‘Witness’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin

17:52Bill Simmons:Yeah. And diving and like learning more about it, watching, you know, the bonus features on the DVD. And they put out the Arrow 4K Ultra a couple of years ago. So checking out like the specials on that. You know, you hear Peter Weir talk about the movie and like on the one hand, he'll say, I'm like a little surprised that this is a movie that people still love so much. I didn't think it would have this kind of lasting impact and legacy. But then when he talks about every single choice he made and the level of care and what he did, the choices he made in particular to like amend the screenplay.

18:24Sorry, I said cinematography won. It didn't. Screenplay won. John Seale did not win for cinematography. He was nominated, but he didn't win. it won for screenplay and it's an incredible screenplay but we're did so much work to amend the screenplay and uh dampen down the dialogue and really like orient the movie and root the movie in restraint and these glances and these longing looks it's just beautifully and impeccably shot and directed film so you know sydney pollack won for out of africa and that's not like crazy or

18:54Bill Simmons:anything but would you not have picked weir it makes sense in the 80s just because of the stuff they're rewarded it makes no sense now because i just i don't think culturally that movie really matters and i think it's surprising looking back at what it won but um i think watching this again and then reading yeah some of the stuff which i'd never like deep dived like the actual research which we have to do in the rewatchables um some of the things they cut out some of the dialogue they cut out and how he's always like deferring toward like i want this to be visual i want to I want to center on the reactions.

19:29Bill Simmons:And they don't really do this anymore in movies with very few exceptions. It's everything is so dialogue heavy. Now this movie is so good. Like that, like one of the best scenes we'll do when rewatchable scene is when the little kid Samuel sees Danny Glover's picture historic and Ford just lowers his finger. It's, it's just that this movie has like 19 things like that. Just these little touches that are just make it special. You could go through start to finish and you're never going more than 12 minutes without a moment like that. Yeah. You're just completely gripped and oriented and like you have your mooring because of somebody's eyes.

20:06And I think to your point about how that feels like really of a moment in time, like, I mean, there are a lot of good movies and a lot of good TV right now. But I think undeniably there's an aspect of like, can we trust our audience as much in the sensory overload era? You know, people are on their phones. People are distracted. you need to have all of these like exposition that's a good point if you're on your phone

20:26Bill Simmons:during that danie glover scene you miss what happened you're like wait what happened and then you just missed it but in this era where people were actually paying attention to the beautiful art in front of them something like and again i know we'll talk about this more later when we go through the all of the scenes and all of the great choices but something like peter weir it's fascinating to hear him talk about this saying that there were multiple pages of dialogue at the end of the film where Rachel and Book basically explain to each other what they're thinking. By the way, that sounds awful.

20:55Yeah.

20:55Bill Simmons:Why did they even have, why did they, these two never exchange more than like five words together. I know. It's a very like base animalistic bond. But the fact that like Peter Weir is just like, if I've done my, and this is literally what he says, right? Like if I've done my job by that point, you should know how they feel about each other and how they feel about the choice that they've had to make and what they're leaving behind and what they're each moving toward. And the fact that you can see that in a little smile, but also like the glassy eyes because of the emotion and the tears, who looks away, who looks back, when are their eyes meeting?

21:27Well, him and Samuel at the end. Oh my God.

21:29Bill Simmons:How many times have you cried during that scene? I am. Goodbye, John Book. Goodbye, John Book. I have moved to a lot of different powerful feelings and emotions watching Witness, sometimes tears, sometimes more private things, but all very, all very powerful. i love how they're just hanging out and it's not like i think in a bad movie a mediocre movie or even a decent movie there's harrison ford's character saying no samuel yeah remember what i told you're gonna be great remember what i told like just like here are my words of wisdom and they just don't do that no he just like kind of puts his head against them yeah it's like a very subtle though i love the the nuzzle i love the little head pat it's a very subtle film it's very restrained it's like kind of delicate but in a beautiful way and it's in a way of course that is is very like entwined with and connected to the contrast between the worlds in the film but the fact that like when you go to lancaster and everything at the at the lap farm in an amish country it's not suddenly like big city cop energy has seeped and saturated every scene of this experience it's like no there is what what do we hear over and over again you look plain there's like a plainness to it there's a pastoral quality we'll have multiple moments maybe my favorite example of this actually is like the we're saying that the the barn raising is a paragraph in the script it's like i mean how long is that scene it's like five minutes yeah and you're just watching people exist in a community and it's really gripping there's so many smart little things.

23:09Bill Simmons:I really love this movie. I've watched it a bunch of times. It's so good. Even when they're building the barn, they take the break and they're all eating. I love that. And Alexander Goodenough's character. Oh yeah. He just looks over and he's just staring at like, you're so used to all these movies where it's like, oh, this guy's going to be a dick to John Book and they're going to have a little thing. And it never happens. He's always, they're always just kind of sizing each other up. Book clearly knows like, I'm going to leave here and this guy's going to marry Kelly McGillis' character. And that's how we all know how this is going to play out.

23:40Bill Simmons:But we have to like do this little dance. And I just don't. I think movies fuck that up all the time, though. Yeah, you're like luxuriating in a moment. You'd be like, I don't know who you think you are, English. Like, we just would have had like a terrible scene. Yeah. And they just don't do it. Every character that's true for. And I kind of like Daniel. Like, well, you have to. I don't know if they had the same spark. To say the least. As Kelly McGillis and Harrison fucking Ford have. I don't think the fire was burning his bright, but I think he'll be a good stepdad to our guy Samuel. He will.

24:12I think that that moment, like the, you know, there's a lot of like resisting Daniel's presence, right? Because you're so swept up in the love story as Book and Rachel are just becoming like enraptured with each other. You want to watch them fall in love. You want to see them find a way to be together, even though, you know, just like they know in the back of your mind that it can't happen. And so when Daniel comes over and he's like, I'm sitting here kind of like awkwardly in silence, swinging on the porch with you, you're like, man, I'm really not feeling it. And also clearly neither is Rachel.

24:45But you never lose sight of the fact that that's the thing that makes sense and that that's probably where we're going to end up. And that closing shot of Book driving away and Daniel walking.

24:56Bill Simmons:That's another one where they don't stop. We don't have like one last thing, like take care of them. No. We just like. No, you just see the brake lights. Yeah. You know, they had a little brief moment, but we didn't need to actually hear it. We understand what has transpired. Great. Well, another great thing about this movie. We enter a world. I always talk about this. Almost 400 movies. These movies where we just go into this place that I don't really understand or know that much about. Yeah. We're in this whole Amish society for. Yeah. A hundred minutes. and it's really riveting and you're watching and they do such a good job of checking every box of everything you need to understand about this little little world that we're in yeah by the end of it i feel like i get it yes and i and i understand why it's so damaging to have an outsider and all these things from the outside world come in there and why they're all like what the fuck like right like this he just punched some he just punched some bully great on the street great scene we don't do things that way we would rather just you know we're pacifists and then there's this whole pacifist versus violence theme that um it's just perfectly done yeah like it feels like anything from the townies with the ice cream cone on daniel's face to samuel finding the gun to obviously the west the the western showdown at the end when the dirty cops all arrive the number of moments where like i love the the phrasing you know that eli uses the gun of the hand like this incursion of violence in this peaceful quiet world and the moments where book like he's so ashamed when rachel catches him and samuel with the gun and he's like right no yeah i get it but then when he has to go into town it's like i need that back like i haven't given that up.

26:45I have just decided that I will respect your way of life while I'm here. But then obviously it's on the heels of learning about Carter and the call with Schaefer but when he sees the town, he's mocking these people who he has come to form an attachment with and he has embraced what, even though it's not the choice he's going to make, it's not right for him, he has embraced their life and come to value and understand it. I think he thought about it a couple times. Well, no question. When he's like,

27:08Bill Simmons:he's like, you know what, I could just make some corn and milk some teats. 4 a.m. Bill, it's time for Milken. It's time for Milken. I'll work on young Samuel, teach him some stuff. Dude, the moment where, no matter how many times I see this movie, when he goes, well, obviously talk about the sponge bath in great detail, but after that, next morning when he goes and he seeks her out, they're like separated by the wire. He's in that gorgeous forest green shirt. He just looks so fucking hot. It's insane. I should have a more elegant way of saying it. I don't. He just looks so fucking hot. It's crazy.

27:41he's like Rachel if we had made love last night I'd have to stay or you'd have to go and I'm like go go Rachel look at him go

27:56Bill Simmons:he said if we had made love last night we would have had to make love another eight times cause that's how I roll cause it's nine a day for me or it's not a day well spent I didn't know if you could handle my nine a day he's a big city cop she's got a sister in Baltimore This is a really unexplored element of the film. What's Rachel's sister doing down in Baltimore, my home? Rachel, book, and Samuel, let's go live a life down in Baltimore. It's a great place. Yeah, your husband just died. Let's time to change life a little bit. Let's go. Exactly. I love entering a world. Yes. I also love movies with really good scripts.

28:35Bill Simmons:And what I didn't realize until I did the research was that this is one of the most respected scripts for fledgling movie people over the last 40 years because the structure is so perfect. Yeah. Which it is. But I just I've seen this movie so many times I never really. Yeah. It never really occurred to me how perfect it is where it's like first part. Thriller where we fish out of water. They see something bad like we've seen that version. Now all of a sudden in the second part, Book is healed back to life. He's in this Amish world and it's like, oh shit, this is a completely different movie. And then the last act is the bad people have now come to this, to this place that was this idyllic, awesome place that I was happy in.

29:21Bill Simmons:And they've upended it. And then the movie ends and it's just first act, second act, third act credits. It's really tight. I mean, you can, you know, you hear people talk about how it was like quite long and, and, you know, 180 some page script and tracking for three hours and edited down and obviously tweaked over time but yeah the like genre mashup aspect of it and the need to to pace it so that we feel i i want to i don't want to like step on some of the categories because i think this will come up a lot later but i'm always kind of amazed when i rewatch it that how much time actually like is outside of amish country before i mean obviously So we start there with the funeral and then the train ride and everything.

30:03But we are in the like, we have had a murder. There's been a murder. We're like trying to get Samuel to ID a suspect. We're in Philly. We're in the big city, like books, sister's house, Patti LuPone.

30:20Bill Simmons:We go to a bar for some reason and pull somebody out. Wild stretch with T-Bone at the bar. that's like the first 30 some minutes in the movie before book drops them off and then passes out and ends up and to your fish out of water point with Samuel and Rachel in the big city the way that we're always in a fish out of water movie it just flips book becomes the fish out of water and like that's so deftly nimbly done where it turns it's always a clash of cultures no matter where we are in the film it's always a matter of contrast but the lens through which we're assessing that contrast pivots and it's awesome well Peter Weir directed it, it's the first America movie he had done Year of Living Dangerously and Gallipoli but it comes into America does this, does Mosquito Coach Dead Poets Neil!

31:15one of our faves Truman Show, Master and Commander Peter Weir's made a lot of good movies

31:21Bill Simmons:this and Witness and Dead Poets, I feel like, are definitely siblings. They're not even cousins. Yeah. There's a lot of the same touches. Like, if you watch both, you would absolutely think it was the same director for both. Even the music. Yeah. Some of the music parts feel the same. Some of the wide shots of the outdoors. Yeah. There's an introspection and a tenderness. Yeah. Like, scenes without dialogue. I guess the difference is Dead Poets has, like, that Robin Williams, like, jumpstart energy, whereas Witness, I guess, has the murder. But there's something about the way he does his movies that is really distinct to him.

31:56Yeah.

31:57Bill Simmons:And I haven't seen anybody quite like him. Just very patient, wide. The actors are always, oh, you always feel like they're in a good spot. So you have that. You have Kelly McGillis. We talked about her. Yeah. Great role. And she became a thing. Like, it was like, who's this lady? Because this movie was a big movie. Witness and Top Gun and Back to Back Years is nuts. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but even this thing, it was like, who's the newcomer? She was like waitressing five months before she did this part. This is one of my favorite anecdotes that I was not aware of before prepping for this pod where, you know, she's like, yeah, I was working at a coffee shop.

32:30Peter Weir, it's hysterical to listen to him talk about how impossible it was to try to find Rachel. Yeah. He's like, basically all of the American actresses we looked at were like too hip. They were too knowing. He asked the casting director to start looking in Italy. Yeah. And then they found Kelly McGillis. and she's like yeah i was working at a coffee shop and like harrison ford and peter weir walked in and everyone who was there was like that's fucking harrison right what's happening like imagine that

32:58Bill Simmons:being a thing that happened in your life yeah and then she's filming a movie with them so you have her you have evil danny glover yep which is so funny you know he's lethal weapon took over his life and he made a bunch of great stuff everybody loves danny glover they evil danny glover i could have explored in a couple more movies definitely one of the like quietly great moments in the movie because it's so uh the sinister and borderline maniacal is when he stops to wash his hands it's like you have murdered someone in a public place yeah get out of there but he's like nope yeah time tidy up wash up there's something very insidious about that moment and then good enough who then becomes Hans Gruber's right-hand guy in Die Hard to the completely different role characters you could have played.

33:45Oh, yeah. Yeah.

33:47Bill Simmons:Awesome, charismatic henchman. And then in this movie, he's all back. Vigo, they made a big deal in all the research stuff that was Vigo's first movie. He's barely in it. He's got like two lines. Yeah, he's barely in it. He's looking handsome, though. He looks great. It is, to me, like, as obviously a Lord of the Rings obsessive and Peter Jackson, Lord of the Rings films are like sacred texts in my life as you know see in those we need to stop the pod chris can you power down uh i didn't really say it was in those okay the alternate history all of them are just one of them he's aragorn god damn it the alternate history where he's like yeah i almost picked like playing a soldier in henry v and shakespeare in the park but then i did this instead and decided to be a movie actor it's like who would have played aragorn if yeah vego mortensen had not been in this movie i didn't realize he played Are you doing this just to hurt me?

34:39The thing is, I actually believe that it's possible that you don't know who Aragorn is. Have you seen the Lord of the Rings movies? You've seen them.

34:45Bill Simmons:I have not. Are you serious? I haven't. Didn't see them. I thought I would watch them someday with my kids, and then my kids didn't care. So I don't know who's left now. Am I not one of your children? Do I have to adopt a child to watch Lord of the Rings? You don't want to watch Lord of the Rings with me? Okay. You know what? If we're going to try to go for 500 movies, I guess I'm going to have to watch it. Great, eventually. Next year, Joanna and I have some plans for House of R, but great moment for you to dip in. Next year, 25 years since Fellowship. We could do Gun to My Head Month where it's four movies I never wanted to watch.

35:20Bill Simmons:And then Lord of the Rings. Okay. Well, it wouldn't be a gun. It would be a... Aragorn? A Broken Blade, but that just shows me that you haven't watched. I knew Sean Astin was in it. Yeah, he's not just in it. He's Samwise fucking Gamgee. You're killing me right now. Yeah, he's Frodo! Yeah. You ever heard of Faro? That's all I know. I knew those two were in it. I didn't know about Vigo. This is very painful for me right now. Well, he's in this. The screenplay by William Kelly and Earl W. Wallace, which may or not be fake names. I don't know. Those are like screenwriter names you would create if you were doing it.

35:51Bill Simmons:But it was an unproduced Gunsmoke script. And then nobody wanted to make this movie forever. And then they finally made it. Which is wild. And one of the things that's like, genuinely, I think pretty interesting about the, you know. It's the Amish. I don't think it's wild at all. But it's, but you hear, that's what I was actually just going to say is like you kind of hear both things like some of the directors have turned it down like it's just another cop movie which is objectively not true and then yeah like Fox right passing on it because they didn't think they wanted to like focus on like rural films and Amish culture and it's like you hear kind of both sides of it I disagree with it but I get it that a studio would be like yeah Amish staying away but uh finally somebody didn't stay away eight Oscar nominations including best picture best actor 12 million dollar budget made $117.1 million.

36:36Bill Simmons:Which is wild. Really solid. Yeah, and it was like the fifth week that it was in theaters that it became the number one movie. So, I mean, positive buzz, well-reviewed, word of mouth, like it's sticking around and people are like, I'm going to go see Witness. We talk about that sometimes when that just doesn't happen anymore. Yeah. No movie would come out and not be number one for a couple weeks. Right. But that was the era. Roger Ebert loved it. Four stars. I'm thrilled. an electrifying and poignant love story. He's correct. Yeah. He said, Witness arrives like a fresh new day. He crushed all the terrible movies that were out.

37:12Bill Simmons:And they said, Witness arrives like a fresh new day. A movie about adults whose lives have dignity and whose choices matter to them. And it's also one hell of a thriller. Then he also said, your guy Harrison Ford had never given a better performance in a movie. I think that's true. And I say that as the world's leading Han Solo and Indiana Jones enthusiast. I wonder what Harrison Ford would say. I wonder if anyone's ever actually asked him. What his favorite performance is or what he's like most proud of. What was your best performance? If you'd won an Oscar, what should it have been for? He would, I think he would pick this or something in this mold.

37:46And I don't think he would pick one of his genre movies. I think he's like -

37:51Bill Simmons:You don't think he'd pick K-19 Widowmaker? It's possible. Some frankly astonishing accent work in that film. It's entirely possible. I don't know if that movie's making it on the rewatch, unless you do a bad accent month. What about when you hit the 600s? 600 maybe. I do think Patriot Games was good. And it's a movie that's not really on anymore. I don't know what happened to it. I mean, I'm sure it's on streaming somewhere. Patriot Games is really good. I think Claire and President Danger is better. Yeah, yeah, I agree. He's a great Jack Ryan. I like both of them. He's a great Jack Ryan. We're taking a break and then we'll do most rewatchable scene.

38:24Bill Simmons:This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Having the right people in your corner make all the difference. Just think of all the people We cycle in and out as co-hosts here on the rewatchables. I send texts. Hey, you like this movie? Hey, you like that movie? All of a sudden, Van Lathan's like, I love that movie. Chris Ryan's like, I love that movie. And by the way, can we do Hunt for Red October again? Like those people, State Farm is there to help you choose the coverage you need. With so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have help finding what fits for you. Go online at statefarm.com or use the award-winning app to get help from one of their local agents like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

39:04Bill Simmons:All right, most rewatchable scene. Okay, can we just go through every single frame of the movie? I'm going to try not to do that, but I did have 10 things marked. And I did really enjoy all the Amish stuff and the travel stuff in the first 10 minutes. It's amazing. I like when he gets on the train. I just like all of it. And I think we didn't mention, we should have mentioned him earlier, but Lucas Haas as Samuel. It's just a great little kid performance. It's one of the best. I continue to think little kid Oscars should be an Oscar every year. Like, 10 or under, every year we should commemorate who the best little kid performance was.

39:36Bill Simmons:He's, I like all his facial expressions. You know him right away. I like how wide-eyed he is looking out the window in the train. I love how he handles the train murder in the bathroom. Like, he's just crushing it. It's fantastic. He's really incredible throughout the movie. I think that, you know, we'll get to these scenes now. now but the the eyes like the amount that he can express just by gazing staring yeah he's a stare through your soul kind of little kid really which is weird because it doesn't work as well when you become an adult actor because his adult career yeah and then we'll talk about some of the stuff that happened with him which is great but um i mean but when you start to stare posse you know When you stare into somebody's soul as an adult, it becomes maybe more creepy than when you were eight.

40:26Yeah. But he is, for me, no matter what to this day, I see him in something and I'm like, it's Samuel from Witness. Like when he's in Inception, and I'm like, it's Samuel from Witness. That's like Patrick Fugit is like,

40:40Bill Simmons:it's William Miller. Yeah. I can't. He's in like, we bought a zoo. And it's like, that's William Miller. Yeah, definitely. Samuel sees a murder. This is just an incredible bit of filmmaking. This is great. the toilet switch. Yeah. This could also go in what stage is the best for me, but when somebody witnesses something in the toilet and then people wonder if they're there and they go stall by stall and you have to do it. It's a great, what would I do in this situation as you're watching it? I do have, I have very few picking nits on this movie, which I think is incredible and impeccable. I have a couple actually on that front that we'll get to later.

41:14I'll save them for that category. Broadly, the scene is amazing. The suspense and tension, the shirt wrapped around the head you flash to the knife before you know what's going to happen you cut to Samuel's eyes through the door the throat slice, you cut to Samuel's eyes through the door with the his like tiny, his hands are like we know he's a young kid but you see his little hands go to close the lock like slide the lock and you're just like this is like a baby like he's so tiny and then you're so scared for him and of course you have the added brilliant little chef's kiss touch of the indiana jones homage by reaching for the hat which is just like they're already killing it i did love that on top it's just great stuff now if they had this scene he would be on his ipad he would have missed the murder taking a shit scrolling on tiktok while watching like blues clues um samuel notices the danny glover photo which we discussed earlier is a classic um good harrison ford's face unbelievable the slow-mo walk yeah pulling the finger down just no notes i love the like kind of almost magnetic pull across the room yeah like and it does actually slow down the sound is kind of sucked out of the scene it does actually go into slow-mo but there are a couple and very different moods in these scenes but a couple of moments in movie where like people basically feel like they are in a trance of some sort and it's totally hypnotic then when you watch it you have the same feeling as a viewer that the character has in that moment that's really one of them and i love the way that even though they've only been in each other's lives briefly you have something like you're coming off the very cute little um hot dog lunch you know right right before this and like it's it's the fact that there's kind of a shorthand right like he there's only one book knows he doesn't know what he's seen but he knows what he has seen.

43:07He knows what he's communicating and it's just very potent. Really good.

43:11Bill Simmons:The shootout, the blood reveal, and the driving exit, that whole part. I love a good blood reveal. It's like, oh my god, I didn't get shot. Uh-oh, blood drips. Gotta pick up the dry cleaning. Drip, drip, drip. The Glover showing up and him immediately recognized and just like, everything about the look on Glover's face, everything about that scene is really, it's really like smart thriller action shit. Also, this is kind of a because it's a serious movie it's a gentle movie it's an underrated i think comic movie there's like obviously a lot of the humor other people in the elevator yeah a lot of the humor across the film comes from like culture clash stuff but the woman in the elevator is like there's an active shootout and she opens the doors again is like wait that's my car and i love the way that harrison ford who's so measured through most of the film is just like you idiot right yeah he's That's a good like immediately snap.

44:00Bill Simmons:So good. I got the old Amish guy, our guy, Eli. Eli, yeah. Explaining to Samuel why guns are bad. Wait, you didn't, you're skipping the whole like Rachel nursing book back to health stretch. I guess that's less of a scene and more like video. That's for you. But okay, we'll come back to that. I'm just trying to narrow it down to 10 scenes. All right, well, we'll be coming back to that momentarily. Eli. Put a pin in it. Only God can take life. There's never only one way. I love that. It's gorgeous. what you take into your hands you take into your heart yeah that's how i always felt about my ibm thinkpad back when i my fingers wrote yeah when you every word i typed right into my heart the gun of the hand the uh the keys of the hand i assume that this was um not what you were thinking of because as recently established mere moments ago you're not a lord of the rings enthusiast but But this is like the most Frodo, Gandalf-coded conversation in like the history of movies.

44:59Like many who live, deserve death. Many who die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Do not be too quick to deal out death and judgment. Even the wisest cannot see all ends. No, you're not familiar. Well, that's basically what this is. That sounds like there's never only one way. It's true.

45:14Bill Simmons:Maybe Eli had it better. Keep it in mind if you come across Gollum. Eli's great. Eli's great. character opera singer canadian opera singer your favorite scene book and rachel dancing in the barn you skip the milking all right we've got it we're hitting some i put the milking in what's age the best okay all right i could have listed the whole movie fair enough okay but i don't want to yes i don't want to interrupt discussing the barn scene which is the most important scene in the history of film she broke the rule of the ordnum that's another thing i like about this movie and when there's weird phrases and words but they're they're well laws and but we don't know what they are.

45:47Bill Simmons:It's like, oh shit, she broke the rule of the Ordnung. I don't even know what that is. I mean, they're speaking the German dialect. Oh no, Ordnung is in trouble. Yeah. When do we want to talk about this scene in more detail? Here? Later? Yeah, it also gets the Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness Award because it's the only scene with music. Yeah, absolutely. This is a fantastic needle drop. Yeah, listen, it's on. There's some consummation. Not some actual consummation. so she didn't get to join the nine time club not yet she's got to wait for that um

46:25sometimes it's hard we have more scenes to go through sometimes it's hard to decide okay i love a lot of these scenes and i do love a lot of scenes yeah what is the pick for most rewatchable scene well i knew this would be your this is the ease and we've done you've done a ton of pods i've had the privilege of joining you for a couple dozen rewatchables over the years this is the single easiest category pick for me in any of the pods we've ever done. Wow. This is the most rewatchable scene because it is maybe my favorite scene in a movie ever. I texted you last night, including like illustrating the arrows to the time stamps.

46:56Have you videotaped in the same different years of your life? How many different times on my camera roll I have just filmed my TV while this scene is on. Like, I don't know why I do that. I could just go to YouTube.

47:05Bill Simmons:Just a lunatic. Or like put in the DVD of which I have multiple copies. Like, I don't know why I feel compelled to like film it on my phone, but then I can just look at it. We haven't actually talked about this very much yet, but I think one of the things that makes it such a beautiful film and one of the reasons it's my favorite, genuinely, is like, I think that this is a masterpiece. It's like a portrait of desire, right? This movie is about yearning. It's about something that you want, but you don't know if you should have it. And there is not a scene in, there are plenty of scenes in this film where that desire is palpable.

47:42We'll talk about some of them elsewhere. But like, this is the ultimate encapsulation of that. The fact that like the music is playing because he gets the car battery going and it's not supposed to be. So that's ultimately why Eli comes up. It gives us that framework of just like, these people are from a different world. You can't forget that. This is another moment where you have that kind of trance, like the camera swings from Book to Rachel. The lighting is different behind her than it is from him. And she's just like utterly absorbed and swept up. How could you not be if Harrison Ford was like wrapping you in his arms and singing to you, I think you would just orgasm and die, basically.

48:14I think that's how it would go. Right? I don't know. Probably. Loved learning and researching for the pod that he picked the song. I had not known that. That was not a thing I knew. They couldn't get the rights.

48:26Bill Simmons:They had to have somebody else sing it. Yeah, it's not Sam Cooke. It's a cover, but still. When the music kicks in, he's like, oh yeah, this is great. And then he stands up and he looks over the roof of the car and he's drumming and then he kind of turns his head and he just stares at her for a second. That taught me what sex was, even though it's not a sex scene. Like, it is just unbelievably powerful and incredible and they look great. It's awkward, it's clumsy. There are moments where you think they're going to kiss and then they don't. There are moments when they're giggling, they're dripping in sweat because the barn is hot.

49:05It's just absolute perfection. Gorgeous. And it just looks so good.

49:08Bill Simmons:It led to a possible shunning of her. Yeah. Eli's like, you're going to get shunned. Shunning. Don't shame me. And she says, you shame yourself, big guy. Let me fuck Harrison Ford. I like the whole concept of shunning. What Game of Thrones? What was the, what did they call it in Game of Thrones? Shunning? No, the what, when she had to do the walk of shame. Oh, the walk of shame. Cersei's walk of shame. Yeah. Mother's mercy. Shame, shame, shame. The shame bell. I'm going to talk to this. Walk of atonement. I'm going to talk to Spotify HR. You want to do a walk of atonement? No, see if shunning can come back as part of the HR value.

49:39I do think they would have some notes. Valuations. Yeah, and incorporating the Walk of Atonement. Hey, we need to put a shunning in. What's your sept of Baylor and what's your red keep in that scenario? I don't know.

49:48Bill Simmons:This scene's really good. It's great. I put the barn raising in there because... Of course. For some reason, it's riveting. It shouldn't be a good scene. It should be the scene where you go to get popcorn or pee. It's incredible. And yet, plus it feels Harrison Ford, former carpenter, it feels like he's really like, no no guys i got this that making samuel the wooden toy fixing the birdhouse all of the the little nods and wings to his history as a carpenter great stuff um daniel in the beginning of that scene like how's your hole about his gunshot when how's your hole it always kills me it makes me laugh and he's like let's go the hole's good let me tell you about let me tell you about rachel's you know i'm about to do some exploring uh and then daniel's like you should just fucking go then if you're healed and you're fine get out of here yeah you know three parts milk two parts it's linseed oil and some shitty tea pack up let's go i'm trying to move in but then when they start to build this thing together even daniel like when they share the lemonade daniel passed his book the lemonade like he has been absorbed into the community but then to your point from earlier we shift into the lunch break and rachel the fact that like for us it's wonderful for eli for daniel for everyone else the audacity that she pours books drink first right and then you have the great little like needlepoint moment with the woman who's like a lot of talk yeah talk group chats are buzzing with talk about you and that's like your mom totally mallory a lot of talk people talking in the family right now a lot of talk so that scene is just beautiful and like it is such a it's such a great portrait of community much like at the end when samuel you know rings the bell and everybody actually does come like it's important to understand what life would be We have moments where Rachel's like, you know, people come in and they like want to take our pictures and they just walk in our yard and it's fucking rude.

51:34Right. Yeah. And then you see like whether you would ever want to live this way or you agree with this way of life or you're a pacifist or whatever, you're religious, any of it. It's like you see something in that moment that is beautiful. Right. And you understand why it's valuable to them.

51:50Bill Simmons:Well, they got married. Time to build time for everybody to chip in, build them a barn. Zooks need a barn, man. They need a barn. my next scene is i just wrote down sponge bath stare down which is apparently a great porn search uh i was afraid to google sponge bath stare down sponge just sponge bath scenes in movies uh on my computer like a media virus i did it on my phone yeah good acting here by harrison ford as well i mean this is a this is another i really want to step in here but just so you know i can't something to look away. This is a great part of the movie. The way that it starts with, you know, the lightning strike in the sky, like literally the crackle of electricity in the air, right?

52:32He's on the porch. She's on the swing, looking through the glass. She sees him pouring the hot

52:36Bill Simmons:water. Yeah. It's like pregame warmups. She like meets his eye as she's passing through. It's an invitation. She's working the speed bag a little bit, getting the sweat going. Doing the lunges, stretches, getting limber, getting ready, hydrating. It's crucial. And, you know, the fact that like she's left the door open, right? She wants him to see her. And the first glimpse, he's in the mirror. And the way that she turns and just like, you know, here I am, right? And I have decided, I'm not going to let Eli or anybody else tell me what is right for me, what I can and cannot do. There's a defiance, but also a confidence.

53:10And of course, it's very sexy. And he is like, this is basically like, I don't know what to do. He has this look of incredible yearning and lust and desire on his face. but also then he that moment where he looks down it's like she's consumed by that his boner well yeah he's like when she said when you said earlier that you would like let out my trousers i know you meant the extra hem on the bottom but i could use a little more room in the crotch yeah i'm packing something that jacob wasn't yeah you know if we could get on that that would be helpful but like he's consumed by doubt in that moment in a way that she actually isn't which is a Isn't that a rewatchable character?

53:46The category, the Amish Rachel. Yes.

53:50Bill Simmons:I'm asking for it, and I don't know how to make it any more clear. Stare down. Incorporate it from this pod forward. Yeah, that stare of like, come on. Yeah. Let's go. Yeah. Yep. The crowd is in their seats. Let's start. The clock's on. We're ready. And then you see him alone in his room. He's just like, damn. Sitting on the bed, looking out the window, presumably when we cut away frantically feverishly jerking off no question the masturbation without a doubt yeah probably loudly uh yeah i mean i he probably was dealing with a shunning the next day um book kicks the bully's ass i like this is the corniest 80s scene in the movie where we just had scenes like this yeah um i still like when he punches the guy and it's right on the heels of like he's learned that his partner has been killed he's called schaefer that phone call is great he's a little angry great and i like when he's like you know the eli's like this isn't our way and he's like but it's my way it's my way great motherfucker great bad guys show up yep samuel doing the runaway stop you're skipping the kiss um we're gonna get to the kiss later okay it's different category okay samuel running away but then stopping yep we get cows it's a chase scene but Cal's like really involved for real.

55:09Yeah.

55:10Bill Simmons:We get a corn murder. Yeah. The corn silo. Danny Glover gets it. Yep. Samuel rings the bell. Yep. And then, and then our guy Paul, the bad guy, a little more reckoning for him. Yeah. Unusual movie choice for the, this is where the guy usually shoots himself in the head. Right. Or he gets shot because he's holding a hostage. Yeah. And he's just like, yeah, what happened to me? Yeah. Yeah, and he just sinks to the ground. He's like, God, just take me away. We see him in the car in the next scene. He's kind of stealth in there. Harrison Ford, he's in the backseat, just like, I can't believe I'm going to jail.

55:49The phone call in the prior sequence where Book is like, you lost the way, kind of calling back to this lesson that clearly Paul had been the one to impart on Book in the first place. That was really interesting. The whole final sequence, from the moment like the car inches up the drive and then recedes from view and you just hear the sound of the tires on the pavement like it is just so good the corn silo to me fergie suffocating to death in the corn silo that is like a really iconic movie death that's like just so i

56:24Bill Simmons:think the way that they use it's an all-timer the using the setting in a way that makes sense right like they do have a smile i had this for picking nits i'll just do it now tell me i'm not sure you'd die you don't you would suffocate you just got to stay above the corn it's i think the thing is that it's like it's less i mean ultimately he is buried by the corn but i think it's less of that and more than just the air he can't breathe the air when he's trying to get a breath in air so it's like the two like all the fibers because the other dad that's like There's this hand that rocks the cradle when Julianne Moore, Rebecca de Mornay, rigs the glass house, whatever that's called, the greenhouse.

57:07Yeah, the greenhouse. Yeah.

57:08Bill Simmons:And all the glass breaks on her. She's like, ah, and it just somehow dies. It's like, would you die? But there's no way out and the air is not breathable and it's falling. The corn is falling for so long. I buy it. I believe it. I think you would die. Oh, I would. I would be gone. The moment the air got weird, the corn air, you'd get some new form of corn. You'd get corn COVID. It's like three degrees north of my ideal temperature in here, and I'm about to die just from this. The corn silo, it's a wrap. But one of the great little nuggets— I'm going to fix that as we're talking. Great. My fancy controls.

57:44Look at this. Had I but known, I would have asked an hour ago. um the i loved learning that mcfee was supposed to be killed by a mule he was like so it was going to be farm death after farm death and then harrison ford is like no i'm gonna shoot this guy yeah like i didn't come all this way to not shoot this guy but i like that we got both i like that we got book having to basic like no functional fixedness he had to innovate he had to use his surroundings. He had to use what he had learned. You know, there was a scene earlier where Samuel takes him in the beautiful little scene with the kittens and they're down in the grass.

58:22He's like, learned about the farm. He spent time milking and learning about the way of life. And he knows he's hiding, but also he's like, wait, I can like lure him in by dropping the corn and do this. And then it's like, I'm going to go in, dig out the shotgun and shoot McPhee.

58:35Bill Simmons:He learned some Amish skills. Exactly. He used his things. All right. So you have the barn scene. Oh, I left out the farewells with the goodbye John book, but we talked about that already. That's a beautiful one. Okay, so you didn't have the kiss because you want to talk about it elsewhere. You didn't have milking, which is sad, but will we have another opportunity to talk about you never had your hands on a teat before and not one this big? We will. Okay, great. As long as that's going to come up again. I'm content. I'm going hot take. I really like the bad guys showing up as my favorite part of the movie.

59:09Bill Simmons:It's like the hackiest. The final shootout? I just, I love the corn. It's great. I like how we're films everything. I like how you always know where we are. I like how they use Samuel as like, oh, God, you just assume he's just going to wander back in and get shot. Yeah. Yeah. I just think it's a really fun. All of a sudden, it's a thriller again out of nowhere. Yes. I love. Calm me down. I'm in my whole Amish world. And and then the switch flips again, but in the right ways. Well, and you have the moment, too, with the with the payphone call where Schaefer's like, we know we know where you are.

59:40But my read on that is they do not. They only learn where they're after because he punches the townie. And then we see the like local guy who's like, this is bad for business. Tell the cops. So that's how they learn. So it's a mistake. Ultimately, the book is leaving. Like he is leaving. He's said his goodbyes. They've had their final night, which I guess we'll talk about elsewhere. And the fact that it's such a near, like the fact that that almost didn't happen, that confrontation in that place in that way, but they, they made it there just in time to challenge him. It's really good. I like to win.

1:00:10Notice how it's getting colder in here. It, I'm it's, but it feels great. Schaefer taking Rachel hostage. And I love the like, the little moment there were Schaefer and Booker just screaming at each other.

1:00:24Bill Simmons:Yeah. Like, let her go, Paul. Harrison Ford's really good at when he's angry. You really feel like he's actually angry. Really great. I can't believe you're not picking the Wonderful World barn dance. I can't believe it. You know why? You know why I'm not picking it? Because I'm a man. and men don't like no it's a scene for you and my wife my it's my wife's favorite scene too i would expect so because she's a woman of taste what's the best 1985 thing about this movie yeah um so book makes a honey that's great coffee joke yeah which i think was an ad back then but i couldn't find the ad folgers yeah and apparently harrison ford wanted to do this because he had he had gone out for that commercial.

1:01:08And so it was like a little bit of a nod to a commercial that he couldn't nail.

1:01:11Bill Simmons:In 2025, that joke makes no sense. Great moment, though, because they're like, we don't know what you're talking about because we don't have a TV, so we don't watch commercials. Perfect. And he's also just very charming as a coffee salesman. My two nominees for this are, and I think ultimately the 84 thing about the movie, 85 thing about the movie filmed, released, it's kind of hard because like everything in Amish country is a time capsule of a different moment. I have an answer I didn't give you yet. What were your two? Okay, my two nominees for you are either just Elaine Book, the sister character, full stop.

1:01:41Like everything. The mullet. She's in a bathrobe and basically every scene. I have a guy over. You got a man in the house and the kids are upstairs. There's a deleted scene where her kids are with Samuel at the kitchen table and they show him Donkey Kong. He gets to play Donkey Kong and it's like.

1:01:56Bill Simmons:Ooh, that would have been 1985. Count Chocula, Sun Kiss Can, all of that. So it's either that or the fact that Book calls Carter and is basically like, get rid of the files, like hide the files. And then for the entire movie, Schaefer, McPhee and Fergie can't find them because the address was only written on a piece of paper. Like that just wouldn't happen now. It's in the system. It's somewhere. Yeah. What's your pick? There's good candidates. That is not the answer. Tell me. So the score by Maurice Jerry. It's a beautiful score. Electronic score. Yeah. Which somehow in the Oscar. I just don't think in 2025 that's the score.

1:02:33Bill Simmons:It feels very 1980s trying to like, oh, look how cutting edge our electronic score is. And now when I hear it, I'm like, that feels like 1985 to me. It just wouldn't be in a movie now. It's weirdly good and completely dated and rooted in the exact era that they made it. Interesting. You know what I mean? Yeah, I like the score. I think it's like very... Just wouldn't happen now. Yeah, it puts you in the mood. But yeah, it is of a moment of time. Well, we have the most important category of this podcast coming up. I'm going to shock you with my answer. But we have to take a break. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

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1:03:45Bill Simmons:Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit TrimphiaRadio.com. This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one creative studio with AI-powered image and video generation. Built for today's creative process, Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast. Because the asks aren't getting smaller, And the timelines? Woo, yeah. Still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life.

1:04:30Bill Simmons:Learn more at adobe.com slash firefly. All right. I know everyone's on the edge of their seat. Not many people have a category named after them in the rewatchables. You have the Mallory Rubin Award for Did This Movie Need a Better Sex Scene? Yep. I can't think of a better movie for this question than Witness. Yep. What's the answer? I think I'm about to stun you because my answer to this prompt is almost always yes, because I like to watch people fucking movies. I don't think you've ever answered no. I like to watch people fucking movies. You've never said no. And I think that Harrison Ford is the hottest person who's ever lived.

1:05:05He's my number one all-timer, and I like to watch him have sex in movies. And as we've discussed before on other pods, it's actually really rare for Harrison Ford to have like a graphic sex scene in a movie. Like when he's pumping away in Presumed Innocent, you're like, I don't actually see this a lot. there's a lot of sex in his movies, but not a lot of, like, overt sex scenes. I think the answer to did this movie need a better sex scene is no. I think it is a perfect choice. And it's fascinating to learn that the script had a sex scene in it. Obviously, they fuck after the kiss. We don't see it.

1:05:38And I think that's the right choice because the movie is, as we have discussed, about, it's about the buildup. It's not actually about the culmination. it's about the longing and the wanting and the yearning and the craving and the thinking and the wondering what would it be like it's about all of the little moments where they're watching either rachel's sponging him or he's watching her sponge herself or they're dancing in a hot bar and dripping sweat or she watches him she hands him the lemonade and he takes it down to one gulp and it's like dribbling down his chin and she's just like i need a private moment yeah that's what it's about watching them kiss i think tells us that watching them fuck is not the point it's about all of the moments that lead up to it what do you think i think that's the right

1:06:23Bill Simmons:answer yeah there could have been a book solo scene they could add it that would have been pretty traumatic um they could have the five minute postscript the books back in philly and then the movie ends with Alexander Goodenough just having sex and she's just staring in the ceiling thinking a book. We get a little thought bubble. Yeah, that's just the ending. Just her looking like this. Fucking book and a bale of hay. I think it's the right move. Yeah. What stage is the best? We mentioned the script and some of the choices, especially the last 15 minutes. I'll start here though. And I know you have a bunch.

1:07:01Bill Simmons:Try not to have too many. How many do you have? only a handful okay good yeah uh what's age the best there's a moment where harrison ford's holding a cat and you held the screenshot you you sent the screenshot of that to me yesterday and you said this picture is the highlight of my life i believe what i said was when i die just assuming i'll be dead before you and you'll be at my funeral very possible it's entirely possible i think it's likely um when i die put this on a tapestry and drape it over my casket I believe when I texted you. Like one of those homemade vinyl posters? And I would like you to consider that a formal request, and I would like it to be honored.

1:07:37Bill Simmons:Did you feel like he liked holding the cat? Was it a loving hold of the cat? I feel like someone who made the movie was like, we don't have a sex scene, but we should see Harrison Ford stroke a pussy at some point. You know? We should probably see that. Let's find a different way. He's got Jumbo has to get some pussy. I had Dirty Cops. Yeah. Just in general in any movie I like, but I like the concept here of they lost the meaning that John Book said. Lost the meaning, yeah. Paul lost the meaning. What do you have? Give me a couple. Okay, we already talked about just Harrison Ford's 1980s, just the best decade and the early 80s, mid 80s, best stretch ever.

1:08:12We already talked about just the restraint in the filmmaking, the focus on the eyes, the faces, the glances, the number of moments. Like, an example we haven't talked about yet actually is when Book wakes up from being nursed and Rachel's kind of falling asleep and he's on his side, so it's just one eye looking up from the pillow. It's like, yeah, we have it with Samuel with what he has witnessed. We have it in all of the looks that pass between book and Rachel. It's just like incredible. The portrait of desire and all of the little moments building toward this thing that they know they can't have.

1:08:43I think that the something we haven't talked about yet because we didn't really talk about the the like opening funeral scene in great detail or the nursing scenes is like the visual choices with the lighting. John C. L. and Peter Weir both talked about how there was like literally a Vermeer exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art at the time so they like went to see all these paintings of the Dutch Masters and decided to basically light the movie that way so the number of scenes where there's just an oil lamp or there's just like a little bit of light coming from the left side through a window and the way that that sort of heightens the like naturalistic setting and your belief of like where you are there and also then of course helps to heighten this like clash of big city hotshot cop coming into Amish country that's all really really great um I guess another thing we've kind of talked about this but like the casting I mean obviously like you don't have to be a genius to put Harrison Ford in your movie but putting him in this role is inspired and obviously and he talks about like I was coming off Temple of Doom like I wanted to do something different but the rest of the cast like discovering in kelly mcgillis lucas haas is seven and eight years old when he's making this movie uh alexander gutnov and by the way he could turn a ballet dancer right lucas haas could have ruined the movie if he's bad yeah if we don't like samuel the movie falls apart exactly jan rubes is a canadian opera singer it's like a lot of the people in the movie had basically no experience and they have to share air with the most powerful movie star in the history of the world.

1:10:24Like, the fact that that works and is so, the balance and calibration is so expert is, like, really astonishing.

1:10:32Bill Simmons:I had for what's age the best, the fact that Lucas Haas eventually became the right-hand man in Leo's Pussy Posse. Yep. Would not have predicted that for the little Amish kid. No, no. He was basically the, I don't know, to Scottie Pippen to Leo's MJ? Yeah, definitely. Or was Tobey Maguire Pippen? Maybe he was Horace Grant. Yeah, yeah. He might have been Horace Grant. I think Tobey might have been Pippen in that scenario. But that's how he had this whole second life as it was like Tobey, Leo, Lucas Haas. I think Kevin Connolly was in there. A couple others, but yeah. Great stuff. Great stuff. It's 4.30, time for milking.

1:11:09Bill Simmons:It's just really funny. Sensational. That whole scene is great. You've never had your hands on a teat before? One that big. And then Eli's laugh. Remember the word teat? Teat, sure. Yeah, of course. Teat, yeah. I like when they call Ford the English. The milking hat. Alexander Goodenough. This is a What's Aged the Best. Yeah. Just a Wikipedia deep dive of him. What happened to him. Sad. Yeah. Yeah. Very sad. It was kind of like, so he comes in. He dates Jacqueline Bessette, the single most beautiful woman who ever lived. Or at least the top five. Yeah. Yeah. And he's with her for most of the 80s.

1:11:43Bill Simmons:season die hard but it apparently just had like this massive drinking problem he died really young died of alcoholism basically very sad uh like in his early 40s but it was a way more interesting 10 minutes than i was expecting um and then no actual amish were in the film because they do not like to be photographed right but yes they were all at the filming kind of watching and sure bang but you couldn't film them i like the little nuggets like peter weir saying yeah they were watching when when Harrison Ford punched a townie and they were all like, but like, yeah, the fact that they had a lot of the extras are Mennonites because they would be willing to participate, but the Amish wouldn't was interesting.

1:12:23Bill Simmons:What's age the best? Just them not filming any dialogue with the last scene with Book and Rachel is a what's age the best. It's horrible to think about the alternative where they just talk to each other. Big Kahuna Burger where best use of food or drink. I mean, this is the corn drop. Oh, yeah, I guess it is. We have a murder with food. You're right. There's a lot of other good options, but there is a corn murder. This could be where we talked about the milk scene. No, the milk scene's great, but we have a corn murder. That has to win. Yeah, you're right. Using corn as a lethal weapon is tough to talk.

1:12:54Bill Simmons:Great shot Gordor Award, most cinematic shot. I think Sponge Bath, all the way they're using the cameras and the mirror and the lighting. I mean. That would be my vote. Who am I to argue? I think you could pick that. I think you could pick the look that the book gives Rachel from over the over the the roof of the car in the barn. This was where I was going to highlight and toast young Lucas Haas and his eyes. Yeah, I think that and it's actually I think really fascinating to hear John Seale basically like because this is, I think, one of the most iconic shots in movie history. Just his Samuel's eyes through the crack in the door.

1:13:29Bill Simmons:Oh, yeah. And John Seale, he's basically like, this shot is out of focus and I never forgot it for my entire career. Like the director's always going to pick the best performance, not the crispest shot. And I left this movie and I was like, every frame has to be perfect. Like you can't miss it once. But the stories about Peter, we are going to young Lucas Haas and saying, because he didn't want him to see the scene. He didn't want to scar him by showing him a fake murder. And so instead, he went to him and said, you're letting the movie down. I need more. I need you to imagine the most terrible thing that you could possibly think of.

1:14:14I'm not going to show you a clearly fake murder, but I am going to make sure you're in therapy for the rest of your life by putting the burden of this entire film on your shoulder. So that fear in his eyes is basically because Peter Weir was like, kid, you're going to fuck up the entire movie.

1:14:25Bill Simmons:So when you were eight, that would have been like Cal Ripken getting hurt. What would it have been? Oh, man. Yeah, that would have been, that would have been some real terror. Bobby or, Bobby or tearing his knee again. The Jess Rockwell Brocklanders or best character name. John Buck's pretty good. I think it's got to be John Buck. Perfect. I threw in, I didn't tell you this one, the Ed Norton reverse dunk award for did this movie need a random sports scene? Oh. It's only an hour 42, something like that. Could we have snuck in a little the Amherst throwing the football around? Yeah, a little ball.

1:14:58Bill Simmons:Maybe Daniel and John Book having a catch, and he's like, can't really throw it, and Daniel's just whipping. Maybe there's a touch football game with the Amish wearing hats. That would be great. Or maybe they're just playing dominoes. I don't know. The Amish would have been doing something fun. I like this. Seeing Book and Samuel Bond tossing around the ball. A shuffleboard table. That would have been great. The Amish just love shuffleboard. I'll take your word for it. Darts. Maybe some darts. All right. You have a choice for a flex category. What is it? Chris is not here with us today, and so I have decided to honor him by doing the Sean Penn I Brought My Own Pack Award for excellence in onscreen smoking.

1:15:36Because the first scene after the climactic shootout and Schaefer, the book besting Schaefer, we pan all of these cars, all of these cops, and Harrison Ford, the coolest person who has ever lived, effortlessly cool, is just leaning casually against the car smoking. He's firing the lung dart. I didn't notice that. It is so clearly just Harrison Ford enjoying a cigarette. Yeah. And it is perfect. It is perfect. Yeah.

1:16:05Bill Simmons:Butch's girlfriend award for a weak link of the film. I had a hard time with this. I have one. Tell me. Hey, Rachel, you're a grieving widow. Why does it seem like you're in the stepdad market? Pretty fast here. Okay. Can you grieve your dude for like a month? I mean, this is like... Counterpoint. She's on Tinder, Amish Tinder, basically. She's not. Daniel's already, like... No. Lining up. She's giving John Book the googly eyes. Yeah. Okay. You're wrong about this. Jacob's in the dirt. Like, I'm not even decomposed yet. What are we doing? All right. Here's the counterpoint. Here's why I think you're wrong.

1:16:46Bill Simmons:I'm not wrong. She has no interest in Daniel. Daniel... This was one of my picking nits, actually, is that Daniel... literally doesn't even wait until after the funeral, at the funeral, at Jacob's funeral, he's hitting on Rachel. He's putting the moves on Rachel. The Amish move fast. You gotta be married in the Amish community. Apparently so. Rachel is not interested. It is not about her moving on quickly. It is simply that John, the appeal of Harrison Ford is too, it's impossible to resist. I think she's at the stepdad's door. She takes off the bonnet, the marital bonnet, specifically to go hook up with Harrison Ford.

1:17:27She didn't take that bonnet off for fucking Daniel.

1:17:30Bill Simmons:How do you feel like Jacob's feeling in the ground? I think he's like, I also would have fucked Harrison Ford. I get it. I get it. She could have had 10 seconds on when Jacob died. It rocked my world. They moved on from Jacob quickly. It's true. You're right. She didn't even seem that sad after the funeral. She's like, I'm going to go to the train. Whoa. What do we know? I'm on an Amtrak. What do we know about Jacob? What do we know, really? Jacob might have sucked. Yeah. Unanswerable question. Did you have a weak link or no? I have one. I didn't feel like super strongly about it, but I don't know that John Bulk, a character who I love and think is, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, really handsome.

1:18:06I don't know if he is concerned enough, like appropriately concerned about his partner Carter and his sister Elaine.

1:18:14Bill Simmons:Just being murdered by people looking? Well, McPhee, like, okay, a cop was killed in a train station. then McPhee comes to him and tries to kill him in the parking in the parking garage he knows Schaefer's in it and when he's on the phone with Carter and he's like um okay yeah get rid of the documents you know there's this is like a this is Schaefer's in on it tell no one and it's like what should we do FBI reporter and he's just like let me think about it it's like book yeah let's see a little bit of urgency uh to his sister hide my car it's like they're probably gonna open the garage the move is to leak to the a newspaper get the story out he thought i thought that the ex the reply to that of like they're going to want to talk to samuel was like decent cover but not whatever yeah he's not concerned enough that these people who he loves are going to have harm before them which of course happens what's age the worst i've never understood the amish beards i'm not here to judge facial hair but just okay shaving the mustache but keeping the beard okay The good news is no Amish people are going to listen to this and be offended.

1:19:20Definitely not. They probably don't listen to podcasts.

1:19:22Bill Simmons:I've just never understood the beard. Nobody's tried it in the NBA. LeBron's not like, here's my, this year I have an Amish beard. I have no mustache, but I have a thick beard. I just don't get the look. You're growing a summer beard right now. Would this have been your pick if you weren't currently in the midst of beard season? I was thinking about shaving it and I was just going to shave the mustache and come in with the Amish beard. You could have done it. I see buttons on your shirt, so you're not quite plain enough. I've just never understood the Amish spirits. I have one big one, but do you have any What's Aged the Worst?

1:19:50Bill Simmons:We already talked about that. I think the Academy Awards results from this year have aged the worst. We talked about that. I think certainly racially profiling T-Bone has aged the worst. That's terrible. I had that in Pick and Knits, but same thing. He brings this poor Amish widow and her traumatized son to some bar in South Philly. Horrible. Pulls out a black guy. Is this him? Very bad. That is Aged the Worst. Certainly. yeah what else do you have what's your big this is the big one tell me the slow motion make out scene is bad it's a bad scene and she starts laughing in the middle and i texted you last night there's top gun maverick tom cruise jennifer connelly flashbacks yeah you know i obviously uh i got i started dating my wife in 1998 i haven't had a lot of make out experience with different woman since 1998.

1:20:41Yeah.

1:20:41Bill Simmons:But I did back in the day. Oh. I don't remember anyone. Congrats. Well, I don't remember anyone hysterically laughing as I was trying to make out with them. I feel like I would have been completely traumatized. That's not the reaction you want when you're making out with somebody. Just start laughing. Well, have you considered? Very strange. Listen. Have you considered that with love and respect, you know, the baby blues, you look great. You're not Harrison Ford. So you think she's like, I can't. I think she's like, this is, oh, this is the greatest moment of my life. I can't believe this is happening.

1:21:13Yeah, I think it's like nervous laughter. So that's why she laughs? Yeah, and I think there's something about their kiss that is like almost feral, right? And I love that it is like a combination of this like sorrowful, mournful, like we know this is like a, this is an end, not a beginning. I just think they would have been going at it.

1:21:28Bill Simmons:I think they're just going at it. They are. In the next scene, they're like knocking over all of the, all of the, the, the buckets of milk and fucking in the bar. I bet this, no more laughing during makeout. first make out scenes Hollywood. Just get rid of it. It's fair. Vincent choice award. Are we sure this character was actually good at his job? John Book. Yeah. What's your plan here? Well, I mean, he did get shot. He had a crooked boost of force. Yeah. You're hiding in Amish country, endangering everybody there. You're endangering your partner. Yeah. You're endangering your sister and her kids.

1:22:01I don't have a lot of and you're just like,

1:22:03Bill Simmons:I'll help you make this barn today. Yeah. Yeah. To heal us whole. Is that lemonade? The lemonade looks great. It looks very refreshing. The Ruffalo Hannah Rubinick Partridge overacting word. I'm going with Eli's overlap after you've never milked a teat before. And there's a pause. And then he's like, how dare you? Well, I'm just throwing it in there. I didn't know if it was that funny. I didn't have one for this. This is a hard one. It's a very like understated. Do you have a CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford? How does take a word? I do. I don't think you're going to like it.

1:22:36Bill Simmons:Okay, let's hear it. Okay. Let me see if I can express what I mean here. My hottest take about the movie, despite what we talked about already, is undeniably a thriller. I think it is a Western. It is a genre mashup. Fish out of water. Love story. I don't think it's really a cop movie. Here's why. It is, of course, a movie that features comics. cops. But the cop plot is we got to make Samuel the witness. We have to imperil Book, Samuel, and Rachel. We have to establish Book as this fish out of water in Amish country. But it's much more like mechanism and fact than core focus. Like, I don't think the movie is ultimately very interested in.

1:23:30We basically get one brief explanation of like what actually happened.

1:23:35Bill Simmons:I don't think this is the hottest take because if it was interested in the cops, we would have spent more time in the police station and had one of those like police station scenes with people moving around and the sergeant yelling at somebody. It doesn't care about any of that. Exactly. I think Peter Weir would like agree with this. But I think a lot of people are like, Witness is like a cop movie. I'm like, is it? I don't think of it that way. No, it's a fish out of water movie. It's like a double. It's a reverse fish out of water. Yeah. Like what you said earlier. Tepid take. That wasn't tepid.

1:24:06Bill Simmons:I think you're right I think people like it's like Witness and there's a gun and it's but you're right it's not that movie I think this is Harrison Ford's best part of any part he ever played what do you mean by best part? I just think this is the best part character role and I'm putting it above Indiana Jones and Han Solo hold on best performance or the character is like the most consequential I just think this had the most meat I think it's the hardest part he played that's why it's hottest take I think it had the hard it was the hardest thing to land the plane on and I think only a couple actors could have played it over the years I think Redford would have tried but he wouldn't have had the sexuality I think Brad Pitt could have done it I think Leo maybe in like the mid 2000s late 2000s possibly but for the most part I think this is a really hard plane in the land I agree I mean I think I don't agree necessarily that it's the number one on that list, but I agree with everything you said about the part, and I think the performance is great, and I think he is uniquely suited.

1:25:08Bill Simmons:How many actors is in the same movie if they're just the actor in it? You're right. I mean, the number of people who can... And the challenge of having in a short span of time in the film to look at Rachel during the sponge bath, and then when the dirty cops arrive, instantly go into action hero mode. I have to trust that he's an action hero. I have to trust that that he can have this connection with the little kid and with the little kid's mom. Yeah. I don't know. I think it was a really hard role. I think that it's... I think he makes it look easy is my point. That's true. And I don't think that's an easy role.

1:25:43I definitely agree with that. My only... I don't disagree with anything you're saying about this role. I would say...

1:25:49Bill Simmons:Russell Crowe is the other one who could have done it. Oh, interesting. Russell, proof of life Russell Crowe, 100%. He doesn't... Yeah, he's not... You're not a proof of lifer. it's just not quite the same like animal magnetism when you look at russell crow has it improved life i guess so yeah i think okay here's my only maybe it's not a counterpoint to your argument i would put like i would say maybe it's the case to make like john book han solo and indiana jones just one a one b one c is like okay indiana jones is you could argue the most i throw in kimbo just because i think you can make the case and many people have that indiana jones is the most iconic character in movie history, right?

1:26:25Then I think you would say about Han Solo, he is at the top of the coaching tree for the roguish scoundrel. Nobody has matched it ever.

1:26:37Bill Simmons:We covered that in our four and a half hour Star Wars pod. Well, get ready to cover it again on Empire, which is actually Han's movie. You should have saved it for that. Well, I saved you for that one. Everybody who works with you and loves you and cherishes you has a like, if you do this without me, I will really, I'll tell you I'm okay with it, but I'll carry it to my grave. I would never do Empire. Witness was one of them. Empire is one of them. And as you know, Bull Durham, which I assume will be our last pod together before we both retire. Like in two weeks for me. Casting with Ifs. Well, it's baseball season.

1:27:08Bill Simmons:Now I'm energized. I got this new studio. I got my stuff. It looks great in here, man. Casting with Ifs. Yeah. Redford wanted to be in the movie. Approached the producers. And they kind of pushed it off because he had the reputation at that point for it. He would come in and start changing stuff because Robert Redford, kind of a dick. This is my favorite thing you do. It's not a thing. It's just a fact. I'm just a student of Hollywood history. Sure. These guys literally were like, no, thanks, Robert Redford. We'd rather find another actor. I get it. David Cronenberg turned it down. That would have been...

1:27:41I don't understand.

1:27:42Bill Simmons:I didn't understand either. I don't understand that as a potential match. Burt Reynolds in his biography said he wanted the lead role, but backed off. That would have been terrible. apparently Isabella Rossellini was offered the lead and said no. I don't know. It's half-assed. I can see that. I'll just read this for you and you decide how you feel. Because he is, we should mention Harrison Ford, notoriously a little cranky. That's the reputation. Part of his charm. Yeah. When Feldman and Weir were impressed with McGillis right away, Ford took some convincing. He didn't think she was a good choice for the role and only came around when Weir gently chastised him for not trusting the director's instincts.

1:28:22Bill Simmons:And then it was like, you get a feeling from the research. I don't think that Kelly McGillis and Harrison Ford were like going to Dodger games after this movie. I think it was like, hey, nice working with you. I'll see you later. Interesting. They have such unbelievable chemistry that like, it's hard for me to imagine that being true. I know, that's good actors. So is your read on that that that was about her or that it was more of a product of like, Harrison Ford being like, why can we not fill any of these other roles with, like, people who have acted before? I feel like it's a little more of that.

1:28:55Bill Simmons:I think it was like, where did we get this person? She was a waitress. Yeah, like, there were, like, a lot of, like, people who hadn't acted before. Yeah. Best that guy award. So, John Buck's partner, he's that guy. Carter, yeah. Most famously in Another 48 Hours, a terrible movie that I've watched, like, 12 times. He's working for the Iceman. But I just, that guy's, I don't even know that guy's name. Deanne Waiters Award, Evil Danny Glover's eligible. Oh. Just wanted to mention that. Interesting. I didn't think he would be eligible. Okay. That's compelling. I thought this was an easy one for Patti LuPone as book sister.

1:29:31Bill Simmons:With the mullet and... This is a remarkable use of one of the great theater performers of our time. It's weird because she's making movies for a couple of years there because she was in that Tom Scared Vigilante movie. Yeah. Recently starred in Agatha All Along, a wonderful MCU show that I know you watch. It was like, is she trying to be an actor? Meanwhile, she's one of the great theater people. Yeah. This is just like... I vote for Evil Dana Glover. Okay. I do like when Elaine is like, anybody who knows, John knows, that's a goddamn lie. That's real Dion Waiter stuff to me. Recasting couch director of City.

1:30:05You can't. Where are you going to put this other than here?

1:30:11Bill Simmons:What? You can't put this anywhere other than Lancaster or York. Where could this possibly be? What about Role? I have somebody for the Kelly McGillis part. Tell me. Well, so if you wanted to go like relatively anonymous, I think there's a Geena Davis case. Oh. She'd really only been in Fletch and was really been in nothing, but it was just a cute tall brunette with curly hair. but I think I think she could have been in it that's a good one I mean I think Kelly McGillis is great in this movie what about my queen Michelle Pfeiffer it's a year after Scarface no this does a lot of Michelle Pfeiffer stuff or just a lot of like staring and longing and faces I mean things she's good at I'm fine with keeping Kelly McGillis I just want to talk it out I think that like when Peter Weir basically says that famous American actresses know too much to be believable as Rachel.

1:31:13He's sort of talking about like, oh, Michelle Fletcher. I think we're fine.

1:31:16Bill Simmons:I think Jeannie Davis maybe. That's a good one. I'll quickly rip through some half-faceted research. Tell me. I love Ford spent time with Philly PD Homicide. I always love that anecdote in the rewatchables. It's great. Just how weird that would be for the Philly PD. See, you know that actor, the Han Solo guy? Indiana Jones is in the car tonight. He's going to come with us on a couple... Yeah. i like too that he did the research with the ride-alongs with the cops and kelly mcgillis went and like lived with an amish family an amish widow and her seven children and learned how to uh milk cows and practice their dialect and harrison ford is basically like i didn't do any research on the amish because books not supposed to know about them right makes sense but is also to me very reminiscent of like a young rupert grint ron weasley saying like uh alfonso coran asked us to all do homework assignments on our character for prisoner of Azkaban and I didn't turn mine in.

1:32:08And then my excuse was Ron Weasley would not have done his homework.

1:32:11Bill Simmons:Right. Using your character as cover for not doing it. I love it. Harrison Ford's like, I couldn't do research. I was having sex with nine people a day. Yeah. You try to schedule two research trips when you're fucking nine chicks every day. The Hamish wouldn't have sex with me? The barn raising scene, you mentioned it was a short paragraph and then they blew it out, but it wasn't supposed to be what that was. So the corn silo death. Yeah. The corn was dropped onto the actor but there was a scuba diving regulator with an air tank underneath this is actually like you hear this and you're like it's amazing that no one died that's insane well that's why they used an actor that i don't even know who that actor was they're like dude look it's 10 chance you're gonna die in this court don't worry we put a scuba tank there so that when you're actually about to asphyxiate you can just reach out to the corn and grab it and it'll be fine.

1:33:02Bill Simmons:That guy's now in a wheelchair. The National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom called for a boycott. Sure. And then our guy Kurosawa said Witness is one of his favorite films of all time. This is one of my favorite things I've ever learned. Unbelievable. In prepping for Rewatchable. What a win for Peter Weir. Yeah. I mean, like, Kurosawa praising your movie must be, like, one of the greatest things that could happen to a director. What do you do after that? I don't know. Nothing, I guess. I mean, maybe you go on and make other great movies like Dead Poets Society, But yeah, that was awesome to learn that.

1:33:33I thought that was so cool.

1:33:35Bill Simmons:We'll take one more break and then we'll finish. This episode is brought to you by Mazda. Want to be as confident behind the wheel as I am about a movie nobody else will admit as a top five all-timer? Get the Mazda CX-50 hybrid. It comes standard with a suite of proactive safety features and lets you explore far and wide with an EPA estimated 38 miles per gallon combined and electronic all-wheel drive. Mazda, move and be moved. Visit MazdaUSA.com. Discover how confidence comes standard. Mileage will vary based on vehicle condition, driving habits, and other factors used for comparison purposes only.

1:34:11Bill Simmons:Actual results will vary. All right, Apex Mountain. Yeah. I mean, I don't even know the answer for hair support. It's probably not this. It's. This is tough. Maybe somewhere in the 80s for him now, and I'm not sure. Oh, for sure. Definitely. this specific, but he does his Raiders 2, Temple of, Indiana Jones, Temple of Doom. Yeah. Jedi has come out 18 months before this. He is, I think it actually might be this. I think there's a case because. He's the least competition. Yeah. For all the parts. He got nominated for best actor. Like he's leveling up in terms of the prestige. I think he's the first phone call after this movie for any movie he wants.

1:34:55Bill Simmons:Yeah. For a couple years there. Yeah. I mean. So maybe it is this. It's hard to argue against 80, 81, 82, Empire, Raiders, Blade Runner. That's just, how does that even happen? But if you're talking about most juice. But then you build up toward and also after doing all those things. Yeah. After being Han Solo and Indiana Jones and Deckard, I got nominated for Best Actor for playing John Book and this movie that nobody, like, everybody passed on and didn't want to make got nominated for eight oscars and made 117 million dollars like because i'm in it i'm a hero for the amish yeah no mcgillis no it's top gun top gun yeah for sure it's her putting on the sunglasses in the elevator trying to get frisky for cruise we covered that in the rewatchables a long time ago one of my favorite two studios ago oh yeah great one yeah another life amish movie characters?

1:35:48I cannot think of anything else that would be quite at this level.

1:35:52Bill Simmons:I think it's a yes. Evil Philly Police. Can't be. Probably can't be, but I also couldn't think of another one. Seems impossible. How about Korn? Silos. Apex Mountain for Korn. Korn actually murdering somebody. With love and respect to the Apple TV Plus show, Silo, that I do enjoy. It's good, certainly for Korn Silos. I think this is number one. Not sure about corn. Sponge baths? Corn silos, yeah. Sponge baths. It's got to be this, right? I had some questions about the sponge bath for later, but we can do it now. Tell me. It's just the top of the waist sponge bath? I got to be honest. Who thought sponge baths were kind of like a full body experience?

1:36:34I had some questions about that too, especially like it's clearly it's warm, it's sticky, it's sweaty. I think if you're about to be intimate with someone, you'd want to do some rinsing in some other areas, I think. That would be my note for Rachel. but you know

1:36:46Bill Simmons:doing a sponge bath top half body lower half body I would feel like lower half would be the focal point maybe I think you do it all ideally that's what I thought was a sponge bath she's like a half bath well when she was sponging book when he was being nursed you know he's got the poultice and the tea and she's dabbing him that was presumably all above the waist I don't think she went below the waist yeah how did John Book go to the bathroom and was there a bedpan questions I didn't even want to do and probably unanswerable questions and yet here you are evil Danny Glover Apex Mountain 100 % yes although I will submit his performance in Shooter movie we've already done in the rewatchables and him and Ned Beatty are both evil great one I love evil Danny Glover good enough it's die hard Lucas Haas yes Philly train station movie murders.

1:37:43Oh, interesting.

1:37:45Bill Simmons:I think it's blowout. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, hmm. This is good, but I think blowout's better and uses the station better. Interesting. I do like the, like, trip we take with Samuel through the station. We get to, like, look up at the war memorial. He mistakes the acidic Jew for an Amishman. Like, they make good use of the station. They're sitting, they're waiting. They've got to connect on the train to Baltimore. There's a delay. But yeah, it's a crowded field. Vigo. it's definitely him playing Oregon. What's the guy's name? Oregon? Aragorn? Aragorn. So when I say to you, the return of the king, it means nothing to you.

1:38:21Nothing at all. Okay. Well, that's a shame. Lucas Haas,

1:38:23Bill Simmons:I think it was a 2001 Victoria's Secret thing that him and Leo were invited to. That's fair. It could be any any pussy posse, any pussy posse escapade is probably truly his apex, but it could be this. What about Peter Weir? that's a hard one I think it's Dead Poets I think so too because this is his first American movie so even though this was like really successful and well received and heavily nominated when he then is nominated what is that three years four years later he's nominated again for best director for Dead Poets that's probably I think that movie had as much as I love Witness I think Dead Poets has a little more juice like just even in the last 35 plus years with the cast it had and they're both great the meaning for robin williams's career both of them are great but i think dead poets it's interesting one i think both of them have held up spectacularly well which is crazy i know it's the 80s yeah uh cruiser hanks i think crew you could you could cruise could be book i think he could be so i went hanks for book yeah no and i as you know i almost always pick hanks for these no i don't think so what's your case it's a tough one because i don't think either of them i don't think it's a good role for either but i think hanks i could believe more as like a philly cop um yeah chiming in with the amish thing i think the way he would have played the longing sex stuff with with rage i just think he would have done it differently it wouldn't have been as like primal it would have been more like the counterpoint to cruise is of course um while we both love top gun we have seen tom cruise and kelly mcgillis well that's why i couldn't do it and we know what that's like so that's why we couldn't do it we already know that the chemistry thing was tough with them you're right yeah so Yeah.

1:40:22Bill Simmons:Scorsese or Spielberg? I went with Spielberg. I think it's Spielberg. I do think the version of this that Scorsese does, where he really dials up the, like, neo-noir killer cop aspect is fascinating. Did you see that he apparently turned this down? Scorsese? I didn't know whether I should believe it. I thought that set off my detector. That was interesting to think about. But then when it really sent me down a rabbit hole of exploring was why Martin Scorsese and Harrison Ford have never worked together, which is crazy. I mean, obviously, like the Cape Fear, like alternate history is established.

1:40:52Bill Simmons:Probably a late 70s party incident would be my guess. Yeah. This is why you're you. Yeah. This is why you're you. Yeah. Also, he was with Melissa Matheson, who was with Spielberg and Scorsese and Spielberg are buddies. There's probably some history. What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played? It's a tough one. So he's 18 years old and 85. Too young to be one of the cops. No, but you could take any age. That's part of the game. You can go old Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hmm. I could see him. The thing is, there ultimately aren't that many roles of prominence in the movie. I was thinking Uncle Eli.

1:41:28Bill Simmons:Maybe Uncle Eli is not as old. And he just gave him a nice little beard and he's just being Philip Seymour Hoffman. Or because then you could have had for the for the SpongeBob dancing scene, he could have been like, yo, book, how's the peeping? How's the peeping? How's the peeping? That would have been great. Picking nits. We mentioned grabbing a black suspect out of the bar randomly and ramming him against the car to your terrified Amish widow. Terrible. All right. So they save his gunshot infection with a poultice. Yeah. Three parts milk, two parts linseed oil. Yeah, I did some research on this one.

1:42:08It was a little shaky. uh i i also had under picking this should john book be alive yeah i mean or did john book leave

1:42:19Bill Simmons:and then got some sort of terrible cancer like a month later so the loss of blood alone you just think he should have died but the red and obviously like we hear it's warm he's hot he's got a fever it seems like he should have gotten it he's talking gibberish yeah he's having fever dreams like he should have probably died from an infection i think probably i'm glad he didn't but he should have. They're like, did we, we ran out of linseed oil. You've got to go downtown. Yeah. Put that with the milk. Put some more on the cloth. Also like, I'm glad that everything else that happens in the movie happens, but he got shot.

1:42:53He's like building a barn mere days.

1:42:56Bill Simmons:He's fine. Yeah. He's throwing punches. It's, I mean, saying he can milk a cow. Sure. But like, he's hoisting Samuel up an entire level of a barn into the loft. Doesn't that hurt? Amazing recovery. Bullet went right in and out. Incredible. And I did the corn suffocation thing already. What did you have? Anything else? Okay, I do. This is where I don't want to like picnics with the Samuel witnesses and murder scene because it's iconic, but nobody hears Samuel taking a piss. Does that make sense? And they don't check the stall. Yeah, and like Fergie says, because Samuel has that little kind of like little chirp he makes so that, and then McPhee is like, starts to check the stalls.

1:43:37and Fergie's like, I did that already. But you did it already, but did you? Did you miss the Amish kid taking a piss in an unlocked open stall? And then there's some splashing of the water at the sink, so you think maybe that would cover it? But the cop they kill stops washing his face because he's like, something's happening. He looks around, there's no sound. They should hear Samuel taking a piss. I don't think that totally makes sense.

1:44:02Bill Simmons:Well, to extend that, this kid who has not really seen anything in his life all of a sudden has the wherewithal to be like i'm gonna hide under something i like it i support it but it could be picked it that's an interesting one like would you have just kind of almost on like a base instinct level like frozen or would he actually be hide or there's the fact that he hasn't had his brain washed by tom and jerry cartoons brady bunch reruns yeah that he would actually have a fresh brain tonight that's right maybe the like animal instincts are pure there that's possible um here's one for you yeah we both really like the parking garage shootout it's great however yeah on the picking that's front two things one why does mcphee go alone he why doesn't he bring fergie why don't they go all in on killing book like right tag team it book has gone to schaefer and he's like it's mcphee okay, he's not here.

1:44:59I can't ask him. He's in Florida on vacation. And then obviously...

1:45:03Bill Simmons:Maybe it was bowling night for Fergie. Babe, sure. You're going after... A softball game. Captain... Detective Captain John Book to preserve your PCP crime ring. Yeah. $22 million at stake. $22 million. You have to ensure that he's killed. So this is a two-part picking. Why don't they go in stronger? And then... what is the explanation and excuse for McPhee leaving? That's the only chance they have to give the drop. I have a mild picket net with dirty cops when there's this much money. What do they do with the money? This is a great question. You can't tip off that. You'd be like, hey, I just bought this$7 million condo in Lake Arrowhead or something.

1:45:49Bill Simmons:Be like, you're a fucking police sergeant. How'd you do that? So you basically just have to bury the money? Yeah, you're saving it for retirement. Because they cut to Paul's house at one point, and he's just like having the cookout with the hot dogs. Nice home. Nice home. Yeah. But$22 billion in PCP, which I guess they're splitting three ways. He's getting at least five, six mil. Do you just have to, is there a time where you're like, when I turn 60, that's when I'm going to buy a fucking Porsche? Maybe they're investing, right? Growing the fortune. They've got some goodies kind of hidden away.

1:46:24Yeah, well, somebody did notice something.

1:46:27Bill Simmons:Yeah. Sequel, prequel, prestige, all black cast are untouchable. This is untouchable. Untouchable. I played it, played out in my head, like, what a prestige. And I just like, no, this is perfect. We're in and out. The tension would be hard to maintain over a full season, I think. It's so perfect. It's just south of two hours. Perfect. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson? and no, Byron Mayo, Tony Romo, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Longlegs, or Wilford Brimley in the firm? I think the answer here is obvious. Is it Wayne? No. Absolutely. You think it's Wayne Jenkins?

1:47:06Bill Simmons:Because the Baltimore Philly thing? Exactly. The dirty cop ring has extended to Baltimore. Oh, to Wayne Jenkins? They call Wayne in as a reinforcement. Their fellow dirty cop. Wayne is a dirty cop. Their fellow dirty cop. He just gets on the Acela, gets on the Amtrak, pops up. Yeah. I didn't know we were dealing with super milker. Going down to the grain silo, hon. Perfect. Look at you, fucking homish super cop. Raising a barn. Yeah, you're right. That's definitely way of chickens. Short trip for him. Less than an hour and a half. Easy. Just one Oscar who gets it. Harrison Ford. Come on. I'm going movie.

1:47:48I do think this should have won Best Picture for sure. And I think it's sort of silly that it didn't. But over the span of history, the fact that Harrison Ford doesn't have an Oscar is honestly, I think crazy.

1:47:59Bill Simmons:Well, he'll get the honorary Oscar before he... Wait, how is he old? Like 85 now? He's 83. 83. Yeah. Probably an answerable question. It looks great still. I have four really good ones for you, but do you have any good ones? I'm happy to power through. I mean, I have some. I don't know if they're good. I guess you'll be the judge of that. What happened to Jacob? Rachel's basically supposed to be like 28 years old. What happened to Jacob? Did he get kicked by a mule? I had that. Then I had the asterisk of, are we sure Daniel didn't kill Jacob? Love this. Love this. It's like, hey, we were milking, and the cow kicked him in the head, and now he's dead.

1:48:36Bill Simmons:This is great. This is terrible. It could have been illness, obviously. He could have been sick. But I like the idea of some sort of farm-related incident and that Daniel might have been orchestrating it. Well, the Amish didn't believe in any form of violence. So if Daniel had it in him, I think he punches the bully or something. True. You're right. Right. Daniel's not capable of that. Here's the actual answer. But maybe he celebrated it. This is a society where you treat a gunshot wound with milk and linseed oil. So Daniel probably got bronchitis and just died. It's entirely possible. He's like, I can't breathe.

1:49:07They're like, Daniel, here's some butter.

1:49:11Bill Simmons:Put this on your forehead and then stand upside down and the bronchitis will go away. As two people who are often afflicted with bronchitis, maybe we should try it. With some linseed oil? The three parts milk, two parts linseed oil, it worked. You know, listen, Kyburn, Jamie Lassler gets his fucking hand chopped off, and Kyburn's like, let's boil some wine. And it was fine. It was fine. I never liked that they did that. I was that hand. Did Book and Rachel have sex or not? Definitely. This is, I think, canon. Definitely? Because it is in the many different featurettes on the DVD. There's a video essay called, see if I can remember all this, Show Don't Tell.

1:50:00And in that, it is explicitly stated that in the screenplay, there is a sex scene. So we're just decided not to show it.

1:50:08Bill Simmons:Okay. They kiss. So apparently it's answerable. On the hill, the inky sky, and then they go fuck. I had this on my list, but not did they fuck. My question to you for unanswerable questions is, where did they fuck? Do they just fuck right there in the grass? Like the Dothraki under the night sky? Probably right on top of Jacob's grave. Like just really rammed home to him. Hey, Jacob, you're already bummed out enough. It's entirely possible. I like to think that they... They probably went to one of those new barns that weren't done yet. but be like, hey, there's a barn, like five barns down. They're not finished with it yet.

1:50:45I hope they just went to the barn where the tension was so palpable during the dance.

1:50:50Bill Simmons:It's a double shunning for her. Fuck in the car. Fuck on the hay. Fuck on the ladder, heading up to the loft. Fuck on the back of a cow. He's got to have nine different spots. Was Daniel able to ever sexually satisfy Rachel after she had this experience with John Book? I did think of that Well I said earlier The alternate ending of her just Yeah She's always thinking about Buck Having like sad sex Always Yeah I feel bad for Daniel I do Did Book and Samuel stay in touch? This was one of mine as well Did they ever see each other again? Did he write him a letter? Did he go back? I really hope so I feel like Book went back I think so too I think he went back to say hi to everybody Yeah I think he checked in Daniel probably didn't love it I think he checked in And I think that was probably the end for Daniel and Rachel of their intimate acquaintance as a married couple once Book returned.

1:51:45Bill Simmons:Book got a letter from Samuel. Eli's dead. He got a hangnail and it got infected and he dropped dead because we decided to pour hot butter on it and got infected. Here's my number one unanswerable question. Okay. Could Mallory Rubin have been Amish? Is John Book there? because if John book is there and I can have sex with him in a barn or anywhere, the answer is yes. John book's not there. I'm less interested now. I think I'm less interested. Can I make the case? Sure. Well, yeah, I don't think you have TV. I couldn't live without TV. I don't. It seems like you do have books. Sure. I think the food looks extraordinary.

1:52:27The food looks good.

1:52:28Bill Simmons:You're getting all fresh produce. Yeah. Locally sourced. I was checking out some of the food spreads. Just seems like kind of stuff you would like. Butter and like ice cream made from fresh cream. Fresh cream in my coffee. Yeah. As you know, I, a very healthy person focused on wellness and nutrition, put heavy whipping cream in my coffee every day. It's delicious. And so I do think in that, it's so good. You don't really do that, do you? Yes, I do. Yeah. Oh, my Lord. If I'm out in the wild, I'll get oat milk. just to manage the situation. But at home, I do have a whipping cream. That sounds delicious.

1:53:06It's great. I'd really recommend it. It's really good. So that part is appealing.

1:53:09Bill Simmons:I got rid of half and half for like two weeks once, like seven years ago, and started doing almond milk with my coffee. Yeah. And every day I was just sad the whole day. It's not the same. And I was like, you know what? Coffee's the highlight of my day. Yeah. Makes me the happiest. I love it. I love having 20 ounces of coffee and going through texts and... Try it with heavy whipping cream. Steen with the day goes. Get back to me. Why would I want to make that experience worse? You wouldn't. You shouldn't. Heavy whipped cream. Give it a try. Really unbelievable. I don't think that I could deal without, like, I don't think I could survive without electricity.

1:53:45Organized religion, not really for me. I'm a believer in a nice showerhead. You know, I like a nice showerhead. Sponge bath, not really for me.

1:53:53Bill Simmons:I think the number one thing for me would be the no coffee. That's the immediate deal breaker for me. I could handle a sponge bath. They have coffee. We got the like, that's great coffee moment, right? So they have coffee. They've grown, they're growing crops. They have, they have food. But is it like Folgers coffee or like actual, like, do you think they buy like the, I don't know. All right. You're right. So they do have the coffee. You'd be fine on that front, but you couldn't watch sports. No sports at all. You couldn't record podcasts. No sports would be a deal breaker. Very tough. Very tough.

1:54:23Bill Simmons:I think I'd probably run out of things to say to people like Daniel after a couple minutes. Same. You can't watch porn. You just have to watch somebody in your house take a sponge bath. That's as good as a guess. I don't know. It's limiting. Like, what is minute four of a Daniel conversation looking like? So what'd you do today? Oh, we helped Bob build a barn. Oh, how was it? It was good. Same as the last barn. Yeah. Yeah. Went up. Cool. The Zawant Nehra Award for what happened the next day. Mm-hmm. So she married Daniel. I mean, not immediately, but the courtship begins. Titanic level. I had one night with a guy and it rocked my world to the point where I threw this $2.5 billion necklace in the water.

1:55:05I think so.

1:55:06Bill Simmons:I think that was her version of this. I completely agree. I think that that, that moment is occupying a lot of her, her interior life moving forward. What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie? I had a hard time with this one. This was harder than it typically is for the movies because like, um, I'm inclined to say I would pick the sponge that Rachel used to give. Yeah, Yeah, that'd be weird. Because like it touched him. But do other people know what that is? If they see it on my shelf, maybe not. The milking hat, you know, that could be fun. But the Harrison Ford Amish hat.

1:55:40Yeah, the Amish hat or the milking hat.

1:55:41Bill Simmons:I didn't have any of those. I ultimately went with the birdhouse. Oh, that's a really good one. Because it's like a bookend of the film. He crashes into it. He puts it back. Way better than mine. This idea of like tearing something down, building it back up. Harrison Ford carpentry. That's my pick. That's way better than mine. What was yours?

1:56:03Bill Simmons:Jacob's sad tombstone. No, I didn't have one. The bonnet, Rachel's bonnet. Samuel's wooden toy. You can do the car. Elaine's VW. No, the burn house is great. Coach Finstock wore a best life lesson. There's never only one way. That's what I had. Yeah. Good old Eli. What'd you have for best double feature choice? So I would pair this with Mosquito Coast. I think the two Harrison Ford, the Harrison Ford Peter Weir team ups in consecutive years. And I think also like the character of Ali that Ford plays in Mosquito Coast is so distinct from like any of his other roles. And it's really like kind of the anti-John book.

1:56:41He has the longer hair. Yeah. I haven't seen it in a while. It's good. I watched it. I rewatched it two years ago when I was just basically like mainlining every Harrison Ford movie in anticipation of Dial of Destiny.

1:56:53Bill Simmons:Yeah. and Mosquito Coast is fucked up, but pretty good movie. Underrated, I think. The director is always a fun two hours, regardless of what the movie is. I like his stuff. Who won the movie? Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford, correct. Well, we don't have Craig this week because he's on vacation. Yeah, I want to know what he thinks. Maybe we'll get it. Maybe next one, he'll come back. That would be great. You should just text him while he's on vacation and say, Craig, it's 4.30. time for milking grab that teat well yeah thanks to Craig anyway thanks to Chris Chris our guy thanks to Ronic Ronic thanks to Kevin for coming over today and making sure the studio is going good and then we'll be back with another Rewatchables episode next week this is it we did witness finally I'm thrilled an honor a privilege and shout out to our girl Jo good old Jo we love Jo we miss Jo Jo loves this movie I know.

1:57:54Dobbins loves this movie.

1:57:55Bill Simmons:It's a classic. It's a great one. It could only be you. We couldn't have more people on this. It had to be your thing. We've been waiting for this one for a while. Hopefully Harrison Ford hears. Mally Rubin, thank you.

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