The Rewatchables - ‘Inside Man’ With Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan

Episode Date: March 15, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan revisit Spike Lee’s 2006 crime drama ‘Inside Man’ starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, and Christopher Plummer. Why? Beyond the obvious financial motivation, it's exceedingly simple ... because they can. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, if you love the rewatchables, did you know the entire archive is only on Spotify? We've done almost 200 movies at this point. You can find all of them only on Spotify. Everything new from the past six weeks is available on all platforms, but the rewatchables archive only available 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,

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That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes a smoothie. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. I need a knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this tablewood? I think it's laminated. Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch. Sell your car today on.

Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. We're also brought to by the ringer.com as well as the Ringer podcast network. If you like Taylor Swift, hope you're checking out our new podcast. Every single album. special five-week run that we are having every Taylor Swift album being broken down by Nathan Hubbard and Nora Princeetti. That is Sunday nights and Thursdays on Ring or Dish, where you can also find me and Dave

Jacoby talking about the challenge on MTV this season that's almost over. We do that on Wednesday nights as well. Coming up, is there anyone else here who is smarter than me? Inside Man is next. My name is Dalton Russell. Pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully and I never repeat myself. Recently I planned and set in motion events to execute the perfect bank robbery. Everybody get down on the floor! No!

Why? Because I can. All right, Sean Fantasy is here. Chris Ryan is here. We're talking about Inside Man. Sean Fantasy, do you wish Spike Lee directed more movies that he didn't write? Ooh, gosh. I don't know. I think I wish he directed more genre movies. That's what this movie makes me think of. More crime movies, more horror movies, more movies with big twists. That would have been a little bit more fun.

Chris? That's part of me that wishes he was Sidney Lumet. It's part of me of the wishes he just made more movies like Clockers and 25th Hour and this. Not that I don't love the other films he's made. And obviously, he's made some of the most important movies of the last like 40 years. I just happened to love his New York crime movies.

Yeah, it's too bad he either couldn't have cloned himself or just had some crazy Woody Allen, like, you know, just where he just made a movie a year. And then he could have blended the films that he was making that were authentic to him that made him one of the most important directors of the last 40 years. But then also, like, every three, four years could have done Inside Man or a movie like that or, you know, some sports movie scripts, something like that. This is such a unique movie. It came out 15 years ago this month.

It feels like it could have come out last week. it's just a great New York movie. You know, I think we can talk about whether this is a heist movie or a New York movie. But I think ultimately, this just feels like a New York movie. And I thought that was always one of Spikes' greatest skills. Like when he dives into New York, whether it's 25th hour,

obviously a lot of the iconic movies he makes, he just has a way of bringing in these characters that are just so authentic and different and eclectic. And he kind of captures what New York is like, right? New York is this big, giant place with all these different types of people. And yet a lot of the movies that are made about New York don't really capture that. This one does. I think that's my favorite thing about this movie.

What about you, Sean? What's your favorite thing about this movie? Well, Chris mentions Sidney Lumet and Sidney Lumet, obviously, one of the great New York filmmakers of all time. And one of the things that Spike is adopting here paying homage to, and there's a lot that he's paying homage to in this movie, is when you say this is a New York movie, it's, It's the cast aside from the stars is almost entirely populated by real people who live in New York. And you can tell. All you need to do is listen to them talk for five seconds. And you sense there is an energy. There's a dialect. There's a feeling. There's a fuck you attitude. Almost every character for better or worse has a fuck you attitude in this movie. So it makes every conversation fun. It makes every conversation kind of a fight and kind of a laugh session. So that's probably the thing I like most is, you know, I don't know if authenticity is necessarily the right word. But my entire family is from New York.

And so there are a lot of very familiar voices in this movie. It wasn't that weird around the time of this movie being made to go out. Like, if you were out at bars in New York City, you would see James Ranzone. You would see, uh, Warras Alulia. You know what I mean? Like, you would see these guys out and about. It's like these characters in this movie are actual New Yorkers. And the, it's, it's an amazing ensemble movie because there's actually three or four ensembles

in the movie. Like there are these different groups of people. And the people in the bank, the hostages, like, they all. authentically feel like people who are in a bank in New York City in 2006. Why wasn't Clive Owen a bigger star? Who wants to take that one? Chris, Chris, you go.

No, this is a paper of Fennessee and I are co-authoring. Yes. We'll be debuting this at MIT in 2022. The career trajectory of Clive. We go on right after the Mars Rover dudes. We've been trying to figure out why this guy in 2006 is an inside man and children of men. and in 2020 is like the fifth dude in a Joel Kinnaman crime movie. You know, we've been desperately trying to figure this out.

Bill, have you seen The Informer? Yeah. Of course he has. What are you talking about? Great stuff. Why is Clive Owen in that movie for eight minutes as a British FBI agent? Can you explain it? He has the career of somebody who had a major drug problem

and is trying to work his way back, except he didn't have the major drug problem. Right. And I'm with Chris. Like, you come out of two. 2006, the combo of inside men and inside man and children of men, and you were just like, all right, what are this guy's next 10 years going to look like?

This guy's an A plus lister. He's going toe to toe with Denzel. And I don't really know what happened. Even you just go through and he's like, 2007, shoot him up. 2009 in the international. He's in duplicity. The boys are back. Trust.

Killer elite, intruders, shadow dancer. Like, how does this go off the rails like that in five years? I don't get it. I think it's all about very small choices because on paper, the international and duplicity should have been home runs. That's a Tom Tick for movie, the guy who made Run Lola Run making another kind of like espionage, exciting movie with Naomi Watts at the peak of her kind of fame post-Mohalan fall or Mulholland Drive.

And Clive Owen doesn't work. Then he makes duplicity with Julia Roberts and Chris's boy coming right off of Michael Clayton, Tony Gilroy. Yeah. And, you know, I like that movie, and I think Gilroy's great, but it doesn't really work. It certainly didn't work the way they wanted it to work. And so just those two films, if you miss, all of a sudden, you get reset and you got to show up in Killer Elite remakes with Jason Statham three years later. It's tough.

He also might have thought, man, this is cool. I mean, the Killer Elite remake with Jason Statham. Like, I have no idea. Clive Owen is sort of unknowable on that level. Like, I can't tell whether or not he values being in Jason Statham movies as much as he would value being in a Mike Nichols movie. He's like, it's kind of a mystery to me. He is a mystery. Is his career, does it just make more sense if he becomes James Bond in like 2008?

And he's making James Bond movies from that point on? Why did that never happen? Or his version of the born identity or whatever. Something like that. Some sort of franchise thing where he's a spy who knows how to do shit or he's a fixer or he's a guy who's fighting against something in three sequels. He could have been maybe Liam Neeson and taken. And that would have been like an incredible use of him.

I just, I feel so unsatisfied with how the last 15 years of Clive Owen went. It's upsetting. I feel like Clive's story is yet to be finished. You know, he gets a Nick. I feel like there are other chapters to be written. I have not sold my NFT on Clive Owen. Well, he's awesome in this movie. And we also have Denzel Washington.

You know, the Denzel Spike thing, we've talked about it before. It's one of the better collaborations we've had over the last 50 years. They've made really good movies together. And as Spike talked about, in each movie, he gets a different version of Denzel. How would you describe this version of Denzel, Sean? Or Chris, you either. Chris, you're humming.

What do you need? Oh, no, I was just going to say that it's so delightful to see him in a crime movie where he's not carrying around a ton of baggage. He's just super charming Denzel Washington. And even though he's got this check cashing thing kind of falling around, he's just talking shit the entire movie.

It's not like Man on Fire or Deja Vu Denzel where he's like, oh, I'm haunted by something. It's like, no, he's just a fucking New York detective who likes to talk trash to his coworkers and make jokes and walk up in places and be like, get me pizza, get me coffee. It's just like this fast talking. And everything about him is kind of an homage to New York.

Like even the way he says his name, Keith Frazier, is kind of the way like Marv Albert would say it. Like they talked about like that being an homage. So I love it. I just think that it's like it's him kind of unburdened by the usual characters he plays. So you know how we talk about sometimes when you got to hop on a podcast, you need 10 or 15% more of yourself. You know, you need to perform just a little bit.

I'm sorry to disappoint all the Chris Ryan fans out there, but there's just a little bit of performance that goes into this. This is kind of like Denzel's podcast persona performance. You know, there's just like a little bit of mustard on everything that he's doing here. He's just amping it up just. a little bit and going toe to toe with basically I mean how many movies have the top six actors all have Academy Award nominations I couldn't think I couldn't think of very many so every scene he's in whether it's with Christopher Plummer Jody Foster you know what she would tell as you for

Clive Owen he's going toe to toe somebody who's a defoe somebody who's fucking heavy who's really really good and so you can sense him kind of supercharging for every sequence it reminds me of his he got game character I feel like that's who he is in this. He's where that rat tat tat kind of false bravado type thing with like it's just a splash of training day. Like not a whole glass of training day, but like a splash. And, you know, he's just the whole thing.

And I'm going to screw up his name. Who's his sidekick? She would tell Edghar four. Yeah, I did. You know my mispronunciation dyslexia. The combo of those two movies is almost like it just could have been its own movie. They could have spun that off. We always talk about that sometimes

where you could just spin off certain pairings into their own movie. I easily would have watched five more movies with those two guys as the detectives. I love the interaction with them. And it's kind of weird that it didn't happen for him for like six more years, right? Because if you just watch this movie,

you're like, oh, what's next? And it was like, actually not that much, which is more a reflection of Hollywood than anything. And then he kind of circles back around. But all the pieces are there in this movie for him. Yeah, the idea of them doing like a lethal weapon style series of movies actually would have been really fun. Well, that's one of the things I think we all like about this movie is there's seven different movies happening within this movie. You can kind of see the blueprints of the other movies it was supposed to be when it was in various stages of development and what Spike Lee and, you know, Brian Grazer or whatever decided to bring into this final version.

What Spike added? What like was the Ron Howard version? what was the, you know, whatever version. And then they just kind of came up with like a really perfect studio movie in the end of it. Yeah, for people who don't know this, this was supposed to be Ron Howard. And then he backed out to do Cinderella Man. So they grabbed Spike last second, basically. I think this would have been a fine Ron Howard movie.

I think it would have been fine. The movie, the Ron Howard movie, this reminds me of is Ransom. Were you guys out on Ransom? Oh, I love Ransom. I like Ransom. And I think they might have had like a little bit of the paper enter. Like, you know, he makes a decent New York movie in his career there. But like, there's no, there's no comparison between the kind of movie, New York movie that Ron Howard makes and the kind of New York movie that Spike Lee makes.

You know, it was one of the great parts in ransom. Give me back my son! Yeah, this, this version of a Ron Howard movie, I don't know. I just don't think he would have nailed the authenticity of the New Yorker things. I mean, there's great performances all the way through, including. My next question, best use of Jody Foster in the 21st century. I'm going to say yes. I think she's awesome in this movie.

And actually, I got to say, I wish she played more characters like this. This is unlike any Jody Foster character. There's just a lot going on. And there's kind of a sexuality with her that I don't know if she's tapped into in another movie as an adult. I can't think of another one. Yeah. I mean, this is definitely a slightly unusual kind of character. It does feel weirdly like it's paired with,

I don't know if you guys have seen the Mauritaniian yet, the movie that she's being recognized for now that's like on the awards campaign, but she's a similarly kind of icy, you know, powerful, smart lawyer in that movie. And there are some commonalities, but the sexiness does not appear in the Mauritania. She's really great in this.

Incredible year for Jody Foster. You talk about all the different movies inside this movie. There's a Michael Clayton about Madeline. You know what I mean? There is like a Winston Wolf Fixer movie you could have made of just like this person who makes people's rich people's problems go away and then she's forced to try and figure out how to get herself into a bank that's being robbed. That's a, that in and of itself is a great movie. Then there's like all of the Nazi stuff. Then there's all of the Keith Fraser stuff. So the Jody Foster version of this could have been like, oh man, who cares about this

Madeline White thing? Like this doesn't matter. And ultimately at the end of the movie, I think it only kind of matters to like the code of the film, like the last 15 minutes, like what Madeline does throughout it. But the way she provokes different characters is awesome. You know what I mean? The way that she kind of elicits these responses from the main guys, it's really cool. What's weird about it, I never thought I would say this about Jody Foster, but it's basically like a role Sharon Stone would have been really good at, but not as good

of an actress, right? She's basically doing the best version of Sharon Stone in a movie where it just, like Sharon Stone in total recall, right? Where she's just in your body space, eye contact the whole time, super confident. And it's unlike any movie she's played. And it made me wonder, like, I just think there's,

it just made me wonder, should she, were there two or three other movies that she should have been in that she just turned down? Even this movie, I'm not, I'm not positive she was even supposed to be in

from the get-go. No, the other people that they were talking to were just kind of like, oh, okay, cool. Like, there's some great, great actresses up for this role, but, like, it wasn't like, you got the impression that maybe this role wasn't as rich

until Jody Foster came aboard. It's a part that usually goes wrong in a movie where it's like, we have Julie Roberts in this scene and she's going to be this sexy, mysterious person. It's like, no, that's actually Julie Roberts. You're not surprising with this. She does a great job. My answer is, yes, it is the best use of Jody Foster

in the 21st century. You go through her movies, And the only other one you might say is Panic Room, but Panic Room is more, that movie is more about how what everything Fincher's doing in it and not the performance as much. I think it's this one. The cast, we- Wait, C.R. You don't want to cape for the beaver? You're a big beaver guy. We didn't mention William Defoe yet.

We didn't mention Christopher Plummer, who is officially ushering himself into this new version of his career, where he's basically playing various versions of, this guy. I don't know what makes him so good as the wealthy guy with the mysterious dark secret, but this is he owns it. Nobody's been better at that specific kind of creepiness guy, right?

Yeah, I think he relied on that towards the end of his career because those are the only available roles for people in their 80s. But he is the king of letting a line of dialogue sit in his mouth for a long period of time. He knows how to stretch and hold the camera.

on his face and take a beat in between lines and smile very subtly. I mean, he's like a master of controlling his face and delivery. So it's great to have him in a role like this where at first you think hopefully something is, he's going to be an okay guy, but deep down, you're like, something's not right here. And then it very slowly unfurls. And you're like, wow, this guy is perhaps the all-time piece of shit. And the cool thing about this movie is that it has a little bit of that six-sense rewatchability where you can go back and look for clues. So in the first time he finds out about that bank getting robbed. You know the first time you're like,

okay, this guy certainly does not want this particular bank to be robbed. But I think at the last second, as they're cutting away from him, he goes, dear God. Oh, man. Someone's got some Nazi diamonds

in his safe deposit box. What's in the box? Chris, when we launch our new streaming service, heist, which is just all heist movies, I know, I know Heath's going to be

in the big picture. being promoted, you know, right away with a whole bunch stuff. But in the three boxes on the right, I feel like Inside Man's in one of the three boxes, right? Inside Man, Dog Day Afternoon. What's the third movie? Thief? Thief, probably. Yeah. I mean, Den of Thieves would have to be on the outside.

That's like a different tier, though. That's premium. You can't get Dent of Thieves. You can't get Dent of Thieves ad supported. I do think that if we do that service, though, Bill, we should do, one of us should record the Clive Owen monologue. My name is Bill Simmons. That's the who.

The what is a streaming service, only of robbery movies. That's the what. The why therein lies the rub. Maybe it's a collection of small streaming services because this would allow me to do my prison movie channel, Jails with a Z. And then my sports movie channel, balls with a Z.

So I'd have jails, balls, and heist. It would just be those three again for $4.99 a month. I have all those movies in the same spot. Billy, you just didn't reinvented Mount Rushmore. It's the carousel now. What are the four movies that are in your carousel in your streaming service? Oh, that's good. Carousel.

So like if it was jails with Z, what would it be? Shawsham's got to be in there. I mean, Escape from Alcatraz. The Rock? I do love Escape from Alcatraz. Blood in, blood out. Blood and blood out. Chris is going to ride for

Fight and Sell Block 99, right? The first half of Tango and Cash. When Chris and I do Thief later this month and it's the lowest listen to ever rewatchables, Sean, do you want to be involved? Or do you want to not be involved because you don't want the shrapnel on you of being involved in the lowest

listen to rewatchables ever? I don't think it's going to be the lowest rated. I love great. films and thief is a great film that's all i care about i don't care about the numbers i care about greatness 40 year anniversary in two weeks all right so sean's in on the thief thief one uh inside man written by russell gurwitz who spent like a million years this is the rare success story of the dude who's at soho house with his computer for five years and at starbucks and but wasn't he like didn't he work it he's like he's from lull island right like yeah he's just dude on it forever finally

sells it ron howard's gonna make it it falls through and the end of it all actually works out for him. $45 million budget, $184.4 million box office, which leads to some just perplexing why wasn't there an inside man two questions, which we'll get into later.

Roger Ebert, I think this was in the running for most successful Spike movie ever. It's either most successful or second most successful. I can't remember. I think it's number one at the box office for him. Yeah. Roger Eber, two and a half stars. Disappointing. Come on.

How do you walk out of this and go two and a half? I just feel like Roger's in a bad mood or grumpy or something's going on in his private life that day. Quote, here's a thriller that's curiously reluctant to get to the payoff. And when it does, we see why. We can't accept the motive and method of the bank robbery. We can't believe in one character and can't understand another. I completely disagree. I have no defense.

So if you're looking to me for a defense, I don't get it. I think the fact that this is not a... The number of movies that Roger Ebert has given three stars to over the years, it's extraordinary and there are quite a few utterly mediocre films. So two and a half of this one is really confusing. The acting alone is like just lock in the three stars. Yes. If you have a slight problem with,

I don't know, whatever your nitpick is, that's not, you can't discount it by a half star. He got turned off by the big Willie and the Twins joke in the first minute and just was like. Sean, do you feel like this was a New York City is back? We don't have the shadow of 9-11 in our movies kind of moment. Not really. Five years after and this is one of the first...

Final letters in this movie. Yeah, I mean, the War I was Ovalia character and the reference to him not being able to get on planes and stuff, but you can get cab, you know, that bit. I think it's definitely...

Jody Foster and Denzel Washington stand in front of a never-forget mural. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Spike keeps it in his films for like the next 10 years. With the Ben Lada and joke too. Yeah, you're right. I guess it's in there.

You know, what the thing is, though, is that he also kind of anticipates... This is 06, and I, you know, this is like giving him a lot of credit, but I wouldn't put it past Spike Lee to have like his finger on the pulse of the anxieties of people living in New York City,

there's a little bit of like proto-Wall Street collapse and Occupy stuff going on in here where it's like the real bad guy is the guy who owns the bank. Yeah. So weird Oscar year, just quickly, Departed wins Career Achievement Award. Also a movie that we love. Yes.

But I think that was like the moment that movie came out, we knew where it was going. The other ones, was it Babel or Babel? I can't remember. Babel. Letters from Iwojima. Yikes. Little Miss Sunshine.

A movie that I've tried multiple times to convince you do for the rewatchables, but I have no fans. I'm going to have to go outside the circle. And the Queen, those were our five nominees. Best director, Scorsese wins. Ineratu, Clint Eastwood, Stephen Frears. And then Paul Greengrass for United 93. No Spike. No Spike.

This is why we've spent the last five years with Oscar so racist hashtags. Like Spike not being one of the five directors is fucking ridiculous. Honestly. And this is what led to, you know, this reckoning we've had with movies the last five years because shit like that. I don't know if it should have been best picture. I think people were a little split on it. I do think we were specifically the audience for it.

but as a crafted movie, ludicrous. I think it's unlikely that two high-toned genre movies with Oscar winners would compete and the departed just took its spot. You're right. Scorsese had not been recognized. And so maybe in a different year, a movie like this might have been recognized.

But the likelihood of basically two like heist crime movies and being in the running just wasn't likely. It gets completely shut out of best actor, Best Supporting Actor. Best Supporting Actor was actually a strong category that year. It had Alan Arkham won for Little Miss Sunshine. Jackie Earl Haley for Little Children. Demon Huntsu for Blood Diamond.

Eddie Murphy for Dreamgirls. Everyone thought he was going to win. And then Chris, our guy, Walberg, the departed. Walberg grabbing a knob. You lace-cutting motherfucket. But best supporting actress is where it kind of falls off the rails. Jennifer Hudson wins for Dreamgirls, whatever. then we have somebody from Babel

notes in a scandal Kate Blanchett the little girl from Little Miss Sunshine who is great and then another Babel two babbles where's Jody Foster she's a fucking two-time Oscar winner

What are we doing the Babel rewatchables You guys return to Babel regularly? Never And then this movie gets also left out of best original screenplay So I don't know This is one of the reasons We like have of this podcast

because as time passes, some stuff looks dumb. And it looks dumb that inside man just gets shut out. And you do wonder if Spike was so vocal about so many different things about the Oscars, whether this does enter some sort of backlash phase for him with the voters. Because the same thing happened to the 25th man, which we've already done in the rewatchables, but basically just completely overlooked. And this one completely overlooked.

And they're two of the most memorable movies of that 2006, 2000 and 2006 range. I mean, the Academy was like 90% white for decades. You know, there's a reason why his work wasn't recognized. And it's, you know, that's changing slowly right now, which is cool. But if he wasn't going to get recognized for Malcolm X, he was not going to get recognized for inside man, given the way the things were back then. Yeah.

And also, like all of his, the movies like this, like where he makes a kind of quote unquote Hollywood movie, he always puts a little medicine in with the sugar, you know? Like there's the stuff in this movie. with the video game. And, you know, like, I think there's some subtle social commentary. And for some people, they maybe are like, give me a break. I just want to watch a heist movie. I bought a, I was talking to Curtis about this on my podcast a few days ago.

I bought all these Playboy interview books because I'm just reading old Playboy interviews. They're so fascinating. People are so candid. Just for the articles, right? Spike. No, it's these books. It just has the interviews. And they have a book called the directors.

And which has a John Houston interview. that we could honestly do like a three-hour podcast on. It is just the most bad shit crazy, inappropriate thing I've ever read in my life. But there's a Spike Lee interview in there from 91. And Spike was coming in hot. I mean, hot in a way that I don't think people even realize what the impact was 30 years ago, where it was this lone voice crying in the wilderness saying, this is fucked up, this is fucked up, this is racist, this is bullshit.

driving Miss Daisy was terrible. Nobody's going to watch that movie two years from now. And he was just basically in the words of Al Pacino, lighting a flamethrower to this place. And I think there were real repercussions for it for him. From an award recognition standpoint, I think he hit this point where you have an entire Hollywood community, it's just like, fuck this guy. And it had real ramifications for him throughout his career. Meanwhile, if we're making the list of most important filmmakers since, I don't know, 1985, he's one of the first four. He's one of the first five. Whatever the list is, he's fucking on it. And has managed to stay relevant. You know, like every time people are like,

oh, maybe Spike's like moving into his Twilight. He makes some fucking amazing movie. Yeah, I think it's, it's kind of interesting to contrast the way that he ran in 2018 when Black Klansman was nominated because that year he was nominated for director and screenplay, and he won screenplay. And that was the same year the Green Book was nominated. And, you know, Green Book and Driving Miss Daisy have a lot in common. You know, there's some comparisons to be made there. And Spike, you could catch Spike rolling his eyes occasionally or very subtly no commenting, a pointed question about Green Book and running in that race, but he did not take a flamethrower because he was kind of playing the game. You know, he had reached the stage of his career where he was like, I'm only going to have a few more shots to win this. And Spike

loves movies and loves movie history. He teaches film at NYU. He's a total student of of the art form. And he knows that it matters to get one of these statuettes. And to say, I have one of these. And it's, it's not just an honorary achievement. He has an honorary achievement award, too,

but that my peers voted for me to win. And so, you know, you have to play this weird game to win some, these awards sometimes. And he, you know, he kind of played it while still trying to speak truth to power at the same time.

I mean, obviously his career is like, it's one of the signature filmmaker careers in the history of America. You know, there are very few people. And like you said in the last four, 40 years that you can compare him to in terms of what he achieved, in terms of the scope, in terms of the kind of movies he could make.

Like, this is the kind of movie he had never made before, and he was 25 years into his career at this point. And the influence, too, because if you just remove him from the last 40 years, it's like, who fills that void? There's, I don't even know what happens. But, yeah, you know, I was doing some of the research on it. Because after I read that interview, there was so many just flaming nuggets in it. And then I was like, I just made me kind of deep dive in.

a little bit and you'd think like the only way he got Malcolm X was talking Norman Jewison out of directing it right? He actually went to him and was like this is wrong for a white man to direct this I need to direct this and actually talked him into it. But then Ali in 2000 or 2001

he wanted to direct Ali and Will Smith controlled the movie and basically what was going to happen with it and I think he was just too toxic for Will Smith Will Smith wanted to make a big budget movie that made a lot of money and went to our guy Michael Mann,

which is tough one for us because we love Spike and we love Michael Mann. But that was the way Spike Lee was perceived in 2001, where Will Smith looked at it and it was like, if you direct my movie, it won't make as much money. You're too polarizing. So that's some of the reasons why he, you know,

it was so belatedly for it to come around with him with the Oscars. But it's really a travesty. It's like watching, you know, some great NBA player where it's just like, wait, that guy won zero. MVP's, you know, I don't understand that. Like, it never happened. It's interesting to look at him in comparison to somebody we just got done talking about on this

pod, which is Oliver Stone. And those two came up around the same time. They both make really polemical movies, but Stone was really embraced by the establishment in the early, early days of his career with Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July and JFK. And then now has sort of kind have been seen to sort of left planet Earth to some extent. And even when he tries to make like a straight up movie like World Trade Center, like I think it's not very successful. Whereas Spike now I think is entering kind of like a really comfortable phase of his career where I think a lot of different people want to work with him.

He can hopefully get stuff made. I mean, the Five Bloods is a good example of like a war movie that he probably was trying to get made for a very long time that Oliver Stone was also trying to get made for a very long time. And I kind of hope that he has like a real late career flourishing because I'm really enjoying the movies over the last like five, six, seven years. I do. I mean, we're going to look back at the do the right thing thing 50 years from now. And people will be baffled. They will not understand. And you'll need the context of the country at that time. But that one in particular, even more so than Malcolm X to me, you know, that's on the list of like bicycle thieves and, you know,

singing in the rain. It's like, it's going to be one of the hundred greatest films ever made, in my opinion. And so we'll be baffled by why it wasn't recognized in its time. Only 35 years into Spike's career right now. So there's some stuff left. There's time. There's definitely the last act. All right, we're going to take a break and then we're going to do most rewatchable scene. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango, Yuzu chantilly cake.

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Most rewatchable scene. The setup for the bank robbery I have first, I love setups for crimes when they have to, you know, something's going to happen, the meticulousness of it, the guys go in the bank. They look like they're going to be working in it.

They've got the jackets with the fluorescent thing on it. And you're like, oh, shit's going down. So since you guys are the heist experts, if you were going to pull a heist, what kind of a van would you be driving? What kind of workers would you be? These guys are painters, right? Yeah, they have like, and they make the right decision where they can make everything sort of monochromatic and uniform.

I think plumbers is the way to go. I would personally be plumber guy because nobody's going to be like, why are these plumbers here? They're going to be like, oh, somebody must have blown out of toilet. So you need two guys in plumber suits maybe. And then probably two people who are quote unquote waiting in line. But they're really not. I would be going as a cable repairman and say, I'm here to install. all the jails network on your, on your DVR.

I just would, we'd cover this in town. I just want to be the driver. I'm getting us out of any situation. I mean, I could also do the heist and be the driver, but I'm, you're pretty risky on the road, though, man. I guess that's a good quality. In a good way, I don't hit other cars.

Right, but don't you think you would draw attention to yourself if you were kind of doing your U-turn bit? No way. No, I'm getting us out. Nobody's catching us. Chris and I have both been exposed to Wheelman Simmons. It's a little bit, a little bit terrifying. Yeah.

Guess what? We're going to be safe. We're going to be, I will get us to the second van when we switch everything. This movie didn't have the second van. I was disappointed. Anyway, I love the setup. Is Chris muscle in that case? If you're the wheelman, like what is Chris doing?

No, Chris is the guy who jumps on the counter and says, everybody get fucking down. You're fucking dead. It's playing a character. One of the things I love about the setup, the pre-bank robbery moment is looking at the people in the line and then trying to figure out what you would do if you were in the line as this was happening, what your moves would be. Yeah. Because I think the move is you just go straight down and you put your hands on the floor. You don't want like your hands in your pockets to make them think you're going for your phone in and that stuff. You just, you just.

My attitude is how can I help? How can I help? Throw me a good. Can I get in of this? Do you guys need somebody to? I'll take the die packs. Like whatever you guys need. Next scene is

this is Clive's best scene or one of his best scenes when he gets mad when the Gold Digger cell phone goes off. Great, great era-specific cell phone ring there. I'm sorry, please. Don't worry about it.

And is anyone else here smarter than me? Anyone else here smarter than me? which after he beats the shit out of the guy, and then he does the take your fucking clothes off thing. I need all of you to strip down to your underwear. Now. Another great thing when they, it's like, basically everybody has to get naked. Of course, everybody in this movie is in great shape.

There's no, 40 people get naked, and maybe two of them are like a little overweight. But him threatening the old lady, take your fucking clothes off, all that stuff. She's just really good. It's tense. We don't know Clive at this point. We don't know how. how far he's going to go, how evil he is.

But some good stuff here. All the making them move around stuff just is really unnerving. Obviously, you really just feel for those characters when they're just like, bank employees over here, everybody else over there, man over here, women over there, get in this room, like the way that they're keeping them so disoriented. Yeah. Next one. First, Jody Foster, Christopher Palmer's scene.

Now, Mr. Case, why don't you let me explain to you how I work? Please, that would be nice. Well, you say that there are family airlines inside your safety deposit box. That's fine. But in my experience, people like you have people working for them that handle these kinds of things.

And when they can't, or they don't call me, their people call me. So immediately, I know that there's something in that box that you don't even want your closest aids to know about. Jody just comes in off the bench

and she's just like, clear out. Clear ISO. She's like, fist, ISO. It just goes right at plumber and just two really good actors doing their thing. Also just like a completely like flagrant Brooklyn Promenade. Like for no real reason, they're just walking along the water there. Yeah. I love it when people are like, let's have this important conversation in an absolutely gorgeous, like scenic vista in the background. It's true. Next one. So this will be a controversial pick, but I really like the video game scene. I know it was polarizing. I know some people thought it was hacky and Spike just trying to bring in social commentary. But I really enjoyed the little boy. I like that Clive Owens kind of vibing with him a little bit.

And I think they did a good job with the video game. It's a game that's so realistic. You're actually, because I was watching with my son, he watched the first like hour of this movie. Then he left to go play video games himself. Of course. But he was like, is that a real game, dad? And I was like, no, no, no, it's not a real game. But I thought that seems effective. It's okay. I, you know, I think Spike's pushing 50 at this point, and you can see that there is a generational divide here where, like, you know, 50 cent is kind of dominant in hip hop at this point.

And Kanye is rising. And this is like a moment that is a little bit past when Spike was at the forefront of this culture when he was introducing public enemy to movie audiences and, you know, really had his finger on the pulse of this stuff. And you can just sense like this, he feels some, a gap, a kind of cultural gap. And he's, you know,

commenting on it. And I think he's castigating it in some ways and trying to understand it a little bit better in other ways. It brings a little bit like old guy to me. But it's interesting that like Chris said earlier, like he still insists on putting this stuff in all of his films. Like he won't let a heist movie go by without making an effort to say something a little bit bigger than the heist.

It's also, he puts the the raid, the fake raid, the imagined raid scene in the movie. Like, I don't think that's in the script. He was like, I wanted to mix the movie up

with a little bit of action. So you can say by that same token, he puts the video games moment in because he wants people to think. Like, it is a choice, and I do think it slows the movie down a little bit, but I think it does provide a nice moment

for Clive Owen, not to be screaming in people's faces. It's interesting to see that the kid relates to Clive Owen a little bit more than he relates to Denzel Washington when he's in the interrogation room. Like everything kind of plays a part in this movie.

Well, and then they throw the little boy says, he's like, like, my man, 50, get Richard Dye trying. And it's a little clumsy. I just like it because I like that spikes, like, fuck this, we're doing it. And then actually goes and has to make the video game from scratch and all that stuff. I personally like it. I can see why other people don't like it. The first Clive Denzel phone calls unbelievable when they,

He does say, yeah, you're not going to be grabbing a pinocolada or whatever it says. It's not a pinocalada! It's not a pinocalada! Is this the president of Albania? Speaking. Pretty funny. You shouldn't eavesdrop on people. You better get used to it, pal. It's not going to be much privacy where you're going.

You're damn right. This time next week, I'll be sucking down pinacoladas in a hot tub with six girls named Amber and Tiffany. More like taking a shower with two guys named Jamal and Hesus, if you know what I mean. I mean, and here's the bad news. The thing you're sucking on, it's not a Pina colada. Maybe you like that kind of thing, huh? You really want to piss me off. That whole back and forth is good.

Six girls named Amber and Tiffany, two guys named Jamal and Azus. Really hard to do those scenes on a phone with the kind of back and forth that those guys have. It's excellent. First, Clive Owen Foster meeting. Another good one. She goes in. she's going to whatever and doesn't realize that he already knows what's in the box. We'll get to later why, how he knew that.

Then I got the hostage release and the reveal that everyone is actually hostage. Good voila moment. And then the last Plummer Foster scene, which I think is my pick for most rewatchable. Plummer says, I sold my soul and I've been trying to buy it back ever since. And they do this back and forth. She knows he's a scumbag. She also knows she's kind of a scumbag And she makes that joke

I'd love to tell you what a monster you are But I have to help Bin Laden's nephew By a co-op on Park Ave Just everything about There's just a lot of chess going on in that scene It's really good It's really well acted And I just

To me that's like the exclamation point Piece of that movie And probably my favorite scene Can I trust that you will Keep what you learned Here today Confidential despite whatever you may think.

Well, I'd love to tell you what a monster you are, but I have to help Bin Laden's nephew by a co-op on Park Avenue. If that were true, you wouldn't tell me. We're listing you as a reference. What do you guys have? Well, as a cap to that one, I think the sequence between Foster and Denzel in the courthouse

where she shares the best. Barindoroth Child line about when there's blood on the streets by property. And also combine both of those. Put those together. And all the interrogations. The interrogations are so far. Interrogation is so good. And I don't,

you know, I read that those were improvised. I don't know if they were improvised. But, you know, Chuitel and Denzel are having so much fun with those people. It's a perfect showcase for all of these New York actors who are all, you know, playing various states of like,

why are you trying to tell me that I robbed this bank? I was just moved from room to room for the last. six hours and then shot with rubber bullets. It's so entertaining, such a smart convention. Is that eligible for most rewatchable? I don't know. It's my number one, what's age the best? Because I love the interrogation scenes, but they're all short, so

I didn't know if they counted as actual rewatchable scenes. I have a dark horse most rewatchable scene. I want to throw out there. It is the, it gets interrupted by a cutaway, but the when they start to think that it's Russians through the Albania stuff.

Like that whole sequence, is the most New York fucking thing. The construction, we're going to be like, my man, yeah, that's Albanian. Like, it's unbelievable. But even, like, Willem Daphopian, like, if that's Russians, get some fucking body bags.

Because if I have to shoot it out with these fucking guys, like everybody's behavior in that, and then the woman who comes in has got the bag of parking tickets, and it was just like, I have to listen to this all the time. It's communism.

America is the devil. Like, it's just such a perfect New York thing. It's a little on the nose, but like just like, as soon as they're just like, it's New York, someone out here knows what language that is. That's like the perfect thing about New York. What do you have for most regrettable scene, Sean? I like the two conversations that Foster is kind of the pivot point on, but I will say, we'll talk about Al-Palagonia, probably later in the show, but Al-Palagonia is the guy

who recognizes Albanian. His heat check performance is the fucking best. He's one of the best Spike Lee, you know, players ever. I have to say this is this is going to be like a UFC fight of Dion Waiters. It's the longest list I think we've had in at least 20 movies. For what stage the best? I would continue the Albanian theme. That's a first on the show.

I don't I don't know where Albania is. I've never met an Albanian. I don't know who the greatest Albanians of all time were. But when they're in a movie, I'm in. And I was thinking like, my dream. movie is a movie set in like 1988 with Albanians

and a bank and somebody's got a you know somebody's hiding something and it's just like madlibs but once the Albanians are involved I'm in that's all I got for you guys Chris you were born and raised in Albania why don't you speak about your homeland

I'm Albania's most prominent podcaster don't you know that Bill? Chris if I if I texted you a link to a now streaming movie that has been streaming in movie in 35 years that was produced by who are guys who are two guys Mario Khazar and it's an Albanian heist movie like you would watch that immediately immediately that goes right in the carousel guys taken two is set in Albania yeah yeah because they doubled down they were like

you know what the Albanians really are the Albanians like the yeah the Albanians and wag the dog too if you only knew about Albanian from movies, you would just think that all they did was sex trafficking and bank ice and that was it. They just did all the most evil crimes while talking in languages. Bill Simmons does not represent the ringer's views on Albania. I don't understand. Albaedia has just become the go-to country for a lot of debauchery in movies. It's bizarre. Another one's aged the best. Here's a hint. It's a trick question. I love

stuff like that in movies, like that little subtle shit where they have to Wait, wait, wait, and the phone comes said, wait, hold on, hold on. They're arguing about it. I love the camera trick with Denzel after the hostage gets shot when they do that. He's just moving toward the camera walking, but he's not walking. He's obviously a absurd dolly. Sean mentioned Jody's quote about, you know, there's a famous saying by the Baron Rothschild when there's blood in the streets by property.

Skid. It's like something the semi-evil wolf would say. Yes. How about just Nazi plot twists in a movie like this always seem to have a high degree. You think back to like Marathon Man and anytime somebody's hiding the Nazi secret, it's usually going to work in a well done movie. And I don't really know why. This is pretty much the last point where you can have a Nazi collaborator in your movie

who's still functional and have it set in the present day. Age-wise, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. It's a great point. This is the because that character, I mean, Christopher Plummer's in his 80s at this point. Or maybe late 70s and Mora Mento Believies in his 80s. So it's a great call.

Yeah, I agree. And then Denzel filling out the hostages, which talked about some great Ken Lung. How do you say his last name? Ken Lung, yeah. Ken Lung. He's just talking about great tits. I had forgot that they just call that woman boobs for like five minutes in that movie. Like get near her boobs.

The little boy. There's that he check. as Sean said, all that stuff is ad-libbed. We mentioned some of the other What stage the best, but anything else for you guys? The Terence Blanchard score is so awesome. And if they made this movie today, I worry that there would just be like 35 songs in it

instead of this booming noir jazz score. Yeah. It's so sick. It's just like Touch of Evil playing while like they're running around. So shot at Terrence Planchard, longtime Spike Collaborator. Speaking of the music too, that opening and close.

song Chaya Chaya, which is this, you know, this Indian composer, A.R. Rockman, this is like a couple of years before he writes the score for Slumdog Millionaire. And then this like kind of Hollywood, Bollywood, boom happens. And Spike is like two or three years ahead of that by using this song as like the signature. You know, when you hear that song, you're like, this movie is about to jump off and then it's about to conclude. Smart. What stage the worst? Nazis.

I mean, just rarely get to do that with what stage the worst. You could just throw that at any movie. Yeah. I just see every time. It wasn't aging well like on day one. Yeah. On day one, it just had to be, it's a default gets thrown in. But you should just for cred, Bill, you should just start throwing Nazis age the worst in every rewatchables pod.

I'll try to do that. Just go for it. Ordinary people. What's age the worst? Nazis. The Albania. Or is it age the best? It's another tough beat.

I don't know. I don't. got to be honest, usually I have like seven or eight what's age the worst. I just really like this movie. I didn't really have any what's age the worst. There's some nitpicks that we'll get to later, but I don't feel like there's stuff in this movie that's really age the worst unless you're going to do spikes, basically his, his audible on a lecture on video games, which is very era specific. And I don't know if that makes sense as much in 2021. All of my age the worst are nitpicks except for Chuitel Edgifor hanging onto that New York accent by his finger.

nails from the top of a mountain. Like he is free soloing that accent. He is like so like every once in a while too, he'll have like that the beautiful British accent just like breaks through. But he's like really, he's putting in a red on that Brooklyn accent a couple of times. Anything, Sean? No, I think it's a good time in technology where we don't look at the movie and say like, oh, well, if they had cell phones, this wouldn't have happened.

I feel like most of what's happening, we're still just 15 years away. so the story really holds together really well. Casting what ifs, we mentioned that Ron Howard was supposed to direct this. I didn't know this. Spike Lee gave Denzel the opportunity to play either the guy he played or the Clave-Oen part. And Denzel turned down the Clave-Oen part

because he didn't like that the character was always in disguise. Classic, like, just smart A-plus list movie star reaction. Like, yeah, you know what? I'm a star. I want people to see my face. I'm not going to wear a fucking. and mask for 90% of the movie. Thanks anyway.

And then Owen nearly turned down the world for the same reason. So they actually added a couple of the scenes where he talks into the camera so that he could actually be in the movie. Spike Lee, he cast Amir Ali Saeed. The kid. After watching him in a Chappelle show sketch. And then one of the bank robbery hostages, Miriam. The reason she got cast, Marsha Jean Kurtz, was because she played a bank robbery hostage named Miriam in Dog Day Afternoon.

And Spike loved Dog Day Afternoon. It was a big reason he wanted to do this movie and was like, fuck it. We're running one of the characters back. So there you go. I think he did that with another character. Isn't the cop who brings the pizzas also in Dog Day? Like there's two Dog Day actors in this movie.

It's unbelievable. And they also, he uses when they deliver the pizza at Sal's Pizzeria. Yes. So he does the callback, which I was in trouble. I love when we have. cross-movie pollination. Best that guy, aka the Joey Pants Award.

There's like 12. Yeah. I don't even know where to go. I just picked a winner, but you, listen, whatever. Peter Guybert as the mayor, he to me is just an all-time that guy.

I never even knew what that guy's name was. He calls Jody Foster the C-word at one point in this movie. But he is a that guy. Because I was like, what's that guy's name? looked it up. It's like, oh, it's Peter Guybert. So that's the definition of this category. So I vote for him, but willing to hear other nominees since there's 12 that guys in this movie.

James Ranzone is not a that guy or Ransone or his name is. No, I mean, like, I think everybody working in the police truck like Ashley Atkinson and Chill Mitchell are that guys. I think pretty much like, you know, I mean, the ultimate that guy to me is Denzel's boss. Peter Garrity. He is one of the all-time that guys from, from homicide and from the wire and I feel like he's Peter Garrity it no nobody knows his name come on I don't know I know his name

you did you well you watch a lot you've watched a lot of the shows that he's been on over the years but he's like a great New York theater actor who's been very celebrated in that world but he is he is New York to me yeah anybody else I mean there's there's

Ken Lung up until industry I feel like was was that guy He was miles from Lost, right? Well, that was interesting. But in the time of the movie, basically everybody's that guy except for the six lead actors. Male and female.

And then some of the people belated, they became bigger. Who do you have for the Vincent Hanna? Give me all you got overacting award, Chris. So this is where I start to worry about splitting my vote. Not really sure. I think that, I mean,

you could make an argument. When have we given the triple crown away before where it's a pants Hannah and Partridge or Pants Hannah and Dion goes to the same person. Haven't we done that before? Yeah, it's happened. So Rantzone is in the running, I think.

I think he's in the running because there's a couple of scenes specifically the one where he goes running up to Clive-O and he's like, he got the drop on you, man. Vietnam's over there. I think he's so fucking delightful in this movie. He has such like a wiry,

like just like fun Dustin Hoffman New York energy in this movie I don't want any way to dedicate it gosh who else would be up there I have him for I'll just spoil it now I have him in the recasting couch as well for the same reason you just said in Vincent

Hannah give me all he got overacting I think he's I'm glad he's in this movie I also wonder what happens if we have a really awesome young 25 year old actor we got it it's James Ransom Have you able to recast this? Fair.

I was going to say, I don't want to lose him out of this movie. What about Samantha Ivers? That was going to be my nomination. Samantha Ivers, the queen of Hackensack, New Jersey, who's like, this guy, asshole. She's doing Marissa Tomei and my cousin Vinny times a thousand. It's great stuff. You know, I was terrified. What about before it began?

You didn't look around while you were waiting in line? I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone. You want to take another picture? I could bend over and pick up a pencil. Whatever. This guy. Athole. That's good. Let's give it to her.

New award. You guys haven't been here. We launched a new award last week in New Jack City. The Judd Nelson Award for... I was there for... Oh yeah, Chris was there. Sean wasn't. For the performance by somebody who's... clearly just in another movie

doesn't seem to realize he's in this one. I gotta say, I think William Defoe is in a completely different movie. Can we talk about it? I don't know what he's doing in this movie and I don't, he's not really that fun. He's not a bad guy. He's not distrustful.

I don't really understand his performance at all. So like literally why is he in the movie? He's one of the best actors alive. And I know there's a story and you can tell the story, but like this guy is an incredible. incredible actor and he has nothing interesting to say

for two hours. It's really weird. He's in like a, he's in like episode 24 of season three of Law & Order. Yes. And it's like, why are you in this movie? You won't, didn't he win an Oscar? No, he's been nominated. He's never won. He's a multi-oscar nominee. Like,

what the fuck? You're playing this generic character. Yeah, because Barrenger won for Platoon, right? Not right? Yeah. Tough fun. I I hear what you guys are saying. There's, I just get such a kick out of him doing a role with like with it giving him nothing to do. And there is that weird introduction where he's an asshole to Denzel.

And then he like basically goes up to him 45 seconds later and it's just like, sorry for giving you a hard time. You know, like that's the part I didn't get. They set up like, oh, this is going to be the asshole who gives Denzel a hard time. And then it's like, no, he's actually not going to be that. Okay, well, why is he here? What does he bring in the table? In the half ass internet research, um, they met in the men's room, Spike Lee and

Willem Defoe during an intermission of Julius Caesar, which, was a Denzel play at the time. And they were in the men's room and Spike said, we should work together. And DeFoe said, yeah, we should. And then he kind of shoehorned him in the inside man. And he feels shoehorned it.

He literally has to like set up jokes, you know, where Denzel is like, haven't had my chain pulled for that little amount of money since 1999. And Wilnda was like five bucks. Like whatever that joke is like, why do you know, like getting like a hand job in Tijuana.

Yeah. Well, for people who miss the new Jack City award. We saved Judd Nelson's per, or the rewatchables. We saved the, uh, Judd Nelson performance to the end and broke it down for 10 minutes because it is the all time. I'm in a completely different movie with everybody else in this movie performance. I was worried we wouldn't be able to pull off the category, but I think this is a good first winner. Yeah. I don't know why he's in the movie. I don't, I don't, I, as I said, I'd feel like he could be in a long order. All right, Dian waiters, best he check.

man, Ken Lung, hot Albanian translator, little boy, the bigot cop who would rather die a handsome bigot, turban guy, 34 D lady, who else? Give me more. Kim director, right? She plays Stevie, Ransom. Chris, you want to talk about Kim director's work? All I said to Sean last night in a text message was

I feel like Julia Fox, Marker corrected this woman, basically. was that this was this was julia fox 15 years before julia fox came along and uncut gems it's amazing she wasn't just on lost because i do think i this movie probably came out before lost right or at least was filmed before lost loss loss was like 2006 comes out right around the same time right yeah it's amazing they just didn't go through this movie and just grab seven people from it yeah james ranson easily could have gotten into a relationship with Evangeline Lilly in 1972 when they went backwards for three episodes.

I got to say, for me, I think it's the hot Albanian translator. She comes in for three minutes. She just goes ISO the whole time and completely owns the scene. There's a lot of actors in it. It doesn't matter. And then she's out. And you're like,

what happened to that lady? And it's such like a classic Spike Lee. Here's this weird little part. I'm going to hire somebody who really stands out and they're going to give me three and a half great minutes and get out of the movie. Okay. So for me, it is 100% Al Palagonia. Okay.

That is one of Spike's best friends. If you ever watch, if you see Spike, when we go back to Madison Square Garden sitting on the sidelines of Nick's games in the front row, he's often sitting with Al Palagonia. He is not an actor.

He's an investor, basically. Tell people who he plays in the movie. In the movie, he plays, the construction worker who identifies that it's Albanian that is being spoken and he's invited onto the truck and he's like so what are they saying

and he's like I don't know what they're saying he's like you said you speak Albanian he's like I never said I speak fucking Albanian like he is the way he says it too I never said I speak Albanian he said you speak I never said that right what are they saying I have no idea what they're saying

you got no idea I thought you said you spoke Albania I never said I speak Albanian you said you spoke Albanian I never said I speak Albanian? Well, how do you know it's Albanian? My ex-wife and her parents are Albanian. Her parents couldn't speak English for shit. I have no idea what they're saying, but I'll tell you right now, the language is 100% Albanian.

100%. 100%. And he plays a version of that guy in many Spike Lee movies. My favorite version is in 25th hour. When at the beginning of the movie, he works in the same office as Barry Pepper, and he has to give, you know, he has to pump the guys up in the office while also tearing them down. And some guy walks over and he's showing off a new outfit,

and now Palagonia very famously says, you look like a fucking optical illusion. Take off that tie because he's wearing a striped shirt and a pattern tie. And Palagonia brings the best New York energy to all of Spike movies. I love him. Well, it sounds like I'm outvoted, so he wins Dian Witters.

It sounds like he should also win the Clint Smith Award for a guy who just gets to come along for the ride with a famous director or actor. Or should that be, who's the guy who Woody Allen would always put in his movies? Tony. Yeah, Tony Robbins, Tony Randolph, what's his name?

Tony Roberts. Tony Roberts. Tony Roberts. That's another good one. I like Clint Smith. Shout out to Clint. Recasting couch. So you're not going to let me recast James Ransom.

No, I'm going to veto that. He's great in it. I don't know why they're doing that. Can we recast Willem Defoe then? Sure. Who do you want to recast him with? You can trade. You can move James Ransom.

sewn into that role and then you could recast the James Ransone role. Whoa. You're doing role swapping. Can I, can I go female for that part? Sure. Of course you can. Can I get like a little Queen Latifah or something like that? Someone, someone from that area? Running ESU. Okay. Yeah. You mean the equalizer? Queen Latifia? Yeah, the equalizer. Yeah. Somebody, somebody in that or some, some female musician who's not normally in movies? I like it. I'd also, you know what I would also be open to? Tom Barringer. Wow. Let's bring Sergeant Barnes back. Poor Defoe just got it working correctly in the head.

Could have been an interesting William Hurt, maybe, if we wanted to go older establish actor. So overqualified. That's insane. Imagine if William Hurt is a show at this movie is. What about Jeremy Irons? Daniel Day Lewis? All right, we do Queen Latifah.

Daniel Day Lewis. David Day Lewis. You remember Daniel Day Lewis is just like, yeah, sure, Spike. I'll do like 10 minutes where I make jerk off jokes with Denzel watching. in the back of a trunk. John C. Riley. We're going to take a break. Then we do half-ass internet research.

All right, half-ass internet research. They filmed this at 20 Exchange Place. It was a former Wall Street bank that had been repurposed as a cigar bar. So they used the outside for that and then the inside they built the whole set. Cardi-Diamond Ring was a real thing. Borrowed from Cartier for three days,

valued at $1.5 million. The gangst is genocide video game. Spike was just bummed out by Grand Theft Auto and got these dudes, these graphic artists, House of Pain to spend 10 days basically building a whole thing. And he sent them artists, he sent them the mockups of two scenarios that ended up in a homicide. One was a robbery at ATM.

The other was a drive-by shooting. And then they did the rest. And then Spike said when the movie came out, the sad thing is somebody is probably going to make a game out of it and take that as inspiration. This one shocked me. In 2011, it was announced that plans to make Inside Man 2 had been canceled. Lee said he could not secure funding for the project.

Quote, Inside Man was my most successful film. We can't get the sequel made. One thing Hollywood does well as sequels, the film's not getting made. We tried many times. It's not going to happen. That's upsetting. This movie made almost $200 million.

What the fuck? It's pretty confusing. I mean, I think getting, if Denzel and Clive Owen need to be involved in the movie, that's a challenge to get big stars. And I'm sure that that could have been an issue. Clive Owen's got those UPS ads to be filming, you know? He's pretty busy. There's no way that Inside Man 2 doesn't make $100 million.

There's just no way. It's impossible. Yeah. I think especially now, this movie really is one of the most, quote-unquote, re-watchable 21st century movies that we've done. I feel like anybody that you ask about, if they have seen this movie, they have a positive relationship to it. I don't know anybody who's like,

eh, I don't know about that one. I'm not so into it. So there's name recognition, which is really what you need to get a sequel popping. Chris, there's still time. Sure there is. Maybe it's in Albania.

Inside Man, too, in Albania. Well, also, now that we're offering a platform with jails and heists and all of our streaming services and balls, like, let's get it going. He could do a sequel to He Got Game too. No, guys, they made a sequel. Is it?

Oh, it's like a Red Box movie, right? Yeah, they made a bootleg sequel called Inside Man, Colen, Most Wanted, in 2019. This is what happened. There was a movie coming out called Night of the Sakario with Natasha Hensridge. I was just like, what is happening? Wait, what the hell is Inside Man? What did you say it was?

Inside Man, Colin Most Wanted. It's a straight-to-video thing. But it's supposed to be like in the Inside Man universe, but none of the characters from the first movie are in. Ray Seahorn from Better Call Saul is in the movie, but she's the only person whose name I recognize that's in the whole movie. They did this with Mean Girls too and got my daughter accidentally sucked into it

thinking it was like a real sequel for me and girls too and she's very upset after. Yeah, it's bullshit. It's upsetting when they do that. Yeah, don't do that. Fuck off, follow it. Apex Mountain, Denzel, no.

Spike Lee, no. Clive Owen, I'm going to say yes. 2006, Clive Owen, children of men and inside man, I'm going to say this was his Apex Mountain, hands down. That's on the short list of best two film releases in a single year by an actor ever.

I mean, those are two great movies. 21st century Jody Foster, I'm going to say yes. I think it's kind of in arguable. Mostly even a director in the 24th. You know, Flight Plan was a big hit. Yeah. Like, it's an okay movie, but, you know, she was the star of that movie and it was a big hit. As Sean would say, that movie's fine.

It is fine. Juicy Fruit? What is Chuck Yeager? Better use of it. juicy fruit in a movie ever? Probably not. Chuck Yeager chew Blackjack or Juicy Fruit in the planes and the right stuff? I don't remember. I don't think it's juicy fruit.

So I'm going to go, yes, Bill. Juicy Fruit, Apex Mountain. Gangst is genocide. Yes. Here's the tough phone, Chris. Fixers. This is Apex Mountain for fixers. No. The wolf.

Michael Clayton. No, the wolf. Come on, guys. What are you talking about? Please put some respect on Pulp Fiction. Jesus Christ. When Winston Wolf, shows up in Pulp Fiction. Do you remember that moment in 1994? I was like, this is how you make a movie right here. So I was going to say, I also agree with Winston Wolf, except Michael Clayton

is a whole movie about Winston Wolf and gets nominated for an Oscar and is one of the three best Clooney movies. So that would be the counter. I think this is probably the third. Although Winston Wolf is definitely better at being a fixer than Michael Clayton. Agree. So what are we rating? Also, By the way, Jody Foster is not a good fixer, right? We learned that that she wasn't good in this, ultimately, not effective. Yeah, that's why she's third. I have Winston Wolf as Apex Mountain for Fixers. Okay.

And I have Bruce Willis's Spanish girlfriend as Apex Mountain for worst fucking movie girlfriend in the history of any good movie. Jesus. It's just a reeling movie for a 15-mails. Why do you keep selling out your Pulp Fiction takes, but you just... No, it's just, I just want to get them out early. When the pandemic's over and we can do Pulp Fiction rewatchables in the same studio and look at each other.

I just want you guys to be prepared when I rip that 15 minutes to shreds. We're prepared. We're prepared. Where are you going? We've watched all the compliance videos. We know how you feel about Bruce Wilson. It's just awful.

Fuck this. Really terrible. Seriously, fuck this. How about Apex Mountain for post-heatheast movies? Hmm. Everything since 95. This is a big one, Chris. This is a big question for you.

that's why Chris, for people listening, Chris just looked away. He looks like I just asked him and borrowed $10,000. I know, but now I'm doing like the Gallifanakis at the blackjack table. I'm trying to like remember every, I'm trying to remember every heist movie in the last 15 years. I mean, it's, I'll say this, it is in the carousel, for sure. That is such a non-answer. What do you want for me? That answer sucks.

You know what that was? That was a beta answer. Wow. Beta male answer. Did you just learn that term? You beta answered that. Oh, man. It's this or Den of Thieves?

Let's be honest. There hasn't been that many heist movies because Hollywood hates us. They'd rather make fucking superhero movies. There have been some good ones. I don't think they're on this level. Which is dark night? Does Dark Knight count as like a heist movie

given the first? No. Okay, so Logan Lucky. That was pretty good. No, it's not in the same level. Not as good as inside man. Um, hell or high water? No.

Um, I'm looking at a list here. Widows? Pretty good. I don't think the heist part of Widows is, is up. Yeah, the heist is the weakest part. Byelo Davis is the best part. Baby driver? No way.

Baby driver, not bad. Not bad. Make, make the carousel. The town. Oh. So that's the thing. This is the carousel. The town inside man, Denny.

No, I forgot. I forgot the town that qualified. The town is the best post-heat heist movie. Also, I have this second. Fast 5 is a

heist movie. It really kind of technically is. I mean, Chris and I are not as big of fast and furious guys, but Fast 5 is definitely a

heist movie. There's a true heist in it. I probably should have done research before I brought up this question, so I was more prepared. This is a three-hour pod, though.

This conversation is a three-hour pod. I would go the town one. I would go fast five two and I would say inside man three the fast five So you're putting Den of Thieves fourth

even though Den of Thieves has like six sick bank robberies Yeah but to me Den of Thieves is all about The where's the Where's the dinner place they go Where you cook up the grill The fucking Benihana scene to me

Is what really makes Den of thieves cook Best use of Benny Hanna In a movie ever Okay pick a nits would all of these hostages really be seen together in a car at the end of this movie to go pick up clive owen i think that is fucking but to me it's almost an unforgivable fuck up just to have one of the guys and five other people in an apartment on the phone with them being like do you get them yet they're all going to be in one car what the fuck they're never going to do that that's a movie

it's only there to show us that hyam the the jewish man who would who has the diamond expertise is a part of the crew. I feel like that's the biggest reason why it's there is to show like, this is the gang all together. Yeah, but you can do that with one guy as a driver calling the other five who were all in somebody's apartment being just saying, did you get him yet? And then I'm not watching it going, this is fucking stupid. What if a cop drives by and be like, wait, aren't those six of our hostages all crammed in a car? What's going on there? That's what me and you were doing when Chris gets the vaccine. You know, we're all driving to the spot together and then when he gets in the car, we can all hug. It's going to be great.

Fair. Would the mayor really be involved with somebody like Jody Foster's character in this movie, Bill, yes. Have you been paying attention to politics for the last five years? I mean this overtly where they're like, yeah, let's go have lunch in this very, very public place. This person, the Madeline character, her job is to just, you know, fix bad shit. Why would you want to be seen in public with that person? But she's also like a philanthropist

and a fundraiser and stuff like that. She's got a cover. Yeah, it's not like she's Steve Bannon. She's like, you know, making moves. She's a respectable woman to the outside world. And every industry has this. There are plenty people like this in the sports world. You know that, Bill.

She's like the worldwide west of New York City politics. I still don't love it. They wouldn't, all of these hostages when they all get interviewed after these seven people who were involved than the robbery. Like, there's no, nobody makes one mistake. It's just, it's all seamless. They all pull off their covers. None of the other hostages. Just, just all in two minutes is resolved. It's asking a lot. I think that premise is really strong, though. Like, the gimmicks were,

we're like 55 years in the bank heist movies at this point. And they, they came up with new stuff. They came up with a new way to do a bank heist. My biggest nitpick is, where did they get all of the materials to build the exterior wall? You know, like, how did they carried all that in from the van? Is that how they did that? Yeah, I think we're supposed to imagine that they bring it in with their painting. That's a lot of raw materials to build an entire wall. It's just drywall, right?

It's just like putting up some, like... But they're patching it piece by piece, you know, like a puzzle. That was the one thing where I was like, this would take a long time. You did this in 12 hours? I don't know. Chris could do it with three out band. companions. Take them like five hours.

Any other picket nets? Yeah, I got a couple. Okay. Starting off, and I'm talking to a Mets fan and a Red Sox fan, so I know you feel on me. Does anyone look, like, do you take anybody who wears a Yankees hat seriously? Like when Clylebone comes out and he's wearing that Yankees hat, I just feel like he's just like wearing a linen shirt and a Yankees hat and sunglasses indoors.

I would immediately be like, hey, man, can you hold up for a second? I just want to make sure you don't have any. Nazi Cartier rings because you look really fucking suspicious. And just like in general, I find that when people wear Yankees hats,

I'm like, you're wearing that? Like, for real? This is a direct attack of Jacko. I know. Like, honestly, this is like,

Chris just Pearl Harbor Jacko. But wait, are you saying the Yankee fans shouldn't wear Yankee hats? I don't know that many Yankee fans. So when I just see somebody wearing a Yankee hat and it's not like Fat Joe,

I'm just like, what's going on here? your your mentions are fucked now Chris yeah this is not this is gonna be a tough time for Chris another thing I thought was just like I'm gonna have Albania coming after me yeah I got the Bronx the other thing that I would just say

is that while I understand it's movie magic and I understand how it works at the end it doesn't take a lot of arm twisting for Christopher Lambert to admit to being a Nazi diamond smuggler and she's just like she just asks him straight up and he's just like yes, yes, I did that.

It's just like maybe. How about just deny it? Like, you can try and try denying. I do think there, I noticed this when I was rewatching it last night. There's a moment when he's being confronted by her where his lip quivers. And you can see he's like thinking in real time. Am I actually going to say out loud the thing that I've been keeping to myself for 60 years? And it's like a very small acting choice that Plummer makes. But I think it's really good.

And you kind of get the sense that he's like, I'm at the end of my life. I can't keep this from this woman because she basically already knows what's going on anyway. And so I'm just going to give it up. But, you know, on the other hand, is this believable that you could keep a secret like that for 60 plus years and build an entire empire in the United States on that kind of blood money?

I honestly don't know. I had this probably in answerable questions, but I can do it in picking this. Why about this burn the Nazi thing? What the fuck? Why leave any trade? of it. It's his original sin, though. He's like, hey, he's hanging on to it as like a symbol of his evil. He's like, I can't wipe this away. Although he would definitely...

Mistake number one. You can't wipe it away. Put it in the fucking fireplace. Burn it. I don't know why that's in a deposit box. All that's going to do is come back to haunt you. I don't know. I thought that was very strange. Do we, do we know how Clive Owen knows about this? Well, I had that in unanswerable. How do we know he? How does he possibly know about this? So I assume that Hime, the guy who hires him to do the job, and doesn't he say that he's also a professor, right? He does, yes. So that he understands, like, maybe they've been doing some work,

tracing where these diamonds went, where the cardio went, like, who's the banker? They figured out its case. Could have needed 20 seconds on that, maybe in the movie. That's a good poll, Chris. That was the implication. Thanks. Yeah. Great job, Chris.

Glad you're here. Could this be remade as a 10-episode net, flick show. That actually was kind of be an amazing 10-episode show. We could dive. We could deep-dive. It basically becomes lost cross-with-in-inside-man as a 10-episode. There's so many characters in this. If you guys were going to, if you were going to create a show called Heist, would you want the show, let's say it's a 10-episode show. Would you want the show to be one heist over 10 episodes or 10 different heist across 10 episodes? No, one heist. You're right. I guess you could do it two different ways, but I think the one heist, the heat is the same kind of model, right? Everything leading

toward, maybe you have some smaller scores, but everything leads to the one big last job. You got to go do six or seven episodes and the heist happens in like the third or fourth. And then the next two episodes, the last two episodes of the come down. Probably an answerable questions. So Jody, Madeline, she worked for like a law firm, crisis agency. what's like, does she have an office? Consulting. Consultant.

So one of the original work from home people. We covered how to Clive know about the Nazi thing. Would Winston Wolf have done a better job here? Unquestionably. The Wolf, man? The wolf is the best. I think Wolf goes in and within 20 minutes,

Clive Owens like, handing over the deposit box, like, oh, I just think he gets it done. Chris is dubious. I love the idea of the wolf saying to Jody Foster. It's not that you have character. It's that you are a character, you know, and I just, also, Keitel would be great. Kytel should have been in this movie. Kytel should have been in this movie.

He could have been the Willem Defoe character. Yeah. Get some fucking body bags. It could have been a sequel to Bad Lieutenant. Oh, God. Last unanswerable question Can you name any of the countries That border Albania

This is fucked up Bill I'm not looking at the internet I'm not looking Did you guys see that there was that test The other day going around Where it was like how many U.S. states Could you name without their names written on them?

How many did you get, Chris? I can't remember give me either a bordering country or the sea that Albania is on. Is it the Adriatic? Oh. It's located on the Adriatic and Ionian Sea within the Mediterranean. Albania is near Kosovo. How about that?

It's near Kosovo. Bosnia, Herzegovina. Yeah, so it's in the Balkans. Little Montenegro. Yeah. Near the Balkans, yeah. There you go. You think Nikola Yokic has spent any time in Albania?

definitely what piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie what would you have Chris Ransone's jacket I think I would get Peter Hammond's ringtone start getting gold digger playing every time my iPhone rings

what do you have Shad anything the Clive Owen's Yankee hat to give to Chris for Christmas no I don't I definitely don't want to be in possession of a Yankee hat ever maybe Jody Foster's power

suit? That's some suit she's got going on this movie. Bill, first day back in the office, will you wear Denzel's tan tucks that he wears to City Hall that day? Love that. That hat actually is pretty great. Denzel's hat? Yeah. That's a good one. Normally you

would say the diamond ring, but since it has a certain legacy in this movie, maybe you don't want the $1.5 million ring. Who won the movie? This will be interesting. Really hard. Yeah. Don't say Ransone. he got the drop on you Fiannob's over there everyone's fighting and fucking

the doors he's not in the doors I don't know why we're doing this to James the doors is going to be our new heat just all of Kyle McLaughlin scenes in the doors uh guys don't listen to a Morrison don't listen to Morrison you made a great movie man

give me two minutes I gotta do the organ intro the doors is the most it might be the most one for them you've done in a while or one for you I should say that's that's way up there

I had a great time the doors is terrible guys terrible come on that's why we didn't invite you terrible it's got to be Spike right Spike on the movie I mean this is like I had Spike I got Spike I got Spike

I mean Denzel this is a real sweet spot for Denzel though This is like a slightly overlooked period where, you know, Man on Fire, the Manchurian candidate, Deja Vu. I'd like to interrupt you. Okay. It is not overlooked in the Simmons House. Okay. This is one of my favorite Denzel stretches.

I enjoy out of time. I enjoy Man on Fire. The Manchurian candidate's fucking weird. I always get sucked into it thinking it's going to be better and it's not, but it's still like weirdly watchable. Inside Man, deja vu and an American gangster. This is the very good version of what he then would do with, like, like two guns, Magnificent Seven,

and the paycheck era? Yeah, like that equalizer where it's like, those movies are like okay in different parts, but like these are really, really, really good genre movies. And then he's just kind of like, I think doesn't work with the best material.

It is the last time when these kinds of movies were the most reliable movies in Hollywood. These kinds of like movie star-driven, genre movies with good hook. And he was the best at picking those for a period of time. Also not like a great stretch for movies in general, the mid-2000s. It's okay.

The prestige stuff is not as good. It's tough. You go through those Oscars from like 0-4 to 08. It's a lot of Cinderella Man and Beautiful Mind and shit like that. Yeah. That's why these movies were the best. I was also an era where all I was doing was working for, was writing my column for page two. And I don't even think, hey, I had one kid at that point.

But just I didn't have all the other work stuff yet. So all I did, like, I'd be like, I'll see you later. I'm going to the movies. I would go, you know, the three o'clock, whatever. Anytime there was even a decent movie. And the movies really did start to tail off right around here. And we started to enter that awful superhero phase, which none of us liked. I think you guys secretly like it.

I mean, it depends. Like, even at that time, there were really good versions of that. You know, like, there was good Spider-Man movies and the Nolan Batman movies. Those were good. But there's just a lot now. It's totally taken over now. You would not see Inside Man make 187. Well, you won't see it anyway because we're not going to have movie theaters anymore.

Damn. Yeah. In 2021, this is a movie that's just all of a sudden on your HBO Max screen. Yes. Nudging out Beartown, the greatest TV show ever made. I think it's unlikely to get this many heavy hitters involved in something that, is only two hours long. I mean, to have a filmmaker like Spike and like, you know, like we didn't talk about Maddie Lovitique, this cinematographer, just amazing who worked on this movie, like all the

artisans, you know, Terrence Blanchard, all those people. But the actors, like six Academy Award nominees in one movie, you'd need to make it more like Mrs. America or Fossi Verdon or something where it's like the paycheck is bigger because it's eight hours. And so your time is worth it to you. They just don't, they really don't make movies specifically like this one with this much firepower. Although Denzel still tries. He does. He made little things. He does. He does. Little things. All right. Fantasy, Chris. Good to see you as always.

Great to see you too, Bill. Thank you, Bill. See you next week in the rewatchables.