The Rewatchables - ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ With Bill Simmons, Wesley Morris, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan

Episode Date: September 17, 2019

Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan and 'The New York Times'’s Wesley Morris head to Beverly Hills to solve the murder of their childhood friend as they rewatch the 1984 comedy, ‘Beverly Hills Cop,’ starring Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, and John Ashton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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They have tools, equipment, and supplies for everything you need. Whether you need stuff for industries like electrical, plumbing, contracting, manufacturing, or more, Zorro's got it from brands you know and trust. And Zorro.com offers amazing customer service from real people based in the U.S. Visit Zoro.com backslash rewatchables in all lowercase letters to sign up for Z-mail and get 15% off your first order. You're not going to fall for the banana in the tailpipe? Beverly Hills Cop coming up next. Eddie Murphy is a Detroit.

cop on vacation in Beverly Hills. How you doing? We have six witnesses that say you broke in and started tearing up the place, then jumped out the window. I'm on vacation. Eddie Murphy, Beverly Hills Cop, rated R. Starts Wednesday, December 5th at a theater near you. All right, Chris Ryan here, Sean Fantasy.

Special guest, Wesley Morris. Our former grandinmate now at the New York Times, we're going to talk about a movie that is 35 years old. That was the highest grossing movie of 1984, which I was surprised by.

Craziness. Which is apparently still the number one comedy of all time if you use adjusted gross numbers. Was the highest grossing R-rated film for 19 years until the Matrix reloaded in 2003? Seriously?

Was adjusted for inflation, the third biggest R-rated movie ever behind Godfather and Exorcist? Yeah, that makes sense. Beverly Hills Cut. A personal movie for me because I just, Eddie Murphy was my guy. Yeah.

And this was the natural talk about Apex Mountain. Should we name Apex Mountain after Eddie? Axel Foley Mountain. This was really it. Mount Foley? Mount Foley. S&L 48 hours, trading places, Beverly Hills Cup. Yeah.

This is the movie that got me into smoking King's Size Kent's. What do you mean? You don't see a lot of King's size. I don't exercise Kent smokers anywhere here. No, no, no. How old were you when you saw this? I saw it in the theaters. I was, so I was seven.

Yeah. Oh, so you were like a kid? It became a complete and total youth obsession. This was like, this is on the level of Madonna, Prince, Bruce Springsteen. Like people, I do kids who taught themselves how to play Axel F on the synth. Everybody started dressing like Axel Foley. Everybody started talking like Axel Foley. We all started cursing like Axel Foley, even though that was not always appropriate.

it was just like an absolute cultural phenomenon. It's impossible to explain how huge this was. We've talked about Eddie Wesley. Yes. When you see this movie in him in all his glory with your first reaction. Okay.

I had a number of reactions. Because, you know, I'm not, I will be honest, I have not seen this movie in its entirety. Oh my God, and maybe 20 years. High school? I mean, I saw it when it was, I saw it on cable. I saw Beverly Hills Cop 2 in the theater.

theaters. Both ones had a lot of cable. A lot of cable runs. So there are sequences that I know very well. But here are some things I was, first of all, Eddie is very soft in this. And I mean, I mean like, like, like soft in, I don't, I don't know what kind of training he has as an actor. But there's something very present about him and not like waiting for somebody else

to say something so he can then say something funnier or funny at all. He's connected with everybody he has a scene with. Now, I don't know what the other actors would say about Eddie's presentness, but as a viewer, Eddie is very present and very aware of what's going on around him and in the moment, right? And some comedians, like Richard Pryor was like this and Bill Murray can be like this, where you can tell that they're waiting for their moment to do the thing that they're going to do that steals the scene. They're calculated.

You can see Bill Murray calculating sometimes. when he's going to pull the rug out from under the people in the scene with him. Eddie Murphy is just, he's just present and he trusts his comedy enough to know that he doesn't have to win all the time because we had a Michael Douglas conversation about how Michael Douglas trusts the movies

to be on his side so he can take all these risks about how bad he can be while also being human because he knows the movies are never going to be on the women's side. They're always going to be his. And I feel like Eddie, is the same way. Like, I am surprised, I was surprised by just how

in the moment he isn't. Also, he just, I guess we're going to get into this, but he, Axel is just not the macho dude that that I remember him being. Not at all. And, like, part of the reaction, reading the reactions, reading their reviews

and the, like, the, like, essays and think pieces about this movie, people are really scared of Eddie Murphy. Well, I think part of it is just how young he is when he makes this. He's 24. Yeah. You know, he's still a kid. And they even, I think doing the research of this, you know, we can go into the whole history of it later.

But they're trying to make him seem like somebody who basically just joined the police force. So the way he dresses, they had to change everything. And he's wearing that Mumford T-shirt. And he's wearing jeans and sweatshirts. All Eddie, too. Stuff, yeah, stuff you would wear when you're 24 years old because they're trying to get across the fact that this dude's 24 years old. Sean from a own the screen, own the scene landscape. Do we have anybody like this now?

No, but I think not because of what we think Eddie is, but because of what Wesley's saying, which is I had a similar reaction, which is he's really sly in this movie. And the tone of his voice is kind of quiet. And it's almost like whispery. It's not super actorly. It's also not very, a lot of times when you get a stand-up comedian

or a sketch performer in a movie, movie, they can't get out of SNL or they can't get off the stage. They're stuck in their persona. And while Eddie has a really defined persona, this isn't the guy who is in the nutty professor. You know what I mean? He hasn't totally

morphed and become aware of himself yet. He's a person in this movie. Yeah. And I mean, I don't even know what the comparison point would be in terms of somebody who is gracefully transitioned into full-blown movie stardom that is like kind of subtle and still block

I wonder if it's the sketch comedy background too with that where his ability to play off other people, which It's also character work. Because Axel does like a bunch of different characters throughout this movie. He plays the customs and spectrum. He plays the Rolling Stone writer. Like each scene, like you never know if he's going to be like, this is who I am. Like when he goes into the strip club and he pretends to know the guy. He's like, Phil!

Like he does the drunk guy. Like he's constantly doing character work within the context of the actual story. But he stays in the story. Right. He's, he's, it's serving the script, these impersonations. They're just wheel greasing. But he's also really good at connecting. You talked about like, it's not just the comedy.

Like he does that scene with Victor Maitland when he's, when he upends the country club. He sits down at the table. Yeah. And he's just staring him down. Yeah. And it's actually really good acting. You know, it's like, if Kevin Hart's doing that, he's just bulging his eyes. He's so quiet to when he's just like, when I find out you did this, I'm going to fuck you up.

Yeah. And he's just like, I'm going to fuck you up. It's not like Schwarzenegger. It's not like a bunch of the guys that we associate with the 80s. And that's kind of a really key thing about this movie that I really noticed when I rewatched it was that

this movie's way closer to like Dirty Harry or the outfit or like a 70s crime movie than it is like our idea of like 80s action blockbuster. It's a black exploitation movie with like the one of the few movie star performances.

Richard Roundtree is the only true movie star from that era where you watch it and you're just the entire property of the movie changes when he's around. It was also his, you know, it's, I think it was like LeBron in 2009 or when Will Smith made the first bad boys. There's certain types of people,

you know they're going to hit the point. You just don't know what the movie's going to be. And he was already in two really successful movies, but 48 hours he's with Nick Nolte and trading places as Dan Aykwright is John Landis. This was like, all right, Eddie, you're the star of this movie. You're carrying everything. But we all thought he was.

he could do it. And it was like, it was time for him to be in a movie like this. So the expectations of it, just seeing the trailer and the commercials, I was like, oh, Eddie, oh, Eddie's going to be a cop. He's going to, like, and it met all of them. You were a little bit older, though, when you, did you see in the theater? Eddie was my, I mean, oh, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I saw I had 48 hours in the theater. Yeah, this was a four-year run where he was like, I wrote about this for Grantland where you, TV was in this weird situation all of a sudden, the early 80s where they were just no black characters and the black characters that were on. You know, when I was growing up, it was Jefferson's and good times and all the white shadow, all these different shows. And then by the time you got to- It was Benson.

801-2. It was Benson and different strokes and the Jefferson's. And it was Isaac doing this on the love boat. And I just, I didn't really know any black people other than the people I saw on TV. And then Eddie was on Estinale. He's 19. You're like, who's this guy? And then he just became my prism to this.

entire culture that I didn't know anything about. And I think he was just so outsized important during this little small stretch he had that to translate then into a movie success and then the massive success he had, it's kind of inconceivable. You're talking about it in four years. He becomes the biggest star in the world except for Michael Jackson. And he's 24. Yep. I think that this is weirdly also kind of the end of a phase for Eddie. Because it is. He got too famous. Yeah, I mean, everything that happens after this feels very self-conscious. You know, even coming to America, which I love, you could sense him leaning back into like, I'm the guy who does Gumbie and not this kind of like 48 hours. Yeah.

Beverly Hills cop. Like there's like a, it's a little ridiculous to say that there's a subtlety, but there is kind of a subtlety into what he's doing. There's also like the movie that he makes three times in a row, which is essentially this fish out of water movie can't be made with somebody who's that galactically famous. You know what I mean? And, like, it's kind of impossible to conceive of someone who is literally known by almost every person in a country be like, oh, yeah, you can't check into this hotel, sir. Like, that can't be a joke if the person is bigger than Madonna, you know? Right, right. He was honestly the second biggest celebrity.

I remember even, like, he only was on Letterman a few times. Obviously, Letterman was my show back then. The first couple times he was on, he was really relatable. And I remember there was one last time he came on, like 85, 86. where it was just clear it was different. It was after this movie where it was like, he's wearing one of his Michael Jackson suits. He's behaving like, he was just behaving differently.

I'm not saying in a bad way or good way. I was just like, he was a star. He was one of the biggest stars in the world, and he had reached a point where there was no way to have normal interactions with anybody. And that's when he bought Bubble Hill. And he's just in a mansion every night,

just hanging out with other rich people. And that's death for comedy. Yeah. But it isn't death for movie startup, right? No. It actually is weirdly okay for movie stardom because it like it lets you bring your bubble to like another part that lets you just like unfurl yourself in some way. And it's interesting that like the idea that the thing that sort of kept him going after Axel Foley was were basically, I mean you'd Golden Child. Which was definitely a disappointment.

Yeah. Beverly Hills Cop 2 is not. No, that was... We're going to talk about that later. That movie was fucking awesome. Right. And coming to America was awesome. Yeah, but he clearly was torn between a number of things, right?

Because one thing that winds up happening is he... And this is the Hollywood thing. I mean, when a black actor becomes very successful, there's a tension between what the movies want to do and what he wants to do. And the movies don't know that it's important for... for black people to be around other black people in the world. Like, like, Axelfold, the idea, so one of the complaints about this movie is that nobody would believe

that this man would be in Beverly Hills and his being in Beverly Hills wouldn't be a problem. And like nobody would, nobody, nobody calls in the N-word. We don't believe this movie. We don't believe this movie because he's allowed to move freely through Beverly Hills and have no problems. Right. And the truth is, that's not true.

The thing is, what they failed to recognize in that critique is, What we're watching is a movie star. Be impervious to the racism that Beverly Hills would have for a different person. It's not that he wouldn't experience this racism. The racism is built into the movie. It's just that he's so Teflon in his stardom that it doesn't stick. It's also, it's a detective movie. It's like Bogart being in a movie and you're like, how did Bogart get on that ship?

But it's weirdly. He's charismatic. He's smart. Like just go with it. It's also crucially. wasn't his movie. It was his movie. He gets hired two weeks before the movie gets filmed. This is a movie that was written for, it was kicking around since the 70s. It was essentially like a cop comes to another town movie that had been made for, that had been set up for a variety

of different movie stars over the years with a variety of different directors. And he completely transforms it by improv and like large swaths of the movie. I also like to your point though, one of the things that really charmed me this time around was the way in which the character relates to a bunch of people who are also kind of like overlooked in Beverly Hills. Like everything. Yeah, but also like the guys who are working valet and the guys who are bringing like the waiters and everybody is like the secret underground of like, hey, like you and I are both kind of stepped on here.

Yeah, surge. Yeah. The guy who brings the tray of food out to the car. Who gives him a wink. I mean, he's like, hey, I appreciate that and I see you, dude. Or the security guard he's harassing when he goes to look at the crates and then all the guys who work in the back room with the records. Like these are people you don't see in movies.

Yeah, and also paid respect by the star of the movie. It's a tour de force. I wrote, I did a mailbag in 2010, and I did the funny person championship belt. Should we relitigate that? Well, I remember. It's pretty good all the way through 2010, but 82 to 84, Eddie got it three years around. I think he might have been the only one who had it for that long. And who took it from him?

I can't remember, because he didn't do anything in 85. Maybe it was Chevy Chase Gagher? You like Gelliger. No, it wasn't Gallagher. It's the best three-year run by a funny person ever. Yeah. When you just look at the totality of what he did,

he's on television, on Saturday Live, which was the most important funny show. He did three movies in a row that were all huge hits. He crossed over all kinds of genres and, you know, he hit all kinds of demos. Yeah, maybe Jerry Lewis is the only other. comp. Yeah, I didn't go back that far.

Okay. It's such a cool way to look at it too because being on SNL meant he had to bring it every week. Like, it wasn't like he filmed three movies, 18 months before they came out and then was like, oh, man, he's having a great year. It's like, he was like on television every week and was appointment viewing for me.

It's also kind of amazing that he almost got fired from 48 hours. Trading Places was a Dan Aykrad movie. In this movie, he got two weeks before the filming started. It was, even though he was, certainly the biggest black star at that point, he still couldn't get star parts of movies totally. Well, right.

Maybe those cop, it's like Slice Stallone passed. All right. Let's get Eddie Murphy. It's like, well, how do you not want Eddie Murphy in that movie? That should have been the no-brainer of all time. Also, it doesn't work with Sylvester Stallone. Right. It's just a different movie.

It's COBRA. It was a dramatic action movie. I mean, because you can see some of that in the early going, right? The way they sort of destroy, demolished Detroit. Yeah, that whole opening set piece is like a hardcore action movie. Yeah, yeah. But like to the, like, the reason that movie stardom matters is because just having this one person in your movie completely changes the chemical properties of how light it can be versus how heavy it is. Totally.

And if Sylvester Stallone's in that cigarette truck in the opening sequence, it's just the movie weighs like 150 pounds more. Also, it's hard to know how much the story changed, but like, I think that you could safely say this would be an actively bad movie with anybody besides Eddie Murphy. Because in the first 30 minutes. Especially from that era. Even if nothing changes. Every single thing is the same except Sylvester Stallone is doing everything. Yeah, we know who kills his friend. We know to interview Michael Jackson.

And we know Venture Maitland is responsible in the first 30 minutes. So there's not even like anything to figure out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just will we get the bad guy? That's a great point. Like, we know everything. That's a great point. I didn't know a lot.

I got to say, I knew less about this movie than I thought. I didn't realize how much they improvised. The writer, Daniel, or the director, Martin Breast. Second Martin Breast movie. They'd had all these different screenplays. They literally had pieces of different screenplays they're carrying around. It shows. And Petrie, the writer, said he'd take a line, he'd expand, he'd make it specially,

put in the comic persona invented for the moment. And then Brest said, it's spooky. But every time we got into a jam, turn to Eddie and say, can you come up with something? And every time he came up with something that knocked me into the floor, he's director's dream, blah, blah, blah. So basically he's ad-libbing freelancing, this shitty script they have. And they hit the lottery because they have the best person who's ever been on SNL

and one of the best improv, let me come up with the character right away guys ever. And he's like, yeah, okay, what do you need here? Dude, can you do ad-lib some police station thing with Rosewood? Okay. And then does like the best version of it. Right. This movie got nominated for best screenplay. Eddie improvised like two thirds of it.

Yeah. No, I mean, I hope he was, I hope Eddie got thanked. Do you think he was the most talented comic actor we've ever had? Oh, man. In the history of movies? Yeah. Like if this was basketball, we'd be like, do you think he was the best basketball player ever? I'm trying to think is there a better, if you're just starting a comedy and you could have any actor.

Like, what's the conversation? You've got a, you've got a. why Danny Kay. I mean, there's just so many people. I need a lead for a movie. I need to sell tickets. I need it to be funny. Who am I getting?

Donald O'Connor. Luke Wilson. He loses it pretty quick. I'm saying this version of Eddie right here, 1984 Eddie. I can grab anyone from any season. Oh. I mean, in recent history,

there's like Jim Carrey basically does the same playbook 10 years later. Will Ferrell does the same playbook as this one. So would drive that Jim Carrey or Jim Carrey? I'd rather have any Murphy. I'd like Eddie Murphy more. but there are replicable examples of this. 1994, Jim Carrey, 2003 Will Ferrell.

Like if we're going wine bottle team. I'm still taking Eddie over anybody. I would, well, here's the thing about, here's the difference between Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell versus Eddie Murphy, right? It's the thing that we were talking about, which is the effortlessness. Like, Eddie Murphy does not need you to laugh.

Yeah. He really doesn't. Like, his comedy is not dependent. He's not going to evaporate. if the joke doesn't work. He's just got another joke. And he's actually can be funny if the joke doesn't work. Right.

He's funny despite the joke. Sometimes he is the joke. Whereas Will Ferrell and Jim Carrey, I mean, they are really putting themselves in the hospital for your laugh. Chevy Chase was like that too. The effortlessness or the desperation? No, Chevy Chase was willing to do anything physically to make you laugh. Right.

But again, it just seemed more natural than what. There was something sort of special. effect orienting with Jim Carrey obviously. Yeah. And Will Farrell, I mean, he just was, Eddie Murphy also doesn't want to make a fool of himself. And I think there's just a, there's a movie star, there's a classic movie star quality to the way he's funny.

That nobody, that really nobody after him, or even like a little bit before him had. Well, Sean made the key point. This movie should have been bad. Like, as you said, we already know who did it 30 minutes in. it's incomprehensible. I'm not even sure why the beginning Detroit pole chasing, you don't even really need it.

It really doesn't have anything to do with the movie at all. You don't need the chase. That's Don Simpson by the mountain of cocaine. It's like, wait. No, this movie is very, it's very coaked up. It's very coaked up. But like, so in baseball, we have war where you met like Mike Trout has like a 17 war this year.

If you put a replacement player in that position, Eddie's war is off the charts in this movie. Because it shouldn't have worked. And it became the third highest gross, comedy ever. I find action comedy is also really fascinating to think about because you think about Beverly Hills Cop. You think about Stripes. Yeah. To some extent, Ghostbusters, Blues Brothers, like a lot of the movies from around this time period where it's like, they could have made this movie either way and they just decided to put Bill Murray or Eddie Murphy

in it and then it just completely changes it. But then the result of this movie kind of completely changed our way of thinking about what we think of a comedy can be going forward. because before that, it's like Neil Simon. It's basically like domestic kind of... Seems like old times. Yeah, there's a bunch of one-liners, and there's a little bit of romance, maybe a little bit of screwball stuff going on.

And then at the end, everybody kind of, you know, has a good laugh and feels good about themselves. And this is all of a sudden, like, it's a comedy, but there's also a 15-minute car chase that's inexplicable. Yeah. Or, you know, a ghost comes out. Or stripes, the freaking tank at the end? The second half of stripes is essentially a war move.

Right. Right. Well, the interesting thing is before this, you've got a number of things that are happening in the movies, right? Like one thing is the black exploitation era, which was really good at taking the properties of a Hollywood action movie and then, or like a shitty crime movie and just repopulating them and redistributing the power among a kind of ethnic underclass, primarily black people. But frequently, black people who are working for Italians. And you have this whole law enforcement infrastructure built into these movies that was frequently a black cop and a white cop trying to solve a crime. And then before that, you, I mean, I think the most important movie that, I mean, it's obvious in some ways, but because so much of it is just the atoms of it are in so many other movies, but the French connection, right? Yeah.

Like you take the French connection and you recast Dean Hackman's, you make Popeye Doyle, Axel, Axel, Foley. And I don't think the movies change at all. But there's something about the seriousness with which the French connection took itself. It's almost literally like the apartment, Popeye's apartment is the same as Axel's apartment essentially. Yes. Yes. And you even keep the racism. You even keep the racism with the French connection. And you just like the way in which the way that movie thought about energy and movement and, and even in its way, comedy, right? But nobody thinks that the French connection is funny.

But there's something about the dynamic between Shider and Hackman. I wanted to talk about the racism or lack of racism of this movie. Alleged lack of racism. Because this was a fascinating year for America.

Because you had the Cosby Show's launching, I think was, or maybe not launching, but 84 I felt like Cosby Show was at. Yes. It was the number one show in America. You had Purple Rain and Prince become a massive star. Right.

And then you have this movie where I feel like if this movie's done 10 years ago, Eddie being black would have been a major, major theme of this movie. And in this movie, it's there. And it's there like with the banana and the tailpipe scene and a couple other things. But not really. Well, what does that mean though, right? It's complicated. Right?

I feel like the question, like when you say that it's there but it's not there, do you mean like nobody's really addressing it? him as a black person. I don't, I don't think it cared as much about that as it would have 10 years earlier. Because I think the difference is, I mean, the other movie, the other thing that I was thinking about when we were talking about like the history of what is, what, what had happened before this movie started, is Sidney Poitier being like completely just dismissed by a crumbling Hollywood movie industry, right?

Yeah. Where like the, the thing that he'd been kept from his entire career was other black people. when the movie industry falls apart, his first, all his power chips he spends after having the greatest movie star, one of the great movie star years of all time in 1967 with those three movies in the heat of the night, guests was coming to dinner and to serve with love.

He spends all that capital to make a movie where he makes love to Abby Lincoln. Right? All he wanted to, because all the pressure was on him to fuck a black lady. Please let him make love to somebody because he's been all these movies with these white women and can't touch them. And so, and when he can touch him, they're blind,

and can't see him back. So he uses all the pressure that he felt as a black movie star during the civil rights era was not to like be equal to white people. It was like proof of equality was fucking. And so he makes to- And he doesn't get to do that in this movie. Right. And in Golden Child, he got cut out.

Right. So like the degree to which like, the fight that a person like Eddie Murphy has to have in 1984 to just be, in a movie with white people where he doesn't have to face racism like the kind of blatant racism that Sidney Pardier would have to face with white people. That is an achievement

but it was one that that movie audiences had been so... I mean, not movie audiences because I think the thrill of this movie was that he didn't have... You were watching a black person just skate through... skate through life. Yeah, that was my point.

Right, right. But what I'm... The other thing that... My point is only that there is something strangely artificial about that only in that this is a person who has no other black people in his life and he's from fucking Detroit except for like Inspector Todd. Right, his father figure.

That fucking folly. Who really wants him to succeed. I think you're a talented cop but you gotta stop fucking up. Right. So, okay, the only thing about this is this is a quote unquote fish out of water comedy, right? It's like tried and true formula. Some like it hot. You mentioned in the heat of the night.

that in the heat of the night is a fish out of water movie. Yes. That's the exact same movie. They're very similar. It's one of my favorite premises. The best the Beverly Hills cop is essentially in the heat of the night meets Beverly Hillel. Right. But so if you make this movie with Sylvester Stallone or Schwarzenegger or even like Michael Keaton,

whatever is happening in the sequence when he gets thrown through the window and then arrested and then taken into the police department, if he's not black, it's different. It doesn't mean anything. Oh, yeah. Also, he doesn't even. even get arrested if it's Stallone. If he's Stallone, Stallone makes sure that, like,

he gets on the other side of that window, there's a gun waiting for him, and he's like having a shootout. That's why it's important. And that's why, even though nobody comes out and says, man, Beverly Hills is racist. That never happens.

Look who's coming to arrest him, right? Those two blind guys. It's subtle. It was subtle under the radar. He'll make little jokes left and right, but it's just kind of part of the movie and not, I just think they would have done it different.

I think it's all, Whether it's happy or unhappy, it's an accident. I don't necessarily think they rewrote the parts of Boga Mill and Rosewood and Taggart. No. After the casting changes happened. So they have like basically a script that's for Mickey Rourke or Sylvester Stallone. Oh, wait, pause. Yeah.

And Eddie Murphy is the star instead. But these guys, they're doing their lines. It's not like, I don't think that Judge Reinhold was like, I have an ad lib here. I'm going to add some racial tension to the moment. You know, but he's just like, I'm going through this movie. I didn't realize how much, how hard it was for the other actors to handle the Eddie ad libs. Because apparently they were... I was going to ask if you got these takes that just got ruined because somebody would start laughing.

Yeah. So in the super cop scene, which we'll get to him and do the most rewatchable scene, did you read this? It got pointed out. John Ashton's like laughing. And it looks like he's like in pain. He puts his head down. But if you look at him, he's like, he's like in the Carol Burnett show.

Like trying not to laugh. And I had no idea. It totally changes the way I'm going to watch this movie for the rest of my life. Because you can see these guys, you can see Ronnie Cox fighting it off a couple times. And it's clear that Eddie was just doing his thing. There's just that great story about how Judge Reinhold, whenever Eddie was doing his thing, would have to pinch the inside of his thigh to give himself pain so that he wouldn't laugh. Yeah.

I mean... I used to do that there are going to be a cat down for different reasons. Just to make sure you were alive? Yeah. Just to feel this. actually happening. Roger Ebert. Raj. Come on.

Two and a half. Two and a half. Yeah, I knew it. He didn't really like it. He said Eddie Murphy looks like the latest victim of the star magic syndrome in which it is assumed that a movie will be a hit simply because it stars an enormously talented person. Guess what, Raj?

That's exactly what happened. John Simpson is like, I know. Let's take a break and then we'll get through the categories. Today's episode is brought to you by Luminary, a new podcast subscription service with some of the best content around. I'm excited about Luminary because it's the only place you can listen to the newest show on the Ringer Network, Break Stuff, the story of Woodstock 1999. This is definitely a podcast you can't miss. In 1999, a music festival took place in upstate New York that became a social experiment.

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Terms may apply. Most rewatchable scene. What's interesting about this movie is I don't feel like anything in the first 20 minutes is exceedingly rewatchable. I kind of... I disagree.

The chase is really good. It's fine. But if I'm flipping channels, I'm so excited if I know he's about to get to Beverly Hills. That's when I'm ready. I think specifically if that cigarette deal had gone on for an hour and a half and it's just been like a Jim Jarmish movie of these two guys stuck in the back of a truck, I would have been like, this is amazing.

Frank Pesh, being like, yeah, shop kid, here's the thing. I'm going to make it up to you on the way back. You know, like that's a different movie? Yeah, sure it is. But it's like, I love the fact that they just like kind of have this Mean Streets moment in the beginning of this movie. It kind of takes you out of the idea of it being any other 80s bullshit blockbuster. I don't know. I really, I like where it starts.

Also, aside from the movie being called Beverly Hills Cop, if you start this movie and you don't know the title, you don't know what to make of Axel. It's Detroit, it's Detroit 3000 part two. Right, right. I would say most we're talking about rewatchable? I'm about to go through them. Okay, all right.

Axel arrives in Beverly Hills and checks in the hotel. That's Patty LaBelle plays. Don't you think I realize what's going on here, miss? Who do you think I am, huh? Don't you think I know that if I was some hot shot from out of town that pulled inside here, made a reservation mistake. I'd be the first one to get a room

and I'd be upstairs relaxing right now. But I'm not some hot shot from out of town. I'm a small reporter from Rolling Stone magazine that's in town to do an exclusive interview with Michael Jackson that's going to be picked up by every major magazine in the country. I was going to call the article, Michael Jackson is sitting on top of the world. But now I think it might as well just call it.

Michael Jackson can sit on top of the world just as long as he doesn't sit in the Beverly Palm Motel because there's no niggas allowed in there. And it says that he's from Rolling Stone. It might be the funniest thing he's ever done. Jackson. Yes. The best part is just the nerve of some people.

Right. When he gets up there. Well, you, the thing is, like, the way that he, the, like, what you're interested in in 2019 is the way that he can cry racism, almost literally cry racism without saying racism, but also communicate, the sophistication of the way race functions, functions in this movie, was really lost on people at the time. But, but again, probably not the odds. right? It was critics who weren't used to writing about a black person starring in anything.

And the comedy of that scene is you can feel him building to this, like, to this like, universal embarrassment that this woman is just simply doing her job, but also, you know, he understands the racism of the denial. And so he gets to be an entitled white person and an affronted black person at the same time. And the high pressure system of those two situations are the comedy, but they also produce the desired effect, which is to get the manager to come over and give him the room at half price.

Half price. For a single room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, communicates how smart he is because he overhears the woman booking, having the phone call and saying there are no reservations available. So as soon as he walks up,

he's got an opening line, the nerve of some people, how do they not know to make a reservation? And also, he gets like one of the all-time like wordless takes where they give him the price of a single room. And he just blanks for a second. And he's so funny.

And it's too 40 a night. Which today would be like, that's pretty solid. I think it's like $700. Yeah. That'll be fine. Yeah. It's just such an amazing reaction. And then it goes right from there to he goes to see Jenny Summers and meet Serge.

I see you look at this base. Yeah, I was wondering how much something like this went for. $130,000. Get the fuck out of here. No, I cannot. It's serious because it's very important, peace. Have you ever saw one of these? Say it yesterday to a collector?

Get the fuck out of here. I'm serious. I said it myself. And this is just an almost impeccable nine minutes of comedy. Yes. Because you're still laughing at the hotel. And then all of a sudden, Serge is there. And Serge is just thrown a thousand.

Also, a secret trope of the 80s movie making is pop song playing over montage. Pop song gets turned down for a full scene. and at the end of that scene, bring the song back. So as soon as, like, he checks into the hotel, stir it up, comes back on.

And then he's, like, walking down and he sees the two Michael Jackson's walking by. And he laughs at the Michael Jackson guy. I mean, yeah. You talked about how Eddie connects with people. Like,

the search part's a good example. I mean, it's like professional wrestling where the, like, the Sean Michaels can just make any other wrestler better by being in the ring. I would love to see him being afraid.

He gave him a whole career from those two scenes. Like, literally. he got a sitcom out of those two scenes. Yes, I will stand here with Dwayne Johnson as Sean Michaels because I'm not afraid. I'm Sean Michaels. If Dwayne Johnson wants to be Dwayne Johnson, let the rock, let the rock rock.

If he can hang with me, we're good. And Bronson Pinchot was just like, he'd been in risky business right before that. He was one of Tom Cruise's friends of risky business and that's it. So when he popped up in that movie, I'm like, oh, the guy from risky business. And then it's like, what's going on? And then Balkey, two years later. Yeah. And then that's it.

There you go. The banana and tailpipe, the actual order in the room service. The shrimp sandwich? Yeah, he's in the hotel suite. We'll get to that whole scene in a second. But then, yeah, putting it in there. Just really enjoyable. That's also when you really started with subtext.

You love the Rosewood Taggart. That's when you're starting to get in on those guys. There's some interplay with those guys that starting to happen. Five pounds of undigested. Yeah, red meat. Yeah. I have the strip joint scene that leads to the super cops monologue, which is where everybody's cracking up,

which is, yeah. Oh, yeah, dancing in strip joint. Billy, you know, you don't have to be embarrassed if your dick gets hard. But your dick is supposed to get hard. See? That's the whole object of this. Tagger's dick is hard, but he won't let you know because he's the boss. The boss dick got to stay live, right?

Phil! Who sang Nasty Girl? Vanity-6. Yeah. That's a fucking awesome. Yes, it is. So good. The, when the first team takes over from Taggart and Rosewood.

Oh. Outside of maintenance house, the, we're not going to fall off from the banana of the tailpipe. Which became like an iconic thing that you just would say and make fun of people who talked like that. We used to say it literally. It would be like, this kid throws a curve on.

It's like, oh, okay, I won't fall for the banana in the tailpipe. Yeah. And then. No idea. Any of the context. Yeah. And then right as it was dying down, Tiger Woods came out on the scene in 1997 and talked exactly like the Breda and Tail Pipe guy and it got like five more years of Bina and Tail Pipe Jokes. And then I just really enjoy the ending.

Like a shootout? I just enjoy everything like Tagger trying to climb over the fence. Oh, we can't do. Yeah. The inept guards just hailing them with bullets and not hitting anyone. It's really the age of the Uzi. Yeah. It's just very.

Age of the sort of poorly deployed Uzi to you. Nobody gets like you want to talk about tickets and firearms away from people. Take him away from the people in the movies, the goons who can't shoot straight. Drug dealers with sunglasses and uzzies. Take off your sunglasses, dude. You're missing everything. Any other rewatchable sense? Yeah, I'm actually getting chewed out by Cobb.

You damn right, wise ass. The male called the chief. The chief called the deputy chief. The deputy chief just chewed my ass out. You see, I don't have any bit of it left, don't you? Where in the fuck did you get a truckload of cigarettes from anyway? From the Deerborn hijack. I'm the Deerborn hijack.

That fucking bus went down last week. That truck is supposed to be in the damn pound. I try to tell you. Jeffrey, this is none of your fucking business. This is not my locker. And a Paul Riser's performance in that entire sequence. Yeah. This is not my locker.

That's like the only time I think someone goes over the top of Murphy. Cobb and James Rousseau are the only two people who are like, I'm going higher than Icarus here and we're going to see what happens in this scene. Chris, do you want to do 30 seconds on James Rousseau before we... Only 30? Yeah, I can have 45. Let's just talk about the Michael Tandino thing is just like this weird love story in the middle of the movie in the beginning of the movie. It sets up.

It's the setup for like why he needs to take. I'm sorry. Can we need to just say this. Yes. He uses, this is a 24 working class man using his vacation to solve a murder. Right? Like, I'm going to Hawaii. Yeah.

I might be going to like visit some friends. I am not going to El to Beverly Hills. Wait. Oh, by the way, we're in Los Angeles. Is Beverly Hills at Lone City? So it does have its own police department. I just wanted to be clear about this. That's why it's really expensive.

It is good schools and it's super safe. But that's my rewatchable sequence is the sequence where they get together, play pool, sit at the bar and go back to his apartment. Because you know before he dies, they're doing it. I didn't know we were going to get there yet. Sorry. We can save it. Can we save it?

We can save it. Okay. Do you, can we talk about why this movie happened? Yeah. Because it's relevant to the Beverly Hills part of the conversation and relevant to the police department. Oh, you wanted for the half-fast center? Yeah.

Can we save it? Yeah. So what's most rewatchable? Also, did you put in the, uh, the, uh, axle at the customs facility? Like who's got the Porsche parked out? Is that your Porsche outside? Yeah. I like that part too.

I'll add it. And he's like, do you have a match? And he's like, and you're my fucking problem. I'm going checking into the hotel. Yeah, I like that. All the way to surge is great. What's age the best?

I just, I'm still in love with Jenny Summers all these years later. She's a weird one though. There's so many. Lisa Islebach? Yeah, he really likes her. I really liked her in that movie. She, I mean, with all due respect to like,

not do with all due respect to this woman, but disrespect to like the way Hollywood cast these women, as interchangeable blondes with the same cake caps shawl haircut. Yeah. Like this is sort of a... I did not recognize her at all. Wesley, don't ruin this for me. I'm sorry.

You can have it, but I'm just saying. Bill and I both have a soft spot for Jenny Summers for Dana Wheeler, Nicholson, and Fletch. Yeah. This whole era. Yeah, but... Listen, here's what I want from my token female character in Eddie Murphy movie. Dressed very well, laughed at all his jokes, look great. That's it.

It's an Eddie Murphy movie. She is interesting because think about what she does in this movie, right? She is not a love interest of either of the men because we'll get to that later. She fucking tried. She tried with Eddie. I mean, she really gave her a world. I thought we were saving this. We're saving it.

Okay. And she is very, she's serious about her career. And the career doesn't cost her anything, right? She doesn't die. She is a damsel. But, I mean, I don't disbelieve her damsel. He's like, I'll drive. He's like, I'm going to go to your boss's warehouse.

She keeps insisting and he's like, I don't want you to come. She's like, fuck you. I'm not letting you drive. Great character. And you can't get in without me. Great friend, great character. Definitely not a great character. I don't know what's motivating this person at all.

She's fantastic. Working for a Coke Lord's art gallery. Which was evidently a Coke Lord's art gallery. She didn't realize. She didn't know. Sure, my boss. He brings in Matisse paintings. He brings in a bunch of coffee.

You do what you have to do. There's some bear bonds hanging out, like, lying around. Who knows? It was the 80s. The Jenny, Tandino, Axel, Triangle of Friendship makes no sense. What are these people talk about? Tandino just did a bid. They went to college together.

They grew up together in Detroit. Yeah. Jenny is from Detroit. Jenny is from Illinois. There's something, she's got a hard, she's got a hard. She's seen some things. Yeah, I mean. She's not afraid of conflict.

She looks like she's lived a life. I'm not casting aspersions. This woman is a TV actress. She's getting annihilated throughout the whole movie by everybody else who is not a TV actress. How dare you? I wonder if they're... She's not... Didn't do anything after this for a reason because you can't hold the screen.

You can't be... Do you think that there was a meeting in Don Simpson's office in 1985 where some screenwriter comes in and goes, Don, let me tell you, Beverly Hills Art Dealer. What's going on with Jenny Summers? She's trying to get her own gallery off the ground after the tragic death of Victor Maitland who was gunned down.

And she has a ton of coat. But let me ask you a question, right? Is this our first movie art gallery person? Because... Our first gallerist? No, yeah, our first female gallerist. Are there no female gallerists in 70s

Woody Allen movies? Magnificent. Maybe, maybe. But I mean... I think this might be... You need to stop. Like, like, I love their teenage bill. Chris had Dana Wheeler, Nicholson.

I have Lisa O. about her. But you're still talking about her. I'm talking about her past tense. I'm 15-year-old Bill talking about her. Did you have anybody else? A lot of people. That's an only child.

Terry Garrow? I had 45 crushes. We're waiting into dangerous waters here. I want to, no, I love hearing about this because who else? name somebody. Who didn't I have a crush on? Terry Gar. I didn't really like Terry Gar.

What? Jill Claiburg. How about Jane Kennedy and NFL today in the late 70s? That was unbelievable. We're seriously in like Philis George. Simmons Wet Dream segment of this podcast.

They replaced Phyllis George with like probably the best looking woman in the world. She took that show over and she's just doing football events. And I was like 11. I was like, this is the bad. Thank you. You know that he had a list. Yes.

That was like the top 10 best-looking ladies in the world. Kennedy. I'll balker. It's like 50. Susan Day. Oh, Susan Day was definitely on it. Sonny Crockett's girlfriend in. Olivia Brown?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Olivia Brown. Yeah. She was great. All right. We sidetracked. What changed the best?

Sure did. Jenny Summer's car. And also the fact that. That red Mercedes-Benz conversion. The Los Angeles, like, in Beverly Hills, we just take whatever car's closest. Oh, yeah. That was good. That was a good car.

She had a good line. Can I start doing that with you? Taking my car? Yeah, I don't care about cars. That car is fucking dope. It's a car that you can't see anymore. It's really hard to keep in shape. Had a little back seat.

I just... Mikey could have been back there if he was still alive with the three of them. That's the Mikey spot. Yeah. So we just did your obsessions as a 14-year-old boy. And now. That car is incredible. Yeah.

So you're really... I'm a human being, shot. I'm a human being. I believe like everyone else. What stage the best? Great title. It's almost like they came up with the title and didn't have a script yet

because it was exactly like that. It was good. Simpson or Eisner, which we still don't know. Harold Faltermeyer? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, great run for him.

I don't know what happened. What happened after? After Top Gunn? I'll tell you what happened. Fletch. That's a great. It's a great soundtrack, though. A great score.

He was, this was an era. where you had synth-based musicians, like the great Howard Jones. Wang Chung. Yeah. And he just kind of fit in. It made sense that that would be in a movie. Do you guys know that he's credited with Hans Zimmer on Top Gun Maverick?

I think because they're using his themes. I think he made so much money. He had to be like in Maui. The soundtrack. Incredible soundtrack. Which includes the heat is on, Neutron Dance, stirred up and nasty girl. it's pretty strong. And the fault of Marijuana ones, yeah.

And all the fault of Marrins. Martin Breast? Yeah, the less said, the better. I don't know what to. Come on, man. Well, this is Martin, is tough. Is that true?

He made Midnight Run, too. Oh, Midnight Run. Yes, you can do no wrong. And Geeley. He made a son of a woman. He did Gile. And he did son of a woman. One Pacino and Oscar.

You know, well, what is that mean? If I was half. Just don't even get me started. But I, Midnight. Midnight Run is a perfect He made two of the best comedies of all time. Yes. It's hard to know how much credit he gets for this movie.

Right, I was going to say, like, he made... He's smart enough to let Eddie Ad Live. He lets it all the fucking script. I'm never like, this is a breast classic as I'm watching it. No, Midnight Run. Midnight Run is a perfect movie because of the person who made it in a lot of ways, right?

Yeah, but the same thing, though. It's a movie that, like, without those two stars, doing their thing, that movie doesn't work. It doesn't work. The Mumford Fizz-Ed t-shirts were really a thing in the mid-80s. I know it's hard to explain, but there was no internet back then,

no way to buy them. I would have easily, if I had ever seen in the store, I would have worn one. And I think the high school got flooded with requests, sold out completely. And then when they did cop two,

he had that lion's jacket on that I think was intentional. And then they made a bunch of them because they knew people would want them. The almost as iconic as the Mumford phys ed department T-shirt is his cropped sweatshirts that he wears

for most of the movie? Those are, yeah, those people because that was also like the Josh Broland Goonies look. Yep. You should get into that. That would be good on you.

Taggart and Rosewood. Croped muscle sweats. I'm good. I'm all set. I need to work on my abs if I want to get into that space. No, you don't. No, you don't really don't.

No, really don't. It's not a mid-drift. It's not a cropped top. You want me to get cropped sweat pants? Sweat shirts. Sweat shirts. You know where it'll stop.

You'll look great. We're in a dangerous place. Taggart and Rosewood. Do they've aged the best? Yeah. Well, it aged the best because it lays the groundwork for two heroic performances in Beverly Hills, Cop 2. That easily could have been nominated. Just an incredible job of them.

Are you in Cop 2? Of course I am. I'm 41 years old. Those guys are flat out great in Cop 2 and all the seeds are set. Well, you do eat a lot of red meat. Key, unspoken key to Murphy, too, is that with the exception of Martin Brest, mostly works with really good directors at the beginning of his career. Walter Hill, Tony Scott, Robert Townsend,

doing, shooting the comedy special. John Landis. John Landis for on trading places, and then Beverly Hills Cop 3, which is probably the less said the better about that one. Indeed. I live my life like it never happened. But that's just me. And even Michael Richie, who makes the Golden Child,

which isn't very good, but Michael Richie, you made a lot of great movies. Yes. I also like the performance by the Not Going to Fall for the Banana and the Tailpipe guy, just because he also has earlier he does the best. That's age the best. I just,

because earlier he sets it up with the first team, that first team insult he has for tagger. I like how he's, that whole era of mid-80s cop movies where there was always a rival duo that had sarcastic, weirdy comments. Yeah. I just missed that.

I miss those. I miss the rivalries of cop movies. Anything else for what's age the best? We hit a lot of stuff. I'll balker. I'm willing to put her back in again. I second that. I second that.

It's a law now. Al-Bacher. Which is the best. Well, listen. Isle-Bocker Mountain. I'm on the right side of history is where we landed. What's age the worst? I have a couple of things here.

For what's age the worst? Yeah. I feel like the first 19 minutes could have zip by a little faster. In general, I would say that 1984 was not our peak of masking stunt work. So there's a couple of times where a guy gets punched and then a different man flies through a window and then the actor stands up. Oh, yeah. So I think we were still on like Magnum P.I.

level stunts. When he throws Jonathan Banks through the buffet table, it's a guy with a full head of hair. It's somebody who's 50 pounds everywhere. Yeah. The guy who jumps out of the truck is not the guy who's driving the truck. You know, like, it's like, it's like, the guy who's driving the truck has like, is got like a long mullet.

And then the guy who gets out of the truck is got like a bald spot. It's amazing stuff. When Victor is shot at the end and then falls down the steps, I'm like, no, we've lost Victor. Not, not Victor. Yeah, I mean, Eddie going through the plate glass window is not Eddie. And in general, I would say that action scenes that involve a lot of tumbling have gone out of style. So when you see a man run across a field and do a few somersaults well executed and come up into a stance.

Oh, yeah. That's usually not what you see in John Wick. Right. That's now farce. That's like scary movie 12. Well, speaking of the window, I had Victor Maitland's reaction to Mikey's death. Oh, my God. Oh, that's terrible.

What else? Anything else going on? It's just so bad. It's so bad. You should spend like several weeks in character as Victor Baitland. Welcome to the ringer podcast network.

Oh my God. What's that actor's name again? Stephen Berkoff. He's like weird. You know, the thing about 80s. He's been in a Bond movie. He's a good 80s guy. When we had great

villains or even passable villains, they were frequently played not only by good actors, although not always, but almost always played by sexy men. Like men who, like, at least to my pre-adolescent self, I was pretty instantly attracted to. Like, that was even Jonathan Banks, I was like, there's something about this ugly man that is also very attractive. He's got energy. One day he would be Mike Ermintrown. Now, masculinity is a very attractive thing when reasonably deployed.

And there's something like the two of them talk about, we can get to this later, but we don't know what's going on with them either. The whole movie is the same. The whole movie is like that. Almost every interaction with every character, Serge, all that stuff. I got to say, guys, the entire 80s was like that. It was the 80s. I mean, my advice is just entire scenes of Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas. Thomas driving and then just looking at it.

And then turning back to the road. Yeah. And I was like, and cut. But this is like quadrupling down on that. Yeah. There are like five different pairs of men who with with no female interruption. In a comedy, but not necessarily making light of that. Like that isn't, it's only the joke one time when he goes to the club.

It's not homophobic. Well, we can get to the homophobia in a minute. But like it's not, it's not afraid of what it means to have two men. in such close proximity. Right. And like to say, oh, we can get to this later. We can, when we're talking about it.

Homophobia? Want to put that in what stage is the worst? Oh, I was good. That would be mine. Yeah, for sure. But I will say this. I will say this. Let's talk about the homophobia.

Because I actually don't find it as homophobic as I was led to believe, as my memory would lead me to believe it was, right? Just think about it. You're just seeing gay people be gay. Like, be, have, like, have a feminine personality. is you aren't watching the movie not like gay people. Like, Damon Wayans is just playing

an effeminate man who at the time we don't know was Damon Wayans. Right. We're just singing a feminine dude. Yeah, no, the Herbie Syplex-T. That's the one time you're like, this matrienne does not want to deal with this gay guy who has a disease.

And you're like, okay, that's not great. But he's using the disease. Like, he is weaponized, like the comedy of that moment, and I'm not defending it. But I'm just saying, right. I think that the comedy is like, He just makes up a disease to, like, get him in.

What's the craziest thing I could say that this guy might not even know is real? Right. It's the same thing that he does the Beverly Palms where he's like, we establish that this person is smart. And, like, his comedy is like his, the characters he creates are not just like bits he can do to make us laugh. There are bits to, like, get him into the, into the next room. Right. Loudmouthed journalist.

Right, right. As far as Eddie's homophobia in the, in the early 80s, this was not. This is nothing. Not the apex amount. Probably why you're thinking of it is because of the stand-up comedy specials and a little bit of 48 hours. So, Harlem, not. Did you put Taggart punching Axel in the what's age the worst?

In the stomach? Given what we've seen with the LA Police Department of the last? It's pretty bad, but then he comes down and he apologizes and said, would you like to press charges? Right. Maitland's bodyguards have aged badly just because all of them were terrible. You figure you hire six bodyguards, one of them will be able to shoot somebody who's 20 feet away. Can we just briefly analyze the strategy there? So Maitland

calls in the five guys. Five guys come in, four of them are huge. One of those guys looks like a little mouse in the front. The four guys pick up Axel and they carry him through the building and then the fifth guy just like walks in front of them. What's the fifth guy doing? What's he there for? Because can the other guys not see? To open the doors? Yeah, because if they're all carrying them. Axel's head to bash the door open. I think that their whole thing is that they're going to throw him through the window and be like, see evidence of a public disturbance.

It's just so that charge is so crazy. Like again, like for people who don't understand how racism works, there's no white person that gets thrown through that window and then gets charged with public disturbance and actually winds up in a police department. Right? Right. There's just no way that happened.

Right. And the way that he doesn't resist arrest ever because he fucking knows what happens if he resists arrest. He knows. First of all, he's a cop, so he knows. And he's seeing the dirty shit the cops do. Yep. And he's from Detroit.

a black man and knows how dirty the cops will do people. And then every time he gets arrested. And he eventually knows that Todd will call and be like, yes. Right. There is a guy. But again, like we're watching an interesting combination of a movie star like, like experiencing the sort of entitlements of movie star, which is that like I know in the next scene, the plot will give me something to do.

But he also is experiencing the reality of being a black person in, in police presence. Yeah. But there's also a character aspect to it, which is the less I reveal about myself. the more information I can accumulate now. So if I don't tell you I'm a police officer, and I learn about how you act as police officers, I'll know how to respond when I get inside the police department. That makes narrative sense, but I also think they're not even, like,

are you fucking, you're a cop? Right. I mean, that's just a whole, every time he doesn't, because that's what Bogumol says where he was like, he's like, your boss says that you're a very talented detective, which I find very hard to believe, but you have like, you're, but let me tell you why you're going to your job, which I find very easy to believe.

The thing is is that when we did 48 hours, as a rewatchable. You and I talked about the fight scene between Eddie and Nick Nolte. And now when you watch that, you're like, he's gonna fucking kill him. Like, he is beating the shit out of Eddie Murphy and how almost like takes you out of the movie as like, oh, this is

just a comedy. You're like, this movie is intense. You know what I mean? And I wonder whether or not this coming two years later. They were like, let's just kind of tweak the formula a little bit. Let's not like put him through too much of the ringer. Like he's never, there's a lot of plot arm around him and he never gets roughed up that, that bad, right?

Just a punch in the stomach and being thrown through the window. Which compared to 48 hours is not that. And then like knocked out in that opening? Yeah, he gets hit in the back of the head. Or another what's age the worst was he decides to get in the Beverly Palm by name dropping that A, he writes for Rolling Stone. And B, he's doing a profile on Michael Jackson. I have actually, five years later, that's not working. A follow up to that is, and I don't even know, it hasn't aged the worst.

But I would just say that the way in which magazines substitute for people's mobile phones in this movie. So like, oh, interesting. Like, Judge, like, Oh, Victor Maitland. Rosewood is reading like, time magazine and he's like, you know, like, oh my God, did you see this about red meat in your diet? And then when, uh, Victor Maitland comes into Jenny's office and just like picks up art for him. Oh, yeah. He starts reading it.

flipping through it. Yeah, I loved it. And, uh, Jonathan Banks. I couldn't cast straight because I was, Jenner was in the same. Who else was in there? John The Banks is reading National Geographic at one point. And it's just like, this is just what people did to pass time in 1984 was like, read a magazine. Today's episode is brought to you by Hotel Tonight.

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Visit hotel tonight.com or download the app to unlock a getaway today. Casting what ifs, you mentioned Mickey Work. He signed a $400,000 holding contract and then left. the project. Can I just throw a quick Mickey Work factoid in there? According to the New York Times, quote, spotting a picture of Mickey Work in a magazine, Mr. Simpson tore it out, held it up and said, isn't he great?

That's how they almost cast Mickey's right. So much cocaine. Like all the cocaine. Let me just stop you right there. You do not need cocaine to make that choice about Mickey Work in 1984. You do it to tear a picture out of a magazine and say, isn't he great? By the way, they used all of Don Simpson's cocaine in the coffee filter.

Don, can we go to your office and grab a couple bags? Sure. This is the movie that is missing from that period for Mickey York, too. If you look at the... Before he started fucking up his face. Yeah, I mean, he's Heaven's Gate, Body Heat, Diner, Rumblefish, Pope of Greenwich Village, and then you have the space where you could have had Beverly Hills Cop and instead you have Eureka and Year of the Dragon. And then nine and a half weeks.

Why did he not do it? I don't know. I mean, followed a personality. They had a holding deal, and the schedules didn't work out. Not enough weeks is a good movie. Stallone was way more extreme of him being like, you guys don't have the right kind of orange juice. Stallone made it a straight action film.

This is all real, apparently. Change the lead character to Axel Cobbreddy, made Michael Tandino his brother, made Jenny Simmers his love interest. He described his script as... The conventional movie. It gets worse. The script he wrote,

the opening scene from saving Private Ryan on the beaches of Normandy was what he was going for. Set in the streets of Detroit or something. Set in the States of Detroit. His ideas were deemed too expensive to produce. Two weeks before his filming, there was an urban legend about

he demanded orange juice in his trailer and there was a big fight and he quit. The end of the movie that he wrote apparently with the climax was him driving a Lamborghini down the train tracks at a freight train being driven by the super slimy bad guy. Wait, Victor? I guess. Whatever the version of it was in his movie.

Wait, this gets a little crazier, guys. And again, there was a lot of cocaine going on back then. Stallone was signed up for the lead. Scorsese offered the director's tour. Oh, no. He was trying to get Last Temptation of Christ made. Oh, boy. Wow.

According to the research, Scorsese was, quote, bewildered by the script and dismissed it. There you go. I'm just... What's next? What's next? I'm going to read you guys something. Best that guy, a.k.a. the Joey Pants Award.

This is tough because Jonathan Banks was like an all-time classic that guy forever. He was a first bout Hall of Famer. He was a first bout hall of famer. That guy from Wise Guy in Beverly Hills Cop. And nobody knew what his name was.

And then Breaking Bad Happen and he became Jonathan Banks. But he was that guy for 20 plus years. He's now basically Emmy win. Emmy winner Jonathan Banks. Ronnie Cox was also that guy. But ripped off for a little bit there. But then he ripped off Vision Quest, cop and cop too,

Robo cop, total recall, and was on San Elsewhere. So eventually at some point he became Ronnie Cox. I think James Rousseau is kind of the winner of this. I'm going to go, Michael. I didn't know what James Rousseau's name was. I'm going to go Michael Champion, who's actually one of the guys who works with Jonathan Banks

in Maitland. and he's in like total recall. Oh, that guy. He's on V. Like, he was just like in everything in the 80s and was always like the slimy sidekick to the heavy. I think Rousseau. I don't, I can't name one other thing Rousseau's been in.

Oh, he's been a lot of things. No, no, I just can't name it off top of head. He was in my life. He was in a lot of stuff. Yeah. He was one episode though. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the thing about him is he's just like acting in a different era of Or like a different, like he's in a Michael Chimino movie, right? Yeah. He's, he's like a guy who didn't get cast in something and is like taking it out on Beverly Hills cop. So should we talk about Tandino and Axel? No, we're not ready. Stephen Elliott? Oh, yeah.

The chief? Oh, yeah. Who's like just like a TV actor to end all TV actors? Oh, he's about to come up here as we head to the Saul Rubinick. They knew a word for overacting. Oh. That guy downed up. The first time or the second time?

When he comes in in the first time. Either time. Pick a time. He's bad. The Dionne Waiters Award goes to Bronson Pinchot, who has two scenes and knocks him out of the park and it's fucking awesome. And then I'm getting a sitcom out of this.

It's the biggest Deon Wader's success story we've probably had. That's like Flip Murray's like 13 game run. And then he gets like a five-year deal. Well, you also, the brilliance of him in this movie is you don't know what he's playing. Only he knows, right? And so it's that, like so many, it's like a joke on the art world. maybe, like, we don't know his sexual orientation. We assume we do.

But, like, he could also just be, like, Middle Eastern, you know? We don't know. Weird Middle Eastern guy. All right, half-ass internet research. There's a big argument about who came up with this idea. Michael Eisner claimed he did it. I did a podcast with Michael Eisner when he told the whole story about how he came up with it. And the story he tells is that in 1975, he got a speeding ticket with a cop,

thought the guy was a little bit of a dick, came up with. but the germ of an idea to make a movie about a Hollywood police officer. God, why do people want... Don Simpson also worked from in 1977. He came up with a movie idea about a cop from East LA who transferred Beverly Hills.

Couldn't get the screenplay done. Can I just say it's not that hard to like... I know. It's hard to believe people are arguing about this. You know, I mean, if black people, if every time a black person had an idea about a screenplay

involving the police, I mean... Well, you know, I actually thought about the time that I had a run in with a police officer. But the amazing thing about it is that in the Eisner story, he's like, I got pulled over because I was driving a beater. I was driving an old car that wasn't nice.

And then that made me realize. I mean, this is what he said, that I need to get a Mercedes-Benz, which is the, that's the privileged thing of all privileged things I've ever heard in my life. Tough moment for Eisenhower. Not an ideal story.

But then obviously for the movie, which I don't think anybody planned on it being a black cop, ultimately to become a movie about a black cop is hilarious. It's like a high-level irony that this was meant to be a, What if Stallone pride of Italian Americans from Detroit came over to Beverly Hills and look at how he would stick out among the rest of the, you know, Prada wearing Beverly Hillsians? Ultimately, it becomes actually like a pretty salient commentary about something, though Michael Eisner never had any intention of that, nor I'm sure did Don Simpson. Right. No, it's by the research, he made flash dance.

It was a huge hit. And they're like, what's next, Don Simpson? He's like, it's time for Beverly Hills cop. But they argue about it until Don Simpson died about who came. up with that idea. We mentioned how they improvised most of the lines. Who plays the, who plays

Ross? Did you know? The police lieutenant, I'm getting the last name wrong. In Detroit. Oh, Gilbert Gill. Yeah. I really love that. He was an actual detective in Detroit, yeah. He really... I feel like he's been that guy in about five different movies. I mean, well, he was the, I don't

know if this is the first time we've seen this type, which is the black. You know, with the movies do, I mean, not to say that movies did this on purpose. I don't know. I don't know who cast him. I'm going to need your gun and your badge guy. Right. Right. But giving black people in a movie with no black people the most powerful job, just to say like, well, we did it and we gave them the most powerful job, even though they only have like 30 seconds of screen time. It's 48 hours. Right. Right. I think that

was the first one. Yeah. Yeah. But then it became a thing that kept happening. I think that guy is, I think he's excellent. He has only appeared in three movies. Sorry, Gilbert Hill, not How high do you think the theme to Beverly Hills cop got on the billboard U.S. charts? Number one. Number three. I was shocked by that. Yeah, I knew it was.

Coming up on the radio, it's the theme from Beverly Hills Cap. But Neutron Dance Heat is on and stirred up. All those are weird. New attitude is in this too. Did you know? Is it? Yeah. New attitude is in this.

Do you know in 2013? They were on the radio like that entire year. The guy who created the shield, Sean Ryan. Yeah. tried to do Beverly Hook's cop TV show that CBS did a pilot for and apparently it didn't work. Brandon T. Jackson was Axel Foley's son.

Apex mound. We covered Eddie. Lisa Ilbacher, 100,000 percent. What an apex. By apex, he means ballet, y'all. Can think of some other things that were at an apex. LA COPS. Oh, my God.

Come on. Fantasy. Wow. Blue. Unexpected. Maybe we needed him for the fatal attraction fun.

As Mallor was describing this kitchen thing. LA Cops. Possible Apex Madden and it kind of really turned for them. For L.A. Cops?

L.A. Cops? Yeah. What a podcast for you. Kind of turned. I guess that's true. It is downhill from here. You couldn't make this movie 10 years later like, hey, we're making a

latehearted comedy about L.A. Cops. It's like, no. three years later, it was colors. Yeah. Four years later, it was colors. That's my point. Munford High School, definitely.

Harold Faltermeyer, yes. And then... Kent cigarettes, for sure. Absolutely. The mansion, I don't know where it was, whose mansion it was, used in this movie in the Commando a year later. Same house. Incredible.

80s fact. Commando. Eddie Murphy and Commando, right? Just think about like the movie star of physics that happens. Like, you put it in, him in Cobra, Commando, raw deal. Cobra would have been tough to make funny.

Raw deal. I don't know if you guys have seen Raw deal. Raw deal, but if you, but it is an Eddie Murphy movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger doing all the Eddie Murphy stuff. I haven't seen that.

It's kind of amazing. It's an action movie. Yes, it is, it is an action movie, but like it has all these weird human touches that you need an actual human being to be able to do.

Yeah, he was exposed. And Arnold, he's got a like surprising gentleness to himself in this film of, of all the, the movies he made it at the peak of his stardom. This is the one where he's where he's like shockingly the softest.

What 80's movie do you wish Eddie was the star of is a fun game? Top Gun. Oh shit. Although, again, like, again, what, everything changes if Eddie Murphy's the star I've Top Gun. Yeah, he has that power for almost every movie though. Well, but, but like the properties he gives it, but also the way that you just, man, if you change nothing about Top Gun and just, any Murphyx.

And then you make James Rousseau as Iceman. Yeah. And they get to continue. Oh, yes. Eddie hit a point where he couldn't have been like Bud Fox in Wall Street. Like he had to be the giant star in every movie, you know. I don't know. I'd have to think about that.

It's a good question. But if he makes Sidney Poitier, Gordon Gecko, I think he would defer. He'd defer to Sidney Poitian in a way. The weapon? Yeah. Is he Merton or Ritz? I think he probably felt like he made that movie with 40 hours. That's what I mean.

He has to play Riggs. Yeah. Oh, could he have been in Die Hard? Sure. Yeah. I mean, Diehardt is an Eddie Murphy movie. Bruce was great then.

That's a fun one. It is an Eddie Murphy. He is no more an action star at that point than Eddie Murphy is. Right. I mean, Eddie Murphy is like, diehard is in a... All right,

let's pick some Nits. Mikey was a security guard in Beverly Hills who just ended up stealing a bunch of German bear bonds. Oh, he's a security guard at the warehouse. Right. Yeah. Well, we see that there's a bunch of...

Just took some, threw him in his jacket and thought nobody was going to notice. Right. I mean... Tough plan by Mikey. He came back to Detroit. I mean, like the idea that they would track him down for those to Detroit. I mean, I do not watch movies with the same, like, determination to, like, for logic that you do.

That's probably true. But every once in a while, like, you know your movie is bad if I'm thinking, why is this happening? Like, if why in this, why in this aspect of the plot, am I being forced to watch this? This is why I Ebert, Doc did I half star. that he tells Axel that 30 seconds into seeing him for the first time since getting out of prison. He's like, I gotta show you something.

You're a cop. Here's a bunch of stolen Deutschmarks. Wait, we talked about this a little bit when we did die hard, but Bear Bonds? Bonds still don't understand. What is going on with Barre Bonds? Sean, it's the inversion curve. Don't ask.

Can you, could you define what a bearer bond is? No. It sounds like something you get in Provincetown at the beginning of July. That's what it sounds like. Catch this in on Sunday night. That's what it sounds like to me. I needed Jen to be a little more upset that Mikey was dead.

Strange. Good point. Really strange. I thought I wanted Axel to be more upset. I always got the impression that both those people knew that Mikey would eventually end up that way. A lot of nuance to their relationship. This is a question just for Chris as a movie connoisseur of dumb action scenes. Is it that easy to bring guns?

in a strip joint. In 84? It was just really fluid. It was? Yeah. I wouldn't say that those guys did a very good job of being subtle. You know, there's all this credit that goes to Axel for identifying the two guys who were clearly had like...

And they walked in with long leather dusters. Don't rob a strip joint like that. Who walks into a strip club too and just stands there and is like... It's unclear what their plan was. Was it to rob everyone there or just the cash register? I don't know. That was... Any other nitpicks before we move on?

Oh, I had just, I don't think that Axel's car could have made the drive from Detroit to Los Angeles. It's a great call. That's a good one. I mean, it's funny because I didn't think about it until he was driving back. Yeah. I'm like, wait, they paid for your hotel room. You stole three, five, well, technically three weeks, but. And you're going to drive back.

They're not going to get you a plane ticket and a new car? It's got to take his crap. I wasn't going to try this nitpick, but I did spend some time wondering how much Jenny Summers made running the AR gallery because she has. nice clothes and that car is fucking nice. Are we sure Jenny wasn't a drug dealer? Are we a 100% short? Didn't you think she was going to be in on the plot?

Didn't you think she was going to make a heel turn? Yes. It was plausible. I was waiting. I would have been devastated. Best quote, take those bananas. Take those bananas.

Yes. David Wands. David Wands. Could this be remand as a 10 episode Netflix show? No. Two unanswerable questions. We'll do the easy one first. There's a couple more best quotes.

Can I just throw one in there? Yeah, give me a couple. Aside from this is not my locker. I like that one too. When he pulls up to the valley, he goes, can you put this in a good spot? Because all this shit happened the last time I parked here. That's funny.

I'm not going to love that one. Yeah. We didn't give him credit for how he sold when the super cop scene. Yeah, the super cop story. when the guys whatever, they're like, no, that's actually not what happened.

And he takes a beat and he's like, the Super Cop thing was working really well. I'm trying to point out. You guys just messed it up. Okay. Trying to figure you guys out, but I haven't yet.

That part. All right. Two unanswerable questions probably. Was Beverly Hills Cop 2 better than Beverly Hills Cop? It's a better. That's a better movie. It's a better. I think that.

I think Cop 2 is better. I was more fond of Cop 1 because of everything it meant, like for the Eddie Arc and all that stuff. and how cool it was. But Copt is just a flat-out good movie. It's a more fun movie. It's got good music in it. It's got a great director.

The Taggart-Rosewood thing is fucking great. Brigitte Nilsen. Yeah. It's got good stuff in it. It's got real good. And he's still great. It's time. Was Axel Foley gay?

Now, can I preface my response? Yes, I do think he's gay. Can I give you some of the evidence or do you want to just answer it? Well, I want to add, I want to return to something. order to talk about the homosexuality in this movie. Okay. And it's the fact that during this period, the other thing the reviews were really upset about

is how it made white people look. Mm-hmm. How, yes. Pauline Kale in her review called it, um, she didn't like it and what she really didn't like about it was the idea that you have, I'm paraphrasing, but I'm paraphrasing only.

She was upset that Eddie Murphy's, she didn't believe that Eddie Murphy was a star, or his stardom was offensive to her because he was using it in her opinion as a joke on white people and how dumb they were, or how dumb they could be made to look by having a smart black person around.

It was like a really interesting anti-minstrel, like a sort of pro-minstrel argument against an anti-minstrel work, right? Where Eddie Murphy's presence just by virtue of his being competent and not like attached to white person's strings automatically was an affront to the white people around her,

around him, sorry. And this was a criticism that a lot of people brought to the movie. And I was going to read this. LA Times published a bunch of letters in response to a piece, a guy wrote at the time in 80, in 85, actually, about, in response to her review,

but also sort of thinking about dumb entertainment. And there was a lot of, like, concern about, like, Eddie Murphy being a super nigger is the way some of the, some of the writers in response to this piece wrote in to, like, to characterize Eddie Murphy's swagger in this film. And so there is this, there's this weird, Eddie Murphy is going to replace our white comedians

with this black swagger, this sort of black confidence that we don't, we as movie goers, I see why people like this movie, but we should be worried that this could change everything for us having this black person being moved. That's such a weird way.

I was like the opposite. I was like, this is the greatest event ever happened. You were a kid. You weren't, I mean, you were raised on one, like, on like white entertainment, but you weren't a like, kale was what, 66,

when she wrote that. Right. 65. I mean, she was in, she was, she wasn't a racist, but she had,

every once in a while, she could sit there and be like, I can see why the people, like when people, when people cheer the sort of anti-racism in a, she's got a really interesting take on, on French connection, for instance,

like the way the black audiences respond to a movie like the French connection. She, it's just interesting. And she wasn't the only person. She just was merely the most important person. So Old Guard critics felt that way. And so I watched this movie aware of the way that people were nervous that Eddie Murphy was somebody that white people should be afraid of.

And I don't know what their problem is because I watch this movie, and it's to me a movie about a gay black man who works for the police department of Detroit. who's former best friend slash probably lover or like the hookup buddy or what, I don't know what, gets killed and goes on a mission to find him, find the killer of his best buddy. Now, I'm not saying that just because nobody has sex with a woman in a movie, you're gay.

I don't believe in that. That's stupid. That's just Thursday night for a lot of guys. But if you think about the way movies work, up to this point and who was having the sex in the movies. The idea that you'd have a nearly two-hour, like hour and 42-minute movie in which your protagonist who is on the verge of major movie stardom,

I know the movie was made, like he showed up in the movie after two weeks, like two weeks before it started, but the idea that you don't rewrite anything so that he and your girlfriend can have a moment together? Well, let's go through some of the evidence. first of all, she does. Jenny looks like she's just completely

enamored with him. She goes back to the hotel suite. Oh, my God. There's three-room suite and just immediately lies on the bed with the arm just batting her eyelashes. And all he wants to do is order room service for Taggart de Rosewood.

He just squats it away. The Mikey thing, it's really weird to watch. Like they're... It's hot with you. Weird to use. It's hot to me. Yes, no. there's a moment where they're at the bar.

It looks like they're starting making it out. What is, like, who says I love you first? Does Axel say it? I think Mikey does, but it's not like, it doesn't take a lot to get them. Like, they're both like, I love you, man. Even just the setup of the scene where Axel comes home from work, he's just been chewed out by Inspector Todd. And Mikey is in his home. Broken into it.

He's broken into his house. And he's like, oh, hey, can't believe you broke in. You're out of prison and you got my refrigerator open. He's elated. Yeah, he's happy. He's a late. If Chris goes to prison and then a year later comes out and he's in my fucking kitchen with the fridge open sitting there. Eating a mayo sandwich.

I'm not going to be like, hey man, let's make out. I'm going to be like, get the fuck out of my house. You felon? Yeah, no. I'm just saying. What else you got? I mean, there's gay characters sprinkled throughout that he's interacting with. The thing is, I don't think they obviously did this because we know how they.

made this movie, which was with a ton of cocaine by the seat of their pants. It's just this unintended consequence of Axifoli, the only time we even see him show any interest at all is when he goes to the strip joint, but you can imitate him imitate him at the strip joint. He's only just there to tell, and to tell Rosewood

like, give her a dollar, it'll drive her crazy or whatever. Yeah, he doesn't, he's not partaking in any of that. He's not even pretending. He's like, all the pretending he does is for plot purposes, not for character development purposes, right? Right? Like, he's not pretending to be anybody other than who he is.

You made the point earlier about how it was always about pairs. And even the movie is all about pairs. It's Rosewood and Tagger together. It's Paul Reiser and Eddie Murphy, and then it's Tandino and Axel. And then you've got Maitland and his henchmen. It's like men who have emotional energy and high stakes between them who are like, could be on the verge of kissing, like a hundred times in the movement. It's over and over again.

And at some point, it's like, at what point does the sub-stakes? text just become the text. And is Axel Gay is like a long term. That's like a Reddit board conspiracy theory thing that's been going on for years. I think it's like a lot of it is also driven. So there's the two competing forces of like Eddie Murphy playing around with ideas about sexuality throughout that part of the 80s. And then James Rousseau

definitely brings like a wild method actor energy into like a two minute part in a movie where he's just like that's like, I'm not saying like he was like giving like a Sean Penn level performance. But what he's doing is he's like, this is a guy got out of prison. He's so happy to see his friend.

He almost immediately starts crying. You know what I mean? Like the, a lot of emotion that he's playing with and like just like seems like a really reckless guy who's just bound to wind up and his life is going to end because like he just makes mistakes. And I think it actually has like this really powerful quality to it

in the beginning of the movie because you're like, this feels very real. It feels very real. And Eddie Murphy's response to that is not, He, he's drawn into this person. It's not like he's standing there watching a guy give a method performance. Eddie Murphy is acting with this guy. They're on the same page.

Yeah. They're connected. Right. And so it, it, it. Do you know how the original, the original ending in this movie us? Eddie goes back to his apartment in Detroit and he hangs up his jacket and he opens the door and it's, it's, it's, Mikey's shirt is hanging in the closet. And he sniffs it.

And then it ends. Oh my God. Well, Michael Richie, Martin Breast robbed of an Oscar. I guess that's what we're saying, right? I don't think this movie intended to do anything. I think it was an unintended consequence. But we're not talking about intent.

Like, we're talking about the movie we got. And those things are in this movie. So I didn't realize it was a whole Reddit conspiracy thing. Because I noticed it, I wrote about it in like 2010 in a mailbag. I mean, you might have inspired it. I don't know where it originally started. I just watched it. I was like, I noticed it with the judge.

Jenny Somers sing really jumped out of me that they didn't capitalize at all. Wesley's also right because there is almost without except, I cannot think of another action movie or genre movie from the 80s in which there isn't just, there isn't some nod to this person having a romantic life. The guy gets the dame and they, if they don't have sex,

at least they make out. Even in 48 hours, Nick Nolte's girlfriend is there to call him three times and be like, God damn it, Jack, you work too hard and then hang out the phone. That's it. And Eddie gets laid at that movie from Olivia Brown. It's his primary obsession in the entire film. He's like, I got to get wet. I got to get out of here. You know what I mean?

Like, I got to get my dick wet. That's all he talks about. Also, like, the presence of someone like your girl, Ilebocker, it's, she's not... I mean, that's smothering sexuality she had. But I don't mean this in, like, a rude way, but she's not like Joan Cusack. You know, she's not like a comedian, like character

actress. She's a beautiful I mean, the, blonde woman. The function that she would have in any other movie made during this period watch, watch stripes, yes. And it wouldn't be to like make the hero's straight, it would be for a straight person to have some place

to even like, even like in theory put his penis, right? It's not like what happens now where like, where women are basically used to keep you from thinking about how gay characters are. Was it as simple as it was a black white thing and because we know a golden show, the sex

thing got cut out. I'm totally, I'm totally, I'm totally, I'm just like they weren't ready to have any do that in a mainstream movie like this. And I think the reason that it became a little bit of a conspiracy theory or on Axel is because it was a similar thing that happened with Will Smith. In the early days of Will Smith's career, he did have some movies where he had Vivica A. Fox as the woman that he was trying to get back to. But for the most part, he didn't have as many

romantic leads as someone in his position, five, ten, fifty years earlier. But Will Smith didn't help himself when he didn't do the kissing scene in six degrees of separation. Well, I mean, but isn't that part of the thing that sort of keeps him makes, that keeps him with a girlfriend or married every subsequent movie after like he is always he is never without at least a like a dead spouse

right the memory of a partner that's how I answer but it is it's just such a crazy thing this like if the movies would just be normal and acknowledge that gay people actually exist like and have sex lives

I think the only instead of flicking at it like this isn't even a conversation worth having but like for a for the biggest movie of 1984 to also have this character who, and if you remember when he goes and gets like, takes the, what does Damon Wayans give him again?

A banana instead of the fruit plate. Right. So when Daniel Wayne- Again, that's text. That's not subtext. He gave him a banana. Right. To shove in a tailpipe. But when Damon Wands, after he gives them,

go on, go on, take him. What is Eddie Murphy is headed out the scene. But what does he do? he turns around and says thank you. Like, and not in like a, like, he is perfectly comfortable in his, in this space with this man and turns around and says, thank you. There's a connection between these two people. And there's a way, and I'm not, I'm just saying that there's so much in this movie that is so satisfyingly interesting in thinking about the way this person, like another aspect of this person's life is. And it isn't like so many movies where we can just say the person seems gay.

the movie is giving you the setup for the movie. The vacation he takes is out of this. It's out this relationship. All other action movies are about that. All other action movies are like, you killed my lover, my wife, whatever. I'm coming for you now. I can't believe I watched this movie for 26 years and never noticed it.

But you did notice it. Eventually when you wrote about it. Yeah, because of the Jenny Summers thing. And I was really just so confused. Because of your passion for her. How could a man not kiss her? Had it been Terry Garry? you would have been like, I get it.

I get why you skip. No, it's just Terry Garia. Oh, God. It just gave to the one line where he's like, where she makes some sort of hit on him a little bit joke. And he's like, you know we don't do that anymore or something that insinuates. Well, that just makes it worse. You think so? Yes.

Yeah, right. I mean, it's just, it's just fascinating. It's just fascinating because it does sort of make her character more interesting. It's also just. all of the stuff that we talked about at the beginning, which is that Eddie's got this complicated history with the concept of homophobia and the way that his comedy has a relationship to it

makes this even more fructive. It makes you think about it more than you would have it to be somebody else. But in the other thing for me with Eddie and his homophobia is, you know, like, but can you say what you're going to say? No, no, no, no. What do you mean? Listen, the bullies, the people who bullied me, you know where they are now? At the club?

They are at the club. All my greatest tormentors married. Up, up, gay married. Three kids with their husband? Listen, I'm just saying, you bully me, your sexuality will come for you.

That's all I'm saying. Just throwing that out there. Let's go back to driving in the car with Jerry Sondon, and how much fun that looks. Who do you guys think one in the movie? Al-Bacher. Yeah, definitely Al-Bacher.

Yeah. Is it Ronnie Cox? Don Simpson. Eddie Murphy wins his own birthday. Of course. Got to be Eddie. Good job by Ronnie Cox. I feel like we didn't give him enough love, though. He's good. He's good. Mogamil? Yeah.

But like Bogummo. He's a big thing in cop too. That's it. That's all I got. Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessee. It's incredible ending. The rewatchables. Thanks for listening, as always. Today's episode is brought to you by Hotel Tonight.

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