Blank Check with Griffin & David - Ali with Jamelle Bouie

Episode Date: June 30, 2019

This week, Jamelle Bouie (The New York Times) joins to discuss 2001’s unorthodox biopic, Ali. Together they examine the relationship between Ali and sports broadcaster Howard Cosell, the Peter Newman interview, Will Smith and the rest of the excellent cast's performances and so much more. Plus, Jamelle tries the Spies in Disguise challenge!

Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Float like a pod, sting like a cast His hands can't hit what his eyes can't see. Okay. I don't know.

That's fine. This isn't an inherently quotable movie, apart from that it's about the most quotable man who ever lived. Right, and I don't want to pull a Billy Crystal and try to do some extended impression. Like Don King bit? I mean, he does them all. Yeah.

Yeah. Billy Crystal's greatest characters, Muhammad Ali, Don King, Sammy Davis Jr., Jazzman. Jazzman, that's right. Yes. Isn't Jazzman just Sammy Davis Jr., or is he his distinct character? Oh, Jazzman's a separate character. Oh, no, no, no.

Jazzman is a separate character. All right, all right. Let's get off this right now. Have you never seen the comic relief routine, Post Hurricane Katrina? Yes. No, I have. Yeah. So you're familiar with Jazzman. You've met

the Jazzman. Yeah, I've met the Jazzman. And also, of course, Billy Crystal's most terrifying character, Uncanny Valley Tintin. Sure, right. From the Oscars when he played Tintin. Have you seen this? I'm gonna show you. I've not seen this. Okay. Talk it on mic before we introduce you. It's what I like. Perfect. And we're

gonna pull up the image from you. This was the last time that Billy Crystal ever hosted the Oscars after Eddie Murphy quit. So he has to know was he in blackface? When he hosted the Oscars? Yes. In that intro he also did Sammy Davis Jr. Nice. But somehow it was the second most upsetting time. Jesus Christ.

Now this is a great example of he starts off the montage. And no one was asking for this. sure producers weren't like you're gonna do tintin right because the fans they want you to do it made 80 domestic and got zero oscar nominations maybe got score i think you got score right but this is what's incredible no it didn't actually warhorse got scored didn't it maybe i feel like it was a double williams double willie i think it might have been a double willie it might have been big willie style

um this was a year where billy jumped in at the last second to save the Oscars. Who's going to host? Billy's going to save the Oscars. He does his classic, thank you, edit himself into the movies montage. At the beginning of that montage, what does he do? Edit himself in as Sammy Davis Jr. Of course, someone who was very important to the film going year 2011. Talking of Bieber, right right it was like a Bieber

sketch yeah the two biggest movie stars of 2011 were Justin Bieber and Sammy Davis Jr and you watch it you go cool so in the first what 85 seconds of the ceremony he's already gone to the old chestnuts this is the most politically uncomfortable thing right that has happened in Oscar ceremony

it was rough it was rough in years and years and years how could this get worse? And then he upped the ante with Tintin, which has no cultural inappropriateness, but it's just a cursed image. It's a bit of a curse. It's a curse image. Really unsettling. Yeah, turn it back around one more time. Let's just see it one more time.

Let's get him back. I mean, what is going on there? He looks like Sammy Sosa. You know what? You're incredibly right. He looks like looks like Sammy Sosa. You know what? You're incredibly right. He looks like Bleach Sammy Sosa. It's true. There's something off about his skin tone in it.

And is it because the hair is sort of clashing and sort of makes everything look stranger? I don't know. He's got this red hair. It's also weird because at that time when people- Tintin doesn't really have red hair. Tintin has blonde hair, doesn't he? I guess it's like Auburn. Yeah, that's a darker, that's a richer sort of...

But I feel like at that time everyone was complaining about the mocap thing on Kenny Valley makes me so uncomfortable. And I'm like, if you think Tintin looks creepy, look at fucking Billy Crystal as Tintin. Tintin looks handsome. Tintin's a nice boy and he looks handsome. Do you remember that? Did he edit himself into the Tree of Life? Which was an Oscar nominee. It was a Best Picture nominee.

I don't think he did. I would love to see him do that. I wish he had put his face on the baby's foot. I wish that's the famous, the Tree of Life. No, no, I'm saying when they hold the baby's foot. I wish he had just been Brad Pitt like what is when does a soul start and then it cuts to billy crystal's face on a foot going like hey don't put a sock on me whatever whatever he would have done oh billy it was incredible how for like 10 years there every year they'd be like why don't

they just bring billy back we all know billy was the best and they brought him back and guys like you and i would never speak right because we would rewatch it be like billy's okay we tell people like you don't want billy back it would be like no we want billy back you know steve martin like if you rewatch steve martin's hosting gigs that they're great really funny yeah i think both of ellen's were good i think both of john stewart was good chris rock was good like there have been good hosts and people don't be like billy crystal where's he been i think people liked the security of knowing there's a regular host there's someone who's gonna host four out of five years you left out ricky

he didn't host the oscar what did he do no he hosted the globes because he was yeah he was too hot for the man he's too hot for the Oscars. Man, he's too hot for the Oscars. Do you care about the Oscars? I do watch the Oscars. Do you know that he's an atheist? I mean, I've heard. I've heard that he's also very edgy.

Yeah, Ben, cut that out. Very edgy man. Okay, you're right. I don't want us to get sued. Yep, you're right. He is very edgy. He kind of doesn't care. In the special thanks of the Golden Globes, he thanks not God.

Take that, not God. That's my favorite part of the Golden Globes is the special thanks. Special thanks for making your mate. Yeah. Oh, my God. All right. Blank check. Set us up.

We're talking about a movie here that was sort of seen. It was one of those films that a year out was like. It was the number one Oscar favorite. Right. Absolutely. That's true. That's a good segue. Which I think by those films that like a year out. It was the number one Oscar favorite. Right. Absolutely. That's true. That's a good segue. Which I think by and large, that almost always dooms a movie.

I think there are very few cases, especially I'd say post- Good Shepherd Syndrome. 2000. Right. Unbroken. Unbroken. Dream Girls. Dream Girls, for sure.

I mean, you go like Star is Born is kind of the most successful example of that. And it still didn't win any major mountain cold mountain very often they get knocked out of best picture entirely people are sort of like the hype was so huge too high this movie is just okay and you're like star is born beat the curse by at least getting all the nominations star is born lost her green book which i feel like but that's the greatest some losses you know what i mean like but like it's like, but that's more brutal than some losses. You know what I mean? But it's like the heat losing to the Mavericks in 2011 where you're like, they shouldn't have. You know what I mean? Like on paper.

I know exactly what you're talking about. I was about to say that exactly. It's like the 2016 presidential election. Right. That's literally. I mean, not literally. Right. You know what?

Green Book is better than Donald Trump's presidency. I'll give it that. Right? Yeah, I'd agree. Right? I'd agree. Green Book successfully lands a couple jokes. I like doing this thing where I compliment Green Book by saying it's better than very

bad things. Yes. Right. Right. Right. Let's do a power ranking. Green Book. Right?

Number one. In terms of the best bad things. Sure like number two is like e-coli it's a little better um no you're right i mean because it is the thing where you're like hillary clinton like 2008 you don't get the nomination but like you know losing to barack obama has more dignity than getting the nomination in 16 but losing to Trump. No one's going to hold it against you if you lose to the first black president. Right, right, right. He's well-liked, too.

He's still pretty popular. But people hold it against you if you lose to the first Trump president. Don't say first. I'm going to say it. I'm calling my shot. Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, you know, first of her name Ivanka Trump

she is the mother of dragons Daenerys is very Trumpy I've never watched it I forgot it's the only thing I'm less skilled to pretend I know about than basketball I probably know more about basketball

than Game of Thrones I know the cultural character names through the years i'm sure uh john snow john snow jenny lannister that's another one uh lannister always repays his debts is that a thing that you know a ton this is amazing that's like 90 right there dragons yeah they're there dragons are in there dinklage is also a lannister terrian okay there's all the cold boys coming i know they're there. Dragons are in there. Dinklage is also a Lannister? Mm-hmm. Tyrion. Okay. There's all the cold boys coming. I know they're cold boys.

Lannisters, Starks. Who are the other families? I mean, you got the big two. Okay, those are the big two. Targaryens. Yeah. Momoa. Momoa, Khal Drogo.

Yeah. Yeah, I know people have been on it. Raven's got three eyes. A crow. There's a three-eyed raven. I got a raven. There's just the one. There's just the one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Raven's got three eyes. A crow. There's a three-eyed raven. There's just the one. There's just the one?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sort of like, that's sort of like the chief psychic. Yeah. Everyone's unsubscribing. This is Blank Check with Griffin. It's a podcast. A show in which we describe the basic premise of Game of Thrones. A thing that no one's heard of. Eight seasons in.

I will say this. I used to feel like I was part of 12% of the global population that didn't watch this show. Sure. And now it's like down to two. Yeah. I feel like in the like 18 months or whatever it was in between these seasons everyone else who hadn't watched it caught up. This happened with Breaking Bad too. Yes. They were like I know the last season's coming so I'm finally

gonna like if I haven't yet you know I'll get through it. And I'll say like with Breaking Bad I wasn't caught up in real time because the final half season wasn't on Netflix by the time. Yeah, that's how they did it. But I had watched half of the show by the time it finale, and I understood at least the basic thing. Right. Game of Thrones, I just feel like I'm never going to watch.

It's fine. Yeah, and it's not like an act of resistance. I'm not, like, taking a stand. I know, I get you. Yeah. I feel like there might just come a time once it's all there that you'll throw it on and you'll be like, oh, okay.

And you'll sort of move through it. You know how many canonical TV shows I have not watched that are ahead of it in the docket. Right, right. And also you don't really like high fantasy shit that much. High fantasy isn't my favorite. It's not really high fantasy. I don't know how you'd describe it. I don't know. It's just sort of

I feel like it's its own genre HBO fantasy. Sure. It is HBO fantasy. It's a high fantasy when I watch it. Okay. Well, of course. Yes, of course it is. Boo-doo-boo. What's up? I'm talking that I thought you were serious now. I am.

Ben has rebranded recently. He's decided he's very serious now. And his coworkers asked him when the bit had started, and he said, I'm drinking espresso. So is that an answer? I'm very serious. He's very serious now. He doesn't do bits anymore.

All right. No, it's not that. I'm just, I'm serious. Right, right, right, right. Your bits have to be serious. Okay. Blank check. Blank check with Griffin and David.

It's a podcast about filmography. Directors who have massive success around their career and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those projects float like a butterfly and sometimes they sing like a bee. Very good. That was better than the quote.

That was good. That was fun. That was good. This, of course, is a miniseries on the films of Michael Mann. Yeah. It's called Cast of the Podhecans. It's the only one we could do.

It's literally all these one-word titles. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. he's a one word title lateral was the second best option that's how dire things were yeah i can't think of anything else it's the only one that has a flow to it because even the other ones that are longer it's public enemies what are you to do with public enemies? You're not going to do like podcast to me? It's like, that sucks. That's bullshit. The subtitle to this miniseries, of course, is Michael Mansplaining. Yes. And today we're talking about what seemed like his big Oscar play. Absolutely.

Coming off The Insider, his first time when he had like a real Oscar-y movie. Big, big, big critic credit. Right. And then he's working with the biggest star. That's true. Of the moment. Indisputably, I think. Who is, we'll talk about this, in a pocket where he clearly is trying to win an Oscar.

100%. Where he steps away from blockbusters. Where he's like, it's time for me to be serious. Right. Right. And I think he hoped he's- Like Ben. He was in his Ben phase. Right.

Yes. Wild Wild West had kind of knocked him off the blockbuster path. He was like alright enough yeah and it's what it's Bagger Vance and this and then he goes back to Men in Black 2 then he starts taking the huge paycheck because it's Men in Black 2 Bad Boys 2

I Robot Hitch Pursuit of Happiness is his next sort of like prestige movie but Pursuit of Happiness makes 165 million dollars does it really it does insanely well he did the Rubik's Cube so fast Pursuit of Happiness is his next sort of like prestige movie. But Pursuit of Happiness makes $165 million domestic. Does it really? It does insanely well. He did the Rubik's Cube so fast in that guy's limo.

Have you seen the Pursuit of Happiness or my reference? There's a whole block of Will Smith movies that I just refuse to watch. I mean, I don't know why anyone would ever really be fired up to watch the Pursuit of Happiness. It's not even bad. I kind of like that movie. He's good in it. Well, you know, i had this whole fucking oh boy i feel like i've talked about this on the show before but i used to have a i'm okay i'm i'm like a crazy person right this is well established on the show at this point fully established but i was 11 years i guess right when i was like 16 i very much had

a fantasy of being like a very young single father. Okay. Okay. I had this Gilmore Girls like a reverse Gilmore Gilmore Boys. I really I want to be you want to just like have a kid when you're right the classic movie premise of like he's you know he's he's a single guy who does his thing he's got a baby. It was my heroic

fantasy like I was like that's the only heroic thing I could do. You know I'm never gonna know how to like act immediately in an emergency you know i'm never gonna have like the ability to save someone i could if accidentally a baby was dropped off at my feet right you'll figure it out sure right uh and you get your friends on board and it would be charming right i think i just wanted to be the plot of a decent WB dramedy. You're describing Big Daddy. I think more of the dramedy.

The Gilmore Girls thing. Life unexpected. Right. So I was all about Pursuit of Happiness. That was a mood board movie for me. Alright. Because I'm a broken person. But that was the thing. At that point in time it was

like, you know know he's back to one movie a year all his movies are hits pursuit of happiness is a little lower budget this is him making another oscar movie but then that overperformed too and it was that corridor for like 10 years where he never did under 100 million except for ollie that was the one this is the last right but i'm saying 2000 Bagger Vance. Ali, 2001. Oh, but you're saying post Ali. Right, right, right, right.

Right. And then he doesn't, seven pounds is the next one to not make 100, right? Do not touch the jellyfish. And that's eight or nine? Seven pounds is 2008. Okay. Yeah, so he has, I mean, he's a pretty insane run there.

Yeah, he does. And the run before that is also pretty insane. Yes. And this feels like the last time he so fully handed himself over to a director. 100%. That's a big thing with this movie. Yeah, but he unfortunately entered that sort of zone where he's kind of the director after that. Yes, right.

Where he's picking guys who he can probably just boss around. He works with other people and he works with worse people, but he's always the ultimate say. I think so. Yeah. Except Suicide Squad, of course. Well, yes. The most twisted movie of them all. His only hit in practically a decade. It's so weird. It's so weird. Weird career.

It's weird to think of that too as a Will Smith movie even though he is very much like the lead. Yeah. Do you agree with me? That he's the lead? Yes. Yes. But it's weird to think of it as a Will Smith movie. He didn't even get a tattoo. He didn't even get the tattoo. You know about this?

I heard about this. He didn't even. He didn't write squad on his. Right, S-K-W-A-D. But also, apparently, Idris Elba's not playing, I already forgot his name, Deadshot. No, apparently, he's playing a different character. They're not going to try James Brody with that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. They're not going to Don Cheadle Deadshot. No, apparently he's playing a different character. They're not going to try James Brody with that. Yeah, exactly.

They're not going to Don Cheadle Deadshot. Yeah. So maybe Deadshot will return someday. I mean, clearly. We love him. We love him. He's a great shot. He's got a kid.

He's a great shot. What an arc that guy had. I like his tools. Okay. You mean his guns? No, but he's got like ricochets. He's got like a bunch of cool gear, like cool cases.

What would you guys do if they announced the title for the Suicide Squad sequel and it was Suicide Squad Revenge of Slipknot? Yeah, Slipknot's Revenge. Yeah. I'd be all about it. Like it turned out that that was Gunn's big take. Right.

Was like, guys. Slipknot got blown up one minute in. We're going to dig into this. We all know that Slipknot died. yeah I'd be all like it turned out that that was guns big take right was like guys knock up blow blowing up one minute in we're gonna we're gonna dig into this we all know that slipknot died but what my presupposes is what if he didn't I don't think we know that and they just hand him the bag of money all right introduce our amazing guest today from the New York Times. Yep. Jamal Bowie is here. Hello. Thank you so much for being here. It's my pleasure. You've been on the wish list for a long time.

I'm a long time listener. That's crazy. Now you said That's really insane. you have never listened to a podcast that you were on. That's absolutely the case. So this is going to be an immediate delete

for you from the feed. It'll show up in my feed and I'll press it. I use a bad podcatcher It's absolutely the case. So this is going to be an immediate delete for you from the feed. It'll show up in my feed. Yeah. And I'll press it. I use a bad pod catcher, so I'll have to press multiple button presses. But I'll hit delete eventually. Wow. Wow.

I'm a swiper. Pocket cast. You just swipe. Yeah, more ways than one. Okay. Didn't you swipe one of my jokes on Twitter recently? Swipe? Like, you know know like uh oh you

mean stole yeah that's what i'm saying you joke thief well i'm always stealing your carlos because they just get like baked into my brain by this podcast it was either deadpool knowing that he's in a movie or the other one it was not it was not uh logan secretly a western no i mean it is those ones i feel like i've shared custody with you there was a joke you made i'll find it on twitter and then i quoted back you said you have stolen my joke and i felt terrible i was like i wasn't really trying to steal your the time i'd made the joke on twitter please find it we'll litigate this in a second uh uh jamelle tell me about your relationship with michael mann so my relationship with michael with Michael Mann is that I did not have a relationship with Michael Mann up until the beginning of last year.

And I was doing a lot of travel and I was looking for something to watch on Hulu. And Thief was on Hulu. And I was like, you know, I know this is Michael Mann's first movie. I like James Caan. Never seen this before. So I put it on. And I was like, this shit is dope as hell. This is a great fucking movie that was pretty much our assessment i'm pretty sure that episode is just us yelling like broski and we make we talk about pinching each other oh god um pinch me i mean like you had seen man

movies obviously they've been but like you had never really thought about right right i think i think i think maybe i had seen heat sure um which is the one everyone's seen and i had seen black hat because when that came out i remember some friends saying hey this is actually pretty decent yeah but i never connected it to michael man i've never thought any systematic way about isolated viewing experiences for you okay Okay. So I watched Thief, really into it. And again, I'm traveling a lot. And so I think to give myself a thing to do, I said I will just watch as many of these as I can. Cool.

And so over the course of that month, I was traveling. Then afterwards, I kind of just made my way through every Michael Mann film in kind of its chronological order. So you had an experience very similar to what we're doing right now. Yeah. You were viewing them all in like the build of the career.

Now you hadn't seen Ollie when it came out. Not at all. I would have been like 13 when that movie came out. Sure. 14. Yeah. I think I was the I was 15 I think. Yeah. I was like 12 or something. Yeah. And it was your brother's favorite movie. It was my brother's favorite movie. My brother was 9 at the time. 9 at the time.

But he liked boxing. He liked sports sports i'll get into this more in depth but uh i i think i've said this before in the podcast his birthday i believe it was his 10th birthday was inviting a bunch of other 10 year olds over and they watched a vhs of ali it's very strange it's very strange especially since the original cut i think is like close to three hours right i just remember like checking in my brother leaning forward like so fully engrossed in like all the like uh brotherhood of islam scenes sure and these other kids just like completely asleep yes because it opens with a fight it closes with a fight but in the middle there like they're not exactly going to be like oh interesting i didn't know a lot about his third wife. That's what I'm wondering was like,

was it a sleepover birthday party? In which case, maybe the kids tapped out by just going to sleep. The only sleepover where kids tried

to not stay up. But yes, it was a movie that played a lot in my household, weirdly. But okay, so you didn't see it

when it came out. Wasn't your kind of thing. Do you have any sort of relationship with Ollie or Will Smith? So less Ali. I just wasn't a big sports person growing up. Dude, I hear you. I mean, my whole family was.

I'm the odd one out there. Everyone else, very into sports. I hear you. Where are you from? I don't know where you're from. I'm from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Okay. Okay.

Much like I'm a Stefanski shout out i'm a stefanski uh but will smith i feel like i am of the exact age where will smith is sort of a major formative part of my entire he was the guy he was the movie he was the guy he was sort of i was yeah a little kid fresh prince of bel-air was sort of like at its height yeah it was It was, I'm pretty sure every single, I mean, most households, but certainly every black household watched the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And it was just like a thing that we watched as a family. When Men in Black came out, that was sort of just like, we're all going to go see the movie.

Yep. And that decade leading up to Ali is kind of, I'm a kid, Will Smith is omnipresent in my pop cultural life. Right, right. Because it's not just Men in Black and Independent Today and even Wild Wild West, but also his music career is still ongoing. Yep, yep.

Right, so Big Willie Style comes in, I think, in like 95, 96. Yeah, 97, 97. The millennium, of course, began in 1999, as we all know. Right. So listened to a lot of Will Smith. Yeah. Listened to a lot of Big Willie Style.

Listened to a lot of Men in Black soundtrack. And also there was the Men in Black cartoon, which aired in the late 90s as well. That's right. I also watched that. It was kind of weird. I remember that being pretty good. It was pretty like straight of weird. Yeah. I remember that being pretty good. It was pretty like straight faced.

Yeah. Like I remember being a little. Kind of lore heavy, right? Right. It was that approach. Right. And pretty serious. Yeah.

Yeah. So yeah, Will Smith just sort of, and even now, and I say this on Twitter ever so often, like what I want out of Will Smith is for him to sort of like try to recapture some of that magic and kind of give up the whole I need an Oscar in favor of being, I'm a gigantic, charismatic movie star. Let me do more of that. Well, it felt like 2019 was strategically supposed to be the year of him recapturing that. Right.

Like, I think the play was like- He's got three big movies. Right. Does he have three? Three movies this year. He's got Aladdin, of course. That's right. Yep. The Genie. He is the Genie. Right. Like, I think the play was like... He's got three big movies. Right. Does he have three? Three movies this year. He's got Aladdin, of course. That's right. Yep.

The Genie. He is the Genie. Right. He's got, you know, Gemini Man. Right. He's got his Ang Lee, high frame rate action movie. Who knows? And then he's got his coup de grace.

That's right. The spies. They're in disguise. Spies in disguise. That's right. Do you know about spies in disguise? Okay. Okay. This is how we're going to end the episode. This is how we're going to end the episode. That's right. Do you know about spies in disguise? Okay. Okay.

This is how we're going to end the episode. This is how we're going to end the episode. That's a good call. That's a good call. Okay. You'll watch the trailer for spies in disguise. We will not touch upon this again until the end of the episode. I wish the listeners could see my face.

I was like, spies? What the? No, the spies, they're just in disguise. They're going to hear your reaction. They'll be fine. All you need to know is that the spies are in disguise. That's queued up and for whenever i remember hearing this rumor that his salary for aladdin was the biggest uh any actor had ever been paid what because uh he was

working on like a new album that was gonna tie into it and was gonna do a song for the end credits uh shout out to demi i can't think of that without thinking of Demi now. I heard that scoop and I emailed Demi and he was like, are you fucking kidding me? I was like, this is what I've heard. And then it seemingly hasn't happened. He's become very active on social media. He has a great Instagram account.

I think he won the Webby Award. I think he, because he must have a whole team. He does. I know comedians who write for Will Smith now and it's a weird room of people. Like to his credit, he assembled a very odd room of like very different types of comedians and sensibilities.

He had the Instagram about Ali. He had a little video about it where he was like, Michael, man, I love the man. He's crazy. I had to like give up my whole salary for this movie. Right?

Like he had to train for a year like i spent a year just researching like i mean it's kind of a big deal because it sort of falls into that like tom cruise eyes wide shut thing of like i'm gonna hand myself over to this guy and cede all control at the peak of my stardom. Sure, right. Yes, absolutely. And he can just break me and remold me however he wants. Yeah. And he did get a full $20 million for this movie. But it also was, like, very much a, like, you don't get to be Will Smith for a year. Yeah.

Like, I'm telling you what you have to study. You know, the big thing Michael Mann did on this movie was he was, like, in the boxing scenes, we're not going to fake any punches. Right punches and the only direction he gave the guys that Will Smith was boxing against is you cannot knock him out.

And he's mostly boxing against like real boxers. Yeah they're like more boxers than actors. Yes right. But this feels like the year where he's trying to recapture that thing. It was one of the reasons I was kind of excited when he signed on to Suicide Squad. Yeah. Because I like i i want to see him do a big fun thing and then that movie ended up being uh not fun um but uh it is that thing i feel like we've talked about

this with dicaprio as well but dicaprio is a different example because he was never like a blockbuster guy outside of the one anomaly of titanic he kind of became a blockbuster guy outside of the one anomaly of Titanic. Yeah, he kind of became a blockbuster guy later, weirdly. Right. Yeah. Right. His movies perform well, but we're like, DiCaprio is so fucking innately charismatic that it's a bummer to watch him for years and years try to make these Oscar movies where he tries to sell everyone that he's a serious grown up.

Sure. Because no one else can do Catch Me If You Can. Yeah. Or Titanic or any of those other performances. And it's like the same thing with Will Smith where it's just like there are things that no one else can do that this guy can pull off

and it's a little bit of a bummer when he backs away from it. And even like Gemini Man, I am optimistic about that movie in all of its weirdness but it also feels like that's a movie that a thousand guys could do. I hope he does it well. The only

pitch on having him in Gemini Man is the Fresh Prince thing. It's the kind of like remember young... We've recreated him in a lab. It's sort of an odd... Yeah, but you could do with a lot of people. And the other problem is it needs to be someone who has that kind of decades long career

where we've grown up with them. Gemini man honestly sounds like more of a tom cruise kind of totally it would be such a good time it'd be such a good tom cruise vehicle and i also feel like i'm chris to work with me too great um i think it is a problem and i kind of this was my fear when they cast will smith he has aged so fucking well that even when in the trailer you see 90s Will Smith and you're like, there is a difference there. There's a difference. It's not that radical. I watched the trailer last night and I was, when young, when de-aged Will Smith shows

up, my brain had to be like, that is de-aged Will Smith. He's a little skinnier in the face, basically. I think they've done what they're trying to do very well. Right. But unlike Tom Cruise who has aged well but looks his age. Sure. Will Smith aside from

letting himself get some gray in there. Yeah. Really does look immaculate. He looks like 38. Right. And that's the other thing is watching this

watching Ali. I'm like he looks so fucking young in this. He does. He looks like he's like 19. Like he looks like the D.H. Gemini man. Right. Yeah. In does. He looks like he's like 19. Like he looks like the DH Gemini man character in this. And the hair is kind of similar, but he's got the same shape to his face.

And you're like, at this point he's what, 31? That sounds about right. I mean, he's playing him at about the age he's like he is. Yeah. Early thirties.

But he, he just looks like he barely aged in between Fresh Prince and this. Yeah. He would be like 32. Right. Yeah. Because he's like in between Fresh Prince and this. Yeah, he would be like 32. Yeah, because he's like 51 or 52 now. Right, and he's baby-faced in this, so he just looks so... I mean, the guy looks

so fucking hot in this movie. He has the physique. He has the correct physique. Yeah, right. But now actors are so swollen and even Will Smith in Suicide Squad, I feel like he's gigantic. Too big. And so when you're looking at this, you're like, oh, he's supposed to be like an athlete? He looks so skinny compared to like the superheroes of today

that are so buff. It was always kind of, yeah. But if you look at Ali, like that's what he looked like. Right. He was not like some like gigantic muscled man. No, he looked like an action star, but he always, there was something cool to the fact that he was kind of lean. Yeah.

Because so many action stars are in reality very short. Right. And there's a lot of weird boxes and smokes and mirrors to make Stallone look bigger and things like that. And then he goes so crazy on the muscles that Will Smith was a guy

where you're like, oh, this dude's like actually like six foot one, six foot two. Yeah, he's a fit basketball player. He's got like really practical muscles. Right. You know? But when you like put him in street clothes, you don't have the Schwarzenegger problem

where you're like, no one's commenting on how insane this guy looks in an office. So the sheriff in this small mountain town is apparently six foot four and 220 pounds. That's the weirdest one. The fact that that was his comeback movie. Like I'm done serving office. Now I'm going to make a small town sheriff movie. I actually really enjoy that movie. I like it a lot.

It's the good, the bad, and the weird guy, right? Yeah. Isn't it a remake too? It's like a remake of a Korean film or something? Yes, the director's Korean. Maybe it's just that the director's Korean. I know it. Yeah, right. I always heard that movie was fun. In a weird way, when me and my wife were

watching it, I said to her, it reminds me a lot of Unforgiven. Oh, that's cool. In a weird way, when me and my wife were watching it, I said to her, it reminds me a lot of Unforgiven. Oh, that's cool. In the sense that Schwarzenegger is playing kind of like an older version of his Murder Rampage characters. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, right. You know what he's really, really good in?

The Aftermath? Is that what it's called? No, Escape Plan. Really? I've never seen that. Schwarzenegger's really good. He did so many movies that no one saw after leaving the governor's office. It was crazy. It's so weird. After serving as governor of the largest economy in the United States.

Right. He has become sort of like a centrist Republican statesman and then makes shitty action movies. It's kind of crazy how hard he dropped the ball because you're like he's been in office for eight years he can come back big and then he was like i'm just gonna do a couple lionsgate movies again released in january and september does stx or summit like you know have like a check for me maybe you feel like he could have made like his first one back be a big statement it was uh the last i think he just wanted to do i think he just wanted to work again

but but will smith in this moment right he's coming off that thing and what you were saying was i mean which i agree with it was this unique thing where i don't think anyone has hit this since him eddie murphy certainly had this going on at his peak and it feels like the baton was kind of passed from eddie to Will of like king of all media. Yes. Like he's got albums. His TV show is still running in repeats. We watch it all the time. Of course. Like Fresh Prince

never went out of rotation. No. It was canonical. Even though like is the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air good? Like I don't think it's that good. But it's so fucking effective. But it's very watchable. It's one of the most watchable sitcoms ever i was obsessed with it when i was a kid and then later i would come to and i'd be like oh okay yeah right he's just such a compelling screen he is one of the most charismatic performers to ever live he

truly is yeah uncle phil that's the other thing you got all these ringers in the cast yeah yeah james like alfonso ribera rules sure jvery rules. Definitely. The guy who plays the butler rules. He was in, what's it called? What's his name? The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. What is his name? Oh, is that that? The Chiwetel Ejiofor movie about,

like the inspirational true story movie about the kid. The one that he directed? The one that he directed. He's also in it. He's also really good in it because he's a good actor. Yeah. The boy who, in malawi who like built a windmill to like you know uh re-irrigate his town cool during a drought and uh you know the the chieftain of the town is played by um what's his name joseph marcel yeah and uh jeff yes jeffrey and like for like you know a few

a few acts i was kind of like who, who is this guy? This guy's like got a lot of presence. Who is he again? And then you realize who he is. He's great. That rules. It's a good movie. He harnesses the wind. Spoiler alert. You spend like two hours being like, you're gonna harness the wind? And then he's like, he finally gets it going. Someone's gotta harness this wind.

Stan. Yes, but it also, it was the thing that I think in a pre-social media era, but a point where pop culture was starting to become massive and promotional opportunities were so broad. Will Smith was one of those guys who would do everything, and whenever he did anything, he committed the same amount of energy to it.

So it's like if the guy presented an award at the mtv movie awards it felt like a fucking moment like you know anytime he appeared on anything he did like trl or did a morning show or did late he was also the king of kids like all kids worshipped him but also he was in bad boys or whatever like everyone liked will smith everyone loved him yeah then he's gonna play Muhammad Ali. Right. So he does this miracle run that sort of ends with Wild Wild West, where he kind of like reassesses what's going on. Right. Because Wild Wild West is actually like not a bomb, right? Well, it's kind of a bomb.

It cost so much. Yeah. It was very expensive. It was a bomb. It was actually, yeah, 113 domestic. It made money. But it like cost like twice as much. It grossed money. Sure. It lost money. But it cost like twice as much. It grossed money.

Sure. It lost money. Right, right, right. Yes. And then he does Bagger Vance, which is a disaster. I've never seen that movie. I've never. I've never seen it.

I literally only know it for its reputation. It's like the magical Negro. That's when Spike Lee started saying that publicly. I don't know about this. Well, it's about Matt Damon's like a golfer who wants to golf good. He's like an alcoholic, broken white man. Okay. I didn't realize it was that bad.

I think he's an alcoholic. I just knew he wanted to golf good. Right. And I think Charlize Theron is like his ignored wife. Sure. Okay. But he's like your classic broken man, anti-hero who can't quit the bottle. I'm pretty sure he's an

alcoholic no you're probably right i don't there must be something going on with and then will smith appears out of nowhere as a magical caddy will smith is a magical but he's like a phantom right he's like and he fixes them and then disappears yeah i think he like disappears into you know yeah yeah okay yep and it was directed by robert redford it was directed by robert wasn't really that was a big thing so hollywood hasn't like hasn't kept that like problematic sort of like we solved racism oh at least he wasn't a phantom in how incredible would that have been at the end of green book yeah he steps really step down to the snow and then he slowly looks behind him and there's no one there the whole time hey where'd he go

what if at the end of green book there was a montage i drove all that way for a ghost who could teleport what if at the end of green book there was a montage where vigo replayed the trip in his head and it turned out that it was like a player piano. He was throwing chicken wings in the back and they were just landing on the seat. It's just a pile of... Yeah, The Legend of Bagger Vance. It was directed by Robert Redford. Robert Redford was picking Damon

as his... He was like... Much like in the 90s where he kept working with Pitt. He's like, you're my guy. You're the next Redford. And Will Smith, it was like, you're the next Poitier. I feel like that was the pitch. God knows, probably. God knows how Robert Redford thought about the legend of

Bagger Vance. And that was in that weird period where Charlize did tons of failed, perceived projects. She played a lot of wives. And was bad in all of them. And it was like, why do people keep hiring her? She's not good in these movies. And then she immediately became great. Like it was like once she was in good movies.

Yeah, she rules. And they give her real characters to play rather than long-suffering wives. But that like Man of Honor, she's like really bad in. No, you're right. You're right. Bagger Vance, I think bad in. I think that's her reputation. None of us will ever watch this movie.

But that seemed like. I'm going to watch it. Well, just to prove us exactly that felt like that was like the straight down the middle like this is smith he's gunning for best supporting actor like oscar play and then everyone hated he was like cool i'm gonna make a movie with like integrity right and he had been attached to do ali for years and years and years uh different people came in and out different people wrote scripts he was always sort of loosely like i would like to do Ali for years and years and years. Different people came in and out. Different people wrote scripts. He was always sort of loosely like, I would like to do an Ali movie. And I feel

like Ali had publicly said, like, I approve of this casting, which was a big thing. But I remember even, like, the little bubbles in, like, the fucking Nickelodeon magazine being like, up next, an Ali movie. Like, they would say, like, when they were doing their profiles, like in kids' magazines, they'd

always be like, and he's trying to make a movie about the world's greatest boxer. Here are some of the versions of this movie that almost happened. Yeah. There was a script called Power and Grace, which is a very lame title. Yep. That was focused on Ali from age 12 to 40. Probably more of a classic biopic. Yeah.

A lot about his dad, who is is in this movie but is not a character uh ron howard was gonna direct right i can i can i can i know what that movie is i can see like cinderella man or whatever like yes i mean it would have been a very straightforward i don't know the friends we made along the way this is even like ransom era sure ron howard you know we're like a few years from like apollo 13 or whatever right he's sort of like oh it's like he could do you a stately biopic right and this is ironically the year that he wins best picture and best director this same year for making a stately biopic right right about phantoms about about mind men who weren't there um all

right and then during wild wild west and this is not yeah will smith says to barry sonnenfeld like make ollie like you should do this script we're gonna make the guy to make barry sonnenfeld who i like barry sonnenfeld i do too i enjoyed men in black i enjoyed the adams family i think we love all of his movies up to wild wild west right and then he never recovers right no? No. He doesn't make another good movie. We always consider covering him on the podcast because we like those first four so much. Add his family, add his family values,

get Shorty, Men in Black. That's great. Right. That's a great first four. Right, and then the rest of them are- Wild Wild West, Big Trouble, Men in Black 2, RV, Men in Black 3. Nine lives.

The one where Kevin Spacey's a cat. Yeah. Excuse me on that last one? Uh-huh. Well, Kevin Spacey, we all know him. He's a bad dad. He loves his career and he doesn't spend enough time with his kids. Which, of course, is an all-new plot.

Does he become a cat to spend time with his kids and then learn the value of being a father? I think he's cursed into cathood. Is that correct? He is cursed by Christopher Walken. I believe his kids demand that they adopt a cat and he goes and christopher walken essentially playing the same role he played in click it's like i got a very special cat for you okay right and he's the cat this cat's got real soul it's your soul and then he turns kevin spacey into the cat and i think the kids think the dad's on a work trip okay i tried watching this once jennifer garner i believe plays kevin spacey's wife this is a good reminder of however much i think i watch a lot of movies there's just a whole world of movies that i will

never see or hear of um yes in australia we all as we all know nine lives was titled mr fuzzy pants better title i believe this was this was a EuropaCorp movie. I think you're right. When like Luke Besson raised a ton of money and was like, we're a studio now. We're going to finance

our own movies and we're not just going to make Besson films. We're going to make family films. And he made this disastrous movie that cost like $60 million. Yeah, because everyone figured Kevin Spacey,

perfect lead for a family film. It's crazy. Right. It's a crazy thing to crazy thing but the whole movie is like cgi cat with internal kevin spacey monologue a la garfield yeah like they really expect me to eat that that kind of stuff right anyway he could have made the cat just constantly monologues he didn't get you and i both know there are no crimes in art, let me be catty. Columbia still,

thanks for giving me a thumbs up. Columbia still has the movie. This is a Columbia movie. Right. And, and, and Will Smith, Columbia sort of was becoming

one of Will Smith's home studios. It is his home studio. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Until recently. Yes.

While Will Smith flops, Sonnenfeld is fired or whatever is gently nudged aside Michael Mann he's just made The Insider he's brought on board with Eric Roth Eric Roth who wrote The Insider with him they're gonna redo the script

Michael Mann declines he was gonna make The Aviator turns it down to make this movie he was gonna make Shooter I don't know if he was really gonna make Shooter it says here that He was going to make Shooter. Mm-hmm. I don't know if he was really going to make Shooter. It says here that he was planning to make Shooter. I think he was going to adapt the book. I don't think it would have resembled the Shooter movie we got in any way. The Shooter movie is pretty bad.

And there's another one they said he turned into. Savages. Right. Which Oliver Stone eventually made. Right. Which I've never seen. But that's this other thing. In the 90s, man keeps on developing biopics that don't go anywhere he becomes one of these

guys who just does years and years of research he wanted to make a james dean movie for a long time sure uh the howard hughes thing was always floating around like uh and he hasn't made a biopic up until this point right um but he's one of these guys where if like he finds the insider is kind of a biopic a little bit it's a little bit. It's a true story movie, I guess. I'd say it's a little more of a true story movie. But yeah, it's kind of a biopic. Right. And Manhunter's kind of a biopic.

No, I don't know. Whatever. Yeah. So he totally rewrites the script as far as I know. I think him and Roth wrote the script. Yeah. They're given a $105 million budget. Big movie.

They shot it all over New York, Chicago, Mozambique is where they shot a lot of the stuff that's in Zaire. And Will Smith trained for a year as a boxer. He looks good. He looks great. The physicality and the performance of the fighting is well done. Really well done. And then the movie came out, and it was a box office disappointment.

And I feel like people were just like, yeah, it's weird. It's kind of like cold. Yeah, it's kind of chilly and long. Not into it. Yeah, it's weird. I don't know. Reviews were very bad. Yeah, it was like, right.

Yeah, I mean, yeah. So my thing at this time. And it gets two Oscar nominations, which were both surprises. People did not think it was going to get Oscar nominations. It kind of sort of i feel like the void thing was a total surprise and will smith went from being like the presumed front runner to being like he's on the bubble he's maybe five or six because 2001 is like a really big year like that's a you know lord of the rings obviously but also beautiful mind beautiful mind moulin Rouge these are in the bedroom What's the fifth best picture nominee?

Gosford Park of course But like that's the year of like Mulholland Drive Monsters Ball, Training Day Yeah this was a big year Ali, so you did not see Ali in theaters So you saw it in your man sort of rewatch

I assume you did not see Ali in theaters I saw Ali in theaters I saw the shit out of ali in theater all right congratulations very visceral memory of uh seeing ali in theaters uh right when uh you know cold season was starting or really hitting in the doldrums of december it was this movie came out christmas day which is a very bad that's a very that's a very strange i would have i would have imagined this is sort of like a april movie that's that would very strange... I would have imagined this is sort of like an April movie. That would probably have been a better time to release this movie. Almost

any time would have been a better time. Summer, you could do. I believe I saw this movie on December 26th. I feel like I saw this movie the day after Christmas with just my mom and I, which was weird that I didn't see it with my dad and my brother. It is weird. They maybe had already seen it. Maybe, but your brother's little.

Who knows? He saw this shaking chair. I'm sure he saw it. I'm sure. I'm not disrespecting James E. Newman's viewing of Ali. How dare you disrespect James E. Newman. Sure. But I saw it with my mom, and I have this very visceral memory of, for a very long academic film,

that I had been blowing my nose too much in the days before my runny nose and my nose was very chapped sure watching ali this is your visceral memory and i still enjoyed it despite the fact that i was like actively like itchy nose and the fact that it was like two hours and 40 right i remember being very engrossed by it uh which i found surprising especially when people were writing it off as like, yeah, the thing kind of doesn't work. Right now, my father, big boxing fan. My father wanted to be a sports broadcaster.

We talked about this, but he did a thing called sports phone. That was what gambling addicts would call up if they wanted the scores of the games that had just happened. They needed a quick answer before the Internet. They couldn't wait until the paper to find out whether or not they were going to have to go on the run uh my father was also a gambling addict at this time he was precision pete newman and he did that and he wanted to be sports broadcaster and then he got his one on camera shot which is he hosted a documentary called i think muhammad ali one more miracle that was about him coming out of retirement in the mid

80s which is one like he because he would always come out of retirement to make more money and it was kind of sad it was and he was too old it was the worst one it was the worst one it was like the one where everyone was like what manager is like making him do this it's on vimeo you can watch yeah uh i believe my father is the one who uploaded it is that possible can you check jesus peter newman yep thank you he had it digitized right uh but it's yes it's muhammad ali kind of kind of chonky he looks a little chonky with a mustache and there's my father full jufro interviewing muhammad your dad was so albert brooksie i didn't you know i know your dad now obviously yes um uh howie mandel also people on the street would stop him and yell hey mandel you think you're too big for me because he refused to sign autographs you'd be like i'm not howie oh oh what mandel you get on tv a couple

times and now you think he truly people get angry at him but this is my father's profile picture on linkedin on every like yeah yeah thing is him interviewing ali here because that was like his moment of pride and he watched the thing and he was like i suck on camera my father uh you might notice in this shot all you see is the back of his head like he couldn't figure out how to be on camera yeah uh you're you're looking at like a brillo pad um this is not how you set this up no no um and uh so muhammad ali was like a very big figure in my childhood. His regular bar in the 80s before my mother made him quit gambling in order to as a condition for them getting married was this place called Jimmy's Corner in right off of Times Square. That is still my favorite bar in New York City. That is this guy, Jimmy Glenn, who was like a boxing corner man.

And the bar is just filled with like incredible actual boxing memorabilia. who was like a boxing corner man. And the bar is just filled with like incredible actual boxing memorabilia. And the fun thing about Jimmy's Corner is it's on like 45th off of Broadway. And you're like, how does this place afford to stay open in Times Square in this day and age with beers that cost $2.50? Sure. And the answer is I found out many years later, that Jimmy did a favor for the patriarch of the family that owns the real estate,

and that patriarch promised that as long as he was alive, Jimmy's rent would never go up. Wow. And the name of that family was Durst. Oh, great, great. But the daddy Durst, right? Not the bad son, right? Ultimate Papa Durst.

But flash forward. I'm young. My brother, very physical, big sporto, has a lot of aggression. I have a lot of sadness in me and don't like moving. Hate the feel of air on my skin. Really, I can sympathize with this a lot of sadness in me and don't like moving. Hate the feel of air on my skin. Really, I can sympathize with this a lot. Right? You don't like air on your skin.

Fair enough. Too much. Sure, sure. My brother and I will fight all the time. I will fight verbally. He will fight. He'll just sort of leap on you and. And start wailing.

And then I'll just scream and then my parents will come and break us up. Right. And it was a very weird dynamic in my childhood where my parents would be like you have to punch him back right right yeah exactly and my parents were constantly trying to encourage me to punch my brother rather than saying to you they're just like james is gonna punch you it's gonna happen like we're trying to deal with the james punching thing we can't figure out how to like because he would wail on other kids too if he like got like energetic he was like tasmanian devil sure and uh he he just couldn't kind of express himself and now my brother is he's very well adjusted person he's your brother's great

but at the time he had a lot of a lot of energy so my parents in trying to figure out a way to get me to defend myself uh had me start taking uh boxing lessons with jimmy glenn oh wow this real corner man at like a boxing gym that smelled like uh 12 uh ball sacks that's what all boxing right the worst smelling place and i was like nine years old and once a week after school my dad would pick me up and i'd have to box with a bunch of old sweaty men and i hated it oh you didn't like that oh you weren't into it it wasn't really. It wasn't really your vibe? So much. And the only benefit to it was that afterwards, because my father had to go back to work and do more work after that, he would bring me back to his office before we went home.

And my dad had the internet in his office, which we didn't have at home. So I was like, I just got to punch an old guy for an hour. And then I can go to the Lego website. You know, like that was like, I just got to get like punch an old guy for an hour and then I can go to the Lego website. You know, like that was like my life for like two years. So I was like in a weird boxing world. Yeah. OK. I didn't like it at all.

But you were at least being told the basics of boxing. And I was like living and I was seeing these guys and they were explaining to me the psychology of the whole thing. And my brother was so jealous that i got to do it and then this weird thing happened which was simultaneously my parents finally listened to my pleas and stopped making me take boxing lessons and they took the risk of letting james take boxing lessons and james totally leveled right because all his energy could be expended like and like the strategy of the whole thing and he's like become like the least violent person in the world. Yeah. He's very chill.

Your brother's pretty chill. He's very chill. And my brother almost became a professional boxer. Oh, wow. He like got his golden gloves license. He is a five, six Jew. There was a narrow category in which he could have had a career. But they're little boxers, right?

They are. Featherweights and all that. And they were like, this is the best Jewish boxer we've seen since. He's got a lot of energy. And my brother's got kind of like a good body build despite being a short guy. And he was really smart about sort of the chess game of boxing, the psychology of the whole thing. But so this movie has a weird importance in like my family because this was like happening in the nexus of all of these things you know it's like when my brother wants to be a boxer and i hate that i'm still going to boxing lessons

this movie maybe comes out right when that like handover is happening um so i i was just like fully engrossed by it i hadn't seen a michael mann movie before sure i don't know if i'd ever seen this i had seen the inside unconventional biopic before yeah i certainly was a hardcore oscar kid at this point where if something was tapped in that kind of way and you like will and i love will smith um but i just remember being very engrossed by this thing and the sort of um how much it was a like uh time and place political struggle movie. Yeah. I think I was worried it was going to be a sports film.

I mean, in retrospect, watching Ali knowing that 2001 is not 9-11 happens, and then the next couple years of American society, it's just... And I grew up in a very heavily military place. Where I grew up, it was the kind of place where if in 2002, you said, I don't know, maybe if going to war

is a good idea, people are going to slip, like, slip tires. They're going to beat the shit out of you. And so just thinking

about this movie that focuses on this particular part of Ali's life. It was poorly timed, perhaps. Not just poorly, but just like,

it kind of like, in this way, anticipates where American culture is about to be. Yeah. Like very, very soon. Yeah. No, that's a good point. I mean, this movie kind of goes over like everything that the next eight years would be arguing about in American culture.

Totally. You know, it is, I feel like one of the earlier examples of the, we're not going to try to make a complete biopic. We're going to just focus in on a thing. Right, let's sort of pick out like sort of a chunk of his life and focus on it. We're not going to have a scene that starts with him as a 10-year-old. His dad's like, all right, Cassius, you know, here are my hands. You got to hit him. That's a jab.

And like you compare this to like i always wanted to be the greatest right exactly he's born and his mother's like let's call him cassius clay right yeah but he can change it later if he'd like right which is like ray a couple years later ray is a hundred percent money and gets all the oscar nominations and is the most didactic like right let's just lay it end to end he He started here and he ended here. Let's make, yeah. And it ends with him getting the key to Georgia. Literally him being like, yeah, they're like, and now Georgia on my mind is the state song of Georgia.

Right. And you like freeze. He turns into a painting. Right. It's like people still wanted that. Like even critics seemingly wanted more of that. And this is a weird example because it's not... The stakes of this were so high.

This was the Ali movie. Right. And I think people were kind of like, this is what you did for the Ali movie? I think it was burned by the idea of they're going to make the definitive Ali life story. And Ali is a big... He's a long life.

Like, it's, you know, probably a standard biopic would be really boring and really choppy. Like, you'd have to just sort of like, okay, and now he did this fight, and's, you know, probably a standard biopic would be really boring and really choppy. Like, you'd have to just sort of like, okay, and now he did this fight. Right. You'd have to, if you're going to do a standard biopic and not have it be four hours long, you'd have to sort of just jump. The first, his first like 10 years of his life is like half the movie.

And then sort of everything between that and sort of like the 90s is like 20 minutes. Yeah. And all the political stuff would be very fast. It would be like one scene he's like, well, I'm not going to Vietnam. And then like two minutes later, it's like, we got the call. You're all clear.

You can do the rumble in the jungle now. The first 45 minutes of this movie, Malcolm X is essentially a co-lead. I'd argue they have near equal screen time. He's so good. I think when I was just watching this on the way up to New York, I was like, this is maybe the best performance

of Malcolm X on film. I think it's the most accurate. I mean, like, Denzel's incredible. Sorry, I forgot about Denzel. That's the thing. Hey, listeners, I saw Malcolm X. Great film. I love it. Ignore Denzel. Denzel denzel's you know he's great

in malcolm yes and it is kind of crazy to think right there was like we're gonna have to do malcolm x like only a few years removed from this very sort of definitively regarded performance yeah but denzel's very big yeah he's very uh charismatic he's playing younger malcolm x who is much less sort of you know stately i mean that movie is far more conventional in covering like almost everything right well that movie is just like it's going to be long that movie's four hours long right right yeah isn't it i think it is yeah it's like over three yeah i'll say let me let me amend my previous statement i'll say that this performance of malcolm x is captured aside of malcolm x that you don't normally get in performances

of malcolm x that's I think is the big one. Sort of the very introspective incredibly introspective. Right. Yeah. Right. Because people. You expect him to come in and be right just being like you know spouting lines and sort of have with one liners about you know I only like my coffee

the only integration I like is in my coffee like you know jokes and sort of right. People tend to front and center the righteous anger. Sure, sure. Which I think is also part of the continuing narrative of trying to make Malcolm X seem scary. Sure. And I think with Spike Lee and Denzel Washington,

those are both angry guys, you know? I think they were trying to make a very accurate biopic that still is... But that movie gets to the sort of quieter. It just gets to it. It totally does. Right. But they are both, you know, very like outsized.

When Ali's meeting Malcolm X is when Malcolm X is sort of like, am I into this? You know, he's at that point where he's like, is this working? Like, which is very shocking to see. And also Mario Van Peebles is an actor who usually plays it pretty cool. You don't usually see this much vulnerability out of him. So to see him doing that and to see him doing that in service of this character who we've never seen this sort of vulnerable and self-doubting. I love him, but what's the deal with him? I don't know.

Why does he mostly make like junky action movies? And then occasionally he'll be like, by the way, like I am like a proper actor who like after badass. I thought he was going to have this like career revival because like and he directs that too. And it's so good. And then he's sort of gone back to doing like. And then he's like, great. Can I do the Carlitos way sequel?

You know, like, can I do. Or he's like directed a bunch of the like straight to vod nick cage movies like he's got a very weird career i don't have a lot of takes on mario and people so he's great in this movie yeah he's great in this movie and that scene where uh where ali is like i i can't talk to you uh the one in the uh outside the hotel yeah i thought that's that seems brutal it's very brutal you're like i've never seen anyone depict malcolm x as low status before and just kind of low status dejected kind of depressed yeah like and like without purpose in a way like you know like

looking for a purpose whereas you think of him as such a like leader of a movement and here he's kind of like oh i can't hang out with you guys yeah i guess right you know like right i mean that's this immediate interesting thing with the movie is you go like the first 10 minutes are cutting back and forth between sam cook performing that shit's so good and the opening of this movie will smith just running i think it's some of the best filmmaking man's ever done it's so good i really like ollie i do think it can never quite match the energy of that first half hour but it is one of those things where you go, those 10 minutes, you're like, okay, people are sitting down. It's the biggest movie

star in the world making a biopic of one of the most beloved Americans, who now we all accept he was always in the right. It's kind of, well, who among us ever didn't like Muhammad Ali? That is definitely true. There's that thing like Colin Kaepernick

where they're like, this is not the right way to be a political athlete. Muhammad Ali never did anything like this. And people are like, ahem, ahem, ahem, ahem. Sure. But that's the other kind of crazy thing is this movie like is just relitigating all the times that America was angry at Muhammad Ali. And being like, you got to live with this shit. But the first 10 minutes to be like, oh, we're starting here. Like we're starting like this Sure. Like, we're starting

like this late into his career. We're not seeing the build. No. It's starting right before he wins the title. Yeah. With the Liston fight,

which is like, Ali was the sort of brash, you know, people were like, oh, this guy's too mouthy. Right. You know, he's all talk

and Sonny Liston was seen as the sort of like, oh, he's like an upstanding athlete. That's the kind of guy we should you know don't you think though most people would have made the film that started with him like walking into the gym

for the first time and ended with him winning this title you know the Olympics is sort of his first like coming out moment where he wins the gold in 1960 like that's yeah I also don't think a more conventional version of the story would have included the kind of, I think,

still today, kind of surprising stuff of him encountering the picture of Emmett Till as a kid and sort of, basically, his story of radicalization

of becoming very politically disillusioned and kind of disconnected from kind of mainstream black politics. Well, well it's also this movie about like celebrity it's about so much the like what is your responsibility as a celebrity the thing that keeps on being brought up of like i thought you wanted to be like the people's champion right sure you know we were talking about this about how public enemies sort of has that

strain to it too right Of like how America kind of lionizes and then bites back and sometimes in the same motion. I mean I don't think it's just on this theme. A thing that stuck out to me is just the fact that Jeffrey Wright's character is always present with the camera. Always documenting.

And even the Malcolm X character always has a camera with him. That shit's not an accident about what the movie is trying to say about sort of how the world perceives you, your responsibility to the world, all that. And from minute one, I mean, he's fighting, obviously, but we're seeing his, and the fact that his relationship with Howard Cosell is so important. It's like one of the more emotionally like truthful relationships in his life Mostly, it's just them doing bits

I would say it's one of the more sort of vulnerable intimate relationships depicted in any Michael Mann movie that's romantic or not like you rarely have friendship in Michael Mann movies It's usually uneasy alliance. It's usually friendship in Michael Mann movies. It's usually uneasy alliances. Usually friendship in Michael Mann movies is sort of like, I respect you. I would shoot you if I had to, but I respect what you do. You're a professional. Obviously, I want to murder you. And love in Michael Mann movies, sexual love is usually a woman shooting out a man and the man going, I can't disagree.

Whereas this movie, Jada Pinkett is like. With the exception of Last of the Mohicans. Right, which is actually quite a swooning movie and he hasn't seen that one yet. I will have seen it by the time you've listened to this episode. But you're right, that's like him in this much swoonier mode that is unusual for him. But in this movie, Jada Pinkett especially is like really sexy.

Like that's sort of like the thing with her. Yeah. She's forward and she's like, you know, her own person. And, you know, Muhammad Ali's like, I've never met anyone like you. Like she's forward and she's like you know her own person and you know muhammad ali is like i've never met anyone like you like she's exciting like she's only in the movie for like five minutes but she's so excited all three of his uh his lovers in this film have far more agency than most michael mann women because they all kind of actively pursue him right right right right but but yes i do think the whole reason why he starts

it with this guy just doing his sort of methodical running right before he's gonna have you know the first massive you know potentially life-changing match of his life uh is because he's interested in what responsibility does this guy have the second he's placed on that stage. You know, like he's not interested in what Muhammad Ali had to do to get to that moment. Sure. Because the movie he's interested in is here's a guy. It's like the, you know, some are born great, some of greatness thrust upon them. Like here's a guy who innately is much like Will Smith.

So charismatic, so beautiful. Right. So smart, so engaging, so funny. And he also is this incredibly gifted athlete. And that places him at the center of the culture. And this guy in that moment, trying to wrestle with how he feels about the culture and his own identity and what he wants to do with that position in terms of trying to change that for other people, which I think just throws everyone off that it's like here's a movie where you like have

boxing scenes that are very long and very visceral and don't have a lot of catharsis in them no they're trying I think they're probably trying to get the sort of actual details of the fights yeah like down right and those are like you know

when you see the rumble in the jungle and as like everyone who doesn't anyone who knows boxing that was kind of a boring fight right because it's so much of ali just taking a pounding and just waiting like you know and i feel like it's not like creed where it's like holy shit like every second of this is like my body's on fire and he's like dodging and he's so it's so cool it's just like punch punch punch wrap him up punch punch punch over and over again that's real boxing right I know strategy boxing is

kind of boring yeah I also feel like that's watching this I was like what are the reasons why boxing films are so successful it's weird that there's that much success in boxing as opposed to other sports considering boxing's

popularity in relation to other sports. I think A, it's the fact that it is a solitary sport. You only have to track two people. So you could do a binary like here's who you're rooting for, here's their opponent. You don't have to deal with a bunch of people on a field. And the other thing is because it is just two people in a

ring, you can kind of choreograph boxing and make it sort of a static in the same way you can with like a musical number right you know um and you can build those sort of emotional arcs into it yeah and also boxing ends when you knock someone out i mean it doesn't have to but it can't and there's a clear right um and brutal right but that's the thing This movie like leans on the brutality of just like you're in this really tight. You're hearing their breathing. I mean, this is one of the things I just find interesting about the movie is sort of like man kind of experimenting with digital photography. Oh, my God.

He switches between so many formats in that. I forgot he was doing it this early. And in those fights, like the most visceral like hits he films in digital. Yes. Or like uses the footage from the digital photography which creates this very interesting effect of you're kind of in this like

warm cinematic fight and then you cut to their perspective. Yeah, all of a sudden just like what the fuck? Right. Like that. It's very weird. Because that's like

I think the big thing he's experimenting with with digital is just like how do I make this more aggressive? Yeah. You know, how do I take the varnish off of this and place people in these like uncomfortable worlds that I'm interested in?

You never get that close. No. When you're like at the event or watching it on TV. And it really, it's like, it's so visceral. Ben, do you like boxing? Are you a big boxing fan?

I didn't know this about you. Yeah. I didn't, I couldn't, um i didn't i couldn't our family didn't afford like pay-per-view or hbo so i didn't really get to watch it growing up but i love boxing and i uh boxed many years uh when i was living in jersey city boxed many years frame for it yeah i can see that yeah i you do look like one of the guys that rocky beats at the beginning of rocky yeah you look like spider i was thinking more of one of the guys in like the gym matt murdoch goes to in daredevil i'll take it yeah that's a compliment yeah i'll take it yeah but yeah i love boxing uh so i was

really into this movie i've never seen it before oh wow and the yeah the visual filmmaking of of all the fights those close-ups and just the tight sort of framing was so cool to see. I also think the lack of music during the fights, because he uses music so well in the rest of the movie, and then the fights he's really making you live with, you barely hear crowd cheering or anything like that. That's toned down, and it's just the dull sound of the punches, and their sort of breathing and the steps.

There's also never they never cut to like the you know corner guy being like oh no he's gotta do this or like you know what I mean like even when there's the thing in his eye which is something that happened during the listen fight that he couldn't see all of a sudden and they never know if that was like sabotage or just some weird shit that happened

like you kind of know that that's happening but you don't really get why it's you know like it's just all being replicated for you deal with it like the uh ron silver ron silver paul rodriguez looking amazing right between the three of them jamie foxx looking yeah looking insane oh yeah but jamie foxx has like dialogue scenes he does he does but you're right those other three guys are right he's always in it rarely talks he's playing a guy who is famously a stutterer and didn't talk right and when he does talk you hear him malcolm muhammad ali's biographer yeah he was kind of like the documentarian of of

the crew right right right who is always around ron silver who was like his corner man uh uh i was gonna say like like those three characters probably have less than 10 lines of dialogue between them in a three hour movie. Right. And they are if you were saying like I'm going to make an Ali movie they're all characters you'd be like well they're going to be pivotal. And they're in almost every scene. Like as you said. They are in the ever present. You're like Jeffrey Wright must have worked almost every single day on this movie.

But this is such an ever present movie. Right. Where it's like even Ali is sort of like inscrutable in his you know like you're always with him right we're like we're staying with him yeah but he doesn't have like monologues where he you know explains what's going on in his head or anything like that right and you're so happy that like dundee doesn't have a scene where he's like outside on a smoke break and he talks straight to pink and he's like i'm worried about him for the first time right that shit wait what are you gonna say i was gonna say you uh to the extent, to the extent that we get any real interiority with Ali, it's during the physical moments, like when he's running, when he's fighting.

That's when you kind of get into his head. Because those are the moments that he's not performing. Right. Sometimes when he's with women. Yes. Especially the sort of early meetings with all of the women, with Nona Gay, with Michelle Michelle. Right.

Michelle Michelle, is that how you say her name? Michael Michelle. I always thought it was Michael Michelle. It might be, yeah. It must be. Yeah, I always thought that Nona Gay was going to be a big star. Michael Michelle,

what am I hearing? Yeah. I'm telling you, how dare I disrespect her? Yes. Played the most boring character in the history of ER. Eric LaSalle's wife?

Yeah, but she's like a doctor. She's in it for like three years. Right. Dr. Finch. That was, my mom, ER was the only show she watched. My mom was like a like a tv is trash person but she watched er every week and when michael michelle came on screen she went like oh jesus christ she was a real bummer on here

yeah um uh my mom did not see this movie i saw this movie with my dad my dad was obsessed with muhammad ali i feel like most people that age my father-in-law is obsessed with mich Ali. I feel like most people that age, baby boomer fathers, are obsessed with Muhammad Ali. Just the most important athlete of their generation. And probably of like America. I think fair say like ever. Probably the most consequential.

Which is funny because he was just a boxer. He lost fights too. He had that sort of weird end of his career you know but he did a pierre newman documentary i mean you can't go much lower than that exactly it's such a weird sport too the tradition of it like and like seeing it in that time and like my parents growing up they watched the fights like it was just such a present ever-present part of like america's culture well that's the other thing is that most boxers are viewed as scary like the reputation is like this guy's fucking intense

hulking and right powerful and yeah like uh they talk with their fists but i feel like since like lennox lewis like or i guess pacquiao is like kind of the new standout like he has fight with mayweather who sucks he's like the exact kind of boxer it's like not interesting to watch no he's like a points guy right right all these guys are just

kind of like bulldogs you know yeah I grew up in Britain I'm sorry I'm sorry what yeah all right wait so wait a second wait a second this movie yeah well you go see

it on boxing day except for you it's literally boxing day you know what i probably probably i saw it on boxing day uh but in britain boxing is such a big deal well they named it after uh and and lennox lewis was probably the the last british boxing hero sure and everyone in britain always knew he sucked like he didn't suck he was good he was a good boxer but like when he he got he had a glass jaw like he got punched one time he fell right down and that was it right and he was never the same again and everyone in britain even though we all loved lennox lutheran like yeah he was never like for real in the way that

like and also like none of those boxers ever connected in the same way as people outside of the ring like it was only ever exciting when they got back in. The only other guy who had the same kind of cultural weight was Tyson. And that was like revulsion. It was like, what's this guy's fucking deal? Sure. Who is this guy? You'd have to, for something comparable to Ali, you'd have to go back to the beginning of the 20th century with, what's his name?

You mean boxing wise? Boxing wise. Yeah, I know who uh uh black guy dated white women uh joe lewis and it's sort of i mean it's sort of a similar kind of reason why like joe lewis connected to he was like the first black athlete yeah to connect with non-black people right to connect with white people in america right like yeah pretty much pretty much inarguable and sort of he was you know he was a fast talker like he was transgressive and sort of ali in the same way kind of like is uh he's there's racial flashpoint in the united states and he kind of like

basically channels it through sports which is right um and that's that dynamic doesn't really like exist anymore i mean that's why kaepernernick is the closest possible thing to think of now. Sure. And the thing about Kaepernick is that he is... No one would say, well, this is also inarguably the best football player alive. Did you imagine the president weighing in on him not wanting... Wait, you think Trump would have something to say about this guy? Yeah.

That was the point I was trying to make. Well, Trump is like... You think Trump would have something to say about this guy? Yeah. That was the point I was trying to make. Didn't Trump, he did some fucking Muhammad Ali thing. Oh, did he? He did. I swear to God, I can't remember because it was 87,000 terrible things ago. But he did one of those things where he like. Oh, he pardoned him.

He pardoned him. That was it. Yeah, right. He gave him the posthumous. I forgot about that. Right. And sort of around the same time as the Colinin kaepernick yeah sure sure he was like criticizing colin kaepernick and then gave muhammad ali the pardon that was less than a year ago yeah that happened like recently a hundred percent and like that and like he did that and

no one like it's not like anyone ever anyone was like oh thank you, thank you. That's good. We really were waiting on that. But then he also hid behind that. I was like, I'm not a racist. I pardon Muhammad Ali. It's like, after he died, you fucking piece of shit. You don't get points for that. Oh boy. But you're right.

He's channeling so much of what's happening in America through boxing, which is a very specific thing. Yeah. Well, and it's this thing as you know as you sort of said like i don't know anything about sports but there are the people who like cross over into just like the general culture where i have to know about them and like kaepernick is someone who i only know as a political figure of course i had never heard his name as an athlete before right if lebron james was taking the same stands that Kaepernick took, then that would have the sort of import of Muhammad Ali.

But the fact that Muhammad Ali is someone where I, as a child who hated sports in this time period, still would have probably liked watching this guy on TV. Do interviews, you know? I would have bought a fistful of fries. It's just more exciting. I don't like UFC I find it really boring UFC is very boring I'm not into it

I loved Ronda Rousey Ronda Rousey was like the only athlete I have been personally invested in And I would watch her fucking fights And one of the things I liked about them Was that they were always short That I knew I wouldn't have to engage with it for too long. Because her whole thing was that she would knock you out in five seconds.

But I would go to the bar and watch the five warm-up fights and be like, cool, I'm just going to keep talking to people. And then Rousey would get on. I'd be so locked in for like three minutes. And I'd be like, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen. But then it was depressing when she then started slipping. It was like Lennox Lewis.

It was instantaneous. She lost and that was that and then never she never got it back yeah right my dad was obsessed with ollie i just want to say this i keep forgetting about this anecdote he uh my dad covered the rome olympics 1960 which ollie fought and well and when he was a little baby when he was like 19 and um ollie did the thing that he does in this to him the um which was one of his favorite tricks the put your hands up i'm gonna punch you six times yeah did i get you like which is so funny yeah and i remember he was like he did that to me he did that to me i remember that's all and couldn't i couldn't forget about that before we got i think my dad's story is he did the same thing to him when they were filming the documentary sure it

was like his like favorite little jokey thing. But his hands were shaking and he couldn't do it. My dad was like, oh, this is the most depressing thing. Well, that's the thing. The fight your dad is covering is like the fight where afterwards people are like, he's already showing the signs of Parkinson's disease. It's not even a joke. I think it was the last one.

Yeah, I think you're right. Right. And one more miracle was the pitch of like, he's going to pull it out one more time. And everyone's like, he can't stand up. Yeah. But we don't have that in're right. Right. And one more miracle was the pitch of like, he's going to pull it out one more time. And everyone's like, you can't like stand up. Right. Yeah. But we don't have that in this movie. No.

So we're starting with the Liston fight, the Sam Cooke. Right. All that stuff. Him running the flashbacks to his childhood. The sense of this guy like reckoning with his place in society. You know? Yep. His history as a black man in America.

And now someone on the cusp of having, you know, the history as a black man in america and now someone on the cusp of of having you know the the ear of a nation and right after the fight he and malcolm are talking about going to africa but it's already kind of over yeah malcolm like right like you know we're we're entering at the end of his time this would have been like what 63 64 yeah when yeah when is the first clay listen right uh i think it's 63 because i I think that's when Malcolm makes his trip to Mecca. Yes, right, right, right. Alone. Yeah.

Not alone, but like not. 64 is the fight. Oh, 64, okay. And then 65, I think they fought again. Yeah. But yeah, right. So I guess they're probably like fudging that timeline a little bit, right? Because when does Malcolm get assassinated?

65. Right. Which they depict. Yeah. This is also one of those movies that just jumps around in time. A little bit. Which I think disoriented people because it doesn't make like hard proclamations. Right.

Of how much time has passed or where we are. Right. It's yeah. In 64 is when Malcolm breaks breaks with the Nation of Islam. So I guess that's just sort of happening. Yeah. And these are two guys who are like, you know, in the center of the cultural conversation

and you get a lot of scenes of them in just like shitty hotel rooms with like 20 other people just being like, what are we doing? Is this like, are we doing okay here? There's the one scene where he, where where Ali is watching a documentary about termites and Malcolm comes in and just kind of has this monologue about being angry and it's just like, what movie am I watching?

This is supposed to be a Muhammad Ali biopic and there's just a very raw kind of moment involving Malcolm X. Yeah. But that thing about all these people being around them all the time whether it's like family members or like the press or the people of their team it's like I feel

like a very good visual representation the fact that you have all these actors in almost every scene in almost every shot whether or not they're speaking of just like the weight you must feel if you're in that position. Right. You know that you have all these people who are sort of connected to you and are looking to you and you're like controlling the room, even if you're just sitting down watching a documentary on TV. Right.

Everyone's sort of like circling around you. I mean, it's like, you know know some people have entourages because they want to insulate themselves from the world. Well sure and also you can't like go out as a normal person anymore so you need to have a social scene with you. Right but some people have like entourages to try to remind themselves of like what's going on.

And this feels like a guy who's like constantly trying to make sure he's still like connected to a web of people. but he's very inscrutable in this movie yes i think that's one reason people were really just just not into this movie he never explains himself once in the entire movie right and it's i think you could watch this movie and have the takeaway like wasn't only like a very passive guy who's kind of being led by other people but i don't think that's the take the movie has. It's just that he was kind of a locked up guy.

I also just think this is closer to how people behave in real life. Right. Like people want the fucking. Which Michael Mann likes. But I could also see a studio being like, Michael, Jesus, he's charismatic. Have you heard of him? He's very charismatic. Right.

Which, of course, he is charismatic. I think Will Smith's great in the scenes where he's being the showman and he's like, but like, you know. But very rarely do people just clearly elucidate what they're planning to do and why they're planning to do it. Sure. And so this is a movie where he just kind of acts and people are like, wait, that's going to go out on the news. And he's like, yeah, I know. Right. Right. Then he goes and takes a shower sure he so he changes his name there's the scene where harold cassell corrects himself on air which i think is very powerful really and like beautifully

acted uh that's sort of like where he's just sort of sensible he's like right you get to be called whatever you want to be called right you know i apologize yes it is weird that uh that becomes like the movie slam dunk oscar nomination because i feel like when everyone was excited for this movie that was the big question mark of like what the fuck is he doing casting john voight as howard cassell insane makeup which i gotta say i've i forgot every time i've seen this i just forget it's john voight yeah he does not look like him. No. No. Doesn't sound like him. If you showed me a picture of him in the makeup, I would certainly never guess that it's him. But I feel like-

One of those rare ones. That Monday Night Football, like TNT movies around the same time where you have Totoro playing Howard Cassell. Right. And that's like- He doesn't really look like Howard Cassell. He's got the hair. Right.

But apart from that, he just sort of looks like this weird guy. And he also doesn't totally sound like Howard Cassell. No. got the hair. Right. But apart from that, he just sort of looks like this weird guy. And he also doesn't totally sound like Howard Cassell. No. He's doing a good character, but it's not like a one-to-one dead-on impression. It's very odd.

It's so good. But it's so good. And apparently both Mann and Smith were like, Voight. Voight's the guy for it. Yeah. Which I guess Mann had worked

with Voight and he... As a fence. With a ponytail. With a big hair. Yeah, that's right. And had Smith worked with Voight and he. As a fence. With a ponytail. He plays a fence with a big hair. Yeah, that's right. And had Smith worked with him? No, right? I don't think so.

Is he not an enemy of the state? He feels like he could be an enemy of the state. He wasn't an enemy of the state. Maybe he's an enemy of the state. He could be in it, right? Yeah. It's a very weird choice, but I think the thing that Voight is so tapped into,

which is like another key to this movie, is the way this guy shows his emotion while having this like completely unbreakable professional broadcaster sort of behavior. You know? Right. And John Voight is an enemy of the state. There you go. There we go. See?

I knew it. Yeah. He plays Thomas Brian Reynolds. yeah he plays thomas brian reynolds but that fact that like he's not a guy like what's so touching about uh that first scene where where he like acknowledges his name change is that this guy is not losing his professional broadcast composure that it's not like some moment where he breaks down and makes some big emotional stance that he's so businesslike about it is just like this is a guy who retains his humanity sure even while he's always constantly kind of performing and i think that's the thing that that ollie and cassell probably bonded on sure is they both had these

like very specific personas yeah and they were very like right they were expected to fill a specific role right in society they always had to be on yeah um he meets sonji sonji uh jada's character i love that scene i love her so much she is an actress is uh so good at connecting with other actors i know which is like it feels like a light compliment because that's like the name of the game but when i see her on screen i'm like oh right like you have good chemistry with everyone. And you totally change based on who you're working with and what scene you're in and what project you're in.

This is the first time, well, she was on what? A couple episodes of Fresh Prince. But I think this is the first time they're together. Right, in a movie. Interesting role for her to play when you consider the dynamic of their relationship. Because she's out of the movie fast. Yes.

The nation doesn't approve of her.'s too like uh loose or whatever right she's too wild too loud too fast um so she's out of there really quickly but they have my memory she was in more of the movie and she's really not yeah because he meets nona gay like right after right and uh she's very appealing too i mean my i think michael man wants you to think about the fact that muhammad ali married like young women over and over again i did not realize that uh nona gay's character was uh 17 but she introduces herself as saying like i interviewed you when i was a child right and you were a grown man and i was like please say it was 15 years ago right um so but uh yeah um yeah, I think the scene of them getting married,

which again, like it becomes very impressionistic in the middle of the movie. And I guess I- There's no detail. Like this movie has grown on me in the times I've watched it. But the first time I saw it, I was sort of like this back middle part of it,

just like it drags. And there are moments- It does. It's long. There are parts that kind of just feel like it drags. And there are moments. It does. It's long. There are parts that kind of just feel like they shouldn't even be in the movie. The whole like FBI informant subplot. I think there's a little too much stuff in the offices. When you have your weird like, oh, here's like Ted Levine and Bruce McGill like tapping wires.

Man keeps adding that. In all his re-edits, he puts more of that in. Why? He's like, we need to realize that the like fbi was always watching him so it's sort of part of the scrutiny thing but i agree that it is weird because it never resolved no it never resolved like bruce mcgrew comes in at the end and is like you're under arrest it kind of just like slows it's even it's it takes the like it runs into the impressionistic parts and just like you're sort of like oh okay moment with with his wife or like with and then oh yeah the fbi is wiretapped his phones and it

feels like it's out of a more perfunctory plot driven right exactly except none of the plots nothing resolves in this movie like jamie foxx is in most of this movie i think it's a terrific performance it was that early sort of like where people like is jamie foxx i remember being the first time has he's done a performance like this since like it's just so a weird a weird fucking performance honestly the closest thing to this soloist soloist yeah i was about to say which no one remembers right nor should they um but no he rarely lets himself be this uncool right he's very good he's playing kind of a famously uncool guy like he was a weird guy and um after this he's like a balding half jew heroin addict yeah and he who talks about how he's a balding

half jew heroin so he won't shut up and like an amateur poet right after this is like he doesn't really do much until collateral and ray uh in 2004 he doesn't really do a lot of movies. Right, right. Which are also both weird performances in their way, actually, you know. There was another. I think Collateral's a very against type performance for Fox. Against type. Very weird, very good performance.

I think it's a terrific performance. We talked about this, we'll talk about it in the episode, but that role was written for Adam Sandler. Yeah. That was the whole notion was like you put Tom Cruise against an obvious comedic actor playing a little toned down. And it was like man was like I want him in like punch drunk love mode.

Jamie Foxx was a very weird casting choice. But he leans into it and he's good at it. He's good at playing a charisma-less guy. It felt weird at the time that he was casting someone whose reputation was largely cool to play the part in what was supposed to be an odd couple kind of like one guy's a loser movie. Yeah, he's good at it. He's really good. Yeah, because he takes Jada and Jamie Foxx from this movie.

My old man does that thing where you kind of like pick someone from the last movie and bring him to the next project like sort of, you know, Jamie Foxx is his guy. He does three consecutive Jamie Foxx. And then they fall out in Miami Vice. Platter on Miami Vice. What's the third?

This one. Yeah. And then they don't think they like each other anymore. I see Miami Vice drove a wedge between them. I really like Miami Vice. Rules. It's the best. I think it was a tough experience to make.

But yeah, no, this middle is very fudgy and strange and like tough to get a grasp on. And the political stuff is easier to get a grasp on, obviously, because that's such a crucial part of the Ali myth. But like plot wise, it's never there's never like much momentum. So I think part of the idea is Ali was literally couldn't really do anything. Right. He's aimless. Yeah, he's sort of very aimless. And like his dad and people are saying, like, these are the prime years of your career and you're like You don't get many of them. I like that scene with

Joe Morton. Yeah. It's so good where he's like you don't get many of these. Yeah. And when he pitches him the burger place. I mean I like how much the movie is focusing on how broke he is. Yeah. You know that weird position of being like you

still are incredibly famous even if you are vilified certain quarters and you can barely pay your bills right that he's sort of at this like standstill and they're like things are happening like malcolm is assassinated we see martin luther king played by lavar burton very strange only on television dialogue and like you know like it's like history this performance is a photo in a newspaper. Yeah. Again, I feel like this is what bothers people about this movie. Right.

Because it has sort of a bit of the kind of facade of a traditional biopic at parts. And I can imagine being an audience goer hyped up to see it. And you get that open and you get sort of like, oh, Malcolm X there. And all these people. Right, I understand. And then, this is what it was like. Then, for 45 minutes, you're just kind of like, chilling. Just hanging out. Here's like another failed marriage.

Marriage is sort of immediately, obviously not. He's not heroic. He's not politically. He's sort of he's a guy who is very famous and has no idea what to do with this. Right. And also one of his most political and heroic acts is him not doing something.

Right. So there's that too. And the sense that he has like a very strong belief in his own morality. Like he knows what he stands for. Yeah. And he's only questioning whether how much damage that is causing him. Yeah. Like there's no consideration. Like he is so steadfast.

There's no scene where he like talks through the process of why he's going to refuse the draft. But you have a lot of scenes of him just being like, that's a really tough decision. I'm really smarting from this thing. The thing I was going to say about the Jada Pinkett thing. I'm really smarting from this thing. The thing I was going to say about the Jada Pinkett thing, I love that scene where she asks him if he's a virgin because he is so weird when she's seducing him. And it is that sense of like these three marriages to these young women,

it kind of feels like he has built this like very sort of like confident, loud persona around a guy who isn't really uh in touch with the more intimate quiet sides of his personality so every time he like meets a nice woman he like immediately falls madly in love with her like goes straight to the far end i mean it's baba shaka henley has that line where he's like this is like a woman you date you don't marry her yeah right right you know this is like a first date yeah and he's just like no i know i know i when i know i know this is it right and i think his scene with his first scene with nona gay is similarly lovely and that shot of them getting married because i think they got married in one of the sort of mass weddings like it was you know uh is very lovely and then she's basically not in the movie anymore

yeah right you know and we don't even see them fight because i think michael mann doesn't he's sort of like i don't know do people fight like as the couples have probably you know like right like i'm sorry if the chicken got overcooked i guess that's the you know like his version but like there's already fighting in the movie yeah he is fighting he has the joe fraser fight which he loses which is also a bummer yeah like you watch him his his famous loss. Right. Right. Where he just kind of sucks the whole time. He's not really fit.

He's not really like ready for it. Yeah. So that's bad. Uh, that Jamie Foxx is big, like Oscar scene where he admits that he sold the belt. Yeah. Which is just like so fucking depressing.

He's great in that scene. Yeah. So good. Yeah. Yeah. And then they'll back third of the movie is, is the rumble in the right which it like i feel like when we were kings the documentary had only come out a few years ago if you've ever seen which is like a pretty standard documentary that's just a good retelling of like the ollie charisma and the rumble of the jungle and it won the oscar and

it was kind of like a crossover commercial play at the time when there was still very much a ceiling on documentaries and it's about like you know don king and like don king's whole thing and what you know you know jerky was but also how good he wasn't marketing a very skilled functional documentary of in a very concise way probably what people wanted out of this movie yes explaining muhammad ali's cultural importance and setting the stakes for that fight and making you care about it okay and it's just like straight down the middle hits you whereas this is like the it's so weird really weird because he's he kind of like i think he kind of likes being in zaire right like all this stuff where he's walking around right when he's fascinating but it's also a little depressing it also feels

a little inert a lot of it's him waiting yes Yes. You know, he's kind of chilling out. Don King, Michael T. Williamson is great in this movie, but he's annoying. That's another, you know, that's another crazy thing about this movie. Ollie doesn't like him. He's like,

shut up. He's like, I read every letter in the dictionary, that line. Do you know what I'm talking about? They're at a press conference and Don's doing this thing. Yeah. I just love that little moment.

It's very funny. That is a crazy thing about this movie though where you're like, okay, when we were kings like just a couple years earlier covered this chapter. Like,

Ving Rhames just won a Golden Globe for playing Don King. Sure, that's right. Like, Denzel, less than a decade earlier

played Malcolm X. Like, a lot of these figures have just been like played iconically. Sure. A lot of these chapters in history

have just been depicted in more successful sort of populist ways yeah and then you know this is weird which i think that one shot of like sitting down and being like bring in who does he watched it with someone weird i forget he's he's some american journalist or something yeah uh you know that's all very strange i think it's and the fight is weird the final like the rope-a-dope like it's i mean there's long and it's kind of boring his sort of before the fight is sort of like jog through zaire or run and then you know he's he's kind of seeing himself represented by the people of zaire yeah i think that's sort of for me that

is the thing man wanted to communicate to the audience like this is a thing that matters about all of this sort of like ali recognizing sort of like what what this means for other people and deciding to kind of embrace that um but to get there you do have this like very strange it's weird right i love it to be clear i just understand why people found it so distancing or so unsatisfying i think it was maybe it was either zoller sites or or bilga tweeted something because they there have been three versions of this movie there's the one that's released theatrically like two years later he did an extended edition that's very long that's very long that's like i think it's three

plus hours or something right yeah it like really tips up to the three hour mark yeah and that was mostly just extended and then he restructured a couple things yeah and then uh that was re-released in theaters after ali died yes and then like six months after that they put out a blu-ray where he was like after i saw it's called the definitive edition. Right. After I saw the extended cut re-released, I realized I thought I missed a couple points. Right. So then he like made it shorter.

It's the shortest of the three. It removes a whole fight. Right. Which is like an uninteresting fight. Right. Because a man said it was episodic. Yeah. And it adds political stuff.

He wants like more political stuff. Right. He adds more of the white dudes in the offices he does he's so weird about that whole point of like i want the audience to understand that he was constantly being like listened to you get that if it's just one scene one scene if you cut to one scene of the guys taking the notes the hotel scene where you see them right that's all you need right maybe even keep the scene where the guy eats that really nice looking samosa i like that yeah that's probably my favorite of them yeah um i'm trying

to think of uh i'm trying to find any other i don't know but other than that main fight getting cut i i mean i went to a website where they outlined like second by second the changes between the three cuts and a lot of them are very small a lot of them are like oh yeah no reaction shot he picked a different like piece of coverage he's obsessive i mean like and fincher's like that too there are those you know like fincher famously with gone girl like saw the premiere and was like this scene is five seconds too long and like went back and changed it before it came out but but fincher's obsessive up until the moment when it gets out and then he's like right it's out there yeah forget it right man's the guy it's like i don't know i'll just make another version of it again maybe with this one in particular precisely because the public reaction was so tepid it sort of yeah you may feel like there's just maybe there's

a way to get to like make this more that's what he kind of said i read this right this deadline interview that was when the last blu-ray was coming out. And it was like six months post-death. And he was like, I just watched it in the theater. My extended director's cut right after he had died. And I felt like the story wasn't totally there. Sure. Like a lot of times when I change things with like heat or whatever, it's like little technical things that bugged me. I wish the timing was different.

And with this, I thought I could could have I could change a couple levels which is that Ali is very mysterious right you know that is his take and that's probably what's gonna bother people more than anything so like you know what I mean that's what I was gonna say is that the the solar sites of the Bilge quote and I'm sorry that I'm giving one of them

credit for what the other one said credit was like it was when they re-released it and they saw it in the wake of his death and they were like it's kind of fascinating to watch now because this is like everyone's problem with it was he was using what people thought were was going to be a biopic to essentially make a uh narrative cinematic essay right yeah sure like it's very much like an essay movie about like the intersection between like celebrity and politics yeah about the most famous person of the 20th century who

happens to be in kind of inscrutable and his inner life isn't actually all that well known right right right totally but here's the thing that's kind of the same with will smith yeah sure yeah you're right it's a good intersection we interesting thing where Will Smith's tipping point where he starts to lose his shine as a celebrity is also when he starts to let us in a little too much. Like late 2000s when it's him with the kids a lot. Right. And he's doing interviews where now he's talking about his philosophical beliefs. And now everyone's starting to question whether or not he's a Scientologist.

Yeah. It was like, oh, we liked him when he was doing all the press in the world. When he wasn't standoffish, but he was kind of a cypher because his personality was just like, I'm the most fun guy. I have the best energy. I have the best spirits.

I'm good at everything. I'm Mr. Positive. And I would just remember where I think it was this year with Ali, they cut to him in the audience at the oscars a bunch of times yeah and then by the time they got to best actor it was the still photo and he wasn't in the theater and someone you know they said like what happened to will smith he was there they cut to him during the monologue jokes and he was like the babysitter called and said that jayden had a fever so we left and we just went home

and it was like he wasn't gonna win that night no but i remember that being such a big thing of like we know almost nothing about will smith's personal life outside of the fact that he's married to this other actress and they have kids but when he does press he doesn't really talk about himself he doesn't get political he's kind of inscrutable outside of being the world's friendliest man yeah right and that was like well the only things we know about him are like it seems like he's a good dad yeah and then the second you get into him doing interviews where he's like we let our kids raise ourselves he started saying weird things i built like a 20 million dollar studio i sat my kids down and told

them if they don't want to be in show business i'm not probably going to have great relationships with them and then you start to go like, what is Will Smith exactly? Yeah, what's his deal? And now he's back on there. He's usually, I'm fun. I'm on Instagram. And I'll do videos where it's like, man, remember that I was in Wild Wild West? Crazy.

Isn't that crazy? Oh, my God. Yeah, but see, you're relating the two, and they're very similar, but he's not outspoken politically. That's the only difference. He never has been. And also, can you imagine as far as I know at least I don't think of him as ever I do not I cannot recall a single time

Will Smith has said anything politically even though Obama has always been very clear that like he wants Will Smith to play him now that's just vanity he always will say well he's got ears like mine like that's what he'll always say that's the funniest thing about this movie is the only real prosthetic transformation they do

on Will Smith is taping his ears back. Right, right, right, right. But yes, no, Will Smith has always been sort of apolitical and I feel like anytime he's gotten to controversy, it's like he's one of these guys who like, I'm a student of all religions. I read every side. Okay.

And I remember this quote where he did an interview and he was like you know like i think people don't think about like the philosophy of like being a human being so like i read like mein kampf and i think it's important to like he did yeah well he was like i've read it easy i read everything because i want to know everyone's viewpoint and you read mein kampf and you realize like hitler doesn't think he's a bad person. Everyone wakes up thinking they're a good person. You don't gotta read Mein Kampf to get that insight. But it's also like, that's the most political

thing he's ever said. I mean, I don't like Hitler, but the guy didn't think he was a bad guy. The machines around him, like anytime he would talk about Scientology or things like that, whatever machines around him would be like, Will, no. And it would just go away and then it just wouldn't be discussed again.

Chill out, chill out, chill out. Right, there was that moment where it was like, Tom Cruise was kind of fading. Will Smith had clearly become the unquestionable guy. And then all the stories were coming out about like, oh, Tom Cruise is like wooing Will Smith hard. Like suddenly there were stories about, you know, Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise, Will Smith, and Jay

hanging out all the time. And then you'd hear things about like will smith being scientology adjacent but then it was always like oh will and jada announced that they're going to start a school in los angeles yeah and then it was like wait a second the school seems to use like scientology study tech principles and then they were like never mind we're not starting a school yeah it's a lot of that and then whenever people press them everyone else who's a member of scientology is so out loud like i love scientology and will smith's been like i dabble yeah like he's a reader like you say he thinks about them right right yeah but

but it is interesting that he's remained so apolitical and his celebrity was largely connected to the fact that he was so affable but it never really felt like we knew what made this guy tick there's something with will smith too about and this is i mean this is this would make some sort of an unusual choice to play muhammad ali like will smith comes is a black celebrity at a time when this kind of black celebrity is still a little precarious right like there's this thinking that if you get too outspoken or too political and don't have kind of like a pre-existing base of black people to retreat to right you're you're fucked like you can't you're you're done in the business and so will smith probably like it's so conditioned in that world that even if he does have sincere

political beliefs they're never going gonna come out right but you think denzel denzel comes out of the same kind of time period 100 even though he'll work with spike lee or someone who will happily you know talk all day about whatever he's whatever's on his mind right but yeah denzel like does he express political thought really like not really even sam jackson's only recently started getting kind of like sure anti-traumatic right yeah and he's like that's just a character thing i mean fuck this guy then there's always like the hollywood liberal types like your george clooney's whoever who are like always very outspoken and everyone's just like blah blah blah you know who cares right there's like that type it's almost it would be the equivalent of like i mean and this is i mean this is this is uh

this is sort of the argument of the big documentary but like if oj simpson had come out against some political thing right he was studiously right i thought of kanye uh uh during katrina sure yes at that moment because that was like the first time yeah that was but even then there's something unique i mean what makes the 60s unique is that so much is happening, right? There's the civil rights movement. There is the nation. There is black power. There is a Vietnam War. And Ali is kind of just like right at the center of all of it.

Right. And you go like, this is like not too long after like the Hollywood black listings. Yeah. When there's been like a real precedent set for like if you're in the limelight and you express un-american thoughts right you're fucking canceled like it was the original cancellation you know i didn't know i didn't know about this oh yeah yeah yeah you don't know about the hollywood blacklisting no oh yeah lots of people's names were struck from movies you would love this period it's uh yeah basically there's um one of the recurring red scares in uh the 20th

century and like they're sort of trying to hunt out all the communists in american culture right and they found like swung back around celebrity who had like ever at least in being once by the time vietnam was around you can publicly take an anti-war position you might get in trouble i don't think it was the communism thing but i think the idea of like muhammad ali being like we shouldn't be in this war was like you got two choices you either support it or you shut the fuck up and you're already in a a religion that we find a little scary so like dude you're walking on thin ice which is pretty scary right right that's that's the position that was really crazy right he was in the nation. Right. But they talk about in the first hour of this movie, they keep on saying like, you know, this radical militant group.

Because like, again, you can always like, you know, it's like Charlton Heston marched with Martin Luther King. There were lots of Hollywood actors who were very outspoken liberals at the time, but they were usually like preaching nonviolence and marching with, you know. Right. That's why MLK was like his success was so tied to the fact that he was able to tackle all these subjects in a way that was non-violent which made it very easy to endorse but also all he would like go on tv and they'd be like come on you can't really think that you

know like and he'd be like yes i do and like and i'm gonna say a bunch of other stuff now do you know what the key difference is i mean because we're saying obviously there are examples of people who are famous who are outspoken who take a stand on certain issues but there's the thing when someone becomes the undisputed number one yeah in their field where they are like king of the mountain right at the top sure those people then their main impetus becomes i can't lose this right and ollie is a guy who was like i will consciously let them right literally they're like you have to box right now the We'll strip the titles from you. We'll ban you.

What makes it so fascinating is I can't think of another period where that could have happened. When Michael Jordan is the indisputed best basketball player in the world, there was nothing happening politically. There weren't the same kind of issues. What could he have said? Music is where that's not the, there's, what could he have said?

I feel like music is where that's happening at that, in the 90s, right? Yes. What could he have said? Like, I support Bill Clinton, like, I don't know. Triangulation is the way forward.

That's right. A third way. Hi, Michael Jordan. I support cutting welfare, but, you know. But also, like, Michael Jordan was never a very interesting interview.

Like, it was like, this guy is good at selling me coke. Michael Jordan liked to talk about basketball. Right. Like, that like, Michael Jordan is good at selling me Coke. Michael Jordan liked to talk about basketball. Right. Like that was what he cared about. Whereas LeBron James has actually been, he's fairly outspoken.

Yeah. You know, when like, you know, he like Trayvon Martin things like, you know, he's always been fairly good at like, he's not like the most dynamic interview in the world or anything,

but he's like usually staking out sort of the quote unquote, like slightly more radical position war war is different in how americans think about it like politically like even even unpopular wars it's difficult like how many people now it's not like lebron james was ever like we shouldn't be in iraq right that would have been nuts right right right and that was never on the one group of celebrities who said we shouldn't be in Iraq, the Dixie Chicks, were canceled for 10 years. That's true.

They were fine. We don't support this president and his war. But they got in trouble because they were quote unquote red states. Where it's like, again, George Clooney, Woody Harrelson, Ed Begley Jr. Like whoever you want to think.

Like they were all like, yeah, we shouldn't be in Iraq. And everyone was like, well, of course you think that George Clooney. And this is another thing. And no one gave a shit. Even though like George Clooney was certainly famous. And Clooney is so issue based from the beginning. Right. That he like makes the choice.

Bono, right? You know, whatever. But all these guys like as they're yeah whatever you know it's like shouldn't be in the wall and everyone's like okay both david and jamel just did a jerk off motion uh two respected journalists what are you talking about um no but but there yes uh there is the kind of like clooney being like oh i'm starting to be on the conveyor belt to being a superstar. I'm going to be very outspoken politically from the get go.

And like, you know, my my tiny little fucking sliver of the universe. I had a bunch of people go like, are you going to stop like tweeting like fuck you Trump stuff now that you're on an Amazon show? And I'm like, no, I don't care.'t care and they're like yeah but what if some people don't watch the show because of that I'm like what if 5,000 people don't watch the show who are these you would be surprised how many people ask me that and I'm just like I don't

care you know and I think Clooney is a guy who is like I don't care my values matter I'm gonna lead with that and there are other people who do that then there are people who like become famous first and then are like fuck the drop between one and two is huge and i don't want to make that drop right and someone like taylor swift for years people were like is she a white nationalist because she won't speak out against anything and then you realize taking this concern is like i'm just not gonna talk about i'm just not gonna we all jump

to white nationalists because you're like well the'm just not going to talk about it I'm just not going to talk about it and we all jump to white nationalists because you're like well the only reason she wouldn't talk about it is if she was a white nationalist and then it was only in the last like six months that she was like

I'm donating a hundred thousand dollars to like female I'm a fairly ordinary sort of like you know moderate liberal or whatever like a Clinton voter

I'm not super engaged in politics and was like here but I donated to a bunch of like female senate races you know um it's that thing and that's what makes ali like unique and that's the movie that michael mann wanted to make right right and also i mean i think part of the point man's trying to make is that even the decision to be outspoken is a little mysterious like it doesn't sure you

you can't be no one reasons it no one says to themselves like well you know i'm a now it's time for me now it's time it's just sort of it it happened that phone call scene is the big one for me where like he hangs up you see everyone in the room who's kind of like amused by the quotes he's giving and then he hangs up and they're like that was a uh reporter they're going to run that right you don't want to use that language right you know and it's like it's the emmett till thing of like that being like so at the beginning of the movie right right and he invokes it over and over again is that sense of just like you're walking on thin ice like even if you're top of the world right now you're like one inappropriate wolf whistle away yeah you know

whether or not you did it of them being able to accuse you of a whistle and it's like, it's all fucking gone and you're thrown in the garbage. Something about that Emmett Till scene that the first time I watched it I didn't notice it, but when he looks at the newspaper,

the old man who's holding it pushed it in his face. Right. Which is also sort of like, there's something about that and sort of the fact that Ellie surrounds himself with lots of political black people.

Yeah. Over the course of his life who are basically doing the same pushing in his face and he maybe is paying attention yeah yeah right sometimes he's more just in his own head but right it's all not to scare him but to like remind him of what the stakes are he's not trying to be insulated and why he hates don king so much i think it's important yeah where he like immediately is like now you're just this is bullshit you're not trying to like bring money to Africa or whatever.

You know, like, right. He's the greatest showman. Yeah. He was, what if, what if they do a greatest showman sequel about Don King?

What if greatest showman becomes like an anthology franchise? That would be a better movie. Better movie. Yeah. But if we had the similar take where it's like, he was great. Like that was it. And you're like,

what about all this stuff? It was like, nah, he was a showman. That's what I would love. I would love if like, they like the greatest showman becomes like gold diggers of 1933 right where they update every couple of years with another shitty guy who abused people in a way he is the greatest allman he kind of wants the crane all right we're gonna do the we're we're we're we're wrapping up now yeah do you have any final thoughts i feel like we this is a more in-depth like a kind of take on a movie and sort of it's like cultural import than we've done in a while that's good though yeah this is the movie to do that and it's not a plotting move

yeah weirdly not right uh yeah if you have any final thoughts because then we're gonna get to the joke i stole the box office game and the spies and the three things you're gonna knock out we got i don't i feel like i've said my piece yeah on the movie i just it's um i think that i don't know if there will be another muhammad ali biopic um ang Lee came very close to doing the ali Just the thrill in Manila. He wanted to do just a one fight movie. And I feel like no one's ever gonna attempt to, no one's ever gonna

stop to the hubris of we're doing another definitive one. I assume anytime anyone ever makes a hot Ali it would be like one slice. But I do think man was on the right track trying to situate Ali in a very specific historical circumstance and kind of almost make the point that maybe nothing like this can happen again. Just like the conditions for it just don't exist anymore.

And that that's what makes, more than anything, that's what makes Ali historically noteworthy. Because they'll never be a figure that culturally dominant. There's not like one person, like even LeBron James or whoever like name the top athlete. They don't have as much of the public's attention. We don't want a culture anymore and also no one will ever have that impact again because he

was the first one to do that. It became such a big deal because that was not how celebrities behaved. And the movie itself, challenging movie. I understand why people do not like it. Yeah. But, you know, it's as you said, like it's a movie that rewards upon rewatch.

Yeah. I think so. I think it does. I think it's not a movie you can watch once and kind of digest. If it is kind of like an essay, then it is an essay that like one of those ones that you do your first read to kind of get a sense of what it is and you have to do continuous deep readings right um one other thing i like about this movie that i think they just handle very subtly uh bombadu is the jamie foxx guy right yeah yeah um that drew bandini brown yeah uh right um that uh

the uh uh not bombadu what the fuck am i talking about i don't know what are you bandini brown yeah uh right um that uh the uh uh not bomba dude what the fuck am i talking about i don't know what are you brown uh that that he was sort of like his joke writer right in terms of the rhymes yeah he was coming up with a lot of the pattern right you never see any of that but there's like the line where will smith is talking about like how hard he's like sort of gone down the drain yeah where they say the lines and you get the sense that's just like he's like a weird guy who talked in this like circular pattern and then

Ali was like cool I'm gonna start taking some of these sure I know how to actually sell them I mean and this is a stray thought but like you know there's during the sunny list in a fight when he's sitting in the corner Ali you can see it if you watch the actual fight would keep turning to the crowd and going like like that like baring his teeth

and he does it with the mouth guard and it looks weird yeah and he wasn't yelling he was just doing that and he does it in this movie right never explained yeah because no one knows why he did that right even though he's the most famous person of the 20th century maybe right you don't have a scene where Freddie Mercury breaks the microphone

stand like what if I did this face right right right and like that's right it's like i'm sure maybe even people ask him what were you doing and he maybe even had some answer that may or may not have been true yeah like because he he's so inscrutable even though he's so famous it's a hard person to make a movie about yeah but he's also very iconic i think it's a good movie but it's i do i understand i agree with you yeah i it's very weird yeah and like frustrating intentionally very weird christmas day release very weird christmas day release but first before we do the box office game the joke i stole from you was jupiter reaching cruising out oh thank you as a sequel to jupiter ascending which i think it just become canonical in my brain sure because that we make that joke yeah you haven't forgiven me for this i haven't well i'm sorry we'll work it out in the divorce

in the settlement what we're not getting divorced we're getting divorced does ben get like split in half or something no no no baby i get the top half uh uh we're good we're gonna divorce and still keep doing the podcast interesting all. All right, fine. The Box Office, 2001. Christmas 2001. Yeah. It's a very long weekend. Right, right. It's like a five-day weekend.

It's basically Christmas to New Year. It was like a weekend. I feel like this was one of those movies where the first day was big, and people were like, oh, it's going to be a hit, and then it just dropped way off. I guess so. If you break it down daily, $10 million on Christmas.

Yeah. And then kind of drops off. But it grossed... 60 in total? It grossed 58 total. In its first week, it grossed $40 million. So it made almost all of its money

in the first week. It made almost... It made money in the first week it made uh almost uh uh it made more than one-sixth of its entire box office gross in the first 24 hours yeah yeah like that's like and it made no money overseas like 29 million right it's kind of similar to sweeney todd where it was like big star peak working with a big director and then everyone goes to see at christmas and they're like what the fuck is this forget it Forget it. And it hemorrhages audiences. But there's another problem. Lord of the Rings.

Number one at the box office is Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, which of course people thought was going to be a hit, but becomes unstoppable. And people are seeing it again and again and again. I think especially after Harry Potter worked, people were like, well now, like, Lord of the Rings is kind of going to be warmed over

it's going to be the right exactly harry potter is going to eat his lunch right yeah and then a month later lord of the rings becomes like harry potter that first one come out oh one yes it came out november right yeah right they're like a month apart wow i in my in my brain harry potter comes out a couple years later no i guess no they both started the same time and i remember it being like one of these is going to be humongous sure and obviously harry potter's the bet the safer bet because it's got this cultural thing but it was the highest grossing movie of the year right yeah although they gross pretty much the same amount right 3 15 essentially right and then lord of the rings the next two outgross the next two potters for sure right and it becomes an oscar film, which was crazy. But I always think the three things that feel very post 9-11 to me are, or two things really.

It's Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter hitting so big. Right. In the immediate months. And then Spider-Man the following May. Sure. Are just like, and that, now it's all like fucking high fantasy and superheroes. We want like clear good and evil. Lord of the Rings is made 174

in two weeks. Huge. But there's another movie that has made 136 in four weeks. That's number two at the Christmas box office. December 01. That's also kind of a definitive movie of the year. December 01. Yeah. But it came out in November I think. I think it was a Thanksgiving movie. No. Early

December. Early December. It's not Harry Potter. No. Monsters, Inc. came out early November. We were talking about its star. We're talking about its star? Yeah. Just now? Spider-Man? No.

No, not Spider-Man. Get me Spider-Man. What's just now? It's a big cast. Is it Harry Potter? No. What are you talking about? Stop saying Harry Potter.

Harry Potter's number five, actually. So you guessed that. Is it Harry Potter? No. What are you talking about? Stop saying Harry Potter. Harry Potter's number five, actually. So you guessed that. Is it a franchise thing? Yeah. It becomes a franchise. All the characters got business. They do a lot of different kinds of business. Sure.

A lot of business going on. Big cast. A lot of business. Big cast. Like a number of people. Like a real list. Yeah. Like a number of people.

Is there a number in the title yeah it's not eight crazy nights no no it's not eight crazy nights oh it's not nine lives hundred two dalmatians double digits just barely just 10 11 11 it's a remake oceans 11 oh come on people forget that's christmas yeah and that was another huge hit yes yeah and then ollie and harry potter the only thing we haven't discussed is the number three movie of the year probably the best movie of the year an animated animated film was an Oscar nominee that year. That's not Monsters, Inc.? Nope. It's an animated film?

It was probably the best film of that year? I'm joking. I've never seen this movie. This is some of your bullshit. Is this something I like? It's the other nominee. Who are the three animated film nominees? The first year of the Oscars nominated animated films.

Right. Of course, it's Shrek. There was Shrek. There was Monsters, Inc. People thought the third nom was going to be Waking Life. Right. Of course, it's Shrek. There was Shrek. There was Monsters, Inc. People thought the third nom was going to be Waking Life. Sure. And a big surprise, a doo-doo headed boy rode in on his spaceship. Sure.

Jimmy Neutron himself. Boy genius. His head looks like a turd. It does. He's got a- It's got the little turd swirl when people do a cartoon turd. So those are the top five films. Wow.

Jimmy Neutron. Boy genius. Now it's time as we wrap up and thank you so much for being on our show my pleasure happy to um for jamel to watch the spies in disguise trailer okay so here's what here's what we're going to tell you jamel okay we are going to play you the trailer we're going to tell you that there's a big twist in the trailer right we're going to pause it right before the twist comes into play. You better be quick on the pause, sure.

Yeah, and we're gonna ask you to guess what you think the twist is gonna be. Now he might know, he might have forgotten this movie exists. And I'm just gonna do this first. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Thanks to Andrew Goodall for our social media, Joe Bone, Pat Rounds for our artwork, Laney Montgomery for our theme song. Go to Blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit.

TeePublic for some real nerdy shirts Patreon blank check bonus features and as always what's your question? Do you feel like you're prepared? I feel like I'm prepared I was going to say I know I forgot this because I have like an 8 month old and don't remember anything anymore

Great perfect Have you taken your 8 month old to the cinemas yet? No no no He has not seen a screen yet. Okay, this should be the one. He's not seen any screen? No. You're a good dad. Wow, you rule. Okay.

Thank you so much for being on the show, Jamal. Okay, ready? And we're going to press play on the trailer. Feel free to, you know, if you're getting any sense of anything as it's going on, this is the third Will Smith movie. So far I see there are spies in disguise. Okay, so he kind of looks like Will Smith, right? This is part of the Will Smith rehabilitation of Let's Make Him America's Favorite Guy again.

Who's the spy? You've got to meet Lance Sterling. He's got earbuds. America's favorite guy again. Who's by? Gotta meet Lance Sterling. He's got earbuds. He's got some AirPods. Right. You getting ready? Is that Spacebar? Getting ready with the Spacebar.

I know, I'm just, I got my finger hovering over it. In 2019, so you know it's coming out this year. Okay, now. You're gonna have to guess. Where's this going? I'll wait for it to go black, right? Is he going to transform into a plane or something? A transformer?

I'll say this. That is a better guess than most people make. You're going off of the two superfly. Right, right, right. Which I should have paused it a second earlier. But even still, I'd say you're the closest I've seen anyone guess okay, all right Ready yeah Wait what

What? It's always so good. He's a pigeon? Yes. He's a pigeon. There's another pigeon there. What? Unbird me right now.

I am speechless. I am a professional opinion writer, and I am speechless I am a professional opinion writer and I am speechless we got no takes on this one no takes save the title out loud save the title out loud spies in disguise but what if it's also about spies in

disguise thank you everybody wait no there's one last challenge in disguise? Thank you, everybody. Wait, wait, no, there's one last challenge. Sure, sure. Will Smith, Tom Holland, Rashida Jones, Karen Gillan. If you had to guess who the last cast member is in this film, the last above the title. Above the title cast member.

So Will Smith, one of our most, you know, sort of venerated movie stars. Danny DeVito. Tom Holland on the rise. That's a solid guess. You're kind of right in body shape. Ready? Ready? It's A.J. Collin.

Jemele almost fell out of his chair. I played myself. Yes, we've all been played, I think.