Blank Check with Griffin & David - Love & Basketball with Carl Tart

Episode Date: August 9, 2020

It’s rare we get to start a mini-series with a classic. 20 years after its release, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s directorial debut still stands the test of time as a top-tier cinematic love story. This week’s all about Love and Basketball (2000), which would set the tone for her career. But what’s the story that led her there? Carl Tart (The Good Place, Comedy Bang Bang) joins as we discuss how Sanaa Lathan fought for her big break, the impact of seeing a romance between two Black leads on the big screen (and VHS), and confuse Griffin with WNBA and NBA stats.

I'll play you for For what? Your podcast. Hey, David. Yeah. All's fair in love and podcasting. That's right. That's right. This is the start of a new miniseries. Very often, we mimic the sound of a baseball game when we're doing that.

Oh, sure. Right. Crack. Crack of the bat. Hit the stands. Roar of the crowd. Well, the crowd might be roaring, but this time the ball you're hearing is doing a little bit of this. Dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble.

Yeah, that's what it sounds like. Drip, dribble, drip, drip, drip, drip. So the sneakers are squeaking On the court Ladies and gentlemen Now slam dunk Come on and slam And welcome to the podcast I'm joking of course

Because I am not much of a Sporto I'm Griffin Newman But course, because I am not much of a sport-o. I'm Griffin Newman, but I have a co-host. And my David Sims, big, big basketball fan. Love basketball. Not love and basketball. I love basketball.

And I basketball love. Yeah, sure. Right. That's what makes us a good team. And this is a podcast called Blank Check. It's about filmography it's directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passionate projects they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they dribble dribble dribble baby yeah they bounce back and forth but like a ball between the hand and the court yep sorry yes between the hand and the court. Yep. Sorry. Yes, between the hand and the court.

What is a career in the entertainment industry if not the dance between a hand and a court? Okay. You just keep bouncing. That's what you're saying. Right, right, right. It's a new miniseries on the films Gina Prince, Bythewood.

We're starting out with her debut film, Love and Basketball. Now, I'm not a basketball head. David, you are. Yeah. You call yourselves basketball heads, right? Yeah.

That's the term? Of course, everyone calls themselves that. Producer Ben. Yeah. Basketball, yay or nay? I used to watch as a kid when Jordan played. So you were a cash fan? I'm like a basic basketball fan, basically.

And then when he retired, I kind of fell off. I think then Iverson was kind of my guy there for a minute. I collected basketball cards. But yeah, it was just sort of more of a thing I was into as a kid. Were you a Nets fan? You're a Jersey boy. I was. They were terrible. Did you care about the Nets? They were bad was into as a kid were you were you a nets fan you're a jersey boy i was they were terrible care about the game when you were a kid it was like seven dollars you could just show up yeah it was like when we went to go see taruk the first flight and they gave us

yeah yeah and paid us money um yes introduce our guests but also what's the title of this miniseries? You said we were starting a new miniseries. I was talking around it. We have a great title for it. The name of this miniseries is Pod and Basket Cast. That's right. Wow. Rolls off the tongue.

Dribbles off the tongue. Dribble. It dribbles off the tongue. He really landed that three. I landed that three. Our guest today knows about basketball, knows about comedy, knows about podcasting. That's what I call a hat trick. Does that apply in basketball or only hockey?

No. Okay. Just hockey. Hockey or soccer. Ladies and gentlemen, from the flagrant ones, writer for Brooklyn Nine-Nine, you've seen him on The Good Place place and of course most importantly chief on comedy bang bang ladies and gentlemen carl tart hell yeah oh my gosh thank you so much you know comedy people know me as carl tart chief all those credits but basketball people know me as

seven foot four center out of the university of Virginia in 1984, Ralph Sampson. Of course. Wow. Yeah, 83. Excuse me. I forgot the year I got drafted. But I want to appreciate y'all, and I want to say thank you for bringing me on to talk about such a great film, a film that I celebrate.

I just realized that I'm wearing a USC shirt. Oh, yes. I pulled this shirt out of the hamper this morning to jump on a Zoom meeting. Because that's what we're doing. That's what we're doing these months. Ralph Sampson went to Virginia, I believe. He did.

He did. University of Virginia. 1983. Yes, of course. I know this. Yeah. But of course, Q, Quincy McCall is a USC alum, as is Monica Wright. So it was very appropriate yeah yeah i i this this

movie i can't wait to get into it with y'all now you you grew up in the south and then in california yeah i moved to los angeles when i was uh nine years old and I moved right into the area of USC. Oh, man. South Central. So you were still in Monica. Yeah. Coming of age at the same ages as these characters. Yes.

Yes. My mother lives in the area that Quincy and Monica lived in. Ladera Heights is where my mother currently lives right now. I don't know who this would apply to, if any listener of blank check does not already listen to doughboys uh your uh roscoe chicken and waffles episode great episode made me cry when you relay the story of going there for the first time oh i i love long stories i love people taking a lot of runway to get to a big finish and that was one of those stories where it went on so long that i was enthralled but i couldn't remember how we got there and then when it came back around to and

that's why i chose this restaurant for this episode i think i i shed like a tear just in sort of like appreciation more than anything wow of the journey we had made ladera heights is near westchester right because i have family who lives in westchester and anytime i mention that to anyone who's not from like la they're like there's no westchester in la there is a westchester uh and we've all been to it is where the airport is the airport is considered they live like right under the airport and their house has like special windows that block out the sound of the sound yeah yeah it's uh ladera heights is not far from there so there's uh windsor Hills, Ladera Heights, and then you got Englewood to the south right there.

Right, you got Englewood. Westchester's right to the west of that. And above that is Culver City. Culver City, right. Yeah. But like, and Englewood is like, that's where the whole new Clippers thing is going to be, right? Like where they're building this brand new basketball arena.

Yeah, Englewood, the city of champions. You got the forum there you got the new ram stadium sofi stadium that is so apparently according to the nfl is gonna have some fans maybe not in la though but they are gonna play in front of people did y'all hear that yeah oh yeah of course and that seems like a conspiracy theory to me at this point. I find that highly suspicious. In certain states, they were like, fans are welcomed to come and watch, cheer on your Miami Dolphins. Watch them go 0-18.

I was texting David about this the other day, but as someone who does not watch televised sports at all, I think I am probably going to watch the first batch of games uh happening in like the disney dome or whatever it's called the the nba bubble games i am just i am so excited to see what those look like and more importantly sound how they stage it how they right how much they let us hear i think it's gonna look like summer league which i always am very excited for and i watch like the first five to ten minutes of a game be like okay i'm bored

yeah i'm always so pumped for summer league because i want to see zion right you know you want to see like some new player who's gonna come in you watch him for five minutes you realize that everyone else is like players the knicks like wavered two years ago and you're like oh right okay well yeah it's not the game that's necessarily boring it's the so like those games are usually the big premier games are usually at thomas are low yeah yeah the vegas games are kind of fun to watch because they feel kind of real but the ones that are just in a gym or the orlando games oh the orlando summer league pretty rough i don't want to see the Pacers play against the Magic in Orlando. Well, that's what we're going to see,

except it's going to be like the NBA Finals. That's the thing. It's going to be super weird. That's what interests me. It's going to look and sound like that, but it's going to have the stakes of a Finals game. Psychologically, how is everyone on the court going to behave? The thing that was so

fascinating to me was watching like i feel like the first six weeks of late night hosts trying to do their shows at home or remotely or whatever everyone's timing and rhythm was off and like all of those people have experience doing comedy in front of a live audience and but also doing it with no audience but it was just like they were so tuned into how they did their shows where they sat in relation to the camera when they took their pauses that like the first couple weeks of like last week tonight john oliver just like couldn't speak properly yeah and i couldn't watch him properly right right and now it feels like everyone's like adjusted i want to see the couple of weeks where it's like oh this this isn't practice this isn't summer games these

are like real games with real stakes but no one's in the audience and everyone can hear everything that's happening unfortunately there's no time for that there's no time to get your footing it's it's so quick like they're gonna be getting they're gonna be practicing for the they start practicing like tomorrow or next week like yeah it's really really soon yeah so the and and the first game is on july 30th or whatever yeah but i will say what is what i think it's gonna be like is something that's actually really fun and intimate to watch griffin and that's like open run it's gonna be like pickup and these guys who are pros are extremely competitive and are extremely like into pickup games so when I was a kid we used to go uh play pickup at UCLA and we would have to go there before like the college older college guys former college players current

pros and like retired pros would come and watch and i've seen some amazing pickup games and in the men's gym at ucla with like some crazy like players like and their brothers who are also almost just as good as them it's kind of like how people talk about the famous space jam practice gym right where like yeah jordan is shooting that movie but then in the off hours he has to train and all these other players are there and they're just like going at each other yeah that's what it's going to be like the famous olymp the dream team game like this is all in the last dance that's probably why it's all on my mind but you know like where it's like yeah they just like you know they divvied it up the the like 12 best american players basically and they just went at each other

i think they should go shirts versus skins. Oh, absolutely. Yes. People don't talk about this with the production of space jam, but like, you know, famously Jordan had the gym constructed and they would fly in top NBA

players so that he could like, you know, stay sharp in between, uh, scenes and shooting days and whatever. Bugs had a similar thing where he made them construct, uh, a forest and they threw in different cartoon uh hunters and he would have to get the better of that i've heard about that no i've heard about this you see i'm not joking carl's heard about

this i've heard about this and i heard there were like all types of carrots all around and they flew the forest in from albuquerque absolutely and like see i'm not joking david they had different lady outfits for him they had different gadgets different tricks like it looks like a birthday cake but the candle is a stick of dynamite you have to stay sharp you have a lot of dynamite. You have to stay sharp. You have a lot of downtime on a film shoot. Carl, who's your team? Who's your NBA team? I am a proud and loyal supporter of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Oh, that's, that's awesome. You've gotten, it's been a good year. No, it hasn't. I mean,

no, it's been a weird, horrible year. Hasn't been a good year. Well, I'm a Knicks fan, and the Knicks were not even invited to Orlando. Nor should they have been. Be a Brooklyn fan, man. Well, I live in Brooklyn.

I've been a Knicks fan my whole life. The Knicks are what got me into sport in general. Like, you know, little kid on the couch watching those, like, viewing Knicks teams. That's, like, my first experience as a sports fan. But the Knicks are horrible. They're owned by a terrible person. They behave in an embarrassing manner and they don't, they're not good. And I live in Brooklyn and I only go to Nets games really because they're cheaper and they can walk to the arena. So at what point am I like, should I just like admit to myself that i'm a nets fan you know you sound like a pretty reasonable person so i'm gonna ask you okay so laker fans are are can you can you cuss on this podcast oh yeah you can say whatever you want about lakers fans

uh laker fans are shit bags to clipper fans yes yeah they're terrible to us they're terrible they always have some especially when we're good so for the past 10 years we've been the better team in los angeles that is not i am i've been a fan of this team since i was nine years old i am not going to say that this is a clipper town it is not the numbers prove that they prove that like the clippers were better than the lakers for years and it didn't really seem to move the needle all that much it did not move the needle except for the for the millions of people who migrate to this city every 10 years are now support them but they also still support their home team so it's like you know I'm from St. Paul so I'm a Timberwolves fan I like the Clippers because I hate the Lakers and you know and so like I'm like i i even have two teams but i was a clipper fan before my second

team i'm a pelicans fan too uh but i clippers is my i'm like 70 75 25 when it comes i got you 80 20 honestly but they're so bad are the knicks fans that bad to brooklyn fans no they just ignore them they're just they just think that they're cute or whatever. But see, that's what it used to be with us. That's what it used to be with us. They just didn't bother us. And then we started getting good. And then they're good too.

It's possible that the, right, if the Nets are good, they got KD, whatever, you know, if they have a sustained run, maybe the Knicks fans get more aggro about it. But it is very difficult to pretend that there is any authority in being a Knicks fan. That's what I was going to say. It's a terrible, terrible perspective is that every Knicks fan I know has a Charlie Brown complex. Like I, I don't know what you could be arrogant about. Right. There's, I've never had a prideful Knicks fan. Cause like the Laker fans can, they are so many

dynasties and eras and like you know they have definitely watched that team be good like the Knicks were basically less good when I was a little kid a little baby hairless boy and they didn't win anything that's the other problem when anything anyway right and even in the 90s they were like the fifth best team in the NBA or whatever you know what I mean like that that was about their ceiling. They haven't won since what? 1973, 73, 70,

70 and 73. That's the, you know, like Earl, the Pearl and, you know, Walton Clyde and Bill Jackson, Phil Jackson.

Yeah. Love going to the games though. Wait, what? Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. Madison Square Garden is great. It's so the thing that's great it's so great yeah but it's

usually great if you go to see the knicks get thrashed by some other like a really good team that's like oh we're in the garden this rules like let's totally humiliate the knicks and put on a show like this will be great i mean like i'm just sad it's like i've I had to try and talk myself into loving Carmelo Anthony like I you know sort of got my hopes up about Porzingis and then that all went to shit like it's like this it's just sad it's a pathetic life that I lead but like for the last 30 40 years I feel like the Washington Generals have won more games at Madison Square Garden than the Knicks wow wow I had to google that to make sure I had my reference.

Correct. I did. So Carl pivoting to love and basketball. Did you see this movie when it came out? Carl, like when did you first see? Cause like this is a pretty pivotal basketball movie. Yeah.

I saw it in theaters. Uh, and it, it became one of those classics that just that black families just have on tape and on dvd yeah so it's one of those ones you just pop in when you just want to like when the cable is out or it's a rainy day it's a rainy day movie for sure it's a classic film it is the best basketball movie no what do you think the best basketball movie is oh yeah i would say bad as i want to be the dennis rodman story i mean that was a book first because that's the book where he is

naked on a motorcycle and there's a basketball in between his legs i remember the book cover very well. His penises was keeping the air in the basketball. Did y'all know that? It actually has a double function, right? But David, you say that like that means something. Many of the greatest works in all of American cinema were books first.

That's true. It's a good point. How about He Got Game? He Got Game is a great movie. he got game is all over the place it is yeah it's not the it's not the greatest basketball movie the thing about he got game that's weird is that ray allen is pretty great in it pretty like as an actor yeah like which is doesn't make a lot of sense given that ray allen seems like a total weirdo and that he never acted again. I never gave a performance before or since.

I'm going to have to disagree with y'all on that one. You think Ray Allen's trash in He Got Game? Yeah, he couldn't act in that shit. I enjoy Ray Allen's performance as Jesus Shuttlesworth in He Got Game. The best acting performance by a basketball player has to be Shaq in Blue Chips. That's up there.

Shaq in Blue Chips, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Airplane. I'm trying to think of great basketball player performances. People give LeBron train wreck, but I think,

oh, I mean, well, hold on. Wait a second. Blake Griffin on Bra City was, he was awesome. He was actually truly funny.

Yes. LeBron in train wreck he he was like very poised i feel like it was it he it seemed like it came very naturally to him that's like i'll say that it's likable in it yeah right he's incredibly likable oh rick fox rick fox always good and everything he does yes yes rick fox is the type where you're like he's maybe a better guy playing a basketball player than he actually was a basketball player and he wasn't a bad basketball player he was a fine basketball rick fox is just so beautiful that you have to like you have to watch him in anything and everything he does yeah he has very soulful eyes when you see a man like rick fox who's that talented it's like hey man i'm sorry dude but i'm gonna have to shoot you you had a great jaw too he's like a good smile an amazing job like when you look when you see rick fox coming and it's like hey man if i'm walking with my girl and rick fox

is down the street like we we crossing the street well when you see him like on the bench with kobe he look it looks like there's an actor who's pretending to be a basketball player yeah you know like who's like doing a week or something yeah with the lakers no sorry go ahead griff no he's also just done so much acting now and has done it for a while that i don't even think about him having been a basketball player first but that also speaks to uh my frame of reference he's a huge contributor on championship teams it's that's the wildest thing he's not he wasn't a slouch he like he was part of those teams yeah yeah and he is so gorgeous he's a very pretty person yes

i'm sorry man if he's coming i got to beat him with a baseball bat i got to he's got to go i feel that like do you ever carl like go to auditions and like usually like you know if you're a comedy person you come from a comedy background you go to audition you see a lot of people you know from like the comedy scene and then there's one person there who's just like an actor like someone who got into acting because they look perfect yeah you just you just get angry you know what it's not fair but you get angry at them here's how that goes at the at the black guy auditions so you got a room full of comedy guys and we all know each other yeah and you're all just catching up it's like very informal like right yeah it's it's not even it's not

even the black thing it's more of the comedy thing than it is the black thing but there is the kindred like we're all black comedians type situation and we're all up in there just joking shooting the shit casting directors coming out like little scrawny white guys with glasses anemic looking character actors yeah with boyish bodies yeah because you guys keep it down out here we're just trying to yeah so anyway i was talking that bitch and i was like and then there's just this one guy who's just laughing at everybody's jokes being like haha man y'all crazy man it's like what the fuck are you doing here gorjo and then i feel like increasingly that guy gets the part these days of course he does because he stole all of our jokes in the waiting room. Right, but he was just collecting.

I feel like I saw this movie fairly early because my brother was such a big basketball fan that anytime there was any sort of basketball movie, because there weren't too many in the 90s and early 2000s, he would rent it. It was like an immediate first week new release rental and i was excited that the tv was being used to watch a movie about basketball rather than a basketball game like if my brother was watching basketball on the main tv i had to figure out something else to do if he was watching a basketball movie i could get down with it i could lock in i would say the 90s basketball output is mostly movies that are kind of about like ego and stress you know you got like white man can't jump you got he got game you've got blue chip six man i was gonna say that that was his number one six man i probably have seen five or six times because he probably saw it 15 times.

You have Space Jam, but that's sort of its own thing. You have above the rim, right? Like they're kind of like they're not like this. This is a very like emotional and like fleshed out characterization, you know, like whereas like a lot like blue chips I love, but like that's like a movie about like sweat and ego and corruption. You're forgetting one other big one if you're talking about more emotional sort of fleshed out character-based stories from the 90s you're forgetting about slam dunk ernest uh sure okay i haven't seen slam dunk ernest a canonical basketball film verne they're having a huge auto sale down at cerritos hobbleble square fern. That's my, uh, what's his name?

Uh, Ernest. Yeah. Jim Varney. Yes. Yes. Jim Varney. There he is.

Um, no, I was going to say this movie like stood out to me watching it with my brother who would have been seven or eight at the time. And I would have been like, uh, 11 or 12 probably, uh,

that this was a very different basketball movie while also satisfying his desire because he would so often like if he heard a movie had any degree of basketball in it he would rent it so to have a movie come out that is basketball based pretty much from beginning to end it never moves very far away from basketball and is good but was also kind of adult like post this there's i feel like there haven't been a lot of good basketball movies in years until very recently because there's like glory road and coach carter like there's this sort of like inspirational kind of true story basketball movies yeah which are like okay those movies are all okay and they're kind of they're very coachy too they're

all about the coach yeah but like has there been a good basketball movie i mean i like like i like high flying bird like last you know but that's that's about like the business of basketball right like i liked the way back but that was like a real throwback to just sort of like that was just a drunkard movie it was a a good drunkard movie. I didn't watch either of those. Sure. I don't think there's been, I feel like sports hasn't been like sports movies are, are tough,

man. We, we had Griffin on a flagrant wants to talk about draft day, which is one of my favorite movies. Like I would love to see a really good sports movie, but I don't feel like it would. First of all, they're always trying to make movies do well internationally.

And so a basketball movie is not going to do well internationally. No, certainly not. Yeah. Back then, maybe now you could sell it more, but like, I feel like in 2000,

like this movie just didn't play internationally. My dream is to have a movie about the eighties and basketball. When you hear about the showtime lakers which there is a tv show coming out about that on showtime and then you hear about like the traveling cocaine circus of the bulls of 84 like i want to know what those guys like just a bunch of six eight dudes partying in in lycra because it's the 80s right and and like cocaine is just sort of like this fun new thing that everyone's trying yeah it's no yeah there there is not yet the lesson that's been learned of like well actually maybe you want to like take it easy on that stuff yeah i'll like

there has to be a way that that movie can be done really well without people being like ill sports is this also that was the era when like they were just like smoking cigarettes and like eating cheeseburgers and like on the bus and then they would play basketball yeah right yeah like it was like like larry bird like right there's that story where like there was that player they had to trade because he would just drink so much with larry bird that it would affect his performance yeah once they traded that player larry bird got better yeah they were just popping open core's lights at halftime right uh can i read something insane to you guys so i was because we're having this oh i'm sorry carl i'm sorry for even suggesting it um uh we were having this conversation trying to like think of uh big sports movies so i just i

i said let me google the highest grossing sports films okay here is what wikipedia lists in order as the top 10 highest grossing sports films of all time with a very very liberal definition of sports about to say i imagine this is okay go ahead number one highest grossing sports film of all time furious seven there's what what sports are in that motor racing yes no there's no racing okay now let me speed around this because i bet you can guess what several of the other top films are gonna be okay number two the fate of the furious number three sport number three sport movie the hunger games catching fire number four fast and furious six number five games are not a sport excuse me it says here very clearly sport is battle royale and your number five movie is

the hunger games mockingjay part one your number six is the hunger games your number seven film your number seven film is neither part of the fast and Furious franchise nor the Hunger Games franchise. And they listed as representing two different sports. Do you have any guests, David? No, I don't have any guests. Forrest Gump, American football and ping pong. Oh, I was going to say Invictus. Sure, rugby. Number eight, Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2.

Number nine, Fast Five. And the 10th highest grossing sports film of all time casino royale oh my gosh because of gambling because of poker yes they listed as carl they listed as gambling oh my gosh then you have the cars films gladiator alita battle angel doesn't count wait these slung dog millionaire at number 16 the sport is game shows yes i would say it's not until number 22 is the blind side and number 23 is rocky four those are the first two that i would say are proper sports movies i remembered a basketball movie carl did you see uncle drew that I remembered a basketball movie. Carl, did you see Uncle Drew? That is a recent basketball

movie. Yeah, I saw Uncle Drew. Yes. Uncle Drew was silly, but it was at least a basketball movie. It was fun. I can understand why a lot of people wouldn't go see Uncle Drew, but for the kids and for basketball fans, it was a fun experience.

It was a perfectly fun experience. And for aficionados of old age makeup like myself, that was a huge it was a fun experience it was a perfectly fun aficionados of old age makeup like myself that was a huge release it had incredible amount oh unbelievable so much an embarrassment of riches an embarrassment of wrinkles there you go when did you see love and basketball david i saw it at a sleepover when I was a teenager, probably, you know, around when it came out, because it was a movie about love and basketball. And so my entire sleepover cadre could agree upon it. And I remember thinking it was pretty good. And then like, I don't know, maybe catching it again in college and being like, this thing's kind of like, cause like, I feel like for a while, like a lot of those teen romance movies that I saw,

like from that era, from when I was a teenager, they all just sort of went in one basket where I was like, yeah, they were all okay. And I remember seeing this again and being like, this is like an insanely thoughtful movie. This is definitely like better than like save the last day.

Like I'm trying to think of like movies I watched at sleepovers, right? Like tell me, give me some more, give me like teen dramas teen romantic dramas a walk to remember sure sure yeah that's more like right with the tragic uh tinge i feel like after uh yes uh summer catch uh yes summer now wow that's a sports movie. I have seen Summer Catch. They play Summer Catch on the MLB network all the time. Really? I think the MLB network bought it for literally $100.

Can we have the rights? You'll be watching like a really dope interview on like doping. And then they're like coming up after this doping. Summer Catch. Summer Catch. And then we're going to play it backwards after this doping summer catch summer catch. And then we're going to play it backwards right after you won't even notice. Um, so I had seen,

and then I think, um, it had been years though. When I watched this, even though I remembered the ending and I remembered the general gist of it, like it had been years since I'd seen this film in full. Yeah. I,

I texted you a couple weeks ago i was watching it it was on some streaming platform and i was watching it and i texted you about how good it was and you were like fuck it is really good and then we both went like wait a second what if we just did gina prince bythewood because we're both because she has the new movie coming out she has a new movie coming out she has like a big action movie coming out she has four films uh which she should have made more films by this point but it fit in well to our schedule and we just like uh committed to do it also uh beyond the lights we talk about as being one of our first date movies it's one of the first movies we saw together yeah but it was it was that thing of me watching it and texting you and going like this

movie's pretty fucking perfect yeah and then us within like half an hour just going like let's just do it let's just do all her movies well i and i checked with a critic who had seen the old guard i was like well let me let me see what the word is on the old guard that was this new movie she's got coming up carl yeah um which is gonna be on netflix in a couple weeks uh and he was like oh it's great and then i got a screener and i was like oh this thing rules and i don't know and i still haven't seen it and i am jealous well can i reveal something else griffin yes yesterday i interviewed gina prince by what that's right i called her up on the telephone i call talk to her about the old guard tell her that we were about to do this.

Did you pull any scoops out of her? No, you know, I did talk to her for quite a while. You got to get her on the show. I can ask. David's always so fucking professional. Whenever I ask him to do stupid things in interviews,

he refuses to do them. It's almost like I have a job to do. I know. And he like separates the two and he doesn't want like one area of his life to completely corrupt all other areas. He's like a responsible, well-balanced person. But,

but I mean, it was just, it's just that thing, especially in quarantine, it's kind of been a little easier to just be like, Hey, can I, you know,

chat to this filmmaker on the phone? Cause it's like, they don't have to do a press tour where they're like flying all over the world and, you know, doing junkets where a zillion people are like you know coming in the room one after the other so like you know i talked to spike lee i talked to john stewart it's just a jot jot apatow and now gina like these people who have cool movies coming out this summer now i want to say humble brag but this actually would be an instance of you humble bragging so i can't really say it now

i see because you can only say it if it's doesn't apply at all if it's right okay um she comes out of tv she has a long resume writing for tv yeah she uh gina prince bythewood she worked on a different world did she write on fresh prince she did not write on fresh prince i don't believe she wrote on felicity and was a producer on felicity i want to get the full list here because she worked on like five or six different shows before she got to make a movie well she when she was just gina prince uh she worked on a different world she meets her husband on the writing staff of that show um you know her husband reggie rock bythewood she did work on felicity that's the only other big show she worked

on sweet justice she directs a south central only ran for a season she directs a tv special called what about your friends which i'm trying to track down because it looks like it was released on dvd at some point but it seems hard to find. Which is, I think that's about like girls in high school preparing for college. That's like a sort of like TV movie-ish. Trying to imagine what the rest of their life is going to be. And she had made some shorts. And then she writes this script for Love and Basketball.

But let's say very pointedlyly she was an athlete when she was younger she was primarily focused on basketball yes uh for most of her life growing up until she went to college and then got into film and then ended up becoming a filmmaker but did she play usc i think she did no she went no no she went to ucla where she went to film school and was a competitive track runner like you know she was she was into athletics um uh but she will you know whatever she yeah she took that film school track but she played basketball throughout high school sure uh i i had yeah i'm sure i'm sure that's true i'm not i'm not um you interviewed her david you interviewed i did i did interview it. I did.

I did interview her and I did talk to her about love and basketball at the end, but I was mostly talking to her about this new action movie she made with Charlie's Theron with, you know, all kinds of fucking cool action in it. Monster too. We love comic books.

Yeah, she made monster too. She's back. They tried to execute her, but she's back they tried to execute her but she's back she didn't have any directing credits except for a school break special yeah and she brings this script to mike deluca who works at new line and he said you can cast an unknown for the female lead but you have to cast omar epps well you're getting ahead of

yourself i am not getting ahead of yourself. I am not getting ahead of myself. I promise you. I just listened to a whole commentary track, but please, regale me with the story you're about to tell. All right, all right. You go ahead.

Because she does the Sundance Lab before that. That's right. You're right. Of course, I forgot about the Sundance Lab. She develops the script. She's working on this script while working as a TV staff writer. Then she takes the script, submits it to the sundance lab works on it there does a reading there that reading was mckay pfeiffer and sona lathan and i love mckay pfeiffer that

was not supposed to represent who was going to do the movie but a lot of big actors do sundance readings um it was supposed to be someone else who got sick like the day before and Gina and her husband were friends with Stan Latham, who is Sana Latham's father, who is like a legendary TV producer and director going back to the 70s and 80s. And he, I think, recommended his daughter she flew in did it

did a good job but gina was so insistent on the most important thing in this movie is that the lead actress actually plays basketball believably so i want to hire a completely unknown woman i want to hire someone first as a basketball player and then teach her how to act. Which then New Line said, because Spike Lee, his 40 Acres and a Mule representatives from his company were at the Sundance reading. They said we would be interested in this. Spike Lee signed on as a producer. He produces it. They brought it to New Line. New Line said, we're fine with you hiring an unknown as long as you can get Omar Epps. They insisted on Omar Epps. He was the guy at that moment. I'm trying to think of exactly where Omar Epps was,

that they were so into Omar Epps. Was this before or after In Too Deep? Isn't it right after? Yes. Let's see. He had done that other cop movie. Yeah, it's right after In Too Deep. He'd done The Wood.

He did The Mod Squad, which was a bomb. Scream 2. He's in Scream. He had done an arc on ER. Of course, Juice. Yeah. You know, right. Juice, Higher Learning.

Yeah, I guess he'd just been around. I guess, right. He was just like a proven guy. Yeah. Major League. Yeah. The Before I Let Go video by Blackstreet. He had done that.

Very important. Tour de Force. guy yeah major league yeah the before i let go video by black street he had done that very important what a tour de force honestly if you if you want to go watch a video that has an amazing arc that of course you won't be able to hear what they're talking about because you're listening to the song but films a visual medium yeah omar epps and sherry headley we love sherry headley uh yeah but omar epps is that man he's the man he's a good actor well i think i think he was in that position in the 90s as we said like he had a lot of big credits he wasn't necessarily like a huge huge like movie star but he was a leading man he had been in a lot of big films and for a movie like this that's going to be produced at New Line, like kind of in between a studio film and an independent film, that's like a guy whose name above the title means something who also isn't going to cost you like $20 million. So I think they were very singularly focused on him, and that gave her permission to cast an unknown.

And Sana Lathan, because she had done the reading loved the script so much was really adamant to try to get the role and it was one of those things where like the whole story the commentary is really fascinating because

it's it's Gina and Sana recording like a year after I think the movies come out maybe a little while

after the movies come out but they've also done Disappearing Acts which is the hbo movie she does right after this with wesley snipes my mom was in that really really yeah we're gonna watch that can we look out for your mom who does she it's the one i haven't seen but i don't know i've never seen it i've never seen it okay i'll ask her yeah i'll ask her and i'll text her uh i can call her right now if you want me to send her send her a text yeah she won't

respond to text but i'll ask her i'll ask her after we get done today and uh maybe at the end of the episode we'll call your mom is that like a good way to end the episode no uh i will uh i will call her after you get done out and i'll text you what what the part that she plays cool yeah so they had done those two movies together, but their whole relationship, and then they worked together again on Shots Fired, the Fox series that Bythewood did. Their whole relationship was like Gina negging her

over and over and over again because she didn't want her to do the reading at Sundance. Her father recommends it. She calls up Sana Lathan, who's doing a play at that point and says, would you want to come do this reading? And she goes, yeah,

that sounds interesting to me. Let me see if I can get out of the play. So she goes to the play and tells them like, I got this big opportunity. It's a movie. I'm trying to transition out of theater into doing more on-camera stuff. I need to follow through on this. So she quits the play, calls back Gina and says, like,

okay, I got approval. And she goes, great. Can you come in tomorrow and audition for me? Right. So she had already quit the play and then was asked to audition for the table read at Sundance. Does the audition, does the read read and then is told there's no way I'm gonna hire you because I have to hire a basketball player right you can't dribble she she

failed to dribble at the first audition I believe right so then she said like is there any way I can convince you she said yeah if you want to train so she spent four months training with real players like real college players and players. And a coach. From the Sparks, yeah. But still did not have the role. She was doing all of that for four months so that she could then do, like not a screen test, but essentially a court test

to show Gina that she could play well enough. Do you know the Gabrielle Union side of it? No. Gabrielle Union is in this movie, as I'm sure you guys all know. And she auditioned for the role of Monica. And she played basketball as a teenager and was much more sporty. And she arrives to the audition dressed in a basketball uniform,

like dressed in the clothes she plays basketball in. And according to her, gina is like yeah you don't look like a baller to me wow and just dismissed her out of hand yeah and union like protested and she's like no you're not gonna work but i have a role you're perfect for and so i'm just gonna quote this is gabrielle union from the la times did a big oral history of love and basketball um she gives me the sides and I'm like, ho, because she was like,

you don't look like an athlete, which I was my whole life, but you do give me ho vibes. I was very offended, but it was my first big break. It was only the third movie I ever did. So I was very grateful. So Gabrielle Union walks in there.

She's like, no, I do know how to play basketball. And Gina's like, I see you in this role and gabrielle union's just kind of like all right but she did it their commentary where it's like you're listening to two hours of two friends who have worked together multiple times talking about their entire relationship and it sounds like uh gina prince by foot is incredibly

direct like does not mince words. She talks about like it's like it's all about what's for the good of the movie. I don't have any ego. Everyone else has to surrender their ego. Like she kind of views filmmaking in a way that makes sense coming from a sports background. Because it's just like we have to win. We have to work together as a team. We have to win. I'm not going to like waste time on pleasantries and things like that um but they

talk about how and it wasn't something she was doing consciously making uh sana lathan go through all those tests worked as sort of character building because she started to develop the same sort of mindset that the character needs to have of just like i am so single-mindedly focused on this being my path even though people aren't taking me seriously even though it seems like my prospects are limited she is very plausible as a basketball player in this movie like i i i would have assumed she like whatever as a teenager had played yeah it. It's like six months of work. She said she came from a dance background.

Her mother was a Broadway dancer and she had done gymnastics. Like she had done a lot of movement based things, but had literally never picked up a basketball until she started training. She looked great in it. She looks great. It was, I haven't watched the movie in a while, but I remember I've seen it so many times

that I remember how she was playing and it looked like her shot was pure. The basketball playing in this movie looked better than a lot of movies that play basketball. Most basketball movies, I would say. I would say Blue Chips probably stands to be the best basketball playing movie. But this looked good.

And you could tell that they're not shooting around her like anytime there's a shot that's focused on a hand and you're like oh this is so they could use a an athletic double then the camera tilts up and you see her face in the same shot like it's always her and she also looks jacked like her arms are ripped they talk about in the commentary that any of the scenes where she is shirtless, they would have her leaning against a surface so that she could show off her abs more. Like she was so proud of the fact that she had gotten into that good shape that they always wanted to find positions to show off her muscles the best they could.

But it was, it was like six months of work work that a got her good enough to be able to fake it on camera and not really fake it to be able to actually play because in almost every scene everyone else she's playing against is a real basketball player is at least like a junior varsity player if not a college player um so they were you know playing on real courts with a large amount of extras and they would boo if the actors missed shots and they would cheer if the actors did well. So she said like there was that sort of pressure on Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan to actually perform well because the crowd would actually turn on them. Everyone else on the court actually knew how to play. So they weren't doing any favors. They weren't like grading anyone on a curve. Um, but it is, it's, I just think like

there's, there's a focus in her performance that aside from the fact that she learned how to play basketball well enough to do the movie also just translates to the character of just like, she so badly wants to be there. And that applies for the character in the actress at that point damn dog shit is real deal shit is real it's an impressive performance and it's like this this pretty much makes her it does she's such a serious actress and like all the oral history stuff talks about like how intense she was on set and that she and omari epps were dating really they were like oh yeah yes yes and so like gabrielle union talks about like they were really not interested in talking to me so now sort of treated me like an enemy not in a bad way kind of just in a like

we're not we're not going to pretend to be your friend well like while the camera isn't running it all sounds very very focused there's all this weird unconscious like unplanned methody stuff happening behind the scenes on this movie that translates into like the the texture of the thing and i think like one of the things i like about gina's movies so much is that they, they feel like very classical. They feel very old Hollywood. Like when you watch like a big studio movie from the forties and it doesn't have a genre, it's just kind of everything.

Like the idea of like a big expensive studio movie was like, you're going to have romance and you're going to have comedy and you're going to have drama. And it's going to be like an Epic story that spans some amount of time, even when it was sort of character based and actor based and all of that. And this is a movie where it just like, it has every kind of element in the pot, you know?

Yeah. Um, I mean, she and Omar Epps had been in the wood together. you know, so like maybe that's where the romance starts. I'm not sure. They were definitely dating on the set of this movie.

I feel like I heard that when they screen tested together, they were trying to hide that they were dating. Right. So I think they were prior to this. Yeah. They have great chemistry. I mean, it's wild that they would try to hide that because I heard that in the screen test,

the whole screen test was just them having sex. was them fucking it was them it was just like and rolling but also they had to dribble at the same time that was the difficult part right and basketball at that point the movie was called fucking basketball but right oh boy this is a crazy thing that kept on coming back in the commentary she had to re-edit this movie like 15 times because the mpaa kept on giving it an r because they said it was too erotic it's that classic thing with the mpaa when when sex scenes are actually like emotional and kind of like there seems to be like a lot of realism even though you're not you know quote unquote seeing anything this is what she talked about the mpaa flips out and they of like there seems to be like a lot of realism even though you're not you know quote unquote seeing anything this is what she talked about the mpa flips out and they're like no i

like this is too far no kid can handle this she kept on saying like the word they kept on using was erotic there were no scenes that i cut out it was a matter of like having to go back and cut out another second here another frame right here. Cut out some breathing. Right, but it was never visual. And she's like, almost every intimate scene in the movie is tight on their faces. And then they would tell me it was too erotic. And it's because people aren't used to seeing

that kind of like intimacy and that vulnerability in sex scenes. That it like, there's the moment she said the biggest argument they had was the moment when they sleep together for the first time it stays for a long time on their two faces without cutting as you see them start to have sex and you see the range of emotions go over like sona lathan's face as she starts to enjoy it and they flipped out over that. Wow.

Too real. Flipped out. It's weird. I have one bone to pick with this movie. Do you guys have a bone-picking section of this podcast? It's whatever you want to pick the bone. Pick away. The movie starts in 1982.

That's right. And Quincy plays for the Clippers in 1982. And they call him- Quincy's dad. dad yeah plays for the clippers in 1982 and they call them the los angeles clippers well here's the thing they have banners up in his house that say san diego clippers okay so so they got it right so i think they get it right but, but then why are they in LA? It is the only thing that's a little weird. You know, I mean, I will say like, I was just watching the Griffey doc.

Oh, thank you. Thank you for supporting me, Carl. Yeah, yeah. I worked really hard on that one. I was watching the Griffey Newman Junior doc. Yeah. Downtown Griffey Newman's doc. Yeah. And they lived in Cincinnati, even though even though he like played in seattle right because that he's right that's where they were from right yeah it's funny it's like

the the clippers griff just so you know moved from san diego to la in 84 yeah of course i know that um and so i guess they just want it's interesting the timing of this movie in general. I guess they just want it to line up so that by the end of the movie, we can be in the present day. The WNBA can exist and all the age stuff can make sense. I guess is that the thing, you know, like that must be how she's working backwards from there. Yeah, you don't want to set the end of the movie in the future. I think we're sure something like that.

Anyway, yeah, it's but think. Sure. Something like that. Anyway. Yeah. It's, but you're right. You're right. Technically his dad plays for the San Diego Clippers, not the Los Angeles Clippers. Okay. All right. Right.

I mean, no, you're, we're, we're, you're, we're agreeing. I take my bone back.

I know you can, I think you can keep half a bone in. No, I think they kind of, they, you see the banners, but they kind of talk around the fact that he plays in San Diego. I guess he's, San Diego is what, like an hour and a half from LA?

I'm not an expert. Two hours, two and a half hours. It depends on how good you're driving. See, I'm a very good driver, so I get down there in 45 minutes. What do you drive, Carl? Dodge Challenger. Wow. I want to get a new car.

I've been trying to get a new car. You're finding a way. I'm realizing now this episode is an excuse for you to talk about everything that you and I don't overlap on. You're right. That we don't have anything. We have so much in common, but driving and basketball are probably one in two. What kind of car are you looking for? You live in Brooklyn, New York?

I live in Brooklyn. I would say you got to get something compact. Well, I have't know. I live in Brooklyn, New York. I live in Brooklyn. I would say you got to get something compact. Well, I have something compact, and that is the logical choice. But go for it and get a pickup. Well, I'm looking somewhere in the middle of those two things. I'm not going to get a pickup. Get an F-150 Raptor in Brooklyn, New York. Get a stretch PT Cruiser in purple.

I want one of those you know when hummers were like big yellow hummers like in the mid 2000s or all the rage that's what i want yeah get a nissan exterra a nissan exterra the yellow ones okay they were trying to be oh yeah look at that yep yep i mean anyway we can talk about it off mic. Yeah. God, look at this. This thing's got a big butt. You know, it just kind of has like, yeah, exactly. Just kind of has that extra, like there's a window onto the trunk. Like why would you want to look onto the trunk? So people see how much space you have. It's not for you. It's for other people behind you. Um, anyway, this movie love and basketball. Oh, this is what i had an actual question i wanted to ask okay when does the wmba start 96 i think 90 96 97 so it is like i feel like that's an important

factor in this movie is 100 you're kind of charting the life of a woman who is in the first generation yes of of female basketball players who have an outlet in America on a major stage. When she's playing college in this movie, her only route out of college would be to go play in Europe. That's the only thing available to her in early 90s. Right, and it's not really

talked about, but it's a thing I find so fascinating. Well, the movie kind of talks about it. She ends up in Barcelona and all that. No, no, what I'm saying is what's not really talked about is the understanding that there's a very limited side route like they're charting their two careers and for him the potential is he could go to the stars and for her it's like you could end up in europe you know like there's no way for her to end up at equal footing to him while doing the same thing that's what i like is like it runs throughout the entire

movie but it's never sort of directly stated it's what i love about the the writing of this film is like the dynamic of their relationship is often that she's a little too serious and that he's a little too carefree right like he's kind of like well whatever it's all gonna work out for me where she's really not and it's right it's because her options are narrowing and his are widening like you know that's gonna be their career choose your own adventure book he's got many different outcomes that would work out for him and for her it's like there's literally one pathway you know she has to get one of these scholarships she has to be at one of these know she has to get one of these scholarships

she has to be at one of these schools she has to perform at this level to get a limited slot on a team in europe and then come back home and work at a bank and then they're like they're starting up a league for women and she's like i'm old right right because when the wmba started a lot of those those big stars who were like you know know, they were kind of at the twilight of their career. Yeah. Shell swoops. Yes. Cynthia Cooper. That's what I'm talking about. Cynthia Cooper, who played on the, which I recommend a documentary for you guys to watch on HBO called Women of Troy.

And it's about the USC teams of the mid 80s. And those like Cynthia Cooper played on those things that she was like she graduated college in 1984 the league didn't start for another 10 years she was 31 32 years old right when the league started and still like was able to dominate but yeah but like cheryl swoops i mean i think she was she was maybe in her late 20s like i'm trying to think of like those early stars. And what's the name? Leslie. Right. Cheryl Miller couldn't even play.

Like she was. Yeah. Cheryl Miller, Reggie Miller's sister, who was more famous than Reggie Miller when they were kids. Like that's kind of a funny version of that. That's brother sister. But right. Like that same dynamic where it's like there's a while where women's basketball wins

basketball are relatively parallel and then they very much are not like you know then then it just it's yeah well right like in high school or whatever it's one thing but there's like there there's this cloud over the movie which is the the highest she could possibly ascend is still pretty much lower than the lowest he could possibly ascend yeah while following it through you know um yes exactly um which it all just feels pretty realistic and kind of you know guys let's give up on male privilege we gotta fucking take it dude i don't want it well i shouldn't say that yeah i want this shit can i say something definitively yeah go ahead because i wanna i want to let action speak louder

than words i want to you know offer up something substantive i will hereby promise that i will never play in the nba you're in solidarity with women you know i'll do the same thing i'm never gonna do it i'm never gonna do it in solidarity i'm never gonna do it because i understand that i have a better chance of making an nba team than most technically a woman could play for the nba there's no rule against it women have been drafted yes mark cuban has kind of hinted at that sometimes being like maybe i'll draft a woman like for the mavericks like because i think he's sort of like stirring that conversation up every once in a while but then what happens when they draft someone the times that they have drafted a female player in the past nothing comes nothing comes of it when they when those women the two women that have

been drafted to team well there's only been one draftee and then there has been a woman who's been had getting gotten an opportunity to try out and And because of science, they just were not able to compete with the men. Yeah. But they were both two amazing basketball players. I believe Louisa Harris is the woman who was drafted. She was drafted by the Jazz. The New Orleans Jazz in 1974. She played at Mississippi Valley State or Mississippi Delta State or something like that.

Delta State. Yeah. I always love a good Mississippi story. There's no footage of her but i mean if she if she got drafted in the 70s she was she must have been really good yeah and then there was this uh what's her name you know who i'm talking about she played she got to try out for the pacers in the early 80s. Little blonde-haired woman who does commentary. She also could really hoot. Is it Denise Long?

That's a person I've heard of. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I remember Denise Long. She worked out for the Warriors or something like that. Who's the player who plays for the Phoenix Mercury now? Their center. Ann Myers is who I'm talking about.

Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, Ann Myers. Carl, do you know who I mean? Are'm talking about. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Carl, do you know who I mean? Are you talking about Brittany Griner? Yes. Brittany Griner. Yes, exactly.

And like Mark Cuban, definitely like when she was about to get, go number one in the WNBA was like, maybe we'll draft her. Maybe the Mavs will take her. Like, you know, he was sort of like kind of trying to start that conversation again. I just think it is fascinating to watch.

I love movies that are about someone with like a single minded focus working towards some kind of goal, you know, like any movie where it's like, this is my dream. I'm going to work tirelessly until I get to this point. is my dream i'm gonna work tirelessly until i get to this point and in this movie you have like dual narratives there but one person has like an incredible glass ceiling placed above them and it's not reflected in how she goes about her pursuit of the thing you know like i i think it's it's obviously there in the text of the movie, but the shittier version of this movie has a bunch of

tearful monologues about like, you don't understand what it's like for a woman. I'm never going to get to play in a professional league in America. Yes, you're absolutely right.

She's not interested in that crap. Right. She keeps on talking about her pursuit of basketball in the exact same terms that he does. It's the exact same thing even though the

final resting place of where she thinks she can end up for much of her life is so far away from where he can end up but also they're like all of the romantic and family drama in this movie is rendered very like realistically like yeah dennis hayes burt the second dennis hayes burt who is great in this movie and in all movies and we need to talk about him for a second but when he enters and he's talking about like he has a meeting you're just immediately like well all right okay so this guy is cheating on his wife yeah but like there's a version of this movie where he is a dirt bag like you know he is just a shitty guy yeah who is a totally one-dimensional character and it's you know whatever like you know it dominates the movie and that's not really what she's interested in

doing and when they break up when they have their big breakup like in the middle of the movie like it's not over any one thing it's like he acts shitty because he's going through stuff and she's not interested in like salvaging everything you know like making all the effort you know what i mean like it's a very realistic and sort of quiet breakup they talk about in the concert that the goal was to make like everyone kind of right and kind of wrong at the same time right and so when no one is doing anything outwardly right evil or villainous when they have that conversation in the bleachers when he's found out about his dad's affairs and he's like trying to get her to console him and she's freaked

out about curfew yeah in the commentary they're like well i mean he has a point which is like she's not really he really needs her and he's being like emotionally open he's asking her directly he is telling her directly i could really use you right now i could really really use your support right uh which is a big moment and she rejects that and she could probably skip out on curfew it's like a thing that players do he maybe would do the same thing if the situation were flipped but on the other hand they're going to be much stricter on her it's going to be held against her more strongly and as you said she has fewer outlets if she gets reprimanded there if she gets penalized if she plays less games if she gets

kicked off of the team any of these things it's like well then she's fucked she doesn't have backup routes right so i mean she has her justification there and also they're young people like they're two young people there's so many things in the movie where people make like stupid decisions that are so rational and understandable carl yeah what is your opinion on dennis haisbert love him i would say i would say dennis hazebert is the most believable television athlete oh absolutely because he's got the physique he's got you know he's very believable as like a military guy he's very believable and he as like you know a professional thief like he's very very very convincing as um an athlete like you're saying like yeah he's a very

robust guy yeah when he played uh what was fuck you joe boo's name uh uh major league uh yeah what was what was the character's name uh pedro serrano serrano pedro serrano when he played serrano that was believable he looks like he could really be a baseball player uh when he played he we don't see him play basketball in this movie but he looks like somebody who's like when they first started he looked like he could have been playing in the 80s he was six four yeah he looks like like marcus johnson and he dresses perfect like they have costumed him perfectly yeah i just realized that they're both in major league two together yeah yeah yeah because omar epps plays the wesley snipes role replacement in willie mays hayes yeah which ain't that wild that they did that

i know it is pretty wild it's pretty fucking crazy let's just eliminate the character yeah especially because it it's like well snipes has become a major movie star at this point it's not just like oh the guy's unavailable like i assume he was just like yeah i'll be in major league too if i'm above the title and you give me 10 million dollars and they were like oh no forget it but at that point you're gonna be more aware of the absence of wesley snipes if you have someone else playing his character than if he wasn't there at all especially since like what is willie mays his he really fast. Like it's not like he's like an incredibly deep care was majorly too good. I actually,

too. It actually kind of rips. Yeah. It's really good. It makes me cry so hard. It's same here. Is it? It's not as good as major league one.

Major league one is a, is one of the top sports movies of all time. It's so major league one is great to recreate major league one has, let's go win the fucking thing, which is like one of the top 10 sports movie lines of all time so you know that that like yeah at the end a comedy that is so funny also portrays pretty good baseball right uses real team names i talked about this when griffin was on the flagrant ones draft day i need i need real team names i can't i just can't do given sunday i can't do the sharks yeah

no i can't do it i can't do it it takes me out of it it takes me out i forgot to mention this uh on the flagrant ones episode uh carl but i think you'll find this interesting uh one of the conditions of uh working with the nfl for draft day yeah and being able to use real team names and logos and everything and also being able to to film at the actual NFL draft was the filmmakers had to agree to dub over the booing when Goodell took the stage at the draft. You can recognize that. It was contractual. That wasn't like a thing where it's like, oh, that'd be nice.

It's like, we'll give you permission. We'll let you film here. We'll give you the names. You have to make it seem like everyone is very happy to see roger goodell it's amazing how protective they are over that brand and that just lets you know that they know it's bullshit they know that the nfl is absolute dog shit they know it because they're so protective of it remember playmakers on espn yes that was my brother's favorite tv show yeah yeah they pulled a plug on that one i couldn't get with that one either because of fake team names but it was a good show but like in the nba draft when david stern came out people would boot and like that

was part of the joy of it he would do his ear like for the crap you know like he would play it up and then now adam silver no one boos because he's like whatever he's much more anodyne no one has a problem with adam silver and like that's fine too like i like the nba it's much more it's much more on the level but it's also like this year the draft the hashtag was hashtag boo the commish like and he's like in his living room with a big ass jar m&ms being like come on i can't hear it like looking at his tv where everybody's on zoom and they're just like you know like putting on for the camera you know they're hired hired people like yeah come on i can't hear you right they're like sicilian

mourners yeah so why would why would he why would they care that boeing that's funny that they've embraced it now when they were like making people i know i know well also and in that in that case like the way they embraced it this year was like well now he's acting like he's in on the joke and he likes it but also right he's only doing that it's the one time he doesn't have to do it in person like the one time actually have to hear a fucking arena full of fans and then and then remain in a room with people who have that level of contempt for him yes right right it makes a lot of sense that he finally embraced it once there was distance just back to hayesburg and literally everyone in this movie is famous which i remarked

to gina prince bythewood when i interviewed her like it is wild how like tyra banks or regina hall are like popping up for like one or two scenes boris kodjoe shows up you know like all those little cameo performances by kyla pratt as baby monica like almost everyone in this movie with dialogue who doesn't go on to become famous was a basketball player and not an actor right um but dennis haisbert in this or in um he was was in I'm trying to think of like other movies where he's played trashy. Like I feel like there's a few few times like he's great at playing like kind of a dirt bag. He's also great at playing like immense gravitas. I was going to say like he's so good at playing authority figures or like voices of reason.

He can be like the president, right? He can be like the president right he can be like far from heaven love field he plays like these incredibly sensitive characters but then also if you need him to master storming ox like those types of very high status characters obviously all state uses him to literally just represent like safety yeah right like you know like he just plays the concept of safety yes oh and waiting waiting to exhale he plays like a smooth talking like player right you know like and obviously in heat like he's a pretty lovable character and he but he is playing like a you know a professional criminal who doesn't want

to be a fry cook god mr baseball too i forgot that he had such a big sports run in the 90s like like carl said that's the career I want yeah yeah he does three major leagues love him basketball Mr. Baseball I think everyone regrets major league back to the minors so right like that's not right for anyone yeah yeah Scott Bakula Scott Bakula yeah he was back in Bakula for that one

but that's where that's like where enough people have left that now Haysbert is third build where like he's kind of just like bumped up the rankings bacula burns in hazebird right burnson is the other one who's stuck around he's the one yeah but yes no it is uh everyone's so well cast in this movie i think that obviously alfred woodard's incredible in this movie like she is like and she has to be one of the top like minutes to like performance you know

what i mean like even if you put her in for like one scene in a movie she will completely dominate the scene and change the temperature of the movie like yeah she like no matter what like lead role absolutely she'll kill it tiny role like she's gonna completely destroy i came up with a term for this in a text and you said that's good. And I've been waiting to use it in an episode. Go ahead. Thermostat performances. Right,

right, right, right, right. It's when an actor is so commanding, they change the entire temperature of the movie in a scene. Yeah. And she's like a perfect example of that.

When she's the lead, she does that within the movie. When you only give her one scene, she does that within a movie. The movies, it's structured in quarters. Yeah i love you have four quarters another thing i like is that each quarter i believe i was trying to time it watching it today i believe each quarter gets longer than the previous one which happens in real basketball all right a hundred percent but it stretches out like uh yeah well because like in basketball the fourth quarter takes much longer because they keep on calling timeouts.

Right. Yeah. Right. You know, there's a lot more fouling and like, you know, it can be really stop start, but yeah,

the first 12 minutes or so are this opening in the eighties, which start with her, uh, uh, Kyla Pratt, uh, asking to play basketball with the boys, taking off her hat,

revealing that she's a girl playing with them um in the script it was supposed to be that they knock her tooth out sona lathan has that scar in real life right which is so so noticeable and right and so good that they were like let's just use that rather than cover that up that's the thing we'll use to carry over for the whole movie now i just want to say as someone who had a friend who scarred me, it's kind of messed up that then later it's like, get over it. It's like,

no, this is on my face. You fucked me up, man. I also have a scar, but unfortunately it was my own fault. I don't, I can't really blame anyone.

Uh, I have a scar on my forehead because a kid, uh, stabbed me in the face with a wooden stake in shop class. Damn. Wow. Yeah. Did he think you were a vampire?

I think that was the confusion. I think that was the misunderstanding. I am very pale. Sure. Right. Yeah. Right. But yeah,

I was bleeding out of my head. Wow. And look, then I married him and had a child with him. So this movie is very realistic. Right. And I have this on my eye because I tripped over a chair in pre-K and whacked my face against the table leg.

And then, of course, I did end up marrying the chair. You did marry the chair. I got this scar on my finger here. Y'all can't see it in here, but my finger is lacerated right there by the top of a can of refried beans. Oh. And me and those beans just hooked up for a while. You messed it up. Yeah, you figured it out, but it was casual.

But there's just really good, efficient, economic character building. In the commentary, she talks so much about how hard she worked on the script, how long she worked on the script, how many drafts she had, that she didn't think it was ready to go into production when New Line wanted to acquire it. She wanted like another year or two to work on it. But you can just tell that it's like every single line, every single movement,

and especially in terms of what doesn't happen on screen is so well thought out and because this movie is so much about this power balance between these two characters and the different stages of their life it's like every movement emotionally is is so deliberate and so precise um but yeah this opening the first quarter is mostly that sort of table setting of their dynamic as a kid uh he's already a hot shot and she's already constantly fighting to be recognized and he's more of a rich kid because of his dad and they're much more middle class like they are and like there's that scene between the two moms where you can see that there's kind of a gulf between them right away and and even just as a kid it's like everyone views quincy as if he is on a track for greatness and everyone views her by saying like when is she

going to drop this basketball thing right her dad harry lennox uh who i love as well and yeah you know is like a good dad again again i just love this that like none of the parents even when the parents are maybe being unsympathetic are bad people like no it doesn't take any easy narrative route like that and the dad he's like you know he's supportive but he's also like yeah he's just kind of quietly like yeah well you know this won't last forever and and the quincy character goes back and forth in terms of allegiance between his parents you know like i i do like that he shifts between the two of them i feel like a lot of movies like this even if the story you want to tell is disillusionment with your father they wouldn't

put the work in to make the relationship with the mother that strong it would just be about the opposition to the father rather than the relationship with the other parent uh she's really good too debbie morgan oh man awesome so fucking she is yeah yeah you're just like your damn daddy did she say that in that movie i think she does yeah i know her best from eve's bayou where she's kind of incredible in that movie if you guys have seen it which was sort of her big breakout right before this movie um she got like a bunch of you know critics awards and stuff for that um so wait but then we jump towards we jump forward to 1989 1988 they're playing high

school ball on the court um they're pals but he's kind of like you know a little cutie pie hooking up with all the girls and she's like very very serious and very closed off and very kind of like sports focus well and also my my single favorite moment in the entire film is when uh when quincy's parents are fighting and then he opens up the window and knocks on son of lathan by monica's window on her floor and it's unspoken there's just nothing said it's just very clear like this there's like a routine to it there's there's a known routine that anytime he can't sleep because they're arguing he doesn't even have to say anything there's the spot on the floor for him to sleep and and that comes right after you see the two of them like bickering in school

you think almost do they not talk at all anymore are they not really close at all but it is that kind of thing they have a really nuanced complicated relationship depending on what environment they're in right but then right then they're teenagers and there's the whole teenage section the whole like there's you know on the basketball side it's sort of monica right like you know hoping to get recruited and quincy is like already set on that quincy has like reporters following him his dad like functioning as his like publicist, you know?

Yeah. Like everyone's talking about where is he going to go? And with Monica, it's like there's a hair's difference between whether I get to continue playing basketball or not. Yeah. Like I'm fighting to just continue. She has kind of a temper on court.

And I feel like this is not really heavily addressed in the movie, but Carl, would you agree? It's sort of like there is that kind of thing of like male players are a little more allowed to showboat a little bit more and anytime she showboats or has kind of like an attitude like everyone's mad at her they're like their coaches are mad at her you know it's kind of that thing of like that's not welcome in women's basketball stick to your game like right right for sure it's a it's sort of like a quietly coded thing guys women's basketball stick to your game like right right for sure it's a it's sort of like a quietly coded thing guys let's just give up on male privilege right

now i i rescinded i i gave up my my standing in the nba all of it um i don't even want to play like celebrity all-star game i'll say that i surrender that too i'm not giving that shit up that's if they call me for all-star weekend if i ever do it big enough to play in that that's my true career goal is to play in the celebrity game and the celebrity games are getting real dumb now yeah they've gotten worse they got like babies out there and stuff it's like come on man you just damn baby off the court i'm trying to who chucky finster was in the last yeah all-star yeah they got him in there me and brian mcknight out here trying to give buckets and you got Chucky Finster was in the last All-Star game, right? Yeah, they got him in there. Me and Brian McKnight out here trying to give buckets, and you got Chucky Finster on the court.

But Chucky Finster, he's like Muggsy Bogues. He can kind of go between your legs. Well, he's slippery in the sense that he's covered in drool. Like he literally can slip and slide on the court. He's allergic to hardwood allergic to parquet but somehow the sneezes help him there's that scene where um her monica's older sister lena who's played by regina hall yeah and like this is her second or third movie i think yeah a scary movie comes out this year right right but she was in uh the best man she she's in the best man that's

literally all she's been in so far yes um but uh i love that scene where she gives her the makeover and also when you see i assume like the idea is like she was a cheerleader because you see her watching her sister in the stands and she's sort of mouthing along like to the cheer like she still remembers like the basics of the cheers. I really liked that little moment. Like I like all that little character stuff that the movie doesn't need to put much emphasis on. Like it's all just sort of woven in there, but they're still at this point treating her basketball sort of obsession as

if it's a phase. Like they keep on trying to break her down to like, when will you just wear makeup? You could actually date a boy if you wanted to. Right. She basically calls them out on like, you i'm a lesbian right yeah do you want to hear something insane yeah when this movie got into sundance in like the the book premiered at sundance yeah in the booklet or whatever with the the descriptions of all the films they described

it as a love story between two women set in the backdrop of basketball oh so they just assumed they were like it's about a female basketball player yes oh my god like obviously whoever was on the board at Sundance had seen the movie but whoever wrote the description just made the assumption and she said that when she was pitching the screenplay when she was writing it when she would talk about to people everyone assumed oh if it's about a woman in basketball and it's a love story it's a game movie like they couldn't conceive of the fact that there was a straight female basketball player i heard the description said verbatim a love story about basketball and a couple women who are kind of you know right they somehow wrote that down yes yes it's insane through clenched teeth so you know you know you know yeah so they go to prom

right you got gabrielle union at this point who's um looking to hook up with q right and regina hall and alfred woodard have made over monica and and of course gabrielle union will go on to marry duane wade in real life yeah unrelated right to this movie but she is that was the part i like the most when you took me to a nets game when we went to a basketball game together carl we went to a nets game with griff and yeah it was it was it was duane wade's last game it was the heat nets game it was like wade's last game we're in like lebron and mellow and people were standing gets up and does the little dribble thing yes yeah and uh and when gabrielle union came out on the court at the end

of the game griffin got really excited i said finally a movie star that's dope i've been waiting all game for a movie star to come out she fired the t-shirt canon she did that's right she did do that she had a good hat on from what i remember yeah maybe mellow gave her a hat because mellow is a real hat man yeah yeah exactly this is the section of the movie where you should talk about the music because the soundtrack is great. Oh, God. The soundtrack to this movie is so good.

It's a pretty legendary soundtrack. Yeah. Yes. I get this soundtrack mixed up with the wood soundtrack. Because that's also another amazing soundtrack. Yes. But what I do know that is from this film is I go to work by Kumo D while they're playing basketball. In high school. from this film is I go to work by Kumo D while they're playing basketball in

high school. And now when is the one that's like, that's a, that's like a banger. Like that always makes me think of every time I hear that song, which is rare. Cause they don't play that song. But when I hear that song,

it reminds me of this movie. And it'd be like him, like him playing for Crenshaw high school and that Kumo D song playing. I go to work. Well, the, the wood soundtrack is killer. I'm now work. Well, the Wood soundtrack is killer. I'm now looking at it.

The Wood soundtrack is so good. I think they have similar soundtracks because they both are set in Los Angeles in the late 80s. Right. They're very similar vibes as movies. I haven't seen The Wood in a very long time. I have seen it.

Those three movies, Loving Basketball, The Best Man, and The Wood are like... The Best Man. Those three are those movies seen it those three movies love and basketball the best man and the wood are like the best man those three are those movies that you like black households just have on tape or dvd and they were all like 1999 2000 they all share so much cast like between the three and they all have big right right yeah um and and best man and love and basketball are both produced by spike lee

like this feels like the beginning uh the wood comes about uh separately rick famuyama went to usc i think but the other two it's it's very much spike lee now finally having the cachet to be able to sort of shepherd in a new generation of black film yeah spike lee right kind of helped certainly was a big part of getting love of basketball made right his sort of and i think also and the best man director malcolm d lee is right yeah yeah but like yes you know what i mean like there's a version of this movie where she is the screenwriter but they're like look you've never directed before like we're not gonna sorry like this is a big studio movie it's sort of like yeah he had been spike lee for over a decade at this point he was so established that he could extend that to other young filmmakers and say like trust me this person's a director let

them make the movie but anyway at prom you just have that like their their whole the whole sex scene like the whole like them finally coming around on their feelings for each other scene all of that stuff the acceptance from usc for her right like yeah it's just this like lovely serendipitous kind of stuff where it's like you can absolutely see these teenagers being like this is this is meant to be we're gonna be in college together we've known each other a whole lot you know what i mean like yeah it's it's a little fairy tale and also a little like realistic and regular and kind of like awkward she said it was a thing that like the new line executives kept

on complaining that monica looked upset in the whole scene and she was like no the whole point is that she's like scared she's nervous right and like it was one of those things like alongside the fact that everyone thought the scene was too erotic there's there's an authenticity to this as like an actual loss of virginity scene an actual sex scene between two people who've known each other for that long that like it makes people uncomfortable because it's the type of thing you don't often see in movies i'm with new line it looked like she was saying the dick was trash like she sees it and she's like oh boy yeah get that trash dick back back in your pants

go back across the street go back next door she does i mean it is weird that she ends the scene by logging on to rotten tomatoes and giving it a rotten tomato giving you a little splat something to be said about showing uh like a condom and it being put on and it's spending some time on that because of this time for special yeah yeah there's just like there there are motions that without getting graphic there are motions they go through in this scene that are just like oh right they make you realize the things that most sex scenes gloss over right in just sort of doing like the softly lit uh montage over sax music bullshit right and that but the thing is then because we're going to jump to them in college when they've been dating for a while which is what happens next then we just get over sax music bullshit right and that but the thing is then because we're going to jump to them

in college when they've been dating for a while which is what happens next then we just get a genuinely hot scene like the striptease scene like the you know i'll play you which she said that's the other one that they wanted to give an r because that scene is really hot like that scene is like you know but it's not graphic sexy they like process the fact that the scene is actually hot yes too hot yeah and also it's like narratively important that's what i love about it too it's like it's not just like yeah well we'll just have a really cute sex scene in the middle of the movie where they like play each other you know where where there is love and basketball it's like no we need to put this in because that's gonna be the crucial moment in the finale is that they play for each

other's you know love essentially for your heart so good play me for your heart there's this meme they used to pass around it was like play me for your heart and it was just like crazy ducks on these um but yeah like right you know the the college part the typical rom-com end of second act stuff where it all falls apart it just feels realistic and it's not like oh you lied about being a baker like you know the the stupid thing i always talk about let's talk about another i mean she talks so much about like the not that they were like battles with new line but there were so many things that they didn't get that she had to sort of double down on and they didn't get them

because they were used to how people behave in movies rather than real life. And she said like, a thing that I thought was really interesting that Gina Prince-Bythewood said in the commentary is that she had like very protective parents and she did not see an R-rated movie until she was 18.

Right. She was adopted. And, uh, when, when she was like three weeks old, when she was a tiny, tiny baby and grew up,

I think in a pretty nice neighborhood in, in, um, I think Southern California, right? Yeah. Yeah. Pacific Grove.

And, and she had multiple siblings, like adopted siblings. Multiple. No, no, no, no. I'm i'm sorry no her parents had four children and then they adopted her wow but she hadn't seen an r-rated movie until she went

to film school essentially so like that's insane her going to film school was like the moment in which she's starting to take film more seriously is also the moment in which she starts to like greatly open up the types of movies she's watching right and she said that uh scorsese was like the single biggest influence on her in the way that's pretty good good good filmmaker but in the way that he was just sort of depicting his life and it felt yes it didn't feel shiny as much as there is stylization it was like he wants to show his upbringing and his experiences that haven't been in as much as there is stylization it was like he wants to show his upbringing and his experiences that haven't been in movies about him right yeah that's the thing about scorsese the magic that people i think kind of forget now because his filmmaking about his own

life has become a stereotype right now everyone references scorsese movies when they're making it was crazy in the 70s for this guy to make these movies about like yeah it was kind of tough like i grew up in a tough neighborhood and like it was it was intense like and people are like Jesus I've never seen anything like this before yeah so she said that was like a big thing she was trying to do broadcast news

was like a landmark movie for her but the other thing she said she wanted to do with this movie was when Harry met Sally yes she wanted to do a black when Harry met Sally she's been pretty like she like that was sort of the marker she was throwing down right that basketball felt like the right sort of superstructure to chart that but she wanted to do that sort of story about a relationship progressing and going through different stages over a long period of time but the thing i was

going to say is the big scene where um you know he finds out about his father his father comes to him after a game right and then tells him that there's a lawsuit a paternity lawsuit yeah which he adamantly denies that when he goes home to his mother she's crying and drunk by the pool and she has the photos that a private eye has taken of him and yeah and also by the way like if you're gonna adamantly deny a paternity lawsuit maybe wait for the dna test to be done before you're just like it can't be i mean he's so fucking arrogant like that's this character's downfall he doesn't think that anyone can touch him i just like that he's not a absolutely evil person though you know what i mean like in all these scenes he's you're just like yeah he's a pro basketball player yeah yeah he has that monologue where he's like you know there are

100 girls outside the hotel room and then there's 20 on your floor and there's one who makes it to your door. You know, like they're always trying to get you, you know, he's sort of like, which is ridiculous. You have to reward her.

That's a defense. You have to reward her. The gauntlet, the gauntlet that she made through Carl. If you're thinking about like the eighties, right? Like he's even, he's on the Clippers who were shitty in the eight.

You know what I mean? That like, like that's when basketball is becoming a game that's nationally televised, not on tape delay. Like, you know, it's becoming a proper, cool, you know, generational sport in the 80s. Like not, not like a sort of an also ran sport. And the idea I think is supposed to be that they got pregnant in their freshman year of college right right he knocked her up and right right so there's this thing of like he doesn't hesitate to marry her and to be a father and to be there but he's also very aware that now

this is interrupting what would be like his 10 years of bachelordom at the peak of his fame and success in the nba does quincy come at his mom about being like you were one of these hoes too or like or was it he doesn't do that i think it's who says it right because it's when she finds the earring in his bed and she's yelling at him about having girls over then he tries to throw it back on her like you wanted a girl's a dad had over or something like that yeah yeah like basically like like basically calling her out for being like you're you're calling these girls out but you are one of these girls so right which i i think what she's doing is calling out like don't get someone pregnant yeah don't get yourself locked into like

a sort of forced marriage i mean it's i i think there's such a good balance of you don't get the sense that they don't love each other you don't get the sense that they like hate each other you get the sense that they would have stayed together but they probably wouldn't have spent the rest of their lives together had she not gotten pregnant yeah yeah there is like actual romance and sexual chemistry between the two of them right they're charismatic people right yeah um so yeah so by the way so their relationship falls apart fairly realistically because of this you also have you know these great juxtaposition sports scenes where you see him playing for usc in a screaming arena full of people with tv cameras and you know what i mean like and you see her playing in like a pretty regular gym and those games are of equal importance you know what

i mean yeah um usc not a great basketball school rightJ Mayo. I'm trying to think of like, like USC players. SC basketball has never been a thing. FC men's basketball is never really a thing. The women dominated. DeMar DeRozan. Yeah, DeMar played there. OJ Mayo. Yeah.

Taj Gibson was on that team. Okay. Yeah. But like they never go like deep in the March Madness or anything like that. The women's team, obviously. Right. Wait, who? Nick Young was also at SC sure swaggy p yeah uh they have they usually have good players but they don't really make it that far but like there's this sort of undercurrent in this movie of like he's like well i'm just gonna go pro as soon as i can yeah yeah and his dad is like don't

do that. That's what I did. Like, and it kind of leaves you a little emotionally stunted. Like, it's not going to be good for you, but like, which is funny.

Cause like, which I feel like in the nineties, Carl, like that was still definitely the thinking of like stay in college as long as you can. No. And now it's sort of like this thing where it's like, well,

yeah. What are you going to do? Play for no money. Like, you know, enter the NBA when you're 23 Play for no money. Like, you know, enter the NBA when you're 23 years old or whatever. And you know, like having essentially just wasted years of your life,

not making money. It sucks. I mean, it's a bad system, but also the, go ahead and say, Carl, no,

I was going to say something far more insightful about how basketball works. No, I was just talking about how they, even going in at 20, I was looking at when Kyle Kuzma first came into the league and how people were like well he's older and he's like the dude is 22 right and people just act like he's fucking done yeah whatever in a couple years you're just gonna have to get rid of him anyway i was gonna say it's just the narrative uh

disparity between the path these two characters are on that that that's the battle he's facing, is like, how long do I stay in college relative to going pro? And for her, it's like, how close am I to being kicked out of this dream entirely? Because also her coach is much harder on her, which you come to understand is because she recognizes that she's a high-level player, that the standard is higher for women in basketball

because the opportunities are fewer and so she has to be harder on her to make sure that she does become good enough to be able to continue he's kind of set like it's just the matter of which which options he picks right uh it's christine dunford plays the coach i was looking her up she's very familiar i feel like she's just been in a ton of stuff is like authority figures I feel like she must have played like a lot of lawyers and cops and stuff does she hope though well she's tall she

looks like a basketball player she's from the Bronx she she's like a theater person though she went to Juilliard you know like she seems like just fully a theater person so I went to juilliard uh you know like she seems like just fully a theater person so i guess she just had the look david did you play basketball was that something that you were into when i was a little kid i when i was a kid i played because i was tall

like literally just basically like they were like well you're really tall you should play basketball but i have terrible hand-eye coordination which is pretty crucial to playing basketball how tall are you david i'm six three like you know i was always a tall kid yeah and like you know but eventually when you're six three you're probably going to be a guard and like i love basketball so much but i'm not very good at it you wiggle your arms a lot like a muppet i have to imagine that doesn't serve you particularly well in basketball. Did you play basketball? Yeah,

I played, I played up, uh, up through freshman year college. I played deep division two basketball. There you go. Yeah. What was, where did you,

were you a point guard? Uh, I was, I mean, you know, I didn't play. That was when I kind of, kind of realized that it was like,

cause I was a, I was a power forward in high school. Right, of course, because back then you're tall enough to play the four. And I was able to like walk onto the team and practice, you know, like, you know, basically get used as a practice dummy. Like, and got very minimal playing time. And then kind of realized at that point, it was just like, okay, this is like, this is like this is

done and uh what's next i will you know do comedy you're good at it yeah i will say this we're not just saying this because you're on i feel like david and i both flipped out the first appearance of Chief. As long time comedy bang bang fans. It was one of my favorite ever moments listening to a podcast while I'm doing the damn dishes. And one minute in, I'm like, oh, I see what he's doing. Oh my God. Just that little moment. But also, I think it was just the feeling of that came at a time where it felt like there was a rotation happening. Where a lot of the old guard comedy bang bang people like starting to not appear on the show as much a lot of characters

were getting retired sure there was the question of whether like new replacements would come in and i remember us recording like the day after that first chief episode dropped and going like it's here we're there's gonna be another age like there's gonna be a a continuing run of of comedy bang bang value i appreciate that thank you so much a ex told me to do that character really yeah did you do like that impression was it like a character you did right yeah no it was something it was something i was i was messing around with her like okay we were talking about car San Diego and I started doing that voice and she was laughing a lot the voice is also like spot on it we have the same

like tenor or whatever or timbre or whatever the whatever that word is me and Len Thigpen have the same because also you know whenever you see commenters kind of say you know when they love to criticize and they will be like oh this you know when they love to criticize and they uh it will be like

oh this character wait what they love to criticize yeah yeah especially airwolf fans yeah uh they say he sounds that that character sounds like chief like when i did uh larry blackman it was like that character sounds like she's like well yeah i kind of sound like I think that's why I do it good yeah yeah you gotta know your strengths but next week I'm doing Robert Loja really? no

you should no one does a Loja if you had a Loja if you had a Loja you could get on SNL next season they're looking for a Loja he was like killed off on the Sopranos because he didn't remember his lines. Really?

Yep. Robert Loja. Look, did Robert Loja just Zoom bomb us? Suddenly I'm podcasting with the loja himself. Go fuck yourself. That's like that story. i forget what actor it was who's the actor who got fired from like la law or homicide because they they took long shits no it was murder one you're thinking of the tv show murder one yes his name um was um dan. Yes. He was the star of the show.

Like, it's not like he was a small. Number one on the call sheet. Do you know this story, Carl? No. The big bald guy. But I love his shit story. And he was like, kind of like he'd been around, but this was like his big breakout role. He gets like, you know, whatever, a golden globe, you know, like he's, he's hot shit.

And then he gets written out of the show. The show got canceled after two seasons because it just went downhill and the reason he was always late to set was that he took a giant shit in the morning and was an hour late to work every day because of it and I want to find he was like it was like he lived in like I get up. I have my coffee. Then I would have to wait till I get my morning dump. And Bochco,

the Steven Bochco is like, just come to work and do it there. And he was like, no, no, I can't do that. I can only do it in my own house, which I get.

I get it. Right. And they were like, they were like, I guess we're going to fire you as the star of this hit show. What I love about the story is that when you hear it, it was like months of negotiation where they kept on trying to problem solve. And Bochco would be like, OK, what if you just don't drink coffee until you get to set? And he's like, the drive's so long, I need it to stay awake.

And it's like, OK, what if you only drink decaf or like a smaller cup and then the rest of it you drink when you arrive what if we there was like a thing of like what if we rent you a hotel room that's halfway between malibu and the set so you can pull over take a shit and then come to set like they really tried to solve it every way they could and then finally he was like what can i say i guess that's just it's not gonna work it's gonna work I can't be the star of your TV show. My turds come first. Kudos to him for standing strong. I love it.

It's my favorite story. I wish that was the, every time you hear that an actor was fired because they were difficult to work with, that was always the reason. And I also, I love that everyone involved was like, look,

there were no hard feelings. We just, we couldn't square the circle. It was, I think there were some hard feelings. just we couldn't square this circle it was i think there were some hard feelings people people i mean look there might have been some soft bowel movements but no hard feelings all right look okay what happened i was gonna say the breakup scene the breakup scene right you have the the confrontation on the bench when he tries to like tell her i i could really use the support right now. And she goes to sleep because she has to respect curfew.

And then the next night, there's the party scene. And he shows up really drunk. He's so fucking mean. Right. Really mean, really drunk, dismissive of her. And then when she finally tries to break through to him, then he starts getting like overly sexual with her in front of everybody. So she sort of pushes him away. And then there's the scene in the dorm room yeah where he shows up with another girl and then acts like what what's wrong like what's the problem and that

was another scene that they apparently argued over a bunch because she was like why isn't she screaming why doesn't she break down crying why doesn't she like go to her own door and like close the door behind her she reacts in character totally this is a very contained performance like she's just not this kind of person who's gonna let herself be vulnerable in that way and the other thing the executives asked her was like why doesn't she attack the other girl that he's bringing what sure yeah and and gina prince bythrow like to her credit was like these movies always fucking make it this thing where it's a competition you can just see a new line being like so why isn't there a cat fight in this moment i i i and that's what i'm imagining they

literally wanted her to slap the other woman and she was like it's not about her like that she's not the problem here the problem is that he's doing this to her and she's so sort of like blindsided by it that she doesn't even know how to react in the moment that's such a good scene because she includes that nasty little button of monica walks out and the guys laugh and it's like why the fuck are you laughing except that you just feel awkward like i guess is the reason but it's so it's so awful that they laugh and she doesn't even see it it's just for us to see that's crazy wow uh and then but then but yeah fourth quarter i really love this because it does feel again like a really realistic basketball they finally have a breakup but it's like their breakup has happened in like four chunks but they finally

have the real conversation but like when we jump forward she's in barcelona she's playing for um in the euro league basically so crazy fact she assumed they wouldn't be able to film in barcelona that they obviously did because it's got all that great location stuff you know how they did i know uh because they had cast Tyra Banks. Right. Virgin Airlines had offered to pay to fly everyone out to Barcelona in exchange for Tyra Banks wearing a Virgin Airlines outfit because her character was a stewardess and they thought it would be good promotion for them. Wow. That's beautiful. Even though Tyra Banks is the character you want out of the movie i know but

that's you're like get out of here that's the only reason we got to go to barcelona i had never budgeted for it i assumed we couldn't do it and then virgin airlines came in and said we heard you have tyra banks we heard she's getting into acting is there any way we can have her be a virgin airline steward i love the barcelona stuff i love it when she's like sitting on the balcony like i love that it really feels like she on the balcony. Like I love that. It really feels like she's in a completely foreign place. Like that. It's kind of cool,

but she can't even enjoy it because it's so weird. And she's so lonely. Like she's like signing autographs for those kids in front of posters of herself, but the posters are already kind of falling down and they're in Spanish. And like that opening scene where the coach is giving this impassioned speech, but like she doesn't even really know what he's saying. And it turns opening scene where the coach is giving this impassioned speech, but like,

she doesn't even really know what he's saying. And it turns out he was just saying like, look, just give the ball to Monica. And there are no subtitles. And the scene goes on for so long. Like you keep on waiting for him to translate himself. And he never does until the very end.

And then he's just sort of dismissive. And then one of my says on the team, just get the ball to Monica. Yeah. Yeah. I like, and then she runs into her old rival from USC

like all that stuff. It's just it all feels so natural, just like Quincy becoming a shitty role player who has obviously been traded three times and like maybe is a three and D guy like Carl. What do you think his ceiling is? He like takes a three. Well, first

of all, allpps is 5'10 he's not a tall man I mean he's a regular size person uh well I think that it was just that's kind of what what what Griffin has been talking about this whole time of their two ceilings and how she is still like because of all the work that she's put in all those years she's still like killing it in a in Europe and he's, yeah, he made it to the league, but he's not going to be in the league very long. Right. It also feels like his heart's not in it.

From the moment he finds out about his dad, he feels so disillusioned with life. And I think he kind of resents the NBA for his parents' relationship. He views it as if my father were not successful, if he didn't have women banging down his doors and hotel rooms and stuff my family would have been happy so it feels like he's very cynically playing major league basketball because he feels like he's supposed to right like and i would say this is more her movie like it's an incredible performance and she is kind of the big but he's good he's very and

he is good at playing that kind of sullenness like you know without without having to go too big but you're like right he still made the nba even though he kind of doesn't give that much of a shit anymore like he was on such a guaranteed pathway yeah he's like patrick ewing jr or whatever where you're just like yeah you you just here because your dad's famous? Yeah. When you're deep on the bench, do you still get paid well? No. It depends on your contract.

Yeah, league minimum is like $650,000 or something. Or you might be like a joking no or whatever, where you are riding the bench because you're no good anymore, but you're still like, you know, you signed a huge contract back when you were still pretty good. I don't know. Oh, a rookie in NBA makes a minimum, but $893,000

to play. Yeah, I think it went up. It went up and one assumes he was drafted in the first round, right? Like, I don't know. He's probably making like a million a year, maybe not 90 the 90s. Not yet for $893, $893,000 a year. You ain't never got to play me you would do like the thing

where you just have like complicated handshakes with every player I'm just standing I'm holding people back I'm doing the hold back when somebody ducks man please three three you're holding up the three anytime anyone's in the corner oh yeah i'm talking shit to the other players you're doing advanced towel work oh man

making money if you are going on the court your job is that you are fouling someone yeah you're only going i'm like looking at the women in the first couple of roles being like, okay, listen, listen, we're at the four seasons. We're at the four seasons. You're the opposite of, uh, Dennis Haysbert. You're telling them exactly where you're staying. Yeah. Giving them directions.

I am on the fourth floor asked to see Robert Loja. That's who I am booked at this hotel as. Can you guys guess what the, uh, maximum salary is? The maximum salary 2020 in the wmba oh boy the max salary in the wmba i'm gonna say it's uh two hundred and thirty thousand dollars overshot it 215 wow yeah and that was around 200 significant bump only this year from 117. They just signed a new CBA, right?

Maximum. Maximum's 117, as you said, versus being paid like a little under a million to ride the bench in the NBA. And also, because those women have to play year round. So they finish their WNBA season, and then they go overseas still to this day yeah and a lot of them get like uh brianna stewart who's like one of the top players in the league can't stay healthy and it's because she's constantly playing basketball i know it's so crazy

well and also like so many do to these people so many male athletes after they retire it's like okay you have for many of them this short shelf life but then you get to open a restaurant or you get to be a real estate broker you get to be or you get to go on tv or you get to be a coach like you can you know go into the coaching ranks even even the less shiny right you can cash in on your celebrity probably you're still sort of front facing it's still your name it's still like look it's my name it's my face it's this and that even like the real estate shit where so many of them go into that it's like for that reason she ends up working at a fucking bank you know yeah it's just like her dad's bank i know it's like now you just have to

sit at a desk like yeah even if as you said carl you're being paid the maximum salary which is two hundred thousand dollars a year but also you're playing in Europe in the off seasons. When your career ends, you're not able to capitalize upon it, even in the way that the lowest level NBA player could. Yeah. Let's renounce our male privilege, guys. I already did. I'm never going to play basketball.

The WNBA is inarguably like the biggest success in American sports in terms of like a women's professional league that is like you know on television and like you know they the NBA like made way more of a concerted effort on that front than baseball or football has ever done

and nonetheless you know it's that that disparity is so extreme what I want to talk about is that they play basketball for each other's heart let's talk about high stakes gaming basketball right guys right it comes all the way back around yeah yeah it's great i don't know it rules it's great it's exactly what you want to happen no i like the way all of this plays out i mean a i like the scene where she has the, she gets drinks with her formal rival

from college. I do like that shift and like they have so much tension in the second quarter and now it's like they've both made it. Like they both have gotten

where they wanted to get to. Even if they're playing on opposite teams now rather than the same team, they're able to casually have drinks and compare stories after that. And the difference of just like she totally enjoys it she likes traveling around the world she likes sleeping with random guys in europe son of lathan seems a little miserable with

everything outside of the basketball yeah like the basketball is the only thing that monica's really enjoying she hates sleeping with random guys she feels like she feels like it's a part of the job but she hates it she gives it a splat tomato yeah much like omar's dick um also when she is going through it because she realizes that he has a fiance right i like how you see the relationship with her mother kind of go to this new place that's a really crucial scene right the sort of like not exactly showdown but the kind of reckoning with her mom where it's like both both of them are sort of like realizing like we were really like misjudging each other's love for each other when we were when when i was a teenager you know when when monica was young i also think like the fact that she tyra banks the the fiance is a uh flight attendant it they

talk about in the commentary that's the idea that it's like here's someone who's traveling as much as he is right who is as similarly right right right lifestyle like how often are they syncing up in the same place at the same time he's able just two hotties right that's the thing she said like it's like he has a fiance who's like a trophy like she seems like a very nice woman she's incredibly beautiful and he probably doesn't have to spend that much time with her put in the work in the relationship and her name is pronounced kira not kyra because tyra banks demanded that the character not have a name that rhymed with her name. Okay, I just I love that. She's not like

an ass. Just letting you know. I love that. She's not an asshole. She's like an obstacle like at worst right? Like she's you're just like now this is not how this movie is working out. She's an obstacle illusion. She's an obstacle illusion. Very well said. I make sure that every

part I play the character's not name is laurel that's your first question when they offer you a role yeah laurel who am i playing in this laurel borrow absolutely no no no no no you were supposed to you were supposed to be in the laurel and hardy biopic and it was too close for comfort yeah i said no i can't do it because i have a southern accent john c reilly yeah i have a southern accent so when i say that name i say laurel and it's not a draw you put a draw on laurel yeah it becomes laurel um when they play the one-on-one game it is a little bit like that meme where omar epps is like all right let's play basketball. And then like starts like,

you know, he's not, he's not really playing for her heart. Like he's just trying to beat her. Yeah. You know, it's that him kind of like working out that I feel like that anger of over, you know, how things went wrong for them. But isn't that like the thing

that drew them to each other so much in the first place was that they both were such like passionate, focused people. Like it wouldn't be romantic if they were playing a flirty game rather than playing their hardest it's also nice that even though he's been playing in the nba like this is the first game he's played probably since getting injured like you see him at the beginning of the game be kind of rusty and have to loosen up um right and but then of course right the little

twist is that even though he wins he's like you know two out of three because you know obviously he does want to be with her yeah and then you get you get a little flash forward where she's playing in the nba and he's she's in the wmba she's on the sparks yeah uh did you guys watch until after the credits you see your daughter playing in the playground you see her daughter get a get a bucket this is i mean i pitched gina on a sequel when i interviewed her because like it's been 20 years yeah everyone in this movie is famous yeah like you know get them all back and then have it be about their daughter right like it's such an obvious

there's so many things you could do I mean she told me like no way but maybe maybe replace Omar Epps with Leslie Snipes oh just is like a little meta thing even things out but Wesley Snipes is like 10 years older than Omar Epps which is one reason that it's crazy

it's crazy in Major League too and it's like do you find a fucking fountain of youth you just lost a cool decade man um like but like don't you know like she was i mean she gave me a nice answer which is essentially like go fuck yourself i think she was like if you fucking talk to me like this again i'll kill you no no she was like she really thinks like the movie's pretty unspoilable and i worry that i would ruin it like you know like the every like the movie and so well it's such a nice contained story like i almost just want to leave it alone but she knows i mean she gets that it has it was not a huge hit when it came out it wasn't like a flop or anything but like it did not like over perform and it just had like such an insanely long tail well as carl said it

was like huge home video movie huge tv movie soundtrack was a huge seller and like by two or three years later people were already sort of heralding it as like this is the most one of the most underrated movies the last however right because you read the reviews and they're all kind of like oh yeah it's okay and i think it's because the movie's understated like they just didn't know what to do with it like i think you know probably critics are just going in expecting like more of a really brassy sports movie or like i don't i don't know exactly but like it's because it's a black movie like people immediately write those off part of it like huge part of it yes people immediately go oh this is not for me it's not for me and it's like just watch a good movie especially in 2000 like it's just unassailably true like so many critics are

just like oh this isn't something i need to take serious yeah it's it's unfortunate like you know i mean it won the independent spirit award for best first screenplay it's her and i played at sundance and it was kind of a big it was really well received it's like so it's not like it was absolutely ignored but i do feel like it was not quite given its due no but it also grew very quickly you know uh enterton weekly did an issue that was like the 25 best movies you haven't seen and it was only like a year later. And they put this on it. I think it was the most recent release they had put on it.

I feel like everyone in the media very quickly was like, we fucked this one up. We should have given this one more attention. I do think you're right, Carl, that it is like in the same way that I think the ratings board was freaked out because like you're seeing that kind of intimacy especially with black actors was like a new thing for them and i think for critics they didn't know how to process it because they were so used to seeing like films with black leads be a very limited type of thing yeah those three movies were talking about best man the wood and uh love and basketball really start to like redefine that a little bit. I feel like that's very much a sea change.

I'm trying to find this quote here. Uh, that is really aggravating. Um, but David, maybe pull up the box office while I find it. Uh, I've got the box office ready for you.

This movie came out April 21 21st in the year 2000 so carl i have a broken brain and my version of sports stats is that i remember uh almost every box office weekend damn that's tight so i try to guess this was my equivalent my father would do the sports scores with my brother and then he would flip to the other section of the newspaper and do the the box office top time with me. Um, and, uh, the movie made 27 million domestic and basically nothing internationally, which,

you know, because it basically wasn't sold internationally. Gina, when I interviewed her said the old guard, the Netflix movie is her first movie that will really play internationally. Crazy. Like all three of her other films, secret life of bees beyond the lights,

like have just never, like this, the studios just didn't even bother to sell them. Yeah. If that, you know, like sell the international rights. Cause you know, movies with black actors don't sell was always.

And then also movies that American sports on top of that. I mean, this movie sort of was like. That's true for this one. Right, right, right. But then,

but like, you know, like Beyond the Lights was not released internationally. So this movie did pretty well, but not huge huge i think it made 27 on a 20 budget and probably killed on home video like you know um but number one that week it opens at number two griffin number one that week is oh shit we just did it in a box office game give me the weekend again april 21st 2000 uh it's a war movie um uh u571 yeah damn dog and you know what's crazy about that i don't know that much about sports you're saying you would if i was like hey carl who was like leading in the atlantic division in april 2000 like yo

you know well you know what was the clippers record in 1982 man i might know a little bit of that but that's because i just read books and kind of can remember facts every now and then but i would not know what the clippers were doing the april 21st 1982 like a specific weekend look i've said this before it's not a joke i could probably identify five states on a U S map. Visually. I'm guessing I would top out at five. There are so many basic things that I don't know. And I remember what you five, seven,

one, it opened to like 16. It opened to $19 million. Damn. Submarine movie. I've seen it once. I remember having cool sound design, you know, it's a decent movie i remember going to see it and finding it too stressful and walking out and into a different

movie and now i'm trying to think what movie i must it is a stressful movie it's definitely stressful well maybe we'll hear about it yeah the wind up was was harry potter out of there harry potter comes out 2001 okay i know I was in the fifth grade when that came out right right right yeah I was

I was 14 when this movie came out yeah it was fifth grade for this yeah number two is Love and Basketball number three

is a war movie what did it open to Love and Basketball opened to eight million dollars okay damn that was all me. You went 8 million times at a dollar theater. At a dollar theater.

It's a war movie. It was number one the week before. Kind of doesn't exist. We were soldiers? No, that's later. Big director, but he is near the end of his career no fuck that's another good guess though rules of engagement rules there we go you gotta follow the rules samuel jackson tommy lee jones guy pierce william friedkin william friedkin director

of the exorcist doesn't exist kind of Kind of doesn't exist. Have you seen Rules of Engagement, Carl? No. No. It's some sort of true story movie. I don't know what it's about. Thank you all for having me on your movie podcast, but I have to tell you something. I don't watch movies like that.

That's fair. Movies are long. So you must be loving Quibi, Carl. Are you just eating that shit quick bites quick bites taking a ton of quick like a quick bite yeah uh carl you might not know this but i am the founder and ceo of quibi so thank you for watching i won't i won't disparage you a rough thank you for the candy in the office oh you're welcome uh of course i sent candy to every office i thought it'd be a great strategy to quibi it up they have a wall of candy at the quibby offices and they go have some candy that's nice take advantage of this

huge candy wall and i think because of covid now we're not gonna be able to do candy wall anymore can i ask you the candy wall is just rotting i assume i assume the candy that quibby offers is only like fun size like mini like fun size bars yeah many many fun size bars but it's a full wall of everything like so you get if anyone brings a king size twix in or whatever we throw it out the window with a golf club and do they do they serve you uh la croix in like the little like cap that they give you at the doctor to swallow cough syrup yeah it's it's a it's a uh they say drink this and remembrance of quibi and they pour it into yeah it's a quasi it's a quick sip the body of quasi yeah the body of quasi thank you um speaking of drinking

number four at the box office griffin uh it's in its second week. It's made seven million dollars. It's a rehab drama. 28 days. 28 days. That's easy to narrow down. There are not many rehab dramas. Sandra Bullock goes to rehab. Meet Steve Buscemi and Viggo Mortensen. I would have said

Girl Interrupted. That's a mental institution movie, but yeah, sure. Take one more step and I'm going to jam this in my aorta. Your a that's sort of you know what institution movie but yeah sure take one more step and i'm gonna jam this in my aorta your aorta's in your chest remember that you ever thought about doing whoopee no i've thought about it that's when i got a master they i mean you you you had that when you said chest like that that's sort of you know she has this kind of bass you know that that kind of like Her voice can go really deep. And here's why I know that.

Because I've seen the commercial a million times. Because I watch a ton of TV. Right. But I just wasn't a huge movie guy. But I just remember, take one more step, I'm going to jam this in my aorta. Aorta's in your chest. David and I often invoke, we are duly appointed federal marshals. We are duly appointed federal marshals duly appointed federal marshals from the shutter island commercial anything like that where you just hear the one line over and over

again for nine months david and i will continue to do for a decade after that god there's some trailers yeah all right number five at the box office is and these movies are all making like eight seven to eight million dollars it's a very even box office um is a romantic comedy i recently re-watched it it's pretty good hmm kind of similar to love and basketball in that it is like a big generational like you know it's like yeah charting a relationship from when they're kids to when they're grown-ups but it's like a trio i'm wondering if this is what i snuck into after leaving u571 does this feel like a movie that 10 or 11 year old griffin would want to see probably yes because it has a comedy star who you probably liked has three people oh

oh is it keeping the faith keeping the faith edward norton ben stiller jenna elfman directed by edward norton inexplicably classic rabbi priest sex comedy all my brother's favorite movies were sports movies almost specifically basketball movies keeping the faith weirdly my brother loved so much we saw it twice in theaters he was seven at the time and then the following year it's long the following year my brother's birthday party was a sleepover where they watch keeping the faith on vhs it was a bunch of eight-year-old boys watching keeping the faith uh it is one of forky's favorite movies. One of my fiance's favorite movies. Wow. She loves,

I mean, Forky loves Edward Norton. Yeah. Thinks Edward Norton is the cutest, which I kind of snackable. Never understood. Who does more snackable on that movie? Yeah,

I guess so. I like Edward Norton in the people versus Larry Flint. Oh, he's so good in that. Oh, yeah, he's great in that. Was that the top five?

That's the top five. You've also got Aaron Brockovich, big summer hit, spring hit. You've got the road to El Dorado. I know that animated, not classic. El Dorado.

Right. You've got return to me, the Bonnie Hunt movie. Yeah, man, none of these movies would exist anymore. No, you probably snuck in El Dorado. No, because I definitely, the Bonnie Hunt movie. Yes. Man, none of these movies would exist anymore. No. You probably snuck into El Dorado.

No, because I definitely, I made a point. I bought a ticket for El Dorado. I remember dragging my dad to El Dorado and him resenting it. U-571, I saw it by myself. Okay, well, you probably weren't sneaking into Final Destination. No. Because that's even more stressful. Were you sneaking into The Skulls?

No. The classic secret society at college drama, The Skulls? No. Like now I'm wondering if there's a holdover movie from like late 99 that I was seeing. Well, I don't know. I'm just giving you what's in the, you know, you got High Fidelity. You got the underseen teen drama gossip with, uh, James Marsden and Joshua Jackson. Uh, you've got a Romeo must die with Aaliyah and Jet Li. Look, I saw most of these movies in theaters. I saw Romeo must die in theaters. I'm inclined to say,

looking at the box office here, there's a decent chance. I snuck in to see toy story two again. Toy story two is still playing on 516 screens at this point in romeo must die they would like you he gently would kick someone and it would go to like an x-ray and you would see him like breaking their bones yeah you had like jet lee vision yeah it was cool do you remember in romeo must die when the guy says sorry romeo but you gotta die in case you didn't get it.

And then the credits started to roll. Do you never see whether he dies or not? It's like they were hoping they were really banking on being able to make a sequel or at least a quiz. It's so weird that they were like, we're going to make, we're going to make a martial arts movie. That's an adaptation of Romeo must die about an American Romeo and Juliet. Sorry about African American and Chinese gangs, and Juliet, sorry, about African American

and Chinese gangs like, you know, doing martial arts together and it's directed by a Polish cinematographer. Everything about that movie is insane. It's so weird. Rest in peace, Aaliyah. Yep. But that's it. That's the box office. We did it. That's the Love and Basketball box

office game. Yeah, just a great movie. Like a perfect little movie. I found the quote I was looking for. I was trying to find this special that she did. The first thing she directed. What about your friends that Gina did? She directed the what?

The video? The music video for TLC? No, it's like a CBS. See, this is the problem. I was looking for the special and the results kept on being the TLC video. Oh. This was like a CBS... See, this is the problem. I was looking for the special and the results kept on being the TLC video. This was like a CBS TV special that's three high

school friends talking about their future and predicting what the rest of their lives are going to be like. And it's Lark Voorhees, Monica Calhoun, and Melinda Williams. And it's about them heading off to UCLA. And I can't find it anywhere.

It looks like it was released on VHS or DVD at some point. It was like very high rated and it seems to have been popular. I feel like that was on UPN. Maybe. I don't know. But there's this line in the review. It's what you were saying, Carl,

about how like people didn't take this movie seriously at the time because they dismissed it as a black movie. They weren't thinking of it as a romance or a character-based story or anything else like that like that was viewed as the genre this review from variety of the special says uh director writer gina price's storyline sweet and endearing in itself to be sure and nicely paced has no particular ethnic relevance what what does that mean like what he's saying is i don't understand this movie why is it being told with black characters gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha which is like a crazy thing to read in a review from 1995 but i do think if we're gonna spend the next month talking about her movies and i think none of her movies have sort of been recognized in their time to the degree that they should have that's sort of a

recurring thing of her getting pigeonholed yeah people like taking too long to eventually see her films because they view them as something else and the idea of what they're viewed as is stupid golly that's the way the world boys that's how the cookie crumbles boys that's how the cookie crumbles um and i will say griffin when i was talking to her i kind of floated the narrative of like you haven't gotten to make enough movies uh because her career is kind of you know she makes a movie like every sort of six to eight years like it's not you know every couple years and she kind of slapped it down where she was like i've gotten a lot of movie offers that i did not want to do like i really just only make a movie if i want

to make a movie um she's like it's a lot for me to do a movie like i've got kids i have like a whole life i'm working you know like and it's sort of what you're talking about with her script for this where she was like maybe it needs another year i think she like really really tries to hone her whole like the script of the project she's working on so perfectly so that it's like absolutely ready to go when she's going to give it a green light it's it's sort of fascinating she's a very deliberate artist yeah and speaking of deliberate artists, Carl Tartt. And she has a very interesting arc that we're going to get into.

But yes, Carl Tartt. Carl Tartt, thank you so much for being on the show. Listen, thank you for having me. Boy, y'all go long,

don't you? We go long. We go long. We're sorry. Carl, he didn't warn you. They didn't tell me. this is maybe the shortest episode

we've ever done. That's wild. And that is not true. We're gone like two and a half hours, Griffin. and y'all do this weekly yeah holy shit me and and we have a patreon we essentially do two a week listen man i love it i had i had such a great time talking about this movie i haven't been able to talk about this movie in this much depth ever in my life with like other people that aren't my mom or my friends like i like not that you guys aren't friends because we're all friends now baby we're working towards it we're working towards it but i appreciate you for having me and thank you so much well i i came

on flagrant ones to talk about draft day and then you and I were messaging back and forth afterwards about other sports movies yeah you were asking me about like Slapshot which I said of course I've seen I have to respect and support all of my fellow cinematic Newmans but then we were

like scheduling this episode and I realized like oh I think David was the one who suggested like if you've been talking about sports movies with Carl you should see if he likes Love and Basketball. Yeah man you did it right. Yeah. As soon as you said it I was like oh hell yeah I'm all about this shit. I am here for this.

And thank you for being here. Hopefully soon to be on the NBA celebrity all-star game. Man absolutely. That would be dope. Let's put it out into the universe. I, on the other hand, will never play in the NBA. And that's a promise.

That's a promise I'm making publicly. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Thanks to Andrew Guto for co-producing this show. Rachel Jacobs for editing help. Thanks to Lane Montgomery for a theme song. Joe Bonaparte Reynolds

for our artwork. Go to patreon.com access blank check for blank check special features. We're going to be doing an episode on Disappearing Axe starring Carl's mother. I have to call her and see what part she played. Should we do that now?

Should we do it on the air? It's your call. It's your call. This is totally your call. You can tell us later. Whatever you feel most comfortable doing carl um but yes a a carl's mom sona latham uh wesley snipes vehicle oh here we go oh my god wow this is good content she saw it was you And she was like Yeah Straight to voicemail She can tell these are

Peak podcasting hours Mom Huh? Mom Can you answer a question For me right now? You're currently live On the radio

Can you answer what part You played in the movie Disappearing Axe? Disappearing Axe? Yeah Weren't you in that movie? No What? You talking about With Wesley Snipes And Sonata L Axe? Yeah, weren't you in that movie? No. What?

You talking about with Wesley Snipes and Sonata Latham? Yeah, weren't you in that? No, I was not in that one. I wish. Which one were you in around that time? Now I look like a fraud.

Live on the radio. Oh my goodness. No, it's okay. It's your phone, Charles. Which movie are you looking for? Maybe it was, what was the movie you was in with Angela Bassett? What movie was that?

Strange Days. Strange Days. Why do we used to talk about Disappearing X? You're in Strange Days? She's in Strange, we love Strange Days. That's one of our favorite movies. She can't hear you guys.

but yes, they, they love Strange Days. So they may have seen you in Strange Days, but Disappearing X, did you have it on tape or something? Yeah, I had Disappearance on tape. Okay, that's what it was. That's what it was.

All right. Okay, I'll call you back. Romy and Michelle, that's probably a popular one that they like. You know, I don't know. Yeah, Romy and Michelle. Romy and Michelle's high school reunion. She was in that. All right, I'll call you back, Ma.

Okay. All right. Bye-bye. All right. uh all right i'll call you back ma okay all right all right all right shout out to your mom just in general for owning disappearing acts on vhs and all but like she's in strange days is one of the strange days is like ultimate one of our biggest episodes ever yeah she was in that huge wait what's your mom's name her name bleep my mom's name please yeah okay i'm sorry i'm sorry uh your mom is of course juliet lewis in the film strange days yes my mom is juliet i also love that you were confusing which movies your mom owned with which movie she acted

because i was so young back then i didn't like yeah yeah right you just assume like oh it's on the shelf she's probably in it yeah probably in it oh man that's awesome well carl thank you again for being on the show and thank your mom for being on the show anonymously yes i appreciate it uh and tune in next week for the secret life of bees that's right and as always i am officially retired from the NBA.