‘Tropic Thunder’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Van Lathan, and Joel Anderson

Summary

The Rewatchables: ‘Tropic Thunder’

Podcast: The Rewatchables – The Ringer
Hosts/Panelists: Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan (CR), Van Lathan, Joel Anderson
Date: May 12, 2026
Episode Theme: An in-depth, wide-ranging, and often hilarious discussion of 2008’s ‘Tropic Thunder’. The crew dissects its legacy as one of the last truly envelope-pushing comedies, examines its controversial aspects, and revisits the still-quotable humor and Hollywood satire.

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Rewatchables examines Tropic Thunder as both a product and a send-up of its era. The panel explores why the film worked in 2008, how it balanced its meta-satirical aims and outrageous content, and whether a movie like it could or should be made today. Conversation ranges from deep dives into the film’s sharpest jokes, actors’ career arcs, the shifting landscape of comedy, social media’s chilling effect on risk-taking, and whether the film’s blackface subplot still works (spoiler: this group is surprisingly unified on that).

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Table: The Last of Its Kind

• Tropic Thunder is framed as the “peak of envelope-pushing comedies”—the last gasp of a style that “could never be made today.”
  • Bill: “We go all the way through the mid 2000s and then kind of 2008, 2009. We’re near the end.” (06:10)
  • CR and Bill trace a timeline from ‘Something About Mary’ (1998) to ‘Superbad’ (2007), saying the comedic tide changes soon after.

2. Could It Happen Today? Social Media, Cancel Culture, and Hollywood Shifts

• Panelists agree cultural, social, and industry changes—especially the rise of social media—contributed to the end of this era.
  • Craig Horlbeck: “No group really, like, supplanted them and came after them. And then 2017, things changed.” (10:28)
  • The group credits the Marvel boom for “killing the appetite for risk” among stars.
  • Van Lathan: “Now there is a holy grail to some of this stuff… The conversation is just more robust.” (20:23)

3. The Film’s Satire: Hollywood, Oscar Bait, Actor Egos

• Tropic Thunder lampoons not just war movies but all the tropes of Hollywood, especially “Oscar bait.”
  • Chris Ryan: “This is like the nth degree of all of this stuff. We’re just taking it as far as we can go.” (08:30)
  • They praise the cleverness of having all “stars play slightly exaggerated, self-lampooning versions of themselves.”
    • CR: “All these actors are beating people to the punch with the criticism you would level at them.” (48:11)

4. Pushback Then and Now: What’s Too Far?

• There were protests upon release over the treatment of disabilities (‘Simple Jack’) and use of blackface, but “funny won”—audiences largely sided with the film.
  • Van Lathan: “At this point, it was still like, if you went to this movie and you laughed… that was enough.” (09:08)

5. Cast Dynamics & Career Contexts

• The actors’ then-current career uncertainties made the performances “perfectly timed.”
  • Bill: Stiller was at the apex of his 11-year run; Jack Black was trying to hold onto his stardom; Downey Jr. was right on the cusp of his Iron Man renaissance.
  • Chris: “This is the sort of completion of [Downey’s] renaissance… He wouldn’t do this today.” (07:32)
  • Van: “The two biggest comeback stories in modern Hollywood are both in this movie. Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise.” (27:49)

6. Robert Downey Jr.’s Blackface Performance

• The most controversial element is discussed with admirable nuance and candor:
  • Van Lathan: “I have purely and sincerely… never been offended by blackface in this movie.” (100:40)
  • Joel Anderson: “It had to be as good as it was for it to meet that bar.” (101:33)
  • The group agrees the comedy, the meta-satirical intent, and Downey’s “totally dialed-in performance” allow it to straddle an impossible line.

7. Les Grossman (Tom Cruise): Comic Brilliance or Overdone?

• The panel debates whether Cruise’s executive role is best as a one-scene cameo or recurring comic anchor.
  • Chris: “Should have been Alec Baldwin in Glengarry. It should have just been: I’m speechless after that one scene.” (108:14)
• They credit Cruise’s commitment and reveal he ad-libbed and created much of the character’s look.

8. Rewatchability, Structure, and What Aged Well (and Didn’t)

• Tropic Thunder’s first 25-30 minutes, especially its trailers and satire, are “A+++”.
  • Diminished energy in the third act: “Like they stopped writing the movie at a certain point.” (57:10)
• The panel celebrates the endless quotability, the parodies, and the physical comedy—especially from RDJ.
• What feels dated: TiVo, Wii Tennis, Lance Bass cameo, and the very idea of making this kind of satire.

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Notable Quotes/Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Van Lathan on 2008:
  “We were still in an era to where funny won.” (08:45)
• Chris Ryan on Oscar Bait Satire:
  “This movie [is] making fun of the culture of serious filmmaking being an endeavor that is completely cynical.” (19:24)
• Joel Anderson on Downey:
  “This movie depends so much on Robert Downey Jr.’s performance to be a great movie.” (57:09)
• Van’s deadpan about the Simple Jack sequence:
  “The observation in this scene is so deadly accurate that it is just a genius, brilliant piece of comedy writing.” (68:21)
• Bill Simmons on the disappearance of this kind of comedy:
  “This is like really one of the last movies that was like, okay, it’s gonna take all of these chances… and if it’s funny, it’s gonna work. Your shit can’t just be funny now.” (92:23)
• Chris on what would be parodied today:
  “If you were making Tropic Thunder today, what would you be lampooning? Comic book movies.” (124:14)
• Van, joking on Downey’s blackface:
  “There’s no blackface. If you do it, I’m gonna get on your motherfucking ass… But in this movie, it’s just never offended me.” (100:40)
• Chris on favorite scene:
  “I’m going to go with Kirk and Tug talking about Simple Jack.” (75:12)
• Craig, age 14 at release:
  “This was like everything in the world… I could probably have done the whole movie from memory.” (127:36)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:48 – Start of Content: Comedy month intro, the state of comedies pre-2008
• 06:29 – Tropic Thunder’s Taboo Targets
• 10:45 – Hollywood’s Shift: Marvel, Social Change, and Why Satire Died
• 14:08 – 2008 as a Cultural Moment
• 23:55 – Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Downey: A Career Check-In
• 26:04 – Tom Cruise’s Comeback and Les Grossman
• 34:44 – Breaking Down the Main Characters
• 47:13 – Genesis of the Film & Satirical Intent
• 49:04 – Deep Dive: Downey’s Performance, Legacy of Blackface
• 56:34 – Modern Reception: Has It Aged Well?
• 64:03 – Most Rewatchable Scenes
• 75:17 – The Most 2008 Things About the Movie
• 92:23 – What Staged the Worst?
• 100:40 – The Blackface Discourse: A Panel Perspective
• 104:04 – Hottest Takes and Casting What-Ifs
• 119:18 – Sequel/Prestige TV/Future Satire Possibilities
• 122:29 – Why Don’t Stars Do More Cameos?
• 127:10 – Final Winner: Who Won the Movie?
• 128:00 – Comedy Summers Generational Comparison
• 132:02 – NBA Jokes, Closing Banter

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Categories Highlighted

Most Rewatchable Scene

• The “Simple Jack” conversation between Kirk Lazarus and Tug Speedman (“Never go full [R-word],” etc.) (68:09–70:17)
• Fake trailers (Booty Sweat, Scorcher 6, Fatty’s Fart 2, Satan’s Alley) (64:39–64:55)
• Les Grossman’s epic phone rant: “Take a big step back and literally fuck your own face!” (70:17)
• Jack Black’s “cradle the balls, stroke the shaft” detox scene (71:24)

The Most 2008 Things

• Wii tennis, TiVo, Maxim magazine, MTV Best Kiss Awards, Lance Bass cameo (75:19–75:57)

Who Won the Movie?

• Unanimous: Robert Downey Jr. (with props to Tom Cruise for revitalizing his career with Les Grossman) (127:10)

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Debate Highlights & Contrarian Views

• Who’s the Weakest Link?
  • Van: Jack Black, for veering into whacky solo subplots
  • Joel: Ben Stiller, for playing “the same note”
• Could This Get Made Now?
  • All agree: Impossible in its original form.
  • Van’s Top 5 Movies That Wouldn’t Be Greenlit in 2026, including Soul Man, The Ringer, and Juana Mann (96:38–98:28)

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Conclusion

This episode is a riotous and enlightening exploration of Tropic Thunder’s unique place in comedic and cinematic history. Both a love letter and a critique, the discussion covers why it was possible, why it still holds up for many, and why it simply could not happen again. With sharp insights, personal anecdotes, and a willingness to tackle controversy head on—with humor and affection for the subject—the episode is essential listening (or reading) for fans of film, comedy, and cultural change.

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Want to get a quick sense of the energy and recurring jokes?
Just listen to any segment where Van Lathan deadpans an obviously-over-the-top opinion, Bill gets lost in a tangent, or the group riffs about the legitimacy of ‘Fake Trailers’ as an entire genre. This is high-level, kitchen-table film talk with four people who genuinely love movies.

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For Listeners On the Go:

• Start at 34:44 to get right into the breakdown of characters and archetypes
• Jump to 49:04 for the nuanced blackface discussion
• Go to 64:03 for lightning round rewatchables and peak comedic debate
• Hit 100:40 to hear the full panel on blackface, cancel culture, and the “funny wins” era
• Catch 127:10 for closing reflections on why Downey, and this movie, still matter

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“This is the last year that everything didn’t seem headed for a downward trajectory.” — Joel Anderson (13:46)

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Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly. The all in one creative studio with AI powered image and video generation built for today's creative process. Firefly helps you generate, edit and experiment fast because the asks aren't getting smaller and the timelines. Ooh, yeah, still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Learn [e-mail] Firefly. The rewatchables maybe the last episode ever was brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where you can find the press box with Joel Anderson. You can find higher learning and Midnight boys and Ringer tailgate with Van Lathan. And then CR we're taping this the day after game seven of Celtics Sixers. He's want Go ahead, enjoy yourself.

[Chris Ryan]

I just I play your song.

[Bill Simmons]

Do your thing.

[Chris Ryan]

No, no, no. I mean I was just going to say, you know, I wanted to play a little background music while I was talking and I just need you to do something for me. Take a step back and literally your own face.

[Bill Simmons]

CR pulled it off Joel. And be pulled it off by the time you hear this. Who knows if Joel and Beetle will

[Chris Ryan]

please that before we lose four straight to the net.

[Bill Simmons]

Anyway, Traffic Thunder is next. This episode is brought to you by Apple and at&t. Scroll long enough and you'll hear it all. Miracle diets, fitness trends, you name it. But with iPhone and Apple Watch, you get meaningful insights from a very trusted source. Your body. You can track sleep quality, cardio fitness and more. Then unpack all the information in the health app on iPhone to get a picture of your overall health. These health insights are developed with clinical experts from start to finish. Find out [e-mail] health Apple Watch is not a medical device and should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice. Wow, Joel Anderson, you're here. You did this.

[Joel Anderson]

Should I be offended that we're not doing it at your house?

[Bill Simmons]

We've never done four at my house. We're already starting already.

[Joel Anderson]

I'm just saying Van Van told me that. When did they do it at your house?

[Bill Simmons]

It's three. Only at the house. We'd had to bump somebody. You had to basically kill Ciara.

[Joel Anderson]

Van Van didn't have to be here. Just, you know what I'm saying. We could have put Ciara and Blackface.

[Chris Ryan]

That's true. Wait, don't spoil the second half of the.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, come on, let's come in later.

[Joel Anderson]

Okay, later. I just, you know, I'm glad to be here though. I'm very grateful. I have A lot of gratitude for, you know. He says you cater food and everything, that you take lunch orders and shit.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Never had a joke.

[Bill Simmons]

Sodas.

[Van Lathan]

You want some lemon in that? When we're watching the games and hanging out at sleep.

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, my bad. Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that hasn't happened yet. Cause you're never here. You're on the East Coast.

[Joel Anderson]

That's right. That's right.

[Bill Simmons]

If you lived here, a lot of good things would happen for you.

[Joel Anderson]

I love la. And in fact, they were so annoyed with me talking about how much I loved la when I was hanging out on Saturday. They were like, man, be quiet. Stop talking about that.

[Van Lathan]

I don't know what you're talking about.

[Joel Anderson]

You did like Billy and Tate, they were just like, all right, man, we get it. You know, But I was just. I was talking about like, oh, man, the mountains, the. The fog, just everything.

[Bill Simmons]

It was gorgeous. Fog.

[Joel Anderson]

The fog.

[Chris Ryan]

It was a lot. There was a little bit of a mist settling over ucla.

[Joel Anderson]

Spring game, Rose bowl is beautiful, man. I just. I love being out here.

[Bill Simmons]

Can we steer toward traffic? Thunder.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, by the. Is happening.

[Joel Anderson]

Okay, sorry. Yeah, sorry.

[Bill Simmons]

It is comedy month here at the Rewatchables. We've had this one written down for a while. Craig has been pushing for it. I don't know for how long. Five years.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Since day one. Since the first movie I did.

[Bill Simmons]

It's finally happening. I can't wait to see how it goes. I didn't even where to begin. This movie came out in 2008. And see are the peak of how far can we push this comedies. This is it. This starts there. We did there's something about Mary last week.

[Chris Ryan]

So that's the 80s.

[Bill Simmons]

We go all the way through the mid 2000s and then kind of 2008, 2009. We're near the end.

[Chris Ryan]

This is a movie where if it didn't work, I wonder if they would have released it. You know, it's the. That's the stakes. It's like if this doesn't come off, if this doesn't play. Can you put this in movie theaters?

[Bill Simmons]

A lot of big stars at the time. Yeah, yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And I think that was. Obviously. This is going to sound stupid. Like a lot of big stars. That's intentional. But I think part of the charm of the movie is, you know, all of these guys, these are not the guys you trust. These guys look at the familiar faces that are a part of this movie. Even just people showing up, they get the complete buy in. Cause they do some really outrageous shit that you have to have trust in the performers for them to be able to pull it off.

[Joel Anderson]

What's the first year that you start saying, oh, I don't think they can do it? I think whenever I'm trying to remember when aggrieved Twitter was at its peak, like 2013.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Twitter's basically rounding into shape right around now. 2008, 2009.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, like, I don't even think I'd been. I don't think I joined Twitter until like 2009.

[Bill Simmons]

That's when I was too. I was like spring 09.

[Joel Anderson]

So like, yeah, it's not even moving the conversation. So I think, like, by the time that gets a little bit of, you know, motion and more people on there, then I was like, all right, 2013, 2014.

[Bill Simmons]

Here's what I got. There's something with Mary's 98, American Pie 99, fucking the pie, 40 year old Virginia, the Aristocrats, the whole Gilbert Godfrey. They make a documentary about it. Borat, no question.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, man, Borat.

[Bill Simmons]

Super bad. Definitely. And then, and then this movie and the kind of we're about at the end here.

[Chris Ryan]

What do you think ended it? Was it social media? Was it like the kind of the open of the town square of discourse and criticism? Or was it these guys all get too big and you can't mess with the money that much? What is.

[Bill Simmons]

Was happening everywhere? Because I felt like it was happening with TV too. Right. Cause Eastbound and Down's pushing at the same time, late 2000s.

[Van Lathan]

I mean, you know what? Some of the stuff that we're talking about is pushing the envelope. Is pushing the envelope in terms of how zany and daring the comedy is. This is different though.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes.

[Van Lathan]

Like, this is legitimately hitting at what some people would say are marginalized communities, special disabilities, special needs people. Should I say black people, gay people,

[Chris Ryan]

Viet Congs, Viet Congs?

[Van Lathan]

There's not a lot of Viet Cong. Kong. Viet Kong.

[Bill Simmons]

There's no S. You wouldn't say Chineses.

[Van Lathan]

You wouldn't say Chineses. There's not a lot of movies in this run that you guys are talking about that go for this. Something about Mary is definitely one of them. Yeah, definitely one of them. But there are not that many movies that go directly where Tropic Thunder goes.

[Bill Simmons]

Do you get credibility, though, when you have this many stars and proven people in it? Do they get to push the envelope more at that point?

[Joel Anderson]

I guess it depends on who you get credibility with, right? Cause like, yeah, Tom Cruise, Ben Stillick, like all these guys, Jack Black, they have credibility with people. Downey yeah, they have credibility with a certain kind of comedy community. But again, by the time we start getting to the height of Twitter, like, 2013, 2014, I don't even think they would be able to pull that off with them. Like, I don't think people would buy that shit from Robert Downey Jr. And

[Chris Ryan]

when you think about the fact that this is the same year Iron man comes out, so this is the sort of completion of his renaissance, you know, his. His career revival. But he's not that far into becoming an insurable actor again when he does this, which on the one hand is crazy, that he did it, but on the other hand, it makes sense because you're like, he wouldn't do this today. You know, I don't think anybody in this movie would do Tropic Thunder today. Not because of, like, necessarily the content. It's too big of a gamble.

[Joel Anderson]

You think of that as different from. Because I saw an interview he did from, like, 20, 20, 21, he said, well, I don't regret it. Something like that.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, look at that.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, I did a little prep, man.

[Chris Ryan]

He was like, I don't regret it, but I wouldn't do it again.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, he didn't say, I wouldn't do it again.

[Van Lathan]

He said.

[Joel Anderson]

I said, I don't regret it. Basically.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that they had a pretty serious, like, intellectual reasoning behind Kirk. The Kirk character, which is obviously, like, the one that's, like, the thing that you'd be like, could you pull that off today?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I like some of the quotes that Stiller had about it is just like, look, we're making fun of actors and how movies are made, and this is like the nth degree of all of this stuff. We're just taking it as far as we can go. But that's the whole point of the movie. You're either with us or you're not.

[Van Lathan]

You know, I have this in. What's the most 2008 thing about the movie? We were still in an era to where funny won.

[Bill Simmons]

I agree.

[Van Lathan]

If it was funny, then people would. There would be a certain group of people that would have an issue with it, problems, and we could have conversations. But if it was funny, that was the most important thing. Everybody kind of got the joke together, and if it worked that way, then it was cool. Now, obviously, we came out of that, Right? We came out of that partly because Hollywood pushed us out of it. There were several egregious things that happened in the 2010s, like casting Scarlett Johansson and Ghost in the Shell, like, casting movies with white men, where everyone went, no, we need to have a conversation about the racial dynamics and politics that exist in Hollywood. And that kind of overshadowed a lot of the other stuff. But at this point, it was still like, if you went to this movie and you laughed at that character, that was enough.

[Bill Simmons]

Craig has a theory.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, here we go.

[Bill Simmons]

I do. What was your last. When did you think the last funny comedy was? Did we say this is the end?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah, like you said, this is the end. Was the end.

[Bill Simmons]

Neighbors of that end was Neighbors.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Right after Neighbors technically came after, but it's that like, 2014 range. I think it's mostly because, like, I think this movie is a great example of the Ben Stiller group. They were all in their early 40s at this point. They were at the peak of their powers. It was kind of like Apex Mountain for what can we get away with? And I think this is the End was the same thing for the Seth Rogen crew. They were all kind of reaching 40 years old. They have kind of done everything. They're like, all right, what's one last thing we can get away with? And then there was no new group that came up below those guys, which is. Which is why I think there's no Tropic Thunders or this is the ends now. Because, like, no group really, like, supplanted them and came after them. And then 2017, things changed. You know, culture got different.

[Van Lathan]

The way you're telling me, I like to hear it.

[Craig Horlbeck]

What's happening at the end of the 2010s? Culture changed for a variety of reasons, things changed.

[Chris Ryan]

But, you know, there is also. There's a massive, massive sea change in Hollywood, which is a lot of the people in several people in this movie, especially Downey, start participating in Marvel and in large scale superhero franchises, and you can't really fuck with the money on those. Like, the next Tropic Thunder should have been about Marvel movies, right? You would do like, I can't believe we're on movie 11 of this. And you would have all the fake trailers and the documentaries and the boys

[Van Lathan]

does that a little bit.

[Chris Ryan]

It does a little bit, but not in a. This is a movie. And there was a HBO show like a year or two ago that kind of came and went that was a little bit about this. But Tropic Thunder can make fun of something. And you can be conversant in Platoon and Apocalypse now and be like, this is so funny the way they're making fun of this. But even if you haven't seen it, you'd still laugh at some of the things that are happening.

[Joel Anderson]

Tropic Thunder 2 is like Scorcher 8, then, right? Basically, yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I have a lot of Scorcher questions coming later. I think I would have seen at least the first two in the theater, but I'm not sure the plot was so.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So this was one of the most successful Hollywood parody movies, I think, ever.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

When you talk about big picture, the Player Network, what else is in there? Network. Were they really flipping?

[Van Lathan]

That was a really bad one called. It was a really bad one called Burn Hollywood Burn. That had some people in it, I

[Chris Ryan]

think at this point now, it's like the.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, the studios trying to think of more. The studio, I think, probably was influenced by

[Van Lathan]

the Kevin Bacon one, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, that's another.

[Chris Ryan]

That's the big picture.

[Van Lathan]

That's the big picture. That's the big picture. Yeah. Kevin Bath and Terry Hatcher, all of those people in there.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, sure.

[Bill Simmons]

Swimming with sharks. Was that one of them?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, that was the agent. There's been a couple of, like, agent. Like, Hurly Burley.

[Van Lathan]

But then, you know what you also have, like, around this same time is you have Entourage.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Lloyd. And Entourage is legitimately another thing that pushes it so far with some of the stuff that's happening that you probably couldn't do now. Which is another reason why maybe that movie was, like, not well received when it came out. But Entourage is kind of doing the same thing at the same time.

[Chris Ryan]

You know how you were when we were doing Ghostbusters and we were kind of going through the montage that they have, the fame montage, and you were like, this is just the fucking best. Like, I love the 80s. This was so great. 84. Do you feel that way about 08? Like, when you're rewatching Entourage or you're watching Tropic Thunder, stuff from back then? Are you ever like, 08 was the best, man.

[Bill Simmons]

It just housing prices. Pre social media. Though, talking.

[Van Lathan]

You guys, this is hard for Bill to talk about because he's walking the line. He's got to be sensitive to the concerns of the people now. But at the same time, that was

[Chris Ryan]

your era, Doc, in the big three.

[Bill Simmons]

That was your title in that way.

[Van Lathan]

Obama. That's your era. Yeah, Obama, Sarah Palin and Tina family. Like, Obama, Sarah Palin and Tina family. You know what I loved about 08? Obama. Get the fuck out of here.

[Bill Simmons]

Loved Obama.

[Joel Anderson]

I mean, he wasn't even president.

[Bill Simmons]

He inspired me.

[Joel Anderson]

He wasn't even president. I think you're right. It was like this wasn't the last good year, but it was like the last. It was like the last year that everything didn't seem headed for a downward trajectory.

[Bill Simmons]

It was also. There was enough distance from 9, 11. And it just felt like there was a hopefulness, I think, as we headed into the late 2000s that now seems like it happened a million years ago.

[Craig Horlbeck]

This movie benefited from being in 08 because there was no, like, out of context commentary on it. Like, you had to go see the movie to really know what was in the movie. And if it came out now, there would just be clips and screenshots and it would just get destroyed before people even went to go see it.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah, that is true.

[Van Lathan]

Now, I will say that throughout the mid-20s, I was still having a lot of fun. 2015, 2014, 2016, like, I'm at TMZ going crazy, right? I'm still having a lot of fun.

[Craig Horlbeck]

What do you mean?

[Joel Anderson]

What's that fun?

[Van Lathan]

What crazy we having? We're going nuts. We going nuts in the city.

[Joel Anderson]

Going nuts in the eastern city or going nuts?

[Van Lathan]

You're going nuts, right?

[Joel Anderson]

You tossing.

[Van Lathan]

Shut up. But in this, with this movie, with these types of movies, like, a lot of stuff happened. First of all, some of these guys, not necessarily so much in this movie, but, like, some of these guys started getting in trouble. Like, there's a comedy purge that happens once the MeToo movement comes out. And you start to see the way some of these guys, not necessarily in this movie, but around the way they acted in their personal lives. And really that ripped the heart out of, like, what a lot of. I'm not saying that that was a bad thing. I'm just saying you legitimately lost some of these careers when we're talking about some of these comedy dudes. Like, they didn't even last throughout the scrutiny of the mid to late 2010s.

[Bill Simmons]

You know who was able to avoid this the entire time was Larry David with Curb. He was always able to push the envelope on whatever he wanted. And then even after everything else changed, he still kept cranking out seasons and still even made seasons this decade, and almost seemed like he got a hall pass for it. Well, some people get hall passes. Like Barkley had one.

[Chris Ryan]

There's a hall pass element to it. But I think that the thing that's crucial is if you're going to make fun of other groups of people or basically anybody else, and this is what this movie actually does, do you have to be the buddy of the joke? And Larry is always the most awkward Difficult, funniest person on Curb. Like, no matter who he's making fun of, Larry is always the one. You're like, I can't believe this guy needs a napkin that bad. That he's going to do. And Larry always loses.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And Stiller and Downey and Jack Black, like, yeah, they get a moment of heroism at the end. But the people who are most worthy of ridicule in this movie are the stars in the movie, right?

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, man. It's just too bad. Cause, yeah, I was thinking about the Palestinian chicken episode, right? And it was like, yo. Like, I think he actually could still do that today, though. I think we're. I don't know. I mean, again, I don't work in Hollywood. You know what I'm saying? This is one of my few times out here in la, but I just kind of feel like they're still. Wait, don't look like that. I just felt like. I just felt a little energy. No, just let me finish. Just let me finish.

[Chris Ryan]

Should we go?

[Joel Anderson]

But no, it's just that, I mean, I think the thing is that you could still do that. I mean, the same kind of comedy that prevails in Tropic Thunder is still out there. You can find it on the Internet or wherever. It's just not, you know, a big Hollywood. It might not be a big Hollywood movie or whatever, but you can still find people doing blackface and walking up on people calling them nigger.

[Van Lathan]

Watch out.

[Joel Anderson]

The building. Yeah, Chuck the Builder.

[Van Lathan]

Chuck the Builder. Well, it's a different podcast. We'll talk about that.

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, yeah, that's right. Sorry. I didn't mean to make it up.

[Chris Ryan]

That's okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I am so

[Van Lathan]

Bill, like, Joel said the N word with the R and Bill's brain detonated is that.

[Joel Anderson]

I'm sorry.

[Bill Simmons]

I just find Joe a safe space to give his opinion.

[Chris Ryan]

Bill's just like, I would have worn a different sweatshirt.

[Van Lathan]

Bill's like, that's a line from the Departed. I'm sorry. I didn't ask. I should have asked a bad person

[Joel Anderson]

permission to do that.

[Van Lathan]

You do. Get your shit off, bro. All right, Doc, come on, do it up.

[Bill Simmons]

I forgot what I was gonna say.

[Van Lathan]

I know you did.

[Bill Simmons]

I had a good point. I'll remember it a half hour from now. So it's making fun of two different genres. All these Vietnam movies we grew up watching and then all of these Oscar bait movies that I just feel like pre social media. We were all making fun of this stuff. And you might see it in essays and blog posts and whatever. But I. I don't feel like we made fun of some of this stuff enough. Like, have you ever seen I Am Sam or some of these ones? Yeah, these are like. Like, regarding Henry, we've always talked about for dramas that are now comedies month, but all these actors, they couldn't resist. And then when it would hit on Forrest Gump, then the next actor would feel like they had to do some sort of, you know, Oscar bait movie. But I always loved that this movie made fun of that.

[Chris Ryan]

And the Vietnam stuff is like, I kind of think about the scene in True Romance when Clarence Worley is like, man, did you make Coming Home in a Body Bag? That's what people. It's like, this is almost making fun more of Coming Home in a Body Bag than it is like the Deer Hunter, you know, And Coming Home in a Body Bag is a fictional movie from True Romance.

[Van Lathan]

But.

[Bill Simmons]

And a lot of homage stuff that, you know, if you're like a die hard fan of all this stuff, like even. Even Stiller's character starting to lose it.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

At the end. And thinking that Half Squat's his son, he's found his people, and it's basically Apocalypse Now. Right. But they're not blatantly hitting you over the head with that. You have to kind of know.

[Van Lathan]

One thing that social media did was it allowed everyone to run to their corners, coalesce around each other, and then form things to get offended about.

[Joel Anderson]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

And I'm not saying that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yes.

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, you saying people too woke, huh?

[Van Lathan]

No, I'm not saying people too woke. I'm saying, like, even, like, right now, like, the film bro community, the subjects of King Shawn fantasy, the film bro community. Right. They get offended. Like, they get offended about stuff. Like, this movie is legitimately making fun of the culture of the Oscars, of the culture of serious filmmaking being an endeavor that is completely cynical. This movie is making fun of that.

[Bill Simmons]

I screenshot it, and they have the five movies nominees, and Hanks is in a. Hanks is in a wheelchair with his arm, like he won some sort of wheelchair race.

[Chris Ryan]

Who's in the photo

[Van Lathan]

as a blonde guy?

[Chris Ryan]

And Jon Voight.

[Bill Simmons]

Right, Jon Voight. And then Tobey Maguire in the Satan's Alley, which I own on 4K Blu Ray. It's pretty great.

[Van Lathan]

So, like, what I'm saying is, like, now there is a holy grail to some of this stuff. There would be people that would be offended by some of this, that think the Oscars now and the conversation around it because of podcasts and all of that. Stuff it's just more different and robust than even I remember it from before. It's the biggest part of somebody's here to see.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, I think Oscarology was more of a niche pursuit. And now. And now it's not uncommon. I mean, maybe we have bias because we live in Los Angeles and it comes up a lot, but you'll hear people be like, oh, I heard that movie has a really good shot in the. In the Oscars.

[Van Lathan]

Right?

[Bill Simmons]

That was the dialogue that kind of started in the 90s and then got even better in 2000s. I, as a movie fan, especially somebody on illegal cable box for years and years and was watching all these movies, was offended by how bad some of the movies are.

[Van Lathan]

You said you had a what?

[Bill Simmons]

I had an illegal cable box. Don't try it for years in a

[Van Lathan]

legal cable guy like your gym. Yeah, don't try to.

[Bill Simmons]

Big Al. We paid Big Al to come over. He souped up our box. We got all the paperbacks, we got all the channels in like four years now. This is amazing.

[Van Lathan]

This is interesting.

[Bill Simmons]

I loved it.

[Van Lathan]

I've never heard you talk about your criminal exploits on any.

[Bill Simmons]

I've talked about it before. I talked about it.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I've talked to the. I thought maybe he was doing.

[Chris Ryan]

Because I think as a younger person, I used to tell him about, like, you switch the channels back and forth really fast to get skin.

[Van Lathan]

And what crimes have you committed?

[Chris Ryan]

I can't really talk.

[Bill Simmons]

This is my favorite crime I ever committed because it would be the pay per views and they would be just on every two hours.

[Joel Anderson]

That's fucking amazing.

[Bill Simmons]

So these movies would come on like Patch Adams and they would just be on channel, whatever, and you'd be like, what the fuck were they doing? Making the. How did anyone. What Dreams May Come with Robin Williams. Yeah, you like that movie I Am Sam. Like, they would just make shit movies year after year.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, oh, yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

But radio is based on a real person, though.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, some of these movies are good.

[Van Lathan]

Spotify Radio, some of these movies are.

[Bill Simmons]

It's okay.

[Van Lathan]

Some of these movies are. But also remember, serious movies at a time were about serious topics. And sometimes somebody's. When you. Somebody's like, they don't fit into society for whatever reason they're having trouble. Like, that was a serious topic.

[Bill Simmons]

But this started in TV in the really the late 70s, early 80s with the after School specials and Diff'rent Strokes and these shows where. Somebody just sent me one today about the time Arnold and his buddy were on the street and somebody had Molested. Not a molested one. They got kidnapped. Somebody had a seizure in front of them. And this. This lady just has a seizure for like a very long time. It was a special episode about seizures.

[Van Lathan]

I know you're gonna remember this.

[Bill Simmons]

This is how you learned about stuff.

[Van Lathan]

Do you remember the Ben Affleck one when he was taking steroids?

[Bill Simmons]

The steroids. He punches the window. Yeah, he fixes. What about Helen Hunt jumping off?

[Van Lathan]

Helen Hunt jumping off.

[Chris Ryan]

She was on acid, right? Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But like, that's how we learned about this stuff. And then eventually it drifted into movies and better shows, but still the actors in this. So we had Ben Stiller rapping an incredible 11 year run as comedy leading man, which we covered in. There's Something About Mary Jack Black, at a really weird point in his career trying to stay on top. King Kong 2005, holiday 2006, which I think has a big one, had a lot of legs. He did the Tenacious D movie. Is it Margot the wedding in 2007? Yeah, kind of like, am I a comedy actor? What am I? So he's at that point and then Downey, as CR mentioned putting together his comeback of Zodiac, Tropic Thunder, Iron man, where all of a sudden he's an A plus plus lister.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, it's starting to finally really happen

[Bill Simmons]

in front of me.

[Chris Ryan]

Pick up after Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is sort of. Is like, hey, I can be bonded.

[Joel Anderson]

Like, I had forgotten how close that was to the time that he had been in prison.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, right.

[Bill Simmons]

And couldn't get insured.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Joel Anderson]

That was the thing. Because that was the thing up to a point. I think probably when I saw this movie, I thought of Robert Downey Jr. So that was the junkie, you know what I mean? Like, that was a guy who was a problem. That was what he was known for, what he was.

[Bill Simmons]

That was what all the stories were. McConaughey trying to hang on to the list. He was in the wilderness after this movie. He does Fool's Gold, Surfer Dude, Ghosts of Girlfriend's Past. Lincoln Lawyer. Like, it's not going well.

[Van Lathan]

Well, the Lincoln Lawyer is a good movie, but it does. It. It comes on the heels of that. He's in the woods.

[Bill Simmons]

It a good movie.

[Van Lathan]

All right. Yeah, I think the Lincoln Lawyer is a good movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Is Lincoln Lawyer a good movie?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I think it's a good movie.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know if. I don't know if I remember Lincoln's. Lincoln Learns. Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, it's like actually a pretty enjoyable thriller.

[Van Lathan]

But it's like him Kind of getting his footing back because he is flirting with obscurity during this time. Yeah, like Hollywood.

[Chris Ryan]

This is like after Sahara.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Couple rom coms that went sideways.

[Van Lathan]

Don't know what to do with him. And then in the next decade, obviously, Dallas Buyers Club, Interstellar, True Detective. All of these things are gonna bring him back, but him in this movie right now is him staying on the

[Chris Ryan]

tips of the actual start of the McConnaissance. So, like, mostly people think it's Magic Mike, Dallas Buyers Club, Wolf of Wall Street, True Detective, Interstellar in some order. No, it's this, but I actually think it's this and Eastbound are like, kind of like. They're like, oh, this guy has, like, a whole other gear that he can play with. And all for us.

[Bill Simmons]

Two for the money.

[Chris Ryan]

And he also is crucially. Yes. He's like, I'll play a supporting part.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, I don't have to lead everything. I'm in.

[Joel Anderson]

It's probably easier to Joel him on that.

[Bill Simmons]

Joel will play a supporting part. Is one of the four on the reboots.

[Joel Anderson]

All I gotta do is get some rebounds. You know what I'm saying? I got a couple picks.

[Van Lathan]

Y' all not listening to Take a Charge. That's Joel podcast.

[Bill Simmons]

It's not.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, y' all not listening to Tell them. Joel is out there every day.

[Joel Anderson]

I'm a role player, man.

[Van Lathan]

Like Jokic, putting up rebounds, assists, everybody.

[Chris Ryan]

That's the big board I come for.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, exactly.

[Joel Anderson]

Let me tell you, when we. With the Rose bowl, everybody's coming up the van and the motherfucker, man. I was like, how does it feel to be famous out here?

[Van Lathan]

All right, let's move on, people.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay, Tom. More on McConaughey later. Tom Cruise. He's at another crazy point.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

We're three years after Oprah Sofa. We're in the middle of the Katie Holmes weirdness.

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, man.

[Bill Simmons]

We're with that weird Scientology interview he did. We have Paramount dumping him, and he's about to follow this up with Valkyrie and Night and Day with Cameron Diaz.

[Chris Ryan]

Can I ask about whether we look back at this? In 08, there was a part of me that was like, is Les Grossman kind of cringy? Not. Cause, like, I didn't like the character, but it was like, he's trying really, really hard in this moment. Like, no.

[Van Lathan]

So when I first saw this movie, this is the first movie I ever went to a screening of is Tropic Thunder. This is my first screening ever that I ever went to.

[Bill Simmons]

You took Sasha Gray oh, boy.

[Van Lathan]

Don't get me started, though. There's some people that identify a special place. I almost forgot I was. But I'm serious, because there's this one shot is screaming, she's in like a

[Chris Ryan]

Tom Cruise.

[Joel Anderson]

Well, I actually want the Sasha Grace,

[Van Lathan]

but it's in the movie. He's like, this is still so. Like, this is the first screening ever. This is gonna sound so crazy, y'.

[Bill Simmons]

All.

[Van Lathan]

Not till the end. I did not know it was him.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's a recurring theme in the research.

[Van Lathan]

Most people didn't know. I did not know it was him. And then the guy, Tim Wells, the producer I was working with at the time, goes, stay, watch this. He was getting ready to leave, and it's like, Tom Cruise. I'm like, what the shit? And I thought to myself, that exact same thing, even back then. I'm like, why did he show up in this? But he was so universally reviled at that point.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Like, it's so difficult for people. I think the two biggest comeback stories in modern Hollywood memory are both in this movie. Robert Downey Jr. And Tom Cruise.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Travolta's in there, too.

[Van Lathan]

Travolta's absolutely in there. Right? That's a great point. But, like, so three. But, like, he was so universally the weird guy. Shut up, man. He was universally the weird guy.

[Bill Simmons]

Did some good stuff in the 2000s.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, we did some golf, had some celebrity golf.

[Joel Anderson]

I mean, man, he was the correspondent on the cam.

[Van Lathan]

O.J. simpson. Do you know who advocated for him at the Rose Bowl? Like, we're going in there, and Joe is making sure that O.J. simpson is in the Rose Bowl Hall.

[Joel Anderson]

It would be absurd if you went to the Rose bowl hall of Fame and you didn't mention O.J. that's what I thought, and I just

[Van Lathan]

wanted to make sure that's fair. Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

I just want. And he was listed there among the people that end up in there.

[Van Lathan]

But I think that's fair. But I also think it's kind of interesting to walk into the Rose bowl hall of Fame, and the first thing you say is, where's O.J. but I think. I think that. I think what he's saying is true,

[Joel Anderson]

but I think also.

[Van Lathan]

No, you don't think.

[Joel Anderson]

I.

[Van Lathan]

That's okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So you saw screening. Had no idea it was Tom Cruise, which was most people. Did you know Tom Cruise was in this when you saw it?

[Craig Horlbeck]

That's hard for me to remember in 2008, but I watched it with Liz who had never seen this movie. And she did not know it was Cruise until halfway through the movie. I said, you know that's Tom Cruise, right?

[Chris Ryan]

Was she like, what the.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's really good makeup.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And it's. Physically, it just doesn't seem like him.

[Chris Ryan]

They also kept him. All promotional material is like, they did. Like, they were. They. I think they sued, like, a tabloid for taking pictures of him going from like a. Like his trailer to the set. But there was a moment there where, like, maybe it's more like after the movie came out where I felt like he was obviously not a trained comedian because he was, like, overworking the joke a little bit. And it felt like for a second you could get him to show up as Les Grossman at, like, college game day. You know what I mean? Like, it's like. Like, Les Grossman was available. It felt like, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I think he was just happy every day.

[Van Lathan]

Mtv, he did it at the end of the day, and it kind of didn't work that well, but he was just happy that people were like, oh, it's Tom Cruise.

[Joel Anderson]

See, I thought instead of being reviled, I thought more than anything, people thought he was weird, you know, and that's more than. That's more. That's different than being reviled because people like. I don't even.

[Bill Simmons]

The Katie Holmes thing, I think, turned people off.

[Van Lathan]

The Katie Holmes thing, but also the Matt Lauer thing.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, when he was yelling at Matt Lauer.

[Van Lathan]

Yelling at Matt Lauer, the whole deal, like, people were like, like, this guy's an asshole. Like, what is he talking about? He's too far going.

[Bill Simmons]

Paramount dumping his deal was. Was a pretty crazy thing to think back on.

[Chris Ryan]

And. And the Spielberg breakup had happened a couple years before that too.

[Bill Simmons]

And then the last one in this Nick Nolte, former A lister from the 70s and 80s, most northern, they played Jack Hates.

[Joel Anderson]

Are you shocked enough? He's 85 years old, Nick.

[Bill Simmons]

How is he still alive?

[Joel Anderson]

85 years? Yeah. I mean, he seemed like the guy that should have died at, like, 67.

[Bill Simmons]

I think he's the only one that they had to replace on. And he was guessing that was when the famous Eddie Murphy episode because Nick just partied too hard and couldn't host it.

[Chris Ryan]

The crazy thing is that he doesn't look that much older in crime 101 that he did in Tropic Thunder. Like, it's basically like he hit old age and just has been there.

[Bill Simmons]

An amazing run for him. It's one of those that when he dies, nobody's gonna be like, what?

[Van Lathan]

No, he's.

[Bill Simmons]

He's worn his career.

[Joel Anderson]

I mean, even we were talking about Downey. I mean, he had gotten arrested, like, a bunch of fucking times, like, going. Leading into this, too. And that was just kind of. You just kind of expected that. Like, I felt like he and Gary Busey were kind of like the same person to me a little bit. It was just like, oh, those are the old guys from the 80s who are always, like, getting DUIs and shit.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

You know what? There was, like, a weird thing talking about the difference between now and 08. There was more of a distance, I feel like, with celebrity then. So, like, when Downey would get arrested, you'd be like, oh. And then you kind of keep it moving.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

But now it would be like, yeah, what's the first pod Downey is going to go on after this? And, like, people writing these parasocial posts about it.

[Van Lathan]

But, yeah, you would never be able

[Bill Simmons]

to get away with Call Her Daddy.

[Van Lathan]

It would always. Yeah, come on. I will say that there was something about Robert Downey Jr. At that time, though, all of the trouble that he was having. Like, Hollywood was mourning it. Like, Hollywood was. Like Hollywood was mourning it. He had been around for so long. Yeah, it's going back to, like, Weird Science and the pickup artists and all of these movies. And then he. Chaplin, and then he's in the James Toback movie. He starts to get into the weird indie thing at the end of the 90s. Then he comes out on Ally McBeal and it's like, oh, my God, he might be back, but then he can't stay straight for that. People were really sad for whatever reason. You could tell, even in the tabloids, the way they would cover it, how well liked he was. And they were happy when he got it together. Like when he got straight and came back and delivered in Ironman, delivered in Zodiac, delivered in this. People were. They rolled out the red carpet for him to strut back into the town.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm just gonna see Downey and US Marshals every couple of years, and it'll be like, oh, man, that guy could have been a contender.

[Bill Simmons]

It was almost like an athlete. Yeah, you think of, like, oh, man, Kenny Anderson. I want to get this shit together.

[Joel Anderson]

Kenny Anderson, man.

[Bill Simmons]

It's like, how many of those did we have in basketball and football over the years? Dwight Gooden.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Kenny Anderson was the man.

[Joel Anderson]

He was.

[Bill Simmons]

We're gonna take a quick break and then more to discuss with this movie. This episode is brought to you by McDonald's right now at McDonald's. You can get great deals all day with McValue. That's right. Jumpstart your day with the under $3 menu featuring a sausage McMuffin for just $1.50. Or grab the perfect lunch with the McDouble for just 2.50. Honestly, nothing pairs with a movie marathon like a McDouble in hand. Gotta love the McDoubles. Get even more value with McValue only at McDonald's. Ba da ba ba ba limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher for delivery. This episode is brought to you by Apple and at&t. Scroll long enough and you'll hear it all. Miracle diets, fitness trends, you name it. But with iPhone and Apple Watch, you get meaningful insights from a very trusted source. Your body. You can track sleep quality, cardio, fitness and more. Then unpack all the information in the health app on iPhone to get a picture of your overall health. These health insights are developed with clinical experts from start to finish. Find out [e-mail] health Apple Watch is not a medical device and should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice. All right, let's go through the characters. Ben Stiller as Tug Speedman hit it big with the Scorcher franchise. They made six. I was going to do this later. Let's do it now.

[Chris Ryan]

What's Scorcher about?

[Bill Simmons]

What's happening in Scorcher? Is it like a global warming?

[Van Lathan]

They tell you in the first trailer the earth has stopped spinning. So in Scorcher the earth has stopped spinning. So because the earth has stopped spinning, I guess volcanoes and the atmosphere.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It's like a day after tomorrow kind of vibe basically.

[Chris Ryan]

But he's like commando. He's like Schwarza.

[Van Lathan]

He's some sort of commando who is saving people in this post apocalyptic deal. The earth has become a scorcher and it's destroyed.

[Bill Simmons]

So each sequel it's still the same premise is still silent. Yeah, yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

I think the last one was like, it was like it got cold.

[Bill Simmons]

Honestly, not against the premise. Like I would at least give one if it was Gerard Butler and Scorcher. I'm like not, not pay per viewing that.

[Van Lathan]

I did not know what that movie Greenland was. Okay. I did not know what it was. I saw it.

[Bill Simmons]

You think it was Scorcher?

[Van Lathan]

I was going to the movies. Greenland I watched for the first time Saturday. That is legitimately a fucking good movie.

[Chris Ryan]

Dude. Butler doesn't miss that.

[Van Lathan]

Legitimately a good movie. I expected Greenland to be corny. They're Trying to get on a plane the whole night. It's legitimately a good movie.

[Bill Simmons]

So he, Joel, he went serious after all the Scorcher. He was once the biggest star in the world. Ended up playing Simple Jack, a special needs farm boy who can talk to animals.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I feel like we got to do comps right for you. Who is Tug Speedman and Holly?

[Van Lathan]

It's Tom Cruise.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's Cruise. Really?

[Van Lathan]

Definitely. No, no, no, no, no.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Cruz had all the prestige in the 80s and 90s.

[Van Lathan]

I think the reason why Tom Cruise is in this movie is because he thinks it's funny that Stiller is doing a riff off of him. Cause Stiller had been doing a Tom

[Bill Simmons]

Cruise character for a while.

[Van Lathan]

For a year.

[Chris Ryan]

Done the like, I'm Tom Cruise's stunt double thing.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

He's definitely Tom Cruise.

[Bill Simmons]

I thought it was like a cross between Mark Wahlberg or something and the Mission Impossibles and like Stallone just trying to keep Rambo going. Crossed with nine other Hollywood films.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, and also those guys would often make. Now none of them, I don't think did something like Simple Jack, but they would every once in a while make like a family movie where know you be like, what the fuck are you doing, man? You're Jean Claude Van Damme.

[Bill Simmons]

Is there a world where Simple Jack could have worked? Like was was Downey. Right.

[Chris Ryan]

Lazarus lays out how. I think Simple Jack needed a special skill. Yeah. He needed to be good at blacksmith.

[Bill Simmons]

If you could talk to farm animals, that's you become an asset on the farm.

[Joel Anderson]

The thing I was just trying to determine is, is Forrest Gump that far off Simple Jack or not? Like, I couldn't tell.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, good at ping pong.

[Van Lathan]

Good at ping pong. Talk to the President.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

Forest breakdown.

[Bill Simmons]

Richard Nixon.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Started a running movement. So Scorcher six, Global Meltdown was supposed to be the comeback. Yeah, I like that title too. All right, so that's him. Then we have Jack Black as Jeff Portnoy, a movie comic star with a stealth heroin problem. I would describe him as Adam Sandler, crossed with later career Eddie Murphy, crossed with late 70s Belushi.

[Chris Ryan]

And Farley.

[Bill Simmons]

Maybe Farley and some parley. Yeah. Recently the star of the Fatties Fart 2. I absolutely would have seen this with both of my kids. Oh, yeah, the fatties and The Fatties Fart 2.

[Chris Ryan]

I was trying to like.

[Bill Simmons]

It sounds great. Like Ben, great idea.

[Chris Ryan]

Ben Simmons level of interest in Fatties over Tropic Thunder would have been like off the charts.

[Bill Simmons]

No question. We would have owned it. On multiple platforms, streaming dvd. Great idea. Still time.

[Joel Anderson]

The White Nutty professor man.

[Van Lathan]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

Robert Downey Jr. Is Kirk Lazarus, Australian method actor.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Five time Oscar winner. That would be the record, by the way.

[Chris Ryan]

It would be. It shatters the record that they made him the all time leading Oscar winner,

[Bill Simmons]

star of Satan's Alley and then also played Neil Armstrong in Moonshot. We never really found out what the premise. What was the premise of Moonshot?

[Craig Horlbeck]

I don't know, but he had to.

[Bill Simmons]

Is it like a thriller?

[Chris Ryan]

Like he had to like, re. Acclimate himself to the earth's atmosphere.

[Bill Simmons]

Coming back from that movie sounded great.

[Chris Ryan]

And he's supposed to be a combination of Russell Crowe, Colin Farrell and D.

[Joel Anderson]

Lewis and Day Lewis.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it felt like a lot of Russell Crowe.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, well, the Australian part.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, yeah. Like the him nature.

[Chris Ryan]

But the metal part is ddl.

[Van Lathan]

He was supposed to be Irish. In some of the research I saw, the character was supposed to be Irish.

[Chris Ryan]

No, I can do.

[Bill Simmons]

Australia had controversial pigmentation alterations. I like this shot of them in the operating room.

[Chris Ryan]

He's like.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Steve Coogan plays director Damian Cockburn.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The director of Tropic Thunder. I guess in the research it said this was inspired by director Richard Stanley's experience directing The island of Dr. Moreau, a movie that I've wanted to do for rewatch for eight years.

[Chris Ryan]

Did you watch Reigns of Madness, The Hearts of Darkness? Of Tropic Thunder?

[Bill Simmons]

By the.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, yeah. So there's more Damien in that. And he talks about how he's. Was he 50% Werner Herzogen, 50% Francis Coppola, and 50% Peter Bogdanovich. And he's like, well,

[Bill Simmons]

percentages. You guys in on island of Dr. Moreau in general as a movie.

[Van Lathan]

What do you mean? Like Marlon Brando?

[Bill Simmons]

Just that movie. How fucking crazy.

[Van Lathan]

It is nuts. I love late stage Brando.

[Bill Simmons]

CR makes fun of me because I made it a gimmick at Grantland with the island of Dr. Simbo.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

See, I thought it was the most most deranged thing I ever did with the comm.

[Chris Ryan]

Although I came around to Burt.

[Bill Simmons]

It was just like a hodgepodge mailbag that I named after the Dr. Moreau movie because I was the only one that liked it. But that was another one with Big Al's cable box. We were just watching it over and over again. And after like nine times, you kind of got it. Yeah, I understand what they were trying to do.

[Joel Anderson]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

Kilmer didn't want to be in the movie is the problem. I blame. I blame. That was One where Val Mill did

[Chris Ryan]

there would be at Grantlin. Like, Bill would come up with a gimmick and then walk off, and then it would be up to us to kind of see, keep it going. But, like, he would be like. Like 93 days until the NBA season. Let's do a post every day about counting it down. And then he'd come back, day 61. He's like, oh, you guys are still doing that?

[Bill Simmons]

Meanwhile, we're like, what the fuck are we gonna say?

[Van Lathan]

It's August?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we did that, remember, for the. We did that for NFL, right. Because we had two sports and a lockout.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

So we had to start doing a countdown to when we were gonna actually get sports.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, man.

[Bill Simmons]

Sad times. Nick Nolte as Four Leaf Tayback. Danny McBride is Cody Underwood. Big McBride run here.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Hot rod, Pineapple Thunder, Eastbound, all in three years. He's just in our lives for real.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

When he's about to do the ex. The explosives run, he's like, damien, Damien. I need to put some Tiger bomb on. It's like, he is really, like. You can tell the vibrations coming off of him that he's, like, a significant.

[Bill Simmons]

He's one of those. That Craig did. We have enough all NBA teams and MVP ballots for him over the years.

[Craig Horlbeck]

He's the funniest guy of the 2000s that never became a star.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, man.

[Chris Ryan]

Could a guy like that become a star?

[Van Lathan]

He became a. To me, he became like a force.

[Bill Simmons]

Like a force, but not like a. I mean, he was not an HBO. He said, like, 12 years of an HBO show.

[Van Lathan]

I know 12 years of HBO shows. And then also creatively, because he was the creative force behind a lot of this stuff and stuff like that. To me, it got to a point to where he was the most consistently funny line reader in the town, for sure. Like, he said a line. The line was funny.

[Bill Simmons]

That was, this is the end. Was his end.

[Van Lathan]

Like, everybody else is talking. When he talks, you laugh.

[Craig Horlbeck]

First season of East Ben and Down is same thing.

[Van Lathan]

Same thing, same thing.

[Chris Ryan]

You know, the problem was, is that when you would see him outside of that arena and, like, if you watch Prometheus and Danny McBride's in for me,

[Bill Simmons]

or you couldn't wrap your head around

[Chris Ryan]

in Covenant, you're just like, yo, man. Like, when is he gonna do Kenny Powers? And it's almost like, too much.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I can see that.

[Bill Simmons]

I. I don't know where he ranks on the Funniest people of the 21st century for mer is like, top three.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I mean, pound for pound, he's number one.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think he's out of the top 10 for me.

[Van Lathan]

I'm gonna mention a movie that like. Like, not a lot of people love, but it's legitimately one of the funniest movies that I love. Did you guys see your Highness?

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Oh, yeah. Long time. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Hysterical. Like, legitimately. Like to. It's stupid, but, like, hysterical.

[Chris Ryan]

You know, the great thing about him, too, is anybody who's in a scene with him, they also automatically get 10% funnier. So when he's in a scene with Will Ferrell, you're like, this is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. But he can make, like, John Hawks hilarious, you know, like the dude from Deadwood who's in Eastbound or Natalie Portman. And your highness is, like, really funny.

[Bill Simmons]

It's just.

[Chris Ryan]

The only person I've ever seen make not make more funny is Nick Nolte. It's just like. Well, I guess it's just Nolte.

[Joel Anderson]

Well, that was the thing. I was just like, well, I guess we'll talk about it later. But that pairing, I had really high expectations for them.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, when I showed my son eastbound when he was finally old enough, he had the same look on his face for three episodes that Jack Black does when he sees the pile of heroin in the movie. It was just every funny bone possible, just slamming. It was everything he would want. Kenny Powers, Jay Baruch shows. Kevin Sandusky, not knowing that the Sandusky

[Joel Anderson]

thing had not happened, man, that had not happened yet.

[Bill Simmons]

That's five years old, unfortunate last name. I think he's really good in this movie. Yes. I was thinking about casting couch later. I'm like, oh, who should? And I was like, you know what? I really liked him.

[Chris Ryan]

He's also the only one playing in the lane lines. He's like, yeah, I know. I'm not supposed to be the funny

[Joel Anderson]

one in this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Brandon T. Jackson is Al Pacino.

[Van Lathan]

Al Pacino, Yeah. That's my guy.

[Joel Anderson]

Is he really your dude?

[Van Lathan]

That's my man. Brandon T. Jackson's a homie of mine. He was on a run. He was on a run during this time. All big movies. Percy Jackson, Big mama's House, like, a lot of big movies was in. And this kind of was like. He was a very familiar face in house Hollywood at the time.

[Bill Simmons]

He's excellent in this movie.

[Chris Ryan]

He's great.

[Van Lathan]

He is.

[Bill Simmons]

I would not. He is not on my casting couch. I would not replace him.

[Joel Anderson]

Really?

[Bill Simmons]

No. Because there was some Kevin Hart stuff that we'll talk about later. But, like, you know, like, we're still kind of in chappelle range where he could have, I think, played this. But there's. I think. I think he's actually really good. I thought he goes toe to toe with everybody in the movie, and he's good. He also was a businessman with the Bust a Nut, candy bars and booty sweater. We'll talk about him later. And then Cruz as Les Grossman. So the producer, Stuart Corn, we did a oral history of Les Grossman for Grayland. And apparently Tom read the script. There was no Les Grossman. And he said, I think you need another villain. What about some greedy pig? Studio executive represents the Gross part of Hollywood. And then Cruise developed a lot of it. Wanted oversized prosthetic hands. They put him in a fat suit,

[Chris Ryan]

bald cap, kind of Joel Silver. Ish. Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

But they say it was Weinstein Silver and one other.

[Bill Simmons]

It's weird.

[Van Lathan]

They.

[Bill Simmons]

In the research, they're like, it wasn't based on anyone. But I never believed that. I always feel like, yeah, Joel Silver is a good one.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. But I think the screaming at people is rooting.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Bill Hader. Early Bill Hader.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Early young assistant. And then McConaughey as Rick Peck. Is there a third Peck?

[Joel Anderson]

Peck.

[Chris Ryan]

There was Walter.

[Bill Simmons]

Walter Peck. Dennis Peck from Internal Affairs.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. We should do another category that's like, which Peck should be in this movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Best Peck. And then a ton of cameos. What's your favorite cameo in this, Joel?

[Joel Anderson]

Man, you know Tyra Banks.

[Van Lathan]

That's a good one.

[Joel Anderson]

I think Tyra Banks is great. I mean, because first of all, she's playing Dan.

[Bill Simmons]

Just. I know that look. That was a nostalgic.

[Joel Anderson]

I used them up for 90s shit like that. There's like. That was probably the last time I looked at Tyra Banks. And I was like, that's it right there. You know what I mean?

[Van Lathan]

God damn.

[Joel Anderson]

Well, I mean, I. Nothing happened to her. I don't mean to be disrespectful. She's still a beautiful woman. But I mean, everything we know about

[Bill Simmons]

her now, she was cruising back then.

[Van Lathan]

She loves cruising.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I avoid for his reaction and not winning the Oscar.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. I got Toby Maguire, man.

[Bill Simmons]

Little Wonder Boys.

[Chris Ryan]

Throwback, touching the prayer beads here.

[Van Lathan]

That hilarious Lance Bass just showing up.

[Chris Ryan]

He's like, I'll do it.

[Joel Anderson]

That was pretty good.

[Bill Simmons]

They said they only had like, three hours with Toby because he was flying somewhere. So they had to film, like, all of his stuff, they had like this short window to get it done.

[Chris Ryan]

He had like a poker game in Macau he had to go through.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So going to Molly's Game, the premise which 10 soldiers went, four returned, three wrote books, only one was turned into a movie about a secret assignment in 1969. Stiller developed it because he was shooting Empire of the Sun. He had a small part and thought some of the actors were very self important and self absorbed and self involved and appeared to believe they were actually part of the military. So I was trying to figure out

[Chris Ryan]

who he was talking about. Malkovich is the person he is in that movie with. Those are the two American soldiers who adopt Christian Bale when they're on this. This base in Japan. But yeah, it's hard to tell because I don't think of Malkovich as somebody who would be like, I'm a soldier now, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Bill Simmons]

You know what's interesting about this though, And I like Ben Stiller. I do think he has a reputation for taking himself a little too seriously. And it's funny that he came up with this movie because he noticed people taking themselves too seriously. Isn't that part of the rapper?

[Chris Ryan]

Kind of the genius part of this movie is people like all these actors are beating people to the punch with the criticism you would level at them. You know what I mean? It's like Tom Cruise is going to lampoon Hollywood. So you can't really lampoon Tom Cruise. Ben Stiller is lampooning self involved leading men. That means he's kind of bulletproof about it. It's an interesting tactic.

[Joel Anderson]

With the exception of Downey though. Don't you? I'm sure we'll talk about this later. Don't you all kind of feel like they're playing basically a version of themselves?

[Bill Simmons]

Yes.

[Joel Anderson]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

Even Downey. Downey. They make sure to put in the character. This guy has like a bad boy off screen image and stuff like that. So Downey is playing who people thought he was maybe in like 93 or 94.

[Joel Anderson]

All right.

[Chris Ryan]

Did you ever Stiller your pod?

[Bill Simmons]

I think I did, yeah. Who in the. In the late 2010s, who this after Tropic Thunder? After Tropic, yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

Wait, What?

[Chris Ryan]

I was asking if he ever had

[Bill Simmons]

Stiller on his pod.

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, really? Oh, shit.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay. Okay. All right. Let's talk Downey and Kirk Lazarus. I'll just give you some quotes. Downey said. At the end of the day, it's always about how well you commit to the character. If I didn't Feel like it was morally sound or that would be easily misinterpreted. That I'm just C. Thomas Howe on Soul Man. It's tough. I would have stayed home cth, drive by cth, just like, what did I do? I'm over here. I was just working actor.

[Joel Anderson]

I was thinking about. Cause I think Soul man was one of the first movies I saw on VHS tv and we got it from Blockbuster. And at the time, I don't remember thinking it was all that offensive.

[Van Lathan]

My parents loved that movie.

[Joel Anderson]

It wasn't bad. We laughed.

[Bill Simmons]

I saw it in the theater, you

[Van Lathan]

guys, first of all, I'm just letting you guys know I'm 46. I'm telling you, right? My parents loved that movie. They loved it. We would watch the movie. And I remember as I got older, you know, I was like. One day, she was like, huh, this is fucked up. Now here's the deal. It's interesting that he would take a shot at Soul Man. We'll talk more about Soul man later. Because even in Soul man, the movie is attempting, in a really, really fucked up way to make a commentary and a critique on race. The movie is attempting to lampoon someone that will go or make fun of somebody that will go that far and use something intended to it to help black people to help themselves. And the movie is an exploration about what that character kind of learns about black people by doing this really stupid, silly thing. But you just can't get past the distress, Man.

[Joel Anderson]

I would.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think you can find it. I don't think it's streaming.

[Chris Ryan]

I can't imagine that's the case with the way that 4Ks and Blu Rays are now.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I'm sure Sean probably.

[Joel Anderson]

We've got to find that.

[Chris Ryan]

Sean's got this special.

[Bill Simmons]

Sean got it from New Zealand.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, it's a big picture, a podcast about movies. Well, today we talk about Soulmate, starring C. Thomas Hoffman.

[Bill Simmons]

I vaguely remember what happens, but wasn't. He got a scholarship at Harvard. But it turns out Radon Chong should have gotten the scholarship. And now she's putting herself through.

[Van Lathan]

He couldn't pay for it?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, he couldn't pay for it.

[Joel Anderson]

Howard Law School.

[Bill Simmons]

But he took it from Radon Chong.

[Van Lathan]

He got into Harvard, but he couldn't pay for it. And for some reason his dad wouldn't pay. Cause he didn't get a scholarship or something like that. So he got. He wanted to get the aid, the money, and he. 10 years did blackface.

[Bill Simmons]

Did you know about this movie, Craig?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah, but I've never seen it.

[Bill Simmons]

Just. Cause we've talked about it.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

He took tanning pills.

[Van Lathan]

Tanning pills to get blacker.

[Bill Simmons]

So Brandon T. Jackson said, when I first read the script, I was like, what? Blackface? But when I saw him act, he became a black man. It was just good acting. It was weird on the set because he would keep going with the characters. Method acting. I bet that was weird. Stiller said he's playing a method actor who's gone to great lengths to play a black guy. The movie is skewing actors and how they take themselves so seriously. And then last thing, Downey was so committed to it that he did the DVD commentary as the character instead of Robert Downey.

[Chris Ryan]

All right, go ahead.

[Bill Simmons]

No, you go.

[Chris Ryan]

I just think it's interesting that you could make the argument that he does not take himself seriously as an actor. Again, until Oppenheimer, like, he does Iron Man. I'm not saying he's not taking that seriously. He's largely, like, playing. Like, there is very few roles that he does in between this and like,

[Bill Simmons]

he's playing the character of movie actor Robert Downey.

[Chris Ryan]

Just popping into movies and it's like the judges almost wonder if he got, like, too close to the sun on this one.

[Van Lathan]

Now, I'll say this. I actually think that there are a couple movies where he tries to. I think he tried it in the Soloist. I think he tried it in. What's the one?

[Chris Ryan]

The Judge.

[Van Lathan]

The Judge. And I just think he just got to a point to where to fit those movies into something that audiences were loving so much. He just went, I can't do it. Like, I'm taking some swings. I wanna BE Robert Downey Jr. To me, always wanted to be taken. He's such a great fucking actor. He wanted to be taken seriously as a serious actor. Tony Stark was never going to be enough for him.

[Bill Simmons]

But he also made insane amounts of money.

[Van Lathan]

Insane amounts of money. Iron man and did Wavagitton was good. And even after this. Right. He did Oppenheimer, he won. And then he goes back to the mcu because now that he's proven that thing to everyone, go back, get another 80, $100 million. You know what I mean?

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, yeah. I just. I don't know, man. I kind of feel like if he had just. If any.

[Van Lathan]

Any.

[Joel Anderson]

I'm trying to think if there's anybody else that would have been able to pull this off, because really, I know

[Chris Ryan]

I was like, honestly thinking of the people who he's supposed to be lampooning.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And how bad it would have been. If Russell Crowell. If Russell Crowe or Colin Farrell tried to do this, it would have just been like, we can't. We got to burn the negatives.

[Joel Anderson]

I've been with more black women than Robert Downey Jr. To Colin Farrell.

[Van Lathan]

We got proof you've been into it, but, like, you can watch. But I'll say this. When you think about it, that's actually a good point. Like, a fantastic point. Downey is one of the most unique talents that has ever come out of town. Like, super unique. He can charisma his way through a movie. He can straight act his way through a movie. He can comedy his way through a movie. He's like. He's got a weird Hanksian thing. Not quite the everyman thing that Hanks has got going on. He can't get there, but he's got, like, a really, really deep skill set.

[Joel Anderson]

In my life. I didn't know that he had, like, a comedic background. Like, I didn't. I did not know he was on Saturday Night Live. Yeah, I mean, I did not know if that was his background.

[Chris Ryan]

No, I mean, I think it's something. If you had probably gone back to, like, pre Chaplin, before Chaplin, like, less than zero, some of the stuff that he was doing in the 80s, you would probably be like, this is going to be Dustin Hoffman.

[Bill Simmons]

Right?

[Chris Ryan]

Like, this is going to be. This guy could do anything and might do a range of comedic and drama performances. So for him to take 15 years, almost 20 when we get to Doomsday, to be like, I'm gonna basically play Tony Stark, a couple of Sherlock Holmes movies, a couple of throwaway kind of

[Van Lathan]

Hollywood dramas, trying to see if I can. Try to see if I can bite the dramatic apple. Just.

[Chris Ryan]

I always think about, like. I mean, PTA has debated about how real this was, but, like, he was supposed to be an inherent vice. He was supposed to play the detective that Joaquin Phoenix played. And I was always like, man, what would it have been like if Downey had done Inherent Vice? And, like, a really challenging, cool movie with pta? And we'll just never know. And I don't know when he's gonna try again.

[Van Lathan]

He does three Iron Mans, and then once he's not in those ten kajillion dollars, after he's with those, he's in Spider Man. He's in all. He's in everything that they're doing.

[Chris Ryan]

And the stuff he's doing other than that is basically Sherlock.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. So 2020, it was interesting. Who was the one who pointed out that on letterbox. This was like three and a half stars or something. Like, this is a movie that some people are now against.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Tropic Thunder.

[Bill Simmons]

Tropic Thunder.

[Joel Anderson]

I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it's like, not. Were you the one that told me that? I didn't know it was, like, not well liked.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, I said, there's Something About Mary has a.

[Bill Simmons]

Or was it There's Something about Mary.

[Chris Ryan]

Something about Mary has, like, it's either five stars or one star.

[Joel Anderson]

Well, I'm sure again, we'll probably get

[Bill Simmons]

to this, but let's get to it now.

[Joel Anderson]

Well, I just kind of feel like it didn't age quite as well as I thought. I walked away feeling very underwhelmed.

[Chris Ryan]

But because of the movie. Not because of, like, the jokes don't land anymore, right?

[Joel Anderson]

The movie is.

[Bill Simmons]

You're talking about the character.

[Joel Anderson]

Well, cause like, again, like, in retrospect, I probably thought Danny McBride and Nick Nolte probably made me laugh my ass off in 2008. But as I was watching it again, I watched it twice this weekend. I was just like. It felt like there was missed opportunities all over the place. The movie depends so much on Robert Downey Jr. S performance to be a great movie.

[Chris Ryan]

It's heroic.

[Joel Anderson]

It's a low bearing wall.

[Chris Ryan]

I'll also say I didn't remember this before watching it. This time around. The third act of this movie feels like they're making it up as they're going along.

[Van Lathan]

It did.

[Chris Ryan]

Like, on the day off. They're kind of like.

[Joel Anderson]

It was really bad.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, let's have a shootout over here. And it's like, oh, you guys kind of almost stopped writing the movie at a certain point.

[Van Lathan]

I laughed my fucking so fucking hard ass off. Like, I laughed. I think when the war broke out, I was a saucy. And San Antonio, I think that's a scene back when the war broke out. Some greens, I think. I don't know why. Like, even in the theater when that was happening, I was like, this is the funniest shit I've ever fucking seen. And then to watch Brandon look at him like, what the fuck? This motherfucker's crazy. Like, that's the funny. I laughed my ass. To your point. You get to a point in the movie almost at the point where they discover he's Simple Jack, where the movie's just almost like unwatchable. You can't, like, even watch it. But all the trailers, that part, everything that led up, up to there, I thought it was hysterical. I laughed. Big ass titties. For no reason. Like, it's funny. The movie's fucking hysterical to me.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I had that on wood stage. The worst. The last third of the movie could probably be half as long. Yeah. And it's clearly. They're just shooting from the hip in Hawaii, just filming shit, blowing stuff up.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, I mean, I just. I was surprised that it wrapped up as quickly as it did. Like, all of a sudden, I see Tom Cruise just like, you know, he's been dancing, and I'm just like, oh, wait, this is what. This is how the last five, six minutes of this is going to be. Okay, cool.

[Bill Simmons]

Stiller directed, wrote the screenplay with Justin Theroux and Eton Cohen. So Stiller directed Reality Bites, Cable Guy Thunder, Two Zoolanders and Walter Mitty and then a bunch of Severance. Right.

[Chris Ryan]

He's done Severance and Escape from Dannemora.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, Escape from Dannemora. Great fucking show.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, we fucking love that one.

[Van Lathan]

Great show.

[Bill Simmons]

That could have gone longer.

[Chris Ryan]

Let these guys stay.

[Bill Simmons]

Just make that again. So they had an extensive marketing campaign, fake websites, fake stuff for the characters, fictional TV special, sold the energy drink. And then they did a Simple Jack website, and people were like, get this fucking thing down. And that was that. They had multiple movie clips. Even in 2008, people were like, no, no. On the Simple Jack website.

[Van Lathan]

And to be real, there were like. There were protests then.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

So I hope no one thinks that

[Craig Horlbeck]

they were at the premiere.

[Van Lathan]

There were protests then. There were protests from the black community. There were protests from the Shriver family and the Special Olympics. There were protests then. There was talk about the Les Grossman character and whether or not that character was directly. There were protests then. It's just that the funny one, and that is what happened with the movie. People went to the movie, they're like, it's funny.

[Bill Simmons]

And the funny one, Downey, best supporting Actor, Nam. I mean, unfortunately, it was the Heath Ledger Dark Knight year.

[Chris Ryan]

So let's play this out. How would that have worked if Robert Downey Jr. Had won an Oscar for

[Bill Simmons]

this over dead Heath Ledger? That would have been terrible. This would have fucking gone crazy.

[Van Lathan]

Number one, the Heath Ledger performance is

[Chris Ryan]

like, he was never gonna win.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, just imagine if it was a different year.

[Joel Anderson]

You mean every year that every year around the Oscars, there'd be tweets about how there's more. There's more people that won Oscars for. Oh, yeah, sorry, I'm. I'm new to the mic.

[Van Lathan]

No, no, no. He has a microphone. Brain blind spot. We were doing it at ucla, the mic is down here and Joel is talking. I'm like, joel, there's people in the stands.

[Bill Simmons]

It was like, what was that SNL sketch with Bill Hader where he's the, he's the.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, yeah, he can't put going on.

[Joel Anderson]

I'm not meant to be on camera in life. I was a writer. I told him.

[Bill Simmons]

I was like, yes, you're, you're a late bloomer superstar.

[Chris Ryan]

So you were going to say though, the Oscar thing.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, if he had one year around

[Joel Anderson]

there, that'd be like, oh, a bunch of black people saying there's been more people that have won Oscars for blackface and have actually, you know, so it's

[Craig Horlbeck]

not the craziest thing in the world that he got an Oscar nomination for this. Like, if you tell somebody now that he got an Oscar nomination for that, it would blow their minds.

[Van Lathan]

I think the Oscar nomination is the thing that people most hold on to when they're talking about the negative legacy of the portrayal.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yes.

[Van Lathan]

Is the fact that he got nominated.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It hurt. It hurt the movie almost that he got an Oscar.

[Bill Simmons]

You know what else interesting about it? And we talked about this with there's something about Mary. Like comedies never get nominations.

[Joel Anderson]

Yes, that's right.

[Bill Simmons]

And it was just weird that this one, it was like all the old white people at the Oscars are like.

[Van Lathan]

But this goes back to my theory that sometimes the people in the Oscars be with us. It's like sometimes they go, they watch, they sit together and they watch the help and they go, oh yeah, we gonna piss em off. I don't even like the blind side. Oh, we gotta make sure they get one.

[Chris Ryan]

I like to think it was trolling, but I think it's actually just old guys, you know, be like, the shit was just better back then.

[Van Lathan]

Driving Miss Daisy. Oh, that's when we got one.

[Chris Ryan]

You know what I'm saying?

[Van Lathan]

So I just think something fucking with us sometimes.

[Bill Simmons]

Man, this was weird that it got nominated less for the Downey character, but just a comedy. Getting that. It's not like this was a hit, but not like a phenomenon.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

To me it would have made more

[Bill Simmons]

sense for Matt Dillon to get nominated for There's Something About Mary or something

[Joel Anderson]

and my cousin Vinny.

[Bill Simmons]

Who else gets it? It's not a long list.

[Joel Anderson]

She's great.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Craigel Google, Google comedy, actor, actress, supporting Oscar. I don't know, last 30 years, it's probably five or less.

[Van Lathan]

Do you. Would you count rot? Well.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, no, that's kind of like that's a great character.

[Van Lathan]

Great character. But he's.

[Bill Simmons]

But it's not, like, necessarily like a comedy.

[Chris Ryan]

Funny scenes, but I don't even think that they're being. They're very much, like, rooted in the

[Craig Horlbeck]

story of Jerry McCarthy. Bridesmaids nomination.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, that's one. That's one.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Gosling Barbie.

[Van Lathan]

Gosling Barbie. That's one. That's why.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Jonah Hill, Wolf of Wall Street.

[Van Lathan]

Get that out of here.

[Joel Anderson]

Wow.

[Craig Horlbeck]

All right, relax.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's it. Tootsie Terry Gar. Yeah, we had a couple in the 80s. Yeah, it's pretty rare. Speaking of, Craig, this movie was 107 minutes. A plus seven on the Horlbeck scale.

[Chris Ryan]

Feels like a plus 14.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I dare you. No, I mean, there's trailers at the beginning. You know, there's some bonus footage that they had to include.

[Bill Simmons]

The unrated director's cut, which for some reason I own. On Vudu was like, over two hours.

[Joel Anderson]

Really?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

What's in there?

[Bill Simmons]

Just extra stuff. As you know, Craig, my rule is always deleted scenes were deleted for a reason, and that's a good example. $90 million budget made. 195.7 million. Roger Ebert.

[Joel Anderson]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Three and a half stars. Considerably better than Stiller's previous film, Zoolander. If you didn't like Zoolander, it's the kind of summer comedy that rolls in, makes a lot of people laugh, and rolls on to video. Most rewatchable scene. Let's go. Categories. I fucking love the opening so much. I think the first 25 minutes of this movie are a plus. Plus, plus, plus.

[Joel Anderson]

The excess Hollywood segment was just great. It just. I can. I feel like.

[Bill Simmons]

I feel like you're jumping heads.

[Chris Ryan]

Isn't that the first 25 minutes?

[Bill Simmons]

No. Oh, no. I have the opening.

[Chris Ryan]

Okay.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, are you talking about just the trailers?

[Bill Simmons]

The trailers.

[Joel Anderson]

Just the trailer.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, Booty Sweat. Booty Sweat, Scorcher six, Global Meltdown, the Fatty's Fart too. And Satan Alley. The movie hasn't even started yet.

[Van Lathan]

That's right.

[Joel Anderson]

That's right.

[Chris Ryan]

And, you know, it's probably a very complicated time for Kirk Lazarus because he's also on the trail for Satan's Alley.

[Bill Simmons]

Right, right. He's got to do promotion.

[Joel Anderson]

That's right.

[Bill Simmons]

Forbidden love in the 12th century.

[Van Lathan]

Because he. Because Tobey Maguire is nominated.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Now does Kirk Lazarus, who is very competitive. Did he get nominated?

[Chris Ryan]

Well, I think after the Tropic Thunder Experience, he's realized it's not about competition.

[Bill Simmons]

It's about five. First big battle scene. Tug gets shot, like 47 times. His hands are blown into spiders. Danny McBride comes in hot. Mother Nature just pissed her pantsuit. There's a lot of good stuff in there. I like his hands. And the Jay Barra show. The intestines. Kill me.

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, man. What even is all this?

[Craig Horlbeck]

I think I can put it back.

[Bill Simmons]

I think I can put it back.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Kill me.

[Bill Simmons]

The ET segment is this where Danny

[Chris Ryan]

McBride goes tuk tuk and Kim have blue balls.

[Bill Simmons]

I want to let him escort ET segment with Nunoz. The disappointing buddy comedy Chitlin and the Dude.

[Joel Anderson]

I was gonna ask.

[Bill Simmons]

So what was the premise of this movie?

[Joel Anderson]

Who was Chitlin and who was the Dude?

[Bill Simmons]

I think Chitlin was Martin Lawrence.

[Chris Ryan]

Lawrence?

[Bill Simmons]

No, that was Martin Lawrence. Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

So Chitlin was. Oh, man.

[Bill Simmons]

And then the dude was Ben Stiller and Tug Speedman in drag.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

The art of parody.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh. See, Chitlin, I had so many questions for Chitlin and the Dude, I wanted to know more.

[Van Lathan]

The art of parody. Parody just works better than. Cause the name of the movie Chitlin to do, man.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a buddy Cop. Cop.

[Van Lathan]

It's a movie they would never make, but it's a movie that they made.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, they just call it something else,

[Van Lathan]

but it's really Chitlin in the Dude.

[Chris Ryan]

They call it, like, money talks.

[Joel Anderson]

Well, they had.

[Bill Simmons]

What was the Ben Vereen comedy that on TV was like 10 speed and brown Shoe, something like that. But that was like an actual show.

[Van Lathan]

You can look it up.

[Bill Simmons]

It's on ABC for multiple years. Simple Jackson this as well. And then we get to meet McConaughey, whose hair is just. I don't know what's going on.

[Chris Ryan]

It's.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It's.

[Bill Simmons]

It is like a full fledged Afro.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

He looks great, man.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I don't know if it's a wig or what he's doing.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that was maybe post a turkey visit, you know, post Harrisons.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. We get Les Grossman's entrance. This is your fault. You lie me.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, my favorite. One of my favorites. Hey, where's the key grip?

[Chris Ryan]

Punch him in the face.

[Van Lathan]

Punch him in the face. Because the key grip is going to look the same on every production.

[Bill Simmons]

We get Damien the director blowing up.

[Van Lathan]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

I got to say, this is a guilty pleasure. Favorite scene for me because I like when he puts the head on the rifle.

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Let's go and make the greatest war movie ever.

[Van Lathan]

Boom, boom.

[Bill Simmons]

It's corn syrup, guys.

[Joel Anderson]

Latex and corn syrup.

[Bill Simmons]

Then the scene. The. I don't even know how to title this scene, but the Kirk talking To Tug and Kirk.

[Chris Ryan]

Talk about physical Jack.

[Van Lathan]

Simple Jack. Now, can we talk about this scene real quick?

[Bill Simmons]

I'll just lay it out.

[Joel Anderson]

Okay.

[Van Lathan]

Talk about this scene real quick. Okay, so obviously the scene is hugely and ridiculously problematic. Obviously. Right, Is it? So I'll tell you, it is just in the world that we want to live in, it is. Right. However, the observation in the scene.

[Bill Simmons]

However, I laughed for three straight minutes.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes.

[Van Lathan]

The observation in the scene was so deadly accurate. And even still I wonder when I watch it how I never thought of that.

[Bill Simmons]

Sean Penn blew it. He went too far.

[Van Lathan]

The observation in this scene is so deadly accurate that it is just a genius, brilliant piece of comedy writing. It is.

[Bill Simmons]

It is.

[Van Lathan]

You can't take it away from people who look at that and go, you don't want that as part of a punchline and all of that stuff like that. I get it. That scene is hysterical and it's just gorgeous writing.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It's the most memorable line from the movie.

[Chris Ryan]

This is the most rewatchable scene for me. It's also basically the sleep with me, Quentin Tarantino rant about Top Gun. It's like the most dead on observation about. It looks tarted, actually. Tarted, not retarded. And the fact that actually is the peak of Downey's performance to me is he's just so. He is pretending to be an Australian guy pretending to be a black guy who's also commenting on like the nature of Oscar like, campaigns.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, also his. The way he plays off Stiller. Stiller's like, there were times I actually felt like I became retarded in town. He's like, what the fuck?

[Van Lathan]

But also. And all of that. He's also fucking with him. They're in a dick measuring contest for the starring role of this movie. So he's saying, you're a moron. You're like moronical. And being an imbecile, being just going,

[Bill Simmons]

yeah,

[Van Lathan]

like the dumbest motherfucker, dumbest motherfucker alive. He's really. And then he gives him a little bit. He walks, he makes him follow. And he just continues to fuck with him the entire time.

[Craig Horlbeck]

He does the same thing when he's commenting on his physique and he's like, any title

[Van Lathan]

I'm trying to come up too. I don't give a fuck what nobody say. He is throwing 117 miles an hour for the entire movie. And it still tickled me to this day. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Couple more. We get a couple Les Grossman scenes, including the ransom meeting. Take a big step Back literally. Fuck your own face. Him did some Flo Ridder. Was a good Flo riddle. Back up.

[Van Lathan]

You like them?

[Chris Ryan]

It was fun to revisit.

[Bill Simmons]

It was very 2007 8ish.

[Joel Anderson]

You know, I don't know if I've ever been any place that played Flo Rider, man.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, interesting.

[Joel Anderson]

Have you?

[Van Lathan]

Well, it's like lsu. Like, I wasn't. I would go home. I wasn't. I was in fucking LA by this time. But you go home, you go around the campus and they love low around campus.

[Craig Horlbeck]

A lot of flow ride at my high school prom.

[Van Lathan]

Really?

[Joel Anderson]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

I think it was.

[Joel Anderson]

I got to avoid a lot of that. I was 30 years old, man.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I was. I was close to that age, too. But you're like, you go back, you go on campus and then they play. Oh, apple bottom jeans.

[Bill Simmons]

Forgot to mention to getting recognized as Simple Jack.

[Joel Anderson]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

And they all. They all bound to pick up the vhs.

[Joel Anderson]

The.

[Bill Simmons]

I think this is a top three for me. The troops all hanging out when Jack Black is tied up, when he calls, says, your mother's a contankerous or

[Chris Ryan]

Jeff's detoxing.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And the Lance, he's talking. Brandon T. Rob, he's talking about. Talking about Lance.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And we get. Were you thinking of dangling the dice on Lance's forehead? I texted that to Craig this weekend.

[Joel Anderson]

Do you think they always knew that that was going to be Lance Bass?

[Chris Ryan]

That's a really good question.

[Bill Simmons]

That probably was a late, hey, we

[Chris Ryan]

should get shot at the Oscars already.

[Van Lathan]

And they were like, lance, it's a funny joke. It'll pay off at the end. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Downey says, man, everyone's gay once in a while. It's Hollywood. And then Jack Black wants to blow him. If he'll untie him, I'll cradle the ball, stroke the shaft, work the pipe, swallow the gravy. Get it over here, buddy. Let's do this.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Can I do my flex right now? Because it's related to that line.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, let's go.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It's the Steven Seagal shitting on himself word for the most unbelievable anecdote from the actual film shoot. Apparently, that line that Jack Black says tied to that tree, this is from an interview with Jack Black. It was an homage to the urban legend about Sylvester Stallone going to his trailer with some lady. They were having sex in his trailer. And as the legend goes, he still wore his microphone. And the sound guy turned up the volume and everybody outside could hear. And he was saying, stroke the shaft, cradle the balls, say my name. Swallow the gravy.

[Bill Simmons]

What I forgot about. I think that is a true story.

[Joel Anderson]

Sly. That's crazy.

[Van Lathan]

Wow.

[Joel Anderson]

If I'd had that context, it would have been that much funnier.

[Bill Simmons]

Cradle the balls. The shootout. Jack Black with the double cocaine hands kills me. I like when the hands come back. I like this. I have a sun now half squat. As we said, the last third of this movie is not awesome, but there's a couple fun things in there. And then the Oscars ending with Tropic Blunder and Less Dancing. So what do you got, Joel? What's your most rewatchable scene?

[Joel Anderson]

Well, actually, I gave it away already. I felt like the excess Hollywood scene just took me back to. So if I felt like I am in a hotel room right now, Right. I'm staying in a hotel room. Cause LA is not where I live. And it was just like sitting down, putting down your shit and being like, oh, yeah, this is exactly what I

[Chris Ryan]

would have expected to see sitting in an airport bar.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, yeah. On any TV from, like, 2003 to 2011.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

You know, and it just felt good like that to me. I don't know. And somebody. Then he said, you know, I didn't see the somebody said they were close to me line coming. Y' all know, I felt like that was the best acting that Ben Stiller

[Bill Simmons]

had done in the whole thing.

[Joel Anderson]

So much. They were close to me.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you got, fam?

[Van Lathan]

Kirk and Tug Saucier and San Antonio, man. I'm sorry, guys. Like, it's.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, when he's talking about Kirk for them, he's like.

[Van Lathan]

He's like, we gonna sit down? And he just. And there's something that happens in that scene. First of all, let's just say hustle up some crawl. Crunch, crawl. So Brandon. So I actually called Brandon about this, and Brandon said that they were losing the light. And now you can actually see it when you see it. They were losing the light. And Ben Stiller told them, just do whatever, just cook. Like, it was all improv. This movie has a lot of that kind of like Ghostbusters feel. When we were talking about Ghostbusters, it was all improv. They were losing the light. Ben was getting cranky, and he's like, you guys just cook. Just do some shit. And so Robert comes off the top of his head with that. He starts going in on. And Brandon T. Jackson just plays off of him and the authenticity of it. It plays real to me. Because when I'm listening to him be a black man and talk about crawdads and, like, grab some collard greens and all. It's just his. It's fucking unbelievably hilarious. It's hilarious to me.

[Joel Anderson]

Did he say collared up some greens?

[Van Lathan]

Collared up some greens, he says. Y' all in? Y' all in for a treat. Back before the war broke, I was a saucy. Call up some of these greens. It's funny, bro. This shit is funny.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have, Sierra?

[Chris Ryan]

I'm going to go with Kirk and Tug talking about Simple Jack.

[Bill Simmons]

That's mine as well.

[Van Lathan]

That's the point.

[Bill Simmons]

What's the most 2008 thing about this movie?

[Van Lathan]

I got a list.

[Chris Ryan]

Rick Peck playing Wii tennis.

[Bill Simmons]

That's one we's on there.

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, the Wii. Yeah, I get the Wii.

[Bill Simmons]

Tobey Maguire being credited as an MTV Best Kiss Award winner.

[Van Lathan]

That's on there.

[Bill Simmons]

Less rating. Maxim magazine.

[Van Lathan]

That's on there.

[Bill Simmons]

Marina and Tyra Banks.

[Van Lathan]

TiVo.

[Joel Anderson]

TiVo.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, man.

[Van Lathan]

The entire conversation about the format wars between HD DVD and Blu Ray and

[Chris Ryan]

how porn led the way.

[Van Lathan]

How porn led the way.

[Bill Simmons]

An important Lance Bass cameo, Qualcomm phones.

[Van Lathan]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

But the winner is Teevo. And the winner really is Tebow. Saving everybody at the end.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, for sure.

[Bill Simmons]

It feels like the most dated fucking thing ever.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, man.

[Bill Simmons]

Were you a TiVo monthly subscriber or lifetime?

[Chris Ryan]

I never had TiVo.

[Van Lathan]

What?

[Chris Ryan]

No, I. I didn't really get it until DVR.

[Joel Anderson]

What did y' all do?

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, I loved it by the

[Van Lathan]

time I started with it. Your provider had the. On you.

[Chris Ryan]

Also, sometimes we would literally go to, like, I would go to a friend's house to watch 24 on TiVo. Like, they would be like, I got three 24s.

[Bill Simmons]

Come really at a moment.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, man. It was a. It was like the most important thing in my house once upon a time. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What stage are best?

[Van Lathan]

Couple things. The Spalding Official NBA Ball is in there. Oh, yeah, that's 2008. The original iPod is in there.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, shit. You're right.

[Van Lathan]

The original iPod is in there.

[Bill Simmons]

The first one.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The first year.

[Van Lathan]

The first ipod is.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, man, they were so good.

[Craig Horlbeck]

There's also. While he's. Because it's. Tug is watching his ipod in the jungle, right?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Craig Horlbeck]

He pulls out a very specific brand of chapstick that is, like, only from 2008 that he's about to put on before the pandemic attacks him.

[Van Lathan]

And one thing about this, too. Last thing I'll say about 2008, everybody in this movie is in the perfect spot in Their career to be in this movie.

[Joel Anderson]

Yes.

[Van Lathan]

For like the. For the space that happened.

[Chris Ryan]

They're all big, but they're a little dinged up.

[Van Lathan]

Yep, yep.

[Joel Anderson]

Perfect.

[Bill Simmons]

Stiller's the only one who's. But even he, I guess, has a tiny bit different.

[Chris Ryan]

I sound like cable guy was like, it's a $600 million movie.

[Joel Anderson]

This is just his project, though, so it's not. You know, he's already kind of had his run. Right.

[Bill Simmons]

What stage? The best. I have a list, but what do you got, Joel?

[Joel Anderson]

I thought the portrayal of Les Grossman, I thought, oh, shit. You know what I'm saying? Like, don't you think of him like, that is our CEO class in this country.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure.

[Joel Anderson]

You know what I mean? And like, he. For what? Even though people think that there was some anti Semitic tropes with that. I didn't read that. I didn't get that out of that. That may be my own ignorance on it or whatever, but I just thought that kind of executive has defined American culture as much as anyone over the past 20 years.

[Bill Simmons]

Go ahead, man. He doesn't give a.

[Joel Anderson]

If people die. He doesn't have to treat you nice. He's ridiculous.

[Van Lathan]

Like, he'll make you watch him ask, why you asking? You should be asking him, what does he say?

[Chris Ryan]

Like, and in the appropriate amount of time, we will file an insurance claim.

[Van Lathan]

I think that's actually true.

[Chris Ryan]

That's why it's a performance that, like, honestly, in 08, you were probably like, huh. And then now it's like, oh, it's completely on the nose for that.

[Craig Horlbeck]

That.

[Chris Ryan]

That era of Hollywood exec, for sure.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have for what stage the best?

[Chris Ryan]

The. The. The whole scene with his exploded hands and the two of them trying, like, to crying on each other. And Ben Stiller still trying to cut, like, the arrogance of those guys. And just Putting Danny. Danny McBride in charge of explosives.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, fantastic. YouTube. They mentioned YouTube. YouTube was still kind of. Yeah, YouTube.

[Bill Simmons]

Two years in that's age.

[Van Lathan]

The best.

[Joel Anderson]

Also.

[Van Lathan]

All of these guys are kind of still on top. Yeah, Like, Matthew.

[Bill Simmons]

Jack Black's the biggest one out of all of them.

[Van Lathan]

Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey. Tom Cruise is back. Ben Stiller has severance. And the Knicks, like, it's like a lot of these guys. Robert Downey Jr. These guys are like, still on top.

[Joel Anderson]

Let me ask about your boy, though. Who is Brandon doing?

[Van Lathan]

He's doing great.

[Joel Anderson]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

The brother.

[Joel Anderson]

You know, man, you should tell the truth about your friend's experience, man.

[Van Lathan]

You know what I'm Saying Brandon's doing great. I talked to him. He's doing great. Watch Deadline is. He's doing great. He's had a great career and it's still going on. I don't know why you picking on.

[Bill Simmons]

Just glad Van was able to do a name drop. Been a couple episodes. I called Brandon earlier.

[Van Lathan]

I could drop more. I could go ahead. You know, the people you talked about. Don't. Don't get used though. Don't you don't do it. What if somebody else could do that? You can't do that, though.

[Chris Ryan]

You got to start just name dropping. Like, be like, yeah, man. I was texting with Matt Dylan the other day and just see if he

[Bill Simmons]

calls you on it.

[Joel Anderson]

Like,

[Van Lathan]

you can't do that. A lot of people could do that, but not you.

[Joel Anderson]

Look at you doing a LeBron meme.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, you're finger pointing. I have Vietnam movie parodies I still enjoy even all these years later, even though they don't really make Vietnam movies anymore. But I still love that whole culture. We even did a podcast about him once. Sandusky's theory about porno movies validating video formats. I thought it was. Was honestly kind of brilliant.

[Chris Ryan]

I was thinking about this the other day because we were doing a physical media pod on Big Picture and we were asked a question about whether or not there will ever be something above 4K. And the first thing that popped into my mind was from this movie. It was like, well, if porn. If porn leads the way, then yes,

[Bill Simmons]

it's going to be 8k. Right, Craig?

[Chris Ryan]

Apparently the human eye can't process more than 4k.

[Bill Simmons]

I barely can process 4k. How about an author lying about a personal experience to sell books? Yeah, that's aged pretty well.

[Van Lathan]

See that?

[Chris Ryan]

James Fry.

[Joel Anderson]

James Fr.

[Bill Simmons]

This is a personal one for me and it's so stuff, but it kills me. Rick. Rick Peck's loser son.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, man,

[Bill Simmons]

The picture thing he has in his office in the Sun's not even looking at the camera. Oh.

[Joel Anderson]

But when they on the plane at the end of the movie, too, I was like, oh, this is so good.

[Bill Simmons]

I have PEX remedy for killing a hooker, for how to clean it up. Get your hands on some bleach, hydrogen peroxide, and a shitload of lime. I thought it was a great little kid performance by the leader of the flaming dragons. That guy's good.

[Joel Anderson]

He's really good.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, he was excellent. Excellent. He was like, scary. He could do moves. And then I like when Nolte says, let's bag and tag the bastard. You're in a world of hurt.

[Van Lathan]

That's funny.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's bag attack the bastard.

[Van Lathan]

It looks like you're in the world of hurt.

[Bill Simmons]

That's what CR said about the Celtics after Game 7. Let's bag and tag the bastard.

[Chris Ryan]

Starting to Tatum.

[Bill Simmons]

And then.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, my God.

[Bill Simmons]

So. So the five actors nominated for best actor leading role were Tug Speedman, Tom Hanks, Sean Penn, Tobey Maguire, and Jon Voight. Pretty believable. Five some.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

And you have to presume Sean Penn

[Chris Ryan]

consented to be included in that group.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, probably Downey because he knew downing from early 80s. Okay. The Floyd Gondoli, butter in my ass and lollipops in my mouth award for something I just enjoy.

[Joel Anderson]

Way every time somebody says Booty Sweat, man, it does work for me, bro. Like, I mean, I was saying, you know, there was a time when people would say Rick James, bitch, or whatever we want, boys. Just talk about Booty Sweat. You know what I'm saying? Let me get some of that Booty Sweat.

[Chris Ryan]

Honestly, don't.

[Joel Anderson]

See, don't, don't.

[Van Lathan]

I'm not doing anything.

[Joel Anderson]

Don't do that. Don't do it.

[Van Lathan]

I saw you.

[Chris Ryan]

Anytime Sympathy for the Devil is used in a movie, I'm just kind of like my spidey senses go off.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I did a deal. I was going to wonder. I was going to do the hottest take on whether that's the best movie song of all time, but it wasn't. Less movies than I thought.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I also give you shelters.

[Bill Simmons]

The big one.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Where is it?

[Bill Simmons]

A lot.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But more TV shows. I have a, I really love well done fake movie trailers. In a movie. It's a fucking home run every time. Like, I, I, I honestly, I feel like we're short. Like Craig.

[Craig Horlbeck]

We're like 50 short career fake movie trailers.

[Bill Simmons]

Just really well done ones. Just throwing, like, why not just. If you're making a comedy, why not just put a fake movie trailer for no reason before the movie set in

[Chris Ryan]

a second season of the studio? Because the Paul Dano action movie that they did, which is really just the opening scene of that movie or the climax of that movie.

[Craig Horlbeck]

And they did the one about the,

[Chris Ryan]

like the, did they ever do the Greta Gerwig? Not. Yeah, the Greta Gerwig.

[Craig Horlbeck]

They did the one where the guys

[Chris Ryan]

are the Sarah Polly, the Fart pocalypse.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Didn't they do that trailer in studio? In the studio with Johnny Knoxville.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's right.

[Bill Simmons]

I miss those. What do you have, Van? Do you have one?

[Van Lathan]

I Like walking around the jungle. I just like movies in the jungle. Army action movies. Just walking around in the jungle.

[Bill Simmons]

Being scared. Yeah, being scared. All right, we'll take a break and then we'll come back with Joel's first ever flex.

[Chris Ryan]

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[Craig Horlbeck]

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[Craig Horlbeck]

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[Bill Simmons]

tremphyaradio.com this episode is brought to you by McDonald's. Right now at McDonald's, you can get great deals all day with McValue. Jump start your day with the under $3 menu featuring a sausage McMuffin for just $1.50. Or grab the perfect lunch with the McDouble for just 2.50. Honestly, nothing pairs with a movie marathon like a McDouble in hand. Get even more value with McValue. Only at McDonald's. Ba da ba ba ba. Limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher for delivery. All right, Joel, it's time your flex category first. Did you understand the assignments?

[Joel Anderson]

I did understand the assignment and actually I had something for all three and now I'm going to decide right here based on the tenor of the conversation. Oh, all right. Because you know, sometimes because either it's like I could have done something more ridiculous, but also I just don't want to seem, you know, this is a very high brow podcast.

[Chris Ryan]

Sure it is. You know what I'm saying? A lot of intellectual have to.

[Bill Simmons]

It's not at my house, but not at the house.

[Joel Anderson]

Not with the catering and everything.

[Van Lathan]

Wow.

[Chris Ryan]

Bill Sugarfish. Thanks, man.

[Bill Simmons]

Tell your chef thanks.

[Joel Anderson]

Maybe the next time the needle drop Run through the jungle by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Yeah, that shit is beautiful. And I expect to Hear it in every Vietnam era movie.

[Bill Simmons]

You're right. It's probably 80% of the Vietnam movies feel like they have to do it.

[Joel Anderson]

It.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I wonder why.

[Bill Simmons]

Why wasn't there more classic rock songs about jungles?

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, I just. In general, I think Credence has that vibe. So. Like Susie Q's and Apocalypse now, and I'm sure there's one.

[Bill Simmons]

Are they the number one Vietnam movie band?

[Van Lathan]

Fortunate Sons, Bad Moon Rising. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And then there's a lot of Motown.

[Van Lathan]

What's the most used song in a Vietnam movie?

[Bill Simmons]

Probably anything from Credence Clearwater.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I think it's Fortunate Son is the most stereotypical song, allegedly.

[Joel Anderson]

They say that song is about gun violence. Like, which is crazy because this is from like 1969. Yeah, yeah. I was like this. It really wasn't about Vietnam, huh? Okay, sure. Whatever you say. But yeah, that was my shit. And maybe I actually downloaded that so I could listen to it.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, man.

[Bill Simmons]

Great shot, Gordo Award. Tug running in front of the bridge as it blows up.

[Chris Ryan]

Or would you just. Great shot, Gordo Slash. The Sean Fenasy Award for stealth homage. That gives every movie nerd a criteria. Orgasm is the reenactment of the Willem Dafoe death. Platoon. We didn't do Platoon.

[Bill Simmons]

It's on the list,

[Van Lathan]

that movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Chess. Rockwell Brocklander's award for best character name. It's got to be Alpo Chino.

[Joel Anderson]

Alpo Chino.

[Van Lathan]

Kirk Lazarus is good, too.

[Chris Ryan]

My silver medal is actually Haters character is named Rob Slalom. I don't know if they ever actually say it out loud.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

But it's so weird to watch Hater because you keep waiting for him to completely break out in this movie and he's just like, kind of keeping it now.

[Joel Anderson]

If you count Lincoln. Osiris is the name.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yes.

[Joel Anderson]

That's a good one.

[Bill Simmons]

Link.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness. Joel talked about the needle drop. There's a couple really good ones in there. But it's. It's got a good.

[Chris Ryan]

For what it's Worth is also another big Vietnam movie.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you got for your flex?

[Chris Ryan]

I have Billy Batts Jack Waltz award for the most biting and scalable insult for first. First of all, take a big step back and literally your own face.

[Bill Simmons]

That's a great one. Butch's Girlfriend. Word. Weak link of the film.

[Chris Ryan]

This is a really. This is a good one here. I think this is interesting.

[Bill Simmons]

Mine is. We already discussed it. I thought the last third could have been seven, eight minutes tighter and we just could have Gotten out of there.

[Joel Anderson]

Even halfway through, I was like, man, this is kind of going on.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. You know, I wanted more. Like, there's a deleted scene before that. They send the Five into the jungle again, where they're at some party at the set and they're talking to Apoccino. Baruchel meets him. And I just wanted two more scenes with that. Like the guys hanging out before it got weird. And less at the back end would be my note.

[Van Lathan]

I have Jack Black.

[Joel Anderson]

Wow. You thought he just showed up and collected a check, huh?

[Van Lathan]

No, I think that the Jack Black stuff is funny at times, but I do think that beyond the scene of. There's two scenes that really work other than that he's kind of just whacked out in the movie and pulling it away from the funniest parts, which is like Kirk and Tug and Al Pacino and some of the other stuff. I had Jack Black, and it's rare. Jack Black is normally a plus player in every movie he's in, but in this one, I had him as the weak link.

[Chris Ryan]

I have. Steve Coogan is much funnier in Reigns of Madness than he is in Tropic Thunder. And I feel like they kind of hemmed him in a little bit.

[Joel Anderson]

I'm a Ben Stiller, man. I was his Ben Stiller.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, man. I'm sorry.

[Van Lathan]

I just.

[Joel Anderson]

Again, I felt like I was like, oh, I've seen this Ben Stiller before. Over and over again. I didn't think he had that much work to do. I felt like he got to be himself. And, you know, I mean, I didn't mean that he was bad. And I didn't think. I didn't think.

[Van Lathan]

Well, you could.

[Joel Anderson]

The acting performances were probably some of the best parts of the movie to me. And of that bunch, I thought I would have said Jack Black, but I couldn't say Jack Black. Cause you already said Jack Black. So I had Ben Stiller, like, right above that.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I get what Joel's saying. I think we were talking about this a little bit earlier. Like, Ben Stiller has really good taste. And usually the movies he's involved in are really good and funny, but he's not always the single best part of the movie as just particularly an actor.

[Van Lathan]

But there's something that he can do that is very useful in a movie like this is he can be a funny straight man.

[Chris Ryan]

Yes. And he's making fun of himself.

[Van Lathan]

He's making fun of himself, and his performances are nuanced enough to where he can be the straight man to a lot of other stuff that is crazy and happening at the same time in the movie. Yeah. But he can also actually have you laugh at him.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I enjoy him more as a character actor. Like, I think him and Happy Gilmore or even Zoolander is funnier than when he's just doing like the Meet the parents thing.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The Steven Seagal shitting on himself award for most unbelievable anecdote from the actual film shoot, which Craig already did. I have another one. This is Bill Hader. This is a story he had. Tom Cruise didn't know who I was and was trying to figure it out. I said, seth Rogen's a friend of mine. He said, he went to your house. I did a Seth Rogen impersonation for two seconds. Like, tom Cruise is amazing. We rode motorcycles in his backyard. And it was like I did a magic trick. Tom Cruise started clapping and going crazy. And he went, you do impressions and you're on Saturday Night Live. Meaning I was briefed and I know now who you are. I just sort of love to be in the room for this. Yeah, but can you imagine Cruz doing the over exaggerated did. You're so funny. You're the SNL guy.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, it's like kind of like the politician who's just like. This is the treasury secretary and that's his daughter now his wife. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

He's been on SNL for two years. What stage the worst? Well, we covered a lot of the what stage the worst already, including the. The website for Simple Jack, all the other things that happen. I don't any other what stage the worst that we have.

[Chris Ryan]

I would probably say it's just so. I would say the action in this movie is each the worst.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. I would say that comedy is not the only thing that matters now anymore. Your movie is not just about whether or not it's funny. This is like really one of the last movies that was like, okay, it's gonna take all of these chances, these gigantic swings, and if it's funny, it's gonna work. Your shit can't just be funny now. There has to be more than that. You have to consider a lot of things before you put it. Put script to screen and then put it out. Or else people gonna not fuck with. They're gonna submarine it before he even gets to the table.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Unless you're a standup.

[Van Lathan]

If you're a standup, it can still work. But even as a standup, though, you have this almost sectioned off group of people who just came to see you. The movies, I think people react differently to them because they. I don't know why people still feel like that. Every movie is supposed to be for everyone. They don't feel like that way about standups. It's almost like if you go to see Louis C.K. at this point, you know what you signed. But when a movie comes out, a lot of times people are offended because they feel like if it's in the theater, I'm supposed to be able to watch it.

[Chris Ryan]

And I think also it's just like, I've. You've been selling me this movie for such a long time, and it either is or isn't what I expected it to be.

[Craig Horlbeck]

For a movie to get made, like a hundred people have to sign off on it. Louie. Yeah, Kind of just him.

[Bill Simmons]

Anyone stage. Do you have anyone staged the worst for us or did we cover?

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, no. I was going to say, I thought the comedy just fell flat. This total. Like, again, it wasn't as funny as I remember. I just.

[Van Lathan]

I thought.

[Joel Anderson]

See, I rarely.

[Bill Simmons]

Case of Joel Tropic Thunder.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I don't like this movie.

[Van Lathan]

Came on this podcast. He's not.

[Chris Ryan]

No, he did the work, though.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I did.

[Joel Anderson]

I just, you know, again, I watched it again. I think I. I definitely remember thinking it was funnier in 2000.

[Chris Ryan]

Can we actually. Because this is Joel's first time on the podcast, can we get a. A barometer of what would be a funny movie to you exactly?

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, my favorite movie is Coming to America Friday. Okay.

[Van Lathan]

Funny.

[Joel Anderson]

You know what I'm saying? Oh, you know what else I love? I always talk about welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins. Cause nobody fucks. You know, we ain't fuck with it, but yeah. Okay.

[Van Lathan]

You ever see that one?

[Joel Anderson]

You ever seen welcome home Roscoe Jenkins,

[Bill Simmons]

2000s, something like that?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I think it's early 2000s. He goes back to his family reunion.

[Joel Anderson]

It was in the. Shreveport. They filmed in shreveport.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It was 2008.

[Van Lathan]

2008.

[Joel Anderson]

2008. See, 2008.

[Van Lathan]

I like to love it.

[Joel Anderson]

I believe he did. I believe the laugh. I like to laugh.

[Chris Ryan]

But I didn't know if you were going to be like, to me, Rushmore is funny, you know? Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

I mean, I like a lot of the. What's he doing? Like the best in show, like that kind of stuff.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Christopher Guest stuff.

[Joel Anderson]

Christopher Guest movies. Y' all love that stuff. You know that. This one just. And look, I like Anchorman. Like, Anchorman. Step Brothers. I could. If you put Step Brothers on right now, I will not get.

[Van Lathan]

We got the idea.

[Joel Anderson]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

You know, we.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm just fast forwarding to all the people who be like, why'd you have the guy who doesn't like Traffic Thunder on the Rewatch?

[Chris Ryan]

But, you know, we had this conversation with, about. With something about Barry, about its legacy.

[Bill Simmons]

This is a complicated movie.

[Chris Ryan]

It's Legacy beyond. Just like, whether it was funny or not. Right. And you just mentioned two movies that I feel like, have a way bigger, like, sort of mind share of like the current movie going public with Anchorman and Step Brothers are way bigger than Tropic Thunder. I also think they're better movies.

[Bill Simmons]

I think that. I think they have a much longer tail.

[Joel Anderson]

Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Don't you think so?

[Van Lathan]

But I'll also say there's one. There's a reason why. Because those movies edit for television better.

[Bill Simmons]

There's another reason, like, my kids didn't like Tropic Thunder, which I was shocked by.

[Van Lathan]

I get it. It's an edgier movie.

[Chris Ryan]

It's a satire of like 19.

[Bill Simmons]

They were just out. But they fucking love Anchorman and Stepbrothers.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Those movies are more. I mean, there's some, you know, but those movies edit for television better. Those are more accessible films.

[Joel Anderson]

Outside of Downey, did you think. I mean, again, I'm not. I don't. Again, people are gonna get mad at me, but that's fine. Did you think it outside of Downey, did it seem like smart, funny to you, though? Like, you were just like, oh, wow, that was some really complicated humor. You really thought.

[Chris Ryan]

I thought that the simple seat of the, like, hour of the movie and especially like the trailers, the. The Maria Menouno section, Peck and Grossman, like all that first bit run through the Hollywood stuff is pretty.

[Van Lathan]

She's funny at the end. At the end of it, she goes. Something like that. She's funny. Like all of that stuff leading up to it, to me is really, really high level satire going on.

[Bill Simmons]

Ruffalo handed Rubenic Partridge overacting word.

[Chris Ryan]

Jack Black.

[Bill Simmons]

Jack Black, yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

Jack Black. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Van's choice for a flex.

[Van Lathan]

Okay. A list five movies not getting greenlit in 2026. Number five, our namesake movie, the Ringer. Have you ever seen this?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that was problematic when it happened.

[Chris Ryan]

That's Johnny Knoxville, right?

[Van Lathan]

Johnny Knoxville.

[Bill Simmons]

We had a big debate about whether we named the ringer the Ringer. Wondering if the ringer the movie would overshadow us with Google. And guess what? It didn't.

[Van Lathan]

It did not.

[Chris Ryan]

I almost cost you so much money by calling the website Chase the.

[Craig Horlbeck]

No.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Almost there.

[Chris Ryan]

We tried for two years, Chris. I gotta pull the plug.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, seriously, These are four.

[Van Lathan]

The five movies we're not making. Number four, Tropic Thunder. I don't know if with all this stuff like that, the movie intact, the way it is, gets greenlit today. I don't know if they make it number three. Juana.

[Joel Anderson]

Man, oh, man.

[Van Lathan]

Not gonna happen. You're not, in this day and age, gonna have a movie where a guy goes and dominates the wnba. Cause he's a guy. We're having too many conversations. The W is coming too far.

[Chris Ryan]

That's right.

[Van Lathan]

It's not gonna happen.

[Joel Anderson]

That's right.

[Van Lathan]

Number two, I think is. Could easily be number one. It's an easy one. The Birth of a Nation.

[Chris Ryan]

Like the. The new Birth of a Nation. The second one, the one old. The 1915 birth of a Nation.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, we're not doing that right now.

[Chris Ryan]

I think that would have been the case.

[Van Lathan]

They played it in the White House.

[Bill Simmons]

All right.

[Van Lathan]

People were happy to go see it. All right. So I gotta say right now, that's

[Chris Ryan]

because they were like, I can't believe a train is moving.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Van Lathan]

That is. That is partly true. It's also because they was fucking with that shit.

[Joel Anderson]

No, they kind of. I mean, they might. I mean, they might have that shit.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, they might.

[Joel Anderson]

I mean, that would. That would go over.

[Chris Ryan]

There might be a 4K or two sitting around in the White House now,

[Van Lathan]

number one, despite the fact that we have tried on this podcast to change the legacy of this movie, there's no way Soul man happens in 2026. Soul man is an implied.

[Chris Ryan]

Its lack of availability is probably a test of.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, so Soul man is number one.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Soul man would cause a riot.

[Van Lathan]

Who's gonna be rioting?

[Bill Simmons]

Not just everybody. Do you think all people riot?

[Joel Anderson]

Do you think it would cause. Actually, I mean, ultimately the guy finds out that, like, racism is a real thing. Do you think it. Because of that, the people. Like what. You know, we can't get to that about race.

[Van Lathan]

I'm trying to say that we can't get to that point. At the end of Soul Man, Soul man rounds out with him discovering just how terrible it is. Is. But see, Thomas, how the entire movie has. It's just not going to happen.

[Bill Simmons]

I would like to throw in the Crying Game into this talk.

[Van Lathan]

Interesting.

[Bill Simmons]

I think people would lose their minds now. They would have intentionally spoiled the secret. I think that movie gets submarined in

[Van Lathan]

and actually a good one.

[Joel Anderson]

That's a good one. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

People would have been really mad at that.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm trying to, man. Like just on twists alone. I mean, I Know why you're saying Crying Game, but I wonder whether or not if you tried to pitch Fight Club now, would they just be like, yeah, but we're not going to be able to keep it a secret. Like, there's just too many people writing about movies. There's too many people who see movies too early. And they'll be like, make sure you stick around for the last 20 minutes of this.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, like, yo, really tough.

[Van Lathan]

What a profound. Have we lost? Would Fight Club not work today?

[Bill Simmons]

The ability to keep a secret. We've lost. Blair Witch is dead. No way.

[Van Lathan]

Doesn't work like Fight Club completely. Does not work in any way as a movie or as an experience. I remember when my homies was first putting me on Fight Club. Cause I hadn't seen the theater. They were happy to, like, not spoil it. They would tell you, everybody, I can't tell you what's going on. And it just made you. I don't know if that would exist now. It would be all over. Kind of like what they did with the drama almost.

[Joel Anderson]

I love Fight Club.

[Van Lathan]

American History X. Oh, they could still make that one. Yeah, I think that one could still get made.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay. The CR Thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. Hottest Take Award. What do you have, CR this movie

[Chris Ryan]

did to Platoon what Walcard did to music biographies.

[Joel Anderson]

Ooh.

[Chris Ryan]

I tried watching Platoon this weekend. I need a little bit more distance from Tropic Thunder to, like, watch Keith David. Like, like, we're going home, brother. You know, like, it's just too close. And all the shots that they had, like, there's so many one for one shots from, like, Platoon in Tropic Thunder. So I think it kind of deflated the ball a little bit.

[Van Lathan]

My highest take is this is legitimately the only time I. I have purely and sincerely, not even a half of percent at all been offended by black women. This looks bad. I'm just letting you guys know I know that this looks bad. I want to have been offended by that in this movie more. I want to be. I interrogate myself. But as many times as I've watched it, as many times as I've seen it, I just have never even a little bit been offended by the usage of it in this. There's no blackface. If you do it, I'm gonna get on your motherfucking ass. Stop with the goddamn Halloween costumes. It's not a tribute to Beyonce. I can't like all of that stuff. But in this movie, for whatever reason, it's just never offended me.

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, that's Some real shit. I actually agree with him. It does not. It had to be as good as it was for it to meet that bar. And I'm just going into, like, all right, I have to. I'm gonna give Lincoln Osiris a chance.

[Chris Ryan]

It's also like, if he had been doing, like. If he had been doing anything that was, like, contemporary, like, if he tried to kick hip hop language in it or anything like that, it would've just blown up in his face.

[Joel Anderson]

So when he did the saucier and San Antonio thing, that's why they had Brandon's character go right back. Cause, like, okay, you're leaning into the shield.

[Bill Simmons]

You're doing a little tricky.

[Chris Ryan]

Well, now you're. Yeah, now you're too many times in between take.

[Van Lathan]

But that was the joke all the time. The joke was, what do you mean? You people, they continuously remind you over and over and over thing that the absurdity of this is that people take roles like this. The absurdity is that this is not so far out of the realm of what has happened or what did happen. So I don't know. I just got it.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you have?

[Joel Anderson]

That was it. I mean, I actually. I'm not offended by the blackface at all. And I get. I think, again, I.

[Bill Simmons]

You don't have the hottest take that performance. That's not your hottest take.

[Joel Anderson]

What's that?

[Bill Simmons]

Do you have a hottest take?

[Joel Anderson]

That's the hottest take.

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, you both had the.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

You separately came to the same hottest.

[Joel Anderson]

I'm not offended by the black face at all because I get. I think this is my first time in front of the Rewatchables audience, right? And I know there's a lot of people on Reddit or whatever, it's like, oh, that guy's jokester.

[Van Lathan]

Let's go. But anyway, I can laugh at, like, that.

[Joel Anderson]

You know what I mean? I think that's funny.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, they're gonna love you if you're gonna be racist.

[Joel Anderson]

Like, at least be funny with your shit, dawg. And like, I felt like, yeah, like, become come correct. I mean, I'm not even talking about some of the shit I like on Twitter. Sometimes I'm just like, oh, man. You know, sometimes Nick Fuentes has some.

[Van Lathan]

No

[Joel Anderson]

says some shit. I'm like, I don't.

[Van Lathan]

I know.

[Joel Anderson]

I don't fuck with you. I don't like you. We would never be cool. But I was like, that was kind of funny, though, dog.

[Chris Ryan]

Do you want me to try and

[Bill Simmons]

get out of this, or you want

[Joel Anderson]

me to do It. We can move on.

[Bill Simmons]

Let's do.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Let's do. How would Van get out of this one right now?

[Chris Ryan]

Should we do it like a top 10 black face?

[Joel Anderson]

You don't think Nick Fuentes is funny?

[Van Lathan]

Get the out of my face with that.

[Joel Anderson]

You said it before.

[Van Lathan]

Shut up, dog.

[Chris Ryan]

I never wished we were live on Netflix more.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, I'm going to try to follow that one, but I had his take. I think you could switch four actors, the parts of the this, and it's a better movie. Oh, I think you could switch McConaughey and Stiller, and I think you could switch Jack Black and Bill Hader, and I think the movie's better.

[Chris Ryan]

So Stiller in that Tom Cruise.

[Bill Simmons]

Stiller's the agent.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. In the Tom Cruise oral history.

[Bill Simmons]

Still going to play the agent. And I think McConaughey as the lead, I think would have been really fun. Because my issue with this is it feels very Zoolander y. The character. It feels like a Stiller character I've seen before. He's just more jacked. Whereas McConaughey, I would have been interested, but I think Hayter and the Jack Black part, when it was like, we hadn't really had Hater yet. We'd had Jack Black around for, like, 12 years at that point. I think Hater just would have added some improv stuff. I just think it would have been

[Chris Ryan]

better if you switch McConaughey out of Peck, though. You don't get Rum Tum Tugger nuts. It's Pecker.

[Bill Simmons]

What do you think? Did I break your brain with that?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Craig McConaughey has tug, I think, really works Hater. The physicality that Jack Black brings, I do think adds some sparkle to the movie. When it's just them walking through the jungle for, like, an hour. Jack Black does kind of bring that Farley energy that I do think, kind of unique.

[Bill Simmons]

Okay. Casting what ifs? Stiller wanted Keanu as Tug. Didn't happen, really. He was going to play Rick Pack, and Keanu was going to be Tug. Tug. Keanu was tugging is. I don't know. I don't know if that one would have worked.

[Chris Ryan]

It's really. Keanu might be one of the hardest actors to, like, assign roles to. Like this, like.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It's.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like. It's. You talk about, like, Robert Downey Jr. Spending 15 years playing iron Man. Like, I feel like Keanu's been John wick for, like, 15 years.

[Van Lathan]

I think it was like, 2014 or 13 or something.

[Bill Simmons]

He's in that aiz movie as an angel or whatever. And I was.

[Chris Ryan]

And he's in the J. Hill movie.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Is he one of those guys that. When Kasik perfectly. Is perfect. Utah speed. John Wick.

[Bill Simmons]

Shane Falco.

[Van Lathan]

Shane Falco. Shane Falco works and even in Parenthood

[Bill Simmons]

perfectly classic cardball guy. Smoking, gambling. Little League coach Kevin Hart turned down Alpochino. Didn't want to play a gay character.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, that's right.

[Bill Simmons]

Some tough research on this one he admitted though.

[Joel Anderson]

I mean he said it's like my own insecurity along those lines. But still it's just kind of well grow.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Most Def turned it down because he wanted. He wanted to change a character to an R and B musician. He didn't want to make fun of rap really. So ended up being. Did you get the sense Van talked to today.

[Joel Anderson]

But did you get the sense that he was a. A rap star? Like, I don't know. I felt like that was the one thing that was kind of missing. Like I didn't get.

[Chris Ryan]

I felt like he was like more like Nick Cannon or something.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah. Like I.

[Bill Simmons]

It almost felt like he was a rap star five years ago who had now become star. This was sad.

[Chris Ryan]

The.

[Bill Simmons]

So Cruz vacated. Rick Peek. Owen Wilson gets cast. And then Owen Wilson had. Oh, remember that had that meltdown in 07. Suicide attempt. Sadly dropped out. Matthew McCon comes in. So Maan was the third choice which is kind of where he was in his career.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Best that guy award. I don't know.

[Chris Ryan]

I have Yvette Nicole Brown as pex assistant. Assistant Goes on to become.

[Bill Simmons]

You bet.

[Van Lathan]

Nicole Brown is your vet. Nicole Brown.

[Chris Ryan]

No, now she is.

[Bill Simmons]

I.

[Chris Ryan]

It's like I'm using a. More of a. Like. Oh, like the background player. And then it's like she's like. Got one shot where she's like.

[Van Lathan]

It's like hang up the phone like at that time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because like she's. She's like a cultural mate.

[Bill Simmons]

You know what's funny is Danny McBride, when they made this movie, was that kind of like.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, kind of. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Eastbound made him Dana McBride St Christopher.

[Joel Anderson]

Walking was kind of like. I just like.

[Van Lathan]

Oh yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

Just love seeing him walking as a. That guy.

[Bill Simmons]

Interesting recasting couch. I did mine in my hottest take. Did you have any?

[Chris Ryan]

Not really.

[Joel Anderson]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Craig did his flex. We're moving to half assed Internet research.

[Chris Ryan]

Dion.

[Van Lathan]

While you didn't do Dion. That's a crazy.

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't do Dion. Jesus. Well, it's Cruise.

[Van Lathan]

It's kind of Tom Cruise.

[Bill Simmons]

Tom Cruise, right.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I had this though.

[Bill Simmons]

You test drive?

[Chris Ryan]

No ride. I had something for possibly unanswerable questions, but I'll bring it up for Dion. Now, it's not necessarily that Les is in this movie too much for Dion, which is like a. A sliding kind of barometer sometimes. What would happen if there's just one Les Grossman scene? Is it. Does it become like one of the great one scene cameos of all time?

[Craig Horlbeck]

You don't love Grossman. There's a little bit of you.

[Chris Ryan]

No, I think Grossman is incredible. On the fuck your own face.

[Joel Anderson]

1.

[Chris Ryan]

And I like, I'm gonna get. You have to get a binding resolution. I think it's three scenes and it almost feels like midway through, they're like, like, man, this is incredible. We got. We got to do another Grossman scene again.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

I think that it was probably Cruz's commitment to it. Like, oh, Tom's having a lot of fun. How much can. How much juice can we get?

[Chris Ryan]

It should have been Alec Baldwin and Glengarry. It should have just been like, I'm speechless after that one scene. Yeah, maybe that should have been my highest take.

[Van Lathan]

You.

[Bill Simmons]

That would have been a good one.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, you could say he just could have been the one scene and then the end. But then we don't get him negotiating with the.

[Craig Horlbeck]

That seems great when he goes. Lots of money.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, yeah. I thought the third scene was like, really good.

[Van Lathan]

The scene at the. At the very end, like, that was probably a little bit too much. And then he's dancing through the credits. But how do you guys feel about the dancer to the credits? It was kind of see like as

[Craig Horlbeck]

a 14 year old. I love that shit.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, I like shit like that for credits.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Half assed. They filmed in Hawaii and Kauai. It's the first movie in Kauai in five years.

[Chris Ryan]

This is. This is the beginning of people being like, you know, it's cool.

[Van Lathan]

Cool.

[Chris Ryan]

Living in Hawaii.

[Bill Simmons]

This is when Adam Sandler really figured it out. And he's like family friend, vacation, Hawaii, tropical location.

[Joel Anderson]

He got married down there too, still.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

So I bet that was just like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Donald Glover, big Hawaii guy.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

We mentioned most of this stuff, except Stiller, Downey and Black appeared on the seventh season finale of American Idol as the Pips performing with Gladys Knight. They just. Before the movie came out, they promoted the shit out of this movie. They went everywhere. They popped on every show. They did American Idol shit. Van's guy, Rick Baker designed and created The Downey makeup Rick Baker thriller guy.

[Van Lathan]

Did he do the fatties as well?

[Bill Simmons]

He probably did everything.

[Chris Ryan]

I wonder if he did the hands.

[Bill Simmons]

Who is like the second best? Rick Baker.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

If it's not him, who is the who?

[Bill Simmons]

If you can't get, then who was the other guy who was almost as good as John Williams?

[Van Lathan]

Talking about Hans Zimmer. No, no.

[Chris Ryan]

Jerry Goldsmith.

[Bill Simmons]

Jerry Goldsmith.

[Van Lathan]

I mean, there's a couple that, like, if you depending on, like. But if you can't get Rick Baker, who's the. Who's the second? Rick Baker.

[Bill Simmons]

It feels like Rick Baker just annihilated everybody.

[Chris Ryan]

I think it's Stan Winston.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, Stan Winston. Yeah, Stan Winston. Yeah. Stan Winston's way up there.

[Bill Simmons]

CR mentioned the mockumentary Reign of Bad Dead Downey at 1 1/2 to 2 hours of makeup. And then they wanted. Did you see the thing about how they wanted Nolte's character to be revealed like Quint Jaws, and they decided it was too many homages. And then Hater said he went in to audition for Tropic Thunder.

[Van Lathan]

Is Stan Winston black? He.

[Joel Anderson]

He kind of got a shell. Silver.

[Van Lathan]

He got a little situation happening. No. Are we tripping about this Stan Winston? No, I don't think it's like a.

[Joel Anderson]

Like maybe he's just a little red

[Van Lathan]

here, but go back. Go back to the last one. Is it not a great year? But we're not.

[Joel Anderson]

Look at that.

[Van Lathan]

Kind of.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Van Lathan]

I don't think so because I think I would have known.

[Joel Anderson]

It's funny because when you said Stan Winston, I was like, stan Winston's a black ass name.

[Van Lathan]

It's a black name. Like, if you look at him right there. Go to like some more. Like.

[Joel Anderson]

You want to get some more images?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

Okay. Hold on. Doug.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, I don't know, Joe. I don't know, bro.

[Joel Anderson]

Look at that.

[Van Lathan]

I don't know, bro.

[Joel Anderson]

I don't think that's a black man, bro.

[Van Lathan]

I don't know.

[Joel Anderson]

You don't think so?

[Van Lathan]

I'm a claim I him, though.

[Craig Horlbeck]

All right, cool.

[Van Lathan]

Stan Winston.

[Joel Anderson]

Show Silverstein, man.

[Chris Ryan]

I shouldn't have said anything.

[Van Lathan]

I'm looking at him. He's. I don't think that he is, but I don't know, dog.

[Joel Anderson]

Look at. Look.

[Van Lathan]

Not in that. We lost. We lost. We had him. We lost.

[Bill Simmons]

You had him for

[Joel Anderson]

son. Maybe it depends on that. Some people light skinned. That shows up a little bit more.

[Bill Simmons]

Hater. The last one is Hater went to audition for Tropic Thunder and saw a possible Cruise playing Les Ghost, Les Grossman. And then all of a sudden was like, this is the most important addition of my life. I've got to nail this. And was really nervous. Apex Mountain, Ben Stiller. No Downey were in the ballpark same year.

[Van Lathan]

Unless you were to say it was the end game time because he's the biggest star. But I think. So this is.

[Bill Simmons]

Is Vietnam War parodies. Would you go. What was the Charlie Sheen one? Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Hot Shots. No, I would say this.

[Joel Anderson]

We're done with Vietnam now, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Culturally.

[Chris Ryan]

I wonder if it'll ever come back. Like World War II. Like World War II is such an unambiguous. Like it's us versus evil.

[Van Lathan]

But yeah, that's the thing.

[Chris Ryan]

But people crave, like war stories. They crave the Band of Brothers experience.

[Bill Simmons]

Cruise now. No Jack Black. No Brandon T.

[Joel Anderson]

Now.

[Van Lathan]

Call him.

[Bill Simmons]

Should have asked him when you're on the phone with him earlier.

[Van Lathan]

I'll call him right now.

[Joel Anderson]

Do it.

[Van Lathan]

I'll call him right now.

[Chris Ryan]

Blind call to Brandon.

[Bill Simmons]

It's kind of an awkward call.

[Joel Anderson]

If you going to call anyone.

[Bill Simmons]

Traffic Thunder. Your Apex.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, he kind of is.

[Bill Simmons]

But he.

[Van Lathan]

He in a lot of big movies.

[Joel Anderson]

If you gonna call anybody.

[Bill Simmons]

Like we go through Traffic Thunder premiere together.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Jay Bar Show.

[Van Lathan]

What was his big breakout joint? Was it. What was. What was the name of the. Wasn't he.

[Chris Ryan]

He's the lead of Undeclared.

[Bill Simmons]

Right? Or I think this was the biggest

[Van Lathan]

thing he's been in.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, he's good. This is the end, too.

[Van Lathan]

He's good. This is the end. He's trying to look a million dollar baby. Him is Danger. I remember that.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, no.

[Chris Ryan]

His fucking shit is how to train your dragon.

[Van Lathan]

How to train your dragon.

[Chris Ryan]

That dude's caking.

[Van Lathan]

He's the man. So he's the leading hot trainer dragon, is he not?

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I saw a decade. I was surprised he wanted to move back to Canada. And this is the end.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Apparently that was based on real life. Right? That whole relationship between all of them.

[Bill Simmons]

McConaughey. No hate or no Politically Incorrect, but got away with it somehow. Comedies, probably still Blazing Saddles.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

That was like the biggest comedy in the 70s.

[Van Lathan]

Probably.

[Bill Simmons]

But.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

I mean, 48 hours

[Van Lathan]

but so. But you know, like, think about it. All of these movies in every single one of them, like Ranger of Nerds. Animal House, all of them. They're all insanely politically incorrect. Yeah. I didn't have them on the list because the premises aren't like. You know. But like, I don't know. I guess so.

[Bill Simmons]

Cruz or Hanks? A rare Cruz, by the way, is 18. Three watchables. Just extending his lead. He's four above the next of couple guy.

[Joel Anderson]

I love it, man.

[Chris Ryan]

How many Cruise movies have we not done?

[Bill Simmons]

There's a few. Okay, what are the ones?

[Chris Ryan]

The Lab.

[Bill Simmons]

We never did all the right moves.

[Chris Ryan]

I'm actually a big Valkyrie guy.

[Van Lathan]

I love it. I don't understand. I never understood the hate maybe. I think people were just. There are a couple of movies in there that people just didn't like him anymore. Like Valkyrie's one of them, obviously. Edge of Tomorrow is one of them. I think there are some movies that would have flown when he was on of top Top. Like I think Oblivion would have flown. I think there's a couple movies in there that people were just like Vanilla Sky.

[Joel Anderson]

What did you think of Vanilla Sky?

[Van Lathan]

I mean, it's a good movie, but

[Bill Simmons]

like I think Reacher is the number one for me with this done with him.

[Van Lathan]

We're just done with them. If the movie was.

[Bill Simmons]

That movie's good.

[Van Lathan]

We're just not with Tom Cruise.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

It was also like they didn't like that he was. He was supposed to be 6 foot 5.

[Bill Simmons]

They didn't like that either. Scorsese or Spielberg?

[Chris Ryan]

Spielberg.

[Bill Simmons]

Spielberg. I think so I would say Scorsese.

[Van Lathan]

I want to hear what you guys said. I really could not think of who.

[Chris Ryan]

I just.

[Bill Simmons]

I guess all the heroin and the last.

[Van Lathan]

He just came.

[Chris Ryan]

I think it would be a darker movie of Sc.

[Van Lathan]

What was the funniest Scorsese he's ever been.

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, man.

[Bill Simmons]

Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah, Wolf.

[Van Lathan]

That's good.

[Chris Ryan]

Wolf.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, that's very funny.

[Joel Anderson]

Good.

[Bill Simmons]

Fellas. Hey, look, I found a wing.

[Van Lathan]

You want the. You want the breast of the wing?

[Bill Simmons]

Huh?

[Chris Ryan]

It's his horse.

[Bill Simmons]

Pick a niche. So Steve Coogan, the director, his plan was to. He filmed a whole bunch of stuff and then got rid of everything he filmed.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. This is the biggest nitpick is that he's.

[Bill Simmons]

He's gonna put cameras in the jungle.

[Chris Ryan]

But he's got like. Those are like high eight, like camcorders.

[Bill Simmons]

And he's. And we're just. This is what we're gonna do with five time Oscar. It'll look like 20 days later. What was this? What was his plan?

[Joel Anderson]

Well, also, can I just. I'm confused because four leaf at the beginning they say. So there were 10 people in this unit. Four people wrote books, three getting published, two get. And two get movies out of that, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

Didn't nobody know he was a fraud before then.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Joel Anderson]

Well, I mean, it didn't say this. People had died. So nobody was like, hey, man, you weren't there. What the you talking about?

[Bill Simmons]

Figured that would happen.

[Chris Ryan]

It probably would have happened, but there was a little bit of a. It's like, I think people got away with a lot back then.

[Joel Anderson]

I had.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know why Tug kills a panda. I don't understand that scene at all.

[Joel Anderson]

That was weird.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh. Because I think he's just scared that he's getting attacked by like, a wild.

[Bill Simmons]

Why is there a panda?

[Joel Anderson]

Pandas, Right. And that's like the thing he loves, you know? He took the panda there.

[Chris Ryan]

Not even her real name.

[Joel Anderson]

Wait, well, I know that pandas are in Vietnam, but also, like, are they violent?

[Chris Ryan]

I don't know.

[Van Lathan]

I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't understand anything about that. Why didn't the first gorillas just kill Tug? Why'd they capture him?

[Chris Ryan]

Wouldn't you just shoot him to ransom him?

[Bill Simmons]

They didn't know that he. That he was ransom able.

[Van Lathan]

They.

[Joel Anderson]

They assumed he was dea. Right.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Probably want to see what he knew. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And then nobody. None of these guys die. They get shot at for two hours.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

And they're all shooting blanks.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

The only people that die were a bat. That panda.

[Van Lathan]

And you know, this entire movie is a knit. Like, the plot is just, like the whole movie is a knit. By the time they're walking through the jungle, like, they're fake shooting the movie. It doesn't make any fun.

[Bill Simmons]

Also, Downey's keeping that makeup on just for five straight weeks in the jungle. Nothing's melting.

[Chris Ryan]

Surgery.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, so surgery.

[Bill Simmons]

But he has that. He has the other stuff that he pulls off.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, yeah, yeah. All that stuff.

[Joel Anderson]

Can you all explain? Like, because I. Are his eyes blue like that naturally

[Chris Ryan]

Australian when he's in Satan's alley? Those eyes are fake. Those are contacts. And then his eyes are dark usually.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah. Okay.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah. I had. The only nitpick I have is, like, just, Kirk Glasser is having more Oscars than Hepburn and Daniel Day Lewis.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Three would have probably done the job. Maybe that was the joke. You have any nitpicks?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Nah.

[Bill Simmons]

Craig, you have any nitpicks?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Don't you think Four Leaf should have died? I thought they were leading up to him sacrificing himself to be like, I'll die on the battlefield now. And they just keep him alive, which kind of just made no sense.

[Chris Ryan]

Which is probably why, like, the third act feels a little bit like.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Like I Just do not understand why he is.

[Chris Ryan]

Because there's just no.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

There's no consequences to it.

[Bill Simmons]

I think they're probably rushing through the last half hour of this sequel. Prequel. Prestige tbr. Black cast or untouchable? Prestige TVs. Prestige TV is mildly interesting to me. It's probably untouchable because I don't know if we can touch it. It's untouchable the same way plutonium is untouchable. I don't know.

[Joel Anderson]

I mean, that's where Scorcher 7 comes in for me. It's just like he's moving on.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

This is the next project. He's won his Oscar.

[Bill Simmons]

So what do we do with Scorcher seven after Global Meltdown? Man.

[Van Lathan]

Maybe it's like a. I would do Scorcher 7. They go to another planet.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, yes.

[Bill Simmons]

Scorcher 7, like Interstellar Scorcher 3, though, is that.

[Van Lathan]

They go to another planet.

[Bill Simmons]

Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Fergie, the Florist, Zane low, Robert Evans, Dr. Charles Nichols or someone else?

[Chris Ryan]

I like the ideas. If Possawait played Grossman. You're gonna have to call the fucking United nations and get a fucking binding resolution to keep me from fucking destroying you. I'm talking scorched earth, motherfucker. I will massacre you. I will fuck you up the chemical way.

[Craig Horlbeck]

And then he hangs up and goes find out who that was.

[Bill Simmons]

I had. I think Nell should have been in this. There was some Simple Jack for around Nell and where it could have been like Nell 2. When they're talking about possible Academy Awards. And we could have gotten.

[Chris Ryan]

Maybe it could have been a romcom.

[Van Lathan]

Like they're both.

[Bill Simmons]

You know the movie Joel now Jody Foster.

[Van Lathan]

Foster going nuts.

[Bill Simmons]

Jody Foster in the. In the woods.

[Chris Ryan]

Jody Foster plays a woman who was like raised in the wild

[Van Lathan]

nail. Made $106 million. Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

We used to really.

[Bill Simmons]

We're going to have to do it on the. On the pod.

[Van Lathan]

What the are you.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a insane.

[Chris Ryan]

Regarding Henry. The dramas that are now comedy.

[Van Lathan]

That can't be.

[Bill Simmons]

Nel is another one that paved the way for Simple Jack, by the way.

[Joel Anderson]

Damn.

[Bill Simmons]

That was just Be in the forest and be crazy.

[Van Lathan]

Hold on. Nell made 36. 33 million domestic. For some reason the world was with Nell. Like crazy people.

[Chris Ryan]

Huge in Far East Asia and France loves Jod Foster.

[Joel Anderson]

So when I was in the newspaper, the person did a. A story on this woman who was raised by wolves. Like she was like. And it became a big story. Did they do a movie on that? They never did they ever do a

[Bill Simmons]

movie that sounds like something they find

[Chris Ryan]

her in like the caves? Yeah, right.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, she was raised by something.

[Chris Ryan]

I haven't fired Nell up.

[Bill Simmons]

We'll crank it up. Probably unanswerable questions. Why do you think Cruz didn't do more dan waiters type 3 day roles? I always wonder about this with some of the most famous. Would it have killed Leo to done this twice? Or Denzel? All the biggest stars we have. It's just a huge win if they pick the right movie and they just

[Chris Ryan]

fly into it the wrong movie.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, but isn't it.

[Bill Simmons]

Is that what it is? It's just a fear of.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, but I mean also, I mean these are people that really do take that craft very seriously too. Like it's just not fucking around. So maybe that. I wonder if it's just something they

[Chris Ryan]

were asking DiCaprio to be in Cliff Booth and he was like, no, not for like a day.

[Joel Anderson]

You think Michael Jordan's just playing in a pro Am?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, that's what he did back in the day.

[Bill Simmons]

That's right.

[Joel Anderson]

That's true.

[Van Lathan]

But I just think you have to be at the right point in your career and like these guys are chasing each other in terms of prestige and a miscalculation kind of looks bad. I always like to see it.

[Bill Simmons]

So like Chalamet right now, just popping in a movie for two days that ends up being hit. Do it. Yeah, Matt.

[Van Lathan]

Matt Damon will do it.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Matt Damon loves Matt Damon.

[Van Lathan]

Matt Damon loves to do.

[Bill Simmons]

He's in Euro Trip for reasons that remain unclear with a shaved head.

[Van Lathan]

But here's the deal though, like, and he shows up in some of the Marvel stuff is funny. But when you're in. When you're watching Euro Trip and he's up there, to me he looks so cool.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Just like popping into that movie and

[Chris Ryan]

there's a difference between like what he does in that and what he does in interstellar. You know what I mean? Like there's like a supporting role and then there's like a ten minute like cameo.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. The interstellar thing is actually like a really super important part of a very serious movie.

[Bill Simmons]

So what do you got for an answer, bro?

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, for me? Oh, I would just like to know why Brandon Jackson was the guy. I'm sorry, no offense to your guy.

[Chris Ryan]

Like what happened, what happened to his career after this?

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, I'm just like, what? I mean, why didn't. I mean we were just talking about. All these guys have gone on. They had like another thing and they're like, what? Again, I think that is the problem of the black actor in Hollywood. Not your boy. That's what I'm saying. It's like, you know. Cause oftentimes these roles, even if you get nominated for something, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're gonna go on, you know, so like Lupita, you know what I'm saying? Like, it didn't.

[Van Lathan]

It has not made her a huge fan. Lupita is having a fucking fantastic career. Are you nuts?

[Joel Anderson]

Do you think of her as like a top bill star?

[Van Lathan]

Lupita is having a great career, okay?

[Joel Anderson]

No, I'm not saying she's not having a great career. You can have a great career and not be like a top billing type actress. Right? Like a millionaire. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Joel Anderson]

It's gonna be like the roles are just not gonna come to her like they do some other people. And I' she would say that if you asked her.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, look, I don't know, I'm like, like, all I'm saying is.

[Joel Anderson]

Well, you probably do know her calling. That's your homegirl calling.

[Chris Ryan]

My unanswerable would be, what if you were making Tropic Thunder today? What would you be lampooning? Like, and I guess it would be comic book movies. It's not really unanswerable because I like

[Bill Simmons]

MCU type of something.

[Van Lathan]

If I was doing it, I would lampoon the high auteur. The MCU is going to go further. But I think now the film that's directly, that's like, like an A24 movie. Like. Yeah, kind of the A24 film, bro, type of movie that like, everybody has to love that you.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, honestly, the funniest thing would be to do like a. The smartless guys. Like a movie about like. Yeah. Some sort of big gigantic podcast or caller daddy cinematic where that would be great. You just dive into that whole world with the celebrities that come in, but you're really making fun of a couple different things of that world. People trying, the. People trying to make the guests cry and the dates, all that stuff. Yeah. Although Charlize talking about how she didn't want to be married and just had sex with the 26 year old and it was great. I thought that was some of the best podcast content of the year.

[Chris Ryan]

Didn't you have Charlize on your show?

[Bill Simmons]

I sure did. We never talked about her having sex with younger men. That never came up.

[Chris Ryan]

It was in a different phase of relationship life.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, she came in the office was most Flustered. I've ever batted the neighbors at her.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's just nice. She just sat down, put her arm in. She was just ready to roll. She was so cool.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Plays big back game in person. That's the thing.

[Van Lathan]

I don't know how to play backgammon. I saw that about her.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. You would learn for Charlize, I bet.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, yeah, probably so. Two days in the Valley.

[Bill Simmons]

Piece of memorability you'd want from this movie. Giant Simple Jack cardboard thing that McConaughey had.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

You know what I'm talking about?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Was in the back, and it. It had, like, seemed like Simple Jack was moving back and forth like a picture book.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Can you imagine?

[Bill Simmons]

Amazing.

[Chris Ryan]

If you replaced Farah Fawcett in your house with Simple Jack.

[Bill Simmons]

Then I was like, oh, yeah, I can't have that. But I thought it was hilarious.

[Chris Ryan]

I think any number of the bluetooth headsets or BlackBerries or like, old 2008 phones, I would.

[Bill Simmons]

The Qualcomm phone or. Or the TiVo that mas the box.

[Joel Anderson]

I would love to have a can of Booty Sweat on my office desk.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, that's a great one. Yeah. The original movie.

[Van Lathan]

Worn Booty, Busting the bar,

[Bill Simmons]

Coach Finock. Mr. Miyagi Wear. For best worst life lesson Porn sets the. Yeah, sets the way.

[Van Lathan]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

For sure. Best double feature choice. Cr.

[Chris Ryan]

I had Zoolander. Just as like a. Another satire by Ben Soldier.

[Van Lathan]

I had Hot Shots.

[Joel Anderson]

Really? Dead Presidents.

[Chris Ryan]

Oh, good one.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, that's good.

[Bill Simmons]

I had the player. What do you have, Craig?

[Craig Horlbeck]

Double feature. Yeah, I'd probably stick right in 08 go step brothers right after.

[Chris Ryan]

Yeah, that's good.

[Joel Anderson]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Who won the movie?

[Chris Ryan]

Downey.

[Van Lathan]

Downey, man.

[Bill Simmons]

Downey to me.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Chris Ryan]

Downey.

[Bill Simmons]

Craig, go.

[Craig Horlbeck]

I was 14 when this came out. 2008. Just like I can't. The summer of 2008. 2008. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Smart Stepbrothers, Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, and Role Models.

[Van Lathan]

Crazy.

[Joel Anderson]

Wow.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Like, in the year before that had five other hits, and the year after that had five more hits.

[Chris Ryan]

You're 14. You're rolling right now.

[Craig Horlbeck]

This was like everything in the world. This is just like the funniest shit ever. I mean, all of these movies, but I couldn't believe how many quotes from this movie I remembered. I haven't seen it probably 10 years. And I could probably have done the whole movie from memory.

[Van Lathan]

I don't know.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It's just fantastic across the board.

[Van Lathan]

What's the comedy summer of. Of you guys's youth?

[Chris Ryan]

It's probably like closer to like 84 or 86 or something like that.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, mine's the 80 to 82 with like, you know, Caddyshack, Blues Brothers, Airplane.

[Chris Ryan]

Because sadly, when I'm Craig's age, it's when like comedy is having like a little bit of like a drunken hangover. Like I'm more like my, my 14 year old summer is probably more like another 48 hours and that's like, that's not as good. It's Beverly Hills Cop sequels, you know.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, I'm probably like 2000 foot. So like I was a big feral fan. So like Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, like that was my shit, you know, I'll sit down and watch Talladega Nights.

[Craig Horlbeck]

It really is just so different, like what I expected at that age in a comedy. I mean it was just the biggest stars in the world all together on a big set, just fucking around. Yeah, I mean that is so foreign to what you see today.

[Joel Anderson]

I mean, I mean they were very much fucking around. Like I said, the end of the movie. I mean, I mean there's a nails guitar.

[Chris Ryan]

Just the idea of Giving these guys $90 million to do those nuts.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Also you kind of got to give it to Tom Cruise a little bit. Like the performance itself is very funny, but the fact that he came up with the character, wanted the like came up with the look of the character. Apparently it was his idea to play Flo Rida. It's kind of like Tom Cruise. Yeah, okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Plus having problems with Katie Holmes at that point.

[Joel Anderson]

I was going to say he also hung out with Jamie Foxx around that time too. You know what I'm saying?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, that's right.

[Joel Anderson]

They were like part of, you know, then Jamie moved in there.

[Bill Simmons]

Dan's like, I have no comment at this time.

[Van Lathan]

I'm fucking with it.

[Craig Horlbeck]

So what's the play now? Can I say I love Tropic Thunder or no?

[Chris Ryan]

Of course you can.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Like if I'm like man Downey Jr. And Tropic Thunder, hilarious, is that fine?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I mean, I'm not, I can't give permission. You're on your own.

[Joel Anderson]

You might have to answer a few more follow ups, you know what I'm saying?

[Craig Horlbeck]

You think so?

[Van Lathan]

People are probably getting away from it the good way with it. The question is because Bill, if Bill is so.

[Craig Horlbeck]

Because I was 14 when I saw

[Van Lathan]

In Charleston and he's talking to people and they ask Bill what's his favorite movies like I love Downey and Tropic Thunder. I think probably at that point

[Chris Ryan]

Featuring a great performance by a black person. You can't just be like, my favorite performance by a black guy is Robert Downey.

[Bill Simmons]

Sh. When Van does Boston, he becomes Australian. He becomes Kirk.

[Van Lathan]

You know, My favorite performance by black. My favorite performance by black guy is J. McDonald Daniels in the first round against.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, end of the Joker.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, that's my favorite performance, man.

[Bill Simmons]

I loves it. Van loves when the Joker goes down.

[Joel Anderson]

Oh, wait, is this a race? Is this a race thing?

[Van Lathan]

Are you.

[Joel Anderson]

Are you anti Joker?

[Bill Simmons]

Do you realize what happened last weekend, Van? Joker got eliminated, the Celtics got eliminated, and Great White freaked out at the Kentucky Derby. It's like a huge Van recap.

[Chris Ryan]

Van sees Joker as an extension of the one battle after another.

[Van Lathan]

R.C.

[Chris Ryan]

not true.

[Van Lathan]

See, this is he. You guys are turning the people on. That's not true. All I'm saying is I understand he's a badass motherfucker. And by the way, the success just beat me down. I just heard that he was the greatest of all time, and I was like, can we pump the brakes on that? That's all I said.

[Joel Anderson]

So do you think, like, he got punked by the way, too? Like, when he ran up on Jaden and Jaden, he got punked. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

He didn't want to get thrown out of the game.

[Van Lathan]

He needed the wide runner over there.

[Joel Anderson]

Like, you go do something.

[Van Lathan]

Don't want over there.

[Bill Simmons]

Because as he was running over there intending to kill Jaden McDaniels, he realized, I can't get thrown out for the series.

[Chris Ryan]

And he was probably also like, oh, I just realized my brothers aren't at this game.

[Van Lathan]

He ran too far.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And while you running, you thinking, if it had been shorter. And then when he got there, Jaden did not. Jaden was like.

[Bill Simmons]

He didn't.

[Van Lathan]

It's like Jaden was like, oh, dog, we about to fight if you come over. And Yoko's just like, nah, man.

[Bill Simmons]

If it beated run over, he just would have run into him and then fallen dead.

[Van Lathan]

You letting him get that off.

[Chris Ryan]

Get your shit.

[Van Lathan]

Get that off. You beat him. You beat him.

[Chris Ryan]

I'll do a twitch stream later where I address it

[Van Lathan]

play by play. Look at this. They let everybody else push off. What about me? I can't push off. It's my favorite year ever where I played by myself and Jayson Tatum wasn't there.

[Joel Anderson]

I hate my Rockets so much that I don't even care that your Lakers won't stuff.

[Bill Simmons]

That's it for the rewatch of this.

[Chris Ryan]

Joe, thank you for doing this.

[Joel Anderson]

Yeah, thanks for having me on thanks

[Bill Simmons]

to how and Eduardo in the back as well. Thanks to Joel. Great to see you buddy. That was awesome.

[Van Lathan]

I'm happy.

[Joel Anderson]

I'm glad. Thanks for having me on, man.

[Bill Simmons]

You can hear Joel on the press box and watch him and on Ringer Tailgate, the best ringer podcast that we have. Wow. At least in the top 40

[Joel Anderson]

bottom quarter I think at least it's good.

[Bill Simmons]

Cards football season, the head, a lot of good arguments coming. UCLA football's return, Arch Manning.

[Joel Anderson]

Is it important for me to. Is it? Should I, I shouldn't bring up UCLA right now, should I?

[Van Lathan]

No, cuz we have to.

[Bill Simmons]

We'll do it later.

[Joel Anderson]

All right.

[Bill Simmons]

Good to see you C. Good to see you too, bud. Next week by the way, not sure what we're doing yet but it will be a comedy so there you go. See you next week.