Craig Horlbeck
Appearances
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Is that a Stefan dig subtweet?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, we joked last week on the Fantasy Pod that last week was Josh Allen's Apex Mountain, right? Engaged to Haley Steinfeld. Had the big night game whole thing. Literally a week later, he already beat it. Even though he lost to the Rams, I would say now this is his Apex Mountain. He had the greatest day in fantasy football history, basically. 52 points. And he locked up the MVP.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
You think it's done?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
It's hard. Two years ago, the Eagles made the Super Bowl with Miles Sanders. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Again, they were like the best team in the league with Miles Sanders too.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I'm holding my breath a little bit. They have a really tough— Crazy Steelers fan. I'm a Steelers fan. He's being super careful. This is a tough four-game stretch they're heading into. It's been pretty easy the last four weeks. Now they're Eagles, Chiefs, Bengals. Bengals? No. Eagles, Chiefs, Bengals. It's a tough stretch.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
It's every week. You'd be shocked? I'd be shocked if the Chiefs lost. I was like, oh, you know, if the Bills play the Chiefs again in the playoffs, this is what we see every year. The Bills beat Mahomes in the regular season. Mahomes beats Allen in the playoffs. It's the same thing every single year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
It's so weird. I feel like last year was the year the Chiefs were supposed to lose. And then the criticisms would come. What did they go, 11-6? And it was like, yeah, you know, this is what we were saying. You can't do this again. Not with these weapons.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, I don't think anybody knows what to do now, now that they come out of this weird 11-6 year where they shouldn't have won the Super Bowl, but they did. And now they're 12-1, and they've won 16 straight games that were one score. Yeah. It's the most improbable run. I mean, can you think of anything like this in the last 20, 30 years in the NFL? No, it's not.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah. He was still fringed. First guy who went off the board in drafts. It was like him and Laporta.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah. I think Arthur Smith and Russ are really starting to work well, especially last week without Pickens, which I do think Tomlin held Pickens. I think Pickens could have played in that game. I think they knew they had this gauntlet coming up. They held them against the Browns.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
They were at home. I think that was a very smart move by Tomlin.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
There were more open guys in that game than there have been all season for Pittsburgh. So I do think Arthur Smith and Russ are really starting to gel. I just worry that in January, they're in Buffalo. They need to score 35 to beat the Bills. They're doing too high. They're taking off all the top end stuff for Russ. You really got to rely on like Najee Harris having a good game running the ball.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
And then if it's not Pickens, it gets real thin real quick. I'm a little worried. I almost wonder if like they could muck it up with the Chiefs and win a game like 1970. That's where I feel.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
They looked bad. I mean, Stafford, Nakua and Pukar is like the highest degree of difficulty offense in the league. Like it is so hard, but they do it because they're so good. And I'm like, I will worry a little bit.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
They're overachieving this year. Like, it's impressive already what Harbaugh's done year one. This was supposed to be kind of like, all right, we'll get our line and we build from the inside out, see what we got. We'll see what we have in Ladd McConkie. He's already one of the better rookie wide receivers in the league. You know what's funny? We talk about football all the time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, in retrospect, looking at Rodgers and Sala, it's like, you know, I like Robert Sala. Were you big on them, Craig? Yeah, I think everybody was a little bit.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I know. My big thing in fantasy this year was, like, try to eliminate – As much randomness as you can. Like only bet on things that you can depend on that you know are going to happen. Coaching quarterback. And then I just was completely blind to the Jets, like a 40-year-old quarterback coming off a torn Achilles. My biggest miss.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I mean, Bryce Young won that game. We'll get dropped. Yeah, I know.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Are they waiting for the collapse? Because remember, the Eagles were like 10-1 last year, but it was the weirdest Super Bowl hangover where everybody was miserable, but they were 10-1. No, they're supposed to be good. Their defense is awesome. It's amazing. They retooled immediately.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I don't know. It's probably easier when the star is the quarterback. When it's the running back, it probably rubs A.J. Brown the wrong way. He's like, I'm just as good as that guy. Look, I can't play quarterback. That's true. It's the running back? Really? It's true.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Watch another episode. That was Schitt's Creek for me.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
You got to watch. I mean, dude, I'm on three seasons in. I don't like the show. It's a sitcom.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Well, I was going to ask. I don't know. What do they have to do in the playoffs where it becomes a problem for the Minnesota front office thinking, well, now what?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I just think if I'm Vegas, I'm paying them. They're like the anti-Chiefs because no matter how bad the Chiefs look, I think to myself, I'm still going to bet on the Holmes. No matter how good the Vikings look. It doesn't matter how good the Vikings look. I'm like, hey, in the playoffs, I'm going to bet against them.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
And you know how it's going to go because when he leaves and signs a four-year, 160 million Daniel Jones contract somewhere else, he's not going to be good because it's the Kevin O'Connell system of making Josh Dobbs good for three weeks. And it seems like Kevin O'Connell is like the guru quarterback whisperer now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
And I just know Darnold is going to go sign a deal with like, God forbid, the Giants or something and be terrible.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Darnold had 40 touchdowns. Imagine the other way, though. They trade their top 10 pick, JJ McCarthy, who goes off and has a great career. And then next year, Sam Darnold turns back into a pumpkin. And it's like one of the worst front office moves of all time.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
This is the first Tom Brady, the first Tom Brady, Sam Darnold. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
And it seemed like a miracle that they almost completed it. Russ is cocky right now. He's doing this like, you know. Yeah, he does. He's talking a lot of shit. He gets down on one knee and like points to the side. Has he always done that? Or is that a new move? I never saw it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
But then if they're going to end with Joker 2, that would be a bummer.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
I'm enjoying it one week at a time. He makes plays over and over and over again. I'm not looking ahead. I'm not looking into the future. I'm just every week I'm having a good time and...
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
He's making that. He's been that guy. He's been the best offensive player in the Steelers for the last five years. I think he leads the league in points.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
It's funny. Russ has never been paid the right amount based on what his talent is at the moment. Like when he was on Seattle, when he first got drafted, he kind of like started that rookie quarterback model thing. He was making like 700 grand a year and leaving them to Superbowl. Then the Denver thing happens and he's making $43 million a year and he's terrible.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
And now he's a great again on Pittsburgh making $1 million a year. I know Denver's still paying him, but. Uh, and then he'll probably, I think the plan is, and I think this was what the Steelers envisioned the whole time. I think they are going to definitely resign Russ.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, we always joke that McVay is the chef on Chopped. He's making bolognese out of mayonnaise.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Kyle.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
You said the Rams.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Can I have the holy shit, this team, there's no way this team is going to make the Super Bowl? No, that's not the question. You hate the Texans, right?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Everyone's like, black, oh. Yeah, Slovak I think is super overrated. I think Stroud's in his own head big brothering every quarterback at midfield and it's completely failed on him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Stroud's had a tough second half of the season. Great guy, I think.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
He's done it multiple times. Who else did he do it to? He did it with Drake May too. Yeah, three straight weeks after the Caleb thing and then he finally got off of it. I missed the Drake May 1. Yeah, he's been terrible.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah. I might go with the Chargers as well, probably, I would say. Just because of their ability to play cold weather. Herbert's so good. The only thing with Herbert is I'm worried that he's going to get hurt sometimes. Herbert is almost too good of a player. I think he's kind of like the Puka Nakua of quarterbacks where I'm like, you actually play the game with too much honor.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
You don't go out of bounds ever. If there's a throw and Herbert needs to make it and he knows he's going to get drilled, he will get drilled to make the throw. Yeah, that leg hit it. But he had to step in to make the throw. So don't worry about that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
No, when I think of a two-a-play in my head, it's Tyreek Hill turning around to catch an underthrown defense. Who's your fantasy MVP this year, Craig? Fantasy MVP? We all overthought Saquon so much. Him going in the second, and Derrick Henry, the two of them. Both of them going in the second round. Everybody was afraid of the veteran on the new team thing.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah. Also, just in general with fantasy, this is the healthiest running back season outside of McCaffrey, which that happened before the season, kind of in-season injuries for running backs. This has been the healthiest season in forever. And I think there's definitely, you know, it was always get a wide receiver in the first round for the last five years. Next year, it's going to swing way back.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Everyone's going to be back in on getting all these running backs in the first round. And it will probably regress back to the mean and like guys will start getting hurt again.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, 100%. The key point is getting a guy who can move. I'm so done with pocket passers. I drafted Goff, who's been good. He's been solid. Stroud's like this too. It's been so tough because you basically need 280 and three touchdowns that'll go off every single week just for him to get by. Lamar, Josh.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Mahomes is terrible as a fantasy quarterback. You can't start him. He's the biggest bust at quarterback in fantasy.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Rodgers tried his best. You know, he has that doc coming out in two weeks.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
You can see he had his first 300-yard game as a Jet this week. He was on the press tour. He was trying to get viewers. Now what? A 3-11 Jets team?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
They were moving the ball.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Preventative air cast for Aiden O'Connell, yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Probably A-. See? I think it's been really fun. I mean, the Lions storyline is amazing. I feel like everybody in America wants the Lions to win a Super Bowl.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
When Jamar Gibbs is in the game, I'm like, I don't even know if I'm on a fantasy team.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
The golf storyline is great. The weird 12-1 Chiefs. Saquon going to the Eagles and then maybe breaking the rushing record is unbelievable. I think it's been a really fun year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Well, it's like Iberflues leaves, the defense probably gets worse. And then you, you, you promote the guy running the offense. So now you have a different person running the offense. It gets messy quick. You get suckered by that though.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Who do you, do you want to receive?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Do you want a tackle or a wide receiver in the draft?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
Yeah, probably not one worthy of a top three pick.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
There was a conspiracy theory that Shador was tweeting, thank you, Lord, every time the Raiders lost because he wanted to go to the Raiders. It happened for 11 weeks. It was perfect. Even when they were on a bye, he didn't tweet it that week. But the Raiders, I think, won and then he tweeted it. And so it turns out not true.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck
But there was a while there where I was like, Shador and Dion are angling to get to Vegas.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I don't really know if it's a sleeper. I'm not going to pretend like I'm super dialed in on the offensive tackle situation in the draft this year. But the guy who I think could go top four, maybe for a slight trade-up, I just think there's a lot of teams in the top 10 who need wide receivers. I think Ted McMillan out of Arizona is awesome and really underrated.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
And I think because it's a weak wide receiver class, he's at number one, and I think people kind of undersell him a little bit because the rest of the class is weak, so it's hard to determine how good he is. But I really think he is one of the better wide receivers we've seen in the last five years. The Pats need a wide receiver. The Jags need a wide receiver. The Raiders need a wide receiver.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
The Panthers need a wide receiver. All these teams are top 10, and I think all of them could make a move to get Tett.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
It's like a Missouri 10, but an LA 5.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
It does feel like we're obsessed with saying that a new tight end is generational every year. It was like Kyle Pants with Brock Bowers. You never know if it's going to work.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
They need like a big guy who's fast, who can go deep, kind of spread the field. Who can tilt the field.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I think Kevin O'Connell is too good of a quarterback's coach where I don't think I would ever take a quarterback from the Vikings because the situation is so perfect. The offensive line, the weapons, Kevin O'Connell turned Josh Dobbs into a Hall of Famer for a month. Going to Seattle with very minimal weapons in a terrible offensive line.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Bill Barnwell wrote that the Seahawks have spent the least amount of money on their offensive line in the league right now, 2025. This sounds like a disaster. The interior offensive line is getting blown up in front of Geno Smith's face every game. And now we're expecting Sam Darnold to deal with that. I wouldn't look.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
It's like a little bit. Oh, no.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
38.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
If he got $50 million guaranteed by the Titans, Dan Moore, four years, $82 million, $50 million guaranteed. The Steelers' offensive line has been bad for as long as I can remember. It was your biggest weakness. And Dan Moore was never a sight for sore eyes on that offensive line. I'm happy to see him go. I offered to fly him to Tennessee.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
It's a fight to the death between my team and Danny Heifetz's team over 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers. Literally death. It's wonderful. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Is he like the MVP?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I want him more. Craig actually does want him. I do. I do want him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I think I'm an Anchorman 1 guy in every respect over Anchorman 2.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Look, as with most free agent signings, you can talk yourself into it very, very quickly. Every team right now is pretty much excited. Any signing, any D-lineman that some team overspends and gives $50 million to, like your Patriots to Milton Williams, people get overly excited about that stuff. Rodgers is easy. We're in win-now mode. He's better than any other option.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Oh, yeah. Matt Collins.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Josh Dobbs.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Matt Collins, you save money on shoes because he doesn't wear them. So that's nice. There you go. Right. Sounds great.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Kyle Duggar healthy. Yeah, he's got to do the song first.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
It's getting kind of hard to believe things are going to get better. No, I can't tell. Dracula musical. Dracula. I can do something else. No, I think you've, you've, I don't know if it's just me reading your tweets or what, but I do think that what the Patriots have done is rock solid. It's not sexy. It's not flashy, but they've brought in a lot of guys that feel like Vrabel guys.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Some of them have history with Vrabel. Carlton Davis, cornerback, great pick. Harold Landry, Robert Spillane, Morgan Moses, Milton Williams.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
We always talk on our show. We always talk about culture and how that's the most important thing. And if you build that first, everything else follows. And it does feel like, I mean, the Patriots did not have a culture last year. I don't have to tell you that. And Vrabel is bringing in guys who build a culture.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
So even though no one here is super flashy and my dad's not going to text me about any of these signings. It makes a lot of sense, and it's rock solid.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
We've already seen the Russell Wilson experiment. I don't want to do that again. Can Aaron Rodgers throw deep balls to George Pickens and DK Metcalf? I think so.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
2017, 2018, 2019, 2020.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Uh, I understand that it would be for you. I don't know if it would be for me the most exciting, but Heifetz has convinced me on Travis Hunter that wherever he goes, it will be incredibly exciting. I think I was a little bit lukewarm on him. Um, but I've come around now that maybe the guy who played two positions in college and nobody said he could do that.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Maybe he can just continue doing that in the pros.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
And if I see Van Helsing, I swear I will slay him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
There are certain guys with a rushing floor, but such a limited ceiling where you're so trapped in mediocrity where Justin Fields is just fine enough that if the rest of the team is okay, you can win seven, eight games, which is probably what the Steelers would have done had he stayed the starter. But... The Jets, Heifetz went on a whole rant. I should just have him do it again.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Do it again, Heifetz. Justin Fields is the most Jetsy quarterback ever.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
He will get a great win. That's one other aspect of a Jets quarterback, much like Zach Wilson. Zach Wilson beat the Chiefs one game. Justin Fields will beat the Bills in week six, and everybody will love it. And then that'll be the only thing they can talk about for the next eight weeks when they go one and seven.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
That's good. I can match his size a little bit. I'll tell him to pick on some of your own size.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
It's like, they're procrastinating. It's like they have a big paper due and instead they're like organizing their closet and signing so much.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I feel like he already has.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
No, she's tried. She made that like Barb and star go to Boca Raton or whatever. I didn't watch that. It hasn't worked for her. Yeah.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
No, sadly, no.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
That's what I'm doing. I'm just looking at the touchdown interception ratio and I'm watching Enigma on repeat, mainly the ayahuasca episode. And I'm ready to go.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
That sounds like the worst idea ever. Or the best one. Is it so sane that I just blew your mind? I have in mind a different Stepbrothers quote, which is when Dale and Brennan first meet and they're standing in the driveway and Dale's like, I'm Dale, but you have to call me Dragon. And Brennan's like, well, then you have to call me Nighthawk.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
That is George Pickens and DK Metcalf meeting each other. These guys are going to be unbelievable. It's going to be like a WWE event every time they have to block two 5-10 corners. Are corners going to be more scared of any team than the Pittsburgh Steelers coming to town? No. Look, I'm all for this entire circus coming through Pittsburgh.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I think with the Giants, if Rogers goes to the Giants, he could do what he did to the Jets, blow it all up. Everyone's fired. Dayball, Shane are out. I don't really think that can happen. I don't think Rodgers can take down Mike Tomlin. I think it's a safer bet. And they are in this weird situation where it's like the roster and the defense is kind of good enough now to make a little bit of a run.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Oh, here we go. Let's hear it. We're going streaking!
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Which was last year for Godwin. Last year was the year after the year after. And he led great. He was incredible.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
So what are we supposed to do? Get Russell Wilson or Kirk Cousins? I didn't want Justin Fields back. I think it's the only thing that makes sense. Give him a two-year deal. You have a decent team. Go for it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I think there's a little bit of just like good guy tax, culture tax. Everybody loves Chris Godwin.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
There's a chance he's better for the Rams than he is for your fantasy team.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
What's happening? I guess he's not in anymore. Anthony Richardson is overthrowing running backs in the flat and getting impaled by telephone poles. Is it bad?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I think Daniel Jones has definitely become underrated, and I think he honestly probably just does all the things that Anthony Richardson does but better, which I can't believe I'm saying. But I understand wanting to commit to Anthony Richardson one more time, but you need a good backup who's going to come in and immediately be better and make all the fans upset.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
And that's what Daniel Jones will be this year.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Well, Anthony Richardson can only throw it further than all of his receivers.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
feet in the freezer head in the oven and like together their average if they could just put like their skills together i think that they would be like i think daniel jones can complete passes which i think is important in the nfl in 2025 and for the the colts who can run the ball they have a good offensive line they have decent receivers they just need somebody to put the ball in guys laps and daniel jones could do that i think in the bathroom like juice box i think he's active i think daniel jones is actively bad i think it's i think anthony i think it's a wrap
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
And then Joe Flacco was better than him.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I don't know. I had Anthony Richardson on my fantasy team last year. I watched every snap. I mean, that was tough. It was not a fun experience.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Yeah, that's why I'm bummed he's now in Buffalo. He's geographically as far away as he could possibly be from me. And we used to meet every week on In-N-Out. Look, it's a great deal. Three years, $36 million for Buffalo. They got a professional wide receiver who all the nerds out there and me, we get it. We understand. The underlying metrics are there with Josh Palmer.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
It may not have worked last year. He was beat up a little bit last year. This guy has great hands. He has good size. He's a good route runner. He's immediately the best receiver on the bills other than Khalil Shakir. And he's just a professional football player. He makes every team better. I don't know who wouldn't want Josh Palmer.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Josh Palmer. Guess how old he is? 25 years old.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I love for the Pats. I was hoping to be a receiver in the NFL. I'm saying he's a contributor to a good team and the bills are a smart team and they know what they're doing. And Josh Palmer is going to be relevant and contribute to the bills.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
75% of it.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Do you think during their negotiations with Miles Garrett, right? You know, when he was deciding, should I leave or should I stay? They said. Don't worry. We're going to bring in a Super Bowl winning quarterback. Yeah, we have somebody. We have somebody in our back pocket.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
A team wanted Dorian Thompson Robinson over Kenny Pickett. Right. Kenny Pickett facts.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
He had a little fourth quarter Tebow magic to him. And nobody wants to admit that, but he did. There were moments. In the Eli year. There were moments. I'll still never forget that fourth quarter, like over the shoulder touchdown to Najee Harris, that one in the game. He still, he has moments.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
The best moment of the last three years in the NFL media was during the preseason of Kenny Pickett's second year. He was like 15 for 15, 180 yards and two touchdowns. They made him a captain. And for a week, everybody was like, we knew this was coming. He showed signs. He's a professional now. Joe Montana. He's comfortable. This is the guy. He's got the clutch gene.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Then he was fucking terrible immediately.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
They need speed. They signed Najee Harris, which is like the opposite of what... They need people who can run fast, not Najee Harris.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I agree. I haven't seen it in a while. I need to watch it again, but I loved I Love You Man.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Brian Thomas, 25th? If a movie like I Love You Man came out now, I would camp out overnight at the theater to see it. Oh, my God. I'm so curiously.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I'm going to stay in-house. And I'm going to say Darius Slade of the Steelers, who... pretty much just have one solid corner in Joey Porter. And he's a great veteran presence. I mean, the guy was a starter all through the playoffs for the Eagles. And just like a sneaky, he's 34 years old, but this is the perfect type of guy to come in when you're in this like win now mode.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
So I think him opposite Joey Porter is an awesome one-year deal.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Yeah. He's going to wait to release Enema.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Well, I think Heifetz, you know, maybe you should want Aaron Rodgers because if he blows up the New York Giants and cleans house.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
And we haven't won a playoff game since.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
It's tough. His whole, I mean, he is like a Jimmy G overthrow away from having a completely different career trajectory.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I think you can cross off the Raiders as a Sanders destination more so than the Jets. I think Fields is a bit of a bridge quarterback that you could play for a little while while Shador kind of gets his feet wet and gets his sea legs. I think the Raiders, DK has said this, I don't think Pete Carroll wants to get started with a new guy. I think he was there when Geno was in Seattle. Because he's 80?
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Oh, man. Bang.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I'm watching it tonight.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Yeah. Because, yeah, they're the same age. Gino and Pete Carroll are the same age, which he loves. They can talk about the same things.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
And, like, I think Pete Carroll wants to hit the ground running, get eight, nine, ten wins, and prove that the Raiders are, like, a legitimate organization, build an infrastructure, and attract free agents and try to be, like, a real team again and, like, completely change the culture. The Jets, I think they could still bring somebody in while Justin Fields is kind of a floater.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I think there's always a chance that bad quarterbacks go way too soon in the draft. This is what's wrong with the draft process. It's too long. You end up talking yourself into this stuff. You get desperate. So the first three picks in the draft all need quarterbacks, the Titans, the Browns, and the Giants. I think I'd be surprised if two quarterbacks don't go in the first three picks.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
I actually have kind of long arms. I'm like a 6'5 wingspan. So you could probably plug me into an offensive line.
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The 2025 NFL Free Agency Awards With Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly
Half inch matters a lot to some people. Half inch is not everything, Craig.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
We got to do a best DIY weapons power ranking. Oh, that's a really good idea. Yeah.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Yeah. I can tell my friends. He sounds like a kick-ass kid. Yeah, I named him after Deathwish. Did you guys ever see Deathwish?
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Like liverwurst or something, that's like a grandpa meal to me growing up.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Minor groans in the back of this room.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
No, this is, I'm tough on crime. The Minority Report, remember? I was for it. Keep the precog in the milk.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
That was my biggest question. It's like, why didn't he ever try to find them? Yeah. What's going on there?
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Was he a good enough actor to warrant that behavior? Why were people keeping him around?
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
It's like if you're seven feet tall and you can block shots, you'll be in the NBA.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
You need the softness. The turn needs to be the most shocking.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Craig, you're up with the flex category. I'm going to go with the Dan Campbell scale for holy shit. Are they really going for this right now? And I'm going to compare the muggers in the apartment was like a flea flicker. Yeah. Where I didn't, I wasn't really aware of how intense this was going to be. And the one guy walks in with the paint can.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
And the first thing he does, he just spray paints a line over the painting on the wall. I'm like, okay. Vandalism. 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 it's a 50-year-old. That's a good one.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
And you don't ever want to see a swastika. The second you see a swastika, you know, things are turning. Brought to you by Lume. Pickin' Nits.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
He's like the literal doctor from the restaurant. They're really grinding out wins.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
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 kind of 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.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Yeah, and then it just becomes a franchise.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
I do think there's a tweak to this movie that could work now with a 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 thing. tweak that you could make to this where it's like the killing of these CEO types, the UnitedHealthcare CEO thing. You're not loving that.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
No, I think that's an interesting twist. You know what I mean? That's season two in the Apple show. Yeah, it's the complicated, like, how do we feel about, you know, these people at this level and vigilantism in the corporate world. That's true.
The Rewatchables
‘Death Wish’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
What's today's date? We have one, two, just two more after this.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
The answer is Tom Hanks. I'm sorry, Mal. Come on. First of all, Cruz is way too small. Nobody will buy it. You can't have him as a football coach. He's like 5'6". Billy Bob at least has some size.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
I don't buy Cruz in Texas. For some reason, Hanks, to me, can pull off the Southern personality. That's a great point, Craig. Yeah.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
So if Hanks wins, it's 21 to 16, Hanks. Well, Hanks won.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
Just like Raj. Those are my two core tenets. I don't know. I guess it came out when I was in middle school and I wasn't watching it live. And I think when I was in high school, it was like, it was harder to watch stuff after the fact in high school. You're kind of just watching stuff in the moment. There wasn't like an easy.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
Yes. So it was kind of hard to do that. Before we start, just want to say, why do they let these, we're just putting a lot of trust into these Texas high school football coaches to bring their own coin to a really pivotal coin toss. It's crazy. Three equal quarters. They're just like, yeah, whatever you want. Imagine a basketball team just being like, we brought our own ball to the game.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
The rest of his life. The best unintentional comedy moment was the guy who was ever running the coin toss was like, and over here, Coach Gaines has a 1978 nickel. And I'm like, what are we doing? I don't know. Any coin you can find in your car.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
This movie was way, way, way better than I thought it was going to be.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
So everything you guys said at the top, I wrote down and I completely agree with. Really smartly edited. Very choppy. A lot of close-ups. even the color grading is kind of gritty. Yeah. I didn't realize how serious this movie was going to be thematically. I guess because it was a TV show, I thought it was going to be way more teen melodrama-y. And it, like, wasn't at all. And...
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
I mean, very, very serious. This is about peaking in high school legacy, disappointing your parents. I thought they did such a great job, and this is easily one of the most relatable movies for young athletes maybe ever, or at least that I've seen. It's not a very Hollywood movie. Remember the Titans is my favorite movie.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
Remember the Titans is kind of the in-between between completely ridiculous and real serious. Yeah.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
but uh that even has the hollywood ending this does not have that so it's definitely closer to moneyball than it is like the replacements by a long shot to me um i have to imagine the tv show is is much more melodramatic so were you were you shocked when they didn't win at the end honestly yeah a little bit because there were moments i actually didn't love the coach of uh
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
carter i thought he was a little slapsticky for the movie i thought they should have grabbed somebody who was a bit more serious because he there there was like he was 10 replacements and i didn't like that uh maybe he should have won the overacting award yeah i didn't could have given it to him yeah um
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
Yeah, I honestly probably did think they were going to win, and I really enjoyed that they didn't. I also thought they hit a lot of really good subtle stuff. I didn't really play football in high school. I played for my freshman year, but I had a lot of friends who did.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
And just all the subtleties of they're always eating because they've got to maintain weight, and all these guys probably got to be like 30 pounds heavier than their bodies want them to be. They're always stuffing their face with the burritos. Yeah.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
the burger i mean he's eating that burger for for like two straight minutes it feels like he has three on his plate um i love that everybody in town is a psycho they're constantly asking the kids if they're going to win state you know they're pulling up next to the cops yeah hey boys gonna win state this year yes sir gonna go undefeated yes sir and it's just like so good all the disregard for women is so 80s in texas and it's
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
Yeah. Hey, Coach Gaines, how's your pretty wife doing? Like, man, this is great. And I have to say, I think honestly the most harrowing scene perhaps of the 2000s is Tim McGraw watching his son hook up with Maria. I think that is a fucking horrific moment. It's terrible. Horrific. Imagining that in high school, I would be out of that house in the next 10 minutes
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
She actually saw me watching from, like she walked by and she's like, Garrett Hedlund, I love him. I was like, I know.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
But is it much more like teen drama, Riverdale mixed with a football show?
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
Also one last question. So I, I found out right. That they won state the next year.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
Why wasn't the movie about that? I understand that it's maybe more interesting if it's the losing team, but I'm just surprised that it's not about the year they won. Because it was kind of a letdown to be like, Oh, next year they won.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
Did the book come out before the following season?
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
I guess I'm just surprised. Why write the book about the losing season and not the winning season? But maybe that's more interesting.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
Yeah. I think Billy Bob's... I think his best scene is the first speech. When he ends, before the first game, he ends his speech with, so let's take care of it. I thought that gave me chills.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
Great. All right. I'll pencil in Landman and Friday Night Lights.
The Rewatchables
‘Friday Night Lights’ With Bill Simmons and Mallory Rubin
It does have a 100% approval rating from everybody I've spoken to.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
It says TV movie. Maybe you are just Brian Brown.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Literally the name of the movie.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Yeah, say that to Liz the next time she's in the office.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
rufflo hannah rubinick partridge overacting word venza or also venza when he's like i give the order i don't take orders yeah yeah or when venza first gets mimi rogers in the bathroom at the party and he the first thing he says to her is like don't say a word screaming at the top of his lungs that's another like what's aged the worst how does he get in that party
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Craig, am I crazy or is this all the ingredients? I like you breaking down erotic thriller playbooks like Todd McShay. And also bursting into tears.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Yeah. I don't know. It might. Isn't the line in super bad or he's like having a gun is like having a second cock.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
I'm going to come up with a new one, and it's the weirdest attempt at a human intimate moment when Tom Barringer, I'm going to give him a D minus for his hair pulling performance of Mimi Rogers and that weird sex moment he had. It's like he's checking to see if she's wearing a wig. Or a wire. Ripping out the side of her hair. It's bizarre.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Craig, are you familiar with this? Yeah, they hate each other, and Seth Rogen wrote a Simpsons episode that, like, shits on Entourage, and they've just been going... Because he was going to be Turtle, right? Yeah, but then he took a shot at it.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Instead he screamed, you don't say a word! It makes a lot of noise. Be quiet!
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Craig, would you watch someone to watch over me on Apple? You just want more moments for erotic thriller scenes. Yeah.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
She'd love to hear about the daddies. Tell me more about Heifetz. He's got good chemistry. One of them lives in D.C. and the other's in Seattle? Why are you so interested in what I do?
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
I love when he's like, yeah, bunk beds, you know, kids.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
What'd you think, Craig? I don't know what it says about me that now I'm like, minority report, not for me. And then this movie, I'm like, pretty good. I'm just into this now. You guys have converted me.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Yeah, I love that. Mallory has my back. Yeah, my ass is not as tight as it used to be. Jump in there. Right, yeah. Perfect spot. Let me build your self-esteem up. Yeah, I don't know. These do it for me now. It's like scouting Abdul Carter's boring. I want like a fourth round tackle out of Chattanooga, you know? And that's what this movie is.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
It's a couple squares short of 80s movie bingo, but it hits a lot of them, you know? You get the love triangle. You got like the twangy guitar sound, like in between scenes. You got dance club. I think this is hairdo apex mountain. Yeah. This is the Wade, LeBron, and Bosh big three of 80s hairdos out of the three of them. Yeah, there was a lot of style.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Rocco has probably got the best mom hair I've ever seen. It's like bordering on Marge Simpson. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's just no gratuitous nudity. We have to have that. No sex scene. It's a huge miss. I was almost wondering if I was watching the TV cut.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Sigourney Weaver at the end of Aliens in her underwear. Mimi Rogers is like in a turtleneck the whole time.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
She starts booting up Miller Lite. Mike is really borderline concussed. When she's like, do you want to go grab a drink? He like sits there and thinks about it for 15 seconds. Yeah. He's like, cocktails, huh? Yeah. I'm like, well, what's Mike's deal?
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
I would like to say good morning to Mimi Rogers. I was unfamiliar with her game.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
Yeah. Her name is a name I've always known, but I could never put a face to it. I could not have told you a movie she's in. And she, I mean, she's up there.
The Rewatchables
‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan
I didn't even really know that. Or I think that's why I only knew her name from that, but I didn't know what she looked like or who she really was.
The Rewatchables
‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
I thought he looked great. Honestly, I liked him a little bit more than Burt. I thought he had a great physicality. He's got that natural kind of like works with his hands build to him. He's kind of like a, like a Baker Mayfield type. Yeah.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Which is just nuts. Imagine if they did that today.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
I don't remember the invite. You were with your in-laws. You had like a kind of steady invite, but you're like, I'm good. Well, it was tough. I had to juggle a lot. Craig, I'll be honest. I have like five family members there.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
We don't have any more core memories. You don't think there's anything I can do? Oh, because you guys need a more personal relationship. We need more core memories, man. That's probably right.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Who is the richest man that could theoretically actually start for a football team right now? I have a list of top five owners I want to see. Start for a football team. Like if a rich guy bought a football team and was like, I want to be the quarterback. Who is the most believable rich guy?
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
You should see my tick tock algorithm. dog no that looks disgusting people are eating like livers like raw livers this is the golden age of that type of shit yeah of liver yeah guys are i don't know anyone who would eat the liver king craig yeah liver king was on a bunch of steroids yeah
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Why is that? Did he bring it with him? The clarinet or the saxophone jumps back and forth between like in real life. Yeah. And then only with the angels. Yeah.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Uh, that didn't jump out to me. What jumped out to me was that that was, that would be the greatest play in Superbowl history. And no one really even talked about it. The quarterback picks up the ball, runs for a 60 yard touchdown in overtime to win. The crowd barely makes a noise. Yeah.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
I'm not as convinced as you guys, but yeah.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Craig, you're up. I wanted to go with the George Ellerbee two weeks with pay award for the character who should have been fired. I kind of think every character in this movie should have been fired. Joe Pendleton riding his bike on the freeway as a quarterback in the NFL for the Super Bowl. Jack Worden is a trainer who literally was not at the stadium on game day.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Charles Grodin and Diane Cannon couldn't hide their affair at all. And they couldn't kill Joe. Julie Christie, the teacher, just abandoned her ethics after one boardroom meeting. And the Angels murdered Joe Pendleton twice.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Everyone was incompetent.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Not one guy's doing their job well.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
We don't know what he looks like. Yeah. What does he look like? He's got to be decent looking if Julie Christie's into him pretty quickly.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
I feel bad. Uh-oh. I wanted to like this movie more than I did. I had such high hopes for you because I saw that it was an hour and 40 minutes. Yep. And it's about football. It had everything. I think, honestly, that's part of it. I think my expectations were high. On paper, it looked great. When I saw it, I was like, wow, nine Oscars for this film? 100 million bucks in 1977? Yeah. I don't know.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
I didn't hate it by any means. I just thought it was kind of like, I thought it was well cast. I thought it felt kind of dated. It was a little slow. I don't know. It just didn't land for me.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Yeah. I think I expected to be blown away a little bit more.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
I don't know. I kind of thought like the whole... I thought it was really slow. I thought that scene where he's throwing and Jack Warden keeps saying, looks good. It had like the longest yard datedness to me where I was like, I don't know, man. This is feeling... I'm feeling the 70s here.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
And I think that stuff kind of turns people off now. I think it's hard. Like comedies for me, I grew up at a great time with comedy. Like those are the movies that I remember the most. And so a comedy from the 70s, I just think naturally it feels dated. The way that comedy was written and it was shot. I didn't think this movie was directed that well.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
I thought it was just like a little bit kind of sloppy. I thought the writing was good.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Wow. I thought it was well written. Still alive. We should send him this clip.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
I thought it was well acted. I don't know. not gonna be all home runs with craig no what didn't you like about death wish the entire movie it's a tough one the most brutal opening scene anyone ever needs you know bronson questionable politics in the movie yeah we don't judge in the rewatch pre-two it's pre a lot of things yeah who is who's baity right now they remake this movie
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
That's a really good one. He almost is the Warren Beatty. No. Maybe. Well, he's not like a ladies' man, per se. Nah, he keeps it very, very, very close.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Yeah. And Gosling's already got the football. Remember the Titans? Oh, yeah.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
I didn't hate it. I had a perfectly nice night watching it.
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‘Heaven Can Wait’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
A barber in LA getting laid on January 6th.
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‘Blue Chips’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
In French Lick? His house. French Lick? Okay. Nice house.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
You're not gonna kill me.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Yeah, that is true.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Jack can't talk. He's in a pool of milk.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
We got an ID. It's not him.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
It was during COVID.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Um, no, I wasn't prepared for blind guy quarter. Blind Mount Rushmore.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Comment below. We have comments on Spotify now.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
I agree with CR. I think that that action sequence in that like factory is the most entertaining part of the movie to me.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Well, I kind of want to do a hottest take, which is just that... Lamar was super right in that we should get the precogs back in the milk. And that even if it's like a 98% hit rate, what are we doing here?
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Spoiler alert. Innocent people go to jail all the time. We have a 98% hit rate. He means it. This is the problem. This is intellectually. What's our hit rate now? Like 60%? I can tell you.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Guys are clear. Like 20%. Yeah. I'm just running the numbers here. This still looks like a pretty good move to me. See? Okay. This would be an unbelievable first take segment.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
We have to get the precogs back in the middle.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Wait, I have a piggy net. Yeah. You'll have to talk me through this because maybe I'm not thinking about this right. But the whole John Anderton murder, the whole plot seems like a catch-22 to me because Anderton would not have known about the Leo Crow thing unless Agatha told him or saw it. But Agatha would have never seen it
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Unless he was already destined to do it, which he couldn't have been because she's the reason why he was destined to do it.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
This is what it's all about.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Is Lamar Burgess going to take his life? You bet!
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
I love that he injects himself with that and then like 20 seconds later, the pre-cut guy's like, hey, John.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Craig's pre-cog milk take. Craig, what do you got? So I feel like I've effectively masked my thoughts throughout this recording. You're probably not going to be thrilled. I have seen this movie before. I saw it 10 years ago. This is only the second time I've seen it. And I don't deny that this is exactly what Spielberg wanted. It just... It just doesn't click for me. It doesn't work.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
No, I like sci-fi. Not a pre-crime guy.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
It's a little ahead of its time in how long it is, to be honest. Yeah.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
I think this is just like my own personal subjective opinion. I just don't like the look of the early aughts, late 90s movies that like cold blue bleached out. I just like find that to be visually unpleasant. And I think it's in a weird middle ground. I think it's in a gray area where 80s and 90s movies to me actually aged better than early aughts movies because the early aughts movies are like
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
In that awkward period between bad CGI and good CGI, and they're, like, really trying.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
They, like, are just discovering it, so they're trying really hard, and I actually think it just looks worse than, like, Total Recall in some ways.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
I think this movie is either 10 years too early or 10 years too late.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
See, to me, that's a good example of a movie that visually works despite how dated it looks.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
It's just tough timing. I almost wish this was a Total Recall sequel in, like, 1991 because it would have looked way different.
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‘Minority Report’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
Craig, where does your generation stand on Waymo? I think, honestly, we're all in. A lot of my friends take Waymo. It's cheaper. They're doing that Uber thing where they're flooding the market with cheap prices so that everybody uses it. Have you had a, like, oh, my God, I'm going to die in a Waymo moment? I admittedly have not taken one. Oh, you have never been in a Waymo before?
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A 2025 Rewatchables Mailbag
The replacements? Both of them say no. What about Meet the Parents?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
came out the year I was born. And I think also E.T. just made every kid want to have a friend who was an alien. Like that just felt...
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, he's got five kids and owns a house and has been doing his job for 12 years, but he's not as old as you think he is.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, he was always mixing Pepto-Bismol and whiskey together. No, it was a military movie.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I thought what Spielberg said many years later was interesting about this, which is that his idea at first was that it should be a cop or a soldier and that that sense of authority and trust that comes from those figures could be powerful in telling the story like that. And that's why he presented it that way to Schrader. And then he thought about it some more after reading Schrader's script.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Whoa. Did you?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And he was like, people in uniform are not relatable to regular people. They're figures that exist outside. They manage society. They're not in society.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Couldn't relate. There's something to it. And if you just put it on an Oxford and untucked it.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Tell us about it.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But just making it a guy who works for the power company. completely change the perspective when you're watching the movie I don't know that I really like intellectualize what's the job of the guy who I'm following in the story that much but maybe it is subconscious I watched 77 then I watched the directors they cut out a scene when he's about to get promoted from the The Ash Girl yeah
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
The 1980.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I don't, but I don't, do you want to get into it now? I mean, I think we understand his story very differently now. And his relationship to his parents is completely different. And so you've got 40 years of Spielberg movies that are more or less in that thematic vein that Biskin is writing about.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
The 1980 re-release?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But he learned a lot of things near to the, in the last 10 years about his parents that indicated that it was actually like his mother who was the cause of his parents' breakup and that his father did not abandon them, but in fact, There was an affair and like it's all in the Fablemans. And if you watch the Fablemans, you understand his life completely differently.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And now to watch all of his movies where he's got all this frustration and regret and anger about the way that his dad like a quote unquote abandoned them. But that isn't actually what happened. It puts such a strange lens on all these movies because like when you're a kid, you think you know what's going on with your parents. You have no idea. You have no clue what's really between them.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And so for him to be like processing this for 30 years of the most popular movies of all time is so interesting. You agree with that?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I'll alert the Library of Congress. There's nobody there. It's okay.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And I think that's the best version. I think that's the one that features some new stuff from the 80 version, like the Cotopaxi, the Finding the Ship. Some good edits. It's cleaner. You understand Lacombe and Neary a little bit more than you do in the theatrical cut, but you don't have the spaceship interior, which I don't really get the appeal of that sequence at all. Ebert loves that sequence.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I don't get it at all.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I know you did the Book of Basketball 2.0, but is there any part of you that wants to go back to the Book of Basketball? And like take a chapter out, add two more chapters in the middle, redo it.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Why don't you do it?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Is that the only reason?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
That's so interesting because I totally agree with you. The compulsion of Lucas and Spielberg to just keep going back to these movies that at release were five-star all-time masterpiece classics. Yeah. Were movies that are like, these movies will live for 100 years. And they're like, eh. I got a couple of notes for myself. Yeah, I gotta get Jabba in here.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Is that how you felt having to recap the Alexander Daddario episode of True Detective?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I think that was the intention, right?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I think they have the expanded edition.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's called You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. And she never worked again.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's a scabrous memoir of her time in Hollywood, snorting so much cocaine.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
You know, just add it to the list of the 300 categories I've given for free to the Academy Awards. Best year.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He kind of gets it back with Let It Ride and Stakeout. He gets a couple of good ones. What about Bob? What about Bob?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Which you never would have predicted because he's such an unlikely star in the first place. Yeah. So him, like, having a comeback is fascinating.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Jonah would have started as a comic actor. This guy was like a dramatic actor.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
They don't let ugly people lead blockbusters anymore. Yeah. That's true. He's just way too normal looking. He just looks like a guy at the grocery store.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Right.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Right. Right. But these are all guys who like after six months and a lot of creatine slash HGH, like literally can put on spandex, you know, like Richard Dreyfuss can't do that. But I mean, Spielberg has said it in multiple times. And I think this is this one's the best example of it, that he is like his ultimate emotional stand in.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
That when he's making a movie that he feels personally connected to, obviously Jaws, this film always, there's a handful of movies that he makes where he's like, I need to get something across about how I feel. This movie is about how Steven Spielberg feels. And Dreyfuss is the best at that, even though this is like one of the greatest casting what-ifs of all time.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
The list of people that he went to for this part is amazing.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Did Marsha Mason win? She should have been the one who was the focus of the awards campaign.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He's like a dick, out-of-work actor.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He's just doing everything. 2017, that's when Against Westbrook was published. Do you remember that? Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
That's a great pod, though. That was me and Van. That was really fun.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
That was a very fun episode. Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
You gotta be on Mr. Hall's opus with us. Explain the Rowena part. Is this like... This is one of the most egregious best picture snubs of all time, isn't it? It's amazing to me that it's not nominated, especially given the crop of what it's up against.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Haven't seen that. I don't think. I have because we did a 1977 draft on the big picture and I watched it. And it's a perfectly adequate drama about ballet. Oh, yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I don't understand it.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But it does... It's not like it's Armageddon where it got like all the effects and sound stuff. It's like it got a supporting actress nomination, you know? It won for cinematography. There was a special achievement Oscar for the sound effects editing for this movie. So it got... It was acknowledged as an important film. So for it to not hit Best Picture is so strange.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I believe it has happened. But the reason that the director of The Goodbye Girl wasn't nominated is because it's the same director of The Turning Point. It's Herbert Ross. They're both Herbert Ross movies.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
No, you can get nominated twice in the same category for the same performances, but it's usually very hard because there's a lot of vote splitting historically.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Do you want to do the belt for Truffaut films? You know, like, does it go like Wild Child and then Bed and Board, Stolen Kisses, The Last Metro? Like, what do you think? Where does it end?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, it's breathtaking. It's one of only three movies that he has a screenplay credit on. And you can tell that it comes from a deep, deep part of his soul. And it's hard not to watch the movie and not feel like he's making connections that maybe he doesn't even ultimately realize are there in his life, in his heart, in his mind.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I can't really understand what you guys feel.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
You know, like John Huston was in Chinatown. John Huston in Chinatown is a good one. There were examples of this. Sidney Pollack and Aswad Shah. Sidney Pollack and Michael Clayton too. Scorsese played Vincent Van Gogh in Kurosawa's Dreams. It's something that directors would do for each other as a sign of admiration.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He said they did 300 five-note combinations to get to the place where they wanted to go with this score. And that this is the one that they landed on. And he wrote the movie around the combination. I don't even know...
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Spielberg is just, he's an alien, you know, where it's just like he just sees and understands things that everybody, even the people who work really closely with him are just like, how did you know that this was going to work?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And his kind of quest for something bigger than himself is just a big part of all of his movies.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
His childlike wonder.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, yeah. And but like... We kind of like make fun of that, right? Like the Spielberg face and his always seeing the world through a kid's eyes. But this is also just a very dark and sad movie about kind of losing your grip on reality and obsession and becoming consumed by something and not even fully understanding why.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
What do we do then? You know, like when Meltzer has a five-star match, but then he revisits the tape and sees that he missed a couple of holds. And he's like, can we do a five-and-a-half-star match?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Because of my age, there's something about Jurassic Park and Schindler's List and then soon Saving Private Ryan, where it felt like he was kind of coming back for his middle age to be like, just so you know, I am the greatest of all time. That those three movies in three completely different ways are, they stand alongside this and Jaws to me.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
pure filmmaking like that the battle scene the first 20 minutes is probably the peak of his career right Dobbins and I were just saying this on the pod though I genuinely think 50 years from now people will also look at West Side Story and Fableman's as part of this like top 10 15 yes him kind of in his final stage understanding how to make a movie better than anybody and still pouring himself into it so I don't know you know who also liked this movie our girl Pauline Kael
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Well, can I point something out about Ebert and Siskel? Because I went back and re-watched their segment about it. And they both did something that we do all the time. that I think is really interesting, and I think it's important to clock commentary about movies, even movies that are considered all-time great in real time. They both are like, this movie kind of drags a little bit.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
The second act is a little soft in the middle, and it's not that great, which is something you would say about just kind of any movie that you see on an ongoing basis.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, I think the lead up to going to Devil's Tower. Yeah. And I don't know that that's like I'm not saying that's right or wrong. But now when we talk about a movie like this is so sacred and so important. And you're asking, is it literally his greatest achievement? Arguably the greatest American filmmaker since John Ford, whatever. Now we like genuflect at it.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
So it's just bizarrely mature for a 29-year-old, fairly like sheltered kid from Arizona. You know, it's just an odd thing.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But even in the time when it came out, critics have this desire to be like, nothing's perfect. Like, just so you know, even though you stole our breath. you could have like tightened this up a little bit which I find very funny for a movie that is so meaningful to so many people that endures 50 years later that That's not even really found in Ebert's review.
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
In his written piece, he doesn't say like, oh, it kind of sags a little bit in the middle. But on TV, he found himself reverting to this comment that you can make about any kind of movie.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah. This movie is arguably the case for physical media.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I mean, whenever you want. But just like this movie in 4K is crap.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I forget what I said. What did I say?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Oh, it's this, it's Blade Runner, and it's Apocalypse Now. One of the great things about physical media is you get to see these various editions of the movies that are made over time. But those are also three movies that... kind of didn't look great on TV and don't look great on streaming.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But when you put those three discs, those three 4K discs into your machine and you can watch any of the versions you want to... you ascend to heaven. You know, you're like, this is how it was supposed to be seen.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
The India sequence and just the detail of the hordes moving in the background while there's action happening in the foreground. I mean, the entire final 20 minutes. The first five minutes. Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Barry opening the door and the wave of orange light. There's just so many moments in this movie that are jaw-dropping.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Guy's like, nah, I didn't see anything good. I wouldn't know what to report. Good.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
What's big ass about Death Wish?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
We don't want to report one of those either.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But it's just great. Builds the tension beautifully. That's what Kevin DeGande should have done during the draft lottery. You know, he just let it blur. He was like, the Sixers lost their pick. It's like, just, hey, settle down. Like, don't overreact.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Like, in complete awe of what was happening. Or Daryl Morey in the moment when we saw it revealed.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's amazing. The monkey with the symbols.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I see this scene in particular as a tremendous precursor for Poltergeist. His room just reminds me of that kid's room with the clown in Poltergeist.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Why was he wearing a Boston University shirt in Muncie, Indiana? I bet that's where his dad who bounced on him went. Oh, wow.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
What are you saying about Bostonians?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I'm watching Rutgers!
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
That's how she's formally being addressed now. Her name is Haley Steinfeld.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Well, God bless him for that.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I was waiting. Okay. So we're in minute 51.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
For the record, I have not said anything. I, before we go to India, the one thing that's really cool about the first 20, 30 minutes is you're like, that's a spaceship. Like, there's no confusion. There's no like, oh, what is this conspiracy? It's like, that's a fucking spaceship from outer space. Yeah. And you know that you're in a movie where there are aliens. They're not going to show up.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
What he's experiencing is real, even if it feels like a dream.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I texted you guys when I was rewatching it because I was like, my bones are chilled by this. To me, I was like, this is movies to me, to make something like this.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But just hearing that five note thing sung by those Indian men. And even though you don't know where the movie's going, the first time you see the movie, you're like, there's something special about this melody. I don't know what it is, but he's communicating to you that this sound matters. Yeah. Which is just great movie making.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Incredible.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
You never had one?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Okay. Yeah. Richard could fit through a dog door.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Dog door in Indiana too. It's like, it's fucking cold there.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Like, what are you doing?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
No.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
They live in a warm other city.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
So this came out like six months after Star Wars. And you were saying when you saw that in theaters that there was a divide, that there was like the jocks and there was the Star Wars kids. did this movie like bridge that gap? Because this was a really big hit as well. Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Let's FaceTime them right now and tour your parents' home. Just so we can get a look.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Picturing Tom Noonan. The map to Craig's parents house. Is this out there? It's out there. You gotta grab it.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
This is a UFO.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Barry gets a lot of the
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I love when... Are we going to talk about Heineck? When Heineck emerges with the pipe? Just as the aliens are coming out? That's a great moment.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I love that Roy's just got the TV on all the time and he can only get information by keeping the TV on, you know, like the news reports flashing and then he's watching the Daffy Duck cartoon and then it cuts out and something else cuts in. And this idea that like it's not just the no cell phones, the no cell phones, like even today, Spielberg talks about how he's like, nobody ever says to me,
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's weird that there are no phones in Close Encounters because it's not when you're watching the movie. You're just flowing with the characters. But people don't use TV that way anymore. They don't just like turn on Channel 2 and let it stay on for six hours. They're so determinative with what they want to do.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
McAfee live. McAfee has DeChambeau on.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's great. McAfee has the marionette alien.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Shams, what happened with that lottery? McAfee's got Lacombe and Balaban. I have for this category.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Lacombe on McAfee would crush. That would be a great segment.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Aliens are real.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I want to debate Lacombe.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I live in a very friendly enclave. Yeah. They got kids.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
That's right. In the real America where we don't lock our doors.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I learned within the last few years that I'm lactose intolerant, so it's been some time. Okay. But for the first 37 years of my life, I would have a glass of milk and be like, I feel terrible and not understand what was happening.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Nope, I eat cereal dry, unfortunately. Sorry, I forgot about that.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Oh, my God. Who does that? My daughter sees me do it, and so now she does it because she's like, that's how you eat cereal.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Oh, my God. I think almond milk's pretty good with cereal.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It isn't bad, but I just have an association with all milks now. I have no milk in anything. Wow.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
They think it's, like, apple slices.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
people being amazed that UFOs exist that's cool yeah people still do that well now UFOs exist we're seeing them all over the place constantly should we like let's go acknowledge that let's do it like so they exist there is life on other planets that those that life has come to this planet like you believe that
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah. I hate the infield ship.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I definitely think there is life in other galaxies. I'm not unconvinced that they've been to our galaxy. I believe they probably have. That's just something I believe and can't prove. This planet, I don't believe it.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Bill is ready to confirm.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I think this movie and 2001 are the most responsible for the current wave of great event filmmakers that we have. So Nolan, Villeneuve, Bong Joon-ho, Guillermo del Toro, they're all hugely inspired by this movie. A lot of their movies are kind of grasping for what this movie gets. That's this like complicated mix of cynicism and wonder.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
This idea of like something bigger than you, but grounding all of those movies and family stories.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I mean, him too. And he was like his apprentice at this time. I like contact, but okay. Motion control cameras used again. Yeah. As on Star Wars and Douglas Trumbull, who worked on 2001, bringing them to this movie so that they can have effects that like Craig shouted out the clouds.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
That's just something that he created and mapped onto just a regular 35 millimeter shot of the sky, which is just incredible.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's quite a list. Spielberg writing credits.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Close Encounters, A.I. and the Fablemans. That's it. That's his whole career. The A.I. one's a little weird, right? Well, he like completed something. Sure. Yeah, he sure did. Also aged the best is Bob Baker designing the marionette. Yeah. I go to Bob Baker's Marionette Theater on the regular with my kid. Future thriller.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Gene Siskel called this movie a fairy tale for adults. which I've always thought was the best way to describe it.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah. There's a really good – you're going to make fun of me, but it's fine. There's a really good review of this movie written by Christopher McQuarrie, the Mission Impossible director on Letterboxd. And he writes long reviews, so I would say great writer.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And he wrote something that is never communicated in the movie literally, but is true, which is that all who come in contact with the alien spacecraft are imprinted with a fragmentary vision which compels them instinctively toward a common objective – That if you have been if you have encountered the alien, you're drawn to Devil's Tower. That like something is pulling you.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But he like Neary can't even figure out the words to explain how he feels. He just feels it, which is how people tend to make choices in their life. You know, they just like something happens and then they just like instinctually I have to do this thing. But there's no scene where they're like, here's the lore of the alien.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And the alien has a, they dropped a seedling from the sky and a plant grew and it made people smell something. It doesn't have that science fiction thing of over explaining everything that I just think makes the movie feel so timeless.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Or hear Spielberg tell it? He would only do like one or two takes, right? But he would do something every time he had a scene where he had to look up at the sky. Yeah. He said he would bring a present to set and he would open the present at an elevated spot on the set while he was filming Carrie Guffey, the actor.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And he would very slowly open the ribbon and slowly lift the box and slowly remove the toys so that the kid just stood there like this waiting to see what was inside the present. His mouth open. And that scene in the movie when he says toys, it's because he's literally showing him a toy coming out of a box. But it looks like he's watching an alien spaceship. It's like ingenious shit.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
What did they say it costs?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Why was it a thing?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, I think don't fear the unknown seems to be the thing that Spielberg was driving towards, that Dreyfus talks about what attracted him to it, that there would never be really been a science fiction large-scale movie that was about the potential hope and optimism of connecting with other people. But I don't know. Like, I don't think the movie is necessarily down on humanity.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, Mashed Potato Mountain. Just a great job by her. She lives in City Hall at the top of Apex Mountain.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
India's amazing. I think the first time you see the board when they play Williams' five-note score and you see the colors across the board, that's like a chills moment for me.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And then, like you pointed out before, Devil's Tower on TV with the sculpture in the room. Oh, that's a good one. Side by side. Side by side.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
The original cut ended with that, the original version from Pinocchio. And then it tested badly, is that what they said?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah. And so well cast. Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I can't understand the decision that he makes at the end of the movie, but this is three people that are obsessed with what they're obsessed with. The things that we care about, we care about to a degree that is unhealthy. and has led us to this moment in our lives. And, in some ways, it's been good. Yeah. So, like, you can't totally castigate a person.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Almost finished with this mound. I can't defend him because I would never leave my kid ever for anything ever. But if you encountered an alien and he cosmically, it cosmically changed you. Yeah. I think that's what the movie is trying to convey. There's no going back from this moment.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I mean, three kids before 31 or whatever. He was living in Muncie, Indiana. Psychotic behavior.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Meanwhile, Josh Allen childless.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
The aliens at the end are not good. Like, it just doesn't look good. The marionette alien looks good. And the final alien. The ant alien? Yeah, that one looks good. That one's really cool. Rambaldi looks good. It does the hand signs. But the little girls in the alien suits, it looks terrible. Like, we can be honest about it.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
No. No, you mentioned The Day the Earth Stood Still earlier. I would say in a modern popular movie, though. Um... No, I mean, they're all through 50s and 60s sci-fi.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
What are the biggest alien movies of the 70s?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
If only there was a podcast where you could go back and talk about older movies. Check that out sometime. And just think about what they meant to us.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
She's trying to get him to fix his face with makeup. Right. She's not very sympathetic.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
No cell phones.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Oh, wow.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Wow. From Empty Nest?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
What other ones aged the worst? Mothership Interior in the 80 cut, and then the movie Bratz being unable to stop fiddling with their creations. I feel like that didn't age well that they did that.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
The Z. Wataneo Award. What happened the next day? Yeah. Roy is anally raped repeatedly for 30 years on the spaceship.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
was compelling to him and kind of blending that with his interest in genre movies. But you could tell like in the time that passes between Watergate and his opportunity to make this movie, like he kind of loses interest. Like this is one of the softest government conspiracies of all time. Yeah. Like people find their way onto this platform at the end of the movie, like civilians.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He treats me really well.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
So do you not fear the unknown? Because that's the big question at the center of this.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But you're saying you're making the choice.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And you're saying, I will take... I don't know, who's, what's that dude, Ace? Who's going to be going to the Sixers? Ace Bailey. You're like, I'm going Ace Bailey. I don't care what the pundits say.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I think about it though.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Is this the best movie ever made with a long title? I think it is.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Would you call... Now you know how I feel.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I think this is a better movie than the Fellowship of the Ring, which is a movie I love, but I think it's better. I think the biggest contender is probably Doctor Strangelove. Oh, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, you're probably right.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And they're like, you should join in. It's such a, like an open, not conspiratorial way of seeing what would happen if this happened.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
We haven't gotten to a film that's better than Close Encounters yet. That's a good one.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Borat? I mean, Borat rocks.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I also got that anally rape joke. I worked hard.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
For trespassing, yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Going to jail for losing Reddit. It's going to be tough for a lot of people out there.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Oh, God. Wow. This is a crazy one.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Spielberg's story about the meeting with McQueen is incredible. McQueen gets the script. He likes the script. He says, I want to meet Steven Spielberg. He invites him to a bar. Steven Spielberg literally said, I had never been to a bar before in my life.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Steve McQueen says, meet me at the Doom Room. Yeah. They go meet at the Doom Room. Holy shit. Inside the bar, it's a raucous, rowdy bar. He said McQueen had 14 beers. He had three. The weight box. He said a fight broke out in the middle of the meeting that they were having. And McQueen got up as if he was going to enter and try to break up the fight.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And then pulled himself back because he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of Spielberg. Yeah. And finally, he said, I love this script. I really want to do it. I actually cried a little while reading it, but I know that I could never achieve that for you on camera. So I can't do your movie.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I think it could have worked with James Caan. He's maybe a little too strapping.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He just has that streak of rage underneath the surface that Dreyfus doesn't have. Dreyfus is always like flummoxed and bent out of shape, but he's not angry. And Khan, I'm like, is this guy going to throat punch me? He just always looks like he's about to go off.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I know, he has a physical intimidation factor.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
That's your financial advisor, Cary Guffey. One take Cary. Tough beat. One click Cary now.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
At the time? At the time? Was anybody like... The only people who were doing that guy were the cinephiles.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Joseph Sommer. We could have done a little better.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But he could have uttered his catchphrase, Welcome to Earth. Nick Cage?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I mean, this is...
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
This is a category that we're going to talk about, but to me, this is a Philip Seymour Hoffman part.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah. What do they have to hide?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Hmm.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Didn't really get it. It kind of makes sense if you have seen any true faux films. So it makes me wonder why Steven Spielberg wanted him in the first place. He never really made like a space epic.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Gerard Depardieu yeah Martin Balsam or something like an American yeah like like there's because there was casting motives for these guys but it was all French characters I think I think Hackman would have been interesting just to nerd out though like the idea of the barrier of communication is such a key theme of the movie and the idea of Balaban being an interpreter and also that the aliens need interpreters and they take on the human form but they also have this musical signature and
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And that this like how we are connected without language is such a powerful idea in the movie that I really like that is not just a French person, but a French person who's like the 400 blows communicated something so profound to this generation of filmmakers who are in the 70s. It's him paying homage to what Truffaut gave them.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
The Horizon line.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Well, that shot of Ethan opening the door in The Searchers is the shot of the door opening and Close Encounters.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I hadn't thought about it until now, but they're connected.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Wait, were they like, here's Ronnie. Here's our numbers. Literally. Three kids. This is what they did. One meltdown.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
When are we doing ringer cards?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I mean, it has to be Dreyfus. Definitely Dreyfus.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's not aliens.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, I mean, I think in the 50s, when movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still were coming out, and films were so important to the culture, and the amount of people that saw that movie, you could say Klaatu, Barat, and Niktu, and all that stuff that came out of those movies was huge, and we don't necessarily have the perspective on it since what we cover on the show is basically the last 50 years, but...
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
For the post, you know, the new Hollywood era, this is probably the most important UFO movie ever made. Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Pretty good. Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
She was, right?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And you believed that he had the right way of coaching?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
In a major box office smash movie?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I'd say This Boy's Life's probably up there. But as a smash. It wasn't a smash. Bad parenting in a smash movie?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He just abandoned them.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But then they're reunited. Marry Elizabeth Winstead. You know, she comes back and live free or die hard.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Don't you think that Cruise would be better at the obsession part? Hanks is more the everyman, which is useful. But Cruise being the guy who's like, I got to go to Devil's Tower.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He was a normal senator in Lions for Lambs? That's true. What do you have, Craig?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Nice.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Nice. Wow.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah. You got to get public enemies on the board.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
The minute something like this happens, your instinct is just to go take care of your kid.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Well, I don't think Spielberg knew. It does raise the question, why the fuck is there a dog door with a three-year-old in this house anyway? I know this is the dog door episode now, but how can you have a dog door?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
We let our three-year-olds wander in the street. Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I used to go to the Bada Bing every day after school, after fifth grade.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
1989 Barry in high school.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Barry Omen. Barry Omen's good.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Huh? It's weird.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
childlike wonder what if the aliens are here to be our buddies the government's a bad guy but not really it's just not pessimistic and all of those other movies that you talked about ultimately end on these moments of like I guess we're just kind of screwed as a society and this movie doesn't feel that way at all like body snatchers that's in a world where everyone has been consumed you know like that's the bleakest ending of all time and this one even though I think it's so sad the end of this movie it's not
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Reggie Jackson.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
What's up with the guy who's greeting them when they're getting off the plane and he's just like, Lieutenant, welcome back. Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I just think Ty Cobb is the best thing that ever happened in baseball.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's a really cool back to the future thing. Yeah. It would have been distracting for a guy to be like melting down and being like, what do you mean 1977? But the whole time you're watching it, you're waiting for someone to have any reaction. They have no reaction.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And then you would have only had to wait another 27 years. Right.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Dude, no! You guys didn't bring Barry back, did you? The devil!
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I think it's a little suspicious the centrality of power that someone like Lacombe has on American... soil that's a little weird that probably isn't likely to happen yeah good point that is funny when Roy's like he's not even American yeah there's an incredible moment on Steven Spielberg's Inside the Actor's Studio do you know what I'm referring to?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
So it's, it's, this is a real thing that happened. James Lipton is interviewing him. And this is what Lipton says. He says, your father was a computer engineer. Your mother was a concert pianist.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And when the spaceship lands, they make music together on the computer, suggesting that Roy Neary's boarding the spaceship represents Spielberg's wish to be reunited with his parents for them to be reunited as a couple. And in the moment on the show, it like dawns on Spielberg, like what he has done and doesn't realize.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And it's a very beautiful moment about how you kind of create things and don't necessarily understand how you're bringing ideas and feelings inside of yourself and putting them in the world. But I'm like, how the fuck did he not ever put that together?
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He's talked about this movie nonstop for 25 years at this point when he's being interviewed. There have been multiple documentaries made about this movie where he's reflecting on what it means. And it took James Lipton at the actor's studio to coordinate these ideas.
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It was like 20 years ago.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I think it was fucking cool, man. You like yogurt?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, me too. At the time, everybody was like, James Lipton, what a blowhard. This pompous ass.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
No, I think the prevailing one to me is what Chris said, which is like, The government sure is friendly in this movie.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
near, he doesn't seem, he seems excited. Yeah. He gets what he wants. He's like, do they have same game parlays up there? You guys have HBO?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He thought about making a real sequel many times. And it was presented to him as it could have been a huge windfall, and he never pursued it. And it's not that he's above sequels. He's made sequels.
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I think that would be interesting. The time to do it would have been in the early 2000s. It would have been when you had crossed that 30-something year threshold, and Dreyfus was still acting.
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
How about that? I believe Spielberg likes Contact, just for the record.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
At least until Terry Garr finds a silver fox somewhere on the Muncie single scene. I think you've turned this into Byron Mayo as Doris Burke.
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's been a very pleasant hour and 50 minute podcast. That was not a dirty play.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Love Steve.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
New character. Not from Duke University or the Chicago Bulls from First Take.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
One day, every member of the sports media will be a member of this category. It's like, didn't call a shot.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Just want to ask her who gets it. Wait, did you have any?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I do think there's a really good case for Wilford Brimley saying, and what does she find in that spaceship, Mitch? Heartbreak. Heartbreak.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He did get it.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
They did reshoots, and he was not available for the reshoots. And some of the reshoots were done by John Alonzo, Doug Slocum, who shot the Indiana Jones movies, and... Shit, another incredibly accomplished cinematographer. Not Nestor Almendros.
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
No, no, someone else.
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah. What happened to Roy? Did he ever see his family again? Why don't people age on the ship?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But we do know culturally what happened to Barry Oman, you know, and that he is the Antichrist. And so that will give us some sign.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Unclear. Because he just didn't show up to work, maybe?
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Who's the closest NHL franchise to Indiana? Is it like the Blue Jackets? Well, we did have the Indianapolis Racers. The Blues? WHA in 1977.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Clay Mountain sculpture for me.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Did you see the movie The Monkey?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Because you see the arches. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. When that happened, was your wife out of town?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Okay.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Good question. Probably the same.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, I just did a Roy Neary. You think that's what Josh Hart did to Tatum? He Neary'd him?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
That's my hottest take, Joe. Is it justifiable if the aliens are real?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Do you support the reading of the film that none of that is really happening? Oh, that it's all in his head. And that Neri's having a psychotic break?
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
No, I think it's just a mass delusion. Oh, wow. I don't know. It's just an interesting line of thought. I don't think that's Spielberg's intention.
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Tonally, those are really matched.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Similar like sense of curiosity and wonder. And it's, it's not cynical or mean in any way.
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
That's a good one. There was a special feature on the 4K that I think was made... maybe seven or eight years ago. And it's three kinds of close encounters is the name of it. And it's an, it's a three interviews, one with Spielberg, one with Denis Villeneuve and one with JJ Abrams and JJ and Denis talking about how the movie kind of changed their lives and how they see movies.
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And then one with Spielberg kind of talking about the movie 40 years later. And yeah, In that documentary, Spielberg says, I think Arrival is the best movie about alien encounters since Close Encounters. I think that this is the absolute... pinnacle of this kind of a film.
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He's got this great knack, though, don't you think, of knowing when to capitalize on his previous success? You know, like if you look at going from Jaws to this, this is a real like blank check kind of a movie. Like, you know, you've written your ticket.
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Super 8 is not uttered once during this documentary.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He didn't direct it, yeah. Who won the movie? Spielberg? Yeah. Yes.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He is.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Well, we've never done War of the Worlds too and War of the Worlds is totally in conversation with this movie. Yeah.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, it's been re-released theatrically a couple times. And I think it's widely seen as... Even though I think it's actually a very mature portrait of parenting, one of Spielberg's most mature movies. And so it's like E.T. is a movie you watch when you're a kid. Jurassic Park is a movie you watch when you're a kid. Jaws is a movie you watch when you're a kid.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
As you're starting to get into adult life and having real responsibility, it's a very powerful movie.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
or launching DreamWorks when he does, or doing Jurassic Park and Schindler's List in the same year, or knowing when to flip back to blockbusters after making an awards film. He just has this fascinating sense of career navigation that I think eludes a lot of his peers because they're so driven by their artistic inspiration. And he is art and commerce. He makes movies for people.
The Rewatchables
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I was just going to say you brought J. Williams to the table. And we'll be forever changed because of that.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He doesn't make movies for himself, even though the movies are often about himself.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
What does being an only child have to do with the Twilight Zone?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Your parents were like, shut up. We're not talking about the Twilight Zone. Put sports back on.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
You love when a knight just kind of gets in there. You gotta really push it to get there. You know what I'm saying?
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I was interested in UFOs. Yeah, sure.
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‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's entirely possible to me, though, that this movie coming out before I was born while you seeing it at its release, almost like dictates the way that we, like our relationship to space and UFOs. Like this being a warmer, softer idea around that makes it not something that like your parents feared or that you feared. And also, you know, we talked about this when we did E.T. Like E.T.
The Rewatchables
‘Days of Thunder’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Kyle Brandt
What's going on? He's had second thoughts. You said you'd look at him. I've looked at him. I paid $2,500 to use his track today, Harry. Forget it.
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‘Days of Thunder’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Kyle Brandt
What's going on, Harry? Has this happened or what? Do us all a favor, Harry.
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‘Days of Thunder’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Kyle Brandt
Can we talk about that line for a second? I had sponsors in the stands and I'm hugging and holding hands and kissing them in the air and praying for a good showing. And what do we do? We end up looking like a monkey fucking a football out there.
The Rewatchables
‘Wayne’s World’ With Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt
He's just moving his little curled lips while it's nothing really mad. And he's way off. I love that part of it.
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‘Wayne’s World’ With Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt
I've abandoned my girl. I love him. He's the man.
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‘Can’t Hardly Wait’ With Bill Simmons and Joanna Robinson
Played at PG-13. Opens everywhere June 12th.
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‘Can’t Hardly Wait’ With Bill Simmons and Joanna Robinson
I was shocked that he was 21.
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‘Can’t Hardly Wait’ With Bill Simmons and Joanna Robinson
Who actually could have a conversation.
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‘Can’t Hardly Wait’ With Bill Simmons and Joanna Robinson
Their first night of freedom. He is the most dope guy in school. Yeah, and school's over. Was their last chance. Amanda? To say what they want. God, you're a hottie. Hey, can I see you naked? Do what they feel. Maybe I should wear the hat. Listen here, hootie. Hootie! And be who they are. I wonder how William was doing at the party. I can't feel my legs. I can't feel my legs! Can't Hardly Wait.
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Eight Below is the Paul Walker. But Snow Dogs is Cuba Gooding. That one's good too.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
We're two out of four. Jeez. Gotta come up with two more now. Snow Dogs left. That's a dog movie and a sports movie.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Well, you know, the Apatow era was very improv heavy. It's not mockumentary, but I think they evolved from probably the Christopher Guest stuff a little bit. Also, it's honestly really hard. I think there's not more of them because it's genuinely hard to pull off a 90-minute improv movie. Most improv sucks.
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
He's 30. He's not in his 30s. He just turned 30. Right, I'm basically 29. Okay, you're holding on to it.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Best in peep show?
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
I love Feral. I thought Hitchcock was really good for what the role called for. I think Feral could have done it. It's just a slightly different character.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
It's so hard because we're using what we think of Feral now. In 2000, Feral was not Feral yet. So maybe it would have worked.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
I love the swans.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
That's who's been in the sequel. So why are we shaming dogs as one ball?
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Let them compete.
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Honestly, I think Anchorman's a really good one.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
I mean, almost everybody.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
I'm going to go with the Dan Campbell scale for holy shit, are they really going for this right now? And it's when Larry Miller, the guy who plays Max, when he makes Cookie hand the dog off to Gary and then just kisses her right on the mouth in front of everybody, it's like, oh, damn. The Cookie storyline.
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
That's like fourth and ten in the first. You're like, wow.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
That's right. Yeah. This is one of Liz's favorite movies. And I don't know. I can't believe I missed the Best in Show wave. I don't know why. I've always known about it. I've always been circling it. Very happy I got to watch it. I mean, I thought it was hilarious. Every character is worthy of their own movie, honestly. You could have a spinoff for every single character.
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
One thing I think this comedy does really well that most don't is third acts of comedies are usually the worst part of every comedy movie. And it's the exact opposite in this film. I think it actually builds suspense and stays funny, which is incredibly hard, especially with improv. And I think in general with improv,
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
I think it's definitely the purest form of comedy and watching it work is better than watching something scripted work. It's like, I was telling Joe and Mal earlier, it's like sports where watching professionals play sports, um, is like watching professionals do improv where the amateur version of it is truly unwatchable.
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Like bad improv is terrible, but good improv is better than scripted comedy, in my opinion. Um, so I absolutely love this. I do worry about, as Mal pointed out, I am 30. I'm not, I'm not 20. Yeah.
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
So I don't really represent Gen Z, but Bill, I kind of think this comedy is for adults, not because of necessarily the subject matter, but I don't know if a 15 year old, like I think a 15 year old would like Anchorman. I don't know if a 15 year old would like this movie and I don't even really know why.
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Yeah. But it's not even the subject matter. It's, I mean, it's PG.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
But for some reason, I don't know if it translates down to like teens or
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
This movie seems less weird if you just are on Instagram reels for an hour. I just also, this movie made $20 million in America in the year 2000 with no big star in it, which is just like 20 million is more than a Nora or Brutalist made domestically.
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Oh my God. That's wild. That's unbelievable.
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
I've seen him a million times. I do think it's like Austin Powers one, though, where when you go back and watch it, you're like, wow, this is way slower than I remember it being in my head. And two, three, and four actually move a bit quicker. Yeah. Also, this movie is the greatest that guy movie of all time, I think. Yeah. Best in show. It's Hall of Fame.
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Because I think, as you know, I think your guys' bar for who qualifies as a that guy is way too fucking high. Yeah. Like, Ed Begley is a that guy. Like, every normal person in the world does not know it's Ed Begley.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Come on. You guys got John Michael Higgins, Fred Willard. John Michael Higgins is a that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even the average person, I would say, could not just immediately name Catherine O'Hara.
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
That's not true after Schitt's Creek. We work at the ringer. We work at the ringer.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
I just always love when it's like, is Bob Balaban a that guy? No, he's Bob Balaban. I'm like, there's no normal person who's like, that's Bob Balaban.
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
All these people are bad guys. Wait, there's one more thing I saw researching this movie. Did you know that Ariana Grande is a massive fan of this film?
The Rewatchables
‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Really? She did a YouTube parody with her friend and co-star from the TV show she was on. Was it Victorious? I forget the name of it.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Oh, maybe it was that one. But they do a 10-minute remake, like a recreation, where she plays Jennifer Coolidge because she can obviously do that impression. And she also plays Jerry. And her co-star plays Cookie and Max. And it's hilarious. And it made me think that there should be a full remake of this movie with a completely different plot and younger, new actors. Wow.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
It's not, it wouldn't be about a dog show. It's just like Christopher Guest doing something like this again with like, we should be ushering in a new young cast.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Oh, see, I don't want that. I hate the rehashing.
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
Like Cobra Kai style?
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‘Best in Show’ With Bill Simmons, Mallory Rubin, and Joanna Robinson
I would say Catherine O'Hara hurting her knee was up there. And then honestly, we both died at Max berating his son on the shed. It's just me.
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‘Disclosure’ With Bill Simmons, Van Lathan, and Wosny Lambre
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
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‘Disclosure’ With Bill Simmons, Van Lathan, and Wosny Lambre
It's just playing all the hits.
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‘Disclosure’ With Bill Simmons, Van Lathan, and Wosny Lambre
He's just throwing around the office.
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‘Disclosure’ With Bill Simmons, Van Lathan, and Wosny Lambre
I apologize to the audience sincerely.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
He's fucking useless. He can't shoot guns. Wait, wait, wait.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Cantina, or to be honest, I kind of love when they're just running around the Death Star trying to escape, stuff like that. That part is fun, too. You know what else is fun about that?
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
How do you guys feel about introducing the villain immediately in the movie? It's like they use Darth Vader so much. It's like the opposite of the shark in Jaws. I mean, the music is there, where every time you hear it, oh, it's Vader time. But he's immediately... Usually it's like you take a while, right, before the villain is introduced. It's like the first scene of the film is Darth Vader.
The Rewatchables
‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
I don't like garlic. How does he eat? Does he have to eat alone? Because he's got to take off the mask. He's got feeding tubes. He's got to eat alone. He's got to be alone.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Yeah, that was.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
He is definitely going for sure.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
He's like looking at his phone right now thinking about it. Should I? Telephone number.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Can I quickly go back to apex mountain and ask, is this the apex mountain of apex mountains for a movie? Are there the most apex mountains in any movie ever for star Wars? If you go through it, you have like half the actors, yes, it's probably George Lucas holistically. I think it's Titanic.
The Rewatchables
‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Villains, music, the best weapon in movie history, secret hidden movie nuggets, sound effects, blockbuster franchises.
The Rewatchables
‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Is it the most Apex Mountains ever?
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
And I'm bad at acting. You're a twerp. I hope you're not related to this.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
I was introduced to Sean Young in Ace Ventura. Kind of hard to go backwards from there.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Craig, is he Star Wars? Craig Star Wars, 1977? I don't know. Do any of you guys, any of you guys big video game people? I'm like, I'm not really, but Van, are you? Yeah, I like to play video games. Thinking back to the Apex Mountains, also, I love the Star Wars Battlefront video games and Star Fox. I would say, would you say this is the best video games to come off of an original movie ever? Oh.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
I mean, yeah, it's a little slow. I mean, there's just, like, pace just picked up as we moved closer to now, and that's just what it is. The first 20 minutes is a little slow, but what I took away watching it again, I think I probably saw him when I was 15. Of course you like him, but now... I just appreciate them so more.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
When I was 15, I'm not thinking about, I mean, I'm comparing it to all the other movies I saw when I was 15, which like probably had better special effects or whatever. Looking back now, the originality is kind of staggering. I kind of can't fathom that level of originality working now. Like, it's just unbelievable that this is just, I know he had influences, but everybody does.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Like him just pulling this out of his ass, putting it on the screen. Everything's brand new. The world building. Honestly, the closest thing I can think of is John Wick. And it's probably why John Wick worked because it's like just new and everybody could kind of like get into the world and like it.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
And it's why it's the newest action franchise that has like spawned spinoffs and is still around and people like it. Like the Sinners.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Yeah.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
I think it's cool that George Lucas was like... I just wanted to make a movie that was fun. He's like, if you have to take one word away from this movie, it's just fun. I know he's like, the movie's trying to say something, but I don't think the themes are, I don't know. I don't know if it's trying to say that much.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Good versus evil. It's a feeling. Same with Indiana Jones. Like, I don't really know what Indiana Jones is about, but Indiana Jones, and it's my favorite movie. It's just like a feeling. And I, growing up, the Disney rides obviously were around when I saw these movies. So I kind of immediately made that connection, which is probably different for you guys.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Cause they made them as, as over, over time. But like, I associate these movies with like that feeling of being at Disneyland.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Man, we could do a Ringer Day at Disneyland. We did one.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
About three and a half. You brought really good energy. Is that the longest one we've done? Yeah. No. Boogie and Pulp both went over four. Okay. Is that true?
The Rewatchables
‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
I mean, it's the longest, like, unplanned two-parter.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Good job. Bill, I'm proud of you, man. I really enjoyed it. Are more coming? I feel like I've missed out.
The Rewatchables
‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part Two) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
It'd be funny to do Spaceballs next. Thanks, guys. Thanks, bro. Thanks, man.
The Rewatchables
‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part One) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
With this, like the original three?
The Rewatchables
‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part One) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
I wish I could remember specifically when I saw it the first time. I may have seen the prequels before I saw these. I don't even really know. I had only seen them a couple of times. I was closer to you, Bill, in that I saw them maybe once or twice. I liked them, but they didn't capture me in the same way that other people did. I don't know.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part One) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
I think the only troubling thing about Star Wars is it's so complex and people go so deep into it that sometimes it feels like you can't be a casual fan because everybody will exclude you. That was part of my problem. But you could be on this. You could be on this.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part One) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
Yeah, it's kind of hard for me to be like, I like Star Wars. And they're like, oh, really? What's your favorite planet? And I'm like, well, I don't know.
The Rewatchables
‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part One) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
If somebody comes up to me and is like, oh, are you a sports fan? And I'm like, yeah. And we start talking and they don't know who the quarterback of the Niners is. I'm like, oh, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
The Rewatchables
‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part One) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
We didn't pay for that.
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‘Star Wars: A New Hope’ (Part One) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
I was going to say, we're 95 minutes in.
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‘Rocky’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan
The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
You know why they didn't write another movie after this, the same reason that Sylvester Stallone didn't write another movie, because it sucks to sit in your writer's hole by yourself when you can get paid $20 million to go act in a huge movie. It makes sense.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
The Genie in Aladdin is elite. That's high-level animated voice acting. I think this is probably the right choice. I love this part. I love this performance.
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
You can feel him when you're watching it, though, working so hard to not be super annoying talk show Robin Williams. He's got nine guys holding him back from not riffing and doing a voice, which I appreciate.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, he's incredibly important to this movie and I don't think it would be nearly as good if it wasn't made by him because his whole thing is like the invisibility of the camera. Like you feel like you're watching real people and every intimate conversation that probably would feel really overwritten by a bunch of 23-year-old guys from Boston don't feel that way at all.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It feels super real because of the way that, you know, they talk about it in that oral history, how he just like sits next to the camera. and lets them figure out how they want the part to go. He let Robin Williams try to do it ten different ways, but Ben Affleck only wanted to do it two ways. And he let them do whatever they thought was right.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
And, you know, he's an independent filmmaker from Pacific Northwest who's made a ton of great movies over the years. This is probably the most mainstream thing he's ever done, but he's got like a little bit of, you know, realistic secret sauce that I think elevates it. Any relation to Van Zandt from Heat?
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Do you think he does that, though, for every movie he's up for? He's like, Shakespeare in love, but they're Carthy. Titanic. They're stealing the Titanic.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I can't accept that that's an erroneous fact. I saw this fact as well.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I said to this point. Well, off the top of my head, Rocky did it.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But also Woody Allen did it for Annie Hall because he was nominated that year.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
You may recall.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's a fucking joke. Don't put a whiteboard in front of me, man. I got markers. It happened again one year later with Life is Beautiful. Roberto Benigni did it.
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
You voted for Anthony Hopkins.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Because I think he wins in a lot of other years. It's very similar to Stallone not winning for Creed, where that whole time everybody thought Burt was going to win, and then he lost because everybody realized that nobody likes Burt Reynolds in Hollywood. Right.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I mean, Boogie Nights should have won everything. I think Boogie Nights is a better movie. Thank you, Ryan.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
James Cameron.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
His take was kind of the consensus take, though. And I think that a lot of the critics who were not in Boston were like, I don't know, is this authentic? I'm not sure. And it seems like everybody here feels like it was very authentic.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He was a huge Amistad fan.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Thinking of Noam Chomsky's manufacturing consent?
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Let's go back to the bar. Clark's in the bar. He's there with his dorky friends. They're standing behind him when he's starting to go at Affleck. First of all, Affleck's got like eight inches on him. He's a giant. And he's a townie who will break his fucking head open. And Clark is not hitting on the girls. He knows them.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But they're not interested. Yeah. And so he's challenging a townie, which like, let's just say I'm Clark for the sake of conversation because I'm a skinny dork. I would never say shit to a guy like that. Right. So then Damon's idea to counter that is rather than break his head open, he's just going to explode his brain. Right. So he embarrasses him.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But then Clark's like, all right, see you later, man. He doesn't try to hit on mini drive or anything. So where does the, do you like apples even come from?
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
To be like, it's cool, man. It's cool. Don't break my head open.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Uh-oh. I don't have that counter. This is the most iconic scene in this movie. I know. And every time I watch it, I love it. And then I start to think about it, and I'm like, what really happened here?
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I really think we should test this theory tonight. Me and you go to a Harvard bar and start talking to some girls.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Is there any existing audition tape of you trying to get on a reality show? No. Okay.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He's a fictional character, Bill. LAUGHTER
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, Ryan was alluding to it. Nothing really happens in this movie. He meets a girl, they go on a few dates, and he goes to therapy.
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's a really heavy drama. And you mentioned the part about how Castle Rock bought the script at the start of it. And that they were renowned for their ability to develop material. And that everybody wanted to work with them. And they give that big note to be like... This is a thriller and an ordinary people style drama. And they were like, do the drama.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Which is like the least commercial aspect of the story. And yet, their instincts are totally right. And the movie is like weirdly propulsive. Even though there's no chasing her down at the airport scene. There's no scene where like... Chucky and Will have a falling out and then they have to get back together. It doesn't have any of that conventional stuff. So it's kind of miraculous in that way.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Can I ask you a question? Is that the next day after he tells him I'll fucking kill you? It takes him a long time to realize what's happened.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Good point. Not a lot of stuff. But Affleck is really laying it on thick there at the end.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I have two that you did not list that are my favorites. The first one is Retainer. Okay. when Affleck goes in to do the job interview with McNeil, which is so funny, which might be the funniest full scene in the movie. And then the second one is the two jokes.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Is Affleck telling the joke about Uncle Marty and stealing the cruiser, followed by Minnie Driver delivering a great joke about an old Irish couple. I just think those are two great scenes that feel like... They feel like things that actually happened that they put into the movie. What do you got for most rewatchable?
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
We were saying that. Payphones and the convenience that payphones afforded you when you could say, I forgot somebody's number and go back into the car like a coward. That's just great. If it was now, Skyler would just bang that number into his phone.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, definitely Matt and Ben Industries. You know, the idea of them being this iconic duo now for 30 years running, which is amazing that it lasted this long and usually doesn't work out that way. And then I think this is the conversion of Robin Williams' legacy from comedy person to iconic actor. And if he doesn't have this movie, even though he did plenty of dramatic parts...
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He's really thought of more as a performer and not Mork. Even if he had done Dead Poets and he had done What Dreams May Come or whatever.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Although, if not for Jack, he might not have done this movie. True. Because he asked Francis Ford Coppola, who the fuck are these guys? Because he had just made Jack with Francis Ford Coppola. And Francis Ford Coppola cast Damon as the Rainmaker. So that was a critical, even though Jack sucks. Sorry, Jack.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
That whole scene is insanely funny. Damon doing the club stuff is elite.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Can I give you one other great shot, Gordo? Yeah. There's like a one-second overhead shot when Robin Williams is pushing Damon out of the way when he's telling the Carlton Fisk story, and he's matching it with the overhead of Fendi during this. It's like a very tiny little move, but you love just watching Williams push him out of the way.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Professor Gerald Lambeau is pretty fucking good.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah, that is pretty good.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
That's true. Not good.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Has no considerable scientific psychological point of view whatsoever. Neither Jungian nor Freudian. We have no idea. His whole bit is just like, so what do you like? He's just borrowing. He's remixing.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I have more. He's clearly a shitty college professor. Nobody in that class is paying attention.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's fair. Here's one thing I'm confused about with that character. Was he a math guy? Yeah, I never got this.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah. What did he teach at Bunker Hill? He was teaching therapy. He was teaching psychology. But he was best friends with Gerald Lambeau and they were competing for a Fields Medal?
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
There's one other one that is related, which is that Mel Gibson was going to direct this movie until he ultimately agreed not to. So the two heroes of this movie getting made are Mel Gibson and Harvey Weinstein. We lost the crowd.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I'm sorry. These are facts.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
You and Chris should debate that.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I didn't even bring that up when I was destroying Dr. Sean Maguire's resume. But I mean, that's your final boss move? It's not your fault? Like, your mom would tell you that when you're nine years old. What are we doing? What would you have done? It worked. It's a movie, dork!
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Ryan and Cyril.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Can I nominate one more person? Jimmy Flynn. The judge. You hit a cough. You're going to jail. He's just doing JFK also as a judge.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Like the history of math?
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Dynamite. As a part of the conversation. She's amazing, but not as much Juice Mountain.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
What about Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves?
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Well, I just... We've already done a lot of Harvey, I feel like, on this pod.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Yeah. isn't uh isn't shall we have character in ladybird reading a people's history of the united states like on a car whoa yeah which i think would be maybe higher cheap track suits no it's pretty good okay soprano um the mass pike
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
What do you got, Sean? I have two runners up. The first one is the job interview that Will sends Chucky on is for a company called Holden and McNeil, which is the name of the character that Ben Affleck plays, Holden McNeil in Chasing Amy, which was released in the same year.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Thank you.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Thank you. The how do you like them apples line is actually a very subtle homage to the phrase that Jake Giddy says in Chinatown when he says that after a joke. And then the best one is when Morgan says I swallowed a bug in the Harvard bar scene.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
It's a reference to something that happens in Hearts of Darkness, the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, where during a scene, Francis Ford Coppola is shooting Marlon Brando and he has to stop because he swallows a bug while he's performing and says to Francis Ford Coppola, I swallowed a bug.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Yes, you can look.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
What do you have, Sean? By 1997, wouldn't Will Hunting just be a hacker? And wouldn't he be making millions of dollars hacking if he's the smartest guy in the world? Because it's like year three of when the modern internet's in shape. Yeah, we got MS-DOS. Versus like being a spy guy?
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Can I raise one more?
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Why doesn't... We'll just call Skyler and be like, hey, babe, I really want to come out to California, but I got this job. I'm making $84,000 a year working for McNeil. Let me just get one paycheck and I'll fly out and meet you. Why does he have to drive? Just work for two weeks and then go see her. He really likes the car.
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
But as we know, he's going to get picked up by Chucky when it breaks down.
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Based on what we saw from him inside that bounce castle, I feel like Bill is in UFC right now. Choking guys out.
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
What would you think of Manhattan Beach, though?
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
You're not following that, Sean? What if Daniel Plainview was Sean Maguire? Was who? Dr. Sean Maguire.
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I said Damon. Elliot Smith?
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
How about you, Fantasy? I think they should have moved it to New York. I feel like they're going to get, like, really a gritty story, a true story about living in a real city, you know?
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Damon is surprisingly good at playing dumb. So maybe he could have pulled that part off.
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I picked The Martian just for the Matt Damon being a genius canon. Oh, yeah.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Damon. I think it's a rare case where it has to be two people, because Matt and Ben both win.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
His dad. Was it Dr. Sean McGuire who told you that?
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
He's 32, turning 33.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Sit down.
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
I'm going to drink a few more beers tonight, I think. All right.
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Um, that's a great question. I mean, I think it's like the simultaneous moment when movies are still the biggest thing in all of entertainment from the studio perspective, plus all the Sundance kind of Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson era of guys are starting to get their chance to make big expensive movies. So like Jackie Brown is this year chasing Amy is this year.
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
There's also all that new class of generation combining with, um, Titanic, the biggest fucking movie ever made, which is convenient. L.A. Confidential is this year. There's a bunch of movies. I'm not really riding for that as good as it gets. Nicholson win. That's not... Yeah, we're going to litigate that later.
The Rewatchables
‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
No.
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‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Damon was encouraged under fire and it was like, who is that guy? Lost a bunch of weight. Yeah, that was, I remember that very vividly. And then people, that was a movie with Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan and people were like, who's that guy? So that was a good sign.