The Rewatchables - ‘Collateral’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan

Episode Date: August 6, 2019

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan hop in a cab with a contract killer to rewatch ‘Collateral,’ starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx and directed by Michael Mann. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. This week, we're debuting a brand new three-part podcast series with Quentin Tarantino and Amy Nicholson called Quentin Tarantino's feature presentation. Here's a quick trailer with more info. If you go to Quentin Tarantino's new Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, you're going to hear that feature presentation song. And when the movie starts, you're going to step in to Quentin Tarantino's brain. If you own a movie, you own a print of a film, it feels like it's your movie.

consequently it's like if people really like the movie and they go wow that movie was terrific you know my response was oh thank you very much it was like i took credit for it because well it was my print so and i put the whole thing together to show it so i actually felt like they were complimenting me this is quentin tarentino's feature presentation a new three-part podcast miniseries hosted by me film critic amy nicholson of unschooled and Halloween unmasked before the release of his new film once upon a time in hollywood quentin and I sat down to talk about five films that he's programmed at the new Beverly, and we wound up talking about his life, his work,

and how this movie Crazy Kid became a director who defined a generation. Waiting for the lights to go down, and no one knows what to expect. Is this going to be one of those special times? Is it not going to be one of those special times? It's going to be a forgettable time. The first episode of Quentin Tarantino's feature presentation is out later this week. It is the closest thing to sharing a bucket of popcorn with the man himself. So subscribe now wherever you hear podcasts.

Coming up, we're going to make the best of it. Improvise, adapt to the environment. Collateral. E-ching, all that. Me and Chris Ryan, coming up. Collateral. You just keep breathing. I got five stops to make.

You drive a cab. You might make it to the night. From director Michael Mann. He's already killed witnesses. He's coming to kill you. I'm not playing. Tom Cruise. I'm beat on.

Jimmy Fox. We're in this together. They're all breeded R. All right. Ryan is here. August 6th, 2004, a collateral came out. Fifteenth anniversary is this week. It was a big deal at the time. Michael Mann. 20-year anniversary of Miami Vice that year as well and had a lot of juice and a lot of sway. Tom Cruise was one of the biggest movie stars in the world. That has not changed. Incredible cruise period right here.

Yeah. And then Jamie Fox. This was a career year, the likes of which has been underrated. Historically. We're going to get to that too. excitement level for this movie from the moment it was announced to the moment it was filming to all the way up to the trailer and then the commercials. And it came out August 2004. I don't think there was a lot going on that week. Content-wise, I think we might have just lost the Olympics. Probably weren't even thinking about it in terms of content.

No, I definitely wasn't. You were like it's just a slow week. I was written three columns a week. And I think the Olympics, maybe it just happened. and there just was like a dead spot. It was like, oh, cool, collateral's coming out. I think my expectations drew so high. I was disappointed leaving the theater.

And it wasn't until a couple years later on cable that I got really truly sucked in and kind of understood the film and all the nuances of it. What was your reaction in the theater 2004? It's definitely changed a lot over the years, and especially since I moved to Los Angeles. It takes a whole new meaning once you live here,

both in terms of like how, resonant it is, but also where you're like, God, there is just no way the 105 is that clear. Which I don't want to make this entire podcast into the Californians, but they actually do a really good proto-Californians, Jada Pinkett and Jamie Fox, which is like, take LaBreya, then make a right on gray and go on six, then he's like, no way, it's a parking lot. I think that this was one of a few Michael Mann movies that unlike heat, which is just, it does exactly what you think it's going to do in a way that blows your top. hop off the first time you see it.

A lot of Michael Man movies take a couple of viewings to really sink in and you realize what's going on. And this is one of those. And I think that this is a slow burn movie. I think it's like really, really weird that this movie got made. It's so compact.

Almost didn't get made. Yeah. But it's such like a, it's like a subplot of another movie or something. You know, or an episode of a TV season. It doesn't feel like it should be a feature. but thank God it is, man.

It's just one of my favorites. So, like every 10 we do for the audience and then the 11th we do for us. It's the 10 for them. I like how the odds are shrinking now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This one's for us. We love Michael Mann.

It's no surprise to anyone who's heard this podcast before. His IMDB, it starts with the Jericho Mile in 1979, one of the great TV movies of all time. A top 10 sports movies still, 40 years later. I guarantee Craig hasn't seen it. I have not. Do you know the plot?

No. It's a guy in prison, lickety split, who turns out he's an unbelievable runner. And somebody sees him running and they decide to build a track in the prison to see if he can qualify for the Olympic trials. And it's fucking amazing. It's unbelievable that it's a TV movie. Goes from that to Thief with James Conn. Great movie. Creates Miami Vice.

Manhunter. The Keep, too, which is actually underrated. I forgot about the Keep. Man Hunter, helps create crime story. Last the Mohicans, 92. Are we ever going to do that? Yeah, we're doing that.

Because I have a really intense DBL imitation. Yeah, that was a thing, too. I will find you! You stay alive! That was a thing, and that was like the tail end of the MTVization of movies, and he did the best version of it. And that was the first time I think I had heard about his specific, like,

work methods. It's kind of unbelievable that he worked with D.DL. I think there was this huge thing in Premiere where it was like, they took everybody up to the mountains in North Carolina and he would just like make them hike up the mountain every day. And DDL is like actually living like as a colonial like soldier. Right, right. And it was just the way it looks. I mean, that's an unbelievable movie.

So he does Heat in 95, The Insider in 99 and Ali in 01, which was deeply personal for him, because he loved Ali. And Ali features one of the great Jamie Fox performances. Yeah. And that was the movie that we realized Jamie Fox was a good actor. They were like, wait a second. Bontini. Why is this guy the best actor in this movie?

I was supposed to be the Will Smith vehicle. He got nominated. So then three years pass until collateral. And at that point, he's on a real role and he's at the peak of his powers, top of his game. And he's got the biggest white movie star and the second biggest black movie star together in a movie. and the expectations were just sky high. And he ends up making this really nuanced, cool, inventive movie

that it wasn't even nominated for an Oscar. I think it would be now. I think if we did the 15 years later Oscars, I think it's nominated, right? Yeah. But in the moment, it was kind of like people really appreciated it. It did well. But I don't think it was banging.

I don't think people were like, oh, my God, you got to, like even the way it is with the Tarantino movie this week. Yeah, it's a complicated story. it's hard to follow all the Felix stuff. Tom Cruise plays a murderer and plays him pretty straight up. Like, I'm a bad person. And his white hair.

It's very uncrues-like. Jamie Fox, who's the hero, is essentially whimpering for three-quarters of the movie. So all the notes you would have gotten from a studio about, well, we either need to make one of these guys, Jamie Fox needs to be more heroic or Tom Cruise needs to be more likable and he used to be doing something out.

It's revenge for his family that killed or something like that. No, you can't have that. Not a Michael Man movie. It's all like what it is. And what makes him a genius is that he doesn't need to take those kinds of shortcuts to get the audience involved in his stories. So he experiments with digital video in this, which is why it looks so cool. And I don't, I got to, I'm not going to pretend I understand the difference between all

these different cameras and stuff. But this is a really big thing. I have a pretty good quote from Michael Mann about this. You want me just to read it? Yeah. So it's basically he said, When we did collateral, it was the first photo reel film shot digitally. You cannot capture night photochemically, meaning like with film.

Very shallow depth of field, very pretty diffused to focus lights exposure-wise. You can't get that crazy magenta sky that you have in L.A. And when the sodium vapor lights are bouncing off the marine layer, Michael Mann, that's about 1,200 feet at that time of the year. And the soft illumination of the magenta and the orange is very alienating, very attractive, and lonely at the same time. So that's what he was trying to, that feeling, that lonely feeling of Los Angeles, that light where you're like, I feel like I'm driving through a dream. And he felt like he could only capture that with these digital cameras. Yeah, there's planes constantly in this movie kind of sailing over, which is what LA's like.

He's such a nerd with this stuff that I think it's one of the reasons his movies are so great. Yeah. Like he, you can just picture him filming this and they're showing him like the digital video cut and the skyline or the lights or like hot. Hollywood's in the back. He's like, oh, yeah. He's an artist and a technician. Yeah, he's an artist and a technician. He, it's really interesting how he has always cared about look, even going back to Thief,

which, you know, is really almost entirely set at night. And it's just got this certain vibe to it. It's like, what's going on here? And then Manhunter is, you know, it's like this blown out Miami Vice episode, basically done a hundred times better. Yeah. But it's always, it's the look. the feel, he really cares about sound and noise and how to use noise and all these things that

you know, the great ones really give a shit about. When you think about people who are making, especially active filmmakers, like maybe like Catherine Bigelow or David Fincher or Michael Mann, the thing that you always hear about them is that they have it in their head. They know what they want. And Michael Man drives his team really hard. But they're like... Doesn't sound like it's fun to be on a Michael Man movie.

But everybody works for him is like, the thing is that you do it because you're working with somebody who has such a clear vision. It's not like he's trying to, it's not like Copeland out in the Philippines making Apocalypse now with his shirt off and be like, I need more helicopters. You know, it's like he actually knows what he wants this movie to look like. He knows why Vincent dresses the way he dresses. Vincent dresses a lot like Neil from heat. Like he has a look that he likes his guys to have. He has a look that he likes cities to have. He, Mark Ruffalo, we're going to get to, we're going to fucking spend some time talking about

Fanning. The scene when he discovers Ramon has gone through the window and then he calls SID, Mark Ruffalo said they did 80 or more takes of that and then went on to say, you begin to lose your shit. Yeah. Which is, so it's that Fincher style of, I'm just going to break you down physically and mentally. Cooper. Yeah. I don't personally agree with that.

style, but I guess there's got to be a method to the madness. So for Fincher, I know that he thinks that the more you do it, the more the actor loses the idea that they're acting, and then they're just doing. Because they're losing their mind. Yeah. And he drives people like Jake Gyllenhaal nuts on the set of Zodiac by doing that. Right. But the results sort of speak for themselves.

Who do we keep doing rewatchables about? Right. David Fincher and Michael Mann, you know? Well, I'm trying to think is there like a specific prototype for a Michael Man character? because you think about Neil and Heat and Vincent in this movie, James Conn and Thief. Sunny. The guy, Sonny Crockett, the guy in Manhunter, it's these guys who are mostly alone and they're being dominated by their work in some way. Yeah, and they are also the best at what they do.

The best of what they do, almost too smart to be doing the job they're doing, but this is what they're doing, obsessed with it, chasing something. and it always ends up with them and whoever they were chasing at the end and them finding some common ground. I would say that's the Michael Mayn recipe. Yes. Which is why Ali was such a different kind of movie for him. For sure. Yeah, Ali, it was more of a straightforward, you know,

it tells history in a very straightforward way. Although he definitely isolates Ali a lot in that movie. A lot of him trading, him running through the streets, him kind of like not and trying to get inside of Ali's head, which I think is one of the hardest things to do in the 20s. the 20th century. Yeah, and then also to imitate all that. Yeah.

And then Miami Vice even had that recipe a little bit. And then, you know, at some point, you end up with black hat. Sure. Yeah. You can go to the world one too many times. Yeah. He all said he's the Hamster brother. Yeah.

Now he's alone with his feelings. Chris Evansworth trying to hack into a CIA mainframe. So can I ask? I do want to say that outside of the man stuff, one thing that's become more and more apparent that I don't even know that I actually thought about that much the first dozen times I saw this movie or whatever. This is just a great road movie. It never stops moving.

It's basically like midnight run, except instead of going from New York to Chicago to Texas to California, they just go across Los Angeles. Right, which you can do because Los Angeles is gigantic. Yeah, and so, but the fact that this movie, you know, if I put a gun to your head before you rewatched it for this and said, what's the plot of collateral, aside from the fact that Vincent's a hitman

and he kidnaps a cab driver to drive him around Los Angeles to do it. But like all the Bardem stuff and the Ruffalo stuff and now we're in Korea town, like you have to watch the movie to even vaguely understand that. It's just a road movie. It's just two guys in a car talking.

And that's what makes it so rewatchable, you know? And that's also just seeing the scenery go by, you notice different things every time you watch it. Yeah, it's like the buddy cop movie. movie where the guys don't actually get along. Yeah. And it's a cat and mouse game. And it's funny, he's given interviews where he's like, the key of this movie is it's

the relationship between those two guys. That's what this movie is about. It's like, oh, yeah, I guess that is what it's about because they're in the cab together for long scenes driving around, feeling each other out. And that's why I have one of the key scenes in the movie is when after they come out that nightclub after the big shootout. Fox, Fox starts fucking with him a little bit. Cruz comes back.

Fox with him harder. You're never going to call that girl. I mean, Cruz says that's Fox, and then Fox finally takes control of his destiny and flips the cab. This one thing that he's cared about, he's meticulously taken care of. To the point of inertia. He's like too good at driving a cab to use it as a stepping stone to actually have a fleet of limos. Right. Yeah. So he flips the cab.

and that's the key scene in the movie, but it's all about the relationship of those two guys leading up to that moment. As they're taking all these weird bizarre sidebars where it's like a guy's falling out of the window in their cab. He's going to see the most powerful drug lord. They're going to multiple nightclubs. Yeah.

They go to a nightclub where Javier Bardem has... He's basically, I guess, rented it out. Yeah. He has every table if it was just 20 bodyguards. Yeah. we do you want to go to Navier let's go to that

nightclub and run out yeah and run out the entire room with the 20 bodyguards I would say

this is a all-time classic LA movie and what's interesting is they don't really use any of the parts of

LA that you would say oh they got to use that they got to go to Mulholland Hollywood Malibu Santa Monica

there's no PCH Beverly Hills all the all the all the all the All downtown, all like West Hollywood side streets.

And downtown, when downtown wasn't a thing. No, but that's where all the city offices are. So that's where that's where Jada would have been working. Like, that's where her prosecutor's office would be, presumably. Even when I saw, I had lived out here for two years when I saw this movie, almost two years. And all of it was said in this L.A. that I didn't really know. I lived, you know, at that point I'd just got and finished working for a Kimmel show.

I was on like the Hollywood side of things. but still trying to feel out. The thing is when you move to L.A., it's so gigantic, you're trapped to your navigation system for like a year and a half, two years, three years, and you just,

you don't know where anything begins and ends. You're like, Santa Monica is that way and Manhattan Beach is that way, and Malibu's that way, and then you go the other way, and it's, you know, now I'm going to San Bernardino and it just seems infinite. And that downtown L.A.,

I just didn't know anything about it. And so much of the movies down there and he made it look so cool, When did ESPN move into LA Live? That was like 2009, 2009 range. Downtown LA, nobody went down there. There was no reason to. They've built it up a little bit.

But he made it look like a real metropolis, which of that was pretty cool. He insisted on making this movie in LA, too. It was originally set in New York. And he moved it to LA. I'm sure this movie costs a ton of money, but I think that the flexibility of those camera setups allowed him to run and gun a little bit. Like the famous thing with the coyote is like he's just got this camera and they see coyotes and they can shoot the coyote. Yeah.

And then he's like, I'm going to spend all my money on audio slave. They're coming on. Yeah. Do you think you have to live in L.A. to appreciate this movie like 3% more? I think I think it definitely helps to be familiar with Los Angeles. And that line that he says about, you know, in the beginning where he's like the city of like disconnected people where nobody knows each other and the guy can ride the MTA and nobody would notice his body.

It helps to live in Los Angeles and realize like, I mean, I'll go like weeks here where I'll be like, all I did was get in my car, drive to work, get in my car, and drive home. You know, and maybe stop to. And this is pre-podcasts and for a lot of people pre-serious. Yeah. Well, pre-Ur. You know what I mean? Pre-everything.

So it was, I think that there is a degree of like alienation and isolation that happens here, which is like there's a lot of benefits too. but when you're in your car like this, it's not like the way it is in like New Jersey or the Midwest where it's like... It's like ships passing in the night. Yeah, and it's like, it's constant because there's no walking,

so you drive your car six blocks. So there's not a lot of like, oh, I bumped into this guy on the corner today or I stopped into a bar on my way home from work. It was a really intimidating city. And I remember when we were starting Greenland, it was hard to get people to move here. Yeah.

And a couple of the people that moved here just, we're kind of overwhelmed by it. Before Uber, it was like kind of... How do you get anywhere? How do I go have a couple drinks with my friends? How do I do this? How do I get a cab? It's overwhelming.

When my then girlfriend, now, wife and I moved here, I remember we were like, we were basically like, can you just not go out in the city? And we would have to like have like a taxi cab number. Yeah. And you'd call and they'd be like 30 minutes, you know? Right. And you're like, 30 minutes. I'm 10 minutes from home.

Or you'd have a friend that was in San Francisco. to Monaco, but you're in Echo Park, and that was it. But I think over the course of this decade, it's become way more of a community. Uber's really helped. And you feel more connected with people now. It's easy to joke or to make fun of the traffic. But I would say also in the last few years, because I think everybody is like, okay, now I can take an Uber.

And you got so many multi-car households, it is almost impossible to find the time of day or night where it's like, I'm just cruising LA. You just never are. You just are always in some kind of traffic. Yeah. You know, I'm the world's greatest driver who doesn't actually compete in NASCAR or anything like that. I think I'm the greatest civilian driver probably in the world.

And there's no reason for me to have a car that I could fly around here. Because what am I going to go, 54 on the 405? Yeah. I just can't. So it's like one of the great waste of talents that I just. Sure, no, it's, I can't use my gift. It's tough. And, you know, if I was in, North Dakota, I'd be fun.

Ford versus Ferrari, though. Ford versus Ferrari versus Sinitz. We're doing to rewatchables right away for that. So, so here's Jamie Fox. He has this whole background in Living Color. He has his own show. He's, I would say, huge with black audiences and with mainstream audiences, kind of like, oh, is that the guy from Living Color?

really, I think, resonate in the same way for a bunch of different reasons. Ali was a breakthrough for him. He plays Bundini Brown. And they shade the top of his head. He's, man, when he comes in. It's just,

he's really affecting. And he ends up, I think, getting nominated for an Oscar for that. Because we've, I think a lot of the times, and when we come across performances that we really love, we talk about,

like, what it's like when that actor first comes on screen in that role. And that moment How shocking this. Or just like, you're like, everything else just kind of faded away except for this person.

And in Ali, when the Sam Cook is playing and it's the training montage in the beginning and he's like peeling the orange while Ali is, or no, maybe that's Ron,

he runs over, but like, then Jamie Fox comes outside and he gives him that speech he's like, I'm Bundini Brown. And then he's just like, it's like,

what the hell is happening? The first 10 minutes of Ali might be, the best 10-minute stretch of just about any Michael Man movie except for something. Which is fucking saying something. Yeah, it really is. So after that, it was like, oh, well, maybe he's ready to become an A-List star. In the next three years, he basically does shade, and that's it. I don't even remember what Shade was. What was Shade?

Shade of Rom-com? Honestly, don't remember. It's a group of hustlers encounter the dean and pull off a successful sting that results in their pursuit by a vengeful gangster and features a, oh, he's barely in that. He had like a cameo. So this leads to 2004. One of the great years anybody's ever had. Yeah.

He's in Ray, which he wins an Oscar for the next February. And not for nothing, basically, like, runs the Oscars that night. He's in collateral and gets best supporting act. He's in two categories for acting. I'm not done. He hosts the 2004 Espies and he's in Chappelle Show. Yeah.

That's an all-time year. I would put that against any Will Smith here. Getting nominated in two categories is incredible. And by the end of this year, he is now an A-plus list star. And I think, I don't, I don't think he was in the chak roast. I think that was the year before

when he destroyed that comedian. I think that might have been 03. But by the end of this year, It was like Jamie Fox is one of the 12 biggest stars we have and just went to a whole other level. Now, I don't think he's fulfilled the promise of that year as an actor over the next 15 years. I actually think it's been disappointing.

I don't know how you feel about that. I just think he has different priorities than what maybe we think, like, an actor of his caliber should have. And so he's done stuff that seems like, you know, Django soloist, he's done stuff where he's tried to like stretch his stretch out and do some really good work. But he's also like really into music. And he's also really into making popcorn movies and being a big star and being on TV

and hosting game shows and stuff. So I think he's just like a polymath. Seems like he stopped taking chances movie West. He does in 06. I think he's just like a really, really, really good famous person. Like he's an incredible interview guest. He loves doing all this different stuff. He's been a dream BS podcast guest for ever.

You'd have to really go for it. 05 Jarhead, 06 Miami Vice, which we've already done on this. rewatchables podcast that we both love. 06 Dreamgirls 07 the kingdom and then all of a sudden it's just action and romcom after that

he's doing you know Valentine's Day and law-abiding citizen and due date and horrible bosses and he's doing voices and Rio 2

and so on and so on what about oh yeah I guess Django was a big chance for him and a big swing Yeah, that was really the other major swing that is bad. And he's got a movie coming out called Just Mercy, which is with Michael B. Jordan, which is directed by the guy who did this really awesome movie short term 12,

which seems like it could be a really good courtroom drama. So I'm trying to think what movie. I still think like it's like entirely like in the, like when Jamie Fox makes a movie, it's worth noting. Yeah, and I don't mean to sound critical. I just think the guy's really talented. And I wish, you know, I think when you look at it, somebody who gets on the level of like where Cruz was the last 30 years or Russell Crow for

the 12 year stretch or something where they're just carefully picking their movie roles and they're trying to put together a whole resume. It doesn't seem like he ever had that kind of mentality. Now we go to Cruz. Cruise at this point is still riding high. And more importantly, we still think he's a normal human being. We know there's some weirdness. We know about the Scientology stuff. And I think him and Nicole Kidman were getting divorced at this point. Eyes of White Shut was illuminating. We know he's not like normal.

Illuminating. But April 2005 is when he meets Katie Holmes. And the Oprah couch thing happens. And all of it were all kind of like, wait a second. Is Tom Cruise a weirdo? What's going on here? This was not the case in collateral in 2004. And it carried a lot of.

lot of weight in the moment when he's a bad guy with white hair. Yeah, so from 99 to 06, this is just a phenomenal run for him. With Magnolia, you know, Vanilla Sky is what it is. Minority Report, he starts working with Spielberg. He does Minority Report and War of the Worlds. Which I didn't love. And I, you know, this is unconfirmed suggestions that, like, something happened that made the two of them sort of part ways, whether it was Spielberg's, I have no idea what it was.

I mean, like, there's, but there are rumors about why, like, they just decided to stop working together. We also let you look at two Michigan Impossibles, too. And is, when's the, when does the video come out? Oh, the weird Scientology? Yeah, the scientist. It was all 05 was when it got weird for him. So it's like, around then is when Spielberg basically starts working with Tom Hanks instead of Tom Cruise. Yeah.

And, you know, it's just strange. It's like he has that last run, collateral war of the world's Mission Impossible three or three of my favorite movies he's made. he's so good in those. And he was like, man, this guy just might be like Tom Cruise forever. And then that's when he starts making weird random stuff like night and day and rock of ages and...

Rock of ages. You know, stuff like that. And he comes back a little bit with that tomorrow. And now he's back to a version of himself. It's tough to stay in A plus Lister. It's really hard to maintain it for more than eight to 10 years. And he maintained it for basically 20

before the wheels came off. And now he's back. was able to revive it. But I think this is a top five Cruz performance for me. Cluel? Oh, yeah. Because, A, went against tight, but in a way that made complete sense and didn't feel like desperate or overly intentional.

This character actually made a ton of sense for him. And he gets to do some Tom Cruise stuff that you and I love, both from an actual he's good at this, but also an unintentional. comedy standpoint. We get to see him run a bunch of times. Nothing's funnier than Tom Cruise running. The way he uses to pull the gun out and shoot people, the nightclub scene, he's like Jason born in that scene.

He's just, he, they did a lot of stuff. Can I step on half-ass internet research for a second? Yeah, do it. This is a Michael Mann quote about Tom Cruise in pre-production. We had him stalking various members of the crew for weeks. in secret, learning their habits, and then picking the moment, this person would be coming out of a gym at 7 a.m.

and feel somebody slap something on his back, and it would be Tom Cruise, who would just post it on their back. In our virtual world, that was a confirmed kill. So Tom Cruise, for the weeks of pre-pro, was just walking around, silently stalking people on the crew of collateral to develop his hitman instincts.

But this one for months, because at one point, what was he doing, FedEx? He was pretending to be a FedEx delivery guy, and he had his hair on and he had some sort of, so they wouldn't recognize him. And he spent months trying to figure out how to move around and not be discovered or seen by people where you can just kind of sneak around and be furtive.

I think there's two different kinds of, I mean, there's multiple kinds of Tom Cruise. There's Action Star Time Cruise. There's sort of... Underdog Time Cruise. Yeah. But there's... The ones where he is leaning into the disturbing parts of his likeability,

like that kind of like almost aggressive sociopathic side almost, where it's like Rain Man, obviously collateral, eyes wide, shut, I think a little bit with taps, you know. There's like he has this ability, this gear to get into. Magdalia, definitely. Yeah, Magnolia. And then there's even a role like color of money, which isn't, he's not like a bad guy in color of money,

but he is definitely playing a guy who Tom Cruise knows is not the smartest guy in the room. Whereas usually when he's in movies, a few good men, minority report, he's like, I have all the angles here. Well, the other thing he does is he strips down the charisma, the Tom Cruise charisma.

And even like the way, you know, in a few good men, which we've done on this podcast, when he's being like the loud sarcastic jokes and stuff like that. In this one he scales it really back and it's like his sarcasm is just kind of beaten down and under the radar and it's like a lot of little digs and you know they they died his hair white they put him in a really like mundane suit. What's it like he's wearing like gray and black basically. He's just blending in. Typical LA look. Yeah, typical LA look and really just seems in control and

he's a evil Tom Cruise. He's a shark. Yeah. He looks like a shark. It's a great job by him. It's one of my favorite cruises. I don't know where I would rank in the top five, but it's definitely top five. $65 million budget made $224 million worldwide.

I want to have the 15 years later Oscars discussion. Because this was a terrible movie year. This was the million dollar baby year. Oh, yeah. And this was, in the moment, it was like, this is a mistake. This movie's going to have no legs. It's fucking depressing. No one's ever going to be like, let's fire up a million dollars, baby.

Once they get to the end of this movie. Nobody's buying this on Blu-ray. We're never speaking of this movie again. So if we want to do this and we're in Clint Eastwood, Career Celebration Award, Hillary Swank, wow, you're amazing. The last 15 minutes of that movie are not good. Nobody will ever watch it more than two times. If we want to celebrate this, great.

So the best picture of that year is Million Dollar Baby won. The Aviator Finding Neverland, Ray, and Sideways were the other four. Now, those are real Oscar movies. Finding Neverland and Ray are weak choices. Yeah, but Ray was, his performance is great. That movie's not great.

He's great. He's the movie. Yeah. I wouldn't say that's a great. I wouldn't say that's an Oscar movie. When was the last time you watch Ray? I haven't seen Ray since. Yeah.

I would have said collateral should have made the top five if we're doing that again. Best director? Clint Eastwood wins. One take Clint. Scorsese for the Aviator. Yeah, not 80 take Clint. Alexander Payne for Sideways. Three good ones.

Taylor Hackford for Ray. I'm on the fence. Taylor Hackford should have won for Proof of Life. We've established that already. Right. We know his credentials. Mike Lee for Vera Drake, that was our number five. Mike Lee is, you know, great filmmaker. What was the plot of Vera Drake?

I think she's giving abortions, right? Is that true? Yeah, if I read it correctly. It starred, Emelda Staunton, Phil Davis, Daniel Mays, and Eddie Marsan. This is about a working class woman in London in 1950. It performs illegal abortions. Bang. I'm pretty sure collateral was probably better than that movie.

Best actor. Jamie Fox Ray, Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda, Johnny Depp finding Neverland, DeCaprio the Aviator, and Clint Eastwood Million Dollar Baby. I'm bumping Depp. I would have crews in there. I'm with you.

Yeah. Best supporting actor, Morgan Freeman won for Million Dollar Baby, which I forgot. That movie like basically swept. That movie swept the award. What happened? Alan Alder for the Aviator.

What was going on in America? that we were like, that's it. Yeah, that's the one. This is not going to spoil a million-dollar baby, but. Alan Aldo for the Aviator. Thomas Hayden Church for Sideways. He was great in that movie. Yeah.

Jamie Fox collateral, Clive Owen for Closer. No Ruffalo. What about Pete Berg? Pete Berg. We're going to get to him. And then best supporting actress, no Jada Pinkett, which I had forgotten.

Kate Blanchett won for the Aviator, Laura Linney for Kinsey, Virginia Madsen for Sideways, she's great in that movie. Sophie Okanito for Hotel Ronda, Rwanda. And then this is a class, Natalie Portman for Closer. Closer had two nominations. This is a wild year. The fuck is going on. I don't think I've watched like any of these movies other than Aviators since this year.

It's just a bad year. And for some reason, what's weird is there were a couple other really good movies that came out the year because before sunset came out that year. Oh, man. Boy, when does that happen? When are the link later is coming? That's going to, when you, me, or Sean either get separated or divorce, that's when we're going to do it. What are the money lines on that happening? Whatever year that is.

Oh, I'm always the favorite. You're the patriots of maybe getting divorced? The AFCI, East ads. I forgot to check what Roger Ebert said. About collateral? Yeah. I can probably find it real fast. We'll take a break.

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Download the Postmates app anything you need, anytime you need it. Postmate it. Download Postmates. save with code rewatchables. All right, we're back. We're going to do the categories in one second. Chris, what did Roger Ebert say about collateral? Three and a half out of four.

Raj! She's out of hot streak. What else they say? Anything great? Collateral is essentially a long conversation between a killer and a man who fears for his life. Man punctuates the conversation with what happens at each of the five stops where he uses detailed character roles

and convincing dialogue. by writer Stuart Beattie to create essentially more short films that could be freestanding. Oh, that's a good call. I like that short films thing. That is kind of what this is like. It's like five acts. All right. Categories, most rewatchable scene.

The first cab ride with Jada and Jamie and Groove Armada as they're cruising through the 105, which is miraculously empty. And going to downtown and. and he's right about how it went, and they're starting to flirt with each other. It's just fucking, that's a fucking great scene. It really captures the narcotic feeling that happens if you hit a patch of no traffic,

the perfect song comes on. Yeah. And L.A. looks beautiful. And you're with the right person. And you're with the right person, and you're just like, yeah, don't even talk. Let's just ride out to this. I don't really have a ton of feelings.

Usually happens with you when you got all eyes on me playing, you know? Oh, yeah. Me and Zoe are going to the right soccer tournament. It's 6.30 in the morning. She's asleep in the car after her next sandwich. I'm going 95 on the 60. I don't really have a lot of thoughts on Jada Pinkett as an actress, but I think she's unbelievable in this movie.

And that specific scene has to be the best scene of her career. She's incredibly sexy. She's powerful. She's intense. She's like totally locked in with Fox. and she's just awesome. So it almost made me think from that scene.

I was like, why should you have been a bigger deal or you are a big enough deal and I just don't appreciate it. Great job going from like, I'm not even pretend, like letting this character, I'm not even letting this cab driver

be a human being. Like, I'm just telling him what to do to like the grades of like, oh, and now this is a person and we're having a connection and we're like,

I know his name and we've had this experience together. And that groove of Armada song is one of my, 10 favorite songs from that decade. I love that song. And hearing that song always makes me think of that cab ride. The one flaw of this scene is he puts it on and she's like, I love this song.

And he goes, oh, you like the classics. And I just came out two years earlier. What the hell's going on? The next scene, Cruz gets dropped off. Hey, pull around the alley. Fox pulls in the alley. And then a body drops on the cab. And in the movie theater, first time you see.

when you don't know that that's coming, it's fucking terrifying. Yeah, you can tell when Max is like weird, like eating his hoagy. They're playing opera. And he's like paging through his S-Class brochure. Cleaning the dashboard. His cab is not going to stay clean. My favorite, the most rewatchable scene is everything that happens in between the first and the second kill.

Like from when the body falls out and Jamie gets all rattled and Tom Cruise is in the backseat to when like Ruffalo shows up. Well, what about, so Cruz comes out and it's really great how he's kind of, he's totally calm, but he's also kind of looking around. And he's surveying, like, did anyone see that? Did anyone see that? He's calculating all these things, almost like a robot. And then Foxizes his hands up. He was like, put your hands down.

Put your hands down. And he's just kind of like, all right, we got this. Yeah. And then all of a sudden they're pouring spring water in the cab. Help me lift the body in the truck. All this stuff about like, I didn't kill him. The fall did. Right.

The bullets helped. That's a really good scene. Not positive the cab recovers so quickly. Like in terms of, yeah, it seems like it would have almost caved the roof in, but we'll give Michael Mann that one. Yeah, you would think. The next one I have for rewatchable is the robbery scene when Fox is handcuffed to the steering wheel and the gangbangers show up.

And hey, homies, that's on my briefcase. Yeah. Cruz gets his stuff back. And that's when we learn Cruz with, two shots to the chest, third shot to the head, which is my move as well. The double-tapsed sternum head shot.

Yeah, I like to go two to the chest and then one high. Group the shots too. That's how I was trained. Yeah, right. Wet work. That scene's awesome. I got to say that,

can I just say that when that first kill happens and then like they're driving and Jamie Fox is so rattled and Tom Cruise is trying to get him to like get back on, and he's like, hey, Lady Macbeth, leave the seats.

The light is creed. He calls him. Lady Macbeth. It's amazing. We also forget to mention where he goes, Red Light, what does he say? Red Light, Max. Red light. To try to get him to calm down. And that's also, the parallel to that is they bring Ruffalo in, and he's doing the investigation, and Berg is all tired, and everybody there is like...

Save all that for later. Next rewatchable scene, they go to see Daniel in the Jazz Club. And he tells the Miles Davis story. July 22nd, 1964. Who do you think walks to that dough? Bye, baby. Miles Davis. That's right.

And the flesh. That's right. I'm talking about through those doors, the coolest man on the planet. Jesus. And Fox, who's been terrified and is being asked to drive around a hitman, he's had a dead body fall in his car.

He's got a dead body to his trunk and has realized about an hour earlier that this hitman is just going to be driving him around L.A. all night killing people, and he's probably going to get killed. it at the end. And he's like, come on, we get to this jazz club. And within 10 minutes, he's like, man, this Miles Davis story's great.

Can I have it killing water? He's just really a joke in the moment. It's one of the funniest parts of the movies. He's just really into it. And then what does Cruz say about the... What a great story. I got to tell the people in Kula Khan and got the hand of that story. And that guy's face just drops.

Great job by that guy. Barry Shabaka Henley. Yeah, and he plays Daniel. Also for Miami Vice. But I love that he's so into it. I love the look on the guy's face when it turns. I also love the part in the Miles story, which ends with Miles telling the two people,

get the fuck out of my face, you jab motherfucker, and take your silly bitch with you. And they're like, yes, Miles Davis, the king! And then I like when he shoots him and then holds his head up. Yeah, so it doesn't make a noise. I feel like there would have been way more. blood, but what do I know?

Next scene, the fever nightclub scene? The Koreatown Club, yeah. Would you put Bardem for the most rewatchable? I have Bardem. I, Korea Town, we'll put him in there. The Koreatown Nightclub is my most rewatchable scene, but Bardem on this last rewatch,

I was like, this guy is serving the heat. So it's funny to watch him after No Country for Old Men watching him as that guy, which was filmed the only, I think, two and a half years later. And he's just completely different. human being. You would, you probably wouldn't know

those were the same two guys unless you were like a pretty heavy movie buff. Like my wife would have no idea those were the same two guys. Right. And then also what he does with a nothing role in collateral. Did you read the research for this

where he spent months trying to figure out how to have an accent that sounds like somebody who originally had a Mexican accent but then had been in America and there was some sort of dialect that he tried to master.

It spent months trying to master this having an accent. Was Tom Cruise stalking him during this time? Cruz is putting post-its on his back. He's great. The command of the scene. And then Fox trying to seem cool and kind of eventually getting the hold of how to seem like a hitman

is both unrealistic, but it made it seem realistic. The fever nightclub scene is just incredible. And I'm just, spoiler alert, it's going to be my choice. Yeah. I'm amazed by that scene, how he shoots it. What's the story? He had 600 extras there for a 12-hour day, and they had to be screaming like the entire time.

All doing performing the same actions over and over again. Cruz has some great kills of that scene. He has some like where he had clearly practiced with like a stunt dummy for months, like how he would do like, I'll break his arm, I'll turn, I'll do this. Just going full cruise. Yeah. And it's really good. And then it ends with the shocker of Ruffalo,

who finally realizes Max isn't full of shit. And he's like, I'll get you out of here. And then Cruz just kills Ruffalo. It's like, out of nowhere. I remember when I, I mean, it's like, Ruffalo is not a big deal at this point, really, right? Has he done?

He's the up and comer. You can only count me already. He's like in the Glenn Powell stage of his career. Yeah. Yeah. And you see him and you're just like, this guy's amazing. He's going to take Cruz down.

It's like, go out. You're dumb. Cruz goes to Andy's office building, another rewatchable. How they film it with, he's on the other side looking up, the building. He can see her in one thing. See, oh, that's just really good. Suspensful. They cut the lights, darkness, sound, all stuff Michael Mann loves.

And then the very, very ending, the subway shooting and Cruz's. The MTA scene, yeah. And also not realizing he died or he was going to die right away as just a, as the viewer. Yeah. And going, wait, why is he, what's going on? And then it's like, oh, he's got a huge blood patch on his chest. And then he lives up to what he's.

And it's kind of a variation on heat a little bit with the way, you know, heat ends with those guys holding hands at the airport and the lane. Man loves that. The two foes who have now come to grips with one of them have one. The only other one I would consider putting it is when he flips the cab in that whole scene. Sure. I'm not quite there with that. I think that the most.

movie has a good ending, but the what leads, I think the first two-thirds of it are like far superior to the ending. I agree. But there's also a sort of like, how does this, how would you end a movie like this that doesn't, it's hard to imagine like how you would otherwise end it. It's funny, man's had some great endings and some terrible ones. Like, I love the Miami Vice ending. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's do another Miami Vice we watch. Would it be weird if we'd hit it again? Yeah. But this one kind of should have ended with just cruise dying on the subway. And then it goes on for another 100 seconds for no reason. Last Mohicans had a really good ending.

Oh, last Mujans is like the best ending. Heat could have ended 30 seconds earlier. I don't know if I needed like them holding hands and Pacino and like... Yeah, but you get the music. The L-A-X like lighting up like that. The hold of the hands I never got. It's not like when you get to the end of the heat, you're like, I need this to end faster. Pacino's like, you killed nine of my...

I'm not of my coworkers, but I've come to begrudging respect you. So, most rewatchable, we're going on fever nightclub? Oh, it's got to be, yeah, it's got to be fever. Do you want to go to fever nightclub sometime? I was asking, is that around? Is that a, is that a, is fever nightclub like part of the, the man galaxy of nightclubs? Craig's going to Google this. BJ's on Alvarado?

Bejays on Alvarado. Meet me at BJ's on Alvarado at 2am. Be there. We're doing another heat one. Maybe that's the hundred or three watchables. You be there. We're getting near the hundred or three watchables. So we would just do heat again?

Yeah. Just me and you. This time four hours. How do you feel about that, Greg? Sure, I mean, I've never seen that movie. Well, the first time we did heat. What? Yeah, no.

Is that bad? Oh, my God. Am I fired? Jesus Christ. It might be. We'll talk after. I may put you under review. What's age the best?

White-haired evil Tom Cruise. Yeah. White-haired evil Tom Cruise running. That's age the best. The two to the best. the stern and one to the headshot. Love it. Bar-Dam, we mentioned him. Fox being a cab driver instead of an Uber driver.

Has aged very nicely for some reason. Did you take a lot of cabs when you were in L.A. at this time? No, I really didn't. Unless I knew I was like going out and drinking. Pretty hard to find them. Yeah. Yeah. You had to have them in like your cell phone contacts and stuff. Yeah. But I feel like him having the cab computer thing in the front,

him having some, the dispatch checking in. If this is Uber, I don't feel like. like it works the same way. If he's just driving a Chevy Escalade, doesn't have the same kind of intimacy. Would you like water bottle, phone charger? Yeah.

He would have a clean Uber though. Yeah. The Jason Statham cameo at the top. Wow. Gets better every time. So I have a whole thing, and we could do this now. You think it's a transporter or no?

No. I just, I want to say right now, I don't think that the story itself would warrant a 10-hour Netflix series, right? Yeah. But there are so many little glimpses of other stuff that I would be like, if you guys just wanted to do the three episodes of collateral that are Vincent and Max.

But then give me a Jason Statham episode. Give me the Bardem episode and what's Bardem doing with his kids and Black Pedro or whatever? And then just what happens to Statham when he flies back to England? Give me the Pete Berg back story. Yeah, give me Pete Berg and him having lives disease. That's not a plot for him. Is that because he's always sleeping? Yeah, he's tired.

Chronic fatigue Pete Berg Chronic fatigue bird I'm with you Well we're stepping on the 10 episode Netflix series question But I would definitely This shouldn't have been a one Statham

I'm not that familiar with the transporter I only saw it once Do you feel like that was the character or no Or that was just Michael man fucking around And I think he just wanted to like have a cool British guy The coyote is a what's age the best for me Coyote's freak me out. I don't like coyotes.

They just walk around Los Angeles. Yeah, they walk around. And apparently I found out in the research of this movie, it's a bad omen. The Native Americans apparently believe if a coyote crosses in front of you when you're on a journey, whether you're on a car or a horse.

By the time the coyote shows up in collateral, he's already killed like three people. It was a bad omen for everybody. What else is the age the best for you? Just the look. The look, it still looks awesome. I think it's So when it happened, actually, when it came out, this in Miami Vice was really disorienting for audiences at the time.

We're like, this looks so weird. And now, 10 years later, 15 years later, you're like, oh, this is like a singular work. Nothing really, like, has captured this since then. This movie could come out right now and it wouldn't feel like it. And the performances are also understated and, like, within the rails. It's filmed in a way that seems 2019-ish, the whole thing.

Yeah. It's funny. I was watching boogie nights late last night. I don't know if you've seen it. Boogie nights? This is the first time I'd ever seen it.

This is just about dancing, right? Yeah, it's some dance movie. Except the fever nightclub. Let me tell you something. It was, actually. There was plenty of fever happening in that. It's making the rounds on cable, and I've been scouting it for the rewatchables.

Just scouting it. You know, like how a scout goes to the Phillies need a reliever, kind of going in different parks. I've just been kind of scouting it, wondering how the boogie nights thing would go, whether there's enough time. How long can a podcast be?

Would we need like five hours for boogie nights? For boogie nights? I mean, would PTA come in for like two hours of it and then leave? I just feel like me, you and Sean, like I'd have facial hair by the end of it. I was just watching the last 45 minutes and just Don Chito getting the donuts

and that whole scene, I feel like it would be a half hour. We probably would think we were doing fine, and then we would talk about Philip Seymour Hoffman for like an hour and a half. Donchito's just ordering donuts for like 75 seconds before everybody somehow shoots each other, and then he leaves with the back. All right, I agree with you. The look of it is age the best.

What's the age the worst? I think it drags between Miles Davis and the fever nightclub. I would have done some slight editing on that one. Okay. There's one specific part where it's like, you're kind of conditioned for the next one. It slows down on the hospital. I think going to the hospital is good for him being like,

you have to go into fever or I'm going back to the hospital to get your mother. Jada Pinkett's directions? Takes a pulvereta to Slosson to La Brea. Take La Brea north to Six into downtown. Just idiotic? Really? Because I thought Six was like the secret. That was like you take six to get east-west.

No? No way. It's all dead now anyway. Take the 105. Google 5 and no traffic. It's made it so that like every shortcut is now just a thoroughfare. Well, it's 6th Street definitely now is a nightmare. But I just didn't really understand her game plan.

It was a lot. The shortcut wasn't really a shortcut. It was basically she's doing a giant loop. Didn't agree with her. Did you agree with her about people driving to Pasadena going slowly? Yeah, I agree with that. Is that implication of that like it's all retirees or something? I agree with that.

Pete Berg. age the worst? Just a malin by him. I think this might have been one of the last times he acted. You think he mailed it in on a Michael Man set. It felt like a malin. It was like, what's his character?

Why did he say? Other than he just seemed tired. What was his motivation? It's the middle of the night. I love Pete Berg. I was just disappointed. I remember seeing him in the movie and being like, oh, cool, Pete Berg.

But did you think Pete Berg was going to be bringing like Al Pacino levels of thunder? Was he supposed to be? to be a dick. Was he like a hard worker? He's like, I'm home with my wife. Are you sure that this is a murder? Fine, I'll get out of bed.

Let's get these guys coming, like, going. All right. Give me three character traits of that character. Tired? Great. Good performance. Bedridden. And skeptical.

Whipped. Yeah. Ruffalo, let's go. So what do you want to talk about? You want to talk about the goatee? You want to talk about the hair slick back? The whole look. First of all.

The whole look. What is he doing? His goatee under age the worst, right? Because most guys don't have goatees. The goatee slick back hair combo is, has age just, if somebody came into work with that look, like if Shocker came in one day, he's like, hey, I have a new look. Here's my new look. None of us would know what to do.

Would you give him, like, I don't know. I would, I would just be like, do you, do you, do you, do you, do you, do you're here to investigate me? You know, after, after seeing fanning. I mean, this is, I think that this is just. like the lost Ruffalo because he's one of those guys who spent like all these years doing Marvel movies and stuff

and you just wonder like what amazing cop movies could Ruffalo have done? He I think is one of the most interesting IMDBs of the 21st century he would vacillate from these awesome really cool movies

whereas like if I was an actor I would have wanted to play a role like that to making some terrible rom-com or action movie. Yeah I mean like he because I think with like in the cut you can count on me and this like people were like Ruffalo's got a real edge to him. You left out one of my

favorites. Which is what? XXXY. Oh yeah. So it's like he... That's season 13 of the rewatcher. So we're going to be breaking that down. And he's making these edgy movies and that it's kind of like he he kind of softened up a little bit. But that's okay. You know, everybody has to make a check.

Yeah. Wait, but let's like, I want to talk a little bit about this. Like would you watch, would you watch a a Berg and Ruffalo cop movie? I need more from Berg. Okay.

Would you watch the Ruffalo fanning driving around L.A.? Burke seemed like he just got an out of like a 16-hour Friday night lights editing session and been like, shit, I can't cancel on Michael Mann. I'm just gonna get this stuff. I have to do 90 takes of picking up the phone in bed.

It's like this Michael Mann guy. Jesus Christ. The improbability of the Fox Bardem scene, I think, is a weak link with this movie. because Fox, who should be way more terrified being in a room with the most powerful drug lord probably in the West Coast

and 20 hitman, including the guy right behind him with a gun, and he's pretending to be Vincent, and this could go wrong 90 ways. And within three minutes is just playing it perfectly. Just playing the chessboard, moving all the right pieces. It's like, this guy was terrified a half hour ago? What's going on?

So that would be a loophole for me. Anything else age the worst for you? No, it was mostly roughly. Ruffalo's facial hair. And maybe, have you ever had a go tea, Craig? No. Have you ever had a goatee?

Oh, yeah. I've had every bad facial hair gimmick you can do. What are you talking about? People get bored with their face. I want when they do the, for Twitter, when they do the poster with us in it for rewatchables, I want them to give you the Ruffalo hair and face thing.

That's not surprising that you want that. No, it would be great. You would want that? Sure. casting what ifs. A lot of them for this one. Amazing. It was a DreamWorks for three years, nothing happening.

Mimi Leader. Is that how you say it? Mimi Letter, yeah. Mimi Letter. Initially attached to direct. Passed on to Janusz Kaminsky. Dad at my school. Yeah.

Daughter in the same grade as my daughter. He didn't want to do it. The most famous cinematographer probably of all time. Russell Crow becomes interested in playing Vincent. Project starts getting some heat. He brings man on. Brings man on. He's about to do it, but he's preparing for eucalyptus with Nicole Kidman.

Did that movie ever come out? Isn't that what Australia wound up being? Was that what they changed? Is that what they changed it? I think. Hugh Jackman? I don't know. So you think Russell Crow is the hitman?

Yeah, Russell Crow was going to play Vincent. Yeah. Fuck yeah. I love Cruz, but man. Russell Crow is a hitman? I think Cruz is perfect in this movie. Russell Crow would have been different. Yeah, but it's great.

Better different or just different? Well, I mean, he'd have to get the proof of life body going. If 04, it's still conceivable. 19, not conceivable. No. But I think he would have been really good in this movie. Before Mann was hired, they went to Spike Lee, Scorsese, and Spielberg.

Scorsese and Lee both showed interest before passing. Spike Lee's version of collateral, I think, would have to be sent in New York. And they didn't Stewart, I think he worked with this writer or I think this guy wrote inside man, didn't he? maybe I don't know that part so man went to Tom Cruise the idea was Cruz as the hitman Adam Sandler is the cabby did see that one yeah I did

what do you think about that I think it's a different movie I did not write inside man sorry I think it's funnier well it depends on if Sandler's trying to do one of his like this is a real movie right like I don't know if I could ever have gotten out of my head that that's Sandler

that would have been a tough tough leap leap of fear for me I don't think that works I don't know if this is true or not but Edward Norton was apparently offered both lead roles Colin Farrell But I have to re-edit the entire movie

Colin Farrow was offered the role of Vincent According to Cuba Gooding Jr. He met with Michael Mann about playing the role of Max Man turned Goodyn down because they had already done Jerry McGuire together Henry and Chris Val Kilmer As Vincent?

No As Max? No As Felix? as Detective Fanning. Holy shit. Are you serious? Pulled out right before filming due to schedule conflicts with Alexander.

Wow. Thanks a lot. Mark Ruffalo took the role. Yeah. We could have had Kilmer. It's a tough blow. That also would have been like a little too much like this is just the heat band getting back together a little bit, right? I think with that role of Al Kilmer is really going to be like, I'm going to explore the studio space here.

I'm going to make some choices. I'm making some hair, facial hair choices. I'm making some... He has like the full D'Artagnan from Tombstone. Imagine him in the scene after Ramon goes out the window and he's making the call, doing 80 takes. Yeah, he's depressed. Off the rails.

And then Dennis Farina was originally the Bruce McGill part. Oh, that's cool. I like how man has his dude. Oh, yeah. He will go back to his crew. Yeah. Best that guy, aka the Joey Pants Award.

I have a gill for this. I think he's Bruce McGill, though. Yeah? I think it's very sure. Maybe gets his own category? We give it the Bruce McGill Award instead of the Joey Pants Award. I'm happy to flip that. Bruce McGill is that guy.

But he also plays the same guy about a lot of them. We should do a rewatchable. We'll do a rewatchable poll in the Twitter account that we have for rewatchables. Should it be the Bruce McGill Award or the Joey Pants Award? Craig, write that down. You got to watch Heat and put up a Bruce McGillipoll. I have Barry Shabaca Henley.

Yeah. I'll go with that. I'll go with that. Because I never can remember his name. Because this movie has a lot of people that are pretty famous now. Like Statham, is that a Joey? That's not really a Joey Pants thing.

No. Michael Man, like Barry Shabaca Henley is... In a lot of those, yeah. He's a Michael Man cast member. He's like Eugene Levy for Christopher guess. The Saul Rubinick, they knew award for for overacting. What do you think?

I wasn't really feeling. I think Ruffalo's facial hair could be the Saul Rubeneck Award winner. He's a great performance, but I think his facial hair is in a different movie. I would say that there are... There's a case to be made that crews in the Jazz Club is actually overacting when he's talking about the notes behind the notes. Yeah, you've sold me.

That's good. Picking Nets? I wanted to do a new category. The Pete Berg Award for underacting. It goes to Pete Berg. The Ambien Award for the Sleepiest Actor. Oh, man. If that tick had it bit me in 2002, I'd be able to get to that crime scene.

Dion Waiter's Award. Best heat check. I think Jada Pinkett's in this movie just a tiny bit too much. Barry Shabaka Henley's in there, but I think the winner's Javier Bardem. If I am being Santa Claus and you are Pedro,

how do you think jolly old Santa Claus with Phil? If one day Pedro came into his office and said, I lost the list. How fucking furious do you think he would get? One scene. One scene. It's fucking.

Like, one scene and I wanted 20. If you do one scene but you get a monologue, you win Dionne Winters. Oh, yeah. So if he's just like, my kids believe in him. You know, like, and it's just like, oh shit, here comes a monologue. If you do one scene and I wanted 22 more, but you have to live with just the one, you win the award automatically. Half-ass internet research. This was written by an Australian writer, Stuart Beattie, when he was 17 years old, took a cab home from Sydney Airport and had the idea of a homesteader.

sitting in the back of a cab with the driver, nonchalant, conversing with them. And then it just went a million different ways from there. Here's just another nerdy Michael Mann, quote. I think you did most of this. Did you do the whole movie? He wanted it to seem like the whole movie took place in northern Europe someplace. He's talking about the magenta lights, the soft illumination of magenta and orange. Okay.

Yeah. We did it. lot of this stuff already. Oh, this is another weird Michael Man thing. He writes documents on the background of Vincent and Max, and most of the stuff doesn't end up in the movie, but he wants to sketch them as complete characters for the actors. So that they, if they're ever like, so what did this guy do in the 1990s? He's like, I have that.

This shit should be online. Yeah. Seriously. I want to read the Max document that Michael Man prepared. See how aligns with your own personal history? He played Division II college basketball, but hurt his knee. Like, what does he put there? How many people

Does Vincent Kill in this movie? 16? 16. I can't believe I got that. It makes me sound crazy. Apex Mountain. I don't think it really is anyone, honestly, for this movie, except maybe Ruffalo's goatee.

Because Ruffalo's goatee could have done so many different things from there and instead he shaved it off. It can't be Fox because Ray comes out after. It's definitely not Cruz. It's not Michael Mann. Right. It's not Pete Berg. It's not Ruffalo. It's definitely 100% not Pete Berg. It's not Bardem. No.

Is it... It's not Jada. Pre-L.A. Live Los Angeles? Ooh. The 105? The 105. The 105. Apex Mountain for the 105. It's never been that clear before. Cabs?

Is taxi driver the... Fever Nightclub? Is taxi driver the Apex Mountain of Cabs? Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah, not a lot of Apex Mountains, but everybody at the top of their game. So congratulations to them.

Pickin' Nits. I mentioned would Fox's cab be drivable after the body lands on it? My take would be no. That was like four floors. I think he would have cave the roof in. I think it would definitely be weird to see it driving around after.

Did Fox asking Jada, you like the classics? And then I have... I know a man likes to have these complicated people who have, you know, Neil and he, he's a bank robber, but he also has all these other hobbies. Vincent, the guy who knows everything there is to know about jazz, but he's also a serial killer, man. Would Vincent really know everything about jazz?

He would know the history of Miles Davis, just be able to rattle it off. Well, they say, they have that whole thing where he's like, what if he had gotten the question wrong? I imagine that he had prepared for that moment knowing who he was going to see. And also, Vincent, you've got a lot of time on planes. Maybe you can read biographies. What are you reading about medals? Why he's so interested in what I'm reading, lady.

Why are you so interested in what I'm reading? I got a nitpick. Yeah, let's hear it. It looks like the second kill, when he kills the guys for stealing the briefcase. Yeah. It looks like it happens in between Fountain and Santa Monica and West Hollywood. Because I think the view of the guys who are like walking by

and he's honking. He happens to honk at the four methed-out white power guys to come down there. I just don't think you could really double-tap, kill two people off of Santa Monica without it causing a bit of a stir. And they seem to be able to just cruise away really easily. There's also some late-night train station stuff. Like just nobody works at the train station? Yeah. Nobody? There's no workers.

It's just completely empty. Except for the trade's going. There's also like a lot, you could get into a lot of like, how accurate would Max have been with his 12 minutes. It's going to take us 12 minutes to get over there.

You know, it's like, eh, a lot of stuff can happen on L.A. Also, there's two, there's two bridges used in this scene over the highways.

Yeah. I don't know anybody in my life who's walked across a bridge over a highway in L.A. I don't know if you have. Yeah, no, no.

I've never seen, I've never been driving on a highway and seen a person walk from the bridge. The only time bridges are ever, like, or Terminator 2 or like, you know, or in movies. Best quote.

Now, we got to make the best of it. Improvise. Adapt to the environment. Darwin. Shit happens. E. Ching. Whatever, man. We got to roll with it.

I would say that's, I don't think this is a quotes movie, but that was probably the best one. I like, don't get me cornered. You don't have the trunk space. That's a good one. And did you join Amnesty International? Oxfam, Save the Whales, Greenpeace or something? No. I off one fat Angelino.

you throw a hissy fit. Then there's a, yeah, there's like a whole great thing. I should have put that in one stage the best. I like that part. Have you ever heard of Rwanda? Yes, I know Rwanda. Tens of thousands kill before sundown. Nobody's killed people that fast since Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Did you bat an IMAX? I like the whole thing. Someday, someday my dream will come. One night you will wake up and discover it never happened. It's all turned around on you. It never will. Suddenly you are old. Didn't happen and it never will because you were never going to do it anyway.

You'll push it into memory and then zone out. on your Barkle Loungeer being hypnotized by daytime TV for the rest of your life. Like Pete Berg. Yeah. Yeah, that's a theme, I guess. The underlying theme of this movie is Fox needed a jolt to fucking get his shit together

and actually start the limoble. And this idea that Fox is like overplanning everything and cruises this improviser. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? Absolutely. That told you. Yeah, I would sign up for this. Right now.

All about Felix and the investigation into him, sure. The witnesses, all that stuff. Probably unanswerable questions. Did Javier Bardem's character go to trial? All the witnesses are now dead. Jada Pinkett has survived, but the four witnesses are dead. Presumably, Max is like, here's what was happening, right? It sounds like a mistrial than a new trial.

Yeah. And what was he going to trial for, you think? Being a drug distributor. So why are their witnesses? I think they're witnesses to the process of how the drugs came into a country and how they were distributed through L.A. So if one of the key witnesses is the guy in the fever nightclub, why is that guy at a nightclub and not in witness protection? That's a great question. Not a lot of witness security going on. I was like, hey, man, big shot tomorrow.

Anyone want to go to the fever nightclub? No way I can get shot in a place of a thousand people. Another unanswerable question. Is this movie better or worse if Fox and Cruise switch roles? I think it's worse, but I am not averse. I would love to see the version of it that had that. It's also a movie that I would be totally open to being remade. I would be fine if they wanted to do something with like,

Gosling is the hitman, Michael B. Jordan as the driver. I guarantee Gosling has watched this movie 20 times and it's just furious that he didn't get to play Vincent. Another in answerable question, why name the guy Vincent when Vincent was in heat. And also Vincent was his character in color of money. And he wears a T-shirt that says Vincent.

What is Michael Mann's fascination with Vincent? I don't know. As a name. Do you think he has a dog named Vincent? Or is he just like, the guy's name is Vincent? And they're like, but, and he's just like, his name is Vincent. Yeah.

I don't want to hear anything else. Anything else for an answer ball? No. Who won the movie? I'm going to go cruise. One of my favorite cruise performances, but I think you can make the argument for man. Interesting.

So if we were doing this hockey style, where they announced third star, first star, second star, third star. Yeah. So Fox is three for you. Three. Yeah. Fox is really good in this movie.

Who do you think won? I think Cruz won. Okay. Because he also wins because this is kind of the end of the Tom Cruise era. It morphs in something else the following year. This is the end of a run that starts with Top Gun, which was just did in the rewatchable. in 1986

and runs through to 04 pretty unimpeded. He has a little hiccup when he's filming an eyes wed shut for an extra two years than you probably expected. Right. But for the most part

is just one of the great 22-year runs anyone or 18-year runs anyone's at. That's amazing. That 18-year runs up there. Yeah. And then it flips.

And now he's back and we're never going to get rid of him. All right. So we had everything. Yeah. Chris Ryan, producer Craig. We got Last of the Mohicans is the next man movie we do. Is that it?

No, we're doing heat again. Oh yeah, that's right. We're doing heat again. And Miami Vice again. We have some good stuff coming up this month, actually. So see you soon. I mean we watch this.