‘Quiz Show’ With Bill Simmons and Brian Koppelman

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Brian Koppelman hop into their sound-proof booths as they rewatch Robert Redford’s 1994 Best Picture–nominated ‘Quiz Show,’ starring Ralph Fiennes, John Turturro, Rob Morrow, and Paul Scofield. Directed by Robert Redford. Producers: Craig Horlbeck, Chia Hao Tat, Ronak Nair, Eduardo Ocampo. A Mountain of Movies® on Paramount+. Stream now! A House of Dynamite, on Netflix October 24th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:30Bill Simmons?

  The Rewatchables, brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. Brian Koppelman pops on from time to time on The Rewatchables. We usually do movies that came out at least 30 years ago, like Rollerball, which was 50 years ago. Quiz Show is a movie that you were texting me forever. We have to do this. When are we doing this? It's a combination like guilt trip slash almost like an agent trying to, trying to, we gotta talk, we gotta talk about the next deal. Like, just like there was a real urgency, and then finally Red for a Month happened.

• 2:03Speaker 04

  It's true. Well, every time I would think, because people would always ask me... Like, what are my most rewatched movies? And, and this movie, after the movies that are the obviously most watched, The Godfather, Goodfellas, right? This is my most watched film after the, after the batch of movies that my whole, Stripes, Princess Bride, after the core movies that formed who we are. This is the next most, for me personally, the most rewatched movie. So that's why I've always been like, well, if we're, you know, I've done like eight or nine, I think that I've done this nine times with you. And this is my most rewatched movie other than those. So that's why I always brought it up. And then, yeah, when Redford died, it's like, I mean, we gotta do it.

• 2:47Bill Simmons?

  Quiz show, last movie of Redford month, coming up next. This episode of the Rewatchables is presented by Paramount Plus. Around here, we love talking about rewatchable movies almost as much as we love watching them. Paramount Plus has movies, a mountain of them, new movies and also the classics that we keep coming back to, Almost Famous, Gladiator, Top Gun, The Naked Gun. Them all, whether you want to relive your favorite moments or catch the latest blockbusters or dive into some old 90210. There's a mountain of movies to discover on Paramount Plus. Start streaming today.

• 3:38Bill Simmons?

  Compliment, I thought we were gonna get television. The truth is, television is gonna get us. Is this true? Let's start there, cuz it's such a great quote. I think it's true.

• 3:49Speaker 04

  I mean, I think if, I mean, you wanna jump to, I mean, if you wanna jump right to what from the movie has sort of over time been the truest thing? Is that rigged reality shows can change the world?

• 4:09Bill Simmons?

  And TV, and what we perceive we're seeing from TV and how TV can shape society. And it has gone in a whole bunch of ways the last 30 years. This movie came out in 1994. September, September 10th, Pulp Fiction. September 14th, Quiz Show. September 24th, Shawshank. Those three movies in 14 days. And Quiz Show gets a little lost in the awards thing because this turns into Forrest Gump versus Shawshank versus Pulp Fiction. It was an amazing movie year. But remember when we used to just have awesome movies coming out every week? That was great.

• 4:48Speaker 04

  Adam, I'm sure as you do, like, I actually remember the theater for each of the movies you just said.

• 4:52Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  I truly remember the experience of seeing Pulp Fiction, obviously, Quiz Show, and Shawshank. So, yeah, that was an incre- mind boggling that that was just a month and a half of the movies or whatever.

• 5:07Bill Simmons?

  A month and a half is two weeks. I remember Pulp Fiction. I remember Shawshank, and sadly, I remember Quiz Show being just completely upset, angry, and appalled by Rob Morrow's Boston accent. So it was those, those three things. And by the way, not the last time Rob Morrow's Boston accent is gonna come up in this podcast, but, yeah, it was such a great movie, and yet, you know, I saw it in Boston, and I think I saw it with my dad, and we're leaving, like, what the fuck was that accent? Why can't people get the Boston accents? This is the peak of that.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  I rem- well, just a couple of years later, Matt and Ben fixed everything for you. And then-

• 5:43Bill Simmons?

  They sure did.

• 5:44Speaker 04

  David O. Russell and Wahlberg, everybody fixed it for you. You know what I mean?

• 5:47Bill Simmons?

  They did.

• 5:47Speaker 04

  Right afterwards. All those movies fixed things for you. But I'll say, having just, I was only, you know, I got out of Tufts, what, six years before this movie came out? I was, I was still pretty familiar, I'm quite familiar with Rugaluck. I was still pretty familiar with Boston accents. And, yes, Morrow got such, first of all, I love Rob Morrow. I think he's incredible in the movie. But, and I feel like he was unfairly maligned. There are a lot of crappy, there are a lot of Boston accents that maybe-

• 6:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  -aren't exactly what you'd wanna hear. But I think the people who weren't native Bostonians, it didn't drive us crazy.

• 6:23Bill Simmons?

  No, because there was the TV movie version of the Boston accent, which was like this weird Kennedy, "Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Anyway, we don't need to spend talk-

• 6:31Speaker 04

  But you're a Connecticut, I mean, you're a Connecticut guy.

• 6:33Bill Simmons?

  I'm a freaking Massachusetts guy. Screw off. This scandal was ground zero.

• 6:42Bill Simmons?

  For TV manipulating viewers, big bad corporations just doing the wrong thing, the cult of celebrity and a loss of American 1950s, I would say, in a sense, and idealism and bigger institutions. It wasn't just a show. We had, we had sports scandals, right? We had a massive college basketball scandal. We had all the McCarthy stuff going on. It just felt like we came out of World War II. Oh, my God, we're doing so great. Howber Stam's book is fantastic about this, which I haven't read in a while, but the 50s was really fun and really hit a lot of this. Has a quiz show chapter in it about 21. But

• 7:23Bill Simmons?

  this is right as things are turning, like people, oh, maybe, maybe it's not all hunky dory. Maybe I shouldn't trust everything. And, and this show hits right in the vortex of that.

• 7:36Speaker 04

  It really does. And I, I think at the, at the beginning of this, I do want to say, like, I'm so really grateful to talk about this movie because I do think what you said is so great. And I really haven't thought about why the movie got lost between those other two films. And of course Shawshank was a slow burn and, right, became considered the greatest movie ever. We both had read this short story and loved it. And I was fully ready for Shawshank and saw it in the theater and, and, and loved it. But I do love talking about this film because it's all the things you said, and yet it's a, it's not a downer when you're watching it. Like, it's everything you just said, but, but the movie also captures that feeling of innocence that was lost. It captures like, you know, what does he say? Everyone wants the best for you, Charlie. Like, everyone wants to

• 8:21Speaker 04

  think the best of you. Like, that idea that people were still trying to think the best of each other and that it was possible is like at the heart of it's like such a human movie. And I'm, I'm gonna say if you had a corny meter, like, I'm at risk of it and I apologize to everybody. But this movie just makes me feel so good because it's like, Deeply flawed people trying to like get outside of their own, like we all are like just trying to get outside of their own limitations and failing or maybe succeeding a little bit or having a moment of grace. And also Attenacio wrote one of the greatest, and talk about a heater run. I mean, the guy had this and Donnie Brasco and Disclosure and Homicide.

• 9:05Speaker 04

  The guy just was on this unbelievable screenwriters run. And I think Quiz Show is like one of the greatest screenplays of the, you know, since 19 whatever, 90 to now.

• 9:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was gonna ask you that because you've spent half of your life probably in final draft documents with you and Levine, just staring at stuff and half-written scenes. This is like a revered screenplay. And I was watching, I watched the movie twice to try, first time I watched it just because I hadn't seen it in a few years. Like, and the second time I was really watching it, how they constructed it and the scenes and the dialogue and everything. So I had it in the back of my head. And it's just, it's just so crisp. There's not like, I don't feel like there's a scene wasted. It's not a slow movie. There's a pace to it. Every scene and moment has a purpose. All the transitions, the montage comes in the perfect place.

• 10:01Bill Simmons?

  It just, it's kind of a clinic on how to write a two-hour movie about something that happened 40 years earlier. You know what I mean?

• 10:07Speaker 04

  It really is. And he found a way to show you these kind of people who don't even really exist anymore, like the family. Because he puts it through the eyes of this guy who was like bootstrapping it, right? I mean, you know, we, you've lived a version of this. You went into this industry. I mean, I have to think you could relate in some ways to Goodwin in that not, like, because you went into this industry that wanted to keep you out. And no, seriously, dude, right? You were a kid who was at this school. Like, you'd gotten there. Yeah, you didn't grow up with nothing, but you didn't grow up like a lot of the other people who got into the media landscape, right? And, and like, you had an idea, like Dick Goodwin does about like, well, I think that

• 10:51Speaker 04

  I can, I don't know, let's get in rooms with these people and see if I'm, see if I know what I'm doing and see if my way is right and, and see if I can be smarter than them and outthink them and like, and I know the rooms that you were in and I know the condescending way people spoke to you and like, talked about you and like, and, and to me, like the brilliance of this movie is you get Dick Goodwin and he's not like, he's smart as hell, but he's rough around the edges and also, he's not sure he's good enough. Like, he thinks they're better than him. And then it's heartbreaking for him to realize in a way, oh, all there are people, like, we're all just people. And it's kind of amazing and that's what the screen, that's why the screenplay is so great, because the screenplay just takes you on that ride till Mira Sorvino looks at

• 11:36Speaker 04

  him and is like, they're no better than you. And it's, you're almost screaming it at the screen at the same time that, that she is, right?

• 11:44Bill Simmons?

  Well, and he's seduced by the whole life, too. They do a really good job of get sucked in. He goes to like the perfect, perfect rich people 1950s outdoor party with, you know, corn and all, lobster, all like the perfect rich people food. And, and then they're gonna take a little nice, nice little, little boat out, little boat trip. Hey, can you get the mask? And it's just like, oh, this is the life that I've always dreamed of being a part of.

• 12:11Speaker 04

  And of course Charlie's like, get the mask, you know? And, and you could see that Dick barely knows what the mask is. Like, he's read about it probably at Harvard. He probably like got on a sailboat once or he doesn't know what he's doing.

• 12:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 12:22Speaker 04

  It's such a little moment, but it's perfect, right? Yeah, I love that you brought that moment up.

• 12:26Bill Simmons?

  It's a little like, uh, there's shades of Mr. Ripley in this.

• 12:30Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 12:31Bill Simmons?

  Where the, the kind of semi outsider coming into this world of class. The movie does class so well. Like, Van Doren is clearly from, you know, top, top, top of the line where like prestige wasn't just about money back then. It was about like, this guy's a professor. This is a literate society. This is, people knew who Charles Van Doren was because his dad was just like a brilliant guy. Like, we don't, we don't really have that anymore.

• 12:55Speaker 04

  His dad and his uncle? Well, these are the guys, like, remember that? What's the De Niro movie about the beginning of the CIA? You know, it was that, that Matt, Matt's in it and De Niro directed it.

• 13:06Bill Simmons?

  I'm blanking, the informant, maybe?

• 13:08Speaker 04

  No, like, right, it came out right around when The Departed, like, Matt made both movies, like, Back to Back. Good Shepherd.

• 13:14Bill Simmons?

  Good Shepherd, that's what it is.

• 13:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. So like, you know, these are the guys who started the CIA and they didn't want to let anybody else in, right? They, they don't want to let Catholics in, forget Jews and Italians, like, they don't want to let Catholics in. And this is the same kind of closed society of people who knew best and know the way things are supposed to be. And, oh, we don't even have a television, we're not gonna watch, and we're gonna quote Shakespeare at each other. And-

• 13:41Bill Simmons?

  And they're always at big parties where they're making jokes about Eisenhower's dead, how could they tell? Like, oh, oh, oh, oh.

• 13:48Speaker 04

  I guess there was this famous figure named, it's a great moment, screenwriting wise, right? There's this famous figure, Edmund Wilson, but everyone in that world calls him Bunny. And Rob Maro's talking to his wife and, and he goes, uh, yeah, they're all, uh, Thurba this and Bunny Wilson that. And she goes Bunny. And he goes, everyone calls him that. And the wife goes, that doesn't mean that you should.

• 14:08Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  And it's great because he's getting seduced by being around this power and this sort of sense of class. And it's one of the best movies about, about class ever.

• 14:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you just go over to your dad's house, there's, there's just chocolate cake in the fridge. Yeah, I'll just have a nice slice of chocolate cake.

• 14:27Speaker 04

  Well, what is this, the old bird getting the- He goes, the old bird's getting the hang of it, about the cake? I think the old bird's getting the hang of it. Oh, oh, wait, I'm sorry, I'm so glad you brought that up. There's this moment in it that speaks to it. Again, it's like Redford's brilliance and Paul Attanasio, when he's like, um, the dad is played by this incredible actor, Paul Scofield. And when Charlie comes up in the middle of the night with the chocolate cake, that's one of my favorite movie scenes ever. Like, every line in it is just mind boggling. And both performances by Ralph Fiennes and Paul Scofield's incredible. But he goes, you know, I'm gonna try some of that, the dad. And then he goes over to that super old fashioned silverware holder.

• 15:09Speaker 04

  And he lifts that thing up and it's like, they don't have a drawer, like nothing so crass is keeping their silverware in a drawer like we do. Or pla- like in the middle of the night, tell me you're not just grabbing a plastic fork, you know, like, I've been to your house, you could go grab a plastic fork. If you were at my apartment, like Amy would be like, don't give him the plastic, please. But it's just like a regular, it's just a fork. Like he's going to the thing and lifting up like.

• 15:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, you left out, there's a painting of the dad behind him on the table, which is like the ultimate rich guy thing. Here's a painting of me.

• 15:40Speaker 04

  Awesome, Bill. Yes, but to every single, yes, it's perfect. The production is like, but there's this idea like, cause, and they don't comment on it. And I think you're so tempted, I think also like screenwriting wise and also directing wise, like they don't cut to like a little insert of the fork. Like he gets up and he goes over and he lifts that thing up. But if you just think about it for a second, that Connecticut house, like that was passed down, that silverware was passed down like four generations.

• 16:08Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 16:09Speaker 04

  Like that thing has been passed from rich WASP-y family member to rich, powerful WASP-y family member.

• 16:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, like John Quincy Adams might've given them the silver. Yeah, you just say, you have no idea.

• 16:20Speaker 04

  It was just passed down the line. Cause you know, this was before there was a Catholic president.

• 16:25Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well, when they called, when they called the Gentiles and the Jews were like things you, you would say, they were like these two groups. Redford said, uh, Redford wanted to do this movie because he said, quote, "Watching Ben Dorn and the other contestants was irresistible," cause he watched Quiz Show when it happened.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  Awesome.

• 16:46Bill Simmons?

  He said, "The actor in me looked at the show and felt like I was watching other actors. It was too much to believe, but at the same time, I never doubted the show. I haven't had, I hadn't had evidence television could trick us." As we know now, there's little morality there. Redford hated TV. Then he said, "The scandal was really the first in a series of scandals that have left us numbed, unsure of what or who to believe." So this was like a major passion project for him. He's watching this show, he's a wannabe actor. In New York City, the thing happens and he's like, man, I really didn't trust that I was watching something authentic there. And then it wasn't authentic and it just, he just kind of filed it away. And then when he wanted to direct a movie, which at this point he'd done A River

• 17:31Bill Simmons?

  Runs Through It, he'd done Ordinary People in 1980, could probably have picked any project he wants, anyone signing up for a Redford movie. There's people in this movie that are real actors that are in it for, like Griffin Dunson this for like a minute. You know, he's a real actor. Yeah, Busfield's like barely in it. And Busfield's hot at that point. It's the early 90s.

• 17:50Speaker 04

  I, I, I asked, I asked him, I was like, how, did Redford call in a favor to Busfield? I was like, how did you end up in the movie? He goes, yeah, Redford called in a million favors. He got all these incredible guys. They're all over the movie.

• 18:03Bill Simmons?

  This is like when, when we did sneakers last week, Redford commits to sneakers. There were no casting what ifs. We had no category because once he was in, everybody's like, I'm in. So whoever they wanted, they just got their first pick.

• 18:17Speaker 04

  I think everyone shows up. I mean, and we'll talk about when you go through and ask the that guy. I mean, but you got a that guy in every scene. You got some incredible actor and you know, two of the greatest directors of the modern era are playing parts in it. It's everywhere you turn. There are these unbelievable performances.

• 18:34Bill Simmons?

  So the screenplay adapted, Richard Goodwin, Dick Goodman, US congressional lawyer, played by Rob Moore, who investigated the accusations. There's a lot of, lot of stuff after the fact about, and we'll, I have a section for this, like some of the inaccuracies. This is somewhere between when they do the based on a true story and it's like based on a true story of Patrick Ewing, but they win the 1994 finals. Technically, it's based on a true story. He played in the 1994 finals. You could just say John Stark's shot went in. It's based on a true story. I don't mean to do this to you. But they definitely took some liberties.

• 19:11Speaker 04

  That's so mean. I mean, John Stark's did get that dunk though. He dunked over, you know.

• 19:15Bill Simmons?

  He did. He did get the dunk. And then Ralph Fiennes. Who does Schindler's List the year before, a quiz show this year, and then two years later is an English patient. So he's in three of, three Oscar nominated films, two of which won Best Picture. And this is all in the span of four years. And this weirdly was his peak, like his best actor peak, but it seemed like in the mid 90s, it really seemed like he was going to be a major, major, major, major star. Never quite happened.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  He's always just so great though, man. I mean, in Bruce, how great. He's a guy who's just always incredible, right?

• 19:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I feel like he's like one of those athletes who just kind of slid through the cracks, putting up huge seasons. You don't really know what happened.

• 20:00Speaker 04

  I think the guy's so great. I, I, I think he's one of the most fascinating people to watch and there's so much going on in his eyes, you know? He really acts where the camera picks up so much stuff happening. I mean, he's one of the absolute greats.

• 20:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you can see his brain, handsome guy, and you can kind of see his brain calculating stuff, which you need in this because this is a guy who's presenting himself as a certain way, but he's also being torn up inside because he's living this life, basically.

• 20:30Speaker 04

  I mean, and you know, you didn't mention, or much, you didn't mention Turturro, the other lead of the movie.

• 20:35Bill Simmons?

  I was gonna go through it.

• 20:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, keep going.

• 20:38Bill Simmons?

  Turturro, and then Rob Morrow, those are basically the three leads. Turturro, I have a lot of thoughts on this performance. It's, he gains 25 pounds, he's got a weird tooth, he's incredibly annoying. And I, I actually think in a weird way, it hurts the rewatchability of this movie just a tiny bit because Herb Stempel, not a fun hang. And he's in a lot of scenes, but I think Turturro had to play him that way.

• 21:07Speaker 04

  It's funny, I think the Atanasius is cursed twice, right? Because Brasco's like the, you can't find a more rewatchable movie, but you've got to fast forward the Anne Heche scenes. Rest in peace, of course. Uh, one of the other greatest screenplays ever made, right? Dottie Brasco, perfect by the same writer. Um, I think this though, I think that, um, Herbie's scenes are saved because he's always in a scene. Like, I love how hard Turturo commits, right? And if you think about Barton Fink, and if you think about Lebowski, he always commits that hard. He's absolutely not... Look, everywhere you turn in this movie, there is somebody who is a world-class, one of the greatest actors of our time, like...

• 21:47Bill Simmons?

  Don't forget Kanish. I mean, you're gonna list 90s people, you're not gonna mention Kanish?

• 21:52Speaker 04

  Yes, I mean, yes. Obviously, he's Joey Kanish, and that's life changed my personal life, but I don't think the audience cares as much about that.

• 21:58Bill Simmons?

  I care.

• 22:00Speaker 04

  All right.

• 22:00Bill Simmons?

  I can't listen. Don't rounders twice.

• 22:02Speaker 04

  The day, the day that he showed up, it was beyond our wildest dreams that John Turturro was sitting there looking like the real Joel Bagels, you know? Amazing.

• 22:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was incredible. He's probably the guy I got, I'll say this. He's the person I probably got to know the least on that movie. He only was six days. He was as lovely as could be, but I just, he was so in it, and those days were so long that there wasn't a lot of hanging. Like, I didn't hang with him. We were together making the movie, but I don't feel like I ever got to know Turturo. He was there, he was Kanish. He was great. He said all the words. He was perfect. But I think he's amazing, as Temple, like, in terms of, you believe, I think it's gotta be hard, Bill, to create this in a way where you believe this guy would be that self-destructive, because Herbie Temple could've lived a life and never exposed this thing,

• 23:00Speaker 04

  the Herbie Temple of the movie. So the guy had to push it in a way so you would understand that he'd really do this.

• 23:06Bill Simmons?

  But you know immediately the guy's a huge loser, when he's, he can't even let Jack Baer get through the introduction. He's just repeatedly interrupting him. Yeah. And, "My relatives really like Jerry Falto." It's just going, going.

• 23:18Speaker 04

  "My blood isn't tired anymore."

• 23:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 23:22Bill Simmons?

  There's, I was almost thinking, so Bonnie Timmerman cast this, who over and over again pops up in movies and TV shows like this that are really well cast. I almost, I gotta talk to Chris Ryan about whether we need a great eye Bonnie award for movies that are like really well cast. But this movie has Turturro, David Paymer, like during the, during the David Paymer 90s heater, where he's just in a lot of stuff.

• 23:45Speaker 04

  How about that in a way, it's a David Paymer, Hank Azaria buddy movie?

• 23:50Bill Simmons?

  It's, that's like a separate movie. It's over on the side.

• 23:52Speaker 04

  They're incredible, those guys.

• 23:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 23:55Speaker 04

  Their, their back and forth, Abbott and Costello thing is like mind boggling.

• 23:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Uh, Christopher McDonald, Mira Sorvino early, she's not really Mira Sorvino yet, but she's Rob Moore's wife, Griffin Dunson, this Eliana Douglas. And then the coup of having just Scorsese and Barry Levinson.

• 24:14Speaker 04

  Amazing.

• 24:14Bill Simmons?

  As actors, and both of them are like about at the peak of their powers at this point, right? This is Scorsese, four years after Goodfellas, he can do whatever he wants at this point. And then, uh, and Levinson, this is, he was in a producing directing, he was even a producer in this, he took his name off because they had so many producers, his companies involved, but he was doing whatever he wanted. And both of those guys are good actors.

• 24:39Speaker 04

  They're really good.

• 24:39Bill Simmons?

  As like considering they're directors, they're actually good character actors.

• 24:43Speaker 04

  They're both excellent in the movie. I mean, if you don't know Barry Levin, so like everyone knows it's Marty, like I don't know if everyone knows that that's Barry Levinson, you know, the audience. And he just feels like he's Dave Garraway. But Scorsese, when that scene with Scorsese and Rob is really like mind boggling acting, where you, Redford's genius was he cast a guy who knows what it's like to have all the answers and be super powerful and godlike.

• 25:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 25:10Speaker 04

  And when Scorsese looks at him and goes, I sell Jeritol, you think I don't know? You know, insulting that would be, that's even more insulting. And you never question it. Uh, and when Morrow says, imagine if they could see you, it's one of the greatest. Moments, you know.

• 25:24Bill Simmons?

  So Moro, Rob Moro, I think is really good in this movie. The accent, it is what it is, but he's doing a lot of really good young guy stuff in this where he's the kind of the right age. He's probably early 30s in real life, but it seems like he's late 20s. But the way he's kind of staring people down and like, he's got a presence to him, but definitely felt like he could hang with all of these people. And it's weird because he's red hot from Northern Exposure at this point, which was a real like critically acclaimed and beloved. It wasn't a massive hit like ER, but it was a really well-known show. Him and Janine Turner were like real stars coming out of it. And he had a lot of different movie possibilities.

• 26:07Bill Simmons?

  He took this one, his movie career never really took off. He ended up, I noticed that he was in Billions way later as a judge. I'd forgotten. Yeah.

• 26:16Speaker 04

  He started as like an attorney, he was an attorney general and then a judge and, and yeah, we put him in that, we put him in, he plays Eddie Q in Super Pumped also. He's, you know, Rob is a, I think he's a great actor and I think he, I don't really understand why he didn't become a big movie star off this movie. Other than that the movie is so beloved by cinema, like people who love movies, but maybe it wasn't.

• 26:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 26:44Speaker 04

  Galvanizing in that, in that way, but uh, you know, he did, it's funny.

• 26:51Speaker 04

  He was number one on the call sheet for that show numbers and it did run for a hundred episodes. He's had a, and then there was a show on Showtime where he was number one also on the call sheet. Like he's had a great career, but even I think he would say it, it could have been more in a, in a way. I've talked.

• 27:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I must wonder what he turned down.

• 27:10Speaker 04

  I, you know.

• 27:10Bill Simmons?

  Cause he probably turned down some really good stuff, right?

• 27:12Speaker 04

  When you gave me a podcast and, you know, that I did for 10 years, but this was back in the days when we did it together, I had Moro on, he was like on in the first year I did the podcast and I asked him these questions. And I think he felt like he made some mistake, like I think he felt like. There were just some things that kinda went slightly sideways. But I gotta tell you, he was so great on Billions. I mean, he was in many episodes, you know?

• 27:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 27:37Speaker 04

  Was, every time he'd play a scene, the other actors, like if it was Giamatti, would come up and be like, "I'm so happy to have Rob Morrow here. He's so great." Like, everyone loved working with him. And I would work with that guy in a heartbeat. I feel like, I feel like he's an excellent actor and a great dude. And I'm always happy to see him, you know? And I think he's so good in this movie because you believe he's smart as Dick Goodwin.

• 28:01Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 28:02Speaker 04

  Ray Fiennes is obviously, you look at that guy and you go, "Well, that's a genius." And it's hard to have somebody stand in there who you feel like can outplay him in the chess match. And Morrow's, to me, believable. Do you find him? I find him very believable.

• 28:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 04

  In terms of his, like, figuring this thing out, you know?

• 28:20Bill Simmons?

  It's funny, cuz it's a gray part. And I think like, five years later, Damon and Norton are probably in the final two, trying to get it. Right? And then you go like, maybe three years later, Leo's trying to get it. And it's just one of those, like, age 28 to 33, American actor parts that you're just like, "I need this part. This is a great part. I gotta get it." Damon would've been great in this.

• 28:44Speaker 04

  You're so right. Edward and Matt, either of those guys would've been unreal in that part.

• 28:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 28:48Speaker 04

  You're so right.

• 28:50Bill Simmons?

  Speaking of unreal, Paul Scofield, triple crown runner. One of the great Shakespeare actors of all time, apparently, before my time. And, uh, and it's funny, he gets nominated for this, for Best Actor, in, I think, one of the most controversial Oscar categories we've maybe ever had.

• 29:11Speaker 04

  Oh, wait, I don't know that. He wasn't nominated as Best Supporting Actor?

• 29:14Bill Simmons?

  He was.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  A Best Supporting Actor? Okay, yeah.

• 29:18Bill Simmons?

  So, this is when Martin Landau wins for Ed Wood.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  Right.

• 29:23Bill Simmons?

  Sam Jackson loses for Pulp Fiction. Chaz Palminteri gets nominated for Bullets Over Broadway. That is getting nudged out. Schofield for Quiz Show would be one of those who'd be like, oh, get that guy out. But then you watch the movie and you're like, this guy's incredible. Like, yeah, it makes sense. And then Gary Sinise as Forrest Gump.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  Oh, right. As Lieutenant Dan.

• 29:47Bill Simmons?

  But we lose out. We don't get Bruce Willis from Pulp Fiction. We don't get Ving Rhames from Pulp Fiction. There's a whole bunch of other movies from, from this year that had some possibilities, but, uh, but yeah, that's what happened. But Schofield is like, I mean, like a real legendary, not quite Olivier, but like maybe a level two, like all time Shakespeare guy that everybody revered.

• 30:09Speaker 04

  I, I think, um,

• 30:12Speaker 04

  I think Schofield's so good in this movie that, uh, there's no doubt he deserved the nomination, even with all the things you just said. He's so good. And I heard a story today. I called, um, Paul Atanasio and I was like, I'm not going to mention you. He goes, no, you can. You can say that. So Atanasia said that Paul Scofield used to go on, I'd never heard this till, I heard this an hour ago. He said that

• 30:36Speaker 04

  Paul Scofield used to go on a silent retreat

• 30:40Speaker 04

  once a year for a month. But Redford wanted it. This thing you're saying about how Redford, but Redford wants him in the movie. But back then, there's no cell phones. And he's on a silent retreat, or there are cell phones in 94, but they're not smartphones. You know, you're not texting a guy, uh, to whatever. So he's on a silent retreat on an, on the Isle of Man or someplace like that. That's what, and, and Redford's like, no, no, no, it's gotta be Paul Scofield. And they're like, nobody can find Paul Scofield. We can't get him.

• 31:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 31:07Speaker 04

  And Redford's like, where is he? And they figure out that the place that he is, there's a lighthouse. And that there has to be a guy in the lighthouse. And so they find a way to contact the guy in the lighthouse and they get him to come down from the lighthouse and go find Paul Scofield and say, you gotta come to the lighthouse and call Robert Redford. And so he does.

• 31:29Bill Simmons?

  A silent retreat.

• 31:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. Gets him off the silent retreat. He goes to the lighthouse, calls Redford. And then Redford's like, I need you to come do this movie. And he's like, all right, I'll, I'll, I'll get my tie to play with around my neck for the movie and.

• 31:43Speaker 05

  That's how Mike Tomlin recruited Aaron Rodgers to the Steelers. Same story.

• 31:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, same thing. He was, he was, I wash cover, whatever that's called, retreat.

• 31:52Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I left out a Rob Moore quote. He said, because he was, everybody was going after him and, and, uh, and he decided to quiz show. His quote was, "I knew this was the one. It had the cachet of Bob Redford. It was incredibly well-written." Did people call Robert Redford Bob? Was he a Bob?

• 32:11Speaker 04

  I never, I never met him, but everyone calls him Bob.

• 32:13Bill Simmons?

  He's a Bob.

• 32:14Speaker 04

  I did not call him Bob. I never met him, but they all call him Bob. Yeah. Even today, like, Adenazio called him Bob today. He was like, "Well, Bob really wanted him." Yes, they call him Bob.

• 32:23Bill Simmons?

  Bob Redford? And then Bobby De Niro? He gets that one, right? Little bit?

• 32:31Speaker 04

  That's a tou- So Marty, it's definite. If you know Scorsese, you've been around, you gotta call him Marty.

• 32:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, Marty, yeah, that's a Marty's a no-brainer.

• 32:38Speaker 04

  You have no choice but to call him Marty?

• 32:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 32:41Speaker 04

  I would say, everybody does call De Niro Bob, but it's tough to get it out of your mouth.

• 32:48Bill Simmons?

  You wanna call him Robert?

• 32:49Speaker 04

  I, it's tough to get it out of your mouth.

• 32:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Uh, this got nominated for Best Picture. The other nominees were Shawshank, Pulp Fiction, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and the winner Forrest Gump. And then, uh, Redford was nominated as director. Zemeckis won for Forrest Gump. Tarantino nominated. Frank Darabont for Shawshank, not nominated. And then we have the, uh, the best writing on screenplay based on material previously published. Adenazio nominated for that, but Forrest Gump won that one, too. Forrest Gump, now, I, I've kinda circled back. Forrest Gump's a really good movie.

• 33:33Bill Simmons?

  There was, there was a lot of, like, movie nerd hatred for it for a while because it took all this stuff, but it's a tough one. I mean, I, I personally vote for Shawshank because you take a short story and you make one of the great American movies of the last 35 years out of it, but what do I know?

• 33:47Speaker 04

  So many great movies that year. Yeah, I never dish, I never diss Forrest Gump. I definitely think Pulp Fiction or Shawshank should have won a lot of these awards. And Quiz Show, right, right there, those are all great movies.

• 33:59Bill Simmons?

  Well, Pulp won screenplay at least.

• 34:00Speaker 04

  Screenplay, yeah, I know, yeah.

• 34:01Bill Simmons?

  So Quiz Show, $31 million budget, made $52 million. Roger Ebert, three and a half stars. And I gotta say, I write, you know, we've done this Roger Ebert segment for a while, and I always read the review and I try to pull like a thing out of it. I thought this was one of the best reviews I ever read from him. I actually, I'll tweet it from the Rewatchables Twitter account. It's just great, because it's, it's kind of less about the movie and more about what the movie's about, which he didn't really do always. He would, you know, he would do like the traditional movie reviews, and then sometimes he would get set off on, on a tangent. But he said, "The screenplay was smart and subtle and ruthless. It's careful to place blame where it belongs." But I really liked this part. "There's a theological

• 34:42Bill Simmons?

  belief that it is a greater sin to tempt than to be tempted, and this movie firmly reminds us of that. Now, take stock of what we've lost in the four decades since 21 came crashing down. We have lost a respect for intelligence. We reward people for whatever they happen to have learned, instead of feeling they might learn more. We have forgotten that the end does not justify the means, especially when the end is a high TV rating or any other kind of popular success, and we have lost a certain innocent idealism." Raj, fucking cooking.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  Nails it.

• 35:16Bill Simmons?

  Like, he really, I think he really liked what this movie was about, and had a couple of small flaws with it, but, uh, but yeah, he nailed it. Uh, we're gonna take a break, and we're gonna do the most rewatchable scene. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, I like those guys, starring the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh. Writer-director of The Banshees of Inisherin and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, set in the 1970s, filmed on location on Easter Island. Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi,

• 35:59Bill Simmons?

  another one of my guys, Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss Wild Horse 9, only in theaters November 6th. Get tickets now. This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Kathryn Bigelow, the Oscar winning director of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, two movies we need to do in the rewatchables, is back with A House of Dynamite, a cinematic visceral thriller about America's race to respond to an anonymous missile launch. I just know I'm gonna like this. Under the pressure of a ticking clock, the film's characters are called to make impossible decisions with implications for all of civilization. That includes us.

• 36:42Bill Simmons?

  While at the same time confronting their own emotions and humanity, A House of Dynamite, it's on Netflix October 24th.

• 36:52Bill Simmons?

  All right, most rewatchable scene. Stempel's first scene and the way they frame that quiz show. My only question is, would you go for the actual first scene when Rob Morrow's buying the Chrysler?

• 37:04Speaker 04

  It's an amazing, that's an incredible scene.

• 37:06Bill Simmons?

  All right, walk me through, walk me through the case for it.

• 37:10Speaker 04

  I can, though I do think it's ruined by the end of it. The button of that scene is the one moment that for me is like too obvious, you know, when the Sputnik thing. But right up until there, it's like as good, it's Mad Men. It's like an episode of Mad Men in this little tiny sliver 20 years before Mad Men. It's incredible. And it tells you everything about the era and about the guy that we're talking. I mean, it sets up for later when he's like too rich for my blood. It's like, it's a perfect setup for who this character is. And it's a setup for America and where America was and what a car meant. But then the end of it, when they bring in this idea of Sputnik, it's the one, it is to me, the only moment in the whole movie that tries too hard is that moment.

• 37:53Speaker 04

  But it doesn't ruin it for me. And I would, I would have, I have another argument for most rewatchable scene, but go ahead, you tell me what's the most rewatchable to you.

• 38:02Bill Simmons?

  I wrote down, I have nine.

• 38:04Speaker 04

  Okay, go.

• 38:05Bill Simmons?

  Stempel's first scene, Herbie's dead. But just like going, going into an actual 50s game show, the way they did. And the little phone booth, you're watching it from the prison now of like, oh, I'm thinking like, could this work? Would this exact idea work in 2025? I'm thinking a whole bunch of things. The Van Doren interview, where Zare is like, I got the guy, I got the guy, I got the guy. And, and they do the little cat and mouse game with him. And it's unclear if he took the bait or not, it's just.

• 38:40Bill Simmons?

  Really strong stuff. And I agree with you on the Paymer Azariah comedy team thing. It's funny. Uh, Totoro flipping out and Paymer tells him to lose. For 70 grand, Herb, you can afford to be humiliated. Van Dorn beating Stempel.

• 38:57Bill Simmons?

  And you know, you know, he knows the answer. You don't know if he's gonna flip. And then just say, fuck it. I'm saying Marty, what are they gonna do?

• 39:07Bill Simmons?

  And then it goes to, uh, to Van Dorn and they give him the question that they gave him in the audition.

• 39:13Speaker 04

  Daddy, and he said he wouldn't do it. Yeah.

• 39:15Bill Simmons?

  And you know what's great about this? I love movies with a what would you do moment.

• 39:20Speaker 04

  Oh, that's great. Yeah.

• 39:22Bill Simmons?

  Where you're in it, you're like, all right, what would I do? Cause you like to think like, well, I'd be idealistic. I wouldn't. I, I would be like, get the, you know, I'd be like, I'm not participating in this. I told you I didn't want to do it this way and you guys tried to fuck me, so I'm out.

• 39:37Bill Simmons?

  But then you start thinking about, oh, this is one of the 20 biggest shows on TV. Oh, there's money at stake. And you just sell your principles.

• 39:45Speaker 04

  Not even that, all that for sure. But also that other behavioral economics stuff of everyone going along with it. And can you be the one lone voice? Like, can imagine trying to get out of your things. Oh, I heard this question before. Like, you know how hard it would be to say those words? Though the movie does such a good job because when they build to the big scene. And when Van Dorn's like, throw in the money, throw in the whole thing. Would you do it? And, and Rob Maro just goes, no. And, and he goes, but I would. But you believe Maro wouldn't. I do when I'm watching the movie. I believe Rob Maro would not.

• 40:23Bill Simmons?

  I think the right answer would have been to say, I think there's been a mistake. I know the answer to that, but because of my audition, they asked me that question. So I think, I think that's an error on your side. I know the answer, but give me another question.

• 40:35Speaker 04

  I think I would, when I rehearse this in my head, that's exactly what I think I would have said. But you're right to say, it makes us all kind of imagine that we would do the right thing. But who really knows?

• 40:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, they say to Paymer afterwards, how'd you know he'd go for it? What would you do? Like, he's just like, of course he was gonna go for it. It's human nature, you're gonna go for it. Uh, I wrote down the montage. I love a good montage. The things are looking up for Charles Van Doren montage. Highest ratings ever. Newspapers, new apartment. Uh, you know, you always need the one montage.

• 41:07Speaker 04

  The creepy moment when he pretends the fake shoe tie?

• 41:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:09Speaker 04

  The fake shoe tie in the back of the car, uh, the limo?

• 41:11Bill Simmons?

  Right, to try, to try to wait till the kids get up.

• 41:13Speaker 04

  Time the girls and everything, yeah.

• 41:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Um, as Herb unravels. So, the chocolate cake scene, Charlie versus dad. Which, we gotta give the Big Kahuna Burger Award for best use of food or drink to the chocolate cake. Unless you wanna give it to Jeritol.

• 41:28Speaker 04

  Good for the blood, tired blood.

• 41:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, good for your blood. Um, Van Doren dumps it. Stempel's testimony. The TV president lobbying Charles, including quotes like, "Speculation in our society has a way of becoming fact."

• 41:45Speaker 04

  Oof, dark scene.

• 41:47Bill Simmons?

  "Television is a public trust. We can't afford even a hint of a scandal." Just like classic evil 1950s white CEO guy. Uh, Charles confesses to his dad. Schofield goes to another level in this.

• 42:01Speaker 04

  That's an incredible moment.

• 42:02Bill Simmons?

  They gave you the answers? You got the answers. Um, and then Charles's statement, which is really the nepo baby mantra. "I've stood on the shoulders of life and I've never gotten down in the dirt to build, to erect a foundation of my own. I've flown too high on borrowed wings. Everything came too easy." Great stuff. Uh, and then the ending, if you wanna throw that into. My, my favorite stretch is, is Van Doren beating Stempel through the montage to the untying of the shoe. Like, that whole stretch of the movie I really enjoy.

• 42:40Speaker 04

  Me too, but I would throw in.

• 42:42Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 42:43Speaker 04

  For me, my favorite, the thing that I've rewatched so many times, um...

• 42:50Speaker 04

  Is the run when they almost become friends. Like to me, that that run when they almost become friends and they meet at the Athenaeum Club and you're brought into that world that goes all the way through that trip to Connecticut. When you meet all those people, because that sets the movie up in a way. And it's like the hunter and the prey, but the hunter's not sure that he wants to pick up the gun and shoot the prey because it's a beautiful gazelle. And it's like, am I really gonna shoot this gazelle? I don't know that, you know, that moment when, when the father's like, we don't even have a TV. And then Charlie's ego is so, you know, Charlie's talking about the money and then he gives him that big TV. And there's something about that sequence of, um.

• 43:33Bill Simmons?

  You know, that's a good point. That's a great scene. The whole picnic table, rich, rich family in Connecticut scene.

• 43:38Speaker 04

  Cause I've never seen, it's like the kind of thing where however I grew, you know, like, yeah, I didn't grow up poor. I didn't, I grew up fine, um, but I never saw that, you know? I mean.

• 43:49Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's like when the Kennedys would be at Hyannis Port every year, play and touch football on some football field lawn.

• 43:55Speaker 04

  It's like, I, you know, I think maybe part of it is growing up as like a Jewish kid from wherever, even though, uh, and watching him go to that restaurant and go like, you know, the Reuben's the only totally invented sandwich. And, and then he goes, I don't see a lot of Reubens in here. And it is like, he's getting to be on the inner sanctum. He's getting to be in the inner sanctum and he has to make this decision. Do I want to stay in this inner sanctum or do I want to do my job? And it's one of those, and it's interesting, right? Cause Attenazio does the same thing in Donnie Brasco. There's something about the outsider coming in, getting a little bit seduced by the world. And then, am I gonna do my job? Or am I gonna, having finally gotten on the inside, hey, I like how this feels on the inside of this world.

• 44:41Speaker 04

  It's really cushy and special and I, I feel like I'm part of that. I don't know that, the movie seduces, for me, the movie seduces you as, as he's getting seduced and I, I think it's so hard to do, like we talk about as a screenplay. I can't imagine how you write that, those sequences. And then that, that, that emotion just adds up and adds up. And, and, and I think, um, I think you just have so many feelings about, cause I think from the beginning, you kind of hate Van Doren, but then you kind of see Van Doren in a way through, um.

• 45:13Speaker 04

  Through Charlie's eyes and you, I mean through Dick Goodwin's eyes and you kinda can't, can't hate him because Dick Goodwin's kinda falling in love with him.

• 45:25Bill Simmons?

  I'm with you. Alright, so we disagree on rewatchables. Will we agree on what's the most 1994 thing about this movie?

• 45:33Speaker 04

  Tell me.

• 45:33Bill Simmons?

  My nominees are Rob Morrow getting top credit billing over Ralph Fiennes. I did notice that, but I think the answer is just 1994 Marty Scorsese.

• 45:45Speaker 04

  Love it.

• 45:45Bill Simmons?

  Just having him at that exact age he's at

• 45:50Bill Simmons?

  makes me know that it's rooted in like exactly this year.

• 45:53Speaker 04

  Oh, while we're there for 1994 though, cause I, when you, another way I looked at that 1994 question, since the movie's set in the 50s was like, I was like, what's the most 1950s thing about the movie?

• 46:04Bill Simmons?

  What's that? Jericho.

• 46:05Speaker 04

  Well, Jericho for sure, but also the use of the word beatnik to convey the idea that he was gay.

• 46:11Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  This gay artist living downtown. And he goes, why? Cause that beat, the Greenwich Village beatnik says it?

• 46:19Bill Simmons?

  When was the last time anyone said Gentiles and Jews?

• 46:22Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 46:23Bill Simmons?

  Guys like, but when did that end? Like 1972? I don't even know. It certainly wasn't, yeah, somewhere in our childhood.

• 46:29Speaker 04

  Somewhere in our childhoods. Uh, like someone was like, are we inviting the Gentiles to the bar mitzvah? And someone else was like, should we let that go? Let's let it go.

• 46:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, just a cut.

• 46:38Speaker 04

  You know what? Let's just let that, let's let that go and be done. But wait, I do wanna point out two other people who are in this movie. We didn't mention and we should, and this is a good moment because of the time. So the guy who plays that beatnik, that's based on, for all the changes, that's a real guy, James Snodgrass, the, that guy really did save the answers. But that's played by this amazing guy named Douglas McGrath, who died a couple of years ago and was a great filmmaker and screenwriter. He actually wrote Bullets Over Broadway with Woody. He also wrote the, the, the play, the Carole King play, um, and made that movie Emma. And he was this, one of the funniest best guys in the world. He was in Solitary Man and we loved this.

• 47:20Speaker 04

  This was a really one of the greatest guys you ever met in your life and he died super young, like super tragically, uh, like an out of nowhere heart attack in his like early 50s, but a really special person. And then Ben Shankman's in the opening scene. It was like a great actor who's been in a million things, like in Pi and also a lot of episodes of Billions and he's giving, uh, he gives Morrow shit at the beginning. It's just an all over the place, these, that guy, incredible actors.

• 47:46Bill Simmons?

  What's aged the best? We mentioned the 1950s, rich people circles, which I think Ripley still is the pantheon for that. That's, that's the highest level when we're, we're in like Italy and all over the place with Freddie and Jude Law and the whole crew. The father, son stuff, um, we talked about a couple of times already, but

• 48:07Bill Simmons?

  the dynamic and, and they don't spend a ton of time in scenes with them, but you know the dynamic immediately. You can tell the weight of the dad, both professionally and like as just a character and, and just how revered he is. You can tell how the son is, has a lot of stuff going for him on his own, but he's still in the shadow a little bit. And there's a deference with the dad. I just think that stuff's really hard to pull off.

• 48:35Speaker 04

  You know what else I think aged really great? Rigged, rigged reality shows.

• 48:40Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 48:40Speaker 04

  Rigged reality shows are everywhere you turn. It's all rigged reality shows.

• 48:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, nobody would even care now.

• 48:46Speaker 04

  Every, I mean, you all just assume that like basically every reality show has some level of riggedness on it. And this was the first one and, and you know, um, I just think that that idea that, uh, you tell people what to say on a supposed reality show, um, and it might affect the world, turns out to be true.

• 49:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. 50 years later, you have, you have, uh, Lauren Conrad and Brody Jenner pretending they're dating for the entire last season of The Hills. And then it ends and they do a wide shot and it's like a Hollywood set in the background. And it's like, wait, was it, did you just fake that entire show? But yeah, by the 2000s, we were doing this openly.

• 49:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. You make a guy, a, a boss of a real estate empire and then he becomes boss of.

• 49:33Bill Simmons?

  Let me do that, too. Uh, more would say it's the best. You know, I really liked when kids wanted to be Joe DiMaggio.

• 49:40Speaker 04

  That's awesome.

• 49:41Bill Simmons?

  I was just like hearing that in a movie. It really seems like there was about a 10 year stretch where people are just like, all I want to do is be Joe DiMaggio. And then it got replaced by Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays. All I want to do is be one of these two guys. I don't know who that is now.

• 49:55Speaker 04

  On, on your TikTok, cause speaking of Forrest Gump, has, has it come through on any of your TikTok or Instagram? Tom Hanks telling the meeting Joe DiMaggio story?

• 50:05Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 50:06Speaker 04

  It's really for you. He was in a restaurant. No, I mean, he was in a restaurant. Hanks tells it. I don't know. I just saw it on TikTok. It's not something. But Hanks, I've saw, Hanks, it's come up like 10 times recently and I watch it all the way through. He's in a restaurant and the maître d comes up and goes, Mr. DiMaggio wonders if you'd like to go say hello to him at his table. And Hanks is like, runs over to the table and gets to spend 10 minutes with DiMaggio. And he talks about how easy DiMaggio made it look. And DiMaggio looks at him and goes, it didn't feel easy in here. And wow. Oh, it's, you'll find it. Hanks telling the story is great.

• 50:42Bill Simmons?

  Wow. That's like the last level of fame. When you send somebody over to be like, Brian Koppelman wonders if you'd like to come over and say hi to him at his table.

• 50:53Speaker 04

  And if you're Tom Hanks, you just jump to go say hi.

• 50:56Bill Simmons?

  Of course. Yeah. You're in the middle of some, some, some friends telling you they're about to get divorced. You're like, hold on one second.

• 51:03Speaker 04

  It's Joe DiMaggio. It's DiMaggio. I gotta go.

• 51:06Bill Simmons?

  Hold on. Finish that divorce story later.

• 51:08Speaker 04

  Do you think anyone even a day younger than you? Understands why he races to Joe DiMaggio's table like we do? Growing up with Mr. Coffee and just like the legend of it.

• 51:17Bill Simmons?

  I think we're probably the last, I'm probably the last, mid 50s is probably the end of that. Cause I remember in Seinfeld when they had the episode where Joe DiMaggio was at the counter.

• 51:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:27Bill Simmons?

  That was kind of the tail end of when that joke would have worked. Yeah.

• 51:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think it's over.

• 51:32Bill Simmons?

  Played for the Yankees and he was married to Marilyn Monroe.

• 51:35Speaker 04

  Marilyn Monroe, of course. No.

• 51:36Bill Simmons?

  That's great. Unbelievable.

• 51:38Speaker 04

  56, you and I, that's, you and I still know 56 games. Like, but I don't know if people know that or care.

• 51:44Bill Simmons?

  Fifty-six straight hits.

• 51:46Speaker 04

  Fifty-six hits, fifty-six straight games with a hit. I don't know if people like.

• 51:49Bill Simmons?

  Fifty-six straight games, one hit a game at least. Probably the greatest record.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  Don't you think you've just known that from your dad?

• 51:56Bill Simmons?

  The greatest attainable rec- The greatest attainable record ever. Nobody else has gotten a forty-five.

• 52:02Speaker 04

  But don't you think that's like, we just know that from our fathers, like, because I know that from as little as I, I know that my entire life, that statistic from my father. I'm fifty-nine, so I'm a couple of years old. I didn't know that my whole life.

• 52:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, we had the signature statistics that you just knew by heart. I don't know if they're.

• 52:19Speaker 04

  Tons of them because there wasn't, we had to, no, we had to memorize them because we couldn't just go look them up.

• 52:25Bill Simmons?

  True. Good point. You've only had like a book. Yeah.

• 52:29Speaker 04

  Like Maris, like, I don't even know if kids know Maris now. Like, I don't know if they know, even with the movie, I don't know if they know. They shouldn't. No one says they have to either.

• 52:37Speaker 04

  But, you know, I knew what Bob, I mean, I knew Bob McAdoo's, I knew what Bob McAdoo's, uh, what his average was when he, at Buffalo, when he won the scoring title. You know what I mean?

• 52:45Bill Simmons?

  The whole point of the baseball basketball cards was they had the stats on the back. I was like, oh.

• 52:52Bill Simmons?

  Quick, more What's Age the Best, Levinson and Scorsese we mentioned. The actual YouTube clip of the entire show, which I sent to you when Stempel throws the show with Marty, it's on YouTube. You can watch the whole thing. And it's kind of amazing to watch him blow the answer and not be quite a good enough actor to pull it off, but nobody knew any better at the time, but you can really see him intentionally doing it.

• 53:18Speaker 04

  Screenwriting, man, because as you know, that wasn't really the climactic moment of that episode.

• 53:24Bill Simmons?

  No, they, it kept going and going.

• 53:26Speaker 04

  But Paul Attanasi clearly realized, okay, that's drama. I can make a lot of drama out of that. And he did it. Really great stuff.

• 53:35Bill Simmons?

  Still need, still need him to write that script about the ninety-four finals.

• 53:41Bill Simmons?

  What's Age the Best, Jeritol, America's number one tonic. Just how omnipresent Jeritol was. It's just so funny as we get older and these things that were huge for us once upon a time, like Kodak, Jeritol, and these things just go away. And it makes you think like, what are the things now that twenty years from now be like, yeah, Instagram, it's just gone. Just got sold for five dollars.

• 54:04Speaker 04

  Well, there were so many of those things, Bill, like Bear aspirin, and then there was that other one, Anacin.

• 54:12Bill Simmons?

  Anderson, yeah.

• 54:14Speaker 04

  I hadn't thought of that in 25 years till you just said the thing about-

• 54:16Bill Simmons?

  Folgers, Folgers Coffee? Does Folgers Coffee still exist?

• 54:20Speaker 04

  Folgers, they still, yeah, they still make jingles and shit, but, but like Bear, Anderson was like, as much as there was Bear, every Bear Ed, it would be like Bear and Anderson. Now, where did Anderson go? What happened to that guy?

• 54:31Bill Simmons?

  How about Woolworths? We had on the East Coast, we had Calder's, like the Calder's, whatever it's called. Van Doren's dad, at one point in this movie, does the, they're talking about poker, and he does the, if you can't spot the sucker at the table, you are the sucker routine. I was like, rounders, copman. That was your homage. You grabbed it.

• 54:52Speaker 04

  Well, it's an incredible thing. He says it casually. It's amazing. Yeah. I, every time I see it in the movie, I'm like, uh, I know that consciously, I remember when Dave and I wrote the line, we definitely weren't calling it to ourselves, but of course, that's the way this all works. And we definitely heard the line in that movie because we'd seen the movie more than once by then.

• 55:09Bill Simmons?

  I loved it.

• 55:11Speaker 04

  But I also love when Mauro goes, uh, well, I don't know if I'm a gambler, but I know which end of an ace is up.

• 55:17Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 55:18Speaker 04

  Same scene.

• 55:19Bill Simmons?

  Great shot, Gordo. What do you have? Most cinematic shot?

• 55:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't know. That, that was the one, probably the thing you already said, like that whole opening sequence, where they, those moving camera shots throughout that whole thing where you feel like you're being just ta- it's really editing, but it is cinematography too, where the camera's moving you all around.

• 55:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 55:39Speaker 04

  NBC and the game show thing, and it's kind of amazing, you know?

• 55:44Bill Simmons?

  I agree with you. I think it's multiple moments in that first scene. Chess Rock World, Brock Laners Award, best character name. Charles Van Doren. How is that a real name?

• 55:54Speaker 04

  Incredible.

• 55:54Bill Simmons?

  It's like, how can we come up with the waspiest?

• 55:57Speaker 04

  Incredible.

• 55:58Bill Simmons?

  Most powerful sounding name ever. How about Charles Van Doren? Um, the Butch's Girlfriend Award for weak link of the film. I mentioned this already, but this is really from a rewatchable standpoint. Just Herb Stempel, just a tough hang. If you're gonna watch, you, you're one of the only people who've probably watched this movie 50 times, but Herb's like, Herb's a lot.

• 56:18Speaker 04

  I can't.

• 56:18Bill Simmons?

  Can we get Herb's?

• 56:19Speaker 04

  Herb's a lot.

• 56:19Bill Simmons?

  Craig, Craig, will you come in for a second?

• 56:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:24Bill Simmons?

  Herb's a lot.

• 56:26Speaker 05

  Herb is a lot, but Herb is, you know, the little man. He's all of us. We all are all, we are all Herb, you know?

• 56:33Bill Simmons?

  We are all Herb.

• 56:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:35Bill Simmons?

  This is great. Okay, I think Craig liked this movie. All right, Craig, we'll bring you back in a second. What's age the worst? We mentioned Morrow's Boston accent. Oh, did you have a weak link, by the way? You love this movie. You probably didn't.

• 56:47Speaker 04

  I don't really.

• 56:48Bill Simmons?

  What's age the worst? Morrow's Boston accent mentioned, an all-timer.

• 56:53Bill Simmons?

  Geritol being important, so this sent me down a Geritol rabbit hole to what happened to Geritol.

• 56:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:59Bill Simmons?

  They, starting in 1959, started getting investigated by the FTC. Because they were pushing this.

• 57:05Speaker 04

  What year? Right after? You mean like right after this?

• 57:07Bill Simmons?

  Like right as this was happening, yeah. It was a tough time.

• 57:12Bill Simmons?

  So they were, they were basically saying like it was a remedy for tiredness and it made your blood stronger. But what they found out was it really was only effective for people with anemia. So then they had to disclose, most people with fatigue do not have iron deficiency, would not benefit from Geritol. Tough one. Then they had a little comeback in 1972 with the ad, which I know you remember. Where the guy looks at the camera and he's talking about his wife and he goes, my wife, I think I'll keep her. And all the, everybody got pissed off and it was a controversial ad, but it actually worked. And they had a run basically until 1979. It finally ended, now Geritol's.

• 57:51Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, that's it. Nice little 25-year run for Geritol selling basically a shaman product. It was like a fake product.

• 57:59Speaker 04

  Snake oil.

• 58:00Bill Simmons?

  It really was. Drink this, your blood will be better.

• 58:04Speaker 04

  I mean, that's what Scorsese's saying in the movie when he goes, I mean, I sell Geritol and it's incredible.

• 58:10Bill Simmons?

  And then, in the, in the actual game show cover up.

• 58:16Bill Simmons?

  I had this as a what's age the worst. I kind of fucked with quiz shows and game shows for a while. Like, they really like went into a major slump. And then came back during my childhood in the seventies. Ironically, one of the ones was Joker's Wild, which Jack Barry was the host of, but um, there was so much, so much scrutiny on how they did these shows and all these laws changed and they just became harder to do. So it fucked it up. It wasn't the only show. All right. The historical accuracy stuff while we're on what's age the worst. They took three years of the scandal, compressed it into one. They made it Van Doren's choice to incorrectly answer a question, his own choice, but it was actually NBC's.

• 58:55Bill Simmons?

  The score stuff was 2121 and then it just, the game kept going. They made it seem like it didn't when he, when he took the title. Goodwin's, there's a lot of stuff about Goodwin's role in the investigation, which was less important than how the movie made it. That was where it got criticized, especially this is right around the time they started going after each other with Oscar movies and PR campaigns.

• 59:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:18Bill Simmons?

  And they really played up how kind of this was, you know, the, the word was used was dishonest. I don't know if it was dishonest, but they really.

• 59:25Speaker 04

  So Goodwin was an unbelievable character. I'm sure you've read about him a lot.

• 59:28Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:29Speaker 04

  I mean, it was just one of the most, I mean, the guy was a speechwriter for JFK, right there with Robert Kennedy, Doris Kearns, Goodwin's husband, and she wrote this amazing memoir about him. I mean, Dick Goodwin was an incredible figure of the last century. Um.

• 59:43Bill Simmons?

  But there was way more people that I think were doing the investigation than just him. So that was the issue.

• 59:48Speaker 04

  I went down the big rabbit hole on this and yeah, there were, there were a bunch of dudes who actually did the legwork before Dick Goodwin got in there.

• 59:54Bill Simmons?

  He got in there. And then the only other big one was that Van Doren did teach after the scandal and he, it was the one issue he had with the movie. Where he was like, dude, I kept teaching. Like, I don't know why you put that in the credits. So.

• 1:00:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. He wrote this article in the New Yorker. I read it this morning. Like in 2008, Van Doren wrote this long article. And if you read it, like if you're, if you're listening to this and you watch the movie, it's funny because he's trying to, it's one of those things where it's a guy writing to try to kind of defend himself, but you come away from, from that article and you think, yeah, he'd do the same thing again. Like, he had a huge ego and

• 1:00:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:35Speaker 04

  he wanted fame and money and power. And like, you can feel that he wouldn't have done much different, I don't think.

• 1:00:44Bill Simmons?

  I think you should have changed your name to Brian Van Koppelman.

• 1:00:47Speaker 04

  You're right. Is it too late?

• 1:00:49Bill Simmons?

  Like, better screenwriter name. Then you're like BVP. Like, I don't know.

• 1:00:54Speaker 04

  You can call me BVP anytime you want. It's fine.

• 1:01:00Bill Simmons?

  We have, we're on the next category. Oh, the CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford hottest take award. You probably don't have a hottest take, but I have one for both of us.

• 1:01:09Speaker 04

  Go. You give me the hot take. I have one, but you go for it. Go ahead.

• 1:01:12Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you go.

• 1:01:13Speaker 04

  I just think Rob Maro, Rob Maro should have become one of the world's biggest movie stars after this movie, like The Alternate Reality. I don't understand it. I don't know why he didn't just get cast in the next, why wasn't he the lead of fucking Jurassic Park or the next whatever?

• 1:01:29Bill Simmons?

  I think I might have an answer.

• 1:01:31Speaker 04

  Go ahead.

• 1:01:32Bill Simmons?

  I think there was a glut of really good actors under 40 that he would have had to compete with parts for. And if you just put him in a time machine 20 years later, he's probably better off. Like, think all the people from that decade.

• 1:01:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, you just rattled off all the guys who came. I think you just said it to me. It's like all the guys who came after, because you just mentioned Matt and Ben, but you didn't even mention Jude.

• 1:01:54Bill Simmons?

  I had another one. Well, Jude, I had for Recasting Couch, Director of City. What about young Russell Crowe in the Rob Maro part?

• 1:02:02Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:02:02Bill Simmons?

  He would have, he would have killed it. Like, we just had too many people in the 90s, and I think he got lost in the shuffle a little bit.

• 1:02:07Speaker 04

  How about Philip Seymour Hoffman?

• 1:02:09Bill Simmons?

  Right. I mean, Wahlberg's in there too, and Affleck, and you just, and Hank is in his peak at that point, and, you know, it just goes on and on. So I think that might, and then Clooney comes out of nowhere. And Val Kilmer's there. You just, it's like an embarrassment of riches. And I don't really know, it's, I've talked about this before. It's almost like one of those NBA stretches, like in the early 90s, when we just had Hall of Famers all over the place. It's like, Jesus. What the hell?

• 1:02:37Speaker 04

  I think that's a real, and also Maro was on TV, but I think you're, you're right. But when I look at what he does in that movie, and maybe it is as simple as the accent that some people didn't like it and other people popped, but I look at it, and I'm like, man, that guy should have been a movie star.

• 1:02:52Bill Simmons?

  I agree with you.

• 1:02:54Bill Simmons?

  And I'm sure he agrees.

• 1:02:57Bill Simmons?

  We, my hardest take is this. If this movie comes out one year later, it wins best film and best director.

• 1:03:03Speaker 04

  Wow. What's the next year's movies, remind me?

• 1:03:07Bill Simmons?

  Braveheart and Mel Gibson win in 95, and I think it, I think it beats both of those. And I think it would honestly have a pretty good case in 96 against English Patient, English Patient, which one movie director as well. I just think it was bad luck we're coming out this year, and especially with Redford and.

• 1:03:25Bill Simmons?

  There might have been a tiny bit of Redford fatigue too at this point because he had, he'd made his movie comeback, he'd done Sneakers, he'd done Indecent Proposal, he'd done River Runs Through It, he was doing Sundance, and now Quiz Show, and, and I don't know, if, if he had spaced it out two years, maybe. Casting what ifs, Redford won an American.

• 1:03:49Bill Simmons?

  For, uh, Van Doren.

• 1:03:52Bill Simmons?

  Couldn't find anybody, kinda honed in on William Baldwin for a second. Couldn't get there and, uh, settled on Ralph Fiennes.

• 1:04:01Bill Simmons?

  William Baldwin getting a lot of calls back then.

• 1:04:04Bill Simmons?

  This one killed me.

• 1:04:07Bill Simmons?

  Turned down the role of Mark Van Doren. Paul Newman.

• 1:04:12Speaker 04

  Oh, you, it's a Paul Newman role, even the Connecticut of it all, right? Yeah. But, but it ends up being Schofield, and it's really like one of the.

• 1:04:20Bill Simmons?

  Schofield's great. I just, as a Newman-Redford.

• 1:04:24Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 1:04:24Bill Simmons?

  Aficionado of that relationship, which we've talked about in another rewatch, was that would have been really fun if, if Newman was the dad. I don't know if he would.

• 1:04:32Speaker 04

  Why did he turn it down, did they say? Did they, they have an answer?

• 1:04:34Bill Simmons?

  Didn't say.

• 1:04:35Speaker 04

  Alright.

• 1:04:36Bill Simmons?

  And then Levinson was apparently originally attached to the project as a director, couldn't do it because he was doing Bugsy, and then, uh, Redford just brought him in anyway. Then there's stuff online about Steven Soderbergh. Allegedly with Tim Robbins as Charles Van Doren, I, I don't know, I, it didn't pass the sniff test to me.

• 1:04:56Speaker 04

  No, it's, that's a.

• 1:05:00Bill Simmons?

  True or not true? That's true. Okay. Why do you seem like you don't want to talk about it? Is that your guy?

• 1:05:09Bill Simmons?

  Robbins?

• 1:05:11Speaker 04

  No, I mean, I believe, I will say that I am not sure about the Tim Robbins part of that, but I do think that what you just brought up about who was supposed to do that movie is true. And it would have been incredible if Soderbergh directed it, it would have been incredible.

• 1:05:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, they were trying to make it for the early part of the 90s, so they probably went to a couple of people and then finally Redford wanted to do it and that was that. They asked Charles Van Doren if he would be a consultant and offer him about $100,000 and he said no.

• 1:05:42Speaker 04

  His wife, so that's in this New Yorker article, his wife said she'd leave him if he said, if he did it. Or something like that.

• 1:05:49Bill Simmons?

  The Ruffalo Hannah Rubinek Partridge overacting word.

• 1:05:54Bill Simmons?

  Turturro dials it up a couple of times. I'm just not a criticism, but if we're going for the overacting, I, you know, he dials it up. Best that guy word, David Paymer not eligible.

• 1:06:08Bill Simmons?

  I have one, but I want to know what you think it is. It has to be that guy. It can't be we

• 1:06:15Bill Simmons?

  normal people can't know his name. So who is it? There's a couple of people at the poker game that I thought jumped out at me.

• 1:06:20Speaker 04

  Jack Gilpin is at the poker game, Buzz Fields at the poker, no, you gotta give it to Hank Azaria because at the time I think a lot of people, like you gotta give it to Hank. Hank is so fucking great in the movie.

• 1:06:32Bill Simmons?

  So your case is Hank was that guy at the time? He wasn't Hank Azaria yet?

• 1:06:37Speaker 04

  I don't think Hank was famous yet like he is now. He'd, you know, barely done, like when did he, he came out two years later, right?

• 1:06:43Bill Simmons?

  He's a year later. Yeah. He's like a Simpson voice. That's it. Nobody knows what he looks like.

• 1:06:47Speaker 04

  And, and he's so good in the movie. Like he's so different than any other movie he's in. You just kind of believe he's that guy. And he does all that shit. Like when he walks in and he's like

• 1:06:57Speaker 04

  I think that their comic timing together is amazing, but, but we're going to have a minute to talk about Paymer, right? And about that like scene where Paymer and

• 1:07:05Bill Simmons?

  What's the right now?

• 1:07:07Speaker 04

  Well, for me, that's the other, like not the most rewatchable scene, but in a way maybe the best scene other than these couple we've mentioned is when Rob Maro. Tells Paymer, the acting performance that Paymer does when he's blowing them off, blowing them off, you know, you're a very, you know, like, you know, whatever, young man, like, and then he goes, yeah, the thing is, he, he sent the answers to himself, registered mail, and like, everything changes on David Paymer's face, and he just goes.

• 1:07:37Bill Simmons?

  He goes to sit down.

• 1:07:38Speaker 04

  Why would he do that? And then he sits down. And, and then he says, uh, I'll never roll over on NBC, you know, if they knew and they didn't know, I'd never get back. And it's like, that moment where you started with television is going to get us, you know, that's the moment where Rob Margar goes, I don't think you'll be working in the business again. And, and, and Paymer's like, no, if I, if I tell them, if I, if I, if I rat out NBC, I'll never work in the business again. But he knew if he kept his mouth shut. And he goes, television's all I know. It's my whole life. And he, I don't, there's something so, he's such a villain and such a scumbag, the charac- Dan Enright, the character he plays. And in that moment, though, you understand he has some kind of code. And he's knocking

• 1:08:23Speaker 04

  around on these guys. And he somehow knows to Rob Margar, like, hey, dude, you don't understand American business the way I do. And what I know about American business is, if I just keep my mouth shut, and American business will reward me for it. And then, you know, years later, that guy gets super rich. He creates Joker Was Wild with Jack Barry, like you said. And those guys are on television for another 25 years.

• 1:08:47Bill Simmons?

  Right. He's really good in this movie. My answer for best that guy, controversial, it's Barry Levinson.

• 1:08:55Speaker 04

  Love it. Okay, fine.

• 1:08:57Bill Simmons?

  Because if, if you don't know what a director looks like, which is basically the entire country, except for like, a very select few, you see him in this movie, and it's like, oh, it's the guy from the end of Rain Man.

• 1:09:08Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:09:08Bill Simmons?

  Cause that was the other movie he was in, right? Where he plays Raymond?

• 1:09:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:13Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather, would you rather?

• 1:09:14Speaker 04

  The doctor, yeah, the doctor.

• 1:09:14Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather live with your brother or go back to, go back to Over, Overbrook, whatever it's called? Live it, would you rather go to Sunnybrook or live with your brother? Would you want to live with your Sunnybrook with your brother? And he's just like, and Cruz is like, all right, that's enough, that's enough. But yeah, those are his two movies.

• 1:09:29Speaker 04

  I do love when directors are in movies, it's the best.

• 1:09:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, you've, you've dabbled.

• 1:09:34Speaker 04

  I'm in, yeah, I mean, sure, yes, I'm, I'm, yes, obviously, I, I, I'm, I'm in stuff. I love being in stuff, but it's not about me.

• 1:09:40Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna cast you in my movie that I haven't written yet.

• 1:09:43Speaker 04

  I'm in.

• 1:09:45Bill Simmons?

  I had Dion Waiters award, clearly a tan Khazaria.

• 1:09:48Speaker 04

  Love it.

• 1:09:49Bill Simmons?

  He's not in the movie that much. Every time he's in, he's throwing 98 miles an hour. Uh, I thought he was the winner. And then I mentioned recasting couch. Uh, young Russell Crowe would have been really interesting in this. That catching him at a, at a really cool point in his career where nothing's really happened yet. Yeah, I think he's the right age.

• 1:10:09Bill Simmons?

  Anyway, we'll take one more break and then we got a flex category from Craig. This episode is brought to by Ethos. As a parent, life insurance feels like a no brainer. It just gives me peace of mind knowing my family will be taken care of. And the ethos makes getting it fast and easy. Apply online in minutes. Get up to 3 million in coverage with no medical exam, just a few simple health questions. Take 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through Ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com/rewatch. That is E T H O S dot com slash rewatch. Application times may vary, rates may vary. This episode is brought to you by Truvia. Sweeteners are like movies. The best ones don't leave an aftertaste.

• 1:10:52Bill Simmons?

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• 1:11:22Bill Simmons?

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• 1:12:07Bill Simmons?

  All right, Craig's here. He's got a flex category. What do you got?

• 1:12:10Speaker 05

  I don't know if this is a full Sasha Jenkins Award for the actor. You can't believe it didn't become a bigger star, but it's a mini version of that. And I just want to shout out Christopher McDonald, who plays Jack Barry, who I just think is great every time I've seen him in a movie. He's obviously Shooter McGavin, and he almost kind of got typecasted as that. But I just love him. I think he's got great timing. He's so slick. He's good looking. He can kind of do a lot. He's got a great sense of humor. I feel like, maybe you guys can tell me he was a bigger star than I thought, but I feel like he never really became a thing.

• 1:12:40Bill Simmons?

  He was not a bigger star than you thought. I don't really understand it. It feels like he just should have been on some hit sitcom for like seven years, just crushing it. Like the brother on Everybody Loves Raymond or something, on top of doing all those movie things. But I think he's gotten this belated run, though, I think.

• 1:12:58Speaker 04

  One notch too handsome to be a character actor, not quite a leading man, and falls in this

• 1:13:05Bill Simmons?

  Tweener.

• 1:13:06Speaker 04

  Tweener, where he's neither. But he's, I agree with you, great all the time, note perfect. It's a great call, Craig. But I think it's because he doesn't feel like, he doesn't feel like a character actor, but he is. And he's not quite a leading man because there's something so almost slick and smooth.

• 1:13:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, a little slimy.

• 1:13:24Speaker 04

  So it's kind of like, yeah, it just, he is just sort of, it's a game show. You know why? He looks like a game show host. So he's perfect.

• 1:13:30Speaker 05

  Really well cast, shouting out that Bonnie Timmerman. I mean, he's so good. That scene where Goodwin, one of my favorite scenes is when Goodwin discovers the tell in the episode.

• 1:13:39Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:13:40Speaker 05

  When he's watching the old tapes and he sees Jack Barry like stumble and the script is wrong. McDonald is so good in that. He's so natural, the double take he does. And he's like, wait, did you say?

• 1:13:50Speaker 04

  With James Snodgrass, and that James Snodgrass moment, when the guy who gave the answers to himself. Totally, man.

• 1:13:55Speaker 05

  I just also love those scenes in movies, when one person notices something on the tape. Like even, it's like Joaquin Phoenix in Signs, when he leans, when he sees the alien. Anytime somebody like sees something on tape, amazing scene. Anyway.

• 1:14:05Bill Simmons?

  Blue Chips. No, man, not Tony. Not Tony. Tony's a good kid.

• 1:14:11Speaker 05

  The best moment.

• 1:14:12Bill Simmons?

  Good kid.

• 1:14:12Speaker 04

  Oh, how about in air? It's like in air when he's like, you're looking at it wrong. And he keeps pointing to Jordan.

• 1:14:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:18Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:14:18Speaker 04

  And they're looking at him. He's about to take the biggest shot of his life.

• 1:14:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:21Bill Simmons?

  I'm really glad we got to give out the Sasha Jenkins award. I don't feel like we give that out enough.

• 1:14:26Speaker 05

  Can you remind me what that's from?

• 1:14:28Bill Simmons?

  It's from Dazed and Confused. He's Don Dawson, the guy with the overalls.

• 1:14:32Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:14:33Bill Simmons?

  And if you only watched Dazed and Confused, you would think Sasha Jenkins would became one of the 10 biggest stars in the world.

• 1:14:39Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 1:14:40Bill Simmons?

  He's hilarious. He's good looking. Like, he's like a funny Tim Riggins. And that was it.

• 1:14:44Speaker 04

  But Christopher McDonald's way more, just to your point about whether he's a bigger star, I mean, way more famous because Shooter McGavin and this movie are these cultural things.

• 1:14:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:53Speaker 04

  I'm thinking he's way more famous than Sasha Jenkins.

• 1:14:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's weird. It worked out for him correctly. He's also really good in dirty work with, uh, Norm MacDonald, which we've done.

• 1:15:01Speaker 04

  Norman, yeah.

• 1:15:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:03Speaker 04

  Party.

• 1:15:03Bill Simmons?

  All right, Craig, we'll see at the end. Half-Assed Research, we've done a few of these. Charles Van Doren drove a red Mercedes Benz 300 SL Roadster, which is now worth, uh, seven figures easy, if you can find one. 21 ran for three seasons, peaked at number 21 in the ratings, canceled in 1959, revived in 2000 with Maury Povich. I have no recollection of this.

• 1:15:28Speaker 04

  Me neither.

• 1:15:29Bill Simmons?

  Do you remember that?

• 1:15:30Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:15:30Bill Simmons?

  Maury Povich hosted 21? Literally, I don't remember that.

• 1:15:33Speaker 04

  Mid 90s, you and I weren't watching game shows.

• 1:15:35Bill Simmons?

  No, probably not. Uh, and then you mentioned Barry and Enright go in exile. Enright moves to Canada. Barry doesn't host another national show for over a decade. They come back with Joker's Wild in the early 70s. One of the many things I credit to the fact that I love to gamble, Joker's Wild.

• 1:15:54Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:15:55Bill Simmons?

  Uh, fantastic show. That and Card Sharks, two of my favorites.

• 1:15:59Speaker 04

  In the 70s, we were watching game shows.

• 1:16:01Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:02Speaker 04

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:16:03Bill Simmons?

  That was like one of our only connections to celebrities.

• 1:16:05Speaker 04

  We would come home from school and just watch game shows.

• 1:16:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:09Speaker 04

  Like, yes.

• 1:16:10Bill Simmons?

  Joker's Wild was tremendous and it made them very rich. Apex Mountain.

• 1:16:16Bill Simmons?

  Redford directed movies.

• 1:16:18Speaker 04

  Oh, wow. Yeah, I mean, for me, but River Runs, a lot of people would say River Runs through it, right?

• 1:16:24Bill Simmons?

  I would say Ordinary People still.

• 1:16:26Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:16:26Bill Simmons?

  I think that movie's amazing.

• 1:16:28Speaker 04

  I mean, for me, this, obviously, but I can't argue with that. It won the Best Picture, so how am I gonna argue with it?

• 1:16:34Bill Simmons?

  Mary Tyler Moore is such a monster. I just wa- it was on, I watched the last hour of it, don't ask me why, a couple of weeks ago. She's such a monster in that movie. It's like her and Jack Torrance in The Shining, and they're like worse than Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees.

• 1:16:47Speaker 04

  Did you, wait, did you cry? Did you cry? Just watching the last hour? Yeah, awesome.

• 1:16:52Bill Simmons?

  I got, I got a little choked up, I gotta be honest.

• 1:16:54Speaker 04

  Awesome, awesome.

• 1:16:56Bill Simmons?

  I never cry when I watch stuff. Like, the last episode of Task, there's a really sad scene in it, and I think it would've gotten me like 20 years ago, and it didn't

• 1:17:05Speaker 04

  Not getting you now?

• 1:17:05Bill Simmons?

  100% get me. No, I just like, really hard to make me get choked up.

• 1:17:11Bill Simmons?

  You get choked up when you watch stuff?

• 1:17:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, but it depends. I gotta be re- yes, it can, yeah, yes. I could still, yeah, um, something great, like if something's great, it can still get me like, but, um, yeah, we have our defenses are more up now, because it, you know, you get a little older, it costs you more after you, when you go through something like that.

• 1:17:31Bill Simmons?

  Right, true. Uh, Ralph Fiennes,

• 1:17:36Bill Simmons?

  it's probably English Patient, but it's right around here, because he made Strange Days a year after, which is one of the many hilarious, like, khaki movies from the mid 90s, um, and

• 1:17:46Speaker 04

  No, I mean, but Amon Gouth is not, no, Amon Gouth is his high point, right? Schindler's.

• 1:17:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but it's more like the, I always have to explain Apex Mountain. It's when did he have the juice? Where you could, where he, that he could've done whatever movie he wanted. It's, it's right around here.

• 1:18:03Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:18:03Bill Simmons?

  Because English Patient's 96, this is late 94, so it's somewhere in this mix. Paul Scofield, the answer is no, 1960s would be for him.

• 1:18:15Bill Simmons?

  Jack Barry?

• 1:18:20Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I mean, everybody watched TV in 1958. I can't imagine like he was more famous than right here.

• 1:18:27Speaker 04

  No, your refines answer is really good. I like your answer.

• 1:18:31Bill Simmons?

  Chris McDonald? Probably Happy Gilmore.

• 1:18:36Bill Simmons?

  Jeritol, definitely. Cause it all comes crashing down in 1959. The Habsburg lip?

• 1:18:45Bill Simmons?

  Which gets mentioned as when Ray Fiennes is throwing it. Had you, did you know what a Habsburg lip was?

• 1:18:51Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:18:52Bill Simmons?

  And there's a jaw too. I did Google deep dive. I didn't know about all this inbreeding with this one world family and it made their jaws.

• 1:19:03Speaker 04

  Primo carnera, maybe primo carnera.

• 1:19:06Bill Simmons?

  Primo carnera, might be.

• 1:19:08Speaker 04

  Might be that, maybe that moment, yeah.

• 1:19:11Bill Simmons?

  Nepo baby is probably not.

• 1:19:14Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:19:14Bill Simmons?

  Quiz show movies, yes. Cause I can't think of a better quiz show movie. Turturro, no.

• 1:19:21Bill Simmons?

  Horrific Boston accents in a movie.

• 1:19:28Bill Simmons?

  I'm, I'm, I'm, it's bad, but I'm not gonna say it's the worst.

• 1:19:31Speaker 04

  Okay, how about cigars in a movie?

• 1:19:34Bill Simmons?

  Nah, there's been better cigar.

• 1:19:36Speaker 04

  I guess, but Suvino was before, yeah, Suvino and I guess Suvino and.

• 1:19:41Bill Simmons?

  Here's my big one.

• 1:19:43Bill Simmons?

  Rob Morrow, who's still on Northern Exposure at this point when this movie comes out. And yet it's not his Apex Mountain. Cause his Apex Mountain was in 1992 as Northern Exposure was exploding. And he hosted Saturday Night Live with musical guest Nirvana.

• 1:19:58Speaker 04

  Wow, yeah.

• 1:19:59Bill Simmons?

  You, that's it. That's like the definition of Apex Mountain. It was their first appearance.

• 1:20:06Bill Simmons?

  And.

• 1:20:06Speaker 04

  Pretty good, Bill.

• 1:20:07Bill Simmons?

  He's still in the TikTok, Instagram. He's like, ladies and gentlemen, Nirvana. And then they just kick it. It smells like Teen Spirit. Cruiser Hanks.

• 1:20:18Bill Simmons?

  Who do you have?

• 1:20:19Speaker 04

  Cruise. No, I know. Cruise.

• 1:20:21Bill Simmons?

  Cruise for what part?

• 1:20:24Speaker 04

  I think Cruise as Dick Goodwin would have been kind of amazing.

• 1:20:29Speaker 05

  I think it's Cruise and Hanks, and Cruise is yuppie Van Doren, Hanks is Goodwin.

• 1:20:34Speaker 04

  But if you think about Cruise in the mode from Rain Man where he's just like a har- in this where he's this like killer guy, like in the beginning of the movie when, when he's like-

• 1:20:45Bill Simmons?

  I don't see it.

• 1:20:45Speaker 04

  They're making fun of him in the, alright, okay.

• 1:20:47Bill Simmons?

  I think he, I think he over cruises the movie.

• 1:20:50Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:20:51Bill Simmons?

  Wait, Craig, come on for this. I think Cruise comes in. He's right in the, he's in, he made A Few Good Men a year before. He's still in that Cruise, over the top. I gotta have one or two scenes where I do Cruise stuff.

• 1:21:07Bill Simmons?

  And I don't, I don't think he pulls it back. I don't think he had the ability to pull it back enough as Goodwin. What do you think, Craig?

• 1:21:13Speaker 05

  I think, I think he just makes more sense as like the slick east coast wealthy. I think he could pull that off as the son-

• 1:21:18Speaker 04

  But he never played a guy who read-

• 1:21:19Bill Simmons?

  As Van Doren, yes.

• 1:21:20Speaker 04

  But he never, I don't think he, I think he chose his roles so smart, but just so intelligently because

• 1:21:28Speaker 04

  I don't think he plays a guy who spent all that time in the library that Charles Van Doren did.

• 1:21:34Speaker 05

  That's fair. He, I don't know if he has that bookish appeal maybe. I don't know if he could pull that off, but-

• 1:21:39Speaker 04

  So I was gonna say- Like he studies in the fir-, he studies in the firm, but it's like, they're making me stu-, you know, I gotta study. But you never feel like he's a guy who loves learning for the sake of learning, which is, that's the whole thing about these geek, you know, like, like Van Doren did know, that's that great moment when Turturro's like, say a number, you know, and then he rattles off. It's like, these people did know an incredible amount of shit. They were really smart and educated. They just unfortunately were human.

• 1:22:07Bill Simmons?

  I was gonna go late eighties Hanks as Van Doren. And he kind of, I think, I can't remember the movie, maybe it was Volunteers, where he played like a wealthy, like, hoity-toity kind of character like this, but I, I think he could have done it. So, you say, Craig, you said Hanks or Cruise?

• 1:22:26Speaker 05

  I, I'll go Hanks. I, I've been convinced that it's Hanks.

• 1:22:28Bill Simmons?

  Alright, Hanks wins. Scorsese or Spielberg? Ironically, Scorsese's in this. Who, who better director? I'm gonna say Spielberg for this.

• 1:22:40Bill Simmons?

  Compliments. Wheels turning.

• 1:22:42Speaker 04

  Curtis Hansen.

• 1:22:44Bill Simmons?

  No, it's Scorsese or Spielberg.

• 1:22:46Speaker 04

  I think Curtis Hansen. Um, I would say, uh, Scorsese.

• 1:22:50Bill Simmons?

  What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played?

• 1:22:55Speaker 04

  He would have been the best frickin' Charles Van Dorn, whoever Charles Van Dorn.

• 1:23:01Bill Simmons?

  It's funny. I, I think he could have played either the Azariah or the Palmer part. I think he absolutely could have played either Van Dorn, cause older Philip Seymour Hoffman easily could have played the dad.

• 1:23:13Speaker 04

  Amazing, yeah.

• 1:23:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he could have pick a point in his life. But yeah, I think that Charles Van Dorn, like the early version when he was skinnier, like mid nineties, maybe, probably could have done it.

• 1:23:22Speaker 04

  I mean, my favorite, probably my favorite actor who ever lived, so.

• 1:23:27Bill Simmons?

  Pick a nits.

• 1:23:28Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:23:30Bill Simmons?

  Why didn't Herb just take the $69,000 at the start of the show and stop playing?

• 1:23:37Speaker 04

  Oh, I'm so, you and I have the same nit, which is how did the money work? My nit is how did the money work? They never explain. What are you risking?

• 1:23:43Bill Simmons?

  They keep, they keep saying it's like, you risk it all, if you play again, like, okay.

• 1:23:46Speaker 04

  Because the real.

• 1:23:47Bill Simmons?

  They want me to lose anyway. I'll take 70. Thanks.

• 1:23:50Speaker 04

  Did you go look this part up? I know you do all the internet research. I looked it up. I know the answers to some of this.

• 1:23:54Bill Simmons?

  So what's the answer?

• 1:23:56Speaker 04

  They had side deals, man. Because it was rigged, they had side deals. So Herb wasn't getting 70. He really was getting like 35K. Like, they all made agreements that there was a give back and there was a certain amount they were really getting, like appearance fees, like someone got 25K to be on the show, Van Dorn. Like, they, they would pay you certain amounts of money as opposed to the prize money. The prize money was another fiction. But they never in the movie explain when they go, you're risking it. And even when we watched that thing, 2,000 a point, but what does that mean? Like, they don't explain how the money works, which today, you would have to. People would drive you too crazy if you were making the movie, you'd have to explain it. But the movie works without it. But if I had to pick a nit, that's my nit too.

• 1:24:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I mean, the bigger thing with this movie is back then, people actually really did care about what they were learning with the answers. There's still a Jeopardy! audience that really cares about the actual facts and the questions and the things they're answering. But the society we have now with reality TV, these shows like The Wall, or the show where the ball just bounces down and maybe goes into a hole.

• 1:24:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:24:57Bill Simmons?

  It's really about how much money somebody wins and they just get dumber and dumber and dumber for the goal of just winning money. This was like a completely different era.

• 1:25:06Speaker 04

  Hundred percent. Like Scorsese says, just to make the questions, dumber.

• 1:25:11Bill Simmons?

  He lays it out.

• 1:25:12Speaker 04

  He lays it out in the movie.

• 1:25:13Bill Simmons?

  It's exactly what happened. The Reuben sandwich thing, it was another nitpick for me. I don't. To say only one person ever invented a sandwich is fucking insane.

• 1:25:25Speaker 04

  Of, of course.

• 1:25:26Bill Simmons?

  I could invent a sandwich right now.

• 1:25:28Speaker 04

  What about the Earl's Sandwich?

• 1:25:30Bill Simmons?

  It's million sandwiches.

• 1:25:31Speaker 04

  Who invented a sandwich?

• 1:25:33Bill Simmons?

  Right. It's, and then my last nitpick was not nearly enough cigarette smoking and it must be some sort of weird Redford thing. I think in the 1950s, everybody was smoking four packs a day, including all of the parents of my parents. Like, I just think every, I think there just should have been cigarette smoke everywhere and Redford must have just hated cigarette smoke, is my guess. What do you have for nitpicks? Anything?

• 1:25:56Speaker 04

  No, I had the money.

• 1:25:58Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all black cast or untouchable. The prestige TV thing would be interesting if you brought in some of the other shows and the weird shit that was going on, because there were other shows that were cheating too.

• 1:26:12Speaker 04

  1950s corrupt television, you, yeah, was, I mean, I guess Maisel touched on some, not the corruption, but in that era of show business. Yes, you could make a prestige series about this.

• 1:26:26Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if I'd watch it, but you could do it. Is this movie better than Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Mad Dog Russo, Doris Burke, Buffalo Bill, Sam Jackson? Nell, Byron Mayo, Tony Roma, Chris Consort, Daniel Plainview, Long Legs, or Wilford Brimley in The Firm?

• 1:26:45Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking Teddy KGB as Herb Stempel.

• 1:26:53Bill Simmons?

  You want to do it? I was just trying to set you up for a Teddy KGB.

• 1:26:57Speaker 04

  Just as simple, saying like, pay me my money, instead of pay that man his money back. No, at the end, I guess he would say about Van Doren, instead of saying, they never leave you alone until they're leaving you alone. He would say, pay that man his money. Sure.

• 1:27:08Bill Simmons?

  The man's got alligator blood. I can't do it. I have a terrible Russian accent. Just want to ask her who gets it. We agree it's a screenplay.

• 1:27:16Speaker 04

  Paul Attanasio.

• 1:27:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Right?

• 1:27:19Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Hundred percent.

• 1:27:20Bill Simmons?

  Over, over Redford?

• 1:27:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, Schofield's the number two for me.

• 1:27:25Bill Simmons?

  Unanswerable questions. What was Jeritol? I already answered it. It apparently made your blood stronger or something, or you feel fatigue and this will, it's basically a caffeine pill?

• 1:27:39Speaker 04

  Mine is, what would Charles Van Doren's life have been like if he never went and got on that game show?

• 1:27:45Bill Simmons?

  Hmm.

• 1:27:46Speaker 04

  Not Herbie, because Herbie's life, Herbie's life is clear, but if Charles Van Doren just doesn't, like if Charles Van Doren says what you just said he should say, if he just says, I'm not answering that question, because I know it already.

• 1:28:05Bill Simmons?

  You already gave me that question in the audition.

• 1:28:07Speaker 04

  If he says it, what happens to his life? Van Doren.

• 1:28:10Bill Simmons?

  Maybe he becomes a hero.

• 1:28:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, he becomes president of a university. He's Larry Summers.

• 1:28:15Bill Simmons?

  Right. Uh, could 21, would you watch 21 right now if it came back in 2025? I think I would not.

• 1:28:25Speaker 04

  If, well, if Kimmel's hosting and it's like Millionaire?

• 1:28:29Bill Simmons?

  And it's, Kimmel's a really good host for game shows.

• 1:28:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

• 1:28:32Bill Simmons?

  I mean, a good host in general, but he's a good game show host.

• 1:28:34Speaker 04

  I mean, if Kimmel's hosting, I might give it a whirl.

• 1:28:36Bill Simmons?

  Okay. And then we already answered, what would you do if you were in this situation? We think the answer is, you flip it on them and you say.

• 1:28:44Speaker 04

  I mean, we've, listen, I, we've both been in situations where we've spoken out, even at risk to ourselves. We both have done it, so.

• 1:28:53Bill Simmons?

  You just did it to Soderbergh. You blew his cover. He was, got offered the movie.

• 1:28:56Speaker 04

  You said that and I did not say anything, except that he would make a, made a great movie.

• 1:29:01Bill Simmons?

  What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie? I'd take the painting of the dad.

• 1:29:07Speaker 04

  Same scene, same scene, different answer. I want the silverware box.

• 1:29:11Bill Simmons?

  You want all the silverware, okay. The Coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lesson, speculation in our society has a way of becoming fact. Pretty true.

• 1:29:22Speaker 04

  My answer would be not till you have a kid of your own.

• 1:29:26Bill Simmons?

  Hmm.

• 1:29:28Bill Simmons?

  Best double feature choice? What do you got?

• 1:29:31Speaker 04

  Brasko.

• 1:29:33Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I like that. I was gonna say the English patient. You could just go, you could fines it up. Just double duty it.

• 1:29:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think Brasko might be better, though, because of the thematic thing, yeah.

• 1:29:45Bill Simmons?

  Who won the movie? I'm gonna say Redford, because I think this was the last really, really, uh, cool thing he directed, but, um, kinda the end of this this renaissance that we talked about in Sneakers, where, you know, he had it in the seventies, obviously, then the eighties made that comeback and did The Natural and Out of Afro, and was just, I'm the president again. And then the nineties had this one last run with, as a movie star, as a director, with Sundance, and this is kind of the the tale of it. All right, time to bring in Craig. Can't wait. I have no idea what, I, I feel like he liked it. He seems in a good mood.

• 1:30:22Speaker 05

  I did like it. I, I really hadn't heard of this movie, and probably because it got shadowed by all the other great stuff that came out in 94, but I love all the movies about, um, I, I, there are certain movies where the industry looks inward on itself that I think should be required viewing for people who are studying, you know, media or film majors or whatever, like, like, my double feature would be Network, or, you know, The Player, stuff like that. I, I love all that type of inward-looking stuff. What I really enjoyed about this movie was that, um, like, the themes got stronger throughout. In the beginning, it was a little bit more of just like, oh, there's a game show that's cheating, and then by the end, the themes are so much bigger than that, and I, I really liked the ending. I, I didn't know how it was gonna end. I obviously, I knew it was a true story, so, but I, but I didn't know what actually happened.

• 1:31:08Speaker 05

  I, I was really happy it wasn't just the montage of like, the trope-iness of the people all going to jail, or everybody gets locked up, and I enjoyed that it was actually, the Van Doren confession was commended by everybody, and all of the themes just resonated much harder the way it ended, I, because it kind of ends on this, this icky feeling at the end, and, um, I didn't exactly know where it was going, so I appreciated that. And, I mean, yeah, being tricked by mass media, nepotism, classism, all this stuff is very resonant today. Um, so I, I loved it. That was great.

• 1:31:42Bill Simmons?

  It's a good point. In 2025, this movie is still awesome to watch because of all the themes that are in the movie. All of them are still relevant, literally all of them.

• 1:31:52Speaker 05

  I mean, like the advent of television and, and kind of the idea of what is reality? I mean, you could even make that parallel to like AI right now, where it's like the advent of AI is also kind of now changing what reality is and everything is under the guise of entertainment.

• 1:32:06Speaker 04

  I, yeah, I, the only thing I want to say at the end of this, I agree with everything you're saying is that if you just pull out to Nastia as the last time, I just want to say like, I don't know, like, you know, I said, I spoke to him today, but I'm, we're not like friends. But that guy, I mean, what co-creates House, right? With David Shore? So he invents that character, which makes total sense that he made these geniuses up and he made that genius up, co-creates homicide, writes Brasco. That guy is not nearly as famous as he should be. He is one of the titans of screenwriting. And in a way, a successor to Goldman in lots of ways. Like, he's right up there with Scott Frank and Tony Gilroy, I think, like, one of the true greats. And, and this movie and Brasco together are really a very rare accomplishment.

• 1:32:50Speaker 05

  Also, I think what's aged the worst is 60 million people watching a game show every week. That's, that's, that's half of the Super Bowl every week.

• 1:33:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, Bill, did you say it was 25? Are you sure it, the highest it ever got in the ratings was like 20 something?

• 1:33:06Speaker 05

  They said 60 in the movie.

• 1:33:08Speaker 04

  60 million? So, no, but I'm seeing Bill saying that.

• 1:33:10Bill Simmons?

  No, but it was, it was the 21st, but yeah, there were 20 bigger shows at over 60 million.

• 1:33:14Speaker 04

  That's crazy, man.

• 1:33:16Speaker 05

  That's unbelievable, unfathomable.

• 1:33:18Bill Simmons?

  There was nothing else to do. Like, it was radio or TV or you went to a movie.

• 1:33:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, bowling had 40 million people watch bowling on Saturday afternoons or whatever.

• 1:33:28Bill Simmons?

  Pretty crazy. Well, that's it for Redford Month. I know there's one week left in the month, but we do a horror movie. Every year in the last week of October.

• 1:33:38Speaker 04

  I'm dreading that.

• 1:33:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Craig doesn't like horror movies.

• 1:33:42Speaker 04

  Me, I don't either.

• 1:33:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm I'm trying to convince CR to do Halloween two.

• 1:33:49Speaker 04

  Okay, I can handle that.

• 1:33:50Bill Simmons?

  Now that we have the new studio and we have the giant Myers poster in the studio and Myers is right there. I feel like we have to pay homage, but I don't know, we're still hashing it out. Uh, anyway, that's coming next week. Produced by Craig as always, uh, thanks to Ronic and thanks to Gahout as well. Thanks to Brian Koppelman, you're almost a member of the ten timers club.

• 1:34:11Speaker 04

  Uh, well, listen, I can't thank you. I can't thank you and I think this is nine, I think this is the ninth time.

• 1:34:17Bill Simmons?

  I know, you got one more.

• 1:34:19Speaker 04

  All right, listen, I gotta say, I really, I know you did this partially because you knew how much it meant to me. And it really does.

• 1:34:25Bill Simmons?

  That is true.

• 1:34:26Speaker 04

  I love this movie so much and I want people to do it. And Bill, as always, you're a great friend. Thanks, everyone.

• 1:34:31Bill Simmons?

  This is a great movie, though. I'm glad you forced us to do it. Uh, Nick's prediction before we go. Over under fifty two and a half.

• 1:34:38Speaker 04

  I, you know, you called me and you said, oh, you said fifty two and a half, right? I gotta go over. I gotta go over. Um, I love that you guys had Cat at like sixteen.

• 1:34:47Bill Simmons?

  Oh, in the ring, Ringer one hundred, yeah.

• 1:34:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, I had certain, as you know, I had certain issues with the Ringer one hundred, but, uh,

• 1:34:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:53Speaker 04

  A couple of things, but, but I love that you guys had both Cat and Jalen in really nice spots.

• 1:35:00Bill Simmons?

  Do you have a Steelers prediction for Craig?

• 1:35:04Bill Simmons?

  The four and two Steelers?

• 1:35:05Speaker 04

  I know, I, I'm, I know, I know, I know where they are. Um, good luck, Craig.

• 1:35:11Bill Simmons?

  Craig, I think it's a three way.

• 1:35:13Speaker 04

  It's horrible from a Jets fan, you know how bad it is?

• 1:35:15Speaker 05

  I said last week that you should bet the Ravens to win the NFC.

• 1:35:18Speaker 04

  Can you guys explain to me why, I know this is off subject, but I just want to understand it. What is the logic that people rarely fire NFL coaches during this season? I've never understood it. Can, can you explain it to me?

• 1:35:29Bill Simmons?

  I think it's, I think it's too big of a.

• 1:35:33Bill Simmons?

  It's too hard with how the schedule of the games is, right?

• 1:35:37Speaker 05

  It's just a terrible look. You're tanking the season. You're torpedoing the vibe in the locker room. It's just like you just blow everything up.

• 1:35:43Speaker 04

  And then, but it's like you're... But when you're 0-6 and there's just no sign of any possibility.

• 1:35:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, but look, Dan Campbell, when he came to the Lions, I think he started 0-8 or 1-10.

• 1:35:55Bill Simmons?

  Aaron Glenn has been bringing that up over and over again. He's like, hey, Dan Campbell.

• 1:35:59Speaker 04

  You think Aaron Glenn's gonna be there at the start of the season next year?

• 1:36:02Speaker 05

  I mean, probably not, but...

• 1:36:04Bill Simmons?

  I mean, after that London game, I'm a little dubious after the clock management.

• 1:36:08Speaker 05

  It's hard with the culture guys. The culture guys take time and you kind of have to build that up. So you really have to find a front office that will commit to you.

• 1:36:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. All right. Craig, I think the AFC North comes down to Baltimore and Pittsburgh in Week 18. It's just preordained. There's no way. I don't know what their records have to be, but it's just gonna come down to that game. It has to. It's gonna be Sunday night.

• 1:36:29Speaker 05

  They're both gonna be 9-8 or 9-7 and they will be playing each other. That's correct.

• 1:36:32Bill Simmons?

  All right. Frank Hopelman, thank you. Craig, thank you. We'll see you next week.

• 1:36:36Speaker 05

  Bye, everybody.

• 1:36:49Speaker 06

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• 1:37:18Speaker 05

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