The Rewatchables - ‘Hoosiers’ With Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: November 26, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo are way past big speech time after rewatching the 1986 classic ‘Hoosiers,’ starring Gene Hackman, Dennis Hopper, and Barbara Hershey. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. The rewatchables is brought to you by Fandall's Sportsbook as well as the Ringer podcast network where you can hear the Ryan Rissillo podcast. You can hear the Bill Simmons podcast. And coming up, you're about to hear the rewatchables podcast. All of you have the weekend to think about whether you want to be on the rewatchables or not or the falling conditions.

What I say when it comes to the rewatchables is the law. Absolutely. And without discussion, Hoosiers is next. We're going to be a tough team to beat. Now, you come along for the ride. A tough coach. He turned losers into fighting. We did it!

Enemies into friends. I play. Coach stays. He goes, I go. Challenges into trials. If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, in my book, we're going to be winners. Hoosiers, it'll go straight to your heart.

Rated VG. Starts tomorrow and selected theaters near you. All right, Ryan Rissilo is here. 35th anniversary of Hoosiers last week. There was a long time in my life where Hoosiers or the natural were the only two answers for what's the greatest sports movie of all time.

Now, time passes. I think every, you know, you get burned out on certain movies. You start picking stuff apart because you've seen it 50 times. Everybody starts pulling their own favorite movies in. I don't think it's as unassailable that those are the two best ever.

I hadn't seen this probably in two years and it was just, it's like putting on an old, comfortable sweater. Just slips right on. As soon as we get to the town hall meeting, you're just on a ride from that point on. As soon as Jimmy's like, hey, I got something to say, boom.

Next hour plus. Unassailable. What's your relationship with this movie? I would have put it ahead of the natural back of the day. As a kid, I always felt like the natural got a little weird for me. Where I was like, what's going on? It's like somebody's shooting them. You know, even though the natural.

whether it's, you know, throwing it against the barn or Wilford Brimley at the end, just all those things. They're great. I mean, it's a great, great movie. But this as a younger kid, Hoosiers was my go-to because it wasn't as weird as the natural was. Yeah. Because I'd be like, what's going on, Dad? I hadn't watched this in years. And these are the kinds of movies that have a hard time, I think, holding up. You know, you look at some of the soundtrack decisions. Yeah. What is with the synthesizer stuff that everybody loved back then? And we're in electronic mode right now, a little different. And then Hackman.

I mean, Hackman, there's a reason why he was just, I mean, when's Hackman done a bad job in something? So you have this perfectly mapped out script. It's got all the elements that you need. It gets you a little weird at times in the best ways because you're connecting to it. And, you know, you're going back in time. So it was even better because it'd been a long time. I was afraid it might not hold up.

But if you're sentimental about this kind of thing, it does. It does a great job of just bringing you into, this 1950s, Indiana, right from the drive at the top. I was lucky enough to go to the Hoosiers Gym. The day the Patriots lost the second Super Bowl to the Giants, Jamie Horowitz and me and one other person, we took a camera, we filmed the Grant Land video at the Hoosers Gym.

I'd never been there. Butler, I mean, right? No, no, I'm saying the original one. Oh, you went to Hickory? The Hickory. Right. It was whatever time, I think it's called Knights Town. It was amazing.

We shot a video, went in the locker room, did the whole thing, and there was a real, like, almost religious vibe. It was really cool. Unfortunately, ESPN scrapped it from YouTube. But anyway, driving back, I'm going 85 because we're trying to get the game, gets stopped. The cop lets us off. Doesn't give us the ticket.

And now it's like, I've just been in the Hoosiers gym. I've just got off a speeding ticket for the car. the first time in my life. And now I'm going to watch the Patriots get revenge on the Giants. They're going to beat the Giants. And it was just all lined up. And then they lost. Mariam Manningham.

But it was up until the Mario Manningham passed, like one of the five greatest days of my life. But you was going into that gym, it's like, you know, at that point, the movie had been, I don't know, 26, 27 years. And it really felt important. And it actually feels like you could put the basketball hall. fame there and I'd be fine with it. Just build one hotel, move it out of Springfield, put it in Indiana. And I don't know. You could argue that that's like the home of basketball in like a real way, right?

Was the town the same town? I don't know. I know you have this research down. Is the gym in the town where they did the scenics for like the downtown with the one stoplight? Yeah, Knights Town. So that's the same town. So you drove through that. What was that town? Oh yeah. I mean, you know, it's nothing. There's it's like one street and it's like Exactly. It hasn't really changed from the movie, but it was like going to, it's like going at a time warp. It was really cool. Now, where they played the final game was at Butler.

Yeah. Yeah. So then there's that whole that Brad Stevens element to it that comes in three plus decades later. This is a movie. Just to stay on the Butler part, because I was there that week too for the Super Bowl, and we set up going over to Hinkle and they let us get shots up. Oh, wow.

Yeah. So where the state championship game is, we, went and they were awesome to us. They're like, here's a rack of balls to your thing. We shot around for like 30 minutes. That was an awesome Super Bowl. And I remember being really dubious of the Super Bowl in Indianapolis. And I forget what hotel we were staying at, but it was figured like, oh, Indianapolis.

And it was awesome. I had a great time. This is a movie. I actually remember where I saw it and who I saw it with. Stanford, Connecticut. My buddy, Bish, Steve Bishop. I think it was November 86. Yeah. We went, all we knew is Hackman basketball. Didn't know anything. We don't have the internet in the same way back then, but we'd saw an ad. It was like, oh, let's go.

We left, I think it was the Avon Theater. And we just like flew back to my house and played basketball for like three hours. It was like one of those. It was like you just kind of had to play basketball after you watched it. that's, I'm a little older than you, so I was, I was probably 16, 17 at that point. But it was just one of those movies. It was like, oh, my God, they made a movie for us. A real, hardcore, awesome basketball movie that I'm going to watch over and over again for the rest of my life. And that proved to be the case. Yeah, I think it was a little different because I was nine or ten.

And that was a VHS deal. Yeah. And it was still a little bit early. Like when somebody in your neighborhood get a VCR, and you're like, well, how's that work? You're like, oh, you know, we're taping, we're taping Magnum PI and Falcon Crest. So, you know, it's huge. It's huge. But then you start renting videos.

And when we got that one, it's the same deal. I was outside until I was getting yelled at to come back inside. And then I remember when we went to college, we would talk about high school sports and different stuff. And one of my buddies, Waylon Mass, shout out was like, we watched Hoosiers before every game. I'm like, wait, day of. And he's like, well, no, we're not. Like, coach wasn't like, hey, So every night before a game, the team would get together and watch it.

That's 20-something times in high school. Wow. And it hits a lot of the sports movie tropes, right? In some ways, like, it takes the stuff. And I went on Sean's podcast because we did a podcast about King Richard, and we talked about kind of the four stages of sports movies. And the first stage was basically longest yard, 1974. And then we go into Bad News Bears, Rocky, 1976 range.

and then slap shot, and then we're off. And it's like every sport has a movie, and they kind of go through. So by 86, we'd kind of done all the sports and done all the versions of it. And even like American Flyers with Costner does like the bicycling movie and they've just hit everything.

And then this one kind of goes back in time and takes all the stuff that worked in all these different movies and just nails it. It gets the major star for the movie Hackman. It has the underdog theme. In spades, right? Like this is like this school has 64 people. It's got the Ollie scene, which is one of the best scenes in any sports movie, probably ever.

It's got the Jimmy Chitwood, the mystique. But you're also tying into like, sometimes you have these small schools and they have one awesome guy and he just tortures everybody. And they hit that. And the biggest thing for me is the chill scenes, which I know is whenever I wrote about sports movies, I do feel like a chill scene is important where you're watching and just get goosebumps, even though you've seen in a million. times. Hoosiers has like seven of those where you're just like, oh, man, I'm feeling that one.

I'm feeling this. They have the locker room speeches and the picket fence play and you just go through. It's just every eight to ten minutes, there's another one. Even like the guy ripping the ticket, coach days. Like it's just it just hits all the notes and probably as well as any sports movies ever done it. Yeah, it really does. Like if you think of what the pitch would be, be like, okay, small time, Indiana, underdog basketball story, small town. a coach with a past that we're not quite sure what his past is. There's a woman who he's going to have an interest in who actually kind of hates what basketball has done to the community.

Who may be evil. Right. Yeah, who kind of is a bad hang throughout the entire movie. Like, there's standing, people, the crowd is up and cheering like crazy. And she goes to the games and doesn't get up. Yeah. And just like, in protest, doesn't clap. And you're like, all right, yeah, I'm going to date her.

But then Hackman, not sure what his options were in that size of town, probably the best he could do, so I don't blame him. The Chittwood... The Chittwood element of it, though, because if you think of how the movie could have been done, you could have not had any of the Chitwood stuff and it would have worked, right?

You could have not had the Dennis Hopper element to this, but there were layers to this that kept a story going in the same direction, but all these things you kept wondering about, whether it was his background and why he left college basketball for pushing a kid, why Jimmy Chitwood is this guy

that everybody's this legendary guy, the hopper part where he's doing this when nobody wants them to do it. There could have been a stripped down version of this that probably would have held up, but that's what the great movies are, the great storytellers that they do. They add all these different elements.

Even though you kind of know what this movie's going to be, they had really cool bee stories that just rounded it out in a way that a lot of other movies I think miss on. Chitwood is used almost like the shark from jaws in this movie. We see him make a couple shots, and then we have the one Norman. I'll just say this now. I'm stepping on one of the categories.

But one of my favorite, favorite, favorite sports movies things is a scene with dialogue where one of the guys is shooting baskets and making every basket as they're doing this scene. The best one of this is Bob Coozy and Blue Chips, where he's making one-handed foul shots as Nick Dolty is talking to him. Bob Coozy is the athletic director. And he's just making foul shots. And at one point, Nolte breaks character. He's like, Jesus, do you ever miss?

Because Cousy makes like 11 in a row. And it was like, in the script, he was just shooting foul. He wasn't supposed to make all of them. Chitwood has the same scene pretty early when he goes to see him when he does the, I don't care if you play or not. And he makes like 13 in a row or 12 in a row, something like that. And he's just like draining them. And so you're like, oh, man, you can only get Jimmy on the, you're locked in.

Oh, man, we got to get Jimmy on this team, man. The team's going to take off. It's just really, everything is really well. crafted. And the story behind this movie, Hackman hated it. Like, there's so much Hackman stuff of like, this is going to ruin my career. I hate being here. Like, he was a complete dick on the set. And a lot of that stuff has come out because he didn't see it. And then when they cut it together and he was doing VOs, he was like, my God, this is a good movie. But he's miserable the entire time. I heard the same thing about Tom Hardy and Matt Max. So Hackman

Hardy similarities that we didn't even know that were there where Hardy was like, this isn't going to work. The Chitwood scene, so that is, I mean, legend is that was the first take and he just made all those shots outside. Yeah. Well, he was the only one who didn't play college hoops, but he had, you know, he had like a Mike Miller, Ray Allen type of jump shot where it's just one of those jump shots. We're like, man, that's a nice looking shot. Okay, so there was a camp. I went to IMG Academy for this thing where we went down with David Thorpe's crew. who worked at ESPN, who's still a long-time basketball coach.

And they had this whole thing where they were going to teach us what it was like for pre-draft prep. They're going to put us through drills. We were going to talk to social media coaches. We talked to Nick Boletary, who basically just told us who was awesome for like an hour. And it was a really great experience. And you're staying on IMGs Academy the whole time, right? But then they brought in their actual high school studs. And, you know, these are some of the best high school basketball players in

the country. And I remember being like, are they going to ask? Like, there was me and there was another guy that might have been good enough. And they didn't ask me. And they asked him if he wanted to play with them. And I immediately was like, all right, now I'm pissed. But where I remember about the other kid was that, and this is really interesting is that Thorpe was like, are you from the Midwest? And the guy was like, no, why, though? And he goes, the way you shoot the basketball looks like you're from Indiana. And then he was like, my father is. And I, wow, these guys. And again, these are basketball lifers. They could just tell the way he shot the ball, there had to have been some Midwest connection because of just the way he carried himself as a player and he's a really good player.

And the way he shot, they were like, what are you? Where did you? And he's like, oh, my dad is. And they were like, and he taught you had a shoot. And he goes, yep. And they're like, all right, exactly. It was pretty crazy. I'm not surprised to hear that because I do feel like there's different styles. Although now like AAU has basically made it into like people falling out of an assembly line with the way they all shoot the same, act the same. On fast breaks, you run to the corners for the three, stuff like that. There's a little homogene that didn't exist back in the day. This movie, it was made for $6 million.

Probably most of it went to Hackman. It made $28.6 million. So it, you know, more than more than... Almost tripled. Yeah. And yet, it had these legs. and I think part of it, we've talked about this on the rewatchable sometimes

with movies in the mid-80s. At that point, you have some of the cable channels are in play already. You have HBO and you have TBS and a couple other ones. But more importantly, you have the VCRs and you have video cassettes. And I remember in college, I probably brought like six or seven movies with me to college,

and one of them was Hoosiers. And it would be one of the ones we threw in. And I remember I had a bunch of white shadow episodes, and you just had like, you brought like your seven, eight things. And Hoosiers, I think, through the late 80s and on,

it became something else. Because the movie, I think, was successful. Again, 28.6 million, solid in the mid-80s. But it had this tale, and I think the natural did too, of a rewatchable sports movie tale

where those kind of became the two that emerged along with, I think, slap shot. And then maybe Rocky 3, Rocky 4, and there were just some that you just, you watched over and over again. We had so many less options back then.

You know, and Hoosiers was like one of the most reliable things you could throw on. You felt good. You're happy at the end. I love you guys. And it just ballooned in a way that I don't think anybody could have predicted. By the time we got to the mid-90s, the thing was massive. Yeah, but we always love that underdog story, but we want it to be somewhat believable. And this is based on a true story, so you've got that part of it too.

And when I watched Hackman in this, maybe it was the way he did it because he said, so good. But don't you feel like in a weird way? And I don't know what the shooting order was of the scenes, but it almost feels like he warms up in the movie. Yeah. And maybe that was the whole point because he's coming to this tune town and he has to warm up to all these different things. But in the beginning, watching it this week, I was kind of like, what the hell are they doing? Like, there was even some basketball stuff where I was like, what are they talking about? And I think the biggest thing with any of these sports movies to have authenticity or to last to have authenticity. And it's very clear that all the guys played and it looks real. And also that they

looked like early 1950s players, like the one-legged set shots and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. It was very, very 1950s-ish. The casting, I mean, even the faces in the crowd, Bill, like I was looking at that and I go, how meticulous was this about all the extras and every face that popped up? I mean, you feel like it's shot back then. So these movies, you know, the sound and the quality and stuff, like, it's just hard for them to last. But I think this one lasts because we all love these kinds of stories. We get them told over and over and over again with different versions, you know, different costumes, same story all the time.

But if you're going to do sports, you can't screw it up. And this is a time where I think, like, even when you go back and watch the Rocky stuff where I don't want to offend you, the fight scenes are preposterous. No, I'm with you. Yeah, there's no crowd behind them. Like, what were you guys thinking? And yet everybody loved it and ate it all up. and you kind of laugh when you watch it now.

I'm watching the basketball stuff from this week, and you're going, you know, all of these guys kind of knew what they were doing. So their technical coordinators and all that kind of stuff were terrific. And I think that's another reason why it lasts. That's a really good point because the movies from the 70s

had a lot of stuff they hadn't thought through. Like bad news bears a breaking training, which I love. Kelly leak bats every inning in that game, even though it's a nine-person order. You know, it's like, oh, Kelly leaks up again. He bats like five times in a four-in-game. And it was a lot of glitches like that.

Like Longest Yard had some scoreboard stuff. And Rocky One, there's just shots where you see empty seats behind them and so on and so on because they're just trying to, you know, they're rushing through the movies. They're not expecting this. They're not expecting like us to dissect these movies for the next 50 years. They don't see this world where cables coming and VCRs, all that stuff. Hoosiers really did put time thought end. energy into all the little stuff.

And I think that's one of the reasons it worked. Even the natural, Redford was too old to be Roy Hobbs. That's the flaw of the movie. And I think that's why if you're going great as sports movie ever, they have scenes where he's supposed to be like 17, like chasing Glenn close around. He's like 46 or 48 when he's filming the movie, you know, and it's just a flaw. Hoosers did the best job, I think, of all the early great sports movies of managing the flaws. I even look for stuff, and I don't know why I do it.

scoreboard stuff like wait a second it was 2820 now it's 26 20 so it was 2018 and they hit a two because there's no threes and as i was watching i go wait why did it click three times and i go to they screw up the score i don't know why i do this stuff i just do it i notice it all the time like i rewatch madmen so many times like i'll notice like up drink is empty up it's full again and it's like dude these guys had drinks in their hand for the entire seven years so they're going to miss a couple here and there. It's not being an idiot. So as soon as I saw the clock, the scores, again, the scores, the scoreboard on this side. Yeah. Yeah, new here. It's my first time talking about scoreboards. It goes from 18, 19, and then 10 and then 20 because they would have to

just manually turn the numbers up. And I remember just out of the corner of my eye being like, wait, why did it click so many different times? I'm like, oh, that's the way the scoreboard used to work back then. And I'm like, man, that's good. That's really stupid little things, but whatever. I mean, you have Teen Wolf the year before where they're just looping the same play three different times during the comeback. We see the same. Pushes the belief. Yeah. That was maybe not the most unbelievable part of Team Wolf, but yeah, there's a couple moments.

On the Gene Hackman stuff, so the director did an interview with Vulture a few years ago, David Anspa. And he said, Gene had me on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I thought every day in the film was going to be my last. Gene's agent was trying to get me fired. The only thing that saved my job is the dailies. He said, Hackman showed up, coolest guy to hang out with, funny and irreverent, told great stories. First day shooting, I didn't recognize him, became an entirely different person,

made it hell on earth for me every day. Everything was negative. He wanted off the movie. Then the writer-producer, Angelou Pizzo, says, when he arrived, he was in a generally foul mood. We called him the black crowd. He started complaining about everything. and then Pizzo claims that Hackman told him on the last day of filming,

I want you to be prepared for the fact that this movie might get on a few screens here in Indiana, but then it will end up in the dustbin of films that never made it. And the only people who remembered are you two. And I hope I forget it when my plane lands in Los Angeles. Gene Hackman, just shitting on the movie. Wow. There you go. He did not expect it.

And he's a famously grouchy guy. He doesn't do press He's kind of known to be I think other actors love working with him Because he's just all about the work He has no time to be friends with anybody But I think he's famous and grouchy guy Anyway, this turned out to be

I would say the most watched movie he probably ever made You know, and you think of how many people Watch versions of this, how it still lives on French Connection is the best movie he ever made But how many people under 35 are talking about the French connection you know enemy of the state's probably a rewatchable because it's just really good the conversation i think is another like conversation's a tough rewatch though yeah it's it's rooted in the 70s he's awesome in it though yeah unforgiven is another one like he's made some some bangers

but i think coosures is the one that kind of lived on the most for him so it's pretty funny that he hated it the problem the problem for him and unforgiven even though he's great in it and honestly unforgiven is one of my all-time favorites i mean there's just but clint just goes through he's Steph Curry in the fourth quarter. Clint's just at some point Clint just destroys everybody else, not just because of the story, but there's the range of what he goes through in that movie. I know this isn't the Unforgiven rewatchable,

but invite me on it. No, next year, 30th anniversary. All right, I'll gladly be in. My dad's like third favorite movie of all time. My dad is the number one Clint Eastwood guy. And we saw Unforgiven in the Cape that summer, whatever summer it came out. And he was hyped and we walked out.

I don't think I've ever seen him happy other than maybe like some Boston sports wins. It was like everything you wanted from Clint, quit Will Money just laying it down. Last 20 minutes. Hopper gets an Oscar nomination for this movie. Jerry Goldsmith nominated for an Academy Award for his score. Neither one.

Roger Ebert. Guy who loves story. Four stars. Hoosiers' work, he says what he wrote, Hoosiers' Works of Magic and getting us to really care about the fate of the team and the people depending on it. In the way, it combines sports with human nature reminded me of another wonderful Indiana sports movie,

breaking away. It's a movie that is all heart. Raj. Loves plot, he loves heart. Today's most rewatchable scene is presented by Grey Goose vodka. There are many ways to enjoy a martini, but only one Grey Goose vodka, Gregoo is truly a product of remarkable imagination

made with France's finest wheat and naturally limestone filtered water distilled only once to honor its original flavors and aromas because they're that exquisite. Speaking of the perfect martini, it's time. Let's go into the perfect scene.

This will be interesting to see who wins this. I'm just going to give you the candidates. And if I missed anything, chime in at the end. Normdale kicking George out of practice. George. Eddie Harris for Major League, that guy. George thinks he's going to run the practice. No.

Then George does look, mister, there's two kinds of dumb. Just Craig, play that clip. First of all, let's be real friendly here, okay? My name is Norm. Secondly, your coaching days that are over. Look, mister, there's two kinds of dumb. A guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon. And a guy who does the same thing in my living room.

First one don't matter the second when you come. kind of forced to deal with. Translate. That's some sort of threat. Hackman hears it. He storms off. Hey, leave the ball, will you, George? And then he's like, hey, what kind of team do I have here? Great stuff.

Good start. Coach visits Jimmy. We mentioned this earlier. I don't care if you play or not. Jimmy makes his first 12, misses one, finishes 13 for 14 in the scene. But don't you think he missed it because he says it won? He gets rattled. Right.

He wants him to say, he wants him to be impacted by, I don't care if you play or not. So I don't think that miss doesn't count. I'm counting it. Okay. This is incredible. The should we fire Coach Dale town meeting leading right into the Jimmy's on the team, kicking ass montage. I'm combining those two. You love the highlights.

You know I love the montages. Some highlights. Barbara Hershey. We think as Mira Fleener, who hasn't had a nice moment this whole movie. And it's genuinely mean-spirited when she does the, I don't want Jimmy coach in here when he's 50. Is one of the meanest things probably ever said in a sports movie? Just brutal. Just really hits you.

Or when she's like, oh, you're the new coach? And he's like, yeah, why being interviewed again? She's like, I thought you were going to be younger. And he's like, I, sweet, nice to meet you too. Great, great. That must be, what a nice place to be. He lets her have it, though. He has a little sign.

He's like, if everybody else is going to be this nice. So she goes up there. We think she's going to smoke him with the whole he got in a fight with a player in his old team. Does the, I think it would be a mistake to let him go. Give him a chance. Myra. Kind of turn in a little bit.

Then all of a sudden we see Jimmy. What's he doing here? Walks by the guys, dramatic entrance. He says three of his four lines in the movie. I got something to say. I don't know if it'll make any change. change, but it figures it's time for me to start playing ball. One other thing, I play coach stays. He goes, I go. I wrote this once. In the history of sports movies, only Ivan Drago,

I think, did more with less. Jimmy has four lines in this entire movie. So he rips off three of them. They revote. And then Mr. Butcher rips up the votes, Coach stays. And then all of a sudden, we're kicking ass with Jimmy. We're right there. The music, lift. in. Dennis Hopper goes off the wagon. Hackman does a, I didn't think I could cut it the other night either, but after what Jimmy did, it would take the United National Guard to get me out of here. It's one of the best nine minute sequences in any sports movie.

All right. Can I throw a theory at you? Yeah, let's hear. Is Jimmy Chitwood an asshole? Let me present my case. Let's hear it. All right, everybody knows you're a legend. You have nothing else going on.

All right, nothing else going on. You're showing up to practices. to like watch as some reminder that you're in the background. Like, hey, coach, I'm awesome and I can fix all your problems, but I'm just going to hang out here in the hallway. Wait, are you talking about Ben Simmons or Jimmy Chitwood? That's what I'm asking. Did Jimmy Chitwood lay the foundation for today's NBA player empowerment?

Interesting. So in the early 50s, player empowerment, not a thing yet. Jimmy doesn't, Jimmy didn't have say in the coach. Didn't want to play. If this movie came out in 1979, I don't know that we can't blame Magic Johnson getting Pat Riley into the role other than blaming the Jimmy Chitwood,

but it came out years after Magic did that. So I just, I'm not even sure I'm convinced of the theory. I just needed to throw it out there. Well, it's, I had this a nitpicks. We'll just do it now. It's unclear why he's not playing. Myer-family fan. No, it's like a family thing.

He was attached to the coach. The old coach died. Yeah. It's like, all right. Right? Well, it's still basketball. Like, get out there, Jimmy. What else are you going to do? You're going to work in the local pharmacy? Like, you're the best player in Indiana's had in 40 years. Get out there. Pharmacists would be a great job for that town. 1951. Yeah, I guess that would be, yeah, that would be a good job. Next rewatchable scene, the picket fence. Hopper's greatest scene. Hackman gets himself kicked out of the game. Hopper freezes. His son, Everett, pulls him. Dad, you reckon they'll go to number 15? Boom, we're off.

Get a defensive stop. I'm still not sure what his defensive instructions there. He's like, hey, Reid, let yourself get off. You reckon number four will put up their last shot, Dad? Yeah, probably. David picking low all night. Yeah. Great.

let yourself get taken out buddy you drop down and take his place close that lane all right okay and then somehow that works by the way

love this scene because it's the first time the son is after we've seen him shun the father a few times with reason and yeah right I mean it's I mean he is the town drunk it gets tough after a while in a town like that's a tough role

It's tough role. Yeah. And Hopper, I mean, as you'd expect, because Hopper's maybe better than anybody. I mean, that's including Hackman. And Hopper kind of like hesitating and he's in this like he's frozen. You're right. The sun takes him out.

And then when he gives the instructions, it's delivered perfectly because it's like you see his. Oh, okay. All right. The fog is starting to part. But I'm with you. I rewind that play three. times because he's like, they're going to go low.

Yeah. I don't know. Take it out. It doesn't match up with the instruction. But it's fine. They get this deal. And then they run the picket fence. The town drunk,

finally with the car case, decides not to run the final play for Jimmy Chit, the best player of the state in 40 years, but it still works. Merle hits it coming off to pick a fence. Craig, Craig,

run the hopper thing here. We're going to run the pick a fence on them. It's great. All right. Listen to me. Just the last shot that we got. All right? We're going to run to pick a fence at him.

Merle, you're the swing, man. Jimmy, you're solo right. All right. Merle should be open swinging around the end of that fence. Now, boys, don't get caught watching a paint drive. Leading to celebration, and then the sun going, you did good, pop. You did real good.

Little chill scene with a little lump in the throat. won his son over a little bit there. Anyway, that's a great scene. And the picket fence, does that work in real life? Do teams actually run the picket fence? Could that work anymore in 2021? Because I feel like the Warriors

kind of do versions of that with Steph Curry. It's like the, it's the evolutionary picket fence, some of the stuff they do to get him free. Yeah, I think one of the things that we call it hammer, where you run to the corner, but you're running your guy through a screen

that's set up there. Double pick. Curling it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is going to sound hilarious, but after it came out, my dad was their coach. So I think that would have been my fifth grade team. And they ran the play for me.

It was called Ted because he named it after Ted Williams. So we ran Ted. It was a double screen on the right block. And I mean, dude, we're nine or ten. Yeah. Nobody's exactly fucking fighting over a screen at 10 years old. Right. Knows what the hell is going on.

But we ran it because of the movie. I'm not surprised to hear that. Yeah. Next one's a short scene, but the Turhoun game. And Turhoun's the rival school, and we find out in the deleted scenes, which we'll get to, that Turhoun is actually a bigger part of the movie. I'm not going to spoil that for you. Great, great fight scene.

Jimmy Flagrant 2 on Jimmy gets shoved in the back on the layup. Flatch comes in, punches the dude, gets thrown into the trophy case. Looked like it hurt. And then Gene gets to do that. That's a gutless way to win. gutless way to win to the other coach and that coach is like a great bad guy evil coach but leads

to them winning the game. Good celebration. Fans pouring out. Turhoun games really good. Come on. A forfeit that team. My boy can't even play. He's all racked up. You lose, then we'll protest. Everybody's right to win. Get out of my face. Get back. Let's play ball.

The gutless line, by the way, is perfectly delivered. I don't know that someone else, you know, I don't know how much research you did on the basketball background of the screenwriter, but to know whether that was in there or whether Hackman knew enough about sports or whatever, I mean, Hackman is as a coach as is as believable as any character you're ever going to see. Yeah. That was such a part, that's exactly what that Hackman guy would say in real life if the other team's begging for a forfeit. Right. You're just so hot and you're like, that's gutless. That's a gutless way to win this game.

It was perfect. Yeah. Next scene is the Linton game. Up four. Some foul trouble. Buddy fouls out, but he finds out what gum the kid had. Tentine. Strap has to get rolled in. Now, I would argue Strap should have played more. I like what I saw from Strap. I agree.

It looked like kind of the third Plumley, maybe Plumley's grandfather. Little of the, who's the, which Plumley is on Charlotte? Is that Miles? Romulus. Romulus. I think, like, a Plumley. He had a little jump hook? It's a banger.

A little Rick Robey-ish. I don't know. I loved what he saw. I mean, he said God was running through him, but I don't know. He had a religious thing. So anyway, unfortunately, Ollie has to go in. And apparently, Ollie played college ball in real life, but does a nice job of just being like the terrible runner does know what he's doing.

I don't love the dribble off the foot. That seemed pretty staged. I probably would have done another take of that one. I didn't love the air ball either. That's like four feet short. like even Ben Simmons wasn't ever that bad at free throw shooting. But then it leads to, you know where it's going to happen. Jimmy underrated kind of potential goat moment where he gets stripped on the final play,

but it goes right to Ollie. And then Ollie goes to the free throws. And I got to say, like, the concept of the run of the team is going to hit two free throws to send this team to the state finals is one of the most brilliant moves in any sports movie. It's fucking amazing. It's so good. And I love how they shot it, especially the second one where you got the crowd behind the basket and you see the ball and it hits the back of the rim and goes up and in. And then they cut to the one team is like, can't believe it.

And then the fans are going to. It's just so good. Everything, they nail every part of that. Really smart, though, to have the ball in Chitwood's hands. And then it leads to Ollie ending up with it. Right. Realistic. It wasn't going to make any sense for Ollie to ever touch the ball in that position.

There's no way he makes the first one. sorry. I think he goes one for two at best in that situation, but it's a movie. We'll allow it. The other thing I noticed is, what was the team? Do you remember the team name?

He hits the free throws against? I forget. Linton. Linton. Litton, whatever. A bit of a Mitch Teen Wolf moment there when the guy with 35-year-old

Tom Selleck chest hair walks by him to bump him. Now, not as absurd as Teen Wolf where they let Mitch stand under the basket. Yeah, that's, that never could be defended ever at any point. It's never happened in any basketball game ever in the history of basketball. But when that kid bumps in to him, to Ali, I was like, how old is we got a birth certificate

on this guy? Right. You think there's some chicanery? Maybe he's like 28 real life. I can't imagine how poorly records were kept back in 1951 in central Indiana. Yeah. Good job by Merle coming in, too, to settle him down a little bit. You just focus on your free.

Great scene. Thumbs up, awesome, all the way around. The pregame speech before the regional finals, Coach says, we're way past big speech time. I want to thank you for the last few months. They've been very special to me. Anybody have anything they want to say? We go to Merle.

Let's win this one for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here. Fucking great. Flatch. I want to win for my dad. The town drunk who couldn't be here today. I want to win for my dad. Buddy, who disappears from the movie for 20 minutes.

He's back. The coach has now won him over. Let's win for coach. You got us here. That was nice. The Reverend comes in. Immediately does the David and Goliath. David put us in the bag.

Does his whole thing. Back to coach. I love you guys. everybody team incredible and then had a second life on the Jumbotron the Jumbotron revived that scene

early 2000s they started playing it during timeouts I think it was one of the first ones they did that and they did the slow clap and that was like another way Hoosiers just kind of lived down and up but that pregame speech is fantastic

you know what scene is really small but I loved when I you know, watch it this week, because it fired me up was, is it when Hopper comes out just off a bender and starts arguing the call? Yeah. And then does Hackman say stay in the game to hatch? Yeah, he does a state, you stay in the game is one of his few coaching things. His delivery, though, on that one. Now, if I've been hatch, it'd be like, I want the fucking ball next possession. Don't worry about it. Because I'm, right. I'm taking it out on everybody else in the world what I have to deal with.

That was, that's a chill moment for me, an underrated chill moment. Yeah. That's, is that coming? We already had that one. Well, you sort of touched on it. I didn't, I didn't deliver the rest of my, you know, I wanted to make sure I got that in there. The, then we have, we have, the last few minutes of the big game.

We could have, for rewatchable, it's a shorter scene, but you could have had the, you could have had them measuring the basket and the free throw line is really smart. It's just a great little one-minute scene. I like it. How far? 10 feet. 10 feet.

I think you'll find this exact same measurements as our gym back in Hickory. Okay, let's get dressed for practice. The last four, basically the entire game is really rewatchable, but especially the last few minutes. I don't know if you, do you want to talk about the South Bend High coach now?

Or do you want to save that for picking nits? Let's save it for picking nits. All right. It's your call. You do whatever you want. Well, it leads to tie game 20 seconds to play. And I have some picking nits on this too that we're going to do. But Jimmy ends up hitting the game winning shot.

It has that great moment. They really do a nice job with Jimmy getting carried off. We get that shot. The fans charge. the fans charging on the court is great. Then the shots of the South Bend guys kind of reacting to it and the guy's sitting on the floor

and then the one guy, their big rebounders kind of pointing at the floor where he's like, man, that Jimmy Chitwood, he's got that some sort of vibe. Just everything they know. It's great. Yeah, because those things are very easy to just overlook.

Like, hey, everybody runs out on the court, carry off Jimmy. It's done. And then you look at people and you're like, that guy doesn't look like a guy who just lost a state championship. Right.

They really look like they lost. they it's perfect because everybody's kind of doing their own way of being disappointed yeah really good job and then the ending which is short but just the way they've had the gym and it's quiet and then it settles on the picture and we hear his voice and then finally it ends up with i love you guys i think the most rewatchable scene is um the ollie scene the linton game for me and it's tough because i think there's so many great ones but i think i would go with that i love the last i just love everything about how they shoot that is really great. I let coach holding the ball up after and everything.

It's just a home run. I like when Hackman goes up to Hopper Shack to just chop it up with him. And I just, I had a, this could be a pick and knit, but if you're going to be on that kind of a bender, when did you have time to scout the other teams? Like, oh, I got Cedar Falls night, so I'm not going to drink whiskey. maybe he's just a really accomplished alcoholic or either that or he just you know he cared about scouting

he's so good in that and then you know what else is great too is it is his nickname shooter and he missed the game winning shot and then he's like cut foul though and you're just like all right loser what do you have for most rewatchable scene what's seen uh i i think when he goes and he's serious and he tells hopper to be on the staff oh you love that as a writer Yeah. You like the writing in that scene. I like the writing in that scene because it's like it.

My point in the beginning was that there's a lot of stuff in here that makes it that much better that I don't think we see all the time. Like the reason why this movie is what it is, like they didn't have to do any of that stuff. They could have done such a different stripped down version of it. And then they're like, no, Hackman's going to go up to Hopper and be the only guy that has his back. Yeah. Which is paying it forward in a way where this guy running the high school was like the only guy that was going to have. Hackman's back. So for whatever reason, he shows the side of him where he's like, I'm going to do something

that nobody else would do for this guy when even his son's like, what are you doing? And also when he's like, I'm going to need you to wear a suit and then Hopper's line where he's like, oh, I got a wing dinger in there. Wing Dinger is unbelievable. I love when he shows up for the first game and he has that kind of awkward walk where it's like he obviously hasn't worn a suit in forever. And just like the way everything he does, Hopper is fantastic in this movie. That's it for most rewatchable scene this year.

Stir up the holiday cheers with the vodka your martini has been waiting for. Grey Goose, Viva La Martini. You know you only deserve the best. So head to drinkgraygoose.com and code rewatch for free shipping. That's a good deal. Sit responsibly imported by Grey Goose importing company, Coral Gables, Florida, vodka, 40% alcohol by volume distilled from French wheat. I have him in what stage the best, just the Hopper performance.

And, you know, Hopper, I think, if he was an athlete, he would be one of those athletes that we talked about were like, that guy was pretty great. But man, if he had had his shit together in a better way, he could have been even greater. I think people feel like he was on par with Nicholson and some of those guys from that generation. But he kind of fucked up his life in different ways. Hackman, we talked about, you talked about how awesome he was in this movie. If you're talking about coaches doing basketball coach things, in a movie. Nolte was good too in blue chips, I thought.

He's basically doing a Bobby Knight impersonation, but really crushed a lot of it. And Hackman, I think, would be in the finals. This was, as much as I loved Affleck and the way back, there was some, like, wait, have you ever coached a team before, moments with him on the bench with stuff? Hackman, like, from the way he's holding

the little program or whatever he has, like the way he talks, the short, like, loud, passionate sentences and he just kind of seems like a coach. He did a great job. Yeah, it's as believable as anybody that's coached in a movie. I thought Nolte was good

in Blue Chips because this is kind of a weird reference, but the reason Spider-Man is so great is because of Peter Parker. It's not even Spider-Man as much as it's Peter Parker. And Nolte was great as the aggrieved, the fucking walls are coming in around me. Like, he was great playing the role

even away from the basketball court. He was so believable as this guy that's like, all right, I got to sign this deal with the devil because I'm so sick of all this shit that I'm dealing with, where Hackman, I mean, he had to have played ball at some point. He had to have, you know, had a coat. I mean, maybe he's just that brilliant of an actor, but there was something about him where it didn't, it never felt like a reach ever. The only part that I overthought was kind of weird was, I wasn't sure what a system was. Like if we were being super critical basketball guys at the beginning, I mean, other than being the most boring practices. And I've played for coaches when I was a little kid and

you'd be on travel teams and stuff. And you're like, all right, no ball first two weeks. You're like, fuck this. You know, we're young. We're little kids. Like, give us a ball and let's go. And you'd have these guys that wanted to be Bobby Knight that was like cared about your condition. Conditioning at 10 years, oh, who gives you shit? And then in high school, conditioning obviously means a little bit more.

But, you know, different coaches that you would play for, different stuff that you would do. I never knew what Hackman's offense was in the beginning other than make sure you pass it all the time, which wasn't exactly working out. Because again, the guys didn't buy into the system. But there was some basketball disconnect there in the beginning. There was some high post stuff with Flatch, little Anthony Davis-esque trying to isolate him like Dirk style on the high post. I have a lot more Wood's age the best, but we're going to take a break. This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Selling your car should feel like one less thing on your list.

Not one more. With Carvana, it is. Just go to Carvana.com. Into your license plate or Vin and get a real offer down to the penny. No back and forth, no surprises, just an experience. experience you can trust. Like your offer? Accept it. Schedule pickup and we'll come to you with a check in hand. Your car, your timeline, your terms. Visit Carvana.com to sell your car today. Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. All right. Morewood's age the best. The concept of a Jimmy Chitwood

is a really fun sports movie trope. And, you know, Bad News Bears does it too with Kelly Leak, where this shadow over the team, this underdog team, and it's like here's this one savior guy, but he's either a fuck up or he's going through something. And if we can only get this guy, the team's going to take off. Very smart. But just in general, the Jimmy Chitwood,

which we've seen in high school and in college specifically. Ironically, Steph was a Jimmy Chitwood when he was at Davidson. This, just this guy who's just way better than all his teammates, but the team has figured out how to just accentuate all the stuff he's good at. Maybe we can ride this Jimmy Chitwood guy. It's always fun when it happens, especially in the tournament when somebody goes Jimmy Chitwood for a couple games and we can just see it. I like Flatch going to see Hackman.

What you're doing my dad? I'm not seeing it. That's really good. I don't know if there's many people that have ever impersonated him, that's very good. And coach is like, it's fine. Don't worry about it. Jimmy's jump shot. So Jimmy is, I added it up, 37 for 41 in this movie.

Misses four shots total. Steph wishes. Mr. Butcher. So there's Wade, Raid Butcher, and then his brother, who is the one that walks off with Buddy at the beginning and then comes back and apologizes. Those guys are brothers. And the dad comes in and he eventually becomes the assistant coach. And it's like, you have to watch. When did he name, when was he named assistant coach?

He had to come in when Cletus, you know, in the town drunk, you need some assistant coach backup if the town drunk is the other one. But yeah, that scene, I think got cut out. But I enjoyed his stuff where he's just like the good guy who's the, all he does is bring happy, good stuff to the table. Nothing bad. You don't have to run plays for him. He's just setting picks. The We Want Jimmy and then Hackman looking at the crowd going, this is your team, good stuff. I really like Raid Butcher.

I enjoyed his athletic ability in this movie. I wrote 20 years ago that it was a little Danny Angish his game. Little like combo guard. One legate set shot. Good defender. I like frisky. Feisty. Comes in with a nice sucker punch when the...

Got a mouth on him. Little angish. A little feisty. Like a little angish. The music we talked about, but the... Na-da-na-na-na-da-da-da-da-da. it's just, it's just uplifting. And everything else we covered.

Any other what's the best for you? Well, I just have a story. I don't know if you knew this, but I have a bit of a Jimmy Chitwood and my own personal basketball story in high school. Yeah. I could tell you're already excited for this. Let's hear it.

I'm on the edge of my seat. I transferred to a different high school, and I thought I was going to be pretty good. But I wasn't much to look at. Everybody kept wondering why my dad was 6'5, and I was what I was at the time. time. It took me a while. And then I got hurt. And so then my senior year, I kind of knew the coaches didn't believe in me and they liked all these local kids. And I was an off islander. I was pissed

about it because I was playing and pick up games, all those guys. And I was like, I'm just as good as every one of these guys. And I sat down with my dad. I was like, I don't think I'm playing. He's like, you're not going to play any varsity basketball after this entire life of like, it was like a no-brainer it would have made the team. And again, this is not high level basketball we're talking about. And I was like, no, I'm not going to play. I'm like, fuck it. Those guys don't even like me. I'm not going to fucking play. It's not like I'm playing in college anyway. So that whole year, I worked on my game by myself in anticipation of the seniors versus faculty showdown that was like an event that they had. And the basketball team was your coaches. They were your coaches, the students. Yeah, I looked at that game.

I've never cared about a game as much in my entire life as that one. And I had 17 in the first half. And people came down from the stands and the Vineyard Winner, you know, and they're like, who the fuck are you? Yeah. Where are you doing? What are you doing? How are you not on the, what is, who are you?

And I went, ask them. And I pointed to the coaches, like the real coaches. And they left. They left at halftime. And it was like the, this is such a loser story. because I don't have the state championship and the jumper to win it. Yeah.

But yeah, I related to him a lot, except for the good parts. So you never played varsity? I never played a minute. Yeah, I never played a minute of varsity basketball. So it was pretty funny because I still bothers me, but I just felt like I was being wronged and my father and I were like, that's it.

Screw it. We're not doing it. And I was like, all right. And then I was thinking about transferring again. But again, it wasn't like I derailed an offer from UNC here. So let's not overstate things. But I remember once I decided that's it, I'm done. I spent a year getting ready for this stupid scrimmage that was going to be in front of it.

Because everybody would go to it. There's nothing to do. This sounds like it should be your sports movie, a movie set in the 80s of Martha's Vineyard or 90s. Early 90s, come on. Early 90s, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then when guys came down from the stands, because we were getting ready for the second half, they're like, what, who, what's going on?

Like, how are you not on the team? And I went, eh, ask those guys. Ask them. Ask them. It's still awkward. My dad goes into the hardware store. We'll see one of those guys. It's not always cool.

Then when you were on Van Pelt show for two years and your name wasn't in the title, and they were like, why is your name in the title? And you looked at whoever. Ask them. Ask them. Four years. Four years. Sorry.

By bad. What's age the worst? Barbara Hershey as Mirafleiner, Myra Fleener. This was a sports movie trope for 20 years. I called it the Adrian Balboa Hall of Fame, the token wet blanket female character in a sports movie who's just there to suck the life out of our hero. I don't know why they did it this way. She's the most kind of evil mean-spirited version of it. And then the team starts winning. And of course, she jumps on the bandwagon, no different than Adrienne and Rocky 4.

I don't understand why she's this mean. Now, apparently there's deleted scenes where her character's arc is much better, including and the deleted scenes came out on DVD in like 2003-2004 range. There's a hickory rally scene before one of the last two games. Maybe it's the last game. And Myra pulls Coach Dale aside. She's smiling, soft voice. Thanks coach for everything.

Wishes him luck in the big game and says she's moving to Chicago, win or lose. And she said, I just wanted to thank you. I wouldn't have had the courage to do this without. you. And then she says, you know, Chicago isn't that far away. So she likes them. They cut the scene out. There's a lot of stories about this. The studio is like, this has to be under two hours. The final film is an hour 57. They cut that scene out. They cut out the scene when Buddy asked to be back on the team, which Buddy just shows up. And I was like, when I got my column on ESP and I was writing about this. Like what? Buddy just comes back. This guy storms off.

And then 20 minutes later, he's, you know, guarded the other team's best player. It's like, where did this, how did we go to eight players all of a sudden? There was a story. There was a story back in Bristol that John Walsh read that. And they're like, hey, this guy writing about how did buddy just show back up? Yeah, let's give him a raise.

Let's get behind this guy. Yeah. So there's 19 minutes of scenes missing, including stuff like that. How did Buddy get back? Why is Myra Fleener's so awful? Well, not as awful if they had kept some of the deleted scenes. I always wondered like when Hackman helps old grandma over there with the feed truck and she's like, well, about time we had dinner when he's like, all right. And then he's looking over at her and he's

giving like Gene Hackman aroused eyes, which you don't see a lot. It is. And I immediately started thinking like maybe Hackman's mad all the time because he just, I mean, how many other stars have had his run without the sex scenes? You know, like do you think Hackman was ever on sex? going, hey, you think we should just bang in the woods here maybe a minute or two? That's why the firm is such an important Hackman movie. He's like horny Jean Hackman in that movie. He's so horny in that movie. It's great.

It's like, oh, man, horny Jean Hackman. Didn't know this existence. That leads to another what's age or worse. Any scene with Hackman and Hershey kissing, it's just rough. It's like watching your grandparents kiss. It's tough. So, Flash, Hopper's son in this movie. I was flicking channels one night in the 90s

and he was a cop in like a Skinimax erotic thriller. It's not on his IMDB. I don't know if I imagined it. I might have just been super stone, but I swear I saw that dude as a cop and an erotic thriller. There's, so another one's age to worse.

Spikely tainted this movie for me about 10% when his book, which he wrote with Ralph Wiley, which was excellent, it's called Best Seat in the House, his basketball book. I really like it. I recommend it. And he had this whole thing about Hoosiers and how racist it was, how South Bend's roster with the black players.

And it was like, here's another white guys banding together to topple the bigger, more talented black players. This started with Rocky, with Rocky versus Apollo. And this becomes this recurring theme in sports movies. And Hoosiers is racist. Now, he plants the seat for that. They tried to make this movie authentic. And it's based on that 1954 Milan High team. and the team it went against, which did have black players.

So there was some authentic stuff with it. On the other hand, that Milan high team was really good and had made, like, for the last two years, that it had come close to winning the state title and then finally won. So it was a little more like Butler, Brad Stevens, kind of an underdog that was actually a really good team. But I'm just mentioning that because it is kind of part of that era of over and over again. it was the white hero against whoever the black tougher opponent was. So you and I talked about this before we taped it. So this is the first time I think I went into it with the lens of looking for.

Like, wait, are the things that I just wouldn't realize when I was younger? You know, and I think our awareness is such now that we're looking at things differently. And, you know, you go back and think, like, when I watch an old movie, we're like, oh, this is why people think like this movie's bullshit. Or just how often, I mean, it just goes, it sucks. But it just goes without saying, like, how many movies is like, all right, first guy is going to get killed? It's a black guy. You know, like, oh, here's the side.

Oh, this guy loses like every time. And it's true. It happened all the time. And now that you go back retroactively and kind of apply some of today's sensibilities to some of these movies, you're like, yeah, this is why this sucks. There's an awareness that, yeah, we didn't have in 1991. So with that awareness equipped with it, watching this movie this way for the first time, maybe I was looking for it too much.

But even with the mistakes that the black players make, that white backcourt for South Bend is a shit show. All right. Right. Yeah, they're the ones that cost of the game. Right. One guy gets stripped. Another guy takes a horrible long two. And then the other white guy, it's 54 and 34, he dribbles into a trap and picks up his dribble at the biggest spot. And then that leads to the turnover. So, you know, you had to have everybody kind of make mistakes. You could have said number 10, the Black Defender and Jimmy Chitwood should have forced him left. He doesn't do that. But I didn't watch this even with a heightened sensitivity to what mistakes are going to be made. The white back court costs South Bend the game. That's not debatable. It's a great point. Well, here, here's the last wood stage is the worst for me. And it's only because I've seen this movie way too many times.

Coach Dale, game coach. Are we sure he was good? I'm just going to give you some, some nuggets. The past, the past four times before every shot rule is just inane. It's just illogical. It's stupid. It's just awful. He hired the town drunk as his assistant.

He played with four. guys just to prove a point to his guard, which almost causes a riot. I mean, at some point, you already proved your point. You bench the guy. And you can play four guys. Like, what point are we proving now? He got kicked out of three games during the season that we saw. It might have even been more.

Submitted to the state for review by one of the officials. Drunk shooter wanders on the court during a crucial playoff game. And Coach Dale says, That's okay. He's an assistant coach. Just immediately he gives the tech coach. Don't say anything, Coach Dale.

Just let the town drunk get pulled off. And then he tells, goes over to Flatch, he goes, you stay in the game. It's like maybe call time out, let him regroup. They're down 16 to 6th in the title game, getting their ass kicked. All the hickery guys have to point out to coach like, hey, Jimmy could probably score if we set him some picks. He's like, oh, good idea. Let's do that. And then the title winning shot

doesn't set up Jimmy runs the play for fucking Merle State championship on the line all the guys are bummed out and then finally Jimmy who's like a mute finally has to go hey I'll make it and Coach Dale's like oh yeah you're right you're 14 for 16 in the movie so far

yeah you should probably take the final shot like are we sure Coach Dale was a good coach? The evidence stacked that way is pretty overwhelming. Didn't play strap enough. Straff's on the bench rotting away. It's an incredible banger.

Yeah, develop your depth. I mean, he's a terrible GM. I mean, immediately, the first thing he does start kicking out wings that look switchable. Those guys look like they're pretty switchable guys. Kicking out of 3D wings. You know what it feels a little bit like a little Joe Tori-ish? Because if you watch Tori every day,

you'd be like, oh, great. have seven arms blown out in the bullpen. We're never going to make any adjustments. Granted, the team was better than everybody else the most time. But what was Tori great at? Tori was great at getting everybody rowing in the same direction. And even though it was a little tough and abrasive at first for Hackman, I think that his greatest gift as a coach was getting everybody rolling in the same direction.

But I don't want to sit here and call him one of the all-time greats when you run through that resume like that. That's tough. Yeah, if we're on first take talking about coach the next day, there would have been a whole segment of like, of course he won with Jimmy Chitwood. The guy's the best part in the state. Should have won by more. Why was every one of these games close?

He had the best asset in Indiana. Casting what ifs. Didn't know this. Is Gene Hackman clutch? Is Gene Hackman elite? Casting what ifs? Jack Nicholson wanted to play Coach Dale. He was a witness in a lawsuit.

Sidelined him for six months. There was a tight schedule, he told them they could find another actor, go ahead. If not, he could do it a year from now. They say, fuck it. They get Gene Hackman. Nicholson sees the film after it comes out, tells the director, the movie was great,

the stars are great, but if I had been the star, it would have been a mega hit. Jack Nicholson. I don't think he's wrong, by the way. I do think it's a bigger movie in 1986 and Nicholson's the star. He's one of the biggest movie stars

in the world at that point. His biggest Hackman was, he wasn't an opening the movie star like Jack was. Jack as a basketball coach would have been really fun. I would have enjoyed it. I would have felt like he wanted to get drunk with shooter in every scene, though. I guess would have been the... Hackman's just so much more believable is...

Well, even though he's coming from... It's a different movie. It's a good path. It's a different movie. You know, you can't doubt Jack, but it's impossible for me. It's 35 years of watching this thing. I can't reprogram myself to think of Jack, taking it away from Norman.

that's how I feel as well. I think he would have gone terms of endearment astronaut kind of performance, like a little more scaled back. The other one was Harry Dean Stanton turned down shooter. And that's how they got Hopper. And years later expressed a lot of regret. Couldn't remember his reasons for not doing it. Best that guy, aka the Joey Pants Award, is the next category.

Chelsea Ross is the winner, but I kind of feel like he's Chelsea Ross. I don't know if he's that guy. say he was that guy, but then I think he kind of became Chelsea Ross. He was, had the incredible triumvirate of Hoosiers, Major League, and Rudy. He's Dan Devine and Rudy. He's Eddie, the, you know, the garbage pitcher in Major League. Innings eater. And then George and Hoosiers, which is three pretty good. Could call him the Robert Hoery of sports movies even, if you, if you want to get really ambitious. But I think he, or Ory. Orori. He, uh, he, he, uh, he,

he might just be Chelsea Ross. So I think the winner is the guy who played the assistant, the dad, who comes the assistant, the second half the movie, Roland Butcher. That guy's just rolling butcher. And he's been in some movies.

Like you go in his IMDB, he's been in stuff. He was in the untouchables. His name is Robert Swan. I think he's our winner. Well, I mean, if you're taking away,

the major league guy, I mean, they just, I don't know what was in his contract because they go, hey, every game, three cutaways. Three cutaways to like a fist pump or...

He's good. He's so good and he's really good at just kind of being like, who's this outsider? You may be the head coach, but I'm the head coach. The barbers thing, which we haven't even touched on, is perfect. It's a really good way of like introducing if you don't know this world, hey, here's this town.

This is what's important. You're just to start just to have hack and be like, I see you guys. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time and bounce. He was the guy that I was going to pick, but you're right. I mean, he's almost too prominent.

I feel like he's Chelsea Russ. The Vincent Hanna, give me all you got a word for overacting or dialing it up. It's got to go to Hopper. He dials it up. I fully support it. I have no regrets, but he does it up? How about when he's almost dead? Did you think he was dead the first time he saw it?

Just Bender in the woods? Yeah, that's a different movie. Yeah. We're just at his shooter's funeral. It would have been a weird vibe. Dionne Waiters is tough because I don't think shooters eligible. I think he's in too much in the movie. And that's the cop.

It's the cop. The cop. Yeah, I know. It's definitely the cop. When I was going to the awards, I was stumped and I go, wait a minute, this isn't hard. The cop shows up to practice freaking out. He's mad at the meeting. He comes into the locker room at half time.

He's like, what the hell are you guys doing down here? Great cop. Recasting couch. You know what, by the way, I love that it was the cop because it was a little bit more believable that he could just do whatever he wanted to do because he was the town of cop. Whereas if it was just a random guy, eventually to be like, how come no one's kicked a shit out of this guy yet? Like, leave us alone. But it was very strategic and smart to have it be the cop.

Recasting couch, I wouldn't touch this movie. You could talk me into some Barbara Hershey alternatives, but I do like how evil she is in the movie. I think it's good to have a villain. What about Merrill Streep as the head coach? As the head coach, as Norman Dale, Norma Dale. they remake this it's Merrill Street well it's a woman's basketball movie if they

may remake it right definitely yeah half-ass center research shooter was supposed to attend the state championship game in the script you'll appreciate this you're a redder um hopper didn't like it

he had just gotten sober he said now that that shooter wouldn't do that he'd be trying to get his life together he wouldn't want to go to the game. He'd be afraid of lapsing back into old habits. So they decided not to have him at the game. They decided to have him in the hospital instead.

Wow. Pretty good. It didn't need it. Yeah. Jimmy Chitwood's real name is Maris Valanis. He became a golf pro in California. Only guy who didn't play college ball in this game. Every other guy played college basketball because there's one of the guys, I forget which guard for Hickory.

A couple of times he brings the ball up. and I was like, hey, he looks a little loose. That's just the evaluator in me. A little loose with his left. They knew Richmond, Indiana was where they shot most of the hickory stuff. So maybe when I went to Knights Town, maybe the actual downtown was different.

But I definitely didn't have to do. They just tricked you. They might have tricked me. Just drive the small town. He's getting older. You'll love this. The NCAA suspended five of the actors who were college basketball players,

for being in this movie and getting paid because the NCAA sucks at all times. Here's here's Hopper's trick for being drunk in a movie. Okay. He wanted a 10 second notice before the director called action.

He would spin around in a circle for 10 seconds and then be a little disoriented and that's how he would staggered. That's how he staggered on the court appeared drunk because he was actually like disoriented. And he said, he remembered James Dean doing this in Giant in 1956. There you go.

I love that. I love that. Other people said, or you could just show up. Yeah, just pretend to be drunk. So Chitwood, aka Maris Villanis, they told them we only really have one chance to shoot this fans rushed in the floor scene for the state championship game. So if you miss it, we'll cheat it after and we'll film it again.

And in rehearsal, he missed every shot. almost every shot when they actually filmed it he made it that's my guy so that's why he was really especially fired up in the locker room

before the final game on the blackboard are all the last names of the players and the opposing team which are the real names of the Hickory guys Milan High

which I mentioned they won 32 to 30 Hickory won 42 to 40 the 1954 final ended with Bobby Plump who is the real life Jimmy Chitwood he made the final shot

pretty much the same spot. It was the same. It was filmed in Butler University's Hinkle Fieldhouse. And so we had all that. And then apparently there's a scene in one of the montages

when Normandale says something to shoot her on the bench and shooter laughs. The director finds out years later what they were laughing at. Gene Hackman told Hopper, I hope you've invested well because you and I are never going to work again after this movie. It's a career earning film for both of us. And Hopper

laughed and that's in there. Because Hackman was like poison on this set apparently. Come on Gene Hackman. And then the last one is a bummer which I had forgotten, but the guy played Murrell was named Kent Pool. It killed himself in 2003. So,

a sad one. Everyone else is still alive. Apex Mountain. Hackman, no. Hopper, no. Basketball? All the basketball guys? Yes. All the basketball guys, yes. Just basketball? I love when you do this.

It's sort of like... I'm going to say no. Sports movies. It's close. I think you can make a case this was the apex of sports movies because we're coming off 12 years of just bangers. We've got Longest Yard, Four Rockies, Slap Shot, Caddyshack. Just go through it.

It's a murder is just every sport breaking away. Every sport has one. And then it kind of... it peaks with this. And then from 86 on, we either have to, it's people ripping off the movies we've already seen or the evolution, which has happened the last 12 years, which we talked about when United Warrior, which is movies that happen to be rooted in sports in some way, but they're really just movies. Yeah, I also think it kind of set a template or whatever for a lot of the Disney stuff that happened later on. Or I mean, we're getting the same, it's the same formula.

It's just different, different pictures, you know. And, you know, and, you know, and, you know, not to say like this is the first underdog movie is certainly not true but there was you know there can be some real cheesiness to to something like this when you attempt to do it it's almost like everybody's on the same page just going hey let's just gonna make it cheesy he's underdog remember two mid-80s we're still cold war we're freaking out about it you know I remember just being a great school I mean I don't know if the younger audience can appreciate this as much as you should and I'm not saying like feel bad but it was a weird time man to be a little kid because you just kind of kept thinking Russia was going to blow you up for a couple years.

Like that's just how you operated. I don't know how it was for you in high school. You guys probably had a little bit more worldly perspective. But I remember we'd just be, you know, we'd go to bathroom break before recess being nine, seven, eight, nine, ten years old and just thinking like the world is going to end. It was fucking weird. We just were like cool with it. Like, oh, yeah, man.

I don't know. I guess they could hit us with some big bomb or something. And I think there was an escapism. Granted, all these movies are that in a way, but these stories that make you feel good. You know, these downhome movies like were a nice escapeism from just a time where really, we didn't have as much access to information. So the information could kind of be the same all time. And I don't know if I'm misreading that.

I mean, again, this is where the age gap can play. But that was a real thing as a little kid that I'll never forget because it was just so fucking weird how you just accepted this thing that you didn't even know about this enemy, this make-believe enemy that you're just in fear of. I think it was real. I was in high school at that point when the day after came out. I remember the NBC movie. with the nuclear bomb,

which was like really emotionally scarring for everybody 18 and under. It really fucked everybody up. It's like, here's what it's going to be like when the world dance. And it felt realistic. We should do that movie. They never show that movie. I'd be interested to see...

I'd like to watch this again. I'm sure the special effects are awful. I'm sure it's on YouTube. Last Apex Mountain, Indiana? I'm going to say Keith Smart. Good call. one more break and then there's some nits to pick. Exema is unpredictable. But you can flare less with ebbglyce.

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Bring a date, your team, or even your mom. Book direct at choiceotails.com. See you on the roof. All right, picking nits. The South Bend highs coach, I'll never understand why he ran a play. Let's just go through that.

I'm just going to give you the background. They're up for in the final minute. There's no shot clock. If you watch any of the old NBA stuff from back then, it's just Bob Coosie dribbling around with a two-point lead for an hour as guys try to steal the ball.

and I think if you fouled back then, you got the ball back. They call a play. And the announcer's like, oh, they're calling to play! And then the guy clangs a shot and opens the door for Hickory. Hickory scores, now it's 54-52, or whatever the score was. Hickory's down too. Probably call time out there? No time out.

Bring it back up. Steele. Hickory scores. No time out. Another turnover, dribbles into a trap, tie game, and then another turnover after that. It's on par with Rick Adelman in the early 90s and Mike Dunleavy in the 2000 against the Lakers and Stan Van Gundy against the Lakers in game four in 2009 and some of the worst coaching moments I think we've ever seen.

Yeah, I don't know. You know, you're up early. Did that plant some seed of confidence? they get overconfident, you know, human nature kicks in. All right, these guys from Hickory,

this thing's over. Are they trying to run it up? Are we trying to get up by 10? Look, his guards. His guards are a mess. I don't even know how they got to the title game.

Me neither. And then coached on diagram in the final play to Jimmy is just an ongoing nip-pick for me. We're supposed to believe this guy's an amazing dude. The Chitwood hiatus, which is just thrown away,

Yeah, the coach died. We talked about that. And then Buddy reemerging, which we covered. He's gone for about 15 minutes. And then he just shows up again. And I don't think they realize we'd be rewatching this movie for 100 years. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? Absolutely.

Interesting idea. I'm not against it. I actually was more bullish on it than I thought I was going to be. The thing is, though, is if you try to do an updated version and put it into today, then you're not doing Hoosiers. You actually have to do it during this time. 1951. Some of this remake stuff, like you could call it that, but if you're doing a

2021 high school in the middle of nowhere, then you're not telling the same story. Probably in answerable questions. Oh, I have one more pick and knit. Let's go. Well, I just, back to shooter scouting service pre-online. I need to know how he knows everything about everybody, because I'll tell you this. When I'm hungover, I don't want to. read box scores as soon as I wake up.

Well, also the box scores were basically like somebody made nine field goals and two free throws that scored 20 points. Right. It's not like you can learn a lot from box scores. Right. I mean, I imagine he's getting a paper delivered, but, you know, that's a cost. So you got to worry about that. Maybe you grab one from the diner a little bit later on.

I need to know about his scouting world. Maybe that's the spinoff, shooter the scout. It's at least an episode of the Netflix series. At least. Some of his scouting techniques. Yeah, fair. probably an answer to question. So when I was writing for page two in 2001 my first year,

I did a mailbag question and somebody asked what Roy Hobbs' stats were in the National, natural, and I tried to figure that out. And it was really fun. And people were like, whoa, that was awesome. So then when I did a Hoosiers diary in 2002, I actually tried to figure out the Hoosiers box score for this game. So here's all the evidence. I'm not going to change the work I did back then because I think I really put time into it.

we had, looks like we had eight minute quarters back then. Yeah. Or, I'm, yeah. No,

it would have been. It would have been. Yeah. So we see it's 16 to 6. It was eight minute quarters from me. Because I mean, because college was 2.20 minute a half. So,

so anyway, go ahead. So it's 16 to 6 in the second quarter. 734 left. And everyone with Jimmy was probably ice cold. We see Jimmy score 20, of the next 36 points, all field goals. So we're not even counting free throws.

And they win 42.40. We see Flatch score twice. We see Wade and Buddy score once. So that's 34 of the 42 points are accounted for. So when I try to guess the box score, I had Jimmy going 14 for 18 for 30 points. So he would have 30 of the 42. Buddy with four, Raid with four,

Flatch with four. I had Merle going 0 for 3. It seemed like Merle was cold in that game. I think he was more like on the defensive side. I don't think Straps scored. I think Flatch finished with four, nine rebounds, maybe 10, nine, ten rebound range,

probably the leading rebounder. And maybe Jimmy hits two free throws. So I have him down for 30 of the 42s. I feel high, low, or just right for you? Again, we see 20, we see him score 26. So we'd have to. So there's, of him totaling 26 points

in the final. We see him make 13 shots. Yeah. He makes 13 shots. He's 13 for 14 for what we see in the final. Yeah, I don't think there was a ton of offense

coming from anywhere else. Yeah, all right. Well, we settled that. How can I argue that? You can't argue that. Yeah. I really laid it up. Did Hoosiers invent

the slow clap? I've got a couple buddies that have convinced they've started it. The answer is no. Okay. this actually is answerable. It starts in Brewbaker with Robert Redford.

Robert Redford's a prison warden, and he goes, he pretends he's a prisoner. This is a great movie, by the way. I highly recommend Brubaker. Goes undercover in the prison to find out, like, how brutal it is in the prison, because he wants to change the system, comes back out, and they railroad him, and he ends up losing his job,

but all the prisoners, like, respect that he cared. So as he's driving off, somebody does a, and then all the prisoners slow clap them as the car drives away. And that's like 1980. I think that, I think Brubaker invented the slow clap. It wasn't Spartacus? Was there one on Spartacus?

I don't know. I think it's the best slow clap, though, the slow clap in the locker room, which has become a huge jumbotron thing. I mean, that thing's probably, the Hoosier's slow clap has been the probably biggest NBA Jumbotron, which is my next question.

By the way, Brubbaker, did they not recognize their own warden or was a different jail? It was a new hire. Yeah, it was they had, they weren't with them. Good, good platyust. Smart. Coach Dale and Hickory High, have they been on more NBA jumbo-trons than any other characters from a movie in your opinion?

Are other nominees? Senator John Buttaski, Animal House, Mel Gibson, Braveheart, but then the Mel Gibson stuff got a little dicey. But first five years, Gibson's in the lead, but then, you know, he has some issues of moon shadows. Who else is in there in the running for you? Okay, you know what's embarrassing? I don't even remember what the movie is when the old guy's in front of the classroom

and he's like, you're gonna get up, they're gonna get out of those chairs, you're gonna open up the windows, you're gonna, you know what I'm talking about? What movie is that? They play it in the garden all the time. And every time it comes up, I'm like, how do I not know what this is?

Craig, do you know what movie that is? Craig's not gonna know. No, I don't know. It's old. It's really old. Hmm. I don't know that one. What about Training Day? Do they play that in Jumbotrons?

I think it's the slow clap. I think that's the number one. I think there's some independence day, I think, has been. The Bill Palmer's speech probably gets thrown. What about... Is it from the movie Network? Oh, it's Network. Yeah, that's network. Yeah, that's network.

Yeah, good call. Way to go, Craig. No, I think it's the slow crap from this. What about moving violations with Jim Murray? I don't know that one. could the past four times before every shot rule work for the 2022 Celtics? If I made and doka put that in now, would it help the team?

I feel like it might. At this point, I'd be okay with it. And I hate it more than anything. Any coach that would tell you to do that kind of stuff or we're not going to have a ball the first week, I'd be fine with the Celtics doing it because they're getting, they're veering towards not a great time to watch. Why wasn't the buddy Dentine scene ever in a Dentine ad?

It seemed like the most natural integration, right, to just grab that scene, put that in. I don't know what Dentines think. Do they still make Dentine? I don't even know. It's Dentine out. What's your gum situation? I'm a Mentos guy. I really like the Mentos.

I like the big bottles. Mentos. Gum? I like the big gum Mentos. Yeah, in the bigger bottles. I like the citrus and I like the spearmint. only you could answer this next question unanswerable what did jimmy chitwood's next 15 years look like off top of your head makes the win shot early pregnancy that from that night maybe

easily maybe two people um he talks about he talks about going to milwaukee to follow up on some insurance office that a cousin started but you don't know College ball for Jimmy? He's the state hero. Yeah, but clearly there's some red flags about his commitment. I think he goes to like the University of Indiana or somewhere along those lines and drops out in four weeks. Well, that's the bird thing.

Like, I didn't realize that when I was younger. I mean, you tell it better than I would, but like Larry Bird was at Indiana and he walked home, right? Well, the team was mean to him. Right. And he was poor. They thought it was a hick. He was poor.

He didn't fit in. He'd never, like, lived in his own room before. I had a lot of issues. Kent Benson was one of the leaders on the team. It was ironically, this incredible Indiana team that could have also had Byrd that went undefeated one of those years. But he hated Kent Benson. And every time they played Kent Benson when he was on the Celtics, he would torture

Kent Benson, leading to Kevin McHale's 56-point game against Kent Benson and the Pistons, where birds just feeding him and Backel's, like, destroying Kent Benson. It's like, hey, you motherfucker, you mean to me 10 years ago. Yeah, I think it ends the same way for Chitwood. I think he drops up. Bird also, and this is what's really cool. This isn't drive, right? I don't know how many times it's been told, but I remember the first time I learned about it.

Is Bird is dealing, it's hard for him. It's hard for him because he's holding on some stuff. And he said, hey, I was wearing the same white t-shirt every day. And I'm around people and kids that have, you know, money. And Coach Knight was like, I don't give his. shit and Knight even said if I had understood him a little bit better, I might have been a little bit more understanding, but I just didn't at this time. And then he went back and started, what, he was playing softball in French lick and working at the parks.

Who's a garbage? Yeah, it was in sanitation for like a year. And then ended up enrolling to French lick. I think it's a pock on the, a pock mark on the Bobby Knight coaching thing that he didn't realize how good bird was. He came like one of the five. best players of all time on this team and was like, yeah, that guy, fucking loser. Look at his t-shirt. He just completely missed it. What a miss by Bobby Knight. What did Norman Dale's next 10 years look like?

I think he screws over that family. Probably doesn't. The Fleeners? Yeah, he's out. Did you see where he's staying? That wasn't a great setup. I think it comes out a week later that he was involved in the punching the student incident in his own school and he has to resign

in disgrace. He's canceled. It's first cancel. Normdale canceled by the Indiana community. What do you think? Do you think it goes on? Because he's not coaching college hoops ever again. Well, do we factor in the deleted scene that we know about now or she invites

him to go to Chicago? Who's he going to coach there? He follows Chicago. Maybe he's doing like some Div 2 school and outside of Chicago. I don't know. Changes his name. Don Draper style,

coaches Marquette. Bob Dale. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? I'm going to give you four choices. You could have the entire Hickory warm-up suit that they wore like that yellow one.

You could have Jimmy's Game worn in Jersey from the state championship game. You could have one of the original Hickory Letterman jackets that they wear when they measure the basket in the gym. Or you can have the giant framed 1952 state championship.

picture at the end of the movie that they hone in on. I think that's my choice. You'd want the team picture? Yeah, the original one. That'd be fucking amazing. That'd be an amazing thing to have. You'd be able to put that over there. Would that be in the office or could you get away with that in the house?

No, I'm fucking living rooming that. My wife's just taking one for the team on that one. Look, this is going in the living room. We're prominently displaying this. This is in the entrance. We're going to have it displayed. It dangles. Chandelier, right.

What would you go with? I would want Chitwood's jersey. Frame that. Frame that and then, you know, wear it as a plaque as you walk through the street with a bell. Who won the movie for you? Hackman. I have Hackman as well.

What were the other choices if we're being? No, I think he wins. So is this the greatest sports movie of all time to you still, all these years later, 35 years? I love Warrior. And I'm glad we got to do that one. You know, I kind of love cool runnings. Wow, cool runnings.

That's a great one. I thought it was really well done. Yeah. The way they, like it was, it wanted to pull all those emotional strings, but it worked. It wasn't cheesy. Like in the moment, the first time I watched it, maybe I'd watch it now and think it's cheesy.

I really thought they did it cool. But that's my affinity for the people of Nogrel. They know that. They know how I feel about them. I did the big picture with Sean. which ran last week before people hear this. And with top five favorite sports movies was like how we did the second part of the thing. And I didn't have Hoosiers in the top five, but I think it was only because I hadn't seen it in a while.

And now I wish I'd had it. What were your top five? I didn't think about this. So go ahead. Give me your five. Maybe there's something else I'm done thinking about. There's something else I'm not thinking about right now. Doing this for memory, but one was Caddyshack just because I just enjoy it the most.

Well, if that's allowed, then that I don't even know what's close to it. because it is that great of a movie. I don't know. I just enjoy it the most. I had Slapshot, Rocky 3, Rounders, and one other one. But Hoosier should have made it. Hoosier should have been in there. I count rounders as a sports movie.

And to me, that's like just one of my favorites. It's not a sports movie. Cards are sports. Come on. I don't know about that. But I should add Hoosers in there. Cool Runnings is a good one. I got to watch that one again.

I haven't seen that one a while. It might. This might be a terrible. know where I was at in life when I saw it in the theater. I just really liked it. I might be embarrassed to be saying it out loud now because I haven't seen it forever. Maybe I'll be like, why the hell did you bring that up? I'm not even telling you I have cool rings ahead of it, but there's one other sports movie that I'm not thinking about. I don't think it's Friday night lights. You know, it's not, and Blue Chips was really good. That was fun. Have you seen Rollerball?

Yeah, when I was younger. Rollerball is an absolutely fascinating. rewatch right now with kind of where we are with football and what we know about what it does to guys and and how little the league cares about the players it's really ahead of its time it's a really really really really smart movie that anticipated a lot of things and i was surprised by it i got to see that um is hoop dreams is it allowed or it could no because it's a doc i personally allow it i I think Doc should count as sports movies because they're ultimately movies. Hoopstream is number one. Hoop streams is number one for me then.

Because watching it in the theater, that was heavy. Yeah. It was heavy shit and it was perfectly done. So I, now that I think about if you're allowing me to have a documentary in there as I'm kind of just doing this off the cuff. I probably have Hoop Streams ahead of everything else. Craig. Yo. Have you seen Hoop Dreams?

No. Yeah. See, I don't think people understand. 35 even know what Hoop Dreams is. And what it was was the first great sports documentary ever, and it paved the way for everything, including 30 for 30. I mean, I'd heard of it, but I've never

seen it. Yeah. And it was the way they did it, I mean, it would be so much easier to do it now where you're just following two high school kids to do it back then with the fucking cameras that were like 60 pounds and lugging shit around. You were lugging shit around when you were filming things until probably

mid-late 2000s, but that movie was amazing. What did you think of Hoosiers, Craig. I loved it. The entire movie, I didn't understand what the woman, Barbara Hershey, why is she going to any of the games? She hates basketball. Why is she at any of the games? I don't understand. Hickory. I think she loves Jimmy. I think she's looking out for Jimmy. I think she likes the attention. She wants to be the curmudgeon who's not standing up when I did a wave. I guess I'll go. Rousselo, the 10-episode Hoosier series, do you think, Craig, I'll ask you this too. Is one of the episodes, maybe the cops,

little like the guy in the shield. Maybe he's like covering up murder, killing people and covering them up. He's just completely off the rails. He's got his own justice. I think I'd be it. That's maybe episode four. I'll tell you what. Based on his attitude throughout the movie, I wouldn't rule it out. He's not incapable on any of those things. And George is definitely up to some shady business stuff. I think you'd have to add that piece as well. Maybe mix in a little yellowstone where the cattle are sick and Norman has to fix it. Oh, man, Hoosiers. What a movie. This was produced by Craig Horlebeck. You can listen to Rosillo on the Ryan Rissillo podcast. You can listen to me on my podcast. And we will see you next week on the rewatchables. Thanks, Priscilla. Thanks, guys.