The Rewatchables - 'Step Brothers' With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Episode Date: July 13, 2018The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey just became best friends and are off to the Catalina Wine Mixer to rewatch 2008’s hilarious comedy ‘Step Brothers,’ starring Will Ferr...ell and John C. Reilly and directed by Adam McKay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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We started out this podcast on three bunk beds.
And now here it comes, the rewatchables.
When their parents got married, Dale and Brennan became stepbrothers.
Hey, you're guts.
You don't say that.
From the guys who brought you Talidae Goodnight.
If you were a chick, who's the one guy you would sleep with.
John Stamos.
Did we just become best friends?
Yep.
Step brothers made it all.
All right, you guys voted for it.
Step brothers.
I'm shocked.
I was shocked how the poll went.
This podcast is a fucking prison.
We opened it up on Twitter on my account.
Gave you two choices.
Stepbrothers or Tom Cruise movie TBD.
Thought Cruz was going to win in a walk.
What we learned is Step Brothers is really, really popular.
Sounds like somebody's getting used to the idea that Twitter and democracy don't always go hand in hand.
I don't like it.
I don't like it.
I feel like part of the problem there is that you guys already did the two most rewatchable Tom Cruise movies.
You already did Jerry McGuire.
You already did a few.
you good men. True. You know what we're going to do? Much to your chagrin? Collateral.
Collateral is happening. I'm out. Every 20 episodes, Chris and I get to do a movie that only we
really care about the most. Just launch a subscription-only Patreon for a Michael Man podcast. That's a good
side hustle for you. I might do that. Why not? Maybe. Maybe. Every 100 episodes, we go deeper and
deeper into the man catalog. And then we, the biggest one is a four-hour extravagance on Black Hat.
Well, that's what maybe we'll donate the proceeds to a four-hour director's kind of blackout.
You won't be able to do that because that will be the day when we shudder the ringer.
Stepbrothers, we did an oral history on it on Tuesday on the ringer.
And a lot of anecdotes to be gleaned from that.
Will Ferrell and I talked about Stepbrothers for a while on my podcast last summer.
We're going to put that at the tail end of this after we're done.
He talked about it for 10, 12 minutes.
I think one of the surprising things with this movie is the belated kind of brilliance of it.
It took people two years to get going.
And I think there's some factors for it.
I theorized with Will Ferrell when we did the podcast last year that I think part of it was he just had so many good movies.
There was almost a little Will Ferrell fatigue.
Adam McKay agrees with this theory, by the way, where it was almost like a LeBron type situation where he's good every year.
And then there's that year where you just vote LeBron like fifth for MVP.
It's stupid.
And I think that was part of it.
But as Adam pointing out, the other part is, once it's on cable.
And it was just one of those movies.
I watched it again last night.
And I think I laughed harder last night than I did the other times.
It just gets funnier.
There's not a lot of movies like that that gains steam that are comedies.
I think almost every scene in this movie is funny, too.
There's not like down, there's not like valleys like Dora would like say like there's like, my
favorite Bill Murray movies all have.
like 20 minute stretches where it's like
Stripes is an action movie now for like a little while.
Yeah, that's tough. There's nothing like that in this movie.
Every single scene, you're like,
I can't believe I'm watching this.
And they take every single,
it's like, oh, they have to get from like in the car
to the house or they have to drive from this to this.
And they use every single moment as an opportunity
to make these guys seem more and more certifiable.
Yeah, I think it's also the last
truly canonical Will Ferrell movie.
Yeah.
He's made a lot of really funny movies since
this movie, but this is the last one where if you're doing the Hall of Fame plaque,
like it's on the plaque.
You have to say stepbrothers goes in.
And it comes off this incredible run of movies that he and McKay did consecutively.
So Farrell from 2001 to 2008, Zoolander, old school, elf, anchorman, kicking and screaming,
bewitched, tall dega nights, blades of glory, semi-pro, stepbrothers.
It's not LeBron making eight straight finals, but it's close.
Yeah, it's close.
There's like five finals.
There's funny stuff in all.
A couple of championships in those.
When are we doing the Bewitched rewatchables?
I had forgotten that happened until I saw it on the IMDB.
Who was the female in that?
Nicole Kidman.
That was a big movie.
That was a big movie with a big budget.
Yeah.
And it was a big failure.
Was it bad or were people just tired of Will Ferrell?
It was really high concept and I think pretty confusing.
It was about like a movie star who was starring in the remake of Bewitched,
but she also had the same powers as the character in Bewitched.
It was very, very odd film.
So that's an eight.
year run I just banged out.
To put it in perspective, Jim Carrey
94 to 2000.
Ace Ventura of the Mass, dumb and dumber,
Ace 2, cable guy, liar, liar.
Me, myself and Irene.
Adam Sandler, 95 to 99.
Billy Madison, happy Gilmore.
Bulletproof.
Do you ride for Bulletproof?
Underrated.
Sure.
I ride for a tiny bit.
Wedding singer, Waterboy, Big Daddy.
The comedians.
Should the gleam in Sean's eye.
Big Daddy?
I was really coming of age during that.
just really is a Sandler guy.
Big Day.
I like Sandler.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I was a bandchild at that time.
Big Daddy is flat out a good movie still to this day.
I ride for Big Daddy.
Yeah, it's good.
It's fine.
My point is...
Good John Stewart performance.
It's really hard to get eight straight years.
Yeah.
We've seen four.
We've seen five.
We've seen six.
I think comedians have a shelf life with leading a movie probably four to five years, I would say.
And that goes back to the Bill Murray era where you have, you know, you have...
meatballs, caddyshack, stripes,
all the way through Ghostbusters,
and then comedians either,
you kind of figure them out like a pitcher
or they want to get more dramatic.
Yeah, we've seen it over and over again.
Eddie Murphy, I wrote about Mike Myers
earlier this year, a very similar situation.
Eddie Murphy's the gold standard.
He was 82 to 88,
but even that was seven years, not eight.
Yeah, and it doesn't mean that your career is over after that.
You can still have the nutty professor 12 years later,
but it's just not that run that we always talk about.
And what's funny is,
he's on S&L.
He's an immediate star.
And the movie's success didn't translate right away for whatever reason.
We're talking about Will or Eddie?
Will Ferrell.
96.
Actually, it was 95.
It was October 95,
starts with SNL.
Made a couple movies.
He was a Night of the Roxbury,
which I actually enjoy.
But it was until 01 that he kind of took off.
And then you saw over the course of that decade,
there was the McKay-Farrell combo
and that whole school of people
and then you had the Vince Vaughn
and the Wilson brothers
and that's all happening
and just really great run of comedies
and now I don't know where we are with comedies
I was just trying to wonder who's Will Ferrell today
is it Kevin Hart?
I mean, is it Tiffany Haddish?
Like who's basically the comedian
that you think cannot only open a movie?
Tiffany Addish has made one and a half movies.
I know.
I mean, like, I mean, we're basically, like, betting on future performance there.
But, like, I was trying to imagine, like, who, I think commercially it's probably Hart.
But is there, like, an exciting film comedian right now?
Chris, what about Bateman, your boy?
Bateman.
He's 70 all his talents for the intrigue of the Ozarks, man.
That's right.
I think Haddish is a good one to tip for the future.
She has night school coming out later this year with Kevin Hart.
They're obviously trying to, you know, shift some of his energy onto her energy to make her a big movie star,
whether that works, I don't know, we'll see.
I don't think we really have a center of the comedy universe right now with the movies, though.
It's a weird time.
We were coming out of the Rogan period, I guess, right?
Yeah, Tovian takeover.
Yeah.
And then I guess kind of there is that game night.
And Rogan was never like, he made good movies, but I never felt like he was on like that Will Ferrell level.
Yeah, I feel like a bunch of people are trying to make Will Ferrell-esque movies now
without Will Ferrell.
So even Will Ferrell is making
what was bringing down the house
and then there's tag this year
in Game Night.
These sort of like high concept
really loose improv-heavy movies.
For this decade, it's pretty wide open.
I mean, Melissa McCarthy might be in the conversation.
But she made a couple and I really like the heat.
I thought it was funny.
She has had a lot of big hits.
It's the funniest performance
anyone's had the movie this year
or this decade other than Tiffany Haddish
and Girls Trip.
It's one or the other.
I don't think there's been a minute.
performance this decade
that was as funny as either of those.
I'll agree with that.
I think one of the things that has happened, too,
is that one of the quote-unquote
funniest movies of the year is Deadpool 2.
And now, like, what a comedy is,
has kind of moved into other kinds of movies.
It's super funny like that, yeah.
It doesn't, we don't just have as many
standalone comedies.
You know, we have Game Night,
we have blockers.
Like, Ant Man and the Wasp
is as much a comedy as anything that's out right now.
I think one of the things that failed
was the SNL feeder system.
Kate McKinnon has a movie coming out
this summer.
With Milakunis, right?
Yeah, the spy who dumped me.
It is supposed to be really funny.
And we've talked about her a couple of times over the last few years
about whether she could make a leap.
I don't know.
I really like her.
She's obviously really talented.
Whether she is going to be an atmospheric star, I don't know.
I wonder if it could have been Bill Hader if he wasn't so smart and creative.
I think Bill Hater could have ripped off like a version of Jim Carrey's run.
Maybe, yeah.
I mean, I mean, nominated now.
I suspect he's happy with what he's doing.
Oh, I think he's super happy.
But I don't think he ever wanted that.
Like, I think he could have had his version of whatever Ace Ventura was, and it just wasn't going to happen.
Yeah, the SNL feeder system broke down this decade.
I think it delivered some female stars, but they did not like the Will Farrell-Sandler kind of translatable.
But I think crucially, like, what happens with Farrell in the, you know, in that 07, that anchorman, Talladega and stepbrothers thing is like they had like a very concerned.
inserted thing that they were trying to do of like we're going to take this like american idiot
character and put in a couple of different a couple of different environments and like play around
with these different these different settings and there was like a level of care about building
the world that this character was going to be in that sometimes is lacking from like mainstream
comedies i think uh samberg had he chosen to keep making movies could have had a run that we would
have looked back on really nicely and instead he he you know he did he did the team
TV show and he did some other things. And he really didn't make, I thought Hot Rod was really funny.
I like Hot Rod. So Hot Rod and Pop Star both have. Pop Stars age nicely. Huge cult followings.
But those movies were actually very unsuccessful at the box office, which is interesting because I don't
know if he would be able to get a shot at a $30 million comedy right now. You probably just do it for TV.
But his pretty much everything he does is funny. Yeah. So maybe that it kind of explains it.
It's just a lot harder to become a guy doing it by herself. Also, this is really notable for
stepbrothers. Will Ferrell almost never does.
it by himself. He's always got Vince Vaughn or he's always got Amy Poehler or he's always got
John C. Riley or John Heater. He always has like a partner, a number two. And that's a very smart
move that he has made over the years. Well, the other smart move is aligning himself with Adam McKay,
who was the big winner of the oral history we did, just person after person talking about
what a genius he is, which we know he was really good at what he did. Now you look at the way
his career has gone in the last few years.
And it seems like this is the best comedy director we have.
It's basically the Harold Ramos for this generation,
but now no longer does comedies.
He's kind of graduated, which is a bummer if you look at.
Although I would argue that there are funnier things in succession
than any other comedy I've seen this year.
And the same for Big Short.
Big Short has a lot of really funny scenes.
And his new movie is about Dick Cheney backseat coming out later this year.
I suspect there will be some funny shit in that.
I don't think it's going to be the hardest of hard biopics.
It's a really nice team.
team. It's a rarity to see two people align like that 20 years ago and just put out all kinds of
creative stuff. Everybody loves working with them. I think they have probably the highest approval
rating of just about anybody in L.A. other than Mike Scher. I mean, it's a handful of people where
you never hear anything bad about them. Ever. Those guys are cool and they're good and they make good stuff.
Yeah. People just like being in their orbit and they also find a lot of talent and they seem to
bring the best out of people that
you know,
like Catherine Hahn,
who's unbelievable in this movie,
is they just kind of look at her and go,
hey, she's good.
Let's figure,
let's unleash her.
Same thing for Adam Scott.
I mean, Adam Scott doesn't tell me you love me.
Adam Scott seemed like,
like the prosthetic penis.
Third guy and a drama,
like, you know,
just was going to be a kind of a background player.
And now between this and East
kind of has like a second life as a comedic actor.
Had never done comedy before.
And, you know, it's the same thing with Anchorman.
Steve Carell and Paul Rudd were not brand names at that point in time.
They had done stuff, but he made those guys really famous.
Apatatat is another one that people just seem to love working with.
Yeah.
And it seems to be a recurring theme in the comedy in the comedy circles.
You hear the same thing about both of those guys too, which is that on set,
they're like, let's just blow it up if it's not working.
And they're always yelling at their actors to say funny shit.
They're always coming up with lines on the spot.
And this movie, in particular, Step Brothers, it's not really a movie.
Like, there's not really a story that you care about.
No.
You are, as Chris was saying, like, you're waiting in every scene for something really wild to happen
because you can feel that there's some exciting creative tension on the set.
Well, McKay said in the oral history that the whole genesis for this movie is,
McKay said, I would love to see a movie where bunk beds collapse.
And that was how Step Brothers was created.
And then they started saying stuff like,
I want to see a movie where little kids beat the shit out of grown men.
And then he said,
I remembered a story from when I grew up where a kid on a block threatened a grown-up.
So they just took these seeds of things they thought were funny.
They thought SeaWorld was funny.
They did a whole thing at SeaWorld that got cut out that then they used for Anchorman too.
But they just started with these like just idea blocks.
And then, all right, how does that work?
And they landed on just, well, what if?
Will Ferro and John C. Riley were just these grownups who lived at home.
This is the one they should have broken the mold after this.
I think one of the problems with a lot of comedies, especially in the after stepbrothers
and after this block of movies, is they just feel so heavily improvised that you're like,
you guys didn't have a script, right?
Like you guys had an idea that was like, what if we're frat people?
Like, what if we have to go back to school?
And then like they just improvised the entire movie.
but at some point someone is like
you have to have some part of a movie in here.
Like Blockers is really funny
but there is like a whole part of Blockers
where like and now you guys have to like
go to the hotel to stop them now for real
and this never has that.
It never has like the Catalina Wine Mixer
all the stuff that's like this stupid movie stuff
is still just as funny as any of the funny sequences.
They also had this happen on Anchorman
where Anchorman came out
and it did reasonably well
and then just gained steam.
And I think I wrote about,
I did the movie quotes gimmick
with Anchorman, probably in 2009.
And it still hadn't really,
maybe Twitter wasn't around
really at that point yet,
but I was surprised by the emails I got.
Like, wow, I love that movie too.
I can't, I've watched that 20 times
and it just seemed like,
and now it's like Anchorman.
It's blown up into something totally different.
With Stepbrothers,
I don't know what year that happened
with this movie,
but it was, I would say,
at least five or six years after.
Fantasy definitely started saying
this is a house of learned doctors to me.
Like within two years?
Pretty early on.
Sean was a big Dale guy.
The thing is, there's something really genius
about stupid people insisting that they're smart.
And Dale and Brennan think they're so smart.
And they're obviously complete morons.
And if they're not morons,
there's something wrong with them.
And I don't know.
It's just an ingenious thing.
And also, John C. Riley was not an untapped resource.
He's literally one of the greatest character actors who's ever lived.
But to just be like, it's now time for you to be in a big, broad Hollywood comedy with the funniest movie actor in the world and go toe to toe with him.
And to win sometimes was just amazing.
This is also with Anchorman.
It doesn't sound like there was any stress or people were like upset or having breakdowns or anything.
But they shot like two full movies for Anchorman.
Like there's basically two anchored man's.
And they had a four-hour cut of this
or they could have had a four-hour cut of Stepbrothers.
And they said they shot like a million feet of film.
Yeah.
It's like, it is like Apocalypse now.
It's like they just like went to the jungle and just kept shooting.
And I kind of just, I mean, I don't know if there's another version of
Step Brothers that's four hours long, but I would certainly honestly just watch it on a loop.
There's 20-minute scenes that they cut out of the movie.
I'm torn on it because like I watched all the anchor-man.
in deleted scenes.
And I almost wish I hadn't seen them
because it messed with the movie
that I'm used to in my head
and then there's these things over here.
I've only been happy a couple of times
with deleted scenes.
Boogie Nights is my favorite deleted scene.
Those are good ones.
McKay has a really good sense of when to cut it.
I mean, the original cut of this movie
is only 95 minutes.
It's pretty short.
And it needs to be short because there's no point.
There's no story.
There's no plot.
There are no stakes to anything that's happening.
It's just like, be funny for 95 minutes.
Yeah, well, we can get to some of the nipicks.
There's nipicks and strict stuff.
A couple small ones.
Roger Ebert trashed this movie, which Will Ferrell McKay, they loved,
and Will Ferrell talked about that on the podcast that did with him.
An iconic review.
Iconic.
Near the end, like, he's really crusty old guy at this point.
It's like an existential crisis for him.
He literally writes, I think, what are we doing here?
Yeah.
Sometimes I think I am living in a nightmare.
All about me, standards are collapsing.
manners are evaporating.
People show no respect for themselves.
I am not a moralistic nut.
I'm proud of the X-rated movie I once wrote.
I like vulgarity if it's funny or serves a purpose.
But what is going on here?
Roger Ebert's retirement letter, basically.
That's amazing.
I love Roger Ebert, and I always have.
But I can sense that after 50 years of reviewing movies,
you get something like this and you're like,
what am I supposed to do?
How do I critically analyze something like?
this. I just picture him in a screening as Will Ferro's putting his balls on the drum set going,
oh no. Oh, God, those are his testicles and having a heart attack. So it came out, it did well.
It didn't do unbelievably well, but it did well. Yeah. And then it came out during the absolute height
of the DVD Blu-ray era. It sold four million DVDs in Blu-ray. Which is an insane, insane number.
What's that? Four million times, let's say, not.
Average of $17 of DVD Blu-ray.
So we made another like $70 million.
And at the time none of us knew that we were going to be throwing out all of our DVDs and Blu-Rays except for a select through.
Not me.
How many have now?
More than a thousand.
You haven't thrown any of them out?
No, I love them.
I kept 50.
50?
Yeah, I kept like 50.
This is actually a good standalone pod is Bill's 50 Blu-Rays.
It's an unassailable crew of the.
DVDs and Blu-rays, including multiple Halloween's.
Halloween just kept releasing him.
Let's hit the categories, but first, let's take a break.
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which we have i don't know 22 23 shows at this point from a pop culture standpoint
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have our new music podcast. Oh yeah. Micah Peters, on shuffle. That's been on fire. Every week we've
had some sort of music, something happening. So that was a great two months, great way to start the
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a world. We might bring the recapables back to very soon. Stay tuned for that as well. Anyway,
the ringer.com slash podcast. Check it out. Back to the rewatchables. All right, we're back.
You guys wanted this. Step Brothers rewatchables. Step Space Brothers, by the way. Common mistake on
Twitter is to do the Step Brothers. Common mistake you make. I made it this.
week.
And it got corrected.
Did you?
Yeah, I got correct.
It's tough.
Hey, man.
It's step brothers.
Wow.
All of Chris's burner accounts.
I know.
All my bots.
Chris's heads.
Still ball in 33.
All my Derek bots.
Most rewatchable scene.
You know, we do these a lot.
This is tough.
This was tough some of these categories for this movie.
Throw some out.
I had some, I had four nominees.
Feel free to add.
The first dinner scene.
when the whole family's together for the first time
just start to finish really great
and John C. Riley makes Will Ferrell cry.
Just start to finish great.
You mean not the one with Derek
before that?
No, the before of them.
Yeah.
The one where they're crying.
Yeah.
Harts his feelings.
And then it ends with Will Ferrell
going to shake Richard Jenkins' his hand
and keeps just pulling it away slowly and walks away.
The drum scene
is a masterpiece that ends with the fight in the yard.
It just keeps going and going.
And then Mary Steenberg says,
what the fucking fuck is going on?
Whatever she says.
The bunk bed's breaking is just like you can say it 100 times
and it's still funny each time.
And then the boat video.
I have those as the big four.
You could also throw in the Catalina mixer,
the song and just that whole moment.
anything else? Anything else you would add?
Would you include them being grounded after the fact, after the,
what is it, after the drum set scene when they're grounded and he's just like,
this is on, we live on plain up bullshit?
Yeah.
That whole speech between, that whole interaction between Jenkins and Steenbergin and Riley
and Farrell is like, it's just mind-blowing, seeing those two sitting on the couch.
Because you can tell that they're just like throwing lines out.
But yeah.
Every time I laugh at a different one harder.
I would say Adam Scott, Derek popping his head up into the tree house is one of my favorite scenes.
Getting punched in the face.
I haven't had a carb since 2004 is one of my favorite lines in the whole movie.
The very obvious body double for the abs.
The abs is incredible.
And everything that leads up to that too when they're looking at the porno mags where it's like, it's like I'm masturbating in a time machine.
You know, all that stuff.
Everything happening in the treehouse is incredible.
There's a lot.
I think of these almost like, not like scenes, but micro moments.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's really a lot, a movie of lines and dialogue and all these little tiny things.
Yeah, like the job interview.
Yes.
The job interviews.
I could have put that in there.
Yeah.
There's this great two chain song.
Pan.
Pan.
Can you spell that?
Yeah, so that's exactly what I was going to bring up.
There's this great two chain song called Trat Back.
This is weird as not an EP.
It's not a big song.
But it's just
two chains rapping.
And then in the middle
of the song,
it just stops.
And then it just plays the audio
of the pan scene for a minute
and a half and ends with,
get out of my office.
It's the funniest thing in the world.
And it's just,
it was a recognition that
two chains also knows
that Stead Brothers is unbelievable
and you can just put dialogue
from the movie into a song
and people will love it.
That scene is perfect.
Will Farrell,
weirdly influential on that period of rap music
because of,
he basically invents watch the throne.
Yes, Kanye loves, loves,
loves Will Ferrell.
And famously quoted, you can't, don't lose your dinosaur.
You know, he gave that in an interview four or five years ago to our friend, Zach Barron.
The drum scene is the winner.
I know you touched my drum set, and I want to hear that dirty little mouth admit it.
You get out of my face, where I'm going to roundhouse your ass.
You swear in your mom's life that you didn't touch it then.
I don't have to swear to shit.
That's because he fucking touched my drum set because I know cops doesn't start until four.
Where are you going?
I'm going upstairs.
Because I'm going to put my nut set on your drum set.
You like the drum scene the best.
For me, it's the winner.
Including all the way up through the fight.
Everything.
The just,
I'm putting my balls on your drum set.
There's a, I would say,
I don't know how you think of that?
There's probably a more than significant amount of time
devoted in Alan Siegel's oral history
to how they designed and created the fake testicles.
And that's like his favorite memento from a movie set, right?
So they said it was a few thousand dollars.
And then in my half-ass internet research, which I'll step on here,
they claimed it was $20,000.
So it's somewhere between a few thousand and $20,000.
But was clearly at some point, the designer dude was said to McKay like,
hey, man, if we want to make a really nice set of these, it's going to cost you.
And McKay's like, go blank checkbook, do what you need to do.
And did such a good job Farrell asked to keep them and brings them out for dinner parties.
and things like that because he's Will Ferrell.
I'm definitely, I'm going with the treehouse.
I'm just going to read one very important line.
Okay.
What is your problem, man?
This is Dale talking to Derek.
Derek says, my problem?
I don't know.
I don't have a problem, Dale.
Actually, I have the opposite of a problem.
I made over 550K last year.
Adam Scott is an amazing dickhead.
What do you have?
I'm going with the scene after they, when they get grounded.
Okay.
What's age the worst?
Not a lot.
This was the tail end of the era before gaislers and comedies and stuff.
Yes.
This one is like, oh, we can't have those anymore.
Yeah.
And it does stand out in this.
It's kind of like, this is, the hangover is way more guilty of it than this movie, but it's in this movie.
Yeah.
It's in a lot.
It's in, it's in Super Bad too.
Mm-hmm.
But all of a sudden, like, around, once Twitter started,
and then people started to mobilize and that was it.
It's about 2010 when you can't make that joke anymore.
Casting what ifs, not a lot.
They started this movie with John C. Riley and Will Farrell
and then went and found actors.
They're like, the only one was the Adam Scott character, Derek,
which they auditioned John Hamm and Thomas Lennon for,
and they saw something in Adam Scott in his audition that they'd just like.
Was this before badman?
No, during.
During, yeah.
John Ham is Derek.
John Ham as Derek is one of the better what-ifs we've had.
He would have been more intimidating and he would have been funny,
but there's something evil about Adam Scott.
You know, there's something like Adam Scott,
it should be punched, you know?
Yeah.
It'd be like scary to punch John Hamm.
It wouldn't be scary to punch Adam Scott.
What did he say in the oral history that he modeled his character?
He studied people on the internet who seemed dushy, who had money.
Oh, yeah.
he read the Rob Report.
You read the Rob Report and just looked at pictures of people in the Rob Report.
It seemed like I should be a guy who reads a magazine with a speedboat on the cover.
They do a nice job when he's name-dropping people at the first dinner and later,
it's all people who also seem dushy.
He calls Mark Cuban the Cubs.
Chad Michael Murray, Bobby Flay, Seal.
And then he says, we have 20 minutes till the Dane Cook pay-per-view starts.
It's just like, if, put it this way, if Derek name drops you in this movie, it's a tough one for the year ago.
Tough beat.
Tough beat for seal.
Yes, poor seal.
Yeah, we're throwing seal.
Seals like, what did I do?
So that was it for casting what ifs.
Well, I've never been happier to do the Deanne Waiters Award until we do Boogie Nights, which is going to happen at some point.
This is the Dean Waiters Award.
There's just a lot of heat checks in this movie.
Yeah, yeah.
There's the stats.
basketball box score wise
would be really crazy.
I don't know if anyone's had a bench like this
of just the second unit coming in.
Yeah, it's a lot of Rondos.
It's a lot of like nine assists,
seven boards, four steals.
Everybody's just filling it up.
Yeah.
I have Rob Riggle.
Yep.
Yeah.
This is like really the first time
I think I saw Rob Riggle.
He's in hangover, right?
He plays the cop.
Yeah.
Andrew Savage.
You have the little kid,
the bully.
You have
Derek's son.
singing.
Derekson singing.
But is Han in this?
Yeah, there's only one way there.
Well, I mean, Horatio Sands.
Horatio, Sands.
As the Billy Joel 80s, Billy Joel cover band singer.
It's amazing.
But Catherine Hahn not only wins, but I would argue one of the great heat checks that we've
ever discussed in the rewatchables.
She's in, how many scenes?
Five?
She's in like seven minutes in this movie.
One of the funniest movie performances ever.
McKay said the first scene when she,
She's when she gets turned on because John C. Riley punched Derek.
And she's basically just kind of mounting him.
And he said that was not only the funniest performance scene,
but the greatest acting performance he's ever witnessed.
She really commits.
That's why it makes this work.
I want to put you in a ball and put you inside my vagina.
She's just a lunatic.
She's so good.
I actually, I don't understand why.
I know she had kids and stuff, and sometimes with actors, they don't do as many roles as maybe they would have if they were a man.
I don't understand why she's not a bigger star.
She's one of my favorite actresses.
She's never bad.
She's phenomenal and bad moms.
I was going to say, Carrie Simmons's favorite movies, which was a huge hit.
So she's had a really good career.
I mean, she made a couple of streaming shows.
Never was able to lead like a really successful TV show or movie, which I think is a failure.
Not on her.
Yeah, she's really great.
She stars in afternoon delight.
She's incredible in that.
Yeah.
She got in the Jill Salloway universe.
She was on Transparent for a while.
I love Dick.
But she deserves her own movie.
Yeah, she never went higher than that.
Speaking of Dionne Writers Awards,
is the scene where Robert Randy has a heart attack?
Is that in the final movie or is that just one of the unreleased scenes?
I don't know.
That's not in the final movie.
When he dies for me.
minute and he's like I saw my grandma.
He's unconscious.
Now I have to sell or lease 85 chocolates.
You good?
Hey, Derek.
Yeah.
What are you doing here, man?
Oh, I just walked in.
Your heart stopped.
You were dead for a second.
No, no, no, no.
Your heart, you don't have a heart.
It's just Randy.
You see my Nana when you came in, D?
Oh, no, you've seen your grandma again?
Did you see her in her head?
Yeah, no, no, no, she's not here, buddy.
Because you were probably having an out-of-body experience because you died.
Okay, this is the thing.
the Catalina wine mixer, Brennan.
Boom.
And then he comes back and Scott's just like,
Are you okay, man?
Catherine Hahn,
there's not 10 seconds where she's not funny
in this movie.
Yeah, Han gets.
It's really great.
The Joey Pants Award
for Joe Panesliano
where it's somebody you know from a movie
and you're like,
I like that person, but I don't know what their name is.
Andrew Savage, I've always liked
and she's one of those
who's like,
oh, that's the one
that ends up
with warfare on stepbrothers
and then you see them
and something.
She's in the house
and she's really good.
I actually like the house.
Oh, the house.
I said bringing down the house.
It's the house.
The house is underrated.
She's,
and she's great in the house.
And I remember watching the house
and going,
A, who is this person?
B, why didn't they do more stuff?
And then go into research
and she basically just had kids
and was checked out for years.
She has a show now, though.
She's on a...
She's back now.
She has a show on,
TV call. I'm sorry.
Right.
Yeah. She's a friend of the watch.
Yeah. She came on the
throne show. So she
in the oral history, it said she was
in party down with
Adam Scott initially, but then got pregnant
and had to leave the show.
Lizzie Kaplan. Gladstone.
She's really funny in this movie.
She's a good Joey pants.
Halfast internet research.
John C. Riley really cried during the divorce scene.
Actually, like, real tears, had a real
acting performance. Did you, as a
as a COD as a child of divorce
did you identify with that scene?
100%.
100%.
When Kramer for Kramer versus Kramer
and she's like, oh honey
and Dan Scott's like, why are you calling money?
Boats and Hose was made by
the controversial Dr. Luke.
Yeah.
Sangria nachos, lemon heads.
My dad's boat.
You won't go down because my dick can float.
We sail around the world and go
to court.
He took a downturn, we'll say.
Yeah.
You know, I suspect that was
because Dr. Luke somewhat famously was the guitarist on Saturday Night Live for years.
And so he had hooks with all these guys.
And how older did the music.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And that's how Luke came in.
But Luke was, I think it was the guitarist when McKay and Farrell were on the show.
Will Farrell did his own singing and Riley did all the drumming at the Catalina Wine Mixer.
That was all them doing it in the moment.
The performance of Portevolare is like weirdly good by Will Ferrell?
Is he a good singer?
He's like crazy talented.
He really is.
He's like one of the most talented people with that.
That's not a pop song.
That's opera.
Yeah.
He's really good.
Adam Scott lip synced, sweet child of mine.
Yeah.
It was the one guy in the movie in the van derby.
Which I never noticed all the other times I watched this movie, but then when I had that tidbit, I did notice it this time.
That's also one of the most rewatchable scenes.
The a cappella rendition of Guns and Rose.
Come on, honey.
And then the dinosaur monologue has covered in the,
the oral history, ad lib by Jenkins and McKay during one of those just throwing shit out,
let's throw shit against a wall.
They start doing it.
They only do two takes of it.
McKay promises Jenkins he won't use it in the movie and then sees him before the screening.
And he's like, do you fucking use that thing?
He's like, yeah, I did.
And that's how he found out the dinosaur scene was in there.
And that's like an, and actually like an awesome scene, it arguably could have been in our best,
most rewatchable scenes.
It's a great model.
It's my favorite exchange of three characters talking because Jenkins says,
so I thought I'll be a doctor for a little while and then go back to that.
And then Brennan says, how is that even a skill?
And then Dale says, you're a human.
You could never be a dinosaur.
They're so credulous in that moment.
It's great.
You got to find your dinosaur.
Richard Jenkins.
We should let's do Jenkins for three minutes.
Okay.
So Jenkins, when character actor for a hundred years.
He's trying to do the dishes.
And Riley is like.
what happens if she sees me coming out of the shower
and sees, what does he call his chest hair
that goes to my ball fro?
Here's a scenario for you, Don.
Suppose Nancy sees me coming out of the shower
and decides to come on to me.
I'm looking good.
I've got a luscious bee of hair
going from my chest pubs down to my ball fro.
She takes one look at me and she goes,
oh my God.
I've had the old bull.
Now I want the young calf.
And she grasped me by the wince.
Shut the fuck up.
Jenkins finally is just like, shut the fuck up.
This is a very funny movie.
Very, very strange career.
Yes.
He has, he's basically a character actor forever.
He's like somebody else's husband,
maybe the bad guy, maybe the lawyer.
he's just kind of floating around outside providence absolute power he's really great in flirting
with disaster you know me myself and irene he's always kind of in comedies but is the straight is
straightish man in the comedy he was the assistant coach in eddie with whoope goldberg oh wow yeah
he looks like an assistant coach when with year 19 of the rewatchables we're doing eddie because i have a lot
of thoughts eddie is actually a shockingly decent watchable but it took a while took a while took a while took a while
took a while.
He just was one of those guys.
I never knew his name for really until the mid-2000s.
2008 is a wild year in his career because 2008 is burn after reading in which he's one of the stars working with the Cohen brothers.
It's Step Brothers, which is the biggest hit of his career.
And it's The Visitor, which was this independent movie written and directed by Tom McCarthy of Spotlight Fame, which we'll talk about later on this podcast.
So that's how I, that came first.
The visitor.
And that's how I was like,
and all of a sudden he was,
did he get nominated?
He did.
He was nominated for best actor.
And that was when I was like,
whoa,
Richard Jenkins,
where did he come from?
And the visitor is a really good movie.
Yeah.
And he's been now like a pretty persistent actor
and prestige movies.
He was in the shape of water last year.
And it's just kind of always around now.
Yeah.
He's great actor.
He was.
Oh,
and he was,
we forgot.
He was from six feet under.
Oh,
that's right.
Yes.
But he's really,
really good in friends with benefits.
which is not a good movie,
but he's really good in.
He plays Justin Timberlake's Alzheimer's father.
That's right.
And the only reason I know this is because my wife and my daughter
love friends with benefits,
so I've just been in the room when it's been on.
I'm a huge fan of his performance in killing them softly.
He's really good in killing them softly, is the lawyer?
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's really funny and really weird.
He's in Jack Reacher.
He's in a million things.
He's really great.
He also has an uncredited appearance in Spotlight, Chris.
Is it uncredited?
He did voice work for Ruffalo during that scene.
I don't know if you've seen spotlight, Chris.
But yeah, it's a belated renaissance that does not happen often
where you see somebody past the age of 50 and then vault to a different level.
Can I say my other favorite Jenkins performance is out of Cabin in the Woods?
Oh, yeah.
With Whitford.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's great in that.
Apex Mountain.
Catherine Hahn, yes.
100%.
Just on the map
in the greatest way possible
in a movie that people rewatch all the time.
Farrell, no.
Are we talking Apex Mountain
within the realm of their comedic performances?
You always get confused by Apex Mountain.
I'm not confused.
I just want a little clarity.
It's not the same thing.
The greatest moment of their career.
Sure, okay.
Farrell, no.
I still think Anchorman is.
I think he's in a lot.
the middle of a great run.
There's also S&L moments that like,
he's still on S&L.
He's,
he's at the talent of S&L.
He's played Bush for a couple years.
Can you guys,
can we spend a little time
doing the hierarchy of Will Ferrell movies?
Sure.
Like, what is your,
what are your top fives?
This is one.
This is one.
Ahead of Anchorman.
Yeah, at this point, yes.
Wow.
This doesn't have parts,
parts of Anchorman that I skip.
This doesn't have any skippable parts.
I agree with that.
That's bold, though.
Yeah, Anchorman definitely meant probably more to me at a time of my life
where I was like, all I'm going to do is speak in Anchorman quotes,
much to the detriment of my sex life.
Yeah.
You know, like, I think that this is a better movie in some ways.
Yeah.
I go in Anchorman, Step Brothers, old school, Zoolander.
I'd probably go this Anchorman, old school.
Can I put
Can I take wedding crashes as a Will Ferrell movie
Just for Mom I wants some meatflow
That's one of the greatest
He checks in the history of movies
People want wedding crashes for the rewatchables by the way
We'll get there
Yeah
Okay no love for Elf huh
I'm not a big elf guy
If I don't shout out Elf my brother will kill me
So shout out to Elf
I think his Zoolander performance
In that whole movie in general
Slip through the cracks
And the reason was it came out right after 9-11
And I remember seeing it in the theater
And it was people were laughing
But they were unsure of it
It was just like one of the worst time comedy releases we've had
That movie is really funny
And it had enough flags that it eventually led to Zoolander too
But he's really good in that movie
How do you guys feel about the other guys?
I think it's a really genius idea
That isn't executed as well as I wanted to be
Yeah
It was like a little too much like a real cop movie
Yeah
but there's like really really high moments of it.
I didn't like Wahlberg in it.
And I like Wahlberg in general.
I just, I didn't think, I never understood whether he was playing a parody of the actor
or whether he was trying to be Mark Wahlberg.
I don't think he knew either.
He didn't know.
Yeah.
I do think that without that movie, McKay wouldn't have been able to make the big short
because it basically starts McKay taking things a little bit more seriously
because that movie is more or less a satire of the financial crisis.
Yeah.
And it's like a indictment of big banking,
which is a weird thing to find in a cop movie,
but that's what it is.
Adam McKay,
Pecks Mountain, yes.
Unless you want to go Big Short.
I would just go peak of his powers.
He's now established himself in,
he makes this iconic comedy movie
really had a nothing with no plot
and Band-Aids and just relationships
and this movie ends up being good enough
that he can do whatever he wants in life.
Or you can say Big Short.
I mean, Big Short made $140 million and he was nominated for Best Director.
Yeah, that's better.
You're right.
I changed my mind.
I'm going to Big Short.
I think he's honestly not, has not hit his apex yet.
I think it's in front of him.
And other people have directed episodes of Succession, but you can see him taking a style and, like, being able to apply it to these other things.
And I think Succession is actually way more like the creator, Jesse Armstrong's handiwork that it is like McKay.
but that jittery, big short camera work is very much part of succession success.
He's a good dude, too.
Adam Scott?
100%.
His performance at Eastbound and Down, he's in two and a half scenes in Eastbound and Down, maybe,
is so mind-blowing.
And I know that it might just be my personal affinity for East Bed and Down.
I would also say that I just need to shout out Ashley Schaefer BMW, Will Ferrell.
from Eastbound and down.
And one of the greatest ever deleted scenes is the,
or not even deleted scenes,
but extended scenes is if you go on YouTube and see Will Ferrell's scene with Craig,
Craig Robinson and Danny McBride where they,
where they face off at the BMW dealership.
And Will Ferrell does this long speech about his plums going to market.
It's just like, it's eye-watering, man.
It's so good.
But I would say Adam Scott, I'm going to say eastbound is my.
So his character's name is.
Pat Anderson, he plays an agent in Eastbound and Down.
Yeah.
And he has an exchange with Dustin Powers, John Hawks.
And John Hawks says, you got some credentials there, pal?
And Pat Anderson says, yeah, I got some credentials.
And he reveals a black credit card.
And he says, business account, of course.
And Dustin Power says, what's black?
Is black better than gold?
And Pat Anderson says, uh, yeah, gold might get you Jonas Brothers tickets.
Black will have all three of them sucking your dick.
Without, I think without stepbrothers, we don't get Adam Scott playing that role.
He also, I think in that first appearance
is a VP for the race.
He's like a devil race,
Fightley Scout.
That's his character.
He's unleashed as a comedy dick.
Mary Steenbergin, no.
No.
Good stuff from her, though.
Great job.
She's very funny.
Great looking.
She's beautiful.
She's like in her late 50s.
60 years old.
Yeah.
Richard Jenkins, no.
John C. Riley, no.
But let's talk about
John C. Riley for two minutes.
I would go boogie nights for him.
there's so many
so many options
I go Magnolia for him
Days of Thunder
he's my least favorite part of Magnolia
does he?
Yeah
I love John C. Riley
you could have taken that
whole character out
I would have been happy
I mean Talladega Knights
is in the conversation
He's fucking awesome in Taladaaga
He's he's good in everything
John C. Riley is always good
Boogie Knights
He's good and walk hard
Walk hard
All right
We're going to give you Boogie Nights, though.
Him dancing in the behind the glass during the Mark Wahlberg song,
when Dirk Digger becomes a singer.
Before Feel the Heat.
Before Feel the Heat, he's doing that song.
And you see Jonsie Riley doing like this exercise dance?
He's just amazing in that movie.
So, John C. Riley, one of the funniest comedy actors we've had over the last 25 years
just from Boogie Nights and Step Brothers,
Tal Daganites to a lesser degree.
Didn't really do a lot of comedies?
He's basically not a comedy actor.
Yeah.
He's like just this trained great actor
who figured out how to do comedy
but isn't a comedian.
That's it.
Very, who else is like that?
There's been a lot of people
who've tried to be like that.
You always get the reverse.
Yeah.
You get Steve Martin's serious movie,
Jim Carrey's serious performance.
You very rarely get the dramatic actor
who's hilarious because frankly,
most actors are not funny.
They're self-serious.
Yeah, just see like Jeremy Runner and tag or whatever.
And usually when...
Well, he's not funny.
Yeah.
Or when Dustin Hoffman tries to do comedy.
Even when De Niro was in Meet the Parents and he's funny in that,
it still felt like De Niro.
He's trying.
Yeah, he's trying to be...
De Niro's like funny in Midnight Run because he thinks it's a drama.
Right.
He probably still thinks it.
Yeah.
And that's actually the reason...
That's the same reason John Se. Riley is successful.
He committed.
That's the reason this whole movie is successful is these guys, and that was the reason why Farrell was so amazing on Saturday Night Live, is that even if he broke or even if he made other people break, but especially in these movies when they were able to like shoot through it or whatever, his commitment to not only the like the character, but the emotional truth of the moment is like, it's as deep as as any like great actor we have like Joaquin Phoenix doing something, you know?
My biggest, best example of that for Farrell of all time is the wake up and smile bit on how.
SNL where he's the co-host of a morning show and the teleprompter goes down.
David Allen Greer.
And he and David Allen Greer.
The weatherman is dead.
And Nancy Walls and he's holding up David Allen Greer's severed head.
But that's it.
I mean, those guys come.
And McKay has this weird commitment to absurdity as documentary.
Like, that's everything that he does.
It makes works a way.
Yeah, I have a Dodge Stratis is the way he goes to that like 13th level of madness is just.
Yeah.
And the other one was the dog infomercial.
whatever that one.
Insulting your dog to train them.
Those three personalities.
Could Danny Treo have been in this movie?
Sure.
Yeah, why not?
Yeah, okay.
The audience is ready to retire the Danny Trao category.
Have they sort of given you?
Kind of a couple emails about it.
Should we kill it?
We could kill it right now.
Okay.
Because the lesson is usually Danny Treo should be in every movie.
Maybe we just need a new Danny Treo.
Yeah, because I can't think of a single movie where I'd be like, no,
Danny Trejo can't be in this movie.
Maybe not like call me by your name?
I think that would be hilarious.
If D. D.Dreyha rented
those guys' bikes.
He's like, you guys going to go on a bike ride?
Maybe we're there.
Neil, you riding bikes today?
Maybe they're riding the bikes and he cuts them off in a pickup truck.
They had Anna, brother.
Stay in your late, man.
The mailbag at the ringer.com.
Email us and you can decide who the next Danny Treo character is.
This movie would this movie be better off with Blank, who's a little more polarized than dating trail?
With Adam Scott?
I was going to say Catherine Hahn.
Yeah.
No, she made every movie.
You've made to get her on a podcast.
If Catherine Hahn listens to this for some reason, The Ringer loves you, come in and do podcasts with us.
Mark Ruffalo.
By the way, I saw her at a party once.
I was at like one of those stupid Hollywood, like, the night before the award parties.
I don't remember what it was for, like Emmys.
and she was there.
And I never go up to celebrities ever.
And I just bulldozed over to her.
I'm just, I think you're great.
I had like one of those stammering terrible conversations
you're not supposed to have in LA, but I had to.
Did she big time you?
Was she like, get away from me, Pian?
She was super nice.
Were she like, what do you think Danny's going to do with the Memphis pick?
No.
I was with my friend Daniel Kellison, who knows a lot of people.
And he was friends of there.
And I was like, I love her.
I would go up to talk to her, but I don't want to break the code.
And he's like, no, we'll go over there.
right now, buddy.
Just brought me over and we bulldozed her for 10 minutes.
Mark Ruffalo overacting.
They knew.
Richard Jenkins is in Portland.
They knew a couple times.
A couple times.
They knew.
Gets really mad in the kitchen.
Riggle overacts, right?
Riggle, but that's Riggle's whole thing.
It was the first time he did this bit, which I think now if you see him in like a commercial
for a real estate company, you're like, all right, this is a Riggle thing.
I know what this is.
this time though
where he's like
I'm going to eat it like
Kobe Yoshi
he's talking
yeah
it's still funny
the pals are funny too
yeah yeah
I like the pals
pick a nits
the only pick a knit I have is
I needed a little more
backstory on these guys
both becoming successfully employed
and living on their own
you like two more minutes on that
I liked them
it's basically Will Ferrell
he's taking a dump
and there's no toilet paper
and then he realizes
he should buy Charmin
and then also
cops get called more to that house.
There's a lot of late night noise at that house,
and I just think that there's more disturbance calls.
If you could do the prequel,
Brennan and Dale ages 21 through 35,
who's young Will Ferrell and young John C. Riley?
But they're separate.
They haven't met.
Okay.
Are you saying we should pitch this to McKay?
I mean,
the stepbrothers prequel.
It's out there.
In the, in their,
I would say they're like 20.
20, okay.
Another nitpick.
I don't have an answer.
by the way.
I can't think.
I don't think
like,
would Michael Sarah be funny?
No.
Like it's,
would not,
it's,
they're just different.
There's no 20 year olds
that are funny like that.
I would like to see two,
like known to be dramatic actors
tried to do it,
like Robert Pattinson and somebody,
you know?
Zach Efron?
That's a good bit.
What if we just turn Stranger Thing
season three into a stepbrother's prequel?
Would that be good?
Wow.
Think about it.
I don't have to think about it.
The time kind of lines up.
It's starting to,
yeah.
If you could do the Cobra Kai
10 years later,
here are the characters again movie.
I would rather see that.
Okay.
Do you want to go back to this?
Do you, I feel like this movie is completely perfect.
I don't want to see these guys either, you know, successful now or unsuccessful now.
I really like the way it ends.
I think they're too smart to not at least make a watchable entertaining movie out of it.
And it would have to be.
Oh, yeah, I agree.
I think they would have to be successful.
I think the wrinkle would be.
Did you like Anchorman too?
It's complicated.
It has great stuff.
I love pieces of it.
Yeah.
I think it really derails for about 20 minutes that whole...
When he's blind?
When he's blind?
I think it seemed hilarious to them, but it just should have been a deleted scene.
Yeah.
Need to be in the movie.
You just got to accept them for what they do, though.
Like, they just go for it every time.
He's like, he's going to be blind now.
And he's blind for 20 minutes in the movie and you just have to accept it.
But when we did the oral history on Stup Brothers, they had moments like that in that movie.
And they were like, that's great, but that should come out.
Yeah.
And it's the one time they didn't realize it should come out.
It really grinds it down.
I think there's stretches in Ackerman, too, that are just lights out.
Agree.
It's on epics all the time.
I think I'm the only one with epics.
You're the only one watching.
Yeah, the only one who knows what channel epics is.
It's in the late 500s.
Picky Knits, this isn't a picking Nits because it's funny and they did it intentionally,
but just having lived in Southern California,
it's hilarious that they do the Catalina Island,
but then they shoot stuff that's clearly on like the cliffs of Malibu and Laguna Beach.
Like Catalina Island doesn't look like that at all.
But they do that intentionally to fuck with people.
Yeah.
I think it's possible they couldn't get the permit on Catalina too.
You know, I'm not sure they let you shoot on Catalina.
Best quote, too many to choose from.
So many contenders.
But I think the legacy quote from this movie is, is a fucking Catalina wine mixer, man.
Like that whole thing.
You can throw it.
If anyone loves that movie, you can throw that out.
throw that out wherever people get it.
I think did we just become best friends?
Do we?
Yeah. To pick a best quote
is impossible. Yeah, it's a, like,
I would say, this movie is all quotes.
If I said, why do you have Randy Jackson's
autograph on a martial arts weapon?
Isn't that like as good as
any quote in any movie?
Everything Derek says is funny, though.
You know what gets my dick hard
helping out my friends?
Everything Derek says to Richard Jenkins
when he's kissing his ass to help him sell his house
also just so, oh, he's the best.
I love Derek.
I love his first name drop thing
when he's like,
I was with Mark Cuban, the cubes,
and then just starts listing
all of these dushies celebrities
from 2008.
Dane Cook, pay-per-view, 20 minutes, let's go!
Probably unanswerable questions.
Did Will Ferrell really last
with the therapist?
It's a comedy, so you can't argue with it.
I guarantee you if they make Step Brothers
two, Andrew Savage is going to be in it.
You know, and like, it's still in the mix.
Should they make Step.
brothers too. We've danced around it. I say no. I say no too. So they make stepbrothers two,
you're not going. I didn't say that. Name a comedy that the second one is better than the first one.
Godfather, too. A comedy. I know. Like another 48 hours? No. Chris, you're a big fan of the clumps.
Beverly's cop two, no. I'll tell you what was better as it. They never made a stripes two.
I'll tell you what's better as a two than a one. What? The equalizer.
Nice tease.
Nice one, Bill.
No, it's really good.
Guess what?
He's a lift driver in Boston.
Like, I wasn't going to like Denzel watched it as a lift driver in Boston.
Really good.
Who won the movie?
We have to pick.
Okay.
I'm going to say Farrell.
I'm going to say Riley.
Because I think Riley gets walk hard because of this movie.
You can't, it's not a...
I think Farrell's influence on...
Just inside the movie?
Yeah, I think Farrell's influence on everybody in this movie is palpable.
Like, he's like, come with me, go on this journey with me.
Can I say Han and Scott together?
No.
God damn it.
Why are you trying to do all these procedural moves against us?
I don't know, because I think Will Ferrell at this point, I was like,
Will Ferrell is going to be funny no matter what.
And so for him to win the movie, it has to be an extraordinary Will Ferrell performance.
I think my vote is for John C. Bradley.
because I think the performances are dead even
but what he does coming into a comedy
and being able to completely match Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell would not be able to do the reverse
as a dramatic actor
he wouldn't be able to walk in and just be like
I'm with Daniel DeLewis going toe to toe
to toe to go toe to toe to toe to
with Will Ferrell on a comedy.
So for the degree of difficulty
I give it to John C. Raleigh.
But is it McKay then?
You could argue it is.
Since it's so dead even.
The oral history would argue that it's McKay.
Yeah.
Because...
Yeah, it does seem like it, yeah.
So maybe that's our good non-controcial pick.
McKay.
McKay.
Yeah.
But shout out to John C. Raleigh for fucking stepping into comedies when he's not a comedian.
Or maybe he is a comedian who just was miscast this whole career.
Possibly.
I know he shouldn't have been a catcher for love of the game.
I'm curious about you not liking his part in Magnolia.
I just think that movie has to be chopped by 30 minutes somewhere.
and there's no way to do it
without getting rid of one of the characters completely.
That's my Magnolia take.
I think Paul Thomas Anderson agrees.
Really?
Yeah.
We did that pond with him.
He's like,
it's way too long.
I wish it was an hour shorter.
So I think that's the character
that probably had the worst arc in the movie.
I love the Malora Walter's part of that story, though.
Yeah, that's why I guess maybe I'm giving him a little bit of that.
So if we do the rewatchable's magnolia,
can my mom be in it?
you're the boss.
It's her favorite movie.
Is it really?
Yeah, how about that?
That makes me a little concerned for your mom.
Her second favorite movie is Sex Lise a Videotape.
What?
Yeah.
My mom is insane.
I don't know.
Why do you think she's never been on a podcast?
Her movie tastes, her favorite actor is Mickey Rourke.
My mom's a lunatic.
Like Angel Heart?
She loves nine and a half weeks, Angel Heart.
And, oh, and Richard Gear is her other favorite actor.
Really?
Her favorite movie of the 21st century is the movie where Diane Lane cheats on Richard
Gear with the French guy.
Unfaithful.
Unfaithful.
She loves a damaged pretty boy.
Oh, 100%.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just like Chris Ryan.
When we do unfaithful rewatchables.
We should do a Diane Lane one at some point because Diane Lane is my favorite actress of the last 30 years who wasn't a bigger deal.
You're ready for Under the Tuscan Sun?
I love Diane Lane.
Dian Lane's incredible in a perfect storm.
That accent, one of the all-time.
It's a bad accent.
Blindingly bad Boston accents.
You and me, Tommy.
The thing with Diane Lane, she reached this really hard to get to a place where all men are attracted to her and love her.
And women aren't threatened by her and also agree that she's attractive and they love her.
And that does not happen often with leading actresses.
She's great.
I've been with her since the outsiders.
I think we're the same age.
You and Diane Lean?
I remember even before that she made that French movie.
What was that movie?
She's in France.
She meets a boy.
That was like her breakout movie.
She was in the cover of Time magazine.
I don't remember.
If you and Daniel Kelson are at a party and you spot Diane Lane,
and Daniel's like, I know Diane Lane.
Let's go talk to her.
Do you work up the gumption to do it?
Not only do I work up the gumption to do it.
It's the best 10 minutes of her life.
Wow.
Her life.
Wow.
That's a strong call.
No, I'd be like, hey, Diane Lane, you're great actress.
I'm going to start doing that.
I've really enjoyed your work over the years.
People love direct address when they're called by their full name.
Hey, Sean Fennessee.
You're a great editor.
A little romance.
That's the movie, 1979.
Yeah.
I think like Olivier's in that.
Is that possible?
Yes.
Yes.
And it was directed by George Roy Hill, one of my favorite 70s directors.
Yes.
World Cardin de Garp.
That's right.
It's The Sting.
The Sting?
Yeah.
All right.
Chris Ryan, Sean Fantasy.
What are we doing next week?
Is Midday Run?
Night Run is on the schedule.
Because it's 30th anniversary.
It's our turn, Bill!
I got two words for you, Chris Ryan.
Shut the fuck up.
Next week, Midnight Run.
There you go.
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