The Rewatchables - ‘I Am Legend’ With Bill Simmons and Van Lathan

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Van Lathan are survivors living in New York City, and they will be at the South Street Seaport everyday at midday to rewatch the 2007 postapocalyptic action thriller ��I Am Legend’ starring Will Smith and Alice Braga. Producer: Craig Horlbeck and Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are you ever curious what's going on behind the scenes in Hollywood? You watch a Netflix show or a Marvel movie and you wonder, why was that person in it? Why did this movie get made? I'm Matt Bellany, founding partner of Puck News, and I'm covering the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. With my new show, The Town, on the Ringer podcast network, I'm going to take you inside Hollywood with exclusive insight

on what people in show business are actually talking about. Multiple times a week, we're going to bring you short, Digestable episodes featuring some of the smartest people I know breaking down the hottest topics in entertainment to tell you what's really going on. Follow the town now and listen on Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one creative studio with AI-powered image and video generation.

Build for today's creative process, Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast, because the asks aren't getting smaller. And the timelines? Ooh, yeah, still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Learn more at Adobe.com slash Firefly.

This episode is brought to you by Viore. Look, I'm not a big, let's hype up workout clothes guy, but Viori, I got to say, total game changer. Been wearing a lot. If you see me power walking around Los Angeles, probably going to see me wearing some Viori. Sunday performance joggers that they have, it's made with four-way performance stretch fabric,

one of the most comfortable things you own. You will wear them everywhere, I promise. All you have to do is go to viori.com slash simmons, and you get 20% off your first purchase with Viori. V-U-O-R-I-D-Combs. Enjoy free shipping on all U.S. orders over $75 plus free returns, exclusions apply.

Visit the website for full terms and conditions. The rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where you can find the Bill Simmons podcast. You can find higher learning with Van Lathen. You can find the ringerverse. Yes. With Van Lathen, what's going on in the ringerverse? Are there movies coming out?

Not right now. It's end of year wrap-up time. Okay. It's time to wrap up, the mediocre year that it was in comic book movies. The B-minus C-plus wrap-up. The B-minus C-plus wrap-up. But it's important to do because you get a hold on the entire culture of the nerddom. and we get to have like a state of the nerddom situation.

Okay. Coming up on this podcast, my name is Bill Simmons. I am a survivor living in New York City. I Am Legend is next. Dr. Robert Neville, 2012. In broadcasting on all AM frequencies. I'm a survivor living in New York City. Anyone is out there.

Please, you are not alone. I am legend. All right, so we want to do a Will Smith movie because he has a new movie coming out and there's been some Will Smith discourse. Do you want to scream Will Y now or do you want to wait like five minutes? I don't know if there's a Will Y in there.

Not for the Chris Rock Slap? No, it's kind of like... Not a Y? Lowercase Y? I think it's a damn Will. You know what I mean? I don't think so. Well, I think we hit the Will Y but it's like

damn Will. Really? Come on, man. You had it all. You had it all in front of you. What were you doing? But you know what? I think Will.

I don't think, I think Will is, so you think Will is gone. You think Will is off of his first. I don't think so either. I don't think so either. I don't think he is even closer to that, man. I really enjoyed I Am Legend. And I wasn't thinking about him, Chris Rock turned it. I was just like, this is a good movie.

It's Will Smith. Yeah. They had a bad night. Yeah, it's a bad night. It's time has passed. Right. I think it's a little weird that he's doing the interview circuit. Who's got a movie to come out?

I get it. I know that he has to, but I almost would have done nothing and just done the Leo and just... Just put the movie out. Just put the movie out. Hold on. So, Bill, what you're saying is Apple does the movie with Will and Will just goes, I'm not talking, just put it out. If I'm Apple... If you're Apple...

I don't want him talking. Really? Just get it out. Just let some time pass. Let some time pass. Let's get to the next Oscars. Let's get through the Chris Rock Netflix special where I'm sure he's going to do 20 minutes of material on Will Smith.

Let's get through all that. Let's hit all the checkpoints. And then I'm ready to hear from Will Smith. So if you're Apple, you've spent money on the movie and you actively don't want that movie's promotion, even though when Will Smith opens his mouth, everybody is going to listen to what he has to say. Did everybody listen?

I can't think of two things he said in the Trevor Noah interview. But you know that there was a Trevor Noah interview. Dude, that's all I know. Right. So what I'm saying is that he did the Trevor Noah thing. He's got a red table talk coming out pretty soon. I saw them pumping that up pretty soon. So you have to promote the movie.

They spent millions of dollars a movie. So wait, you got to promote the movie. Are you buying anything authentic that Will Smith has to say about anything these days? Because I'm not. Do you know why? I'm not. Because I don't think he's worked it out yet. Me neither.

So it's not because I don't think that he's lying or I don't think that he's being disingenuous. I don't think Will. There hasn't been enough time for Will to have, like, worked out what went wrong that night, how he was feeling. He kind of admits to that, talks about that a little bit. So when he's trying to talk about it, you're watching somebody kind of fumble around and fuck it up a little bit because he needs a little time away from it to kind of figure out how his wires got crossed to that level. I'm fine with, I didn't think I would be after it was so weird in the Oscars what happened. But I'm okay with it now. Like, the library has not been affected to me.

I test drove a little bad boys over the summer, and I'm like, you know what? I still love this movie. I don't care that he hit Chris Rock. I am legend thoroughly enjoyed. And in general, like, I don't really care. It's not like the Kanye situation. Where it's like, I don't want to blast Kanye in my car.

Wait, wait, wait. It's not like the Kanye situation. Well, you know what I mean. It's totally fucking different. I get it. I'm saying, like, Kanye is like out. Kna is just. guy's a fucking Nazi

compared to a guy who had a bad knife and smacked the guy wearing a tuxedo. It's like, one dude is a Nazi. It's like, Nazi is way over there. The other guy he fucked up. He fucked up. Bad. Fucked up bad.

It's more that he fucked up the greatest night of his life, which is worse than fucking up. So I'm at that point in New York shooting hip-hop Homicides. I didn't even see it live. So I'm in New York student hip hop homicides, and I'll wake up. I slept through it.

I didn't see the Oscars. I slept through it. I wake up the next morning, and I literally have 100 text messages. And Kaleek was like, yo, because they went to an Oscar event. Because remember, we won the year before. So they went to an Oscar event. So they're like, yo, Will Smith just slapped the hell out of Chris Rock. It's just real.

Yo, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the last one is, oh, you must be sleep. Because there's no way that you're not talking about this right now. And when I woke up like, man, was that real? Everybody's asking me, is it real? Like, man, do you know something? Is that real? And then the last text you got was from Will Smith who just said, help.

Help me. And then so when I woke up, the world's made their decision. Yeah. And I watch it. And, you know, even to this day, there'll be times when I'm like working out or walking around or like writing to where it'll just jump in my mind. Yo, Will Smith

walked on stage at the Academy Awards and smacked the shit out of somebody and it was Chris Rock. What kind of simulation with his hands behind his back? What type of simulation are we living in? Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars.

See, I'm nuts. To me it's not just a slap. It's a very strange speech an hour later. It's Denzel trying to calm him down. It's them not kicking him out. And then it's him going to the Vanity Fair Party. Like nothing happened. Right. This fucking Oscar. Like... Well, that's Hollywood.

I mean, that was a whole night of bad decisions. Yeah. Well, that's Hollywood, though. That's Hollywood. That's the same crowd who... I mean... Well, they love a comeback in Hollywood. They love a comeback, right? And that was the shortest comeback ever. We had seen comebacks before. Remember the whole Elya Kizan

uproar at the Academy Awards? I guess that's the late 90s where Elyah Kizan comes back and everybody didn't know what to do. And There's Ed Harris and not standing up and clapping for him. And then you have, obviously, Roman Polansky's situation in 2003. More than a situation. I mean, yeah. He's on the run for standing ovation.

And the whole town is clapping as if they're in defiance of the fact that he raped a child. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so in that moment, like, you get to the Oscars. and that night is such about there's such a sycophantic air to the night itself that they don't know how to do anything but buy into that oh forget about whatever you did it's a night of celebration of the arts

so Will Will gets up there he actually challenges the crowd if you ask me because he goes he gets up there and he's talking about and he says what you just saw was like that was old Richard Williams coming out or something like that Yeah. He's talking about the fact that he just smack this motherfucker in front of everybody. And he's trying to justify it.

No, he didn't try. He did. And I'm not, like, he didn't try. He did. And so I'm not clutching my pearls at what happened between Will Smith and Chris Rock. I've seen worse. It's like, he's cool with me. He's saying, sorry, whatever.

It's not that big of a deal. But in the moment to see everybody kind of not know what to do and just like reflexively clap and stuff, it was just a really interesting study in the town itself. As far as Will, I don't... There's also an authenticity thing that comes with it, right? That ties into all the

Wilson-Jada stuff and all the rumors about their marriage and everything else. And then you know, it's like, Cruz has a little bit of the same issue, right? Where it's like the public persona of somebody versus what we actually think the person is like

when it is like that disparate, I think that's what people have had in trouble with Bull Smith because like this movie we did which came out 15 years ago he's top of the world he has graduated from he has all these different movies he made

where there still has to be one other piece right it's like men in black Tommy Lee Jones has to be in it right Bad boys Martin Lawrence has to be in it Ali it's a Michael Mann movie but he moves Legend Backer Vance who's with Matt Damon

he moves Well he moves into this mid-2000s thing where it's like No, I'm going to carry my own fucking movies now. Hitch, my robot, I am legend. Yeah. Hancock. Hancock, I am the biggest star in the world.

I'm the biggest movie star in the world. So I am legend. He does the, I'm such a big movie star. There's going to be nobody else in the movie for 45 minutes. It's just me. I'm doing the Tom Hanks castaway. I'm doing what Matt Damon eventually does in The Martian. This is like the last level of star power.

Yeah. Where, I'm just, it's just me on the screen. You guys will be fine. You'll enjoy this. that's how big of a movie star is. Not that many movie stars can do it. Like, think about under 40 guys we have now who could just carry a movie by themselves

for 45 minutes. I cannot think of one. Well, because there's a combination of it. You have to have the acting chops, which, by the way, this is one of the finest performances of Wilson's group. Agreed, yeah. So you have to have the acting chops,

but you also have the gravitas and charm of a movie star. Charisma. The charisma, yeah. You have to have that, and we don't have, We're short on that because the roles define the actors more now than the actors defining the roles. And that's just by virtue of what Hollywood has become.

There might be a couple of guys, but who are you, let me ask you a question. Under 40, who would you even want to watch in this? There's nobody. I mean, this is what Wesley wrote about in The York Times a couple weeks ago, that it's this, and I remember writing about it for Grantland in 2011 about, like, the last movie star. And it was about Will Smith. Will Smith is the last movie star we have, the last person who, the movies, We talked, like we did Paul Newman last week.

We did the verdict. Paul Newman, massive movie star. If he's making a movie, it's like, well, I'm going to go see that unless the reviews are horrible. I'm going because it's Paul Newman. We just don't have actors like that anymore. I don't think we have actresses like that either. Town changed. Town changed.

What made money? Stardom changed. Also, like, we have more stars, not movies, TV, but like TikTok, YouTube, music, like, social media. There's just, there's more. More celebrity everywhere, so movie stars are just less important, I think, than they were. Even 15 years ago, Will Smith, where it's like, Will Smith has a new movie, I'm going. Denzel had it. Cruz had it.

Cruz still has it, as long as it's the right role. There used to be multiple guys that had it at once. Yeah. Multiple ladies that had it at once. There was a great moment where there was a Sandra Bullock sort of Julia Roberts. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there was multiple. Reese.

And then Cameron Diaz comes charging up there for a little while. There was multiple people kind of had that at once. And now it seems like there's nobody's hands on the wheel as far as that's concerned. And you can still have like the Woman King did well, right? And Viola Davis, I think everybody likes. She's not like a Will Smith star, but is a star that at least if it's a good movie and she's the lead, the movie has a chance to work, right? But you're also probably not going to a Viola Davis movie. It's like, oh, she's a diner waitress in New Jersey.

And it's an indie movie. I think Viola Davis is different in that she is also an actor's actor. Yeah. She, in a way, is doing things. The Woman King was an amazing movie. She's in a way doing things that, to me, not a lot of black actresses have done in the past. And she's reaching a level where she's actually starting to come into her own movie stardom. And the fact that that movie was so profitable was a big, huge deal.

Yeah. And a big deal for her going forward because. That'll buy her at least the front of the poster for her next thing. Yeah, and the movie was... It was good. It was an action movie. When ladies were kicking ass. Now, for me, personally, we could dip into some of the politics of the movie and some of the things like that.

So we could talk about some of the- It was on the higher end of those kind of movies. Right. The history behind the film. But I really enjoyed it. And she carried it, and it didn't miss one, it didn't miss one iota of that big movie feel. Which, by the way, other than superhero movies, a lot of these movies don't feel big. I give an example of something.

I just watched the movie that I loved. Yeah. Emily the Criminal on Netflix. Oh, your girl Aubrey. Loved it. Do you know why? It felt small. It felt lean.

It felt packed. There wasn't a wasted scene. It's not a movie star's movie, but it's a movie that I feel like they don't make anymore just about how somebody shit went awry. Right. And I was refreshed to watch it. because every film is trying to sell you a toy now, and as much as I love it, it's, it's too far now.

It's gone too far, you feel me? I think it's been an okay movie year. I thought Tar was really cool. I liked it. Yeah, it was a little too long, but... With those movies... At least it was original. With those types of films,

you're always going to have a lot of those every year. You know what I mean? You're going to be years where everybody's going to complain about all the superhero movies. And you'd be like, oh, did you see Minari? Yeah. You know what I mean? There are always going to be films like that. The question is like, because it used to be that movie stars would make movies like that,

and those would be films that we talked about all fall and all summer long, too. And it seems like now that those movies are kind of cornered on streamers and you got to go comb through the stacks at the movie library to kind of find them. Well, the thing with Will Smith, he's in this mid-2000s run where he just wants to make as much money as possible with every movie. he's making. He's actually studying the science of what has succeeded with the biggest movies ever. And it's basically aliens, disasters, all these different things, which leads him to this movie, which starts out with this 1954 novel by Richard Matheson. It was adapted in movies called The Last Man on Earth and the Omega Man. Mega Man, Charlton Heston, which was a cult movie for a long time. It's a little dated now. It's 51 years old.

and then Will Smith at some point gets involved. He made a lot of safe choices for a long time here. And I think to his detriment in some ways as an actor, where he's just going for commercial big-ass stuff over and over again. And I think that was why we did Focus, which I love Focus, but I love it as a rewatchable because it was just a really interesting choice by him. It was like a little risky, and he was playing Will Smith, and he had to be romantic and do some stuff.

This is a different kind of thing. This is a safe bet. It's Will Smith. He's the last man on earth. He's in New York City. And I remember being not that satisfied with the movie when it came out. I think it's aged really, really well, which is why we wanted this as a rewatchable, because post-COVID, this is kind of an amazing rewatch. Right.

I liked it almost immediately. Yeah, it took me about 10 years. I liked it almost immediately. I liked it because I never thought of Will as a serious guy. Yeah. And this movie is incredibly serious. It's one of those films that straddles the line between popcorn and like tears. Because the entire movie is sad.

Well, there's a fucking dog. Yeah. There's a dead wife and daughter. I couldn't even watch the dog scene this time. On the rewatch, I couldn't do it. I love my dog too much. I've seen enough. I've seen the scene several different times.

The movie is so sad and so weighty that at that point, it signaled Will actually transitioned into a different part of his career. Focus made sense to me, because remember, Will gets to a part to where it's this film. The pursuit of happening might have been a little bit before this. Before this. He did seven pounds, which sucked.

And seven pounds, like Will's trying it. He's trying to come out of popcorn guy to take me seriously, guy. He tries it and he goes on for years and years until he forgot who he was and he kind of lost his way a little bit. He needed, I remember the piece I wrote in 2011, part of it was about how he turned down

the Jamie Fox part in Django. And I just think he needed like three of those. When we were talking about Paul Newman last week, Newman was always, I mean, Newman put together like one of the best careers ever, and part of it was because he always remembered like every once in a while I gotta make one for them

I gotta make the ones I care about and he would kind of go back and forth between those two. Cruz is always about I just want to be liked right? Every day, except for Magnolia but even that was like a smart move

right? He gets to work with PTA. Smith, just for years and years, was like, I just want to make popular movies that make the most money. And even this, like in the research, he was disappointed that it made $80 million dollars

in the first weekend. I made like 75. And he was like, ah, we failed. And it was like the biggest December opening ever. This movie made a ton of money. It made $585 million. And he still was like, I'm slightly disappointed. I thought this was going to be like a $750 million movie.

That was his mindset. He wanted to be the biggest and the best, and he basically wanted to be bigger than Cruz. I think he left some stuff on the table, though. In terms of what? I just think he was a better actor than that. And I think, I just think he needed, like, over the course of this stretch, which is basically Will Smith Prime,

like two good ones, like take some chances on a couple of indies or a supporting part in a bigger movie, stuff like that. He just didn't do it. It's like, I want to be on the poster every time of the big movie.

I think the chances that were missed had more to do with the filmmakers that he paired himself with than it did. Because, like, what you didn't have was, and part of this comes from the fact that Will Smith is black, too. And let me tell you what I mean by that.

It's like, what? There are, they're not, Will didn't do it the traditional way, right? Yeah. So Will's never made a movie with Spike, not that I know of, right? He's never done a Spike movie. I'm not sure. Scorsese, no. Scorsese, I'm not sure if Will's ever done a movie with an all-black cast.

He might. He never had his boomerang? Right, right? Yeah. So Will, Will did it in a, he really did it in a different way. And what I mean to say about that is like, there should have been a Spielberg movie in there somewhere, you would think, like, in this run. Like his version of Minority Report.

His version of Minority Report. I don't think he cared about that stuff, though. But what I'm saying is that those movies, like Hitch is, to me, Will Smith at his movie star, Apex. The only reason why I say that's because that's a breezy C-plus romantic comedy that should not work except. Now, he's overqualified to be in it. That he straps the movie to his back. and charms you to the finish line. Yeah.

But there's not a war to worlds in there where, like, once again, it's him and Spielberg. Michael Mann was probably the most interesting director he worked with. In that time, yeah. Yeah. You know, for Ali, like in that time, it was Michael Mann. I liked Ali. It's a really flawed movie that we have not done on this pod that is an eight-hour Netflix series. What makes you like that movie so much?

I think it's got some great. sections in it. It's a hard movie to watch, man. The first seven minutes, I think, are fantastic with the Sam Cook song. I can't remember. But it's all over the place. It tries to cover 15 years and two hours, and I think the last fight's really good.

Oh, the last fight works. Yeah, and the rain and Zaire. I liked it. So, there's a COVID piece to this that we have to talk about with I Am Legend. Sure. That has made this movie, it was a borderline rewatchable to begin with, now it's a fucking rewatchable.

I would urge people to watch this movie again in the post-COVID context because a virus basically wipes out the entire society. It's the worst version of whatever you had in your head that would happen with COVID. It's just hard not... I was convinced what would happen, by the way. Yeah. It's hard not to watch this movie now and think like, all right, this is how COVID could have gone in different ways, you know, where it's like a man-made thing.

that just spirals. It's unclear why he's immune to the virus. We never really get an awesome answer to that, but it doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Some people are immune. And in the context of COVID, it kind of creep me out in a good way.

As a movie, I was like, fuck, it started to fuck with my head as I was watching it. So my most rewatchable scene, and I think the finest scene of acting that Will Smith has done in his career to me is in this movie where he's, giving her the raw stats on the virus. You know that scene?

Yeah. And that scene right there is the one, and we'll get to it in most rewatchable scene, but that scene right there is the one that post-COVID hits hardest for me. Yeah. Because he's telling you, he's giving you raw numbers. The virus had 90% kill rate. There were this many people on Earth.

He's talking to her like a pathologist, like a physician, like a virologist, and he's giving you the raw stats, and you think, Jesus, what if COVID would have had? COVID, I think, is like 1% lethal, 2% lethal or something like that. Yeah. What if COVID would have been 10% lethal? What if COVID would have been? What if it had been 80% lethal?

80 is fucking nuts, right? Well, what was it at I Am Legend? It was basically 99% lethal, right? No, it was 90% lethal, so it was straight up killed 90% of the people. Yeah. One percent of the people were immune, so that's like 12 million people. And then everybody else turned into dark seekers. So the dark seekers that were like 600 million people or something like that fed on the healthy people until there were no people.

It's just so fucking scary. Especially having lived in a time post-COVID where that type of pandemic actually strickened the earth. And you're like, God damn, we know that it can't happen. What the hell? He said seven billion people on earth when the infection hit. KV had a 90% COVID. rate. That's 5.4 billion people dead. Crashed and bled out. Dead. Less than 1% immune to me. That left 12 million healthy people like you mean Ethan. The other 580 million turned into your dark

seekers. Darkseekers, great name by the way. I mean, really, like just elite. So yeah, watching this in post-COVID, it's a different movie and it's a better movie. It's like, if you're doing like positives of COVID, which is the shortest list ever, it's like, I Am Legends It's 20% better now. Right, yeah. So we had this movie, they spent $150 million on it, made $585.

A guy Roger Eber gave it three stars. And like the same stuff we like, the Will Smith performance, this is also like an awesome, how did they do that movie? Oh yeah, for sure. Like when I was... New York City without people,

it's just mesmerizing to watch. See, like when he's, he's when he's hitting the golf balls off of that thing that you passed by when you're riding down the west side highway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm thinking, yo, man, how did they get, how did, what did they do? Are they on the lot?

Yeah. Like, did they, is that CG? Like, how did they, how'd they do so much of this? Because these are, these are places that look super real. I'm assuming they build them on the lot or something like that. No, they did, what they did was they used New York City, they shut down some streets to get some of the shots. and then they used CGI to erase people from it

and add the weeds and stuff. For 07, it was incredibly realistic. I'm sure they could do it slightly better in 2022, but for the most part, look, the dark seekers aren't great. And I think that was one of the flaws in the movie. Yeah, the dark seekers don't look, but they don't look.

But New York City looks amazing. And the only two times I remember really movies that did this where your jaw drops was this in Vanilla Sky. Vanilla Sky, a weird movie, but they cleared out Times Square. They actually, they paid to clear it out, and he wakes up in there, and it's like,

Jesus Christ, empty Times Square, this is amazing. They go to a whole other level in this movie. And it's really cool. It's the best part of the movie of the Will Smith. It's like, how'd they do this? You're just over and over again, like, Jesus, how do you that? A feral wilderness, New York City, where

there are lions and deer and all that. Oh, yeah. Crazy deer? Just utterly compelling. Yeah. By the way, could spend another half hour. Just watching him go around the city. Hunt deer and evade predators, like, utterly

compelling to watch. Like, he's, honey was his dog, and the dog is Sam, who's the best co-star of the movie. Just great. Just, like, fantastic stuff. Even then, I'm like, wow, this is really, really interesting. Now, I wasn't as scared or as captivated then because, like I said, I hadn't lived it yet. Good big screen movie, too.

Yeah. Because it looked really cool on the big ass screens. We'll take a break. We'll do a re-watch scenes we can get into some of this stuff. This episode is brought to by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases.

Say it with me, the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Two Good and Company coffee creamers. Howdy take your coffee, piping hot, ice, strong, frothy. But if you love rich, creamy goodness and delicious flavor in every sip, try Two Good and Company creamers. They're made with farm-fresh cream and real milk. Each serving has just three grams of sugar, 40% less than the leading coffee creamers.

Two good creamers are available in sweet cream, roast of vanilla and lavender. So which one are you trying first? find two good creamers at your local retailer in the creamer aisle. All right. Most rewatchable. We mentioned this at the top, but this movie starts out great, and one of the reasons it's a rewatchable,

this is unusual because I like the first hour of the movie the most. Yeah. I basically, if Sam's alive, I'm in. Yeah. If Sam's about to die, I'm out. Yeah. I'm out. I'm flipping channels.

What else is on? But that first scene, he's chasing a flock. of crazed deer through empty New York City. He's driving his car really fast, so you start thinking like, all right, if I was by myself in New York City, the driving would be awesome. That would be fun. It would be a fantastic place to drive if there's nobody else you had to worry about.

Yeah. The lion gets to the deer before him. But it's just you're starting this movement, and you're like, all right, what the fuck is going on? There's no people. We're in New York City. There's a mountain lion. There's deer.

It's not mountain lion. It's a regular. It's a little bit of lion. Yeah, regular lion. I guess like got it out of the cages. Yeah, probably they escaped the zoo because at this point, obviously the zoos all fucked up and they're roaming around and they've like reverted back. New York City is now the ponderosa of wilderness, it's the Yellowstone.

And then it's funny to me because he's using everything, right, to chase these deer down. He's got the gun. and he's got the car. He's got Sam the guy dog. He's got Sam, the dog. The lion's a better hunter still. Still doesn't see the, the lion's still a better hunter. Lions are going to win.

Next one, we go in the basement with him for the first time, and he's just got all these rats and shelves, and they're all fucking crazy. Yeah. Compounds one, three, four, six, eight, nine, ten, eleven, 14, 16, 18, did not kill the virus. Corpounds 2, 5, 7, 12, 13, 15, 17. All killed the host.

And you're watching going, even if you've seen it, like, oh man, what's going on? Yeah. And he's doing like, all right, compound six, 17th one, that didn't work, that one's dead. And I just like when scientists are trying to solve stuff in movies like this. Because it establishes smart guy might be able to figure this one out

but we have these crazy rats that are fucking creepy or like no of those get out of the cage next one I have was dumb Sam runs into the dark building come on Sam Sam get your shit together I thought we had this worked out

we don't go into the dark buildings but another reason why I love that scene is because the deer is running and he starts to freak out when the dog is about to run into the building. Yeah, you're like, why are you so scared of the building? Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam.

And we don't really know yet what's like what we haven't really been. By the way, Francis Lawrence, directing this fucking ass off. Yeah, good one. Good job by him. Like, directing this ass off. We're like, what the hell? But he knows what's in there. And they don't really show it.

They don't tell us. They show. We see the circle of bald guys. Right. Just kind of huddled. And it's like, oh, my God. What is this? he flirts with the idea of not going in.

He can't leave his companion, though. He can't. He risked his life for the dog right there. Gray scene goes in there and that kind of kicks off all of our bullshit in a way. You really love Sam. I love the bald zombie maniacs, the Darkseekers. I'm not sure they needed to show them as much as they showed them. I think I would have gone Shark from Jaws a little bit.

We see the circle. not sure we needed to see them again for a while because the circle was so creepy it's like what is this but then like you what's a while though I think when they're chasing them out you could have edited it so that we don't

really see them okay yeah yeah just make a little creepier man the hanging upside down scene is something else what the hell are you doing out here Fred real you better tell me right now that's so That's like one of the best six-minute action scenes of this century.

So first of all, it's like, don't, no, don't, the mannequin, don't fall for this, Will. Well, don't fall for it. So there's something amazingly brilliant about that entire thing. Number one, Robert Neville is anybody else besides him has gone crazy. Yeah. The only thing that keeps him from going crazy is the fact that he has the single-minded focus on figuring out A cure disease, right? Yeah.

So that gives him, that gives him what you would need to stay, to stay sane in that, which would be structure. Tom Hanks had the volleyball to talk to. But he has a, Neville has a cure. Tom Hanks also had all of those skills that he had to learn. Right. Remember in Castle, he had to learn how to fish, make a boat. He doesn't know how to fish. And then when we come back, he's like fucking Tarzan.

He doesn't throw in the speed. Yeah. Um, so Neville, but we still see hints of him cracking. Yeah. We still see him. He's talking to fucking mannequins. He's talking to mannequins. Yeah.

He's talking to mannequins. He's trying to negotiate how he's going to hit on a mannequin, who by the way is browsing the porn section, which I looked at that. I saw Jenna James and I'm, oh, I know that movie. Plus, they had humans playing the mannequins. Wait, what? Yeah. So in some cases, they weren't mannequins. They were actors because they wanted, the director wanted to make them seem like slightly more human than just the mannequin.

dog, that's like, so creepy. It's good fun. Yeah, I did not know that. Yeah. But so when he sees the mannequin, that's like a guy he knows. Like, what are you doing out here? Right. But he can't help.

Tom! Talk, like, he can't help but investigate it. But when he's hanging upside down and he's got to cut himself and then he's hanging upside down, he's probably concussed. Good job by Sam Barking. Yeah, Sam Barking to wake him up, plus his watch going off. He's got to cut himself down and he falls. and the knife just so

fucked up that entire thing and then it's getting dark you know that they're coming well the three what do you think those were pit bulls yeah the dark secret

pipples dark secret dogs probably the scariest dogs in the history of a movie that work for that guy those are his dogs go get them and the sunlight's starting to fade

I thought Neville could have moved a little faster to be honest he's got a knife in this one I get it and he's gone Three fucking rabid Rottweiler zombie dogs. He's been hanged.

You ever sat on a toilet too long? And like... Right. Well, he also probably had CTE from the fall from... Bill, I want you to give him a break. He's... Get your ass in the car, Neville. He's bumped his head.

His legs are numb. He's disoriented. And he's got a knife in his femoral artery. He's like, bleeding out. You know what I mean? It's a whole fucking situation. Well, Sam got hurt. Oh, man.

Come on. Great job by Sam. Sam saves him from the zombie dogs. I still feel like the zombie dogs are just killing Neville. I don't know how he fended it off, whatever. Sam put it on the line for Neville. Sim put it on the line. A rewatchable scene we're not going to be doing is Neville kills Sam.

Can't do it. I would just edit that out of the cable version. Nobody wants that. Or put the big black circle over the... I don't want to see any of it. Didn't watch it. I could not watch it. Terrible.

Right there looking at me. I'm like, I don't want to. I don't want to, I'm not in a good enough mental space to watch him kill his dog right there. It's one of the worst dog deaths of all time. Of all time. What are the worst dog deaths in the movie? Houch died. They fucking killed Huch.

Huch is number one for me because it was senseless. Sam actually needs to die. Sam needs to die in this movie to keep the plaque on, right? He needs to officially break, so Sam has to go. Huch doesn't have to die. Did K-9 die? Remember that joint? Jim Belushi?

I don't remember that one. I feel like K-9 died, but they killed Hoos, yeah. There was, I don't know if you saw the movie. No, K-9 did not die because they went on vacation after or something like that. Really good movie with Paul Walker, Snow Dogs movie in Alaska. They're trapped in Alaska. This is like, I'll defend Paul Walker as a better actor than he gets credit for a variety of reasons. But he makes this movie with Snow Dogs where he has to go and he gets trapped with all these slothes.

What are you talking about? He's like a sled dog guy in Alaska and he has to go and he has to bring him back, but two of the dogs end up dying. I didn't see this. And I don't know what this is. I saw it before my wife and my wife was like, I'll watch it, but none of the dogs die, right? I'm like, none of the dogs die. And then one of the dogs died issues so fucking bad, I thought it was like domestic violence. She like attacked me.

You told me no dogs would die. My wife cannot handle when dogs die. Last thing about the dogs dying. they actually used that as a marketing tool in this Channing Tater movie they just did. The Chene Tatea movie. They said, hey, just let you know, the dog doesn't die in this movie.

They said that in the commercial. I had to tell my wife, I had to swear in our kid's life because I saw a dog before she did. That movie with Paul Walker's called Eight Below. Oh, I've heard of that. I've heard of that movie. Eight Below, yeah, I've heard of that movie.

Eight Below, with two drinks at me, I could get talked to do it and it as a rewatchable. Oh, Bill. they're going to flame you. I love, why? Abelow, who's fucking Aplow? Made $120 million. No, bullshit.

I swear to God. It was a big movie. Worldwide or domestic? Worldwide. 120. Apelow's a good movie. You watch this. People go in your tour of us.

I've heard of it. I've never seen it though. Apelow's good. Paul Walker, my guy. Next rewatchable, Will tries to mow down the zombies in a car and get saved by Mystery Lady with a light. But that's nothing better than watch of Will Mullen.

It turns it in a grand theft auto. That could have gone longer too. I could have done two, three minutes. He was like, fuck you guys. Yeah. Like you kill my dog. It's over. Yeah.

I'm sick of it. I've been here too long. He snapped. And like I said, you'd have expected him to snap before. He's like, I'm going to kill myself. I'm going to take out as many of you guys as I can.

Screw it. So he's talking to the lady, the Bob Marley speech. He had this idea of kind of a virologist's idea. He believed that you could cure racism and hate, literally, cure it by injecting music and love into people's lives. When he was scheduled to perform at a peace rally, gunman came to his house. and shot him down. Two days later, he walked out on that stage and sang. Somebody asked him, why.

He said, the people who are trying to make this world worse are not taking a day off. How can I light up the darkness? This is whole Bob Marley monologue. He had this idea. He believed you could cure racism and hate. By injecting music and love into people's lives does the whole thing. It comes back.

It's a really good speech. The sound is a little low for that part. I had to put on close captions. I could barely hear it. But it's a good scene. And then last is the ending with the... I just wrote down Rabid Zombie House Attack. Yeah.

Zombie assault. Zombie offensive. So there's two endings with this movie. The other one, he survives. Because the zombie that he... he has that he's kind of nursing back to life was the girlfriend of lead zombie guy, right? Who's called Alpha in the IMDB. And in the altered ending, Alpha breaks in, realizes that Will Smith has saved his beloved other zombie, takes the zombie and they leave Will Smith alone or Neville.

And Neville and the two, they drive to that spot with the blood. Right. And apparently it's too sappy. And that is why they won't the other ending. But they also ruined the possibility of a sequel. So I would have much preferred that ending. They filmed it. They had it.

And I think Will Smith agrees with you. I would have much preferred that ending. Also, because I have a major picking knit with her even having the blood. A major knit with that. That the blood wouldn't have survived? It's not even that the blood wouldn't survive. Who's going to synthesize that blood? like the one guy who could take that and make more.

Like, sure, you can have a commune somewhere where everybody's fucking growing corn and, you know, teaching German Shepherd's tricks and doing a school and having homemade plays and all of that. Yeah. But there's got to be somebody that blood is useless unless there is somebody like Robert Neville there. And the chances of that, being that there are only 12. million people that survived this thing are extremely low.

So you're saying if you got the blood, you'd been like, hey, cool, thanks. I appreciate it. The fuck you want me to do with this? Want me to drink this? Yeah, I don't know how to make a centrifuge. I don't know how to work a centrifuge. I don't know how to do none of the stuff that you're going to need to be able to do.

So this was for you the most unrealistic part of this crazy movie? Well, no, it's not the most unrealistic part. But like when I'm watching at the end, it's like everybody's got hope. I'm like, even when I first saw it, I'm like hope, hope for what? If Fauci doesn't live in this village, then that's nothing you can do with that. So for him, if he would have survived and been able to continue his work, not that he found a cure,

I'd have been a lot more hopeful that they could figure out the virus. It would have been cool if they had another kind of scientist that took, oh, thanks for the blood. Here's Dr. Naceki, whatever. A couple more sad dog dust. Marley and me. A manipulative movie, but it is sad when Marley does. That's terrible. That was really bad.

Lion King. What the hell? John King. I mean, John Wick is another one. They kill his dog. Hold on, hold on. Lion King? Well, Lion King, it's not a dog, but it's like a young cub.

I guess it's in the animal vortex. No. And I don't get to do that? No, it's a lion. Well, but it's in this. sad animal death vortex. Oh no,

John Wick is definitely sad. John Wick is definitely sad. That was a definitely, because that's a puppy as well. Oh, Dog's purpose was a bad one too. Oh, my God. Simmons family loves dogs purpose.

I love that movie, but you know, the dog died several times. Oh, Arna Racing in the rain. That's another one. Did you ever see that one? No, never seen. Yeah, that's a sad one too. There you go.

What about, we're not going to talk about Old Yellow? Shout out to Old Yellow. Yeah, that's a while ago. What do you have for most rewatchable? Most rewatchable scene To me I think upside down is mine

What you mean? The upside down scene Yeah Most rewatchable scene to me Is the Monologue towards her About the You love when Will Smith

gets his acting on I love when he gets Because he is So believable So at the end Of his rope at that But I just

I think That might be The finest monologue Of Will Smith's career I mean It's not Might be For me it is

It's my favorite acting that Will has ever done in one specific scene. What's aged the best? The COVID piece we mentioned. We mentioned how this is an awesome how they do that with the movie. I like when he goes to Southport every day. I like repetition when people are losing their minds by themselves when they have to create some weird routines. It's like at 9 o'clock I do this.

Lost had that. Who's the guy who's trapped in the hole? I never watched Lost. Desmond. Never watched Lost? No. Never watched Lost. You never watched Lost?

I like Fringe. Do you ever watch Fringe? You never watched Lost? I've never seen Lost. Never seen Lost. You never watched Lost? I've never watched Lost. Wow.

Yeah. Never seen one episode of Lost. You didn't feel left out? No, because at that time... Too much other content? Like Sopranos? It wasn't too much... Like, but you know what?

When the Sopranos did come around... You know, I'll be honest, I'm not like a network. TV guy. Shows that come on like network TV. I like fringe that came on Fox but like once I got into HBO I was really not watching very many things that came on networks. As a holiday

experiment can you watch the pilot of Lost and report back to us? But like you know also remember It's not a network show. I don't think it's fair to call Lost a Network show. What channel did it come on? I think Lost and Friday Night Lights transcended networks. Friday Night Lights I only watched when it was on streaming. I did not watch

Friday Night Lights while it was on. And I don't a great show, but I watched it when it was on Truman when it came on Netflix. Morwood's age the best. I love the doctors being interviewed about the cure for cancer and it's set in 2009. And on the news ticker, it says

Shaquille O'Nehdo announces retirement at end of 2010 season. They just threw that. This movie came out in 07. They missed it by like six months. He retired during the 2011 season. Yeah. Good job. That is fucking weird. That's what age is the best to me.

this movie predicts the future a couple of different times. Give us the other ones. Other than COVID. There is a billboard for a Batman and Superman movie in Times Square. I missed that.

There is a billboard with a bat and it's a Warner Brothers movie so maybe they knew something that we did now. There is a willboard that has a bat and a Superman shield inside of the movie

in Times Square when he is there. They were planning that shit for us. Well, there was a movie with Wolfgang Peterson that they wanted to do that was Batman versus Superman. So that movie literally comes out like seven or eight years later

right. So the movie predicted and also when the gas prices when he's in front of the thing, the gas prices and it says $6 for gas and I'm you know at this point we're looking at that god damn it would be the end of the world if gas was $6

hey we got there so that's what that's to me one of the things that age the best is several different times that this movie predicts the future, man. At one point, you have to look closely, but it's a poster

Kanye's new album and it says, don't trust this guy. Shut up. You have to really look, though. You have to squint for it. Alternate theatrical version, they end up going to the Vermont safe house and in a broadcasts a message telling all the other survivors she's

with Neville and heading to the safe zone. And apparently it just fell flat. I think you can find it on some corners of the internet. That's how, we covered all the other what stage is the best other than Sam and just the concept of man and dog.

Man and dog and a likable dog and a dog that's a little bit of a super dog but it seems realistic and the dog's just like this is my fucking guy. Yeah. I feel like my dog, Murf's a little like that. Yeah, he is. When I go do my podcast, Murph's like, I'm

coming out with you. I'm going to sit next to you on the couch in case anything happens. And he just sleeps next to me. Murphy would be getting the shit off. Murph, I feel like, would help me go get the deer. Yeah. But he would also get me killed because he'd run into the dark building. He also probably jumping whatever body of waters around. But like, remember, Sam is a combat dog.

Yeah. Sam has been trained. He had Sam, Sam, Sam's been trained in the ways of fucking the end of the world staying alive. So Sam is not about that bullshit, you know. We didn't mention the Brooklyn Bridge scene. It's a little flawed. It's kind of hard to follow.

but the way they collapsed, the bridge was really cool and it's the wood stage the best. That was some pretty advanced CGI. Well, I enjoyed the flashback scenes. Yeah. I enjoyed the flashback scenes immensely here. Young Willow.

Yeah. Little Young Willow Smith. I enjoyed the flashback scenes a lot because... Would you have gone like two more? This movie's late. It's like an hour 35. Two more above what, though? The flashbacks of...

After his family dies, there's no reason to go back to that time. I would have done one flashback about the measles getting bad. Like, what was this version of the measles, the vaccine unleashing this virus? What was the Rudy Gobert game of this whole moment? Could have done that. I touch all the microphones? Yeah. Yeah.

Something like that. Fucking Rudy. The, uh... Big dumb idiot. Like, one of the all-time stupidest things. Oh, my God. What? Jesus, Rudy.

What a fucking idiot. One of the all-time dumbest fucking things. Of the dumb things that, they're not bad that just pissed me off. Just remembering him after like a big fucking dumb ass. But they didn't remember like, oh, he's French. Do we have a winner for the Big Kahuna Burger Award for Best Use of Food and Drink? Yeah. What do you got?

The bacon. Saving the bacon. I was saving that bacon. I was saving that bacon. super excited about bacon. Yeah. Because I'm saving that bacon. Saving that bacon.

He was mad about the bacon. So the bacon became something very dramatic. Denna Thieves, Benny Hanna, word for scene stealing location is obviously empty New York. For sure. Which part of it to New York is the best of you?

Empty Times Square. I love, I'm always in for empty Times Square, but I also liked Washington Square, I thought was cool. That was good. Where you lived. And I thought Southport was cool, because they've really, they've grown Southport a lot

over the last 15 years. That's where the ESPN building is, all these different things. Oh, Southport is the place I'm talking about that has the... That's where he was going every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Brandy Booth Award

for Best Performance by a Pet, named after Brad Pitt's dog in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Obviously, Sam. Who knows if this is true? But apparently Will Smith, the dog's real name was Abby, and Will Smith loved the dog so much

by the end of the filming that he tried to adopt her. and the dog's trainer was like, settled down, Will Smith. You're not getting Abby. That story feels true because it feels like a Will Smith thing.

Will Smith's like, I'll give you $10,000 thing. I said, Will, let it go. I feel like if Will really wanted the dog, he could have got the dog. It would have been a big check. Big check. Like, it will offer you $500,000.

Yeah. Five hundred and he's like, give me the fucking dog. I want the fucking dog. The Great Shot Gordo Award for most cinematic shot, I really like the weeds when he's hunting

And they have that wide shot where you can see the city and he's kind of crawling through the weeds with the dog and it's just like, holy shit. My favorite shot, for some reason, is when they are hunting. And the shot is from inside of the car. And he steps down off of the car. He steps onto the windshield of the car. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, for some reason, just the blight. And just the fact that the car isn't a car anymore is just an obstacle in the wilderness. like a tree stump or something? Good man. Yeah. The Butch's Girlfriend Award for Weeklink of the film.

This is a thing for me in general with movies like this. When they start talking to inanimate objects, I feel like as a movie device, I don't think people would actually do that. I don't think you would ever get so crazy that you're like, I'm just going to talk to Bob the Mannequin for 20 minutes.

Interesting. I don't buy it. So you don't buy Wilson? Wilson was a very important part of Cassaway. I don't buy Wilson. As crazy as Tom Hanks, Scott, I just don't think you're talking to a volleyball.

Just be like, long conversations. I'll be interested in exploring this because it's such a common trope. It's a movie trope. I don't know if it's a real trope. Do people in jail do this when they're in isolation cells?

Do they just start talking in the fucking toilet paper? Apparently, do you remember a hurricane when he was in solitary in the hurricane and he's just talking to I don't know. I'm almost sure. Maybe this gotta be something to it, Bill. Maybe, all right. What's age the worst?

I had one for that, though. I have the weak link of the film. What do you got? Ethan. No place for children in this movie. Couldn't agree more. Ethan, get Ethan out of here. Ethan did nothing.

Ethan wasn't. Yeah, what did he? Great, great point. Ethan, what did you bring to the table? He brought nothing to the table. Do you have a cute, like, serial moment? Nothing. Ethan didn't know how to, like, Ethan wasn't taken out the trash.

He didn't take that trash. He didn't do nothing. Ethan was nothing. like very very useless in this film. The Darkseeker could have just taken Ethan out. They should have been like, yo, we'll give you Ethan. Ethan has no personality. We'll give you Ethan.

Ethan's not. Leave us alone. Here's Ethan. He's Ethan. Let me finish. You could have a little zombie child. Right. Woods age is the worst.

So Dr. Neville's vaccine that went awry led to 600 million zombies? I think it wasn't the vaccine. I think her cure mutated into her cancer cure. Yeah. I think her cancer, because remember she said that her cancer cure was re-engineered measles virus. Yeah.

I think that mutated into something that I have no fucking clue about this, by the way. I think, but I think that I've never read, I am legend, the actual book. One of my roommates at the time had read it, but I've never read the actual book. But I think her thing mutated it. He was trying to find the cure to that. I really don't know. But that's always how I looked at it, though. How do you think, in your opinion, what is the best way for a realistic zombie culture to be created?

What would cause zombies? Oh, what a good question. Is this ever been covered on the ringerverse? It's got to be virus, right? It's got to be a virus going on. I feel like whatever this latest bronchitis thing that was going around. RSV, whatever it is. That I had for 12 days.

I didn't even have RSV. I just had the cough that ended up. in my chest. Yeah. I think that I was going to turn into a zombie if I had it for like five more days. I was like, looking around, you just got to eat somebody's brains.

What's age to where is? Blockbuster Video. That's age terribly, right? Yeah. It's like, what's this. Isaiah, you know what a video store is?

Yeah, I used to live next door, Blockbuster. Okay. Have you ever rented a video? I think so. I think so. I used to get movies from like the library,

so I'd guess I'd rent it in before. Oh, yeah. Wow. you were one of those guys that would be like, there was always one dude that would be like, hey, bro, it's a dope place to get movies. I'd be like what? The library.

And I just could never bring myself to go to the library and rent like Fast and the Furies. My mom worked in one, so like she just brings them. Oh, look at it. Traditional guy. Libraries. What stage is the worst? I hate that he has to kill Sam.

That's terrible. How would you have played that if we were, they brought us in for conciliers for the script and we're having a meeting with the writer. It's like, hey, scene 58, you know, when he strangles Sam to death, uh, what else could we do here? Can I, why not just restrain Sam? Well, put him in a fucking cage.

Put Sam in a cage. Like, you have, you have, you have, you have 50 cages. You got, you got, you got, you're saving a zombie mutiny already. Human. Why, like, Sam just immediately has to be strangled? Sam doesn't have to die. It's like put Sam in to think Sam could have been saved. Was he worried Sam was going to bite him and he just had to get it done immediately?

I mean, if you got a whole fucking zombie person. Sam's 35 pounds. Just grab him by the neck. Bring him downstairs. I have to kill Sam. You're working on the cage. You're working on the cage. You could have saved Sam, you motherfucker.

You got all of these restraints. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's easier to restrain a human than a dog. Granted, but like put Sam in something, some kind of doo-hackie, make a vest or some sort. Chain Sam up. I guess he didn't want to see Sam as

zombie Sam. I don't know. I'm saying my dog. I would have saved Murph. No way I'm strangled Murph. I'm trying to figure it out. Right. I'm figuring it out, man. Other dogs, I would have let go.

The CGI'd bad guy faces are the worst part of this movie. And I think we're a big part of the reviews where these don't look realistic enough. And there's a whole thing. You can go Google it about initially they'd had some Michael Jackson Thriller, like, of crazy makeup and everybody and

they just didn't think it worked so they went CGI instead and I think it was a mistake. Yeah, the... I think if they did this 10 years later, the bad guys are so much better in this. The more you get to know them, the more you're in their faces, the less scary they are. Yeah. They just look like they were created in some

studio. Yeah, just we weren't there yet and that's the part of the movie that for me aged easily the worst. I don't understand why they just couldn't have had a bunch of bald people that looked like the lead singer Midnight Oil. Well, they've done zombies before. And just with weird teeth and just done it that way.

I'll tell you what I think. I think that they were trying to because if I'm correct about this book, the people are pretty clearly vampires in the book. Yeah. So they wanted a mixture of zombies and vampires in this film. And so they thought that they were zombies that can't come out in the sunlight. They thought they were creating something different. and they wanted to go for something different that we hadn't seen,

but they didn't quite hit the mark. Another wood's age the worst for me. You know, he's stuck watching these old morning shows, like to feel like some sense of normal saying. Matt Lauer? I think podcasts, Matt Lauer. I wrote that down.

Matt Lauer. Hey, hey. Hey, it's Matt Lauer, buddy. Hey, it's me. It's the show. I was like, fuck. But I think podcasts really would have helped him if they do this in

2022 he's just like I'm gonna cue up another episode of this American life or the ringer verse Well he would have had And he just would have had All these people Of content

Here's the thing though How is he gonna Four million podcasts How is he gonna access the podcast though Like he has a Oh because there's no internet Well he would have saved some of them In his library

Have some of the library Was Rogan doing his podcast In 2007? He might have been I don't think Rogan was It was basically me and Mark Maren and five other people Brogan's podcast, he could have gone into some conspiracy theories about the measle vaccine.

He would have been all right there. He'd been trying ivermectin. Right. All kinds of shit to do. Rogan would have survived the I am legend holocaust. Rogan is the fucking I am legend, dude. It would have been, that's where they would have been trying to get to to get to Joe Rogan's house. Right.

Joe Rogen in the studio, just eating zinc. Right. Kicking and shit, he's out there working out. He's got two zombie co-hosts, but they're fine. They're not threatening. The Ron Burgundy Flute Award Best Time for a P-break Look, the movie, the last

half hour of the movie is the worst part of the movie. It really slows down when Anna and Ethan show up. Ethan specifically. And Ethan just sucks. Word nothing. Yeah, nothing at all. Anna offers nothing except for hope.

She's like, Robert's actually trying to fix the problem and she has zero idea of what should be going on. You know what I mean? She's not a good character. I was trying to...

I have another part where we can talk about her. Was there a better title for this movie? I'll give you three options. Okay, go for it. Last Man Standing. Bruce Willis. Light Up the Darkness. Okay, not bad.

Dark Seekers. Hmm. I like Light Up to Darkness. I like Light Up to Darkness. I am legend. Works better for the book than the movie because... It makes no sense for the movie. I don't understand what it's...

The vampires are smart. And then we learn at the end of the book that he's actually their monster. Right. So, like, he's the, he is the legend because he's actually their monster. Like, they're fucking, have their own society and all of that dumb shit. Yeah. And then he, they figure out, I guess, like, he comes to kill them at night. So, like, he's their monster.

Because in the, in the, and, but in this particular iteration of it, they try to clean it up at the end. like he is a legend but like doesn't really work. Best quote God didn't do this we did is really strong. Very strong. I like that one. I don't have a hottest take award. I don't, I have no hot takes from this

other than the fact that this movie is twice as good after we went through COVID. But I don't even know if that's a hot take. Is this being Will's best performance, a hot take being that he won a best actor Academy Award for King Richard? That's a good.

Good hottest take. That's mine. Let's ride with that. That's my. This is Will Smith's best acting performance. It's between this and six degrees, and he's just so much more integral to this than six degrees to me. I think this is Best Actor Performance, even though he won an Academy Award for King Richard, which I do not think is a particularly strong performance. Best Actor 2007, Dana Day Lewis wins for There Will Be Blood.

He's not going to win, you know, obviously. It's like fucking the greatest performance. George Clooney and Michael Clayton. Good performance Johnny Depp and Sweeney Todd Tommy Lee Jones in the Valley of Vila Vigo Mortensen and Eastern Promises

That's a fucking amazing movie So I like three of those Yeah Yeah There you go Let's uh We'll take a break and then we'll do the rest This podcast is brought to you by Carvanna

Selling your car should feel like one less thing on your list Not one more. With Carvana, it is. Just go to Carvana.com, and to your license plate or VIN and get a real offer down to the penny. No back and forth, no surprises, just an 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.

Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zephound contains terseptide and should not be used with other or Zepotide-containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is

safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea,

and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99-79 or visit Zep-Bash-Bash-Bank. Downs.lily.com. All right, casting what ifs. So Warner Brothers developed this with Schwarzenegger and Ridley Scott directing in 1998. Budget got too high. Both guys had a couple bombs,

semi-bombs. Yeah. Warner Brothers cooled off on Ridley Scott and Arnold Schwarzenegger. This would have been a weird Arnold could not have carried a movie by himself for 45 minutes. He had to play off other people. I'm not buying it. Can I? Oh, okay.

Oh, a pushback. Can I not pushback? I don't think Arnold was maybe It'd been interesting to see him do this movie But Arnold's really an underrated actor to me Not by himself I don't think he can do it What's the best Arnold's ever been?

In a movie? Into you I mean he's awesome in Total Recall He's awesome in True Ries He's awesome and true lies. He's awesome and true lies Yeah But maybe this is too much for him

But I've always wanted to see him Do something kind of like this Okay. Well, it never happened. Now it's too old. Well, glad you want that. They said fuck it. It's too late. Nick Cage.

He came in in 98. That's interesting. That works. Not against it. 98 Nick Cage? Great era for him. Yeah, right after like con air era. And face off?

Yeah, yeah, face off. Yeah, that works. Where do you stand on Kiss of Death? The movie is so interesting that... I love it. It's going to happen on the rewatch. The movie is so interesting that I cannot like it. that I cannot like it.

He's so fucking crazy in that movie. I don't like metal in my mouth. Right, right. Caruso, Sam Jackson, all of those guys. 2002, Michael Bay was supposed to direct Will Smith in this movie, and they decided to make bad boys too instead. Thank you. It would have been an abomination.

Yeah, I'm glad they made the right choice. Guillermo del Toro was Will Smith's first choice to direct this movie in 2007. No shot of Francis, Lawrence. Yeah, no. That would have been super interesting. More of an intimate movie, though. He made Hellboy 2 instead. That's how we end up with Francis Lawrence.

The Ruffalo Hannah Rubenac Partridge overacting award. They knew, and they let it happen. Don't you call me, lady! I come in here. I give these things to you. Give it all you got! Give it all you got! I treated you like a son!

You fucking stab me in the heart! Fuck you! Will Smith, great act performance, except for every single person you and I have ever known is dead! Every single person that you or I has ever known is dead! I still feel like... He dials it up. He dials it up. I still feel like he's just...

He was ready. He was a powder keg waiting to explode and he was giving it to her. I use Sam the overacting award. Fucking ham. Sam. Deanne Waiter's Award. So not a lot of other actors in this movie, but the alpha male, the dominant vampire, was played by Dash Meehawk. What the fuck.

So to give it to him. Dash, great job. Looking scary. Recasting couch. So let's talk about Ethan and Anna. Okay. What do we want, the Anna character doesn't work at all. What do we want from that character?

Are we looking for like Michelle Rodriguez, Fast Five kind of, like a little. little fire and sizzle? Are we looking for like an Eva Mendez type? I feel like we're, by the way, this was a long. Are we looking for Hallie Berry? This was a long time

in, there's a specific time in history where they only pair will up with Latino women. And there's a reason. Why is that? Well, what's the reason? Let's hear it.

I can't wait to hear. You know, Hitch was supposed to be like Cameron Diaz. that wasn't happening in 2005. Right. 15 it would happen. And they were like, well, focus, right? And they were like, international audiences

and some other audiences might not react well to seeing Will Smith with a straight white lady, even though they kind of did it in an I robot, like with a straight white lady. It was always kind of. Right. It was like going back to the 80s with Golden Child, where it's like he kind of had sex with Charlotte Lewis,

but we're not going to show it to you. Charlotte Lewis, Jesus. Jesus Christ. Oh, my God. The actresses name was Alice Braga. Like her first movie or something. Yeah. Who's had, we don't have a good career, but it's just, the character doesn't work.

No, you need Sarah Connor something in life. Yeah, I need more of a badass. This person survived. This person shows up at night with lights on, and I just want to feel like, that's why I was thinking Michelle Rodriguez, because I would have bought that. Or give me, like, where's Sana Leithin in this? Yeah. Could that, there have been somebody like that who's like.

So nah, but yeah. Sona. Sanah? What did I say? You said Sana. You put her in the gym. Well, but you know I have speech dyslexia. Sana Lathen.

Sana Lathen. You put her in the infreleth. You put her in equal hands. Give me her. Right. Because I'm buying that she's a good athlete because I've seen love in basketball. Oh, she okay?

But I'm also like she's, there's a sensitivity to her and I would feel like she was pretty. I just need a little more. Umph. I need to feel like this person that makes sense that they survived done their own for this long. And I didn't feel that with this actress.

Can I ask a question? She came in with the UV lights, right? Yeah. Why wasn't there more use of the UV lights at dark? Like, that's like a cheat code, right? Why don't you go into one of these places during the night? Home Depot. Like, yeah, you go into Home Depot.

You get a bunch of UV lights, right? Yeah. Put them on multiple cars. Put them on multiple cars or drive them into these places. Or why don't you, If I'm will, I start bulldozing places where they're hanging out. Just get a bull. Well, how you go fucking going to fucking do.

But blow them up. Maybe you blow them up. I think there were a lot of dark seekers, though. They probably were, but think about it. I mean, because this is what Robert Neville was doing in the book. You fucking take an RPG. You fucking shoot it at the building. The building blows apart.

This dark secret barbecue, baby. That's it. They probably went to the sewer and shit like that, too. But whatever. Regina King? That works. something else Half-Fa Center Research

when Neville sees the mannequin Fred on the street, it looks like the mannequin's head moves a little bit because they had a mime playing the mannequin who moved slightly to fuck with the audience. Yeah, that did. And it worked.

The director of Francis Lawrence he was watching the pianist. The what? The penis, the movie. Okay. What do you say? Nothing.

It sounded like you said he was watching the penis. He was watching the pianist with the sound off so he wouldn't wake up his sleeping baby. And he thought no sound was moving for some reason and decided with this movie, I Am Legend. He remembered that. That's why there's not a big soundtrack. That's why it's quiet. That's why there's like an eeriness to it, which was really smart. Well.

We're usually hearing all these sweeping scores, but it makes everything so much more intimate and realistic. Smart. It worked in the theater, too. The studio spent an estimated $5 million for the six-night shoot in New York City, which included the Brooklyn Bridge part. There was a follow-up movie plan. A prequel.

There was some prequel ideas, including a Thanksgiving Day parade outbreak, a Washington, D.C. outbreak, or an infected elephant escaping from the zoo, which sounds dope. I would watch that. None of that worked. And then Will Smith said the closure of the major streets was very controversial with New Yorkers. People did not like being put out and having to detour and all that stuff.

Also, with the gas, people are like, how does he have gas? How do you have electricity? Generator. Yeah, generators. Gas generators. And he would go and get the gas from the gas station. And that's how he did the car, all that stuff. Apex Mountain.

I feel like we've done the Will Smith Apex Mountain thing a bunch of times. I don't think it's this. I actually think it's Hitch. Yeah, I think it's Hitch too. I don't think it's this. After Hitch, it's like, man, this guy

put him on a poster, he's going to make a shitload of money. Apocalypse movies, I would say no. Apocalypse movies with a post-COVID bent. This is way up there. It does like dredge up some COVID stuff.

Bob Marley, no. Bob Marley, no. Dog deaths, no. No. Heroic dogs? Heroic dogs? No. Washington Square?

Big Washington Square movie? I like, I like searching for Bobby Fish. All right. Good one. Is that your audition tape to be in the Searching for Bobby Fisher rewatchables? Oh, I love that fucking movie. Because it's the 30-year anniversary?

Oh, dog. I get into that movie so hard. Like, that was doing my chest phase. My son is better at this. than anything you've ever been in your life. And anything that I've ever been in my entire life. Young Fisher.

I fucking love that movie. It's a good movie. That is! That is! It's great fishburn! It's a great fishburn. All right. I'm putting on the list.

Best racehorse name in this movie. If there was a horse called I Am Legend, I think I would at least raise an eyebrow. Yeah, the horse I Am Legend is good. Here's I Am Legend. I am legend rounds Darkseeker would be kind of a fucked up name for a horse Yeah it's like a crazy goth horse

Darkseekers won two in a row Going for the preakness KV doesn't work Because that's like the name of the virus Picking Nits So the dark seekers at night What was the plan there? Just kind of go out and roam around

Eat What are you talking about? The dark seekers at night Gets to nighttime What are the dark seekers doing? They're hunting Chadman, dark seeker Yeah

Interesting part I mean At least it's somewhat intelligent Yeah Right because the main guy They're gaining intelligence as it goes along Right Yeah so at some point

There's going to be A whole society of dark seekers Who are somewhat smart I don't know what they're going to do for food Because they I think I want to know more about the dark seekers Maybe that could have been the sequel

Yeah So what are the dark seekers up to What do they do? Are the dark seekers Do they form a sport? To be honest, you could easily, yeah, the Dark Secret League, because they're willing to put their body on the line. Like, to be real, they could, they could have done a whole sequel

using Robert Neville for flashbacks still with Will about how they bring the world back, or at least a TV show. Yeah. Because I don't think they can do it. And I'm sorry. Yeah. But I don't think they can do it. I don't think they have the people at the commune that they need to.

To synthesize that and make it into a whole deal, I don't think they could do it. What about all the dead bodies? Everywhere. There's dead bodies everywhere, rotting dead bodies. Like what? It's a couple years after. It's animals, though.

Animals eat it, but still, like, rotting. Is their flesh? Like, what kind of diseases come out of that? How does he survive that? How does Robert survive it? Yeah, unanswered. You think so? Malaria could be out there.

Mosquitoes. Colora. Where is he getting his, fresh water for him. Probably like grocery stores. He's just going

through bottle water, right? Probably going through bottle water. Because he's the only guy. So essentially he could his lifetime is probably straight.

Because he's, oh, nope, he's scavenging. We did see him scavenge. I forgot about this scene. The scavenging scene is a good scene as well. Yeah.

When he scavages and he sees the room with the... He breaks in the apartment. Brace into the apartment. He's scavenging and then he sees the,

uh, the, the room with the baby. I could have used like three more scenes of that. Of him just grabbing in different apartments. Yeah. What would be the thing you're Neville in this? The thing you're the most,

what canned good you're most excited for? Like SpaghettiOs? Spaghetti. Like what would it be? I'd be really excited to find tomato soup at all times. Like tomato soup. Oh, the one I would be excited to find. I like the season, the glory.

I don't like these. Okay, because everybody's going to be like, very easy greens out of a can. No. Am I saying I eat my greens? Shut up, Isaiah. It's like, Isaiah snick. Everybody could be like, Van, eat these greens off a can.

I do not eat my greens out of a can. But if there was, if my mother was around to make no greens, I would be excited to find canned greens, the season glory greens. Okay. And have like a nice treat of greens every once in a while. I don't eat my greens out of a can. Isaiah, see, Isaiah knows the, he knows the, the, the stigma. The stigma that comes along with people who I don't eat my greens out of a can from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

But my mom is not there to wash and clean greens, okay? Do you scrutinized. How about Stouffer's French Bed Pizza? That'd be fun to find. Yeah, but, like, it's refrigerated. Frozen pizza. How are you going to? Oh, you're right.

All that's gone. Oh, yeah. So it's got to be all canned. All the refrigerated stuff is gone. Yeah. You know? A lot of tomato soup. So, popular mechanics were a 2007 essay about this movie.

that's basically a picking Nitz essay. It includes tidbits like the streets would flood because after each rain the sewers would be clogged with natural matter and plastic bags. So it would be a constant flooding situation. In the absence of firemen, lightning strikes and gas line exposures

would cause constant fires. All the buildings would be charred. They said we would not see roaches and rats because both depend on humans to survive. And without humans, both of them go extinct. Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, who was interviewed in this, said that viruses don't mutate and become airborne.

They typically fall into a couple different categories. Respiratory STDs and vectorborne, like insects, ticks and mosquitoes. They don't change from tick-borne to pneumonic. They just don't do that. Somebody said. I don't know what I thought they did. I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know what the hell he's saying. Lipkin also says Neville's immunity makes no sense. And then there's a bunch of bridge people saying the bridge would not have collapsed that way. The towers would remain standing. The whole thing wouldn't have collapsed the way it was built. They said that was some bullshit. So there you go with your nitpicks. Sequel prequel prestige TV, all black cast are untouchable.

Well, they announced the sequel in March. Of this year? Three weeks before the Oscars. Of this year? Three weeks before Chris Rock. Got his face slap by Will Smith. They announced a sequel's in development with Will Smith reprising his role, and Michael B. Jordan set to star.

And Akiva Goldsman would return to write this screenplay. Will Smith reprising his role. I'm into it. Real Smith reprising his role is Neville? Fucking 15 years out of it? So it's like a Halloween 4 situation where he blew up, but I guess he didn't die? Oh, for real? I don't know.

How does he reprised his role? He fucking died at the end of the movie. So, oh, so, look, I'm into it if Neville didn't die. I'm definitely into that. I think you could blow this out as a prestige TV 10 episode awesome fucking series. That's what I would do if I was in charge of the I Am Legend IP. I would not do a sequel. Wouldn't do a movie.

I would get Amazon to give me like $500 million and I would absolutely blow this shit out. $500 million. That's cheap for them. Well, whatever. Blow this shit out and make this awesome. I want to go from, they've created the virus. Now we can bring in some weird COVID parallels. We could have like a Dr. Fauci character, all that stuff,

and go through like the virus. Now it's like episode four, all of a sudden everybody's dying. And just let's fucking do it. Let's do seasons. I'm with that. You're not going to get Michael McLeodden to do that. No. Yeah.

But Mike McBehjorn's like, let's bang this out in an hour, 45 minutes. Then I'm going to go make Creed 4. Yeah. Like, but, but, but, but I'm, I'll be with that. That same world. Me too. Is this movie better with Wayne Jacket,

it's Danny Trao, Catherine Hahn, Steve Bouchemy, Sam Jackson, J.T. Walsher, Phil Picker Hall. How about Sam? As Robert Neville?

No, as his brother, the flashback scene with his brother where he calls Sam, his brother and says, this virus is really bad, blah,

blah, and it has a flashback to when he tried to save his brother Sam's life. And then we just get Sam. And then Sam sees a dark see a dark seeer at his door and goes,

Motherfucker! He's like, these motherfuckers is trying to get me. There's an action thing. You could put a new action scene into the movie. Sam getting chased by the dark seekers.

Chasing the dark seekers away from, yeah. Isaiah likes this. Just one Oscar who gets it. So the easy answer would be Will Smith. But you can make an argument for Francis Lawrence too, but Will, easy. Well, I'm going a different direction.

Fentison and I've always talked about pet Oscars. There's all these pets and movies. Can we get like this? weekend before the Oscars for weird Oscars Satan the dog like fucking He's like De Niro in this movie Any idea

Pet Oscars? What a fucking insanely unhinged ceremony that would be Not because of the pits But because of the people The pets should be there Right We'd have horses, pigs Pigs

Pet Oscars are being incredible Bart the Bear Oh my God You know what I mean? Yeah What about the Edge? Remember in 96 and Bart the Bear Yeah he won his third Oscar his third pet Oscar

pet Oscar should happen probably in answerable questions um where did he get the time-coded copies of the NBC Today show did he break it into 30 rock might have and if he broke into 30 rock

why not grab some Saturday lives and some cheers and Seinfelds and friends it was the oh you know what the crazy he was he wasn't watching that in the morning though was he was he was it the morning? I don't know I would have banged out

all of the friends right because remember it's one guy that's crazy You just said I would have banged out all the friends. Well, you know what I mean. Just clip that one and just run. With my penis, the penis part.

No, yeah, he's got, he's in New York, so he's got endless entertainment. Probably in answerable questions. Dr. Robert Neville, he should have just died of CTE because he had two major concussions in this movie. Yeah. And probably like another seven, right? He gets knocked out for hours, twice in this movie. Yeah. September 9th.

Should we just say it's Robert Neville Day in real life? Yeah. What happens on September 9th again? That's when the blood, she brings the blood. She brings the blood and saves the virus. Robert Neville Day, September 9th. That could be the name of the Amazon show, September 9th. September 9th.

Perfect. Best double-featured choice of this movie. Would you go with Castaway, I-Robot, or Vanilla Sky? Just to get fucked up empty New York combo. It's definitely not going to be I-Robot. I don't like I-Robot. I fuck with it, but it's not going to be that one. It'll be Vanilla Sky.

Vanilla Sky was one of the best movie-going experiences I ever had. It's really weird, fucked up, crazy, and it hurts my head. It was four of us, and we went with four girls, and there's just some dialogue in the movie that, like, there's just some shit. The movie is so fucked, like, to be in your early 20s with your friends. Or was that 99?

No, that was 01. Yeah, so being your, being in your, being in your early 20s with your friends and all the guys and all the girls go see that movie, it was a fun time. Movie's kind of stupid, but. Cam Diaz is throwing 230 miles an hour in that movie. Yeah. Chapman.

Like, just going for. She's like, Jesus. She says that in the car. She says that in the car and everybody goes, oh, what? And we're like, oh, shit. What the fuck? I like that movie. All right, what piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie?

I gotta be honest with you It's the car The first car That's what I had to He's zooming around And that car doesn't come back I don't know where it's at Yeah

I don't think we see it again Because he's got that like fucking tank Type of SUV With the lights on it And all that shit But the car is just so fucking dope When he's zooming around

I forgot to look up what car that was It looks like a Mustang Yeah but we gotta get the exact year This is my bad as the host Yeah It looks like the Mustang But when he's zooming around Trying to pull a drive by on the deer

It's a Ford Mustang Shelby G.T. 500. Hell yeah. He's keeping in really good condition. The car is the doping shit to me. The Coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lesson. Don't fuck around when you're the last person on earth. Yeah.

Have some respect for yourself. Be responsible. Just stay disciplined. If it's like 3.30 and it gets dark at 5.30, get your ass back at Washington Square. Right. Sam, get a fucking leash. You're not allowed to go in the dark building.

because I have you on one of the 75-foot leashes that I can grab you if you're getting a little frisky. I trust in Sam. Sam fucked up. Yeah, Sam's a dog. He's an IQ of 40. Also, when you're chasing after, I'd say maybe like 30 deer and you've got a gun, just stop and shoot. Yeah, shoot one of the deer. You're just going to hit a deer.

Yeah. Like stop and just shoot. Aim toward all the deer. Just aim in the general vicinity of the deer, let a couple of go. is venison R on our plate tonight. And don't trust Emma Thompson if she has a measles vaccine. No.

She doesn't know what the fuck she's doing. Cancer cure. Just stay away. Who won the movie, Will Smith? Will Smith. One more time. Damn, Will. Damn, Will's okay.

Will's fine. Will's fine. Will's fine. Will's fine. Will's fine. We're fine. The library's fine. We're still going to be able to enjoy Will Smith movies.

Everybody's fine. Will didn't do anything close to what some of these other guys of the Will's fine, it's fine. This podcast was produced by Isaiah Blakely, and we will be back on the rewatchables next week.