The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 3: Movies & Goodbyes w/ Wesley Morris

Episode Date: October 2, 2015

HBO's Bill Simmons talks Grantland memories, best 2015 movies, DeNiro vs. Pacino, Anne Hathaway vs. Emily Blunt, favorite movie theater experiences and new beginnings with Pulitzer Prize winning critic Wesley Morris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I call it entrance music like I'm a wrestler. I had a song I was trying to clear, and I'm still trying to clear. And I've been dealing with an estate and lawyers, and it's very exciting. And I think I'm going to be able to clear it at some point. But right now, I have no song. But I do have a guest. My old Grantland. Oh, you already look emotional.

Are you already emotional? Don't cry. We haven't even started the podcast yet. It's my old Grantland colleague, Wesley Morris, who now works for the New York Times, starting today. You no longer work for Grantland. I do not. Don't cry. I won't cry.

If you cry, I'm going to get it. I can't handle when people cry you saying that i'm going to cry is actually starting to put me in a place where at some point i could start crying i don't know what to do and people like that i did a podcast with doug collins my friend last year and he started to get really emotional oh and i didn't know what to do and i got scared stop this is not cool i don't want to i don't want to look i'm going to be i'm assuming we're going to have other conversations i'm not going to have the first one be me in tears alex papadimnits and i did

our last podcast yesterday and it's on itunes uh i did not cry and i was surprised by that but it's you know i'm not as i've explained to you i's, you know, I'm not, as I've explained to you, I told you this before, I'm, I'm going to be seeing these people, our friends forever. Yes.

They're our friends. Um, so we all felt, we all felt sad. May, June, July. I think now it's kind of,

it is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. I think we all do different things. Come to a place of acceptance. I think the thing people didn't understand about Grantland was it was about the relationships. And the outside people saw the writing. Yeah.

And just the output that people are doing every day. They didn't see how hard people worked. But I think- We were understaffed the whole time and people just really gave a shit. And they really worked as hard as possible to get that site up and to make it good. And everybody cared. But I think a lot of what made the site so good and it's so appealing to other people, though, was this camaraderie that we all had. Yeah.

You know, I don't know who I said this to, but it really was like we all had an oar in the boat, you know, and we were all, you know, we were really good crew team. Well, Alex said something interesting in the podcast you did with him yesterday where he was saying as a writer, we had so many good writers and everybody was operating in all cylinders that you couldn't mail in stuff. Right. No, no, no. Because it would really stand out if you sucked. Because on that website, you'd be like, five or six great things. And I don't want to come off like Granlin was the greatest thing that ever happened.

It's great. It is a great site. We achieved our goal, and it was a really good site. And I thought it was heading in the right direction. And the problem is, websites are like plants. You've got to water them. It's true. Unfortunately, ESPN is good at building stuff and creating stuff and launching stuff.

But there comes a point where you have to decide, all right, what does this mean? How can we get from point A to point B to point C to point D to point E? And, you know, my biggest issue is behind the scenes the last two years, which we've talked about a million times. It was just like, just help me help us like we weren't even on their mobile page until uh i think january like we just had this tiny little hyperlink at the bottom of the usp.com mobile site and you know it's you can say like well they support with salaries and bandwidth and all that stuff. And it's like, that's fine. But there's more that goes into it.

And you see how when they launched Scott Van Pelt's show, you know, a ton of ads, a ton of resources. They blow it out and they try to make it succeed. And I think all of us felt like these guys weren't trying to make us succeed. Right. Which is a weird feeling when everybody's busting their ass. You did a really good job, though, of keeping a lot of that from us. I mean, we just sort of made a website. Right.

And we didn't, I mean, you and Dan knew what was going on in terms of what we didn't have. I mean, I guess, you know, if you're Sean or Megan. Well, you didn't know at all. I didn't have. I mean, I guess, you know, if you're Sean or Megan. Well, you didn't know at all because. I didn't know anything. I remember we went to lunch with William Goldman in, what was it, like the third weekend of April. That was a nice lunch. That was awesome.

That was great. And then you and I just walked the streets of New York and I laid out everything. That was a long walk. Remember that? We literally walked from one end of New York to the other. It was a beautiful walk. It was a great day. And you helped me buy clothes.

Yes. Including a sweater that my wife was a great day. And you helped me buy clothes, including a sweater that my wife was like, that sweater's great. Was that one of the things you bought when you were with Wesley? Like I wasn't capable of buying a good piece of clothing. I figured she'd like that. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, I laid out everything that was going on

and you were like dumbfounded. I don't think people knew. People had no idea how bad it was. I didn't know until you told me. I didn't know the extent of it until you told me that. I told you who the next editor-in-chief was going to be? Yeah, you knew everything. I did.

I knew everything. They were so transparent about it. But you knew it in this way that you kind of had a look. You looked crazy when you were telling me this. I was like, well, I'm going to listen to this, but I'm also going gonna just factor in the fact that there's a lot of you haven't fully recovered from the suspension yeah yeah i i don't know it just was so i was like the whole thing was just really i was like mel gibson and conspiracy theory

a little bit and i was julia i wasn't really julia roberts because i didn't i didn't know whether to help you or get you help. Like, it was unclear what to do with that information. So I just went home. I remember I took a nap and I think I got really drunk that night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went to a party and drank too much. I tried to tell you.

No, you did. I was like, they did this. They did this. Here's what's happening here. They did this. They did this. They did this. They did this. this they did this and you were just kind of nodding like wow oh my god i didn't i didn't know but at the same time you're a good therapist that day uh i'm i'm a good listener and like two weeks later i was out i'm a good listener i yeah but that was the thing that you all but said and i knew and yet yeah i mean you could you could you knew you didn't put your i mean i didn't it's funny because when it happened

i just i'm a bad mathematician when it comes to stuff like this yeah but i i quickly did the math because i didn't you know we were all i mean everybody well I didn't want anyone to know because I didn't want it to affect what the site was right um you know obviously they knew people knew how competitive I am and the suspension which I really took personally for a variety of reasons and then the way uh the ombudsman and all that stuff and right just I just think it's weird to work for a place that's trying to make you look bad. Usually places try not to make some of their best talent look bad. It's usually not something a company does.

So there was bad blood. And when they took money from me in December, that was the point of no return. So then it became a way of, all right, how does this not affect the site? And I think they figured out that I wasn't going to come back probably in February. And that's when they started really doing stuff. When they moved the Kobe show against the Oscars, when I had Kobe on the Greatland Basketball, when they moved that against the Oscars, I was like, oh my God. Okay. You think that was an FU?

Oh, there was 20 FUs. Right. They knew I wasn't coming back. And this is what I was telling you when we were walking the streets I was like he's not coming back we have to position this so that when it all when it all hits a head we can blame Grantland didn't get enough traffic and he was difficult and all this shit that wasn't true part of the reason we didn't get traffic was they didn't promote the site and I remember I sent an email in the first week of may about uh to all the higher-ups and like you you guys realize you only led espn.com with grantland once in april like literally once it's like do you care or not

like you're you don't we have no mobile presence at all we don't have an app um 46 of our traffic's coming to our main page which is absurd for a website like we're getting no help from the other parts of the company and people seem to think that espn was so helpful for us and it was actually the opposite anybody else would have been helpful they weren't driving traffic to us right i mean do you have and we had great writers that was what killed me it's like we had like 18 of the best 25 writers in the company. I would say that, I mean,

there are a lot of things that kind of fascinate me about this. And one of them is, I mean, do you have any sense of why your relationship was the way it was with the people who made decisions at that company? Yeah, I think the last two years, I mean, I don't want to say too much, but I think it started with NBA Countdown

and all the problems we had on that show and the fact that I didn't want to come back for a second season and they talked me into it and then just, it was the biggest mistake I made since I was there. I knew better and I got talked into it. But it just, it was baby steps and it got to the point where,

you know, if you're in any company and you don't have somebody fighting for you, it's really hard to get shit done. And, you know, I had a great time there. I did a lot of great things. Um, I have no regrets about anything I did except for coming back for that second year in countdown. And, um, you know, it was a great place to work. I got to do Greatland there. I got to meet all these awesome people. It was the highlight of my career. Got to do 30 for 30, got to have a column, got to have a podcast.

Like, it was a great place to work for a long time. In the last two years, it wasn't. And that was the problem. No, I mean, for me, it was the best job I've ever had. I mean, I don't know what, I don't know, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't know what this next job is going to be, but I mean... What is this next job going to be? You're writing about culture. Yeah.

That's kind of a broad definition. I don't know. What are you writing about? Air? Water? Fire? Culture. Things are affecting culture i mean it's critic at large which basically means uh i i have a i have

a wide berth to write about whatever so like the key and peel thing you wrote for grantland yeah um i think that's a good example of a culture piece that would you would write for the new york times i theoretically would do that for the new york times i mean i'd have to the tricky thing about this job i'm imagining is going to be working out what the people whose beats are figuring out what the TV critic is doing and what the film critics are doing and what the theater critics are doing. And then trying to find something to write. I mean, I think the Key and P and peel thing is a good example of that um but it also is the sort of thing where you know i imagine uh you know james ponzo was it could probably have written something like that too i call him ponzo everybody's got a nickname for him and yet

nobody nobody nobody uses it on i've heard people call him pony. Pony? Pony, yeah. Are you going to, is it going to be weird to have a word count again? I mean, you weren't, out of the writers we had, I think you were always the most conservative with your word count. Like you were one of the tightest writers we had. So I don't know how big of a problem that's going to be, but it's still weird to be like, hey, 1200 words. That's it. Can't go 13.

I have to say like i just wrote a story for the magazine it's being edited as we speak i mean it's it's almost done being totally edited it's been going through rounds of edits but it's gotten shorter yeah as it's gone on and it's got a hole that it has that has to fit in and it was much bigger than the allotted whole. So I think I turned in 5,000 words and the whole is 3,500. And I know that there are a lot of writers out there hearing me say this and being like,

fuck you, man. Yeah, you're already fucking right. But I mean, it is just something that I'm going to have to adjust to. And everything I write is not going to be that long. But the kind of writer I am, I like to make sure that I got everything out. And that's sort of the opposite of how newspapers, like for efficiency's sake, that's the opposite of how newspapers should work.

Right. I mean, you should be trying to just hit your mark so that you don't have to go back and shave things off. But I can't help it. Like I really, if I'm working on something that's like a pretty generic or broad subject, like this story is about identity and like, what is that? And so if I can find an argument in all these examples and then string the examples together

with the help of the editor that I'm working with on this story, then it's much easier for me to feel like I've done everything I wanted to do. But now, you know, at 3,400 words, there's like four things that I wish were in the story that I think would help make its case. So the flip side of that with Grantland is we let everybody keep those four things. Maybe there's some sort of middle ground between those two worlds

I went back and read a lot of things I wrote the last eight years and I was like god damn it 7600 were a column and there were three columns within the column I should just cut out the three columns no that is but it's like you know when you're overworked

you end up just kind of getting stuff up there's also a really interesting thing when you're overworked, you end up just kind of getting stuff up. There's also a really interesting thing that happens at least to me when I like reading somebody. Yeah. And I'm just a sort of mental subscriber to whatever it is they do. I don't care how long it is. I'm the same way. I don't care about the length either. I never think about it.

I'm reading the person not the right like i mean grantland is full like alex i am i sometimes when i'm reading alex papademos will get to the middle of a story and just peek and see how much is left because i want to savor the the whatever you know remaining four paragraphs um i got with you i never had to do that because i knew that I was never going to get to the bottom. And when I find myself at the bottom, oh, here we are. Right. Yeah. I never I never with you. I can see how little you know, the other cool thing about about the way the Internet works is you can see how little the cursor is. Yeah. The little scroll bar on the side of the screen. With you, the scroll bar tended to be microscopic. Well, now they have all this technology

where there's a piece waiting after the piece. Yeah. And all of a sudden the piece is over. You're like, whoa! Yeah. I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, it'll come up a little earlier. But that was never really an issue for me.

I could see how long it was going to be. But that didn't bother me. Because in a lot of ways, a good writer in general will put, will take you on a ride and it doesn't really matter. I mean, it's funny with a book, you know how much left you have to go and you're disappointed or relieved that you're, that you're almost there. Um, but if you're reading something on the web, you know, there is a, there is a degree of suspense in terms of like based on how quickly you can read something and what it is you're reading like how fast you're going to finish it

well here's what america's losing with this new new york times gig which i'm happy that you took um i don't get to read you on like no good deeds or no good deed that's not necessarily true okay good just make sure you make sure you, what was the perfect man? Did you write about that one? So here's the thing. I need you on my bad movie corner every once in a while. What the paper doesn't yet know. I mean, we, cause we haven't really discussed

exactly what it is I'm going to do, but you know, those are things that, that Tony Scott, A.O. Scott and Manila Dargis, they, I mean, those are movies they probably would review but in a given week if you've got like the walk and the martian and free held and you know if you've got a movie with julianne moore and ellen page plus matt damon plus you know that robert zemeckis movie are you really gonna break your neck to write about, you know, some trashy, you know, you in danger girl kind of thing?

You're going to get the bad movie scraps. I think I want, but those are scraps I would love to have. I want you to have them too. Those are like, I built my career, well, not built my career on those scraps, but you know, I enjoy, I enjoy fast seven. You should ask for Fast 8 right now. I mean, there'll be things that- Tell A.O. Scott to hand over Fast 8.

He kind of loves those movies. Does he? Yeah. Did you read some of the Vin Diesel stuff, by the way? No. Hollywood Reporter had a whole thing about, they're not sure if Fast 8's going to happen because Vin Diesel was so difficult on the set of Fast 7.

He still liked that? Demanding last minute rewrites and stuff. Well, I mean, if they provided that scene where they go to Saudi Arabia or Dubai or wherever it is, I'm all for it. I don't know what the rewrites got him. So I got it on iTunes when it came on. You know, it comes like two weeks early before pay-per-view.

So I got it. My kids were all fired up because their favorite song is that Wiz Khalifa song. Oh, geez. And that was the song kids kids are suckers people love that song so all summer they would sing the wiz khalifa song i actually put it on on facebook for friends family only but like my kids singing that song because they just loved it the whole thing it's so they watched that whole movie waiting for the song and i was like i was like it's coming at the end but we got to watch the whole movie i'm not fast forwarding to the song so they just sat there and they watched it and when vin diesel drove the car through the two

glass buildings in dubai both of them were like wait that can't happen right i was like no no this is you gotta suspend some blue and the car's dropping out of the planes and then just landing and driving and they like they actually really liked it i just you're not gonna see very much that's as enjoyably ridiculous as that i mean i i i just haven't i've seen very little that makes me as happy as that sequence baby i miss paul walker and i even watched into the blue last week out of respect for him yeah that is that is that sequence maybe i miss paul walker and i even watched into the blue last week out of respect for him yeah that is that is that's a pretty good movie move your mic toward me like to like this way yeah move it like that yeah okay yeah um yeah i watched paul walker's one of those

i wish i could have told paul walker i appreciated him in the moment he really was this generation's keanu reeves he he had something else that was i mean he had that what was that mobster movie he had where it was like in the 2006-7 range he's got he had to save his son or something it'll come whatever that movie oh wait oh i don't know what that is i'll find it keep talking and i'll find it it's not the thing that i it's not the the not uh not no it's not called no way out it's the hockey movie it's the called No Way Out. It's the hockey movie it's the one where the money shot is him on

ice with a hockey puck flying toward his face that now I'm not going to remember the name of. That was the money shot of that movie? That's the money shot of the movie. I thought he was good in The Skulls. He was not good in The Skulls. With all due respect to Paul Walker. No, but Into the Blue

I think he's... Running Scared? Running Scared. Running Scared's a solid movie. That's a solid movie. Vera Farmiga is the star of that movie, though. Vera Farmiga had a nice run. So I've been watching...

The Departed's been on a lot. Has it? A lot. Interesting. Well, you know I surf cable channels. I'm not ready for... You're one of the last. I know, I'm not ready to cost cut. You know what? Give lot. Interesting. Well, you know I surf cable channels. I'm not ready for- You're one of the last. I know.

I'm not ready to cost cut. You know what? Give me more channels. Give me more movie channels. Wait, there's Epic 7? Okay, great. So you stop on some of these too. So The Departed, which you can jump in really at any time.

It's like two and a half hours. It is, that movie's loaded with people. That's gotta be way up there on the loaded with talent scale for a thing it's just about everybody a moment yeah everybody's got everybody gets run like martin sheen is like the 11th most famous actor in that movie yeah but uh i'm just not good with nicholson's performance it's it's aged terribly he's terrible in it and he really hurts the movie and it hurts me to say that. Well, for one thing, you just don't believe.

Well, I'm torn about that. No, he hurts the movie. I'm telling you. No, I agree with you. I was just thinking about whether I just never believed in his menace. Do you know what I mean? I never believed that he would do any of the things that... I never believed that the hold he had over these guys was as strong as the movie needed you to believe it was.

Did you believe in a Boston mobster at a New York accent? that the hold he had over these guys was as strong as the movie needed you to believe it was did you believe in a boston mobster at a new york accent i didn't believe anything about i didn't believe anything about the performance the performance i don't believe any of that and then leo's boston accent which was a little like his blood diamond south african accent which just kind of came and went depending on the scene the director's like leo you forgot to do the boston accent in this scene oh yeah my bad i'm sorry dude the jfk accent but but he's the kind of actor and there there aren't many actors like this but but dicaprio you and i've had many conversations about him yeah he is the kind of actor who's so good that his shaky any shaky accent he has you overlook you just overlook it because he's giving you, like, everything is in those eyes.

And if his eyes are kind of like, you know, sizzling, then you're good. You know what it is? It's you root for him. And there's not a lot of actors where whatever the situation is, you root for him. And this is the secret to Cruise's 35-year run. Right, yes. For whatever reason, I'm rooting for Tom Cruise. I don't know that I'm always rooting for dicaprio but he fascinates me like i i mean in in um django and chain for

instance he plays you know calvin candy the plantation owner he only shows up with there's what 40 minutes left in the movie when he shows up um he's really riveting also because he takes this heel turn. And that version of this actor is really compelling too. And the thing about that movie is his accent is pretty bad there. And you don't care. Because it's like a cartoon bad. It's an accent meant to signify evil. And so what you hear when you hear this bad Southern accent is, no, this guy is just jango as a cable movie hasn't made it for me really yeah it's not like oh i'm flipping

channels i'm gonna watch this jango scene you just tarantino movies great movie i don't want to re-watch it i don't think i mean i don't feel that way about tarantino movies you really have to be there from the beginning to get i mean there's movies in the weird way what pulp has moments where you just like oh it's this scene's coming up i'm gonna stick yeah but you also feel be there from the beginning to get i mean there's movies in the weird way what pulp has moments where you're just like oh it's this scene's coming up i'm gonna stick yeah but you also feel that movie's building towards something tarantino's a really good builder yeah and i feel like the one movie that didn't really build for me but you know works in its way but you can really take out the scenes um even though there's sort of narrative momentum there isn't for me a kind of momentum of energies and glorious bastards yeah which is a collection of really great set pieces

um but not a lot of of sort of forward momentum yeah um even though it's sort of it is officially building toward that climax in the movie theater um i don't know his movies uh if i encounter them on tv jackie brown is the only one um that i'll stick with for interesting because i feel like there's a lot going on in that movie i don't remember if we've talked about that movie but that was one of my three most exciting movie going to the theater experiences really jackie brown i was dating a girl in in New York and the weekend it came out, she got tickets at whatever the coolest theater in New York City is to see a movie,

to an actual movie. Or one of them, whatever the one in the neighborhood. It was just like, it was an old school, awesome theater. The Ziegfeld? I don't remember. Okay. I mean, that seems a little not, okay, go on.

I don't really, I'm trying to think of what that theater would be. She might have sold me a false bill of goods no by the way i'm not dating anymore were you impressed by the theater it felt like a cool theater it felt like a theater to see a big movie and there was a real energy before the movie he could have been a ziegfeld he could actually feel it in the theater it was all like real movie people it wasn't like just jackasses on a date it was like people like tarantino is now presenting us his next masterpiece because remember how hot he was was it enormous was the theater enormous wasn't

enormous but it was big probably not the zigzag i don't know so i had that and then i saw um uh one of maybe kings of new york 2002 2003 2003. Oh, man. Man Theater. Chinese Man Theater in LA. It was right after I moved here. It was like the first night it came out. I was like, going to the man. I was seeing Kings of New York. Kings of New York?

It was Leo and it was Scorsese. Oh, Gangs of New York. Gangs of New York. Oh, Kings of New York. Yeah, I got it wrong. Okay. I'm old. Gangs of New York is, okay.

Yeah, that was like our Daniel Day-Lewis, Leo. Yeah, no, no, no. And there was also a real energy for that one too. And then the third one for me was 48 Hours in Stanford, Connecticut. What happened then? Were you just like raring to go for that? I was a minority in the movie theater, which made me so happy. And there was an energy in that movie too.

And you were in on Eddie at that point. I was all the way in to, he was like my hero. It's him and Larry Bird. So yeah, that movie. Those were my three best, what were your three best movie theater experiences? Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction where? I have to remember where you saw it.

I saw it at the Milford 10 or Milford something in New Haven, Connecticut or Milford, Connecticut. But energy in the theater. I was in college. We had all piled into my friend Jonathan Klein's VW bus. Yeah. There were like 15 of us. We got in and there were two carloads. We all went.

We sat. I think we all sat together. And the moment when Tim Roth and Amanda Plumber jump up on the table and hold the robbery but it wasn't that it was when she says you know get down you motherfucker and he freezes the screen yeah the theater erupted whoa i mean we just cheered. And then Travolta dies. Everybody is shocked. I'm sorry if you haven't seen Pulp Fiction. Spoiler alert. It's been 25

years. There's some 19 year old that's pissed off right now. Sorry. It's been 21 years. There's no spoiler alerts with Pulp Fiction. So Travolta dies halfway through and then at some point you're just completely disoriented time-wise. You don't exactly know what's going on.

And that's, he doesn't get credit for that. Right. No, I mean, nobody had messed with a movie like that. It was disorienting. You also,

I mean, I'm sure some, someone has sort of unpacked and, and sort of reoriented the chronology of that movie, but I've seen that movie about 20 times i still don't know what the actual order is do you know what i mean i don't know what the sequence of events actually is but that's interesting so like if you took the eight jigsaw puzzle pieces how would you arrange them i wouldn't i wouldn't know how to soul train scramble board pulp fiction but soul train scramble board when Soul Train Scramble Board Pulp Fiction. Soul Train Scramble Board. When they got, and this for me was the height

of how awesome that movie going experience was for me. When there's, I think there's an establishing shot of the diner that opens the movie. Yeah. And you see that diner. At the end. At the end. The theater went crazy.

Because it was an out of order puzzle piece but it was the last piece yeah and it meant travolta lived and it meant that they're gonna solve they're gonna deal with this robbery situation and it just was it was so exciting and if i was what 18 or 19 when that movie came out i just had never i never experienced anything like that before i was such i just started watching these french gangster movies right which have a similar energy but they don't have it's just a different thing he's seen those movies tarantino and he's responding to them in some ways but i had never seen anything like like like pulp fiction before that was such an exciting like two year stretch

for movies yeah it really was a nice run of just because I remember the next year Heat came out which I saw in Somerville at the Lowe's Theater at like whenever that first afternoon matinee was and it was like that one I don't remember where I saw it I'm sure I saw it in Yale

but it was De Niro versus Pacino and that still really mattered which is one of the things I want to talk to you about but it was like oh my god they're in the same movie and they they ran the ads perfectly and they made it seem like they were in every scene together and they weren't they were in the one no that was a real that was a real but when they sat down in the diner it was like you could heard a pin drop because first of all it was sold out like three o'clock matinee on friday but they get they sit down they're staring at each other everybody was like oh my god it's it's on it's happening freaking exciting i i know i saw that in connecticut i probably saw it at the exact same movie theater and i saw it at night but nighttime in term when you ask me what the what the movies

are that i remember being like the the things that leap immediately to my to the front of my brain uh it's that uh it's pulp fiction um the other it's the other tarantino movie tarantino is really good for this um it's uh it's death proof i mean i watched all of grindhouse i like the rodriguez half fine it's i think that's the best thing he's ever done the the trailers in the middle i mean the theater was maybe like a quarter full but i went with about six friends and i just laughed the whole time during death proof because you just you didn't know where it was going but when those women high five each other at the end of that movie and he freezes the he freezes's the image of them in the air high fiving. It was just, it was amazing.

I leapt out of the chair and said, yes! And I rarely, I rarely have that. I had a couple of random ones. I used to, you know, I went to Holy Cross in Worcester. So I would drive up to go see the Celtics because my dad had tickets. So it was a 45-minute drive. And to beat the traffic, I would go early and I would go see a movie. And they had that movie in the movie theater on the BU campus that would have some of the artsy-fartsy movies.

And I saw Henry Portrait of a Cereal Girl there with Michael Rooker at like 4 o'clock. And it was me and like seven other guys by themselves just spread around the theater and that was scarier than the movie like the whole time I'm glancing left and right like is this the part where I get stabbed with a Twizzler um I didn't know that was interesting that was a good one um Michael Rooker Blair Witch people forget this and it's the last time it'll ever happen because the internet will ruin anything like this ever again yeah but blair witch the weekend it came out as insane as this sounds people actually thought it was real oh that was a real thing i did and in the movie theater i would say i saw it in kendall square in cambridge i would say 90 of the people thought

it was real and at the end when she sees the guy turned in the corner spoiler alert and then something happens and the movie's over people were like we gotta do something we have to call the police there's been a murder nobody knew it was fake i i watched that stupid back then i think that's i think i might have seen it was the only movie i watched that with roger ebert it was just roger ebert what a name drop that was it was we were alone i think we were pretty much alone in a chicago movie theater did he know you weren't cisco he was he was he was happy i was okay good he was he was really great to me um he we watched it and i i sat there kind of like not knowing what to do because i you know he when after siskel died

he had that rotating cast of people come on and and guest host the show with him right um and i was one of the guest hosts and i don't remember whether is that on the internet apparently somebody just somebody just a month ago i watched you i'm gonna look for that i watched you talk to i did i remember the movies i did for some of them like we i did it twice i did six cents south park mystery men um we had a really good south park fight apparently i mean i remember thinking what i'm south park bigger badder about whatever that uh so we're talking like cut yep late 90s then yeah so this is 99 december 99 is when i went on i think we might have done blake witch but i don't really remember

but i remembered like sitting in my seat after really uncomfortable and not knowing whether to say to say to roger ebert was that real i just didn't ask you didn't want his disdain i didn't ask and it wasn't a it wasn't a time where you could really i mean i just didn't know what to do with that experience i was just so freaked out by it um hey wesley yes speaking of going to theaters and sporting events and places where they have seats. Yeah. When you shop on SeatGeek.com, you can check out virtually every ticket option available for any sporting event. It's all on one page. They have a great feature called Deal Score that ranks every ticket on the market with a 1 to 100 value score.

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Back to movies. You're really good at that, by the way. No, I'm not good at that yet. I'll be good at it eventually. Nobody's truly good at it, but you're good. You're really good. Chris Ryan is also pretty good. Well, you know, part of a competitive bill

likes having the sponsors because ESPN told me for eight years that they couldn't find sponsors for the podcast. And I'm like, well, I know that's not true because my friend Carolla has a ton of sponsors and generates a ton of revenue from his podcast. And I'm like, well, I know that's not true because my friend Corolla has a ton of sponsors and generates a ton of revenue from his podcast. And you're telling me that you can't and you have a much bigger ad sales team

than Adam Corolla. It just doesn't add up. So I like having the sponsors. And I like generating income on a podcast because I was told repeatedly for years and years and years that this wasn't a possible universe. Who is telling you that? People that don't know jack shit. I mean, that's insane.

Most of the people there. Hey, let's talk about Pacino and De Niro. Because De Niro, you wrote about the Nancy Meyers movie. Yes, which is not bad. By her standards, I actually like it. Nancy Meyers making a woman between 40 and 85 really happy with every movie.

That's her legacy. She doesn't quite get enough credit for the importance that she has in a certain moviegoer's life. I find her movies appalling. Well well here's the thing

with her and this is a good thing to remember just with anybody like who is her competition now nobody like she she owns whatever corner that is that i know you don't like but obviously people like the corner you respect the corner you don't respect the movies on the corner. I think she's so... I don't think she's not... She's in touch with women of a certain age who have certain interests. But this is a woman who in 2015 sets a movie in Brooklyn featuring no people of color.

There's one receptionist and the back of some heads at a desk they don't have people in color with color in brooklyn yeah no i mean i don't know what i am i i just thought it was just white hipsters there's it's there's minorities in brooklyn what it's funny there aren't even any hipsters in her movie it's just like it's gabe caplan it's like a bunch of it's just like you know she runs a fashion company or you know uh uh internet shopping company basically um and you know the thing sounds good that didn't bug me so much that didn't bother me because at some point you know you throw a rock you're going to hit a movie that that has something that is just kind of consciously

out to remove the people who live. I mean, there's so much whitewashing that goes on in movies anyway. So I just didn't really feel like that was something to attack her for. I did find there's some things that are interesting in this movie. One of them is De Niro. The only thing really is De Niro. But the other thing is that how on earth does this work? She's got a movie full of women

but the only competent person in the film who can tell everybody what to do is 70 year old Robert De Niro. All the other women in the movie are nincompoops. I want to talk about De Niro but I'm officially worried about Anne Hathaway's career. Really? Yeah.

Why? I'm worried about it. She's fine. But go on. I don't think she's fine. I don't think she's fine. What do you need her to be doing? All right. Devil Wears Prada, which is an amazingly rewatchable cable movie.

Yes. You can watch it anytime. Has great looking woman. My wife will watch it anytime it's on. Meryl Streep. Peak Meryl Streep. I would. A top four. Second wave Meryleryl streep top four or five performance from her yes ever it's somewhere in the mount rushmore you love this movie so much that we have discussed we've discussed it in the

past yes she's great in that all right here's her next movies becoming jane get smart okay rachel getty married was fantastic i mean her performance performance is really good flawed movie but she's fantastic yes passengers bride wars oh oh valentine's day pause bride wars was reprehensible you know you know how in a in a in any sporting event when something out of the ordinary happens and it's just so jarring, and you're like, that play is going to decide this game. Yeah. Or that point's going to decide this game. Keep talking while I fix your mic.

Oh, did it fall again? Anyway, Bride Wars, if we're going to decide that Anne Hathaway is in trouble, I'm going to say it's because she, despite having won an Oscar for Les Mis, it's going to be Bride Wars that is responsible for... It's going to be Bride Wars that is the thing that, in my brain, I'm going to have a hard time getting past.

All right, I forgot about that one. That is the worst movie. That is the single most atrocious thing that two good women could have done. Two good female actresses. Yeah. And it is the worst of its kind for that sort of thing. It's a parody of a rom-com that's actually not a parody.

They're really trying. Exactly. Valentine's Day, Alice in Wonderland, Love and Other Drugs, One Day. Admirable effort with One Day, but it didn't really work. She's really good in Love and Other Drugs. Yeah. She's really, really good in that. It's a weird movie, and I don't know why they made it. I don't know why either, but she

is really good, and Jake Gyllenhaal never has chemistry with women. These two. No, I mean, in movies. He just doesn't. When they put him and a woman together, it just doesn't work. It doesn't work for me.

But the two of them are so good together in that movie. And the quote sex they have is hot enough. But then the movie turns cheap and it, you know, what's special about it sort of starts to die. Dark Knight Rises, Les Mis, Don John, Song one um interstellar um the intern okay listen so so i would say that's a c minus for what her c minus what her potential is as an actor um one of those movies i think she's also really good in well lame is i you know lame is she's good i like listening to people fight about i have no defense of her in that movie I think

it worked for me but one of those movies I think is really good which one and she's good I don't remember now which one it is it's the one before

or after she's only in that for like a second Interstellar she's good in that movie she's pretty good in Interstellar okay so I think

what I'm hearing you say because this is also true in The Intern where really it's De Niro's movie. And she has one good scene on a bed with him that is the best scene in the movie. And you're kind of wondering why is it taking so long for her to get some traction on this part. I think partly it's because Nancy Meyers wasn't interested in that character.

She only cared about the De Niro character. Yeah. But I also think that Anne Hathaway, I don't think she's selfish. And you can see that by looking at all those movies. Not one of those movies is she really the star of the film. So now you're veering into my Jerry Maguire theory. Which is what? Which is one of the reasons Jerry Maguire worked was because Tom Cruise had spent the last seven years

not being Tom Cruise. And every once in a while, you have to be who you are in a movie and just be like, oh, I love Tom Cruise. Jerry Maguire, he's just being Tom Cruise for two hours. Anne Hathaway needs a movie where she's Anne Hathaway. It's like, stop with your weird haircuts and you're an astronaut and you're singing in musicals.

Just do a movie where you're some girl in her late 20s who has some sort of crisis. Be Anne Hathaway for two hours. This is really an interesting question because when you say that, I actually don't know what the answer is, though. So you're saying there is no Anne Hathaway? I don't know who Anne Hathaway is in that sense I think she's in a really interesting position right she is a good actress and she's kind of I mean in the movies I mean she's kind of a movie star none of the parts she has taken has none of those parts is really capitalized on either of those the total package so she so devil wears

pride i think did for young ann hathaway yes and rachel rachel's getting married um which she's train wrecking hathaway but it's still really good and she owns the movie but she doesn't own i think rosemary dewitt is the best thing she's really good rosemary dewitt before she was sentenced to a life of mumblecore movies right right I mean in girlfriend parts in wives yeah Rosemary DeWitt is so good in that movie

that it I cannot believe that anybody filling out an Oscar ballot is like Anne Hathaway I'm just not gonna bother with Rosemary DeWitt

like that was bizarre that was just strange and she deserved it because now her whole career is playing the wife or girlfriend

of somebody who couldn't get an erection last night. What's going on with you? I don't even know. What's going on? We need to talk. It's so true. How many movies can you make where your boyfriend or husband can't get it up? Have you written a part about impotence and you need a wife to play the role?

By all means, let me introduce you to Rosemarie DeWitt. She's mastered the face of, is it my fault? Is he gay? Is he like, what's going on here? I've always had sex. She's one of those actors who you know is great. Yeah. And you're waiting for the proof of the greatness.

Well, you know what it's gonna it's gonna end up being it's gonna be on like some cbs medical drama this is crazy speaking of which the another great actress dying on a cbs medical hearted louis guzman but marsha gay harden is is given the single best supporting performance in any movie I've seen this year. Bad News Bears? In Grandma. In Grandma. This year.

In Grandma. She has like three scenes and she's so good in them. Taking a part that another actress would have turned into a Gorgon and does really interesting, funny. So like Heat Check Theory. Remember we always said the Heat Check thing? Yes, yes, yes. About like she came in. She played like 15 minutes and scored 20 points and went 10 for 10 hit some threes like or maybe 24 points she's on fire three steals yeah i mean that movie's kind

of hit did you see it no but i got the dvd because uh i finally uh joined the producers guild in time to get all the ds for this year. And it is going to be a smorgasbord. I'm done with movie theaters. You're going to put a movie on each TV in the studio? I'm just going to eat these movies up. I can't wait. If you're filling out an Oscar ballot this year, I'd never do this.

But Marcia Gay Harden is so good. I mean, this is what she does. That's the other thing. The thing about Marcia Gay Harden, it annoys me about this medical drama show that I haven't even really watched very much of. What's it called? Code Black. Code Black. Also, how are you going to have a

show called Code Black and not have any black people on it? I don't... What? Wow, that's semantics. Eric LaSalle couldn't do it. They didn't have any other choices. Wait, Omar Epps is choices when I lived in New York I mean I live in New York I live in New York and whenever I get on the train you see ads for things

when the Blacklist started its promotion for its second season they had James Spader on the cover of all these magazines not one of them was Jet or Ebony or Essence I'm like throw me a bone it's the blacklist find a black magazine to put them on the source well code black is like

it probably like what they ended up with with code black would have been my seventh choice for that title right right code black would have easily he could have been a tnt, he could have been a TNT lawyer. It could have been a Shonda Rhimes show. Code Black. That could have been Morris Chestnut's show, not Rosewood. From creator Shonda Rhimes, Code Black. It's like, I don't know what this is, but people are going to watch it. But it could have gone in so many ways. Marsha Gay Harden, the scene she has in Grandma, let her do what she does so well.

And this is why you have walk-ons basically this is what you have these supporting parts for to populate them with actors who know what to do with them have you have you thought about the only reason i'm thinking about this because marcia gay hard and she was in the bad news bears remake which is so far inferior to the bad news bears movie that i watch with my kids, which is so- Low point for Linkletter. Right. But the original movie in 1976 is so politically incorrect. I watch it with my kids, think it would be a good idea.

And it was like, oh, actually, this is one of the worst ideas I've had as a dad. Have you ever thought of writing about that era from like 74 to 83 and all these movies that I loved and you probably loved or one of us loved and then you rewatch them and you're like, oh no. Like Longest Yard starts with Burt Reynolds punching his girlfriend in the face and he goes to jail. He punches her in the face and goes to jail and it's like, all right, I'm getting behind Burt. It's classic Burt Reynolds, though. 48 Hours, which is my favorite movie of all time, is now officially too racist. Like, I get uncomfortable. Jack Cates is an irredeemable racist.

But doesn't he get comeuppance in that movie, though? He does. But as we go through the journey where he's being an a-hole to get to the point where it's going to flip and he's going to accept Reggie Hammond, everything about it is totally racist. And I'm embarrassed that it's my favorite movie. But I stand by it because I love Eddie Murphy and he was a star. I have not seen that movie in 20 years. I'll have to go back and watch it. That's Eddie's star movie.

I mean, it might even be longer than 20 years. I haven't seen it in a long time. When he goes into the bar, it's still the number one star making performance that's happened in the last 35 years. I remember that moment. There's never been a scene in a movie. Well, maybe I'd have to watch

the Heath Ledger Batman movie again because he had a couple scenes in there where you're like, oh my God. Right. This guy's like, this something's... Yeah, I mean... You know what I mean? Well, talk about a heat check. You know those moments where you're like... Or like a i mean you know what i'm talking about you know

those moments like a moment in a movie right you're like oh my god this guy's amazing or this girl's amazing yeah moments okay so here's the thing about anne hathaway yeah anne hathaway doesn't i can't recall her having a moment like a moment like that. I mean, I think some people might argue that that that that that Les Mis that one song in Les Mis was such a thing. But at that point, like, here's a good example. Julia Roberts. Julia Roberts won't take a part, I'm guessing, unless there's some moment where she can do the thing she does better than anybody else which is throw a tantrum like dressing down somebody nobody in the history of movies maybe shirley mclean but really she only did that like one time and it was the best dressing down in the history of movies yeah julia roberts

every single performance has a moment where she has to assert dominance over whoever's in the scene, whether it's physical or moral or from the standpoint of etiquette. Like the scene in Pretty Woman where she goes back into the store and is like, you've made a huge mistake. So somebody's getting dressed down. She's dressing somebody down. She is always going to have the moral upper hand in whatever movie she makes. And that moral upper hand usually involves her being out of her mind, pissed. Right. So that's her move.

You're saying that's her move. That's her trick pitch. Nobody has a move. I mean, nobody has that move the way she has that move. Cruise's move. Well, Cruise had a lot a lot of he's got a lot of moves but his one of his best moves sorry tom cruise had all the right moves sorry what his best moves is the look away it's dawning on him yeah during the headlights look yeah which he mastered i also love the the Tom Cruise try not to cry face is one of my favorites.

Which he's mastered in a lot of different movies. Yeah. That's the greatest YouTube clip that no YouTube montage nobody's made yet. Tom Cruise tries not to cry. He has 15 movies at this point.

Yeah, that's a good one. Even Mission Impossible movies he tries not to cry. Wait, hold on. We have one more sponsor to pay tribute to. Today's show is sponsored by Howl.fm. That's a brand new app and website that gives you free access to new episodes of your favorite podcasts.

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do you have to lose wait we got to talk about denaro really quickly okay well i just want to go back to this hathaway thing oh yeah go back sorry she doesn't have a thing like and all stars have some thing that they can rely on mcconaughey now is a star he can rely on that like that oily swaggery thing that he's got it's over for him it might be it's over it might be but there's gonna be no sandra bullock like long time second act with him bullock has a thing yeah you know i mean it you know what bullock's thing is women like her and men kind of think she's cute yeah no i mean that goes a long way but women like her and that that will carry her into her 70s. She's one of the only stars who didn't have to get old for me to appreciate what I wasn't liking about her when she began to become a thing. Yeah, but when you see young Sandra Bullock in Love Potion No. 9 and Speed and With the While You Were Sleeping, that whole era, really cute.

She's cute, but I just didn't like it. I thought it was like knockoff Julia Roberts. I felt like every part she took was something Julia Roberts said no to. Really? And she was sustaining a genre of movies

that Julia Roberts had just grown out of. I think The Net, Julia Roberts probably literally said no to. I think she probably... They wrote that movie for Julia Roberts.

She said no to While You Were Sleeping. I'm going toie roberts she said no you're not doing this while you were i'm gonna guess i'm gonna bet anything no while you were sleeping no the net no uh miscongeniality i don't think so i think there was a whole bunch of movies for a while where she was just not interested in doing so it was a cousin to your market correction thing that you love or this was almost like the she was getting julie roberts scraps right no scraps is another one scraps is another one and you take enough scraps and eventually you start to get full and you get a little bit of confidence yeah and then you turn into a star like and i think that there is sandra bullock is somebody who i i don't want to discredit

sandra bullock as a star but I think that she might owe her career to just there being so much desperation to get Julia Roberts in your movie and just having too much material I mean that type of movie sustained the careers of at least three women

during that period so De Niro 2015 for De Niro so So De Niro, yes. 2015 for De Niro. So now we're in decade five. Yeah, he's 74 years old. 72 years old. De Niro, Pacino. I did the breakdown of De Niro versus Pacino

on page two in like 2001. It was like dead even. And then I think De Niro, I mean both of them just made terrible movies over the next 10 years. But I think De Niro made less terrible movies over the next 10 years well

just since 2001 oh since 2001 yes it was a bad decade for both of them yes De Niro feels like he's aged a little bit better

and I don't know how much looks has to do with it because Pacino looks like he's got good genes that De Niro he really he's got great genes

yeah and he's had the second life where there's like a little comedy to him now even though i i think we'd all agree there's he would probably be the least funny person to drive cross country with that you could ever drive cross country with ask charles groden oh that's true yeah yeah there you go he made one joke on the train yeah charles girl that was it but uh but i i think he's now winning i think he's well this last act i think has pushed it but and i will say this having seen these sort of

minor movies that pacino's made in the last two years um pacino is still really interested in being an actor and i'm gonna tell you that you've not have you seen danny collins no danny collins is my favorite movie that i wouldn't put on a top 10 list that i last year this year this year he plays this old washed no no oh i know what you're talking about insanely still popular rock star who is kind of like a neil diamond i remember okay here's how good pacino is in this movie um he's got a hit song that everybody wants him to sing and he just is taking a break because he's boozed out he's drugged out he's you know his his 15th wife or whatever is she found he finds her cheating on him with some guy in the bathroom so he he like leaves hollywood goes to somewhere east i i want to say it's connecticut or

or somewhere east holds up in a hotel to visit his estranged son who's married to bobby cannavale who's married to jennifer garner and they've got a daughter who's really cute I think her name is Faith I can't remember I can't believe I remember the name he bonds with the two of them with Garner and Cannavale and the grandkid

and has this really great flirtation going with Annette Bening who's the manager at the hotel this movie is so small potatoes and in it's being small potatoes is so good it's a movie that would have come out in 1990 and it would have been

it would have been nominated for Oscars because it's just that kind of movie it's not great but it's really special and Pacino is like it's the best thing he's done in 20 years so you think De Niro versus Pacino might be a little closer it's way closer because I mean De Niro's doing the commercial stuff De Niro's in the hits he's making the movies that like have billboards all

over the place but I'm gonna say that Danny Collins is the best thing Pacino's done since Donnie Brasco. So maybe not 20 years. But it's my favorite of this sort of back end of his career. He's also about to do a mammoth show for, I think he's doing 16 weeks or 12 weeks or something in New York. I mean, I think this is a guy who's still really interested in acting. But the great thing about Danny Collins to me is he's a movie star in that movie. I mean, oh, my point about the song is I remember it. His singing of that song.

And I think he doesn't even sing it. It's just, hey, Danny boy. That's all he says. And he just like throws his arms out but there's something about his understanding of how to play a very famous person the charisma the like easy way with strangers that he has um you just believe this guy in this movie and he's so much more interesting to me in some ways now than he was in that dead period where he was doing things that like like um like revolution right and sea of love which is a fine movie but he's not the reason that movie works it's her and the suspense um i don't know i i mean if you haven't seen danny collins you should see it

it's great quickly because we gotta go okay favorite movies of the year so far oh results results did you see that no result is really good um magic mike xxl is you love that one is the best time i've had a movie this year um there's a movie coming out early next year called crecia which might come out at the end of the year it's unclear i think that's fantastic um tangerine this movie about these two transsexual prostitutes in los angeles like chasing down one of the women's boyfriends um i'm trying to think they're so i mean it's been a it's been a really good i like woman in gold that helen mirren ryan reynolds movie i think there's so I mean it's been a it's been a really good I like Woman in Gold that Helen Mirren

Ryan Reynolds movie I think that's really good Mississippi Grind have you seen everything there's still some stuff coming out you haven't seen right and Ryan Reynolds is really good there's still stuff coming out

I heard Mississippi Grind Mississippi Grind is really wonderful it's got those two and Creed's gonna win all the Oscars you think really you know what I'm excited to see I'm the most excited for it

Crimson Peak oh I'm really curious about this movie. I love Del Toro. Yeah. I think this movie looks really weird in a great way. And I think there's something about it that we don't quite know. I like the Mission Impossible movie a lot.

I mean, that never gets old. What's the Oscar favorite for best movie right now? Is there one? I don't know what it is. I mean, I honestly don't know what it is i mean i honestly don't know and there there isn't a clear thing i think that that truth movie with the robert redford and uh kate blanchett is people are kind of talking about that the martian the walk i mean none of these things is really i don't know this might be another this might be another

interesting year where something where because there isn't something that seems engineered for oscars like bridge of spies i guess that that could be that sort of movie but i was getting my my end of the podcast i was listening to you the whole time i was just getting my end of the podcast thing ready bring it so you know how much i love talented mr ripley oh yeah it's great time a how's the peeping how's the peeping how's the peeping tommy so that was on last night i think damon's a really interesting actor he's he's great that mr ripley part and how he played it and all the weird mannerisms he had and how creepy and just everything he was in that movie has nothing in common with any other performance he's done and i don't think you can say that about a lot of a-list actors i mean brad

pitts had a couple of those um were just like even like true romance or um inglorious bastards nobody you know what i mean like matt damon as it turns out but that's like the most it's it's just when the whole damon legacy because he can be the martian matt damon right he's just a hero he's trying to save stuff he's trying to do whatever but he's actually acting and creating this character he's creating all these mannerisms it's i think that's the most interesting performance he's done i think he's the most underrated movie star who is a really good actor in the movies. I agree. We all agree.

That's why I brought her up. Right. But I got to say, now you got me watching, you have me watching Project Greenlight. It was a rough first episode. I don't know what to do. I don't think the editing helped him.

I'm a little bit in crisis because here's a person it was it was a rough first episode i don't know i don't think the editing helped him i'm i'm a little bit in crisis because here's a person who i have i have i really think is the like probably the best at what he does yeah for a certain kind of thing i mean the informant yeah i mean he the informant is so you were troubled by his comments. Can I defend him because he's a Boston guy and I love Matt Damon? No, because I'm a Boston guy and I love Matt Damon too. Can I defend him because I watched Super Bowl XLIX with him? Go on.

I mean, I don't have a card for that one, so go on. I don't think the editing helped him. But I think I know what the point he was trying to make i just think i know i know the point was it's a contest and we can't change the rules now this is a conversation we should have had earlier in the as we were figuring out who to pick he just came off terribly he he did it wrong he did it wrong i did it wrong he was not wrong his point wasn't wrong his manner was wrong and the wrongness of his manner like really i'm very attuned to these things because people talk to me that's why i wanted you to watch it all the time and hearing him say that to her oh just wait a second what do you mean people talk to you about i mean talk to you that way all the time i i get that sort of um oh like the brush you off no no this isn't about race shut up

you don't know what you're talking about like you can't tell me right don't you can't tell me what what that is so basically don't tell a black person that they're perceiving a situation involving a black issue a certain that they're wrong about that. Right. I get it. And, you know, I know what he's thinking, too. Like, I know I know where his brain probably is in that moment, but he needs to just let it go and accept the fact that he did something that upset somebody in a very specific way.

And it's not up to you to tell the person that you didn't mean it that way. That's how it is. That's what I'm hearing. Right. And that's how it is that's what i'm hearing right and that's the dog whistle that gets triggered i don't know that moment was really amazing to me um i'm not the show's not that great but it is totally fascinating so there's been three fascinating i'm not saying this just because uh and i'm watching it only because of you well and i would have liked the show anyway i mean obviously i have a i'm gonna do a show for hbo next spring and right um that's kind of my team now but i've always liked the project green

light franchise the last season wasn't that good but this season um they picked a guy i don't know if they picked him intentionally but he's the most entitled disaster i mean he's a disaster he's great effie's a good reality character mark joe bear my old friend from way back when he's great Effie's a good reality character Mark Jobert my old friend from way back when he's a good reality character Damon and Affleck come in and out like it's a good show

it's a good show and it I mean if you're interested in how your mediocre to bad movies get made

this is a really I mean because you know what making a movie is a miracle I am very interested in how mediocre to bad movies

get made right I mean Effie's like I've done 17 low budget movies it's like, I've done 17 low-budget movies. I've heard of two of them. Congratulations, Effie. I love Effie. I love Effie.

I love her on this show. I've never met her. I told you I have a non-sexual crush on her. Really? Yeah, I just want to have coffee with her. No, she seems like a wonderful person. You know who my all-time non-sexual crush was? And she's really beloved among the people in that in that world who's your all-time non-sexual crush

all time someone you just want to hang out with wasn't romantic at all there's two there's a lot i mean you know this is gonna put you in an awkward position um yeah you look you have that i feel awkward enough to be famous let Let's just stick with famous people. Famous people, yeah. It's Joe Fuentes, isn't it? Oh my God. Joe Fuentes is a person I could hang out with all the time. No, I know. So pick a famous person.

I mean, can I be honest with you? Yeah. It probably, it used to be Matt Damon. Oh no, we have a lot of healing. But I'll pick someone else. I mean, a lot of people I just don't want to meet and I'm Anne Hathaway is a really good example of somebody who and this is maybe the reason she doesn't work in movies that well I would love to hang out with Anne Hathaway I would love to just sort of spend like an evening at a dinner party with Anne Hathaway not not even talking to her, just

being in the middle in a conversation with her because she seems smart. She seems interesting and she seems to have a personality that exists beyond what goes on in this town. So this is embarrassing. Okay. My all time. I mean, I've had a million non-sexual crushes. All I do is have crushes.

You have a lot of crushes. My wife's fine with it. Some of them bring tears to your eyes. Well, Michelle Pfeiffer. Michelle Pfeiffer. Yeah, there was one. I was just watching her ride on the piano in the Baker Boys. She's so good in that movie.

She's great in that movie. God bless Michelle Pfeiffer. Why don't Anne Hathaway is Fabulous Baker Boys? Oh my God. There you go. That's what she needs to do. That's the part she needs. Anne Hathaway,... Fabulous Big Bus. Oh my God. There you go. That's what she needs to do. That's the part she needs. Anne Hathaway, get a musical going.

I was telling somebody younger than me, I can't remember who, to see that movie. They hadn't seen it. It was a female. It was somebody I'm friends with. And I was like, well, it's Michelle Pfeiffer's best movie,

so start there. But I was like... Well, Batman Returns is her our best performance just her highest per yeah i think so um but i was like uh do you like do you like characters good looking guys that never really achieved their destiny and now they're just smoking cigarettes and playing the piano in lounges and they because bo is tortured by love yeah well jeff bridges yeah no they're both really I think that movie's kind of endured

does it matter? not yet but 1989 feels dated but that movie's not dated anyway here's my non-sexual crush what? about 1994 range Janine Garofalo I was in Boston

I was always like this was before she went off the triple deep end Janine Garofalo. Oh. I was in Boston. I was always like, that's a great one. This was before she went off the triple deep end. Yes. But she's on Sanders. She's sarcastic. She's in Reality Bites.

Her standup was really good then. Her standup was great. She was so good. She did that chameleon routine. And I was just like, this is the female friend I've always wanted. My whole life. I've wanted this friend. I've wanted to go get coffee and smoke cigarettes

and talk about weird shit with this exact person. Janine Garofalo is... That was her appeal, though, too. And that's how the movie's tried to use her. She betrayed it. She didn't want to be that person. I don't know. She got freaked out by that.

Colbert is somebody else I'd like to hang out with. Colbert. Colbert. I don't know. She got freaked out by that. Colbert is somebody else I'd like to hang out with. Colbert. Colbert. I don't know. I think this is why he's going to occupy an interesting space in that late night conversation. Because he's so personable in this version of himself. And he is getting things out of people that nobody else really gets. I think David Green on NPR is the best non-camera, like the best radio interviewer.

And Colbert, I think, is actually, he might be the best TV interviewer. He's really good. I'm excited to challenge the throne in April. I gotta say, and I was talking to somebody about this the other day. I don't think i won't use nudity to my own advantage because it's on hbo i'll be naked the whole time i don't care yeah if i get invited i'll go i'll let the ball sway out a little bit it's hbo put the little bit the brief nudity chiron before the show starts so people are like oh brief nudity what i am i will take my clothes off for you thank you uh what was my point i don't know about oh you it was about you um there's something that happens to my brain and i'm sure that i've talked

to some other people about this there's something about talking to you that is just really pleasurable and it's not because we're friends because we weren't friends when we first started talking the moment when the moment that i decided to take this job i was standing in a vestibule at 30th street station in philadelphia on the way to see my parents and we talked about going to can and we talked about troy acheman and we talked about um what else did we talk about we talked about magic and i was just i got so excited talking to you and i just thought how can i not because i was on the fence about what to do well you were leaving you you i think you had won the pulitzer at that point it was after the working for the boston globe yes and you and we were trying to get you to write for our little ragtag website

no i was already writing for the site i I mean, like really write for it. Like it would be your only job. Right. That conversation and the knowledge that I'd be working with or near Alex was, I mean, that conversation, it just convinced me. I just had such a good time talking to you. And I just thought, I mean, I don't know. There's a chemical thing that i think happens when you talk to some people when you interview them yeah and i love talking to you it's just it's great

you are going to be great thank you you already are great but you're gonna be you're gonna be that show is gonna be really great if your brain is allowed to work the way it works thank you this way well let's try to get through the next 45 seconds without getting emotional. I'm not going to get emotional at all. All right. Yeah, look that way. You don't have to make eye contact with me. I will not look at you.

You've been an awesome friend. You were a huge part of Grandland. Stop! Just read your thing. You were a huge part of Grandland behind the scenes. Is that what you're reading or are you reading an ad?

No, that's not my pre-roll. Read the ad. Thank you. Whatever it is. Thank you for everything. You're welcome. Thank you. I am rooting for you

at the New York Times. You have an open spot on that mic on the phone whatever you want call me up yeah we're good we're always in the same team I'm not crying yeah we're still teammates

we're not in the same team but you're my fucking teammate yeah I swear that's it for the Bill Simmons podcast we got another one coming Joe House we're going to do NFL I'm a still teammate. Yeah, I swear. All right. That's it for the Bill Simmons podcast. We got another one coming. Joe House, we're going to do NFL picks and a whole bunch of stuff. Thank you to Wesley Morris. One last thing. Don't forget my podcast listeners can use promo code BS for the SeatGeek app.

They get a $20 rebate off the first SeatGeek purchase. You count as a podcast listener. That's right, because you're listening to this, so do it. Every ticket purchased on SeatGeek is backed by a 100% guarantee. It's the best way to buy tickets. To redeem your promo code, download the free SeatGeek app and enter promo code BS. And don't forget to go to thebillsimmonspodcast.com because you get all these podcasts here. Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon.