doing streetcar in Toronto? Yeah. And he goes and sees him. He's like, yeah, that's the star of my movie. Peterson does that. in Manhunter back-to-back, which we talked about in the Manhunter thing, and he's off. Very strange career after that, but one thing I wrote down, I don't know if you noticed this, Craig, incredible athleticism by Peterson. Like Combine, I think he's like the winner of the Combine. Yes, college football player. Oh, is that right? College football? Is that what it was? At the airport, he jumps up on that railing and runs down the entire thing.

19:07That's all one take and clearly him doing it. Super coordinated.

19:10Bill Simmons:I think there's a bunch of, like that bridge chase-down scene. Oh, yeah. It's another one, but I think, combine he goes in as like a fourth rounder comes out like people are talking about him high first round cooper de jean yeah like holy shit time to the table for him yeah yeah also really wears the jeans in a unique way i don't know how he does it he's got kind of this almost seems pigeon toed

19:32Sean Fennessey:but it has style to it's like john wayne he's got he's got first of all incredible jeans movie yes dudes are just crushing every guy is just not great in this version of la because you're talking 80 89 degrees every day just a lot of like undercarriage sweat yeah i'm guessing he doesn't care yeah you think this movie would be better if everybody's wearing like all birds joggers they're all dressed like jj reddick like uh cr where does he rank for your all-time

20:00Bill Simmons:he's not gonna play by the rules characters for cop movies i'll give you marion cabretti i'll give you any steven seagal cop movie i'll give you popeye and french connection i don't know who else is in there. I think chance is almost unique in just how brazen he is about it. Like he's at his house and he's just like, I'm getting this guy and I don't care. Like, I'm just going to keep going down the rabbit hole of crime until I find my objective. So, and Popeye Doyle, like is constantly breaking what we would consider laws. Now, I wonder if it's more of a depiction of like the state of civil rights in New York city in the seventies, but chances up there.

20:39Bill Simmons:Well, he's a 9 out of 10 but Dennis Peck is still a straight 10. Dennis Peck is Satan. Yeah, Dennis Peck's a full 10.

20:46Sean Fennessey:I thought a lot about Caruso and NYPD Blue actually watching him. I feel like this is a little bit of a model for that too. That's a good one. You felt like he was dirty? I felt like he stretched the limits of what was acceptable.

20:59Bill Simmons:I mean, in one of the first seasons, one of the great first seasons ever but he finds out about Amy Brenneman's character and just buries the info for episode after episode because she's good to have sex with.

21:09Sean Fennessey:Pushed the limit a little bit

21:11Bill Simmons:on what was ethical. Yeah, I like when the cop just can't get a handle on him. He's just willing to get dark. The fact that he gets to go undercover in this and be Mr. Jessup is great. I love it when they get in too deep into their cover stories. I've always loved this guy, obviously. Peterson? He does these first two and then he does Amazing Grace and Chuck, which is a reprehensible movie. It's really awful. but does feature Alex English playing an exhibition game with the 86 Celtics. There's five Hall of Famers out there at the same time, Sean. I know that's meaningful for you. It is. Really, really, truly awful movie.

21:48Bill Simmons:And then he's in Long Gone, which I kind of like and just kind of came and went but is a really decent 80s sports movie. You don't like it?

21:57Sean Fennessey:No, I do. I mean, this is my hottest take. You want to do it now? Go. He's two movie choices away from being in the Mel Gibson, Michael Douglas, Jeff Bridges, Richard Gere, Bruce Willis Zone. Should we go through that? I mean, it's those two movies. He does those two movies. And if he doesn't do them and just does almost anything else in 86 and 87 and then makes one choice, maybe two, in 89 and 90, he's probably in the Mel Gibson zone in terms of how famous he is. Well, I'll give you the choices. He turned down Henry Hill in Goodfellas, allegedly. Allegedly.

22:33Bill Simmons:Tough one. He turned it down to do Young Guns 2. And to do a Kennedy's miniseries.

22:40Sean Fennessey:He did play Pat Garrett.

22:41Bill Simmons:Kennedy's miniseries he did as well. He also, so he turned out a major role in Heat, multiple sources, but I don't know what role it was. And it's a great question of what role would he have turned down. I would assume it's the Jon Voight? Yeah, or Fickner, or I can't see him. You think it's Roger Van Zandt? Yeah, but I can't see him being Chirito at that age.

23:00Sean Fennessey:Fickner is interesting. I could see that. There wouldn't have been Kilmer's part, right? No. No. I don't think so. He also reportedly declined an offer to play one of the characters in Platoon. Oh, that's true. I had that in my notes. Like, it's right there. Yes. And watching him even with Defoe, you're like, oh my god, what could have been in that?

23:20Bill Simmons:He turned down Platoon so he could do Amazing Grace and Chuck in Long Gone. Did he turn down the Berenger part in Platoon or did they say? They didn't say which one. Okay.

23:29Sean Fennessey:It looks like… It's unclear. He was basically like, I don't want to go to boot camp for six weeks to do this movie. And that's the other thing with him is he's kind of like, I'm doing what I want. But the thing is, within five years after turning down Goodfellas, he's playing the dad in fear. And like, that's how much it can change. Now, he gets the last laugh for sure. But you're talking about like one of the major sliding doors in movie star history, I think. He does.

23:53Bill Simmons:I had, so he was in fear. he's in the rap pack which I think is one of the four best HBO movies of the 80s 90s 2000s he plays John Kennedy in the rap pack yes he's excellent in it and that movie's awesome it's only available on YouTube I don't think they could get the rights to the music so you can find it on YouTube then he's in the contender which he's also really good in but the moment's kind of over at that point what happens he goes to CSI in 2000 and just makes all time fuck you money yeah and also I had like 25 million people a week watching him

24:26Sean Fennessey:and the reason he works on that show is the same reason he works on the movie he's insanely watchable you're like you're just locked in when he's on screen you want to be following along his journey and you care about him which is why and the choice this movie makes is a crazy one in terms of what happens to his character because you're so with him through this even though he keeps breaking the rules and keeps fucking up like we can talk about how much he fucks up as a character but he's I think he's a great star this is an amazing find by Friedkin to pluck this guy out because his casting director told him to go to Toronto For him to be like, for my partner, we should get my buddy John Pankow, who's like another Chicago actor, another Chicago stage actor.

25:00And it's like, those guys have instant chemistry. Their initial scenes together, especially like when he's just like, I'm no snitch. You just should have told me. Like that whole scene in the evidence locker area of the Secret Service is so good. Those guys have so much stuff going on between them. And I don't know if you get that. If you're like, here's two random guys that have never had any relationship.

25:20Sean Fennessey:It's like you and Joe House breaking down Khan. you know like you guys you have a lot of history yeah who was the guy who was the prospect that you were talking about with House in the draft and he was like I knew this was going to be your guy Acuff yeah we hadn't even talked about it yeah we both it was our favorite guy

25:38Bill Simmons:we never discussed it we're usually aligned so I've mentioned this before but Peterson has lived kind of in my relative neighborhood and would see him in different places and it was everything you wanted where he's just clearly like I don't act anymore. I made so much money. I have a family. I'm just living my life. I'm having a great time. So it all worked out for him. He did great. But I do feel like, could he have been Kostar? It's on the table. Could he have been Crash Davis? Yes. You could see him as Roy in Field of Dreams.

26:11Sean Fennessey:Could his next movie have been No Way Out? Yeah. I think there's like, can you hold a baseball bat? Can you hold a gun? Can you sit in the president's chair? Those are like big steps for movie stars. He could have done any of those jobs. Could you drive a car?

26:27Bill Simmons:Him, Costner, Mel Gibson, there's only a few of these guys like this. Short list, yeah. And not like a short guy. He's got some size to him. He's strong. There's a sexiness to him, I think. For sure. Some of those guys wouldn't be able to pull off. The one little nugget... When he shows up at What's-Her-Face's Darlene Flugel's house, he's like, I'm ready. Do you want to just do this now, Craig? Craig wants to do his flex category now. Do you really? Speaking of William Peterson. Yeah. I think it has to hit the Dan Campbell scale for holy shit, are they really going for this? I do think this is like the gratuitous 80s nudity triple axel, this scene, where he walks in.

27:02She's already naked. He gives her a shirt. Yeah. She puts the shirt on, then gets out of bed, bare ass, hand on the ass, to the straddle, to the lay her down, to the silhouette of his penis. But he's naked the whole time. Yes. underneath the straddle you see this shadowed silhouette of his genitalia and

27:22Bill Simmons:he's going full hang and dog it is it's not just like a dick shot it's like dick and balls I'm giving you the whole thing it's like apparently Freakutton was like make it as real as you can stand

27:33Sean Fennessey:I listened to the commentary he said I'm setting the camera here do whatever you want yeah and that is why um I would use a slightly different category for this film which is I had it the Steven Seagal hard to kill award I literally had this in mind too. I think you need a better intimacy coordinator in 2026. Robbie's like, the lights are set.

27:54Bill Simmons:It's one of those in the 4K Blu-ray where you're watching it. It's unbelievable. He's naked because you see his whole franks and beans. She's definitely naked. And then she jumps on and they found her and you're like, wait a second. Was there like, did anyone have any sort of... We're in Donald Sutherland, Julie Christie zone. Oh, yeah. Very clearly. so this movie had a 40th anniversary and Peterson took his sons because I think he remarried and has sons and he was like yeah I'm excited to take my sons I'm a little nervous and I'm like whoa I think your sons are getting a little extra surprise from dad

28:28Sean Fennessey:a little popcorn break during that scene dad is that my mom? are those your balls? the funniest thing about that scene too is that in the final three minutes of the movie Freakin's like we're going back to that scene He flashback it. He flashback it.

28:44Bill Simmons:Unbelievable. But yeah, he's really going for it this whole time. Great job by Peterson.

28:49Sean Fennessey:I love that he gives her the shirt. And she puts it on. Wait, so he's in her case. It's just so she can like lift it, you know? You can see her ass a little bit. It's great.

28:58Bill Simmons:Because we always talk with actresses like, man, why didn't they have a couple more? And I think it's more understandable. Actresses, because there was less good parts in the 80s and 90s and 2000s. You just get replaced by the next person. It's really hard to find a leading man like a Peterson, Costner, Gibson, name it. And it felt like he should have been on that. Now, he lives on in a couple of these movies and then CSI hits the jackpot. So I'm sure it worked out fine. Defoe is at the very beginning of his journey. Four Oscar nominations he ends up with. What do you think for IMDb credits? What number?

29:32Bill Simmons:He works a lot. I would say over 150.

29:36Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I would say 127. You want to give an exact number? Let's go 170.

29:41Bill Simmons:163 wow yeah so 84 to 88 is in Streets of Fire to Live and Die that's a four decade platoon Last Temptation of Christ Mississippi Burning yeah so we have the KKK we have Vietnam we have Jesus Jesus yeah we have this movie and we have Michael Prairie's Bomb but he's the good guy Mississippi Burning right isn't he isn't he partnered with Hackman

30:06Sean Fennessey:I haven't seen that one in a while I think he's partnered with Hackman I think I've only seen Mississippi Burning I think he's an FBI agent and his square. And that's the thing, in Streets of Fire and in this movie, he's two of the most evil villains you could ever imagine. And then he plays Christ and an FBI agent. He had range. And then in Platoon, he's also kind of Christ. And then famously

30:23Bill Simmons:loses the Joker because the studio decides to get bigger and goes for Jack Nicholson. He gets his revenge. So he could have had

30:30Sean Fennessey:this whole run and been the Joker. But he gets to play Green Goblin in Spider-Man. So both of these actors do things in this movie that I think more famous... more famous actors would just be like, I can't. We have to have some level of redemption. Defoe blowing Jimmy Hart's head off after being like, buddy, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah. And Chance doing like 15 things in this movie. You would just be like, hey man, like I got a career to think about. And I do think in some ways I wonder whether or not the kinds of movies that Peterson was doing in this ascendancy like To Live and Die and Manhunter are almost like, well this guy is too dark.

31:10Bill Simmons:I think it fucked him up. Like from the post Manhunter I think he really had some issues trying to figure out what to do. He was like this anonymous stage actor. Now he's going to dark places.

31:21Sean Fennessey:Those choices that he made in the late 80s too kind of show him like trying to shift away like trying to do more lighthearted movies.

31:27Bill Simmons:It's interesting. I wrote down for Dafoe really unique ceiling basement potential because he's been great in some stuff but I also think body evidence and Speed 2 are two of the worst performances by a good actor ever. Like, ever. I don't think either of those said that. Speed 2 is like a truly singularly atrocious villain scale performance. It may even be in our villain scale like a zero out of ten. And Body Evidence is just a famous clunker with Madonna. It's like a basic instinct gone wrong. It's so bad, it's actually not even fun to watch. It's not like, oh, this is like campy bad. It's just awful.

32:06Bill Simmons:there's nothing good about it so when he's bad he's bad and when he's good he's really good and he's got an interesting place in Hollywood history at this point

32:13Sean Fennessey:he's done a really good job in the last 15 years of basically saying like okay I work with Sean Baker Robert Eggers Wes Anderson like he kind of just lifts up he still makes a lot of movies with Abel Ferrara who he's been friends with for like 50 years it checks out yeah but you know he was like he was in an experimental theater troupe in the Worcester Group he's an unusual dude and the fact that he has managed to balance like really interesting art house movies with the most mainstream movies of all time like Platoon and Spider-Man is pretty fascinating.

32:48Bill Simmons:I really like him in this movie. One of the great faces. I actually think you could argue he's more of a good guy than some of the good guys. That's what I'm saying. I mean like Rick at least is like Maybe don't go to my site where I'm doing counterfeit money there. Old guy with two guys dies before he retires. Bianca in to seduce Max Waxman, you know, and he's like, you're trying to fuck my lady, you know, but like, for the most part, he's like a pretty stand-up guy. Good artist. Yeah. Talented painter. And also, you know what, his own worst critic. Like, his painting's on fire. You know, you'd love to see that kind of really like, like living up to your own potential.

33:22Sean Fennessey:He is also a professional counterfeiter and murderer, just for the record. Yeah. So you guys are fluffing him a little bit. Just want you to know, he is a rank criminal. I,

33:33Bill Simmons:I had a feeling the sex scene, they probably went for it to the point where even Friedkin was like, yeah, I'm going to have to take this out. Where they're videoing it? Yeah, where they're videoing it, where it's just like an abrupt cut. Yes. Where Friedkin was like, yeah, you're probably right. We don't want to get an ex here. This movie is horny. Yeah. Well, Darlene Flugel, mid-80s babe, we talked about earlier, To Live and Die, Running Scared, which we've already done. Yes. She's in Crime Story, which is... Dennis Farina's wife, right? Yeah. It just never... I really wanted it to work. It just never quite got there.

34:05Bill Simmons:She was in Hunter and she was Sly Stallone's wife in Lock Up. A movie that I like and maybe five other people. Sly Stallone goes to jail. Did you and Kyle do Lock Up or no? I'm just kind of waiting for my dance partner for Lock Up. Okay. It's got... Have we talked about Lock Up, Greg? It's got the best sports scene in a movie that's not a sports movie I think ever. What do they play? They have this jail football game and it's fucking spectacular. Like they could run it on NFL Network and people would think it was just a 1958 NFL title. I wish NFL Network would take you up on that offer. It's spectacular.

34:41Bill Simmons:Slice the loan. It's really great. I feel like it's like... Why are we showing fucking lockup on a Thursday night?

34:46Sean Fennessey:There's some like cross promo with Kyle that you could potentially pull off here. If you can get lockup.

34:50Bill Simmons:Kyle's not in a lockup. I've tried. Okay. I've done some... Some just never got... Kind of like CR with some of his CR month movies. Yeah. Oh my God. The pull. you want to talk about it now well we just we're going to take a break in a second but we should mention the poll we had a poll for the fourth movie and uh we had some bangers in there and now people are like can you just do all 12 of these movies but the winner ended up being the nice guys and I think an indication that the post 2010 generation has a voice as well don't fucking suck up to them I'm not sucking up I got my own month I don't care we're doing a 1985 movie

35:27Sean Fennessey:he's trying to stay young you know yeah I was surprised Goonies didn't win. I was too. But Nice Guys is a big, big favor of people listening to this pod, as it should be. People love Gosling, including Craig.

35:38Bill Simmons:Can't wait. Very excited. Very excited. All right, we're going to take a quick break, come back with the rest. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Hiring can be so time-consuming. Not quite as time-consuming as Titanic, when James Cameron seemed like he was making that for most of the 1990s and just painstakingly go over every detail in the movie. You don't quite have to do that with hiring, but it's still an important part of the process. I've certainly been on that side many times, and you want to find the right person, you want to take your time. Well, good news for all you hiring managers out there.

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37:25Book now at Hilton.com Hilton for this day Wang Chung I think you forgot Well, sometimes it's two words Sometimes it's one Wang motherfucking Chung Wang Motherfucking Chung Yeah Uh-huh Break it down

37:48Bill Simmons:Put us in the space Does anything get you going more than this, man? Come on. I actually was going to float to you guys whether we need to rename Apex Mountain. Wang Chung Mountain? Wang Chung Apex Mountain. Like when they do the couch, it's like the Rose Bowl presented by State Farm. State Farm Rose Bowl. Is it just the Wang Chung Apex Mountain? They have this movie and they have Breakfast Club. She's burning fire in the twilight as they're trying to escape from the principal. Just in the same year. I wish that you would take some of your hard-earned money, buy a sponsorship of a college bowl game, and rename it the Wang Chung Apex Mountain Bowl.

38:31North Texas versus Hawaii.

38:35Bill Simmons:And they would only have to play Wang Chung music throughout the entire thing.

38:39Sean Fennessey:I appreciate how your announcer voice now is just Robert Lozier. It's Robert Lozier doing monster trucks.

38:47Bill Simmons:I love that. So the story is Friedkin's like, I want you to do all the music for this as you mentioned very collaborative and he's like the one thing I don't want you guys to do this is it your only instruction don't make a song called To Live and Die in LA because there's no way I'm putting it in the movie so don't fucking do that Wang Chung gets in the studio they come out and they're like hey we made a song just can you give this a listen freaking listens to it it's like that's fucking awesome and films a whole new first seven bits of the movie built around this song it's so great it sounds like something I would do managerially.

39:20Bill Simmons:There's no way we're fucking doing that. I'm on the next pod.

39:27Sean Fennessey:Unbelievable. It's really great. I love it.

39:29Bill Simmons:Can you imagine being in the in the Freakin's office when the Wang Chung guy's like do they were they British? Where were these guys? Yeah. It's like hey William we have a song. Also this is

39:39Sean Fennessey:this is Hurricane Billy like he's not some shrinking violet you're like oh yeah sure sure. He's like known to be like fucking don't do it. Do not put the song to live and die. Do you know what, though? He has said that this is the easiest movie he made, which is insane with this car chase and with some of the stuff that's in there. And I think probably this is the purest reflection of his talent is to just be like running and gunning. I don't have a lot of studio executives messing with me while I'm shooting. They eventually messed with him when it was over. And then like, he obviously just like loves the collaborators he worked with on this because why else would he just be like, Chung, Wang, you guys got it.

40:17you have the entire the canvas is yours it's blank and if you guys want to call a song to live and die in LA let's do it

40:24Bill Simmons:I mean this was my music that 81-86 this was this was the early alternative with the Cure and the Smiths New Order all those bands this was not like a major band

40:35Sean Fennessey:they had like

40:36Bill Simmons:two songs that were like reasonably popular everybody Dance All Days that song wasn't out yet oh okay so that's after this Dance All Days it was on the third album this is the fourth album basically Yeah. Like, there were probably 50 Wang Chung's. And for some reason, Friedkin's like, these guys. Yeah. And just saw it. Like, dude, what was your Wang Chung background? All I know is Everybody Wang Chung Tonight is the only song I'm really familiar with. But you were fucking driving around LA listening to this soundtrack yesterday. Yeah. Nothing better. I made Liz listen to it like five times. I actually, when I watched it last night.

41:07Bill Simmons:I was like, this is the best. Look at the sunset. When I watched the movie last night, I think it's like the first 22 minutes. 24 minutes I don't know what it is that it's like you're just riveted the entire time because there's like three montages and three beginnings of the movie and it doesn't matter it's like it's so good and like but he

41:29Sean Fennessey:he fucking does this over and over again it's like Tubular Bells and The Exorcist it's Tangerine Dream and Sorcerer like he he just has incredible taste and he doesn't have like the same composer that he uses every time every time he starts from scratch and he's like here's what I think this movie's vibe is and he just like plucks Wang Chung out of relative obscurity. Not total obscurity, but they weren't, like you said, they weren't huge. The co-producer on the movie is the editor and there are scenes that they are obviously cutting around the music. Like, it's early music video style where it's like, like when Chance is chasing Totoro through the airport, the music comes in right as the siren goes off at the metal detector and you're like, oh man, like I'm fucking pumped for this.

42:14Bill Simmons:I mean, the bummer is that they gave fire in the twilight to breakfast club. Cause there's like four scenes that they could have easily whipped that one into. Yeah. When, so my wife was like on, on her phone, like half watching, but when the opening credits came up and they kicked in with the different shots and the colors and the graphics, like there was just nothing better in 1985. This was, we peaked. Yeah. This is even like Miami vice, Michael Mann, like that kind of, like it was, this was at another level with the graphics and the colors. It was just great.

42:44Sean Fennessey:And Robbie Miller, you know, like, that's the same thing. He just plucked this guy more or less out of Germany. I guess he'd come to America at that point. But, like, it's a perfect fit, and they never worked together again. This is the only movie they made together.

42:54Bill Simmons:It's so funny because Wang Chung, again, came and went as a band. They probably had five songs that everybody could remember, plus Breakfast Club and this movie. And yet, they have a much longer tail now because of the two movies, right? Whereas, like, Duran Duran was, like, a way bigger band. and can still tour and do all these different things but was never integrated in a movie like this. Tangerine Dream was another one.

43:18Sean Fennessey:You haven't seen The Bone Temple. What do you mean? 28 years later, The Bone Temple, which just came out, prominently uses the music of Duran Duran. Interesting. You want to check it out. Quite heavily. Oh, wow. It's like the one record that Ralph Fiennes' character has.

43:32Bill Simmons:It's really cool what they do with it. It would have been funny if Friedkin was like, there's this guy, Morrissey, I've been fascinated by. I think he can do all the music for To Live and Die in LA. just would have gone completely different. It would have been a little sadder. Yeah, it would have been a different vibe. Yeah, I mean, there's a couple others that I think maybe, I think the fix maybe could have done a very, I don't think it would have worked as well as Ryan Chung. Did you see that in the research, like the alternative, the person that they first approached for this? It was Miles Davis, right?

43:59Yeah. Yeah, that made such a different movie. And he's at the hot spot. I don't know if it's before or after this. I think maybe right before. Okay. And so he's like, and that's a completely different film. If Miles Davis is blowing on like Like all this stuff.

44:10Sean Fennessey:And the movie does still have basically Chicago blues, which a lot of freaking movies have. Yeah. There's still like some like cops in a bar stuff.

44:18Bill Simmons:It's the perfect pick though. Like if he had gone to Howard Jones, Howard Jones was like a little more like, I don't want to say campy, but more romantic. If he had gone to Duran Duran, I feel like it would have been too big. The Cure would have been, the mood wouldn't have been right. Or if it had been like Danny Elfman's Midnight Run score, it would have been too like bar bandy. I was going to say Oingo Boingo would have been possible. Yeah, it's like almost too happy. There's something about Wang Chung where it's happy, but it's also there's something deeper and sinister underneath it. I mean, I love the Midnight Runs words.

44:50Yeah, Midnight Run's great.

44:52Bill Simmons:And then we mentioned Los Angeles. CR month. Grimy LA movies. This, Den of Thieves. Repo Man. Repo Man. Terminator 1. Training Day. The first Fast and Furious. And Fast 4 a little bit too. You guys always laugh at Fast and Furious You say you're a man of the people What about all the Fast and Furious lovers? I'm sure they're out there And I welcome them I welcome the CR months They've received 10 films Yeah They did great Anybody else you would have in the LA? Body Double? Yeah Collateral? Body Double's kind of happier though It's like the

45:31Sean Fennessey:Except when that girl's getting drilled It's like the wealthier of LA though I wouldn't say it's grimy Would you say Collateral is underground. It's K-Town. We're in my double feature corner here. Yeah, it's close. It's close. I mean, there are plenty of you know, 40s and 50s LA noirs too that do this too. Yeah, some of the people would throw in Chinatown. What's the one that Maxine's based off of or is drawn from? Oh, the Wingshauser movie. Fuck. Shoot. Not Maniac Cop. Angel? No, not Angel. I know the wing has a ribby. Angel definitely also has some... Is in Maxine as well. I like Wingshauser.

46:18Sean Fennessey:While you look this up, Mount Rushmore of Car Chases.

46:22Bill Simmons:Bullet. French Connection. This. Ronan. Ronan. That's what I had for the four. Yeah. That's a pretty unassailable list, right? No Fast and Furious. Are you fucking with him or is it... I did think about it. I think for most people, because the Fast and Furious movies all kind of blend into each other, you're just talking about like a relatively normal whatever movie that then all of a sudden there's this added control car chase in the movie. I will say... I think those are the four. Contemporary movies, it's not long enough probably to qualify for Mount Rushmore, but I think one battles. Car chase is pretty incredible.

47:00Bill Simmons:I agree. Friedkin had a crazy quote. I won't read the whole thing, but it was basically talking about he can't believe he did this car chase and he was talking about some oh he's talking about the movie Taken it was one of the interviews I read and he was saying he really liked Taken he thought Taken was good so welcome aboard William Freak even though you're dead it's just really nice to hear another Taken fan out there but he was saying what they did with it there was more CGI and he's like we didn't have that back then we had to like put people's lives in danger to make this stuff and he's like I was young and stupid and I didn't really you know realize like like multiple people could have died in these car chases we were making but I was like go go let's push the envelope let's push the envelope and now that I'm older I kind of can't believe I didn't do it that way I did it that way but that was interesting I appreciate his sacrifice and the risks he's I don't I don't because when we watch movies now we're like these guys aren't actually in danger I think they really were in danger in this car chase

48:02Sean Fennessey:I think especially in the French Connection it's incredibly dangerous what they did. They're going like 90 miles an hour. Yeah, that one, this one is a little bit more controlled because they were able to shut down the highways and then the productions take over the highways. So it's a little different but if people have not read the Friedkin Connection, it is one of the very best director autobiographies. It is amazing. You can hear his voice as you are reading him tell the stories and he's a I don't give a fuck director so he tells really great stories about this stuff but he did a lot of dangerous stuff.

48:31Sean Fennessey:I mean, Sorcerer, if we ever do that episode, there's a lot that was insanely dangerous. Could be doing it next week

48:37Bill Simmons:if CR month hadn't let us down. I mean, once we open it up to the people, you can't really complain about it. I really owe you guys turned me on as sorcerer somehow and was never on my bingo card for years and years. I think it's another movie, though, that got incredible with its DVD release. Definitely. But, you know, we talked about it on Star Wars.

48:56Sean Fennessey:It came out two weeks after Star Wars. So it kind of like culturally got pushed aside.

49:03Bill Simmons:The car chase thing, we're just probably never going to have another one because nobody would ever do it this way. And I actually feel like that Mount Rushmore could stay. It's one of those rare ones. We're in basketball. You never know. But I think with car chases, I don't see how you challenge it. Two from the Bourne movies that I would throw in there. The one in the mini from the first one. Well, the last Mission Impossible had a great one too. The one in Rome. Or the Fallout one.

49:27Sean Fennessey:Whatever the one from two movies ago. Number seven has one in Rome, which is incredible. That one's great. Yeah. I think it's really hard to crack in I think one battle gets in the conversation because what it did we just never seen before it was like and it was in a new terrain and the way that even just the camera moving up and down we'd not really seen that specifically I guess a little bit in bullet with the car chases in San Francisco but it was different in that way it's just hard to iterate on because I mean Friedkin has two of the four best ever like forever and that's it's hard to displace either of those and he has the best fisting scene

49:58Bill Simmons:he does cruising yeah I think that he does get a lot of credit for that

50:02Sean Fennessey:Did you bring your handkerchief today?

50:04Bill Simmons:Chris is wearing yellow today. That's how CR month every movie starts. $6 million budget made$17 million. 116 minutes, Craig. Not bad. 5, 10 minutes, maybe. You could have shortened it. Could have gone 110? Yeah. So it's a plus 16.

50:24Sean Fennessey:You think plus 10 you're a good one? Yeah. Okay. I need 10 more minutes if Jane leaves, so I need to extend the time. Way more interpretive dance. Roger Ebert

50:33Bill Simmons:four stars called The Car Chase an amazing sequence the rest of the movie is also first rate the direction is the key Friedkin has made some good movies put some impressions and some bad ones cruising deal of the century come on Raj did Raj ever revisit cruising? probably turncoat but he says this is his comeback showing the depth and skill of the early pictures. You agree with that, Sean?

51:05Sean Fennessey:I think it's definitely a back-to-basics movie with him, and the reason why he strips it down so much is so that he can control more of the movie, and it's not a very expensive movie at a time when a lot of cop movies are getting very expensive. But I liked one other thing that Raj wrote, which is something that I will echo. I like movies that teach me about something, movies that have researched their subject and contain a lot of information casually contained in between the big dramatic scenes. This is technically in my what do you like about movies thing? You know, where it's like... Yeah, you're in a world of counterfeiting that is so specific and focused and interesting the way that he shoots it and shows the master's character going about it.

51:44Sean Fennessey:But it doesn't have him sit down and be like, here's how I counterfeit money. Like, that never happens. He doesn't really talk through his process. It just shows it to us. In an incredibly cool way with Wang motherfucking Chung playing. And it was so legitimate that fake money from the set of the movie got into circulation.

52:00Bill Simmons:It's a crazy stat. We're going to the categories. Okay. Most rewatchable scene. I have opening credits and Wang Chung right into Peterson Hotel Chase. Guy was doing it for Islam. Culminating and I'm getting too old for this shit. Yeah. Now predates Lethal Weapon. One year before Lethal Weapon. Yeah. Come on. Two years, right? 87, Leithwaite, 86. Two years. Two years, yeah. And we get a brief off-camera Ronnie Reagan. Yes. Could have gotten him in the card game.

52:40Sean Fennessey:Very rare thing in a movie like this to use a real sitting president and you'd make him a character in the movie. Opening credits into the art burning

52:49Bill Simmons:and the bungee jump. This whole stretch. I wrote down this 4K is so fucking good Peterson did the jump for real he did in jeans and a vest and chucks he did I gotta say this could almost be a new category the are we sure this is safe enough for our lead actor because it was just the one strap on his right leg bungee jumping they're calling it base jumping is base jumping just one leg I don't know that made me nervous it's also like a bunch of drunk cops like who's measuring the wire there like who's doing the safety checks

53:33Sean Fennessey:I heard Freed can say they used a new piece of equipment to shoot it like a new crane which is now kind of standard operating and so I think there was a lot of time spent on making sure that this was safe but if this was Eddie Murphy I don't think he'd be doing the jump for real base jumping now means you have a parachute okay

53:53Bill Simmons:Cops in a bar I've said it before I've said it I'll say it again I'll continue to say it Something about the 80s and the early 90s when cops all got together in a bar it just seemed like the most fun place on the earth Those guys are all getting black out and then driving home It's one of the best It's like 11 in the morning It's like Sierra what's going on brother?

54:13Sean Fennessey:This is literally how I was raised Yeah It's just in bars my dad was great It's just great

54:17Bill Simmons:and two guys are probably gonna get mad at each other at some point during the night but it's fine and somebody's gonna have to be walked out. When they stumble out of the bar and it's still the afternoon, I noticed this time that the sign on the bar says Bird Sanctuary.

54:31Sean Fennessey:My dad, when he was a younger cop, was in a social club called the Raccoons and they were just like, you know, 10 cops who just like to drink a lot but they had like a whole ornate world that they had created around the Raccoons. Like Fidelio? I didn't see any masks in the home but you know they had a lifestyle okay

54:55Bill Simmons:the counterfeit money scene watching someone make money from scratch with Wang Chung music blasting is really all I need in life what a great three minutes it's unreal I agree with what Ebert said too blowing on the on the plates you know to reveal them yeah

55:14Sean Fennessey:we should we should just have that rolling at the Sycamore studio like at all times you know when there's a TV on it's just only showing that sequence and also the Peterson sex scene I'm gonna bring that up

55:27Bill Simmons:to Jeff Chow tomorrow I initially had that as my Floyd Gundali before settling on something else but I love watching somebody do something I don't understand how it's done and it actually seems realistic like as he's making it and it's like oh shit oh now he's doing the paint when he's mixing up the paint I could've watched it honestly I could've watched it for another 25 minutes. Yeah. I was so interested in how they did it. I was like, oh, now he's going to dry it. It's the coolest. Artists at work. Yeah. And Defoe is great, too. It just seemed like he's been doing it nonstop for the last 10 years.

56:02Bill Simmons:Like, just effortlessly. Totally. Torturo gets chased down in LAX. Craig mentioned the Peterson just looking. This was his combine reel. This is also... That shot specifically is essentially like stolen footage. LAX was like, do not... Yeah, they got mad. run up on the escalator or like the people mover yeah they're like no no we won't Are you nostalgic for the days where somebody could just run through a metal detector? I am nostalgic for the idea. And this goes basically up to 2001, obviously. But like the idea of going to the airport and being like, I'm going to buy a ticket to DC today. You know what I mean?

56:39They're like 40 bucks. And it goes like all the way through kicking and screaming where he runs in and he's like, I want to go to Prague.

56:45Sean Fennessey:Yeah. But I'm probably glad that we have some safeguards, you know? Yeah, I think it's safe to say. I'm nostalgic for a time when it was reasonable that men would run through them in movies now if that happened you'd be like that will never happen

56:58Bill Simmons:if someone ran through an airport now they would just be gunned down they would yeah um Turturro almost gets killed in prison I have as a rewatchable scene I knew you did there's a whole other movie that I would have signed up for just Turturro yeah him in prison for three months navigating people trying to come after do you think Cody should have known like as those guys are walking across the yard he's like who are they going for somebody getting hit Who's getting hit, man? Everyone's clearing out around him. Hey, it's you. Yeah, we've seen so many prison movies where we're like, dude, get up, start running.

57:33Bill Simmons:The fight scene with Defoe and his... What was the name of his... Max Waxman. Waxman. No, the henchman.

57:40Sean Fennessey:Oh.

57:41Bill Simmons:Defoe's henchman. The black guy. Him fighting the three black guys. Oh, Jeff? Yeah. Yeah, Jeff. I think they... Him and his... It was a two-on-three. Yeah. I think they're plus when they have the FanDuel odds underneath the screen as the fight's about to start I think they're like plus 490 it's like no way these guys are getting out of this it's not the Miami Heat again yeah Amtrak into the shooting into the chase scene just 10 out of 10 on how'd you do this as you're watching like how'd you guys do this tough beat for the FBI undercover FBI agent with fake diamonds just getting has his gun down with his pants down around his ankles.

58:22Bill Simmons:Not how I'd want to go. Nope. Chance raids Turturro. I like that shot when they're on the opposite sides of the wall. Yeah, that's my great shot, Cordell. It's a great one. Chance gets killed. Craig, have you seen this movie before? No. Were you expecting that one? Not at all. Something you can only do if it's probably not a star, right? In 1985. Richard Gere, you can't shoot Richard Gere in the face with a shotgun. No. it's still shocking to watch. I mean, it was shocking to the studio. They were like, you better go back and... Yeah, they shot a fake. You can find it online on Alternate Ending.

58:58Bill Simmons:It's atrocious. I think the only time that Alternate Ending actually ended up being the end of the movie is Fatal Attraction that I can remember out of ones we've done on this podcast. But the studio's like, no, we're fucking redoing that. And A &R is going to kill Glenn Close in the bathroom, and that's how we're ending this movie, motherfuckers.

59:17Sean Fennessey:I'm sure there are some other examples I can't think of off the top of my head, though, where they recut it, and that's what we got.

59:22Bill Simmons:I'm just saying, for the episodes we've done, I think that's the only one I can remember where they literally redid it. Final scene for Rewatchable. You're working for me now. He's got sunglasses on. Petco goes dark.

59:39Sean Fennessey:I would add two more. Yeah, let's hear it. I think the murder of Max Waxman. Getting shot in the dick. When he gets shot in the dick, and then Tafo says, your taste is in your ass. Which I don't totally know what that means. It's like 18th century Cameroonian. And then very shortly thereafter, they meet up at the gym when they're all like getting changed. And they're nude. And Willie Peterson's like, yeah, I've got a friend down in Hollywood who goes by the name of Donald Duck. Yeah. I have a lot to say about this scene. Change the conversation.

1:00:12Bill Simmons:Why are they changing clothes? Well, it's like, they're going to work out. What gym is this? Just show up with the workout clothes on. That's not how I think it went in the 80s. You're on your way to a workout and you're wearing adult clothes, right? Yeah, but I'm not going to get fully nude and then like with like... You should get nude right here. Yeah. Start it up. I think locker room like behaviors have changed. That may be the most 1985 thing about this movie, which we're doing in a second. What do you have for most rewatchable scenes? The only other thing I wanted to add was... Hanging Dog?

1:00:46No, it's right after The Hanging Dong. That's his Floyd Gondoli. When she's just like, she's trying to peddle all this information to him and he's like, you know, Uncle Sam doesn't give a shit about your expenses. If you want bread, fuck a baker. And their whole conversation where she's just like, you know, what would you do if I stopped giving information to you? And he's just like, I'd revoke your parole. And walks out. Like, it's just, it's a great moment, character moment between those two.

1:01:11Bill Simmons:Well, how about when she's like, yeah, my kid's coming up from Vegas and he's like, cool. Yeah. Can you get that information for me? Oh, you got a kid? Yeah. Seems like a stable life for him. It's not a super nice guy, Chance. It's the chase. It starts with Peterson at the bar drinking a high life and a shot. Then it cuts to the train going across, you know, the desert part of California, like a Sergio Leone movie, and it just builds and builds and builds from Union Station on.

1:01:39Sean Fennessey:It's one of the craziest scenes in movie history. They shut down a highway over a weekend in Los Angeles. us. Imagine if just the 110 or the 710 was just shut down for a week. They were like, sorry, William Friedkin's shooting a movie across five miles of road. And we got 900 cars that are extras. And the cars are going in the opposite direction. So it's like an optical illusion when you're watching the movie. Look, the cars on the left are going the wrong way and the cars on the right are going the wrong way. And he only did that to make you confused as an audience member because the whole sequence is so disorienting.

1:02:10Sean Fennessey:That's a wild choice in the movie. It's such a crazy chase. I had the chase number one too.

1:02:16Bill Simmons:It's an unbelievable seven minutes. And I love Peterson's acting in it too. Yes. He's so excited. Yeah. And they do a good job of establishing from the beginning. The first time we basically see him other than the Secret Service thing. First of all, when he's on the roof, he's really close to the edge of the roof. Like for real. I don't, I think it's like, it's probably two feet away from falling to his death. He doesn't care. And then the next time we see him after that, he's bungee jumping. So you're just like, oh, this guy's a fucking maniac. Okay. we've established that what's the most 1985 thing about this movie LAX definitely there's the when they finally finish the chase and the three guys are in the background and the one guy has his radio on his shoulder yes that's just like pure 85 yeah the gym workout machines they flag Transworld Airlines yeah and Continental you can see in the background next to it bad times for all there being called a Miami Vice ripoff Wang fucking Chung and then I have one more.

1:03:16I have one more that I bet is the same as you.

1:03:18Bill Simmons:What is it? It's Chance getting out of the car chase coming back to Ruth's house and talking immediately about Quentin Daly and Orlando Woolridge tour. Well, I have that coming up. Hold that thought. I do as well.

1:03:31Sean Fennessey:I mean, counterfeiting cash? That's just in 1985. Now we just have faking Bitcoin. I wonder how long that went for. I did not do a lot of counterfeiting research, admittedly. and I imagine this is around the peak right because the technology has gotten so strong because wasn't there like a thing where they put like the like a little band in your money that was just like now easily verified yeah there's now printings on it there's one of those things

1:03:53Bill Simmons:we just got better at stopping yeah yes my last thing there's some stealth gay scenes in this movie gay moments that are just very 1985 you mean like homoerotic or well for instance his girlfriend they have she's got her dance performance yeah and then Dafoe goes and goes to kiss her and it looks like he's kissing a man the way they film it and I almost wonder if it was a male actor and they flipped it there's that other scene when he stands right with Peterson and he's like you got a package for me and he like grabs it but it just fit in with how weird the 80s were with that stuff

1:04:31Sean Fennessey:even just the use of kabuki dance which is like this ancient Japanese style where a lot of men who are performing female characters like I think he's very purposely kind of trying to blend all this stuff up. And to Craig's point earlier where it's like, whoa, the nudity. It's like, there's a lot of male nudity in this movie as well. Yeah.

1:04:47Bill Simmons:Well, that leads us to the Floyd Gundali butter in my ass lollipops in my mouth award for something I just enjoy. You mentioned the Quentin Daly-MJ thing. I, uh, it turns out I really enjoy realistically horrible sports opinions in neo-noir movie thrillers. Excellent. Um, this Quentin Daly take is just insane. Un-fucking-believable. First of all, it's never mentioned how deep do you want to go right now? the deepest okay get ready I'm listening first of all it's never mentioned that Chance is from Chicago he's obviously from Chicago I have an unanswerable question except he's wearing a Mike Webster Steelers jersey in the first time we see him I wear like lots of different hats I think it might have just been like in 1985 he had a cool jersey and he was wearing it all the time but why Mike Webster why wouldn't it be like Terry Bradshaw or me and Joe Green maybe he would I do end up with the you know who I love the center and the Steelers it's weird I don't know I found the game that he's talking about it's pretty easy I mean I had to look on basketball reference for a minute yeah well Quintin Daly had one awesome game and it was right as they were filming this movie we know Friedkin huge NBA guy was like this maniac NBA guy who almost like bought what was the team he almost bought the Celtics wasn't it the Celtics right in the late 70s back when you could buy a sports team for 12 million bucks well here's my here's my unanswerable question about this okay so So Ling, the Fed who's posing as the guy buying diamonds, supposedly arrives at Union Station at 4.45 p.m.

1:06:21Call it, what, 90 minutes of the chase and the abduction, right? Chance has to take his car to a body shop because he can't return it to the motor pool. Then he has to get somehow back to Ruth's house where you got to call it 9 p.m., something like that, 10 p.m. but somehow in that interim time he has found out the score of the Pacers-Bulls game from October of 1984 and has identified that Quentin Daly is really the number one option on the Bulls not Michael Jordan and when would you have gotten the highlights? When would you have seen the box score?

1:06:59Sean Fennessey:I almost feel like it might have been a day later he saw in the paper. Unfortunately, none of this holds water because at the beginning of the movie we learn that it is the end of December. Yes, I know that but if we're looking for Quentin Daly 30.5 performance it from the time they filmed this movie it is basically William Peterson knew about this game and came in on I see my my take was I think they wanted

1:07:19Bill Simmons:some sort of ad lib thing when he shows up with her yes be like all right talk about just something stupid and Friedkin had been excitedly telling people about this Quentin Daly game see I think it's the

1:07:29Sean Fennessey:exact opposite I think it is I think it is Friedkin who wrote the screenplay who is an NBA obsessive who has a lot of sports takes who's like, I'm zagging so hard on Jordan. Jordan's overrated. He's like, Quentin Daly who precedes Jordan. Yes. And he's like, Quentin Daly was my guy. Despite the fact that Quentin Daly, you know.

1:07:49Bill Simmons:Well, we got to talk about this too.

1:07:52Sean Fennessey:You know, it was convicted of a heinous assault. He was such a bad guy.

1:07:56Bill Simmons:He was kind of the Richard Chance of the Bulls. I knew he was a bad guy as like a, you know, a fledgling teenager in fucking New England. Like he, he was, had like this rapist situation in San Francisco. I think it might have been more than one. And it was really controversial that they drafted him. And it was during a time when we didn't have social media or anything, and it was like, huh, should the Bulls be able to put this guy on their team when this happened? And it's really bad. It's like an awful story. People were protesting in the 1980s. Think about that.

1:08:28Sean Fennessey:But it's almost like an interesting character choice that this scumbag cop, who we have to keep remembering, keeping this woman in prison basically to feed him information that he liked Quinton Daly.

1:08:38Bill Simmons:It's a character trait. Very talented scorer. Went to University of San Francisco, which is where he had his situation. Infamous for ordering food to be delivered to him on the bench during a Bulls game. Yeah, and I think there might have been some drugs with him too, but it was drugs with most of that team, ironically. So yeah, so I wonder, like did Friedkin, maybe he liked the Bulls and maybe he was like, I don't know, Why the fuck would we take Jordan? We have Quentin Daly like really felt strongly about this.

1:09:06Sean Fennessey:I think he was more like I'm writing a movie about scumbags. What's a real scumbag opinion I could put out there in the world in one of these characters? I love it. It's an idea. You're ascribing a lot of like writerly intent. So the, yeah. Could be wrong. That was in my What's the Age of the Worst.

1:09:20Bill Simmons:Or he just loved Quentin Daly. It's possible. It's possible. Maybe he went to a game a year earlier and was like, oh my God, this guy's, he's better than Andrew Tony. Quentin Daly highlights from that Pacers game, the 30-point game. Yeah, it's on YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. He was a little Andrew Tony-ish, actually, with his game. He was like a power two guard. Yeah. What's aged the best? It's also probably what's aged the worst. The Middle East conflict being a key opening scene seems relevant right now. I have that in what's aged the worst. Making counterfeit money has just aged the best as a viewing experience, as we discussed.

1:09:55Bill Simmons:Calling people amigo? Love it. I got to bring it back. Maybe stick this up? We should bring it back. Let's do it. Yeah. Let's just make it a part of our thing. I'm going to start doing this, Cahau, when I see you and you come over. Big A, amigo! Let me tell you something, amigo. I'm going to get Rick Masters. I have actually surprisingly many more, but what'd you have? So when William Peterson introduces himself as Mr. Jessup to Rick Masters, he turns to Pankow and he goes, and this is my associate, Dr. George Victor. LAUGHTER

1:10:31And I just, it's never commented on again, but it's like, doctor of what? What if Rick Masters had been like, doctor, I have this weird bowl. Can you take a look at it? Like, did they really think that through?

1:10:41Bill Simmons:He would just say it's an honorary doctorate I got into college. Sure, but like, that would have been like one extra layer of the lie that you didn't need. I'm a prostate doctor. I love the remnants of the 1960s that kind of thread through this movie, especially Waxman being a hip, ex-hippie lawyer. and in the Pan Cal talks about this in interviews but you can kind of get the sense from all these 1980s cops that they were Vietnam veterans and just the kind of the sort of waste of the 60s washing up in LA in the 80s definitely his

1:11:12Sean Fennessey:partner who gets killed is meant to be one of those guys like a roughneck basically absolutely and I love Rick being a bisexual fine artist who just has like a guy with a bomber jacket killing people as a psychic that guy Jack is just like always spitting tobacco jack whore legendary lapd uh detective you have any what stage is the best um yeah sort of related to that being able to pretend to be a businessman and having the contents of your glove box be enough proof the fact that they're like i don't know about this guy so his girlfriend goes and looks at his glove box i'm like i'm seeing some receipts here you know the cayman yeah yeah he's not tan enough that's really good uh calling money paper yeah which is something that obviously got very popularized in the last 20 years and then just willem dafoe as a villain I just feel like he's become one of the great villains the last 50 years.

1:12:00I also had Dean Stockwell playing a defense attorney who's having a beer on his lunch break during a trial. Grimes in general is just an awesome character.

1:12:11Bill Simmons:Dean Stockwell also in Legend of Billie Jean this year as the senator. And in Paris, Texas, yeah.

1:12:17Sean Fennessey:And soon to be in Married to the Mob completing his comeback and getting an Academy Award nomination. Yeah, so those are some of mine.

1:12:23Bill Simmons:I also have bungee jumping. I have Jane Leaves with an underrated hot girl run here of To Live and Die in LA Marla the Virgin from Seinfeld who ends up sleeping with JFK Jr. and then Frazier's girlfriend

1:12:37Sean Fennessey:always liked her this is sort of Floyd Gondoli sort of like always aging the best but I enjoy when an insane person in a movie has an artistic hobby yeah you know like Jack Torrance you know and his writing you've got Toni Collette's miniatures in Hereditary you've got Gary Oldman being really into Beethoven and the professional like usually that's like a great little character trait where they can like really appreciate fine art but they are insane yeah

1:13:06Bill Simmons:that's a good one that's good we'll put that in our AI movie

1:13:09Sean Fennessey:there's no AI movie

1:13:14Bill Simmons:I like when villains refer to themselves as the third person Rick Masters doesn't do that man yeah everyone knows Rick Masters won't do a deal without upfront money. It's like, you're Rick Masters. You say that about your... What? Am I... I also wrote down, 80s movie lawyers dressed like Dean Stockwell who always had a cocktail and looked like they were about to play tennis. This was a weird era for... The perception of lawyers was like between tennis games they were just going to go to trial. They just have like a Mercedes convertible. Yeah. You have like a Lacoste polo but with a suit. The decision to show Peterson, but not the body in the dumpster was really good.

1:13:59Bill Simmons:When he opens the thing and his face changes. I just thought that was a really good shot.

1:14:03Sean Fennessey:I love how he discovers it where he sees the bullet hole in the bottom of the dumpster too. That's really good.

1:14:09Bill Simmons:I like having a witness out of jail and then losing the witness. It's just a great movie thing. It's like, oh my God, he lost him. Yeah. What are we going to do? We should have gone to the hospital. That was just a really dumb move. Yeah, it was best. And then... the decision to show uh oh Jimmy who was too old for this shit two days to retirement but he was getting too close I just feel like this has been ripped off in 30 other movies I don't know if this was the first one last job McBain this is like ground zero for he only had two days left he's got his fucking fishing rod uh this came from an email oh shit I deleted who wrote this.

1:14:54Bill Simmons:Now I feel bad. All right. I'll give him credit the next time.

1:14:57Sean Fennessey:It was me, Bill. I wrote the email.

1:14:59Bill Simmons:Just a reader wanted to point out, he was really excited we were doing the movie, that when Chance walks into the building to get the judge to sign the writ to get the tour out of prison on supervised release, he walks into 444 South Flower Street, the same building, Neil and his crew walk out of in the heat, just prior to the all-time greatest shootout scene ever. Great stuff.

1:15:19Sean Fennessey:Isn't that where the Torito part is? He really wanted you to know this. That's great. downtown yeah great shot gordo you had so many eye through the windshield during the car chase unbelievable amazing iconic shit um defoe looking at his burning painting in the opening of the film um peterson bungee jumping cars driving on the opposite sides of the road and you already mentioned the rastafarian dudes with the boom box at the end of the which is like a big wide crane shot yeah um i had uh the shot when uh chance goes to see ruth at the topless bar and she's working the door and it's like all green and all red and she's leaning back against the counter and the like skin tight dress is the hottest anyone's ever looked in the world like they fucking broke the meter on that one and that scene is apparently like very improvised and they were just like just fucking explore the studio space and it's like if you miss your mark like It won't make it into the movie, but who cares?

1:16:14And it's so good. I just want to say one other thing about the car chase in regards to the cinematography. Robbie Mueller was like, I don't know how to do this. So the car chase is shot by Robert Yeoman, who would go on to shoot all of Wes Anderson's movies.

1:16:30Sean Fennessey:Oh, wow. And I will add to that, just last night won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the American Society of Cinematographers. Robert Yeoman.

1:16:41Bill Simmons:I wanted to mention the bridge sprint chase scene Because I like sometimes when they go wide And it just looks like I'm watching a game for 10 seconds We'll take one more break And then we'll do the rest of the categories

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1:17:40Bill Simmons:Denothy's Benny Hotton Awards scene-stealing location. Bakersfield counterfeit spot. That wide shot of like, what's going on with that street behind and this warehouse in the middle of nowhere? I just really like that spot. That's the Ringer 4.0 headquarters. Just us. Just outside of Indio. Just a washer dryer. I'm in the horse trailer. We got a dryer. Sounds great.

1:18:04Sean Fennessey:That's when things have gone wrong. I feel like rooftop of the Beverly Hilton Hotel is pretty good too. I had the burger place where Chance tells Oh, great burger place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. that they're going to rob Ling. And they come out with burgers and then sit in like barber chairs.

1:18:18Bill Simmons:Yeah, with like a whole city. That's also Big Kahuna too. Good use of food. Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness Award. We get the opening scene. Obviously. I have dance all days. Or dance all days. I have dance all days too. At Shipwreck Joey's Cabaret. God, look what they took for this. What's it like there on Wednesdays? It's gone. It's gone. They took it down. It used to be a special country. Yeah, it used to be a really special country. The Amanda Dobbins Award for Best Piece of Real Estate. Hold on.

1:18:44Sean Fennessey:Oh. I feel like you've been interested in real estate over the years. Yes. And so before we get to this category, would you consider buying a piece of property in that area and reopening Shipwreck Joey's? Yeah, why don't you ever do that? Shipwreck Billy's? Like, you could definitely afford to open a series of nameless dive bars that I would be happy to manage. It's a cabaret. Sure.

1:19:05Bill Simmons:So there's like a show. Yeah. like a show with with performers I gotta say that bar seemed great good security I thought the stage seemed nice and big there's a lot of room for the girls

1:19:14Sean Fennessey:what's the entry fee right now with inflation $1.50 in 1985 it's probably like 15 bucks now

1:19:20Bill Simmons:Shipwreck Joey's Cabaret ever taking a road trip where was it Long Beach where's that oh Long Beach yeah roundabout Manny Dobbins award for best piece of real estate chances Malibu House way too amazing I have some questions sick he's like about 12 houses down from the pier 80s much cheaper in malibu but you're still looking at this you're still looking at about a mil uh so it's there there is a moment in malibu where the celebs haven't started driving prices we're right we're getting close madonna has the wedding in 85 with sean penn that's kind of a tipping point by the time we get the late 80s is he living in LA?

1:20:02Bill Simmons:I mean, it suggests he's skimming. So, I freeze-framed it. Yeah, the skimming, I think, is a good thought. I freeze-framed it. It was a three-story house. It wasn't like one of those like one-story, but so he might have just been renting like one of the floors. Yeah. Possible. Not that far away

1:20:23Sean Fennessey:from Neil Macaulay's house. It's very similar to the place where Hemsworth's character lives in Crime 101. Yeah. Very similar. But he lives in a series of like condos. Like if I would have bought that. And then a couple years later, Martin Riggs is living in a trailer on the beach, I think in Malibu, like in Lethal Weapon. But this is nuts. This guy has like a fucking 10 million dollar house. We got away with this

1:20:43Bill Simmons:in the 80s and 90s because we didn't have the internet yet. And people would be like, you know, it'd be cool if we had a shot where the character's looking on the water. And now that we know the logistics of LA, it's just there's no way this guy would be making the drive home on PC. First of all, he would have had a drunk driving accident and crossed the divider and killed himself and multiple people.

1:21:03Sean Fennessey:It's another mirroring Michael Mann moment too where it's like, of course this guy lives on the water so he can look out into the ocean and have an existential think on how he's spending his life.

1:21:11Bill Simmons:Yeah, I mean, he was in a prime spot. Speaking of prime spots, the Sean Fentasy Award for stealth homage that gives every movie nerd a criteria orgasm. I got a fucking doozy.

1:21:22Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Okay. Of Human Bondage from 1934 is playing on the television being watched by John Turturro and Jacqueline Giroux in that sequence. That's with a movie that you hear when Chance shows up. So it's about a young man played by Leslie Howard who finds himself attached to a cold, unfeeling waitress played by a woman who will ultimately destroy them both. This is Betty Davis' fifth film. It's her first Academy Award nomination. We're on the eve of the Oscars. She got this nomination via write-in vote. So this movie is important for a few reasons. One, this is the year of Frank Capra's It Happened One Night, which is one of only three movies to win all five of the top five awards.

1:22:06Sean Fennessey:Do you know the other two movies? Silence of the Lambs. Silence of the Lambs is one. Oh, I know this. We did this on Rewatchables. What was it? One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. God damn it. That's picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay. This was the first of only...

1:22:20Bill Simmons:Sinners is going to take it. We're taping after the Oscars. Sinners will be the fourth.

1:22:24Sean Fennessey:Probably not, because it's not nominated for Best Actress. Still going to be the fourth. This was the first of only two years in which write-in candidates were permitted a response to the controversy surrounding the snub of Bette Davis of human bondage. She was snubbed, and then they created a write-in ballot, and she got written in. So because of that, Claudette Colbert, who was the star of It Happened One Night, thought because Bette Davis got this incredible outpouring for her write-in ballot, that there was no chance that she was going to win the Oscar. So she gets on a train to go to New York the night of the Oscars, and just before the train takes off, they announce her name at the Academy Awards.

1:22:56Sean Fennessey:She runs back to the awards show, accepts her award later on in the show, and then goes back and the train holds for her and she gets on the train at the end of the night and goes to New York. I thought you were going to say she drove the wrong way down the 110. No. Anyway, of human bondage.

1:23:11Bill Simmons:It matters. That's fucking Friedkin. So you don't think Tortoro's character would have been watching a 1934 artsy movie? I did like...

1:23:19Sean Fennessey:Well, we know his girlfriend is an actress. Yes.

1:23:22Bill Simmons:So she's watching Bette Davis in her breakout role. I love those stories about when nobody cared about the Oscars as much. And like Goldman choosing to go to the 1970 finals or something over winning his first Oscar. The other criteria orgasm that I had was just that when, right before he gets shanked or attempted shanked in the yard, Totoro's like, what's the movie tonight? And they're like, oh, I don't know, some galactic shit. And he's like, I hate that sci-fi shit. And I always thought that was a diss of Star Wars for taking out Sorcerer. Oh, Sierra's got a flex category. I got two here. I don't think either of you guys would have one.

1:23:59So I'll just... This was fun because I feel like the Ed Norton Reverse Dunk Award did this movie need a random sports moment. And we were right there. We're so close. Rick Masters isn't going to fucking go out and play one game of pickup with the homies. Just sitting there. Just install the Princeton offense, dude. Throw some backdoor passes.

1:24:21Bill Simmons:By the way, Sean's got the white shadow behind him. I'm reasonably sure that was the exact same court that the White Shadow played Michael Warren's character Bobby Wagam in the greatest one-on-one game ever filmed on TV in like the fifth episode of the White Shadow. I think it's the exact same court. Is it really? Yeah. I think it's in Watts. Yeah. So I had that. The Dennis Peck relationship test I bring up because I think this is the first place where Peck melts in the face of the sexuality shared between Rick, Bianca, and Serena. I think he tried to peck them. Yeah, he can't get there. And they're just like, whatever you want.

1:24:56Dennis, like, come on in. He's like, so I'm not destroying anything? And they're like, no. This is about dance and art and funny money, man. I just think it would have been...

1:25:06Bill Simmons:Like, all three of us are up for whatever. He's like, wait, this is too weird for me. Yeah. So this is where peck loses his kryptonite.

1:25:14Sean Fennessey:Can I ask you, where are you at on polyamory in 2026? Just general thoughts. Is this a new movie theme? No, I've just been hearing some things out in the world. that have raised my eyebrows. About polyamory in the wider world? Yeah. About Bill. No, not with Bill. No, of course. Just like, just like it seems to be expanding.

1:25:34Bill Simmons:It's been an untapped movie slash HBO TV show type of theme.

1:25:39Sean Fennessey:Yeah.

1:25:39Bill Simmons:We need like consenting adults, but for 2026. Here's the thing. As you know, my theory on, I think the COVID little break all of us had, I think people have lost their minds. And we're ready for a show like that. Yeah. Just couples just saying, fuck it. Yeah, big love, but just set in Hancock Park. Yeah. That sounds great. I'd watch that. Butch's girlfriend award for weak link of the film. I have Quentin Daly a second time. Quentin Daly got 30 points. This guy's unbelievable. He's a great fucking ball player. He's got a gun like a howitzer, man. 30 feet. Boom, boom. What is happening? Michael Jordan.

1:26:15Bill Simmons:But backup choice. Can we have the pank out conversation? No, come on. No, let's do it. Let's do it. What's your problem with him? He's a TV actor in a really important movie. He's not good enough. I'm sorry, I agree with Bill. I think he's the transformation he goes through in this movie. He's not a good enough actor. He's not good enough. He's a good actor. No, not for this.

1:26:33Sean Fennessey:I think he could do a lot better. He's not interesting enough. Okay. It's interesting because, you know, the story that Peterson tells is that Sinise read for the part of Chance. Yes. And that he didn't get the job, but that he recommended Peterson to Friedkin. Right. And that the reason that Pankow gets the job is because Peterson recommends him. But you think Sinise should have been the panko part. But it should have been Sinise. I have an alternative for who it should have been because we get it basically a year later in the Untouchables and it's Andy Garcia. And he's too handsome. Oh, pretty.

1:27:04Sean Fennessey:Yeah. So you got to get an ugly guy who's not...

1:27:07Bill Simmons:Sinise is kind of nondescript

1:27:09Sean Fennessey:and there's something a little sinister underneath him.

1:27:11Bill Simmons:So I was going to do this in recasting couch. Can I offer you John Malkovich? Oh, yeah. Another Chicago guy. Let's bring some fucking firepower. Another stage guy. Malkovich taking us for a ride in the Pankow part? Is it the performance or is it the part? No, I think it's the performance. Because I think he's asked to do things a lot. Like, he's sitting in the backseat during that car chase about to puke, crying. Like, it's a good part. I think he's good in this movie. I think you just love the movie. Can I tell you what my book is? Here's the evidence. Sure. The rest of his career. He's never done a part like this ever again.

1:27:47Bill Simmons:I'm just going to throw that out there. I found him to be enjoyable

1:27:50Sean Fennessey:on Mad About You.

1:27:51Bill Simmons:likable actor. I just think he's miscast. Okay. I think this guy, I think there has to be a little bit more of a dark side established before all of a sudden we have this crazy swerve at the end.

1:28:01Sean Fennessey:He's incredibly funny on episodes. Did you watch that show with Matt LeBlanc on Showtime? Hmm. Where he played like a, like a head of HBO, basically, the head of Showtime. He was really funny. One other guy I was thinking was Kelsey Grammer. Hmm.

1:28:17Bill Simmons:Cheers was going, right? Cheers said like he had just started to be on Shears. Are you picking guys based on hairline? No, I was just trying to think of like out of the box, non-leading man, but just people who are around. Yeah. Like Jeff Goldblum could be another one. Too tall. But too tall. It's tough. I like my sneeze pick. Stanley Tucci's not Stanley Tucci yet, but I think Tucci could have been a good one. What about Will Patton? I don't know if he was Will Patton yet, was he? He was in No Way Out

1:28:45Sean Fennessey:like two years later. What about Michael? He was. What about Michael Bean? Will Patton's good. Michael Bean's too handsome. Michael Bean this would be coming right off the Terminator what about Bill Paxton interesting very interesting interesting not bad okay thanks not bad I love this game get there with it I really like Malkovich my butcher's girlfriend for this is the first eight minutes of this movie it's cool I like it when they're like Reagan's gonna come play poker it has no relevance for the rest of the film yeah and I think it would be a bigger deal if someone tried to suicide bomb Ronald Reagan, I think the U.S.

1:29:21Secret Service would be busy and not going after Rick Masters.

1:29:26Sean Fennessey:As I said, I listened to the commentary and he talked about this. This also was shot after the fact. This was not in the original script along with that title sequence that you were talking about. It was after Wang and Chung came over and said, hey. I think the reason for it is very logical whether or not you think it works. I like the sequence a lot, but it's from a different movie. It's also the 80s and everyone's on cocaine and nobody And it's more Die Hard than it is whatever this street-level crime movie is. But it being a Secret Service movie, I think it would be a little confusing to a general audience.

1:29:59Sean Fennessey:Why is the Secret Service so involved in the treasury and counterfeiting? And they needed to establish the bona fides of these agents and what they do. But you could maybe throw that away of like, oh, I haven't done much body work recently. I'm just working on counterfeit. You could probably get that with a line and not have a guy explode over Los Angeles and then have it be like, yep, back to Quentin Daly highlights. I think it also helpfully establishes the relationship between the two partners and the older guy who's kind of at the end. I think it's effective even though it is tonally a little different from the rest of the movie.

1:30:32Bill Simmons:Quentin Dale has got a gun like a howitzer, man. Boom, boom. What's age the worst? Cops has incredibly fun hangs. We don't really get that as much in movies and TV these days. Not like in the 2020s. Not until I write my script, no. I feel like we're hanging out at the dive bar with six cops. I think it's more like this behavior is probably clinically alcoholic. Well, Copland mid-90s is when we start to It shifts. What's the current group that you want to see in a bar having drinks after work in a movie? Podcasters, obviously. Podcast producers.

1:31:10Sean Fennessey:I mean, they know how to talk. Emergency room doctors. I like it when the pit guys have a beer after the shift. Those are some grisly stories though, no? Yeah, but they deserve one. They do. They deserve a cold one. They do. We salute them.

1:31:22Bill Simmons:I would say NBA assistant coaches.

1:31:25Sean Fennessey:That's good for Intel.

1:31:26Bill Simmons:Yeah, fun group. What's age the worst? Burning expensive paintings for real instead of just doing CGI. Rainer Wedding actually painted that painting that he burns. And they said it was worth like real, real, real money. And Ben Simmons who watched the first half of this movie with me before deciding he had to go back because he had an exam the next day was like that painting's fucking awesome I can't believe they burned it he painted it for the movie

1:31:52Sean Fennessey:and Friedkin speculated it would have ultimately been very very valuable unbelievable maybe do like some sort of

1:31:58Bill Simmons:backup Friedkin said after this movie his agent fired him his dear friend and agent Tony Fantasi who left William Morris signed with a series of agents and managers who were no more effective and it was very very sad for him that's age the worst yeah that story bummed me out stick with Friedkin man he did French Connection The Exorcist The Cruising and To Live and Die in LA you can't get fired after that weird little

1:32:28Sean Fennessey:skip here where he goes rampage the guardian after this too two movies that I will defend but are very flawed

1:32:34Bill Simmons:before he bounces back what's the cocaine level here with Friedkin I thought it was in the 70s I didn't think it was in the 80s he's like getting married

1:32:42Sean Fennessey:to Sherry Lansing like he's become he's a very he's much more of like a a citizen at that point.

1:32:47Bill Simmons:What's Age the Worst? They have a deleted scene where Vukovic goes to reconcile with his wife and they show him this special edition DVD and Friedkin says he doesn't remember why he cuts it but regrets doing it. Yeah, it would have been giving the Vukovic character a little bit more depth, I think. Yeah. He probably wanted less Pankow in the movie. He's like, fuck that guy. Jesus. This is a really bad What's Age the Worst. The bridge that he bungee jumps from was the Tony Scott bridge. oh that's tough

1:33:16Sean Fennessey:I didn't know that

1:33:17Bill Simmons:yeah my biggest one stage the worst is you can see them on YouTube is the alternative ending where Chance's only shot in the chest gets lives and Chance and Vukovic are exiled to a Anchorage, Alaska secret service base where they live in a hut together and they're just sitting there at the end of the movie and then there's a long tracking shot that shows the Alaskan outback but it's very funny that Freakon was like you guys want another ending? I'll go to Alaska and shoot you another ending. So funny.

1:33:49Sean Fennessey:Fucking maniac. Yeah.

1:33:51Bill Simmons:Wait till the Sorcerer episode. The Hans Gruber score villain ranking Defoe is Rick Masters. Six, seven, something like that. I had eight. Yeah, I would have eight. He's a painter. He's got a lot of redeeming qualities. Oh, I forgot. I had the Marion Cobretti pizza cutting word for why didn't anyone on the set stop the star from doing this? The painting. Shouldn't somebody in the set been like, yo, man, we can't actually burn that. Can we go wide shot where he's about to burn it and then we go wide shot and replace the painting? I don't know. It's life is art, you know? Ruffle a hand of Ruben a partridge overacting word.

1:34:30Bill Simmons:I have Panko here. What are we going to do now? It's good though. It's good shit. That's what you would feel like.

1:34:37Sean Fennessey:I got Robert Downey Sr. here as Thomas Bateman as well. Did you like him in this movie? I did. He's just putting a little mustard on it every time he gets into a scene. I was just coming to see you. Yeah. You must be a mind reader. He's very amusing, but it's a lot. It's very noticeable every time he shows up. You have a flex category. Mine was the It's a Book About Metals Award. Belatedly, best quote or exchange. I'm getting too old for this shit. Two years before Lethal Weapon.

1:35:07Bill Simmons:CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford How to Stake Award. Yeah. I have multiple Peterson, Don Johnson things here, and I think they're intertwined here because his movie's coming, his vices. I think what we said about Costner before, I also think could have been the case for Don Johnson. And I'm just endlessly fascinated why some careers go one way. These two guys, Don Johnson kind of peaks with Miami Vice, can't get out of it, misses that window where he can make movies. Peterson gets freaked out by the first two movies he did and just zags. And then you have Costner who's just hitting it right down the fairway.

1:35:48Bill Simmons:Just like, yeah, Bull Durham. Cool. Let's do that one. Field of Dreams. Sounds great. Bodyguard. Like he's just doing the Clint Eastwood movie. Okay. And just has the wherewithal over and over again to make these picks that continue to vault him. Now, he made some crazy ones too, right? He does. Dance with Wolves worked out great. Waterworld did not. postman by the mid 90s it's over but uh i'm always interested these guys that are basically the same and then somebody in sports it's like you have quarterbacks that are around the same and then it can come down to coach offensive line um the owner how much money you're spending not getting injured but with actors it's really like all these guys were kind of next to each other and then some

1:36:33Sean Fennessey:went up and some didn't yeah there's like a whole strain of them i'm the ones that i was thinking of were Mel, Michael Douglas, Jeff Bridges, and Richard Gere. Those were like, and I guess Bruce Willis to some extent, but then you also have like William Hurt. You've got Raul Julia. You know, you've got like a band of actors in the 1980s who were sort of like Jeremy Irons. Jeremy Irons, like B-tier stars who are always in good films. And he, Tom Berenger is kind of in that bass. Jack Berenger is 100 % in there.

1:37:02Bill Simmons:He's another one. He's like somewhere to watch over me when someone watched over me when we did that one. but my hottest take was Peterson and Don Johnson could have just switched careers in 84 and I think it would have been absolutely captivated and see what happened and I think if you just transplanted Johnson I think Peterson could have just been Sonny Crockett sure yeah I agree and I think Don Johnson could have been in those two movies and I think if he had been in those two movies I don't think he would have gotten freaked out by them like Peterson did and I think he just would have been right on the costume corner from that moment on and that would have been that and it actually would have been better for him and it would have all ended up with him on CSI yes

1:37:41Sean Fennessey:did he ever do one of those procedural shows? Nash Bridges

1:37:44Bill Simmons:that's right that's right you have a hottest take? I got two this movie is what he would feel like with no Natalie Portman character essentially like has that kind of interesting LA crime saga two sides of the law coming at to a head has incredible set pieces it basically has minus the fat of like the Natalie Portman character or the Dennis Haysburg character or something like that. My other hottest take is just that this is a better movie than The French Connection.

1:38:15Sean Fennessey:It's certainly more watchable to me. It's tough. Early 70s versus... I mean, it's not as influential, obviously. The French Connection has not aged well as a watch. Yeah. It's not that fun to pop on. Which is weird because The Exorcist is insanely watchable and it's only two years later. But The French Connection, I don't like revisit a lot. Do you have a hottest take or no? I did one already. That could be Mel Gibson.

1:38:37Bill Simmons:Best that guy award. Have a little switch for this one. After all Craig's bitching. Have it separated into casuals, real ones, and deep cut. Wow. Damn, call me out. Casuals. Dean Stockwell. That's a that guy to Craig. Of course. Sorry. Of course he is. He was a huge star.

1:38:54Sean Fennessey:A child star in the 50s and 60s. He's like on Quantum Leap for 10 years. 2026. Real ones. He's on the TV show in the 80s.

1:39:00Bill Simmons:Real ones. John Pankow. He's in Blue Velvet. Okay. became that guy from this movie and from Frasier John Peckham deep cut they go to the doctor at one point after Peterson gets oh yeah yeah yeah doctors Ray Kinsola's dad from Field of Dreams that's right Dwyer Brown that's a great one I don't know what category you would put this one in but the guy that Chance chases across the footbridge is Gary Cole that was mine oh that's a good one yeah he's not in that he's more Gary Cole I I Yeah, that's... Craig, who's Gary Cole? Oh, you know Gary Cole.

1:39:36Sean Fennessey:He's Lumber from Office Space.

1:39:37Bill Simmons:No, he was in what comedy? Oh, sure. He was in the Brady Bunch movie.

1:39:41Sean Fennessey:Veep.

1:39:42Bill Simmons:No.

1:39:43Sean Fennessey:He was on Veep. He was in the Brady Bunch movie. No, he was in one of the

1:39:45Bill Simmons:Farrell McKay movies, though, wasn't he? Oh, Talladega Nights. He's Ricky Bobby's brother. Dad. He's his dad.

1:39:50Sean Fennessey:But you don't know the name Gary Cole. I think I do know the name Gary Cole, but that doesn't mean I don't think he's not a that guy. Who'd you have for Dan Winters? William Peterson is a that guy. That's just obscene. he was on the number one show on television for 10 years who don't know the name of those actors you're just young Craig gets taken off the group chat my Dion Waiters was Totoro who we haven't really talked about and the check is in the mail and I love you and I promise not to come in your mouth

1:40:27Sean Fennessey:this is really early for him

1:40:29Bill Simmons:He also is unknown He's playing all the hits All the future Torturo hits Like every other Swinging dick in here Day by motherfucking day

1:40:40Sean Fennessey:I can't argue with that I do really enjoy though Bob Grimstein Stockwell's character At the very end When he's watching The videotape And he turns To Bianca And he's like You may want these There's some personal Things on there She's like Yeah thanks

1:40:58Bill Simmons:recast the couch director I already gave you Malkovich can I offer you for uh Defoe's girlfriend who we didn't really talk about Debra Fuhrer yeah Bianca just a couple test drives here sure Melanie Griffith okay yeah coming off body double Rosanna Arquette mmhmm Desperately Seeking Susan is that 85 yeah Jennifer Jason Lee sure when's when's Fast Times 82 okay what about

1:41:33Sean Fennessey:Homegirl from Top Gun Kelly McGillis Kelly McGillis yeah

1:41:38Bill Simmons:she was a year after Witness I'm trying to think of like a great dancer in that area like because you want to have somebody who's like convincing as a dancer Baryshnikov um I think that's a good I don't know that's basically a Melanie Griffith light performance mmhmm I don't not a lot of stuff happened I mean Daryl Hannah is really I think also Sean that's great guy

1:42:02Sean Fennessey:but she's doing she's in the news lately she's doing very similar makeup in Blade Runner yes as well I would go Melanie Griffin I had other names written down for Pankow sorry no disrespect to you but I actually I forgot that I wrote this down not my dad but just go ahead David Patrick Kelly from the Warriors ooh that could be interesting could see that young Michael Madsen Too handsome, but wet behind the ears. What about Raymar? Oh, Raymar would be good. Oh. The other one I had was JT Walsh. Oh. Which was once a member of one of our hallowed categories, but is no longer a part of that category.

1:42:40Sean Fennessey:And I feel like JT in 85. That's a good one. Pretty credible.

1:42:44Bill Simmons:So John Hurd could be another one too for that, right? Coming off Cutter's Way. Yes. Craig checked out. He's not even listening anymore. I could do this all day. You have a, Craig, you did your flex. you want to talk about the uh pippin trade or no it's not bad okay we needed a number two there was a pippin trade pittman oh michael pittman yeah scotty pippin i wanted him on on the jose he came back i can run free now we'll so we're we're running we're at a hundred minutes already we're past the craig century thing i have a certain research i'll zoom through a couple they produced one million dollars of counterfeit money and they put deliberate errors in the money and put X and that didn't stop some of the money from leaking out and the son of one of the crew members tried to use some of the prop money to buy candy and was caught and some of the money was still out.

1:43:33Bill Simmons:That's incredible. That's like its own movie. The Secret Service was picking up bills like years later from this movie. Some default classics. And I had the same thought Craig did. There's kind of like there's seven movies that could have come out of this movie and one of them is the counterfeit bill movie that they made for the movie but then it's like, ah. So cool. Car chase sequence took six weeks to shoot. The best part is it was the last thing shot. So if anything happened to the actors, they would have enough banked already. And they shot it the way Sean was describing also because Friedkin was just like, I just like the landscape and the horizon on the other side of the road.

1:44:11So we're just going to do it that way.

1:44:12Bill Simmons:Friedkin came up with the idea of staging the chase against the flow of traffic in 1963 when he was driving home from a wedding and fell asleep at the wheel. and spent the rest of his life wondering what would happen if he could use that in a film. It eventually did. And then... Dreams do come true. All of Panko's reactions were real. Wang Chung saw a rough cut of the film.

1:44:36Sean Fennessey:Shitty actor. Wang Chung saw a rough cut

1:44:42Bill Simmons:before they did the song. Okay. I heard Panko got a cut from his JV basketball team. How about that? Apex Mountain Panko? No, Mad About You. Wang Chung, yes. Because we're on Wang Chung Apex Mountain, though. Okay. Peterson, I think, is CSI. Yeah, it is. I agree. Secret Service movies? Can we do the list?

1:45:06Sean Fennessey:I made the list.

1:45:06Bill Simmons:Isn't it In the Line of Fire? That's the alternative. It's most successful, right? Yeah.

1:45:10Sean Fennessey:Okay, so it's In the Line of Fire. It's Olympus Has Fallen and The Other Has Fallen films. Even I can't. fully support those. The Interpreter. Oh. The Sentinel.

1:45:21Bill Simmons:Mm-hmm.

1:45:22Sean Fennessey:Starring Michael Douglas. Oh, I like The Sentinel. Along Came a Spider. Do you like The Sentinel? I like The Sentinel. Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd. I haven't seen it in a while. I like The Sentinel. For BS month? It's a good one. Guarding Tess. Nicolas Cage in a comedy with Charlie McClane. And then The Bodyguard. Oh. Well, Bodyguard's gotta be Apex. I would also say In the Line of Fire, you know, in terms of depicting the Secret Service in a good or bad way, that guy lost Kennedy. So, like, It's kind of already playing from behind.

1:45:49Bill Simmons:Great point. Would you include Dave just for the Ving Rhames scenes? Love that part. I would take a bull for you, Dave. It's on MGM. It's been showing it lately. Have they? Yeah. This is on MGM.

1:46:01Sean Fennessey:Do you think that's because there's a new MGM Plus show called, I forget what it's called, starring Kevin Kline? Are you aware of this? Kevin Kline and Laura Linney's in it. And Laura Linney.

1:46:12Bill Simmons:Yeah.

1:46:13Sean Fennessey:What?

1:46:14Bill Simmons:it's like a mad lib for like this show exists it's called

1:46:18Sean Fennessey:American Classic American Classic and John Tenney right

1:46:22Bill Simmons:John Tenney is the third lead John Tenney it's some famous Broadway actor goes back okay and is in a local play near the end of his career all hell breaks loose I almost fired it up last night love Kevin Kline Apex Mountain William Peterson we did Willem Dafoe Platoon Spider-Man Platoon Spider-Man After Platoon it felt like he was going to be one of the next big actors like he could pick his parts for a while He was in

1:46:52Sean Fennessey:Last Temptation of Christ He's Jesus Yeah

1:46:53Bill Simmons:Every other actor in this movie except John Turturro probably Apex Mountain Yeah Darlan Deborah Fuhrer Yeah all those Friedkin now Setting Art on Fire Not prepared for that one Bungie Jumping World War 2 is probably up there for that one Bungee jumping, probably one of the crews. Jackass number two. Jackass number two. Good one. Getting shot in the dick. Ooh. Pulp Fiction. GoldenEye bungee jump. Yeah, great. GoldenEye, great bungee jump. Pulp Fiction, obviously. Dick, Apex Mountain. 1985 Chevy Impalas. There's a Ferrari in this one, too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Cruiser Hanks. Cruises Rick. Agreed. Cruise almost like interview the vampire Magnolia type of Cruise.

1:47:46Yeah. Yeah. Slick long hair. Demonized. Loves his would probably insist on doing the art himself.

1:47:52Bill Simmons:I had Cruise's Rick as well. Scorsese over Spielberg. Yes. Best hang worst hang? Best hang is Rick. Rick has got

1:48:02Sean Fennessey:Rick's an amazing hang. He's got money. He gets presents on your birthday. He's got he's got style and taste. He'll introduce you to the art world. Can we play this out a little bit? What is minute 11 of a conversation with Rick? I grew up in a house with cops. I'm just saying. It's Rick times a billion. I know the real plus minus of the Chicago Bulls night. What do you want to talk about?

1:48:25Bill Simmons:For me, it's Chance. Chance number one, worst hang is Cody, always complaining about his ulcers.

1:48:31Sean Fennessey:Be real. Like, shoot straight here. Come on. This isn't most interesting person. I think Rick can introduce you into fun nights and new worlds, but I think conversationally Rick might not be the best. But he can have the craziest night with you. Yeah, me, Chance. Rick's like, wanna take a sauna? No, just get naked in front of you. Is it best hang, worst hang forever? Is it like, it's not best friends forever. It's like one night. One night. One night it's Rick. Rick has the craziest night for sure. It's just you wake up without pants on, no money. Rick's like, I'd like to introduce you to my friend, Jane Leaves.

1:49:01Sure, but like, Chance might be like, let's go to the topless bar in Terminal Islands. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I know the door.

1:49:09Bill Simmons:There's a Steelers game. Yeah. My blackster is long snapping. I got a lunch.

1:49:19Bill Simmons:Picky Nitz. I never sat right with me when Chance notices something's wrong with the room service order. Oh, yeah. Why? He's just about to leave, and he just hears a clank and sees somebody walking. There's nobody supposed to be on that floor. You're not supposed to be on the same floor as the president. Yeah, it's supposed to be clear. How about Jimmy pulling the guy down From the floor below The terrorist pulling him back Where's he coming from? He's like climbing up from like probably a lower roof Onto the top of the building But I think it's a stupid scene Turturro's talking to Defoe On the jail phone Unbelievable shit Do people just do this?

1:49:59Bill Simmons:They just openly confess crimes on the jail phone? I got caught caring for you man Yeah motherfucker But you can just do this? I'm sure criminals do it all the time Why don't they just monitor the jail phones Why don't they like do surveillance

1:50:11Sean Fennessey:That's nice that's a really good pod idea Prison pod like a prison Convict and his plug and his connect And they meet up

1:50:19Bill Simmons:Should we change like the reality TV pod Where they're just calling each other through A funny minute You know this is the most random shit On your Instagram algorithm sometimes I was getting women In the Idaho prison system

1:50:35Sean Fennessey:Yeah, the most random stuff on your algorithm that tracks all of your interests all the time. So you obviously clicked on one. It was like a date women in the Idaho prison system. Do they all look like Darlene Flugel? No, sadly not. But I was just like, these chicks seem pretty interesting. You know, like online.

1:51:01Bill Simmons:Wow, that's one where you have to go in the algorithm and remove it. Yeah. I think I did eventually, but not for like, there was still like nine days where I was just like, wow, Bree from outside of Boise City. She loves anime.

1:51:25I have a picking nit.

1:51:27Bill Simmons:I only had two more, which was the cars on the wrong side of the road, even though we talked about the intentionally. And then why does Vukovic to get Chance's Bronco at the end of the movie? I know. A lot of questions about that. Probably doesn't have a will and testimony, but yeah. My question is, it just seems like it would be much easier for Chance to execute Masters rather than like create all these different crimes to cover up for each other to arrest him. Yeah, it's like to do the, by the book, you arrest him, but you're also breaking laws to do it by the book. And there's no way that case would have ever stood up.

1:52:00And to say nothing of the fact that Dean Stockwell already knows how criminal their investigation is.

1:52:04Sean Fennessey:Well, relatedly, I feel like picking this could just be an entire Vincent Chase award. Like, are we sure this character is actually good at his job? Because here's some of the things that Chance does. He races through security and alerts Carl to his presence in the airport rather than just show his ID quietly and find him on the people mover and apprehend him. Then he allows an affair with an informant to shade his ability to make good choices. And that ultimately leads to him taking the deal with Thomas Ling, which is clearly a setup. and he says to a judge when he's trying to get his escaped prisoner back, if I was one of your asshole cronies, you'd be spread eagle on your desk to do this for me.

1:52:39Sean Fennessey:And then later he gets shot in the face by a bodyguard. Chance is not good. Like at all. He just takes risks. Not good. And it's also not, it's pretty telling. I don't think that there was a long line of guys to replace Jimmy Hart. Like when Chance loses his partner, it's not like everybody's like, damn, Chance is up. I can be his partner. They were like, you can have Vukovic.

1:53:02Bill Simmons:That's why he had nobody to leave his Bronco to.

1:53:05Sean Fennessey:That's a good point. That's a great moment early in the movie when they're all drinking to Hart after they apprehend or they foiled the terrorist plot. And Hart's like, this fucking Yahoo. And he's pointing a chance and he's like, this guy's gotten me into some trouble. But Vukovic gets the Bronco. Does he get the Malibu house?

1:53:24Bill Simmons:Good question. I also have some questions about what's Darlene Flugel's character's name? Ruth. Ruth, who in the book is called Ruthie the Rat. Yeah. She's the rat, as we find out during the movie. She's probably feeding info. No other guys ever over at the house? So it's just the unannounced stop by and nobody else there, but they're not really dating. And she can't do the, hey, when can we get more serious? Because he's like, I'll just revoke your parole. Right. This is going to be the arrangement. But is she not allowed to have other guys over? I mean, I feel like she's just been fully coerced into that relationship.

1:54:01Sean Fennessey:Sure. You know, it's not... I know what you mean, though. It's like, at what point is she like, well, I do have a boyfriend. You know, long-haul trucker. She gets sent back to prison.

1:54:10Bill Simmons:Sequel, prequel, prestige, TV, all black cast are untouchable. I'm going all black cast for this one. We haven't had it in a while. I said the same. The all black cast would be amazing for this. Yeah, I'd be pretty sick. They tried to make a prestige series of this for WGN. Freaking tried. But didn't get off the ground. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Fergie the florist Zane Lowe or somebody else how are you guys feeling about Zane I mean every week it's the highlight of my week I love it chance man you just jumped off of Vincent Thomas and nobody thought you could do it Alvarez didn't think you could do it your partner Jimmy Hart didn't think you could do it but here you are and you got Jimmy Hart killed in some ways because you didn't get his back but Vukovic is here now and just tell me man what are your plans what are your plans with Ruth what are your plans for Masters Such a talented artist in his own right

1:55:02Sean Fennessey:Just the whole The whole idea

1:55:08Bill Simmons:I thought you were going to have him interviewing Rick Masters Go Rick The artist The artist is here You've done such beautiful work Both with money and with painting What is it?

1:55:25Sean Fennessey:I can't get over the idea of Zane Lowe inviting a local cop on a show. To talk to him about what he's investigating and what's going on in his life. We've done a lot of episodes of this show. It's hard, man.

1:55:42Bill Simmons:I was test driving a little Ryan Rucco and Doris Burke doing the car chase. And Doris Burke's just calling everybody Mr., but my heart's not totally in it. We see you, Mr. Chance. We see you, Mr. Chance. he's driving up the one-way ramp and then Ruko's like is he gonna get there? you bet!

1:56:03Bill Simmons:just one Oscar who gets it can I offer you original song? hey original song or soundtrack? original song best music okay the winner was Say You Say Me from White Nights by Lionel Richie I mean honestly that song kind of sucks and I like Lionel Richie I wouldn't put that in the top 12 Lionel Richie's tough one okay Say you Say me Say it together

1:56:27Sean Fennessey:Naturally That song sucks I was really hoping You were gonna sing it So that worked out for you Wait am I right

1:56:33Bill Simmons:Does that song suck I never fucking liked Lionel Richie I don't know why I'm pro Lionel Richie All Night Long is amazing Easy Like I'll go on and on But that song's bad Wang Chung not nominated Wang Chung not nominated Color Purple song was nominated The Power of Love From Back to the Future Honestly also could've won Banger yeah Yeah come on Separate Lives from White Knight And then a chorus line won but fucking Wang Chung could have seen them at the Oscars pretty cool and the nominees are To Live and Die in LA by Wang Chung yeah would have been amazing

1:57:04Sean Fennessey:was that Anthony Hopkins

1:57:05Bill Simmons:who were you just doing there I don't know okay probably an answerable question can I give my Oscar to Robbie Miller please yeah sure I don't have any more unanswerable questions yet because we've done all of them so unless you have any I did my whole like how did you find out who won that game I always wondered about this chances Jimmy Hart It wasn't just his partner. He was his best friend for seven years. Can somebody really be your best friend after seven years? I just feel like you got to make a deeper investment. Wow, you think it's got to go longer? Yeah. Wow, interesting. Is Heifetz your best friend?

1:57:38Bill Simmons:You've known Heifetz seven years. That's right. Craig's a good person to ask. Good call. I love them both equally, Danny and DK. Probably not my best friends. They're my brothers, really. Yeah, sure they are. I actually do have an unanswerable question. I was debating whether to trot it out or not. Okay. I have some counterfeit money questions. So the amount of time, energy, money expenses to make counterfeit money. It didn't seem like a small operation, right? You have all those printing presses and the paint and paper, chemicals. Not cheap. And then somebody's buying the money. so I'm paying$100 ,000 but I'm getting $500 ,000 of money something like that I don't think it's a good business not to mention you could be arrested and go to jail Jeff is like if you're printing the money what do you give a shit what I make he's like just print more money and give it to me how about if you're printing the money why don't you just keep the money and just buy shit with it or bring it to like Colombia and buy drugs and then take the drugs and bring them back.

1:58:45Bill Simmons:Like, what's the point of selling counterfeit money for money? Because I think it's probably supposed to be the criminal act that's closest to artistic creation for masters.

1:58:54Sean Fennessey:I think this is a really interesting examination of how your mind works because I don't think the generally held opinion is that counterfeiting money is a good way to make money or a good job or safe.

1:59:04Bill Simmons:Yeah.

1:59:04Sean Fennessey:It's a terrible idea.

1:59:06Bill Simmons:It's a terrible idea. It's very likely you're going to get arrested. It's so dangerous. And I think for all the expense and time that you put into it,

1:59:14Sean Fennessey:I don't see the upside. Well, the only people that are buying the money from you are also criminals. And if you sell that money to the wrong person and then that person gets caught, you're fucked. Because not only are they either going to rat on you or you're going to get killed. Right.

1:59:26Bill Simmons:There's 40 things that can go wrong. And the only thing that can go right is that you don't get caught. And it seems like Rick is like making like 30 grand here and 80 grand there. It's not like a huge number. I would rather make the counterfeit money. and if I'm already going to jail for being a criminal, at that point, like I'd want to try to buy large quantities of cocaine and heroin. Right. Use the counterfeit money for that to fool the drug dealers. Bring the drugs back. Now selling that, now I'm going to make like quintuple. I'm in the 80s where everybody's doing drugs anyway. I just wanted more from Rick Masters.

2:00:00Bill Simmons:I thought he was a better business mind.

2:00:02Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I just think maybe get a job. Feels like a better way to do it.

2:00:04Bill Simmons:Well, like, so we're going to Bakersfield to make the money. That's smart, right? He's saving on rent and expenses. He's out of the beam path. He's got low overhead. It's just him and Jack. Low overhead? Yeah. But I just don't see the upside. There's probably not a health plan for those guys.

2:00:18Sean Fennessey:I think for Rick in particular, there's just a nice crossover with his artistic interests and the precision that is required to do the work. So it's like an artisan. It's like a blacksmith who really loves the work that they do.

2:00:32Bill Simmons:My other question is, how much did his bodyguard guy make? How much did those guys make, CR? they get a cut of the proceeds I bet he is I signed a new deal I get 10 % yeah and I bet for a guy like that probably like what are the other career options for him right probably got out of jail yeah Craig where do you stand on counterfeiting money and just in general that whole phenomenon because I don't feel like I don't feel like anybody's doing it anymore because I don't think it was a good business nobody uses paper money anymore but have you ever seen like when you go to a bodega or whatever and you pay with a 20 they like do something with a highlighter on it see if it's real Yeah, that rings vaguely familiar.

2:01:10But, you know, now there's digital counterfeiting. Now you have some…

2:01:15Bill Simmons:Much better business. I was thinking about… That is fun for Rick, though, because he's an artist. The move in Eyes Wide Shut, where Bill is like, gets there in the cab, tears the money in half, and he's like, I'll give you the other half of this when I come out. And I was like, what if you tried that on a cab driver today? Do you think you would just be like, get the fuck out of my car?

2:01:37Sean Fennessey:well he'd still want to get paid somewhat yeah but like if you were like here you can tape this back together wouldn't he just be like he does that when he arrives at the big house outside of the party I mean the problem is he's all the way out in bumfuck Eastern Long Island so he kind of has nowhere to go it's a tough one

2:01:51Bill Simmons:what piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie?

2:01:53Sean Fennessey:Rick's burn painting before he burns it yeah I wrote Masters' art collection

2:01:59Bill Simmons:I would want the briefcase that Peterson slams which we forgot to mention how funny that was that he's for real slamming the briefcase until it opens. I would have that briefcase, but also with the counterfeit money that they made for the movie inside the briefcase. I think it would be the sweet spot. I think it'd be cool to have like$1 bill from this movie that had the X on it. Maybe come with like a poker chip, like the ones they used to beat it up. That'd be cool. Double feature choice. I had Manhunter. What'd you have? Thief.

2:02:31Sean Fennessey:Very good. or have you seen Boiling Point the Wesley Snipes movie which is also about counterfeiting money

2:02:39Bill Simmons:oh I haven't

2:02:40Sean Fennessey:1993 I haven't seen this Dennis Hopper he plays a counterfeiter and Wesley Snipes is on his trail they're very similar Boiling Point is not as good are there enough money are there enough counterfeiting movies for counterfeiting movie month well we just knocked one off

2:02:55Bill Simmons:and I've named the other

2:02:55Sean Fennessey:not sure if I can name another there's gotta be there's gotta be catch me if you can is checks yeah does that count That was another one.

2:03:02Bill Simmons:We loved one in that movie when he was counterfeiting the checks. Maybe I just like counterfeiting. I had a point blank John Borman movie. Kind of has like some of the impressionistic moments of this. Who won the movie? I think Friedkin. I'll say Peterson. I think it's 100 % Peterson. Okay. Because this starts his career and eventually leads to CSI and him just wandering around Larchmont jogging pants, just throwing 20s at people to get him a Starbucks. Did he do that? No. I'm making that up. Do you think he's ever running a Remar in the neighborhood? I bet those guys had some war stories. Like a handshake?

2:03:47Yeah. maybe they did you see like the handshake Defoe and Jeff have yes when they're like kind of like pounding but also like doing a little thummy war action yeah

2:03:56Sean Fennessey:you think should we start doing that yeah Craig do you want a handshake

2:04:00Bill Simmons:for when we see each other we don't have one like LeBron James has with his teammates that'd be great okay we'll work on that there's too many ways for men to dap each other it's tough like double dap are you like a

2:04:10Sean Fennessey:bring it in guy it depends on who you're greeting it can go all over the place you could do a stern handshake you could do the full dap and rap. When you see your father-in-law, what's your move? Handshake into the wraparound hug. You will hit the hug. Good for you. My man radar has been on the fritz recently. I feel like I've gotten hugged when I thought we were shaking. It's hard to read. I've gone for the shake. You know what I mean? It's hard to read. I've just been going hugs lately

2:04:36Bill Simmons:for everybody. But if you meet someone for the first time, you're just going pure handshake, right? No? Yeah, sometimes do the high five with the quick hug. Jacoby seems very committed to the fist bump he's stuck with it but it throws me off because I'll sometimes go up and grab his fist I don't even know how we're going to hang out anymore Craig, your thoughts on To Live and Die in LA man literally the first five seconds of the movie I was like five stars it's great music's out of control I really I can't tell if I'm starting to develop poor music taste because that kind of music now is really speaking to me and I'm like going back to that kind of early 80s kind of music and I find it to be great but this movie falls in that category of maybe these don't make a ton of sense but they do in my brain of like Body Heat, American Gigolo, Blowout, I wrote it down, Body Double I love these like fucked up 80s movies where the city plays a real role in the movie like the city as a character and like you were saying what was it high art low culture that sweet spot I really really like and this is like as good

2:05:51Sean Fennessey:as it could get I loved it

2:05:54Bill Simmons:I'm not surprised there's only a couple cities that you could do a movie like this too right but this is back in the day when you could run and gun in LA and it wasn't

2:06:03Sean Fennessey:it's gotta be warm weather it's a movie about the sun yeah I think I do like movies where everyone's hot sweaty it just works and there's like the movie is two things at once it can be a turn it on check out just have a good time and then if you really watch it like you guys are saying even the more you talk about it having seen it yeah we didn't even get to like was Ruth selling out Chance the whole time like to who there is clear meaning and messaging I didn't even think

2:06:27Bill Simmons:that was a debate I mean she was but like who was she calling was she calling Grimes was she calling Masters who was she calling I think I mean the true masterminds of the movie are Grimes and Ruth right yes Darlin is it Darlan Darlan she would have meant a lot to me in 1985.

2:06:42Sean Fennessey:She's very special. Yeah, that checks out. Can I ask, what is the modern comp for this kind of movie? Is it caught stealing? So one of my other double features was Dragged Across Concrete, which you and I were just talking about, which I think is pretty similar to this, where it's like really nasty. Yeah. And like, it's more at night instead of during the day, but very beautifully shot. They took a run at this like late 90s into the early 2000s, like NARC. Mm-hmm. Yeah, NARC is a good version of this. What's the one with... What about Rush with Jason Patrick? Dude, when are we going to do Rush, brother?

2:07:19That'll be good.

2:07:20Bill Simmons:I mean, if we do Rush, Jason Patrick will probably show up and crash it.

2:07:23Sean Fennessey:Do you think if you were an undercover cop, drug cop, at that time, you would have gone in too deep and not been able to get out? Yeah, you do. What about you? Yes. Yes. Getting too deep. What would be the point of being an undercover cop to keep it just shallow enough?

2:07:42Bill Simmons:You guys kind of have a heart and chance thing going on now that I think about it. Is there a way to have an undercover cop that gets in too deep, but working with a cop who doesn't play by the rules? Has anyone ever crossed those streams before? Whoa. A guy who's like, I'm in too deep. They're just both. They're in two separate movies, basically, but they're partners. Right. Yeah.

2:08:01Sean Fennessey:The cowboy and the drug addict.

2:08:05Bill Simmons:I feel like Sierra's going to be thinking about this pank out thing for some time yeah it's gonna haunt me all night i feel like pank out might 85 bulls that's why i always feel bad when we talk about listen he had a great career i do have to point out when when chance is is pretending to be jessup yeah some of the worst tricep extension form i've ever seen so i was curious about what how you felt about doing doing deals with your boys while while doing lifting it's it's another great idea for a pod perhaps i uh i don't think we played that up enough the lifting scene yeah i'd said it was the most 1985 thing

2:08:40Sean Fennessey:about this they're all incredibly close like all three of them are within 10 feet of one you notice

2:08:44Bill Simmons:there's two other people behind one of whom is like this jacked female like bodybuilder with bleach blonde hair freaking who's just doing this in a mirror and it looks it honestly looks like there it's about to be a porn scene yeah he was such a little freak i love freaking yeah it's just

2:08:59Sean Fennessey:the weirdest shit in these movies. I cannot get over the flashback to the sex scene in the final minutes of the movie. We didn't even talk about the end when he's like, you work for me now. That's the craziest thing in the world. I know. He's like, I'm your pimp just because my partner died.

2:09:14Bill Simmons:That's fucking nuts. That goes fast with Pankow going dark. The end goes by fast but I think that's because there was the tension around the alternative endings and stuff. I care less even about what actually happens. The movie is more of just a vibe to me. Watching the last 10 minutes I'm like, I don't even really care. That's what I'm saying. It's a great one. You watch it now and you're just like, oh my God, I can't believe the sign on the bar. The movie's a great one. Every room you're in is cool. I literally made a point. Like halfway through the movie, I realized every single room we're in looks cool for some reason.

2:09:40And I tried to think about that for the rest of the movie and it holds true. When he's drinking Miller in a shot before he rips off Ling, the sign behind him says, Tiempo Dorado Miller. And I was like, that's the best Miller time sign I've ever seen.

2:09:56Bill Simmons:CR month, three in the books. Rolling. this is part of the LA trilogy we're doing do we have one are we doing five movies or four it's a five movie month so do we know what the fifth is yeah LA Confidential oh LA Confidential so Nice Guys is fourth and then LA Confidential is fifth so you might join us for that one if the Oscars doesn't kill you

2:10:15Sean Fennessey:for LA Confidential

2:10:16Bill Simmons:yeah yeah I'll be down in Andy Greenwald it's going to be the first four person rewatchable we've done in a while at the other studio at the other studio yeah I can't wait it's a second more thing any other feedback on CR month before we go I just really appreciate everybody's kind sentiments this has been a lot of fun these movies are awesome people have been asking for merch merch really merch

2:10:38Sean Fennessey:do you what how do you feel about a Phillies hat but with CR in the Phillies script I sort of would the Phillies get litigious about that I feel like you're a vocal advocate I am you know I am I believe in everything Dave Dombrowski does if the Phillies got litigious about that

2:10:53Bill Simmons:that'd be fucking bullshit it'd also be like How dare they do that to CRM? It would also be great for the pot if I got sued into bankruptcy by Dave Dombrowski. Just deepen your folk hero status. You bought the hats with counterfeit money from your counterfeit money business. And then like we would have Bryce Harper come on. He'd be like, yeah, fuck Dombrowski. I am elite. Have you followed that story?

2:11:17Sean Fennessey:That's a great story.

2:11:19Bill Simmons:That's it for the Rewatchables. Thanks to Craig and to Gahau as well and to Eduardo. We'll be back with CRM. which will be... Nice Guys. Nice Guys. Gosling, Crow. Excited for this one. Me too. See you next week.

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