The Rewatchables - ‘Sudden Death’ With Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt sit ringside at Game 7 of the 1995 Stanley Cup finals to rewatch 1995’s ‘Sudden Death,’ starring the Muscles From Brussels, a.k.a. Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Powers Boothe. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network. Very rarely do we dip outside the Ringer universe. But this guy, Kyle Brandt, he's been on some classics. We've hit some big action here. and now the muscles from Brussels. Jean-Claude Van Dam. Sudden death. It's next.

17,000 hockey fans have been taken hostage. The bombs that's a building step all the clocks and hands. But only one of them knows it. I'm going to try to stop you. I know where the bombs are. I know where you're going. Then come and get me. Jean-Claude Van Daman.

Sudden death. All right, Kyle Brand is here. You're wearing a Van Damme kind of shirt. You're wearing a penguins. It's a little tight. You look strong like Van Dam. We've talked about Segal. We've done Stallone multiple times.

We've done Arnold. We've not dipped into the Van Dam universe. I texted you. We were talking about possible ideas. I was like, hey, what about the muscles from Brussels? You were in. Just walk us through your Van Dam emotions. Well, first of all, Bill, I'm surprised to be here.

I thought for sure fantasy would have called dibs on sudden death. I thought that would be, that's wheelhouse for our boy. So I'm thrilled to be here. And I'm thrilled not only that, Bill, there's a lot of ways we could have gone with Van Dam. I know you guys have done Bloodsport and there's some other things just hanging out there. But the sudden death part of Van Dam is like something that, you know, something you and I were texting about. This Van Dam movie is something that I think you need to watch like every five years just to remind yourself that this did happen. This wasn't a dream I had.

It's not a joke that I made up with. my friends. It wasn't funny or die. There's a real thing that happened in this movie and it's all beautiful. I loved it. I enjoyed the rewatch. It's a little long. The first 30 minutes maybe could be done in 18. But once we get going, it really gets going. And it's the end of this, you know, diehard legacy where it's just die hard comes out in 1988 and then it just gets ripped off in every conceivable location. And we've done a few of them. Probably done the best with Thunder Siege and Speed, I would say. A speed, I mean, they just basically die hard on a bus,

and that movie basically created the modern summer blockbuster. We're running on fumes by the time we get to 95, and the producers of this movie were just like, let's not even pretend we're not trying to rip off some of the classics. They have, this is basically diehard crossed with cliffhanger at game seven of the Stanley Cup finals, right? That's the fairest way to say it. Yeah, I think it's exactly it.

And I think you use the phrase dial up. They're like, we could just have it in a hockey game. That's pretty cool. No, fuck that. Stanley Cup finals. No, no, no. Game seven. All right, we got our movie.

Hold the buck on. The vice president's in the building, too. And hold on. His kids are there. Everything's turned up to a thousand bill. And it's a movie that it flirts so hard with being a spoof and probably should be a spoof, but refuses to be. It's still earnest.

And God damn, my respect. it started out as a spoof it started out as a parody of these action movies and then somehow morphed into a real action movie but the spoof stuff is in there no he goes in the goal it was trust me in 1995 it was unbelievable it was a talking point it was things you discussed with your buddies for the next couple years when it started to go on cable it's still amazing it's still and i can't believe this happened they floated a little bit in the first half hour like yeah i played some Semi-pro. One line.

Little semi-pro in Canada. Right. So in Canada, by the way, he's Belgian. I don't know how he ended up in Canada. I don't know how he ended up as a goalie. But so at least it's not like he's just a pedestrian pulled out of the stands, but it is game seven. He is playing with the best players in the world in the highest stakes possible hockey game.

He's had no warm-up. Probably hasn't played goal in 10 years and makes an incredible save. And it's, you know, it's spoiler. it's going to be the most rewatchable scene. It's an incredible sequence. One of the crazy things about this movie is there's a hockey game going on the entire time. And they're invested in telling us it's 2-2. This team's now in a power play.

Like they keep going back to it. It's simultaneously happening to this basically diehard thing. One of the most famous hockey games ever filmed, I'm guessing. Oh, without a doubt. And with one of the most famous hockey scenes, I think we have to, one of the most mind-boggling things for me is that there was a time in the mid-90s, when the NHL was like, you're going to strap bombs to our stadium and use two of our bedrock franchises and make a movie? Sure, go right ahead. Can you imagine if we did the football

sudden death? And they went to Taglibu and said, here's what we're thinking. We're going to go to Lambo, maybe Arrowhead, and there's terrorists and the vice president's there and everybody's getting shot. Give us, oh, I don't know, the Raiders and the Chiefs. And are you guys cool with that? They're like, absolutely, and kill a bunch of people. We love it. Go have it. It's insane that that happened. We have a little girl dangling from the roof at the end? Yeah, we're going to have that in there too. There was a movie in the mid-70s that Robert Shaw from Jaws was in, where it was terrorists trying to blow up the Super Bowl.

It was Black Sunday? Black Sunday. Yeah. And if you watch that movie, I was on Pluto, and I was flipping channels on Pluto at 1.30 in the morning, which I'm prone to do. And I watched the last half hour of it. And it's like this movie, a bit even crazy.

year because you're kind of like, why did the NFL want this? The football is pretty big in the mid-70s. That's not like hockey. I can see it and the owner of the Penguins was involved in producing. And like I can see the path to how this happened, even though it's crazy. But the NFL signing off on anything, much less that is bonkers. I know. And I would even think, think about this bill, a couple of years.

In fact, the next year after sudden death, we're at Jerry McGuire. And the NFL wouldn't even do that now because of Tidwell's injury at the end. and they're like trying to wake them up and clapping in his face. They wouldn't even do that. And yet I feel like if you went to Gary Bettman right now, we're like, let's do it again. Let's run it back. Give us this time.

You know, the Bruins and the coyotes. He's like, fuck it. Do it. We'll take anything. Well, we have a lot about the mechanics to cover when we get to the categories. Look, we got to talk about Van Dam. So Bud Sporty hits. First of all, he's the predator and predator gets fired.

Yes. So his big break doesn't happen. He used to be this kickboxing champion in the late 70s and early 80s. Then he moves to L.A. tries to become an actor. One of the problems is can't act. So they got to figure out that piece. But then we have the testosterone era happens. Everyone's looking for new action stars.

We did the whole Stephen Segal journey when we talked about Hard to Kill. They're just, that was, he was, what was it, Mike Ovitz's jiu-jitsu instructor or something? He's like, you should be in a movie. So he ends up movies. So the path for Van Dam in the 80s, everyone's on cocaine. It's reasonable for whatever reason that somebody's going to throw him in a lead of a movie. But Bloodsport does well. He's basically playing himself.

He's going. He's doing the kumete. A lot of fight scenes, some bad acting. It's the total Vandah package. But then he rips off over the next seven years, cyborg, kickboxer, Lionheart, death warrant, double impact, universal soldier, nowhere to run, hard target, street fighter, sudden dad. He makes 11 movies in like six and a half years. And they did pretty well. They used to refer to them back in the day,

but you remember as like martial arts sensation, John Claude Van Dam. That's always how they phrased it. And I actually think sudden death is almost a little melancholy for me as a Van Dam fan because the run is almost over. Yeah. When we're at sudden death, he had just come off Street Fighter,

which was an unmitigated disaster in which Raoul Julia was actually dying on set, and he passed away as his last movie. You do this. And then after this, it's this bad movie called The Quest. And then it's double team with Dennis Robin, who I don't know anybody actually likes that movie, which is more of a novelty. And then him in theaters as a leading man is over,

and it still hasn't been back. It's over. There was some off-the-field issues, shall we say. I didn't actually know about this. And I don't know why I didn't realize this was the case, but develops a huge cocaine habit in the mid-90s. He's talked about it a lot. Yeah, he spends $10,000 a week on Coke.

He's doing up to 10 grams per day by 1996. I've never done cocaine. I've never, I don't even think Ben in the same room of it. I have no idea how big 10 grams a day is, but that seems like a lot. 10 grams sounds like a lot of cocaine. If anybody wants to see what I happen to think is the exhibit A of his cocaine use, I'm just guessing here. YouTube, Jean-Claude and Van Damme on Arsenio, and it is bat shit.

He is wearing a denim vest with no shirt underneath and high-wasted jeans. And like if someone were to dress like they were on cocaine, that was what they would wear. So I'm guessing that's probably part of it. Married four times. I watched this Letterman thing. Letterman just instantly doesn't like him. And they're just sparring for the first three minutes of the interview. And that's where he's like, are you married?

He's like, why are you asking? And it turns out he tells Letterman has been married four times. He was married five times to four different women. he went back and did the remarry, which I always think is aggressive. Like you and CR on heat. That's how he handled his marriages. He's like the reheat, the remarriage. And then in 1998, and he's talked about this too, he was diagnosed as bipolar.

As all of this was happening, we had Seagall on, you know, kind of over here as like just this legendary asshole slash douchebag, but still successful for a couple years. And then you had Van Dam as a. as the wild card. Yes. As just dialing it up and like how much of this is shtick, how much is this real? He can't possibly be like this, right? It turns out he was.

He was possibly like this. There was no blur of who he was in the movies, how bombastic he acted in interviews. He really just seems like he was, you know, for lack of a better word, kind of a douche. And I think once the cocaine started it, backfired on him. Yeah, and there was, listen, there was a celebrity relationship in there with Kylie Minogue. who was his co-star and street fighter, and he had a thing with her. But, I mean, I'm glad you brought up our guy Segal

because these two are inexorably linked, as they say. And it's just like, it's interesting to look at the projects, if Seagall had done this, if Van Dam had done his. And there's something that comes up in this movie. I've always respected this about Van Dam. And it's so different from Seagall. Van Dam in movies, Bill, is willing and there to get the absolute shit kicked out of him really badly.

he's always spitting and bleeding and even including against a mascot in this movie whereas Seagall if you looked at something in the fight scenes for like out for justice he doesn't have a scratch on him and I feel like it just stinks of ego I always respected that Van Dam would get the shit kicked out and before he made the comeback

that's a really great point and I think he was a much better fighter than Seagal and that was probably why he knows like he's so confident in whatever his skills were he's like fine let this mascot kick my ass because in real life, I would kill the mascot in two seconds. So speaking of those two, there's a 2008 interview with Slice Stallone with the British magazine, FHM.

Okay, sure. I had a subscription. At a party in my home in Miami in 1997, Van Dam was tired of Stephen Segal claiming he could kick his ass. So we offered Segal outside into my backyard. And then according to Segal, according to Stallone, Seagal made a bunch of exceptions. excuses and left. Van Dam followed him to a nightclub and challenged him again. And Stallone's summary of it was Van Dam was too strong. Seagal wanted none of it. You'll hear more in the full, we're launching a new ringer podcast about almost fights between famous action stars. But,

but yeah, so apparently Seagall didn't want the smoke, Kyle. Of course you didn't. Listen, I, and by the way if Sly and Sigal threw down, I'm taking Sylvester Stallone 10 times out of 10. And I'm taking Frank Stallone over Stephen Seagull. I will go with the whole Stallone family. Anyone named Stall is fully, anybody named Stallone. Because you know what, Bill, if he was in that stupid fight with the mascot, Iceberg would have to get its arm broken over its knee or just have to get tossed like that.

It would be so dumb. And Stephen Seagal would never allow his face to be touched. And I don't like it. Yeah, I think if you're pitting all these people together in some sort of I don't know, octagon thing. Royal rumble. Almost like the plot of warrior. If it's like you got to advance to the next round.

I actually think Van Dam might be the favorite. Schwarzenegger is probably almost too big. I think he'd have trouble, like moving around. He's got so much muscle. You could, he's just too bulky. It's like those big guys in fights who, like, they almost can't throw punches because they can't move their arms, right? Stallone was like 5'7.

And Seagal couldn't really fight. So I just think, I think Van Dam's like, a minus 300 favorite in that tournament. Yeah, I mean, the spin kick is going to be the equalizer, too. He's really, plus he could do the splits to either side of the ring on the ropes. They have all kinds of advantages. And the Royal Rumble, it's never those massive guys, at least not recently who win. Like, they're hard to get, they're easy to get out.

They fatigue easily. Right. I think Van Dam is probably the favorite of those four. And I think that Steven Seagall is like the Bushwhacker, Bushwacker, who's in the ring for two seconds, and they just throw him out. Remember that guy? Yeah. Well, you think.

like Chong Lee is the North Star of this conversation. Bolo Young. Because it's like him and him and Ivan Drago as the two most intimidating villains that have probably been in any movie like this. And... Chong Lee, you know, Seagal, they'd really have to do a lot of editing

to make me think he even, you know, puts Chang Lee in his heels, much less beats him. Stallone versus Chongley, he would do the thing where it's like, all right, you hit me for two minutes and then I'll rally back. And then I'll send Chongley in.

Lee's ripping out his larynx so he's out and Chang Lee versus Schwarzenegger is an interesting one but I think ultimately Chong Lee takes him too. I think Van Dam's the only one now if we're going into current era I think the rock in this conversation in a real way

because he's 6-3 I just think from a physicality standpoint he has the wrestling background so he's been in some scraps so I think he it's probably him versus Van Dam for me in the finals and then Chuck Norris would be the other one where he's kind of like discount Van Dam.

Right. But he did have the whole background way back when. Yeah, and then you can toss in some foddy. You want to toss Statham in for a few minutes. He can throw him out of the ring really quickly. British guys are out. Yeah, they're out. You had me Adolf Lundgren versus Bolo Young,

Drago versus Chong Lee. There's your podcast. Jesus. That would be great. I mean, you watch Rocky 4, which I know you have more than once. We've talked about the rewatchables. he is the most realistic looking bad guy, boxing guy in any boxing movie that's ever happened. Every punch looks like, I don't know how they did it, but it's just, you know, the straight,

it just seems like there's so much power behind it. And, you know, that's why Stallone got brain damage and did Rocky 5 because it was just too much punishment. But anyway, with Van Dam, I think that's a great point. And he did sell the fact that in real life he's probably just killing everybody. But he kind of made all of his characters seem a little more vulnerable. I was like them. I think he also, the other piece he had, which all these guys had, is the fun to imitate thing. Like, right?

You go through all those dudes we just mentioned. Schwarzenegger, that was the number one calling card for him. Stall, really fun to imitate. Seagall, really fun to imitate. On down the line, it was all like, this is such an ironic. era that 1985 to 1995 where it was like, we love these guys, but it was also kind of fun to make fun of them. And they weren't in on the joke yet was the other thing. I know. Well, I miss it. I miss it too, because even if you did the shittiest Arnold impression, you just go, ah, and you got

it. That's all you need to do. Like, basically for total recall for two and a half hours, he just goes, ah, and it's so simple. And Van Dam's in Bloodsport. After he kicks, he goes, and then here he talks like this and do not leave out of this seat some reason i am a pittsburgh fire inspector i talk like this it's the best my name's Darren Darren McCord i have this accent though can you tell me we we talk to this quick i'm sorry the name that his fuck is his name is Darren McCord what the fuck darren McCord sounds like a guy who has like a mock draft on fandool right now like and he's 3.0 it doesn't sound like a guy the 90s who inspects fires in Pittsburgh.

Well, you know, I was going to do this later, but I think it's too important. No, no, I think it's too important not to do right now. My guess, anytime the name is way off with the actor, my guess is that they had it in the script, but they didn't realize it was going to be Van Dam. And they just got lazy. They're like, wow, if we change it, I mean, somebody's got to go in a final draft and change, you know, 330 mentions of his name. So just keep it.

Nobody's going to care. They don't anticipate the internet. YouTube, this podcast. They just think they're making sudden death. It'll make whatever it makes, and then it'll never be seen again. They don't understand the whole dissecting part. It's too much work to change it.

And to prove your point, in a true Van Damme vehicle, like Lionheart from the get-go, in Lionheart, his character's name is Jean or Pierre or something French-Canadian, because that was the Van Dam thing from the get-go. Right, Lion. He plays, in Bloodsport, he plays Frank Ducks. but that was the real guy's name.

Frank Duke, sorry. That was the real guy's name. Yeah. In Cyborg, he's Gibson Rickenbocker. Kickboxer is Kurt Sloan. Sure. That's another one. Like, I just don't see him as a Kurt Sloan.

Then he's lying. In Death Warren, he's Lewis Burke. I can kind of see it. Sure. Double impact. Two of them. Really, a movie we'll probably do at some point where he plays twins.

And it was the old Jay Leno joke of, I knew there. twins because neither of them could act. He plays Alex and Chad Wagner. Yeah. And double impact. And Chad is like the fancy one. I know that movie.

Universal Soldier. He's Luke Devereaux. Okay. Perfect. That's a Van Dan name. Then nowhere to run. He's Sam Gillen. Hard target is Chance Budrow.

That sounds reasonable. Sure. And time copies Walker. And then in Street Fighter is Colonel Gill. Yeah, got from the video game. So for the most part, it's hit or miss of the Van Dam names. This is. Darren McCord, Pittsburgh Fire Marshal is probably the least realistic, I think.

You just, you can't, you rip off those characters. You're sending me on so many side quests to talk about them. Like, nowhere to run. His kid is Kieran Culkin. It's from the succession. And in Double Impact, there's a joke. There's so many jokes about his dick and how big it is. And they're so written in.

They're so bad. They all got to get done eventually. Double Team, he plays Jack Quinn. Double Team is an abominable movie. I never have actually watched it. It's abominable. What's interesting is if he was having all those cocaine difficulties, the 96, that's when they were filming it.

But Rodman wasn't exactly Mother Teresa. Like, what was that set like? Where was the double team moral history? Yeah, because it's 96, that's 95. That's like into the second three-peat, like the Jordan baseball year. Rodman's coming over. Yeah, he's unraveling at that point. Wikipedia describes this movie as

the film pits a lone fire marshal against extortionists who hold unsuspecting NHL players and fans for ransom during game seven of the Stanley Cup finals and set payment milestones to coincide with the game's progress. That's actually what happens. If I just read you that sentence in my head, I'm like, oh, this will be a classic. Yeah, it's a fun device.

And it kind of is. I love it. It's 30 seconds left. And, you know, our guy, Powers booth is just sitting there I mean, like, not looking good. There's like 15 seconds left, and then he shoots them. I can't wait to talk about Powers Booth. Directed by Peter Hyams, who's like a real director.

Yeah. Interesting note, released on December 22nd, 1995. Huh. One week after heat. Oh, shit, really? So heat comes out and they're like, you know what? We've just peaked with movies to go see in a theater. Let's throw a sudden death next week.

You need like, oh, it's almost like a sorbet. You need like a cleanser just to regroup. It's like a pallet cleanser. Or a Sherbert. $35 million budget made $64 million. Our guy Roger Ebert, two and a half stars. I'll take it every day. I'll take it.

He said, quote, perhaps the world does not require more than a dozen or so diehard clones. You tell me, if this season of peace on earth and goodwill toward men, it would make you feel better to see a thriller in which thousands of hockey fans almost get blown up, hostages are killed and a guy in a penguin suit gets a one-way trip through an industrial strength dishwasher, then sudden death is your movie. Strong paragraph, except he got the mascot. It was a woman, which is, we'll talk about that one, do the categories. I can't wait. Let's take a break. We're going to do the categories. This episode is brought to you by Apple and AT&T. Scroll long enough and you'll hear it all. Miracle diets, fitness trends, you name it. But with iPhone and Apple Watch,

you get meaningful insights from a very trusted source, your body. You can track sleep quality, cardio fitness, and more than unpack all the information in the health app on iPhone to get a picture of your overall health. These health insights are developed with clinical experts from start to finish. Find out more at apple.com slash health. Apple Watch is not a medical device and should not be used as a subject. for professional medical advice. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with

Fandual Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points, and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. All right. Most rewatchable scene. I'm not going to put in the hastily thrown together fire scene where apparently Van Dam

just crushes a little girl and... Awful. She's dead? What a way to start a movie? What's going on? Why are we staring at the dead eyes of a just murdered girl from a fire? What? That's the 90s, dude. 30 seconds into the movie, we got a dead kid.

with her eyes open too. And Van Demes, I found her! Oh, good, it's going to be a miracle. Oh, she's just dead. I think you smothered her. I think you actually killed her

and her eyes are wet up. It's creepy. I actually think there's probably a civil lawsuit and Darren McCord might be serving some time. Well, that explains why his wife left him. So you're protecting the little girl.

How did she get crushed to death? What happened? Well, it's at least a trial. You love the scene when he goes to pick up his kids, including his little shit kid, the kid from Sleepison, Seattle. Hate it.

Who, two years later, is now, in this movie, is Van Dam's son, who's just a fucking prick. And I rooted for him to die in the hockey arena for two hours. And it didn't happen. We get the stepfather.

It's the classic ex-wife, just kind of disgusted by him, let down, you know, the Midnight Run, De Niro's wife, trope. We don't revisit it. We never see her again.

And I have no idea what the stepfather's doing. They're really nice. He's game seven tickets. People are acting like he's, you know, taking somebody to a Thursday circus. This is Pittsburgh. Like all anyone's talking about is game seven penguins. Is there a reaction?

You have game seven tickets? Oh my God. That's amazing. No. They just shit on him for three minutes. What are you doing here? You can't stay. We're just getting ready to leave.

It's birthday. And you've got them all day tomorrow. I just got these. I thought the kids might want to... We're all going out to dinner. Looks like those might be penguin tickets. They are. It's a seventh game.

Vice president's going to be there. Daddy, Daddy! That's my hat. I can wear it, Mom. That I could. I do. And he just throws down that Trump card, text him right out of this.

Oh, these? Oh, these two games. You guys were going to go out to dinner? That sounds fucking cool. Listen, I hate this scene because I've lived this scene as a kid with divorced parents. It's classic.

Like, it'd be my birthday. and mom would set up, we're going to go to TCBY and get a frozen yogurt. And then my dad would pull up, like, in his portion, be like, hey, I got seats at the Chicago Stadium tonight. The Pistons are in town. You want to go see Jordan? And then you go, and it's so stressful.

And I relive that in that scene. And the stepdad is obviously kissing Van Dam's ass and trying to make it all work. It's a horrible scene. I hate. It gives me anxiety. Yeah, I really enjoyed watching it. Good.

The next one is Powers booth laying out the whole plan in the luxury suite, which I guess looks like this. I jotted down some notes. 13 frozen bank accounts and five U.S. banks. The vice president, now being held hostage, is going to unfreeze those 13. And it's $1 billion, like $200 million.

And they hit like 16 cliches in three minutes where you have the, it cuts to the vice president. That's impossible. Those are the numbers of 13 bank accounts and five U.S. banks that belong to three different countries that our government has frozen for a variety of reasons. They represent a total deposit of $1,700 million. Christ, it runs in the family. During the course of this game, all that money is going to be released and transferred to banks of my choice. That's impossible.

At least one third of the money must be moved during each of the three periods of the game. If at the end of the first period, the deposits are behind one of you will die. If we're still lagging at the end of the second period, two of you will die. And at the end of the third period, everyone in this building will die. You have no idea of the complexity. I had an idea. I had this idea. He says that every period more money will get released, which is ludicrous.

Tells him you'll call the president. And then the mayor's wife can't resist herself. and she says, I don't think anyone a manicured fingernails and a $10,000, wristwatch plans up blowing himself up and he does the $15,000. When do you want to have

the Powers Booth conversation? You want to save it for later or do it now? Let's do it now, Bill. Let's fucking do it. Let's go. Did you like his performance of this movie? I think it was fine.

I think you find yourself ranking him, where is he amongst the terrorist masterminds in, but where is he on the Hans Gruber rankings? I think it's fine. He never really loses it. I have those rankings for you.

Oh, what do you got? I love this. Rickman and Diehard is a 10. Yes. In his first movie ever. Nine out of 10, would you give it to Tommy Lee Jones at Underseasease or Lithgow and Cliffhanger?

Tommy Lee. That's what I had as well. Lithgow and Cliffhanger's an eight. Yeah. Dennis Hopper and Speed, a six or a seven? Six. This is a campy. I had that as well.

I couldn't find the right seven. Begosian and Under Siege 2 I had down as a 4 What I'm laughing about is I already know what your one is going to be I fucking know what it's going to be I have it and I'm not going to say it out loud Okay

I have Powers Booth as a 3 out of 10 On the ripping scale It's not great It feels mild in My thing with when you have villains like this And we'll talk about this more when I do recasting couch my villain, if he's done correctly, like Alan Rickman,

it has to be also somebody who could have stepped in the season 11 of Cheers and gotten off some one-liners and been able to interact in that way. Because ultimately the goal with these villains is they want them to be these sarcastic, smar-mey, kind of classy, and they're whipping off one-liners. And if you can do that in a movie like this, you should also be able to do it in like a really good sitcom comedy or like VEP, something like that or like Tom in Succession.

Tom and Succession would make a great just like an awesome sudden death feeling. He would have been incredible because he's got comic timing. Paris Booth does not. Now, and you know what? I never buy him. He's giving so many toys to play with.

He is. You don't buy him. This is, you get to eat shrimp and drink wine while you talk shit and kill people and taunt. This is a dream role that should be hit out of the fucking park

and I think it needs someone a little more charismatic. We agree. Go on. I have a two, out of 10, the Passenger 57 guy. Oh, that guy's terrible. I never saw him again.

You know who the number one's going to be. Do you want me to say it or you? No, go ahead. Well, let's see. I think it's the guy from Toy Soldiers. Yes. That guy. I knew it.

And I love Toy Soldiers, dude. I do too. We'll be doing it at some point. But that guy is an absolute one out of ten. Might even be a zero if you really, if you want to go zero out of ten. He goes, there are bombs all over the school. If you touch them, they will explode!

It's so bad. Every scene, it was like a career-er-eating performance. I don't even know what that guy's name was, but we never saw him again. What number did you not have the seven? What were you missing? I was missing five and seven. All right, I got a seven.

Gary Oldman and Air Force One. Pretty good. Pretty good. Does that count as a die-hard movie? I guess it does. Die Hard on the president's plane? Absolutely. I think the terrorists take over and they got to fight back and I think that's it. That's good. All right. Well, if anybody wants to throw a, throw a five at us.

Yeah, give us something. Let us know. All right, that was fun. I'm glad we did that. That was great. Powers booth, three out of ten on the Rickman scale. So, next one, Van Damme fights the Penguins mascot. Let's go. It's a terrorist in a mascot costume. So many great things about this scene. First of all, And we'll go into the making of this movie, but the fact that the penguin's owner and his owner's wife, the owner's wife wrote some of the script. And they're just like, how can we incorporate as many of the things in the stadium?

So they're like, you know, it'll be great as like an arena cafeteria fight scene. They bring in a meat cutter. There's a French fryer. There's a ceiling fan. The dishwasher thing kills her. How is the mascot remotely hanging with Van Dam in a fucking fight?

It's just badass. You're in that giant mascot? mask on, you can barely see out of it, you're encumbered by the costume, like, just an incredible performance. It is. And I think this scene is really important. My take is that if you made a top 10 list of the 10 most ridiculous 90s action movie scenes, sudden death has number one and number two.

I think this is two. We're going to get to one. But remember Bill, the opening scene and naked gun where Nordberg, like, steps in a bear trap and then touches a hot stove and that gets paint on his jacket? That's what the scene is. They're doing a deli meat cutter. The woman gets her hand deep fried. I don't even know if they know it's funny.

And when I watch it, I'm kind of laughing, but I'm also kind of digging it. It's such a bizarre scene. I love it. And the whole lifting the scene that they show the fingernails at some point, then lifting off the mask at the edge. It's just very odd. Fantastic. The next one I have, we haven't talked about this guy yet, one of the terrorists. Go on.

They didn't say his name. I nicknamed him Drunk Bano. because he kind of looks like Bono, but he's drunk. He looks like a drunk. I've had seven drinks and been in jail, Bono. So I have McCord beating a drunk, drunk Bono, who he punches him twice. And it's like, what's the plan? And the guy just immediately gives him the entire plan.

All right. All right. We took the box. We got people everywhere. The whole joints rigged with bombs. We can bring the whole building down. What are you? Terrorist?

I'm no fucking terrorist. I'm a professional. How do I get in the box? Oh, you don't? I'm not if you want to see that kid alive. I'm pretty sure he breaks like a henchman code there, I felt like. That guy went easy and he's like, I'm not a terrorist. They always say, I'm a professional.

And then he's such a professional, he gives it up in two tries. I'm a businessman. That's another cliche. And then McCord kills him with a meatbone. Yep. Right in the neck. Meat bone, right? Yep.

Yeah, it was like a bone that he breaks on the side of the table and then stabs him with. It was really innovative. Well, that also won the award for Big Kahuna Burger Award for Best Use of Food and Drink, stabbing somebody in the neck

with the meat bone. It's immediate winner. I also love that they decided to go back to the kitchen for a second fight scene. Hell yes. They were like, did we do enough in the kitchen? And they were like, ah, that we still had,

we could have done like a meatbone thing. And they're like, all right, we'll do one more. And they just go right back. Yeah, you know, we got this rolling pin here. If we want to use that, I could put some banana peels on the floor if you want to slip on those. Like, we got all kinds of stuff. You want, you want a spatula of plate? Yeah, where's the freezer?

Why didn't they grab like a frozen filet mignon just start hitting each other with it? I felt like there's left stuff. Their blender, nobody had like the hand in the blender. I feel like they might, listen, we did a dishwasher kill of a female mascot. That's never been done before since maybe we just leave it there, right? A dishwasher kill is very rare. next one I have is two terrorists slow play killing McCord and he gets saved by Hallmark and then McCord punches Hallmark in the face anyway it's just a bizarre scene and we haven't

had the heel turn yet of Hallmark but you know it's coming from the moment you see him do you believe me of an explosive afraid not you McCord I'm Hallmark have any idea I didn't kill you that's for doing your job half-assed and putting my daughter life in danger. And the vice president. How'd you happen to come down here? I saw these two and I followed them. Part of my job is recognizing who's out of place and who isn't.

They didn't seem interested in hockey. How'd you kill that guy? Magic. You know what's in that scene bill that just doesn't happen in real life? There's no part where like you just punch someone in the face. And you're like, that's for putting my daughter in danger. Like, good punch. Anyway, let's work together.

It's a game ender if someone punches you in the jaw. It's over. It's probably a fight at that point. I also love the trope of when the terrorists find him underneath. I'm guessing the instructions are shoot on site. If you see this guy, shoot him in the head. They've already killed multiple people, right? And so it's like, ha, got you.

Held the gun on him. All right, he's probably getting out of this. I have McCord killing Hallmark with the water gun, whatever thing that he does. But then Fireface McCord comes back, Cape Fear stuff. out with the burned half face, bad makeup out. You're talking about when Hallmark comes back, like he's Max Katie and to the houseboat and half of his face is burned off?

Hey, Bill, is it true that that's how you're going to be if the Patriots draft Hendon Hooker in the first round, you go, and your face is going to be burned off? What did you do, Bill? Why do we have two mediocre quarterbacks? Why? Next one I have is McCord. So he does this thing.

Van Debs character where he's running, he goes to see where his kids are, but then he runs down the lower section of the hockey thing. It's actually kind of amazing. It's amazing.

Because like you've watched, we've all go to games a bunch of times and you have that thing where somebody decides they're going to get cute and walk behind the row that they're sitting in because they don't want to make everyone get up. And then they try to climb over the one row just to sit down.

And it's like 90 things go around. They'll spill their drink. they'll trip, get their dress caught. It always goes bad. He's going down section one. Like, it's like nothing. Yeah, he looks like fucking Tomb Raider or something. It's an incredible leap that he's doing.

I can't even execute it at the movie theater. I fall down or spill somebody's drink. Like, he goes bounding like a Spider-Man as he's on fire. He's like, bouncing on him. It is really good. I rebound it because I was like, did they cheat this? Like, did they remove the seat? And it's like, no, it seems like they just kept the seats out for him.

and he just kind of bounced off of them. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I would say that would be Apex Mountain for running on stadium steps, but I think it's that guy from Vision Quest holding the log over his shoulders up the stairs. Shoot. Yeah, shoot. He still got it.

The other part of that when he's running down the stairs is everyone's just locked in on the game. Yeah, it's game seven. It's like, here's a guy sprinting down section one, just jumping on people's lap. We run a power play. Tried up in game seven, Bill. I don't give a shit, what's happened?

The next thing I wrote down was Van Dan plays goal, big stop, punches a guy. Let's go. The best part, my favorite part of this whole scene is when the announcer says, this has been a strange night for Tolliver, the goalie. Makes a little move out in front of the net. What's he doing? The right cross and knocking down. He's got his conduct and a fighting major.

He's put his team shorthand into Penguin now really in the whole final moment. This has been a strange night for Oliver. I don't know what he's up to, Mike. That's a thousand dollar fine. After he punches, makes a great save and punches the guy from behind in the face, seemingly getting like a game misconduct penalty, but there's this whole subplot

where the penguin's goal is sick. It's 104 degree temperature. Keeps giving up goals. And at no point the coach is like, maybe we should go to the backup here. And then the guy skates off. And the next time we see him, He's just in a locker room with no trainers with like an oxygen mask guy.

It's like, was this guy? Did this guy create COVID? What happened? Was this the first guy who had COVID-19? Did you have like some sort of pneumonia? What was going on with him? He's in quarantine like he's in movie Outbreak, which was very recently close to this one. I actually have like a weird sports take on that is it's game seven.

It's tied three to three and the goal he goes and checks himself out of the game. Like is that not the softest thing that he would just get annihilated for in Pittsburgh? Doesn't it go against everything's hockey represents? Take me out. I'm not feeling it. Dude, it's three to three. The backup goalie sucks. I thought that was a weird plot point among many others.

It's a good point. Like the announcers should have been way more outrage. Yeah. Where is Todd of her going? He's our best goalie. And then, Bill, beyond that, I think this hockey scene is so important. Do you understand the why and the how? Like, do you even understand why McCord is getting in the hockey stuff and going out there?

I'm not really. She's trying to hide from the henchmen, right? I don't know why it is. I had this later. Let's do it now. Oh shit. I'm stepping on it. No, no, no. It's too crucial. Okay. I thought there was like a scene missing or I thought like I got distracted by an email and

there was some explanation for it and I rewound it. There's no explanation whatsoever. He's hiding from the bad guys. But to put on goalie equipment, I don't know. Does it take 10 minutes? Yeah. So if you're hiding from bad guys, you're just going to be like, I'm going to hide from these bad guys who are right around the corner looking for me.

I think I have 11 minutes to put on an entire goalie off it and skate out there. Well, it's not 11. It's 22 because you have to undress the other goalie who for some reason is willing and unconscious. And you have to unstrap it from him. It's a 20 minute plus endeavor completely. And that's before you even start blocking shots. It's stupefyingly weird and dumb and great. And I loved it so much.

I was thinking like, you know, again, my sports movie consultancy firm that, you know, I've never, I'll probably never open, but I'm here. I'm open for business for anyone. There was a whole sideline reporter thing they probably missed here. Where it's like, let's go down to Becky

and she's going to find out what happened to Tolliver. And like she's down in the locker room and just gets smoked by a terrorist and just murdered. Like there was, my point is there were more deaths we could have had in this movie. And the whole meta conversation about just icing a sidelet reporter, I think could have been fun. You know, just like the classic, it's my hair right.

Right. No, and then just like she's dead in two seconds. I think it would have funny. Next one I have is Van Dam fights, kills more guys than locker room as the penguins kill a four-minute power play and lucky Luke scores the tie and goal. So he gets that game, he punches a guy from behind. It's the tie game. Yeah. Starts a brawl.

it's either a five-minute fighting major or two-two-minute minors. Either way, they're on, they're short-handed the rest of the game. There's like four minutes left. Somehow they fight that off with the backup goalie, but then score right as the clock is at 0.0.

I guess that would be a short-handed goal. That's got to be in the running for the greatest, most unrealistic plays in the history of sports movies. Possibly? Yeah. Well, listen, it strains the credibility of all. Like, there's a million things I want to ask you as the sports media, the sports movie consultants.

Like, all of this that happens here, do you think it's the worst in terms of like, you've talked a lot about the Derek Vineyard reverse jam and Project History. Or American History X? Is Van Dam and everything he does that? Is this worse than the Derek Vineyard? Yeah, I mean, yes and no, because this movie's American History X was like trying to win an Oscar. this movie is just trying to make the penguins owner's wife happy that they made a movie. And, you know, so it's just what's weird to me is they're so invested in the hockey game. Yes.

And they're really about, they keep showing the score and different things. And now they're on a power play. And yet, this whole incident happens with four minutes left. And then they lose the narrative completely. Are they short-handed? Did they have to pull the goalie? Did the goalie get pulled with a minute left? We never see the goalie skid up.

Like, oh, they're going. for it, only a minute left, can they do it? And it's just like all the sudden, Lucky Luke is, you know, dodging three people on a breakway, and there's like no context. Yeah, it's just weird. It gets real cheesy. I agree. I agree.

I don't get it. I have double roof fight for the rewatchable. He fights two different people on the roof of the arena. Yep. I'm also giving that the Great Shot Gorder Award for most cinematic shot. Oh, it's awesome. It just looks great. But it loses, I don't know how you feel about him swinging from

stuff and landing in the luxury suite while holding explosive material. But it's a stretch. Homemade explosive material that he just whipped up. We don't have any idea why he's like this McGiver thing and he can make dark guns out of his hand and everything. It's a rough scene. I don't know why he didn't just go up the elevator again. It's a little strange.

Why did he go to the roof? He's a fireman. How does he know how to make homemade explosives and shoot things out of his He knows incendiary devices and stuff. But the dart gun on the hand, I don't know if that's just some dad knowledge or something, but we're both dads and I don't think you and I can make a gun like that. I don't know where that came from. He jumps, it feels like, I don't know if it's longer than Bob Beeman's jump, but it's close,

just to latch onto the thing, which then carries him, but he's somehow also carrying the explosive device, which doesn't fall. He's not worried at all about maybe this device will fall and blow up everybody in hockey. and somehow knows exactly where the luxury suite is and the big scheme of this arena and this thing can take him right there and it's just kind of all happens like it's realistic.

Yeah, he throws the bomb, lands in the hole, grabs the machine guns, start shooting, saves the daughter. It goes very quickly. It pretty much turns into a video game, but you're riveted. Who cares? Yeah, well, when he goes in the suite,

I just feel like he's getting shot on site. There's like three guys with guns there, but it's fine. They're a little stunned. The last one I have is, Van Dam kills everyone in the helicopter. This might be the longest helicopter crash ever filmed. Goes on for a while.

Multiple different camera angles and Power's booth going, ah! Yeah, a lot. And then it's like two seconds. Ah! It's just going down. But my favorite part is right before he pulls the helicopter down, Powersbooth escapes, and it cuts to the helicopter,

and all the guys evil laugh? they're like after Austin Powers it's so funny to see anyone do that like pre-1997 but I just that that whole ending's great anyway we have

do we have the hockey game for the most rewatching with him Van Dam going to a goal Van Dam going in the goal is one of the most rewatchable scenes of the 90s listen or any sports movie too I got to tell you though like

Roy Hobbs hitting the home run and Jimmy Chitwit and all that shit Van Dam's going on the goal. I'm not changing the channel. It's hilarious. It's a nice save, too. Fucking glove save. It's spectacular. It's kind of frustrating that they didn't keep them in there for two more minutes.

They just have like a barrage of saves. They just did the one save. I have a lot of questions about the hockey scene for picking nits. What's age the best? Him being named Darren McCord is so fucking funny. Why not like Pierre McCord? Nope. Darren.

or John McCord. So true. Darren McCord is the whitest, most American-sounding name I've ever heard. I mentioned drunk Bono. Any 80s or 90s action movie were the following things happened. Go on, I got you. Just four things.

Maybe I forgot a couple. Someone telling either an FBI or a cop or whatever, I think you ought to see this. I love that. It's great. a line that only happens in these movies. I love bad guys shooting a hostage in a crowded room, just a casual,

just the one shot, just to prove to everybody, like this is a serious thing with the glee and, you know, that's a staple. I love instant bank transfers. I think bank transfers are so much harder than they are in these action movies

where it's like, I want $1 billion in 10 minutes. And they're like, okay, cool. In real life, You can't trade for $100 in 10 minutes? No, they're like, what's your mother's made name? And how many things in this picture have a stoplight on it to prove you're not a robot?

It takes fucking forever. The surprise bad guy reveals another staple. Really good. You see it a lot. It's always about at the one hour mark of the movie, give or take five minutes. The guy's face always changes. The good guy realizes it, like two seconds too late. Doesn't get shot.

And then they have to have a whole nap. navigation, the bad guy immediately tells him the whole plan. It's another staple. I love it. Those are the four that I thought. These are just like almost mad libs. There's a real ham-handed line that usually comes with the second bad guy reveal. In this case, McCord's like, you must be real proud of yourself. He's like, I'm going to be real rich. And it's like, that's fucking awful. What a terrible line. I hate that line. It's like premature bragging. Yeah, how could you? Because I'm going to be owning a mansion. Like, it's so bad. I would only add to it like, I fucking love the technical guru who comes in and he's always some wise ass who's drinking soda or playing

video games or cracking wise it's an unapologetic rip off of Theo from diehard and we had it in this week too you have to have a tech specialist good point yeah they they the brags about being rich it's always like well i won't worry about it when i'm st barts sipping a martini you know they always get like colorful with the brag in diehard too when colonel stewart's going away with john amos john I'm just like, I've seen enough fucking snow to last a lifetime. And Stewart's like, don't get much of that in the tropics, major. And they all just... And then the plane blows up.

What's age the best? Van Dam, talking French to Luke Robatai. I think this is the only time it's happening in a movie? I like this line. You know, we're in our kind of movie, you and me, when there's a line like this. We've messed up a few times since I've been an agent. But how the fuck did we lose the vice president? Imagine typing that in final draft

and be like, oh, hey, what do you think of this line? I love the annoying hostage that you know is going to get shot. In this case, it's the mayor's wife. And Powers Booth calls her out at one point. He's like, we're going to have to kill a hostage. What do you think? It's got to be the mayor's wife, right? At one point, I had this down from my favorite line.

He goes, can somebody make this cow stop moaning? I was like, what a fucking line. That's perfect. She's terrified, powers. You just killed two people in front of her. This cow. I laughed out loud. It's such a fun.

Like, Speed has it. Daylight has it. That's another one where, like, half the people Sloan's having it trying to save or just the worst people on the planet. Speed has the couple people on the bus that are just awful, including our guy Conner Roy. He's just terrible. One other what's age the best. This could also be what's age the worst. The kid actors in this movie are so bad.

that I actually think it's at what's age the best for me. The daughter is like just one like I almost think this should be a new category I'll have to Craig give final approval. When you see an acting performance like the daughter in this movie, you want to play the IMDB game and it's like over under IMDB credits. So I'm going to ask you Kyle Brandt. How many IMDB credits for the little girl in this movie?

Total career. Oh, let me give you the over under. I'll give you seven and a half. Total, over under seven and a half? I got to go over. She's so young. Over. Four.

Jesus. What'd she do? And one of them was like an Arsenio Hall sketch. So it was basically three. Yeah, that was it. I don't think the game tape from this movie was kind for her agents. Also, how about the game tape of her parents putting her in that movie and just people just gunning down?

all around her. It's disgusting. Powers Booth looks at this girl and goes, I'm going to kill you daddy. And I'm like, fuck, Powers. That's a little girl. I'm going to put spiders in your mouth. Yeah.

Maybe she didn't want to act anymore after this movie. That's it. What other, what stage is the best do you have? I'm going to ask you something about this bill and see if you agree with me. See if I'm crazy. Is Jean-Claff Van Damme really good in this movie? I think he's really good. And I mean, think about this.

There's no sex scene. He doesn't do the splits. He doesn't show his ass. In this role, he's just really trying to save those kids and stop the bombs. And I feel like he really cares about those kids. And I feel like it's Van Dam's best performance as an actor. I think he looks good and he looks every part the action hero other than the corny screenplay stuff. But like, I think he's really good in it.

I do. I concur. I don't even have a counter. If this were first take, I would just throw out a commercial. I think you're right. I think, you know, this is the, this is Stallone and Cliffhanger. This is Willis and Die Hard 2. Yeah.

Where we have a history with the guy, so we kind of know all the beats. But a couple times, like, that's pretty good job by him here. Yeah. He's been doing movies at this point for 10 straight years. Like, he's very experienced. He dictates the set. Like, he's calling all the shots. And I don't know.

I just, I was proud of Van Damme's movie. I don't think you laughed at his acting and you laughed at some of the stuff his characters. I thought he was good. And other than that. It's just great to see the, like, ESPN hockey night, Stanley Cup. I got me so fired up. I loved it. I enjoyed it as well.

You think Van Dam realized he peaked as an actor and just was like, all right, I'm going to try an eight ball. It's time. And that was it. It was literally his apex mountain. All the greats go to cocaine. That's what I'm doing. The Denna Thieves Benihana Award, scene stealing location. I guess is the roof.

Yeah, it's the arena. The whole thing is a location. But I think they knew that the roof was going to be so badass that they had a manufacturer reason for him to go up there. There really isn't any other reason. It looks very cool. It's a great shot. The Butch's Girlfriend Award for Weeklink of the film.

We mentioned the kids. We talked about the daughter, Whitney Wright. The Sleepless and Seattle kid, like, I should be rooting for him to save the kids. These are his children. that's the easiest thing for me to root for in a movie. And that little shit son, I'm just dying for him to, you know, especially when he's left in the arena at the end and it's just him. And it's like, eh, it took a good time for the arena to blow up.

This kid was just shitty to his dad for, you know, the entire day. Fuck this kid. See, this is when fantasy would come in and be like, oh, that's great, Bill, make fun of the kid. Hope he died. And I'm sitting here with you. I'm like, the fucking idiot kid. I didn't leave, dad. I didn't shut up.

Yeah. moron. It drove me crazy. I don't like the kid either. So this kid completely disrespects his dad the whole movie. Like, makes disparaging comments to the daughter or his sister. Yeah, he's like, well, he's probably changing a light bulb. Yeah, yeah, idiot. And then he gives him the instruction and don't leave your seat. And the kids just chained to his seat for the next two hours.

So do you respect your dad or not? Like, because at some point, maybe get up when everyone in the arena is out. I hated the little kid. I hate the kids in this movie. I did too. What's age the worst? Started the movie off with the dead little girl with our eyes open. I just don't know if we needed that.

I mean, I think the nuance is perfect. Were the eyes open entirely necessary? We get it. A child died and it affects the psychology. It was disturbing in the first 30 seconds. It was their version of the opening of Cliffhanger, which we both love so much. It's rushed through. It quickly ends and that's it.

We just kind of, they basically tried to accomplish. everything Cliffhanger did for 20 minutes in cliffhanger in like three minutes. Except we would need her dad to blame Van Dam for killing the daughter and hold it against him for the rest of the movie inexplicably. Right. Maybe the dad is Powers Booth. That would have been a good wrinkle. The, uh, bringing machine guns into a sporting event is age to worse for a variety of reasons,

but mainly I don't think anyone's doing that anymore. I didn't love the crowd in this game seven. I just like everyone's, it's Penguins Blackcocks game seven. It's Pittsburgh. This is like one of their only teams. They have the Steelers. They have the pirates. Barry Bonds is gone by now.

Steelers are, they're in the Neil O'Donnell era. Like this Penguins team, this is Lemieux, everybody. I just feel like they're standing for three hours. This feels like a November game to me. Yeah. I think like when the scoreboard starts exploding and stuff,

they refuse to leave. Like they'll just stay there. I'm going to see the end of this. I bought these tickets. I'm not going anywhere. These are my pens. I agree. I agree.

agree. I don't wait till you're worst. I don't like that. Lemieux's not in this game. What is that? Now, this might have been around the time when he got cancer and maybe he disappeared, but I still would have thrown him. If we're going to have Luke Robatai in here, who only played for the Penguins for one year. Like, Brit, let's bring, Yager, where's he? Yager's there. Ed Belfore is on the Blackhawks. Chelyos is out there. It almost feels the sickness thing aside. It feels like when Jordan wasn't an NBA jam, like he's like, no, I'm not going to be in that shit. Like, well, where's 66 out there? This is a big deal. It's the Penguins in 95. Yeah, I'm trying to think of it from 66's side.

I don't want to be in this. This is beneath me. I think they explained the premise to him, but he's like, I'm good. Thanks, anyway. They're like, you know Jean-Claude Van Damme? Yeah. Isn't that the guy from Hard Target? I don't know.

The movie score isn't great. Nah. It felt like they ran out of money for the roof fight because somebody falls to their but we don't see it at all and they don't even give us the stunt man half of the fall followed by the cutaway.

The guy just kind of goes off exit stage right, satirate lifestyle. They used fake penguins and fake Blackhawks for this game which was not their fault because there was a hockey lockout. And if there had been,

you know, I think they could have rigged it where they could have used the real footage for the game. But the guys are noticeably not as good as real NHL players. Yeah. And I don't even think it was like,

you know, like in blue chips, There's guys out there like Bobby Hurley is out there playing. Like it's legit dudes. It didn't feel like that for me in this movie. No, it did not. Any other what stage is worse for you? Powers Birth, we talked about. Yeah, a couple of little ones.

I fucking hate 5-5-5 phone numbers and movies. That's like a Hall of Famer. I hate that. I think the Penguins locker room looks like shit. It looks like a municipal locker room that one of my friends' kids could play in. Those have come a long way. But the biggest one here, Bill, and this is a heavy one. God damn, the violence is just.

insane in this movie. And it's, as the kids say, that 90s violence just hits different. It is not this sort of John Wickian stylized shootout in a nightclub. It's just, bam, like right to the fucking head. And they do it to everybody. They're killing people in front of kids, in front of their husbands. They kill the old fucking gardening lady. They kill her husband, chef boy, R.D.

They just shoot everyone remorselessly. It's stunning if you go back and look at it. different now. You're right. Not a lot of nuance back in the day. Ron Burgundy Flute Award. Basically, after the first five minutes, you're good skipping the next 17 to 20 until... I have the same thing. First eight minutes. The kid dying and then the stepdad scene. Enough of that bullshit. Take your piss early. Right. Was there a better title for this movie? No. I think sudden death is great. No, and it lends to one of our favorite things where you can go, Jean-Claude Van Dam is in sudden death.

And it's, that always is. They can make the full sentence out of it. Best quote, we have dead heroes, get the best funerals. Nobody does anything if it's right. They only do it if you make them. And would you like it if I filled your little mouth with spiders?

All Powers booth quotes, it's amazing he's only a three out of ten on the Rickman scale. What else they have to do? Perfect setup, great lines. How do you fuck this up, Powers Booth? Well, I struggled to look for the best line. And I think that speaks to Powers Booth performance. And I already said, can somebody shut this cow up or whatever it is?

So that's pretty much it. We're going to take a break. And then I have a Stephen A. Smith, hottest take for you. Let's do it. This episode is brought to by LinkedIn ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Well, marketers know the feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach, reacts.

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You have the four. What do you got? All right. This is the fictional spawning event that I would most want to go to of all of them ever. This is the one. Really?

All right. So you're already, even at just the entry level, You go to the Game 7, a Stanley Cup finals, and it goes to overtime. It's already an incredible event. And then, dude, the place evacuates. There's this wild thing that happens. None of the fans seem to get hurt. There's a guy swinging from the roof.

This would be like if you were at the Mouse in the Palace or the Kermit Washington game or the Bartman game or the fan man game, but times a thousand. I look at all these games, like the famous ones. I mentioned the natural and the Cleveland Indians with Ricky Vaughn. It's all great. Game 7 over. time there's an attack. I have to evacuate. I'm telling all my friends about it. For the rest of my life, I'm telling the story. And I got out safe. That's a really good case. Thank you. For me,

it's probably the natural to the Knights Winning the Pennant and the home run exploding all of the lights in the ballpark just feels like a good story for my kids. Great story. Great story. You were at that game? What? Yeah. I also think the longest yard would have been fun with Bert Reynolds. And are you an inmate at the time? The prison, the prison comeback. Yeah. I'm I'm covering it. I'm in the press box. For sure. Yeah, it's a good argument.

My hottest take. So, the, what was the, what was the Super Bowl movie? Black Sunday. Yeah, Black Sunday. Yeah. That's like mid-70s. Sudden Deaths 95. I'm ready for another one of these.

Okay. Go on. And I was trying to think like, what sport is the most, I don't want to say desperate, but maybe the most welcoming to being. being the venue of a movie while also, you know, kind of being in the mix. Like, who needs it? Baseball's been pretty desperate, right? Baseball, they're changing the rules.

A lot of stuff, like putting Theo Epstein out there doing interviews, really worried about the regular season and just how do we get young kids. And it just feels like the rock at a baseball game where terrorists are trying to blow up game three of the World Series. I guess like the town, they use Fenway Park in the town, but not in this way. But I think baseball needs it. Right. The fan, you're right.

De Niro is the umpire. John Crook. Yeah, but that's like it's dark. Like you don't, they're just using the giants, but I think baseball needs it. And the other one I was thinking was the lacrosse, the professional lacrosse league. The sweet lax terrorist attack. Okay. Sweet lacks, they like have bombs and the sticks.

or, because that's on ESPN now, so you get away with it. But they would like be, they would welcome it. Yes. So anyway, one of those, too. You could also do a terrorist attack on the World Series of poker. You could try that. Yeah, but then we'd be rooting for the attackers. For sure.

Every time. I worked out in my head, Bill. I thought this might come up. If we could go back to 95 and do this as an NFL game, like if we had really done it, how would Van Dam have gotten on the field and played goalie? And here's what I came up with. I think he goes in the locker room and I think he comes out. And the equivalent of making a shot and stopping a shot on goal,

I think he's playing cornerback. And he's on the field. And they test him deep and he knocks the pass down and defends the pass. And I think you have a visored helmet. Then I started thinking, well, you know, Van Dam is a white guy. You can see his arms who would stick out. I think in 1995, there was a Giants cornerback, Jason fucking Seahorn. And he plays the role.

He goes in for Seahorn. It's at Meadowlands. And that's Van Dam knock in the pass down as the seahorn number 31 of the Giants. That's how you do it. That's really good. I would have said punter. Like maybe he takes Sean Landetta's spot. With the visor helmet and he catches it and he kicks it.

But he gets like the roll. It's like the 25 footer, but it rolls 50 yards. And like, oh, great. Oh, he placed it. But he really was had no idea what he was doing it. And the movie is, uh, coffin corner. Like, and that's, that's a, because you know what's annoying about the football version? You couldn't call it sudden death.

You'd have to call it. John Claude Van Dam is in. Each team is guaranteed one possession. Had that coffin quarter is great. Coffee corner is great. It's perfect. It's dark. We might have to call roll app after we finished the pot.

I'm sure he'll be down. Hey, man. Came up with this movie. I don't know if you guys need the boost from an action movie. But Coffin Corner. Casting what ifs. Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Bruce Willis all turned down the role. Yeah.

Schwartzanger was doing True Lies and Jr. Stallone didn't like the quality of the script. I don't know what he was thinking. I mean, especially he makes daylight a year later. And then Willis was doing Diard with the Vengeance. Yeah. Come on.

James Woods was supposed to be the Powers Booth part, but turned it down. Didn't like the character and did another movie. James Wood, it's a better movie. There's something there. I mean, this is right in the vicinity of Lester Diamond, dude. James Woods was coming at this point. No, it's literally within a month.

That could have been the year of James Woods. I don't mind it. And then the announcers, the Penguins announcers are the real announcers. Mike Lang and Paul Stegerwald and Mike Lang uses had scratched my back with a hacksaw and Carl Arnold Slick and Turtle Crick. Like those are actual things that he would say. Oh, yeah. It's hard to believe we're not giving the Ruffalo, O'Hanna, Rubenick-Parchage,

overacting word to Jean-Claude Van Dam. No. But the penguin. coach in this movie. It's some of the worst acting of any 80s, 90s action movie where he's yelling at the goalie and it's like, we're just in a different movie every time he shows up. It's like an S&L sketch for any moment. He's just really horrible.

This is why this is the greatest pod ever. I got the hockey coach for Dionne Waiters. Van Damme comes over when he comes back with the goalie gear on. goes, like, you're feeling better? Well, then get the fuck in there. Every time he says the same line. And he cracks me up. I loved him.

I had him for Dion Wader's word as well. I had him. I had the mascot maniac, and I had Luke Robitias himself. But I think it's the mascot person. Yeah, I do too. The woman, whoever she is, he gets her hand deep fried. Best that guy.

You know, Sleep is in Seattle kids there. The vice president, Raymond J. Barry, he's definitely one of those. Guys, I didn't even know what his name was. And I think he's probably the winner, but I do want to shout out Mrs. Roper from Three's company, Audra Lindley, as the old lady who gets killed. Is that who that is? Yes, Mrs. Roper.

Okay. Shit, I didn't remember. I know Stanley. I didn't recognize her, but there's a great one here. And I'm watching the movie. I haven't watched it in years. And I'm like, who is that guy? Who is that guy?

All right. The Secret Service agent who is in the suite, who is the last to be killed, the normal kind of face guy. that guy is in Shawshank he's the guy who comes to Andy that says I'm looking up to set of trust fund for my kids' education and he's one of the guards. That's a great one.

Remember when Byron Headley's like, Dufrane, that's him and he walks over and sits down and that same actor is Truman's father in the Truman show. He has a scene with Jim Carrey as his dad. This guy had some parts and he's the Secret Service and he gets shot in the head. And he wins because you didn't even tell us

what his name was. I don't know his name. guy from Shashank. Yeah. He's the guy from Shashank wants to set up a fun for his kids. Recasting Couch. Yeah. Who do you have for Powers Booth?

I have a good one I feel really good about. I have a good one that I think you would feel really good about. I'll toss you mind. How about our guy and your guy? What about Jimmy Khan? What about James Conn in the role of Powers Booth? So I would be into it if it was 10 years earlier, but we've moved into the program. I've had some long nights.

at the Playboy Mansion stage of the James Con, IMDB. And I don't know. He does. He does a razor. Right? Yeah, I think he's like a shell of himself. Okay. What do you got?

I went as much as I love James Con. We just won the award last week. We had him when we did Alien about the, what was that the Tom Scarrant role. Yeah. Can I throw Kelsey Grammer at you? For the villain? Yeah.

You can try to throw a Fraser. Go ahead. This would be a big turn. Has he ever done that? not really. And I feel like he would have been a great villain in one of these because it's like, just think of him saying all these powers booth lines

and just being like fucking evil Frasier. I think that would have been amazing. Can I throw George Went back at you for the role of the villain? Evil norm. I read the concept of sitcom characters going evil was great. Absolutely. And listen, this is 95. This is right when Woody is doing natural born killers.

So they're all fucking doing it. We got to get Reapurlman in here somehow. The role that I think needs to be. recast the most is the Hallmark role. That guy doesn't do it for me. He didn't go in any famous. Let me toss you a hallmark. I feel good about this.

This isn't a spicy one. In the role of the Hallmark, a secret service agent who goes bad, what do you think about Tupac? Interesting. I'd have to buy him, buy Tupac as an FBI agent. I guess that would have been a leap in 1995.

He's coming off above the rim. It'd be cool. I had so in better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Treo, Catherine Hahn, Steve Bouchemy, Sam Jackson, J.T. Walsh, Philip Baker Hall. We don't have Chris to do, Wayne Jenkins. I think Sam Jackson, his hallmark, would have been great. And this is when Sam Jackson's making like five movies a year, so I think he would have done it. Like, he's in Kiss of Death with Caruso and, I don't know, I just think it's a better movie with Sam Jackson. The line is literally, we lost the motherfucker.

fucking vice president. Like it's written for him. That's perfect. Half S internet research. Karen Baldwin was the spouse of the penguins owner. She's one of the producers. She had an idea about the retractable

roof in the Pittsburgh Civic Arena, which she thought would make for a great action film. And the rest was history. So Howard Baldwin, who eventually bankrupted the penguins. And that was how Lemieux ended up with them because he just could not have a functional franchise. But he had this movie company,

and they also made Mystery Alaska, and they made Mr. Hockey, the Gordy Howe story, and they made a movie called Odd Man Rush, plus sudden death. So there you go. Luke Robatai had attended acting classes with Karen Baldwin while playing for the Kings, and they ended up signing him during that lockout season.

This Karen Baldwin sounds like a 30 for 30 possibility. I don't know what's going on with her. That's great. Penguins owner who tries to become basically like Megan Ellison. So they were going to do the October 1st NHL season open between the penguins and Chicago Blackhawks for this movie and then the lockout happened. They end up doing an exhibition game between the penguins and the lumberjacks, this IHL team.

He didn't like how intense it was. they do an ECHL game with Johnstown and Wheeling. And then finally end up with where they ended up with people wearing the jerseys who weren't the actual players except for a couple cases. They also had about 2,000 fans there as extras and then cardboard cutouts all over the stadium, which were pretty realistic. I look for them and it really, so maybe that's how Van Dam jumped down section one. Yeah.

It might have been just cardboard. cutouts. And there's no one had any camera phones. So there's no pictures. All the fans now would have phones. We get to see all that stuff. It'd be fun now. Nothing. What do you think the body count was for this movie? It's a lot. I'm going to say 30. Yeah, 36. 36. Yeah. Apex Mountain. It's a hard no for Powers booth. No. What do you have? What is this apex for Powers? Because I mean, I think of him in Tombstone. That's right around there. But I don't know.

He's in Deadwood? He's his earlier stuff as well. I think he was in Deadwood. Mm, okay. I don't know. He was in a Vietnam movie. I don't, he's one of those, I think Powers Booth where it's probably like 90% name. Mm-hmm.

Great name. Just a great name. It's like, oh, we got Powers Booth. Oh, it sounds awesome. But he just wasn't a great actor. Instead of Darren McCord, they should have called him Powers Booth. That's true. It would have been better.

Van Dam, Apex Mountain, probably Bloodsport. I think that opens up the whole career and he makes 11 movies in six years, kind of because of Bloodsport, because that was such a phenomenon. It set it off. I think in about 92, he did Universal Soldier, which is a big hit. Roland Emmerich directs on his way to Independence Day, and it was about kind of robotic-type killers right after T-2. It was fucking big, and he fought Ivan Drago in it.

He was hitting in the early 90s. I think Bloodsport opened the doors, and that's really good. So that leads to double team. When you get to play twins, maybe that's your Apex Mountain. So maybe it's a Universal Soldier leading into double team. All he was missing was a Body Switch movie. He did the twins. He did everything else.

He needed a Body Switch comedy with some kid. It would have happened. He couldn't stay off the fucking nos sauce. So much cocaine. Apex Mountain for the Penguins, no. Ross Ballinger, the little shit kid in this movie. No, because he was really good in Sleepison, Seattle. Dorian Harewood, no.

Is this Apex Mountain for hockey? No. Miracle. Arena. Yeah, hockey movies, no. Arena and danger movies? Probably not. Die hard rip-off movies, no.

That's it. That's all I got. What's your best racehorse name? Shit. I didn't really have one. I mean, sudden death sounds fine, I guess. Do you got a good one? Is there a good one that you found?

What about a horse named evil mascot? It's good. It's good. Evil mascots always work. If you saw that in the program, you'd go in bed on evil mascot. For sure. An evil mascot coming down the stretch.

I thought that was a good one. Picking Nitz. Why is being a fire engineer in Pittsburgh's main hockey arena such an unrespected job? Seems awesome. Seems like a decent job. Yeah, they know him at the stadium. Why do they make it seem like he's a fucking jackass?

I didn't get that. This game goes in overtime. he's going to blow everything up if the game just ends four to three goes into overtime and it delays the explosions. I don't remember overtime being on the card as he was explaining his 13 frozen bank account, his whole scheme. It was never the part of it. But if we go in overtime, that will buy you another, whatever, never says that.

So I didn't really understand that one. Here's another thing of picking nits. Yeah, go on. They never say the fucking guy's name. The villain. in the IMDB he's listed as Joshua Foss That's never said Never said

Stupid Maybe they thought that's such a stupid name They said it once in a time You gotta take that out Just give that Terrible names in this movie Between McCord and Foss Just awful

Joshua Foss Yeah Why doesn't McCord's son care After about the 20 minute mark That his sister never came back to her seat? Is he just the worst person on the earth? It's terrible The chair that he's not going to get out of when he's older is the psychiatrist chair.

That kid's going to be so fucked up. He's never going to leave that chair. Sorry, kid, the session's up. Well, I'm not going to leave. Well, I have another patient. I'm not leaving. Terrible. I don't know why Hallmark didn't just kill McCord, but that's, you know, that happens three times.

You got to talk to him first. Got to talk first. All right, some hockey stuff. Nobody recognizes Van Dam. Let's go. And not Tolliver. Taver changes. He looks.

looks different, his face is different. None of his teammates notice. No idea. No, even afterwards, after he makes the save, they don't notice. And they're patting him on the shoulder. It's, it's rough. What ultimately happens to the old goalie? Like, just dies, dies on the stretcher. Where's, there's no medic, there's no doctor, nothing. Does he just die? I think he's, he, I don't know. I don't know if he ever plays in Pittsburgh again, though, after checking himself out of game seven and having a leave. And a fucking fire marshal plays goalie better than he does. Yeah, they have to trade him. we mentioned the dressing and undressing as a hockey goalie.

It's just going to take longer than two minutes. That's been my experience. Why does Powers Booth grab the little girl at the end? What's the upside other than to make the movie a little more fun? Like, just get out of there. Like you got the money. You got your disguise on. Why are you like bringing in trouble your way?

Stupid. And these movies are always a little insurance policy. They always say that. And then the little girl hanging. And then pulling yourself back up. My daughter was fucking amazingly strong at that age. And it's like, you know, queen of the jungle jungle, jungle bars, whatever those are called, the playground and could swing. Yeah.

No chance you hang on for that long with an arena. And if you fall to your death, you would get scared, you'd panic. She's fucking six. My daughter is six. She can't even hold up a cup of milk to get through a decent lunch. She's not holding herself up from the grate. What else do you have for picking Nets? Remember what I said about

they take everything in this movie and turn it up to a thousand? Let's not forget that when he makes the glove save in the game seven of Stanley Cup, he's also concussed at the time. He takes a huge hit. His head hits the ice.

He doesn't know where he is and he still makes the save and then there's a terrible what's aged the worst line by the commentator who's like, he has concussed so hard his kids are going to feel it. And I was like,

Jesus. And then this world, you can't say that. But everything about the save, the only shock about the hockey sequence is that they didn't have Van Dam decide to go and score a goal too. Why not? Just go ahead and go the upper net and bank it. Just get it in. To go finish the joke and he didn't. It's amazing. Like an empty netter where the other going left the thing for some reason and Van Dam just flips it. Sequel, prequel, prestige, TV, all backcast are untouchable. So they did make a sequel, which I didn't know about. It's called Welcome to Sudden Death. It stars Michael Jai White and Gary Owen,

and it's supposedly more of like a spoof. It was released in 2020 during a month seven of the pandemic. You're not going to believe this, but negative reviews for this movie. Yeah, negative reviews. I was watching Tiger King. Sorry, guys. Didn't go great. Just won Oscar who gets it. The stuntmen?

Some good stunts in this movie. Nobody else is winning an Oscar. And the Oscar goes to Luke Robatai for sudden death. I want to thank everyone. I have the filmmakers on Claw, my mother, God. Yeah, not a lot of Oscars. Thanks to Howard Baldwin's wife. Probably in answerable questions.

Does Chicago protest the game because Pittsburgh used an illegal player? I know it's a tie when the game gets stopped. But Vandam's not on the roster. Like, I just feel like that's a forfeit. They lose. This is an illegal player who makes a key play in the game. It's completely illegal. And I want to see this wash out the next day for sure.

Yes, they do. Yes. Or is it a rescheduling? And do they play the whole game or do they just start? It's like 4-4-Ragona-T, Stanley Cup on the line three days later. You know, this is so dark, but like it makes me think of like when the Bills and Bengals were playing and the DeMar Hamlin thing happened, people were having real conversations about that about would they pick the game up and start it with the same?

down a distance a week later and it's like, no, we're just canceling it. But this is the Stanley Cup Finals game seven. You have to resolve it. I think they pick it up maybe at that point when the player came in. I thought about this too, though. I think they reboot the whole game. And can you, how long would it take to play it in Pittsburgh? Like, it'd take a couple weeks to fix the arena after the terrorist attack, helicopter crash on the ice. Got to clean that up. The Zamboni's got to really work overtime. No, you got to go to Joe Lewis Stadium. You're doing a neutral site in Detroit. That's where you do it. Brad To Oliver dying

I think is in play for probably unanswerable questions. I think he just dies in the and if he doesn't die, he gets killed by a Pittsburgh fan like a week later. Like you fuck a pussy 1004 fever. It's game 70 motherfucker. I

what's what's fan day? I guess we have a different category for this. Hold on. I'll hold that thought. Okay. Do you any more unanswerable questions or no? What's the sports media reaction the next day about this fire marshal who comes in and plays goalie

and makes an incredible save? And I'm not even joking. The penguins are like, we should give you a tryout. You seem really incredible and you did it concussed and we understand you have some semi-pro experience in Canada. Does he all of a sudden have a hockey future? Is he this massive celebrity now who's on all the shows and Barry Melrose

is saying he's great between the pipes? And I feel like there's a thing that happens the next day. or let me flip it around go on does does anybody even find out he played goal does it become like a like early internet conspiracy corner of holy shit there's like four minutes there and i swear that wasn't tolliver it was the guy who saved everything but they can't nobody can get a good angle and then there's like a freeze frame shot of him and yeah and tolliver's out of his mind he doesn't remember and he's like why are all your pads off i don't remember god that's so interesting he's gone like kaiser soze no one knows.

Yeah, because it just never comes out. Yeah, this is like the tail end of the Sports Illustrated kind of mattering as a magazine era. Maybe like three days later,

the real story of what happened in game seven and that's when it's revealed that he played goalie. I'm in, that's good. Sports center's like in, this is the Dan and Keith era,

so I feel like they would have covered it probably. Oh, yeah. We don't have PTI yet. Best double feature choice with this movie. Would you go, Black Sunday?

Would you go blood sport? Just do the beginning and end of the Van Dam era? You could. You could book end it. I'm going to go head to head 95 to 95. I'm going sudden death. And then I'm going under siege two dark territory that you mentioned with Steve Seagall. And we'll see who's still throwing a bigger fastball.

Under siege two dark territory with a young Catherine Heigel who I don't remember who she plays, hopefully his daughter, but knowing Steve, probably his wife. Yeah. Either way, they had sexual attention, whatever her role was. Steve just was forcing it, and he was, we know Steve. He's got an MO. Under siege two had this weird thing where it was on cable way more than Undersege 1.

And Undersege 1, I don't know if there was like a dispute over who on the rights or whatever, but it was very strange. All right, the Indian Reds-Zwan A word would happen the next day. We talked about all the possibilities and the new game. And I guess my real question is, ultimately, are Darren McCord's stats on hockey reference or not because he does come in and make a save. Does he get a page on hockey reference? Like, how does that work?

Does he get part of the win? Does he get to share the win? You know, the goalies can share the wins. Is he in there now? Listen, recently Connor McGregor fought Habib and some hooligan jumped in the cage and punched Connor McGregor. His stat and that punch doesn't go in the UFC

pro-MMA reference. It doesn't happen. No, I'm sorry. What does Darren McCord's next couple months look like? A couple talk shows for him? I think he's the national treasure. I think he is the face of Pittsburgh. I think he's going.

Rejecting Kathy Lee, Letterman. Oh, yeah. All that. He goes national. He's doing. S&L cameo for sure. He's doing Oprah. And most importantly, like, he goes back and brings the kids back. And he just fucks his ex-wife and his husband.

Their husband is out and the family's back. And we got a happy ending. She just loves it. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? I got, I mean, I'm taking, I'm taking, I'm taking, Iceberg the mascot suit and I would wear it to parties and it'd be so fucking funny and we've tried to fight people and people would punch me in the beak and it wouldn't bother me. I'm taking the whole ass suit. When he punches that thing in the beak, I laugh so hard every time. That's a great

one. I had the game worn Brad Tolliver number 35 Penguins jersey. Oh, that's good. It's really good. The game worn both goal is war, Tolliver and Van Dam. The Coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lesson. If your kids think you're an unemployed loser, the best thing you can do is foil a terrorist attack of them. Hell yes. And you'll win them back. That's what I learned. I learned it completely.

And they went from being a light bulb square winner to that's my dad. And I have to point out, Bill, in that at the end of this movie, we did when we did cliffhanger, from the time the helicopter exploded to the time they rolled the credits, it was 84 seconds. In this movie, it's 52 seconds. Powers booth explodes. And the credits are in 52 fucking seconds. Get them out.

here get him in the cars get them home i thought for sure they would have the drop like the the taken last taken scene where they go to see the singer it's just like the shoehorn in where he takes the kids to school the next day or he sees the ex-wife we're out we're done the helicopter still like shooting fire wrap it wrap it up get us out of here it was 52 seconds that's it's got to be a record it's good it's a good one to keep track of director peter hyams was like i've got another movie starting in two weeks. I don't have time to film that follow-up. Who won the movie, Van Dam.

Jean-Claude fucking Van Dam and the Narcotic Cocaine. Unbelievable. All right, it's time for, I can't wait, producer Craig. Oh, yeah, Craig, what do you got? Who knew nothing about this movie and watched it last night. I've not talked to him. So what did you think, Craig? I just want to say that I always know that whenever Brandt is involved, I'm like,

all right, whenever Bill's like, I'm doing a pod with Brandt. I'm like, we're going to get into some shit. I enjoy these movies so much. And I think, I don't know, they don't make them anymore, obviously, because the 90s were just such a weird, specific time. This is just replaced with reality TV now. Just like stuff you can put on and just enjoy and turn your brain off. And I just really want, maybe this already exists,

but there needs to be a free channel dedicated strictly to super cheesy 90s action movies because I've been radicalized by all this content. I'm so happy. I was drunkenly the other Like the other week Me and my friends Drunkenly stumbled on to Baywatch And we watched like eight episodes

Of Baywatch I think it was on Tooby or one of those free fast services And we started to look into it We're like it had a billion people watching every week And we're like God everything that went on in the 90s It's just this perfect time capsule Of like a total lack of awareness

But also at age is kind of great And I don't know Maybe I need to start a TikTok channel Where I just like post clips of shit like this because people need to know. It's a great time. So out of all these movies that we've done so far, kind of the Kyle Corner, I guess we call it.

Which one do you think worked the best for you? Does Cliffhanger? Does Cliffhanger count? Yeah, Cliffhanger counts. Cliffhanger is legitimately good. Cliffhanger's a good movie, a very entertaining movie. You know what's funny? Sometimes I'll be in public a lot and they'll be,

oh, are you Kyle? I'm like, yeah, how are you doing? And they go, I love you on. And I'm like, what are they going to say? NFL Network, CBS, any of the many things I do. they're like, fucking love you on the rewatchables, man. I just love it. And I'm like, oh, so all the heart and soul I'm pouring into talking about the

Cowboys and the Eagles and you care what I say about fucking Cobra? And they're like, yeah, man, that cobra episode killed. I'm like, thank you. Thank you for listening. It happens all the time. People love it. You're spending entire days filming those things for the CBS Morning Show where you have to remember like three minutes of lines.

And they're like, fucking cobra, man. That point you made about the pizza. When you guys were talking about Commando and he throws that asshole off the cliff, I was laughing my ass off. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you for listening. I was just nominated for a sports Emmy. They're like, oh, man, I fucking love Cobra. I mean, no disrespect to John, John Claude.

Was he actually famous? What was his level of celebrity? High. Yeah. It was at least as high as Segal. Yeah, he was, I think he's in a Friends episode. Like, he would show up in cameos as himself. Like, he was very famous.

That's a good point. The Friends episode, during, like, the peak of, like, Friends had the highest audience ever. and he had like a pretty pivotal friends episode. So is he like a, I mean, he's not like a Chris Hemsworth, obviously now, right? Like, who is he? Is he a Jason Statham? Bigger. More famous than Statham.

Bigger. I think he was the closest cop is, think about like 10 years ago, Vin Diesel, who was like a huge deal and a movie star, maybe even 15 years ago. You got anything better, Bill? Yeah, it's like fast four, fast five era of Vin Diesel. I think Vin Diesel is probably bigger than him now. Because you have to mix in the fact that you know. No, he's not the best actor.

You kind of, that's a part of it, right? Yeah. Of course. He's good in this movie, though. And he would show up everywhere, every red carpet, he would do a kick, like up to the ceiling. It was his signature move. It would be like the guy doing the Carlton dance. He would do the kick.

And it was awesome. And, like, pretty, this was the talk show era, too. And he was, like, a pretty legendarily roller coaster ride of a talk show guest. Oh, yeah. He would come out, like, super douchey. And it never clicked with any host. And it was always funny. It's telling he never hosted SNL.

And I think because of maybe reputationally after Seagall, they were like, we're not going down that road again. Yeah, it's weird, though. There aren't people like this anymore. We always talk about that, but the Van Dam's Segal types are just, they're kind of gone. And I don't know whether we have too many action movies or not enough, but there's been people like Frank Grillo tried to get in there for a split second and people like that. And then none of them brought in the ironic kind of non-self-aware thing. It just wasn't there, unfortunately. Anyway.

Kyle Brand, give us some plugs. I appear on the rewatchables podcast. Talking about Cobra and Commando and Predator, and you guys love me for it. No, I'm not fucking plugging myself. Kyle Brandt's based on is my podcast. I do it every day. It's really fun.

I love the rewatchables, though. All right. It was great to see you. Good to you, too. Produced by Craig Horleback, as always, and we will see you next week on the rewatchables. See you.