‘Days of Thunder’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Kyle Brandt

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Kyle Brandt are more afraid of being nothing than they are of being hurt after rewatching Tony Scott’s 1990 sports action classic ‘Days of Thunder,’ starring Tom Cruise, Robert Duvall, Michael Rooker, and Nicole Kidman. Watch this episode on our Ringer Movies YouTube channel! Producer: Craig Horlbeck Video Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  Hey Rewatchables fans. You already knew we were coming to Boston for a sold out show on March 27th, but what you didn't know is we're sticking around that weekend. We're going to host our first ever Rewatchables Film Festival while we're in Boston. We're screening some of our favorite movies, movies that we have done on this podcast, plus maybe a couple others, at the historic Coolidge Corner Theater. We're doing it all weekend from March 28th through March 30th, one of my favorite theaters in America. We might even make a few surprise appearances at a couple of these screenings. It's your chance to see some of our favorites as they were meant to be seen on the big screen. Classic mob heist Boston movies we love. Goodfellas, The Town, The Departed. Oh yeah, we're doing

• 0:44Bill Simmons?

  Heat. Again, it's going to kick off Friday, March 28th at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline. Visit the ringer dot com slash events for showtimes and ticket information. Hopefully, we'll see you there.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Glimmer, the new eau de parfum by Estee Lauder. An amber floral fragrance with a gourmand twist with notes of macaron rose accord, amber embrace accord, and shimmering patchouli. A glimmer is a small, unexpected moment of joy that shifts your energy and how you feel. A scent to be felt, remembered, and shared. Discover more at estee lauder dot com. What makes you glimmer?

• 1:26Speaker 02

  Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a berry chantilly cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 1:53Bill Simmons?

  The Rewatchables is brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find, what's it called, the watch?

• 2:02Bill Simmons?

  Yes. That's it, right? The unprestige TV podcast. Culture pod with you and Andy Greenwald. You're on the big picture as well. Try not to sound too excited. Philly specials sometimes. Yeah. Not a lot of Sixers talk there lately. That's. Kyle Brandt.

• 2:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:17Bill Simmons?

  We could find you. Where can we find you? Tell us.

• 2:19Speaker 03

  Find me.

• 2:20Bill Simmons?

  It's offseason NFL.

• 2:21Speaker 03

  You can find me on the Good Morning Football program as always. I did it this morning for four hours. I'm ready to do more content with you for the NFL Media Group and I'm ready. Let's do it.

• 2:30Bill Simmons?

  Is it good to get you groggy after four hours of content or is or are we just getting like? I don't know. It's like you've played your second NFL game in the same day. I'm concerned.

• 2:39Speaker 03

  No, but the good news is I had a 72 ounce Mellow Yellow, so I'm ready to rock them.

• 2:43Bill Simmons?

  Let's go.

• 2:43Speaker 03

  Change my tires.

• 2:46Bill Simmons?

  Days of Thunder. I guess it's sports movie month. Let's go.

• 2:57Speaker 04

  You're very quick.

• 2:59Bill Simmons?

  You gotta see me drive.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  You want to control something that's out of control?

• 3:07Speaker 05

  Absolutely. The thrill that lasts long after the ride. Tom Cruise, Days of Thunder. Rated PG 13 starts Wednesday, June 27th at theaters everywhere.

• 3:33Bill Simmons?

  All right, fellas. I guess it's officially sports movie month. We did Rocky. We did Best in Show. We did Days of Thunder and we're more than halfway through March. Uh, this was a special Kyle Brandt request.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:46Bill Simmons?

  Why?

• 3:47Speaker 03

  Well, listen, uh, very personal to me. I've never spoken about this publicly, but I first uh, seduced my wife with two packets of Sweet 'n Low. So it's a very personal story. Uh, no, listen. Is this movie T-Mu Top Gun? Yeah, maybe, but Bill and Chris, it's great to be here. I have not watched this movie in like four years after dozens of watches. And as I'm watching it on the rewatch, as the credits are coming up, each name that pops up, I find myself saying, fuck, yeah, like over and over. And it became like the Team America, Tom Cruise, fuck, yeah, Tony Scott, fuck, yeah. Hans Zimmer, fuck, yeah, Fred Thompson, fuck, yeah. Is it a great movie?

• 4:29Speaker 03

  No, but it's really fun and it was like running into an old friend.

• 4:33Bill Simmons?

  And it hit that 1990, it comes out and it's just on cable for the next 15 years, just straight. And you could jump in when you want. What's your relationships are?

• 4:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, like, like Kyle said, I also regard this as essentially like cloned Top Gun. But man, this clone looks good. And I have to say that as far as like movies that have aged well in terms of like, if you get a good, if you watch this on 4K or something like that, this movie has no business looking as good as it does. Like Tony Scott, despite the fact that it sounds like Don Simpson was doing eight balls and pushing him out of the way of the viewfinder every five seconds, shoots the shit out of this and you really can just jump in and watch like a few races and a few scenes of tall Nicole Kidman kissing short Tom Cruise up against the wall. And you're good for the rest of the month, man.

• 5:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and it's also one of these movies that as the years have passed, becomes just more interesting from all the side plots of when they made it, what happened with Cruz and Kidman. The half-assed internet research for this movie is almost too much. It was one of the rare times, like, you know, if we're doing Boogie Nights or something like that, there's gonna be a shitload of research and it's worth it. This is like, how long do we go about Don Simpson? Do we go an hour? Do we go three hours? Like what's?

• 5:57Chris Ryan?

  Should we do a separate pod about Don Simpson trying to cast himself in the movie?

• 6:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, we might have to because, you know, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, these legendary 80s and 90s producers, they, and they're starting this giant Paramount deal they did, which according to Premier Magazine was five movies, $300 billion, which is crazy. Um, and it's, and there's been podcasts about these guys. There's been books written about them. They've been, the story has been told ad nauseam about just how crazy Don Simpson was. This was the craziest he was during this entire run. 1990, where he's just like, budget, fuck it.

• 6:37Bill Simmons?

  Is it 35 million? Let's go 65. Let's, let's just argue on the racetrack about a scene for an entire day while we pay, you know, hundreds of extras and then not film the scene. This is like the kind of shit you would see in a movie about Hollywood. That would seem like, wow, they really went for this movie. This is crazy. This actually all happened. This budget ends up being like 65 million dollars.

• 7:02Chris Ryan?

  If it was actually 65 million, I'm six foot three.

• 7:05Bill Simmons?

  About a hundred.

• 7:06Chris Ryan?

  You guys, I'm sure everybody has different takes about what's happening with the economy now, but I think we can all agree, we want to get back to a place where a movie production can literally take over the city of Daytona.

• 7:18Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 7:18Chris Ryan?

  And, and put up neon signs outside of nightclubs and whatever that say Days of Thunder, where the producers just lord over the city like kings. And Tom Cruise has like a coterie of like handlers and all this, like this must've been such a mind blowing thing just to be a fly on the wall for, that it actually is almost as good as the movie itself.

• 7:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we're coming out of the cocaine era.

• 7:43Chris Ryan?

  We're coming out of it. That's right, Bill. There was no cocaine on set.

• 7:47Bill Simmons?

  Don Simpson's trying to keep it alive. And it's that eighties excess era that's still kind of going in 89, 90, these big budget movies, a lot of sequels at this point.

• 7:58Bill Simmons?

  I was trying to think like in 2025, what would be a more sure thing idea than this was in 1990, where you have Simpson and Bruckheimer? And a red, red, red, red hot Tom Cruise, basically redoing Top Gun with race cars. There's no scenario where somebody could be like, all right, it's going to be, let's say, Chalamet.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:21Bill Simmons?

  It's going to be Chalamet. Okay, who is a producer that was more reliable at this point than Simpson, Bruckheimer? I can't think of one. What's the sport that hasn't been dove into like this? I can't, like. Kyle, I don't, I just think this is like a 101 in a weird way, even though the movie's not great.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  No, if you, if you heard today that Chalamet was teaming up with Chris Nolan to make some crazy thing, that's really cool, but it's not the nitroglycerin effect of Tom Cruise over the last five years he had with Jerry Bruckheimer. And you're right, it sounds like a fake movie that would be being made in a movie. Like Christopher Moltisante making Cleaver. It's like Days of Thunder even sounds like a fake name. It sounds like a stupid fake name that would be in a movie. And I love that Simpson's gonna get shined here today because Bruckheimer, I think, is so much more famous, contemporary to the young people, but it feels like Simpson was really the wild one of the group in everything you hear.

• 9:14Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well, Simpson, so they're talking, they're talking in the premiere magazine and basically the premise of this is there hasn't been a cool race car movie since Le Mans with McQueen, which is a very cool movie. It's, it's a little dated now. The movie is like 51 years old, but it's still cool. And I think it was really inspirational for people who care about cars. The Porsche that was in that movie, I forget what actor had it. It was like Kevin Costner, somebody like that.

• 9:44Chris Ryan?

  Got the actual Le Mans car?

• 9:46Bill Simmons?

  Seinfeld bought it for like a million dollars.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  He collects Porsches.

• 9:49Bill Simmons?

  2001 and sold it for like $25 million in the last year. But it was, and since that movie, there was a couple of other ones like Bobby Deerfield happened there. People kind of dipped in this pool, but I felt like, yeah, I think they felt like this was sitting there. And the other thing that was in that premiere piece was how excited NASCAR was to welcome these guys into their world. They basically, this is like if somebody made an NBA movie now and they were like, "Hey, we need the actors to play in an exhibition game. We need to have all your uniforms. We need like scenes of them in the fourth quarter playing with their players." And they're like, "Cool, take it. What about a regular season game? Okay, great. Let's put them in that too. We'll do 10 day contracts." That's how crazy this was, Kyle.

• 10:33Speaker 03

  You know what it's like? Okay, so Dark Knight Rises, the NFL is like, "You're not using our teams. You're gonna blow up a stadium." That's crazy. However, when Sudden Death with Van Damme goes to the NHL and is like, "Can we have the Penguins and the Blackhawks even though we're gonna blow up the stadium too?" They're like, "Sure. You're gonna make a movie of the NHL? Please. We'd love to have you."

• 10:52Bill Simmons?

  You want Yager?

• 10:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, and we'll put him in the movie. We don't care. Take it. That's the NASCAR here.

• 10:59Bill Simmons?

  The premise of the, or the, the, the bones of this movie is CR.

• 11:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:04Bill Simmons?

  Tom Cruise will go into the moment he's having his career. Bobby Duval, Big Shot Bob.

• 11:11Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:13Bill Simmons?

  Fresh off turning down Godfather III for five billion. He's like, you know what I'm doing said? Days of Thunder. Nicole Kidman, 23 years old.

• 11:21Chris Ryan?

  Had only really done Dead Calm.

• 11:23Bill Simmons?

  I saw Dead Calm in the theater. We all marked it. We were like, this lady's, this lady's great. Really interested to see what happens with her. Did not expect to see her in Days of Thunder with Tom Cruise. Michael Rooker.

• 11:36Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah.

• 11:38Bill Simmons?

  Kyle, we'll say, we'll put him on the side.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  Oh, we're gonna talk Rooker.

• 11:41Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna talk a lot of Rooker. I think this might be our third Rooker together.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  We do a lot of Rooker. The rest of you guys can do the Tom Hanks and the Daniel Day-Lewis.

• 11:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  We do Michael Rooker and CR, I'm so glad you're here.

• 11:53Chris Ryan?

  Rooker has officially passed Daniel Day-Lewis in rewatchables now.

• 11:57Bill Simmons?

  When we do the rewatchies, Rooker is gonna get like a special achievement for some of his great moments. So we got Rooker, we get John C. Riley, we get Carrie Elwes. Who just keeps popping up in movies in the eighties and nineties, but there's no Carrie Elwes conversations. We get Fred Thompson, Randy Quaid. We get a produced by Simpson and Brookheimer, story by Robert Town and Tom Cruise.

• 12:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:24Bill Simmons?

  This feels, this felt flimsy to me, CR.

• 12:26Chris Ryan?

  Well, apparently the idea for the movie came from Tom Cruise and Paul Newman doing like a charity race. And Cruise got obsessed, had been obsessed with racing since he was a kid. And then he got Robert Town, who's a big running sports, like aficionado, passionate fan.

• 12:44Bill Simmons?

  But let's just say they weren't at Starbucks banging out plot points on a yellow notepad, I'm guessing.

• 12:49Chris Ryan?

  Agree, but Robert Town becomes, uh, like Tom Cruise's sensei for the next four or five movies.

• 12:55Bill Simmons?

  Right. So this is a written by Robert Town, Robert Town, for the younger ones listening. Legendary screenwriter, seventies and eighties.

• 13:03Chris Ryan?

  Chinatown, shampoo, last detail.

• 13:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, if you're just mentioning, hey, who are the great screenwriters? His name is gonna come up in the first five, six names you mentioned, so he's in there. Music by Hans Zimmer and Jeff Beck.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  Fucking A.

• 13:16Bill Simmons?

  Go, Kyle.

• 13:17Speaker 03

  I mean, listen.

• 13:18Bill Simmons?

  Just cook right now.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  Zimmer, you can have your John Williams. Zimmer is my goat. We just saw him in the headlines for the Oscars, but he has handed this white trash redneck NASCAR script and said, just make it cook, Hans. And he said, I got you. If there's a wheelchair race, I'm gonna score it. And he is one of the stars of this movie.

• 13:38Bill Simmons?

  Not to step on casting what ifs, but movies first offered to Harold Faltermeyer, our guy.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Really?

• 13:45Bill Simmons?

  And Harold goes, you know, I'm not feeling it. Can I introduce you to my friend Hans Zimmer? And they're like, sounds great. And Hans is like, I'm thinking there's some like orchestra stuff, but like a heavy electric guitar.

• 14:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:02Bill Simmons?

  And it's just, and we just, and, and that's my, and they're like, go cook, Hans.

• 14:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I say in the middle of movie, we put the Guns N' Roses, Usual, losing one out of nowhere. Let's do it.

• 14:13Bill Simmons?

  I met Jeff Beck, I met Jeff Beck at a dinner party. He's going to come in and do the electric guitar. And then directed by Tony Scott, CR.

• 14:21Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 14:22Bill Simmons?

  Tony Scott now moving into first place in the all time director rankings.

• 14:25Chris Ryan?

  As it should be.

• 14:26Bill Simmons?

  In the Rewatchables, tied for first now.

• 14:29Chris Ryan?

  I was thinking about this with Unstoppable, with Top Gun, with Days of Thunder. Is there anybody better at shooting moving vehicles than Tony Scott?

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:39Bill Simmons?

  No. No.

• 14:40Chris Ryan?

  Like maybe the best director of like movement that we have, we ever had.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  And Chris, Tom Cruise has talked about this many times on record. He still thinks there are things ripping off of this movie and the way that they shot that and how good it is and how good it looks. And I remember when the three of us, I think the last, the three of us were last together on Roadhouse. And after we made some like stupid comments at the beginning, CR jumped in and was like, this movie looks great.

• 15:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:06Speaker 03

  It's got bones. And this movie, for all its idiocy and wheelchair racism, we'll talk about, it looks amazing. And I think Cruz was super proud of it. He still is. He still talks about it.

• 15:14Chris Ryan?

  So there's, I sent these guys a video that NASCAR has put up all like these old Daytona 500s, the CBS broadcasts of Daytona 500s on YouTube. You can watch like there are the two and a half hours or whatever. And it's really awesome just to go back in the time machine and see how like TV broadcasts were in 1990.

• 15:34Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 15:35Chris Ryan?

  But one of the cool things about it is you can watch Daytona from 1990 and see how a CBS TV camera shoots it. And then you can see how Tony Scott and Ward Russell shoot it and all the color they find and all the shadow they find, all the texture they find. And it is literally what cinematography is. It is seeing something that isn't necessarily there and embellishing things and lighting things in a way that brings out story. And it's so awesome to check it out.

• 16:01Bill Simmons?

  Well, and then the other cool piece is so in the nineties, we had the square TVs all the way through the 2000s. And now widescreens really helped us HD. You can get this on 4K Blu-ray now. It fucking looks amazing.

• 16:13Chris Ryan?

  Bill, did you wet your beak? Did you get this on Blu-ray?

• 16:15Bill Simmons?

  You know, I, I didn't because it wasn't going to show up in time, but I'm going to.

• 16:19Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 16:19Bill Simmons?

  I'm going to get this in Rush, actually, because as you know, I love Rush, but I think those two. So in the all time rewatchable standings, Cruise is now up to 16 rewatchables movies. He has a three movie lead over De Niro and Pacino. But more importantly, Tony Scott moves up to nine in a tie with Michael Mann. And I don't know what we do now, CR. I, I feel like we almost have to get Michael Mann. We have a few left. I think we got to shoot one next. We can't have him be tied for first with anybody.

• 16:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but we're running out of mans.

• 16:51Bill Simmons?

  So we're gonna do a Ted Michael Mann movie next month.

• 16:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:53Bill Simmons?

  No, there's some good ones left. Anyway.

• 16:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:55Bill Simmons?

  I just wanted to flag that because I, you know, I know Michael's a huge fan of the pod.

• 17:00Chris Ryan?

  He is.

• 17:00Bill Simmons?

  Takes it, takes it really seriously. And I don't, I don't think he wants to share first place with Tony Scott.

• 17:05Chris Ryan?

  We've been teasing the revise for a while.

• 17:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, maybe, maybe that'll be it. So Richard Petty said of this movie, the only thing they got right was the numbers on the side of the cars. I don't think this was very, uh,

• 17:17Speaker 07

  Talk your shit, King.

• 17:20Bill Simmons?

  Settle down, Richard Petty. Uh, Tom Cruise's first prime, 1986 to 93.

• 17:26Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 17:27Bill Simmons?

  I, I think it's similar to LeBron, Brady, some of the great athletes where it's like, oh, this first specific prime of Top Gun, Color of Money, Cocktail, Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July, Days of Thunder, Far and Away, Few Good Men, The Firm. It's like this confined eight year run. And then we get a little weird with Interview of the Vampire and all of a sudden we're at Jerry Maguire into Eyes Wide Shut, Vanilla Sky, which is kind of like the first Mission Impossible. That's kind of the second Cruise prime. Then we end up with that, that long stretch following Oprah's sofa. Where we get Reacher, we get some good ones, some bad ones. It's a little like when Brady didn't win a Super Bowl for a while. And then Top Gun Maverick. And then some Mission Impossibles.

• 18:11Bill Simmons?

  Now Cruz is like in his fourth prime. A lot of LeBron right now playing Luca.

• 18:15Chris Ryan?

  Tomorrow in that, in that.

• 18:16Bill Simmons?

  Edge of Tomorrow. Yeah.

• 18:17Chris Ryan?

  That other prime, yeah.

• 18:18Bill Simmons?

  So four prime, but Kyle, this was the first Cruz prime. And he's basically playing variations of Pete Maverick Mitchell in as many movies as possible. Where does Cole Trickle rank for you in the Cruz rankings? Cause I was kind of maybe one of my least favorite Cruz characters of this run.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's Kirkland brand Maverick. It's, it's not the best character. It's not, it's a funny name, but we never get, we never get the scene like in Maverick. He has the scene in his tighty whities where he breaks down over Goose's death. And that's a really powerful scene and he does really good acting. I just, I, when you're talking about this era of his prime, and I had this in what stage the best. It is Cruz with the greats of the old guard actors in the ring delivering. He goes from 86 to 93 Newman, Hoffman, Duval, Hackman, Nicholson. Every single movie, it's him and a first ballot Hall of Famer doing high drama.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  And like, I like that he jumps off giant buildings right now and it's fun, but he used to go at it with the giant actors. And this kind of brought me back to that.

• 19:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And then Leo kind of followed that blueprint a little bit too. How can I work with great directors and great stars? But yeah, this is a great run. So, and then he, he's in Few Good Men and The Firm. You know, Few Good Men is like the super cocky sarcastic Cruz. Rain Man is the full of confidence charisma Cruz. Cocktail is to me, Pete Cruz. I, that's like my favorite Cruz. I just love Cocktail Cruz. And then this is kind of in the Top Gun camp, right? See ours there. I guess Color of Money has a big charisma, like street tough Cruz.

• 20:01Chris Ryan?

  But I think that the thing you're locating is probably a. Result of the fact that they didn't really have a script when they started shooting this thing. So there is like-

• 20:11Bill Simmons?

  Or when they finished shooting this thing.

• 20:12Chris Ryan?

  Gestures towards like Cole's, you know, father being, you know, a financial criminal and ruining the first part of his career. Then there's like, this is a guy who wears button up white shirts all the way to the top and yet is in NASCAR. So like, where's he coming from? What's he doing?

• 20:32Bill Simmons?

  He's from Eagle Rock.

• 20:33Chris Ryan?

  Ultimately, at the end of the film, I walk away with it being more of a movie about the Duval character than it is about Cole. And it's about the Duval character learning to like trust a driver again after what happens with John C. Riley's dad and everything. But yeah, I, for me, this is way more about racing than it is about people. And it's way more about watching shit go fast than it is about like guys doing great scene work.

• 20:59Bill Simmons?

  Kyle, do you think Cruise was trying to make this guy like enigmatic? Trying to figure him out? Was this like, was that like the Cruise angle? Cause it's a pretty muted Cruise performance. Like you could argue this easily just could have been Kevin Costner. Like this isn't like a Cruise dependent role. Whereas the other Cruise movies, like you can't have Cocktail without Cruise. You can't have Few Good Men without Cruise. This, I feel like you could have other actors.

• 21:24Speaker 03

  Those guys of his ilk are always begging for demons. And like, there's legendary stories about Leo DiCaprio would follow James Cameron around Titanic. Be like, you gotta give this guy some backstory. This guy is a huge pussy, Jack Dawson. He's just totally nice. And there's a little bit of that going on with Cruise. Like when he's Maverick, he's referred to as like, it's gotta be hard when you're Pete Mitchell's kid. Like that is a heavy burden. This is like, kind of just an idiot who shows up on a motorcycle and his character twist is that he doesn't know anything about cars. And like a completely, completely half baked father storyline that CR just talked about. And it's probably because they're like, you know, guys, shouldn't we figure out that dad thing for Cole in the third act? And they were like, ah, no, just more fucking racing.

• 22:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 22:10Bill Simmons?

  And Cruz, basically, it is like watching LeBron on the 2018 Cavs, just being like, "I'll turn it on this game and put up a 32, 11 and 12."

• 22:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:20Bill Simmons?

  He has like four scenes where he's like, "I'm gonna cruise it up this scene." So it's enough that he still gets the win for being Cruz.

• 22:27Chris Ryan?

  It's interesting too, because there's probably more Vince from Color of Money than there is Pete from Top Gun in this movie. Where Vincent in Color of Money, it's like he's being manipulated. Like, what does Paul Newman call him? Like, "You're a great flake." You know, like, "You're kind of an idiot, but I can use that. I can use your arrogance and your idiocy against other players." Cole's confidence and his sort of like, "I don't really know anything about cars. I just know how to drive." Like, that is a kind of electric idea, but they do away with it once a brain surgeon falls in love with him.

• 23:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 23:06Chris Ryan?

  You can see somewhere in the middle, they were like, "No, Cole's actually an emotionally, you know, he's like very like unpacked so that we can have Nicole Kidman be in love with him."

• 23:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think if you're redoing this movie and you could cast anybody from any era, this is like a Brad Pitt mid 2000s.

• 23:24Chris Ryan?

  Well, they're doing it now, right? I mean, kind of with F1.

• 23:27Bill Simmons?

  This is like, you want the guy to be handsome, a little enigmatic, I can't read him. Cruz, Cruz has too much charisma to do that, and I think he wanted to be that, but, you know, eventually you can't, you can't contain your inner Tom Cruise if you're Tom Cruise Kyle.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  Some of the things he has going for him in this movie is great Cruz hair, really, really cool hair for 1990.

• 23:47Bill Simmons?

  Maybe the best hair he's ever had.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  Really, like a full Pert Plus commercial, a lot of body. And then, listen, the Top Gun comparison, he's really good at a tight shot of his face, wearing a helmet with his name stenciled across it, saying one line at a time. When he says, "Harry, this guy's going down," it's fucking awesome. And it feels like Maverick is back. It's cool.

• 24:08Bill Simmons?

  You left out one piece of the Cruz pie, the, uh... The, the blank face of fear. I don't know how this is gonna turn out. Maybe, maybe I shouldn't do this, which they, they use leverage perfectly with the smoke scene.

• 24:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, the driving through the wreck being the-

• 24:25Bill Simmons?

  The blank Cruz, I'm not sure this is a good idea face.

• 24:28Chris Ryan?

  It's his re-engage maverick is going through the wreck. Yeah.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  He's sitting there saying, "Talk to me, Rowdy. Talk to me." He's looking at Rowdy's dog tags. And it's like, "Trickle's re-engaging. Yes!" It's to the note, the same motion and scene.

• 24:42Bill Simmons?

  Do you think they thought about calling Rowdy Goose or no?

• 24:47Bill Simmons?

  Gooseburns. Nicole Kidman, her first mainstream movie, because Dead Kram was an indie. She's 23 years old in real life, playing a brain surgeon. Just want to point that out.

• 25:00Chris Ryan?

  But she could have a little Doogie Howser action going there. She could have just been skipping grades.

• 25:04Speaker 03

  She aced the SETs in Australia, whatever their version of it are. Probably cool. Yeah.

• 25:08Bill Simmons?

  She looks fantastic.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it's great.

• 25:11Bill Simmons?

  And when you think she's been in our lives since Dead Kram, but really since this movie, and it's a 35-year run, and just thinking about, what was that movie called? Baby Girl?

• 25:20Chris Ryan?

  Baby Girl.

• 25:20Bill Simmons?

  Fucking insane movie. And she's still cranking it along and making weird sex movies and still going. This person here, it's, it's almost like watching like her, the Nicole Kidman now, like her redheaded daughter is in this movie. Like, she just seems so young. And now you watch this movie with this whole backstory of, "Oh, Cruz and Kidman fell in love on this movie." CR, is this the prequel to Eyes Wide Shut for you?

• 25:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I have some Eyes Wide Shut notes actually later for the, for a different category.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  Okay, good.

• 25:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:51Bill Simmons?

  Great. Cole Trickle, loosely based on the careers of Tim Richmond and Jeff Bodine. Tim Richmond, we did 30 for 30 in season one about, was a pretty crazy NASCAR driver, ended up getting HIV, passed away, pretty tragic story.

• 26:06Chris Ryan?

  Before Days of Thunder even came out, right?

• 26:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah. But Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he thought the movie was based on a rivalry between his dad and Bodine. And then they stole a bunch of NASCAR stuff, like- The Cole and Rowdy would drive to the dinner thing together. That came from an actual meeting when they're trying to get Earnhardt senior and Boden to, to, uh, to, to kind of get along better. Uh, Cole deliberately blowing his engine by over revving. That was a famous Tim Richmond story. He did it. Trickle can't pit because the crew is too busy eating ice cream. Apparently that happened in 1987 Southern 500 with Benny Parsons. And then Cole and Rowdy destroying rental cars. Apparently in the 1950s, these two NASCAR superstars,

• 26:51Bill Simmons?

  I know you're very fond of them, Kyle. Joe Weatherly and Curtis Turner.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  Those are my guys.

• 26:55Bill Simmons?

  Supposedly would just rent cars and then just fuck them up and race them and.

• 26:59Chris Ryan?

  Ever since I got enterprise president's club, I do that.

• 27:02Bill Simmons?

  You do?

• 27:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:04Bill Simmons?

  You and fantasy on your way to a shoot?

• 27:06Chris Ryan?

  We like to drag race civics. Yeah.

• 27:08Bill Simmons?

  Just crashing into each other.

• 27:09Chris Ryan?

  Can I ask you guys, what's your, 1990, what's your relationship to NASCAR? Cause for me, this kind of slots into one of those movies, like to some extent, rounders, color of money. This, a movie that goes really in depth into a world that I am like, that's cool. I'm not going to now become a NASCAR fan or a billiards fan or like a Holden poker fan, but I am very interested in this movie's version of this world. So the complaints about this not being accurate to me don't really bother me that much.

• 27:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't care. I don't care. But if, if they did this about, of football.

• 27:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:46Bill Simmons?

  And probably took the liberties they took with this movie, the three of us would be going nuts.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  They would.

• 27:51Bill Simmons?

  They only had 10 guys on the field for the final, for the final sequence. Like, what are they doing?

• 27:55Speaker 03

  And I'm sure NASCAR Reddit is up in arms about how it's treated, but this is a NASCAR movie, like Point Break is a surfing movie or Roadhouse is a movie about, you know, owning a bar and what it's really like. It's, it's ridiculous. So I get it, but I'm just, I'm, listen, when I was in 1990, I was in fifth grade and what I knew about NASCAR was this movie. And if you went to Hardee's, the restaurant, they had little matchbox cars you could buy. And I had a couple of them. That's it. I'd never seen a race, know anything about it. It was this movie.

• 28:24Bill Simmons?

  I saw this movie when the summer, I think it was after sophomore year in college.

• 28:30Bill Simmons?

  I just saw it for Cruise. It didn't make me want to care about NASCAR at all. It did make me wonder why there weren't more NASCAR movies. And then every once in a while, who was that Burt Reynolds movie with Sly Stallone, Burt Reynolds, Driven?

• 28:42Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:43Bill Simmons?

  2000 Range with Kip Hardou from Remember the Titans?

• 28:46Chris Ryan?

  For sure.

• 28:46Bill Simmons?

  And that was like, that was every decade, somebody goes for it. But I mean, I'm sure when producer Craig pops in, he's just gonna, he probably, he hadn't seen this movie till last night. And this is, this is basically Talladega Nights is a parody of this movie.

• 29:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:03Bill Simmons?

  So that's, I think people's relationship under 40 with this whole world is Talladega Nights.

• 29:08Chris Ryan?

  I thought NASCAR back then, because NASCAR obviously made that big push where it's like, actually secretly, this is the biggest sport in the country, you know?

• 29:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they tried to do that a couple of times.

• 29:18Chris Ryan?

  10 years ago, but this, it was still like very much like a regional phenomenon, I think. Like, I was aware, I think my dad would watch like the Daytona 500 and every year I'd be like, so this is like their Super Bowl? And he's like, yes, but it's also the first race. And it's like, it would always, that was basically, it was like Indy 500, Daytona 500 were the extent of the car races that I would watch.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  I think, I think NASCAR is apex mountain for sports that you have to be there in person to really enjoy. And that's what everybody says. And like, I've gone, I went to a race once. I went to a race 15 years ago. And it was outside Chicago and you cannot fucking believe how fast the cars are going. And you watch it on TV and it looks like they're crawling. And I remember I got to like, I got to go in the pits and like, super randomly, this was the time in the Chicago area that Rex Grossman was there. And I was like, what's up Rex Grossman? And he was enjoying it too. But when you go, it fucking blows your mind. It really does.

• 30:11Bill Simmons?

  Rex is like, I'm thinking of taking us to the Super Bowl and then completely falling apart. Kyle said, that sounds great.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, but first have the opening kickoff be returned for a touchdown and your dumb ass still blows it. Yes, that's what he was talking about.

• 30:23Bill Simmons?

  My relationship as a kid of the seventies and eighties with this whole world was every once in a while Sports Illustrated would write about it. Like, I just looked it up because I remembered it was Cole Yarborough. I didn't remember who the other person was, but there was a big fight. In 1979, between Cole Yarborough and Bobby Allison, think Bobby Allison.

• 30:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:40Bill Simmons?

  And Sports Illustrated wrote a story about it and I was like, whoa. These guys fought on the track like NASCAR seems kind of cool and they never watched it. And then the other thing would be if it was on a network that had football, they would promote it.

• 30:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:53Bill Simmons?

  Coming up next, Daytona and, but it just never, never took. I always felt like it was just kind of in the South, just kind of happening over here.

• 31:01Speaker 03

  You know what, Bill? When I, when I used to, when I used to work with Jim Rome, we would book NASCAR drivers as guests. And the reason we would do it is because they would talk shit and they were open and loose. And it wasn't like basketball or football players. They don't care. So you'd have Tony Stewart on and he would say some crazy bombastic thing about another driver that no player on the Knicks would ever say. So they were really good talk show guests and they were always, NASCAR is always providing them. Anybody you want, they're trying really hard and that was part of the draw, the personalities.

• 31:32Bill Simmons?

  Like the first two months I had my podcast for ESPN, 2007. Tony Stewart was one of my first guests.

• 31:39Chris Ryan?

  Did Tony Stewart call in on the Subway Fresh Take hotline?

• 31:42Bill Simmons?

  I don't even think it was Subway Fresh Take yet. And I did the research and I saw that he had a car, number 33. So I was like, oh, this would be a good icebreaker. My favorite number, Larry Bird. And we started off, I'm on the phone with him, so I can't see him. And I'm like, yeah, you know, you know, I, you're one of my favorites because you raised number 33. And he's like, I'm actually number 20 or whatever it is. I only ran 33 that a couple of races. So it was just, couldn't have been off to a worse start. And then he withdrew and it was like one of, it's probably the worst interview I'd ever, ever did for the podcast.

• 32:16Chris Ryan?

  To Kyle's point though, about like how loose those guys were, I was just talking before we started recording about, I think it's the 88 Daytona 500 I was watching last night and I kind of went down the rabbit hole.

• 32:25Bill Simmons?

  CR, rabbit hole.

• 32:27Chris Ryan?

  Just doing the work. There's a Richard Petty crash in the 88 500, really bad. It looks really bad, but they, they like, you know, pull him out of the car. They're like towing the car off. They're like, oh, this is so bad, this is so bad. And they go down into the, you know, the, the infield. And they have like the sideline reporter guy is outside of the medical tent and AJ Hoyt walks out of the medical tent. He had been in there too. And they're like, AJ, how's, how's Richard looking? And it's like, what if he's like, Richard's dead?

• 32:57Bill Simmons?

  You're right.

• 32:58Chris Ryan?

  Like, what, like, I was like, what are you guys doing? There's no, this would be like, basically like going up to AJ Brown and being like, Saquon's in the tent. How's he doing in there? And AJ Brown was like,

• 33:08Bill Simmons?

  Concussion or no?

• 33:08Chris Ryan?

  I think he blew out his knee. Yeah.

• 33:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. Do you remember when Rogers tore his Achilles, they went to Tyrod Taylor and said, how's, how's Rogers look? And he's like, oh, he's fucked. I'm going in.

• 33:16Chris Ryan?

  I'm warming up.

• 33:19Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna take a break and then when we come back, we're gonna talk about a famously fucked up shoot.

• 33:26Speaker 08

  It's me, the

• 33:29Speaker 08

  We don't need the jingle twice.

• 33:32Speaker 08

  Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars.

• 33:41Speaker 08

  Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app.

• 33:47Speaker 08

  Fine. No one deals more deals than Please stop. Touche. Priceline.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Glimmer, the new eau de parfum by Estee Lauder. An amber floral fragrance with a gourmand twist with notes of Macaron Rose Accord, Amber Embrace Accord, and shimmering patchouli. A glimmer is a small, unexpected moment of joy that shifts your energy and how you feel. A scent to be felt, remembered, and shared. Discover more at estee lauder.com. What makes you glimmer?

• 34:24Bill Simmons?

  This movie was filmed in and around Charlotte and Daytona Beach.

• 34:27Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:28Bill Simmons?

  And went 25 to 30 million over budget, they say, which is probably really 50, because we had Simpson and Bruckheimer, we had Tony Scott, a legend, a rewatchables Hall of Famer.

• 34:43Bill Simmons?

  I'm not positive he was that easy to work with from time to time. So you have him and then you have Robert Town who's on the set with like crazy power. And then you have Cruz. And it's the four guys and then sometimes Cruz just arguing about everything because they keep changing the script. The crew members apparently made so much overtime that they didn't have to work for like six months after. Scenes were written day of the filming. I, I, this almost seems too crazy to be true, but apparently Cruz would have cue cards on the windshield because the scenes are being rewritten so fast. He would know his lines.

• 35:16Chris Ryan?

  And Town sometimes would be on the radio telling him what to say. Yeah.

• 35:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, Cruz ends up almost crashing because of the cue cards. So they decide that's a bad idea. They have to put the earplugs like he's a quarterback in football with Towns as the OC. Calling in plays. What were you saying, Kyle?

• 35:31Speaker 03

  Tom, Tom, right now on this turn, say, I'm dropping the hammer. Say it, say it.

• 35:37Bill Simmons?

  Tom, just I'm dropping the hammer really quick. Uh, filming finished three months late. And it's crazy shit like Towns really wanted, I guess Duval's character to have an awesome barn. So they built the barn and Towns like, I don't like it. Let's do it again. Knock it down. They build it again. He's like, and now still didn't get it right. They knock it down. They build it a third time. He's like, nah, let's use the one we scouted before. So they built three barns, didn't use any of the barns for like four weeks of filming.

• 36:09Chris Ryan?

  Now I just want to say,

• 36:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 36:11Chris Ryan?

  I will die on the hill of Robert Town should get to do this. And this is what I live for.

• 36:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 36:17Chris Ryan?

  When you hear stories like this, you kind of understand why they shoot everything on the volume now and everything is like VFX and CGI. We're never getting back to the place where one coked up screenwriter could be like, build me another barn.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  Well, Chris, that video that you sent of the real race where they shot this movie. One thing that jumped out to me is in the CBS coverage, there is a shot of Cole Trickle on a spineboard being lifted up from a helicopter. That is not in the movie. So they paid for a fucking helicopter to lift up Tom Cruise.

• 36:47Chris Ryan?

  They show, but they show shots.

• 36:49Bill Simmons?

  They show them. They don't show, yeah, they don't show the wide shot in the movie. You're right.

• 36:52Speaker 03

  Not in the movie like you gotta use that if you pay for it.

• 36:55Chris Ryan?

  I think it's because I wonder whether it's supposed to have happened. Well, no, it is. You know, it happened.

• 36:58Bill Simmons?

  No, they they just probably decided not to like it. The other thing is they they did all these reshoots. They went all this money over budget and then realized after they finished the movie that they didn't have Cole Trickle crossing the finish line in the biggest race.

• 37:12Chris Ryan?

  Of the whole thing.

• 37:13Bill Simmons?

  And had to go back.

• 37:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:14Bill Simmons?

  And and redo that part after it was already done. It was like probably the only thing that really truly mattered to get on camera. They didn't get um Simpson and Bruckheimer.

• 37:26Bill Simmons?

  They spent $400,000 and this is 1990 money. So what's that like 2 million now? I don't even know. To have part of their hotel that they were staying in converted into a private gym.

• 37:37Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 37:37Bill Simmons?

  That also had a large neon sign on it that said days of thunder. So that happened. Um Simpson had a whole closet of Donna Karen dresses. And he would offer women that he met either the dresses or come be my assistant, stuff like that. They were throwing parties every night.

• 37:54Chris Ryan?

  Disgusting and amazing detail.

• 37:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they had parties with people like Tone Loc rapping.

• 38:02Bill Simmons?

  They um post-production was five weeks instead of five months because they took so long to film this thing. That they they were like, this movie's coming out June 27, 1990. This is it. It's coming out on this date. They don't finish until mid-May. They now have five weeks to edit and finish and complete and get prints out for the movie. Paramount was so upset afterwards that they asked for a 9 million refund on the profit participation from Don and Jerry. Were told though, and then ended the relationship that had just started. So basically like Buffalo gives Josh Allen that 330 million dollar deal. He has one bad season. They're like, we're out. We're just gonna pay you off 120 million. Done.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  Bill, I my mind is wandering to that gym you mentioned. I'm just wondering like.

• 38:48Bill Simmons?

  400 million dollar gym. What happened to it?

• 38:51Speaker 03

  What? Well, no, what were like, what were the top five exercises those assholes were doing in that gym? I think it's a lot of like curls for the girls, bicep, tricep, decline, bench press, calf raises, like all the aesthetic stuff.

• 39:05Bill Simmons?

  Caps and biceps, right?

• 39:06Chris Ryan?

  Kyle, you're such a sweetheart for thinking that there was any exercising going on in that gym.

• 39:10Speaker 03

  Maybe they really used it once.

• 39:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, no, but can you imagine if there's one guy who's like, guys, I just want to get a pump in? With all the other stuff going on here.

• 39:19Bill Simmons?

  I think the best time to get a pump in was probably between seven and nine AM in the morning. Cause Don Simpson was probably still out.

• 39:26Chris Ryan?

  Those would be the Rassilo hours. Like Ryan's like, hey, you know, like.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  Well, Rassilo's like, can I work in on that lap? Pull down Jerry, Jesus Christ. It's, I, I don't know if there was a lot of gains being made in that gym.

• 39:37Bill Simmons?

  There was one of the stories about it. They're talking about the gym.

• 39:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:40Bill Simmons?

  And they make a point of saying how Cruz didn't work out in the gym because he was renting a house and built his own gym in the house. They're just like, they're shooting hundred dollar bills all around the Carolina area.

• 39:52Speaker 03

  Has there ever been a scene stealing location award for something that's not even in the movie?

• 39:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I know.

• 39:56Speaker 03

  I want to hang in that gym so bad.

• 39:59Bill Simmons?

  Well, um, they did a lot of press too about this Paramount deal they did. They took the newspaper ads for themselves, congratulated themselves. They did all that. So Hollywood was lined up at this point. Hollywood was in full fuck these guys mode. CR sent us a Spy Magazine one pager where some of the stuff that we're talking about was in there, but.

• 40:21Chris Ryan?

  It's like 450 words.

• 40:23Bill Simmons?

  The vultures were out.

• 40:23Chris Ryan?

  And it's everything you need to know about like Hollywood excess. It's somehow, it's basically written like a very, very erudite party report. And this person is obviously talking to people on the set, but it's just such a great portrait of these guys just going full Babylon.

• 40:40Bill Simmons?

  Well, and it fucked up. So their next movie is supposed to be Beverly Hills Cop three.

• 40:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:44Bill Simmons?

  And still catching Eddie at the tail end of before, I think he moved into a different phase of comedy. And that gets delayed for three years. By the time they make it, it ends up being one of the worst sequels in a while. But then Simpson just is a fucking mess for most of the nineties. And then has the one last comeback with bad boys and Crimson Tide. Ends up breaking up with Bruckheimer and then dies overdoses.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  Phil, here's, here's an unanswerable question. And you mentioned this, like, is Cruz part of the decadence? If, if it's blow and women and party and all, is Cruz into that?

• 41:18Chris Ryan?

  He's in Scientology by this point. He's like fully, yes. Yeah. Cause there was a, even like a little tidbit about how the. The brain surgeon who's Nicole Kidman's boss is named after his like, one of his Scientology associates.

• 41:34Bill Simmons?

  There's some slightly weird Cruz stuff with that. I like Cruz, but you know, he gets divorced from Mimi Rogers near the end of the eighties. There's stuff in here about how he selected Nicole Kidman to be his co-star in this. They started dating and it does feel a little recipe-ish. And we'll leave it at that. $60 million budget allegedly. I'm gonna say it was really about, what, 85 CR?

• 41:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, 85, 90, yeah.

• 41:56Bill Simmons?

  The $400,000 gem, maybe not in that budget. It did make 157.9 million.

• 42:01Chris Ryan?

  Are you gonna ever have a Don Simpson phase for me, Bill? Like, are we ever gonna really ball out?

• 42:05Bill Simmons?

  I've had it. It's like Watergate. I can just go back and do it again. I've already, I've already done it. I've already read all the books, but I'm happy to redo it if you want.

• 42:14Chris Ryan?

  No, I actually mean like when we go to Boston for the live show.

• 42:18Bill Simmons?

  Oh, me having a Don Simpson phase?

• 42:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I wanna see you-

• 42:20Bill Simmons?

  I'm too afraid of cocaine.

• 42:22Chris Ryan?

  Out, late at night, in the combat zone, you know, putting up a Days of Thunder gem.

• 42:27Bill Simmons?

  I'm too afraid. The limb bias put the fair god on me.

• 42:29Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 42:30Bill Simmons?

  That's it. I just-

• 42:31Speaker 03

  But you're also fascinated by it.

• 42:33Bill Simmons?

  But I'm, I'm probably like Cruz. I like being peripherally near where the debauchery is happening and I like hearing the stories after, but keep me out of the rooms.

• 42:43Chris Ryan?

  But do you ever think about the fact that Don Simpson was probably your age when he was making Days of Thunder? Like, can you imagine?

• 42:49Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I think he was younger.

• 42:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, was he?

• 42:52Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah. I think, I think during the cocaine era, like, my 55 was like 42.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  They look 55.

• 43:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 43:02Speaker 09

  Don Simpson was 37 in-

• 43:06Bill Simmons?

  Holy shit.

• 43:07Speaker 09

  Wait, wait, wait. 47, sorry. 47, 99.

• 43:10Chris Ryan?

  So Don Simpson's my age making Days of Thunder.

• 43:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, so you just add another 10 years.

• 43:16Bill Simmons?

  Cruz made $9 million plus points for this movie. It got nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound. Roger Ebert, three stars.

• 43:25Bill Simmons?

  Days of Thunder is an entertaining example of what we might as well call the Tom Cruise picture. Mm-hmm. And then goes through all the beats of Tom Cruise movies, which I don't need to read. Parts of the plot are beginning to wear out their welcome, but the key ingredients are still effective. And then he says about Nicole Kidman, Kidman has little to do as the love interest and doesn't make much of an impression. Ah. I disagree. I think she classes it up. Yeah. I do. I thought she looked awesome. Uh, our guy Quentin Tarantino.

• 43:53Chris Ryan?

  Loves it.

• 43:54Bill Simmons?

  Loves it, yeah. I saw this. This is awesome. I'm a big fan. To me, Days of Thunder is the movie Grand Prix and Le Mans should have been. Sure, it had a big budget, big stars and a big director in Tony Scott, but it had the fun of those early AIP movies. I just don't think it works if you take the whole thing too seriously. He also loves Tony Scott, we should mention.

• 44:11Chris Ryan?

  Speaking of taking this thing too seriously, I just want to throw out a Robert Town quote about this film.

• 44:17Bill Simmons?

  Hmm.

• 44:18Chris Ryan?

  Days of Thunder becomes the struggle of a driver to replace his belief in his own infallibility with the true courage of a man who recognizes that even if some things are beyond his control, he must go on to face them if he is to race, to win, and to live his life.

• 44:35Bill Simmons?

  Come on.

• 44:36Chris Ryan?

  That's what he said.

• 44:37Bill Simmons?

  Fuck off. That was not my takeaway. He's driving and he goes, "Son of a bitch." And like, that's basically it. Yeah, that was not my takeaway.

• 44:45Chris Ryan?

  That should be a new category. Okay, Bob Town. Sounds good.

• 44:49Bill Simmons?

  Real good there, bud. Got it. Yeah, I mean, Bob Town probably was thinking about this, like, the way, like, to me, Without Limits, the other, the Prefontaine movie with Billy Crudup, that's the version of Days of Thunder Bob Town probably had in his head, but that's not what is on the screen.

• 45:06Chris Ryan?

  That's not what Tony and Don were thinking.

• 45:07Bill Simmons?

  No, that's not what they're thinking. Uh, all right, categories. I'm swerving with you guys. I have two categories at the top before most rewatchable scenes. What do you got? I moved some stuff up because I think it's too important. The Chest Rockwell and Brock Landers Award for Best Character Name. Yeah, come on. Our nominees are Cole Trickle, Rowdy Burns, Harry Hogg, spelled H-O-G-G-E.

• 45:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:32Bill Simmons?

  Or Buddy Bretherton.

• 45:34Chris Ryan?

  I think it's Rowdy Burns.

• 45:36Bill Simmons?

  What do you think Kyle?

• 45:37Speaker 03

  I, I think this category could be renamed the Cole Trickle and Rowdy Burns Best Name Awards. It's, it's Rowdy. Listen, Rowdy is, says it all. And again, a guy named Rowdy directed Roadhouse. Like, and you know what you're getting from someone named Rowdy. And his last name is Burns, which is like, also like fire. It, it's just absolutely perfect. Rambunctious Fire, Rowdy Burns. That's the name.

• 45:58Bill Simmons?

  We're due for a Rowdy in sports.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:02Bill Simmons?

  Like, if, I guess Abdul Carter is a pretty good name, but like Mason Graham in the NFL Draft right now. If Mason Graham's name was Rowdy and he was like, it's Rowdy Graham, the, the Michigan defensive tackle. I'd be like, Jesus, that guy's gotta go first.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  The big board.

• 46:15Chris Ryan?

  It should be.

• 46:16Bill Simmons?

  Rowdy Graham.

• 46:17Chris Ryan?

  It should be a quarterback who kinda like flames out at Notre Dame or USC and winds up at like, Washington State or, or something like that and sets the world on fire. It's like Rowdy Burns is back.

• 46:30Bill Simmons?

  Rowdy Burns.

• 46:31Speaker 03

  It'd be like Johnny Football.

• 46:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:33Speaker 03

  It'd be like that. I, I think, uh, it's been a long time since we, we lost Roddy Roddy Piper. So it's like, we're due for a Rowdy refresh. Yes.

• 46:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, another category. This is a brand new category, CR.

• 46:44Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 46:45Bill Simmons?

  376 movies. I think it's a decent ad.

• 46:48Chris Ryan?

  You're still surprising me.

• 46:50Bill Simmons?

  The Dr. Claire Lewicki Award for Worst Character Name. Why is her name Dr. Claire Lewicki? She's a fucking redhead from Australia.

• 46:59Chris Ryan?

  I think it.

• 46:59Bill Simmons?

  How do they come up with Lewicki?

• 47:01Chris Ryan?

  In, in addition to never filming the, the checkered flag at Daytona, I think they also forgot to maybe tweak the name from the first draft.

• 47:09Bill Simmons?

  Once they hired Kidman, like, couldn't she have been Dr. Claire Sanders?

• 47:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 03

  Lewicki doesn't sound like it. What, what's the story about, about, uh, the Beatles, like Eleanor Rigby? Like Paul, Paul McCartney just opened a phone book and chose a name and that was literally how they came up with that name? That's how they came up with Lewicki.

• 47:24Bill Simmons?

  Too lazy to take it out?

• 47:25Speaker 03

  I don't know. Lewicki, fine.

• 47:27Bill Simmons?

  Like, I just watched Youngblood. The coach's daughter, like, could be, could have been a Lewicki. Like, she's living in nowhere, Canada. Like, but Dr. Claire Lewicki?

• 47:37Bill Simmons?

  Town's like, boom, I'm taking a break. I can't, I have.

• 47:40Chris Ryan?

  I gotta go build another barn.

• 47:42Speaker 03

  What's the fact that it's paired with Cole Trickle and, and Russ Wheeler? Like, those are bangers. And then they just fall off the table.

• 47:50Bill Simmons?

  What an amazing New York Times wedding announcement. Cole, NASCAR driver Cole Trickle's paired Dr. Claire Lewicki, 23-year-old neurosurgeon.

• 47:58Chris Ryan?

  The groom wore mellow yellow green.

• 48:01Speaker 03

  Yes. I think she keeps her name of Claire Lewicki Trickle. That's, that's it.

• 48:07Bill Simmons?

  Most rewatchable scene. So Cole's first scene.

• 48:11Speaker 10

  What's going on?

• 48:13Speaker 11

  He's had second thoughts.

• 48:15Speaker 10

  You said you'd look at it.

• 48:16Speaker 11

  I've looked at it.

• 48:17Speaker 10

  I paid $2,500 to use his track today, Harry.

• 48:20Speaker 11

  Forget it. He needs a brand name like Exxon or Richard Petty. Well, I know a damn race driver when I see one.

• 48:29Speaker 10

  What's going on, Harry? Is this happening or what?

• 48:32Speaker 11

  Do us all a favor, Harry.

• 48:36Bill Simmons?

  I know a damn race car driver when I see one. Let me drive. I won't make a fool out of you.

• 48:42Bill Simmons?

  We get that whole thing. Cruise showing up on a motorcycle is hilarious. How many times has Cruise broken out a motorcycle in a movie? If you had to guess.

• 48:49Chris Ryan?

  I was trying to do a compendium of Tom Cruise's character entrances.

• 48:54Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 48:55Chris Ryan?

  I think it's something he thinks about. I think it's something that he is very conscious of. I, you know.

• 49:00Bill Simmons?

  It's almost like professional wrestling. Like he's coming in with like a song.

• 49:03Chris Ryan?

  Is like in Collateral, which is kind of the opposite of this in terms of like the smoke and everything, but the door just opens and Vincent from, you know, Collateral Vincent is just standing full on right in front of the camera. He's so good at making a huge first impression with these characters.

• 49:19Speaker 03

  It's, I'm so glad you said that. I mean, I, listen, I think of the Magnolia entrance with the 2001 theme on the stage, but I, when he rode the motorcycle through the smoke onto the track on this rewatch, I laughed out loud. I, I was like absolutely hysterical. And that opening scene, that's, that seemed between him and Rowdy is what you call in scene steady class, like a dick swinging contest. It is so much back and forth. I like that Rowdy goes and sits on his bike to reclaim status. I like that Cole puts his duffel bag on the hood of the car. It's so much back and forth. It's, I love that scene.

• 49:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I had this written later, but Randy Quaid was in Brokeback Mountain and that somehow wasn't the gayest sexual attention movie that he's been in because Cole and Rowdy.

• 50:04Speaker 03

  Incredible.

• 50:06Bill Simmons?

  You build me a car and I'll win Daytona next year. I love when people just say shit like that during a football movie and like you, you get me an offensive line, I'll win the Super Bowl next year. It's like, you're from fucking Eagle Rock, California, you're racing, like, give me, what are you talking about? Next one, Cole's first four races, disaster. We do get the Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness Award, Best Noodle Drop for Give Me Some Lovin'.

• 50:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and I would actually go, we need to kind of maybe come up with a subcategory here. I think you could make the argument that Give Me Some Lovin' is the most effective montage song that we have in American cinema history.

• 50:44Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking about this, that, so I was gonna go a different way. Are we at capacity now with Give Me Some Lovin'?

• 50:51Chris Ryan?

  For sure.

• 50:52Bill Simmons?

  Like, is it almost like in the air tonight for football games? Like, just no more? Like, we're good, we had a great run, let's move on.

• 50:59Chris Ryan?

  This is a little bit of a slow first 15, 16 minutes, you know, a lot of talking to the car frames, a lot of like, hold my duffel bag stuff. Where Give Me Some Lovin' kicks in, you're like, oh, fucking Tony Scott is here.

• 51:12Speaker 03

  Damn right.

• 51:14Bill Simmons?

  He rubbed you, and Robinson is racing. We get stuff like that. We get the hit the pace car, we get the we're busy, we're eating ice cream. We get lines like, what do we do? We end up looking like a monkey fucking a football out there!

• 51:29Speaker 03

  Can we talk about that line for a second?

• 51:32Speaker 10

  I had sponsors in the stands, and I'm hugging and holding hands and kissing them in the air and praying for a good showing. And what do we do? We end up looking like a monkey fucking a football out there.

• 51:45Speaker 03

  We all work in sports. I work implicitly for the NFL. I have never heard the expression a monkey fucking a football out of nowhere. I don't know what that is, it's never been said. And I also think it's the closest in the movie that Randy Quaid gets to being Cousin Eddie. This is one year after Christmas Vacation. And when he says fucking a football, he is this close to saying Catherine revving up the microwave and pissing my pants for five minutes. It's so good. I love that line.

• 52:13Bill Simmons?

  Great Randy Quaid run. We also get Cole saying, there's nothing I can't do with a race car. Which I think if it's story by Tom Cruise and Robert Downe, he probably suggested that line at Starbucks.

• 52:22Chris Ryan?

  I'm just throwing it at the wall. You can use it, you can reject it, but just what if this guy says?

• 52:26Bill Simmons?

  My feelings won't be heard if we don't use this, but I think it's good. Next one, Cole wins his first race. I like the whole concept of I'm going faster, everyone else is going slower. Yeah. It feels like there's some deep NASCAR shit going on there. I don't fully understand it. We get the pit disaster, we get Cruz flipping out. Son of a bitch. This is before he had like the voice leveling stuff because when he screams, his voice goes too high. Harry lies about the tires I like and then uh, always fun when it's the boy doesn't have the balls to pass me on turn four. I, none of us understand NASCAR, but it's like, yeah, that sounds pretty crazy to pass him on turn four.

• 53:03Bill Simmons?

  Is he gonna, is he gonna try that?

• 53:04Speaker 03

  I always, that, that line should be on the, the freezing cold takes Twitter account. Like he doesn't have the balls to do it and then he does it. And then also Russ Wheeler at the end, I know Cole, he always goes outside. Oh, he's going low.

• 53:18Bill Simmons?

  I know Cole, I've raced against him four times.

• 53:20Chris Ryan?

  But it's kind of like, it's like Hunt for October, it's the crazy Ivan. It's gonna go one way or the other. It's like, it's not like he can go underneath of you, man. You might want to be aware.

• 53:29Bill Simmons?

  I enjoy that part. I enjoy when they win a race in, in car movies. Just a brief scene, but Cole getting stopped by the police stripper.

• 53:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:39Speaker 03

  Hmm. Yeah, I mean, this, that's a very important scene.

• 53:41Chris Ryan?

  Do you think that was a, a Don Simpson special? He was like, I need to rent out this willow tree, light it beautifully and then have an unnecessary stripper scene.

• 53:51Bill Simmons?

  I think when you say Don Simpson special, odds are strippers and/or cocaine are gonna be involved. Uh, so this case we get one.

• 54:01Chris Ryan?

  What did you think of uh,

• 54:02Bill Simmons?

  Could this movie have been, if this movie was rated R, this scene could have definitely, we could have really, but no, we could have explored the studio space with this scene, I think.

• 54:11Speaker 04

  Well, looks like we found something.

• 54:15Speaker 11

  What's that?

• 54:16Speaker 04

  Concealed weapon.

• 54:17Speaker 11

  Where?

• 54:18Speaker 04

  Right. Here.

• 54:27Speaker 04

  Now,

• 54:29Speaker 04

  the only question is.

• 54:35Speaker 04

  Will he actually use it?

• 54:42Speaker 03

  Well, I have a question about that. And I had this later, but so that woman's a prostitute, right? Like, I don't think she's a stripper.

• 54:49Speaker 09

  I think she's an exotic dancer, Kyle.

• 54:51Speaker 03

  I don't think so, Chris. Exotic dancers don't immediately kiss you on the mouth the second they meet you.

• 54:55Speaker 09

  Did you see Nora? Show some respect.

• 54:58Speaker 03

  I did. And God bless the sex workers. I think, and my question was, does Cole have sex with that woman? Because again, the stripper doesn't show up and immediately kiss you on the mouth. That doesn't happen that way. So I think she's a prostitute.

• 55:12Bill Simmons?

  The implication is there's a little bus orgy right after that.

• 55:15Chris Ryan?

  Oh, I thought it was more like he's remained pure.

• 55:18Speaker 09

  A bus orgy? No. They all have sex with her?

• 55:21Bill Simmons?

  I thought there were more, there's more than just one woman, wasn't there?

• 55:24Speaker 09

  No, it's a bunch of guys. It's like Nick Sirianni and stuff.

• 55:26Speaker 03

  Oh, you're right. There's a second woman.

• 55:28Speaker 09

  My unanswerable question is, what happens next? Like, right when that scene cuts, like, what do they all do with that woman? Does she strip in front of nine dudes? They let Cruz go in the van?

• 55:39Bill Simmons?

  She goes in the bus with Cole.

• 55:40Speaker 09

  And they all just wait?

• 55:40Bill Simmons?

  I thought there were more women, but you're right.

• 55:42Speaker 03

  So wait, last question about that woman. And do you guys, you guys know who that is, that actress? Do you know this?

• 55:47Bill Simmons?

  Can you save it for casting with her?

• 55:48Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 55:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's unbelievable. I couldn't believe it. Oh, I couldn't believe it.

• 55:54Speaker 03

  Chris, do you know? Do you know, Chris?

• 55:56Bill Simmons?

  Chris, do you know CR who that is?

• 55:58Speaker 09

  I do.

• 55:59Bill Simmons?

  You want to do it now? No, let's save it. Let's save it. Let's save it for the audience. Now they're excited.

• 56:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 56:06Bill Simmons?

  Next scene's another short one, but Cole thinks Dr. Claire Lewicki is another stripper.

• 56:12Speaker 09

  After the crash.

• 56:14Bill Simmons?

  After the crash and puts her hand. There's some violations here, but it leads right to the wheelchair race, which is a phenomenal scene. But this whole stretch is pretty funny. This is probably my favorite part of the movie, right around, right around here. Cole's-

• 56:26Speaker 09

  Like the wheelchair, the racing to dinner.

• 56:28Bill Simmons?

  Cole wins his first race, the bus, all the stuff. The accident.

• 56:32Bill Simmons?

  The accident, all this stuff. I enjoyed the rental car race.

• 56:38Bill Simmons?

  The, uh, how did they end up in the water during this? If you had to guess?

• 56:44Speaker 03

  In the water?

• 56:45Bill Simmons?

  In the rental car race. We're banging in the street, all of a sudden, we're on the beach, just going through water that's spraying.

• 56:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:54Bill Simmons?

  But then we're back.

• 56:55Speaker 03

  I, uh, my senior year in high school spring break was Daytona Beach. You can drive on the beaches there. There's an actual beach where there's cars. It's, that's a real thing.

• 57:02Bill Simmons?

  The valet situation is funny, too.

• 57:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:04Bill Simmons?

  Um, Cole ruins Russ Wheeler's victory lap when he comes out and just rams his car. I love that part.

• 57:12Bill Simmons?

  They write in a little, little Cruz Duval, like, let's do a little four-minute emotional scene here.

• 57:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 57:20Speaker 11

  I'm not getting back in my car. I'm getting in Rowdy's. Oh, well, that sounds just dumb enough to be a race driver. You think you'll hide from your bad luck in his car? And what the hell for for Rowdy? If he can run tomorrow, he cries you to win the race. He's mean. He's not particular friend. So why? Because he asked me to. Oh shit. You just won a race again. Yeah. And so do you.

• 57:46Bill Simmons?

  It's really the only time Cruz dials it up as an actor for two hours. And Duval's, you know, he's going against an Oscar winner. There's, there's a moment and then the last.

• 57:55Chris Ryan?

  That is the only problem with that scene is there's, all of a sudden, not only does Cole know a lot about cars, but also you're like, we're going back to the guy that died on Harry's watch, which only got mentioned in the first scene briefly.

• 58:11Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 58:11Chris Ryan?

  And there's a lot of like forensic, kind of like, oh no, he didn't have a heart attack. He was talking, you know, like.

• 58:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:17Chris Ryan?

  And so, yeah.

• 58:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. It's like, what happened? I'm watching this movie for the first time and it was something you casually mentioned an hour and a half ago.

• 58:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:24Bill Simmons?

  What?

• 58:25Speaker 03

  It strikes me as someone had a moment of sobriety on stage and they're like, all right, hold on. We got Duval and we got Cruz coming off 4th of July. We gotta have, have some acting in this fucking movie. Let's throw a scene together and you guys just talk about some shit. It felt very ad-libbed from the hip. Cause you got those guys, you got, they gotta act a little bit.

• 58:40Chris Ryan?

  I did like the whole idea that Cole blew his engine on purpose because he was, he had the yips though.

• 58:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:47Bill Simmons?

  Last one, Cole's big Daytona comeback. Seeing the smoke driving through it, symbolic in a lot of ways, Kyle. A little like, I'm sure Josh Allen watches this movie and thinks there's gonna be another moment on a fourth and one. I just gotta go through the smoke.

• 59:00Speaker 03

  That smoke is, is, is the Chiefs every single year.

• 59:04Bill Simmons?

  Just gotta go through the smoke.

• 59:05Speaker 03

  He got, he got, you know, Joey Bosa, who plays like three games a year. That, that'll be the difference.

• 59:09Bill Simmons?

  For 12 million bucks.

• 59:10Speaker 03

  We're set. We're set.

• 59:13Bill Simmons?

  I like the big, we gotta, I mean, none of us understand race car driving at all. But the whole, we gotta get out before that pace car comes around. They show the pace car back to think, oh my God, the guy can't get the lug nut in. Everybody, oh, oh, we made it. Very fun. And then the, he's going high, he's going low.

• 59:32Speaker 03

  Awesome.

• 59:35Bill Simmons?

  I have this later, but I'll do this now. Now, this is really good. This is almost like, this could be a social clip.

• 59:43Bill Simmons?

  So if you're the hero of a sports movie and you could pick any, any movie, what would be the single most fun scene to reenact? If you were the actor, because I would make a case, winning a huge race in either Indy 500 or NASCAR. And then you get to do the thing where they all lift you up and they pour champagne on you and you're celebrating. That seems like it would be number one. I couldn't think of another one that would be better. Maybe, maybe a perfect game, running toward the catcher and jumping into the catcher's arms.

• 1:00:12Speaker 03

  Baseball as well. I was thinking of Willie Mays Hayes going home on Clue Heywood and the Yankees. He slides into home and the Indians win and they storm the field.

• 1:00:19Bill Simmons?

  Jumps on them.

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, like that, the dog pile like that, I would love that.

• 1:00:22Bill Simmons?

  What about like a game winning, like a natural Roy Hobbs wins the pen, home run trot?

• 1:00:27Chris Ryan?

  I wouldn't want to be bleeding out of the side, out of my side, but I would like to break the lights with a home run.

• 1:00:33Bill Simmons?

  Because then you could do like the Vanderbeek winning in Varsity Blues end zone celebration.

• 1:00:39Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:00:39Bill Simmons?

  You could have the Jimmy Chitwood, uh, making the, making the jumper at the top of the key to win the state title and the whole, the whole arena comes at you.

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  A fun part of it too, is it in with, with Vanderbeek and with Cole Trickle is you get a victory make out, like right there in the celebration.

• 1:00:56Bill Simmons?

  That's right.

• 1:00:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. Your first base is awesome.

• 1:00:58Bill Simmons?

  Involve all the characters. Boxing has like, you win and everybody comes to the ring, but I really think racing is number one for this. Cause you get all the characters in the movie, things poured on you and you get to kiss somebody. What's the most 1990 thing about this movie? So I'll give you three choices. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman falling in love, which seems like it happened 130 years ago. We for sponsors, we have Tide, Snickers, Skoll and Exxon. And then Mellow Yellow. I think Exxon and Mellow Yellow being sponsors have to get there.

• 1:01:31Chris Ryan?

  Exxon was like, nothing can go wrong for us.

• 1:01:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, this would be great.

• 1:01:36Speaker 03

  They're still cleaning off those poor ducks with just covered in oil. I feel so bad for those ducks.

• 1:01:42Chris Ryan?

  Guys, we have this spot in Days of Thunder.

• 1:01:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, this is the peak.

• 1:01:47Speaker 03

  Buy the lake house. We're good.

• 1:01:50Bill Simmons?

  I think the unless you guys can come up with another one, I think I have the winner. Is there anything else you think is 1990?

• 1:01:56Speaker 03

  Chris, I got one too.

• 1:01:57Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Russ Wheeler's girlfriend.

• 1:02:00Speaker 03

  That's what I have. Same one.

• 1:02:02Chris Ryan?

  She's basically Brigitte Nielsen. Do they couldn't get Brigitte Nielsen? She has the high top fade and the crazy boxy blazer. It's, it's just like only in 1990.

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  It's, it's, it's Brigitte Nielsen wearing some sort of pantsuit with Mike Allstott's shoulder pads underneath the jacket. It's unbelievable.

• 1:02:21Bill Simmons?

  The only thing that I was missing was Fred Willard as the announcer going, look at that happy fellow. I think I have the winner. This is just from the research verbatim. The film's theme song, Last Note of Freedom, was sung by Whitesnakes lead singer David Coverdale at the request of Tom Cruise.

• 1:02:41Speaker 03

  Fucking awesome.

• 1:02:42Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:43Bill Simmons?

  What, is there any other point in the history of, of America where Tom Cruise would have requested a song from Whitesnakes, David Coverdale? We're looking at 88 to 90, that's has to be the window, right?

• 1:02:55Chris Ryan?

  It's also amazing too, because David Coverdale is probably like, God, you know, I did Here I Go Again. I'm, I'm with Toni Kattan. I'm in Days of Thunder and then Nirvana comes like nine months later and wipes him off the face of the earth.

• 1:03:10Bill Simmons?

  David Coverdale's at an Exxon rap party and then you're just like, guys, this is gonna get better for all of us.

• 1:03:15Speaker 03

  He has $2 million from Exxon to perform Is This Love for five minutes and then walk off stage.

• 1:03:22Speaker 03

  That's the winner.

• 1:03:22Bill Simmons?

  What's age the best? Robert Duvall is the crew chief.

• 1:03:26Chris Ryan?

  Oh, God.

• 1:03:27Bill Simmons?

  Rarely do you see somebody this overqualified to be in a sports movie where they actually care about the movie. Like Gene Hackman's in The Replacements. He's mailing it in. It's still fun. R I P Gene Hackman. Duvall's like, I actually like this character. I'm gonna explore. Maybe I can steal this movie from Cruise. I just think he's really good in it.

• 1:03:45Chris Ryan?

  I would honestly watch him talking to car frames for like half an hour.

• 1:03:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:49Chris Ryan?

  He's like, I'm gonna build you close to the ground. Give you a good restrictor plate. You know, like.

• 1:03:54Bill Simmons?

  Is, is it a hot take to say this is a top five favorite Duvall movie?

• 1:03:59Chris Ryan?

  Pretty hot.

• 1:04:00Bill Simmons?

  Cause he's been in a lot of good movies.

• 1:04:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:03Speaker 03

  Well, the other take is that this is a Robert Duvall movie featuring Tom Cruise and Duvall wins the movie. Like that's, that's another take. Cause every time Harry's on, it's good.

• 1:04:10Chris Ryan?

  It would be like Tom Skerritt winning Top Gun. Yeah.

• 1:04:14Bill Simmons?

  The hairdos? You mentioned this is the best Cruz's hair has ever looked. Ever. I, I almost feel like there's been some decisions in the last couple of years where he's gone to the barber slash hairstylist slash dye job person.

• 1:04:28Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:04:29Bill Simmons?

  And been like, hey, man, here's some Days of Thunder.

• 1:04:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:31Bill Simmons?

  Photos. Like could be, how close can we get to this?

• 1:04:34Speaker 03

  Well, can I get, can I give it a special shout out to like the Top Gun comparison? Russ Wheeler shows up with the same Iceman hairdo. It's the same shit. It's a blonde spike. It might as well be Val Kilmer. It's ridiculous.

• 1:04:46Bill Simmons?

  I know.

• 1:04:47Speaker 03

  But it looks cool.

• 1:04:48Bill Simmons?

  Uh, and curly haired Kidman is a special place in my heart.

• 1:04:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:52Bill Simmons?

  Cause what happens when, when especially really, really attractive women have hair like that, they ride it into their mid twenties and then they start straightening it out and they never have it again. And I just like to stand up for the curls.

• 1:05:04Speaker 03

  Last night about Nicole Kidman's hair as we watch. It's, I think like her hair was like fifth on the call sheet. She's like, her hair is amazing. And I'm like, look at the cars. She loved the hair.

• 1:05:13Chris Ryan?

  It's like a running quarterback, you know, like they, they do it for a few years and then it's like, no, no, no, I'm a pocket passer. I'm gonna straighten my hair.

• 1:05:19Bill Simmons?

  It's so good. I, I just thought she was lights out back then. I remember, did I ever tell you, I was at a restaurant once with the great John Walsh in the early 2000s, after I moved to LA, so it was probably 03. And all of a sudden, Nicole Kidman walked in and the entire restaurant stopped. It was the only time I've ever seen that. And it stopped, not because she was famous, because she was like so beautiful.

• 1:05:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:41Bill Simmons?

  Everyone was like, oh my, it was like watching like dolphins jump in the fucking ocean. It was incredible. Everyone was like, oh my God. It's like tall, just like great, but shit, what a great run by her. Two best, aged the best, two Oscar winners, Kidman and Duval, like sharing actual scenes together.

• 1:05:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I, I don't think he was thinking this lady is going to be a multi Oscar nominee someday as he was banging those cold trickle scenes out with her, but.

• 1:06:08Speaker 03

  Bill, did, did Walsh offer Nicole Kidman a part on Around the Horn? Like, want to be one of the panels? Bring them in, come on.

• 1:06:16Bill Simmons?

  He's like, I'm going to shoot Sir Eric ride home. John C. Riley basically as Reed Rothschild in this movie for what's best? Is there any difference with him and Reed Rothschild from what we can tell?

• 1:06:27Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 1:06:28Speaker 03

  No, and it's fun because he's intelligent and ice.

• 1:06:31Bill Simmons?

  I know.

• 1:06:31Speaker 03

  It's like, it's, it's very meta and it's cool, but no, he is, he's young, dumb, and he even plays guitar like Reed Rothschild does, which is really cool. So, yeah.

• 1:06:40Bill Simmons?

  I think Paul Thomas Anderson was just like, just do the Days of Thunder guy. That's Reed Rothschild.

• 1:06:44Chris Ryan?

  Basically that Duval has kept Riley, that Harry has kept Bucky on because his dad was the driver that died under Duval's watch.

• 1:06:53Bill Simmons?

  That story by Robert Town and Tom Cruise.

• 1:06:56Speaker 03

  Also, Bill, I gotta, I have to jump on this, the, the Town and Cruise. When you mentioned P T Anderson, so the scene when Cruise meets Russ Wheeler and he's on the phone and like kind of just mails in the handshake?

• 1:07:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:07Speaker 03

  That is the exact scene when Jack Horner brings Johnny Doe to meet Dirk Diggler and he's like, this is the new guy here.

• 1:07:12Bill Simmons?

  Oh, good point.

• 1:07:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's the same scene. I bet P T loved this movie.

• 1:07:17Bill Simmons?

  Oh, no question, because we know he loves Cruise and Riley too.

• 1:07:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:07:20Bill Simmons?

  Carrie Elwes as a dick? Just I don't think there was Val Kilmer is probably 10 out of 10 best dicks of the 80s, 90s, but Kerry Elwes was always a solid eight and a half. I have two more, but do you have guys any anymore? What's age?

• 1:07:34Speaker 03

  I burned all mine. What do you got, Chris?

• 1:07:35Chris Ryan?

  I'm always here for drunk Tom Cruise. It's like watching an alien try to speak French. Just him having a bud.

• 1:07:41Bill Simmons?

  Trying to watch a monkey fuck a football.

• 1:07:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it just really is like so fucking funny and.

• 1:07:48Bill Simmons?

  We've discussed this before. It's clear that he's never had to drink alcohol in the last 40 years.

• 1:07:53Chris Ryan?

  Definitely seems that way because he's just when he gets drunk at a few good men, when he gets drunk here, it's just like, hey, man, that's not exactly how it goes.

• 1:08:02Bill Simmons?

  It'd be like if I tried to film a cocaine scene and I was like.

• 1:08:07Speaker 03

  And you rub your gums?

• 1:08:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, because you've seen violence. I also just love when Rusty is like, I'm gonna pull this rookie's chain. I love like hazing rituals happening at 185 miles per hour is awesome.

• 1:08:24Bill Simmons?

  Two more for me. I'm more afraid of being nothing than being hurt. Great yearbook quote. Just pencil. What are we in March? We're still like handing in high school yearbooks. Throw that one in there, somebody. Couple racing lessons. As I've mentioned many times, we don't really understand this world. Couple lessons I took away. Driver has to trust his crew chief.

• 1:08:44Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:08:46Bill Simmons?

  Know that going forward. Tires win a race. It's dirty secret. Not about the car. It's not about the drivers, the tires. Don't have two race teams if you're the owner like Randy Quaid. You gotta pick one. You're gonna have tension. And then, um, this was probably the best advice. There are calculating drivers and kamikaze drivers. Which one are you?

• 1:09:08Chris Ryan?

  So Bill, when you're like, I don't like it when you do two other pods on a rewatchables day. Is that because you're trying to keep my tires?

• 1:09:14Bill Simmons?

  Right. You're doing like four. Your tires are like freaking a mess.

• 1:09:20Speaker 03

  Can we talk? Can we talk about the wheelchair scene? Is it time?

• 1:09:23Bill Simmons?

  That's amazing. Go ahead. It's just Tony Scott being like, it's like when we were at the Masters with Chang once and he just made us a pizza out of stuff in the fridge and it was like saltines and like a tomato and some broccoli and he's like, I can make a pizza out of this. That's Tony Scott.

• 1:09:39Speaker 03

  Tony Scott and Hans Zimmer saying, let's do the stupidest scene ever. And yet, am I crazy? It's, it's my favorite race in the movie. I like it better than any of the car races. It's more entertaining to me. And if you really get into the tape of it, like dive into the tape, the funniest movie of the wheelchair, part of the wheelchair race by far, is at one point, Cole's nurse catches back up with him and takes the handles and fucking Rowdy hits his hands away from Cole's wheelchair to preserve the integrity of the race. Like, I'm gonna win the right way. And I think the subtext of that scene is Cruz was not to do any, any driving in the whole movie. He wasn't allowed to drive the car for insurance reasons. I feel like that scene

• 1:10:22Speaker 03

  was his Daytona. Like, this is the one race they let me do and he's fucking serious as hell.

• 1:10:26Chris Ryan?

  But it was actually kind of unfair because he's coming off of Born on the Fourth of July. So he's been in the wheelchair for like the better part of the last two years.

• 1:10:35Bill Simmons?

  Well, when I heard, it wasn't in the research, but I'm guessing Rooker was in the $400,000 gym, just, just working on a wheelchair treadmill that Don Simpson bought him.

• 1:10:45Speaker 03

  Triceps, you're right.

• 1:10:46Bill Simmons?

  Getting it going. I forgot to ask you guys what your most rewatchable scene was because mine is also the wheelchair scene.

• 1:10:51Speaker 03

  Chris?

• 1:10:52Chris Ryan?

  Mine is, um, mine is probably the, the montage, the give me some love and montage.

• 1:10:58Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:10:59Speaker 03

  I'm here for Rooker and the most Rooker scene in this movie is when he first meets Cole is, you run good. Now get your own car and be in a crowd. Like, I love the opening scene.

• 1:11:09Bill Simmons?

  Taking one more break.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  Glimmer, the new eau de parfum by S.D. Lauder. An amber floral fragrance with a gourmand twist, with notes of macaron rose accord, amber embrace accord, and shimmering patchouli. A glimmer is a small, unexpected moment of joy that shifts your energy and how you feel. A scent to be felt, remembered, and shared. Discover more at STLauder.com. What makes you glimmer?

• 1:12:11Bill Simmons?

  The Big Kahuna Burger Award, best use of food and drink, has to be Mellow Yellow just being a sponsor, right? We can't top that. I actually looked this up. Mellow Yellow still exists in some markets. Do you know that?

• 1:12:23Chris Ryan?

  I didn't.

• 1:12:24Bill Simmons?

  It's still alive.

• 1:12:25Speaker 03

  Is it Coke's answer to Mountain Dew or vice versa? One of those?

• 1:12:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's kind of like it doesn't really work anymore, but they don't want to officially cancel it.

• 1:12:32Chris Ryan?

  The only other thing I had was when they get to the, finally get to the dinner with Fred Dalton Thompson.

• 1:12:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:38Chris Ryan?

  And Cole goes for the crudités first. Is anyone, has a NASCAR driver ever had crudités in the history of mankind?

• 1:12:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's from Eagle Rock.

• 1:12:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:48Bill Simmons?

  Would you have, Kyle?

• 1:12:49Speaker 03

  I mean, do we consider sweet and low to be food? It is a sweetener.

• 1:12:53Bill Simmons?

  Sure, let's do it. Okay, that wins.

• 1:12:55Speaker 03

  Double pack it into the thigh. This is mine.

• 1:12:58Bill Simmons?

  Great Shot Gordo Award for most cinematic shot. Do you have one, CR?

• 1:13:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, you know, every shot in this movie is pretty much everything that modern blockbusters are not. But there is a shot at the Daytona 500 when the cars are passing like the last officials before they get ready to start. And there is a low angle shot of all the cars going by and all these fucking balloons are going up in the background. And I'm like, Tony Scott, you are an absolute demon for this. This is such a great looking piece. And it's just a throwaway shot. But like, pretty much everything in this movie is, could be a painting.

• 1:13:32Speaker 03

  I zag Bill, the shot that should be in the Smithsonian is during the physical when Cruz and Kidman are actually standing face to face and you can see how short Tom Cruise is. He never let that happen again. That's disavowed by him.

• 1:13:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he's only ever been posted up by Kidman and McGillis. Those are the only two times he's gotten dunked on. Yeah.

• 1:13:51Bill Simmons?

  In the 4K Blu-ray, he actually had them add six inches to his height in that scene. Yeah, they're the same height. CR, you're up with the flex category from categories we don't normally have.

• 1:14:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I got Vincent Chase award. Are we sure this character was actually good at his job? And I gotta say, it might have been the brain injury talking, but Rusty's Rowdy's idea to let his wife design the $10 million house when she maybe has no background in architecture or project management was maybe like, hey, Rowdy, maybe one more brain surgery.

• 1:14:23Bill Simmons?

  Settle down. She's from Jacksonville, Rowdy. Settle down. That's good. I like that one. The butcher's girlfriend award, weak link of the film. What do you got, Kyle?

• 1:14:34Speaker 03

  All right. So I have a little one and a bigger one. The little one I have is that we never really get full Rowdy burns. Like, he never really goes super, super intense. You don't yell. It's not like he, it's a very underplayed performance there. And I'm always waiting for that one scene like in Cliffhanger where he just screams at Stallone and goes absolutely nuts. And we don't get it. But my bigger one is just, it's a little too much talking going on. In the second half of the movie, we got too much talking and you're like, get us back to the racetrack. I get these scenes of Duval talking to the car and them and Cruz. The second half drags because I think in a race car movie, you just want to see ass kicking. Little too much talking.

• 1:15:15Bill Simmons?

  I think I know. I had the same.

• 1:15:17Chris Ryan?

  I think I know why that is. And it is one of my what's aged the worst. I think the crash happens too early in the movie.

• 1:15:24Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 1:15:25Chris Ryan?

  I think it would be cool if maybe that montage scene had been two montages or whatever, it had been five minutes longer. But that crash happens like, you don't really get that much time with Cole racing in his prime. Before now, it's all of a sudden, this is a movie about CTE, you know?

• 1:15:44Bill Simmons?

  Right. I had the, I had right after the middle of the movie, I think it craters for about 25 minutes. Rowdy's battle with a career ending injury. It just, just kill him off.

• 1:15:55Chris Ryan?

  Cole's road rage incident and her being like, nobody has control.

• 1:16:01Bill Simmons?

  Every scene where Claire is like mad at Cole or they're trying to establish some sort of tension with them. It just doesn't work.

• 1:16:07Speaker 03

  Let me out of the car, Cole. Let me out of the car.

• 1:16:10Chris Ryan?

  Hot break feels good in a place like this.

• 1:16:13Bill Simmons?

  I like moving the crash later. I think that's a good idea. I would also, you could have talked to me in a Harry stealth cancer battle.

• 1:16:22Bill Simmons?

  That Chris finds out about when they have the big back and forth in the end.

• 1:16:25Chris Ryan?

  Rocky plotline. I like it.

• 1:16:27Bill Simmons?

  Just like a little, yeah, a little Creed one. Something's wrong with Harry and he doesn't want to tell Cole and Cole finds out. I think this movie is better off with Rowdy just dies. We lose all those scenes.

• 1:16:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, they goose.

• 1:16:39Bill Simmons?

  Cole's, we did, we basically, and they probably didn't want to do it because they didn't want to have the goose parallel, but we have that.

• 1:16:44Chris Ryan?

  So that's where they drew the line? They were like, we can give Carrie Elway's Val Kilmer's hair.

• 1:16:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:50Chris Ryan?

  But we can't kill Rowdy.

• 1:16:51Speaker 03

  Guys, they're gonna, they're not gonna take us seriously if he dies. Come on.

• 1:16:55Bill Simmons?

  Hey, now we get to do the Elizabeth Shoe as an Oxford Electrochemist Award for most ridiculous casting. A lot of options, but it's hard to pass 23 year old Nicole Kidman as Charlotte's best neurosurgeon.

• 1:17:07Chris Ryan?

  Second best. She's got a boss.

• 1:17:08Speaker 03

  I had this as my flex. I, I was going to reach to the top of the Elizabeth Shoe Oxford and I just, I want to establish for the record. If any of us were in 1990 in Daytona Beach, Florida, of all places and needed emergency care, we would get it from a five foot 11, 20 something, beautiful looking Australian doctor, who was also completely DTF. Like, I don't know if that is the fit that you would get. The odds have got to be long.

• 1:17:32Bill Simmons?

  What was the more unrealistic character, her or Kelly Lynch in Roadhouse? If you had to guess, most unrealistic, why are you living in this part of the world and why are you this good at your job?

• 1:17:42Speaker 03

  I think it's Lynch is unrealistic because she's in Jasper, of all places.

• 1:17:46Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:17:47Speaker 03

  And is a billion out of 10, working the ER in Jasper, at least, at least Paige Nowicki, or whatever her name is, gets the fallout from NASCAR. Claire.

• 1:17:56Bill Simmons?

  Claire Nowicki.

• 1:17:57Speaker 03

  I think it's the Kelly Lynch scale of ridiculous physicians.

• 1:18:00Chris Ryan?

  Do you think that Nowicki is in Daytona because that's where all the good brain injuries are? Or do you think that nobody believes a 23 year old could do this job so she could only get a job in Daytona?

• 1:18:11Bill Simmons?

  This is the best way to do it. But I think she's supposed to be like 29.

• 1:18:14Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:18:16Bill Simmons?

  But she, I mean, she looks like a kid in this movie, anyway.

• 1:18:18Speaker 03

  She's young.

• 1:18:19Bill Simmons?

  Um, what's age the worst? The video game for this movie stunk. I just wanted to get that on the record.

• 1:18:24Speaker 03

  It's terrible.

• 1:18:26Bill Simmons?

  Bad, really bad, really disappointing during, during an era where our expectations for video games were starting to go up. And this was bad. And in general, most driving video games were bad in the eighties and nineties. But this one, I feel like that you spent a hundred million dollars, you fucking build a gym for Simpson and Bruckheimer. You can have a good video game CR, come on.

• 1:18:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's, that's a tough one. What was like kind of the preeminent driving game right around this time?

• 1:18:48Bill Simmons?

  Well, arcade wise, pole position was great.

• 1:18:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:52Bill Simmons?

  Pole position was iconic for five, six years. And Days of Thunder at least should have had an awesome arcade game with Cruz's face on it. Like, I don't know how they fucked that up.

• 1:19:01Speaker 03

  No, like in the arcade at this point, there's a game called Outrun on Nintendo.

• 1:19:04Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:05Speaker 03

  Was a Rad Racer on Nintendo was kind of the standard.

• 1:19:08Bill Simmons?

  Rad Racer was good, yeah. Rad Racer was good.

• 1:19:10Speaker 03

  There was fun stuff, but this, on the GoldenEye scale of like movies being made into video games, this is a two. It's, the Top Gun game was way better and you couldn't fucking land. So this game was really bad.

• 1:19:23Bill Simmons?

  Give me more what's age the worst, because I have three left. What do you guys have?

• 1:19:26Speaker 03

  Go ahead, Chris.

• 1:19:26Chris Ryan?

  Uh, there's just too much baggage in this movie. Everybody's got some sob story with the exception of Louis, Louiski. There's just, and it's hard to navigate it. It's hard to separate it. John C. Reilly never even gets like a moment to like grapple with his dad, but Harry's talking about him all the time. I just feel like there was like one too many things on a whiteboard that they put in the movie. And, uh,

• 1:19:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's an eight, it's an eight episode prestige TV series as a one hour and forty minute movie.

• 1:19:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And then the only other thing would be knowing that they had to go back and reshoot the end of Daytona. I feel like they could have spent one more half a day on nailing Cole's reaction to winning NASCAR's biggest race, which is, all right, all right.

• 1:20:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's a great what's age the worst. I couldn't agree more.

• 1:20:11Chris Ryan?

  Let Tom Cruise be like, let's fucking go.

• 1:20:14Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:20:15Speaker 03

  Anything's possible.

• 1:20:18Bill Simmons?

  No, you're right. He should have done the KG. He should have, like, think how many times he unleashes in Cocktail, which is only two, two years before. Like, at least break out that Brian Flanagan for a split second. You have anything, Kyle?

• 1:20:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, I have Cole's courting of Dr. Nowiki as one of the most deplorable, ridiculous things that's happened. Four steps of being a creepy stalker slash asshole. Step number one, you take the doctor's hand and put it on your penis in a room full of witnesses and they all just laugh. Stage two, you then wait for her in the parking lot by her car, which is what serial killers do. Stage three, you fill her apartment with $10,000 worth of flowers and balloons, which is the terrible thing to do. And if you do that, they call the cops to have it photographed. And stage four, after you kiss her in the middle of the physical, you walk out and say, how are you ignoring me? Which is really the line from Fatal Attraction.

• 1:21:13Speaker 03

  It's like from start to finish, deplorable and gross, and she apparently just fucking loves it because she's in.

• 1:21:19Chris Ryan?

  It's almost like this is a character who's probably dyslexic and has a massive brain injury.

• 1:21:24Speaker 03

  Right. She has to, he has to, both of them.

• 1:21:28Bill Simmons?

  That's a great, I love that Kyle. I have some small ones. I really like the scene when Harry's building Cole's car and he's like, he's got the hands. And we see like the frame of a car and then in 10 seconds, there's the car. I could have gone three more minutes with them, him like instructing people, no, no, you got it, the fender's got to look like that. I just, I was so interested in that part and it just is gone immediately. I could have done, I could have done a whole scene. Randy Quaid's character is named Tim Dalland.

• 1:22:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:03Bill Simmons?

  This is a movie with Rowdy Burns and Cole Trickle and Dr. Claire Nowiki? We couldn't have done better than Tim Dalland?

• 1:22:08Chris Ryan?

  Can you just talk me through financially, what's Tim Dallin on the hook for here in the beginning? It's like he's basically putting up all his money to get into NASCAR and then hoping he gets sponsored, but then over the course of six races, is swimming in it enough to have two cars going?

• 1:22:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, so some bigger motorsports entity comes in.

• 1:22:30Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:22:31Bill Simmons?

  It's like a Hendrick's Motorsports.

• 1:22:32Speaker 03

  Cole won like six races in a row.

• 1:22:33Chris Ryan?

  Oh, that's right. Which also I looked up had never happened, I don't think it ever happened.

• 1:22:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I think he's looking to expand on the Cole, riding the Cole gravy train and he gets the second car and then that's it.

• 1:22:44Bill Simmons?

  Is that a nitpick CR? Nobody wins six races in a row in NASCAR?

• 1:22:47Chris Ryan?

  At least the way I looked it up, it was something like he had won five out of six or something like that. And it was like, I think that like, if you win like two in a row, people are like, holy shit, like we're in a rarefied air here.

• 1:22:59Bill Simmons?

  So this is any given Sunday, but Willie Beaman throws for 590 yards, five weeks in a row.

• 1:23:04Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:06Bill Simmons?

  And 400 TDs. All right. My big one. Really excited to share this with you guys.

• 1:23:11Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

• 1:23:12Bill Simmons?

  How much, how much you, uh, you love this. Uh, awkward Tom Cruise bedroom scenes.

• 1:23:19Speaker 03

  Go on.

• 1:23:19Bill Simmons?

  This is yet another one with the in bed. It's, it's the, he's got, they're lying next to each other. It's like, did they have sex or are they about to have, you can never tell with Tom Cruise in bed. It's like, did he just come? Is he about to come? What's going on?

• 1:23:35Chris Ryan?

  Maniacally laughing in Jennifer Connelly's face.

• 1:23:37Bill Simmons?

  So much comedy in bed. Most guys are in bed. They're just like, that girl's hot. I'm going to try to have sex with her. Tom Cruise is like, he's on serious channel of 94 doing like comedy bits on Netflix is a joke. Um, he brings out Sweet and Low's. There's always props with Tom Cruise.

• 1:23:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:52Bill Simmons?

  He can't just be like, hey, you know what I'm going to do is make out with this person and then, then let's do a genital thing. Uh, he's like, now I'm going to bring some condiments, some Sweet and Low. But I was trying to think like the awkward Tom Cruise bedroom scenes of all time.

• 1:24:07Speaker 03

  Go on.

• 1:24:07Bill Simmons?

  This is like an eight and a half. I think that with Gina Gershon and Cocktail, that's, that's like a solid eight. I don't know what they're doing there. They're bouncing around. They fall off the bed. It's like, nobody has had sex like this ever. Top Gun with Kelly McGillis is a nine and a half.

• 1:24:24Speaker 03

  A lot of tongues.

• 1:24:25Bill Simmons?

  And I think the 10, I think a solid 10. Top Gun Maverick with Jennifer Connelly.

• 1:24:30Chris Ryan?

  Which is the most chased sex scene in American history.

• 1:24:33Bill Simmons?

  We, we broke it down when we did the immediate rewatchables after seeing that movie twice. I still don't know what happens. Every time it's on, on, on cable, near that scene, I watch it because I enjoy it so much. He's just laughing. They're just laughing hysterically.

• 1:24:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:24:50Bill Simmons?

  It's unclear what's happened. Did they just make out?

• 1:24:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:53Bill Simmons?

  So Kyle, why, why can't Tom Cruise get this right? What's wrong with him?

• 1:24:57Speaker 03

  I think you, I think you hit something there is that when you watch a bedroom scene, you should know unequivocally if they already did it or they're going to. And I have no idea. And I will only jump in. I got more sex scenes I'm thinking about. Jerry Maguire with Dorothy Boyd, they're playing a jazz record and she comes out.

• 1:25:14Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's another one.

• 1:25:15Speaker 03

  Laughing.

• 1:25:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:16Speaker 03

  And then they start doing awkward kissing and I'll tell you.

• 1:25:18Bill Simmons?

  And Bonnie Hunt's listening to the laughter. It's like, why is there so much laughter? Why, why isn't there grunting and fucking Luther Vandross?

• 1:25:25Chris Ryan?

  Bonnie Hunt, go to a 7-Eleven. What are you doing?

• 1:25:28Speaker 03

  Get the fuck out of here, Bonnie. Same, best Tom Cruise sex scene ever. Same movie, Kelly Preston, and that's because she goes to fucking town and he just sits there. And I feel like Cameron Crowe after like six takes was probably just like, Kelly, just go fucking nuts on him. All right, just go nuts. She's all right, I got it.

• 1:25:45Bill Simmons?

  Cruz doesn't get it. Just can you go, can you go complete ham?

• 1:25:49Speaker 03

  Soon or later, I will have to stop.

• 1:25:51Bill Simmons?

  Risky Business train scene, he starts out great with the sex scene.

• 1:25:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:55Bill Simmons?

  Then we have All the Right Moves with Leah Thompson, which is like a very tender high school.

• 1:26:00Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:26:01Bill Simmons?

  Uh, here's the first time you've seen me without my shirt. It's one of those. It's like very early eighties. I was gonna pull my shirt up.

• 1:26:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's tough.

• 1:26:08Bill Simmons?

  But, uh, awkward, whatever. But as the eighties go on into the nineties, it just gets weirder and weirder. And then Eyes Wide Shut?

• 1:26:15Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:26:18Chris Ryan?

  In, in some ways Eyes Wide Shut.

• 1:26:20Bill Simmons?

  Is the most erotic he's done.

• 1:26:22Chris Ryan?

  Is the most erotic. Cause that's just like, it, it's capturing him as at his weirdest.

• 1:26:27Bill Simmons?

  But once he was on the sofa with Oprah, I don't know if we ever saw it again, other than in Maverick. And then in Maverick, I still can't explain it. Are they watching Seinfeld? Is it like, are they, what? What's happening? Are they waiting for a postmates order? What are they doing?

• 1:26:42Chris Ryan?

  I like Dave Barcazi. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

• 1:26:45Bill Simmons?

  What are they laughing about? She's like, I had this customer yesterday and he tried to pay with a five, but he gave me a hundred. He's like, ah, ah, ah.

• 1:26:53Speaker 03

  Uh, SNL is so back.

• 1:26:57Bill Simmons?

  Anyway, all right. Ruffalo Hannah Rubinek Partridge over acting award. Um, probably Cruise in the car a couple of times, I would say.

• 1:27:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but I do.

• 1:27:06Bill Simmons?

  You wanna go all of Carrie Elwes?

• 1:27:07Chris Ryan?

  There's a very specific thing that Duval does in a lot of, of his films, which is fucks with a guy to the point where the guy gets mad at him. And then he laughs at him.

• 1:27:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:17Chris Ryan?

  So when he's doing the ice cream thing and Cruise gets out of the car and he's like, ah, ah, ah. Like a real like

• 1:27:24Bill Simmons?

  De Niro Cape Fear.

• 1:27:25Chris Ryan?

  Crazy Duval laugh, yeah.

• 1:27:28Bill Simmons?

  Alright, so the CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. How does take a word? I have one. Do you guys have one?

• 1:27:34Chris Ryan?

  I do have one.

• 1:27:35Bill Simmons?

  Go ahead.

• 1:27:35Chris Ryan?

  So in my research for this film, there's a lot of stuff that is unattributed, but I loved this one so much because of what it means to movie history. And I think without Dr. Jerry Punch, there's no Eyes Wide Shut. Because apparently it was Dr. Jerry Punch who saw Dead Calm and mentioned it to Tony Scott. And Tony Scott cast Nicole Kidman off of that, thus starting the ball rolling down the hill that leads to Stanley Kubrick making one of the craziest movies of all time. There's so many weird sliding doors, nexus event butterfly wings in this film. If this movie had been more on time, we would have gotten the better Beverly Hills Cop 3.

• 1:28:18Chris Ryan?

  We have basically half the cast of Justified winds up in this movie with Nick Searcy and Margot Martindale. There's all these little things that are so amazing.

• 1:28:27Bill Simmons?

  Wow, that's a good one. What do you have Kyle?

• 1:28:29Speaker 03

  And we never get the Cruz Kidman marriage, like of all that produced and like all the places that that went.

• 1:28:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:35Speaker 03

  Mine couldn't be more different.

• 1:28:36Bill Simmons?

  We never get the two kids they adopted that Cruz doesn't talk to anymore. We don't get those either.

• 1:28:41Speaker 03

  Shout out to those kids. I hope you love the pod.

• 1:28:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:45Speaker 03

  I was trying to do a Days of Thunder is better than Top Gun take, but I just couldn't get there. I can't justify it. So it's not, it's not. Fighter planes are cooler than race cars. So my take is this. I miss Tom Cruise's old teeth. I miss them a lot and I think that they were better.

• 1:28:59Bill Simmons?

  I swear I thought, I thought this too. I liked it too. They were like going all over the place, but they worked.

• 1:29:05Speaker 03

  They're everywhere. And if you don't know, in the early 2000s, he got braces and he has normal teeth. I fucking like the old ones. They're real, they're authentic, and I love that the biggest movie star in the world had a snaggletooth. It was just kind of cool. It was like it'd be if Julia Roberts had a straight end gap. And now it's like everything is fucking veneers and it's all bleached and we look perfect. I wish Cruise would go back if you would like unvisalign the thing for one more time. Like before Jordan played his last game in the Garden, he wore the Jordan Ones. I want the old teeth. They look better. I'm telling you, I stand by it.

• 1:29:39Bill Simmons?

  It's a wonderful, wonderful hottest take.

• 1:29:42Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:29:42Bill Simmons?

  I have a warm up hottest take and then a hottest take. We've talked about Rooker many times, and I think this is a good spot.

• 1:29:50Speaker 03

  Go.

• 1:29:50Bill Simmons?

  I still don't understand why he wasn't a way bigger star in the late 80s, early 90s. He's coming, when he does this movie, he's coming off Henry Portrait of a Syracuse Coeur, he does See Love. It feels like there's gonna be a Rooker moment. We called it the Rooker Sense.

• 1:30:04Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:30:05Bill Simmons?

  Everything peaks in Cliffhanger. And then he just kinda moves into like, kinda graduated from that guy land and pops up in a bunch of stuff. It's always fun to see him. I remember when he showed up in Walking Dead, it was like, oh my God, Rooker.

• 1:30:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:19Bill Simmons?

  This is amazing. I just felt like there was more there. I know Kyle, we've talked about it. I, we don't even, almost don't even need to hear your thoughts.

• 1:30:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:26Bill Simmons?

  Um, it's like, it's almost like saying like, yeah, it'd be nice if the Bills won a Super Bowl, it'd be cool. Um, I just don't understand what happened with Rooker. I feel like, like CR, what, what was he missing?

• 1:30:38Chris Ryan?

  I, I feel like he was maybe missing Bill Paxton's sense of humor, because I feel like Paxton being Sizemore and Rooker were all circling a lot of the same parts. And if you had your number one draft choice every time seemed to be Paxton.

• 1:30:53Bill Simmons?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:30:54Chris Ryan?

  And he just missed a couple of those roles.

• 1:30:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, so that's a good point with Rooker, like, could he have been in Heat? Hundred thousand percent. He could have played like six characters in Heat. So there was, it turns out like his iconic role was Cliffhanger.

• 1:31:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:31:08Bill Simmons?

  Being mad at Gabe for trying to save his girlfriend, which we broke down for 20 minutes.

• 1:31:12Speaker 03

  She trusted you and she died. Um, I think CR is right. I think he's missing Paxton's sense of humor, but I also think he's missing Mel Gibson or Val Kilmer's leading man looks too.

• 1:31:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:22Speaker 03

  It's like, he's, he's, it's not quite there. And listen, he was, he was huge in the MCU when it was still cool, The Walking Dead. He's had amazing career.

• 1:31:30Bill Simmons?

  Great run.

• 1:31:30Speaker 03

  But never the face on the poster.

• 1:31:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's not my hottest take. My hottest take, this movie is way better if Cole Trickle is just Brian Flanagan and it's called Cocktail Two: Days of Thunder.

• 1:31:41Speaker 03

  Let's go.

• 1:31:43Bill Simmons?

  And Brian Flanagan has gotten divorced. He's given up the bar restaurant business. He always enjoyed driving and he's just playing Brian Flanagan. And he's doing it and he's got.

• 1:31:52Chris Ryan?

  It's not that that much farther removed than Cole Trickle's actual origin, which is.

• 1:31:57Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:31:58Chris Ryan?

  I they just put me in a car and I was good at driving.

• 1:32:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, like, let's just make a Flanagan. He's got every time he looks at the dashboard and Coughlin's right there. And he like pats the dashboard, Coughlin's, maybe he has the reconciliation with Elizabeth Shue, but it doesn't work out. It leads to Kidman. I just think it's more.

• 1:32:15Speaker 03

  I think also like his sponsor has to be Captain Morgan or Malibu Rum or something from the bar. Oh, it's perfect.

• 1:32:22Bill Simmons?

  Casting what ifs. Cruz wanted Kurt Russell for Rowdy Burns, but Russell did backdraft instead. It's a pretty good what if.

• 1:32:29Chris Ryan?

  I have a casting what ifs lineup here that I do think rivals what we got.

• 1:32:37Bill Simmons?

  You mean Robin Wright being the first choice of Dr. Claire Lewicki?

• 1:32:41Chris Ryan?

  Robin Wright is Claire Lewicki. Tom Sizemore is Tim. Kurt Russell is Rowdy or Dale Earnhardt as Rowdy.

• 1:32:49Bill Simmons?

  Yep, that was another one.

• 1:32:50Chris Ryan?

  And then I like the idea of Paul Newman coming back and doing Harry.

• 1:32:54Bill Simmons?

  Hmm. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Said that his dad was discussed for Rowdy and Dale turned it down because he didn't want to play a bad guy. Which goes to show you how little of the script they wrote because what they ended up with Rowdy was 100% not the bad guy.

• 1:33:09Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:33:09Bill Simmons?

  Like he actually should have played Rowdy. And I think this would have been a good hottest take. I think you could make a case like unbelievable career move for Dale Earnhardt Senior. To be Rowdy Burns in a Tom Cruise movie. Like, I know he is the most famous driver in that world, but people like me and you, like, we barely knew who he was.

• 1:33:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, or it could have been terrible. Who knows? I don't know if you can pull that off. It could have been awful. It could have been Brett Favre in something called Mary I or somebody. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

• 1:33:38Bill Simmons?

  This isn't quite a casting with it, but we haven't talked about it yet. Don Simpson put himself in the movie as as driver Aldo Benedetti. B E N N E D E T T I.

• 1:33:50Chris Ryan?

  Later to be seen in Inglourious Basterds.

• 1:33:54Bill Simmons?

  This movie wasn't deranged and coki enough. It had a producer and you see him in the beginning and it's so fucking funny when you know it's there. Apparently his acting was so bad and scenes were so awful. That they ended up cutting out a lot of the Aldo Benedetti stuff. He only has one cameo. And then there's the story after, who knows if it's true, that Tony Scott shot long, terrible scenes with him. So Simpson would know how bad he was and just had like five, six minute long scenes of Simpson mangly dialogue. Yeah. So it'd get fucked up and it ends up just being a cameo. But how much cocaine do you have to be on to think you should be in a Tom Cruise movie?

• 1:34:33Chris Ryan?

  That you should be an Italian race car driver.

• 1:34:35Bill Simmons?

  Italian, he's on Simpson.

• 1:34:37Speaker 03

  His name's Simpson.

• 1:34:42Bill Simmons?

  Danny McBride Award for playing yourself, Richard Petty, Rusty Wallace, Neil Bonnet, Harry Gant, Dr. Jerry Puss. So we have that. Who do you have for best that guy award? Cause there's a great one in here.

• 1:34:51Chris Ryan?

  I have JT Quinn, who is, uh, he's Rowdy's pit guy. And he is forever the guy in Maximum Overdrive who gets blinded by gasoline.

• 1:35:01Bill Simmons?

  That's where you went first?

• 1:35:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:03Bill Simmons?

  Come on, CR.

• 1:35:04Chris Ryan?

  What do you have?

• 1:35:06Speaker 03

  Well, you got a great one?

• 1:35:08Bill Simmons?

  No, it's JC, is JC Quinn or JT Quinn?

• 1:35:11Chris Ryan?

  JT.

• 1:35:11Speaker 03

  JT.

• 1:35:12Bill Simmons?

  I have him too. But he was the chef in Vision Quest.

• 1:35:16Chris Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 1:35:17Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Okay.

• 1:35:18Bill Simmons?

  It's not about the six minutes.

• 1:35:20Speaker 03

  He's the chef in Vision Quest.

• 1:35:21Bill Simmons?

  In the six minutes. He's one of the great sports movie characters. Always loved seeing him.

• 1:35:26Speaker 03

  He also plays the dad in the program of the quarterback.

• 1:35:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:32Speaker 03

  I had Nick Cersei, who's the ranger who says everyone's under arrest for transporting the alcohol. It's the same guy who's the ranger in The Fugitive who says Wyatt Earp here is gonna take over. Same guy.

• 1:35:43Chris Ryan?

  And then he goes on to be a marshal in Justified.

• 1:35:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. And he has that great scene, uh, he's in a castaway with Tom Hanks where he's like, well, you know, we had a funeral and we put, I put Elvis records in. Like that guy's Nick Cersei's been around for decades.

• 1:35:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I, I, Margot, Margot Martindale is no longer a that guy, but it's, this is, I think her first feature.

• 1:36:01Bill Simmons?

  I liked, I like Quinn. Dion Waiters Award, here we go. So not going to say the winner yet, but Fred Thompson is our runner up. Who just calls people monkeys, tells a long story about, calls them the Japs with lettuce.

• 1:36:14Speaker 03

  Sure does.

• 1:36:15Bill Simmons?

  Fred Dalton Thompson, always reliable to come in and be mildly racist and be awesome, but also mildly racist. The Japanese inspection star is great. He's not the winner, though. The stripper police officer.

• 1:36:28Speaker 03

  Go on.

• 1:36:29Bill Simmons?

  The Lonnie Sorrell.

• 1:36:31Speaker 03

  AKA.

• 1:36:31Bill Simmons?

  Like, hmm, where does she, she looks so familiar. What else did she do? Fucking Roxy from Basic Instinct. Yeah. Well, we did the Basic Instinct pod. It was like, why wasn't she one of the biggest stars of the 90s? She does that, Basic Instinct, and then that's kinda it. Was she dating Simpson? No, somebody else was. I have that in the half ass. The other girl in that scene who's on the bus, Simpson cast and then ended up dating and marrying. But then, didn't Tony Scott also wind up dating her? He dated her and Tony Scott married her. That's what it was. Yeah, yeah. She became eventually Mrs. Tony Scott. And she's on the bus.

• 1:37:09Speaker 03

  Wasn't Sharon Stone up for Louis Vuitton too? Like, that could have been the full crossover two years later.

• 1:37:15Bill Simmons?

  I think she was up for everything.

• 1:37:17Speaker 03

  But I, listen, when I, this movie, when I was 10 years old and we had the VHS from Blockbuster, that was a very important scene for us. That was fully erotic, completely titillating on every level for fifth grade kids.

• 1:37:28Bill Simmons?

  PJ 13 erotic.

• 1:37:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:31Bill Simmons?

  Roxy, just an iconic 90s character. Fucking love her.

• 1:37:34Chris Ryan?

  I haven't thought about Roxy since the pod.

• 1:37:37Bill Simmons?

  Recasting couch director city. I mean, just get Val Kilmer for Ross Wheeler. What are we doing? Great. What are we doing? Yeah. You guys could have taken a little bit out of the gym budget and hit Kilmer's. What are we doing? It's, he's there for four days. Just say, hey, I know you're shooting the doors. Just can you come down to Charlotte and just? Shooting the door. We're gonna put a flat top hairdo on you. What if he showed up as Morrison?

• 1:38:00Speaker 03

  Leather pants. Yes.

• 1:38:04Bill Simmons?

  I'm throwing in for my flex category. Was there a better title for this movie?

• 1:38:08Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:38:08Bill Simmons?

  And I'm just not really happy with Days of Thunder. I don't know what it means.

• 1:38:12Speaker 03

  Stupid.

• 1:38:13Bill Simmons?

  What does it mean?

• 1:38:13Speaker 03

  It's corny as hell.

• 1:38:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. What if you just called it Daytona?

• 1:38:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, or like, I mean, the F1 movie is just calling it F1, you know, like.

• 1:38:27Bill Simmons?

  Would you call it trickle?

• 1:38:28Chris Ryan?

  No.

• 1:38:30Speaker 03

  Dropping the hammer?

• 1:38:32Chris Ryan?

  Dropping the hammer's not bad.

• 1:38:33Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:38:35Chris Ryan?

  Checkered flag?

• 1:38:36Bill Simmons?

  Something with tires? I don't know what the answer is.

• 1:38:40Chris Ryan?

  It turns out Days of Thunder might be a good title.

• 1:38:42Speaker 03

  You know what?

• 1:38:43Bill Simmons?

  It's incoherent, though. What else could, I mean, Days of Thunder could be about anything. I don't even know what that means. Days of Thunder?

• 1:38:50Speaker 03

  I don't know. It's terrible. It sounds like a storm movie. It sounds like Twister.

• 1:38:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we still don't have the answer. Half-Assed Internet Research, only a couple ones. Hendrick Motorsports supplied the main cars, and they were actually raced in real races three times to get the extra footage. Cole and Rowdy raced rental cars in the beach, and they show birds scattering out of the way. Apparently, they put bird seeds on the beach, and the first time they filmed the scene, the cars just ran over a bunch of birds. There was

• 1:39:16Speaker 03

  You can't do that.

• 1:39:17Bill Simmons?

  bird death, yeah. Peta violations were had. Donna Scott, the pick girl in that scene with Roxy, broke up with Simpson, dated Tony Scott, they got married, had two kids, and then Cruz apparently got a speeding ticket in Carolina, 85 in a 55, because he was revved up.

• 1:39:35Speaker 03

  That's badass.

• 1:39:36Chris Ryan?

  There's one here, Bill, that might be one of the great pieces of IMDb trivia I've ever come across.

• 1:39:41Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 1:39:42Chris Ryan?

  Nicole Kidman wanted to study neurosurgery for her part, but the producers told her it would be a waste of time.

• 1:39:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, okay, Meryl Streep. Some other movie we could do.

• 1:39:56Bill Simmons?

  I saw that and didn't include it, because it seemed too crazy. Do you think that was true?

• 1:40:00Chris Ryan?

  Yes. Yes.

• 1:40:03Speaker 03

  Don't worry about it, honey. We need you on set.

• 1:40:05Chris Ryan?

  Oh, Don, could I go and maybe study neurosurgery?

• 1:40:09Bill Simmons?

  Could I get into the hospital and talk to some neurosurgeons?

• 1:40:12Speaker 03

  That's awesome.

• 1:40:13Bill Simmons?

  Apex Mountain Cruise? Probably not.

• 1:40:18Chris Ryan?

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:40:19Bill Simmons?

  We're in the cruise vicinity, but I still feel like it's a few good men in that range.

• 1:40:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, I think 89, 90, 92 is about, is about like

• 1:40:29Bill Simmons?

  We're in range. We're not quite there. Duval, no. Kidman, not yet.

• 1:40:36Bill Simmons?

  Cruz's hair and teeth, I think.

• 1:40:39Speaker 03

  Hell, yes.

• 1:40:40Bill Simmons?

  Yes and yes. Yes, yes. NASCAR, no.

• 1:40:46Bill Simmons?

  Lunatic Don Simpson stories. I think yes.

• 1:40:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:40:49Bill Simmons?

  I think we, this is apex right here.

• 1:40:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, my favorite one is still David Milch's from, from Bad Boys, but yes, this is, this is incredible.

• 1:40:58Bill Simmons?

  Cruise as a believable, real life Playboy bachelor, coming off divorce, landing Nicole Kidman. I'm gonna say yes. I had no questions when I was in 1990.

• 1:41:08Chris Ryan?

  They were so innocent.

• 1:41:10Bill Simmons?

  Rooker, cliffhanger, right?

• 1:41:13Speaker 03

  Cliffhanger. Yeah. It's him and Stallone toe to toe, the whole movie.

• 1:41:18Bill Simmons?

  John C. Riley, no. Carrie Elwes, no. What is Carrie Elwes as Apex?

• 1:41:22Chris Ryan?

  Princess Bride?

• 1:41:23Speaker 03

  Princess Bride. Yeah. I think 87, I think.

• 1:41:26Bill Simmons?

  Hans Zimmer, probably not. Simpson, Brookheimer, no.

• 1:41:33Bill Simmons?

  Mellow Yellow.

• 1:41:34Chris Ryan?

  Car racing movies?

• 1:41:36Bill Simmons?

  Car racing movies, probably Talladega. Think that's had better legs. And then Mellow Yellow, yes, right?

• 1:41:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:43Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna get better for Mellow Yellow.

• 1:41:46Speaker 03

  That's, that's song that inspired the soda, a song by Donovan, like an old hippie song, but I think this car and the movie and everything's gotta be, yeah.

• 1:41:54Bill Simmons?

  Cruise or Hanks? Cruise is in it? I'm willing to have the Hanks convo?

• 1:42:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:00Speaker 03

  I can't get there.

• 1:42:01Bill Simmons?

  But Cruise, sure. So I don't know what the standings are now for those two. What do you have for Scorsese or Spielberg?

• 1:42:09Chris Ryan?

  I would like to see the Scorsese version of this, you know?

• 1:42:12Bill Simmons?

  Lot more cocaine. Simpson's like, yeah, let's have Cole become a cocaine addict.

• 1:42:17Chris Ryan?

  Cruise goes on to, you know, work with Spielberg a bunch throughout the 90s, uh, and into the 2000s, but I always wished he had done more with Scorsese because I love Color of Money so much. So I'll, I'll go with Scorsese.

• 1:42:28Speaker 03

  I got Scorsese too. Harry had this wonderful system for doing the moonshine. He would slice the barley so thin it would liquefy in the jar with just a little yeast. That's, it's Scorsese.

• 1:42:40Bill Simmons?

  What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played? You could see him a little bit older as Harry. You could see him a little bit younger as the John C. Riley.

• 1:42:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:42:47Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Rooker would have been interesting. That part, Rowdy.

• 1:42:51Chris Ryan?

  As Russ would have been cool. Like as a gear change at the end, showing up and just being like, hey Cole, like, I like.

• 1:42:59Speaker 03

  I had, I wanted to see if we could get him in a race car too. I don't know if that works, but like full on talented Mr. Ripley, cocky asshole, over the top. Yeah, Freddy. And then I also had him potentially just stealing the scene as Big John. Uh, it's just turning around and talking about the, the Japanese this and that.

• 1:43:16Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:43:17Speaker 03

  He would kill.

• 1:43:18Bill Simmons?

  So Philip Seymour Hoffman as Freddy as Russ Wheeler.

• 1:43:23Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 1:43:23Bill Simmons?

  Going, going, cool. How's the CTE? How's the CTE? Racehorse, rock band, wrestler, fantasy team name. Heart to top Cole Trickle, Cole Tricklers, anything with.

• 1:43:37Chris Ryan?

  Tricklers, yeah.

• 1:43:37Speaker 03

  I got a, I got a cool, cool punk band called Japanese Inspection. I think they fucking rock. We'll see them at the House of Blues.

• 1:43:44Bill Simmons?

  Peaked in the early eighties with a couple of songs, yeah. All right, Craig, come on camera for this one because you have a flex category for us.

• 1:43:52Speaker 09

  I'm going to keep this one somewhat wholesome. I'm just going good old fashioned, best quote. And I generally think this movie, you, you could probably just enjoy it with the sound off. And that's complimentary. I mean that in a complimentary way, but there's a couple of moments where, where town and, and Cruz nailed it. I thought, Bill, you hit one with, uh, I'm more afraid of being nothing than I am of being hurt. Great line. Duval has a line, you can't hide from your bad luck in his car. Great line. And then Rooker has a quote where he's like, you know, when I grew up, I hated farming. All I wanted to do was race cars. Now I'm a race car driver and all I want to do is work on a farm. Just like a couple of bangers, I gotta say.

• 1:44:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm starting to feel like Craig might have liked this movie. We'll find out at the end of the pod. Picking nets, a NASCAR driver from Eagle Rock is just ridiculous. See, you walk the streets of Eagle Rock a lot. See any possible NASCAR drivers floating around there?

• 1:44:48Chris Ryan?

  Just fantasy, yeah.

• 1:44:49Bill Simmons?

  Jesus.

• 1:44:51Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Lewicki falls for Cole in about two minutes.

• 1:44:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's tough.

• 1:44:55Bill Simmons?

  Just wanted to mention that.

• 1:44:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:56Bill Simmons?

  And he's off to a terrible start and as Kyle laid out, the whole stalking scenario with him.

• 1:45:00Speaker 03

  Terrible.

• 1:45:02Bill Simmons?

  Unclear why she doesn't have a boyfriend either. Another classic, like, why don't you have somebody? Cause unlike Kelly Lynch in Roadhouse, she's in Charlotte.

• 1:45:10Chris Ryan?

  Well, she also is insisting that she works 24 hours a day.

• 1:45:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Which is extreme.

• 1:45:17Bill Simmons?

  Dream, dream girlfriend. Smoking hot doctors on call all the time. Sounds great.

• 1:45:24Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna watch sports. Tell me when you get back from the hospital.

• 1:45:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:27Bill Simmons?

  Any other nitpicks for you guys?

• 1:45:29Speaker 03

  I, I, I had one about Dr. Lewicki. Awfully preachy and judgmental about race cars for someone who jumps on the back of a Harley with no helmet and some asshole driving her around that she just met. I, I don't know if a lot of doctors are just doing that, especially if they're just constantly talking about the lunatics who are race car drivers. It doesn't really jive for me.

• 1:45:48Bill Simmons?

  I have one more small one, the, cause this is a movie thing that happens a lot where the passenger wants to get out of the car and then opens the door.

• 1:45:55Chris Ryan?

  Let me out or I'm getting out.

• 1:45:57Speaker 03

  Ladybird.

• 1:45:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. In real life, I just think Cole keeps going. Go ahead. Fucking, you're gonna fall out of the car.

• 1:46:02Speaker 03

  I fucking dare you.

• 1:46:03Bill Simmons?

  I dare you. You're gonna fall out, going 80 miles an hour.

• 1:46:06Chris Ryan?

  Um, I had, my, my two or three here, two of them are interrelated. One is Cole drove Indy cars or open wheel cars before NASCAR.

• 1:46:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:16Chris Ryan?

  I just don't think you can get to the level he's at with the level of car aptitude that he claims to have or lack of car aptitude that he claims to have.

• 1:46:22Bill Simmons?

  Couldn't agree more.

• 1:46:23Chris Ryan?

  I don't know what you guys are talking about. Like his weird, like, I don't know how to read thing is, is strange. But then when he confronts Harry, which would only have taken place like six months, nine months later, maybe. He's like a car expert where he's like, oh, NASCAR said the carbon monoxide and the, and the, the, you know, the restrictor plate. So it's like, so are you Mr. Goodwrench or did you not know anything about cars?

• 1:46:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, fast learner, maybe.

• 1:46:50Chris Ryan?

  And then the other one is just that I feel like this film is too reliant on the high pass. I, I could have used one more cool car move.

• 1:46:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:46:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:59Chris Ryan?

  And, and, and every race basically hinges on can Cole pass this guy high until he passes him low?

• 1:47:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:47:06Bill Simmons?

  It's like, if this is a football movie and it's just a tush push is the only play.

• 1:47:10Speaker 03

  Every single time.

• 1:47:11Bill Simmons?

  We gotta get to fourth and one for another tush push. It didn't work last time.

• 1:47:16Bill Simmons?

  Uh, sequel, prequel, prestige, TV, all black cast are untouchable. So less than six months ago, reported Tom Cruise is um, going to do a Days of Thunder sequel.

• 1:47:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:27Bill Simmons?

  And doing it with Top Gun Maverick. I guess he's hairy in this?

• 1:47:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, He might be cool. He might be cool still. Is that when Top Gun Maverick was being developed, the whole idea is that Maverick was gonna be Viper, like, but he was gonna be the teacher and that these younger guys were gonna take over. Just like Jeremy Renner was gonna take over Mission Impossible. I will believe Tom Cruise passing the baton when I actually see it being taken out of his cold, dead hands.

• 1:47:54Bill Simmons?

  We could do CGI and also do that same speech about LeBron and Luka Doncic.

• 1:48:01Bill Simmons?

  Hey, LeBron's gonna retire. Pass the torch to Luca, is he?

• 1:48:05Chris Ryan?

  Is this movie? One other nitpick I had, just briefly, uh, is for the extremity of that accident that Cole and Rowdy get into. Yeah. Cole just having like the cutest little burst blood vessel in his eye as that's his only. It's adorable. Yeah. Get a little scrape in there, you know?

• 1:48:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, give him like a high, high ankle sprain, something.

• 1:48:27Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:27Bill Simmons?

  Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson, no, Byron Mayo, Barney Cousins, Tony Romo, Harley Mays, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Long Legs, or Wilford Brimley in The Firm? CR?

• 1:48:39Chris Ryan?

  Goddamn Cole! I didn't know I was working with Super Driver and a motherfucking Australian girlfriend! You better pass Russ on the high side or your lady is gonna be doing AMC Theater intros alarm fucking time, big boy! Get him the fuck out of here!

• 1:48:57Chris Ryan?

  I just wanted to do that for Kyle. I, I actually think DB would be great.

• 1:49:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:02Chris Ryan?

  We see you, Mr. Trickle.

• 1:49:05Bill Simmons?

  We see you passing high.

• 1:49:07Chris Ryan?

  You didn't know anything about cars when you got behind the wheel of a 195 mile per hour vehicle.

• 1:49:15Speaker 03

  That's like, that's like going after Vince Carter in the dunk contest. Like, what do you, what do I, right? But I've always wanted to do this one and I'm so thrilled. I'm gonna take my shot. I am going with Wilford Brimley and The Firm.

• 1:49:26Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 1:49:27Speaker 03

  We got Cruz right there and I think the premise is Cole is gonna leave the race team. He's like, I'm out of here. And then Randy Quaid says, as head of security, take, take Cole for a little drive.

• 1:49:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh, stripper.

• 1:49:37Speaker 03

  And he takes out and, and he says, imagine this, Cole, here's your page. One day walking to the mailbox, looking to get her Red Book magazine. What does she find instead? Heartache, Cole, and it's the pictures of him with the stripper from the bus.

• 1:49:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:50Speaker 03

  Not just screwing Cole, intimate acts, oil and whatnots. Impossible for a young Australian doctor to forget. That's the scene. I need it.

• 1:50:02Bill Simmons?

  Wow, those are two great ones. I, I almost don't want to follow it just with Roma going, he might go high Jim. My guy's going low Jim. Just one Oscar, who gets it? Hans Zimmer?

• 1:50:16Chris Ryan?

  Don Simpson said Robert Townsend should get an Oscar for this, for what he did.

• 1:50:19Bill Simmons?

  Disagree. It did get nominated for best sound, so maybe that wins the Oscar.

• 1:50:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:25Bill Simmons?

  Probably an answerable questions. Cole's Daytona odds, I have no idea how to do a race car odds, but Cole coming off major accident, not doing that great.

• 1:50:34Chris Ryan?

  Not in his car.

• 1:50:35Bill Simmons?

  Hundred, not his car. I'm guessing a hundred to one or higher, right? Something like that?

• 1:50:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:42Bill Simmons?

  All right, here's, well, I have one more, but do you guys have any in answerables?

• 1:50:45Chris Ryan?

  I had a question for the, for the, the panel here.

• 1:50:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:48Chris Ryan?

  Do you guys think you'd be good at driving a pace car?

• 1:50:51Speaker 03

  Hmm, like a Pontiac out in front?

• 1:50:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:54Chris Ryan?

  It'd just be so nerve wracking. You're driving like a Chevy Lumina and it's like all these stock cars.

• 1:50:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I just wouldn't enjoy it.

• 1:51:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:00Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna say no.

• 1:51:01Speaker 03

  I think it's, I think it's very deceptively difficult to drive on those tracks. The way that they're curved and arced and everything like that. And plus you're just, it's like being the drum major in front of the marching band. Like, don't fuck up. Everybody's looking at you. I get nervous just thinking about the question.

• 1:51:15Chris Ryan?

  Harry telling him to hit the pace car is one of my low key favorite moments.

• 1:51:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's awesome. And he's gonna do it because he's that stupid. Um, I have a question about Kidman and Cruz. So they met on set, the romance starts.

• 1:51:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:27Speaker 03

  At, at what point of the shoot or at what scene do you think that they were getting together? And was it before or after the bedroom scene? Were they a couple at that time or were they flirting together or not? When did it happen?

• 1:51:42Bill Simmons?

  Good question.

• 1:51:43Chris Ryan?

  If I had to guess, I would say really practically speaking, probably upon casting.

• 1:51:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:47Speaker 03

  Right away.

• 1:51:48Bill Simmons?

  CR.

• 1:51:49Speaker 03

  My take was, I think it's right after the violent make out in the hallway where she's like, I'm not ignoring you. Because honestly, like Kidman really goes for it. It's very hot, it's very sexy. And I think after that scene, they're like, we should do this for real. That's my take.

• 1:52:03Bill Simmons?

  And Cruz is like, I've always liked tall girls.

• 1:52:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:52:06Bill Simmons?

  Mimi Rogers was like 5'11".

• 1:52:08Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:52:09Bill Simmons?

  Kind of Cruz's thing. Katie Holmes is like 5'10".

• 1:52:11Speaker 03

  Katie Holmes tall too, yeah.

• 1:52:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:14Bill Simmons?

  Here's my own answer, bro. What happens if Duval does Godfather 3 instead of this movie Who's Harry? And I think it's Jack Nicholson.

• 1:52:22Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. I was gonna say Harry.

• 1:52:24Bill Simmons?

  Coming right up Batman. I think they just throw a giant check at him. And he's like, ah, you guys are gonna, Don Simpson's gonna be on the set, right? That sounds good. All right. Don's a fun time. All right, I'll do it.

• 1:52:37Speaker 03

  But then do they still do A Few Good Men a few years later?

• 1:52:40Bill Simmons?

  Maybe not. That's another, we get a what if off the what if. What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie?

• 1:52:48Chris Ryan?

  As a hat guy, I would love the Super Flow hat.

• 1:52:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:52:51Chris Ryan?

  That they have.

• 1:52:51Bill Simmons?

  I like that one too.

• 1:52:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:53Speaker 03

  I want the, I just want the mellow yellow racing suit embroidered with Cole trickle. And I feel like my eight year old could wear it for Halloween costume. It'd be fun.

• 1:53:01Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my God. That's amazing.

• 1:53:02Bill Simmons?

  I think the mellow yellow suit is the answer. I mean, you could go cars, but we said this is no cars allowed category. Does he want an award for what happened the next day? We're bringing this back.

• 1:53:11Speaker 03

  All right.

• 1:53:12Bill Simmons?

  What happens here? Does he end up with Claire Lewicki? Do they have kids? They don't, right? They break up?

• 1:53:18Speaker 03

  No, no, no. One of the most improbable couples to last. No way. Unless you see it differently, CR. I think they're done.

• 1:53:23Chris Ryan?

  Well, so the question is, is do you think Claire becomes okay with the racing, the dangers of racing? Or do you think Cole retires after winning Daytona 500 and becomes like a house husband?

• 1:53:35Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:53:35Speaker 03

  The scene is when they're in bed together, she keeps, I mean, I think they just screwed or about to. And she's like, isn't there anything else you want to do? Don't you have any other dreams? Like, that's very relatable. You don't want to be in that relationship.

• 1:53:46Bill Simmons?

  I forgot to mention this, the nitpicks. She goes from she's 24 hours a day saving brains and working on people. And then just available to go to any race.

• 1:53:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, she's just bouncing between Charlotte and Daytona. Yeah.

• 1:53:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Where's the next race? So it's in Virginia. I'm there. Yeah, hold on. I'll get somebody to cover my 16 hour shift.

• 1:54:04Chris Ryan?

  I heard Dover, Delaware is amazing this time of year.

• 1:54:07Bill Simmons?

  Coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lesson. I'm more afraid of being nothing than being hurt. Just gonna take that into my life.

• 1:54:14Chris Ryan?

  I think I liked rubbing his racing.

• 1:54:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I did too. It's so everywhere now and it applies to life. It applies to sports, everything. Sometimes there's gonna be some shit that happens, but that's life.

• 1:54:25Bill Simmons?

  What do you have Kyle for best double feature choice?

• 1:54:28Speaker 03

  I broke the rules. I'm doing triple feature. I'm doing Days of Thunder, Far and Away, and Eyes Wide Shut. I want to see that relationship. I want to see all of it from the beginning to end.

• 1:54:41Bill Simmons?

  Unbelievable choice. Great job, man.

• 1:54:43Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:54:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm not topping that. All right. This will get interesting. Who won the movie?

• 1:54:51Speaker 03

  I got Roxy winning the movie. No, I think Cruz is just such a one seed that's hard to knock off. I love Duval, but I'm not taking my eyes off Trickle either.

• 1:55:02Chris Ryan?

  I know that I do directors a lot, but I just think in the hands of somebody else, it does not, this does not work. Tony Scott makes every car racing scene, every crowd shot, every, the smoke going across the road. Like, he's just an artist and I think he makes this thing worth rewatching.

• 1:55:22Bill Simmons?

  I had Duval 1A and Tony Scott 1B.

• 1:55:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:25Bill Simmons?

  I know Cruz is a one seed. I just love Duval in this movie and I think he saves it from actually being a bad movie.

• 1:55:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:31Bill Simmons?

  I think if he's not in it, we're in a lot of trouble and it's just becomes like a, and Tony Scott has made these where it's just like, it's just Tony Scott doing stuff, but the movie's bad. I think that's where this lands. I don't feel that way about this movie and it's 35 years old this summer.

• 1:55:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, listen, if Tom Skerritt's not in Tom Cruise, if Tom Skerritt's gone from Top Gun, we're gonna be fine. But if Duval is gone from this movie, you're kind of fucked. Like, you need that to hold it together.

• 1:55:59Bill Simmons?

  All right, big moment. Producer Craig had not seen this movie.

• 1:56:02Speaker 03

  Come on, baby.

• 1:56:04Bill Simmons?

  I know he loved the runtime, which is like 141. Somehow the rewatchables pod is gonna be 15 minutes past it. What'd you think, Craig?

• 1:56:12Speaker 09

  I have thoughts on the runtime that I'll get to in a little bit, but. You know, it hasn't been the best couple of months for this country, but this movie reinvigorated my love for America.

• 1:56:20Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 1:56:21Speaker 09

  And I watched it on Pluto, so every commercial break was just the Harrison Ford Jeep commercial. So I was really kind of ready to run through a wall for the red, white and blue for about an hour and 55 minutes. Um, why is Tony Scott, who's a Brit, so good at, at making patriotic films for America?

• 1:56:39Bill Simmons?

  Oh, great ques- that could have been a good unanswerable. You're right.

• 1:56:42Speaker 09

  I mean, this movie is like-

• 1:56:43Bill Simmons?

  How did he become our most patriotic director of the last 40 years?

• 1:56:45Speaker 09

  Just like raw, over the top patriotism in this movie. Great music. And yeah, it's like Top Gun, true romance is like, feels very American and Tony Scott's a Brit.

• 1:56:55Chris Ryan?

  Crimson Tide, yeah.

• 1:56:56Speaker 09

  Crimson Tide, yeah.

• 1:56:58Speaker 03

  Craig, well, how did you feel about in the first 30 seconds of the movie, no less than three Confederate flag shots in the movie?

• 1:57:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they kept going back to it.

• 1:57:07Speaker 09

  Like I said, like I said, pure America, raw America. Um, my, my hot take about the runtime for this movie is I think it could have been a little longer. I wanted actually a little bit more. I think this movie feels like 20 minutes are missing at the beginning.

• 1:57:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:22Speaker 09

  Like, this movie starts and it's just like Randy Quaid in a cornfield talking to Robert Duvall. I don't know who either of them are. I don't know what the fuck's going on. And then like, three minutes later, they're, they're like basically racing. I don't know who Tom Cruise is. There's no backstories to anybody.

• 1:57:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:35Speaker 09

  Now, you saying that the movie only had five weeks to edit makes sense. Cause they're like chopping scenes left and right. There are scenes that like kind of cut in the middle of the climactic moment. Even, even the crash, it's so quick when it goes from the crash and he's just getting airlifted and then he's in the hospital. There's like no time to breathe.

• 1:57:52Chris Ryan?

  I wonder how many of those car scenes are like, we only can do one take of this.

• 1:57:56Bill Simmons?

  Uh huh.

• 1:57:57Speaker 09

  So, you know?

• 1:57:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I wonder if they told Tony Scott for like the 15 year anniversary, can you go back and do your director's edit of this with a little more time?

• 1:58:06Speaker 09

  I wanted like 15 more minutes. I really did.

• 1:58:08Speaker 03

  Well, there's, there's, there's no closer-

• 1:58:10Bill Simmons?

  I didn't listen to a take I was expecting from Craig.

• 1:58:11Speaker 03

  I know. And Craig usually goes so short. There, there's no closer at all on Rowdy Burns. We're supposed to see him one more time. That's how the movie works. He had the surgery, he's okay.

• 1:58:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, show him in his house doing like a fist pump.

• 1:58:20Speaker 09

  I want Bertier from Remember the Titans in the hospital bed.

• 1:58:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. You show them in the hospital bed cheering and they don't even show him.

• 1:58:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think Don realized that two, two months later as he was on rail number nine. It's like, oh fuck, we should have shown Rooker in the hospital bed.

• 1:58:35Speaker 09

  Uh, also iconic final shot. You guys didn't really talk about it, but the race.

• 1:58:39Speaker 03

  Freeze frame.

• 1:58:40Speaker 09

  The freeze frame in the race. I rewound it, watched it like three times. Just, I mean, there's something about the old guy running next to the young guy. Cruz is so happy in that scene.

• 1:58:47Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:49Bill Simmons?

  Craig, how do you feel about Tony Scott from 90 to 94, 95, four in a row, Days of Thunder, Last Boy Scout, True Romance, Crimson Tide? Just fucking banging them out back to back to back.

• 1:59:01Speaker 09

  One of the greats. It's a bummer we don't have him around still.

• 1:59:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I know. Yeah, so he's nine. So now he's tied with Michael Bane.

• 1:59:08Speaker 09

  I, a couple, can I throw like a picking nit at you guys? What about the scene, the all time flag for targeting when, that goes unpunished? When Trickle just sneaks out of the pit zone or whatever the word is called and just T-bones Kerry Elliott's car? After, is it after he wins, is the race over?

• 1:59:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Kerry Elliott's has won. Yeah.

• 1:59:27Speaker 09

  Yeah, he T-bones him to ruin the car and then 20 minutes later Randy Quaid is back on his side.

• 1:59:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he's like, I'm gonna give you a fake, like my engine.

• 1:59:35Speaker 09

  Also like NASCAR doesn't punish him in any way. Like that, wouldn't that, that have been the craziest story in the history of NASCAR?

• 1:59:41Chris Ryan?

  The guy's like, you can't, you can't help him. And he's like, that's my engine in that car.

• 1:59:46Speaker 03

  Well, Craig, that, that, the football equivalent of that is, is Jalen Hurts is on the podium with Terry Bradshaw getting the Lombardi and like, Chris Jones runs up there and hits him, blindsides him, dekleats him after the game is over. It's ludicrous.

• 1:59:59Speaker 09

  Ludicrous.

• 2:00:00Bill Simmons?

  You know what Craig just made me think of? That this movie is missing. This would have been a good picking nit. Where is like ESPN Sports Center? There's such a natural cut to Chris Berman and, and Tom Lee doing the, some crazy thing happened today in NASCAR. Russ Wheeler won a race. Watch Cole Trickle here. Comes in and they just do the whole.

• 2:00:21Speaker 03

  And it's Cole's magic trickle.

• 2:00:25Bill Simmons?

  We get some bourbon. Yeah.

• 2:00:29Bill Simmons?

  Goes after Russ 18 wheeler.

• 2:00:33Chris Ryan?

  Well, 90, we would have gotten maybe, what would that, would that have been Kilborn back then? Not quite Kilborn yet.

• 2:00:39Bill Simmons?

  No, we're, we're still Berman, Gail Gardner. Um, trying to think, I just, Stu Scott's not even there yet. Yeah.

• 2:00:47Speaker 05

  Rowdy Montgomery Burns.

• 2:00:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, cause they could have, cause by mid 90s, they were really starting to shoehorn ESPN into these sports movies. But I hadn't thought of it yet. All right. So thumbs up from Craig.

• 2:00:59Speaker 09

  Huge thumbs up. It's like my top choice for a movie to be on in a bar. And I mean that in a very complimentary way.

• 2:01:06Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 2:01:06Bill Simmons?

  So Cruz, 16 rewatchables right now, Craig. It's going to be tough to catch him. Three up on De Niro and Pacino with, there's some good De Niro left. There's less Pacino.

• 2:01:16Speaker 09

  Cruz has whittled me down and I, I honestly used to not have him in like my top three or five favorite actors. And it's because I've only seen old Cruz. And I think a lot of people my age are the same way. I was texting my brothers in law who are like 23 and 26. And I was texting them about Days of Thunder because we liked, they usually watch rewatchables movies with me whenever they're in town. They had never heard of it and they're like, man, there are so many young Cruz movies that I've just never watched.

• 2:01:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:39Speaker 09

  And it's like, all my favorite Cruz, like I, I love Risky Business. I now love this movie. I think I like the persona that young Cruz bought, brought much more than old Cruz. Obviously we only really have Mission Impossible and like a few other things.

• 2:01:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. It's hard to go back to that pre Oprah zone where it was like, his approval rating was in the high 90s. Where it's just like, ah man, every movie he makes is pretty great.

• 2:01:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, Tom Cruise, we still have a few left too, which is amazing. We still have a bunch of Mission Impossibles left. There's some really good ones. Craig, thanks for producing this podcast. CR, always great to see you. Kyle Brandt, a pleasure as usual. Always happy to see you. Here on the rewatchables. Don't forget you can watch this on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel and you can always watch these podcasts on Spotify. See you next week.

• 2:02:43Speaker 01

  Glimmer, the new eau de parfum by Estee Lauder. An amber floral fragrance with a gourmand twist. With notes of macaron rose accord, amber embrace accord, and shimmering patchouli. A glimmer is a small, unexpected moment of joy that shifts your energy and how you feel. A scent to be felt, remembered, and shared. Discover more at estee lauder.com. What makes you glimmer?

• 2:03:12Speaker 12

  It's getting chilly outside. But you know what that means?

• 2:03:18Speaker 12

  It's time to cozy up with Panera Bread. Let's get toasty, cheesy. Oh, hello broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl. How about melty? Okay, Chipotle chicken ovo melt. It's dipping bread and soupy good this season. Oh yeah, we're so back. It's Panera season. Order now.