The Bill Simmons Podcast - Paul Thomas Anderson on ‘Licorice Pizza’ and the Beatles Doc, Plus Million-Dollar Picks Week 14 | With Peter Schrager and Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by NFL Network’s Peter Schrager to discuss concerns about the early-season playoffs-contending Rams and Bills, as well as why people are hesitant to believe in the 10-2 Cardinals (3:07). Then they make their Million-Dollar Picks for NFL Week 14 (23:09). Finally Bill is joined by Sean Fennessey to talk to writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson about his new film ‘Licorice Pizza,’ casting the movie, making films during the COVID-19 pandemic, Peter Jackson’s documentary ‘The Beatles: Get Back,’ and much more (55:50). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Paul Thomas Anderson, Sean Fennessey, and Peter Schrager Producers: Kyle Crichton and Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, I made a bunch of appearances on Ringer pods over the last few days, including the Ringer NFL show with Mallory and Nora. I went on Sports Card Nonsense. I went on Larry Wilmore. I went on Dave Chang. And I've been on the rewatchables as well because we did this week, Saturday Night Fever, me and Jimmy Kimmel. So you can check out all those podcasts on the Ringer Podcast Network.

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for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network as well as Ringer Films. Yeah. Put up our fifth Music Box series documentary. It went up on Thursday night on HBO and on HBO Max. It is called Mr. Saturday Night, directed by John Maggio.

It's the story of Robert Stigwood, a content genius, and how he just basically dominated the 70s, leading to him putting together Saturday Fever as basically a pop culture tornado. So there you go. Check it out. You can watch the first five films by the time you're hearing this. You can watch all of them on HBO Max. And then we have Juice WRLD coming up next week. Juice WRLD into the Abyss. That is the sixth and final one of season one of Music Box. Coming up on this podcast, Million Dollar Picks and some discussion about Buffalo and the Rams,

whether we should believe in those two teams or not with Peter Schrager. And then the world's greatest director, Paul Thomas Anderson. He asked to come back. We said yes, because of course we did. Me and Sean Fantasy did a podcast with him four years ago,

which you can go in my archives on Spotify and listen. Um, it was an incredible amount of fun and we were in person for it. We ended up talking a lot, a lot about boogie nights. Cause that's, you know, one of my favorite films of all time. But, um, he has to come back because he has a new movie called licorice pizza, which is incredible. I just loved it. And no surprise because PTA has been just cranking it. Every time he puts out a movie, it just feels like an event. I think there's only a few directors like that, really, the last 20 years. He's unquestionably one of them.

But we brought him on to talk really a deep dive about that movie and then some other stuff, including at the very end, he gives his thoughts about the Beatles film that Chuck Klosterman and I broke down last week on this podcast. So if you haven't seen Licorice Pizza yet, maybe hold the podcast, that part of the podcast, until after you see it. Or you can listen to the whole thing,

not knowing what happens in the movie, or just go to the very end when we talk about the Beatles doc for the last five or six minutes of it. But it was another really fun discussion. Me, Sean, PTA. So that's the second piece of this podcast. It's all coming up next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this. It's Thursday, 5 o'clock Pacific time. We intentionally wanted to wait as close to Viking Steelers as possible to avoid the urge to bet on that, pick it, put the Vikings in anything. I'm done with the Vikings. I don't want to think about them. I don't want to wager on them.

I don't like them. They hurt my feelings last week. They really damaged us last week. They cost us a lot of money, a million dollar picks. But I'm not going to start there, Peter Schrager. Okay, good. Let's start with the Epstein trial. Are you following?

I have. I have been trying. There's multiple sketch artists working on it. Her people there. It's incredible, actually. I didn't think you were following. This is great. I'm big on Epstein.

There's a really good Patreon account that details the day-to-day. There was a Twitter account that got shut down. Did it get shut down? People are saying the FBI shut this down. Oh, man. They brought in the pilot the first day. I was all ears. Let's go.

Flight logs with people crossed off because it was celebrities. It was like, whoa, what's going on here? Crazy. Hey, Epstein trial people, I got you. I'm on this. I'm watching it. I love Derek Thompson and his work on the COVID vaccine and whatnot. I think he needs to get in the Epstein trial. I love these games where we have teams that are either very good, good or pretty good and the

lines are like minus four, minus three, stuff like that. But since the last time I was on, Bill's Patriots. Russell and I talked a bit on Thursday and then there was a narrative after about, does Belichick trust Mac? No. Does he trust him? And now it became

this stupid thing for two days. Any lingering thoughts from that game? What do you think it did to the Buffalo psyche? That's everything. It's the Buffalo side of things. The Patriots, they did what they did. And my colleague on Good Morning Football, Kyle Brandt, said the only thing that would have been more emasculating or something more dominant and more embarrassing is if they just didn't throw the ball once. Like if they just went 0 for 0 and said, we're going to beat you this way. McDermott, his comments afterwards,

Poyer and obviously Hyde afterwards, the way they handled the reporter when he asked if it was embarrassing. And I think Russillo, when I listened to you guys, was like, well, how do you want them to respond? Well, no, I mean, to the lay person at home, that was an embarrassing loss. That's a really embarrassing loss. And it's on the heels of a Indianapolis loss where Jonathan

Taylor still is running and scored another touchdown. The question to me is how do you get off the mat now? Because now there's six days and you're going to play Brady. Brady is 32 and three all time against the Buffalo bills. One of them was a meaningless week 17. One of them was the lawyer Malloy, Sam Adams game. And the other one, Ryan Fitzpatrick beat him early in the season one time. That's it. 32 and three. This could not be a worse matchup for them. They're going into Tampa where they don't lose. And it's like, how do you get off the mat? Because at the end of the day, you could say, well, it wasn't Belichick and our red zone numbers. If we had just popped one of those in there. Fine. All that is good and well, but I don't want to see the smashing tables montage or the you don't want to play up in Buffalo narrative come December and January because it doesn't hold true anymore. Indianapolis did what they wanted to do. And now New England, it was the word emasculating was used. I think that's a little extreme, but I do think it's one of those where you look in the mirror afterwards

and you're like, well, what the hell are we? Well, they're not tough. And, you know, we're at the point of the season now where I went on Mallory and Nora's podcast on Ringer NFL yesterday. And we were talking about this. Like we're at the point of the season now where I need you to bring some things to the table.

I need toughness. I need malleability. I need you to be able to play different styles of games. And those are the teams that advance. Cause once we get to January and February, there's all types of games. You're going to have the cold weather game. You're going to have the dome game. You're going to have the humid game. You just don't know. I, to me, the bills are a really limited team. I was at a, at my daughter's soccer game today. Cause for some reason she had a soccer tournament

that had a Thursday morning game. And one of the parents, Tony, who's a big Bills fan, he's like, we're going to get you back in two weeks and we still think we can win the AFC. And I'm like, I love it. I love that Bills fans think that this was an aberration, it was stupid, and they should have won the three-pass game. They've had one good win all year.

They beat the Chiefs in week three and they can't run the ball. Their running back situation, I would say is below average. They only have one receiver that I'm really scared of. The Patriots took out everybody else in that game. I know there was Wynn. They lost Wade on defense,

who is their best defensive player. And I'm not sure of the toughness standpoint. And I don't think Belichick was sure either, which is why he's ran the ball down their throats. And I'm telling you, I said this on Tuesday. I believe it now. That was not about Mac Jones. That was a, this is the team in our division

that's really good, that has a really good quarterback. And I have to send them a message. This is a message that we are tougher than you guys. And that's what it was. That's why he did it that way. They could have done play action a couple more times. That wasn't the point. Ultimately, he was playing with house money in that game, right?

They could have lost that game, blamed the elements, and beat him in New England. But he was proving a point. And I think that's the most important point in this. And he is the only coach, and Josh McDaniels might be the only offensive coordinator. And you could argue Mac Jones might be the only quarterback in the NFL where they have the equity and the quarterback who is willing to take that coaching.

Like the next day I was, you know, I was talking with a friend in the league and I'm like, you know, and they said, well, Brady would have done the same thing. And like, stop giving that. I'm like, no Brady. I don't think a veteran quarterback says, okay, like, let's go through with this. And I spoke to Eli Manning the next morning, good morning football. And even he was laughing. I was like, well, I don't know. You know, he's a rookie and all that kind of like, it was almost the perfect storm to get away with that. Cause McDaniels and Belichick have all the equity in the building where they're like, here's the game plan and no one's going to question it. And then the quarterback has such little equity against them where he's not going to say, no, wait a second. That's not,

I'd love to at least throw a couple of passes here if it's possible. No, it's everyone agreed with it and they got the job done. Well, but it's also not just like the arm strength or blah, blah, blah. No, this is a double. It could bounce off somebody's hand. You could, like even that pass he completed, John O. Smith, it went up in the air.

It almost became an interception. So they're just trying to manage the game and not turn the ball over, which was what was so frustrating about Nikhil Harry. And to your point, the punt thing was weird. And that's why everyone's like, it was the perfect coaching design. I don't know if that was the perfect coaching decision. There was a few that were

questionable. Yeah, there were a few shaky ones. There was. And I would say, with the beating the Bills that way, in their building, in December, on Monday night, it has a greater impact than if Mac Jones threw 15 passes and they won. It is demoralizing. It is embarrassing. And it was for the national audience to see. It wasn't a one o'clock with the CBSB team calling it. It was

everyone and Peyton and Eli talking about it. And you've got Aqib Tlaib making comments. And Mac Jones did not throw a pass in the entire third quarter. Didn't throw a pass. And he's like, and guess what? Harris went down with an injury. And it was just like, we're going to rely on our rookie running back to just gobble up yards and keep the chains. And we're going to dare you to beat us. And if Josh Allen's the MVP, he finds a way to win that, win that game at home on a Monday night and uses his arm and his legs and does it. And he couldn't. So there you go. There's his MVP argument. If you're looking at Super Bowl teams, potentially the two that I'm just dubious over the Bills and the Rams and a lot of it's for the same reason. The running game. The running game and the toughness parts I just don't think

are there. And I think the teams can gimmick a lot of it. I think Buffalo looks back at that past game. If they had to do it over again, they probably would have spread the field with the four receivers and had Allen run a lot more. But now you're just relying on your quarterback to run 20 times. Not sure that's a great plan. And the Rams are the same thing.

It's really hard to protect leads for both, I think, the Bills and the Rams because they can't move the chains. And there's a toughness factor that I just don't see with either of them where, you know, you look at a team like, I don't know, pick the Packers, the cards, even the Bucs, which at least have the pedigree from last year. They've got a nasty offensive line, the Bucs. Patriots. And then, I don't know. I like what I've seen from the Chiefs. I think the Chiefs have a little edge to them too. And then I think there's a couple wildcard teams.

Indianapolis to me. Indianapolis has a nasty offensive line and tough guys on defense. That's a team that in the playoffs you're like, I don't want to be

facing Jonathan Taylor and Quinton Nelson for 30 carries. I just don't want to see that. So their season is next week when they play the Pats. That is not only

we'll probably determine whether they make the playoffs or not, but will also determine who are they? Whether we have to take them seriously in January. And we might have to. Who knows?

That's a team. I think Cincinnati is another team that I'm interested to see this weekend because I do think the pieces are there. They haven't been able to keep everybody healthy and on the field at the same time for a while. Now Burrow's got the pinky thing.

Chase has dropped dramatically over the last couple weeks, which I guess makes sense because, you know, that's what happens sometimes with deep ball guys. But I do like their team. I think they can move the chains, make big plays. And they are kind of nasty on defense. They lost a couple guys potentially for this weekend. But that, to me, out of the AFC North teams, if it's them versus Baltimore versus Cleveland, which is a pretty motley threesome,

I think I like Cincy the most. And we might come out of this weekend. They might be in third place with no chance of even getting to first place. Yeah. And they were missing two offensive linemen last week and you say, well, you know, no, that stuff matters. Like they're a running team and they fell behind 24, nothing, and then clawed all the way back and then gave it away with the mix and fumble. I'd, I'd say this about the Patriots and the bills. I would bet a lot of money that the next time they play, no matter what the elements Mac is throwing the ball 20 times. It's like, oh yeah. Belichick is showing that we can beat you this way. We can beat you that way. We own you. It won't be the same routine. And that's why it's such a

dominant and unique way to win a football game. I don't think it was the perfectly coached game. Because that's a lot of people said they were like, this was similar to the Ram Super Bowl or the second Ram Super Bowl. I'm like, no, you don't have Nikhil Harry returning that pun if it's a perfectly coached game. I don't know. And a few other things too. There was a couple times when, especially in that long, long drive they have that kind of died at the 10-yard line. It's like just... Where, just do the

play action. They've got 10 guys in the box. All you have to do is send Hunter Henry at a 45-degree angle and it's a guaranteed five-yard play. So we agree on the Bills. I think they're fraudulent. I do. I think it's fair to say they are who they are at this point. When you lose to Jacksonville and you beat some of the lesser powerful teams,

they beat the Texans, I think they blew them out. They beat the Dolphins when the Dolphins had Bursette. It's fair to say that, hey, it's December. You guys have lost your last two home games and teams have run all over you. It's fair to say that you're not what we thought you were going to be. Well, and also, how are they that much different than they were last year when the Chiefs handled them pretty easily in the playoffs? In a game that we had the Chiefs for million-dollar picks,

I had them in real life. I was never worried. I felt like they were going to win that whole time, and I don't think the Bills are better now. They don't have white either. The Rams, I think we disagree on because I have, I, I've crossed them off the same way I'm off. I'm off and I want to go against them this week, a million dollar picks. We're going to argue about it. You are more bullish on them from a ceiling standpoint. I see a lot of

the same issues I see with the bills, including like they might have the worst running game of any potential, uh, playoff team. And then the Stafford thing, where he just hasn't looked... Stafford and Dak, the last five, six weeks, Dak's looked a little better than Stafford, but I just don't like the way Stafford has looked. That's fair. I think you've mentioned it.

I've talked about it. I think he's a little banged up, but that's fine. And as for the running game, Henderson might not be that number one alpha guy, but gosh, they have a Super Bowl champion in Sonny Michel who's been in these games before that they put in last week. That's what we're calling him? Super Bowl champion Sonny Michel? Has he not had massive games for the Patriots in big spots in the past in clutch moments? Of course he has.

Deion Lewis is a Super Bowl champion. He's not on an NFL team. How far do we have to go back with the Super Bowl champion tag? Go ahead. I'm sorry. You look at that offense, though. Sony ran the ball well last week, and they traded for him. Oh, stop it. Come on. Stop! Who'd they play? The Jaguars? Come on. Stop.

You don't believe this. I do believe it. I do believe it. I believe that with the two of them, they're going to get by with the offense, with the running game. There's this sliver of hope that maybe Cam Akers returns for the playoffs. Still possible. What?

Still possible. What was his injury? I forget. I believe it was an Achilles. No, he's not coming back. Look, this is the talk that you have to think that they've got enough on offense where they can get by. Their defense is enough players, and they've got a shot. They're 8-4 right now, and they're playing the Cardinals on Monday night in the desert where, historically, before this past season, they have absolutely owned that team. I would not bet against the Rams this weekend, and I will obviously be embarrassed when they lose by 30 on Monday,

but I wouldn't put my money there. Why are people so hesitant to believe in the Cardinals? What's going on with this? Okay. So let's go through it from a seven, seven road wins by 10 plus undefeated every game undefeated 10 plus every game. Historically.

And this is right up your alley. Cause I've talked a lot about the Cardinals of late. It's like, I went through it. The 99 Rams came out of nowhere and blew the league away and won a Super Bowl. The 2017 Eagles with Wentz came out of nowhere, got the one seed, lost Wentz, and then Foles won two home games, and then they upset the Patriots in what was a miraculous Super Bowl. Outside of those two teams, there is not a long list of teams who come from literally out of nowhere and then go through the playoff grind and then end up in the super bowl and find a way winning it like it usually you have to make the trip the ravens made the trip lee evans drops the

pass and then the next year they go into foxborough you know the chiefs they had to lose to the patriots in the afc championship game and then they were able to get over the hump. You go through a lot of these different teams from the NFC over the years. It's like, all right, they got a taste of it. Then the following year they made their run. I don't know, just coming out of nowhere with a coaching staff that, you know, is a couple of years into this thing and a quarterback who has never won a big game in the NFL, me saying, okay, he's going who has never won a big game in the NFL, me saying, okay, he's going to go and beat Rodgers and Brady

in the playoffs and go and do it and take care of it. It's a pretty good case. I'm trying to think of some other out-of-nowhere teams. You're right. 99 Rams is our best possible example. Football was also different back then. It was. And Warner, that's almost a unicorn how that played out. I know they

have a movie about his life and I actually think that's a good idea. When is that happening again, where you have this arena football league guy who just out of nowhere turns into... I loved it. I was listening to Rosillo's podcast with Herbstreet and Herbstreet's like, I actually watched, you know, Kurt Warner when he was an Iowa barnstormer for a season. I'm like, you're the guy. All right. You do. Like you do.

It's a little Minshew-y, right? Like at some point you're just putting up stats all over the place. And at some point you find the right team and it can happen. And just as quickly it was gone for Warner. Remember he had that really, really, really dicey giant stint. Yep. Among other things. And he was basically a backup. And he comes back. It seemed, really dicey giant stint. Yep. Among other things. And he was basically a backup.

And he comes back. It seemed like this lightning in a bottle thing. And then all of a sudden he was back. Yeah. And he was on our show this week on Good Morning Football. And he's like, you know, we lose to the Patriots in his second Super Bowl. They obviously beat the Titans. They take a year.

They miss. And then they come back. And he's like, we started off the season 0-6 that year. Like loss to the Patriots, it screwed things up. We were all messed up. So it took a while for us to get back there. But he said, basically, every season is different, but you build on the season before it. And with the Cardinals, God bless them. I love Cliff. And I love Vance Joseph. And I think they're doing a great thing out there and it's fun. I personally find it hard to believe, even if they're the one seed, that they're going to be in consecutive games, a combination of Brady, Rodgers, Dak, Stafford, you name it. And until they do it, I might be a doubter. And that's just not fair to the current

group and what they've done and how they've built this roster. But to say that they're the one seed in the Super Bowl favorite right now, I'm reluctant to do it. Right now, they're fifth in DVOA. 12th offense, third defense. The Rams are sixth in DVOA. Fifth offense, sixth defense. My working theory is that this is the week they actually suck everybody in. They beat the Rams. And then next week.

It's like Cardinals. And this is where they rope us in. This is where, you know, it's a Monday night. We can really watch them. I'm sure there's a lot of people who haven't even watched like a complete Cardinals game. No, they've just seen them on red zone. No, Bill, they've had one Thursday night game and they lost on the

final play when Kyler threw a ridiculous interception to the Packers. And that's it. We can call their defense legit good, I think.

Yeah, they're good on defense. It's fast. Three levels. They have multiple game breakers on offense. I like the way

Connors looked this year. It's all there. I think they can run the ball. Kyler is the X factor. And I just think they're better than the Rams. So I,

you know, we're going to circle back on that, but I'd be surprised if the Rams won that game. That's the, that's what made really ultimately made me want to do it in million dollar picks, because I think you just take Cooper cup out and you take the Rams out. Just take them out.

He's not doing anything. Odell, you want to beat us? You haven't beaten anybody in five years. Go ahead. Go ahead. Do it. Gerald Everett? Gerald Everett's not there. Who's their tight end? Not Gerald Everett. Cut that, Kyle. Actually, don't cut that. Leave it in.

Gerald Everett, who was he killing the other day? He's in Seattle. Who's the Rams tight end now? I'm blanking. Higby. Boy, Gerald Everett had one of those... Terrible, terrible jobs. It was beyond terrible. Season ender.

Has to change his number when he goes home kind of games. No, but I just think you try to take out Cup. Cup's got... There's some crazy Cup stats about the 100-yard games and the 10 TDs already. How about his explanation of his touchdown? You watch that Cubs got there's some crazy Cubs stats about the 100 yard games and the and the

10 TDs already how about his explanation of his touchdown you watch that with the replacement fire zone and a three dog nickel I'm like I love it

I eat it all up here's the thing Cubs will wonder a number one Van Jefferson is a is a is a two or three and Odell is the X factor

and if they can get Odell going I mean sure I'll roll I'll roll my dice. Look, again, we could talk Rams. Good Van Jefferson. Good Van Jefferson clip this week. Yeah, talking with McVay.

Him and McVay. How much he appreciates him as a coach. I love that. A double hug. McVay went first hug, encouragement. Then Van Jefferson circling back for the second hug. NFL Films was like, oh yeah. That's it.

You know, Van Jefferson's dad is Sean Jefferson, the old NFL wide receiver. And he was a great, great charger, oh, yeah. That's it. You know, Van Jefferson's dad is Sean Jefferson, the old NFL wide receiver. And he was a great, great charger, patriot, sure. And he's now a receivers coach in the league. But, like, they love him. And they think, you know, that's why they can get rid of Deshaun Jackson. It's why when Robert Woods goes down,

they're not losing, you know, the thought that they can't have a number two. Like, they believe in Van Jefferson. So let's see if he can step up in the moment. Oh, stop. That reminds me of the Saints. They believe Marqu Jefferson. So let's see if he can step up in the moment. Oh, stop. That reminds me of the Saints. They believe Marquise Calloway can take all the Michael Thomas snaps. Tony Jones is going to do it.

Then I took him in my fantasy draft. It didn't really work out that well. No. All right. We're going to take a quick break. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey.

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That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. All right, million dollar picks. Last week, we lost $118,000. For the year, we're down $894,000. The Vikings were like a $1.1 million swing for us. We would be up over a million dollars if the... I'm not going to

talk about it again. I'm so mad about it. It's nuts. I've talked about it every day. Were people in the league talking about what happened with Mike Zimmer? What was going on there? What was the consensus? You and Sal hit it. I mean, look, when you call time out and give the offense a chance to draw a play when they're in disarray

and it's Jared Goff with a bunch of rookie wide receivers and no names, you call time out and then you come out with eight defensive backs protecting a Hail Mary at the back of the end zone and they can do a shallow curl with a rookie. I mean, it was everything about that game. The fact that they fell behind by 14 points, people are just beside themselves. How do you fall behind 14 points of the Detroit Lions with, you know, Kalief Raymond and Amon St. Ra and whoever else? I don't think Zimmer

is going to get, no matter what, I mean, Thursday night they might lose 50-9. I don't think he gets fired this season, but I think this is one of those deals

where at the end of the year people look back to that Week 13 loss and say, I know you were without Patrick Peterson and Barr and Kendrick's and Dalvin cook and whoever else it's inexcusable.

We could not lose that game. It's one of the worst things I've ever seen. It really hurt my feelings. It cost us so much. And then like we, also we had this amazing comeback with Kirk cousins who I didn't even know. Ben Solak wrote about this for the ringer on Wednesday. Kirk cousins is now two 26 and-1 if he's trailing,

heading into a fourth quarter. Is that right? Yeah, 2-26-1. I didn't even know that. And I didn't have faith in him. Now it's like, so anyway, I'm done. I can't bet on the Vikings anymore. I just can't do it.

I can't. And you think like, so basically, Greg Joseph, he made us all that money in week two or week three. We missed the field goal. Yeah. And then the Vikings took it back from us. Yeah. So we're basically net even with the Vikings.

I'm out. I didn't even consider betting on Vikings Steelers. God only knows what's going to happen in that weird game. But both of us love Cincinnati. Love. Cincinnati plus one and a half at home against the Niners. The Niners, there's a lot of good DVOA advanced stuff with them. They're seventh in DVOA, which doesn't match up with what I'm watching

when I actually watch them. Since he's 19th in DVOA, Debo is still out. He might play. He might play. If he plays, he's like, what, 60%? I was talking to my guys there today. They're like, there's a hope, And he was working out to the side today. There's a chance.

Who knows? That guy's so good that it makes a difference. Wouldn't you wait another week? Because they're going to make the playoffs anyway, probably. They can blow this game. It's a non-conference game. Why do you want to risk blowing him out and then he's out for the year? I don't know if they have that luxury.

You look at it. I mean, if Washington rattles off a few more wins, Philly wins a couple more games, and one of those carolina atlanta type starts winning like a couple nothing new saints i don't think you can take anything for granted i think you gotta play him if he's ready mitchell looks like he's probably out he didn't practice again today they're down to like the fourth and fifth running backs fred warner might go back though yes he goes i'm missing a couple guys, including Logan Wilson, but I just think the line's off. I think the Bengals should be favored

by two. I guess Burrow's finger is freaking out people, but I was really impressed by them in that Chargers game. I know they lost. They lost 41-22 and I came away like, I like the Bengals. Yeah. They fought back. They fought back. It's 24-0.

Sal and I talked about it on Sunday night. They could have rolled over. They fought back. They fought back. It was 24-0. Sal and I talked about it on Sunday night. They could have rolled over. They didn't. Burrow was hurt. They could have rolled over. I could have been like, okay, cool, we're out. Nope.

Came back, and I really think if Mixon doesn't fumble, I think they win. Yeah. They had two catastrophic turnovers. The Jamar Chase play changes everything one time. Oh, my gosh. And then Mixon fumbles,

and they return that for a touchdown. But they fought hard. Here's the deal. It's December. They lost last week. Okay, whatever. Back to back. and then mix and fumbles and they return that for a touchdown but they fought hard they can here's the deal it's december they lost last week okay whatever back-to-back games in december against teams that are on the fringe like they have to win this one i feel like they know that this is their season they hated the way that game went down i think they come out and it was interesting because this game originally was a one o'clock game and then they started messing with the times they stretch some things it's a 4.30 game in Cincinnati.

It's dark. It's ugly. It's going to be awful. The weather will be awful. And that might favor the 49ers. It could, but I always take a tough home team that can run the ball. And I think the Bengals, this is to me, Burrow with nine fingers is like, I'm going to lead us to victory.

We're going to get one. I would like, if this was Cincy minus two and a half, I would like it. So they're a game behind Baltimore. Baltimore is eight and four, Cincy is seven and five. Cleveland is six and six. There's a world in which Baltimore loses, they're eight and five.

Cincy wins, they're eight and five. Cleveland wins, they're seven and six. And that just, that AFC North keeps going and going. My guess is that's the division that delivers us the fourth seed. And if the Pats can hold serve, which seems pretty conceivable because they only have one conference loss,

they would really have to shit the bed down the stretch here. That's probably going to be Buffalo. And that's going to be Buffalo against the AFC North team. Because I think that with Tennessee's schedule, they're probably going to be the three seed. I think they're going to be

okay at Tennessee. Stare at it. Yeah. So that's Baltimore or Cincy or Cleveland hosting Josh Allen, which I think is a nice spot for the Bills.

Sure. We just wrote off 20 minutes ago. They can win those games, though. They can win that game, you know? All right. So we're marking down Cincy. By the way, plus Tennessee.

Plus one and a half. Yeah. I like that. Great. Do we want to make it bigger So we're marking down Cincy. By the way, plus Tennessee, plus one and a half. Yeah, that's, I like that. Do we want to, do we want to make it bigger or are we happy with just, no, we're working it down.

We're going to come back on it. Let's talk Browns Ravens though. Okay. I think we're split on this. Brown's favored by two and a half over the Ravens and take Cleveland. DVO is about even my theory of the Ravens and my angle on this bet. I'm going to try to talk you into it because Baker Mayfield is involved

and I think he stinks as do you. Does he stink because he's injured? Whatever. Does he stink regardless? Is he a good quarterback? No. I can't believe they're not playing Case Keenum. I don't understand it.

I think it's the weirdest ongoing coaching decision of the season. That Stefanski is just looking at this over and over again and being like, injured Baker Mayfield is my best chance. But, the Chubb-Hunt thing is back. Right? We're back. We're back in business.

I know they're missing the right tackle. They're missing a tackle and Chubb did nothing against the Ravens last time. Biggest game of the season for them. Okay. Kitchen sink game for them. A Freddy kitchen sink, if you will? Yes. They have to win this game. On the flip side, the Ravens,

they lose Humphrey. They've lost so many people. They're on their left tackle. They've lost their two best cornerbacks. They've lost their three best running backs. There's been some other injuries. They have, I think, $45 million of just injured cap money.

Their offense, it just seems like teams have unlocked at this point because they can't run the ball. So now teams that everybody's just sending to the house. Brian Flores tipped that one off. And this feels like a game to me where if the Browns go up 7-0, I feel great. Could be it. I feel awesome. And I just think it means more to them.

So the question is, do you think the Browns are below 500 team? Because if they lose this game, they're going to finish below 500 for the season. I don't think they are. I think to me they're a 9-8, maybe a 10-7 team. But do they win by three? Sure. It sounds good

to me. You're skeptical. Tell me why. Baker's hurt. This would be more of like, honestly, it sounds so rudimentary and it comes down to this like, Lamar or Baker? Neither one is playing good right now. Who would you rather pick in a big spot in this moment? Are you taking Baker or Lamar? Because at the end of the

day, I think it's going to be one of them having to make a play in a low-scoring, ugly, 17-15, 18-16 type weird game where there's a two point conversion here and an extra point missed there. And I just think I trust Lamar more than Baker. Baker has not done anything this season to be like, yes, he can get this big win when they need it. Do you trust the Ravens to shut down Chubb and Hunt?

I think I might because that defense, they are down so many, so many players. And yet Wink, their defensive coordinator, Wink Martindale, who I've been rallying around saying, this guy deserves a head coaching job opportunity because of what they're doing on defense. They stop everyone. And it's their number one in red zone defense, number one in third down defense, number one in rush defense. And it's like, they have nobody on the field. And I trust the system. I trust the Raven system right now that in December, they can shut down this anemic Browns offense. I don't know if I'm picking this one straight up, I'm going Ravens. But if you want to take Browns, Bill, I've been riding with you all season. I'll ride with you. Well, we're going to disagree on another game too. If you look at Ravens, really since week six.

So week seven, they get killed by Cincy. Week nine, week eight by week. Week nine, they barely beat Miami. Week 10, Thursday night, demolished by Miami. Weird game. We throw out the Thursday games. Week 11, Chicago, barely win. Barely win.

But that was with Huntley at quarterback. And I give them credit for that win. That's a great win, Huntley at quarterback. On the road. Week 12, Cleveland, barely win. And Baker really hurt Cleveland in that game. Week 13, Pittsburgh, barely lose. Last few weeks, they're 19 points, 16 points, 16, 10.

So this game, it feels like it's going to be a 16, 13, 17, 15, something like that. I don't know. I like Cleveland's ability to run the ball. I'm going to mark them down. Maybe we go a little lighter. But I think the Ravens have passed the point of no return. It'm going to mark them down. Maybe we go a little lighter. But I just, I think, I think the Ravens have passed

the point of no return. It's more a bet on that, that too much has happened now. Look, I mean, I think Harbaugh even said it publicly. The reason they went for two was not because they trust Lamar and let's win it here.

It was because they didn't trust their corners on defense to stop anything because they were all injured. It's fair to say that. Ben looked the best he's looked all season. Fourth quarter. He's dead.

He went nine for 10 and was like, Deontay Johnson became Jerry Rice in the fourth quarter. So could Baker do that? Could he hit wide open receivers that aren't being covered? Who are the receivers? I think they suck people back in this week. Next one, Bucs-Bills. Bucs minus three over the Bills.

We talked about the Bills side of this. I'm still buying the Bucs. I still have Bucs-Packers as just I believe in both those teams. The Bucs, I think everyone's back except Antonio Brown now. They're home. As you pointed out, really good at home. They don't lose at home. They're awesome. The Bills going from a weird Monday night, 40-mile 40 mile an hour win game to all of a sudden playing in florida in mid-december late afternoon kind of like it's a 4 30 game um on the east coast it's it's nansen romo on the call and like i said brady he's never really had any problems with that buffalo team i'm so delighted to be laying the three i thought i was gonna have to lay like four and a half five just bucks minus Bucs minus three. Great.

I think the Bucs are going to beat the Bills. Yeah, I do too. And the alternative is like, this is Bills go time. What are you? But like, I don't know. Are they going to answer the Bills suddenly? I don't see it happening.

So I go with the Bucs also. This is an interesting one because if the Bucs win, the Pats are basically, they're cruising at this point. Because the Bills are now really in trouble. The Bills, they have no chance in the division unless the Pats completely shit the bed.

So the Pats don't even play this week and they could be winning it again. Cards, Rams, cards minus two. An incredible lack of respect for a really good team, really good season. And I'm sorry, but Cliff's going to figure out a way to use that at least a little bit, right? Monday night, nobody thinks you guys are good. You guys have been beating everybody all year. Nobody believes in it. We're not even

favored by a field goal. Nobody thinks we do. We belong in this division. Do we want to go through the quick, uh, backstory onVeigh and Kingsbury that they talked about on Flying Coach real quick to add a little intrigue to this? Yeah, do it. So, you know, McVeigh and I host this podcast. We've both known Cliff for a long time and we bring Kingsbury out. We're like, all right, so what's the impetus of your friendship? Because as much as you guys are young offensive coaches in the NFL, like, where does it go back? When Cliff got fired from Texas Tech, and it's like week 11 of the NFL season, everyone obviously stays quiet when someone loses their job.

The first call he got was McVay, who was like, all right, what do you want to do for our offensive staff? I'll bring you on. And he said, he didn't know him that well. And McVay came out of the woodwork and was like, yeah, I'll hire you right now. What do you want to do for us? And he ends up entertaining that idea and then goes to USC to be their offensive corner, then gets the Jets interview for the head coaching job. And then the Cardinals one takes the Cardinals one, but he's been forever indebted to Sean. And then they go to the NFL and Sean just annihilates Cliff's teams. The first two years they play, they just blow out. We do our flying coach this off season. We have fun with that a little bit. And then I spoke to both guys before the game earlier this season. Cliff had an edge to him where he's like, it's not happening again. I'm not losing to this guy again. And he

gets his answer and obviously they win. This week, I think this is like a cool deal between the two where I think McVay did not like the fact that they got embarrassed at home by Kingsbury. And I think he's, you know, Cliff's having this moment right now where it's, you know, Kingsbury talks to the players a little differently. Kingsbury's practices are a little different where that was kind of McVay's deal for a couple of years there where he, and now it's like, maybe, you know, he's the next Kingsbury as opposed to the next McVay. You know, it's, you say, well, who cares? They're not playing the game, but they're coaching it.

I think this game means a lot to both sides. And I kind of am going to roll with Sean on this one and on the road, season on the line in a way, especially the division. And I'm going with him.

Come on. I'm going with him. All right. Come on. You don't believe this. I do. Come on. Stop. Stop. No. Let go. Just let it go. Let it go.

All right. We'll disagree on that one. Hey, what is your thought? What's your thoughts on Santa con? Do you know what Santa con is? What is it? It's in New York city. It's every 20 year old guy like Kyle walking around New York City in a Santa costume, drunk as hell, walking around. It's Saturday. I just found out about it. I think it kind of ruined my weekend. What would your thoughts be on SantaCon? Kyle, would you go to SantaCon? You wouldn't? Kyle says no. He's out. He doesn't even want to turn his back on for that. He says never. It's literally every Hoboken Long Island guy takes a subway or LIR train into New York and there's thousands and thousands of drunk 20-somethings

in Santa costumes. And I didn't know it was Saturday until just now and it kind of ruined my weekend. It's too bad we couldn't have done a bet where if I take the cards, you take the rims and you have to go to Santa Con if you lose. Well, since I'm defying you with two of these picks, I'm going to back you on one of your picks.

This is not one of my picks. You want to do a bad QB under parlay. Yes, I thought this would be fun. So we have a Texan Seahawks game, which has the one and only Davis Mills and a Texans team that, if you just go look at their schedule week by week, it's been grim for a while.

And they have no incentive now to win another game. They might as well just go for the top pick. They beat the Titans, which was really odd. And then they went back to their old selves. Right. So we have that one. And then we also have a Saints-Jets, Taysom Hill versus Zach, I throw everything 200 miles an hour, Wilson.ets, Taysom Hill versus Zach,

I throw everything 200 miles an hour, Wilson. Yes, Taysom Simeon, because I'm not sure if we see Simeon. Somebody goes, yeah, there might be some Simeon. Versus Zach Wilson, Joe Flacco, Mike White, whoever you want out there. All right, so this was your idea. I like this.

We can mess with the lines on FanDuel. We can take Texan Seahawks. We can make that under 46 and a half. We can jack with the Lions on FanDuel. We can take Texan Seahawks. We can make that under 46 and a half. We can jack it up. The odds on that are minus 210. We can also take Saints Jets. We can jack that up to 49 and a half. They'd have to score 50 points to lose that.

I don't care if Kamara has five touchdowns. It won't be enough. That's minus 250. You put those two together and that parlay is plus 106. Let's do it. So if we bet whatever, it's plus 106. It would be a positive comeback. That's the Santa Con special. That's what we're going to call that one. The Santa Con special. Texan Seahawks under 46 and a half. Saints Jets under 49 and a half. So think about this. Texans Seahawks. So the score that would beat us is like 27 to 20.

Yeah, that's Davis Mills just lighting it up in the second half and killing us. I don't see it. The thing is, you're going to get really, you're going to be texting me.

Davis Mills, let's go to Houston where Davis Mills is on the board again. We're doing that anyway. We've got Jay Feeley and Spiro Didis in Houston and Davis Mills just threw an 80 yard bomb to Nico Collins. My God. Um, last one. I want to get the Cowboys

in here because, uh, I'm not buying this Washington thing at all. I'm just not at all. All right. It's fine. Not at all. I watched the game last week, the 48 yard field goal that won us underdog parlay. They've been good to us The last few weeks, Washington's been good to us. Did not think that was going through. Here's my case. Cowboys are favored by four in Washington. So I'm just going to ask you fundamentally, do you think the Cowboys are...

This was on a neutral field. Cowboys by six? Something like that? Yeah. Maybe a little less than a touchdown? Yeah, I'd say six and a half. Six, six and a half? Something like that? Yeah. Maybe a little less than a touchdown? Yeah, I'd say six and a half. Five and a half, six, six and a half, something like that? All right, but it's a home game for Washington,

so the line skews down. Record scratch, record screech. This isn't a home game for Washington. There's going to be 90% Cowboys fans there. This is a home game for Dallas. I don't know. We're getting Dallas in a home game minus four. There is like this like, and you know, they exist everywhere.

And you've got friends like Washington fans run deep. And like when they start their climb, like they do come out of the woodwork a little bit. And I know that stadium was empty the first few weeks of the season, but Cowboys week, I could see a good Washington contingent being like, all right, I'm going to show my face this week and let's go. The one thing we, we, we will root for is us versus the Cowboys. So I don't know, but I'm with you. I think, you know, Jerry had really interesting comments this week when he was

critiquing the route running of the wide receivers. And I'm like, this is where the Cowboys get in trouble. Like when, just when you want to get a little comfortable, Jerry rears his, his head and says some things. And you don't know where that's coming from. Is that the coaching staff saying that to him? Is that somewhere? I'm very, very curious to see what version of Dallas we get this week. And if it's good Dallas, like it was against the saints or if it's bad Dallas, like it was against the Raiders, I would say their favorite here, but I would also, I mean, I'd prefer to stay away and just watch this game from afar. Well, I have an idea. Last two weeks, Washington, they scored 17 points against Seattle. They scored 17 points against Vegas.

Not an offensive juggernaut at this point. Dallas's defense is finally healthy again. I don't know if you got the memo. Everybody's back. Everybody's back. The team that held our Lord and Savior, Mac Jones, under 20 points the last time the Patriots lost, they're back. The team that held our Lord and Savior Mac Jones under 20 points the last time the Patriots lost, they're back.

My thought is this. We can put them in a parlay with the Packers to beat the Bears. Do you think the Bears are going to beat the Packers under any circumstance? No, and I'm shocked NBC

and the NFL kept that game on Sunday night. And then we have the Chiefs are home against the Raiders. I like that. And we could just put all those

three teams just to win. Cowboys, Packers, Chiefs. And we get a nice little parlay on that one. Okay. I'm down with that. Let's do that. So we could put the three of those together. Plus 110, Schrags. Okay. I'm in. Plus 110. Who beats us? I mean, I guess the Cowboys.

Because we're not losing to the Packers or the Chiefs. No, that's Washington wins 20 to 17 and we're kicking ourselves. Like we knew that, but that's okay. If you want it, let's go. I'm with you, dude. So you think Washington, for them to win this game,

I'm just going to lay it out for you because I hear you. I'm a little worried because they have been a little, they had a little clutch, especially late. Yeah. But if they win this game, this now means Washington is for real. And Taylor Heineke is now like a real starting quarterback, like a top 15 guy.

If he beats out a healthy Dallas team with 80, 80% Dallas in the, in the stance. He beat Brady he beat Cam when Cam was all like oh crap Cam is back he was far better than he beat you know uh last the Derek Carr I mean this guy he wins games and then you look at what they've got left on their schedule and I hate being schedule guy they only play the NFC East I know how Ron is operating right now he's talking to these guys saying, we went out, we're in the playoffs, we're division champions. Like we play the Cowboys twice,

play the Eagles twice, play the Giants one time. Let's go and do our thing. And they're young. They are playing loose. And gosh, I could see them winning that game. Okay. I heard you.

Put the Cowboys in. Do your thing. No, I hear you. I hear you put the Cowboys in do your thing no I hear you I hear you okay we're gonna come back we're gonna do Million Dollar Picks

and we're gonna reveal our underdog parlay of the week alright Million Dollar Picks I promise you by the way this is the only podcast of 2021 with

gambling on the NFL, followed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the world's greatest living director. That's our podcast today. Yeah. He's coming up next. He's following you. The trailer for the licorice pizza. It looks amazing. It's fantastic. The girl from Haim. I'm in. Let's go. Haim. Oh, I'm sorry. How old did I sound? I loved in. Let's go. Heim. Oh, I'm sorry. How old did I sound? I loved it.

I'm not Parley of the Week. So we've hit four of these in 13 weeks. And if you add up the amount of money we won in the four weeks versus the nine losses, it's like legitimately profitable. And it makes me wonder, like, should next year just be Underdog Parley of the Week? And we don't do any of the picks because they're way more profitable just to bear the underdogs together. This week, we're looking at Falcons Giants. Falcons, I don't like the Falcons.

They're 32nd in DBA, but it's really just a, it's, it's zagging against Cam Newton. Yeah, it's just Cam. It's like they, they fired the offensive coordinator. Do you have any offensive coordinator scoop? Who gets fired halfway through a bye week? My theory was that he sniffed around with another job. No, it wasn't like nefarious, but you are right. Like he wasn't coming back.

That thing wasn't working. And I think, you know, and if Joe was to hear me say this, he'd probably say, now wait, let's not act like it was a favor to me. But by doing this now, there's a million college offensive coordinator jobs. He's going to get paid a boatload of money and he'll be fine. If they waited till mid-January, all those jobs are filled and he's kind of in a bad spot. So I don't know. You can look at it a bunch of different ways. But I think that that relationship was done and they decided to cut ties now,

knowing that at least it leaves an opportunity for Joe Brady to do some other things. How many passes do you think Joe Brady watched Cam throw into the ground or over the head of a wide open receiver in practice and in real games where he's like, I got to find another job? Well, the irony is that like they brought Joe in because he was with Teddy Bridgewater in New Orleans. And it was like, all right, together, you put those guys together. They've done it. They really get along well. And it was like, all right, together, you put those guys together. They've done it. They really get along well. And then they got rid of Teddy.

It's like, all right, now go work with Arnold. Okay, now go work with Cam. I'm not sure how many offensive coordinators would have had a successful year with what they had going on that season. I don't know who's the leader in the clubhouse of the I can't believe you did that during the 2021 draft. Whatever the rankings are but Carolina might be one they took JC Horn over back or fields and then they traded a second for

Darnold you can't do worse than that I know and and their argument would be like let's JC Horn was really good the first couple weeks of the season like you know if you're going to go and do flips over Patrick Sertan we took JC Horn before him and he might have a better NFL career but you know the injury really does not reveal too much optimism when Mac Jones is just slicing up teams and going to be number one seed. You had two quarterbacks on the board and a year later you still don't have a quarterback and now it's a draft without a quarterback.

Now you have to roll the dice on somebody. We're looking at Falcons-Giants. The Giants, I mean, it's a long shot. It's a long shot, but hey, Jake Fromm, let's go. Giants right now have Andrew Thomas, Aziz Ojolari, Jake Fromm, Trey Crowder, Lorenzo Carter, Isaiah Wilson, and J.R. Reid. They all played at Georgia together, and they're all playing in this game as starters. They are the Georgia Bulldogs from a couple years ago going to play the Chargers this weekend.

The case for this is just should the Chargers be favored by nine and a half points over anybody? I mean, honestly. Weird things happen in the NFL. The Giants, who knows? Saquon might go nuts. Let's just go with that. I watched the Chargers blow

a 24-0 lead last week to a guy with a broken finger. They seem like a logical underdog pick. The other one we were looking at was Texan Seahawks, but we couldn't get there. I'll be honest. It's not a great underdog parlay week. one we were looking at was Texan Seahawks, but we couldn't get there. I'll be honest. It's not a great underdog for early week. But we hit

and we will here too. Yeah. Okay. All right. Here are picks. Million dollar picks for week 13. Turn the fucking camera on, Kyle. We are down a little under 900,000 for the year. We are due for a big week

and it's going to happen right here. We are going to go big on two games. We're going to go smaller on four bets and we're going to do the underdog parlay. First one, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. My preseason Super Bowl pick. I have the Bucs versus the Patriots.

We have a seven minute video. That will become my legacy. Much like, I don't know, The Godfather was Coppola's legacy. The Beatles Get Back documentary is now the Beatles legacy. My seven minute Patriots bug Super Bowl pick could be, that might outlast me. Aliens might be studying it 20 centuries from now. When you've got Henry Hill listening to it in the shower like a Lufthansa heist, you got me sold. You also said

Ramond Dre and Damien Harris are the thinking mans, Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt. At the time, I didn't even know if that made sense or not. I think they might be better than Chubb and Hunt right now. Bill, I'm in. Let's go. I tried. People thought I was doing it as a bit. I really believed it. I never gave up.

They thought I was sick. I don't do schtick with picks. I like being right. I like winning money. I like being right. Those are my two things. Bucks minus three over the Bills. I think the arrow's going up for the Bucks, especially now they're getting people back.

I also think they can run the ball on this Bills team. I like the way Fournette's done the last couple weeks. And Ronald Jones has looked okay, too. But I think Brady, he's got MVPs in his sights now. Time to put up some stats, move the ball, move the chains. Bucks minus three. Brady 32-3 all time against Buffalo. That is not by

anomaly or coincidence. That logo, Brady owns it. I'm going with the Bucks as well. That is 90 percentile. So, we are going to put $500,000 on the Bucks. Bucks ministry gets the bills. Our other big bet, a team we both like a lot this week,

the Bengals plus one and a half at home against San Francisco. The cold, crisp air of Cincinnati. The hard turf. You know they haven't spent a lot of money on that fake grass in Cincinnati, I'm guessing. They definitely cut corners on that thing That thing's going to be like cement Not a fun field to play on on Sunday Yeah, Niners banged up

Bengals a little banged up too Niners a little more banged up This to me is a Jimmy G thing I'm so glad the Patriots Landed Mac Jones and didn't trade a second round pick For Jimmy G from what I've seen week after week. I honestly feels like he's losing his confidence a little bit. I don't see the spark from him.

I don't see that kind of, that little Italian swagger. That guy who might sit down next to your girlfriend when you're in the bathroom and just steal her away. Where's that guy? Don't like that guy. Where did he go? He's gone. Bengals, plus one and a half. We're putting $500,000 on that as well.

Yeah. Let's go. We trust you, Cincy. Come on. And then four smaller bets. We're going to put 200K on each of these. You disagree with this one. Browns, minus two and a half.

Part of our deal is you're my conciliary. Sometimes we disagree. Happened in The Godfather. Sometimes Tom Hagen and the Corleones, sometimes they didn't see eye to eye, but they always respected the process, the family. We're going to go Browns minus two and a half. I just, I have a feeling about this one.

I'll be here. I will be here, Tom Hagen. I will be here. I'll just nod my head. All right. So what you do? Schrags does not agree with this one. I don't.

We're going ahead anyway. Browns minus two and a half. Browns, just get a lead. Just get a seven point lead. Baker throws the ball 12 times. Take us home. Next one,

you don't agree with this one either. Cards minus two against the Rams. I don't. I am buying the cards this week. This is the week they, this is, they,

they reel us in. They reel everybody in. Cards. Oh, they might be. Cards, bucks. Who's the best out of them? And then eventually they'll let us down. But it's not going to be this week.

I don't trust this Rams team. We're going to put 200K. Browns minus two and a half. 200K. Cards minus two. 200K plus 110. Cowboys, Packers, Chiefs. All of them have to win.

That one I like. That one I like. Yeah, you like that one? And this is yours.s. All of them have to, that one. I like that one. I like, yeah, you like that one. And this is yours. This is your bet. Put 200 K on this Santa con Santa con,

the Santa con parlay of the week. Texans Seahawks under 46 and a half saints jets under 49 and a half parlay is plus one Oh six. We're putting 200 K in that you're calling it the SantaCon under parlay where we just go against bad QBs and hope the score stays low. I hate SantaCon. We're rooting against this one. We don't like points. We are going unders. We don't like fun. We don't want fun. We don't

want pick sixes. We don't want fumble touchdowns. We just want ugly. We want punting. We want third and 14s. We want draw plays on third and 17 and little wide receiver screens that aren't going to work. Just keep that clock moving, guys.

I never want to hear Andrew Siciliano or Scott Hansen's voice. No red zone. Just right from 40 to 40. That's what we want this. And then finally, the underdog parlay of the week, which cost FanDuel

$1.1 million last week. Yeah. In real money, not million dollar picks money. They actually lost1.1 million last week. Yeah. In real money, not million-dollar picks money. They actually lost seven figures on this last week. We're 4-9 on these, which is actually winning. We're taking a flyer. Falcons-Giants.

Why not? Going against the weird Chargers team. It's more of a, should the Chargers be favored by almost 10 points over anybody? Probably not. Should Cam Newton be favored over anybody? Probably not. Should Cam Newton be favored over anybody? Probably not. So we're going to play the odds.

Falcons, Giants, plus 890. I'm going to boost this up to 10 to 1. Yeah. I haven't even asked FanDuel for permission yet. We're doing it anyway. Yeah. 10 to 1. Those are the million dollar picks for week 14. Peter Schrager, what did we miss?

Anything? No, it was great. I loved it. All right. Watch the Music Box documentary we did about Mr. Saturday Night. There's a lot of Brooklyn stuff in there. Is there? I love it.

Oh, yeah. A lot of hardcore Brooklyn stuff. I love Saturday Night Fever. I love the whole Verrazano Bridge and everything with Bay Ridge. So I can't wait. I'll watch it. It's good. Okay.

All right. We'll see you on Good Morning Football. Is'll watch it. It's good. Okay. All right. We'll see you on Good Morning Football. Is Kyle Brandt, what's he doing? Is he on a pregame show this weekend? He is. He like took like a stoic photo of himself in the bleachers. Yeah, what was that? I don't know, dude.

I think he's doing, he's got something up his sleeve. CBS will promote his pregame show. CBS on a Sunday morning, he's on their show and he's got something very dramatic, I'm sure. So you're on CBS and you're on Fox. You're on Fox and he's on CBS show and he's got something very dramatic, I'm sure. So you're on CBS and you're on Fox. You're on Fox and he's on CBS going head to head. This is like, this is in wrestling. This would be how somebody gets hit by a steel chair over the head soon. Yeah.

This is when the Cosby show was just going fine. And then the Simpsons came in and were like, no, no, no. We own Thursday nights. This is it. All right. I hope you guys work it out. All right. Good to see you as always.

Good luck in the McVeigh Kingsbury Bowl. Thank you. All right. Paul Thomas Anderson is here. Sean Fennessey is here. We did this in December of 2017. You came into my office back when people interacted and we discussed Phantom Thread, a movie that both Sean and I really loved. You mentioned during that pod, you were like, I'm kind of messing around with something, but you're elusive. Now we're doing this on Zoom. I just want to say I had so much fun when we were in the studio together. If we could get 50% there on the Zoom, I'll be psyched. But I know you're doing these interviews on Zoom. You probably feel the same way as we do, right? I do. But I mean, well, I would prefer to be on the telephone.

And even preferring to the telephone, I don't even see why I couldn't be in there in the room with you. We would have done it. Yeah, we could have. Sean's very fearful of all contact. That's not true. I would have loved to have seen Paul. I don't need to see you, Bill, but I would have loved to have seen Paul. All right. So last time we did this, I told you about my process for movies where I try to avoid everything.

And I try to go and sit in the theater and have the experience the filmmaker wanted me to have, which is I go in with no baggage. I just watch the movie. I react to it. I knew you had two first-time actors, I guess we'll call it. I didn't realize one of them was from Haim until the credits, even though she looked familiar. I didn't realize it was Philip Seymour Hoffman's son until like a week later. And I told Sean last night, I was like, that was Hoffman's son. I had no idea. I had no baggage with it. So I was looking at it really

objectively. And I thought both of them were so great. You've talked about the process with this, but the Hoffman connection you talked about last time you were on with him. Now you did six movies with him and now you're directing his son. and it seems like you took a roundabout way to even get there and cast him so can we talk about that of course you know i'm so i don't know how i mean i'm glad you you obviously the things that you're looking at are able to kind of feed you information that you want and need and you're able to avoid um this stuff so you can go into a movie cleanly. That's great. That's great.

So Cooper, you want to talk about Cooper, right? Yeah. Let's talk about Cooper and the lineage because his dad was in more movies than any actor I think you've done movies with, right? Yes. So it was probably a no-brainer, but you know,

anything that's a no-brainer, you have to make a struggle somehow. You have to try to make sure that, oh, I don't know, you go through some search. We cast the film in a traditional way initially. You have a traditional way. Initially, you have a casting director. You have a certain type between the ages of

14 and 17. It could be 18 or 19 as long as they look a bit younger. And a description. And then we saw a series of actors, some of which were very good, most of which were very irritating and kind of polished and ready for, I don't know, something shiny and kind of not right. But more to the point, even with some of the actors that were good they weren't connecting with alana um she you could just see in her face like there's she's just sitting across the table from someone who's like saying lines and is a little probably a little bit more interested in their own vanity or like getting a you know disney series than than than what the part was you know they were really not trying to connect so um my thoughts turned to Cooper because when I asked myself,

well, do I know any very charming, personable, empathetic, grounded and connected 15, 16, 17-year-old boys? It was like, well, yeah, there's one right in front of your face who you've known since you were a child. Since he was a child. And that's how it began um i suppose that there's a long um navigation of feelings you sort of wonder like huh how forgetting the process of making the film because you know that that's going to be a wonderful creative and collaborative experience. But let me jump ahead to what it means to put a movie out into the world and have him deal with that and what does it mean and weighing all the pros and cons of all that. But it's worked out quite well. Very proud of him. Yeah, they're both pretty great. And I feel like you hear all the time, like when an actor's got it or a young kid has got it, they just, they have it.

They have like an indescribable charisma or something. But still, if you put two people who've never acted in a film before at the center of your movie, like how do you coach them through how to be the stars of a film? How do you kind of teach them on the job, how to do it? Um, lots of different ways. I'll tell you what, I'll tell you that there are probably two, there are two, two equally weighted sides to this,

that one is, one is a, a dialogue and a discussion about what the story is and all that kind of stuff, which you hopefully try to not do too much of because you, you want instincts and you just want facts. You don't want to, I don't, I'm not a director that needs to have endless, endless dialogue

about motivations and all this kind of nonsense. It's like, it's either there and it's clear to them or it's not. But, and not joking is that what you really need to do with two people that have never done it before is that you need to teach them very, very pragmatic things. In other words, did you get enough sleep last night? What did you eat this morning? When was the last time you ate?

I mean, I'm really not joking. It really is like, to go for 65 days of shooting a film where 10 hours of those, you're shooting for 10 hour days because you're shooting with kids and you're shooting every second of those 10 hours of those 10 10 you're shooting for 10 hour days because you're shooting with kids and you're shooting every second of those 10 hours you maybe you take a break for 10-15 minutes when you turn around but it's really a high level of concentration that's needed

and you'd be shocked at how much of it is just really pragmatically making sure that they have the stamina um to pace themselves i told them very early on, I said, if you think that you can push off learning a scene until the middle of the movie, like you would school homework, you're making a huge mistake because once we start, you would just be playing catch up. You'll be trying to learn a big scene the Sunday night before we're going to shoot it on a Monday and you'll never do it because you'll be so exhausted. You won't have any clarity. So they learned the script really from the beginning to the end before we even started. They had months and months to prepare so that they were always ready at a moment's notice to do whatever was needed in the movie.

But again, with a 16-year-old boy, I mean, seriously, Alana knows how to go on tour. So she knew how to kind of pace herself through that. But Cooper didn't even know. I could see it. You could see he doesn't wake up until 11 o'clock in the morning normally, 12 o'clock. You're like, all right, well, I'm going to schedule good scenes after 3, 3.30 in the afternoon.

It sounds kind of silly, but it's really, really true. And the reason why that's the most, because their instincts and their natural talent is what you're trying to preserve and make happen. You're not trying to get them in some head game thing that a movie director trying to trick them into all this kind of nonsense. That's silliness.

What about the parenting lineage with you? Because you have four kids, you have a couple teenagers. Did that make it easier to kind of walk Cooper through this? And even Alana, I know she's older, but it's her first movie.

So in a way, she's like another, basically a movie teenager, even though she's an adult. But you have to kind of walk them through. No, you're exactly right. I mean, it's exactly right. You picked up on it,

is that my years as a dad came into play. Just knowing the management of moods and emotions and, you know, it's time management when you're a teenager. What kind of time management did you're a teenager. What kind of time management did you possibly have as a teenager? You know, you did not. It's like,

it's all so elastic and confused that you would never really think to do anything in advance of it. So yeah, I think I recognized that as a dad and then I applied it. I feel like I think I recognized that as a dad and then I applied it. I do feel like,

I feel like they have better time management skills than our generation did because of like, you're, you're way more connected to everybody. Right. And there's more of a schedule. It's easier to keep a schedule. I feel like our generation was completely aimless and up to the kids almost all the time. Probably, probably more like liquid. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I guess you got to remind you at all times of where you're supposed to be or what you're supposed to do. But nevertheless, I don't know. There is an instinctual, there's a kind of thing inside teenagers that they'll get to it in a minute, get to it in a minute, get to it in a minute. And those minutes evaporate. Can you talk about what you saw with Alana? Like, never acted before, but it's this revelation in this part.

I mean, she's gotten, I read some of this stuff the last couple of days, like just people, everybody gets it. They get what you're trying to do with this. And she's everything you'd want from a movie. This happens sometimes when you're discovering somebody in a movie that you've just never seen before and a lot of times for me that's my favorite part because you feel like you're kind of meeting somebody you're falling for them in whatever way either as the friend you always

wanted or somebody you have a crush on or whatever you've known this person for a long time at what point did you go i could see her like carrying a movie because that's a pretty big leap from just somebody who's on stage and in your life that's true and um it was about four or five years ago five years ago i would say i mean we probably started working together seven seven or something ago. And by the way, it's not just the sort of awareness that she could do it, but an awareness of what this story is, and this kind of perfect aligning of a few different elements. Like, hang on a second. There she is in front of my face. There's this story about a girl that works in doing this. And there's this piece and this piece.

This is all kind of aligning and is completely undeniable. But she... It's funny. I kept really getting very nervous when I first showed the movie to people because I think you can get quite concerned that you have had a Kool-Aid, you've been drinking your own Kool-Aid, that you have spent a year of your life

staring at this performance and you're like, someone's going to turn around and say, I don't know what happened to you. You've absolutely lost it. I'm delusional. This girl is not that good. I don't know what happened to you you've absolutely lost it you know be i'm delusional this girl is not that good i don't know what you saw in her you know because i just kept seeing this performance in front of my face like when is this gonna when is she finally gonna show up and not and not be able to be hitting doubles triples like you

know inside the park home runs like she's on fire she's just absolutely incredible to watch and i guess i i instinctually knew from working with her but um and then once she was reading the script out loud just sitting in the living room reading it if you saw what i saw it wouldn't have been so crazy it wouldn't have been such a leap but what you you would have sat there tuned and been like, yeah, I mean, these words are coming out of her mouth like she's making them up.

And she sounds like she's improvising, even though she's reading something straight from the script. And you know what? There's something about Alana. She's the baby of that family. And so she's got this terrier energy, kind of like half terrier, half pit bull.

And she's always scrapping for a fight, even though she's smiling and she's like got this real sweet energy and this smile that just beams, but she's not, she's a scrapper. She's a little, you know, a little, and that's an incredibly appealing quality

in general, but particularly in a film, character in a film too. I'm babbling. You guys get me babbling. No, this is good. This is why you wanted to come back. Go ahead, Sean. Why did this movie go to the front of the line for you?

Like, why was this the one that you chose to make? I was thinking about, is it the stage you're at as a parent? Is it thinking about your childhood? Why did it become the thing to do? It's a very good question. It just did. Kind of like thing. It was kind of like the timing of it all was seeming you don't even make

movies for timing. That's not even the answer. It's just sort of one thing, just something just starts coming over you, taking over. It's like you see it headed, you see the horizon, you see the end of this light at the end of the tunnel, and you just start heading towards you. Like, this is happening. writing it that everything else was going to be abandoned and that i had to make a mark on the schedule and say this is going so well this is happening and we haven't i'm powerless to stop it even after doing a system of checks and balances and checking yourself and saying like we're fucking want to make another movie in the valley again when want to make another movie that takes place in 1970 you know because you you're you're one of your struggles should be as a person that does this, is to make a variety

of different work, to not have every movie be something different. So as a matter of fact, you try and talk yourself out of it, and you know that if you can't, then you have to keep going. But the story, I don't know if anything about being a parent factors into it clearly, because also the other thing is that I was,

that if you're writing what you know, I'm surrounded by teenagers a lot these days. I got them kind of crawling all over my living room or I'm picking them up or driving them places. And that's pretty easy to help get you back in touch with the stuff that you went through as a teenager. Um, it does, it gets, it gets your mind running about those times. Well, I loved, I love being in the Valley in the 1970s with you again, although I was devastated. You didn't do like the brief crossover wink to my beloved boogie nights. Like just have somebody

living next door to Amber Waves just for like a split second. Just like, wait, is that Amber Waves in the driveway? What's happening there? You've gone backwards a few times now with these movies. And this one, I love being back in 1973. Yeah. And it really made me think, and I need to see this again. I'm so psyched that it's in

Westwood at that awesome movie theater. I'm going to go back a second time. But it made me think of just this different time of social interaction that we were talking even before you came on the Zoom about just how different everything is now and how connected people are all the time. And, and you can literally talk to anybody you want or text them or they're there, but they're not really there. A lot of times they're distracted. And in this era, if you wanted to see somebody, you might not be able to see them. You might not know where they are. You might not be able to run into them. You might go to two spots and they're not there. Yeah. Um, all that, this, just this different era, but was that one of the reasons you want to do this? Like just going backwards into that era? It wasn't one of the reasons, but God, it was a huge appeal. I'll tell you,

it was, it was exciting to think of situations, um, that at least have some goddamn mystery, which has all been yanked away from us. I mean, there's no fucking mystery anymore, which is really a drag. I don't know. You know, that's problematic. And whether people, you know, the generation sees it as problematic now, they eventually will. I mean, come on. I don't know, you're, you're, I have a collection of pictures of my son, uh, from all the places all over the world. And it's,

it's him standing at phone booths all over the world, abandoned phone booths generally, you know, and generally to get a six year old to take a receiver off the hook and stare at it as if it's like a dinosaur or something. We had this miraculous collection of, of phone booth pictures, you know,

uh, uh, clearly they do know what they are clearly, but the first couple of him looking at it as if he had no idea what it was, I thought was set the tone for that collection of, you know, um, the kids, when they were, of, you know, the kids when they were filming at the pinball palace,

that sequence there, there was a double there. Not only, you know, they hadn't seen each other in a long time because of all the way the world had gone, but they were face-to-face with something that we all had, whether it's arcade or pinball machine, that they felt gypped. They're like, we want this. This is rad. We don't know why we don't have this,

but this is good enough for us. Because they realized it was, maybe it was a little bit about pinball machines, but it was about a central meeting point to then find a nook and cranny and an alleyway behind where you could smoke a cigarette or make out with a boy

or find your, you know, whatever you needed. You could, and whether you rode your bike or got dropped off there, it was important. Something a little bit more interesting than, I don't know, a fucking mall. You know, it was good.

Wait, malls are coming back. Be careful. There's been a mall comeback. I don't understand it, but my son's been going to the mall lately and it's like a thing, apparently. You know what? I'm okay with it. I suppose some of it. I don't know. But the malls

these days, malls are days you know malls are like they're a backlot they're like universal it's like a recreation of an actual street with an actual right state of the art

everything it's definitely a little different the movie looks like it was a lot of fun to make but you made it during COVID

like was that was that horrible was it was there a challenge that was interesting about that it was great, we were meant to start shooting the movie in May. We were all on course to shoot the movie. May 2020. That's right.

And then we stopped in March and we just sort of sat waiting and waiting and waiting and the first opportunity we had was to start in August of 2020. And it made... I mean, look, there was a lot of people that were really suffering. We were voluntarily going into a situation to make a movie. So I'm not going to complain about that. We had to do what we wanted to do, which was give ourselves something to aim at each day. The amazing thing about it was, no, it's not fun directing in a mask. Nothing's that fun doing it in a mask, but that's the way that it was. But the great thing was that all our families are my kids' friends, their families. This interconnected group of people felt an incredible pressure to batten down the hatches.

Don't be the idiot that runs around on the weekend and does something stupid. We're like, there's only one mission and it's making this movie. And you can do anything for 60 days if you put your mind to it. So let's all get on with it. So the feeling that you were doing something special was there for sure. Even if, even if it was just surviving. Right. You know, well, the most excited person was the guy in a, somewhere in LA who had a hundred classic old cars that you needed to spray around the city for. That guy must have been delighted

that here you were making a movie in 1973. Well, I'll tell you, they were the most happy because they're generally individuals that you can hire out, right? You have a service and you serve. Some guys have more than others, but there are people that you call up and you know. I've made enough period films to know

you have a call sheet and they loved it I've made enough period films to know you have a call sheet. And they loved it the most because they were going to roll up, not even worry about getting tested. They were going to get dropped a bag full of 1960s, 70s clothes, asked to be thrown them on, and then just drive around in circles all day. And then give them a radio. And they never had to get out of the car. They never had to risk it risk they were more than happy but we were starting up at a time when when even background extras were reluctant to get into the game because nobody quite knew what it was

going to be yet right luckily we didn't mean need that many we needed them at the teenage fair sequence you know when he gets arrested and we needed them in joel wax uh mayor campaign office we needed some extra help there. But other than that, everybody you see in the movies, somebody we know, we know personally. He's a friend of ours. All right, let's get to the part Sean really cares about more than anything right now.

What is that? Sean Penn. So we know you have a list of the actors. You don't have to tell us the list. I know it's your secret list but there's seven nine eleven i don't know how many actors and actresses on it that you're like i need to work with this person at some point you mentioned in the last pod we did you talked about leo like there was leo turned down boogie nights and you were like well at some

point some point i'll get leo it'll happen i know it'll happen at some point in my life. You actually end up having his dad in this movie. But Sean Penn, I'm guessing, was on the list. At the top, if not very close to the top, and has been for a number of years. Number of years? No. His has been since I saw him as Spicoli. Bad boys.

Our general, I mean, Sean Penn was our Robert De Niro, right? I mean, that's for sure. 100%. He was as talented, as cool, as elusive, and just downright rad, right? And also the mythology around his commitment to his characters, getting in character, staying in character, all this kind of stuff. So I've known Sean for a number of years and I've been asking him. I asked him to play the Al from Melina Part in Boogie Nights,

your beloved Boogie Nights. I asked him to play that part, thinking that that would be great. Oh, man. He worked out for the best. I got the right man for the job. No, you did. I was just like,

when you say stuff like that, I need time to recover. I almost need a pause. Well, you know, it's a dangerous game to hear directors say sometimes somebody that was their first choice can always rattle you

because they're inevitably fucking totally wrong. And what were you thinking? And you always end up getting the person you're supposed to get. Always. It happens every single time. And directors sometimes can never see it. And they have certain blind spots

or they think something would help their film or people to go see it, whatever it certain blind spots or they think something would help their film or people to go see it, whatever it is. And if you're lucky, you thank God, someone who's smart like Sean would turn me down and know I'm not the right guy. Maybe you want to work with me and that's very flattering, but we'll get to it. And I continued to ask him to play parts that he probably wasn't right for. So this was like... Did you write this one for him? I kept thinking he's

not going to say no to me this time. And now I'm old enough and wise enough to know that I'm going to force him to do it if he says no. That I will be letting him know that he's wrong and I'm right. You have to do this. So, yeah. I thought of

him straight away as I was writing it. Because it's a William Holden type character. And I don't know, you know, and that means gravity, that beautiful face that he has now, you know, as he gets older and he just looks even cooler than ever. Well, those were the guys we grew up with. The guys who looked like they've had a few cigarettes and a few scotches in their day.

The ladies still liked them. They always had nice clothes on, but you could see the years starting to accumulate on their face a little bit. I always liked, especially at this time, this is a 72, 73, 74, they would still have the same haircut they always had but just a little sideburn that was that was just that little touch to uh current trends and it always looked so out

of place so strange looking back at it yeah william william holden growing up was my favorite actor. He reminded me of my father and my father's friends. They all kind of looked like that. They looked like they'd be buddies, drinking buddies, storytelling buddies, this kind of stuff. And William Holden, like Sean, is also a little elusive. He's always, well, where is he? Well, where do you think he is? He's saving Haiti.

He's saving Africa. Sean's work with CORE is kind of incredible. And I can remember when there could be commentary about, or snarky commentary about his desire to save the world. No one was laughing when he had Dodger Stadium up and running right in the middle of the pandemic. And there wasn't anything snarky you could say about that. That guy was testing a million people a week when everybody else was falling down. And William Holden had a similar kind of adventurous spirit. We were playing that game last night when Bill and I were talking.

We were like, oh, is this Breezy that Alana's character is reading the script from and trying to piece together some of the real and not real Hollywood stuff. You know, the movie just feels really steeped in like a Hollywood legacy, like more than any other movie that you made, even like casting well-known filmmakers, kids or Leo's dad, like was all of that like something that you originally started with where you wanted to kind of build this almost like mini Mount Rushmore to Hollywood history? No, it just kept coming my way because the story, the genesis of the story is with this guy, Gary Getzman, who is a producer with Tom Hanks producing partner. Back up. He was Jonathan Demme's producing partner.

Back up to the original incarnation of his life. He was a child actor in the Valley. was just following his life, following his career path, which seemed to collide with every peripheral showbiz person or even large scale showbiz person. He's just bouncing and satellite offing all these people. So that was all fact. That was just me telling the story as it was told to me. And I would look up things. Newspapers.com is my number one source of research, like the LA Times, basically. And you put in Gary Getzman, you can go back and you can find these quick little bits of like valley entertainment life. Like young Gary Getzman will be singing and dancing at the Chadney's in Sherman Oaks this Friday night. He's a marvelous young entertainer.

And with Chadneys girls, Chadneys girls never say never, you know, this kind of stuff. And you're like, okay, so he's in the Valley. He's doing this showbiz thing. Then the next thing he knows, he's got a part in Divorce American Style. Then he's got a part in Yours, Mine, Ours.

Okay, so now he's on his way to the Ed Sullivan show with a burlesque dancer as his chaperone named Kiki Page who lived in his neighborhood. It's like, okay, Kiki Page, look her up. It just keeps gathering more and more kind of oddball showbiz stuff as it goes along. Takes some detours in the waterbed world, but always has a touch to the advertising

world. And that was like when I was witnessing, I know this world. I know this world from my dad's voiceover stuff that he was in. So that was very familiar to me, all that kind of like DJs and radio and advertising stuff. I sort of grew up near enough to that stuff that it was like, it was just speaking to me like, I know this. I mean, I know this like as well as I know anything. What's his reaction? Like at some point you're like, Hey, I'm working on this movie. The guy's kind of based on you a little bit, but it's, it, it goes well beyond that, but you were friends with him for a long time, but I, you're also taking liberties with certain things. You're creating, you know, your own version of whatever, of the narrative, but you're also taking liberties with certain things. You're creating your own version of whatever of the narrative, but you're taking

these little pieces. What is that like for him to watch that? I think it's very satisfying that it's the fictionalized PG-13 version. I think that he didn't take it seriously for the longest time and thought maybe I was just because years were going by and I was still

I would go back to stories and say wait wait wait you just got to answer me something about the waterbeds and I think over the course of many years he just maybe he was starting to size up I wonder if he really is serious about this

until the point when I had a full script I I said, okay, I am serious. I'm going to do it. You sent him the Microsoft Word doc file of your script. People have been giving you shit about that. That was one of the revelations from last time.

Yeah. You know, there's been a lot of magic on that Microsoft Word. I'm pro. I think it's great. I'm the same way. I don't like Final Draft. That still haunts me. Alana tells a story about me sending her Microsoft Word,

the script, and she had to download Microsoft Word. You know that... God, I'm not going to get started about Microsoft Word. I'm in Microsoft Word right now. Gary, no. I mean, look, Gary, you know, I think he's very happy. I had a magical moment because he did. He raised his younger brother, Greg.

That's very much very accurate. He's about eight or nine years older than him. And their mom, wonderful woman, Anita, was a great mom, but also was working. She's a single mom. So she was really sort of busy. It wasn't this latchkey kid type situation, but it was like Gary was very responsible.

Anyway, I had this beautiful moment to show the movie to the two of them. And I was just sitting behind them and watched them watch the movie when I knew, and I knew they'd be happy. And they were very satisfied because he knows my heart is in the right place and that all I have is admiration for him. And I wasn't coming at it from any weird angle. I just, I was just trying to take advantage of all this fantastic material. That's why I think the movie feels, that's why I think the movie feels a little bit like somebody's telling you

a story in a bar. You're like, did I ever tell you about the time I was arrested for murder? Like, okay. And then it leaps to another thing like, wait, what happened? And then all of a sudden we were at the tail of the cock. So it kind of feels like that to me. I keep describing it as

like a perfectly reconstructed memory. Most movies don't feel that way. They feel invented. This doesn't feel invented. Good. Good. Yeah. Because everything has a touch to some kernel of truth, even if we've movie-fied it or whatever we've needed to do to keep it propelled along a little bit. There's always something you can touch on that is a real thing. Well, the Bradley Cooper piece is my favorite piece of a movie

in like four years. And that's another thing, right? You take John Peters, legendary Hollywood producer, dating Streisand at the time, who, I don't know, I have no idea if he's a nice guy or not, but you decide to have

an incredible amount of fun with him. But you had to ask him, right? Or did you give him a heads up? Or how did you handle that? Because he turns him into a crazy person. Which I think he quite enjoys that he's portrayed

as this wild man. I reached out to him as a courtesy thinking, I've never met this man. I should really tell him. And I went and I told him and he

was so sweet he said what's going on here I said he said I don't really read just tell me the story I don't know if he reads he didn't want to sit down and read 130 pages of my nonsense he's like let's cut to the

good stuff and I sort of cut to the good stuff. And I sort of cut to the good stuff. And as I was telling him, as I had written the sequence, they arrive, set up his waterbed without giving too much away, their paths cross again. And I had written that he's screaming and yelling at them the entire time, just berating them for their inability to get anything done properly. And I could see his face change as I was letting him know that I was,

I was losing him. He was, he was, he was, his mind was drifting and I got all the way to the end and he was very sweet. And he said, listen, you're a great artist and I love what you do.

And I would never, never tell you how to make a story. But what does she look like? I said, well, she's beautiful, young girl. She said, yeah, okay. There's absolutely no way I would scream at her. I said, well, what would you do? And he said, well, I would try and screw her.

You know, I was like, ah, okay. You know, we can do that. That's better, I think. That's much, much, much better. That is, that's... And I realized, like, I got a great note from John Peters, legendary producer.

Let me go back and fix that. And then as I was leaving his home, he said, you just have to do me a favor. Please get my pickup line in there. I said, what is it? He said, I would go up to a girl and I would say, excuse me, do you like peanut butter sandwiches? I said, what did that do? He said they would laugh and it would work.

And then we'd start talking. I said, you got it. So it's in the film. Wow. I wonder if that still works all these years later. Peanut then we'd start talking. I said, you got it. So it's in the film. Wow, I wonder if that still works all these years later. Peanut butter sandwiches. Probably not. You probably have to go with like

peanut butter on rice cakes or some sort of healthier version of that. This cast, the whole construct of the cast, Sean and I were both fascinated by it, where you have two people who have never acted as the lead people. You have two of the most famous actors we have just in there with these extended cameos, basically.

And then a whole bunch of people where I'm like, I know that person. I know this person. And they all have these great scenes. Like the child, what was she? The child agent. What's her name, Sean? Harriet Simpson Harris.

She's mind- blowing in this movie yeah so are these people do you just have a file of like I like that person I gotta get them in somewhere like how do you over and over again how are you able to find these people and pull these like 5-7 minute performances out of them

people that I haven't really thought of in that way I do have a list I also have a list. I also keep a list as I'm going along or usually I know right away that it's one and only person. That was a situation with that part where I had worked with her on Phantom Thread. She plays the drunk American heiress

that they come and they steal the dress off of. Right. So I had her set in my sights. I got very nervous at a certain point because it was the COVID times and all that. And she was in New York. She was on the East Coast. So I knew I had to make a call to her and say, would you risk your life and get on an airplane?

This was still when everything was such a great mystery. Would you, you know, and come out here? She said yes. So that was nerve wracking because if she had not said yes, I don't know what I would have done. But I think what you're touching on is that why I think it works is that you start the film with two people you've never seen before. People, an audience is an open book. They're like, I'm down for this. If they're going to be good, they're open to it. I don't think anybody needs this kind of horseshit thing for so long. It's like, you got to see the movie stars

and we're going to put them on the poster and all that kind of stuff. It's like, no, I think any audience is going to kind of give somebody the benefit of the doubt and they deliver. And Cooper and Alana deliver. And then right as their story is reaching a kind of peak where you don't know how much is left before something really sort of starts to break it, we introduce a movie star

and a movie star playing a movie star is a terrific entrance in, you know, and you go with it. You hear Sean's voice before you see him and then you see him and there's something that actually, that lifts the movie up to another little space. You think, okay, this guy's not just going to turn up and nothing's going to happen. Or there's not just going to be one scene.

When Sean emerges, you expect something, as you should. Like, I want to see fireworks at Sean Penn. And then you add Tom Waits to it, and you realize that, oh, we've got a double-charged cannon. Now something is really afoot. Same thing with having Bradley play a kind of big Hollywood producer. So having big movie stars play a part that can fit the way that the main thrust of the story,

which is really Two Kids You've Never Seen Before, I think is the only way you can fit the way that the main thrust of the story, which is really two kids you've never seen before, I think is the only way you can navigate it to make it work. And yeah, I've got a lot of years under my belt, great people that I've worked with, or even people that I've auditioned that weren't right for something that I keep in the back of my mind in a nice little folder, a list of people that I'd love to get back to or that can be... There's so many actors out there

that have never had opportunities to do what they're really capable of. I'm telling you the list is so long. It's not like any other profession where if you're great, you will rise and you will find that stuff. You know what it's like? It's honestly like basketball.

And the way you approach it reminds me of a really good basketball franchise where basketball have these guys that Golden State is doing this right now. Golden State's really good this year. And they built this team around Curry and they have these role players. And these have been, in some cases, guys who are on other teams. But on this team, because it's this high IQ team, everybody knows how to move without the basketball. It's just really smart.

Like they make sense on that team. Right. And I think this happens with movies and TV too, where you see like Succession right now, Jeremy Strong is somebody who I think has been good in a bunch of things. And then on Succession, they tap into it and they figure it out. And I think that's one of the enduring legacies of your career now,

now that you're two and a half decades in, you've over and over again been able to find these people and put them in the right spots. I wonder how much that extends to like a behind the scenes situation, like you're talking about a golden state, like locker room, like everything from assistant coaches to, you know,

physical therapy dudes. And just because I think of that, I think of our, I think when you're talking like that, I think of my camera operator, my first assistant camera operator, the people that are right there that are really making the film. If that vibe is good, it's going to make these young actors feel comfortable there's going to be a camaraderie between them so it's not just the lineup that you're going to see on the floor every night but the lineup behind the scenes is is critical you don't you have no idea how somebody's day as an actor can get completely fucked within the first three minutes of turning up and there's somebody in a makeup chair

who says the wrong thing or makes it weird or plays some annoying music to start your day off right and the next thing you know you're like you're not going to recover. It's behind the scenes and the stuff that happens as well there that if that team is good

then you're going to win the championship. I love the championship. Right. I love, love the soundtrack. I'm going to pitch a theory at you. Tell me if I'm onto something. I feel like a lot of the songs that you picked are by bands, acts, singers who are a little bit out of fashion or maybe not considered as cool as they were when they were hitting in the 70s blood sweat and tears the doors etc was that were you thinking about that or were you just

trying to recapture stuff that was popular at that time well no i was not thinking that there was no no because that's that's too much thinking you're like lucky enough to get a song that works for the movie, that ideally isn't overused. Because listen, it's fucking 70s movies. There's no shortage of them that have hot soundtracks. Either it's the same old shit, or even if they're great songs at a certain point, you just kind of roll your eyes.

I fucking heard this one before. And they're usually kind of slid in to cover something up. I don't want to bother telling this story. Just play that Creedence Clearwater revival song and that'll

put us in Vietnam, right? We got it. John Fogerty. Great. So I think it's a combination of things that can help tell the story, things that can fit within a scene, not clash with the dialogue, stuff that can raise to full blast

and if anything, you actually have to ask yourself, I think I've talked about this before, if you have the balls to use David Bowie, Life on Mars, or a Paul McCartney, Let Me Roll It, you have to earn it. They're not cheap.

And I don't mean money-wise. It's like, don't not do your work and call in David Bowie to help do your work for you. Because I get irritated with films that do that. I have some takes on this. Sean, I've never told you this one. I think if a movie is past a certain level of quality, like above some sort of quality line,

any song that's used in that movie, like take my beloved Boogie Nights. Spill the Wine is off limits now for all other movies. It's just out. It doesn't get to be used anymore. It's just, if it's an indelible movie that we've watched over and over again,

the songs are off the table. You don't get to use them again. That's it. And I always get mad if it's, you know, from some movie that I love or is obviously from a pop culture standpoint matters. And then some director 10 years later is like, I'm just going to grab that one again. It's like, no, hands off. Because in a lot of ways the songs become characters in the movie. And it's kind of

disorienting to see them in another thing. I don't know. It's one of my weird movie things. Let Me Roll It is now off the table. That's it. Can't use it anymore. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. You know, what ends up happening sometimes is I think sometimes if it can make you feel good, if there's some B-side stuff or stuff that's not too popular, then it turns up in a television commercial and you sort of wince at first and you go, well, you know what? At least that songwriter or his family

is getting some cash for this because I know how hard it is out there and you're sort of counting on somebody discovering certain songs and that can always that always feels good. It's sort of disposable and you realize, oh, somebody got some cash for that. That's good. I mean, Paul McCartney doesn't need the cash, but you know, there's

some other tunes that hopefully people will discover. I mean, Paul McCartney doesn't need the cash, but, you know, there's some other tunes that hopefully people will discover. You're always on the lookout, too. You're like, just keep that radio on. I mean, there's got, and that is, I will say, a crazy thing about the 1970s. Once you think you've heard it all, suddenly you discover, like, five songs, you're like,

I never have heard this before. Where the fuck did this come from? It's crazy. We're thinking about set movies in the 70s versus now, things like that. The last time you were on, you kind of tipped off as you're even in the middle of making a movie, you're so creatively inspired

that sometimes the idea for the next movie will pop up. You might even start messing around with it. How many things are you working on at a given time? And we might not even see 90% of them, but how many ideas are you messing around with either as you're making a movie or right after when you have that kind of the creative nirvana after finishing a movie

when you just want to go to the next one? How many projects? That's a good question. At the moment, it's two to three, two and a half, three. Some of those things are things that have been on the table

for a long time, 10, 15 years, and then you go away from them. I used to get nervous about that until I finally looked back at my life and I realized, well, talking about your beloved Boogie Nights. I wrote that until I finally looked back at my life and I realized like, well, you know, talking about your beloved Boogie Nights is like, I wrote that when I was, um, 17. I wrote a short film when I was 17, but I didn't make it for another 10 years because I wrote draft after draft or various incarnation of it. So, um, I don't beat myself up the way that I used to about thinking like,

why can't you finish this? Because sometimes things leapfrog over each other and they take that long. Do you have a sounding board or anything? Do you talk to people about, is there one person? Do you talk to your wife about it? Or is it just all internal?

A lot of it's internal. And then at a certain point, I start bursting at the seams. I can't, I need help or I'm drowning. I try to pull somebody in. People that I work with closely, producer, editor. Don't bother me with it on Monday. You know, bother me with it on a Friday by the time you've worked through all that nonsense in your head. Like, don't come to me on Wednesday either. I mean it.

Come to me on Friday. Because how you feel on a Monday is not going to be how you're going to feel on a Friday. So just, and I, yeah. Writing can get lonely, and you can blink sometimes in that loneliness where you're like, I want to share this with somebody. And really, no one, maybe they're anxious to hear what you're doing and they're curious and they want to know when we're all going to go to work again making film together. They want to schedule their life.

But they also don't want to be bored with your bullshit that you're trying to work through. You know, that's just, you know, then again, there are collaborators that, that you do need to be bored with your bullshit to help, help you separate your A material from your B material. Because certainly sometimes you start writing stuff and you can go down rabbit holes and I have a couple of people in my life that'll help me sort through that. The last time we talked, we asked you to recommend a movie. I don't know if you remember this. You recommended Track Town. You were talking about how you love to watch women running or anybody running.

And you have some of this in your other movies. Holy shit. And then you made this movie. And I was like, whoa, was that on your brain when you were writing this? And why is there so much running in Licorice Pizza like can you tell us about that that's weird I never put that together um

huh fucking great I mean great at least I'm consistent that's nice um the run you know running is so cinematic especially if you have a story that doesn't have uh big set pieces or special effects or you just got teenagers. Running is momentum. Running is these two people. They're on the run from something. They're trying to outrun something.

And they're outrunning the inevitability of what's going on between them, which they can't face. So the more you run, you just keep running. Maybe they won't catch up with you, whatever the problem of the day is. Oh, it's great.

Amazing that I said that. Weird. Sean just had a kid, so he doesn't know this feeling yet. You have four, including your oldest is 16, right? Older, 18, 16? 16, 16. How many do you have? I have a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old,

and as you know, you hit a point where you really just wanna impress your kids. Nobody else matters because they have such, you're such losers to them most of the time because you're the guy that's just in their house all day. And if once in a while you can get a win with them, it's amazing. This is probably the first movie you've made in a while that you could actually just take all your kids to, right? So what did they think of it? They love it.

Particularly the 16 year old, my son appeared to really love it until he admitted about like two or three months ago. He said, you know, I don't want, I don't want to be, I don't want to sound mean,

but the story of this movie actually doesn't make that much sense. It's like, he's not wrong. I mean, he likes films with stories. He likes Hawkeye. There's a story. Marvel films have stories, proper stories. This film is pretty void of a proper story. You know, I mean, of course it has one

and it accumulates to a story, but in any traditional way, he finally admitted like, yeah, you know, he's not, you know, and he was nervous about it, but I let him know that was all right. You don't have to love it. When you're hanging out with your kids, especially during the pandemic, you're just watching stuff. What else are you going to do? And he was nervous about it, but I let him know that was all right. He didn't have to love it. When you're hanging out with your kids,

especially during the pandemic, you're just watching stuff. What else are you going to do? You're going to go out. So did that get you thinking like, wow, should I just, what if I just made my version of Big or one of these movies? What if I made a movie literally geared

for the people I'm in the room with? Because you haven't really done that. Does your brain ever go that direction? No, not really. But again, while we were sitting around in this, we were already planning to make this film. And I had seen this as an opportunity. Listen, secretly, whether or not they were going to like it or not,

it was I could cast all of them and their friends because I needed that was the nature of the story. So I was just using and abusing the privilege of having my children. Like, you're in the movie. You're in the movie. You've got friends. Those friends.

That kid's got long hair. That kid's good. And they've been a part of this whole process. My eldest daughter read the script, so she was able to see it from that point of view. But we do dailies every night here at my house and the whole film was shot here

within five miles of the house so you have to understand that the environment is very collaborative in that way that when the 15-20 of us that are going to watch dailies show up at my house and we're going to project dailies, all the kids are down here watching them too so they're eating their dinner and watching watch dailies show up at my house and we're going to project dailies. All the kids are down here watching them too.

So they're eating their dinner and watching the dailies and they're able to see take after take and see what we're doing. And they grew up with Cooper as well. So they're watching his work and they are very close with Alana. I mean, in their lifespan, they've known Alana all their lives

or half their lives. So take that to the next level, their lifespan, they've known Alana all their lives or half their lives, you know? So, um, take that to the next level, which is that we went into the second lockdown right after we finished shooting and we were editing the movie. So they're doing zoom school while I was editing the movie. Yeah. So they're, they're active participants in the course of this film and we're seeing it evolve. Yeah. Very cool.

Yeah. To the point where they were upset if I take something out or they'd make suggestions. I don't know about that take. He doesn't look, he looks like he's, he looks like he's memorizing his lines. I say, you know,

you're actually, actually right. Good call. They were like, also a test audience. What a film school for your kids. Yeah. Yeah. Sean wants to be invited for any dailies. I don't think

I'd fit in with the teenagers. How old is your baby? She's five months this week. That's your first one? First one, yeah. That's great. It's pretty fucking cool. It only gets better. It only gets better. I'm enjoying it. I was wondering about when you watch stuff with your kids especially like if

you're watching hawkeye is it changing your attitude about the things that you like or the things that you want to do maybe in your in your work i think it does change the the things that you like that you if they like it you see it through their eyes and you're, and you're far more open probably than, than, than you might be. Um, then again, there's some stuff that they look at that, that I do not like, and I'm not, I can't find a way no matter how much I love them. I, I, I would rather just leave the room

this is annoying I'm not going to watch this you're preaching the choir on that one brother yeah some stuff is just it's bad it's not good but

it's a little bit like I was told once I think my mom was told this like I was told once, I think my mom was told this when I was a kid. I didn't like reading anything, but comic books or sort of things below the reading level that I was supposed to be at. And some teacher said to her, don't ever worry about that.

Whatever they're watching, whatever he's reading is good as long as he's reading. And it always stuck with me. Don't be the party pooper. Don't jump in on pissing on their parade or yuck or yum. Just let it evolve. Let it happen. Yeah. I try to obey that in my house, except for when my daughter watched 15 seasons of Grey's Anatomy. And I actually felt like it started to affect her mood. It's such like a melodramatic, crazy things happening every episode. And she actually was like way more somber than she usually is. And we were like, you got to stop watching that show.

It's like actually affecting you. Well, how did she get on Grey's Anatomy? How did she navigate towards Grey's Anatomy? It was a pandemic thing. It was, it's a big thing with teenage girls because they were on, it was on Netflix and you just kind of keep going. There's some sort of crisis.

And then she decided she wanted to be a doctor, but didn't want to go to med school. So she wanted to just, she was like, this should just be a show where somebody is a doctor, but they didn't actually get medical training. They just learned everything from Grey's Anatomy. I was like, that should just be a show where somebody's a doctor, but they didn't actually get medical training. They just learned everything from Grey's Anatomy. I was like, that's definitely not a show. Nobody's making that show.

But yeah, you binge watch this stuff. And if you binge watch Succession right now, because there's like 28 episodes, you're probably going to be screwed up a little from a social standpoint for a couple of days, I would say after that. Just because of the characters, how bad they are. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, completely. You know, you know, the movie The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, right? Oh, my God. Yes. I have a poster. I can pull a poster right now. We must have talked about this last time. Because I remember I went to see Fish That Saved Pittsburgh.

I was like, I need some of those Gene cutoff shorts like Gabe Kaplan has. You're thinking Fast Break. Am I thinking Fast Break? Yeah, you're getting your terrible 70s basketball movies confused. But Gabe Kaplan is also in the Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, no? I don't think he's in that one. So, okay, Fast Break is Gabe Kaplan in jean shorts.

Yes. He's a basketball coach. Yeah. But is the Fish that Save Pittsburgh the one where they eat the bag of weed? That's Fast Break. Fish that Save Pittsburgh is Dr. J on a terrible basketball team, but they meet a psychic who changes the fortunes of the team.

Yes, and it has the great title song, The Fish That Ate Pittsburgh. If Fast Break is now, I think it actually might be the most politically incorrect sports movie of all time. I haven't seen it since it came out. It's kind of shocking. But I do remember, but look, talking about how do these things affect us? Well, they do affect us, you know, especially if I wanted to go get jean shorts.

Right. Well, think about Bad News Bears. Tanner, the abrasive racist shortstop, was like a cult hero in the mid-70s. He was like a phenomenon. There's magazine features about Tanner, this kid. What's going to happen with him? Yeah, no one wanted to be Lupus.

People wanted to be Tanner. That would be the worst character thing. What media are you consuming these days? What are you watching? Because now basically you're doing press for this movie. You haven't started another movie yet. And do you go and do you just start watching stuff? Like what's your process when you're between movies?

I don't feel like you're between movies? I don't feel like I'm between movies yet because I don't have that real, I'm still sort of pushing it out there in the world. Still got to finish some technical stuff here and there to get it out for its home video release eventually. I made the

time without question to watch Get Back with Peter Jackson. I was going to ask you. Oh, yes. You watched it? Let's talk about it. Yes. Let's do it.

Let's talk. Tell us what you thought. Well, I mean, I fall firmly in the camp that if it had been 18 hours, I'd be perfectly happy. Yes. Right? But that said, I was so frustrated about three and a half hours in, like, when will I get to here, get back? How much longer do I have to wait to see them struggle through this song?

And it was, you were really, he really put you in the room because you went through all these emotions, like, I can't wait any longer and I'm going fucking mad, you know? And that when you eventually, when he does, when he gets you to that rooftop concert, it was like the floodgates open and it was so thrilling. But the overriding sense of melancholy from the whole thing is so strong. And I suppose it goes back to,

I think we all, we probably always feel like there had to be one thing. Like if your parents divorced, like what was the one thing that happened? Oh, there's, there's something happened and not one thing happened. A million tiny little things happened and it happened in slow motion and it happened over the course of time. And so it was like watching a divorce happen in front of your eyes. It was so slow motion and melancholy.

Um, but it just verifies that they're endlessly cool. Endlessly. The most fucking brilliant guys that ever got in a room together. Um, and I had never heard that Michael Lindsay hog was the illegit the possible illegitimate child of Orson Welles. That was really interesting to me. Did you know that?

I learned it after watching that. Crazy stuff. It's hard to think that that's not true. Look at his face. Yeah. Yeah. He looks like a little mini-me, little Orson. But I love hearing his big plans to go out to

Libya. That was classic director stuff right there. Like, yeah, right, but why don't we go light some shit on fire and you guys will play. Or we'll go to an orphanage. Not with the real sick ones. Not with the real sick ones. That was

great. The biggest thing that changed for me, and Sean and I have both talked about this on our podcast, so I'll make it quick for the people listening. not with the real sequins you know that was great the biggest thing had changed for me and we sean and i have both talked about this on our podcast so i'll make it quick for the okay i think just like just like uh you know i'd always had this feeling that lennon and mccartney had really turned on each other and i think a lot of that had to do with the interviews that especially lennon gave in the 70s that made it seem like they were in such a bad spot but i watched this and i just i saw two guys that were completely connected creatively who really loved each other.

And maybe there are these other factors that were undermining that, but ultimately they really loved playing. Now, other people didn't see it that way necessarily, but that's how I saw it. I saw guys who were really connected to the point that George actually kind of had, you know, he had self-confidence issues about it

because there was no way to break into this, these two guys that were this locked in. How did you see it? I saw a similar thing, but I also saw that this marriage was dissolving and Paul being the one who was really trying to keep it. Trying to save it, yeah. Trying to save it.

And that there were moments of John Lennon just checking out, checking out in a kind of self-imposed ambivalence. Because that would surprise him. Sort of moments would happen when they would connect and you just saw the whole place light up. Like, oh, you can't get away from this when you guys connect to each other but it was a classic thing too of like sort of very british way to deal with things too like

no one's really saying it or they're saying it under their breath the first situation they're in is shit it's like it doesn't sound good in here no one really knows are we making a movie are we making a record there's no making a record? There's no direction. I wish they'd actually gone back a little bit more to what was touched on at the beginning is missing that father figure, the Brian Epstein figure. That was so interesting. And Paul even says it, you know, like,

well, we've been a bit rudderless, whatever it is. But it's a classic example of any creative situation you've found yourself in. You're like, there's a lot of people chatting around, a classic example of any creative situation you find yourself in. There's a lot of people chatting around and when you realize it's like this fog, if you can just snap out of it and get a change of scenery,

something else interesting can happen. The second they get over to Apple, you feel them all come alive again. You're like, I don't know, it must have been rough for them at that point. The headlines are around the corner. They can't last forever.

Thank God they didn't in a way. I don't know. But no one really wants to pull. No one wants to break up, but everybody does and you feel it. Oh, fuck. I don't know. It was magical. I hope there's another 18 hours release. Oh, I'm going to go back and you feel it. Oh, fuck. I don't know. It was magical. Magical. I hope there's another 18 hours release.

Oh, I'm going to go back and hear you guys talking about it. Do you want to hear? Yeah, we'll send it to you. You have to go. This movie was... Yeah, we're getting

where you have to go. This movie was fantastic. We loved it. Sean's seen it twice. I'm about to see it twice. It's my favorite. I look forward to seeing the reactions of all the people. It's only in like how many theaters,

like four theaters right now? At the moment, it's only in four theaters, but it's going to sneak preview this weekend. And then it's going to sneak through the next weekend. Then it's going to come out on a lot more theaters on Christmas day. But you know, we're trying to,

trying to get this movie to play in theaters. You know, back in the old days, you used to have a movie that would play in a theater for a year, right? A year, like exorcist played two theaters for a year in L. You know, back in the old days, you used to have a movie that would play in a theater for a year, right? A year. Like, Exorcist played two theaters for a year in LA. That's just how they did it.

So we're trying to emulate a little bit of that. Just like, play better theaters for a longer period of time. Avoid it being on your phone for as long as we can. And just try to take it back

to a little bit of that. Oh yeah, Sean, you were going to ask him about that. About just what it's like to release a movie in the Marvel era that's a movie like this that you're trying to slow burn. It's a really hard thing to do. We haven't seen a lot of people

pull that off. It's super hard. It's not as hard as you think. It just requires patience, stamina, and just keep reminding people that it's there and just try to keep feeding the beast and guiding people

towards where it is. And the funny thing is it's not wildly inventive. It just hasn't been done in about five years. So suddenly it's like, oh shit, that's right. Remember those days

we'd release a movie and go search for it? Sean's going to start sobbing right now. This is everything he wants to hear. I'm glad you're doing it that way go search for it. Sean's going to start sobbing right now. This is everything he wants to hear. I'm glad you're doing it that way. I appreciate it.

You know, we do this show on the network called The Rewatchables where we talk about one movie that we love and we were talking about Back to the Future

last year and I think Back to the Future was the number one movie at the box office in like November and then again in like March. And how did that happen? How crazy that is

and how we kind of missed that. But you should come back and do an episode of The Rewatchables about a movie that you love. Yeah, we're forcing you to come back. Like how you forced Sean Penn

to be in your movie. We're forcing you to be in a Rewatchables. We're just going to just badger you until you do it. Good luck with everything. Good luck with the rollout.

Congrats on the movie. We loved it. You did it again. I love talking to you guys. Thank you. Thank you very movie. We loved it. You did it again. I love talking to you guys. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks, Paul. All right, that's it for the podcast.

Thanks to Paul Thomas Anderson. Thanks to Sean Fantasy. Thanks to Peter Schrager. Thanks to Kyle Creighton who produced this podcast. I'll be back here on Sunday night. Don't forget to watch Music Box, the fifth film,

Mr. Saturday Night, directed by John Maggio. It is available on HBO Max and HBO right now. I'll see you on Sunday night. Feel it's within On the wayside I'm a person I never was And I don't have to ever