The Rewatchables - ‘Rollerball’ (1975) With Bill Simmons and Brian Koppelman

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Brian Koppelman record the first podcast without penalties, substitutions, or time limit as they revisit Norman Jewison’s 1975 classic ‘Rollerball’ starring James Caan, John Houseman, and John Beck. Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Ronak Nair Free eBooks library. It’s on Prime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one creative studio with AI-powered image and video generation. Built for today's creative process, Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast, because the asks aren't getting smaller, and the timelines? Ooh, yeah, still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Learn more at Adobe.com slash Firefly. The rewatchables is brought to by the Ringer podcast network where this guy has not been on in a long time, Brian Coppaman. He's very busy. He's making TV shows, movies. What else are you doing? You're doing a bunch of stuff. You know, I'm just honestly returning your texts. That takes up some time. And it's fun. You had a Nick's run. You had a big Knicks run. You had to divest yourself from emotionally after they beat my team, but then fell apart next round. You had that. You know, I didn't anticipate and I should have. Because, you know, we did this. You already gave me, you basically,

told me what I saw you like two days before. I was at your house two days before the Knicks lost or something, and you were like, just so you know this is ending now. And I was like, what do you mean? And you're like, it's going to end now. So I knew. Well, you'll have you on us. He'll be fine.

We are still doing one word movie month. And this is a movie you and I have talked about for a long time. It's finally happening. 50 year anniversary of this movie coming out. I think two months ago, Rollerball is next. In the not too distant future, wars will no longer exist, but there will be rollerball. Imagine a world without nations.

A few of us making decisions on a global basis. Controlled by corporations. Sickness, no needs, and many luxuries. A society that has abolished love and hate, aggression, and individuality. And replaced them with the most fantastic. fantastic entertainment of all time. Televised to two billion hypnotized viewers. It is more than a game.

It is Rollerball. James Cohn, John Hausman, Rollerball. Rate Adore. This episode of The Rewatchables is presented by Prime. You listen to this podcast for the movie talk. So let's set the scene. Our lead, tall, dark, stranded at the airport. hours of delays. He's scrolled, strolled, and loitered by every overpriced snack stand, but just when

all hope seems lost. Plot twist. He remembers he has Prime. And without a whole library of free e-books ready to read right from his device, cue the triumphant score. Roll credits. Free e-books library. It's on Prime. Brian Coppaman, no player is greater than the game itself. The message of Rollerball, which we've now spent a half century unwinding and completely going in the opposite direction. Not to mention all the other crazy things about this movie. Unbelievable.

The individual bill is not, the whole point of the game is that the individual is not better or more important and can influence the game. Disposable athletes. It was the opposite of the player in power manner. Now we live in a world 50 years after this movie was made where

Devin Booker is signing a $150 million to-year contract extension. And Patrick Mahomes is making $500 million. And there's so many fun sports elements to this. This movie's been in my life, my entire life, much like with you. I'm sure you can't really even remember a life without Rollerball. Are we going to talk later about when you saw this? Or you want to do it now?

No, we can talk about any time you want. I mean, this is the thing. This was the first R-rated movie I got my dad to take me to. Wow. I was nine years old, 1975. So because the commercial, which I want to talk, I'll talk about later in what is most watchable, most rewatchable. But I remember, I like from the moment the first commercial aired because James Con was sunny and James Con was Brian Piccolo. And it was like him, I was a pro wrestling fanatic.

And this looked like every, all those things just lined up. and then you're just sitting there in the movie. It was like a few years later this other friend's dad took us to see Apocalypse now, which is a terrible mistake. But this also was like a real, holy shit, first R-rated movie in the theater. I would love to tell you that I remember

the ticket taker looking at my dad, like don't do it, but they didn't. But I just remember hold my dad's hand going in and see that movie. And my mind was blown by it. I don't remember the first, Bill. I don't remember the first. Not in the theater.

At some point it was on cable. Probably like a lot of other people just got drawn into the games because there's three giant games in this movie. And I don't know which one sucked me in, but over the years just became the most rewatchable movie. And the games are like basically an hour apart. It's the first 10 minutes. And then it's like right around the hour mark

and then the last 15 minutes, obviously. And it's really one of the great first sports movies. If you go through the lineage, of it. It's the longest yard in 74. It's rollerball in 75. It's Rocky and Bad News Bears in 76, slap shot in 77, and we're off. We're just ripping off sports movies and classics, and there's at least one good one year. And this is, you know, an all-time sports movie for me. And in all-time James Kahn, I can't wait to talk about. Was he good in this movie? Was he great? Was he spotty? It's all over the place. But it's also a paranoid, the movie's also a

paranoid thriller. Oh, good. Oh, in the whole parallax view, three days of the Condor whole world. This movie, so it's what's so fucking unbelievable to me about the movie when you, it is like, it is like parallax view network. It goes, it's a year before network. And if you think about what the movie's about, it's, it's as much, yes, it's totally, um, a sports movie, but it's also a paranoid thriller in the shadow of fucking Watergate in Vietnam, man. Right. Well, and the corporations and these shadowy figures are taking over and they're just going to drum out all the individuality that we have. Listen, there's been a lot of science fiction movies over the years. This universe we go into, there's pieces I like. As I was growing up, I'm like, you know, this might not be bad if this is the future. Just get together. There's hot 70s babes everywhere. There's weird parties where we get to set pine trees on. fire and then there's a really violent sport that I could follow. I might be okay. Yeah, they make a really fascinating choice to show, like they only show these couple,

like, classes of people where life doesn't, you can tell that there's in the way that, you know, yeah, at first, right, you're a kid watching, and you're like, oh, look at that. He gets his pick of, uh, women. And then you realize, well, except, uh, the women have not only, they have no say in it. They just get moved around like, not even like chest pieces, like checkers. But then also, he doesn't even get to, he's like, I'd like to keep that one. They're like, no one executive wants. An executive wants her. And then shoop sucked out of his house.

It's basically Raya, the dating app Raya, but you don't have choice in who you end up with. Look, it's trying to say a whole bunch of things and we can get into all of them. But I think ultimately, the reason I love this movie so much is it invents this world, but it invents a sport. It just invents this sport. The sport, it's hockey, it's football, it's roller derby. There's some judo in there. From scratch, the sport doesn't exist.

There's no pieces of it. They're just kind of figuring out in the fly. And the sport becomes so convincing that after this movie came out, they actually, the producers and Norman Jewison director got approached to be like, hey, let's do rollerball leagues. And he was like, the fuck are you talking about? The whole point of this is the sport's too violent. And this is where pro sports is going.

going and we can't have sports like this. But that's how realistic it was. They used a heavy steel ball that nobody can, nobody could pick up. I mean, and that it kills you if you get, if you get hit with it, you know. Yeah. So, yeah, it would have been tough to,

it would have been tough to make it happen. But of course, as a fucking 10 year old, I mean, I would. Yeah, you're like, sure. Let's go. Let's watch it because what's the difference in that and when you're watching pro wrestling? And also, I'm sure, I know you've talked about this before,

but, you know, I mean, there were three channels. and one of them would sometimes have roller derby on. Right. Well, and then we would get, we would get all of those garbage sports on the weekends, the trash sports, superstars, and there's a million version of those.

Why couldn't Brian Oldfield have played, he could have played role well. He would have been great at it, right? I really wish producer Craig, who, by the way, a rarity, I don't know if this has ever had before, he declined his flex category and said, I don't want to weigh in on this film until the end of the movie. So I don't even know what that means.

but I wish producer Craig had been there in the 70s as we had all these ridiculous sports that they fed us because we had three networks. We didn't have enough pro sports to go around. Nobody had figured out any sort of scheduling. And we would just, that battle network stars, every TV star in the universe was just competing against each other

in these weird events. And that was just what we grew up with. But we watched them so closely, dude. And they were all recorded and cut like probably months in advance. Oh, yeah. And now you'd know everything before it happened. You would know when it was happening. Someone would have leaked a piece.

I mean, I'm sure you watched Unreal. And it's incredible how they're even planning. We're not going to put this on TV, but we know social media will catch this. But we were just like suckers sitting at home going. I hope Kyle Root Jr. is able to beat. You know. Gabe Caput would have been like, just beat Bob Conrad in the 100-yard dash, like doing a selfie. Yeah, it would have ruined everything.

But yeah, so Roller Derby was the sport that was on. So it was pro wrestling. I remember watching the NASL. And if people are competing, I was probably watching, this seemed like an insanely great version of it. I mean, I don't even think Craig could picture, like, what we had to eat when we were watching that. Like pizzas that were like a puck,

they weren't even like, right, that had like the pizza on the inside. I mean, we were living like animals, Bill. Yeah, we had Stoufers, mac and cheese. That was a big one. Or those little Swanson turkey dinner. Yeah, it was just spaghetti and meatballs, whatever we're doing. All right, so I think this movie's set maybe 45 to 50 years in the future.

What do you think? They never really say, but it's somewhere like... 2018. 2018 is officially? Yeah. Okay. Because I had that in my notes and I wasn't, I didn't feel 100% on it. I think so.

Yeah, I think you might be right. I dug out the original, I dug out the short story that it was based on, too. Oh, nice. It doesn't say 2018, but it gives some context for it. it feels like it's probably set from that. Yeah, so that's like 40 plus years in the future. Free speech discouraged. No more schooling.

Now we have conditioning. Just about everybody making meager wages, but poverty is basically gone because everybody makes the same amount. We have, I guess, controlled television. We have weird food situations where there's just like envelopes. I don't even know what's got.

I guess that's like pre-postmates. There's no kids. anywhere, there's no kid in this entire movie. There's no babies or kids. I know what they're having them, but we never see one, right? Yeah, and you have to get, it's like, you have to get permission to have kids. That's in the story, but you can see in all those futuristic movies like that. It's very, right, because the resources are scarce and they want to control, and so not everyone

gets permission to have kids. There's no dogs. There's no rescue dogs. Like, now Rollerball would just be like, Jonathan E has three dogs. There's no last names even. Yeah, true. True. So anyway, rollerball emerges and it symbolizes the futility of individual achievement because people just die. I can't wait to talk about the stats from this later,

but just people routinely die. Multiple people die in a game. And yet here's our guy, Jonathan, he played by James Kahn, who's transcended a game. What is he? He's Brady crossed with Michael Jordan, crossed with Ali. Is that what we're supposed to think? Ten years. just winning every year? Yeah, Tiger, Jordan, Brady. He's on that list. Never gets mentioned with the greats, in my opinion. I think Jonathan, but I would say as a kid that stayed with us,

also because everything James Con brought to it. I mean, you and I have talked about James Con when we did misery. Yeah. But then also, when he died, you had me come on the pod, and we talked about him on the pod, I think. But you started already by asking what I mean, what do you think? of the performance. I have a lot of thoughts on it. So, but what, how do you, how does it hit you, man? I'm going to do my hottest take right now. So this is my CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been

Harrison Ford, hottest take award. Of all the sports movies, this is my single favorite, great one minute, terrible, the next minute performance anyone's given. It's, there's entire scenes where he just seems checked out and he's just muttering his words and I have no idea what he's going for. And then there's other. scenes where he becomes sunny Corleone as a rollerball player, he's carrying the mystique and charisma of an A-plus-plus list athlete perfectly. And yet I don't really understand what he's doing with some of the, he's just kind of monitoring his lines like this and seems kind of vaguely drugged out. I don't really understand the performance, but I love it. I really love it. I love the performance.

First of all, I think it's important. If you think about it, he's the most credible over and over when he did this. was the most credible athlete, like, in a movie when... Him and Reynolds. I would say him or Bert Reynolds were the two where I actually felt athletically they could hang in any situation. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing in The Gambler when he loses the basketball game because, like, you're so used to seeing James Con win and be amazing at sports. But also in this, just the physical condition he came in at to do this movie, he basically

has, like, that V-Taper. He looks like Roman Gabriel or something like that the way he's built. And it, right? I mean, it's amazing how fucking, you just don't question. Because that's the first, we've talked about this a lot, like in life, too. The moment you see an actor throw a ball and they can't really throw the ball or hit a tennis ball and they can't really hit it, it takes you right out of the movie. And there's not a second of this when he's doing the sports.

Also, like, the look in his eye when he's playing the sports and just, you know, the entire, like, fucking capability. And then I have a slightly different take. I think he's a guy who's been kind of asleep, lulled into sleep by this world that he's been put in. And that's why he's playing it that way. I think you're right. Come to life when he's playing the sport. And don't ask questions and don't think about anything. Your houses are delivered to you.

Women are delivered to you. Money is delivered. You have to get to the game and you have to be in game shape. And that's basically all you have to do. Well, what's your take on the white pill they give them? because that seems like at least part of like why they, everybody seems a little zonked out. Well,

the executives take it to dream of being athletes and the athletes take it to dream of being executives, right? And it's like MDMA before MDMA, probably. I think it kind of just makes you, just kind of just makes you float, right? And, uh, and feel good. Well,

this is like what we talked about after Khan died, like just such an alpha. just to kind of, when we always talk about, why don't we have like lead actors anymore? You know, where are they? Or we have pieces of these guys, but not 100% of them. And I think back to Reynolds and Longest Yard and then in deliverance and then Con in this movie. And him as Sunny Corleone, nobody pulled off the sleeveless white t-shirt, which we called 50 years ago, the wife beater no longer allowed to say that.

But the sleeveless white t-shirt, he looked the best in it. He just had the best shoulders and just always looked like he was about to either bring his gumar over or go outside and get in a fight in an alley with somebody. He just, he always had it. And he had it in this movie, just alpha all the time. It's the show, yeah, the shoulders, the hip ratio. Nobody else had that. But I also, I think, you know, it's funny.

You texted me and you were like, because I don't want to undersell this to people listening who don't know the movie. You text me and say it is like the most bad shit insane. there's no other movie really that's like this because it is half a sports movie and half a paranoid thriller and it's a dystopian science fiction movie it's a dystopian science fiction future that's supposed to telegraph what's going to happen in the world and in the middle of it is the greatest made up sporting contest ever and so yeah this i think in the times people didn't understand it it's actually uh i think it's a great movie and

Like a, not just like super fun movie. Like, I think on reflection, it got so much shit right about, yes, who, whether the play, because the end of the movie does introduce the player empowerment era. The whole point is they're trying to stop the player empowerment era. Yeah. And the human empowerment era of people who are just workers, because it's a worker revolt movie too. And at the end, the whole point is the individual can. And it is, this movie is super fun.

You could fucking get stoned and watch it or drunk and watch it, but you could also watch it with like a class of philosophy majors and pencils and pens. That's what's so incredible about it. It kind of can hit you wherever you are. Yeah. And so usually when a movie like this works, they put so much thought into everything. So I even think about this fake sport they created, there are all these little wrinkles with it that are so fucking cool.

Like when the guys, when the guys are skating around, round in the pregame warmups and they all have their little gimmick it's almost like the warriors and the you know in the in the gang when each gang has their different gimmick like the Tokyo team does this and then the uh houston team they they have like they they swerve more but they say that you have that you have like i really feel like they put thought into like we're going to have six skaters there's a guy who scoops the ball up and then there's three guys on motorcycles and you're going to see the rosters and the lights are going to go out if somebody got hurt and there's going to be subs and it's going to move like a sporting event.

And you watch and you're like, how the fuck did they come up with this? They created a sport. That's the other thing that's so amazing, the motorcycles. Like when you were a kid and suddenly there were motorcycles mixing in and guys get knocked off their motorcycles, it was like one of the most, first, it's so fucking dark and brutal, but they, you know, they show you the bloodlust of the audience and you get caught in it when you're in the movie theater. And, uh, and yeah, I mean, you know, obviously that scene when the coach comes in,

the specialist coach comes in to tell them about the Tokyo team and the players don't want to listen. I mean, that is so much like the way you hear about players now, not wanting to be coach sometimes, but also totally racist. And the movie's super got a ton of that racist shit. Oh, it's mid-sad, it's 50 years ago. But like that moment, when you were a kid in the theater, well, at home, watching the commercials. And yeah, when the Tokyo team does that turn, that one move toward

the center of the floor, you were just like that. I got to see that. Like, anything I have to do to see that. And everyone walked around, imitate. I mean, didn't you walk or, I mean, you just walked around trying to do that thing like that they do when they go low. All right. It's so cool. Well, it combines so many things we loved as kids, right? Because even you have like, like the roller derby, all these stupid. sports that we were watching nonstop. Then you have the uniforms. Then you have like an easy, easy sport to follow. It's like there's only a couple goals in every game, right? So it's like a little

like soccer cross. But then it has the violence of football, which is really what I think this movie, I don't know if it's about the violence of football or the violence of sports in general, but now I think 50 years later, UFC is 25 years away from being created. The power slap league is 45 years from being created. Football, by the time we get to the late 70s, there's that famous CBS montage of the pregame show. And it's just guys getting nailed. It's on YouTube every once in a while.

It's like, it da da da da da da. It's the Brett Musburger. And each thing is just a football player getting demolished. And this is what sports was kind of like, but nobody was putting in any perspective. So I think that's what they're trying to say. Yeah.

Well, they're trying to say that the gladiator thing never went away. It's never that far away, right? That will always show up for the gladiators. And we're always trying to find a way to kind of justify, like, you know, bloodsport. And we are, right? I mean, I'm no better. I watched UFC one, literally watched USC one, two, and three. I could tell you what those fights were like.

Like, we all locked in. And that was the closest thing. It was really close to rollerball. I'm not sure you're going to talk about Norman Jewison. but, you know, when you said, oh, they really were careful. I mean, one of the most fascinating director runs, because this guy made absolute Stone Cold Classics, and then he missed wide, you know, but was a great,

in the end, a really, really important filmmaker. I mean, listen, the guy made Cincinnati Kid, which, as you can imagine, real important me. Right, that's 1965. Yeah. And he is almost a four-decade run, because he, you know, he has the right. Russians are coming. The Russians are coming in the heathed

the night, Thomas Crown Affair. And it's like, wow, this guy's doing great. Then he has Fiddler in the roof and Jesus Christ superstar back to back. That's weird. Rollerball, fist, and justice for all. And then he just kind of keeps going as moonstruck. He ends with the hurricane in 1999.

I mean, he sounds like a... He gets to have a hurricane as like, you know, right there toward the end. I mean, I'm wearing I'm wearing my expo's hat as a little salute to Canadian Norman Jewison. Yeah. Yeah. Important director. I think it's fascinating that he thought people would be appalled by the violence in this movie.

And then they were like, yo, any interest in starting a roller ball league? And he's like, what's going on? The ending in this movie is one of the better endings in a sports movie with the dead silent crowd. The ball goes in. And then Jonathan, like, skating faster and faster in the way they do it. the music, some of the opera stuff they use. Oh,

and then the cut, the cut to, you know, the terrible, ineffective coach, uh, suddenly chanting Jonathan with everybody. Yeah,

yeah, I agree with you. That's good, dude. Yeah, it's a really perfect, uh, it is a perfect ending.

But it leads you, does that ending, uh, did it always leave you feeling good? Because the ending leaves me feeling, um, not a little bit, I mean, you're so happy that Jonathan lived,

but it's not like it's everybody else is dead. I love the ending, and I'm in on Jonathan. I think he's back for Year 11. It's like LeBron. Jonathan, he's doing Instagram things over the summer. Get ready for Rollerball Year 11. I'm going to miss all of my teammates because they're all dead. Hopefully I'll have other teammates.

Can we talk about the corporate autocracy? the population is now concentrated in a six corporate global city-states, transport, food, communication, housing, luxury, and energy. And Houston's in the energy sector. And Hausman seems like he's the head of all these people. But basically, we learned the executive class rules all. All the nations are bankrupt and gone. It's just these six places.

And then I think each one has a rollerball team. Was my take? I think that's a 16 league. It's not said super clearly, but I think that's right. So if you, so transport food, communication, housing, luxury, and energy, which one do you think New York was? Because New York's the final team in the movie. Maybe transportation.

Transportation. Luxury, maybe. Because they also said there's a Rome-Pittsburg game, they mentioned. So maybe the league has more than, I don't know, we know of six. cities. So could Pittsburgh, New York, and Houston have been the three American cities? And then we have Madrid, Tokyo. You know, that's a big online argument. That's a big online argument right now is what are the four major cities? You know, that's a huge TikTok thing right now. The four major New York, four major cities. Yeah, people are really arguing about it. So now you can introduce this into it.

That maybe there are just three. Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, New York Houston. We've already solved this, guys. And then Los Angeles just gets cut out completely and roll up. apparently. We have no LA team. Housman, another guy we grew up with, his eyebrows, I don't know if you got to watch this in a nice big HD TV. His eyebrows

are a supporting actor in the movie. It's unlike anything I've ever seen. I did not, I watched it on TV. Like, I watched it on a big TV screen. Yeah. Again, I've watched it on computer too, but I just watched it on the big screen thing. That moment, Housman's whole career, he never had a moment like when he enters the thing with the two girls. You've never seen Housman. He's,

usually like, you know, behind a desk teaching a law class or in a commercial barking at somebody about business. And then here he gets to, in that same corporate thing, but he's entering with just these, you know, these two courtesons because that's what they are in this movie there, corisons. And I thought that was, I'm just picturing him doing the small, like when they said cut, I was thinking about when they said cut, you know, has been turning to them and just whatever that conversation. Hey, ladies.

Yeah, what was that? You know, because that party's one of the strangest scenes in any movie I've ever seen in my life. I cannot absolutely wait to talk about it. Houseman, James Mason, James Mason, it's been disallowed. Like, just the distinct voices that we don't have guys like that anymore either. Who's our distinct voice English actor guy in 2025?

Do we have one? I think there are a couple of them. I mean, we did. Yeah, we have a couple of them. As good as Hausman? Like, Howsman calls you and you're trying to convince them to be on your new TV show. and you would just be in awe

the entire Zoom of every sentence he said. Yeah, I mean, I guess Dave Judy Dench is probably like that person in a way if you think about it. She has that. You know it's like

from that point of view. And yeah, most of the British actors now, they act in American accents so frequently so it doesn't feel like that, right? They would have that guy the American now. How did you feel about the corporate autocracy

that they lay out now that we're in 2025 and we're being run by a bunch of corporations. It's kind of weird. I mean, literally we're being run by like five corporations. I mean, literally, there's not one person listening who wants to hear me talk about this. We're going to move on then.

James Kahn, 1971 Brian's song, 72, The Godfather, 74 Freebie and the Bean, 74 the gambler, 75 funny lady with Barbara Streisand, 75 rollerball. That's all in five years. The wheels come off a little bit, I think, for our guy, Jimmy. There's some Playboy Mansion. I was going to say, he started really living like Jonathan. The IMDB gets rocky. There's a brief comeback from 79 to 81 with Chapter 2 in Thief. And then in 82, he's in Bolera with Bo Derek and some movie called Kiss Me Goodbye,

disappears for five years, stops acting. And I think when people talk about who was the craziest during the cocaine era, he's always mentioned as a how is he still alive guy. What's interesting about his movie career, he turned down the following movies, French connection, one floor over the cuckoo's nest, close encounters,

Superman, and Kramer versus Kramer. This guy after Redford and maybe Newman was the third call, I think, and maybe Reynolds, maybe it was three A, three B. Jack also,

but Jack turned everything down. Yeah, I think people knew not even know call Jack. Yeah, But he was in that world, though, where he's just, I mean, if he has two of those, his 70s are even... But then, it's so great because he gets the amazing comeback then, right? He gets his own TV series. He gets misery.

I mean, it all turns around. He does get a great sort of last bunch of years, I think, where he got to be James Con again. And he got to watch his son become television star and all that stuff. But yeah, the lost years of him and... some, you know, then a bunch of unsavory guys hanging around at the Playboy Mansion, you know, trading, getting a hang with James Con for Coke. I agree. It's a tough, it's a tough moment for the guy. Have you ever, have you and Levine ever kicked the tires on a Playboy Mansion late 70s scripted series or no? People have, yeah, that's for the next time we see you, that's our one

meeting with Oliver Stone. I'll tell you another time. Okay, that sounds great. Oliver Stone wanted to make that Q. Fner. It's one of those great ideas that'll never happen. Yeah. One other thing about rollerball, I forgot to mention. Juison and the production designer, John Box, what a combo. They designed the track.

They wanted it to be like a roulette wheel crossed with a pinball machine. And they found this guy, Herbert Sherman, who had previously designed the track at the 72 Munich Olympics. And they came up with that thing, which now, like, when you watch, the Summer Olympics, they had those

Velodomes or whatever those are called. It's a little like that, same thing, where it's like an un-aslanted whatever. And it was in Germany, right? They built it in Germany. Right. And they filmed all the stuff. They made it seem like it was different cities, but it wasn't. It was so realistic, they would play it between takes and on, off

things, and the stunt people and people just making the movie, they were like, hey, do you want to play a little rollerball for a half hour? Like, it was so much fun to skate around. And that was it. The, uh, I, today I was listening to a, uh, behind the scenes thing that Norman Jewison and a few of these other guys talked on. And one of them, they said that the production designer, that I, uh, he was the production designer of Lawrence of Arabia. So he, that guy had done in, you know, truly like incredible shit. And this is the first movie ever that the stunt people were credited on individually. Right. And they made sure of it because it was so hard. Like, like, and, you know, James Cun did a lot of his own stunts. Well, when you watch it and you know there's no CGI,

half of the stunts, you're like, man, that looks like that guy got hurt. You know how they did it. Half the time their head's just bouncing against the track. Yeah, I found this thing this afternoon. I'll send it to you behind the sun behind the scenes footage that shows the, like the ball getting released and where they were all standing. But yeah, they released the ball, obviously. And then, I mean, they did all that.

Like, yeah, there's no CGI like a guy had to bend down and pick it up in his glove. They really did that. They really had the motorcycles and they really had the dudes behind motorcycles. Like they were practical doing all that. There's no steady cam back then either. So I don't know how they filmed some of the camera stuff because the steady cam didn't come until the year later. That's the other thing in this movie that now it seems like, oh yeah, it makes sense. They did this. In 1975, they weren't making movies like this because you had the football scene in the longest yard, which we covered a previous watcherables. And you had this. And it was like, there was nothing like this in a movie theater before. It was a little like the French connection.

car chase and, you know, these seminal moments in the 70s. Yeah, you couldn't understand. I can't believe that happened. Yeah, you can't understand how the hell, you can't really understand when you're watching it how the hell they shot some of these sequences. Not just the fight, but like when, you know, Moonpie has that little tough moment. I mean, that's just incredible the way that they shot it and the way that they staged it. And you really feel it, you know.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, because we've taught we did close encounters, we've done Jaws, obviously. There were these, how the hell did they do that moment that you had in the theater? Because you just had never seen anything like it. Now I feel like that shit. In 2025, I don't think those exist anymore. And we're just so conditioned to CGI and crazy stuff. I can't remember the last time I sat in the theater.

That's what was so cool about F1. When seeing that in the theater, it was like, wow, how'd they do this? You know, like how'd they film that crash like that? And then you felt like you were in the race. It was a rare time of having that excitement in theater. Yeah, have you seen that, that's what's so crazy. Have you seen that moment where Stallone is talking about how he wouldn't consider

Michael B. Jordan, a real member of the Rocky family? Oh, yeah, yeah. Michael B. Jordan told that story on my podcast like three years ago. He had to take a punch. Have you seen the clip? I mean, there's a clip. Yeah. Yeah.

And I guess it was, it wasn't Andrew. It wasn't Andrew Tarver, right? It was one of the, one of the sparring partners. But they, yeah. I can't even believe 10 years ago that happened. They would net, I mean, there's no. No, they would have CGA had everything. You mentioned William Harrison wrote rollerball murder in September 1973, Esquire.

They didn't mention the sport that much. But that's how this all got going. Jeeveson got excited about it. His goal was to show the sickness and insanity of contact sports in their allure. Mission not accomplished. Football became way bigger right after this movie, not because of the movie. There's a United Artist, things I just wanted to mention quickly, the production company that made this. They were bought by a bigger company called Trans America in 1967.

They rolled off in the heat of the night, the graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Last Tango, Cuckoo's Nest, Rocky, Annie Hall. And then in 79, Rocky 2 Manhattan, Moonwaker, and Black Stallion. But then Heaven's Gate happened, which was immortalized in the final cut. but they were on the cutting edge with some of these movies including this one. I almost felt like they were a little A24-ish, like taking crazy, crazy wrists.

Like, I can't imagine anybody even greenlighting this movie. Well, this is the 70s movies that people talk about. You know, I'm sure you know this, but he said it on my podcast for the first time, and then I think he's talked about it on the thing he does with Avery.

But, you know, Quentin Tarantino is still saving this movie to watch. Of all the 70s movies, this is the one that's like canonical that he's never seen, and he's saving it. Interesting. That's like me and the Big Lebowski. Still haven't seen it.

Yeah, I don't understand it with him. I don't understand it on 4K Blu-ray. I'm just saving it. Have your kids watched Lobowski? I'm just saving it for the perfect day, and I'm going to dive into it and get really into it. Oh, yeah, you got to watch it. But same thing, Quentin, for whatever reason,

talks about the 70s more than anybody else, right? Written all about the one. He still hasn't watched Roll the ball. He's still saving it. It's so weird because this combines so many different things of movies that he loves. I know. It's hard to understand. Like a great alpha star performance, like a weird sport, a weird world, a good director.

Most critics were lukewarm in this movie. It was $6 million budget made $30 million. Vincent Canby, New York Times. Rollerball isn't a satire. It's not funny at all. Not being funny. It becomes instead frivolous. He can fuck off.

Gene Siskel, two stars. A movie in love with you. with itself, vapid, pretentious, and arrogant. Raj could not find a review, but he did give this movie three and a half stars, but the review is not online. James Khan in 1977 rated all his films and rated Rollerball an 8 out of 10,

but said he couldn't do much with the character, was his scouting report on himself. So there you go. We're going to take a break, and then we're going to do most rewatchable scene. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Sure, we're called the rewatchables. And yeah, we usually rewatch movies obsessively,

but every now and then we trade screenplays for e-books. Some moments just call for it. Like when the credits roll and you're still in movie mode, but your watch list is empty. Or when everyone says the original story is better than the movie, and you've got to see what the hype's about. Prime gives you access to a whole library of free e-books so you can swap the re-watch for a reread or try something new.

Free e-books library. It's on prime. Most rewatchable scene. The opening, everything, first 10 minutes. The opening credits with the music. We got a little box tecata. Fug and D minor. I was practicing those.

I got to give a shout out. I got to give a shout out because the most incredible thing, one of the most incredible things of my childhood was our friend Peters is O' figured out how to play boxedicada and fugue and D minor on electric guitar like Eddie Van Halen. So shout out. For real, it was incredible. Yep. That's why I know what that is.

We get pregame warmups, Houston, Madrid. By the way, we forgot to mention they created the corporate national anthem for this. And it's pretty good. It's crazy, though. That's a crazy thing. It's an amazing moment. Yep, agreed. And then Jonathan has three goals.

We get to watch what the game is. They do a nice job, some wide shots close up. And it's like, what? And by five minutes, you understand everything. And then we have Jonathan scoring over and over again. And then with Moon Pie. I love this game, Moon Pie. What are your Moonpie thoughts played by John Beck?

The swooper? Moon Pie was the mustache guy. Yeah, but he's also the swooper, right? Because he's the one who, they call him his position. It's the only position that's stated in the movie is swooper, which is just because he comes swooping down from the top and knocks the guy off the motorcycle. Right.

He's like, I don't know, is he like a left tackle? What is it? That's his move, right? His move is to. Defensive end? Yeah. I love it. Stay close.

to me. Stay close. You're right? He's got to stay close. Protects Jimmy Con and then Khan. A lot of charisma on Moon Pie. So I got that one. I got Jonathan's lecture to the team when Tuffy decides to make a run at him. And we had to see Con in a sleeveless white t-shirt. I have the interview with Jonathan and his latest girlfriend with the stats guy. When we find out most points in the game was 18. The guy says I'm a big stats guy. This is 1975. No, but like Bill James hadn't even written

the baseball abstract yet. This might have been, this guy might have inspired Bill James for all we know. Most velocity shot out for the ball was 120 miles an hour. Most deaths, nine.

Caused by, yeah, this was for me, the, if you had a category that was like, you know, the money ball category

for the greatest stat. I mean, to me, you know, the best sort of war kind of stat was that Jonathan had, nine deaths in a game. So Jonathan had the record for most injuries caused by one guy, 13.

13, yeah, 13 injuries caused by one guy. And then most S was nine, Rome versus Pittsburgh. What happened in that game? Because they had penalties and they had all the old rules. The Rome, Pittsburgh, obviously, a lot of bad blood. We see that could beat twice. The crazy futuristic party. I wrote down, it's like, eyes wide shut, crossed with ice storm, crossed with the shining.

I don't know what's happening in this party. they're screening Jonathan's special retirement show but he doesn't actually retire they have like a prototype for a big ass plasma it's about as big a TV as you've seen in a 70s movie

people are they escorts or is it like a call girl party is this like a prototype for Heidi Flace in the 80s I think it's the scene that pulls back if you're watching that movie and you just are kind of going along

thinking oh, it looks like things are all right. I think that's the scene that really shows you that you're living in one of those futures that is super fucked up and dark and that very few people have any rights at all. And like not in the... I think the point they're trying to make

in that really so fucked. First of all, everybody's on these super designer drugs that probably were barely invented, some combination of quailudes and Molly. and they're all taking them and passing them around and kind of drifting into this place you described James Kahn's performance as being. But each of those women and men are just kind of describing that the women were kind of shuttled to the men, kind of ordered to be with them.

And nobody, like you said, there's no kids, but I would say there's no love. It's a world that almost has prescribed love, you know, gotten rid of, of love because like I think that's part of what you're supposed to feel in that scene because if you think about it even by the when Jonathan thinks and at first convinced himself he used to be in love he realizes no that's not true either and I think that's part of what's going on in that scene and that one shot to the woman is just crying randomly crying it's fucking insane uh and uh it is one of the strangest scene it goes on forever and like at first you're like this is going on four minutes too long. But by the end of it, you're like, I think they might have earned it. I think it might have

been okay. Like, I think they somehow earn a gun. Once we get outside, shooting a fire gun at pine trees, then it suddenly becomes like this environmental movie, like where you're supposed to understand these people don't give a shit. It's like, it's like they say all this, but what's different than the way someone would do that movie now is someone would take a half hour to make a lecture about why these people are bad. What's so great about this movie is it lets you just watch it and decide. Watch the movie. Yeah. He's not lecturing at you. You just see a cut to these like naked, wild, beautiful people or whatever. And suddenly they have super weapons like, you know, a cartoon, like a men and black level weapons, like the little tiny, you know.

And, yeah, we don't have those now. No, they don't exist. Now you just flick the thing and then hoosh, yeah, trees go up. It's crazy. Totally crazy. For me, the best scene. Wait, we're not done yet. I have a couple more on.

But for that futuristic party, I'm adding a special category. we don't get to give out very often. The Mallory Rubin Award for, did this movie need a better sex scene? Or in this case, did this movie need a sex scene? You've already given me the hard R. It's a rated R in 1975.

I just feel like this party could have been a little friscier. It must have been on the cut of floor. Norman Jewison, we're not judging you. It must have been in the cutter of floor. Everyone's drinking and they're hanging and it's feeling very ice storm, key party-ish. and then we just all of a sudden we're shooting trees.

Yeah. I think we missed out. A couple more. Tokyo versus Houston. No penalties. What a monkey wrench. Can you imagine if the NFL is like AFC championship game?

No penalties. We would be like, what? No penalties. But that's also the moment that like that's the toughest as a, I'll just say, screenwriting wise, that's the toughest moment in the movie. is all John Housman wants,

and he's the most powerful man in the world. Yes, there's these three people or four people you find out who are above him. But basically, he is the acts out the wishes, right? He is the most powerful man in the universe. And all he wants is to get Jonathan to quit playing the game. And the whole movie is about, how do I convince Jonathan to quit?

I just, I'll do anything. Jonathan, there's nothing you can't have. And it's like one of those old jokes, nothing. And then Jonathan looks at him and goes, okay, but all I need is that my, I will quit. I'll do everything you want. I won't destabilize the entire world you built by proving the individual is the better.

I will quit. All you have to do is put the rules back in the game. And Houseman's like, well, I can't do that. That's what, we've already announced it. We've already announced it. You see, if people can't have babies, the women are ripped out of housing to go to other. You can do anything you want. You don't want to disappoint the fans?

It's like Bud Selle calling that game in whatever. It's like, you do anything you want. What inning was that where he just decided you can't keep going? Yeah, he just stopped. Yeah, the all-ser game. One of the worst moves of history of sports. That's a great one. That's a very good weak link for this movie.

I had one as well. The Tokyo v. Houston, I mentioned I love the warm-up. This game gets more and more violent, culminating in the... Jonathan just gets pissed. He starts wreaking havoc, and they knocked that one guy down, and he drags the guy over to where the rollerball is getting released, and the thing just nails his head. It's like, oh, my God.

That was the moment that nine-year-old me, that very moment was the moment nine-year-old me was like, I might not belong in this movie theater. You know that moment where you're like nine or ten, you're watching something that's above your grade? Yeah. I just remember that guy, that ball hitting that guy's head and killing him like that.

And you're just like, Jesus Christ. That was me at the shining at age 10 when Scatman Crothers took the axe. Oh. I was like, what just, what? I love that guy. Well, that's particularly cruel because he's the most lovable character

in the history of cinema. If you made a list of them, 10 most lovable characters in the history of cinema, scatman crothers in The Shining is like number four. Yeah, yeah. It's terrible moment. I agree, horrible.

He has two naked lady paintings on each side of his bedroom and wherever the hell he lives. I love that guy. Well, and then Tokyo versus Houston, we get the moon pie death, which is just an absolute gut punch. It's up there with, for me,

I mean, not everyone knows this movie, but for me, it's up there with Goose and Top Gun and, like, some of the great Sunny getting shot at the Toad Booth. Like, I just fucking love Moon. I got to be Christian. I got to be Christian Sean in this moment. No, it's not. It's not in the leading of most moments.

I love this movie. Oh, it's like they kill Moon Pie. Like, don't kill Moon Pie. I love Moon Pie. Hilarious. You're not giving me Goose? No. I mean, Goose, I could, if you just talked a little bit more about,

if you talked a little bit more about Goose's death, I could cry right now. Like Moonpie, I can just, Moonpie's a murderer. They're all murdering. All these fucking dudes are murderers, man. They have no choice. They're in a capitocracy. What's it called?

No, they are in what, KK. Cap, yeah, Kakas. No, it's Kaka, right? Yeah. Cap, cap. No, you're saying kleptocracy, but no, the other one is the cackistocracy, which is the one where it's, uh, the entire thing is just rigged up like that. Yeah.

Two more. Jonathan, uh, finally realizes Ella, the lady, daddy's love forever, that the whole thing's fraudulent. She's trying to convince him come back, and he erases her videos that he always watches right in front of her. Good breakup. Maude Adams, wow. Wow.

Just looks fantastic. But also gives you a hint, though, that what James Kahn is doing in the movie is what was asked of him, because all those scenes, everybody's kind of playing those scenes that way. The only one who doesn't really is, in that little world of that stuff.

The only one doesn't is, you know, his former player coach who's now an executive, the guy he has the, you know, the meeting with, he's constantly asking him, please, constantly asking him to get him information. But everyone else plays the whole thing, like they're just slightly under being away. They're just not quite awake.

The final game, the last thing, Houston versus New York. I love, there's so many great things about this game. I love when, uh, the game's going on. There's no penalties and it's basically like, there's only going to be one person a lot. at the end of this.

And then the coaches are getting mad about cheap shots. It's like, this is a fight to the death where you can't be upset that somebody just got clothesline. They're not going to call anything. There's no penalties. Do you have the best quote of the movie category coming up at all? Well, we can put it right here. Game?

Yeah, that's it. Right? That's got to be. I mean, that's got to be it. It wasn't meant to be a game ever. Because it's not a dialogue heavy film. That's the line. That, to me, that's the number one line in the film.

Yeah. Well, everyone goes down in the first period. One of the great first periods. Terrible game plan. We get some strategy. It's just Jonathan. He's already banged up. Got a guy and then his buddy with the motorcycle and there's a fire.

And they just basically Buffalo bills it. This is like watching Josh Allen against the chief. Like, it's like, you have everything. It's fourth and one. Just get the first down. They overthink it. They do a one-in-a-time thing, and Jonathan just demolishes them. You think it's like Pete Carroll level.

The Malcolm Butler play. Yeah. You have it. It's two against one. This is a wrap. Yeah, the thing is, though, there's a great freeze frame in that when he kills the guy right up against the executives. And one of them, the younger one, has this look on his. face. Oh, he's like just bloodthirsty. It's just what Norman Jewison was going for. You can imagine

this book that actually like he he said to the assistant director like, okay, that guy sitting next to John Housman is very important. I need that guy to be awesome. Like we need somebody good in that seat. That was like my son, my son, um, ring side for UFC when Tuporia knocked out, knocked out the guy in the main event. My son would basically have that look on his face. I, this is too good for probably an answerable question. So I'm putting in a, here. Is this the number one craziest sports movies sporting event you could have gone to? The Houston, New York, rollerball finals, no penalties. There's only going to be one live, one, like, where would you have wanted to sit? Would you want to have been, would you have been

right on the glass or would you live a little further back in case a motorcycle guy went in? Like, what would your move have been? Where would you want to sit? Luxury Box? I don't think there's any, I, I love this question. This is. This is like an amazing, a whole podcast, you should do a whole podcast on this. This is an incredible question. This is a roundtable, get to your good friends, and this is the best. Yeah. I can't believe you've never done.

It's amazing. We've intermittently done pieces of it and rewatchables. Because to me, no, the Mr. T-Fa-Fi, you got to go to Clubberlang. Clubberlang is the fight. If you could see anything, the rematch. Think about what the build-up would have been to the Clubber-Lang rematch. Like with me, just think about what you would have been feeling in the world to to that to go to that fight.

Well, you could do the Drago fight when the Russian crowd turns. I think, honestly, Creed Balboa, the second fight. The second fight, yeah, Rocky 2. It's pretty good. I was thinking, I remember doing this as a mailbag question

a million years ago. I think the natural Roy Hobbs hitting the game, pennant-winning Homer and knocking the lights out, I think, would have been pretty great. But Clubberlain, because of what he said,

about Adrian and just how much he baited him in. And I think if you were a Rocky fan, which you would have been as a kid, right? And in real life, I think it would have been like Ali Fraser times 10. Like you just... Well, none of these is the actual answer because I think we did answer this once.

It's the soccer game in victory. Sure. It's Pelea bicycle kick. Yeah. The moral victory of winning, but they call the goal back. And then Stallone stopping the penalty. and then everyone escaping.

It's a sporting event mixed with the great escape. So you go to the game, you're under some sort of rule. You actually get to escape. I think that's the winner. I also would have wanted to be there for shoot versus Loudouns and Swayne. 100%. I've referenced, David, and I've referenced that fucking movie and thing,

like everything we've ever done. I'll agree with you. Couldn't agree more. Major League, those guys win in. Frank Ducks, I think, beating Chung Lee in blood sport. I mean, you know,

a little darker, but I think it would have been cool to see I mean, and then you want to see Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's fight in the Bruce Lee movie. If you're going there,

that would have been pretty amazing. Yeah, they had no spectators for that, but I mean, I'm saying, it wouldn't have been great to be able to be there? Costner and perfect game

and for love of the game? Yankee Stadium? You wish the movie was just one notch. You wish the movie was one notch. One notch. I still don't mind it.

Okay. What's the most 1975 thing about this movie. Sorry, we're really wrong, by the way. Obviously, it's the fight in the gym between... Oh, the secret third... It's the secret fight between Apollo.

Creed Bobboa fight. I just realized that, right? I mean, that's where you got... I mean, you tell your friends forever. You'd never stop talking about it. Worst sporting event to go to from a movie? The million-dollar baby fight? Tough.

Oh, God. Horrible. The worst thing ever, the dead gets. Can you imagine me like, like, ah, let's just... go, let's get our car. No, but you know, you would have been worse than that. But you know that I'm of the generation. You were too young, but I watched the boomo man

Ciducu Kim in real time. I watched it too. CBS. I watched it in real time. I swear like I'm not making it because of the stars. CBS during the day. Yeah, it was awful. I'll never forget watching it. I'll never forget trying to track because we couldn't. This is another thing nobody can understand.

I'm sorry that we're old. I'm old. Like, you didn't know what happens until the next day. Couldn't track it until the newspaper. Yeah. Like you would watch the news at night and hope they would tell you. And then you had to wait to read the newspaper the next day. And the next day, because it took two days, I think. Like, you had to find that out, like, 48 hours later.

Yeah. Most 1970-thous thing about this movie, I'm either going with the 70s babes, just the look of the women in this movie, which is very Charlie's Angels, first season three's company, or that they thought in 1975 that the future would not have cell phones or the internet. Because they kind of had that computer. It was like the cloud, basically. basically, which is what we have now, but they just didn't, they felt like it was going to be in

some, in water, in some sort of factory in Geneva. And it's like, no, it's actually just going to be in the air. I'm going to be talking to my friend Coppoman right now on Wi-Fi. I think it's, I think it's, I think it's that they let, they let an actor hit a heavy bag with no, with just his bear. Nobody would let, they let an actor who's not in a boxing movie hit a heavy bag. with nothing on his hand. Like everything we know now, if you saw a friend of yours hitting a heavy bag, like you don't go to the wheel,

but without something, it's insane, that's fully, that's a great one. That's a great answer. I love it. What's age the best? The conceit of rollerball as a sport.

John Housman as a villain with his crazy eyebrows, he's got his crystal thinking layer, where he goes in his, does Levine have that? Where you go to see Levine, he's just surrounded by crystals in an all-white room. In general, like how white and light everything is, feels futuristic and fun to me.

The huge TVs I mentioned earlier, that's about as big of a TV as has seen a movie. Here's one. Any moment in a movie where a hero is about to kill the last guy and does the thing where he holds the rock or the knife up and then decides, and they cut to the guy on the bottom, like right, like the bad boy's,

John Pan, S. I Morales cut, but the guy doesn't kill him. It's just a winner. It wins every time. Oh, what a movie you just referenced. Thank you. The best. The exploding boombox? Come on. The exploding boombox in that movie, one of the great things ever. The 70s track suits that they're wearing, like, I feel like those should come back.

I'd wear them. I'd wear them tomorrow. I'm going to tell Craig to get one. We mentioned the way pills everyone took and whether this foreshadowed the Mushrooms, Mali era that we're in now. We never see kids. We never see a downtown. We never see a restaurant. Even when they go downtown in Houston,

it's just this amorphous like buildings. And I think this was just how they were able to shoot the future back then. But it also shaped my view of what the future was when I was a little kid. Did you have that? Where movies and TV shaped what you thought in your head the future was. And for me, it's just light and buildings and kind of emptiness. Yeah, it was all that stuff at the Jetsons. Right, and flying cars.

That's what we thought, flying cars. Oh, here's one. Bartholomew, Housman's character. And Jonathan. Parallos to Goodell and Brady in the Seattle Seahawks Patriot Super Bowl when they're trying to get Brady and he won anyway.

Came back. Malcolm Butler wins it. Jonathan. I mean, I was going to say, and honestly, you can, Craig, you can cut this out. But I mean, no, for me, the future is presaged because when John Hausman says to those guys,

and it's great because you've got to be paying attention, but he says, listen, we've decided nothing special is going to happen to Jonathan. They make the decision. They're not going to kill Jonathan. They're going to let the game take his course. And I was like, that must have been the conversation that Skipper and Iger had about you.

Oh, my God. You should leave that in. We're not going to let anything. I don't know. That's what you're. where you were going. Yeah. They're not going to,

we're not going to let anything special. We're not going to, nothing special is going to happen to Bill. We'll just let it take its own course. He'll take himself out soon enough. We don't have to take him. That's amazing. Oh, man.

I didn't know you were going there. The 70s babes of this movie, Maude Adams, Pamela Hensley, and Barbara Trentham, the big three. So tell me if you agree with this for a one stage the best. Juison said,

the movie could be taken as a metaphor for the creative artist struggling against the corporate mediocrity of Hollywood and the executive group think they're in. Thoughts. Sure. I think so much of it, it aged,

I think what's so incredible is, I love when you read the reviews and even Cisco, like I think it's the best, and it's always the thing. Like the movie fucking age the best. The movie's so good, and despite what maybe Craig's going to say at the end, the movie's so good that as a whole,

And it makes total sense to me that it wasn't in its, like in its time. It was kind of a modest hit, as you said, what it did? You said it did 30 on six. But, but I don't think people understood, like, that it was actually trying to do that stuff. It was actually trying to make someone think about something. And it got so much right. And like, honestly, that energy, okay, so I'm not going to, again, like the politics. No one wants to be, I'm not going to talk about this.

But David Foster Wallace making the years named after corporations and shit and people, you know, the year of Venus Williams. This movie did all this stuff. There's no doubt that all those writers who became like the huge writers in the 90s, they grew up watching movies like this and it influenced the way that they thought about the world. And you just feel it.

So I think the movie is what really lasted a long time. Book censorship and history getting erased, sadly his age the best. When he's watching the old Mod Adams DVDs, the music that's playing where it's like, it's so good. Great call. I wouldn't have thought about that.

That's a great call. Yes. The violence of football of the next 50 years. Then the last one, Dick Emberg, calling a game has always aged the best. Just great to hear his voice. Amazing. Really miss that guy.

Amazing. And are you, I think that, I guess we can talk about the computer. We've got to give a little bit to that whole computer scene, but we can do that in the, unfortunately, it's terrible because you named that award after Teddy KGB, but we got to do that, the actor being in his own thing.

That's a compliment, though. Oh, yeah, but I don't want to ever reference my own thing. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, stop. Don't be a jerk. But, no, but I'll say, Ralph Richardson, that guy, Sir Ralph Richardson, he's this legendary British, the first actor to be knighted at England is that guy.

Lawrence Olivier got knighted second after this fucking guy. and it's true like one was 1946, the other was 47 and because that guy is in his own movie and he's a great movie the movie he's in like he makes James Khan totally different like that he's like in a bond

comedy oh yeah he's in a totally different he's on a talk show with Orson Wells like what is he he's in Citizen Kane what is he doing and he's like it's his own like you can tell that guy he was in a room he's like knows he's going to be he's playing a guy

he spends a lot of time alone. Right? And this is an act. Thinking about what that guy did as an actor, he built like layers and layers and layers. And then it's totally wrong for the way. It's amazing. It's just amazing to me.

Perfection. I agree with you. Great shot Gorder awards. So many options for most cinematic shot. I really like when Jonathan scores that one goal against Tokyo. And then the guys, the fans behind him through the window are yelling. And he just bangs the thing.

Oh, yeah. Bangs at the thing. It just feels 70s hockey. You mentioned Moon Pye's coma, the coma shot when they lift the helmet up. I think that's the best shot in the movie. I think it's the one you mentioned, but I think it's the one you mentioned before,

the ball hitting the guy. Okay. I think the ball hitting the guy is like so, because you just feel it. It really is so effective because it stays with you for 50 years, dude. Kid Cuddy Pursuit Happen is the word best needle drop. The ending, when the music

kicks back in again. It's just great. You're like someone's been watching some Stanley Kubrick for Norman Jewison, you know. Chess Rockwell, Brockwell-Brockley-Ners award, best character name. Moonpie is pretty great. I need to bring that back.

And then Butch's girlfriend Award for the weak link of the film. You mentioned yours. Here's mine. I just think the corporation either kills Jonathan or just kidnaps them to keep them out of the final game. I don't think they go through this whole rigamarole trying to, oh, we really don't want you to play. Now we're going to change the rules to try to kill you. Like, how about just killing him?

No, they're worried about Martin. Oh, Jonathan had a tragic accident on a horse. He's dead. But they're worried about Martin. See, this is the thing. Why the whole thing about the individual is they don't want to make him into a martyr. So they can't. People know he just died.

They control the news. It's like sad news. Jonathan's dead. All right. Oh, no. I love that guy. All right. I can't argue with that.

Just feels like an easier way to do it than to rig the game with no rules and, you know. I mean, the other weak link is sending a terrible, in the context of the thing. Like, I'm not saying the woman who played her was a terrible actress, but the one girlfriend, the blonde. The blonde. I mean, they're just, first of all, it's like the whole beginning of the Sharon Stone Schwarzenegger thing where she comes in there and he realizes she's turned. She practically is going to wheel and kick him like Sharon Stone did until a recap. But that was pretty weak. That scene, and then when he almost,

you know, Jonathan almost really hurts her. I have that in What Stage the Worst, which we're about to do. Not a great moment. Yeah, that's in the What Stage the Worst. You know, Longest Yard had a random domestic violence scene, too. I just think it's the 70s. I can't explain it. We mentioned the Super System Memory Pool, which now is just the cloud.

The Tokyo team, there's some pretty some, pretty apparent racist stuff with that. This is, what, 32 years after World War II? Could still feel some of that. In the 70s was still. Yeah, we're still doing that stuff. Very, yeah, very rough and racist. The CTE issues with Rollerball, I was thinking, would probably...

It's hilarious. Probably not great. Like, outside the lines, the Rollerball guys, 20 years later, they're... You don't want Bob Lee looking at this. Yeah, Bob Lee's like, wow. You do not want Bodley looking at this thing, 100%. But the number one on what's age the worst is that they remade this movie in 2002. It's one of the worst movies ever.

I wrote about it for page two. I think it was one of my better early page two pieces. I like skewered it. It's really awful. John McTiernan made it weirdly, which... He made so many good movies. It's really, really one of the worst. To me, it's like Bad News Bears Go to Japan, the Rollerball remake.

It's on a short list of the worst ones we've ever. had. Among the worst, you know, I've never, I watched 30 seconds of it, maybe 40 seconds of it, and never watched more than that, shut it off, wouldn't go to the theater, because why do the, you know, why, why? Well, it also violates the rule of why are you making a movie that is still exceedingly awesomely, it was 27 years after they made the original. We're going to take one more break and then we're going to do a couple more categories. This episode is brought to you by Apple and AT&T. Scroll long enough and you'll hear it all.

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The Ruffalo, Hanna, Grubeneck Partridge, overacting award. So you, it sounds like you're leaning toward the coach on this, but can I offer you Jonathan's ex-girlfriend shooting the fire gun with that crazy look on our face? I mean, look, I think maybe nobody knew where there was. There spent a lot of time on the stunts and maybe, I bet you that Norman Juice and great director, like I said, I mean, that guy made some really unbelievably important great movies. But my guess is that so much of his time was spent on making sure the gameplay was right,

that there wasn't a lot of energy in terms of making sure the performances were locked, you know, and that's hard. It's really hard. Do you have a flex category or we already did it? I think my flex category would have been the KGB actor thing because that guy is so good. I think that guy's in his own movie, but I think he's great. Like, I think he's just in his own movie. Okay.

And do you have a CR thinks Luke Wilson would have been Harrison Ford Hottest Take Award or now? Because if you don't, we can move on. I mean, the hottest take would just literally be that, yeah, I have a crap. I have such a hot take that I think it will get me. I think this movie is every, I think this movie is a whole point of the category. I think this movie's better than Parallax View. I think it's more accurate.

I think it more accurately makes you feel what a paranoid thriller is supposed to make you feel because there's nothing else like it. Parallixt View is like a million different things. And this movie, there's nothing else like it and it tackles, none of us are going to be in a situation where we're thought to have shot the thing and they're pinning a giant murder on.

But all of us watch sports, all of us interact with these corporations, all of us have felt that feeling that the game was really. then we don't quite know why or what was really going on in that game will never really learn what really happened and this movie makes you feel all that shit and so I think rollerball and I think it's like LJ's four point play and yeah that who who ordered that the second Nick's dig I was at the game and it was so great just perfect moment continuation fell I still haven't won a champion I don't

if you noticed but we still haven't won a championship since I was seven it's been a while at least the team's good again. I couldn't find any casting what ifs. The best that guy award, so Moses Gunn plays cleat and Moses Gunn, who was in Shaft, but had a nice run in the 70s where he'd be like in streets of San Francisco and he just was around. He was one of those guys. So shout out to him. But to me, Moon Pie, because I didn't realize that Moon Pie did,

I like forgot that he's the same guy who did all those episodes of Dallas. Yeah, I couldn't, he might be John Beck. I mean, for Craig, he's Moon Pie. We still don't know if Craig liked this movie. But he was in 60 episodes of Dallas somehow. I know. DM Waiters, I think it's Maude Adams coming in hot. Yeah, I can't.

No argument. We just need you to shoot for two days. We're just going to shoot you laughing and looking really hot. And then we needed to do like three lines with James Conning. But a special shout out. I think you got to give a special shout out to the thankless. It's like the, I wish the most thankless role, the guy who has to come in, Japanese guy that I think

because it's the Tokyo team has to come in there and he's got all he wants to do is share the science with them and it must be like having a meeting with you know Robert Kennedy and like he just wants to tell him about the science

and they don't want to you know what I mean? They don't want to hear about the science. Recasting Couch Director City can I offer you Gene Hackman as the Houston coach? We just go up a level with Gene. And then yeah, he gets a lot of more dialogue.

Nobody else could have played John. it's going to play Jonathan. Bert Reynolds. And I think James Con is a better choice. Because James Con was smarter. Like on screen he read as smart. You think he's smarter? I think Bert could have done the athleticism

and the swagger hero stuff. He probably would have enjoyed getting physical with the ladies, having love scenes. Could Redford have done it? No. Not a good enough, like not credible athletically, like as a violent athlete. I don't think he's got that dark,

the snapping side. Warren Beatty would have been interesting. I don't know if he would have done it, but I think athletically, I think he could have done it. That's a good call. He's credible in heaven can wait. You believe he can throw a football?

He could. I think he was a good athlete, yeah. All right, Craig's flex category is here, but he's passing. Craig's just a mystery man for this pot. Have fast earned research. You mentioned they shot everything in Munich. A bunch of,

a bunch of opera in this movie if you want to go check out the different songs, some of it's online. Rollerball, the video game, which I waited for most of my video game playing life, and it finally was supposed to happen in 1998, got delayed, and then the publisher

went bankrupt. I don't understand why I didn't have a rollerball video game. I think it would have been amazing, and maybe there's still time. Nobody died during the filming any of the stunts, but we did have some major injuries. And then Devo saw this movie and ended up writing the Devo corporate anthem for their 177

album. Bill, somebody, somebody at Rockstar Games should just, there should be a moment in GTA. And if it delays GTA by another two years, who's going to care? But there should be a moment where you should walk into an arena. Get to play rollerball? In Grand Theft Auto, you should walk into an arena and get to play rollerball. Think about that's the most logical thing. It could be in Gt the next year. It could be in the one that comes out. The month before I die, that's when they could. You know what I mean? For 30 years now, they'll get that one in.

Apex Mountain. James Kahn, it's right around here for him. Because Godfather's been a couple years. He's in a movie with Barbara Streisand in the same year when she's probably the biggest female lead. I think it's right around here. The Gambler had just come out. He's making a bunch of movies and he has the wheels haven't come off yet.

So I would say maybe yes. Plus, this movie did well. Can't argue. Fake created sports in a sports movie. I'm also going to say yes, unless you want to go dodgeball. No, this is it. Dick Emberg, no. Dick Emberg in a movie, also no, because he's better in heaven can wait,

because you can see him. Maude Adams, she was in tattoo with Bruce Dern, which I think I might have seen when I was a teenager and don't remember that much of it, but it's probably this. She's a huge model, though. So is the era where the 70s, they would just grab a famous motto and just throw them in a movie? Norman Jewison, no. It's probably in the heat of the night?

I mean, Cincinnati Kid, Hurricane. No, you got to say Moonstruck because the Oscars and stuff, it's got to be Moonstruck. But I mean, that Pottier movie. Yeah, it's a great movie. That kind of crushed. Oh, no, great, great, great, great, great movie, not, of course. But later, I always think that the guy later in the, I always think like, yes, but I always like a guy that had this happen when it comes back and it's moonstruck.

Like, yeah. And everyone's celebrating this guy. But that's a career highlight. I'm talking more like when did you have the most juice. Oh yeah. Okay. Probably late 60s.

Sure. Yes. Houston has a sports city. Did you go here or would you go Hakeem Rockets? The Jonathan E. era? Dan Pastorini and Earl Campbell. Well, that's like right after Jonathan E.

John Beck, it's clearly 60 episodes of Dallas. John Housman, no. No. Probably paper chase. Setting pine trees on fire 100%. And then just roller skating. Roller skating, maybe. Did we ever do better in a roller skating movie?

No. No, this is the coolest it ever looked for sure. All right. Most important part of the podcast for you. Cruise or Hanks for the lead? It's cruising a walk. It's not even close. It's not even close.

This would have been an amazing cruise movie. No, no, but Hanks, if you wanted to do the dark turn, could play the Hausman role. He'd be amazing because you believe that he cared about Jonathan. Or how about young Hanks as Moonpie? Like 19 bosom buddies, Hanks. He was all gawkey skinny hans.

He was never the enforcer. Now, it's definitely Cruz. Scorsese or Spielberg? I mean, that says Martin Scorses. Martin Scorsese. I had that as well. What role would Philip Seabor Hoffman have played? Oh, this is great.

Probably a younger houseman? He's in the corporateocracy. Yeah, but, well, would this have been one of those? There's not really that showy, you know, young, young Phillips v. Hoppin, like, you know, in the heart eight. There's not like that flashy little moment where a guy comes in like that in this movie. I don't know if there's a role for PSH in this.

Picky Nets. So I had some questions about the rollerball penalties before they got rid of penalties. Karate kicking the motorcycle guys seems bad. That's three minutes. Headlock punch, okay. Headlock punch with the spike punch to the helmet. Seems fine.

Motorcycle guy knocking the other motorcycle guy from behind, like spinning him out. Seems legal. I looked this up. This was my internet research. I looked it up. I looked up what rules penalty. So the violence.

and you're right, you're so on this. It's the, you're completely on it. These penalties only existed. So all those things, you could do them all as long as it was in the course of the gameplay. Oh, that's what they said? Yeah. When you, when I looked, when I looked at, sounds like Juicing came up with that at the 11th hour.

They're like, yo, what's the difference in these penalties? It's like, ah, course of gameplay. Course of the gameplay. So, so that if instead, if, if, if, while they let's say right after John, and then scores and you're resetting. The ball hasn't shot out yet. You went and spike punched a guy in the head. Then that's a penalty.

But if you spike punch a guy when he's about to score, we're good. I think that's never said in the movie and you're 100% right. Yeah, I needed a little more. It's almost you needed the announcer to come in and like, as always, three minutes for that I just would have eaten it up.

All right. So we have gambling in 1970s. We know it exists because they're putting the spreads out. We've had football players. There's been gambling scandals. It just felt like an incredible misopportunity, not to talk about lines at all during this movie. And then it sent me down a rabbit hole thinking,

like, who was favored in the last game? They would, like, Fandle would have had last man standing bets. And I think Jonathan would probably have been the favorite, but it would have been like two to one. So it would have been like. Tiger, you know, it would have been like those Tiger years where you could bet the field for a certain number. Jonathan versus the field.

I would have just banged Jonathan, but then you could also make the case. They're just going to do everything and they kind of take him out. I think there was no betting lines. Dude, there's no betting lines because no one had any money. The money was only the executives.

No one had money. But there was probably like a stealth poker game with the executives and maybe they had a bookie. I don't know. There's a lot of gambling stuff that should have existed in this. You had any pick of nits

or do we cover everything? No, we covered them. Okay. sequel prequel prestige TV all black cast are untouchable can we make the prestige TV case spend 50 years I think that's fair game and I

do feel like there's some cool scripted series in here that I think would take added significance in the mid-2020s you know they're making I'm sure you know this because it was announced and stuff they're making you know the William Gibson novel Neuromancer they're making that into a series that's that incredible

futuristic thing if that works, whoever does that show could then just come right in here and do this. I think the problem is the rollerball remake was so bad that I think it scared everyone off the IP. But let's bring them back. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Treo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson, Nell, Byron Mayo,

Tony Romo, Chris Conzor with Daniel Plainview, Long Legs, or Wilford Brimley in the firm. Do you have, you can also throw in anyone else you want in this category? You know, you bring up Enberg a couple times, but I just kept thinking how fun it would have been to just cut to Norm McDonald talking about this game. We should throw Norm in the category. Yeah, Norm belongs in the category.

He really does. Because imagine Norm talking about when Moonpie, like the thing you just did about, oh, so what can you hit the Moonpie in the head with the spikes? I mean, you know, I didn't think that's a little bit, yeah, I just think it would have been incredible. Like, Norm would be just top for me. Too much individualism.

Yes. I think they would have just killed Norm. So I had, I'm adding John Cazale to the movie. Oh. Because of the sunny ties, but especially after, after, when Jonathan says no to Mr. Bartharlemieux at the party and he comes back out. And then Cazale could come over and go, Johnny, you don't talk to a guy like Mr. Bartholomew like that? Awesome. And then they do the don't go against the family.

But he could also be, his character from the conversation just fits right in. Yeah, just it's right in the time, it's in the Cazel. It's in the timeframe, 75. Now you're talking, because imagine if instead of Maude Adams, then I agree, what if it's Merrill walking into that room, 1975 Merrill? Get both of them. Imagine it was a combo.

How much better is that, Merrill? Like our first movie. Yeah, right after, like 75 Merrill, right before that. Yeah. Just one Oscar who gets it. Production design. Yeah, I would have said stunts. Is stunts an Oscar?

It is, right? Now they're giving stunts awards and things, but they didn't for years. Yeah, production design is good. Probably in answerable questions. This one might be answerable. Jonathan E's last name, I think it was Evans, because at the eyes wide shut party, one guy says to the other guy, Evans is out. And I wonder if that means that's Jonathan Evans was his name.

What are others? I've won. I've won unanswerable question. If Rollerball just keeps going over the next 50 years, how would advance stats? have changed rollerball. Would people have thought, like the three-point shot, like people firing from far away,

it's a heavy ball, but could there have been like a Steph Curry that comes in who's like, this guy's like throwing it from basically the bottom of the track. He's completely changed rollerball. They would probably add up because the thing is,

because there were very limited substitutions, if you killed somebody, it's kind of as beneficial to the team is scoring a goal. So the advanced that would be more naming and murder. It would be murder plus points. It would be like points plus death, right? Because plus, you know, mauling someone to the off the floor, I think.

So you think the money ball move, like Jonah Hill comes in and he's like, I've been looking at the motorcycle and it's just the complete inefficiency. We're spending too much time getting the motorcycle guys. And what's what we really need? What was John Beck's wrong? role of what was this thing, a swooper? The swooper. Yeah.

The swooper is actually the most important position in rollerball. We've got to go all in and try to find better swoopers. So sick. I think, yeah, for sure. Then there's this little, so my unanswerable question is there are two references in it that maybe they're robots. Like in the. Oh, the Android's thing.

Yeah, they might all be Android. And one says, you know, they're all made in Detroit. And the other says they're robots. You hear these two lines. and they're not. But you know, you wonder if it's like the replicant thing. Like, are they replicants or are they, is it possible? Because, now, I didn't remember this.

This is, I listened to some wacky podcast today and I wish I would credit them. There's some guy who did some like deep dive into the meanings of rollerball. It's crazy. I'll send it to you. I found it like two hours ago. But the one thing is he was talking about this possibility of them being. robots and seem to have some credible argument for it that had to do with when when Jonathan is talking to

sir, the computer guy. I did not pick this up. This guy in this podcast did I can't take any credit. But he says that when he's talking to him, the guy says, I've seen you so many times before. You've come so many times. And the guy was like, because Jonathan doesn't know because John's fucking robot.

And every time he gets destroyed, they rebuild him back. And then he comes to the point where he has this question at the end of his life cycle. I have no idea if it's true, but I love it as a theory. Well, how would that explain Moonpie being in a coma being kept alive with no vital sense? That is a flaw in the theory. You've poked a great hole in it. Oh, to prove to the players, oh, you know why? So the players believe it. The player doesn't know he's a robot. My other answer, well, do you think the Dolan family own the New York Roller Ball team?

That's the best. Yeah, I hope so. because then I hope they go oh and whatever. We don't get to get this that often. The Zawatne Award for what happened the next day. So Jonathan survives. I think we're probably forming a rollerball players union. There's probably Donald Fear or whoever.

Somebody's coming in and being like, we got to get these guys some benefits. Maybe some rules in place that you can't just wipe out the rules before the semifinals. Does the sport exist? Was that the last rollerball game ever? I think Jonathan maybe takes the whole society down. That's it.

It's just complete chaos. I think so. Yeah. The easiest answer ever for what piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie? I mean, it would have to be the jersey, right? The number six orange jersey? Like, what would be a better thing?

That plus the glove, a glove. And the gloves? And one of the motorists. motorcycles wouldn't be bad. Like a banged up rollerball? Imagine if in your garage, imagine if in your garage you had a rollerball banged up a motorcycle. I mean, come on. Pretty great. The coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lessing. Corporate society is an inevitability. A quote from John Hasman. Let's go with that. What's your double feature choice?

Some Bruce Lee movie. Enter the Dragon. Interesting. Why? Because of the era. Like just Because I associate it with a time in, like, my life, basically. Otherwise, it's network. So I wrote down earlier, networks, the other one that makes the most sense, because one's about media, one's about sports and entertainment. So network on the highbrow, it's network. And on the less highbrow, I think it's Under the Dragon. What's yours?

I like your paranoid movie thing. I think that was fun. I would have said longest yard just because, like, those are the first two great sports movies. But I do like the idea of doing, like, three days of the condo or something. Is Brian's song in your mind not a great sports movie? It is. It's a TV movie, though.

Okay, so it doesn't count. I've seen it 20 times. No, I know, but it doesn't count for that reason for you. I still think that's Khan's best performance in any movie. I should have done that as my hottest cake. He's unbelievable as Brian Pickle. Yeah, of course he is. He's incredible.

That movie's, I mean, again, it's for dudes are. I mean, that movie's just the best. Yeah, it's really old. It's 55 years old. Who won the movie, James Con? Of course. All right, it's time. Producer Craig coming in.

He's been dead silent. I'm nervous. I'm excited that Brian has no idea which way I'm going. He even thought that perhaps I was going the negative route. I am not. I can't believe this movie was just sitting here. And no one told me about it. What the hell?

I had heard of Roller Ball. I think it's a weird title. And perhaps I had no idea what the movie was about. I was transfixed by this movie. I mean, this is a dystopian science fiction movie disguises a sports movie. Yes. I think it should be considered like one of the greats. This should be shown in film schools.

There is so much going on. There's so much there. You're correct. It's basically gladiators fighting for public entertainment. It's like maybe it's a little heavy handed. It's so weird. Juicin's making so many weird decisions. It's aged incredibly.

I think the tree burning is like fascinating. I thought, I think this desperately, I'm, Usually not this guy, but I think this desperately needs to be a television show. Like Tony Gilroy turned Andor, like a Star Wars story about like turned it into like a political story about fascism and imperialism or whatever. He, get him rollerball next. Like, I want something at that level for rollerball. Tony would crush it.

Tony would do an incredible job with this. I thought this movie was unbelievable. Wow. I'm so excited. I was so worried that he didn't like it. But I was like, you know, I'd feel like I'd know Craig well enough to know he probably like this. I couldn't look away.

It was everything. I want to watch it three more times. It was almost the first time ever I watched it twice before we recorded just because I wanted to do it again. Wow. Yeah. So what was your most rewatchable scene? I think the argument between is that Houseman and Khan while the tree burning is happening, that going back and forth is really electric. And that whole party, I think the whole party scene is the most interesting part of the movie.

but also, I mean, the stunts are unbelievable. I can't believe that they're doing that to these actors back then, these stunt actors, it's ridiculous. Yeah, the music at the top and the bottom, the bach, I mean, the whole thing is just, it's so original and unique, and it's like I love when a director just has his hands all over something, and if there's stuff that people don't like,

I kind of don't care. I'm like, at least he just did whatever the fuck he wanted. So are you mad we waited seven years to do this movie? I mean, I couldn't have been mad because I barely knew it existed. But I have a couple nits, I will say. Let's hear it. Genuinely the worst jerseys and helmets I've ever seen in a sport. Yeah, that was mid-70s, though.

I mean, like, if you go back to that era, we just lost the narrative with the way stuff look. But that's what they thought jerseys would look like in 2008, 50 years in the future, and that's what they gave them? It was just that this weird concept of compliment can attest. Like, the font that we thought was going to be in the future or was that specific, like, weird font, like, very, like, simplistic. Horrible.

Horrible. Terrible. It looked like high school warm-up football jersey. It's terrible. Yeah, that's a good call. What else did you have? None of the actual guys look like athletes. They look like mechanics.

I mean, what are we doing here? Like, these look like a bunch of normal dudes. I guess James Conner is shaped. You're making the JJ Reddick Bob Cousie argument? These guys don't look like the premier athletes of the world in 2018. You know, I swear I had that written down and I forgot to say it. I noticed that there's that shot in the locker room. And none of them look like.

There's like four guys who look like Louis C.K. back there. Like, I don't know what we're doing. Well, but I wondered, did they do that because they couldn't get anybody to do rollerball? Because at one point they have the weight training scene. And one guy is basically doing this 1984 gymnastics routine on the parallel bars. And it was, but yet all these guys look like plumbers, electricians, as Craig said. So I don't know what they were going for with that.

Also, man. Like back then, men just look. look different. James Conn in this movie was four years older than I am right now. Was he really? He's 35. You could have told me he was 50, 100%, 22. You couldn't give me any age for him? I would easily guess 45. Do you agree with me that nobody has ever looked better in a sleeveless white t-shirt than James Con? Like it's something about his shoulders. Men don't look like that anymore. No.

No. No. You know who looks like sometimes you'll get the random little boy that looks like that. You'll see like the three-year-old boy at a party that's built like James Con. What's that? But nobody ever ages into it. I didn't anticipate this going there. I was going to say, what three-year-old boy at a party are you seeing? No, my son, when he was like three, kind of had one of those James Conn bodies for a little bit, but they have, you know what I mean? Like those really musselty little kids.

Like they have like the T-build, like the Michael Phelps tea build. We used to joke that my son looked like a 1760s blacksmith. That's hilarious. He would just walk around. at this hard pot belly and was just walked around like Fred Flintstone. I was going to make the joke that we should do the Lloyd Howell Jr. NFLPA

for worst league league rep award for whoever the fuck is running. That's a good one. Would you think of the 70s, babes? Great. Women don't look like that either, man. But it's like a specific look and I don't know what it was.

But I know it's a, you know it when you see it kind of look. Middle part, long, feathery hair, kind of like coming out. They look like Sharon Tate a little bit. It's like this blue eye shadow. It's just a version of Michelle Pfeiffer's Scarface thing, which is later. Yeah, that was like the tail end of it. Yeah. It's really Charlie's Angels.

Like if you go, you could click any mid-70s, Charlie's Angels, Vegas, three's company, all the, every, it's just this look and then it just disappeared. I'm not sure what happened. So, Craig, would you have played a rollerball video game? Absolutely. I still would. Yeah, this is some of the best IP. Nobody's taking the video.

It really is. I have not seen the remake. I won't watch it. But it's been long enough. I think somebody could revive this. And it's so relevant now. I mean, man. Rollerball fantasy league would have been interesting.

Sure. Imagine if like... Because you would have had swoops. You would have had assists. You would have had goals. You would have had takeouts. Yeah. I mean, Derek Kennedy and Rollerball

on. A problem is we only know one player's name, really. And the other guy's name, we knew he's dead. So, yeah, that's like roller ball free where like the Rich Paul character comes in and trying to get everybody paid more. All right, Craig, so happy you like this movie. This is produced by Craig as always. Thanks to Ronick as well.

And thanks to GaHau for getting us on on the Zoom. Thanks to compliment. Great to see you. It's been a couple years for you in the rewatchable. So happy to be back. Anything to plug? Got any plugs? No, stuff's coming. Stuff's coming.

You know, but nothing to talk about yet, but happy to be back for time number seven on their rewatchables. And we got to do quiz show someday. That's the one I'm holding out. Yeah, you're doing it in LA. Yeah, I'll be there for it. We'll do that together. And then rounders, too, I'm just going to be dead before it comes up. I mean, you'll be in, if there is, if it ever had, you know as much about it as I do.

We've talked to, how many hours of you and I spent talking about it with Levine? Every time we do a podcast, we mention it. enough time. Craig's ready for it. Okay, we're all in. All right, great to see you guys. Thank you. Great to meet you guys. Let me tell you the secret of how to look like you know what you're doing. Use mushrooms, toss them on eggs, noodles, boom, it's delicious. It's not magic.

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