Pod Insights The Rewatchables ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’ With Bill Simmons, Van Lathan, and Mina Kimes About this episode The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Van Lathan are joined by Mina Kimes and David Lindhagen to revisit the 2011 classic ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love,’ starring Steve Carrell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, and Emma Stone.
Producers: Craig Horlbeck, Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, Matt Pevic, and Chris Wohlers
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Transcript 24,177 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Bill Simmons? This episode is brought to you by Angry Orchard Hard Cider. Halloween's just better with a scary movie and something good to drink. Angry Orchard's limited edition glow-in-the-dark thriller variety pack is the perfect companion. It even includes a mystery flavor can featuring the iconic ghost face from Scream. Don't get angry, get orchard this Halloween. Find Angry Orchard in a store near you or visit angryorchard.com. Angry Orchard, cider company, LLC. Angryorchard.com. Please drink responsibly. Angry Orchard is a hard cider with other natural flavors.
0:38 Speaker 01 I'm pro-football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of: major depressive disorder. I carried sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit mddallies.com to watch my story.
1:03 Speaker 02 Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.
1:15 Speaker 03 I needed more from my antidepressant, so my doctor added Caplyta lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.
1:35 Speaker 02 Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects.
2:02 Speaker 03 Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.
2:14 Bill Simmons? The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. We can find Higher Learning with Van Lathan.
2:19 Speaker 04 What up, what up, what up?
2:20 Bill Simmons? You can find a little Midnight Boys. You can find a little Ringer Tailgate, still going during the offseason.
2:25 Speaker 04 A lot of stuff happening right now in the college football world.
2:29 Bill Simmons? A lot of stuff. What's happening? It's mid-February. Nothing's happening.
2:31 Speaker 04 A lot of stuff is happening. Now, Ringer Tailgate has pivoted from covering college football to covering college football culture. There's a lot of conversations being had right now.
2:41 Bill Simmons? Excellent. Mina Kimes is not on the Ringer Podcast Network, but pops by like a cameo in a great movie. Everyone, like Marisa Tomei in Crazy, Stupid Love, just pop it in.
2:50 Speaker 05 That's exactly.
2:50 Bill Simmons? For a couple scenes.
2:51 Speaker 05 That's, Marisa Tomei in Crazy, Stupid Love is the energy I'm aiming for in pretty much every appearance.
2:56 Bill Simmons? Well, you two made this podcast happen because apparently you had some meal together and you just decided you were gonna do this movie on the Rewatchables.
3:04 Speaker 04 Yeah, this is one of those ones. This is one of those, I am so pleasantly surprised that I'm invested into this whirlwind treatise on love in Los Angeles.
3:15 Bill Simmons? And we're gonna cover it in one second.
3:32 Bill Simmons? Crazy, Stupid Love, 2011, simpler times.
3:39 Bill Simmons? You said this was the greatest airplane movie of all time. You stand by that?
3:42 Speaker 05 It's in my top three.
3:45 Bill Simmons? Do you have a top three?
3:46 Speaker 05 Personally, yeah, of movies I've probably seen at least 10 times on airplanes. I fly a lot.
3:50 Bill Simmons? What are the other two?
3:51 Speaker 05 Mean Girls.
3:53 Speaker 04 Interesting.
3:53 Speaker 05 Every time I re-watch Mean Girls, something new and funny. And Edge of Tomorrow, which is one of my favorite movies of all time.
3:59 Speaker 04 That's a great airplane movie.
4:02 Speaker 05 I would say Crazy, Stupid Love stands alone. You don't need to watch it on an airplane. But I would say it's a perfect airplane movie and perfect for this podcast because you can put it on, there's like four or five scenes, you know, I'm gonna lock in.
4:14 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
4:15 Speaker 05 And then you can kind of dip out, do some emails while it's on with the kid stuffs, come back in.
4:20 Bill Simmons? Right.
4:20 Speaker 05 In and out, in and out. It's what I want out of an airplane movie.
4:23 Bill Simmons? I wrote three big strengths, Van. Date movie crossed with an airplane movie.
4:27 Speaker 04 Right.
4:28 Bill Simmons? Could've seen it when it came out on a date.
4:30 Speaker 04 Right.
4:30 Bill Simmons? But then redoing it on the airplane or as a hangout movie, it's the sweet spot. I love two completely overqualified actors in a movie like this. It's just, you're basically taking fighter jet pilots and asking them to just, you know, fly a JetBlue.
4:48 Speaker 05 Which ones, though?
4:48 Bill Simmons? Gosling and Emma Stone.
4:50 Speaker 05 Okay.
4:50 Bill Simmons? They're just like, at the great points in their career, we'll talk about that in a second. And then, I'm a sucker for the, a bunch of plots happening at the same time, and then they're like, watch this.
5:02 Speaker 04 Yeah.
5:02 Bill Simmons? And everything comes together in one scene. It's really hard to pull off.
5:06 Speaker 04 It's so hard to do. And the evidence of that is that there were a lot of these big ensemble movies that happened in the 2010s.
5:15 Speaker 05 Yeah.
5:15 Speaker 04 Some of them were named after holidays, whatever they would say. It was like, there was a Valentine's Day.
5:19 Speaker 05 Valentine's Day, New Year's Day.
5:21 Speaker 04 New Year's Day, there was always.
5:21 Bill Simmons? Mina's pretending she hasn't seen all of them 10 times.
5:24 Speaker 04 My wife, my wife just cranks those out. I'll watch any of those. And by the way, they normally do not work. They're normally pretty breezy, pretty entertaining, but this one doesn't waste a scene, builds all of these separate plots and ties them up perfectly.
5:39 Bill Simmons? There's a movie in the late 90s called Playing by Heart that is like the lost version of this. It's a rom-com. Angelina Jolie's in it, very young.
5:47 Speaker 04 Yeah.
5:49 Bill Simmons? Jon Stewart is in it, but it's got like 10 people you've heard of. And it's the same thing where, in the last 15 minutes.
5:59 Speaker 05 Everything comes together.
6:00 Bill Simmons? It's like, oh shit, you're the brother and sister? And it usually doesn't work and you usually know right away. There's only that one clue in this movie when Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore are going to see The Teacher. And they're sitting with the door between them, and she's like, I talked to Nana today. And she's like, oh, how is she? And she's worried about us. And they're talking about Emma Stone, but you don't realize it the first time. You think they're talking about a grandmother.
6:24 Speaker 05 Right.
6:24 Bill Simmons? And then it circles around perfectly.
6:26 Speaker 05 Right. In the first scene of the movie, or the first part of the movie, when he's driving the babysitter home, he's like, I'm gonna have to call Nana. And I didn't notice it until like my A3 watch, but it is, calling her Nana is the fake out of the entire movie.
6:39 Bill Simmons? Which raises questions of, would you call a? Attractive woman in her early twenties, Nana.
6:45 Speaker 04 Well, they tried to explain it. She couldn't say Hannah. She says Nana. My sister's nickname is Noonie. Uh, maybe it could be a thing. It's a great script. It's insanely convenient script. Like, it's a lot of stuff going on.
7:00 Bill Simmons? Dan Fogelman goes on to do This Is Us and a whole bunch of good stuff.
7:02 Speaker 04 Let me tell you something.
7:03 Bill Simmons? Danny Collins.
7:04 Speaker 04 Tell you something right now. Paradise.
7:06 Speaker 05 Paradise.
7:06 Bill Simmons? Paradise.
7:07 Speaker 04 Paradise. Hidden, well, not hidden, Jim. Everybody loves the show.
7:11 Bill Simmons? Season two is coming.
7:12 Speaker 04 But like, a really great show. He's got it all going. But like, one of the best scripts to me, like, of this decade, honestly. And there were some great scripts in this decade.
7:22 Bill Simmons? Plus, we have three Oscar winners and two Oscar nominees. Winners, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei.
7:28 Speaker 05 The directors-
7:29 Bill Simmons? Nomine is Corel and Gosling. And the directors did Focus.
7:32 Speaker 05 Yes, Fikara and Rick Riqua.
7:34 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
7:34 Speaker 05 Also directed the best, the episode of Paradise, and you know what I'm talking about immediately. That's probably one of the best episodes of television last year. When did it come out? The seventh, the flashback episode.
7:45 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
7:46 Speaker 05 They also produced my favorite television show of all time, Patriot, which no one's ever seen. So shout out to those guys.
7:51 Bill Simmons? And they did one of the Apple ones, the, uh-
7:54 Speaker 05 You gotta watch it.
7:55 Speaker 04 What is it?
7:56 Speaker 05 It's a TV show about a depressed spy that like 50 people have seen, and you will love it.
8:00 Speaker 04 Who's, who's, who's in it?
8:01 Speaker 05 Um, the guy from For All Mankind, who's from New Zealand, whose name is Casey. Anyway, sorry.
8:05 Speaker 04 Patriot.
8:06 Speaker 05 Patriot.
8:06 Bill Simmons? There's some Apple show they did when we were doing like WeWork and we were doing all the different skinos. They might have done the WeWork one. They did one of them and it was good.
8:13 Speaker 05 We crushed, yeah.
8:13 Bill Simmons? I love Focus. We've already done on rewatchables. They, they have a specific style that you know when you see it. I don't really know how they do it, but you kind of know when it's their thing. So when, even when they did Paradise, you could kind of feel their, uh, special sauce. Steve Carrell, 2004 to 2011. Anchorman, Forty Year Old Virgin, The Office, and Little Miss Sunshine, all in like two years. Like, it's just happening.
8:37 Speaker 04 Just going for it.
8:38 Bill Simmons? Then a little bit of a slump. Evan Almighty, Dan in Real Life, Get Smart, Date Night, Dinner for Schmucks. And this becomes- Kind of has a little bit, I don't want to say comeback because he's doing well, obviously. But he hadn't had a, there was questions about could this guy be the lead of a movie?
8:52 Speaker 06 Don't knock Get Smart. Get Smart, no.
8:54 Bill Simmons? I'm gonna knock it. You like it though?
8:55 Speaker 06 Yeah, Get Smart's really good.
8:56 Speaker 05 Day Night's not bad.
8:57 Speaker 06 Yeah, Day Night's not bad either.
8:58 Speaker 04 Day Night's, these are good movies, but the, to the, the overall point is that like, we knew that we liked Steve Carrell as this thing. And then the question kinda was like, could Steve Carrell even directly with Evan Almighty, could like Steve Carrell be Jim Carrey? Could he be a 20 or 25 million dollar a movie lead of this, these gigantic comedy things? And the answer kind of ended up being a little bit of a no. However, when he is properly cast and given the opportunity to do the Steve Carrell thing, he is as uniquely entertaining as a performer as we have. Like in this movie-
9:40 Bill Simmons? But what's the Steve Carrell thing though? I think that's the thing I've never fully figured out.
9:44 Speaker 04 The Steve Carrell thing to me is being an emotional, decentered, hilarious character. Like when you look at the 40 year old version, that character is emotionally frazzled, right? And in that emotional de-centering, that's where the comedy comes from. In this one too, in this movie, he's like off kilter, he's knocked off base early on by this revelation.
10:09 Speaker 05 He literally rolls out of a car.
10:10 Speaker 04 Yes, like he rolls out of a car when, when Marisa Tomei steps out, he goes, what the hell? Like it's hysterical, like watching that. Cause he's a very likeable guy.
10:24 Speaker 05 Yeah, I would say this movie also touches on two very unique Steve Carrell qualities.
10:29 Bill Simmons? Ooh.
10:29 Speaker 05 One of which is he's secretly good looking.
10:32 Speaker 04 He's handsome.
10:33 Speaker 05 And after the makeover, you as the audience see it, it works because he is actually a good looking man.
10:41 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
10:41 Speaker 05 Uh, which is kind of the joke of the 40 year old version too, and some of his other comedic roles. And then there's like an innate goodness to him. Like you never doubt this entire movie that he's a good person who loves his wife. And a lot of those comedians don't have that characteristic. And it allows him to sell everything.
10:56 Bill Simmons? He, Little Miss Sunshine's- He's good, like, that's a good example of he's good at like, my life got really fucked up and I don't know what happened, but you're still rooting for him and you don't think he's a fuck up. It's a hard balance to pull off.
11:09 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:09 Bill Simmons? It's like, I feel like something, this guy got sidetracked, but I still believe in something about him and I don't know why.
11:14 Speaker 04 So, like, take a movie like Liar Liar. That movie's a big deal, but in that, in that film, Jim Carrey's gotta be an asshole for a little while.
11:22 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
11:23 Speaker 04 And then he's gotta learn his lesson and whatever. Like, it's difficult to see Steve Carrell, he's done this because he tried to make a couple of movies where this was the thing. It's difficult to see Steve Carrell as like a character that you don't really like.
11:33 Speaker 05 We watched The Morning Show.
11:35 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:35 Speaker 05 Bill and I did. Did you watch The Morning Show?
11:37 Speaker 04 I did, and it doesn't quite work.
11:39 Bill Simmons? That wasn't his fault, because they created that show and started making it, and then Me Too and all the shits went down and they had to like, shift his character on the fly. I don't know if he signs up for that show, if he knows where it was actually heading.
11:50 Speaker 05 It's so weird, because he's had other serious roles, and I think a lot of them have worked, but serious and being a bad person just doesn't work.
11:58 Bill Simmons? He was like, can you just kill me off in a car accident in episode nine? And they're like, yeah, Steve, you're out, don't worry.
12:02 Speaker 04 And when you think about it, he's like the perfect guy to play that, because like, he, he has morning show host energy.
12:08 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
12:08 Speaker 04 I just didn't buy him as, yeah, as the bad guy.
12:11 Bill Simmons? What's your Steve Carrell relationship, Craig?
12:13 Speaker 06 I mean, he's like the tip of the mountaintop. When I, I mean, in high school, he's on The Office, he's the most important person on television, probably, for my generation, just like the most lovable guy in the world, and can do both things. I mean, I started out with him on Anchorman and Forty Old Virgin and all that stuff. Pretty remarkable that he can play Brick Tamlin, and then be incredibly believable as like a pathetic dad trying to get his life together, and you totally believe both.
12:36 Bill Simmons? We should have mentioned The Office thing too.
12:38 Speaker 05 I mean, that's his.
12:39 Bill Simmons? Well, because it was a hangover, when you saw him in a movie, The Office was such a big show.
12:44 Speaker 05 Is he one of the rare TV stars who are so associated with one character, who have then gone on to have a successful film career?
12:53 Speaker 06 Yeah, he's not typecast. He's not George Costanza as, as Michael Scott.
12:56 Bill Simmons? I feel like this, Ted Danson had trouble breaking out of this when Cheers became massive, and they kept trying to work him into movies, and it really wasn't until Curb Your Enthusiasm. That he kinda broke away from Cheers, but it took, it took a while. Sometimes it's hard. Carrell was in so many movies. That I felt like he was able to juggle it, but The Office meant so much to so many people.
13:18 Speaker 04 You know what's funny is I never watched it.
13:20 Bill Simmons? Which one?
13:21 Speaker 05 You've never seen The Office?
13:22 Speaker 04 I've seen The Office, but I didn't watch it like everybody else.
13:24 Bill Simmons? I never really watched it either.
13:25 Speaker 04 So like legitimately, what I just said, you almost proved that wrong because that character is kind of an asshole, right?
13:32 Speaker 06 No, no, he's not. He's, he's very. He's incompetent.
13:37 Speaker 05 He's an old.
13:37 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
13:38 Speaker 06 Yes, but he's very lovable and he means well.
13:40 Speaker 05 He's a really good dude.
13:41 Bill Simmons? What was your Ryan Gosling relationship from 2004 to 2011, either of you?
13:46 Speaker 04 Uh, so it, it's, Ryan Gosling is, this is my guy.
13:52 Bill Simmons? Wow.
13:53 Speaker 04 Yeah, you know Blue Chips? Tony was my guy.
13:56 Bill Simmons? It's my guy.
13:56 Speaker 04 That's my guy.
13:57 Bill Simmons? Shut up.
13:58 Speaker 04 Shut up, shut up, shut up, get out of here. Ryan Gosling is my guy. So I, first of all, was like pleasantly surprised by Ryan Gosling.
14:07 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
14:07 Speaker 04 Cause I watched half, you see him in all of these movies, right? He's kinda dopey and Remember the Titans and all of that stuff like that. You know his face.
14:13 Bill Simmons? Notebook was the first time.
14:15 Speaker 04 It's like, oh, the guy from Remember the Titans.
14:16 Speaker 05 That was a breakout role, yeah.
14:18 Speaker 04 And then Half Nelson, I go, wait a second.
14:21 Speaker 05 Such a good movie.
14:22 Speaker 04 I will, the, he is a fucking phenomenal actor.
14:26 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
14:26 Speaker 04 Then when you watch his rise, he, for a time for me, isn't missing on everything.
14:31 Bill Simmons? Fracture, Lars and the Real Girl, Blue Valentine.
14:34 Speaker 04 Blue Valentine.
14:35 Bill Simmons? Tough date movie.
14:36 Speaker 04 Yeah, that, that was a tough one. The Point Beyond the Pines, which is a movie that's way up in my pantheon, but like, everybody else kind of passes.
14:44 Speaker 05 That's how he met Eva Mendes, right?
14:46 Speaker 04 How he met Eva Mendes. And then.
14:48 Bill Simmons? Handsome couple.
14:49 Speaker 05 Oof, yeah.
14:50 Speaker 04 Yeah, super handsome.
14:51 Bill Simmons? 2011 is Drive and Crazy Stupid Love, same year. And that felt like it cemented him as, this is a leading guy now.
14:58 Speaker 04 That combo?
14:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
14:59 Speaker 04 That combo.
15:00 Bill Simmons? Hard to puff.
15:01 Speaker 04 Coolest white boy in the world.
15:02 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
15:03 Speaker 05 Yeah.
15:03 Speaker 04 Like Drive, where he doesn't say anything and he commands the movie.
15:08 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
15:09 Speaker 04 This film, where he's rolling off one liners left and right and he commands the movie, he could do either thing.
15:15 Speaker 05 This is his movie. I'll just start here. Like I, Steve Carrell is the lead, he's on the poster, we start by talking about him. But Ryan Gosling steals this movie and runs away with it. And when I think about the iconic scenes, except for the one at the end, which is everybody, it's Gosling scenes in this.
15:30 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
15:33 Bill Simmons? This lays the groundwork for the next 15 years. I mean, you could make a case he's the second most famous actor right now. A case of the under 50s?
15:42 Speaker 04 He, he is both. He was the guy at one point that everybody wanted to get to get their movie greenlit. There's actually this, there's a-
15:52 Bill Simmons? It was if you couldn't get Leo, he might have been one of the next calls, if not the next call.
15:56 Speaker 04 There's this documentary called Seduced and Abandoned, which is, it's like-
16:01 Speaker 05 About the, um, like the nagging, oh-
16:04 Speaker 04 It's, it's James, it's James Toback and Alec Baldwin and they-
16:09 Bill Simmons? I remember this.
16:09 Speaker 04 Remember this?
16:10 Bill Simmons? James Toback, controversial figure.
16:11 Speaker 04 Controversial figure, controversial figure. They, they're trying to get a movie made and they're, they're talking about like how hard it is to get an independent film made. And it's legitimately a segment in the documentary that is dedicated to Ryan Gosling. Because they're talking about, they're asking people around, hey, if there's one guy you would want in your movie to get your movie made, to get the movie made. And everyone answers Ryan Gosling all at the same time. And then they interview Ryan Gosling and then talk about it. He never quite was able to live up to that promise.
16:41 Bill Simmons? I don't think he wanted to. I don't know that he did either. He wanted to make weird movies everyone saw.
16:44 Speaker 05 He's made a lot of interesting career choices.
16:46 Speaker 04 Right. It seems like only now, when you see Barbie and now he's doing Star Wars and stuff like that-
16:52 Bill Simmons? Later in his career.
16:53 Speaker 04 That he's trying to get to that, fall guy.
16:54 Speaker 05 Isn't it crazy though, like Barbie and this movie to me are his two best movies? And even though he's had more award-winning type performances and they're not movies where he is the quote unquote main character and he steals both of them. Which is like, what a testament to his abilities.
17:10 Bill Simmons? The old Brad Pitt move, just coming in.
17:13 Speaker 05 As the second guy and then-
17:14 Speaker 04 I think Drive is the best movie he's ever been in.
17:16 Bill Simmons? He never did that thing.
17:17 Speaker 05 Really? It's what, I just think performances, he just glowers the whole time.
17:22 Speaker 04 Drive is a force of nature.
17:24 Bill Simmons? We respect the movies where it's like, this movie doesn't work unless the guy can carry, not a lot.
17:29 Speaker 04 Yeah.
17:29 Bill Simmons? And that's what's good about Drive. The thing with him though, um-
17:34 Bill Simmons? I always wonder, there's the two paths, right? You can go weird movies, bounce around, be in a good one every once in a while, be in the weird indies. And then there's like the Leo path where you just go. I am going straight through with good directors and I'm just gonna go from big movie to big movie and work with all the best people and that's gonna be my career. I don't feel like he did that. I think he went the other way where he was like, oh, I like the script, yeah, fuck it. But La La Land is when, uh, that's when it, I think, goes to another level for him because he's capitalizing on the chemistry that he'd already built. With our next person to talk about, Emma Stone.
18:11 Speaker 05 Can I, I mean-
18:12 Bill Simmons? Unofficial sequel.
18:13 Speaker 05 Drop potentially my hottest take about Crazy Stupid Love. Well, it's about La La Land. Their chemistry in this movie is so much better than La La Land and I would argue the romantic scene in this movie is better than any scene in La La Land.
18:27 Bill Simmons? Wow.
18:28 Speaker 05 Just saying.
18:28 Bill Simmons? La La Land slander. I don't disagree.
18:31 Speaker 05 Just saying, the scene, which I'm sure we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about between the two of them, which I think is one of the best romantic comedy scenes of the last 20 years, is better than that movie. They're great in that movie, but they are electric in this movie.
18:43 Bill Simmons? Hmm. I don't know what his thing is, but if I had to guess, I think he's really good at having chemistry with whoever he's doing a scene with. If I had to put it in a nutshell, then you can throw him in with anybody and he can somehow vibe and you can see it in this movie. Whoever he's in a scene with, it kinda works.
19:00 Speaker 05 Correll.
19:00 Bill Simmons? And all the, even all the people in the bar, like everyone he's with.
19:04 Speaker 05 Yeah.
19:04 Bill Simmons? He just has a way of like bringing out whatever the best is. Emma Stone, '07 to '11, Superbad, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. And are you in that on that movie?
19:14 Speaker 05 That's the Matthew-
19:15 Bill Simmons? Yeah, my wife kinda likes that. Zombieland, Easy A. And Crazy Stupid Love. And then she's off after this.
19:23 Speaker 04 Yeah. One of the defining performers of her generation. I wanna shout out the Nice Guys too, another Gosling classic.
19:29 Speaker 05 Oh, my god.
19:31 Speaker 04 Yeah, she's, she's, it's, she becomes like, I always thought, you know, I thought she was going to do like a Julia Roberts thing. I thought that was gonna be the deal.
19:40 Bill Simmons? No, she's doing more of a Meryl Streep thing.
19:42 Speaker 04 She's doing more of a Meryl Streep thing. She did more of a Meryl Streep thing. She did more of a beloved, elevated, serious, dramatic actress.
19:49 Bill Simmons? Will take some swings, but can also be in a movie like this.
19:51 Speaker 04 Also like give you something breezy, that's fun.
19:55 Speaker 05 I wonder if she had never met Yorgos. What kind of, because.
19:58 Bill Simmons? I wish I could go back in time and stop it.
20:01 Speaker 05 You don't like those movies?
20:02 Bill Simmons? I don't.
20:02 Speaker 05 I like the, I love the favorite. You don't like the favorite?
20:05 Bill Simmons? I don't like Yorgos.
20:06 Speaker 05 Okay.
20:07 Speaker 04 You don't like Yorgos at all?
20:08 Bill Simmons? I don't, listen, I don't, I don't like certain things.
20:11 Speaker 05 Lobster's so good, the lobster's so good.
20:12 Bill Simmons? I don't like truffles, I don't like Yorgos.
20:14 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's tough.
20:15 Speaker 05 It's fine.
20:15 Speaker 04 It's tough for you.
20:16 Speaker 05 Uh, Zomieland, sneaky underrated, have you seen that?
20:19 Speaker 04 Love Zomieland.
20:20 Speaker 05 So good, right?
20:21 Speaker 04 Love Zomieland. But she's, she is like a legitimately, uh, to me, a 24 karat gold performer. She can be super, she can be like really cute, like there's a moment in this film where, in the Dirty Dancing scene, where she's, she has to play like she's completely.
20:41 Speaker 05 Like a naive.
20:42 Speaker 04 Not, like, she's like, she's, she doesn't know what she's doing, she doesn't know where she's at, and the vulnerability that she's able to put on the screen. It's like cute and funny and endearing.
20:52 Speaker 05 Would you say it's the perfect combination of sexy and cute?
20:53 Speaker 04 It is, it is. You see why he falls in love with her. And she can do that, and then she can be like deadly effective and sexy as well.
21:00 Bill Simmons? I did this thing for ESPN the magazine, like 15, 16 years ago, about trying to use advanced metrics for actors with the Oscars.
21:07 Speaker 05 Okay.
21:08 Bill Simmons? To try to prove Meryl Streep was by far the best actor ever. And I had this point system. And it was seven points for a best actor or actress win, three for a nomination, three for a best supporting actor or actress win, and then one for nomination. And Meryl Streep right now has 65 points, which is.
21:27 Speaker 05 Yeah.
21:28 Bill Simmons? 13 more than everybody. Katherine Hepburn's next. I mention this because Emma Stone is now at 19.
21:33 Speaker 04 Yeah, she's gonna get there.
21:33 Bill Simmons? And anyone who gets into the twenties is basically like immortal actors, so even, um, like Robert Duvall, who had this Oscar prize, he's only at 17, Kate Winslet's at 17, Glenn Close is at 16, but like Frances McDormand's 24, um, Sissy SpaceX 22. The point is, like, she's not even 40 yet.
21:54 Speaker 05 Right.
21:54 Bill Simmons? And is probably gonna have, I'm sure she'll be in five, six more nominated movies at least.
22:00 Speaker 05 So she's like the Mahomes to Meryl Streep's Brady. Are you comfortable?
22:04 Bill Simmons? I think she's a generational.
22:06 Speaker 05 Not to complicate it for you.
22:07 Bill Simmons? No, if you say like, if Meryl Streep is Brady in this scenario, like she might be Mahomes.
22:13 Speaker 05 Yeah.
22:13 Bill Simmons? Like the, the track record she has early with these award winning or nomination movies, it's pretty crazy. Sorry, Ben.
22:19 Speaker 04 No, you, that's, I just, it's funny that that's exactly what she said. And then you, it was, that was a funny Bill moment right there. Did you guys pick that up?
22:27 Bill Simmons? I'm not defending Brady as much as I used to.
22:29 Speaker 05 I was, I was trying to troll him into getting defensive of Meryl by, by.
22:35 Bill Simmons? I'll be honest.
22:36 Speaker 04 She said that and then you came back and you went, she might be Mahomes, as if it was a completely original thought.
22:41 Bill Simmons? I like, that's your move. I learned that from you.
22:45 Speaker 05 I've been on sports television so long that it doesn't even register.
22:49 Bill Simmons? Right, true. Somebody just taking your point and running again.
22:51 Speaker 05 I'm like, great point.
22:54 Speaker 05 It's just part of my DNA.
22:55 Bill Simmons? I think I might like Meryl Streep more than Tom Brady at this point. I was really offended he didn't stick up for Brady.
23:00 Speaker 04 By the way, this is something, this is something that.
23:03 Bill Simmons? I love Meryl Streep.
23:03 Speaker 04 You're, you're talking about a lot to us, but I'm waiting for you.
23:08 Bill Simmons? I did a little bit of it publicly.
23:09 Speaker 04 A little bit. He's getting on your nerves, bro.
23:11 Speaker 05 Wow.
23:12 Bill Simmons? Yeah, show some respect to people who stuck up for you for 20 fucking years. Just show a little respect.
23:18 Bill Simmons? It can't be like that meant nothing.
23:20 Speaker 04 Yo, I'm, I want you guys to understand, Bill is really nonplussed about this. Like, this is really bothering him.
23:26 Bill Simmons? None of the Pats fans like it.
23:28 Speaker 04 Hey, when Emma Stone won that second Oscar.
23:31 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
23:31 Speaker 04 When, when, when she came back and she won that second one.
23:34 Speaker 05 For Poor Things.
23:35 Speaker 04 Of Poor Things, yeah. When, when that happened, I was like, because.
23:39 Speaker 05 Right.
23:39 Speaker 04 I thought that the town might be hesitant to make that kind of statement about her career. I thought they were, I thought that, so she wins and she comes back, I'm like, she wins another one?
23:51 Bill Simmons? Well, she'll, she'll never win a third one unless it's one of the great performances of all time. The third one is like, they'll just vote against it. They don't want it.
23:58 Speaker 04 Three is like. But the second one too, I mean, besides like Hilary Swank, which is a very interesting career to have two Best Actress Academy Awards, but like.
24:05 Bill Simmons? That's the Eli Manning.
24:06 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's the Eli Manning.
24:07 Speaker 05 Now I'm so NFL brain.
24:09 Bill Simmons? That was the best mailbag question I've gotten in two years. Is she the Eli Manning?
24:13 Speaker 05 Is Yorgos her Tyree Kill, where she now has to do it without him to register on the same.
24:19 Bill Simmons? Oh, interesting.
24:19 Speaker 05 Brady scale, like, cause she's been racking up the awards and the accolades with Yorgos.
24:24 Bill Simmons? But she, who won for La La Land? Yeah, she won for La La Land. That wasn't Yorgos.
24:29 Speaker 05 Okay.
24:30 Bill Simmons? I have a hottest take I'm just gonna do now. And we'll do the category.
24:34 Speaker 05 Just do it. I thought mine was hot.
24:36 Bill Simmons? Yours was good.
24:36 Speaker 05 Okay.
24:37 Bill Simmons? The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. I'll just take a word.
24:39 Speaker 04 I got a high stick too.
24:41 Bill Simmons? Early 2000s Emma Stone. We're right in this like easy A crazy stupid love.
24:45 Speaker 05 Super bad.
24:46 Bill Simmons? If you think of like the great actors or the people with the potential like you would with like basketball, football players.
24:53 Bill Simmons? You could just tell like one of the great lottery picks. This to me was like when you when you could see like Mahomes early or like or like LeBron in 05, you're like, wow, we're really going to go on a ride here.
25:06 Speaker 04 Mm hmm.
25:06 Bill Simmons? And I was trying to think of other actors that felt that way that I'm alive enough to remember.
25:12 Bill Simmons? And I probably didn't remember, but I think people felt this way. But like when Meryl Streep was in Deer Hunter and Kramer versus Kramer and people were like,
25:18 Speaker 05 Mmm.
25:19 Bill Simmons? wow. There's some shit is gonna go down.
25:22 Speaker 05 So are we saying easy A is her Kramer versus Kramer?
25:24 Speaker 04 Being in your early careers, that's nuts.
25:27 Bill Simmons? I saw Kramer versus Kramer as a kid, not Deer Hunter. I'm just saying like, I think the perception was this lady is going to go on and do some stuff. Julia Roberts.
25:35 Speaker 05 Yeah.
25:36 Bill Simmons? In that Steel Magnolias Mystic Pizza and then Pretty Woman. You're like, I'm buying stock right now.
25:40 Speaker 04 Pretty Woman was a coronation.
25:41 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
25:42 Speaker 04 Because like by that point, everybody that's like, they were pouring out their hearts wanting to love this amazing young actress.
25:49 Bill Simmons? I think Cruz was like this, like Risky Business, that era. And then Top Gun was the coronation. So I think for Emma Stone, La La Land was probably the coronation, but this
25:58 Speaker 05 All this stuff.
25:58 Bill Simmons? This era was the setup. Like, I wasn't surprised.
26:01 Speaker 05 I would argue Superbad is an incredible showcase for her.
26:05 Bill Simmons? That's the start of it. Yeah.
26:05 Speaker 05 Because it's, the movie's not about her. It's what would be a thankless role if many women played that. And it's not the point of the movie. And she's so funny and cool that you can tell she's a star.
26:17 Bill Simmons? We have to go to Craig because this is one of his favorite actors.
26:20 Speaker 05 Superbad.
26:21 Bill Simmons? You love that.
26:21 Speaker 06 Both of them. I think Stone and Gosling are the two defining actors of their generations. To me, they're Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, but for my generation. I'm still upset that
26:30 Bill Simmons? I think that's fair.
26:31 Speaker 06 When I, the fact that they're not together in real life bothers me. Like they're they're so good together.
26:35 Bill Simmons? They're still tough.
26:36 Speaker 06 Yeah, they need to be together.
26:37 Bill Simmons? I don't know, Eva Mendes is pretty good.
26:38 Speaker 06 Um, and then, you know, her in Superbad, I feel like she was so good in that, that got her Easy A, which was her first big star role.
26:45 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
26:46 Speaker 06 And she was fantastic in it, both playing somebody who's really funny and a romantic lead. She she's amazing.
26:51 Bill Simmons? You know, you know what it kind of reminds me of here? It almost reminds me of early Mike Tyson. Hmm.
26:57 Speaker 05 Okay, that's not a safe.
26:57 Bill Simmons? That's another good example, though.
26:59 Speaker 06 I was gonna say that, yeah.
27:00 Bill Simmons? She's buying stock early before anything's happening, you're like, I know this is gonna happen.
27:04 Speaker 04 But there's something else, too, people, something else people don't remember about Mike is early, I mean, people remember this about Mike, early in Mike's career, there was volume.
27:13 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
27:13 Speaker 04 These guys that are fighting two, three times a year, not Mike Tyson. Mike was fighting.
27:17 Bill Simmons? Yeah, four, five, six a year.
27:18 Speaker 04 Like four, five, sometimes like seven, eight, nine. So when you look at her, she, Superbad is like her first movie.
27:25 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
27:25 Speaker 04 And then from oh, seven to to twenty ten, she, this is dense.
27:31 Bill Simmons? She's done like eight movies, right?
27:32 Speaker 04 The Rocker, The House Bunny, Ghost of Girlfriends Past, Paperman, Zombieland, Marmaduke. And then Easy A comes, the first star we can build a movie around Emma Stone, that's two thousand ten. But for that three years, she's doing different types of movies, she's doing movies, like all different types of stuff. And by the time she's gets there, the audiences are familiar with her enough to be like, yeah, we like her, let's, let's, let's take a little bit more.
27:54 Bill Simmons? Also, really hard needle to thread where women really like her and guys are attracted to her. And it's hard for both sides to really agree. Yeah, it doesn't happen a lot often.
28:03 Speaker 05 Julia Roberts is, I feel like, well, maybe Meryl from the Sirius Awards, although obviously Julia did too. But yeah, you're right, like she is so cute, so funny, so likeable. She's like the dream girl.
28:16 Speaker 06 She she's also, she's like a comedy fan at heart, and I feel like she's not.
28:21 Bill Simmons? Yeah, she's a little Mary Tyler Moore.
28:23 Speaker 06 She's not afraid to make herself look dumb or look silly or do weird faces, which is also kind of unique for a, like, an actress that is that famous. She kind of doesn't really care making herself look bad in a movie or look stupid.
28:33 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
28:33 Speaker 06 Which just makes her feel more grounded.
28:35 Bill Simmons? That's why that Nathan Fielder show, which I didn't really like.
28:38 Speaker 05 Oh, the.
28:39 Bill Simmons? But she was so interesting in it, because she really committed, yeah, she really committed to how weird it was. Yeah. She'll do, if she's in, like, she's all in, like, whatever it is.
28:46 Speaker 05 She's done some weird stuff, Maniac, um, some of her role, I mean, obviously, the Yorgo stuff is just inherently weird, but she's a really adventurous actor.
28:54 Bill Simmons? Mina's like that at ESPN. If it's a weird show, she'll still commit to it. She doesn't care.
28:58 Speaker 05 I'm in.
28:58 Bill Simmons? She's like, what are we doing? We're drafting the best safeties the last 50 years?
29:03 Speaker 04 The Emma Stone of ESPN?
29:05 Speaker 05 Don't, don't do this. Don't, don't do this. Don't do, no, we're not, we're not going on this.
29:08 Speaker 04 We bought stock early.
29:10 Bill Simmons? New right away. She's writing for ESPN magazine. I'm like, I'm in on this Mina.
29:13 Speaker 04 You'll put her with anyone. Who would be the Gosling in that situation? Is it Dan Orlovsky? Like, who, like, who?
29:20 Bill Simmons? I think Dan Orlovsky would want it to be Dan Orlovsky.
29:24 Speaker 04 You're the Emma Stone of ESPN?
29:25 Speaker 05 No, not.
29:26 Speaker 04 We came to this, this was a, this was a thing.
29:28 Bill Simmons? We went full circle.
29:29 Speaker 04 Full circle. Also, just real quick, Cruella, did y'all see that?
29:33 Speaker 05 It's actually good.
29:34 Speaker 04 That's good.
29:35 Speaker 05 I watched it on a plane. I was locked in.
29:37 Speaker 04 That's, that's good.
29:38 Speaker 05 She's really good in it.
29:39 Speaker 04 It's like a really stupid movie to, like, make. Let's make the origin story of Cruella de Vil. It's like a Disney live-action kind of money grab, but that movie works. It's good.
29:48 Bill Simmons? Julianne Moore is in her, Julianne Moore, sorry, is in her 2010s quirky mom phase of Private Lives of Pippoly, Chloe, weird movie, Kids Are Alright, and Crazy Stupid Love, all in a row. It was kind of, this is where you've moved into.
30:04 Speaker 05 Was she nominated for Kids Are Alright?
30:06 Bill Simmons? She was. That movie's good.
30:08 Speaker 05 It's a really good movie.
30:09 Bill Simmons? Good, uh, good LA movie, too. Um, and then, uh, you mentioned our guys, Fakhar and Requa, and Fogelman. The Horlbeck scale for this movie, 118 minutes. We're plus 18, Craig.
30:20 Speaker 06 Yep. It's two rom-coms happening at the same time, which I think requires a little extra time. I think rom-coms in general are usually a little longer than, like, a traditional comedy, because you kind of have to build up the relationships. And so they usually skew closer to two hours than an hour 40. But, you know, there's some Robbie and the girlfriend stuff, or in the babysitter stuff that, like... I don't know if, like Nina said earlier, like you can go pee during that.
30:44 Speaker 05 Check my emails.
30:45 Speaker 06 So, yeah.
30:46 Bill Simmons? I think it's a little, there's maybe eight minutes you could pull out of the middle.
30:50 Speaker 05 It's pretty tight.
30:51 Bill Simmons? Move it a little faster. I think you could get the school scene at the end. I think even that could, we could get right to the speech and not have the lead up.
30:59 Speaker 04 This is the cutest pre two movie that's ever.
31:03 Bill Simmons? Pre two?
31:04 Speaker 04 This is a pre two movie.
31:05 Bill Simmons? You stole that from me. That was my joke.
31:07 Speaker 04 Yeah. So you said that I do it and I do it.
31:09 Bill Simmons? Right, yeah. That's what I mean. That's why I said earlier.
31:11 Speaker 04 But that was different. She goes, I think they're Brady and Mahomes and you go.
31:15 Bill Simmons? Well, because I didn't, I didn't want to admit it and then.
31:17 Speaker 04 Is she Mahomes? And I was like, wow.
31:18 Bill Simmons? That's fine.
31:20 Speaker 04 She's international women's movie.
31:22 Speaker 05 Wait, are we already in, is this What Age the Worst jumping in?
31:27 Speaker 05 Because this, are we edging into What Age the Worst here?
31:30 Bill Simmons? No, no, we're waiting. We're waiting. We're waiting.
31:32 Speaker 05 I know what you're about to talk about here.
31:34 Speaker 04 But not just that, though. Not just that, though. There is a character that used to exist in movies that doesn't exist anymore because people are too afraid to do it. Not that character. Actually, Ryan Gosling's character in this movie. The guy who espouses all of these directly misogynist.
31:52 Bill Simmons? The Neil Strauss type of.
31:53 Speaker 05 Well, okay, I would.
31:54 Speaker 04 A woman kind of changes him. He softens up a little bit. Movies don't really investigate masculinity in that way as it, toxic masculinity being something harmless anymore. It has to be something that ends planets now. And if, and if you, if you do it that way, people will say that you're irresponsible in the way that you're kind of going about it.
32:13 Speaker 05 I would, you're not wrong, right? The movie is about a pickup artist, the Neil Strauss, The Game, for those who blissfully are too young to remember this era. But his, it was funny, I was thinking about that, watching that. The way he picks up women is actually different and I think it's a meaningful distinction. Because The Game, for those who don't know, was like about nagging women. You remember the whole, there was so much written about it at the time. Yeah, like, and that's not his modus operandi. No, he's nagging.
32:42 Speaker 04 He nags.
32:43 Speaker 06 He, he's, no, no, that's boring. That's nagging.
32:46 Speaker 04 He nags them.
32:47 Bill Simmons? But it's a lot of compliments.
32:50 Speaker 06 He's nagging.
32:51 Speaker 04 Nina is toxic. And I know it. She didn't see it. It worked on Nina. Nina, he got you.
32:58 Speaker 05 I don't think it's quite as bad.
33:01 Speaker 06 He's basically like, stop talking, let's go home. And they're like, of course.
33:06 Speaker 04 He literally tells them, he says like, no, that's boring, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He lets them talk about them, but he dictates what's important.
33:14 Speaker 06 I have four brothers and sisters. No, no, that's not interesting.
33:17 Speaker 04 Right. It's a little, a little negative.
33:20 Speaker 05 Okay, all right. Well, I just don't think it's quite as bad. And, but you're right, you don't see that sort of character that much anymore. It's very.
33:29 Bill Simmons? He does have a lot of good compliments.
33:30 Speaker 04 So, but.
33:31 Speaker 05 Yeah.
33:31 Speaker 06 You ever wearing a nice dress? He's gonna tell you.
33:33 Speaker 04 But there's one important scene, once again, like, there are some great scripts in that decade. Moonlight's a great script, the best script in the whole decade to me, Hell of High Water. That's the best script of the decade to me. But like, some great, there's some great scripts in that decade. Don't get me started on Taylor Sheridan, but like, some great scripts in that decade. But there's a scene in this movie where you get a complete explanation of why he is the way that he is.
33:56 Speaker 05 Yeah.
33:57 Speaker 04 And it, and it really, really works. Some people might look at it as forced exposition, but he talks about my mother.
34:03 Speaker 05 No, it's perfect.
34:05 Speaker 04 Beautiful, she was cold, she was inaccessible. His mother was something beautiful that he couldn't really access, which is what he is. And his father was something that was really sweet and really successful, that, that was kind of, that died a long time ago.
34:21 Speaker 05 And this is again, why this movie is so well-written. In that moment, you remember him saying to Steve Carrell, when Steve's like, why are you doing this? You remind me of someone.
34:29 Speaker 04 Remind me of somebody.
34:29 Speaker 05 The movie, everything is like a puzzle, fits together so well, everything, there's no, nothing incoherent about it. There's no inconsistencies. That scene, I mean, we're gonna talk about it at length, is I think one of the most well-written and well-acted.
34:43 Speaker 04 It's fantastic. Folklife's underrated. Like, it, it, but, so he sees him and he helps him.
34:49 Bill Simmons? I think he's properly rated. He's done a lot of good stuff.
34:51 Speaker 04 He's done a lot of good stuff.
34:52 Bill Simmons? Danny Collins was really good. I was a huge defender of that movie.
34:56 Speaker 05 This is like one of the most successful TV shows of like.
34:57 Speaker 04 It is, and it's, it's super well-written characters and stuff. But like, when I, when I watched the movie this time, a little bit older, I kind of saw what in fact he was trying to do. It's like, I'm telling you, it's a fantastic script to me.
35:10 Bill Simmons? So, plus 18, you'd go like plus eight? You'd cut out 10?
35:13 Speaker 06 Yeah.
35:13 Bill Simmons? Okay. Uh, $50 million budget, made $145 million.
35:17 Speaker 04 Bonafide hit.
35:18 Speaker 05 Woo.
35:19 Bill Simmons? Roger Ebert, three stars. Crazy Stupid Love is a sweet, romantic comedy about good-hearted people. Imagine that.
35:30 Speaker 05 Hey Raj.
35:30 Bill Simmons? Raj. We're gonna take a break and then we're gonna do most rewatchable scene.
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36:50 Bill Simmons? All right, most rewatchable scene. Opening scene, I want a divorce, and Cal jumps out of the car.
36:56 Bill Simmons? Ripped off then in Lady Bird, I guess. Kind of a ripoff.
37:00 Speaker 05 It's a good one.
37:00 Bill Simmons? Opening scene in Lady Bird, same thing.
37:02 Speaker 04 Kind of, yeah.
37:03 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Not kinda. Jumps out of the car.
37:06 Speaker 05 I never thought about that.
37:07 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
37:07 Speaker 04 This is true.
37:08 Bill Simmons? Can't handle who she's talking to and jumps out.
37:13 Bill Simmons? Jacob meets Hannah and her friend. An insane gossiping scene.
37:18 Speaker 04 Yeah.
37:19 Bill Simmons? He's just throwing 105 miles an hour.
37:22 Speaker 05 The friend, Sneaky, has some really good jokes in this movie.
37:26 Bill Simmons? The friend's good. I have something on her later.
37:28 Speaker 04 But by the way, in that scene, very important to establish his character. She rejects him 50 times, doesn't pierce his confidence in one way. All it does is intrigue him.
37:40 Speaker 06 Buys women drinks even when they say they don't want one?
37:43 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's some hot.
37:45 Speaker 05 Okay.
37:46 Speaker 04 That's some hard solo shit. He's like, yeah, he's like, she says no the whole time.
37:50 Speaker 05 But it also makes us like him. I mean, we like him because he's Ryan Gosling and he's funny and handsome. But the fact that he's drawn to a woman like that early on, it sells us.
38:01 Bill Simmons? You're really wearing a dress, that dress like it's a favor. That's a line. You like that. I like that. I like the double negative. There's some good stuff in there. Bernie breaks up with Cal and the couple's divorce. Then Gosling makes friends with them. I just want to talk about couples divorces. I have it written down.
38:22 Speaker 05 Yeah.
38:23 Bill Simmons? Really? An underrated theme for movies that I haven't seen properly explored. They only do this, it's a short scene where he's like, yeah, my wife, we had to go with whatever. But this is the thing that happens.
38:34 Speaker 04 It's a tough thing, isn't it, Bill?
38:36 Bill Simmons? Well, I'm happily married.
38:38 Speaker 04 No.
38:38 Bill Simmons? You mean?
38:39 Speaker 05 No, but picking sides.
38:40 Bill Simmons? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
38:43 Speaker 04 I refuse to do it.
38:46 Bill Simmons? I'm the same way.
38:47 Speaker 04 I refuse to do it.
38:48 Bill Simmons? But the problem is like with, with, with, you know, parties or eight person dinners or whatever, who do you?
38:55 Speaker 06 Would you pick me or Liz right now?
38:58 Bill Simmons? Ah, shit. I actually wouldn't. Also, if you break up, I won't believe in love anymore.
39:05 Speaker 05 The HR implications of that divorce alone.
39:08 Speaker 04 You'd almost have to fire them both.
39:09 Speaker 05 Yeah.
39:10 Speaker 04 You'd almost have to.
39:11 Bill Simmons? Can't break up.
39:12 Speaker 05 John Carol Lynch. Oh, I know we're gonna talk about it, but very funny in that scene.
39:16 Bill Simmons? Fargo Zodiac in this movie in five years.
39:19 Speaker 05 Good in everything.
39:20 Bill Simmons? Just completely different parts.
39:21 Speaker 05 Has never been bad.
39:23 Bill Simmons? But I love, I love that he has to break up with them. The cuckolding monologue we have here. And then you're sitting there with a supercut's haircut, getting drunk and watered down, but bad cranberries like you're a 14 year old. That whole part's great. You're size 44 and you should be a size 42. The shopping montage, the rarely seen two guys shopping, never get it? Never, like? I think this might be the only one.
39:46 Speaker 05 Yeah, whoever had a man on man makeover montage in a movie.
39:49 Bill Simmons? It's never happened.
39:49 Speaker 04 Not as deep as this one right here and not as effective. Like this kind of, when you watch this movie, you almost wish that they ran off and had their own movie.
40:00 Bill Simmons? They kind of slide into it too. They don't hit you over the head with it. It's like, oh, are we doing a makeover montage? What's your favorite one of all time, Mina?
40:07 Speaker 05 My favorite makeover montage of all time? Oh, my God. There's so many good ones.
40:11 Bill Simmons? It seems like it's Pretty Woman and Devil Wears Prada in the finals.
40:15 Speaker 05 Devil Wears Prada is really good.
40:18 Bill Simmons? Devil Wears Prada has two.
40:19 Speaker 05 Princess Diaries and Hathaway's been part of so pretty.
40:21 Speaker 04 You know what's a good one to me, too? It's not a makeover montage, but just makeovers in movies. Can't Buy Me Love.
40:27 Speaker 05 Yeah.
40:28 Bill Simmons? Breakfast Club is a good one, too. The eighties, the eighties kind of invented it and then the next decades made it better versions of it.
40:34 Speaker 05 Do you, okay, so a lot of times there's a trope in movies with the makeover montage where the woman is obviously hot already, AKA the Rachel Lee Cook and she's all that. They take off her glasses.
40:45 Speaker 04 I fucking hate it, bro.
40:46 Speaker 05 Okay, but I think this one is partially, it's mostly effective and it's, I think, one of the three best scenes in the movie because it's so funny. But it also works because the makeover is so good.
40:57 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
40:57 Speaker 05 Like, he really, like Steve Carrell at the end, when it's a great scene with the woman who does his hair and he asks if she would sleep with him and she says yes. He looks amazing when he comes out.
41:08 Bill Simmons? It's a good job by him. I think they, I didn't find this in the research, but I feel like he probably puffed up a little for the beginning of the movie.
41:15 Speaker 05 Outlaws mate.
41:15 Bill Simmons? And then thinned out, which is like what you do when you have bad breakups. And I think they're trying to capture that. They change his clothes, give him some shoulders.
41:22 Speaker 04 Haircut.
41:23 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
41:24 Speaker 04 Important haircut. The stuff that Gosling says to him is like true.
41:29 Speaker 05 Yeah.
41:29 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
41:30 Speaker 04 It's like the stuff that.
41:31 Bill Simmons? The Gap.
41:32 Speaker 04 Yeah.
41:32 Speaker 05 He's better than The Gap.
41:34 Bill Simmons? Tough movie for The Gap.
41:35 Speaker 04 And he also looks at him and he says, what, what he says, he dares him to say something meaner.
41:40 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
41:40 Speaker 04 The quote that he comes back with.
41:42 Speaker 05 You've lost.
41:43 Speaker 04 Yeah, like the entire, you're not taking care of yourself. You lost interest in yourself and your wife lost interest in you. That's a tough pill to swallow, but that's the point of the scene.
41:54 Bill Simmons? Yes, we had the shopping montage. We have the montage of him learning how to pick up women at the bar, which is funny. We have Little Robbie torturing Kevin Bacon in the office, raising his chair, which I really enjoyed. We had the first Marisa Tomei scene.
42:12 Bill Simmons? Heading right into the Cal is now confident in the bar. That's a good stretch.
42:18 Bill Simmons? We have Cal and his wife seeing each other at school. Which I think is a really good scene. And then we get the Marisa Tomei reveal. And she's great. She's just.
42:26 Speaker 05 Two fake outs in one movie, by the way. It's crazy.
42:29 Bill Simmons? I'm sorry I didn't set you up for a white girl Hall of Famer.
42:32 Speaker 04 Marisa Tomei?
42:32 Bill Simmons? Yeah, my bad.
42:34 Speaker 04 Way.
42:35 Bill Simmons? Career achievement. Like she got the Irving Thalberg Award for all time.
42:39 Speaker 04 But, but like, so you see her at first and she's literally, she's on A Different World.
42:43 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
42:44 Speaker 04 She's on A Different World. Like the early version of A Different World is Denise, Don Lewis, and Marisa Tomei. You're like, you're kind of falling in love. Like, you know, you got the sisters.
42:55 Bill Simmons? Craig doesn't know what that was.
42:56 Speaker 04 You don't know what a, Craig, do you know what A Different World is?
42:58 Speaker 06 No.
42:58 Bill Simmons? No.
42:59 Speaker 04 Never heard of it before?
43:00 Bill Simmons? It was the Cosby Show companion show.
43:02 Speaker 04 It's a spin off that takes place at HBCU. They're bringing it back. So if you want to like.
43:06 Bill Simmons? It's kind of insane that the show got greenlit in the 80s. When you really think about it now, yeah.
43:11 Speaker 04 Bill Cosby wanted it.
43:13 Bill Simmons? I know, but that's how it got greenlit because he was the most powerful person on TV. But there's, that show had no business getting greenlit with the way they approached TV in the 80s. It's crazy.
43:21 Speaker 04 But then it becomes actually, you're right, but then it becomes a super important hit show.
43:26 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
43:27 Speaker 04 Like the show shows that audiences will show up for something that's that authentic and that black.
43:33 Bill Simmons? Why are you praising Bill Cosby so much?
43:35 Speaker 04 Shut up.
43:36 Bill Simmons? The hell? What do we do? We're recording this.
43:40 Speaker 05 He's still mad about the thing you did earlier, yeah.
43:43 Speaker 04 Get back right there.
43:46 Bill Simmons? Different world is good though. And obviously not a world I do anything about.
43:49 Speaker 04 Marisa Tomei, throughout the time, is just one of the classic beauties.
43:52 Speaker 05 Can I ask you guys a question about Marisa Tomei? I posted a tag during season one of The Pit about Noah Wiley. Why Wiley? Where I said, for someone, a woman my age, he is like the perfect crush from back when he was ER. Because he was like so cute, but kind of accessible. And then he's just aged with me.
44:12 Bill Simmons? You've grown up with him.
44:12 Speaker 05 Yes. And now he's like still the perfect crush for me.
44:15 Bill Simmons? You're doing content for Juliette Lippman right now.
44:16 Speaker 05 Okay, but somebody responded to that. That's Marisa Tomei for us.
44:22 Speaker 05 Do you think that's a fair?
44:24 Bill Simmons? I mean, I saw Untamed Heart in the theater, so I'm a bad person to ask.
44:27 Speaker 04 I went to see it in the movies too.
44:28 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
44:28 Speaker 04 Like, why did I go to the movies to see that? Like, there was no reason to go see that. That's kind of...
44:32 Bill Simmons? I just wanted those two wacky kids to make it, and then he had to die in the hockey game. Christian.
44:37 Speaker 04 That's a stupid fucking movie, by the way.
44:39 Bill Simmons? It's terrible.
44:39 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's...
44:40 Bill Simmons? I think I've probably seen it like four times.
44:42 Speaker 04 But I saw that. What was the other one she did? And it was like they were like Cuban people in Miami.
44:48 Bill Simmons? Well, she has an accent in that one.
44:50 Speaker 04 Yeah, not great, but whatever. But like, if she was in the movie, I will go check it out.
44:54 Bill Simmons? Well, then she's in My Cousin Benny Takes Off.
44:58 Speaker 04 She adds the one that...
45:00 Bill Simmons? It's weird though, because she kind of disappeared and then kind of made this crazy comeback in the mid 2000s.
45:06 Speaker 05 Spider-Man or the...
45:07 Bill Simmons? And she was in the Philip Seymour Hoffman movie, and then she was just kind of back all of a sudden.
45:13 Bill Simmons? Okay, three more.
45:16 Bill Simmons? Hannah Goes Back to Jacob's Place.
45:18 Speaker 05 This is it. This is the...
45:20 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's the scene of the movie.
45:21 Speaker 05 Yeah.
45:23 Bill Simmons? I wrote down an A-plus courting scene. And the PG-13 versus R thing is really funny.
45:29 Speaker 05 There's so many funny lines.
45:30 Bill Simmons? She's like, "I'm not here for the PG-13."
45:34 Bill Simmons? Dirty Dancing Part.
45:35 Speaker 04 The movie calls it... The scene, it's... Once again, I still think it's high-level writing. The scene calls its shot, and then you're happy when you get there anyway. So she says, "I'm not gonna do this. It's not gonna be the PG-13 version of it." She wants to do it. You know that it's going to be that. But by the time it gets to the end of the scene, they've gotten so much more out of each other than sex, which is the point of the movie.
46:01 Bill Simmons? By the way, Focus did this too. These filmmakers are good at like...
46:05 Speaker 05 Creating believable chemistry.
46:07 Bill Simmons? And actors vibing and actually like falling for each other a little bit.
46:09 Speaker 05 It's actually incredible when you think about it, that this scene... First of all, it's two-thirds through the movie. The best scene of the movie, which is part of the reason I love re... It literally makes you re-watch, because, and I would say the second best is the final scene. And they've spent so little time together on camera. They really have the one scene. We get to know Ryan Gosling separately. We get to know her a little bit. The entire sequence of her going back in the rain to the bar, picking him up, going back to the house, transitioning from Dirty Dancing to the bedroom. I don't know, what is it, like 10, 12 minutes? This in 10 to 12 minutes, they build a more believable, sexy, funny love story than I've seen over the course of entire films.
46:48 Speaker 04 Right. They just keep surprising each other. They keep surprising each other. He surprises her. She's not prepared for how sexy he is. He's not prepared for how adorable and accessible that she is. He, she doesn't, the conceit of the Dirty Dancing thing feels completely ridiculous.
47:10 Speaker 05 So funny.
47:11 Speaker 04 Then they do it. She's immediately surprised that she's so turned on by it and it works. And then when they get in bed, they start to get to know each other with all of their defenses drawn down.
47:22 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
47:23 Speaker 04 And you just want it to work out between them.
47:25 Bill Simmons? I also, I think the reason it stands out and it's so good is because this happens in real life way more than I think it gets credit for in the movies. Like we have this long night with some, somebody. And sometimes it doesn't even happen. But it's like about like the six hour or whatever.
47:40 Speaker 04 Sometimes it doesn't happen.
47:41 Bill Simmons? Maybe one, two, three, four times. Well, Nine Minute Van, it happens.
47:45 Speaker 04 Sometimes it doesn't happen. Most of the time, I'm good every time, but sometimes, like back at Holy Cross, I didn't get it.
47:52 Bill Simmons? Sometimes it's about the connection. You just never know.
47:55 Speaker 04 Right, right, right.
47:55 Speaker 05 No, but.
47:56 Bill Simmons? And then the connection.
47:57 Speaker 04 The connection, but that's the point. It always surprises you, yeah.
48:00 Bill Simmons? We don't even know if they had sex or not.
48:02 Speaker 05 Right, like you don't actually see it, but it's still so sexy.
48:06 Bill Simmons? I assume they did.
48:07 Speaker 05 It's kind of like Before Sunrise or before, like, we're going to spend the entire night together connecting. I mean, his, oh, God. I like every time, I've already feel like I've revealed what a chump I am for Ryan Gosling's character in this movie by not admitting how toxic he is.
48:22 Speaker 04 I'm fully defending, don't let Van, don't let Van Gogh be just, you know.
48:26 Speaker 05 But like, I, every time I watch the scene of them in the bed, I'm like blushing at how charismatic he is. And like, when, when they're talking about his addiction to online shopping, and she starts calling him out, and she asks him if he has a chair, and he's like, no I don't, yes I do, no I don't, it's in the garage. I like giggle like a schoolgirl every time watching this.
48:45 Speaker 04 But cut to garage, of him letting her into the experience. It's just like, all of it seems like, okay, like, his whole goal is to get women to have sex with him, but then it's not. But then he finds one that he could tell about all of these stupid things.
49:00 Bill Simmons? I gotta go on a tangent. See, this is what I, I don't fully understand actors. Cause I think to have scenes like that where you're filming with somebody for two days, and you obviously have so much chemistry, and I don't care how good of an actor is, you can't fake some of that. It has to be at least somewhat real, and I don't understand how you turn that off. Like, okay, you wanna go get some coffee, like, and I think that's why so many of them end up like hooking up, cause it's like you can't.
49:26 Speaker 04 Well, that happened to Emma Stone.
49:27 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
49:28 Speaker 04 Not, not with him, with, with Garfield.
49:30 Speaker 05 Or, and Ryan Gosling with Rachel McAdams.
49:32 Speaker 04 Rachel McAdams.
49:33 Speaker 05 They dated after the no fly.
49:34 Speaker 04 And Eva Mendes.
49:35 Speaker 05 Eva Mendes, yeah, so I guess Bill, like, there's a lot of examples, yeah.
49:39 Bill Simmons? That's my point, which is like, I can't imagine dating an actress. Like, so what movie are you doing? Oh yeah, it's this thing Crazy Stupid Love, so this is the three days where I have to lie in bed with Ryan Gosling.
49:49 Speaker 05 Did they all actually have sex scenes in the movie? And you still feel this way, which is what a testament to their chemistry.
49:55 Speaker 04 The biggest version of this was, shout out to Simon, but the biggest version of this was Mr. Smith. Yeah, like Brad, you know, he tells Jennifer Aniston, and I don't wanna be mean, he goes, hey, I got this great movie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, it's me and Angelina Jolie, she should've just been like, you know what? No.
50:15 Speaker 05 Yeah, Angelina Jolie circa, what year was that?
50:18 Speaker 04 Yeah, just putting them together.
50:20 Bill Simmons? But she can't say anything though, cause she'd already been in like seven movies where she fell in love with whatever character.
50:24 Speaker 04 In that one right there, to have the public root against your marriage, like, when you see them together, you're like, we wanna see what, what, what, what could happen.
50:33 Bill Simmons? I don't know how these actors do it.
50:34 Speaker 04 Stuff.
50:35 Bill Simmons? All right, two more, the crazy, everything comes together scene. Which I, they, they're like, this isn't crazy enough. Should Bacon be in this? And they're like, yeah, bring him in.
50:44 Speaker 05 But that's the cherry on top. It's the best part.
50:47 Speaker 04 He's like, hey, you left your sweater in my car. It just, and the, and the fact that he just shows up.
50:52 Speaker 05 So good.
50:53 Speaker 04 It leans into the ridiculousness of it.
50:55 Bill Simmons? They really go for it. And then it kind of reminds me of the TV I grew up with in the seventies with Three's Company, where there'd be like this giant misunderstanding and then it would just go haywire. And then Jacob going to see Cal at the bar. I don't have the speeches a rewatchable for me, but you guys might disagree.
51:12 Speaker 04 What speech?
51:12 Bill Simmons? I think it's a little, that end with the kid and then Correll goes on.
51:15 Speaker 04 I can't stand it.
51:16 Speaker 05 Oh, no, yeah.
51:17 Bill Simmons? I don't really like the last 12 minutes of this movie that much.
51:19 Speaker 04 A movie like that, a movie like this always gets a little too saccharine.
51:24 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
51:25 Speaker 04 It always does. So you almost, you just roll with it.
51:27 Bill Simmons? I'm trying to think of high school speech climactic scenes that have actually, they pulled it off.
51:32 Speaker 04 Can't Buy Me Love. When she is drunk.
51:35 Bill Simmons? In the lunch, right.
51:35 Speaker 04 Yeah, like, well, the two of them, when, when she's drunk and she tells everybody who he really is.
51:41 Bill Simmons? But you're saying at the end with Ronald Miller.
51:43 Speaker 04 Well, yeah.
51:43 Bill Simmons? Yeah, yeah.
51:44 Speaker 04 Well, I'm talking about both of those actually worked.
51:45 Bill Simmons? Ronald Miller yelling at, we carried you, you broke your arm.
51:49 Speaker 04 Like, that really worked, man.
51:50 Speaker 05 I like the end of Booksmart, which is a graduation scene and another plain rewatchable. It's not on the top tier for me, probably in the second tier, but I think I've watched it.
51:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah, Booksmart.
51:59 Speaker 05 Booksmart?
52:00 Bill Simmons? Now, you've seen it?
52:01 Speaker 05 It's female super bad, basically.
52:02 Bill Simmons? Oh, yeah, I'm into that type of thing.
52:04 Speaker 05 You would love it.
52:05 Bill Simmons? No, Booksmart's good.
52:06 Speaker 05 You would love it.
52:07 Speaker 04 I've seen Booksmart. I was making a sex trip.
52:09 Speaker 05 One of my favorite, uh, that guys of all time, Skylar Jusando.
52:13 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah, he's great.
52:14 Speaker 05 I think I'm saying his name right. Anyways, he, Jimmy from.
52:15 Speaker 04 Jimmy Olsen, yeah.
52:17 Bill Simmons? So what do you have for most rewatchable?
52:19 Speaker 05 Uh, it's the, it's the romance scene. The second is the, the finale where everything just.
52:23 Speaker 04 It's the dirty dancing scene.
52:24 Speaker 05 Yeah.
52:24 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I think so too. What do you have?
52:26 Speaker 06 I think it's the fight scene. I mean, they're very close, but I.
52:28 Speaker 05 The ending's great.
52:29 Speaker 04 But that was gonna be a long category because this movie is really.
52:33 Bill Simmons? There's a lot of rewatchable scenes.
52:35 Speaker 04 The movie's efficient. It doesn't waste any scenes. It can't, it's too many characters in it.
52:38 Bill Simmons? What's the most 2011 thing about this movie? I have five nominees.
52:42 Speaker 05 Yeah, there's a few things you could throw.
52:43 Speaker 04 I have the cast.
52:46 Speaker 05 That they would ever be in a movie together. That's a great call.
52:48 Speaker 04 Not quite Silver Fox Kevin Bacon.
52:51 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
52:51 Speaker 04 Wow, Marisa Tomei is still a timeless beauty.
52:55 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
52:55 Speaker 04 In the movie, young flamethrowers in Stone and Gosling. And then the steady lovable faces that you had in Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore. Like that cast from that particular time, that's the most 2011 thing to me.
53:08 Speaker 05 I would say Gosling's whole metrosexual vibe is very 2011. I'm not even talking about the perceived toxicity.
53:20 Speaker 05 His, like, the look.
53:21 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
53:21 Speaker 05 Like, the way he acts, the, all of it was, like, the two tight suits. Like, he doesn't, the way he dresses now is not cool, right? But it was cool at the time. It was very GQ. Now, they wouldn't, nobody would touch that. Like, being into, like, making your own cocktails. Like, just the way he, his body is, it's just not cool now. It's very cool in 2011.
53:46 Speaker 06 It's been, it's been a huge meme. The clothing advice has aged so poorly. The way that Steve Carrell's character dresses in this movie is cool now.
53:54 Speaker 05 Like New Balances, baggy jeans.
53:56 Speaker 06 Yeah, baggy jeans and like a loose polo. The joke is like, that is how people dress now and it looks cool.
54:01 Bill Simmons? Yeah. I have five things. Dads driving their babysitter home? I just don't think that happens anymore.
54:10 Speaker 04 Oh.
54:10 Bill Simmons? Yeah. That's, I think that's a 2011 thing.
54:13 Speaker 05 Too potent.
54:14 Speaker 04 Oh, so you don't, you don't think that dads drive people home that they have a connection with?
54:19 Bill Simmons? Babe, I don't think they drive the 18-year-old babysitter home. I don't think, I don't think, I think that only happens in movies.
54:25 Speaker 04 If a dad was to drive somebody home that was like 19 or 20, or something like that, that that would be like an odd thing.
54:32 Bill Simmons? Yes. I think you would just pay for their Uber.
54:36 Speaker 05 Don't put yourself in that situation.
54:37 Speaker 04 I think we would just, you would just pay for their Uber and not drive them to Santa Monica.
54:41 Speaker 06 Right.
54:42 Bill Simmons? Oh, you're making a conch nipple? That's different.
54:48 Speaker 06 I couldn't tell if he was, he knew the whole time.
54:50 Speaker 04 He didn't fucking get where I was going with it, or if he was playing along with the bit. This is what the re-APAX brings you. You never know what pitch he's throwing.
55:00 Bill Simmons? Listen, you're paying for the Uber in 2026, period.
55:04 Speaker 05 Was that, I have to ask now, was that ride more sexually charged than?
55:10 Bill Simmons? When are they not? Like, this was, this is a recurring theme in these movies. The conch nipple thing?
55:18 Speaker 05 Like, what was the energy like compared to the ride with Steve Carrell and his babysitter?
55:21 Bill Simmons? I think that's probably worse sexually charged. More 2011 stuff. Seeing the new Twilight movie by yourself?
55:28 Speaker 04 Ah, yeah, that's a good one.
55:30 Bill Simmons? A text about how Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are happy?
55:34 Speaker 05 On a, not a Palm Pilot, was it LG sidekick, I believe?
55:36 Speaker 04 I couldn't even tell what they had.
55:39 Bill Simmons? Answering machine messages, those are gone. And then, obviously, a babysitter giving nude photos to a 14-year-old as a plot device. Which we'll talk about in another category.
55:48 Speaker 04 What age is the worst? I didn't know what to put there.
55:50 Bill Simmons? What's aged the best?
55:52 Speaker 04 I got one.
55:53 Bill Simmons? Other than the early 2010s, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. What do you got?
55:56 Speaker 04 Choosing between couples in a divorce has aged the best. It feels like you're asked to do this once every six months in Lost Angeles.
56:03 Bill Simmons? It honestly could be a game show that I've watched.
56:05 Speaker 04 It could be a game show.
56:06 Bill Simmons? Where the couples make the case and then the couple that stayed together has to pick between the two people.
56:11 Speaker 04 You should take that out of the podcast.
56:13 Bill Simmons? What do you mean?
56:13 Speaker 04 You should take that out of the podcast and you should put that together.
56:16 Bill Simmons? Just sell it?
56:16 Speaker 04 You should go sell that.
56:16 Bill Simmons? Just sell it to Hulu?
56:18 Speaker 05 That feels like a recurring SNL, yeah.
56:20 Bill Simmons? It's like Hulu crossed with, like, I don't know, Judge Judy?
56:23 Speaker 04 Right, that's actually, okay. And something else has aged the best, and I gotta be honest with you, man. This is maybe one of the things that's aged the best of anything in my entire rewatchable's career. The Westfield Century City Mall.
56:34 Speaker 05 Yes, yes!
56:35 Speaker 04 It is one of the last.
56:37 Speaker 05 Best mall in LA.
56:37 Speaker 04 And most beautiful monuments.
56:40 Speaker 05 Maybe, yeah, around.
56:42 Speaker 04 It is particularly after remodel. That place is always.
56:45 Speaker 05 Oh, my God. I could spend, I could spend 14 hours there and be happy.
56:49 Speaker 04 Everyone is around, I saw this, somebody. Tweet and say that they said that everyone is talking about the fact that the mall is dead. But they haven't told that to the Westfield Century City Mall.
57:01 Speaker 05 Y'all haven't been to a real mall.
57:02 Speaker 04 It's almost a place that if you're visiting in town.
57:04 Speaker 05 Paradise.
57:05 Speaker 04 People tell you Hollywood signs.
57:06 Speaker 05 No, no, Westfield Century City malls.
57:09 Bill Simmons? It's a top 10 LA attraction at this point.
57:11 Speaker 05 The food, I just went to our friend Dave Chang's place there. Um, the food, the selection of stores, the vibes, the layout.
57:19 Bill Simmons? Plus, by the way.
57:20 Speaker 05 Perfect mall.
57:21 Bill Simmons? Outdoor mall.
57:22 Speaker 04 Outdoor mall.
57:22 Speaker 05 Outdoor mall in LA.
57:23 Bill Simmons? The Grove started it, Westfield Century City finished it.
57:26 Speaker 05 The Grove can't even sniff Westfield Century City now.
57:29 Speaker 04 The Grove, Westfield Century City Mall, looked at the Grove and went, okay, because they remember they did a big remodel. And they liked that that has aged perfectly.
57:37 Bill Simmons? Ben Simmons went there for like 18 straight months in ninth and 10th grade.
57:40 Speaker 05 If I was a 17 year old living in Los Angeles.
57:42 Bill Simmons? So much stuff.
57:42 Speaker 04 And it's crazy because there are other malls that we used to go through.
57:45 Bill Simmons? I have a cousin to what you just said. I think this is also a really good Valley movie.
57:50 Speaker 05 Yeah, there's some good Burbank action.
57:52 Bill Simmons? You definitely feel like you're in Valley slash LA adjacent. Yeah, that's good.
57:56 Speaker 04 That's a good call.
57:57 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
57:57 Speaker 04 Yeah, you don't get that a lot.
57:59 Bill Simmons? I had, I think the kid performance is good by the 14 year olds.
58:03 Speaker 04 Yeah, he's good.
58:03 Bill Simmons? I actually think he's effective and it doesn't feel like he should be, but his name's Jonah Bobo.
58:09 Speaker 05 Little too much, but that's not his fault.
58:10 Bill Simmons? But it's kind of how it's written.
58:12 Speaker 04 The Lyndon Haggan scene like really sealed it for him.
58:15 Speaker 05 In the office is very funny, very funny.
58:17 Bill Simmons? I had for what's aged the best, Kevin Bacon as a romantic antagonist. He's, he'll do this once every nine, 10 years, and most famously in the Jennifer Aniston movie Picture Perfect. Which is awful, but kind of great.
58:30 Speaker 04 Yeah.
58:30 Speaker 05 Saw that in the theater.
58:31 Bill Simmons? Yeah, great. Uh, that's with Jay Morris one at bat in a rom com. But, uh, but he's good every once in a while. It's just like a smarmy. Uh, don't like this guy. He's a scumbag, but he's really, he knows how to do that. I like when the mom complains about that we're still reading the Scarlet Letter. I just thought that was funny. She's like, you're still reading that? They haven't done better than the Scarlet Letter? Because I think, I feel that way when I hear the books that my kids read in high school. Like, really?
58:57 Speaker 04 It's also what Easy A is about.
58:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
59:01 Bill Simmons? And then I liked when he said the war between the sexes is over. We won. The second woman started doing pole dancing for exercise.
59:07 Speaker 05 And then he says, but we still have to respect them.
59:10 Speaker 04 Yeah, see? Oh, something else to age of this, the term cuckold.
59:15 Bill Simmons? Oh, yeah. I don't even, I don't even think that was really around in a full way in 2011, was it?
59:21 Speaker 04 It, but when he said it did, it was funny.
59:24 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
59:24 Speaker 04 Now, we have cuckold, we have cuck. It's all that stuff is a part of the lexicon.
59:28 Speaker 06 What's aged the worst is the line they say. Steve Carrell says, "Nobody says this anymore, but I'm a cuckold." Which has aged the worst, because now everybody says it now.
59:36 Speaker 05 Great use of bang in this movie, too, when Emma's stones, like, now we're gonna bang. And he's like, who says bang anymore?
59:43 Bill Simmons? Any other words aged the best for you?
59:44 Speaker 05 I think just generally, the jokes in this movie have aged really well, and I often struggle with 2000, like 1995 through 2015 comedy. Sometimes when I go back and re-watch it, there, there's so many off, little, like, there's obviously the big physical comedic moments rolling out of the car, the punching, all that. But there's a lot of really good side comments and jokes, and like, even the scene where like, everyone at the office cheers when they find out he doesn't have cancer.
1:00:10 Bill Simmons? That is funny.
1:00:11 Speaker 05 Funny, right? The little things you forget when you re-watch it. Um, and yeah, I, I think it's a very funny movie.
1:00:18 Bill Simmons? Couple of quick categories. Great shot, Gordo, for most cinematic shot. I mentioned it before, when Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore are sitting in the chairs, far apart with the chair between them. It's just really, really nice shot. There's some distance, but, uh, big Kahuna Burger award for best use of food and drink has to be the vodka cranberries.
1:00:36 Speaker 04 Vodka cranberries.
1:00:37 Bill Simmons? Perfect drink.
1:00:37 Speaker 04 But this, but this is a, both of those, this is a, makes you wanna go to a LA bar and drink movie. Cause so much of it happens in bars. The bars look very elegant, they look very clean, they're very cool.
1:00:46 Bill Simmons? Better than they probably are in real life in LA in 2010, 11. Yeah.
1:00:50 Speaker 04 Like, a lot of them were sets.
1:00:52 Bill Simmons? This, this bar did not exist in 2011, I don't think.
1:00:54 Speaker 05 It feels like a hotel bar, kind of vibe. I don't think I ever thought, I never looked sideways at a man drinking out of straw until this movie.
1:01:01 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:01:02 Speaker 05 I'm like, oh, of course, naturally, why would I drink out of straw? But then when Ryan Gosling points out when he's drinking the vodka cran with the straw, how it looks.
1:01:08 Bill Simmons? Yeah, stop doing that crap.
1:01:09 Speaker 06 Let me tell you something. Straws are phallic. From this movie was a real thing, and all my friends joked about that, and to this day, we don't really drink straws. You drink drinks with straws.
1:01:19 Bill Simmons? Put the straw in the bar.
1:01:20 Speaker 06 Life lesson in this movie, no straws.
1:01:22 Speaker 05 And men aren't allowed to drink girl cocktails.
1:01:24 Speaker 06 No, no vodka cran, no straws.
1:01:26 Speaker 04 I go for it.
1:01:27 Bill Simmons? I don't like when they give me the straw. Ches Rockwell Brocklanders Award for best character name has to be David Lindhagen?
1:01:33 Speaker 04 Uh huh.
1:01:36 Bill Simmons? It's really funny. I don't know how you spell it. I spelled it I L I L I N D H O double G E N. I think it's a double G-er. But you could also tell me it's H A G E N. I don't know. I don't know what Lindhagen is.
1:01:50 Speaker 05 I told Bill before we started taping that I've been having to say Tyler Linderbaum, who's like the top free agent center all week. And I said Tyler Lindhagen on television because I was so steeped in this movie.
1:02:00 Bill Simmons? That's great.
1:02:01 Speaker 05 The, the, the reveal at the, the moment at the end when the cop says his name wrong and they all correct him is very funny.
1:02:05 Bill Simmons? Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness, where Best Needle Drop is obviously, I've had the time of my life. And then we'll take one more break and then we have a Van Lathan award. This episode is brought to you by Quince. Finding a decent piece of clothing can be a lot harder than finding a decent movie. But that was before Quince. Quince has staple pieces made from premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere. And everything is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. It's the perfect place to start building a cozy fall outfit without any absurd markups. For instance, I love a good vest. They have a lightweight down packable puffer vest, which is an easy fall layer. Although, nobody loves layers more than Chris Ryan.
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1:03:49 Bill Simmons? All right, the Van Lathan Award, did this movie need more black people? We don't get to give this out all the time, but I really appreciate when we give it out.
1:03:56 Speaker 04 We, in this, normally it doesn't apply, but it does in this situation. But for one character, David Lynn Hagen should have been black.
1:04:05 Bill Simmons? So who do you cast him as?
1:04:06 Speaker 04 Okay, so I'll look this up.
1:04:08 Bill Simmons? Little Idris Elba?
1:04:09 Speaker 04 No, Too Sexy. That was the, that's so weird. That was the name that jumped right out at.
1:04:15 Bill Simmons? Right when he was starting out.
1:04:16 Speaker 04 Right, but I'm saying.
1:04:17 Speaker 06 Kay Diggs.
1:04:18 Speaker 04 So.
1:04:18 Bill Simmons? Too handsome.
1:04:19 Speaker 04 Too sexy. So what I did was, I went to the year that Kevin Bacon was actually born, which is 1958.
1:04:26 Bill Simmons? Oh, you really went for this?
1:04:27 Speaker 04 I did, and I went for other actors, black actors, that were born in that same year. And I have a quick little list. So Ice-T. Okay.
1:04:38 Bill Simmons? I don't, that's a no.
1:04:41 Speaker 04 You sure?
1:04:41 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I'm gonna go, oh, no on Ice-T.
1:04:43 Speaker 04 Keenan Ivory Wayans.
1:04:45 Speaker 05 Would have been good. That works.
1:04:48 Bill Simmons? He made like five less movies than I wanted him to make.
1:04:51 Speaker 04 Yeah, he's just a fantastic performer.
1:04:55 Bill Simmons? Should have been in more, more things.
1:04:56 Speaker 05 You're in the right territory here.
1:04:58 Speaker 04 And there's one more.
1:04:59 Bill Simmons? I like that one, though.
1:04:59 Speaker 04 There's one more. 1958, April 26, 1958. Giancarlo Esposito as David.
1:05:08 Speaker 05 You can't, I, okay.
1:05:09 Speaker 04 Lynn Hagen.
1:05:10 Speaker 05 No, you can't do that.
1:05:11 Speaker 04 I like it. I like it, I like him, I like a little bit more of a sinister Lynn Hagen. Y'all haven't seen, about Giancarlo, when he puts it together.
1:05:22 Bill Simmons? He can't be sinister.
1:05:22 Speaker 04 He's a, he's a lit, Giancarlo also.
1:05:25 Speaker 05 When has he ever not played an evil person?
1:05:27 Speaker 04 I don't think there's ever been a time where he hasn't. But he, but he's, it could work. Giancarlo as David Lynn Hagen.
1:05:33 Bill Simmons? Do we have to apologize for Blair, to Blair Underwood here?
1:05:36 Speaker 04 Oh, Blair Underwood would be good as Lynn Hagen.
1:05:39 Speaker 05 Too handsome, too handsome. The reason Kevin Bacon works is because he's just the right amount of handsome. Where he's like, it's believable that he would be an accountant, it's believable that the woman would sleep with him.
1:05:50 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:05:50 Speaker 05 And it's also believable that he's not an asshole. I actually think this is why it can't be Esposito and you don't want him to be sinister. One of the funniest things about the movie is that he's, he like, is like, kind of like a nice, normal dude who legitimately likes Julianne Moore.
1:06:03 Speaker 04 Dennis Haysbert as Lynn Hagen?
1:06:06 Bill Simmons? I think he's too old.
1:06:08 Speaker 04 He's too, he's too old.
1:06:09 Bill Simmons? At that point, he's too old, yeah.
1:06:09 Speaker 04 He's too old, okay. Well, I'm telling you, if you're gonna make one character in the movie black, that's the character you made black.
1:06:17 Bill Simmons? Can we test drive Chris Rock?
1:06:20 Speaker 04 Chris Rock.
1:06:21 Speaker 05 Chews up too much scene.
1:06:23 Speaker 04 As Lynn Hagen, then you gotta give him a little bit more.
1:06:26 Bill Simmons? Then you give him like, yeah, you let him ad lib one scene, but the little kid.
1:06:29 Speaker 04 You gotta get, but that could work. The movie goes to another funny level if you do that.
1:06:34 Bill Simmons? Mina has a flex category.
1:06:35 Speaker 04 Mm-hmm.
1:06:37 Speaker 05 So, I forgot the exact name of this, let me pull it up. It's the title one, can you find the?
1:06:42 Bill Simmons? Yeah, did this movie need a better title?
1:06:44 Speaker 05 Okay, so this, I think is the only thing that's really bad about this movie is the title.
1:06:48 Bill Simmons? It's so funny, I had this as the next category and I put it in, not knowing you were gonna do this, so go.
1:06:53 Speaker 05 It's, the title and the poster are so ma- it's amazing, I mean, it obviously was a box office hit because the actors and...
1:06:59 Bill Simmons? It's one of the worst titles of the last one of years.
1:07:01 Speaker 05 It's a horrible title!
1:07:02 Bill Simmons? Steve Carrell actually said he hated it.
1:07:04 Speaker 05 I don't hate this happening!
1:07:05 Bill Simmons? And said, "Nobody is gonna save fi- a group of college guys would not save five tickets to Crazy Stupid Love, we can't do this."
1:07:12 Speaker 05 It's also odd, the poster is the Marisa Tomei through the legs, you're looking at him, like, it doesn't really, I feel like, capture what the movie's about.
1:07:21 Speaker 04 Yeah, and Mark it's sex comedy.
1:07:23 Speaker 05 Yes, exactly, you look at it, you think this is forty year old version, and it's just not, it's not even raunchy.
1:07:28 Bill Simmons? I thought was actually really good, The Wingman.
1:07:32 Speaker 05 That's a good title.
1:07:33 Speaker 04 But it's, but, do you know what the funny thing about the movie is? I think the title works, only for me, I get it, it almost tracks the like, narrative arc of the movie. The movie starts off crazy, then it gets stupid, and then the love comes at the end, I'm serious, but like, it, it...
1:07:50 Bill Simmons? I mean, that actually does make sense.
1:07:51 Speaker 05 I just probably have a, I think you're probably on to something there.
1:07:54 Speaker 04 Yeah, so like, it, it, it does work, but there's so much happening, like, The Wingman, it's almost, it's a difficult movie to title, because like, The Wingman is literally only one part of the film.
1:08:04 Bill Simmons? Can I give you what I would have called it?
1:08:06 Speaker 05 Okay.
1:08:07 Bill Simmons? As the king of titles?
1:08:08 Speaker 05 I have an idea too.
1:08:09 Bill Simmons? The best title person ever?
1:08:11 Speaker 05 You are good at...
1:08:12 Bill Simmons? The makeover.
1:08:14 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:08:16 Bill Simmons? Yeah, see?
1:08:17 Speaker 05 My idea?
1:08:18 Bill Simmons? Great. No?
1:08:18 Speaker 05 No?
1:08:19 Speaker 06 It's not bad. It's not bad.
1:08:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:08:21 Speaker 05 What if we called it The Makeover?
1:08:24 Speaker 04 Oh, good idea, Mina. That no one ever thought of before, yeah.
1:08:28 Speaker 05 All right, no, no, okay. My idea? My idea is different, isn't it?
1:08:33 Bill Simmons? What is it?
1:08:34 Speaker 05 How to Pick Up Women. Cause he literally picks up Emma Stone.
1:08:38 Bill Simmons? Oh, double entendre.
1:08:39 Speaker 05 In the back scene in the movie.
1:08:40 Bill Simmons? It's pretty good.
1:08:41 Speaker 04 I'll tell you what.
1:08:41 Bill Simmons? That was in the era of the long titles.
1:08:44 Speaker 04 Five college guys are gonna go watch the movie How to Pick Up Women. They are.
1:08:49 Bill Simmons? That's pretty good.
1:08:49 Speaker 05 It's like, maybe you can't, like How to Lose a Guy, you maybe can't do too many of the same.
1:08:54 Bill Simmons? Okay, the Butch's Girlfriend Award for weak link of the film. Somehow, we're still not at the photos. I, I'm gonna.
1:09:00 Speaker 04 It's the, like, the babysitter.
1:09:02 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:09:03 Bill Simmons? Can I make a case for something else and then put the photos in a different category?
1:09:09 Bill Simmons? This really bothers me. Craig, you, you're gonna love this.
1:09:13 Bill Simmons? Hannah's just never gonna run into her dad at this bar. It's never happening.
1:09:18 Speaker 04 Oh, cause she went there.
1:09:19 Bill Simmons? I have some dad stuff, cause I'm thinking about if I had, like, if this is Zoe three years from now.
1:09:24 Speaker 05 Right.
1:09:24 Bill Simmons? And my wife leaves me, and now I'm at singles bars, but my daughter is of the age where she would go out. This would be half my conversations. I can't, that girl's my daughter's age, I can't talk to her. That, that, I just feel like that would be omnipresent in the movie.
1:09:39 Speaker 04 Is this all the same bar?
1:09:40 Speaker 06 It's my biggest issue in the movie is that they go to the same, Ryan Gosling goes to the same bar, like, four nights a week.
1:09:46 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:09:46 Speaker 06 Emma Stone is going to this bar, Steve Carrell goes to this bar, there's one bar.
1:09:49 Speaker 04 Well, Emma Stone never goes back, except for the one time.
1:09:51 Speaker 06 Sure, but Ryan Gosling lives in that bar.
1:09:53 Bill Simmons? It's a huge nitpick.
1:09:54 Speaker 05 I also don't think there'd be a bar in L.A., in L.A. where twenty-somethings and forty-somethings both go to pick people up.
1:10:01 Bill Simmons? It's impossible. It would switch. You would be, you'd be a forty-something bar until like eight o'clock, and then it would switch to.
1:10:06 Speaker 06 It's an unrealistic bar.
1:10:07 Bill Simmons? I sadly know this now because of my daughter, but it would switch ages probably around eight o'clock.
1:10:12 Speaker 06 And why, he's just going, Gosling going to the same bar every night?
1:10:15 Speaker 04 This is, I've been dealing with this at The Ringer.
1:10:18 Speaker 04 Because I hang out.
1:10:20 Speaker 05 Sam.
1:10:21 Speaker 04 So I hang out, I'm at The Ringer.
1:10:24 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:10:24 Speaker 04 I'm at the office, at Spotify, working all the time.
1:10:28 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:10:28 Speaker 04 And I'm talking to everybody, right? And let's be honest, I'm 20 years older than these people. I'm fucking 20 years older than.
1:10:34 Bill Simmons? About 15, yeah, 15 to 20.
1:10:36 Speaker 04 Whatever, I'm 20 years older than these, 15, whatever. And then, you know, somebody will go, we hang out all the time, we talk, we're working, we're talking about movies. Hey, Van, it's my birthday, come to my birthday. And I'll go like, yeah. I'm like, I'll come to your birthday.
1:10:47 Bill Simmons? And then your Uncle Van.
1:10:48 Speaker 04 And then I'm at fucking 4116 in Silver Lake, and I look around, and it takes me like 15 minutes to go, I'm that fucking god. Like, I can't do this.
1:11:00 Bill Simmons? I went through this during the Graylin era with, when we had like Rembert and all those guys, and I would go out, and it was the same realization, like, oh shit.
1:11:06 Speaker 04 Just look at everyone.
1:11:08 Bill Simmons? But for me, it was like, thank God I'm on TV, and I can at least get away with people like, being like, hey, you're on TV.
1:11:13 Speaker 04 That happens, that happens.
1:11:14 Bill Simmons? That's the one, that's the one way you can get around it.
1:11:17 Speaker 04 That doesn't change the way, like, you know, I'm sitting there talking to a group of people, it's like, oh, we moved out here from Icahka College together. We've been out here like a year.
1:11:23 Bill Simmons? There's a specific generation gap, you can feel it.
1:11:26 Speaker 05 While we're on this, this is the thing, I always have a trouble understanding if you're the old guy at the bar. I understand why older men want to pick up younger women, and for some, want to be with younger women. But I cannot fathom them wanting to be the oldest guy at a bar. That's for 20-somethings.
1:11:40 Bill Simmons? That's tough.
1:11:41 Speaker 05 You see that, I always think that.
1:11:43 Bill Simmons? Well, how about the oldest guy at a bar? Where people are the age of your daughter, who's single, who could potentially show up at the bar?
1:11:50 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's tough.
1:11:51 Bill Simmons? This should be hanging over the entire movie.
1:11:52 Speaker 05 Just in LA, you're in this, Craig, like, there's, people don't go to the same place a lot.
1:11:57 Bill Simmons? No, there's 400 bars.
1:11:59 Speaker 05 Maybe a restaurant, but not a bar.
1:12:00 Speaker 04 And if he's, and he's, and he is just harvesting this place.
1:12:04 Speaker 05 Right.
1:12:04 Speaker 04 Nightly. He like, he, he, he, he is, like, that's, that's gonna be a thing, that's gonna get around. Everybody would know him. Yeah, he's just harvesting this place. Yeah, like.
1:12:14 Bill Simmons? That's why I was gonna do this later for the casting, the recouch part, but like. I actually would not have this movie in LA, even though I think it's a great Valley movie. It really should be in like Phoenix.
1:12:24 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:12:24 Bill Simmons? Or some, someplace that would make more sense that they would go to the same place all the time.
1:12:30 Bill Simmons? So you have the weak link for we can do it now in the what's age the worst, the, uh, all the babysitter stuff. It just wouldn't fly now, like just period. The giving the photos to the eighth grader at the end.
1:12:42 Speaker 04 Naked pictures of children.
1:12:43 Bill Simmons? They would do it.
1:12:44 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:12:44 Bill Simmons? I understand why they did it because it's really, the movie is through the point of view of the sun, basically. It ends with a shot on the sun. This is his story about basically my parents broke up and now they're back together and it's his journey and I'm in love with my babysitter. And I can see how it made sense in 2011. I just think now they would be like, no way. You're not, we're not doing that.
1:13:04 Speaker 04 Put that in the goddamn movie. No way. Like you.
1:13:07 Bill Simmons? But in 2011, I, I can't say I was like, oh my God.
1:13:10 Speaker 04 No.
1:13:11 Bill Simmons? I can't believe they did that.
1:13:12 Speaker 05 I can't remember how I felt at the time.
1:13:13 Speaker 04 Because it, it, back then, it almost, it never was. Back then you would see stuff like that in.
1:13:19 Bill Simmons? We were in on the joke.
1:13:20 Speaker 04 We were in on the joke.
1:13:22 Bill Simmons? Now, no way.
1:13:23 Speaker 04 See stuff like that and it, and it, it never was.
1:13:25 Bill Simmons? This would be like a 2,500 word slate piece the next day.
1:13:28 Speaker 04 Yeah, you can't do this.
1:13:29 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:13:30 Speaker 04 Plus it's, it's just different now with the internet, like.
1:13:32 Speaker 05 That's what I was saying. Now I'm watching, I'm like, that little kid's gonna upload that.
1:13:36 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:13:36 Speaker 05 And I don't think I felt that way in 20, 2011. I also think it's not believable that she's in love with Steve Carrell, the babysitter.
1:13:44 Bill Simmons? I had that for nitpicks.
1:13:45 Speaker 05 Okay.
1:13:45 Bill Simmons? I didn't see that, especially like that version of the size 44. Doesn't care how he looks, like she's not gonna be like, this is my dream guy.
1:13:52 Speaker 05 It's like, when she does the thing with the photo at the beginning, I'm like, come on.
1:13:55 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:13:55 Speaker 05 It's not.
1:13:56 Bill Simmons? It's, it's a pretty big stretch. The other what's, oh, that's it. That's all I had for what's age the worst. Did you have any?
1:14:03 Speaker 04 Um, like just the, y- young people interested in having sex with other people and willing to talk to them to make it happen.
1:14:12 Speaker 06 Is that what you notice when you're going out with ringer people?
1:14:15 Speaker 04 They're fine. But like every, like, you know, the ringer, they're fine, but this is like a lot of angst. There's a lot of angst out in these streets.
1:14:23 Bill Simmons? So you think this would have been AI fart now? If people bring their phone with their AI companion?
1:14:27 Speaker 04 People trying to, there, it's, there's a lot of, there just seems to be a lot of angst. Seems to be a lot of angst about how you can talk to somebody, when you're supposed to talk to someone, not cross, you know, like, it seems to be, be a lot of consternation for a lot of people about how you talk to another person and then have sex with them and what's supposed to be.
1:14:43 Speaker 05 Pickup culture at bars generally is just not what it was in 2011, I think.
1:14:49 Bill Simmons? Yeah, well, you can't, you know, this is, you just gotta have to keep handing off and running it into, between the tackles. That's kind of the move. You can't, you can't, there's no play action anymore, I don't think, in 2026. It's just like safe ground game. But yeah, I wonder about that all the time. How do people, how do people connect? Craig's out of the game. He missed it.
1:15:12 Speaker 05 But is it? But don't you watch the? Okay, I'm gonna mount one more defense for Rycos.
1:15:18 Speaker 05 In a, at a moment where to be like a, like a male pickup artist now is like, you know, jester maxing on the street, like grinding down your bones and shitting on women or whatever. I'm too old, obviously. I don't understand. Isn't there something like a little bit nostalgic about like watching a dude just like, you know, like you said, run between the tackles, like going into the bars and doing the thing?
1:15:46 Speaker 04 A misguided night.
1:15:47 Speaker 05 Yeah, misguided night.
1:15:48 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:15:49 Speaker 06 The fear of embarrassment is higher now than it's ever been, and I don't know if that's because of social media.
1:15:53 Speaker 05 That's, yes.
1:15:54 Speaker 06 But people don't want to be shut down.
1:15:55 Speaker 04 No.
1:15:56 Speaker 05 Yes.
1:15:56 Speaker 04 No, it's like, it goes wrong and then somebody goes on Twitter and goes, I fucking went out with this guy or this girl and look how terrible, like, yeah, or there's videos all kinds of shit.
1:16:04 Speaker 06 Gosling's character is volume shooting in this movie, and I still know guys who do that.
1:16:08 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:16:08 Speaker 06 But it's, it's becoming more and more rare because you get exposed for it and there's just like a shame in doing it that's just, wasn't there back then.
1:16:14 Speaker 05 Especially if you do it at the same bar every night.
1:16:17 Speaker 06 With your same old fashioned.
1:16:18 Bill Simmons? Way less tolerance for mistakes, which in some cases is good, but in other cases is not. And I think that's, seems like that's the difference. You have a flex category.
1:16:27 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah. Uh, my flex category is just, it's called Dan, He Got It. And let me tell you what the category is.
1:16:36 Speaker 05 It's a new one.
1:16:36 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's like, you know.
1:16:40 Speaker 04 You're a heterosexual guy. But you look at guys.
1:16:44 Bill Simmons? You gotta hand it to him.
1:16:44 Speaker 04 You gotta hand it to him, man.
1:16:45 Bill Simmons? Yeah, you get it.
1:16:46 Speaker 04 Like, damn, like, he got it. You know what I mean? Starts off with Lorenz Tate and Love Jones.
1:16:52 Bill Simmons? Hmm.
1:16:52 Speaker 04 I remember looking at that movie and being like, oh, man. I'm not gonna lie. This nigga got it. Um, four is Ryan Gosling. Not Crazy Stupid Love, though. Drive.
1:17:04 Bill Simmons? Yep.
1:17:04 Speaker 04 I looked at, I was like, Drive, the strong, silent killer. I'm like, ah, man. I'm not gonna lie, Ryan Gosling got it, man. Third one, might be a surprise for you guys. Will Smith, Hitch.
1:17:14 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah. Fully.
1:17:16 Speaker 04 You like that shit?
1:17:17 Speaker 05 Damn, he got it.
1:17:17 Speaker 04 I knew it. He got, see? You look at, like, look at Will, man.
1:17:20 Speaker 05 Such an underrated romantic comedy, too.
1:17:22 Speaker 04 Peak of his powers.
1:17:23 Bill Simmons? My wife was just watching this while she was making granola the other day, and she was just like, this movie's great.
1:17:29 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:17:30 Bill Simmons? Why haven't you done this on rewatchables yet? Was an actual sentence.
1:17:32 Speaker 05 It's really good.
1:17:33 Speaker 04 You just look at him, he's totally confident. He's got all the rules out as well, so he got it, man.
1:17:38 Bill Simmons? Him in Hitch and then him in Focus. Now I just look back nostalgically like I look back at Drake May's first seventeen minutes of the season. I'm like, oh, man, remember when he could throw the deep ball and roll out? That was fucking awesome.
1:17:51 Speaker 04 Number two, Brad Pitt. Now, a lot of people.
1:17:54 Bill Simmons? Couple of different eras for this, too.
1:17:56 Speaker 04 Couple of different eras. What would you guys say is the Brad Pitt, he got it?
1:17:59 Bill Simmons? No, there's, this is a multi-era.
1:18:02 Speaker 05 I mean, is it messed up for me that it's Fight Club?
1:18:05 Speaker 04 No, that, see, a lot of people would say that.
1:18:07 Speaker 05 He's so hot in Fight Club.
1:18:08 Bill Simmons? But initially, it was Thelma and Louise, was that made him a star.
1:18:11 Speaker 04 Mina, I'll just tell you something, Mina. I'm learning a lot about you.
1:18:14 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:18:15 Speaker 04 You like, of all the Brad Pitt guys.
1:18:18 Bill Simmons? She's, she's graphic to the nitty-gritty stuff.
1:18:21 Speaker 05 Well, I'm.
1:18:22 Bill Simmons? But that's the whole point of that movie.
1:18:24 Speaker 04 I know.
1:18:24 Speaker 05 But it's like, I don't, like.
1:18:26 Bill Simmons? He's just a man's man in that movie.
1:18:27 Speaker 05 The fact that it's such a toxic, mixed-up role and you're still like, ahh.
1:18:31 Speaker 04 See? I'm telling you. I'm telling you, but it's actually, for me, it's Legends of the Fall.
1:18:37 Speaker 05 Oh, with the hair? I can't do it, I can't do the hair.
1:18:39 Bill Simmons? We're gonna do that during Drama That's Now Comedy Month.
1:18:42 Speaker 04 Drama That's Now Comedy Month.
1:18:44 Bill Simmons? Legends of the Fall. We're doing that regarding Henry. Can't wait. Regarding Henry is hilarious now. Have you seen Regarding Henry lately?
1:18:52 Speaker 04 I haven't.
1:18:53 Bill Simmons? One of the funniest movies of the last thirty-five years.
1:18:55 Speaker 05 I think the phenomena you're describing is, there's a thing in, like, with athletes, too. Where when a guy is just so unobjectively got it.
1:19:04 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:19:04 Speaker 05 That men become comfortable talking about how handsome and cool he is.
1:19:08 Speaker 04 You got it.
1:19:09 Speaker 05 It's like when everyone was like, yeah, so we're just gonna all talk about Jimmy Garoppolo's like weirdly the best looking person we've ever seen and he just happens to be a quarterback.
1:19:16 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:19:17 Speaker 05 And men are so comfortable saying that and in a, they don't even say no homo after. They're just like, you know, which is.
1:19:22 Speaker 04 It's true. Me and Jimmy also have similar tastes in women. Um, so, and then.
1:19:29 Speaker 06 I got it.
1:19:30 Speaker 04 Did you, did you get that one?
1:19:31 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:19:31 Speaker 04 I throw them out there sometimes. Sometimes they don't, they don't work.
1:19:34 Speaker 06 I got it too.
1:19:34 Speaker 04 Okay. Number one, Billy Dee Williams, Lady Sings the Blues.
1:19:38 Speaker 05 That's a good one.
1:19:39 Speaker 04 Billy Dee Williams and Lady Sings, yeah, man. Cause I, I looked around, cause there's a lot of other guys. There's an era there. It's like, you have like, uh, Brando in some of those movies. You have Robert, but Billy Dee Williams in Lady Sings the Blues is just about the coolest guy that has ever lived. You got it, man. That's the list.
1:19:59 Speaker 05 It's a good one.
1:19:59 Bill Simmons? It's a couple of others I'd like.
1:20:01 Speaker 04 Throw some out there.
1:20:02 Bill Simmons? I think Redford, uh, for, there's a couple of different movies for him with this in the seventies. No, the, the, the way we were and Gatsby. I think, I think he was in that.
1:20:12 Speaker 05 Clooney and Out of Sight.
1:20:14 Speaker 04 Oh, Clooney and Out of Sight is a really good one.
1:20:17 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:20:17 Speaker 05 While we're here, is Gosling the closest we have to Clooney? Under, under.
1:20:23 Bill Simmons? I think he's where I wanted Clooney's career to go, but I, I don't, for a variety of reasons, it didn't quite happen. And I think part of it was he was older. We grew up with Gosling.
1:20:31 Speaker 04 Clooney is a bigger actor than Ryan Gosling. You think that Ryan Gosling?
1:20:34 Speaker 05 No, no, no. He's saying he likes the choices Ryan's made.
1:20:37 Bill Simmons? I wish Clooney's career went the way Gosling's did.
1:20:39 Speaker 05 Ooh, I love Clooney's career. I love his choices.
1:20:42 Speaker 06 He's more famous, but his career is not.
1:20:43 Bill Simmons? I don't, if you actually go through his movies, his batting average is not.
1:20:47 Speaker 05 Clooney, you feel that way?
1:20:48 Bill Simmons? I do. I really do.
1:20:50 Speaker 04 But like he has Michael Clayton.
1:20:52 Bill Simmons? Yeah. He's got Michael Clayton, Out of Sight, the Ocean's movies and Up in the Air.
1:20:56 Speaker 04 Up in the Air.
1:20:57 Speaker 05 Uh, what's the movie where he's in a white? He's so good.
1:21:00 Bill Simmons? Oh, The Descendants is good. Alright, so there's five.
1:21:02 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:21:03 Bill Simmons? I don't know, but he's, Gosling's, Gosling's fifteen years younger than him though.
1:21:07 Speaker 04 No, no, Gosling still has time. That's true. Gosling still has time.
1:21:10 Speaker 05 But he's similar to him. Same like, cool, sexy, guys recognize that.
1:21:15 Bill Simmons? I'll do another quarterback analogy. Clooney to me is Kurt Warner. Just started late.
1:21:21 Bill Simmons? Missed his entire twenties.
1:21:23 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
1:21:23 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:21:24 Bill Simmons? It's just gone. He's just in failed shows for ten years. Can't get on a good show and then finally gets on ER.
1:21:29 Speaker 05 But he had ER, so it was like a long.
1:21:31 Bill Simmons? But ER is in his thirties.
1:21:32 Speaker 05 Okay.
1:21:33 Bill Simmons? Gossing was in Remember the Titans. He's like eight, nineteen.
1:21:36 Speaker 04 Oh, he was a Mickey Mouse.
1:21:37 Speaker 05 What was he, what was Clooney's fail, like, what's his arena football league?
1:21:40 Bill Simmons? Oh, that's all the shows he did. He was.
1:21:42 Speaker 04 Like, he was, he was around.
1:21:43 Bill Simmons? He was in Facts, he was in Facts of Life.
1:21:45 Speaker 04 He was in, he was in, first of all, no disrespect to the Facts of Life, shout out Ken Fields and everybody. He was in the Facts of Life reboot.
1:21:51 Bill Simmons? Right. Oh, that's right, yeah.
1:21:52 Speaker 04 Yeah, he was in the, they brought the Facts of Life cast back together.
1:21:55 Speaker 05 That's wild.
1:21:56 Bill Simmons? But this is why Clooney's such a great guy, because he failed until he was like thirty-two. Which most actors, it gets handed to them.
1:22:03 Speaker 05 You who have success later in life tend to be either cooler or violently in the opposite direction, like tech bros.
1:22:11 Bill Simmons? Paul Rudd, even though he was in Clueless, but he really wasn't as successful after that for another ten years. He's another one. But these guys that they bloom later, I think it's better for them. So Billy Dee Williams, number one.
1:22:23 Speaker 05 Number one.
1:22:24 Bill Simmons? Is that a slight suck up to Tracy?
1:22:26 Speaker 04 No, no, it's not. It's, well, it could be. But no, but you know why, you know why it's not? It's because Billy Dee Williams in Ladies and the Blues was the only one that ever made, like, my dad, which was like, just, you know. My dad is not what you would call, call woke. It wasn't this thing. Cowboy hat, big gun on his side. But Billy Dee Williams, like, that's my father. But my dad looked at Billy Dee Williams, god damn.
1:22:51 Speaker 04 He's like, he's something else, huh? He's something else, son.
1:22:53 Speaker 05 Isn't it freeing, though? It's like, I, whenever, I feel like when, I literally have noticed this when men talk about Garoppolo, or when you ask, there's nothing that men in sports love more than ranking the top five hottest NFL players. And I feel like it's freeing. There's, I'm telling you, it's been a lot of conversations I've had. Bill, like, you wouldn't love having that conversation.
1:23:15 Bill Simmons? NFL Live segment.
1:23:17 Speaker 05 I'm just saying, men, they've all been thinking about it, but they don't have permission to talk about it. And there's something about a guy who's so unequivocally cool and handsome, where you feel this permission to comp- because women, we're always like, she's gorgeous, she's stunning, she looks amazing, whatever. You don't get to do that as much as a man.
1:23:32 Bill Simmons? We don't totally trust your opinions on that, though. Not yours, all women.
1:23:35 Speaker 05 And you get, it's in it freeing, though, like what you're saying.
1:23:38 Speaker 04 I just like overwhe- you're overwhelmed with the thing where you got like hair.
1:23:41 Speaker 05 It's undeniable.
1:23:42 Speaker 04 Yeah, this is, he got it.
1:23:43 Bill Simmons? Women try to sell certain women as being great looking.
1:23:46 Speaker 05 Karen.
1:23:47 Bill Simmons? But, no, no, when they're like, no, no, she's great, she's great. No, but they try to sell certain ones, but they don't like other ones. Like Jennifer Love Hewitt.
1:23:56 Speaker 05 Text us.
1:23:56 Bill Simmons? They would never accept.
1:23:57 Speaker 04 Oh, because she was too threatening. She was too threatening.
1:24:00 Bill Simmons? Sid and Dan knows where I'm going. There were some that wouldn't.
1:24:03 Speaker 04 Tried throwing you off the scent a little bit, but they understand that we're on the scent.
1:24:06 Speaker 05 This is why, people always say this about, like, Sydney now, right? Like, women don't like her because she's too threatening, which I don't actually think is true.
1:24:14 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, for right reasons, a lot of other stuff.
1:24:17 Bill Simmons? I said one thing about Billy Dee Williams.
1:24:18 Speaker 04 Oh, here we go. I'm into it.
1:24:20 Bill Simmons? He was doing those Colt 45 ads when I was a kid. I knew nothing. I was like, that guy's fucking cool. Remember those ads?
1:24:26 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:24:27 Bill Simmons? He was like the coolest person on the planet.
1:24:28 Speaker 04 So, yeah, he was.
1:24:29 Bill Simmons? That's that guy where John Carroll Lynch, not eligible.
1:24:32 Speaker 04 Oh, he's not eligible?
1:24:33 Speaker 05 Permanent status, is that guy?
1:24:35 Speaker 04 Oh, well, I didn't have anybody then.
1:24:37 Bill Simmons? I have someone for us.
1:24:38 Speaker 04 Who?
1:24:39 Bill Simmons? Lisa Lapierre, Liz, Emma Stone's friend.
1:24:42 Speaker 05 Good call.
1:24:42 Bill Simmons? She's from Fast and Furious, the fourth one.
1:24:45 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:24:45 Bill Simmons? And she was in 21.
1:24:47 Speaker 04 21, yeah.
1:24:47 Bill Simmons? And then she's been in a bunch of stuff, but I never knew what her name was.
1:24:49 Speaker 04 She pretty as hell.
1:24:50 Bill Simmons? Yeah, she's good.
1:24:51 Speaker 05 Funny, so fun. Her, some of her line deliveries in this movie are great.
1:24:54 Bill Simmons? By the way, I couldn't find any casting whatevs. I think the movie hasn't been out long enough yet where they can start making up stuff and being like, Jake Gyllenhaal was supposed to be the lead.
1:25:03 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:25:04 Bill Simmons? That's, we just haven't had enough info. Dionne Waiters award is clearly Marisa Tomei.
1:25:08 Speaker 04 Easily.
1:25:09 Bill Simmons? She's in three scenes, just killing it.
1:25:12 Speaker 04 I mentioned for a recasting couch director city, I would put this movie in Phoenix or Scottsdale.
1:25:18 Speaker 04 Somewhere or.
1:25:19 Speaker 05 Philly.
1:25:21 Speaker 04 Well, I was thinking like somewhere warmer, because you were you could have an outdoor mall, so we could go like Irvine. Go like that area.
1:25:28 Speaker 05 I'm still from Scottsdale, by the way. I know it's from Arizona. Rare.
1:25:32 Speaker 04 Craig, you have a flex.
1:25:34 Speaker 06 Book about medals award belatedly best quote. Or what's the most 2011 thing about this movie? It can be both. It's a throwaway line that I have not realized until this most recent rewatch. It's when Robbie, the kid is walking his mom blindfolded down the stairs. And she's kind of nervous and he goes, Mom, relax. It's your husband, not Al Qaeda.
1:25:53 Speaker 04 Oh, shit.
1:25:54 Speaker 06 Which is just like the most.
1:25:55 Speaker 05 Is that the most 2011 thing about the movie?
1:25:57 Speaker 06 13 year old boy thing to say in 2011. Bin Laden was killed three months before that movie came out.
1:26:03 Speaker 04 Wow.
1:26:03 Speaker 05 Wow.
1:26:04 Speaker 06 Yeah, it is just like perfectly, like something a 13 year old would think is funny and relevant.
1:26:08 Speaker 04 Yeah. And by the way, she's in a blindfold, so it's like the whole nine.
1:26:11 Speaker 06 Yeah. And you just kind of move right past that and it goes right to Corral. I'd like the little mini golf thing. And you just don't even know about that line.
1:26:18 Speaker 04 That is good. That is.
1:26:19 Speaker 05 That's a good one. It is very.
1:26:22 Speaker 04 Did we go past, did we go past hottest take?
1:26:25 Speaker 06 No, you did it.
1:26:25 Speaker 05 We've dropped a few.
1:26:26 Speaker 04 Oh, you didn't get one. Yeah, you do yours. Okay. I think this movie asks an interesting question. Yeah. Does marriage need a halftime?
1:26:36 Speaker 05 Okay.
1:26:37 Speaker 04 Okay.
1:26:38 Speaker 05 I'm surprised we're talking about this because I have another question for you about this.
1:26:41 Speaker 04 So let's think about what happens in this movie. Like with the Super Bowl show? So tell me, let's think about what happens in this movie. Long halftime? So you have, you have like everything else that's really good that we all love has a halftime.
1:26:53 Speaker 06 This is some of your best work, fan.
1:26:54 Speaker 04 Okay.
1:26:55 Speaker 06 Cook.
1:26:55 Speaker 04 It has a halftime. We go.
1:26:57 Speaker 05 No, I'm so excited to talk about this.
1:26:58 Speaker 04 First half, there's a whole narrative, then you stop for a little while, go do your own thing. Okay? You regroup and then you come back in and you finish the game.
1:27:08 Speaker 06 It'll never work.
1:27:08 Speaker 04 In this, in this movie right here, what essentially happens in this movie, what this movie actually is, is the story of a marriage halftime. The halftime is initiated by the Julianne Moore character. She needs something else. Hogging provides the fucking spark.
1:27:23 Bill Simmons? Lynn hog, he's hogging.
1:27:24 Speaker 04 He's hogging it up. He provides the spark. Then that triggers the halftime of the Steve Carrell character, a guy who had only been with one woman. He goes and he gets with nine women now.
1:27:35 Bill Simmons? Ends up with nine.
1:27:36 Speaker 04 Brings him to ten, double digits respectable. Now he can come, now he can come back out and they can finish the marriage game. Having had a little halftime. That does it, this is the marriage halftime story of our times.
1:27:52 Speaker 05 The two married people here.
1:27:54 Speaker 04 Three.
1:27:54 Speaker 05 Three, okay. Do you guys know any married people who have separated, broken up?
1:28:00 Bill Simmons? Took a break.
1:28:02 Speaker 05 Dated other people like prolifically and then got back together. I do not. Ben Affleck and J Lo.
1:28:09 Bill Simmons? I only know people that dated for a long time in like high school slash college, broke up.
1:28:14 Speaker 05 Yes.
1:28:15 Bill Simmons? And then got back together and married.
1:28:16 Speaker 05 Doesn't really count.
1:28:17 Bill Simmons? Which happened to a couple of friends. But that was not a marriage halftime.
1:28:21 Speaker 04 Okay, telling you, you guys think about this.
1:28:23 Speaker 06 It would never work.
1:28:24 Speaker 04 So think about this, think about, you get in, you get, they are 25 years in, guys, they're 25 years in. Take a quick halftime, draw up some new plays.
1:28:35 Bill Simmons? Here's the problem.
1:28:36 Speaker 05 Yeah, there's a very.
1:28:37 Bill Simmons? It's a fundamental problem.
1:28:39 Speaker 05 This is a major issue here.
1:28:39 Bill Simmons? What if one of the two people enjoy halftime a little too much?
1:28:44 Speaker 05 Nine women is too many. That's my take here. No, no, I, I, I thought about this watching the movie.
1:28:49 Speaker 04 He goes, he goes hard.
1:28:51 Speaker 05 Yeah, if they had both cheated with one person, I think it's believable.
1:28:55 Bill Simmons? How many months do we think is going on here, like four?
1:28:57 Speaker 04 But Mina, but Mina, here's the problem with that though. Only one of them cheated.
1:29:01 Speaker 05 Right.
1:29:02 Speaker 04 So, so to me, the question is, how much, how many people is one cheat worth?
1:29:07 Speaker 06 Well, the marriage halftime would have to be a conscious decision that you both are going to now see other people. It can't start with one person cheating. This is not a halftime.
1:29:16 Speaker 04 That's.
1:29:16 Bill Simmons? Yeah, that's a bad start to the halftime show.
1:29:18 Speaker 04 A halftime, but what I'm saying is this movie is actually talking about the fact their love endured the halftime.
1:29:24 Speaker 05 For the purpose of the movie, her cheating as the catalyst for everything is very important because it gives us license to still like it. Because she was the original sin. So him having sex with nine women, as viewers were like, you know what? It's the get back, you know, like the cheater, cheater earned it. Inside the relationship, it doesn't add up that way. Even if she was the cheater, it's not like, okay, cool. You've slept with nine women. It just wouldn't.
1:29:49 Speaker 06 The amount of screaming matches that would take place at dinner were like, you fucked Lynn Hagen first. Well, you fucked nine women after that. It's like, it would never work.
1:29:58 Speaker 05 It wouldn't work, yeah.
1:29:58 Speaker 04 It works in this movie.
1:30:00 Speaker 05 She also dates Lynn Hagen.
1:30:01 Speaker 04 She, she.
1:30:02 Bill Simmons? There's a, there's a slight tilt on this, though, because she's allegedly the villain. But he kind of drives her to the cheat.
1:30:09 Speaker 05 Right.
1:30:10 Bill Simmons? That's the thing.
1:30:10 Speaker 05 And realizes that.
1:30:11 Bill Simmons? So in a weird way, he's kind of the villain because he stopped trying in the marriage and drove her, drove her to David fucking Lindhagen, who sucks.
1:30:19 Speaker 04 He, they're at a restaurant at the beginning of the movie. He looks terrible. The restaurant looks fucking terrible. He ate too much. He wants to split his dessert. He's not even man enough for dessert.
1:30:28 Bill Simmons? He's getting home and have some Tums in the bowl.
1:30:30 Speaker 04 Yeah, he's gonna fuck the whole house up. It's like, it's like, and so she's had enough of that. But what they really needed, though, was halftime, a quick break, and then they come back to each other.
1:30:42 Bill Simmons? Best celebrity halftime ever was probably J Lo and Ben Affleck. They took like a 20-year halftime. But that didn't work out.
1:30:48 Speaker 04 Didn't work out.
1:30:49 Speaker 05 I think when a man and women get back together, and I have known people, and I've known of people, it's never, never is the case where the man went out, had sex with a ton of women. It's the man going out and realizing.
1:31:08 Speaker 04 That he can't do it anymore.
1:31:09 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:31:12 Speaker 05 That's how halftime plays out when you're middle aged. He doesn't belong in the streets.
1:31:18 Speaker 04 He can't do it anymore.
1:31:19 Speaker 05 You don't want to be out here, like the famous thread.
1:31:21 Speaker 04 Put the ball in the tee, kick it back off again.
1:31:23 Bill Simmons? It's like the Phil Rivers comeback.
1:31:24 Speaker 04 Right.
1:31:25 Bill Simmons? Kind of drive the ball to the 20. Half ass in her research. So this is so weird. It has to be true. Emma Stone.
1:31:36 Bill Simmons? The first time she got lifted up, she had like a full scale meltdown.
1:31:41 Bill Simmons? That Gosling described as a possum falling out of a tree and trying to scratch her eyes out. She ran away crying. Had to calm down and it turned out when she was seven years old, she fell off the high bars in gymnastics and broke both of her arms. And had like a PTSD flashback and they had to use a body double.
1:31:59 Speaker 06 Yeah, because they cut away. They're outside the rooms and you can't really tell.
1:32:02 Bill Simmons? So you can see it when you watch the movie. It's like an obvious, it's not her. They cut away really far away and then do this like jump cut to her. Really weird. Emma Stone was three days older in real life than the babysitter.
1:32:15 Speaker 04 Oh, interesting.
1:32:17 Bill Simmons? Locations in the movie other than the Century City Ball Mall. Ventura Boulevard, Hollywood Hills, Taft High School, Grant High School in Benise, El Torito Grill at the Sherman Oaks Galleria. And Equinox in Woodland Hills. So they played all the hits. I don't know where, uh, where, what's that part of, uh? When you go over the hill. Laurel Canyon. I don't know why that Laurel Canyon wasn't worked into a scene.
1:32:40 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:32:41 Bill Simmons? But they hit everything else. All right. Apex Mountain.
1:32:46 Bill Simmons? Gosling?
1:32:48 Speaker 05 I've thought about this a lot.
1:32:49 Bill Simmons? 2011, Nissan Drive, coming off a nice seven year run and he's now established as an A plus lister. It's tough.
1:32:56 Speaker 05 Ken is hard. Ken and Barbie.
1:32:58 Bill Simmons? It's a phenomenon.
1:32:58 Speaker 05 For which he was nominated and he sings and he's so good in it. It's tough. I would say for me, their on screen chemistry, obviously, and I think their relationship.
1:33:12 Bill Simmons? I would say La La Land for him after a lot of thought.
1:33:15 Speaker 04 I, I would probably say La La Land, uh, cause.
1:33:17 Bill Simmons? Cause it felt like after that movie, he could make whatever movie.
1:33:20 Speaker 04 Like the read, but I would say La La Land, but. The combination of this and drive.
1:33:26 Bill Simmons? It's pretty good.
1:33:27 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's tough.
1:33:28 Bill Simmons? It's a good, I've always had this theory about when they do the Oscars, they have an MVP, like Drake May versus Matt Stafford. And we do the MVP and it has to be two movies or more that are really good. And if they just, they just like gave a special little award.
1:33:41 Speaker 05 This is my thing on Coach of the Year is like, everybody always rewards the one year turnaround. I voted for Mike McDonald because I was like, this was a two, he went from a bottom five defense to the best defense in the NFL in two years. Celebrate that accomplishment.
1:33:54 Bill Simmons? Two year Coach of the Year almost.
1:33:55 Speaker 05 Well, just they're always like, who, every year, it's just who, yeah, who turned it around.
1:34:00 Bill Simmons? I like that because sometimes like the Jim Carrey is the most famous. We talked about this when in 94, he's the three comedies all in one year. You just give him like the Oscars MVP for best whatever. Emma Stone, no.
1:34:13 Bill Simmons? Not sure what it is for her.
1:34:14 Speaker 05 It's probably also La La Land.
1:34:15 Speaker 04 Probably also La La Land.
1:34:17 Bill Simmons? Julianne Moore, it's somewhere in the 90s, late 90s, post Boogie Nights. It's definitely earlier.
1:34:22 Speaker 05 She's good in this.
1:34:23 Bill Simmons? Singles bars in 21st century movies? Yeah. Because the singles bars kind of die as a movie location as we get into the 2020s post COVID.
1:34:35 Speaker 04 Especially like a place that orients the whole movie. Yeah, for sure. This would, this would be, I'm trying to think anything, is there anything else? No, this would be it.
1:34:43 Bill Simmons? Correll, it's got to be mid 2000s. When he's in the office.
1:34:48 Speaker 04 He's still on the office.
1:34:50 Bill Simmons? No, but it's got the office with Little Miss Sunshine. He's just come off Forty Year Old Virgin and Anchorman. It's got to be that.
1:34:57 Speaker 04 Yeah, because he goes, he gets an Oscar nomination out of that, doesn't he? For Little Miss Sunshine?
1:35:01 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:35:02 Speaker 04 So he, he becomes like a legitimately.
1:35:05 Bill Simmons? Characters jumping out of a car, it's this, not Lady Bird, because they ripped it off. Vodka cranberries as an actual plot device in a movie?
1:35:14 Speaker 05 Can't think of another one.
1:35:15 Bill Simmons? Ever had a vodka cranberry?
1:35:17 Speaker 04 No.
1:35:17 Speaker 05 It's not good.
1:35:19 Bill Simmons? It's okay if you tell them very light splash of the cranberries. So it's just a little, but if it's actual cranberry juice, that's fucking disgusting. Who wants to drink that at 10 at night?
1:35:28 Speaker 05 I don't do vodka drinks generally.
1:35:30 Bill Simmons? Really? What's your drink?
1:35:32 Speaker 05 Yeah, anything tequila mezcal.
1:35:34 Speaker 04 There you go.
1:35:35 Bill Simmons? Hardcore.
1:35:35 Speaker 04 There you go.
1:35:36 Bill Simmons? Uh, old fashioned, no.
1:35:39 Bill Simmons? Dirty Dancing homages? I'm gonna say yes.
1:35:44 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:35:45 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:35:45 Bill Simmons? And then, and then the, uh, the Century City Mall, no. Cause it's right now.
1:35:50 Speaker 04 Right now.
1:35:50 Bill Simmons? Apex bound is 2020 fucking six. Unbelievable.
1:35:55 Speaker 04 The weather's getting good right now. My mom's in town. I'm just gonna take her to the greatest place in the whole city.
1:35:59 Speaker 05 One of the few things in modern society that just keeps getting better instead of worse.
1:36:03 Bill Simmons? Malls.
1:36:04 Speaker 05 Century City.
1:36:06 Bill Simmons? Cruise or Hanks? It's clearly Hanks.
1:36:11 Speaker 04 Really? What about Cruise as Gosling?
1:36:15 Speaker 05 Would've been great as a young, a young Cruise would've been great in this film.
1:36:18 Bill Simmons? Like Cocktail Cruise?
1:36:19 Speaker 04 Yeah, like Cocktail Cruise as Gosling.
1:36:21 Speaker 05 And as evidenced by the fact that Edge of Tomorrow was one of my picks. I always think Tom Cruise is as best when he's funny.
1:36:27 Speaker 04 Yeah, like you, you let Tom go a little bit, have some fun. Like get into the whole deal with that version of him. He could've definitely pulled that off.
1:36:35 Speaker 05 Absolutely. Totally agree.
1:36:36 Bill Simmons? Cruise hitting on women and cocktail? If he has that energy for this, I think I'd vote for that.
1:36:41 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:36:42 Speaker 05 Great.
1:36:44 Bill Simmons? Cruise.
1:36:44 Speaker 06 Cruise is Gosling and Hanks is Correll. I mean, they could both.
1:36:47 Speaker 04 That kinda works too.
1:36:48 Bill Simmons? Scorsese or Spielberg? It's probably Spielberg. Scorsese's version of this movie would be pretty crazy.
1:36:53 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:36:54 Bill Simmons? Somebody's hiding cocaine at some point.
1:36:55 Speaker 04 Right.
1:36:56 Bill Simmons? Best hang, worst hang?
1:36:59 Bill Simmons? Emma Stone's clearly the best hang in this movie.
1:37:01 Speaker 04 Mm-hmm.
1:37:02 Bill Simmons? Who's the worst hang?
1:37:04 Speaker 04 Uh, the.
1:37:06 Speaker 05 Babysitter.
1:37:06 Speaker 04 The babysitter.
1:37:07 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:37:07 Bill Simmons? Yeah, babysitter.
1:37:08 Speaker 04 You definitely shouldn't be hanging around. You'd be in the Epstein files.
1:37:12 Bill Simmons? All right, I have a great picky nip, but you guys can go first, cause mine's gonna win.
1:37:16 Speaker 04 Um, no, I didn't, I didn't have one. Actually couldn't find one.
1:37:19 Speaker 05 Mine was the bar stuff, which we already hit on.
1:37:22 Bill Simmons? Why does an eighth grade boy need a babysitter?
1:37:25 Speaker 05 Isn't she the babysitter for the little sister? Or is it kind of a implied?
1:37:28 Bill Simmons? He could watch the little girl. She's like nine.
1:37:30 Speaker 05 Who, by the way, is Joanie King, which I didn't notice until this movie, but.
1:37:33 Speaker 04 So I, I'll say something here.
1:37:35 Bill Simmons? The eighth grader could absolutely watch his little sister.
1:37:37 Speaker 04 I think this is generational. Because I've seen people do this. I don't know what was going on in the eighties. By the time I was eight, I was at the house alone using the stove. Legitimately, if I wanted to cook something, I would make scrambled eggs and cook it myself. Like, but now I see stuff like this. I see people say they have twelve-year-old kids or whatever, and they don't want to leave the kids alone by themselves.
1:38:01 Bill Simmons? We were leaving our kids alone thirteen, fourteen.
1:38:04 Speaker 04 Oh, okay.
1:38:05 Bill Simmons? I just like, they're old enough and it's not, what's gonna happen?
1:38:08 Speaker 05 I used to babysit, growing up, and there was definitely an age, especially with little boys, where you're like, yeah, neither of us feel great about this.
1:38:16 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:38:17 Speaker 05 Like, I'm sixteen, you're twelve, this feels weird.
1:38:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:38:21 Speaker 05 We shouldn't be.
1:38:22 Bill Simmons? Hundred percent.
1:38:22 Speaker 05 And I'd be like, bro, I'm just here to watch South Park.
1:38:25 Bill Simmons? Yeah, right.
1:38:25 Speaker 05 Which I don't get to watch at home.
1:38:27 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:38:27 Speaker 05 You can do whatever you want.
1:38:28 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:38:28 Speaker 05 And I'm making my eight dollars an hour.
1:38:30 Bill Simmons? You want to crunch some Seahawks tape? He's like, no.
1:38:33 Speaker 05 It's just weird.
1:38:34 Bill Simmons? Please stop staring at me.
1:38:35 Speaker 05 There is, or it would be like when you would be, I would hand, you and me a trick-or-treating candy, and like, a kid who's a little bit too old comes up to trick-or-treat, and you have this awkward, charged moment, that's how it felt.
1:38:44 Speaker 04 Is there some guy somewhere going, right now, talking to his buddies going, dude, the girl on ESPN, bro?
1:38:51 Bill Simmons? This is my babysitter.
1:38:52 Speaker 04 That was my babysitter, bro.
1:38:54 Speaker 05 I was a kid, I was such a bad babysitter. So bad.
1:38:58 Bill Simmons? Hmm. We mentioned would the babysitter have a crush on Steve Carrell? I'm gonna say no.
1:39:04 Speaker 05 That's a good one.
1:39:04 Bill Simmons? We mentioned Cal's wife being mad that he slept with the teacher. Seems a little hypocritical.
1:39:13 Bill Simmons? Bad stunt double cut in the Dirty Dancing scene was my other one. Really, obviously not MSN. Uh, sequel, prequel, Prestige TV, all black cast or untouchable? Prestige TV version of this would be pretty interesting.
1:39:25 Speaker 04 Be fun.
1:39:25 Bill Simmons? I think they would have to bring everything together in the final scene, but we could spend more time with each character. I'm not against it, but it also feels like it's an Apple show. I could see it.
1:39:34 Speaker 05 I was gonna say, it feels like, um.
1:39:35 Bill Simmons? You can see them in the box.
1:39:37 Speaker 05 Bill Lawrence-type show.
1:39:38 Bill Simmons? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:39:38 Speaker 05 Ted Lasso.
1:39:39 Bill Simmons? Could see them doing it, and then you're watching it going, that probably just should have been a movie.
1:39:43 Speaker 04 No, it's funny, like, that Burb show on Peacock, not bad. And I've, The Burbs, the original is one of my favorite movies.
1:39:51 Bill Simmons? Is it based on the original Burbs?
1:39:53 Speaker 04 It is.
1:39:53 Bill Simmons? Oh, interesting.
1:39:54 Speaker 04 It's based on the original Burbs.
1:39:55 Bill Simmons? I just thought they stole the title.
1:39:56 Speaker 04 The lady that plays, I guess Bruce Dern's wife in that movie.
1:40:02 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:40:03 Speaker 04 She's back. She's playing the same character. Same street, same thing. So they call back to a lot of stuff. So I think when they take those old movies like that and make them into longer shows, it can work sometimes. So I could see this working.
1:40:16 Bill Simmons? Uh, we have the, is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Fergie the Florist, or anyone else you want to imitate? I didn't, I didn't have one. We can skip this one. Especially after last week's CR did Zane Lowe and it kind of, kind of brought the house down. I don't know. Do we retire the category?
1:40:29 Speaker 04 It was, it was special. You guys don't want to do the category anymore? This is my favorite fucking shit.
1:40:33 Bill Simmons? I just didn't have one. I didn't personally have one.
1:40:35 Speaker 04 This is a CR category.
1:40:36 Speaker 05 This movie is so well cast and like you said, they got all of these stars. It's very hard to replace any of them.
1:40:43 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:40:44 Bill Simmons? I was, I was workshopping an idea of when Stephen A. comes into the getup set at 6:49 a.m. Pacific time, but I, I couldn't figure out how to do it. When he just walks in and he's like, I'm Stephen A. Give me a mic. And they do it and it just stops the show and then they have to figure out how to get him a chair. But I couldn't figure out how to do that with our set, so I decided not to. Uh, just want to ask her, who gets it?
1:41:07 Speaker 04 I would go either the script or I think this is a really underrated Steve Carrell performance.
1:41:17 Speaker 05 Really?
1:41:17 Speaker 04 Yeah. Steve Carrell gets to show almost everything he can do in the movie. By the end of the movie, he's kind of broken down when he's having that conversation with Gosling. It is very dramatic and you feel him. He's funny in the movie. He's vulnerable in it. He's held both. He captive by the energy of Ryan Gosling and then he is able by the end of the movie to impose himself on him. I think it's a really good Steve Carrell performance.
1:41:44 Bill Simmons? I think me and Anna have the same one.
1:41:46 Speaker 05 The guys. He was nominated for Golden Globe.
1:41:50 Bill Simmons? He was. If you go back to the best actor in a supporting role for this this year. Christopher Plummer wins for beginners.
1:41:57 Speaker 05 Oh, I love that movie.
1:41:58 Speaker 04 That's a good movie.
1:41:58 Bill Simmons? Old person award.
1:41:59 Speaker 05 That's another great L.A. movie, by the way.
1:42:01 Bill Simmons? Max Van Sato in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
1:42:05 Speaker 04 In supporting.
1:42:06 Bill Simmons? Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close should not have generated an Oscar nomination. Just gonna say that.
1:42:11 Speaker 05 That's tough.
1:42:12 Bill Simmons? Nick Nolte in Warrior, he's really good.
1:42:14 Speaker 04 Three old guys in supporting.
1:42:16 Speaker 06 Warrior's good.
1:42:17 Bill Simmons? Warrior's good.
1:42:18 Speaker 04 I actually just watched it recently.
1:42:19 Bill Simmons? Kenneth Brown on My Week with Marilyn. I don't even remember that movie. And then Jonah Hill in Moneyball. I think Gosling could have snuck in there.
1:42:27 Speaker 05 I would say his performance in this is comparable to his performance in Barbie.
1:42:30 Bill Simmons? They don't do comedies, period. Unless it's like.
1:42:33 Speaker 06 You could swap out Jonah Hill in Moneyball. Gosling in this is better than Jonah Hill in Moneyball.
1:42:37 Bill Simmons? There's no question.
1:42:37 Speaker 05 Hundred percent.
1:42:38 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:42:38 Bill Simmons? We could go in L.A. right now and try to find the one person who thinks Jonah Hill is better than Gosling.
1:42:43 Speaker 06 I mean, if he's good, but this is like a real.
1:42:46 Bill Simmons? We could go to Century City Mall and try to do it.
1:42:47 Speaker 06 Mm hmm.
1:42:48 Bill Simmons? Uh.
1:42:49 Speaker 04 Oh, by the way, Gosling, back at the Century City Mall in Barbie.
1:42:53 Speaker 05 Mm hmm. Oh.
1:42:55 Bill Simmons? Double.
1:42:55 Speaker 05 Wow.
1:42:56 Speaker 04 Century City.
1:42:57 Bill Simmons? I have two unanswerable questions. Did you, did either of you have any?
1:43:01 Speaker 04 I never have any. I guess it's hard, the hardest category for me.
1:43:04 Bill Simmons? Was the babysitter eventually arrested?
1:43:09 Speaker 05 Okay, wait.
1:43:10 Bill Simmons? She gave photos to a 14 year old.
1:43:12 Speaker 05 Is this a good time to talk about the ages?
1:43:14 Bill Simmons? Senior in high school.
1:43:14 Speaker 05 Generally in this movie being a little bit confusing. So she's 17, right?
1:43:19 Speaker 06 Mm hmm.
1:43:20 Speaker 05 And she's 17.
1:43:21 Speaker 06 And he's 13.
1:43:21 Speaker 05 He's 13.
1:43:23 Bill Simmons? I thought he was 14.
1:43:24 Speaker 06 No, he's 13, I believe.
1:43:25 Speaker 05 13.
1:43:25 Bill Simmons? Graduated in eighth grade, wouldn't he?
1:43:27 Speaker 05 Which is why they make Steve Carrell and his wife in their 40s, even though they're very clearly in their 50s. At one point, she's like, I'm 44. I'm like, oh, like they're both in their 50s. But it's because they have to compress all of the ages to make the whole thing work.
1:43:40 Bill Simmons? 23.
1:43:40 Speaker 05 Right.
1:43:41 Bill Simmons? Thirteen and then like six?
1:43:44 Speaker 05 Cause Steve Carrell had Emma Stone when he was seventeen.
1:43:46 Speaker 04 They were seventeen, which is why they got married.
1:43:48 Speaker 05 Right.
1:43:48 Speaker 04 And so, yeah, they had to kinda mess with the ages a little bit.
1:43:51 Bill Simmons? I thought the ages were all over the place.
1:43:52 Speaker 05 It's confusing.
1:43:53 Bill Simmons? I have no idea how old Gosling's supposed to be. I'm gonna guess like twenty-nine.
1:43:57 Speaker 05 The tough thing about the photos too is like, it just didn't need to be in the movie. Like they could've, she could've just like given him a little kiss on the cheek or something.
1:44:03 Speaker 06 But it's like, I would've voted for that. You needed to fuel the fight scene at the end. You need to get John Carol Lynch over there.
1:44:08 Speaker 05 Oh, and then her giving it to him, not taking the photos.
1:44:10 Speaker 06 Yeah, her bringing those to the eighth grade graduation, having those in an envelope.
1:44:14 Speaker 04 But this is the thing.
1:44:15 Speaker 06 Kinda weird.
1:44:16 Bill Simmons? Here's your graduation gift.
1:44:17 Speaker 04 They used to do stuff like that in movies.
1:44:20 Bill Simmons? But that's the point, in the eighties they did it, cause we didn't know any better.
1:44:24 Speaker 04 Yeah, so we, I'm glad that we stopped, but they used, you go back and you watch these movies now.
1:44:28 Bill Simmons? Yeah, this works in a John Hughes.
1:44:29 Speaker 04 Like a young coming of age story with a, with some sixteen year old kid having sex with a thirty-five year old woman or something like that. They used to do shit like that.
1:44:36 Speaker 06 I don't, I don't think I have a problem with the ages. Like the thirteen, seventeen, the photos thing, I think it's fine.
1:44:40 Bill Simmons? I think it's realistic, cause when you're thirteen, you feel like you have a chance with everybody, you have no idea.
1:44:45 Speaker 06 Everyone's trying to act older.
1:44:47 Speaker 05 That's why I maintain the only unrealistic thing is the babysitter thinking she has a chance with Steve Carrell's character.
1:44:52 Bill Simmons? There's no chance.
1:44:53 Speaker 05 Which makes no sense. Yeah, the thirteen, seventeen year old dynamic doesn't bother me at all.
1:44:56 Speaker 04 So you think the thirteen, the seventeen year old giving the naked pictures to a thirteen year old is fine?
1:45:00 Speaker 06 It's corny and weird and like would never happen, but I don't, the ages was not the reason why I don't think that worked.
1:45:06 Speaker 04 Oh, okay.
1:45:06 Speaker 05 Okay.
1:45:07 Speaker 04 Cause I'm about to search your name.
1:45:09 Bill Simmons? Probably an answerable question.
1:45:15 Bill Simmons? What was Jacob's job? Did he have a job?
1:45:18 Speaker 05 No.
1:45:19 Speaker 04 Oh, he's rich.
1:45:20 Speaker 05 He just inherited wealth.
1:45:21 Speaker 04 He, he said his dad gave him the money.
1:45:23 Bill Simmons? What'd he do all day?
1:45:24 Speaker 05 That is a great question, act and work out.
1:45:26 Speaker 04 What you, what you, what we doing all day? Where are these bars getting busy? What you talking about?
1:45:31 Bill Simmons? He fucking worked out and went to a bar? Fucking weird life.
1:45:34 Speaker 04 We got a job.
1:45:35 Bill Simmons? Seen alcoholic?
1:45:35 Speaker 04 Our job is we, we snow plowing. We, we through here, we seeing all the snow that's in these bars.
1:45:41 Bill Simmons? Seen the charity? What did he care about?
1:45:42 Speaker 04 Did he like sports?
1:45:43 Speaker 06 Five years later, he has a YouTube channel about how to pick up women.
1:45:46 Speaker 05 This is why two thousand and eleven was a better time, cause guys like that didn't have podcast mics.
1:45:50 Bill Simmons? That's true. Twenty-four hours a day, what's he doing?
1:45:54 Speaker 05 Working out, you saw his body.
1:45:56 Bill Simmons? Work it out, hook it up.
1:45:57 Speaker 05 To drink that much and have a body like that, you gotta spend how much?
1:46:00 Speaker 04 You gotta be in the gym a lot. He was doing the handstand, bro. You know what I should have talked? You know what I don't like? I don't know what?
1:46:07 Bill Simmons? The handstand?
1:46:07 Speaker 04 The handstand pushups that I see people doing in the gym.
1:46:11 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:46:12 Speaker 04 Every time, it's not even about being jealous, cuz shout out to you. I'm sure the handstand pushup has some utility other than to make the rest of us look fat as fuck.
1:46:21 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:46:22 Speaker 04 But whenever I see somebody doing the handstand pushups, I wanna go punch them in the abs, man. Stop doing that. So he did that in the movie, and you have to be a fantastic athlete to do that.
1:46:32 Bill Simmons? I think that something's missing with him, with that character. He might have been more of a bad person than we realized. Or maybe he just podcasts hadn't really emerged yet for him.
1:46:41 Speaker 05 I like how you said that, and Van instantly looked at me to defend him.
1:46:43 Speaker 04 I want you, yeah, what's the defense for?
1:46:45 Speaker 05 Yeah, I mean, he is a trust fund guy. What do trust funders do all day is an age-old question.
1:46:51 Bill Simmons? That is true. He could have had a little side business or something.
1:46:55 Speaker 04 I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't know.
1:46:57 Bill Simmons? It's like I've invested, I've invested in this thing called Quickster that Netflix has. I'm a believer, like anything.
1:47:05 Bill Simmons? What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie?
1:47:10 Bill Simmons? I had trouble with this one. It definitely would not be the photos.
1:47:15 Bill Simmons? I guess that's my answer or not.
1:47:16 Speaker 05 Bill is putting that on the record. He is not interested in having 17-year-old photos.
1:47:20 Bill Simmons? Please do not give me the photos. Coach Finstock, Mr. Miyagi were best, worst, life lesson?
1:47:27 Speaker 06 Straws are phallic.
1:47:28 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:47:29 Speaker 04 I did this one, that straws are phallic is a cool one. No cow, the meanest thing anyone's ever said to you is your wife cheated on you because you lost sight of what it took to keep her content at home. As a man, as a husband, and probably as a lover. Jesus Christ. If that don't make you take your-
1:47:46 Bill Simmons? That's a reality check.
1:47:47 Speaker 04 Your vitamins, right there.
1:47:49 Bill Simmons? That's when you stop shopping at the Gap.
1:47:51 Speaker 04 That's when you stop shopping at the Gap, man.
1:47:53 Bill Simmons? What do you have for best double feature choice? Mina?
1:47:58 Bill Simmons? Just this twice in a row?
1:48:01 Speaker 05 I think people should watch this and then watch La La Land. And just come back and tell me which movie Gosling and Stone have better chemistry in. I think you'll agree with me.
1:48:12 Speaker 04 TV on us, looking right at the camera.
1:48:15 Bill Simmons? It's really good.
1:48:15 Speaker 05 Me asking the CX draft from Lake Willis in the second round in 2020. I just think if you watch them back to back, you will see that they are better together in this movie. I am dying on this hill.
1:48:27 Speaker 04 Pretty Woman. I actually watched it after I watched it. Pretty Woman.
1:48:31 Bill Simmons? It's a great movie.
1:48:32 Speaker 04 Pretty Woman is just fucking fantastic, bro. It's like great.
1:48:36 Bill Simmons? When they don't let her, they kick her out of the store. You really feel it.
1:48:40 Speaker 04 Yeah, I have all this money. I have all this money. Nobody will help me. I have all this money. She was such a...
1:48:45 Speaker 05 Did you, you watched Wonder Man, right?
1:48:46 Speaker 04 I did.
1:48:47 Speaker 05 So good. When he does the Pretty Woman scene, it took me to, like, it took too long to realize what he was doing. When he, there's a scene, have you seen Wonder Man?
1:48:54 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:48:55 Speaker 05 When he does the Pretty Woman monologue? It's so good.
1:48:57 Bill Simmons? I have Focus as my double featured choice because I actually think these movies complement each other.
1:49:02 Speaker 04 What the fuck is going on? Like, you have mentioned Focus.
1:49:06 Speaker 05 This Focus hype is crazy.
1:49:07 Bill Simmons? It's the same director. We've already done our rewatchables. I don't need to sell it anymore.
1:49:11 Speaker 04 Fifteen times.
1:49:12 Speaker 05 You've done Focus and not Hitch?
1:49:14 Bill Simmons? Yeah, Wesley likes Focus too. We did Focus.
1:49:16 Speaker 05 Hitch is...
1:49:17 Speaker 04 Focus?
1:49:17 Bill Simmons? Focus is, listen, it taps into this Will Smith side that no other movie tapped into.
1:49:23 Speaker 05 Okay.
1:49:23 Speaker 04 So this was the thing for me.
1:49:24 Bill Simmons? Margot Robbie brought something out of him.
1:49:26 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah.
1:49:27 Speaker 05 They have real...
1:49:28 Bill Simmons? They had real chemistry. He doesn't, he had, that was an issue for him over the years.
1:49:32 Speaker 04 I was concerned with Focus with Will Smith because of when you, I was concerned. I'll tell you why. Like, when a rap, you know a rapper's career is over, not when he makes a whack album, but when he makes a good album and nobody cares.
1:49:48 Speaker 05 Ooh.
1:49:49 Speaker 04 So like, if you, when you come out and you drop some whack shit, it is what it is. But when, when I'm, when you, when you around telling people, hey, you really gotta listen to this. This shit is hot and just nobody is on it.
1:49:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:49:59 Speaker 04 That's when you know the rapper that hip hop has moved on, right? Focus to me, I was like, oh shit. Because I went to watch Focus and I was like, yo, man, he's good in this. Like, this is a good movie.
1:50:12 Speaker 05 Was it not a hit? Was it not successful? I thought it was.
1:50:15 Bill Simmons? It actually did pretty well.
1:50:16 Speaker 04 It was okay.
1:50:16 Bill Simmons? It didn't do as well as a normal Will Smith movie.
1:50:19 Speaker 04 Right.
1:50:19 Bill Simmons? That had more to do with he was twenty year run, you know?
1:50:22 Speaker 04 Right, but it also was a movie that people were expecting to kind of be a return to form. Now Will eventually kind of did return to form and then, you know, the.
1:50:29 Bill Simmons? Hall of Famer Margot Robbie's in that movie.
1:50:31 Speaker 04 Right.
1:50:33 Bill Simmons? I think that's when you waived the five year waiting period.
1:50:35 Speaker 04 No, no, that was, I waived it for Wolf.
1:50:37 Bill Simmons? For Wolf Wall Street, right, it was around there.
1:50:39 Speaker 04 In right then, like.
1:50:39 Bill Simmons? Uh, who won the movie? I have Gosling.
1:50:41 Speaker 04 Gosling too.
1:50:42 Speaker 05 Yeah, that's right.
1:50:42 Speaker 04 It's his movie.
1:50:43 Bill Simmons? Interesting that Gosling is just easily wins it. You have Gosling?
1:50:47 Speaker 06 He wins almost every movie he's in.
1:50:49 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:50:49 Speaker 05 Hmm, what's a movie he's been in that he doesn't win?
1:50:51 Speaker 04 It's a good question.
1:50:53 Speaker 06 Maybe Big Short?
1:50:55 Speaker 05 Yeah, that has too many people.
1:50:56 Speaker 04 Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be honest with you, though. If you really think about it with The Big Short, he's also stealing every scene that he's in in that movie. But that, that's too, it's too much of a pure ensemble for almost anyone to win.
1:51:07 Bill Simmons? Producer Craig's moment now. I know you, you were fired up when you did this movie.
1:51:11 Speaker 06 Yeah, I think this is the best rom com of the two thousands. It's the defining rom com of my generation, I think. I'm, I.
1:51:18 Bill Simmons? It's two thousand eleven, though.
1:51:20 Speaker 06 Yeah, this movie came out the weekend I turned seventeen. And it's crazy how influential, thinking back now, having, it's been a while since I've seen it. Man, did Gosling's character influence my male perspective as a seventeen year old kid? Like, I, I remember searching online for, for months trying to find his exact sunglasses and I found them. I almost bought them, they were like two hundred and fifty dollars, I didn't do it.
1:51:42 Bill Simmons? Wow.
1:51:43 Speaker 06 Like, V-necks, his haircut, the whole way you interact with women. I mean, honestly, like, his physique was like, fuck, I gotta start working out, I gotta look like Gosling. It was like peak male physique. It was wild looking back, man, I was like, this really, drinking Old Fashioneds?
1:51:59 Speaker 05 Yes.
1:51:59 Speaker 06 I was seventeen years old.
1:52:00 Speaker 05 A whole generation of men, I feel like now.
1:52:02 Speaker 06 I'm gonna start drinking Old Fashioneds now because Ryan Gosling says that's cool. Um, and I, I am like actively in love with Gosling and Emma Stone together as a couple. And I'm a huge La La Land fan.
1:52:12 Bill Simmons? Wow, rave reviews. Like it's way more than Death Wish.
1:52:16 Speaker 06 A little bit.
1:52:16 Bill Simmons? Hated Death Wish.
1:52:17 Speaker 06 You know what's a scene that we didn't talk about that I think is sneaky great and very effective? When, when Correll is at night looking through the window on the phone.
1:52:24 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah.
1:52:26 Speaker 06 It's a really emotional, touching scene that really, really works.
1:52:29 Speaker 05 Another needle drop I love is when they play the talking heads while he's watering the lawn.
1:52:33 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:52:33 Speaker 06 The, the whole concept of him sneaking to the house at night to water the lawn is a great idea.
1:52:37 Speaker 04 But the scene he's looking in the window at her, now they have to pretend not to love each other. That's how broken things are. Things are so broken that now they have to invent a conceit to see each other that doesn't really exist. Because their bond is so strong.
1:52:52 Speaker 06 Yeah, you can see the desperation in Julianne Moore. It's, it's really good.
1:52:55 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:52:56 Speaker 05 There's some bit characters we didn't even talk about. Josh Groban.
1:53:00 Speaker 04 Yeah. Unmentioned.
1:53:02 Speaker 05 He's so funny in this movie.
1:53:04 Speaker 04 Yeah, but he is funny.
1:53:05 Speaker 05 Um, I, one I didn't know at the time, but now after watching Pluribus, Carolina Ouija is one of the women that he hits on. You watch Pluribus, right? Adosha in Pluribus is, there's a lot of like great, kind of smaller roles.
1:53:17 Bill Simmons? I didn't watch Pluribus.
1:53:18 Speaker 04 You didn't see it yet?
1:53:19 Speaker 05 You didn't watch Pluribus?
1:53:20 Bill Simmons? I skipped it. I watched the first episode. I was like, I'm good.
1:53:23 Speaker 04 After that pilot, you weren't interested in it?
1:53:26 Speaker 05 The pilot is.
1:53:27 Bill Simmons? I just wasn't, I don't know.
1:53:29 Speaker 05 It slows down around, and then it picks up.
1:53:31 Speaker 04 Yeah, cuz the, cuz if you, if the pilot didn't make you watch the second one, then.
1:53:34 Bill Simmons? It's don't tell me lies.
1:53:36 Speaker 04 There you go.
1:53:38 Speaker 04 You like what you like.
1:53:40 Speaker 05 She's a good man.
1:53:42 Bill Simmons? There's been some good stuff I've liked lately. The JFK show is great. It's so hard to watch for me, though. So sad. It's really good.
1:53:50 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:53:51 Bill Simmons? I don't think my wife has been locked into a show like this JFK show, maybe. It's been years. Like if they, if they made us pay-per-view the last couple of episodes, I don't, it wouldn't even be a question.
1:54:02 Speaker 05 Has aged so well. Every picture, I'm like, I'm like, this is how all men dress down.
1:54:07 Bill Simmons? She loved the early 90s bar, New York fashion, like just how, they were just so careful about how they did everything. It's really good.
1:54:13 Speaker 04 He was the man. But I'll tell you what, that show is kicking Daryl Hannah's ass.
1:54:18 Speaker 05 That's what I've heard.
1:54:19 Speaker 04 They making Daryl Hannah look like she not from Roxanne or Splat. Like they, they kicking Daryl Hannah's ass in that show.
1:54:26 Bill Simmons? It's pretty tough.
1:54:27 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:54:27 Bill Simmons? I, I was actually with, sitting a group of people with one person who went to college with JFK Junior. And it was like, so what's he like? And he was like.
1:54:39 Bill Simmons? Just an incredibly handsome guy. Like you just, everybody felt that way.
1:54:43 Speaker 05 Did you see a got it guy?
1:54:44 Bill Simmons? Yeah, it was like, like one of your guys. Like he was just like, he was just really handsome. Every woman was in love with him and it was always advertised.
1:54:52 Speaker 04 It's so funny to me because, you know, th- this is not a diss to the Kennedys in any way, shape or form, but-
1:54:58 Speaker 05 Great start to a sentence.
1:54:59 Speaker 04 It's like, they would always talk about like how great looking the Kennedys were and all of that stuff like that. And then I would look at them and I would be like, I don't see it.
1:55:06 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:55:06 Speaker 04 You know what I mean? I don't see-
1:55:08 Bill Simmons? Thin lips, big teeth.
1:55:09 Speaker 05 This is, this is like most wasps though. Like most, like if you, if you look at it too long, you're like, eh.
1:55:14 Bill Simmons? But J K Junior, he was like, the hair-
1:55:17 Speaker 04 He was legitimately-
1:55:18 Bill Simmons? Height, hair, chin.
1:55:20 Speaker 05 Perfect hair, perfect aura.
1:55:22 Speaker 04 But I think it was because of Jackie though. It was, he was, but he was legitimately the man, like for real.
1:55:28 Bill Simmons? It's funny that the old Seinfeld episode, when he's at Elaine's Gym. I mean, that leads to the whole master of the domain thing, but just that he isn't even in it, but as a character, like that's how revered he was in that era. I think that's a really good show.
1:55:42 Speaker 04 Poor son of a bitch.
1:55:43 Bill Simmons? Mina, going to the combine. By the time people watch this, you're gonna be in Indianapolis.
1:55:49 Speaker 05 I, the second-
1:55:50 Bill Simmons? Eating San Elmo shrimp in a, in a bar with 190 NFL guys.
1:55:54 Speaker 05 When you hit me about doing, by the way, I think I first asked you to do this movie like three years ago, so I'm so glad that we actually are doing it. But when you hit me, I was so relieved because I've just been watching, let's tell you,
1:56:05 Bill Simmons? Weird Combine shit.
1:56:06 Speaker 05 LSU quarterbacks for like the last 24 hours.
1:56:09 Bill Simmons? Hmm.
1:56:10 Speaker 05 Uh, and this movie was a nice break.
1:56:12 Bill Simmons? Mina, great to see you. Van, thank you as always. Thanks to Craig, thanks to Chris, thanks to Eduardo and Gahow as always, and we will see you, oh, next week, CR month.
1:56:23 Speaker 04 Oh.
1:56:24 Bill Simmons? This is it.
1:56:25 Speaker 05 Is it all Chris's choices?
1:56:26 Bill Simmons? It's, it's all Chris movies. It's CR month, it's five episodes, and the first one is going to be, uh, Sicario Live. On, uh, March 2nd, I think at 6:00 PM, PT or ET, I can't remember, but- 3 Pacific, 6 Eastern.
1:56:41 Speaker 05 Perfect movie.
1:56:42 Bill Simmons? 6 ET, Sicario. CR's been calling for it ever since we started the podcast, so it's finally happening. See you next week.
1:57:00 Bill Simmons? This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Fall is here and Whole Foods Market has everything you need for cozy meals, seasonal treats and easy entertaining. Elevate your hearty dishes with tasty bone-in beef short ribs or New York strip steaks with no added growth hormones or antibiotics. And as the fall evenings draw in, why not get ahead of cold season with immunity shots, herbal teas, lozenges and supplements? Make sure you look for sales throughout the month. Shop fall flavors with higher standards at Whole Foods Market.
1:57:27 Speaker 04 Welcome to the 50th Hunger Day. Witness the beginning of the revolution.
1:57:32 Speaker 07 Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.
1:57:35 Speaker 04 Filmed for IMAX.
1:57:36 Speaker 07 Make them remember you.
1:57:39 Speaker 04 The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.
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