The Rewatchables - ‘Basic Instinct’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Mallory Rubin

Episode Date: April 14, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Mallory Rubin grab their ice picks and record the pod of the century on the 1992 erotic thriller ‘Basic Instinct’ starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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first two episodes on Thursday. They're going to go through every Wire season. If you're listening to the rewatchables, I'm guessing you love the Wire. You will love this podcast. So check both of those out. One last thing, have to give a disclaimer for the podcast you're about to hear. This is an NC17 podcast. There is no way to talk about basic instinct without crossing about 19 lines. So we did that here. I would not listen to this podcast with your kids in the car or your kids in the room. So there you go. That is your disclaimer. Have you ever fucked on cocaine, Chris and Mallory? Have you ever fucked on cocaine? Basic Instinct coming up next. instinct is a smashing psychological shocker.

You like playing games, don't you? It's nice. Not since fatal attraction has there been such an electrifying thriller. You're in over your head. Michael Douglas is terrific. And Rolling Stone calls it one charged up erotic thriller. Basic Instinct, Redid R. All right, the podcast that's going to get us all fired.

Chris Ryan is here, Mallory Rubin, it's here. She likes to use her. her hands a lot and myself. Basic instinct, an iconic, erotic thriller. I don't know. Mallory, we might have to wheel her out by the end of this podcast.

I don't even know where to begin. This is an all-time apex mountain share in Stone performance. This is a movie that launches a thousand Skin and Max movies. This is peak Michael Douglas. This feels very early 90s to me. This was a controversial movie. movie. Chris, first thing you think of when you think of this movie.

This puts the cock in Hitchcock. Yeah, man, this movie was responsible for a lot of callous. What can I say? A lot of callous. No pun intended. It came at a very crucial point in my personal life, 1992. Just a young buck out there in the streets of

Philadelphia. Still trying to make sense of this crazy world. It's really topsy-turvy. And then Sharon Stone walks into my life. I don't know if it's ever been the same since. Mallory? First thing I think of is putting the cross and double cross and putting the uncross in it too, you know? Really, actually, the first thing I think of is Michael Douglas's ass, to be totally honest with you.

It was on a 70-inch TV or 50-inch TV or 30-inch TV, whatever TV you have, that's still funny. It was hilarious in a movie theater. But for the flex that Michael Douglas, this is the whole movie is a flex for him. He's been a star for a while. He's an A plus lister. He's on a really nice run. And then at some point here, he decides he's going to wear the V-neck shirt and the dance scene.

Oh, my God. That's going to be fine. And then just an iconic, I repeat, iconic walk to the bathroom with his balls suddenly swaying and just his butt. and he'd clearly done some crunches, but not enough. I just don't know what he was thinking. I have to be honest.

I would not have guessed that the word subtly would have been used even once during this podcast. So having it come up in the first five minutes. On the bulletin board, there's no way. All right. Some stuff to cover. And then we'll talk about

why we love this movie so much. So the Sharon Stone thing, I saw there's a great divorce movie, we called a reconcilable differences, which I'm sure Mallory has seen because all the CODs have seen all the divorce movies. Have you seen reconcilable differences? I actually haven't. Yeah, it's never on. I'm not surprised. It's Ryan O'Neill and Shelley Long. Okay. They, he's like a struggling screenwriter and they, they have Drew Barrymore as a kid, and she files for emancipation from them. A little bit out of Ozark Season 2, Chris. Yeah, real Charlotte

from Ozark news. I knew that wake up, Chris. But Bill, I just watched all of Ozark in 12 days. I'm ready for your Ozark talk, too. All right. We'll get to it later. So Sharon Stone was the other woman in that movie and comes in off the top rope and it's like, who's this? And then kind of bounces around.

And she's in a Stephen Seagall movie. She looks great in that. She's in Action Jackson. Looks awesome in that. And then Total Recall, which we just did on the rewatchables, is when it becomes clear, like, oh, something's really going to happen here. But then you look at her IMDB after. more misses.

And this is a 10-year odyssey for her. She's 34 when she finally gets this role. Chris Ryan, what happened? Why didn't we latch on to Sharon Stone sooner? What were we missing? Well, it's hard because, like, in some ways she was waiting for this role to come along, right? Because I don't think that she has the kind of like Meg Ryan,

Julia Roberts, warmth that was in vogue back at that time. And it's interesting because both of those actresses were considered for the role of Catherine, role and they both turned it down. But Sharon Stone, even back in like, I remember seeing her in like King Solomon's minds in the 80s. Like she was just like in these sort of B movies as the love interest at times. And she was like, there was always something about her that was really, really intense. And I don't know that she ever found a role to put that intensity until she found Catherine Trammle. Totally recall to some degree. Yeah, but like she's like the four scenes.

Girl. Yeah. Great. What do you think it was, Mallory? You know, sometimes people peak late, man. That doesn't always happen for everybody on the same time frame. And there's something about her potency and raw charisma that sometimes you just need the right vehicle, the right vessel to bring that into the world. The thing that's remarkable, of course, is that she's still bringing it all this time later. I don't know if anybody's watching new poker. but her cameo in one of the episodes of this season of New Pope, her ferocity and gentleness, that kind of unbelievable hybrid where she's so quiet, gentle, but also so potent and forceful and mesmerizing and magnetic. And of course the lacrosse, which I'm sure we will talk about at length, including the controversy around it. in the new Pope in 2020 was still something that she was able to reference in the scene, mimic, mock, and pull off completely. Also, they talk about the fact that she's a genius, rocking an IQ of 154.

She had a lot of stuff going on in her life. She was considering law school. Could have done anything she wanted. She's a remarkable woman. So Paul Verhoeven, the director of this, he was impressed by in total recall how she could go from sweet to ruthless at the blink of an eye. But yet Michael Douglas didn't want her in the role. And we'll go through some of the casting widows later.

But he just felt like this was going to be such a controversial movie. He wanted like another star to like share the burden of, oh man, we're pushing the info pair and didn't think she was a big enough star. It's kind of crazy in retrospect to think that they would have even considered anyone else. I'm just thinking like historically, Chris, go film nerd us. Film nerd on us for a second. Like, who would have been the runner-up best person in the history of movies for this part?

For this part in... I mean, I think that the original consideration, which was Kim Basinger, was the person that would probably fit best as Catherine. I think a lot of the, like, the other actresses who were huge stars at that time had a kind of girl next door quality that wasn't right for this role.

So you're talking about, kind of like maybe, Kathleen Turner a little bit earlier, basing her. I don't know. Greta Sachi, she was also up for this. And she was like a real like deep cut adult erotic thriller passion point of mine. But yeah, like, I mean, there was like, there was not a lot of people who could have pulled this off. Greta Scotch is a good one because that's basically the character she's playing in presumed innocent.

And I never understood why she didn't become a bigger star. I really liked her. Kathleen Turner is a great one. This is Sharon Stone says she models the part after Kathleen Turner. The only other one I was thinking. And maybe this is just because I watched Unfaithful a couple nights ago, which is a borderline rewatchables. Great movie.

I wonder if Diane Lane, Diane Lane was always playing like the same types of character. And even when she was in an erotic thriller, like Unfaithful, it was always the one who didn't want to fall down that road but got sucked into it. I wonder if she could have tested herself and bend this character because I think she had the sexuality. Well, she definitely could have played Elizabeth Garner. She definitely could have been the Gene Triple Hard part, I think.

Yeah. It's just you've got to have a character. You've got to have an actress in that part where somebody could plausibly throw their life away for them. Like that is literally like the ask. It's like you see this person and you will give up everything in your life and just completely let go to be like pulled into this maelstrom. Yeah, there's almost an element of.

witchcraft. You know, you have to be able to believe that Nick is, if not rational, at least assessing what is unfolding in real time, but also that he's completely helpless, right? Shooter! The moment where he says, I'm in love with you. I'm already in love with you, but I'm going to nail you anyway, that he knows that he's kind of lost it already. And in a way, that's what he enjoys about it, but that he hasn't lost sight of the fact that he's going to keep trying to pretend otherwise. And that is just. the spellbinding nature of what Sharon Stone is able to do there.

I think, I mean, I think Diane Lane is an all-time favorite of mine as well. There's a sweetness at play with her that I don't know is totally right for the Catherine role. There's a difference between a discomforting quiet and a charisma and like tenderness. Yeah. Sharon Stone definitely owns an ice pick in real life. And Douglas does a good job. has a couple, he creates this specific Michael Douglas move in this movie where he's kind of staring at her in disbelief. And then he does a, like he, like he almost like, his reaction is just

utter disbelief and then he just laughs and like turns away because, but you can see he's just getting sucked in scene by scene. And yeah, I think the first 45, 50 minutes of this movie is, I think better than the second after the movie. But the way they introduce. her. They go the drive to go to see her beach house for the first time, the way she plays them, then they go back, gets undress, she knows he's watching, goes to the police station. She's got all six guys in the palm of her hand in like five seconds. It's really brilliant.

I really think it's high level. I was amazed this movie got mixed reviews when it came out because I think some of the stuff it does is really, really good. Well, most of the Verhoven movies from this period basically go through the same, although they differ in their own ways. They go through the same critical life cycle of like, they're usually relatively successful, but they are trashed on their, you know, they're trashed upon release critically. And then they go through this like sort of rehabilitative like, hey, wait a second. Like Starship Troopers is actually an incredible satire or basic instinct is basically a Hitchcock movie with a lot more balls, you know, and all these things going. forward. For me, man, like the thing that I kind of wanted to chat about was, um, this was like

the ultimate sneak in movie. So this was back when obviously, uh, you know, like I think people were a little bit more hardline about like ratings. And, and if it was an R rating, like kids couldn't get in. I mean, you would have to basically buy a ticket for a cheaper movie or for a kid's movie or for something that was PG-13. And then you would try and sneak into basic instinct, but there was such a huge storm of controversy around this movie upon its release that, like, we knew. We knew what we were in for. And there was just like, you were going to have to basically have, like, the United States Marines guarding the theater to stop teenage boys from going to see this movie in the early 90s. Chris, how many times in your life have you said

in response to somebody asking you about your formative experience with basic instinct? Number one, I don't remember how often I used to jerk off, but it was a lot. No, you know, that was the thing is also it's just like, I've got to know how much we want to get into this, but I think that there was a huge element of thrillers at this time was that like there was just not that kind of like the access to pornography was not the same as it is now. And these movies essentially functioned as like mainstream pornography in a lot of ways. I mean, Bill, you write for a skinimax in the beginning. Right. So I did some research. There was a good Vanity Fair piece about this. The Skin of Max thriller really started with Night Eyes with Andrew Stevens in 1990. Now, there have been some stuff in the 80s, but Night Eyes was the first one where they're like, all right, we have a semi-recognizable guy. There's a hot woman. There's going to be some simulated sex. And we're just going to put this out into the world. And people were like, cool. But once basic instinct happened, that launched the shit. Shannon Tweet error, the Shannon Warrior, all that stuff.

But going back to when this movie came out, sneaking in the theater, I was in college. And it was spring, I don't know, my senior. There was no sneaking for you. I'm a red-blooded American man. First of all, I had owned a lot of Sharon Stone stock. So it was like, all right, this is the full Sharon Stone. It was the premiere magazine, New York magazine, like a lot of film writing era. So the Joe Esther House selling his script for $3 million, it was on the radar for a while.

It was the total recall director. And then it was like, and she shows her beaver during the movie. And we're like, what? Like, honestly, it was like, they can show that in a movie? So you have all these things, Michael Douglasson. And it's like, I'm there. When does this come out? So the movie comes out.

I solo to a theater that's 15 minutes away from Holy Cross. Get there. It's me and 18 other guys. There's not a woman to be seen in the theater. Everyone's solo. Nobody is with anybody. We're all loaded different seats. It was creepy.

Were you social distancing? I'm just going to say that. Social distancing long before the quarantine. And the Sharon Stone, the leg on cross was like seeing the shark and jaws. You knew it was coming. You didn't know what it was going to be. And then when it happened, I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe they showed that. I'd never seen, never even thought that that would be shown in a movie.

When you rewatch the film now, do you watch the theatrical release or do you watch the director's cut with that crucial extra 30 to 45 seconds. So I did some research on this for half-fast internet research. We can cover it now. It really seems like a rip-off. I think all these directors cuts, it's like two extra shots of somebody rocking on somebody and like, you know, a nipple that's shown for two more seconds. And it's not like actual, you're not actually getting, you know, crazy stuff.

So I watched the director's cut in preparation for this podcast. And as far as I can tell, based on my viewing experience and some brief research, there are three scenes that make up the totality of the differences. And it's not actually the most famous one, the light cross. It's the murder at the beginning, like how violent that is, where the ice pick is actually going, what parts of his body, it's piercing and how much rocking is still happening as the murder is unfolding. Okay, that's one. So that's violence and sexuality, obviously. The second part is actually, it's not a, oh, we get to see more nudity fun. It's the, the Nick Beth rape scene is longer.

So that's horrifying and very upsetting. I'm sure we'll talk about that later. And was controversial, controversial at the time. Yes. People were like, that went too far. You shouldn't have done that. Yes. And then the already quite protracted Nick Catherine.

fuck of the century sex scene where you can see more there are different angles, different shots. And I believe one of the key differences in that is the oral sex. Michael Douglas

performing oral sex on, well, sorry, Nick performing oral sex on Catherine. That like 15 seconds is some of the funniest movie making in the history of cinema. And it is honestly a track

if you have not seen it. It is absolutely worth the price just for that alone. The attempt to maintain eye contact with her the entire time he's down there. It's way too early for this, Mal. Come on. It's crazy. I took so many pictures of my TV to text you guys and then I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I didn't realize until I did the research that they filmed that one scene, the fuck of the century scene, for five solid days. 10 hour shoots each day. Five days, 50 hours of her naked with the little pad on. He's got the little pad on.

And they're just simulating every conceivable version because he was so worried about the scene getting edited. He wanted to be covered in every direction. And Verhoeven is directing them the way like Rick Carlisle coaches point guards. Like he had like every single like gesture, every single movement was entirely choreographed. Yeah. The storyboards were presented in advance. It's unbelievable. Just in that summary of that Mallory just gave

of the sort of more explicit scenes in this, I should add that as a young man going to see this movie and despite all the excitement I had going into it, very quickly in this movie, you're like, I feel really strange about sex and really strange about like, this is not like a movie that it's not like an erotic movie in some ways. It's kind of terrifying. Right. And it was,

At the time, a different, Michael Douglas trying to, you know, show a different side. He had it. He'd played this guy a little bit in Black Rain, but not the sexual version of this guy. And he's come. So here's Michael Douglas, 1984 to 2000. Romance in the Stone, Jewel of the Nile, Chorus Line, Fatal Attraction, Wall Street, Black Rain, War of the Roses, leading up to Basic Instinct. He's one of the five biggest stars in the world.

Basic Instinct pushes it up another level. Falling down, disclosure, American president, Ghosts in the Darkness, the game, perfect murder, Wonder Boys, traffic. So that's a 17-year run there of just, just the batting average is unbelievable. This is the only time he really played a character like that. I guess you could say fatal attraction. Yeah. But in fatal attraction, he was almost like the every man, dad, husband,

who just makes the wrong decision for a weekend and gets kind of overwhelmed. This one, this guy's like, this guy's like dark. He's got a cocaine pass. he shot some people. He knows what he's getting into and he's kind of into it. And you can see why Douglas wanted to play this guy. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty much a movie about addiction

in some ways because it's always about him getting closer and closer to the flame. Douglas basically in that entire run, you're talking about Bill, though, only wears one outfit. He just wears a suit with a trench coat. It's one of the best, best moves ever because it's just like you can get

Michael Douglas. He has his own clothes. Don't worry about it. He's going to show up. He's going to wear like a tan or a gray business suit and a trench coat and probably some sunglasses. I still like, I always think about that look in the end of Wall Street when he's in Central Park with Bud. And he's just like getting rained on on his on his trench coat and yelling at him. I love that he basically just brings the same outfit to every movie.

It is actually shocking when he puts on the V-neck and the bomber in this movie. Oh, my God. you've seen him put on a different skin entirely. I feel like it's like what people must have felt like in the 30s when they first saw color movies, like color film. Chris, why don't more people say my favorite actor is Michael Douglas? Like, if you were having drinks with somebody and you were like,

who's your favorite actor? And they were like, Michael Douglas. I would be like, really? And yet he's been in more movies than anybody. Yeah, and I think it's probably got a lot to do with how his acting career got started, which was very late in life. You know, and he starts acting more or less like he becomes

a movie star in his early 40s. And I was trying to remember because I was kind of like, oh, Michael Douglas, it seems like he was born in his 40s. But that's because that's, if you didn't watch streets of San Francisco, you're familiar, or China syndrome, your familiarity with Michael Douglas is essentially as a middle-aged man who represents a certain kind of like the American

male psyche in the late 80s and early 90s. And the extent to which he kind of, his movie stardom kind of corresponds with like Bill Clinton and all these other kind of like powerful men who got caught in sexually compromising positions over the course of their lives is really, really interesting. But it's it's kind of a compressed thing. He never really had the Harrison Ford action movie star, star like career that he would have, you would have sort of expected from somebody with his name. Well, romance in the stone. It felt like that's maybe where. where it was heading.

Yeah, that was his attempt to make Indiana Jones, essentially. I was with them with streets to San Francisco. And then the Michael Douglas thing did start to happen. He just picked mostly bad movies. Like, China Syndrome was a massive movie. He was producing behind the scenes. But it just, it took a couple turns. Romance in the Stone was when it took off.

Now, what do you think of when you look at Michael Douglas, like, is it affection? Is it love? Is it comedy? Like, what's the first reaction? you know, I don't want to say indifference because that's uncharitable, but it's just he's never really been a factor in my life. He was always, I think we might have talked about this during the fatal traction pot actually, but he was always one of my mom's favorites. Like her, her, her Rushmore had Harrison Ford, Richard Gear, Michael Douglas. Not sure who the fourth one would have been. But those were the top three for sure. And I like from the moment that I basically had eyes and could. think and understood anything about life. I thought Harrison Ford was the sexiest person who would ever grace the planet. And I just never felt that way about Michael Douglas. And I think to your question about why maybe some people aren't inclined to mention him as their favorite actor or

the person they're drawn to. Part of it is that there's something repellent by design about a lot of his roles. You know, he's not necessarily playing people you're supposed to like. And that's like a he's a very adult actor. He's a very adult actor. Yeah, absolutely. Like you think about all the people now who are, all the people now who are like big movie stars that are his age or are what his age was in basic instinct, they're all doing like comic book movies for younger people. Michael Douglas is making movies for people his own age. Well, Michael Douglas is a proud part of the MCU, but point taken. That's true.

That's true. Point taken. You know, I think like the other thing is, and again, not to be unkind, Michael Douglas is a great part of the cinematic history that we all share together. I think there's a conversation around almost all of his movies with a few exceptions, obviously Wall Street, among them, where you're like, was that a good performance? I'm not totally sure. Like there's something very compelling about watching him.

He's certainly an interesting performer and their interesting roles. But he's just as likely to be nominated for an Oscar as a Razzie, which I think is kind of fun. It's kind of an interesting thing to talk about. You know, he's not afraid to do weird things. And yet, despite that, as Chris said, you could put him in one wardrobe for any role and it almost wouldn't make a difference. So I think like his career is defined by a lot of contradictions. And one of those contradictions is that there seems to be a lot of ubiquity and like a sameness to the arc, even though there's all this variance within it.

So I don't know. It's just a strange thing. And then, of course, there's the fact that his father is a famous person and people have associations and expectations based on that. I, so I was looking at that run from 84 to 2000 and it struck me because somebody else had the same kind of time frame of their peak. The mailman, Carl Malone, who was another one who, you know, top three leading score of all time, made a couple finals, won two MVPs. But you would never say he was one of the best NBA players of all time. It was a little bit of dismissive even when he was at his peak. and I do feel like there was a little bit of that with Michael Douglas.

Whereas you look at who he was competing against for all of those roles at the time, who was like the adult white male who he's going against for fatal attraction, for this movie, whatever. And it's not a lot of people. It's Harrison Ford who would have stayed away from, I feel like, at least half of these roles. For sure. And then other than that, you're just going down a class. So in a way, we really kind of needed Michael Doug.

Because I think in the wrong hands, some of these movies could have gone terribly. I think the one thing worth mentioning about him that makes him different than maybe the mailman. I always think of, I mean, he's a, he's a real player coach. I mean, like, the producing side of it can't be overlooked. He did one flew over the cuckoo's nest. Yeah. He produced a star man, I think. And one of the major things is that when he did a movie, he actually was pretty

forceful about making sure the movie that he wanted to get made got made. I mean, basic instinct, whether you think it's like a great movie or a funny movie or like just a trash movie, he stuck by Verhoven, which was kind of nuts at the time. And he got this movie made

in the same way that he was able to like help them build roads to finish romancing the stone. Like he would kind of step in and throw his weight around whenever he needed to. Great taste. Like as a producer, and an actor and just like, that's a good script.

We should make that as a movie. Also, I think he had some good fortune with people that he did the movies with. Like, he caught Kathleen Turner at like her apex. And she, she, I think, is still the best, the sexiest best, my favorite actress of the 80s. Just ripping them off left and right. But then Glenn Close catches her at a perfect time, catches Charlie Sheen at a perfect time, catches Sharon Stoner. a perfect time. You go all the way through.

Even disclosure, that's right when Demi Moore is shifting into this a plusless sex star, basically, or sexy star. The game, he gets Fincher. Traffic gets Soderberg during the height of Soderberg.

I don't know how much of it was Tase versus Luck, but over and over again just seemed to find himself in right places. And all those movies are not safe. They're not safe. No. Like he's not doing the safe choice.

He's not making, an action franchise. He's always kind of like pushing the envelope and usually doing stuff that's in the zeitgeist at the moment, whether it's sexual harassment or the drug trade or just like taboos in sex and stuff like that, which we can look back on and like kind of chuckle at and be like, well, who gives a shit? It's not like basic instinct change people's minds about sexuality. But at the time, seems like a pretty brazen and risky use of your Hollywood capital. I think he was also interestingly unapologetic about that fact. Like, if you look at the quotes that he was giving around the release of this movie,

there's not a lot of attempt to like defend the art behind it. He'll say this is supposed to be smut. This is supposed to be a detective novel that we made into a fun, sexy movie. Why is everybody so upset? Now, I'm not saying why is everybody so upset, and I'm sure we'll talk about why people were upset as we go. But I think that's kind of an interesting choice as an artist to say like it's okay to try to have fun with something and to lean into different genres and embrace them for what they are and not have to pretend that there's something else, which, you know, again, part of it is that he was older at the time. It's not like he was a 20-year-old trying to make it for the first time. he had the comfort of his family name and everything like that,

just was a little less afraid than maybe some people would have been to make that that choice and take that risk in the first place and then to kind of stand behind it and say, I don't really see the need to lie about what this is. Really good taste in directors across the board, worked with a lot of grades. On the tasting and sense in the moment, that's another thing. So, you know, Wall Street, when they made that movie, the timing of it was really smart. It was right as this was the height of something that was going on that I don't think a lot of people understood. And they, you know, that movie came out, I think, in 87, but it was made in 86, right as the

insider trading and the billionaires and all that money is flowing in. Basic instinct was another one. He said one of the reasons he made the movie, this was the height of the fear of AIDS. And that's something that pops up a lot in the research. Like, he felt like sex and movies were dying because everyone was so afraid of AIDS that he saw like an opportunity to be like, no, actually, we can still, we can still make a sexy movie. Like, he felt like, like, motivated almost to, uh, to push the envelope with this movie, which I thought was really interesting. I didn't, I didn't know that about him.

So, um, disclosure was another one. That's right at the height of like the first time we really started talking about consent in the 90s and sexual harassment at work. and he really wanted to be involved in that. So anyway, Esther House, he wrote the script in the 80s. It became a bidding war. Carico Pictures acquired the rights for $3 million. Wild.

The film made $352 million worldwide. It was the fourth highest grossing film in 1992. And as Chris said, I do think like the sex and the nudity was a big part of it. The pornography machine was not in place yet. We were five years away from any semblance. of anything on the internet. We didn't even really have the Max Magazine, all that stuff yet.

You're talking about Playboy. You're talking about going to rent porn movies at a at your local video store. And that's about it. So there are movies like this actually, it's

impossible to imagine $352 million would be made from the 2020 basic instinct. There's no way. I don't think this movie, works in nearly the same way. But in 1992, it's like, whoa, well, they're really going for it here. Like, we just didn't have that.

Personally, I've been racking my brain. What's the most recent movie that could even be compared to basic instinct in terms of it, what it's sexually explicit content? Like, I've been trying to, like, the erotic thriller is pretty much dead. Well, it was replaced by cable stuff. I think the last time I could remember a. sex scene being part of the sale of the movie almost was the Billy Bob Thornton, Hallie Berry movie where it's like, Monster's Ball.

This is Monsters Ball, which, you know, won some Oscars. But it was like, this is really raw, that sex is really important in this movie. That was one of the last times I remember sex being sold in the market in the movie almost. Now it's like, I don't think it would work anymore. I think the other one that comes to mind, obviously, it's different is. gone girl. You know, there's a violent sexual murder in that film. You have male nudity in that movie. So I think less female nudity, though certainly explicit discussions of sex and sexual violence throughout the film. So that one comes to mind a bit. I think like some of the other

comps or places where you could at least imagine something like this happening though or television shows. Like it's much easier to envision something like this unfolding now on. on Netflix or HBO or Hulu than in two hours and eight minutes at the movie theater. Yeah, but I mean, maybe the reason why this movie still plays is because if you had the black light cum stain shot in a Netflix show, you'd be like, holy shit. This movie, like a Netflix show that did what Basic Instinct was doing in the early 90s, a Netflix show that did it now would still be pushing the envelope. Part of what makes this movie kind of.

kind of like makes it last is because it's still shocking. Like I was still like scandalized by it last night. Yeah. I do think there's been so much sex stuff on cable and everywhere in the last. Like think about Mrs. Fletcher, me and Matt, one of our favorite shows the last year. No, that was great. That season finale ends with like a pretty graphic threesome. Yeah.

That in 1992, people would have had a heart attack if that happened. But now it's like, it was surprising. but I wasn't like, oh my God. Like basic instinct in the theater, there's five or six moments where you're like, oh my God, I can't believe they did that. Including the entire opening of the movie.

That's how it starts. Johnny Baaz. I think nine and a half weeks was a movie that did some of that. I think Angel Heart, fatal attraction, a tiny bit. But this one really got it going. Roger Ebert.

Not a fan. Two out of four stars. Oh, okay. Not a fan. So he's lost his momentum. He said the film was well crafted, died in the last half hour. Quote, the film was like a crossword puzzle. It keeps your interest until you solve it.

That it's just a worthless scrap with the spaces filled in. I got to be honest. I think that's really fair. Like this is a super, super, super fun movie. But to your point earlier, Bill, about how the first half is better than the second half and why is the critical response kind of divisive. It's because the halves of the movie don't actually match. And it is, it's depending on how you process it and how you're watching it. Like maybe you're not trying to solve it as you go and you're just kind of purely titillated

by what's unfolding or horrified and just kind of, it's a sensory experience. And maybe it is more of an active mental exercise for you as you're watching it. But there are so many moments along the way where it's pretty clear what the outcome is going to be. And once you've figured it out, that aspect of the story, the actual plot momentum kind of fizzles. And then there's the fact that you're not actually rooting for the characters necessarily, right? Like none of these people are likable. And that could be totally fun in its own way. I actually think that that is part of what makes the movie great. We're not great, but part of what makes the movie so interesting is that even Douglas was like, I don't really think Nick deserves to be saved.

Like, I think that was part of what drew him to the role. And part of what makes the movie so exciting is that these are essentially like immoral psychopaths, you know, who are killing one another. So just to defend our boy, Raj, for one second, I think the difference between that point and his statement is that they don't have to be good people to be good to. detectives, like the actual casework and just the nature of the clues of what you're learning, it's ludicrous. I mean, it is so easy to figure out what's happening as a viewer. And yet, the flip side of that is that so much of it makes no sense at all. Now, again, I find that,

like, really fun. I mean, I'll watch the movie and basically laugh, almost uninterrupted for two hours and eight minutes, except for the moments where I'm cringing because something is so uncomfortable. I think it's fun. I think it's exciting to watch it. It, it's not necessarily a great story. I think it's an interesting psychological exercise, and I like thinking about it that way. The actual detective plot is, eh.

Yeah, the thing that this movie is actually more than anything, a vibe movie. It's the Jerry Goldsmith score. It's San Francisco in the early 90s before that city changes profoundly. That's the whole point. Carmel. You know who the murderer is in the first three minutes.

It's like, unless there's a dead ringer for Sharon Stone's body, hair, and boobs. Don't forget the manicure. Who happens to be dating. Who happens to be dating Johnny Boss. He's just a fucking lookalike across the board. Like, it was her from the beginning.

I was amazed that Roger Ebert was upset that the mystery fell apart. It's like, well, we knew who did it. I agree with you. And I personally also feel the way you guys do about it and think it's an incredibly fun watch. I just, I understand why if some people went into it expecting that mystery box and that puzzle to be what the actual experience was. that they might be let down because that's actually not what it is.

Right. Okay. We're going to take a break then we're going to do the categories. Let's take a quick break to talk about two new ringer podcast that we're launching. The First One is called The Wire Way Down in the Hole, hosted by Van Laithet and Jamel Hill. You can subscribe to this right now. It launches on Thursday with the first two episodes, and they're going through every single Wire episode one by one.

And it's going to be incredible. So if you love The Wire, which I'm sure you do, I would highly recommend this one. We also launched a limited edition podcast called Flying Coach with Steve Kerr and Pete Carroll. They're going to talk about all kinds of coach and leadership and they're going to have guests and they're going to try to raise some money for some different charities where it did raise some money. Check both of those out, two podcasts that are very important to us. Back to this one. Oh, yeah.

Okay. Well, Chris talked about a vibe. A lot of my most rewatchables are from the earlier part of the movie. Unless you want to go, I can't do open. scene for most rewatchable because a guy gets brutally stabbed to death. Oh, God. Very tough. I'm going to nominate some of these.

Then if you guys want to throw in a couple more, go ahead. The first visit to Sharon Stone's house. Yes. I'll call her Catherine from now on. It's hard to separate them. First of all, fantastic drive on the little cliff there going up. I just like being in that area. I just enjoyed it.

Her house is amazing. As you know, I love. I love crazy real estate houses like that. Like just Googling and look at them. That's an all-timer. That house does no, I think no longer exists. It's, it's, I think it was listed last year for $52 million. Oh, I got to go.

I looked at the wrong thing. It might have been renovated. I, it's also, I put this in half-ass internet research. So who knows if it's actually true. But there's some, there's some like San Francisco curbed articles and real estate articles. So there's a architectural digest piece about it. It's wonderful.

It has exchanges like, are you a pro? I'm an amateur. Why didn't you go home with them last night? I was in the mood. Are you sorry he's dead? Yeah, I liked fucking him. That's amazing. She got the cigarette and she's just fucking with those guys immediately.

And then they kind of drive home. And Michael Douglas looks at Gus and just kind of does that. What the fuck just happened? All of that, it's such a good introduction to a character. By that time, you're like, oh, my God, when do we get to see this person again? Let me ask you something, Ms. Chappelle. Are you sorry, he's dead? Yeah, I liked fucking him.

It's incredible. It's one of the best introductions to a character, maybe ever. And the setting is, as you're saying, so fucking perfect. Because on the one hand, it's just beautiful. It's majestic. It's serene. It's pristine. But then when you look over the edge, what is it? Choppy water, jagged rock, danger everywhere. Like the symbolism of the setting is absolutely perfect. And every single line that she says in that scene is iconic. I mean, I wasn't dating him. I was fucking him as one of the first things she says in the entire movie. It's just unbelievable. How long were you dating him? I wasn't dating him. I was fucking him. What are you a pro? No, I'm an amateur.

And it totally scandalizes those guys because they're in their 40s in the early 90s. So their ideas about sexuality are kind of trapped in between the summer of love and everything. Like after that, they've been living in a pretty conservative world since then. You know what I mean? So to have that thrown up to them, it's a great kind of like initial like taste. It just gives Nick a little taste. we should have mentioned this earlier, but you know, you think of 1992, they're just, there weren't characters like this.

Like most movies and TV shows, it was the horny guy trying to convince the girl to have sex with him. And it wasn't to see somebody just in the opening scene be like, I'm in complete control. I wasn't dating that guy. I was just fucking him. Like, there were, there were no anything like that anywhere. I was like, what is this?

What's going on? Now I think, I think it seems a little more. normal, but at the time was not. Second scene, the second house visit. Another car ride. She changes in front of them, gets back in the car. She's in the backseat, just sizing him up, asked him if he has a smoke.

He says no. Then she pulls the cigarettes out. Thought you didn't have any cigarettes. Oh, I found some in my pocket. Would you like one? I told you I quit. It won't last. all the way to the police interrogation featuring Newman from Seinfeld and Eddie Harris from Major League.

We have exchanges like in the car, what's your new book about? What's your new book about? A detective. He falls for the wrong woman. What happens? She kills him. Nick's like, I'm in. I'm even more a rouse than I was five seconds ago.

Saying Johnny liked to use his hands too much. about the tying up I like hands and fingers and then later Michael Douglas is like I thought you said you like people to use their hands No I like Johnny to use his hands

Amazing Have you ever fucked on cocaine Nick Do you use drugs Mr. Mel Sometimes You ever use drugs with Mr. Boss? Sure What kind of drugs Cocaine?

Have you ever fucked on cocaine Nick? Unbelievable And then the crotch shot followed by the lie detector. It is, I'm just, this is the most rewatchable eight to nine minutes of the movie. Anything I left out there, Mel? She's got a couple other just doozies on the line department there. I liked having sex with him. He wasn't afraid of experimenting.

I like that. Men who give me pleasure. He gave me a lot of pleasure and then all five guys. And by the way, the entire fucking police force is like in the room. room for this interrogation for no clear reason. And the cuts, the cuts in that scene are so brilliant. The way that she is in complete command and control, even though she is nominally the one in their power.

It is, of course, not the case at all. They are all in her power. The cuts to, you know, Newman just assistant DA drenched in sweating. I mean, can you imagine if this movie had come out in the GIF and meme era? Can you imagine? The memes, it's unbelievable to think about. Just incredible. I like the way that she's playing with the lighter.

You know, all of the stuff like that, these little props, the little things that she is using to reinforce that she is in control. She's the one exerting her will and her agency. And then like the little moments, it's like, you two know each other because the dynamic that's forming between them is so fucking bizarre. And the chemistry and tension is palpable. And they are both so willing to play this game, even though. everybody is watching them. It's just a fascinating dynamic and interplay. And obviously the most famous moment of the movie

and one of the most famous moments in movie history is in this scene. It's an all-time scene. It's one of the great movie star scenes of the last 30 years. Everything about it. I just don't think maybe Kathleen Turner at everybody.

And maybe, maybe Faye Dunaway in the 70s because this was kind of like her laying a little bit, but I don't think she could have pulled off the same kind of command of the room like that, but man. When do we want, when are we going to talk about the controversy around the actual moment? There's two, there's two stories. Yep.

Verhoeven definitely came up with the idea in the room. She definitely went with it. Yes. It's not in the script. That's fact. It's not in the script. And then there became a, he said she said after, she didn't know, she claimed she didn't know, she claimed she didn't know was going to be in the movie.

and he was like, yeah, we absolutely, that was, we talked about it in the thing. And I think it would have, if in 2020, that whole back and forth about that would have become a huge deal. In 1992 people, nobody gave me. Yeah. I mean, the line is that Verhoeven told her that, like, her underwear was essentially like, fucking up the lights, that like the lights were reflecting off of her underwear. Yeah. But the thing is she didn't, she didn't put on underwear in the scene before when she got dressed to go to the police.

So she couldn't have had underwear in the thing anyway. Yeah, but we don't know like in what order they shot those scenes. Yeah. Right. Right. Well, it's obviously in the script, you know, I don't wear underwear, Nick. And like Chris is saying the other, the scenes where she's getting dressed, where she's getting undressed. And Nick is watching her both times as established that this is a character who doesn't wear underwear.

Her contention was not that the character wouldn't have underwear on, but that she didn't know that they were going to use that shot in the film. that that was not something she had given her permission for. That was clear. I mean, what you said a second ago bill is completely right. If this happened now, basically the movie is canceled. The director is canceled. There's so much scandal around this. It would almost be impossible for anything to make it through.

Like the movie would probably literally get canceled, like shut down, you know? Yeah. And I do think it's fascinating as just a cultural bit of archaeology here that people's, I think most people are aware of the controversy around this. Like, if you know about the moment, you know about the movie, you're aware of this. It's something that Sharon Stone talks about, I'm like just floored by and totally impressed by the way that she has handled this. She has always spoken so openly, continues to talk about the impact that this had on her

career and her life, like is not in any way distancing herself from it. It's something that she will, again, acknowledge through other art. form like I was mentioning the new Pope scene earlier where this was referenced this this year. But she will speak so candidly about the the lack of permission and the various aspects I play here when it comes to consent and a woman's body. And I am fascinated by the fact that the moment is still something. And I don't I don't say this to make people feel bad about it. I just think it's really interesting, like that people continue to kind of hold up as this iconic, legendary thing, even though everybody is aware of the other aspect of the legacy of this moment. There aren't a ton of other things like that that have kind of survived that.

The only weird thing is she gets fully naked like 15 minutes later in the movie, too. Well, there's something about the shot itself that's so invasive. You know what I mean? Like there's something about and it's the guys like kind of staring or. her in this interrogation and this power dynamic that's set up where these detectives are supposedly you know they have her under the hot lights so it's not as like kind of like there's not as much sort of consent as there would be in a sex when you're being a sexual partner she's not supposed to be a sexual object in that moment even though obviously it's written as such um next scene

katherine stops by nick's place which i just liked in general it's this weird like 90s device where it's like, oh, now she's just going to stop by his place. Yeah. And he's trying to get some ice for a drink and she takes the ice pick from him. That seems awesome. She's like, can I handle this? And then it's like Bruce Lee with the ice pick. Why don't you let me do this for you?

You like watching me do it, don't you? Could I have a cigarette too, please? See, I told you you'd start smoking again. I like that scene because, like, little moments like him giving her his cigarette. there's a lot of like I will now say subtle even though I made fun of you earlier subtle sexiness in their

little advances in their relationship and how they know each other and how they're interacting with each other that's where you know she calls him shooter there's the Nikki Catherine Exchange great stuff it's good stuff

I also just love how like in 92 like people had to like it wasn't that weird for somebody to like go to someone's house and wait for them so she's like sitting out on the stoop, which seems like creepy, but is actually like in the era before cell phones,

you'd be like, oh, I'm going to swing by bills and see if he's home. Right. People are still doing that on devs, Chris. Yeah, it's true. Nick goes to the nightclub. Yes.

Combined with the famous sex scene. We're just doing the combo of this. He's the oldest guy in the club by like 18 years. The V-neck, the V-neck that he breaks out, I'm amazed. Nobody talked Douglas. out of it. I don't know what he should have worn, but it definitely wasn't that shirt. Anything but

that. Literally anything but that. It's so good. It's the sickest look in the movie. It is so good. It's so bad. Chris. All time, all time greatest three people doing cocaine in a toilet stall moment ever captured a movie or would you have something else? I can't even, I can't think of it. Is there anything in Scarface with a that's a three person coaxing? Like it's absolutely phenomenal. This is so much better. But this is like, The thing that's amazing is not only do they, the three of them do Coke in the bathroom stall, they then come out with a choreographed dance routine.

Yeah. Where they're like, Yeah. That's it. I have that in there. The Roxy dances, unbelievable. My girl Roxy throwing 200 miles an hour in that scene. Yeah.

Not even 150, 200. All leading to, you can argue, the greatest sex thing ever filmed. Where they spent five days shooting it. It's the fuck of the century. It's the fuck of the century. And we're not sure if he's getting, the first time you're watching, you're not sure if he's getting murdered at the end of the sex scene.

She does her move. It's like, now I'm going to get on top. I'm going to do the thing where I lean back. Uh-oh, is she have the fucking ice pick? Like, I've never seen a sex scene where I'm like, this guy might die, run. Everything about it is hilarious. And then finally, the Michael Douglas's butt, the funniest part of the movie. And then Roxy kind of popping in.

him doing that. Let's talk about this man to man, which is such a dig and she's eyeballing him. Let me ask you something, Rocky. Man to man. I think she's the fuck of the century. What do you think? Fantastic. Nick goes to see Catherine the next day is my next nomination. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, wait, go back, all right. We have got to break down the sex scene. Come on. Okay, you want. You want to do that now? Well, we can do it whatever you want, but we basically have. to go frame by frame here. I mean, this is such a rich text.

First of all, famously, director wanted Michael Douglas to do full frontal. Douglas has a clause in his contract prohibiting it. Wouldn't do it. Wanted to get an erect penis in the film. That was a big part of the creative vision and

wasn't going to happen. However, I know that was a big part of Chris's creative vision for the ringer initially, but sometimes this stuff doesn't work out. There was a creative clause in Sean Fennesse's contract that wouldn't allow for that. That's right. Yeah. One of the early profile shots, a side angle, when they are in bed together at the very beginning, right when they're back at the, at her home.

As he has as Michael Douglas, as Nick is kind of lifting his body up a bit, I mean, you see full, full. side penis in that shot. Really? I had no idea. Check out the director's cut. Now is like the coach nick of this of this scene. We should do that.

We should do that. B-ball breakdown review. Mrs. Skin, her new YouTube series. Auntie Skin is here. It's just unbelievable. Okay. Then. Wait a second though.

I thought they had the little like little genital pads on. I will send you a screen shot later. I was shot watching the director's cut last night. I couldn't believe it. I was like back into the left. Back into the left. The oral sex one tube punch there.

So again, I'm watching the director's cut for this podcast. Just for the pod. Just for its research, Chris. The, I don't even, I've never seen anything like this in my life. It's like they're making speed. But the version of you can't go below 50 miles per hour is you cannot break eye contact with each other despite you going down on her. And the angles for that being very difficult to maintain during this 20-ish second exchange. He goes, you know, kissing her like inner.

thigh, then he stops for a second, toying with her. She looks up, she looks up, she's like, oh, please. And then he takes her legs, puts them over his shoulders, and just dives in. But again, he's like

so, it's so funny. Like, he's, he literally looks cross-eyed the entire time. He looks like he's about to faint from having to maintain this eye contact that he's not in position to maintain. It's so funny.

You think Verhovo's like, look up, Michael. Keep looking up. Keep looking up. Keep looking up. Contact, Michael. You can, a lot of the interviews have an element where Verhoeven's basically saying, you know, this is a paraphrase version, but this is something he says. Men think they know how women have sex, but they don't know how other men have sex.

So they, apparently they were not on the same page about how. now Nick should be performing all of these various acts. So I think that's probably true that that did probably happen. Maintain the storyboard as I choreographed it. There's a very forceful orgasm, right, which there will be many of in this scene. Then we get her performing oral sex on him with the absolutely astonishing switch to the ceiling sex mirror perspective. Great moment.

This is a movie with multiple ceiling. sex mirrors. There's, of course, one in Boz's bedroom in the crime scene as well. Incredible stuff. Nick is watching himself get a blowjob in the ceiling mirror. The finger in the mouth stuff, like, I don't know what is going on in this movie where almost every single sex scene involves somebody shoving multiple fingers. Jamming into somebody else's mouth. But the weirdest one by far is in this sex scene where Nick licks his own. fingers and then shoves them into her mouth. Then there is the climax with some of the most it's like watching Tiger King. Like the sounds that are coming out of both of them. I've never

heard anything like it. It's just unbelievable. Then of course she breaks out the white scarf, ties him to the headboard. Every headboard in this movie has to have slots. It can't be solid material because you have to be able to tie somebody up in it. The back scratch. tearing open his flesh, no blood on the pristine white sheets as she flips him around after. Every part of this is just ludicrous and mesmerizing. I love it.

Chris just spent the last five minutes thinking about his resume and what the next stop is for him. I was just like, don't talk during a no-hitter. Good job, Bell. Thanks, man. Next one.

Nick goes to see Catherine the next day. She won 80s him a little bit. He's like, that was the fuck of the century. She was like, ah, it was a good start. I told her, I thought it was the fuck of the century. Well, what do you think? I thought it was a pretty good beginning. I thought it was a pretty good beginning.

Very tough. Did Nick go home or he stays the night? No, he stayed at the one house and went to the beach house. Yeah, she left him the note on the pillow that said the beach. He's wearing the same V-neck, which now has seven thousand a semen on it. a pretty cool, a pretty cool bomber jacket in the process. Good jacket.

I like the jacket. Yeah. So he says, I thought it was the fuck of the century. She says it was good beginning. He was like, boy, Roxy really got an iPhone last night.

Well, she's seen me fuck plenty of guys. It's just like, she's just cutting his legs off left and right. And then says, I'm not going to confess all my secrets, Nick, just because I had an orgasm.

And then ends with the, I'm in love with you already, but I'm going to nail you anyway. You put that in your book where they're on the beach. I love the scenery. This is like, it's just a really good basic instig scene. It brings it everything I'm looking for.

Not going to confess all my secrets, Nick, just because I have an orgasm. You won't learn anything I don't want you to know. Yes, I will. And I'll nail you. Nah. You'll just fall in love with me. I'm in love with you already. But I'll nail you anyway.

You can put that in your book. It's an incredible scene, including having one crucial production flaw, which is also an important part of this movie's legacy. There's just no stretch of sand like that at her beach property. It's all rocks. Right. They're like definitely in Malibu or Redondo Beach filming that last part. That's all I, other than that, I don't feel like there's another rewatchable scene after that.

If you guys want to nominate one, go ahead. I think after the fuck of the century is when the kind of the who done it part really kicks in. So once you get down to Michael Douglas in Monterey, watching that guy hosed down his cop car, you know, you're past the breakers. I don't think you're ever going to get back to the peaks of the middle of the movie. Go quick with your three, Mel.

Nick, going to Catherine's place for the you know all about homicidal impulse scene, it's like almost too weird to even be rewatchable. It's one where they're very close to each other's faces the whole time breathing on each other as they talk. But I think it's interesting because you actually learn a lot in that scene. There's real information there. And you realize how much.

much she knows about Nick. All of the newspapers are out there, all of the headlines about his case. She knows about the shootings. She knows about his cocaine. Crucially, she knows about his wife and how his wife killed herself. There's the reveal in that scene that Catherine and Roxy are an item. So that's a, and then of course, you're going to make a great character, Nick line, which is just iconic. The other two that I had very quickly were, um, the, the, the Gus Beth murder sequence and then the entire aftermath of solving the case, like back at Beth's apartment and then at the station, honestly, like, you could convince me with that scene alone that this movie is supposed to be a comedy.

I mean that with affection, but you really could. It is ludicrous. I had that in what stage the worst. Yeah, it's brutal. The final scene, because you do have some real suspense there about whether or not she's going to kill him. And that is, I think that excitement and the heart-pounding nature of that actually does hold up on a rewatch, even though you know how it's going to conclude. Okay.

What's the most rewatchable scene for you, Chris? Nightclub scene by far. Wow. Wow. Yeah. It's so. Into the sex scene. Are you lumping them together?

Yeah. Like the nightclub scene into fuck of the century. Like you got to include the dancing, the stuff with Roxy. Roxy getting mad during the dancing. It's such like an electrifying scene. I'm going with the car ride to the police interrogation, that whole sequence. I love that part. I like seeing the Bay Area.

I like her command of the room, all that stuff. Really good. What do you have, now? It's very hard not to pick the interrogation. It is just such a legendary moment in film history. But I'm actually with Chris on this one. I'm going to go with the fuck of the century. It's just incredible.

And the sheer oddity and surreal. sensory overload of the club scene before is it's like the cherry on top of the Sunday before you even realized what the Sunday was. It's great. What's aged the best? I have this down first. This is for you, CR.

One of the greatest cigarette smoking movies ever. Yeah. Controversially. Esther Haas went back and was like, yeah, he had throat cancer and he was like, I really regret making cigarettes so attractive in this movie. But yeah,

I mean, all the stuff about like you never really. really quit. You're not going to quit. All that stuff is pretty crippling for your boy. First of all, don't regret that, Joe. Second of all, it really is essential. It becomes symbolic of Nick Conn's starting to unravel. He's not smoking. He's not drinking halfway through the movies, fucking making jacking coax and smoke at six. The opening scene we didn't put as a rewatchable, but just wanted to mention, like, imagine reading the script. It has to be one of the best opening scenes written just to pull you in a movie where it's like a woman is having sex

with a man and you laying out all the things she ties them up now she starts stabbing him in the neck and blah blah blah and it's just like whoa what is this movie um i think it's been ripped off for saturated and what do you think it was like the casting call for johnny boz it's like you have to look like a used jaguar salesman and get stabbed with an ice pick while being yeah it's it's two things you have to be three things. One, you have to be willing to be naked, right? Show it all. Two, you have to be able to make like base animalistic sounds in the throes of orgasm. And three, you have to be okay with your entire, entire legacy for the rest of your life being the guy who never washed his sheets and just slept in a pool of his own come. The blue light, the blue light scene is really. I got to ask him, can we do this now? Yeah.

Can we? Go ahead. I have an unanswerable questions, but sure. I thought that the years would make me a little bit more annered to this scene. Still stunning amount of jizz. Like just an absolute like garden hose. And I just like, I think when I was a kid, like this was one of the things. I was just like, is that the normal amount?

You know, like, you really get, you get really traumatized by some of this stuff. And when they throw the black light over that, if I was in that, if I was one of the cops in that scene, I would have been like, was this guy like an alien? Like, what's going on here? Or did he ever do laundry? No, Bill, that's why, that right there is why I had it in unanswerable questions because it's established canon that he's. has a maid. So there should be clean linens in Boz's house. So does... Maybe the maid was protesting after a while. Maybe she was just like, look, this is just an important amount. Maybe he produces just an astonishing amount of ejaculate as he's going. I mean,

the, the, the, the, no, or wait, he might, maybe if you're getting stabbed to death in the jugular, you have more ejaculate. Why? How do we know? I don't know. Maybe it's like a triple cum shab. It's like there's like a blood splatter equivalent here. Like the cum splatter, the pattern just doesn't make sense for this to be a one-time expulsion. I don't think. I mean... Now, I have an important question for you because we've crossed every line. Whoever is left listening at this point, they're just in for long haul.

The only thing is like Peter North and like... So if you... You die while you're having an orgasm. Okay. Why would your, why would your penis then go flaccid? I thought when you died, you were stuck in whatever state you were in at the time. Why are you asking mouth? Why wouldn't you die with a boner?

Like, that's just how you're dead. Like, I thought when you died, it was rigor mortis from that point on. Or is rigormor, like, is rigormor, like, you're frozen in place, like, where you're like, I was mid-jog, and I'm, like, frozen. this way. Yeah, I think you're you're confusing the fact that when you die other parts of your body stiffen with the fact that your actual stiffy would remain. I think that would still be the normal process, right? And also, he has to bleed out a little bit. So presumably there's a little bit of a return to the flaccid state as that's happening. You'd think you'd lose your ability to be excited as you were being stabbed 31 times with a nice pick. It's a good question. I thought you were

going to ask how any, uh, a crime, erotic thriller where a police station and a detective force plays a huge role in the story is the closest thing we have to any CSI work. Andrew's saying there's cum stains all over the sheets. And then Nick looking through his goggles saying, Very impressive. Save that because we're going back to that and what's age the worst. Oh, my God.

The blue light, that was always the best 20-20 or night. line or whatever those when they would go to the hotel rooms and do the blue light and just find terrible things. That should just be its own cable channel. Other what's age the best. Roxy mentioned her. She just lights out. No idea why she didn't become a big star.

What happened there? Newman. Michael Douglas's hesitation. I can't believe this broad spark. Let me ask you something Rocky man to man. I like that he calls her Rocky and not Roxy. I don't know if that was a Michael Douglas. fuck up or whether he was trying to insult her.

And then I kind of like the scene when Nick and Catherine are lying on his little porch thingy, like that little balcony thing after they have sex. His breakfast nook. Yeah, his nook. Love a window bench. I could have gone a little four extra minutes with that, but he's saying like, what about a book where they live happily after her? She's like, it won't sell.

Somebody has to die. Somebody always has somebody always does. Somebody has to die. somebody always does. Yeah, again, there's that subtlety you love so much. What's the pivot after that comment has said? We'd be like, hey, see, you want to get some breakfast? Like, where do you go?

Should I order pizza hut? What do you? Hey, I think Melrose places on. Any other what's age the best for you guys? You want to move on. So I actually wanted to shout out. Like, I didn't really think about this the first time I saw it. I was distracted by other stuff.

but over the years I've come to appreciate just how corny the cop banter is in this movie and there's some just incredible explosion scenes I got a shout out specifically when Nielsen is giving

Douglas a hard time at the bar and Douglas is just like Stop riding me man! I'll kick your fucking teeth in! It was just like is that just the kind of stuff you used to see in bars in the early 90s?

I don't know. How about the other internal affairs is you just pulling a gun on Nick in the office. Yes. Like Nick and Fron's Fries Nielsen. I had that at once age the worst.

Yeah. And then I was also just going to say I thought pre-tech boomed San Francisco is age the best. Yeah. Oh, I had that in there. I don't know why I didn't say that. Yeah.

I missed that one. Yeah. It was fun to see 92 San Francisco. Yeah. Pre-pack Bell Park, pre all the tech people coming in. It was just this cool city that had Alcatraz and some hills.

And, you know, Carmel too, Marin County. I mean, it's obviously supposed to be Stinson Beach closer to San Francisco in the movie. They're filming it in Carmel, but just gorgeous. I mean, the answer for once age to the best is obviously just Sharon Stone's performance, right? It's just incredible. I mean, there are some other small things. I think the stealing sex mirrors. Random nods to Picasso throughout the film.

The Bart Simpson key rig is just great. Michael Douglas is visible scrotal swinging from the rear ash shot. Catherine's fashion, especially given the counterpoint of Nick's fashion, Catherine's fashion in this film is absolutely just elemental to the DNA of the movie and is timeless, even though it's very much of the moment. So I would nominate that as well. But my pick would be Sharon Stone. I vote for the cigarette smoking in Sharon Stone.

What's age the worst? We mentioned the DNA. I just feel like this is done in five minutes. They had the technology in 92 as Barry, not very chic. Dr. Dennis Fung, who was in the OJ trial three years later, all those DNA people. Joe Esther House later admitted not mentioning DNA was kind of a my bad. But he wrote this movie in the 80s. Too busy counting is $3 million.

Another one's age the worst. Him realizing that Dr. Lisa Garner or Dr. Elizabeth Garner was also Lisa Hoberman from Berkeley. And it's like, hey, look at these two ID pictures. And it's just, it's her current one. and then just a blonde wig. It's amazing. Yeah. In nine years, she looks exactly the same.

They spent $50 million of this movie. They couldn't have spent five minutes trying to come up with a picture that made her look younger or anything. It's so bad. I don't know how they did that. The Gus going to see someone in Oakland who knew.

Yeah. And then it's like, all right, I'll wait in the car. And then it's like, oh, wait. I just piece this together running up and then hey there's Gus is dead and there's Gene Triplehorn and she's like aggressively walking toward him with the head like that whole sequence is bad

but I forgive it because I love this movie it's a bad six minutes capped off with all the detectives like look what we found on the stairs blonde wig this case is over some clippings some clippings in her kitchen of like Sharon's sound like oh well obviously

no need to pursue this investigation. And Douglas is never suspicious that Sharon Stone has framed this whole thing or laid it out. It just kind of ends abruptly. And it's not great. I kind of half wonder whether or not they weren't sure themselves going into like the third act of making this movie, whether they were like, maybe we'll have to. Oh, like they test audiences? Yeah, they're like a test audience with Tom.

You know, you hear all the time about like these blockbusters being kind of rewritten on the fly. And they'd done a lot of rewrite work on this movie and then brought Esther Haas back. used his original script. I think it works on the whole, but you wonder whether or not when they're shooting that scene with Triple Horn in the trench coat at the end,

if there's like a 50-50 that they're going to break a different way. The only other what's age or worse that we haven't mentioned in it's just, I never really fully understood the older serial killer lady. The Hazel Dobkins thing is nonsensical. It's insane.

It doesn't pay off in any way and I don't really understand the purpose of it to that she was, I guess, fascinated by serial coers, but it just doesn't pay off and it's weird. It's like a red herring that doesn't work. Casting what ifs. Oh, we got, was that if from what stage the worst?

We got a couple more. The sexual assault on Elizabeth Carter is definitely does not play very well. Yeah. There are a couple more serious ones and the sexual violence and that scene in particular is definitely on the list. I had that in picking nits because for what's age the worst. Well, in the moment it was terrible. Like it became a big deal.

I don't even know if it's age badly because in 1992 people were like, what the fuck? Why did you do that? That's true. That's true. It was bad at the time. I think another thing that was a problem at the time, but also now is still something that you sort of have to contend with when you think about the movie is the LGBT politics

and depictions. You know, the film was protested by gay rights activists as it was being made. Like this was happening in real time, the scripted leaked. you know, the fact that Catherine, Beth, Roxy, that people who were suspected of murders or actually committing them and involved in them are all gay or bisexual characters. This was a big thing when the film was being made and as it came out. And then, you know, Bill, you mentioned earlier Michael Douglas and, you know, the desire to make sure that sex remained present in movies amid the AIDS pandemic. But then, like, multiple sex scenes in this movie do not take, it don't

involve a condom or protection. at all. And then not only that, but it's actually brought into the script as a joke in the scene with Nick and Gus when he's like, I'll use a rubber next time. So that does not age well at all. That's very rough. And then there are some, there are some also less serious, very, you know, easy to make fun of ones like Nick's fashion, which we have already talked about and is just repugnant. And like you're saying, everything about the SFPD's depiction in the film, everything. Like I think, Chris, to your point about maybe do they not know where it was going to go? I can actually buy all of it from Nick's perspective because, again, there's a difference

between what he might rationally believe to be true and what he wants. Like, he is in love with this person. And also he is, again, he's not a hero, right? He's also evil. And you have these two bad people, these psychopaths who have found each other and are thrilled by that fact and confused by it. But the SFPD being like, we're sure it was Beth because the coat was the right size. It's unbelievable.

I mean, there's not only no DNA evidence. They're just like the jacket is her size. It must have been her. No one ever says, oh, she told Nick earlier in the movie that someone had broken the lock on her door. Maybe all of this evidence that we found was planted. No one thinks to ask that. At her apartment, the gun's there. and then like a folder of clippings

that seems suspicious. That also easily could have been planted. Also just again, in terms of just the management of the department, nobody takes Beth off of Nick's case, even though every single person knows that they're sleeping together. Like, how about this?

Does Nick have like four shootings in five years? Unbelievable. Unbelievable. What's everyone they're doing? I have some of this in picking nits. Casting what ifs? Yes. Michael Douglas wanted to.

established star. Kim Basinger, she declined. I'm actually glad she declined because I don't think this was the right role for her. I know, I know she would have been one of the other logical choices, but I don't, I don't think there's a playfulness that she just never had as an actress. He proposed basically every major actress, all of whom rejected. The names were Julie Roberts, Greta Scotch, Meg Ryan. Meg Ryan would have been terrible. Michelle Pfeiffer, Gina Davis, Ellen Bark and Merrill Hemingway. All of them said, no thanks. Michelle Piper's interesting. I don't think she would have done the nudity.

She never laid it out that way. If she had done this movie, I would still be in the hospital. Verhoeven went for Demi Moore and some Renee pseudogenic. I don't even know who that is. And Amanda Donahue considered he was, and Douglas was against Sharon Stone and then talked him into it. The rest of was history. She made $500,000.

The role of Nick Curran was originally a lesbian cop and was written with Kathleen Turner in mind. Wow. Saw that. Very strange. Paul Verhoven, Chris, slated to direct Michael Douglas in your favorite, Black Rain, but dropped out for Total Recall.

And Ridley Scott stepped in, right? Yeah. Robocop. Paul Verhoven wanted Tom Berringer. Guess he turned it down. Then he wanted Tom Berringer for this movie in the Michael Douglas part. Tom Berringer, no thanks. Milos Foreman was,

the first choice to be director. They went for Verhoeven instead. And then there's every basically white guy from this era was allegedly considered for the role. Swayze, Costner, De Niro, Willis, Gibson, Harrison Ford. Who knows? It feels very Michael Douglasy. Yeah, it seems like it's like, it's just like an absolutely like iconic at Michael

Douglas performance. A layup, a layup friend. Best that guy. Oh, some good ones. So I didn't rule in Chris. Is George Zunza, that guy or is he that guy from Deer Hunter and all those other movies

who was like basically Brian Denny's rival? Doesn't he do law and order for a while? Yeah, I feel like he's George Zunza. Yeah, I think so. De Zunda. De Zunda? Eddie Harris from Major League, the bad guy from Hoosiers, that guy, Chelsea Ross.

I mean, iconic that guy. Chelsea Ross. I don't know if he's Chelsea Ross or not. Hard Bob from Billions. Right. Amazing. The guy who Nick feuds with who ends up getting shot in the head, I think he's probably the winner of this because I don't even know what that guy's name is.

Daniel Van Bargan as Marty Nielsen. Are you kidding? I have like a whole Marty Nielsen bit. Mr. Kruger. Go ahead. Do your Marty Nielsen bit. Well, I just think he has some of the best the best lines of the movie. The number one being you fucked yourself, Shooter, you hear me?

You are out. That guy is just iconic. You fucked yourself, Shooter. You hear me? You are out. Take it easy. You are out. You're out.

I love the idea of the internal affairs guy following Nick around and just being like, shooter, you're back on the sauce, huh? Back on the jack. How about Dr. Lamont for that guy? The whole you're dealing with scene? I mean, just incredible. Stephen Toboloski, yeah. Diabolical mind.

you're dealing them with someone so obsessed. You're dealing with someone very dangerous and very ill. Just starting every single declaration with you're dealing with. Incredible. Vince and Hannah, they knew a word for best overacting. You just made the case for Nielsen. I got to go with our guy Mike Douglas.

Yeah. Yeah. Stop riding me, man. I'll kick your fucking teeth on. Stop riding me, man. I'll kick your fucking teeth in. And that or who has access to my goddamn file? Who has access to my goddamn file?

Nobody. He goes brick tamlin a bunch of times for, I don't know why to see more intense or Coked up or what's going on. But it's from an overacting standpoint is probably the most overacting he's done other than Ghost in the Darkness. Were we in a place in the 90s and with cops where like they might be on Coke? Because it just seems like something that his fellow police officers are just kind of like, hey, it's all right.

Nick, he likes to take a bump here and there. It's okay. I think you're just supposed to accept that it's because he worked undercover. And he had to get into the shit. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Everyone keeps asking if they're advice. My pick for this is Gus.

Just all the yelling. So much yelling from Gus. Every time he says, Hauss. Hoss. Which one are we talking about now, Haas? Got to be guess. Would you rather seen Don Johnson or Michael Douglas in this role? No, Michael Douglas.

I think it's, it can't even do it without him. The smoking with Don Johnson would have been great. The Dian Waiters Award for Biggest He Check, Roxy. Got to be. If you don't leave her alone, I'll kill you. You like watching. It likes me to watch. I think we could rename this for Roxy.

In her honor. The Deanne Waiter's Roxy Award? Yeah. I don't know what happened and why she wasn't a massive star. There weren't nine other hotter woman than her, the early dad is. I don't know. I would say that I did not. like necessarily get Merrill Street vibes from her as an actress, but, uh, yeah, but totally captivating.

She could have gone after Shane and Tweed's corner. The recasting couch. Loaded category for, for movie like this. I don't know if I'd change anything. It's kind of perfect from a well done slash unintentional comedy standpoint. The only thing that I would do, you just asked about Don Johnson, Bill. And I, you know, we, we are running a little bit behind. So I don't want to get who lost in this, but is this movie better or worse with Pacino? Oh, wow. I never liked when he was in a sexual situation. It was very uncomfortable.

I always felt bad for the actress. How would he, but how would he do stop riding me, man? I'll kick your fucking teeth in. Right. Well, he basically, he's basically this guy in C of love though, right? It's the same kind of thing. It's essentially the same guy, yeah. Half Fast Internet Research.

No body doubles used in any of the sex scenes. Yeah. We mentioned a lot of the controversies. Verhoeven power played Esther House and tried to rewrite a lesbian sex scene that Esther House called Exploitative and brought in someone else. Four rewrites. All of them were bad. Brought back Esther House. We, you had the Douglas thing. So this was weird. I, the Michael Douglas Jean-Chryphorpehorn sex scene was filmed unbeknownst to the,

the performers who were simply rehearsing the scene. And then in the research that says, quote, things heated up quickly as evidenced by the footage in the final film. And Verhoeven liked the performances so much he included in the final, final cut. That's weird. Yikes. You can tell that that scene is shot differently than a lot of the other sex scenes in the movie because it's like the camera's very far back.

And it's like kind of like a master. I mean, I'm not going to get into filmmakers' corner with a sexual assault scene. but like that doesn't surprise me to hear that because it's shot very differently. Things heated up quickly is weird. Joe Esther House based Catherine on a go-go dancer he knew in Ohio, picked her up, went back to the hotel room to have some fun. And quote, she reached into her purse and she pulled out of 22 and pointed it at me. We had a lengthy discussion before she put that gun down.

Okay, Joe. He also said in his, it is book Hollywood Animal that he slept with Sharon Stone after the movie came out. He had a one-nighter. And when that book came out, which is actually a really good book, that was a big nugget from that thing, that they had a one-nighter. And he said something like, you know, I felt like she was thanking me in a way.

And that didn't go over great. One of the many things. Not the most gentlemanly recounting from him. I'll say that. He also, in addition to saying that Catherine was based on a real person, he also said that Nick was based on a real person, a cop that he had known when he was working at the plane dealer. Imagine being the people who inspired those characters.

How do we get Chris Ryan to start smoking again and then start calling him Shooter? You're at control shooter. If you just start calling him Shooter, he'll probably start smoking again. If I ever get to see you guys again, we can do that. Okay. If the pandemic ever ends, Chris will start cigarette smoking. Can we go to Apex Mountain? I think we've hit most of the other half-assed internet research.

I thought it was interesting that Esther House apparently wrote the script in 10 days. You can't tell folks. Yeah. That's definitely the ending show. No outline either. Apex Mountain, Sharon Stone. Yes. Is the apexiest apex mountain performance.

Yeah. This is. When you stand on Apex Mountain and you look up, you see Catherine Trammell at Mountain. Absolutely. Absolutely. Bad Cunalingis, I think this is a. Apex Mountain for ever being captured in a movie? Keep your eyes up, Michael.

Keep them up. You mentioned pre-Silicon Valley, San Francisco. It just seems so innocent. Who knows that the real estate's going to skyrocket by 25 times and we're going to have a massive homeless problem. And everybody's just going to cram in there and all hell is going to break loose. It seems like a nice American city. Any other Apex Mountains?

Roxy. V-neck sweaters. The deep V, though. Like, it has to be specifically the deep V, and it's definitely, it's an inverse of Apex Mountain.

Apex Valley. The great thing about it is that he wears it to the nightclub, where is it the morning after to the beach, and then when he meets Gus out, like on the Embarcadero

or whatever, like down on the pier, he's wearing like a dress shirt underneath the V. So he's worn that sweater through a co-caddled nightclub sex-a-thon, then on a beach wall, and then he's just like day to night.

I'm going right back to work with this V-neck sweater. Yeah, I won't say that the film does a lot to endorse personal hygiene. That's a problem throughout the movie from the sheet scene onward. Is it Apex Mountain for rear scrodle hang-in swing shots? You know, just getting a little glimpse. You got, what else do you have in the running for that? There's Will Smith and Wild Wild West. All stuff I've blocked out of my mind.

Would you rather touch the Douglas's V-neck sweater after day three or Johnny Faza's sheets? You had to pick one. Well, we didn't get to see the sweater under the black light. Yeah, exactly. Maybe made of the same material. The V-neck, if Chris ever wore the V-neck sweater to work one day,

again, happy to do it if I get to see you guys picking nits. Oh, so many. We've mentioned most of them, though. I still can't get over the cop pulling a gun on Michael Douglas when he's yelling at Nielsen. And that's just being like a way that they end conflicts in that department. Wild.

Nobody is just like, hey, man, you don't have to pull your piece. It's just like, yeah, man, good thing you broke up that shoving match. Another gun-centric nitpick is that when they discover Nielsen's body, taking Nick's gun and sniffing it, even though that's clearly a Glock and not a 38 revolver. And they had just said that they thought it was a 38 revolver. It was very strange, more shoddy detective work from the SFPD in this movie. We already talked about the DNA testing.

That's obviously like the biggest one in some ways. I have two, I have two major timeline issues that I would like to pose to you guys. Okay. Our girl, Hazel Hopkins. We have to talk about this for a second. She killed her husband. and her three kids. Okay, so she killed four people, including three children.

This homicide, based on what we see on screen, occurred in 1956. Also based on what we see on screen, she is released from jail in 1965 for killing four people, including three children. How is she out of jail that quickly for that crime? And then almost as importantly, how does Gus, who would have been like, two or three years old to consider this one of the formative memories of his life learning about this case.

I couldn't get it out of my head. You were a toddler. None of that makes any sense. I don't understand that. She also, how old was she supposed to be in those basic, in the scenes with Sharon Stone?

I don't know what her age range was as a character. I mean, the movie takes place in the same year it aired, so very early 90s. So she's supposed to be like 61? I guess so, yeah. And then what about the Roxy timeline?

She's arrested in 86, 16 at the time. She murdered two siblings. And she's in jail for like a couple of years. A couple of years. 86 was the crime. This movie takes place at 92. We know that she's been with Catherine for a little while. Like, I don't understand.

This is wild. I have a nitpick on Nick's car. How am I supposed to think this guy's a cool detective and he has like probably the lamest convertible you could get in the early 90s? Can't, couldn't they have given him like just at least shot the watt a little bit on the car? Yeah. There are a few car.

A Corvette. Yeah. He's got, because he's in a couple different vehicles. He's got his personal car is the Ford. He's in a Plymouth during the car chase on the one, the windy road, which I have numerous questions about. There's also the nitpick with the Lotus, though, during the Roxy Nick scene.

Roxy hits Nick with her car, and there is not a crack on that windshield. True. Good point. Ludicrous. No blood on Roxy's corpse after the wreck bill, your precious Roxy, just pristine in death. I mean, she was so beautiful. She couldn't bleed. Chris, can you explain to us really quickly why all cop bars in all movies, from like 1988 to 1995 just were super agro

with people questioning each other's intentions. It's like, you sure you want to have that drink, Chris? I was going to ask you, you're the ex-barterender. If guys got after it like the way those cops did, would you just be like,

hey, guys, let's cut it off here now. You guys got to take it out of here. I don't. Are real cop bars like that? I have no idea. Apparently I've never been in a cop bar. Remember Copeland, the De Niro.

movie. The same thing. Like every time those guys are in a bar, it's like, this is going to go horribly. Yeah, you back on the blackjack?

Right. Best quote, we've mentioned almost all of them. I just got a couple more. Can I just burn through a couple? Yeah, each of us are limited to three. Okay. Because we really got to move on this.

Yeah. I just want to do the double Gus lines of, she got that magna cum laude pussy on her, that done fried up your brain. That's unbelievable. That's it.

That's best quote. That's all I have that too. Yeah. That's an unbelievable moment in movie history. I'm not sure anymore she did it. Which one are we talking about now, Haas? We know old Hazel did it. We know young Roxy did it.

And the other one. Well, she got that magnacum laudy pussy on her that done fried up your brain. You think Esther Huss wrote that at a coffee shop and he was just like punching his arm? Like, yes. I did it. All right, give us three now. Ah, boy. All right, I'll do three and then you take your three leftovers.

I'll take some leftovers. Okay. What do we do now, Nick? Fuck like minks, raise regretts and live happily after. They fuck like minks raise rugs and live happily up. It won't sell. I love it. She's got a hundred million bucks.

She fucks fighters and rock and roll stars and she's got a degree and screwing people's heads. Phenomenal. And then, you know I don't wear any underwear, don't you, Nick. You seem to know an awful lot about me. You know an awful lot about me. I don't know anything that's not police business. You know I don't wear any underwear. Don't you, Nick?

Oh, God. Don't you Nick? Don't you Nick is such a good. Tremendous. Get three more, Mel? Oh, yeah. Let's see. We've done most of them.

So I'll try to pick ones we haven't done. Got some Coke. I've got some Pepsi in the fridge. That's a fun little one continuing the proud tradition of Coke jokes in this movie. Do you have any Coke? I just love Coke with Jack Daniels. Got a Pepsi in the fridge. Oh, it's not really the same thing now, is it?

I like the whole Nick's speech in response to the three doctor interrogation when the two other doctors joined Beth. Nick, when you recollect your childhood, are your recollections pleasing to you? And Nick says, Number one, I don't remember how often I used to jerk off, but it was a lot. Number two, I wasn't pissed off my dad, even when I was old enough to know what he and mom were doing in the bedroom.

Number three, I don't look in the toilet before I flush it. Number four, I haven't wet my bed for a long time. Number five, why are the two of you go fuck yourselves? I'm out of here. Exceptional. exceptional. Yeah, what human being do you know that could just rattle off those five things?

Listen. Without a hesitation. He's, he's had a lot of sessions, you know. He's murdered people. So he's been reflecting for quite some time. Boy, you know, all of the other ones that we've mentioned are just such doozies. It's hard to pick one. I do really like another quiet contender when Nick tells Catherine that he had told

Roxy, he thought it was the fuck of the century. she said, did you really think it was so special? Great encapsulation of her character. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? Fuck yeah. Absolutely. And it would be great. I think it's time.

I think the casting part would be really fun. You could go in a whole bunch of different directions. I tell it from the perspective of Roxy, though. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's Rosencrantz and Gildensterner dead of the basic instinct universe. Yeah. probably in answerable questions.

So many. Oh, my God. Has anyone named Gus ever made it to the end of the thriller? No. It's a mortal lock. It's like, hi, I'm Gus. It's like, oh, you'll be dead by with at least 10 minutes left. Can I do a related one to that on the Gus death front?

Is that the slowest elevator in the history of elevators? Yeah. Like, we see that he's on floor three. And then in the time between him going from three to four, the light bulb goes off in Nick's head. He's seen the paragraph in her manuscript about finding the partner's body in the elevator. Oh my God. I've got to leave the car cross multiple lanes of this street, run in, go up the stairs, and then at that exact same time, the murder is unfolding and he comes to find the corpse. Chris, she'd have been a bigger deal when Manny the Boxer died in the ring in 1984.

I felt like that. Is that cover of Sports Illustrated or just a feature inside the cover? And what's the implication of who killed him? Because they say it's a guy with an afro, right? So, like, who would have been a boxer in the early 80s with an afro who would have killed many Vasquez? Like, he lost to John the Beast Mugabe?

I don't know. We'll never know. I want it another couple of minutes on it. In both of your opinions, why didn't Gene Triplehorn totally fully happen? Because she had this, she had the firm. I think we all like her. I thought she was a really good actress.

she did have like a pretty good career. She was on Big Love for a really long time. I mean, I think that she just never really transcended the wife-girlfriend role in these big blockbusters. Kind of feels like Angelina Jolie was our second chance at her. Prettier, like a little prettier

because she was one of the pretty small in a lot of time. Well, it's interesting because she was in the same Juilliard class as Laura Linney. And Laura Linney kind of had the ideal version of that career, I think. Like Gene Triplehorn as Wendy Bird or Gene Triplehorn. and you can count on me, I guess.

You could see it, but Laura Linney got a lot of those parts. Are you guys ready for my impersonation of Laura Linney and Ozark? Yeah, definitely. Mallory, please, I'm begging you. That's it. How long did they date, in your opinion? How many weeks after the ending? Two months?

I got to say, I think it's like a three-week. weaker, you know? And then she kills him. And he goes to drug rehab? Yeah. Drug rehab or she murders him? I mean, is this where we very, very, very, very quickly talk about basic instinct too, which Nick is not in? No.

No, we're not acknowledging basically. Not acknowledging it. Okay. I think she kills him three days after that. I think they fuck for three days uninterrupted. They try to get the sheets as saturated in bodily fluids as Baza's were to honor how they came into each other's lives in the first place. Full circle.

And then she offs them with the ice pick, which that's one of my unanswerable questions is why does Nick at any point not just say, hey, I feel pretty good about where we are. I buy the story that it was Beth because the coat fitter. But can I just see the last few pages of your book? Can I just take a look? Can I just, you know, I'm curious. I have a literary mind. Maybe I can give you some notes. And then also maybe I'd be aware of the exact scenario for my murder that you put down.

and I could maybe just avoid that exact situation with you in real life? No, no. Can I see the pages? I thought you were going to say she's making a drink and she's like, where's the ice pick?

And he goes, I threw it out. I thought it was for the best. I don't have an ice cube trade. I think she would have found another way. I think she would have found another way. I found this ice cube maker. It just makes the cubes in perfect shape.

I spent 500 hours on it. It was the best use of my money. I think the real answer is just in three weeks, Nick has a lot of my money. has Tracy McGrady's late career back and a crippling co-problem. And she leaves him for a younger guy. Oh, God. He has no skin on his back at all.

I know. I have one more big unanswerable question, but, Mal, do you have any other ones? I have a few. I'll go through them very quickly. We've hit on some of them already, so I'll skip those. Some new ones. You know when Nick is in the early session with Beth, the 3 o'clock that he was ordered to keep?

And he talks about how he has so many kids. calluses on his hands, clearly because he's been jerking off so much. I just want to know, one, is he not using any sort of lotion or lubricant when he's masturbating? And two, if his hands are developing callousis, what does his penis look like? Oh, my God. I can't top that. Oh, my God.

I think Mallory just won the movie. I'm going to have to put a disclaimer when I do the reads at the top of the podcast. Yeah, like anyone's going to advertise it? on this podcast. All right, a couple more. I'll go quickly. This is, this is more of a practical filmmaking one. Like, no cars are honking during the chase. Some of the oncoming cars are honking at Nick, but nobody who they're weaving in and out of is honking at all. I find that very, very strange. I'd also like to posit whether Nick, a professional law enforcement agent. And Michael Douglas, who was a race car driver in real life, it was doing a lot of these stunts,

is Nick the worst tale of all time? Like, why? And then is watching them have sex. So presumably Roxy tailed them home undetected. And she is a better tale than Nick who was spotted every time he is following someone. Can't get over that. What else? What else? What else?

Let's see. All right. I'll skip some of these. I'd like to do since newspaper headlines play a big role in the movie, you know. And we see all of the headlines from Nick's case. What headlines didn't we see? And I have a couple I'd like to present to you very quickly here. Headline.

Local police psychologist implicated in murders of Berkeley professor, former husband, philanthropist, rock star, internal affairs investigator, and police detective. Subhead, police say irrefutable evidence of correctly sized SFPD raincoat leaves no doubt. Let's see, which other one should I do? I know we're running along. Former rock star found stabbed 31 times with cocaine on lips and penis in apparent sex crime murder. That's the headline? That's the headline.

The subhead is, uh, I just want to be clear. It's not my joke. This is the movie's humor. Police cite multiple suspects in ongoing investigation, but have ruled out overweight housekeeper. That's a crazy. That's it also. What's Age the Worst in the movie is them just being. like it couldn't have been the 240 pound maid. Terrible. Terrible. Local woman convicted of

murdering husband and four children released after serving nine years of lifetime sentence. Current SFPD detective says he's still traumatized by crime dating back to hearing about it as a toddler. There are so many more, guys. What a great movie. So many more. Do you think that there's any chance that Catherine was involved in Nick's wife's death? Or did she just use the fact that that that had happened to her. No, I don't say that manipulation. I don't think so. Yeah.

Okay. I have one small and answerable and then one giant one. So the scene with when he has sex with Dr. Garner that became controversial because it became a consent issue. Why did they even put that in? What was the point of like, hey, should we have an ambiguous rape scene? Like, how did that advance anything? You think Verhoeven was just trying to push the envelope?

it was such a, even in 1992 was just a weird move. I really don't know. I also, I mean, like, you could say that it's supposed to be there to show that Nick has this dark side. But, like, we got that. We know that Nick is. Yeah, they didn't need that. And he's been implicated in shootings. He's done coke.

Like, you don't need to. I guess it's just supposed to be a depiction of his sexual deviancy. Could admit it, maybe have him thrown a shot glass or something. Could it, could have the same, like, oh, this guy's a little unhinged. I don't know why they did that. Bigger, unanswerable question. Is this movie better if she just kills him in the last second? And that's the end of the movie.

I think it's pretty awesome. I think that would be pretty awesome. Ma, would you have like that ending more or less than the, oh, they're going to end up together? I like the ambiguous nature of the final note, you know, knowing that she's kind of at war with herself over her own nature and her own impulses. Like if he doesn't remove the Rugrats line from the quote, does she just kill him right there? She's reaching down to the floor. There are multiple times in that scene where you think she might do it and then throws out her arms or her body and there's no ice pick. So I like the end note and the prospect of thinking that they might have been together for a little bit longer.

And the thing is with them, like another unanswerable question is how quickly does Catherine write? So if they had three more days together, she could have turned out like five more novels the way that she's cranking. You never go. She's on the Joe Estherhaus schedule. Yeah. Get those Newsweek blurbs like she had on the cover of the first time? Incredible work. It's not sustainable.

It was the cocaine and cigarettes character for about eight years, but that's a shelf life on that. You can't keep doing that. Who won the movie, Sharon Stone? Sharon Stone, unanimous decision. Can't really argue about that one. Anything else?

I think we hit everything. I think we got it all. We got it all, shooter. It was the pod of the century shooter. My apologies to everybody who listened. Chris Ryan, Malley Rubin. A pleasure as always. All right.

Chris and Mallory, thanks to World Central Kitchen. Don't forget to go to the ringer.com slash WCK. If you want to help us out, try to raise some money for World Central Kitchen. Don't forget to subscribe to the wireway down in the hole. Don't forget about the new podcast. Flying Coach with Pete Carroll and Steve Kerr. We're going to be back in the rewatchables in a couple days. Until then.