An Awesome ‘F1’ Movie and Superman Expectations With Van Lathan and Charles Holmes

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Bill Simmons Podcast – "An Awesome ‘F1’ Movie and Superman Expectations With Van Lathan and Charles Holmes"

Release Date: July 13, 2025

In this engaging episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, host Bill Simmons delves deep into the recently released Formula One (F1) movie starring Brad Pitt, alongside discussions about the latest Superman film. Joined by regular contributors Van Lathan and Charles Holmes, the trio offers insightful critiques, nostalgic reflections on sports movies, and lively debates on superhero narratives.

---

1. First Impressions of the F1 Movie

Bill Simmons opens the discussion by sharing his initial skepticism and subsequent admiration for the new F1 movie. He admits, “[03:32] I think it's one of the best sports movies of the 21st century,” highlighting his surprise at the film’s success despite early doubts about casting a 61-year-old Brad Pitt as a Formula One driver.

Van Lathan echoes this sentiment, describing the movie as a “[04:14] Sexy movie,” not in the traditional romantic sense, but in its sleek and stylish portrayal of F1 racing. He appreciates how the film builds the lore of F1 for newcomers, making it accessible without talking down to the audience.

---

2. Comparison to Classic Sports Movies

The conversation shifts to comparing the F1 movie with iconic sports films like Days of Thunder and Rush. Bill Simmons nostalgically remarks, “[09:49] It was like an exhilarating experience to be in the theater for this,” emphasizing the film’s IMAX presentation and its ability to captivate audiences.

Van Lathan adds that the movie successfully “[08:07] keeps your excitement up by the end,” drawing parallels to other memorable racing films. They both agree that the immersive experience and high production values set this film apart from its predecessors.

---

3. Brad Pitt’s Career Reflection

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around Brad Pitt’s illustrious career. Bill Simmons provides a retrospective overview, breaking down Pitt’s career stages from his early days in the 90s to his current role in the F1 movie. He states, “[37:05] Brad Pitt is still incredibly virile and handsome,” commending Pitt’s ability to maintain his star power over decades.

Van Lathan and Charles Holmes delve into specific films that defined Pitt’s journey, citing Fight Club, Ocean’s Eleven, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as pivotal moments that solidified his status as a leading man. They discuss how the F1 movie serves as a capstone to his career, showcasing his enduring appeal and versatility.

---

4. Deep Dive into the F1 Movie’s Narrative and Characters

The hosts analyze the film’s narrative structure and character development. Bill Simmons praises specific scenes, such as Sonny Hayes’ (Brad Pitt) monologue in the final race, remarking, “[15:00] It's one of the better sports movie scenes of the last 30, 35 years.” This monologue encapsulates the classic sports movie trope of perseverance and redemption.

Van Lathan discusses the character arcs, highlighting how Damson’s character embodies the modern athlete’s struggle with fame and pressure. He notes, “[22:27] We relate to that character more now than we ever have,” emphasizing the film’s relevance to contemporary audiences.

---

5. Superheroes vs. Realistic Heroes: The Superman Debate

Transitioning from sports to superheroes, Charles Holmes introduces a lively debate on the latest Superman movie. Bill Simmons expresses his reservations, stating, “[60:46] I don't want to see it,” but Van Lathan and Charles Holmes work to persuade him otherwise.

Charles Holmes makes a compelling case: “[62:24] Superman is a character that reflects the durability of humanity,” arguing that Superman’s struggle to balance immense power with human relationships offers rich narrative potential. The trio discusses how the new Superman film reinvents the character without relying on tired clichés, creating an engaging and emotionally resonant story.

---

6. Broader Reflections on Movie Genres and Trends

The conversation broadens to discuss trends in movie genres, particularly the saturation of superhero films. Van Lathan critiques the overwhelming presence of Marvel movies, saying, “[65:42] They just diluted the brand to such an extent,” and contrasts this with the thoughtful approach taken in the new Superman movie.

Bill Simmons reflects on the challenges of creating original sports and superhero movies in an era of formulaic production, noting, “[68:41] There's no way to reinvent the Wheel because the wheel has already been looked at every single way at this point.”

---

7. Final Thoughts and Recommendations

In wrapping up, the hosts share their final thoughts on both the F1 and Superman movies. Bill Simmons acknowledges the cultural significance of the F1 film, predicting, “[35:22] I think it's going to be remembered. I think it's influential.”

Van Lathan expresses his enthusiasm for the Superman movie, encouraging listeners to watch it: “[76:17] I was deliriously surprised.”

The episode concludes with friendly banter and a light-hearted pitch for future discussions, leaving listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the two featured films and the hosts’ perspectives on them.

---

Notable Quotes

• Bill Simmons: “[03:32] I think it's one of the best sports movies of the 21st century.”

• Van Lathan: “[04:14] Sexy movie.”

• Bill Simmons: “[15:00] It's one of the better sports movie scenes of the last 30, 35 years.”

• Charles Holmes: “[62:24] Superman is a character that reflects the durability of humanity.”

• Van Lathan: “[65:42] They just diluted the brand to such an extent.”

• Bill Simmons: “[68:41] There's no way to reinvent the Wheel because the wheel has already been looked at every single way at this point.”

• Van Lathan: “[76:17] I was deliriously surprised.”

---

Conclusion

This episode provides a thorough exploration of the new F1 movie and the latest Superman film, enriched by Bill Simmons' deep knowledge of sports and Van Lathan and Charles Holmes' insightful perspectives. Whether you’re a fan of high-octane racing films or thoughtful superhero narratives, this podcast delivers a captivating analysis that both entertains and informs.

Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. You know what's great about summer? With all the pool parties, picnics with your partner, and game nights with the guys, you have an abundance of opportunities to get together with everyone. It's even better when there's delicious food to enjoy and the best way to get that tasty spread. Boar's Head. They have what you need to elevate your summer entertaining. Freshly sliced meat cheese that makes the ultimate summer sandwich platter.

[Van Lathan]

Right?

[Bill Simmons]

Or you could create the perfect snack from their premium hummus and dips collection. It's a premium hummus and dips collection. They have this new basil pesto hummus that looks so good right at my daughter's wheelhouse this summer, discover the craftsmanship behind every bite at your local Boar's Head deli. Boar's Head committed to craft since 1905, the Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. We put up Jaws 2 on the Rewatchables on Monday night and it was one of the silliest podcasts podcasts we've done in the last couple years. Actually. Me and Fenison Chris had a great time. A lot of laughs. We have It's Complicated coming next Monday because we hadn't done a rom com in a while. You can watch all of these on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. You can watch this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. You're probably noticing after years and years and years of complaints, my camera finally looks pretty good. We might have spent some time. I have not decorated this office yet, but I was able to grab some cardboard cutouts of Sly Stallone and Crockett and Tubs and at least have them shepherd me. You can see Bird and Magic's feet in the back, but we're going to be decorating this at some point. But we finally went high tech. I've heard your complaints. I'm a man of the people. You guys wanted better camera quality. Well, now you have it. Coming up later, Van Lathan is going to talk to me about F1, a spectacular sports movie with Brad Pitt that's out in the theaters now. We tried not to do a lot of spoilers until the end of the pod, but we talked for like an hour about the movies. So, like in the last 10 minutes of that, we start talking a little bit about some heavy plot stuff. And then at the end, Charles Holmes came on with Van, that's Van's Midnight Boys partner. And we talked about whether I should see Superman or not. And Where I stand with the ringer verse, because I know that's keeping you up at night. Do I like this nerd universe and all these DC Comics and Marvel and all this stuff? I'm kind of on the outs on it and it's been that way for a while, but they kind of talked me into seeing Superman. We're going to take a quick break and then Pearl Jam, Van Lathan is here. We are taping this. It's middle of the week. I saw F1 in the theater with Brad Pitt last night. Whole Simmons family, little 10:15 showing at the Grove. It was great. It was packed. Imax, had a great time. I have so many things I want to talk about. I'm not a giant F1 fan. Neither are you.

[Van Lathan]

Never seen one F1 race before the movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Ben Simmons, my son on the way home is like, I think I might get into F1. It's like one of those kind of movies.

[Van Lathan]

Same.

[Bill Simmons]

It was better than I thought. I'll start here. I can't believe this actually worked out. That this movie they spent all this money on with 61 year old Brad Pitt as a. As a Formula One driver seems a little improbable. Kind of old. And then you hear the story about how they're spending money. Spending it's. Oh, my God, Apple. Apple's involved. Apple's had some bus. Yeah, they're doing it for IMAX. It feels like Days of Thunder kind of for 2025. There's a lot of signs that this might not work out. And instead it worked out great. And I think it's one of the best sports movies of the 21st century. I'll go that far. Sexy movie, Sexy movie.

[Van Lathan]

Sexy movie. Sometimes when you use the term sexy for a movie, you think, God, there's a lot of sexy sex having people in the movie. No movie is sexy. Cars look sexy, the wardrobe is beautiful. It moves with a certain pace. It's a sexy film. It's a sleek film, It's a stylish film. It also does something else. You go into the movie or the movie assumes that you don't know shit about F1. So it builds the lore of the sport. People that know a lot about F1, I wonder how they would have responded to it. Because maybe they're being. Maybe you're watching a basketball game and they go, if you get double figures in three different statistical categories, that's known as a triple double. Maybe if you watch a lot of basketball, you'd be like, I don't need you to Tell me that I'm not a moron. This movie held my hand through the F1 driving and gave me a very simple and easy to glom on story. And that made for a really, really satisfying experience in the theater.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, the only time it really, it really grabbed your hand and was like, look, we gotta really explain this to you was some of the. I'll do some spoiler alerts later. But there was some tire stuff in one of the climactic races that they were really carefully telling us, like, here's why this is important, blah, blah, blah.

[Van Lathan]

That's what I mean. What I mean is that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I never felt like I was being talked down to like you do in some sports movies.

[Van Lathan]

You know what I mean? That's what I mean. What is. It's like, okay, there's drama in here. I don't understand your sport. So why is this dramatic? I'm like, oh my God, he's got to switch his tires. Jesus. Yeah, got switches tires.

[Bill Simmons]

There's two guys that are on the same team. There's a bunch of teams. This team's the worst team. This other team has had gone through all these drivers, they're so desperate, they're going to go with this old washed up guy.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

You could understand all of it that. I mean, there's some stuff about when they would do laps. Would it be like lap 54? I'm like, I don't how many laps are in this race? And they'll be like four laps to go. Okay, I guess there's four laps to go. But for the most part I didn't feel like it talked down to me, which I liked. I thought, as you know, I love movies. When I go into a world, love just like take me into this world. So we're in different cities and countries every week.

[Van Lathan]

Big part of it.

[Bill Simmons]

There's like this whole rich person scene with like those little clubs. Like, I've never been to an F1, have you?

[Van Lathan]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

There's like these. It's almost like these big ass luxury boxes with parties.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And all this money and all this ego. I've seen some of it. Like I watched the first season of Drive to Survive. I liked it. And there's a lot there. The drivers have a mystique about them. So it made sense that Brad Pitt versus, like, I mean, you were. One of the things you said when we were talking before was this is. It's a little bit of the Top Gun Maverick blueprint.

[Van Lathan]

Certainly. Yeah. It's Brad Pitt's Top Gun Maverick but look, but he's.

[Bill Simmons]

He brings more to the. More to the table at this point in his career, I think, than Cruise does for a movie like this. Well, with Tom, I need to feel like he might fuck the technician who's. Who's running the cars. With Cruise, I'm not going to feel that way.

[Van Lathan]

That's the difference. So also just saying something. It was an age appropriate love interest here, which.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Terry Condon.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Right. So with Brad, you really do get it and believe it. Right? You get it and believe it. Because, you know, we've seen Brad Pitt, he's still incredibly virile and handsome, but we know that he's got some trend on his tires.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Some baggage. He brings the baggage into the movies.

[Van Lathan]

Brings the baggage. Cliff Booth, this character, same thing. It's okay. He's playing off of it. It's working. But everything that you just described about the movie is another reason why I really liked it so much. There's nothing on screen that you don't want to watch. Yeah, you want to watch exotic locales. The cars are beautiful. It's a clean looking movie. So all they gotta do after they set the story up is just go fast. That's it.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, and racing movies are the most easy to understand of any sport because it's like there's a checkered flag at the end and whoever drives through first wins it.

[Van Lathan]

And it's dangerous.

[Bill Simmons]

And they kept doing. Yeah, it's dangerous. You might have car crashes. They did a really good job, I thought, with how they did the scoreboard and the leaderboard and the car is moving up and down. Cause we've seen that go badly. Or we've seen like announcers be like, now he is in fourth place. Just feeling like they're shoehorning in it after the fact. Because the test audience didn't understand there was none of that.

[Van Lathan]

And you know what's dramatic? A pit stop. Yes, stopping. And everybody having to change tires that quickly. Build a new car, all of that stuff. If you can build a drama around that and then make that a visual touch point in your film, that's gonna work.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a fun world. Cause you start thinking about the pit crew people. There was that one lady who couldn't. She fucked up a couple times, a tire. It's like, oh, I bet at the end of the movie she's gonna be humming with gas.

[Van Lathan]

And she goes to him and she says, hey, don't encourage me out there. It makes me look weak. There's a whole culture that exists behind it and everything, they're training tennis balls. There's a little Rocky IV in there to where Damson's character is using all the high tech stuff. And that's kind of like, oh my.

[Bill Simmons]

God, there's a lot of Rocky iv.

[Van Lathan]

Right?

[Bill Simmons]

And then Bradley, he's almost doing the.

[Van Lathan]

Split screens using the tennis balls and running with the crew. And in some way that's more effective. It's all the tropes that we've seen before. But I saw this movie in 70 millimeter at CityWalk and it was breathtaking.

[Bill Simmons]

So we. We should have started. We probably should have started with that because the reason this movie works over every other reason. And I've been watching sports movies my entire life. We did the Longest Yard rewatchables a year ago, 1974. That's kind of the modern sports movie. So we're now in year 52 of sports movies. We've done every version of these. What we hadn't done is the imax. This is like a fucking exhilarating experience to be in the theater for this, where you're just like, you're not. I had to pee for the last hour. And I'm not one of those old guys who has to pee all the time. I just. I had a giant Coke, I had water. I was eating popcorn and I didn't want to get up. I was like, I don't want to miss anything. I don't know what's going to happen. And you're just sitting there like, ah, it's. They filmed it a certain way. They knew. They spent a shitload of money just on. Because they knew that the IMAX thing was going to be the calling card. And this is, you know, I know. Fantasy on. Big picture always talks about how do we save movies, how do we reinvigorate movies? And a big part of this in the last six years was we gotta get people going to the theater.

[Van Lathan]

Gotta give me experience I can't get at home.

[Bill Simmons]

This is the ultimate. You have to see this in the theater. They do these with the superhero movies or like Jurassic Park. Like, it'll be fun to see in the theater. Big, but it's not a must. You can still see it. Whatever. This has to be seen in the theater. I know I shouldn't have fired. You're doing so well.

[Van Lathan]

For five minutes you just not do it.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like, whatever, Superman.

[Van Lathan]

You gotta. I just. You gotta. There's no reason to down talk Superman. A Fantastic Four to uplift F1.

[Bill Simmons]

It's fair.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

You're right. But it's fair. I'll say this good criticism.

[Van Lathan]

I'll say this Sinners as well. Now, Sinners is a movie that you think, I could definitely watch that at the crib. But then Ryan Coogler comes out and makes a case as to why this is a theater going experience. So that video that he did, that got like 10 million views with the Kodak people. Great. This movie is the type of movie that I go, when I'm talking to somebody, I go, man, you have got to see this on the biggest screen possible because it's so immersive. You're gonna be inside of the race. Kaczynski is. We have to start.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, Joseph Kaczynski, who's, I think, moving up the ladder for me, he's kind of like Tony Scott 2.0 now.

[Van Lathan]

That's exactly who he is. He is such an expert blockbuster filmmaker. He knows the beats that you need to see to marry fantastic action with a big movie star.

[Bill Simmons]

And style.

[Van Lathan]

And style. Just enough plot to get you over the finish line.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. This Tony Scott would have easily made some version of this movie. Of course, I mean, he did make.

[Van Lathan]

This movie Days of Thunder. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But the IMAX piece of it and just that technology is getting so cool now that you just got lost in the screen. But this is like when we did. I know we do rewatchables from the 70s and you like a movie like Jaws or the Exorcist, and people saw it in the theater and it like blew their mind because it's either that or they were home with like a little black and white TV. Now everybody has nice TVs. You could see Sinners at home.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I still think it's going to be a better experience in the theater. I've had it both ways. It was just better in the theater. This is like. I think it will be a rewatchable and you'll definitely watch this at home. But I think this was like a must. And I don't know if there's been a sports movie that was before this one where you were like, you actually had to see this in this.

[Van Lathan]

Well, not all sports lend themselves to this huge. Because most sports movies are driven not by the actual playing of the sport. Right. They're driven by the culture of the sport. Like, we did blue chips on the rewatchables, the basketball in blue chips. It's not bad, but it's like not a part of the story as much as the culture of college basketball is. This movie has a dramatic Setup to get you to the racing. The racing is the reason why you come see the film to that point. Did it have enough story for you? Yeah, kind of a paint by number story, but it still worked well. I had.

[Bill Simmons]

I wrote down all the sports movie tropes that it did cause it. And I started to really feel this way. I remember writing a column about this in the late 2000s, that I had just seen too many sports movies. And my brain became AI for a sports movie. So as soon as they would set something up, I remember I wrote about Invictus. Remember the Matt Damon rugby movie where he's playing the 6 foot 3 monolith?

[Van Lathan]

Morgan Freeman in that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Morgan Freeman.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And I remember writing about it. There's like a South African kid and a cop and they show them early and they're like far away from each other and the cops. And I was like, all right, by the end of this movie, they're gonna be high fiving. You just kind of know your AI brain. It's like I've just seen too many of these. This movie had a lot of sports.

[Van Lathan]

Movie tropes that you're like, old dog, young dog.

[Bill Simmons]

The best that never was. Right. Seen that one. He could have gotten there, but that thing happened and it sent him in a tailspin. But now he's in a good place. Still something left in the gas tank maybe. Old guy versus new guys.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Downtrodden team that needed a spark.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

In this case, the Apex team.

[Van Lathan]

Mm.

[Bill Simmons]

The monologue about chasing that one. Great feeling. Which not to. I don't feel like we're gonna spoil the movie too much, but Brad Pitt has this monologue in the movie that's. That's really good. I think he would've nailed it more 20 years ago. We could talk. I wanna talk about some Brad Pitt stuff later. But the monologue sets up this moment in the final race. That's just fucking awesome. I mean, it's like one of the better sports movie scenes of the last 30, 35 years. It's. And you. You kind of know when he does the monologue. All right. I wonder, you know, I wonder if there's going to be an umbilical cord now to what I. What I think might ha. And then they fucking nailed it.

[Van Lathan]

Even that is a trope. The sports movie trope of describing the thing and then just wait until that thing happens. Like in Tin cup when they're talking about the last time Roy. Yeah. When he made a crowd pleasing 12.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, you know what started was Rocky. He Goes to see where they're having the fight. Remember, the promoter's like, I'm sure you'll give us a good fight. Don't care about your shorts.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

And he goes back and he sees Adrian and he says, not gonna win. I can't beat him.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

But if I can just go the distance. Nobody's ever been the distance with Creed. And he does his whole Stallone monologue. And you're like, oh, man. Now I just want this guy to go like he's planting all the seeds. They kind of do that with this. But after five decades of these movies, you know, when they do the monologue, you're like, all right, we're gonna circle back on this one.

[Van Lathan]

But once it actually happens in this film, I'm sitting there and I'm like, because the movie has kind of set up, I guess, at least a shred of belief that things can go wrong. There are some unexpected turns. So once it starts happening for him, once he gets locked in that zone, I'm just like, man, cross the finish line and win. And if a sports movie gets you to that point, you know that your protagonist is probably going to win at the end.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

But them getting you to want the protagonist to win, that's the goal of the movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, when I. So I was. I've been writing about sport. Well, I don't write anymore, but when I used to write about sports movies all the time, I was like the Roger Ebert of bad sports movies. Just like, trying to write. I'd write reviews on anything. I wrote a review of Summer Catching. That's how many. How much many sports movies.

[Van Lathan]

That's an important movie, though.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, for you.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

That's White Girl hall of Fame.

[Van Lathan]

That's one of the movies when I was like that. And then a couple of years later, she comes back with the iconic scene in. And I pronounce you Chuck and Larry.

[Bill Simmons]

There you go.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. It's no secret that great teams need great teammates. And when it comes to insurance, State Farm is there to help you find the right coverage for your home, car and more. Whether you need an in person or digital assistant, they're ready. When life hits you with a full court press, get a game plan that helps fit your life. And talk to State Farm today. State Farm with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. Chill scenes were massively important in sports movies for a long, long time. By chill scene, I mean those scenes when, like, Hoosiers Has a bunch of them where it's like they go around the locker room before the big game. It's like, I want to win for my dad. And you're just like, oh man. Or like when Ollie hits the two free throws and everyone explodes. And you know, you just, if you have a chance to get goosebumps or you get that little like funny feeling when it's like, oh man, that was great. This movie has a chill scene.

[Van Lathan]

Which chill scene?

[Bill Simmons]

The last big climactic scene.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, a chills. You mean chills?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, you're just like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely goosebumps.

[Van Lathan]

Definitely.

[Bill Simmons]

That's got one of those.

[Van Lathan]

It's. And it also has like something to where something in it that a lot of sports movies do. Some of them do poorly to where you start to wonder if your protagonist is getting on your fucking nerves. Like if this guy's just a loser. Right.

[Bill Simmons]

You in this case, Sonny Hayes. Yeah, what a name, right?

[Van Lathan]

If this guy's just a, you know, you're like, come on, Sonny, don't have sex with the technical leader of the team. Don't do this.

[Bill Simmons]

I know she's got that little cute Irish accent. She keeps looking at you with those little bat nosed eyes at you.

[Van Lathan]

But Sonny's gotta hold off.

[Bill Simmons]

Sonny.

[Van Lathan]

Stay away from it.

[Bill Simmons]

Come on, Sonny.

[Van Lathan]

Sonny's whole deal. And then you're like, you know what? No, that old Sonny, he ain't gonna pull through.

[Bill Simmons]

Get in. Get in there. Sonny.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, Sonny's okay. I don't mind it from Sonny. I accept it from Sonny. You know, and then I think Damson's part in this movie because this is not a character that there's asked much of, however.

[Bill Simmons]

But he brings a lot to the table somehow.

[Van Lathan]

What you needed was someone who could charisma movie star their way through. It's a very important role in his career. Cause I'm like, oh, when he's on screen, he is worthy to be next to Brad Pitt. Because you could easily get bowled over by the charm and the mag. The magnetism, should I say, of Brad Pitt. But he, he never really does.

[Bill Simmons]

Also like on paper it's like Brad pit, old grizzled white hero guy. Here's your cocky black counterpart that you're going to have. It's like, all right, this could go. This could go. Well, I'm saying this is on paper. This.

[Van Lathan]

Wait a minute, is that. Wait a minute, is that this is this.

[Bill Simmons]

No, but I mean when you saw.

[Van Lathan]

That, have you been f wanting this situation? I've been at the ring is cocky.

[Bill Simmons]

Black counterparts.

[Van Lathan]

Anyway. Not. It's not. I'm just wondering if.

[Bill Simmons]

Am I the trailer? And you're like, all right, I get what this is. But I didn't feel like watching the movie.

[Van Lathan]

I didn't.

[Bill Simmons]

I actually really liked him.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And I kind of saw his side of everything, you know?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Because we haven't talked about Javier Bardem, and I guess we should, but he is the guy that has sacrificed to be the lead driver, and he's got all the potential.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

He's two in his own head. How is he going to both take the direction from the old wizard but not lose too much of himself and become him? And at the end, he was like.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, wait on that point, then.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, cool.

[Bill Simmons]

There was like, some NBA NFL parallels with that, too, where it's like, I'm a franchise player. That's what my contract says.

[Van Lathan]

Exactly.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, your team's not winning. Well, but that's. I'm. I have 5 million people on Instagram. Like, the way he was doing that. We haven't seen a lot of those characters in sports movies just because we're not making as many sports movies that are good anymore. And that specific character is the last 10 years. I am a star because social media and my place, and I've done commercials, but I haven't really done anything. But that doesn't matter because. And I have my guy who's arranging all this stuff, and I've interviewed. It's interesting that. That. That specific character, because I think of the different generations of sports movies in this generation we're in now. I don't know other sports movies that have hit that well.

[Van Lathan]

I think you could argue that there are a couple of reasons. Number one, we relate to that character more now than we ever have.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a last seven, eight years thing.

[Van Lathan]

Right. In the past, we just didn't relate to that guy. That guy that went, hey, make a lot of money, become as famous as you possibly can. If you win, cool. If you build great teams and great culture, cool. But you don't have to, because, like, now we have arguments to where it's like, you know, hey, man, if you came up on a $225 million contract and you never got to the conference finals, that's a win. We're very cynical about these things. Now, F1 is interesting because it's a sport where you could die. So because it's a sport where you could die, that means if you don't do things in the right way and you don't listen and you don't engage in teamwork. That could be the last race that you run. So. Right.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, Gilbert Arenas wasn't going to die in the court if The Wizards went 35 and 47, whereas this guy. Well, maybe he was the bad example.

[Van Lathan]

Shout out to Gil's Arena. Yes, but, like, Gil is the wrong. You never know how it's going to go in the locker room with Gil. Shout out. That's all in him. I love that show.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's go, Kenny Anderson.

[Van Lathan]

But. But, yeah, but in this situation, remember, he doesn't listen to Sonny and he ends up out of commission for a little bit.

[Bill Simmons]

But he could have. Could have told his mom that he didn't listen.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, he didn't. He let Sonny take the whole fall.

[Bill Simmons]

Sonny take it.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I like that character, though. And I. I think when you asked, like, was it a little light on the plot? I don't think it was light on the plot. It was just familiar. And I don't know if that's the movie's fault, because we've just had too many sports movies. I don't really know. Unless you're gonna do, like, what Cameron Crowe was able to do with Jerry Maguire, where you're just completely reinventing a sports movie. Right.

[Van Lathan]

Where the.

[Bill Simmons]

At where that the star athlete is not even the most important character. And it's built around an agent and this whole world around sports, which is kind of where movies have gone first from a sports standpoint. The last, I would say 15 years. And I think the flipping point was probably Moneyball Range.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

There was a movie called sugar in 2009 that was great.

[Van Lathan]

I loved it.

[Bill Simmons]

Sugar's discussion.

[Van Lathan]

I randomly saw that movie on HBO years ago about the Dominican pitcher that comes to him.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a classic.

[Van Lathan]

And he. Then he starts really pitching well, and it looks like he's a phenom, and then it kind of doesn't go sideways. Not a ton of dialogue or anything, but just fantastic. Fantastic movie. Almost plays like a documentary. Love that film.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So. And you saw, like, the Way Back with Affleck.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Like Warrior.

[Bill Simmons]

We moved into a different kind of era of sports movies. Last 15 years, where they were more. Not like the ones we grew up with. They're more like movies that also happen to be about sports.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And character studies. And this is like an old school. Could have come out basically in any decade. There would have been some version of it, which. Which I thought was cool. Racing movies. So I've seen three Steve McQueen.

[Van Lathan]

Lemon never saw It.

[Bill Simmons]

Bobby Deerfield. Pacino.

[Van Lathan]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

Something like it. Days of Thunder.

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Driven with Sly Stallone and Burt Reynolds, where they both have just had. All of a sudden, they weren't cool anymore. They both had a lot of plastic surgery. I remember writing that they both looked like they were wearing Halloween masks of themselves. And then our boy from. Remember the Titans. What was his name? Sunshine. Yeah. Kip Purdue. What are you playing? Remember the Titans, Sunshine.

[Van Lathan]

Play Sunshine.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So that was supposed to be his star vehicle. And he. He literally crashed.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Talladega Nights, of course. Senna, which was a documentary. One of the best sports documentaries of all time. Okay, Rush. Oh, yeah, Rush is great.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Now Rush is.

[Bill Simmons]

Rush is also Probably a top 10 sports movie of the century.

[Van Lathan]

Ringer pilled movie, because I had never seen that movie until I got here. And everybody's like, you really need to watch that. And then I checked it out, and.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Rush has aged really nicely because people just care about F. One more, though. Yeah, you know what? And then Ford vs Ferrari was the only other one. There's been some bad ones.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I saw one. There was one with. And I don't know if I'm making this up, but I feel like there was one with Kenny. With Kenny Rogers back in the day where he played a race car driver and he had to take care Stroker Ace. I don't think it was Stroker Ace. He had to take care of a wayward group of kids.

[Bill Simmons]

Was it fat Kenny Rogers or skinnier Kenny Rogers?

[Van Lathan]

I can't remember, man. I'm telling you, we go back and forth. It was a Kenny Rogers movie where he was a race car driver. I used to. Used to come on cable. We had to take place of a group of misfit kids.

[Bill Simmons]

I did not have that one on my list.

[Van Lathan]

I could be making this up, bro.

[Bill Simmons]

It's interesting, though, because boxing movies just happen over and over again. We talk about that. It's just they never.

[Van Lathan]

And every.

[Bill Simmons]

It seems like almost every great actor wants to say, fuck it, I got to do my boxing movie. I'm going to get in crazy shape.

[Van Lathan]

See, that's a part of it.

[Bill Simmons]

And it's. And I'm just. People get to see me and I'll win the big fight in the end. I'll get the girl, and nobody can resist it. And you go through every great actor or good actor who is like, over five, nine has probably made one.

[Van Lathan]

It's. It's over five.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, like, Pacino never made a boxing. Right. I guess he could have been, like.

[Van Lathan]

A flyweight, but like Denzel, Jake Gyllenhaal, they all have to do. They all.

[Bill Simmons]

I guess Leo's one of the only ones who didn't do it.

[Van Lathan]

It doesn't fit with him being a boxer in a movie. He never. He's not really physical in movies.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Like, it's not. I mean, he's sometimes a little bit.

[Bill Simmons]

Tom Hardy, does the MMA version of it, so. But racing, which I think can really work if you pull it off, but you need the kind of access. I mean, that was another thing. This movie, you were fully immersed because F1 let them fully immerse themselves in the movie. You saw the drivers, like, they're racing. People like Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton are kind of borderline villains in the movie because they're trying to beat our guys.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Lewis is a producer on it. It's. It. It's also the perfect time for F1 because it's only been in the last.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Five, six years. Like, obviously, you know, pre pandemic and then a little bit after that. I've heard people that I know say, hey, Van, you should go to F1 race. It's really just like an awesome.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we know. I mean, we know people that just have become addicted to it.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, friends in my life, like, people that work for the ringer, people like Rossillo, people that just, like, really got into it, that wake up in the mornings. We started a Ringer F1 show. Like, I never would have expected to have a F1 show.

[Van Lathan]

This movie is, like, I was saying, I saw Trayvon last night. He was leaving the movie for, like, the third time. Cause he loves F1 that much.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow.

[Van Lathan]

But also, it's a beautiful movie about beautiful, rich, expensive shit, which also sells and great locales and great locales going.

[Bill Simmons]

All over the place. You even get to be in Vegas with, like, a nice hotel suite looking out on the strip.

[Van Lathan]

They driving past the cvs, and you're like, oh, I know where that is. And maybe I should go to the F1 race in Vegas. The villain, the real villain in the movie doesn't appear to, like, the end of the second act into the third act.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, we meet him, but we don't know he's the villain yet.

[Van Lathan]

We meet him, but we don't know he's the villain yet. There are parts of the film that I think a different writer came in and put in the movie. Was there any part of you that could see the seams in it?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that. I mean, there's definitely some. There's some holes. I thought there was a couple parts. You know, they. They definitely wanted to get the. You do the dip where it's like, we're riding high montage. Now we're low. Now we're riding up again.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

And it felt like it was. It was. They tried to do two dips with the accidents.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Which, by the way, one of those accidents, I thought was one of the best things I've ever seen filmed in a sports movie. I was like, I don't even know.

[Van Lathan]

How they did it. Which you talking about The.

[Bill Simmons]

The Sunny's one.

[Van Lathan]

Sonny's accident. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

That was spectacular. And Kaczynski was on Sean's pod talking about how they studied all of these different accidents that actually happened and didn't, like, completely recreate them because you can't complete but, like, try to be in the vicinity of what the actual accident was. So it was realistic. But I thought that part was great. And then we gotta talk about Brad Pitt.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I was about to say that. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Cause that's another giant piece. I mean, there's some really good supporting people in this movie all over the place. I thought Kerry Connen was excellent. Not who you would take. Like, one of the ways they fuck movies up like this is. It's like they overcast it. Yeah. It's like Gail Gadot.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Gal Gadot is gonna be the.

[Van Lathan]

They overcast it.

[Bill Simmons]

Gonna be the lady who's building the cars. It's like, come on.

[Van Lathan]

They put somebody in there. Like, it was like, I think Denise Richards. Yeah. Yeah. It's like nuclear physicist Christmas Jones.

[Bill Simmons]

Or like Elizabeth Shue in the Saint.

[Van Lathan]

Right. It's like.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like, okay, yeah.

[Van Lathan]

You know what I mean? Just cast it. Properly cast it.

[Bill Simmons]

She was just cool. It's like, oh, man. I like. Cause she was in that Colin Farrell movie. She's been in a bunch of stuff. She's a good actress.

[Van Lathan]

Everything that came from that character just has to be believable. It has to be believable that she would leave whatever situation she was in as a smart egghead and go run a racing team or whatever. It has to be believable that she didn't have chemistry with Brad Pitt.

[Bill Simmons]

Axum was great. I like the way sometimes movies will have this. Like, she was really convincing. Like, you could tell she was. She was enchanted by Sunny. She did a good job of just kind of like you're watching her going, is she falling for this, dude? I feel like she is, but you kind of didn't know. And for a while.

[Van Lathan]

And then by the balcony scene, she's full on hanging on his own.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Like, he's got her in the palm.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, she was good. I thought she was a really good character. Because that's a character in a sports movie that could go sideways. And then our guy. Our guy from no country for Old Men. Flip a coin.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, Javier Bardem. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Flip a coin.

[Van Lathan]

Get it mixed in your. And it would just become a coin.

[Bill Simmons]

I just think, like it is when they have. When they have somebody like that. I just think he should have the haircut from no country just. But never explained. He's just got a bowl.

[Van Lathan]

He's just got the bowl.

[Bill Simmons]

He's just dressed like the guy who's just carrying around one of those air vapor guns.

[Van Lathan]

Quick aside. Do you know.

[Bill Simmons]

But he. I thought he was really good.

[Van Lathan]

He was great. Um, do you know what? One of the saddest scenes. Just quick aside. The scene between Anton and Carson, which is Woody Harrelson.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

That is a sad scene. I watched no country for Old Men twice last week. I'm not sure why. It's the scene where he's Woody Harrelson with all of that charm is sitting there.

[Bill Simmons]

He's just not buying in front of the Grim Reaper. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And you know, he's dead and he's trying to talk his way out of it. This is a really top five sad scenes.

[Bill Simmons]

That's one of the two movies that has grown on me the most in the 21st century. We already did it on rewatch.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I saw it. I was like, ah, weird ending. When I saw it in the theater. And then you watched it a couple more times and you're like, that ending was amazing. Now in 2025, I'm like, that's one of the best movies last 30 years.

[Van Lathan]

But when you see him in this film, number one once again, cast it very well. He looks first of all like an F1 driver. That's how those guys look, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. He looks like an ex F1 driver. Yeah. You can see like he won like, in 2000.

[Van Lathan]

Those guys are good looking.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

They're European. He looks. And then he also looks like somebody that. Because Brad Pitt is Brad Pitt when he's on screen. Who is Brad Pitt going to respect?

[Charles Holmes]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

It's kind of like the Jon Hamm situation from Top Gun Maverick. You need somebody in that role that you could be like, oh, okay. I see why this conversation between these two people would make sense. Not just in this world, but like in my mind as well. So he fills that spot. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

You have those XF1 guys, they're just like, keep your girl away from these guys. They have to have some sort of vibe. Yeah. Don't, don't. No. You're not driving my wife home.

[Van Lathan]

Everything in Europe has to do with sex. Okay?

[Bill Simmons]

Horny, horny region of the world.

[Van Lathan]

Sex.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Like I'm looking at these soccer players. They're out there running around like models, bro. Dudes in the NBA don't even be getting a lineup. All right. They playing three games in a week sometimes. The shit, the opening, dating. That's it. Like everything out there, it's sex, sex, sex with these Europeans is what I've noticed.

[Bill Simmons]

That's a good observation. Brad Pitt. Four decades of Brad Pitt as a leading man in an iconic movie. And I think this movie is an iconic sports movie already.

[Van Lathan]

You'd say that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Only listen, it's not. I don't know where it's going to rank in the all time pyramid, but I think for what it does with the technology we have, I think it's going to be. I think it's going to be remembered. I think it's influential.

[Van Lathan]

Greatest racing movie ever. Are you ready to put it up in the pantheon for discussion?

[Bill Simmons]

I'm looking at the list. I have to watch Rush again. I thought Rush was great. But. But like for to appeal to me and my wife and my kids. Right. And I'm sure the generations in between. And I know my dad would like it now. Now it's four generations of people who are like, I just know if you like sports movies, you're gonna beat on this. And whether you like racing or not, you're gonna like it. Brad Pitt. So 7. Fight Club, Ocean's Eleven, Inglourious Basterds, Moneyball, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and F1. Just those seven movies from a rewatch ball. Popcorn. Culturally they mattered when they came out for some way. And that's a span of seven. Was 1995.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Mid-90s to now. Think about who the famous athletes were in 1995. It was like Steve Young won the super bowl that year.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Michael Jordan.

[Bill Simmons]

Michael Jordan was coming back from retiring the first time. That's a long time ago. I have six stages of Brad Pitt.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Stage number one, up and coming. Interesting. Handsome guy. 90 to 94. Thumb and Louise. River Runs Through It. True Romance, Californication, Interview with Vampire. It's like every girl I know loves this guy. Not sure is he Redford. What what's the path for him? Might be Redford didn't know right then. It's leading man on training wheels for the next four years. Seven big hit for him. 12 Monkeys sleepers. Seven years in Tibet and then Meet Joe Black. They really went for it with him. And it did. The movie wasn't good, but they went. That was the movie where it's like Brad Pitt's massive star. He's with Anthony Hopkins. We're really going for this. It didn't work.

[Van Lathan]

It was the movie where they were like. So it was the movie where they were like, let's just put Brad Pitt in a movie with an older guy and a interesting young face and see if he can just movie star his way through it.

[Bill Simmons]

This is a Robert Redford part.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Can you be Robert Redford for two hours?

[Van Lathan]

It's actually not what Brad Pitt does, though.

[Bill Simmons]

No. Cause he's.

[Van Lathan]

Brad Pitt leaves. He needs a little something.

[Bill Simmons]

He needs to. It's always been said. But he's like the best looking character actor of all time.

[Van Lathan]

Right. He needs a little something. He doesn't just do that even in a Riverrun story. Through it.

[Bill Simmons]

Good movie.

[Van Lathan]

Well, not A River Runs Through It. I didn't mean that one because you left out Legends of the Fall. Or was it in there? Did you have it in there?

[Bill Simmons]

It's later.

[Van Lathan]

Okay. Legends of the Fall is a very important movie for Brad Pitt to me. Because Legends of the Fall was the movie where a lot of people fell in love. Right. But.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, I should. That was 94. That should have been in there.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, well. But there's something going on with that movie. That movie is like a serious drama. It's not a dreamy rom com about a guy coming back and he's deaf and all of that stuff. And death is about to. No, that movie is about three brothers go away to war. Or two brothers go away to war. They come back, they're trying to fuck each other's girls. All kinds of stuff. There's all kinds of mystic, beautiful, ethereal shit happening. And that is the perfect Brad Pitt role. And so he goes away from that. But he always has to have a little something in the movie that's a little grimy, that's a little more. We don't just trust Brad Pitt just to smile his way through a movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, true romance. He's Floyd, which is one of the funniest, like Tarantino characters. Californication. He's a maniac.

[Van Lathan]

Crazy.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, that's just a nuts movie to be classic.

[Van Lathan]

He does he does Maniac again in. In 12 Monkeys?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So when he's leading man in training wheel seven, 12 monkeys, sleeper seven years, Tibet, meet Joe Black. It's like, all right, this might not have. This might not happen the way we thought, but they're still something. Something really good here. And then he becomes an A lister in the next five years. Fight Club, Snatch the Mexican, which was a movie that didn't do that well, but it was Julia Roberts, him getting off.

[Van Lathan]

He.

[Bill Simmons]

Ocean's Eleven, I think, is the big one, right? Because now he's with. Damon's on the rise, Clooney's a star, the three of them together, the movie becomes massive. And by the time Troy comes out in 04, it's like Brad Pitt can carry a movie. Like this wasn't a very good movie.

[Van Lathan]

I liked it. But I just remember Troy. I was in. I was going to see a movie with Candace Stein, shout out to Candace, Earl's family. My girlfriend at the time. I'm sure she's married or whatever. And the Troy Traylor came on and Brad Pitt was Achilles. He had let the hair flow. And all of a sudden, we're sitting there when a black woman in a black movie theater in a black city in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Brad comes on screen and she goes, uh. And I'm sitting there at over £300, and I'm like, yo, man, can you not. And she goes, I'm sorry, Brad's still fine. And she was saying still. And that was 20 years ago. She was saying still.

[Bill Simmons]

And that was 20 plus years ago.

[Van Lathan]

And that was 20 plus years Ago.

[Bill Simmons]

That leads us to the next stage of Brad Pitt, the Brangelina Heyday.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

04 to 11. Mr. And Mrs. Smith, Benjamin Button and Glorious Basterds Moneyball were the highlight movies. But he's like an A plus lister from the Brangelina thing. Makes him one of the most famous people in the world.

[Van Lathan]

Could you make an argument that it's not actually until Mr. And Mrs. Smith that Brad Pitt is a hyper super megawatt A lister?

[Bill Simmons]

That's what I just said. I think he's an A plus lister, Angelina.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, I think he was an A lister. What I was going to say, rather than listening to you.

[Bill Simmons]

No, no, he was an A lister. And then he became an A plus lister.

[Van Lathan]

Right, But.

[Bill Simmons]

But he was like. He had the celebrity relationships. Like, he dated Paltrow, he dated Jennifer Aniston.

[Van Lathan]

You know, he. He always had.

[Bill Simmons]

But I'm just saying, the Angelina thing was like, boom.

[Van Lathan]

He was on the tip of everybody's tongue. Everyone was talking about what was going on. And not just that, but that movie became.

[Bill Simmons]

That movie's good.

[Van Lathan]

It's a good movie and a formative film. Like they made a bunch of different Mr. And Mrs. Smith type movies after that.

[Bill Simmons]

So Inglourious Basterds. And by the way, so he works with Fincher and Benjamin Button. Yeah, interesting movie. Some New Orleans in there.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino and then Moneyball is probably the best he's ever been in a movie, except for maybe Fight Club.

[Van Lathan]

He's just like, Fight Club is tough. Yeah, it's a tough performance right there.

[Bill Simmons]

Fight Club. He's awesome. Like, you're just like, wow, this is like Robert Redford could not have been. Not have done this. You were now moving a little closer almost to De Niro. But Moneyball was like, man, I just fucking like Brad Pitt. Yeah, that was like. That was one of those movies. But then we hit the next stage. The swoon. Cause the Brangelina related, they all of a sudden they have like six kids. Bad press, Some bad press floating around. There's a lot of weird stories about them and the movies. Even though he's producing, doing some good producing stuff. Killing Them Softly. Allied Fury.

[Van Lathan]

I love that Killing Them Softly movie. I just gotta say it though. That's like, have you seen that one?

[Bill Simmons]

I might have saw it when it came. Who's in it?

[Van Lathan]

So it's him. James Gandolfini is in. Takes place in New Orleans.

[Bill Simmons]

New Orleans Month candidate.

[Van Lathan]

New Orleans Month Candidate. There's either it takes place in New Orleans, it's shot in New Orleans.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we have to do Angel Heart last for New Orleans Month. Cause then that's when the pod gets canceled.

[Van Lathan]

You cancel the podcast, but there's a robbery. They bring Brad Pitt. It's a good movie.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, I'll give it another chance. Yeah, I don't think it did well.

[Van Lathan]

No, it did at all.

[Bill Simmons]

And the most successful things he was involved with were 12 Years a Slave and the Big Short, which he was. He wasn't like leading those movies, just in them. And then the Angelina thing went sideways and it felt like his career might be over.

[Van Lathan]

There was the Tank movie that came out.

[Bill Simmons]

The by the Sea movie was like. And then. Then there was the allegations she had. And the family stuff went. And then Tarantino. This is the last spot. Tarantino kind of revives him with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Covid happens. Everyone forgets everything with COVID And then we get to F1. Now he's in his 60s. He's had a hit movie in his 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s.

[Van Lathan]

This is a very important.

[Bill Simmons]

Not nothing.

[Van Lathan]

This is a very important movie for him. Like a super important movie.

[Bill Simmons]

This might be, I think, for the catalog. He kind of needed.

[Van Lathan]

It had to have. It had to have.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like Redford didn't have a movie in his 60s that was like a massive movie like this.

[Van Lathan]

Also, there's something else that Brad needed, in my opinion. The only way to quiet any chatter online about you. And I don't like to. I'm way moved past the point where I litigate people's personal lives, unless we're talking about really shitty people. But the best way in this day and age is to quiet the chatter about you. Anything that anyone might be saying is going, look, nobody cares. And that's the only way you can do it. You just be like, hey, they say this about you. Maybe you weren't the greatest advice to Diddy. I have no advice to Didi. Okay? There's zero advice. It'll be zero conversation. There's no advice. Okay?

[Bill Simmons]

It's like camera two. No advice.

[Van Lathan]

No advice. But, like, in that situation, look, nobody cares. Look, everything is between me and my family or whomever or whatever. I just went and did this gigantic, big, huge movie. All the sponsors. The movie got made, like 40 or $50 million just in sponsorships. Right. Apple. Everybody's fucking with me. Everybody went to see it. Nobody cares. Next story, next movie.

[Bill Simmons]

The difference. So in a weird way, it's kind of emulating what happened with Cruz, where Cruz, when he hit a certain point in age, just basically became Mission Impossible, Top Gun, Maverick guy. And those are like the two kind of directions he'd go. Brad Pitt. Because Cliff Booth and Sonny are not that far off from each other, I don't think. I mean, Sonny's a little more talkative, but same kind of thing. Like, worn down, still super handsome, can still connect with any woman in the room. Guys are comfortable around him. Like that kind of thing.

[Van Lathan]

Still can get it done.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. And you believe them in any role. Um, so maybe he has a little bit more upside. But the one time with him is now he kind of talks like Buffalo Bill a little bit. Like he has a dip in his mouth.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So I don't like. I thought he was amazing in Moneyball. I actually think he could have made a case. He could have won best actor for that.

[Van Lathan]

Who won that year?

[Bill Simmons]

I think it might have been Was it, was it Dana Day? Lewis?

[Van Lathan]

Lincoln. Lincoln year. Yeah. Football's fantastic.

[Bill Simmons]

But now, you know, age 61, he's got a rough life. Kind of does all his lines like this, a little half smile on his face. But it worked.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, it does.

[Bill Simmons]

You're buying it. I don't think he could be like some of the roles he played in the 90s, 2000s. I just don't think he'd do it anymore.

[Van Lathan]

Well, no, I mean he's gone from being.

[Bill Simmons]

Cause if you look back, if you.

[Van Lathan]

Look back at that decade, he was a lot of those movies. Young cowboy. He was a young cowboy. He's young cowboy in seven. You see him, he's the young. He's even kind of.

[Bill Simmons]

Although, well, seven. He's just like skinny cop guy.

[Van Lathan]

I know. But he's being schooled by the older, more grizzled. I'm out of here. Vet. Ocean's eleven, him and Rusty and Danny kind of on the same level. But now he's the old cowboy in the movie. And the question is, can he still keep up? And you would thought that Brad Pitt would have never gotten to a point to where you put him in a movie. And then the question would be like, he could never play the can you still do it? Guy. Cause he's just too otherworldly, handsome, otherworldly, charismatic. But he was able to kind of make that case in this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

He did a nice job and I'm sure there's some bells and whistles with it, but he's done a really nice job of keeping his looks as like an. A leading man guy. Which I think when people hit their late 50s, 60s on the big screen, you just start transitioning or you end up like Cruz, where it just doesn't seem Cruise. Jennifer Connelly in the bedroom scene. Top Gun Maverick, one of the funniest scenes of the 2020s, right? You just end up veering in that road where you're like, come on guys, what are we doing?

[Van Lathan]

But I gotta give Tom credit for hysterically laughing.

[Bill Simmons]

No shirt on.

[Van Lathan]

I gotta give Tom credit in that movie for. I know it's the script for going with age appropriate co star. Cause Tom was wilding for years, right? If you guys told him it would be Tom Cruise and it'd be the hottest 23 year old, 24 year old up and coming actor. And we'd be like, come on tomorrow, man.

[Bill Simmons]

Like so him with Ana to Armis and Top Gun Maverick. Might not have worked.

[Van Lathan]

Would not have worked.

[Bill Simmons]

Brad could pull it off though, because Brad's one of those we looked up after. My kids were like, how old is he? And they were. They thought he was younger than I was, Brad being 61. Well, does he look 61?

[Van Lathan]

No, no, no.

[Bill Simmons]

I was like, I think he's like, 49. I had no idea.

[Van Lathan]

But no, he doesn't.

[Bill Simmons]

They're like, holy shit.

[Van Lathan]

Anyway, does he look 61? No.

[Bill Simmons]

My. My only nitpicks for this movie, it has a. A poker scene. And I just don't think they need. That's where they needed my sports movie consultancy agency to come in and help them out. Didn't have a feel. They're playing Texas hold'. Em. It's kind of a key scene in the movie. And we don't really see the cards long enough in the middle. I don't know who's. There's no drama. Like, it is not casino rail.

[Charles Holmes]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's put it that way. I didn't love that. I didn't. You know, Sonny, not to spoil the ending, but there. But the. The big, big race at the end, it's a long trip for him to get there, and he just kind of shows up right before and it's like, oh, man. Like.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, you mean the actual F1 race? Yeah. I thought you meant the Baja thing. The Baja thing?

[Bill Simmons]

No, no, no.

[Van Lathan]

Actually was not needed at all.

[Bill Simmons]

No. I would have not had that. I would just cut that out. But the. Him just going to Saudi Arabia or Abu Dhabi, wherever he was, on a moment's notice.

[Van Lathan]

Premium economy.

[Bill Simmons]

And then he's going to be in a race, Right? Like, it doesn't take like, a day. And a. Like, Martin Bacoli did that and he got knocked down in, like, a round.

[Van Lathan]

But look, this is. This is.

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't love that.

[Van Lathan]

He travels around in a van. He lives in a van. He's rough and tumbled. He's like Ben said in the commentary of Armageddon, they don't understand his rough and tumble ways.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

So he's the type of guy that could get off the plane, get right into the cockpit of an F1 car, and go win the race. The biggest race of his life.

[Bill Simmons]

Very important Brad Pitt catalog movie. Very important movie. Big Kozytski now, I think, has hit that Tony Scott, like, whatever his next movie is. I'm gonna go.

[Van Lathan]

I'm watching it also. Very important movie for Apple.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah. It might have, like, saved their movie business.

[Van Lathan]

Gigantic. I don't know. Saved. They got saved.

[Bill Simmons]

Would they have spent. I know, but would they have just kept trotting out $300 million checks for movies. If this didn't work, man, they. And they promoted it great. And I try to avoid all of it because I never like to know anything when I go to a movie. But they. It was hard to escape. Especially, like, even if you went to Apple TV, it was like, F1's coming. F1's coming. They're like banging it in your head.

[Van Lathan]

On there right now. You see F1, F1. You know, I'm just gonna go check it out. I think it was an important movie, More so. Not for Apple from a financial standpoint, because I don't think that really matters to them. But I do think from the standpoint of, hey, we can put together a film. And this is not a shot at Scorsese's movie, right? Not at all. But we can put together a film that is legitimately successful. And when I say legitimately successful, I mean worldwide success. Worldwide successful. Our studio, our talent, our production. We go out and we make one that just attracts more. I mean, not that they're gonna have any problem getting talent.

[Bill Simmons]

Good. Well, let's all get that Apple money.

[Van Lathan]

I'm with it.

[Bill Simmons]

Start pitching them stuff tomorrow. Yeah, and then we forgot to mention Brad Pitt now in two of the best sports movies of the 21st century.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, Moneyball.

[Bill Simmons]

Not ready to do. I don't know if it's top five, top seven. I gotta probably do a ranking at some point this summer. But they're both in the top 10. There's no question.

[Van Lathan]

Is he two for two, though? Are those his only two sports movies? Is he two for two?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. He doesn't have, like, a legend of Bagger Vance hiding his skeleton in his closet.

[Van Lathan]

I'm trying to think like I'm missing something. He hasn't.

[Bill Simmons]

When are we doing that on the rewatchables?

[Van Lathan]

I'm not doing it.

[Bill Simmons]

You're not in it.

[Van Lathan]

Y' all could do it.

[Bill Simmons]

Could it be for how the did this movie happen, Mike?

[Van Lathan]

Right. Will, what the fuck are you all about, everybody?

[Bill Simmons]

Why that didn't know how to play golf until that crash course teach him. That'd be a fun movie to make fun of. All right, so last thing before we go now, this is a spoiler.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Did the right person. So if you haven't seen the movie yet, just go. You can just fast forward to the next segment. Did the right person win the last race? It was a swerve. The way they set it up. I. I was actually really surprised. How Missionary position, old school sports movie. Traditional. They went it's like, let's have the old white guy win this one. I thought for sure the new guy was. And he was going to sacrifice. So the new guy win. They both win. And they really zagged. And. And then we were arguing about in the car after, and my kids were like, no, no. But DP won, too, because the fireworks are behind him. He's going to win a lot of races coming. I was like, I don't know, like, Sonny's really going to win the race. So I thought it was a little 1980s ish.

[Van Lathan]

I'm going to try to get my Mahoney on here and be precise, but it's tough. I'm glad he won. Okay. I'm glad he won because he had never won before, Right? To me, my thing is, this was a big point of contention. When we left the theater as well, it was four of us. We went to see the movie. Everybody had a different take.

[Bill Simmons]

But do you think it was a swerve or did they just go Jerry Bruckheimer? Cause he produced their old school Hollywood. No, no. Brad's gotta win the race. This is how it goes.

[Van Lathan]

I'm looking at the movie going into that final race going, wow, who needs to win here? Do we need to have a story where Brad ensures that Damson's character wins? But if we do that, sure, he shepherds this young man, but then he never wins a race. This reminds me of my great disdain for a movie called Mr. 3000.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't like that movie.

[Van Lathan]

But here's. I'm not talking about. I like the movie just fine. But the fact that he has 3,000 hits, he comes back to get the one hit, and then he sacrificed bunts or whatever and sacrifices that last hit for the team. Stupid to me. I think about 493 home runs all the time for Fred McGriff. And I'm like, Fred McGriff was seven home runs away from 500. I would have played nine more years.

[Bill Simmons]

Just be a court just to get.

[Van Lathan]

Those seven home runs. So to me, when I look at, like, guys like the Sonny character in this movie, Let him win one race, man. Let him win the race. Let him win one race.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you think DP would have been that excited about it, though?

[Van Lathan]

That's his. But that's his character arc. His character arc is, he's come so far that he can be excited that Sonny won his race. Sonny's come so far that he doesn't sabotage himself anymore.

[Bill Simmons]

See, this was Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown when they had the. When Jayson didn't win the finals. Mvp, but he was happy for Jaylen Brown because they both won.

[Van Lathan]

That would have been.

[Bill Simmons]

This is what I was trying to say a year ago.

[Van Lathan]

That would have been if DP was driving and he just choked in the last lap.

[Bill Simmons]

Come on. Jason Tatum's in a boot right now. What are you doing?

[Van Lathan]

He's doing great. I'm glad.

[Bill Simmons]

He's doing great.

[Van Lathan]

He's doing great. Do you see him walking?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. He's swimming. He's walking around.

[Van Lathan]

He's going to be.

[Bill Simmons]

Bill, he's fine.

[Van Lathan]

He might be back.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not. We're not allowing ourselves to think about it. We don't have a center.

[Van Lathan]

All right.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. That and then flying. Now we can say because I turned the spoiler alert thing off or on. Flying to Abu Dhabi, showing up right for the race, and then winning a Formula one race. Because my son. My son was like, should I start? Like, you think I could be an F1 driver? Like, it's like one of those conversations. I was like, we. We're all worried. We're like, this is gonna be a new fascination for you. And we were all like, it. The amount of concentration and endurance you need to have to do that, that's like, you can't even. To you. To the amount of locked in you have to be. To be locked in for that long. It's like a special kind of human being. And that is not my son. It's not anyone I know.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Like, who knows? You ever see those guys? They're old, grainy pictures where they're like, behind the wheel of a go kart or a soapbox car when they're like 7 or 8 years old. Look at me. Hi. You know what I'm saying? But what I always think about is, I think about these drivers, like Lewis and Michael Schumacher and all of those guys. I think about Senna and all those guys, but I also think about how many Sonny Hayes there must be out there.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Guys who wrecked it, fucked their backs up or whatever, and now they're somewhere, you know, popping pain pills for the rest of their life. And they didn't make it. That's why I was happy that he won the race. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Cause one of the things I don't understand is F1, because it seemed like when he was trying to sabotage the race early on and, like, basically causing little accidents.

[Van Lathan]

Safety car.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. And I was like, can people do this? Like, it feels like that would be a big thing if people did shit like this.

[Van Lathan]

That's the part of the sport.

[Bill Simmons]

That's where we don't know exactly.

[Van Lathan]

That's the part of it where the. Where I'm holding the movie's hand going, okay, if you guys say this could happen, then this could happen.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Well, that's like probably what it's like to watch a basketball movie with us, right? Because I remember the first year of er, we watched with my stepmother one of the episodes, and she was like, oh, my stepmother was a doctor. And she was like, that's stupid. That would never happen. Oh, my God. They would never have that. And we were just like, can you just stop? Can you let us enjoy. Enjoy the SAP and ectomy that's being performed right now, please? Have you seen a show called the Good Doctor, by the way?

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

So we watch Bachelor in Paradise this week. What the fuck is Hulu Zoe's home?

[Van Lathan]

Oh, okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it was Z and it ended. And they, you know, the streamers do this new thing where they just shove. There's no credits. It's just. There's a new show started. So the Good Doctor started. Never seen it. Never seen one moment of it. And it was the pilot episode and we were kind of like locked in.

[Van Lathan]

You fucking with it.

[Bill Simmons]

It's pretty good.

[Van Lathan]

Young kid.

[Bill Simmons]

It was like kind of the Good Doctor's background. It's pretty good network tv. Maybe I'm aging into the demo finally. Maybe I should start watching CIS Simmons. Maybe this should be my new podcast where I age the over 55 shows I just start. It's like, oh, good Matlock.

[Van Lathan]

Last night. Cannot Matlock. Kathy Bates. Yeah, Kathy Bates is Matlock now. NCIS Simmons with the lady from True Blood. She's in the show. It's called like Elizabeth or something like that. I know these shows because my mom.

[Bill Simmons]

See that and my dad. Yeah, my dad was furious. They canceled Blue Bloods. Couldn't believe it. Felt like it had five more years. But then they spun off Donnie Wahlberg in the Boston Blue, which is in September.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, okay. It's in Boston.

[Bill Simmons]

We're back. Go ahead, make your. Make your jokes.

[Van Lathan]

Go ahead. What?

[Bill Simmons]

Make your jokes about the three episode arc.

[Van Lathan]

I'm saying that he's a cop in Boston.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Van Lathan]

Us in the community, we keep track of the police brutality events that are portrayed in the show.

[Bill Simmons]

It's going to be a positive role model per show.

[Van Lathan]

Then it's not real.

[Bill Simmons]

By the way, Donnie Wahlberg, very close to Jaylen Brown, could see a Jaylen Brown cameo. That's Boston Blue. Yeah. Donnie Wahlberg's, like, very tight with the Celtics.

[Van Lathan]

So Donnie Wahlberg is. Is Mark Wahlberg cool with Jaylen Brown?

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know Mark Wahlberg. I don't. I don't. I can't speak for Mark Wahlberg.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, Jalen.

[Bill Simmons]

Mark Wahlberg sold his house to Paris Hilton.

[Van Lathan]

I want you to Google because. All right, so Mark Wahlberg has done a lot.

[Bill Simmons]

No, no, no. We're not doing this. All right, should we bring in Charles, talk about Superman, or no. Charles. All right, Charles Holmes is here.

[Charles Holmes]

Yo, what up?

[Bill Simmons]

Van's partner in the Midnight Boys. You guys are going to convince me to go see the Superman movie. I'll just make the case. This is how this started. Superman came out in 1978. It's on the theater. Okay. I really like Superman 2. A movie we'll do with the rewatchables at some point. Do you like Superman 2?

[Charles Holmes]

I love Superman 2. Who doesn't?

[Bill Simmons]

Superman 2 is great. There's like, some real stuff in there about how far will you go to keep your powers. Oh, it's like some sports shit in.

[Charles Holmes]

There that's in a lot of superhero movies, though, that we don't watch go true.

[Bill Simmons]

Then they made Superman again. Then I think they made it a third time.

[Van Lathan]

They made four original Christopher Reeve Supermans. Then they came back in 2006 with Bryan Singer, Superman, and then there's man.

[Charles Holmes]

Of Steel versus Superman.

[Bill Simmons]

And now we're not just the Cavill one people kind of liked, right? Not really. Or they like Cavill, but they didn't like the movie.

[Van Lathan]

Cavill wasn't given a super awesome opportunity to play Superman the way he was supposed to be played. He never really got great scripts.

[Charles Holmes]

No, actually, the thing is, once he got good at playing Superman, it was over. It was over. All the movies had flopped to such an extent then. Do you remember the rock coming in and being like, the hierarchy of the DCU is changing. So it was just like he got caught up in a bad system.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, well, now we have another Superman.

[Van Lathan]

Right?

[Charles Holmes]

Hornsway.

[Bill Simmons]

But you guys liked it.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I did. Charles liked it.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't want to see it.

[Van Lathan]

I told you, I'm a hater.

[Charles Holmes]

And even I liked it. All right, let's put. So you said something crazy over at the office where you.

[Bill Simmons]

Was it crazy?

[Charles Holmes]

You said to me, james Bond is cooler than Batman. And I would say, not only is that a crazy take, that kind of points us towards, why are you so. Why do you have such a ill will to superheroes?

[Bill Simmons]

Not an ill will I just like. I like my heroes to be at least somewhat realistic.

[Van Lathan]

James Bond.

[Charles Holmes]

James Bond is realistic.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Charles Holmes]

All right.

[Van Lathan]

Makes a lot of sense.

[Bill Simmons]

Handsome English guy with some gadgets.

[Charles Holmes]

John Wick. Realistic.

[Van Lathan]

James Bond.

[Bill Simmons]

John Wick. They killed his dog. Somebody kills your dog, they kill Batman's parents.

[Charles Holmes]

What is more realistic?

[Bill Simmons]

And then Batman learned how to fly off buildings, like, once. Flying. That's where my suspension goes sideways. But I've seen all these movies. I just. With Superman, I don't know what's left to explore.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, man, you're about to get me started.

[Bill Simmons]

Go ahead. I want to hear it.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, so, you guys, this is not the ring reverse. So this is about to get a little bit schmaltzy and whatever.

[Bill Simmons]

I can't wait.

[Van Lathan]

So I think there's a reason why we keep coming back to the story of Superman. The reason why we keep coming back to the story, and we've always had stories like this, and we've talked about this on the Midnight Boys, is that the story of something that is. Let's face it, Superman is a higher being than the rest of the people on Earth that surround him, right? He's a very powerful being, but chooses to do good. A being that is that powerful, with godlike, almost limitless powers that chooses to.

[Bill Simmons]

Do good is unlike our growing species.

[Van Lathan]

Who chose the other way. Right? Because when we are human beings and we get power, a lot of power, even earthly power, we often don't choose to be good. So Superman, to me, is a character that reflects the durability of humanity. Like, oh, my God, he's such a big deal, but he just wants to be one of us. He wants to have a relationship. He wants to have a job.

[Bill Simmons]

He wants to saddle by his greatness.

[Van Lathan]

Saddled by his greatness, which you love.

[Charles Holmes]

This is a storyline that you invest in every single sports season. Why is it with superheroes, you can't you.

[Van Lathan]

I would say all of this about Jokic, but you won't say it about Callahel from the planet Crypto.

[Bill Simmons]

They got him a good bench this year. Does Superman have a bench in this movie?

[Charles Holmes]

Yes, he does. He does.

[Van Lathan]

Mr.

[Charles Holmes]

Terrific. Hot Girl Metamorpho.

[Bill Simmons]

Who's. Who's Hot Girl?

[Van Lathan]

There you go.

[Bill Simmons]

Who's playing Hot Girl?

[Van Lathan]

Isabella Merced.

[Charles Holmes]

Well, you didn't watch Last of Us either.

[Van Lathan]

Wait, wait, wait, wait. I got one for you, though. It's not her.

[Bill Simmons]

Last of Us. Last of Us. The zombie one.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

That lasted five.

[Charles Holmes]

Rachel Brosnahan, though.

[Van Lathan]

That's not the. That's not Cat Grant.

[Charles Holmes]

Cat Grant.

[Van Lathan]

That's a.

[Charles Holmes]

That's a bill. That's a bill.

[Van Lathan]

Shop bill special bill. There's something. There's something for you in this film, I'm telling you.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, so in the whole ringerverse, because we. It got. It got pretty grim there for a few years with some of the movies we talked about. Our friendship is grim. Fair.

[Charles Holmes]

I will say. Van and I have had a lot of, like, it got so bad. I'm like, damn, our shit is, like, fucked up now.

[Van Lathan]

He's not wrong. Like, we, like.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, the relationship is in trouble.

[Van Lathan]

The movies got so bad to where it. The stuff was so bad to where it was starting to affect our dynamic.

[Charles Holmes]

Yes.

[Van Lathan]

Because he was getting really frustrated. I was trying to put on a brave face, and the whole group was like, man, I'm like, yo, y' all get together. I was like, war, we gotta go to work. Okay, we gotta watch Secret Invasion. Come on, everybody. This is what we do. And Charles is like, man, these shows.

[Charles Holmes]

I was, bro. It was rough, rough.

[Van Lathan]

The stuff just got bad. Like, it.

[Bill Simmons]

So what got bad? It was too familiar. The cgi. Like, what were the reasons they.

[Charles Holmes]

They flooded the zone. I think the superhero genre was very, very great when it's like, oh, we get two or three movies a year, then when.

[Bill Simmons]

So like late 2000s.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah. But then when Marvel is like, actually, you're going to have a Marvel hero in your household every single quarter, every single week. And it just diluted the brand to such an extent. And when you see a Superman movie, you're like, oh, this is a cinematic character. I don't necessarily want to see him 52 weeks of the year. I want on July, on a weekend in July. I want to believe a man can fly.

[Van Lathan]

Also, the movie making. Yeah, like, what he's talking, the filmmaking. So with Marvel, there was Kevin Feige, and he was connecting all the dots on all of this stuff, and they just overwhelmed their capability and the quality started to suck.

[Bill Simmons]

So it'd be like if a couple baseball movies worked, and then they just started making five or six baseball movies a year.

[Van Lathan]

It'd be like, all right, think about this. They make a baseball movie, right? A Babe Ruth movie. Yeah, they make a Babe Ruth movie. It's great. They make.

[Bill Simmons]

So now we're getting Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig.

[Van Lathan]

Well, no, not just that. We're getting a 52 week series about Mark Lemke and Jeff Blauser. No, discipline is like, okay, you guys love this series we just did about Ken Griffey.

[Bill Simmons]

Tommy Clav.

[Charles Holmes]

And we were serious about their fucking mothers in the 1950s and what the fuck they was up to. And I'm like, hey, yo, show me the fucking superheroes, bro.

[Bill Simmons]

Right?

[Charles Holmes]

Too much.

[Bill Simmons]

So we got back to the basics.

[Charles Holmes]

Back to the basics.

[Bill Simmons]

It feels like the heyday was the 2000s, when we had Dark Knight, which is one of the best movies. When we had Dark Knight and Iron man right around each other.

[Van Lathan]

Oh.

[Bill Simmons]

And it felt like it reinvented the possibilities of how great these movies.

[Charles Holmes]

But you hopped off before we got Guardians of the Galaxy.

[Bill Simmons]

I did Panther because there was too many of them. And, like, Even Iron Man 2, I thought was super disappointing. And that was when my guard.

[Charles Holmes]

Not the best movie.

[Van Lathan]

But. But. But I would say the heyday would be 16 to 19.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, well, that's the second heyday, but I missed that one.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Because I enjoyed that first heyday.

[Charles Holmes]

And neither of your kids were into the mcu.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, I tried to get it going with my son, and it just never completely took. We started. We started it correctly, and by, like, the fifth one, we were out.

[Charles Holmes]

But don't you also feel like Superman is in that, like, milieu of characters? To me, where it's like, James Bond, Batman, Superman. Like, you have these, like, characters where were kind of like, damn, I kind of want to see if they can work. Rocky with Creed.

[Van Lathan]

You.

[Charles Holmes]

You have those type of characters where it's like, it kind of tells you.

[Bill Simmons]

Then it's diminishing. Returns after if it's the same, right?

[Charles Holmes]

You liked F1. I liked F1. F1 wasn't reinventing the Wheel. It's just Top Gun Maverick again. But there is something about, like, Settle down, Charles.

[Bill Simmons]

Jesus.

[Van Lathan]

This is. This is the.

[Bill Simmons]

This is the Top Gun Maverick again.

[Van Lathan]

This is the guy. This is the.

[Charles Holmes]

Wait, whoa.

[Van Lathan]

We got chuck wagon.

[Charles Holmes]

F1 is top gun Maverick.

[Bill Simmons]

But it was. I mean, the IMAX stuff was.

[Charles Holmes]

No, I love this movie. It's one of my favorite movies of the year.

[Van Lathan]

But they.

[Charles Holmes]

They didn't reinvent the Wheel on this.

[Bill Simmons]

I know, but my fear with all this stuff is we talked about this a little before. Just, there's no way to reinvent the Wheel because the wheel has already been looked at every single fucking way at this point.

[Van Lathan]

So.

[Bill Simmons]

So that's when a movie, like, trying to think of, like, a wholly original movie that. Like Sinners, when that came out, we were like, whoa, this is a movie unlike anything I've seen before. Even though it had some vampire roots and all the different things, it just felt like original creative ip.

[Charles Holmes]

But how does Bachelor get to Sinners? Where it's like, it's like Christopher Nolan had the ability, of course he did the Batman films, but he had the ability to make a bunch of original movies. And then Batman that led to the Batman got him into the category where it's like, oh, we're going to see Inception, we're going to see this. Ryan Coogler basically had to prove to these studios, all right, I did Creed and I did Fruitvale Station, but Black Panther's showing y' all that I can actually do a four quadrant blockbuster movie.

[Van Lathan]

Do you ever ask yourself, you ever wonder what attracts somebody like Christopher Nolan to Batman? Or like, what attracts. Why do some of these guys, like when you got to Batman Begins and you look at who's in the movie, it's Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman and all of these people. And I know everybody wants to pay for their winter homes and Aspen and all of that stuff like that. I get it. I get it that you're an actor, you gotta make money. I get that. But also, there is something with creatives on that level that intrigues them about making movies or content with a character that is so well known and so well understood because they get to think about, what can I do with this character that's actually there that hasn't been done?

[Bill Simmons]

So there's four reasons.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

That's the one is the one you just said. Challenge.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Everybody has stared at this IP for a hundred years. It's a challenge for me. I can solve this. Two is money. Three is ring culture. Oh, you want to like in sports.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

This is like, if you can pull it off on this. It's like when I remember talking to half about this because I wrote about this. When he did. What did he do when he did the Superman movie?

[Van Lathan]

Ben or Casey? Because it's too okay.

[Charles Holmes]

When he was Batman and Batman, when.

[Bill Simmons]

He did Batman vs Superman, Justice League, all of it. But remember he was on the heater because he had had the town Argo. Like, he was.

[Van Lathan]

He was the fucking man.

[Bill Simmons]

He had won it back. And then it's like, why are you doing this?

[Charles Holmes]

And it's the second go around. Because he was Daredevil. So that Daredevil.

[Bill Simmons]

But you know why he did it? Cause he was like, my kid, fuck it. If I pull it. It was like. Basically it was like Tom Brady going for the Tampa Bay Super Bowl. If I can do this, I can do anything. That's the third thing. And then the fourth thing Is money.

[Van Lathan]

And Bill, let me tell you something. There's something that people don't talk about as much, but they should. He was sensational.

[Bill Simmons]

Really.

[Charles Holmes]

Affleck was a great Batman.

[Van Lathan]

He was a great Batman.

[Bill Simmons]

He still has the suit. Oh, and the fourth thing is impressing your kids. Everyone always forgets that part. Most of the people that are making movies like this at some point have kids, or at least one kid under the age of eight who thinks, like, holy shit, my dad's going to be Batman. I mean, it's just, like, impressive.

[Charles Holmes]

Look at Tom Holland. Tom Holland as Spider Man. Does Tom Holland get into a Christopher Nolan movie? Because if we look at his track record after Spider man, could you name me a Tom Holland movie?

[Bill Simmons]

Like, the stamp of approval, almost, I.

[Charles Holmes]

Think, with, like, Corn Sweat with Holland, with Pattinson. Pattinson, like, becomes Batman. He didn't need this. He's killing it in terms of just like, oh, he is the indie darling. Everyone loves him. But there's a different thing. When Robert Pattinson gets to go to his acting buddies, be like, but y' all not Batman.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, that's. That's the. Downey is the best example of that, right? Or like, Keith Ledger, who just broke back, and he's great in that. But then Dark Knight becomes the movie. That's probably going to.

[Van Lathan]

But he had a take, though. He had a take on the character. Character that we're so familiar with. He had a take, and that take went on to define the character. There's one thing about being the Joker. There's another thing about redefining. Redefining the Joker. He redefined that character even, Like, I'll give you. So Nolan, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

The Odyssey. That story is thousands of years old, right? Like, it's. Well, hundreds. Hundreds. When did the odds. Whatever. It's an ancient by contemporary standards story, but we're gonna keep telling it because the themes in the story are as relevant today as they've been in the past. And everybody's gonna want to retell. That's the story of Moses, the story, all of that stuff. It's all the same shit. The Matrix is a retrieval. I'm just kidding.

[Bill Simmons]

You guys are winning me back a little bit.

[Van Lathan]

The Matrix is a retelling of the Jesus story. Now, I will say this. We should talk about specifically, like, what is awesome about this Superman movie that makes it, like, worth the trip?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, the villain seems good.

[Van Lathan]

Lex.

[Charles Holmes]

Lex. And Nicholas Holtz as Lex is phenomenal also. I feel like this is a movie where it's gonna be a lot for you, it's very cartoony. It's very comic booky. But I do think that this movie does a very good job of. You don't have to see anything. It is. It has that Iron man feel of just like. I can see starting from scratch, basically starting. And it's not starting from scratch where it's like, you already know the origin story, where it's like, planet blew up. He goes to planet.

[Van Lathan]

None of that happens here.

[Charles Holmes]

They're just like, we don't need that. It starts in the middle of the action where you're like, okay, I get it.

[Bill Simmons]

I do like that little crawl. James Gunn had some success in the past.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Little crawl. Tell you where you at, and it reorients the character. It's your. We said this on the podcast on the Midnight Boys. Most Superman movies, they're looking through his eyes. And if you look through his eyes, everything is weaker because he's way up here. If you look through his eyes, everything is weaker. So you start to wonder, like, what the fuck is going on.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like, Jokic.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Get the fuck out of here. Okay. He is a bad motherfucker, though. He is. You know, that was one of my. You know, I look back at the dickhead momentum that I've had in the past. I'm doing it again with Caitlin Clark to a degree, but I don't care. I won't stop.

[Charles Holmes]

Can you talk him off the Caitlin Clark?

[Van Lathan]

I don't want to talk about.

[Bill Simmons]

I like. It's one of the best acts of the 2000s. It's great.

[Van Lathan]

But Yokesh is a.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a great sack.

[Van Lathan]

I asked my. So just real quick, I come back to Superman. I meant to get you on the phone with this guy. So one of my homeboys, my best friend from Baton Rouge, Ryan Davenport, I remember me and you got into it about the Jokic and the Shaq thing. We're going back and forth about it. So I hit Ryan up, and I know that Ryan is going to agree with me. You know, my man Ryan was in the streets for a long time, so it's very. He talks the way he talks. And I was like, bruh, let me ask you a question. Who you think better, Jokic or Shaq? And he goes, man, Jokic. Like, he said he was angry. He didn't. Like, he didn't want to have to say it. He was like, man, Jokic, bro. And I was like, what? I was like, bro, you can't do shit with that bitch. He was like, that bitch get the ball. If you double that bitch. Pass that bitch. He's like, that bitch. If you. One on one. He cooking everybody he could. It's yokish, man. He made Anthony Davis look crazy. It's yokish, bro. I'm sorry. He better. And I was like. I was. After that. I had to. He was mad. He felt the feeling. It's hard to admit it. I still don't agree with him, but I get it.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, now you got Caitlin.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. I got a new foil. The next one has to be black or I'm not getting the agenda. I have to choose.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, Lamar Jackson's sitting there. One more playoff loss.

[Van Lathan]

I can't. I can't.

[Bill Simmons]

No, he's. I'm just saying he's scared.

[Van Lathan]

I can't.

[Bill Simmons]

I still gotta get a good zag.

[Van Lathan]

I gotta be able to get into the.

[Bill Simmons]

People didn't expect it.

[Van Lathan]

Expect me to go.

[Bill Simmons]

Keep people on the toes.

[Van Lathan]

Whitlock. No, I can't do that, bro. They're not gonna let me into the.

[Charles Holmes]

Why are you getting involved in trouble, bro?

[Van Lathan]

Superman. This movie does something different. It orients the story. It puts Superman in the middle of the story.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay?

[Van Lathan]

And the story happens around Superman. Simple fix. Now, Superman. Look, Superman is not somebody that you have to question at every single plot turn.

[Bill Simmons]

So you weren't just pleasantly surprised, you were deliriously surprised.

[Van Lathan]

I.

[Bill Simmons]

You couldn't believe. It was good.

[Van Lathan]

I got emotional on the podcast.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

There were tears. I'm tempered. I hate everything. And even I was like. I was like, I can't hate Eric.

[Bill Simmons]

All right.

[Charles Holmes]

They got it. You know what I'm saying? Like, I gotta get.

[Van Lathan]

He didn't think it was a perfect.

[Charles Holmes]

Movie, but I didn't think it was. It's an 8, like, out of 10. It's like, to me, it's like in that 7, 8 range where I'm like.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, I'm gonna see it. You guys won me over.

[Charles Holmes]

Hell, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, so give me three movies from the last 15 years. Three ring reverse movies that I have to see.

[Van Lathan]

I know one you're going to love.

[Bill Simmons]

Shut off the Bat Guards of Galaxy.

[Van Lathan]

You might like that. I could see you liking that, but that's not what I was talking about.

[Bill Simmons]

Wonder Woman.

[Van Lathan]

Bet you would, right? Captain America. Winter Soldier.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

Wait, you've never seen Winter Soldier?

[Bill Simmons]

I never seen any of those.

[Van Lathan]

You would like that.

[Charles Holmes]

Have you seen Black Panther?

[Bill Simmons]

Black Panther doesn't count. That movie was awesome.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

Wait, Black Panther definitely fucking counts.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, that's a Michael B. Jordan I gotta. I've season tickets for my guy.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, he's a big Michael B. Jordan fan.

[Charles Holmes]

But wait, you're actually on Michael B. Jordan Island?

[Bill Simmons]

I had. I think I was his first podcast. I Fruit Fails Station. I think I was the first podcast he ever did.

[Charles Holmes]

I've had to defend him a lot. People have been like, hey, when before sinners. Everybody's now on his fucking dick. Everybody's. I don't know about the twins, Michael.

[Van Lathan]

I don't know if you can act.

[Charles Holmes]

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[Bill Simmons]

There was a couple. Couple poor choices. There's a couple hiccups, much like an athlete. A couple bad.

[Charles Holmes]

Not on film. No.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, that. That legal movie he did was bad.

[Van Lathan]

We saw about the. The whatever.

[Bill Simmons]

The one where he was the lawyer.

[Charles Holmes]

That got memory hold. You know, we don't really put the.

[Bill Simmons]

Movie when he's with Zac Efron and the other guy and they're early on. But that movie's bad.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, but he did a couple of bad ones. But look, he is.

[Bill Simmons]

He's a movie star.

[Van Lathan]

He's a. The Mike. Movie star. Michael. Movie star.

[Bill Simmons]

Sinners. He was. Wait. We were waiting for the. Can you be a movie star in a movie? Movie.

[Charles Holmes]

So actually not.

[Bill Simmons]

That's like Brad Pitt movie.

[Charles Holmes]

Seen Black Panther.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

Michael B. Jordan. But you saw F1, right? How are you feeling about Damson as a. As a movie star? Does you recast him as t'? Challa?

[Bill Simmons]

Is that on the table?

[Charles Holmes]

It is. That's the rumor.

[Van Lathan]

So the rumor is he's Black Panther now. That's rumor.

[Charles Holmes]

Do you think he can kind of like take that? Did you see in F1? Because, like, the question is, can he go from snowfall TV show to movie stardom in F1 to like, leading entire franchise? I'm with it.

[Bill Simmons]

I think he could do it. I thought he carried himself like a leading man in F1, even though I didn't really have a history with him. In a movie.

[Charles Holmes]

You didn't watch Snowfall?

[Bill Simmons]

No, just like a movie like that where he's like. I had to believe in him as my hero.

[Charles Holmes]

I wanted more. I think in the second movie I'm just like. I think Brad Pitt could take a kind of like, backseat. You could.

[Bill Simmons]

I thought he had it. I think he's a star.

[Van Lathan]

So I would say easy work. You can't not like Infinity War Endgame might not work on you because you can't watch infinity.

[Charles Holmes]

He's not going to know what's going on, bro.

[Van Lathan]

This is fucking Spider Man. He knows who Spider Man Is Spider Man. Iron man is none of the B list characters in the movie. I think he would know. You know who Thor is, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

I would say Winter Soldier, definitely. I would say Infinity War, just because I don't think he can miss. And Charles was the last one.

[Charles Holmes]

Honestly, I think you would like Guardians. You like Team Dynamics.

[Van Lathan]

You might like that.

[Bill Simmons]

I do like Team Dynamics.

[Charles Holmes]

I mean, and also the last thing about Superman, you love dogs. Crypto. Oh, amazing. Crypto is amazing in this movie.

[Van Lathan]

This is the thing. You're gonna love this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Charles Holmes]

Do you have a good dog or a misbehaved dog?

[Bill Simmons]

I've had both.

[Charles Holmes]

You've had both? You're gonna play.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Well, you met Murphy, right? Now I fuck with Murph.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, but Murph doesn't like everybody.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, he's Murphy.

[Bill Simmons]

You have to come in a few times.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

Ooh, Murphy's cryptic. You gonna love this movie.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Wait, I just blanked on what I was gonna. Oh, the superhero movie that. Does Charles know my superhero that didn't get a movie yet that I can't believe didn't get a movie.

[Van Lathan]

I don't think he's ever heard it.

[Bill Simmons]

You might not have heard it.

[Van Lathan]

I think I did.

[Charles Holmes]

Wait, wait, who's this hero?

[Bill Simmons]

Plastic Man.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, yeah, we did talk about. We haven't talked about it on a pod, but we talked about it at your.

[Bill Simmons]

So when I was a kid and they Saturday morning cartoons, they had a Plastic man cartoon. It was fucking great. And he could do all this, like, stretch himself out shit and had a hot girlfriend because he was plastic.

[Charles Holmes]

All right, so but. Let's follow up with a but.

[Bill Simmons]

I always thought that as the technology got better, I always thought Plastic man would be stretching the universe somewhere.

[Charles Holmes]

Stretching is very hard to do. They're trying to do it in the new Fantastic Four movie that's coming out. A couple of, like, he could reach.

[Van Lathan]

Up and grab, you know, canonically, Superman is afraid of Plastic Man.

[Bill Simmons]

Plus, like, plastics. You get, like, what's going on in the world now where we all like little pieces of plastic from. From.

[Charles Holmes]

He can drink plastic.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, is Plastic man bad for the environment? Like, there's all these ways it could go.

[Van Lathan]

They might do it. But, like, he's. He's the. He's ridiculously powerful. So powerful because he used to be a criminal. So powerful that Superman's a little wary of him. Superman's like, this guy might be the most powerful guy in the Justice League. We gotta watch out for Plastic Man.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know he has this technology.

[Charles Holmes]

Now, though, comedically, I think you need, like, a comic actor.

[Bill Simmons]

So what's the best?

[Van Lathan]

Bill Hader.

[Charles Holmes]

Bill Hader.

[Bill Simmons]

Bill Hader. Best ringer verse movie of the first 25 years of the 21st century.

[Van Lathan]

We should have done this. We should have done this. Just like the big.

[Bill Simmons]

We can do it anyway.

[Charles Holmes]

No, we're doing it. We got some shits.

[Bill Simmons]

What's number one?

[Charles Holmes]

Dark Knight still hasn't been top. That's why I think, like, that's the movie to me. Everybody's like. But I know what Van's going to say. He's going to say, you going to say endgame.

[Van Lathan]

You know, it is Dark Knight. Without a doubt. It's not even close, but, like, it almost doesn't count. It's how. Because it's not really a superhero movie. It's a psychological thriller with Batman.

[Bill Simmons]

It's basically the town.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Yeah, it is. I know it's. The answer is the Dark Knight.

[Bill Simmons]

It's closer to the heat, to heat in the town.

[Charles Holmes]

Way closer to superiority.

[Van Lathan]

I could make a really compelling argument that the reason why the movie resonates with people like it is is because it's closer to those movies than it is to the stuff that we're talking about. But the movie has Batman and the fucking Joker in it.

[Charles Holmes]

So if it's not the Dark Knight, what would it be?

[Van Lathan]

It'd be either Iron man or Endgame.

[Charles Holmes]

Iron man is actually probably the.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Before we go, can you make the case for me to watch season four of the Bear? Because I still haven't dove in yet.

[Charles Holmes]

Have you watched season three either Bear?

[Bill Simmons]

I watched all three. I love the bear. I didn't like season to me.

[Charles Holmes]

Don't listen to Andy. Andy on the watch. He's my boy.

[Van Lathan]

Calling him out.

[Charles Holmes]

You know what I'm saying? But, like, there's a lot of hate going on. I think Van. We ended up. I would say there was probably only one episode this season that I was like. And not even bad, just kind of just like, boring.

[Bill Simmons]

I haven't listened to the pod yet because I haven't watched the episodes yet.

[Van Lathan]

And it was really fun. The bear was fun again. Cause the show got to a point.

[Bill Simmons]

To where season three was too grim.

[Van Lathan]

It was too grim.

[Bill Simmons]

I think he got thrown off by that Thanksgiving episode and how intense that.

[Charles Holmes]

Was and all the cameos and the.

[Bill Simmons]

Things that weirdly affected season three.

[Van Lathan]

I agree. There is a episode in season four that is a spiritual successor to that than. Was it Thanksgiving or Christmas?

[Bill Simmons]

Whatever.

[Van Lathan]

To that Episode the Fishes. Yeah, but it's the other way. So where that episode was super intense and almost suffocating. This episode has all of the same people, the same family dynamics. However, it's a release and they executed it really well.

[Charles Holmes]

Are you. So is your apprehension to the bear just that it got.

[Bill Simmons]

It's an apprehension, just not ready yet because it's intense.

[Charles Holmes]

This one felt like. It's not that they took the notes where it was just like, hey, bro, we gotta bring some of the comedy back. I actually laughed this season, which, like.

[Van Lathan]

Third season, I was like, before we.

[Bill Simmons]

Go, can I pitch you a superhero movie?

[Van Lathan]

I'm ready.

[Bill Simmons]

Late 90s baseball steroids error. Superhero. Oh, yeah. That's it. That's all I got.

[Charles Holmes]

Wait, why does he do the steroids?

[Bill Simmons]

Everyone's on steroids, but we actually have a real superhero in baseball. Nobody really.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, that's good. They've played around with that. They've played around with that a little bit, but that's good.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, he's like, finally, I have some cover because all these guys are these steroid monsters hitting 60 homers. I can.

[Charles Holmes]

I thought you were saying give him the powers, but no.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

I finally play baseball and people won't be suspicious if I'm a superhero because all these other guys are taking pisses. That's it.

[Van Lathan]

This is actually. We're giving a. We're giving away recipes, but this is a limited. And you have a reporter.

[Bill Simmons]

8 episode Apple.

[Van Lathan]

8 episode Apple. You have a reporter, and that reporter is doing some sort of profile on him. She's a hot lady.

[Bill Simmons]

Starts realizing there's something more going on. Starts to realize she thinks it's a creatine thing, but it's not.

[Van Lathan]

At the same time, you know what, the owner of the team is actually a nefarious supervillain.

[Bill Simmons]

This guy, definitely bald, bald white guy. This guy looks like Bezos.

[Van Lathan]

He's doing the whole deal. But it starts to become. Are you going to continue to chase what's happening on the field or are you going to use your superhero powers for good? Whole thing. But this rated R, though, you know, it's sex, it's baseball, it's the whole nine.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a dirty baseball, superhero, steroids movie.

[Charles Holmes]

What team would you want him to play?

[Van Lathan]

Yankees. Let's go. Thanks, guys.

[Bill Simmons]

Good to see you. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks. Thanks to Van and Charles. Thanks to Gahao and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back on Sunday, a week from now. So you'll make it. Nothing's happening. It'll be fine. This is the most boring week of the year. If anything crazy major happens, I'll come back. Otherwise, I'm going to be doing football prep, getting ready, trying to top my 27. 5 on the overrunners from last year, which I'll never top. I'm probably going to suck. But enjoy the rest of the weekend and I'll see you in a week. Must be 21 plus in President select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 + in President D.C. gambling problem call 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com, call 188-call or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplianma.org or call 800.327.5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text hopeny in New York.