The Rewatchables - ‘Spotlight’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Ryen Russillo take a trip to The Boston Globe to revisit the Best Picture Oscar-winning 2015 film ‘Spotlight’ starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel McCadams. Directed by Tom McCarthy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Coming up next, they knew! They knew, Robbie! It's finally happening. Spotlight, five-year anniversary, it's next. I'm from the Boston Globe, but I'm digging around for Spotlight. Spotlight's on this? Yeah, we're looking into it, but you've got to help me. The Boston priests abused kids in six different parishes over the last 30 years.

The church found out about it and did nothing. This is bigger than Boston. This is the whole system. Spotlight team show me that it came from the top down. Critical acclaim is unanimous. Spotlight is a landmark film. When a priest pays attention to you, you feel special. How do you say no to God?

Rolling Stone gives it four stars. Why aren't there any records? They control everything. Time magazine calls it an emotional tour to force. If there were 90 priests, people would know. They knew and they let it happen. And Newsweek hails. Spotlight is by far the best.

movie this year. We're going to tell this story. We're going to tell it right. Spotlight, Reddit R. Now playing in select theaters. All right. Chris Ryan is here. Ryan Rosillo is here. When Chris and I were doing the early BS podcast 2015, the seeds being planted for what would eventually become the rewatchables. We did a whole podcast, or at least most of a podcast, about all the president's men and Spotlight, which is a movie that we both really liked and was an important newspaper movie. We had to get Riscilla here because he was in Massachusetts. As the story broke in the globe, as was I. I was living in Charlestown. It's hard to overstate the impact that this had locally. Just the all-time bombshell of a story, it only happened as they cover in the movie

four months after 9-11, something like that. So in a lot of ways, it just felt like the world was ending during that stretch. And then over the next, I think, two years, they ran dozens of other follow-up stories and things like that. Rosillo, what do you remember when that story came out? It cannot be overstated how religion, the Irish Catholic part of Boston, your friends, my friends, I remember being in college and guys going to Mass and finding a place, and we'd be like, what? And depending on where you're at now, especially if you're younger, but for our generation,

the kids that grew up in Boston, Boston, and the church being such a big part of it, like the church was everything. And I know how important the church was to my parents. I both went to private Catholic schools growing up. And it's funny because then they tell these stories about how terrible it was the whole time. And yet it sort of was accepted. So this is a whole different level of something that shouldn't be accepted. But you cannot understand unless you live in Boston how important the church is, which I think the movie did a great job of pointing out like if you're going after the church, understand what our subscription base is. And Chris, you spend time in Boston as well. I thought that this film really captured the small-town big city thing that is Boston.

And it's Philadelphia, too, which is where I'm from. But that idea that you could walk Boston, you know, you can walk across. I used to, you know, on nice nights, I would walk from Central Square back over to Mission Hill where I was living. You could walk up and down that city and feel like you were kind of like in this small little town, but it still was this huge, bare-knuckled. industrious city that had all these characters, and the Harold and the Globe were kind of like the two Bibles of it.

Yeah, and I went to Holy Cross, which was super religious, you know, and people go on to Mass. It's Jesuit. But, you know, grew up in New England, spent the first three decades plus of my life there. And, you know, I mean, we're going to have to talk about this because it's a big part of the movie. It's about how much you know, how much you want to accept that you know. how much you're willing to sweep under the rug because I look back and the same thing with teachers I mean we're getting pretty serious coming out of the gate here but you know when I was in high

school there was that one teacher you stayed away from and everybody knew if you were involved in the church there was the one or two priests everybody's like watch out watch out for that person it was just kind of the way we navigated the 70s 80s and 90s as kids and as young adults that there was a fear factor with certain things. You heard certain things. You didn't know what was true. And you kind of had to navigate it for yourself. It's crazy to think now because it's the complete opposite now. Everybody is so hyper aware of all of the stuff. In this age, we weren't. And when you watch this movie, to me, the key part is Michael Keaton, his character, Robbie, realizing that they sent him this stuff. They sent him the list of the priests with 20 names. And it basically got.

buried in the metro section and he could have done more. And there's this question lingering over it, why didn't I do more? Why didn't I step up? Why did it take this? This story was sitting in front of us this whole time and we didn't do anything. And I think that's why this is, it's weird that this is a rewatchable movie, but it's so rewatchable for that question and for what it means just as a journalism is a movie, right? Yeah, there's this moment where Marty Barron starts talking to the other reporters in Spotlight about how it's necessary for this story to be a story about a system, not a priest. You know, it's got to be about the institution and the things that facilitated these things to happen as much as it's going to be about the crimes themselves. And I remember, you know,

for most of my life, for most of our lives, we were not putting our faces in front of like an open fire hydrant of news 24 hours a day. you would read the paper once, most of us probably just read the sports section, frankly, but you would read the paper, and there would be crazy stories in the paper, page three, page four of the front page section, of the metro section.

And they would be horrifying stories, but you would maybe glance at the headline, read a paragraph, and keep your day moving, and then you wouldn't really take in news again, maybe until 6 o'clock, maybe until Sunday you'd watch 60 minutes, and then you'd read the paper the next day. But those stories did actually bounce off of people,

I think, a little bit more. And it was the idea, I think, that Barron is sort of trying to impart on these guys that to really change society, to change this city, it has to be about something more than just a series of one-off crimes. It has to be about the system that is facilitating these crimes. I also think it's really telling too in a day where it feels like everybody hates the media. And I know at least just on the sports side that's incredibly insignificant in comparison of the topic that we're talking about here, like I'm in it and there's days where I can't stand it and I can't stand other people that cover sports from like, what are you doing? Like, why are you doing this? And then when we take it to the political level of fake news and everybody being mad,

depending on where you're at with coverage, it was a bit of a reminder with the story, even though the story's 20 years old, of how important, the whole reason why we have media. The actual, the point of this was to keep things in check and uncover stuff that is harmful. And it's not like the number one, the constitution of the media, but like it's a bit of a reminder like this group, especially a group like Spotlight, at a paper with the prestige of the Boston Globe,

of the difference that can actually be made, even if the lead up to it was handled wrong, a bunch of different times, as they point out of the moment, movie, but that there actually can be some real change enacted here with the freedom of the press. Yeah, and they, this is a time, it's almost 20 years ago, I completely trusted newspapers at this point in my life. Totally.

And I don't anymore. And I don't because of personal experiences that have happened to me and also the way how polarizing the coverage has been. And I think there's way more agendas now, even with New York Times, Boston Globe, you name it, these papers that I always felt like I unassailably trusted. I just don't. Back then, the globe had such a responsibility with a story like this because, A, they're going against the church, which, as they say in the paper, it's like 50 plus percent of their subscribers are people that are going to care about the church more in the Boston Globe. So they're

weighing like a real economic downside to doing this. And then it's the fear of the church. And this is something that, you know, we're going to talk about how this movie compares to some of the other classics, all the president's men and a few others. But the verdict is the one that it's kind of the closest to, other than all the president's men, because the verdict, it's the fear of the church. It's the church's ability.

They have so much power, so much money, and so much loyalty from so many people that if you're crossing them, there's a real downside. And you can feel it in the first half of this movie. What's crazy is 20 years later, the church doesn't hold, I don't think, one-tenth of that power. And a lot of it starts with this story.

And it starts with all of the scandals that came out of this. And by the time we got to 20 years later, it's just not the same. But, Chris, did you feel that even 20 years ago? Like, just somebody challenging the church almost seemed inconceivable. Yeah, this movie is set and like a lot of great films during a real time of transition where I think that for a lot of people, like for, I think our generation, we probably grew up at a time where our, at least my association with what, like, religious life was, had a lot more to do with the evangelical movement.

Like, I was just more aware of that stuff than I was, like traditional Roman Catholic. Even though I grew up in a largely Catholic neighborhood in Philly, I went to a Quaker school. So I didn't really have a lot of religion in my day-to-day life like that, or Catholic religion in my day-to-day life. But I think that my experience with the rise of evangelicalism in this country made me more skeptical about religious institutions in that way, in some ways. And I think that that probably happened for a lot of people in this country after the abuse scandal. Yeah. Ryan, I would say the two biggest newspaper stories of the last 50 years where all the stuff Woodward and Bernstein did with Nixon and Watergate in this story.

and ironically, they led to two awesome movies. Coincidence, or is the material so awesome that it was almost like there was no way not to have an awesome movie? You know, all the president's men, that one in the time, like, you'd expect that movie to be good. Yeah. It's not a lock, spotlight, nails it. And Tom McCarthy, who wrote and directed this, who's an actor that I want to get to this incredible turn of irony with his role on the wire where he plays this disgrace. journalism. I know, I know, but I'm just, he turned it down the first time because you're, you're handed this thing like this, the point that this is even rewatchables, it was funny,

because I was going through it and I thought I'd bought it. So I was looking through my library and then I go, oh, I didn't, I didn't even buy this. It's on Netflix. But I go, why would I bought this? Like, when was I going to go, hey, I need to watch this movie again? Because the topic matter is such a bummer, but it's handled so perfectly and the fact that McCarthy nails this thing. So I don't know that it's just, hey, this is great footage. Like, I still think the Whitey Bulger FBI link with the story that came out in the globe with that massive investigation, which was, I think, literally only like two years prior to this. I remember reading all that stuff in the globe. I don't know that that's been handled perfectly. The books have been good.

The movies haven't. So I think it's really a credit to the movies. And I honestly feel like not everybody would have handled this. It's a bit like the big short in that most people would have messed that up. And Adam McKay crushes a movie about the housing mortgage crisis. And And just because it's this interesting topic, it's a really tough execution of it. So I think this is more credit to the writing and the directing and an incredible ensemble and the fact that there's a million different characters. So even though the story isn't something you'd necessarily want to spend two hours with, they change it up enough.

And there's so many different characters, which was good because it kind of refreshes it and refreshes your attention. So I don't think it's just the material. Yeah. You know, when we started the rewatchables, the overacting category was the Mark Rofalo, they knew category. Now it's the Vincent Hanna. Give me All You Got category. But that started because Chris and I both really liked this movie,

and we kept getting sucked into it on cable, and we would start texting each other about it. It's such a weird movie to be a rewatchable. It's like, hey, oh yeah, that movie where basically all these molesting priests got brought down by the Boston Globe. I'll watch that one again. But I think the reason I kept getting drawn back into it, it's just such a perfectly done movie.

It's so well done. It reminds me a lot of social network that it just moves. Like Craig said before we started, he was like, there's not like a wasted minute. It's like a filet mignon movie. Every performance is good. The story,

this really complicated story that they shouldn't be able to get through in two hours. They do it. You understand everything. There's no sort of moment where you're like, wait, I don't understand. Wait, that doesn't make sense to me. And then, you know, there's a real

deeper part where they really nail the actual people in it. Like, Leav Schreiber is Marty Barron. I don't know if you've ever seen that guy interviewed, but it's like scary. He became that dude. And all these people, and you read the research about it, and like Michael Keaton became Robbie, that Ruffalo had the real guy in the set and he would have him read lines. He was this Portuguese guy that... Resendos. Yeah. just wanted to nail his everything. And the attention to detail, that's why this won the Oscar.

To me, this is like, we always joke about five years later. What would you do if you could redo the Oscars? This is still the Oscar pick to me. And it's great. This might be the most invisible rewatchables we've ever done. You talk about all the president's men. You think about all those incredibly stark lighting that they achieve in that movie, the overhead shot of them in the Library of Congress,

so many moments from that movie that you remember. I remember when I rewatched Spotlight, I remember two shots and I remember one big scene for Ruffalo. But other than that, everything else just kind of is like perfectly invisible. They never step into the story and do anything too flashy. Everybody is perfectly calibrated for their role almost to the point where you're like Rachel McAdams could stand to like live a little in this movie. Like she's very reserved. She's really, she's really tight. But it's good because she kind of like is the perfect counterbalance to Ruffalo. And it, there's just no real flourishes in this movie. The movie itself is the flourish. Like you're saying, it's so tight.

There is not a second of wasted energy in this movie. And there's not a false note. And if you're going to do a movie about such a sensitive topic and something that the people who wrote the story spent so much time trying to get it right. We need more weeks. We need more weeks. Because they knew they had to. Yeah. then you have to make the movie like this. Bill, and obviously Chris, because you spend time there too, so it's not like you haven't watched all of these movies, so I shouldn't even preface it that way.

But it's the best Boston movie without trying to be the Boston movie. They don't put it off borderline homeless sheet rocker outside of a honeydew with a couple lines zinging somebody just to remind you that people talk funny in Boston. It nails the buddies of yours that have grown up, the fourth or fifth generation thing. He went to BC high. No, he went to BC. He played hockey.

He PG'd somewhere. and now his brother's on the fire and he's actually here. Like the things, people either love or hate the city for what it is in that it is this multiple generation, these families that never leave and they never go anywhere. And then the people that don't like Boston will say it's the same generation. It's over and over. It's all the same people. And I run into them and these people that have lived there forever and feel entitled because

their family has been in this historic city for a lot longer time. And they did that in a way that I don't know that I've seen somebody like clearly McCarthy knew Boston with his own background well enough to execute this without trying to force it like so many other Boston movies do. Yeah, you have, for whatever reason, there always has to be some sort of Fenway scene. Yeah. They put that in, but I actually really like how they do it in this movie, and it's kind of perfect. I love the one guy in the end who has just a gigantic beer. That gets great. And he's keeping scores so that he doesn't have to pay attention so he didn't have to watch the game. Yeah. I like that their seats aren't that good. It's,

kind of like between third base and right field. That was totally realistic to me. But other than that, you're right. They don't shoehorn the Massachusetts stuff. But like, that characters are so authentic. There's a lot of moments where you're like, that person's not an actor. And then you do the research. And it's like, oh, yeah, that person actually wasn't an actor. The best Massachusetts character in the whole movie is the guy, I think his name's Patrick from Hyde Park. Yeah, Jimmy LeBlanc. He's a selfie guy. He was a boxer. And go ahead. I can't wait to talk about him because he's perfect. Well, just so the audience knows, he's the one who's like, they're at the table.

And he's like, so you really want to hear this? And then goes into what the priest did to him. And he just doesn't seem like an actor. Like it almost seems like they've turned cameras on for some sort of confessional from a real person. And partly because he was a real person who did have a history of abuse. And that to me, there's just little touches like that, little moments. Rachel McAdams seen the priest who basically admits he was raping kids and then the sister comes in, gets rid of her

and she turns around and there's a school bus letting little kids off. You have that other reporter who realizes the house is 10 houses down from him with the priest and he's just driving by it, looking at it. There's this shadow of just kind of doom that they handle really well in subtle ways that it's really effective. I think it's a fantastic movie. And I think all the president's men is fantastic too. And I remember five years ago we did the argument about we kind of compare and contrast,

but they really belong to their specific heiress. Can I stand the Jimmy thing only because I think somebody else would have written that differently. I think a lot of other writers would have written that differently and been like, okay, this is this huge monumental moment. It's the first time we see from the victim's side. And they handle it. It's just such a good execution of it because at first, It's the reporter.

Jimmy, the Hyde Park kid, is obviously a tough guy or has had a tough life. We find out later on he's got heroin tracks up his arms as he's sitting there. But it's very early in the movie, but it's good to get that in there early. And he's just like, oh, this, by the shopping shop by the Hyde Park stop and shop. And then, you know, the victim's like, oh, you know it. And so there's a connection. And Ruffalo's like, yeah, I used to drive taxi. Where did you live when it first happened?

In the projects. Over in Hyde Park. Over about the stop and shop. Yeah. You know it? Yeah, I drove a cab for a few years. Open early, bad coffee, right? I guess. So like, okay, all right, wait a minute.

The reporter's doing a thing where he's like, all right, you can trust me a little bit. And then as you point out, it's like, you really want to hear this shit? And first of all, the accent's perfect because the kids from South Ian is perfect. Perfect. And he says it exactly like that guy from Hyde Park would say it. He straight out, gets right to it first sentence, where the, how the priest's touches him because he's like, you know, he grabbed us ice cream and whatever. And then the line where he goes, you know, I never even touched my ice cream.

Just melted down my arm. He says it exactly the way that guy would say it. And I think somebody else would overwrite that. And in this case, they like underwrote it unpurposely and just like let him go. And I thought it was just perfect. The casting in this movie is maybe the best thing about it. And it's guys like the Jimmy, the guy you're talking about. And it's also bringing in people like crew.

it up and Tucci to just be like these amazing middle relievers and just to come in and they don't actually because you can bring in guys to do one or two scenes and they'll do it but they'll be like you know the thing is is I really want to try this. The Mitch Garibati in part, they're talking about him like he's going to be speaking backwards. I mean, they're like, oh, he's a real character. But Stanley Tucci plays him pretty straight. He plays him like this guy who's just like I am my my my I cannot not see what I have seen. And people might think I'm a. whack job or whatever. And that whole scene that he has outside of the courthouse with Ruffalo where he's just like, I'm not paranoid. I'm experienced. Is that you get everything you

need to know about that character from that line. And the fact that Tucci doesn't dial it up too much, the fact that Crutup doesn't dial it up too much, they are who they are, they stay inside the part. And then it just allows everybody else to do their thing. Yeah. And all the President's Men had two of the most famous actors of that era in it. Redford was probably the most famous. And Hoffman was in the top five. And it's a star movie. But it also has all these great supporting characters. And it's got, you know, Robards as Ben Bradley's unbelievable. And on down the line, there's just a lot of good people. This movie doesn't have a star. And we'll get to a pretty good casting what if when we get to that category. But like you said, it's the, it's almost like a

bullpen by committee. They have, you know, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, those are stars, but it's not like, it's not Leo and Matt Damon and, you know, Russell Crow and the John Slattery role and stuff like that. They have the right people in the right spots. And I think it's perfectly cast. I can't believe how well it's held up five years later. It could come out right now. And I think it's going to be timeless in some way, too. One interesting thing, so they do the credits at the end, they don't mention.

that they win the Pulitzer for this spotlight series on the church because the reporters didn't want them to put that in. McCarthy asked them. And they were like, that wasn't what this is about. It's about the work. Don't put that in. So when people watch us, they don't know that this one of Pulitzer

and is considered, I think they have a sense probably that it's one of the most important stories in recent memory, but they don't know that. Think about how like what's basically the last moment we get with Robbie is him being like, we fucked up.

Like, I fucked up. I overlooked this story, you know, when it first came across my desk. I mean, it's the humility of these people is pretty amazing. I think it also speaks to, like, scandals in general and how whenever we learn about it, every time it feels like, well, why wasn't this done or why wasn't this done? Whether it's Penn State or the Michigan State trainer. And I mean, a far lesser important topic, but like even steroids and baselines in baseball. baseball where you'll have these things that had gone on forever and then once it's exposed and some kind of correction and correction doesn't even feel like the right word is made.

And people are, well, what wasn't done? And it's almost like a lesson that, yeah, this is actually kind of how it goes. Like it isn't solved immediately. There's all this doubt. There's all these things that have to break the right way for you to come to a conclusion of having people held accountable. And I think whenever I see the reaction to one of these stories, like, why was it something done? Why wasn't something done? I'm like, actually it was done the way

it always seems to be done. I'm not saying it's right, but this is usually always the timeline. Yeah, and you could make a case. This was the most important newspaper story anyone's done because it led to so much change in not just here. Like they'd do that list at the end. It's like, this wasn't just America. This was a domino thing that went all throughout the world. I mean, there was one of the countries that listed was Tanzania. Yeah. As places that had scandals since. And this is five years ago. I'm sure there's been more since. Now, maybe some of that stuff would have come out anyway, and maybe it would have been somebody else, but the bottom line is this was the one that did it. A couple other things to mention. So this was a blacklist screenplay. And for people who don't know

what that is, every year there's a list called the blacklist that comes out with like the best screenplays that people like that haven't been made by a studio yet. And sometimes that ends up being really good for the screenplay, it'll end up getting made. A lot get bought off of the blacklist. So it made it in 2013, and the co-writer, singer, he said, the motive was to tell the story accurately while showing the power of the newsroom. Something that's largely disappeared today. This story is important.

Journalism is important. And there's a deeper message in the story. I'm just going to let Chris Ryan Cook here for a minute and a half as the son of a newspaper man. you love nothing more than newspaper movies. Why don't we have more newspaper movies? Because nothing is more fun than that wide shot of the newspaper in action and somebody walking through and wise cracks or like the meeting for the day.

And there's only been a couple. And I do feel like the paper not totally working, scared people off from kind of diving into the newspaper World War. What are we doing wrong here? Well, the paper's really enjoyable, though. I think it would be a great place to set just a TV show. Me too. Because I don't think that you would have to do a lot of different sets.

I mean, like that open floor that they have... You're talking cost here? Yeah. I mean, you're just kind of... I'm just sketching it out. You know, another actually like secretly great newspaper movie is Zodiac. Yeah. At least the first hour of Zodiac.

But the same thing, where it's like that open floor... Before they called it open floor plan, it was just a bunch of desks up on the floor. And, you know, nobody was instant messaging with each other. If you wanted to talk to somebody, you would either call them. or walk over their desk and start talking to him. I love that moment in Spotlight when Mike walks up behind the guy and he's just like, hey, who's in that meeting over there? And he's just like, Mike, can I help you with something?

Like, do you need something from me? Yeah, the newspaper is just an amazing setting because there is like a higher calling of what they're doing. There's like, we're going to seeking the truth. But the stuff that they do to get to that higher calling is so relatable. And how flawed the character. How flawed the characters usually are, too. It's never...

Nobody goes... Very few people go into newspapers because they're like morally upright. You know what I mean? They may do morally upright work, but they are... They usually like to hang out. You know what I mean?

Like, they want to go to Fenway. They want to have a couple beers. They want to bullshit with their friends at work all day about stuff. And this is at a time period when, you know, Barron makes mention of the internet is starting to eat into the classified business. But this still was like when print papers were the,

were the main source of information. And so the cycle of how these people were working were, you know, we had a deadline, but after that deadline, like, you know, you were done for the day at a certain point. This anecdote might send Rosillo into a tailspin. It might derail the podcast, but I'm going to do it anyway. When I was working at the Boston Herald, there was a bar that was about a block and a half away called J.J. Foley's. And that's where everybody from the Herald went after they put the paper down.

and the move was if you're trying to work your way up, which at that point I was like, fuck that, I'm not doing that. But you would go to JJ Foys and hang out with your bosses, your editors, have some pops with them,

kind of put in the time. And there are a couple people that absolutely did this. But that's what the newspaper thing to me is like, Ruffalo, when Slattery goes to see Ruffalo, and he's in the shittiest apartment, and he brings him to San Tarpeo's pizza.

Yeah. And he's like, oh, cool, I haven't eaten yet. And his apartment's just a fucking shit show. It's like a one and a half room studio right next to like a trolley line. And you're just like, yeah, those are the kind of people that end up breaking these stories. Like this divorce guy who's living in this shitty apartment who didn't even have time to eat dinner.

And now he lucked out because John Slattery bought him a pizza. And it's just a different kind of life. All right, go, Rasel. I love just quick, like, hey, this guy's a total mess. just a reminder. Like we don't have to delve in. It's not a lot of dialogue. He doesn't have that moment of a scene.

But something about divorced guy with empty beer bottles in front of a workstation, which is his dining room table and a pizza box. Like, that's all I ever need to know about you. I don't need to know. And there's nothing you can say that will do a better job of summing you up than that. And it actually makes me hurt a little bit on the inside because I think anytime you look at that and say, that's who that guy is. And is he just a dogged reporter?

or a serial killer. We don't know. Well, he's also run it, he runs to work guy, which is a whole different type of guy. So he's juggling multiple identities. Especially that climate. The I run to work and change at the office guy is a fucking weirdo too. No one likes that guy, by the way. Oh, sweet.

Sweaty Doug is here. Yeah. He's like a crappy game last night, huh? And it's just like, yeah, it was crappy. What's up? Bill, who would you have been had you been at the globe out of this movie? I would have been the character who was trying to get on the spotlight team. but was doing it all the wrong way and boxing my own chances by by repeatedly asking for meetings

25-year-old me just would have been trying way too hard seeing the chessboard like I got to get with those guys and then I would have annoyed them and they would have you would have got on spotlight and then you would have been like what do you mean you write one one time every three months yeah I've written I've written a 7000 word column about this priest and drink it uh no you know what bill though the folly's thing it's no you didn't my dad My dad used to, you know, my dad used to work at the Philly Inquirer, and they had the same thing where this may be an apocryphal story, but like he said that the copy desk at the Inquirer had a line that went straight to Westies, I think it is, is the bar in Calhill Hill that's just across the street from the Inquirer so that they could call and just be like, is this guy here at the bar? I need to ask him about something in his piece. Oh, 100,000 percent. Sometimes the person would come back with a couple pops. them to help edit it. A couple

newspaper movies that we didn't mention. So I think Shattered Glass is really good. Awesome. And just kind of, I don't know what happened with that movie, but if it's ever on cable or people out there listening, like you see it on Netflix or Amazon or something, that movie's

excellent, and Hayden Christensen is excellent in that movie. SARS Guard's really good in that movie. Yeah, the acting's great, and I don't know why that one got, you have an opinion on that one was so low? I don't know why that has a why that got lost in history. Yeah, I saw this a long time ago, I think.

That's what most people would say. They're like, I like it, I haven't seen it since. Yeah. Christensen had kind of the such a bad, like, there's just a bad vibe around him after the Star Wars remakes that I think some of his movies actually just got lost. But I remember liking this, but again, it's been 17 years. So I can't really go to it right now. There, the parallax view, which I just watched, because it was on either HBO Max or

Peacock, I can't remember what, with Warren Beatty. I don't really think of that as a news. It's really good. Yeah, he's a newspaper reporter, but it's not technically a newspaper person. There's another newspaper movie that didn't totally work, and it's fucking bonkers. It's called Absence of Malice. Yes. Yes.

CCR knows that one. That's a good one. It's probably dated 80s, but it's a serial killer who starts fucking with the local newspaper. Kurt Russell. I forget who else was in it, but that one. But yeah, the most recent one was the Post, which I thought was super disappointing. I don't know. Same writer, by the way.

The other writer on this, McCarthy, Singer, who did First Man, which I absolutely love. But I'm with you, Bill, on the Post. I kind of got done with it and was like, what happened? Yeah, it just never got there. And Hank says Ben Bradley had the Robard shadow over him and all that stuff. Then from a TV standpoint, the Wire Season 5, which that was the whole point of the Wire Season 5, they're going to be going down and into it on the wire way down the whole of Van and Jamel, probably, I think, two weeks from now.

I'm more bullish on that season than most. I thought it was gimmicky, obviously. People, I think it's gotten too much heat for the framing the Syracolor subplot, which was admittedly stupid. But there's some great newspaper stuff in that season. And I think Gus, the editor, the older guy, the older black guy, that guy was an unbelievable character. I really, I didn't mind that season.

I don't know how you guys felt. Look, I'm, I'm so biased about the wire that they could have done an animated, you know, season nine on space. And I would have been like, you know, I like that it's a lot of characters still, though. And I got to get what they were trying to do. So I, I'm probably like a radio head fan that would stick up for just a, you know, a thing shorting out in a speaker and being like, man, that was fucking brilliant. Big king of limbs guy.

Yeah. Yeah. So I thought the point that Simon and the newspaper angle that they were trying to make, which I thought they did a great job with was that everything's kind of bullshit. Just the same way Carcetti won the election. And it's like it actually wasn't because of this, this and this. It was because of this misunderstanding that was bullshit. And that's why you ended up winning and it wasn't even true.

I think that hammering home that point about the coverage of things and how like momentum can move around a city. And you'll, I just as I get older, I start to think the core of everything is like, actually that was not what happened. And that's a lie. And that's bullshit. And this is what really happened. And I thought they proved that point in season five.

Yeah. We're going to take a quick break. A couple more things to hit before we get to the categories. This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Selling your car should feel like one less thing on your list. Not one more. With Carvana, it is. Just go to Carvana.com and to your license plate or Vin

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your car today. Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. So two other things to mention before we get to the categories. There's a weird Michael Keaton late career comeback that we're in the middle of when this movie comes out. Birdman came out a year before. Then he's in spotlight here.

And then he's in the founder a year later. And they're catching Keaton right at this point where he had disappeared. as a major actor there for a few years, and it had a couple of movies that didn't do that well. But I think everybody was still all in on Michael Keaton. Birdman came back. He was supposed to win the Oscar. He didn't.

And then he's in this movie. He doesn't get nominated. But I just love Michael Keaton. And this is one of my favorite Michael Keaton parts. Where does this rank for you guys? The top five? I would say so. Keaton's a guy that I think I remember having like that really like high wire energy from

the early 80s. Billy Blaze Jasky? Yeah, just some of that stuff. And then I just feel like he weirdly had that blank period for 10 years where he's in like a need for speed and stuff like that. Yeah. And then he just really comes back hard. This is, he has a certain classic movie star quality that you just believe this character and you are rooting for him even though he is not doing stuff to like warrant rooting for. Like, he's just doing his job.

He's not asking for the audience's sympathy or approval, but you just kind of like Michael Keaton and want this to work out for him. Yeah. I'm with you, Bill, that it was just another reminder, like, why we liked him so much in the beginning, but it was a different era. I mean, a lot of the goofy stuff that he did, but he was good at that. And then Batman, when he came out in Batman and a lot of people were like, wait, this guy's going to be Batman.

Like, this doesn't make any sense. This is Mr. Mom, you know, like, you know, gung-ho. What are you? Are you kidding me? but it worked in a way because a lot of these characters are always about who the secret identity is. So with this, I love Birdman. I love that he was a reminder. And I don't know if you've ever hung out.

I haven't. I have a friend that knows him. And they described him as him being over it all in the best possible way. And it made me like him even more when I'd heard that description of him. He just doesn't care. Like he's just normal and he doesn't care anymore and he's over it. And then he came out. I got to admit that opening scene in the newsroom, I got a little scared because it kind of felt like day one of the shoot.

like what kind of accent are you going to give us, Keaton? Yeah. He's like really selling it. And some of the poker jokes aren't really that funny, but maybe that's the whole point is that there was the stupid poker and like golf stroke jokes that everybody laughs at anyway in that kind of setting. And then, you know, look, he just sort of settles into the role. And you're right, Chris.

He's not trying to do all that much. But this last run of his, I like, like, I like the movie The Founder, except I hate it because I hate the Ray Kroc character so much and the way he executes everything and all the stuff. And I also don't think that a nine. who's like playing piano married to like this super handsome steakhouse entrepreneur would leave her husband for Ray Krock and Michael Keaton at that point. So I thought that might have been a nitpick if you want to do a quick founder nitpick. I can't. I hate watch that movie and it's so well done, but he's so good

at being like awful. So yeah, it's a big key. Like it's a anybody that had their Keaton stock and never got rid of it, obviously was bored with this run. I, I fucking loved them. I've probably talked about it on this pod. before, but Night Shift was just a formative movie for me. I loved him in that. But more importantly, he was one of the first great Letterman guests. Oh, yeah. And he would just, he's a former stand-up. He would come on and he would just absolutely crush every Letterman appearance to the point where you were like, if I could have a best friend in Hollywood, it would be Michael Keaton. So I was just always in, even Pacific Heights movies like that. I'm like, I'm all in. And by the way, I like Pacific Heights.

He did. He also, I think if you're talking about like top five Keaton, playing the same character in Jackie Brown and Alex. I was going to mention Jackie Brown. Yeah, that's a top four for me. Ray is just amazing. Yeah. I would go in no particular order, night shift, spotlight, Jackie Brown. Birdman's got to be close, right? I don't know if that's top four for me. I really like the hockey movie he did. Remember when he's the hockey part?

Is that a shot of glory? Clean and sober? Was that what it's called? Clean and Sober, yeah. I remember Clean and Sober coming out, and that was like a big deal. He was like a drunk hockey player in that one. I don't know. I like every mic. Did he play hockey? So he doesn't get nominated for this movie.

No, he's a real estate salesman who's addicted to Coke in Clean and Sover. Yeah, I don't remember. What was the hockey movie? The hockey movie was different. I think Shot at Glory is the hockey movie, right? I like the hockey movie. Was he in Mighty Ducks? Motley, Wins Best Picture, Win's Best Original Screenplay,

only gets one actor. in the supporting actor category, Ruffalo gets it over Michael Keaton, over John Slattery. Ruffalo is better. Okay. I just want to litigate it. What do you think, Chris?

I think Ruffalo does the most. I actually think it should have been slattery. I think slattery is incredible in this. Well, I didn't mention Liev Schreiber, because I actually think he's the best out of the four. I don't know whether the part was meaty enough, but I think a couple of the scenes he has in this movie are, he's just incredible.

It actually made me reconsider him as an actor. Because he was like, Ray, he's doing too. It's the opposite of the overacting reward. He's underacting. But that's apparently what that guy's really like. But he just crushes a couple of these scenes.

So I don't know if the right person won. Rachel McAdams. Do you think that Liam Schreiber has to work? Like, what do you think the hard knocks V.O. money is like for him? Is he getting resumed? digital's off of that? No, I think they have a big holding number for him. I think what, where he makes the bank is Ray Donovan, because once you go past four or five episodes, I still can't believe Rasselo hasn't either written a Ray Donovan episode or had a cameo. I don't

know what you're doing. Can I actually share something with you on this? I was at HBO's offices five years ago for a meeting and I was sitting in the lobby and all these lobbies of these studios are incredible. And there was this older black woman behind the desk. and I got up and started walking towards the bathroom. And she goes, damn. I was like, what? She goes, you Ray Donovan? And I went, what?

The actor? She's like, man, she's like this whole time. I thought you were Ray Donovan. I'm like, leave Shriver? She goes, yeah, yeah, him. I was like, no, my name's Ryan. And I was like, okay, cool. And then I started walking towards the bathroom.

She's like, damn, you walk like him too. Wow. You're Ray Donovan. So it was like, the meeting went awful, but that was a highlight. It was great. So Spotlight wins. This was an awesome Oscars year. We covered it last week when we did The Martian. But you had Spotlight, you had the big short. You had the Martian, the Revenant. Room was in here. Mad Max Fury Road. Steve Jobs basically got shut out. I didn't really like that movie,

but that was the one that I thought heading into that year. That was the one everybody had kind of earmarked. Didn't happen. But we have big stars. Really good original. screenplays, too. Big short, one for Best Adapted and Spotlight One for this. And I thought Leah Bshaer had a case, but that category is pretty strong. 20 million dollar budget made 98.3 million and won an Oscar and it was just a huge success. All right, we're going to get to the categories. Most rewatchable scene. I'll rip through these because we know there's two favorites, but a couple scenes. Marty Barron, when he meets with the staff

after he gets the Boston Globe job, and he tells the staff he wants to pursue the gig and story, Keaton and Slattery push back a little bit. And they were like, yeah, you know, we don't tell. They usually Spotlight picks its own stories, and he kind of takes that pause, and he goes, Would you consider picking this one? It's just so, all of it's so good.

Everything is so great. That scene when Josh Saviano tells the whole spot, spotlight team about grooming. That guy, he's perfectly, like, kind of crazy, but you feel bad for him. He's a victim. He's a little off the reservation. It's Phil Saviano. I'm sorry.

Who's Josh Saviano? I think he was on the Wonder Years. Sounds like it. He says the thing. It's not just physical abuse. It's spiritual abuse. That's just really good and a really important thing. It is important to understand that this is not just physical abuse.

It's spiritual abuse, too. And when a priest does this to you, he roared. you of your faith. So you reach for the bottle or the needle. Or if those don't work, you jump off a bridge. That's why we call ourselves survivors. Have you read Jason Barry's book?

He wrote about the goal. Next one, second, the second Billy Cruttup meeting. Billy Crudup, we'll get to him later when we get to Dion Waiters. He's in three scenes. The second one is when he's kind of like these fucking guys and there's a lot more

cat and mouse, but he's really good in that scene. Why aren't there any records? I was down at the courthouse earlier. there aren't any records of any of these settlements. We dealt directly with the church. We would draw up a demand letter and send it to the chancery. You never filed anything in court? It's a private mediation.

So, this is just you in the Archdiocese's lawyers in a room? Correct. Anyone else? Occasionally, the church would bring in another defense attorney to help out. Yeah, names? Nope The site phone call When they find out for the first time

That this could be 90 priests The VO on that is Richard Jenkins Which I didn't realize Yeah And it's the that's the shot that pulls back Across the entire office Yeah And that's when the stakes become queer

It's like oh this isn't just a couple priests Now we're heading toward 100 here We think we have 13 priests in Boston That fit this pattern Which would be a very Very big story Does that sound right to you in terms of scale?

No, not really, Robbie. Sounds low to me. Six percent of what? How many priests do we have in Boston? About 1,100, 1% is 15, 6% is 90. Wait. 90 priests. Is that possible?

When Baron tells them, you mentioned this earlier, Chris, that we can't run the story yet, we just have a series of smaller stories. Cardinal law is the story. We need to focus on the institution, not the individual priests. Practice and policy. Show me the church manipulated the system so these guys wouldn't have to face charges. Show me they put those same priests back into parishes time and time again. Show me this was systemic, that it came from the top down. Sounds like we're going after law. We're going after the system.

First of all, incredible journalism lesson, right? Like, don't settle for the budget dinner on this one. Let's go for the big-ass dinner. There's a much higher thing at stake here. And he just does it really well. But that whole thing that Ruffalo's doing where he's like, we have to go now. Yeah.

Because the herald might get it or somebody might mess the story up. Which is a real fear, right? If you're a newspaper, you're just constantly worried somebody's going to scoop you before you have a chance to get your story out. Yeah. It's very rare that someone only tells one.

person something. So when you're working on something with a tip like that, you have to assume that they're also talking to other people. Next one is when Sasha, Rachel McAdams' character, finds Paclin the creepy priest, and he answers the door and just starts matter-of-factly saying he didn't get enjoyment out of it, all that stuff. The sister comes in and then she turns around the school bus is there. I want to be clear, I never raped anyone. There's a difference. I should know. How would you know? I was raped. I'm sorry.

Who raped you? Bonnie, who are you talking to? It's okay, Jane. Who raped you? Who are you? Sasha Pfeiffer from the Globe. Please get off my coach. Get inside the house, Ron.

Mr. Get inside, Monash. Sorry. I'm sorry. Who are you? I'm his sister. And I don't want you coming back here. It's Pacquint.

I mean, look, a lot of these scenes, I wouldn't say are technically rewatchable. It's just, I'm going through the key points of the movie. then one of the iconic scenes Ruffalo gets the goods he's in the cab they're following the cab all the way through Boston as he's on the phone with Keaton

telling him this is Bobobod's bigger gets in the office and then he has his big speech It's time, Robbie, it's time. They knew. We need the full scope. That's the only thing

that we'll put an end of this. Let's take it up to Ben, let him decide. We'll take it to Ben when I say it's time. It's time, Robbie. it's time. They knew and they let it happen to kids.

Okay? It could have been you. It could have been me. It could have been any of us. We got to nail these scumbags. We got to show people that nobody can get away with this. Not a priest or a cardinal or a freaking pope. But that whole sequence of him, the guy goes on his lunch break.

Ruffalo's got to wait and then he won't let him use the copier and he gives him like 80 bucks to you. the copier. Yeah, there's some, all the president's men, DNA in that scene, like that you can definitely shoot. Keaton goes to see Jim the lawyer at his house. The classic one, I like when movies

do this where the wife is super excited to see the guy, hey, Robbie, how are you doing? How's the wife of kids? And the husband is just a totally different kind of vibe going. In one world with like an investigative reporter showing up at your house on Christmas

Eve be like in any way good news. No. And she's like ready to make them cookies and a cup of tea. By the way, that's that character played by Jamie Sheridan, I can't believe that guy wasn't born in Attleboro or something. I mean, I know he's been around forever, but there are a thousand clones of those guys, older, full head of gray white hair, you know, may have gone to like St. A's. and then, you know, work their way up at Hickok and Boardman.

It just, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like there was a million of those guys running around Boston because there were. Three Michelard Ultras on the front nine? Yeah, and he's just like, you know, Nosset is heaven. Right. Yeah, I was going to ask you this later,

but if we did the authentic Boston character scale, Patrick from Hyde Park, who we talked about earlier, is a 10. This guy's like a nine and a half. This guy exists all over the place in every conceivable part. I think my dad is friends with five different versions of this guy who has five different jobs. Like he can get you out at Plymouth. Right.

Full head of white hair. You can get you on at Plymouth. But, you know, he's got to make sure. And the next thing you know, he brought up a guy from Xerox and you're like, what happened here? And then it looks like, hey, don't worry about it. And it's like, hey, do you like the socks? It's like, well, it's tough to get tickets now. But in 01, I could get him for you all the time.

Yeah, actually, Red Sox tickets would not have been as tough, which is. a great aspect of this movie is that they're complaining about the Red Sox during that season where Pedro gets hurt and they go 82 and 70. I mean, they barely crack 500. Yeah, that was Jim the lawyer. That had the exchange when Jim finally. Yeah, circles the names. He was like, I was doing my job. And he goes, yeah, you and everyone else. It's just tough. And then the last one, Robbie admitting that he had the story in 1993, which when Rachel McAdam shows it to him, he handles it, he's rattled by it, we don't really know what he thinks,

and then he admits this is after they hit a home run with the story and it's going to be a big deal. And then Marty has that incredible speech. Sometimes it's easy to forget that we spend most of our time stumbling around the dark. Suddenly a light gets turned on and there's a fair share of blame to go around. I can't speak to what happened before I arrived,

but all of you have done some very good reporting here. Reporting that I believe is going to have an immediate and considerable impact on our readers. For me, this kind of story is why we do this. Having said that, Cardinal Law and the Catholic community are going to have a very strong response to this. So if you need a moment, you've earned it. but I will need you back here Monday morning focused and ready to do your job. Take us home, Marty. This is why we do this.

So I'm going with that as my favorite scene. I have a couple. I had the Red Sox game just because I love the banter. Oh, yeah, I should have that. I should have that in the newspaper guys. I love when they go find the directories in the basement. There's a dead rat in the corner, but they are like, we have to take all of these directors.

and basically like build our own database. And that it's so tactile. It's so physical. Like they have to hold these like molding fucking books and start to build up this case against the church. I loved, oh, and they realized. I had that in what's age the best.

The, the realization that every time there's some sort of weird leave, that's probably code for something. Yeah, sick leave. And, you know, and you mentioned the crude of stuff, but I thought the scene in the lobby were,

where Eric finally snaps on those guys and he's just like, I sent you the names, you know? Yeah. So those are mine. But probably, I'd probably go with the speakerphone scene just because I think that's when you realize the magnitude of what you're dealing with. What do you guys ever saw?

I got one that I'll just throw in the mix. I think when Rachel McAdams' character sits down with Joe Crowley, who is the gay guy. It's played by Michael Creighton, I believe. And it's a really great execution of explaining the victim's side, because I think a lot of us, whenever we read these stories, you'll go, okay, well, how does it? Like, we understand the predator part, and the movie does a great job with the predator part of it, but it's like, how do I fully understand? And they did a really

good job jumping back between that scene and then also Ruffalo. So it wasn't just like straight end to end about, like they cycled them back and forth, which I thought was kind of a clever way of doing that. And he's, he's just so believable. He's giving you perspective. Most of us will probably never understand. And then as Rachel McAdams says to him, you know, do you ever think of telling somebody? And he goes, who, a priest? Of course, there is a church right there at a playground.

Joe, did you ever try and tell anyone? Like, who the priest? Right. That's the whole fucking point. Like, we're supposed to trust these people. The whole church is based on like, hey, I'm having problems at home. Talk to your priest.

You know what I mean? He'll guide you through the, those times where, you know, I do understand the benefit of religion for anyone that would look at it and say, hey, it's something that resets me every week or it's something that makes me be able to handle tough challenges throughout my life. Like, I'm all for that part of it. But then to say, yeah, right, like the whole foundation of the church is supposed to be this place that you can go to that is safe and that you can trust. And yet for me and my experience, also with the imagery of the church in the backdrop to a playground with kids on it, that real quick 10, 15 second,

thing hammers the point home. Yeah. I had that in, I had that whole sequence in what's age the best, because I don't know how, I guess it should have been a rewatchable. It's just weird to call that a rewatchable. It's so expertly done with those two. Yeah, I don't know. I'm just, I love the scene. So, yeah. The way they go back and forth versus like doing all of one and then all of the other, I think was really smart. And have them, you know, just little things that people are that are better at this than just some movie where you were like, this didn't make me feel anything that I mean, it sounds stupid, but that he's nervous as hell. He's already eaten two muffins, you know, and that he spills his coffee a little bit. And then he's explaining, which I don't

think you would understand, and certainly no one living in Boston today, but for this kid who probably this was happening 20 years prior to this is pointing out that as a kid from Dorchester to even go to the back bay would be like being in some rough part of Los Angeles and getting to hang out in Beverly Hills. And then when he says to her, like, oh, your, you know, your relative it was in South East so you get it. They're just little things where they weren't being obvious. And if you figure that part as if you're fine, if you don't, okay, we're just going to keep it moving anyway. So there wasn't really any handholding there, but they were making really good points. What's aged the best? Really good opening scene, the 1976 flashback. You could have

argued put that in most rewatchable. It's just excellent. Sets the tone. Also really important because it's so much earlier than when they do the movie. The red-headed cop is amazing. Yeah, it's really good. What a rainman. When he says what a rainman and he lights a cigarette, you're like, okay, here we go. I like any movie where people are playing golf, but there's some side business going on with some feeling out. In general, those scenes are hard to pull off, but they really did seem like two golfers. And it's just, I thought it worked. I love newsroom scenes as we discussed earlier. Love seeing the newsroom. They obviously tried to rip off the globe completely. They built the set that was like an exact replica.

There's in the research. I would also say just going off of that, like, what's age the best is newsroom politics, like the way guys are like, hey, is there a meeting going on over there? Like, do I need to be it? Like, can I get into that? And when I think Matt goes up to Eileen, the columnist and asks her basically for her research, but she's like, is spotlight working on this? And he's like, I got to go.

You know? Yeah. Like all the secrecy that goes into it because these are people who are competitive with each other. I think it's really well, well done. Tucci saying, mark my words, if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one. It's just, oof. All the real Boston people, they did a nice job with that. That was a nice trend of the last 15 years of when people made Boston movies really being careful about using real Boston people as extras and one-liners and things like that and not just, you know, using people with JFK accents.

Crut up as a smarmy lawyer, great. San Tarpios, how'd you feel about that as the pizza call, Rosillo? I don't want to upset anybody back home. Can I give you my San Tarpios take? Can you guys give me a little bit of a Boston pizza primer? Are we talking among the best pizza you've ever had? So here's the thing with San Tarpios. Mentioned reverentially, I never got it.

I never really liked it that much. I always thought there was too much of the crust flakes on the bottom of the crust. I know Riscilla agrees with me. He's like afraid to agree. No, but I've had different moments with like, I feel like the most popular name brand pizzas in Boston are the ones that I would put like outside of the top five. But then, you know, the upper crust, I love the one in Newton, I think. And I think there was another one over by me in Brookline.

Love that upper crust. But then there's another one that I'm like, oh, wait, have my taste change or is this one just worse? And I call the buddy. He's like, oh, that's the one you don't go to. Even like Pizza Regina, like, I don't, I think there are moments where it's incredible, but people will assassinate you in that line to get in there. And that was always a little surprising to me. I don't know. You tell me.

It was never like an A plus pizza situation. I think it's gotten better over the last 10, 15 years, but. It's good, right? I mean, we're not... You guys seem so shook by like Boston pizza community coming for you. People take this stuff personally. I just seen tarpios. I never totally understood it.

And we mentioned that them throwing away the Pulitzer Prize part of the title card. Any other what's the best for you guys? Yeah, man, the Howard Shore score. Kind of a nod to the Dave Gruson, all the president's men piano score. But this movie could go real wrong if the music's bad. Yeah, if it's like too overwrought. either overwrought or if they make some bad music supervision choices and throw some like 2001 music in there for some reason like if mike is just banging away at some at some new metal or

whatever it's just great that it's just that one repeating piano score that just that motif that kind of repeats throughout the movie resets the action it's so it's so perfect uh i have for what's age the best just seeing fenway park in the pedro area even though he's hurt that year this is really it's really nice. Such kind of nostalgic for as much as I'm delighted they won the four world series and I would never trade that for anything. I do like that era of the pre-2004 when it was just different level of people in the stance, different level of pain. And it was just, I always like when they're in any movie pre-2004 like that. Look, I am not proud of this, but like as a kid, when I used to watch older kids fight in the bleachers and get shit-faced, I was like, I can't wait to do that.

So by the time I moved to Boston, it was the new ownership. It was becoming fan-friendly. And I was like, so wait, like, I missed my window. Now, at that point, I was too old for it. But I really, I really was a little kid. And it wasn't like I was some tough kid or something. But I just was like, I can't wait to go to Red Sox games and sit in the bleachers with like six buddies and make. fun of kids from Connecticut and see who, see who wins. Just don't count the shit out of each other. Yeah, and just get thrown out and then end up at who's on first with a ripped shirt being like, dude, that kid, that kid sucks. Woodsage the worst. Curse of the Bambino got a shout out in this, in this movie, fuck that book.

The AOL Anywhere signed in front of the globe. Is there any follow up to fuck that book? Yeah, fuck that book. marketing Red Sox history as a curse it caused a lot of problems Can you explain what you mean?

I just don't like the book Okay Didn't like it at the time I thought it was a false premise And never bought it for a second Why would Babe Ruth curse the Red Sox? He got to go to the Yankees It became the biggest star in the world

What was his incentive? It was fucking stupid Our curse was we had a bad owner. And then he died and we had more bad owners. And they kept having bad owners until they finally had a couple smart people. We were like, cool, this could be one of the biggest assets in the world. The AOL Anywhere signed in front of the globe has just aged the worst. It's just funny to see AOL anywhere.

Like that was a real thing. Yeah, but it's like the internet's coming. Yeah. It's coming for newspapers. True. Stanley Tucci's wig. I was never 100% on in this movie. It's tough.

Tucci, it's going to go one of two ways. he's either going to go bad wig or he's going to go just very cool bald guy and you either get hunger games or you get devil worse Prada Any other one's age the worst? I just want to throw a little shout out to Rachel McAdams

because I hung out with a girl a couple times that looked sort of like Rachel McAdams but she just wasn't like Rachel McAdams from the notebook. So even though I would look at her and go she kind of looks just like her and she was never like the girl in the notebook so it doesn't work out so it's always a little tough for me to process any of her roles. Casting what ifs.

Matt Damon almost got the Ruffalo part, apparently. Again, the half-ass. It seems impossible to think of anyone doing it other than Ruffalo because he was so good. Facial expressions, his mouth, he was annoying in the best way. When he goes to the records, which is just a classic Boston where the guy doesn't want to help him, and he's like, I work for the Globe. The guy's like, good for you. Boston's the kind of city where you'd say, like, I was on the red side.

be like, oh, 405. You know, like, that's how the city treats everybody, where it's like, it's the least impressed with anyone ever at all times. I do love that. I don't think Damon as the Mark Ruffalo character, Mike Resendez. I don't think that would have made a lot of sense. In 2015, he would have overpowered that movie. It would have just been too big of a deal, like to have Matt Damon be that guy.

It's interesting, though. He could have had that part. He also could have the Manchester by the C part. I don't know, getting neither and did The Martian, which I think was the best result for everybody. I couldn't find any of their casting what ifs for this. Best that guy. I couldn't either.

It sounds like this was put together very quickly with the people that they wanted. What about Will Smith as Marty Barron? Did you guys see that? Best that guy, aka the Joey Pants Award. I mean, there's a lot of that guys in this movie. Like the, we could go through 10 of them. But I wanted a shout out to Jamie Sheridan, who you mentioned, is Jim the lawyer. Who I do feel like to most people is that guy and not Jamie Sheridan.

in fact. I think, yes. I think for the three people here, we might think of him as Jamie Sheridan, but I think he's of that guy. And then the better choice is the guy who plays the fourth spotlight reporter that easily could have been like Casey Affleck called in last second, couldn't do the movie. He had to have an appendectomy and they had to grab somebody. And that guy's name is Brian D.R.C. James.

He's a huge stage actor. Huge stage actor. Yeah. Yeah, I've got some holes in my stage knowledge. Not, I wouldn't call him a famous actor, but if you were going to slip anyone from the Affleck, Damon Philem into this movie in a part, I think it would be Casey Affleck in that part,

which would be my recasting coach for this. I think if we wanted to get, I also, you could talk me to Cole Houser. You could talk me to Cole Houser in anything. He's still not answered my, by the way, I know you're worried he's not answered my. DM you. I think Cole Hauser put a mustache on him, dark in his hair, maybe.

Would there have to be a fight? He has to be chasing someone near an alley by the poor house or something. There's no way Colehouser as Matt does not kick down the door of the treatment. Yeah, that's in his neighborhood. He would wait for him to go Cole Haser. That would be the first note. Like have Colehouser punch one person. Well, this is the easiest category we've ever done.

The Vincent Hanna, give me all you got a word. has to go to Mark Ruffalo since he was the original name's sake for this. They knew. They knew, Chris. They knew! What about when they say when's the Pats opener? Because in 2001, no one would have cared. Yeah, that was still blood so.

He needed a transfusion. Yeah. Dion Waders Award is a lively, lively category this time. In fact, so lively, we're going to take a break and come back to it. If you're a QuickBooks customer looking to grow your business without the growing pains, you need the Intuit ERP. upgrade to Intuit Enterprise Suite in a matter of hours. It's the AI Native ERP from the makers of QuickBooks.

Learn more at Intuit.com slash ERP. All right, DeAnne Waiters Award. Billy Crudeup, three scenes, really testing out his character for the morning show. This is a dry run. Yes. She basically brings McLeish back as the head of NBC for the morning show. Stanley Tucci. Jamie Sheridan is Jim the lawyer

or I got to say Patrick from Hyde Park basically one and a half scenes crushes it and I think I think he has to be considered I'm going with Crudip though because that's a part that is like a nothing part and he does a lot of stuff with it

you basically have to be untrustworthy you have to be a little dismissive but there has to be something else going on in the back that you know it's right I just think he does a good job. Yeah, he does such a good. It's also like this smarmy, but still seems sincere. And even though he can tell what they're pushing at, he can't give it up until the very

end when they doorstop in the lobby of his office. So, yeah, it's crude. You agree, Rissela? Yeah, I'm going to go Crudup because I thought of this, it's not its own category, but just is Crutup the most likable guy ever telling you to go fuck yourself? Oh, that's good. That's right. Tim or Mike Greenberg

Wait a minute Are you saying Greenberg in that role? Well, what are you guys telling you? Greenberg, if he could have been in a role, it would have been Rick McLeish, the lawyer. I could have seen him in that. What if he said, I can't answer right now,

but coming up tomorrow. Coming up next. Coming up next. I'll tell you what confidentiality forbids me from telling you to answer your questions. I'll tell you why a settlement isn't actually a settlement. Coming up next, I'll tell you why you should be looking

in your September 1993 archives. Half-ass internet research. Apparently there's a visual blog information called Beautiful that looks at how accurate movies are and this movie got a 76.2% for accuracy, which apparently is pretty good. This movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival to huge applause and laughter when it was revealed at the end that Cardinal Bernard Law was reassigned to a senior position of honor in Rome. Like a massive promotion, by the way, which I think is also a unbelievable reminder of how often these scandals turn out.

I just be like, I remember reading the Pat Tillman book and all the people that were involved in the cover up with that. It's like, oh, by the way, this guy got a cabinet position. This person was promoted. and you're like, what? And I don't know, it just happens. It just, it happens all the time. So I was reading about the Cardinal lost up last night in preparation for this. You're like, oh, okay, so he, he ended up winning out of this whole deal. It just makes he sick. It's almost like if there's a giant referee scandal in the NBA and then Steve Javvy, Monty McCutcheon, and Joey Crawford all work for the league being in charge of the refs after. It's almost like that. I'm going to

leave Monty out of this. And just because I'm going to say that. Just saying. Tom McCarthy said that when they built the set for the globe and the reporters from the movie visited the set

it was so accurate that some of them gravitated to their actual desks that were the fake desks and rearranged stuff to make it look as much like their desk

as possible so that's weird in the baseball game scene the real Michael, Sasha, and Robbie are all in the background yeah

having to be you yeah That's awesome. John Gagan, the priest who really got the ball wrong, murdered by a cellmate in 2003. In Shirley, Massachusetts at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Shirley. So there's that. Apex Mountain. The Boston Globe.

In real life or in movies? In real life. Yeah. Yeah. But internet's not, internet's still not really. coming yet. They're still in an outsized position of power. They just went to Pulitzer for the most important story

and they're not worried about their business yet. I would actually say maybe. Yeah, I think that's in play for sure. Mark Bruffalo? Close, but I don't know. I still like Zodiac better. Yeah, I mean, I love Zodiac. He's in the Captain America movies at this point. Yeah. He's playing Hulk.

So he's kind of a movie story, but then he spends most of his time doing those movies. I mean, he made a mini-series this year for HBO, but I don't know if Mark's necessarily capitalized on what he had here. John Slattery coming off Mad Men lands a couple big movies including this one. This ends up being the best movie role he had, but I would say Mad Men is still his... It's not even close. Yeah. It's Mad Men. Yeah. By the way, although his hair close to it, because it'd be like, hey, John, you're working around the clock. Let's get that Bufant a little tasseled. Yeah. He's not...

Constantly untucked and unkempt, which is crazy because Roger Stilling was the opposite of that. Leav Schreiber, I'm going to say yes. He's got Ray Donovan going at the same time and was awesome in this movie. And I think he's also making the Chuck Weppner movie. Just a lot going on for Leif Schreiber. Rachel McAdams, no. No, no book. Come on.

Newspaper movies, I say no. No. Pre-scandal movies, yes, unfortunately. Are we sure about Leif Shriver? What would you go with? Just trying to think. What else is there? I mean, he actually has a weird career.

Yeah, it's pretty... I love him. I'm all over everything he does, except the fact that there's a million things I haven't seen that weren't that big of a deal. So I don't know. Another guy, much like Brian, Brian Darcy James, Hart's in the theater.

Heart is on stage for Leah. I saw him in Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross as Ricky Roma. Oh, wow. That wasn't the Pacino one, right? That is the Pachino one. Yeah. I'll tell you, not the movie. He was on the, he was in.

No, no, because I saw it with Bobby Conval. Yeah. And Pacino, but Pacino plays Lemon's character from the movie. So he doesn't play Ricky on stage. He plays the machine. Yeah, Leave wasn't, wasn't in that version of it. But I did see that. It was, it was terrific.

He's got a lot of fans in the Simmons house because he's in the Damien Oman remake that my son loves. I have an APEC- This is all for you, Damien. By the way, do you have any concern your son love? loves Damien that much? Oh, we love the Damian movies. I can't believe they're not on a TV show. It's not about whether you guys love it.

Is it okay that your son loves it that much? Oh, yeah. Okay. I have an Apex Mountain. That scares me a little. What's your Apex Mountain? Cackies. Yeah.

Is there any film where cackies are more prominently worn? And all of their different, like, from slacks. If you didn't have six pairs back then, what were you even doing going outside of the house? I think the way these guys are dressed is perfect. It's just such perfect late 40s, early 50s, like, I'm just going to tuck this in. Pickin'nits. Some of the accuracy stuff, and they had to do this for the narrative of the movie, but they had to grab a...

Wait, wait, sorry. One more Apex Mountain. Okay. Is this Apex Mountain for saying the title of the movie in the movie? Has it ever been said more than a movie? Face Off is still Apex Mountain for that. They have a whole scene where they're just like faceoff. 85 times in this movie.

I still vote for faceoff. Okay. Picking Nets. So they had to compress some stuff because they had so many stories after. So like, for instance, that Pac-Win, that priest, that happened after the first big spotlight thing came out. They compressed that together.

And they took some liberties, but I think ultimately it's a good thing. I never totally understood why McLeish, the Billy Crudeb character, was at first protective and didn't seem like he wanted to help them. But then all of a sudden he was like, I already mailed you the names. And then he ended up mailing them the names. It was that whole cat mouse thing doesn't really make sense if you watch it a few times. I never got it. Just help him the first time. No? Well, I think he is trying to honor the client confidentiality of it.

But he'd already broken it because he'd already mailed the names. Yeah, but maybe I mean, just like whatever has transpired over the years means that like he feels like a can't. Riscilla, are you okay with Sasha, the Rachel McAdams character being just a single workaholic reporter in this movie? Not back then. I mean, she's one of the five hottest girls in the city in 2001 when I remember. Wait, she hasn't.

Is she living with her boyfriend? Well, I just. I thought that was her brother. I thought she was at like a family function and that was her brother talking to her. Oh, I thought Robbie's like go out to dinner with that guy tonight because you're not going to, you're not going to see him for a while. we're going to be working so hard over the next couple of months. All right.

I mean, I'm going to watch it more carefully the next time I watch this movie. Wait a minute. Can we find on the cast? Can we get IT on this to find out if somebody's cast is her brother or a boyfriend? That character, that character is just not single in Boston. No, I mean, you know, my joke is always, she's the hottest free agent property since like fucking page. That guy's name is Hansi and it's her spouse. Oh, okay.

There's a house. That's good. That's no longer a nitpick. Okay, well, let's nitpick it this way. would not let her be by herself that often in that. You'd be checking it more often. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? I actually think they could have done that in a really smart way.

I'm not against it. It would be a tough hang, but it would probably be pretty good. Would it be a tougher hang than the vow? Dudes are just crushing the vow left and right, huh? I haven't seen it. Probably in answerable questions. Rissillo, did this make up for, Tom McCarthy's crime against journalism in the wire as Scott Templeton.

So let's put together some stuff here that I think is actually really fascinating. And I know I texted you about it, but I think I got kind of one of those, huh, that's weird, responses. So Tom McCarthy writes, directs this, plays the disgraced journalist in the wire who basically is trying to work his way up, trying to get to the Washington Post. They're like, hey, you're all right, read your stuff, you know, given another year or something like that. He's trying to make his mark. And so, as we know, the character McNulty is framing these homeless killings with some fake serial killer when really they're just finding the bodies and staging it. And the McNulty starts getting on the phone with McCarthy's character, the journalist. And then McCarthy starts embellishing and making up all this stuff, which is funny because basically the whole thing was fake in the first place.

But now he's trying to get recognized as this journalist who's also making up all of these things and he's exposed. And yet he writes and directs this movie about the Spotlight Group, which later on had a writer. who was part of this group, Kevin Cullen at the Globe, who was suspended for allegedly making up items about covering the Boston Marathon bombing. Which I wasn't alleged, by the way. Right. Okay. Well, you know, whatever.

I'm just doing whatever I'm doing here. And he was suspended. I know that they fought and everything. I just thought that that whole circular thing was pretty remarkable in its irony. Yeah. I like the Scott Templeton character. and I think I actually think that's one of the strengths

of season five is that they're bringing in this air of somebody using the newspaper basically as a launching pad for whatever their multimedia career is going to be, which became one of the biggest problems of journalism in the last 15 years. So I actually think it's a defensible character, but

took a lot of shit. When you think about a character and you go, if I ran into him, would I be annoyed because I hated his character so much in a movie or television show? That means you did a great job. I mean you did a great job. One of the politicians on 24 is it the white president. I forget. I mean, he's so unlikable. I'm granted, it's stupid. It's 24. But like, I had moments where I was like, if I ran into him, I might not even be nice because he was so unlikable. And that's what McCarthy does in the wire,

which means he killed it. The ultimate example of that is Tony Goldman and Ghost when he kills Patrick Swayze and, like, he's been open about people held it against him for like seven, eight years after trouble getting. It was pretty much like you couldn't, yeah. it's like Will Smith and after Earth, like a lot of people that are in science. One other in answerable question I had for you. Did Michael Keaton win the 2010s over Tom Hanks? As you know, I love to compare them. Just the two of them?

That's the only thing we're comparing. Well, give me the rosters here. What are we got? I think Keaton, Keaton Hanks in the 80s, they kind of go back and forth. It's like bird and magic. Each guy has the upper hand. Like, you think Keaton has it. then Hanks comes out with Big,

then Keaton comes back with Batman. They're really going toe to toe. Batman probably is the Trump card in that decade. No, but then Hanks comes back with the combo of, what's the baseball movie? League of their own. Sleeper on us in Seattle, Philadelphia, and Forests.

Seattle's an 80s movie? Huh? No, I'm just, I'm going from like 82 to 92, that first decade of those guys. All of a sudden, Hank says the upper hand. And honestly, Keaton's like Clyde Drexler. Like, he's reeling for a while there.

He, he, he, he, the 90s, I don't think it's, looking at it now, it's, it's Hanks. It's Hanks. It's sleepless in Seattle. You've got, you've got mail. But that's when he takes control. And he basically has control over the next 20 years. But then Keaton comes back, really, with, with Birdman and with Spotlight. And you look at, you look at, you look at Hanks's, 2010s, starts with Larry Crown, Cloud Atlas.

Captain Phillips, not bad. Saving Mr. Banks, terrible. Bridges spies, eh, Ithaca. Bridge's Spies is pretty good. Hologram for the King. Sully, kind of liked, but whatever. Inferno, the Circle, the Post, Miss. Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, unwatchable.

I think Keaton wins the last nine years. All right, but Hanks, I think, trounces him in the 90s. Joe versus the volcano. Hanks wins. I'm just saying, a Keaton made of some ground. Philadelphia, Forest Gump, Apollo 13, Toy Story. Castaway. Private Ryan, Toy Story 2, the Green Mile, which was weird.

They've castaway if we include it as a 2000. We do kind. My point is, if you take away Tom Hanks' nine-year run, which is the best run by any actor in the history of movies, you just take that away. Keaton's right there. He's not. He's not.

I even think, I think Hanks' 2010's is better, because I still think Captain Phillips, Sully and Bridge are better. Not all of them are not better than Keaton's best movies, but they're really good. He just made a lot of shit in the 2010s. Sully? Yeah, I like Sully. So you like Bridges Spies? Me?

Yeah. Yeah, I do. Do you not like Bridges Spice? Oh, yeah. That's weird. You like it or you don't like it, Brissila? No, I didn't like it. I didn't like anything.

You didn't like it. Do you... Well, I didn't hate it. I thought in comparison to like some of the other stuff it was being compared to, I went into it, probably with too high expectations. And I went, yeah, I don't know. I think like one guy talked weird for two plus hours and people were blown away by it. I think Hank's last 15 years have been disappointing.

15? He's one of my favorite actors ever. But I think from Catch Me, Catch Me If You Can, going forward, I just don't like a lot of the choices. I don't like that he made three DaVinci Code movies. I know he did it for the money. Yeah, he got paid. He got paid big time. But Polar Express 04 cutoff.

Bill. So your 15-year thing might be right. Yeah. Charlie Wilson's War? I like Charlie Wilson's War. Yeah, I kind of like that one. That might be one of the last ones I liked. It's a really good. Cloud Atlas? Did you not get it? I just, we could you woven in Castaway 2 into one of those terrible choices? Like, at least give it a whirl.

What's the plot of Castaway 2? Go. He becomes a serial killer. I've already covered this. He's been driven crazy. Oh, that's right. he loses his mind and becomes a serial killer and puts the volleyball over each victim's head. Just eating. That's how they eventually know. At home.

Who won the movie? This is going to be interesting. I have no idea what you guys are going to pick. Justice. That's ineligible. I'm going to go with Keaton. I think ultimately he keeps the tempo in this movie. And he has just like the perfect tone the entire time.

I also had Keaton. Oh my God, you guys. This is like arguing some game manager who gets a win on Monday night football is actually an awesome quarterback. It's Ruffalo. Ruffalo is awesome. He's just annoying at every turn, but in the best possible way for you to kind of go, oh, that's how these guys get this done. Single-minded.

He didn't care. He didn't care. He didn't clean in his apartment. We got to nail these scumbags. It could have been you. I still say Keaton. Keaton jumps out of me every time. I watch it. I think Ruffalo weirdly has the best part, and I think Keaton has the hardest part,

because he's got to feel like a Massachusetts old school, lived, did it all through. But as he, in the research, you find out the real Robbie, even though he was born, raised, the whole thing, didn't really totally have a Boston accent. So you have to have like the, he has the kind of accent, almost like that my dad has, the person who's been there a million years but doesn't necessarily have the over-the-top Boston accent. So he hits that. He hits kind of the vibe. He just feels really nice to choose to me. You're good with his accent in this? Well, I think he does what he, I think it actually gets better as the movie goes along. Yeah, it does. Because that opening scene. Yeah. Opening scenes rough and then it goes. No, we're talking Keaton. Ruffalo just, his thing is,

his is just a pattern of speaking. You know, whatever he was doing, he was modeling it after another guy with his facial expressions. Yeah, he's like, hey, what's up? Right. What's going? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. he talks out of the side of his mouth, like almost like a sliced alone. And then when he's eating the cake, he's just got like a weird mouth thing going on. Yeah. I think it's actually really cool. And I just love the part too where he goes, do you get him to talk yet on the crimes report, the original story? And he's just like, nobody will.

You know, like he's just, like, what are you talking about? Like, this is what I do. I get people to talk. And that's the Stanley Tucci stuff as well. Or he's like, get out of here, get out of here. And he just doesn't leave him alone, which I thought was, you know, what? job is. Can we get producer Craig in here?

I'm interested for his take because I'm not sure how many times he's seen this movie. I'm always surprised when he's seen any good movie. Who do you have for who won the movie? I think it's Keaton as well. That was who I picked last night when I watched it. Honestly, this might be a hot take. I don't think Ruffalo is that good in this movie. I think he borderline goes too hard and gets close for me being kind of annoyed when he's on the screen.

Do you ask for him? Yeah, I got to say. I'm veering more toward Craig's side on that than Rissillo's side, but I think he kind of had to be that way. Come on. Come on. I think he dials it up. Listen, there's a reason we named the first overacting award after Mark Ruffalo. There are guys who were dialed up, though. I mean, like, think about what he's talking about. I don't know. I think that's what it was. Like, he was trying to show that I don't want to live with the guy, but I want him trying to uncover a story that matters. And that's why I think he was, he was that way. I think he should change the Dion Waders Award because he just wanted to. a ring not doing anything. Oh, that's a good point.

Do we have to change the opposite of the Dion Waiters Award is what he just did in basketball. Yeah, that's a pretty solid point. It should it be the J.R. Smith Award? Because he grabbed the trophy first. That's good. This changes everything. Wow. I don't know.

Can we change the Deanne Waiters Award or is that just that's stuck there? I feel like at this point, it's a snapshot of a moment in America history. I don't know. If you change the Ruffalo Award, why can't you change it? And Dion went off in one game, right? What? Garbage Time? In the bubble?

Call it the Kendrick Nunn Award then. Oh, he doesn't deserve an award. Yeah. Dan Waiters was actually a good heat check guy once upon a time. Yeah, but he just, what Dion Waiters stood for, what this award means, he just did the absolute opposite of. And you need to talk to the, I think you need to talk to the academy about what you guys are doing. The committee will meet. Yeah, exactly.

That's all I'm asking. Yeah. At the next board meeting, I think it'll be part of the agenda. Well, I wonder if we, yeah, maybe we put that out to the rewatchables Facebook group, whether it's time to retire Dan Waiters Award after Dan Waiters had the anti-Dan Waiters' 2020 finals performance. Do you think the Facebook group will have enough time to respond? All right, that's it for Spotlight.

I thought we handled it well. Chris Ryan, Riscilla, Craig. Thanks so much. And what do we have? Oh, my God. There's a big one next week. No, I'm not saying what it is. I'm really excited.

You should announce it so people can watch. He never does. Nah, I can't announce this one. It doesn't need any promotion. It's a pretty big one. But anyway, we'll see you.