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

Summary

The Rewatchables: 'Days of Thunder' Episode Summary

Host: Bill Simmons
Guests: Chris Ryan, Kyle Brandt
Release Date: March 18, 2025

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1. Introduction to 'Days of Thunder' Discussion

In this episode of The Rewatchables, Bill Simmons, alongside Chris Ryan and Kyle Brandt, dives deep into the 1990 classic sports drama Days of Thunder. The conversation explores various facets of the film, from its production challenges to character dynamics and memorable scenes.

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2. Overview of Days of Thunder

Days of Thunder is a high-octane racing film directed by Tony Scott, featuring Tom Cruise as Cole Trickle, a talented but reckless NASCAR driver, and Robert Duvall as Rowdy Burns, his seasoned crew chief. Nicole Kidman stars as Dr. Claire Lewicki, Cole's love interest and a neurosurgeon.

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3. Production Challenges and Behind-The-Scenes Stories

The trio discusses the tumultuous production phase of the movie, highlighting significant budget overruns and the intense collaboration between producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer.

• Bill Simmons ([07:05]):
  "This was the craziest he. He was during this entire run, 1990, where he's just like, Budget, fuck it. Is it 35 million? Let's go 65."

• Kyle Brandt ([25:08]):
  "I've never spoken about this publicly, but I first seduced my wife with two packets of Sweet and Low. So it's a very personal story."

The hosts recount how continuous script changes led to multiple reshoots, including building and dismantling barns three times, significantly delaying the production schedule.

• Bill Simmons ([35:20]):
  "They built three barns. Didn't use any of the barns for like four weeks of filming."

4. Character Analysis and Performances

a) Cole Trickle (Tom Cruise)

Cole Trickle is portrayed as an enigmatic and charismatic driver struggling with personal demons and the pressures of NASCAR fame.

• Chris Ryan ([18:22]):
  "Where does she coming from? What's he doing?"

• Bill Simmons ([75:36]):
  "You can never tell with Tom Cruise in bed. It's like, did he just come? Is he about to come?"

b) Rowdy Burns (Robert Duvall)

Rowdy Burns serves as Cole's mentor and crew chief, embodying wisdom and resilience in the high-stakes world of racing.

• Kyle Brandt ([70:29]):
  "Rowdy goes and sits on his bike to reclaim status."

• Bill Simmons ([109:34]):
  "Rowdy is back. I think this is a good take."

c) Dr. Claire Lewicki (Nicole Kidman)

Dr. Claire Lewicki is depicted as a dedicated neurosurgeon balancing her demanding career with her burgeoning relationship with Cole.

• Bill Simmons ([77:26]):
  "It's imperative to know if they already did it or they're going to."

• Kyle Brandt ([100:12]):
  "It's impossible for young Australian doctor to forget. That’s the scene I need it."

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5. Direction and Cinematography (Tony Scott's Influence)

Tony Scott's signature style—fast-paced editing, dynamic camera movements, and vibrant color palettes—is credited with elevating the film's visual appeal.

• Chris Ryan ([14:17]):
  "This, the two-minute montage with 'Give Me Some Lovin' is the most effective montage song that we have in American cinema history."

• Bill Simmons ([16:04]):
  "Cinematography is seeing something that isn't necessarily there and embellishing things and lighting things in a way that brings out story."

6. Notable Scenes and Their Impact

Several scenes stand out for their execution and emotional weight:

• Cole's Motorcycle Entrance ([49:23]):
  "Cole's showing up on a motorcycle is hilarious."

• The Wheelchair Race ([69:27]):
  "It's a phenomenal scene, but this whole stretch is pretty funny."

• Final Daytona Comeback ([88:46]):
  "Seeing the smoke driving through it, symbolic in a lot of ways."

7. Awards and Categories Created in the Podcast

The hosts introduce playful awards to highlight various aspects of the film:

• Best Character Name:
  Rowdy Burns
  Kyle Brandt ([45:37]):
  "Rowdy Burns is back."

• Worst Character Name:
  Dr. Claire Lewicki
  Chris Ryan ([47:05]):
  "How do they come up with Lewicki?"

• Best Cinematic Shot:
  Cole's First Scene
  Chris Ryan ([73:20]):
  "The Daytona 500 shot with low angles and balloons is such a great looking piece."

• Most Rewatchable Scene:
  The Wheelchair Race
  Bill Simmons ([70:29]):
  "This is my favorite part of the movie."

• Worst Character Development:
  Dr. Claire Lewicki
  Kyle Brandt ([81:01]):
  "Deplorable and gross action from Cole."

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8. Hot Takes and Critical Opinions

The discussion reveals mixed feelings about certain elements:

• Character Development:
  Some feel that Cole Trickle's character lacks depth compared to other Tom Cruise roles, with an underdeveloped backstory.

• Plot Execution:
  The hosts criticize the film for excessive dialogue in the second half, detracting from the racing action.

• Casting Choices:
  Hypothetical scenarios suggest that actors like Philip Seymour Hoffman or Robin Wright could have elevated the film further.

• Tony Scott's Direction:
  Generally praised for making the film visually engaging despite some narrative shortcomings.

• Tom Cruise's Performance:
  While charismatic, some scenes are deemed awkward, especially intimate moments with Nicole Kidman.

• Nicole Kidman's Role:
  Initially perceived as minimal, later appreciation emerges for her contribution to the film's aesthetic and emotional layers.

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9. Conclusion and Rewatchability

Days of Thunder is acknowledged as an entertaining albeit flawed film that benefits from Tony Scott's direction and Robert Duvall's compelling performance. The hosts appreciate its nostalgic value and the vibrant portrayal of NASCAR, making it a worthwhile rewatch despite its inconsistencies.

• Bill Simmons ([117:14]):
  "This is incredible. It's a great run by her to best age the best."

• Chris Ryan ([122:09]):
  "It's hard to go back to that pre-Oprah zone where it was like, ah man, every movie he makes is pretty great."

Overall, the episode celebrates Days of Thunder as a quintessential early '90s sports drama, rich with both memorable performances and production anecdotes, cementing its place among the beloved rewatchables for fans of the genre.

Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You might say all kinds of stuff when things go wrong, but these are the words you really need to remember. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They've got options to fit your unique insurance needs, meaning you can talk to your agent to choose the coverage you need, have coverage options to protect the things you value most, file a claim right on the State Farm mobile app.

[Bill Simmons]

And even reach a real person when.

[Kyle Brandt]

You need to talk to someone. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

[Bill Simmons]

This episode is brought to you by bank of America, the presenting partner of the Boston Marathon. It's no secret here that we love all things Boston, including the world famous Boston Marathon. Every runner has a reason. Some are doing it to fundraise for a good cause. And that is where you can help find a runner and give if you can. @bofa.com helpacause what would you like the power to do bank of America References to charitable organizations are not an endorsement by bank of America Corporation. Copyright 2025. The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where you can find. What's it called? The Watch. Yes, that's it. Right. Tv.

[Chris Ryan]

The unprecedented TV podcast culture pod with.

[Bill Simmons]

You and Andy Greenwald. You're on the big picture as well. Try not to Philly Special sometimes. Yeah, not a lot of Sixers talk there lately. That's Kyle Brandt. Yeah, we could find you. Where can we find you?

[Kyle Brandt]

Tell us.

[Bill Simmons]

Offseason. NFL.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

No. But the good news is I had a 72 ounce mellow yellow, so I'm ready to rock. Let's go change my tires.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Producer Craig]

The speed.

[Bill Simmons]

You're very quick. You gotta see me drive.

[Kyle Brandt]

Heat.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes.

[Kyle Brandt]

The power.

[Bill Simmons]

You want to control something that's out of control. Absolutely. The thrill that lasts long after the ride. Tom Cruise. Days of Thunder, rated PG13. Starts Wednesday, June 27, at theaters everywhere. All right, fellas, I guess it's officially sports movie month. We did Rocky, we did Best in Show, we did Days of Thunder, and we're more than halfway through March. This was a special Kyle Brandt request. Yeah, why?

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Producer Craig]

Fred Thompson.

[Kyle Brandt]

Fuck, yeah. Is it a great movie? No, but it's really fun. And it was like running into an old friend.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Should we do a separate part about Don Simpson try to catch himself in the movie?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we might have to because, you know, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, these legendary 80s and 90s producers, and they're starting this giant Paramount deal they did, which according to Premier magazine was five movies, $300 billion, which is crazy. Yeah. And it's. And there's been podcasts about these guys. There's been books written about them. They've been. The story has been told ad nauseam about just how crazy Don Simpson was. This was the craziest he. He was during this entire run, 1990, where he's just like, Budget, fuck it. Is it 35 million? Let's go 65. Let's. Let's just argue on the racetrack about a scene for an entire day while we pay, you know, hundreds of extras and then not film the scene. This is like the kind of shit you would see in a movie about Hollywood that would seem like, wow, they really went for this movie. This is crazy. This actually all happened. This budget ends up being like $65 million.

[Chris Ryan]

If it was 65 million, I'm six foot three, right?

[Bill Simmons]

About 100. You guys.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Well, there's. Don Simpson's trying to keep it alive. And it's that 80s excess era that's still kind of going in 8990. These big budget movies, a lot of sequels at this point. I was trying to think like in 2025, what would be a more sure thing idea than this was in 1990 where you have Simpson and Bruckheimer and a red, red, red, red hot Tom Cruise basically redoing Top Gun with race cars. There's no scenario where somebody could be like, all right, it's going to be, let's say Chalamet. Yeah, it's going to be Chalamet. Okay. Who is a producer that was more reliable at this point than Simpson? Bruckheimer. I can't think of one. What's the sport that has dove into like this? I can't like Kyle. I don't. I just think this is like a one on one in a weird way. Even though the movie's not great.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

That, but got the actual mon car.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Like, okay, so Dark Knight Rises. The NFL is like, you're not using our teams. You're going to blow up a stadium. That's crazy. However, when Sudden Death with Van Damme goes to the NHL and it's like, can we have the Penguins and the Blackhawks even though we're going to blow up the stadium too? They're like, sure, you're going to make a movie of the NHL, Please. We love to have you.

[Bill Simmons]

You want Yager?

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes. And we'll put him in the movie. We don't care. Take it. That's the NASCAR here.

[Bill Simmons]

So the, the. The premise of the. Or the, the. The bones of this movie. Cr. Yeah, Tom Cruise will go into the moment. He's having his career. Bobby Duvall, big shot Bob, fresh off turning down Godfather 3 for 5 billion. He's like, you know what I'm doing. Said Days of Thunder. Nicole Kidman, 23 years old, had only.

[Chris Ryan]

Really done Dead Calm.

[Bill Simmons]

I saw Dead Calm in the theater. We all marked it. We were like, this lady's. This lady's great. Really interested to see what happens with her. Did not expect to see her in Days of Thunder with Tom Cruise. Michael Rooker. Yeah, Kyle, we'll say we'll put him on the side.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, we're going to talk.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

A lot of the rest of you guys can do the Tom Hanks and the Daniel Day Lewis. Yeah, we do Michael Rooker and I'm so glad you're here.

[Chris Ryan]

Rooker has officially passed Daniel Day Lewis in Watchables.

[Bill Simmons]

Now when we do the rewatches, Rooker is going to get like a special Achievement for some of his great moments. So we got Rooker, we get John C. Reilly, we get Carrie always who just keeps popping up in movies in the 80s and 90s. But there's no Carrie always conversations. We get Fred Thompson, Randy Quaid, we get it produced by Simpson and Bruckheimer, story by Robert Towne and Tom Cruise. Yeah, this feels. This felt flimsy to me. Cr.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

I'm guessing agree. But Robert Town becomes like Tom Cruise's sensei for the next four or five movies. Right.

[Bill Simmons]

So this is a written by Robert Town. Robert Town for the younger ones listening legendary screenwriter shampoo detail. Yeah. If you're just mentioning. Hey, who are the great screenwriters? His name is going to come up in the first five, six names you mentioned. So he's in there. Music by Hans Zimmer and Jeff Beck a go Kyle. I mean listen, just cook right now.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh really?

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

And I say in the middle of movie we put the guns and roses. Usually losing one out of nowhere. Let's do it.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Tony Scott now moving into first place in the all time director ran as it should be in the rewatch tied for first.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

No, no.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

And Chris, Tom Cruise has talked about this many times on record. He still thinks there are things ripping off of this movie and the way that they shot that and how good it is and how good it looks. And I remember when the three of us, I think the last, the three of us were last together on Roadhouse and after we made some like stupid comments at the beginning, CR Jumped in and was like, this movie looks great. It's got bones. And this movie, for all its idiocy and wheelchair racism we'll talk about looks amazing. And I think Cruz was super proud of. He still is. He still talks about it.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Well, and then the other cool piece is so in the 90s, we had the square TVs all the way through the 2000s and now widescreens really helped us HD. You can get this on 4K Blu Ray now and it fucking looks amazing.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, but we're gonna have to do.

[Bill Simmons]

A 10th Michael Band movie next month. Yeah, no, wait. There's some good ones left anyway. Yeah, I just wanted to flag that because I, you know, I know Michael's a huge fan of the pod. He takes it, takes it really seriously and I don't think he wants to share first.

[Chris Ryan]

We've been teasing the Revice for a while.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, well, maybe that'll be it. So Richard Petty said of this movie, the only thing they got right was the numbers on the side of the cars. I don't think this was very Talk your king. Settle down. Richard petty, Tom Cruz's first prime, 1986-93. Yeah, I. I think it's similar to LeBron Brady. Some of the great athletes where it's like, oh, this first specific prime of Top Gun. Color, Money, Cocktail, Rain man, born the 4th of July, days of Thunder, Far and Away, Few Good Men, the Firm. It's like this confined eight year run. Mm. And then we get a little weird with Interview with the Vampire and all of a sudden we're at Jerry Maguire into Eyes Wide Shut, Vanilla sky, which is kind of like the first Mission Impossible. That's kind of the second Cruise prime. Then we end up with that, that long stretch following Oprah Sofa where we get Reacher, we get some good ones, some bad ones. It's a little like when Brady didn't win a Super bowl for a while. And then Top Gun, Maverick and then Submission Impossibles. Now Cruz is like in his fourth prime tomorrow.

[Chris Ryan]

In that. In that tomorrow. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So four primes. But Kyle, this was the first Cruise prime and he's basically playing variations of Pete Maverick Mitchell in as many movies as possible. Where does Cole Trickle rank for you in the Cruise rankings? Because I was. I'm kind of. This is maybe one of my least favorite Cruise characters of this run.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, it's. It's Kirkland Brand Maverick. It's. It's not the best character. It's not. It's a funny name, but we never get, we never get the scene. Like in Maverick, he has the scene in his tighty whities where he breaks down over Goose's death. And that's a really powerful scene and he does really good acting. I just. When you're talking about this era of his prime and I had this. In what stage? The best. It is Cruise with the greats of the old guard actors in the ring delivering. He goes from 86 to 93. Newman, Hoffman, Duvall, Hackman, Nicholson. Every single movie it's him and a first ballot hall of famer doing high drama. And like, I like that he jumps off giant buildings right now and it's fun, but he used to go at it with the giant actors. And this kind of brought me back to that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. And then Leo kind of followed that blueprint a little bit too. How can I work with great directors and great stars? But yeah, this is a great run. So. And then he. He's in Few Good Men in the Firm. You know, Few Good Men is like these super cocky, sarcastic Cruise. Rain man is the full of confidence, charisma Cruise. Cocktail is to me, Pete Cruise. I. That's like my favorite Cruise. I just love Cocktail Cruise. And then this is kind of in the Top Gun camp, right? Cr Is there. I guess color money is a big charisma, like street tough Cruise.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Or when they finish shooting this gestures.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

He's from Eagle Rock.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Those guys of his ilk are always begging for demons. Like there's legendary stories about Leo DiCaprio. Would follow James Cameron around Titanic be like you got to give this guy some backstory. This guy is a huge pussy. Jack Dawson, he's just totally nice. And there's a little bit of that going on with Cruz. Like when he's Maverick, he's referred to as like, it's got to be hard when you're Pete Mitchell's kid. Like, that is a heavy burden. This is like kind of just an idiot who shows up on a motorcycle. And his character twist is that he doesn't know anything about cars. And like a completely, completely half baked father storyline that CR Just talked about.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Kyle Brandt]

Probably because they're like, you know, guys, shouldn't we figure out that dad thing for Cole in the third act? And they were like, just more fucking racing. Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

I think some of the things he has going for him in this movie, it's great cruise hair. Like really, really cool hair.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe the best hair he's ever had.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

You left out one piece of the Cruise pie. The. The. The blank face of fear. I don't know how this is going to turn out. Maybe. Maybe I shouldn't do this. Which they. They use leverage perfectly. With the smoke scene.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Driving through the wreck being the blank cruise.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not sure this is a good idea face.

[Chris Ryan]

When it's his re engage. Maverick is going through the wreck. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

He's sitting there saying, talk to me, Rowdy. Talk to me. He's looking at Rowdy's dog tags and it's like trickles re engaging. Yes. It's to the note. The same motion and scene.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you think they thought about calling Rowdy Goose or. No. Goose burns. Nicole Kidman. Her first mainstream movie because Dead Crown was an indie. She's 23 years old in real life playing a brain surgeon. Just want to point that out. Mm.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

She aced the scts in Australia. Whatever their version of it are probably cool. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

She looks fantastic.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Baby Girl.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay. Good.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Before Jason Thunder even came Out, Right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Yeah. But Dale Earnhardt Jr. Said he thought the movie was based on a rivalry between his dad and Bodine. And then they stole a bunch of NASCAR stuff. Like the Cole and Rowdy will drive to the dinner thing together. That came from an actual meeting when they're trying to get Earnhardt, Senior and Bowdon to. To. To. To kind of get along better. Cole deliberately blowing his engine by over revving. That was a famous Tim Richmond story. He did it trickle camp pit because the crew is too busy eating ice cream. Apparently that happened in 1987. Southern 500 with Benny Parsons. And then Cole and Rad are destroying rental cars. Apparently in the 1950s. These two NASCAR superstars. I know you're very fond of them, Kyle, Joe Weatherly and Curtis Turner. Those are my guys, supposedly would just rent cars and then just them up and race them.

[Chris Ryan]

And ever since I got Enterprise Presidents Club, I do that. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

You and fantasy on your way to a shoot.

[Chris Ryan]

We like to drag race. Civics. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Just crashing into each other.

[Chris Ryan]

Can I ask you guys, what's your 1990. What's your relationship to NASCAR? Because for me, this kind of slots into one of those movies, like, to some extent, Rounders, Color of Money. This a movie that goes really in depth into a world that I am, like, that's cool. I'm not gonna now become a NASCAR fan or a billiards fan or a. Like a hold'em poker fan. But I am very interested in this movie's version of this world. So the complaints about this not being accurate to me don't really bother me.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And probably took the liberties they took with this movie, the three of us would be going nuts. They only had 10 guys on the field for the final. For the final sequence. Like, what are they doing?

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

I saw this movie. When? The summer, I think it was after sophomore year in college. I just saw it for Cruz. It didn't make me want to care about NASCAR at all. Um, it did make me wonder why there weren't more NASCAR movies. And then every once in a while, was that Burt Reynolds movie with Sly St. Alone. Burt Reynolds driven.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

2000 range with kip Pardue from Remember the Titans for sure. And that was like that Every decade, somebody goes for it. But, I mean, I'm sure when producer Craig pops in, he's just got. He probably. He hadn't seen this movie till last night. And this is. This is basically Tall Dagger Nights is a parody of this movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Tried to do that a couple of.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Rex is like, I'm thinking of taking us to the super bowl. And then completely falling apart. Kyle said, that sounds great.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. But first, have the opening kickoff be returned for a touchdown, and your dumbass still blows it. Yes. That's what he was talking about.

[Bill Simmons]

My relationship as a kid of the 70s and 80s with this whole world was every once in a while, sports Illustrator would write about it. Like, I just looked it up because I remembered it was Cole Yarborough. I didn't remember who the other person was, but there was a big fight in 1979 between Cole Yarborough and Bobby Allison, I think. Bobby Allison, Yeah. And Sports Illustrated wrote a story about it. And I was like, whoa. These guys fought on the track. Like, NASCAR seems kind of cool. And they never watched it. And then the other thing would be, if it was on a network that had football, they would promote it.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Coming up next, Daytona. And. But it just never, never took. I always felt like it was just kind of in the south, just kind of happening over here, you know what.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

To Tony Stewart, call in on the Subway Fresh take.

[Bill Simmons]

Hot. I don't even think it was Subway Fresh take yet. And I did the research, and I saw that he had a car number 33. So I was like, oh, this would be a good icebreaker. My favorite number. Larry Bird.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And we started off, I'm on the phone with him, so I can't see him. And I'm like, yeah, you know. You know, I. You're one of my favorites because you raised number 33. And he's like, I'm actually number 20, or whatever it is. I only ran 33 that a couple races, so it was Just. Couldn't have been off to a worse start. And then he withdrew, and it was like one of the. It's probably the worst interview I'd ever, ever did for the podcast.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Cr. Rabbit hole.

[Chris Ryan]

Just doing the work. There's a Richard Petty crash in the 885 00. Really bad. It looks really bad. But they, they like, you know, pull him out of the car. They're like towing the car off. They're like, oh, this is so bad. This is so bad. And they go down into the, you know, the, the infield and they have like, the sideline reporter guy is outside of the medical tent. And A.J. hoyt walks out of the medical tent. He had been in there too. And they're like, aj, how's, how's Richard looking? And it's like, what if he's like, Richard's dead, right? Like, like what? Like, like I was like, what are you guys doing? There's no. This would be like basically like going up to A.J. brown and being like, Saquon's in the tent. How's he doing in there? And A.J. brown, concussion or no, he blew out his knee.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

You remember when a Roger store is Achilles, they went to Tyrod Taylor and said, how's it? How's Rogers look? And he's like, oh, he's. I'm going in, I'm warming up.

[Bill Simmons]

We're gonna take a break and then when we come back, we're gonna talk about a famously fucked up shoot. This episode is brought to you by Emirates. We all love the thought of a vacation to Europe, but have you ever thought about looking a little further? Like Dubai, a city everyone talks about, has absolutely everything you could want from a vacation destination. From world class hotels, record breaking skyscrapers and epic desert adventures, to museums that showcase the future, not just the past. Choose from 96 flights per week between the United States and Dubai. Book your flights on emirates.com today.

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[Bill Simmons]

This movie was filmed in and around Charlotte and Daytona beach and went 25 to 30 million. Over budget, they say, which is probably really 50 because we had Simpson and Bruckheimer. We had Tony Scott, legend, a Rewatchables hall of famer. I'm not positive he was that easy to work with from time to time. So you have him and then you have Robert Town who's on the set with like crazy power. And then you have Cruise, and it's the four guys. And then sometimes Cruz just arguing about everything because they keep changing the script. The crew members apparently made so much overtime that they didn't have to work for like six months after scenes were written. Day of the filming. I this almost seems too crazy to be true, but apparently Cruz would have cue cards on the windshield because the scenes are being rewritten so fast he wouldn't know his lines.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, well, Cruz ends up almost crashing because the cue cards. So they decide that's a bad idea. They have to put the earplugs like he's a quarterback in football. With Towns as the OC Calling in place where you say, kyle, Tom.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Now I just want to say, yeah, I will die on the hill of Robert. Town should get to do this. And this is what I for. When you hear stories like this, you kind of understand why they shoot everything on the volume now. And everything is like VFX and cgi. We're never getting back to the place where one coked up screenwriter could be like, build me another bar.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

But they show shots.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

It's not in the movie. Like, you gotta use that if you pay for it.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And. And redo that part after it was already done. It was like probably the only thing that really, truly mattered to get on camera. They didn't get Simpson and Bruckheimer. They spent $400,000. And this is 1990 bunny. So what's that, like, 2 million now? I don't even know.

[Kyle Brandt]

A lot.

[Bill Simmons]

To have part of their hotel that they were staying in converted into a private gym.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, my God.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Disgusting and amazing detail.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, they had parties with people like Tone Loke rapping. They post production was five weeks instead of five months because they took so long to film this thing that they. They were like, this movie's coming out June 27th, 1990. This is it. It's coming out on this date. They don't finish until mid May. They now have five weeks to edit and finish and complete and get prints out for the movie. Paramount was so upset afterwards that they asked for a 9 million refund on the profit participation from Don and Jerry. We're told no, and then ended the relationship that had just started. So basically, like, Buffalo gives Josh Allen that $330 million deal. He has one bad season. They're like, we're out. We're just gonna pay you off. 120 million. Done.

[Kyle Brandt]

Bill, my mind is wandering to that gym you mentioned.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm just wondering, like, $400 million gym. What happened to it?

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

I would say calves.

[Chris Ryan]

And such a sweetheart for thinking that there was any exercising going on in that gym.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, maybe they really used it once, right?

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

I think the.

[Kyle Brandt]

Take her into something.

[Bill Simmons]

The best time to get a pump in was probably between 7 and 9am in the morning because Don Simpson was The Rosillo hours.

[Chris Ryan]

Brian's like, hey, like that lap.

[Kyle Brandt]

Pull down, Jerry. Jesus Christ. I. I don't know if there was a lot of gains being made in that gym.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Has there ever been a scene stealing location award for something that' even in the movie, like, I want to hang in that gym so bad.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

It'S like 450 out. And it's everything you need to know about like Hollywood access. It's somehow. It's basically written like a very, very erudite party report.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And this person is obviously talking to people on the set. But it's just such a great portrait of these guys just going full Babylon.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well.

[Bill Simmons]

And it fudged up. So their next movie is supposed to be Beverly Hills Cop 3.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And still catching Eddie, the tail end of before. I think he moved into a different phase of comedy and that gets delayed for three years. By the time they make it, it ends up being one of the worst sequels in a while. But then Simpson just is a fucking mess for most of the 90s. And then has the one last comeback with Bad Boys and Crimson Tide, ends up breaking up with Bruckheimer and then dies. Overdoses.

[Kyle Brandt]

Here's an unanswerable question. And you mentioned this, like, is Cruz part of the decadence? If it's blow and women and partying.

[Chris Ryan]

And all that, he's in Scientology by this point.

[Bill Simmons]

He's like, already.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. Yeah. Because there was yeah. Even like a little tidbit about how the. The brain surgeon who's Nicole Kidman's boss is named after his like one of his Scientology associates.

[Bill Simmons]

There's some slightly weird crew stuff with that. I like Cruz, but you know, he gets divorced from Mimi Rogers near the end of the 80s. There's stuff in here about how he selected Nicole Kidman to be his co star in this. They started dating and it does feel a little recipe Ish. And we'll leave it at that $60 million budget. Allegedly. I'm going to say it was really about, what, 85cr98590.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The $400,000 jib. Maybe not in that budget. It did make 1:57.9 million.

[Chris Ryan]

Are you going to ever have a Don Simpson face for me, Bill? Like, are we ever going to really ball?

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

You mean like when we go to Boston for me having it done?

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I want.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm too afraid of cocaine.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

I'm too afraid the Lembias put the fair guy to me.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

That's it.

[Kyle Brandt]

I just fascinated by it.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

They look 55.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Producer Craig]

Don Simpson was 37. Wait, wait, wait. 47. Sorry.

[Chris Ryan]

47 is my age making Days of Thunder.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So you just add another 10 years. Cruz made $9 million plus points for this movie. It got nominated for an Oscar for best sound. Roger Ebert, three stars. Days of Thunder is an entertaining example of what we might as well call the Tom Cruise picture. And then goes through all the beats of Tom Cruise movies, which I don't need to read. Parts of the plot are beginning to wear out their welcome, but the key ingredients are still effective. And then he says about Nicole Kidman. Kidman has little to do as the love interest and doesn't make much of an impression. I disagree.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think she classes it up. Yeah, I do.

[Bill Simmons]

I thought she looked awesome. Our guy, Quentin Tarantino loves it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Loves it. Yeah, I saw this. This is awesome.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm a big fan. To me, Days of Thunder is the movie Grand Prix in Le Mans. Should have been shirt had a big budget, big stars, and a big director in Tony Scott. But I had the fun of those early AIP movies. I just don't think it works. If you take the Whole thing too seriously. He also loves Tony Scott. We should ment.

[Chris Ryan]

Speaking of taking this thing too seriously, I just want to throw out a Robert Towne quote about this film. Days of thunder becomes the struggle of a driver to replace his belief in his own infallibility with the true courage of a man who recognizes that even if some things are beyond his control, he must go on to face them if he is to race to win and to live his life.

[Kyle Brandt]

Come on.

[Bill Simmons]

That's how he.

[Kyle Brandt]

Fuck off.

[Bill Simmons]

That was not my takeaway.

[Kyle Brandt]

He's driving and he goes, son of a. And like, that's basically it.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. That was not my takeo.

[Chris Ryan]

That should be a new category. Okay, Bob Toown.

[Bill Simmons]

Sounds good.

[Kyle Brandt]

You're good there, bud.

[Bill Simmons]

Got it? Yeah. I mean, Bob Town probably was thinking about this, like, the way, like, to me, without limits. The other. The prefontaine movie with Billy Crudup. That's the version of days of thunder Bob Town probably had in his head. But that's not what is up.

[Chris Ryan]

That's not what Tony and Don were thinking.

[Bill Simmons]

That's not what they're thinking. All right, categories. I'm swerving with you guys. I have two categories at the top before most rewatchable.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I move some stuff up because I think it's too important. The chest Rockwell and Brock Landers award for best character name.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. Come on.

[Bill Simmons]

Our nominees are Cole trickle, Rowdy Burns. Harry hog, spelled H O, G, G, e. Yeah. Or buddy Breathon.

[Chris Ryan]

I think it's Rowdy Burns.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you think, Kyle?

[Kyle Brandt]

I think this category could be renamed the Cole trickle and rowdy Burns best name awards. It's Rowdy. Listen, rowdy says it all. And again, a guy named Rowdy directed roadhouse. And you know what you're getting from someone named Rowdy and his last name is Burns, which is, like, also like fire. It's just absolutely perfect. Rambunctious fire. Rowdy Burns.

[Bill Simmons]

That's the name we're due for a Rowdy in sports.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, we are.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Way up the big board.

[Chris Ryan]

It should be a quarterback who kind of like, flames out at Notre Dame or usc and winds up at, like, Washington state or. Or something like that and sets the world on fire. It's like, rowdy Burns is back.

[Bill Simmons]

You Know, it'd be like funny football.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes. Be like that. I. I think it's been a long time since we. We lost Rod. Rowdy Piper. So it's like we're due for a.

[Bill Simmons]

Row for a rowdy.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

You're still surprising me.

[Bill Simmons]

The Dr. Claire Lewicki Award for worst character name. Why is her name Dr. Claire Lewicki? She's a fucking redhead from Australia, I think. How do they come up with Lewicki?

[Chris Ryan]

In. In addition to never filming the. The checkered flag at Daytona, I think they also forgot to maybe tweak the.

[Bill Simmons]

Name from the first draft once they hired Kidman. Like, couldn't she have been Dr. Claire Sanders?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

That's never too lazy to take it out.

[Kyle Brandt]

I don't know. Loiki. Fine.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, I just watched Youngblood the coach's daughter. Like, could be. It could have been a Louicki. Like she's living in nowhere Canada. Like, but Dr. Claire Lewicki, town's like, boom. I'm taking a break. I can't. I have.

[Chris Ryan]

I gotta believe I came up with.

[Bill Simmons]

Such a great name. Doctor.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

New York Times wedding announcement. Cold NASCAR driver Cole Trickle. Dr. Claire Lewicki, 23 year old neurosurgeon.

[Chris Ryan]

The groom wore mellow yellow green.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Most rewatchable scene. So Cole's first scene. What's going on? He had second thoughts. You said you'd look at it. I've looked at him. I paid $2,500 to use his track today. Harry, forget it. He needs a brand name like Exxon or Richard Petty. Well, I know a damn race driver when I see one. What's going on, Harry? Is this happening or what? Do us all a favor, Harry. I know a damn race car driver when I see one. Let me drive. I won't make a fool out of you. We get that whole thing. Cruz showing up on a motorcycle is hilarious. How many times has Cruz broken out a motorcycle in a movie? If you had to guess Research on this.

[Chris Ryan]

A compendium of Tom Cruz's character entrances.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

I thinks about. I think it's something that he is very conscious of. I, you know, it's almost like professional wrestling. Like he's coming is like in Collateral, which is kind of the opposite of this in terms of like the smoke and everything. But the door just opens and Vincent from, you know, Collateral. Vincent is just standing full on right in front of the camera. He's so good at making a huge first impression with these characters.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I had this written later, but Randy Quaid was in Brokeback Mountain and that somehow wasn't the gayest sexual attention movie that he's been in because Colin, Rowdy, incredible. You build me a car and I'll win Daytona next year. I love when people just say shit like that during a football movie. And like, you, you, you get me an offensive line, I'll win the super bowl next year. It's like you're Eagle Rock, California. You're racing like, gimmick. What are you talking about? Next one. Cole's first four races. Disaster. We do get the Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness award. Best noodle job for Give Me Some Lovin.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

I was thinking about this. That. So I was going to go a different way. Are we at capacity now with Give Me Some Loving?

[Chris Ryan]

For sure.

[Bill Simmons]

Almost like in the air tonight for football games. Like, just no more like, we're good. We. We had a great run. Let's move on.

[Chris Ryan]

This is a little bit of a slow first 15, 16 minutes. You know, a lot of talking to car frames, a lot of like, hold my duffel bag stuff. When Give Me Some Loving kicks in.

[Bill Simmons]

You're like, oh, Tony Scott, damn right he rubbed you. And Rubin son is racing. Stuff like that. We get to hit the pace car. We get that. We're busy. We're eating ice cream. We get lines like, what do we do? We end up looking like a monkey, a football out there.

[Kyle Brandt]

Can we talk about that line for a second?

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

I'm just throwing it at the wall. You can use it, you can reject it. But just what if this guy won't.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

But it's kind of like. It's like fun for October. It's The Crazy Ivan. It's gonna go one way or the other. It's like. It's not like it can go underneath of you, man.

[Bill Simmons]

You might want to be where I enjoy that part. I enjoy when they win a race in. In car movies. Just a brief scene, but Cole getting stopped by the police stripper.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

I mean, this. That's a very important scene.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

I think when you say Don Simpson special, odds are strippers and or cocaine are going to be involved. So this case, we get one.

[Chris Ryan]

What did you think of this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Have been if this movie was rated R? This scene could have definitely. We could talk about it, but now we could have explored the studio space with this scene, I think.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, looks like we found something.

[Bill Simmons]

What's that?

[Chris Ryan]

Concealed weapon.

[Bill Simmons]

Where? Right here.

[Chris Ryan]

There.

[Kyle Brandt]

Now, the only question is.

[Chris Ryan]

Will he actually use it?

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

She's an exotic dancer, Kyle.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Show some respect.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, I thought it was more like, he's a bus.

[Producer Craig]

They all had sex with her.

[Bill Simmons]

I thought there were more. There's more than just one woman.

[Chris Ryan]

No, it's a bunch of guys.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's like, Nick, seriously, second woman.

[Producer Craig]

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

[Bill Simmons]

She goes in the bus with Cole, and they all just women. But you're so.

[Kyle Brandt]

Wait, Last. Last question about that woman. And do you guys. You guys know who that is? That actress? Do you know this?

[Bill Simmons]

Can you save it for casting? Yeah, yeah. It's unbelievable.

[Kyle Brandt]

I just want to make sure.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, I couldn't believe it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Do you know Christy?

[Bill Simmons]

Do you know cr. Who that? I do. Okay.

[Kyle Brandt]

You want to do it now?

[Bill Simmons]

Now? Let's save it. Let's save it. Let's save it for the audience. Now they're excited.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

After the crash.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Like the wheelchair. The. The racing.

[Bill Simmons]

First race. The. The bus, the accident stuff. The accident. All the stuff I enjoyed. The rental car race. The. How do they end up in the water during this? If you had to guess?

[Kyle Brandt]

In the water.

[Bill Simmons]

In the rental car race. We're hanging in the street. All of a sudden, we're on the beach, just going through spring.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But then we're back.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

The valet situation is funny, too. Yeah. Cole ruins Russ Wheeler's victory lap when he comes out and just rams his car. I love that part. They write in a little. Little cruise Duvall, like, let's do a little four minute emotional scene here.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Not getting back in my car.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm getting in rowdy.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, well, that sounds just dumb enough to be a race driver. You think you'll hide from your bad luck in his car?

[Bill Simmons]

And what the hell for Ferrari? If he can run tomorrow, he crash you to win the race. He's mean. He's not particular friend. So. Why? Because he asked me to. You just want to race again.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

So do you.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Briefly.

[Kyle Brandt]

Thank you.

[Chris Ryan]

And there's a lot of, like, forensic kind of like, oh, no, he didn't.

[Bill Simmons]

Have a heart attack.

[Chris Ryan]

He was talking, you know, like. Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Last one. Cole's big Daytona comeback. Seeing the smoke driving through it, symbolic in a lot of ways. Kyle Little like, I'm sure Josh Allen watches this movie and thinks there's going to be another moment on a 4:1. I just got to go through the smoke.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

But it's go through the smoke.

[Kyle Brandt]

He got, he got, you know, Joey Bosa who plays like three games a year and that.

[Bill Simmons]

That'll make a difference for 12 million bucks.

[Kyle Brandt]

We're set.

[Bill Simmons]

Signing.

[Kyle Brandt]

We're set.

[Bill Simmons]

I like the big. We gotta. I mean, none of us understand race car driving. The whole we gotta get out before that pace car around. They show the pace car back to thing. Oh my God. The guy can't get the look that in everybody.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh. Oh, we made it.

[Bill Simmons]

It very fun. And then the. He's going high, he's going low.

[Kyle Brandt]

Awesome.

[Bill Simmons]

I had this later, but I'll do this now. This is really good. This is almost like this social clip. So if you're the hero of a sports movie and you could pick any, any movie, what would be the single most fun scene to reenact if you were the actor? Because I would make a case winning a huge race in either Indy 500 or NASCAR. And then you get to do the thing where they all lift you up and they pour champagne on you and you're celebrating. That seems like it would be number one. I couldn't think of another one that would be better. Maybe. Maybe a perfect game. Running toward the catcher and jumping into the catchers.

[Kyle Brandt]

I thought baseball as well. I was thinking of Willie Mays Hayes going home on Clue. Haywood and the Yankees. He slides into home and the Indians.

[Bill Simmons]

Win and they got jumps on him.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, like that. The dog pile. Like that I would love.

[Bill Simmons]

What about like a game winning like a natural Rayha.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

That's pretty because then you could do like the Vander Beek winning and Varsity Blues end zone celebration.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

A fun part of it too is it in with. With Vanderbeek and with Cole Trickle is you get a victory makeout like right there in the celebrations involve all the characters.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Exxon was like, nothing can go wrong for us.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, great.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Guys. We have this spot in Days of Thunder.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, this is the peak by the lake house.

[Kyle Brandt]

We're good.

[Bill Simmons]

I think. Unless you guys can come up with another one. I think I have the winner. Is there anything else you think is 1993?

[Kyle Brandt]

I got one too.

[Chris Ryan]

Russ Wheeler's girlfriend.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's what I have. Yeah, same one.

[Chris Ryan]

She's basically Brigitte Nilsson with dark hair. She has the high top fade and the crazy boxy blazer. It's. It's just like Chris. I got the same 90.

[Bill Simmons]

It's.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's. It's Bridgie Nilsson wearing some sort of pantsuit with Mike Alstott shoulder pads underneath the jacket. It's unbelievable.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Fucking awesome.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What. Is there any other point in the history of. Of America where Tom Cruise would have requested a song from White. White stinks. David Coverdale.

[Kyle Brandt]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

We're looking at 88 to 90. That's has to be the window, right?

[Chris Ryan]

It's also amazing too because David Coverdale is probably like, God, you know, I did. Here I go again. I'm. I'm with Tawny Catain.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

In Days of Thunder. And then nirvana comes like nine months later.

[Bill Simmons]

David Coverdell's at an Exxon rap party. Just like Gu. Going to get better for all of us.

[Kyle Brandt]

He's. He has $2 million from Exxon to perform. Is this love for five minutes and then walk off stage. That's the way.

[Bill Simmons]

What's age the best. Robert Duvall is the crew chief. Oh, God. Rarely do you see somebody this overqualified to be in a sports movie where they actually care about the movie. Like Gene Hackman's in the Replacements. He's mailing it in. It's still fun. Rip Jean Hackman. Duvall's like, I actually like this character. I'm going to explore. Maybe I can steal this movie from Cruise. I just think he's really good.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

He's like, I'm going to build you close to the ground, give you a good restrictor plate, you know, like, is.

[Bill Simmons]

Is it a hot take to say this is a top five favorite Duvall movie? Pretty hot because he's been in a lot of good movies.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

It would be like Tom winning Top Gun. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

And been like, hey, man, Days of Thunder.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, can I get. Can I give it a special shout out to, like, the Top Gun comparison? Russ Wheeler shows up with the same Iceman hairdo.

[Bill Simmons]

It's the same.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's a blonde spike. It might as well be Val Kilmer. It's ridiculous.

[Bill Simmons]

I know. But it looks cool and curly hair. Kidman is special place in my heart.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Because what happens when. When especially really, really attractive women have hair like that? They ride it into their mid-20s and then they start straightening it out and they never have it again. And I was having a conversation with.

[Kyle Brandt]

My wife last night about Nicole Kibbins hair as we watched. It's. I think her hair was like fifth on the call. She. She's like, her hair is amazing. And I'm like, man, the cars.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

The care.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like a running quarterback, you know? Like, they do it for a few years and then it's like, no, no, no. I'm a pocket passer straight.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Everyone was like, oh my. It was like watching like dolphins jump in the fucking ocean. It was incredible. Everyone's like, oh my God. It's like tall. Just like great. But what a great run by her to best age the best. Two Oscar winners, Kidman and Duvall, like sharing actual scenes together.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

But Bill, did. Did Walsh offer Nicole Kidman ever part on around the Horn? Like, want to be one of the panels? Bring them in. Come on.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

No.

[Kyle Brandt]

No. And it's fun because he's intelliging and ice.

[Chris Ryan]

I know, it's like.

[Bill Simmons]

Right?

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

So yes, Paul Thomas Anderson was just like. Just do the Days of Thunder guy.

[Chris Ryan]

That's the idea is basically that Duvall has kept Riley, that Harry's kept Bucky on because his dad was the driver that died under Duvall's.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that story by Robert Towne and Tom Cruise also.

[Kyle Brandt]

Bill, I got it. I have to jump on the Town Cruz, when you mentioned P.T. anderson. So the scene when Cruz meets Russ Wheeler and he's on the phone and like kind of just mails in the handshake. That is the exact scene when Jack Horner brings Johnny Doe to meet Dirk Diggler and he's like, this is the new guy here. Yeah, it's the same scene. I bet PT Loved this movie. I bet.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, no question. Because we know he loves Cruz and Riley too. Yes, Carrie, always as a dick. Just. I don't think there was. Val kilmer is probably 10 out of 10 best dicks of the 80s. 90s but Carrie always was always a solid 8 and a half. I have two more, but do you have guys any anymore? What stage?

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Watch a monkey fuck a football.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. It just really is like so fucking funny.

[Bill Simmons]

And we've discussed this before. It's clear that he's never had a drink alcohol in the last 40.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

And you rub your gums.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

Is awesome.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

Just know that going forward, tires win a race. It's dirty, secret. Not about the car. It's not about the driver. It's the tires. Don't have two race teams. If you're the owner, like Randy Quaid. You got to pick one. You're going to have tension. And then. This was probably the best advice. They're calculating drivers and kamakazi drivers. Which one are you?

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

But it was serious. Actually kind of unfair because he's coming off of Born on the fourth of July. So he's been in the wheelchair. He has rep for like the better part of the last two years.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

You're right.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Okay?

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Taking one more break. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Upgrade your business with Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. Shop pay boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning fewer carts going abandoned and more.

[Kyle Brandt]

Sales going Cha Ching.

[Bill Simmons]

So if you're into growing your business.

[Kyle Brandt]

Get a commerce platform that's ready to.

[Bill Simmons]

Sell wherever your customers are. Visit shopify.com to upgrade your selling today. I'm William Goudge, a viewer collaborator and professional ultrarunner from the uk. I love to tackle endurance runs around.

[Chris Ryan]

The world, including a 55 day 3064.

[Bill Simmons]

Mile run across the US so I know a thing or two about performance wear. When it comes to relaxing, I look for something ultra versatile and comfy. The Ponto performance jogger from Vuri is perfect for all of those things.

[Chris Ryan]

It's the comfiest jogger I've ever worn.

[Bill Simmons]

And the Dream Knit fabric is wild. Always reach for them over other joggers.

[Chris Ryan]

Check them out in the Dreamlit collection.

[Bill Simmons]

By going to vuorie.com william that's V-U-O-R-I.com william. Where new customers can receive 20% off.

[Chris Ryan]

Their first order plus enjoy free shipping in the US on orders over $75 and free returns.

[Bill Simmons]

Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. The Big Kahuna Burger Award. Best use of food and drink has to be Mellow Yellow. Just being a sponsor. Right. We can't top that.

[Kyle Brandt]

That.

[Bill Simmons]

I. I actually looked this up. Mellow yellow still exists in some markets. Do you know that?

[Chris Ryan]

I didn't.

[Bill Simmons]

It's.

[Chris Ryan]

I think.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And Cole goes for the crudite first. It's like is anyone. Has a NASCAR driver ever had crudite in the history of man From Eagle Rock. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Would you have Kyle?

[Kyle Brandt]

I mean if. Do we consider Sweet and Low to be food? It is a sweetener.

[Bill Simmons]

Sure. Let's do it. Okay. That wins.

[Kyle Brandt]

Packet into the thigh. It's mine.

[Bill Simmons]

Great shot.

[Kyle Brandt]

Gorder.

[Bill Simmons]

Award for most cinematic shots. You have one C.R.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

In the 4K Blu Ray. He actually had them add six inches to his height. Yeah, they're the same height. Cr you're up with a flex category from categories we don't normally have. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Settle down. She's from Jacksonville. Rowdy. Settle down. That's good. I like that one. The Butch's Girlfriend Award. Weak link of the film. What do you got, Kyle?

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

I think I know I had the same.

[Chris Ryan]

I think I know why that is.

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

And it is one of my. Whats age. The worst. I think the crash happens too early in the movie.

[Kyle Brandt]

Interesting.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

I like moving the crash later. I think that's a good idea. I would also.

[Chris Ryan]

I.

[Bill Simmons]

You could have talked me into a hairy stealth cancer battle that finds out about when they have the big back.

[Chris Ryan]

And forth in the end rocky plot line.

[Bill Simmons]

I like just like a little. Yeah, a little creed one. Something's wrong with Harry and he doesn't want to tell Cole and Cole finds out. I think this movie's better off with Rowdy just dies. We lose all those scenes. Yeah, we basically. And they probably didn't want to do it because they didn't want to have the goose parallel. But we have that.

[Chris Ryan]

So that's. We can give Carrie Elway's Val Kilmer's hair. Yeah, but we can't kill her.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Second best. She's got this.

[Kyle Brandt]

I had this as my flex. I was going to reach to the top of the Elizabeth shoe and I just. I want to establish for the record if any of us were in 1990 in Daytona Beach, Florida of all places and needed emergency care, we would get it from a 5 foot 11, 20 something beautiful looking Australian doctor who is also completely DTF. Like I don't know if that is the fit that you would get. The odds have got to be long.

[Bill Simmons]

What was a more unrealistic character? Her or Kelly lynch in Roadhouse? If you had to guess most unrealistic. Why are you living in this part of the world and why are you this good at your job?

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Kyle Brandt]

And is a billion out of 10 working the ER and Jasper. @ least. At least Paige Nawiki or whatever her name is gets Claire Dwight from nascar. Claire.

[Bill Simmons]

Claire Lewicki.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Do you think that Louiecki is in Daytona because that's where all the good brain injuries are or do you think that Nobody believes a 23 year old could do this job? So she could only get a job.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

But she. I mean she looks like a kid in this movie anyway. She's young. What stage the worst. The video game for this movie stunk. I just wanted to get that. I had it.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's terrible.

[Bill Simmons]

Bad. Really bad. Really disappointing during. During an era where our expectations for video games were starting to go up and this was bad. And in general, most driving video games were bad in the 80s and 90s. But this one, I feel like that you spent a hundred million dollars, you build a gym for Simpson and Bruckheimer, you can't have a good video game. Cr. Come on.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Well, arcade wise, pole position was great. Yeah, pole position was iconic for five, six years and days of Thunder at least. Should have had an awesome arcade game with Cruz's face on it. Like, I don't know how they fucked that up.

[Kyle Brandt]

No, like in the arcade at this point there's a game called Outrun and Nintendo was rad Racer on Nintendo was kind of the standard years earlier there was fun stuff. But this on the goldeneye scale of like movies being made into video games, this is a 2. It's the top Gun game was way better and you couldn't fucking land. So this game is really bad.

[Bill Simmons]

Give me more. What stage the worst because I have three left. What do you guys think?

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

It's an eight episode prestige TV series as a one hour and 40 minute movie.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Be like, let's go right.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, I. I have Cole's courting of Dr. Nowicki as one of the most deplorable, ridiculous things that's happened. Four steps of being a creepy stalker. Slash.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Step number one, you take the doctor's hand and put it on your penis in a room full of witnesses, and they all just laugh. Stage two, you then wait for her in the parking lot by her car, which is what serial killers do. Stage three, you fill her apartment with $10,000 worth of flowers and balloons, which is the terrible thing to do. And if you do that, they call the cops to have it photographed. And stage four, after you kiss her in the middle of the physical, you walk out and say, how are you ignoring me? Which is really the line from Fatal Attraction. It's like, from start to finish, deplorable and gross. And she apparently just fucking loves it because she's in.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Right. She has to. He has to. Both of them.

[Bill Simmons]

That's great. I love that. Kyle. I have some small ones. Months. I really like the scene when Harry's building Cole's car and he's like. He's got the hands.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And we see, like, the frame of a car, and then in 10 seconds, there's the car. I could have gone three more minutes with them. Him, like, instructing people. No, no. You got it. The fenders got to look like that. Like, I just. I was so interested in that part and just is gone immediately. I could have done. I could have done a whole scene. Randy Quaid's character is named Tim D. This is a movie with Rowdy Burns and Cole Trickle and Dr. Claire Lewicki. We couldn't have done better than Tim D. Can you just talk me through.

[Chris Ryan]

Financially, What's Tim Dallin on the hook for here? In the beginning, it's like he's basically putting up all his money to get into NASCAR and then hoping he gets sponsored. But then over the course of six races, is swimming in it enough to have two car to have.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So some bigger motorsports entity comes in.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like a. Henry Cole won like.

[Kyle Brandt]

Six races in a row.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. The greatest rookie startup had never happened. I don't think it ever happened.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

So I think he's looking to expand on the coal. Riding the coal gravy train. And he gets the second car, and then that's it.

[Bill Simmons]

Is that a nitpick, Sierra? Nobody's wins six races in a row.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And 400 tds. All right, my big one. I'm really excited to share this with you guys.

[Kyle Brandt]

Let's do it.

[Bill Simmons]

How much. How much you. You love this awkward Tom Cruise bedroom scenes?

[Kyle Brandt]

Go on.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Maniacally laughing in Jennifer Connelly's face.

[Bill Simmons]

So much comedy in bed. Most guys are in bed. They're just like, that girl's hot. I'm gonna try to have sex with her. Tom Cruise is like. He's on serious channel 94 doing, like, comedy bits on Netflix as a joke. Brings out sweet and lows. There's always props with Tom Cruise.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Go on.

[Bill Simmons]

This is like an eight and a half. I think that with Gina Gershon and Cocktail. That's. That's like a solid 8. I don't know what they're doing there. They're bouncing around. They fall off the bed. It's like, nobody has had sex like this ever. Top gun with Kelly McGillis is a nine and a half, and I think 10. I think a solid 10. Top Gun Maverick with Jennifer Connelly, which.

[Chris Ryan]

Is the most chaste sex scene in American history.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, that's another one.

[Kyle Brandt]

Good one. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

And Bonnie Hunt's listening to the laughter. It's like, why is there so much laughter?

[Kyle Brandt]

Why.

[Bill Simmons]

Why isn't there grunting and Bonnie Hunt.

[Chris Ryan]

Go to a 7 11. What are you doing?

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Cruz doesn't get it. Just. No, he's standing in the complete hand him Risky Business train scene. He starts out great with the sex scene.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Then we have all the right moves with Leah Thompson, which is like a very tender high school. Here's the first time you've seen me without my shirt. It's one of those. It's like very early 80s. I was gonna pull my shirt up.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But awkward. Whatever. But as the 80s go on into the 90s, it just gets weirder and weirder. And then Eyes Wide Shuttle that.

[Chris Ryan]

In. In some ways, Eyes Wide Shut is.

[Bill Simmons]

The most erotic he's done.

[Chris Ryan]

Is the most erotic. Because that's just like. It's capturing in his. At his weirdest.

[Bill Simmons]

But once he was on the sofa with Oprah. I don't know if we ever saw it again other than a maverick and then a maverick. I still can't explain it. Are they watching Seinfeld? Like, are they. What? What's happening? Are they waiting for a post order? What are they doing?

[Chris Ryan]

I like Dave.

[Bill Simmons]

What are they laug. She's like, I had this customer yesterday, and he tried to pay with a five, but he gave me 100.

[Kyle Brandt]

Is like, SNL is so back.

[Bill Simmons]

Anyway. All right. Ruffalo Hannah Ruben Ek Partridge overacting award. Probably cruise in the car a couple times. I would say, unless you want to go all of Carry Elways.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Him.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

So when he's doing the ice cream thing and Cruz gets out of the car and he's like.

[Bill Simmons]

Like a real, like, De Niro, Cape.

[Chris Ryan]

Fear, crazy Duvall laugh.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, so the CR Thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. Had us take a word. I have one. Do you guys have one?

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

And we never get the Cruise Kidman marriage. Like, of all that produced and, like, all the places that that went. Yeah, mine couldn't be more.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Shout out to those kids. Yeah. I was trying to do a Days of Thunder is better than Top Gun take, but I just couldn't get there. I can't justify it. So it's not. It's not. Fighter planes are cooler than race cars. So my take is this. I miss Tom Cruise's old teeth. I missed them a lot. And I think that they were better if you watched this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

It's a wonderful, wonderful hottest take.

[Kyle Brandt]

Thank you.

[Bill Simmons]

I have a warm up. Hottest take, then a hottest take. We've talked about Rooker many times, and I think this is a good spot. I still don't understand why he wasn't a way bigger star in the late 80s, early 90s. He's coming. When he does this movie. He's coming off Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. He does see a love. It feels like there's going to be a Rooker moment. We called it the Rooker sign Months. Everything peaks in Cliffhanger. And then he just kind of moves into, like, kind of graduated from that guy land and pops up in a bunch of stuff. It's always fun to see him. I remember when he showed up in Walking Dead, it was like, oh, my God, Rooker.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, I hear you.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

I. I feel like he was maybe missing Bill Paxton's sense of humor. Because I feel like Paxton, Bean, Sizemore, and Rooker were all circling a lot of the same parts. And if you had your number 1D draft choice every time seemed to be Paxton. And he just missed a couple of those roles.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So that's a good point with Rooker. Like, could he have been in Heat 100,000%. He could have played like six characters in Heat Meet. So there was, it turns out, like his iconic role was Cliffhanger.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's like he's. It's not quite there. And listen, he was huge in the MCU when it was still cool. The Walking Dead, and he's had amazing career done, but never the face on the poster.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, that's not my hottest take. My hottest take. This movie is way better if Cole Trickle is just Brian Flanagan and it's called Cocktail Two Days of Thunder. And Brian Flanagan has gotten divorced. He's given up the bar restaurant business. He always enjoyed driving. And he's just playing Brian Flanagan.

[Chris Ryan]

And he's doing it far, that much farther removed than Cole Trickles actual origin, which is I. They just put me in a car and I was good at driving.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Like, let's just make a plan again. He's got. Every time he looks at the dashboard and Coglin's right there, and he, like, pats the dashboard Coglins. Maybe he has the reconciliation with Elizabeth Shu, but it doesn't work out. It leads to Kidman. I just think it's more.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think also, like, his sponsor has to be Captain Morgan or Malibu Rum from the bar.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yep. That was another one.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

This isn't quite a casting with it, but we haven't talked about it yet. Don Simpson put himself in the movie as.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

As driver Aldo Benedetti. B E N N E D E T T I as later to be.

[Chris Ryan]

Seen in Inglorious Bastard.

[Bill Simmons]

This. This movie wasn't deranged. And co producer. And you see him in the beginning and it's so funny when you know it's there. Apparently his acting was so bad and his scenes were so awful that they ended up cutting out a lot of the Aldo Benedetti stuff. He only has one cameo. And then there's the story after. Who knows if it's true that Tony Scott shot long, terrible scenes with him so Simpson would know how bad he was and just had like five, six minute long scenes of Simpson Mangley dialogue.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So it get up and it ends up just being a cameo. But how much cocaine do you have to be on to think you should be in a Tom Cruise movie?

[Chris Ryan]

Italian race car driver.

[Kyle Brandt]

His Name's Simpson.

[Bill Simmons]

Danny McBride Award for playing yourself. Richard Petty, Rusty Wallace. Neil bonnet, Harry Gantt. Dr. Jerry Post. So we have that. Who do you have for best that Guy award? Because there's a great one in here.

[Chris Ryan]

I have J.T. quinn, who is I. He's Rowdy's pit guy. And he is forever the guy in maximum overdrive who gets blinded by gas.

[Bill Simmons]

That's where you went first.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Come on, C.R.

[Chris Ryan]

What do you have?

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, you got a great one.

[Bill Simmons]

No, J.C. is J.C. quinn or J.T. quinn.

[Chris Ryan]

J.T.

[Kyle Brandt]

J.T.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, man.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

It's not about the six men minutes.

[Kyle Brandt]

He's the chef.

[Bill Simmons]

Happens in the six minutes they find him one of the great sports movie characters. Always love seeing him.

[Kyle Brandt]

He also plays the dad in the program of Quarterback. The be I I had Nick Cersei, who's the ranger who says everyone's under arrest for transportating the alcohol. It's the same guy who's the ranger in the Fugitive who says Wyatt Earp here is going to take over. Same guy.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I I Margaret Margo Martindale is no longer that guy, but this is, I think, her first feature.

[Bill Simmons]

I liked. I like Quinn Dion Waiter's award. Here we go. So, not going to say the winner yet, but Fred Thompson is our runner up. Who just calls people's monkeys. Tells a long story about causing the Japs with lettuce.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure does Fred Dalton Thompson, always reliable to come in and be mildly coming in Hot.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Be awesome. But also mildly racist.

[Bill Simmons]

The Japanese inspection starts. Good. He's not the winner though. The stripper police officer.

[Kyle Brandt]

Go on.

[Bill Simmons]

Leilani Sorrell, AKA like where does she. She looks so familiar. What else did she do? Fucking Roxy from Basic Instinct.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

When we did the Basic Instinct pod, it was like, why wasn't she one of the biggest stars of the 90s? I. She does that Basic Instinct and then that's kind of it.

[Chris Ryan]

Was she dating Simpson?

[Bill Simmons]

No, somebody else was. I have that in the half ass. They. The other girl in that scene who's on the bus. Simpson cast and then ended up dating and marrying.

[Chris Ryan]

But then didn't Tony Scott also wind up dating?

[Bill Simmons]

He dated her and Tony Scott married her. That's what it was. Yeah. Yeah. She became eventually Mrs. Tony Scott. And she's on the bus.

[Kyle Brandt]

Was. Wasn't. Wasn't Sharon Stone up for Li too? Like that. That could have been the full crossover.

[Bill Simmons]

She was up for everything.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Erotic.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Roxy. Just an iconic 90s character.

[Chris Ryan]

I hadn't thought about Roxy since the.

[Bill Simmons]

Pop odd recasting couch director of City. I mean, just get Val Kilmer for Ross Wheeler. What are we doing?

[Chris Ryan]

Great.

[Bill Simmons]

What are we doing?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. You guys could have taken a little bit out of the gym budget and hit Kilmer's.

[Bill Simmons]

What are we doing?

[Kyle Brandt]

It's.

[Bill Simmons]

It's there for four days. Just say, hey, I know you're shooting the doors. Just can you come down to Charlotte.

[Chris Ryan]

And just shooting the door.

[Bill Simmons]

We're gonna put a flat top hairdo on you just as Morrison.

[Kyle Brandt]

Leather pants. Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Stupid.

[Bill Simmons]

What does it mean?

[Kyle Brandt]

It's corny as hell.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What if you just called it Daytona?

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Like, would you call it Trickle?

[Chris Ryan]

No.

[Kyle Brandt]

Dropping the hammer.

[Chris Ryan]

Dropping the hammer's not bad. Checkered flag.

[Bill Simmons]

Something with tires.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

The answer is I just said Days.

[Chris Ryan]

Of Thunder might be a good title.

[Kyle Brandt]

You know what?

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

You can't do that.

[Bill Simmons]

Bird death. Yeah, PETA violations. Questions were had. Donna Scott, the pit girl in that scene with Roxy, broke up with Simpson, dated Tony Scott. They got married, had two kids. And then Cruz apparently got a speeding ticket in Carolina. 85 and a 55 because he was revved up.

[Kyle Brandt]

Badass.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

What is it?

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Meryl Streep. Some other movie.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Producer Craig]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, dawn, could I go and maybe.

[Bill Simmons]

Study neurosurgeons and talk to some neurosurgeons?

[Kyle Brandt]

That's awesome.

[Bill Simmons]

Apex Mountain cruise? Probably not. Yeah, we're in the cruise vicinity, but I. I still feel like it's a Few Good Men that range.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I mean, I think 89, 90, 92 is. Is about. Is about like we're in.

[Bill Simmons]

We're in range. We're not quite there. Duval? No. Kidman. Not yet. Cruises. Hair and teeth. Teeth, I think yes. And yes. Yes, yes. Nascar? No. Lunatic. Don Simpson stories. I think yes. I think we. This is Apex right here.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Cruz as a believable real life playboy bachelor coming off divorce. Landon. Nicole Kidman. I'm going to say yes. I had no questions when I was in 1990. Rooker. Cliffhanger. Right?

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

John C. Reilly. No. Carrie. Always. No. What is Carrie Always? Is Apex.

[Chris Ryan]

Princess Bride.

[Kyle Brandt]

Princess Bride. Yeah, I think 87.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Hans Zimmer. Probably not. Simpson. Bruckheimer. Mellow yellow.

[Chris Ryan]

Car racing movies.

[Bill Simmons]

Car racing movies. Probably Talladega I think that's had better legs and then mellow yellow. Yes, right.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's that song that it's inspired the Soda song by Donovan. Like an old hippie song. But I think this car in the movie and everything's got to be. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Cruiser Hanks. Cruz is in it. I'm willing to have the Hanks convo, though. Yeah, I can't get there, but Cruz. Sure. So I don't know what the standings are now for those two. What do you have for Scorsese or Spielberg?

[Chris Ryan]

I would like to see the Scorsese version of this.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, lot more cocaine six. It's like, yeah, let's have cold become a cocaine addict.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Rooker would have been interesting.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

He would kill. So Philip Seymour Hoffman at Freddy as Russ Wheeler.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's it.

[Bill Simmons]

Going. Going cool. How's the ct? How's the ct? Racehorse Rock band. Wrestler. Fantasy team name. Heart the top. Cold trickle. Cold Tricklers. Anything with Tricklers.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, I got a. I got a cool, cool punk band called Japanese Inspection. I think rock in the early 80s.

[Bill Simmons]

With a couple songs. Yeah. All right, Craig, come on camera for this one because you have a flex category for us.

[Producer Craig]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Just fantasy. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Jesus. Loiki falls for Cole in about two minutes. Yeah, that's tough to mention that.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Terrible.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

That's she also insisting that she works 24 hours a day.

[Producer Craig]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Which is.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Extreme dream.

[Bill Simmons]

Dream girlfriend. Smoking hot doctor who's on call at the time. Sounds great. I'm going to watch sports. Tell me when you get back from the hospital.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Any other nitpicks for you guys?

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

I have one more small one though, because this is a movie thing that happens a lot where the passenger wants to get out of the car and then open. Yeah. In real life, I just think Cole keeps going. Go ahead. You're fall out of the car. Dare you. I dare you. You're gonna fall out. Good. 80 miles an hour.

[Chris Ryan]

I had my two, two or three. Here. Two of them are interrelated. One is Cole drove Indy cars or open wheel cars before nascar.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Couldn't agree more.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Or a fast learner. Yeah, fast learner, maybe.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Is the only place every single time.

[Bill Simmons]

We gotta get to fourth and one for another tush push. It didn't work last time. Sequel prequel. Prestige, tv, all black caster, untouchable. So less than six months ago, reported Tom Cruise is going to do a Days of Thunder sequel.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Producer Craig]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, he might be cool.

[Kyle Brandt]

He might be cool still.

[Chris Ryan]

Is that when Top Gun Maverick was being developed? The whole idea was that Maverick was going to be Viper, like he was going to be the teacher and that these younger guys were going to take over, just like Jeremy Renner was going to take over Mission Impossible. I will believe Tom Cruise passing the baton when I actually see it. Dean taken out of his cold dead hands.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

Hey, LeBron's going to retire. Pass the torch to Luca. Is he is.

[Chris Ryan]

This other nitpick I had just briefly is for the extremity of that accident that Cole and Rowdy get into. Cole just having like the cutest little burst blood vessel in his eye as like, that's his only.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's adorable.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Get a little scrape in there, you know?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah. Give him like a high. High ankle sprain. Something.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Is this movie better than Wayne Jenkins, Danny Treo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson. No, Byron Mayo, Barney Cousins, Tony Romo, Harling Maze, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Pl. You long legs are Wilford Brimley in the Firm cr.

[Chris Ryan]

God damn, Cole. I didn't know I was working with super driver and a Australian girlfriend.

[Bill Simmons]

You better Pass.

[Chris Ryan]

Russ, on the high side, or your lady is going to be doing AMC theater intros a long time, big boy. Get him the out of here. I do that for Kyle. I. I actually think DB would be great. Great.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

We see you, Mr. Trickle.

[Bill Simmons]

We see you passing high.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

That's like. That's like going after Vince Carter in the dunk contest. Like, what. What do I. All right. But I've always wanted to do this one, and I'm so thrilled I'm going to take my shot. I am going with Wilford Brimley and the Firm. Yeah. Because we got Cruz right there. And I think the premise is Cole is going to leave the race team. He's like, I'm out of here. And then Randy Quaid says his head of security, take. Take Cole for a little drive.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Not just screwing Cole. Intimidax. Oral and whatnot. Impossible for young Australian doctor to forget. That's the scene I need it.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow. Those are two great ones. I. I almost don't want to follow it. Just with Romo going, he might go, hi, Jim. My guy's going low. Jim, just one Oscar. Who gets it? Han Zimmer.

[Chris Ryan]

Don Simpson said Robert Town should get an Oscar for this.

[Bill Simmons]

For what? He did disagree. It did get nominated for best sound, so maybe that wins the Oscar. Yeah, probably. An answerable question. Questions. Cole's Daytona odds. I have no idea how to do race car odds, but Cole coming off major accident. Not doing that great.

[Chris Ryan]

Not.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm gonna guess 100. Not his car. I'm guessing 100 to 1 or higher, right? Something like that.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, here's. Well, I have one more, but do you guys have any unanswerables?

[Chris Ryan]

I had a question for the. For the. The panel here.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Pontiac out in front?

[Bill Simmons]

Front. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I just wouldn't enjoy it. Yeah. I'm gonna say no.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Awesome. And he's going to do it because he's that stupid. Stupid. I have a question about Kidman and Cruz. So they met on set. The romance starts.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

I had to guess. I. I would say really? Practically speaking, probably upon casting. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Mimi Rogers was like 5:11, kind of Cruise's thing. Katie Holmes is like, Katie Holmes tall too.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Here's my unanswerable. What happens if duval does Godfather 3 instead of this movie? Who's Harry? And I think it's Jack Nicholson.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, wow. Yeah. I was gonna say.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

But then. Do they still do A few good men a few years later?

[Bill Simmons]

Later, maybe not. That's another. We get a what if off the what if. What piece of memorability would you want or not want from this movie?

[Chris Ryan]

As a hat guy, I would love the super flow hat.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

That they have.

[Bill Simmons]

I like that one too.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

I want the. I just want the. The mellow yellow racing suit embroidered with cold trickle. And I feel like my 8 year old could wear it for Halloween costume. It'd be fun.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh my God. That's amazing.

[Bill Simmons]

I think the mellow yellow suit is the answer. I mean, you could go cars, but we said this is no cars allowed categories category. Does you want nail word for what happened the next day? We're bringing this back all right, what happens here? Does he end up with Claire Lewicki? Do they have kids? They don't. Right. They break up.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

No, no. The scene is when they're in bed together. She keeps. I mean, I think they just screwed. They're about to. And she's like, isn't there anything else you want to do? Don't you have any other dreams? Like, that's very relatable. You don't want to be in that relationship.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. She's just bouncing between Charlotte and Daytona. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Where's the next race? So it's in Virginia. I'm there. Yeah. Hold on. To cover my 16 hour shift.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Coach Finock award for best life lesson. I'm more afraid of being nothing than being hurt. I'm just going to take that into my life.

[Chris Ryan]

I think I. I liked rubbing is racing.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, I did too.

[Producer Craig]

It's.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's so everywhere now. And it applies to life, it applies to sports, everything. Sometimes there's going to be some that happens, but that's life.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have, Kyle for best double feature choice?

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Unbelievable choice.

[Chris Ryan]

Great job, man.

[Kyle Brandt]

Thank you.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

I had Duval 1A and Tony Scott, 1B BE. Yeah, I know Cruz is a 1 seed. I just love Duvall in this movie and I think he saves it from actually being a bad movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. Listen, if.

[Bill Simmons]

If Tom scares.

[Kyle Brandt]

If Tom Skerrett's gone from Top Gun, we're going to be fine. But if. If Duvall is gone from this movie, like, you're kind of like, you need that to hold it together.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Come on, baby.

[Bill Simmons]

I know he loved the runtime, which is like 141. Somehow the Rewatchables pod is going to be 15 minutes past it. What do you think, Craig?

[Producer Craig]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes.

[Producer Craig]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, great question. That could have been a good. Unanswerable. You're right.

[Producer Craig]

I mean, this movie has become our.

[Bill Simmons]

Most patriotic director of the last 40 years.

[Producer Craig]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Crimson tide.

[Producer Craig]

Yeah, Crimson tide. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, they kept going back to it.

[Producer Craig]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Producer Craig]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Producer Craig]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

You know?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. What if they told Tony Scott for like the 15 year anniversary? Can you go back and do your director's edit of this?

[Producer Craig]

I wanted like 15 more minutes.

[Kyle Brandt]

Minutes.

[Producer Craig]

I really did.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, there's, there's, there's no. I was expecting from Craig.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Show him in his house. I want a fist pump.

[Producer Craig]

I want Bertier from a member of the Titans in the hospital bed.

[Chris Ryan]

Like. Yes.

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Producer Craig]

Also iconic. Final shot. You guys didn't really talk about it, but the race.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, the freeze frame.

[Producer Craig]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Craig, how do you feel about Tony Scott from 90 to 94? 95. Four in a row. Days of thunder. Last boy Scout. True romance. Crimson tide. Just fucking banging him out back to back to back back.

[Producer Craig]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I know. Yeah. So he's nine. So now he's tied with Michael Mann I a couple.

[Producer Craig]

Can I throw like a picking knit at you?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Producer Craig]

What about the scene, the all time flag for targeting when that goes unpunished when Trickle just sneaks out of the pit zone or whatever the hit called and just T Bones carry Ellie's car after. Is it after he wins. Is the race over?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Carry Eloise is one. Yeah. Yeah.

[Producer Craig]

He T Bones him to ruin the car. And then 20 minutes later, Randy Quaid is back on his side.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Producer Craig]

Also, like, NASCAR doesn't punish him in any way like that. Wouldn't that. That have been the craziest story of nas?

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

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

[Bill Simmons]

You know, Craig just made me think of that. This movie is missing. This would have been a good pick and knit. Where is like ESPN Sports Center. There's such a natural cut to Chris Berman and Tom Lee doing the. Some crazy thing happened today in nascar. Russ Wheeler won a race. Watch Cole Trickle here. Hair comes in and they just do the whole magic.

[Kyle Brandt]

Trickle.

[Bill Simmons]

We get some bourbon. Yeah. Goes after Russ 18 Wheeler.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, 90 we would have gotten maybe. What would that. Would that have been Kilborn back. Back then.

[Bill Simmons]

We're still Berman. Gail Gardner, Ch. Think I. Stu Scott's not even there yet. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Rowdy Montgomery Burns.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Way to go, Craig.

[Producer Craig]

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

[Kyle Brandt]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

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

[Producer Craig]

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

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Producer Craig]

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

[Chris Ryan]

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

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, well Tom Cruise, we still have a few left too which is amazing. We still have a bunch of Mission Impossibles left. There's some really good ones. Craig, thanks for producing this podcast. CR Always great to see you. Kyle Brandt, a pleasure as usual. Great to see you.

[Chris Ryan]

Always a pleasure.

[Bill Simmons]

The rewatchables. Don't forget you can watch this on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel and you can always watch these podcasts on Spotify. See you next week. Sa.