The Rewatchables - 'Rambo: First Blood Part II' With Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

Bill and Kyle are tasked with a secret mission to rewatch Sylvester Stallone in 'Rambo: First Blood Part II,' also featuring Richard Crenna, Charles Napier, and Julia Nickson. Producers: Craig Horlbeck, Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, Jessie Lopez and Matt Pevic 2026 Mazda CX-50. Designed for Safety. MazdaUSA.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The rewatchables is brought to by the Ringer podcast network. You can't find Kyle Brand on the Ringer podcast network except for here. You can find them on ESPN doing a whole bunch of NFL stuff. The season has started. By the time people hear this, we will know just about everything that has happened in week one. And we're also going to know that our guy, John Rambo, came back for a rewatchables. And it's coming right after this. This episode of The Rwatchables is presented by Mazda.

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It's everything you need, including $10 off your first grocery order with code anything 30-30. Get almost, almost anything with Uber Eats. Order now. Order a minimum of $30 required, valid on grocery, convenience, retail, specialty foods, or flower delivery orders only. and conditions apply. Rambo, First Blood, Part 2. Do you think they should have called it First Blood 2?

What would you have done here? I think I would have called the first one, Rambo. And I think Stallone wishes he could have con back. All for him, it's about the branding. I got Rocky. I'm going to get to Cobra. And I should have gone back and named it after my character so I can own more of it and we can run with this.

This is Rambo too. First Blood should just been called Rambo. Yeah, I think I agree. Well, it's impossible to explain how huge this movie was in 1985. This was an absolute, it was the top three movie of the year. It was a Reagan-era, Wet Dream action movie. Reagan talked about it. He made Rainbow a character.

It then became a political football for the conservatives and the liberals. It became an avatar for Cold War America. And more importantly, for our purposes, Arnold versus Sly, it was on, starting in 1985, because Arnold had a commando, and we were off. This is our bird versus magic for action movie heroes. It's also one of the more hilarious Vietnam movies. You don't see a lot of funny Vietnam movies. I found myself on the rewatch bill.

I was laughing at some parts I think you're supposed to, and then some parts you're definitely not supposed to. Yeah. I loved it so much as a kid. It's one of these where I taped it off of cable onto a VHS tape and put the piece of masking tape on the back and just wrote Rambo 2. Yeah, I did too. I get home from school and I get a snack

and I put in Rambo 2 and I get home from school and I put a snack for like weeks and I remember I thought it was badass now as an adult I was so entertained by the comedy of it and just Stallone being a thousand out of 10

Stallone in this movie it's like he's never gone for it more he's never been more ripped he's ever done more of a caricature of himself without knowing that he's doing it I smiled through the whole thing the unintentional comedy factor of this movie has gone up

each year starting in about 1995. I felt the same way. I was openly laughing during a lot of the scenes. I have a backstory with this movie. Let's hear it. HBO, every once in a while in the mid-80s, would have these movies on the schedule, but they wouldn't tell you what it was.

It would be like, and you would get the little HBO guide every year. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or you could see in your cable guide, and it was just like a mystery movie. And the biggest one they did for this was Christmas Eve, 1985, Ghostbusters.

Yeah. Where they was just like, we have a Christmas present for you. It's like, you do? What is it? And then it was Ghostbusters. And this is an era where it was the movie would come out. It would be in the theaters forever. Then it would move to home video.

And home video is starting to take off here. And that would take forever. And it would just never be on cable. Some of the bigger movies, it would take over a year. So Rambo, on July 4th, 1986, they're like, we have a, we have a surprise for you on July 4th. And me and my friends,

we're all like, it's going to be Rambo. It's going to be Rambo too. This is what it's going to be. But we didn't know for sure. And then they start, you see the HBO logo. They do the whole thing,

the little preview, and then it goes right into the music. And it's like, yeah. By the way, no girlfriend for me in 1986, just for the record. But, yeah, super exciting.

But that's how big this movie was. It was like, oh, could it be? Could it be? Rambo two? Could this be the one and it was? Now they would just set up an octagon on the White House lawn and that would be the present too, you know? But to the young people, kids, like, that's, I know we'll get into this. It's the strangest dynamic where this is a hard R movie with merciless killings and a huge body count. Toys, cartoons.

Yeah. There was a Rambo big wheel that the kids would kill for. And if someone on your block had the Rambo Big Wheel out of control, the knife was super popular. And not for like transformers or something. It was this R-rated movie where he just kills an entire jungle full of people, but they still put it to the kids. And it felt like it modernized action movies too. I do feel like there's a before and after with this movie in Commando, which we talked about a little when we did Commando. But you go before this, we're in the dirty Harry era.

We're in, you know, the Warriors. There was like one-off action movie. but there weren't like superheroes like this. Dirty Harry would probably close us. Dirty Harry and this movie are not in the same solar system. They look so different. They feel so different. It's not this.

Here's the thing about this movie too. Like first blood is is Rocky. This is Rocky 4. Yeah. We skip two movies. You're right. Yeah. Fuck it, dude.

No vegetables. We're gonna blow some shit up. We're gonna be ripped as hell. This is just gonna be really fun. I remember back in the day, used to say that first blood was about something. It had some really powerful loaded messages.

It's a good Vietnam movie. It's a great Vietnam movie. And there's the part at the end of the movie where Slice is like, I used to operate a million dollar machinery. Now he can't even get a job parking cars. And you're like, fuck, I felt that. Yeah. Now he's just walking. He's like, where's Murdoch? It's not the same substance.

No. Well, you mentioned out of all those things, there was a Rambo Kids cartoon, which I had forgotten about that you sent this morning. Did that, I tried it, there wasn't a lot of research on that one, but I guess, I guess it did run. It was a very strange era for cartoons where they would just take any movie and try to make a cartoon out of it for a couple years.

This is particularly nuts, though, because this is like a traumatized Vietnam War veteran who's just trying to kill everybody, and they're like, hey, the kids might like this. Let's put this on Saturdays. Saturday morning, we'll do some breakfast cereal. Do some Sunny D. And I would treat yourself if you're a Rambo fan

to find the trailer for this cartoon. Yeah. Because it's Rambo skiing on a wintry mountain top while he shoots people. He's driving a race car, like in a Grand Prix. They're trying to make him into some sort of like speed racer James Bond's superhero. Yeah.

But all roads back then were leading to Saturday morning cartoons, including Karate Kid. Bill and Ted had a Saturday morning cartoon a few years later. You had to do it because we were all watching. Ghostbusters. Yeah. Oh, a couple. There's one part in the Rambo cartoon trailer where he's skiing, I think, with a machine gun.

And it's just like, this is amazing. I can't believe I missed this. So, 1984 and 1985, the Cold War pop culture heyday. This is it. Like war games and the day after we're 83. 84, really starting with the Summer Olympics where the cowards, the Russians didn't show up. And we just dominated everything. And it was like a big, hey, look at all the gold medals were winning.

August, 1984, right after the Summer Olympics, Red Dawn. Let's go. Which we have not done yet on the rewatchables. I know you've been in the bullpen warming up for a couple years. Wolverines. Listen, one of the most haunting shots in all of 80s cinema is the classroom as the parachute start to fall down. It's chilling to this day.

And you get Swayze and C. Thomas and Sheen and they're arming up and screaming about their high school football team. I love it. We still don't understand why the Russians were so determined to take over, obscure parts of America over actual. cities. Yeah. Alaska again.

We can get the rest. We must take Cheyenne. Right. So we have that. We have Tom Clancy releases Hunt from Red October in October 1984, which was a massive hit and was like, what's the movie going to be? March 85, Iron Sheek, Nikolai Volkov, tag team title champs at WrestleMania. They would each play the national anthem for each other and stand at attention.

They would do the Iranian national anthem. him, then Volkov, he would sing, he would get furious when the people booed him. So that happened. Rambo 2 is May 1985. June 1985, Sting, first solo album, Post Police, releases his song, The Russians. It's called Russians, but it's about the Russians. Do they love their children, too? It's like, oh, Sting, getting poetic about the Cold War.

November 85, Rocky 4, and then everything peaks December 30th, 1985. Hulk Hogan comes out at MSG. First match against macho man Randy Savage comes out to Real American. The song that they made, capitalizing on all this shit where they dump Eye of the Tiger from Survivor and create this new song.

They do the video. He's holding the flag. Dint Dump's crashing down and it hurts inside. He's waving the flag. And Newsweek, There's Newsweek. Oh, my God. That's awesome.

Yeah. Sly. So, yeah, this is just where we were. It was Reagan telling everybody we're going to blow away all of our enemies. There's the conservative liberal thing, which we did not have the internet really to capture at that point. But Reaganomics, we're just basically like, we're going to defend ourselves at all costs. And then Rambo becomes the avatar for all of this. 100% and I think nobody went harder in this than Sly.

Because the poster of Rambo with the bazooka killing Russians would get like a big fuck yeah from you back then. And then Sly doubles down. He's like, I'm going to box an unbeatable Soviet who's on steroids. Yeah, big steroid in Russia because I'm not afraid. And at the end of the movie, the Gorbachev guy is going to stand up and clap because I say if you can change, we can change. Like Sly was on this shit.

He felt it and nobody did more of it. And by the way, as we've discussed in the Rocky 4, we watched, it might have ended the Cold War. For all we know, it was really never the same. Definitely. Sly's out of Zenith here. So 82 to 85, he's got Rocky 3 in First Blood, same year in 1982. 83 direct staying alive, which is considered a bomb,

but was the eighth biggest movie of 1983. What was a bomb was next year, Rhinestone, with Dolly Parton and Sly. And rest of peace. First time in a couple years, Sly took one on the chin. It just wasn't good. It's a pretty legendary bomb. But it does lead to Sly saying, all right, I'll just double down on Rambo and Rocky.

And I'm going to do Rambo 2 and Rocky 4 in the span of six months. And then the success of these movies, because back to the future is the number one movie, makes $212,0.85. Rambo is second at $150 million. Rocky 4 is the only other $100 million movie at 127. And those two events lead to our beloved cobra. As we covered in the cobra rewatchables and sly eating pizza by cutting it with scissors, because he is now flown too close to the sun.

He takes frozen pizza out of the freezer, which you can't eat frozen, cuts it with scissors and eats it. And I always love the timing of it because you can see the businessman in Sly. He's thinking, I got my soldier. I got my boxer. Now I'm going to introduce my cop. I need a cop who goes against the rules and plays by his own set of identity. This is Cobra.

And then Cobra didn't work like they needed it to. But there was supposed to be Cobra 4, Cobra 5, everything. Toothpick, sunglasses. Monosyllabic. I think this might have been an all-time Apex Mountain year. Let's talk about it. I was trying to think of other actors that, you know, Tom Cruise had the first Mission Impossible and Jerry McGuire.

together in 96. And it just felt like both of those were hits and he could have anything. So we had this a couple times. But to have two of the top three movies in a year where there's three massive successes in a year and you have two of the three and you're the star and it's all you. And you're doing basically two different variations of yourself. But you're also shirtless or just ripped your training. There's close ups of your oiled muscle.

as you're putting on your headband. In Rocky 4, there's just entire scenes of him, you know, training sequences with the movie, there's no dialogue for 15 minutes in Rocky 4. He just kind of figured out the MTV era and where he fit in with the Cold War and everything else. And they're like, people be like, oh, I love the Rocky 4 training montage.

And I'm always like, which one? There's two. They go back to back. There's two of them. I remember when we did Cliffhanger, you had a list of Sly. was on record of the movies that he was in the best shape for. And he said Rocky 3 and then he said cliffhanger and he said Rocky 4.

And so this one, no, he said Rambo 3 rather. Rambo 3, Rocky 4. Not this one. Can you imagine how he looks in this movie and it's like not in his top of three? I was in the best shape ever. Absurd. It's like Tom Brady's best NFL seasons and like ones that win the Super Bowl aren't even on his top 4. he did eight months of training for four hours a day,

took SWAT combat, archery classes, survival courses, and I think this is the most ripped he's looked in a movie. I don't know, you're a bigger weightlifter guy than me. What was his most ripped? What was his physique apex? Is it here? Is it Rocky 4? What is it?

There's a shot when he gets in the ring with Drago where Duke takes off his robe and you drop your drink. because he's oiled. Yeah. And he's like, I don't even know where his organs are in there. He's so cut, but like they got him in there somehow.

Yeah. Because he's supposed to be in Siberia training with halfts and shit like that for months. So it's insane to me that I could look at this movie Rambo 2 and be like, Eh, Little Flabby for Sly. I've seen them better. It's insane. But I'm still there. Well,

the steroids also weren't as good in 1985 because you can see from all the wrestlers and the football players. It would make your, your neck bigger. It kind of would just put water in your body so you seemed a little bloated. But he doesn't seem bloated at all. He seems like what it would look like now. So he must add the best stuff back then. He had the best stuff. And I really do think he was a maniacal worker. Like I really do. And here's the thing about one of my takeaways from watching this movie, Sly's vice is vanity. Like Sly loves looking good on camera. He always wants to look hot. And I don't think Schwarzenegger had the same thing.

Schenegger was posing as an athlete. But dude, in this movie, he's getting tortured and he looks sexy. Like, they're pulling him out of the shit thing with the leeches on him. He's still eye-fucking the camera the whole time. Like, he always wants to look attractive. And Arnold wouldn't be like that.

But Sly's like, no, I want the ladies to be all over me. And the camera shoots him beautifully. Well, Arnold would got that fix from his bodybuilding competition. Yes. Yes. Slide never really had the same. Unfortunately,

it didn't help with his performance. And I'm almost wondering, we have the overacting award that we do, that we keep adding names to. This is a borderline Rambo 2 underacting award. Okay. He's monosyllabic. He's just mailing in scenes.

The second scene when he comes in, when he meets Martin Cove, aka John Crease and Murdoch, Cove's talking to him. Like, he's, Rambo's not even saying lines and he's just doing one word answers. He's saying everything like this. And I guess it was a choice.

I don't really fully understand it. What did you make of that? I could not agree with you more. I have written down the Slice Stallone underacting award. At one point, he's trying to hit real dialogue. Yeah. And he's like, something,

the mind is the strongest weapon. And you got to be like, cut. Yeah. Slie, you got to do something here. Give us more. You got to do something. And then he gets to Cobra and does even less. You can barely hear him.

And so it's like, I know what you're going for, but juice it up a fucking little bit here, Sly. But no one would say that. Well, because we know it's a choice because you see him in tango and chess, tango and cash three years later. He's like, hey, whoa. He's like doing like the over the top stuff. No, so he's, I mean,

there's a hilarious scene when he's with Coe, played by Julia Nixon, his very cute female, I guess, accomplice during this whole thing. And all of a sudden, it's a rom-com scene for like three minutes. He's like, so where are you from, man? It's like, what's happening?

You've said 10 words for the entire movie. It's like, so what are your parents? Stallone ranked his preference of Rambo films in the Graham Norton show. Yeah. Give me it. He ranked this one fourth. He said it was his least favorite.

and he said it was like a cartoon. Yeah. This is your fault, Slice Stallone. You did every aspect of this. They even hired the director, George Pete Cosmodos, who also did Cobra a year later. And Stallone would just famously, you know, kind of bully the guy out and do all the directing himself.

I think he also kind of did that for, you know, he directed Rocky 4 or 2. But these were all Stallone's choices. I don't know why he's. And this movie was a phenomenon. I don't know why he's embarrassed of it. I, Rainbow 3 and Rambo 4, I don't really acknowledge, do you? No, of course not.

Yeah. No, Rambo 3 was, Rambo 3, that Troutman gets kidnapped and they get the fuck out of here. We're doing too much with that. Yeah. First Blood's obviously awesome. I love it. It's dark. There's cops.

There's great actors. There's real drama on stakes. But this movie is just like a big fucking ice cream Sunday with some heavy metal on in the background. How do you not like this movie? It kicks ass. And it was a massive success for him. It was weird to see him kind of distance up from him. I have some questions about what we should have done with the sequels after.

Quickly, some supporting cast members, Richard Crenna, his 1985 was Rambo First Blood Part 2. This is coming off Flamingo Kid the year before, by the way. Rambo 2, Summer Rental with John Candy. Love that movie. And a TV movie called The Rape of Richard Beck, where he played Richard Beck. Yeah. I'm confused. It's a movie about a cop who, um,

get sexually assaulted by a criminal, and he's Richard Beck, and I would, at some point this weekend, recommend watching the trailer of the TV movie. You've not seen the rape of Richard Beck. I saw the trailer on YouTube because I was like, what is this? And, yeah, that's the movie.

This is, you know, a lot of social issues happening in the 80s, including that. So, yeah, anyway, those are his three movies. He's Troutman, Richard Beck, and Al Pellet, and Summer Rental. The problem is when I see Richard Beck getting sexually assaulted, I just picture him in the beret. Like, I, I, I, he always has that beret on. I didn't see the movie, so maybe, maybe that's what happened.

He's, he's used perfectly here. It's a lot of, it's a lot of, like, we're going to need Kyle Brand for that Monday show. Well, don't forget one thing. What? A Bill's Jersey. He's, he's, he's just karaoke. He's troutman karaoke in this movie. I kind of enjoy it, I got to say.

I have some Troutland thoughts slightly later, but I will jump in to say that sly loves the older sage. Right. Vouches for his crazy character, and it's kind of the sly whisper. Like, obviously you had Mick, and then you have Duke, and you have Troutman here. And in Cobra, we get that guy who,

when they're outside the grocery store, and he's like, he's all buried in there. We can't get to him. Then there's a pause. He's like, bring in the cobra. You're like, fuck yeah! The guy's like, don't worry, Cove. I'll keep the commissioner breathing down my neck.

I'll handle him for you. There's always a guy who's like, just let this genius work. He repeats that thing over and over. And I don't think anybody does it better than Troutman. It's like his own Ernie Adams. Yes. So we have Richard Crenner.

We have Martin Cove playing Erickson. Martin Cove doesn't get enough credit for being in two top five box office smashes and back-to-back ears. Karate Kid is Crease and then Erickson in this movie. Do you want to compare and contrast Crease and Erickson? Is there any difference at all between those two people?

Let me tell you, Bill. There's no Erickson. It's just Crease. Crease showed up. He's opening a dojo in Thailand. He has an alias. It's fucking Crease. He shows up in this movie.

He's got on a sleeveless get-up. He's got a vest. His little button with a frowny face on it. And he has a massive revolver that's holstered in his vest. You just don't see it much. And it's that same beautiful. center parted crease, blow-dried hair.

It's crease. It's strike hard, strike first, no mercy crease. He looks exactly the same. I know. He looks great. It's pretty funny. Well, you have him and you have Charles Napier as Murdoch, Marshall Murdoch, who, I got to say for,

if you're just putting a Mount Rushmore for that guys, beautiful. He's the security guard and silence of the lambs who gets killed by Lecter. He's that guy. And he does like one of the great screaming. James. He's the judge in Philadelphia. We don't live in this courtroom, do we, Your Honor?

He's Blues Brothers, country and western singer, who ends up trying to chase down the Blues Brothers and drives his bus into the water. And then he's Murdoch and Rambo. That's about as good of that guy, Mount Rushmore, as you're getting. I always think of those fan conventions where the actors show up and behind them. They have, like, the posters of the movies that they've done

so they can sign headshots. His posters would be really cool. Yeah, I don't even know what I'd want him to sign. I honestly, as much as I think it's silence. Yeah. I was, dude, I was Googling this morning. I was like, now, was Napier the guy who Lecter crucifies or gets his face cut off? Which one is?

He's the crucified guy who gets his gut split out. Yeah, that's him. Shouldn't have given him that second veal dinner? I call him Chuck Napier. He's been in my life for so long. Absolutely great. And then another that guy, we have that guy off, because Stephen Burkhoff's in this,

aka Victor Maitland from Beverly Hills Cop. In 83, 84, 85, he's the villain in Octopus. He's the villain in Beverly Hills Cop 2, and he's the villain in Rambo 2 playing a Russian. He's got different accents in each movie. And he's just, you see him and you know he's a bad guy. There was no, apparently a famous English actor from the 60s and 70s,

really well-acished stage actor, who then just was like, fuck it. I'm going to be a bad guy in the mid-80s. Give me some parts. Yeah. I figured he was just an Eastern European or Russian or something. No, just has an Eastern European face. The block, the corner that he was on for a long time,

10 years after this movie was taken by the guy who's the bad guy in the saint. Remember that guy who plays a Russian in every single movie? Yes. And he's an eyes wide shut with a costume shop. He would have played that role if this movie 10 years later. Yeah, I don't know who that guy is now. But Berkov, I mean, Victor Baitland is his, that's one of the great villains, just staring him down.

I love that guy. Then we have Julia Nixon as the accomplice. I don't know, her and Charlotte Lewis from Golden Child, two mid-80s babes that just,

this was sadly their peaks. And I don't know what we did wrong. I don't know why we didn't have more Julia. There's a part in Golden Child where Eddie Murphy is having a dream sequence and he comes across her and she's like coming on to him and she's all hot.

And she's like, can we spend some more time together? And Jesus, as a nine-year-old, that fucked me up. She's so, so hot. Julie makes it long career. Her IMDB, like a lot of TV shows,

like kind of like the fourth or fifth lead in a couple shows, a lot of like CSIs. And you're like, wow, Julie. Yeah, it was good. I didn't know. I wasn't familiar with your game. Right. So like a 40-year career, but I think she's good at this.

And then most important, indoor aviator guy. Indoor aviator's guy. What do you mean? Playing by that. I know what you mean. What are you talking about? So apparently he plays the character lifer. So you have Murdoch and you have crease.

And then you have this third guy who's wearing sunglasses indoors, who's got like a, I don't know, I don't even know how to describe his outfit. He's got like a thin, Miami Vice beard and thinning blonde hair in the back. Barely has any lines. He's the one who, when Rambo's jumping out of the plane, Rambo can't get out. He's trying to help him. He's played by Steve Williams. Do you want to guess how many other IMDB credits Steve Williams had?

Just tell the people because I already looked. It's unbelievable. This is it. This is his only one. He's lifer. How? I was researching 15 minutes. I was on Google.

I was on every AI site. Just tell me more about Steve Williams, Lyfer. No information online. None. It's like it's been scrubbed. We know nothing about him. I don't know why he's in this movie. I don't know why he didn't act again.

I don't know if some actor called in sick and they grabbed somebody from the crew. It's just a fucking mystery. And if anyone knows, feel free to email us because I couldn't find out any info about Steve Williams. This guy is probably sixth or seventh on the call sheet for a $100 million massive movie. He holds a gun to Troutman's head.

It's not an inconsequential role. And you're telling me that he never even did a guest spot on Highway to Heaven or anything. Nothing? Anything. But when it's like, I love that creases flying the helicopter. He was like, five seconds. And this guy just goes, party time.

And I'm like, that's not bad. We can work with that. It's not bad. He got a couple lines. I thought for sure he would have been in like a season three Miami Vice episode or Yeah, Love Boat in 1983, nothing. And the other funny thing is his character's name was lifer. Which is ironic.

They don't, because he's supposed to be in it for life. Right. They never say his name. And I don't know, that's just what they decided name in the script. So anyway, Steve Williams, indoor aviators guy, just a mystery. I know nothing makes you happy in an action movie when somebody's wearing sunglasses indoors for the entire movie.

He might have even had him. Did he have him on in the plane jump at the end or no? I'm just going to say yes, probably. I think that was it. Steve Williams, it just sounds like an AI fake name, like a creative Madden player. It's Steve Williams.

It has nothing to do with anything. One and done. There's got to be a story. First of all, that might not be his real name. There's got to be some story why he's in the movie. you could tell me he was the drug dealer from Mario Casar and Andrew J. Vajna. You can tell me James Cameron

owed somebody a favor or Cosmodos. Any of those guys? We'll never know. Isn't it such a great feeling to turn on this movie? And first you get that horse with the wings running right at you. And the second you see that Mario Casar, I just feel like I'm at home.

It's such a name that makes me so fucking happy. Well, we have a lot of our guys here. Produced by Carol Co. Pictures. You see those names. It's just like putting on a warm sweatshirt. Go time. Our guys. Like literally, our guys.

Still not sure they were real. I'm still not sure that they weren't fronts for like some sort of Iranian. I know. We'll never know. We'll never know if those people are even real human beings. Screenplay by Slice Stallone and James Cameron. Yep. Mindblower.

That James Cameron. Cameron was hired to write the first draft. He did that at the same time as he was doing. Terminator and preparing aliens. First draft was titled First Blood 2, the mission. And then Sly basically took it over and strong-armed it. Sly had an odd pairing, right?

Because Cameronite is just, he's team Arnold, and he's making Terminator, and he's just in the middle of that, writes with Sly, and then apparently went in all kind of different directions with the script. Yeah, and it lasted a couple years where they're making it,

and then his career takes off. He's Team Arnold, maybe Sly did and like that. Sly had kind of a dicky quote about him later. Oh, great. I think that James Cameron is a brilliant talent, but I thought the politics were important, such as a right wing stance coming from Troutman and his nemesis Murdoch, contrasted by Rambo's obviously neutrality, which I believe is explained in Rambo's final speech. So I don't know, Cameron wasn't delivering something for Sly. You know what it is, Bill?

People get pissed off when you do this podcast and you like shit on the movie. It's supposed to be like loving the movie. I don't like Sly shitting on this movie. And I feel like we have to fight through that because I love it. You love it. And I'm not here for Sly constantly saying this movie sucks. I don't like it. It hurts my feelings. He also said Cameron, his initial draft, 30 to 40

pages to have any action initiated. Rambo's partnered with a techie sidekick. And he said it was more than politics putting the script. It was a simpler storyline. Then he says, if James Cameron says anything more than that, then he realizes now doing the backstroke badly in a pool of lies.

Oh, Christ. That's something Troutman would say about Rambo. So, so weird. So anyway, we have, he's above. The music scores by our guide, Jerry Goldsmith. It's popped up a lot of rewatchables. The final song, Peace in Our Life, is sung by Frank Stallone. We'll get to that later.

And then it's directed by George P. Cosmodos, who did a year later, and I'm not sure ever worked again. It was nominated Best Sound Effects editing in the Oscars. also nominated for seven categories as the sixth annual Golden Raspberry Awards and won for Worst Picture. 25.5 million dollar budget.

It ultimately made $300.4 million worldwide. Awesome. It was the first film to appear in 2000-plus U.S. theaters and it was third biggest movie of 85.

Roger Ebert did not do a written review but he did on his TV show. Give it a thumbs up. And this is the real Roger Ebert. Real Roger Ebert praised the film's pacing. The lack of political bias criticized some logical flaws but said he wasn't bored for a second.

Not a chance. And that he enjoyed the film immensely. And there's not a shot fired for the first 30 minutes of the movie, but there's a lot of dick swinging. And it's a lot of setting up and there's the insertion and the helicopter and all that. It's all action, even though there's no shots fired.

It's okay. I'm never bored either. It's also high to MTV, 1985. So you can get away. No dialogue is okay for as many scenes as you want. We have a lot to cover. Rewatchable categories coming up. We're going to take one break. Let's go.

Come back, Most Rewatchable. All right. Most rewatchable scene, the opening scene, which also is the Todd Parker Award for Best Character Entrance. Here's Rambo. They set the entire premise up in less than four minutes. We're off. Here's Rambo. He's just hammering some rocks.

Here's Troutman, Nidja. And here come the credits. And here comes Kasser and Bajna. And we're ready to go. I love a pre-credit scene so much, especially one, the first fucking frame of this movie is an explosion. It's a giant-ass explosion. It tells you what's coming. And he walks over and it's all like, can we win this time?

And it's like, yeah! And it's Rambo's in fire. It's like getting you fired up like an opening band for the movie. I really like it. And I love that Rambo working in a prison camp, breaking bricks and rocks, still has just like perfect hair. It's gorgeously conditioned. Hot as hell like always. He's not sweaty.

He's not sunburned. No, looks awesome. We get exchanges like, I'm sorry they sent you to such a hellhill. I've seen worse. Yep. Sir, do we get to win this time? This time, it's up to you. Mario Casar and Andrew J. Fasson.

I relate to all that dialogue too, because you know, Bill, we got these conflicting networks and merging and stuff, but it's like, when I come on the Rwatch, at least here I know where I stand. You know what I mean? Like, this is me. I feel good here. Yeah.

Rambo's airplane jump mishap I have here. I don't even know. Is this beyond a nitpick? They can't figure out how to get Rambo to jump out of a fucking plane. He's the number one green beret we have. His gear's going to get stuck. Who made these travel plans? Sean McVeigh.

It's a disaster from the start. And it's fun, though. It's fun because he cuts loose the weapons. Yeah. So they have this thing and he's like, he's cutting free as equipment, sir. And you get these great reaction shots from Troutman and Murdoch. And it's like, they're talking to the microphone and Slice like,

oh shit, he's not going to have any of those guns now or anything. This is going to be on. He'll be fine. Yeah. Would you have had the scene before when he meets Murdoch and Crease as a rewatchable scene? I thought about it. Yeah. Okay.

All right. We'll add that too. I have more thoughts on that in the next category. Rambo and his due friend co on the pontoon boat with some of the worst rom-com dialogue in a while including To survive a war You got to become a war

And then his long story where he says I guess I was expendable And it's like, oh John Rambo He's got feelings She brings that up later And then she says, what bring you good luck? And he holds up his knife

and he says, I guess this. It's just great courting. It's like Gwen Harry Medt's sour or this, I don't know. It's one or the other. It's so hot. And I just, it's so funny that through the 80s, giant knives were these incredible Freudian devices that they would just use.

What bring you luck, Rambo? Oh, just this giant metal penis. I'm going to whip out. Like, it's so, there's no subtle to it whatsoever. But it is funny that the killing machine is kind of trying to flirt a little bit. Like, he reached out and touches her necklace. And he's like, This is cute.

Like, you know, what's your son? Yeah. Do you watch Vaxon Life? He's trying to flirt with her a little bit. And I can't blame. Do you like Michael Jackson's Thriller? Yeah. Pontoon boat again.

Pantoon Boat goes evil. Rambo kills everyone. Grenade launcher. Yeah. Rambo's getting hung from behind after he kills the first six guys, forgets about the seventh guy, breaks away, stabs him through the bed, jumps, and then it cuts to Julia Nixon

going, you made it, Rambo! And we're on. And then she tells them, Rambo, you're not expendable. It's like, oh, you kids might make it. You're thinking like 30 years from now, I'm going to make some kind of stupid movies called The Expendables with a bunch of action stars. Right, that's probably what we got it, right?

Yes, for sure he got it there. Next one, Murdoch and the helicopter guys bone over the Rambo Excape, abort the mission immediately, get a good Murdoch-Throud Troutman, argument. Fucking great. And the shot of crease looking up in the helicopter. It's got the energy of when you're in an elevator and someone's running for the elevator and you pretend that you're watching, you're going to press the closed door button a little bit. You're like, oh, sorry, I missed you. You'll have to get the next one. They just leave him hanging. Question. I can do this later for

Nantzables. I'll do it now. Is this a better movie if they push Krenna out of the plane? And Krenna has to join Sly on the lamb? But he's hurt. He lands. It's a like a 20-foot drop, hurts his ankle. So he's got to limp the whole time, and Rambo has to worry about Troutman as well. It's not because he's got the POWs and because I like Troutman going back to Murdoch and be like, what the hell are you doing? You just pissed off Rambo. Yeah. You need that moment. You're the one who's making the mistake. Yeah, what's that? Rambo. Rambo. Evil music. So good. Rambo gets electrocuted by Victor Mainland and Nicoli Okich.

I don't know if you realize that was Nicoli Okic as the sidekick. It looks like his dad. For sure, Yokic's dad. That's four-time MVP, Nicole Yokic. Two thousand three finals MVP. His first movie. He's not credited.

But it does get, they give him the microphone. Can you tell these guys where you are? Murdoch. Lightning. I'm coming to get you. Perfect lightning. That's your favorite. It's, it's, shit, it's up there.

Wildly telegraphed punitive. by Stallone, who has no restraints, no handcuffs, and he does that thing on the mic stand where he almost squeezes it to death, and then he hits Yokic's dad with it. And you got to see that coming. But then all hell breaks loose and the rest of the movie is nuts.

Honestly, a terrible job by them. Terrible. Maybe at least have his hands tired as he grab it. Like, why are you just letting him run amok? And they even say, leave one of your men here. This is Rambo, dude. You got to leave more than one Keystone cop in South Vietnam. Bad scouting by them.

I don't think they're advanced metrics department. Really understood what they were dealing with here with Rambo. Next one is Rambo's new girlfriend gets shot 28 times, but not before they kiss. They get one kissing. What's sexier? I wrote this down.

What's sexier than a guy who has had showered or brushed his feet in four days? It was also nearly drowned in a pool of feces. Let's makeout time, baby. Give me some of that. He still got leeches inside his mouth. and he's rounding first next to the river. I got more thoughts. That seems fucking incredible.

And let me throw a bone to Arnold. Arnold wasn't doing that shit in his movies. And the studios would come to him and say, Arnold, we need a love scene. He'd be like, I'm not doing a love scene. I'm getting hunted by the predator. I'm not doing it. In Commando they want on.

He's like, my daughter has been abducted. I'm not kissing Ray Dong Chong. Stallone's like, yeah, fuck, go, yeah, makeout scene. And I'm not going to make out scene. also like, when's the last time do you think John Rambo kissed a woman? It may be a fucking long time. And then she's like, let's go, Rambo. He's like, I don't know. Let's stay here. Like, that's got to be very confusing time for him, too, as this. I'm going to guess his breath

was terrible. Like, she probably was going to go in for more, but it had to have smelled like just a rancid dead body. You need altoyed, Rambo. One minute. Rambo, here's some scope. Rambo murder montage. I just wrote down that one where he just kills everybody because they killed his girlfriend. They shot her 28 times.

Somehow she didn't die right away, but she does. These are the knife kills where he's going through the jungle. This is everybody. It's the last half an hour of the movie. It peaks with the mud wall when he comes out of the mud

and he stabs that dude or whatever he does. Has no mud on him two seconds later. It actually, I take it back. It peaks with the guy who shoots at him 59. times, misses every time. And Rambo starts running

and stops, keep shooting, and Rambo's just taking his time, gets his bow and arrow, boom. That's where the movie goes to another level of unintentional comedy. That part of that movie is spoofed by Weird Al and UHF, which is hilarious. That's that part.

I have an NBA comp for that guy. That guy being unable to shoot Rambo is Charles Smith under the basket against the bulls, cannot get the layup in over and over. He's got Jordan. You're going to beat him.

You're going to take the series lead even bigger. This guy tries the rifle. He goes to the sidearm. Yeah. He can't fucking hit Stallone. And then just boom. And Jordan and Horace and Scotty blocked the shot. And Charles Smith just can't make the fucking basket.

I blame his ophthalmologist. Obviously bad contact lenses or whatever's going on with him. Just couldn't see anything. Make the shot. And then we get the finish of the slow-mo run jump. which he does in Cliffhanger and Rambo being underwater, being shot at, that they don't realize he's under the helicopter, comes out of the water like Jaws,

jumps on the helicopter and kills Niccoli Okage. This is when the movie is going 200 miles an hour and you can't stop it. And for the real slyheads like you and me, there's bombs going off, there's stabbings. But the part that makes me the happiest is as he's diving to avoid the bomb, he goes, because that's the sly noise. If you want to break down Sly versus Arnold

with just one note, like name that tune, it's hua versus that's all they do. That's their entire career is based in one note and Sly does some great, when he's hanging out the plane and he's taking a pair of his, and we know Arnold's

that's how those guys perform. So they added in that and I, And I'm like, I love you, Sly. Never changed. So if Sly was in total recall and landed outside of Mars. On Mars. He would have been like, he would have gone lower.

Hey, I'll see you at the party, Rick there. Rainbow helicopter bombing, where he lands the water and does the rope dope and then gets him. But as he's flying the helicopter, he lets out a Slice the Lone scream for some reason. He's just flying. He's like, ah! So he's bombing the shit out of the village, or just the rockets or whatever.

Boom, boom. And like, after seven rockets go, he all but looks to camera and does the side of the mouse scream, he's fucking awesome. And I laugh out loud as an adult.

I love that. Out loud in my basement. This is why I love movies to Sly does that shit. It's so gratuitous and it's so awesome. Then he brings back the POWs. Yep. He does the. thing where he destroys Murdoch's office

and everything culminates with hold on I gotta get do it do it I got it now I gotta get this ready do it yes I love that at my funeral

it's like I feel like Cosmodos is like they had it and he just shot up the office and he's like we got 10 minutes let's do one more and for like the last 30 rounds just shoot him in the fucking air and scream for no reason. All right, go, roll it.

Let's go. It's great. It's the best part of the, best five seconds of the movie. That's what Steve Balmer is going to do when he finally gets his revenge on Pablo's. And then, uh, destroys Murdoch's office and doesn't kill Murdoch.

Nope. Does the classic knife next to the head. Um, and then the last rewatchable scene, we have a Frank Stallone song ending. Yeah. That ends with some, uh, really awkward Stallone Troutman dialogue that I'm I'm guessing James Cameron did not write.

Don't hate your country for it. Hate a die for it. What do you want? I want what they want. Everyone else wants for our country to love us as much as we love. Love it. They're basically doing first blood all over again. And we end with, how will you live, John?

Day by day. And then it just ends. And Frank Stallone comes in with a song called Peace in Our Life. And the chorus says, Peace in Our Life. Remember the call. Oh, a chair for. from my brothers. Think of them all. Home of the brave, we'll never fail. The strength of our nation

belongs to us all. They're like, hey, Springsteen born in the USA is huge. Frank, what's your version? I came up with this song called Peace of Our Life. How about that? Okay? What's the chorus? Can you give us like a shitty Kirkland brand version of Bruce Springsteen, Frank? Do you think, Bill, do you think Frank was excited to be included on that project somehow? Like that his own brothers would toss him a bone again? Yeah, I pretty much. I think he was. I think he was he's contributed some of the worst movie music in the history of movies. Like his arsenal of bad songs is way

up there. Somehow, it's still not worse than the song that ends First Blood. So to get ready for these, I watch First Blood, which as you know, I love First Blood. I watched it with my son, Ben, who loved it. And then it ends, and that song comes on. Ben,

who's like, into this the whole time, like, not even on his phone. That song comes out at the end, and he goes, Dad, what the hell is that? Why did they do that? I'm like, I'm like, I don't know. And then we watch Rambo too, which he was definitely on his phone a little more for.

Same thing. And he's like, why do they do this at the end of these movies? I was like, I don't know. They go with this like weird melancholy track

after you've just had like, I don't know, poison hair metal for 90 minutes. And then they ended on this down. And also it's weird because Rambo just starts walking to nowhere. He's not going anywhere. He's not going to go.

He's walking away from the song. I don't know. He's going to a Starbucks. Maybe he's going to get some toothpaste. So what is your, most rewatchable scene. Tough question. The thing that blew my mind the most as a kid, I couldn't believe what I was looking at when he was

buried in the mud and comes out in his eye opens. So the murder montage. Yeah. It's when it becomes a slasher movie for about five minutes, it's that. They basically took first blood when he runs a mock and starts taking guys out. And they're like, how can we just do a way better version of this where he actually kills people?

What's the most 1985 thing about this movie? I will give you Martin Cove. I will give you Victor I will give you a movie ending with a Franks Dillon song or a character saying, do we get to win this time? I want to say Cove of the ones you had. The thing that popped for me is there's this really dramatic moment when they rescue the POW, and he's like, what year is it?

He's like, 1995. And it has this big impact. Like that year is supposed to really mean something. Yeah. So that, the fact that they name dropped their own year, it's almost like saying the name of the movie. Yeah, that's a good point. You said what year it is. I also think that scene needed just like,

give me 30 seconds of levity where the POW is like, wow, 1985, holy shit, what have I missed? And Rambo's like, you got to see what John Thompson's building at Georgetown. It's fucking incredible. I got to get you out of here so you can see Jaws.

He's missed a lot. We just need a little bit of that. Yeah, I was thinking if I was the POW and I get out, I'm like, what year is it, 1985? My next two questions would have been, did the Red Sox win in the World Series? No. Did the Celtics win any titles?

Yeah, you won in 84. Like, fuck yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Really? We did? How about the Pats? I just would have gone through all the teams.

Well, the Pats were about to go to the Super Bowl, too, in 85. The Bs? Did we get to the Cup? No. All right. How's my family? The Floyd Gondale butter in my ass, lollipops in my mouth, the word for something I just enjoy.

What do you got here? I got two. I will never. turn off a knife sharpening scene. Fucking ever. Just like, and it's, he does this same shot in Cobra.

Yeah. Where the night stalker is sharpening his knife. Yeah. It's like sweaty, ripped forearms and just slow sharpening of the knife little by little. It's always cinematic. It's always hot. But the other one I have with the bill. You know how the kids these days, they talk about aura farming and your,

Joe Burroughs always aura farming. In 1985, a movie was, ora farming. Anytime the hero held a huge machine gun with the bullet straps out to the side in his other hand and just shoots them, that was the coolest pose to do. The Jordan logo silhouette thing, like, was coming. But the holding your own bullet straps as you just blast them all over was so fucking cool. And he does it a bunch of times. Shot down to the ground of all the caps from the bullets, then back to, yeah, yeah, I'm with you. I love that. And then he tosses the rifle at the end, like it's a bat flip and walks to find Murdoch.

I'm always going to be happy, buttering my ass, knife sharpening and holding your own bullet straps. Mine is one I've mentioned before, but bad guys shooting basically point blank at our stars and not being able to draw any iron, just shooting air balls. It always makes me laugh.

I always enjoy the geometry of it, how they have to hide it with the camera angles, because you want the guys somewhat close together, but it also has to be believable that they're just far away enough that they would have missed these shots. but it's, you know, it's 20 feet away. They're just boom, boom, boom,

can't hit anything. Really ridiculous. What's age the best? What you choose to call hell, he calls home. One of those rare lines that also could have worked in any Halloween movie?

Yeah. Like it could have, it was a horror movie or an action movie line. Pretty great. I also had having a true villain for movies. In the 80s, like, you just saw the Russian,

name, you saw the Russian letters 40 minutes in, you're like, oh boy, the Russians? Oh, shit. They're involved? Yes. I don't know who that is now. We just have too many villains. I don't even know. There's nothing like that of the immediate impact of seeing the Russian letters. No, now it's like the machines are going to kill us all.

But there's a moment in that movie where the POWs are like Russian motherfuckers and the Russians make an entrance, like on their helicopter and their camouflage and it jumps. It's like an okay, motherfucker jump up a notch moment. Nick Lai Bochoff's there. He's making everyone stand for the national anthem. I have a couple more, but what do you have for what stage is the best? It's Troutman.

I love Troutman, and I have a take on it. Troutman is really just a pro wrestling manager. He's there to rep his guy. He's there to hype his guy. He's Paul Hayman. He is. For this whole movie, Trotman's like, let me tell you something, mean, Gene. Rambo's the best combat vet I've ever seen.

The million-dollar man Ted DiBiase is going to learn. He's a pure fighting machine. And if winning the Intercontinental belt means he has to die in that ring, he will die SummerSlam, which you call hell, he calls home. He's constantly doing it. And Troutman has all these quippy one-liders about Rambo,

you know, that, like, you're not hunting him. He's hunting you. I feel like he workshops them. Yeah. I feel like he's got like a tape recorder for all his Rambo lines. I just love how he reps John and he speaks in these sound bites

and he calls him Johnny. I love the Troutman character. The first time we see him, he comes in because somebody's like something about God and it's like, God didn't make Rambo. I did. That's his entrance. First line in the series.

If I was going to fly a little closer to the sun, my next hotter take would be that secretly Troutman is in love with Rambo and I'd go into that. But you know what, Bill, after the Karate Kid 2 pod, I had so many people on my Instagram comments being like, you guys are crazy about Miyagi and Larusa. You take it too far, man.

You guys are nuts. I had so many comments about that. And like, Bill and I think it's kind of strange that a high school kid's only friend is an old man who builds a bedroom for him and travels around the world and yeah, I'm not going to apologize for that. I got a long email from somebody

who was basically like, you don't understand the pain of losing a father and Miyagi filled that void for him. Blah, blah, blah. I'm like, or it's fucking weird that these two guys hung out all the time. Among the comments, I got, the only thing weird here is you two

weirdos. Then it's, how sick do you have to be? And then my favorite one, gay guys are always looking for gay stuff. And then he goes on to say that you and I, quote, definitely have puffed a few pickles. And I'm like, that's that guy's Instagram comment for the day. We're just talking karate kid, too. You go with it where you want.

So screw it. I think Troutman is in love with Rambo. You think you'd puffed Rambo's pickle? This guy does. I have a couple more what's aged a better. for me. Cameron's original screenplay began with Troutman finding Rambo in a psychiatric hospital instead of a

prison and it ended up getting changed to the prison. Filed it away. Used it for Terminator 2. Sarah Connor doing pull-ups in the room. Sure. That would have worked. Hot shots part due. It's a fairly funny movie, but they get a lot of, they basically take

everything that's in Rambo anyway, which was funny and dialed up a notch. But I actually thought UHF probably did it better. UHF does it beautifully. I love that part of the movie. Here's my number one, though. So Rambo meets Murdoch.

I just personally love reading the resume scenes to set the place. Oh, so do I. And he does the Rambo, John Jay, born July 6, 1947, Indian-German descent, joined Armides and just goes through helicopter and language qualified, 59 confirmed kills. I was thinking what a mistake it was

that we didn't do this the first time you were on the rewatchables where I was like, Kyle Brandt, Princeton football, Real World Chicago, worked for Jim Rome for nine years, good morning football with Peter Schrager.

Now he's here. I'm going to start reading the resume for everybody that comes on. And you look at me like skeptically over your glasses. You care to explain why you never did the real world challenge some. And I'm like, well, it was a tough time,

life, sir, dark time. Were you afraid of CT? What was going on? on there. Anytime a character says, I've been looking over your file, you're about to get some good shit. Yeah. So,

they say 59 confirmed kills, two silver star, four bronze, four purple hearts, distinguished server service cross and a medal of honor. Solid, solid resume. I was kind of expecting a little bit more. If this guy's the Michael Jordan of American

killing machines, I was expecting like 559 kills. Well, doesn't he about to his 63 point game against the Celtics in the garden because this is coming now, right? Good point. Great shot, Gorder Award, most cinematic shot. I don't know. Probably the knife sharpening or when he's tying the bandana on with his oiled muscles.

I think the bandana shot is the most giffable. I think the greatest shot is the Russian soldier in his shoulder. The eye just opens in the mud and you, like, as a kid is the coolest thing you've ever seen. It's good call. Yeah. Hans Gruber's gear of villain ranking. Petrovica. whatever his name was.

Yeah. Probably had two out of ten for me. I don't feel like they really developed that character at all. I didn't really believe the Russian accent either. He had my interest when we were talking about

putting a smoldering knife inside of POW's eyeball. But then he didn't have the balls to do it. The real grouber would have immediately put it in one of his eyes and says,

now tell me or I'll do the second one. That's how you get on. So pretty live, I have like three, five. I left you one. Murdoch, I think, is a seven or a seven and a half, though.

How come? Lies about where he served in NOM in 66. That's pretty good. Stolen Valor. Lies about the mission, lies to Troutman, leaves Rambo just to die with the POWs. Yeah. And he's just trying to save his ass left and right. Leaving him on the mounteux.

Yes. That's true. I wonder if there's some expanded universe where that's Murdoch. And like he went into law enforcement after he left bureaucracy. Oh, this is great. Yeah, that would be good. gets kicked out of the military and then just becomes a security guard in whatever city that was, Chicago. Baltimore. Yeah. Yeah. Kid Cuddy pursued a happiness award for Best Needle Drop. We don't

really have one, but I do have a new award. And I'm putting this in the category list. The Frank Stallone Award for Worst Needle Drop. Perfect. Perfect. I think Frank, Frank makes the rundown. If you hear Frank, it's probably not going to be good. With that said, I do enjoy the staying alive song. Yeah, that's fine. Da-da. He made contact a few times. Not bad. Was there a better title for this movie?

So we could have gone First Blood 2. We could have gone Rambo 2. Instead, we did Rambo First Blood Part 2 to set up because Stallone wanted the third one to be called Rambo 3. Honestly, nobody calls this movie Rambo First Blood Part 2. Not one person. I remember as a kid being confused about it. Why wasn't it just Rambo 2?

again, I think Rocky Slice is like, I need the title of the movie to be my character like I am with Rocky and we're going to make that right on the second one and it was probably smart. Just call it Rambo 2. What do you have for a flex category?

All right, well, I had a couple options. I was going to repurpose the Judd Nelson guy who's in his own movie and doing his own thing into the Romeo Dobbs guy who's in his own game and doing his own thing and we're not sure what planet he's on. I was going to do that one for you, buddy. But instead, I mean,

It's sitting right there. Somebody's got to do it. I got the Elizabeth Shoe inventing Cold Fusion Award for our girl, Co. Listen, yes, of course, an attractive woman could be in the military in South Vietnam. This girl is outrageously hot with an Uzi in the jungle, and they do this thing where they get her in an evening gown and makeup because she poses as a prostitute to get in the camp. And then she's in that for the rest of her life. And wouldn't you also, speaking of Files, don't you think,

Troutman might have said to Rambo that, like, by the way, you know, this, this contact you're going to have, she's great at covert ops and, and infantry weapons, but I got to tell you, Johnny, this trolle is a real looker. I mean, a full smokestack, Johnny. Like, there's nothing in that about it. They even tips it off. She's like a model they found in Hawaii. And God bless her, she had a long career, but she's disarmingly attractive as this person in the middle of the jungle running around. I fully support the casting. I think if you're going to a nitpick. I feel like everybody in the jungle would have remembered her at some point.

Right? You don't forget her. In the jungle message boards, they're like, yo, there's this one, this Lady Co. Just this smoke show. Just watch out for her. Lady Co. stunts in Uzi Sheik. Serving tea. Butch's girlfriend Award, Weak Link of the film. We could have gone with what you just said.

The bigger thing is Rambo just should have died in multiple scenes. in this movie, including when he comes back after the aborted helicopter escape and all the guys come in closer to him, but they capture him instead of just shooting him when they've been shooting at him for the last five minutes. I know, I know.

I don't understand why the Russians didn't kill them. Why didn't they bound his hands? Why nobody was able to shoot him when he's basically won against 200? And he just never even gets like a bullet like glancing his arm, nothing. Nobody touches him. is there's one point where Co's like,

oh, you heard bad. It's like, not really. He just had 50 guys shoot at him. He's fine. It's a really cumbersome thing that the Russians are trying to get him to radio in, that he's not here and don't come. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

They probably should have just executed. Yeah, that part. Oh, that's not great. What saves the worst? Oh, go. No, I got Bush. You're going to love the weak link. The ending in the movie is not satisfying enough.

First of all, Murdoch doesn't really get any justice. And then more importantly, there should have been a fight between Rambo and Crease. And I'm thinking maybe a knife fight or a fist fight because Crease is crease. They don't like each other from the beginning. And I think it could have had one of those real, like, Mel Gibson versus Gary Bucy on the lawn or Dalton versus Jimmy

where it's like, Rambo, I always wanted to try you. And then he like, he gets the upper hand on me. It's just like, you're not so bad, Rambo. You know, like we needed that fight. And I also think we needed a better. fight between Nicola Jokic and Rambo on the helicopter, because the Russian doesn't speak at all. And I was thinking that, like, at one point during the fight,

when he has the upper hand on Rambo and he's like, maybe has a knife to his throat, I just think he gets right in Rambo's ear and he says, I used to fuck guys like you in Gulag. And that would be like, oh, shit, now we got something. More fights than killing at the end, I think, when Rambo gets a bench. I mean, he, like, punches crease, and that's it.

It's kind of dumb. It's a really great point about Crease. I think the solution would have been because he lands on the plane with the POWs and he goes to find Murdoch, but Crease greets him. And it was like, good to see you alive or whatever he said, and Rambo punches him in the stomach

and then knocks him out. I think the move maybe is he goes by everybody and goes to see Murdoch, but Crease is in the way. Oh, yeah. And it's just the two of them, and they have like a little fight in the, you know, in the first room before he gets to Murdoch. might have been moved.

Then we could have seen some karate. Crease could have done some, you know. Yeah, imagine if he did all that, that Cobra Chi shit, that would be great. And then the craziest thing is that William Zabke's there too. Right, for no reason. Yeah. Holding his second place trophy.

That's right. Woods age the worst. This was devastating. This is in the research. Coe was killed. Rambo's holding her. And if you watch it, it cuts pretty quickly.

away. Apparently, they ran this movie for the test audiences. Coe dies and Rambo's holding her and then he goes, no! No! And screams no three times.

And the camera zooms out. And apparently the test audiences thought this was absolutely hysterical. Put it in. And we're laughing. So I looked for this this morning. I was looking for it all over the place. Stallone has destroyed all copies.

But so they kind of abruptly cut away from her dying, and it was because of the three nose that made test audiences laugh their asses off. And I can't think of anything you and I would have enjoyed more. Bill, I was moved when you just did it right now. I was into that. We need that. And they, if they had to know now, the stuff that the audience is laughing at, keep that in. That's the good stuff, guys. Yeah, this is a comedy action movie. Yes. There was a tie-in video game called Rambo produced for basically all the systems, the 86 bad video game. Really disappointing. I don't understand how they fuck that one up

because this is as video games were, you know, starting to get better and this is a pretty easy, he's dropped this guy, he has a mission, now he's going to complete that. I don't understand how they botched that one. Typically, it's time frame-based. They have to rush it to get out in time with the movie. The better video game legacy for this movie

is a great game called Akari Warriors that they made on Nintendo, and you could play side by side, and the guys all look like Rambo with the headbands and stuff, but the IP wasn't directly linked or it was and then fell off. But the Rambo game, you're talking about Sock, I had it. The only other thing I had for Woods Age the worst is, you know, I'm a big fan of the Michigan Action franchise, Chuck Norris.

Yeah. Missing in Action 1 is effectively the plot for this movie. And it comes out a year before. And then Missing in Action 2 comes out same year as this movie, which are prequel. We go back to see how he escapes. Okay. Now, James Cameron started working on the script in 83,

Missing in Action. I'm not accusing plagiarism here. I'm just saying that missing in action, one, came out and was basically the same plot as this movie. This is just a thing that happened. There was a lot of copying of homework going on right now. A lot. Yeah.

What do you have for what stage is the worst? Anything? A lot we covered. Obviously, listen, the depiction of the Viet Cong, the exploitation of the P.O.Ws, the characterization of the Vietnamese. You know what stage is the worst? mortars. There's a great

mortar scene and they're very cinematic, but in the mid-80s to still be using it, you got two people running through this valley. They're not even hitting them with the more. These guys can't hit them with a gun. What makes you think they're going to be able to do the geometry and the trajectory of basically what amounts to like war cornhole

if the target was moving? Great cinematic stuff. It is, but like not effective weaponry by the mid-80s. You got to leave that behind. Ruffalo, Han, and Rubeneck Partridge overacting word. We covered this earlier. It's now the Celeste, the Rambo 2 underacting word. The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford,

hottest take a word. I think this is my hottest take in a while. Let's go. And as you know, I love this movie. Yeah. Rambo 2. 1985 Vietnam movies, I think I've watched Missing in Action 2 more times than Rambo 2.

Okay. I'm a huge missing in action 2 guy. It has one of the random great scenes of the entire 80s at the end. What's the scene? Chuck Norris has to, basically this really evil guy has torturing him and the other POWs. It's just like the worst guy. And at the end, they just end in this cabin. And it's just the two of them.

And they just have this fight to the death. And it's one of the best fight to the deaths of that whole decade. And maybe the last 45 years, the movie itself is not that good. But the fight to the death, it's like, this is like the end of karate kid multiplied by 100. And Chuck, like, this is a really good scene. And I just feel like I've watched that scene more times than any scene in this movie, even though I've probably seen this movie 20 times. I just, I feel like I'm letting you down.

I've not seen that movie. I wish I could be there for you. It was a cable rewatchable. It was just on a lot for like a year and it would always suck me in. But what do you have for a hot of stake? Well, I'm going to watch that movie and I'm going to watch the movie where Troutman gets raped. So I got a full weekend ahead of me. The rape of Richard Beck.

Yeah, go hunt that down on YouTube. All right, here's the movie you've seen. we're talking sly versus Schwarzenegger we're talking all their great movies in the mid-80s. Predator is probably in my top five movies ever made. Dude, Predator rips off Rambo 2, big time.

Let me run it down. Big time. Here we go. We travel to a faraway jungle that is actually shot in Mexico. The best in the business arrives with an older officer there. He immediately sniffs out the bureaucrat who's wearing the tie. There's a nighttime insertion into the jungle and something goes

immediately wrong. They arrive at a village, there's hostages, there's a shootout, there's an indigenous woman who becomes an ally. Then he loses all his modern weapons and has to resort to a bow and arrow. He covers himself in mud to conceal himself from the enemy. There's these other primitive, McGiver-type weapons.

And at the end of the movie, when he's got the bad guy dead to rights, he has the weapon over his hand, and then he drops it and decides not to kill him. There's a lot of sly getting his homework copied by Schwarzenegger, and I am a predator guy. And we did predator years ago, you, me, Shea, and CR.

but to the note, I feel like Predator just had his hand in this Rambo 2 cookie jar. It's a compelling case. It's a lot. The covering in mud and everything and the guy in the tie, it's very close.

Really speaks to the rivalry. That's what I'm saying. Not only do I not like you, I'm going to steal some stuff from your movie. Casting what ifs, there's three mediocre ones and then a really good one. Oh, I can't wait.

Dolf Lundgren was initially Podowski. Stallone realized he was also going to be Drago, pulled him. Yeah. Lee Marvin was supposed to be Colonel Troutman in the first film, turned it down. Turned down Murdoch for the second one. They really wanted Lee Marvin. It ends up being Charles Napier. And then they were filming a lot of this movie in Mexico where there were really no Asian actors.

They had to go to Chinese restaurants and get people working those restaurants as extras in the local Chinese restaurants. But this one was amazing. The Carol Co-producers are guys. Yeah. They really want to Rambo to have a partner for the POW rescue mission. Go on. They wanted John Travolta to play Rambo's sidekick. Is that true?

And Stallone vetoed the idea because they were buddies from staying alive. Can you go, yo, what's going on here? Like, he's like Vinnie Barbarino in Vietnam with Rambo. By the way, I think I want to see that movie. Hey, Johnny, like, show's kind of foxy. Oh my God. Co's giving me the googly eyes. Yeah, there was going to be a scene.

I don't know if you know this. They're walking through the jungle, and the Rambo's buddy's like, Hey, Johnny, you know what they call it? Quarter Pounder of a cheese in Hochamon City. They don't call it a quarter pound of a cheese. Yeah, man, they got the metric system being. I don't know what the fucking quarter pounder is.

It's back and forth buddy humor. I think it's a better movie. I'll bet on it. That's awesome. Joey Pants to wear best that guy Are we going? Stephen Burkhoff or Charles Napier? I don't think I knew his name was Charles Napier.

I don't. I know his work very well, but I don't think if you ask me, what is this actor's name? I would know it. Also, like, I think it's Napier because he shows up in the cable guy and he's a cop in blues,

just playing his Sound Salaam's character as like a joke. I think it's Napier. But if you know his name that well, that means he's not an actor. Well, he has a more important movie. or more important part in the movie. Dionne Waiter's a word, I mean, it's done.

It's indoor aviators guy. Steve Williams. Steve Williams is lifer. Forget about it. When he doesn't let Trump and leave and he just puts his leg on the chair to block him. Awesome.

Yes. Loved it. And then recasting couch director of city. Obviously, Trevolta's the answer. I have a recasting song. Oh, for the end? For the end.

What if it just kicks it in a board in the USA by Springsteen as he's walking away. It would have been fucking incredible. And he's just walking through? Yeah. That would have been awesome. I don't know if Bruce would have signed off on that. I'm going to say Bruce would not have signed off.

Anyway, okay. We're going to take one more break and then finish the pod. All right. So Craig's not with us today because he's traveling. So he didn't get his flex category. But we are going to go right to Half As Center Research. Film was shot in Mexico and Thailand. Sadly, a special effects guy

was accidentally killed during one of the waterfall explosions. Cliff Wenger lost his footing and fell to his death, so sorry about that. Video was released in early 86, sold 425,000 units on opening day. Let's go.

We should mention, those movies were $80 back then? Yeah. This is... When they would come out to buy, they would make them impossibly expensive for some reason, but that's just how it was for a while.

Because they wanted you to rent them, I guess. So anyway. But sometimes you'd run through that stop sign, just fucking buy it. I don't care what. I'm getting Rambo too. So they, uh, they broke the record set by Ghostbusters. Film was banned in the Soviet Union. Fucking cowards. At the time of the film, the time of the filming, we still had 2,500 real life Vietnam POWs.

Sorry to hear that. This, I'm just going to read this verbatim because this was in the research. Let's do it. Many funny things happened during the shoot. including Stallone getting pantsed by Crenna during an interview by Maria Shriver as retaliation slighed through a cream pie in Crenna's face during his respective interview.

Also, mud fights between the actors were common. I have no idea if this is true. I just, he was on the hot seat right now is the Steven Segal shitting on himself award for a most unbelievable on-set story. That might have, that could have been in the category, I guess. I probably should have put that as a seagal. Crenna doesn't strike me as the pantsing type

of knucklehead. Maybe he was really the raper Richard Beck. Maybe he was really going through something. Or maybe he was Maria Shriver and Stallone wanted to be pants. Yeah, maybe he was Stoner and asked him. Who knows? What did you think was the body count of this movie?

Well, doesn't you say he has 50-some confirmed kills like in his entire military? Before this. If he'd already had, let's say, 56 or whatever the number is, it's like 40 maybe. 85 total, 74 from Rambo. Holy shit.

I think that grenade launchers from the helicopter probably, yeah, probably patted the numbers a little bit. Apex Mountain sliced alone. It's either this or Rocky 4, but he's on the mountain literally and figuratively because he's climbing the mountain and Rocky 4 are doing Druggo! Yeah, and same year. Yeah. So it's 85.

This is about as Apex Mountain is, it gets. Vietnam movies, I'm going to say no. I'm going to say late 70s for equality. And then I think, honestly, Platoon went in the Oscar. 86. I don't know how that's not Apex Mountain, right? I know. I think it's Platoon.

And I know people go hard for some of the ones in the 70s, but I think it's Platoon. Plus, after that, we get full metal jacket. We get casualties of war. We're still going all the way through the 80s. Ronald Reagan, this might have been Apex Mountain for him, Here, second term, Rambo, he's battling the Russians, his popularity is probably never higher. He's still relatively healthy, I think, so I would say, I was going to go, well, I was going to say Uncle Sam.

Uncle Sam, yeah, Uncle Sam and Ronald Reagan. Is this it? Like, United States of America, are we there in the mid-80s? Yeah, we just cleaned up in the Summer Olympics. Come on. Battling Russia. McDonald's, drinking Coca-Cola. Mary Lou Retons everywhere.

Every movie's pretty good. Michael Jordan's here. Let's go, 85 bears. Julian Nixon, yes. The Cold War I mean, you have this and then you have Rocky 4, six months later, plus all the other things I mentioned.

I do feel like this is probably the peak, 85. We were still afraid of a nuclear war, but having fun with it. I think what hurts the case here is there's no nuke talk in this movie, not that I can think of, and nuke talk was everywhere there. Grenade launchers.

I don't really have any of the Apex Mountain stuff. Oh, Martin Co. No. No, I think it's I think it's still Kid one. Okay. Yeah. But we've had this conversation Is this Apex Mitten for knives and movies? Because knives were really fucking hot at this time and hear me out. Crocodile Dundee did a whole thing with knives and they have a whole scene about that's not a knife, that's a knife. I almost think it might be Paul Hogan a year later, one-uping, even

Rambo's knife is iconic. Well, so that would tie in a cobra too then. So Coburn and Crocodone Dundee together. Yes. We're a year away. We're setting up Apex Mountain for knives. Still a year away. And plus we had the Ginzu ads at this point. Big time.

Huge. Cruise or Hank's Cruz? I think Cruz, somewhere when this movie's being shot, he's on the set of legends of Ridley Scott, and he sees Rambo hanging on the side of a plane. He's like, yes, someday. Sylvester Stallone, thank you.

And he was like, someday that's what I'm going to do. And Ridley Scott's like, get over there, kid. Files it away. Fired up. The Borat Sagadov Rancid Body Order Award. So glad to hear it. Normally you'd give it to Rambo here after dangling in a pool of sewage. But no, it's got to be his P.O.W buddy.

Who he carries on his shoulders. And Rambo probably has no sense of smell left. I'm guessing at that point. No. No way. I don't think anyone smells good in this movie, honestly. I think you could give it across the board. Maybe Coe smells okay.

But for the most part, we're just in a hot jungle. There's no showers. There's sewage everywhere. I just think it's a nasal frenzy. Can you first of all imagine that poor bastard POW who's been having rats and spiders on a performance of how many years, he gets freed. And the first person he runs into his Co. And she's like, holy shit.

Where did you come? Am I hallucinating? Also, to the body odor. I can make the hot take is that I think Murdoch might have smelled worse than the P.O. Oh, interesting. Because he's wildly perspiring for the entire movie. True. He's got the big sweat patches. Oh, yeah.

Like, that's his little move. He's patting himself. I don't think there's a lot of speed stick around there. I like this. So you have Murdoch Fandall odds are that he was 20 to one smelliest guy in the movie, but you like it. I think it's like the Rams will miss the playoffs at plus 500. It's like I'm zagging. I like this.

This is like the, the Titans. winning the AFC this year. Is that Murdoch somehow is the smelliest one in the movie? Great question. The Rick Chiquetti Guard Mead Award for Most Memorable Death by a Security Guard or other bystander who the movie treats is inconsequential, but who

probably had a spouse and kids who love him. Rambo gets in that helicopter and at some point it's just him in the pilot and it cuts to a wide shot and he just pushes the pilot to his death. That poor guy probably didn't want to be there. I don't even know who he seemed American, not Russian, just doing like a, and all of a sudden, falling to his death.

Can you imagine, Rocky is, or Rambo, has just beaten the big Russian guy. Then he goes towards the front, takes out that fucking knife, and the guy's like, I'm just jumping. I'm not, I'm not messing with this guy. It just cuts to, it's not in like he jumps in the water. It's like just rocks. No, he's, to his death. Yeah.

And it happens in T2. Again, the T-1,000 gets in the helicopter, goes, get out. And the guy just jumps out of the helicopter. First Blood has it, too. when he comes out of the cave after the rats and all that stuff and he jumps in that Jeep and just tells the guy, get out, and the guy just jumps. They're going 40 miles an hour.

Pick of Nits. So we learned in the beginning, Rambo's serving an eight-year prison sentence for assaulting a police officer, murdering a deputy. I think they can frame that guy who falls out of the helicopter because Rambo threw the rock. That's at least like,

involuntary manslaughter, attempted murder of a sheriff. He does shoot Will Teesel a few times through the roof. Destroyes, how many millions of dollars of property? He destroys an entire town, $10 million? Probably $10 million. $15 million? And they're like, well, he did some good stuff in the war. Eight years.

I feel like it's more than eight years. That feels like a 20-year sentence at least. Yeah, you can't kill law enforcement. And I know that he was under duress and all that, but yeah, probably. You got a very favorable judge. Great lawyer. Yes, great lawyer. What's going on in the beginning with the prisoners and Rambo just hammering rocks?

I'm not sure. It looks metal. It looks really heavy metal. It looks cool. What's the ultimate goal of this? Are they trying to split the rocks in half? Are they trying to get jewelry out of this? What are they doing?

They're looking for rubies and stuff? No, I think they, I guess they make like gravel and stuff and try to need smaller rocks from big rocks that get carried out of there. It's just basically supposed to look badass when he's swinging that hammer. That's all.

Now, you're going to know this better than me because you're a big workout guy. Rambo's absolutely jacked, but doesn't eat anything for this entire movie. This is a great call, Bill. Do you lose muscle mass if you're not eating at all? Don't you need to eat like 5,000 calories a day to sustain that?

Immediately. First of all, He needs at least 250 grams of protein every single day. He needs to be down on the ground doing diamond pushups and pull-ups every five seconds. Even Co at one point's like, you want some food, Rambo's like, no. Like you need like a cliff bar or something, dude. I love that you brought that up because like real workout nerds watch this movie and be like, that thing's going.

Those kind of abs will go in a few days if you don't hammer that. Okay, good. I feel like my instincts were right. Rambo's there for how many days do we think? 36 hours. Well, 36 hours till the extraction and then probably another day or two after that. So maybe three or four days.

No facial hair stubble at all? We know Stallone can grow a beard. Oh, yeah. Nothing, like a little goatee, nothing? And you know what would have been badass and I bet it got cut? How about he shaves with that knife like McDon-D does?

That would have been a cool sin. Yeah. I have one more, but did you have any nipicks? Because I have one more good one. Yeah, during the helicopter scene, which is pretty much denari. Targaryen and Dracarus, just setting fire to the entire city.

Is he positive? Which of those shacks has the POWs in it? Because they all look pretty much the same. He blows up 15 different edifices, but then leaves the one that has all the American POWs. And it makes me nervous every time as he's losing his mind and screaming at the camera. He's only seen this once from the ground. And somehow knows the error of you. He knows exactly

what hot not to shoot the grenade at. I thought the same thing. There's no laser targeting. There's no radar. He's just from the hip. And he could have just blown them all up. It makes me nervous every time I watch it. Maybe that's why he started screaming. All right, here's my big one. I think this movie ends when you say he walks away,

what happens to Rambo? Yeah. Right? What does the next two minutes look like for him, next two hours, next two days? I'm going to tell you what happens. He immediately dies of a severe bacterial infection from being dangled in that sewage pit for 12 hours.

There's no way your body, I can't even imagine what kind of sick you would get from that. Think about that. Think of all the stuff that was in there combined with the leeches but this is

the kind of untreated feces and pee and every bad thing that is happening in this village and they just have them hanging out in there at one point

like the helicopter lands and it shoots the water in his face. I just think he has hepatitis A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. First seven letters of hepatitis, he has it

by the end of this movie. I think each year probably the worst 30 seconds of my calendar year is about the one time a year that I'm at some sort of event that demand that I use a porta potty and I go in there

and you look down to that World War III hell on earth that's down there. He was standing in that for who knows how long with leeches all over his body and it's pig shit. Sewage leeches. Disgusting. It's soldiers eating God knows what

shitting out God knows what. And he just doesn't even break his facial expression. The stench alone in that. that pit is absolutely important. This is Andy Dufran going through the sewage pipe. Yes. But it's an entire river of it. And Andy Dufrein is puking the entire time he's doing it.

But Andy Dufrein is not the perfect killing machine. This does go back to my theory that Rambo had lost a sense of smell a long time before. I think it was an early strain of COVID. I think he's over there and he just lost a sense of smell. You got it first. Sequel, Prequel, Prestige TV, All Blackcast are Untouchable. So they did two more sequels. neither of which we like.

What would have been, if you had had a third Rambo and we were in charge, what would the third Rambo movie be? If we're doing this correctly, what is it? Because to me, I would have come back to America and moved more into the diehard, sudden death,

toy soldiers, under siege kind of area where he's now John Rambo's working as a cook on a, basically he could have been, Segal and under siege. I would have moved that way in Rainbow 3 and not made it even more complicated and geopolitical. I would not have done that.

Well, yeah, you run into it. We did it with Crudicott. Two, go back to where it all started. Go back to your roots. That's great. That's for two. For three, you come back home, and can I talk you into a character shows up who is the relative or son of someone from Rambo 1? Maybe Brian Dennehy's son from the small town comes to find Ramble.

I always enjoy that stuff. Yeah, the young Teasel. Like Jackie Teasel shows. up. You don't know if he likes Rambo right away. Maybe he's going to turn on him. We're not sure. Yes. Or the guy that he goes to see at the beginning of First Blood. Maybe it's that he has some sort of a prentice. Yeah. We need those characters coming back. That's how that shit works. Like Die Hard 3, the villain was Hans Gruber's brother. And that kind of worked for us. I do like the idea of him of John Rambo just being the lead character and sudden death was

Jean-Claude von Dom. where it's just John Rambo's he's just now working as a security guard in a Pittsburgh Penguins arena or something and then has to become John Rambo. I would have gone that way. What if he just comes back and he's like he does the rampod?

And it's just like just him and his new pod alert and it's just him telling stories. Emergency pod? Yes, exactly. Rampod. I'm into it. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Fergie, the floor, is St. Lowe, Ted Levine, or someone else?

What do you got for? You know, one thing we haven't covered is when Johnny just draws up a play in the dirt when his helicopter is wounded and he simulates that it crashed and he goes to sleep and he does the rocket launcher. It's like a preposterously clutch moment. And the best part about it, Bill, is that if you look in the background in one of the rice patties, there's an announcer's table and Gus Johnson is just sitting right there. I didn't see him. No. You got to look really closely, but I actually have the call that goes like this. It goes, John Rambo, young fella, ha ha, hunting commies in South Vietnam, leaps is still up as asshole, pretends he's dead and shoots the bazooka through the windshield.

Binkgo bastard blown out of the sky. Bring that man to Murtok. Ha ha! He did it again. I love you, Gus. Archie. You think Collinsworth was next to him? Oh, I don't know, Bill.

It's just an incredible... I guess I can't believe what John Rambo did right there. I just can't. He just... How can you play dead after you've killed 130 people? It's incredible. I should not figure that out. He's playing dead.

Obviously, he's not dead. Just one Oscar who gets it. Frank Stallone? For peace in our earth? Somebody in the Stallone family has to get it, yes. Yeah. I guess it's special effects because that they get nominated. I have two unanswerable questions for you.

Yes, I have one for you. What do Murdox's next couple years look like? Maybe it ends with him as the security guard and silence of lambs. Maybe that was the actual ending. You know what the sad part is? Nah, he falls upward, dude. He's going to get great positions in government jobs. Fuck that guy.

You know people like that. I know people like that. He will fall upward and continue to get more. Absolutely, dude. He is going to get paid more and be powerful and risk more American lives. No, he'll fall upward. Okay. When was the last time John Rambo got laid if you're just going in through the prism of this movie? We know he gets out of Nam, late 70s, and kind of drifts around for a few years.

Is there a girlfriend in there? Is there, is he dating somebody? Has he just sworn off? Is he just asexual? How does he get his rocks off? It's a great question. We had the stretch in the camp and the rock-breaking camp after, the rest issue, you have the timeline. And basically boils down to is Johnny Rambo the kind of guy who pays for it? Is he going to do that?

I can't answer that question. I know soldiers over there. We're doing all kinds of things back in the day. But I'll tell you this, gets back on that horse real fast with Co. No hesitation goes for it. So my answer would have to be, is a horny man.

This is a man with needs. I think he found a way. I don't think it's been that long. Yeah, I think probably didn't chase it. I think transactional relationships probably were working there for a couple years. Well, listen, I would also ask that he get laid in prison, but I don't want everybody to get mad that I would insinuate that about John Rambo. Pickle puffers. What do you have for unanswerable questions?

All right, Bill Simmons. Here we go. Are you a sly guy or an Arnold guy? I'm a sly guy. And by the way, I should have mentioned he is now in third place all time for the rewind. Watchables at 13 tied with Robert De Niro. Cruz is first. Yeah.

And then who, Hanks, maybe? Pacino. Or Pacino? Yeah. You're a sly guy over Arnold. Yeah. So the complete list right now, now that we've done this, we've done 454 movies. Cruz 18.

Pacino 14. De Niro and Stallone 13. Denzel 12. Arnold is only at eight. But we have some good Arnold movies left. I think Sly I think Arnold's peak was probably better but I think Sly's body work is pretty

crazy we're going from 76 all the way to basically the expendables with Sly. We haven't even done the expendables yet like put it this way Sly's 80 okay at some point we're going to wake up and look at fucking Twitter and we're going to see that tweet and it's going to suck

and it's like we're going to see it for Arnold too And I'm trying to like, which one would knock the wind out of me harder? I personally am a little bit more of an Arnold guy, just a little bit. I get it. But these are like, I feel like these men raised me. I feel like they're my uncle sly and my uncle Arnold. And I don't know. I knew you were going to say sly.

But I think they've reached where like Bird and Magic reached and some other people. Like when after a while you stop thinking about the rivalry, the competition. And they're kind of linked together. I really do think these two guys are like linked together. They're making basically most of the good action movies for 15, 20 years here. How do you feel like now when you'll see Sly on some showing up at some event or doing some project? Like, he's had a ton of work done, but like, who gives a fuck? He's still up there.

He's kind of in shape. He looks good. He's still working. Like, I always feel kind of proud when I see him. And Arnold looks great too. Yeah. I think Sly, I don't like when he re-ed stuff that he did. Okay.

Yeah. like when he redid the Rocky 4 with his new cut with new scenes and took out stuff, I'm like, leave shit alone, sly. Your legacy is secure. I made a bunch of great shit. There's movies he did that we haven't even done on rewatchables yet that I've wanted to do, like daylight, which I've tried to talk you into for a while. Lockup in prison, which has the greatest non-sports movie sports scene ever in a movie.

The question I get the most about this podcast, and I get a lot, is how do you pick the movies? and I always say there's a lot of different ways that come from Bill, but my favorite one is occasional there'll be a daylight where you'll basically be like, dude, like, I need this. Get up to my level on daylight, so do this for me. Please do this for me.

Please do this. Remember, Bill, you'd most want from this movie. Let me get your answer first, and then I have some interesting facts on this. All right, well, I would say I want the combo of I want the actual red headband and Coe's necklace that he wears at the end, which barely fits around his neck.

And I think that's a badass tandem. Those were probably sold somewhere, the real ones that exist. But what do you have? I really wanted the machine gun with the bullets so you could drape the bullets over your... It's fucking awesome. God, I love that.

And I was Googling it, and Stallone did an auction thing for a lot of his stuff in 2021, which I somehow missed. The Rambo 2 Knife that you mentioned earlier went for $51,000. Awesome. The archery bow, you think it went for more or less?

Less. Movie used archery bow, 28K. I knew it. And then the machine gun, 16K, which I think was the buy if you're going to do those. Awesome. You sound like you would have gone all in on the knife, though. The knife is iconic, and they sold that knife to children, and it was a little pack with a grenade and, like, all Rocky's other gear.

That was the symbol of the movie. Like, it's really cool when you watch. It's basically the second character. the movie after Sly. Coach Finstock, Mr. Miyagi, we're best worst life lesson. Just kill Rambo. Just take him out.

Like with all of these movies, just take the guy out. You've already killed all these other people and done horrible things. Don't let the guy linger. Don't let him dangle in a sewage pool. Don't electrocute him when he's not going to die. Just fucking kill him.

Get it over with. Take him out. That's the Scott Evil, Dr. Evil thing. Why don't you just shoot off the power to the head. I have a gun in my room. It's the Scott Evil life lesson.

Just fucking kill him. It's always great advice. I want to get this one at the buzzer. Every office place can be cool if you make it. That hang that they have with Murdoch, I kind of want to go and have a fantasy draft there. Just the box score on that place. You know when it hits me is when Murdoch's like,

give me something cold to drink. And they open the Coke machine, no coins, none of that, just reach in there. I would bet my life that that place has a stack of playboys, a foosball machine, cigarettes around. In Thailand, there's going to be great takeout food.

There's probably karaoke. I kind of want to hang there. That's what I'm saying. There's beers later, you know, for sure. And by the end of that movie, I'm like, fuck the jungle.

I want to go hang with Murdoch and get one of those cold sodas. I'd love that place. So it's basically like a hanger that they put some boards up to surround to make it seem like an office. But then they had all these nooks and crannies. Definitely at TV.

with some sort of weird antenna where they could probably get football games or it sounds pretty cool, right? Yeah, you get to hang out with the indoor aviators guy. He's just wearing the aviators at 10 a night.

I'm with you. It was a cool office. Double feature choice. It's got to be first blood, right? Go first blood, then you go Rambo too. Ben and I did it two weekends ago.

How was that? Honestly, I keep saying honestly in this podcast. That's good. Shoot me straight. He loved first blood. Okay. First Blood is still a fucking banger.

It's so good. It's just a really, really good movie with like a message, natural action. Will Teasel, I can kind of see it a little bit from his side, but he's also the villain.

I don't like him. There's some Korean War background with him where there's clearly like some Korean War or Vietnam War, bad blood. It's just a really well-drawn-out character. I like that he's Caruso's in there and Chris Mulca. and I don't know.

It's just really, really, it just holds up so well. And then it moves right into the second movie that's basically just, you know, a popcorn movie. But the combo of it was really nice. It's like the first one, that image of Rambo with like the jacket on the side of the road, he's so emo and hurt and wounded. The contrast between that and Super Tanned six-pack guy

holding the bullet straps, it's like you're going from Led Zeppelin to like Cinderella. It's just a totally different genre. I love that, though. I would go double, double feature. Fuck it. I'll pay it forward and I'll go Cobra. Oh, you'll do the fly too close to the sun combo?

Or would you do Rocky 4? He checks Stallone from the logo and Rocky 4, Cobra. I do all that stuff. I live for that stuff. And then Stallone wins the movie. I think it's fair to say. Definitely.

I don't know if Craig's coming in or not with his take because he is away, but if he edits it in, we'll throw in a Craig take. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. Kyle Brandt, what he got going on? Plug some stuff. Well, thank you. Bill, I have a book. I have a fucking book. And it is available for pre-order now. I've never written a book before. I work my ass off on it. It's kind of about my really crazy career and a lot of the lessons that I've learned. And it says the young people, hey, I've had a fucking weird career and it's okay if you do too. And I have a very generous contribution from Bill Simmons to that. And it's available now. It's called do you, DOY, period, by Kyle Brand. And I'm going to be.

going to be book guy over the next several months. I've never been it before. What's your advice? Just gently remind people that it's coming, but don't do it too much and make them mad. I know. That's the thing. I know. Just keep reminding people that it's coming. But it's a pre-order. It's a while away, right? It's not until January. Yeah. And it's also like, there's a lot of candy. I reference 152 movies in this in this book. I worked my ass off. And if you like the rewatchables, I think you'll like the book. Did you go into it all while you duck the challenge? Was that a chapter? Yeah, dude. Bill. I go into the conversation you and I had about me ducking the challenge.

If you want to call it ducking, that is in the book. I felt like you ducked because you would have won multiple titles. But I wouldn't be here right now. I'd probably be in a padded cell. I would be somewhere like James Cameron's hospital. Or you'd be on Paramount Plus right now with the guys. Happened to be on Paramount Plus. I don't think it would have been good for my mental health.

The real world was a tough time. Listen, I record, I was the only person who did real world during fucking nine. 9-11. It was a tough four months for a lot of different reasons. It's the only time in the history of the show that the castmates were allowed to watch TV. They brought in a TV for us on 9-11. Bill and I are recording this on 9-11. Yeah, that's true. And we sat down and we just watched it. And honestly, like I say this in the book, I'll tell you now, they did a really, really evil thing where they made it look like we were watching the towers fall down. Oh, they did a weird edit? Yeah. Whereas the shot of us watching the TV was actually like, six hours later. So I see that clip around some time and I think it's evil and fucked up and like I hate it. But obviously I have a lot of baggage about the real world. But that stuff's in there too. Well, we've known each other a long time. You've had a very interesting life. I'm excited to dive into it. But congrats. It's really hard to write a book. I'm always, I've only done two and I don't want to do a third one. I may be one and done, but we'll see.

Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, we know we have Karate Kid 3 coming up later this year. Not I don't know. I almost want to build toward that, almost like the HBO. It's fun. The HBO sneak preview on July 4th, 1986 for Rambo 2. People won't know it's coming, but I know something big's going to happen. But we'll see you in a couple weeks here in the rewatchables. Good luck for the football season as well. Thanks, brother, you too.