The Rewatchables - ‘Limitless’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Shea Serrano

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

It’s time for The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Shea Serrano to shake up the free world and get things done. They pop their NZT and revisit the 2011 hit ‘Limitless’ starring Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, long-time writer with the Atlantic Magazine on tech culture and politics. There is a lot of noise out there, and my goal is to cut through the headlines, loud tweets, and hot takes in my new podcast, Plain English. I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know to give you clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways. Plain English starts November 16th. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly. Creative Studio with AI

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network where you can find The Watch with Chris Ryan, where you can find no skips with Shea Serrano and Jinks. How's that going, Shea? It's fantastic. It's the best show in the world. What episode got the biggest response? Probably when we did my beautiful dark twisted fantasy. Yeah, well, there you go. Well, you can listen to that. You can listen to the watch. You can listen to the rewatchables and the Bill Simmons podcast. All the Rigger Podcast Network coming up. It's time someone shook up the free world and got things done. Limitless is. next. So, Eddie Mora, I mean, you do know you're afraid. What if there was a pill that could give you everything you ever wanted?

A tablet a day and what I could do was limitless. I learned to play the piano. Math became useful and fun. I learned everything. About everything. Thanks a few. Since when do you speak Italian? How many of us ever know what it is to become the perfect version of ourselves? You think somebody's watching? What's the asking price? 12.5.

I'll take it. Have you asked yourself what you're gonna do when you run out? You'll die. There's no scenario you don't work for me. No scenario. I see 50 scenarios. That's what it does, Carl. It puts be 50 moves ahead of you. Worth the risk? What would you do?

Limitless. This film is not yet rated in theaters March 18th. All right guys. All right, guys, this movie came out in 2011. It feels timeless. I think it's, along with John Wick, one and two, probably the three most impactful action movies we've had, unless you want to throw in dead of thieves of the last 10 years. Unassailable premise, Shea. Here's a guy, kind of a loser, a writer who will talk about in a second about what they're trying to say about, almost out-of-work writers. finds this drug and it transforms his life.

What is it that you love about this movie? Because I love that. I love the ability to snap your fingers and I'm a new person that can speak nine languages and see the world like a giant chessboard. What do you love about it? That's exactly what I love about. I love just hearing the premise of there's a guy and he takes a pill and he becomes super smart. That's just like, that's all you need.

because it takes all of the work out of becoming that thing if you could just who wouldn't do that? Knowing what I know about the pill now like if you take it you're probably going to die like pretty much everybody dies who takes us

I would still do it I would 100% still do it just for that for that like six month stretch it would be great just to write your sci-fi novel just to write my sci-fi novel in four days let me crank that shit out and then get out of here

Chris what do you love about this movie? So this movie, Limitless to me, is a certified copy movie. There's a couple we've done of rewatchables where I feel like the movie that is essentially the Xerox copy of the original movie is actually more rewatchable than the original movie. Now, that's not always the case, but for Limitless, I just always think of Fight Club. I think that like it looks like Fight Club in a lot of ways with the microscopic, finely detailed, like how the chemical reaction happens when he takes the pill. I think it's basically about a guy who's like frustrated with his life and then finds a hack.

He finds like a side door, like a shortcut into like salvation. And in Fight Club, obviously, he's got this split personality and he discovers violence. And in this movie, he takes this pill and discovers the 80% of his brain that he hasn't been using. But like you go through like the movies we're talking about it's like, Den of Thieves is a certified copy of heat. like boiler room is a certified copy of like Glenn Garrig, Glenn Ross or something like that. And a lot of the times these certified copy movies are the ones you find on cable that are actually like, oh man, this is really, this is really entertaining. And it doesn't maybe have all of the weight of the original, but sometimes it has a little bit more entertainment. It's funny, when this movie came out and Cooper's, Cooper had been in The Hangover in 2009 where he becomes a star because that movie was a phenomenon.

And we see this sometimes. We've talked about on this podcast. These movies after the person kind of becomes a phenomenon where they have this leeway with the audience. Where it's like, all right, I like that guy. I'll check out that premise. The best example of this is Julie Roberts in Sleeping with the Enemy, where pretty woman comes out. She's a phenomenon. And then it's like, hey, here's the next one.

She's in an abusive married relationship and she's got to escape. It's like, all right, I'm in. I don't need to know anything else. just from the poster. With Cooper, he had been in a couple things between the hangover and limit list because he was in Case 39.

He's it all about Steve. He's in Valentine's Day. Everyone's in that. And he's in the A team. So he's in a bunch of different things, but not like the Star Project. I didn't think he had this in him. From what I had seen

and even go back to Wet Hot American Summer all these different things, I didn't think, because this is really a Keanu part, right, Che? This is like, it's kind of amazing Keanu. who wasn't in this movie, but this is Keanu's made versions

of this movie nine times. But did you think Bradley Cooper had this in him? Yeah, I feel like when you watched, when you saw him pop up in Wedding Crashers, and he was just so blisteringly funny every single time he was on the screen. Like, you hated him immediately,

and also you kind of wanted him to like you. It's how he showed up in Wedding Crashers as Sack Lodge. What a fucking name that was. Yeah, so by the time like this movie rolled around. He just, especially after you're talking about after the hangover had come out and he just had so much like social currency. He was just so charming and so likable and so like excessively handsome. It just felt it felt like, yeah, I want to see this guy do it. I went and watched the A team in the movie theaters because he was in it. And I was like, well, I guess I'll go see what this guy's up

to. Well, in this one, great, great title. Premise you can explain in a sentence. They say the title in the movie, which you know I love. Oh, yeah. But the best part of this movie is when the pill kicks in. And you know, you see this sometimes. You'll see this in a documentary. Like this is one of my pet peeves of documentaries is they'll make like a two and a half hour documentary and the best part is this 20 minute section.

And you're just like, I wish this should have just been the whole documentary. Maybe there should have been a YouTube video. Yeah, right. With this, with this, as soon as the. the pill kicks in, it's like this could last for eight hours. Man, what else could this guy do? Chris, should that have been longer? But when the pill kicks in? Yeah, when he's all of a sudden speaking Italian and he's holding court and he's giving his thoughts on the free market. There are a couple of montages in this movie where I was like, don't do a montage. Show me what happens. Like, I want to

watch this guy clean his apartment for two hours. And that's the best part is that he decides the first thing he's going to do now that he has 100% brain power is redickery. It's the perfect, because that's what everybody would do. You'd be stuck at home and you just be like, oh my God, I can move this couch. And it's just like, it is actually perfect. But yeah, I agree with you that I wish that there was like almost like, I would watch that guy take piano lessons for like an hour and a half. Has there ever been a time in your professional career where you felt a little like Bradley Cooper and Limitless? Because I actually had a moment like that. I was going to ask you guys about this. Like, whatever... I mean, you mean, with a chemical involved or just like, you just were in the zone?

Okay. So when I went to the London Olympics and there was just way more walking than I ever thought there would be in my life. Like, you just think like, I'm going to go to the Olympics. All you're doing is walking when you go to the Olympics, especially that one. So you're walking to the subway. You're walking from the subway to the Olympics. You get inside. Now you're walking all over the place and everything's spread out. And I was just, I must have been walking. Like I, the iPhone didn't keep track of that at the time, but I must have been walking like, honestly, 15, 16 miles a day. And at some point, I felt like everything was slowing down for me. I don't know, it was all the exercise. I was like insatiable. Even on the subway, I'm reading, I was reading books on my

iPhone on the subway. And I'm just like, I wrote like eight columns and I could write columns in three hours and I was just subsiding on like salad and chicken and it was like I had this higher being and there was this one day where there was a break and somebody's like you want to play basketball and I'm like yeah I need to play and I go and I play two hours of basketball I come back I go to these different things and I was just going going going for like 17 days I had so much adrenaline from it and I was kind of like I kind of feel like the guy from limitless immediately it was over so that was my only time I so wish that while you were in London, you had gone up to an Olympic athlete

and we're just like, I'm really in the zone right now. I know that you've been training your whole life to fucking throw a javelin at this thing. But let me just tell you, I've been taking some long walks and blogging a lot. I felt locked in. Remember, I came back and I was like 163 pounds. You guys all thought I had,

because I was just had, I was like over exercise. That was my one time. Shea, what about you? Have you had a time? Because you had some moments where you were cranking out, either Grantland or ringer columns while you're also trying to write books and scripts on the side and you had you

you're in your little room and were you on the limitless drug? What was going on? The only time I have ever felt any version of that is I was playing in a basketball tournament one time. This was in college and it was like a rec league tournament and before the game started we got like

matched up against whoever the best team was and so they're on their side shooting I'm on our side shooting and I get out there and like when you get out there and like, when you get on a court and you like touch a ball and you know that this is a good ball and it feels good in my hands and then you shoot it the first time and it goes in and you're like let's fucking go so i shot shot it shot at three it goes in i hit another one i hit like six or seven threes in a row and by

this point now i'm feeling like fucking super confident and i start running my mouth and i'm like trying to be as loud as i can so that the other team can hear me on the other end of the court and i'm like just give me the ball and get the fuck out the way these bitches can't guard me and i'm just like drill in every single thing. And I felt so, so, so good. I felt like when the color gets vibrant and limitless, that's exactly what the court looked like. And then the game started. And then I went like, oh, for 13 in the actual game or something goofy like that. But prior to the game, I was fucking on it. I was on it. How about you, Chris? Yeah. When I took, recreationally took, riddlin at Newberry Comics. And I was working in Newberry Comics and we would, you know,

take an ADD pill for fun because, you know, you work retail, things. get a little boring. And then I would walk out onto the floor and be the Beethoven of recommending music to people. And like a mom would come up to me and be like, my kid, my kid likes Limpisket, but do you think, I was like, let me tell you, I'm going to change your life and your kid's life right now. This is a band called Fugazi, and now your child is going to have a meaningful existence. And I thought I was seeing like all the angles. So yeah, I mean, this, this movie is pretty accurate in that way. This is why I've been afraid to, I've never tried riddling. This is why I'm so afraid to even look at a riddle and pill because it does seem like and I know like in the last

like 15 years or so there's been writers that have been leaning on it. It does feel a little like the Limitless drug, right, where the effects are going to decrease. Yeah, that comes down is bad. Yeah. Your heart's racing. Yeah. The cool thing about Limitless and one of the reasons I love this movie is he figures out how to game it by the end. There's no there's no like lesson to be learned at the where it's like, oh man, now I've got to do this naturally or, you know, like the kind of movies we grew up with. And this one, he's like, now I figured out how to doctor everything. It's the best part of the movie. The best part of the movie is that there is no, he's not trying to overcome anything. He's not trying to prove anything to his dad. There's no like, there's no like emotional backstory.

He's like, I found this pill. It made me the smartest person in the world. And then I figured out how to be smart without it. No repercussions. No repercussions. No repercussions. and now I'm going to be president. Senator Mora. Back to Bradley Cooper for one second. Who else could you have seen in this part, Shea? Because I think this is a Keanu like state. This would have been an easy Keanu part.

Kiano's a great call. I think it's got a, Cooper is perfect in this. Because again, you have to be like very handsome, but in a likable way. You have to be like somebody who can be smart. Like you have to believe that they became. smart, they start speaking another language, that's the sound right, it has to look right. I think he's my number one. Kiano's, Kiano is a good dark horse pick. I never even thought of that

until you said those words right then. I think you have to find somebody who has the capacity to be dumb and smart. So they have to be like kind of a loser in the beginning and then they have to be a genius at the end and you have to believe that they could do both of those things. The reason why Cooper's so good in this movie is that you could actually see Bradley Cooper himself taking NZT if it was available. Because if you go back and you want to that famous inside the actor's studio clip where he's like in the audience asking questions. You can tell that's a really ambitious guy. Like that's a dude who really wants to go somewhere with his life. Yeah. And there's a little bit to it of like, what if that actor who's in the

inside the actor studio got to take this pill and become Al Pacino or Robert De Niro? And him acting with De Niro and this whole thing kind of gives it a different resonance because you're like, man, I bet Cooper is Eddie in some ways. Yeah. Well, you know, There needs to be like a 10% of a self-parity element, which I think Cooper has and straddles it the right way. I would pay, honestly, though, I would pay to see Jeremy Strong do this. Oh, that would have been amazing.

He would be so good. He would be good. Jake Gyllenhaal would be great in this. Mark Wahlberg would be horrible. Yeah, so Mark Wahlberg's where this goes bad. He's the opposite. You guys, Mark Wahlberg is on NZT. He's like, I get up.

three in the morning and lift and do nine holes of golf and invest. Well, but that's the reason why, even though I kind of enjoyed the gambler, I also feel like it didn't work because I felt like Mark Wahlberg was miscast. There needs to be an element of self-parity that he's never kind of figured I had a channel. Really, the only time he was able to do it was Shooter. Shooter was like, it was before he became too self-aware, but Shooter, he's kind of there. It's just ridiculous, right? He's in the middle of nowhere.

We haven't done Shooter on the rewatchables. I want to at some point. But it's like the one last job and all the motifs and he's not quite self-forward enough about it. This movie, like, so Cooper has a quote in here. I don't have delusions of grandeur. I have an actual recipe for grandeur. That's so cold.

That's such a cold line right there. You have to, you can't really say that. And I can't totally 100% take you seriously after that unless you've sold it to me in some way. And he sells it in the right way. which is like, I don't think that's a long list. Like, if Leo is doing this movie, I almost think it's too much firepower.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. If Tom Hardy's doing it, he's too intense. But with this, it's like the right point of like somebody who's a good actor, but somebody who's also like kind of in on it a little bit. It's pretty amazing how likable Cooper is in this movie considering the fact that this guy basically never uses his new powers for any kind of like

societal good. He's just like, I'm just going to enrich myself and get laid and like X out Carl Van Loon. He's never like, you know what I should do is probably like figure out drinking water for the entire world. How about that? It's kind of the end of this era where you could make a movie like this, right? Because now I think so people are so much more socially conscious and really like, so this goes back to the 80s and some of the movies we've covered on this pot of like in the 80s, you have movies like Wall Street. in these goals are like, or the same almost fire

Shed Nelson character. The goals are like, how do I get as much power and money as possible? And that would be glorified in these movies for 25 years or so. Limitless is kind of the tail end of that where it's like,

if I have a drug like this, I'm going to use it to gain as much power and money and influence as I possibly can. In 2021, I don't know if that would be the angle. I feel like they would maybe go in and doing, I don't know what it would be,

but I don't know if they would go that direction. What do you think, Shea? I think that's part of the reason it's so much fun to watch though is it feels like every person who watched that movie and liked that movie inside them they were like I would do exactly

the same thing in exactly the same way that's why this is fun to watch I wish I'd look like Bradley Cooper and I wish I was this rich and this smart is what it feels like when you're watching it the the like bit the gag of the movie of him just like instantly being good at things

never gets old. It doesn't matter how many times you watch it or how many like little things it is. You're like, oh, I learned the piano in like three days or whatever. That's fucking fucking, like he's just learning stuff instantly. That's fucking cool. I would watch eight of these movies with Bradley Cooper just doing different things every single time. It's just fun every single time. But no, I think if you made it today, I think you would still do it exactly the same way because it's just that, it's that wish for film. I'm glad. I'm glad. I would like to think that's true. The reason it works is because they also make it basically that it follows an addiction where there is a limited supply.

And so there is like a finite, like a time clock on what he's doing. If he was just like, I took a pill once and this happened and now it's like, I'm smart for the rest of my life. You could get into like, oh, should you do something a little bit more altruistic with your talents? But the fact that he's basically like, this burst has come upon me, but I can see the bag with it diminishing. That's the best part of the movie. is like him kind of try to chase the dragon and make sure he's got enough and try to stretch the supply out until he can, you know, ramp up his own production.

I think some of his instincts were right, like try to write my book as fast as possible. Try to figure out the stock market immediately so I can make as much money as I possibly can. I personally would have drifted immediately to sports gambling and tried to figure out patterns. It would have been more fun. I would have been banned by all the online casinos. But in general, like some of the stuff he does is fun. Like he, I'm amazed he didn't try to write a TV script. You just put a band-out-of-business with a million-dollar picks.

Yeah, it's done. I'm banned. I'm just banned for America. He could have written some movie scripts. Like, there's some other stuff. But for the most part, he, I, my favorite thing of all the things he learned was all the different languages. So he could just basically, the only thing that's impressive is you're able to order in

restaurants in the native language of whatever food you're eating, which he's willing to drop multiple times in this movie. He's like, oh, we're eating here. Hold on. Let me talk to the waiter. But for the most part, I liked all the choices he made. So Limitless is based on the novel, The Dark Fields by Alan Glenn. It was directed by Neil Berger, and it was based on a screenplay by Leslie Dixon,

who did the rare move of, don't buy me out. I want to be made a producer on this. And actually, like, was played it smartly. They retitled it Limitless in December 2010 before it came out, which I think was a smart move. Great title. Really nice title. Darkfield,

isn't that the name of the novel that Eddie writes? Yeah. Darkfields is the wrong title for this. So, 27 million dollar budget, it makes $161.8 million. What were we doing then? We were just like, let's go see Limit was twice. Well, and it changes Cooper's career because, so he's got the hangover sequel right after. He does the place beyond the pines, which I liked.

Silver lining's playbook, which now he's up a level, Jay Laws and that and De Niro and the whole thing. Hangover Part 3 and then American Sniper 2014. And then he officially becomes, I think, one of the three or four biggest stars we have from that point on and has been able to maintain

that ever since. But weirdly, Limitless was the most important one out of all of those, except for the hangover. Because he showed he could take a B movie and make it an A movie. Which is a really, we talk about this all the time. That's not a long list of people that can just be like, here's the premise. I'm the only major star that has to carry this. I mean, every shot pretty much. Yeah, I can do this. And that list

is not long. So our guy Roger Ebert, two and a half stars. Quote, quote, not terrifically good, but the premise is intriguing. Limitless only uses 15, maybe 20% of its brain. Still, that's more than a lot of movies do. I think what Raj did not anticipate the impact this movie would have on the streamers and on cable, which is the premise of this whole podcast. But this is one of the most rewatchable movies of the last 15 years. This is a movie that if you're flicking channels

or you're walking in a room and somebody's watching it and he's about to take the drug for the first time, you're just watching for the next 25 minutes. There's no way you're not watching everything that happens after. that. And there's not that many movies you can say that about at this point, these action movies you can waltz into. There's not that many movies you can say that about at this point. There's also not that many movies you can say that about and ever that have a premise that starts out really, really fun. And then it ends and it's also still really, really fun.

Like if you watch something like The Purge and you saw the preview for it and you're like, yes, 24 hours, all crime is illegal, let's go. The last 27 minutes or whatever, the movie, you're like, you're trying to teach me a lesson now. Yeah. It's not that much fun. There's no lessons. Like, here's a bunch of cool shit.

Here's a cool guy doing cool shit. Just for himself. Have fun. By the end of this movie, he can diagnose heart problems by touching a guy's chest. He's doing electrocardiograms through a leather glove. Just like, he's a fucking Neo in the Matrix. Well, so the question after you watch this was,

wow, that would make a great TV show. And then they actually made the TV show. And it didn't really work. and I think it missed the streamer element probably by two, three years. I do think it's one of those. That same thing that happened with you and manifest in some of these other shows

that if it had gotten like the Netflix bump on the main screen, maybe that show exists. It was also a CBS show and I think one thing about this movie is that like this movie is about sex and drugs and you kind of have to keep it a little bit racy to make it because this is what people would do

if they had this kind of thing. is that they would just, they would be a Bacchanol, man. So I'm, well, we'll talk about that when we get to that category. Let's take a break and then when we come back, let's do rewatchable scene. I can't wait to do this one. 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

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All right, coming back. Really good opening scene for most rewatchable as my first candidate. It's just the opener where he's standing out a ledge. For a guy with a four-digit IQ, I must have missed something.

And I hadn't missed much. I'd come this close to having an impact on the world. And now the only thing I'd have an impact on was the sidewalk. Which a lot of times, especially in action movies, doesn't necessarily work.

Where I don't want to be told where I'm going to end up 90 minutes from now, but in this case, it works. and he says, for a guy with a four-digit IQ, I must have missed something. That's the hook right there. And you're like, all right, what's going out of this movie? And you're just in.

So I would nominate that. It's not the most rewatchable scene, but it's good one. Vernon Gant. What are your Vernon Gant thoughts, Chris? Oh, you know, I love Vern. You know? So that's Johnny Whitworth, right? Yeah.

The Star of Empire Records, Johnny Wirtworth, I think. And great drug dealer. Really good, like, kind of seduces this guy, but then immediately becomes unavailable. So I'm into Vernon. So he explains the drug to Eddie in a very kind of grimy, perfect like what you would want from. And then Eddie takes the drug. He hits on the lady down the hall in his apartment, has sex with her, and then cleans his room for the next three days. And says things like, I was blind, but now I see.

Phil, let me ask you this. How close would the person have to be for you to agree to take NZT? If I came by your office and you're like, God, I did the gambling pod, I did sports card, I did my pod, I rewatched, I'm so tired. Just feel like in 2022, I don't have my fastball.

And I was like, I can help you with that. This pill will help you pod even better. Would you take it? I'd probably have some side effect questions, but if it was you, I would probably trust you. Oh, God. If Rosillo was like, you should take this. Well, I mean, both of us have dabbled with cigarettes from time to time, although we're both retired.

But I felt this way when I needed like that last kick when I was writing something, especially I was always writing at night before I switched to a day schedule. Now I don't write at all. But at nighttime and I was like, I need a kick. I'd have that one cigarette. The one camel light. And it would just, the nicotine would come in. I would think about the piece. That little eight, nine minute break

was a little like an NZT thing. And I think that's why I letter. You'd start speaking Italian. Yeah. I'm doing kung fu on the subway. I wasn't high. I wasn't wired. Just clear.

Anyway, the drug kicks in. We know Vernon's not long for the movie. You get a feeling. So anyway, all right. Next rewatchable scene. This is probably probably my number two, my runner-up choice. So he says the drug in the title,

A Tablet a Day and I was Limitless, boom. And then we have the montage. I've been doing a little research on Anne Helen's tumor, and it's totally clear that anybody with familial abdominal abdominous paliposis should be supplementing platinum-based doublet regiments with icosinpentioic acid. I suddenly knew everything. About everything.

Sure, you get a short-term spike, but wouldn't that rapid expansion devaluelly just not completely in two years? No, because they're safeguards. against aggressive over-expansion? There aren't, because there are no safeguards in human nature. And we're wired to overreach. Look at history, all the countries that ever ruled the world. Portugal with this big, massive navy.

All they got now are salt cod and cheap condoms. Brits, now they're just sitting on their dank little island fussing over their suits. No one's stopping and thinking, hey, we're doing pretty well. We got France. We got Poland. We got a big Swiss bank account. You know what?

Let's not invade Russia in the winter. Let's go home. Let's pop a beer and let's live off the interest. Yeah. He finishes a book in four days. He learns the piano. He plays some high-end blackjack. He has crazy sex with models and hostitudes. He knows how to diagnose tumors. Yes.

He learns multiple languages. He does karate and kung fu. He holds court at five-star restaurants with the business elite. Some high-end cliff diving? Sure. Wait, you're not going to jump off that cliff? Yeah, actually, yeah. And he trades some high-end stocks. And that's all in about what, 10 minutes? Yeah. What a montage. The thing that's been holding us back in cancer research is the research. Just people haven't read enough about it. We needed Bradley Cooper on NZT to just read a couple more articles. Shea, high-end cliff dives. Never, never disappointing in a movie like this. It didn't seem CGI'd either. No, somebody definitely did that. What I really enjoy about the dive is if you go back and watch it, it's not a dive that somebody who is like a

professional diver did. He doesn't like swoosh and they're perfect. He's like jackknifed a little bit and just slammed down into the water, which is a great way to do it if you're gonna fucking do it. I love the holding court stuff with him too, which I have a little bit to go later. I have some meat to cover. But in general, it's always hard to pull off

the things are going well. Here's our guy holding court. I'm just talking about Portugal. It'd be like if there was the Chris Limitless movie and you're just holding court, holding court about the World Cup 2022 with seven experts.

Like here's how England attacks and everybody is just completely Netterlands has the best XG. Yeah. Next rewatchable scene is short, but the subway fight scene. A fight? She, you're the world's premiere

movie fight expert. First of all, they shouldn't have looked at him that way. Second of all, there's for some reason, five different people who want to fight them at the same time.

He takes one in the back of the leg from somebody and he's fine. But give us your breakdown in the fight scene. I greatly enjoyed it. The part of the movie, or excuse me, the part of the scene that always jumps out of me is once he starts doing it, and you see him throw a couple of punches and you're like, oh, shit, he's good, like, his good fight confidence in here. Why did we never get, like, his version of Jason Bourne?

Cooper. That's what, yeah, Cooper's version. That's what I felt like whenever I watched the scene, because he could do it. He could be like that guy if he wanted to, and he just never got around to doing it. Have he ever done an action movies, like a straight-up action movie since 18?

No, not really. He got super artsy-fartsy on us. I mean, American sniper is a tech late action movie, but he's not really fighting in that. He beefed up, too. Yeah, you're right. Shots at the sniper community. It's not real fighting.

No, I mean, he doesn't have like the, has to fight five guys. there does feel like there's a born identity would they go with Renner? What year was that? That's like 2014 or 15. Yeah, this is Born Legacy. The Born Identity Scouts, I think, might have misfired on that one with Renner,

thinking like Renner's our guy. Yeah. Maybe they should have gone to Cooper. Yeah, that's a good call. It probably would have lived on different. Because when Renner came in for Born Legacy, everybody was like, he's not quite

Matt Damon. The same thing happened with the, we talked about the limitless TV show. Yeah. With Mission Impossible. With a limitless

TV show, it's all the same stuff, but it's just not Bradley Cooper in the role. And you're like, it doesn't, it doesn't quite work. Your eyebrows are a little weird.

That's how I felt watching the TV version. Like, this isn't, this isn't it. Next one, I have three more rewatchable scenes. Abby Cornish

chased in the park. Yeah. That's what I wrote down for that one. Okay. I need you to go into the bag and take one of the pills. Why? Because you'll know what to do.

You'll take it and then you'll know. He's got a knife. Eddie, I can't think my way out of a knife. Just listen to me. It'll come on in 30 seconds and you'll think your way out. That's what it does. What a moment. I like when they take the drug and they make the limitless face where it kicks in

and all of a sudden they're like kind of bulging eyes like they can see everything. Yeah. A great thing about this movie is that every time you think you have it pinned down, a new thing happens that you just didn't see coming. When she takes the pill, you're like, oh shit, they're letting everybody take the pill. And she fucking slices the bad guy's face with the little girl's ice skate. Or when he gets to the scene in the penthouse, when he has to drink the bad guy's blood. Like every single time you think you got a hold of it, here's a new goofy-ass thing. And it's just so much fun.

Chris, did you live in New York City ever? Yeah. I mean, I lived in Brooklyn. I didn't live in Manhattan. Central Park as a movie character, it always seems like the craziest scene from a movie can happen in Central Park and there's like no witnesses ever. Is it really like that there? Yeah, I mean, it's like I just remember every day it would be like a cab drives right through the park like die hard with vengeance. This girl's running for her life. She's hiding. There's nobody else on a walk being like, hey, there's a girl hiding in the bushes who seems terrified. It's pretty big. It's pretty big. Yeah. Okay. That's a really good scene. Next one. Eddie fights Russian gangsters, murders them, drinks NZT blood to survive. It's how I wrote that one out. Hell yeah. A lot of great stuff in here.

The Russian gangster. I'm branching out. I'm starting an import export company. What the hell does that mean? That's what he's going to do with his NZT knowledge. I love though that they change his vocabulary over the course of the movie because he's getting smart he's like he's giving me a dilemma you know like right i'm back in the old times i might peel your skin back flay you flay it's a nice word i didn't know this before oh that's such a poor vocabulary this scene has one of my favorite action movie motifs the suddenly blinded person who still is a threat Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah, I still got the gun.

Done wonderfully in Halloween, too, at the end, when Dr. Luma shoots Michael Myers in both eyes. But Myers still is the knife. And they're still... Still swinging away. Myers recovered, by the way. He was fine. But in general, I like the crippled hitman

or horror movie villain or whatever, who I'm still afraid of for some reason. Briefly blinded is one of the best tropes. I was just watching Big Trouble in Little China. Briefly blinded in that movie. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Splash that puddle water. that's how you solve that.

Good apartment too. I like it's like a classic like sterile New York City apartment. Oh the arms dealer apartment? Yeah. Yeah. I feel like fantasy would live there if you could. That's a real fantasy spot. He probably lives there now. He's on the limelisk drug as we speak. The last scene is the

you really want to go to war with me. Cooper versus De Niro. This is actually my pick. I love the ending of this movie. And if this movie's on, I'm always gonna stay for the gangster scene and then the tail end. I see everything, Carl. You have no idea what kind of enemy like that. That van's gonna rear in that taxi.

What? The driver's distracted. He's texting. He's going 30 miles an hour. He's 60 feet to stop. He doesn't have room. What the hell? I see everything, Carl.

I'm 50 moves ahead of you and everybody else. What makes you think I don't have a guy with a beat on you right now? How do you know you're gonna be alive this time next year? What are you doing? Something's pumping a half-mess in there. Walls of your heart are dilated. Eurotic vows denotes. You're going to get that replaced.

But you already knew that. How do you know you're going to be alive this time next year? It's just so fucking good. Hey, there's a car accident coming. Watch this. This guy's texting. Everything about it. De Niro's kind of like, Jesus Christ.

Carl Veyn. Big loser in that one. But I love that scene. Really, really, really, really good ending. Action movies for the most part have bad endings. Like, taken, a movie that I love. But it ends with, it's like, oh, let's go back to the female musicians, whatever her name was, the Britney Spears kind of clone.

And my daughter, and she's going to give my daughter piano lessons. And it's like, I don't want to end on this. I want to end on like, you saved your daughter from 100 Bulgarian gangsters. As soon as he shoots the guy in the head, you just want credits. Yeah, that's it. That's it. We're on the boat. Bill.

You should see if HBO Max would let you do the Bill Simmons cut of a bunch of movies. All the movies just end with the bad guy getting killed. No CODA, no resolution, no emotional. It's just like, Alan Rickman dies, diehard is over. Goodbye. He saved her on a yacht, pulls it off. I don't need another scene. And this one, they actually pull off the, we don't need another scene.

in the best possible way, and it's actually De Niro's best scene, too. But they do another one. He meets up with his wife or soon-to-be wife at lunch. Yeah. And he does the ordering thing again. Yeah, but that's like, yeah, to me, that's just a little dessert after. It's great. What's your most re-watchable scene?

I like to come up the most. That's always my favorite part. After he gets the stash. And in particular, I like when he turns in the first few pages of his book, and then he goes home and he checks his voicemail, and he's got three messages from his editor, and each one, she's more excited. That's, to me, as a professional writer,

that's how, just like, what I'm after all of the time. Shea would send in a paragraph, being like, I love Tim Duncan, and I would call Shay and leave three messages. I was like, I gotta know more. I got to see more guys. No, she did his, what was the diary of the eighth grade football team? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

That was it. That was Chris left you three messages for that way. Shay, great stuff. We need another volume. What do you have for most rewatchable, Chris? I like the montage where he cures Helen's cancer, learns how to play piano, and starts day trading. Great stuff.

All right, what stage the best? Eddie finds the drugs. The classic, What Would You Do? I like what movies have, the What Would You Do? All right, here's seemingly a dilemma. You know there's the two pass. What would you do? and in this one I think most people

like, all right, I've got to try one of those. I love how they're ripping kind of stealth on unsuccessful writers within the first 25 minutes. They're not afraid. Eddie feels like a microcosm of the internet in the late 2000s, where you just have all these people

who are trying to blog. And it feels like they're trying to rip on those people in a really subtle way. Am I overthinking that? I don't know if it's about bloggers, but I do think that Eddie's like chatter that he has. It's masquerading is a sci-fi novel, but it's really my own personal manifesto about the play to the individual. Like, that's the perfect thing. Like, you definitely would hear that in bars.

Another one stage the best. So, this is the biohacker era, basically, the last, like, what, 15 years where we're trying to improve how we eat, how we sleep, um, looking for every sort of edge possible through natural ways. And this is like the ultimate version of that, Although this is a drug, but same kind of thing. How do I do better? I'm where I am. How do I maximize whatever my potential is? And now that's a cottage industry with a lot of different stuff. There's some, you want to talk about the movie production stuff for a second, Chris?

How the movie, when Eddie takes the pill. It changes its color scheme. Yeah, some of the stuff that's going on. Yeah, I think it jacks up the, it basically turns up the contrast a lot. and maybe like the stock looks a little bit different. But yeah, it's an effective way of doing it. This is another thing that I feel like, it doesn't really like happen exactly like this in Fight Club,

but there are like little tricks that they pull in Fight Club that this movie does too. How would you compare it to Gordon Willis and Godfather too? It's way too bright. Yeah, for Gordo. Shea, the name Carl Van Loon. What are your thoughts? I was really excited when I looked it up

and Carl is short for Carlos so I'm just pretending like he's a Mexican businessman in the movie and Eddie Mora like that's a Spanish last name as well so I feel like this is a win for the Latinos De Niro's speech

I want to save the De Niro conversation for later but he does have one great speech in this movie which we're going to have Craig play right now I mean you do know you're afraid Your deductive powers are a gift from God or chance or a stray shallow sperm or whatever or whoever the hell wrote your life script. A gift not earned. You do not know what I know because you have not earned those powers.

You're careless with those powers. You flaunt them and you throw them around like a brat with his trust fund. You haven't had to climb up all the greasy little rungs. You haven't been bored blind at the fundraisers. You haven't done the time in that first marriage to the girl with the right father. You think you can leap overall in a single bound. You haven't had the bribe or chival. charm or threaten your way to a seat at that table. You don't know how to assess your

competition because you haven't competed. Don't make me your competition. You haven't been bored, blind at the fundraisers. You haven't done the time in that first marriage to the girl with the right father. You think you can leap overall in a single bound. I kind of liked it. I like some of the material there. I wanted to ask, I wanted to ask Chris, Chris, have you imagined yourself in Bradley Cooper's role and Bill and the De Niro role, have you, this exact. I try to leave to go to the athletic and Bill's like, that you would even suggest that.

It means I'm 50 steps ahead of you. I'm like, Chris, you don't know how to assess your competition. You haven't competed. Don't make me your competition. Great stuff. De Niro on autopilot this whole movie. Yeah, for whatever reason. It's not real, like, you kind of wonder whether or not there are cue cards in the

background for De Niro, but he still nails it. Yeah, he nails that speech. And then the last, what's age the best. This also could be a what stage the worst. but there's like a limitless knockoff market. Do you guys do research on this? No. There's a whole bunch of,

there's YouTube videos, they're fake supplements, there's this whole thing that you can kind of do deep dive on the internet for for people claiming versions of the limitless drug. Sometimes it sounds like when they talk about like CBD where it's just like I was walking in New York the other day and there was like a sign for a CBD shop and it was like

need help studying, sleeping, waking up like with depression. with eggs. I was like, what doesn't this do? This is pretty, like, it is kind of like that. We went to a, to like a, the flea market and they had a CBD stand there and the guy was doing that basically that exact sales pitch. It was like the limitless sales pitch, but for the, it's like, it's, that's not what this is, you fuck. Any other, uh, what's age the best for you, Shea? You know what I really like? I really like, this is a very small thing, but I like the weight

of the pills in the bag. Like, like, like, when, he finds him in the oven and he grabs it and it like folds over on his hand and you realize it's a lot of pills. It's a lot of pills in the bag and he looks so excited to have found it. I think that that aged really, really well. I just get excited to see it every time. I really like how clever they are with a lot of the little stuff in there. Like the way that they set it up to where he goes to meet Vern, Vern sends him out to run an errand. He comes back, Vern's dead and he decides he's going to try and find the pills and he can't find him and he sits down and he makes a little, he looks like at the breakfast bag and he's like, man, if you cooked, I'd be dead too. And then he realizes, oh, I didn't check the

stove. And then he finds him in there. I like that they do a lot of that little stuff in there. And I really like that they acknowledge that like that Eddie Moore character is smart. Like, one of my favorite lines in the movie is when Vern tells him, just like in passing that the pill works better if you're already smart. And like, that's cool. That's cool. That was the only time I felt like I wouldn't take it because I'm not that smart, like naturally. And I don't think you'd have like, that. I would just tweet faster is probably what would happen if I took the pill. That's the only benefit it would have for me. What about you, Chris? I really like the discovery of the NZT community in the movie, like when he finds out that other people have been taking it and are all dead or his ex.

Or, and then when he recognizes that the Atwood, the guy who's going up against Van Loon, and he's like, where did he come from? Even two years ago, he was nowhere. And he's like, and that's when I realized he was on NZT. You know, like that, that whole, like, the idea that there's this whole, like, other world happening around, around him is really cool

because they don't belabor it, but it's, it's very effective. For what's age is the best for me? I'm just the premise, age is great every year. Vern's pitch on NZT is literally the best.

Like, it just is like, that's the movie. This is perfect. Great. No notes. What's age the worst? De Niro. Oh, really?

in this respect. In this respect, he's fine. He's De Niro. He's fine. I don't think he realized that this was going to be as good of a movie as it was. We've seen De Niro, and this is basically, I'm going to say from after Jackie Brown and meet the parents on, like he hits like the late, late 90s into the 2000s and he starts doing a lot of paycheck movies, right?

He makes like, I think he makes six movies or 13 movies in like five years at one point. and you can kind of tell pretty early how into the movie De Niro is. I don't feel like he's 100% into this movie. I actually think if he had a do-over, I have no evidence at all. But I think he would have gone full De Niro in this movie in a totally different way. He scales it way back in a way that I don't even think is really intentional. I just, I think it's what Chris said. It's like Gene Hacklin in the replacements where I used to joke about the guy,

they were holding the cue cards like literally right behind Keanu Reeves as he's doing the speeches. It feels a little Gene Hackman's replacement autopilot to me. But I think it works. You guys disagree. No, I mean, I disagree. It's not in the top 20 De Niro performances, but at the same time, like, he brings a lot of gravity to the Carl Van Loon character. Like, I'm glad it's him and not, I don't know, Paul Giamatti or something. And then I also really like the fact that, like, it's not Torch Pass.

but you can tell he's active with Cooper a couple of times now. Like there's an affinity there. And like it's cool that he lets Cooper basically chew all the scenery. Chris, when he says in the final scene, what makes you think I don't have a guy with the beat on you right now? How do you know you're going to be alive this time next year? Cooper says that to De Niro. Do you think De Niro should have just stared at him?

Looked away, look back and said, there's a flip side to that coin. Eddie Moore, why are you so interested in what I eat and what I do? That's the thing. If you're comparing this performance to like kneel and heat, that's what I mean. I think De Niro is such a good actor. He can go on autopilot in some of these. When Pacino goes on autopilot, he gets big, like in two for the money.

His version of autopilot is he's, and he does Pacino. De Niro kind of scales it back. This is my biggest, what's aged the worst. This movie should have been rated R. I don't know what they were thinking. They made it PG-13, I guess, because they were trying to make as much money as possible on that work. But this is such like a rated R movie.

I don't know why they didn't go overboard. So what is it lacking? Do you think sex-ins? I think it could have been more violent. I think there could have been more sex stuff, just the whole thing. I don't really know why this is a PG-13 movie. What do you think? Shea, you're a little more family-friendly than I am.

Do you think this should have been PG-13 or R? I like it exactly as it is. Because I like when you can have a movie on and the kids are like, if they're going to come walking through the room, you don't have to worry about changing the channel real quick. They give you just enough of the drug stuff and just enough of the sex stuff to where like the adults are like, all right, cool, I get it. But not so much that you have to feel like you got to have your hand on the remote ready, you know? Yeah. Well, I think from a strategy standpoint, it certainly works for the TNT USA Paramount Universe. because there's not really a lot of edits you have to do with this movie.

It just kind of goes. I wish it had been rated R. Limitless the TV series canceled after one season we mentioned. My last one's aged the worst, and I think I've seen this movie too many times. But if you really break down the stuff Eddie is saying in the sounding smart sections, it's a little rough. I'll give you two excerpts.

Here's one. This is where it's like people are just completely captivated by how smart this guys. Here's first excerpt. We're wired to overreach. Look at history. All the countries that have ever ruled the world. Portugal with this big massive navy. All they've got now are salt cod and cheap condoms.

And everybody's like, good point, man. Like, I don't even know what that means. Why is he going after Portugal? And who has thoughts on Portugal? So there's one. Here's the other one. and Brits, now they're just sitting in their dank little island fussing over their suits. No one's stopping and thinking, hey, we're doing pretty well.

We got France. We got Poland. We got a big Swiss bank account. You know what? Let's not invade Russia in the winter. Let's go home. Let's pop a beer and let's live off the interest. It's a weird thing because Eddie is basically being like, I could have run Germany better than Hitler.

But yeah, it's all the funny thing is that he's always got like an audience of nine people. Like if, yeah. The only time you ever see somebody with an audience of nine people, they're either, like, they're usually saying something really disturbing, but it's very unlikely that everybody's going to be like, you who, this guy's saying about England? Jeez, that's really interesting. I was trying to think, Shay, what's the basketball version of Eddie sounding smart

going back over history? It's got to be LeBron-related somehow. Like, instead of go to Miami, if he goes to New York and he builds it down and you're just like talking these weird absolutes and it sounds intelligent? I don't know. Last Woods age is the worst for me. Eddie's like, if you take threes, they're worth more than twos. Yeah, maybe that's the limit of this.

Maybe it's like the slow conference. Or no, it's the process. Oh, God. Sorry, Chris. If you want to be bad in the NBA, why not be really bad? Why not just bottom out? Why not just get top three picks every year? Lastwood's age is worse for me is Abby Cornish running.

don't really know what's going on there. Do you watch that one closely? The people that don't know how to run in movies, they always do this with their fists. They pump the fists up and down, and I just would have hired our track coach for that one scene. Any other Woodsage is the worst for you, Shea? No, there's not really a bunch.

I was going to say the TV show. I was really sad that that wasn't good. I got really excited when they said Bradley Cooper was going to be in it because he has like a couple of, like he just pops up in it every so often or once or twice or whatever. That's it for me. I was surprised you,

the PG-13 thing bothered you. I just would like the rated-R version. You know that Bill and I are depraved. Yeah, we're depraved. I want to see Bradley Cooper break a guy's arm. Come on. I like, I like when you look at the older movies,

like I think if this movie comes out now, it's probably rated R. But they were a little more lenient back then. Like when you look at Jaws and like a kid gets eaten and they're like, that's PG. not that, like, that's it. You know what I'm saying? Well, that's like a naturally occurring phenomenon.

You know what I mean? Like, it's not like total recall word, where Schwarzenegger shoots a guy 14 times in there. Chris made the key point with the TV show, was CBS. You think, like, if CBS was going to do this, they should have done it with an old person because that's who watches their network, right? Older people?

Yeah. I guess I'm in the demo now, so I can make fun of myself on that. But it should have been somebody in their 60s who takes the limitless drug. that's actually really good, Bill. Yeah, thanks. Social Security limitless? Yeah, somebody who's like...

AARP limitless? Like, yeah. Like a 62-year-old CEO who's about to be pushed out takes the limitless drug all of a sudden they got it back. Okay, we're going to take one more break

and then we're going to hit casting what ifs. So casting what ifs, I only have one. There was, not surprisingly, not like an incredible amount of research to be found on this movie, but this was a big one. Shay, do you know what actor was initially signed for Limitless in 2008?

Who had to drop out? I don't know, but I'm really hoping it's Will Smith. Because he would have been so good. He would have been so good. It's not Will Smith. Good guess. Who was it? Chris?

Shia LeBuff. Is that true? Is that it? And this is around like Disturbia and Eagle Eye, right? Kind of. Yeah. And there's this three-year-one where Shia LeBuff's just getting good parts, and we kind of had it really realized that he wasn't that guy. And I think this would have been, this movie just doesn't work with Shia LeBuff.

His face is too kiddish. Yeah. Because this was right after he did Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps. Oh, yeah. And we're like, you look like a child in a suit. What's going on here? That's that guy, aka the Joey Pantsillard. word. Some fertile nominees for this one.

We have Thomas Orana. Arana. I don't know. I don't know how he produces his last name, but he's running bad guy in this movie. The guy running bad guy, the bodyguard guy. I don't know what I had to look up his name. I'd seen that guy in things, but now he's the running bad guy from this movie. We have the detective, Brian Anthony Wilson, who is the bald black guy, who's been the detective, I think, in a bunch of stuff. He's always like the, what's really going on here. I don't even know what else I've seen him, but I know he's one of those guys.

You've seen him in the Watt. He played a detective in the Wire. Right. He was in the Postman. What a great movie that is. I feel like he was in one other one where he's a detective. And then I think the winner is the Gennedy. Yeah, it's Andrew Howard.

Andrew Howard. Let me just specially shout out his work on Mayor of Kingstown this season as the white power lead of the jail gang. Chris, do you want to use this time to convince Shay to do the prestige podcast with you for Mayor of Kingston and try to get him to watch it or no? Shea, do you know what Mayor of Kingsdown's about? I do. I'm a big Taylor Sheridan guy. Okay.

Have you been watching this at all? I just started it like two days ago. It's currently in the middle of a two-episode prison riot. That's all I'm saying. Fuck yeah. That's great. All right. I'm assigning prestige to you guys for Mary Kingston.

Chris, I don't know why I'm not. You had to tell the prison riot. Now I'm going to have to watch this. You know how much I love prison riots and movies and television shows. There's just a lot of Jeremy Renner going back and forth talking to white power guys and then to Crips. And it's just like, he's basically the Michael Clayton of prison. Is there anything where everyone's heading in the shower and we see the two inmates? walking by each other and somebody slides a shank into somebody else's hand?

Bill, yes. Okay, I'm going to laugh. Say no more. The Vince and Hannah, give me all he got a word for best overacting. I think this goes to the running bad guy. Running bad guy is really trying to look evil as he's running. I think if Terminator 2 is the standard for how to run and look evil, this is not the standard for running bad guy. He's such a fun bad guy because he doesn't, like he just is doing a job, it turns out.

Like, there's no emotional attachment, really. He's just working for this guy. And then the rich guy dies. And he doesn't have a boss anymore. Yeah, he just goes like, oh, well, I'll help you, I'll help you get the pills. I don't want it. He doesn't want anything. No money, no exchange.

He just wants to, like, do bad things. Fucking cool. He's cool. Dan Waiter's a word for Bessie Chick. I'm going Whitworth. I'm going Johnny Woodworth. Worth. Interesting.

Abby Cornish for me. Vern. Cornish is my pick. Wow, I'm going with Gennedy. Gannady. Gannotti? Yeah, Andrew Howard.

Gannady or Gennedy? I think it's... Whatever it is. Andrew Howard. Yeah. I like when the limitless drug kicks in and he's got nicer clothes and as Chris said,

his vocabulary is a little better. He's a little more of a thinker. He wants to do an import-export business. Recasting couch. I was trying to think, like, could you improve the De Niro part, what actor? But I'd still like having De Niro in this movie. I like Abby Cornish. I basically like everybody.

I don't know if I would recast any of the parts. Is there any part you would recashie? No, I think, if anything, I mean, maybe you could slide Bree Larson in to play the Abby Cornish part. And then you get a better runner. She's got a great run. Great call. I like it. Yeah.

have fast internet research just a couple things the stuff the film does with the wonder drug it's called fractal zooming jump cutting out of body scenes they would do

some motion control photography so to slow it down when he's cleaning his apartment and there's like four of them yeah yeah it is it's a little it's a little fintry

I got to say yeah that's what I'm saying do good job with it I guess we covered everything else Apex Mountain. I think for Bradley Cooper, it's American sniper. I don't think it's this. Yeah, that are...

Because he funded that movie, he got all the money, and it's either that. It's not this, but it's his action, Apex Mountain. Relativity Media, Chris? Ryan Cavill? Is this as good as it got? Your boy? They kind of game the system.

They turned a 40 million movie into 170. It kind of proved their formula. Well, you know what, we're joking, but it's worth noting that for as much as we really lament the loss of this kind of movie, which is like, it's not going to be a franchise. You don't have to know anything about this character's backstory.

You don't have to have read a book to get into this. It's going to be in and out in 90, and you'll probably watch it again 15 more times in your life on cable. See, I think it's coming back. But the budgeting of it is tough, right? Because, like, this movie, like, now somehow would cost $90 million to make. And then they would need to, like, you need to make it be like a $300 million movie.

to make its money back. But they don't make these kinds of mid-tier movies anymore. The problem is they're still making them. I just think they're making them with not A-list actors. Like you're seeing my guy Frank Grillo is the default now for a movie like limitless. And I'm a frank guy. You're just not getting Brad the Cooper anymore for those movies.

You're getting the Frank Grillo. Even Bernthal might have priced himself out at this point. But Bernthal just likes also being in good movies no matter what the part is. So it's like he's not really like building up like a, I can carry a movie resume. It seems like the tweener movie like this is now gone where it's either you have the Frank Grillo's and it's all a bunch of like relatively cheaper actors or it's the super expensive like Ryan Reynolds, Mark Wahlberg, Tenet, yeah, Peterberg directing it and it's like some of

those bad Netflix action movies that I haven't really liked for the most part with the exception of Triple Frontier. which was a fucking masterpiece. Yeah, triple frontes. Dude, when are we doing Triple Frontier rewatchables? As always with the rewatchables, I just,

I need some time. You know, it's like wine. You got to drink it a few times. I need to gargle it in my mouth. Need to study it. Like, Limitless has been sitting there

for us for years. That's true. But it just wasn't ready for it yet. You got to let the mountain come to you, Bill. I understand. Triple Frontier is there. It's never leaving Netflix. Stars are Showtime.

One of those two just was playing Limitless for like two straight months. was just on constantly. Stars. Stars is just like, Stars really, I really like stars. Stars knows what it is.

Yeah. It's like, we know who our audience is, and our audience is Shea Serrano. And that's who it is. What is Shea Serrano like? Let's get that on Stars. It's Bill waiting for football night

in America to start. Right. More apex bound. Abby Cornish, I would say, yeah, because this is right when she's, I think,

with Ryan Philippe, too. felt like she was having a moment and then Brie Larson, Mark corrected the shit out of her and that was it for her. Little kid, ice skate attacks? Would you think of Peak Tereshay in a movie?

Yeah, definitely. What a choice. What a choice to look around at all the possible weapons, gardening shears, baseball bat, and then be like, nope,

the eight-year-old girl on figure skating with her dad. Like, that's fucking crazy. How about skating? Skating rink attempted burders, would you go this or the good son

as Apex Mountain. Oh, the good son. And he just whips his little sister out there. Oh, yeah. Here you go, bitch. Chew! That's crazy. You just tell me when you're ready

for the good son because I am right here. What a movie. I am right here. That's a huge movie in the Simmons House. You know that when I was rewatching this one, I was imagining,

imagine you're the dad in this moment because she's just out there with a dad and like, this is like you tell your wife, hey, you can have like the afternoon off. I know you take care of the kids all the time. I'm going to take her out.

It's going to be great. We're going to have like daddy, daughter, quality time. And then you have to come back and be like, you're not going to believe this. Right. You're not going to believe what happened. She was an accessory to attempted murder. And then fucking shit.

Hey guys, how did skating go today? Apex Mountain for fake Russian accents, Chris? Yeah, it's up there. I mean, I think it'll take a lot to, Top will hunt for it October, but this is up there. I still, Malcovich and Rounders, I think, cast it being in the conversation as well. So you go Malcovich over Connry being like one ping only,

the silly. I think Malcovich has more quotable lines. Yeah. I've a splash the pot whenever I want. Subway fights, Apex Mountain. I have this in the nominees. This is not the best subway fighter. No, this is not even close.

I think the Warriors is in there? What else do we have for subway fights? You have... Isn't there? There's a huge subway fighting matrix, right? Fast and Furious Six. Yeah, you have Neo versus Agent Smith in the first matrix. Like, this is not even a podium finisher.

Any other Apex Mountain candidates for you, Chris? How about drugs that give you all being powers? What about... There's that, but I was also going to say, is this the Apex Mountain? Mountain for the guy version of the pretty woman glow up montage. Like of the guy like going from I look like I'm an extra

master and commander. I look like Bradley fucking Cooper and I'm at a party wearing a perfectly fitting suit. He does like 10 sit-ups like as part of his thing. Let me get these crunches in. It's like his skin looks beautiful. Yeah.

I have a few picking nets. Yeah, me too. Can I do mine first really quick? Can I just ask? Do we not, are we not picking the guy, Paul Leonard Morgan, the guy who does the music for the movie? I think this is his Apex Mountain. Okay. Oh.

I love it. Good one. It's, when you hear it, it sounds like this is what becoming smart would sound like if it was like happening inside your head. It's so good. The biggest picking net in this movie is that the cops don't frisk Bradley Cooper at the murder scene. They show up. And he's just like, I called you guys. And they're like, oh, cool.

Okay. Thanks. Thanks for calling us. And he's like, meanwhile, I have like $18,000 and like a bunch of off market like chemicals in my back pocket. And they're like, we're not going to touch you. We're not going to frisk you. Just go on down to the station. Nobody ever frisks him. I had that as well.

Plus he's hiding at what in the back of his pants? Yeah. And how easy would that have been to found all these drugs? In general, if you're calling the police because you're, you're. in an apartment with a dead guy. They're going to have some follow-up questions. They just are. You're coming down to the station.

They're going to try to find out more. I have that as well. With the New York Post really read about Eddie after like four days of stock trade successes, that's a profile. Have you read the New York Post recently? They're just jumping on that one, that story. Carl Van Loon, is he hiring Eddie that fast?

He just needs to, he watched him attack the market for four days and then he had one meeting with him. He's like, that's it. This is like one of the biggest financiers in the world. Also, when Carl Van Loon walks into a restaurant, do you really hear people go, that's Carl Van Loon? He's worth a fortune. Sheif, if Eddie was so smart, wouldn't he have just paid off the Russian loan shark on time and then he wouldn't have had to give any more drugs? Come on Eddie. He makes so many mistakes. Like just mistake after mistake after mistake. What my biggest pick of net, for the movie, the one that just like

destroys my whole inside of my head is when he goes to get the loan from the guy, from the momster, and he's like, I need $100,000. The guy says, no, I'm not going to give it to you. Why should I give it to you? And he's like, because I quintupled my money

five days, four days in a row or whatever. If he, we hear him say he starts with $800. If you quintuple that five times a row, it's like $500,000 already. Why do you need the other the other money. The math just gets me every single time. He makes so many mistakes, though.

Yeah, I'm going to say he's not... He's not using 100% of his brain. I'm going to say he's using like 78% of his brain. Because just pay off the Russian loan shark. If you're smart, you can see ahead. You should know, like, I got to get this guy out of my life as soon as I possibly can. Or just kill him.

Over $2 million he made, like, in a couple days, give the guy's money back. Seriously. So we mentioned evil running guy. So then this rich guy dies. Evil running guy is just like, cool, let me take you to his place. I'm a free agent now. You can take all the stuff.

Is he paying evil running guy or is evil running guy? He's just being spiteful? What's going on there? He's just doing it to do it. He didn't like the lawyer. He didn't like the lawyer was trying to play his box. He's like, this lawyer lied to me. I've got a big ice skate scar on my face.

Like, just take all the pills. Just take them all. He also did a lot of jobs for Atwood. Like he was like, I'm your driver. I'm your assassin. I was like, this is a big remit. Yeah. Three dead guys in Eddie's apartment.

They tie it to some arms they were that used to live in the apartment. A year later, he's running for office. No questions. No internet piece. No TMZ. Eddie Moore running for office a year after three dead guys found. He also was a person of interest in another murder. Yeah.

All of this is just. glossed over. Yeah, there's some nitpicks in this movie. Okay. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show is our next category? Now, we've had this with the CBS show, which didn't work. So there's two ways this could go, and we should talk about it. One is, why can't there be a sequel to this with Bradley Cooper?

Like, just run it back. What's Eddie Moore doing now, 12 years later, 11 years later, Let's just go. Limitless too. I think you could make this as a Netflix series now because there's just so much more prestige behind projects like that. You may fucking attach whoever to it, but Bradley Cooper would come back and star in it.

They have the money to give him what he would ask for, and you make this like a proper, do all of the same shit, but for 10 episodes, I think that they would do it. I would certainly watch it. So we think Bradley Cooper has to be in it either way, whether it's a sequel or 10 episodes. Because I'm with you, I agree. Here's the thing.

You basically do it where Bradley Cooper becomes Carl Van Loon. And a new guy shows up on a new drug. And Bradley Cooper's like, I need to get on that. And then they're like doing chess, basically. It's NZT2 or whatever it is. Yeah. But that would be awesome. Yes.

So Bradley Cooper. It's superheroes, but smart. Yeah. Or like, what if it's like Bradley Cooper versus Jesse Eisenberg? But Jesse Eisenberg was already really smart. So when he takes NZT, he's like so. much smarter than Bradley Cooper. Yeah, here's the thing.

And this is why I bring it up. It really bothers me. We have so many sequels we don't need. We don't want, we never wanted. Over and over again, they're just leveraging these movies that we're like, no, we're cool. We already understood this. This one is like, I'm ready to go back in this world.

Let's go. There's so many more places we can go. I want to get back with Edie Mora. I want to know more about this drug. I want to know what he's doing now. Was he the president of the United States? Like, is it post-president life? He's being followed around by Secret Service?

Is he still taking it? Is he, like, investing in Bitcoin now? Like, what's he doing? He definitely invested in Bitcoin early on. He's taking on Haralabob. Haralabob takes the NCT track. Eddie Moore drafts, Luca. Yeah.

He buys an NBA team, and all of a sudden that team's going 75 and 7 because he gave the system? I can't believe this hasn't come back yet. What is Bradley Cooper doing? He's making like, I think he did a Leonard Bernstein. Yeah, he's directing and starring in that. All right. After that, limitless two.

Let's make it happen. More unanswerable questions. I have two good ones. This one's for Shea, but Chris as well. But I really wanted to break Shay's brain with this. And it's funny because you brought up Will Smith before. Take anyone at any point in their life, any actor. Who is the best possible person to be in Limitless?

Because the default would be like, I'd actually be like Will Smith in like 2003. Yeah. But who would you say? Give me your number one all-time draft pick for Limitless. I would go Will Smith first. I think he's just incredibly charming. He is all of the things that Bradley Cooper is,

but he's to me, like, I have more of an emotional attachment to him. from growing up with him in my life. So he's going to be my number one pick if I just got to put anybody from any time period into this movie and just like bottle it all up. Give me my guy Will. He's just so good.

Chris, I could give you 2002 range Will Smith or I can give you Tom Cruise during like the firm era, 1992-93 range. Where are you going? I would go with Cruz I would also throw out I think Michael J. Fox would have been an interesting like early Michael J. Fox

because we already saw Alex Keaton take the diet pills and we know he's like that's like a gear he has but yeah I would probably go with Cruz. So I'm going to make the case for Cruz as much as you both know how much I love Will Smith. I think Cruz would have thrown himself into learning a couple traits for the character

right? Like he he would have added some sort of samurai sword thing. Well you know he would have been like this character has to fly a helicopter at some point. 100%. And then jump out of the helicopter, yeah. Or he takes up like race car driving and immediately wins like some NASCAR mat. Like Cruz would have gone on another level with

all right, what else could this guy be really good at? Should he perform surgery? So I vote for Cruz. But I think, I don't think anyone loses. Can I add an amendment to this? Because let me, let me throw this. question back to you too. So if we're going to play this game, let's say you're taking Cruz and you're putting him in this movie, but now you have to put Bradley Cooper into a Tom Cruise movie to like supplement the balance of the universe. Oh, it's like a time machine change? Yeah. Yeah,

exactly. So if this is me, I want Will Smith in 2004. This is right after he did Bad Boys 2 when he was just the best person on the planet. So we get him right after Bad Boys 2 and we swap out I-Robot and we get our Bradley Cooper action movie. And then we have Will Smith. Shay, you're ignoring the obvious. I think that you and I would liquidate our life savings to see Bradley Cooper in Bad Boys with Martin Lawrence. Can you remember? Bradley Cooper.

He's Mike Lowry. Yeah, as Mike. I would actually go, for Bradley Cooper, I would go the firm. Yeah, for a flip. He would be good. He could do that. I'm still not positive Cruz was 100% perfect for the firm,

but I think Cooper would have been good because he would have had that smarmy kind of, I could have seen him like as in the law firm. Looks great in a suit. Cruz. Cruz didn't make enough movies like Limitless. Kianno was the one that really figured it out.

Keanu's like, is there a poster and a one sentence premise? I'm in. Last one. I don't know which one of you is a better one to answer this question, but the cops are coming. You have the limitless drugs

and you have to hide it somewhere in your apartment. Was the oven the best place? Because I think the oven's kind of underrated as a hiding either money, drugs, or guns as a location. Because of how thick the bag is, the oven is the ideal spot. I would never forget when I was growing up.

I went to my aunt's house. and she was telling us she would hide her drugs in the microwave under the little glass plate she said because the police never look there I was like why are you telling me I'm fucking nine years old

so anything oven related I'm in that's a great place Chris and Aaron I think like a good old fashion air conditioner event is always great like no country for old man at work there but yeah the oven's fine

I haven't really thought about it I think my problem would be like if I knew the cops were coming, I'd be like, I guess I'll just take all the NZT right now. Yeah, immediately. I'll take it all. I'll make myself police commissioner call off the investigation. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? So I narrowed it down to, I would either want the prop of the fake bag of pills, that plastic thing.

But I really like to give me some more a T-shirt that he was wearing near the end or that it was somebody was wearing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the post. me some more a poster t-shirt combo when he was running for Senate. Definitely won his novel. Oh, the novel. That's good. That's good.

What would you want, Chegg? The problem with the bag of pills is I would 100% like take one just to see. Just like maybe. Who knows maybe if there's ever a clear pill anywhere. I'm like I can't not try. You've got to try. I think I would want the fake bag of pills. because we could probably just make

the gimmies some more a t-shirt. I might do that for the holidays. Who won the movie? Clearly, Bradley Cooper. Yeah, for sure. There you go. All right, this is fun. I'll see you in Kingston, brother.

Yeah, you guys got to do it. The rewatcher was produced, as always, by Craig Horleback, and we'll be back next week with another one. Listen to Shay on no skips, read them on the ringer.com. Listen to Chris on The Watch. A little bit big picture, a little bit prestige TV. Maybe you guys doing Mayor Kingstown next week. Who knows?

Yeah, we'll see. All right. Good to see you guys.