‘Obsession’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Joanna Robinson

Summary

The Rewatchables – ‘Obsession’

Podcast: The Rewatchables (The Ringer)
Episode Title: ‘Obsession’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Joanna Robinson
Date: July 28, 2026
Guests/Panel: Bill Simmons (host), Chris Ryan, Joanna Robinson, and Eduardo

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Episode Overview

Main Theme:
This episode dives deep into the indie horror phenomenon “Obsession,” a film that became an unexpected box office and cultural sensation. The roundtable dissects the movie’s narrative, performances, genre influences, and its unique resonance with younger audiences, positioning it among the most rewatchable and discussion-worthy films of its era. The episode’s tone is lively, sometimes irreverent, focused on the interplay between social commentary, genre critique, and humor—classically “Rewatchables.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Phenomenon of ‘Obsession’

• Lightning in a bottle: The hosts compare the movie to landmark indie horror successes (The Blair Witch Project, Get Out, Sixth Sense) that drew audiences back for multiple viewings and dominated online speculation.
  • Chris Ryan: “They catch lightning in a bottle… you get to Obsession. And… you’re running out to be like, you have to go see this in the theater.” (04:44)
• Box office & cultural impact: Bill notes its rare combination of box office, critical acclaim, and internet virality via meme culture and intense YouTube breakdowns.
  • “It's really hard to have the box office, the critical acclaim, and the cultural conversation all at the same time, which is what this did.” (08:56)

Indelible Performances & Indie Star-Making

• Indy Navarretti’s breakout: The group agrees on Navarretti’s “Oscar-worthy” performance as Nikki—a nuanced, layered turn rare for horror.
  • Joanna Robinson: “I could watch Indy Navarretti put on like an Oscar-worthy performance in a horror film—it felt really cool.” (10:01)
  • Bill: “She’s probably going to be the Oscar favorite… She’s so good in this. Like, clearly she's going to be in our lives now for the next 30 years.” (25:29, 40:45)
• Michael Johnston (“Bear”): The performance intentionally keeps the audience uncomfortable, riding the line between awkwardness and insidiousness, sparking debate over his character's villainy.

Subverting the Genre & Social Horror

• Social horror label: Bill calls it a “social horror movie,” tricking the audience into thinking it’s one kind of genre before revealing deeper, more unsettling dynamics.
  • “It ropes you in thinking that it's one kind of movie. Right. And then she starts unraveling… it goes to the full horror level.” (11:42)
• Wish-Gone-Wrong/Monkey’s Paw lineage: They connect the film’s “be careful what you wish for” premise to classics like “Big,” “Wishmaster,” even “Weird Science,” but with a grim, modern update.
• Gender & Nice Guy Narrative:
  • Eduardo: “It’s the cautionary tale of the nice guy… when he doesn’t see you as a person.” (19:02)
  • The group contrasts Bear with the “manic pixie dream girl” trope and films like 500 Days of Summer, Ruby Sparks, Her, Ex Machina, etc., outlining the cultural shift away from romanticizing obsessed or “nice guy” protagonists.
  • Chris Ryan: “We often root for the nice guys, but this is the cautionary tale…” (19:32)
• Audience ambiguity:
  • Subtle performance choices and structure put the viewer in Bear’s perspective, making them complicit in his deception and wish fulfillment until the tone sharply shifts.
  • Eduardo: “They intentionally played it both ways… trying to maintain this ambiguity for the audience.” (20:44)

Nuanced Depiction of Young Relationships and Isolation

• Relatability: The characters’ small-town, post-college aimlessness enhances both “normalcy” and unease.
  • Chris Ryan: “[It’s about] post high school teens bumming around a small town. Really hard to turn me off of that.” (61:00)
• Generational impact:
  • Bill on young viewers: “This is a generational movie to some degree… a social media generation that grew up with it.” (40:10)
  • Covid isolation, online relationships, and the difficulty of direct connection are highlighted as context for the film’s appeal and the protagonist’s choices.

The Film’s Internet Life & Modern Distribution

• Online obsession:
  • Bill: “This took a whole other life on the Internets, on the Reddit… and it had a whole YouTube culture of ‘Here’s what you missed.’” (09:28)
  • Memes and deep-dive video essays fueled additional waves of fandom and scrutiny.
• Unlikely release strategy:
  • The movie’s box office unexpectedly kept rising (“like ET!”), causing a scramble to delay the planned VOD/streaming window and maximize theatrical earnings.

Standout Scenes & Iconic Moments

• Award-worthy tension:
  • Boys’ Night Hansel and Gretel poem/monologue: “This scene is fucking bonkers…” (55:47)
    • Eduardo reads the script excerpt (56:03–56:48)
  • Nikki’s disturbing, “off” behavior: backward movement, “frozen smile,” and the cat sandwich.
  • Jenga drinking game.
  • Bear’s cowardly, pathetic non-action as Nikki deteriorates (“Would it be so bad to be with me?” (18:38)), and the duct-taped door and dead cat moments.
  • Violent set pieces, especially the “car brick scene” with Sarah, noted as pushing the R/NC-17 threshold.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Bear’s villainy:
  • Bill: “How is this even an argument or a debate where people are like… Bear was clearly the villain. A socially awkward weirdo drinks pina coladas, like, right there. It’s like, what are you doing?” (15:36)
• On internet movie culture:
  • Bill: “There's one guy who watched Obsession at 0.25 speed. Really does like a long YouTube clip on it. Like, these people are fucking nuts.” (09:28)
• Indy Navarretti’s career:
  • Bill: “I'm going to give this the BAM Adebayo 83 point game award for ‘where the fuck did this performance come from?’” (25:29)
• On social horror:
  • Bill: “It makes you feel normal. I feel like I know the people in this. They’re all having beers at Barker’s Pub.” (12:06)
• On horror’s cinema dominance:
  • Joanna: “I almost think everything else has lowered, but horror has remained.” (43:31)
• On meme potential:
  • Bill: “[Is the most gif-able moment] Nikki’s face right after Kiss the Person to Your Left?” (74:55)
  • Chris: “No, no, no, no, no.” (74:56)
• On generational shifts in the genre:
  • Bill: “So it took us… six decades to get here.” (32:39)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:09] – “Obsession”’s genre-blending, cultural footprint, the “wish gone wrong” canon
• [03:52] – Flipping the villain narrative: Bear, Nikki, and online debates
• [05:00] – Rewatchability: hidden clues, nuanced performances, audience complicity
• [08:06] – Bringing your own “baggage”: Gender, relationship dynamics, and “Nice Guy” movies
• [09:54] – Joanna on why she dislikes typical horror but loved this one
• [10:32] – New blood: the appeal of fresh talent and authentic settings
• [15:36] – Bear as outright villain, “Nice Guy” subversion, indie vs. star-cast possibilities
• [18:44] – The ethics and psychology of Bear’s choices (“pathetic, weak loser”)
• [20:44] – Parsing ambiguous performances: how Nikki’s signals are intentionally mixed
• [39:26] – What does the popularity of Obsession, Euphoria, Tell Me Lies say about this decade?
• [43:29] – Horror’s unassailable box office position vs. the decline of other genres
• [54:06] – The wish wording debate: The fine print of Bear’s wish
• [55:47] – Boys’ Night scene: Hansel and Gretel monologue, party “switch” moments
• [58:11] – Bear sneaking out to see Sarah; the car kill scene breakdown
• [63:57] – Best “what staged the best” moments and Internet theories (Easter eggs, left/right symbolism)
• [71:11] – “Best character name” and “Big Kahuna Burger” categories: food, drink, and weirdness
• [77:02] – The customer service call: Wish cancelation and screaming from purgatory
• [99:03] – Big “picking nits” session: implausible behavior, dead cat, friend groups
• [104:05] – Was Nikki possessed by the cat? (unanswerable questions)
• [107:30] – Was the saleslady at the shop evil? (morality and franchise/anthology potential)
• [109:07] – Best double feature picks: 'Play Misty for Me,' 'The Craft,' 'Milk & Cereal'
• [112:56] – Why the movie “sticks”: emotional intimacy, small scale, lack of exposition

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Notable Running Jokes & Callback Moments

• The “Year of CR” (Chris Ryan): Ongoing inside joke about Chris’s increased podcasting prominence.
• Cory vs. Curry Barker: Recurring bit about the director’s name.
• Indy Navarretti Oscar campaign: Repeated riffing on awards season strategy (“do the Michael B. Jordan, avoid interviews…”).
• “No, no, no, no, no” scene/line cropping up in meme/gif conversations.
• Dead cat sandwich as culinary lowlight.
• Bear’s “nice guy” loser status: Compared to various pop culture “nice guys,” always ending with “Bear sucks.”
• The “one wish willow” logic loophole: Ongoing debate over wish phrasing, mechanics, and what wishes "count."
• The “cat possession” internet theory: Panel rolls their eyes but admits fans are deep-diving.

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Awards, Superlatives & Category Picks

• Best Performance:
  • Consensus to Indy Navarretti; Bill creates a new Ted Levine Award for the risk it may typecast her.
• Best Scene:
  • Boys’ Night Hansel & Gretel performance
  • Nikki’s “no, no, no, no” date freak-out
  • Sarah’s death by car/trap
• Best Supporting (scene stealer):
  • Crystal Shop employees
• Weak Links:
  • Slight knocks on Ian’s actor, and Bill’s dislike of the “screaming on the phone” scene.
• What Aged the Best:
  • Low-budget inventiveness, internet-driven fandom, Navarretti’s performance, Easter eggs.
• Biggest Nitpicks:
  • Unaddressed violence, nobody helping Nikki, implausible cat death/sandwich, logistics of the ending.
• Funniest New Category:
  • Things you can “smell just by looking at them” (the house, the sandwich).
• Best Double Features:
  • Play Misty for Me (the genre’s roots), The Craft, Curry Barker’s “Milk & Cereal”
• Who Won the Movie:
  • Tied between Curry Barker (director/writer) and Indy Navarretti (star)—both set up for long careers.

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode is an energetic, deeply analytical breakdown of “Obsession,” blending sharp film criticism, pop-culture callbacks, collaborative humor, and cultural commentary. The hosts celebrate its subversion of horror and romantic tropes, breakout acting, rewatch value, and meme-ready moments—while exploring why it struck such a generational nerve. If you haven’t seen the film, the podcast walks you through every thematic, cinematic, and internet-driven element making “Obsession” the rewatchable of its year, placing it squarely in the conversation of modern classics.

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For more, check out The Rewatchables archive or The Ringer Movies YouTube Channel.

Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

Hey, we're live Rewatchables. I'm Bill Simmons. That's Chris Ryan. That is Joanna Robinson. We are about to do Obsession. Joanna, you can hear on House of R cr. Yeah, the Year of cr. I was getting mailbag questions about this, that this is the year of cr now because you have Lebron James.

[Chris Ryan]

I listened to this on your podcast and I appreciated the fact that you think me hosting aliens would be better than me appearing in Heat 2.

[Bill Simmons]

I said it was more realistic. Either way, the Year of CR continues. Obsession Live next. This episode is brought to you by Pure Michigan. In Grand Rapids. Every moment feels like a scene worth replaying. Every riverside stroll, every slow afternoon sipping small batch brews. Every guitar riff drifting out of the city's brand new amphitheater. This is a place where everything feels cinematic, like you've stepped into a highlight reel that's yours to explore. Ranked as the number one city on the rise from LinkedIn, Grand Rapids invites you to find a rhythm all your own, season after season in Pure Michigan. Find your [e-mail] this episode is supported by FX's the Shards, a seductive drama from executive producer Ryan Murphy. Set in 1980s Los Angeles, the series follows a group of glamorous, deeply entangled high school seniors drawn into a life of wealth, beauty, parties, and excess. At its center is Brett, whose reality

[Joanna Robinson]

begins to unravel when the arrival of

[Bill Simmons]

a new student coincides with a series of mysterious murders. FX's the Shards premieres August 5th on FX.

[Joanna Robinson]

And HUL.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we did From Hell month. It was basically all of June. This is a belated From Hell month.

[Chris Ryan]

We're in Hell month.

[Bill Simmons]

The Wish from Hell.

[Eduardo]

The wish from Hell.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, I wrote down big. Crossed with Fatal Traction, crossed with room with a whiff of weird Science. That's obsession. This movie is a phenomenon, one of the most successful indie movies of all time. Why?

[Eduardo]

I mean, for a million different reasons. The YouTube footprint that already existed for this film, the existential horror. We're all existing under the double feature with backrooms like kind of making a Barbenheimer sort of experience and then just. Yeah, just wanting to be out in the world of people feeling something true

[Chris Ryan]

every once in a while. A movie broadly like this. So some of them are more like traditional horror, traditional thriller, what have you, but they just seem to catch lightning in a bottle. So whether it's Blair Witch, Sixth Sense, what, like, get out and then you get to obsession. And I don't even know if there's not like a twist in obsession that, like you, you. You're running out to be like, you have to go see this in the theater the first weekend. Because you don't. It's really. It's really indie Navaretti. That's like the twist. It's like, you're not going to believe this girl when you see her.

[Joanna Robinson]

And.

[Chris Ryan]

But it just caught fire and it just became this thing that was like people were going to see it two, three times. I think it was appealing mostly very, like, a lot to younger audiences. And it really revived, like this feeling that there are new voices coming to movie theaters.

[Bill Simmons]

I think the twist, other than the leaf blower guy, as always. Four o', clock, right outside the guys on Netflix. Yeah. Hey, is this live? I think the twist was what I thought the movie was versus when I saw the movie. Because I just thought this was like a Fatal Attraction movie, right? This.

[Eduardo]

Oh, you thought she was just.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, because I try not to read up on the movies. So it was like, oh, this is like the worst case scenario of a Fatal Attraction movie. And not realizing that Bear is actually the bad guy. And the first time you see her, like, oh, you're flipping this. Even though she's the quote unquote villain, she's not. It's him. So that was one of the twists. But the fact that people are going back three, four, five times. This was my daughter, who might actually be watching this on Netflix. My daughter's generation, my son's generation, like, they. They went back multiple times to watch this. So what, why, what. What are like the little hidden footprints of this that make people want to come back?

[Eduardo]

Remember how right before we started recording, you were talking about actors doing movies to impress their kids? Are we doing this rewatchable to impress your. Impress your daughter?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I was really to impress Craig. Craig loves this movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

I did like it.

[Eduardo]

Yeah. Why do you go back? I mean, I think you want to share it with people who haven't seen it. That's what I remember about the Sixth Sense. Not just the twist, but just sort of like wanting to be in the theater when they see what this is. And it's like a nice, tidy little movie. And I don't know, it's just like an incredibly satisfying experience.

[Chris Ryan]

It's durable and it's not didactic. So by durable, I mean if you go back and rewatch it. I think I saw it once in the theater. I've watched it a couple of times this week. Parts of her performance specifically are incredibly nuanced because if you know where it's going and you know what's happened to her already? You can see, like, real Nikki come out.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Demon Nikki or possessed Nikki. Enter the chat. You can see all these different, like, little wrinkles that maybe you don't catch the first time. And then I also think the fact that he doesn't come out and put a giant spotlight on any one of the characters and is like, good guy, bad guy, you know, or like, it's very. Like, you can watch it and it's a little bit of like a. Keeps you off kilter because it really is about 40 minutes in, 35 minutes in when he sleeps with her, where you're like, ah, this guy's a piece of shit. Like, this is really bad, you know, that you really. It changes the entire perspective of the film.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. The first time I watched it, I was so struck by just how awkward the guy was. And I don't know if it was the actor or the character. And I kind of still don't. We'll talk about him later. Whether it was the performance or he's actually playing it perfectly. But then the second time I watched, that's when you pick up all the hidden stuff. Cause you know where it's going. You're not going on a ride with the movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

You're actually like, well, I know where this is going. What did I miss? And then you see all the nuances, all the stuff. Like, basically her being trapped in Wishnicky. You have that whole side. And then you realize, like, Bear had all of these outs, really, from the first night.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Right. He's Googling it that night. Easily could have gotten out the way

[Chris Ryan]

you said wish, Nikki. I was like, does that guy play tight end for Iowa? Did he just come via Nil Wish Nicky?

[Bill Simmons]

I think the Sixers took him in the second round, but yeah. And then I watched it the third time and there was more stuff.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And I think it's going to be one of those movies. I don't think it's going to be the Shining.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like, if you know what Ian does by the end of the movie, the whole rest of the movie looks a little bit different. If, you know, Sarah always likes Bear. The whole rest of the movie looks different. And those are really fun, fun return trips.

[Eduardo]

I also think it's not. I don't. I don't actually think it's debatable who the bad guy of this movie is. And, you know, we can talk about maybe some of our friends and colleagues who disagree with that, but I. But I do think that it's like,

[Bill Simmons]

what friend, what colleague should we get?

[Joanna Robinson]

HR you talking about Van?

[Chris Ryan]

The funny thing is, we all knew.

[Joanna Robinson]

Exactly.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, we had to actually ban Van

[Chris Ryan]

from this podcast for a reason.

[Eduardo]

But, like. But it's not actually debatable, but there's enough that you could grasp onto that. I remember when 500 days of summer came out and people radically got that movie incorrect. And then it was just sort of an ongoing argument for months and years to come about who the bad guy in that movie is. Or as you grow older, you're like, oh, Summer was upfront from the beginning. She was in that movie. So. So those kinds of relationship dynamics, gender dynamics, experience dynamics, that can be sort of debated, especially I guess, if you're Van on and you have access to Twitter.

[Bill Simmons]

So, yeah, you bring your own baggage to this movie. I was thinking biggest 21st century horror movies, if you're combining cultural impact, critical acclaim, box office.

[Eduardo]

Got it.

[Bill Simmons]

And I really went through. And I was like, how many of these have there been? I only had seven, and two of them came out this year because I think backrooms is there too. Get out it Conjuring, Quiet place Sinners, if you count it as a horror movie, and weapons. That's really it.

[Eduardo]

Because Hereditary didn't make enough at the box office.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think it did. I think Hereditary was critically acclaimed. I don't think it had the box office. These are movies. These are giant movies.

[Chris Ryan]

Influential for Curry Barker, though, no question.

[Bill Simmons]

But that's a different list because I think you still need. Are people gonna go actually see the movie?

[Chris Ryan]

Duke's a good one.

[Bill Simmons]

Bobaduk was a good one. Chris and I love Drag Me from Hell, but that wasn't, I don't think, had the same critical acclaim. There's been others, like the first Insidious. Like, we could mention a bunch of them. But it's really hard to have the box office, the critical acclaim, and the cultural conversation all at the same time, which is what this did. And then this took a whole other life on the Internets, on the Reddit, on the Internets, on the Internets. And then it had a whole YouTube culture of. Here's what you missed. Did you realize this? Here are 20 Easter eggs.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

There's one guy who watched Obsession at 0.25 speed. Really does. Like a long YouTube clip on it. Like, these people are fucking nuts.

[Eduardo]

How much time do you think You've logged on YouTube watching videos about this movie?

[Bill Simmons]

Enough that I think I have to go in and change my algorithm. Yeah, I Have to amputate my algorithm and get it out. I don't want them.

[Eduardo]

So it's no longer like fights. Your YouTube fight algo has gone away.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, so you don't like horror movies.

[Joanna Robinson]

Not typically.

[Chris Ryan]

Producer Craig.

[Joanna Robinson]

I've watched a lot over the years now because of this show.

[Bill Simmons]

But you like this one, so why

[Joanna Robinson]

this one is not. This one is like one of it has a fantastic performance and I feel like sometimes like the star of a horror film is like the. Some demonic creature and like the fact that I could watch indie. Navarretti put on like an Oscar worthy performance in a horror film felt really cool. It also felt small and relatable and I think it's why people stuck to this movie. It stuck with me. I liked it. And then like a day after I saw it, I started to think about it and I kept liking it more and more. I don't know, there's just a lot of really small little personal interaction. Stuff that I think people can really dig into and pull apart.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I think also there's something to be said for the fact that it was New Blood. And you know, often you'll watch especially during Comic Con and like a bunch of like the summer movies, you see all these trailers and you're like, it's.

[Eduardo]

Thanks for gesturing at me.

[Chris Ryan]

Was acknowledging your service in going to

[Eduardo]

San Diego for the trenches that you

[Chris Ryan]

will watch trailers and you're like, ah, Callum Turner. Ah, Callum Turner. Callum Turner again. You know, or like they recycle actors. Like actors get hot. They do five movies a year. I love Robert Pattinson, but he's obviously got a lot of time to kill before Batman. But like, this is one of those things that Hollywood used to really be able to do, which is like, we'll also make stars. You know, like, we'll. We'll find this person and you know, if there's a God, she'll be in heat too.

[Bill Simmons]

I wrote my notes.

[Chris Ryan]

No big deal.

[Bill Simmons]

Is that possible?

[Eduardo]

No press.

[Bill Simmons]

It should be Ashley Judd.

[Chris Ryan]

She was. She was been rumored as being having met with Michael Mann.

[Bill Simmons]

I wrote in my notes, this is a social horror movie. I was trying to think of other examples of this. Get out. What do you mean by social horror movie dialogue heavy.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, social. Like interactive.

[Bill Simmons]

It rooks you in thinking that it's one kind of movie. Right. And then she starts unraveling. But it's still. Even though it's like, hey, good news, I dug up your cat. It's like, okay, this. But it goes. The second part of this movie goes to the full horror level. But it ropes you in where it's like, these people are normal.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Which I think is one of the hardest things for a horror movie to pull off. Like, you've made me feel normal. I feel like I know the people in this. They're all having beers at Barker's Pub.

[Eduardo]

One of my favorite theories that I saw floating around this movie is they were, you know, some people were like, oh, well, she was behaving relatively normally inside of this wish scenario before she gave him the tiger's eye. Like this whole thing about the tiger's eye gem that she gives him. I'm like, before that, she definitely digs up a cat and puts it right away. So I don't think there's any. Yeah, there's that like, hilarious montage of like rom com moments.

[Bill Simmons]

That was really good.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Eduardo]

Really funny.

[Chris Ryan]

And that keeps you so off kilter as a viewer.

[Eduardo]

But she's already staged A Cat and I.

[Bill Simmons]

And that same day, as you go there, she's behind the cash register just staring at them as they're talking. And her. She doesn't move for three minutes. Yeah. Just eyeing them down. Cory Barker.

[Chris Ryan]

Curry.

[Bill Simmons]

Curry Barker. I have Cory. I said Cory. Who's Cory Barker?

[Chris Ryan]

He played. Did he play for Orlando Gators with Chandler Parsons?

[Bill Simmons]

Cory Barker.

[Joanna Robinson]

Cory Barker. Cory Booker.

[Eduardo]

I was thinking. You were.

[Bill Simmons]

This was. I wrote down his sixth sense. Just a tremendous idea.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Like M. Night shyamalan had that sixth sense. It's like, oh, spoiler. It's 27 years old.

[Eduardo]

Give him enough time to X out of the Netflix app.

[Chris Ryan]

You know what?

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not going to spoil it.

[Eduardo]

Wow, the restraints.

[Chris Ryan]

M. Night Shyamalan had a good idea and he made it.

[Bill Simmons]

M. Night Shyamalan had a really good twist idea.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And he did it and he wrote it to 27 years of movies. One wish. Willow is right up there. It's just a great idea. And he's borrowing it from these other movies where somebody made a wish and it bought a Mackie's paw thing.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Not like this.

[Eduardo]

The Wish Gone Wrong movie. Where are you on the Wishmaster franchise?

[Bill Simmons]

Not really there. I like, wish gone wrong. But to me, like, big. That's what I grew up with was like, oh, he wish he could be big. And now he is, and he's got to get out of this.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, how alone is that too?

[Joanna Robinson]

Right?

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

You know, he's like, I wish my family was. Just disappear. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And weird is.

[Chris Ryan]

It's true.

[Bill Simmons]

It's true. But this kid's Clearly. What's he, 26?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, something like that. Maybe a little young. No, Kane Parsons is younger.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's.

[Bill Simmons]

Have you hit the age yet where you start seeing people like this and you're like, what the man? 26?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, I'm 31. He's 26. Kane Parsons, the one that really pissed me off, though, he was 19 when he made Back Room. So I was like, all right, off.

[Bill Simmons]

Unbelievable. But he's going to have. I think there's a lot of good stuff in this movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Did you watch any of his YouTube stuff?

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't. Should I have?

[Chris Ryan]

I think you'd enjoy it. It sounds like some of it's going to get adapted as features, so you could also just hold on. But his sensibility is very distinctive. I think it's got. There's some, like, Japanese horror influence, but then there's also, like, obviously, sketch comedy. And sketch comedy has been this huge platform for people to go from, like, Craig went from sketch comedy to horror. Jordan Peele, sketch comedy, horror. Now Curry, even, like, Bill Hader now is making.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, you did sketch comedy at the Ringer. Why can't this be you? I know the hell.

[Eduardo]

Well, isn't your current existence a horror movie?

[Bill Simmons]

So if we're pulling ideas from YouTube and turning them into movies, does this mean Coach Nick.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, you and I.

[Bill Simmons]

B ball Breakdown.

[Chris Ryan]

That would be an incredible last actor. You're behind the Music, where it's like, then Bill got really into cocaine and spent $50 million on a coach.

[Bill Simmons]

Coach Nick made a horror movie. All right, let's do it. Bear as the villain.

[Eduardo]

Yeah. So full stop.

[Bill Simmons]

Listen, end of sentence, you know?

[Eduardo]

Oh, in defense of Bear, is that what's happening right now?

[Bill Simmons]

The opposite.

[Eduardo]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

How is this even an argument or a debate where people are like, you know, who's actually the villain? Bear. I mean, is.

[Eduardo]

That's the premise of the movie, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Bear was clearly the villain. A socially awkward weirdo drinks pina coladas, like, right there. It's like, what are you doing? Hannibal Lecter has cats. Likes them, but won't mourn his dead cat. He's like, yeah, I'll go out for drinks. Practices telling a girl that he loves her to some fucking random waitress. Completely chokes when he has the chance, and then uses the One Wish willow to try to win her over. This guy's the loser of losers. Then realizes that it worked and then basically keeps her captive for months. Yeah, weeks. How long is this?

[Eduardo]

You got there in the end? I feel like you hit a few roadmarks. Like pina colada or has cats or

[Bill Simmons]

whatever that I would not from this guy for two hours on top of how terrible the outcome of this was.

[Eduardo]

But he's a type that we like are supposed to recognize from. From that like 500 days of summer era of like manic pixie dream girl storytelling.

[Bill Simmons]

So he's Zach Braff in Garden State.

[Eduardo]

Yeah, he's Garden State. He's just, you know, he's like. Like it's Elizabethtown. It's like all these other things are these. These like nermy yearning guys that we're supposed to be rooting for. And it's just like how many times

[Bill Simmons]

have we actually rooted for the right guy in these movies?

[Chris Ryan]

In these movies are just like.

[Bill Simmons]

Like Garden State. I. I'll defend that guy.

[Chris Ryan]

Sometimes do drive bys on guys like this. Like, you know, you don't like Troy in Reality Bites, do you like Grover and kicking and Screaming?

[Bill Simmons]

I do.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, just making sure.

[Eduardo]

Remember we did Can't Hardly wait. This movie is exactly. Can't hardly. Yeah, I know. This movie is exactly. Can't Hardly Wait. If it was a horror movie where he's like obsessed from afar. And what like if Ethan Embrieon. Can't Hardly Wait. If Jenna Elfman gave him One Wish Willow, he would have been like, I wish Amanda loved me more than anyone else in the world.

[Chris Ryan]

You're absolutely right.

[Bill Simmons]

I hate this guy. Does One Wish Willow. Nikki has no choice. From the moment he breaks out, that's yes. That night he has a decent idea of Mighty Word. Googles it. And then he's like.

[Chris Ryan]

Doesn't go. It's not even.

[Bill Simmons]

Fuck it. I'm gonna roll the dice. Cause how else would I have dated this girl?

[Chris Ryan]

She's like, maybe she was on Molly.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Next day, digs up the cat. He's like, yeah, well, I'll still give this a few more days. Keeps it going and going. Keeps having sex with her. And that's one of the most disturbing scenes in the movie. Cause, you know, not freaked out by the duct tape door at all. Duct tape door should have been like the last. Like, I gotta get this girl some help.

[Joanna Robinson]

I get the piece of motherfucker.

[Eduardo]

She's definitely freaked out he went to work. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

But his face was like staring in shock at that door.

[Eduardo]

You think duct tape door is the.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm just going through all the beats.

[Eduardo]

Not dead cat.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm just going through all the beats. Never gets the second one Wish Willow to nullify the first one, which would have been the easiest move. It's like, man, this one wrong.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm going to.

[Chris Ryan]

You're the Picasso of the trade machine. You would have thought of that.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's get a second one.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Nikki says Nikki's asleep. Wish Nikki's asleep.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And captive Nikki is going, just kill me.

[Eduardo]

And she's like, shoot me.

[Bill Simmons]

Just kill me. And he goes, what would be so bad about being with me? And then goes and meets another woman.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

That night he's not like, I should probably do suicide watch here. He takes off.

[Eduardo]

When he starts, like, making eyes at Sarah. I was.

[Bill Simmons]

But here's my question.

[Eduardo]

Ready to punch.

[Bill Simmons]

This guy is a pathetic, weak loser. Can you be a true villain when you're a pathetic, weak loser who drinks Pina Colettis and doesn't mourn your dead cat?

[Eduardo]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Eduardo]

Because the sort of like. Cause he's a capital N, capital G, nice guy. Like, that's Bear's whole thing, right? Is like, he thinks he's a nice guy. He thinks he's entitled to, you know, this relationship. And we are like, we often. I root for, like, the nice guys. But this is the cautionary tale of the nice guy, which is just sort of like when he doesn't see you as a person, he has no idea who you are and he doesn't really care who you are.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes.

[Chris Ryan]

There are two reasons, I think, why, at least in my first viewing, I was a little like, okay, so how do I feel about this guy? One is that young love can be reality altering. Right. Like the first time you really fall in love, when you're a young person, you can like, wish for things beyond what you're going to be able to get. And like, it can sometimes distort. Like, you know, I know she said she doesn't really want to go out on a date with me and she just wants to be friends. But maybe like, that she didn't mean what she said. Like, you can make things up in your head, but that's really dangerous, as we can see from this movie. And second of all, they shoot this movie entirely from his pov. So the audience is corrupted in what happens. And you're kind of like just from the audience to screen relationship. I think there is like an inherent, like, am I also guil culpable in this? Cause I'm watching him do it and because I've watched so many of these movies, do I want him to get the girl? And what does that mean? So I think that's why people are almost thrown off a little bit.

[Eduardo]

You want to get the girl. You know what I mean? I think it's interesting too that Curry Barker and Indy Navarretti have talked about how they intentionally had those first few scenes when it's actually Nikki. They intentionally played it sort of both ways constantly.

[Bill Simmons]

Right. They had her, she likes him in one scene, but didn't like him the next time they do a cut.

[Eduardo]

And so you at the audience are not. I mean, she says things like, ew. When he says, I got you a gift, I think that's pretty clear. But there are some moments like Indy Navarretti has said in the moment where she asks, bear, do you like me? Any chokes? And then she said, I played it as sort of disappointed. That was a choice we made. So they're just trying to maintain this ambiguity for the audience. At least keep the audience unsure.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. And I love like, even the detail of this setup that she's about to leave that job.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And that their. Their sort of like work romance thing is going to be over. Like, even though it's chased, but like their flirtation at work, part of their life is going to be over. So, like, if he ever wants to shoot his shot, he's got to do it now and he can't manage to get it up. Like that's, that's a great little detail that she's leaving that job.

[Eduardo]

She's like, yeah, sorry.

[Joanna Robinson]

And she says that. I mean, she kind of confides in him about her interest in writing and like the story she wants to tell. And she's like, you're the only person I can talk to about that. Which is very classic. Like, you, the guy likes the girl, she's open to you. You so clearly know you're stuck in the friend zone, but you don't want to disrupt it because you're like, this girl is actually confiding in me something that she wouldn't do with anyone else. So they do a good job of setting it up where he's like, I clearly have something with her. Right.

[Chris Ryan]

But it's not romantic.

[Eduardo]

I just really love that she was like, you know, Ian, his friend who has another agenda, says, you have nothing but time. And. But she says we're running out of time when she says she's giving it her two weeks notice. And the message of that is, once we don't work together all the time anymore. We're not. This is not, this is not transcend that. We were in high school together and then we worked retail together and our friendship is not strong enough.

[Chris Ryan]

And we did the high fidelity podcast Together. Like, retail is also a reality distorting field where you're like, this is like my best friend. I stand next to a register with him for eight hours a day. And then like, you leave for another job and you never see that person again.

[Joanna Robinson]

It was school, sitting next to somebody in class.

[Bill Simmons]

There's a lot of good tropes in this movie. That curry barker is clearly like, I grew up watching movies and I've seen a million of these, but it has, like, obviously Sarah likes him. That's the one he should have gone after and doesn't realize it. Like, that's out of the fucking 80s. How many 80s movies were like that? It's like, oh, I loved her, but I didn't realize the one who liked me was right next to her.

[Eduardo]

She was a brunette and there was a blonde over there, man.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, right.

[Bill Simmons]

And then the four people working together. The dickhead friend.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Who seems like he's on your side, but he's really not. You know, it. It hits a bunch of them. Michael Johnston is the guy who plays Bear.

[Eduardo]

Yeah. I can tell by the categories you picked how you felt about this performance.

[Chris Ryan]

I think it's a. It's. It is a great performance, but it. The reason it's great is because you do not like him.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And I don't think it would work if it was like, who would you. Why don't you just tell me who you want?

[Eduardo]

Tell us who you want in there.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, let me. So the movie is $750,000, right. They're not getting Chalamet. They luck out with Indian Navarretti, who's like the all time jackpot for a movie like this. Right?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So I'll give you the scale of one to Dante from Clerks of like, fuck. If we had had a better actor.

[Chris Ryan]

Here is Dante from Clerks. The highest high here.

[Bill Simmons]

The highest high of fuck. How did we not get a better actor?

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, okay.

[Bill Simmons]

He was terrible.

[Eduardo]

Tough. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

There's a reason we can't do Clerks in the rewatchables because people ask it for it sometimes. And I'm like, I just. It would just be two hours of just shitting on Dante. I don't want to do it.

[Eduardo]

You got to cast your friend, you know?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's really tough.

[Chris Ryan]

I still have a lot of time for Clerks.

[Bill Simmons]

Even with Dante.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, of course.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, so one to Dante. Where is this guy as an actor where we might have been able to

[Chris Ryan]

get Dante being the worst.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

Dante's a 10. And 10 is bad, 10 is good, and one is this guy was

[Chris Ryan]

a three.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I think he does a very good job.

[Eduardo]

Three, four. I think there's a thing. There's only one other thing you could have done if you had had a little bit of budget, which is the thing that Promising Young Woman did, which is cast a bunch of nice guy. You know, it's like, oh, cast against Bob Burnham and like, Chris Lowell and like all the guys who are in Promising Young Woman. And you're like, used to rooting for them. You're like, oh, Adam Brody's here. And then you're like, oh, these guys are pieces of shit. So if there was like a nice guy, lowercase N, lowercase G, that we could root for in that role and

[Bill Simmons]

then be betrayed by, well, Indiana Verdi. Career change. You, breakout role. She was in one film called Wander Darkly in 2020. See it.

[Chris Ryan]

I have not seen that.

[Bill Simmons]

She was in 13 Reasons why I

[Chris Ryan]

did watch the show.

[Bill Simmons]

I did watch because my daughter watched it. It was during COVID and Superman and Lois, apparently.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm going to give this the BAM. Out of bio 83 point game award for where the fuck did this performance come from?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, this is Malachi Flynn scoring 50 in that one game a few years ago. You're like, who? What?

[Bill Simmons]

But it feels sustainable. She's so good in this. Like, clearly she's going to be in our lives now for the next 30 years.

[Joanna Robinson]

100%. Yeah.

[Eduardo]

Starting with he too, and then just from there.

[Bill Simmons]

So career change and breakout role. I'm going to go even further, though, because I was thinking, like, how many iconic great horror movie actress performances have there been where you're like, oh, so three. I came up with Kathy Bates of Misery, Toni Collette and Hereditary and CC Spacek and Carrie.

[Eduardo]

You're not. You have no space for Jamie Lee Curtis, obviously.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, I love Halloween, but I wouldn't say she's Meryl Streep in that movie, but she's really good.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

And I'm talking about, like, a whole

[Chris Ryan]

other level of actor aggressor. Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's just. It's pretty rare. These movies are usually like, you have, like, the Drag Me From Hell lady who was Alison Lohman.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And it's like, oh, yeah, she was good. But you don't have, like. Like, she's probably going to be the Oscar favorite.

[Eduardo]

I would love that. That would be such a good narrative.

[Chris Ryan]

I think she will get nominated.

[Eduardo]

Yeah, she will definitely get nominated.

[Bill Simmons]

Our friend Lasker texted me this whole thing on the Internet today about. It was like the early odds and it's a weak season and she's the favorite. And there's rumors that the Odyssey. They're already trying to figure out, do we want. Is Hathaway going to duck her and go to supporting actress?

[Eduardo]

I already thought Hathaway was running and supporting, like, I thought that was already.

[Bill Simmons]

I think I'm going to say now, I think she's going to win best actress. I don't think anybody's gonna beat her,

[Joanna Robinson]

and I think she deserves it.

[Bill Simmons]

I think everybody loves her in this movie, and it's gonna carry it. The narrative, the story. I think she's gonna win it, and she deserves it. I thought she was unbelievable.

[Eduardo]

I think after. After the Amy Madigan win for Weapons and the Mikey Madison win for Anora, like, that's. Those two narratives sort of combined. I can definitely see that happening.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you think, Sierra? You know, it seems like you're. You think it's unrealistic.

[Chris Ryan]

You know what? I just. I just get. We're going to get beaten down by, like, six months of like, oh, Cate Blanchett's never been better, you know, you know, and like. Or Renata rhymes. But why not a third nom in a row? You know, it's like she's. She's cool, but, like, I think this is like one of those.

[Bill Simmons]

Because one of the things with this Joanna is like, I always think about degree of difficulty with the part as part of the Oscars thing. Degree of difficulty of this movie is like a 10 out of 10. Like, she's got to do 19 things in this movie.

[Chris Ryan]

If she's bad, I start looking at my phone in the middle of the.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, if she. If she's not great in this movie. This movie makes $20 million. It just doesn't work.

[Eduardo]

And I think, you know, increasingly it feels like the Oscars wants to award box office in addition to sort of prestige, but they want relevancy, and this would be a rel. A very relevant win.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

My advice to her now is not a lot of interviews.

[Eduardo]

Yeah. You have to go away for.

[Bill Simmons]

Keep some mystery.

[Chris Ryan]

She's cool as shit, though. Have you seen her?

[Bill Simmons]

No, I know she is, but she. She. I think she'll have the lead. Like, just do the Michael B. Jordan. Just.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Go away for a minute, smile, do a couple generic interviews, stay out of it and cash in after, because this will be hers to lose. Hathaway might duck her. She might be. She might run to the supporting actress category.

[Eduardo]

I definitely think she's going to be Hathaway's ring chasing.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, she's ring chasing it.

[Eduardo]

I think you can.

[Bill Simmons]

She's gonna go play with the beat.

[Eduardo]

I think you can make a. A real case for either category. That's not such abject category, fraud as some other duckings have been. Penelope in the Odyssey. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's right in the. I don't. I never know what to think anymore. Some of these.

[Eduardo]

It is the leading female role in that movie.

[Bill Simmons]

She's the number two person in the movie. It's hard to think she's a supporting actress.

[Eduardo]

Is she the number two person? Tom Holland's the number one two person in that movie.

[Bill Simmons]

True.

[Eduardo]

You know, and then like, more screen time. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

But it's. It's messed up.

[Bill Simmons]

We didn't rehearse that tiny town.

[Chris Ryan]

I wonder if Samantha Morton might get the like.

[Eduardo]

No, I think. I think Samantha Morton is going to

[Chris Ryan]

be in supporting actress. Yeah. And I'm like, it's messed up that Hathaway isn't like, I'm ducking Navarretti.

[Eduardo]

Right.

[Chris Ryan]

So I'm coming down and I'm going to blot out Samantha Morton. Because Samantha Morton could have an incredible, like, coordination of like, she's been so great for so long, you know, it

[Eduardo]

would throw me to my core.

[Bill Simmons]

If that's a standing. Oh win. If she wins.

[Eduardo]

If Indiana ready. And Samantha Morton won. I think it's like incredible. Sorry, Anne Hathaway, but you already have an Oscar. So it's okay.

[Bill Simmons]

It's gonna happen. It's weird cause she's also like. I mean, she's a couple years older than my daughter, but she's this whole footprint that you have when you're a kid, before you're a famous person now. This is this whole generation where if you like her, you can go and find, you know, 10 years of Instagram and all kind of other stuff. This is just kind of how it's gonna be now.

[Chris Ryan]

But she's like playing like last of us on YouTube. She's just like a regular person.

[Bill Simmons]

She's gonna win.

[Eduardo]

Maybe Anne Hathaway will win for Verity. What do you think?

[Chris Ryan]

That would be great. What if Anne Hathaway gets nominated for like, four roles?

[Eduardo]

Yeah. Devil Wears 1 and 2 and Verity. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I have a really interesting list for you. It's the crazy lady movies by decade and what they said about each decade.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, okay.

[Eduardo]

Great.

[Bill Simmons]

Now you. I'm going to land the plane on this. You're going to like this.

[Eduardo]

Okay. I'm actually really glad I'm here. I love this.

[Bill Simmons]

You're Gonna like this. All like horror movies, but each one in a decade.

[Eduardo]

It's funny cause I have a list of nice guy horror movies.

[Bill Simmons]

You could do that too.

[Chris Ryan]

That'd be great.

[Bill Simmons]

Play Misty for me with Clint Eastwood.

[Eduardo]

Uh huh.

[Bill Simmons]

That's the movie that set up Foetal Attraction. Really interesting look at the bay. Have you seen that one, Craig?

[Joanna Robinson]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, He's a radio host and a caller becomes obsessed with him and starts terrorizing him and he basically has to go Dirty Harry to get out of it. And that's how we did in the 70s. Then we have Fatal Attraction in the 80s. It's like Michael Douglas. Oh, he just had an affair. Can't a guy just make a mistake for a weekend? And now he's getting tormented. And all that's told through the guy. We get to the 90s disclosure. Now it's getting a little more ambiguous. It's like stuff that happened the way that Demi Moore is still the quote unquote villain in that. But Michael Douglas is not blameless either. And when we did this on Rewatchables, it's about the workplace dynamics, which was a big thing that was in dialogue back then.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Now we get in the 2000s, unfaithful, more thoughtful versions of what happens if somebody's happily married, but they just make a mistake and then the husband finds out. And now. So basically Richard Gere is kind of the villain in that movie, I think.

[Eduardo]

I don't think Diane Lane's the villain in that movie.

[Bill Simmons]

She's not. So we move toward the Richard Gere side. Get out. 2016. Alison.

[Eduardo]

Oh yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Allison Williams. Yeah, he's the villain. Right. But now we're bringing all of race, politics and all these awesome. The family and the south, all this stuff. And now we have Obsession where it flips. It seems like a crazy lady movie, but actually Bear is the villain.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

So it took us. See, I landed the plane. It took us six decades to get here.

[Eduardo]

I liked it.

[Bill Simmons]

You're still dubious.

[Eduardo]

I liked it more than I thought I would. So I'll tell you that much right now. Here's my 21st century nice guy TM movies. Right?

[Bill Simmons]

I can't wait.

[Eduardo]

You have the eternal sunshine of The Spotless Mind, 500 Days of Summer. Ruby Sparks. I was thinking about Ruby Sparks a lot. The Paul Dano Zo Kazan movie where he like types her into existence and then she just has to do whatever. He's a writer and he just like writes what she does. And that's very much on my mind.

[Chris Ryan]

Can I throw an honorable mention on that one. Lars and the Real Girl.

[Eduardo]

Oh, yeah. Yes, of course. Of course.

[Bill Simmons]

That movie is. Yeah, that's a weird one, that movie.

[Eduardo]

Then you have your, like, tech era because you've got, like, her and Ex Machina and recently Companion. This sort of like, can I build a girl and just have her do whatever I want to do?

[Bill Simmons]

Which is weird because we made these movies in the 80s too, not knowing how to actually build something like this.

[Chris Ryan]

Kind of also, don't worry, darling. Kind of on there.

[Eduardo]

Yeah, that's on my list for sure. 100%. The one promising a woman and Gone Girl are a really interesting moment of just sort of like. Because Gone Girl is getting dark. These are all sort of, like, waves of backlash of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl idea. And it's just sort of like that happens at the turn of the century, which makes me feel really old to say, but that happens at the Manic Pixie Dream Girl era happens. And then it's sort of like grappling with it. And there are these, like, light, sort of indie cutesy movies of just sort of like, I can fix her. Yeah, yeah. Sort of thing. And then it's like the tech phobia. I'm afraid of tech and I'm afraid of women. And I'm just gonna put that together in Ex Machina. And that's something to think about. And then there's, like, to your point, in terms of when things flip, Gone Girl is engaging with that sort of cool girl idea. Right. Amy is like, you know, the cool

[Bill Simmons]

girl and an awesome flip halfway through, if you don't know the book.

[Eduardo]

And it's just sort of like. It's an incredible moment. Don't worry, darling.

[Bill Simmons]

Nick's kind of a dirtbag, though, in that movie. Ben Affleck's character.

[Eduardo]

Well, absolutely. But it's just sort of like you've made these girls quirky little dolls that just exist. I do like Garden State because I was the exact right age for it. But also objectively, like, Natalie Portman's character is just absolutely repulsive to a certain degree. And so what how we've grappled with that narrative. Mostly male filmmakers actually on this list, but grappling with this idea of just sort of like, oh, are women whole people? And do I need to consider their existence and their thoughts and their ideas?

[Chris Ryan]

And am I maybe putting, like, my own. My own narrative bullshit on this real person? But I'm like, you know, you would love me if you knew the real me. And it's Like, I know the real you. I don't love you. It's okay.

[Eduardo]

I think the moment in 500 days of summer that I was thinking about a lot and I was talking to Van about this when he called me, and he was like, do you think Bear's the bad guy in this movie? There's a sequence in 500 Days of Summer where Joseph Gordon Levitt, Zooey Deschanel and Justice Gordon Levitt have broken up. And then they meet up again, and she invites him to a party, and the screen splits. And it's what Tom thinks, what was gonna happen and what actually happens and what he thinks is gonna happen is she's gonna warmly greet him and they're gonna get back together. And instead it's just sort of like she's got someone new. She doesn't really care. Like, the reality versus his imagination. And I just sort of feel like that's what Bear is in this movie is he's just existing in the fantasy version of that party. And then he just has this, like, horrible power to make it a reality. And. Yeah, nice guy movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, that's why we, like, kicking and screaming. Sure, he's in love, but he just keeps listening to the answer machine over and over again. But then ultimately nothing happens. Yeah, that's just the end of the movie.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that they are. Both of those characters in that movie are writers and they, like. I think Jane, the character in that movie is like, I'm not a character. Know, Like, I am actually, like, a person, and I can't fit into a story of, like, your disinterest and your interest in me wavering because it's, like, narratively pleasing to you.

[Bill Simmons]

CR how many times have you been. One wish Willow. In love.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, hardcore out of control love.

[Bill Simmons]

Just. Just A.J. brown.

[Joanna Robinson]

I actually.

[Chris Ryan]

My wish came true with A.J.

[Bill Simmons]

that's true.

[Chris Ryan]

Ruin your team. You know, it's honestly, it's more of, like, a fleeting thing. It's like, you'll be at, like, a party or you at dancing one night, and you're like, this is. This is my soulmate.

[Bill Simmons]

Not. Not now. No.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, when I was, like, when I was, like, 17, but, like, when I'm, like, 17 and I'd be at a party or if you. You know, and you'd be like, this person. Like, I think that we're gonna, like, run away together. And sometimes drugs help in those situations. And you're just like, Maya. Like, you're like, this is really happening. And then you're like, oh, no, it's not Happening at all.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

You know what?

[Bill Simmons]

Did I call that one rhyme?

[Chris Ryan]

Have you ever had that experience?

[Bill Simmons]

Everybody has.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I think that movie. This movie taps into that, where he kind of deep down knows this girl's too. Too much. Too much firepower for him. He can't handle it. He's not. Not capable of actually, like, having a successful relationship with her, which leads to the one wish Willow. That's his only chance, and then he gets it.

[Eduardo]

I think there's also, like, both Ian, you know, his. His shitty best friend and Bear are constant saying in the beginning of the movie, she would hate this. Nikki would hate. They, like, keep sort of saying, like, what she would want or what. How she would react to something. And I'm just watching. I'm like, you have no. I feel like you have no idea. Or when.

[Bill Simmons]

Who this person is.

[Eduardo]

Or when the needle drop, when she, like, borrows a 20 to go give it to a guy, and the needle drop happens, and he's just sort of like, heart eyes staring at her, and I'm just sort of like. You have just, like. You've just, like, written a complete story in your head that has nothing to do with who this woman is.

[Chris Ryan]

It's also, you know, it's kind of a play on a lot of these kinds of stories are. They basically rely on, like, romantic gestures. Like, if you think of Jerry Maguire and you think of him riding back from Phoenix, middle of the night, Interrupt Book Club, you know, you complete me. Bear doesn't even have the courage to do something like that. When Bear is offered an opportunity to say, I like you too, he chickens out. He just takes the most demonic way possible to do it.

[Bill Simmons]

You know why? Because Bear sucks.

[Eduardo]

And you knew it from the first pina colada.

[Bill Simmons]

I knew it from the opening scene. He was practicing a speech to a fucking waitress. Yeah, which. Which was. There's some good swerves the first time you see this movie, and that's one of them, right? Because you feel like, oh, he's pouring his heart out to somebody. And then it's like, now that's some random waitress. Can we talk about the 2020s really quick, please? So you think, like, Euphoria?

[Joanna Robinson]

Mm.

[Bill Simmons]

Pretty demented show.

[Chris Ryan]

The.

[Bill Simmons]

The effect of online on people, fake friendship, some crazy sexual stuff. Tell Me Lies. Another very popular show that shows another completely demented show that we all did.

[Chris Ryan]

You're basically going down your daughter's watch list, Right?

[Eduardo]

Yeah, I was gonna say these sound

[Bill Simmons]

like, you know what?

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm going down.

[Bill Simmons]

I think this is I'm going down. These are some of the most popular program we've had the last couple years. And then obsession, which makes $500 million. What is that saying about this decade?

[Eduardo]

The kids aren't all right. I don't know. Even though, you know, these characters are not kids.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, can we talk about some of the reasons for that? Because I think about this all the time. Because I have a 21 year old and an 18 year old. Social media. This is the social media generation that grew up with it. All the potential damage from that. Online porn, revenge porn. The COVID lockdown. Underrated, sneaky, really terrible way. If you're anywhere basically under 25 and you're still forming how to connect with people and you're just on the shelf for however many months, what do you

[Eduardo]

think their Covid bubble was like these four, these people.

[Bill Simmons]

It probably wasn't great for Bear because

[Chris Ryan]

like where do you think this takes place? Right?

[Bill Simmons]

Like do we ever get like North Hollywood?

[Eduardo]

I was gonna say Ohio.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, I was gonna say Pacific Northwest. That's interesting. But I think I associated it a little bit with Rivers Edge for some reason.

[Bill Simmons]

Our friend Wesley, I was, I was talking about this movie and we were talking. Cause he's. He thinks there's this whole. He has this whole theory about young people don't want to fuck. It's like his whole. He's going to write about it at some point and he was talking about like spoilers. Well, he's. He, he loved this movie because he was like, this movie is really about how afraid young people are to just like communicate and, and connect that way. And. And this guy has to like resort to the one wish Willow over actually whatever. And I do feel like this is a generational movie to some degree. Cause I do think these are things people think about all the time. You're home all the time, you're online all the time, versus like being out connecting with people, trying to meet people.

[Chris Ryan]

There's not a lot of like sitting on the phone on this, on this. In this movie. There's like a little bit of like light, not Googling but Googling going on. But there isn't like a ton of like I'm obsessively looking at my phone and texting and stuff.

[Bill Simmons]

True.

[Chris Ryan]

Which is refreshing.

[Eduardo]

He was just on her Instagram before she called him to go.

[Bill Simmons]

They at least had a party where there was like the boys night, which sadly Nikki kind of ruined it a little bit by doing a hands on Gretel poem and then smashing a Beer

[Eduardo]

bottle gets her head or improved it. Chris and I love live theater, so I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

Hey, how was foresight? Ah, things went a little off the rails.

[Chris Ryan]

I thought we were gonna do a 2021 redraft.

[Bill Simmons]

Anyway. This movie is on pace to make 500 times as much as the budget of the movie, which is insane. It has surpassed Enter the Dragon as the highest grossing movie ever with a budget under $1 million. And in its third because it kept growing. In its third weekend, it made 27.4 million, making it the first movie since E.T. the Extraterrestrial to increase its box office. For three weeks in a row, it was the biggest focus features movie ever. As we talk about the resurgence of movies, horror movies are leading the forefront here. Horror movies.

[Eduardo]

Do you agree with that? Because.

[Bill Simmons]

And event movies like the Odyssey. The Odyssey, like IMAX stuff like large format comedies? No, no. It's all drifted to the horror and it's all drifted to like the big director IPs. What else works? Craig, you're programming a studio. Would you just do directors and own

[Joanna Robinson]

horror Animated kids movies do well.

[Eduardo]

Toy Story 5 is the number.

[Joanna Robinson]

Kids movies always do well.

[Eduardo]

Super Mario Galaxy. Those are like the two top two movies. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't even know if I would say that horror is taking off in a way that's new because I feel like horror has been.

[Bill Simmons]

Horror is like unassailable for like the last 20 years.

[Joanna Robinson]

Horror or even longer. I almost think everything else has lowered, but horror has remained well.

[Chris Ryan]

Horror also is the only thing that seems cost controlled somehow.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, you don't need stars.

[Chris Ryan]

So it's like you can do the

[Bill Simmons]

store is the horror.

[Chris Ryan]

Patrick Wilson and. And Vera Farmiga can like lead the biggest horror franchise of the last two.

[Joanna Robinson]

Don't need stars. It's inherently theatrical. It's budget friendly.

[Bill Simmons]

And I have seen every horror movie ever, or at least everyone for the last 54 years.

[Chris Ryan]

And you and I will also see any horror movie.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not kidding. I've watched all of them. There was a drought in the late 90s when we. The sequels. We've talked about this on previous pods, the sequels and just kind of ran out of ideas. And it was like how many times.

[Eduardo]

It was like dimension films. Teen, but like we're talking late.

[Chris Ryan]

Like Jesse Eisenberg werewolf movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And then Scream kind of revived the movies that we all. But then the 2000s just brought it. Once we started figuring out that there's something wrong with the house.

[Chris Ryan]

Scared of Ring. I Want to do the ring and you Ring?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Saw. Then we had like the Grizzly kind of Hostel. Yeah, we had like that Gross Era.

[Joanna Robinson]

Those are both 90s paranormal activity, another huge one.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Eduardo]

I just think it's funny. I interviewed Jason Blum years ago where I was talking, it was like after, I think after the hereditary sort of moment. And I was asking him about this idea of elevated horror, which is what everyone was sort of calling it at the moment. And he was just like, I hate that. He's like, I actually really hate that term. He was like, I hate every time people try to reclassify, like, you know, or try to make you feel less embarrassed for watching horror or something like that. He's just like, horror is just. Horror is just eternal. You know what I mean? And you don't have to slap a label on it. You can just go and experience this thing with other people in the theater. But I do have a question about why that's not working for comedy. Because, like, that communal, we laugh together, we scream together, sort of, we go to the cinema together to feel why that's not working for comedy. I don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

Heartbreak feels good in a place like this.

[Eduardo]

It does.

[Joanna Robinson]

People have been trained to think that you can watch a comedy at home.

[Eduardo]

I think that's part of a huge crowd.

[Bill Simmons]

I honestly think the bigger reason is we don't have stars anymore for comedy.

[Joanna Robinson]

But like, so many comedies. I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, think about the ones that you love.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, did American Pie have huge stars?

[Bill Simmons]

Superbad wasn't huge stars, but they became huge stars. Sure, American Pie was one of the only ones where the gimmick of the movie became the star. But when you think back to the Apatow era, all those people became really famous.

[Eduardo]

But they were. I mean, like, Steve Carell was not when you made 40 year old virgin.

[Bill Simmons]

True.

[Eduardo]

Steve Carell and Seth Rogen had been in Freaks and Geeks, but wasn't like a star when the Apatowverse started. It was a star making thing, which is what you were just saying about horror, that it can be a star making.

[Bill Simmons]

And SNL used to find these people too, and just has. Not lately.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, and it's fascinating that all these comedians are making horror films and not comedies.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Or the Invite.

[Eduardo]

And I mean, this movie's funny, though. Like, it is funny.

[Chris Ryan]

The Invite's an interesting case where I wonder if they had shopped. I mean, do you feel like that was shopped as a comedy?

[Bill Simmons]

No, but I finally saw it on Friday and it was. It's. It's really funny. Like, there were parts where the whole theater was really laughing into it. Yeah. And I wasn't prepared for that because it's such an unsettling movie. This movie has a couple of funny things, too. Quick backstory. So Cory Barker wrote, edited, directed, you mentioned. Or Curry. Who's that? So, Cory Booker. Yeah, Curry Barker. Who are the other famous Currys?

[Chris Ryan]

Stefan, Ed, and.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Curry Barker. I'm going to get this right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Del the Food Curry.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

A producer liked his short film. The chair wanted him to make a movie. And Barker pitched Obsession, which was partly inspired by the Simpsons episode TreeHouse of Horror 2.

[Eduardo]

A monkey's paw sort of segment in that episode.

[Bill Simmons]

So they offered him a million. They offered him 2 million if bear could be the hero at the end. And he said, no, he did the sliced alone. I will play Rocky. He's like, bear will not be the hero of this. And did the 1 million and does it premieres a tiff, it crushes focus buys it for 15 million.

[Eduardo]

But also didn't do the Rocky because they said he could play Bear. If you. Because he's been an actor as well

[Chris Ryan]

as a Director in his YouTube stuff, he plays some creepers. So it's not like he's like, oh, but I think if Curry Barker played this part, you would be like, that's the bad guy. The second he walked on, he doesn't

[Eduardo]

even have to order a pina colada before he.

[Chris Ryan]

Affectionately. For his skills as an actor. But, like, if you watch Milk and Cereal, which is one of his YouTube movies, you're like, this is one of the creepiest dudes out there.

[Eduardo]

But I just like. I really like that restraint because he's. He's wanted to be an actor as well as a director sort of his whole life. And he had this opportunity to put himself in there, and he was just sort of like, no, for the. For the betterment of the movie, I'm gonna restrain myself and I'll just be the director.

[Chris Ryan]

Everything that's good about this movie is because it didn't get fucked with.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And maybe he got notes from different people and maybe he got, you know, mentorship. But that the reason why I think horror has been working so well at the kind of level that it's at right now, like this backrooms obsession level, is that they're like, at this price point, I won't mess with you.

[Eduardo]

Yeah, let her rip.

[Chris Ryan]

Go for it. And then when it gets to. It costs 50, 60, $70 million, it's like, I'm gonna need Ethan Hawke in this. And he's gonna have to be the good guy at the end somehow. He's gonna have to save the day or something like that. You know, like, there. There starts to become more like, we need to have Bear try to find the One Wish Willow company. And it's like a road trip with him and Sarah. But when, you know, like, it's like there would just be extra shit.

[Bill Simmons]

And so I would have watched that.

[Eduardo]

I was gonna say sequel, but I love Sarah more.

[Bill Simmons]

Sarah in this movie would have been good.

[Chris Ryan]

We'd have to do a prequel. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

One of the funny things about this movie is so we're in this cycle now when a movie's not gonna. They don't think it's gonna make that much money. We've really ramped up the VOD and

[Chris Ryan]

then shortened the window.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Popping on the streaming. So in this one, it had it all set up like, all right, it'll be out, and four weeks later, it'll be on vod. And they had to delay everything because it was like a money machine. And the vod, I think, got delayed by what, five, six weeks? It went on Peacock last Friday. Last Friday.

[Eduardo]

But it going on Peacock was another pop for it.

[Bill Simmons]

No question. But what's interesting is all that tells me is they still didn't know, even as they're getting to, like, when the movie was coming out, that this was going to happen.

[Chris Ryan]

The big thing with this one was the second week, right?

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. Like, it was like, it did. Well, it did 16, seven. I can't remember what it did the first week. And then it was like.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like 20, then 25, then 28. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like. It's like.

[Eduardo]

And the narrative, the whole narrative became around the horrible Star wars movie that came out at the same time. But it's bad. It's a terrible movie. But I re listened to your big pic episode with Sean talking about it to prepare for this. It's just a very sweet time Castle, because you guys are like, this is a pretty good movie. Really hope some people will go see it.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, seriously?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

I really hope people give Obsession a chance.

[Chris Ryan]

There's this weird thing that happened with the success of this movie. Is a. I think it got way more scrutiny than any horror movie usually gets, where everybody's like, are we sure it's really that good? But then it's also like, before it got big, me and Sean were like, cool movie.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

People, check it out.

[Eduardo]

Let's champion it.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was really sweet.

[Bill Simmons]

This was a tough Internet movie. This really. This really. All the things we don't like about the Internet were percolating, like the moment this movie started to do well. Sadly. No Roger Ebert. No review from him.

[Chris Ryan]

Ask any.

[Bill Simmons]

No. You told me not to do that anymore.

[Chris Ryan]

Thanks for listening.

[Eduardo]

And I co sign. Yeah, I love this.

[Bill Simmons]

You know what I did do, though? I asked. I asked Claude if Bill Simmons was still writing, what would the first paragraph of his review of Obsession be? And this is what Claude said.

[Chris Ryan]

Claude Simmons.

[Bill Simmons]

Claude writing in my voice. Real talk. I almost skipped Obsession because the title sounded like a Lifetime movie that got confused about what network it was on. Then I actually watched it. And this is a full Simmons reversal. It's the best horror movie of the year and it's about something you think

[Eduardo]

you would ever say.

[Bill Simmons]

It kind of sounded like me. I kind of wanted to die after I read that.

[Eduardo]

Full Simmons reversal. Is that something you would say?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I think I would have made the Lifetime movie joke.

[Eduardo]

Yeah. The last. How do you feel about making yourself redundant on this podcast?

[Bill Simmons]

Which one?

[Eduardo]

With AI you just.

[Bill Simmons]

I just did it.

[Eduardo]

Market corrected yourself with AI. How does that feel?

[Bill Simmons]

It made me feel really bad about all the stuff I wrote over the years that somebody could just be like, here we go. Bonjour, compadre.

[Chris Ryan]

It's the Priceline negotiator.

[Bill Simmons]

How do I negotiate so many great travel deals? My greatest gadget, the Priceline app. It's got hotel deals, flight deals, rental car deals, all of those deals in a bundle deals, game day deals, concert trip deals. No one deals more deals than Priceline. Hold your horses, there's more. The app lets you filter hotels by neighborhood vibe, star level and amenities like pools and spas and beachfronts and. Wait, I'm not done. Stop cutting me up.

[Joanna Robinson]

Priceline.

[Bill Simmons]

Most rewatchable scene. The opening diner scene we mentioned has to be mentioned just because it very perfectly establishes Bears a schmuck in four minutes. Barker's pub. Really good bar talk scene. Good camaraderie with the four. Some interesting dynamics.

[Joanna Robinson]

Ian.

[Chris Ryan]

Just a guy who lives for bar trivia.

[Eduardo]

Relatable, but they need a better bar trivia name.

[Bill Simmons]

But we learn Cockblocker.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

For a reason.

[Chris Ryan]

For a reason.

[Bill Simmons]

They go to go get the shots and he's gonna have this moment and he goes crashing in. It's like, ah, I don't trust you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. His whole behavior makes sense once you get to the end of the show.

[Eduardo]

Once you know. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Bear and Nikki in front of her place. It's the next scene.

[Chris Ryan]

Amazing.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you like me,

[Joanna Robinson]

Shannon?

[Bill Simmons]

Half a pina colada?

[Eduardo]

That's your Ethan Embry impression perfectly.

[Bill Simmons]

And it's One Wish Willow time. I wish Nikki would love me more than anyone in the fucking world. Boom. She's on the steps acting weird all of a sudden. And we're off. Next scene.

[Eduardo]

Bear has never seen a movie with, like, a genie. Like, never at the.

[Bill Simmons]

In the trivia horror movies, though, one

[Eduardo]

of the trivia questions is Aladdin. It was Aladdin. Never thought I should word this carefully.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, this is every movie where there's something wrong with the house. And nobody has ever watched any horror movie where there's something wrong with the house. Like, huh, the attic. It's getting weird up there. Hmm.

[Joanna Robinson]

Can I ask a question about the wish?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Is he wishing that she loves him more than she loves anyone else in the world, or is he wishing that she loves him more than anyone has loved anyone in the world?

[Chris Ryan]

Well, I think that's where you get into the fine print of the One Wish Willow.

[Eduardo]

I thought it was the first one,

[Bill Simmons]

but the exact quote is, I wish Nikki would love me more than anyone in the fucking world. I think he means Nicky. But One Wish Willow got confused. But grammar loopholes could be number one. Yeah. Should have said it better.

[Eduardo]

Needed an editor.

[Bill Simmons]

We have the cat memorial in the kitchen, followed by Bear telling Ian everything that happened last night as she's staring them down. This is the okay Motherfucker award, right?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

We're like, okay, motherfucker. We are off her.

[Eduardo]

Just staring in the background.

[Bill Simmons]

Just the cat combined with that. And it's like, man, we have flipped the switch.

[Eduardo]

That's not mine, but.

[Bill Simmons]

No, I'm just giving you sauce.

[Eduardo]

No, no, I know, I know.

[Bill Simmons]

The we're in love rom com montage where it's like, she's the perfect girlfriend. Yeah. They're having a great time. And then the booth and the date when she does the Betty Gabriel and get out. That's okay, motherfucker. No, no, no, no. Thought we're having a nice date. Next scene, she's in the corner in the bedroom.

[Eduardo]

That's mine. That's my okay motherfucker. When she starts moving like humans don't move backwards. That's when I was like, oh, no.

[Bill Simmons]

Has Liz ever done that, Craig? She ever goes. Not to my knowledge. Okay, good.

[Eduardo]

It's not even the backwards. It's when she's doing sort of the like, Pink Panther creep out of the shower.

[Chris Ryan]

That's cause you're too locked in on your 11th fantasy league.

[Bill Simmons]

You're like, huh?

[Chris Ryan]

Why don't you love me?

[Bill Simmons]

Then puts the flower over her face. Then we get the duct tape door scene frozen. Smile. She pees in the rug, makes him a dead cat sandwich. We've gone off these next two scenes. One of these two would be my 2. Nikki freaking out that she didn't get invited to Boys Night. Followed by Boys Night. Yeah, Boys night. This scene is fucking bonkers. We get the Hansel and Gretel incest

[Eduardo]

monologue with the accent.

[Bill Simmons]

Wanna break that down later or.

[Eduardo]

No, I have the whole thing here.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay. Wanna do it now? Sure. Okay, go ahead.

[Eduardo]

Do you want me to read it?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Can you read it in, like, a live ad read voice?

[Eduardo]

This episode brought to you by Incest. Hansel, come lie with me like the old woman taught us when we were children, I said. He closed the door and leaned against it. You're not my wife, Gretel, he said. I'm more your wife than I'm your sister. Hansel flinched and reached for the door handle. I knew he would not leave this place. He would relent and choose to be inside me like he had many nights before. If not, I would have filleted his meaty forearm rolled it like a stick of licorice and inserted his flesh between my legs. Hansel is my soul, my cud, brother. You will be inside me tonight. I went to him at the wall and reached for his sharp shoulders. His eyes are on the door, but his hands grab my hips. That's from the original screenplay. It might be slightly different in the finished product, but I do think it's

[Bill Simmons]

just a book I'm working on.

[Eduardo]

Yes, I do think her accent work is my favorite part of all of that. When she just decided to go for the accent, which was Indy's choice. And I just love it.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't even know which part of the Oscar clip when she's nominated do they use from this scene. But the crazy smile, the overlap. She does the poem, I think when

[Eduardo]

she pops up and she's really excited to read it. That was sort of my favorite.

[Chris Ryan]

When she's just like, guys, I'm joking. No, I'm not. Deal with it.

[Bill Simmons]

And then he pulls out the next thing and it's kiss the person to your left. And it cuts her. And she makes the single craziest face of the movie and one of the craziest ever. And then pulls the chair out. The sound in this movie is really good, too. Right as she pulls the chair out, it does this jump scare sound, pulls the chair back. And just the reaction of everybody else in the room where they're just like, what the fuck is going on? All time. Michael Jordan dance performance by her in that scene.

[Chris Ryan]

And then we get what is now becoming a pretty prominent trope in modern horror movies, which is blasting your own head. Which happened in Hereditary. It happened in Talk to Me. It happened to bring her back. And now we got. We got this one.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I wonder who. Who is the Jonas Salk of.

[Chris Ryan]

I think Talk to Me was the one where I was like, holy shit. But I guess Hereditary would predate that.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, then the next one I have is Bear sneaking out to see Sarah. Sarah, your fave. This is my number one really good scene. You know Nikki's going to show up. Yes. But then the way they do the diet and she's like, Luther. And she's like, oh, I was the one sitting that. And you just kind of forget about Nikki for a second. And then all of a sudden the window breaks and it's the most violent, awful horror movie scene. It's just great.

[Eduardo]

You see the behind the scenes where they put like, literally like a bike helmet on her and then a wig on top of the bike helmet. And that's like. That's how this movie costs less than $1 million.

[Bill Simmons]

They had.

[Chris Ryan]

I wrote a cast of her head too, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. This was When Harry Met Sally Cross with the Shining. They made two dummies of her and just smashed.

[Eduardo]

Oh, of Sarah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Just smashed the head over and over again. Cr. One of the best kill scenes in a long time.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I mean, it's the testament to the way they did it that you can see it coming literally from a hundred yards away. Because if you're watching, you're just like, that's Nikki. Here she comes. You know, like. And it's just. It's just incredible. It's hit every single time I've watched it this week.

[Bill Simmons]

Two more. Ian making the One Wish Willow. I wish for a billion dollars.

[Chris Ryan]

Perfect wish, man.

[Bill Simmons]

And then the ending of this movie is great. And I didn't even pick up the first time that she broke the One Wish willow. After he was overdosing. I just thought he overdosed and he dreamed the rest of it. And then. Cause I'm an idiot. The second time I was like, oh, that was the One Wish Willow. Oh. And it was just my favorite part

[Eduardo]

of that is Bear chickening out and trying to vomit up the pills.

[Chris Ryan]

And that was a Michael Johnston idea. He was like, this guy's coward.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have for most rewatchable? Sierra?

[Chris Ryan]

No, no, no. Dinner.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Eduardo]

That's mine too.

[Chris Ryan]

The phone call about that she's lying about her dad. Although the Ian's very specific research he's done.

[Eduardo]

I know he's like, he comes out

[Chris Ryan]

into work every day. I'm like, how the fuck do you know? Yeah, but you know, and you can,

[Eduardo]

you know, Ian has spider Craig.

[Joanna Robinson]

I like the two scenes where he wakes up in the middle of the night and she's got the flower pot her in the corner when he's sleeping and she's awake. I'm fucking locked in.

[Eduardo]

Terrifying.

[Bill Simmons]

What's the most 2026 thing about this movie? I would say the Internet dialogue about it.

[Eduardo]

Isn't it just like too close to know? I'm really glad that we're doing this rewatchable of like a current movie.

[Bill Simmons]

But like we do it once a year. What did we do? We did Top Gun, Maverick. We did Get Out Sinners or Sinners. We did Sinners. Yeah, we've done. What else have we done? Same year. I feel like we've done one a year. I don't remember the other ones, but

[Eduardo]

it's hard to know.

[Joanna Robinson]

Once upon a time in Hollywood, you did.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Eduardo]

But it's hard to know, like, what is 2026 when you're still in 2020.

[Chris Ryan]

I think it's probably a director coming from YouTube.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Which could be more this era. But yeah, as a story, like, what

[Bill Simmons]

do you have for the Floyd Gundelli Butter in my ass award for something

[Chris Ryan]

you just enjoy Post high school teens bumming around a small town. Really hard to turn me off of that. Like, if they were playing pick up basketball, I'd be fine. You know, like, I dig it. I dig people like being like, we have this stupid job. We go out to a bar at night.

[Bill Simmons]

You had had some cigarettes outside Barker's pub.

[Chris Ryan]

I have some stuff to say about smoke. It's smoking later.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. What do you have, Joanna?

[Eduardo]

I like to your point. I like a movie that just. You think you're watching one movie and you're watching a different.

[Bill Simmons]

Exactly.

[Eduardo]

That's that. That's what happened to you. I love that that happened to you because you. You avoid promo.

[Joanna Robinson]

Can I give you the least 2026 thing about this movie?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

That four people plus a manager work in a tiny music store every day. At the.

[Chris Ryan]

At the same time, there's not that many people working at a CVS store.

[Joanna Robinson]

You can find four people in a Best Buy. Maybe now. Like four people having the same shift in that store I went into.

[Eduardo]

Well, they're all like favor hires. Right. Because it's her dad's store. And then all of her friends.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Like how many customers you get a day?

[Bill Simmons]

That's where Andy Richter was going to end up after Conan show got canceled. Running Castle's music Mine is cross famous movie locations. Oh, Castle's music. Also the location of Wayne's World. The guitar that he always wanted when he does a. It will be mine.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

That was the story where they filmed it.

[Eduardo]

Really?

[Bill Simmons]

I like when a cool location is in two kind of iconic movies.

[Eduardo]

That's amazing.

[Bill Simmons]

That was where he wanted the 1964 Fender Stratocaster. Cassa's music closed. They filmed this and then like six months later, it shut down. It's San Fernando. It's done.

[Eduardo]

The house that they filmed the party in burned down in Altadena. Fires. Right. So, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What stage the best? Really hard to say because this movie came out two months ago, but I'm gonna offer you an old school Memorial Day box office weekend where we had Michael. The Michael Jackson movie still killing it. We had devil wears Prada 2 coming out and obsession kind of movies we grew up with CR might as well have been 1989 for bangers. The no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Was an obvious get out montage, which they said. But I like that get out has now been long enough that you can reclaim it eight hours later and be like, oh, this is clearly no Marsh. I had for what stage the best? Ian, just as a bad friend stuff you pick up on the second viewing. But that's like a particular one where it's like, oh, this guy's actually a bad actor in the friend sense.

[Eduardo]

I think for me, it's the more I learn about how bare bones this production was, the more impressed I am with the movie. You know what I mean? Like, if you just watch these two people on a table dumping the rubber money on top of Behr and behind like all the behind the scenes stuff where it's just sort of like, let's put on a show in our backyard essentially, and it looks great and it made a gajillion dollars. That's a great story.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have?

[Chris Ryan]

A couple little details. I mean, first of all, Navarretti and the way that she switches between obsessed Nikki and normal Nikki or, you know, and I think there's like little moments like Nikki turning off the shower when Bear tells her it's Boys night. And she's behind the door. You just hear the shower go.

[Eduardo]

You hear the pipe, the water in

[Chris Ryan]

the pipes, which I don't think I caught necessarily first time around. That were really good. And I also love Bear dyes just like his cat.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, that's a really good one.

[Chris Ryan]

Cr.

[Eduardo]

Yeah, that's a great one.

[Bill Simmons]

That's why this is the year of cr.

[Eduardo]

Have you seen the theory that people think she's possessed with the. With the greatest candy? Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

That's great.

[Bill Simmons]

I had that in Unanswerables. My daughter thinks that's true. She thinks she became the cat.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I had the Easter egg stuff in this movie as what stage the best. Just that you can go deep diving it, which I did in the One Wish Willow store. We get the wide shot and there's a magic eye and there's a voodoo doll or the other two things you could buy. People think that's gonna be the obsession universe.

[Eduardo]

That will get franchising.

[Bill Simmons]

People get voodoo doll.

[Chris Ryan]

We'll have the same guy who's like, don't bring that energy in here, man.

[Eduardo]

I love these. I love both of the people who worked in the crystal shop.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. The woman on her AirPods.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Another one is Nikki is reading the art of seduction in bed, but it's upside down.

[Eduardo]

Yeah. Oh, wow.

[Bill Simmons]

Bear's Google search history. Yes. Which his last seven days are how to woo a girl, how to impress a girl, how to flirt, and how to know if you've been friend zoned. Once again, Bear loser.

[Eduardo]

How to play Green Day's Basket Case on acoustic guitar is one of his search terms. I just like, really like.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes. It's July Oxycodone. So this is an Internet theory. I think I believe it because the third time I watched it look for it. Sarah is always on Bear's left and Nikki's always on his right. Every time he's with Sarah, she's on

[Chris Ryan]

his left in the stage.

[Bill Simmons]

And I have no idea if this was completely accidental or whether this was actually.

[Eduardo]

What does that mean to you?

[Chris Ryan]

Like devil angel kind of thing?

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know. But it seemed relatively intentional. Nikki also never eats unless Bear's eating.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh.

[Bill Simmons]

And then I didn't notice this till maybe the second time, but she's. The TV's on and it looks like they're watching some commercial from the 90s, but it's just Bear sleeping. She has this video of bed. That's what's on the tv.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

When there's like something running on the tv. It's bear sleep. It's bear sleeping that she videotaped. Obviously. There's a lot of good ones in there.

[Eduardo]

Did you see that? Someone broke down the rom com montage and broke it down that it's just two days?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, really?

[Eduardo]

It looks like it's a month, but they let you track the clothing and it's just like, two days.

[Chris Ryan]

It makes sense, though, because, like, if they. It would be strange if she was, like, for that long, you know.

[Eduardo]

That's a. That's a question I have.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, interesting. I didn't realize. Do you think the intention, though, is to make you feel like it's a month?

[Eduardo]

Yeah, two days, I think, to make you feel like. I mean, in his mind, he's like, oh, my God, we're in this, like, long, and it's just been like, us

[Joanna Robinson]

to think that it's been a month.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't think he cares. But if. I think it's more like when he goes back to Ian, Ian's like, so you guys are just fudgeing, like, living together now. Like, it's. It's. And it's only been a couple of days.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I had this in. Unanswerable is how many days do you think this was?

[Eduardo]

She gives her two weeks and she's still working there when the movie's over.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's like 11 or 12 days. It just feels longer. A couple more. Quick.

[Eduardo]

I still do have friend questions, though.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Semi. What stage? The best barker wrote and filmed an ending inspired by Romeo and Juliet where Nikki kills herself after breaking free from the wish, and they decided not to use that one. Then he said the characters of Obsession are unlikely to appear in another film, which I hope he sticks to.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, not too many of them.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, well, but they could do an

[Eduardo]

Andy Richter spinoff maybe. Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

He did say he was thinking about an anthology TV series where each episode explores a new character making a wish. I threw that at my wife and daughter and both of them were like, in. I don't have to sell. Joanna, who watches Cape Fear and enjoyed it.

[Eduardo]

And enjoyed it is not prestige. Episodes every week is not how I enjoyed the experience, but it's not a good show.

[Bill Simmons]

You like Cape Ferry. Don't lie to us. Deep down, you like it. You look forward to it. You liked it.

[Eduardo]

Nope.

[Bill Simmons]

Just admit you liked it. It's like having a canker sword in your mouth. You're like, I kind of miss having that canker sword.

[Eduardo]

Yeah, if you could just stop tonguing it. I have texts from you about how much you are all in on Cape Fear.

[Bill Simmons]

It's the worst show I've ever watched that was canceled.

[Chris Ryan]

I quit after five. I had to do it.

[Bill Simmons]

It's really horrible.

[Chris Ryan]

I punched out.

[Eduardo]

It's wild.

[Bill Simmons]

There's one other thing that's fun from a what's age at best standpoint, where right after Nikki turns into Wish Nikki and she comes around the driver's door and then she walks out and she kind of does like this 360 and bears like, what are you doing? Like, the actress actually got confused where to go, and they just kept in the movie because they thought it was funny.

[Chris Ryan]

She's also still, like, kind of glitching out. Like, I think it's the fresh possession. She's just like, what is happening?

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, my cat died.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eduardo]

And she's like, wait, yeah, my dad's dying. Cancer.

[Bill Simmons]

Last one. Christopher Nolan, big fan of the movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

He said, when you go see a film like Obsession, that's an amazing idea. That movie works like a motherfucker. I'm telling Anne Hathaway to go best supporting right now.

[Eduardo]

You have me in the first half.

[Bill Simmons]

We need to get a W. All right. Great shot. Gordo Award most cinematic shots here.

[Chris Ryan]

I had a couple, but the one I like the most is when Bear is on the phone in the restaurant. And in the background of the shot, but still clear, you can see Nikki emerge as Ian's telling Bear about the cancer diagnosis. And you can see her, like, staring at Bear. I thought that was, like, a great. There's not a lot of shots in very broad, lit rooms. That was one of them. But there's obviously some iconic ones in this.

[Eduardo]

I would say her showing up in the red dress where her face is just completely in shadow and her eyes are gleaming. That's part of the whole she's actually a cat theory. But, yeah, there you go. Yeah. Because that's what cat eye is.

[Chris Ryan]

Sandy, you're back.

[Eduardo]

But I just love. I love all the times that her face is just completely in shadow inside of this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

They kind of debunked that. They said they had so bare bones, no money at all, that she had to kind of do her own makeup and made it darker. And however she did it with the lighting that they didn't have great lighting for either made her eyes kind of crazy in a good way. That helped the movie, apparently. So I have Nikki in the bedroom corner for Great shot Gordo. I mean, where I like. It's always fun in a movie where it's like, is there somebody back? And then you realize there is. Like, the famous one is Halloween and Halloween one where she comes out after she sees her three friends butchered. And it's like, oh, no, Meyers is probably still in the house. And then he kind of comes out of the. You just kind of see his white face come out of the back.

[Eduardo]

Hereditary. Has an Alzheimer. But yeah, like the way that the camera is just in that corner and it's not moving, so you're like, okay, she's there somewhere, but I can't see her. Where is she? That was my experience.

[Bill Simmons]

Anyway, Kid Cudi award for best needle drop. You mentioned it before. Nikki feeding the homeless guy. And the music kicks in. And bears googly hanger. What do you have for chess? Rockwell Brocklander's award for best character name.

[Chris Ryan]

Baron Bear Bailey.

[Bill Simmons]

Baron Bear.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

I think that's undeniably the answer. But the la. The fact that her last name is Freeman. Nikki Freeman.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

Is giving me real. Matt Damon plays Dr. Hugh man in Interstellar Vibes.

[Bill Simmons]

He free man.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you think.

[Eduardo]

But she's not free man. You know?

[Bill Simmons]

Do you think Donald and Melania called Baron Bear Bear? I hope not think anyone will ever be called Bear again.

[Eduardo]

Do you think Donald and Melania talked to Baron?

[Chris Ryan]

Do you think Donald Trump has seen Obsession?

[Bill Simmons]

No, he wouldn't like it.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think he would be able to hang in on that one.

[Eduardo]

Baron loved it, though.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Baron Big Kahuna Burger were best use of food and drink. Obviously. The cat sandwich. The dead cat sandwich. One of the worst orders you could make at a diner.

[Eduardo]

Sarah from afar was like, it smells weird. And I'm like, bear just tore into that thing.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

Like, what did it smell like?

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not eating anything this lady had made after the way she's behaved for the last five days. Like, oh, you made me a sandwich. Thank you.

[Eduardo]

That's right after she duct taped the entire door. Like, let's dig in.

[Chris Ryan]

My award for when. When I would have died.

[Bill Simmons]

The cat sandwich. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I would have just been like, it's time to.

[Bill Simmons]

To.

[Chris Ryan]

To drink a whole can of Clorox. Yeah.

[Eduardo]

Pack it up. Pack it in.

[Bill Simmons]

I had for that probably of a heart attack when she was hiding in the corner watching me sleep. I just would have dropped dead. Did you have one for that one, Jodie?

[Eduardo]

Yeah. It would have been really early because if I were Sarah, if I were her friend, I would have checked in with her, which none of her friends really seem to be doing, and she would have gotten freaked out and killed me.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

That's what I think would have happened. But they're not asking, like, Sarah's not asking any hard questions.

[Bill Simmons]

True.

[Eduardo]

You know, like.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I don't think Sarah likes Nikki.

[Eduardo]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

But, like, the friends in this movie don't actually like each other. Is one of the.

[Eduardo]

This is one of my hot takes. I'm like, does Nikki deserve anything to have? Sort of. Obviously not. Bear is the bad guy. The fact that she doesn't have any friend, like good friends that notice that this is happening to her is a question I have.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. This is a really good category. Was there a better title for this movie?

[Chris Ryan]

I had to make a wish. What?

[Eduardo]

You get sued?

[Chris Ryan]

What about darling Nikki? Little tip of the cap to Prince.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow. You know the bear they could have afforded them.

[Eduardo]

Yeah. Is that taken?

[Bill Simmons]

Why isn't this just called One Wish Willow?

[Eduardo]

That sounds so kitschy. I think that would be a real turn off for audiences. I think Sessions.

[Chris Ryan]

It's what makes it different than calling it Ouija too. You know, like, it's. It's like. It's not about the game. It's about the. The condition.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you think?

[Joanna Robinson]

I agree that Obsession. I don't know if it's, like, the absolute perfect choice, but I couldn't think of another one.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I feel like Obsession has come out as a title 130 times.

[Eduardo]

I think if you call it One Wish Willow, that's like calling a movie Matchbox. Which they have done.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes, they sure have.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What about Just Wish?

[Chris Ryan]

I think there are lots of movies called Wish.

[Bill Simmons]

What about Bear Sucks?

[Eduardo]

What about no Pina Coladas Ever?

[Bill Simmons]

Cru Flex category.

[Chris Ryan]

The Sean Fantasy award for stealth homage. That gives every movie nerd a criteria. Orgasm. The way Nikki moves specifically is very reminiscent. Or an homage to Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse. The way the characters. The haunted characters move in that movie.

[Bill Simmons]

See, this is why. This is the year of cr. Little Japanese horror bringing up Japanese movies.

[Chris Ryan]

I was just crushing some cursed tape last night.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know,

[Bill Simmons]

we don't get to give this at that. The Fortune 3 Clap Award for most gifable moment. Is it Nikki's face right after Kiss? The person to your left?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, that is the.

[Chris Ryan]

No, no, no.

[Eduardo]

I think it's. No, no, no, no, no. Well, I mean, I think there's a couple options.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, no, no, no.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

The most memeable image for me, which is problematic because of what actually transpires in the movie, is Bear turning her head back to the screen.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And I Want to do that for, like, the first time the Sixers practice turns her head back and it's just guys doing layup lines. But yes, I think that there's like a ton of. Of. Really?

[Bill Simmons]

So you'll do the. No, no, no. And game 10. Jalen Brown's like, it's hard to get in a rhythm when you don't get a lot of shots. You just put the no, no, no. Beep right under it.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right.

[Bill Simmons]

I think the frown is probably the best one. Butch's Girlfriend award for weak link of the film.

[Eduardo]

Know what?

[Bill Simmons]

You think I have another one, actually.

[Eduardo]

Okay. I think it's. I do. I feel bad because I think it's fine to cast your friend, but Cooper Tomlinson, who plays Ian, like, I think we could have plus that performance a little bit.

[Chris Ryan]

I had a really hard time with this. I. I agree with you that he would be a kind of an obvious. But I think knowing he's such a dirtbag at the end of the movie, I guess it was just sort of

[Bill Simmons]

like I kind of liked him.

[Chris Ryan]

You like Cooper?

[Bill Simmons]

I just like Cooper Thomas. I had really one that really bothered me and then three times. Third time bothered me the most. So he calls one wish willow to not even cancel. He just wants to alter his wish.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then he was like, ah, yeah, maybe I should cancel it. But then at some point, the guy's like, do you want to talk to her? And then Nikki's like, on the phone just screaming from hell.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I just would have cut that. I didn't think it worked.

[Chris Ryan]

I thought it was awesome.

[Bill Simmons]

Really? And I didn't like that at all.

[Eduardo]

That's Curry Barker's voice. I loved that.

[Bill Simmons]

I like the curry barker part. I'm not talking about her being.

[Chris Ryan]

Her being diabolical for what?

[Bill Simmons]

Her being trapped. So she's. That's just what she's doing for two weeks. But where's she trapped?

[Chris Ryan]

In this demonic purgatory where they send people who have been taken over by the witch.

[Eduardo]

And he can't deny what's happening here. He heard her screaming too.

[Chris Ryan]

Weird Love. That would have, like. I think you have, like, a moral obligation.

[Eduardo]

You know, I also just think the way that curry barker, like, delivered all of that.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. So would you like to cancel? You'd like to fill out, like, a cancel wish form? Yes. Yes, I do. He's like, we don't really do that.

[Eduardo]

Bored customer service.

[Bill Simmons]

But does that scene still work, though, if we don't hear her screaming?

[Chris Ryan]

I think it works either way.

[Eduardo]

But I think the screaming. I think the screaming I need. I think you need the screaming. You need that shot of him, like, fucking her while her face is, like, completely checked out. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

All right. I got outvoted 2 to 1 on the screaming. So I have to go to Craig.

[Joanna Robinson]

I liked it.

[Bill Simmons]

God damn it. I was lose.

[Eduardo]

Yeah. All right.

[Bill Simmons]

I put in the Ted Levine award for a performance so good and distinct it may have ruined the actor's career just for Indy Navarretti. I hope. I hope there's other things where we're

[Chris Ryan]

like, yeah, I think she would.

[Eduardo]

I think she's good.

[Bill Simmons]

I think she has a long giant.

[Chris Ryan]

It's going to be tough next time. Bear is like, I'm a nice dude who works in a bookstore in this, like, Nancy Myers movie, and people are going to be like, fuck you. Get out.

[Bill Simmons]

See, I'm going to have. The next time I see her just in a normal scene in a movie, I'm. I'm going to have to shake session. But I also watched it three times. What stage the worst? I love Blumhouse. They victory lap being involved in this movie. And they just kind of put their slogan on it at the end. And it was. I thought that was just weird. I didn't like that. The only other one I could find was the. Was an NC17 rating was in the mix because the car, the brick scene with Sarah was so violent that they were like, this can't be R. We have to go up A level to NC17.

[Joanna Robinson]

Kind of similar to the scene in Once upon a Time in Hollywood with Mikey Madison getting her face slammed against the telephone.

[Chris Ryan]

Another great head trauma of the 21st century.

[Bill Simmons]

So curry. Don't call me Cory Barker had to remove six head smashes to get the R rating.

[Eduardo]

Okay. What's the number of head smashes that tip you over?

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't like any of this. First of all, it's a violent scene. Like, we could have kept a couple more head smashes and all been okay. But I just think. I don't understand when they do stuff like that. We're like, you can keep eight head smashes, but 14's too excessive. Like, what are we doing?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I was like, what would like off?

[Chris Ryan]

Is it worse than the. The light pole and hereditary? I mean.

[Eduardo]

So your answer is the mpaa. That's what sage.

[Bill Simmons]

The worst. Yeah. Off.

[Eduardo]

Yeah, I agree.

[Chris Ryan]

Good one.

[Eduardo]

Eternally.

[Bill Simmons]

Here comes the telephone pole. Ruffalo Hand and Rubin Partridge over at game.

[Eduardo]

Can I give what stage the worst?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, what do you got?

[Eduardo]

Van's Twitter feed.

[Chris Ryan]

Evergreen, did you.

[Bill Simmons]

Did you fight with him at Comic Con about this?

[Eduardo]

No, he called, like, the day that he was getting raked over the coals. He called me and was like, hey, who do you think the villain in this movie is? And then talked to me for like an hour about it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Who did he think the villain was, Nick?

[Eduardo]

No, he was just sort of like, the villain is existence itself was sort of his argument. But, yeah, I don't think I swayed him. But I guess eventually he heard. I think he heard through the pipeline from the filmmakers and he was like, oh, I guess Bear's the villain.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, he got enough.

[Eduardo]

I don't think it came from, like, Curry, but it came.

[Chris Ryan]

It came from Corey, though.

[Eduardo]

Yeah, yeah, it came from Corey. He had a twin brother, Corey Bryant.

[Bill Simmons]

I missed all of this, but he did text me about had I seen Obsession. I was like, this will be a three hour rabbit hole.

[Eduardo]

I was on the phone with him when you texted me and you told

[Bill Simmons]

me you were on the phone with him. And I was like, I'm staying out of this.

[Joanna Robinson]

Don't you think the reason why this movie works is it. It is slightly nuanced, at least for the first bit of the movie. Like, you can make the case in the first half. Once, like, it starts to flip and you're like, okay, this guy's horrible. But, like, you can make the case that he's like, did this wish actually work? This is some stupid stick. Maybe she did. She does like me. And then once he's in, he's like, well, maybe I can make it real. Like, you can buy into perhaps what he was thinking about. Like, maybe I'll get her to like me for real. And then it obviously switches and he becomes, like, totally screwed up. But for the first half of the movie, I feel like the point is that it's like, if this were you, if this were Mike from Swingers, he would have done the same fucking thing.

[Eduardo]

I don't think it's half the movie, but I think it's.

[Bill Simmons]

Why won't you. What does he say to him?

[Chris Ryan]

Would it be so bad?

[Bill Simmons]

Why don't you. Would it be so bad to be with me? Or whatever? He says, all right, this guy's lost. Well, he's fucking marble.

[Chris Ryan]

Done a lot of really bad shit up until then.

[Joanna Robinson]

Totally.

[Chris Ryan]

And then the. The fact that he says that she's like, kill me. He goes, would it be so bad to be with me then? Then he's like, I'm going to go hang out with Sarah. Like, I think before that, when he's

[Eduardo]

having sex with her and she's just like, not actually there after the know,

[Chris Ryan]

that's knowingly, like, consent wise. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have for a flex category?

[Eduardo]

Oh, things you can smell just by looking at them.

[Bill Simmons]

Did you make one up? You made a flex category. Wow.

[Eduardo]

That house.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh my gosh.

[Eduardo]

That's his dead grandma's house that a dead cat died in. And then she like.

[Chris Ryan]

And he doesn't seem like a big cleaner.

[Eduardo]

Exactly like that house already was.

[Bill Simmons]

So this could be the Borat award for rancid body odor, but for the whole house. The obsession house for. Yeah, this is good. I love this.

[Joanna Robinson]

She soils herself and then she soils

[Eduardo]

herself and then the, like Foley on the squelching on the carpet. It's just like that.

[Joanna Robinson]

How?

[Bill Simmons]

I hesitate to ask, but what was that on the carpet?

[Chris Ryan]

Looked like her human waist. I think it was like, poop, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Yeah. I was hoping it wasn't. I was hoping it was throw up.

[Chris Ryan]

It was.

[Eduardo]

You're like, come on. Come on.

[Bill Simmons]

Vomit that. Doesn't that tie into the cat theory,

[Chris Ryan]

though, that she shat on the cat going anywhere?

[Eduardo]

It was. I think it's better than the, you know, Sarah's always on his left theory, which, like, I don't know, but like, she. But is she actually a cat?

[Bill Simmons]

I could buy the obsession house for. What the hell did that place smell like? That's definitely category. We finally got a category of this. All right. The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. Hottest Take award. I've already said this. I'm gonna say it again. If Chalamet plays Bear, this is the greatest horror movie of all time,

[Eduardo]

you know?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. With the firepower of that Indy Navarretti performance with Chalamet, Sky's the limit.

[Chris Ryan]

Would you accept Shalamet? Piece of shit.

[Bill Simmons]

That's a great move for him.

[Eduardo]

Can I also.

[Bill Simmons]

How many times can you be making Dune? Jesus Christ. Can I offer seven?

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, back.

[Bill Simmons]

We're back.

[Eduardo]

Can I offer you the original Chalamet B side, Lucas Hedges instead?

[Bill Simmons]

What's happened to Lucas Hedges?

[Eduardo]

I don't know, but should he be in this movie?

[Chris Ryan]

Dude, I just saw. I watched the. The I can't beat it scene from Manchester by the Sea came up on YouTube the other day, and I was like, this fucking guy, he's great and.

[Eduardo]

Sorry. Sorry, baby. He was really good in that movie. But, like, I love that.

[Bill Simmons]

We thought he was gonna be cute. We're just cracking that. Weren't you in a good mood from the LeBron signing. You're like, I'm gonna bring myself down.

[Chris Ryan]

Nothing can bring me down. Let's test it.

[Eduardo]

I mean, I have to believe you're constantly watching magic.

[Chris Ryan]

It just algorithmically got served to me.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it is unbelievable. What do you have for hottest take?

[Eduardo]

Is Nikki a good person? Because this is my question. Why does she not have anyone in her life who's like, what the fuck is going on with you? Like, where is her friend network? Like, where's her, like her mom still alive?

[Chris Ryan]

Where's Richter? Her dad's alive. I don't know if her mom's alive.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, yeah, it's like an Aaron Rodgers thing. We don't know what a relationship with no one.

[Eduardo]

No one knows this girl enough to like see what's going on here. That's my spicy take. Does she deserve what happens?

[Bill Simmons]

No, but Sarah clearly doesn't like her. Yeah, Ian just hooks up with every once in a while.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, she was probably like, this girl is secretly hooking up with Ian and has, has, has Bear and is now

[Eduardo]

having sex with my crush. Like, I understand Sarah's resentment, but I'm just sort of like, if you're in your mid-20s and you don't have one friend who's can like intervene here.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like none of them have any friends, like, because they're not long time friends. They all met at the this place.

[Chris Ryan]

Right.

[Eduardo]

We think they went to school together.

[Joanna Robinson]

They all went to college.

[Chris Ryan]

No, high school. They're all like waiting to try and get it.

[Eduardo]

Cuz Bear keeps going. Like, remember when we were in this class together?

[Bill Simmons]

And then that was yet another reason Bear sucks. People talking about what we were all doing in high school. Like, shut up, dude.

[Eduardo]

And again, that is like, that is like basically ripped out of. It's basically ripped out of. Can hardly wait of like Ethan Em's character being like, first day of school, she walked in, she was eating a pop tart, you know, like that's, that's the speech he gives.

[Bill Simmons]

I had a picky knit actually. But you the. I'll just do it now because you just dove into that whole world about Sarah. Sarah definitely tells Bear that Ian and Nikki hook up occasionally. She likes Bear.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, way before.

[Bill Simmons]

If she likes Bear, that's a preemptive.

[Chris Ryan]

There's a couple of real. Like this, this was done like Sarah needing to tell Bear about art school

[Bill Simmons]

in the middle of the night, four in the morning.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Is.

[Chris Ryan]

Was like, we can, we can find a better.

[Bill Simmons]

But she's like, she's, she's like Nikki. Anyway, she's throwing Nikki under the bus.

[Eduardo]

I'll see what, work tomorrow?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, exactly.

[Bill Simmons]

Because once she tells Bear that he's not gonna like, like Nikki anymore because Ian will have been, you know, what do you have for hot steak?

[Chris Ryan]

It's a little bit of a question. It's a little bit of a statement. But Bear never really loved Nikki. Correct. Which you can tell because when she cracks the. The wish, that's when he falls in love with her. Now you could say he was off put by her. Just, you know, like, you know, like revolted by the fact that she liked him. But I think that the irony of this movie is that this guy never actually wanted the person that he damned to hell in the first place. And I. I really love that that moment is included in the film when he comes out and he's doing the kind of rom com like, hey, here we are, just a couple of crazy kids like to fucking make things honest, you know, and it's like, here we

[Eduardo]

are, stuffed to the guilds with oxy.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, it's.

[Chris Ryan]

But it's a great moment because you realize, like, this guy is never actually emotionally committed to this person, even after damning her.

[Eduardo]

I just also think he has no idea who she is. And he doesn't. It doesn't matter to him who she is. She's just like this hot sort of status. Like if I can attain her, then I am worthy.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe there's not a ton there.

[Chris Ryan]

A Nicky's part or Bears part.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe Nikki's just cute and good hang, but not like the.

[Eduardo]

Have you read all incest, but they've got depth.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

She's a writer.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's true.

[Eduardo]

He wants to be working on a food critic. What is this? Three Bite Bailey?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's like when I wanted to do. I wanted Sean to do one blurb.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Where he just came out of movie theaters. Like one blurb. The Odyssey. Excellent.

[Chris Ryan]

Lived up to it.

[Bill Simmons]

Casting what ifs. You mentioned Barker initially wanted to cast himself as Bear and talked himself out of it. And then they had Tomlinson as Bear during some setup scenes, but then got somebody else best that guy. Everyone in the movie but I guess Andy Richter. Even though he's Andy Richter. Andy Richter is about as close as we can get. Even though most people. You know, Andy Richter is right.

[Joanna Robinson]

I do.

[Bill Simmons]

I feel like he's Andy Richter. But we don't have any other choices.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, the funny thing is, like Cooper or Curry. Barker's been on things like it's always sunny. Like these guys have Actually been on TV and stuff. So they.

[Joanna Robinson]

And just the two of them, they're. They're like. Sketch comedy is pretty popular online. Like, I used to see their stuff all the time.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Dan Waiters. Pick somebody who works in the Crystal shop. You could have the male or the man.

[Chris Ryan]

The Harry. The guy at the end.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm going with the female.

[Chris Ryan]

I like the lady.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, she was funny. What did you do?

[Chris Ryan]

He's like, I wish for her to love me. He's like, oh, I thought you did something really bad.

[Bill Simmons]

Recasting Couch Director City.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, you've already done Chalamet.

[Bill Simmons]

No, I have another angle for this.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay, let's hear it.

[Bill Simmons]

Is this way better as a Boston movie?

[Eduardo]

What?

[Bill Simmons]

Bear is like Casey Affleck and Good Will Hunting Era. Casey Affleck.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Young Casey Affleck. And then Nikki's basically Blake Lively's character in the town.

[Chris Ryan]

I knew you were gonna say that because she's Chris.

[Bill Simmons]

She's like, bear. What's up with Chris? She's fucking acting crazy. What the fuck's wrong with her? Banned a beer bottle.

[Chris Ryan]

What are you talking about? It's boys night.

[Joanna Robinson]

I can't come.

[Chris Ryan]

I love the socks.

[Bill Simmons]

What'd you have anything for this?

[Eduardo]

I think you just call that category, like, thinly veiled excuse to do the Boston Axe category. What about Austin Abrams as Bear?

[Bill Simmons]

Could have been really good in his,

[Eduardo]

like, nice guy euphoria mode. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Did you hear about Bear Craig? You have Flex category.

[Joanna Robinson]

A mini Quick one. Best Racehorse. Name One wish. Willow.

[Eduardo]

Fantastic.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm going to tweak the. Is it Rick Ciceti? Yeah. I'm going to tweak the Rick C. Guard Meet Award for the most memorable death by a security guard or other bystander whom the movie treats as an inconsequential but who probably had a spouse and kids loved him.

[Eduardo]

Man.

[Joanna Robinson]

Poor Andy Richter. Who is Sarah's dad in this film. And the music store owner loses his daughter and all four music store employees in one day.

[Bill Simmons]

That's true.

[Eduardo]

That whole business is going to collapse.

[Chris Ryan]

The only person who lives is Sarah's murderer.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

So his daughter's dad. His store's fucking ruined.

[Eduardo]

Is the sequel. Andy Richter leads the hunt for.

[Bill Simmons]

Or maybe Andy Richter goes to Ian's

[Eduardo]

house and gets a billion dollar.

[Bill Simmons]

Grabs the billion dollars or is killed

[Eduardo]

by the actual tonnage that would require to be $1 billion in one place at any given time.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's still coming down.

[Eduardo]

Yeah. It's a lot we should do.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, as I was just Going to make a joke about he gets the billion dollars and then buys. Buys a piece of the Portland Trailblazers. We should do like a sports one wish. Willow pod. What do you think the wish was that got them Tom Dundon kind of thing.

[Bill Simmons]

That's funny. At Faster than Research, we mentioned most of it. Bear's home was in Burbank. Location stuff. Cassel's music, Castle's music. Whatever is San Fernando. The Green Man Crystal Shop. We could go there right now after this podcast. Roguelike Tavern in Burbank was Barker's pub. You've been there? I feel like Sierra's been there.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm sure I have.

[Bill Simmons]

You fit the Burbank scene.

[Eduardo]

Sure. Never skipped a tavern.

[Bill Simmons]

And then the pizzeria. The booth scene. That's Little Tony's in North Hollywood, which is now fighting them off. All right. Yeah. People going.

[Eduardo]

People going.

[Chris Ryan]

People want to take in the booth. Oh, really?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah.

[Eduardo]

Just filming Tik Toks where they're going. No, no, no.

[Bill Simmons]

I wouldn't turn down an invitation.

[Chris Ryan]

Little Tony's.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, to head down to Little Tony's and then.

[Eduardo]

And then go to the Crystal Shop. Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Barker said he learned stuff about how to make movies as he made this movie. Like, he did a lot of long takes but didn't have the, you know, the experience yet. To be like, oh, here's why. Long takes are really hard. One thing can screw it, and it's hard to cut them together. So he would do that over again, and then they reshot the opening scene. And then we mentioned the lighting. You mentioned the original takes.

[Eduardo]

The original opening is bears watching, like a rom com. And then the camera pans down and the cat is just dead on the floor at his feet.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

And he liked it because it was a mirror, the ending. And then they re cut it instead. But I don't know, I just kind of like the idea that the cat just died and, like, he hasn't noticed. Is that what it's supposed to be? Like, Sandy's just dead on the floor. Also, that cat was awfully, like, stiff for having been freshly dead.

[Bill Simmons]

I know you're wondering what'd be a little more malleable.

[Chris Ryan]

Has he, like, really checked the kitchen out a couple of days? Yeah.

[Eduardo]

And would he notice the smell? Because that's just what that house smells like.

[Bill Simmons]

So Nikki, when she vomits on Bear, there was some tubes. So that would make her throw up, but it almost made her actually throw up. And the actor who plays Bear is actually really afraid because he thinks she's gonna puke out. Yeah. And then they made a cast of Sarah's face and used two separate dummies to annihilate her face in the car scene. Apex Mountain. Everyone involved in the movie really quickly

[Eduardo]

for half ass Internet research. The fact that Michael because Indy Navarretti was already cast but the fact that he got the role because of their lack of chemistry in their read like that. They during their audition Curry Barker was like these two have no chemistry soldiers.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh interesting. It's such a. That's such a Hail Mary for that to work.

[Bill Simmons]

That's how we put Chris and Andy together.

[Eduardo]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

For the watch in 2012 guy. Apex Mountain. Everyone involved in the movie. Indie horror movies.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean I think Blair Witch and.

[Eduardo]

And constantly.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

It's like a mountain range.

[Chris Ryan]

It's constantly this back rooms if you call them like indie is. Have. Have really certainly did this make.

[Bill Simmons]

I think this movie made more money than Blair Witch though.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Blair Witch made 250 on a 500k budget for inflation. It's probably the same.

[Bill Simmons]

I think this is Apex mountain. It's made 500 times what they spent on the movie and probably that's going to keep going up and it's going to. I don't know. This feels like a bigger movie than Blair Witch.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Was so big.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know which was everything. We're still talking about Blair Witch 30 years later. I don't know if like obsession in 10 years we're going to be like oh yeah, I remember that. That was cool.

[Joanna Robinson]

Also I think the Internet helps spread the word like in a way that Blair Witch just couldn't in 1999.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

The fact that every time you go online you're just seeing obsession stuff over and over.

[Bill Simmons]

Would you go Apex Movie, Apex Mountain for Make a Wish that backfires movies.

[Eduardo]

No, I would do it for Hansel and Gretel. Erotica.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

A good one. How about Dead Cats?

[Eduardo]

Yeah, Dead Cats is on my list.

[Chris Ryan]

I. I feel like dead cats have been popping up a lot in our. In our choices recently.

[Bill Simmons]

Torturing Mallory.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

What about Fugly Sweaters?

[Bill Simmons]

For which one?

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh yeah.

[Eduardo]

All of his sweaters are so ugly.

[Chris Ryan]

Door cardigans.

[Eduardo]

Yeah. Yeah. They're hideous.

[Chris Ryan]

When he's with Sarah he's got the Baja sweater over the hoodie.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Apex Mountain for drinking game Jenga. I've played that a couple times.

[Eduardo]

I've also played that. It's really fun.

[Chris Ryan]

Never done that.

[Bill Simmons]

Bring a retreat he wanted. Are we doing a ring or retreat?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

Ring a retreat.

[Bill Simmons]

Do we invite Van?

[Eduardo]

We'll play Jenga. I'll bring my hands on Gretel erotica and we'll have a great time cruiser.

[Bill Simmons]

Hanks. I don't know. What do you mean you're. No, I'm trying to think of category.

[Chris Ryan]

No, I know but I just. When you say it, it's like I think Hanks.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's Hanks.

[Chris Ryan]

I think Hanks.

[Eduardo]

Splash era Hanks as Bear. As bear, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

New category just for this pod. 1984 Sharon Stone. 2004 Scarlett Johansson. 2014 Brie Larson or 2021 Sydney Sweeney. If we couldn't get Indian Everett, I go 04.

[Chris Ryan]

ScarJo.

[Eduardo]

ScarJo. That's my.

[Bill Simmons]

I think she would have been great. Yeah, like Match point. Lost in Translation. Right. That era. I think she would have crushed it. I did have best name for a racehorse. I had the same one. One Wish Willow. Picking nits.

[Eduardo]

Not three by Bailey.

[Bill Simmons]

No.

[Eduardo]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Picking nits. I have a few.

[Chris Ryan]

All of my picking nits are. You could explain because of the cravenness of the characters at various points. But Bear doesn't insist Nikki get her bottle. Stab wounds treated at the hospital. He allows her to come home. Right. Which would have then triggered all sorts of investigations as to how that had happened. Bear's reaction to the One Wish Willow call is that he's still going to go out with like his boys that night. And nobody called the cops at the party. Nobody calls like the like 911 at the party and Sarah needing to meet in the middle of the night. But like those are all just like

[Eduardo]

no one at the party intervening and being. Not just being like, hey, this is weird but being like this is fucked up. Let's call the cops.

[Bill Simmons]

Even Sarah afterwards is like Nikki at that party. It's like I. My reaction would have been 20 times bigger than that.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Like we were. We were at something together on Saturday. Can you imagine if somebody was just

[Chris Ryan]

hitting them, stabbing themselves in the face.

[Bill Simmons]

I had a bunch of cat related ones. The cat. The cat opened a bottle of OxyContin pills and ate them.

[Eduardo]

The cat didn't heed the don't eat warning on the bottle.

[Bill Simmons]

Was the thing open and the cat knocked it down and was then like,

[Chris Ryan]

oh, Bear is pissed. Like really goosey. And I bet he's been dipping.

[Eduardo]

He's been dipping.

[Bill Simmons]

Dead cat Sandy. You could really feel the 750k budget on the dead cat. That looked like they just did disclosure

[Chris Ryan]

diet where it's like an animated cat. Dead cat.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Okay. Fair bear. Bear accidentally kills the cat. It's his fault. The cat overdoses on oxy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

His carelessness mourns it for a couple hours and then he's just like, I'm going out with my buddies and not tell anybody what happened.

[Eduardo]

Well, when your crush calls. When your crush calls and is like, we're running out of time.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Terrible cat owner. Trying to think of the worst pet owners. Mallory always said, we've decided the Michael Douglas and Fatal Attraction is the worst pet owner of all time.

[Eduardo]

You're putting bears on.

[Bill Simmons]

He's gone for two days and then comes home and gives the spaghetti meatballs.

[Eduardo]

I think that was his grandma's cat. I think the cat grandma really care as much. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Um. I just feel like a dead cat sandwich. You're getting incredibly ill. Yeah. I think that's like. That could start the next.

[Chris Ryan]

He also had vomit.

[Eduardo]

Doesn't he vomit? He pukes.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't care.

[Chris Ryan]

Idea.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't think he.

[Bill Simmons]

You're getting sort of weird.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, it's not. No, it's just been sitting at room temperature.

[Eduardo]

But, like, where? Because, like, he must have put it back. Like, how many times did you take it out of the trash or wherever he put the body? Because, like, there's a lot of questions

[Chris Ryan]

about this animal sandwich. Like, how did she get it to look so close to leftover turkey?

[Bill Simmons]

Like, yeah, it looks like a nice turkey club.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. It would reek. The second he opens it, I know

[Bill Simmons]

he's an idiot again.

[Eduardo]

Maybe he can't smell it because that's how bad the house smells all the time.

[Bill Simmons]

Bear calls one wish willow. Not initially to cancel the wish, but to alter it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

He still doesn't want to cancel the wish at this point.

[Eduardo]

No. He wants a fucking bad guy because he sucks.

[Bill Simmons]

Nikki. I feel like her face is more fucked up from four broken bottles against the head. Like, that's like. That's like the Clint Malarczyk injury at that point. There's just blood going everywhere. Sarah's dead body. Another example of really feeling the 750k budget when she's behind the steering wheel and it just looks like a mannequin. Yeah.

[Eduardo]

And then later when it's in the chair.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. And then it's a big one for me. What'd they do with Sarah's car?

[Chris Ryan]

There's not a lot of police.

[Bill Simmons]

Comes in and helps them clean it. Marcellus.

[Eduardo]

I hope so. It also seems like she had time to go to the music store, get the gun out of the safe because presumably that's where the gun comes from.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Eduardo]

And then also, like, recreate Sarah's tattoos

[Chris Ryan]

in Sharpie and haircut.

[Eduardo]

And. Yeah, yeah, she got a lot done, so I believe in her.

[Chris Ryan]

That would have been great if Winston Wolfe had shown up. It's just been like, okay, Nikki, make some coffee.

[Bill Simmons]

The biggest nitpick is none of the friends intervening as Nikki completely spirals.

[Eduardo]

That's what I'm saying. That's insane.

[Bill Simmons]

Very Bar. Okay, sequel, prequel, prestige, tv, all black cast are untouchable. So that whole thing about prestige anthology series where each episode is about a wish. I'm in. I've signed up.

[Chris Ryan]

Would you ever want the wishes to work out?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I think. I don't know what to expect each time I get a wish.

[Eduardo]

One of those Reddit boards, it was like, my mom used to be ugly, and now she's gorgeous.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Eduardo]

So maybe that one worked out. I would want a 1970s set. One wish Willow movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, that's good. Period piece.

[Eduardo]

Yeah. Period piece.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I also can offer you the sequel. Ian now has a billion dollars, but he didn't die.

[Eduardo]

Just.

[Bill Simmons]

It was like one of those gunshots that went through. But he somehow lived. And now he's a billionaire, but all his friends are dead. And then someone else finds Ian's billion dollars, maybe even Andy Richter, and then spends the money. Could be another one. There will be some version we all know of Obsession. There will be an obsession to something.

[Eduardo]

Obsession.

[Bill Simmons]

Too much money at stake for it not to happen. Yeah, right.

[Chris Ryan]

He's got one movie he's already, like, in the middle of making, I think, which is, like, him and Cooper Tomlinson with Aaron Paul.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Ghost hunter thing. And then I think he is supposed to make Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

[Bill Simmons]

Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Fergie, the Florist, Zane Lowe, Robert Evans, Dr. Charles Nichols, Ted Levine, someone else.

[Chris Ryan]

I've been thinking about this, you know, because Concepcion did a good Bernthal.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Tom Holland does a very good Bernthal. I am hearing footsteps. I also hear, you know, like, we should maybe put Bernthal on the bench. Is he overexposed? But let me just offer you this. When he calls up the customer service line, what if King Menelaus picked up the phone? You interested in rumor?

[Eduardo]

Huh?

[Chris Ryan]

Gossip? Who has a story about freaky Nikki?

[Eduardo]

Huh?

[Chris Ryan]

You. You. You have a story. Some say she's rich. Some say she's poor. Some say she's perished. Some say she's imprisoned. What say you?

[Eduardo]

Astounding work.

[Joanna Robinson]

Wow. Really?

[Bill Simmons]

Wayne Jenkins, retired for King. What's his last.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Temeculus.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Temeculus. Is he the king of Temeculus? That's a good one, Sierra.

[Eduardo]

That was really good. Can you do what you imagine it was like for Bernthal to spar with Kevin Feige on stage at San Diego Comic Con? I can't. Okay. It was great.

[Bill Simmons]

Did you get to meet Bernthal?

[Eduardo]

No, but I saw him from afar. He looked great.

[Bill Simmons]

I ironically had Tony Romo written down to do for that section. I'm going to pass on that one because Tony said submissions.

[Chris Ryan]

Classy view.

[Bill Simmons]

Trying to support Tony. Trying to stay classy. Just one Oscar. Who gets it?

[Chris Ryan]

Have already.

[Eduardo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The Zawantineo Award for what happened the next day.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What did Nikki's next 10 years look like?

[Chris Ryan]

Well, there's no police in this town.

[Joanna Robinson]

She goes to jail. Right.

[Eduardo]

I mean, that's what Curry Barker says, right? That she's probably going to jail for a long time. But I would like to believe that she somehow knows about the billion dollars, Gets a billion dollars and literally goes to Ziwodineo.

[Chris Ryan]

That would be cool.

[Bill Simmons]

Probably some small facial reconstructive surgery because she has a giant hole in her forehead.

[Eduardo]

She deserves something nice. She did nothing wrong and she got tormented this whole movie. So she deserves. I mean, Sarah also did not deserve to die, but, you know, she, like, give her the billion dollars, hit the road, never come back.

[Bill Simmons]

So the question is, wish Nikki heard about the billion dollars, but did.

[Chris Ryan]

What is the consciousness captured?

[Joanna Robinson]

Nikki?

[Chris Ryan]

I think the reason she's screaming is because she remembers everything that's just happened.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

That is. That has been said by Curry Bar.

[Bill Simmons]

So if this movie ended with Nikki with a billion dollars in the trunk, just driving toward the Pacific like Andy Dufresne.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Better or worse ending versus her willing crying, Breaking Bad.

[Eduardo]

Just like, I feel like it should be like one of those where, like, it's just like suitcases stuffed with cash and there's so much cash that it's just like blowing out the, like, convertible cars.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, money coming out of it.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Unanswerable questions.

[Chris Ryan]

I have one for this.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

What's crazier? What is a crazier thing to say? Is it crazier to say I'll rip my eyes out of my skull and shove the barrel into my pussy? Or if I was a Bulls fan, I would have no sperm left in my body?

[Bill Simmons]

First one.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

My other unanswerable question is, what would you wish for?

[Bill Simmons]

I'd be too afraid of this thing.

[Eduardo]

I've just seen too much to know. To even fuck with something like this, even jokingly. What would you wish for? Did you already do it thinking about this?

[Chris Ryan]

I've already done it. That's how I wound up you.

[Bill Simmons]

Obviously, the move is just to wish for money or something that's immediately positive.

[Eduardo]

Well, I mean, this is why in the prestige text that is Aladdin, you can't bring people back from the dead. You can't make people fall in love with you. You don't with.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, I also wonder how pedantic it is. So it's like, if I were to say, I wish Heat too to be good, is it only good? Do I have to say I wish he too is the best movie ever made? And what would happen if that happened? Would there then be a backlash? Because people are like, people like he too much. You know, if that was your one

[Bill Simmons]

wish, that would be really weird.

[Eduardo]

Can you do I need he two to be good? And then really quickly I say something like, no loopholes. No, with like, you know, when.

[Chris Ryan]

Like the wish, like, narrative.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, when do you have to, like, have a complete wish?

[Bill Simmons]

How weird could your wish be that it actually is conceivable?

[Chris Ryan]

Like, if you're like, I know exactly what I would wish.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, I wish the. Oh, come back.

[Chris Ryan]

I wish smoking cigarettes was healthy. It would be so not only neutral,

[Eduardo]

but, like, actually good for you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, if it was just like, we could all go back to dying Draper style.

[Eduardo]

It's just like, as healthy as your sweet green addiction would be your cigarette addiction. All right, Craig, what would you wish for?

[Joanna Robinson]

Probably Rogers to win MVP this year.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Chargers online to stay healthy.

[Chris Ryan]

What would you, like, keep it? Like, you'd have to be specific. Like, what if Rogers was like, trade me to the Niners.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, you're right.

[Chris Ryan]

And then I win mvp. You know,

[Bill Simmons]

Was Nikki possessed by the cat?

[Chris Ryan]

I think no.

[Bill Simmons]

Unanswerable.

[Eduardo]

I think no. But I really like it.

[Bill Simmons]

There's a lot of clues and there's people convinced on the Internets.

[Eduardo]

I mean, it's a waste.

[Bill Simmons]

And my daughter is also convinced stupider

[Eduardo]

movie if that's true.

[Bill Simmons]

But it's really sense if it's like a YouTube sketch comedian made a horror movie, and one of his ideas was the lady was actually possessed by the cat. But now he's realizing that would be stupid. So he's just not going to say that.

[Eduardo]

Oh, okay.

[Bill Simmons]

They stumbled into.

[Eduardo]

And he's like, actually is a commentary on incel culture.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

But really it's the cat possession movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Next question. Was the saleslady who sold Bear the One Wish Willow, an evil person.

[Eduardo]

I think what she thinks is that if you're dumb enough to do this, you deserve what's coming to you. That's the entire narrative I'm putting on the Crystal Shop with me.

[Chris Ryan]

But it does. There are, like, two scenes in this movie that are a little bit. I bump on a little bit. I mean, there's. There's a fair amount, but one when we see when Bear leaves the duct tape house, we stay with Nikki. That's like the one time we break from Bears pov. Really. The other is that when the Crystal Store people are like, oh, yeah, the One Wish Willow. It totally works. And you should have read the fine print. Like, that just would have been a bigger deal. It makes more sense if Bear can't get any help on it, you know? But, yeah, like, I do think that the people at the Crystal Store are a little bit complicit.

[Bill Simmons]

That also could be the prequel or the sequel. The store that has these.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, that's a great. It's a great idea if the anthologies, all that stuff has to come out of that store.

[Bill Simmons]

What happened to all the One Wish Willow buyers? The other ones, yeah. It's unclear. Was just crazy shit happening all over the place. Find out when E2 comes out. We mentioned. We mentioned Ian's billion dollars.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So did Wayne Jenkins and his crew find that, like, God damn Ian. And then just started pocketing it? But there is a billion dollars in that house.

[Eduardo]

Yeah. Yeah. Waiting for it. Somebody found it waiting for her or waiting for Andy Richter. There's really only two options.

[Bill Simmons]

Coach Finstock, Mr. Miyagi Award, best worst life lesson. You can't pray for someone to fall in love with you. It's bad karma. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I'd say, just sometimes it's okay to be in the friend zone.

[Eduardo]

Yep. Sometimes friendship's fine.

[Bill Simmons]

You can't will somebody to like you. Best double feature choice. I actually had Play Misty for me, going as far back as possible. And then the Complete Flip.

[Chris Ryan]

Obsessive relationships with this one.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, the complete flip of it.

[Eduardo]

I'm gonna do the craft because it's classic 90s. And also, there's a similar plot line with. Was it like Skeen Ulrich in that movie? I think.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

Right. Yeah. And she's like, I want him to be in love with him. And then he becomes obsessed with Neve Campbell.

[Bill Simmons]

Farou Sabach. Who else is in that? There's one more. Alexis Bedell. No.

[Eduardo]

Robin Tunney.

[Chris Ryan]

Robin Tunney. I have a milk and Cereal, which is Curry's like 50 minute film that's on YouTube.

[Eduardo]

Cereal not spelled the way.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

S, E, R, I, L. Who won the movie?

[Chris Ryan]

Indy or Curry? Yeah, I guess. Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

This is one of the toughest ones we've ever had.

[Chris Ryan]

I feel like.

[Eduardo]

Like he already has his blank check. Do you know?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eduardo]

From this. She might be in heat too, but she might not. I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we go back to Sixth Sense with M Night. We would have said M Night or Haley Joel Osmond and then Haley Joel,

[Eduardo]

but he was a kid actor then. It was actually Toni Collette all along.

[Chris Ryan]

You're probably right that Curry Barker is going to win patriarchy.

[Eduardo]

It is tough.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a weird. I hate doing this because we always say no ties for this award, but I honestly think it's a tie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, because it's like, who Just strictly professionally, who would you rather be? Like, who do you like? Who would you rather.

[Bill Simmons]

Kurt Barker's gonna have a 30 year career now making movies. She's gonna have a 30 year career. She's gonna be the A list actress out of this.

[Eduardo]

Maybe. But like, I hope so.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, he could do two shitty movies and then it's kind of over. She could also pick a bunch of bad movies and it could be over for her.

[Eduardo]

I just think the risk is higher for her.

[Bill Simmons]

For any actor or actress.

[Eduardo]

Yeah, right. That, like, what. Whatever she does next could make or break. I think he can make a bad next movie and still.

[Chris Ryan]

And she could be in like Ghost Rider or something, you know?

[Eduardo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

No shots, right?

[Eduardo]

No, but yeah, please know.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you got?

[Chris Ryan]

Banger.

[Joanna Robinson]

The hype was so high. I feel like it usually never works when you see a movie post hype. Like, I remember I saw everything ever all at once. Right when it came out, I loved it. And then the hype got so big and so many people saw it six months after it came out and hated it.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And so I was kind of fully expecting to go in and be like, all right, this is going to be mediocre. And, you know, just because the hype was so high and I really thought it delivered it. Not as a horror person at all. Like, I thought Indy was incredible. Like, really, like, her war is like 20 in this movie. I can't believe how good she is. And I do think about what this movie would be if they didn't find her. But, like, the production about this movie is so good. Like, it looks like a studio movie. It's pretty remarkable. The lighting, the blocking, like all of it is just really well done. And I was trying to think about why this movie stuck and is like so sticky to young people. I don't know. I think there's something about how small it is and how it's about just like a relationship between a man and a woman who are young. And it's like this morbid curiosity of getting to see this relationship in intimate settings in a house. And it never really gets bigger than itself. The movie, it doesn't go huge. It doesn't turn into like the scary monster shows up at the end. And I think people, I think that like the struggle with relationships now, people just really related to that with this movie.

[Chris Ryan]

There's a lot of really cool, high concept horror movies that have come out for the last couple of years and they, many of them wind up becoming about a person trying to solve the mystery of what is happening to them. And Bear never does that. Bear knows what's happened.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And. And is like, I'm gonna pursue it anyway. But like Smile, like the woman in Smile is like, I have to find the original Smiler so I can like reverse what's happening or Happy death day. Yeah, exactly.

[Eduardo]

Or whatever.

[Joanna Robinson]

Totally.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Great idea.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. But this is like, what if the guy was just like, well, we could maybe date still though, you know, like consent.

[Eduardo]

Overrated. I. I just, I really appreciate the hoods above the movie to not explain so many things. You know what I mean? Like, it just like we don't need to know the full history of all these people. We don't need to know. They just like all work at a music store and that's fine.

[Chris Ryan]

And they all know you don't have to explain the rules of where she is and how she could get out.

[Joanna Robinson]

Also a great ending. I thought like the rare satisfying and terrifying at the same time ending that's

[Chris Ryan]

like a real like get you come out speechless. Like we got to go talk about that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. And I had no problem doing this for rewatch was because I think this movie will have real legs.

[Eduardo]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Because it's fucking scary. It's got like three or four iconic scenes that when they're on or when somebody's watching, you're like, oh, I want to see this scene coming up. And the performance was by Indy Navarretti was like, you know, that's like when Scarlet was in Lost in Translation and you're like, wow, this person's gonna be in our lives now. And it's doesn't happen that often.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, the last couple years we've had a lot of young actresses. We've now had Mikey, Madison, Chase, Infinity, and now Indy Navarretti in the last two years really pop.

[Eduardo]

But then like, what's next? You know what I mean? Like with Mikey, like, everyone's asking questions now about Mikey. So. But I mean, you're absolutely right. And.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, well, Chase was, what was the terrible Apple show? She was on Presumed Innocent.

[Chris Ryan]

That was before. She's on the Test of Testaments.

[Bill Simmons]

But that's, it's so funny how that flips though, where I watch her on that show and I was never like, this will be a very serious actress who's going to be nominated for Oscars because it was a terrible show in this one. Anyway, really good one. Well, thanks, Craig. Thanks, Kahao. Thanks, Eduardo. Thanks for doing this live with us on Netflix.

[Chris Ryan]

We beat the runtime of the movie. Nice job.

[Bill Simmons]

We're coming back next week with another rom com Gong Rom Mr. Miyagi and Daniel San and Karate Kid 2. That is gonna be next week. So that's on Netflix. If you wanna watch that, check it out. Thanks for joining, Sam.