‘Hitch’ With Bill Simmons, Van Lathan, and Mina Kimes

Bill, Van, and Mina call up the date doctor for some dancing tips after revisiting the 2005 romantic comedy classic ‘Hitch,’ starring Will Smith, Kevin James, Eva Mendes, and Amber Valletta. Producers: Craig Horlbeck, Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Matt Pevic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Bill Simmons?

  The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find Ben Lathan on like 17 Ringer podcasts. You can't find Mina Kimes. She's on ESPN, she talks football. Catching her in July, probably the last time we'll ever see her before the NFL swallows you up. You got like a month left.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  I'm doing the fantasy show to talk about the hottest quarterbacks, so.

• 0:25Bill Simmons?

  Oh, really?

• 0:26Speaker 02

  We're unveiling the hottest quarterbacks in the NFL.

• 0:29Bill Simmons?

  What are you like, Maxim magazine for the mid 2020s?

• 0:32Speaker 02

  Jimmy G retired and we're like, well, who's number one now?

• 0:34Speaker 01

  I have takes.

• 0:35Bill Simmons?

  Did Jimmy G retire?

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  No, I don't think he's in it.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  I'm holding off on my takes until.

• 0:40Bill Simmons?

  He's got a couple of years left.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  He's still young. What is he like 34, 35? Kicking around.

• 0:44Speaker 02

  I don't know if he's gonna play this year.

• 0:45Bill Simmons?

  Well, Will Smith was 37 when he did Hitch.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  He looks so much younger to me in this movie.

• 0:50Bill Simmons?

  And we are gonna cover that one next.

• 0:52Speaker 03

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• 1:52Bill Simmons?

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• 2:37Bill Simmons?

  Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order, 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it's a rewatchables podcast. They would appreciate that. It's the best way to support the show.

• 3:08Bill Simmons?

  So the last time the three of us got together, we did Crazy Stupid Love, a 2010 rom com? This is a 2005.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:16Bill Simmons?

  Will Smith is 37 years old. It's at the end of a 15 year rom com boom, right? Which if, starting with like When Harry Met Sally in 89, we're ripping through. Meg Ryan's basically done with this. Julia Roberts is done, Drew Barrymore, Reese Witherspoon. We're kind of, kind of at the tail end. And yet here comes Hitch, and it's the most successful rom com of all time to that point. So why? What happened?

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Will Smith. I mean, what makes this a rare rom-com in the rom-com pantheon, and I think it belongs there. Obviously financially it is, is it's not about the women. Even Minnis is good in it. We'll talk about that. I think she's great in it. But there aren't that many huge rom-coms where we think about the guy. Actually, Crazy Stupid Love is kind of up there too, right? Because of Gosling. But Will Smith is an incredible rom-com actor. And his chemistry is what makes this movie sing. It would not, I think, be nearly as good if it was anyone but Will Smith in starring role.

• 4:16Bill Simmons?

  And the only other time he really tapped into this was Focus.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Also a great movie, sneakily.

• 4:21Bill Simmons?

  First rom-com he ever did. Focus, not a rom-com, but it's like, we've already done it on rewatchables, but same kind of thing. Other than that, why not, Van? Why not more? He just wanted to be in outer space or be the last man left on Earth.

• 4:33Speaker 04

  I think it's like, I think it's tricky as a black male lead in rom-coms. I mean, we're gonna talk about that when we talk about some of the politics behind the movie. I don't know if it's like as easy for the black male lead to do the rom-com because of some of the dynamics behind the racial play and stuff like that that comes into it.

• 4:51Bill Simmons?

  Well, that happened going back to the 80s when they wouldn't let Eddie Murphy kiss anybody, basically for every movie he was in. Finally until Boomerang, but then that was like an all-black cast, basically.

• 5:01Speaker 04

  Right. And that's an amazing rom-com with beautiful black people. And it's not regard, it's not one of Eddie Murphy's gigantic hits. It's like people, a lot of times in that, they don't want to see that. That's not something that people are always readily, like, it's not accessible to them. And for Will, it puts you kind of in a, kind of a fucked up situation. Because if you do the movie with a white woman, then you piss the sisters off, right? And the community's like, what, like, what are you doing, right? Um, if you do it with a black lady, then maybe audiences don't go to see it. And at that point, that's the furthest thing from what you wanted.

• 5:39Bill Simmons?

  That's in the research.

• 5:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:41Bill Simmons?

  They basically, the conundrum with this was he was a global superstar, but an all-black cast for a rom-com would not have been a global.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  When I read about that and the decision to make it Eva Mendes, to kind of split the difference, I was thinking about how, you know, the episode of the studio where they're casting the Kool-Aid movie? And I was like, literally, when they were making Hitch, I can imagine them putting up the faces on the board and suggesting, "How about an Asian actress? Do we know any Latinas?" And then being like, "All right, well, she kind of splits the difference." But I think you're on to, like, why isn't Will Smith, who's amazing in rom-coms, I, close to his best self, I think, in this particular style of movie, why isn't he in more? It seems financial to me, right? Because this is a guy who was so deliberate about only wanting to be in the big, until he did some more artistic stuff, the biggest blockbusters. And because of rom-coms and the politics he talked about, he was limited in that particular genre.

• 6:33Bill Simmons?

  I am legend, and After Earth and all these other ones are just gonna make way more money.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:38Bill Simmons?

  And that's it. And Will Smith, like, pretty famously studied all of the most successful movies of all time. Was like, "I have to do this. I have to have a big action movie. I gotta go to outer space." And, uh, rom-com was not on the list.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  And it's made a billion dollars, bazillion dollars.

• 6:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he, this movie made $370 million, but it's interesting that they had to basically walk through the, the science of how to attack this. It was a little like the, uh, Paul George trade now it's gonna work out for the Celtics again. Like how they had to use the advanced metrics.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Who's Jaylen Brown?

• 7:08Bill Simmons?

  I don't know who Jaylen Brown is.

• 7:10Speaker 04

  Oh, it's Cameron Diaz.

• 7:11Bill Simmons?

  But the, the, right.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Oh, by the way, would've been so good in this movie.

• 7:15Speaker 04

  Would've been awesome.

• 7:16Bill Simmons?

  So, split the difference, you basically have to go Latino or Asian? Like, what, is there anything else?

• 7:21Speaker 04

  You go Latina. You go Latina in that situation, that way, nobody's pissed off. It doesn't, and no one's jarred, and the movie sells overseas. What you know, it was interesting, you know, I thought about? This did not in any way hamper The Bodyguard.

• 7:39Speaker 04

  The Bodyguard made even more money than Hitch.

• 7:42Bill Simmons?

  Way ahead of its time.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, drama, though.

• 7:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, drama.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  This is the key distinction, I think.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  Very key distinction, but still, though, the audience, whatever, Kevin Costner just wouldn't have done it. He loved her so much on screen and in real life, he had to make the movie.

• 7:56Bill Simmons?

  Van and I did Bodyguard for rewatchable, just the two of us.

• 7:59Speaker 04

  Right.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  The people voted to have your face.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  Right, so like, you know, he would have had, but in that particular movie, it's also, it's a different story to your, to your point, but like, audiences did accept that.

• 8:11Bill Simmons?

  Black woman, white guy, though.

• 8:12Speaker 04

  It is, different. Once again, like, love scenes in A Pelican Brief, taken out of the movie.

• 8:18Bill Simmons?

  That's ninety, ninety-two or ninety-three.

• 8:21Speaker 04

  Love Field, a movie that was really well-regarded, like, critically, didn't do that well commercially because people are not.

• 8:30Bill Simmons?

  Golden Child, Eddie Murphy, nineteen eighty-six, they had to cut the scene. And Charlotte Lewis was Filipino or Asian, I can't remember what.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  She was bad as what she was.

• 8:40Bill Simmons?

  But they, they were like, we can't even do this.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Other than this movie, what interracial rom-coms have even crossed a hundred mil, like, been massive blockbusters?

• 8:50Bill Simmons?

  Well, here's the difference. Focus comes out in two thousand fourteen, and it's Will Smith and Margot Robbie, and nobody blinks.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:58Bill Simmons?

  So I think something shifts in the mid-two thousand tens and the mid-two thousands.

• 9:02Speaker 04

  Well, they have rom-coms that are about this.

• 9:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but I'm saying like, nobody, they just make that movie, and it's, and she's the girl from Wolf of Wall Street, and nobody says anything. But in two thousand five, it's a huge part of the research. I was surprised. I'd never thought of it, that they were really like, yeah, if, if, if this character is a black woman, we're not gonna make any money overseas. Like, you have to understand that. And Will Smith, they go through the whole thing.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Do you think that's as true now, where it's like, okay, if this isn't, because Crazy Rich Asians is now one of the most successful rom, like, rom-coms of the last decade or so. For years, it was like, well, you just make a movie with Asians, nobody's gonna watch it. If you just make a movie with that, leads are all black, nobody's gonna watch it. Do you think that's changing as well?

• 9:42Bill Simmons?

  I think that changed.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:43Bill Simmons?

  I, I just feel like we're at a different, last twelve years, I would say, we're in a different place.

• 9:47Speaker 04

  Man, I'm gonna be real with you, man.

• 9:50Speaker 04

  There are some things that are enduring. And if you make a rom com with a black male lead and a white female lead, you got some historic puddles to jump. I'mma just watch the movie and laugh. And it's like, I'mma have fun. And then I'mma look at some people I'm watching the movie with, and they gonna be like, yo, why isn't that Regina Hall?

• 10:14Speaker 04

  They gonna be like, yo, man, was Nicole Bahari busy? How come that couldn't have been a sister? There's just some, I'm not saying that it won't. I'm just saying that there are certain things about America that are enduring.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Zoomers are the Nickelandria generation.

• 10:27Speaker 04

  Maybe.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Do you know about Nickelandria?

• 10:29Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 10:29Speaker 04

  Love Island.

• 10:30Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  The most popular Love Island. Uh, no, I think, you don't see it a lot. I, and yeah, it is. Cameron Diaz, there was another actress who they mentioned. Cameron Diaz was the main one. I forget who it was. Oh, it was a black actress. When they were trying to split the difference. I think she would have been, I think anybody would have been good with Will Smith, candidly. I mean, the guy, I think that was my main takeaway from rewatching it. The guy has chemistry with like a pencil. Kevin James.

• 10:57Bill Simmons?

  I mean, he had chemistry with Kevin James, yeah.

• 10:59Speaker 04

  I got, I got a lot of Kevin James. I got a lot of Kevin James shit to talk about, man.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  So, classic rom com structure.

• 11:08Bill Simmons?

  We have the confident handsome guy with all the secrets.

• 11:10Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:11Bill Simmons?

  We have the goofy awkward guy who's unlucky in love and needs help. We have the smoking hot girl who only cares about her job. Doesn't have time for anything else.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Classic.

• 11:19Bill Simmons?

  And then the, um, we have the second smoking hot actress, who's like too good to be true. She's just super wealthy but can't find love and she's a model. And looks like a model. And is played, literally played by a model. It's like, how's she gonna meet anyone? This is too intense. And somehow, all of these things collide into one giant plot. They figure it out. Um, I was surprised, Van. This movie slaps hard.

• 11:46Bill Simmons?

  Will Smith?

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Surprised?

• 11:47Bill Simmons?

  Will Smith show? Oh, man, come on.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  Bro, I didn't get it, man.

• 11:50Bill Simmons?

  So when you watch Hitch, do you have any Will Smith Oscars baggage as you watch him?

• 11:55Speaker 04

  You know, you keep saying this.

• 11:57Bill Simmons?

  I'm really scarred by the Will Smith thing.

• 11:59Speaker 04

  This, this goes to the conversation that we had before. But like, you're, you're, so Will Smith is, you're still scarred by the?

• 12:05Bill Simmons?

  I just wondered, is there like a darkness lurking behind the shadows?

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Here's a question, post slap, could he make Hitch now?

• 12:12Bill Simmons?

  No way.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Or any like super, any, because again, Hitch works because he's the most likeable man on the planet.

• 12:18Speaker 04

  Right.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Literally, that's why the movie works.

• 12:19Bill Simmons?

  That's what the Oscars pulled away.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  That's what I'm at, yeah, that's what I'm suggesting.

• 12:23Bill Simmons?

  Basically took his cape off for being the most likeable guy on the planet.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  His likability is 99% of why this movie works.

• 12:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 12:30Speaker 04

  So I completely agree with you guys, and I'm, I, I understand the reality that for some people, Will Smith is less likeable after what happened. But it is so difficult for me to fathom how and why.

• 12:45Bill Simmons?

  It's not less likeable. He was the most likeable forever. Everybody loved Will Smith. Unanimous approval rating. Nobody was out on Will Smith until the Oscars.

• 12:54Speaker 04

  But I honestly think a lot of that was already gone.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's how I feel too.

• 12:58Bill Simmons?

  He was about to win the Oscar.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  No, but no, but like, stuff got a little weird. We knew too much about his family.

• 13:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think a lot of that was, I think a lot of that was already gone. And also, that's the reason why you shouldn't chase likability, because it is, it is impossible to maintain. Tom Cruise was the most likeable guy ever. Tom Cruise was the Will Smith slightly before Will Smith. And then.

• 13:20Bill Simmons?

  Do you understand Riddlin', Matt? Do you understand?

• 13:23Speaker 04

  Right, it's a disease. You're glib.

• 13:26Bill Simmons?

  You're being glib, Matt.

• 13:28Speaker 04

  The whole nine, him like laughing, talking about El Rond.

• 13:31Bill Simmons?

  I don't want to hear that, that's, people think that.

• 13:34Speaker 04

  Now, now look.

• 13:34Bill Simmons?

  That's like one of my favorite YouTube clips. You've seen that, right, Craig?

• 13:38Speaker 04

  It's, it's an unbelievable eight minutes. For a lot of people, that is their Tom Cruise, but he endured, and now?

• 13:44Bill Simmons?

  No, they think he's not giving interviews.

• 13:46Speaker 04

  It's likableness. And I'm, I think the same thing can happen for Will, even though I get how jarring the slap is for people.

• 13:52Bill Simmons?

  Tom Cruise argued against the concept of postpartum depression to Matt Lauer.

• 13:58Speaker 04

  With Matt Lauer?

• 13:58Bill Simmons?

  This is a YouTube clip that exists.

• 14:00Speaker 04

  Right.

• 14:01Bill Simmons?

  It's like, it's like watching a UFO land.

• 14:03Speaker 04

  He, he lectured Matt Lauer angrily.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Have you ever seen the clip of Tom Cruise on One of Six in Park where, you know, that clip I'm talking about?

• 14:09Speaker 04

  Doing the Young Jock dance.

• 14:10Bill Simmons?

  Well, the bigger question to me is how long can? Hundred percent approval rating likeability last.

• 14:16Speaker 04

  It doesn't like.

• 14:17Bill Simmons?

  You can't even feel it now with Taylor Swift.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Clooney, I still feel that way with Clooney.

• 14:21Bill Simmons?

  Clooney?

• 14:22Speaker 01

  I guess like the Biden family doesn't.

• 14:24Speaker 04

  The thing about Clooney is that if that were true.

• 14:27Bill Simmons?

  I do, I like Clooney. I like him.

• 14:28Speaker 04

  But if that were true, the movies wouldn't be struggling like they are.

• 14:32Bill Simmons?

  So like. True, or he picks bad movies.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Because what you're really talking about is you have to be truly an AAA lister and be super likable. Clooney is not, was not at Will Smith level. Taylor Swift is at Will Smith level.

• 14:43Bill Simmons?

  Was.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Is she?

• 14:44Speaker 02

  In terms of fame?

• 14:45Speaker 04

  That's gone, dawg.

• 14:45Bill Simmons?

  And then she invited Dean Blandino to her wedding.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  Oh, no, we're talking about, yeah.

• 14:48Speaker 02

  It's hard to maintain that likability when you are truly that famous for your whole career, I think.

• 14:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, because you don't have a normal life.

• 14:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Clooney can come and go. It's like Taylor Swift is in your face.

• 14:57Speaker 04

  And we can, no, what we're really not talking about is that type of likability. It also breeds contempt. After a while, people will, number one, find somebody new to like. And then, once they find somebody new to like, they're gonna find all the reasons not to like you. They're gonna compare you to this new person. And then also, once people have gotten their feel of you, they're just gonna look for reasons to hate you.

• 15:20Bill Simmons?

  You know who's, who's maintained it? Steph Curry.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  I think he seems like a genuinely good person.

• 15:27Bill Simmons?

  I think most people like him. I don't, I don't know anybody that doesn't like Steph Curry.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  That would be so strange.

• 15:31Bill Simmons?

  It's awesome guy. Somebody's like, I fucking hate Steph Curry.

• 15:33Speaker 04

  It's a great guy.

• 15:33Bill Simmons?

  What? You do.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Uh, I, okay, to go back to your question, I didn't, I wasn't thinking about the slap at all. I did not enter my brain once watching this film. I can separate the art from the artist, unlike some. No, for me, it, what it did was took me back to being, I wasn't 13 when this movie came out, but I was the peak Will Smith, and this is, I think, the very, near the end of like his absolute height as, as, as an actor, coincided with me being in like middle school and early high school. Like that, it, it's so generational for me. When he was the biggest star on earth, my family would go to the movie theater to see every single one of his films. Independence Day, Men in Black, I mean, we were freaking, like, The Wild, Wild West is coming out, like, terrible movies, too.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Uh, like, I was in, I think, eighth grade when Gettin' jiggy with it came out, which was like laser pointed at like 14-year-old white girls living across America. So just watching him, I, just takes me back to being a kid and thinking like, there's just no stars like this who dominated the landscape the way he did.

• 16:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, that, and that's why when I say like I, I think about the slap when I watch a movie like this now. It's not like the slap itself. It's more like you're watching somebody who had it.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Who had it, right.

• 16:45Bill Simmons?

  Where he could make a movie like this where it's like, this script isn't even that good. It's, this movie's probably 15 minutes too long. It's all over the place, but it's like, he's so likeable and it's just, you just want to hang with Will Smith, which is what every movie with him was for 20 years.

• 16:59Speaker 04

  So I was with Will from the beginning. Like, I'm that old, I'm that old. I'm just old enough to have, like, witnessed the inception of Will Smith's career. From Parents Just Don't Understand, all the way through The Fresh Prince, all the way to like, hey, man, Bad Boys. This is slightly believable. Like, Will could be a badass. Then Independence Day, Will kind of-

• 17:20Bill Simmons?

  He was Mike Lowry?

• 17:21Speaker 04

  Mike Lowry? Yeah, I like that. And then Will becomes the biggest superstar that there is, and you're like, whoa. This actually happened before my eyes.

• 17:32Bill Simmons?

  But it was one of those things, like, uh, he was the best pick to become the biggest star from like 1992 on. You could feel it kind of coming. You know what I mean? He was like the number one, he was like Peyton Manning getting drafted by the Colts, where you're like, odds are this guy's gonna be the number, the-

• 17:49Speaker 01

  A rare thing too, a TV star becoming a film star, doesn't happen. And we all watched Fresh Prince, all of us. So like, I felt like I knew him-

• 17:57Bill Simmons?

  He clearly was going to leave Fresh Prince and make movies-

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:01Bill Simmons?

  For a couple of years there and then did that. But Bad Boys was the moment where like, oh, we're doing this now.

• 18:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, and then Independence Day and then he's out of here. By the time this comes, he's in a run of movies that like, he's willing his way through the movies. Like legitimately, like, this movie without Will Smith is bad. And to me, that is the true measure of like a real movie star.

• 18:21Bill Simmons?

  And quarterbacks.

• 18:23Speaker 04

  But, true.

• 18:24Bill Simmons?

  The 13 and 3 season when you have like a garbage offensive line and one receiver, like Brady had like five of these.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, who's the Mac Jones to Will Smith's Brock Purdy? I don't know. Any other actor coming in, in this particular movie and playing this role, downgrades the movie from an A minus to a C plus.

• 18:43Speaker 04

  I should say that Brady, we should say that Brady had the, the greatest NFL mind in the history. So it wasn't like, you know, I wanna, Brady didn't have, Brady- Brady never had like Brady never Brady never took iRobot to the championship.

• 18:58Bill Simmons?

  Brady almost did in 06.

• 18:59Speaker 04

  Did you see the 06 Pats? He never took iRobot to the championship.

• 19:03Bill Simmons?

  That was the 06 Pats.

• 19:04Speaker 04

  Fucking Bill Belichick. What are you talking about? They have Willie McGinnis and all of those like.

• 19:07Bill Simmons?

  No, the 06 Pats had nobody left and we almost won the Super Bowl. Almost. Like just because of Brady.

• 19:12Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Is Kevin James' element here being elevated by Will Smith?

• 19:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Kevin James. Kevin James. Incredibly likable in this movie.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  I love him so much. That was my biggest takeaway rewatching this for like the fifth time. I was like Kevin James is delightful in this movie.

• 19:28Bill Simmons?

  I think he's always like this in every movie. It's just I don't choose to see a lot of the movies.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  I want to watch Paul Blart.

• 19:33Bill Simmons?

  I don't watch Paul Blart.

• 19:34Speaker 04

  I got a hot take here.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  I'm not pronouncing.

• 19:36Bill Simmons?

  Do this now?

• 19:37Speaker 04

  We can if you want or you want to wait?

• 19:39Bill Simmons?

  Uh, no, let's do it now. Use it now.

• 19:41Speaker 04

  So I invented a category.

• 19:44Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  And the category is the Tom Arnold category for did the second guy steal the movie?

• 19:52Speaker 04

  And this is named after Tom Arnold's character.

• 19:55Bill Simmons?

  In True Lies?

• 19:55Speaker 04

  In True Lies.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:57Speaker 04

  Who doesn't steal the movie, but almost steals the movie from a peak out Arnold Schwarzenegger. He wins every scene. In this movie, I could make a, a, a, the determination that when Kevin and Will are on the screen together, it's this great thing that's happening, but he kind of stealing scenes from Will Smith in this movie.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  This dovetails with my most rewatchable scene because I think that take has a lot of heat and I'm, it's the scene, the dance scene.

• 20:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Which I don't want to jump ahead, but like the scene where Will Smith teaches him how to dance. Will is being the straight man to the point where you can see Will Smith trying not to laugh. He's like holding his hand up his mouth multiple times as Kevin James does warming the fire, warming the fire, making the pizza, making the pizza, Q-tip, Q-tip. And I, watching Will Smith react to a guy doing comedic dance better than Will Smith is incredible. Like that never happens.

• 20:55Bill Simmons?

  Craig has different Kevin Smith relationship, uh, Kevin James relationship because, uh, grownups and grownups too.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  To be honest, that's not true. My, I've seen every single episode of King of Queens.

• 21:07Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you go way, way back.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  I love Kevin James. Yes, multiple times.

• 21:11Bill Simmons?

  That show was on for nine years.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:13Bill Simmons?

  It was out from nineteen ninety-eight to two thousand and seven.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  That was like a real like, I come home from school, my family's running, Everybody Loves Raymond and King of Queens on TBS on repeat. I've seen every episode, love Kevin James.

• 21:24Bill Simmons?

  He's funny, he's funny. He's really good.

• 21:26Speaker 04

  When I watched this movie back, I read a bunch of reviews and everybody's like, this movie's not that funny. Every time he's on screen, I think he's hilarious.

• 21:33Bill Simmons?

  I'm glad you brought up Tom Arnold, because he's like the rich man's Tom Arnold.

• 21:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:37Bill Simmons?

  He's like the way better version of it, basically.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  He is so good that I actually found it almost believable that Amber Valletta would go for him.

• 21:47Bill Simmons?

  That's what, the other thing with this movie, all four people were really good and likeable.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:52Bill Simmons?

  And the Amber Valletta thing, I don't really understand. Like, she was a model before she became an actress. Um, this is easily the most successful thing she was in. She was in some-

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Revenge.

• 22:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, she was in some-

• 22:04Speaker 01

  TV show.

• 22:05Bill Simmons?

  And the other TV show was, uh, it was like Blood and Oil or something like-

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 22:08Bill Simmons?

  She had, she had a lot of at bats, this is the biggest one. I think she had some, she had some, uh, drug alcohol stuff when she was a model that she cleaned up by the time she was in this. And then Eva Mendes was another one who, who ended up having a bunch of problems, like, two, three years after this movie and-

• 22:24Speaker 04

  Bunch of problems, what you mean? I don't know.

• 22:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, she, she's talked about it. She had like a lot of like-

• 22:28Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 22:28Bill Simmons?

  Lot of alcohol stuff.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Watching this movie, I texted you, Eva Mendes. I'm trying to think of like, an athlete who had to retire early for reasons and you go back and you watch a performance from them-

• 22:40Bill Simmons?

  That's what it's like. Yeah, it's like, almost like Derrick Rose or somebody, where, somebody that got, it just should have been like ten more years of her.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Generation.

• 22:47Bill Simmons?

  Right. I have a lot of take, I have a whole category for her later. She's great in this and I think she has real chemistry with Will Smith, too.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  She's really likeable in it. It's not, I think she's someone who gets a lot of talked about mostly in the context of her looks in her career and I get it, watch this movie, she's thrown a hundred, but she's a legitimately likeable co-star to Will Smith.

• 23:06Bill Simmons?

  I agree.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  I think her character is really fun.

• 23:09Bill Simmons?

  Well, and Fitz, the rom-com thing where you can believe she's into her job.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:12Bill Simmons?

  There's, even though she's a smoke show, there's still something that's believable about her not being with anyone.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:19Bill Simmons?

  Like, she's a little bit of a mess, but in like, not the traditional rom-com ways. We've kinda, by this time- In 2005, we've done every version of these. And I would actually say this is like the end of this whatever era of rom-coms we had. Because now we're moving in like the Appetow era. And like those kind of advanced ones like uh, like We Are The Millers, like movies like, like just like these different five-year engagement, these more elaborate versions, this is like the more simple. Eh, this person.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  Everybody has a lesson to learn.

• 23:50Bill Simmons?

  And they, oh my god, oh, they finally figured out he's this, and then, oh, we'll get. But, and then we had like, what, Valentine's Day, all those ones that happened?

• 23:58Speaker 04

  That's what, that's what happened.

• 24:00Bill Simmons?

  New Year's Day, Valentine's Day.

• 24:02Speaker 04

  The top line one with the big stars ended up becoming a movie with like 50 people in it.

• 24:07Bill Simmons?

  He's Just Not Into You.

• 24:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:09Bill Simmons?

  Like they've, they figured out, there was a couple outliers, like The Proposal's like an old school rom-com, that was like 2009. But, I went through all the box office mojos to see if any rom-com was like a major hit after 05, and really not like this. This was the 10th biggest movie of 2005.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 24:26Bill Simmons?

  Which we just didn't see again. I mean Sex and the City, I guess, if you count that a rom-com.

• 24:31Speaker 04

  Becoming a, I don't think that's a rom-com, I don't like.

• 24:34Bill Simmons?

  I don't think so either.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  The film Sex and the City?

• 24:36Bill Simmons?

  That did more money than this.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  So bad. Uh, the guy who made this, Andy Tennant, has made, I think I've seen, because I see every rom-com. Even like the ones nobody sees, like the Jennifer Lopez one where she plays a maid, I've seen them all. He made, yeah, yeah, he's the wedding planner, yeah. Uh, but he made Sweet Home Alabama, which is one of the goat rom-coms, obviously, but also like, he made both Fools Rush In and Fools Gold, both of which I've seen, not great, not great.

• 25:02Speaker 04

  I disagree about Fools Rush In. Fools Rush In, hey, hold on, wait a second.

• 25:07Bill Simmons?

  I'm in on that movie.

• 25:08Speaker 04

  I disagree about Fools Rush In. By the way, if we talk about, rest in peace, if we're talking about, if we're talking about people who, like, athletes who you bought stock in and you thought, like, didn't fill out there or meet there, whatever, I don't know why I can't talk. I legitimately, after seeing Fools Rush In, thought that he was going to be Tom Hanks.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Really?

• 25:29Speaker 04

  Man, that movie, he is.

• 25:31Bill Simmons?

  That was one of my best hottest takes.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  I thought you were gonna say that about Salma.

• 25:34Bill Simmons?

  Remember, we did hottest take. I did a whole Matthew Perry thing that he should have been.

• 25:37Speaker 04

  Perry could have been Hank.

• 25:39Bill Simmons?

  He should have been the biggest star we had.

• 25:40Speaker 04

  He is funny in that movie. There's one scene where he gets, he gets in his car and he jumps out of the car because the leather burned him and he goes, it's January, it's like 90 degrees in Vegas. He's just, he's just hysterical in that movie. I love that movie. She's beautiful. I love that movie. I love the whole 90.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  He just doesn't have the sexy, you know, to really be a rom com, carry them, and this is something Will Smith has. You have to have sex appeal in addition to being funny and likable and.

• 26:09Bill Simmons?

  So who is your ideal rom com lead? Who's your all timer?

• 26:13Speaker 04

  Tom Hanks is sexy?

• 26:14Speaker 01

  No, no, uh, he is not sexy, but he has sex appeal.

• 26:19Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  I mean, women.

• 26:20Bill Simmons?

  My wife really liked Matthew Perry.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Sleeplessness, uh.

• 26:22Bill Simmons?

  Meena just wasn't in on him.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  I guess not. I don't wanna.

• 26:24Speaker 04

  No, I get it.

• 26:25Bill Simmons?

  Who's your number one though?

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Um, okay.

• 26:28Bill Simmons?

  Is it a Marsden type of thing? Or is Marsden like the second guy?

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Twenty Seven Dresses, very good.

• 26:33Speaker 04

  There you go, man.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Um, oh, man.

• 26:36Bill Simmons?

  I've sadly seen every single one of these.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Every single rom com.

• 26:38Bill Simmons?

  Between my wife and my daughter and then how much they were watching them, that's how I got in the hit slate.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Honestly, if he had done more of them, obviously Hanks is kind of the famous goat of having done some of the biggest ones of all time. Matthew McConaughey is pretty good in them.

• 26:53Bill Simmons?

  McConaughey is good. He's really good in ten, what's the movie?

• 26:57Speaker 01

  How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days.

• 26:58Bill Simmons?

  How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days. Yet another movie that uses.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  The Knicks.

• 27:01Bill Simmons?

  The Knicks.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was thinking about that.

• 27:03Bill Simmons?

  I can't wait to get to that. Did some research on that one. What's your favorite rom com ever, just out of curiosity?

• 27:07Speaker 04

  Man, Boomerang is way up there. Um, this is actually pretty high on the list. I love Fools Rush In, like.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  That's so odd.

• 27:17Speaker 04

  I love that movie. Um, trying to think, but like when Harry Met Sally, I always think of the rom com not as much uh, about the desirability of the characters, but the believability of the rom and the com.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:32Speaker 04

  Which is why some of the rom.

• 27:34Bill Simmons?

  And there has to be some com.

• 27:35Speaker 04

  There has to be some com.

• 27:36Bill Simmons?

  There's a couple of like legit funny.

• 27:38Speaker 04

  I'm a high You've Got Mail guy. I know a lot of people don't.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  You've Got Mail is great.

• 27:41Speaker 04

  I know a lot of people don't dig that one as much, but the, at the end of the movie, if you, you know they're gonna get together, the measure of the film is how badly do you want it? Like you, at the end of You've Got Mail, I am so relieved.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, when they see.

• 27:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, I am so relieved that they got together.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Hugh Grant, also, I forgot.

• 28:00Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, of course, that's the man.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, for a while Sandra Bullock was the female goat of the rom-coms.

• 28:07Bill Simmons?

  She was known, Ryan. She was like in her 40s, still, still striking out 300 guys.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  You know the movie I love while you were sleeping? Do you guys remember that one?

• 28:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, classic.

• 28:16Bill Simmons?

  My, so mine are, this is off the top of my head, about last night, When Harry Met Sally, uh, my best friend's wedding.

• 28:23Speaker 04

  Pretty Woman.

• 28:26Bill Simmons?

  It's Pretty Woman, I guess that counts as a rom-com.

• 28:28Speaker 04

  Well, not a doubt.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  It's 100% a rom-com.

• 28:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, see, I always think the most successful ones were the most successful for a reason. They figured out the best and had massive stars in it.

• 28:36Speaker 04

  She, if, if this, if this a three-way female situation is Julia, Meg, and Sandra Bullock, I feel like Sandra Bullock has a claim to the throne.

• 28:43Bill Simmons?

  The, the sleeper one for us, which we'll never do on rewatchables, because my wife's the only one that likes it, is A Lot Like Love with Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet.

• 28:51Speaker 04

  Never saw it.

• 28:52Bill Simmons?

  I've, I might have seen that just through my wife and then my wife and daughter. It's been on my house like 30 times.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Ashton Kutcher did No Strings Attached, or is that Justin Timberlake?

• 29:00Bill Simmons?

  That's Justin Timberlake.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  There's two movies that are exactly the same.

• 29:02Speaker 04

  Friends with Benefits.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Friends with Benefits, that's a good one.

• 29:04Bill Simmons?

  But this is when rom-coms went sideways, when we started doing the Friends with Benefits, No Strings Attached, like they were ideas that had already happened.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:11Bill Simmons?

  And they're basically doing the 2.0 versions.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  I think for a rom-com to be truly great, and I actually think this movie, even though it's not the best written movie, and there's some issues, there has to be a few things that actually surprise you. If it's in totally paint by the numbers, it's even with good stars, it's boring, and there's a few little small decisions in this movie that take you by surprise and make it not entirely predictable.

• 29:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I agree with that. What's your favorite rom-com? What it, what's in the Craig and Liz house?

• 29:38Speaker 02

  When Harry Met Sally's sleep was in Seattle, probably, because I'm not counting things like forgetting Sarah Marshall. That's like a comedy.

• 29:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's the Appetite Ones I don't think count. I think that's like a different genre. Yeah. Yeah, com rom, I like that.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  It's a com rom.

• 29:52Bill Simmons?

  Hey, you need the rom first.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, there, and there hasn't really been, I mean, I'm curious what you think, if there's been like, like Set It Up.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Set It Up is great.

• 29:59Speaker 02

  That's probably like the last good one.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  One of the best streaming original rom coms.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Zoe Deutsch and Glenn Powell, really good.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Glenn Powell's been so good in it.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:06Bill Simmons?

  We love that, that was a big Grantland movie.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  That was probably almost 10 years ago at this point.

• 30:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was the first year of Grantland.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  Powell should legitimately, just for three or four years, just be a rom com guy.

• 30:16Bill Simmons?

  He should at least make them every like three and a half years.

• 30:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:20Bill Simmons?

  It should almost be like the World Cup.

• 30:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:23Bill Simmons?

  Every four years, like the World Cup, he should just come out with another one.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  High concept rom com.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  High concept rom com.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  Like Palm Springs.

• 30:29Bill Simmons?

  Well, that, that's either.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Palm Springs is good, though.

• 30:30Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Oh, does Groundhog Day count as a rom com? Because it's one of my favorite movies of all time.

• 30:34Bill Simmons?

  No. It's a com rom. It's a com rom.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  I was so quick with it. Well, that's one of my favorite movies of all time.

• 30:42Bill Simmons?

  Here's the other thing that happened with rom coms, the, the streamers figured out how to basically professionalize them and crank them out and do every sort of idea constantly.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, got like private equity, they're like, we'll just make a million of these and it'll be, they'll all be bad.

• 30:55Bill Simmons?

  I think Zoe, Zoe Deutsch is in like at least four of them.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  She's in a new one I saw.

• 31:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  In, on Netflix.

• 31:02Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Don't Think It Wasn't Watched at My House in the last week.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  The guy on that, uh, is pretty good, I saw him in some.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  Was it called Voicemails?

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Letters from Isabel, Voicemails from Isabel.

• 31:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're not gonna believe what happens, man. She, her sister dies and she leaves voicemails to her dead sister.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  Oh, shit.

• 31:19Bill Simmons?

  Onto a phone that this guy has who's listening to the voicemails and decides he's gonna, he's, falls in love with her and tries to hunt her down. And guess what? She finds out near the end of the movie that they have the phone and then they have to work it out.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 31:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  One of my favorite movies of all time, actually my, if I did a Letterboxd top four, this would be in it. I think is a rom com and no one in this room is gonna agree with me, I don't care. Edge of Tomorrow.

• 31:45Speaker 04

  Aw, come on.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  It's a rom-com!

• 31:48Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  Think about it. It's actually so romantic. It's so funny. Edge of Tomorrow? The top gross?

• 31:56Speaker 04

  You're prop clipping. There's no way.

• 31:58Bill Simmons?

  But that's more a sci-com.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  It's a lot of genres.

• 32:02Speaker 04

  Every, dies every day. The movie has a body count. It's like, I don't know.

• 32:08Bill Simmons?

  You know what we're learning? Minnie's got a dark side.

• 32:10Speaker 04

  She does have a dark side.

• 32:11Bill Simmons?

  Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Edge of Tomorrow.

• 32:13Bill Simmons?

  She likes the guy dying right there.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Edge of Tomorrow is a perfect movie, and it is a comedy, and it is incredibly romantic.

• 32:20Speaker 04

  I think it's a perfect movie. I legitimately think it's one of the best movies of that decade.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Really? We haven't talked about this. This is why we're...

• 32:25Speaker 04

  Without a doubt. Like, I went to the Ark like a couple of different times. I was trying to tell people, yo, this is really good.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  I will watch that movie anytime it's on.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  Well, I will say something about the rom-com before we move on. I do think that with the whole rom and the com thing is interesting to think about that. Cause think about what else was happening during this time. Like, movies like The Notebook were coming out, and they were going so rom. And then movies like the Judd Apatow stuff was coming out, and they were going so com that they were skewing. You gotta have rom and com. You have to have a movie that is really funny, but in no way...

• 33:01Bill Simmons?

  So where's the holiday in this?

• 33:02Speaker 04

  Right.

• 33:03Bill Simmons?

  Cause that's another all-timer, but that's, that's more like, that's like a dram-rom-com.

• 33:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  It's not that funny. It's, I like that movie. I think it's really romantic, and I think all four leads are very likable, but it's not that funny.

• 33:14Bill Simmons?

  No, it's a rom-drum.

• 33:15Speaker 04

  Right. Well, to that point, Pretty Woman. Is Pretty Woman funny?

• 33:20Speaker 01

  Ay!

• 33:23Speaker 04

  Is it, is Pretty Woman funny?

• 33:25Bill Simmons?

  It's a little like Hitch with Will Smith, but on a whole other level, cause Roberts and Geer are just so great in it. Doesn't really even matter what's happening in the movie.

• 33:34Speaker 04

  Cause they can be adorable.

• 33:36Bill Simmons?

  She looks great. He looks great. The, the concept is like, perfect.

• 33:40Speaker 04

  It's funny.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:41Bill Simmons?

  She was a prostitute, but only for a couple times.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  How many rom-coms are...

• 33:46Speaker 04

  Well, she's only been doing it for a week.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  It's important, Poppy.

• 33:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  How many rom coms are really funny? Like, like laugh, like.

• 33:53Speaker 04

  This one is funny.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  This one's funny.

• 33:55Speaker 04

  This one's funny.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  I mean, Crazy Stupid Love.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  Crazy Stupid Love.

• 33:57Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's hysterical.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  It's so funny.

• 33:59Bill Simmons?

  But then it goes in the appetizer side, the comedy part becomes more important. But forgetting Sarah Marshall is a rom com. It's just super funny.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's more of a comedy.

• 34:08Bill Simmons?

  It's kinda, it's almost not fair to put it in here.

• 34:10Speaker 02

  I don't even think of it as a rom com.

• 34:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  Somebody told me to list rom coms.

• 34:13Speaker 04

  Something else about this movie is like, this movie was made at the perfect inflection point for it to be made. Because around this time, the pick up artist dudes start to come out. We talked about this a little bit of Crazy Stupid Love.

• 34:29Bill Simmons?

  This is the Tucker Maxx era. And what was that other guy? Who was the guy who did the game with Neil Strauss? Yeah.

• 34:37Speaker 04

  There was another dude that had like a cool name.

• 34:39Bill Simmons?

  This was the whole early internet era.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  What was the other guy? He had like a cool name, he wore a cool hat. He was on VH1, what's his guy's name?

• 34:53Speaker 04

  Do you remember him?

• 34:54Bill Simmons?

  I don't, that one I don't remember.

• 34:55Speaker 04

  He invented, he invented, he invented nagging. You know nagging?

• 34:59Bill Simmons?

  I know nagging.

• 35:00Speaker 04

  We talked about nagging the last time.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  By the way, while I was driving here, I was thinking about last time. And I'd just like to say, I think it's pretty brave of me to come back and talk about another how to pick up women thing after getting universally dunked on for falling for Ryan Gosling's game during our crazy.

• 35:18Speaker 04

  Oh, you remember that? It never worked on her.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:21Bill Simmons?

  So it wasn't a dunked on like Tim Ream getting hit on from behind.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  I got a lot of, I got a lot of deserving.

• 35:27Bill Simmons?

  People were on your side, though, making fun of you.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Were they?

• 35:29Bill Simmons?

  Were they?

• 35:31Speaker 01

  And I, I actually entered my brain when I was thinking about how I was gonna defend Will Smith's sexual politics in this movie.

• 35:38Speaker 04

  He's the Nick. Hitch doesn't nag.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Doesn't nag.

• 35:42Speaker 04

  Hitch doesn't nag.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  What's a best?

• 35:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  The politics of Hitch's picking of women.

• 35:48Speaker 04

  Hitch is.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  He likes women.

• 35:49Speaker 04

  Hitch is a mythical character. And like, he's a mythical character. He is the rare coxman who also loves and respects women.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Bingo.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  And, and.

• 35:59Bill Simmons?

  But also realizes everything he was doing was bad and he had the wrong formula.

• 36:03Speaker 04

  Right.

• 36:03Bill Simmons?

  That's the lesson of the whole movie.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  But it's not, it's not bad.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  He just needs to open himself up, really.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Unsuccessful, right. He's not like, wow, we should treat women better. All of the men.

• 36:12Bill Simmons?

  He's just like, wow, I had that wrong.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Treat women well.

• 36:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  He wants them to like, actually like them. It's a very important thing that he doesn't work with Vance Munson or whatever.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  He only works with good guys who are down on their luck. He's like the Robin Hood of dating in this movie.

• 36:26Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's interesting hearing the director talk about the making of the movie, which sounded miserable.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:31Bill Simmons?

  But he was basically saying, I really wanted to avoid all the cheap jokes and like, I felt like that we had a vision for this. And the more we went kind of the cheap joke route, the movie was gonna fall apart. He said, this is Andy Tennant, the director. He said, when we wrapped that movie, I called my wife and said, I've just ruined my career and I've ruined Will Smith's career too.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  Damn.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Dramatic.

• 36:52Bill Simmons?

  He said, we had our difficulties. I didn't want cheap jokes, but he didn't trust me. The movie I wanted to make and the movie Will wanted to make, neither one of those movies is as good as the movie we made together was a battle. And then he said, Will Smith, three days before production, tried to delay it because he wasn't happy. And he was, he basically tried to stop production and Jada got involved. It was like, you gotta, you made a commitment, did that whole thing. And, and then he said, when we wrapped, Will walked off the set, didn't get to say goodbye to me, didn't say anything. He just left. I think he felt the same way I did. We thought this movie is a disaster. We wrapped, it was depressing. And then they did a test screen and everybody was like, I love this. And then Will Smith's like, boom, and became Will Smith.

• 37:34Speaker 04

  It would be hard if you're, if you're telling people the reason to go see the movie. It was just like, go watch Will Smith be smooth.

• 37:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 37:43Speaker 04

  But I remember there was this girl that I knew in college, I was right after college at this time. And she was like, I found out the type of guy that I want. And she says, my type is the Alexander Hitchens type.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Stop.

• 37:55Speaker 04

  I swear on my dad. Like, she said, that's the type of guy that, and I think for a lot of people.

• 38:01Bill Simmons?

  Was it Janet Jameson?

• 38:02Speaker 04

  It wa- shut up. She's had a couple Alexander Hitchens and a couple Shawn Michaels's. But like, for that, you could watch this movie as a woman and go, hey, I'm not gonna speak for women. Hey, I want that type of guy. You could watch this guy as a guy and go, that's the best version of that type of dude.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  The ultra confident.

• 38:21Speaker 04

  That's, yeah.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  Great with women.

• 38:23Speaker 04

  It's not like he's not going to take these women home and have sex with them, but he's gonna respect them.

• 38:28Bill Simmons?

  The reality is, these movies are unassailable because you can see them on a date, you can see them when you're married, and you can see them when you're in high school and you wanna take either a friend or a date. Like, you're hitting every age group and there's something for everybody and they're gonna win forever. And that's why Netflix makes, just basically this and horror movies are all they pump out. Amazon's doing like YA versions of this, but this is like.

• 38:50Speaker 04

  I like the old guard.

• 38:51Bill Simmons?

  They've done the advanced metrics on all this stuff and they're like, guess what, people watch rom-coms.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  I know, but there's so many bad ones.

• 38:57Bill Simmons?

  Because we've done every idea. And then, and as we said earlier, so, so much of this depends on, do I like the people in this movie? And the more famous and better the people are. And think about it, every major star has made at least two of these.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:11Bill Simmons?

  Right? Even Tom Cruise has made a couple.

• 39:13Speaker 04

  One guy.

• 39:14Bill Simmons?

  Who?

• 39:15Speaker 04

  Denzel.

• 39:16Bill Simmons?

  He doesn't count though.

• 39:17Speaker 04

  Won't do it.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  He's never been in a romantic comedy.

• 39:19Speaker 04

  Doesn't, doesn't.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  He's been in a lot of romantic movies.

• 39:22Speaker 04

  He's been in movies.

• 39:22Bill Simmons?

  His idea of a rom-com is out of time.

• 39:24Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 39:27Bill Simmons?

  He's like, I've gotta solve a murder and navigate the slow track.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Even medicine, nah.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, doesn't, won't do, doesn't do it, doesn't do it, doesn't, intensity.

• 39:36Bill Simmons?

  What would a Denzel rom-com even be?

• 39:39Speaker 01

  I think he could do a great one as he, like now that he's in his golden years, like an old person rom-com.

• 39:45Bill Simmons?

  Like a widower, a widower rom-com.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  I, I, old, there need to be more rom-coms starring older people, like Enough Said. Gandolfini, it's a great one.

• 39:56Speaker 04

  I gotta be real with you, man.

• 39:58Bill Simmons?

  You don't get anyone under forty to go.

• 40:00Speaker 04

  Maybe. I think that there should be, but.

• 40:05Speaker 04

  You gotta believe, you gotta wanna, like in this movie, isn't there a part of you that's like, "Hey, these two people..."

• 40:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, are they gonna bone?

• 40:13Speaker 04

  They're gonna have sex?

• 40:13Speaker 01

  We talked about this when we did Nancy Meyers. Nancy Meyers, who we, by the way, haven't talked about at all, and as we're listing our favorite rom-coms, a lot of those are older.

• 40:22Bill Simmons?

  She's almost like her own genre, yeah.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  And she shows them having sex!

• 40:25Speaker 04

  When you say, "Oh, like, what, what, what are we talking about here?"

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Sixty, sixty, yeah.

• 40:28Speaker 04

  I mean, sixty ain't nothing now. Sixty, like Brad Pitt's sixty-two. You still trying to see...

• 40:33Bill Simmons?

  True.

• 40:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's, that's nothing now, but when we started getting to like, you know, seventy-fives to eighties and stuff like that, it's kinda like, you know, chill out.

• 40:40Bill Simmons?

  That's what, I was on an airplane, um, some point like three months ago, and, um, and the wifi was out, but the TV worked, and I'm just going through the DirecTV, and Grumpy Old Men was on.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:56Bill Simmons?

  The movie was fucking awesome. It was so good.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, Grumpy Old Men, too.

• 41:00Bill Simmons?

  I don't think I've seen it since, but it, but that was like two old people, Anne Margaret moves in.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  They get, it's Ronkey, yeah.

• 41:07Speaker 04

  That is a good, that is, yeah.

• 41:09Bill Simmons?

  That movie did so well, they made a sequel, so to, to the case of like, why isn't this, why isn't this generation represented? Like, it, it does succeed, but think about it, you had Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, and Anne Margaret, like three super famous people.

• 41:23Speaker 04

  She was still, super beautiful in that.

• 41:24Bill Simmons?

  This was, this would be the move for Cruise, if he ever gives up, like trying to pretend it's Top Gun, like to actually do like an older, like, rom-com where he's a widower or something.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Oh, I can't believe you bring up Jerry Maguire, by the way, we're doing the best romantic comedies of all time.

• 41:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I mean, that's a good one.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  Which is, there's a, it's in Hitch, there's, she watches it at the end.

• 41:44Bill Simmons?

  Sixty million dollar movie made three hundred and seventy-one point five. It surpassed Fifty First Dates as the biggest rom-com ever. Held the record for three years. Roger Ebert, two and a half stars. We're in a real slump with Raj.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Hater.

• 41:59Bill Simmons?

  I might have to go through his books and find a four-star movie just to like resurrect.

• 42:03Speaker 04

  What did he say?

• 42:04Bill Simmons?

  Two and a half stars, there's a purpose for a movie like Hitch, and that purpose is to supply a pleasant and un- undemanding romantic comedy that you can rent next Valentine's Day. It's not that I dislike it, it's just that it doesn't seem entirely necessary.

• 42:20Bill Simmons?

  The premise is intriguing, the third act goes on autopilot.

• 42:27Bill Simmons?

  It's borderline fuck you, Raj. I, I don't, I, it's borderline. I'm not mad at him, but it's, I, I thought about it.

• 42:33Speaker 04

  Just have a good time sometimes, Raj.

• 42:35Bill Simmons?

  Come on, Raj.

• 42:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's what's meant.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  I think the third act of the movie, I didn't feel like it was lagging that much personally.

• 42:41Bill Simmons?

  There's one part that lags, but we'll talk about it. We're gonna take one break and then we'll do a rewatch of those scenes.

• 42:46Speaker 05

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• 43:12Speaker 06

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• 43:23Speaker 03

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• 43:44Speaker 06

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• 44:17Bill Simmons?

  When the sun goes down, the appetizers come out. Yeah, you heard that right. Late-night, half-priced appetizers are here at Applebee's: saucy, sweet and spicy boneless wings, crispy, cheesy mozzarella sticks, creamy spinach and artichoke dip. Your favorite apps half-price, available every single night because why should appetizers have curfews? Tap the banner to learn more. Dining only for a limited time at participating locations. Restrictions apply. Copyright 2026 Applebee's Restaurant LLC.

• 44:48Bill Simmons?

  Most rewatchable scene, the opening. Will Smith running through the hitch tips.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Basic principles.

• 44:54Bill Simmons?

  Meaning, let's go through these quick.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:56Bill Simmons?

  No woman wakes up saying, God, I hope I don't get swept off my feet today.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  It's fine. It's fine.

• 45:02Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Honestly, when I rewatched this this time, I was like, hmm. Like, waiting for it, and everything's fine. But keep going.

• 45:10Bill Simmons?

  No matter what, no matter when, no matter how, no matter who, any man can sweep a woman off their feet. You just need the right broom.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 45:22Bill Simmons?

  Ninety percent of what you're saying ain't coming out of your mouth. You said it's basically thirty percent tone and sixty percent body language?

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Like, that's his.

• 45:32Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if I believe that one.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Attitude towards acting.

• 45:34Bill Simmons?

  A woman's best friend needs to sign off on all major relationship decisions? It's not, not wrong.

• 45:39Speaker 01

  No?

• 45:39Speaker 04

  That's pretty much true, bro.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  It's also a fundamental tenet of rom-coms. Like, the best friend plays a role in the movie.

• 45:50Bill Simmons?

  I feel like that's true. My, my beloved daughter Zoe, her friend she trusts the most, the other Zoe. I don't feel like she would ever seriously date somebody that the other Zoe was like, I don't like that guy.

• 46:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, you, you.

• 46:01Bill Simmons?

  I think that's just, I think that's, you're just gonna trust the friendship.

• 46:04Speaker 04

  Even if they're blah, I mean, that's bad enough. But if they're out on a person, it's just gonna be a sense of tension.

• 46:11Bill Simmons?

  Can't do it.

• 46:11Speaker 04

  You can't do it, yeah.

• 46:12Bill Simmons?

  Guys are different. Guys will just be like, you'll just watch a friend get married. It's like they go off to a war and they don't come back.

• 46:20Speaker 04

  I don't have an opinion. I look, I don't have an opinion on y'all. You like it, I love it.

• 46:25Bill Simmons?

  What?

• 46:26Speaker 04

  I don't, I don't, in my friend groups, we have never been on that, I don't like her. Hey, man, if you like it, I love it. I'm out of your business.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  You've never had a friend who's with someone that y'all hate so much that somebody says something.

• 46:41Speaker 04

  So, I've had friends before that, how can I say this? I've had friends before that were with women that.

• 46:52Speaker 04

  Other people that we knew had known.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:55Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's a different.

• 46:56Speaker 04

  They knew her really well.

• 46:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 46:58Speaker 04

  A lot of people knew her. That's all I'm gonna say.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:01Speaker 04

  And some people, sometimes people would do that, and they would be like, hey, bring that up. And then even then, I would be like, yo, bro, get out of his business. If he likes her, that's his thing. But if, for me, if you like it, I love it. I'm staying out of your, your, your, your, your whole situation.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  If you like it, I love it, but I don't want to hang out anymore.

• 47:17Speaker 04

  I will hang out. I will, if I love you, I'll put up with your girl when she get a little too drunk.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:22Speaker 04

  And the whole, I promise.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  We're not talking about, we're saying like, if you're with someone whose significant other is deeply annoying or maybe offensive, but we'll start pulling back. You know, the couple, well, this kind of came up during Crazy People Love. You'll kind of pull back if you don't want to hang out as couples anymore.

• 47:37Speaker 04

  I've never been, there's not like a lot of people that I, that my, my homeboys have, like, girls and stuff like that, or ladies that I like, take a particular liking to them. It's like, I don't do that. Like, I don't, I like your girl. It starts to get kind of weird. Like, you know what I mean? I don't, I don't know. I'm just like from a place where it's like.

• 47:55Bill Simmons?

  What are you talking?

• 47:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:56Speaker 04

  Like, I, no, no, I, I don't know.

• 47:58Bill Simmons?

  Fans, fans doing the, I'm not gonna judge who you fell in love with.

• 48:01Speaker 04

  I don't, I don't like, I don't get involved in that type of deal. That's like.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Have, have you ever benefited, though, from the thing where you're dating someone, and her friends are so happy that she's with you and not the previous guy?

• 48:12Speaker 04

  Yep, because I think that, that's, ladies do that.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  That's a powerful female emotion.

• 48:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  When like, your friend only dates crappy guys, and then suddenly they meet someone everyone likes, and then we all go in way too hard.

• 48:24Bill Simmons?

  That was Drake May.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  To try to black.

• 48:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:29Bill Simmons?

  We went in way too hard.

• 48:30Speaker 04

  Am I wrong about this? As men, y'all don't stay out of each other's business?

• 48:34Bill Simmons?

  Um, I have two things to say about this. One, I can't talk about this.

• 48:40Bill Simmons?

  Literally can't. But I'm, I'm also somebody that my wife is probably considered my single best asset by other people, which is kind of insulting to me, but fine. But I've had things, you know, I'm obviously older. There's been some relationships I've, I've watched that maybe I kind of wished didn't unfold the way they did. The other thing is, I'm saying from far, like, I hope they don't, I hope they did.

• 49:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:08Bill Simmons?

  Second.

• 49:10Bill Simmons?

  The thing that you can't explain properly to people in their twenties as all their friends, as the merry-go-round stops and everyone starts getting married, Craig's in this right now. You're gonna have a couple of friends that marry somebody.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 49:23Bill Simmons?

  And you're gonna think, well.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:25Bill Simmons?

  You know, it's not great, but it will be fine. You're not gonna be fine. You'll never see them again.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  Yes, that's what I'm saying.

• 49:32Bill Simmons?

  They'll be gone.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  You're not gonna hang out.

• 49:33Bill Simmons?

  That's it.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  This is.

• 49:34Bill Simmons?

  So, the partner will always win and the friends will always lose. And that's how it goes.

• 49:39Speaker 04

  And this is my, this is.

• 49:40Bill Simmons?

  This is my advice from Confucius Bill.

• 49:43Speaker 04

  I'll put.

• 49:43Bill Simmons?

  William X. last week and Confucius Bill this week.

• 49:46Speaker 04

  And I'll put a button on it. That's the reason why it's a losing thing. It's a losing thing. You cannot compete with matters of the heart. So, you get mad at your home.

• 49:57Bill Simmons?

  Losing every time.

• 49:57Speaker 04

  You get mad at your homeboy's girl and you say whatever, they're going to get back together. You're going to be the one.

• 50:05Bill Simmons?

  If they break up, you can't say anything.

• 50:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like.

• 50:07Bill Simmons?

  Like, thank God you broke up. She was awful.

• 50:10Speaker 04

  Then they're gonna be back together six months.

• 50:12Bill Simmons?

  And she is gonna be Michael Corleoneing everybody.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  In my twenties, I had a really close friend who dated a girl who was not only very unpleasant, unlikable, like she was a pathological liar.

• 50:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  And that was too far, to the point where I vividly remember myself and friend groups from various stages of his life, like his best friend from college, his best friend from work. We had like a meeting of the five families together. We were like, we gotta stage an intervention. And we did. And they broke, it actually worked. They broke up.

• 50:43Speaker 04

  This is horrible.

• 50:44Bill Simmons?

  I have.

• 50:45Speaker 04

  Like, this is a horrible, terrible thing that you guys did. I think that is sinister. Look, I never knew it from you.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  You got a dumper. We were just like, here's the information, do what you will.

• 50:58Speaker 04

  Oh, my God. This is so disgusting, Lena.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  She was lying to everybody. It was crazy.

• 51:02Bill Simmons?

  This sounds like another rom-com.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, it sounds like a.

• 51:04Speaker 04

  It is another rom-com.

• 51:06Bill Simmons?

  I wish I could tell my. I wish I could tell my story.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  I am.

• 51:10Speaker 04

  I think I know it. Do I know it?

• 51:11Bill Simmons?

  No, you don't. Yeah, the intervention can go one of two ways. There's another way it could go where they end up staying together.

• 51:20Speaker 04

  And then it's all destroyed.

• 51:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  I have subtext.

• 51:25Bill Simmons?

  The bar scene is our next rewatchable scene with the flashback. Um, but we have guys playing pool.

• 51:32Speaker 04

  Hmm, two dudes.

• 51:34Bill Simmons?

  I think this might have been the last guys playing pool rom com scene. We had a nice little 15 year run of this. Just like, let's go play some, some pool and talk about relationships. Let's do this. They have a scene like that in Boomerang.

• 51:45Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 51:46Bill Simmons?

  But it's 15 straight years of, Craig, have you ever played pool with somebody and just talked about the ladies?

• 51:51Speaker 02

  No, I have not.

• 51:52Bill Simmons?

  Where do you guys stand? Hold on, nine ball.

• 51:56Speaker 02

  Well, and the implication is that he's dating Will Smith's sister.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. He's, he's, Michael Rapaport is his brother in law.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  Kind of weird that that just never comes back.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  They're married.

• 52:02Speaker 04

  Interracial relationship was good enough for the movie.

• 52:07Speaker 04

  They left that one.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  That's the most 2005 thing about the movie is seeing Rapaport.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  I have that underway.

• 52:13Bill Simmons?

  Cause I'm seeing one scene, they don't bring him back.

• 52:16Speaker 02

  It's like a jump scare. It's like, whoa, Rapaport's in this movie.

• 52:18Bill Simmons?

  More on that later.

• 52:21Bill Simmons?

  We have Albert quitting his job in the boardroom.

• 52:24Speaker 04

  Can I just say real quick, there's no way to talk about that bar scene and not talk about how

• 52:31Bill Simmons?

  The twenty dollar girl?

• 52:32Speaker 04

  Gorgeous. Nigga, that's Paul Patton.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Paul Patton, I know.

• 52:36Speaker 04

  Are you out of your, don't you ever play yourself?

• 52:39Bill Simmons?

  Don't you dare think William Mack does no Paul Patton.

• 52:41Speaker 04

  Don't you ever play yourself like that, boy.

• 52:43Bill Simmons?

  Well, I'm gonna say it for the audience, the twenty dollar bar girl.

• 52:46Speaker 04

  I know, I know. I'm looking at her, I was gobsmacked.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 52:51Speaker 04

  By just the, it, it just shook me back to remember.

• 52:54Bill Simmons?

  I don't know why she wasn't the biggest star of the 2010s.

• 52:58Speaker 04

  In that movie like, god damn.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Can I say this movie, everybody looks so hot, except for Kevin James, but, you know, but like.

• 53:05Speaker 04

  He looks the hottest he's ever looked.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  The hottest he's ever looked. I, the, credit to where they shot it, like, William Smith, well, Williams, Will Smith looks amazing in it. Eva Mendes looks incre, like, just every scene, everybody. Amber Vella, the close ups, everybody looks.

• 53:19Bill Simmons?

  Paul Patton, it just never happened.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 53:21Bill Simmons?

  Did she marry Alan Thicke?

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Does she marry Robin Thicke?

• 53:24Bill Simmons?

  Robin Thicke. Does she marry Alan Thicke? I knew she married a thick. She married Ramon thick.

• 53:29Speaker 04

  I think they were already married. They were together since they were in like high school.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  They got divorced, he had all this stuff.

• 53:35Speaker 04

  They got divorced after the, the, the, uh, what was the, what was the, the huge record he had? If you did.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Blurred Lines?

• 53:42Speaker 04

  Blurred Lines, the Blurred Lines.

• 53:43Bill Simmons?

  If you did Paula Patton versus Meghan Markle in like 2010, who is going to be an A-plus list famous person? She would have been like a 10 to 1 favorite.

• 53:52Speaker 04

  Paula Patton was in a, a couple of things and she's, she's having a great career, but like legitimately, legitimately, I, I thought, I thought that was a Brad Pitt, Dumb and Louise moment. Like I looked at her like, Jesus, she is so gorgeous.

• 54:08Bill Simmons?

  Albert quits his job in the conference room, but Amber wants, Amber was impressed that he stood up for himself. And then Will Smith's hiding behind the door and he gives, that's a really good scene. That's just a good rom-com scene.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  They, they hit that quite a few times. The physical comedy of Will Smith giving him advice and Kevin James, you know, fumbling as he's trying to woo a woman. That's the best one out of all of them moments in the movie.

• 54:29Bill Simmons?

  Good, like classic rom-com where it's like, oh, they might get caught.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:32Bill Simmons?

  Oh, she's gonna seize me behind the door, but.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Hands on the pen, it's amazing.

• 54:37Bill Simmons?

  Hitch meets Eva Mendes, right as she's meeting Chip. They call me Chip. I couldn't help but notice you look a lot like my next girlfriend.

• 54:49Speaker 04

  Chip, Chip, Chip kinda the man.

• 54:50Speaker 02

  Chip fucking brings it.

• 54:55Speaker 04

  He's my only damn waiter. Chip kinda the man, Chip. Are you, are you always so closed off? Chip is intense, man.

• 55:04Bill Simmons?

  Chip just earned it. I loved him.

• 55:08Bill Simmons?

  All right. And then we have jet skiing on the Hudson River.

• 55:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, awesome.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Apex Mountain jet skis.

• 55:13Speaker 02

  Wait, Mina, how do you feel about the move in the scene with Chip? When Hitch pretends to be her partner to get her out of the awkward conversation?

• 55:21Bill Simmons?

  One of my favorite rom-com moves.

• 55:22Speaker 02

  Is that one of like the coolest moves to you? Or is that actually a little bit lame?

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Well, Craig, I have it under something I just enjoy.

• 55:31Speaker 01

  And I realize I'm bringing a little baggage when I'm talking about falling for a guy's moves. But I just enjoy every scene where Will Smith gets to be the smoothest guy alive. It is a classic rom-com, is this guy bothering you, honey? Move.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  It's great.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  Um, I also love, just give me a head, when he gives her the walkie, the scene where he gives her the walkie talk. Cause most movie Hitch is actually fumbling with her and that's kind of the gag of the movie.

• 55:53Bill Simmons?

  I had the walkie talkies in here.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  I mean, I love that when, when she doesn't say over and he says, you need to say over.

• 55:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 55:59Speaker 04

  That's funny.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  Get it.

• 56:01Speaker 04

  Cause when I saw that scene, I was like, I thought about interesting writing in that scene. Cause like, that scene makes me think about The Matrix. When like, when Neo got the walkie talkies. Like, like, could it be Will Smith? That movie makes me think about The Matrix when Neo got the walkie talkies. Cause you're thinking to yourself, when Neo gets the walkie talkies, you're thinking, how much do the, does Morpheus know about this world? That he can give him a walkie talkie and then walk him through that or the, the phone or whatever? And that makes me think about the chance that Hitch took.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  With, yeah, the Sunday morning.

• 56:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  It's amazing.

• 56:34Speaker 04

  He, he, he is basically like the matrix of love. He knows.

• 56:39Bill Simmons?

  He figures she'll say no on Friday, Saturday.

• 56:42Speaker 04

  He figures that she's not gonna be weird at all. He also gives her a walkie talkie because he knows that the rest of the audi, the rest of the office is gonna hear. And they're gonna be reacting to it.

• 56:52Bill Simmons?

  You mean the most unrealistic newspaper office in, in movies we've ever had?

• 56:55Speaker 04

  I got so much to say about that.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  We'll get to that later, yeah.

• 56:58Bill Simmons?

  Ellis Island is kind of a cool scene for a variety of reasons, but the butcher reveal is really funny. I think it's like a genuinely funny movie moment.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  Okay, so this is what I was saying earlier about the truly great.

• 57:10Bill Simmons?

  He was just a butcher.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Rom coms have to have moments that surprise you. This is the first time this movie we were like, whoa, I didn't see that coming. You think he's so smooth, everything's going well. Well, he obviously knocks her off the jet ski. When that ha, that reveal happens, it's so funny because it's so surprising and out of left field that he didn't plan ahead and he totally missed it.

• 57:27Bill Simmons?

  Really good scene. Dance montage you mentioned.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Love that scene.

• 57:30Bill Simmons?

  Leading into them at the club.

• 57:31Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 57:32Bill Simmons?

  Really good Kevin James in this part. Uh, food allergies scene, which I think became, I think they used that in the trailer.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. And the jet ski, most I think, yeah.

• 57:43Bill Simmons?

  Albert takes her to a Knicks game and goes for the big kiss.

• 57:46Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:49Bill Simmons?

  If I have very few passions in life for rom coms and Lifetime movies, but um, youth sports scenes with bad soccer games and anyone going to an NBA game, I'm locked in. Um, all I care about is who's playing, trying to figure out what season it is.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  Uh, Marbury's in it, right?

• 58:06Bill Simmons?

  This is March 2004. It was Marbury's first game against the Grizzlies at home. I looked at the box where I bore in this later, uh, but I love when they do that. Entourage was really good at this, really good. They would have those guys sitting courtside, basically once a season, I think in Ari's seats.

• 58:23Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, probably.

• 58:25Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, the real Ari. But, uh, but yeah, they were, I just, I love when people bring the NBA into it.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  The Knicks have been in this in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Trainwreck, right?

• 58:35Bill Simmons?

  Trainwreck's a good one, right?

• 58:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  Big, he was like the doctor for the Knicks.

• 58:39Bill Simmons?

  There's a couple more. I should have, I should have, I should have asked Claude or one of these AI things. Give me all the rom coms with NBA scenes, actual action.

• 58:49Bill Simmons?

  The date from Hell, uh, food fight when, uh, when, when Eva Mendes comes to his apartment all pissed off.

• 58:57Speaker 04

  See, it wouldn't happen now.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, you wouldn't have him throwing stuff at her.

• 59:00Speaker 04

  See, it wouldn't happen now. The kids would be like, who is he to throw at her, to throw lettuce at her?

• 59:05Bill Simmons?

  Oh, interesting.

• 59:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, wouldn't happen now.

• 59:07Speaker 02

  No, what? It's lettuce.

• 59:09Speaker 04

  Whatever.

• 59:09Bill Simmons?

  Speed date scene?

• 59:10Speaker 04

  So you can't assault anybody with lettuce.

• 59:12Bill Simmons?

  Like the speed date scene?

• 59:13Speaker 04

  Uh, I do like the speed date scene.

• 59:15Bill Simmons?

  I like speed date scenes in general.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  Does that still happen?

• 59:18Speaker 04

  But this one is really good though.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Okay, I actually looked this up because I was gonna have the most 2005 speed dating at BootyCon. And then I took it and I was like, let me look this up. And many articles came up about speed dating having a resurgence post pandemic, so.

• 59:29Speaker 04

  This one, this one is making, this one is making a commentary about speed dating now. Because Will Smith and Eva Mendes look like two hot aliens dropped into this speed dating thing full of losers, like, which culminates with the woman standing up and going, I haven't been laid in about a year. So like.

• 59:48Bill Simmons?

  Which is funny.

• 59:49Speaker 04

  Which is very funny.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  It, it's kind of the weird unspoken thing about Eva Mendes in general, right? Which is like, she's way too hot to just be a normal reporter and for her to like, not be moving in the world the way, I don't know, it just doesn't, I mean, she's not too hot for the movie, but it's a little bit.

• 1:00:04Speaker 04

  That's what Chip did.

• 1:00:05Bill Simmons?

  Hitch, Hitch begs for forgiveness on Allegra's boat. And then, uh, the wedding scene, end credits. Gotta love a good end credits.

• 1:00:11Speaker 04

  Love when they just get into it, man. We're, we know this is not real. Let's have, they get married, let's have some fun.

• 1:00:18Bill Simmons?

  My wife said, actually, this is my favorite scene in the movie.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  The dancing?

• 1:00:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, she just really likes good wedding.

• 1:00:23Speaker 04

  Everybody celebrates, love one.

• 1:00:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  You have Will Smith, like, you better have a comedic dance scene at the end.

• 1:00:28Bill Simmons?

  And Will Smith and Eva Mendes dancing was pretty high level compared to how that could go.

• 1:00:33Speaker 04

  And I just love that this movie actually was like, nah, Albert didn't just get the girl. Like, he got the girl.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:40Speaker 04

  Like, they got married.

• 1:00:41Bill Simmons?

  Do you think that started the Jennifer Hudson show where the guests have to go down and dance? Would you do that? Would you dance?

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  It's literally my worst nightmare. I think about it all the time.

• 1:00:48Bill Simmons?

  I wouldn't do it.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:00:49Speaker 04

  You wouldn't do the spirit tunnel?

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  No, I would come up with a bit.

• 1:00:52Bill Simmons?

  I definitely wouldn't do that.

• 1:00:53Speaker 04

  I, I, I don't even dance at weddings. I just need a couple of more notches to be invited on the show. I cannot wait to do it.

• 1:01:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, I don't think the show exists anymore.

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  It's so high risk. I would prepare more for that than an Oscar speech to not fuck that up.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  If you, okay, yeah, if you clown yourself, it's over.

• 1:01:11Speaker 02

  It's over.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  But if you are an unexpected success and like, let's say, I don't know, like, you're a half Korean, half Asian, or half white person, perhaps, a woman who no one thinks can dance. And if you were that person, you were to go up there and shock the world, that clip would

• 1:01:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  follow you forever.

• 1:01:29Bill Simmons?

  It's like throwing like a 90 mile an hour first pitch at a baseball game.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  Obama at the DNC, like, you would be able to, like, soar.

• 1:01:35Speaker 04

  But see, the reality is, if you're, if, if you're me and you're coming through there.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're higher risk.

• 1:01:40Speaker 04

  They go, but with you, all y'all gotta do.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:43Speaker 04

  Bill, you could literally like sheepishly.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  The bar is so low.

• 1:01:45Speaker 04

  You could legitimately, you know what you could do? You know what Will tells Albert to do in this movie?

• 1:01:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:51Speaker 04

  To dance?

• 1:01:51Bill Simmons?

  Don't do the overbait.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  You live here.

• 1:01:53Speaker 04

  You live here?

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  90 degree angle.

• 1:01:54Speaker 04

  Bill, I'm telling you, if you come through the spirit tunnel, Jennifer, and you like this, people gonna be like, Jesus Christ, that Bill's got soul.

• 1:02:01Bill Simmons?

  It will never happen.

• 1:02:02Speaker 04

  We love Bill.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  I would, I would hire a dance teacher. I would hire a dance teacher. Do you know who I said?

• 1:02:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  You were good.

• 1:02:11Bill Simmons?

  It lives forever, one way or the other. Because the best one ever was Brittany Snow.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  The dude, um, who's the unbelievable? Brittany Snow got busy.

• 1:02:17Speaker 04

  Oh, Hilary Duff, I think, are you talking about Hilary Duff? No, no.

• 1:02:19Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm talking about Brittany Snow.

• 1:02:21Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Who's the absurdly hot guy who's coming in lanterns? What's his name again? He's in lanterns with Kyle Chandler. The guy who's like too hot for to be real.

• 1:02:31Speaker 04

  You're talking about, uh?

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  You know, with the light eyes.

• 1:02:32Speaker 04

  Why is my, why is he blinking? You, Rebel Ridge.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Aaron Pierre.

• 1:02:36Speaker 04

  Oh, Aaron Pierre.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  The clip of him doing that.

• 1:02:39Speaker 04

  He went nuts, yeah.

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  Was, the comment section was so feral, they had to shut it down.

• 1:02:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  Because it has, I think like.

• 1:02:47Bill Simmons?

  In a good way or a bad way?

• 1:02:48Speaker 04

  Oh, they were going nuts. My mama was up in there. They were like, they, they were like, yo, you know, you met her. But like, they, they was, they was going nuts.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  If you, I'm just saying, if you kill that, it is your shot.

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  Bill, you could do it.

• 1:03:01Bill Simmons?

  Brittany Snow. Um, what's our most rewatchable scene?

• 1:03:04Speaker 04

  I'm gonna name something that I think is, it is the most laugh out loud funny moment in the movie to me.

• 1:03:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Speaker 04

  So, there's a great moment where Will goes to Allegra to plead Albert's case. And they have this cute little thing where he realizes he didn't do anything. And you exhale as an audience. And then he grabs her the holder, and just as he does that, Albert slides into frame. And he goes, is this your plan the whole time? Take my girl, and then he attacks Will. Every time, I've seen that a dozen times. Every time it happens, I laugh my ass off.

• 1:03:39Bill Simmons?

  What do you have?

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  I think it's the dance lessons coupled with Hitch giving him advice, some of it a voiceover while he's on the first date. It's not just, the dance stuff is amazing, contract, you see him dancing the date. When he's, uh, I wrote it down. When he teaches him where, him where to put his hand. And he says, watch your hand placement, too high says, I want to be friends, too low says, I just want to grab some ass. And he goes, friends, ass, me. And then it cuts to him doing that. I love that scene so much.

• 1:04:05Bill Simmons?

  That's the most rewatchable scene.

• 1:04:06Speaker 04

  It is.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  It's so funny.

• 1:04:07Speaker 04

  That's, that's the scene that like.

• 1:04:09Bill Simmons?

  With that said, I really love seeing New York City with the jet skis and the Hudson River and all that stuff. I would give that great shot, Gordo. I would also give that. The Den of Thieves, Benihana. I just like.

• 1:04:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:20Bill Simmons?

  It's this kind of New York scene I've never seen in a movie.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:04:23Bill Simmons?

  And it was also, this movie's four, less than four years after nine eleven, and it's just like, New York's starting to feel like it's coming back.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  Made me want a jet ski.

• 1:04:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was just, it was cool. I liked that they did that. All right. Uh, what's the most two thousand five thing about this movie? I could offer you, um, famous gossip columnist.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Bill Simmons?

  Michael Rappaport as the buddy in a rom com. Or Stephon Marbury in a Knicks uniform. I think it has to be the winner.

• 1:04:48Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:50Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 1:04:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, all of that stuff is very the.

• 1:04:53Bill Simmons?

  Any other ones?

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  Um, I think, so, okay. A- as I said, I think Will Smith and what he does, all of it actually has not aged poorly. The way he talks about women, what he's teaching these guys. But the fact that it's all these guys dating women who are physically out of their leagues, I don't think you would see in a movie now. Like, you wouldn't see, like, all the guys he's coaching are like, he's coaching up to, like, go after hot women. That's just kind of a very early to mid two thousands dynamic. You just don't see that often.

• 1:05:24Bill Simmons?

  Rappaport.

• 1:05:26Speaker 04

  You gonna call her or what?

• 1:05:28Speaker 02

  He's obsessed with that hot woman who walks in the bar, which is weird.

• 1:05:31Speaker 04

  So here's the thing about that scene, just to let you know. So we learn later, we learn later that Rappaport's character is married to Will Smith's sister, basically.

• 1:05:39Speaker 02

  Yes, which I don't understand.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  It's not, it's not at all clear in the beginning.

• 1:05:42Speaker 04

  It's not clear in the beginning.

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  I don't know why that's a part of the movie.

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  So why is he helping? He's like, you wanna go get these women? What?

• 1:05:47Speaker 04

  So, so Will, though, is still.

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:50Speaker 04

  With his brother in law, being like, hey, man, you want me to go get him and bring him over here?

• 1:05:54Speaker 02

  I know, it's very weird.

• 1:05:54Speaker 04

  Watching his brother in law, kind of look at the, it's like.

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  Super weird.

• 1:05:58Bill Simmons?

  They said that, that Rappaport, uh, didn't fare well in the editing process of this movie. Cause he's like the fourth lead, leading build person in the movie.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:06Bill Simmons?

  He's at, or top five, and he's in one scene.

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  Maybe they had other scenes with him that were cut.

• 1:06:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they definitely did. Uh, the Floyd Gondolli butter in my ass and lollipops in my mouth award for something I just enjoy. What do you got, Bina?

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Well, I told you, it's Will Smith being smooth, like, all, cause most of the movie, he's not that, like, the whole gist of it is, he gets David Mendez by actually screwing up and kind of bumbling and whatnot, the allergies, Ellis Island and that. But the moments where you get to see him be smooth, first time he approaches her, the fact that he, and this is similar to Gosling in, um, Crazy Stupid Love, that he lets it go. Lets the fish back into catch and release.

• 1:06:40Bill Simmons?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  The smoothest thing a guy can do is catch and release. As a tactic.

• 1:06:45Bill Simmons?

  What do you have?

• 1:06:46Speaker 04

  I got the Vance Munson character. I just love.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  I love him.

• 1:06:50Speaker 04

  A pure asshole. The moment that you, he's sitting down, talking to him, you know something's off because he's like, hey man, this guy ain't ugly. This guy can get a, get a lady.

• 1:06:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:00Speaker 04

  That, that whole thing, I just love that character. I love in every movie, just a straight up terrible person.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  Terrible.

• 1:07:07Bill Simmons?

  I gave Vance the Ches Rockwell Brocklanders Award for best character name, Vance Munson. What are the odds? That guy was gonna be a good character.

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  That actor too. I've seen him in other stuff and I like him. He plays, did you watch Fargo, season two? He plays one of the super evil midwestern mobs. Fargo one, season one, two, and three are amazing.

• 1:07:25Bill Simmons?

  Good, yeah.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  He, he plays one of the evil mobsters in that. And I think he's in a bunch of like Law and Order stuff. He's just got such incredible resting douchebag face.

• 1:07:33Bill Simmons?

  So, I had this in What's Age the Best. His name's Jeffrey Donovan. Seeing him in a rom-com, this is a guy who's been, I think in both Sicario movies.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  He's the glasses guy!

• 1:07:43Bill Simmons?

  He was in.

• 1:07:44Speaker 04

  That's who he, yeah!

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  Oh, he's on.

• 1:07:46Bill Simmons?

  He's in Shot Caller.

• 1:07:47Speaker 04

  That's, that's where I know him from.

• 1:07:49Bill Simmons?

  He's, you see him and it's like, this guy's up to bad shit.

• 1:07:52Speaker 04

  I thought it was Sicario, but it's actually Shot, Shot Caller. He, he plays the dude that's like, yeah, on the yard.

• 1:07:56Bill Simmons?

  He, yeah.

• 1:07:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  What's the character's name, the guy with the glasses? Who's, uh, Gravers, uh, he, he's, he's like one of his like right-hand guy. Yeah.

• 1:08:04Speaker 04

  But in Shot Caller.

• 1:08:05Bill Simmons?

  But you see this movie and there's a, there's a darkness to that guy from all the other movies and he's perfect as Vance Munson.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  I'm telling you, it's his face. I'm sorry. He, he's actually, you know, just some people just have those faces.

• 1:08:16Bill Simmons?

  My, uh, Floyd Gondole is in a rom-com when the character's watching another rom-com.

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:25Bill Simmons?

  When they cross the, cross the streams.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:28Bill Simmons?

  And this one, they did it with, uh, what was?

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Jerry Maguire, yeah.

• 1:08:31Bill Simmons?

  Jerry Maguire, yeah, yeah. And Eva Mendes is getting choked up.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  Mid nineties, late nineties?

• 1:08:36Speaker 02

  Is that kind of a weird, I'm sad movie to throw on? Jerry Maguire?

• 1:08:40Bill Simmons?

  Well, she, it was the.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  Speaking from experience, no.

• 1:08:43Bill Simmons?

  It was the pivotal moment, though. It was when he's trying to win her back.

• 1:08:46Speaker 04

  I'd say, I'd say, I know him from those things, but that's actually not no, I want to know him.

• 1:08:49Bill Simmons?

  Jeffrey Donovan?

• 1:08:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  What do you know?

• 1:08:51Bill Simmons?

  So you just did the thing where you.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  Burn Notice!

• 1:08:53Bill Simmons?

  Burn Notice, another one.

• 1:08:54Speaker 04

  Burn Notice, he was, he's the guy from Burn Notice.

• 1:08:56Bill Simmons?

  I don't think he's that guy. I think he's Jeffrey Donovan.

• 1:08:58Speaker 04

  I think he's Jeffrey Donovan. But Burn Notice, yeah, Burn Notice.

• 1:09:00Bill Simmons?

  Spent it too many things. What's Age the Best? The walkie talkie trick you mentioned, I thought that was really funny and would never ever work now because I just don't, I don't think anyone would bring walkie talkies into anything and people are probably thinking it was a little bit creepy.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  No, I feel like this is the coolest guy ever.

• 1:09:19Bill Simmons?

  Andy Tennant's quote is what's aged the best about Will Smith. This was him saying Will Smith wasn't that bad to work with. Even the hard times, he'd always say, wait until the junket. We're going around the world with this and we did and it was great. It was the most amazing trip I'd ever been on and when it was over, my time with Will was over. I've never heard from him since.

• 1:09:39Bill Simmons?

  They just traveled like 50 countries.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:09:42Bill Simmons?

  Junkets sound amazing.

• 1:09:43Speaker 04

  They do.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  I just, when I looked up the Andy Tennant, the first thing I saw was a quote from last year of him saying Will Smith, his production company is making a sequel and he didn't tell him.

• 1:09:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there was like some 20th anniversary history.

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  And he's like, that's Hollywood, I guess.

• 1:09:57Bill Simmons?

  We had an Andy Tennant at ESPN forever.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  Okay, so when I looked at.

• 1:10:00Bill Simmons?

  Who ran E60.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  He's still at ESPN?

• 1:10:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  And when I saw, when I looked at Andy Tennant's IMDb, who made this movie, in addition to all the romantic comedies, it says E60 and I'm sure they mixed it up with our Andy Tennant.

• 1:10:13Bill Simmons?

  Different Andy Tennant.

• 1:10:14Speaker 04

  I've never met him.

• 1:10:16Bill Simmons?

  What's aged the best, never lie, steal, cheat or drink, but if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death. If you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away.

• 1:10:27Speaker 04

  I had that one as age the worst.

• 1:10:28Speaker 02

  This was the lamest.

• 1:10:30Speaker 04

  Like I had that when you, you say that to some lady on a date right now, she gonna put you on Twitter.

• 1:10:36Speaker 02

  It is the lamest.

• 1:10:37Speaker 04

  Like she gonna put you on Twitter. She gonna be like, this dude is an idiot.

• 1:10:40Bill Simmons?

  But I enjoy it.

• 1:10:41Speaker 04

  Like, like, that's a terrible.

• 1:10:43Speaker 02

  Unless I'm misreading it and the point is it's supposed to be corny.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's bad. She looks at him like.

• 1:10:47Bill Simmons?

  I thought it was intentionally corny, which was what was funny about it.

• 1:10:50Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:10:51Speaker 04

  At this point, she's a little off. She's a little off him. I, I, I don't know, but I think it's always.

• 1:10:56Speaker 02

  I think he thinks it's cool and I think the movie's trying to say that if she were still into him, she would have liked that. Which I don't.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  Do you know how you feel about his speech at the end about flying and, cause he has, okay, so it's a testament to Will Smith's supervisory that he has many corny lines in this movie. Many of them do not succeed. I actually don't think the final one really succeeds as well. He gives her that speech about like flying and leap and whatever. It's still fine because the ending and the kiss, but I don't know. Some of his lines are not great.

• 1:11:24Bill Simmons?

  What do you have for What's Aged The Best?

• 1:11:26Speaker 04

  Camera phones. She pulls out her little flip phone. She takes a picture of him. We have, we can shoot whole fucking documentaries and movies on our camera phones now. They've aged really well. Also, a movie about teaching people how to interact. I don't think people understand how bad things are. Like, I watched a whole mini doc. I watched a whole mini doc about how, right now, in Japan, they're having like national security issues from a low birth rate. And like seniors living longer and kids not fucking enough because they don't know how to meet people. And we are maybe a half a generation behind the fact that people cannot interact, interact, becoming a economic time bomb and like blowing up societies.

• 1:12:11Speaker 04

  And this entire movie is about a guy just teaching people like how to talk to women and get out of their own way. That point, we looked at those people as kind of like, oh, these are guys. But now, that's like an epidemic of its own.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  Your take coincides perfectly with mine. I had What's Aged The Best, the way Will Smith talks about women and talks to women. And I really believe we now desperately need a Will Smith in the world to counterpill all the like incel, red pill, manover. We need Hitch. We need Hitch more than ever.

• 1:12:49Speaker 04

  It's true.

• 1:12:49Bill Simmons?

  Hitch 2.0.

• 1:12:50Speaker 04

  But right now, if Hitch was doing this, Hitch would be like, yes, I'll teach you all the ways to get all of these women. It's gonna cost you $150 a month to be on the S tier of my shit.

• 1:13:02Bill Simmons?

  Here's my Substack.

• 1:13:02Speaker 04

  And behind Hitch, it would be like two chicks in bathing suits. He's in Miami and they look like they're gonna fuck at any moment.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  If we had Hitch now, there'd be, there'd be three women who barely talk on a panel. He's talking to like some other guy who sucks. He's like, kings, know your worth unless she comes to you. It'd be horrible. This is 2005 and this man has a better sexual politics, I said in the beginning, than like a lot of people now.

• 1:13:30Bill Simmons?

  Awful what you said, Van. That's the things I get complimented the most on have nothing to do with me. One is my wife. And then the other are how my kids can have conversations with people. And people actually say that to me and my wife, like, it's so nice that your kids just know how to talk to people.

• 1:13:49Speaker 04

  I could, I could do a whole thing on it.

• 1:13:50Bill Simmons?

  Van could go on this for a half hour.

• 1:13:52Speaker 04

  The whole audience gonna feel like I'm dick riding, but I'm not gonna do it. But like, it, no, it, it just is.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Why don't you launch a show like this where you talk to men about how to talk to women?

• 1:14:01Speaker 04

  Cause I stay out of men's business.

• 1:14:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we just found that out earlier.

• 1:14:04Speaker 04

  I say like, hey, you gotta stay, you gotta stay out of men's business, man. Whatever y'all got going over there, y'all got going on over there. Like, if I gotta check you.

• 1:14:12Bill Simmons?

  You're marrying a serial killer, I'm not gonna judge you.

• 1:14:14Speaker 04

  Hey, you like the way she kills? I don't know what, I don't know.

• 1:14:18Bill Simmons?

  Did the people deserve to die?

• 1:14:19Speaker 04

  Maybe they did.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  Coaching them up is what I'm saying. I'm not saying intervening, literally. But I'm saying just like coaching.

• 1:14:26Bill Simmons?

  Well, goes that, we need more role, we need more positive role models.

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:30Speaker 04

  I'm definitely not one of those.

• 1:14:32Bill Simmons?

  Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness Award for Best Needle Drop, Usher with the Yeah song.

• 1:14:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's good.

• 1:14:37Bill Simmons?

  Great to have you back. We had a few of the songs from the, from the 90s and the early 2000s popping in this movie.

• 1:14:43Speaker 04

  It's a, it's a good needle drop, uh, it's a good needle drop movie, though.

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:47Speaker 04

  They got Ooh Wee is in there, they got Usher's, they got John Legend's in there. It's like a good needle drop movie.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  The John Legend cover when there is when they're jet skiing, I really, the Don't You Worry About a thing.

• 1:14:56Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  But it opens with like back to back Motown, like romantic comedy hits.

• 1:15:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  They, they just go as he gets his basic principles.

• 1:15:03Speaker 04

  Did we talk about the opening where Hitch basically uses all of the different guys to like outline, overlay his philosophy and all that? Did we talk about that?

• 1:15:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we did the Hitch tips.

• 1:15:14Speaker 01

  It's a great scene. It's up there.

• 1:15:16Bill Simmons?

  They realized they didn't clear Yeah and Will Smith just called Usher and Usher gave him permission. Cause Will Smith was the fucking man in 2005.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  So smooth.

• 1:15:23Bill Simmons?

  He's like, hold on, I'll call Usher.

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was so.

• 1:15:25Speaker 04

  Can we get the movie?

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  Were you out of college when Yeah came out?

• 1:15:28Speaker 04

  I was out of, yeah, I was out of college. Just like one year, I was kinda out, but still in, still in college mode. Out of college, but still in college mode.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  See, when I was watching this, I was going back to being 13 and thinking about Will Smith. But then when Yeah came on, I went back to 18 year old Mina in the basement of SAE, just yeah, pounding, people playing beer pong.

• 1:15:47Speaker 04

  Crazy, man.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  What was the biggest song in college in America that year?

• 1:15:53Bill Simmons?

  That would be a funny thing to, what was the biggest song each year?

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:57Bill Simmons?

  Cause that OutKast, that Hey Yeah song. Whatever year that was, but each year there was that Justin Timberlake song that one year.

• 1:16:04Speaker 04

  Which one?

• 1:16:04Bill Simmons?

  But like 05.

• 1:16:05Speaker 04

  Sexy Back?

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  Sexy Back or Cry Me a River?

• 1:16:07Speaker 04

  06?

• 1:16:08Bill Simmons?

  06?

• 1:16:09Speaker 04

  Yeah Sexy Back, whatever.

• 1:16:10Bill Simmons?

  But each year there was one. What was this, what was the CeeLo song?

• 1:16:14Speaker 04

  Fuck you.

• 1:16:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. That was like 07, 08?

• 1:16:17Speaker 04

  Something like that, yeah. That was a massive one too. All of these songs are gigantic, like in that regard.

• 1:16:21Bill Simmons?

  You just, you think of the year and there's a song.

• 1:16:23Speaker 01

  Right? There's no Will Smith songs on this.

• 1:16:25Bill Simmons?

  No, it was disappointing actually.

• 1:16:26Speaker 04

  I think he was over it by this point. I don't know, I think Wawa West might have been the last time he went to the well.

• 1:16:30Bill Simmons?

  Surprised he didn't go into the lab and come up with a Hudson song.

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  Cook up some, get hitched or something.

• 1:16:35Bill Simmons?

  For Hudson Jetskies.

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  Wawa West came out what year? 2009? Okay, yeah, you're right.

• 1:16:39Speaker 04

  2000, something like that?

• 1:16:41Bill Simmons?

  Was there a better title for this movie? The movie's working title was called The Last First Kiss.

• 1:16:45Speaker 01

  Terrible, terrible. No, Hitch is a perfect title.

• 1:16:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I agree. Alright, we're gonna take one more break, then Mina has a flex category. This episode is brought to you by Panda Express. Telling someone you love them, it isn't always easy, but showing them through food? Sometimes that's better than words, especially when that food's wak cooked at Panda Express, a Joe House favorite. Pick from delicious classics like orange chicken, honey walnut shrimp, Kung Pao chicken, and black pepper sirloin steak. Perfect for when you're watching the team you love or eating with the person you love. Have you eaten yet? Click or tap the banner to order or visit a Panda Express near you. This episode is brought to by Viori. When it comes to clothes that score high in both comfort and style, Viori is my MVP.

• 1:17:32Bill Simmons?

  Sunday performance joggers, oh yeah. They have the perfect, I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe. And the Meta pant, that's my number one, I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at Viori.com/Simmons and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply, visit the website for full terms and conditions.

• 1:17:53Bill Simmons?

  Alright, Mina, your flex category is?

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  Um, alright. I'm gonna go with What Age is the Worst? I'm loathe to say his name again because it's kinda like Candyman, he'll show up in our mentions, but Michael Rapaport as a likable friend.

• 1:18:11Speaker 05

  Here we go.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 1:18:15Speaker 05

  Uh, here we go.

• 1:18:19Bill Simmons?

  What, what flex category is that though? Just, you just put that in what says the worst?

• 1:18:23Speaker 04

  You just looking for a reason to shoot?

• 1:18:27Speaker 04

  That's not a flex category, that's like.

• 1:18:31Bill Simmons?

  The meaning of drive by word.

• 1:18:33Speaker 01

  That man searches himself. And that's why I regret doing this. I was thinking though, around this time, when I watched this movie, I was like, ah, Michael Rapaport, like, hey, you know, likable friend, 90s movies, all that. And then, now I'm just like, that's so crazy, that he was a likable cameo during that period, so. Um.

• 1:18:57Speaker 04

  I just don't feel like doing it, man.

• 1:18:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's just.

• 1:18:59Speaker 04

  I don't feel like it could be like a whole fucking.

• 1:19:01Bill Simmons?

  You're waving a flamingo for the van.

• 1:19:03Speaker 04

  It's like a whole fucking thing, it's like, oh, you know, come on.

• 1:19:06Speaker 01

  All right, someone else go.

• 1:19:10Bill Simmons?

  The Amanda Dobbins word for best piece of real estate? The Kevin Smith kiss scene, when Will Smith and they're on this, when, uh, when, uh, Kevin Smith tries to kiss Amber Valletta?

• 1:19:21Speaker 02

  Kevin James, yeah.

• 1:19:22Bill Simmons?

  Kevin James. I don't know why I said Kevin Smith.

• 1:19:25Speaker 02

  Will Smith, Kevin James.

• 1:19:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:27Speaker 04

  I think that in the notes a couple times.

• 1:19:28Bill Simmons?

  The director said, Will and I went to a brownstone we liked, walked up to the door, knocked on the door to see if we got permission to shoot there. It turned out to be Sarah Jessica Parker's house.

• 1:19:38Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 1:19:38Bill Simmons?

  And she was like, hi. And we said, can we answer the doorstep?

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 1:19:44Bill Simmons?

  She saw Will Smith.

• 1:19:45Speaker 04

  That's horseshit, dawg.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't believe that she answered her own door.

• 1:19:47Speaker 04

  That never happened, bro. Are you nuts?

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  This was like, this was like peak Sex and the City years.

• 1:19:53Speaker 04

  So you, so, so you're looking for a place to shoot, you knock on the door.

• 1:19:57Bill Simmons?

  Will Smith, Will Smith really liked the brownstone, so he's like, I'm gonna knock on the door, basically, I'm Will Smith.

• 1:20:03Speaker 04

  And then she.

• 1:20:03Bill Simmons?

  Carrie Bradshaw answers, they have a moment, she's like, sure, you can shoot in the step. That's the story.

• 1:20:08Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:20:09Speaker 02

  All right.

• 1:20:10Bill Simmons?

  Not buying that one?

• 1:20:10Speaker 04

  Maybe that happened, if since Will knocked, since Will knocked, and it's her, maybe this is one of those brilliant, amazing New York things that can only happen there.

• 1:20:18Bill Simmons?

  Butch's girlfriend award for weak link of the film. What do you have, Van?

• 1:20:22Speaker 04

  Uh, you guys aren't gonna like my answer. I think just the chemistry between Will Smith and Eva Mendes. I do not think there's very much chemistry. I think it works.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:32Speaker 04

  For the movie.

• 1:20:33Bill Simmons?

  It's not like he had with Margot Robbie in Focus.

• 1:20:36Speaker 04

  It's not like that. It's also the chemistry in the movie that works the best.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  It's him and Kevin James.

• 1:20:41Speaker 04

  It's him and Kevin James.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  A hundred percent, yeah. That was one of my notes.

• 1:20:43Speaker 02

  And even Kevin James and Allegra Cole have better chemistry than Will Smith and Eva Mendes.

• 1:20:48Speaker 04

  I don't think the chemistry is all of that.

• 1:20:50Speaker 02

  It's not bad, but.

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  It's okay, but it's not what's so memorable from.

• 1:20:54Bill Simmons?

  It's not like her and Denzel.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  Is that, what would you say is her best pairing? I guess, you love Beyond the Pines, yeah.

• 1:21:05Speaker 04

  I think that, I think that A Place Beyond the Pines, A Place Beyond the Pines is a desperate, beautiful, tragic, amazing, sublime tale of the human condition. I think it's a legitimately amazing movie and I think her and Ryan Gosling in the movie are heartbreaking, but like gorgeous. I love it.

• 1:21:23Speaker 01

  Is she, is, what year was that?

• 1:21:25Speaker 04

  It's like 2012, 13.

• 1:21:27Bill Simmons?

  What do you have for weak link?

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I'm just looking at now Eva Mendes.

• 1:21:30Speaker 02

  She's great in the other guys as Will Ferrell.

• 1:21:32Speaker 01

  Well, that movie, there's that clip that goes viral. Y'all know the clip that goes viral like literally once a month?

• 1:21:39Speaker 04

  No, I'm sorry, bro.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  One of the best movie clips.

• 1:21:44Bill Simmons?

  It's on the rewatch list.

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  It's like the Tom Holland umbrella clip where if it comes on, I will watch it from start to finish every time. It's so funny.

• 1:21:51Speaker 04

  Is that what you're wearing? So, obviously the party that exists and many roles exist, but Mark Wahlberg is brilliant in that scene.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  He's so funny in that scene. He's so funny.

• 1:22:01Speaker 04

  No, seriously, who is that?

• 1:22:03Speaker 01

  I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm such a mess.

• 1:22:07Bill Simmons?

  That's the thing. There's only like nine or 10 extras in the last 30 years who could have been perfect for that scene. You know? My weak link of the film, I think the kissing scene with Will Smith and Kevin James is, is a little odd. It's just, it's a weird scene.

• 1:22:23Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  You being.

• 1:22:25Speaker 04

  What, what, what makes you uncomfortable about it, Bill?

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  Is it? Are you uncomfortable with how uncomfortable they are and you're being an ally?

• 1:22:32Bill Simmons?

  No, it's not an uncomfortable thing.

• 1:22:33Speaker 04

  Great save, Mina.

• 1:22:35Bill Simmons?

  It's not an uncomfortable thing.

• 1:22:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, maybe it is.

• 1:22:37Bill Simmons?

  It goes on for like a minute too long and it's just one of those like, alright, we get it. You're trying to teach them. I don't know, I just, I just couldn't get there with it.

• 1:22:45Speaker 04

  Hmm, it's funny.

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  So you didn't watch I Now Pronounce You, Chuck and Larry?

• 1:22:49Speaker 02

  Oh yeah.

• 1:22:49Bill Simmons?

  I didn't like that movie.

• 1:22:50Speaker 04

  One of the, talk about scenes that are great.

• 1:22:52Speaker 02

  The Jessica Biel scene mattered to me as a kid.

• 1:22:54Speaker 04

  There's a great scene in that motherfucker. One of the best scenes ever.

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. I liked that movie.

• 1:23:01Bill Simmons?

  You liked that?

• 1:23:02Speaker 02

  I don't know if it holds up.

• 1:23:03Bill Simmons?

  Kevin James, you liked that whole scene?

• 1:23:05Speaker 04

  It's whatever. I'm fucking with you.

• 1:23:06Bill Simmons?

  I just thought it wasn't a great scene.

• 1:23:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's whatever.

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  There's a great, there's a great.

• 1:23:11Speaker 04

  It's one of the more, it's one of the more iconic scenes of the movie, which is, that's why the take is interesting, but I don't, it doesn't bother me.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  It's a great category for this movie.

• 1:23:19Bill Simmons?

  Weeklink?

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  Oh no, weak link? I was thinking of something else. Um...

• 1:23:24Bill Simmons?

  Cause we gotta move on to What's Hitting Worst if you have the weak link here.

• 1:23:27Speaker 01

  I don't think there are any weak links in this movie. I feel like the main core actors are all pretty solid.

• 1:23:36Bill Simmons?

  What's Hitting Worst? Newspaper office, let's do it. Um, what the fuck is going on in this office? And what was this newspaper? Is it a daily?

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  It's a tabloid. It's like a post.

• 1:23:45Bill Simmons?

  It's like a news, post, daily news competitor.

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:48Bill Simmons?

  But they have an office that's out of, it's the nicest, I've never seen a nicer office, ever.

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  I actually had this as most 2005 thing about the movie, which is thriving tabloid industry. And I think 2005 might be a little bit late for it. Really, the JFK show is what brought you back to when like paparazzi and tabloids, this obviously Yerfield, were just so massive. But I actually think like, early 2000s, a tabloid.

• 1:24:14Bill Simmons?

  TMZ's gotten taken over.

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and even like Perez Hilton and things like that.

• 1:24:19Speaker 04

  Our office was fucking beautiful.

• 1:24:20Bill Simmons?

  Not like this office though.

• 1:24:22Speaker 04

  Shit!

• 1:24:22Bill Simmons?

  This had like a fake garden.

• 1:24:24Speaker 04

  I'm not even going, Trip, we had a, we, you know, out in Playa Vista, we had a whole, this is a great office. Big, beautiful, shit everywhere, ping pong, the whole nine. Our shit was dope. At the meerkat market, right there, go get something to eat.

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  I never had that experience. When I lived in New York, writing for Fortune magazine, I was in a cubicle writing about like IPOs. So it was not fun.

• 1:24:47Bill Simmons?

  ESPN the magazine had a really nice, big, giant office.

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  They did, yeah, I used to go in there.

• 1:24:51Bill Simmons?

  And then at one point, they just looked at the numbers, and they're like, wait, why do we have this office?

• 1:24:55Speaker 04

  Get out.

• 1:24:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was huge.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  It was the building, oh, you mean the one in New York before they moved to Bristol?

• 1:24:59Bill Simmons?

  The one in New York. It was half-empty at all times.

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:02Bill Simmons?

  It was in the best part of the city. It was pretty great.

• 1:25:05Speaker 04

  Couple of things for me.

• 1:25:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, go.

• 1:25:06Speaker 04

  Okay, real quick, rapid fire. Almost everything Hitch does in this movie with her would be considered just like way too much and creepy now.

• 1:25:12Speaker 02

  Totally. The first date, to me, way over the top.

• 1:25:15Speaker 04

  Everything he does with her now, it's too much. Can't do it anymore. Everybody assumes the worst, can't do it.

• 1:25:20Bill Simmons?

  Walkie-talkies, like, they're Googling this guy to see if he's on a list.

• 1:25:24Speaker 02

  If our first date is at 7:00 AM, we're riding jet skis, and then I show you Ellis Island, and I'm about your great-great-grandfather, I'm like, Jesus Christ, stalker.

• 1:25:31Speaker 04

  We talked about this, the date doctor thing. Oh, go for it.

• 1:25:36Bill Simmons?

  She liked the jet skis.

• 1:25:37Speaker 01

  None of it bothered me.

• 1:25:39Speaker 04

  Okay. Okay.

• 1:25:41Bill Simmons?

  Walkie-talkies were...

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  Don't laugh.

• 1:25:43Bill Simmons?

  Were great for '05, now you can never do it.

• 1:25:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, you would know better than us.

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  I know, but I've already been cast as a chump and a mark. But I gotta say, if a guy pulled the walkie-talkie thing on me, it'd be curtains.

• 1:25:59Speaker 04

  Can I be honest with you, though? It depends. Doesn't it all depend on the guy? Because if...

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:26:04Speaker 04

  Because if you like the guy, then...

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  It's the human resources meeting, yeah.

• 1:26:07Bill Simmons?

  I thought the 7:00 AM was more offensive than the jet skis.

• 1:26:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, 7:00 AM is fucking early. You're getting off the phone with a friend. It's like, man, do you think it's weird that he asked her to come somewhere at 7 o'clock? Is this guy like, what's he gonna do? There's nobody outside at 7 o'clock. What's gonna happen?

• 1:26:20Speaker 01

  Get on a jet ski and go into the Hudson, yeah.

• 1:26:23Speaker 04

  So, couple of things. Number one, you know what you don't see in movies anymore? Women slapping or slash assaulting asshole men.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  Oh, she needs him in the.

• 1:26:33Speaker 04

  She needs him in his nuts.

• 1:26:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:34Speaker 04

  I, I thought immediately at that point, she should have called the police on her. She called the authorities, that's an assault. Like, we don't, we don't hit.

• 1:26:41Bill Simmons?

  Like Kevin James when he assaults the newsstand.

• 1:26:43Speaker 04

  Does it matter? Does it matter how upset you are emotionally? Don't hit. Don't hit, we don't hit anymore. Um, and that, and really, the only thing I had here was Will Smith's choice to fall in love with Eva Mendes and not Paula Patton. He just, well, Paula Patton was something special in this bitch, I'm not gonna lie, man.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  More than Eva Mendes.

• 1:27:01Speaker 04

  Eva Mendes is special. But Paula Patton is.

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  Eva Mendes in this movie, I, had me looking up where she ranked, you talked about Maxim, in the Maxim lists from the year.

• 1:27:10Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  Never cracked the top five, which honestly, in retrospect, makes me question the integrity of the list. I was like, if Eva Mendes never made the top five, circa mid 2000s.

• 1:27:18Bill Simmons?

  Just for terrible.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  Bought and sold.

• 1:27:21Speaker 04

  I was about to diss people, I'm not gonna do it.

• 1:27:23Bill Simmons?

  For what's age the worst? I think the movie does drag in the middle a little bit. Um, weirdly, never with the Kevin James scenes. It's always when it's just Will Smith and Eva Mendes and there's a couple in the middle there that I feel like, especially after the food allergies.

• 1:27:36Speaker 01

  I don't love the food allergies. The whole fake food rave, food allergies, the thing is, doesn't work.

• 1:27:40Bill Simmons?

  Um, Kevin James's char- character in, uh, 2026.

• 1:27:48Bill Simmons?

  Probably an incel.

• 1:27:51Speaker 01

  I think it would be a slightly more believable man. Like, I don't think they would go that extreme, cause nobody would buy it.

• 1:28:01Speaker 04

  That he would be able to get where.

• 1:28:02Speaker 01

  That he would be able to get it like, right, yeah.

• 1:28:03Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:28:05Bill Simmons?

  Uh, you have a flex category, Ben.

• 1:28:07Speaker 04

  I already did it. The Tom Arnold and True Lies, bitch, did you steal my movie award?

• 1:28:12Bill Simmons?

  Well, let's do, you did it, so let's do the CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford hottest take award. I have a hottest take.

• 1:28:18Speaker 01

  I have mine.

• 1:28:19Speaker 04

  I don't have one, that's kind of.

• 1:28:20Bill Simmons?

  Let's go, Nina.

• 1:28:21Speaker 01

  This is the fourth best Will Smith movie of all time.

• 1:28:24Bill Simmons?

  Fourth best? What do you have in the top three?

• 1:28:27Speaker 01

  Uh, I wrote this down. Okay, well, I forget. Uh, okay, I'm not, oh, okay. Men in Black, I do, I do four, Bad Boys, top three. Hitch.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  Than Focus. I think Focus is better than all of a serious movie. I think these two movies are better than all of the serious movies.

• 1:28:45Bill Simmons?

  I, I'll go hotter. I'd have Focus ahead of Hitch.

• 1:28:49Speaker 04

  That's tough.

• 1:28:50Bill Simmons?

  I love Focus.

• 1:28:51Speaker 04

  Focus is good.

• 1:28:52Bill Simmons?

  I don't, Margot Robbie brought something out of him that no other actress brought out of him.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  They had better chemistry. I will say that than this movie.

• 1:28:58Bill Simmons?

  She tapped into something.

• 1:28:59Speaker 04

  If I had the hottest take is that this is probably, I mean, Six Years Separation exists, but you could make an argument that this is Will's best performance. Or this is the movie that is, to me, this movie is more indicative of Will's stardom than any other movie. Every other movie that, so every, so almost every other movie that Will Smith is in that goes crazy, has all of the things that Will Smith, pretty cynically, would go for in a movie to get people out to the theater.

• 1:29:32Speaker 01

  Okay, I hear you.

• 1:29:32Speaker 04

  They have like, it has aliens.

• 1:29:34Bill Simmons?

  You're saying he's got other parts of himself.

• 1:29:36Speaker 04

  But in this movie, this is just Will Smith.

• 1:29:39Bill Simmons?

  Star Paramount.

• 1:29:40Speaker 04

  That's it. So Will Smith, if you like Will Smith, you will love Hitch.

• 1:29:45Bill Simmons?

  But that was kind of I Am Legend too.

• 1:29:46Speaker 04

  Not really.

• 1:29:47Bill Simmons?

  But we're just trapped alone with Will Smith.

• 1:29:49Speaker 04

  No, that's a post-apocalyptic, that's a post-apocalyptic.

• 1:29:52Bill Simmons?

  But we're still alone with Will Smith for an hour.

• 1:29:54Speaker 01

  It's not as good.

• 1:29:55Bill Simmons?

  No, it's not.

• 1:29:55Speaker 04

  But it's a post-apocalyptic vampire movie that's based on a very, very popular piece of fiction.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  You're making the exact same case I made when I voted for Drake May for MVP and got a lot of backlash, but I stand by it. Will Smith was the MVP of this movie and he elevates the surrounding cast in a way he does not have to in any of the other movies that I mentioned. And I think that's a totally valid take.

• 1:30:17Bill Simmons?

  That was Diane Rusini's MVP vote for Lamar Jackson.

• 1:30:20Speaker 04

  We got Rappaport, Rusini. Y'all going for it.

• 1:30:23Speaker 01

  I thought this was going to come when we were talking about Vrabel and people with, you know.

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  I actually thought you were thinking of him.

• 1:30:30Bill Simmons?

  Watching you guys sag into your seats was worth the joke.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  Somebody you love ever with someone, I was like, do not, my brain was like, don't do it, don't do it.

• 1:30:40Bill Simmons?

  I have a hottest take.

• 1:30:41Speaker 04

  Go for it.

• 1:30:42Bill Simmons?

  I'm pretty proud of this one.

• 1:30:45Bill Simmons?

  As you know, I love the Fast and Furious franchise.

• 1:30:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:49Bill Simmons?

  Although I, we probably could have stopped after eight, nine, uh, 10, haven't seen, I got off.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  I don't know how many they made now.

• 1:30:59Bill Simmons?

  Eva Mendes, the biggest mistake they made in the franchise.

• 1:31:02Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 1:31:02Bill Simmons?

  She's in two.

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:04Speaker 04

  Oh, that's why.

• 1:31:04Bill Simmons?

  Two is underrated, two is borderline, like kinda knocking in Too Fast, Too Furious.

• 1:31:08Speaker 01

  Too fast, too furious.

• 1:31:09Bill Simmons?

  She plays an undercover cop in Too Fast.

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's great in it.

• 1:31:13Bill Simmons?

  She's great.

• 1:31:14Speaker 01

  Great, yeah.

• 1:31:14Bill Simmons?

  She's with Paul Walker.

• 1:31:17Bill Simmons?

  We never see her again.

• 1:31:18Speaker 04

  They bring her back for one scene.

• 1:31:19Bill Simmons?

  They bring her back for one scene, I think in, uh, in seven.

• 1:31:21Speaker 04

  Like, like a scene, or they, cause once they start designing, they're gonna connect their world, they're like, oh, remember all of these people, they still exist.

• 1:31:27Bill Simmons?

  She should have been back in four, she should have been in the franchise from that moment on, I don't know why she wasn't, I don't know what happened.

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  Is she the best female lead of the entire franchise to you?

• 1:31:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, I've, I said this on one of the Fast Pods I did with Shay, if, if you just flip her with Michelle Rodriguez from the first movie on, it's a better franchise.

• 1:31:45Speaker 04

  I would agree with that.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  That's a hot take.

• 1:31:46Bill Simmons?

  That was my hot take, I think.

• 1:31:48Speaker 04

  But you're the best.

• 1:31:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's such a different kind of, she's like tough and cool.

• 1:31:51Bill Simmons?

  Eva Mendes could have done it.

• 1:31:52Speaker 04

  I know, but like, uh, uh, Toretto needs, like, yeah.

• 1:31:56Bill Simmons?

  Regardless, we should have had both, she should have been in there, she should have been, I don't know, they bring The Rock instead, I'm not against having The Rock, but I just think, I don't know why they punted on her. Everyone else from, a bunch of other people from Fast Two are in for the rest of them.

• 1:32:10Speaker 04

  Gibson, she becomes a mainstay.

• 1:32:12Bill Simmons?

  She's right there.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  Maybe she didn't wanna make it anymore.

• 1:32:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, she probably, it's probably her.

• 1:32:16Bill Simmons?

  My guess is Michelle Rodriguez is powerful.

• 1:32:17Speaker 04

  Uh, come on, dawg.

• 1:32:18Speaker 01

  Why is it always gonna be women against women? Why are you always gonna?

• 1:32:21Bill Simmons?

  I am, I am the female of this franchise, she's out. No, but I don't know what, I don't know what they were thinking, cause she's great in Fast Two. Anyway.

• 1:32:30Speaker 04

  You know, Fast Two, we weren't ready, if we would have known that the whole, this is my thought about Fast Two, if we'd have known that the whole band was gonna eventually get back together, we'd have loved and respected Fast Two more, but we thought that Vin Diesel and all those people were done with that franchise.

• 1:32:48Bill Simmons?

  Vin Diesel wasn't in Fast Two and it broke everyone's brain.

• 1:32:50Speaker 04

  That's what happened.

• 1:32:51Bill Simmons?

  But if you watch Fast Two, it's a good movie.

• 1:32:53Speaker 04

  It's a good movie, if we'd have known.

• 1:32:54Bill Simmons?

  Walker vehicle.

• 1:32:55Speaker 04

  If we'd have known that everybody was coming back, we'd have loved Fast Two with the whole deal and everything like that.

• 1:33:00Bill Simmons?

  No, but it was like, you're not, you're making Fast Two, but Vin Diesel's not in it.

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  If you rank them all?

• 1:33:06Bill Simmons?

  I mean, it's not as good as.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  Have you done this? Have you done the whole like?

• 1:33:09Bill Simmons?

  No, but it's not. You have one, four, five, six, seven in some order have to be the first five.

• 1:33:15Speaker 01

  Which was Tokyo Drift?

• 1:33:16Speaker 02

  Three.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:33:18Bill Simmons?

  Three's really good.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, three's so good. Tokyo Drift's so good.

• 1:33:20Bill Simmons?

  Two or three are in the running for the six spot.

• 1:33:22Speaker 01

  Tokyo Drift, yeah.

• 1:33:23Speaker 04

  They brought Bow Wow back.

• 1:33:24Bill Simmons?

  I support two and three.

• 1:33:25Speaker 04

  Down to Bow Wow.

• 1:33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, good.

• 1:33:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but once we get to eight with Charlize, it starts kind of going sideways and then we're on ice and.

• 1:33:35Bill Simmons?

  Um, casting what ifs. Patton Oswalt was the second choice for the Kevin James part, apparently.

• 1:33:40Speaker 02

  Oh, god. I mean, I like Patton Oswalt, but that.

• 1:33:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's not.

• 1:33:44Speaker 04

  No, you don't like Patton Oswalt.

• 1:33:45Speaker 02

  I love Patton Oswalt.

• 1:33:45Speaker 04

  No, you don't.

• 1:33:46Speaker 02

  Uh, he's also in King of Queens with Kevin James.

• 1:33:48Speaker 04

  You just, somebody, somebody just.

• 1:33:50Speaker 01

  Patton Oswalt was in King of Queens?

• 1:33:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, he plays this, uh, brother.

• 1:33:53Speaker 04

  Someone just said his name, Bill, and you went, oh, god, I don't think you like him that much.

• 1:33:57Speaker 02

  No, for this movie, it doesn't make any sense.

• 1:33:59Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:34:01Bill Simmons?

  A picture of Alexander Skarsgård.

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  Yes, this is the cameo, yeah.

• 1:34:05Bill Simmons?

  Is the tabloid photograph when it talks about Allegra's cheating boyfriend.

• 1:34:09Speaker 01

  Incredible interview I came across where he said he was devastated that his actual scenes were cut. The concept of Alexander Skarsgård being devastated by having a scene cut from Hitch is just so funny. But he was like not in movies then. He just did True Blood.

• 1:34:22Bill Simmons?

  Like my friend talked about this on the What Lies Beneath pod, my friend from high school, Scott Carino, was Michelle Pfeiffer's dead husband in a picture.

• 1:34:31Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 1:34:31Bill Simmons?

  And we were all excited. It was like, Scott got a break.

• 1:34:33Speaker 01

  That movie is so scary.

• 1:34:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's a good movie.

• 1:34:36Speaker 01

  It's so scary.

• 1:34:36Bill Simmons?

  Uh, and then, uh, Ali Larder provided the face and body shots for the fake starlet and some Esquire magazine thing they did as well. That's it. There weren't a lot of casting what ifs. Best that guy, Jeffrey Donovan. Dion Waiters has to be Chip the Bar Guy.

• 1:34:54Speaker 04

  Chip or Vance.

• 1:34:55Bill Simmons?

  Unless you go Paula Patton.

• 1:34:57Speaker 04

  You can go Paula Patton. Dion Waiters, you can go Vance, too.

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  Vance, I feel like his scenes are pretty.

• 1:35:02Bill Simmons?

  Vance Munson?

• 1:35:03Speaker 01

  Pretty memorable. Wait, there was another, uh, that guy, Joel Otrillo has a great moment in this movie. He has a V dating scene from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, shows he gets pushed aside. I mean, instantly, but I laughed when I saw him.

• 1:35:14Bill Simmons?

  Recasting couch director city. So I can offer you Stanley Tucci as Eva Mendes's boss instead of the guy we got?

• 1:35:23Speaker 01

  Some Alan Arkinson or something?

• 1:35:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:28Bill Simmons?

  Can we, can we walk through Will Ferrell and the Kevin James part really quick?

• 1:35:32Speaker 01

  Okay. A young Will Ferrell. Let me look up 2005 Will Ferrell, because I gotta visualize this.

• 1:35:36Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's old schools, like, two years before. Anchorman just happened. He's a huge star. Just, can we, can we talk it out for a second?

• 1:35:43Speaker 04

  I think it works from a comedy standpoint, but you know what the only thing about it is?

• 1:35:47Speaker 02

  He's too big. He's too tall.

• 1:35:49Speaker 04

  He's too tall.

• 1:35:49Speaker 02

  He can't be taller than Will Smith.

• 1:35:51Bill Simmons?

  But Will Smith's 6'3".

• 1:35:52Speaker 04

  I know, but Will, but Will Ferrell's like 6'5". Like, if you're taller than him in that scene, it doesn't look like he's little broing you as much.

• 1:35:59Speaker 01

  If they made the movie now, who would be the, like, Kevin James type?

• 1:36:05Speaker 01

  Who goes after?

• 1:36:06Bill Simmons?

  Do we even have these people?

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  That's what I'm asking. Like, is there, like, a guy?

• 1:36:09Speaker 02

  Like Josh Gad?

• 1:36:10Speaker 04

  Maybe Josh Gad, but even Josh Gad got a little, Josh Gad kinda smooth. I think he is. Oh, no, I don't think we have the funny athletic fat guy anymore. I don't think there's been a one. Every generation had one that it was-

• 1:36:22Bill Simmons?

  I look for it at the combine every year.

• 1:36:23Speaker 04

  Belushi, then it was Farley, then it was-

• 1:36:26Bill Simmons?

  Kevin James.

• 1:36:27Speaker 04

  Kevin James, and then even Jack Black got in there for a little while, like, as far as-

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  Jack Black would be, yeah.

• 1:36:33Speaker 04

  But like, but with the, the funny athletic fat, fat guy that could really move around and do stuff.

• 1:36:36Bill Simmons?

  Jack Black could have been in this, too.

• 1:36:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  I think Seth Rogen now would be a different character, but it could be really funny. That he's getting coached up by Will Smith to go after.

• 1:36:44Speaker 04

  Jonah Hill, no.

• 1:36:47Speaker 02

  Seth Rogen, it kinda happens a little bit. The Charlize Theron movie with him.

• 1:36:50Speaker 01

  That's such a great movie.

• 1:36:51Bill Simmons?

  I love that movie.

• 1:36:51Speaker 01

  Oh, it's such a great romantic, what's that called again?

• 1:36:53Bill Simmons?

  I kept trying to ask Craig if that was a rewatch.

• 1:36:55Speaker 01

  I love that movie.

• 1:36:56Bill Simmons?

  Long Shot.

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  Long Shot. Dude, that movie, I'll do that with you. I, I love that.

• 1:37:01Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you love that movie?

• 1:37:02Speaker 01

  It's so well-written and so funny, and Charlize Theron's so good in it.

• 1:37:06Bill Simmons?

  I can't get Sean and Chris there with it either.

• 1:37:07Speaker 01

  Why not?

• 1:37:08Bill Simmons?

  I really like that movie.

• 1:37:09Speaker 01

  It's incredible.

• 1:37:10Speaker 04

  Nah, fantasy not fucking with that, I can tell.

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  It's an incredible movie. Oh, thank you for reminding me of that.

• 1:37:15Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Craig, you have a, you have a flex.

• 1:37:17Speaker 02

  I'm gonna play it right down the middle. Big Kahuna Burger, best food, best use of food or drink. The Benadryl through a straw. Made me wanna try it, looked fun. That just seemed great to me. Him drunk, going through the park, sipping Benadryl out of the bottle through a straw. Never seen that before. That was great.

• 1:37:31Speaker 04

  Bill, Craig, what? Craig wants to be on Lean.

• 1:37:34Speaker 02

  No. That just looked fun to me.

• 1:37:37Bill Simmons?

  Can you, how much Benadryl can you sip through a straw before you

• 1:37:40Speaker 04

  You knock out or fucking have a stroke or some shit like that?

• 1:37:43Speaker 02

  Also, there's a, there's another food and drink moment. There's a brief scene where Eva Mendes and her, her best friend are at a place called

• 1:37:50Speaker 01

  Rice to Riches?

• 1:37:51Speaker 02

  Rice to Riches?

• 1:37:51Speaker 01

  I used to go there after college. Uh, it's in Soho.

• 1:37:54Speaker 02

  Which is just a rice pudding?

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, this is so 2005. I was, I was still in college then, but

• 1:38:00Speaker 04

  Oh wait, that place is for real?

• 1:38:01Speaker 01

  Yes, it's in Soho. I think it might still be.

• 1:38:04Speaker 02

  It's just a rice pudding place.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  It was like a hot spot.

• 1:38:07Speaker 04

  So it's rice pudding.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  There's so much great like mid 2000s New York. Yes, mid dessert, like, like the speed dating's like at Budokan.

• 1:38:14Speaker 02

  Cause they show the exterior of Rice to Riches really quickly. I'm like, wait a minute. And then they're just eating rice and talking and no one really mentions it?

• 1:38:21Speaker 01

  I used to go there with my friends, my gal pals.

• 1:38:25Bill Simmons?

  My mom.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  I love rice pudding.

• 1:38:27Bill Simmons?

  It's a big Italian thing.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  Is it?

• 1:38:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I guess it's like, kinda like a sweet risotto.

• 1:38:32Speaker 02

  Hmm, tough.

• 1:38:34Bill Simmons?

  Uh, it's heavy and you feel sick and tired after you eat too much. Half past 30, research. We covered a bunch of them. Um, the, the director, a couple more Will Smith shots. Will didn't want to do the Ellis Island scene because he said, black people didn't come through Ellis Island. I begged him to come to Ellis Island so I could at least pitch it to him. And we tried to save the sequence and lo and behold, his producing partner, James Lasseter, came through Ellis Island. So that's why the scene was in the movie.

• 1:39:01Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:39:02Bill Simmons?

  Um, the other thing was Will Smith can't swim. And they did the jet ski stuff anyway. And if you look, he's got this big ass life vest. Cause they have their $20 million movie star flying around on jet skis in the Hudson River. And we're very concerned about.

• 1:39:20Speaker 01

  Isn't he on jet skiing in the Miami music video?

• 1:39:23Speaker 04

  I don't think that bitch is real. I think he's just like

• 1:39:25Speaker 01

  Oh, it's like a green screen.

• 1:39:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think he, I don't, I think he's just like fucking.

• 1:39:29Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Eva Mendes was in the music video Miami.

• 1:39:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, yep, great segue. I forgot she was in that until

• 1:39:36Bill Simmons?

  I like that song.

• 1:39:37Speaker 04

  It's a great song.

• 1:39:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's a good one. Um, she was lip syncing Bienvenido on Miami.

• 1:39:42Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:42Bill Simmons?

  She mentioned this to Will Smith in rehearsals and Will Smith said he did not remember her.

• 1:39:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  Brutal.

• 1:39:49Bill Simmons?

  Uh, soundtrack had a bunch of people, including, uh, Earth, Wind & Fire's in there.

• 1:39:56Bill Simmons?

  Temptations.

• 1:39:57Speaker 04

  There's a very important song on this soundtrack.

• 1:40:00Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 1:40:01Speaker 04

  One Thing by A. Marie is a brilliant, amazing song that started kind of like a lore kind of beef that happened because do not go after me, be hot. One Thing, don't go after me, I'm just telling, so One Thing comes out and is like amazing record, like a great record, Rich Harrison, like an amazing record. Then, some people felt like on a song called Deja Vu that Beyonce made a little bit after that, that the sound of One Thing was kind of being recreated.

• 1:40:42Speaker 01

  Like the blurred lines, country.

• 1:40:43Speaker 04

  A little bit, like, there were some people who felt like that there was a little swag theft from Beyonce, who is an all-time amazing, phenomenal artist, a great mother.

• 1:40:56Bill Simmons?

  Never seen him so scary.

• 1:40:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was just about to say.

• 1:40:58Speaker 04

  A great creative.

• 1:40:59Speaker 01

  You can see his leg is shaking.

• 1:41:01Speaker 04

  All that stuff, remember what they have to do before we talk about LeBron on ESPN? He's a great father, he's a great philanthropist, he's one of the greatest players we've ever seen, he's tall and handsome and all of that stuff. But there was a whole thing to where it was like, yo, did they kind of jack a little bit of swag? The One Thing record is a big record and then that big band sound kind of came in a little bit from Beyonce and it was a whole thing. A. Marie is thriving now, but kind of went AWOL a little bit after her biggest record, like after her biggest record.

• 1:41:36Bill Simmons?

  Do they have, on the NFL Live, if LeBron comes up, do you have to talk about how great he is or is that just the other shit?

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  I can't remember the last time LeBron came up on NFL.

• 1:41:44Bill Simmons?

  He's a wide receiver, he's like LeBron James and then somebody else goes, just an amazing guy, what a career.

• 1:41:51Speaker 01

  I don't know, is there an NFL equivalent of that? Where we're all like, he's unbelievable, I would never question it. I mean, it was kind of like that with Belichick for a while, where if I ever was like, dang, he like punted again at the 50 yard line, I'd be like, I would do this actually, I would totally defend a street, I'd be like, Bill Belichick has forgotten more about football than I'll ever know.

• 1:42:10Speaker 04

  Hey, people do do that with him now. Before, when Bill Belichick.

• 1:42:12Speaker 01

  I'd be like, but he really shouldn't have punted there, man, that he lost like 20 a day.

• 1:42:16Bill Simmons?

  Honestly, after the. Seattle Pats that 30 seconds when he doesn't call timeout. Like when he walked on water, you got us back, you beat us.

• 1:42:24Speaker 01

  No one was thinking about that.

• 1:42:25Bill Simmons?

  After Belichick walked on water, saw the future and saw Seattle five, like that, he bought five years after that. That was unbelievable. There's never been a coaching moment like that in the history of any sport.

• 1:42:36Speaker 04

  Well, Bill is not telling you is that we have to do that at the Ringer now that we got, we got rich. Whatever. We have to do the LeBron thing now at the Ringer before we talk about.

• 1:42:44Bill Simmons?

  No, I've made, I've made fun of the LeBron. This is the summer of LeBron, getting him in. I went to ESPN today, we're taping this July 8th. I went there today and he was like the first three stories. Where's he going? Can he be the third option or the second?

• 1:43:02Speaker 01

  I previewed the AFC East this week. I'm on a different, different part of it. Yeah, you could go check it out.

• 1:43:06Bill Simmons?

  Not a great division this year.

• 1:43:08Speaker 01

  It's very two teams, two tiers.

• 1:43:10Bill Simmons?

  Oh, speaking of the AFC East, this was one more half-fest or research thing. Albert asked Egon what he thought of the design of Jets West Side Stadium.

• 1:43:18Speaker 04

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:43:19Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:19Bill Simmons?

  This was.

• 1:43:20Speaker 04

  They were gonna do that.

• 1:43:21Speaker 01

  It's presented as this like great dunk.

• 1:43:23Bill Simmons?

  The four months when they thought the Jets were building a stadium on the west side. Where the fuck would that have gone?

• 1:43:30Speaker 01

  I was thinking about that, watching the scene, what, like this is insane?

• 1:43:35Bill Simmons?

  Or where?

• 1:43:36Speaker 01

  I guess. I'm sure we could look that up. But I, I was also distracted by the fact that it's like in the montage of him killing it on this date. And he says that as kind of like a rejoinder to some D-bag and everyone's like, oh, he got him. And I didn't feel that way at all watching it, but it's fine.

• 1:43:51Bill Simmons?

  I gotta say, they should have a football stadium in New York City. I think it's bullshit. New York City's gigantic. There's no way they couldn't have found a place to put a 60,000 seat stadium.

• 1:44:00Speaker 01

  Central Park?

• 1:44:01Bill Simmons?

  Anywhere. Central Park. Um, okay. Ripping through Apex Mountain, Will Smith?

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  Nice. This is, this is.

• 1:44:11Bill Simmons?

  It's gotta be late 90s for him.

• 1:44:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, Men in Black.

• 1:44:14Bill Simmons?

  Eva Mendes. We're, we're right around it.

• 1:44:16Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I was looking at her roles.

• 1:44:20Bill Simmons?

  This is the biggest movie she's ever been in.

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  Again, she's also acts really well in this movie.

• 1:44:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think this movie's a win for her.

• 1:44:25Speaker 01

  Good performance.

• 1:44:27Bill Simmons?

  Kevin James, I think yes.

• 1:44:29Speaker 01

  Well, Chris, Chris, Chris, like absolutely, absolutely not.

• 1:44:32Speaker 02

  King of Queens is peaking right now.

• 1:44:33Bill Simmons?

  He's a TV movie, he's top ten movie and he's a top ten show.

• 1:44:36Speaker 01

  Now he's mean, he's more mean than man.

• 1:44:38Speaker 04

  Was Mall Cop not like a huge hit? Am I tripping?

• 1:44:41Bill Simmons?

  I think it was a hit.

• 1:44:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, but.

• 1:44:42Bill Simmons?

  But being on TV with a movie.

• 1:44:44Speaker 04

  Okay, so everything again.

• 1:44:45Speaker 01

  Mall Cop.

• 1:44:45Bill Simmons?

  Well, I think this probably sets up Mall Cop and all the other stuff.

• 1:44:49Speaker 01

  Mall Cop was one of the movies people saw my age because they're like, it would be funny if we just went and saw this movie. Kind of like Morbius or Minions.

• 1:44:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:56Speaker 01

  They were like, let's go see Mall Cop. Oh no, we're all doing it for the bit. Yeah.

• 1:45:00Bill Simmons?

  Benadryl.

• 1:45:02Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:45:02Bill Simmons?

  Apex Mountain?

• 1:45:06Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 1:45:06Bill Simmons?

  The answer is no. It's, it's all the parents who realized they could give children's Benadryl to their kids so they wouldn't cry in a plane.

• 1:45:12Speaker 01

  Doesn't work.

• 1:45:12Speaker 04

  That's not what I was given when I was a kid.

• 1:45:14Bill Simmons?

  It worked for our kids.

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  Must be nice.

• 1:45:16Speaker 04

  It's giving, you know, I was giving. You know, legitimately was putting my bottle to calm me down because I was so high strung. Hennessy.

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  Hennessy, yeah.

• 1:45:24Speaker 04

  True story. I like graduation party. I was like, can I have a little?

• 1:45:28Speaker 01

  Usually you rub it on the gums.

• 1:45:29Speaker 04

  Have a little graduation party? Can I have a little Hennessy? Like my Uncle David, rest in peace, give me a little Hennessy.

• 1:45:35Speaker 01

  Careful.

• 1:45:35Speaker 04

  I got the, I got the, I got the, I got the Hennessy. And my grandmother goes, oh, look. I'm what? So he still likes it.

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  He still likes it?

• 1:45:47Speaker 04

  I'm like, what? He still, he still likes it. Like, I still like it. Like, yeah, it's like, you were a high strung little baby. We just take a little Hennessy. Like you just stretching your mama out. Well, a little bit, put it in the bottle.

• 1:45:59Bill Simmons?

  See, this is why these were the greatest generations.

• 1:46:03Speaker 04

  What?

• 1:46:04Bill Simmons?

  I was, you turned out great.

• 1:46:06Speaker 04

  Well.

• 1:46:08Speaker 02

  I've heard about the whiskey, like whiskey on the gums.

• 1:46:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, whiskey on the gums.

• 1:46:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:12Speaker 04

  Like a little, little Hennessy in there.

• 1:46:13Bill Simmons?

  Uh, jet skis, no. Amber Valletta.

• 1:46:15Speaker 01

  No, wait, why no for jet skis?

• 1:46:17Bill Simmons?

  There's gotta be something better with jet skis, right? Like some Bond movie or something?

• 1:46:21Speaker 04

  Fucking Speed Two Cruise Control.

• 1:46:23Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:46:24Speaker 02

  The first episode of Eastbound and Down.

• 1:46:26Speaker 01

  Eastbound, but multiple episodes.

• 1:46:27Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Eastbound and Down.

• 1:46:28Speaker 02

  I mean, come on.

• 1:46:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Miami music video also.

• 1:46:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Amber Valletta, I'm gonna say yes.

• 1:46:33Speaker 04

  I don't, I didn't know she was in nothing else after this, so yeah.

• 1:46:36Bill Simmons?

  Men's hair waxing scenes. Weirdly, forty year old virgin is same year and has a better hair waxing scene.

• 1:46:43Speaker 04

  Forty year old virgin is the same year.

• 1:46:44Speaker 02

  Did Forty Year Old Virgin come out first or this movie?

• 1:46:47Bill Simmons?

  I don't know, I think they made them both in oh, oh four.

• 1:46:49Speaker 02

  It feels like they wanted that scene to be a big moment and then they had to change it because of Forty Year Old Virgin. It feels like they wanted that to be a set piece.

• 1:46:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's kinda, yeah. It goes fast in this movie.

• 1:46:59Speaker 02

  It's like, weirdly, why is it even in the movie?

• 1:47:01Bill Simmons?

  Ellis Island, I'm gonna say no for Apex Mountain.

• 1:47:04Speaker 04

  No, I don't think it's.

• 1:47:06Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna say it was probably earlier, different part of American history.

• 1:47:12Speaker 04

  And not even in movies, because it would be The Godfather.

• 1:47:14Bill Simmons?

  Post nine eleven, um, New York is back movies.

• 1:47:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:19Bill Simmons?

  Like, just like where New York is an actual character, which we should have mentioned at the top, but this is a real New York movie.

• 1:47:25Speaker 01

  It's a great New York movie.

• 1:47:25Bill Simmons?

  And it was one of the first ones where you felt like, oh yeah, New York.

• 1:47:29Speaker 04

  There's only one to me that I think that is close. Spider-Man. Even though Spider-Man comes out pretty soon after.

• 1:47:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:37Speaker 04

  But like Spider-Man, it was like, oh, look, things are still happening. They actually had to take out, uh, remember that Spider-Man advertisement? The trailer they had where it was, he made a web between the, the Twin Towers? So it was like, next year, that next year Spider-Man was like, oh my God, it's New York again. Shit is still happening.

• 1:47:55Bill Simmons?

  Cruiser Hanks, it's the most obvious Cruz in a while.

• 1:47:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:47:58Bill Simmons?

  Cruz as, uh, the Will Smith character.

• 1:48:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:02Bill Simmons?

  Basically doing Frank Mackey from, from, uh, Magnolia as in Hitch. TJ Mackey. Is it TJ Mackey? Who's Frank Mackey?

• 1:48:09Speaker 04

  It's Frank, no, it's Frank TJ, isn't it?

• 1:48:10Bill Simmons?

  Frank TJ Mackey, yeah.

• 1:48:11Speaker 02

  You could, you could argue it's Cruz and Hanks. Could Hanks play Albert Brenneman?

• 1:48:16Speaker 04

  I think he's too handsome.

• 1:48:17Bill Simmons?

  No, he's too tall.

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  Not shilling enough.

• 1:48:19Speaker 04

  Hey, I'll say something. So Will, so Will and Tom Cruise, obviously famously, famously best friends for a long time. Not because they shared the same religion or anything like that, but, um, it, it. What if Will calls Tom Cruise and gets Tom Cruise to do two days on set?

• 1:48:39Bill Simmons?

  As Vance Munson?

• 1:48:41Speaker 04

  As Vance Munson.

• 1:48:43Bill Simmons?

  Tom Cruise would never get hit by a woman.

• 1:48:44Speaker 04

  Like, two, two days on set as Vance Munson.

• 1:48:47Speaker 02

  I can't believe they've never done a movie together.

• 1:48:49Speaker 04

  They haven't.

• 1:48:50Speaker 01

  Never? Not one?

• 1:48:51Speaker 04

  I don't think so.

• 1:48:52Speaker 02

  It's kinda weird.

• 1:48:53Bill Simmons?

  Oh, special category. How would Van Lathan get out of this one?

• 1:48:56Speaker 04

  Okay, where we going?

• 1:48:57Bill Simmons?

  Someone finds out Van has actually been the date doctor all along. What, what do you say to Eva Mendes in this?

• 1:49:04Speaker 04

  I own it. I looked directly at her and I said, yes, I am the date doctor.

• 1:49:08Bill Simmons?

  I gotta, I gotta stay employed.

• 1:49:09Speaker 04

  I, number one, you're not paying my bills, so don't worry about it. That's the first thing. So I gotta stay employed.

• 1:49:14Speaker 01

  That, that'll work.

• 1:49:15Speaker 04

  It's not about, it's not about whether or not it works. It's about me standing up for myself.

• 1:49:20Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:49:20Speaker 04

  Number two.

• 1:49:21Bill Simmons?

  Direct eye contact the whole time.

• 1:49:22Speaker 04

  Direct eye contact the entire time.

• 1:49:24Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:49:24Speaker 04

  This is who I am. I'm the date doctor. And by the way, what I do is different than what you do. Blood sucking parasit.

• 1:49:34Speaker 04

  Like, what I do is I help people find love. Look at all these pictures. See these pictures? These are weddings. These are children. This is what I put into the world. Why don't you go home and think about the fact that what you put into the world is negativity and people's business. How dare you?

• 1:49:48Bill Simmons?

  You're gonna judge me?

• 1:49:49Speaker 04

  You're gonna judge me? Who are you to talk to me?

• 1:49:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's pretty good.

• 1:49:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:49:53Bill Simmons?

  See, Van always gets out of it.

• 1:49:55Speaker 01

  How is that good? You didn't get out of anything!

• 1:49:56Speaker 04

  I did get out of it. You know why?

• 1:49:58Speaker 01

  You've lost the woman.

• 1:49:59Speaker 04

  Do you know why? She takes five steps and then she turns around and she goes, Hitch, what? And I'm like.

• 1:50:05Speaker 01

  Okay, I'd like to rescind the comment I made earlier about how he should have a dating advice show. But that actually seems to me like an unanswerable question, which is, does Hitch still date doctor after getting exposed? Also, how does Kevin James still earn a living after quitting?

• 1:50:17Speaker 04

  This is what happens the next day.

• 1:50:19Bill Simmons?

  I don't feel like he actually quits because she rehires him to.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  So she rehires him and he's, okay.

• 1:50:25Speaker 04

  I have this, I have this in what happens the next day. Like, this nigga Hitch broke. Like Hitch, like, like, she, she's blown up Hitch's whole thing. Like Hitch, now, now Hitch, this relationship between Hitch and Eva Mendes, that's not gonna work out.

• 1:50:39Bill Simmons?

  No, I.

• 1:50:39Speaker 04

  Because.

• 1:50:40Bill Simmons?

  You guys are wrong.

• 1:50:40Speaker 04

  Okay, give it to me.

• 1:50:41Bill Simmons?

  Because I had this as well. First of all, he's famous from this whole thing. He writes a book.

• 1:50:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:50:48Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:50:48Speaker 01

  How to?

• 1:50:49Bill Simmons?

  He gets like a $2 million book advance.

• 1:50:50Speaker 04

  Plus, he knows famous people.

• 1:50:52Speaker 01

  I also don't think.

• 1:50:53Bill Simmons?

  Next on The View, we have. Alex Hitchens.

• 1:50:56Speaker 01

  I don't think the secrecy is that fundamental to him, his ability to do the job. This is 2005. People don't have everything on each other. Like, he could still work with guys.

• 1:51:05Speaker 04

  The only problem is, well, you know what? If he reha, if he rehabilitates to date Dr. Moniker, and like, he's like a positive guy, then maybe it's not that big of a deal.

• 1:51:15Bill Simmons?

  Does the book, makes the rounds, comes out in paperback. Podcasts are starting. I got my podcast in 07.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  07?

• 1:51:23Bill Simmons?

  He has like, the first therapist podcast. He's making 50 million a year. He's got his own, he's got his own, own Well Network.

• 1:51:30Speaker 04

  See guys, this is.

• 1:51:31Bill Simmons?

  He's got the Well Network.

• 1:51:33Speaker 04

  This is, if you're ever wondering what, what the difference is, this is the difference. I didn't see it, but look, he already, already put a claim in.

• 1:51:39Speaker 01

  That's why you're businessmen.

• 1:51:40Speaker 04

  Hey man, you know that guy, the Date Doctor? You think he wants to do a pod?

• 1:51:42Bill Simmons?

  The Date Doctor Pod, it's like, the daily, the Date Doctor Pod. It's only like, five of them. Uh, picking nets. So Albert is this clumsy loser who's knocking over coffees and everything, but is also a good dancer and athletic.

• 1:51:56Speaker 02

  Well, he's not good.

• 1:51:56Bill Simmons?

  Let's pick a side.

• 1:51:57Speaker 02

  He's not a good dancer.

• 1:51:59Bill Simmons?

  Well, he's athletic, he can move.

• 1:52:01Speaker 01

  He's a horrible dancer.

• 1:52:02Bill Simmons?

  But he's.

• 1:52:03Speaker 01

  The point of it is that he's a terrible dancer.

• 1:52:04Speaker 04

  He's like a clumsy.

• 1:52:06Speaker 01

  Were you watching that scene?

• 1:52:07Bill Simmons?

  But he's athletic.

• 1:52:09Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:52:10Bill Simmons?

  But he's athletic, he can move and do stuff.

• 1:52:12Speaker 01

  Oh. Making the pizza.

• 1:52:14Bill Simmons?

  He spills nine coffees.

• 1:52:15Speaker 01

  Dirting a fire.

• 1:52:16Speaker 04

  You're not gonna make it in the spirit tunnel.

• 1:52:18Speaker 01

  Q-tip.

• 1:52:19Bill Simmons?

  Is he?

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  Q-tip.

• 1:52:20Bill Simmons?

  Is he clumsy or coordinated?

• 1:52:22Speaker 02

  Kevin James is athletic and coordinated.

• 1:52:25Speaker 04

  Kevin James is definitely athletic.

• 1:52:26Speaker 02

  He is athletic, like football.

• 1:52:27Speaker 04

  He's athletic.

• 1:52:28Speaker 02

  But I think the character of Albert Brenneman is not supposed to be coordinated.

• 1:52:32Bill Simmons?

  I don't even think, the way they present the character, I don't even think he can do this stay within yourself dance.

• 1:52:37Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:52:38Bill Simmons?

  They're making it seem like this guy's like, a fucking disaster. I don't know, I could never get a handle on that. Hitch's shirt is torn from his body, in the cab, by the cab.

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, he's like, oh.

• 1:52:47Bill Simmons?

  Then she gives it back to him, dry cleaning, "I fixed your shirt."

• 1:52:50Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, how she, yeah, that's a great point.

• 1:52:52Bill Simmons?

  Thing got torn in nine things. What, what kind of tailor fixed the shirt?

• 1:52:57Speaker 01

  It's a good one.

• 1:52:59Bill Simmons?

  He's drinking Benadryl like a decker. I had that one. The big thing for me, Allegra's getting married. She's a famous person, a lot of interest in her life as we've established this whole thing. And then this gossip column, this basically almost ruins her marriage. And then she's like, yeah, invite her with Hitch. Oh, yeah, yeah, bring her. What could go wrong?

• 1:53:18Speaker 04

  Everybody gets over it, you know?

• 1:53:19Bill Simmons?

  No, she's telling Hitch, keep that lady home, fuck her.

• 1:53:22Speaker 04

  See, this is how y'all do. I'll be like, yo, that's your girl. My girl wanna come to the wedding. Y'all good. We coming to the wedding. We coming up. That's what y'all do.

• 1:53:30Bill Simmons?

  What paper was it? The New York Standard?

• 1:53:31Speaker 01

  The Standard. But she's also, she is now convinced and understands at that point that Hitch's interference actually had nothing to do with why she fell in love with Alvarez. She didn't care.

• 1:53:41Bill Simmons?

  What would make her like Eva Mendes's character?

• 1:53:45Speaker 04

  Just the fact that they boys and how you supposed to do it. Is that your girl?

• 1:53:48Speaker 01

  Meeting Eva Mendes and Eva Mendes complimenting her bag.

• 1:53:51Speaker 04

  I have one gigantic, very personal picking. Did you have?

• 1:53:54Speaker 01

  No, good.

• 1:53:54Speaker 04

  I have one gigantic, very personal picking that.

• 1:53:58Speaker 04

  The boss at the gossip column.

• 1:54:00Speaker 01

  In a different movie?

• 1:54:01Speaker 04

  This guy cares about the life, personal life, the workload, the work-life balance of this person. I've been there.

• 1:54:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:13Speaker 04

  That guy doesn't give a fuck.

• 1:54:16Bill Simmons?

  He's like, you haven't come up with anything in two days.

• 1:54:18Speaker 04

  Like, hey, you know this person. Go get me the story. Hey, I might break up their marriage. I don't care.

• 1:54:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:25Speaker 04

  Like, we, you're hooked into this story. I don't care if it breaks up your relationship. I don't care what it breaks up. Go get the story and bring it back. Like him, them being in that type of racket.

• 1:54:38Bill Simmons?

  Benevolent gossip.

• 1:54:39Speaker 04

  Him being in that racket.

• 1:54:40Bill Simmons?

  Business guy.

• 1:54:41Speaker 04

  No. No, sir. No way, shape, or form.

• 1:54:45Bill Simmons?

  What'd you have for nitpicks?

• 1:54:46Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't know what anyone else at the newspaper does all day, like that the guy had time to just.

• 1:54:51Bill Simmons?

  Big staff.

• 1:54:53Speaker 01

  The, her, like, gay bestie who pretends to be the, what does he do? I don't know.

• 1:54:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, was he, like, covering high school sports for them, or? What was his job?

• 1:55:02Speaker 01

  Don't get it at all.

• 1:55:05Speaker 01

  I had, well, I was confused about Kevin James's stuff. Okay, here's one, here's a very, very nitpicky one. So when she's sad and she watches Jerry Maguire to get, try to get over, you know, screwing things up with Hitch. Women don't drink, eat whipped cream out of the bottle. That's something that men think women do, and women don't do that. Maybe, I'm sure someone in the comments will say they've done it, but I'm telling you, it's not a thing. It's a fake thing.

• 1:55:27Bill Simmons?

  I mean, just the spray into the mouth.

• 1:55:29Speaker 01

  I've never seen a woman do that.

• 1:55:30Speaker 04

  Rocky Road, ice cream, like, what's your?

• 1:55:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, ice cream. But I would never take a thing of Cool Whip and go.

• 1:55:37Bill Simmons?

  It's funny. My daughter did do this in her teens a few times, but it, no, would never do.

• 1:55:42Speaker 01

  Ate whipped cream out of a...

• 1:55:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but I think it's like, you kind of learn.

• 1:55:45Speaker 01

  It's like a kid thing, though.

• 1:55:46Speaker 04

  It's something, it's a very guy thing to do. When you think about it, never mind.

• 1:55:50Bill Simmons?

  Sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all but Castor Untouchable?

• 1:55:55Speaker 04

  I think they should do a sequel. I think they should do Hitch 2.

• 1:55:58Speaker 01

  Sounds like they are.

• 1:55:59Speaker 04

  I think, it sounds like they are, I think they should do a sequel.

• 1:56:02Bill Simmons?

  Is Will Smith in the sequel?

• 1:56:03Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:56:05Speaker 01

  Is he not too old to be getting up to these shenanigans?

• 1:56:09Speaker 04

  He's, it's like, he could be, he could have to be brought out of retirement to hitch it up. Hitch's place right now, in this climate, would be perfect. Bring Hitch.

• 1:56:19Speaker 01

  Like I was saying.

• 1:56:20Speaker 04

  Hitch does the whole thing.

• 1:56:21Speaker 01

  The world needs Hitch.

• 1:56:22Bill Simmons?

  Has Will Smith made a movie since the movie? I mean, since the Oscars? What movie?

• 1:56:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, he did Bad Boys.

• 1:56:27Speaker 01

  Bad Boys 3.

• 1:56:29Speaker 04

  Bad Boys came out.

• 1:56:30Speaker 02

  And then he made Emancipation.

• 1:56:31Speaker 04

  Emancipation came out, I know you saw Emancipation.

• 1:56:33Speaker 01

  But that was made before it just came out after.

• 1:56:35Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:56:35Speaker 02

  Emancipation was good. I saw it. I thought the movie was good.

• 1:56:40Speaker 04

  You like that, huh? Craig, that's my guy, man.

• 1:56:43Speaker 02

  If the slap didn't happen, he probably would have gotten an Oscar nomination for that movie.

• 1:56:46Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:56:46Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 1:56:48Speaker 04

  Well, all I'm saying is, I personally don't think we're gonna do this every time we do a Will movie. We've now done two in a row with me and you. I don't think that he's as in the dirt as you think that he is.

• 1:56:57Bill Simmons?

  I think he can only play the characters from the past, but I don't think he can be likeable, carry a movie Will Smith for a while.

• 1:57:04Speaker 04

  Well, he wasn't that before, though. So like, that was already gone. Like, there was proof, there was enough proof of Will Smith's career. King Richard was actually a perfect movie for him at that point, because it's a prestige.

• 1:57:14Bill Simmons?

  He was great in that movie.

• 1:57:15Speaker 01

  I think it's the trickier thing than the baggage is just his age. Right? Like, a lot of the roles that we're talking about, somebody at this age, it just doesn't really make sense.

• 1:57:26Bill Simmons?

  Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Fergie the florist, Zane Lowe, Robert Evans, Dr. Charles Nickel, Ted Levine, William X, or somebody else? I couldn't come up with anybody.

• 1:57:37Speaker 02

  Ted Levine? I like Hitch giving advice to Ted Levine.

• 1:57:42Speaker 02

  Hey, I got a lot of notes. The boys?

• 1:57:47Bill Simmons?

  Maybe, maybe the pit.

• 1:57:49Speaker 02

  Maybe a new house?

• 1:57:49Bill Simmons?

  Maybe the pit, where you keep people down there for days.

• 1:57:51Speaker 02

  Airbnb a place, maybe. A new place.

• 1:57:55Bill Simmons?

  I don't think, I don't think women like butterflies.

• 1:57:58Speaker 02

  We gotta change a lot. I'm gonna charge double.

• 1:58:00Bill Simmons?

  That should be Hitch, too. He gets Jame Gump as a client.

• 1:58:05Bill Simmons?

  She's trying to figure it out with them. Uh, probably an answer for questions.

• 1:58:11Bill Simmons?

  I did write down, did Will Smith have more sexual attention with Eva Mendes or Kevin James?

• 1:58:18Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Knicks Grizzlies, March twenty-fourth, March twenty-fourth, two thousand three, or two thousand four. Uh, Grizzlies won eleven, Knicks ninety-seven. Marbury had twenty-three and ten. How Gasol, twenty-three for the Grizzlies.

• 1:58:32Speaker 04

  Rookie of the year.

• 1:58:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. That was right after the Marbury trade. Everyone in New York was like, Knicks are back. And then, uh, it couldn't have gotten worse.

• 1:58:40Speaker 01

  Is a sports, an event, game, whatever, actually a good setting for a first date?

• 1:58:48Bill Simmons?

  No, it's like a third date.

• 1:58:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:58:50Bill Simmons?

  So, it's a, we've spent a little time together now. I'm trying to impress you.

• 1:58:54Speaker 04

  But once you get to that threshold, it's a perfect date. Lot of stuff happening, people watching, a lot of opportunities for conversation, you can eat, all of that stuff.

• 1:59:05Speaker 01

  I'm gonna parse this out. Baseball, amazing. Basketball, very context-dependent. Football, nightmare.

• 1:59:12Bill Simmons?

  Well, football includes travel.

• 1:59:14Speaker 01

  And it's just tense and it's not, people are yelling and standing and every play matters.

• 1:59:20Bill Simmons?

  I gotta say basketball is great, great, great for dates.

• 1:59:24Speaker 01

  Basketball.

• 1:59:24Bill Simmons?

  Cause I went to a lot of Celtic games. My dad never wanted to go.

• 1:59:28Speaker 01

  But if it was a game you really cared about, no.

• 1:59:29Bill Simmons?

  Well, it was bad Celtic team, so it was like fun to go. And you could learn, you got a feel for people and you could explain what was going on and things like it. Baseball's good too.

• 1:59:37Speaker 04

  I knew a guy that would take girls on dates out here to high school sports.

• 1:59:42Speaker 01

  Like Friday Night Lights? Like a Friday night game?

• 1:59:45Bill Simmons?

  Like the biggest football games?

• 1:59:46Speaker 04

  Well, he would be like, he'd say, hey, you know, there's this young kid that I mentor or whatever.

• 1:59:50Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. Alright, yeah.

• 1:59:52Speaker 04

  And I wanna go see his game and stuff like that. Then they'd go watch Pally High play. Somebody like, then they'd sit out there and he'd be like yelling like, yo, what? He had a whole thing. He played on my league basketball team.

• 2:00:00Bill Simmons?

  And this guy's name was Van Lathan?

• 2:00:02Speaker 04

  It's not me. It's not me. He knows who he is.

• 2:00:05Speaker 01

  That's actually a powerful move, cause then you're like mentally taking her back to being in high school. You're on the bleachers. There's a lot of like pheromones.

• 2:00:14Speaker 04

  It's also cheap.

• 2:00:17Speaker 01

  It's like fun.

• 2:00:18Speaker 04

  It's cheap. You look like you care. He's like, yeah. He's like, I take her to like, I take her to see Pally High.

• 2:00:21Bill Simmons?

  I took a date to the Celtic game once and she got up at halftime and got all her stuff, cause she thought the game was over. I figured that was not a keeper.

• 2:00:29Bill Simmons?

  That was a one, one date now.

• 2:00:30Speaker 04

  You think that's what she was thinking. She was like, I can't wait to go.

• 2:00:34Bill Simmons?

  She was genuinely confused. I was like, no, no, it's halftime. And she was, I was like, oh boy, we're in trouble.

• 2:00:38Speaker 02

  Can I ask an unanswerable question?

• 2:00:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:40Speaker 02

  How much do you think Hitch was charging in 2005?

• 2:00:42Speaker 01

  A lot. You saw his apartment?

• 2:00:45Speaker 02

  Like, are we talking like 20 grand?

• 2:00:47Bill Simmons?

  Nah.

• 2:00:48Speaker 02

  10 grand? 5 grand?

• 2:00:50Bill Simmons?

  I would say probably 1500 a week.

• 2:00:53Speaker 02

  His apartment was really nice.

• 2:00:55Speaker 01

  Really nice, yeah.

• 2:00:55Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, okay. Because it's gonna take, this is gonna take a while, yeah.

• 2:00:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, 1500 a week.

• 2:01:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:01:01Speaker 02

  Is it, is it like half up front and then if it works, you pay the second half? Is it all up front?

• 2:01:05Speaker 04

  I think you go into it saying, I have no guarantee, there's, there's no guarantee that like, it goes where you want it to go. I can only give you the best opportunity.

• 2:01:13Bill Simmons?

  But how did he find customers?

• 2:01:15Speaker 01

  Word of mouth.

• 2:01:16Speaker 04

  Referrals, they say in the movie.

• 2:01:18Bill Simmons?

  I know, but like, really? Like, what guy is gonna be really excited to tell other guys that they've found?

• 2:01:24Speaker 01

  Right, that they're dating. Guys, no, guys would absolutely tell other guys.

• 2:01:27Speaker 04

  I was about to say, apparently y'all. Y'all the ones that's getting in the middle of y'all friends' relationships and all kinds of stuff like that. Apparently y'all.

• 2:01:34Speaker 01

  I would love, if I had a friend who was like unlucky in love and obsessed with women who are out of their, his league, I would love to be able to not listen to them and say, hey, just call this guy and watch it.

• 2:01:47Bill Simmons?

  My idea for a rom-com is centered around my wife, who always thinks she can set people up, and I think she's like, oh for 99.

• 2:01:56Bill Simmons?

  And the name of the movie would be The 100th Setup, and it would be like, if I get to 100, I'll stop doing this, but the 100th one is the one.

• 2:02:05Speaker 01

  That actually works.

• 2:02:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I just sold a Netflix movie, Craig. It's called The Setup. Actually, yeah.

• 2:02:10Speaker 01

  And in the process, she falls in love herself, perhaps?

• 2:02:13Bill Simmons?

  Oh, interesting.

• 2:02:14Speaker 01

  Or, no.

• 2:02:15Speaker 04

  For me, I take it out of the podcast, it's a solid idea.

• 2:02:17Speaker 01

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me work, let me dock this a little. The 100th Setup.

• 2:02:23Bill Simmons?

  The wife falls in love with the guy.

• 2:02:25Speaker 01

  No, the guy falls in love with her, because she's single, and she's always trying to set people up and failing, and then...

• 2:02:31Bill Simmons?

  So it's not a wife, or she's a divorced?

• 2:02:34Speaker 01

  No, the lead has to be a single woman.

• 2:02:38Speaker 04

  I think there's another way you could go. Like, another way you could go is, so your character tells her, because, like, you start the movie with a terrible date that's happened at your house between two people. Your character tells her, hey, you can't set nobody else up, because this is ruining my life. Then you...

• 2:02:58Speaker 04

  Fake, you you tell your buddy, hey, hey, she's gonna set you up, but you're telling him, you can't be in love with the woman that she's

• 2:03:06Bill Simmons?

  Don't fall in love because this we have a bet.

• 2:03:07Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:03:09Speaker 04

  I need you to go do this.

• 2:03:10Bill Simmons?

  And then that girl finds out an hour into the movie.

• 2:03:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:03:14Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you made a bet that you wouldn't fall in love with me.

• 2:03:16Speaker 04

  Right, and then like you, and then you and your wife get into it, it's like, hey, I want this to stop, but these two crazy kids end up falling in love.

• 2:03:23Speaker 01

  What about a movie going, we were talking earlier about like interfering where a husband and a wife have two friends who want, or are, the wife's trying to set up, maybe like she has a friend who's just never lucky in love, trying to set her up with your male friend, and you're trying to stop it at the same time. So you're actually going against each other and you don't know.

• 2:03:43Bill Simmons?

  It's like Bride Wars a little bit.

• 2:03:45Speaker 01

  A little bit like Bride Wars.

• 2:03:46Bill Simmons?

  Here's the thing, Craig, don't set anyone up, that's my advice. You're you're pretty early in this marriage thing, there's no upside.

• 2:03:52Speaker 02

  We have, we have

• 2:03:53Bill Simmons?

  Best case scenario is they end up together and maybe you'll go out to dinner with them a couple of times.

• 2:03:57Speaker 02

  We have, we have

• 2:03:57Bill Simmons?

  Worst case scenario is like nineteen things.

• 2:03:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, we had a bad setup situation, one of my friends set up another one of my friends, they dated for a year, didn't work out, nobody really liked the relationship, it ended, and we're, and they were like, okay, never again.

• 2:04:09Speaker 04

  I got one last one, it's about a black dude in L.A., you meet him, right? And you decide you want to set him up, and you're talking to him, and he's like, I really, I escaped this really terrible place, uh, to where nothing goes right for black people, and you say, where is this place, and he goes, it's called Boston, and

• 2:04:32Speaker 04

  then to pay

• 2:04:34Bill Simmons?

  I should know, I let my guard down, that was really

• 2:04:36Speaker 04

  To pay him reparations, you have to find him, a white lady

• 2:04:39Bill Simmons?

  I thought you were gonna make a Jaylen Brown joke, thank God.

• 2:04:41Speaker 04

  It's called, uh, The Bill Russell Story.

• 2:04:45Speaker 01

  I thought that was gonna end with him moving to Philadelphia. I was waiting for that.

• 2:04:49Speaker 04

  That's even better.

• 2:04:51Bill Simmons?

  Memorabilia you'd most want for the movie?

• 2:04:53Speaker 01

  Wait, what?

• 2:04:54Bill Simmons?

  Memorabilia you would most want for the movie?

• 2:04:56Speaker 01

  Oh, memorabilia for the movie? Um, I guess the, I mean, I was very interested in the scuba suits personally.

• 2:05:04Bill Simmons?

  So I really liked, he had this thing behind him at one point, the Will Smith character, dynamic dating diagram. And it was like the size of that Die Hard poster. And I thought that'd be a good artifact for the movie.

• 2:05:15Speaker 01

  With all his success stories.

• 2:05:16Speaker 02

  Super weird to have in his apartment, by the way. Like, you would never have that up.

• 2:05:19Speaker 01

  Like, all his success, the guys that he's...

• 2:05:21Bill Simmons?

  Funny to have that, like, over there.

• 2:05:23Speaker 04

  You know, I always, I want, because at this time, this was one of the, when we saw this movie in theaters, the fact that Will could control his whole apartment from, from the little... That was a big deal in the mid 2000s, where you could do that. You looked like a man, like, the whole deal.

• 2:05:38Bill Simmons?

  I know what you'd want. It's the walkie-talkies.

• 2:05:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, the walkie-talkies.

• 2:05:41Speaker 04

  Oh, the walkie-talkies are good. That's, that's the one, yeah.

• 2:05:43Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Coach Fenstock, Mr. Maraguer, best, worst life lesson? Life is not the amount of breaths you take, it's the moments that take your breath away. No.

• 2:05:51Speaker 01

  So many lines, like...

• 2:05:52Speaker 04

  Wake up, uh, wake up every day like it's on purpose?

• 2:05:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:05:55Bill Simmons?

  You don't need gimmicks. True love doesn't need gimmicks would be my life lesson. Best double feature choice? I have Focus.

• 2:06:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, come on. Just obvious.

• 2:06:03Bill Simmons?

  What do you have?

• 2:06:04Speaker 04

  Six Degrees of Separation, which I watched after I watched this, just because Will is so charming in this.

• 2:06:09Bill Simmons?

  You know, I love that movie.

• 2:06:09Speaker 04

  And he's so charming in that. Well, that one scene, after they get in the tuxedos and they're riding through the thing.

• 2:06:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:16Speaker 04

  That blew Kalika's hair back a little bit, when Will just straight up offers it.

• 2:06:20Bill Simmons?

  I love that movie. No, I have nobody to do that. I'm rewatching Will Smith. The kids in that movie are the funniest ones.

• 2:06:26Speaker 01

  Don't look at me.

• 2:06:28Bill Simmons?

  The kids in that movie, the, it's, I, that movie's really good.

• 2:06:31Speaker 04

  You talking about Heather Graham in them?

• 2:06:32Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm talking about the parents.

• 2:06:34Speaker 04

  Oh, oh, yeah, oh, okay, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why mom left you.

• 2:06:39Speaker 01

  I mean, we just did the double feature, Crazy, Stupid Love and Hitch. Go pair together perfectly.

• 2:06:45Bill Simmons?

  I hesitate to ask, who won the movie?

• 2:06:47Speaker 04

  Ah, Jesus Christ. It's one of the, yeah. It's like, who won Terminator 2?

• 2:06:54Speaker 04

  It's like, well, yeah, yeah, it's Will, it's Will.

• 2:06:57Speaker 04

  No? Kevin, you guys making the Kevin James?

• 2:07:01Speaker 01

  Kevin James comes close. It's still Will Smith. It's still Will Smith, but you, your category is wise.

• 2:07:10Speaker 02

  I think Will Smith does win the movie. But I think Kevin James is very close.

• 2:07:14Bill Simmons?

  I agree, I agree.

• 2:07:15Speaker 02

  I think Will Smith wins the movie. Let's not overthink, he does. But Kevin James is an awesome.

• 2:07:19Bill Simmons?

  Will Smith wins the movie, but Kevin James did make me really think about this.

• 2:07:22Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:07:24Bill Simmons?

  And if you're talking about the concept of winning the movie, Will Smith was already winning with every movie he did.

• 2:07:29Speaker 01

  At the time, yeah.

• 2:07:29Bill Simmons?

  Kevin James really needed a movie like this.

• 2:07:32Speaker 01

  This was like his big breakout, right?

• 2:07:35Speaker 04

  What'd you think about that category? Cause it happens. Like y'all almost comes, somebody almost comes and steals somebody else's movie. It doesn't, sometimes they just outright steal the movie. But then, in this case and in True Lies, I think Arnold still wins, I think, uh, Will Smith still wins, but like razor thin, almost.

• 2:07:54Bill Simmons?

  Alright Craig, let's hear your review. You called for this movie, so we know what you're gonna think.

• 2:07:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is a millennial classic. This is like on my Mount Rushmore of like the millennial movies I've seen a million times that we haven't done yet. Uh, I mean, you guys, yeah, I, I think Kevin James and Will Smith, two of the better physical comedy actors. And that's why that dance scene.

• 2:08:11Speaker 01

  So good.

• 2:08:11Speaker 02

  Is just like two people truly at the peak of their game. Even just the way Will Smith bounces back and forth is like so smooth and Kevin James doing his thing. It's so good, uh, I think they went four for four in the casting. Like it's just.

• 2:08:25Bill Simmons?

  They really did.

• 2:08:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:26Speaker 02

  It's just really good across the board.

• 2:08:29Speaker 04

  We already talked about this, but.

• 2:08:31Speaker 02

  Also, I think Will Smith's advice in this movie is good, like what Mina was saying. I think the 90/10 is good. I think the dance stuff like.

• 2:08:36Speaker 01

  He makes a lot of good points.

• 2:08:38Speaker 02

  I think stay here when you're dancing is good. He says like, listen to women.

• 2:08:41Speaker 01

  It's impossible to not watch that scene and.

• 2:08:43Speaker 02

  He's a hundred, that's the best advice in the movie. If you're a man, do that.

• 2:08:46Speaker 01

  About dancing?

• 2:08:46Speaker 02

  Dance like that.

• 2:08:47Speaker 01

  If you're a woman, I was watching it and thinking like, yeah, I might actually do this.

• 2:08:50Speaker 02

  It is, it is so smart, just do that.

• 2:08:52Bill Simmons?

  It's like Sean Payton talking about Josh Allen.

• 2:08:56Speaker 01

  Speaking of Sean Payton.

• 2:08:56Bill Simmons?

  Keep him in the pocket, he's gonna throw interceptions.

• 2:08:59Speaker 01

  Kevin James played Sean Payton, do you remember that?

• 2:09:01Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:09:02Speaker 01

  In 2000, in the Sean Payton movie, right? Am I, am I remembering that? That happened, right? That's not a fever dream.

• 2:09:07Speaker 04

  He did.

• 2:09:08Bill Simmons?

  Sean Payton movie?

• 2:09:09Speaker 01

  Dude, they made a Sean Payton movie about.

• 2:09:12Speaker 02

  Recently.

• 2:09:12Speaker 01

  New Orleans, like the.

• 2:09:14Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Katrina?

• 2:09:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's called.

• 2:09:17Bill Simmons?

  Was, was it, was the movie.

• 2:09:18Speaker 02

  It's called, it's called Home Team.

• 2:09:21Speaker 01

  Home Team. James.

• 2:09:22Bill Simmons?

  Oh, it's like one of those like.

• 2:09:23Speaker 04

  Was it about?

• 2:09:24Speaker 02

  Adam Sandler produced it.

• 2:09:25Speaker 04

  Was it about when Kevin, when, when, when he got suspended and had to coach, uh?

• 2:09:29Speaker 01

  Yes, sorry, that's what it's about. Yes, yes.

• 2:09:31Bill Simmons?

  I did not see that movie.

• 2:09:33Speaker 04

  I couldn't bring myself to watch.

• 2:09:34Speaker 01

  It really happens.

• 2:09:36Speaker 04

  Fan, I couldn't bring myself to watch.

• 2:09:37Speaker 02

  I do think Kevin James could have been a bigger comedy star, and I don't really know why he wasn't.

• 2:09:41Bill Simmons?

  I don't.

• 2:09:41Speaker 01

  I think his choices.

• 2:09:43Bill Simmons?

  I think the, uh.

• 2:09:44Speaker 01

  He made Paul Blart more.

• 2:09:44Bill Simmons?

  Too many Paul Blart, Kevin Hart type movies.

• 2:09:47Speaker 02

  But like Paul Blart was like 2010. I don't know why he wasn't.

• 2:09:49Speaker 01

  He's made stuff since then.

• 2:09:50Speaker 02

  Like, why, you know, he could have been in all those great movies.

• 2:09:53Speaker 04

  I mean, look, he's one of those guys that they spun him and for some reason it didn't happen. They spent a lot of guys and the guys stay around, but for some reason they spun him and he had success. He's a successful comedic actor without a doubt.

• 2:10:04Speaker 02

  When you're on a show like that, you make so much money, like King of Queens, he's loaded.

• 2:10:07Speaker 01

  Do you think Zoomers just think he's the meme?

• 2:10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, 100%.

• 2:10:12Speaker 01

  Do you think they have any awareness that he's more than that?

• 2:10:15Speaker 02

  I think you could make the case Paul Blart ruined his career.

• 2:10:18Speaker 04

  God damn.

• 2:10:18Speaker 02

  Well, because I think it's like, well, that's Paul Blart. That's the fat mall cop. And then since 2009, it was like, well, now everybody just thinks he's Paul Blart.

• 2:10:26Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. The Grown Ups universe helped him a lot. Those movies are pretty huge.

• 2:10:30Speaker 01

  Successful.

• 2:10:30Speaker 02

  I don't know. I think Paul Blart really.

• 2:10:32Bill Simmons?

  For 125, like, those are like giant movies with my kids' generation.

• 2:10:35Speaker 01

  His choices, like he never, like if he was in the epitome, you know, like if he had done better written movies, he probably would have more longevity.

• 2:10:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:43Speaker 04

  This movie shares something in common with, with Crazy Super Love, is that these movies make the cities that they are in.

• 2:10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:50Speaker 04

  Look like cities you want to follow.

• 2:10:51Speaker 02

  Like, he could have been Steve Carell in Crazy Stupid Love.

• 2:10:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, he could have. Like, beautiful looking movies with beautiful people and all of that stuff.

• 2:10:59Bill Simmons?

  He could have been Gosling in La La Land. Do you really think about it?

• 2:11:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:11:03Bill Simmons?

  What's happening? Now, he.

• 2:11:05Speaker 02

  Could he have been Batman?

• 2:11:06Speaker 01

  No. He could have been Will Smith in Infi.

• 2:11:08Bill Simmons?

  I think he made all the choices he made for a reason.

• 2:11:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, he seems savvy.

• 2:11:12Bill Simmons?

  For like, almost like what Jack Black is doing now with like, he's just doing specific type of movies and making money from it.

• 2:11:18Speaker 04

  He got jacked for MMA movie, like legitimately a phenomenal.

• 2:11:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I remember that. He did. Yeah.

• 2:11:23Speaker 01

  Really?

• 2:11:24Bill Simmons?

  Anyway.

• 2:11:24Speaker 02

  He got jacked for a season of King of Queens as well.

• 2:11:27Speaker 04

  Did he?

• 2:11:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, he got, he got fit. His character gets fit.

• 2:11:29Bill Simmons?

  What was the movie you said you were gonna come back for?

• 2:11:33Bill Simmons?

  At some point?

• 2:11:34Speaker 01

  Uh, that you? Well, I'm always trying to get you to do Game Night. Oh, no, you were?

• 2:11:39Bill Simmons?

  No, the Seth Rogen Charlize movie.

• 2:11:40Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that movie. People complain if we do that, though, because I feel like nobody's, have people seen that movie, Long Shot?

• 2:11:45Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's why we haven't done it yet.

• 2:11:46Speaker 01

  Well, people should see it. It's so good.

• 2:11:49Bill Simmons?

  You need like 10 minutes, you need like 10 years to marinate with the movie.

• 2:11:52Speaker 01

  Well, it's been 10 years. When did that come out? Pre, pre pandemic?

• 2:11:55Bill Simmons?

  No, that was 2019. It was pre pandemic.

• 2:11:56Speaker 01

  I freaking love that movie, dude.

• 2:11:57Bill Simmons?

  It's also like Charlize is throwing-

• 2:11:59Speaker 01

  I've rewatched it several times.

• 2:12:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, she's great in that movie, too.

• 2:12:02Speaker 01

  Whoever wrote that?

• 2:12:02Bill Simmons?

  There's good side characters in that movie.

• 2:12:04Speaker 04

  She's starting to become underappreciated.

• 2:12:06Speaker 01

  Charlize Theron?

• 2:12:07Bill Simmons?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:12:07Speaker 01

  The goat in my house.

• 2:12:08Bill Simmons?

  Not after The Odyssey.

• 2:12:11Speaker 04

  Oh, I haven't seen it yet.

• 2:12:13Bill Simmons?

  She plays Calypso.

• 2:12:15Speaker 04

  I haven't seen it yet.

• 2:12:16Bill Simmons?

  It's very good casting.

• 2:12:21Speaker 01

  Is she naked? That's the only takeaway I have from your voice and body posture right now.

• 2:12:26Bill Simmons?

  No nudity in the movie. She's just a god on an island who has to make another god want to stay for seven years.

• 2:12:35Speaker 04

  Did you enjoy The Odyssey?

• 2:12:37Bill Simmons?

  I thought it was amazing.

• 2:12:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what everyone's saying.

• 2:12:40Speaker 01

  Can't wait.

• 2:12:40Speaker 04

  Besides the people who haven't seen it.

• 2:12:42Bill Simmons?

  It's pretty great.

• 2:12:45Bill Simmons?

  It's a pretty great movie. All right. Thanks for doing Hitch. I forget who suggested it out of the two of you, but it was one of you, or maybe it was Craig.

• 2:12:51Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, we talked about Focus on the last episode, not Hitch.

• 2:12:54Bill Simmons?

  All right. Good to see you, Mina Kimes.

• 2:12:56Speaker 01

  See you from out.

• 2:12:57Bill Simmons?

  Good luck, good luck with this last month before football kicks in.

• 2:13:00Speaker 01

  I'll see you. You're going to the nation.

• 2:13:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm coming on your pod.

• 2:13:02Speaker 01

  Bill's doing a power rankings.

• 2:13:04Speaker 04

  Coming on a pod. Power ranking.

• 2:13:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we, I told her she couldn't have you on because you're on 19 pods.

• 2:13:10Speaker 04

  Exciting.

• 2:13:12Bill Simmons?

  No, you, you could go on. You gotta get her on Tailgate.

• 2:13:14Speaker 01

  People were surprised, I only did last pod, that we already knew each other in a pleasant way, I think.

• 2:13:20Speaker 04

  Why?

• 2:13:20Speaker 01

  I don't know, but the reaction I saw was like when people see like a picture of like a duck and an elephant as friends or something. People were like, people were like, that's adorable.

• 2:13:29Speaker 04

  Look at them!

• 2:13:30Speaker 01

  They were like, that's a, look at them.

• 2:13:32Speaker 04

  Look at the animals getting along. Wow!

• 2:13:33Bill Simmons?

  I'm coming on Tailgate next month, too. It's UCLA football time. We're, we're like making a real run here.

• 2:13:39Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 2:13:39Speaker 01

  Really?

• 2:13:40Speaker 04

  I don't know if I'm ready for college football.

• 2:13:41Speaker 01

  Dude, I went to the UCLA game. It was rough last year.

• 2:13:44Bill Simmons?

  No, they have my coach now, Chesney, my guy.

• 2:13:47Speaker 04

  I gotta, I tell y'all something real quick, quick take. College football better be ready. UCLA is serious. They are not fucking around.

• 2:13:54Speaker 01

  Is it still, the quarterback, this, what's his name?

• 2:13:57Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't matter.

• 2:13:57Speaker 01

  Well, he was bad in the game that I went to.

• 2:13:59Speaker 04

  You're talking about Nico?

• 2:14:00Bill Simmons?

  Don't bet against Bob Chesney.

• 2:14:01Speaker 04

  But I think they're making, they've, they're gonna tailor the offense to him.

• 2:14:06Speaker 01

  I'm a Leva or whatever, yeah.

• 2:14:07Speaker 04

  Just from being there and walking through the facility.

• 2:14:09Bill Simmons?

  They might dump LSU. This is it.

• 2:14:11Speaker 01

  Really?

• 2:14:12Bill Simmons?

  He moved from Louisiana to LA.

• 2:14:13Speaker 04

  See how you, see how you.

• 2:14:14Bill Simmons?

  You dumped Louisiana for LA, now you're gonna dump LSU for UCLA.

• 2:14:17Speaker 04

  Like you, no, you really, this never happened. I will, I, I've never been as interested in how a college football season was gonna play out than the UCLA season this year, though.

• 2:14:25Speaker 01

  Jeez.

• 2:14:25Speaker 04

  That, I'm serious.

• 2:14:26Bill Simmons?

  There we go. All right. Thanks, Ben. Thanks, Greg. Thanks, Cahill. Thanks, everybody else. We'll see you next week.

• 2:14:42Speaker 06

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