The Rewatchables - ‘Armageddon’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Shea Serrano, and Jason Concepcion

Episode Date: May 21, 2020

NASA hires an unlikely crew of Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Shea Serrano, and Jason Concepcion to record a podcast about Michael Bay’s 1998 action-thriller ‘Armageddon’ starring Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, and Billy Bob Thornton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You can listen to it on Spotify and Apple, wherever you get your podcasts. Coming up, you know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon, and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it? Armageddon next. The entire world is watching the game. Someone should be watching the sky. It's a meteor shower.

How big with those? The size of basketballs. This new one you're tracking. How big? It's the size of Texas, Mr. President. July 1st. Are you suggesting that we nuke this thing from the inside? We're bringing the world's best deep core driller.

Nothing can prepare you. Promise me that you are going to come back. I promise, Grace. For the event. that will rock the world. Beat me up, Scottie. This is who you found to save the planet.

Bruce Willis. Billy Bob Thornton. Luke Tyler. Ben Affleck, Will Patton, and Steve Buselli. We don't get this done. Nobody else will.

That's my gosh! I'm dead! Armagedon. A Jerry Bruchheimer production directed by Michael Bay. All right. The Dreamer. team is back after we successfully conquered gladiator. Shea Serrano, Jason Concepcion, and Chris Ryan.

Tackling Armageddon, the 1998 classic won 11th Academy Awards. Bruce Willis, best supporting actor, Ben Affleck best actor, Liv Tyler, she won. I didn't realize, Chris, did you know that it swept the Academy Awards? I had no idea. What a year, what a year I remember, I remember just feeling so. good for Billy Bob Thornton that year. Yes. I forgot he went too. They created a word.

This movie's ridiculous. It was ridiculous in 1998. Shea, as you watch it in 2020. Less ridiculous, more ridiculous, or the same ridiculous? Listen, I never thought this movie was ridiculous. To me, it is still, this is quality, documentary filmmaking. This is better than the last dance. This is better than that.

Ken Burns wore one. This is the one for me. Jason? As some of you may know, I worked in a movie theater in 97, 98, so I've seen this movie hundreds of times. It is an unbelievable masterpiece and just like so of its time, so of the late 90s that it just takes me back. Chris? You know how in 48 hours when Reggie turns to Jack and says, you said bullshit

experience is all it takes will get ready to experience some of my bullshit. That's how I feel about Armageddon. I have never seen a movie that blows through plot holes unanswerable questions.

Fucking picking nits. I love it. Fucking ridiculous American flags. Why is it the 1950s all of a sudden? And it's just like, I know what I am doing. It is Michael Bay throwing that camera through a space station, hurtling it through outer space, saving the world.

And it is the most confident movie I have ever seen. That's right. That's good. Michael Bay puts himself on the map with Bad Boys. Bad Boys is a movie that we all loved Will Smith. We were with him with his rapping, with fresh prints, even a little six degrees of separation cameo. And it's like, oh, cool.

He's making an action movie with Martin Lawrence. Who's their director? Don't know who that is. and he dials it up to about, I don't know, somewhere between 22 and 28 on a scale 1 to 10 in that movie. There's a lot of slow motion. There's stuff that I just hadn't seen in an action movie where everything feels like the most important moment ever.

Then it goes to The Rock, a movie that will definitely be on the rewatchable. Same thing. Dials it up. And you're like, all right, I get it. I get it with this Michael Bay guy. I see what he's doing now. He just dials it up.

Then Armageddon comes in and he's like, watch this. And Shay, Shay, it's one of the all-time director action movie he checks, right? I don't even know what would be second on the list, but I know this is first. Yeah, this is the biggest movie director, not like biggest prestige-wise, but I'm talking about just makes the biggest kind of movies.

The biggest movie director, making the biggest movie with the biggest stakes possible. and he just fucking went for it. He had no doubt in his bones at all when he was making this, and it is an incredible amount of fun to rewatch. Jason, what stood out after the 120th time of watching this in a movie theater?

Oh, what didn't stand out? First of all, about Michael Bay, I have a take. I have a take about Michael Bay, and I think Michael Bay is what happens when a director is too handsome in real life. Michael Bay is a tall, good-looking L.A. guy, right?

Who processes the world through this lens of, I'm a really handsome guy. And this is what happens when movies get made by a really handsome guy. One, number two, one of the thing that jumped out at me right away because it's like in the first five minutes of the movie is the absolutely egregious, unnecessary, completely petty. and after all these years, hilarious shot at Godzilla, which opened the same summer as Armageddon?

Why are we swerving across four lanes of traffic to do a drive-by on Godzilla? Godzilla was LeBradford Smith. Can we talk about the heat check of all heat checks in your second, like, major film, to just be like, fuck it, I'm going to take a shot at Godzilla. What? It's incredible. Chris, Michael Bayes, this is, we're going to do Apex Mountain later, but is this still his best

performance in a movie? I think that The Rock is probably a tighter movie. I can't tell which one I've probably seen more. This is the most movie-ass movie he has ever made. I mean, you cannot overstate the influence of Titanic on this movie, whether Michael Bay liked it or not. I think that there's a part of Michael Bay

that would have been content just shooting in like the NASA deep water tank forever, you know, and just being like, I don't need Liv Tyler in this movie. Affleck doesn't have to be in this movie. Like, I think he would have been fine making a movie that was about Bruce Willis and

Billy Bob Thornton. But you know, this was his basically his foray into let's make the biggest movie we possibly can. It is pop filmmaking all the way dialed up to 11. And you can see that, like, you know, I can't wait to talk about like the screenwriting talent

that was involved in this and everybody who just, who had a hand in it. But it weirdly, beyond Bruckheimer, beyond Bruce Willis, beyond all the screenwriters, it still is like pure Michael Bay. It is uncut. Yes. Shea, would you say Michael Bay,

Tony Scott after three drinks and four lines of cocaine. Or Tony Scott after 11 drinks? Like, what would be the formula? Yeah, you take Tony Scott. You take the pile that Scarface had at the end of Scarface when he was just off the rails. Those two things together is how you end up with Michael Bay's career, which I fucking love. I love this guy. It's great.

I wonder if Tony Scott admired it or was threatened by it or just was done. dismissive of it, like MJ and Clyde Drexer? Like, I wonder, Jason, what do you think he felt about him in the moment as they're, like, technically competing? You know, it's interesting. I think he's more, I wonder what Fincher thinks of him because they both came up at the same time doing music videos. They're of the same generation.

And to me, Michael Bay is like all the technical brilliance of David Fincher, crossed with like Fox Nation. Like Armageddon is the most is the most watchable and entertaining right wing movie of all time. Like it literally, it starts with

Harry making fun of Greenpeace for wanting to protect the environment. The heroes are the oil companies Middle America. Who defeat an asteroid with nuclear weapons and what they want More than anything, as a reward for this, is to never pay taxes.

It's an incredible film. It's shamelessness is its power, though. Yes, I love it. Because as you approach that last 35 minutes or so, and that's when the movie really just sort of loses all bearing, where it's like, why do all these kids have crew cuts and they're standing in front of a poster of John F. Kennedy? Right.

in the 90s and are their go-karting you know and getting into tornado storm shelters and you're like it doesn't matter this is pure propaganda this is like this is and it works like I'm one of my favorite things that I'm sure we'll talk about the absolutely amazing uh DVD commentary that's on the DVD version of all the end is Affleck being like I couldn't give a shit about the things that this movie is like purporting to to to care of it. about and I get choked up watching myself walk in front of this American flag to board the space shuttle. Yeah, if they did a parody of this movie, I think it would just be the same movie. Like, if it was like the hot shots, the Top Gun, I don't really, I wouldn't maybe change like

two scenes and that same. Yeah, but like straight up, like of the four people on this podcast, I have seen this movie 25 times at least. Every single time William Fickner goes up to live Tyler. At the end, I want to shake the hand of the bravest man I ever met. It's a great moment. This is why this movie is so good, though. Because every actor in the movie takes it completely seriously with the utmost sincerity and earnestness. I was watching this movie and Laramie came and sat down right as it was finishing. She hears the Aerosmith song come on.

And she was like, how was it? And I told her like, totally not joking. I cried three times. Three times I had tears come out. When Ben Affleck is doing his thing at the end, when Harry and Liv, or when Bruce and Liv are doing their thing at the end, and then when he shakes her hand at the end,

like in a 10-minute stretch. And I just, they just take it so seriously. It's the only way that something like this works as well as it does. Yeah, the parts that get me are when Colonel Willie, William Fickner, is trying to blow up the new, and he makes Harry promise him

and promise his family and his wife and kids that he will get it done. That and then when AJ finally breaks through like the iron ferrite plate or whatever it is when they're drilling down into and Harry's like, you got it, AJ? You can do it. He's like, yeah, I believe it.

I feel it. We're going to break through. I have never fist pumped so hard for like someone going eight, 802 meters, Ary, than I have in that scene. So when I was growing up, there were all these disaster movies. It was the Towering Inferno airport, and it just became earthquake. There was a Super Bowl terrorist movie, and it was like four or five years of this.

And then airplane, the comedy, came out and made fun of all of them. And then that genre kind of died. Then it came back. And it came back with these movies in a row, independent. Day, Starship Troopers, Dante's Peak, Volcano, Titanic, and then in 1998, Deep Impact and Armageddon, racing to the finish line with Deep Impact coming out earlier and then doing pretty well. Chris, what do you remember of the 1990s disaster genre era? You know, I was trying to think about this because, you know, I don't really remember,

when did Y2K fear really start to kick in? Because I didn't really go to. 90s, worrying about it. I mean, I think you started to get a little bit more worried about environmentalism and, like, climate change and some of the stuff involved there. But this was really, I kind of sometimes feel like it's times of relative stability when our darkest imaginations take hold. And I remember that this time in, at least in my life or in, like, you know, the wider culture to be relatively stable, like to be relatively like, things seem like they're going

in the right direction more or less. And that's when people are like, we have the sort of room to play with the idea of what if everything went bad. You know, what if the worst possible thing happened? But ultimately, this movie is very optimistic, you know, because it's about people pulling together. I mean, the scenes of civil unrest that they show are like briefly on CNN. But for the most part, it's like people in prayer, people waiting, you know, hoping and praying that these guys on this rock can get to get to 800 feet. What do you think, Bill? It just seemed like there was a moment there.

And I don't know. I think it had less to do with what was going on in America in the 1990s and more to do with the fact that the technology got better. Yeah. And you think about some of the stuff they're doing in this movie in 1998. I just don't think they were capable of doing even in 1992, 93. The last hour plus of the movie is in outer space on a fucking asteroid with, you know, astronauts falling, getting their planes expletable. and their bodies hurtling and asteroids. And I don't think this, if you made this movie in like 1988 or 1993, it's a disaster.

But watching it now, I was actually kind of surprised by how well the special effects held up. Shea, are you a special effects guy with stuff like this? Or are you just like the action part? No, I do enjoy the special effects. I especially enjoy when something like this happens where you have the right director with the right script and the right technology, all sort of meet up at the same time. And it doesn't even have to be this big, gigantic thing. The Perfect Storm is another movie that I remember watching and feeling the exact same way about it.

I was like, oh, they nailed all of the part of this. The big wave at the end when he's going up. You're like, I don't know this was like the first year they could have done this. And you get it all at the same time. And that's when you get those movies that sort of lived the longest or feel the most impactful or special. Well, Terminator 2, which was 91, I think. that was the first time I really remember thinking,

oh shit, we're entering this new domain of where stuff's going. Jason, I'm going to read you a couple Michael Bay quotes from 2001. Because he took some shit. People were mad at this movie.

They were mad. It became the number one movie of 1998. It made over a half a billion dollars. And people were just pissed off. And this movie took a lot of shit in a lot of ways. There's Ben Affleck backlash. There's Bruce Willis backlash. there's too much

hidden advertising in this movie, all this shit. It's just backlash, backlash. Yeah. Backlash, backlash. So Michael Bay in 2001 says the following two things. I would like your take. Number one, quote,

Armageddon is like a total fantasy for a 15-year-old. It's funny. When the critics tried to review Armageddon, I mean, relax. It's a popcorn movie. It's not supposed to be taken seriously. That's one.

Here's the second one. Armageddon, when I look at it now, it's like a comedy. It's like a fantasy comedy, all right? Do you believe Michael Bay felt that way in 1998? Absolutely not. I believe to my core that Michael Bay wanted everybody to come out and go, this is visionary. This is Star Wars.

This is 2001 a space odyssey. I can't believe I saw the Chrysler building crash into the street and bodies fall out of the Chrysler building. and hit taxi cabs. I am blown away. This is important. I believe that he wanted that. And he did not get it.

And I think that now he's fine with it, but I believe in that time, he was like, I want people to acknowledge that this is a masterpiece. What's wild is he didn't get it, but he only didn't get it from a small group of people. Because the rest of us

walk out of there saying that exactly. Like, I've never seen anything like this. Holy shit. Who is this person? Give me more. Chris, what do you think? Yeah, you know, he is probably the most talented filmmaker that I've ever seemed with this much contempt for like cinema.

Because this is a thing that I think come, I mean, like this is a guy who might have pound for pound more cinematic talent than anybody of his generation and he spent a decade making Transformers movies. You know, like, and and those movies are actually like unwatchable in a lot of ways. Like those Transformers movies are where he kind of like leaves behind the and you just can't even see the shore anymore. But he has repeatedly been like, yeah, you know what? I make movies for people who go see three movies a year.

I make movies for people who are not going to have to be brought down, to be, to think too hard. They want to go to have a popcorn and a Coke and they want to have a great night out for $30 with their date. Well, he also said, he also said, I make movies for guys who work in a movie theater who might say this 140 times over 18 months span. That was the other part of that quote. You let that out.

Here's where I think me and you are going to argue the most on this, Chris, when you say he has like a contempt for cinema, I wholeheartedly disagree. I think this is like a new thing. This to me, we always do like some basketball references whenever it's the four of us. Like him doing this movie here is like James Harden showing up and doing new tricks and people like, oh, that's not what basketball looks like. This is, this is blasphemous. And you're like, no, this is a new thing. He's smarter than everybody else at this one trick. he's doing what he needs to do.

So I feel whenever I watch his Michael Bay movies, I don't think he has a contempt for cinema. I think he invented a new branch, and that branch showed up, and it was like, and Billy Madison, or excuse me, Happy Gilmore, when the new golf fans came, and the old golf fans were like,

no, this is not what the fan should look like. This is not what a movie should look like. I think that's where we, I think he made a new thing. It was like, fuck it, I'm invited to the party now, and you can't do anything about it. Absolutely.

I mean, and I think he's speaking to, I agree with you. Because, like, I think that if you look at this, and you look at like Howard's End. That's not the same. It's not the same thing. I mean, they're made with cameras and they get edited and music gets added

and there are performances. But Michael Bay is, I remember because my dad, when he would watch these movies, like when he used to be a, he was a film critic, he would call it, and I don't know if this was like a popularized term

or something he came up with because it definitely is profane, so it sounds like something he came up. But you would call it frame fucking, which is essentially, every shot Michael Bay has someone is either running or the camera is moving like there is no stillness in a Michael Bay movie

there is no moment where you're like I'm calm and even moments where Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler are having quiet intimate moments there's a goddamn desert behind them and the camera is moving and Aerosmith is playing and it's like everything is a monster truck rally and that's he is a show showmen with very few matches in the in the i would say honestly like it's like spielberg and him

and then you have to go to those guys who were making like irwin allen making towering furneau and poseid an adventure and then going all the way back to the big big hollywood spectacles of like the 30s and 40s i mean he really is a master showman i just think that he's not making movies for as i'm sure we'll find out roger ewer well i think jason hit it on the head I think he thought this was his 2001 of Space Odyssey. And you read some of the quotes that he had after the fact, where he's really frustrated about the last third of the movie, how they didn't have enough time.

We only did this in 16 weeks. His special effects guy had a nervous breakdown, so he had to take that part over. And reading between the lines of the quotes, it almost seems like he's like, man, if I had a do-over, this would have been remembered as one of the greatest movies ever made. and I just kind of ran out of time and money. He'll never admit that, but deep down, I think that's how he feels.

A couple other things. The contempt for this movie in some circles is even Wikipedia, where near the top of the Wikipedia page for this movie, it says, quote, though the film was released to mostly negative reviews, it was an international box office success, becoming the highest grossing movie in 1998 worldwide. Although astronomers noted that the similar,

disaster film Deep Impact was more scientifically accurate. Like, to the bitter end, this movie's just never going to get credit. It made $550 million. The cast, we should talk about really quickly. It's a really nice mix of, you have Bruce Willis. You know, this was the 90s. Bruce Willis is probably other than Hank's. And I actually think he's probably bigger than Denzel just for how much money his movie's made.

he's coming off all the diehard movies. He is about to do this movie, then six cents and unbreakable. This 11-year run that he has, he's one of the five biggest stars in the world. So they have him. They have Affleck coming off Goodwill Hunting. They have Billy Bob Thornton about two years removed from Slingblade and where he's kind of like the It Indy guy for that stretch. Then Will Patton, who's just in a million movies at this point.

Owen Wilson on the way up. And Steve Buscemi, who everybody loves, not to mention a bunch of those guys like William Finchner. But Billy Bob is on the record. He admits openly to doing this phone for the money

and jokes about it. No shit. Jokes about being in it, but said, quote, quote, it's not that bad, was Steve Buscemi, was Billy Bob Thornt's quote.

Bouchemi also did it for the money but said he saw, he saw it as an ensemble character film. And Bruce Willis did it for the money. You're not going to believe this. Did not care from Michael Bay's directing style, refuses to work with him again. This is probably,

I mean, we can get, we'll probably get into this in the categories, but it is ab fucking serred the acting talent in this movie. Oh, yeah. Yes. It is absolutely obscene how they've got like, essentially like the Sam Shepard Repertory Theodore, theater, like, as like guys working in NASA or guys on the independence and the freedom,

we're like Will Patton, Owen Wilson, William Fickner and, uh, Bouchemey and Billy Bob. Like, those guys are like huge, like hugely talented actors who are basically coming in and pinch hitting these lines here and there. And I, I honestly do think like, without Billy Bob, this movie completely floats away from orbit. Like, I think Billy Bob Thornton actually is like the absolute like fundamental gravity of this movie. He's actually great in it.

He's really like fantastic. He's incredible in it. They're all good. They're all great in this movie. I don't understand why they would say they didn't like this movie. I love this movie. Michael Bay has always kind of been the one for them king. You know, like people always

from Bouchemmy to Turturo and the Transformers movies. A Michael Bay picture is where you get that like I need a vacation home money. You know, I need to refinance my alimony money. Like, I'm glad you went off and did Slingblade Billy Bob, but now it's time to pay like your college loans off.

Yeah. Come do Armageddon. God bless it. My wife came in about an hour into the movie and sat down for 10 minutes and was going to leave. And it was just a steady stream of her looking at me and going, he's in this? Yeah. Wait, he's in this?

And just her being confused, and she ended up staying for most of the movie. There's a weird Bruce Willis story that we have to mention. He was making a comedy called Broadway Brawler, and I guess it was pretty deep in, and it just was not going well, and it couldn't be salvaged. And Disney's head of movies at the time, Joe Roth, worked out a deal where Willis would star an Armageddon and two future films for the studio. and in exchange, Disney would absorb the Broadway brawler's costs. Just like, we'll buy the movie and just eat it.

God bless. Against the Bruce Willis salary. So they make this deal. And the other two films he makes are the six cents and unbreakable. This is like the Burd-McAil, the McAil-Parris trade for Joe Barry Carroll. Unbelievable trade by Joe Roth. Yeah, we'll take the Broadway brawler contract. But you get, we get two more movies.

Great job by him. So it was Disney's most expensive movie ever. It was 1998's biggest movie ever. Sadly, not surprisingly, on the list of Roger Ebert's most hated films. Terrible. He named it his worst movie of 1998. I love it.

He wrote that it was the first ever 150-minute trailer, which is really good. Okay. That's a good. That's apt. That's good. That's good. And he wrote, quote, the movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense,

and the human desire to be entertained. Shea, you can't fight him. He's dead. But it seems like he's just provoking you over and over again of the rewatchables. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's tough. He got me with the trailer line, though. That's pretty good. Yeah, the critics were really mad at this movie, which kind of made people like us just want to see it more.

Yeah, that's what he's so angry about. That's what critics do. That's what critics do. Why wasn't this in black and white? This movie's bulletproof, man. Well, it's out. We have a lot of categories to hit. Most rewatchable scene.

The opening asteroid, I guess, attack. I don't know, would you call it an attack or asteroid spray? Yeah, it was a attack in the planet. Takes out New York City. There's some good Eddie Griffin stuff. This is a tough movie stretch for New York. There's multiple movies that just like rip New York to shit now that we've had special effects. but this is pretty good action scene for the most part.

Can I just say also about this scene in this moment is how disorienting it is? Because I feel like this was much more of a late 90s action movie thing where they would bring somebody in to do like a very, very small part, but give them a really big setup. And if you brought like a Martian in and show them the first 10 minutes of this movie, they would be like, is this a movie about Eddie Griffin? Yeah. Because you start and you're like, I was like, Eddie Griffin's in this movie. I forgot. And then it was like, we're really getting a lot of Eddie Griffin buildup here. Like he's going to ride the whole way across the bridge and keep talking.

And then it's like, you're like, wait, is Eddie Griffin in this movie? And then it's like, no, he's not. He is out of this movie. Him and Mark Curry are gone. And it's just like, okay, I guess we'll just keep moving on. But this happened in action movies where they would be like, a comedian comes on and does seven minutes. Yeah. And then is out of the movie.

You know, who started that was scream. because when Scream did the Drew Barrymore move and made it seem like she was one of the stars in the movie and then just dumped her. I think that started with executive decision when they made it seem like Oh, Kurt Russell was? Yeah.

What you were at? That was before Scream. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Next rewatchable scene. That seems entertaining. Bruce Willis, aka Harry Stamper, when we meet Affleck for the first time

and Liv Tyler's an Afflex bed. Harry! Make your peace with God, AJ. This guy's got a gun, man. He's shooting at me. Harry, this is not funny. Hell, listen to me. We can talk to so much.

Oh, is this a serious thing? Yeah, pretty serious. That whole scene is just bonkers. He's shooting a gun at him on an oil rig. Like, just things, bullets ricocheting, things going. If you were worried that this movie wasn't insane, worry no more after this. scene because this movie's insane. Especially when he does the first gunshot, it's a shotgun through the window, but the whole wall of windows exposed like a fucking bomb went off.

We're like, all right, all right, here we go. The craziest thing in that scene to me is in the shotgun. It's the fact that Grace calls her father Harry. Yeah. Hi, Harry. I have asked you repeatedly to call me dad. Sorry, Harry. You can help me get your clothes on. You just stay right there. I'll be right back. Yeah, I don't like that. That is mind-blowing shit to me. Terrible movie gimmick.

Chris, was that, in your opinion, an HR violation by Harry or no? Yeah, I mean, for sure. Also, it's like, is Grace nude under the, like, he's getting very, like, in the mix in an intimate moment for his daughter. Like, I would just be like, I'm going to go away outside and then kick AJ's ass. I'm not going to be, like, moving the covers around with my, with my shovel. with your golf club. That's why he's Harry Stamper and you're Chris Ryan. There's a difference here.

That's right. Also has the line, it's all funny until someone gets shot in the leg, which is a good high school year, but quote for the kids. This is also, this leads to one of the first creepy things about rock hound. Oh,

yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the first. One of the first. One of the first of about two dozen. Next one. Harry, by the way,

if I missed any, feel free to come in at the end if you feel strongly about it. But Harry telling Bill, Billy Bob that the gang's going to do it, which includes demands like, uh, Oscar here has got some outstanding parking tickets and once I'm wiped off his record. 56 tickets in seven states. I'll tell him, Oscar.

I got it. Okay. Noonan's got two women friends that he'd like to see made American citizens and no questions asked. Max would like you to bring back eight track tapes. I'm not sure if that's going to work, but let's see what else. Chick wants a full week's Emperor package at Caesar's Palace. They want to find out who actually killed Kennedy

and Bear would like to stay in the Lincoln bedroom of the White House for the summer. And then, yeah, one more thing. None of them want to pay taxes again. This scene's great. It's really, it's actually really well written. Yeah. Yeah, we can probably just mention here

that the credited and uncredited screenwriter lineup for this movie is as follows. Robert Roy Poole, Jonathan Hensley, Tony Gilroy, who wrote like the Born movies and Michael Clayton, Shane Salerno, JJ Abrams, and then other writers include

Paul Otanazio and Biedermann, Scott Rosenberg, and Robert Town. Robert Town. Just an automatic $100,000 for Robert Town with every movie in the 90s. They're like, hey, man, can you look at this one scene?

Well, why are you the money into your offshore account? Scott Rosenberg, who wrote Beautiful Girls, apparently was brought in near the tail end to beef up the Live Tyler Ben Affleck scenes because Titanic was a huge hit and the studio was really pushing Michael Bay. Hey man, can be a little more of that relationship?

Want to get those 15-year-olds in the movie theater and this guy named Jason Concepcion who's working at a movie day, want him too. Can you just beef these up? So that's how you end up with, really some of the worst scenes in the movie. Let's be honest. What?

What's that serious? Let's be honest. I beg your pardon? It's the emotional core of this film. You heard me. Next rewatchable scene. The crew about to take off as the president gives his speech.

Oh, yeah. That's great. That's great. Dreams of an entire planet are focused tonight on those 14 brave souls. traveling into the heavens. That man's no salesman. That's your daddy.

This is where Michael Bay is like, hey, what's the slowest slow motion that we can have? How many frames per second can we slow down as I see all the guys walking in a straight line toward the camera? How many takes, Chris? I loved it. Probably 120? I wouldn't be surprised if they were walking backwards.

That's how slow it was. It was Michael Bay giving double middle fingers to the right stuff. And that famous scene where the Apollo astronauts are walking down the tunnel towards the camera. He was just like, yeah, that sucks. There's a line in the movie where they, when they show him walking, and he says that exact thing. Will Fichter's character is like, talk about all the wrong things, all the wrong stuff. Talk about all the wrong stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's it. I really like the montage, especially the one woman who's sitting in like the 1950s Chevy truck. with the like American flag in the background and she's listening to it on the radio. Like, I don't know why you don't have a TV in your house, but this is unbelievable filmmaking right now. Yeah, it's weird. I don't know how things worked in the late 90s from a like talk radio 24-7 news cycle standpoint. Even though I was alive during that, but I don't really remember the mechanics. It's weird that everybody around the world knew about these guys and the mission and was just kind of on board, involved following in it.

not asking more questions. Well, I guess the whole thing is like they try to keep it a secret for as long as possible. Okay. Next rewatchable scene when Affleck and Michael Clark Duncan almost died. Shea, your quick Michael Clark Duncan thoughts of this movie? A plus. I wish you would have been in more movies. I love Michael Clark Duncan, especially.

Jason, could this have been Shaq? Was Shaq the next call if he said no? Absolutely. No, no, no, no. You sure? No, no, no. Yes, no. Deep down, you would know, you would have enjoyed it?

If there was a screen test, you wouldn't have clicked out of it on YouTube? I would have absolutely watched it. But Shaq is too much of a scene chore. Michael Clark Duncan understands how to actually act in a scene. He's an actor. He's like a legitimate actor. You put him in there. And like, that's why he's like one funny line where he's like crying in the room and he

asked to get a hug. Because you don't expect somebody of this talent to be making jokes like this. And the movie, you can't do that with Shaq. Neon, neon Bordeaux from Blue Chips was like the perfect Shaq role. He was in that and everyone was like, oh, my God, he's really good. And then he did other movies and you're like, never mind, never mind. Sorry, I'm sorry. There's some action movie Michael Clark Duncan should have been in that he wasn't in.

Like a buddy cop movie. Anyone. Yeah, where he's like him and Michael J. Fox where there's like just a hilarious height difference. Mike and Mike. There's so, we missed the boat on it. him. I like him as well. Next we watchable scene. The independence gets wiped out as Billy Bob reacts to the wipeout in slow motion. It's like, Billy Bob, could you crouch and have your head hit the computer terminal thing again? That's an emotional scene. By the way, kind of frightening.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The guys are a couple of those. It's a little like quentin jaws. Guys screaming as they're about to get vaporized by an asteroid. And we think Ben Affleck is dead. know yet. That would be the next rewatchable scene, Affleck remarging in the monster truck. Yeah. Does the high Harry. Oh, that's great.

Really, and that's where we really get into fact-based, science-based filmmaking. Absolutely. Hardcore science at that point. Yeah. I feel bad for Max. Right there. Everybody was like morning Max who's just been blown off the asteroid.

And then here comes Ben Affleck and we're like, fuck me, Max. Let's go. Yeah. Who's the guy at Bouchemmy's just like, bye Max? Yeah, yeah. The last three we watchable scenes, you can basically group together. Harry says goodbye to his daughter.

Harry saves the day, and then the astronauts land home. And I always think it's funny when a movie like this has a genuinely emotional moment. But we mentioned it earlier when Willie goes, Miss Stamper, Colonel Willie Sharp, United States Air Force, ma'am. requesting permission to shake the hand, the daughter of the bravest man I've ever met. Colonel Willie Sharp, United States Air Force, man. Requesting permission to shake the hand of the daughter of the bravest man I've ever met.

It reminds me we cover this on the Bloodsport rewatchables. Bloodsport, you know, we love the blood sport, not exactly like Citizen Kane. And then has that scene at the end when his buddies in the hospital, he's like, hey, man. And Ray? Yeah, hit Ray. It's like anytime, any place, anywhere. Van Dam's saying, I love you, my brother.

And it's like fucking emotional all of a sudden. This is like that times a hundred. You can dislike the moments in this movie that are overly sentimental or that like, you know, animal crackers across the belly or whatever. But it's like tanking to get the number one pick. If you don't do, if you don't take all the Ls throughout the movie to be like, Harry and Grace's relationship is important. Grace's relationship with AJ is important. It's all about love. It's all about saving the next generation of people.

you don't get that last scene. And that last scene is like the absolute hammer. It's so good. Yeah, I'd like to add two more that really you could group together. I think when, you know, we mentioned that Billy Bob is just an incredible presence in this movie, like grounding it in real authority. He's like, he's like almost like a character from a Michael Mann film, just like unbelievably competent at what he does and everything he says.

I don't care if it's science-based, whatever, I believe it. I would say two scenes. first when they're when all the shit is happening right at the beginning and he's like I want to know if the worst is yet to come or if we're past it I want to know this and he's got scientists running down hallways. He's walking through the room and yelling and yelling all the stuff out. And just like the chaos is coming to order coalescing around him. And then second when he is briefing the president. And the president's like, how big is this thing? And the one NASA nerd is like, well, I think it's approximately 950 and then he just says it's about the size of Texas president what is this

thing it's an asteroid sir how big are we talking sir our best estimate is 97.6 billion it's the size of Texas mr. president yeah yes sir it's just like that's good more billy bob folks the what the the the the one scene where he's walking through NASA and like pushing all the doors open and screaming and everything is sort of revolving around him I don't know if this was on purpose or not, but they go straight from the asteroid. And it's like a very similar thing. Here comes this big asteroid going to cause all this trouble. Everything moving around.

And then here's Billy Bob on the other side on Earth. And it's like these two are coming toward each other. The first time I actually watched it and paid attention because obviously I was working in it in the theater. And then they have the reveal where Billy Bob's character, Dan, like all of a sudden like has a leg. He's showing like, oh yeah, I wanted to be up there. But I have this leg brace.

I was like, wait, what? He was just like stomping through NASA headquarters. It's how motivated he was, baby. He was like Pippet in Game 6. He's playing it hurt. Shaking it off. My most rewatchable scene is the astronauts landing home and bravest man I've ever met. What do you guys have?

I have a couple. I just wanted to throw in there. I thought the entire Russian space station sequence was really, really awesome. Just like getting Stormar in there and then like the, you know, the whole thing with the lever and Affleck on the camera and they can't hear him. And, you know, we talked about it a little bit briefly before with disarming the bomb. and swear on your daughter's life on my families that you can hit that mark. And Will Patton be like,

why do you have a gun in space? You know? What are you doing with a gun in space? What? Nobody is funnier in this movie than Will Patton. Yeah. Nobody. Yeah.

Nobody. To play off what these guys are talking about with Thornton. Like, just that scene with Billy Bob and Keith David, where Billy Bob does his turn on the phone with the president's advice, like the president of telling him about the advisors being wrong. And then Keith David talks to him and hangs up the phone and is like, we go forward with the secondary protocol.

And Billy Bob's like, this is one order you shouldn't follow. And you fucking know it. You know, it's just, it's so, so much better than it has any business being. Okay, two things. Number one, this is a PG-13 movie. In PG-13 movies, you're only allowed to say the word fuck one time. That's it. You can only say it one time.

And they saved it for that one moment right there. I really love that. Number two, I like that they make a point of saying, that the cosmonaut space station has been up there for decades or whatever. And this one guy has been there alone for 18 months by himself and everything's been fine.

And then the Americans get there and like 10 minutes later we just accidentally blow the whole fucking thing up. It's like, this is great... Don't talk to anything. Is it Jason, compare and contrast the cosmonaut to Desmond and lost? Oh, just much more, you know,

obviously a lot crazier, a lot stir crazier. Desmond kind of still had his faculties, you know, about him. Lev was absolutely gone, a mess. Like his big contribution to the effort when it all came down at the end was like, let's just take a wrench and hit all the stuff. Let's smash it. He's so gone that his accent is also gone. It's just much.

I don't know what accent that is. It's barely Russian. Well, what's age the best? Oh, you guys never said Jason and Shay, your most rewatchable scene. I like when they gather everybody up and they're like bringing a group in and informing everybody. We're going to chase them all down. I love a good like getting the group together montage. My favorite single tiny part of that whole scene is when you were talking about earlier,

when Bruce Willis is like giving the demands. And then he says the one about, you guys wouldn't be able to tell us who killed Kennedy, would you? And they just stare at them. And then he just turns around and very like sweetly shakes his head. Like no, like they're not going to. Like it's so sweet. It's so sweet.

It's so sweet, sweet moment right there. I'm going to do a tie between the Billy Bob speeches and the president's speech as the astronauts are taking off. I address you tonight, not as the president of the United States. It's just like spine chilling stuff from Michael Bay. I probably would go with disarming the bomb. That leads us to what age the best. Billy Bob. I think I was trying to think of my favorite

Billy Bob performances of all time. I just watched Friday Night Lights the movie with my son a couple days ago, which is now we might have to revive it on the rewatchables because it's been kind of just lost over the course of history. That movie's really good. And he's really good.

And I think it's either that or Armageddon for me for favorite Billy Bob, unless you want to go with Monsters Ball movie. that is that will not be on the rewatchable. Blood and blood out. My favorite Billy Bob Performton. One false move. Oh, yeah.

I forgot about blood and blood out. Yeah, yeah. False move is incredible, Jason. That's great. All right. But yeah, Bill, the Billy Bob half-time speech in Friday lights might, it's up there with Kurt Russell.

It's up there with Al Pacino. It's weird. The TV series blew it out of the water. And now it's kind of lost. It came out 16 years ago. And people always gravitate to the TV series. It's annoying. What it's missing is it's missing a happy moment.

You just are bludgeoned over the head over and over again with sat things. You get booby in the car having his breakdown after the locker room. And you have them losing at the one yard line. And then you find, if I remember correctly, at the very end, they're like, oh, they went on to win it the next year. And I remember sitting in the theater being like, just fucking make that movie. Yeah. Let me watch that for. I want to look that work.

That was the movie where I bought a crazy man of Garrett Headland Stock. which I was able to sell a little of on Triple Frontier. I was able to dump some of it. But I'm still holding on to a lot of it. Bill, you got to buy the dip, man. Billy Bob also has a great moment that isn't quite a rewatchable scene when he's explaining to them

what the Armageddon is with this asteroid. And they're like, what do you mean? Bill, blah, blah. And he's like, total, sir. It's what we call a global killer. Nothing would survive. Just the way he pulls that. that off with a straight face.

What kind of damage are we? Damage? Total, sir. It's what we call a global killer. The end of mankind. It doesn't matter where it hits. Nothing would survive, not even bacteria. Morewood's age the best.

The old guy who says he wants to name the asteroid, I want to name her Dottie after my wife. She's a vicious life-sucking bitch from which there's no escape. It's such a random off the top rope, bizarre moment, but it makes me laugh. It's really funny. It's really funny for some reason. The person that finds her gets the name her, right?

Yes, that's right. I want to name her Dottie after my wife. She's a vicious life-sucking bitch from which there is no escape. That's sweet Carl. It's another one of those. Is this movie going to be somehow about this guy for a while? Yeah, he's just in for like one and a half scenes. The, another one stage the best.

Oh, the patriotism. This is one of the most patriotic movies, I think, ever made. I never, I never felt more American than I do watching. But Michael Bay is not from America, right? No, he's from L.A., man. Oh, he's not Australian? No. He just feels it.

He just feels Australian. He just seems like he's Australian. And this is like a new bit because we had the same conversation in the gladiator pod where Bill asked, he's not Australian about somebody in the movie that we're I have a real kinship with Australia. The another one's age the best, the BMW commercial that's just in the movie disguised as an actual scene with Liv Tyler and Ben Affleck. You talked about earlier, Chris, how beautifully that shot. It's just unlike any other two lovers hanging out on a hill.

And then near the end, it pans back. And there's a sunset and just the most beautiful looking BMW. And it just lingers on the car. It's, there's never been a more obvious money grab during. a movie than that. It's not like this movie needed the money. You weren't supposed to. I mean, like, now, like, in the Avengers, like, Robert Downey Jr., like every Avengers movie features Robert Downey Jr. Pulling up in an Audi. But back then, that was still kind of considered, like, sort of

tasteless. And my favorite part about it is that Michael Bay is like, you know, we had the Aerosmith soundtrack and we did some product placement, but, you know, it really helped the production to get those extra dollars. As if he was, like, raising money, like, hand over fist from, like, independent financiers and doing GoFundMe. It's like, Disney was paying for this. Couldn't you just ask for another fucking check? It's a great point, Chris, because this was really transgressive stuff in the 90s. Like, we're coming off of Kurt Cobain and, you know, musicians and people in culture, like,

fervently not selling out and the protests against the World Trade Organization, like this anti-corporatist kind of movement. And Michael Bay is just like, yeah, fuck it. Put the BMW in the movie and like, let's get, let's get a few extra and like, let's make it look great. This was kind of not a thing that was done at the time. Michael Bay is like, let's get an M6. Yeah, Michael Bay and Puff Daddy were both like, we just give me the money. Give me the fucking money. I should mention in that scene as Affleck eats animal crackers off live Tyler's stomach and they cuddle and all that stuff.

her dad's fucking song in her real life dad the song is playing in the background that's just weird the psychosexual stuff in this movie is just out of control wild shit there's a double weird

father daughter kind of uncomfortable stuff going on and that that part is probably the most uncomfortable do you think do you think Bay was like okay Ben

take the giraffe and put it into the waistband of her underwear yeah just put it down there yep try the belly button.

The Morwood's age the best. General Kimsey, it's a little politically incorrect now, but when he says, I'm not so optimistic. We spend $250 billion a year on defense. Here we are. The fate of the plan is in the hands of a bunch of retards. I wouldn't trust with a potato gun. You need like that military villain in these movies who doesn't believe in the guys. He's a great one, too.

He's really, really good in that role. I, another one's age the best. I like the closing credits. I like having the, I like when they just throw a wedding for no reason. Yeah, right. The movie could have just ended. It's like, yeah, should we have a wedding? Yeah, fuck it.

Let's put big pictures of the guys. But you know, that was like, that was Affleck. Affleck was like, we should do this. And he, it was like shot on his 8mm camera in some of those shots. And I just had this vision of like Affleck going up to Bay and being like, we really need some icing on the cake. Like, after Bay has finished this movie where he splits an asteroid with a nuclear bomb. Yeah, Affleck is like, I have some ideas about the post-credit secret. Affleck's like, I'm not sure the ending landed.

We need this wedding. My personal take is Affleck probably hadn't sealed the deal with Live Tyler in real life and was just trying to come up with one more scene that gave himself a chance. It's like, what if we had a wedding? He's like, yeah, one more run. Well, you mentioned the psychosexual stuff between her and Harry or her father. Weirdly, that was like Liv Tyler's brand who like broke through in Aerosmith videos famously front, a band fronted by her father in which she's like clearly an object of sexual desire, like riding tractors across fields and kidnapping farm boys. And then like riding stripper pulls.

Like that happened in Aerosmith videos. I can't explain the late 90s. Natalie Portman beautiful girls all of Liv Tyler's everything the

Anticornicova countdown clock on the internet people being excited for the Olsen twins to turn 18 is it there was a reason

we thought why TK was going to end the world yeah maybe we should have gotten hitting by an asteroid

which should have happened what's age the best Ben Halflex commentary track now legendary I think when we

talk about the great commentary tracks of all time this is the first one people go to Most famously, he goes on this whole rant about one whole week.

Now you guys know how to fly into space. I need my guys. Why do you need your guys? They're the best. Everyone's the best. Why are they the best? Oh, they just are. And Michael Bay gets mad and tells him they shut up as they're doing it.

This commentary, I haven't heard it for a while, but it's really, really bonkers. It's great. Yeah, because it's like the whole thing with Affleck is he's like, no one was ever able to explain why it wouldn't be easier to teach astronauts how to draw. drill. Yeah. Then it would be to teach drillers how to go into space. And it turns out it doesn't really matter either way.

Because when you get to space, it's basically a really dark version of being in the desert. Yeah. Shea, you love nothing more when somebody has to get a group of guys together and they're the best. But there's no way of really knowing how these guys are the best. It's just assumed. Yeah. Oh, wait. There's a number one guy on the planet.

I'm like, okay. I don't need a resume. I don't need verification. I just need one person to say this is the best person, and I have to have that one person on this job. We just spent the last six weeks arguing about Jordan or LeBron. In the Armageddon, they figure out in two minutes who's the best oil driller. No question about it.

All right, done. Any other candidates? No. Any other what's age the best for you guys? I have two little ones. What's age are best for me? Will Patton reacting to things. I really, really love when he goes to see his ex-wife,

and then the kid shows up, and you see Will reacting to. to seeing the kid and like he hasn't seen this kid for a long time. That's really touching. And then when he lands at the end of the movie and then the wife and the kid show up and he does the exact same thing, really, really touching. My second one, I think Liv Tyler has aged the best. Every time I watch a movie and she pops up in it, I'm reminded like she has been in five of my favorite movies of all time, Empire Records, that thing you do, Armageddon, the Strangers, and then the Lord of the Rings series. Like this is a standout career for someone who has somehow existed

just below, like, the surface of top-level superstardom. Yeah, big, big fan of Lipp, Tyler. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to go with Michael Bay's dedication to using only Los Angeles locations for every location that is in this movie, whether it is New York, New Orleans, wherever. It's actually just downtown L.A. It's just, I go. He does not go past the South Bay.

No, that's it. I have one more, what stage is what stage is best for me is Shay's love for Will Patton. I think. I love him. When Will Patton, he's sitting at home having a glass of wine at night and his wife's like, Hey, Will, who do you think loved your work the most? He's like, there's this guy, Shea Serrano, lives in Texas. I walk out of here right now.

I have two copies of The Postman on DVD. That's how much I love Will Patton right now. It's a great villain in the Postman. Bill, I have one more What's Age the Best? Yeah. You know, this movie is like relatively complicated

in terms of its technology and it's science and like it's hard sometimes to get your bearings and understand exactly, you know, the dynamics of like how much, how much time do they have?

You know, like when do they get off of this space station to get to the asteroid? How hard is it? So what Michael Bay figured out was that you could just have in every single scene a guy going,

we have no time! We got to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exposition, exposition aged incredibly. It's like, it is so effective to just have somebody be like, go, go, go, we got to go. I wish I had somebody just running into my room every 10 minutes saying that. I would get so much more stuff done. Maybe we should have Craig do it during the podcast.

We just be zooming to it. What's age the worst? This movie's that in the Criterion Collection. Even none of us can defend that. I always thought that was for it. I think it's a fantastic thing. This is an important movie. This is an important movie.

Come on. More what's age the best or what's age the worst. This movie's 150 minutes long. Hell yeah. It should be 180 minutes long. It's a little fat. This is one of the most perfect examples of a movie where I'm like, I'm an idiot, but I could have caught 20 minutes from this movie pretty easily.

Yeah. I think 130 would have probably been a good number. Yeah, that's crazy. Another what's age the worst. It's a little sobering and a bummer, but there's a wide shot of New York after that first asteroid attack, and it shows one of the two twin towers,

like with the whole top of it burning. It's fucking creepy. In the commentary track, Ben Affleck says he asked Michael Bay why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers. And he told me to shut the fuck up. So that was the end of that talk.

I don't know. I think that's age the worst just because he lifted the hood up. I have a theory about this. I think being an astronaut is like all math-based. If you're really good at math, you could do that. But drilling rock is like all feel-based. It's instinct.

You have to have done this for a certain amount of time. It's just what I'm going to throw out there. I think you can do this. You're not wrong. We've mentioned all the other ones age the worst, except how do we feel about Bruce Wilson's hair in this movie? Thumbs up. I support it.

I support it. I support it. You don't think it looks too much like a rug? No, I mean, obviously is, but it's not like he has like, uh,

Harry Hamlin's hair on LA law or something. You know what I mean? Like, it's pretty, it's pretty realistic as rugs go. I don't think it looks enough like a rug, to be honest. You would have gotten,

he would have gone deeper. I would have gotten rugger. But speaking of physical transformations, one of my what's age the worst has got to be Ben Affleck having Tom Cruz's teeth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

What? I was going to do this in half-ass internet research. You want to do this now? Can you explain this, please? Yeah. So in the DVD commentary, Michael Bay says, we paid for a set of 20,000 pearly white teeth. Ben's going to hate that story. But there's this whole backstory of he likes close-up shots of heroes with big chins and big teeth.

And he says, how Ben Affleck had these little baby teeth and they paid $20,000 dollars to give him this big set of awesome teeth that I think he's had now for the rest of his career but if you go Goodwill Hunting he's got different teeth. So there you go.

So that was a Michael Bay. Michael Bay special just wasn't happy with Affleck's teeth. I have no other what's aged the worst except I am personally not a fan of Affleck and Live Tyler those love scenes. They are great. They are great. They're phenomenal.

Some of Rockhound's sexual deviancy is not, is not necessary for the plot of the movie. A lot of that doesn't make, doesn't make the trip to 2020 unscathed. I would add, I would add that, like, honestly, it is that. It's just like Rockhounds, I thought they were over 18 material. Yeah, it's like multiple times. Wait, how old are you? Multiple times? What's going on?

So really just that. And then again, like, it is mind-boggling that Bay takes an extended shot at Roland Emmerich's Godzilla at the beginning of this movie. Like, why? Why are we doing this in your movie? That's a woodshage the best for me. Casting what ifs, I can only find two. Schwarzenegger was considered for Harry Stamper. Thank God that didn't happen.

Thank God. Thank God. Two people turned down grace before Liv Tyler, Milojovich. Oh, interesting. She's good. And Robin Wright, who seems too old. I don't even know Robin Wright and Ben Affleck. I've never seen Robin Wright be bad in a thing, so sure.

She would have been incredible, but can you imagine her getting this script and be like, are you fucking kidding? What the fuck is this? Sean Penn picks it up. He's like, sets it on fire with a cigarette later. Best that guy, aka the Joey Pants Award, need a ruling. Is William Fickner, a that guy or is he William Fickner? I think we all know is William Fichter, but I think he's a that guy.

No, he's a that guy. He's like the A1, that guy. Because I think he's the winner for this. As close as you can get to not to like aging, I mean, like, talenting your way out of the that guy category. He's right there. Hold on. There was one other that guy that I had.

I was going to find his name. Mark Curry is a good that guy. Chris, is William Fickner? Is he Van Zant from Heat or is he the guy from Armageddon to you? If you had to pick one. If you're telling your friends who he was, who would you pick? You know that I can't. answer any question that involves heat

without the answer of being heat. So it's got to be if it's on the street that I can get robbed, I'm going to kill this guy. Do you think Billy Bob should have called Fickner at one point and said, I'm talking to an empty telephone because there's a dead man on the other line.

The Vincent Hanna, give me all you got, award for overacting. So many choices here. I think Carl the asteroid spotter who insults his wife, his short arc. He's got to dialed up. He was going for it. He also does that weird thing where he's like,

get my book, get my book, get my book. Excuse me. Am I wearing a sign that says Carl Slade? Go get my goddamn phone book. Get the book. Get the book. Get the book. He really went for it.

The Brandy Booth Award for Best Performance. Oh, wait, I have one other Vincent Hanna nominee. Okay. The other pilot, not Willie. Yes. But the guy who's like, man, this is what we train for. Suck it up. Colonel Davis, 100%.

The Brandy Booth Award, best performance by a pet. Eddie Griffin's dog, Little Richard. Little Richard. It's the name of the dog and has a good attack some dinosaurs and then it's just dangling over an asteroid crevice. I'm going to give it. it's six chewyes out of ten. The Dion Waders Award is Michael Clark Duncan eligible?

I think so. He's in a lot of the movie. I'm going to say no. Yeah, I vote no. Which leaves us with Carl the asteroid spotter and Eddie Griffin. Oh, I've got to go to Eddie then. Well, so let me ask you guys a question then

because the Michael Clark Duncan question has a ripple effect. We haven't talked about him yet, but I think Owen Wilson is amazing in this movie. He's really good. He's really good. And is that too much for Dion? Because he goes out pretty early.

I think it's just enough for Dion. Because like, I think it's good for Dion. I think he's good for Dion. Think about, so there's, in the great scene where the FBI is rounding up all the crew, we see Owen Wilson in a full gallop coming out of the sunset on a horse in the old west as like Huey helicopters are chasing him across the planes.

Dion Waiters Award. Bingo, nailed it. That's fair. I think he has the like single funniest line in the movie. Will Patton to me is the funniest like consistently. We're going to say the exact line. I know it.

The single funniest one when they're giving him the breakdown of the place of like the environment and he's like, oh, the scariest place is imaginable. Like you could have just said that. He's great. He should be the winner here. What's he going to be like up there? 200 degrees in sunlight, minus 200 in the shade. Canyons of razor sharp rock. Unpredictable gravitational conditions.

Unexpected eruptions. Things like that. Okay, so the scariest environment imaginable. Thanks. That's all you got to say. Scarce environment imaginable. Okay, so you drill. That's all you got to say. Scarce environment imaginable.

Recast and couch. Shea, you're not going to like this. I'm already mad. You're going to be mad. You'll be legit mad. I'm bup and live, Tyler. Get, all right. I got to go.

This is stupid. This is always, I've never liked you. I want to leave right now. Take me off. Craig, Craig, take me out of here. Replacing her with Angelina Joe Lee. No way.

No. Vote down. No. Let's walk it through. You're down. This is the year it starts happening for Angelina Jolie. This is when Gia came out. She's the right age.

She takes it to another level with the Ben Affleck. I think Ben Affleck, you're going to get the sense, like, he's going to do anything for this person. Not sure I felt that with Liv Tyler. She can't. You mean in front of the camera or behind the camera? Both. Angelina Jolie, she can't do that sort of wide-eyed optimism that Liv Tyler can do. There's only one name you could have said right here that would make this like even a little bit okay.

Anne Hathaway is the only name. you could say it right there. I agree. I agree because I think... It's not bad. I think if it's Angelina Jolie, you're like, why is Harry freaking out that she's, that his daughter is dating one of the dudes on the rig?

Like, hasn't this happened a million times? Yeah. If it's Angelina Jolie, you're like, why is she not in the shuttle? She should be on, she should be part of the team. That's the kind of energy. This is young Angelina Jolie, though. Here's the thing.

That's the kind of energy she has, though. This is why I'm flagging it. her and Affleck definitely started hooking up on set during this movie and it becomes a whole thing we get love triangles we get a whole bunch of shit going on

who is he dating back then Guidoith Paltrow it could have been Ben's blood we get a Guilufo Angelina Affleck love triangle coming out of the Armageddon set sign me up no thank you

it could have been it could have been Ben's blood in the vial around her neck everything we know about a celeb culture could have shifted in that moment. Or she ends up with Billy Bob. So maybe it's an Affleck, Billy Bob Angelina Love Triangle. I mean, think all the fun things that could have happened from this.

We mentioned some of the Have Fast Internet research. I have a quick recasting couch that I just want to say, but it is also a probably unanswerable question. But I just want to get a quick vote. Okay. Is this movie better if Owen Wilson has Ben Affleck's part? No. Oh, wow. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Ben Affleck is an all-American son, Owen Wilson is not bad. So Owen Wilson, being the Morrillboro man and riding across a plains in Texas on a horse is not American enough for you. We saw he couldn't do this when he went, what was that behind enemy lines? And you're like, nah, no thanks.

Ben Affleck in that movie is like top level. Halfast internet research, we covered some of this. The infeasibility of the H-bomb approach to blow up the asteroid was published as a paper by four postgraduate physics students in 2011. That's so stupid.

Apparently this can't happen. Again, Billy Bob told me how if you have a firecracker in your hand and you close your fingers around the firecracker, it does more damage. So who am I going to believe? Billy Bob or these grad students? No, that was a scientist. That's all you need. I don't understand the urge to be like that science fiction movie that you watched about

that. It wasn't real. No shit. It's no shit. Well, so one of their cases was that, um, the biggest H-bomb ever detonated on Earth was the Soviet Union's Big Ivan. And for this to have worked in Armageddon, the H-bomb they used would have had to have been a billion times stronger.

So their argument was like probably not possible. So who knows? This is also true. NASA shows this film during their management training program. New managers are given the task of trying to spot as many errors as possible. At least 168 have been found. So that happened. The shuttle launches were filmed for real.

That was actual shuttle footage, so that's cool. Bay is such a beast, man. He's just like, yeah, I'm going to go film a shuttle launch. And then this is the last laser disc ever released on the Criterion Collection. They made 384. This is number 384. They knew they were never going to top it. That's why.

And then Bob Criterion, the founder of the Criterion collection, is like, I'm fucking out. This is the double. thing ever. Fuck this. Ready in the collection. Apex Mountain. This is tough. I'm going to make the case for Bruce Willis. Whoa. That's a mistake.

But go ahead. That's a mistake. I'm going to make the case. I don't believe it, but I'm going to make the case. Okay. He's coming off all the dieharts. He's married to Demi Moore. They're having kids. He has the juice to get Disney to basically absorb the entire cost of his failed movie in return for Armageddon and two more movies, which then becomes six cents and unbreakable, I'm just saying he has about as much power as an actor

could have at this point in life. I still think diehard is his apex mountain because after that he could do whatever he wants. But this is almost like an apex 2.0 for him. It's like a second apex. It would be my case. Fair? I like that. Yeah. I like we should introduce the idea of the second Apex. The second is... I don't think you understand Apex. I know.

Michael Jordan had four Apexes, right? So we could... Actors could have multiple Apexes. Let's put a second half time in the basketball game. Michael Bay? Baypex. The Baypex? Is this the Baypex?

Absolutely. He makes this movie and they're like... This is the Baypex. You're Spielberg. What do you want to do next? And he's like, give me all of the money. Give me Affleck. We're going to Hawaii.

We're making Pearl Harbor. And people were like, pass. People are like, I'm not messing with this. But he cashed in. Like this Apex Mountain to me is when you accumulate all of the chips before you cash in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, should be changed the name to Baypex Mountain. It is absolutely more confusing.

It is absolutely Baypex Mountain. Michael Clark Duncan, I think it comes the next year with Green, But it's this sets it up. Owen Wilson, no. No. Will Patton? No. For Will Patton, it's either remember the Titans or the Postman.

Yeah. But the Postman wasn't a good movie, Shea. I hate to break it to you. I know you liked it. I know you liked it. The Postman is Tom Petty Apex Mountain. Liv Tyler? No.

No. Lord of the Rings for her. What's her apex Mountain then? Probably Lord of the Rings. Yeah. The Lord of the Rings. Yeah. I think that Billy Bob actually, I think there's a case for Billy Bob, this being

his Apex Mountain, for this fact alone. Give it to me. I think he does more to elevate this movie than any other film he is in. There's, you know, remember the Titans, he's incredible. And I think he doesn't get maybe the credit for being like really a top level acting talent. But I think this movie, his war is like. off the charts. If there's somebody else in that role,

the gravitas, the authority, all of that stuff goes away and then it just becomes kind of silly. He just controls the screen. And I think he's got a case. I do think it's Michael Bay. It's the Baypex. But I think I would say

that Billy Bob has a good case for this being his aide. He's really neck and neck with Ed Harris and Apollo 13 as my favorite NASA director, my favorite mission control guy. Yeah. Who's your least favorite?

That's a good call. my least favorite? That's a great question, Bill. Next rewatched music can answer. I'm going Monsters Ball for Billy Bob. That's fair. Because you won an Oscar out of that one. I mean, he didn't, but the movie did.

She did. Yeah, that's fine. Pulls it off for Hallie Berry. I think, did he direct that one? He did not. Isn't that Sean Puffy Combs, Apex Mountain? He produced it. Yeah, I don't, I don't know.

Billy Bob's weird. It's a weird career where you look at his IMDB and there's a lot more misses than I'm prepared for, but I think everybody likes him. Everybody loves him. That's why he gets so many misses. Yeah. We can watch Astronaut Farmer if you want right now. I'm like, all right, let's do it. How about 90s disaster movies, Chris?

Was this Apex Mountain? It's this or Titanic. I think you have to bow down to Titanic in this case. Yeah. That's fair. Any other Apex Mountains? Aerosmith? Keith David.

Second Apex for Aerosmith. It's not, it cannot be Aerosmith. It's not Aerosmith. Keith David's Apex Mountain is him continuing to cash voice actor checks. He's an incredible voice. For the rest of his life. Incredible. So I don't think it's, I don't think it's Keith David.

It's the Baypex. We know it. It is the Baypex. It's the Baypex. Before we get to the rest of this pot, I have to tell you guys a quick story. Please do. I started dating my. wife in the summer of 98. She's from upstate New York. And we went to a wedding in spring of 1999,

which was the same day as the LJ four point shot, which I watched in a bar at, uh, next to the reception. But during the reception, they came out to the Armageddon. I don't want to close my eyes. The song was that was their was their first dance song. And I was like, What the hell? And then LJ hit his four-point shot like 10 minutes later. I'm like, what the hell is going on? What a time to be alive. Because my soul left my body.

Is this Y2K yet? They unironically came out to the Armageddon's song as their first dance. And I didn't know what the fuck to do. And I had to like walk away because I was going to start laughing. All right. Next category is picking nets. It's one of the rare times of the rewatchables history where it's almost like we have to punt on the category. I did want to say Will Patton's wife in this movie can fuck off.

She's out on him. We don't know what he did. You can't just disregard. We don't know what it is. First of all, it's obviously what he did. He fucking gambled away his kids' college fund if he got off the table at Caesars. Second of all, yeah, it's like, how is this a nitpick? I get it.

I get the setup. But then it's like, oh, wait. I didn't realize you run this cool crew. All right, you're back in. Hey, honey, that's your dad. Like, it was just like, come on. If that's not enough. He's got a job, you're back in and the guy, fuck that.

If saving the world isn't enough to get you back in the good graces, I don't know what, I don't know what else he could do, Bill. Well, because their son can go to college now. Yeah, how about that? He's willing to claim him. Bill, how bad do you want the, the second Armageddon 2 to be just the first fight will Patton and his ex have, like, after that? When he gambles in a way again?

You know, there's like five days of like pretty good honeymoon feeling. And then it's like the first time she's like, so are you going to watch the kid or are you just going to be a hero for the rest of your life? I thought that was bullshit and I didn't like her performance. That's terrible. She's just out. She's completely out on the guy. I won't even let him make eye contact with the kid.

And then she's back in in five seconds. It's like at some point hold your ground. Can't just be like a 180 because he's. got a new job. He saved the world. So maybe she was still... He saved the world. Yeah.

Any other egregious nitpicks that we have to mention or did we just throw this category at the window? That's the one you had out of this... That was the only one I had. It makes me mad every time. Oh, my God. I'm a loyal guy. I'm sorry.

The president has no name. He is just the president. The president. We never... We never find out what the name of the president of the United... He makes a speech and is in multiple seeds. and we have no idea what his name is. That's a nitpick for me.

That could have been a good recasting couch, actually, if they'd just gotten some big-time actor just for that one part because it's a nothing part, right? I advocate personally. I think this should have been a rule, is that if you're going to do a bunch of movies that are going to involve a fictional president, you cast one actor as that president

for the eight years that they could have been president. So Bill Pullman should be president. for the entire 90s. It should be Bill Pullman in every movie. I think that's a great, that is a great idea. He definitely got reelected after Independence Day. Thanks guys.

I also want to say that there's no sound in space and that this movie breaks that rule, I also want to say that they spend like 15 minutes being like, we're about to lose radio contact with guys and then it's blackout. We're not going to be able to talk to them at all. And then one dude at NASA is like, I'm going to try and bounce the signal off of like a Russian satellite.

Got some magic happening over here. And that somehow, that little fix that they do allows Bruce Willis to have crystal clear FaceTime Zoom quality conversations with Liv Tyler at the end of this movie where it's like, we couldn't get like a single piece of fucking information from you guys. We thought you might have blown up a nuke on us. But we've got like the one to one. One, Liv Tyler. We got HD streaming now.

Uplink. Yeah. So those are my biggest two ones. There's also Affleck being able to find the guys again when his plane goes down way before the other one. I mean, you could argue he's 15,000 miles away from them. Oh, yeah. He's just driving in a direction.

Like, he's like, where are you going, dude? They make it seem like he landed in, I don't know, Anaheim, and they landed in LA. And it's just like, oh, a little 50-minute ride. He'll be there at time. Dipped down the 405. Yeah. Yeah. Just dial that thing up to about 70. You'll be there in about 45 minutes, Ben. I have special recognition for the moment towards the end of the film when the asteroid starts getting hit by asteroids. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, one of my big things is, you know, we just got done talking about this on Crimson Tide where like the last hour of Crimson Tide is in real time, right? Yeah. In this movie, they will just hit the breaks on time when they want to.

Like, when, so it's obviously urgent. An asteroid is literally heading for the planet. Like, time is of the essence. They're in the South China Sea when it starts, I think. Then they go to NASA, I guess, in Houston. But the guys have, like, split to all corners of the Earth. They get them all back. And after, like, 12 days of hard training, they're like, let them go out.

I have to say, I just would have been like a little bit more like, we literally have a clock. This isn't an imaginary deadline. This isn't anything like that. And then when they get up there, it's strange, we never see them eat while they're up there. They don't do any of like the normal, like, when do they go to the bathroom?

They're crapping the suit. Like if they crashed, if Ben Affleck and Michael Clark Duncan's plane crash, like I don't understand like when did they eat between then and driving across the moon. Yeah, I ask them too many questions right now. Sorry, I'm just nitpicking. Just go with it.

Look, all that's fine, but none of it's as bad as Will Patton's way of taking him back in five seconds. Best quote, we mentioned most of them, unless anybody has one that really jumps out. I have one. Okay. From my guy Will, who is just, I love a big Will fan. I like that he very, very seriously responds to Steve Buscemi's character, losing his mind with the line. You lost your mind? He's got space dementia.

which is just, I didn't even know what the thing. And he just throws it out there. And everybody is like, oh, cool. He has space dementia. Like we know what that is. You knew it immediately. Great moment from a guy Will right there. I love you, Will.

I love your love for Will Patton. No, that's Figner. That's Figner. That's the other Will. Oh, my bad. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? Please, God, no. It's already three hours.

It's already three episodes in, because it's two and a half hours. I would definitely watch a 10 episode Netflix show about the day after this and Will Patton's relationship with his wife and his son. Yeah, where he has to move out again? And the first time he's like, so, like, you know, what do you think about maybe a quick trip to Vegas?

And she's just like, you've never changed. I'm a little online gambling. So probably in answerable questions. Affleck can never break up with Liv Tyler, right? Never. This hair thing. He's just, that's it. If they end up growing apart,

He's just got to ride it out for the rest of them. It's the Daniel LaRuso corollary. The fact that Allie broke up with him after Karate Kid won ruins the franchise. They can never break up. Never. Never. Rockhound, what are his next five days like once they get back and those guys are heroes?

What kind of, how would you compare it to Dennis Rodman in the last two years of the last dance? All I know is, again, a lot of illegal shit is happening during that stretch. He's probably dead within a year, right? I think he's dead in six months. I mean, first of all, I mean, there's no guarantee he's going to get the cash for them, loan shark. What was it?

60% interest? Yeah. Yeah. And he's definitely got a bunch of pending sundry cases waiting for him in various states when his face gets flashed on the news. And I think Michael Clark Duncan's character has probably a year to get into the Lincoln bedroom. If that doesn't happen during the Clinton presidency, it's not happening during the jury.

George W. Bush presidency. It probably doesn't happen. It's a time sensitivity there. So here's a question. What are Harry Stamper's next 20 years looking like as an American hero and an icon? Like, do we, does he end up on a dollar bill? Absolutely. Is there a statute?

Does he get a holiday? Like, Jason, how does it shape out for him next five years? Harry Stamper, yes, 100%. They, first of all, they call his oil rig, the Harry Stamper Memorial Oil rig. and they raise a statue to him. And I think people start... Where's the statue? It's on top of the oil rig.

It's on top of the oil rig. Got it. It's like an animatronic statue and his arm is just pumping the oil out. No, it's pumping a shotgun and flames come out the top. You don't think he gets a holiday? He absolutely gets a holiday.

He saves the world. You guys are missing this, man. Harry Stamper has about 17 good years. and then the takes come. Oh. And then it's like, sorry if I don't want to worship a guy who is essentially bringing about the end of the world anyway with fossil fuel drilling. That's a good call. Oh, that's excellent.

And it's like, you won't catch me praying at the altar of this, you know, guy who defiled mother nature. Right. I wish the asteroid had hit us. That would be nature healing. Right. Notice the hagiography never mentions. My name is Willow Jones, and I was on the SS tree when Harry S. Stamper hit me in the head with a golf ball

and fractured my skull. Right. Harry Stamper, the darker side when he was shooting a rifle at Ben Affleck for an hour as bullets were scattering everywhere. Yeah, you're right. I think initially there's a statue and talk of a holiday and then the backlash comes in the form of like a very long, York Times Magazine feature investigative about some of Harry's behavior on the oil rate.

That's fair. Shea, this one's for you. Give it to me. It's a two-part question. All right. First part is, why didn't they ever ask Michael Bay to direct a Fast and Furious movie? And the second part is, would that have made the world explode? Michael Bay, Michael Bay can do a lot of things, but he can't quite get a grip on the Fast and the Furious franchise.

you need Justin Lynn in that role. He's got to be like the central point for that universe. Michael Bay is a little too bombastic. You don't think Vin Diesel would have turned on him immediately? We'd have gotten some good stories. Immediately. Halfway through the first movie, he would have been gone.

Did Michael Bay ever work with The Rock? Yeah, Pain and Game. Yeah, Pain and Game. Oh, Payne and Game. That's right. The Rock was good in Painting Game. It's an incredible... That's the best performance of Rock has ever given. Yeah. I'd like that one.

Any other unanswerable questions? This one is answerable, but it's going to take a lot of work. At the very beginning of the movie, when they talk about the extinction of the dinosaurs, and then they cut to 65 million years later, that's got to be the longest, like, cutting forward or cutting backward that has ever happened in a movie. That's got to be it. Every movie should open with the extinction of the dinosaurs. It just starts there.

It would have been awesome if the only thing that could have improved heat is if the title card was like 65 million. years ago dinosaurs met the asteroid. Now De Niro meets Pacino. Puccino's like, these dinosaurs are good. Okay, motherfuckers! Taranosaurus, Rex! Okay, motherfuckers! So I'm surprised how easily I was able to answer our final question. Who won the movie? To me, it's like Billy Bob Thornton in a runaway. I love it. It's Billy Bob. We've had a lot of like the major, we've had a bunch of, a run of rewatchables where like it's a very obvious who won the movie or it's one of the top two people in the movie. This is the first one where it's

like this movie is not as good as it could be without, without like the fourth guy, without the third guy. Will Patton. That's my pick. Will Patton won the movie. That's just a Homer pick. Yeah, it's embarrassing. Absolutely. You're in the pocket of big post band. That's like when you defend the 99 Spurs title as a legitimate title. You can go straight to hell. Straight to hell. Jason, who do you have for who with the movie? Yeah, it's Billy Bob.

Billy Bob is just incredible in this role. Unbelievable stuff. Just a magnetic figure. I am 100% surprised by the like Billy Bob takes on this podcast right now. I was not expecting that. I don't know how y'all three synced up on that one thing. But all right. Well, the problem is he was in blood in blood out and you can only see him through that

prism. It's hard for you to accept him as other characters. He's lightning. He's lightning forever. Anytime is it anything else, you're just kind of half confused. If you had to say, is this a Michael Bay movie, a Bruce Willis movie, a Ben Affleck movie, or whatever, what would you say? It's a Michael Bay movie, right? Michael Bay, yeah. Every Michael Bay movie is a Michael Bay movie. And yet, none of us had him for winning the movie. No. Well, I think he's his own worst enemy. You know what I mean? He does a lot of things that are great, but he really can spin out, you know, as we saw with the Transformers movies. And I think, you know, like you guys mentioned before, like Tetero's in the Transformers

movies, I think Tucci is, Stanley Tucci's in. Yes. But like, it's having, having this baseline of guys like Bouchemy and, and Billy Bob and, and Will Patton and William Fichter to kind of keep this, this movie attached. One of the reasons Michael Bay doesn't win this movie is because his attitude after the movie came out was like, I didn't even like this movie. I don't Forget it. I was thinking a comedy. He should have stood by it. He should have stood by it.

Yeah, he really didn't. He kind of didn't stick up for it. If you're listening, Michael Bay, you made a fucking masterpiece. You should own it. Just own it. Yeah. Enjoy your fine work, Michael Bay. Well, anyway, that's it for Armageddon.

We dedicated this one to our friend Louis K. Who's been texting me for two years asking for the Armageddon rewatchables and getting furious every time we did some goofy one like Proof of Life. So there you go. Chris, Shea, Jason, a pleasure. As always, we'll see you in the next we watch. You're canceled, Harry Stamber.