Pod Insights The Rewatchables ‘The Gambler’ (2014) With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan About this episode The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan record this podcast from a position of “fuck you’ after rewatching the 2014 high-stakes thriller ‘The Gambler,’ starring Mark Wahlberg, Brie Larson, John Goodman, and Michael K. Williams.
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Producer: Craig Horlbeck
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Transcript 19,756 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 What's happening? It's Todd McShay and I'm back with a new home and a new show at The Ringer and Spotify. The McShay Show. It's a video and audio podcast coming to you year round with all my NFL draft information, big boards, mock drafts and player movement. Plus, I'll be chatting with some of my best friends in football, including some of your favorite football analysts. During the week, we'll have episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays that'll include discussions about my player rankings, who's rising, who's falling, and who your NFL team should be keeping an eye on. Plus, we'll be reacting each week to the college football playoff polls and giving you previews and picks for each Saturday slate. In addition, I'll have episodes on Saturday nights with my immediate reaction to the full
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2:36 Bill Simmons? The Rewatchables brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find a lot of the videos that we've done of episodes on the Ringer Movies channel. Now we have a Ringer TV channel.
2:46 Chris Ryan? We do, Ringer TV on YouTube.
2:49 Bill Simmons? Are you cranking it on there or what?
2:50 Chris Ryan? We sure are, man.
2:51 Bill Simmons? There's some cranking?
2:51 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
2:52 Bill Simmons? You're cranking it on a YouTube channel? Yeah, he's cranking it. The watch is cranking away. You did some three person stuff?
2:59 Chris Ryan? Yeah, me, Joe and Rob did a little bit of a holiday recommendation kind of list for people, for people who are looking for stuff to watch over the holidays.
3:08 Bill Simmons? Was one of them Carrie on with, on Netflix?
3:10 Chris Ryan? This, the second we're done here, I'm going home to watch it.
3:12 Bill Simmons? I watched the first 40 minutes.
3:14 Chris Ryan? How was it?
3:16 Bill Simmons? Eh, slow, slow start.
3:17 Chris Ryan? Oh, really? Really?
3:19 Bill Simmons? Evil Bateman, though.
3:20 Chris Ryan? I love Evil Bateman.
3:21 Bill Simmons? Didn't know, didn't, he's not on the, not on the poster.
3:24 Chris Ryan? Well, Ozark.
3:25 Bill Simmons? They kind of buried him.
3:25 Chris Ryan? He was pretty evil in Ozark.
3:27 Bill Simmons? I guess he became evil. Well, I don't know how to describe the character in The Gambler. Is he evil? Is he good guy? What the hell is he? What is this movie?
3:34 Chris Ryan? He's a teacher.
3:35 Bill Simmons? He's a teacher. We're going to talk about The Gambler on the Rewatchables that's next.
3:39 Speaker 04 But would a teacher like you get that kind of money?
3:43 Speaker 05 He knew how to win the game.
3:45 Speaker 06 I've seen you be half a million dollars off. I've been up two and a half million dollars.
3:50 Speaker 05 But the rules.
3:52 Speaker 06 I don't like to lose. I will kill your entire bloodline.
3:55 Speaker 05 Just changed. What's going on? Time to get away from me. I've never done anything like this before. You gotta meet me.
4:02 Speaker 06 Do you understand the gravity of your situation?
4:07 Speaker 05 The Gambler. I came to play. Red and R.
4:15 Bill Simmons? All right, so you're, this movie came out, we knew each other.
4:17 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
4:18 Bill Simmons? We were at Grantland.
4:19 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
4:19 Bill Simmons? And Wesley Morris skewered this movie and then you did a blog post and you really liked it.
4:24 Chris Ryan? I loved it.
4:25 Bill Simmons? You guys were like, like Jack and, uh, who's the other guy in Lost?
4:29 Chris Ryan? Oh, Jack and Sawyer.
4:30 Bill Simmons? Jack and Locke? Yeah, Jack and Sawyer.
4:32 Chris Ryan? Jack and Locke, yeah.
4:34 Bill Simmons? And you've been, you've been nudging me on this movie for years.
4:37 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
4:37 Bill Simmons? And I'm like two thirds of the way there for a while and then I caught it last year and it finally fell into place and then I watched it twice this week and now I'm all in.
4:47 Chris Ryan? It features, it's about a bunch of stuff that we like.
4:49 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
4:50 Chris Ryan? Genius writing, gambling, and college hoops. So it's already got a bunch of stuff that we're interested in, but it's one of those weird, you know, mid 2010s movies that we would call like five o'clockers that at, like on a Friday at Grantland or whatever, we would kind of like cut out a little bit early and then go see something over at the movie theater right by LA Live. And this was one that just kind of came and went. Like even, even with Wahlberg, it didn't really like make much of an impact either commercially or critically, but it's kind of like, at least for me, lived on. And I go back to it really often just to see just how fucking weird it is at times.
5:30 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I remember he passed through the whole Grantland universe because he really promoted this.
5:33 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
5:34 Bill Simmons? And he did my podcast.
5:35 Chris Ryan? I think he thought this was like an Oscar movie.
5:36 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he lost all this weight for it. He, uh, I remember being excited because he did the podcast and, and he'd never really talked about Boogie Nights that much, but during the podcast I asked about Boogie Nights because we were doing oral history for it. We were able to grab what he said, put it in there, but he was really confident this was going to be a big movie. And it just wasn't. But now it has this whole second life and it's been on cable a lot. And I also think it's one of those movies you really do have to watch a few times. And it feels like a cop out, but I don't think it is because there's a lot, there's a lot of themes in this movie.
6:09 Chris Ryan? It's mostly a movie about ideas. I know people might laugh at like a Mark Wahlberg gambling movie being a movie of ideas, but this is based on a James Toback film from the seventies, but is also based on a Dostoevsky book. And most of the scenes are. Are not about like dramatic tension of what's gonna happen. They're about two or three characters exchanging their points of view and their ideas about like, how to live, how to live honestly, what people need to do to live successfully. And I think that that winds up rewarding on multiple viewings. It's also strangely a movie that you kinda sometimes need to have subtitles on for.
6:43 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
6:43 Chris Ryan? There's a lot of mumbling, but there's also a lot of really dense dialogue and dense speechifying. So it's just one of those things that if you have it on and on, you you kinda get more out of it.
6:53 Bill Simmons? It also has a fundamental question, which we've been sitting with for 30 years now with Mark Wahlberg as an actor. Because you could make a case, he's the perfect actor for this movie.
7:02 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
7:02 Bill Simmons? And you could make a case that there's 20 actors you would rather have in this movie.
7:06 Chris Ryan? Yes.
7:06 Bill Simmons? And that his limitations as an actor and for what he's willing to do and not do in a movie, hold this movie back or it's perfect. And I don't really know where I've landed on that.
7:18 Chris Ryan? This is kind of like, this is the road not taken for Wahlberg. You know, like this is The Digler, this is Departed, this is doing prestigious stuff, working with really good scripts. And he has since kind of almost at this moment, gone in a completely different direction where he's just.
7:34 Bill Simmons? Cause it didn't work. Now it's like, alright, let's do some people.
7:37 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I crank out like two family movies and an action movie every year. And that's kind of like what he's sort of done with the rest of his professional career. Along with obviously like fitness training regimen stuff and supplements and exercise gear. So I feel like this was actually like his last stand of being taken seriously as an actor.
7:58 Bill Simmons? Yeah, there's, I I'm in conflict in so many ways with this, cause this is an English major movie. As you know, I hate English majors. It's got a lot of big pretentious themes and it's trying to do a lot of stuff, which instantly I'm I'm against. I really do like Mark Wahlberg. I also don't know if he's that interested in going to certain places and it's hard. And I've seen this movie now a bunch of times. It's hard not to imagine, I'll just step on a casting couch now.
8:26 Bill Simmons? This to me would have been the perfect Bernthal movie.
8:28 Chris Ryan? Oh, my god, dude.
8:30 Bill Simmons? Like, just perfect. This is everything I would have wanted from a Bernthal movie. The character would have made more sense to me. But I also think, like, to step on a casting what if later, Leo was initially attached, and I'm like, I kind of like that direction, too. But on the other hand, so the rewatchable side of me, the five o'clocker side of me, the unintentional comedy side of me, I kind of love Wahlberg in this because he's, there's moments where I'm not with him, but that's what's fun about it. We're like, oh, man, Mark Wahlberg just didn't have it here. But then other moments where he's really good.
9:02 Chris Ryan? You could make the argument that, I mean, honestly, we could sit here for half an hour listing actors who probably would have nailed this. Oscar Isaac, Ethan Hawke, Mark Ruffalo, like, so many different actors who probably-
9:13 Bill Simmons? Ruffalo would have been a really good-
9:14 Chris Ryan? Probably would have been able to bring a little bit more familiarity with the teaching segments specifically. But there's something so weird about Wahlberg talking about Shakespeare and whether or not Shakespeare actually authored his plays and-
9:31 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
9:31 Chris Ryan? Camus and like the stranger. And when he's like doing that stuff, you're like, he's trying so hard to be believable, and he apparently spent like all this time watching professors do lectures-
9:43 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
9:44 Chris Ryan? That it gives it this like otherworldly quality. Do you know what I mean?
9:47 Bill Simmons? Well, and he also has a very strange haircut. Everything about it is a very non-Wahlberg performance. The way he handles the gambling scenes is just super, it's, everything he's doing is some sort of weird Wahlberg choice that I kind of like-
10:01 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
10:02 Bill Simmons? But I almost wonder, was this a better part for somebody else? Because the remake, the original movie, the James Caan movie, it's just a classic James Caan swagger part. Like, just him being James Caan.
10:13 Chris Ryan? It's part of like a constellation of Caan parts, like, like the thief-
10:17 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Godfather One, Thief, Rollerball, all these movies where he's just like James Caan swinging around. He might get the shit kicked out of him anytime. He might kick the shit out of somebody else.
10:26 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
10:27 Bill Simmons? Don't leave your wife or your girlfriend with them. Just machismo all the time. And Wahlberg, it's probably closest to Dirk Diggler. And it's funny because he lost all this weight for the movie, so he actually has the Dirk Diggler face, but he's got this weird hairdo. And I feel like he wants to go to this crazy place here. But yet, really, the only time he breaks down is the beginning of the movie, when he's saying goodbye to his grandfather.
10:51 Chris Ryan? There's that, there's the scene in Amy's apartment where he like tells her what he wants when she jumps him.
10:58 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
10:59 Chris Ryan? But that's really it. Everything else, the whole point of this character, Jim Bennett, is that he just tells the truth. And it's actually like a really incredible, uh, dramatic, not invention of the film, but like, a thing to do is just, what if you had a character who was just always telling the truth, more or less? He actually doesn't really even lie to the bookies, like.
11:19 Bill Simmons? Yeah, that's a good point. I'm trying to think that he tried to fib out anybody. Never.
11:23 Chris Ryan? No, I mean, you could say at the end with the Lamar stuff, he doesn't tell all the truth, but he is telling the truth. I mean, he is being honest. When Lamar is like, when he goes to talk to Lamar, it's not like he's like, he's just like, you can do it for the money for you, but don't worry about me. Like, it's gonna happen either way for me.
11:40 Bill Simmons? Alright, so let's get English majory then.
11:42 Chris Ryan? Okay.
11:42 Bill Simmons? So, is this a movie about somebody with a gambling problem? Is it somebody who's self-destructive? Is it a movie about genius? Is it a movie about all of these things? What is it?
11:52 Chris Ryan? I think it's a movie about a guy who wants to obliterate himself to rebuild himself. And I think one of the coolest things about this movie is that there is no discernible trauma to this character that he is trying to recover from. Like, most, multiple characters confront him with that idea. You know, like, Brie Larson's character is like, did you not have, like, you have no problems, so you had to invent them for yourself? John Goodman is like, oh, you're suicidal. Like, Michael K. Williams is always asking him like what his problem is.
12:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah, like, you're a good-looking guy, normal family, you have money.
12:24 Chris Ryan? I think he's a character who, by all accounts throughout the film, wants to live like this ecstatic, special life. And because he doesn't feel that way, he's just gonna destroy the life he has. Like, the idea of being like relatively happy. Honestly, the entire fuck you speech, I don't think he, that, that to him wouldn't be happiness. To have like a 30-year mortgage, a reliable car.
12:49 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
12:49 Chris Ryan? Money in the bank that's paying 3% to 5%. That's not what he wants. He wants to like feel things on a massive level. He wanted maybe to be a novelist, but knows he's not good enough. And so now he's like destroying the thing he is to feel anything at all.
13:04 Bill Simmons? Yeah, like, he would, he would rather have Jameis Winston as his quarterback.
13:09 Chris Ryan? That is honestly exactly right. He wants to see a guy throw for 150 yards to the other team than see Jalen Hurts.
13:18 Bill Simmons? Would you rather have Joe Burrow or Jameis? And he's like, I would love Jameis. I would love the roller coaster rides on. Yeah, cuz I mean, we'll, we'll dive into some of his blackjack.
13:27 Chris Ryan? I feel like it's incidental to the movie.
13:29 Bill Simmons? He's stacking.
13:30 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
13:31 Bill Simmons? So when you stack, you just, you're on a death wish.
13:33 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
13:33 Bill Simmons? You're basically like, I'm trying to win everything I can or, or go broke.
13:37 Chris Ryan? Yes.
13:38 Bill Simmons? And that's it. So he loses all that money.
13:43 Bill Simmons? And then it's, I, I guess my fundamental part, my problem with the film, which isn't really a problem, but he's just losing all this money. So he, it kinda seems like he wants to be murdered.
13:54 Chris Ryan? He wants to either be reborn or die. Yeah.
13:58 Bill Simmons? But there's no path for him being reborn because he's just losing crazy amounts of money that he's not gonna be able to pay back.
14:05 Chris Ryan? Yeah. I mean.
14:06 Bill Simmons? But then he meets Brie Larson and it feels like that's giving him a shred of hope that he's like, maybe I should get out of this.
14:13 Chris Ryan? Yeah, he's like, I can feel something here. I actually am feel drawn to you. Like even in the, in the conversation that they have in the classroom, he's basically like physiology is the only thing that I can't explain. He's obviously like getting closer and closer and closer to her. So he feels like obviously like this is the first thing that's come along in a while that makes me wanna be anything else than what I am.
14:33 Bill Simmons? It's like how Doug Peterson just goes for it on every fourth and five. He's like, I can't feel anymore. I'm gonna do this QB rollout with Trevor Lawrence. The only way I could feel anything anymore.
14:47 Bill Simmons? Yeah. So this movie is, the big themes are like to be or not to be.
14:52 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
14:53 Bill Simmons? All or nothing.
14:54 Chris Ryan? Yes.
14:55 Bill Simmons? What's the point of all of this? If you're not a genius.
14:58 Chris Ryan? Don't try.
14:58 Bill Simmons? Is it worth even, should you just be an electrician at that point? It feels like everything they're trying to say in the movie is the first speech he gives to the class.
15:05 Chris Ryan? Yes.
15:06 Bill Simmons? Where he basically, uh. He basically evicts her, it's the entire class, and he points out to the Brie Larson character, and she's like, this is the only one, it was a chance.
15:14 Chris Ryan? Yeah. And he's like, if you were Shakespeare, because they're talking about whether or not the works of Shakespeare were actually authored by somebody else, and like, the kid in the class is like, oh, do you think it's because, you know, the Earl of Oxford, and he was just like, if you wrote Hamlet, can you imagine not putting your name on Hamlet?
15:31 Bill Simmons? Right?
15:32 Chris Ryan? Yeah. And he's like, there's only like, five of these people, 20 of these people, 100 of these people, like, everybody else is just, is playing for scraps. Everybody else is kind of lying to themselves. And he's like, I won't lie to myself. I just kind, it's just a very unique character for both him and for a 2014 movie to kind of present to us.
15:50 Bill Simmons? This seems like the kind of movie, if you could have said, what script are you jealous of? This would have been a script for you.
15:57 Chris Ryan? This is, this, Monahan's kind of one of my guys. So, Monahan wrote Kingdom of Heaven, which is this Ridley Scott movie, that's incredible, if you see the Ridley Scott director's cut. He wrote The Departed.
16:06 Bill Simmons? Yep.
16:07 Chris Ryan? And, and he did this, and then he's had some ups and downs since then with like, movies that he's tried to direct and, and do work on. But this is just a riff movie. You know, like, every character in here is just like, hey, man, here's like, three pages of stuff to just riff on. Doesn't really even like, the first time he goes and sees Goodman, you're just like, I don't, what was the point of that? You know what I mean? You didn't take his money that he offered you. But they're just like, they're just podcasting, they're just vibing with each other.
16:33 Bill Simmons? Yeah, you have multiple characters who definitely wouldn't be this, this deep in real life.
16:38 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
16:39 Bill Simmons? And yet, all of them are super deep.
16:40 Chris Ryan? Yes.
16:41 Bill Simmons? Even like, the college basketball player, like, really self-aware, just has some awesome thoughts, then you go to John Goodman.
16:46 Chris Ryan? He's definitely been moved by the stranger, yeah.
16:48 Bill Simmons? John Goodman, who's just a murderer, he, he has these deep thoughts about the position of fuck you, and then the Michael K. Williams character, same thing. Like, really interested in human connection.
16:59 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
17:00 Bill Simmons? And the reasons why people do shit, I'm not sure real life works that way, but that's what, that's what makes this movie so fun.
17:05 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I think-
17:06 Bill Simmons? It's this alternate universe of what The Gambler would be.
17:08 Chris Ryan? Right. And there's also like, I think for people, one of the reasons why it was disappointing is that exactly what you were saying about stacking, is that there's actually not a lot of juice to the gambling scenes.
17:16 Bill Simmons? And that was my biggest disappointment the first time I saw it.
17:20 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
17:21 Bill Simmons? I didn't really under, I was so ready for gambling shit. And I also really liked the James Caan movie, and it was so different. Than that from a sense of what he was trying to do.
17:30 Chris Ryan? Sure.
17:31 Bill Simmons? That I just had trouble with it and then it would pop on and be like, ah, alright.
17:35 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
17:36 Bill Simmons? And then you're like, yeah, I kinda like that. Ah, Brie Larson.
17:38 Chris Ryan? Well, cause it's a
17:39 Bill Simmons? Much bigger star now.
17:39 Chris Ryan? The card playing is boring, but what he's saying during the card playing is kinda interesting.
17:44 Bill Simmons? You must be new here.
17:47 Chris Ryan? There is no limit.
17:49 Bill Simmons? Also, he's delivering all his lines like Andy Samberg doing the impression of him. Say hi to your mother for me. He's got this like weird edge to his everything. It's such a weird, this would be a really fun Oscar to hand out every year. Like, just, this is a weird one for you.
18:06 Chris Ryan? Yeah, this is a weird one.
18:07 Bill Simmons? Yeah, here we go with that. This is a weird one for you category.
18:10 Chris Ryan? Um.
18:11 Bill Simmons? Just people kinda going sideways of the movie.
18:13 Chris Ryan? I also wonder whether part of the reason why you and I like this movie is that it is to, if Den of Thieves is like the JV version of Heat.
18:22 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
18:22 Chris Ryan? This is kinda the JV version of Thief and maybe like collateral. Cool LA movie.
18:28 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
18:28 Chris Ryan? Guy with an open shirt collar.
18:30 Bill Simmons? I would've thrown in Rounders too.
18:31 Chris Ryan? Yeah, but I mean specifically like the Michael man, like there's like they use like the deep synth kind of score here a bunch of times. And it kinda gives you a little bit of that feeling of driving around LA or running around LA in the end. Uh, and having this kind of breakthrough moment in this weird, weird city. But it's not quite as good as those films.
18:52 Bill Simmons? Well, it has one other element that you and I both love is when movies create this little mini world inside a city we already think we know.
18:59 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
18:59 Bill Simmons? And it's like, you're going down, downstairs and this, or you're parking your car and you're getting out. It seems like you're vowing for a party, but actually you're going into this whole crazy secret blackjack world. Or like this whole secret card world. And just this whole underbelly, kinda the high class underbelly. Which I think John Wick really nailed in a great way.
19:21 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
19:21 Bill Simmons? John Wick's like, we're taking the high-class underbelly to a whole other level with Continental.
19:24 Chris Ryan? There's a, there's, you know, obviously in Heat, there's BJ's on Alvarado.
19:28 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
19:28 Chris Ryan? Nightclub that Al Pacino goes to. And I feel like Rupert Wyatt and William Monahan, when they made this movie, were like, we have to like, we have to double down on BJ's on Alvarado.
19:37 Bill Simmons? Oh, totally.
19:38 Chris Ryan? So like, when he goes to the Korea, Koreatown card playing, like casino at the end.
19:44 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
19:44 Chris Ryan? He goes through like an internet cafe, an opium den, a noodle bar.
19:49 Bill Simmons? Right.
19:49 Chris Ryan? And then he gets to the casino.
19:51 Bill Simmons? Well, that, and that Rounders place too, though.
19:53 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
19:53 Bill Simmons? Plays the Russian with the Chesterfield.
19:56 Chris Ryan? Anytime a guy walks into a pretty nondescript place and then takes an elevator somewhere, Michael Clayton, Rounders, like any, we go into a backroom that then also has a backroom, I'm in.
20:08 Bill Simmons? And there's like a, there's some sort of hot waitress or cash register person.
20:13 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
20:13 Bill Simmons? Who has that look like, oh, he's back. And you just kind of know what you're in for right away.
20:17 Chris Ryan? But she's also like a philosophy major, yeah.
20:19 Bill Simmons? And also totally ready to hook up with them again. It's such a strange Wahlberg movie. I was, it made me think like, what are my favorite Wahlberg movies? What's my relationship with Wahlberg in general? Cause he's, we've now had him for three decades and he's been in a lot of stuff. He's in one of my favorite movies ever, Boogie Nights, which I think is probably still my favorite Wahlberg. But he's also in a lot of other stuff I like, like The Italian Job. Fear's a super weird movie, uh, the, the, the fighter, 2010.
20:50 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I mean, The Yards, I, I heart Huckabee's like.
20:53 Bill Simmons? Patriots Day.
20:53 Chris Ryan? He does a lot of like, he, for the first 10 years, 15 years of his career, was still like searching around for that, like.
21:00 Bill Simmons? The Departed?
21:01 Chris Ryan? Yeah, like he, I think he was like, kind of not on Christian Bale's track, but was like, I want to do these kinds of roles though.
21:09 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he was in, it was somewhere like Damon and DiCaprio both turned this part down. And next stop was Mark Wahlberg.
21:16 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
21:17 Bill Simmons? A lot of times, like, could he, could he have done the Bourne Identity? He probably could have.
21:20 Chris Ryan? Now, after this, pretty much after A Gambler, he more or less does a couple of Pete Berg movies where he's kind of like doing, you know.
21:31 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he's doing paycheck movies after this.
21:33 Chris Ryan? But like Deepwater Horizon.
21:36 Chris Ryan? And then after that, it's like Transformers Daddy's Home, Mile 22, Spencer Confidential. Like, he makes two or three movies a year. There's one family, one in one thriller or action movie.
21:45 Bill Simmons? And he does Ted two years before this, which is a really funny movie that had, uh, I don't know, had some legs.
21:52 Chris Ryan? Did you do a Ted rewatchables?
21:53 Bill Simmons? Not yet.
21:54 Chris Ryan? Okay.
21:54 Bill Simmons? Um, but that was a weird choice. So there's like a sense of humor with him, but I also, I'm not positive he has a sense of humor.
22:01 Chris Ryan? I think it's a very-
22:02 Bill Simmons? Cause I remember he was like really mad about the Sandberg thing and he had to come on the next week and he like made fun of Sandberg back. Cause he was pissed. It seemed like he was gonna like fight him. Say hi to your mother for me.
22:14 Bill Simmons? He also, before he did this, he sought the blessing of, uh, of James Caan.
22:19 Chris Ryan? Mm-hmm. Do you think Jimmy Caan was like?
22:21 Bill Simmons? Jimmy, Mark Wahlberg here. How are you?
22:25 Chris Ryan? There's a dead man on the other end of this phone.
22:27 Bill Simmons? Jimmy Caan's like, don't do it. Well, I'm gonna do it anyway. They already paid me.
22:31 Chris Ryan? Yeah, Toback wasn't happy about this either. I don't think.
22:35 Bill Simmons? I wasn't happy about it when I heard about it. Cause you know, anything mid seventies on, if it's still watchable, I, I'm, I'm always gonna have my guard up. But they did really make it different than the original in a lot of ways.
22:48 Chris Ryan? There's also just, I think for me, you know, like Michael K. Williams is passed on, but this is like, one of those movies where the star keeps walking into scenes where he's getting his doors blown off by the other guy in the scene.
23:00 Bill Simmons? Even Brie Larson.
23:01 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
23:02 Bill Simmons? Like Brie Larson, Michael K. Williams, Goodman, even Dom from Entourage, whatever that guy's name is.
23:07 Chris Ryan? Mr. Lee's really good. Yeah. Jessica Lange.
23:09 Bill Simmons? Jessica Lange's good. You're right. He's always like, it feels like he's the second best actor in nine scenes.
23:14 Chris Ryan? I, I think Emery Cohen cooks him a little bit, like in a good way, but like that, that character's really cool.
23:20 Bill Simmons? Well, Goodman's incredible in this. And this is like, I, Goodman has put together so many just awesome, memorable, supporting parts.
23:29 Chris Ryan? Yes.
23:30 Bill Simmons? That I almost feel like that's a bigger part of his legacy now for me than Roseanne. You know, Roseanne was one of the biggest shows of the nineties.
23:37 Chris Ryan? One of the great character actors of all time.
23:38 Bill Simmons? But nobody's talking about Roseanne in two thousand twenty-four, but I think he, some of these movies that he's in, that he just, is able to just kind of fly into like a gust of wind.
23:47 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
23:47 Bill Simmons? And he could just, what's he in, three scenes in this movie?
23:50 Chris Ryan? Literally.
23:51 Bill Simmons? I mean, but like three and a half.
23:52 Chris Ryan? He does the one in the bathhouse, the one at the course track, and then one at the end when he shows up at the Koreatown place.
23:58 Bill Simmons? I don't think he's ever been nominated for an Oscar. Probably won some Emmys. I don't think so. Uh, probably won some, uh, won some comedy Emmys once upon a time, but it's a great movie for him. It's a great movie for Michael K. Williams, AKA Omar.
24:12 Chris Ryan? Yep.
24:13 Bill Simmons? Who really hit a nice stretch after The Wire, when he would pop up with stuff and you would be delighted to see him. Did he win or no?
24:20 Chris Ryan? He did not.
24:21 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
24:21 Chris Ryan? You're right.
24:23 Bill Simmons? So, based on, uh, Dostoevsky's novel originally, kind of, sort of. I, I researched this and it really doesn't seem like it's based on a lot.
24:31 Chris Ryan? Did you, uh, I mean, I think it also like draws from, draws heavily from The Stranger and the idea of like an existential sort of mindset. Yeah.
24:40 Bill Simmons? What was the closest you came to him in this movie? You're just ready to throw it all away. Was there a New Bear Comics moment?
24:47 Chris Ryan? I think when Ryan Howard tore his Achilles.
24:51 Chris Ryan? I was like, fucking take it. Yeah.
24:54 Bill Simmons? So, directed by Rupert Wyatt, really well?
24:58 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
24:58 Bill Simmons? This is, I think, a superbly made movie and turns out to be like one of the peaks of his career. And I think he was a promising director that seemed like it went sideways.
25:07 Chris Ryan? He did, uh, Planet of the Apes movie, he did this. And then has kind of like done some sci-fi stuff, but has, has kind of fallen out of like the rotation.
25:15 Bill Simmons? Had some scandal stuff with Kristen Stewart?
25:17 Chris Ryan? No, actually that was Rupert Sanders.
25:19 Bill Simmons? Oh, that was a different Rupert?
25:20 Chris Ryan? Different guy, different Rupert.
25:21 Bill Simmons? Damn, I got my Rupert's mixed up.
25:23 Chris Ryan? That was my fault. I was, I told you that and I was like, oh wait, I gotta double check this. He also, uh, this is shot by Greg Fraser, who's one of like the four or five best cinematographers. Like LA looks awesome. There's some great photography in this.
25:38 Bill Simmons? Yeah, LA looks so awesome. I had trouble figuring out where we were in almost every scene.
25:42 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I was trying to figure out where he lives, where Jim's place is.
25:45 Bill Simmons? Could not figure it out.
25:46 Chris Ryan? Topanga, maybe?
25:47 Bill Simmons? Couldn't figure it out.
25:48 Chris Ryan? He's got that little like honed steel place.
25:49 Bill Simmons? Running all the way through the end, I, I can only figure out, it's kind of seemed like he ended up at our office.
25:54 Chris Ryan? Yeah, well, I think he's in.
25:55 Bill Simmons? That would've been weird.
25:56 Chris Ryan? He's supposed to be in Koreatown, but it seems like he's running through downtown Los Angeles to get back to like a little bit north of McCarthy.
26:02 Bill Simmons? That, I'll tell you this, that is a much more action-packed run than maybe they made it seem in the movie.
26:09 Bill Simmons? Twenty-five million dollar budget made thirty-three million dollars. Here's what Wesley Morris wrote for Grantland. Shout out to Wesley, who's been on this podcast many times. Mark Wahlberg's grown so much in the last 15 years that he forgets his limitations. He still can't show you what's happening inside a character. He needs dialogue and he needs somewhere to run. The gambler gives him both, but they're both terrible. The dialogue never leaves the surface and the running across L.A. happens in the last sequence. It's supposed to thrill you, but it's such a cliche that your embarrassment extends to the crew member has to follow with the camera as Wahlberg chugs along. Wasn't a fan.
26:45 Chris Ryan? Wesley, tell him how you really feel.
26:48 Bill Simmons? I wonder if like 10 years later was this like, "No, I kinda like it now." Cause he's done that with some other ones. Roger Ebert was sadly not alive.
26:58 Chris Ryan? Uh, RogerEbert.com gave this two stars.
27:01 Bill Simmons? Well, I had to do ChatGPT, Robert Ebert, Roger Ebert. I know you hate this.
27:06 Chris Ryan? Unethical.
27:08 Bill Simmons? Why is it unethical?
27:09 Chris Ryan? It's a sin. He's dead. You can't ask a robot to imitate him.
27:12 Bill Simmons? Wanted to find out.
27:13 Chris Ryan? Don't do this to me.
27:14 Bill Simmons? He said, ChatGPT said probably two and a half to three stars. Ebert was known for his sharp eye with character-driven dramas and his appreciation for films that explored moral complexity and self-destruction. Not wrong. Why are you so nervous? He was often skeptical of remakes and tended to hold them to a high standard. True.
27:34 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
27:36 Bill Simmons? He may have praised Mark Wahlberg's committed performance, but questioned whether the character of Jim Bennett was as richly drawn or compelling as Axel Fried in the original. In summary, Ebert's review would have likely been a thoughtful balance of praise for its ideas and critique of its execution.
27:54 Chris Ryan? I, it sounds, that sounds about right.
27:55 Bill Simmons? The robots are coming for us.
27:56 Chris Ryan? He would have been a little annoyed about them remaking a seventies, you know, cult classic.
28:03 Bill Simmons? Yeah, during a time that 74 to 77 stretch, when it feels like all of those movies just should not be touched.
28:10 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
28:11 Bill Simmons? Did you do, are you a Three Days of a Condor TV show?
28:14 Chris Ryan? Uh, the TV show?
28:16 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
28:16 Chris Ryan? Uh, I watched a bit of it. Yeah. I thought it was cool, but it was just like, that's one of the great seventies movies.
28:21 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I won't watch it.
28:22 Chris Ryan? Okay.
28:23 Bill Simmons? I'll watch Carry On though with evil Jason Bateman.
28:26 Chris Ryan? Based on, based on Alan Bakula's Carry On.
28:30 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Now it's time for the most rewatchable scene brought to you by Den of Thieves 2 Pantera.
28:36 Chris Ryan? Yes.
28:36 Bill Simmons? Ready for a new killer heist movie? Gerard Butler and O'Shea Jackson Jr. are back in the sequel to the original hit, but this time the cop goes gangster. See Den of Thieves 2, Pantera only in theaters, January 10th. We'll be seeing it before January 10th.
28:53 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I hope so.
28:54 Bill Simmons? Be calling in some favors.
28:55 Chris Ryan? Christmas night.
28:57 Bill Simmons? Let's make that a big franchise. All right, most rewatchable scene. This movie just kicks right in.
29:03 Chris Ryan? Open blackjack.
29:03 Bill Simmons? Yeah, no, no opener, no like him at a Dodger game playing in the day. No coffee house scene, no him, he's just gambling right away.
29:12 Chris Ryan? Tell me if I got this right, walks in with 10 grand.
29:15 Bill Simmons? Yep.
29:16 Chris Ryan? Goes up 80, blows it, now owes 240.
29:20 Bill Simmons? Well, I want to talk about the gambling because we just, of course, we're gonna have to. I love blackjack.
29:25 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
29:27 Bill Simmons? So he's stacking from 10, he wins on a 19, fair. 15 against a king, hits, which I would hit too, gets a 6, 21, so now he's up.
29:36 Chris Ryan? Yes.
29:37 Bill Simmons? 10 and 20, so now he's up 40.
29:41 Bill Simmons? 15 against a 13, he stays, which I think is the right move.
29:46 Chris Ryan? And he throws a, he gets like a face card, right? Like he gets like a 10?
29:51 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he stays, dealer gets the face card, bust, now he's up 80.
29:57 Bill Simmons? At that point, you've won four, you've won four in a row, you're gonna be like, that was great. You're probably taking half the bets going back. He's like, fucking all in. 14 hits, bust, starting over, gets mad at the dealer. Double it, you must be new, double it.
30:18 Bill Simmons? Double it, make it 80,000.
30:22 Bill Simmons? I'm gonna Mr. League cover a lot more than that, buddy, you must be new, double it.
30:31 Bill Simmons? Gets a nine against a five, gets an ace, stays on 20, and then anyone who loves blackjack knows what happened next. Dealer gets the 15 and the 6, now all of a sudden, he's down, what, 150?
30:42 Chris Ryan? Yeah, he owes 240 and then he borrows 50 grand from Neville, from Michael K. Williams, at 20 points interest.
30:51 Bill Simmons? Can we just call him Omar for the rest of the podcast or no? Michael K., I'll call him Michael K., he earned the Michael K.
30:59 Bill Simmons? Michael Kay says, "It's an unequal general situation."
31:04 Chris Ryan? Does he say it's a losing proposition and he's like, "So is life?"
31:07 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he says, "Life's..." This is what Wahlberg says, "Life's a losing proposition. You might as well get used to it."
31:12 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
31:12 Bill Simmons? So when he says that, you're like, "All right, this guy's fucking suicide pact with himself with gambling."
31:17 Chris Ryan? So he gives Mr. Lee 40K and he keeps 10 to gamble.
31:21 Bill Simmons? Leads me to, uh, to the next. It's a small rewatchable, but Mr. Lee says, "Your luck is no good tonight. You came in with 10,000 in cash. You didn't give it to me." And Wahlberg says, "Well, this is a gambling establishment." "You owe me $240,000. I want it in seven days." And what happens? He takes the 10K. Gets 21 and 20.
31:44 Chris Ryan? Gets a new dealer.
31:45 Bill Simmons? New dealer, 21 and 20, wins the first two. Gets a 12 sheet bust. So he's won the first three hands. He's back. He's back kinda on the road again.
31:55 Chris Ryan? Yeah, he also has one of my favorite lines in the movie where she goes, "It's for your protection." And he goes, "You don't come here for protection. You come... You don't come here for protection from yourself. You come here for the fucking opposite."
32:05 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
32:05 Chris Ryan? So deal the cards.
32:06 Bill Simmons? Right. Well, first he goes to the pit bot, "Don't look at him. There's no limit."
32:12 Bill Simmons? "Fuck my protection. Please deal the cards."
32:15 Chris Ryan? I didn't know Jim Bennett was from fucking Southie.
32:17 Bill Simmons? I've given him the Southie. I'm giving the departed accent. "Please deal the cards."
32:21 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
32:21 Bill Simmons? Fucking act.
32:22 Chris Ryan? Fucking Belichick.
32:24 Bill Simmons? So Blackjack turns 80K into 200K. And then decides to take it over the roulette wheel, which is yet another... So he's just clearly trying to go by.
32:33 Chris Ryan? He's up 160 or whatever and he goes and bets on black and loses. Fucking masterpiece scene. I could watch that scene, that 10 minutes over and over and over again.
32:41 Bill Simmons? He's put, goes on black. Michael Kay goes, "It's been coming up red all night." It's like, "All right, fine, black." And, uh, and that's it. Really enjoyable. It's like 20 minutes all the way through. We get to meet some characters. Great stuff.
32:55 Chris Ryan? Mr. Lee's casino seems to be on the PCH.
33:00 Chris Ryan? Get the ocean view, maybe a little bit in Palisades, I don't know. Is there a lot of illegal gambling establishments?
33:07 Bill Simmons? I was thinking a little like slightly seedy Venice.
33:12 Chris Ryan? It's in the hills.
33:13 Bill Simmons? Oh, it's in the hills?
33:14 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
33:14 Bill Simmons? Oh, yeah, you're right, yeah. He goes up.
33:16 Chris Ryan? Seems like Palisades.
33:17 Bill Simmons? Yeah, Palisades has to be the answer then, because we could see the ocean and he's going uphill.
33:22 Bill Simmons? Next one, Wahlberg's, uh, his big speech about how hard it is to be a novelist.
33:27 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
33:29 Chris Ryan? I mean, we accept genius in sports as something we cannot do. But it's no more likely that you could be a writer, that you could be, what, an Olympic pole vaulter? Because what you have to be before you try to be a pole vaulter? Hello, is a pole vaulter, no? Yeah.
33:46 Speaker 07 You are one.
33:47 Chris Ryan? A pole vaulter?
33:48 Speaker 07 A novelist.
33:48 Chris Ryan? No, I am not. For me to be a novelist, I would have to make a deal with myself that it was okay being a mediocrity in a profession that died commercially in the last century. All right, people do that. I'm not one of them. If you take away nothing else from my class, from this experience, let it be this. If you're not a genius, don't bother. All right, the world needs plenty of electricians and a lot of them are happy. I'll be fucked if I'll be a mid-list novelist getting good reviews from the people I give good reviews to.
34:17 Bill Simmons? Just some gems in here. What was your favorite part?
34:20 Chris Ryan? I think him dunking on the, the nerdy kid who's trying to get, get into his good graces. And he was just like, absolutely not. But I, I think probably it's just all about the unequal distribution of talent. And I love the, when he somehow has, well, one of the, a, a first round draft pick NBA player, like coming, a future first round draft pick, and the number two tennis player in the country in his class, and a genius writer. That's quite a class. I don't remember any of those classes at Emerson.
34:53 Bill Simmons? My classes, I had like Jacko.
35:00 Chris Ryan? Yeah, it's like I got Jabari Smith Jr.
35:05 Bill Simmons? Worst case scenario, you're the third pick of the draft. I like when he does.
35:08 Chris Ryan? I also love when he's talking to Emirko and about tennis. And he's like, as you, when you realize that you were the best, what did you start to think? And he's like, oh.
35:17 Bill Simmons? I started to think about the game and he goes, that's an IQ breakpoint, brother.
35:23 Bill Simmons? What the fuck? I love it. Know what that means?
35:28 Bill Simmons? If you're not a genius, don't bother. The world needs plenty of electricians and a lot of them are happy. I'll be fucked if I'd be a mid-list novelist giving good reviews to the people I give good reviews to. Yeah. That is very funny. And then he points out Brie Larson. At a very early Brie Larson stage of the movie. Yeah, right after. Nothing has really happened for her yet. In the movie or in her career? In her career. She's done Short Term Twelve, which is like this weird, awesome movie, but is also like her, Robbie Malick and Michael B. Jordan in the same movie, right before they all get famous. Like she's two years away, is it Trainwreck with Amy Schumer? Two thousand sixteen? Yeah, and then Room. Rooms right after that.
36:09 Bill Simmons? She's in a couple of other ones. I, one of those ones you always liked her, but you never kind of totally know what was gonna happen with her and then all of a sudden she became Brie Larson. Yep. She chooses to hide and blend in there with the rest of you. Why?
36:23 Chris Ryan? But do you know who does write at the highest level? When most of us, and even I, even I, write barely adequately. Do you know who it is? In this room. Who is it?
36:40 Chris Ryan? Don't give me that look. No, no, no, no, no, no. It isn't the one who talks the most. You're an NPR host, Hops, okay? The literary person in here
36:53 Chris Ryan? is Miss Phillips. She's the least of streperous in this room.
36:59 Chris Ryan? The quietest. And the only one who can have a real career at letters. Some of you can have one perceptually. Only she can have one in reality. She is better at writing than our US president, Lee Ambrich, number two as a tennis. Yet she chooses to hide or just blend in with the rest of you. Why?
37:29 Bill Simmons? And she answers, being in the middle is the safest place to be, which I think is one of the themes of the movie.
37:35 Chris Ryan? Yeah, and that's what he refuses to accept.
37:37 Bill Simmons? He doesn't want to be in the middle. He'd rather just be killed in an alley because he lost $250,000.
37:42 Chris Ryan? Because he kept stacking.
37:44 Bill Simmons? No money, no advantages. Genius is magical, not material.
37:49 Bill Simmons? I mean, basically, he's your, that douchey guy in your hall in college, who's just has these big crazy things that he's saying about how society works and everybody's like, fucking Tommy's going nuts over there.
38:01 Chris Ryan? Yeah, it also like the English teacher who smells of cigarette smoke, kind of has red eyes.
38:07 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
38:07 Chris Ryan? You know, likes the books that aren't on the syllabus.
38:10 Bill Simmons? Definitely hooking up with one of the students.
38:11 Chris Ryan? Yeah, has like a kind of tattered Cormac McCarthy novel in his back pocket. And you're, you're completely enchanted by him. You're just like, oh my God, this guy is spitting.
38:20 Bill Simmons? Professor Smith is amazing. Next one, John Goodman's first scene.
38:24 Chris Ryan? Shaving his head.
38:28 Bill Simmons? He sees three problems.
38:31 Bill Simmons? With Jim. He wants to live like a monk. He wants to dance with the devil and he wants to borrow money to pay off debts that he can't pay off.
38:39 Chris Ryan? Associate professors, let's just say he teaches at USC because that has to be someplace that would be a, a program big enough for Lamar to get considered to go to the NBA, right?
38:48 Bill Simmons? I had either UCLA or USC. I don't see, if he's in LA, it has to be one of those two schools.
38:52 Chris Ryan? I feel like it's USC because he's just in central Los Angeles a lot.
38:56 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
38:58 Chris Ryan? Associate professor makes 150K USC? I guess that's, that's what, that's in the ballpark, right?
39:04 Bill Simmons? Successful novelist?
39:06 Chris Ryan? No, because he says he only made 17 grand off his novel.
39:08 Bill Simmons? People knew the novel. There was a little.
39:10 Chris Ryan? Yeah, Michael K. Williams is like, I'm reading your novel.
39:15 Chris Ryan? The, my favorite Frank line in this scene is when he's like, birth, education, intelligence, talent, looks, family money. Has all of this been some real comprehensive fucking burden to you?
39:26 Bill Simmons? Right. I like that he went a little loggia. He's like cross loggia in Goodman.
39:33 Bill Simmons? I need this money because I'm a scumbag gambler. Say it. Say I am not a man.
39:40 Speaker 06 I need something from you.
39:44 Chris Ryan? What collateral?
39:45 Speaker 06 No. I need you to tell me. I need this money because I am a scumbag gambler. I am a scumbag gambler who is drowning in his own shit. That's the kind of man I am, Frank. And I want you to loan me. A dying suicidal asshole, a lot of money.
40:06 Chris Ryan? That's too much to remember to repeat it.
40:08 Speaker 06 Well, I'll make it simpler for you. You want this money, you tell me I am not a man.
40:15 Speaker 06 Say it.
40:17 Speaker 06 Say, I am not a man.
40:23 Bill Simmons? And so he won't. Right. He won't do that. So this is like. He's a man of principle. And he. If he's, if you go by the adage, the Jim is always honest in this movie. He must part, part of him must think. Because he keeps telling people, I am not actually a gambler. This is more of a means to an end to erase something about my, my ego, you know? Next one, he goes to see Lamar and Lamar tells him he's got a knee. Jim Nance with a huge impact on this movie. It's right when Jim Nance was just skipping verbs, talking about body parts. But I really like that Lamar scene. I think it's good. The Lamar scene is really good and his like, I'm not happy. You know why? Because I'm teaching the modern novel to a classroom full of students. They don't give a fuck. Right. Yeah.
41:08 Bill Simmons? Casino blackjack with, uh. With Bree. Goes to the casino with Bree. Which I think is the Morongo, which I've been to. And I have this written down as Jim's reverse 82 point game. It's how fast can I blow? Well, he starts off by doubling down on an 18. Demanding a three and gets it. And you just know the night's not going to go well after that happens. This is, that is not going to be the sign that, that you're going to have a four hour run. That's usually super lucky.
41:36 Bill Simmons? I have a great Chuck Gorder award for this. The fast forward is super cool. Oh, yeah. Really hard gimmick to pull off. It usually fails in movies. Limitless did it too. Yeah. Usually when people try it, it's not great. No, it's, it also does a good job of like all the different emotions people are.
41:51 Chris Ryan? Going through, but he's completely static.
41:53 Bill Simmons? I have a nitpick that's too important to wait on.
41:56 Chris Ryan? Okay.
41:57 Bill Simmons? He just shows up and he's got a shitload of money. And he's just dropping whatever. Two pit bosses would be behind the dealer like ASAP.
42:05 Chris Ryan? Saying what though?
42:06 Bill Simmons? The, just watching.
42:08 Chris Ryan? Okay.
42:09 Bill Simmons? You're just not doing that with some random dealer betting the kind. They, they wouldn't be like, change to 50,000 like. It that like the whole casino would stop. Everybody would come over behind the table.
42:19 Chris Ryan? I was gonna ask you about like, what is it? How does it? Cause I only play blackjack, like one might go for like summer league or whatever. Like I don't gamble a lot, but.
42:28 Bill Simmons? Because Sean's playing poker by himself and you need someone to go.
42:31 Chris Ryan? Guess I'm gonna get the shrimp cocktail.
42:33 Bill Simmons? Turns into fucking Raymond Babbitt for nine hours.
42:37 Chris Ryan? You're actually right. I would love to gamble, but Sean won't do it with me.
42:41 Bill Simmons? Sean's just listening to William Friedkin movies on audio in his headphones.
42:45 Chris Ryan? Listening to director's commentary and playing fucking hold'em against like an 80 year old Navy veteran.
42:51 Bill Simmons? He's listening to the Sisters, Brian DeCava, DeCava director's commentary.
42:54 Chris Ryan? Me exactly. It was a hundred and 20 dollars instantaneously and then we'd just go drink for the rest of the night. But how does it get translated around the? Uh, around the room. Oh, let's go watch this guy. He's on a heater or let's go watch this guy.
43:06 Bill Simmons? If there's that kind of money from the table, you would get the crowd behind, but you would have. Way more people. There would be at least two, three people behind the dealer. There's that. Cause normally you'd bet that kind of money at the high stakes table. So if you're just sitting down with the common people betting that. There's people, they'd be watching. The fucking cameras going on. I was, one of my disappointments with the movie that he never like. Did the fuck you at the camera. Cause he was, he was such a fuck you kind of guy. I felt like, turn that fucking thing off. Like he didn't do any of that.
43:35 Chris Ryan? I want to just mention that one of the most captivating moments of my adult life was watching Bill, House and Chang.
43:41 Bill Simmons? Podcast from Caesars. The day after we gambled all night. The morning after Chang and House had gone out for gumbo. Yeah. Like, I think, did Chang sleep that night? No. Right, so gambled all night. Yeah. And just went straight out and had gumbo in some weird Joe House spot. Yeah. Off the street. And then we potted. And then potted about like Chang winning a bone colored chip that he had to like go fucking show his social security number. It's great. Chang is kind of like the uh. And that's also when I learned about people betting into people from like, you can just be like, I'm gonna bet on this guy. Yeah. That's fucking crazy.
44:19 Bill Simmons? Chang's a little bit like Jim in The Gambler. Like if he has a run, he's gotta self sabotage it somehow. Let's go to craps. I'm just gonna start betting on random shit. Uh, next one, Goodman's second scene. Oh my god, the fuck you speech.
44:33 Chris Ryan? I've been up two and a half million dollars.
44:35 Speaker 06 What do you got on you?
44:37 Chris Ryan? Nothing.
44:38 Speaker 06 What'd you put away?
44:40 Chris Ryan? Nothing.
44:42 Speaker 06 You get up two and a half million dollars, any asshole in the world knows what to do. You get a house with a 25 year roof, an indestructible Jap economy shitbox. You put the rest into the system at three to five percent to pay your taxes and that's your base. Get me? That's your fortress of fucking solitude. That puts you for the rest of your life at a level of fuck you. Somebody wants you to do something, fuck you. Boss pisses you off, fuck you. Own your house, have a couple bucks in the bank, don't drink. That's all I have to say to anybody at any social level. Did your grandfather take risks?
45:18 Chris Ryan? Yes.
45:19 Speaker 06 I guarantee he did it from a position of fuck you.
45:22 Bill Simmons? I think this is my favorite scene. This is the best. Okay.
45:26 Bill Simmons? Everyone's been there once. If you're there twice, I can't help you. Some really good wisdom in this. Do you have the brains to walk when it's time to walk? But then the big speech, I guarantee he did it from a position of fuck you. A wise man's life is based around fuck you. The United States of America is based on fuck you. You're a king, you have an army, greatest navy in the history of the world, fuck you. You. Blow me, fuck it up ourselves. Uh, he's amazing in this scene. And I actually really agree with him. I like the position of fuck you. It's one of the, this is why both of us would defend this movie to the death. Like this movie has great themes and thoughts in it. Yeah, and it's, it's like every one of these guys is either trying to entice him into a life of servitude or.
46:10 Chris Ryan? Or get him to see like what he could be, you know?
46:15 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
46:15 Chris Ryan? And they're, they're always like, kind of, they're almost like these kinds of religious or spiritual tests more than they are like bookies. And I kind of love that, you know?
46:24 Bill Simmons? It's a good movie trope of just random people who aren't good people, but for some reason care about this other person. That in real life, they would just be like-
46:31 Chris Ryan? I don't know why Frank cares that much. I guess the implication is that he knew Jim's dad or grandfather, the grandfather. It's, it, the, the Neville thing, the Michael K. Williams character is basically like, I want to set up like a, a gambling ring that goes on for years.
46:49 Bill Simmons? Yeah. The basketball game.
46:51 Chris Ryan? Wanted to ask you about this.
46:52 Bill Simmons? I thought it was solid.
46:54 Chris Ryan? It's-
46:54 Bill Simmons? I actually thought it was pretty realistic.
46:56 Chris Ryan? Just too dark.
46:57 Bill Simmons? Well, because I think they probably couldn't afford fans. So they had, nowadays they would just see Jada the fans, but I, we were still in that world of, you had, like Rocky's the worst of this.
47:08 Chris Ryan? Yeah, where it's like, it's the lights are down, so you can only see-
47:10 Bill Simmons? They have to darken out the entire spectrum. So that was it. But I, I actually thought, uh, I kind of liked his game.
47:16 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
47:16 Bill Simmons? Who, who was he like? Lamar Allen?
47:18 Chris Ryan? Uh, I think he's a, like a proto Jabari Smith Jr.
47:23 Bill Simmons? Yeah, but he's a little shorter though.
47:24 Chris Ryan? Rangy? No, he seems like he's, he's like six eight.
47:27 Bill Simmons? You think he's that tall? No, they listed him. He was six five. They showed it. Yeah, I thought he was a little more-
47:31 Chris Ryan? Well, we're going to get into like, what this movie communicates properly and doesn't about NCAA sports.
47:38 Bill Simmons? I thought he was a little DeMar DeRozan-y, but, um, almost like what Shabazz-
47:42 Chris Ryan? Following in DeMar's footsteps at USC.
47:44 Bill Simmons? What Shabazz Muhammad should have been, but wasn't. Like theoretical, theoretical Shabazz Muhammad.
47:51 Chris Ryan? An hour and a half, be like a little bit of a young Norman Powell.
47:54 Bill Simmons? Cause he was like a slasher. He was, he, you know, he had like this inside outside game, but he wasn't that big. I was fascinated by-
47:59 Chris Ryan? I had Shabazz Muhammad stopped for such a long time.
48:01 Bill Simmons? I know. Just never worked out for him.
48:03 Chris Ryan? Clint Anthony early, maybe, you know?
48:04 Bill Simmons? Oh, Clint Anthony early. Then last one, the big bet. He bets, uh, black. Really good setup. Another great underbelly place we get to go into.
48:14 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
48:14 Bill Simmons? And, uh, multiple people watching him. Fits black, gets 22.
48:19 Chris Ryan? Do you think that this movie is actually saying that gambling is- Is all chance and that there's no skill to it.
48:25 Bill Simmons? No, I don't.
48:26 Chris Ryan? Did you want like a great blackjack scene at the end of this movie?
48:30 Bill Simmons? I mean, that always is by preference.
48:32 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
48:32 Bill Simmons? But I don't think the movie is interested in gambling as much as self destruction. The gambling is just like.
48:38 Chris Ryan? Incidental.
48:39 Bill Simmons? A way for him to fuck up his life. I don't think it really cares about it, which is probably.
48:45 Bill Simmons? That's the thing like. I wa- I wanted, when I watched this the first couple of times, I wanted the gambling to matter more in the movie. Cause I love the gambling.
48:54 Chris Ryan? But if you view it more as like.
48:55 Bill Simmons? Now I get it.
48:56 Chris Ryan? Leaving Las Vegas or something like he's, it's just self destruction. Yeah.
48:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
49:00 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
49:01 Bill Simmons? All right. So we have the same rewatchable scene.
49:02 Chris Ryan? Yes, borrowing from Frank.
49:04 Bill Simmons? All right. That was the most rewatchable scene brought to you by Den of Thieves 2 Pantera. Get ready for all the ac- action, drama and chaos. As Gerard Butler's character goes from cop to criminal in a brand new heist. See Den of Thieves 2 Pantera only in theaters January 10th. Gerard Butler. I really think Al kicked his coverage for me with movies that he made. Like if you were going. Flight to Australia for the Australian Open and they were like, we have no other movies today.
49:34 Chris Ryan? It's just Gerard Butler.
49:35 Bill Simmons? I'd be like, I'm fine. That's 20 hours. I'm in.
49:39 Chris Ryan? For the Australian Open.
49:42 Bill Simmons? It's like, we just have Gerard Butler. That's it. Um, let's take a break and we'll come back at the rest of categories.
49:52 Bill Simmons? When the sun goes down, the appetizers come out. Yeah, you heard that right. Late night half price 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. This episode is brought to you by NOS Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of NOS Energy.
50:36 Bill Simmons? High performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage and pedal to the metal human horsepower. For the streets. Go ahead, crack open a can of NOS Energy and get after it. All right, what's the most 2014 thing about this movie? This is easy, young Brie Larson.
50:53 Chris Ryan? Oh, sure. Yeah.
50:55 Bill Simmons? She seems like such a young pup in this. And now is Brie Larson. It's just, it was just notable to watch it.
51:01 Chris Ryan? Yeah, there was also like, this was an era of, uh, crime adjacent movies.
51:08 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
51:08 Chris Ryan? Where they would be like, hey, Richard Schiff. Hey, Michael K. Williams. Hey, John Goodman.
51:14 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
51:14 Chris Ryan? We need you for like, four days.
51:16 Bill Simmons? Right.
51:16 Chris Ryan? You know, can you come in and nail this scene? And like, you know, like, so that was like, I feel like triple nine, like, there was a bunch of movies right around here where it was like, man, this is just like, kinda trashy, but really like, way more, the acting is way better than it needs to be.
51:31 Bill Simmons? You know, that's an interesting concept, and I wonder when that started, cuz you think like, when Jack Nicholson did the Joker.
51:38 Chris Ryan? Mm-hmm.
51:39 Bill Simmons? And people were like, oh, this is cool.
51:40 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
51:41 Bill Simmons? So you could have the biggest star of the movie.
51:42 Chris Ryan? Malkovich and Con Air.
51:44 Bill Simmons? Yeah, and then that Jack Nicholson starts the villain era, and then everybody wanted the villain part. I wonder when the, the Dionne Waiters era started, basically.
51:52 Chris Ryan? Yeah, like, I can come in and just do.
51:54 Bill Simmons? Cuz Goodman does this in Flight 2, so that's 2012.
51:57 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
51:58 Bill Simmons? Um, Departed, you have a lot of like, really good, that's 2006?
52:04 Chris Ryan? Yep.
52:05 Bill Simmons? You have a lot of good actors in like, small part, like Baldwin's in that movie. Not that much, but just killing every scene he's in, so it's somewhere like mid 2000s when actors realized, like, this is a huge win for me if I crush these four scenes.
52:17 Chris Ryan? Yes, I'll just do this like, weird Casey, Casey Athlet cop movie, where I come in and I'm like, a heroin dealer.
52:24 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
52:24 Chris Ryan? You know?
52:25 Bill Simmons? I mean, maybe, maybe it goes all the way back to like,
52:29 Bill Simmons? you know, Gary Oldman in, uh, True Romance, shit like that.
52:32 Chris Ryan? That's actually a good.
52:32 Bill Simmons? Hopper walking, maybe that's when it starts.
52:34 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
52:34 Bill Simmons? Yeah. What's aged the best? A hot girl making a, wait, you're gambling again? Oh, no face. When does that not work in a movie?
52:45 Chris Ryan? But the funny thing is, is That this relationship starts with him already in the tailspin.
52:49 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
52:50 Chris Ryan? So she was not like, she's not gonna be like, oh, I thought I was gonna start dating Jonathan Franzen here.
52:54 Bill Simmons? I have some more thoughts on that later. What's age the best? I always like winning the credits when it says it was cast by Sheila Jaffe.
53:01 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
53:01 Bill Simmons? I always think she has good taste.
53:02 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
53:02 Bill Simmons? Sheila, not quite rewatchables category status, but.
53:07 Chris Ryan? Super job Sheila, best casting.
53:09 Bill Simmons? Best caster. I see her. I always know the movie's in good hands. How about King of Spades as an iPhone address entry?
53:17 Chris Ryan? Oh, yeah.
53:18 Bill Simmons? Do you do anything with your iPhone where you put instead of the person's name, you put other stuff in there?
53:23 Chris Ryan? Funny, like, like, you know, Mr., like, something for fantasy where it's like Mr. Freakin'.
53:32 Bill Simmons? No, I have, uh, I have some mean stuff in my phone.
53:34 Chris Ryan? Okay.
53:35 Bill Simmons? Yeah, there's a couple of agents that I have, it's, they come up as fuckface, dot, dot, dot on my phone. And you know who you are. Agents are the worst.
53:45 Chris Ryan? Is that a shot at Bernie Lee?
53:46 Bill Simmons? No, Bernie Lee is in my phone as Bernie Lee. I like Bernie Lee. What do you have for what's age the best? Cause I have a few more.
53:53 Chris Ryan? Uh, Michael K. Williams.
53:54 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
53:54 Chris Ryan? Uh, just awesome. Kinda, I'd forgotten that his particular, how big his part was in this movie, this most recent rewatch. And it's just so aw- awesome watching him cook. He was taking from us, man, that sucks. Uh, I love the connections between the scenes of where they have like these ideas that seem to be getting passed from scene to scene.
54:12 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
54:13 Chris Ryan? So like talking about Frank talking about like suicidal gamblers almost goes immediately into the camo scene.
54:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
54:20 Chris Ryan? About Jim being like, saving the sixth bullet is something no one ever noticed except for me. And that is why I am here. And that is actually a William Monahan, like, he was like, I noticed that. And that kind of sent me down the road of writing about literature for a while.
54:34 Bill Simmons? Well, you had for a wood sage the best of Monahan dipping into old departed dialogue, right? What did he do?
54:39 Chris Ryan? World needs plenty of electricians. World needs plenty of bodies.
54:43 Bill Simmons? He's like, I'm just gonna run that back.
54:45 Chris Ryan? Also, just gotta say, man, if you put a scene in Koreatown, your movie is a B, at least.
54:51 Bill Simmons? I, I'm trying to think of any time Koreatown is in every, and the funny thing is when you go to Koreatown, which um, is one of my favorite places in LA and one of the best food places in the country. But if you're there at night, you feel like you're in a movie no matter where you are in Koreatown.
55:05 Chris Ryan? If you're there during the day, you're like, Jesus Christ.
55:07 Bill Simmons? Yeah, during the day, it's like, what's going on here?
55:11 Bill Simmons? The uh, I have the soundtrack is is just funky and weird.
55:15 Chris Ryan? Yeah, John Bryan and and Theo James, I think, did it and it's like.
55:19 Bill Simmons? Two M eighty-three songs?
55:20 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
55:22 Chris Ryan? You big N eighty-three guy?
55:24 Bill Simmons? Not really.
55:24 Chris Ryan? Okay.
55:24 Bill Simmons? But I like that. I like the way they use the music in this.
55:28 Bill Simmons? You've got a BMW M one. How are you unhappy? I'm just blind in on any line like that in a movie. I know I'm in the right answer of the movie if somebody said that to somebody else. Did you write this because you believed in it or because you thought it was what people wanted?
55:45 Bill Simmons? She asked him at one point, just a good idea.
55:47 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
55:48 Bill Simmons? And his answer was he probably wrote that book because he thought that's what people wanted as a book, but not it didn't come from his heart, which I think is a big thing, another big theme in this movie.
55:56 Chris Ryan? The uh, this, the quick exchange that Neville and Jim have where he's like, uh, you could go like, there's only $10,000 against it at Warner Brothers and Neville's like, it's an indie at best. When they're talking about the adaptation of it.
56:09 Bill Simmons? Yeah, it's good.
56:09 Chris Ryan? Very good.
56:10 Bill Simmons? I like Lamar's third person routine. And then, uh, when he talks about him some third person, but my favorite is Michael Kay and his and his crew watching the point shaving game. And it becomes like the first alt gambling cast.
56:25 Chris Ryan? This is the Barstool?
56:27 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
56:29 Bill Simmons? This sets up. This is on Turner. You can watch the NBA Cup quarterfinals or there's Jalen Rose and Kirk Goldsberry.
56:36 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
56:37 Bill Simmons? And Michael K. Williams.
56:38 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
56:38 Bill Simmons? And it just keeps cutting to him and he's like, oh, man, what the fuck is he doing?
56:42 Chris Ryan? Yeah. Do you think Big Cat saw this and was like, this is great?
56:45 Bill Simmons? Yeah. The uh, all right, next category, the Fortune three clap award for most giftable moment. What'd you have for this?
56:52 Chris Ryan? Probably Goodman shaving his head. What do you, did you have one?
56:56 Bill Simmons? Didn't.
56:58 Chris Ryan? Not a giftable movie?
56:58 Bill Simmons? It's probably some sort of blackjack, him losing something or, but the thing, the thing is he didn't. And I think he played it intentionally this way, but I just don't think Burnthall would have. You didn't feel the pain of any of the losses and I think because he was trying not to have the pain.
57:14 Chris Ryan? I was just.
57:14 Bill Simmons? I think Burnthall would have been more interesting with it.
57:16 Chris Ryan? Burnthall, I actually, just as soon as you were saying that, it popped into my head is just after presumed innocent Jalen Hall.
57:22 Bill Simmons? Oh, yeah.
57:23 Chris Ryan? Like watching him go, watching like it come up red on him and just be like, oh, fuck.
57:27 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Den of Thieves Benihana Award Scene Stealing Location. You could, you could go Koreatown. You go to the casino in the beginning. You go to the casino in the end. What do you, where do you want?
57:38 Chris Ryan? Um, I think I'm gonna go the last casino in Koreatown as they go down all these different levels through like the weird like cabaret singer.
57:47 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
57:47 Chris Ryan? The noodle bar. I, looks like an opium den and then into an internet cafe and then into, to the casino.
57:54 Bill Simmons? By the way, if that place actually exists, I'm going there today.
57:57 Chris Ryan? DM me.
57:58 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Would it be weird if it took out a hundred thousand dollars in cash?
58:03 Chris Ryan? Maybe that's where we should do our first gambling stream.
58:05 Bill Simmons? Right.
58:07 Bill Simmons? The Michael McDonald Sweet Freedom Award for Best Needle Drop.
58:10 Chris Ryan? I got comic people.
58:12 Bill Simmons? Yeah?
58:12 Chris Ryan? Yeah. What did you have?
58:14 Bill Simmons? The choir singing Creep as he's
58:16 Chris Ryan? Oh, yeah.
58:16 Bill Simmons? Kind of breaking up with Brie Larson.
58:18 Chris Ryan? The only problem I have with that was that was, Fincher used that in the trailer for Social Network.
58:21 Bill Simmons? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
58:22 Chris Ryan? So I felt like it was stolen valor. It's like you guys are coming in after he's already made that iconic.
58:27 Bill Simmons? Closing credit song is solid too. Is that the one you're talking about?
58:29 Chris Ryan? Uh, no, Comic People is the one that Brie Larson's listening to when she's walking around campus, the Pulp song.
58:34 Bill Simmons? Yeah, yeah. Big Kahuna Burger Award for Best Use of Food or Drink. Nobody like eats or really drinks in this movie.
58:41 Chris Ryan? Constant cereal eating.
58:42 Bill Simmons? I guess the cereal.
58:43 Chris Ryan? When did you cut cereal out of your everyday?
58:46 Bill Simmons? You know, there was that first wave of how bad cereal was for you articles and I still held on for another seven to 10 years.
58:54 Chris Ryan? I still had Cheerios in the house.
58:56 Bill Simmons? My wife still gets it. Like she'll do like some fiber stuff or some like healthier stuff. So occasionally I'll just kind of lose it like it's almost like smoking Marlboro Reds again.
59:05 Chris Ryan? I feel like if you're gonna do it now, you might as well just go back to like Honey Nut. You know what I mean?
59:10 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
59:10 Chris Ryan? You might as well just, just have the 40 grams of sugar and say, who gives a shit? Cause it's like, I don't really want to eat a bunch of like thumbtacks, but I'll, if, if somebody put Frosted Mini Weeds in front of me, I would probably go after it.
59:20 Bill Simmons? What was your number one cereal?
59:22 Chris Ryan? Uh, for like, for a treat.
59:24 Bill Simmons? Just in general, for life.
59:25 Chris Ryan? I just eat Cheerios.
59:26 Bill Simmons? I really loved Rice Krispies.
59:28 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
59:29 Bill Simmons? I liked hearing them crackle. Um, I really loved Frosted Mini Weeds for a long time was another favorite. I liked when they would get soggy in the bottom. I, I can't tell you what a giant cereal guy I was in the nineties.
59:39 Chris Ryan? That's a huge cereal.
59:39 Bill Simmons? I would just have it for dinner.
59:40 Chris Ryan? I mean, Golden Grahams is one of the all time greatest tastes of my life. I still eat cereal all the time. Big cereal guy.
59:44 Bill Simmons? I love cereal.
59:45 Chris Ryan? Do you eat healthy cereal or just regular cereal? I've pivoted to healthy cereal. Do you think it really matters? I honestly just like having like any Kind of cornflake in milk, toss in a banana, it's good.
59:55 Bill Simmons? Me too.
59:56 Chris Ryan? So also, this is one thing that is really underrated, is that cereal is the perfect, like, I have to go somewhere, like, like, let's say you're going to a movie at seven, you're not gonna get dinner. You get a quick bowl of cereal before you go. It's in between a snack and a meal. Yeah, it, it'll, it actually does tide you over. And also, like, you know,
1:00:15 Bill Simmons? My sophomore year in college, I just basically ate cereal and then occasionally half, then I would go out and eat, but I weighed 160 pounds at one point.
1:00:22 Chris Ryan? In a good way or a bad way?
1:00:24 Bill Simmons? I was playing basketball like five, six days a week and just eating cereal.
1:00:28 Chris Ryan? Yeah. You're just divotation.
1:00:29 Bill Simmons? Occasionally half, then we'd go to like Papa Gino's and get all, eat pizza. My body was like, what's going on? What are you doing to me?
1:00:37 Bill Simmons? Uh, I love cereal though. I might make a cereal comeback over the break.
1:00:40 Chris Ryan? I think we should do it. Maybe we should document it somehow.
1:00:43 Bill Simmons? I will say one thing, I'm not a huge, like, like getting douchey about almond milk, soy milk, oat milk, all that stuff. But I do think almond milk's pretty good with cornflakes.
1:00:53 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:00:53 Bill Simmons? It's, it's about as tolerable as it gets with almond milk. You wanna go slightly healthier?
1:00:57 Chris Ryan? I think that if I was gonna do it, I would go back full, full whole milk in a, in a bowl. That's what I do, baby. Yeah.
1:01:03 Bill Simmons? What's your favorite kind of cereal bowl?
1:01:07 Chris Ryan? Deep.
1:01:08 Bill Simmons? Cause I like, I like the deep, high ones. Yeah. I like to dig in. I like when the cereal gets kinda soggy in the bottom.
1:01:14 Chris Ryan? In college, in Boston, I lived off Kraft, uh, Kraft mac and cheese and cereal, pretty much.
1:01:21 Bill Simmons? That was basically.
1:01:21 Chris Ryan? Look where we are.
1:01:22 Bill Simmons? Prostined Flakes was another one.
1:01:24 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:01:25 Bill Simmons? I would splurge every once in a while in Charlestown and go to the 99, cause they have like the nine dollar chicken parmigiana. Like, I'm going chicken parm tonight.
1:01:33 Chris Ryan? This went longer than what's aged the best.
1:01:37 Bill Simmons? Cereal's great. Should we do a cereal podcast?
1:01:41 Chris Ryan? Yeah, we could probably get a good video sponsorship. I bet that would do very well.
1:01:44 Bill Simmons? It's like new podcast from The Ringer, the cereal podcast.
1:01:47 Chris Ryan? I think what we would have to do is do like a Huberman pod where you and I go on a pure cereal diet, see how it affects us.
1:01:55 Bill Simmons? Here's the thing about cereal, it's the most involved in people's life, but the least discussed.
1:02:00 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:02:00 Bill Simmons? Everyone has like favorite, least favorite cereals. It's never talked about. Nobody would ever bring this up at dinner.
1:02:06 Chris Ryan? Jon Hamm says this about crude oil and land man.
1:02:11 Chris Ryan? This is the one thing in-
1:02:12 Bill Simmons? But the other thing with cereal is like, people of all ages eat cereal.
1:02:16 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:02:17 Bill Simmons? Like the, like your kids turn like-
1:02:18 Chris Ryan? I'll be completely honest, this is like, this is the one time where I've let the hive mind tell me what to do. Where I've let group think, everybody's just like, this shit is so bad for you. I'm like, I guess it's bad for me. I guess I want- I mean, yeah, you can't eat a bowl of Captain Crunch anymore. You'll like ruin your day. But I, but like, I should be eating Cheerios.
1:02:35 Bill Simmons? There are certain cereals that are bad though, like, like Fruit Loop stuff with like the dye in them, that like, that's proven.
1:02:41 Chris Ryan? You can't have like-
1:02:42 Bill Simmons? And by the way, I fucking love Fruit Loops.
1:02:43 Chris Ryan? Do you think Rupert Wyatt's listening to this and it's just like, fuck, I can't believe I'm, my work is finally being recognized? And then we go on a 10 minute fucking cereal day.
1:02:54 Bill Simmons? Did you like Fruity Pebbles?
1:02:55 Chris Ryan? Uh, I was never a big Trix Fruity Pebbles guy.
1:02:58 Bill Simmons? Were you a cereal mixer? Cause that was another thing I used to do.
1:03:01 Chris Ryan? I used to suicide a little bit.
1:03:03 Bill Simmons? With the Rice Krispy combo.
1:03:04 Chris Ryan? And you go Lucky Charms and Apple Jacks and just like, who gives a shit?
1:03:08 Bill Simmons? Loved Apple Jacks.
1:03:09 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:03:10 Bill Simmons? Apple Jacks are still okay, right? No?
1:03:12 Chris Ryan? No. They're really sugary, but they're, they're great. They taste amazing. Cereal's so good. Jack, has your generation abandoned cereal? Hell no.
1:03:19 Bill Simmons? Oh, good.
1:03:19 Chris Ryan? Honestly, people should just have it for dessert. That's, it's starting your day with it is the problem, but just have it as a dessert.
1:03:25 Bill Simmons? That's what I've done a few times. I go on binges and now unfortunately I'm gonna go on another one with cereal. Anyway, that was the Big Kahuna Burger Award for Best Use of Food or Drink. The Butch's Girlfriend Award, Week Link of the Film.
1:03:38 Chris Ryan? I, I like Jessica Lange before you say it. I think it's, it's a, it is a choice what she's doing, but I think what she has to say in the film is quite effective.
1:03:49 Bill Simmons? Oh, I, I really like her in this movie.
1:03:51 Chris Ryan? Okay, good. Just making sure.
1:03:53 Bill Simmons? I don't know why Brie Larson's character would like Jim.
1:03:56 Chris Ryan? I think that that's a huge question. That was a huge, unreasonable question.
1:04:00 Bill Simmons? First scene in the movie, she sees him fucking on the self-destructive bender.
1:04:04 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:04:04 Bill Simmons? He's a terrible professor.
1:04:06 Chris Ryan? Well-
1:04:07 Bill Simmons? You're supposed to inspire students and he's like, you guys all fucking suck. You have no chance.
1:04:11 Chris Ryan? Script, uh, which I read.
1:04:14 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:04:14 Chris Ryan? There is like another character in the movie, it was supposed to be played by Leland Orser and he's cut out. But he's like his adversary at school. And he's basically like, you're a fucking genius professor. Like, I hate you, but you are like the best of us.
1:04:27 Bill Simmons? Oh, it's one of those.
1:04:28 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:04:28 Bill Simmons? You used to be the best, what happened?
1:04:30 Chris Ryan? But I think maybe we're catching Jim at a, a little bit of a, a low point in his professorial career. Like, I think he's-
1:04:36 Bill Simmons? Supposed to be like inspiring to these people.
1:04:39 Chris Ryan? Why is a 20 year old bookworm at USC working at like an underground gambling ring as a waitress?
1:04:45 Bill Simmons? Because I think they really.
1:04:46 Chris Ryan? The tips must be incredible. But how did she even find that job? She's a book like I feel like that she's not exploring.
1:04:52 Bill Simmons? Yeah, she sits in the middle of class, but she's also like this illegal blackjack cocktail waitress.
1:04:57 Chris Ryan? And they never go back to it. She has no opinions on gambling.
1:04:59 Bill Simmons? I actually have an answer. In the research, in the research, they decided they just really liked the Brie Larson character and they were just looking for things to shoehorn her into.
1:05:07 Chris Ryan? Yeah, they beefed her up a little bit. Yeah.
1:05:09 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:05:10 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:05:10 Bill Simmons? I have no idea why she likes him. It makes no sense. And there's got to be two scenes of them where they talk about cereal. That's just got taken out of the final.
1:05:20 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I just think that this is a two week relationship. This goes hot and heavy. And then the second Wednesday that he's like still like moaning about how he's not Dostoevsky. She's like, I gotta, I gotta try something else here.
1:05:34 Bill Simmons? Do you believe in the students getting involved with the professor as a Hollywood thing or a thing that happens in real life?
1:05:40 Chris Ryan? I think that it did happen for a very long time. I mean, there are a lot of novels about a professor who gets really horny for his student.
1:05:49 Bill Simmons? We, uh.
1:05:50 Chris Ryan? That is like the, the bedrock of Philip Roth's career, right?
1:05:53 Bill Simmons? We, we had one in college, a friend of mine got involved with the professor. When she told me, I was like, I, I, it was like, you could have told me.
1:06:01 Chris Ryan? A TA or like an actual like graying professor?
1:06:05 Bill Simmons? No, it was a professor.
1:06:06 Chris Ryan? Was he an English teacher?
1:06:07 Bill Simmons? Not gonna, not gonna give any more info than that. But I was like so blown away. I was like, and you're in his class? Like I just, I couldn't believe it.
1:06:16 Chris Ryan? Uh, I feel like it happens less now.
1:06:17 Bill Simmons? What a podcast this is. Yeah. Well, I would hope so.
1:06:21 Chris Ryan? Yeah. This is probably, I have this as which is the worst, but like this is like.
1:06:26 Bill Simmons? Getting involved with your professor?
1:06:27 Chris Ryan? It's kind of wild to watch this movie and be like, oh, wow. Like Brie Larson's probably 21 in this movie and he. He's supposed to be forty.
1:06:35 Bill Simmons? Is it degenerate fucking maniac gambler, uh, forty year old just getting involved with his TA?
1:06:41 Chris Ryan? Yeah, the movie ending with him running for nine miles to a twenty year old's dorm.
1:06:46 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:06:47 Chris Ryan? A little weird.
1:06:48 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:06:50 Bill Simmons? Anyway, that was a weak link for me. What do you have, CR?
1:06:52 Chris Ryan? Uh, weak link, I thought would just be the fact that there's just not very sophisticated gambling going on. So like, I think that when you, you don't get enough gambling movies that we can get a gambling movie where there's just no real skill or like strategy deployed. That it's just like stacking and it's just destruction. That being said, it is, it is a very like entertaining thing to watch to see this guy do this.
1:07:16 Bill Simmons? Can I make a suggestion? You know how I was talking the rewatchables and we've done almost three hundred and seventy movies at this point about how I can't believe anyone making a sports movie wouldn't just call. Maybe do we have to start a sports movie consultancy, whatever.
1:07:29 Chris Ryan? I have.
1:07:29 Bill Simmons? I also think I should be gambling consultant for these because I would have told them scrap the blackjack. Go right to craps. Much more fun as a, as for movies in, in a Vegas scene, just craps. There's more going on. There's more people. There's dice. There's things thrown in the air. There's guys pulling in. You can bet on all these different things. I just think it works better.
1:07:51 Chris Ryan? Also like Wahlberg lives in Nevada now, like he, like I assume he gambles, right?
1:07:56 Bill Simmons? Right. Blackjack is so generic and they use like these big square things. I, I don't know.
1:08:05 Bill Simmons? The Mallory Rubin Award for did this movie need a better sex scene?
1:08:08 Chris Ryan? Probably not.
1:08:09 Bill Simmons? Probably because it would have been weird because she's like twenty.
1:08:12 Chris Ryan? She jumps them.
1:08:13 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:08:13 Chris Ryan? But they don't, they don't show it. Yeah.
1:08:15 Bill Simmons? We'll never know Mallory's thoughts.
1:08:18 Chris Ryan? I don't think Mal's seen this.
1:08:19 Bill Simmons? What's the worst other than stuff we've mentioned? I wrote down Wahlberg's hair looks like he's a nineteen seventy four right wing in the Flyers.
1:08:28 Chris Ryan? He's like Rick Tockett.
1:08:29 Bill Simmons? He's like Dave Schultz's line. Like, what the hell is this haircut?
1:08:35 Chris Ryan? I assume, I assume this was like, uh, he had come off another movie or was going. On to another and it just looks like he's got like eighteen wraparound hair like like strands.
1:08:46 Bill Simmons? This there's like stuff in the back. It's just really strange. The guy who plays Dexter.
1:08:52 Chris Ryan? Mm hmm. Emery Cohen.
1:08:55 Bill Simmons? I wrote down, he's like David Arquette after a stroke.
1:08:58 Chris Ryan? Do you know who he is? He was just in Rebel Ridge.
1:09:01 Bill Simmons? That's the same Emery Cohen. Why did he play this part of Dexter like this?
1:09:05 Chris Ryan? This is right after or right around Place Beyond the Pines, I think. And he was like a hot young actor.
1:09:10 Bill Simmons? Going for it?
1:09:11 Chris Ryan? Yeah, he's awesome. I love I I like it. You don't like it?
1:09:14 Bill Simmons? I don't.
1:09:15 Chris Ryan? Okay.
1:09:15 Bill Simmons? He reminds me of uh of Timothy Hutton's brother, played by David Arquette in Beautiful Girls. Say, hey, you think you'd be here for a while? I'm gonna go take a shit.
1:09:28 Bill Simmons? I have two big ones.
1:09:30 Chris Ryan? He would definitely be the coolest, weirdest number two player in the country of all in tennis history.
1:09:37 Bill Simmons? Tennis players are super boring, just in general.
1:09:39 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:09:40 Bill Simmons? No, but no tennis player has even half as much weird personality. Speaking of tennis, what's age the worst? Jessica Lange's tennis, just abysmal. I don't like her outfit. They have to do the quick, the close cuts of her because she's doing a serve, she's serving like this. Like, there's just nothing going on there. Would have gone golf, maybe for that scene.
1:09:59 Chris Ryan? Oh, like, but that but that would take out Dexter being her tennis instructor, which I thought was another sort of awkward thing.
1:10:05 Bill Simmons? Play doubles with him to hide try to hide the tennis more. Just wasn't good enough.
1:10:08 Chris Ryan? By like, well, now she's playing pickleball. Pickleball, right?
1:10:12 Bill Simmons? Yeah, or padel.
1:10:13 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:10:15 Bill Simmons? Is that what it's called? Paddle?
1:10:17 Chris Ryan? I what are you talking about? I don't even know.
1:10:18 Bill Simmons? P A D E L.
1:10:19 Chris Ryan? Do they try to make pickleball sound?
1:10:21 Bill Simmons? Peter Schrager's always trying to get me to get excited about paddle.
1:10:24 Chris Ryan? Is that a different game or is that pickleball? I thought it was pickleball.
1:10:27 Bill Simmons? It's like the kind of more tolerable pickleball.
1:10:29 Chris Ryan? Oh, is it like squash versus racquetball version? What kind of ball do you use?
1:10:32 Bill Simmons? It's it's more like pa- it's basically paddle tennis, but now they it's it's got a rebrand. And paddle tennis is kind of fun. Pickleball should be shot into the sun and everybody who plays it should have to atone for their sins when they die.
1:10:48 Bill Simmons? What saves the worst broke college players pre N I L now is just now Lamar is just getting, you know, Chick-fil-A sponsorship.
1:10:55 Chris Ryan? The collective has come through for Lamar.
1:10:57 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:10:57 Chris Ryan? Also, hard to imagine sports science being what it is that he can hide whatever's going on with his knee.
1:11:06 Bill Simmons? Yeah, this is like a 1982 plot.
1:11:08 Chris Ryan? Also, like we just be like, just get surgery. You're a junior like.
1:11:11 Bill Simmons? Yeah. I had that as well. I think if he was this good, he would have come out as a sophomore.
1:11:16 Chris Ryan? I agree.
1:11:16 Bill Simmons? Why is he in college for three years? Get the fuck out of there, Lamar. Go make some cash.
1:11:22 Chris Ryan? Maybe he loved, he loved the works of Albert Camus and the teachings of Jim Bennett.
1:11:27 Bill Simmons? Ruffel O'Han and Rubenek Partridge over acting word.
1:11:30 Chris Ryan? They knew and they let it happen. Don't you call me lady. I come in here. I give these things to you. Give me all you got. Give me all you got. I treated you like a son. You fucking stabbed me in the heart. Fuck you.
1:11:47 Bill Simmons? Professor Wahlberg dialing it up.
1:11:49 Chris Ryan? The Shakespeare speech. Awesome.
1:11:51 Bill Simmons? Really trying hard.
1:11:53 Chris Ryan? Although laying outside of the bank being like, do I embarrass you?
1:11:57 Bill Simmons? Yeah, yeah. She's in there too. Was there a better title for this movie? No.
1:12:03 Bill Simmons? The Can You Dig It Award for most memorable quote, a wise man's life is based around fuck you.
1:12:12 Bill Simmons? The uh.
1:12:13 Chris Ryan? Do you agree with this philosophy? This, you get a house with a 25 year roof and indestructible Japanese economy shitbox. You put the rest in the system at three to 5% to pay your taxes and that's your base.
1:12:26 Bill Simmons? That's what I've been telling you for six years.
1:12:29 Chris Ryan? I just keep playing blackjack with it. That's why it's the work for you. I need the money.
1:12:37 Bill Simmons? The C R thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. How to take a word.
1:12:40 Chris Ryan? I got one.
1:12:41 Bill Simmons? Yep.
1:12:42 Chris Ryan? Is this movie more interesting if the central relationship is just Jim and Lamar?
1:12:49 Bill Simmons? We don't have Brie Larson at all.
1:12:50 Chris Ryan? Take her out. Just lose, like do the new cut. There's, if you take Brie Larson and just edit her out of the movie with all due respect.
1:12:57 Bill Simmons? Why would we do that?
1:12:58 Chris Ryan? Because.
1:12:58 Bill Simmons? I love Brie Larson.
1:12:59 Chris Ryan? Because the Lamar relationship is almost more unique and interesting.
1:13:02 Bill Simmons? So two more Lamar scenes.
1:13:03 Chris Ryan? Yeah. And the ethics of whether or not he can ask Lamar to do this and why Lamar is doing. What's Lamar's deal? What does Lamar think of Shakespeare?
1:13:13 Bill Simmons? It's an interesting idea. So Lamar is just basically blown up into a much bigger.
1:13:17 Chris Ryan? Yeah, you basically have like a lottery pick to be and a self-destructive professor is like the kind of central relationship. You kind of, Brie Larson's scenes are not integral to the story.
1:13:29 Bill Simmons? And it becomes an Adam Sandler.
1:13:31 Chris Ryan? No, I mean, give it the same.
1:13:33 Bill Simmons? With the Safdie brothers.
1:13:34 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:13:34 Bill Simmons? And Lamar and then Lamar gets shot at the end.
1:13:37 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:13:38 Bill Simmons? Yeah, interesting. My, uh, my hottest take.
1:13:44 Bill Simmons? I don't know what Wahlberg's legacy is gonna be as an actor. But he has worked with, I think, the best collection of very attractive actresses at the perfect times of their career. I'm just gonna go through a list. And I'm not really counting Reese Witherspoon in fair because that was a little early for her, but he did catch the Reese Witherspoon train pretty early. Heather Graham Boogie Nights, Diane Lane Perfect Storm, Charlize, The Italian Job, Elizabeth Banks Invincible, Kate Mara. Grantland Hero and Shooter.
1:14:17 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:14:18 Bill Simmons? Your girl Amy Adams in the fighter.
1:14:21 Chris Ryan? My girl.
1:14:21 Bill Simmons? Mila Kunis and Ted and Brie Larson and The Gambler. And that's all within 20 years. Craig, it's impressive.
1:14:29 Speaker 00 Great work by him.
1:14:30 Bill Simmons? No, no, like really, really good taste.
1:14:32 Chris Ryan? Ronda Rousey in Mile 22.
1:14:35 Bill Simmons? I didn't have her in there.
1:14:36 Chris Ryan? Would you, who do you think he had the best chemistry with?
1:14:40 Chris Ryan? Because I think it might be Brie, even though I've just made the case for cutting her out of the film.
1:14:43 Bill Simmons? Good in pre, but I mean Charlize in The Italian Job.
1:14:46 Chris Ryan? Okay.
1:14:47 Bill Simmons? I actually had to replace a plasma TV because she burned out the bulb. She was so crazy hot in that movie.
1:14:56 Chris Ryan? Did we do Vincent Chase?
1:14:59 Bill Simmons? No, but we can.
1:15:00 Chris Ryan? May I ask you something?
1:15:01 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:15:02 Chris Ryan? Would bookies be this permissive?
1:15:05 Bill Simmons? No. It's a lot of money.
1:15:07 Chris Ryan? It's like, there's a cap on this, right?
1:15:08 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:15:09 Chris Ryan? Like, these guys all know what he's doing. And it seems like, obviously for the story, it makes it really interesting to give him seven days. It's got like the countdown element to it.
1:15:20 Bill Simmons? With, with juice.
1:15:21 Chris Ryan? But like, why would you give this guy $240,000? Like, is it just because they think they can then go after his mother and take her house? Like, and, and liquidate his-
1:15:30 Bill Simmons? Movie trope.
1:15:31 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:15:31 Bill Simmons? It's too much money. It's, it, like, probably like 25K would be-
1:15:35 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:15:36 Bill Simmons? A lot. So, I'm with you.
1:15:38 Chris Ryan? Okay.
1:15:39 Bill Simmons? We'll take a break and then we're gonna do Casting What-ifs.
1:15:47 Bill Simmons? Casting What-ifs. Paramount got the rights in 2011 and it was supposed to be Scorsese and Leo and Moynihan as, or-
1:15:55 Chris Ryan? Moynihan.
1:15:56 Bill Simmons? As they call it, the, uh, the CR Dream Team.
1:15:58 Chris Ryan? The Departed Trio, yeah.
1:15:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah. And, uh, Scorsese dropped out. Todd Phillips in there for a second.
1:16:03 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:16:04 Bill Simmons? Known to gamble from time to time.
1:16:06 Chris Ryan? Is he?
1:16:07 Bill Simmons? In a pretty famous game in LA.
1:16:09 Chris Ryan? Oh.
1:16:09 Bill Simmons? Yeah. And, uh, and he dropped out and then Wahlberg and Wyatt came in.
1:16:16 Chris Ryan? Okay. Not a lot of casting stuff for this.
1:16:19 Bill Simmons? No. Well, that, this is the problem is we haven't had enough time since the movie was made-
1:16:24 Chris Ryan? To be like, oh, I read for that.
1:16:25 Bill Simmons? For the internet to make up stuff. It's like Ben Affleck was, was in there.
1:16:30 Chris Ryan? This would be an interesting Affleck role.
1:16:33 Bill Simmons? I'm sure he was jealous of it. No, he was at the right time of his mo- in 14, he was at the right age, right? That was like his Gone Girl age.
1:16:41 Chris Ryan? He's a couple of years older than Wahlberg, right?
1:16:44 Bill Simmons? They're around the same age, yeah.
1:16:48 Bill Simmons? Best that guy a word. It's gotta be, uh, Dom from Entourage, The Wire.
1:16:53 Chris Ryan? I kinda think of him as Dominic Lombardozzi. So I was gonna ask you, could we throw this to Marcus Johnson as the color guy during the basketball game?
1:17:00 Bill Simmons? Oh, that's interesting. So you think he's Dominic Lombardozzi now?
1:17:03 Chris Ryan? To me, he is.
1:17:04 Bill Simmons? What do you think, Craig?
1:17:05 Chris Ryan? None of these guys are ever Dominic Lombardozzi to me.
1:17:08 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I don't, I don't think people, I think to us he's that, but I think most people are like, "Hey, it's Dom from Entourage." "Oh, the guy from The Wire." Um, this guy's quite an IMDb, by the way.
1:17:19 Chris Ryan? Lombardozzi?
1:17:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Cause you know what else he was in. You know.
1:17:25 Bill Simmons? Miami Vice.
1:17:26 Chris Ryan? Yeah. He's one of the cops, right?
1:17:28 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:17:29 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:17:30 Bill Simmons? So he played. He played that, that crazy Vince's cousin character or friend, whoever. What was he? Vince's friend? Or he was?
1:17:40 Chris Ryan? On Entourage?
1:17:42 Bill Simmons? He was his buddy. He had like a three-episode.
1:17:43 Chris Ryan? Yeah, he's his buddy from Back East, right?
1:17:45 Bill Simmons? Yeah. He was Detective Stan Switek. On Miami Vice.
1:17:51 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:17:52 Bill Simmons? He's, he was also in For Love of the Game as the tow truck, tow truck driver. He's been in a lot of, uh, rewatchables, kinda secretly.
1:18:00 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:18:01 Bill Simmons? He was in. Maybe not that many. I like that guy.
1:18:06 Chris Ryan? He was in The Irishman.
1:18:07 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:18:08 Chris Ryan? He was in Bridges Spies, Gambler. Public Enemies. He's worked with Mann a couple of times. He was in SWAT.
1:18:16 Bill Simmons? Dion Waiters. John Goodman is the winner.
1:18:19 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:18:20 Bill Simmons? Michael K. Williams is in Too Much, I think.
1:18:23 Chris Ryan? Yeah, he's, he's, he's got like five, six scenes.
1:18:25 Bill Simmons? Shout out to Omega Watch guy, the guy who's turned by his Omega Watch.
1:18:29 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:18:31 Bill Simmons? Recasting Couch Director City. I already had Bernthal as Wahlberg. This is the Bernthal part I've wanted for seven years.
1:18:38 Chris Ryan? I think this what, this is what American Gigolo was supposed to be for him.
1:18:41 Bill Simmons? Never got there.
1:18:42 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:18:43 Bill Simmons? You have anything for this?
1:18:44 Chris Ryan? For this, I think it would be cool if it had been like Oscar Isaac or Ethan Hawke. Like a kind of, like a little bit more of a bookish.
1:18:50 Bill Simmons? You like Oscar Isaac more than me.
1:18:52 Chris Ryan? I know.
1:18:53 Bill Simmons? You know why I don't like Oscar Isaac for this? Because it's not like an incredible movie and I don't know if there's, he doesn't bring on intentional comedy for me.
1:19:01 Chris Ryan? That's a good point. Do you think Ethan Hawke would? Gyllenhaal certainly would.
1:19:04 Bill Simmons? Ethan Gyllenhaal, definitely. But now Gyllenhaal's almost shaded too far toward the, like, and I don't even know if he's being unintentionally funny. I don't.
1:19:12 Chris Ryan? I think he might think that, like, if you were like, can you lose some weight for this part? He'd come back looking like the guy in Nightcrawler.
1:19:18 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:19:19 Chris Ryan? And you'd be like, well, this isn't really effective.
1:19:20 Bill Simmons? Wahlberg lost 50 pounds? I'm gonna lose 80.
1:19:26 Bill Simmons? Romo Collinsworth or someone else for the director's commentary?
1:19:30 Chris Ryan? I see you, Mr. Allen. You're getting to your spots, making your shots and keeping the score strangely within the spread. You may have degenerative cartilage damage, but you're mid- range game is strong. We salute you, sir.
1:19:46 Bill Simmons? Should know that was coming. Uh, I'm just cuz he took the North Carolina job this week. I'm gonna go Bill Belichick cuz he's not doing media anymore.
1:19:55 Chris Ryan? No, he is. You see, he's gonna do McAfee still?
1:19:58 Bill Simmons? That won't last.
1:19:59 Chris Ryan? Okay.
1:19:59 Bill Simmons? I don't, I don't see that happen. Yeah, Jim's gotta do better with Blackjack. He's, you know, when you're stacking bets like that, um, you gotta, you gotta cash some of the chips. Put them in your pocket cuz eventually the odds of winning seven, eight straight bets. Not gonna win eight straight bets. You're just not gonna, nobody's that good.
1:20:18 Chris Ryan? But we're on to Morongo.
1:20:19 Bill Simmons? Nobody's that good at all. Half past center research. This was George Kennedy's last movie.
1:20:24 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:20:24 Bill Simmons? Tough last movie for George. He's just, looks brutal.
1:20:28 Bill Simmons? Here's one. Each day in the movie, Jim's shirt color gets lighter.
1:20:33 Chris Ryan? Hmm.
1:20:34 Bill Simmons? Starts all black and starts getting lighter and then by the end it's white.
1:20:37 Chris Ryan? Cuz that's, and when he's finally free.
1:20:39 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:20:40 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:20:40 Bill Simmons? See, a lot of deep shit going on in this movie. Craig, how many pounds do you think Mark Wahlberg lost in this movie?
1:20:46 Chris Ryan? He's pretty thin in this movie. I bet you, I bet you he lost, no, forty?
1:20:52 Bill Simmons? He lost sixty-one pounds.
1:20:54 Chris Ryan? CR.
1:20:55 Bill Simmons? He went from a hundred ninety-eight pounds to one hundred and thirty-seven pounds. Liquid food, vegetables, a workout of strictly cardio. And he wanted to be one thirty-seven because the thinnest he'd ever been for a movie was Boogie Nights at one thirty-eight. And he wanted to be one pound lighter and he said he would never, ever do this again.
1:21:12 Chris Ryan? He doesn't even look that bad. When he's shirtless, he doesn't look like that.
1:21:16 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:21:16 Chris Ryan? Emaciated to me. It's like kinda heroin chic. Yeah. Basketball Diaries era.
1:21:22 Bill Simmons? Also, you mentioned this earlier, but he sat in a college course, courses around different colleges and analyzed professors and their mannerisms.
1:21:28 Chris Ryan? Can you imagine like you're going to fucking the modern novel and Wahlberg sitting there? He's like, don't mind me. You don't have to fucking look at me. Look at him. He's teaching.
1:21:37 Bill Simmons? Say hi to your mother for me. Um, can you imagine like you're like a loyal Ameri Mount poli sci professor? And like Wahlberg's coming to your class for a week and you're so excited for the gambler to see how Wahlberg.
1:21:50 Chris Ryan? And that's how it's represented.
1:21:51 Bill Simmons? It's like, oh my God, is that what he saw?
1:21:54 Bill Simmons? And then, uh, he wins on 22 black at the end. So in the sting, Redford bets on the roulette wheel and it lands on 22 black.
1:22:05 Chris Ryan? Oh, that's cool.
1:22:06 Bill Simmons? I don't know if that was intentional.
1:22:07 Chris Ryan? I'm sure it was. Monahan, they pretty much shot Monahan's script. Uh, it's, there's scenes excised, but there's nothing really like fundamentally changed about it.
1:22:17 Bill Simmons? Apex Mountain, Wahlberg, no. Lang, no.
1:22:22 Bill Simmons? Brie Larson, no.
1:22:23 Chris Ryan? Not Blackjack, right? On screen?
1:22:25 Bill Simmons? No.
1:22:26 Chris Ryan? What's the best Blackjack?
1:22:27 Bill Simmons? Cereal?
1:22:30 Chris Ryan? Well, that's an interesting point. I, they never really like show us what the cereal is. It looks like he's eating like crackle and oat bran or something. Are we going back to cereal now?
1:22:41 Bill Simmons? I had it written down.
1:22:42 Chris Ryan? This is Apex Mountain for cereal conversations, I think, this podcast.
1:22:45 Bill Simmons? Cereal, gambling, no. Michael K. Williams, no. Shaving points in a movie? Blue chips.
1:22:53 Chris Ryan? Blue chips.
1:22:54 Bill Simmons? Omega watches?
1:22:56 Chris Ryan? In film.
1:22:58 Bill Simmons? Watching basketball indoors with sunglasses on?
1:23:00 Chris Ryan? That, definitely.
1:23:02 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:23:02 Chris Ryan? Definitely.
1:23:03 Bill Simmons? We finally got one. You asked best Blackjack scene. I really have to think about that and maybe come back. I don't know. I don't want to just, just give that answer just quickly.
1:23:13 Chris Ryan? This might be actually Apex Mountain for cocktail waitresses in movies. Because between Brie Larson and the woman at the horse track when he's like, it was just like this, this, this kid's like the grandson of the 16th richest man in California. And she's like, does he drink?
1:23:29 Bill Simmons? Well, so I'd be with you on that, but what about swingers?
1:23:32 Chris Ryan? Oh, yeah. That's true.
1:23:34 Bill Simmons? Dorothy?
1:23:35 Chris Ryan? Yeah. That's true.
1:23:36 Bill Simmons? Um, best Blackjack scene in a movie?
1:23:40 Chris Ryan? Well, there's, there's Rain Man, right?
1:23:42 Bill Simmons? It's probably Rain Man. Casino Royale, they're playing poker.
1:23:46 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:23:47 Bill Simmons? Uh, I'd have to think. I'll have an answer in a later pod. I really want to research this because I don't want to leave anything out.
1:23:52 Chris Ryan? Open guess the lines with.
1:23:53 Bill Simmons? Rain Man is the best. I think.
1:23:56 Chris Ryan? Hangover, do they, do they actually play that?
1:23:58 Bill Simmons? Hangover, they do it.
1:23:59 Chris Ryan? But they're just making. In front of Rain Man and
1:24:00 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:24:02 Chris Ryan? They play poker in California split, right?
1:24:05 Bill Simmons? All right, I just Googled this. Twenty One was a movie built around Blackjack?
1:24:08 Chris Ryan? Oh, yeah, that's right. The Kevin Spacey movie.
1:24:09 Bill Simmons? I didn't really like that movie that much, though. And then, uh, man, really not a lot of great Black. I'm sure there is. Maybe the, maybe the listeners will have one.
1:24:18 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I think it's mostly poker because poker actually takes strategy and, and like skill and the hands have like arcs to them. Whereas Blackjack's just like, oh, fuck.
1:24:27 Bill Simmons? Maybe somebody someday will make the movie about my Blackjack career where eventually all my friends leave and it's three in the morning and they're vacuuming under my feet.
1:24:35 Chris Ryan? Jacoby comes back.
1:24:36 Bill Simmons? Yeah, Jacoby's like, how are you still awake?
1:24:38 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:24:40 Bill Simmons? Cruise or Hanks?
1:24:42 Chris Ryan? This is easily Cruise to me.
1:24:43 Bill Simmons? Easily. This is the easiest Cruise in a while. And it made me think like this actually would have been incredible, incredible Cruise. What year, though? What year of Cruise?
1:24:53 Chris Ryan? Uh, after like ninety.
1:24:55 Bill Simmons? Two thousand two?
1:24:56 Chris Ryan? Like the firm era.
1:24:58 Bill Simmons? Oh, you'd go younger?
1:24:59 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:24:59 Bill Simmons? How, how old do you want him to be?
1:25:02 Chris Ryan? Like thirty five? Is that too? So what, how old is he in?
1:25:05 Bill Simmons? So maybe right after Jerry Maguire? Like Vanilla Sky Cruise?
1:25:09 Chris Ryan? Right around there. Yes.
1:25:10 Bill Simmons? I think you're right.
1:25:12 Bill Simmons? Decided. Cruise needed it. So he's now he's three back.
1:25:16 Chris Ryan? Yep, nineteen to sixteen. Has Cruise ever been a professor?
1:25:20 Chris Ryan? I would love to see Cruise molding young minds. I mean, he does that. He teaches, he teaches film to all of us.
1:25:26 Bill Simmons? He's been a student in Cocktail.
1:25:28 Chris Ryan? Yeah. He's been a lawyer, but he's never been a teacher, right?
1:25:31 Bill Simmons? Cruise doing the, the, the first professor.
1:25:34 Chris Ryan? Teacher in Top Gun Maverick.
1:25:36 Bill Simmons? Oh, yeah, he is.
1:25:37 Chris Ryan? He's an instructor. Yeah.
1:25:38 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:25:38 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:25:40 Bill Simmons? Racehorse, rock band, wrestler, fantasy team name. I'll give you Lamar's Point Shavers or King of Spades?
1:25:45 Chris Ryan? I had Mr. Lee's.
1:25:47 Bill Simmons? Oh, I like that. Okay. Pick a Knits.
1:25:52 Chris Ryan? Got a few.
1:25:52 Bill Simmons? I mean Lamar needs a senior year to boost his draft stock. Would that, what is this 1974?
1:25:58 Chris Ryan? Right.
1:25:59 Bill Simmons? Like that, when was the last year anyone said those words with college basketball?
1:26:03 Chris Ryan? He's his second round pick.
1:26:04 Bill Simmons? The sports consultant's right here.
1:26:05 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:26:06 Bill Simmons? Come on.
1:26:08 Bill Simmons? Wahlberg gets the shit beaten out of him.
1:26:13 Bill Simmons? I think three times more severely than his actual injuries.
1:26:16 Chris Ryan? The, the, the Korean nail place where he gets fucking drop kicked.
1:26:21 Bill Simmons? Multiple broken ribs.
1:26:23 Chris Ryan? Yeah, concussion.
1:26:24 Bill Simmons? I think he has a broken orbital bone at one's point, definitely maybe a hairline fracture of the skull.
1:26:29 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:26:29 Bill Simmons? Concussion, he's fine.
1:26:32 Chris Ryan? I, I, you're absolutely right.
1:26:34 Bill Simmons? What else did he, what'd you have?
1:26:36 Chris Ryan? Well, crucial sports czar error is that Neville says Lamar's playing Michigan. And then when they actually get to the game, the team he's playing against is the Bulldogs, which is not Michigan Wolverines. And it's also in conference, it's the conference semifinal.
1:26:54 Bill Simmons? Oh, I didn't even notice that.
1:26:56 Chris Ryan? I mean, now USC and Michigan are in the Big Ten together, but in 2014, this wasn't happening.
1:27:02 Bill Simmons? Great one.
1:27:02 Chris Ryan? Um, how does Jim know that Amy is this genius? Like, how many pieces has he read by her that he's like, she is the one person in this generation who's actually talented?
1:27:16 Bill Simmons? I don't know.
1:27:16 Chris Ryan? Cause it's a lit class, so how much like, is he just reading her like essays and stuff?
1:27:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah, we need a scene where he's at his desk, reading the paper.
1:27:23 Chris Ryan? Uh, the only other thing is that Frank doesn't really live by his teachings because if you're in a position of fuck you, like, why are you also a loan shark? That seems like an unnecessary.
1:27:32 Bill Simmons? Why are you helping people who aren't gonna pay you back?
1:27:34 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:27:36 Bill Simmons? I, my two big ones. So they just give Lamar, they're gonna fix the game. Hey, we put that, we put a big giant bag of cash in your locker. It's not suspicious at all.
1:27:46 Chris Ryan? Well, I was.
1:27:47 Bill Simmons? It's a giant big gym bag. Right in the locker.
1:27:50 Chris Ryan? Since we're talking about the basketball game, can I do two of my unanswerable questions that are also nitpicks? What was Jim's bet? So it's
1:27:57 Bill Simmons? Oh, I have all this later.
1:27:58 Chris Ryan? Okay.
1:27:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah, yeah.
1:27:59 Chris Ryan? All right.
1:28:00 Bill Simmons? I'll do it in unanswered, bro.
1:28:01 Chris Ryan? All right.
1:28:02 Bill Simmons? What's the other question?
1:28:03 Chris Ryan? What would happen if Danny Hurley had been coaching that team?
1:28:06 Bill Simmons? God damn it, Lamar!
1:28:10 Chris Ryan? There's no way Lamar gets back in the game.
1:28:12 Bill Simmons? Jesus fucking Christ! Sinking to his knees.
1:28:15 Chris Ryan? He's fucking crying because Lamar missed a mid-range jumper. Didn't run horns properly.
1:28:24 Bill Simmons? The giant bag of cash in the locker is ludicrous.
1:28:26 Chris Ryan? Should I bring, should I make Danny Hurley the new Wayne Jenkins?
1:28:29 Bill Simmons? I'll throw him in there. You had, you had to commit to it, though, and fall to the ground. End of Lamar's game, so they're up seven, it's like five, seven, then they have the ball near the end. The other team's not fouling and they're also not dribbling out the clock.
1:28:45 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:28:46 Bill Simmons? It's idiotic.
1:28:47 Chris Ryan? Yeah, he's going early possession shoot shots when all you have to do is like choke the game out.
1:28:53 Bill Simmons? Also, like, sports consultant, yet again, can't believe I'm not hired for these. The move should have been, they foul Lamar with like three seconds left, up seven, and he goes to the line and you don't know whether he's gonna make it or not. And he's shooting the free throw, and then it cuts to Michael K. Williams celebrating. Instead, it was like, oh, he's just gonna shoot up seven with one second left? Like, what the fuck is this? Never happened.
1:29:16 Chris Ryan? Why is it that when Lamar's practicing on his own, he's like playing in the gym that Zoe used to play middle school basketball?
1:29:23 Bill Simmons? Yeah. It's supposed to be USC, it's supposed to be like a giant gym. Sequel, prequel, prestige, TV, all black cast are untouchable. There's a prestige TV case for this movie.
1:29:33 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I mean, I would love a
1:29:34 Bill Simmons? Got some big ideas.
1:29:34 Chris Ryan? A show about Los Angeles's underground gambling culture.
1:29:39 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:29:39 Chris Ryan? And bookies, but like a professor.
1:29:41 Bill Simmons? Sounds great.
1:29:42 Chris Ryan? It's awesome.
1:29:42 Bill Simmons? I don't know, David Chang? Sounds unbelievable.
1:29:46 Chris Ryan? When John Goodman shows up at Major Domo and is like, "I will fucking take this place over."
1:29:52 Bill Simmons? "I am not here for the BS fries." Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Danny Hurley, Sid Goldberg, Sam Jackson, JT Walsh, Nell, Byron Mayo, Harley Mays, Evil Laughing Ramon Raymond, Long Legs or Philip Baker Hall? Should we get rid of a couple of these before the end of the year?
1:30:10 Chris Ryan? Yeah, let's do a little bit of accounting here. Let's do an audit.
1:30:13 Bill Simmons? Who is number one? Does Sid Goldberg, maybe we had a nice run with Sid?
1:30:18 Chris Ryan? Nobody, we have never done Raymond Ramon.
1:30:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah, alright, I'll get rid of him. It's fair.
1:30:24 Chris Ryan? I like it, but it's just like, we've never done that. I think-
1:30:28 Bill Simmons? JT Walsh, I guess we could get rid of. Sorry JT. Sid Goldberg, we could probably get rid of.
1:30:35 Chris Ryan? Okay.
1:30:38 Chris Ryan? He's pretty obscure.
1:30:40 Bill Simmons? Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Sam Jackson, Nell, Byron Mayo, Harley Mays, Long Legs or Philip Baker Hall?
1:30:45 Chris Ryan? Or Danny Hurley.
1:30:46 Bill Simmons? Or Danny Hurley.
1:30:46 Chris Ryan? Danny Hurley.
1:30:47 Bill Simmons? For any sports movie.
1:30:48 Chris Ryan? Jesus fucking Christ, Jim!
1:30:50 Bill Simmons? What the fuck are we doing?
1:30:51 Chris Ryan? Are you hitting on 18? Get the fuck over here! That's a pretty obscure cut for people who don't follow Yukon's Maui Invitational press conferences.
1:31:02 Bill Simmons? We need somebody else at the wringer to hold you back from the microphone as you're screaming.
1:31:07 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:31:10 Bill Simmons? I would say Sam Jackson in this movie wouldn't have been a bad thing.
1:31:14 Chris Ryan? Sam Jackson is Neville, and Sam Jackson and Goodman in the same movie would have been awesome.
1:31:18 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I'm trying to think what Sam Jackson, could he have been like, uh... How do we work him in?
1:31:27 Chris Ryan? He could be, Andre Brower is in one scene in this movie, as the dean.
1:31:31 Bill Simmons? Yeah, that was another one, like, why do we have Andre Brower for one scene?
1:31:35 Chris Ryan? There's more dean stuff in the script, I think.
1:31:36 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:31:39 Bill Simmons? Just want to ask her who gets it, Goodman. Alright, I have some really good and answerable questions. So, Jim wrote a book called Uphill Both Ways, that they show the cover of. What was this book about? Book of fiction? Uphill Both Ways, what does that even mean?
1:31:56 Chris Ryan? I wonder whether it's like, tries, it's like supposed to be like a demon copperhead like working class tale, but it just didn't ring true, because it wasn't really like what his experience was.
1:32:06 Bill Simmons? Well, you don't think it was like an adult catcher in the rye?
1:32:09 Chris Ryan? I mean, that's what he is, right?
1:32:10 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:32:12 Chris Ryan? As long, I wonder, would you read a book called Uphill Both Ways?
1:32:16 Bill Simmons? I would never read any book like that, ever. No, the answer's no.
1:32:23 Bill Simmons? Is 2.5 million really fuck you money? Because.
1:32:27 Chris Ryan? In 2014.
1:32:28 Bill Simmons? Cause John Goodman really felt committed to that specific figure. It wasn't two, it wasn't three.
1:32:32 Chris Ryan? Well, cause Jim was like, I've been up two and a half million.
1:32:35 Bill Simmons? So he's, so John Goodman just decides that's a great number. I'm good at, I'm good with that. Okay. How many miles does he jog at the end? Cause it seems like he goes from Koreatown.
1:32:45 Chris Ryan? I don't think it's that far.
1:32:46 Bill Simmons? All the way to the arts district?
1:32:48 Chris Ryan? No, I think she lives in. It's the, what is it like the Los Altos apartments? I don't know if that's real. Yeah, that's what they're called, I think.
1:32:58 Bill Simmons? But those actually exist? Los Altos Apartments?
1:33:02 Chris Ryan? It's on Wilshire.
1:33:04 Bill Simmons? Oh, Wilshire and what?
1:33:06 Chris Ryan? Um. It's on Wilshire and Bronson. Yeah, like Wilshire and Wilton. So it's actually not that far of a run.
1:33:15 Bill Simmons? That's like a fucking one mile run. What are they doing?
1:33:20 Bill Simmons? At some, at one point he's in downtown LA for some reason.
1:33:23 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I know, I know.
1:33:24 Bill Simmons? So maybe he'll run all the way down here and then run back?
1:33:26 Chris Ryan? I think they say it's Koreatown and he actually starts down by like Grand Street or something.
1:33:31 Bill Simmons? Or maybe he's in. But they say Koreatown though, right?
1:33:34 Chris Ryan? Well, maybe he's so fucking hungry because he's just been eating cereal the entire time that he runs down into downtown by accident.
1:33:40 Bill Simmons? Is it possible he's in Chinatown?
1:33:41 Chris Ryan? No, they said it's Koreatown. They're like, come to the Koreatown spot.
1:33:45 Bill Simmons? To Los Altos, that's like a mile.
1:33:47 Chris Ryan? Yeah, like you said, a very exciting mile.
1:33:51 Bill Simmons? Jesus. Feel completely disillusioned by this. All right. I figured out exactly how much money Jim owed.
1:33:58 Chris Ryan? Thank you. Yeah.
1:33:59 Bill Simmons? He owed the Korean 200,000.
1:34:01 Chris Ryan? Mm hmm.
1:34:02 Bill Simmons? He owed Michael K 60K. He got 260K from Frank with 10% juice. And he got 100K from the Korean with 10% juice. And he had to pay Lamar 150K before the game. Which gave him 210K left.
1:34:18 Chris Ryan? Then he gives.
1:34:19 Bill Simmons? But he owed 310. 286. And 60. So he owed 656,000 dollars. And he had 210 left. Which you bet on the basketball game.
1:34:34 Chris Ryan? He also gives Dexter 50 grand.
1:34:36 Bill Simmons? I haven't gotten that yet. He wins on the basketball game, bets 210 to win 200 on the basketball game, so now he's got 410. So he pays the 60K to Michael K.
1:34:45 Chris Ryan? Mm-hmm.
1:34:46 Bill Simmons? He's got 350 left. But he owed 596.
1:34:52 Chris Ryan? To Frank and Mr. Lee.
1:34:54 Bill Simmons? Offers 50K to Dexter, doesn't take it.
1:34:59 Bill Simmons? So he still has the 350.
1:35:01 Chris Ryan? Also Dexter being like, I'm gonna go pro in tennis and I'm gonna maybe make 50K, come on.
1:35:05 Bill Simmons? Terrible character.
1:35:08 Bill Simmons? Bets 350 on black and wins, so he, now he has 700. Everyone gets paid and then some, which is why Goodman at the end says, I got an extra 100 for you.
1:35:19 Chris Ryan? Oh right, it's the cream on top, right?
1:35:21 Bill Simmons? So he actually won more money than he owed, which I think is very stealth in the movie, but it's what happened.
1:35:26 Chris Ryan? He just wants to be free, he doesn't want to actually be on the game.
1:35:29 Bill Simmons? So he gives those guys the extra and then Goodman gets it. And that I think is how the money shook up.
1:35:34 Chris Ryan? Okay, so what? What was, what was that Michigan game, the Lamar game paying out then?
1:35:41 Bill Simmons? So he paid Lamar 150.
1:35:45 Bill Simmons? And his cut was probably 150.
1:35:49 Bill Simmons? Which is, I would say they probably got 30 to 35% of the cut.
1:35:52 Chris Ryan? Okay.
1:35:53 Bill Simmons? So maybe those guys each won 500K, something like that, cause they, if you're getting paid out for-
1:35:58 Chris Ryan? It's a big enough bet that Neville knows about it after the fact, where he's like, I heard somebody showed up in Vegas and like smashed this, like the money line or whatever it was.
1:36:07 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:36:08 Chris Ryan? Yeah, okay.
1:36:12 Bill Simmons? Best double feature choice. Two for the money or the original gambler?
1:36:15 Chris Ryan? Original gambler.
1:36:16 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:36:17 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:36:17 Bill Simmons? Which first or second?
1:36:20 Chris Ryan? No, I watched the Jim Con, Jimmy Con movie.
1:36:22 Bill Simmons? I know, but would you watch it first or second?
1:36:24 Chris Ryan? I would watch the second as like a palate cleanser, cause the Jimmy Con movie is very like, very, very serious.
1:36:31 Bill Simmons? The Indian red Zouan airword for what happened the next day.
1:36:34 Chris Ryan? So Jim gets-
1:36:35 Bill Simmons? I just wrote down Jim get dumb.
1:36:36 Chris Ryan? I had Jim gets cancelled.
1:36:40 Chris Ryan? What's the fucking, social media gets, gets ahold of Jim, it's like, this guy slept with a student and-
1:36:46 Bill Simmons? And fixed the game.
1:36:47 Chris Ryan? Fucking shaved college basketball, Pac 10, like conference game, and then also- So, uh, he gets driven insane when Amy writes like a Sally Rooney novel and becomes hugely famous.
1:36:59 Bill Simmons? And he's just. I don't even think they make it that long.
1:37:01 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:37:02 Bill Simmons? What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? I could offer you the sunglasses? I could offer you the duffel bag that held the 50K?
1:37:11 Chris Ryan? That's a nice bag.
1:37:13 Bill Simmons? Jessica Lange's tennis racket?
1:37:17 Chris Ryan? Can I get Jim's like Topanga how- Topanga Canyon house or Beachwood?
1:37:21 Bill Simmons? It's a pretty nice house.
1:37:21 Chris Ryan? I get some pretty cool house.
1:37:23 Bill Simmons? I like that.
1:37:23 Chris Ryan? Is it Laurel? Like, where's he living?
1:37:25 Bill Simmons? It feels like a little Beachwood-ish.
1:37:27 Chris Ryan? You don't want uphill both ways? Oh, that's true. Sign. I want uphill both ways.
1:37:31 Bill Simmons? The actual book of uphill both ways. Yeah, that's great.
1:37:33 Chris Ryan? I love that it's being featured in the hallway of the, of the English department.
1:37:37 Bill Simmons? Coach Finstak will wear a best life lesson, always be in a fuck you position.
1:37:41 Chris Ryan? Oh, I actually said you owe somebody money. Don't fuck around.
1:37:44 Bill Simmons? Okay. Who won the movie?
1:37:46 Chris Ryan? I'm gonna say Monahan, the screenwriter, just because this is like unvarnished his thing. I think that a lot of like the, the characters are speaking from his POV. These are his like riffs on society and existence. And I think it's more or less a vehicle for like his, his kind of musings. So I'm gonna go William Monahan.
1:38:06 Bill Simmons? I like that.
1:38:08 Chris Ryan? You gonna go Goodman?
1:38:08 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I think I am.
1:38:10 Chris Ryan? Cause it's, if that Goodman part isn't that good, if it's like.
1:38:14 Bill Simmons? Movie falls apart.
1:38:14 Chris Ryan? Yeah. If it's like Denofrio.
1:38:16 Bill Simmons? Overacting?
1:38:17 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:38:17 Bill Simmons? Yeah, somebody trying too hard.
1:38:21 Bill Simmons? All right, Craig had never seen this movie. It did come out in the last 10 years, which is a bonus.
1:38:26 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:38:26 Bill Simmons? Um, what were your thoughts?
1:38:28 Chris Ryan? Yeah, I had never heard of it. I don't know if that, is that surprising to you that I've never heard of this? No, I mean, I think that there's a lot of probably mid 10s movie that fall into obscurity before you start like watching stuff. Yeah, as usual, I liked this movie more after hearing you guys talk about it for 90 minutes. But it's, it's more memorable, it will be more memorable than it, than it deserves to be, I think for me. It's kind of the Jordan Poole of movies, but parentheses complimentary. Cause like, the movie puts up 34, but a very inefficient 34. 12 for 28, 34 points, but like a couple incredible threes.
1:39:03 Bill Simmons? Gets punched once.
1:39:04 Chris Ryan? Absolutely like. Backbreaking turnovers. Yeah, right. But there are moments, like the highlights are great. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I, I don't know. I think that there's, there are misses in this movie, but ultimately what I like is that there are five really good actors. Kind of just playing dress up and going for it. And ultimately, I respect that. And I think I see less and less of that nowadays. I'm like watching Mark Wahlberg. Goodman, uh, Michael K, Brie Larson, all these people being like, yeah, we were gonna try to win an Oscar and we're gonna really go for it and kind of an overwritten gambling movie. Yeah. It's just, it's just fun to see them all collectively agreeing to, to do it. There was, there used to be like a Howard Hawks saying about like how many good scenes a movie needed for the movie to be good. This has enough to make me re-watch it. You know what I mean? Like, I think that you need five.
1:39:49 Bill Simmons? I also think five years from now, you're gonna be like, I really like this movie.
1:39:53 Chris Ryan? I think so too. I think the movie to me hinges, it became unintentionally funny when. Uh, his big speech as a professor in the, in the classroom. Like he wanted that to, like, in his head, that's like the Lydia Tar scene.
1:40:06 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:40:06 Chris Ryan? But it doesn't play. And I think after that, you're like, okay, this is now a different movie in my head. Still very memorable. I think he obviously did a lot of research. I've made this joke before, we've been talking about this, but like he's, he's almost like he's reading phonetically. Yes. Like, I don't know that he knows what he's saying in that scene as an actor.
1:40:24 Bill Simmons? Whereas like Burnthaw would have crushed it.
1:40:25 Chris Ryan? Yeah, or.
1:40:26 Bill Simmons? Or a Buffalo would have been really good.
1:40:28 Chris Ryan? I almost don't even know what he's saying because he's running through it so fast, like he's memorized it and he's trying to get through it. Emphasizing weird parts of the speech. Yeah.
1:40:36 Bill Simmons? It's like when, when we found out that the lady Colin Farrell hooks up with the Miami Vice, didn't speak English and memorized all the. Phonetic sounds of her dialogue. It was like, oh, okay. Maybe that's what Mark Wahlberg did.
1:40:50 Chris Ryan? Possibly. That's a good point.
1:40:54 Bill Simmons? All right. That's, that's, that review didn't surprise me at all because I didn't really like this movie that much the first time I saw it, but it kept my interest and made me more mad than anything. And now 10 years later, I've arrived at a great place.
1:41:04 Chris Ryan? This is just a really good, like, Sunday afternoon, there's nothing to watch. The four o'clock NFL game sucked. Just throw this on. You won't be sorry.
1:41:11 Bill Simmons? I'll tell you another thing about this movie. People are watching it.
1:41:15 Chris Ryan? Are they?
1:41:15 Bill Simmons? It's, it's always on in the Showtime bundle if you're flicking the cable guy.
1:41:20 Chris Ryan? Yeah, it's on Paramount Plus.
1:41:21 Bill Simmons? It's on Paramount.
1:41:22 Chris Ryan? Oh, yeah.
1:41:22 Bill Simmons? Yeah, it's, it's, I think it's, it's out there. It reminds me of what happened with Focus, which was another movie that I don't think did that.
1:41:30 Chris Ryan? Oh, yeah.
1:41:30 Bill Simmons? We did that on the Watch This Too, but that was another one that it was like, I think I like that, but it had some flaws.
1:41:35 Chris Ryan? The truth is that you and I are very easy dates if it's about sports or gambling.
1:41:38 Bill Simmons? Yeah, or the criminal underbelly.
1:41:40 Chris Ryan? Or the criminal underbelly of either.
1:41:42 Speaker 04 I think Focus exploded on streaming in the last year.
1:41:45 Bill Simmons? Cause it Margot Robbie.
1:41:46 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:41:47 Bill Simmons? Yeah. And Will Smith, cause he punched Chris Rock.
1:41:51 Bill Simmons? CR, a pleasure as always. Craig and Jack, thank you for producing. You can watch us on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well, and we will see you.
1:41:59 Chris Ryan? Subscribe to Ringer Cereal if you haven't gotten a chance yet.
1:42:02 Bill Simmons? Ringer Cereal, Ringer TV, Ringer Movies.
1:42:05 Speaker 04 Yeah, 10 years ago, what really started podcasting was Serial, the podcast, and now it's a new one.
1:42:10 Chris Ryan? Yeah.
1:42:11 Speaker 04 Just spelled a little differently.
1:42:12 Bill Simmons? And we have an actual Christmas movie next week.
1:42:14 Chris Ryan? That's right.
1:42:14 Bill Simmons? Yeah, very excited about that. See you then.
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