‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan

If the police don't rewatch movies, maybe we ought to do it ourselves. The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan revisit the original ‘Death Wish’ from 1974, starring Charles Bronson and Vincent Gardenia. Podcast Manager: Craig Horlbeck Video Producers: Ronak Nair and Jack Sanders Try Loom today, visit loom.com to get started Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Welcome to the brand new Zach Lowe Show. That's right, I'm back to have the same in-depth NBA conversations you're used to. We're going to talk about the games, the X's and O's, the drama. The playoffs are coming up and now you get to see every episode in full on video on Spotify and on my own YouTube channel. Episodes drop every Monday and Thursday with a collection of guests you're gonna love. So make sure you follow and subscribe to the brand new Zach Lowe Show on Spotify or wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts. Let's go!

• 0:35Speaker 01

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• 1:05Speaker 02

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• 1:17Speaker 03

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• 1:20Speaker 00

  The Rewatchables brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. We're in a new studio for our video podcast. Look at this. Got Swayze. We brought Stallone. We brought CR.

• 1:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:31Speaker 00

  We decided to make this big ass 70's month. Big 70's movies. I have no plan other than we did Star Wars and we bought a lot of Goodwill.

• 1:40Bill Simmons?

  There's a lot of lobbying going on behind the scenes.

• 1:42Speaker 00

  For the, for big ass 70's month?

• 1:44Bill Simmons?

  And for, for which movies we do, yeah.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  I feel like we're in one for us like century now after we did Star Wars. So much leeway. So let's do Death Wish with Charles Bronson. That's next.

• 1:54Bill Simmons?

  Was it worth it?

• 1:55Speaker 05

  Call him a mad vigilante.

• 1:59Speaker 05

  Call him a hero. Either way, he's always on target.

• 2:05Speaker 06

  We want you to get out of New York.

• 2:08Speaker 06

  Permanently.

• 2:09Speaker 05

  Never make a death wish. Because a death wish always comes true. And you get to love it.

• 2:41Bill Simmons?

  All right, CR. This is a podcast about Death Wish with Charles Bronson.

• 2:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:45Bill Simmons?

  And Vigilante movies. And Charles Bronson himself. And I think all of them tie together. I think this is such an interesting movie. I don't know if it's aged that well. It has a really awful scene in it.

• 2:56Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 2:57Bill Simmons?

  This movie is also 51 years old. Do you want to start Bronson or Vigilantes?

• 3:02Chris Ryan?

  I want to start Vigilantes, I think. And the idea of like these normal, everyday businessmen becoming Batman in New York City usually.

• 3:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 3:12Chris Ryan?

  And going out and like handing out justice on their own terms, which then you have to read into like the audience reaction to the movies at that time. Like, why were these movies popular?

• 3:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, and that's why we're doing the pod. Because, so you have this cop vigilante era. Dirty Harry, 1971. Walking Tall, you big Buford Pusser guy?

• 3:32Chris Ryan?

  For sure.

• 3:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, three of those. And that was, Dirty Harry was, he's a San Francisco cop. Trying to find a serial killer. He's start, he's making his own rules.

• 3:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:41Bill Simmons?

  That was, I think, the first. He's making his own rules. Watch out.

• 3:45Chris Ryan?

  Not a lot of movies about cops who follow the rules.

• 3:47Bill Simmons?

  No, this one has really set the, set the mark, though, for don't follow the rules.

• 3:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:51Bill Simmons?

  Walking Tall, sheriff trying to save his town. And he decides to bend some rules. And then Magnum Forrester was another one with Clint.

• 3:59Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:59Bill Simmons?

  Same, same type of thing. But nobody had really put all of it together with normal people until Death Wish. Where it's like, what happens? This guy's an architect. His wife and daughter brutally assaulted, his wife dies. And he just kinda loses it.

• 4:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:15Bill Simmons?

  And this leads to, they're still making these. I mean, I made a list. The Exterminator with Robert Ginty in 1980. Remember that one?

• 4:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:23Bill Simmons?

  Cause I didn't, cause I was.

• 4:25Chris Ryan?

  I remember the name. I don't know if I've ever seen it.

• 4:26Bill Simmons?

  Never saw it. Fighting Back with Tom Skerritt, 1982. I saw it in the theater.

• 4:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I remember that.

• 4:31Bill Simmons?

  And then he went on to Top Gun. Death Wish 2, 1982, he moves to LA. Vigilante, Robert Forster and Fred Williamson, your guy?

• 4:40Chris Ryan?

  I don't know if I've ever seen that.

• 4:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I didn't even know it existed. Death Wish 3, 4, 5, Falling Down, Michael Douglas, 93. The Substitute, our guy Tom Berger, 96. The Brave One, Jodie Foster said, let me get in on this.

• 4:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, this is bad. That's basically a variation on this.

• 4:56Bill Simmons?

  Gran Torino, 2008. And now it just keeps, it's going and going and going. Why do we like these?

• 5:01Chris Ryan?

  And then they remade it with Bruce Willis. They remade Death Wish later in life.

• 5:04Bill Simmons?

  Do we acknowledge that one?

• 5:05Chris Ryan?

  I'm just saying, it happened. They're still continuing to do it. Look, the idea of a man whose family has been taken from him and then he goes out to, you know, dole out revenge is like a pretty durable. It goes back to westerns. It goes back to like, but the idea of placing it in either a small town or an urban environment and having the violence be so much more extreme was probably pretty new for Death Wish. It's also honestly like kind of a part of a pretty disturbing, primarily 1970 genre of rape revenge movies. Which was like more of a horror thing, but starts with Straw Dogs or is a, you know, you can market it Straw Dogs, which is a couple of years before this or a year before this.

• 5:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 5:48Chris Ryan?

  And then it's like Hills Have Eyes and I Spit on Your Grave mostly.

• 5:51Bill Simmons?

  Spit in Your Grave. Which they remade and even like more violent and pretty awful.

• 5:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. And like the, so this movie I think is almost more disturbing because it, for the first half of it, it's so grounded. I mean, the entire Death Wish idea is like this really shy retiring guy who has a little bit of experience in his childhood with guns. Becomes traumatized and then actually goes out like seeking out altercations with people so that he can take out his revenge on the guys who did this to his wife.

• 6:20Bill Simmons?

  My wife was watching this with me, for some reason likes Death Wish.

• 6:23Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 6:24Bill Simmons?

  And when he gets the roll of quarters and he's just like, I'm gonna take a stroll at night here. And she's like, I love this. Kinda wanna do this. The roll of quarters, come, come mess with me. Uh, and that led to the roll of, uh, the sock of sodas and bad boys.

• 6:38Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. There's been some good sock violence.

• 6:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, you had the socks, soap socks in, uh, in, um, Full Metal Jacket.

• 6:47Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 6:47Chris Ryan?

  On a pile. Yeah.

• 6:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we should try to get a pyramid going.

• 6:55Chris Ryan?

  The social team rushes to their computers.

• 6:58Bill Simmons?

  So, is this a Bronson movie or a New York is falling apart movie? If you had to pick one or the other, because this is another, this is another reason why I find this movie so fascinating. We're heading into this world of New York, basically from mid seventies all the way through to the Warriors, where it's like New York is completely falling apart. It is scary, it's weird, there's all these little subcultures going on here. And you kinda have to take matters in your own hands, or you might get run over by one of these gangs, or there's things happening over here and over here, and there was this lawlessness that's just in all these movies.

• 7:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:35Bill Simmons?

  It becomes a character.

• 7:37Chris Ryan?

  I think it was a pretty wild time back then. I, to me, it's like the other versions of this movie, and we'll get to that when we get to casting what ifs and the development process for this film, is there's a version of this movie that's way closer to Straw Dogs and way closer to like a neurotic, I'm dealing with my environment, but I'm a middle-aged man kinda movie.

• 7:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 7:59Chris Ryan?

  The insertion of Bronson makes it an action movie, and then turns it into like an action franchise going forward. So I think Bronson defines it, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna say it's a Bronson movie.

• 8:11Bill Simmons?

  When was the first time you went to New York? Do you remember?

• 8:14Chris Ryan?

  Uh, yeah, in the nineties, it was fine. Like, my experience with New York has always been that New York is actually not as, nowhere near as dangerous as it's like made out to be.

• 8:24Bill Simmons?

  I think my first time was, uh, going to MSG for wrestling in nineteen eighty.

• 8:30Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 8:31Bill Simmons?

  Um, with my future stepdad and we were going to New York.

• 8:34Chris Ryan?

  Did you guys get confronted by the Warriors?

• 8:37Bill Simmons?

  But at that point, I knew a bunch of these movies.

• 8:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:39Bill Simmons?

  And I'm like, we're going to New York. It's fucking crazy there. You know, I just knew from all the movies. I knew from like the Yankee games where Chris Chambliss's game winning homer and everybody poured on the field. So in my little kid head, I was like, this is like the most dangerous place in the world.

• 8:54Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Did you think it was when you saw it?

• 8:56Bill Simmons?

  No, it was like, ah, this is just this huge, big city, but the way it was portrayed made me think that it was just like going to the wild, broad west.

• 9:05Chris Ryan?

  I think that there's this cycle that everybody goes through that this movie maybe identifies the anxiety where as you get older, it can't possibly be that you're getting older. It's that the city is falling apart.

• 9:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:19Chris Ryan?

  And so when I was in New York, when I was a kid, when I was in my twenties and when I was in my thirties, I was just like almost completely blind to the idea of like crazy, wild eighties New York.

• 9:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:33Chris Ryan?

  You know, and then as you get older, more and more of your friends are like, ah, city, it's falling apart. It's falling apart. It's crazy on the subways. It's crazy here. It's crazy there. Uh, we gotta move to upstate or we're gonna move to California. And that's kind of what's driving some of the drama in the first half of Death Wish. It's just like all of Paul's more conservative friends are like, we should throw all these people in jail or whatever. And Paul's like, well, that's not what, you know, proper society does. And then he gets pushed and pushed and pushed. But I think a lot of it is almost like a midlife crisis movie as much as it's like a revenge movie.

• 10:05Bill Simmons?

  Well, you hit this point when you get older with New York City, where the fact that it seems like there's no ceiling and it's fucking crazy is like the best thing in the world.

• 10:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:15Bill Simmons?

  But usually when you're either late teens or mid twenties, we're like, this place is awesome. I don't know what the fuck's gonna happen.

• 10:20Chris Ryan?

  I can get in so much fucking trouble here.

• 10:22Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God.

• 10:22Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:23Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't shut down. I don't know what's gonna happen at three in the morning. And then as you get older, you're right. You're like, man, New York's falling apart. I just feel like New York's basically been the same, probably the entire time I've been alive.

• 10:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:34Bill Simmons?

  Just it's how you portray it. Bronson. The Liam Neeson of the seventies.

• 10:40Chris Ryan?

  Like kinda unintentionally, like that's the thing is like, I mean, he's obviously always been this iconic action, western, military character. Um, and it's just one of the most unique faces, voices and vibes in movie history. But the craziest thing about him is to read interviews with him and they're like, so you made, you made Death Wish? And he's like, yeah, I actually don't think violence solves anything. Like he was like this very different kind of guy than the people he played.

• 11:12Bill Simmons?

  He starts out, he's in Magnificent Seven, Great Escape, Dirty Dozen, Once Upon a Time in the West in the, in the sixties. But he's like one of those guys. He's not, he's never the star of the movies, but he's like tough, he's fucking ripped. Um, something happens, he does like the Leo in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Goes to Europe and becomes a huge star in Europe, making these.

• 11:35Chris Ryan?

  Spaghetti westerns.

• 11:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Um, and then comes back in seventy-two and seventy-three and he makes Chateau's Land, which I'd never seen.

• 11:43Chris Ryan?

  That's another Michael Winter movie, yeah.

• 11:45Bill Simmons?

  The Mechanic, which I have seen, and the Stone Killer, all of a sudden he's a major star. And then in seventy-four, he makes Mr. Majestic in Death Wish. And at that point, he has his little weird mustache.

• 11:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:57Bill Simmons?

  That, uh, is kinda captivating in 4K Blu-ray, cause I did buy this in 4K Blu-ray.

• 12:02Chris Ryan?

  Did you really?

• 12:03Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah. It was like eleven ninety-nine, I'm like, fine.

• 12:06Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 12:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Okay. Twist my arm.

• 12:09Chris Ryan?

  You gotta see, you gotta see Goldblum in 4K.

• 12:14Bill Simmons?

  I gotta see every mustache hair for Bronson. I can't really fully explain Bronson, but there's been a few of these. He's basically a Seagal of the previous generation.

• 12:23Chris Ryan?

  It's hard to explain. It's honestly when I look at him, when you see him in Hawaii, when they're, the movie is first opening and he's on his vacation with his wife.

• 12:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's being loving with another human being.

• 12:33Chris Ryan?

  Hanging out with his swimsuit and he stands up. You're like, that looks like an alien. Like, guys don't look like that anymore, where the face is super old, but the body looks like somebody took a knife and carved it out of leather and rock. And he's never worn suntan. Like, he's a real, like, I put on tanning oil guy. Like, I wanna get, like, UV rays. It's an insane physique.

• 12:57Bill Simmons?

  I, I was gonna do this later, the Dr. Richard Kimball inappropriate body award. This guy's an architect. He's got 2.3% body fat. He's fucking jacked. He's got a 12-pack. He, uh, I don't know how to explain him. And I think we've had a few of these. Stallone is more explainable because he always had the unintentional comedy. Van Damme was always, like, kind of an unbelievable athlete and always had a couple of calling card moves. You could imitate his accent. Schwarzenegger, giant, could do his accent. Segal, you know, Kyle Brandt and I have tried on a couple of movies, tried to explain him. Ponytail, can't really act. Something hilarious

• 13:40Bill Simmons?

  about him the whole time. I don't know where Bronson fits in. It really is like a Liam Neeson thing, cuz he talks like this. And every line he delivers.

• 13:49Chris Ryan?

  Well, but Bronson, I mean, there is an interesting thing where Bronson's like evolving from that character actor or that supporting actor. And he's so good in those movies, like Dirty Dozen and Great Escape that you're mentioning.

• 14:00Bill Simmons?

  I think he's good in everything.

• 14:01Chris Ryan?

  He's awesome. But it's strange to watch him carry an entire film. I think you're right. Like, my favorite probably performance by him, other, I think it's Once Upon a Time in the West, just because he's so mysterious in that movie. But yeah, when you put him front and center, like Liam Neeson is like a very accomplished actor, but before he becomes Mr. Vigilante, I have skills. Like Bronson was more or less like a, a character actor, like, action movie star that then became like the centerpiece of these films.

• 14:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Liam Neeson was competing against, like, Ralph Fiennes and people like that. And then all of a sudden does Taken, and then that's just to, he just becomes Bronson. Bronson said in 74, "I supply prisons. There are never any long dialogue scenes to establish a character. He has to be completely established at the beginning of the movie and ready to work." So that's it. He knew who he was.

• 14:55Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:56Bill Simmons?

  He's, he's like, uh, like, uh, I don't know, like in basketball, like, I'm just here to set re, to set picks and grab some rebounds. Help you protect the rim a little bit.

• 15:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:05Bill Simmons?

  That's all, that's all I'm here for. Don't ask me to really be in a big acting scene. I'm gonna have my family just get traumatized in the worst possible way and you're not even gonna be sure if I'm like, like that bummed out about it.

• 15:16Chris Ryan?

  We're gonna get into that.

• 15:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Uh, I just shaking it off. Um.

• 15:23Bill Simmons?

  So seventy-five, it has hard times and his movie called Breakout that apparently did well. And he's the fourth biggest star in that box office thing in nineteen seventy-five. It's Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, Al Pacino. And Charles Bronson.

• 15:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:38Bill Simmons?

  And that was kind of the.

• 15:39Chris Ryan?

  I think there's always a guy, now I would say it's Statham, right?

• 15:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 15:45Chris Ryan?

  Who can get these movies made, but nothing else. Like William Goldman always used to write about the movie star galaxy in the seventies about if you can get Redford or if you can get one of these guys Newman, whoever.

• 15:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 15:57Chris Ryan?

  Clint, you can get your picture made if they want to make it. Bronson, I don't think could have done All the President's Men, respectfully.

• 16:07Bill Simmons?

  No. Well, there's a couple of movies that he turned down.

• 16:10Chris Ryan?

  This goes all the way to the top.

• 16:17Chris Ryan?

  We gotta, we gotta keep making calls. Damn it, Ben Bradley.

• 16:22Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if that would have worked.

• 16:23Chris Ryan?

  Bronson as Ben Bradley would have been sick though, instead of Robards, if he was doing the speech at the end.

• 16:30Bill Simmons?

  You better be right. Nothing's riding on this other than the future of the country.

• 16:36Chris Ryan?

  And he guns them both down.

• 16:38Bill Simmons?

  For the birthday. I'm literally gonna kill you. He did, uh, he turned down The Shootist with, that became a John Wick movie, one of the last ones. He turned down City Slickers in 91.

• 16:49Chris Ryan?

  It's tough.

• 16:50Bill Simmons?

  Cause he didn't want to die in the movie. He had this, I mean, the Bronson research, I, I defy anyone to find like kind of a quirkier, weirder.

• 16:58Chris Ryan?

  Like, yeah.

• 16:58Bill Simmons?

  A-list star.

• 16:59Chris Ryan?

  Give one normal response to a movie quote. Yeah.

• 17:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. He, he would do like turn down parts. Cause like the shootest, I think that, I think that was the one where the guy has, has some sort of cancer.

• 17:09Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:10Bill Simmons?

  And he's like, I don't want to have cancer in a movie. Just that's it. He's out. City Slickers, which was a great part that won Jack Palance the Oscar.

• 17:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:19Bill Simmons?

  Bronson's like, I can't die in a movie. And just turns it down. And it would have been like the crowning achievement of his career.

• 17:26Chris Ryan?

  Once upon a time in Hollywood rules he's following, you know?

• 17:29Bill Simmons?

  It's like, I'm not supposed to die. I'm Charles Bronson. He didn't get Capricorn one, a movie that I might be the only one that likes. And then he, he tested for Escape from New York and, and the studio pushed for it and Carpenter.

• 17:41Chris Ryan?

  For him to do Snake.

• 17:41Bill Simmons?

  John Carpenter said he's too old.

• 17:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. He would have been in his sixties by then. Cause he's like in his fifties for Death Wish, right?

• 17:47Bill Simmons?

  Would I not own Charles Bronson in Escape from New York on 4K Blu-ray?

• 17:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, of course. But if you, it's, I don't think he could pull off a half of what Russell does.

• 17:58Bill Simmons?

  No, I think you need stunt doubles, all that stuff. He felt like in this movie, he said, he, he said, I was a really miscast person.

• 18:06Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:06Bill Simmons?

  It was more a theme that would have been better for Dustin Hoffman or somebody who could play a weaker kind of man.

• 18:12Chris Ryan?

  A little Dustin Dry.

• 18:15Bill Simmons?

  Dustin. He's like, oh.

• 18:18Chris Ryan?

  Well, cause he, Hoffman had just been in Straw Dogs where that's the entire point of his character.

• 18:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 18:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:23Bill Simmons?

  Still shots fired. Um, Michael Winner, the director said, take it. We'll make him a more active and virile architect. And we'll all make a pot full of money. I don't know where viral got in there. It's not like Charles is like laying pipe there in the movie.

• 18:39Chris Ryan?

  Well, I think cause this novel, I don't even.

• 18:42Bill Simmons?

  I guess in Hawaii, maybe.

• 18:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he tries to. Uh, and then like he kinda, he kinda gets a little bit of a bachelor pad going.

• 18:49Bill Simmons?

  He does. There right there feels like there's a deleted scene or two.

• 18:52Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:52Bill Simmons?

  About an escort.

• 18:53Chris Ryan?

  Where he's back out on the, uh, on the, when he goes to the prostitute diner too.

• 18:57Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 18:58Chris Ryan?

  Um, in any case, uh, the fascinating part about this is adapted from a novel by Brian Gardner, I think. What was his last name?

• 19:05Bill Simmons?

  Brian Garfield.

• 19:06Chris Ryan?

  Garfield. And

• 19:07Bill Simmons?

  I bought it on eBay.

• 19:08Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 19:09Bill Simmons?

  And Part of my collection of movies turn, books turned into movies.

• 19:12Chris Ryan?

  There's a version of this movie that is way closer to like, say Dog Day or Serpico.

• 19:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 19:17Chris Ryan?

  Than what we, and I think that's why Bronson was probably identifying how he was, he was the awkward fit. But then Michael Winner turns out to be right, that they're, they have identified, uh, a 1970s anxiety and talking point that the movie dramatizes and fantasizes about.

• 19:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 19:38Chris Ryan?

  I think like captured something.

• 19:40Bill Simmons?

  Serpico, Main Streets, Taxi Driver. And then at the same time, Woody Allen's making

• 19:46Chris Ryan?

  Annie Hall and everything.

• 19:47Bill Simmons?

  Annie Hall in Manhattan. And this is like completely different side of New York.

• 19:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:50Bill Simmons?

  Seems way more fun. And then by the time we get to the late eighties, they started embracing New York as like a happy character. Yet when Harry Met Sally.

• 19:57Chris Ryan?

  Did you wish there was a scene where, where Paul and Death Wish was walking by Annie and Alvy from Annie Hall?

• 20:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he probably shoots, he probably shoots Alvy. Yeah, Alvy, whatever his name was. Um, this film became a big deal.

• 20:11Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:11Bill Simmons?

  Bronson became a huge star. Um, it eventually copycated, it had these copycat vigilante incidents, most famously in 1984, which I remember. Um, cause I was living in Connecticut at the time. Bernard Getz.

• 20:29Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:30Bill Simmons?

  Just wiped out four subway dudes and it became the Death Wish murder and became like, it was the biggest story in the tri-state area for a year. And it felt like something, and then it would turn into like people going on talk shows, talking about pros and cons of just being able to shoot people. Wacky era, CR.

• 20:46Chris Ryan?

  I mean, they're doing that in the, in the media drops in Death Wish itself.

• 20:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 20:50Chris Ryan?

  And I think one of the reasons why this is such an interesting movie to talk about on this pod is this was so, such a divisive movie at the time.

• 20:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 21:00Chris Ryan?

  The reviews were like, alright, nice job. Or, this is a deplorable piece of shit that should be flushed down the toilet. Uh, and it's, there was such a spectrum of responses.

• 21:10Bill Simmons?

  We're feeling the same thing with the, with the, uh, Ringer team.

• 21:15Chris Ryan?

  You mean the hush from over here?

• 21:16Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if the guys, the guys over there, Craig might just be like, I'm not even reviewing this at the end of it. Um, Michael Winner, The Mechanic, Scorpio.

• 21:27Chris Ryan?

  Scorpio's really good.

• 21:28Bill Simmons?

  Is Scorpio in, uh, The Stone Killer?

• 21:31Chris Ryan?

  Scorpio, great.

• 21:32Bill Simmons?

  It's a title for a movie.

• 21:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Burt Lancaster.

• 21:35Bill Simmons?

  I feel like Scorpio, I'm probably in good hands. I don't really need to know anything else.

• 21:38Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's like CIA assassins chasing each other.

• 21:41Bill Simmons?

  I sure am. He, uh, he kinda goes off the, they bring him back for Death Wish 2.

• 21:47Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm. Where he goes to LA.

• 21:49Bill Simmons?

  Which if you think, if you think this movie has a pretty deplorable assault scene in it, Death Wish 2 is like, hold my beer.

• 21:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Bill Simmons?

  And has one of the worst scenes that I actually can't, I think there's been stories written about it. Like, it's kinda like the peak of how, why did you guys decide this was a good idea to do in a movie that's gonna be in the theater? Um, and there's a lot of stuff written about just how fucking weird he was, Michael Winner.

• 22:16Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 22:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 22:17Chris Ryan?

  I didn't know.

• 22:18Bill Simmons?

  Death Wish 2 is LA.

• 22:20Chris Ryan?

  Death Wish 3, he comes home, back to New York.

• 22:22Bill Simmons?

  FYI, all of these are on Tubi, Pluto, wherever you're gonna.

• 22:25Chris Ryan?

  I watched a little, I refreshed my memory about Death Wish 3 last night. Ed Lauter from Longest Yard.

• 22:30Bill Simmons?

  I gotta be honest, 3 is pretty solid.

• 22:33Chris Ryan?

  3 is.

• 22:33Bill Simmons?

  Not against 3?

• 22:35Chris Ryan?

  3 is goofy as shit. 3 is like, uh, Paul comes back to New York from LA and essentially gets the green light from cops.

• 22:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 22:43Chris Ryan?

  To start going around and killing thugs.

• 22:46Bill Simmons?

  Green light.

• 22:46Chris Ryan?

  But the thugs are way closer to escape from New York thugs.

• 22:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 22:50Chris Ryan?

  Than the 1970's guys.

• 22:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, that was when the, we talked.

• 22:53Chris Ryan?

  And Alex Winter is in it.

• 22:54Bill Simmons?

  Golden Globus.

• 22:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:56Bill Simmons?

  And those guys, uh, there's a great documentary that we talked about with one of the Kyle Brand pods. Those guys are just like, need a star? Give him some money. We're just gonna crank out these action movies. We don't care if they're good. And they made four Death Wish sequels.

• 23:13Chris Ryan?

  Unbelievable.

• 23:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Uh, Death Wish 3 is not terrible. I mean, I, yeah, it's, it's If you're looking for, if you, if you're in that Cobra kind of area.

• 23:21Chris Ryan?

  If you're doing the 2B surf.

• 23:23Bill Simmons?

  It's not terrible. And I gotta be honest, I don't, I don't hate Death Wish 2 either. You just gotta skip the first half hour. As soon as he's in LA, like, there's five guys I need to kill. I'm just gonna go through and try to find them one at a time. Pretty good.

• 23:37Chris Ryan?

  He's a little bit more precise than Death Wish 2.

• 23:39Bill Simmons?

  There's a great scene in Death Wish 2 where I think somebody's on PCP, one of the guys he needs to kill. And the guy jumps out a window and the cops start coming at him. And all of a sudden, the guy turns into like Adrian Peterson in the 2006 season, just

• 23:53Chris Ryan?

  Are you saying that Adrian Peterson was on Angel Dust?

• 23:55Bill Simmons?

  No, it's like, pick the best football player you've ever seen.

• 23:58Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, no, I know.

• 23:58Bill Simmons?

  He's just shedding tacklers, flipping guys over and he just fights cops for like a minute. It's, I think it becomes a social video every once in a while.

• 24:06Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I, I, the PCP, whatever the, the anti-PCP lobby, it really worked. Really scared me off of Angel Dust.

• 24:14Bill Simmons?

  PCP had a run in TV and movies where it scared the living hell out of me.

• 24:17Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, cuz it was like you'd do it and they would never be like, oh, I'm high. It would always be like, I'm jumping out of a window or like headbutting a car. Yeah.

• 24:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I remember there was a White Shadow episode where somebody went to the roof. No, when it really got an after-school special territory.

• 24:31Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:32Bill Simmons?

  And somebody took it and just jumped off the roof of the school.

• 24:35Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:35Bill Simmons?

  And was like, I can fly. And I was like, I'm never fucking going near PCP.

• 24:39Chris Ryan?

  Well, PCP though, the real danger was like, it could be in weed. That was always the, the scary old wives tale they would tell you is that that could be, that could be Angel Dust in there.

• 24:47Bill Simmons?

  And now we have fentanyl.

• 24:48Chris Ryan?

  That's right.

• 24:48Bill Simmons?

  Same thing.

• 24:49Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. You like to get wet?

• 24:50Bill Simmons?

  What I tell my kids. Yeah, be careful. Uh, this movie was made for 3.7 million. And it made $30 million.

• 24:58Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:59Bill Simmons?

  Roger Ebert gave it three stars.

• 25:01Chris Ryan?

  What an interesting man.

• 25:03Bill Simmons?

  Death Wish is a quasi-fascist advertisement for urban vigilantes done up in a slick and exciting action movie. We like it even when we're turned off by the message. That was Rog.

• 25:18Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:19Bill Simmons?

  Then he said, uh,

• 25:22Bill Simmons?

  Michael Winner gives us a New York in the grip of a reign of terror. This doesn't look like 1974, but like one of these bloody future cities in science fiction novels about anarchy in the 21st century. Literally every shadow holds a mugger, every subway train harbors a killer. The park is a breeding ground for crime. Urban paranoia is one thing, but death wish is another. Raj, he's really, Raj is like, he's not even looking at it.

• 25:50Chris Ryan?

  The actual New York Times called this film Irresponsible. Yeah, I think a lot of, I mean, there were a lot of critics.

• 25:56Bill Simmons?

  Did your dad review this?

• 25:58Chris Ryan?

  I would think this is a little bit before his movie critic days. This is 74. I don't think he was doing movies until the later 70s.

• 26:05Bill Simmons?

  Think about.

• 26:05Chris Ryan?

  He would have hated it though.

• 26:07Bill Simmons?

  Think about the New York parks and all the shit that was going on from a movie standpoint.

• 26:11Chris Ryan?

  Oh, like with.

• 26:12Bill Simmons?

  Cruising, yeah. The Warriors.

• 26:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:15Bill Simmons?

  If you just ever liked, maybe AI, you just merged all these things together.

• 26:19Chris Ryan?

  The New York cinematic universe of the 1970s? This is a billion dollar idea. Actually, it's not a billion dollar idea.

• 26:25Bill Simmons?

  Can AI do this? Put everybody together?

• 26:29Chris Ryan?

  Sam Altman, come on. I want Al Pacino from Cruising hanging out with Roy Scheider and Marathon Man.

• 26:36Bill Simmons?

  One other thing about this movie is we talk about titles a lot. One of the best titles.

• 26:42Chris Ryan?

  Is this the origin of the term death wish pretty much?

• 26:47Chris Ryan?

  Sure. Okay.

• 26:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 26:51Chris Ryan?

  Were people like, man, that guy's got a death wish before death wish?

• 26:56Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. How do we find that out?

• 26:58Chris Ryan?

  Ask ChatGPT.

• 26:59Bill Simmons?

  Chat.

• 27:01Chris Ryan?

  No, don't do that.

• 27:03Bill Simmons?

  It could be a ChatGPT. No, I would assume it popularized it.

• 27:07Chris Ryan?

  It definitely did, right?

• 27:08Bill Simmons?

  My only regret is nobody says the word, the phrase death wish during the movie.

• 27:13Chris Ryan?

  Yes, but it's it's very, I think it's interesting that Paul is the one that has the death wish, you know, like he's the one who's pushing it and putting himself at risk.

• 27:23Bill Simmons?

  But nobody says, you've got a death wish, man.

• 27:25Chris Ryan?

  No. Do they ever say that in two or three? I can't remember.

• 27:28Bill Simmons?

  Probably they they work it in. You know, they say it in 48 hours, which I I forgot.

• 27:33Chris Ryan?

  There you go.

• 27:34Bill Simmons?

  Because Kate Kate says to Reggie, they gave me 40, they gave me 48 hours to find out whatever. I'm like, title. Yeah, there. Boom. You did it. Um, we're gonna take a break and we're gonna come back and do the categories.

• 27:47Speaker 02

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• 28:27Speaker 09

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• 28:57Bill Simmons?

  All right. Most rewatchable scene. This movie somehow doesn't have a rewatchable scene for 40 minutes.

• 29:04Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my God.

• 29:05Bill Simmons?

  I think means you can just come right in 40 minutes.

• 29:08Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, if you're like, if you don't feel like you have the stomach for it, I think you can skip to the 40 minute mark. You could probably skip to him going to Tucson. And then

• 29:19Bill Simmons?

  You want to wait for What's Age the Worst to talk about that scene?

• 29:22Chris Ryan?

  No, let's do it now because I think it's a really difficult point of entry for people.

• 29:26Bill Simmons?

  The movie starts there in Hawaii. It's just great. Really loves his wife, having a great time, good vacation, comes back.

• 29:32Chris Ryan?

  Maui in the seventies looks awesome.

• 29:34Bill Simmons?

  You know, every time we're in Maui, I had this in What's Age the Best, there's been a lot of stuff from the seventies in Hawaii and it's always amazing. Brady Bunch, I remember they went there for three episodes, it was great.

• 29:45Chris Ryan?

  Also, it's just, it's always great to watch it, just be like, the guy could just walk up to the desk and be like, here's my plane ticket, no TSA.

• 29:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. Well, it also just seemed like you could go on any beach, just bring a blanket.

• 29:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Bill Simmons?

  Nobody's like, excuse me, sir. Um, so we, they come back and the wife and daughter are like, um, let's go get some groceries. They decide to get the groceries delivered and Jeff Goldblum and his two cronies, um, follow them.

• 30:12Chris Ryan?

  Stock them back to their apartment.

• 30:14Bill Simmons?

  And it's a pretty awful scene.

• 30:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:16Bill Simmons?

  That I, I honestly, I don't understand some of this stuff with the seventies, but I, it really feels like a lot of the goal was to provoke people.

• 30:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, I think.

• 30:25Bill Simmons?

  And it wasn't just with violence, it was with sex or whatever else. And it's just like, the kind of scene that would just never, ever happen now.

• 30:32Chris Ryan?

  You know, what's also weird is that I kind of wonder how many times I had actually seen this movie on TV versus the actual film film.

• 30:40Bill Simmons?

  Good point.

• 30:41Chris Ryan?

  Because I forgot how graphic it was. So when I was watching it for this, I was like, oh shit, this is way worse than Deliverance. You know, this is pretty, this is pretty close to Spit on Your Grave and some of like the exploitation, like grindhouse horror.

• 30:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and I wonder what, do you do that because you're trying to set up like this is why this guy snapped?

• 31:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but it almost works better if it's a better actor than Bronson. Like, that's the thing. It's like Bronson's not reacting that emotionally to what happened to his wife and daughter. So it's like you would do that if you were going to do maybe some of the other actors that you had and like watch them go into like deep emotional crisis. Bronson's just like, I guess I gotta go back to my apartment.

• 31:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I gotta, I gotta thing to do in Arizona.

• 31:28Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:28Bill Simmons?

  Next week. The son-in-law is like, dad, we've got trouble.

• 31:32Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:33Bill Simmons?

  He's, he seems not really grasping the, uh, stuff either. Anyway, it's a weird way to start a movie, not going to defend it, but once.

• 31:41Chris Ryan?

  And in a lot of vigilante movies after the fact. I don't want to say this is a blanket term, but I think roughly more than half, if not 70%. The violence against the person's family either takes place off screen or is obscured somehow. Like it's like you get the impression of what happened, but it's not like, hey, let's spend like five minutes watching Jeff Goldblum do this.

• 32:01Bill Simmons?

  Very strange.

• 32:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:03Bill Simmons?

  Well, the first rewatchable scene is the roll of quarters.

• 32:05Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 32:07Bill Simmons?

  Which is just great.

• 32:08Chris Ryan?

  It's also like, why is he in the bank getting quarters?

• 32:10Bill Simmons?

  Why is he getting $20 in quarters? What's he got in his hand? And he's just kind of waiting for somebody.

• 32:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:16Bill Simmons?

  But the best part is when he comes back and he starts swinging the roll of quarters around. He's like, just kind of loses his mind.

• 32:22Chris Ryan?

  Easily the most giftable moment for this.

• 32:23Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God.

• 32:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:25Bill Simmons?

  Uh, he starts swinging it against the thing.

• 32:28Chris Ryan?

  We gotta do a best like DIY weapons power ranking. Oh, that's a really good idea.

• 32:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 32:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. But this is like when the warriors win with just Buddy Heald, swinging quarters around.

• 32:40Bill Simmons?

  Actual quote from my wife, this movie makes me want to go out with a roll of quarters and beat up bad guys.

• 32:45Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 32:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Put that, put that in our Wikipedia.

• 32:51Bill Simmons?

  The Wild West Saloon brawl is really good.

• 32:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I just wanted to point out.

• 32:54Bill Simmons?

  Does this happen?

• 32:55Chris Ryan?

  I like where they do like staged.

• 32:58Bill Simmons?

  That was an elaborate stage.

• 33:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:00Bill Simmons?

  I couldn't believe how good that was.

• 33:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. You ever see like the Indiana Jones stunt spectacular at Disney?

• 33:06Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 33:06Chris Ryan?

  It's pretty cool.

• 33:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 33:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:08Bill Simmons?

  Is it as cool as that?

• 33:09Chris Ryan?

  Uh, I mean.

• 33:10Bill Simmons?

  They're falling off roofs and.

• 33:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, there's like, they do the whole boulder chase in the Indiana Jones thing. Like the guy runs away from a boulder. Yeah, it's at Disney, uh, I think, or Universal. Anyway, the, the whole sequence actually, it's a sneaky, almost best, most rewatchable scene for me, like the 10 minute Tucson sequence.

• 33:30Speaker 10

  I do know something about guns, Ames. I grew up with them, all kinds of guns.

• 33:36Speaker 10

  You see, my father was a hunter. I guess out here you call it a gunman. My mother was the other side of the coin.

• 33:45Speaker 10

  When my father was killed in a hunting accident,

• 33:49Speaker 10

  some fool mistook him for a deer, you see. My mother won the toss. I never touched a gun since.

• 33:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, just because it really lays the groundwork. Not only for what Paul's going to become, get a little bit of like, oh, when I was a child, I used to handle guns all the time. Um, but

• 34:06Bill Simmons?

  The Bronson's getting better.

• 34:07Chris Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 34:09Bill Simmons?

  You're really workshopping it.

• 34:11Chris Ryan?

  You're really workshop in the Bronson. The Jane Schill character is awesome. Like the guy's taking him around Tucson and then just the connecting what's going on with the Paul character in 1970s with our perception of what cowboys in the 1870s were like. And like the Wild West mythology, Wild West justice, vigilantes out on the, on the open range kind of thing.

• 34:36Bill Simmons?

  Twinkle in the eye.

• 34:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think it's

• 34:37Bill Simmons?

  That could be a good name for your first son, Ames.

• 34:41Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 34:42Bill Simmons?

  Ames Horlbeck.

• 34:43Speaker 11

  Yeah, I can tell my

• 34:44Bill Simmons?

  It sounds like a kick ass kid.

• 34:45Speaker 11

  Yeah, I named him after Death Wish. You guys ever see Death Wish?

• 34:49Bill Simmons?

  The best character in Death Wish. Uh, Kersey's first shooting is my next rewatchable. Which leads to then the second shooting, which is the three on one. That's one with the movie. That would be what's that, what's our category? The okay, motherfucker.

• 35:03Chris Ryan?

  When the movie goes up a notch.

• 35:04Bill Simmons?

  When he's just like looking around and it's like, hey, there's three guys robbing somebody in an alley.

• 35:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 35:08Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna take all three of them down.

• 35:13Bill Simmons?

  So I really enjoyed the police sergeant in this movie played by Vincent Gardenia.

• 35:19Bill Simmons?

  He has forty people in the office.

• 35:23Speaker 06

  We could be looking for a man who's had a member, all members of his family killed by muggers.

• 35:30Speaker 06

  Now,

• 35:32Speaker 06

  he shoots that pistol pretty good. Right?

• 35:37Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 35:39Speaker 06

  Combat veteran. So put Vietnam vets at the top of the list. Because they're youngest and toughest. Then you can work your way through Korea and World War II.

• 35:50Speaker 12

  Oh my god.

• 35:52Chris Ryan?

  It's really funny.

• 35:53Bill Simmons?

  Another thing I love about these seventies New York police movies is just the police station scenes and just, which I guess were all real, like it all looks like Barney Miller on like steroids.

• 36:03Chris Ryan?

  Either that or they were shooting so much police stuff back then and they were shooting so many movies and TV shows that they had working sets. You know, so that they were able to like kind of dress it a little bit differently, but they would have like a police precinct set. But a lot of this stuff feels location, like the the first precinct that he walks into to find the detective who's working on his wife's case. And then there's the guy who's like, I need my dog. He's key to my income.

• 36:28Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 36:29Chris Ryan?

  That whole seems like an actual police station.

• 36:31Bill Simmons?

  Well, he somehow figures out in 90 seconds, check all the murders from the last three months. He's probably a combat vet. I think he's a vigilante. He just does all of this off of one alley shooting.

• 36:44Chris Ryan?

  I think we're supposed to, Ocho is like supposed to be like this amazing Popeye Doyle level famous cop because he's on People Magazine.

• 36:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Major celebrity. The subway double murder would be my next scene.

• 36:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:58Bill Simmons?

  You know, Kersey's really getting into it because he comes back for the second shot for each guy to make sure you're dead shot. It's like, oh, you're really.

• 37:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, the Neil McCauley. I think I actually got served a YouTube video the other day that is McCauley killing Wangro and Heat. And it's apparently called like Mozambique technique. And I was like, I'm in a bad part of YouTube when I am now getting weird like soldiers of fortune videos that are praising Heat.

• 37:26Bill Simmons?

  For their double execution. Oh my god. That's where you have to do the, please don't recommend me this video. Tab.

• 37:34Chris Ryan?

  Honestly, I haven't done that yet, but okay.

• 37:36Bill Simmons?

  I've done that a few times.

• 37:37Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's one time it, it, I don't know what happened, but it recommended a Dan Lebatard clip to me and I went right in there and I said, I'm not interested.

• 37:49Bill Simmons?

  Uh, next one, subway platform shooting. Kersey's little, he's heat checking it at this point.

• 37:58Chris Ryan?

  Well, because the, also the really interesting part of this movie is whether or not Kersey's getting addicted to the game.

• 38:05Bill Simmons?

  Oh, no question. Cause this one, he raises the stakes, he ends up getting stabbed.

• 38:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he's walking around, he's flashing money in diners and stuff.

• 38:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's when he takes out, what is that giant wallet he has? There's just like

• 38:17Chris Ryan?

  Billfold, yeah.

• 38:18Bill Simmons?

  Huge wad of cash. And he's like, ah, how much is my coffee?

• 38:25Bill Simmons?

  Next one is the, the big ending scene, Kersey on the big park.

• 38:29Chris Ryan?

  In the park, in the promenade, yeah.

• 38:31Bill Simmons?

  Guy's got a gun at the top. We got Boom Boom Washington at the bottom from Welcome Back Cotter with another guy. Shoots all three, gets shot, and then chases the dude. We got a little chase scene and then passes out right. He's like, deal your hand. Draw. And then passes out. And then I would throw in at the end, just the cop telling him to get out. Let's pretend this never happened. Inspector, by sundown? And then that's it.

• 38:56Chris Ryan?

  And he's like having this fantasy life where he's still a cowboy. It's crazy. But it's actually like a really interesting portrait of a guy coming apart. I don't know always that Bronson is like up to that part of the job, which is like the serious side of this movie, but he's really good at shooting guys.

• 39:11Bill Simmons?

  So your favorite's the saloon brawl?

• 39:13Chris Ryan?

  I just like, as part of the film, in some ways, the Tucson stuff is my favorite part, but the last shootout is like the iconic. This is

• 39:22Bill Simmons?

  Ending's great. Well, one of the reasons this was a rewatchable, first of all, it was on TV. Like you said, you never saw like the really bad stuff. This was on TV.

• 39:28Chris Ryan?

  I feel like whenever I would turn it on, it would be him stalking around New York City and my, my dad would be like, oh, he's gonna do

• 39:34Bill Simmons?

  Roll the quarters, yeah. This was on TV for 40 years and you could always just come in at the roll of quarters and just watch him just gun down bad guys for an hour. It's basically a western. Um, I'm going with the same thing. What's the most 1974 thing about this movie?

• 39:49Chris Ryan?

  God, what isn't?

• 39:50Bill Simmons?

  Creepy, scary 1970s New York City. A movie hero who is a Korean War vet? You don't get that very often.

• 39:58Chris Ryan?

  A 50 year old Korean War vet, yeah.

• 40:01Bill Simmons?

  TWA Airlines, just walk on there.

• 40:03Chris Ryan?

  Man, thank you, Howard Hughes.

• 40:05Bill Simmons?

  TWA sounded great. Uh, the assault scene we mentioned, very 1974. Uh, the overcoats in this movie.

• 40:11Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, just the way the guys dress.

• 40:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's like these weird, the colors are like down and I didn't really understand those. And then this is my number one. Magazine billboards telling us what's happening in the story through like Harper's.

• 40:26Chris Ryan?

  All the front page news.

• 40:27Bill Simmons?

  Magazine and People Magazine and these big billboards and magazines. When's the last time we had a billboard of a magazine?

• 40:34Chris Ryan?

  A long time ago, pre-internet probably.

• 40:36Bill Simmons?

  Decades.

• 40:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I would say another 1974 thing for me was guys taking long boozy lunches and being racist.

• 40:47Chris Ryan?

  Like Sam and Paula going to like a long bar and grill lunch in the middle of the day. And they'd be like, let's go draw some buildings. I've had four pops and a steak.

• 41:00Bill Simmons?

  I just wish the world was all white people.

• 41:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:02Bill Simmons?

  Can I have another scotch, please?

• 41:03Chris Ryan?

  Oh, one more 1974 thing. Has anyone eaten liver with spaghetti since 1974? He makes his son law.

• 41:11Bill Simmons?

  I had that in what stage of the word.

• 41:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:13Bill Simmons?

  Um, if, if I went to somebody's house and they asked, do I want the liver with the spaghetti or on the side? I'm out. Like that sounds, who eats liver?

• 41:23Chris Ryan?

  I had liver last fall and I've, I'm just getting over it.

• 41:27Bill Simmons?

  Did you guys ever, do you have ever had liver?

• 41:29Speaker 11

  No, what, what animal's liver is it?

• 41:32Chris Ryan?

  Cow.

• 41:32Speaker 11

  Cow?

• 41:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, I, it was delicious.

• 41:35Speaker 11

  Was it?

• 41:36Chris Ryan?

  But I felt like it was coming off my skin, like smell wise for a long time.

• 41:40Speaker 11

  Like liverwurst or something, that's like a grandpa meal to me, growing up.

• 41:44Bill Simmons?

  There's just no scenario.

• 41:45Chris Ryan?

  My dad, when we.

• 41:46Bill Simmons?

  Liver or tongue?

• 41:47Chris Ryan?

  We used to drive from Philly to Vermont and my dad would always stop at a Howard Johnson's on the New York State thruway.

• 41:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 41:54Chris Ryan?

  And get liver and onions and I'd be like, I'm driving with mom now.

• 41:58Bill Simmons?

  Tap it up for the couple of cigs.

• 42:02Bill Simmons?

  Smoking at the table, eating the liver and onions?

• 42:05Chris Ryan?

  Oh my god, no.

• 42:05Bill Simmons?

  The Bad Bratz special.

• 42:07Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:09Bill Simmons?

  What's aged the best? We mentioned old school seventies police stations.

• 42:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:14Bill Simmons?

  Really enjoy that environment. Cities with wildly different views on guns, I think has weirdly aged well. Since we're in that area still.

• 42:23Chris Ryan?

  We still are, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you find it comforting to watch stuff that's set in like the seventies or whenever? And realize that we're just arguing about the same things forever?

• 42:34Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 42:34Chris Ryan?

  We didn't, rather than like, oh, the world is falling apart. It's like, oh, it turns out we've been having this fight for a long time.

• 42:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Yeah, a lot of the stuff they talk about in this movie, you're like, alright.

• 42:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:44Bill Simmons?

  Definitely would hear that exchange.

• 42:45Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:46Bill Simmons?

  Right now.

• 42:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:47Bill Simmons?

  Somewhere.

• 42:49Bill Simmons?

  I read this thing, there's an article about, um, why people watch the same movies and TV shows over and over again. It's a big feature. They did a study on it. Do you know what the answer is?

• 43:00Chris Ryan?

  Why?

• 43:02Bill Simmons?

  Cause it relaxes people. Because they're not tense when they watch something and they don't know where it's going. You get a little more whatever. And I was like, they've just described the rewatchables. I'll have to tweet that out of the rewatch.

• 43:14Chris Ryan?

  Do you find it?

• 43:15Bill Simmons?

  Comfort, like me watching forty eight hours last night, even though I've seen it three hundred and ninety five times right before I fell asleep.

• 43:21Chris Ryan?

  I do that with, I've done that with Big Trouble in Little China like ten times this year.

• 43:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Chris Ryan?

  I'm just like, I just want the opening twenty minutes of Big Trouble in Little China before I go to bed.

• 43:30Bill Simmons?

  Right. But that's like.

• 43:31Chris Ryan?

  It's comfort food.

• 43:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Comfort.

• 43:33Chris Ryan?

  But there's like an entire like.

• 43:34Bill Simmons?

  Calms your body down.

• 43:36Chris Ryan?

  Brawl between triads in Big Trouble in Little China. I don't know why it's comforting.

• 43:40Bill Simmons?

  This is so relaxing.

• 43:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:44Bill Simmons?

  Two more What's Aged The Best for me. Traumatized movie characters who become catatonic?

• 43:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:49Bill Simmons?

  I always feel like it's a good gimmick.

• 43:51Chris Ryan?

  Oh, you can't snap out of it.

• 43:52Bill Simmons?

  Can't snap out of it. She snaps out of it in Death Wish two.

• 43:56Chris Ryan?

  Well, she comes to Los Angeles, yeah.

• 43:58Bill Simmons?

  Sergeant Frank picking up the People magazine that he's on, I really enjoy it.

• 44:03Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:03Bill Simmons?

  Looking at the cover. What do you have?

• 44:05Chris Ryan?

  I have Charles Bronson's beach body. Uh, it's aged the best, but it's also like not a body you see anymore. Um, Paul becoming addicted to the hunt is really cool. Like even after they're like, hey, all you have to do is just get out of town. Like we're, we're, we're cool to look the other way on this one. And he's like,

• 44:21Bill Simmons?

  I don't know.

• 44:22Chris Ryan?

  I really love it. Yeah. He gets a taste.

• 44:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 44:24Chris Ryan?

  Uh, and then all the New York media coverage of, of Paul, like giving him a nickname, all the like press conferences.

• 44:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 44:32Chris Ryan?

  It's really, it's kind of amazing to watch like the, the churn of newspaper and TV journalism back then, pre like any kind of internet and just the depiction of that.

• 44:42Bill Simmons?

  I miss it. Den of Thieves Benihana where it's scene stealing location.

• 44:46Chris Ryan?

  I got Sex Worker Diner.

• 44:49Bill Simmons?

  Interesting.

• 44:50Chris Ryan?

  It seems like an incredible cast of characters in there. The lady was like, there goes the pussy posse.

• 44:55Bill Simmons?

  That's like a film within a film.

• 44:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're right. I had the part, that last park shootout.

• 45:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:01Bill Simmons?

  With the stairs. It's just like really well done. Meanwhile, Pacino and Cruising's over in the little tunnel on the side. The baseball Furies are walking by. Uh, what do you have for Great Shot Gordo, most cinematic?

• 45:15Chris Ryan?

  Uh, it's pretty, pretty disturbing, but all the weird wide angle lenses of, uh, the mother and daughter like kind of hanging out in the apartment before the thugs get there. There's like, it just makes you feel so on edge. Cause you're like, why is this almost like fisheye?

• 45:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 45:30Chris Ryan?

  The way they're sitting on the bed and talking. And I think it's, it really gets under your skin as does obviously the, the subsequent sequence.

• 45:38Bill Simmons?

  Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness award.

• 45:40Chris Ryan?

  Dude, Herbie Hancock.

• 45:41Bill Simmons?

  Best needle drop.

• 45:42Chris Ryan?

  Fucking cooking in this.

• 45:44Bill Simmons?

  Herbie's cooking.

• 45:45Chris Ryan?

  Absolutely amazing score.

• 45:47Bill Simmons?

  Can I give you one other candidate?

• 45:50Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:51Bill Simmons?

  Paul Cursey, when he invites his son-in-law over and he's blasting game show music and making liver and spaghetti. And it's like,

• 46:01Chris Ryan?

  If I was the son-in-law, I would have been like, you know, dad, there's a bed right next to, uh,

• 46:07Bill Simmons?

  There's this new website called BetterHelp.

• 46:09Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:10Bill Simmons?

  I think you should call. Um, he's just lost his mind at that point.

• 46:14Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:15Bill Simmons?

  Why isn't he playing like disco or, I don't know, like Jethro Tull?

• 46:19Chris Ryan?

  And I love when he's like, turn it up. I can't hear it while I cook liver.

• 46:22Bill Simmons?

  How do you like your liver? The Chess Rockwell and Brock Landers Award for Best Character Name.

• 46:28Chris Ryan?

  Ames Gantcho? Good.

• 46:30Bill Simmons?

  Is the guy's name?

• 46:31Chris Ryan?

  I think Inspector Frank Ochoa is pretty, pretty classic cop name.

• 46:35Bill Simmons?

  Did he look like an Italian to you, though? I guess, I guess he's Vincent Garden.

• 46:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:40Bill Simmons?

  Isn't, did he look like a Frank Ochoa?

• 46:43Chris Ryan?

  I don't know. I just really, I think Inspector Ochoa is a really good cop name for the seventies especially.

• 46:48Bill Simmons?

  What do you have for your flex category choice?

• 46:50Chris Ryan?

  Boy, oh, boy. The I Used to Fuck Guys Like You in Prison Award for craziest quote.

• 46:57Chris Ryan?

  Jeff Goldblum screaming, "Kill Rich [BLEEP]!"

• 47:02Bill Simmons?

  Oh, no.

• 47:04Chris Ryan?

  I don't know if we can use that.

• 47:07Chris Ryan?

  But that is it. He screams that and then he fucking hits the, he kills his wife.

• 47:15Bill Simmons?

  It's pretty awful.

• 47:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:17Bill Simmons?

  You think we should change the award?

• 47:19Chris Ryan?

  Oh, no, I don't know if we're gonna change, change like that new title of the award. I just don't know if I could say the C word.

• 47:25Bill Simmons?

  I don't, probably that.

• 47:26Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 47:26Bill Simmons?

  I'll probably have to bleep it, but I think you're right.

• 47:28Chris Ryan?

  It's that or it's like Jeff Goldblum saying, "Shit, we want money, mother."

• 47:34Bill Simmons?

  He is, well, he's coming up.

• 47:38Bill Simmons?

  Butch's Girlfriend Award for Weak Link in the Film. Other than that scene.

• 47:42Chris Ryan?

  Uh, Jack's a son-in-law.

• 47:44Bill Simmons?

  I have the son-in-law. He's horrible.

• 47:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:47Bill Simmons?

  He's just a horrible character.

• 47:48Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:48Bill Simmons?

  I don't understand any piece of it, why he's such a loser, why he's not more.

• 47:56Bill Simmons?

  Like, obviously, his father-in-law is losing his mind.

• 47:58Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 47:59Bill Simmons?

  And he can see it. Doesn't seem concerned about that. Doesn't even really seem that concerned about his wife. Dad, they're gonna put him in a sanitarium tomorrow. And it just doesn't seem like, I can't believe this happened. Everything about him is off.

• 48:11Chris Ryan?

  I had this in Apex Mountain, but this character is also, is definitely Apex Mountain for calling your father-in-law dad. It's really confusing through the movie. I'm like, wait, is that his father? Cause if I was Charles Bronson, he would be like, I'm not your dad.

• 48:26Bill Simmons?

  I had that in What's Age of the Worst? Son-in-law who called their father-in-law dad.

• 48:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:30Bill Simmons?

  I don't understand. Craig, do you do this? Absolutely not. It's a great call.

• 48:34Chris Ryan?

  I don't think anyone does this anymore.

• 48:35Bill Simmons?

  I think it's a seventies thing, though. It's like calling your wife the old lady.

• 48:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but like.

• 48:40Bill Simmons?

  Certain things that went sideways.

• 48:41Chris Ryan?

  He seems so eager to call him dad. He's like, yes, got it.

• 48:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 48:46Chris Ryan?

  Charles Bronson's my dad.

• 48:48Bill Simmons?

  We rarely get to give this out, but the Steven Seagal Hard to Kill Award for did this movie need a better intimacy coordinator?

• 48:54Chris Ryan?

  Yes.

• 48:55Bill Simmons?

  Uh, the answer is yes. And then, uh, the Elizabeth Shoe is an Oxford Electrochemist Award for most ridiculous casting. Charles Bronson as an architect?

• 49:04Chris Ryan?

  Charles Bronson, architect?

• 49:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 49:06Chris Ryan?

  The way that they depict Charles Bronson's architecture skills is him sitting at blueprints for a while, seemingly drawing circles.

• 49:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 49:15Chris Ryan?

  And then later he's just like, he is a developer. And it's like, um, like a fucking monopoly board with a bunch of little houses. And they're like, this is gonna lose a lot of money, but it's beautiful.

• 49:26Bill Simmons?

  Look at all these. I put some olive trees right there.

• 49:29Chris Ryan?

  Everybody has a hill in a backyard.

• 49:32Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Loom by Atlassian, who missed out on Star Wars by one week. I'm sure it was frustrating for them. You know what, uh, you know what else is frustrating? Even more frustrating than being a week late when you could have been in the Star Wars episode and instead you're in Death Wish? It's really frustrating when you start feeling stuck at work with too many unnecessary meetings. Luckily, there's a simple solution for that. Use Loom video messaging. It can simultaneously record both your screen and yourself. You should use this. It's actually good.

• 50:03Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 50:03Bill Simmons?

  I've used this. Share a quick update, provide feedback, train a colleague, everything in between. I'm just gonna start looming Craig.

• 50:11Chris Ryan?

  I think you'd love that.

• 50:12Bill Simmons?

  Just like, Craig, I have some thoughts about your edit at 58 minutes.

• 50:15Speaker 11

  Looming me sounds like an HR violation.

• 50:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Plus, add Loom AI to your meetings for instant written notes and recordings. Try Loom today at loom.com. That is L-O-O-M dot com. Uh, let's go to what's aged the worst, other than the terrible assault scene.

• 50:34Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, sure. Graphic nature of the rape murder scene.

• 50:37Bill Simmons?

  The, uh, legal apartment search I had some issues with, not positive.

• 50:41Chris Ryan?

  There's not a single warrant in this movie.

• 50:43Bill Simmons?

  Not, not sure that was legal, just to kind of waltz in with the locksmith.

• 50:46Chris Ryan?

  I've all heard this, by the same token, that, that crime was out of control in the cinematic version of the 1970s New York. Cops did not adhere to the rule of law.

• 50:55Bill Simmons?

  They certainly did not. Um. For What's Aged The Worst, I mean, you'd catch the vigilante right now because they'd have cameras everywhere.

• 51:02Chris Ryan?

  This movie would be five minutes long.

• 51:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's like, oh yeah, he's right there. It's Paul Cursey, the architect.

• 51:06Chris Ryan?

  They would have also like cameras in the supermarket, cameras like in the apartment building, like there would not be like, we snuck in with the movers.

• 51:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 51:13Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:13Bill Simmons?

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

• 51:15Chris Ryan?

  Uh, graphic nature of the rape murder scene, uh, the nickname, the vigilante. Just dig deeper, New York. Come on. Like, like there's, there's not like a single like cool element to this killer.

• 51:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, like the silver bullet killer, something like that.

• 51:28Chris Ryan?

  The real Batman, something like that. Uh, just Paul's general, guess it's time to go home and go back to work.

• 51:37Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 51:38Chris Ryan?

  Three days after, easily the most traumatizing thing that could happen to somebody and he's like, well, what am I gonna do? Moan and cry forever?

• 51:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, and then he doesn't even paint the walls for like a month. He just kind of graffitis over the graffiti.

• 51:52Chris Ryan?

  Orange, which is definitely a sign of a mental breakdown.

• 51:55Bill Simmons?

  Well, but that, it's, the movie does a good job of like, this guy's lost his marbles. He's making liver and spaghetti and he's got bright orange walls and he's playing game show music.

• 52:03Chris Ryan?

  That architecture firm did not offer mental health days.

• 52:06Bill Simmons?

  Definitely not. Uh, Lawrence Hilton Jacobs as the, one of the last muggers.

• 52:12Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:12Bill Simmons?

  Who then became Boom Boom Washington and, you know, Welcome Back, Connor was one of the biggest shows of the late seventies. It's just weird to see him in this.

• 52:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:21Bill Simmons?

  And Jeff Goldblum from The Big Chill and many other things.

• 52:24Chris Ryan?

  Oh, I mean, there's so many random people showing up in this movie where like, I can't believe this, but that, that comes a little bit later. I want to say also, since you mentioned the casting, one of the things this Age The Worst is Michael Winner and Charles Bronson talking about who to cast as Paul's wife in the beginning. And, uh, I think Michael Winner was like Jill Ireland, who's Charles Bronson's real life wife. And Charles Bronson was like, absolutely not.

• 52:49Bill Simmons?

  Not after what happens in the movie.

• 52:51Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I'm not having her thrown around by a bunch of thugs. And then they just were like, can you imagine being Ho Plang who plays the wife?

• 52:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 52:57Chris Ryan?

  And be like, oh, great. Thanks, guys.

• 52:59Bill Simmons?

  Plan B.

• 53:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Um.

• 53:02Bill Simmons?

  I have for what's age the worst of Bruce Willis 2018 remake because I even think when we started rewatchables. I remember the first year we we had some sort of conversation about movies that should be remade. And Death Wish was clearly one of those like it's such a great idea. And then they actually did it and it wasn't good.

• 53:20Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:21Bill Simmons?

  And it also felt too close to the equalizer.

• 53:24Chris Ryan?

  We've done it now. I think if you were gonna really try to like do something creative, you would basically have to tell Death Wish from the perspective of the criminals that he's hunting. You know, you would have to be like, we're like a New York, a couple of New York street guys. But there's this rumor that this crazy white guy is walking around with a gun. And we're like now investigating him, but also trying to like protect the other criminals. Flip it on its head.

• 53:49Bill Simmons?

  I'd probably watch it. Was there, but do you have any more what's age worse? Was there a better title for this movie? An old category I brought back. Um, Dino De Laurentiis was involved in this.

• 54:00Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:00Bill Simmons?

  Another, another one of my heroes. In Paramount and they originally wanted to call this film The Sidewalk Vigilante.

• 54:06Chris Ryan?

  Well, that's better than just the vigilante.

• 54:08Bill Simmons?

  Cause they thought death being in the title was a deterrent. Boy, were they wrong. Think that, think that's what's the opposite of a deterrent.

• 54:18Bill Simmons?

  The rough little Hannah Ribbick Partridge overacting were the three bad guys.

• 54:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, Goldblum.

• 54:22Bill Simmons?

  Goldblum. I don't know what is going on. The, yeah, the guy from the lead singer from Midnight Oil.

• 54:26Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:26Bill Simmons?

  With Goldblum and then the other guy and they're just arranged.

• 54:29Chris Ryan?

  Goldblum like is in the war years, like four years early or five years early. He's just doing, it's so amazing.

• 54:39Chris Ryan?

  They act like he's been asked about this movie a couple of times since then where it's just like, oh, yeah. Kind of ashamed that that's your early film. He's like, no, I got to be in the movies like.

• 54:48Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 54:48Chris Ryan?

  And I think it was because he knew like a band guy, like a guy in a band who just got him into, got him into this film.

• 54:54Bill Simmons?

  It's like, mom, go see my new movie, Death Wish. I'm in the first 15 minutes. You can't miss me.

• 55:01Chris Ryan?

  What a rocket ship to like start me. He's in big chill a couple of years later, right?

• 55:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah. The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford, how to take a word.

• 55:09Chris Ryan?

  Okay, so this, you go first because mine goes right into casting whatevs.

• 55:15Bill Simmons?

  Vigilantes.

• 55:17Chris Ryan?

  What does that mean?

• 55:20Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. Crime rate went down. Maybe we need some.

• 55:27Bill Simmons?

  Cut the crime rate in half in 1974.

• 55:29Chris Ryan?

  Minor groans in the back of this room.

• 55:32Bill Simmons?

  Let's just, let's, let's talk it out.

• 55:36Speaker 11

  No, this is, I'm tough on crime. The Minority Report, remember? I was for it. Keep the three cops in the milk.

• 55:41Chris Ryan?

  I know, I think that there's a difference between a vigilante and a thrill seeker with a death wish. Right. And Paul's out there, like, he didn't even do any detective work of like, let me find Goldblum. Right? He's just like, I'm just going around gunning guys down.

• 55:56Speaker 11

  That was my biggest question is like, why didn't he ever try to find them?

• 55:59Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 56:00Speaker 11

  What's going on there?

• 56:01Bill Simmons?

  Craig, I present to you Death Wish 2. Cause he finds them one at a time. Uh, what do you have for a hot take?

• 56:09Chris Ryan?

  There is a version of this film, the original director who was approached for it was Sidney Lumet. And one of the original pairings of actors was supposed to be Jack Lemmon and Henry Fonda.

• 56:20Bill Simmons?

  As Ochoa.

• 56:20Chris Ryan?

  Within Death Wish, within this sort of iconic vigilante action movie that spawned multiple sequels. I think there is like an amazing fucked up 70s drama film.

• 56:31Bill Simmons?

  Couldn't agree more.

• 56:31Chris Ryan?

  About like a emasculated New York businessman whose family is taken from him. And is like, I don't have the tools to process what's happened to me. And Jack Lemmon would have been an incredible idea. I don't know if it would have worked. But it would have been, I'd love to have seen the Sidney Lumet, Jack Lemmon version of this movie.

• 56:52Bill Simmons?

  So he turned it down and do Serpico.

• 56:54Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 56:55Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather he did Serpico or?

• 56:56Chris Ryan?

  I would rather he had done Serpico. Yes.

• 56:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's tough.

• 56:59Chris Ryan?

  It's, if I don't get that Pacino performance, then you, that's a huge.

• 57:03Bill Simmons?

  Would have been nice if Serpico right into Death Wish with Jack Lemmon. I'm with you. Uh, Steve McQueen also turned it down. Clint Eastwood said, no, thanks. Allegedly, who knows? Burt Lancaster, George C. Scott, Frank Sinatra, Lee Marvin.

• 57:19Chris Ryan?

  Can we spend a second talking about?

• 57:20Bill Simmons?

  Elvis Presley is the last one.

• 57:23Chris Ryan?

  First of all, I guess this is a relatively larger version of Elvis, right? By 74.

• 57:28Bill Simmons?

  Let me tell you something. 1974 Elvis playing Paul Cursey in Death Wish. Sounds like the greatest movie I own on anything.

• 57:36Chris Ryan?

  You would rather Presley than Sinatra?

• 57:41Bill Simmons?

  I just don't think Sinatra does it. He's like, my wife would never be assaulted.

• 57:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, right.

• 57:45Bill Simmons?

  He would get some weird aggro Sinatra thing.

• 57:48Chris Ryan?

  Right.

• 57:48Bill Simmons?

  As you know, he was the coolest guy.

• 57:51Chris Ryan?

  I think George C. Scott would have been good.

• 57:53Bill Simmons?

  Elvis crammed into like an architect, uh, two-piece suit that.

• 57:58Chris Ryan?

  Oh, what you gotta do is put a, put a little building over there on the hill. Yeah. George C. Scott doing this in hardcore would probably be a little intense for him.

• 58:09Bill Simmons?

  He would have been good, though.

• 58:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:12Chris Ryan?

  You know what? That's true. We've done hardcore. You know, Death Wish is not uncharted territory.

• 58:15Bill Simmons?

  Hardcore, another New York, uh, I guess that was.

• 58:18Chris Ryan?

  He goes to LA, yeah.

• 58:20Bill Simmons?

  But same, yeah.

• 58:22Chris Ryan?

  My, uh, same, same kind of like.

• 58:23Bill Simmons?

  Like big city falling apart type of thing.

• 58:27Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Best That Guy Award.

• 58:29Chris Ryan?

  I got Jack Wallace, Detective Hank. He's also in Boogie Nights.

• 58:32Bill Simmons?

  He's, yeah, he's the guy with, uh, with Ricky J, right?

• 58:36Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and he's a show's partner or like a sort of.

• 58:39Bill Simmons?

  He's been a lot of stuff. He's the guy for the people who saw the movie with the huge mustache.

• 58:43Chris Ryan?

  He was like, I'm not gonna ask any more questions.

• 58:46Bill Simmons?

  The son-in-law is played by Stephen Keats, who was also in Friends of Eddie Coyle, a big part, Black Sunday, and then one of my favorites, Silent Rage.

• 58:55Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:56Bill Simmons?

  He played one of the doctors. Did we do Silent Rage yet?

• 58:59Chris Ryan?

  We have not.

• 59:02Bill Simmons?

  It might be one of Craig's 10 favorite movies we've ever done.

• 59:05Chris Ryan?

  Once he sees it?

• 59:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 59:08Bill Simmons?

  It's really good. Chuck Norris, Craig? I haven't seen it.

• 59:10Chris Ryan?

  It's been a while since I've seen it.

• 59:11Bill Simmons?

  Guy wouldn't die.

• 59:14Bill Simmons?

  Dionne Wade's award, Ames Janschel, would you go with? Or would you go with Amelie Brown, the lady in the newscast who fought off the muggers?

• 59:20Chris Ryan?

  Oh, with the hat pin?

• 59:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 59:21Chris Ryan?

  I have Stuart Mergol in as Janschel.

• 59:26Bill Simmons?

  The Lena Dunham running the Spawn Ranch Award for most jarring casting decision, I'll give you Jeff Goldblum or I'll give you Christopher Guest as the cop who finds the gun.

• 59:35Chris Ryan?

  I'll give you Olympia Dukakis as the lady cop.

• 59:39Bill Simmons?

  The cop, right.

• 59:40Chris Ryan?

  Who starts to figure out the entire thing.

• 59:42Bill Simmons?

  They should redo this as, uh, like on Amazon and just have all of them in the cast like they had major parts.

• 59:48Chris Ryan?

  They should also do it as, as a Christopher Guest mockumentary.

• 59:53Bill Simmons?

  Why he shouldn't have done that like a violent that mockumentary? Recasting couch director city. I had John Kazail as the son in law.

• 1:00:02Chris Ryan?

  Oh, man. I mean, John Kazail was it would be another. Imagine him playing Paul. That would have been amazing.

• 1:00:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh, him as Paul Kersey?

• 1:00:09Chris Ryan?

  Oh, my God, dude. Yeah. Paul shouldn't be this like Greek god, you know, he should be like a a frail dude.

• 1:00:19Bill Simmons?

  You don't talk to a guy like Ames Genshin like that.

• 1:00:31Bill Simmons?

  Have I started research?

• 1:00:34Bill Simmons?

  Bronson asked for a California based location so that he could be with his family in Bel Air. And they said, fuck you. We're filming.

• 1:00:43Bill Simmons?

  There's a lot of good Bron. I didn't realize how much good Bron. We've never really done a Bronson before. I didn't realize how much good Bronson research he was like by all accounts. Rough hang.

• 1:00:51Chris Ryan?

  This is our first Bronson.

• 1:00:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:52Chris Ryan?

  We haven't done.

• 1:00:54Bill Simmons?

  Everyone's like, yeah, kept to himself and a little difficult.

• 1:00:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:57Bill Simmons?

  Like, nobody was like, oh, man, I love Charlie. Great guy. Not a lot of that.

• 1:01:01Chris Ryan?

  Do you think he behaved himself on like the Great Escape or Dirty Dozen sets, though?

• 1:01:05Bill Simmons?

  I think he was just super quiet and not like, uh, where are we going tonight after the shooting?

• 1:01:11Speaker 11

  Was he a good enough actor to to warrant that behavior? Like, why? Why are people keeping?

• 1:01:15Chris Ryan?

  I just think that there was a different. It was a different system back then. And it's like, if he's a guy who keeps his body in shape and can convincingly fire a gun, he's got a job for life.

• 1:01:25Bill Simmons?

  He was basically like the Colts getting Daniel Jones because they needed a QB.

• 1:01:31Chris Ryan?

  I who is he in this scenario?

• 1:01:33Bill Simmons?

  Clint Eastwood, McQueen. Those guys were getting all the roles. And then Bronson's like.

• 1:01:38Chris Ryan?

  We dropped down to.

• 1:01:39Bill Simmons?

  We've signed Justin Fields for two years for 20 million a year. Like, he he was kind of in that mode, but then he kind of became as big as Clint Eastwood for like three years.

• 1:01:47Speaker 11

  It's like if you're seven feet tall and you can block shots, you'll be in the NBA.

• 1:01:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:54Bill Simmons?

  The writer of the book Death Wish.

• 1:01:58Bill Simmons?

  Garfield, Brian Garfield. He was furious about the film. He called it incendiary.

• 1:02:02Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, cuz his book is much more critical of vigilanteism. Probably number one on, well, did you start reading it at all or did you just get it as like to check it out?

• 1:02:12Bill Simmons?

  I actually wanna read it, but I know it's completely different than the movie.

• 1:02:15Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, he wrote two books that were, I don't know if they were very similar, but like two got optioned and this one wound up being like a big deal.

• 1:02:21Bill Simmons?

  He wrote a follow up called Death Sentence, which was a response to this movie, not made into a movie.

• 1:02:26Chris Ryan?

  Does Paul get the death sentence in it?

• 1:02:27Bill Simmons?

  I don't know, maybe. Bronson defended the film. Said it was intended to be a commentary on violence. Meant to attack violence, not romanticize it.

• 1:02:36Chris Ryan?

  I think that the first film-

• 1:02:38Bill Simmons?

  Romanticized it.

• 1:02:39Chris Ryan?

  Well, but do you say that because you've seen Death Wish two and three and all the other stuff from it? Like, do you think that this film romanticizes violence?

• 1:02:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, the last hour of the movie, you're like, get him Chuck, get him.

• 1:02:50Chris Ryan?

  I'm not. I was really like, this is, this is fucked up. And I wasn't like, this is fucked up, but I was like, I'm watching a guy spiral out. It's a little more like Taxi Driver. If you just watch it in the context of one film. If you watch it in the context of part of a franchise where this guy goes all over the country killing people.

• 1:03:06Bill Simmons?

  I was watching it from the perspective of, man, on the subway platform, just take those two down. Don't let the guy get behind you. Just they're right in front of you.

• 1:03:14Chris Ryan?

  I think he wants the challenge in that case.

• 1:03:17Bill Simmons?

  So one other thing for Half-Assed, um, there was always a rumor that Denzel played one of the alley thugs in his first movie appearance.

• 1:03:24Chris Ryan?

  No shit.

• 1:03:25Bill Simmons?

  At the forty seven minute mark. And this kept going and going. And then finally he gave an interview where he was like, I wasn't in Death Wish.

• 1:03:32Chris Ryan?

  Was he like, I wish I was?

• 1:03:34Bill Simmons?

  No, he just put the kibosh on it. He said he hadn't been acting yet. But he was mad that it was added to his IMDb page.

• 1:03:40Chris Ryan?

  That's funny.

• 1:03:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:41Chris Ryan?

  Fishburne's in two, right?

• 1:03:43Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:03:43Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And, uh, yeah, he's in the scene that somehow like is a hundred times worse than Death Wish one scene. Apex Mountain Bronson, I think yes. Uh, as a- Apex Charlie.

• 1:03:57Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, but like, it's not my personal apex for him.

• 1:04:00Bill Simmons?

  No, but for him, this leads to hard times and he's like a massive star for this movie. I mean, no question. Vigilantes?

• 1:04:09Bill Simmons?

  Maybe. It turned into a phenomenon in the mid 70s.

• 1:04:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:13Bill Simmons?

  Where would you go for scary New York City movies?

• 1:04:16Chris Ryan?

  Warriors.

• 1:04:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, me too. Right there. Uh, Vincent Gardenia? I guess he was in Moonstruck?

• 1:04:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I feel like he's

• 1:04:25Bill Simmons?

  He's really good at this.

• 1:04:26Chris Ryan?

  I mean, he's, he takes up most of the second half of this film.

• 1:04:29Bill Simmons?

  They bring him back for two.

• 1:04:30Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:31Bill Simmons?

  He goes, he, he sees some killings that are going on in LA and decides to take a little Axolotl-esque cross-country trip to make sure what's going on. Vigilante movies, I think, yes. Unless you want to qualify John Wick because they killed his dog.

• 1:04:47Chris Ryan?

  That's a really good example of like, basically John Wick is Death Wish, but then taken in an entirely different direction. But the first John Wick is essentially Death Wish.

• 1:04:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I feel like when it's, is Ta- is Taken a vigilante movie because he's specifically just killing those guys?

• 1:05:01Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and it's his, and it's, and she's not killed, it's just a kidnapping.

• 1:05:05Bill Simmons?

  I feel like this one stands apart.

• 1:05:07Chris Ryan?

  Wick and Paul can't come back. Like, that's the whole point. Taken, he's still got to maintain some semblance of a soul.

• 1:05:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Yeah, Death Wish one, he's basically like, this broke my brain. I'm going to now soft crime by myself.

• 1:05:21Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, and eat liver.

• 1:05:23Bill Simmons?

  And listen to game show music. Cruise or Hanks? Oh, no, I didn't finish, sorry. Apex Mountain, uh,

• 1:05:31Bill Simmons?

  did, no, I did, I guess I didn't finish.

• 1:05:33Chris Ryan?

  I have a couple of Apex Mountains. Apex Mountain for Switchblades in movies.

• 1:05:37Bill Simmons?

  Wow, there was a great Switchblade era.

• 1:05:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah. Just guys getting knives, knives pulled on them. It's a great movie setup because you're like, it's dangerous, but it might not be that dangerous.

• 1:05:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but you can, yeah.

• 1:05:48Chris Ryan?

  I can trump this. Painting your apartment orange two weeks after your wife is murdered there?

• 1:05:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:53Chris Ryan?

  Apex Mountain for that?

• 1:05:54Bill Simmons?

  I'd probably move.

• 1:05:55Chris Ryan?

  And guys calling their father-in-law's dad.

• 1:05:58Bill Simmons?

  No question. Cruise or Hanks?

• 1:06:02Bill Simmons?

  I have Hanks.

• 1:06:05Bill Simmons?

  I think it's Hanks.

• 1:06:05Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I think it's Hanks.

• 1:06:07Bill Simmons?

  Craig, who'd you have?

• 1:06:08Speaker 11

  Hanks.

• 1:06:08Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:06:08Speaker 11

  Yeah. You need the softness, the turn needs to be the most shocking.

• 1:06:12Bill Simmons?

  Hanks?

• 1:06:13Chris Ryan?

  So it would be cool, though, if we had Vince Vincent from Collateral. As Paul. He's like, hey, homie, is that my briefcase?

• 1:06:23Bill Simmons?

  I think this is the movie I wanted Hanks to make.

• 1:06:25Chris Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:06:26Bill Simmons?

  In the 2000s or 2010s, yeah. We needed, let's get a little darker.

• 1:06:30Chris Ryan?

  Deranged enough, yeah.

• 1:06:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he just never wanted to. He always wanted to do Jimmy Stewart. Scorsese or Spielberg? It's obviously Scorsese. Although Spielberg's version would have been.

• 1:06:40Chris Ryan?

  Quite different.

• 1:06:42Bill Simmons?

  What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played?

• 1:06:45Chris Ryan?

  I think he could have done a lot of things. Very young, he could have been one of the thugs. I think. Around the master. And like later in life, he could have done. He could have done the main role. He could have been Paul in a different version of this film. And I think he would have made a cool Ochoa.

• 1:07:01Bill Simmons?

  I had, uh, I had Kersey, but I think he would have been a good Ochoa. Craig, you're up with the flex category.

• 1:07:08Speaker 11

  I'm gonna go with the Dan Campbell scale for holy shit, are they really going for this right now? And I'm gonna compare the muggers in the apartment was like a flea flicker.

• 1:07:16Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:17Speaker 11

  Where I didn't, I wasn't really aware of how intense this was gonna be. And the one guy walks in with the paint can. And the first thing he does, he just spray paints a line over the, a, a painting on the wall. I'm like, okay. And then he.

• 1:07:30Chris Ryan?

  Vandalism.

• 1:07:30Speaker 11

  And that's like Jared Goff handing it off to David Montgomery. I'm like, oh, it's a run. And then he goes to the other wall and it's a swastika and you're like, oh no, he's flipping it back to Jared Goff. And then, uh, it's a, it's a fifty.

• 1:07:43Bill Simmons?

  That's a good one.

• 1:07:45Speaker 11

  And you don't ever want to see a swastika. The second you see a swastika, you know.

• 1:07:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:49Speaker 11

  Things are turning.

• 1:07:50Chris Ryan?

  Brought to you by loom.

• 1:07:54Bill Simmons?

  Picky Nets.

• 1:07:59Bill Simmons?

  The doctor just delivers the your wife did it make it news so abruptly?

• 1:08:03Chris Ryan?

  I mean, the entire movie is a nitpick, but the way that he's like, oh, your wife's dead. But his wife's okay.

• 1:08:10Bill Simmons?

  The son-in-law first is like, your wife's gonna make it and, and Brett's like.

• 1:08:15Chris Ryan?

  There's almost like this weird vibe to the doctor where it's like, he's like, oh yeah, your wife's gonna make it. Did you guys see the Mets? God, you know, like, he's like the literal doctor from the rest of the.

• 1:08:24Bill Simmons?

  Grind it out, win.

• 1:08:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:25Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:08:26Chris Ryan?

  And he's like, oh, your wife's dead. But I'm sorry about that. Yeah.

• 1:08:29Bill Simmons?

  Did you see Seaver through eight? Eight, two hit innings? Yeah, this, my wife made me pause the movie. And she was, and she was, we just couldn't believe how bad the doctor was. And her take was, maybe there wasn't enough awareness on how doctors should talk to patients yet. And this was actually what it was.

• 1:08:48Chris Ryan?

  It was more realistic.

• 1:08:49Bill Simmons?

  Maybe it wasn't a bad acting choice. That's just how we did it.

• 1:08:52Chris Ryan?

  In the seventies and I would just think that there would be more bedside manner, but I guess in a New York City hospital in the 1970s, that guy's probably seen some shit.

• 1:09:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Oh no, your wife, your wife's dead. She fucking died already.

• 1:09:05Chris Ryan?

  That was your wife?

• 1:09:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Oh.

• 1:09:06Chris Ryan?

  Oh my God.

• 1:09:07Bill Simmons?

  She was dead when she came in.

• 1:09:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Yeah. She's in the room, dead, if you want to go.

• 1:09:11Chris Ryan?

  Your wife's catatonic, but your wife.

• 1:09:15Bill Simmons?

  Not painting your apartment within a day after the graffiti, uh, assault murder.

• 1:09:21Chris Ryan?

  How about just put the place up for sale? And be like, you know, burn the furniture.

• 1:09:25Bill Simmons?

  But stay in a hotel.

• 1:09:28Bill Simmons?

  I had one more, people in a restaurant, watching a news conference with a police officer, like it's game seven of playoff series. They're all like, just riveted by this, like, really? We're supposed to believe that? People aren't just eating and drinking in a restaurant?

• 1:09:42Chris Ryan?

  No, I love, I love when everybody stops. I mean, for like, in JFK, it makes sense, but in this, it would be like, you really like a New York bar? Would grind to a halt to watch the police commissioner?

• 1:09:52Bill Simmons?

  This happens in Rocky too, when you're at the bar and like the.

• 1:09:55Chris Ryan?

  Hey, turn that up.

• 1:09:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah. Like, did we really do that in the seventies? Were you that interested in the news? Any other nitpicks?

• 1:10:02Chris Ryan?

  Um, no, not really. I mean, I, but we said the one was the big one was the doctor's bedside manner.

• 1:10:08Bill Simmons?

  All right. We'll take a quick break and then we'll finish the categories.

• 1:10:15Bill Simmons?

  Okay, before we answer the question, sequel, prequel, Prestige TV, all black cast are untouchable. I should mention, there were four sequels. Death Wish 2, Death Wish 3, 1985, Death Wish 4, The Crackdown, 87. And then, for some reason, 94, Death Wish, The Face of Death. They just, seven years pass. Bronson is now in his mid 70s. And they're like, we're running it back. But I think it speaks to how popular the sequels were on TV from a rewatchable standpoint.

• 1:10:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's not that expensive to make. Bronson's like, I'll stand there and shoot. You guys can make whatever movie you want around me. He's probably not like, oh, the story's not working for me.

• 1:10:57Bill Simmons?

  Let me get a rewrite of that script.

• 1:10:59Chris Ryan?

  I would love to see a Prestige TV prequel called The Architect.

• 1:11:04Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:11:05Chris Ryan?

  About Paul's early days in New York City. It's basically Mad Men.

• 1:11:09Bill Simmons?

  Right. Got this lead on a New Mexico real estate.

• 1:11:12Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it's just like an architecture firm. And like, he's got a great wife and daughter.

• 1:11:19Bill Simmons?

  Can I talk you into the Apple TV, Prestige TV, Death Wish remake?

• 1:11:23Chris Ryan?

  Like now?

• 1:11:23Bill Simmons?

  Eight episodes?

• 1:11:24Chris Ryan?

  Gyllenhaal, yeah.

• 1:11:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Gyllenhaal.

• 1:11:30Bill Simmons?

  Just, episode one, something bad happens.

• 1:11:33Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:34Bill Simmons?

  Episode two, work trip. Goes to the range, because the guy loves the range. He's like, ah, that felt good. And then we're just off.

• 1:11:42Chris Ryan?

  Maybe he goes to Utah, starts listening to some right wing podcasts. It's like, huh, these guys have some ideas I like.

• 1:11:50Bill Simmons?

  And then the rest of the season.

• 1:11:51Chris Ryan?

  He comes back to the architecture firm, he's like, you guys heard Rogan? We're apparently supposed to be hunting our own food.

• 1:12:00Chris Ryan?

  All the architect's like, sure, Paul.

• 1:12:04Bill Simmons?

  I don't know, I would, I would give Death Wish a chance.

• 1:12:08Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:09Bill Simmons?

  Apparently you wouldn't.

• 1:12:10Chris Ryan?

  No, I would. I liked my, my idea too, but like, yeah.

• 1:12:13Bill Simmons?

  Well, can it be the same idea? Yeah, we'll combine them.

• 1:12:18Bill Simmons?

  Craig would watch Death Wish on Apple TV.

• 1:12:20Chris Ryan?

  Sure.

• 1:12:21Bill Simmons?

  Craig loves the studio.

• 1:12:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:24Bill Simmons?

  He'd give anything a chance.

• 1:12:25Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:27Bill Simmons?

  Uh, is this movie better than Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson, Nell, Byron Mayo, Barney Cousins, Tony Romo, Harling Mays, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Long Legs, or Wilford Brimley in The Firm?

• 1:12:41Chris Ryan?

  Goddamn, Paul! You're kinda freaking me out. I'm speechless. I guess I'm gonna make sure you don't go away for a long fucking time, big boy, but that orange paint's starting to give me some questions.

• 1:12:59Bill Simmons?

  I didn't think you were gonna break out Wayne for this.

• 1:13:01Chris Ryan?

  I would love to see Wayne as a Choa in this, in this movie, you know, like Wayne hunting this guy. Be like, damn, you know, this guy's really taking care of some business out there.

• 1:13:11Bill Simmons?

  It's making my job easier. Uh, I had two actually for this. I think Nell should be in the park in one of the scenes, just going, oh my god.

• 1:13:24Bill Simmons?

  We just see her once. And then, uh, the subway platform when he shoots the two guys.

• 1:13:29Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:30Bill Simmons?

  Ryan Ruko. Cursey! Beg and beg again! Got it!

• 1:13:41Bill Simmons?

  Just want to ask her who gets it, Herbie Hancock.

• 1:13:44Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Bill Simmons?

  I don't have any answerable questions.

• 1:13:47Chris Ryan?

  It's a pretty straightforward film.

• 1:13:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. All my questions have been answered.

• 1:13:53Chris Ryan?

  I mean, I, I think my only unanswerable question would be, would the commissioner, district attorney, and cop all agree to suppress, like, his arrest?

• 1:14:05Bill Simmons?

  Oh, well, I actually, alright, I guess I do have an answer. So, he's got a transfer, right? So he's got to talk to work. Maybe you make up some story about, uh, yeah, you know, but he's still in the hospital with a gunshot wound.

• 1:14:18Chris Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:14:19Bill Simmons?

  So he's got to tell work something, right? Not gonna be in this week. What happened? Uh, appendectomy. Like, you come up, I guess you could get through that. Then it's like, you know what? I really need to be transferred. And now I have a limp.

• 1:14:36Bill Simmons?

  They're like, okay, how about Chicago? And they just kinda, that's it?

• 1:14:39Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:40Bill Simmons?

  It's just seamlessly.

• 1:14:41Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, it would have been, I honestly think it would have worked if he had been like, I got mugged. I can't live in the city anymore.

• 1:14:46Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's a good idea. But the, the big question I have is with the New York City police and the media. And this is now like a circus. Did they get him? They're not get him. And then the killings stop. Are they still covering it like?

• 1:14:58Chris Ryan?

  Well, you know how it is. Like after a week, they get bored and move on to something else.

• 1:15:03Bill Simmons?

  What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie?

• 1:15:09Bill Simmons?

  I have the gun with the case that says Tupac.

• 1:15:11Chris Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:15:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'd put that in the, in the office.

• 1:15:16Chris Ryan?

  There's a lot of really cursed items in this film.

• 1:15:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there really is.

• 1:15:20Chris Ryan?

  Stuff to be like, what a cool coat. You know, like.

• 1:15:22Bill Simmons?

  Maybe the People Magazine?

• 1:15:23Chris Ryan?

  Yeah, I would like to show a People Magazine.

• 1:15:26Bill Simmons?

  Coach Finstock wore best life lessons. Um, bring your groceries home if you live two blocks away.

• 1:15:31Chris Ryan?

  Or I think the, the big part in the beginning of the film when they're like, you know, is it time to cut and run from New York City? It's like, if you're feeling that way, maybe you should do it.

• 1:15:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:38Chris Ryan?

  That's a lesson.

• 1:15:40Bill Simmons?

  Best double feature choice falling down?

• 1:15:42Chris Ryan?

  Oh, I, I had the Warriors just to like, put a fantastic cap on, on the seventies New York experience. Because this is essentially the Jeff Goldblum movie.

• 1:15:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:51Chris Ryan?

  You know, it's like the flip side of it.

• 1:15:53Bill Simmons?

  It's a good choice. I agree with you. Who won the movie, Bronson?

• 1:15:56Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:57Bill Simmons?

  All right. Craig, I know you probably didn't like this one.

• 1:15:59Speaker 11

  No.

• 1:16:04Speaker 11

  Yeah, this probably won't make the top five list at the end of the year.

• 1:16:07Chris Ryan?

  Did you see what I was talking about with like Jack Lemmon and Sidney Lumet? Like the bones of like a weirder movie in this?

• 1:16:13Speaker 11

  I didn't, it was as I was driving in today, I thought, I actually think this movie had the potential to be something really great. Um, yeah, I kinda just thought it was miscast and, and stale and very two dimensional. And I thought the brutality of it was not redeemed by the story. It just felt like half assed to me.

• 1:16:33Chris Ryan?

  You know what? It's, it, it's not, it's not dissimilar from Rocky, uh, in the sense that it's a movie that's franchise has kind of defined the original film now. Unintentionally, like Rocky is such like a small urban drama and it's about human relationships. And then there's a fight at the end. And then Rocky, all the subsequent sequels are like, it's about boxing and this guy's boxing career. Death Wish was about, you know, like you said, like you're like, holy shit. The first hour of this movie is really disturbing. And then like it becomes about vigilante.

• 1:17:03Speaker 11

  Yeah, and then it just becomes a franchise.

• 1:17:04Chris Ryan?

  But it's interesting that you, we would almost think about Death Wish in relationship to the sequels, you know?

• 1:17:10Bill Simmons?

  It's been on the list for a couple of years.

• 1:17:12Speaker 11

  I do think there's a tweak to this movie that could work now where the complicated message around what this movie's trying to say. Romanticism versus criticizing violence. The Luigi Mangione thing, there is like a rich person wealth tweak that you could make to this where it's like the killing of these CEO types. The United Healthcare CEO thing.

• 1:17:31Chris Ryan?

  You're not loving that.

• 1:17:32Bill Simmons?

  No, I think that's an interesting twist.

• 1:17:35Speaker 11

  You know what I mean?

• 1:17:35Bill Simmons?

  That's season two in the Apple show.

• 1:17:37Speaker 11

  Yeah, it's the complicated, like, how do we feel about, what, you know, these people at this level? And vigilanteism in the corporate world?

• 1:17:45Chris Ryan?

  That's true.

• 1:17:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think, and we're gonna do a couple more seventies movies this month, but in general, the seventies is so interesting because they had all these great ideas for movies. And some of them didn't land the plane and some did, but then all of them existed in the cable universe for the next 30 years, like this one. And this is a really flawed movie that I probably have seen 20 times.

• 1:18:07Chris Ryan?

  You think about how different the film going experience must have been for people at that time period compared to what we get now. Where 90% of what we see is so affirming at the end, like we are made to feel good about what we just watched.

• 1:18:20Speaker 11

  Yeah.

• 1:18:21Chris Ryan?

  This is almost the complete opposite of that, where people seemingly were going to the movies to feel bad or to feel like their anger was being shown on the screen. Or their depression or their anxiety was being shown on screen. It's kind of amazing time to talk, I mean, I love, this is one of my favorite decades, so.

• 1:18:38Bill Simmons?

  Craig Royalback, thank you. Gahow and Jack, thank you as well.

• 1:18:41Speaker 11

  And Ronic, thank you to Ronic.

• 1:18:43Bill Simmons?

  Oh, and Ronic, thank you as well. Ringer Movies YouTube channel?

• 1:18:46Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:49Bill Simmons?

  All of these are on video and we'll have two more 70's movies.

• 1:18:52Speaker 11

  Death Wish 2 next week.

• 1:18:55Bill Simmons?

  Tubey. Are there three ones left in May or two? It's today's date.

• 1:19:00Speaker 11

  We have one, two, just two more after this. Thank God.

• 1:19:04Bill Simmons?

  19th, 26th.

• 1:19:06Chris Ryan?

  There's a lot of campaigning going on behind the scenes for which these 70's films should be.

• 1:19:09Bill Simmons?

  Really?

• 1:19:10Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:10Bill Simmons?

  By me? We had to do this.

• 1:19:12Chris Ryan?

  Should we do a poll?

• 1:19:13Bill Simmons?

  I had to knock that push out.

• 1:19:14Chris Ryan?

  It's good, we did it.

• 1:19:15Bill Simmons?

  No, we have Close Encounters is a possible.

• 1:19:17Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:19:18Bill Simmons?

  Heaven Can Wait.

• 1:19:19Chris Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:19:20Bill Simmons?

  Apocalypse needs too much research.

• 1:19:22Chris Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:19:23Bill Simmons?

  Rollerball is in there.

• 1:19:24Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:26Bill Simmons?

  What was the other one we had?

• 1:19:27Chris Ryan?

  Oh, I asked for Marathon Man.

• 1:19:28Bill Simmons?

  Marathon Man.

• 1:19:30Chris Ryan?

  And you know what? You kinda teased once and I don't know how serious you were. It was All That Jazz.

• 1:19:36Bill Simmons?

  I thought that was one of the ones that's not available, though.

• 1:19:39Chris Ryan?

  Uh, it's available on DVD. I don't know if it's streaming. You're right.

• 1:19:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Alright. Well, we'll come back next week with one more 70's.

• 1:19:46Speaker 11

  We've never done Chinatown, have we?

• 1:19:48Chris Ryan?

  We have not.

• 1:19:50Bill Simmons?

  It's a ru- that movie's kind of a rough hang now.

• 1:19:53Chris Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:54Bill Simmons?

  Don't you think? Not that this movie was a walk in the park.

• 1:19:56Chris Ryan?

  No, I mean, like, I think it's more like the stories of around it, yeah.

• 1:20:01Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Sierra, thanks. Good to see you.

• 1:20:03Chris Ryan?

  Good to see you too.