The Rewatchables - ‘Dangerous Minds’ With Bill Simmons, Shea Serrano, and Van Lathan

Episode Date: September 3, 2020

Bill Simmons, Shea Serrano, and Van Lathan try to figure out who Mr. Tambourine Man is after rewatching ‘Dangerous Minds,’ starring Michelle Pfeiffer, George Dzundza, and Renoly Santiago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Their original logger is made with natural ingredients with pure malt and their famous A yeast, which makes Heineken in all season, all the time kind of beer, pick up a pack or have it delivered this Labor Day weekend and drink responsibly. Coming up. How are you going to save me from my life, Shea Serrano and Van Lathen? Dangerous Mines is coming up next. She's got to fight against the system.

Once a Marine, always a Marine. Rage against injustice. Gotta be crazy to teach these program classes. What do you say? I'm crazy. And rise above the hate. You promise. You're a Marine, you understand.

There are no victims in this classroom. That is a choice. You got to rage against the dying of the light. Dangerous minds, rated R. Starts Friday, August 11th. All right, got Van Lathen here. You can hear him on Higher Learning on the Ringer podcast network as well as the wire

way down in the hole, which is deep into season three. Yeah. The most entertaining wire season. I don't know if it's the best. Most entertained wire season. It's my favorite. Put it that way. Shea Serrano,

host of a relatively recent new podcast called The Connect with Jason Concepcion. Yeah, baby. We have talked about this movie, Shay and I, a lot, because we both love this movie. A ton. We love Amelia. We have a lot of Amelia thoughts. Those will be all coming up later. I have not talked about the Van as much.

I just want to warn Van. If he comes in too hot, making fun of this movie, She's going to try to fight him through the Zoom. I'm already mad. She's figured out, he was Googling last night. How do I punch somebody in a face through a Zoom? So just keep that in mind. I want to talk about this is a classic white savior complex movie,

which is something that I grew up with. My favorite show ever was the White Shadow, which Vance still won't watch. I haven't seen a shit. I'm getting around to it, though. Well, just watch it and then you'll understand. Different Strokes was another one on the TV side, where the Jackson brothers

ended up getting adopted by Mr. Drummond, the whole thing. And then this started to trickle into movies. There's been a lot of them. Like the blindside, Sandra Bullock won an Oscar. Freedom writers, hardball, wildcats. Yeah. This movie. Van Wood is the last samurai?

There's a lot of movies that are doing the same thing. You're like, the samurai I've been doing this for thousands of years or whatever. White boy come over there. summer, dopest samurai in all of Japan. Don't think it makes a ton of sense. Just to be honest with you. Shea, why does Hollywood keep making white savior complex movies? Because my theory is they're just afraid to completely go into those worlds unless there

is a buffer of some sort of white character because they just feel like the movie's not going to work at all. What do you think? I think the real answer is because white people are still in charge and they get to make those decisions. But I think, like, the fun answer is that it's just. just entertaining to watch a white person save some non-white people. It just makes you feel good. Like, oh, he's Kevin Costner, save them little Mexicans in McFarland, you know, way to go.

You know what I'm saying? Like, that's what that's, that's, that's all that it is. It like touches something in your heart. Well, they, they, I mean, there's been movies with minority leads in this role, right? Like, Coach Carter, uh, stand and deliver. So, it's, yeah, lean on me. It's not, it's not like this is exclusive. But, you know, in this movie, it's so obviously like a way-knup movie because the real story about Luann Johnson, the teacher that this is based on, and she's in her school teaching the kids, you know, the lyrics of rap songs as a way to get through with them. And in the movie, it becomes Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas.

Van, why do you think they were so afraid to tell the real story in 1995? Because there's a certain belief in America that, oh, who? whiteness is the cure for all else. You know what I mean? That like you have a bunch of, it's almost even when she walks into the classroom at first, that looks like the jungle. It looks uncivilized.

They are doing almost like they're rapping, right? There's a cipher going on. So there's almost something tribal happening. And then there's chaos in the back. And there's all of this. And she walks in with this pristine look. She has a service record, right? She has all of these things that sort of make her pure.

And that's what these kids are missing. She even tells her, that's what these kids are missing. They're missing that component. So when you have it like that and those messages are so strong, you can't silly it up with any old old hippity hop because that's giving them what they already have. They were rapping when they got in there. So how would rap save them if they were rapping when you got in there?

So she comes in there, she gives them Bob Dylan and the tambourine, man. Something's all about drugs and stuff like that. Same shit, really different place. And that's going to save them. That's kind of something. It lasted. I think there was one movie that actually killed this archetype,

and I'm glad the movie was made. We'll talk about it later. But it lasted for a while to me. What was the movie? I want to hear now. 187 with Samuel Jackson. I think that movie... Excellent movie.

I think that movie killed this because, number one, no one got saved in that movie. Actually, that one of the girls in dangerous minds comes back in that movie. I like to think that she transferred schools and then she went over and then like... It's playing the same character.

Right. But no, he comes. comes in and there's so much chaos in the school system, the takeaway from that movie is nobody can fix this. Like, he literally gave his life from it. And really, I think Freedom Writers, Freedom Writers comes after this. But after that movie, they really kind of stopped trying this. Because Sam and them went too, he got stabbed by Method man within the first 60 seconds of the movie. You know what I'm saying? So, like, I think that people kind of got over this whole thing. Although dangerous minds to me, it was the pinnacle, the crowning

achievement of this type of cinema. Shea, this movie might have the most Latin characters in one mainstream American movie of the last 25 years. Is that possible? Yeah, I don't know that that's 100% true, but I was very excited to rewatch that. That I was going to get to see my guys, Emilio and Raoul again.

I was like, I was very, very pumped about that. What a rivalry. The Emilio Raoul rivalry. You know, hear about bird magic, you know, some Tupac Biggie, some of the other ones. a Billy Ravel never really gets in there. But I really like the kids in this movie. I was trying to think like this is obviously a really flawed movie that has a lot of issues.

I still love it. I think it's super rewatchable. And I was trying to think like, all right, what are the reasons I love this movie? The first one is Michelle Pfeiffer, who we'll talk about in a second. But one of my all-time, all-time favorites. The Culeo song, starting it is so good. They just say, fuck it. we're bringing it back.

We're running it back a second time at the 70-minute mark. And then the third reason for me is the kids. I just really like these kids. I think they did a good job for the most part in a one-hour and 40-minute movie, whatever it is. I felt like I was attached to like five or six of the kids. Van, you'd never, you probably hadn't seen this in a million years.

How did you feel re-watching it? That was the best part of it, for sure. The best part of it was the fact that, like, if I had to be Team Emilio or Team Raul, I'm all the way team Raul. Raul, like all the way team Raul. That's one for the good column. Right.

Like, Raul, first of all, I feel like the, I know we're going to talk about scenes we love later, but the one brilliant scene in this movie, to me, is the conundrum of Raul's date with her. Because you get something good in your life, and the only way to experience it is by doing something bad. And he felt so human right there that like I can't tell you how many guys I know that were in that position. Fam, I was just trying to get a little extra money to go to the prom.

Fam, I was just trying to do this. And he's all fucked up and I connected with the character right there. So yeah, all the characters, I don't know, you know, I connected with Raoul the most and that was the saving grace of the movie to me. Yeah, he's the best part of it. He makes it feel the most alive.

And he does this really neat trick in it where when you go back and you rewatch it again, the way that he just stares at you at any character who's talking to him so intently. And he's like studying the situation. Like in the restaurant scene, you could tell this is a completely foreign environment to him. And he's just studying all of it, all at once,

sort of computing what to do or what to say. It's really like a sneaky thing that he does. Shea, you taught eighth grade, right? What's your favorite? what's your favorite high schools or earlier movie that you identify with the most? Is it this one or is it something else? It's definitely this one.

This was the one. This one grabs a hold of you when you're a kid. I watched it when I was a teenager and it was one of those like, oh, that seems like a good job to have. An important job to have is to be a teacher. This is a movie that does that. You know, it's interesting. I was reading some, because every time there's an anniversary, people are right about whatever movie it is, right? And we get some good research out of that for this podcast.

So there's a 20th anniversary of this. And a big theme of a couple of the pieces was like, this was not a well-reviewed movie. It was a surprise smash hit. But I think what they realized eventually is the legacy of this movie is it really made people appreciate the school system, teachers, trying to graduate. You know, it was the theme that over and over again, the people who were in the movie, people would mention to them. Like, this movie gave me the hope. Like, it made me realize I got to keep fighting, plugging along. It's weird because, you know, this is a Bruckheimer Simpson movie.

I don't think they were trying to, you know, I don't think they had noble goals here. I think their goal was like, hey, we bought this cool story with the teacher, and we got Michelle Pfeiffer and this movie has a chance to make some money. I think the legacy of this has changed a little bit. Van, you're probably not surprised to know this movie was poorly reviewed? No, I'm not surprised to know that. but also I think that reviews probably didn't understand it.

Like, it's, it, first of all, I think that there was one person in this movie that did have lofty goals. When I watched this last night, I'm looking at it, I'm like, is this Michelle Pfeiffer? Was she going for the blindside Oscar here? Because it seems kind of like,

I'm looking at this movie, I'm going, she's got the Southern Twang on. She's out of the Michelle Pfeiffer type. She's playing hard, ex-Marine, that saves a bunch of wild kids. Was this her shot? And I'm trying to think, if not, I think this was her shot.

And when you have that shot, take that shot at the gold, man. If you fail, it knocks you back a couple of bags. And she didn't kind of get there. But for me, no, man, like, you know, I watched the movie, and I think that reviewers,

it was never going to be well reviewed unless I would be, I would be interested to know how lead on me and some of these other movies that do this. I know Standard Deliver was really well reviewed, but I would be interested to know how these teachers in the depressed situation movies are reviewed because they're formulaic to a degree and reviewers don't like that. Like the scene where she leaves the school and goes and

talks to the girl's mother who's the girl is pregnant, that's literally from leaning on me. Yeah. But it's the same scene. So a reviewer is going to see that and it's going to be like catnip to them, and they're not going to see, they're not going to look very kindly on it. But the fact of the matter is, if you care about your students and you're in one of these schools, somebody's getting knocked up. So it probably would have to be in every

movie, or at least in most of them. It's funny because the White Shadow lays down a lot of the pieces, a lot of the breadcrumbs for some of these movies, right? The White Shadow, former basketball player, goes back to L.A., takes over his buddy, who he used to play with is the principal of high school. He takes over

the basketball team, starts getting involved in people's lives. And there's this recurring theme with the players. And it was such a revolutionary show in so many ways. Because they just never put that many black characters in a situation like that in a TV show before. But a lot of the first season, which is really good, is the players kind of going, you better be for real.

Like there's some trusting. Like, I've been sold this shit before. Why are you different? And there's always a scene in these movies, especially in this one, where we're somebody has to look at the Michelle Pfeiffer character and go, you better be for real. It's just like lock it down. It's going to happen. And then the other thing is just like, they'll always have the scenes where the teacher or the coach goes to the neighborhood, you know, to meet the parents. And that's going to go one or two

ways. Either it's going to go great or the parents going to be super suspicious. Shea, what other beats are in these movies like that, that they almost feel like they have to hit. They always have to hit that one. They always have to hit the thing Van mentioned where they walk into class and the kids are already in there. They always have to do the thing where some kids says something that breaks the teacher's heart. In this movie, it's how you're going to save me for my life. I realize it's like, oh shit, there's nothing I can do here. And then there's always like somebody in the administration who the teacher is going to butt heads with or has to fight with. And, you know, in pursuit of making things better for the children,

they have to explain why they know better than the person not in the classroom. Those are usually the main ones you got to have in there. And then if it's black and Mexican kids, there's got to be dancing in there. You got to dance at some point. Bring your tennis shoes because you're going to fucking have a dancing in this thing. The wire goes into this in season four, which I know Vann's about to cover on way down of the hole,

but Prez is like more than a whiff of the, weight savior complex character. But at the same time, in that movie, it's like, I'm sorry, in that TV show, it's like, yeah, do whatever you want. It's probably not going to work. And they spend that whole season explaining why these kids are so screwed up. Did you feel the breadcrumbs in that, in that season four, Van? Have you started rewatching that yet?

I have. And by the way, there's a scene in this movie that they basically redo in the wire, the restaurant scene. Remember, in the wire, they have to put together a puzzle. Whoever gets to put together, they get to go to this fancy restaurant down in the harbor. They do, they go with Colvin. And Colvin thinks that the kids are really going to be into this. But really, they're super intimidated by the fact that they don't understand the world.

And it was the exact same thing that happened in this film. Because, you know, that's what the thing is like, they're living in the world. And it's so weird. Every time you watch a film like this or you talk to people, you know, back from home, they're living in a world where graduating high school, something that a lot of people take for granted. It's a revolutionary act. Yeah. It's something that changes the trajectory of your family forever.

So, of course, they don't know anything about going to a fancy restaurant. As far as press, I think it's very important to remember that prior to his amazing tenure in the Baltimore City school system, Not a great cop. Blinded a black child. Right. And shot to death a black cop. So Prez, a little different, but still, it's kind of the same thing. Well, Bunny ends up being the savior complex guy because he actually saves one of the four kids.

Spoiler alert in the last episode of season. Is it the season four or is it the farewell season? I can't remember. One of those seasons he sees. He gets him out in four, but we finally see what happens to name it in five. Yeah. I got to do a little. little Michelle Pfeiffer, if that's all right.

That's right. Go for it. Always. Catwoman. Stumbles onto the scene in Greece, too. It's like, who's that? She's beautiful. That movie didn't do well, but it put her on the map.

And then she's in Scarface. And she's in Scarface. She comes off the bench in that movie and hits like about 10 threes. And it's like, who the fuck is this? This person is going to be in my life from now on. She has a run from next. 1988 to 1992, that is really impressive. She does Married to the Mob, Tequila Sunrise,

Dangerous Liaisons. Her best movie was Fabulous Baker Boys, which she should have won the Oscar. And that movie, it's 31 years old. That movie is outstanding. And she's great, and she's like such a star in that movie. She's in the Russia House. Peak Bow Bridges.

She's in the Russia House. She's in Frankie and Johnny. and then she's in Batman Returns. She does the comic book. Excellent. Excellent. She's, uh, well, she, she was bat woman, right? She's cat woman.

She's cat woman of that. All right. So I would say she's the biggest female star in the world other than Julie Roberts by the end of that run. 92 to 95, she does Love Field, Age of Innocence, and Wolf, which is a disaster. It's bad. But she's still an A plus-less star. That leads us to dangerous. minds. And the point is, there's not many actresses that you could have sold a movie like this

with a good rap song and a shot of them in a leather jacket. And people are like, I'm in. Here's 150 million. The list is like five or six. Like even Goldie Hawn, who I think was equally as big a decade earlier when she did Wildcats. Like, that movie didn't do well. Sandy Bullock, who we didn't, I don't think we fully knew was still that big of a star. And she just blindside of that movie. I mean, that movie is like still printing money. We, I'm in the age group where I'm going to, I'm going to be just totally enamored with her. You guys are younger than me.

Give me your Michelle Pfeiffer thoughts. For me, Michelle Pfeiffer is one of those, like, you just look at them and you go, oh, you're a movie star. Like, I have not seen you in anything, but I see your face and you must do movies. She has one of those Brad Pitt-level faces. Everything is just so angled and sharp and symmetrical and cool. Just put the camera on her. In this particular movie, though, like, when it came out, she was not the one I was like, oh, that's my pretend girlfriend.

It was always the woman who played Angela, that character. Emilio's girlfriend in the movie. That's where I was pulled. But just looking up at the screen, it seemed pretty obvious that she was a giant thing that I had no idea about. Van? Yeah, I've never once saw Michelle Pfeiffer in a movie and thought, like, I got to go see that. But I will say this, though, the first time I remember having, like, I had seen her in a bunch of things because a lot of these movies were on HBO.

You know what I mean? Like the fabulous Baker Boys and stuff like that. But, like, when Batman Returns came out, that was really my first experience with Michelle Pfeiffer. I was so over the moon excited for that movie, like ridiculously excited. And I saw the movie and then I started noticing her and other things. I didn't get Michelle Pfeiffer because, you know, I didn't see Scarface. I was like, oh, Michelle Pfeiffer's in this. And so you kind of see where somebody came from.

Wolf might be my favorite Michelle Pfeiffer movie. Wow. Critically skewered. I got to be honest with you. When you talk about creepy James Spader, everybody talks about how creepy James Spader is, there is not a movie where he is creepier. Then Wolf. Like, there's one scene in Wolf where he's half man, half wolf.

You know what I mean? And he's like smelling himself and going all crazy and this James spread away. I love that. But that was actually the time that I was all in. You know, and then there's like the movie where she lost her son and all of that stuff like that. But nah, she was a big, big, huge, huge deal. And really what sold her in this film was that she did something that nobody does now. She came for the video in Gangsters Paradise.

She was in the video. Yeah. And that's kind of what's sold the movie for me. We're going to cover that later. I think the interesting thing with her, because we've had a lot of smoking hot actresses who were good actresses over the years who succeeded. One of the things that was interesting about her is,

like my wife really likes her. It's really hard to thread that balance where everybody likes you. And I felt like she was always there from day one. I think Sandra Bullock's like that too, where people, there's just a likability factor that you can kind of throw them in any movie, matter how bad it is and you're still like,

I kind of like that person. You know, like, she seems like she would hang out with you and it wouldn't like be a thing. Right. Like, oh, cool. We're just going to be buddies. So this is a perfect role for her. And I'm with you, Van.

She probably looked at this like I didn't win the Oscar for Fabulous Baker Boys. Maybe this is a vehicle. But, you go gruff yourself up. Put on the leather jacket. Let's see we can get the statute. But the thing is, you know, this is a Simpson-Bruckheimer movie. that was one problem. Those movies aren't winning Oscars.

Second thing is, it was a pretty troubled filming from the sense that Andy Garcia's in this movie as her love interest. And Andy Garcia at that point in 1995 is still, I would say a big star. He's not like an A-plus list or anything, but he was a famous leading man at that point.

And he gets completely cut out of the movie. He has, there's this whole extra arc where she falls for this guy and he's in whatever. And they're just like, it doesn't work, let's get it out. And I kind of wish they'd kept it in, or I kind of wish they would release the director's cut of it

because, you know, it's obvious they just wanted to get a movie that's 90 plus minutes, let's get the fuck out, turn the theater over, get the next group of people in. But, Shea, don't you think that would have helped? Because basically her only companion in this movie is big fat George Junza. And that's it. And we have no, and she's by herself other than that for an entire year. No, I disagree with you on that one.

And I like the way that they set it up. I like when they make it very quickly they establish, okay, this woman is going to dedicate her whole life to the classroom. Like that's what they make it seem like. They show her reading the books. After her first day, they show her like digging through her closet, trying to find whatever she can find and deciding she's going to be good at it only for her at the end to like, turn, like, basically turn her back on the kids and be like, either this is harder

than I thought I got to get out of here. Like I thought that that's a slick thing. That's like a very real thing. real thing that happens, especially with young teachers, you show up and you're like, I'm going to, this is going to be my whole life. And then you get your ass kicked a few times and you're like, maybe I'm not built for this. I like that they did it that way. I can't believe you just shoved Andy Garcia out of the car like that. It's so weird. That was unbelievable. Sometimes, sometimes you got to get him out of here. That was unbelievable. If it had been,

Michael Pena, which you felt the same way or no. No, we could have got him in. He could have been, he could have been the counselor at the school. You know what I'm going to? One of those situations. This was the last Don Simpson movie. So the Simpson-Brockheimer Partnership, which made it cajillion, bagillion, cajillion dollars. He had some demons.

He did. Can I say something inappropriate? Can I say something inappropriate along the love interest front? Yeah. There's a version of this movie where she pulls a Mary Kay LaTerno with Emilio. I have... There's a version.

There's a version of this movie. There's a version of this. Because, like, let's be honest, the thing that was most impressive about Emilio is nobody has that chin in high school. Like, nobody. Like, Emilio, like, Emilio is like the LeBron James at that school. Well, he's 30 in real life, so I think that helps.

Yeah, like, no, nobody has that. And I kept, like, she's going back and forth and the whole thing, there was a version of this, rest and peace, Mary Caleb Turner. There's a version of this where that happens. And I saw that. Because I was thinking when I was watching a movie last night, because I ran it back a couple of times. I'm like, there's something missing in her life in terms of a companion.

And is she really as into these kids or is she sort of using that to fill a void? You see what I'm saying? And why was she so upset about the Emilio thing? Maybe it was because he was a promising student. Maybe it was the gym. Maybe it's because he died. That's part of why she was upset. Just a guess.

But maybe it's because a student got murdered. This is where Shane's jumping through the Zoom. There is a weird, when Emilio sleeps over her house and he's in the white tank top, there's a weird vibe for about 40 seconds there. We were like, wait, I was watching. I was like, oh, shit, I forget what happens here. Then I was like, oh, we're good, we're good. But yeah, I think Vans are R-rated version of dangerous minds, I think.

Definitely they at least make out. So this is based on the autobiography. My Posse Don't Do Homework by Louan Johnson, who has retired U.S. Marine. she took up a teaching position in Belmont, California. And most of her students were black and Latino teenagers from East Palo Alto. And as we said earlier, she used the lyrics of rap songs to get the class interested in poetry. So comes out, negative reviews, huge box office success, $23 million budget, probably all of which went to Michelle Pfeiffer except for like five bucks, made $179.5 billion. God, damn.

It was one of the biggest movies in 1995. And now we're going to talk about the soundtrack. The soundtrack comes out. It's three times platinum. It makes, they sell over three million copies of it. Gangstis Paradise becomes the number one song in 1995. It is the first rap song that ever finishes number one. It also wins a Grammy.

It wins MTV Video. words, the whole thing. And it's the biggest, the biggest song of that year. Shea, you wrote a, you wrote a whole book about rap once. Does this song hold up 100%, 90%, 75% or 50%? Oh, it's still 100% good. It's still 100% very, very good. This is one of those times where you watch the video and there's a part in the video. They're doing the whole thing with Michelle Fifer where she's sitting in the sea and Coole was walking around her and it looks like great. And they're showing you clips of the movie. And one of the clips that they show is when Emilio gets in the fight with Raul and

Guzmato and they show the one scene where he picks up Raul and like slams them against the locker. And as soon as they show that, you're like, I got to fucking watch this movie. I don't know what else is happening in it, but I got to see this movie. Those two things combined. It's really, really good. It's really, really strong. As soon as you hear it, you immediately remember where you were at this point of your

life because that song was just every single place that it could possibly be. It's good. You mentioned they play it multiple times. They actually play it three times. They give you a piece of it right before the Emilio Raul Guzumato fight when they're in the hallway. Like they tease it a little bit. Something's about to happen.

And then they pull it back. But yeah, it's fucking outstanding. It feels like you could just bring that song into any situation. It becomes more exciting. Like, I argue they should just be using in the NBA bubble before every playoff game. They should play it right now during this podcast while we're. talking and everything is going to be better for the next 25 seconds.

Dan, your thoughts on that song, 25 years later? When I hear it, I still, I still think it's dope. But the seriousness, I mean, look, seriously, the seriousness of the song has been undercut by how popular it was.

Like, if, when you talk about, at least when me and my homies are talking about the seminal most important songs, hip-hop in hip-hop nobody ever brings up like gangsters paradise it's a pop hit like the the song became so you know if weird out yankovic comes and they and does a a parody joint to your to your shit it's probably going to lose some of his credibility like in hip-hop and then at the same time coolio was like a fun rapper it was something that was it was a a strange turn for him to do a song

that really felt that dark you know what I mean coming off Fantastic Voyage and all of that, stuff like that. So you still hear the song. The song musically sounds amazing. It always will. And the lyrics still resonate, right? But as far as it being like an important rap song or important song in hip hop, I don't know if you can say that it is and it isn't because it went so pop that it almost lost some of its resonance in a way.

Yeah, I don't think it's important in like the trajectory of rap. I just think it's still a good song. to listen to. And then, yeah, like, Kulio never made another song like this. I don't know if, like, who wrote the song or if anybody helped with it or whatever. But when you go back and just read through, like, the words of the song, like, holy shit, this is like a very, very real, very serious thing that we're talking about here that, you know, gets attached to all of the Weird Al Yankovic stuff later on.

But yeah, it's fucking good. You play it right now. I'm going to feel excited about it. See, I would say it should be in that mix when you talk about, like, hip hop and rap the first basically 15 years. Because you think about Saturday Night Fever and those BG songs on that movie and how it became the marketing, part of the marketing of that movie, and one of the huge reasons it became a big success, all that stuff.

And then, you know, that was kind of the pivotal disco point. I think for this movie, we'd seen other nine, movies incorporate rap, right? And, you know, some of it was more subtle stuff or like the ABLE for our movies, stuff like that, New Jack City, above the rim really went hard at it. Poetic Justice. This was the first time one song was used in the marketing of a movie that became massively big.

And all the stuff that came out of it, I think, I don't know if it could have happened in 1991, in 1992. I think rap evolved a little bit as a mainstream thing. And by 95, people were ready for something like this. And then the video, which was awesome, that had her in it, as Van mentioned, which they did because they were worried the movie wasn't going to do well. They asked her to come in and film this thing with Culeo. It's basically her in a leather jacket, just kind of staring at him. But it's great. And it built up so much momentum for the movie. I don't know if that happens five years earlier. My argument against those two points would be number one. If we're talking about the most important rap song from a movie.

If you want to say like the earliest one, it has to be deep cover, which is where we got introduced to Snoop, the one that they did for that movie Drey's immensely more important. And it's not even close. Yeah. So you have to have that one. But you're talking important for quality standpoint.

I'm talking about, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That movie birthed death row record, that, that's all birth deferral records. But it did that movie didn't do that well, though, did it? Deep cover. Yeah. No. So here's this, so here's the second one. If the argument then is going to be, well, it has to be from a movie that did really well and that like the rap song was part of the, part of the promotion. And in 91, five years earlier, they did fucking ninja rap from the secret of the ooze, Ninja Turtles 2.

That was like a very real. Manila ice was the, the- Or the Adam, don't forget about Hammer, the Adams family. And the Adams family. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like there's a history here of that stuff happening. I don't think that this was the first one. I mean, not the first one or even the

most impactful one. It's just, it's the biggest one, but that doesn't automatically make it the most important. You know what I'm saying? I felt like, I don't think it's the most important either. I just think it had the most dramatic impact on a movie becoming a big hit.

Oh, no. To that point, it was really how they marketed the movie was with that song and Michelle Pfeiffer on leather jacket. And that was it. We didn't know anything else. And it worked.

To that point, I see what you're saying. If you're saying that this movie, that song, Like I went to see, to your point, I went to go see Dangerous Mines because of that song. Like, that's why I saw it in theaters. Because I remember a year before above the rim,

which we have not done on the rewatchables yet, you think like what are the hooks that make you go to the movie? That movie was like basketball, Tupac's in it. And wait a second, all these songs are on the soundtrack, and that was like it. That was all you needed. But I don't know. It's interesting.

By the time we get past this movie, Hollywood realizes like we need the song. song. It's not just the Saturday Night Fever model for disco and stuff like that. This will actually work for these kind of movies too. You know who realized that more than anybody though real quick? Who? Will Smith realized it. Yeah. Will Smith said that, look, I'm coming out with these movies. You're going to get men in black. Men and black, baby. You're going to get the wild west. You're going to get all of these joints to go right along with these songs, man. I'm going to the top of the charts and the top of the box off. Well, I'll give you a piece of info that's too good for

half-fast internet research. this movie this song Gangsters Paradise was offered to bad boys and they didn't want to pay money for it so that's how it ended up in this movie but it could have been in bad boys

it's weird I don't I don't really know where it would have been in bad boys it fits better here it doesn't win there's some really fun coolio stuff with that song because you know he samples from a Stevie Wonder song

and like everyone else in the 90s at some point you're like like, oh shit, maybe we have to get Stevie to sign off on it. And there's, Rolling Stone did a whole oral history about the song, which is really interesting. But Stevie was like, no way. I'm not letting my song be used in a gangster song. Somebody knew Stevie's brother. They had a meeting with him.

And his stipulation was that he had to take the curse words out. And Cullio said, I had two places that had the N-word in it and two places where it was like fucked in the ass or something like that. Stevie said, if I take that out, he would sign off on it. Unbeknownst to me, the other condition was that he wanted 95% of the publishing. Had I known that, I'm not sure I would have went ahead with that. So guess who cashed in? Stevie Wonder.

The old double dip. As he should. Great job, Stevie. Way to go. Cashing again with Wawa West. And then he cashed in again with Do I Do With Jaru. So Stevie saw that and started filling his coffers with rap songs after that happened. Before we got to mention Roger Ebert here, unfortunately.

Roger was on a good streak on the rewatchables. One and a half stars for dangerous minds. Yikes. Quote, we've seen this basic story before in Stan and Deliver, Lean on Me, teachers, dead poet's sighting, and so on. This version is less than compelling. Fyfer, who is a good actress, does with this material what she can. Words hurt.

Words hurt sometimes. We're going to take a break, and then we're going to do the category. Let's take a break to talk about Heineken. If you're trying to figure out how to beat the heat for Labor Day weekend this year, I have an idea whether you're headed outside safely or staying indoors. Be sure to enjoy the always seasonal Heineken original logger. I mean, this is the ultimate weekend, right? Three-day weekend.

I know it kind of feels like every day is a weekend at this point, but this is really a guilt-free hang out with your friends, social distancing, hang on on a deck. hang out on a porch, hang out outside, whatever you're doing, just make sure you involve Heineken. I just did a podcast the other day on the BS podcast. Joe House came on. We just watched Utah, Denver.

He was holding a high, he was having, sipping from Heineken as we were doing the podcast. Their original lager is made with natural ingredients with pure malt and their famous A yeast, which makes Heineken in all season, all the time kind of beer, savor the last days of summer with an ice cold crisp Heineken. The perfect way to cap the last moments of summer. Pick up a pack or have it delivered this Labor Day weekend and drink responsibly. All right. Most rewatchable scene.

Rarely happens here, but the opening credits have to have to be in the mix. They play the whole fucking song and it's in black and white and it's really good and it's just fun to hear it. Luann's first day, which is the stereotypical first day scene, but they cut, she almost breaks and then has the goes back to the home and re-evaluates. And her big analysis is, I'm coming back the next day with a leather jacket on. And I'm putting my foot, I'm putting my feet on the desk. Maybe this will work.

Another scene, Luanne, when she, Emilio's still not buying in. She tries to get the kids to read poetry and Emilio squashes it, which is a really great scene. The Board of Education. That's bullshit, man. I'm sorry. Since when did the board of education done anything for us?

Huh? Yeah, man. He can fucking barely get lunch. And that's when you really realize what his force in the class is. And then Callie comes to him when they're all leaving and says, Miss Johnson. Yes, Johnson. Yes, Callie.

If you want to get the class to listen, get Amelia. Good life advice. Leading to the next rewatchable scene, Emilio sticks up for Ms. Johnson in class. It's like, oh, how he's in. Read it again, Miss Johnson. Why do you care anyway? You just here for the money?

Because I make a choice to care. And honey, the money ain't that good. Whatever. Read it again, Miss Johnson. What? Read those lines. You just read again. Oh, shit.

What? Oh, what? We got Emilio on board. Oh, what? I really like this one because she does such a good job there of trying not to react, like be excited. Like, that's what you have to do in that scene. When you're the teacher, you have to not acknowledge

that this big thing has just happened. And she does a really good job of doing that in that moment. Right, because he's doing what he's supposed to be doing, which is participating in the class. So you can't act. You can't give him a carrot for then doing what he's supposed to be doing. But you know that he never does it. So you're overjoyed.

And she did a great job with it. You're right. I forgot to mention before this scene. It's a tiny, it's a half scene. So technically it could go in the woods age the best. but when she goes to see Raoul's parents and tells them what a great kitty is and stuff and the look on Raoul's face.

That one gets you. That one gets you. It's really great. It's like a half scene, but worth mentioning. Next one is Emilio hanging out at Luan's house. This is the Oscar clip for Fyfer. You asked me once how I was going to save you from your life.

This is how, this moment. Right now, this will make the difference in your life forever. This will make the difference in your life forever. She's good stuff. Amelia gets a little teary-eyed. He does. They kind of both went to a place there. Next scene, Luann finds out that Emilio died and then has to tell the class.

Bad news. Amelia was shot this morning. Is he dead? He's dead. That's in your list of rewatchables? Who wants to watchable? That's shit. It's fucking emotional.

It's her best scene in the movie. It is. Thank you. But that, that one right there. I rewatch that because I like stuff like that. Even when, you know,

she goes to the principal and the principal says, you know, he didn't knock right there. You know something's wrong. That whole thing she's putting on. Like, she's really giving it right there. That really was,

it was all just aside, that was fucking great acting. She, because she knows that there is some kind of catastrophe that's happened because of that. She just needs to hear it now, and it eventually comes to it. That scene and then this next scene,

when she tells the clash, she's not coming back, I think are Fyfer's best two scenes in the movie, where that's where you really, you know, it's like the difference of you have the quarterback, you can go 11 and 5 with Alex Smith, but sometimes you need like the Tom Brady Drew's Breese quarterback.

And the scene when she said she's not coming back and somebody's like, is it because you're sad because of what happened to Amelia? and she's like, and then she just kind of breaks down. It's some good stuff. I like that. And then I have the ending too.

When they kind of break her down and they do the whole thing and they get her to come back. What am I missing? Anything, Shea? You're missing the dinner scene that she has with Raoul, which is a really moving moment. I think that's the main one we're missing here. There are a lot of really wonderful little moments that happen along the way. and I think more than any other character in here, they almost always come from Raul's eyes.

So we have to have that scene in here for sure. So what do you got for most rewatchable? I think for me, my most rewatchable scene is when she's at the dinner with Raoul. I really like the way he moves around in that scene. I really like the little trick that they do where they say he had to borrow this money to get this thing, to get this coat.

And now, like, basically his life is in danger. He has risked his life. And he's going to miss school. And he acknowledges that if he misses school, she's going to go to his house. And, like, we know she cares about him. It's like a whole, whole really cool thing right there. Second to that, though, is the one when Emilio stands up for Ms. Johnson. Like, a version of this happened, like, my third or fourth year when I was teaching.

As I had, like, a group of kids. Like, I've been in charge of teaching the unruly kids at this point in my career. So the new kid comes in. And he came from this, from this campus called CEP, which is, like, like school prison basically, all the worst kids go there. Yeah. And he shows up and you tell very quickly like he's going to come in and try to like make his mark in the classroom.

So he comes in and he sits down and I have, I'm teaching science. So I have like the tables rather than the desks and he takes his chair and he moves it to the head of the table rather than like where it was and he just sits down and and he's just like doing his thing. And I know at this point I've been teaching for a few years, cool, just, you know, let him do this. Just don't even acknowledge it. just keep teaching.

He's going to see it's not going to get a reaction. And then next class he'll be fine. But like two minutes afterward, he's just sort of sitting there and not doing anything. And the other kid, the leader of the class is one named Elias. Just out of nowhere, he was like, hey.

And the boy looked at him and he's like, put that seat back. And he looked at Elias. And Elias is a big kid. Elias is like, Elias will fuck you up. You can tell pretty quickly. If it comes to it.

And the boy looks at him and he's like, what? And he says, put that seat back. And he says, no. and he goes, put the seat back. And like his voice changed a little bit. And the kid was like, and he just got up and put the seat back and sat down. And I was like, fuck yeah, Elias.

And you don't have to do any more work the rest of the semester. Like, you're the fucking man. It was awesome. It's like being a coach when your best player in the locker room is like running interference for you with the other players in the locker room. That's exactly what it was. He was your Tim Duncan. I never had any issues. He was my Tim Duncan.

Elias was my Tim Duncan. That's my guy. What do you got for most rewatchable? Remember the Titans where Bertier gets in his friend's face for not blocking. Yeah. That's the same thing. That was my Bertier. No, I got the restaurant scene for most rewatchable.

But my favorite thing about the restaurant scene is how Raul grows up during the scene. Because if you remember, they first sit down and he won't talk to the waiter. Like he won't even tell the waiter what it is that he wants, right? He's too afraid to assert himself in the world that he doesn't understand. But by the time they start talking and he gets into the thing, the waiter comes back over and he goes, get out of here. Another glass of wine. Oh, no, I'm fine. Thank you.

Coffee, perhaps. Hey, man, we're talking. Hey, man, we're talking. I like that. I like that, you know, he wasn't himself. She was trying to get him to be himself. And that's kind of like a little life lesson. Because if he brings who he is to where he's going, he's probably going to be fine in life.

But if he sanitizes himself and depoporting. himself, it's probably not going to work out. So I love that little scene within the scene. So that's why that's my favorite part of that scene. I think it's the most rewatchable. That was also my daughter's favorite scene. It's everybody's favorite scene. Raoul is fucking just awesome.

He's so, he just pulls you in so quickly. I don't know what I have for a favorite scene. I like the whole movie. I guess I have to pick the most rewatchable. You got to pick one. You know what? Go ahead and pick the death scene. No, I'm not picking the death scene.

Just go for just go away. for it. I got to say, I really like the ending. I really feel like they stuck the landing with how the kids kind of fought for her to stay and then the whole thing. And it just makes me happy. This is a good way to end it. I don't know if I would have ended it in the classroom and not with George Zunza walking away, chain smoking. I might have cut that part. What's age the best? Emilio and Luann, who are not in like a ton of scenes together, but had a shitload of chemistry, which I think led to Vance raucous comment from earlier

but you really did feel like they had a connection. I like, I mentioned earlier about Luann's second day outfit, her badass Luann outfit, the leather jacket and the whole thing

is some good fifer. I'm just going to read this from the credits, the opening credits. Score composed by Wendy and Lisa. Oh! Of the revolution. Wow.

Well, they were doing a lot of that thing. They had sort of gotten into that. That kind of became their thing after the whole breakup, flare-up with Prince thing kind of happened. But yeah, I didn't realize that. Well, you'll definitely realize it the next time you watch this movie because it's a little purple-rainish. One of the score that they have for this movie, it kind of has the same kind of hook to it. The Dillon Dillon Contest, even though it never happened in real life, was just a good idea. I like the Dill and Dillan Contest.

I like when people do stuff for that. That's good teaching right there. The Gangsta's Paradise video, which you mentioned earlier, directed by Antoine Fuqua. Yeah. Coolio remembers the video shoot like this. Michelle was kind of nervous because I don't think that up to that point she'd ever been around that many black people in her life.

And you know, my boys were hood. But we had a good time. She came out, did her thing, and she killed it. It took her two takes to do her parts, and she was out of there. So there's everything you need to know about the dangerous minds video. And then I have for what stage is the best, not just Raoul, but Emilio played by Wade Dominguez, who died in 1998. Rinali San Diego, who played Raul. Raul, Raul, he remembers their friendship like this.

We were close. He was the nicest person. He was very vulnerable. When I look back on it, he was on that James Dean Treuil. confessed to being very insecure to me. I always took it as, are you just trying to flatter me? But he lived a nomadic life.

Looked like a Superman in that movie. Did everything in one take. I don't know how the details of how he died, but he would have been a household name by now. I searched. I tried to figure out what happened in this dude. There's nothing. There's no, it's just he died in 1998 of respiratory failure.

And that's it. That's all we know. So you got that. And then that's all I got for. What's the age is the best. You guys have anything else? I have another one that is, to me, when I watch this movie, a thing that really jumped out. And it happens every single time I watch it.

But in the movie, we see Michelle Pfeiffer very quickly is like enamored with Emilio. And like they have the line. Like you want the class. You got to get Emilio. And she starts focusing her attention on him. And she really like is building up this relationship with him, building up this connection. She finally gets through to him. She finally sees when Emilio goes to her house,

she recognizes that Emilio has seen what she has done with the other kids. And now he has decided he wants that too. Yeah. And so they have this great, this great scene. And like she's finally going to help him. And then, of course, he ends up dying. But when he dies, they do the thing where she decides she can't be in the class anymore. And it's because of him and because of Callie and because of the twins.

And like, this is why she's leaving. And Raul says, like, well, what about us? We stayed here. And when he says that, this is like a thing that happens in real life. When you're a real teacher, you will like zero in on a kid who you see needs some help or you really want to get through to him. And at one point in your day or your week or your month, one of the other kids will pick up on this and say something to you that lets you know you're doing this. And you sort of are not focused on all of the other stuff that's happening. You're only focused on this one thing.

And you watch that happen in the movie. And I'm like, oh, fuck, I remember this happening to me in the classroom. And that's just like such a pulverizing moment for her when she has to confront that idea that she thinks like this is like the thing to do and like, oh, I'm feeling very sorry for myself. She's not even considering what it's going to do to the kids anymore. And like that, that shit hurts. That happens in youth sports too, where you, where a coach can get focused on one kid who's

either they're trying to save the kid or it becomes a reclamation project or whatever. And at some point, the other kids, they pick up on it. You know, you got to water all the plants. But, Bill, that happens in youth sports. And we know what it happens with. It happens with the best kid. And it's bullshit. It happens when you're all, I never forget, Will.

Will knows, Will's listening to this somewhere. Will could shoot it from everywhere. We're all on the same team. And it became all about designing everything around him and none of us got better. I'm still bitter by it to this day. It happens in new sports. But it doesn't happen because one coach looks at a kid. And you have to, it happens because there's always one kid who's,

far and away better than everybody else. And the coach tries to hitch their wagon to that kid all the way up to the NBA. You know why it happens. Don't be, don't, you said that bill because you seem like the kind of guy that would, that would do that. That would, that would see one kid

that was the, and just lean. How dare you? Hey, just, just feed him the ball. Just get a million of the ball. Just get a million of the ball. Like, what play are we running? You know what play we're running.

When I... Pass to Amelia. Can I say before we move on that there is a person who's listening to this podcast right now and he is one of my students who... He's like one of four or five

that I still keep in contact with and his name is Emilio. Wow. And he was a fucking one of my most badass students just like causing trouble all over the place. But he came in the class

and I really liked him. I thought he was funny and smart and I just was like drawn to him. And we became like, buddies basically. It was a situation where he he wasn't even allowed to go to his other classes. Like, the math teacher isn't letting him in the classroom anymore because he's just whiling out too much. His art teacher isn't letting

him in. His English teacher isn't letting him in. So I asked the counselors, can he just stay with me all day? Just have them send me the work. I'll make sure he does the work because he's like, cool with me. And this was like a couple of years ago, but I still talk to him. He messages me on Twitter every once in a while. He DM me the other day. He's having a baby girl. I just want to say shout out Emilio. And I'm still fucking rooting for Emilio. That's my guy. Oh, that's amazing. Amelios are undefeated.

What stage is the worst? I don't have a lot because I love this movie. I don't, I think the title's bad. I just don't like it. Yeah, dangerous minds. What does that mean? It just seems like I could see Simpson and Bruckheimer workshopping it and Simpson

probably did like 17 lines and just had a whiteboard with different words like, dangerous, scary. And then they're like, all right, dangerous, minds. And then they just kind of merged it. I'm out on the title. There's literally a part in the movie where she's like, everything that I teach you is going

to weaponize this and make you stronger in the world. Now, I don't like it. That's like the point here. Like if you're... I don't like it. I'm out on the title. I'm surprised they didn't do it with a Z. Yeah, that would have happened. Simpson probably suggested that.

They're like, hey, Don. It should be with a Z. Minds. We're not doing that. Another one stage the worst for me. And I like this actor. I like Courtney B. Vance. I don't understand the low talker principle. It had to be better than this.

Mr. Johnson, that is the approved curriculum for second period. Your class. I know then you are the teacher the smarter she is, but I'm afraid you're just going to have to go along with our policies. I get like he's supposed to be the villain. Oh yeah. No, that's a real thing.

That's very much a real thing. They're real people that talk like this? Yeah, absolutely. Because they They think it advances them and they think it makes them smarter. Look how I'm never responding to anything. We have to follow the rules. We have to, like that's a thing that administrators, some administrators would definitely definitely do. I just didn't like them.

Any other what stage is the worst? For me, something to age really bad. And it was offensive to me. Okay. So she goes to Raul's family's house, right? And they care about him. They care about him, right? She goes to be with other people that care about him.

The two black parents that she met, didn't seem to give a fuck about that kid staying at school. And listen, that's not just something that's happened in this movie. That's something that they did in fucking lean on me to a degree as if you go, like, as if there are this group of black parents who don't give a damn about their kids graduating high school. Y'all, that's a lie. By the way, I was, look, I'm about to go on a soap box.

I was offended by that. Like those two, that woman that had those two boys that said that she doesn't, she ain't raising no doctor's or no no lawyers. She wanted them to stay home so they could work and not go to school. I've never heard of that before. Ever. I've never heard, never seen, never dealt with, never even a mama or a grandmama don't want to send her sons to school. And like, I just, I never saw that. And that age terribly to me.

Like that scene actually pissed me off. That one and the one where she's pregnant. If there's any, I've seen girls that have been, that went to McKinley and they were pregnant. If there's any way to keep them into school for as long, the last thing that the mama says is, listen, I don't want you to drop out of school. Guy, got finished school.

I know guys that have gone to jail came back and finished school. So that, that bothered me. That age terribly to me. Well, you know who else have bothered? I had this coming up. Louan Johnson. So she liked the movie. She wasn't involved with it,

but was really upset about the grandmother character who called the Fyfer character a honky bitch. Johnson said she actually had a really good relationship with that woman who had the twins and that they worked together and kept the twins on the right track

and both of the twins graduated. And she said, this is her talking. I asked them, why did they put that in? and they said, well, we were sure that a lot of the black and Hispanic parents resented you for being white. And she was like, not true. And she was really, so she kind of like semi-disowned the movie because of that whole thing.

Like she was like, all right, but she bought the life rights back and wants to tell her own version of it. But that scene like drove her crazy and rightfully so. Oh, I'm sure it would. It would 100% do that to you. Casting what ifs. We mentioned the Andy Garcia thing. So this is Andy talking about this in 2020. Somebody asked them on some radio show.

They called and said they want to develop a love interest for Fyfer's character in the script. I read the script. I said, quote, you don't really need one, but I'm there for you if you think you need me. They wrote up a whole arc. We played it out at a great time. Shot the relationship. It was determined later that it was really unnecessary in the storyline, which is what I said to begin with. And then he said, but I did cash the check, exclamation point.

So if you go and you read, if you go on the internet and you read like most famous people cut out of movies, this always gets mentioned in like top nine people you didn't know we're in a movie or top 12 people that got cut out of a movie. This one always gets mentioned. It's pretty interesting because he was pretty famous back then. Best that guy, aka the Joey Pants Award. I need a ruling from Shay. Is Raul, aka Rinali San Diego?

Is he count as a that guy because he's then off. also in Conair. So he's two pivotal famous movies. Do people know he's Rinali Santiago? I think he counts as a that guy

in Con Air because his part is much smaller, but he's a pivotal piece of the movie here. I think he's enough of the movie when you look up the cast, you want to find out who he is. So I don't think he qualifies

in this particular case. Okay. All right. So I'm going to disqualify him. Yeah. By Shea's request because he loves the character. So we'll go with Cal.

because anytime I think she's been in a couple things since then but every time I saw her, I'm like, oh, that's Kelly, but I have no idea what her real name is. What her name is, yeah. Is it Edina Harris. Vincent Hanna, give me all you got a word for overacting. Shea don't fight me. Amelia's girlfriend dials it up a couple times.

Just she ramps it up to 11. Disagree. She ramps up to 11, two or three times. I know. I knew he would disagree. Is it when she thinks her boyfriend is about to get murdered? Is that when she ramped up? Is it after her boyfriend gets murdered?

She's on tilt the whole time. Is that when she rents it up? She's on tilt. No. Absolutely not. I'm going to give you the recasting couch right now. If I could recast any role, let me remind you who was 16 years old in 1995, Shea.

Somebody very near and dear to your heart. Miss Michelle Rodriguez. She's too tough. She's too tough. Oh, you needed a soft and more delicate flower is what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this role, you need, you need, her name is Maricella Gonzalez. You need those big doe eyes looking at you to tear up.

You need that particular voice. Michelle Rodriguez was perfect for girl fight. Michelle Rodriguez was not for this role. I was just trying to shoehorn one of your favorites into the movie. I see what you're trying to do. Listen, and I reject it. I'm just doing my best. Do you have any recasting couch suggestions?

I don't know. this is perfectly cast. I actually really liked how they cast the high school months. I thought they cast it pretty well as well. The principal's assistant could have probably been a more famous actress that was a little more accomplished. But other than that, I thought everybody was good.

You mentioned earlier the opening scene of this movie where they play just the full song. I really like when you're rewatching it and they like, they show you who the characters are going to be in the movie, but not really. And so you're watching, they pop up and you're like, oh shit, it's, Raoul. Oh, shit.

It's goosebumps. Tomorrow is like, whatever. That's great. That's great. Deon Waiters, this is a tough one because everybody's in the movie too much to count as a heat check person. So you're really stuck on like parents and waiters and stuff like that. I almost feel like it's, you know, we almost have to shift it around to like who stole the movie, which Chris Ryan suggested last time instead of a Dion Waiters.

And if you're giving me the who stole the movie, probably. Raoul wins this one. Gotta be. It's got to be. It's basically a glorified Dan Waiters because he's in it way too much to be eligible for Dan Waiters. But you're talking about like the mom of the twins and people like that being eligible for people who are just in the movie for one scene and that's it.

And none of them. I have somebody though. Okay, give me. Go for it. Go for it. The principal. Courtney B. Vance. He's like.

That's fair. He's only in like four scenes. I just didn't like a character. The character. made such an impression on me it's one of the most vile characters I've ever seen in a movie

and that's not any hyperbole he like he like every scene he's in he is literally the worst thing ever and at the end he kills a kid he basically killed him like when you look at it

like those three scenes for him to be that pill first of all I call him the whisper daddy because he's whispering everything that he says right. And like he's he's talking to her never on message, never about the point, always about procedure or some of the bullshit that has nothing to do with the fact that she's trying to save their lives, right? And then at the end is his apathy and his inability to read the room to read his school

that ends up getting somebody killed. So I'm like, he was a very pivotal character for the fact that he was only in the movie four scenes. Like he ended up, like, all those kids needed to learn at a night. And that was why he was there. He was there for education. He was knocking lessons. Bastard.

Have fast internet research. Did you know they spun this off into a TV show? I did remember that. I totally forgot. It was on 17 episodes with Annie Potts as Louan Johnson in 96, got canceled in 97. The movie was filmed mostly in Burbank in a lot, but the outside was Burlingame High School and Burlingame. I don't even know where that is. Oh, the actress who played Callie, Brooklyn Harris,

the real Lou Anne came and visited, and she asked the real Lou Anne, why does it always have to be a white person, lifting up, quote, the poor little Negroes. Johnson's blunt response to her was, I wrote the book, I have to be white. So that was at least one actor who was on to the complex thing. In real life, did Emilio die or not?

Any guesses? In real life? The real life, Emilio, dead or alive? I'm going to say no. I would guess yes. Did not die. Spent four years in the Marine, became a dad. Still alive.

See? Excellent. I love it. I'm glad, by the way. All right, so this was shocking because I've seen this movie a bunch of times and I usually pride myself on notice in this. This is one of the better half-ass internet researches we've had in a while. Michelle Pfeiffer pregnant during the movie.

Wow. Pregnant during the filming and it was shot out of sequence. But apparently there's a bunch of scenes with long skirts, bulky sweaters, or scenes where she's carrying like a large purse or a bag. And after I read that after I saw the movie again. But I was like, oh, that makes, because there's weird things where she's just like lugging around this giant purse and. Yeah, with a candy in it.

Yeah, and it's, I always thought they did it because they didn't, they were trying to reduce her sex appeal or something. She's actually pregnant in the movie. So that's cool. I hope I hope little, little Emilio Raul Pfeiffer grew up. It'd be just great. I hope he's living in great life. I have to interject with something. I have to rewind a second.

There is a Joey Pants award that guy in this movie. Who is it? I was trying to. The guidance counselor lady. The one that gives her the job. Like, her name is Robin Barlett. And I was looking her up because I had. seen her in a million things, but could never place her face.

She's in Baby Boom, Moonstruck. She's actually in Lean on Me as Miss Elliot, the woman that's in the, remember the scene in Lean on Me where there's a choir teacher in the movie. And she's trying to teach them how to, like, how to, how to do it. And the choir teacher won't listen. And Joe Clark fires her on the spot. That's the same lady. Like, she, like, she got fired from that school.

and then went to the West Coast and ended up teaching those other kids. It's the same universe, I guess. No, but that lady has been in a million things. So it's not a that guy for this. We have females eligible for that guy. There you go. I couldn't remember where I've seen her from. But she was killing the entire 90s.

I'm looking at her right now. She's killing the whole thing. So I just had to say that. All right, before we get to Apex Mountain, let's talk about TikTok, which is having an Apex Mountain of its own. Music makes everything better, which is why it's at the core. TikTok's culture. Each time you open the app, you learn something new, whether it's a hot new song, new recipes, or even words of encouragement, you're bound to find useful bits of information

everywhere you look. And if you happen here, a catchy new song or two while you're there, well, that's pretty great too. Discover more on TikTok. Apex Mountain, Michelle Fifer, no, because I think it's Fabo's Baker Boys. Coolio, yes. Oh, without doubt. Every high school kid in this movie, I'm going to say yes. Um, white savior complex movies, no. No. I think Blindside is.

That movie was like a phenomenon. And it won, it won, book and Oscar. Okay. So did, so did Green Book, if we're,

if, like, that's the requirement. What about white, what about white, savior complex school teacher movies? Because that was happening to. Like, just,

this is first place. Yeah. This is absolutely first place. The all-time Apex Mountain for that. I couldn't really, I had a, Not a lot of Apex Mountain candidates for this one.

If there's any others, tell me. Candy bars. Oh, Butterfingers. Butterfingers. All right. Picky Knits. Michelle Pfeiffer as a Marine. No, no.

No, not buying it. I absolutely buy it. You buy Michelle Pfeiffer as a Marine? Yes. Why? Did you not watch G.I. Jane? Demi Moore can do it. Michelle Pfeiffer can do it.

But that's, that is actually, G.I. Jane and Sarah Connor are the, reasons why I didn't buy Michelle Pfeiffer as Marine because in GI Jane fucking Demi Moore got ripped. She's yoked in that movie. She committed to the role. She looked like a Marine. Sarah Connor looked like Linda Hamilton, looked like somebody who could fight a Terminator. It just kind of took Michelle Pfeiffer straight from the fabulous Baker boys off the piano into

the classroom. You know what I mean? So it's like, it's kind of, that's why I didn't buy it. I buy it because she didn't back down. Why did Lou Ann have any friends? friends or any dates. It's a dipick. She said it.

She's recently divorced. It's only been like six months, they said. She said it. She said that the husband was abusive and she wasn't ready. She talked to George Zunda about it. Her only friend, George Zunza. George Zunda left Zundra. She didn't have wine.

She had no friends to go have like a glass of wine with on a Wednesday night, talk about the kids for a half hour. She addressed it. She said it was too hard to go over to their house. She's socially awkward. There's no internet back then. What was she doing here? She said it was too hard to go over to the house.

because it reminded her of her of her ex-husband. She talked about it, Phil. All right, Shay, every time you're on the rewatchable, I ask you a question, only you can answer. Give it to me. In real life,

Emilio versus those two tiny kids. How does that fight go down? Oh, it goes down exactly like it did in the movie. Emilio's fucking a month. Like, if you're that much bigger, it doesn't matter how many of the smaller ones there are, the hits just don't hurt. If you could pick up the kid and flip them upside down into a locker,

Emilio's winning that fight. Sadly, I love Raul. I love that he'd be in back down. He's my favorite character in the movie. But he's getting the shit kicked out of him every time in that scene. My feeling is they don't get the shit kicked out of them fast enough, in my opinion. I feel like that's a,

I think that's a Tyson-Spinks kind of fight. It's 91. 91 seconds max. Raoul and Guzmorrow are, they're plucky. They're plucky. Even as they were pulling them off of them, they were still ready to go. They had a good strategy. One would jump on them, let them get occupied, and the other one would try.

You get them in the back. I'm going to get them in the front. Right. And go from there. It was great. It was great. So I have a lot of questions about the dinner. Go for it.

Why the flowering peach? Why was that the choice from Louis? Why take them to like the fufiest French restaurant? Why not take them? Like, why knock them out of their comfort zone? So completely and totally when you could just go to an awesome restaurant, they would actually feel semi-comfortable. And what was the point of that?

She said it was the best restaurant in town. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's very much one of those, like, white is the center of everything. And this is the best thing she could think of. So she just assumes they're going to also think this is the best thing in the world, which, you know, that's not how it works, but that's what she was thinking right there.

Plus, you want to force them out of their comfort zone. You want them to see that the world isn't just like what they understand or what they know. Same thing that happened in the wire. You want to take them to a place where they don't understand it so they can see there's more than just their neighborhood. Yeah. All right, second question about the dinner. So Callie can't go because she's got to work.

Dorel just gets completely boned over. She's bringing Callie leftovers. It's like Dorel can't make it. That's it. He's never seen again. Why didn't he get leftovers? What happened? There was three people for the dinner.

Dorel just was an afterthought. Well, she, because Callie shows up and says I'm not going to be able to make it. Oh, she told her. That's true. Yeah. She told Derell, Michelle Pfeiffer thinks he's going to be there. Because when she gets there, she asks, oh, where's Derell? And Raoul tells her he couldn't make it.

That's why she wouldn't able to get leftovers. No leftovers for Derell. Dorel didn't care. Dorel said, fuck the restaurant. Like, I gotta be somewhere. I got to work. Tough. Any other nitpicks for you guys?

No, I don't have any nipters. No, no, no. Man, thank you. Best quote, we covered a bunch of them. I do like sometimes you start out wrong and you can't get going, I think is a good quote, which she says at some point in there. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? I don't think so. This is one of the few times I'm going to vote no on this.

I think it has to be this self-contained. You need this one storyline happening and then when it's over, it's over. I don't want to see the second semester. Because then you start to ask too many questions. You're like, what are the other classes that she teaches? why do I not see them? Does she not care about those kids at all? What, you know, what happens?

These are all juniors and seniors, it seems like. What happens in a year? Like, I'm not interested in a Netflix show. You could if you flipped it. If you told it from the kids perspective, and like you'd have to, like, it'd have to be like the kids, right? The kids are distrustful of her. She comes in and they have to figure out whether or not, you know,

it's other good. You have to go from the, it has to be like a 13. teens reasons why type. You know what? Fuck it. I tried. I can't. No, you can't do it. Like, I tried to talk. I try to talk myself into it. No, you can't. It wasn't. It's stupid. All right. Here's a key question. All right. You go on Netflix on a Friday.

And in the new releases on Netflix, it says, Dangerous Minds, the reboot TV show. Do you watch the first five minutes of it to see what they did? I watched the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. So the answer is yes. I don't know why you guys are afraid of this. At this point, do you understand that I watch whatever Netflix tells me to watch? Yeah. My answer is yes. Remake this shit.

I'm watching something and Netflix goes, hey, it's this new thing with Jamie Fox called Project Power. I'm like, that seems stupid, but fuck it. You know what I mean? I'll watch it. By the way, that was pretty good. But yeah, but like I watch whatever they say. Yeah. Well, I hope they do it. Probably in answerable questions.

I only have one. And Shay just alluded to it about two minutes ago. So did she only teach one class? What was she doing the other seven periods? What the hell? That's my shit. Did she just not, or the other mind's not dangerous enough? What about every, I thought that, I think that, I was like, what about everybody else? It's one period. Was this her homeroom or something? I don't get it.

This is what, this is a thing that they do all the time in the movies when it's a teacher movie. They only show them with one class. They only, they always show them like, no teacher, I promise you, no teacher has ever been caught off guard when the bell rings. And it seems to happen in every teacher movie. they're like in the middle of a lesson. Yeah, you know exactly. It's like in basketball. You know what the clock is.

Yeah, that doesn't happen. The thing also doesn't happen when you go walking into the class and the kids are already in there. That's a fucking disaster waiting to happen. There's no way that one. They do a bunch of little stuff. The one thing that I did that I did think when I was rewatching it about this particular point is they mentioned she's going to be teaching this like special class, the academy or whatever it is they call.

it. And I thought, oh, maybe, maybe this is like a version of when I was teaching, we had a thing called the back class, which is a class I taught one year. And it's a self-contained class, and that's the only class that those kids are in. They don't go anywhere else. You don't get any other students. You have a small group because it's like the most, the kids with the biggest behavior issues, but they keep them all in the same room. And I thought maybe that. But then the counselor comes in and she's like, oh, before your next class, can you, the principal wants to see you. So that's out of there. That's just, yeah, that's just a thing, a teacher movie thing. That should have been the sequel as not quite as dangerous minds, which was like her fourth

period class. It was like one bad apple. Everyone else kind of just did the work. Or you do the one that van pitched earlier where the teacher sleeps with all of the students apparently. And there you go. There's your sequel, Dangerous Behinds. That's what you call it. There's your van show. Hey, Mar-Ka-Laternal, they got married, man. They were in love. The only other answerable question, there were some white people in the class. and I just watched Above the Rim with my son the week before. And in the big game and above the rim on Dwayne Martin's team, there's the one white guy who kind of looks like Dwayne Schittes.

We don't know his name. We never hear from him. He puts up stats. Like he's in the right place. He gets crushed by Wood Harris like five times, keeps getting up. But we don't establish who that guy is or why he's in the movie. And there's a couple of the, there needs to be like a name for that type of person in these type of movies.

Or it's like the white guy, but we're not going to invest. any time to figure out what his name is or why he's here. But he's here and he's kind of competent. We figured that out back in the day. What? That was the coach's son. Remember the coach was white. The coach was white and above the rim because we will watch that movie so much.

We try to figure out, yo, why is there just like a random white dude? And then my boy, my boy Ryan goes, bruh. Think about all. He was like taking charges. He was continuously getting elbowed. That's a great point. And never reacting. It was the coach's son.

That was his kid that he had on the team. He probably got a D1 scholarship to the same school. You know what I'm saying? The whole nine. Maya, I have one unanswerable question. I want to know did Raoul graduate? Oh, yeah. I think he did.

I want to see it. I want to see that scene. I think this is another part of the reason I was so drawn to this character. Watching them explain like he has a chance to be the first one in his family to graduate high school. Like that was the thing that I went through to. And that's like a real, I don't know. that shit sits on you very much. Like they do the whole thing about like when she tells them,

I know you're going to do everything you can to like keep your word. And if you say you're going to graduate, that becomes a thing. Like, I fucking love that guy. Well, that brings us to who won the movie. Because I think for about 20 years, I just would have said Fife for sight unseen. But I think Raoul won the movie. Yes.

Yes. I think he's the most important character. And he's in the whole time. And he's threaded through and he has most of the best moments. And the whole arc, I mean, honestly, Luann's character, like, you know, not, she's not exactly throwing a no hitter in this movie. And then as soon as the going gets tough near the end, she's like, I'm out. I'll see you guys later. That's crazy.

That's crazy. This is just like a regular semester for these kids. They're like, this is what happens every semester. Somebody dies. Somebody gets pregnant. Some kids stop coming. And she was like, this is too much. Too much for me.

Yeah. I have to go back to my seven cats. Yeah, all right. So Raul wins. This is good. We did it. So were you laying down the groundwork here for a future above the rim? I felt like that was being slid under the table there for a second.

I saw the spark in Shay's eyes. Oh, yeah. She, you just put it. Book us. Book it right now. There you go. Done. Done.

That's a movie. That's a movie. That above the rim is a movie. That's a movie. That's the end of the sentence. That's a movie. There's so many questions. And it's one of the most. Save it for the pod.

Gotcha. I will say this though. I watched it with my son. And the most confused I've ever seen him watching a movie was why Leon was playing basketball without a basketball. He just, he broke his brain. He's like, what is that guy doing? Is that guy, is he a lunatic? Why isn't he a jail?

It is just balkers. Anyway, all right. So we'll do that. We'll do that in a couple weeks. Shea, pleasure as always. Van, pleasure as always. Good to see you guys. Please.

Got to be safe. All right, thanks to Shea and thanks to Van. Thanks to Spotify. Don't forget to listen to your podcast on Spotify. We're coming back early next week. At some point during the three-day weekend, me and Chris Ryan breaking down the 25th anniversary of an iconic movie. That's all I'm going to tell you.

and it won't be one of the usual suspects. That's the only hint I'll give you. Read into that way you love. Enjoy Labor Day Weekly.