The Rewatchables - ‘Eddie and the Cruisers’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

The dark side's callin' now nothin' is real. The guys head to the Jersey Shore to watch Eddie, Wordman, and the gang in ‘Eddie and the Cruisers' starring Tom Berenger, Michael Paré, and Ellen Barkin. Producers: Craig Horlbeck, Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Matt Pevic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Well, Joel and Bennett Raising Roof. Okay. We investigated that on the NFL draft show and he's right. I believe he did invent Raise the Roof. Joel and Vinnett Rays the Roof. Didn't Arsenio Hall raise the roof? No, it was Joel. Ring or Tailgate is like the, what was the album Michael Jackson put out before

Thriller? Off the Wall. Yeah. It's in the off the wall stage. Thriller's happening this season. I feel like it's like the Velvet Underground first record. Like everybody who hears Tailgate's going to start their own podcast. Anyway. CR just came coming off

CR month. America was captivated. Where do I go from here? Yeah. America wants to know when it's happening again. You know what we did? We kept CR month going. We brought the little chocolates out at the end of the dinner.

That's right. Put it on the check and we said, Oh. Hey, here's a little extra free chocolate. I know you already paid. I thought, hold on for a second. You said we brought the little chocolates out at the end of it. I thought it was like, am I the little chocolate?

I'm like, what's happening? No. Okay, that's what I would say. He kind of gestured towards me. We just took a little time. I'm like, wow. Bill and I were like,

you know what we need for CR month is like an tomorrow after the big meal. Yeah, like a little after dinner and drink. Complements of the house. No, no, no. Drinks are on. The house.

A movie we've circled for five years and this is a victory lab for us because this is only a couple times this has ever happened. Yeah. Where we badgered America and the streamers and the companies

to just basically revive movies that we love. One thing about corporate America is they listen. They do. Eddie and the Cruisers is next. All right, Eddie and the Cruisers. Best musicals ever, Greece, Eddie and the Cruisers, and that's it. There's only two.

Drops off right after that. Those are the big two. There's no even big three. It's a big two. All that jazz. There's a lot of really big musicals. Greece, Eddie and the Cruiser's, drop off. Chicago, I don't want some Oscars.

Right. I know my story with the movie. this vein. I was surprised you liked this movie because we'd never talked about it and then you were like, I love this movie. So what was your history with it? The film beat me into submission. Yeah. Because it was on for eight straight years. It was on so much.

This is the biggest fuck your algorithm movie ever. Everything now is controlled by algorithm. You get told what to watch. My 80s and 90s algorithm was just superior because they kept, there was probably not even a computer program with some guy named Jim that would be in charge of

programming what was on HBO. Some dude, right? And they put this movie on until I had watched like Major League and all that's a guy from time until I had watched stuff with Ellen Bart. Until I'd go, you know what? Fuck it, I'm going to watch it.

And then after that I watched it every single time it was on television, every time. Same for you? I have a weird relationship to this movie, which is I'm sure I watched it and it's heyday on HBO when it was on in the 80s like every other minute. But I think that like,

if I remember correctly, one day I was in the car, and I was like, whatever this song is rules, and it was Darkside. Oh. Because the soundtrack popped off in the mid-80s because of the HBO revival of this movie. So I think Darkside, I was like, what's this band? And it was like, it's a band with a movie about it, but the band isn't real. And that blew my mind. My background was 1984 flipping channels and watched the last six minutes of this movie,

including the surprise ending. Okay. And I was like, huh, week later, watch it from the beginning. Now I'm furious. I know the surprise ending. Think about how long it was on cable up. And then it was on over and over again. And I think it's one of the 20 movies I've seen the most of my life.

Yeah. I know all the words to everything. I know all the scenes. And I'm not proud of it. It was just on all the time. We had less channels. And they didn't have a lot of movies. Like, C.R.

You have the HBO little guides next to you on that on that little standover there. They didn't really have a ton of movies because they only had licenses for whatever so they would just rerun the same like they ran either the first or the second Rambo was just on all three times a week at 9 o'clock at night

back to school with Roddy Dangerfield all the time so this was just in the thing and the thing with music movies is you know you I'll just watch this part and all of a sudden you've watched a half hour

the middle of this movie there's what 15 minutes in the middle when he goes to the lounge to see Salmato. That is just like one of my favorite 15-minute stretches in a movie. And I'm taking you back to HBO, 1984, Craig. Here's what they had, boxing. This is when Tyson was coming into his own.

They had the comedy specials because they had Eddie Murphy Delirious and George Carlin and some of those guys. Is comic relief around now? Not yet. That's 86. Not necessarily the news that started, which was like their answer to SNO. The hitchhiker.

which had nudity in every episode basically the premise of the hitchhiker was somebody fucks somebody else and then they die and that would be the episode. Is there any hitchhiking involved or? At the end the guy would have his little he would have his little fortune cookie thing. CR thought CR month would give him

immortality. What he didn't realize is it would kill him and then he would just walk away with the thumb out. First and 10 with OJ. They would have some concerts. Diana Ross had a pretty famous concert around there. every once in a while. And then just movies.

Lots and lots of movies. They weren't really making the original movies yet at this point. I think they had the Terry Fox story. Maybe one or two others. So something like Eddie in the Cruisers. Once got in the rotation, that was it.

But what's crazy is this movie bombed when it came out and found life on HBO. Yes. Which led to on the dark side finding radio station, what, and a year after it came out? Yeah. And the fact is,

is that the band Eddie and the cruisers from the movie, almost mirrors the story that Eddie and the Cruiser's tells where people are like, wait, what's this band? And even, you know, John Cafferty winds up getting

like a cup of coffee because of this band because of this movie. But like, it's essentially the same story as the movies minus the possibly missing Bob Dylan-esque figure.

So you think John Cafferty should have done that? Just disappeared for like 10 years. Yeah. It's been interesting. Interesting move. Come back. But it doesn't just become like

a regular hit. The song that goes like number three. Yeah. It's like a gigantic. Yes. I actually have it. It became, it was the number one song on the rock billboard charts. It was number seven overall.

Number seven overall. There was a week where it was number one. The fix was number two. Bruce Springsteen, Lindsay Buckingham, David Bowie and you two were the top six. Yeah. That was the level. It was on all the time. Consider that, though.

Consider how much, I mean, obviously the song starts to get radio playing and stuff like that. But think about how much. the movie has to be on for that song, then to make it from the movie into people's minds, then radio. And this is a year after the film has already... It's like... That's almost would be impossible for it to happen now.

Also, a crazy music year. It's not like... Cracking 1984 was like a real achievement. That was like so many major stars at that point. I was reading The Washington Post did an article about this movie's staying power. And they talked to the writer, Sherman Alexi, who's this great novelist,

who wrote Reservation Blues. And he actually had this great quote. It was, the VCR turned movies into songs, into hit songs. So movies that you could play over and over and over again. And that's basically what this pod was originally about,

was about movies that you wound up just walking in midway through, maybe only sitting down for one or two scenes. I don't want to get up and go to dinner yet because this might happen in this movie. And that's kind of like what happens in Eddie of the Cruisers. You're passing by and you're like, oh wait

are they about to go to the writing of Dark Side? Yeah. Okay, I'm going to stick around watch them write Dark Side. What is the pot about now, CR? Well, I think it's more about great movies, right? Yeah.

But that was the initial conceit of the pot. To me, it's like, there's maybe like five or six moments where HBO became like really part of pop culture. And the fact that it could take this movie that bombed and was nothing and turned into a, iconic rewatchable movie for everybody

who grew up in the 80s and 90s. That's like up there with the Eddie Murphy Delirious concert that really like pushed him to another level. Comic relief. Them having like real boxing. Like I think I watched, I want to say I watch Cooney Holmes

or one of those in 81. Maybe it was Prior Argueo. Just fights that they would have just, you would have to go close circuit and instead they were on HBO and some of the comedy specials they had. But it just all of a sudden and felt like, it's like, holy shit,

they're mainstream. When they got inside the NFL, that was a huge deal. It's kind of the model Netflix is doing now, right? Yeah. And it's funny because I was going back and reading the perception of HBO in 83, 84, where they were like,

we don't want people to come to theaters. It was basically all the same Netflix style of, we'd have 40 years later. Michael Paray in 2018, talking about this movie, said, the whole idea is to leave your mark on the world and impact people, to make them think,

and in that way, I think the movie was pretty successful. We didn't get much of a theatrical run, but we've got history. Is that your Michael Parade voice? I didn't do my Michael Pray voice yet. But this movie is so beloved that they ended up making a sequel that, for some reason, Van Watched recently. I don't acknowledge the sequel. I didn't like the sequel.

I had seen it before, the sequel, just like, it wasn't even on as much. They didn't put it on cable as much. It was bad. He had a must, Eddie has a mustache and it. The music's not good. You could tell that, obviously, like most sequels, they thought, hey, there's fertile ground to continue this story, but they didn't think of actually a way to actually story first continue the story. So, Craig, we've talked about this movie for five years.

You don't have to tell us what you thought yet. But what was in your head? What did you think it was going to be versus what was it? I got to say, when you texted, I didn't know what the movie was about at all. And when Bill texted us saying, it's a 95-minute musical drama? I was kind of thrown off my tilt there a little bit. You and musicals I don't usually put together. I don't even know if I'd really call this movie a musical.

It just has music in it. It's not a musical. There's like eight, nine musical. The musical performances are legion and they're like, we're doing the whole song. Yes. I mean, the movie opens was pretty much that full song. Yeah. The movie.

Oh, good. No, you go ahead. I call something a musical if the music drives story. So if the music in the movie drives story, a lot of people think that it's a musical if the dialogue is sung at some point. Yeah. But if the music, like in this movie,

the musical numbers drive different story points. And to me, that makes it a musical. Well, we got to talk about Michael Paray. Okay. This was literally the Apex Mountain for him. And he had a couple other at bats, but Eddie became his signature guy. He's lip-sinking everything.

Yes. And it's one of the best... I'm trying to think of a better lip-sinking where it really seems like he's singing. The voice of the band sounds like his voice. he's got the charisma of a leading guy, the way he moves around the stage. Really convincing.

The only other one I can really think of is Rami Malik as Freddie Mercury and Boominium Rhapsody. Which won him the Oscar. I think Shalame is pretty good as Dylan doing, like, when they were, like, recording. I thought he was actually singing, though, wouldn't he? Yeah, I just mean, like, the way he moves around with a guitar and, like... But I'm saying Michael Prade never sings in this.

Right. Like, Shalemay's saying, Val Kilmer, who we talked about in The Doors, was incredible, but he's actually singing. This is him lip-syncing the whole time, and it actually works. It shouldn't work. He also pulls off mysterious rock star,

super awesome. The whole movie is based around this mystery that there was just more going on with Eddie than we thought there was, right? And even in death. And for your first role, this is the first big deal, right? Yeah.

For your first role, for him... They found him. Yeah, for him to be, like, brooding, rock star, mysterious guy. He really sells that really well. And if he doesn't work, then obviously the whole movie's fun. Being an actor in a band is probably like being an actor in a basketball movie. Like, you can either choose to get the guy who looks right playing music

or the guy who's like the good actor who you can like cut around. Like I don't think, I know Berenger like learned a bunch about like playing keyboards. But they are cutting around Berenger's. They never show Berenger's hands really. Yeah. They are, they got Eddie like in full wide shots like walking around with the guitar. His guitar moves. Going into the crowd at one point.

kind of mimit. Like, they're pretty close. Like, I don't know whether he learned to play guitar for this, but it looks pretty good to me. I mean... He also carries himself, like, the leader of a band.

Like, you actually buy that he's in charge of the band. He's ordering these guys around. And the movie taps into... I don't know. There's some pretty cool themes in this that I don't even really fully know what they were getting into when they wrote this. I don't know how much thought they put into the script,

but about the concept of, like, how great can somebody be? Right. you know, like, they're making these, they're sounding out this club every night. Everyone in the band is delighted to be there. And Eddie's, like, pursuing something that's a little higher than everybody else that he's with. And that's really all he cares about. And the other guys don't see it.

It's kind of cool. We've seen this theme in some other movies and TV shows. But I like how they do in this. Well, it's based on the novel, right? Yeah, it is. And the novel's more of, like, a mystery. Yeah, it's like somebody is like, did he get killed? Like was Eddie murdered?

Interesting. I have thoughts on that at the end, by the way. But it seems as if, from what I researched, the novel is like incredibly important. Like, people were saying that's one of the best rock and roll novels ever. So there was some sort of... P.F. Kluji? Yeah.

Kluge? Something like that. I give Michael Perre two possible awards that we have in flex categories we never use. The Sasha Jenkins Award for Actor? You can't believe they'd become a bigger star. Yeah. And the Ted Levine Award for a performance so good and distinct that might have inadvertently ruined his career. Ted Levine also on something very bad is going to happen.

Oh, really? Were you surprised when you watched this that this was his peak, Michael Perret? Yeah, I had that same category written down as a flex possibility. I think he has incredible stage presence. His physicality is so good when he's, the scene where Eddie's at the college, and he's talking to the crowd, there's like that edge, there's a suspension where you're like, I think this could turn dark, he's angry. And he kind of like commands the attention of everyone there

and is holding you on that, like, edge of I don't know if something's going to happen. It's pretty impressive. He's really good. He's good on stage. The stuff offstage where he's just delivering lines, he's not as great. He's limited in that. But on stage, he's great. Director gave him hell too, so it sounds like it was like a tough shoot in that regard.

Because like in Greece, Tramolta is just really good. Like you watch that and you're like, yeah, that guy's good at this. Yeah. And that's how I feel about Paray, except he's some. somehow not singing. And then you have Berenger, you mentioned Word Man, who did this in Big Chil in the same year. The Word Man.

Big Chil, massive movie, like kind of a generational adult movie. Sure. He's with all these actors. This was Lawrence Kastin, but he's also in this, which doesn't do well. And he's probably a little embarrassed by this one, and then somehow they both live on. Do you put Beringer in the William Peterson, like what happened? Because he, both guys,

William Peterson, of course, you know, I love William Peterson. Both guys seem like they have everything to be just like one notch higher. So I would argue he actually delivered on some of that. Okay. Because he platoon, he gets nominated. That's a great part. Someone to watch over me, Ridley Scott. We love that movie.

He's in shoot to kill, betrayed last rights in Major League all in like two years. Like he had like, I don't know, seven-year run of like he was leading movies. It's not unlike if you take the group of guys who was in Big Chill, you know, he and William Hurt had really good 80s and then started to fade. And get passed by the Kastner. There's this whole next Koffa guy. Goldblum and Kline pushed through the 90s pretty much.

So that's what I'm saying, though. I'm saying that like, I mean, when you think about it, the nomination for Platoon is a big, huge deal. He's fantastic in that movie, like, terrifying. But Klein and Goldblum is what I would have thought. Just like a little bit more,

because he gets to a point, then by the time you get to the sniper era, he's almost out of... I love that movie. And the substitute. Yeah. Like, he's almost out of gas and being taken seriously.

I think possible he led a mildly hard life? Yeah, I mean, he still has... He looks pretty rough and sliver. And that's 1993. And it looks like he's 20 years older than this movie. He's in an inception. He's an inception. I haven't seen him much recently.

There's an amazing what if with him. Do you know what TV show he'd turned down? No. Sonny Cracket. No, shit. He turned it down. That straight up doesn't. work in no way shape of

before. He doesn't work if he's Sunny Crockney I think he has too much baggage at that point because he's been in movies and we know who he is. Don Johnson had no nobody knew who he was. Right. Don Johnson I think Beringer could have done it though. Oh man. Don Johnson is beautiful. He's a little slimy. He's a little mysterious. Like it's a completely different show of Tom Beanger. Don Johnson's funny. No, you're not

you know I love Don Johnson. Of course. But I think Beringer, it would have been okay. Yeah. I always liked him. I always thought there's some there's some Kostner with him. There's some leading man stuff. Like he's good in this role. He's good at playing a cop.

Platoon's probably the biggest, I don't know, swing he took. But Major League, he's just kind of like the good guy. Yeah. That guy's a solid guy. I trust this guy. He's like Kevin Costner with like with like a more

weathered face. You know what I mean? But he can play sports. He can play out. action, he can do that stuff. Tell you one thing. Yeah. Pretty incredible chemistry with him and Ellen Barkin. She's ready to fucking hop on him in every scene.

They're like four, seven and sevens deep. Yeah. She's just sitting on his desk. Like every scene she's bringing it. She's not in the movie. For some reason, I remembered her being in a movie more than she was. I know. It's like she's in three scenes that seem to have been shot, like, in a completely

different set. You know, it's wild to go back to movies like this and watch it when, like, everybody in the film is probably like Matthew Lawrence is in this movie. He's like got more screen time than Ellen Barkin, right? To go back and be like, can you tell the Joey pants Ellen Barkin and Tom Berringer

are the ones that are really going to pop out of this cast? So he, she was in diner in the year before and this year was in Tender Mercies and Eddie and the Cruisers and started coming up. The smoking is, I don't know when we're going to cover that.

I don't think she does. doesn't have a scene where she's doesn't... Barringing a cancer sick. The only place Beringer doesn't smoke is school. It's high school. It's a class. Elite smoking movie. Everybody's smoking all the time.

They're not like, don't give me the fake cigarettes. They're sucking them down. It makes sense, too, sucking them down. Wow. It makes sense, too. Rock stars, the life they live, making them seem cool. She's pretty cool.

She's a cool character. She's not in the movie that much. She's smoking at that time that was seen as a little bit sexier. It's a character. Do you like this movie, ironically, at all? Or are you, like, sincerely, Eddie and the Cruisers is, like, just a great film? I'm 100% sincere with it.

Yeah. Well, it taps into something else that I really like. Well, I love bands kind of on the rise and bands coming up with songs on the fly in scenes that make sure. They're two minutes long and they come up with a hit song. But I like the concept of, and this, we did this a little bit in the Counting Crows document. when it seemed like he did the first album and then Durrett's like kind of goes off the deep end and it does

it seem like they're going to record again and the guys in the band are like I just was almost touching the sun and now I'm just back to my life like what just happened and I like the theme of like these guys for like 18 months had it and now it's like Salamato's at the fucking holiday

in lounge with Eddie ripoff guy and Joey pants is drinking peptoe pizza in the locker room in his dressing room they're followed by some lady on the piano who's like and the guy Kenny's a blackjack dealer and it just doesn't kind of work out for anyone

I think that happens a lot Joanne's doing choreography Yeah you know who I think when I watch the movie again To your point It is dated right I mean obviously it's dated

It came on a long time ago And even in performance Like all these people grew so much as performers Like after this movie to me Like the scene where when there's a fight between Eddie and Joey Pan's characters and it just like does not look real at all. It doesn't look like there's any real rage happening.

It's very demonstrative. But the themes of the movie and like we were a part of this really amazing thing and this was as good as it was going to get and we really didn't know it. We thought it would go on for like a long time. And Eddie, his search for greatness being the thing that actually sabotaged the run of the band,

that we see that. Or even like the idea. that Frank coming into the band and being like, let's do Rambo poetry and really get deep is what breaks it up. Because that's always like one of my favorite moments

is when Sal yells at him in the studio. Like, we were fine before you showed up. It was you. We could have played Tony Martz like forever. You know, like we could have just been the best band in Ashbury Park, but instead. I mean, you could make this movie every 10 years. You could have done a hip-hop version of this movie

in the 90s and said it. you know, said it was some group in like 1984 that self-combusted and we're ahead of that time. The hardest thing to do about in movies like this is to make the song or songs, but the songs specifically, because there's always got to be one, a song that people want to hear.

Yeah, and this one has like four. But it has one main one, and then it also has, and it's the same thing for that thing you do. Like, that thing you do has some good songs, but what you want is to hear all these different iterations of that thing you do. And the same thing with Darkside.

You want to hear them do Darkside three times. All you have to nail in a movie like this is the music. That's it. If you nail, it's hard to even conjure a film to where you like the songs, particularly the main song, and in some way you don't respond to the music. Because if, like, for that thing you do, which I'm going to talk about later, that song is so good. It's so catchy that you could see why the Wonders got famous so quick.

Yeah. And why they couldn't recreate it because it was such lightning. in a bottle. And with this one, they sell you on the fact that Eddie and the cruisers are dope, and that's really all the movie has to do to, like, create the mystery around the band. Did you watch Daisy Jones in the 6th? I did.

Did you watch it, Greg? Did you watch it? Yeah. So that has some of the themes of this of, like, you're watching this band, try to put it together. It's going back and forth, and it's trying to do all the 2020s.

There's slight mystery to what we're watching, all that stuff. But for the most part, the same kind of themes and not being able to keep it together. And good music and that too. Five heartbeats. We'll talk about it later. A movie like that, they got a banger of a song out of it. It makes, it orients the whole movie.

Joey Pants was the other one we didn't talk about. Who has this in risky business, Guido the killer pimp in 1983. Gooney's running scared of the bomba and then midnight run in 88. He is a full-fledged that guy in 1983. He's also

to my my taste blowing everybody off the screen in this movie. Like he is clearly so good and not only that knows exactly who this guy is, I can't tell if he's wearing a prosthetic nose or not

or if he's just really young, but he looks... The hair is definitely a little weird. Yeah. But he's the guy who's like, I, to your point, he's like, I had it for one second. Like you bet on all these bar bands

and you get lucky with one of them. Right. I struck oil. Now I'm a DJ in New Jersey. And now I'm like sitting in a, overhead lighting in an overnight shift at a radio station. So much so to where he pulls some Scooby-Doo shit. Right. Like the desperation of trying to like take on Eddie's persona and do all of that stuff.

It's like they sell that. They kind of create that at the beginning of the movie. Look, he's working in this small little room. Wordman comes in. He has all of these ideas. Maybe we can be technical consultants. It's the first time I ever heard of a technical consultant on the movie. Yeah.

Maybe we can be in the movie. And do you know how desperate he is from that time on? So I think my favorite Joey Pants in this is when they're on the roof, which is a great scene. And they're just Frank's like playing that song. And he's like, can barely sing. And he's sitting there's like, And he's just a sound.

And they're laughing. And he's like, this guy can't sing. He can't write. He can't. And he just like eviscerates him. But it's just classic Joey Pants. And you can see all the seeds for, who's this surprise?

on his character. Ralphie? Ralphie. Yeah. Ralphie, Cypher. It's like all of the characters that like made him famous,

there's a little bit of them Marksone, Bail bonds is right there. Yeah. Did you tell fucking Jack? Everybody's telling me to go fuck myself. The Beaver Brown band we mentioned they were found by Lou Eisen,

or Kenny Payne, the technical consultant for the film who was Lou Eisen, the executive, who's like, a bunch of jerkoffs, 10,000. found these guys and they wanted the cruisers

to be this Jersey bar band so there's some there's some shades of Springsteen in this which I think was a bigger deal in the 80s. You're like I watched this 100% seriously I watch this like 70, 30.

I think the 30 comes from the fact that there is a break in the space time continuum of rock history that happens in this movie that I cannot get over. What is it? Tell us. Well, Eddie and the Cruiser sound almost exactly like Bruce Springsteen. Yeah.

Bruce Springsteen would have started in the early mid-70s and really starts to sound like Eddie in the Cruisers or vice versa in the mid-70s. They make tender years in 62 or 63, and they're working on season in hell in 64. That predates the Bob Dylan record bringing it all back home and Highway 61 revisited. It predates the Beatles doing Rubber Sol and Revolver.

It predates... Eddie was ahead of his time, man. Bill, it's beyond ahead of his time. Like, Ray Charles and the Shirelles is what was on in the radio. They would not have a rock band with a sax player doing rock opera 70s music

and you're asked to believe that like this guy is basically Dylan going electric, but without Dylan having ever happened. Like, the only thing that drives me nuts about this movie is that if they just said it, in 73,

then they would have been able to be like, yeah, we're trying to get like this feeling back. And then it's just 10 years later in 83 when they're like, Eddie disappeared, but now 10 years later, there's a revival.

But the idea that this is happening at like sock hops is kind of like Marty Mcfly going back and starting rock and roll and back the future. Oh, man. So,

fair points. One of my favorite white supremacist scenes of all time. Yes. Marty invents rock and roll. I love that. Is this done to me? make Eddie seem like

he's a once-in-a-generational rock visionary? Book is set in like the du-wop era. I see what you mean. And they made it more like, we want this to sound like Jay Giles Band, John Mellencamp. Because they go from run-around suit. They go from covering run-around suit. Yes. Straight to

dark side. And it's like... And then season in hell. And then season in hell, by the time season of hell comes out, they're like in excess. So it's like... But when season and hell happens, they're like, this is like avant-garde. And I'm like, this sounds like an eagle. song from the long run. Like, it's not that...

What other movies you want to ruin now, Sierra? The Warriors? Could we ever get 40,000 gang members in one spot? No, I'm just saying this is an easy fix that they chose not to make. I don't know why... I think they could have made... Definitely could have made it three, four years later

and probably not lost anything. I think they really wanted the innocence of the early 60s. Yeah. Well, in that scene at the college, they literally pull up and Sleepwalk is playing, right? Yeah. Which is the scene, the song,

the instrumental that you... play to say, hey, we're in the 60s and the 50s, it was a different time. Yeah, stand by me. Stand by me. And Sleepwalk is playing, and then they come on there and just, their energy completely disrupts everything that the college has going on. If they were playing that disruptive music

way ahead of their time, C.R. In 63, like, what would they have been playing? It's just, these guys are doing... Would you left at the Rolling Stones? Exactly. I wouldn't have, because they didn't exist in this universe. You know what I mean? Like, Eddie, apparently they don't go on Ed Sullivan. The Beatles are not on Ed Sullivan in this universe. They had the sax player from Beaver

Brown. Michael Antunes is the sax player in the movie. That was the only one they cast over. No lines. Tough. Well, he makes an impact. He makes an impact. I got things to say.

Zero lines. They, the album, they re-released the soundtrack in the fall of 84, year after the movie came out, and it goes, quadruple platinum,

and all the shit. And even tender years peaked at 31. So two top 35 hits And it just kept going and going So the director is Martin Davidson He wrote the screenplay of his sister And basically Got screwed over by the studio

Who paid for it Couldn't figure out how to release it properly And it ended up on HBO And he was like Nobody's ever going to see my movie Not realizing HBO was about to come HBO And not realizing that the rewatchables Would force streamers to put it on

I did shout factory But the real reason we're doing this Is because we need kiss the death back and if we have an idiot we brought Eddie in the cruisers back to life much like Eddie Wilson at the end of this movie and now Kiss the Death has to be next Craig 95 minutes plus five on the Horrobeck scale

500 par pretty impressive this movie is as good as it is and is as enjoyable as it is because it's 95 minutes if this movie is two and a half hours it's unwatchable oh my god unwatchable and it just goes to show you

how much that matters like the 95 minutes is a part of why this movie is so great Though that being said, probably I answerable questions, I have some questions about what you would like to see more of. Yeah. So one of the reasons it hit on HBO was it was 95 minutes. Very easy. They could put it on at 8 and it would be done at 935 and they could go right in a comedy special.

$5 million budget made $4.7 million. Roger Ebert, two stars. Eddie and the Cruisers is all build up and no payoff. He wrote that. They could have had a good movie here. They had the cast for one. They even had the music. The soundtrack is terrific.

but the ending is so frustrating, so dumb, so unsatisfactory gives a bad reputation to the whole movie. I have a counter for Raj. Go fuck yourself. Wow. First, go fuck yourself. Like, with a capital F. Like to start there.

I really like the ending. I love that he lived. I mean, granted, I saw this first when I was 15 years old, but him coming back with the beard and be like, oh my God, he's fucking alive. He was alive the whole time. Because they're hinting at it, but you don't actually think they're going to do it

and then they actually do it. I don't know, I'm still into it. But to Roger's point, it doesn't really mean anything. By the time we find out that he's alive. It's the last second. Yeah, by the time we find out that he's alive, what?

Well, he wanted respect, right? He did want to respect. Right. Now he's watching through a window on his TV. As season of hell and all of that stuff. I finally got my respect. It's too bad you saw it the way you saw it because I would like to know whether you thought

watching the movie, you're like, is Eddie breaking into people houses and looking for the season in hell tapes. Yeah, I don't see. I knew the ending. Well, let's find out from Craig, who knew nothing about the movie. So the twist ending, what did you think? Well, unfortunately, I knew there was a sequel called Eddie lives. Yeah. That's tough. I think it's tough. I didn't have a problem with, I thought, yeah, I considered maybe, I didn't know what was

going to happen in a nice way. I was, I was let down by the Joey Pants ending, to be honest. Because they just signaled that way too clearly. I actually thought that was going to be like a classic red herring because he was so ridiculous. He would be my first culprit. I thought it was going to be like Salamato who wanted to be the leader and that's why he killed Eddie or it was Eddie coming back or something like that. Salamato cut his brakes. Is that your take?

Yeah. Because I thought he was like, you're screwing us up. I can lead us to the Promise Land by doing run around Sue for 20 years. But I didn't have a problem with the ending. To me, like the movie's already over at that point. It's just like a fun button at the end. It's definitely over. The movie kind of over is with the rekindled romance between Wordman and

Eddie's girl. Classic dirty macking, hating, cucking happening in this movie behind Eddie's fucking backward, man,

are you crazy? Stuff. Some guy code being broken. He's lucky he just called him Toby Tyler and made him

work for it. But like the movie to me, it was always, there's no real story. Like, I, I enjoy this movie.

This is like, legitimately this made me homesick for Louisiana. Like, I watched the movie and it felt like it,

I'm back in General Jackson, Baton Rouge, Gardier, it's night pizza editing cruises on but like it's not actually like a real movie in any way shape or form she starts off and she's going to be looking for him that just kind of goes nowhere they get rid of that yeah like they just fucking go okay like really if the movie was driven by her trying to get this story you're talking about ellen bark ellen bark yeah the payoff would almost make more sense it's two

framing devices because it's got they've got to get ellen bark and to tom barringer but when they gets Tom Berringer, it becomes him going around meeting people from his past and having these reveries remembering his days or that he and cruisers. I don't think we were putting a ton of thought into stuff in the 80s. But we were having fun though. We were having a great time.

Yeah, we were fucking having fun. If stuff didn't add up, we didn't care because it was like, I'm the dark side. If season and hell somehow came out two years before Highway 61 revisited, who cares? But wasn't it better? But wasn't it better? Wasn't it better sitting down and like

finding reasons to like what the fuck you were watching. It was better like to say, hey, this has great music. This is a cool story. You have an interesting lead, or I guess Tom Barrenger's the lead. You have an interesting character here. Just sit down for 90 minutes and have a good time rather than get off and like pull everything apart and overanalyze it. Also, well, yeah. You just have more fun with movies. It's what you get out of it being 95 minutes. It would be, you could explain it more if they added 20 minutes to get into some stuff, but then is it as enjoyable of a movie? No. Probably not.

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All right. Most of your watchable scene. Opening credits. That's how it's done, CR. Yeah. Cold open. Dark side's coming now. Nothing is real.

And this is then doing dark side at the college, I would imagine. Yeah. And then it cuts to Ellen Barkin on her like 17th, sick of the day. It's like 1230 in the afternoon. given dog walking every guy in the... Role of a guy.

She's just dropping lady all over him. They're all in love with her. And she does, you ever hear of a poet named Arthur Rambo? Committed suicide, not of the flesh. Put up the mind and soul. Pretty good hook.

Yeah. Good song. We're off. Everybody's skeptical. You're fucking crazy. Eddie fucking died. Who cares, Maggie? What's the hook?

What are you doing? What's the deal? What's the thing? And that's why you think that the... that's why you think that the story is going to be through her perspective, but the scene sets up the entire film. We got Wordman's flashback to meeting the cruisers

at the Tony Mart. Wordman, Frank Ridgeway. Jersey Shore, 62. He needed a Seizor. Yeah. Timely pause. Barking goes to see Frank at school, sits on his desk. The night Eddie died, the

cruisers died with him. Right. He was by. friend, you I just met. Fake Cruiser's Band at the Sal Lounge leading into the memory of being on the roof creating on the dark side,

which might have been the best seven minutes of the 80s. I don't know. Hague Halehorns and this. Better than Danger Zone. Better than... Hague Hercruins and maybe this. I love fake Eddie. Fake Eddie comes out with this

1983 lounge band and has the leather jacket and kills it. We get the whole word of music thing, get the performance with the coming back to the cover guy wrapping it up. But we get to, I just love when watching somebody create a song from scratch. Yeah. I also love any scene where a band is together creating a song and there's an unexpected missing ingredient.

Like there's an unexpected look, stout. So he does it twice. He does it when he's explaining to them. We're going to marry what we do. do it bar rock with high literary concepts and all of that. But then he does it again. Listen, he's got something that nobody else has. And the difference between Eddie and the rest of the band is Eddie can hear it and they can't.

Michael Paray said the scene on the roof, which is awesome. He said, I've been told that that scene at Top of Tony Mart is the way rock and roll happens. You take a melody and just make it rock and it just sort of happens. It's one of the most flattering things you can say. I mean, it's an awesome scene. Nothing is funnier than when a hit song comes together in a movie in two minutes. I fucking love it. Like, hey, come in, play the bag.

Peret is like, what are you on vacation? And he literally comes in on time, no perfect. And he's like, boom, boom, boom. The sax guy comes in. He's got a solo already planned out. Girl comes in on the drums, Joanne, banging the thing. I love also when, like, everybody catches the vibe. Yeah.

And then they have to be a part of it. People start dancing, hitting the tambourine, and add melodies, And then they got a song. When that Beatles documentary came out, did you watch that? Yeah, it was a little like this. It was, it was like... It just took 15 minutes. Yeah, and there would be, like, lots of, like, dudes being like,

did you watch the Johnny Carson show last night? That was really good. Because you think about get back and you think that, like, when you think about some of the songs that the Beatles made, you think that these songs were, like, handed down from, like, the gods and given to Lennon and McCartney. And you just see him going, what sounds best? Tucson?

Is it fucking Tucson or fingers? What should we put in the... song. And that's they fucked around until they hit on something that people will remember forever. But they just have this, like, Dark Side comes out fully formed. Right. I thought Berencher does a good job, even though you never see his hands of like, he's got like this head knob and, and, uh, parade in that scene where he's like, he's just so happy, it's happening. And you can feel like the, uh, the Eddie charisma. Yeah, for sure. It's a good scene. Um, that leads to Sal's last song with the fake Eddie band right in

to Wild Summer Nights. We go back to 63. We go Wild Summer Nights, ready in Tender Years. Really good parade performance again, but ending with the Beringer piano, the sax guy coming over. Yeah, that's fucking awesome.

Putting the elbow on the piano and just like, yeah. Do you have a favorite not Darkside Eddie song? Tender Years is good. Tender years is good. It's like just a flat-out solid song. I don't know if you notice this, though, but it comes back to Sal after Tender Years. and they're wrapping up

and they play some oldie book goodies song and all the people in the audience are holding cigarette letters. And he finishes it and it cuts to the crowd and there's this lady in the front row like this.

It would be a really funny social clip. This extra is just going for it. She's making like five bucks for three hours just like throwing herself into it. Sound word man eating pizza I enjoy. So let me test drive this one for you Because Sal's really going for it

He's got the sweaty lip Seating pizza He's about to start crying I think he might be a Peter North Award for most effort loaded into one movie Matthew Lawrence Yeah it's like he's got this nothing base part He's throwing himself into this

Full speed 100%. You kind of need him in this movie too Yeah you do Think about the little soliloquy that he does After the song And he's sitting down there and he's telling them Remember when you used to drop and around,

and things are getting wild in the back seat and you're touching on her and all of this stuff and everybody's starting to feel remember that first time? Remember that first time? This is like the whole night.

This is my flex. Salamato. I used the bam out of bio. Where the fuck did that point come from? Mel from 902. He was going nuts. Salamato in the nightclub. Like,

he could have been at the Copa Cabana. He was smooth as butter. Because he always had that. He was just like, I can't beat Eddie, but I'm really close. He's fucking nice. On stage that, man.

He's pretty good. He was. he was the gay guy in San Amos Fire. He lived across the hall from Demi Moore and then peaked at 9-O-Tumina was David Silver's dad. Davis Popes. He served Donna Martin, Champagne, got her drunk. She passed out at the high

school graduation and then wasn't allowed to graduate and they revolted and it was all because of Salamatta. Salamato serving underage kids, champagne. I thought he was great in this. The Toby Tyler move, we mentioned, into Frank and Maggie.

Which I think every scene with Berenger and Barker is just really good. Yeah. And I had this coming later, but Barkin like hates this movie? Yes. Hates it. She fucking... She shit all over. She was like, that was to pay the rent.

That was to pay the rent. We didn't know who was in charge. The movie fucking sucks. Everybody was on drugs. Everybody was on drugs. And she hints to being actually mistreated on the movie in a way if you watch how just viciously she treats the film. Hurt my feeling. Wendell dies right into Eddie crying

and being able to sing Tender Years Yeah My best friend died last night Seasoned hell going sideways This is what I've been waiting a year for A bunch of jerkoffs making weird sounds That guy That guy is funny as fuck

He's so fucking mad What was that Lou Eisen? Yeah He's like that $10,000 He gave him 10 grand And they came back with some experimental bullshit when he's trying to get the kids at the fucking sock hop to dance.

Really funny. And we ain't great. We're just some guys from Jersey. If we can't be great, then there's no sense in ever playing music again, Sal. That's why I think before every tailgate.

It does haunt Eddie through the sequel Eddie lives. You know, he's like, I just don't want to get up on stage unless it's going to really mean something, you know? And then the ending. That's it for rewatchable. What do you got? I'm going to go.

Writing Dark Side. Yeah. I think that's me too. That's what it is. Yeah. Though, did you enjoy Eddie in the flashback in the fucking junkyard castle? Palace Depression. The Palace of Depression.

Which apparently actually exists. I love that thing because that's when Eddie, when Eddie starts to crash out towards the end of the movie, the middle to the end of the movie, those are my favorite parts of the movie. He crashes out in front of the house. He's comparing himself to the Edsel. Yep. I think it's cool. because for the most part, it's all of Beringer's happy memories of it.

And then it's like when Joanne is like, Kenny and Joanne are like the ones who were like, it wasn't all happy. You know? Like, it was like, there was some dark shit. Yeah. And then CR's like, this wouldn't have even existed.

Just two years first deal with you dumb other fuckers. What's the most 1983 thing about this movie? No caller ID. Oh. Really jumps out. Yeah. When Joanne keeps getting these calls, now you would just be like,

Who's this number? She couldn't even, I don't even think they had Star 69 yet. Watching a row of TVs through a department store window definitely. It's very 1983. Yeah.

That doesn't exist anymore. It's a trope that continued to come back up. Now it would be like a homeless guy with no pants on watching through a Best Buy and then peeing on the window. Now it would have been the end of it in the business. What's the fuck?

You're talking about. Is Eddie the homeless guy? Eddie's a homeless guy. Yeah. Yeah. I have a couple of here for the 83. One is Darkside just sounds like Brian Adams or Southside Johnny or John Mellencamp.

So like very classic early mid-80s rock sound. And then Ellen Barkin working for Media Magazine, which is in fact a television news program, was like a very big thing, at least in Philly they had one of these. I think it was called... We had one too in Boston. I think it was called like Entertainment Magazine

or Entertainment Week or something like that. but it was like two hosts. Yeah. And then they would be like, you know, Bruce Willis and Sybil Shepard, they're back on screen for Moonstruck. Yeah. Yeah.

Like, and it's, it was just like a really weird phenomenon back there. Regional Entertainment News programs. Yeah, it would be the celebrities that passed through that they were in an interview. Yeah. But then it would be like a hard hitting piece about some school that lost its funding for the school play.

Yeah. One, the smoking. Barry 1883, how much smoking they have in it. maybe even more than 83 was. They had non-smoking sections by then. True. The smoking.

Also, the fact that in this part of the 80s, they just did not give a fuck about aging or de-aging or anything like that in any way, shape, or form. Like, in no way shape of course. Barringer's exactly the same age. They don't give a fuck.

They would take you, mess your hair up a little bit, put you in an open shirt, you're 14 years old. Like, you're 14. He in this movie is, 83, right? He's 34 or whatever. So when he joined the band, he was 14 or 15 years old. I think it's supposed to be 17,

37, but this is another problem with the space time continuum. It's like Joey Pants, he looks the same thing. Then they give him a little baldy. He's 20 years older the whole nine. Just in the 80s, he just didn't care. You're younger, it doesn't matter. Joanne barely looks different.

She looks almost exactly the same. They just changed her wardrobe. I would say she just looks great. Yeah. Yeah, they didn't put a lot of thought into this stuff. It almost makes you think they thought it was going to be 1968, and then they decided in the editing, to shave six more years out of it or something. Yeah.

I think it's just closer to the book, yeah. Beringer basically looks exactly the same. There's no difference at all. For the Floyd Gondale, butter on my ass and lollipops in my mouth for something I just enjoy. I said it right, but watching in a movie or a TV show a band create a song from scratch, gets me every time.

I have one no quiet part of a rock song makes way for the loud part of, rocks on via isolated guitar riff and handclaps. This is good stuff when it's just like, here we go. Dark side's about to kick in. Sleepwalk being

like a fucking soundtrack for like the 50s and 60s. It always gets to me. But also, I like Frank's dirty mac and man. Frank don't even give a fuck. She walks into the bar. He sees he's like, oh shit, well, there's something walking in, what's going on right now? And then fucking Eddie

comes in and he kind of taps it down. But as soon as Eddie is gone, he's right back on his shit, trying to steal Eddie's girl. Ben College, some bad things happen. Yeah. I actually watched it like two or three times being like, did I miss the part

where she's like me and Eddie are on a break? Yeah. It's like, no, she's right back in Eddie's arms like the second after he makes out with her. It's tough shit, man. Can't trust him. First round will do this all about it. This woman empowerment,

1963. She can sleep with whoever she wants, Bill. She wasn't being shot at that. He hasn't owned her. We'll take the best. Mentioned a couple already, but I think Wendell is a home run in this movie because he has no lines, but you feel him in the movie, which made me wonder, do we create the Wendell Newton Award for Best Performance with No Lines?

Zero lines. Have we ever had a no line? It's weird because it's not even like, hey, man, grab me a coach. It's nothing. Doesn't speak. Yeah. Doesn't even say like, yeah. Nothing.

Not even one word. Heroin very popular. Powerful. You know? Yeah. But you know his whole fucking life story by watching him play with Eddie and the cruis.

Yeah. You know exactly. He's playing for a long time in a jazz band. Eddie heard him someplace, brings him into the cruises and changes his fucking life. Him and Eddie have a whole song.

He even taught Eddie some music. He was Eddie's like musical Obi-Wan to a degree. This was the Springsteen issue for this movie when they thought it was a Springsteen ripoff because Clarence Clements was probably the biggest he'd ever, most famous he'd ever read on. What's up, Big Man? Yeah. Hall of Fame Smoke we mentioned.

I like Jersey Shore in the 60s. I have Jersey Shore. Also like Jersey Shore in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s. It was really fun to go to. I like when Eddie gives Frank the green light to write songs, and then he does the, that's the most you'll ever get out of me, word, man. Little, like bonding on the beach.

And then Berenger just is completely committed to this all time, but I like at the end, the end's ridiculous when Joey Pan. is like, I'm going to get the tapes. I'm working again. I'm going to make the best deal we can. He drives away and Barroncher comes flying in. He's like, go get him, die. Just makes me laugh. What do you have for what stage is the best?

Like, this is oriented around a conspiracy theory that Eddie is still alive. Yeah. That was very much alive then. That was the heyday of Elvis is somewhere hanging out in Montana. We did it again in the 90s. Was D.B. Cooper a big thing? Cooper. We did it again in the 90s.

Tupac lives in Jamaica. Tupac's the best one. Yeah, like all of this 30%. 30% he might be at the first time. Andy Kaufman, people thought. Andy Kaufman, like the conspiracy theory that the movie is wrapped around that's really aged good.

I want to hear your Tupac theory though. What happened to Pock? The Pock's alive. Like, where is he? Just saying I believe that one the most. Did he get shot, though? Like he's like in hiding. No, sadly he died.

But that was the one I really wanted to believe. In the late 90s, I really tried to talk about it. It's a Bill Simmons exclusive. He can confirm the two-finding dead. If you put drinks at me in like 1998, I would have gone nuts for it. We all thought it. Like, everybody was, and it was so funny. Because he was still releasing music.

Bro, it was funny because, like, my mom caught me up on it one time. My mom goes, remember how stupid you used to say we looked when we would say that Elvis was still living or something like that? Remember how all doing the same thing? I was like, but this is different. Yeah. I got pieces of autopsy. Music is still dropping.

He said this on this song. If you listen to it right there, these Jordans that he's wearing in this video, Mama, these Jordans wasn't even out. It was really good. It died, I'm going to say, like, early 2000s. It became ridiculous, but it did have a really good two-year run.

Great Shot Gordo Award. Most cinematic shot. I don't have a specific cinematic shot. I want to give a shout-out. Really good extras acting in this movie. All the bar scenes with the crowd, everybody's like acting like someone out of the college concert's great the college concert's great yeah

Big Cooner Burger where best use food and drink Sal's pepperoni pizza yeah as you know I love a good old school greasy slice he never takes a bite out of it though there's also a lot of people drinking what seemed to be seven and sevens which is a very 83 80 you know like that early kind of like 80s drink

Chess Rockwell they both come from that scene The PBRs, though. The PBRs tells you what kind of guys these fucking are. One of beers, the fucking PBR. And Schlitz, they're drinking Schlitts too. Chess Rockwell, best character name.

Frank Ridgway is pretty good. The word man, Frank Ridgeway? I had Salamato, but yeah. Salamano's good, too. Denethees, Benihano, Ward scenes, too, in locations. Got to be the junkyard, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it looks great.

Sierra, you have a flex category. Vincent Chase Award, are we sure this character was good at his job? Frank. Oh, Word Man. Yeah, Word Man. Oh, I thought you were almost certainly going to go with Joy Pansy. I wouldn't say that Word Man

is blowing my mind with his words. Like, Dark Side's a good song, but I don't know if you deserve the title Word Man for Dark Side. Whoa, whoa, tender years. Would you wash away by tears? He also steals his bandmates girl, which it's a knock for me

in terms of being in a bandmate and having a bandmate. And he kind of forces them into a life of obsolescence when you spring season of season of hell on them. It wasn't for Frank. They probably would have made Tender Years Part 2 and done fine. Could barely play this sense?

Yeah, exactly. Had to be taught, just had to do this. He's like, no, play these cool chords. He's like, D, D, D, D, D, D. D, D. We're a man kind of a bitch. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, no, you know, I thought this. I've had it a great time.

Like, we're a man kind of a bitch. We're a man fucked up everybody's like, stole somebody's girl. Class traitor. Exactly. He's basically like a little arts. He's straight up hope. Yeah.

Like he gets to the college. He is like really slum in the world. What did they say to the departed? You're dropping your ass hanging out and like, that's what Wordman is doing. Word man sucks. That's what Eddie says to me. He's like, I didn't say better. I said different.

You know? Yeah, you'd like this movie. Of course I do. 90, 10. Yeah. I didn't like the 70-30. Butch's girlfriend Award Weeklink of the film. Thack's plan of torturing Joanne and everyone else for the tapes

and wrecking their apartments over just asking them if they had the tapes. I don't know. I have some notes. Maybe just ask Joanne, hey, do you have the tapes? We never really come back to the fact that he walked into his apartment and it looks like someone was killed there, signs of a struggle. Like going crazy.

He was like, all that stuff, it just comes to the movie. It's just like, go get to die. What's the worst is Tom Barringer's acting when he sees that his apartment's been trashed. First of all, he's working at a, he's in a trailer. He's in a trailer park in Vineland, New Jersey. But he walks in and it's completely destroyed. He's like, okay, start smoking a cigarette and answering his phone.

What's age the worst? The sequel. Oh, tough. Why did they do this? 89 for some reason gave us 88 and 89 gave us Caddyshack 2. Another 48 hours. Another 48 hours, which we've gradually decided we liked.

There's just a bunch of bad ones where they were just trying to capitalize. I think on the rewatchability of these movies on cable. Maybe these dumbasses will go see a shitty version of a sequel. You know how you don't remember the pods we did during COVID? Yeah. Did we do another 48 hours like two months ago? Yeah.

Yeah. We did. We did. Do you get the COVID vaccine again? No, I just got right. Boy, Bill's going forward. I can't wait until what happens in a couple of months. What happens?

Bill's right on the edge, guys. Here the things that are being said. But what's going to happen? Did you get the COVID vaccine a little bit? It's going further. It's watch. Oh, you think he's getting it. Red pills?

Oh, no, Bill, it's happening. I don't remember anything that happened in 2020 or 2021. But you're saying, apparently the bucks playing the suns in the finals. I'm telling you. It's getting, look, it, so what's age or worse is that,

okay, so there's, how many black guys are in the group? One. It's one. He died. It could have been the drummer. It would have been one thing if everybody in the cruisers, like, had a drug problem,

if they were sharing needles and the whole deal. Like, it was the 80s. they miss an opportunity. One of the guys could have, like, become HIV positive. I shared a needle with fucking... Two black guys.

Two black guys. The guy that's replaced it. The guy who got replaced it. I just want to say that the greatest saxophone player who ever lived died. This motherfucker's holding the saxophone like, God damn, we're trying to keep up with this.

And that's what's the age to work. Let me ask you a question. It's probably unanswerable. End of the day, Wendell goes home. You think he's like, man, I'm in this great band.

It's Amy in the Cruisers. I play sax. I don't talk a lot, But man, I love being in this band Or do you think he's like, shit, I got to get back into a hard bob combo? I got to get back to jazz. What a good question. Is he called home being like, man,

some of the stuff Eddie wants to do is stuff like I've never fucking heard before. Or is he like, fuck, how did this happen to me? Yeah. How am I playing? I knew fucking Miles Davis. A 12 second solo over a terrible blues rock band. So do you think Frank never would, it's realistic that Frank never would have known that he overdosed in heroin at the Ebtad motel?

I mean, it's crazy. Like, I guess that... Because Kenny the blackjack day was like, where were you, man? When are you going to wake up? This goes into my hottest take later. Okay.

Yeah. What stage is the worst? None of these characters ran in each other for 20 years. And they all live in the same state where there's not a ton to do. They're all like 20 minutes apart. Yeah.

They never had some sort of 10-year reunion, nothing? I thought that was weird. The Springsteen shadow we mentioned Mentioned Owen Barkin'Hade in this movie. I have one more big one. Does anyone have anything else? They hinge the entire insult of Eddie's insult of Wordman on stage at the college on the Toby Tyler character from like a Disney movie that was around back then. I don't really know if that's really hidden in 2026. People are like, oh yeah, Tyler.

And Van mentioned it. Beringer and Schneider looked like they don't look at all day older than when they were in high school. Oh, one more thing. We got to fix this. Amazon and Apple, their posters for this movie. are the Salamato band. Oh. It's fucking crazy. It's Eddie and the Cruisers and you're like, neither Eddie nor Berenger nor Barkin

or in the poster, it's Salamato and his holiday in band. That ties into what by what stage the worst was. And this is, I'd like to do this as a public service to all the streamers watching this right now. All of them. Including Netflix.

So this movie's ending, right? Surprise ending with Eddie in the window and he's got the beard. And the closing credits come on. Amazon's counting me down in the bottom right corner because it's about to send me to the next thing. Yeah. And now I really want to hear the ending

and you have to like grab your phone or your remote, frantically try to stop it so they don't send me to like fucking Harry Potter Season 7 or whatever they're going to send me to. And it's like, fuck off. Yeah. Let me enjoy the end of a movie for 20 seconds before you're sending me to your next thing so you can bill your fake streaming hours to me

when all I did was leave my TV on and you pretended I watched something else. Fuck you. Some of your best work, Bill. This is what, this is the fucking shit, bro. This is the shit. Yeah. It's fucking bullshit.

I can't stand it. Can I finish? God forbid I don't push you to the next show. You know what, Bill? Good for you. Thank you. Good for you for saying it despite current business situation. It's like cross the board.

Let me watch the fucking movie before you give me five different things to watch. Oh, let me change my. settings and be like, you know what? You can't do this for 30 seconds. I don't want to live in a country where we can't say, it's time for me to watch the next episode. I'll click over to that now. If you need someone to spoon feed you the next episode or the next movie before you've come to the conclusion of the artistic statement that you were taking in, we can't see any closing credits. We're done as a country if that's the case. You know what? I wonder what the actual

calculation is here because I bet they don't want it to get too deep into the credits before you've already... They don't even want you to think. Yeah, they want us on the next thing. They want you on the next thing. It's ruining. And for shows, if you end on a cliffhanger, you're counting on the fact that somebody's like, I have to see what happened to this nurse

in the pit. Start the next episode. Anything to add, Craig? It's anti below the line. I want to see who lit the movie. Let me see their names. Who's their name? Who's the AD? Sorry, I care about these things. Stop telling us. you actually care about the movie industry and you won't let us see closing credits.

Who was Salamato's assistant on set? I want to know. It was the key grip. Really annoying. All right, we'll take a break and then come back with Vance Flex. This episode is brought to you by McDonald's. Right now, McDonald's,

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forward slash active cash terms of play. Rough Lohan and Rubenick Partridge overacting word. Kenny the drummer. He's weird. What are you going to wake up? I had Joey pants. He's like, what are you getting something mad at Wordman for? He really goes for it.

Yeah. Yeah. He's like, this is my one scene. I'm going to get really mad at Ridgeway. You guys are going to love. like it. I have Eddie whenever they're not on stage. Oh. Whenever they're not

on stage. Just going for it? Eddie is just fucking going for it. He puts his whole body into when he shoved what you call it. Whenever they're not on stage, Eddie is dialing it up in the middle of it, man. My favorite part of that, Kenny's scene is when he's like, you remember those days

in the backseat of a car balling some shit? And then your song comes up. I should put ball in him with stage the best. Ballin some shit. When the last time ballin was said. It was funny. And then they cut to the audience

and all the guys in the audience are like, yeah, I remember that. That's Chris and Sean. You remember back in the day we were bawling some chick? The watch comes on. Van, you have a flex. All right, so it's a list. Top five fictitious bands ever. Okay.

Okay. I do not have Eddie and the cruisers in this just because we're doing the movies. Number five is Josie and the Pussy Cats. Okay. You gotta count them. Iconic shit. Number four,

I got the wonders, man. I'm a, that thing you do, truther. Punched in. Yeah, like, I love that movie.

It's almost lost time that I talked about as much as they should. I love that to the west. I think it's a really good rewatchable. Okay. Yeah, I love that movie.

Number three, spinal tap. Got to have spinal tap in there. Res and peace, Rob. Number two, the five heartbeats. Okay. Now, this is an underrated

fictitious band. The music is fantastic. Robert Townsend. Robert Townsend. Shout out to him. The story is very reminiscent of temptations, obviously, but they're amazing. The music was amazing, too. I like that movie. Number one, for me,

Stillwater. Stillwater from almost famous. They sound like a real band. They have the real band chemistry and angst, Stillwater. Can I ask a follow question? Good lead singer presence, by Jason Lee.

Forget the movies that those bands are in. Best music of a fictitious band. So to me, it would be, excuse me, the five heartbeats, the wonders, Eddie and the Cruisers. They got to be up there. And the Stillwater stuff is awesome to me. It sounds kind of like...

Stillwater's really good. I just don't think Fever Dog is as good of a signature song as Dark Side or... Dark Side, yeah. Or that thing you do. Yeah, that's fair. It was a good list. I want to, like, nitpick and say,

You missed one, but I can't think of one that you missed. No, so there was one thing that I couldn't really decide. I went back and forth with Kimberg about this is the revolution in Purple Rain. Doesn't cap. Okay, because he's not playing Prince. No, it doesn't cap. I think they're called the... Because Wendy and Lisa are in his other band.

Everybody has the regular names, the time is in it, the real thing. But we couldn't decide whether or not that was technically a fictitious ban or not, because if they are, They're obviously number one. Yes. We just did an 80 soundtrack. And the time doesn't count either. Yeah. The only one I would add to it is a sex bomb from Scott Pilgrim. From Scott Pilgrim.

Yeah. That's a fucking Ms. Byramp. Yeah. What about the Matt Damon band in Europe? Scottie doesn't know. Scottie doesn't know. Dan Band, real band, right?

The Dan Band. Oh, hey, that's my bike. Yeah. Hey, that's my bike from Reality Bites. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. Oh, see before.

So we never see Citizen Dick and singles. We just hang out with them. But they are mud honey. So they're pretty good. Yeah. Wait, wait a minute. Oh, yeah, no, they're only fititious band and singles. Because everybody else is like Alice Chains.

They never perform, though. They do you touch me on dick? Touch me on dick. Touch me on dick, yeah. We see them on stage doing it? No, we just hear their record. Yeah, yeah, we don't see it. Touch me on dick.

That's a good one. CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford Hottest Take Award. I don't know how hard of a take this is, but if this movie had two more great songs in it, what happens? Does this become Greece? The level to which Greece is better than this movie

is difficult to articulate. So, no. I mean, Greece is better in every way, right? I'm aware. Except for everyone in the movie is 38 years old playing high school kids, yeah. Yeah, true. So would you want another song that was like Darkside,

or do you feel like we needed like another Joanne solo song? Well, I was going to do this later for either nitpick or unanswerable, but you assume all the songs we hear on the Dark Side, Tender Years. They're all on some album. They're on Tender Years. They're on Tender Years. They're on Tender Years. We don't know anything about the release of that album,

how well the songs did, how famous were they? Did they get to go on the Ed Sullivan Show? No. We know nothing. We only know that they're back in the studio that they got $10,000 to do their album after it. We don't know if John and Paul saw Eddie and the Cruisers on TV and related.

Did they start the Beatles? Right. Yeah. But there's this whole missing section. So Craig Gass, like, I love that this movie's nine in five minutes. I actually agree with them. I think you could maybe cut out seven minutes and add. I just want to know what happens when the album comes out.

And did it make them more successful? Did one of the songs become a top song? and then could we have heard another song during that old stretch? Here's my take on that is that most records in the early 60s like that were a collection of singles for the most part. Yeah. And so like I think that those songs were probably like a collection of like the 10 things that they were playing that were the biggest original songs that they had when they were playing live. But it wasn't like here's our LP. It was like songs people were pretty familiar with.

So was the Dark Side on Tender Years? Yeah. I thought Frank helps them write Darkside. Frank knew them before tender years? I don't think they did 10 years until after he had been in the band for a while. So then what did Sal me then when he was like, we were doing just fine without you when they weren't? Because I think he was like we were just playing bars doing run around suit.

They were already moving. But 10 years took them to a whole other level. I know, but it seems like that. It was uncalled for it from South. It feels like that Wordman joining the band was the final piece to them becoming like a mainstream kind of successful band. But to your point, we don't know how successful. If there's one more great song in this movie, I think it's something different.

Can I do a hottest take of piggybacks off of this? Which is that the best part of this movie, which is also like the thing that I think fucks this movie up is that they play Darkside First. And it's out of context of the entire movie. They just play the best song that these guys have to open the film. Yeah. And even though that happens at the college, which we know is a dark moment for the band, if you make us wait to hear Darkside and you get to see them do the big full band version of Darkside

after you've seen them write it, it blows the fucking top off the movie. It's so much better. But that would denote that the movie had a regular story structure, which it doesn't because it really is not that concern. So that's where if you had that extra great song, that song leads the movie and then it all leads to Darkside, which is their biggest song.

But if the movie starts with tender years... Oh, you can start with that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess, but I think people would be like, yeah, it's a pretty good. But it starts to Dark Side, you're like, whoa, holy fucking shit. This is pretty good. You know what? To your question, though, at the beginning of the movie, I guess, is when they frame how successful of a band that they've become. Yeah.

She's trying to talk about. But even as she's doing it, she's almost informing them of how big they were. It's not like they had, like, it's not like they were like, oh, my God, it's Darkseye from Eddie and the Prus. It's still kind of ambiguous. to a degree. There's a talk show, five minutes, them going on a talk show

or an Ed Sullivan type show that could have been in this movie. That would have been fun. Did you know how his take? I do. I think Wardman tried to kill Eddie.

I think he actually killed the saxophone player. I think this entire movie... He cooked up a hot shot for Wendell? I think he did. That's why I lived in a trailer. To your point, there's no way he didn't know.

I think actually his jealousy, because I watched this movie, it doesn't make any sense. He's openly trying to... Word man's fucking crazy, guys. He's openly trying to fuck with Eddie's girl. Can you imagine?

We all work together. We're a man. Can you... Can you just imagine we're at, like, I don't know, ringer party or something like that, and I'm just over there with one of y'all's wives

trying to figure out what the fuck is up. Like, what... The shit is... It blows my mind every time I watch this. My dad used to fucking hate it. Also, maybe she didn't... Eddie didn't make her toast, girl. Van is really onto something

because if... If you come to the end, and it turns out Wordman is the one who's been flipping people's apartments up and down. And it's Kaiser Soze. And he did his own. The reason why he didn't get upset when he saw his apartment is because he's like, I know I did it. Oh, you have the Kaiser Soze ending at the end? Yeah. Where he's just like, all I wanted was the tapes to get out of there so I could get out of my dumb teacher job.

Yeah. Guys, you'll tell you something. And Eddie and the Cruiser's too, Eddie is performing music, but he still refuses to let people know that he is Eddie. He's like, I'm Joe West. He's Joe West, right? Do you know why? Because he's fucking scared of Wordman. The whole reason why Eddie has gone into hiding.

Is that true? I haven't seen Eddie in the Cruises. Eddie lives in a long time. Yeah, he's a pseudonym. But is he scared of Word Man? No, this is in my brain. He's scared of Word Man because he knows Word Man tried to kill him, which is why he's hiding.

This whole thing, Wordman is fucking crazy. So when we see Eddie at the end, Eddie in the cruise, there's one walking away. Word Man's behind him with a weapon. He's stalking him. But you don't see it because Amazon has already cut to the next Harry Potter season seven.

Casting what ifs. Parade claims they were ready to replace him with Rick Springfield. Oh, that's interesting. And that he had to do that first concert where he had to lip sync all the songs and act like Eddie and if he sucked, they were going to replace him. And Rick Springfield admitted that he did

he did think about trying to get the part. Would be cool. Instead, he lives on and Jesse's girl in Boogie Nights. That ends up being his, like, even though we don't see him. If Rick was in it, it would have been a box office success, I bet.

There'd more people who went out to see it. Paray was discovered in a New York City restaurant working as a chef. So still hope for Dave Chang. Even in his mid-40s, he might still be an actor. Weird one,

this isn't a casting win-if, but one of the people in the opening scene that when Maggie's telling them about Rimbo, he's got the mustache, Barry Sand. He was an original Letterman producer in the first five years of the show,

and was on camera a lot. Really? And I never understood why he was in this movie. It's really strange. I mean, that's like a deep, deep, letterman cuts. That's the NBC. Only you and grab that.

Yeah. But it was just fucking weird. It would be like if Daniel Kellison was in the movie, just randomly, just in a scene. Best that guy, Joey Pants not eligible. John Stockwell is in this, the lead guy from Christine and also in Top Gun. He's the guy that knows.

He's wizard from Top Gun, yeah. Oh, yeah. A were wolf, I can't remember. Yeah. But the winner is Mitchell Lawrence. Matthew Lawrence as a Mitchell Lawrence was his brother twin brother right

yeah Matthew Lawrence yeah not Mitchell Lawrence yeah Matthew Lawrence also now does or did sports talk radio in Lexington Kentucky

wow how many episodes as David Silver's dad and 9-02-0 do you think if you had to guess how many episodes is what was he on 902 no no yeah

36 oh you're basically on the show at that point. Yeah. Yeah. And they did over 200 shows. What we've never talked about as a now-to-no parent ranking, because you have... He's the best one. What about... What about... Dillon's fucking dad? Dillon's dad was the man.

Who is Dylan... Who played Dylan's dad? No, that guy. That guy... Jack McKay. Yeah. Like, Jack McKay was the main. Shady... What he was... blew up, though. Should have looked out for his family better. But he was like some kind of fucking mobster or something like that. I would have thought you would like David Silver's dad, because he was like constantly...

messed around the dental assistance. You don't like Brandon and Kelly uh... Brandon and Kelly's parents got on my nerves. Yeah,

they were terrible. They got on my nerves. The whole family I didn't enjoy it. Actually, my favorite was Kelly Taylor's mom because she had the drug problem and was

Oh, Brandon and Brenda? Is that word? Brandon and Brenda. And then also Steve's mom because she was like famous. Yeah, she was kind of cool.

Dionne Waiter's Award. Ellen Barkin? Unless she wanted to give it to the, I didn't pay for a bunch of jerk off. They could wear it sounds. No, I think Parkin. Recasting couch. Director City, can I offer you Michael Keaton

is Kenny the drummer? Just randomly being in this movie? Yeah, I'd take that. That's good. It's like a year after night shift, just looking for work still? Yeah. Gets this big scene playing as a blackjack dealer. It's going crazy. I like it when Kenny puts the comic book down and just gets on a kit and just immediately just

like lays into it. The Van Lathen Word for, did this movie need more black people? No, we were treated poorly. But no, it doesn't. Perfect. And that's another thing about these 80s movies. Don't fucking put it. Not where we just do the thing.

Okay? Just do the thing. It's a white band. It's a black saxophone player. That's cool. You know what I'm saying? We don't need to. It's fine.

I'm telling you it. Craig has a flex category. I did it. It's the Bam out of bio to Salamato. Oh yeah, you did. Where the fuck does that come from? Him at the Knit. First time somebody did Bam out of bio is a flex category.

The 83 point game. It's going to live on forever. Half a certain research. Berenger said he did not try to learn P. did practice some keyboards in his trailer. Well, he read Biggs, chilled dialogue. Is that a euphemism? Yeah. Brex and keyboards don't bother me.

Matthew Lawrence did learn how to play the bass. Peret remembers that when they all played together, it was a little like Stillwater. It was a college concert. The extras were into it. Everybody was going nuts, and they were really pretending they were the band. And then the Palace of Depression was a real place in

Vineland, New Jersey. does not exist anymore. Fraternity House was at Haverford College. Where's that? Outside of Philly. Tony Martz was an actual place until the early 80s and then demolished. And then we didn't mention this.

Joanne, played by Helen Schneider, was a pretty famous, like, German music star in the 70s and 80s. A lot of, like, success, apparently. I kind of like and wish there was, like, 10% more of her losing it a little at the end, where she's like, I have to get ready.

Eddie's here. And it's like kind of glorious wanting out. And I'm like, oh, yeah, do more of that. Like, she's been hanging on waiting for this call for 20 years. That's great.

Like, you go in her room and it's just all weird Eddie mannequin shows. Eddie voodoo dolls. Fake Eddie. Did some research on him. John Cafferty. Or the Eddie that was with Salamato.

The Eddie was Salamato, played by Joey Baylon. Who put out an album in 1994 if you want to download her on your home. the Joey Baylon's solo work. Apex Mountain, Michael Parade, definitely. Oh, wait, I had one more half-ass internet research.

Yeah. In that same Washington Post article that I mentioned, Berenger claims that they filmed a scene in a roadhouse with the cruisers watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and making fun of it. And he has like a whole thing he talks about. And then after this quote, Martin Davidson's like, we never shot that.

That's Barang's bullshit. But I really like the idea that they at least thought about. the Beatles in this movie. Yeah. I love when there's like violent disagreements like that. Yeah. It just goes to show you like people were probably

using substances while making it. Yeah. I mean, it was 1983. Yeah. Apex. That's why the grand land oral history will never happen. Because of the amount of drugs. No. No. Because of

20 years later, people can just start making up shit. Right. Like Bill came back from the All-Star game and he got in this huge fistfight with CR. Just like, after 20 years, You overrate submarine movies, dickhead. Apex Mountain. Michael Parre, yes.

Tom Barger, no. Ellen Barkin, no. Matthew Lawrence. I'm going to say David Silver's dad. Probably so. That show's pretty big. Beaver Brown Band, yes. Jersey Shore movies,

no, but I also can't come up with a better one. I'm going to get killed for this for not knowing. Do you claim the Jersey Shore? What's your relationship with the Jersey Shore? It's like the Summer. It's like the Summer. destination for most of Philadelphia. But I don't know of a better

Jersey Shore movie than this. They've really figured it out as a great location. Yeah, I mean, not a movie, obviously, but the Jersey Shore. Yeah, yes. The show is probably... Oh, the show. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, do you like that show?

No, of course not. Did you ever hang out with those people during your... I saw a couple of them. I think... I think, during the situation, ever go party with it? I'll see a couple of them. I never like that show. As a matter of fact, that show to me is when I...

I realized, oh, you know, I don't have to fucking fucking like what everybody else likes. It never made it just grotesquing away. Wow, that got dark. No, no, I just, I never understood it. I get it. I never liked it either. No, everybody was so into it. I loved it for two years. See, I just never,

everything else that had come from MTV, like fucking role rules, challenge, all that stuff is to do it. For some reason, Jersey Shore, just never fucking... Arthur Rimbaud? I think that he's had bigger moments than this, yeah. Hellen Shaddy.

Sounds like Germany was pretty hopping. What happened? You would have thought that she'd have been around. She went back to Germany. Interesting. 1957 Chevys? Probably not. Cruz or Hanks?

What about Hanks's his word band? I had... 1980s. Because Cruz is Eddie. Because Cruz has priors of doing the outsiders. Do you have Cruz's Eddie? Cruz's Eddie. He basically played a greaser in the outsiders,

and that's kind of the way Eddie dresses. Like, Eddie is just full outsider. Oh, Craig's all in. Eddie and the Cruisers. Come on. Yeah. Come on. What are you doing?

Okay. That makes a lot of sense. And I think you could actually, this is one of the rare times where you could do cruises, Eddie, and Hanks's Frank. Mm-hmm. Scorsese or Spielberg? Yeah. I have Scorsese. Scorsese.

Cricet area. Yeah. Best hang, worse saying. Best hang, Sal. See, you know, his pizza, fun dressing room. Best Tang is absolutely Maggie. Like, I got Ellen Barkin as the best hang. Good point.

Yeah. I got Ed Maggie. I got Ellen Barking as the best hang. I got worse hang, Sal. Well, how come? Just talking about the old days? No, Sal. I had Doc is the worst hang.

When you think about it. Doc. Doc's a tough hang. Sal, you come in there. He offers you a slice of pizza. He sits down, the pizza's in his hand. He never fucking eats it, right? Yeah.

He's just hanging off. He's always fucking up. He's crying and sweating. He's crying. He's sweating. He's doing the whole thing. Wordman. He's skeptical of Word Man, which is probably because he knew that Wordman

was a site. cycle pack. Yeah, that's what like that. I think probably Kenny would be best saying. Playing, yeah, tell him blackjack stories.

Just talking about balling chicks. These guys count the cards and then we bawled in a car. Why didn't you have Maggie in the throw your life away area? That's a good question. You took it out of flex, but that's a really good one.

Pickin Nits. Would there have been more interest in Eddie's disappearance or way more interest? I feel like this would been one of the bigger stories of 20 years. I think that there is something to be said for how local news was back then. So I think it would be a huge deal in New Jersey.

Yeah. And maybe get to Philly. But I don't know if it cracks the big apple. This speaks to the question of how big of a band they were, they were because that's a part of it. However, they never found a body. Yeah. Being that they never found a body, it's always funny in 80s movies where they go, something, something happened, a body was never found.

People would never fucking let go of it. That's the D.B. Cooper thing. Don't know where he went or what happened to him. We mentioned Beringer's too old for Word Band. We talked about Word Band and Joanne Kissing. So at the end, this is a super nitpick, but media magazines doing their big feature on Nettian and the Cruisers and Eddie Wilson, how brilliant he was. And they're showing video of him at the college concert. Yes.

How were they filming that in 1963? Full-color video with Closin. is what I had. Probably no full of color video with close-ups and editing at the 1963 Spring Dance of Benton College. There were nine cameras apparently there and then, but they're showing the crowd. It's like Sunday night

football. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty tough. Come on, man. You're not stinking that by me after I've seen this movie 78 times. I love it. I agree. Any other nitpics? Just that the one bit we hear of season and hell is pretty vanilla compared to like they were like this mind-blowing avant-garde noise. You can't put it out.

It's like, this is just a slow blue song. Like, this is not that complicated. I guess my big nitpick that I've always had is like, is Word Man fucking Mozart? Like, how do you learn to play piano that fast? Word Man's fucking around. He's no what he's doing all of a sudden. He's playing piano.

He's got solos. No, Word Man who had to play piano, didn't he? Yeah, he has the piano solo earlier. He has to play out. I'm talking about earlier. Oh. Earlier, like, if I'm not, doesn't Eddie, am I? No, no, no.

Eddie is showing him rock. Oh, so he already knew how to play piano. So he's like, I know how to do it. But Eddie's like, no, you have to groove down at this end of the keyboard. Yeah. That's why I love this podcast. I thought that for 30 years. No.

Craig's ready to go on. It's not the movie for nitpicks. Sure. I don't think any of these people would have hung out. Like, this band makes no sense as humans outside of the band. Oh. I think Sal and Joey Pants would have hung out. Yeah.

And that's it. That's it. Yeah. Sequel, prequel, prestige, TV, all backcast are untouchable. So prestige TV, I think you could do this And you probably make it an 80s band And you set it in 2000 Or maybe you make it like

Oh yeah Strokes Like that era early 2000s New York And then it's like today Coming back today Yeah Where it's like the Somebody has a strokes

Like on TikTok Yeah Think about what we already did This is begging Begging Begging to be like a Tupac situation begging to be like some big prestige deal where some rapper

that we thought was killed in a beef back but he's alive and the whole nine this is begging to be remade with that exact spin to it. There is. You would do it with the yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Because you change and make it a female singer. The coolest thing to do would be to like basically try to Blair Witch it where you're like, we've discovered

these tapes. Mm-hmm. Oh. And it's like, and now this band, like it would be basically like a viral marketing campaign. Blair Witch crossed with Eddie and the Cruisers. That's pretty good. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Fergie the Flores?

So many others. Or Zane Lowe? Eddie, man. Here you are. You've just seen your own face on Media Magazine, the lovely Maggie reporting it out.

Season in hell never even came into fruition, never came to harvest, never came to flowering. But you, what have you been doing, Manson's Palace of Depression? Tell me, take me

to the palace and let's get out of this depressive zone. I'm so glad Zane finally got to talk to a musician instead of a cop. Bring me back to Tony Mark that day. The other option would be Zane interviewing Wendell, but like Wendell doesn't say anything back. Wendell, man,

you played with Byrd, you played with Dexter Gordon. Now you're on, chunk. And Wendell's like, no one's ever asked me a direct question. Oh, man. Just what, Oscar, who gets it? Soundtrack or original song?

I go original song, Dark Side. I'll give you Best Music Original Song that year. Our winner was Flash Dance. What a feeling. By the one and only Irene Kara. Banger. Fame. Iron Kira.

Tough nude scene for her in fame. Saw fame recently. Really emotionally scarring as a 10-year-old. Yeah. It's like, now take your shirt off, that creepy photographer guy. Yeah. Do you like fame? Yeah, I do.

Fame, like, well, at first, I watched a TV show first. That was the first thing I saw, TV show, and then I went back and watched movies. I saw fame in the theater probably a little too early. Probably. H-10. You know fame? Really good idea for a movie. I'm actually surprised they haven't run that back.

Are you a Flash Dance fan? Not totally. Maniac from Flash Dance was also nominated. Over You from Tender Mercies. and then two Yantel songs. I feel like we could have snuck in... Dark side. Dark side in there.

Maybe bump the second best Yantel song. That would be incredible if it was like Academy Award winning Eddie and the Cruisers. Probably in answerable questions. What happened to Media Magazine? Maggie moves on to where? I think she... Does she get that like doing like live at five in New York City? Maybe she moves up to people or Newsweek or time?

Did Eddie always... lung cancer? Yeah. So my question is, did Eddie always pull out or did his boys not swim? How did she not get pregnant? Who? His girl? Joanne?

Yeah, Joanne. They're on the road all together. Music-filled, lusty, love-making, sweat. Falling in the back of a car. Falling in the back of a car. This entire baby, not a lot of sex because he was so driven by the art. That's why she was looking at the word man. Or, like, that's why she got with Word Man.

But something doesn't make a lot of sense how there was no, like, Eddie Baby at some point. Yeah, one of my prepossed answer questions was just like, what did Word Man think was going to happen when he, like, when he shows up after his long date with Joanne. And he's like, is it time for us to play? Like, of course, Andy's going to fuck with you now. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Toby Tyler, he got off easy. Yeah. What did Doc sell the tapes for and what happened next? This is an answer to. The musicals you want Neo. It's like... I think it's a... I think it is anticlimactic.

I think people are like, this isn't that good. I like, I'd prefer dark side and it just doesn't go anywhere. Does it come out on 8 track? What were those things, not the seat, but between cassettes and CDs? 8 tracks, 8 tracks. Yeah. I think the 8 track is dead by 83 though, right?

I think it's still around in 83. That was the last year. Yeah, like cassettes, right? No, the sets. I don't think season and hell does that well. Me neither. I think it's a big bust, and Doc probably is arrested for fraud in some way.

How do they position it? Do they do music videos where they get, like, because this is the age of the video is starting to happen. They don't, but the cruisers are wrong in. Well, they have all that incredible footage of Eddie and the cruisers playing Benton College. Yeah. Secret Handshake Club memorabilia that you'd want from this movie.

I like the photo of Joanne with the two guys that's in her place. Yeah. It's actually a weird one and just have on the wall right now. People are like, what the fuck is that? In the Cruiser's 1983. That's the original staff of Bradley. Coach Finstock, Mr. Miyagi, were for Best Worst Life Lesson. Guys like me and you, they strike oil under your garden and all you get is dead tomatoes.

Oh, shit. But that's pretty good by Salamato philosopher. That's good. If we can't be great, then there's no sense in ever playing music again. Best double feature choice, that thing you do? Who won the movie, Beaver Brown Band? And they're still dining on this 40 years later. HBO.

Good call. HBO. I was entertaining parre. But I think you're right. I think it's Beaver Brown band. Because those songs still get played. Those guys still probably make money off this.

Craig, let's hear it. Had a great time. Loved it. Super likable. Did you watch it with Liz or solo? I tried to get her, I badgered her to watch the movie with me and she wasn't interested.

Unfortunately. Just not, she doesn't care as much about the ringer as she used to. I was like 15 minutes in. I was like, this would be fun. We can just throw this on and you can like half watch it. She didn't want to do it.

But, I think she would have liked it. You should have told her there was like some sort of ad potential out of it. She would have done it at that point. Yeah, there's a great sponsorship. You should be like, Bill's actually in this movie. Yeah. I was almost certain you'd hate it.

No. No, I knew he was going to like it. First of all, 95 minutes, you're 80% of the way there with Craig. Yeah, like, music provides such a high floor. Like, you're just going to win 48 games with a couple good songs in it. Yeah. And I don't know. There's a level of, like, how much you take the movie seriously,

and then that allows you to be comfortable and enjoy it. Which is why I think, like, I went into LA Confidential, and I don't think I loved it as much as everybody else did, but the expectation versus reality. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't love it. I don't know. You need to watch it a couple times. I don't know why.

LA Confidential? First watch, there's a lot of it. You know what? I thought it was a little cheesy. Can I be honest with you? I get it. It would be hard for me to understand that because the movie was legitimately

the biggest fucking thing in the world. Everybody was talking about it. And you saw it eight times. And I saw it eight times. I saw it in the theater. And you didn't go into a, being like, you know what?

That was a boomer response. I could see that. I could see now it being a little tougher people. Also with this movie, I love, I do, I've always been interested in like the second album theory

of a band, you know, I always find that to be interesting. There's a little bit of like pet sounds to this, Brian Wilson, Eddie Wilson, sure,

with the Beach Boys and like the controversial Pet Sounds album, nobody liked it, and then, you know, down the road, it is a masterpiece.

This movie... People liked Pet Sounds. It was like Wild Honey or whatever the next one. No, I thought Pet Sounds was considered very abstract. Oh, no, it has a good bite. I mean, it's abstract, but it was like,

it blew up. Oh, I thought it came out the gate and was, and was not reviewed well. Oh, okay. I mean, you would know better than this. I mean, Pemberton is like that from Wieser, like, albums that come out and people go, what the fuck are you doing?

And they... And maybe one close to him, it was like, this is amazing. What the fuck is Pemberton? Is this kind of movie, the 80s equivalent of, like, a current Netflix movie? Like, gaslit by my husband,

which I have great disdain for a movie like that nowadays, but I'm like, Is that just what this was in the 80s? I know. Bill was like, what's the double feature? In a weird way, I feel like the double feature for this movie

should be Legend of Billie Jean. Yeah, that's great. It's kind of like the same kind of like regional, local sensation, huge story in my town, but wouldn't have made it out to like L.A. where people were like... And I think it's hard to almost replicate that now because of social media and because of everything else.

It's just weird that this movie has looked, like you guys are looking back on it with like charm. and nostalgia, but I feel like a lot of the current Netflix movie slop or the streaming movie slop is not looked at that way. Nobody honors those films anyway and they will disappear even if people watch them. But these movies we look back on and were like,

oh, Eddie and the Cruiser's like such a fun, easy watch. But no one's going to do that to gaslit by my husband. Yeah, but we don't know what would happen with some of those movies if there were only seven movies on Netflix and they played them for a year. I would say give gaslit by my husband and cheer a couple years. To me, to me, the difference in that is that like those movies you first of all, you have to be active in watching those films.

You have to go search for the movie and then put it on. That right there means there had to be a reason for you to do that, right? People weren't doing that to this movie. It was on HBO. Didn't it just come on. That's the difference. We didn't have as much else stuff to do. Like, people barely had Atari 2,600s back then.

With Gaslight by my husband or any of these other movies, there's like this cultural conversation that gets you to go watch the movie because you heard it. With Eddie and the Cruisers, there's none of that. Like, I never had one, this is the first conversation. I've ever had with friends about Eddie and the Cruiser's, ever. My own name was only my mom because my mom loved this movie. My dad would watch it. My dad would be like, watching them saying people again, why are people always on TV?

But, like, it's like, this movie was just on all the time, and you just had a situation with it. It was almost like singing. You know what I would compare it to? You know what I'm, if you listen to an album a lot, you listen to it like 20 times, and then like the eighth best song in the album, you're like, song's fucking awesome. Yeah. I really like this.

I love when that happened. When there's that song where you're like, I don't know about this one. Does it happen anymore? Because these songs are just are released almost like you can cherry pick them on Spotify now. I think it still happens. I don't know that it does. I don't think it happens in the same. I don't think the albums last long enough for that for that to happen.

Like, I think that the artists are dropping music so much. Like, you're getting so much more stuff. There's so much. I don't think that that happens. I think it happens here and there. Like, the Geese Records is a good example of like there was my original run through it. I was like, I love these five songs. then there was like two more, three more,

they became really favorites of mine. It's also crazy how much Hollywood screwed up. Like, I can't believe that John Cafferty and the Beaver, like, the fact that they didn't turn into anything is insane to me. It might have been because of the band name. And it might have been because people were like, you're Eddie and the Cruisers. I mean, there's like a little bit of like a poison chalice to that.

The song you said was number three in the Billboard charts that year? Seven? I mean, like a legitimate hit in a monocultural time. We're in a different, completely different world now, but like nobody even knows who the singer's, are of the K-pop Demon Hunter songs, and yet that's like the biggest band in the world. Literally no one knows who sings it. And yet,

they knew this band and these people and they couldn't get them relevance and they couldn't get them another album. That's crazy to me. Same thing happened to Eddie. When Jack O'N House were here like a year ago, you told me this was on TCM. And I recorded it. Let's tape it. Yeah. And we watched it in the morning and we were all

like completely into it. I don't know. I just think that I don't think there's a lot of these movies, which is one of the reasons why it's in door to little bit. There's just not enough music movies. If there are, like, or if they're in the works, I think all of it is based on whether the song

like, there's, you got... And whether you like the band, right. Well, think about, like, Rock of Ages with Cruz. It was a bomb. Yeah. So stupid, though. Like, you know what I mean? Like, this... That movie almost doesn't take itself seriously. This movie takes itself incredibly seriously.

Yeah. Like, you get the... There's a sincerity about this. Maybe it's obviously not perfect, but there's a sincerity, like, about the movie. Would you watch a movie about done love story JFK Jr. style about Lenny Kravitz falling love with Lisa Bonnet? We love it. We get all the Lenny's music. The entire thing would love

it. I'm obsessed. It's a good idea. Zoe Kravitz plays Lisa Bonnet? Oh, shit. You like that type of shit. I'm into that. It's a good idea, right? I'm into Lisa Bonnet. I'm into Zoe Kravitz and Lisa Bonnet, sure. Everyone loves Lenny Kravitz. I don't even mind that I don't like the NBA NBC song. You don't mind that you don't like it? I just

I'm never going to be mad at Lenny Kravitz for anything. All right. CR month. It's no longer CR month. That's okay, man. The little chocolate right after.

Yeah. Little, what are those, those little gum things? What's the one that's, it's got the, there's like different ones that they'll bring out?

Well, they've got the mints. You know, chocolate cover mints is usually. I feel like that's lazy when the restaurants do that. Okay. I like when I felt like the dessert, the dessert chef made me something.

I like when they, I feel like they prepared something for me. It's true. That's it. I don't know what's coming next week. This was fun. Good to see you, Ben. Of course.

Good to see you. See you guys in San Francisco if you're listening. San Francisco. Two days from now. If this will come out on a Monday, we're there Wednesday. Yeah, I'll do the little intro for that. But yeah, we're going to be doing basic instinct. The three of us with Mallory at the Tony Rempie theater.

Yeah. Doesn't that guy play for the Rangers? San Francisco. Tony Remp, he hit like 280 last year. Yeah, we will be there. Thanks to Gahau, thanks to Eduardo as well, and we'll see next week in the rewatches. You can't reason with the sun.

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