‘Sneakers’ With Bill Simmons, Kyle Brandt, and Joanna Robinson

Summary

The Rewatchables: ‘Sneakers’ With Bill Simmons, Kyle Brandt, and Joanna Robinson

Date: October 14, 2025
Podcast: The Rewatchables (The Ringer Podcast Network)
Episode: Sneakers (1992)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Bill Simmons is joined by Kyle Brandt and Joanna Robinson to discuss the 1992 tech-heist classic “Sneakers.” With the recent passing of Robert Redford, the trio dive deep into why the film is a sleeper favorite, the star-studded cast, and its surprisingly prescient take on hacking, surveillance, and paranoia in the digital age. Along the way, they debate the film’s curious legacy, dissect its “bad” title, and have a wide-ranging conversation covering everything from River Phoenix’s career to whether Robert Redford wore a wig.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. “Sneakers” as a Cult Classic

• Kyle Brandt:
  • Proclaims “Sneakers” as the most underrated movie of the 1990s:

    “I think Sneakers is the most underrated movie of the entire 1990s... charming, has some of everything—suspense, comedy, romance...people don't talk about it enough.” (02:23)

  • Describes the movie as “a password” among film fans: meeting another “Sneakers” fan feels like joining a secret club. (03:08)
• Joanna Robinson:
  • Agrees and finds joy in the film’s word-of-mouth status:

    “There's something I kind of like about that... It becomes this, like, password for people...you look like a genius when you show it to someone new.” (03:08)

• Bill Simmons:
  • Confesses he missed it when it came out in 1992, only appreciating it after multiple recent rewatches:

    “I watched this movie three times in the past month...they were so far ahead of the game.” (05:54)

  • Suggests it created a “cyber caper” genre. (10:00)

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2. Why Doesn’t “Sneakers” Have a Larger Legacy?

• The Title & Marketing Problem:
  • All agree “Sneakers” is a terrible, misleading title and the poster only adds to the confusion—it’s neither about shoes nor clear in its premise.
    • Kyle: “I think it has a terrible title that is off-putting and confusing...” (07:08)
    • Joanna: “Terrible title, terrible poster, terrible tagline.” (07:39)
  • In the age of Google, it’s even harder to discover.
  • Alternate titles suggested: “Too Many Secrets,” “No More Secrets,” or even “Hackers,” (which ended up being used by a later, less appropriate movie). (08:08)

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3. The Cast & the “Dad Movie” Vibe

• Redford, Poitier, River Phoenix, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, and cameo by James Earl Jones.
  • Joanna: “You have one of the biggest heartthrob stars [River Phoenix]... and he's just like the doofy Comic Relief guy.” (11:53)
  • Bill: “Redford is 56 in Sneakers. I have some thoughts about that...” (28:49)
• Strong consensus that Redford’s presence anchors the film, even if he’s too old for the role by modern standards.
• Bill (on Mary McDonnell): “It's a nothing part...but she makes it work.” (23:23)
• Comic and warm ensemble dynamic gives the film its rewatchable “hang-out” appeal.

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4. Prescient Themes: Hacking, Paranoia, and Silicon Valley Before Its Time

• The film is lauded for foreseeing “the information age,” the rise of digital paranoia, and self-important Silicon Valley techies:
  • Bill: Quotes from Kingsley’s Cosmo character—

    “There's a war out there, old friend—a world war...and it's not about who’s got the most bullets...it’s about who controls the information.” (15:19)

  • Joanna: “This feels like one of the first Silicon Valley movies.” (15:57)
  • The chilling concept that “he who controls the information, controls the world” is tagged as way ahead of its time for 1992.

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5. Structure & Genre-Bending

• Post-Cold War Heist, Cyber Caper, and Comedy Mash-Up:
  • The group emphasizes how “Sneakers” mixes genres: it’s a heist, a comedy, a paranoia thriller, and a sly post-Cold War victory lap over Russia.
    • Kyle: “It’s like the hacking movie, the paranoia movie, the comedy...” (10:12)
• The film’s complexity is credited to a script worked on for a decade, with a plot that “fits together so neatly like a puzzle.” (11:11)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On River Phoenix:
  • Bill: “He was kind of the guy... what Leo became in the mid-90s.” (13:01)
  • Kyle: “Spielberg handpicks him as young Indiana Jones... all-time legacy character.” (13:31)
• On Cosmo and 90s Tech Fears:
  • Joanna: “Cosmo as this precursor for what the emotionally stunted men of Silicon Valley will do and control in the future...” (15:57)
• On the Movie’s (Unintentional) Legacy:
  • Joanna: “The cybersecurity world loves Sneakers. They're like, ‘Sneakers got it right, man.’” (19:54)
• On Redford’s ‘Hall of Fame Eye Narrower’ Skills:
  • Bill: “When his eyes narrow, you know the wheels are turning...” (43:22)

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Important Timestamps for Segments

• [02:20] — Kyle Brandt makes his opening case for “Sneakers” as the most underrated film of the 1990s.
• [03:08] — Joanna Robinson describes the film’s cult “password” status.
• [05:21] — Bill Simmons confesses to discovering the film only recently.
• [07:08] — The trio trashes the film’s title and marketing.
• [10:00] — Bill: “Sneakers creates a new genre—the cyber caper.”
• [11:11] — Joanna: “It fits together so neatly, like a puzzle.”
• [15:19, 15:43] — Discussion of Cosmo's prophetic monologues about information warfare.
• [16:57] — WarGames as the spiritual predecessor and origin of Sneakers' writers’ research.
• [23:23] — Bill and Joanna assess Mary McDonnell’s role.
• [24:26] — Roger Ebert's (lukewarm) original review debated: "It's a borderline fuck you, Raj."
• [34:17] — Discussion of film's “dad movie” rating and lack of clear demographic.
• [40:47] — The Ben Kingsley/Cosmo reveal and villain motivations analyzed and affectionately mocked.
• [51:06] — James Earl Jones’ cameo celebrated.
• [67:46] — Joanna introduces the Matt Damon Eurotrip Award for most unexpected A-lister cameo.
• [70:03] — Ben Kingsley is declared the episode’s “weak link” for his accent, acting choices, and running.
• [77:15] — Alternate casting musings (would Kevin Costner have made a better lead?).
• [95:05] — The eternal comic power of “helium voice” jokes is debated.
• [110:20] — “Did Redford wear a wig?”—Simmons’ deep-dive unanswerable question.

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The Rewatchables’ Signature Categories & Awards

Most Rewatchable Scene(s)

• The Redford vs. Kingsley “Cosmo reveal” and villain monologues ([40:47])
• The Scrabble hacking/Cracking “Setec Astronomy” anagram ([24:54])
• The final heist—crossing Cosmo's office ([52:10])
• James Earl Jones’ government suit cameo and the bizarro wish-granting ending ([51:06])

Most 1992 Thing About the Movie

• Redford’s “Natural” baseball jacket; Mary McDonnell’s feathered hair; chunky tech; computer-dating subplots ([53:34–54:43])
• Storing secret data in an answering machine; hacking as portrayed by Scrabble games ([56:27])

Best Aged Elements

• Score by James Horner (later adored by composer Nicholas Britell) ([62:39])
• Ensemble “hangout” energy; mix of comedy and smart plotting
• “Information paranoia” and Silicon Valley lampooning ([58:16])

Weak Link of the Film

• Ben Kingsley’s all-over-the-map accent and acting choices as Cosmo—plus his bizarre run, called “The Steven Seagal Award” ([69:53–70:18])

Hottest Take

• Joanna: “This is Redford’s best film of the 1990s and his last truly great role.” ([80:45])
• Kyle: Bishop’s tense office-crossing is more impressive than anything Ethan Hunt does in Mission Impossible. ([81:23])

Modern Lens / “What’s Aged Worst”

• Clunky title/marketing and limited modern reach for younger audiences
• Aging tech and hacker tropes outpaced by newer thrillers like Enemy of the State and Ocean’s Eleven ([120:07])
• Casting: Redford “obviously too old for the role but who cares?” Kingsley too young for his character, and River Phoenix just "the doofy Comic Relief guy" ([11:53])

Recapping & Recasting

• Alternate Cosmo: Willem Dafoe, Jon Voight, William Hurt
• Alternate lead: Kevin Costner floated as a strong “what if”

Half-Assed Internet Research

• The real origins of the hackers (“phone phreakers”) and how Jobs/Wozniak were early real-world versions ([90:39–91:04])
• The “Natural” jacket is not the same as in "The Natural"—but it’s fanservicey close ([54:09])

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Fun and Bizarre Observations

• Extended riff on whether Redford wore a wig in his later career ([112:26])
• Praise for the San Francisco Bay Area as a cinematic backdrop ([88:09])
• Does anyone in 2025 still play Scrabble?—debated ([78:05])
• “Helium-voice” jokes as timeless comic gold ([95:17])
• The “Dad Movie” genre affirmed, with field-of-dreams/Tin Cup/Sneakers as key touchstones ([33:32])

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Concluding Thoughts

• All agree: “Sneakers” is a good hang, a smart puzzle of a movie, and a comfort film—anchored by Redford’s movie-star charisma and a peerless, eclectic supporting cast.
• The film may not be as universally known as its contemporaries, but among its fans, it’s legendary for its blend of comedy, tech paranoia, and 90s charm.
• A new generation (and pod listeners) are encouraged to seek it out—armed with the password: “Setec Astronomy.”

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For Further Exploration

• Double Feature Suggestions: “WarGames” (1983), “Patriot Games,” “Hackers”
• Segment Timestamps:
  • [02:20] – Opening Case for the Movie
  • [07:08] – Title/Poster Critique
  • [11:11] – Script & Puzzle Structure
  • [15:19] – Cosmo’s Quotes
  • [51:06] – James Earl Jones' Scene
  • [69:53] – Ben Kingsley Roast
  • [95:17] – Helium Voice Bit
  • [120:07] – Craig’s Gen Z Critique

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End of Summary.
For classic movie buffs, “Sneakers” remains a rewatchable password into a certain kind of club. This episode is your invitation.

Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Kathryn Bigelow, the Oscar winning director of the Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, is back with A House of Dynamite, a cinematic, visceral thriller about America's race to respond to an anonymous missile launch. Under the pressure of a ticking clock, the film's characters are called to make impossible decisions with implications for all of civilization, while at the same time confronting their own emotions and humanity. A House of Dynamite on Netflix October 24th. The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where you can find House of R with Joanna Robinson as well as us on the Prestige TV podcast. Coming to the end of task.

[Joanna Robinson]

Sad.

[Bill Simmons]

There's been some sadness, some tragedy, some death. Yeah, we've been covering it all.

[Joanna Robinson]

Stay tuned.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Season finale is gonna be Sunday. We'll be on right after with our friend Rob Mahoney. Kyle Brandt. Football season started. It's rare to book you. You're on Good Morning Football. You're all over the place. And yet Robert Redford. And you just started badgering me. Sneakers, it's time. Sneakers. Sneakers. Here we go. Sneakers. Let's do this. We gotta do it. Joanna Robinson. Once upon a time, I texted her and said, all right, if you had to pick 10 rewatchables movies, what would they be? And Sneakers was there. This was the good son kind of choice for me. I'm holding the two people and I can only save one. And in this case, I could save both. I couldn't do the podcast with either of you. Sneakers Rewatchables next. This episode of the Rewatchables is presented by Paramount Plus. Around here, we love talking about rewatchable movies almost as much as we love watching them. Paramount plus has movies, a mountain of them. New movies, and also the classics that we keep coming back to. Almost Famous Gladiator, Top Gun, the Naked Gun, that mall, whatever. Whether you want to relive your favorite moments or catch the latest blockbusters or dive into some old 90210. There's a mountain of movies to discover on Paramount Plus. Start streaming today. All right, Sneakers. Kyle Brandt, go be a beacon.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Kyle Brandt]

And give him head whenever he asks. That's how I want to start this pod right now. Guys, I'm thrilled to be here. I'm so happy. I'm happy to work with Joanna. I'm happy to talk about this movie. And it is. I'm just going to start. Bill, can I just start with a hot take? I've said this before. I think Sneakers is the most underrated Movie of the entire 1990s. The most underrated, underrepresented because it's delightful, charming, has some of everything. Suspense, comedy, romance. A little action, a little sex, an incredible cast, and I just don't think it's talked about much. I don't think kids in their 20s or even in their 30s know this movie. It doesn't get spoofed on Family Guy. It's not out there. And I think there's some reasons for that. But when I was a kid and 13, 14 years old, sneakers was always there for me on VHS. And with Redford gone, I've already rewatched it three times. Wow.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Anything to add, Joanna?

[Joanna Robinson]

This is what we watched the night that we found out Redford died. We put Sneakers on first thing. I love this movie and. And I completely agree. It's. It's underrated, under seen. But there's something. I'll. I'll say there's something I kind of like about that, because on the one hand, I do want everyone to see Sneakers. It's a. I think a perfect movie. But on the other hand, there's a thing that happened in the group text when we were playing this podcast where Kyle and I have never worked together. And Kyle's like, but if you like Sneakers, you're good with me. And that's. There's. It becomes this, like, password for people. Like, if you meet someone else who loves Sneakers in the wild, it's like, oh, we're gonna get along. I get it. You get it. We're gonna get along.

[Bill Simmons]

What other things are like that?

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't know, but it's like. But the added bonus of that is that then when you show it to people, like, okay, you meet someone in the wild, you meet a Kyle Brandt that you've never met before, and you're like, we both like Sneakers. We got something in common. And then you talk to a friend of yours who loves movies, and they're like, I've never seen Sneakers. Who's in it? And then you start listening. Redford Poitier's here. Redford River Phoenix is here. Dan Aykroyd's here. Sir Ben Kingsley is here. I won't spoil that. James Earl Jones is here. But James Earl Jones is here. And then they're like, wow, why haven't I heard of this movie? And then you show it to them, and they. Almost everyone, not everyone, but almost everyone loves it. And then you look like a genius. You look like a movie Sherpa. How did I not know about this movie?

[Bill Simmons]

Do you agree with this, Kyle?

[Kyle Brandt]

You know what it is, Bill? It's like a band. I don't know, maybe it's like Morrissey or something like that. Like, where you're like, there's not. Everybody likes them. But then when you find someone who does, you have an immediate bond. Like, I felt warmth over the text thread just from Joanna, because we were talking about sneakers. And I do have to set the table with this, though, a rewatchables reference. My respect for Joanna skyrocketed during the Can't Hardly Wait pod when she referenced the punked episode of Jennifer Love Hewitt, which is a tragic episode. And they did her so wrong. I was like, she knows her shit. That's a deep cut. She. So it's not surprising to me, Bill, that she likes sneakers. But you've been doing. Bill, you've been doing devil's work. You're doing God's work, rather, all the Redford stuff, all the classics and devils. What is it like for you now to jump into, like, 92 Redford?

[Bill Simmons]

It's confession time.

[Joanna Robinson]

You don't like sneakers?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, no, no. I do like sneakers. I never saw it when it came out. And this is like a. Just the age I was. So I'm a senior in College in 92. I think this movie came out in the fall. The computer thing. I just. I've talked about this on my podcast. I just was out. I didn't even have a computer until senior year. And it was even like one of those dumb word processors. We had a computer club at Holy Cross. We used to make fun of everybody in there. Be like, look at those guys. What do they do to those nerds?

[Joanna Robinson]

They're not gonna make any money off of that.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, my God, what are they doing? And we. We. There was, like, a snobbiness toward this kind of stuff that it took a while to come around. And now when you watch it. I watched this movie three times in the last month because I don't. I didn't know it that well. I've only seen it once, and I was like, holy shit. Like, they were so far ahead of the game with so many of the themes of this.

[Joanna Robinson]

Exactly.

[Bill Simmons]

But in the moment, I just. It wasn't. It just was one of those movies. Not for me. And there was also a lot of stuff in 1992. We. I mean, good movies were getting shot out. Like a T shirt.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

We used to live in a society.

[Bill Simmons]

We had great movies all the time. So it's like you kind of picked.

[Joanna Robinson]

Picked and chose I was looking at the top, like the top 10 movies of the year, like Box Office Girls. Because Sneakers made some money, but not a ton of money.

[Kyle Brandt]

Right?

[Joanna Robinson]

And I was like, okay, what? Beat it. And I was like, well, these are all tremendously good movies. So I can't really argue.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, one of the problems is, Kyle, I never dated a girl who's like, are you a Sneakers person? And I never got. I just never had the Sneakers kind of gospel person to suck me in. Yeah, I think is the problem spreading the good word.

[Joanna Robinson]

Kyle and I are doing the work. Spreading the good.

[Kyle Brandt]

We are doing the work. And I think, I think, I think this movie is in lockstep with another movie that came a couple of years later in Shawshank Redemption. In that I think it has a terrible title that is off putting and confusing.

[Joanna Robinson]

Correct.

[Kyle Brandt]

I brought this, this movie up when Redford died on our show Good Morning Football Live. And the rest of the cast is much younger than me and I'm like, sneakers, Sneakers. And they're like, is that a movie about shoes? Like Robert Redford did a shoe movie. And like, no, it has nothing to do with that. I think it's a terrible title. I think it also has a horrible poster, which was really important in the 90s in which you have all these amazing actors, including Redford's beautiful face. And it's in the bottom right hand corner just folding up. It's an awful poster. Awful, awful title. And sometimes that can be all she wrote in terms of legacy.

[Joanna Robinson]

I agree. Terrible title, terrible poster, terrible tagline, which is, we tell you what this movie was about, but then we'd have to kill you.

[Kyle Brandt]

Awful.

[Joanna Robinson]

And you're like, okay, no, tell me what it's about, people, what the movie is about. They think it's about shoes.

[Bill Simmons]

I had this coming up later. Like, what, what was a better title? Because I'm with you. Sneakers. Plus like from in the Google society we live in now. Yes, Google Sneakers. Just. It's not coming up. You have to put in Sneakers movie Redford.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

And then it finds stuff finally starts coming up.

[Joanna Robinson]

Because this is like a neat, yeah, bad SEO on sneakers, but this is a niche world inside of the hacking world, you know, that screenwriters discovered. And it's interesting. But yeah, inside of the movie, even inside the movie, when they're like, we're going to do a sneak, I'm like, don't. Just don't say it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Don't try to make it happen, you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Know, it's not happening, Bill.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's inside the Weeds of rewatchables. Because the three of us, I'm sure, have Googled sneakers many times over the last 72 hours.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

And if you do like sneakers, Redford, make a picture of Robert Redford shoes on a movie. That's not what I want. I want the movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

And I think it just. They should have called it. They should have called it Too Many Secrets. Fine. It's a title. It works. It gets the ball on the fairway, and we're off and running.

[Bill Simmons]

Too Many Secrets.

[Joanna Robinson]

Or no. Or no more.

[Kyle Brandt]

Or no more secrets. Anything.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Could you have gone with Freakers with the ph.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, the phone.

[Bill Simmons]

Or freaking.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, with the ph. Or Hackers. Because we're three years before the movie. Hackers.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, hackers probably made more sense for this movie than the actual movie. Hackers. Where do you stand on hackers?

[Joanna Robinson]

I love hackers.

[Bill Simmons]

You love hackers, too? You Angelina Joy's. What was her brother or first husband?

[Joanna Robinson]

First husband. Johnny Lee Miller.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. He was out.

[Kyle Brandt]

I feel like that's going to be Joanna's double feature choice. Like 90 minutes.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, no, but 95. Like, three years after this. 95 is Johnny mnemonic. The net and hackers. Like, we're three years in front of this, like, hacker movie. Boom.

[Bill Simmons]

I did think that this was a waste of a theme month because the Net is one of, like, the funniest movies of the 90s now. It's, like, absolutely hilarious.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think Hackers is too.

[Bill Simmons]

All the. All that disclosure we've already done, but that was also a movie that's, like, really funny with how they envisioned where the Internet was going.

[Joanna Robinson]

Files. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

This movie in the trailer is like, they've got my name, they've got my phone number, they've got my address. And, like, yeah, she's freaking out right after Speed, I think, like, just going for it.

[Joanna Robinson]

There's a scene in the Net where she has a laptop and it's like, 5 inches thick on her lap on the beach. And I was like, okay. All right.

[Bill Simmons]

In five hours, she loses every single thing about her life. It's just gone. I don't even think you could do that now. So Sneakers creates a new genre. I think this is a new genre for 92. The cyber caper.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think there are elements of it that feel new. It's not like the first hacking movie.

[Bill Simmons]

But what was the first Cyber Caper? It's Sneakers, right? What else would it be?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, I don't have a better answer for you. I think it. The thing Is. It's that it's a hacking movie. It's a paranoia movie. It's a comedy.

[Bill Simmons]

Don't leave out the. It's a post Cold War.

[Joanna Robinson]

Post Cold War, It's a heist movie feel, though. You feel the movie.

[Bill Simmons]

It's kind of a little victory lap over Russia a little bit.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's a little. All the shots, they're. They're basically dunking on Greg, the Russian character, the whole time, who gets killed, by the way.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

And then Redford at one point is like, we won. They lost. It's been in a few papers. He might as well look to lens and give that Redford ring to the commies. Suck it, pinkos. Like, it's all there.

[Bill Simmons]

But here's the big thing for me, and this is what took me. I finally appreciate this movie. It took forever. It's a thinking man's action movie. It's a lot of just people. It's also like, cutting corners with their brains, basically.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's also just incredibly satisfying from all of the resolution. They worked for a decade on this script. And so it fits together so neatly like a puzzle. It's a little long. It's a little over two hours. It's a little longer than you would expect for something like this. But nothing feels wasted. It all comes together. I call it. I like to call it a perfect movie. And I feel the same way about something like Tremors, which is another screenplay where, like, every single beat of Tremors matters and pays off. And that's how I feel about sneakers. And it's just. It's intellectually satisfying the way it all.

[Bill Simmons]

Perfect movie except River Phoenix. Honestly, not enough ISOs for him. I could have gone two more. Two more plays for him. Just letting him cook in terms of.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, why this movie wasn't a bigger hit. If you're gonna sell this movie in the early 90s and you have River Phoenix in it, and he's just like, comic Relief. I love River Phoenix in this. I love comedy River Phoenix. But he's just like the doofy Comic Relief guy. And you're like. I'm like, you have one of the biggest heartthrob stars in your movie. And he's like, seventh Build. And.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, Bill, did you see this in the research? It might come up that he's on record that he had just done My own Private Idaho and was dead deep into the work and all heavy. He's. And he literally said, I just wanted an easy money job. And they're like, sure. So I think he's like having the time of his life on this movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Absolutely. He's loving it. He, he and Dan Aykroyd got along really well. And he's just like, he gets to work with Robert Redford. Like, nobody says no to working with Redford or Poitier.

[Bill Simmons]

This is one of the research movies and sometimes I don't trust it. But in, in this one it's clear, like everybody loved being in the movie and working with each other. The River Phoenix thing, I mean, I didn't think we'd do it this fast in the pod, but it was really important. Like he was kind of the guy. He was basically what Leo became in the mid-90s when he was doing like Romeo and Juliet, like after this Boy's Life and Gilbert Grape.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

When he started making Romeo and Juliet before Titanic, there was a moment with him where it's like, this is gonna be the next guy. And that was River Phoenix. Like when I was like a senior in high school and in college, like after Stand By Me, it was like, this is the guy. This is going to be the guy. And this is one of the only normal movies he really made in the last five years. Like he really started to do some dark stuff and his life went dark too.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, then his last movie is that Samantha Mathis, like country western. I like that movie.

[Bill Simmons]

I kind of like that movie.

[Kyle Brandt]

I mean, listen, one of his. One of the things in the River Phoenix trophy case towards the top is that Steven Spielberg hand picks him to play Indiana Jones, the young version, which is like an all time legacy character. And he's amazing in that sequence. He's incredible.

[Joanna Robinson]

But to your point, about like what Leo was doing at the time, the 90s, then they come to him and they're like, hey, do you want to be in the Indiana Jones, Young Indiana Jones TV show? And he goes, no, thanks. Yeah, not for me.

[Bill Simmons]

Right?

[Joanna Robinson]

Not for me.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, the Phoenix thing, it's sad watching him in this because he's just clearly. And Redford picked him. It's funny. Ethan Hawke told a story and I think he was talking about this movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you.

[Bill Simmons]

Was it this or something? River Runs Through It.

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Because these guys are all competing against role. So Ethan Hawke wasn't up for this one or.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, no.

[Bill Simmons]

Did you see that story?

[Kyle Brandt]

No, I haven't seen that.

[Bill Simmons]

Ethan Hawke went on Jimmy Kimmel's show and told this like four minute story about Redford, about how he tried out for River Runs through it for Brad Pitt's part.

[Joanna Robinson]

And he's like, he was Told, you're too young, kid, but you're great. Keep going. And then Redford said to him, and.

[Bill Simmons]

Then Redford showed up at some play he was in later and was like, just would check in on him. And they became friends. So it was like, genuine. He's like, I really like you, but you're not right for this part. But I'm still like, I'm still a believer. And I think he felt the same.

[Kyle Brandt]

Way about River Phoenix that I feel like we kind of still see him because we just watched Joaquin and it's like, would he have been the joker? He probably would have been an incredible joker. Like, all of those parts that he plays that are so interesting, I wonder. Or would he have been, like, just doing entry level Marvel stuff? I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

But don't you think, like, I honestly think Leo had the career that River Phoenix I thought was going to have.

[Joanna Robinson]

And I do think that, like, even though Leo is a few years younger, obviously, I do think that Leo's career opened up because there was this vacuum from River Phoenix's ass.

[Bill Simmons]

And he would have done, I think, the same thing where he would have worked with good directors and tried done co stars. Anyway, 1992. Yeah, I wrote down. It's truly insane how prescient this movie is. These two quotes from Cosmo. There's a war out there, old friend, a world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

There's one. The world isn't run by weapons anymore, energy or money. It's run by little ones and zeros, little bits of data. It's all just electrons. In 1992, this was flying over my head.

[Joanna Robinson]

And you asked if this is the first cyber caper movie. This feels to me like one of the first Silicon Valley movies. Like, this is, you know, this is such a Bay Area movie. I grew up in the Bay Area, and it's not just a San Francisco movie, it's a Bay Area movie. We're going to Palo Alto. We're going across the Dumbarton Bridge. We're doing all this stuff. And Cosmo as this precursor for what the emotionally stunted men of Silicon Valley will. Will do and control in the future. It makes sneakers eternally relevant.

[Bill Simmons]

So you're saying, like, Bezos might have had this ponytail look that Cosmo had at school.

[Joanna Robinson]

She has that ponytail.

[Kyle Brandt]

It just, it's like someone now who's saying, like, really heavy shit about. I. I remember I watched this when I was 13. And I didn't really follow what Cosmo was saying, but I'm like, oh, this is important. And kind of scary.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

But you know, it's 1992. I'm like, holy shit, look what the Dream Team's doing to Angola. This is great. My focus was elsewhere, you know.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, it's funny because it's like war. I'll just spoil it now. War Games was my double feature for this.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, I watched it last night actually.

[Bill Simmons]

And War Games had the. Oh, nice. Yeah, War Games had a very similar. Like it catches some moment before it became a moment like nuclear war didn't really like, I would say 80 with the day after when that TV movie happened.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

Right when we really had a Cold War panic in the 80s. War games was early on it and kind of saw it coming. And then. And the way it used computers, it just was ahead of its time. But it did way better than Sneakers did.

[Joanna Robinson]

I rewatched it last night because it's the origin story for this movie. Because the screenwriters found in researching War Games went to conventions, found out about the Phone Freakers, the Cyber Caper, the Black Hatters, and. And so I was like, oh, curious to see there's so much Sneakers DNA in War Games. Some of the sort of like, we're all crowded around a monitor moments feel so similar. The score is doing. Even though it's a different composer, the score is doing similar things. But the way that War Games starts is you have John Spencer and Michael Madsen as two, like, nuclear missile silo workers going in for a day at work. And there's in the elevator talking about like, how John Spencer once knew a woman who grew weed. And. And there's having this random. Has nothing to do with what's going to happen conversation. And it's like so many conversations and Sneakers where Dan Aykroyd mother gets on and is just like cattle mutilations are up, you know, like, just like the little conversations that they have in the midst of these various heists is something that these guys love to put in. And it makes these characters feel so real and these relationships feel so real. These are people who just know each other, are irritated by each other, but, like also show up for each other. I love that.

[Bill Simmons]

Were you War Games guy, Kyle?

[Kyle Brandt]

I was, yeah. A big War Games guy. I loved it. And I. I think that Jonah makes a prescient point, which is I think there are certain movies in the early 90s that are so excited about being a 90s movie. Like, they're so they're like, welcome to the 90s, motherfuckers. Like, I remember when. Like, remember that. Remember the movie Grand Canyon came out? And it's like in the 80s, they brought you the Big Chill. Welcome to the 90s. That was the actual tagline. And I think to the War Games point, I think when we hit the 90s, everyone was a little nuked out. Like, we've done a lot of nuke stuff and nuke movies. Now it's not the nukes, he's literally saying. It's the computers and, like, wow, the 90s are so cool. That's how I felt when I was a kid.

[Bill Simmons]

I think that's a good point. I love that Grand Canyon. Flawed movie.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Kind of enjoyable.

[Kyle Brandt]

Steve Martin gets shot and foams at the mouth. It's very strange and upsetting. Weird. Weird movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Really strange movie. This is also a We got to get a crew movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, they have to go.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, but I mean, like, World War II. Like, we gotta find people who can solve stuff. I like the idea of people who break into stuff to teach people how to avoid being broken into.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Has that happened? That must have happened in a TV show. Right? There must be some CBS show that my dad watches that has that premise. Yeah, right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. But this is a real thing. And the thing that about this movie. Another thing about this movie is it's not universally beloved, but, like, the cybersecurity world loves sneakers. They're like, sneakers got it right, man. They get it, you know?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. It was like, way more thinking versus, like, black hat.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

So Redford's the leader. Martin Bishop.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

Poitier. I always mess up his name. It's in my speech impediment. Poitier. It's in my.

[Kyle Brandt]

My Poitier. Van Damme. Bill. It's all right. We all have our. It's okay.

[Bill Simmons]

He's had a security.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

Aykroyd. Weird that he was in this movie in 92, but it's right as he's shifting into. He's not leading movies the same way anymore. He's now moving like he's in Tommy Boy. A couple years later, he's in My Girl. He's starting to hit, like, coneheads.

[Joanna Robinson]

Did you see in your research that he was insisting that he play Cosmo? And they were like, we got Ben Kingsley to do that.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, you're good, Ben.

[Joanna Robinson]

We want you to put him in there.

[Bill Simmons]

See him as that. So he's a tech specialist.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

River Phoenix is Carl, who's just like, the new Kid, it's like a new guy. Like young, young energy off the bench.

[Kyle Brandt]

He's basically Turner.

[Bill Simmons]

He's like. He'll be on special teams. He'll be the gunner.

[Joanna Robinson]

He'll. He'll. He'll get the plans in the building for you. He will. He's basically Broderick's character in War Games, Right. They caught him hacking into the Oakland city school system to change his grades.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Whistler, played by my guy, David Strathearn.

[Kyle Brandt]

Talk about it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Strathern.

[Bill Simmons]

Strathern.

[Joanna Robinson]

Strathearn.

[Kyle Brandt]

Strahn. Strathearn.

[Joanna Robinson]

Strathearn's really an all time word from you.

[Bill Simmons]

How do you say it?

[Joanna Robinson]

Strathearn, I think.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say it.

[Kyle Brandt]

I thought it was Strathairn. Joanna, you think it's Strathern?

[Bill Simmons]

I'm going to call straight hard.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's better than what Bill said.

[Kyle Brandt]

Possibly. Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

He's a blind guy with super hearing. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

All those people you just mentioned. Oscar winners are Oscar nominated.

[Bill Simmons]

He's also incredible. He was in like some really great smaller parts like the Firm. He's awesome. He's so eight men out. He's the pitcher who can't decide whether he should cheat or not. But he's just. He'd pop up in these movies every couple of years and you're like, I love this guy. But it never really. He never became like a guy.

[Joanna Robinson]

His moment. His moment is good at Jerry, I.

[Kyle Brandt]

Give you two parts. Two parts that stand out. All right. He plays an unbelievably disturbing, terrible character in Dolores Claiborne. Kathy Bates, unwatchable character. Also incredible arc in the Sopranos. When Carm and Tony break up, she sees him.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Joanna's the teacher.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. He's like the counselor at the school and they fight and he has an all time one liner to that. I would not say right now, but I love that character.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. River Runs through it. Made a one with Mary McDonald and James Earl Jones, a movie that I really, really love.

[Bill Simmons]

Did really good work.

[Joanna Robinson]

A John Sales guy.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Mary McDonald, who's red hot right now from Dances With Wolves.

[Joanna Robinson]

So the word on the street is that you do not like.

[Bill Simmons]

I do like her. I didn't. I don't. She got trapped with bad parts for two years. I always thought she was better than the parts. The Blue Chips character is like, I don't even. Are you with Nick Nolte or not? Like, what's going on there? Grand Canyon. That movie is Just super weird. This. I think she's great in this movie.

[Kyle Brandt]

She classes up this movie. Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's so good in this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

She's really good. And it's a nothing part. I don't even know. Like, you can't even describe five things about that character, but she makes it work.

[Joanna Robinson]

Something I love about. You know, like I said, they worked on this movie for 10 years. Something I love about the evolution of this movie is that originally Liz was like, someone who worked in a bank that they meet over the course of the movie, turning her into Bishop's ex. So you have that sort of comedy plot of remarriage. Like, we really want these people to get back together. Energy. And everyone already knows her, so you don't have to spend a lot of time, like, who is this girl? Why do we care about her? You want the two of them to get back together. There's personal stakes on this whole operation, right? Because he's like, if I get my name back, maybe we can be together. Great stuff.

[Bill Simmons]

And then, same thing in blue chips, by the way. Exact same relationship with Nick Nolte.

[Joanna Robinson]

And then everyone in the group loves her. Like, all of the sneakers love her.

[Bill Simmons]

You gotta love her.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's great.

[Bill Simmons]

You know who didn't really love the crew? Little early step on Raj. Roger Ebert.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, unsurprising.

[Kyle Brandt]

I love this movie. Come on.

[Bill Simmons]

Redford's team. Yet another version of the World War II platoon that always had won everything. He lists all the people. There's not enough useful dialogue to go around for such a large team. And sometimes characters feel like they've been pushed on stage for obligatory scenes that are not really necessary. It's a borderline fuck you, Raj. I'm not going to go full tilt fuck you, Raj. But I did think about it.

[Joanna Robinson]

I. Get out of here. Raj, with that terrible take.

[Bill Simmons]

Talk to me about the outthinking version of hacking Scrabble pieces. What were some of your favorite Scotch tape hacking, basically.

[Kyle Brandt]

The Scrabble sequence is excellent in this. I. I do have one bone to pick with it. I'm a Scrabble guy. It really, really bothers me that they're in the middle of a game and Bish just picks it up and dumps over the board. And they don't. They're not like, what the Bish. I had triple word score. What are you doing? I guarantee he was getting his ass.

[Joanna Robinson]

He was losing.

[Bill Simmons]

Bothers me.

[Kyle Brandt]

You can't do that. Yeah, that's nuts.

[Bill Simmons]

Piercing together sounds.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, that's.

[Bill Simmons]

That's what you hear. Did it sound like that? Sounds amazing.

[Kyle Brandt]

My voice is my passport. Verify me.

[Bill Simmons]

That whole sequence is Whistler guessing. The answer machine thing with the black box. Just a lot of like, yeah, let's go to Craig without him stepping on the take of the movie. When you see these movies as a post. Internet child.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

That try to explain the Internet, but it's like 1992 and hacking and all this stuff, what is your reaction as a younger person?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Well, this movie reminded me the most of. Is it disclosure? When he's got the goggles on, he's like, it's all out there and everything's around him. Look, I think, unfortunately, the movies that tried to do this in the 90s, they didn't know where things were going. It was so new. And I think they thought they were getting ahead of it. And it's just naturally one of those things that is impossible to age well, you know, it's tough.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Might be a foreshadowing of Craig's take.

[Joanna Robinson]

I've only been on a handful. I've only been on a handful of rewatchables, but you can tell when you walk in the room and you look at Craig's face what Craig thinks of the movie.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Well, you guys shouldn't ask me before what I thought, you know?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's true. I don't know why I try to feel you.

[Kyle Brandt]

Hey, Horlbeck, you know what ages well, characters and writing. Who cares about the goddamn computers all the time?

[Craig Horlbeck]

We'll get to the characters.

[Kyle Brandt]

All right, good.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I wasn't leaving them out.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

One last elite mainstream run for Redford. We should mention this because this is Robert Redford Month. Sneakers directs River Runs Through It, Indecent Proposal directs Quiz Show, Up Close and Personal with Michelle Pfeiffer. And then his Sundance is taking off, and this is off from like 92 to 96. So it's his third straight decade for him where he's just in the mix in a real way.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's so interesting to me because, like, this is a. So he has out of Africa in 85, and then he makes two terrible. Like this. He hasn't made a good movie, acted in a good movie since 85, when he makes this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

And so there's a way in which Redford kind of needs this movie. Oh, yeah, right.

[Bill Simmons]

He needs his last run. It's almost like an athlete.

[Joanna Robinson]

Wash the taste of Legal Eagles in Havana out of your mouth. Right. And so he makes this movie. I'm not a huge fan of Up Close and Personal and Proposal. But those are two movies where Rodford's like, these are the I Still got it movies. Right. With a much younger co star. Mary McDonald's at least like only about 15 years younger than him in this movie. So he's got those two like I still got it movies. And then he's firmly into old man Redford territory.

[Bill Simmons]

Up close and personal. I'll defend because My queen, Michelle Pfeiffer's in it. She's really. I have no other reason.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's a terrible.

[Bill Simmons]

She looks great and she's a broadcaster.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's the original morning show is. Do you think you love morning show because you love Up Close and Personal?

[Bill Simmons]

I love to hate watch morning show.

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay. It's never One Fine day guy as well.

[Bill Simmons]

It's not very good. But I watch it. Watch it multiple times.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes, One Fine Day is great.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Listen. Pfeiffer in the 90s, including Pfeiffer. I mean, my number one is to Jillian on her 37th birthday.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right? Which is everyone.

[Bill Simmons]

A movie with no plot whatsoever.

[Joanna Robinson]

Rewatchbox movie that has ever happened.

[Bill Simmons]

And she's the hottest ghost that ever lived. Yeah. What a run for her. Anyway, Redford is 56.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

In sneakers. I have some thoughts about that in later categories. Meanwhile, Ben Kingsley, this is his 90s supporting guy.

[Kyle Brandt]

Run.

[Bill Simmons]

Bugsy Sneakers. Dave. Bobby Fischer, Schindler's List and Species all in like four years. They were like, all right, we gotta give you the Sir. This is too many. Too many rewatchable movies. What are your Ben Kingsley's thoughts, Kyle?

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, also like Strathairn, or however you say it, memorable Sopranos Run for me. Crazy episode with Hollywood Maltisante. I love that. Obviously all this stuff that he had done. I just remember like when he started going by Sir, I was like, oh, shit, he's a Sir now. Like that he's one of the people that. The sir really seemed to suit them. Some of these people with the Sir. Sirs.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't.

[Kyle Brandt]

I'm not feeling it. Sir Ben is. It works for him.

[Bill Simmons]

Sir Marshawn lynch maybe doesn't work.

[Kyle Brandt]

I can't do Sir Beast mode. No, but like Sir. Sir Ben Kingsley. Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't like when people get the Sirs. Do you know, like I have nothing in common to them anymore.

[Kyle Brandt]

They're like, isn't it like Walk of Stars over here?

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you know Michael Sheen, the actor? Michael Sheen gave his back because he's Welsh. And he believes strongly that in like sort of Welsh.

[Bill Simmons]

Rejected the Sir.

[Joanna Robinson]

He. He received it and then he returned it because he said he did some research into. I. I don't know how many people have returned it, but he returned his.

[Kyle Brandt]

I don't like sir either, but for some reason I love Dame. Like Dame Judi Dench all day long.

[Bill Simmons]

Dame is great.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love it.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Dame.

[Bill Simmons]

Such a good point. Dame is great. Sir's terrible. We need in America. We need our version of this though, where people just get some weird title.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think the verified blue check on Twitter. That's what we do now.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's what we're saying. Absolutely not.

[Bill Simmons]

Directed and co written by Phil Adam Robinson, who did Field of Dreams, one of my favorite movies in college.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is how he spends his Field of dreams. Blink check, getting sneakers.

[Kyle Brandt]

How about that?

[Bill Simmons]

What's interesting is I was like, what happened? Why didn't he make more movies? Because this guy was clearly good at making movies and putting movies together and.

[Joanna Robinson]

Getting some of all the years.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, he's good in that or that movies. Like, that's a well directed, well done movie. Um, he went kind of serious. Like he was directing documentaries for Nightline. Like he just kind of moved away from making movies full time.

[Joanna Robinson]

He started his documentary like he was in during the Vietnam War. He was a military documentary film filmmaker.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Then he, you know, he writes all. All of me. He directs Field of Dreams. He does this. He does some old affairs and now he's back in. Like he was a leader in leadership at the Writers Guild of America and at the Motion Picture Academy. So he's sort of like a, like a Hollywood state scene.

[Bill Simmons]

Kind of like the real life. Real life, Marty, it's had a higher calling.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Some of the stuff in this movie is heavy handed. You mentioned the post Cold War victory. That lap, there's just straight shots across the bow to the Republican Party. At the end of the movie, we go from the really great sequence of the blind guy driving the car and all of a sudden he's up there preaching about information and all. Like, you can tell the director was liking the stuff and good, good for him. It was a great movie. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

He might have. Might have had a couple settled down moments with the producers. Like, Phil, scale up a little.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't know. You may Field of Dreams. I think you get to do whatever you want to do.

[Bill Simmons]

You really did. I still don't understand what happened to all the cars when they showed up at the end of Field of Dreams.

[Kyle Brandt]

No parking lot.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. At some point it's just a traffic jam.

[Joanna Robinson]

You just got to mow down someone Else's fields in order to make a parking lot.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It's kind of the same thing as this movie when they all. There's like a hundred guards that storm the building at the end and then they just all disappear. Same like the same with the cars.

[Bill Simmons]

Just kind of go away. $23 million budget made. $105.2 million globally. Pretty good.

[Joanna Robinson]

All day long is okay. Only 50. $50 million domestically. And you mentioned Shawshank Redemption, which I think is a great comp. I wish this had had the, like Lives Forever on TNT Saturday Morning sort of life. That Shawshank.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, part of the problem was it was a little too long and it wasn't Shawshank.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, it's not as good as Shawshank.

[Joanna Robinson]

It is not Shawshank Redemption, I will give you that.

[Bill Simmons]

This is an hour 40. It's on TNT and TBS for 20 straight.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think the other issue, and this is something that Phil Eldon Robinson did, is that he. He put language. Well, you can edit language for cable. That's fine. But this is. This is such a weird spot of a movie, right? It's a dad movie is what it is. And I love a dad movie. I love a Tin Cup. I love a Field of Dreams. I love this movie. Right. I love the whole everything.

[Bill Simmons]

And Craig doesn't.

[Joanna Robinson]

But. But Craig just looks so wounded when he says that.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I love Field of Dreams. You talking about Tin Cup? I like Tin Cup.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's all right.

[Joanna Robinson]

But, like, this isn't. This is. But there's not. There's a little bit of action, but there's not a ton of action.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, sure.

[Joanna Robinson]

And you said there's some. I mean, there's not really any sex in this movie. You know what I mean? And so it's like, there's a lot.

[Bill Simmons]

Of weird groaning off camera, but it's too.

[Joanna Robinson]

But it's too, like, smart or however you want to categorize it for kids to love it. You know what I mean? Early teen, you know, you and I, Kyle, we were.

[Bill Simmons]

She would throw more sex in it.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm saying it's a weird sweet spot. Is it for kids? Is it for adults? Like, who is it for? It's for me.

[Kyle Brandt]

You know what I think it is, Joanna? I think this movie is an on the screws, perfect PG13 movie. It's why that rating exists, and they should.

[Joanna Robinson]

They get it. Yeah, yeah. But I think then it becomes hard to pitch. Like, I wouldn't show this to kids. But then some adults are like, well, this isn't action heavy enough for me or this isn't. You know.

[Bill Simmons]

You know what this movie is. It's just a good hang.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's such a good hang.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes, it is.

[Bill Simmons]

Kind of have it on. And I think a big piece of this is the score that we didn't really talk about but James Horner, which there's. I have some stuff later. I had no idea how revered this score was by people.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, did you read the Britell?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, but we'll hit that in a second. Roger Ebert two and a half stars. Yeah, could have been worse.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

One of the weaknesses of the movie is the way it pretends to be a techno thriller when in fact it recycles much older traditions. It's a sometimes entertaining movie, but thin.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm not claiming it's a deep movie, but like it matters that things are fun and not stupid. And that's what Sneakers is.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, we're gonna take a break and then we're do the Categories this episode is brought to you by crisp, refreshing Angry Orchard Scary movie tropes can get you all fired up this season. Don't get angry about the idiots deciding to split up when there's a slasher on the loose. Just slash open Angry Orchard's new Halloween thriller pack made in partnership with the Jason universe, featuring four new killer flavors like blood Orange. Don't get angry. Get Orchard. Find Angry Orchard near you this Halloween season. Angry orchard cider company llc.angry orchard.com please drink responsibly.angry Orchard is a hard cider with other natural flavors. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's nothing better than having friends that support you and your passions. Or maybe even a wife. Like when I told my wife we have to go see the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie and we went to a 4:30 Monday screening and I was so passionate about it that I skipped Monday Night Football and just watched it later on dvr. If you really love something, you need the support system around you. Like those friends State Farm there to help you along the way. With so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have support in finding what fits for you. Go online@state farm.com or use the award winning app to get help from one of their local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there most rewatchable scene. Would you have the 1969 pizza order going wrong in there? Because I would not. But I'm happy to defer to you.

[Kyle Brandt]

You know what I love about that scene and this is a take that's coming later. I think they fucking nailed the young versions of Kingsley and Redford. I love those actors. I had that. I had that.

[Bill Simmons]

Redford is great.

[Kyle Brandt]

He's great. And young Kingsley looks like him. If we put it on a scale of if young Tommy in Goodfellas is a 10, like, the best one that's ever been done. These guys are like, seven fives or eights. I completely buy that it's them.

[Bill Simmons]

I had Redford as, like, a nine.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Like, he looks like Electric Horseman Redford. He's got, like, the big hair and.

[Joanna Robinson]

The mustache that's Michael from Twin Peaks. Like, he's a. He's a guy. I know, but you put that, like, sort of that, like, handle our mustache on him. And I was just like, that's right. And he got the intonation perfect.

[Bill Simmons]

I thought Kingsley was like, a five and a half.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, he was good.

[Joanna Robinson]

We're going to have to spend a lot of time talking about Kingsley's accent in this movie. And I feel like probably the young guy doing whatever it is that Kingsley was doing was sort of distracted by that assignment.

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay, okay, I'm into that.

[Bill Simmons]

Most watchable scene. The bad guys find Marty. Allegedly NSA agents. One of them is Timothy Busfield, who was having a little run here. He was in Field of dreams. I think 30. Something might still be on at this point.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, it is.

[Bill Simmons]

He had shed Revenge of the Nerds. I felt like at this point, you weren't looking at him and just thinking of him playing the base. Remember? What was that electric guitar? What was he. What did he play about?

[Kyle Brandt]

I keep waiting for the nerds pod. I just don't know if we're responsible enough to do it. It's got some problem at us.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's got some deep problems.

[Bill Simmons]

We almost did it.

[Craig Horlbeck]

We can't.

[Kyle Brandt]

The movie does not shut.

[Craig Horlbeck]

The movie. You can't find it.

[Bill Simmons]

We were gonna do it when House was here and the movie's just hit.

[Craig Horlbeck]

You can't rent it, stream it. It's been wiped.

[Kyle Brandt]

Anthony Andrews territory where it doesn't exist anymore. Lambda Lambda Lambda. Those are my guys.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, It's Timothy Busfield and Eddie Jones, who is a great. I love Eddie Jones. He played Pa Kent on Lois and Clark. So I always think of him as Pa Kent when I see him. But he's so. They're such great assholes in this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Trying to get the math guy's password. Well, this Czech lady seducing him is just kind of funny. But I like the method.

[Kyle Brandt]

Laugh out loud at Carl saying, bish, you think I could take a look. Even he wants to see. This is 92. You can't get Internet porn, all that.

[Bill Simmons]

He's like, wow, he's got so set for nudity.

[Kyle Brandt]

So funny.

[Joanna Robinson]

But when potty, then parties, like, grow up. And then he's like, let me see.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But the next scene's better. When Marty gets caught in her in the office with the Czech lady. That's a really good scene. And the little earpieces. I always wonder when people have earpieces like that. Can you can't tell when you're just talking to them. Like, if Joanna had an earpiece right now with somebody talking into it, I wouldn't be able to hear that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Or it depends on how slick your tech is. And I don't know how 92 sneakers tech is.

[Craig Horlbeck]

If it's the 80s, that woman's topless for sure.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, 1983.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

That's like an actual sex scene.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

We got out in the 90s. We were just better people. The Clinton administration was coming.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, Clinton really cleaned everything.

[Bill Simmons]

We had a lot of hope in 92 that things were going to Carl.

[Kyle Brandt]

Wanting to see in the camera. That's who he is.

[Bill Simmons]

The Czech lady. I'm not positive what's going on there, and it's pretty silly, but I enjoy it.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love her. She's also in Field of Dreams. She's in almost every Phil Eldon Robinson movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, well, she was the crazy book burning lady in Field of Dreams. Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

And she's in Sum of All Fears. And then there's like an Easter egg in Some of All Fears. Her character's name in this movie gets, like, mentioned in Some of All Fears. It's the.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Joanna's really auditioning for the Sum of All Fears rewatch. This is what I'm taking away. You're all over what I'm taking Away.

[Kyle Brandt]

Solo podcast.

[Joanna Robinson]

I just think it's fascinating that Phil Alden Robinson's like, she's my girl. I'm gonna put her in all of my movies. Love her.

[Bill Simmons]

They cracked the code for Setec Astronomy. Ctec Astronomy, Whatever it was.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Rat semen, cooties.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

All right. The Ben Kingsley Cosmo reveal. So Marty has no idea this is coming?

[Joanna Robinson]

I guess not.

[Bill Simmons]

He never thought about this, like, oh, the guy died in prison. I'm just gonna accept that explanation.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think he hoped he did.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think you can explain that. He's so burdened by guilt about this that he's just sort of like, I hope this is the end of that story.

[Bill Simmons]

Is he burdened by guilt? Seems like he kind of moved on. It's like I was getting some pizza. That guy.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. I don't think he tried to help him at anything. I think he's like this wild dog who's out of there.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, he did it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Not at all.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like how Kyle and I felt when Shregs went to espn.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's like, hey, Bill, knowing that Peter's going to listen to this. That is not how I felt. How dare you?

[Joanna Robinson]

I will say that the Cosmos Alive reveal is kind of impossible to do when you show the movie to people now because they're like, when is Ben Kingsley getting here?

[Bill Simmons]

You know what I mean?

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, they know Ben Kingsley's in the movie and they're like, where is he?

[Bill Simmons]

Kyle, what do you think when characters say things like, I might be able to crash the whole damn system. Think about it. No more rich people, no more poor people. Everyone is going to be the same.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's great monologuing. It's great rhetoric. And then the follow up by Bish. You haven't gone crazy, have you? Cause exactly right. But I get far. Especially because he's giving that speech and we got to talk about this later. But, like, obviously Cosmo's office is just a fucking revelation. He's giving this speech in some sort of like, Darth Vader back to take chamber. I don't even know what they're sitting on. Sort of.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, Wow. I think that's where he goes.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like Austin Powers.

[Joanna Robinson]

No one watching him or something like that. But yeah, an evil lair is definitely what that is.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like I'm thinking about being evil lair. It's not even an evil lair.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's. That's in my unanswerable questions is what is Cosmo's plan exactly?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, yeah, I mean, here's the thing with Redford in that scene and what you just said about him being like Redford was a really good, like, counterpuncher, Reactor playoff. Somebody who's like, doing something bigger than he is and just having these little, you know, like being confused or kind of staring somebody down. I always thought that was one of his best skills. I don't even know how to describe. I don't know other people even.

[Kyle Brandt]

Incredibly insightful. And that is this movie. He's the straight man surrounded by these eccentric characters who are blind or funny or conspiracy theorists. And there's this little thing he does. Exactly. What you're saying when Cosmos says, oh, it's good to see you. They cut to Redford and he kind of does this look that says, I'm not sure. It's good to see you. Right. Like, it's such good acting. He's so underrated for that.

[Bill Simmons]

You know what he is? He's a hall of fame. Eye narrower.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, a squinter.

[Bill Simmons]

When his eyes narrow, you know, he's like, the wheels are turning.

[Joanna Robinson]

Thinking. That's his thinking face.

[Bill Simmons]

Or he does the. The. He listens to somebody.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, the golden retriever. Head tilt.

[Bill Simmons]

There's a pause, and you know what it is? Then he has an answer.

[Kyle Brandt]

You know that gif. A guy who's like. Like changes his eyes.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Like, Redford does that all the way to the hall of fame. He's great at it, I think.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think the Cosmo reel is really interesting. I think that scene is really interesting. I think that monologue is absolutely bananas. I do think it's interesting that you say that Redford is straight man. He is the straight man in this movie. But he gets so many jokes. Like, he gets so many jokes off in this movie, too.

[Bill Simmons]

Counter puncher. The problems always get worse. Why is that? I should do this in a Kingsley accent, but I'm not going to.

[Joanna Robinson]

Good luck.

[Kyle Brandt]

Which one?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Because he's out of the four.

[Joanna Robinson]

The way he says disaster. Bizarre.

[Bill Simmons]

Because money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it.

[Joanna Robinson]

The question is, Kingsley, is this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Predicted in the 2020s?

[Joanna Robinson]

Is this movie in favor what these guys were doing in the 60s? Or is it, you know, this is. This is the conversation we're having about one battle after another. What does it say about these revolutionaries of what they become in one battle in, like, in modern day, One battle after another. And what does it say about Cosmo, who's like in the 60s is like, let's fuck over Richard Nixon. And then the 90s. You're like, the movie thinks he's crazy, but what he's preaching is financial equity. I don't really understand exactly what the movie wants us to think about that.

[Bill Simmons]

Thank you for bringing this up. I think bringing the PTA movies is smart, bringing that in. So this is like 45, almost 50 years of that theme, which is basically like, my mom and dad, like, they're in college, and it's like, we're gonna change the world. And then, you know, 10 years later, it's like, wait, what are we gonna do now? Like, this. This kind of sucks. That's been like. People try to change the world, they get older, and you either keep that passion or you don't. And in Kingsley's case, he keeps the passion, but in, like, the craziest, darkest way possible. It's almost like a comic book movie. Kyle.

[Kyle Brandt]

They have a moment where Carl pulls him aside and says, I just don't understand. Why were you taking all these chances? And he's like, well, there was a war going on. Well, we just wanted to meet girls. Carl is, like, speaking for the younger people in that scene. And then he's speaking for my parents. It's like, cool little moment.

[Bill Simmons]

This is like the big chill. This is the. It's the first movie that really was just like. This is about this theme. What happens when you get older and you can't change the world anymore? What do you do then? And Kevin Klein's character is like, you know, it's cool. Money. I was going to say, you buy.

[Joanna Robinson]

A lot of stuff.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I have a really cool house. Have you seen my house?

[Joanna Robinson]

Buy stuff that'll make it better.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, just spoiler. This is my most rewatchable scene. When they figure out where Marty got taken.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, the cocktail party scene.

[Bill Simmons]

This whole thing, figuring out the sounds.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's it.

[Bill Simmons]

And Whistler, just, like, on his little thing. Does it sound like this? Does it? I just think that's a riveting five minutes.

[Kyle Brandt]

I'm proud of you. Because there's a skeptic's reaction to that scene as. Oh, fucking come on. You're not going to hear what the sound of the highway is when you're unconscious in the back of a trunk. He's like, well, the seams of the concrete. I like the scene, too. Strathairn, or whatever his name is, carries it beautifully.

[Bill Simmons]

Strange.

[Kyle Brandt]

There's a lot of people. Like, that's bullshit. Really.

[Bill Simmons]

There's people out there. They're detractors.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, you wouldn't believe that, but there are. Yes, it's unlikely, but it does work.

[Bill Simmons]

They stole it for taking two.

[Joanna Robinson]

They don't believe that David Srethair knows that Whistler has memorized the seam allowance between the concrete on the Dumbarton Bridge.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, also that Barty, who probably has a concussion and or CTE from the hit he took, is going to be in a trunk. Like, all right, I'm memorizing that sound. And now that sound. I mean, you're probably in the car, like, ah, my head.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is a. This is a. There's a nitpick about this scene. And Then I have a. Well, actually, to the nitpick, right, because in that scene they say there are four Bay Area bridges, right?

[Kyle Brandt]

Sure.

[Joanna Robinson]

There are actually five.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, is this a San Francisco nitpick?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow. Joe is really, like, bringing it to me.

[Joanna Robinson]

I have. Well, actually there's five. Cause they mentioned the Golden Gate, the Bay, the Dunbarton and the San Mateo. There's the Richmond San Rafael Bridge. But if you're coming from San Francisco, which is the origin, I believe, then there's only four that matter. But a lot of people will say, well, actually, they didn't mention the Richard Samofeld Bridge. And I'm like, why would you talk about it if you're starting in San Francisco?

[Bill Simmons]

So I've never seen Kyle more riveted by anything.

[Kyle Brandt]

Originally we thought there was another bridge and that Brock Purdy was a bridge quarterback, but it turns out he's the real deal.

[Bill Simmons]

NFL joke.

[Kyle Brandt]

NFL joke.

[Joanna Robinson]

I will say the Bay Area. The Bay Area in me, the biggest. It's. It's actually one of my favorite parts of the movie because I get excited every time it comes up. And it's the way that Canadian Dan Aykroyd pronounces the Dun Bridge. He says Dunbarton in a really weird way that if you grew up listening to the weather, like the traffic reports in the Bay Area, you're like, why? Why would you ever say it like that?

[Bill Simmons]

It's like me saying Straytharn.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Dumbarton Bridge.

[Kyle Brandt]

We're now calling David Strathairn, Michael Strahan. It's come to that.

[Joanna Robinson]

The society we live in.

[Bill Simmons]

I really like that scene. Two more. Kingsley figures it out and he's on the intercom. I like when bad guys are on an intercom in a building. Joanna, you must come out now.

[Joanna Robinson]

You're saying that like, you don't do that every day at the Mateo.

[Bill Simmons]

I should. I should start coming downtown and just go in the intercom. Hello, Ringer.

[Kyle Brandt]

Is also that that point where he's like, she's lovely, Marty. And then they go and they show Mary McDonald's like, oh, shit, you got him. Let's go, Kaz.

[Bill Simmons]

I have a very short, rewatchable scene that I'm going to talk about later. Not for this. That's just for me that I was fascinated by. And I videotaped. I'm going to show you later. And then finally, a James Earl Earl Jones cameo. Oh, what a great scene during, like, peak James Earl Jones. I mean, Apex Mountain of James Earl Jones, Field of Dreams, Sandlot. This movie like, he would pop up. It was like fucking being handed a hot fudge sundae.

[Joanna Robinson]

Two of our.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, thank you.

[Joanna Robinson]

Two of our ringer pals are like, a perfect example. What I was talking about the beginning, about what this movie can be. Because when I told Van that we were. I was like, oh, I'm doing rewatchables tomorrow. He's like, what are you doing?

[Bill Simmons]

Van's jealous.

[Joanna Robinson]

And I was like, sneakers. He gasped.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

He was so excited, Right? But our pal Rob Mahoney had not seen Sneakers. He went to go see it in rep last week for the first time. He had never seen it because he was like, joanna's obsessed with this. I'm gonna go see it.

[Bill Simmons]

It's in rep. You bullied everybody. She's bullying ringer staffers left and right.

[Joanna Robinson]

What I do best. And he's like, it played so well. He's like, the way the crowd lost it. When James Earl Jones showed up at the end of this movie, I was like, yeah, it's such a good idea.

[Kyle Brandt]

I feel every. Every time I watch it, Bill, it's like, all right, the crazy heist that happened, they get back now. Let's just roll the credits. And then it's like, glass breaks. Oh, shit, it's James Earl Jones music. What is he doing here? And he comes in, like, firing. He's doing, like, when Bish is like, come on. One day. And he goes, no, he sounds like Darth Vader.

[Joanna Robinson]

Vader now.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's so good.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm trying to think, who is James Earl Jones now? Like, who could just pop into a movie out of nowhere with eight minutes left? And you're just like, oh, my God, this guy. I don't even think that person.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, I hate to say, like, another, like, old black guy, but Morgan Freeman has the voice and everybody loves him. And, like, there's some of that going on a little bit, but it's not.

[Bill Simmons]

Like James Earl Jones. Yeah, there was like. It's funny because I just watched Field of Dreams again recently. I don't know if it was, like, the 85th time or the 70th time or whatever, but I just love him so much in that movie. It's one of my favorite. He's just so great, so happy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

He can be so intimidating, too. When he turns the van around and he's standing there and she goes, moonlight Graham pissed myself in that scene in the loft at the end of it when he's just like, I'm going to be sick. It makes me so intimidated. It's like he's my. My grandfather. And I'm like, I did something wrong. He's so great.

[Joanna Robinson]

That scene is so good.

[Bill Simmons]

The requests are really funny. Winnebago. Aykroyd wants a Winnebago with burgundy interior.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's great.

[Bill Simmons]

Sid wants to take his wife to Europe.

[Joanna Robinson]

And Tahiti.

[Kyle Brandt]

And Tahiti.

[Joanna Robinson]

And Tahiti.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm Carl. I'm married. River Phoenix just wants a phone number from the kind of sneaky hot FBI whatever she was. And then Whistler wants peace on earth and goodwill toward men. And then James Earl Jones says none of this happened.

[Joanna Robinson]

We're the US government. We don't have anything.

[Bill Simmons]

None of this ever happened.

[Kyle Brandt]

You deliberately disobeyed me. It's the best.

[Bill Simmons]

So what do you have for most rewatchable? Kyle?

[Kyle Brandt]

I think the entire Warner Brandes sequence is fucking awesome. From the time they identify his office next to Cosmos, the garbage, the 180 IQ. The scene in the restaurant with trying to check off the thing. But that's a sequence. If I'm answering the question honestly, Bill. I mean it's gotta be the final heist and the fortress and like the walking across and that type of shit all in the middle of that.

[Bill Simmons]

Joe.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think the answer is the cocktail party scene. But I also want to add that the Scrabble tile sequence happens at the same time as like Whistler and Carl and Mother are messing around with the box. You know what I mean? Like you're doing two things at once in a scene, I think, you know, and figuring out what it can do. That tension. So they're like trying to figure out the James Horner score is going crazy in that sequence. Pianos are like being tossed off of cliffs and stuff like that. I just think that that's such a smart economy. It's so hard to make hacking look interesting.

[Bill Simmons]

Right?

[Joanna Robinson]

Cause you're just sitting in front of a monitor.

[Bill Simmons]

Most movies fail.

[Joanna Robinson]

And you know what? You know what can make it more interesting? A Scrabble game for scalp gravel tiles on top of that.

[Bill Simmons]

What's the most 1992 thing about this movie?

[Joanna Robinson]

Is it Robert Redford's light wash straight leg dad jeans?

[Bill Simmons]

I had Redford's baseball jacket because it's the same jacket from the Natural.

[Joanna Robinson]

Is that the exact.

[Kyle Brandt]

Literally the same coat? Right?

[Bill Simmons]

Like the jacket from the Natural. And then I googled it and it's.

[Joanna Robinson]

Not the exact same one.

[Bill Simmons]

It's the exact same jacket. Not that's what it said on the Internet about half ass Internet research.

[Kyle Brandt]

I know that's A power move.

[Joanna Robinson]

My whole ass Internet research found out that it's not the same jacket. But it looks the same.

[Bill Simmons]

Definitely.

[Joanna Robinson]

Definitely.

[Bill Simmons]

But he goes, is it more fun if it is the same jacket? Let's just pretend that it was.

[Joanna Robinson]

Here's my question. Here's my question. He goes to Union College, I think is the name of the college that he and Cosmo go to. And that's the college from the Way we Were.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And then Martin Bishop is a name from Three Days of the Condor.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And then the jacket is like meant to look like the jacket from the Natural. So is this just like Robert Redford fan fiction? Like is this just like let's.

[Bill Simmons]

Or is it the jacket? Maybe the Internet information's wrong.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's not the exact same jacket. But it's very close.

[Bill Simmons]

It's intimidating to have Joanna on the rewatchables just like she just whole ass.

[Kyle Brandt]

Internet research do Bill.

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't realize we were doing whole ass Internet research. I thought it was half ass.

[Joanna Robinson]

Mary McDonald's hair which is feathered to hell. Very 1992. She looks amazing. Bay Area 1992 things. First of all, they're in the Fox Theater. That's where they're. It's. It's an Oakland theater. It's a. It's a usable venue, but that's where their lair is. So 1992. The idea that these guys who a woman at the beginning of the movie says not a very good living that you make could afford that. That place in the Bay Area. 1992. The fact that they find street parking on Spear street when they do the handoff under the Bay Bridge. 1992. It's a different Bay area. Wow.

[Bill Simmons]

This is hardcore.

[Kyle Brandt]

How about that lady who says that about not a good living. What an asshole. Was that totally necessary? Hey, you know like you work the counter at a bank. Who are you? What are you casting judgment about? I hate that lady.

[Bill Simmons]

I had the computer hacker graphics and manipulating a dating service for some sort in some sort of kind of capery type thing Now. Now would you be manipulating what? What would it be now? Craig Tinder.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

You could still use a dating bumble.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Or Hinge or something.

[Bill Simmons]

Sure. Bumble. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's not even Internet dating. It's computer dating. Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's a computer.

[Bill Simmons]

But this was computer dating heyday for movies could possibly Apex Mountain because singles has a whole plot around it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

And then see you love with Pacino. They do the phone service dating thing. Yeah. Now this is why Craig didn't resonate with this movie, he didn't understand the data.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Zuckerberg saw this and was like, I'm going to come up with this.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I got to come up with better.

[Joanna Robinson]

I actually have a. I have that in. What's aged the worst when Ben Kingsley's. When Cosmo says a computer matched him with her? I don't think so. I'm like, actually, bad matches happen all the time.

[Bill Simmons]

That's why he's Sir Ben Kingsley. He lives above. He doesn't need to use a dating service.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Post 1992 thing. Hiding something in an answering machine.

[Joanna Robinson]

Mm.

[Kyle Brandt]

I mean, I had. I had a major plot point about an answering machine. Another one about a car phone. But my answer was in the actual Siskel and Ebert episode where they did the TV show on this. Gene Siskel introduces the movie by saying, starring Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, and Timothy Busfeld from 30 something like, Holy shit.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Wow.

[Kyle Brandt]

He jumped over Dan Aykroyd, who was in Ghostbusters and Mary McDonald's and Dancing with Wolves. And the producer's like, no, Gene, trust me. 30 something's big. You gotta make sure you get Busfield in there. All right.

[Joanna Robinson]

Got a stunt for buzzf.

[Bill Simmons]

I had one more. The movie ends with a national news report announcing the sudden bankruptcy of the Republican National Committee and that simultaneous large donations were made to Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and the United Negro College Fund. It just felt very 92 to me, just that they picked those charities. And then we had a national news thing. What's age the best? All the Republican barbs are pretty interesting in the 2025 context.

[Kyle Brandt]

Like, pure sucker punches right to the bridge of the nose. And I don't remember there being any conversation about it. Like, now, that would. There'd be picketing, and there'd be James woods tweets, and everyone would lose their minds.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, that's.

[Kyle Brandt]

I don't. I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

It's funny because this movie comes out right as everybody was really turning on the Republicans in 92, and Clinton was rising, and the election's about to happen.

[Joanna Robinson]

And there's that George H. W. Bush dig right? Where like, the. The homeless man's like, they're taking my home. And he's like, ask him. And he points to a Bush poster. Ye.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm telling you, in college, it happened fast. Yeah, it was going great for Bush. And then all of a sudden, people are like, he's out.

[Joanna Robinson]

We're like, okay, the guy doesn't like one stem of broccoli, and it's all over.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have for what stage the best?

[Joanna Robinson]

I would say information age paranoia and emotionally stunted men in Silicon Valley trying to run or ruin the world.

[Kyle Brandt]

I got one Bill that I know is a specialty of yours. We talked about this in the RoboCop podcast screenwriting hack. If you want to make a character loathsome and give your hero a great line, name the loathsome character Dick. And it allows Bishop to say, oh, I can't tell you what a relief that is. Pause.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Dick.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's so good. Every single time. Breakfast Club does it. Robocop does it. Sneakers does it. It always hits.

[Bill Simmons]

When we write our 80s action movie, we'll have somebody would be named Dick. We'll do that. I have. Speaking of that, of tropes, any movie like this where something happens with one of the heroes and like he falls, stumbles, whatever, and he goes, we're getting too old for this.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, the best.

[Joanna Robinson]

I, I think, I don't know how.

[Bill Simmons]

Many movies that sentence has been set in, but it's over 30.

[Joanna Robinson]

The way that he just went down biffs over that counter is so funny.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you think that was intentional hilarious?

[Joanna Robinson]

Looks like it. I think the way that Paudier just doesn't react means it's a stunt, but because he just keeps running but like.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, it's a good 50s that you can't have you get injured on that shit. It is really funny.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, it's really funny.

[Bill Simmons]

What's age the best? Dan Aykroyd is a kooky conspiracy theorist person because I think he is in real life.

[Joanna Robinson]

He definitely is. I love all the behind the scenes stuff. He goes, oh, I based this on my brother. This is my brother. I got all of this from my brother because they added all of that conspiracy theory stuff to the character while they were making the movie. They like didn't really have a full character for mother and so they added all that stuff, I think to make Dan Aykroyd feel better about the fact that he wasn't playing Cosmo. And they're like, we'll give you this runner about conspiracy theory stuff. And so in all the behind the scenes stuff, he's like, oh yeah, this is just my brother. And I'm like, dan, it's you. Actually, I think this is.

[Kyle Brandt]

Now you think the NSA killed Kelly Kennedy? No, they shot him. They didn't kill him. He's still alive. It's so good.

[Bill Simmons]

This is why when he says he.

[Kyle Brandt]

Got Storm, but he's on the other side. Oh, that kills me every time.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I can't blame a sibling for all my conspiracy theories. I just have to own them myself.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, God. I love conspiracy Bill, though for what stage?

[Bill Simmons]

The best I really like Marty's old orange Porsche is.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's my. That's my. What I want. It's not a. Do you want me to tell you it's not a.

[Bill Simmons]

What is. It's probably a fake Porsche.

[Kyle Brandt]

What is it?

[Joanna Robinson]

No, it's a vw.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, hold on. I thought Joanna might have wanted the jacket because he wore the same jacket in both movies.

[Joanna Robinson]

I would think that.

[Bill Simmons]

I thought that was like an early.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, it's. It's. It's a 1967 Volkswagen Carmen Ghia convertible. And it's the same car that Brad Pitt drives in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Brad Pitt drives the light blue one. I found that on the side.

[Bill Simmons]

They showed the side. They never showed the back of it, at least for what I could tell. So I thought it was a Porsche.

[Joanna Robinson]

I found that on the same in depth blog post where they said it's definitely not the same letterman jacket from.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't like that blog post and I'm not going to listen to them.

[Joanna Robinson]

But he goes into like, the watches that he's wearing and like all this, it's like a very like, James Bondification of Marty Bishop. What are his jackets? What are his watches? What is the car? What is his car phone?

[Bill Simmons]

I like the I will not shoot my friend. Shoot my friend.

[Kyle Brandt]

I will not shoot my friend. Great line.

[Bill Simmons]

Great bad guy moment.

[Kyle Brandt]

I also like right after that, it's, give me the box right now or I will kill you right now. Just good dialogue. I like it. It's catchy.

[Joanna Robinson]

There's also so many little unspoken joke moments. Like at the very beginning when Carl has put dark grease paint on his face in order to sort of debute night stealth mode for the bank heist. And then Sidney Poitier just like walks up and looks at him and just like keeps going. It's really good.

[Bill Simmons]

Speaking of him, mess with me, I'll split your head. All of a sudden it's just out of nowhere.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, they call me Mr. Revered Actors.

[Bill Simmons]

We had. It was crazy hearing him say that. It's crazy. Now this.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's also like kind of a screenwriting hack. If you want someone to be instantly unlikable, like some random security guard, make him say a racial slur to Sidney Poitier to turn around for no reason. And then he goes shotgun to the face. Yeah, motherfuckers messed with me. Even mother goes, wow, I Think that was just Dan Aykroyd. I don't even think that was Mother.

[Bill Simmons]

The Last would stage the Best is a pretty unique one. Nick Britell wrote this whole slate piece about how great the score was in 2012. And he was a young composer at that time, not really a named guy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Not in succession yet.

[Bill Simmons]

And eventually ends up doing all the scores for Succession, which is like, I think one of the most famous scores of this century. He talks about it and now he's doing this. He's got some stuff coming that I know about that I'm not allowed to.

[Joanna Robinson]

Say, tell me later, but he does he.

[Bill Simmons]

But he's like, I would say one of the most famous under 50 composers we have right now for movies and TV.

[Joanna Robinson]

And he talks about how obsessed he is with that James Horner score. And it is such a weird score, right, because you've got the. You got the saxophone, which is very 90s, right? And you've got this sort of like smooth saxophone.

[Bill Simmons]

Marsalis.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, Brenford Marsalis. Like, really good stuff. Then you've got the like weird. Almost like Haunted Tim Burton Christmas. Like, like vocals on there. And then you've got those like pianos off the cliff stuff that they do. And it's just like such a weird, great story that would have been a good.

[Bill Simmons]

What's the most 1992 thing about this movie is the score feels very early 90s to me, but it just feels like.

[Joanna Robinson]

It feels like three different early 90s scores.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, Horner is like. He's like the sound of the 90s. He's doing Titanic and Braveheart. Like, that's like those are just all.

[Bill Simmons]

Field of Dreams shit.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Aliens. He did all right. Pick a Hoona Burger Award for best use of food and drink. So we never see the pizza in the beginning, but I do think it wins the award.

[Joanna Robinson]

Pepperoni pizza run.

[Bill Simmons]

And I do wonder, should he have gone to get the pizza and brought it back with the box? And then Cosmo gets nailed. So we could have seen the pizza.

[Joanna Robinson]

Drop the pizza in the snow.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm always pro. I just want to see the pizza. When somebody's eating pizza in a movie.

[Kyle Brandt]

We talk so much about does he care or not that Cosmo was arrested? I think he's out there eating the pizza in front of him as he's getting handed away. And he's doing the attitude era sucking things. Like, I think he's doing all of that. He got the pizza. He ate the whole fucking thing.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, man. Tough.

[Bill Simmons]

Great chat. Great check order award.

[Kyle Brandt]

Most.

[Joanna Robinson]

Wait Wait, wait, wait. What about the dim sum that Stephen Tobolowski has stuffed in his.

[Kyle Brandt]

Were you ready for the dim sum bar?

[Bill Simmons]

That's probably a better answer.

[Joanna Robinson]

Only because we don't get to see.

[Bill Simmons]

Because we don't get to see the pizza.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What did you have for great shot? Gordo Award, Kyle? Did you have cinematic shot?

[Kyle Brandt]

This movie has a million. And mine is like a maybe like a 10 seed. But when there's a scene when Redford gets thrown out of the moving car and it's this beautiful shot of Alcatraz behind him as the sun's rising, I was like, holy shit, somebody's cooking there.

[Bill Simmons]

That's a good one.

[Joanna Robinson]

That was on my list was Sunrise on Lombard street in San Francisco. Because it's so hard to get that shot. You're in the middle of Lombard Street. But I would say the code reflected on Whistler's glasses is the, like, icon of the movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Kid Cudi, Pursuit of Happiness or Best Needle Drop is clearly guys singing Bad, Bad Leroy Brown in Chinese. That's how to say download that on Spotify.

[Joanna Robinson]

Warner, Werner Brandis. We have some notes, but your first date move is dim sum and karaoke in Chinatown. I think it's a. I think it's a 10 out of 10. I think that's a great first moment.

[Bill Simmons]

I think they made. There's a case they could have ended up together.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Hard cut to that guy. Baddest man in the whole day. I laugh every time. It's so good.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's going, what about Chain of Aretha Franklin, Chain of Fools? That be the when Mary McDonald dance with everyone. Yeah. And Dan Aykroyd has some moves.

[Kyle Brandt]

Did you know that Dan Akrord's a great dancer? Look at the credit sequence of the Great Outdoors. He's incredible. Really good dancer.

[Joanna Robinson]

Great point.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, he landed Donna Dixon. I assume he had a lot of times.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think he did that. He's a good dancer. You know what else is? He is. Come on.

[Bill Simmons]

Number one overall pick.

[Joanna Robinson]

I have another question. In the background of that party, you hear Dylan's Everybody Must Get Stoned before he starts singing. You just, like, hear the iconic opening of it. Yeah. Do you have to pay for it? If you don't hear Dylan sing, you still have to pay for it. Right? And isn't that hideously expensive?

[Bill Simmons]

On tv, you can barely eat up to seven seconds. And movies. I don't think you can. Yeah, I think you have to. You're paying. Whatever. Chess. Rockwell Brocklanders Award for best character. Name it's got to be a blind guy named Whistler. I don't know. Are we topping that?

[Joanna Robinson]

I think Warner Branders is really good. I think Gunter Janik Jannik is really good. Donald Logue's character, Whistler, Mother Kreese. Cosmo.

[Kyle Brandt]

I mean, Cosmo a couple years before Cosmo Kramer. Yeah, he just.0.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, we're taking a break, and then Joanna's got a flex category. All right, this episode is brought to you by Universal Pictures. One of cinema's most terrifying mass killers is back just in time for Halloween. Black Phone 2 hits theaters October 17th. I like Black Phone 1. Ethan Hawke returns as the Grabber and Mason tames as Finney. And this time, vengeance isn't going to let death stand in its way. Spine chilling, heart pounding. Scott Derrickson's anticipated sequel asks, do you know what happens when you die? Universal Pictures Black Phone 2 only in theaters October 17th. All right, Joanna, flex category. What do you got?

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, we already did. I actually had two because. Was there a better title for this movie? Was going to be one of the ones I picked, but we already covered that. And the only reason I had to because I was worried. This other one is the most obvious one, which is the Matt Damon and Eurotrip award for most unexpected A lister cameo.

[Kyle Brandt]

James Earl.

[Joanna Robinson]

James Earl Jones.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, that's a good one.

[Bill Simmons]

That's fair.

[Joanna Robinson]

Do you think James Earl Jones knows the words to Scott? He doesn't know. And would you like to hear that.

[Kyle Brandt]

Scotty doesn't know with Sora too?

[Craig Horlbeck]

You can.

[Joanna Robinson]

That was not an advertisement.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, no. The Butch's Girlfriend award for weak link of the film. I'm gonna go last because I'm coming in hot. What do you got, Kyle?

[Kyle Brandt]

All right. I just have no fucking idea how that black box works. I don't understand. I don't know what it means. I don't understand the technology. It's like. It's. It's a magic box. It's one of these items, like the. Like the Tesseract or the Sankara Stones or just like. It's just. Just go with it. It can hack anything in the world. I don't understand the technology or any of that shit. And everybody wants it, but I don't get it.

[Bill Simmons]

I had it in picket nits. It's basically. It's an encryption breaking chip, but it's magical. This is how you have to think about it. Mathematically, this definitely does not exist.

[Joanna Robinson]

Decode. How does it connect? Well, we don't know about it. If it does exist, would we Know about it.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's the most important.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think it would be a chip that could solve everything. Seems unrealistic to me. In 1992, I was like, okay, maybe, Huh?

[Kyle Brandt]

I just. I didn't get it. I still don't get it.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, I'm coming in way higher than that.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think mine might be the same as yours.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's in here.

[Joanna Robinson]

It is Ben Kingsley, but I love him in this movie, but it's not. Not Ben Kingsley, who's in a different movie altogether.

[Bill Simmons]

So I had Ben Kingsley as the weak link. Yeah. I also have him getting three other categories. The Judd Nelson and New Jack City award for actor who's in a completely different movie. The Ruffalo Hannah Rubenk Partridge over acting award.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

And then a new award, Kyle, just for you, the Steven Seagal award for. We should have gotten you a running double. Can we talk about his running?

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, is this what you taped?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I taped this for you guys.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's the anti red. Because Redford's a great movie runner. He's the anti Redford.

[Kyle Brandt]

Can you see the run is tough? Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, it's a double run.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's a trot.

[Bill Simmons]

He does, but then he does it again. Then he runs over the next thing. It's like he couldn't figure out how to run in loafers or something. What is he doing? How did he not do a second cut? He's, like, kind of trotting. Like he's trotting. It's almost like watching somebody run on ice when they have sneakers, like after you win the Stanley Cup. Well, we don't know what he's running.

[Joanna Robinson]

We don't know what the mafia did.

[Kyle Brandt]

To him in prison.

[Joanna Robinson]

We don't know what the mafia did to him.

[Bill Simmons]

He's the cool bad guy. He's not scary.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's not true at all. Because he just ran past a tank full of little sharks.

[Bill Simmons]

I knew Joanna would hate this.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, I don't hate it. I agree with you. Ben Kingsley is like his hair like the.

[Bill Simmons]

The weird.

[Kyle Brandt]

Just like Seagal. He's got the ponytail. The same year, same run. Actually, Bill, after you showed that video, they're not taking his sir away. It's gone.

[Bill Simmons]

Sir, when you. When you're running like that, I think that either run fast or walk fast. But you can't, like, do a job.

[Kyle Brandt]

He runs in their ability. He goes, why is it so hot in here? Hey, better question, what the fuck Was that last 10 yards? Cosmo.

[Joanna Robinson]

When all the actors were interviewed about this movie. They know exactly what this movie is, which is like light hearted entertainment. Right. It's a fun caper movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Joanna Robinson]

And you know, Aykroyd's like, my character is a conspiracy theorist. Phoenix is like, my character's the young guy who wants to be like the other guys. He worships them. And then Ben Kingsley's like, my character has no soul, no emotional core. Marty is his emotional wife. He's talking about like he's in Shakespeare. Like he's on a different project altogether and he's playing to the rafters.

[Bill Simmons]

He's not doing the, the movies Kyle and I love. And there's. And we, we even did like a 1 to 10 scale of bad guys in movies like Jeremy Irons and Die Hard with a Vengeance is a good example.

[Kyle Brandt]

Like, it's the Hans Gruber skill.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm the villain. But I'm having fun with this. There's going to be some unintentional comedy for you. I'm really going to chew up the scenery. I don't know what Ben Kingsley's doing in this movie necessarily.

[Joanna Robinson]

When he says Marty on the roof, that's not him having fun and chewing up the scenery. You don't think.

[Kyle Brandt]

I got a question, Joanna. What's going on with the moment? What's the subtext when he goes, don't go like, is he in love with him? I'm honestly asking that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Are they like he is?

[Bill Simmons]

Honestly, this made me. I had a whole crisis of Ben Kingsley.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh.

[Bill Simmons]

I started thinking through other Ben Kingsley. Yeah. I think there are other Ben Kingsley's parts. And I'm like, you know, he's really bad in Species, but I kind of enjoy how bad he is because I don't think he wants to be in the movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

In searching for Bobby Fischer, he's kind of a psychopath.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is, this take is too hot for.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Keep cooking.

[Kyle Brandt]

Keep cooking because you're right. Come on, baby.

[Joanna Robinson]

I want a social clip out of this. But the thing is, are we sure.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Ben Kingsley is good?

[Bill Simmons]

Are we sure he could have gotten Sird, But I'm with.

[Kyle Brandt]

I'm with God.

[Bill Simmons]

Schindler's Laird, if you missed the Sopranos, he's so fucking good in the Sopranos episode with Christopher that I think he is good. I just think he feels like he has to do something different in each movie and sometimes the choice doesn't work.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's trying really hard in this movie and everyone else is just having a lot of fun.

[Bill Simmons]

Now your feelings seem hurt. What do you got?

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, no, my Feelings are soaring. I think it's absolutely hilarious that Bill thinks the weak link of this Movie is a 10 second period in which Ben Kingsley runs. And I think it's funny. And I get it, you know, because he's doing the power stride with the remote and that's fine. But there's such a chasm between running and walking. He walks fine. The run is instantly terrible. It's hard to run.

[Bill Simmons]

He had different accents. He never picks an accent. And why does Cosmo have to have an accent?

[Kyle Brandt]

I don't know.

[Joanna Robinson]

No reason. He could have.

[Bill Simmons]

He's going to Union College. What is he?

[Joanna Robinson]

And also, I've heard Ben Kingsley do an American accent. He can do it. Okay. I don't know what choices he's making in this movie, but it's very strange.

[Kyle Brandt]

Take over the world, Marty. And then he's like, will you step away from the ladder? And like, holy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Which one is that?

[Kyle Brandt]

Cosmo disaster.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like almost trying, like a Bronx accent.

[Kyle Brandt]

I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

I had for recasting couch for this William Hurt.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, what's funny is that Ben. Ben Kingsley is like over 10 years younger than Robert Redford. So it is weird to have them as like old buddies almost trying to look older. Yeah, like more gray in his hair and stuff like that.

[Bill Simmons]

Jon Voight doing his coach Bud Kilmer, like, evil guy move.

[Joanna Robinson]

You don't think that, like, isn't Voight in a completely different movie in Varsity Blues? Like, Void would bring the same energy?

[Kyle Brandt]

I know y' all have a good time.

[Joanna Robinson]

It would be the same energy. It would be unhinged energy. I would. I would happily take it.

[Bill Simmons]

William Hurt.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, I think William Hurt is too normal for what you need in Cosmo. You need a guy who went to prison and, like, lost his marbles.

[Kyle Brandt]

How about. All right, how about you want someone who lost his marbles? How about Willem Dafoe?

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, there it is.

[Bill Simmons]

Willem Dafoe. That's a really good one.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's a great one.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, I mean, it's.

[Bill Simmons]

Instead of him doing Speed two. I guess that was a little bit later. Anyway, I can't wait for the social clip where we show Ben Kingsley running multiple times.

[Kyle Brandt]

Can we put on the retweet it then?

[Bill Simmons]

I'm going to take the retweet logo off and unreet it and then retweet, tweet it again so I could just keep the retweets.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's a pro move. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Hit it again. I love it.

[Bill Simmons]

What stage? The worst. You mentioned redford he was 56 when he made this movie. He's just too old to be in this movie. But I'm fine with it. I'm not arguing. But if he's in the late 60s and this movie's in 1992, that's 23 years. So even if he's, like a grad school student in Union, you're still in your mid-40s when you're in this movie and he's 56.

[Joanna Robinson]

Something that the screenwriters talked about is that, again, they worked on this from right after War Games to when it came out, so for 10 years. And they said every time they came back to the screenplay, they just changed Marty's age to their age. Marty was always their age, but they were only, like, 42 when they made the movie. So I think Marty's trying, like Redford's trying to go for early 40s in this. Failing, but trying.

[Bill Simmons]

There's a story, though, Kyle.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

From. From our guy Robinson, the director. He was at Kevin Costner's Oscar party the night he won with Dances With Wolves. A CA agent came up to him. They're making sneakers at this point, and he's trying to get Bob into the movie. And he's like, bob who? He said, redford for what movie? Sneakers. For what role? The lead. And he said, no, no, no. The character's my age. It's a lot younger. And then he said, all right, just send it to him. I don't want to insult him. He's one of my idols.

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay?

[Bill Simmons]

And then he read it. And when Robert Redford wants to do your movie and you're Phil Adam Robinson, you say yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

You say yes, and everyone follows Rob Redford. Like, that's how they get everyone into.

[Bill Simmons]

That's why there's no casting what ifs for this movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Exactly.

[Bill Simmons]

Because everyone's like, redford's in.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm in.

[Kyle Brandt]

I have to. Unanswerable questions. I don't want to insult you, Joanna, because I know you love this movie and love Bradford.

[Bill Simmons]

So do I. I already insulted her with the Ben Kinsler stuff. Don't worry.

[Joanna Robinson]

Uninsulted. I'm living my best life. I'm Sneakers. Rewatchables. I couldn't be happier.

[Kyle Brandt]

All right. Is this a better movie with Kevin Costner in the lead? Just. Just hear me out. I think he's slightly funnier than Robert Redford. He can be just as charming. He's a little younger. And if you put Willem Dafoe as Cosmo, you get the band back together with Mary McDonnell and James Earl. It might be a better movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

I wouldn't hate it because I do love this era of Costner.

[Bill Simmons]

A lot would have been great.

[Joanna Robinson]

But I love that Robert Redford did this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's an important Redford catalog movie. He needs it. But you're right. Costner is really good in this movie. If he's in it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Absolutely.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

More wood. Sage. The worst. So listen, I love Scrabble. Huge Simmons family game. But I wonder, like, if this movie was made now, would it be like they're playing Block Blast or Roblox? Does anyone Play Scrabble in 2025? When was the last time Scrabble happened?

[Joanna Robinson]

I play Scrabble with my nephews. People. People play Scrabble.

[Bill Simmons]

Younger people are playing Scrabble still.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, Craig, it's like a board game.

[Bill Simmons]

When was the last time you got a Scrabble board?

[Craig Horlbeck]

I haven't played Scrabble in a while, but that doesn't mean it's. It's too old. Also, like Redford656. In this movie, they're playing. You know, what would you be playing now?

[Bill Simmons]

I'm just. I'm thinking about, for a. What's age the worst? Seeing Scrabble pieces, which I think really meant something in 1992 because Scrabble, Monopoly were like, the big two.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I don't know. I think there's still a kind of a nostalgic love for Scrabble in 25.

[Bill Simmons]

The seduction scene in the math guy's office is too silly.

[Joanna Robinson]

I leave message on service, but you do not call.

[Bill Simmons]

It becomes an SNL sketch for two minutes.

[Kyle Brandt]

Do what we did in Mexico City, baby.

[Joanna Robinson]

I didn't know you could do that in Mexico City.

[Bill Simmons]

Anything else, Kyle? For Wood stage. The worst.

[Kyle Brandt]

No, we covered all mine. Okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

I have one. I think most of David STR is good. It could be dicey in the early 90s. But, like, I think the dancing. I might. I might do another take on the dancing, which is a little TV wonder for my taste.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Kyle, you have a flex category.

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay. I was gonna go Rock band Cootie's Rat Seaman, who would totally be on the Vans Warp tour. But instead I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go with the Mallory Rubin did this movie need a better sex scene? And you think that I'm gonna say that it's Bish and Liz? It's not. It's Carl and Mary at the fucking end of the movie. I have always loved Mary with the Uzi. I always Thought she was a total babe. Her name's Amy Benedict. She's worked consistently for 30 years.

[Bill Simmons]

She's the babysitter in 30 something who I think had an affair with somebody.

[Kyle Brandt]

Perfect. Yeah, I feel like Carl deserved like some love at the end of the movie. And Bill, I'm sorry, Joanne, I'm going to defile this podcast. But Bill, I'd like to officially induct Carl into the Rudy Rudiger Horny hall of Fame. Characters Carl is in. Loud and Swain from Vision Quest is in. And Bill, you nominated both Wyatt and Gary from Wayne Science. Weird Science. Yes, they're in. And Carl is in. At the strength of getting the phone number. Yes. Who else?

[Bill Simmons]

Joel Goodson has to be in.

[Kyle Brandt]

Joel Goodson, without a doubt. In the suburbs of Chicago. He's first ballot guy and so is Carl.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. Do you think if it's 1992, we have the same terrible poster, the same terrible title, but the tagline is there's a River Phoenix sex scene in this. Do you think this movie does better?

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes, as long as this is married.

[Joanna Robinson]

And there's a River Phoenix sex scene.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah, I think river gets them.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, they push River Phoenix, everything's good. The Sierra thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. Hottest take award. What do you have, Joanna?

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, here's my. My tepid take is this is Redford's best film of the 90s and I don't think it's particularly close. My hotter take is I think this is Redford's last great movie barring his Marvel movies.

[Kyle Brandt]

Directorial.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, directorial doesn't count. Barring his Marvel movies, I think for.

[Bill Simmons]

Acting, I would agree.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, this is the last great people.

[Bill Simmons]

Would put Quiz show as a. He directed it, but he directed it.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm not talking about Chris show is unimpeachable, but like there's a couple late, late Redford stuff that people stump for. But I think this is it. This is his last great movie.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have, Kyle?

[Kyle Brandt]

Mine's got some heat on it.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh boy.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm ready.

[Kyle Brandt]

Marty Bishop doing the slow walk across Cosmo's office and back is more impressive to me than anything Ethan Hunt ever did in a Mission Impossible movie. Let me lay it down for you.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm with you. I had fucking gone Mission Impossible.

[Kyle Brandt]

And I think this is a 56 year old man who has been knocked unconscious three times in the last couple days. He is doing this in a room that is 98.3 and the shotguns are coming for him. If he goes 3 inches per second, instead of 2, Ethan Hunt learned to hold his breath for a long time. La de da di da. Everything he did is physical and can be trained with some balls over enough time. Bish, poise, focus. When I was a kid and I watched this movie, I used to try to walk across my room holding, like, a slaughtered CD and trying to do this. And after, like, 20 seconds, I just get bored with it and stop. It's fucking impossible. I think it's incredible that he pulled it off.

[Joanna Robinson]

Kyle is so generous that at the start of this podcast, you're like, joanna, you might be a better sneakers fan than I am. When you used to sort of, like, practice Bish's slow walk across.

[Bill Simmons]

The three of us are here. If either of you had been left out, it would have. I don't know if it would have been reparable.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's an incredible anecdote. I love to know that I should.

[Bill Simmons]

Kyle should have gone last.

[Kyle Brandt]

No, go on. What do you got? Beat the three heads.

[Bill Simmons]

Mine is. Mine isn't. It's not incredibly hot. It's not as good as what you just did. But I think in 2025, right now, when you think of all the people that are alive in the world and how many people, like, under 40 there are, I think this might be his most popular movie.

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay, go on.

[Joanna Robinson]

Redford's most popular movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, because, like, the Sting, Butch Cassidy. I just don't think people under 40 are ever watching those or if they. Unless, like, bullying them.

[Joanna Robinson]

Called Captain America, Winter Soldier. And then he made a movie called Avengers Endgame, but that's not his movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Winter Soldier doesn't count as a rescue.

[Kyle Brandt]

There's one movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Go ahead.

[Kyle Brandt]

There's.

[Bill Simmons]

Go ahead, John.

[Kyle Brandt]

Go ahead.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, if you're like, what do young people know him from? They know.

[Bill Simmons]

That's a different question. Winter Soldier, I'm saying most popular movie that he was the front of, I would have said the Natural forever, but I don't even know if the Natural has aged the same way. Like, in the 90s, you would have said the Natural. No question.

[Joanna Robinson]

Butch Cassidy. Honestly, just, like, in terms of where it stands.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know how many people are watching Butch Cassidy anymore, though. That's what worries me. I would have said all the President's Men is the other one.

[Kyle Brandt]

I know what you're saying. That, like, I always say, like, if I showed it to my son, could he make it through the movie? There's one movie that relies on infamy, and it's Indecent Proposal, and the whole Thing about million bucks to be with Demi Moore for the night. That is a concept like a relevancy.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Like even that gimmick. If you remade it, it would be interesting. Just the fact that you could do that and you make it 100 million for a night like that one. Maybe. But I see what you're saying with the sneaker.

[Bill Simmons]

I think the answer might be all the President's Men, though. It's either that comes up every total.

[Joanna Robinson]

Relevance in the current political landscape that we live.

[Bill Simmons]

Still the best journalism movie ever.

[Joanna Robinson]

Put it back on. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Casting what ifs.

[Joanna Robinson]

We don't have any Mary. Mary Steenburgeon as Liz.

[Bill Simmons]

I saw that. I disregarded it. It said she was considered version was.

[Joanna Robinson]

When I see considered, I thought I didn't care.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like saying Van Nathan was considered for the sneakers podcast.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What does considered means? Somebody mentioned once best that guy Timothy Busfield. Not eligible.

[Kyle Brandt]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

You know who is eligible? Our guy, Stephen Tobolowski.

[Craig Horlbeck]

All time. That guy.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think I sat next to Stephen Tobolowski at a wedding once and we shared an Uber back to the hotel.

[Kyle Brandt]

How was he?

[Bill Simmons]

Is that where it ended?

[Joanna Robinson]

That's where it ended.

[Bill Simmons]

That sounded like a romantic.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's where the evening ended.

[Bill Simmons]

I was married to Stephen Tobolowski.

[Kyle Brandt]

Wow. Joanna. Was he like, Joanna, would you like to have breakfast with me? Should I phone you or nudge you?

[Joanna Robinson]

You know what is the best nutrition? The bottom of a monkey cage.

[Kyle Brandt]

I read that somewhere.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Yeah. Warner Brandis.

[Craig Horlbeck]

He's great. Phil.

[Bill Simmons]

I woke Phil Connors. Here's my question. Is there a better three year that guy run?

[Kyle Brandt]

Go on.

[Bill Simmons]

Pantoliano accepted.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Then Thelma and Louise, Basic Instinct, single white female sneakers and Groundhog Day all in three years.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's a great run.

[Bill Simmons]

Three years.

[Kyle Brandt]

Tobolowski has an awesome one scene part in Spaceballs as well where they capture the stunt doubles. He's just. He's so, so good. He has a podcast now. He talks about this stuff.

[Bill Simmons]

He's loved this movie. I think if you're ranking Toby, if we did Toba Laski rankings, Groundhog Day's gotta still be number one. Phil.

[Joanna Robinson]

Can I say needle nose?

[Kyle Brandt]

Ned. Ned the head. Yes. The best.

[Joanna Robinson]

My friend's Wedding, who I sat next to, that friend is like the first person I ever podcasted with. David Chen. And the first time I ever talked to him on the phone, he called me and he's like, oh, wait, hold on, I have someone on the other line. And he's like, oh, I'm gonna Patch him through. And it was Stephen Tobolowski. And basically he. He had Stephen. I've never called him on this, but I'm pretty sure he had. He got Stephen Tobolowski on the line to, like, impress me so that I would do a podcast with him.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow.

[Joanna Robinson]

It was really, really funny.

[Bill Simmons]

I bet it worked.

[Joanna Robinson]

It did work. Yeah. And then we wound up at his.

[Kyle Brandt]

Phil got the shingles real bad senior year. Yeah. Phil told me not to.

[Bill Simmons]

Is he first ballad hall of Fame for that guy. He's got to be right 100%.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I also think he doesn't. His name is hard to remember, which I think factors into the that Guy rankings. If he had a really cool, memorable name that was easy to kind of reflect.

[Joanna Robinson]

Tobolowski's the cool name.

[Bill Simmons]

I gotta say, I forgot his name again. Of course, when. And we've done this is 1, 2, 3, rewatch.

[Craig Horlbeck]

If his name was like Mac Jones, you would never forget that. But Stephen Pelosi, I think you should.

[Joanna Robinson]

Rename this the Stephen Tobolowski best that Guy award.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, it's already named after Joe Penny.

[Joanna Robinson]

But I think you should. You should put Tobo on there. Donald Logue is also in this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

He's telling me, everybody stop me to go myself. Nobody beats Joey pants.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. I also do think that Eddie Jones, who's also in A League of Their Own and the Grifters and Rocketeers, He's a good.

[Bill Simmons]

So that's a really good. That guy. Because I didn't even know what that guy's name was. Yeah, yeah. Dan Waiters. James Earl Jones. Can we just move on?

[Joanna Robinson]

But I would know also. Amy Benedict is Mary. I think.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think that's like a good shout out to Mary. I love Mary. We love Mary was like stone cold at WrestleMania just kicking ass and clearing.

[Joanna Robinson]

So fun fact. She gives him a 415 number, which is a real Bay Area area code. And for a while that you could call that number and you got.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, they owned it, right?

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

You got a little, like, message of like, we should do that. I agree. I love it.

[Bill Simmons]

Kyle and I do our action movie. We're going to do a real phone number.

[Joanna Robinson]

I love a phone number.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, we'll just buy the phone number and then it'll be like an actual. People could call it recasting couch. We already did it. Unless there's another recasting.

[Kyle Brandt]

No, I'm good.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, Craig, you have a flex category.

[Kyle Brandt]

Come on, Craig.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I'm going positive, which might surprise you. I'm doing Den of Thieves scene Stealing location. I think San Francisco, the area.

[Joanna Robinson]

Hell yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Is the best movie location.

[Joanna Robinson]

Hell yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Straight up.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I think it's the most diverse. You have water, you have skyscrapers. The streets, the hills, bridges. The bridges. I feel like you can kind of do Chinatown. And I think the first hour of this movie is a little slow. And I honestly think it picks up the second they go outside and you start to see the bridge and you kind of realize you're in San Francisco. It super picks up, you know, vertigo, Mrs. Doubtfire, big trouble in Little China. There's so many great San Francisco movies that I. I think it's the.

[Joanna Robinson]

You can.

[Craig Horlbeck]

You can do the most with San Francisco compared to like New York, Chicago or la.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's a good take.

[Joanna Robinson]

You know, I really agree as someone from the bear. Thank you so much.

[Bill Simmons]

But no.

[Joanna Robinson]

But also I think the Rock.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Another good.

[Joanna Robinson]

This is such a good bear. Like as I said, Barry movie. They didn't film they. The tunnel scene where they kill the Russian guy. Greg did not. Was not filmed in the Rainbow Tunnel. But it might as well be. Like you feel like you're in the Bay Area when you. There's enough external shots. You get a cable car. You get all the things that you need.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I think you can do the most with it.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, it's a great take.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, it bums me out because San Francisco versus Boston, there's been a little rivalry about what's a cooler city to go visit, live in. All that, you know, very similar. They're bookends to each other. And San Francisco's always translated way better in movies. And I just got. I gotta hand it to it.

[Joanna Robinson]

There's more distinct landmarks.

[Bill Simmons]

Even like. Like random movies like so. So I Married an Ax Murder.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Basic Instinct. Like movies that. Especially when we do like the drive, whether you can see the water, like the weird cliffs and stuff, up to.

[Joanna Robinson]

Wine country at some point. The car. Mike Myers drives the same. That same orange car. And so I married an axe murderer. I feel like it was just like a San Francisco car they had around.

[Kyle Brandt]

Hey, did you also hear Robert Redford wears the same leather jacket and two movies.

[Joanna Robinson]

Same exact one identical.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm with you on San Francisco. Good one, Craig. Half past, earned research. So they pranked Robinson. They had a visit from the Office of Naval Intelligence who was trying to get him to change the script because it was divulging too much stuff. And it turned out it was a prank and he was freaked out about it and got a lawyer. And then it was probably like Redford because it was pranked. Redford loved pranks. He was a big prankster, like Clooney.

[Kyle Brandt]

Same thing.

[Bill Simmons]

The character. There's a lot of stuff about the characters based on people who were famous.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, Cap' N Crunch.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, you can Google that if you want. But there's.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, here's what. Here's what I'll say about the phone freakers. The, like, the inspirations for all these.

[Bill Simmons]

Guys, the character names, all that stuff.

[Joanna Robinson]

Something to. To contextualize it is that, like, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were phone freakers. Like, they. They started by selling these, like, blue boxes, which you could use. There's, like, a shot at Ma Bell in this movie, right? You got to. Got to take money from Ma Bell, right?

[Kyle Brandt]

Like, yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

So they founded, like, the Apple fortune. Starts with these two guys illegally defrauding the phone company, and that's like a Silicon Valley dream origin story. And that's the kind of guys that this is. This is dealing with.

[Bill Simmons]

I never knew about that Captain Crunch whistle thing as, like, you could hack into phone calls and stuff.

[Kyle Brandt]

I didn't either. I just. I. Is that like one of those things like Paul from Wonder Years as Marilyn Manson? I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

Very strange.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, that's real. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So the professor they used to help. Help them with, like, the consulting professor, Len Adelman, one of the three mathematicians who invented the RSA cryptosystem, the A.

[Joanna Robinson]

And rsa.

[Bill Simmons]

Much later. Yeah. They had kind of a dream team of people helping them out with this.

[Joanna Robinson]

So he wrote all the Yannick lecture notes and his. And what he says there, which is, like, actual, real math, I guess. But did you see the fact that the reason they got Len Alderman to do this is he wanted his wife to be able to meet Robert Redford? And it reminded me of. I don't remember if you guys said this on the Tin cup rewatchables, but it reminds me of the story of, like, how they got all the golf. The actual golf guys in Tin cup is that they just trotted Costner and Don Johnson around to all of their watch.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, yeah, yeah. That is true.

[Joanna Robinson]

So this is what link they were. Like, your wife could meet Robert Redford if you do this favor for us. It's great. It's a great trick to have.

[Bill Simmons]

We'll take one more break, and then we'll do Apex Mountain.

[Joanna Robinson]

This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Carvana lets you buy your next car on your terms, explore a massive inventory online, filter for what matters, and find your perfect Match. Then choose delivery to your home. Or buy pick it up at one of Carvana's iconic car vending machines. Every car also comes with a seven day money back guarantee, so you can make sure it's the right fit. Buy your car on Carvana. Delivery or pickup fees may apply. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven day return [e-mail] Carvana Apex Mountain.

[Bill Simmons]

Redford. Obviously not.

[Joanna Robinson]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

It's probably not for River Phoenix. But what is River Phoenix's Apex Mountain Stand by?

[Joanna Robinson]

Me or my own private Idaho or.

[Bill Simmons]

Idaho running on NC Idaho. Yeah. Sidney Poitier. No way. 1967.

[Kyle Brandt]

Great. In the movie though.

[Bill Simmons]

Absolutely killing it. Actually one of the best Apex Mountain years anyone ever had. 67.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Won the Oscar. He's like two of the biggest movies. He was just killing it. Yeah. Crushing it. Ackroyd now weird Ben Kingsley performances.

[Craig Horlbeck]

That's Species.

[Bill Simmons]

I still think Species. Right. It's nuts in Species.

[Joanna Robinson]

But that movie is.

[Bill Simmons]

He tries to lock Madsen and Mark Helgenberger and the glass case. Keep them in there, murder them.

[Kyle Brandt]

This movie's about guys who sneak around in the banks. That movie's about a woman's tongue goes through the back of somebody's head. Like. It's gotta be that.

[Joanna Robinson]

I saw that on HBO way too young. And I just. It changed me forever.

[Bill Simmons]

One of the. One of the classics. Walking 1 inch per hour to evade security sensors.

[Joanna Robinson]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

Has to be it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Sure. And yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Scrabble tiles.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The name Cosmo in a piece of pop culture. I'm going to still say Seinfeld.

[Kyle Brandt]

Gotta be Seinfeld.

[Bill Simmons]

Although there was a Cosmo renaissance here in the early 90s.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Geese sounding like a cocktail party.

[Kyle Brandt]

They stole that parallel.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's in a different movie as well. They took that from a different movie. Okay. But I love it. I did not write it down. Mary McDonald characters half as Internet research for you. But you. Would you watch it? Would you do a double feature of geese sounding like cocktail party?

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. I need to be covered on all things secret, so. Yes, absolutely.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'll text it to you later.

[Kyle Brandt]

All right. Please.

[Bill Simmons]

Mary McDonald character is being seduced by old flames. Probably this over blue chips.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Mary McDonald. Now it's dances with Wolves. How about Braille Playboy? Seen Braille Playboy?

[Kyle Brandt]

Playboy. Awesome.

[Bill Simmons]

In a movie before. That's got.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's how we were back then, Bill. I would have looked at a Braille Playboy just to get my hands on. I don't even know what it means. This is great. This feels like one.

[Bill Simmons]

And then helium voice jokes. The answer is no. But this movie reminded me how much helium voice humor is just going to get me every time.

[Joanna Robinson]

Key to the 90s.

[Bill Simmons]

What is it about helium voices?

[Kyle Brandt]

It's like the whoopee cushion of performance. Stupidest, dumbest gag. It's always funny, Craig.

[Bill Simmons]

It still plays in 2025.

[Craig Horlbeck]

100%. I've done it many times.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's eternal.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's fun to do.

[Joanna Robinson]

Transcends generation. I don't know.

[Kyle Brandt]

Is it.

[Craig Horlbeck]

How bad is it for you?

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's horrible.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Is it terrible or is it.

[Bill Simmons]

I think that's why Kanye went.

[Joanna Robinson]

Craig, how often are you doing it?

[Craig Horlbeck]

It's a mini whip it. I've probably done it five times in my life.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think it'll be okay.

[Bill Simmons]

This is what happened to Kanye.

[Craig Horlbeck]

He did too many helium balloons.

[Joanna Robinson]

Too many helium hits.

[Bill Simmons]

Cruise or Hanks?

[Joanna Robinson]

This is Hanks.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's a. It's a perfect Hanks role. Although I think it'd be funny if Cruz was in it and had to do the slow walk because he's known for running.

[Joanna Robinson]

Right.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think it would be. Cosmo would have to re engineer his office that if you walk slower than 20 miles an hour, you're dead. So that's the only way Cruz does it.

[Bill Simmons]

It's Clearly Hanks in 92. I think actually Hanks could have done it. Played older, but can I just throw out older Cruz? Make maybe 2005 range? Cruz as Cosmo.

[Joanna Robinson]

As Cosmo.

[Bill Simmons]

As Cosmo.

[Joanna Robinson]

Does he have the Magnolia ponytail?

[Bill Simmons]

He's got a weird hairdo. Yeah, he's got Vanilla sky kind of energy.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay. Vanilla sky energy plus magnolia.

[Bill Simmons]

His running is way better than TJ Mackie hair. No accent. Yeah, he's got TJ Mackie hair.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

He's way more angry about getting ditched during the pizza and a little almost dork.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's about the information. I don't know if I could take it. Tame the box.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, we'll go with Hanks, Scorsese or Spielberg? Clearly Spielberg. This is very Spielberg.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think if it's Scorsese, you got De Niro as Bish and you got Pesci as Cosmo, and it's just a whole different movie. I fucking told you. Pepperoni pizza, you hippie.

[Bill Simmons]

They're definitely do cocaine in the. In the.

[Kyle Brandt]

In Union College, Rolling Stones and all that.

[Bill Simmons]

What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played? Clearly Ackroyd's part.

[Joanna Robinson]

No. 2. River Phoenix's role.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, but you can have Hoffman any.

[Joanna Robinson]

But but remember in, like, early Hoffman when he was doing, like, in Twister, like, he's doing kind of these, like, doofy, like.

[Bill Simmons]

She's right.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. Dusty from Twister.

[Bill Simmons]

Picking knits that we haven't done.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh.

[Joanna Robinson]

Given that River Phoenix gets to the office through the vents in the ceiling, did they need the Warner Brandis voice passport at all?

[Kyle Brandt]

Like, maybe Bish could have just done what Carl did.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, he's 56, so I don't know if he could have, but he could have. Someone could have on the team crawled through the vents.

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I have a picky knit off that picking knit.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Only in movies are these ceiling vents this easy to just crawl around in. In real life, this would be the seventh circle of hell. There would be rodent poop and just all kinds of awful stuff. It'd be pitch black. There'd be just nothing good about being in a ceiling. And in movies, they make it just seem like you can move around. Like, it's like a fun maze.

[Kyle Brandt]

In Mission Impossible 1, a rat shows up in the ceiling vent that he's in. But I also think the entry points. I don't know about you guys. Anytime I'm in an elevator or, like, a public bathroom, I always look at the vents to see if I needed to crawl out, if I could. They're like, 8 inches by 8 inches. They're tiny.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I always do that every elevator.

[Kyle Brandt]

I do it all the time.

[Bill Simmons]

You do vent checks?

[Joanna Robinson]

You check your escape routes.

[Kyle Brandt]

Could I McLean this thing if I had to?

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm gonna start doing that. I love that.

[Bill Simmons]

At least you're not doing it. Hoping the Silence of the Lamb's Cop is bleeding to death over the oatmeal?

[Joanna Robinson]

What's Apex Mountain for ceiling vent climbing? And is it the scene in Jurassic park when Lex falls to the ceiling and it's clearly her stunt double, and she looks up and they've, like, CGI replaced her face with the little girl's face. But she's got the guns of the magnetic.

[Bill Simmons]

Ceiling vent falls all time.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, I mean, I just think ceiling bed. I think just come out to the coast.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

If you left, I think it's got.

[Joanna Robinson]

To be that McLean Fair.

[Bill Simmons]

Marty never tried to find Cosmo, ever. Never tried to make sure he was dead. Just never gave it up. Oh, he must be dead in prison.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay, if you heard somebody died in prison, would your, like, first thought be, maybe he didn't?

[Bill Simmons]

Was he friends with Cosmo's parents? Did he check in? Did he.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, he's underground. He's on the run.

[Bill Simmons]

Cosmo's accent.

[Joanna Robinson]

We discussed disaster.

[Bill Simmons]

Why did Cosmo. Why did he want the black box this badly?

[Joanna Robinson]

Because the government can't have it. If the government has it, then he can't do what he wants to do, which is steal everyone's money. Question mark. What's his plan?

[Bill Simmons]

That's. That's my thing. That's what I'm getting.

[Joanna Robinson]

What's his plan?

[Bill Simmons]

What's his plan? Just to disrupt or did he want to be rich? Because then he says, I don't want anyone to be rich.

[Kyle Brandt]

I think he just wants to take the money and distribute it evenly among everybody, which is insane. It doesn't make sense.

[Bill Simmons]

But so he's. So. He's. So. He cares about all people, but is also threatening people and shooting them and telling people to be murdered.

[Joanna Robinson]

You can't say, I want to, you know, socialist communist utopia and have many sharks in a tank in your office.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

You can't wear loafers that are too.

[Bill Simmons]

Expensive in the character at all. Yeah, he's evil, but he's not evil. But he's thinking about everybody else. But then he's burning his best friend. What's going on with Cosmo?

[Kyle Brandt]

What he should do is spend the money on a treadmill and a trainer so he can learn how to run.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Kyle Brandt]

But that's.

[Bill Simmons]

Or like. Or loafers that have better grip.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Let's get him some New Balance.

[Joanna Robinson]

He's a. Scuff up the bottoms of those loafers.

[Bill Simmons]

My last pick, and it is Redford and Mary McDonald have the exact same haircut. And it's disorienting. If you really study it.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's very feathered.

[Bill Simmons]

It's the exact same.

[Joanna Robinson]

Very feathered.

[Bill Simmons]

In fact, they could have switched hair during the movie and you wouldn't have even noticed.

[Kyle Brandt]

This is two years after Demi Moore's haircut in Ghost and it was showing up everywhere. It was a very, very hot haircut.

[Joanna Robinson]

Very flowy.

[Kyle Brandt]

It was in vogue. I'm not surprised that it shows up in this movie. I have a. It's really, really annoying to me that after they pulled off the heist of the century that Mary McDonnell does the Desean Jackson at the one yard line and does her stupid line about the computer dating and blows the whole fucking thing. It drives me nuts that she even says that and then figures it out immediately. She blows it completely.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, just. You already won. Yeah. It is like the holding the ball at the half inch line.

[Kyle Brandt]

On the Cardinals. Just did it against the Titans. Very hot. Right now, I don't know, because.

[Bill Simmons]

Just keep your mouth shut and get out of the office.

[Kyle Brandt]

Thank you.

[Joanna Robinson]

She's playing this whole role the whole time, which is like. The only way she gets out of this is to act so annoyed and discredit Tobollowski's character. Right. She's like Werner. Like, she's pulling this whole attitude. So it's like part of her that.

[Kyle Brandt]

Was the walk off Joanna Werner was her walk off line. Get in the end zone. The other thing I have is wildly different. It really bothers me in the last scene than when Sidney Poitier, he said, you will buy us two first class tickets all over Europe and Tahiti. He doesn't mention anything about hotel or accommodations. Where are they gonna stay in those places? That's very expensive. If he goes to Tahiti, it's all about the over the water bungalows. All he says is airfare. And that's always bothered me. What about the hotel?

[Joanna Robinson]

All expense paid.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's what he needs to say that.

[Joanna Robinson]

All expense paid. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Like a week later, James Earl Jones's sidekick is calling him. Hey, just following up on the trip.

[Kyle Brandt]

Good question. How does that happen?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Also, they're. Well, whatever. They're hackers of the moral code, I guess. But I learned in war games that you could just hack your way into a flight anywhere and it's not a problem. So.

[Bill Simmons]

Any other nitpicks, or can I.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, I'm good.

[Bill Simmons]

Sequel, Prequel. Prestige. Tv, all black caster, Untouchable. I rarely do the sequel. Answer for this. We could get more, not against it. Sneakers too. 20, 27.

[Joanna Robinson]

But Redford's gone and Poitier is gone. And Phoenix is gone.

[Bill Simmons]

Somebody's kid.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah. It's like Heat, they just make him younger guy.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Kingsley back, though. Sir Van Kingsley.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe he. Another shot. Exit. Sneakers, too.

[Kyle Brandt]

I mean.

[Joanna Robinson]

I mean, I wouldn't.

[Bill Simmons]

Would you? Here's the thing. SNKRS 2 is out. They've made a trailer for it. You're not clicking on the Sneakers 2 trailer to see what's going on.

[Joanna Robinson]

How do you feel about Heat 2?

[Bill Simmons]

Not ready to answer.

[Kyle Brandt]

Good question.

[Joanna Robinson]

Okay.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, Bill.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's how I feel. What about a Kreese prequel? How Kreese got kicked out of the CIA.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's all great. Yes. The answers to this are all right. Except if they made Sneakers two, they're so bad at making titles, they'd call it like, sneakers 2. Sneakier still sneak in.

[Bill Simmons]

Sneaky still sneak in. Or sneakier. Yeah, you're right. That's what it'd be called. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Mad Dog Russo, Doris Burke, Buffalo Bill, Sam Jackson, Nell Byron Mayo, Tony Romo, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Long legs, or Wilford Brimley in the Firm? Kyle, I know you have something cooking.

[Kyle Brandt]

Bet your ass I do. Bill and I go none of the above. But if we go to that surveillance truck outside of the fortress at the end and I see all those monitors, I know for a fact that Scott Hansen is standing in there just watching the action. We go to play Tronics, the future of toys. Let's start on Cosmo Cam. Preposterous ponytail, nonsensical rhetoric. Give me the Carl cam. Carl started his own private inferno at 98. 6 degrees. But let's go to the Bish Cam. Next gen stats, 1 inch per second. Let's go to roof cam. Guys, can we go? Can we. Can we go? Can we go to the roof cam? Yes, the roof cam. Where answering machines become boxes and boxes become answering machines. Wow.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, my God. The best part of this is, does Joanna know what that was?

[Kyle Brandt]

Great question.

[Joanna Robinson]

No, but I loved it. Also, you got increasingly flushed as you went, and I was just like, former actor. Well, I know Scott does it for seven hours.

[Kyle Brandt]

I did it for 30 seconds.

[Bill Simmons]

So he was. That was Scott Hansen from the Red Zone on Sundays with NFL.

[Joanna Robinson]

Thanks for explaining.

[Bill Simmons]

Eight games at once. And Scott, like, maniacally takes you from game to game. Let's go to Arizona. So that was that.

[Joanna Robinson]

Thanks for that, Bill. I appreciate it.

[Bill Simmons]

I'd like to explain NFL and Sopranos to you.

[Joanna Robinson]

I like when you make me feel included. It means a lot.

[Bill Simmons]

So speaking of Kyle's acting, I just wanted to get this out. I don't know why you weren't in Chad Powers. You're right there. You work for the NFL. Technically, I work with Omar. You acted. It's a college football show where the actors can be older because they're at, like, a Division 2 thing. I don't know why you weren't the running back. I don't know why you weren't the wide receiver coach. Just as your friend, on your behalf, I was insulted.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, thank you.

[Bill Simmons]

Right there.

[Kyle Brandt]

Thank you. Do we have the TikTok cam going on this? Send this to Eli and Peyton, who have been very nice to me. I would have been ready to do it. I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

You're right there. How many actors, slash former football players, slash. In the NFL universe are there at this point?

[Joanna Robinson]

Season two.

[Bill Simmons]

And you know who else Was right there. Craig, longtime football.

[Joanna Robinson]

Get in here.

[Bill Simmons]

Craig moved out here now.

[Joanna Robinson]

I had to act Chad Power, season two. Should we call Michael Waldron, get you in Chad Power Season two?

[Kyle Brandt]

I would love that, but, you know, the Glen Powell Project. I want to be in more. Is the Running man so I can play Dynamo and sing opera.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm into that, you know.

[Kyle Brandt]

Thank you, though, Bill.

[Bill Simmons]

As I was appalled that they were remaking the Running man, obviously. Even though I love Glenn Powell. Saw the trailer.

[Joanna Robinson]

You're in.

[Bill Simmons]

In the movie theater.

[Joanna Robinson]

You're in all in. You're in all in. Let's go.

[Bill Simmons]

They reinvented it. It's different than the movie. I'm okay. We're okay with this, right?

[Kyle Brandt]

Hell, yes, we are. I'm in.

[Bill Simmons]

Just one Oscar. Who gets it? It's got to be the score, right?

[Joanna Robinson]

James Horner.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. The score for one Oscar.

[Kyle Brandt]

I thought I was going to give it to Mary McDonald for doing multiple scenes pretending she's not attracted to our guy Redford, but that's tough lifting. But, yeah, Horner. Amazing.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay. Probably unanswerable questions. So, as it turns out, over the next 33 years, the NSA figured out how to spy on us anyway. Joanna, does that ruin the movie? These guys saved us from the nsa. Oh, no, they didn't. They're probably listening right now. They have cameras on us.

[Joanna Robinson]

They're definitely listening right now.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

That's who you hear breathing on the other new phone line. Right.

[Bill Simmons]

So SNKRS won, but they didn't really win because they lost.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's right.

[Bill Simmons]

We all lost because we're all being surveilled at all times.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Probably an answerable questions. Is this officially a San Francisco movie for you? Yeah, it's a level one San Francisco movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Absolutely. Top tier for me. Craig just rolled his eyes, but yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Level two for you, Craig.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I'm thinking about how much San Francisco is in the movie that is identifiable as San Francisco. I wish there was a little bit.

[Bill Simmons]

More, but, yeah, my favorite movie ever, San Francisco movie.

[Craig Horlbeck]

This one.

[Bill Simmons]

Which is what, 48 hours?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The movie I've seen the most times.

[Kyle Brandt]

I was like, I don't remember all.

[Bill Simmons]

The pieces of San Francisco.

[Joanna Robinson]

What's your favorite San francisco part of 48 Hours?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, my God. I mean, there's wide shots of when he's driving to the bridge to go see Reggie in jail. There's the Chinatown. Multiple Chinatown scenes when we're using everything. We get the car chase. We get to go up and down hills. Amazing stuff.

[Joanna Robinson]

Have you ever seen the track of the Bullet car chase. Oh yeah, in San Francisco. Have you ever seen the fact that like someone tracked where it takes place in San Francisco and basically like he's down in Pac Heights and then he's over in Sutro and he's just like.

[Bill Simmons]

He'S going downhill for too long?

[Joanna Robinson]

No, he just like leaps over nine different subsequent places.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, you know what, they're filming Bullet in like the early 70s. They have no idea the Internet's coming and we'll be able to just dissect everything. Right?

[Joanna Robinson]

It's really funny.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Has Pac Bell park ever been in a movie? Have they ever gone to a Giants game in a movie?

[Kyle Brandt]

Great park.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I feel like that would be.

[Kyle Brandt]

Did they do it in the fan? The fan? He's on the Giants.

[Bill Simmons]

No, that was still a candlestick.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh yeah. I don't even know if they shot it in San Francisco.

[Bill Simmons]

Boston had a great fuck up for what you just talked about. Blown away. Tommy Lee Jones and Jeff Bridges. The final car chase. They're just going downhill in Beacon Hill, which really it's, it's maybe two and a half blocks max. You can go down it. They're going downhill for like five minutes. It's like just careening downhill. It's like this never ending mountain and then they end up in Boston Common. Anyway, I have an unanswerable that's going to break both of your brains. So unless you guys have anything.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh my God.

[Kyle Brandt]

I have one like that too. But Bill, let's hear yours.

[Bill Simmons]

No, you go, you go. I'll go last.

[Kyle Brandt]

Well, mine is simple. It's. Mary McDonald says she doesn't want anything from James Earl Jones. It's like, what would you ask for? Like you can do anything at all if, whether either now or 1992. It's literally, it's like a, a genie. He's saying you can have anything you want. What would you ask for?

[Joanna Robinson]

But don't you like her delivery of oh, I'm fine. Like it's a great delivery. It's a great delivery.

[Bill Simmons]

Response hairstylist.

[Joanna Robinson]

What would you, what would you ask for, Kyle? What would you, what would you ask James Earl Jones for?

[Kyle Brandt]

I. Well, in 1992 I would probably be like, hey, it's 92. Can. Can you make sure that Michael Jordan doesn't fucking retire to play baseball? Because I think they can win eight in a row and I think they can beat the Rockets twice in the final. So can you handle that, please?

[Joanna Robinson]

So not a Winnebago?

[Kyle Brandt]

No.

[Bill Simmons]

You know what I would ask for not a Winnebago. Here's what I would ask for. Have you heard about, like, these people who get access to movies when they come out and it's like some secret society. If you get the actual cut of the movie and you just be like, the PTA movie came out. Come over my house. I have this direct signal.

[Joanna Robinson]

You're not that guy.

[Bill Simmons]

No, I don't think anyone's that guy. I don't even know anyone who has that. It's this rumored thing that I don't even know if it. Does it exist?

[Craig Horlbeck]

What do you mean? People are showing screenings of movies before they come out.

[Bill Simmons]

You pay, like, this crazy amount of money, but it's also. It almost sounds like joining some sort of club.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Is it a money thing or is it a connections thing?

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's both.

[Joanna Robinson]

It's a. It's a status in the industry thing.

[Bill Simmons]

But I think it's only, like, you have to be, like, the head of a film studio.

[Joanna Robinson]

Be that guy.

[Bill Simmons]

No, I think you have to be, like, the head of a film studio.

[Kyle Brandt]

And you get it digitally or you.

[Bill Simmons]

Become, like, a projectionist. No, you get, like, they. I think they actually bring the movie over, like, the canisters, and they screen it, and then they leave, and then.

[Craig Horlbeck]

You kind of host a private screen.

[Bill Simmons]

I host a thing. I'm like, hey, I have the PTA thing. That sounds like the last level of being a movie executive. Like, come on over.

[Joanna Robinson]

I got the new pca.

[Bill Simmons]

I've got the new. You already have Running Man Kyle, come out. I got Running Man.

[Kyle Brandt]

I went screening like that once. Yeah, it's awesome. It's unbelievable.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, here's my unanswerable. You guys aren't m. I almost don't. I almost want to take a break, but I won't, because this is a really big no.

[Kyle Brandt]

Let's do it. Come on, Hit us. Let's go. I don't need a break.

[Joanna Robinson]

He already asked if Sir Ben Kingsley should give his knighthood back, so hit me.

[Bill Simmons]

I did 40 minutes of googling on this and studied photos.

[Kyle Brandt]

Let's go.

[Bill Simmons]

And watched a bunch of different movies. Did Robert Redford wear a wig?

[Kyle Brandt]

Okay.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, no. But he dyed his hair. You think it's a wig?

[Kyle Brandt]

The young Redford character absolutely has a wig on. That's what goes without a doubt.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, sure.

[Kyle Brandt]

But there are. There are certain parts where it does feel a little heavy on the side. And. And I'm saying it's not outlandish to ask.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't think this Is a wig.

[Bill Simmons]

He had the most full head of hair of any actor who ever lived. Even to the bitter end. It is a full fucking head of hair at all times.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, I think the problem is that he kept dyeing it ginger and that's. That's why it looked unreal.

[Bill Simmons]

You look in the 70s, it's like perfect. Like I was. Jeremiah Johnson did last year. Just perfect. Swoop.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, swoop.

[Bill Simmons]

It never goes back on either side. It's always like full and lush. It's.

[Kyle Brandt]

It's.

[Bill Simmons]

And then it. It's blonde in the 60s and then it becomes redder later.

[Kyle Brandt]

So, Bill, you're not just saying, did he wear sneakers? You're talking about for like the whole run. Did he wear a wig?

[Joanna Robinson]

And you're. You're saying, like in his day to day life.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm saying, like, for from the 70s on, was that his hair?

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, opening day at Sundance? He's got a wig on is what you're saying.

[Bill Simmons]

But like a, like a styled wig where we would never know. Because these.

[Joanna Robinson]

Robert, like, I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

It's unanswerable to me. I don't know if anyone has theories.

[Kyle Brandt]

Are there Robert Redford wig truthers out there? Like, is there. Is there anything out there?

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I did find some stuff.

[Joanna Robinson]

What do people have to say?

[Bill Simmons]

There are some questions. In the 2014 range, there are some questions because he had the dark red, like darker cherry red on the top, whatever brownish red. But then the gray sideburns here. And some people are saying maybe the hair, I think.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, you think it's a red?

[Bill Simmons]

Like the wig went over the thing, but it didn't do it well enough with the white.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think it's a dying issue, but I will take a closer look. He's opened my eyes to a possibility unanswerable.

[Bill Simmons]

Either wore a wig the whole time or best head of hair ever in the history of movies for anything.

[Craig Horlbeck]

The case for your argument is there are, like, name another old person with his hair.

[Bill Simmons]

You can't. It's one of those things. Like if, like you're. It's like Uncle Bob's coming over.

[Craig Horlbeck]

He's a one of one.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, my God. Is he gonna wear one of his wigs? Like, why does he think he's. His full head hair is 82. This is crazy.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think the red was the problem, but I'll have to take a closer look.

[Kyle Brandt]

He also preempts a lot of the, like, highly technical hair implants and stuff. Like, McConaughey talks about how he Got his stuff done. Like, they weren't doing that in the 70s that you're talking about 60s.

[Joanna Robinson]

Even Turkish hairlines. I'm fascinating.

[Bill Simmons]

This is one of my. This would be like, we always play the game of worst podcast you could have that you'd actually be good at hosting. Mine would be just every episode about whether somebody wore a wig or a toupee.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yes.

[Joanna Robinson]

Bill, don't.

[Bill Simmons]

The Steve Martin episode would be like two and a half hours.

[Joanna Robinson]

Like, don't threaten me with a good time. That would make. I would love that so much. We're in a video podcast age. We could put up. That's great visual. You know, like do a full month on Nicole Kidman. Oh, yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

And then.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm not good at the. I'm not good at lady wigs. Lady wigs.

[Joanna Robinson]

I'm bad. I feel like you need a female co host. That's what I.

[Kyle Brandt]

Wait, no. I can do an only male wig based pod.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm bad with the female wigs. I can't spot the tubes and the wigs. I can spot.

[Craig Horlbeck]

And then can we do a spin off pod with me and Liz? And it's identifying when an actor got fillers.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yes.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Because we just spend all day being like, when did. When did Emily Blunt get filled?

[Bill Simmons]

That's a really good one, too.

[Joanna Robinson]

Oh, Emily Blunt. It's a lot great stuff.

[Bill Simmons]

This is why people come to the Rewatchables for the important conversations.

[Kyle Brandt]

Male wig only. And you're just outing male celebrities who have wigs.

[Bill Simmons]

It's not outing. It's a discussion.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It is outing.

[Bill Simmons]

No, because sometimes the answer is that's their hair.

[Kyle Brandt]

Good for you.

[Joanna Robinson]

My favorite Marvel fact is that Steve Rogers has like a little, like, they put a little wiglet on Chris, just like blonded him up right in the front, made it nice and full.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Wiglet. I like Wiglet.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, it's like a little piece that you put on top.

[Bill Simmons]

The Denzel episode would be long.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah. I actually think this is a great idea and we should do it.

[Kyle Brandt]

Coming up. Coming up on the Wiggest Loser, me and CR talk about Viggo Mortensen.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Wiglet.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, Wiglet. Do you. Do you want C.R. on this pod?

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, C.R. we've had many conversations over the years.

[Joanna Robinson]

Good question.

[Bill Simmons]

There's been like, there's some good ones where there's some that it would be shorter pods, like a McConaughey John Cusack's another one where it's like, come on, dude, we have all your films in the 80s stuff.

[Joanna Robinson]

Here's the number one I loved this is one of my favorite things to do is when I think someone has gotten a transplant. I go. And I'm like, look at where the hairline was for Harry Styles. Andrew Garfield's a huge one, right? Andrew Garfield got the hair done. It changed his entire career. Turned his career right away. He was really receding, Got a transplant, and then all of a sudden, it's Andrew Garfield time again.

[Bill Simmons]

I grew up in the 70s where, like, Reynolds was open about it. Yeah, Reynolds was losing it and then would just wear these crazy. Like you. Most of his movies, he has wigs on.

[Joanna Robinson]

I don't think it's a problem. Like, I think it's fine. I don't think anyone should be embarrassed by it.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like, women pro, we're not con. It's just. It's just answering a question one way.

[Joanna Robinson]

Or do things all the time.

[Bill Simmons]

Playing his hair. Now I'm. Now I'm like, kyle's touching his hair.

[Joanna Robinson]

Kyle has gray hair.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Kyle.

[Kyle Brandt]

Do you want me to take it off right now? I'll bring it on camera. I'll take it right off. I'll do right now and unwig him. No, I can't do it.

[Bill Simmons]

All right. That was fun. That worked. That segment worked out better than I thought.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, it was awesome.

[Bill Simmons]

What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie? Redford's wig. Not eligible. If he had one. The car also not eligible? No, the car's not eligible.

[Joanna Robinson]

Well, okay. Is it interesting to say these are the Scrabble tiles they used in sneakers?

[Bill Simmons]

I think it is.

[Craig Horlbeck]

There's an easy answer.

[Joanna Robinson]

Sure.

[Kyle Brandt]

Gravel with the hat.

[Bill Simmons]

Answer machine.

[Joanna Robinson]

No.

[Kyle Brandt]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

The sick 1992 Red Niners hat.

[Kyle Brandt]

Oh, that's my thing.

[Bill Simmons]

That's a great one.

[Kyle Brandt]

That hat is awesome.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Two of them.

[Joanna Robinson]

Two of them.

[Craig Horlbeck]

You can get both.

[Joanna Robinson]

Great, great call.

[Bill Simmons]

Good one. Coach Finack award. Best life lesson. Look at a stranger's shoes to determine how important the interaction is about to be.

[Kyle Brandt]

I love that.

[Bill Simmons]

Really good. Yeah, just a subtle one. In the beginning, when those guys show up and Redford says to Phoenix, did you look at their shoes? He's like, yeah, they're nice.

[Kyle Brandt]

Expensive. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Expensive.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's much better. I. I had. I had written down, give him head whenever he asked. So I like yours.

[Joanna Robinson]

Be a beacon.

[Bill Simmons]

Best double feature choice. We went war games. Would you go, Kyle?

[Kyle Brandt]

I'm also going with games. I'm going with Patriot Games. Tom Clancy, Harrison Ford and Robert Redford in one day. Technology spying and stuff. I'M way into it.

[Bill Simmons]

And Redford wins the movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Redford wins the movie. Okay.

[Kyle Brandt]

Can't take your eyes off him.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, buckle up, Kyle. Buckle up, Joanna. We're going to producer Craig.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I don't want to disappoint you all. I didn't hate this movie by any means, of course. I just think. I think spy movies got really good. And when I was growing up, I had, like, Ocean's Eleven. You know what I mean? Ocean's Eleven was only nine years after this movie. It feels like 25. Like, when watching this in Ocean's Eleven, you're like, we really improved over those nine years. So I'm not holding anything against it. Look, Bob Cousy was good in the 50s. Could he play now? No. You can't cross genres. You can't cross eras. I mean, you know, so to me, that's a.

[Joanna Robinson]

But I respect your. Like, this is fine. And I've seen the movies that come after it, that make it feel whatever. No, I'm not. I'm not. I love Craig.

[Craig Horlbeck]

But you're arguing that don't trigger me.

[Joanna Robinson]

But you're arguing that if it happened before, it's not interesting.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I just think that this, it's. I think it's hard for spy movies in this era. It's tough. It's like so early on in the tech era and, like, what you're capable of.

[Bill Simmons]

I understand what he's saying.

[Joanna Robinson]

Tech wise. I did.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It just improved so quickly, like, immediately. We just.

[Bill Simmons]

So Enemy of the State is the flipping point.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Sure.

[Bill Simmons]

Cause that movie, even though it's ridiculous, we already did the rewatchables, but the tech's good in that movie and feels more like now, even though it's almost 30 years. This feels like it's from 1986.

[Joanna Robinson]

From a tag angle.

[Bill Simmons]

I see what he's saying.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I think the casting's a little wonky too. This movie kind of feels like, to me, the fourth installment in the sneakers franchise. When everyone is a little too old and you're like, oh, it's Redford hanging on. And Aykroyd kind of doesn't look like the Akroid.

[Bill Simmons]

I remember start crying.

[Craig Horlbeck]

But, you know, it's like, oh, did they need to make the fourth one? It's still good, but it's the fourth one.

[Kyle Brandt]

I like it, Craig, because I love.

[Craig Horlbeck]

That everyone's forced to respond to this.

[Kyle Brandt]

And be like, no, no.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah, no, I am.

[Kyle Brandt]

Because in Ocean's Eleven and then also, like in the Italian Job, you have all these beautiful people and these Amazing cars, robbing casinos. These are real people here. It's Strathairn and Aykroyd. It's like they're much more relatable and it's much more touchy feely. That's just how I feel.

[Bill Simmons]

And Strayhorn and I.

[Joanna Robinson]

And I Straightheart.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I'm like, Redford feels a little too good for this movie. To me, beneath him. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I think that's why it works, though.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like he's kind of overqualified to be in it.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I'm like, river Phoenix has nothing to do Ackroyd feels weirdly cat. I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a Kevin Roger Ebert back.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It just feels a little wonky. I think two and a half stars out of four from Roger is perfectly fine. Yeah, it's not a one out of four. It's a two and a half.

[Bill Simmons]

I would have gone three.

[Joanna Robinson]

I can agree with you on the tech. Like, it's hard to watch chunky 90s tech in any of these, like, cyber movies. The casting we have to just deeply disagree on. And that's okay.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I think. I think it's hard, me coming into this movie now. I feel confident that if you showed this movie to most people in their 20s and 30s, they would probably share my opinion. Doesn't mean it's a bad movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah.

[Kyle Brandt]

Craig, didn't it bring the house down for you? The James Earl Jones scene at the end?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Oh, yeah. I went fist up up when he came out.

[Bill Simmons]

I loved.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I love James Earl Jones. There's great parts of this movie. But, you know.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes, I think those are all fair points from Craig.

[Kyle Brandt]

That's.

[Joanna Robinson]

You would recast the movie.

[Bill Simmons]

No, the Kingsley part is tough.

[Joanna Robinson]

Yeah, you would recast Kingsley.

[Bill Simmons]

And I think Redford's too old to be in the movie. But I'm fine with it because it's Robert Redford.

[Joanna Robinson]

I think this movie, the fact that it has such a rock solid movie, you know, you and Sean and Chris were talking on the Sting episode about, is Redford a great actor? And that's a question you were asking. And that's a great question to ask during Redford Month. But he is just the movie star.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

And to have a movie star similar to Ocean's Eleven when you've got Clooney and Pitt at the center of it, a movie star here, and then the rest of the team just gels around him and he's the leader on the set and he's the leader of the team. And Sidi Poitier is also Too good for this movie. And that's kind of what I love. Like Sir Ben Kingsley is in a way too good for this movie. And I kind of like that. Like, he's Sir Ben Kingsley and you're like, he's.

[Bill Simmons]

He's in the last let's do something for this movie.

[Joanna Robinson]

Menace and Sneakers. But like, I like it because it elevates the movie and it makes it something that we have to consider forever. It's in Sidney Poitier's filmography, so we have to consider it.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, that's it for the Sneakers rewatchables. It's went over two hours, the same length as the movie. Thanks to Craig, thanks to Chris for helping out as well. Thanks to Ronick, Eduardo. Oh, and Eduardo.

[Kyle Brandt]

Thank you, Eduardo.

[Bill Simmons]

Thanks to Joanna.

[Joanna Robinson]

Thank you.

[Bill Simmons]

Great to have you here in the studio. And as always, Kyle Brandt. Next month, a more normal month on the rewatchables and we're overdue for.

[Kyle Brandt]

Hey, something CR text chains about the kind of stuff we're discussing. It's off the wall and it's coming.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Can you guys release your big board? I would love that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joanna Robinson]

Too hot to handle.

[Bill Simmons]

Should we really? Is it better or worse to release the big board?

[Kyle Brandt]

What is that good content to like my. My screen cap?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah, the rewatchables. Instagram would love the big board of what I gotta bill are cooking up.

[Kyle Brandt]

I mean, my big board is organized by decade too. I got 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2000, 20s, all that stuff.

[Bill Simmons]

How many months slash years have we been circling? Just one of the guys.

[Kyle Brandt]

Three or four years. Probably.

[Joanna Robinson]

A top tier is playing on Comedy Central at three o' clock in the afternoon movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. That's fun. That's one where if we did that without Van, it might be irreparable for me, it might be like a Joanna sneakers thing. Thank you.

[Kyle Brandt]

This was great. Thank you, thank you.