The Rewatchables - ‘The Insider’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey take down Big Tobacco as they rewatch the 1999 drama ‘The Insider,’ starring Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, and Christopher  Plummer. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You're listening to this on a Monday night or later. We are on tour. We're doing our cold weather tour. We already did Chicago, The Fugitive. I hope that went well. I hope I was fantastic doing Washington, D.C., Forrest Gump, Philadelphia, Creed, and then finishing off on Friday night in New York City doing Rounders. And if you're going to any of those shows, all the tickets are sold out.

But please make sure you watch the movies before you go to the show. Because we're not showing the movie. We are only talking about the movie. And I swear we'll make it entertaining for you. So there you go. Because we're on tour, we are not doing a new movie. new episode for the rewatchables this week. But we're doing an episode that has never appeared in this feed because in 1999, we did the rewatchables 1999 limited series for a Luminary. It only ran on

Luminary. And after all these years, we were able to run them here at our discretion. So we've been saving them and doling them out. And this seems like the perfect week to run the insider. 25th anniversary of that movie, Michael Mann, he did Ferrari, which is out right now. He has done a bunch of our favorite rewatchables movies, including the one that started the rewatchables. The whole reason we have the rewatchables is because Chris Ryan and I love heat. So on this podcast, it's me and Chris Ryan and Sean Fentasy,

deep diving into The Insider, which is a great movie. And there's a little wrinkly here. Chris Ryan is the host for this one. So hope you enjoy that. Hope you enjoy this podcast. Hope you get a chance to maybe go out and see us at one of these rewatchable shows. And thanks, as always, for supporting the feed.

By the way, if you want to watch any of these rewatchables podcasts that we've done, a lot of them are on YouTube. Go to YouTube.com slash Bill Simmons, and you can watch that. We might be putting some stuff from the tour on there, too. So stay tuned for that as well. All right, here it is, The Insider. I'm Chris Ryan. I'm joined by Bill Simmons and Sean Fennessey.

Mike, try Mr. Wallace. This is the insider. What does this guy have to say that threatens these people? But it isn't cigarettes are bad for you. He's only the key witness in the biggest health reform issue in U.S. history. He met an insider who was ready to reveal what no one else could tell. I was told, don't talk. Al Pacino.

The more truth he tells, the worse it gets. Russell Crowe. I know the truth. It's not the point whether you tell the truth or not. The insider, a Michael Mann film, rated R. Starts Friday, November 5th. All right, guys. Chris Ryan, I'm back in the hosting seat where I belong.

Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessee, we're doing. He finally did it. 1999's The Insider, Michael Mann's follow-up to Heat, starring Al Pacino and Russell Crow. And Al Pacino's... Is that a wig? What's going on? How dare you?

What's going on with this hair in this movie? His hair is blown dry to perfection. He looks like he just got off a motorcycle, but filmed every scene that. way. Yeah, he's right off the set of a white snake video, I think. How much would I have to pay you to wear Al Pacino's wardrobe from this movie?

I mean, it's about to be back in style. I think I will devolve into that. Solid colors, baggy khakis, you know, a duster. He's 20% away from being Phil Spector. That's really out of control. He's also 20% away from being a full-blown hack, but this is like

right at the end. Last grass. I will not hear any criticism. It's one of my favorite performances. Last Grasp, Insomnia is the tail end. Yes. And then it flips. Exactly. I completely agree.

Yeah. This film was released on November 5th, 1999, directed by Michael. Man, it was released by Disney, which is remarkable to think about now. I respect, the idea of this coming out from the mouse. It was budgeted at a really efficient $68 million for a movie that constitutes mostly people talking on phones. And if you want to know where that $68 million was spent, I'll tell you, Michael Mann, because he was like, it's important for this 10-minute sequence that I take Christopher Plummer to Israel.

Yeah. And shoot all the stuff you see from Mississippi to New York, the Keys, Louisville, the Middle East. They went there, they shot there, they brought Russell Crow there at all the expenses that that would take. Plus the enormous amount of research that man put into the... You're saying they could have done that in San Bernardino? I'm saying that worthy to make this a Netflix show. I think a lot of this is happening at the lot across the hallway here. So budgeted at $68 million, and it made what is relatively paltry,

even at the time $29 million at the box office. That being said. It felt like a bomb in the moment. It did. And we can talk a little bit about that. Joe Roth was very articulate about the challenges of marketing the insider in a lot of ways. It kind of closes the door on a certain kind of movie being made, at least at Disney. And then in the future, really Hollywood itself.

with few exceptions over the next decade or two. That's why we like 1999. It's one of the last years. End of an era. For as much as box office audiences turned their back on this movie, the Academy embraced it, giving it seven nominations,

including pretty much all the big heavy hitters, best picture, best director, best actor, best adapted screenplay. It did not win any of them. In fact, it pretty much got swept by American Beauty in all those categories. So Beauty won best picture. Mendez want one best director,

Kevin Spacey, one best actor. Who beat, Plummer? Plummer? Was Plummer nominated? He was not nominated. I think he got the Globe, right? Or he was nominated for...

I was saying, Plummer not getting nominated is a tough look for this movie because he's one of the standouts for me rewatched it. I know we're going to get to him. Flossing his teeth from chewing all the scenery in this movie.

God. Something else. He won the LA Film Critics Circle Award and he was nominated for... He was not nominated for an Oscar or a Globe. Yeah. He's also like Gene Hackman where he's been the same age

since like 1975 I have no idea how old he is. Oh, Christopher Plummer? He doesn't look like he's aged a day from the insider and that, you know, despite it being 20 years ago. Are there pictures of him like a 24-year-old Christopher Plummer? Because I feel like there probably isn't. I mean, he was about 35 in the Sound of Music.

He was the star of the Sound of Music. It's unbelievable. So obviously directed by Michael Mann, one of me and Bill and Sean's favorite filmmakers. No, no include Sean. I'm really honored to be here on a Michael Man podcast with the two Mannonites. The minologist?

He's not included. He was so mad when we did the Miami Vice rewatchable said that he got excommunicated from the club. Well, I think that this is a... I'm excited to be on this one because I think this is truly his last great masterpiece. I think this is man's... One of his last...

...genuinely iconic works of cinema. Written by Michael Mann and Eric Roth. Based on a Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner, this is the true story of a tobacco industry whistleblower named Jeffrey Wigan, played by Crow. Vanity Fair, a magazine that was printed on paper until a couple years ago.

And it's Wigan and his relationship with 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman played by Al Pacino and their efforts to bring Wigand's testimony to American airwaves despite resistance from the tobacco industry and 60 Minutes as CBS Corporate Overlords.

It was man's first movie since heat. It is in many ways his most restrained film. It is stylistically, it's really interesting because you know you've got Last the Mohicans Last of Mojikins is basically this moving landscape painting. It's this gorgeous romantic movie. Then you've got heat which in some

ways is the urban version of Last the Moheekins and then insider marks where man starts making all these really wild formal decisions and most of Insider is like shot from someone's collar. It's like a handheld camera, Dante Spanati who shot Last The Mohicans shot heat. He also shoots the insider but they're

essentially trying to visualize what it's like for people to make decisions and what they're feeling, what they're thinking as they're going through these life-changing decisions. It's his most restrained film in a lot of ways. It's also one of his least successful movies. Pacino. I want to talk a little bit about Pacino, which, you know, you think we talked about him a lot, but I specifically, I really want to talk about this 90s run for just a second because this caps it. This is the 90s for Al Pacino. Godfather 3, Dick Tracy, Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, Frankie and Johnny, send him a woman.

Carlito's Way, Heat, City Hall, Donnie Brasco, devil's advocate, the insider, Any Given Sunday. My favorite patino performance other than The Godfather. Is Any Given Sunday? Yeah. Well, that's insane. That was one of the first we watch most pods we did. I just love him in Any Given Sunday. I absolutely just love that performance.

The Inch's speech is all time for me. And that movie's terrible and he's carrying it like LeBron carried the 2007. in caps. It's unbelievable. Let's go back. So not dog day afternoon. I'm just saying my personal favorite. Not Panic and Needle Park. Not cruising. He's great in cruising. Clear out for cruising. Cruising's unbelievable.

Not sea of love. He's kind of creepy and nicotini and sea love. He is pretty nicotini. It works for the movie though. He's making it out with Ellen Barker. It's just gross. Oh, yeah. That was like one of the first times I was like, is that what kissing is? Balling her face. Yeah, I was like, is that you're supposed to kiss?

How many women's faces have you sucked off? of sea of love. Actually, I'm sorry. I'm going to put heat above any given Sunday. What do we got? What do we got? Give me all you got! I wanted to see...

The reason why I listed these movies, we usually go through major movie stars, decades of the runs they go on. But he and Crow are really interesting because Pacino obviously has this 10-year run that's kind of a coronation

for the career that Sean so eloquently outlined right there with Godfather and Serpico and all these other things. I know where you're going with the Crow thing, but you left that one key part. He kind of was gone. On.

Pacino. And C. Lovey comes back and it's like, oh, yeah, Puccino. I love this guy. But he was basically doing plays and God knows what else for, I don't know, seven years. Well, that's what I'm saying. It's like, in a lot of ways, he comes back. He makes up for lost time with all the films he does in the 90s. It's a big part of this, though.

And to Sean's earlier point, every movie is this dance with falling off the edge of believability of, are you doing too much with this? And, you know, in each one, you can say, oh, God, he was. so incredible in this moment and so ridiculous in the next moment. Do you have a favorite film from this 90s run, Sean? A favorite favorite Pacino performance from this 90s run. Well, he's going to say devil's advocate,

which is also insane. No, no, no, no, no. Well, okay, so I'll just... Look, but don't touch, touch, but don't taste. Taste! But don't swallow! Okay.

I'm a fan of man! The thing is, the theory of Pacino is that he was broken by Scarface. That the performance that he gives in Scarface essentially knocks him off of his access and he loses sight of what is over the top and what is nuanced. Because the guy and the Godfather and the Godfather Part 2 is one of the most sophisticated American actors we've ever seen. He shows darkness with a very subtle look. He shows loud and impressive ways.

Scarface is when he goes to the absolute edge of parody and still keeps you involved. And then, like you said, Bill, he kind of disappears. He takes, like, with the exception of one movie, six years off. He was in Revolution, 85, and that was it, C-E-11-89. He wasn't even, like, doing a cameo. Exactly. He's just gone. So he's off, and he's doing theater, and he's, I don't know, reassessing his self-worth.

And then he comes back in the 90s, and he takes on a lot of roles. He works a lot in the 90s. I think that the insider is probably his best performance, because it's the one that is the most finely calibrated between loud, crazy, and it's kind of subtle and stormy. And he has always been able to dance with both of those emotions. I mean, you guys might say heat.

You might say Donnie Brasco. That's also an interesting performance. I agree with everything you're saying, except I think a son of a woman broke him, that Scarface. Because if you watch See Love, he's not doing that in C-Love. I actually think it's like,

kind of just older 70s Pacino in a movie. And then Sennett Woman, he dials that one up. And I don't think he could ever fully come back from that. But even in Dick Tracy and Godfather part three, like he's pretty over the top. He's really doing like... Dick Tracy is like a parody movie, though. Yeah, but I mean, it's asking him to be a cartoon.

He's with just a bunch of schmucks. He's with George Hamilton and Sophia Coppola. I think he felt like if I don't dial it up, this movie's dead. It felt intentional to me. After scent of a woman, I don't think it was intentional anymore. And that's what, even in heat, which we love, he has moments in heat that he just wouldn't have done as an actor in the late 70s. There's no way. Even something is well written as Glenn Gary, which is one of my favorite performances from this run.

He's big in that. He's really big in that. It's just the material is so specific and weird. And like, it's exact about the real estate business and all the language comes from the salesman. It's not like, you can't really even discern what he's talking about when he's doing his big, big runs in Glennie. one of the reasons why that's my favorite. Well, the diner scene in Heat, he's not parody Pacino yet. No, no, no.

And I think if that scene comes along six years later, there's a slam of the coffee table and, like, he's doing three choices that maybe don't make sense. What do you guys think of Donnie Barrasco? Because I think that that's actually a pretty subtle performance. There's something a little bit sticky about it, because it's very accent heavy, and he's playing like a real schnook.

But I think that that's a pretty... There's not a lot of scent of a woman isms in it. fan of the movie itself. I don't, I don't, not a huge fan. I feel like they're both too mannered in it. It feels like two guys like running away from what makes them movie stars in a lot of ways.

Can't have a British guy direct an American gangster picture. I have a confession to make and Sean's gonna be mad. I don't like Johnny Depp. I agree with me. I'm not, I'm not of Johnny Depp. I'm not gonna defend Johnny Depp in the year 2019.

No, no, I'm saying I just have never, never, at any point in my life was like, oh cool, Johnny Depp has a new movie. I was always like, why is it Val Kilmer getting in these roles? I was always like Team Kilmer. There was a time when Johnny Depp was really the most interesting actor. I get it.

The Ed Woodtime, that was, he was brave. He was willing to do things that other actors are not willing to do. Now, it's a joke. Did you know there's a Johnny Depp movie out this week called The Professor? You're familiar with us about a professor who learns he has cancer? You're not. He used to be the biggest movie star in the world. Now he just released his movies no one's ever heard of it.

He was in that movie where it's like he's investigating Tupac's death, right? Yes, that's right. Did that ever come out? I don't know. It goes fast, man. Look at Tramolta. He's direct-to-video now.

Speaking of going fast. Let's talk about Russell Crow's five-year run here. So when he did this movie, it was the, I guess I'm stepping on you. No, the rocket's going up. But he's 33 and he's playing this guy who's supposed to look like he's 50-plus. And it was a really kind of ambitious, I'm not positive he should have done it role at the point of career who's at. Al Pacino, you're talking in 1970s through the first decade of the 2000s.

He's still a relevant actor, I think. Russell Crowe pretty much has the entire career in five years. From 97 to 2002, I mean, he's obviously still around. He's still doing stuff. But LA Confidential, mystery Alaska, the insider gladiator, proof of life,

master and commander, Beautiful Mind, Cinderella, man, good year. Chris, we covered all this in our iconic, Proof of Life podcast. I'm just talking about his... I nominated the Peabody Committee. He should get out of... out of here and Helen Mirren should come by.

And because she's such a fan of that podcast. For those of you who are not aware, Proof of Life is a movie that was released in the year 2000. It stars Russell Crow and Meg Ryan. You've probably not heard the episode of The Rewatchables because no one on earth has seen this film. Can I give you the moment when it

ended for Pacino? I think Insomnia was the last. Pacino and De Niro had this point, and I'm a little older than you guys, but like anytime they released a movie, it had to be taken seriously of Should I go? It was an event.

Yeah, it was like, these guys have a movie, I'm going. Like, you didn't even think twice. And insomnia was like that for me. But then the next three, it ended with Simone. Simone was his next movie. And then he did the recruit in Gile. And then it just, and two for the money, 88 minutes.

And it's just, it's just ending. And that ends up with righteous kill with De Niro in 2008. When I think how, it was those two guys in a movie, nobody care. He does have good performance. is mixed in. Angels in America is pretty amazing. Danny Collins is fun. We both like that. Danny Collins is this decade though. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying over the last 15 years, he has done, there have been things where even Paterno, which I don't think is totally successful. He's good at. I think what he's doing is really cool and interesting. My point was more like

it was an event when he was in a movie right up until around now. And this was the first time. I remember a Puccino movie that seemed like it was an Oscar contender, all that stuff, just not doing well. And maybe that was because of the substance of it. I don't know. And this is, this will, I think, will be true for talking about Crow. This is the most important Pacino year, maybe since the insider, because this is the year of the Irishman, the new Scorsese movie. And he's also in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the new Quentin Tarantino movie. Do you think he's going to have much of a role in that movie? We'll see. Yeah. I don't know. So your point, I mean, I interrupted you, but your point is, Pacino's going this way and

Crow's going this way. It is, but it's also like, it's an interesting statement about the state of the movie business. Puccino gets three decades to be Al Pacino. Russell Crowe gets five years. Now, part of that... Isn't that self-inflicted, though? I think part of that is this movie almost in a weird way,

despite it being an incredible Crow performance and very worthwhile of being nominated for Best Actor, you can see this guy kind of like, do I want to be this chameleonic shape-shifting character actor, or do I want to be Master and Commander's Cinderella Man? Action, like, leading man. This is the Valcomer, Brad Pitt? Pit Conundrum, right?

Yeah. So he puts on all this weight, goes gray, plays 15 years older than he is, an insider, and he's remarkable. And then it kind of is, it's a tale of the tape for him, because in every movie he's pretty much fighting against the fact that he's aging, that he's gaining weight, that he's like, he's not really in the shape to do movies like Proof of Life after 1999-2000. Yeah.

Proof-A life is, I think, his best kind of movie star performance. Yeah. in this movie it's interesting how restrained he is and how he's really trying to play a character the whole time and there's only one moment when it comes out when it's all falling apart at the end and Pacino's like put him on the phone the hotel guy

put him on the phone put him on the phone and then he's like tell him to get your fucking ass on the phone and the guy swears and Russell Crow springs up and grabs the phone it's very Russell Crow that he turns the switch on I just think the guy was really talented. I think so too, but I don't think of this as a Russell Crow movie.

And I know he was the one who was nominated for Best Actor, but revisiting it. It's a Pacino. It does not work without Pacino. It also gets the last hour of the movie pretty much. It's called The Insider, but the crisis is much more oriented around Pacino's character in part. And also, I think, the way that it's aged because of the conversation about the news media and the power of the news media, it makes much more sense as the Lowell Bergman story than it does the Jeffrey Wigand's story. It kind of is, though, right? They just kind of marketed it.

And I think Bergman is, I think man was interested in Bergman and Wiggen, but I think he connected with Bergman. And he talked a lot about he sees himself as an investigative reporter. He's like, when I make these movies, I do a lot of investigative reporting. I do a lot of talking to sources like Bergman does. I've known Bergman for a long time. He said that when he was making heat, Bergman was doing the Wigan reporting and they were in touch. So you can tell he sees him as a fellow traveler in that regard.

I wanted to talk a little bit about you bring up the news media. The thing that really leaps out about this movie is the concept of what a scandal is and how that's changed over the years. And whether or not, even at the time they're making the insider, that has the same impact to say all the president's men, which is a movie this is obviously not, if not modeled after they're hoping to capture that same kind of that wave that people have when they saw all the president's men.

And, you know, this movie comes out in 99, about a year after Clinton's impeached. Yeah. It's made by a generation of people, who were raised on Watergate, who went through a Rant-Contra. But Bill, I was thinking, like, this might be a good thing for you to weigh in

because you're, like... Because I'm all. Well, because you have a little bit more of, like, a perspective on it. Do you remember the cigarette stuff being significant? Like, do you remember being like, wow? No, I remember learning a lot of it from this movie, actually.

Yeah. So you don't remember the 60-minute segment or this controversy in the news? A little bit. I mean, it's not like everybody didn't know cigarettes were bad for you. They say that in this movie. I mean, like, in that. little lunch table conversation.

They're like, you know, it's not like everybody. I think what was interesting. Everybody knows that. Yeah, the cool part about this movie is the lengths that the cigarette companies were trying to go to really not have it out there that cigarettes are bad for you. But everybody knew cigarettes are bad for me. I remember when I started smoking at bars and, forget, the year after college, after like three drinks, it wasn't like I was like, this is great.

There's going to be no ramifications at all. Like, there was a danger to it because you knew it was bad. and you people were dying on lung cancer left and right. So I think it was, you know, there's certain movies. JFK, who I think all of us love for different reasons, and that became the assassination movie. But we know, like, half of that movie's full of shit. This movie really does capture this specific moment with the cigarette industry

that played out with the lawsuits and everything. So I'm glad it exists. Do you remember 60 Minutes being a major thing for you ever? Were you ever like, it's Sunday night? Yeah. It's time to watch 60 minutes. Yeah. Yeah, it was the biggest show in the world.

I just remember 20 years. Something being preempted by football. No, I mean, I obviously watched 60 minutes. Yeah. It felt, especially with football, it was somewhere all saying, coming up on 60 minutes, the cigarette industry. It was just baked into my Sunday night viewing, I think. The football game ends and you just go right into 60 minutes.

That was for years. You're also talking, like, an incredible amount of people. Like, unbelievable. The number one show now versus the number one show then. It's like you're talking 30 million people per episode. Yeah. He says 30 million people. I think it's hard sometimes to, if you're a modern viewer, to understand that.

Like, there's a lot of hubris depicted by Don Hewitt, like Wallace, all the guys and all the, everybody who's working on 60 minutes, they have like their chest puffed out because they're like, we're the gold standard. We're a big deal. And if we do this story, it's going to be a really big deal of the American people and we take that responsibly. And you can kind of see, like, oh, this seems like they're being conceded. But, like, that was significant.

If it was on 60 minutes, it was essentially a. table setter for the American conversation for at least a week. Yes and no, though. I mean, you basically underlined, I think, the crisis of Bergman's character at the end of the movie. Because Bill, who was there watching football in 1996, I can't remember, 97, whenever this is actually taking place, kind of doesn't really remember this as a significant news controversy or segment on the show. And I probably wouldn't either, because when you watch 60 minutes, there's just four segments

in every episode and you just go on and on and on and on. There was just always controversies. So this was going on at the same time as Lewin. ski and yeah there's seven things going on it's like oh yeah cigarettes are bad for you but crucially not a million things you know what I mean like we live in a world now where it's like you regularly see the tweet where it's like this has happened and this has happened and this has happened and it's only Tuesday afternoon yeah you know and it's kind of become baked into our this game a daily experience of hashtag this league looking at our phones looking at the paper or

whatever and you're just like oh it seems like the world's falling apart but well you also didn't have, you know, this is obviously 20 years for social media, but you didn't have what we have now where you have all these social justice warriors on the internet going nuts because first of all, what the cigarette

companies were doing in general, but then a story getting squashed in the outrage society, like people would have lost their fucking minds if it was like CBS buried this story because they were afraid of the cigarette companies. Can we imagine on Twitter? But it would be pretty amazing to see Mike Wallace be

on TV and say, like, I can't tell you, CBS is afraid of this story, so I can't even say who this guy worked for. Which goes back to one of the reasons we want to do this year is like, this movie in the context of 1990 and it makes so much sense. And it's a completely different movie. They even talk about in the writing of it about how it's very old school pre-internet. There's only a couple cell phone scenes. There's a lot of like reading the newspaper.

It's all dialogue. Doing faxes. Yeah. It was like with that thing, you wrote a piece. When did you write that piece for us? A couple months ago. A couple months ago. Like, that's one of the reasons I love the 1999 movies.

I really feel like they're contained to the specific way we live before things changed. Very tactile. A couple of years later, you could see a world in which the transcript from that interview and maybe even Wigan's identity is revealed unlike the smoking gun. But we're not quite at that place yet, too, with the internet. It would have been, there would have been a different way that a controversy like this would have been not just analyzed, but processed. You know, things could have come to the floor in different ways. At the time, it's probably basically the last moment, really, when broadcast news media was the dominant news media

because cable news media is now the dominant news media. Well, we're doing Blair Witch later this season or at least 10 minutes on it, and I think that's a similar thing that just four years later, that movie doesn't happen. Couldn't have worked. Couldn't have happened. Yeah.

This movie, I feel like we would have had just way more intelligence by the mid-2000s just about what happened with this scandal. Yeah. And I think the opposition research would have been much more pervasive because that's what tends to happen with almost every story now is like a story will drop. And then there's like five counter stories about like the biases or the biographies of the people who are pushing that story that happened with like the steel dossier that's happened like a lot with any Trump reporting. And tragically hasn't happened probably like we haven't gotten the things that have happened over the last couple of years that you're like the Flint story should be the only. the Flintwater story should just be the only thing we think about. Yeah.

And yet we're so distracted by everything else that there isn't like a centrality to the stories. Like that's one thing that I thought was kind of, I was very nostalgic about was that while I really do obviously appreciate even for self-interested reasons, the fact that a lot of people who traditionally didn't have access to a platform now do, and including myself, there was something kind of like organizing about there being a local paper in the Times and the Post and the CBS evening News and CBS 60 Minutes. And if those stories made it to those levels, they really, really, really garnered a lot of attention.

It was conquerable, too, for a consumer. You could get everything you needed. I remember finishing the Times in the early 2000s and being like, oh, I finished it. Yeah. It's done. I finished reading it today. And now you can't finish reading anything.

You can't finish consuming anything. And so it makes it more difficult for something to emerge as seriously significant. The Near Post was great with that. You'd just be done. Just be like plowing through this. Oh, arts and entertainment. You can read the New York Postal.

Yeah, you just kind of go through. Sean, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about this idea, which is this parallel kind of in the movie and then in real life. In the movie, we're seeing the early days of maybe not a news organization, but maybe a more traditional media company, Steve Tisch, I believe, is the owner of CBS at the moment. And then he's going to sell it to Westinghouse, which will eventually become hundreds of other conglomerates

and different other Viacom corporations, and we've seen this happen over and over again, to pretty much every significant media company. And then inside the film itself, so that's happening inside the film. And on the outside, you see this sort of being one of the last vestiges of, we're going to spend a ton of money

on some top line talent because we believe in the movie. And when Joe Roth talked to the Times right before the insider came out, he said, in regards to selling the movie to the public, he said it's like walking up a hill with a refrigerator on your back. The fact of the matter is,

we're really proud we did this movie. People say it's the best movie they've seen this year. They say, why don't we make more movies like this? And he would get his answer because it didn't make any money. Nobody wants to go see it.

Yeah. I mean, there's myriad reasons for that, though. This is not, you can make a movie like this and make it differently than the way that Michael Mann made it. Sure. This is a very meditative,

it's sophisticated, but it's like a little masturbatory in a way. Like the style that man has That is beautiful when it's a movie about thieves or War I think is maybe not as easily understood When it's about a guy sitting alone in a hotel room

Imagining his children You know like it's just there's He's taking it a little bit far I thought about this even just listening to the music in the movie You know man's so famous for using like tangerine dream And these really evocative synthi beautiful sounds And this has almost like an opera score You know there's all this

A woman from Dead Can Dance yeah Oh okay Yeah so and it's just all this is kind of vocalizing, and it's meant to counteract some of the sort of intense speechifying that happens in the movie. It's pretty abstract. Yeah, the differences between this and say Spotlight are pretty much in those things that you're talking about. And Spotlight is a movie that was a hit. Yeah. It was a true blue hit because it was closer to the spirit of the conclusions of all the President's Men, if not the style. Yeah. You know, all the President's Men

is like a little slower, a little darker, a little harder to understand. This movie is very similar to that. Spotlight is just like, let's... get the bad guys with our reporting. Yeah. And I think that's just more satisfying for people. The insider is much more ambivalent. And the way that, especially with the movie, the way the movie ends with Bergman quitting, his, his post, it leaves us that a little bit of cross purposes intellectually. Like, what were we supposed to take away from this?

That this industry is actually broken, even though they did something great. That's just not ultimately satisfying. That's why I love the last, like, that final scene where Bergman's in the airport and all the people who are in the terminal with him are looking at 60 minutes, but they're not necessarily like cheering or they're just kind of. huh, okay. And then they go back around their day and he's there and he's like, none of these people know what I went through to get that up

on a stupid television screen and JFK. Yeah. Any other bigger thoughts on the insider before we get into the awards? No, most of my stuff can be covered when we do the awards,

but it did, I hadn't seen this movie in a long time. And it was way better than I thought it was going to be. And I was kind of mad at myself that I haven't jumped in on it more often because I think the thing I like the most about it, I'll save it for what stage is the best.

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on the rise from LinkedIn, Grand Rapids invites you to find a rhythm all your own. Season after season in Pure Michigan. Find your season at experienceGR.com. Most rewatchable scene, Lowell and Jeffrey in the car feeling each other out while it's raining and Bergman being like, you think the Knicks are going to make the semifinals? Yeah, I didn't like the semifinals. The men needed our sports consulting services. Got to say conference finals for that.

The Blazes are in the semifinals. Semifinals. They made the final four. I love the Tylenol story. I love when he's talking about the CEO of Tylenol and Wygan is like the guy, when somebody put poison in a bottle of Tylenol, the CEO of Tylenol pulled every bottle of Tylenol off the shelves and invented the safety cap. And he's like, that's who I want to be working for.

Not because he was a businessman because he was a man of science. I love that scene. It's something Michael Mann has been. really good at over the course of his career is putting two good actors together and have a little, the chess match feeling out scene is a Michael Mann staple. And he loves having them. And these guys and there's small talk, but there's a lot more going on. He's just, that's what he loves.

The way that Wigand feels out, or sorry, the way Bergman feels Wigand out from the hotel room in Louisville to this car conversation. And you can tell he's just trying to like bring him to the point that he already wants to be at. which is like, you know you want to talk to me. I just have to create a world in which talking to me is okay. Yeah. It's a unique formulation.

You have to be seductive and a bully. You know, and in that moment that you talked about earlier when he gets to the hotel room and he's like, you manipulated me. And he's just saying, I'm just, I just led you to where you wanted to go. You know, this is something you always wanted to do. It's a fascinating thing. I mean, it does raise some complicated questions about what a journalist's responsibility is. You know, it's like, is it right for him to lead him?

to the ruin of his family's life. Every time, though, he lets Jeffrey make the decision for himself. Another great scene, the exposition scene, where they're all eating lunch and talking about the legal defense that Brown and Williamson will put up. So, like, the 60-minute staff is essentially sitting around a table. And it's essentially, the entire movie so far has been these sort of impressionistic scenes.

This is the one time where they take a step back and they're like, here's what's going on. This guy has a confidentiality agreement. We want him to get him to break it. Mike Wallace thinks we can do it this way these two lawyers are like you're never going to be able to do it because they're just going to sue you into oblivion and he's like

that line where he's like if Ford or Toyota and they have like a truck that blows up 12 times like they pull the truck off the road. These guys they're just they never ever quit. They've never lost. They bet a thousand. Yeah. I love that scene. That is just one big exposition dump. But I kind of like it. But it's fun. Yeah. It's really well

written. They're all eating. There's people walking in front of the camera. Eric Roth, who is a writer of this movie is famed for his ability to clarify the problem of a movie inside of one scene. It's like one of his things in his reputation. He wrote Forrest Gump. He wrote a Star is born. What's the problem of Ford? How does he distill down Forrest Gump?

It's the relationship with his mom. It's like the unresolved nature of his connectivity to his family at home. It's set up for you to make an inappropriate joke. It's a scene where he furiously masturbates which Bill impersonated once one time on a podcast. Listen, the guy, you know, took a shot.

took a shot shoot your shot for us I like that scene a lot I do think that it is just very cleverly like getting the audience to understand

what the movie's about yeah yeah which by the way is really hard and there's a lot of people in this and there's a lot of lawyers and there's a lot of agendas

and just a lot of characters and a lot of all of a sudden Gina Gershans and like it's just Bruce McGill Tolowoski's here yeah there's just

a ton of characters and people and it's a good example of we're Joey Pants might be. Joey Pants word might actually break the movie itself because you're like, you can't have the Pepsi girl in this. This is something man's been really good at, though, having a combination of mostly

faces I recognize so I can immediately identify them. But then like two or three where I don't have a history with that he uses to his advantage. Absolutely. Yeah. The entire Mississippi court sequence. Yeah. So including Wigan kind of staring into the, into the Gulf.

The Gulf is, that part's great. And then the entire Bruce McGill Wing's house. You know what? Michael Mann must have saw the golf, and you know how he feels about bodies of water. He's like, hold on a second. I know this isn't in the script, but wide shot. I'm thinking wide shot. That's the thing is. Crow's staring that way.

Wide shot. Hey, can we get the sun right? You know, Joe Roth is like, you know, Michael, this is a two and a half hour film about a guy trying to make a decision about whether to break a confidentiality agreement. You think maybe we could just lose like five minutes of golf? Yeah. But he's like, no. Get the fuck out of my school. He repeats it later on with Pacino when he's on vacation on the beach

and he's just staring out into the ocean thinking about whether or not he should pick up his cell phone. It's so good. Nobody likes to watch out of water like Michael Mann. And then the other two, these are kind of basically one half of a scene each, but Bergman discovering the CBS Westinghouse sale and confronting Hewitt and Wallace and Wallace being like, I'm with Don on this one, you know, that whole moment.

It's a shocking moment. And just him like... Not covered in Mike Wallace's here, the documentary. That was excellent. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, you definitely could have played that up as a low moment for Mike Wallace. I love the sequence where Wallace visits Pacino at 5.30 in the hotel room.

Yeah, he's like, no, I love. I was just awake in my pajamas. But just everything that while, and this documentary that Bill's talking about, which is not out yet and is out later this summer. It's great. It's called Mike Wallace is here. It's all archival footage of Wallace from throughout his entire career. And I think it actually informs this scene a lot because there was a lot about Wallace that I didn't know. about, and I don't know if this is a time to talk about Mike Wallace, but I didn't really realize

that he was kind of a, like, sticky broadcaster before he was a newsman, and he has this fierce and legendary reputation as somebody who got, he went toe to toe with some of the biggest international figures in the world. Antalas and stuff, yeah, thieves and suits, he says in the movie. And, you know, he also was like a showman. You know, he was a guy who was trying to be famous. He was trying to be on TV in the 1950s, And you can see where Plummer's character is kind of like reckoning with what his legacy is. And he's kind of saying, like, I fought really hard to be a credible person. And if you kill CBS and CBS News, I'm going to lose that.

I'm going to be partially responsible for that. And I don't want that. And obviously he comes around at the end. But that is like an example of somebody explaining their life and career again in a way that is like subtle and interesting. It moves the story forward. Well, on the flip side of that, the other rewatchable scene I have is when Don Hewitt and Bergman have it out at the end. You fucked us!

No! You fucked you! Yeah. Don't invert stuff! Unleashed. I love that moment. They took the collar off him in that scene. Also, fun extra

con, like a little extra thing because of what happened to Don Hewitt. Yeah. I mean, that was a villain in this movie and then it's like, oh, he, you know, guess what? I was saving that for what's the worst. Yeah. I mean, it's Prussian, though, you know?

Like, he comes off very poorly. And Philip Baker Hall, you know. No, great performance as a kind of the arch villain of the movie. I don't think Philip Baker Hall maybe knew who he was playing at the time. But yeah. I have one more re-watchable scene that I just think is really well done. And I like scenes like this just in general when he goes to play golf and the guys in the suit. You know that we were going to talk about that.

The guys in the suit just hitting really nice swing, by the way, and that other guy. I completely agree. Staring him down after each swing. And it's just creepy. and I think movies like this have to have that one scene where the main character realizes he's either being followed. I'm in too deep.

His life has changed. His life's in danger. That's the Redford hearing footsteps scene and all the president's fun. And then he's finally in the car and the guy's just staring him down and finally he just grabs the five iron and comes out of his car.

I love that three minutes. Do you think that guy was cast for his swing? Because that is a smooth swing he's got. I think it's a combo. I think they probably, it's a face swing combo. Yeah. I don't think that was one of those

I learned how to swing in three weeks. Crow did. I don't think Crow golfed, though. He doesn't look like he golfs to me. Yeah, that seemed... It doesn't help that he's wearing loafers. He's got a little bit of Hatchel one to 10 of like Matt Damon and Bagger Vance is a 1. And Costner and 10 cup is a 10.

Like, crows like a four. Four, I agree. The other guy, though, that guy was like a nine and a half. Cranking it. It's like a cap guy. It's like crushing it. Brooks Capca. Down Broadway.

What did you guys think the most rewatchable scene was? I like the one that I nominated. The Wallace confronts Lowell-Bergman if I've been in the morning. In the real world, when you get to where I am, there are other considerations. Like what? Corporate responsibility?

Are we talking celebrity here? I'm not talking celebrity, vanity, CBS. I'm talking about when you're near the end of your life in the beginning. Actually, you know what? I take it back. It has to be the Gulf and Bruce McGill. Bruce McGill snapping

and... What does smirk off your face? You don't get to instruct anything around here. This is not North Carolina, not South Carolina, nor Kentucky. This is the sovereign state

of Mississippi's proceeding. Wipe that smirk off your face! That is like the emotional turning point in the movie too. That's when you think the good guys are going to start to win. It's also just such a flex for man because he's like,

I know I could have just made this entire movie about this courtroom. Like we could have just made a courtroom drama that would have stood up to a Grisham movie. But is Pacino in that scene enough? He's not. No.

He just, he's in the car. I feel like Pacino has to be in the scene. I like when Pacino finally, when he gets unleashed. But the Pacino in the same scenes with Christopher Palmer are my favorite scenes in this movie. So I'd pick probably the one when, what is he say in that scene when he gets mad? This News Division has been vilified in the New York Times in print on television for caving the corporate interest. New York Times ran a blow by blow of what we talked. about behind closed doors.

You fucked us. No, you fucked you. Don't invert stuff. Big tobacco try to smear Yagan. You bought it. And it's funny because, all right, I guess we can do it in what's age the best, I'll wait. Well, I was going to do it what's age the,

but let's give it to the Pacino unleashed as most rewatchable scene. But what's age the best? I have Pacino's performance. Yeah, for me, this is what I was going to say earlier. Obviously, an incredible actor and really good at how he can kind of scale it back or whatever.

But he has this quality that I don't, I can't think of any other actor who does this because he does it in heat too. When he's trying to get something out of the other person and the way he's like super comfortable. And playing off the guy and it seems completely natural like he's not acting at all. And he's having a conversation, but there's this whole tear motive the whole time and you can see it. And he's measuring the guy and he clearly wants to get to some destination.

but he's playing the long game. I've never seen another actor do that, and he does that really well in this movie. The way he kind of plays off Crow the whole time, even in the fucking first scene of the Ayatollah, whoever that guy was, the terrorist, and he's got a bag over his head.

He's doing that scene. We can't even see his face. But he's just, nobody was ever better at that. He's amazing. The way he processes information on screen without being too showy about it, you think every actor does that? He doesn't allow him Godfather 2?

Maybe they don't. Yeah. Godfather 2 is when he first, like, but then over the course of his career, I feel like, see a love, that's basically the whole movie. He's trying to figure out if this lady that is falling for is actually like killing her ex-boyfriends. Watching and listening and thinking in character is that kind of high-levels. I don't know who else does that.

That's a Denzel thing is very good at that too. People, think of the actors who are the best screen partners. the people who when you're watching them have a conversation, the person isn't necessarily dominating, they are receiving and giving it. Actually, I feel like Hawk talked about this a little bit when he was on your show about Denzel. There's certain people

who kind of come to play, and Pacino knows when to go big, and he knows when to pull back, and I think there's probably a little bit of being good in the theater, too, about this, because you need to gesture, you need to make it clear that you're doing something without talking. I don't know. I can't

underestimate putting crow, and Pacino in the room together. Like, that's just, especially at that time, they're both so talented as screen actors that you're just going to get something good every time they're together. The Crow thing bums me out. This performance, proof of life,

gladiator, beautiful mind. I love Master and Commander. Oh, I like confidential. Did you see Boyer Raced? What year was that? Last year. He was really good in it. It was a reminder of like, oh,

sometimes... Oh, I did see Boyer Raced. You can be the most charismatic person in the world. You know, he's playing like a schlubby. past her father, but he's really, really good in the movie, yeah. So we have Pacino's performance. I had the cinematography and the look and feel of the movie, like just the visual style. And then... The Gulf. Now, this is interesting in the Gulf. Yeah, just watching the waves.

Wide shout of the Gulf. And then maybe at a first for the rewatchables, I would say I have a nominee for what's aged the best, which is also age the worst, which is the inner workings of 60 minutes and CBS News and the corporate culture there. Obviously, if you look at, like watching how shit gets put together movies. Yeah. It's fascinating. It's fascinating to watch the internal politics and the wrangling and the pushing and pulling and edit it so that it looks like this and get me this and somebody dial this footage up.

And then on the flip side, knowing what we know now, this was a pretty morally corrupt place to work. But we got to save that though. Do we have other what's age the best, though? That's what I had, the three, the Picino, the cinematography and the inner working. I would add for what's age the best. and this is purely a result of time passing. Plummer now is Mike Wallace.

I don't have the Mike Wallace history as much because Mike Wallace isn't in my life every day. If somebody did this movie right now and Christopher Palmer's playing like, I don't know, Tony Cornheiser. Yeah. I wouldn't be able to separate Tony Cornhizer from Christopher Palmer. But Mike Wallace hasn't been on TV in 15 years. So now when I'm watching it's just Christopher Plummer's interpretation

of Mike Wallace, which is so much more fun to watch. I completely agree. And the thing that is cool about that performance is, and this was recognized at the time, he is capturing what Wallace does on screen. I was thinking about this,

having just seen the documentary. There's a thing that Wallace does where he holds, when he's asking a question, he holds his fingers together and kind of emphasizes him points. And Plummer is doing that. He's getting the posture and the execution,

but he's not doing a Mike Wallace, impression. He doesn't have all this prosthetics on. He doesn't have his hair dyed that like Jet Matt Black that Wallace always had. He is just doing Christopher Christopher Plummer interpreting Mike Wallace. And so it just works really well

and then he becomes like Wallace. The little smile where like that super charismatic, confident, but I'm also at any point I could start yelling at you kind of vibe. I thought he was just incredible. That moment when they were talking about how they would try to get him on screen and Wallace is like you know, this would be like if

airline started like you would take if somebody was a whistleblower on an airline you would bring that out because it was about a public health issue and they're like well it doesn't matter because of this this and the other thing and he just like sits back and takes a sip out of a CBS sports mug and I was like fuck yeah

that's such a great little bit nice touch nice little detail well so best supporting actor if we were to 99 this is like a catastrophe tell me Cruz and Magnolia I'm good with Jude Law and Talented Mr. Ripley, I'm actually good at Good With. I thought he was incredible.

It's a great performance. Haley Joel Asman in the Sixth Sense. That's a rough one. I mean, he's good. That's also a movie that doesn't work if Haley Joel Osmond's not good. Michael Clark Duncan in the Green Mile. Brutal. Brutal.

And then the winner was Michael Kane in the Cider House rules. Now... That was just one of those, like, fucking weirds. I just feel like Plummer is better in this movie than basically everyone in that category, except Jude Law. And Mr. Ripley, Jude Law's... I don't know who else

could have played that part and he's so charismatic than that. I don't know. But Plummer at least is in the top five. It would be kind of fun to do a pod that's just the 1999 Oscars, but we just re-nominate and re-reward it.

Maybe at the end of this series. I mean, I would probably go with Cruz too, but the thing that happens here with Michael Kane, where he wins for Cider House after being passed over many times over the years. Susan Lucci thing. But Christopher Plummer got that.

later on in his career for beginners. Like, is beginners Christopher Plummer's absolute best performance? No, but they gave it to him because it's like this guy was in the sound of music. This guy was in the inside. He's in a lot of great films. There's another Oscar catastrophe. Sean Penn got nominated for Sweet and Lowdown.

Pacino not nominated at all. I know. I know. That's outrageous. Do you think it was like after set of a woman? I think people were tired of women. We're good. That's outrageous.

Okay. So what's aged? That's what's aged the best. Can I give you one more Christopher Plummer stat? Sure. Can you guess what year he was born? He's got to be 90 years old. Chris, want to guess a year?

42. 1942? What do you say? I would say if he's 90, 29 or 30? 1929. Yeah. He turns 90 in December. How is, like I honestly can't even see him.

In this movie, he's almost 70. But he was just in that, what was the movie where the John, the Getty movie? Oh, he was Spacey. So he was 88 when he did that and he was really good at that way. I was going to say he's also awesome in that movie. Yeah.

Oh my God. I just hope I can even like speak at age. There was a lot of talk when he won for beginner. I mean, he was like 83 when he won for beginners, you know. Yeah. It was part of the reason why I think people were like, wow. I mean, I'm good with that. You know, he's literally one of the greatest actors of the 20th century

and then also won his Oscar in the 21st century. Right. What's aged the best? Let's give it to Plummer. What's age the worst? Like I said, the inner workings of 60 minutes, it never suggests anything untoward, although you could reread the interactions with Gina Gersen's lawyer as sort of indicative of the chauvinistic behavior that happened there. Weirdly, we've wound up talking about CBS News a couple of times this year because of broadcast news and Susan Zerinsky and everything. But yeah, anything else aged the worst for you guys in this movie? I have a couple.

Okay. By the way, Christopher Palmer never nominated for an Oscar before 2010. For the last station? Yeah. The ending. The tail end of the ending really bothers me. I wish somebody had talked Michael Mann out of it. The slow motion, Pacino leaving the going on the street and it slows down,

like all of a sudden we're making a movie in 1981. Yeah. And it's just bad. It's fine if you don't know any better in the 70s. but this is like, hey, cool, let's try this slow motion thing. It's just kind of tacky. The movie's so well crafted. I just didn't understand it.

You almost half expect the Doogiehouser music to start playing. It's just hacky. It's bad. Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with Bill. I'm not a big fan of the score, as I mentioned. I think that... The score could have been better. He, man in an attempt to be singular, sometimes ages himself.

And I think his movies are beautiful, but they are, you can feel him straining for individuality at times. Is this your, is this a subtle dig at Lincoln Park, JZ being used in Miami Vice? It's the same thing. It's an attempt to capture something popular and also abstract. And like, it just often doesn't work for me at all. It's one of the only things in his movies. And I'm not like I'm not into those Tandering Dream soundtracks. Like I don't actually understand. I know what he's doing where it's like something beautiful. and like a sunshine compared to darkness

but that stuff just never works for me. I have another what stage is the worst. Winks Hauser is like prominently in this movie for 12 minutes. That means you don't talk. It was just a weird casting. At that point in his career

he was you know he was like Jonesy on 902 and O when Dylan McCain needed to get his money back and it's like now he's in this Michael Man movie. It's pretty amazing. Once you're Jonesy in 902 and O, I can't have you in the insider. I think Michael Lampp probably saw like tough guys don't dance. It was just like that guy. Let's get him in

the insider. I mean, there's a lot of people who feel the way of Bruce McGill. Yeah. Bruce McGill is always going to be Animal House. You know, and in this movie, he is like moral certitude and lawyerly power. Well, in Bruce McGill's defense, he's unleashing one of the great

that guy runs anyone's ever had in the 90s. Where's he at? God, his IMD is so fucking long. He works. Bruce McGill works. He's my cousin Vinnie Cliffhanger A Perfect World Time Cop, Courage under Fire, Rosewood

Yeah, not that good. Can I give you the titles of the five movies that precede the insider for Wingshouser? I'm sure they're terrible. They're mostly Skidimax movies? Tales from the Hood. Guns and lipstick. Broken bars,

original gangsters, and light. Among the Cannibals. Yeah. That's where he was at. He was fucking Jonesy in 1994. It was like a last gas. Yeah. Yeah, that's tough.

Somebody called in sick, I think. On the flip side, though, I should have had this for What's Age the Best. Lindsay Krauss, one of my favorite... Amazing. Random actresses. House of cards, yeah. She's the verdict.

Yeah. Slapshot. She's kind of in the mic, but you never know what her name is. I guess we could have done her for the Joey Pants. But she's just playing a normal character in this one. And it's also funny that Pacino has a normal marriage in this movie,

which might be the only time ever. That's a good point. Bergman's wife is a celebrated documentarian. Yeah, that's who she's playing. Yeah. Yeah, the Al Pacino marriage slash relationship. It's not... It's usually complicated.

Sorry if the chicken got overcooked. Maybe... I was going to say, maybe the... Kay Corleone's abortion might have been the nadir. Yeah. But see a love, maybe not knowing if his girlfriend was trying to kill him. Having to screw Zandr or whoever she's screwing to get closure with him. I don't remind me, where do you guys stand on, speaking of Pacino Paramoors,

Diane Vanora in general? So I was shocked to see her in this movie. I'd forgotten, and she's got the long hair compared to heat with the short hair. But that same kind of sad I shouldn't be with this guy look, which maybe Michael Mann just wanted to run that back. She's just doing a sequel to the heat character. She's doing heat with long hair. Yeah.

She's like a really good Shakespearean actress. Yeah. And that's sort of one of the things with Michael Mann movies and with, like, law. I was more aware of this when I lived in New York, but you would see an episode of Law and Order. There'd be some manager of a Gap folding T-shirts would be like, I don't know how that guy died. And then, like, you'd be walking down the street and he'd be starring in Richard III and Shakespeare in the park. Right. It'd just be kind of, okay, everybody's got to work.

She never really did anything that big again, though. I mean, that's kind of why I asked. I can't really think of another significant Diane Benora performance, but at the time she'd been in Romeo and Juliette. She was, I think Juliet's mother. And obviously, he. Yeah. And there was the feeling like, oh, Diane Vinoa.

She's like a... It's Vinora season. Benora season. Yeah, by 2004, she was in Law & Order Special Victims Unit. Yeah. Michael Mann saw something special. Let's talk a little bit about the 1999 award for the most 1999 moment in this movie. Okay.

I have Pacino and Crow faxing back and forth. Yeah. The faxing was where I was going mentally. Incredible. Just the sheer amount of business Pacino conducts from payphones. Yeah. Where he's like, you'd be me in this dinah. You know, like just a lot of like coordinating, getting his messages.

He has a cell phone, but he still uses pay phones. Also, the New York Times in the lobby, nobody would do that now. I just, I'll be on my cell phone in the lobby. Every once in a while, I think about the fact that when I, when I was in Ireland for six months in 98, in the beginning of 99, actually, I, the only way I communicated with my parents was to call from a pay phone. in a dorm building in Cork, Ireland. And I was in another country, and there was no incoming phone number. So I would just pick it up, and I have my AT&T card, and I would dial and say, hey, I'm fine,

to talk to you next week. And that's just so wild to imagine that, like, I think I was 19. That was like how my parents were like our 19-year-old son, we can't call him. And that was 20 years ago. I remember going to Italy in 2004 with Jimmy and Adam and Sal and all those guys. and we just had no connection to the outside world. And we went downtown in Rome one day, and Sal and I were at the, there was this place that had the internet thing.

And we were like so starved for sports information, anything, paying this thing like trying to get on ESP.com even for an hour. Like you could really be cut off. I think that's impossible now. I don't know, unless you were on like a safari in Africa or something. I don't know how you'd be cut off like that. Yeah, I mean, any pay phone stories for you? I mean, my age specifically, I think I got my first cell phone in 1999 and I was still in high school. And that was like a turning point. And then within five years, everyone had a cell phone. Yeah. You never, I mean, Paveone started to vanish in New York around what, 2005, something like that. Something like that. Yeah. And it is definitely marks, it really marks the time. I mean, the thing that I was thinking of that hasn't aged that well is just the sort of general concern about corporate influence on the news media. It's like that argument is like over and done with. It's not a good thing. It's just like no one.

is concerned about that now because every major news outlet has a corporate parent. Yeah, ESPN went through this with the frontline thing when they killed the NFL. That was like their version of this. This was obviously a million thousand times more important. But even there was probably more outrage for that than there was for this because we had more 15 years later, way more places to get out. The other thing is pretty funny is that now we would have like, you know, thumb drives and, you know, leaked emails and a bunch of other stuff. this, like, Lull Bergman just gets the SEC filing. It's like, turns out you're going to make $3 million from this sale.

Yeah. Any other 1999 things specifically, 1999 awards? I think just 60 minutes mattering like it did. Yeah. This is kind of the last decade that it was that important. Okay. Once we get to 2000s, then you got more channels and just more things going on. Like Vice News.

Yeah, Vice News. Honestly, I think we hit on this a little bit already, but just the acceptance of cigarettes in our lives. I think now if you meet a young person who smokes cigarettes, they're kind of regarded as an alien. Like, it's just, it's increasingly uncommon. And then I try to hire them. Yeah.

Is that an L.A. thing, though? It might be. I mean, that's only my experience at this moment. But even in New York, I was very rarely going out to have a smoke with my younger friends. It was always with my older friends. He says, with his eyebrows arch staring at me. Well, it's just because, you know, they were like, you know, the David Shoemakers of the world. Yeah.

You could have a cigarette with somebody like that. Couldn't have a cigarette with the editorial assistant working at the magazine who was 21 because that person was like on a paleo diet, you know, crushing the gym four nights a week. And now you'd get like a ginger shot. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that's just very 90-down. Want to go get a turmeric shot with me? I'd rather have to get a leg.

I'm going to get a legion. Craig's like, now you're speaking my language. This is my generation. Do a lot of your friends smoke cigarettes? No. It's just not a thing. Yeah. Good for them.

All of Craig's friends are non-smoking virgins. Wow. Tough beat for my friends. For your friends. That's right. Not me. Yeah. The only other 99 thing I would mention is the offhanded reference to Ken Starr.

Oh, yeah. That was really good. Ken Starr's firm. Clinton gets mentioned at some point in this movie, right? I think so. President Clinton. Yeah, I think so. Casting what ifs, there's not that many.

Just Val Kilmer was up for Wigand, which is a pretty significant what if for this podcast. But... It speaks to your sort of like, you know, Kilmer kind of leaving a lot on the table in this decade. Did Russell Crow market correct Val Kilmer? I think it's fair. I think Val Kilmer market corrected himself. But I think Russell Crow showed what Val Kilmer's career could have been.

Yeah. Yeah. Kilmer has had so many opportunities to just be like, great, I got myself a new lane, I'm going to stick with it. I got to say my biggest... Top Gunn and Willow and being like, I can be a movie star, but not. And then Heat, or it's like you could just be like the cool third guy in every, tough guy movie.

But then he was still Batman and the saint? Yeah. My biggest casting, what if is what if somebody had never said, hey, we should get Wingshouser. I think Wingshouser is good in this movie. He is so weird. He doesn't deserve it, is what you're saying.

It would be like if like the situation from Jersey Shore was one of the lawyers. Jesus Christ. That's overstating. Here's my half-ass internet research. This was originally called Man of the People. I like the insider better. I actually, I still don't think they,

I think the right title really could help this movie. I think cigarette smoking something should have been, the title's not sinister enough. Do you think if it was called Tonight on 60 Minutes? Was that an original title? No, I'm just throwing, I'm coming up some alms. I'm trying to come up with a punny title. You know, it's like cigarette burns, something like that.

You'd want to come up with something like burned. Right. It just needed to have an element of danger to it. Yeah. That the insider could be anything. That sounds like it could be hazardous to your health. Nice. Yeah.

The true story, colon. The true story. Like Jason Reitman's thank you for not smoking. Really good title. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and told me what the movie was about. The insider, I don't know what it's about.

Or thank you for smoking. What if it was called the whistleblower? That would have been good. That would have been fine. Or a whistleblower. That was like a whistleblower. I was like a civil action. But then Aaron Brockovich was just Aaron Brockovich.

So it was originally called Man of the people. Roth and Mann wrote the first draft of the screenplay at the Broadway deli in Santa Monica at the bar at the bar. But I think it would be pretty awesome if you walked in one day and two guys were writing the insider at the bar. Is there a reason why we didn't do this podcast from the Broadway deli? That's fucking weird. I can see one person writing a screenplay, but two people next to each other, writing a screenplay? Jamming it out. Couldn't have been at a bar.

It must have been at a table. This is like Chris and I talk in NBA coverage here at the ringer. Just jamming it out of the deli. What if we did this? Smoking at each other. Russell Crowe was not able to talk to Jeffrey Weigand about his experiences because Weigand was still bound by the confidentiality agreement that he had signed with Brown and Williamson. He was able to break it for court, but not for Russell Crow.

Mike Wallace detested this movie. Michael Mann was living in the same Central Park West building as Don Hewitt during filming. And Hewitt had been criticizing the movie in page six throughout the production. One day they met in the elevator and man introduced himself. Hewitt took a second

and then, according to man, threw his arm around him and said, that fucking little Bergman. That was Don Hewitt. Bergman is currently the chair of the investigative reporting department in the Graduate School of Journalism. And Don Hewitt hit on Michael Mann's wife.

Yeah. At UC Berkeley and is a producer on Frontline and Pete Hamill, famous New York Daily News journalist, famous New York Gadfly, plays the New York Times writer who Lowellbergman leaks the story to. That's right. Pete Hamill, my grandmother's favorite columnist,

longtime reader of the Daily News, grew up loving Pete Hamill. So that's it, that's the internet research. Let's go to... I had one more. Oh, do you? I thought there was something where Jeffrey Wagon didn't want any cigarettes in the movie.

Because I actually looked this up. That's true. It's always hard for me to believe when Pacino's not smoking in a movie. They're smoking in the Middle East, though. Right, but I just think Pacino should smoke in every movie Because I think he's as soon as they say, all right, that's a cut Puccino's just got like the Marlboro Reds out

In this character felt like he should have smoked And I think it would have been an interesting wrinkle But somebody in this movie should have smoked Smoking's banned in offices by 99 though Right? I guess but it's like you want the You want people thinking about cigarettes during the movie I actually think it was a mistake

Not to have more kind of cigarettes and smoke and just it's kind of hanging over everything. Yeah. I don't know. Well, what do you guys think about that general concern about portraying smoking in movies as being influential and encouraging people to use cigarettes? I mean, I definitely think it's a factor for sure. You don't think so.

No, 100%. Yeah. Smoking. Because it just makes you look cool. I've been in conversations about who is the coolest smoker of all time in a movie. Yeah. Was it Wingshouser? Now, who's the one who used to smoke like this?

Make you work? No, there's a guy. I got to go find it. I have a whole email thread about this with my friends from like seven years ago. The ones you can pull off who had this say, but then they go here like this and do it that way, which is really hard to do and just is awkward. Instead of going with your two fingers like that, they would go like that. Oh, Don Johnson in Miami Vice.

Also, that is also De Niro and Goodfellas. Does that a lot. Another good one. Yeah. Do you think that's a direction that comes directly from man? If we do a pod breakout for this, I want a lot of Don Johnson. and having a fucking cigarette with a white jacket on.

Yeah, I think it's really hard because we've also seen movies or TV shows where somebody's clearly not a smoker and they're trying to smoke and it's super awkward. Yeah. Like Cruz.

I don't know if Cruz has ever smoked a cigarette in a movie. I don't think so. But if you ever did, I guarantee it would be terrible. And I don't think he does. Oh, yeah. By the way, I watched Eyes Wide Shut

the last hour of it recently. Oh, my God. I don't know what's going to happen. Especially if it's this hot in the studio when we do it, It's going to be so weird when we do this. I'm just going to be wearing a giant mask and no clothes. So it should be exciting.

Cruz goes to the corner to see if the dead girl from the party's there. And she's just dead naked on a thing. And Cruz starts leaning over like he's going to kiss her. I was like, what is going on? How are we going to do a podcast about this movie? This movie's insane. Too late. You've already committed us.

That movie's insane. Imagine the Twitter breakouts for that one. We might have to like drink during that podcast. That'd be fun. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul Predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, 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.

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Get even more value with McValue. Only McDonald's. Bada, Bap, Bap, Bha. Limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher for delivery. D.M. Waiters Award. Oh, wow.

I personally think this is a one nominee award. Wow. Boy, you got rights and lifts. Ops and downs and middles. So what? This is not North Carolina. This is not South Carolina. No, Kentucky.

This is the sovereign state of Mississippi's proceeding. Now you wipe that smirk off your face. that's like he's only line in the movie it's Bruce McGill that was very good he's also the winner of the Saul Rubeneck Lord it's a double winner

and he might also win the Joey Pants I think he can make the argument that he wins the triple crown he dials it up in that he goes waiters Rubenek pants Can we talk runners up wipe your smirk off your face is one of the all time dial it up

do you think Michael Mann was like huddling with the assistant director like should we tell Bruce to do one more take and bring it down Don't cut. Great. Good job, Bruce. For somebody who's into all of these subtle artistic choices.

He loves a ham. Man loves a ham. He loves a ham. He loves somebody just going for it. And Ali, there's people just going for left and right. Public enemies, they're going for. Collateral, the whole Tom Cruise performance, he's going for it. He just loves that.

Do you think he showed Bruce, she's got a great ass and you've got your head all the way up it before the courtroom scene? He's like, look, you do what you want, but this is what I was thinking. I think he showed him that and he was like... Just really dialed up. Consider that a one. I want you at a seven. I want to know what it says in this script. Does it say McGill's character blows his top?

Right. And is it based on the actual deposition? Or was this an invention? Because there are things in this movie that are invented. Sure. We don't know necessarily exactly what they are. But I'd be curious to know how that actually played out. Right.

Anybody else for DMW? Runner-Up, Dian Waders. There's some runner-ups. Michael Gambon. Oh, yeah. Which one was that? That's just like how Michael Gambon always is. Thomas Sandifer.

Yeah. I would also throw in the amazing golfer, henchman guy. Sure. Incredible. Sure. What about Stephen Tobolowski as CBS News President Coward, Eric Cluster? Yeah, he was good. He was good.

That was good. Joey Pants one too. So I'm going to go McGill for Dionne Waiters. Unintentional comedy. I had just the golf driving range. It was just really funny to me. Just those two guys, golfing in suits. I found Russell Crow's swing.

Maybe in the 90s, that was more common for guys to come after work and go hit some balls. But now you just go to the driving range and everybody looks like Jason Day. So it's sort of weird to imagine some guy. There's nobody there? Yeah. I have Gina Gershon as a high power corporate lawyer. I just kept expecting her to try to seduce somebody or she just didn't have the gravitas for me as an actress. This is somebody who's made a certain set of choices over her career.

Yeah. That if you're now buying me as the corporate lawyer. I'm just not buying it. I liked it as counterintuitive casting. It certainly was counterintuitive. I enjoyed it. I think that could have been a really good... I am too, but not as a hard-hitting corporate lawyer.

Gershawne's performance in Curve Your Enthusiasm is one of the top five TV comedy performances ever. Wow. That's my take. Okay. Any other unintentional comedy moments for you? Besides Wigan and Lowe. I'm throwing in the scene when he's in the hotel room and he's staring in the wall. And it, look...

Oh, and it melts. and he's seeing his kids playing in the beach. I both liked it and also thought. I was like, wow, I wonder if anyone tried to talk man out of this. This is so corny. There's no such thing. There's no such thing as talking man out of it. That's why we get the good stuff and that's why we get the bad stuff.

I think if you look closely at the movie, it's a little hard to take the emotional stakes as seriously because everybody in this movie is so rich. Like, Lowell Bergman, as a longtime producer of 60 Minutes, is so rich. And he's like in his beach house, like, arguing. about the sanctity of the news and fucking Don Hewitt who's a multi multi-millionaire Mike Wallace who's one of the most famous broadcasters in American history

the guys at Brown and Williams and Jeffrey Wygand who literally admitted he took them but he took the money and worked at huge corporations like this is not quite the like from the ground up struggle you know it is just a lot of rich people

fighting over industry and it's interesting but I think that Michael Mann is like crusading but he's crusading for like a pretty white collar endeavor. Thanks for your input. Thanks for your input, Senator Sanders. Just saying, you know. You shamed the movie.

I like Lowe's like, I'm on a, they made me go on vacation. I'll be in the Hamptons and my beach house that's on the water. I think he's in the Keys, right? Or Jamaica? I don't even know where he is. Who the fuck knows? Whatever 60 minutes can buy you. Okay, unintentional comedy.

Unanswerable questions. My big one was how would this have played in the internet era? I mean, I think we've seen that in the last couple of years, especially, how these stories get manipulated, how people lose interest in them in about six hours, how the thing that you think is the most important thing you've ever seen gets dwarfed by something the next day. Our brains are sort of senses are kind of dull at this point, I think. Given the way that everything in the news media and social media gets immediately stratified and kind of bifurcated, do you think that there would have been like a strong contingent of people who were like, cigarettes rule? And then there would have been like a whole group. It would have been people like being like

no duh. No duh. Everybody knows this. Christian Slater, really good smoker. Yeah. Oh, and Heather's especially, yeah.

Just, I'm gonna keep the rest of the pot. Did you smoke and pump up the volume too? I think so, yeah. Oh, yeah. But I agree with you. I wonder if there would a bit, what would be the take on Jeffrey Wigand?

Yeah, somebody would be like, I honor agreements as an American. Yeah, like contracts are important. Yeah. Picking nits, you could say the same. I mean, I think we've really picked a lot of nits already. But did you guys have any specific ones you wanted to hit that we haven't already? Should I talk about class again?

Democratic Socialist podcasting, Sean Fennessee. For me, a nipick is just the wife was out on him pretty fast. Yeah. This is a great corner for you. I love when you're like the marriage counselor. Stand by her man. Yeah. It seemed okay in the beginning.

Or maybe it wasn't okay. Was it broadcast news that you were, like, mad that Holly Hunter wouldn't go to the dinner with him or something like that? Yeah, yeah. I just, you also didn't believe that she actually had a boyfriend at the end of the movie. No, I think she died single. She's still alive. She's the president of CBS. The CBS News.

The Hollywood character. That's the real-life character. The character in that movie had never settled down. Jesus Christ. I'm just saying, died alone. Had a lot of cats, though, like seven cats. Died alone. Okay.

Why is this a bad thing? I don't think she found love. Sorry, too crazy. Go ahead. What do you think about Diane's wife and not sticking by him? There's a bullet in the mailbox because this guy wants to... No, I'm going back earlier. Comes back, I lost my job.

I got laid off out of nowhere. She's not on his side. She turns out, I'm like really quickly. It's like, what's going on here? Isn't your reaction like, oh, that sucks? Man, you put a lot of time in that car. She's just me like, what are we going to do? I do think...

So maybe it was a bad marriage to start. We get the impression that Jeffrey Wigand has some social struggles. And some anger issues. It's alluded to. Yeah. His communication is poor. Jeffrey Waggang. Good hang, bad hang. Tough hang. Tough hang.

What is it? Great hang, tough hang. It would just be Jeffrey Wiggan. Be like, I can't talk about that. It's in my confidentiality agreement. Want to go soundly, hit some golf balls? You think Knicks are going to make the semifinals this year? to my confidentiality agreement.

I can't disclose that. We got to take that out and put that in the dip picks too. Yeah. Semifinals. Come on, Michael, man. What else? Outside the zone.

I don't know. You think the Knicks are going to make it to the center finals? Just get one guy in the set who's followed sports for five minutes. Not ideal.

Nobody's ever said semi-finals with the NBA. Yeah, conference finals. Yeah, they were in the NBA finals that year. We would say third round or conference finals. How dare you?

That is true. That might have been the last great Nick. The last great Nick's moment was this movie. It is. The Knicks are going to get Zion? I like Orjay Barrett. I had Jericho. I had coffee with Marcus Camby half an hour ago.

Owl on John Starks! They should, there should really, there should be a James. in biopic starring Al Pacino. Who says no? Because then he would just play the blues the entire time. They knew... Donnie Walsh in a wheelchair. Trying to oppress LeBron James!

What are we doing? The heat's making us all, I think, a little looping. The heat has drawn you back to heat. They knew overacting award goes to the three of us for that. That run of Pachino talking about the Knicks. Best quote. Ligand. Fuck it.

Let's go to court. Fuck it. Let's go to court. Dr. Wagan would like to leave now. Can I ask a quick question? Has there ever been a bad line of dialogue that started fuck it let's? If you start a line of dialogue with fuck it, let's do something,

you're guaranteed to get my attention. Like fuck it, let's be legends. Fuck it, let's play some cards. Yeah. Just watched that last week. Round rounders? It's so disappointing though. They get to Atlantic City,

Worm goes with a hooker. Matt Damon goes to play with all his friends from the Chesterfield. And then they leave pretty quickly. It's like, what? You wanted to get more time with the hooker? Can I have one run? No, one run, you guys, at some table

just bilking the Tours for like a half hour maybe? Should we just re-record the rounders rewatchables? Right now, as Al Pacino, talking about the Knicks. No, but I do. I am ready to do heat again. When we have the hundredth rewatchables, I just want to do heat again. I have a lot more thoughts on heat.

Okay. More best quotes, Mike Wallace. Try Mr. Wallace. We work in the same corporation doesn't mean we work in the same profession. Yeah, that was great. Bergman, I want you to tell him, in these words, get on the fucking phone!

Yeah. I can't say that. No, you can't. Tell him to get on the fucking phone! He told me to tell you to get on the fucking phone. Love that. We should have made you wear the Pacino wig from the Squabia. But a Phil Specter wig from the...

Then there's the whole Bergman thing where he's like, and he's only the key witness in the biggest public health performance issue, maybe the biggest most expensive corporate malfeasist case in U.S. history. Are we going to air it? Of course not. Why? Because he's not telling the truth? No, because he is telling the truth.

Loved it. And then Hewitt, you fucked us. Bergman. No, you fucked you. Don't invert stuff. I got another one. You fucked you is the quote for me. I love when he's on the phone with the FBI guy.

Oh, yeah. And he's like, you'd better take a good look because I'm getting two things, pissed off and curious. All right, when I get a chance, I'll give it a look. You better take a good look because I'm getting two things, pissed off and curious.

Now, look, but don't touch. His cadence is incredible. My goal in life is to never have a conversation with either of you that ends with one of you yelling at me. No, you fucked you. You fucked you, Bill. We'd be like, what? Are we gonna air it?

Of course not. I like almost everything Plummer says. But I also like when he, at the end of the movie, when he said, right after he says you fucked you, Plummer's like, you fucked up Don.

Yeah. Very calmly. Yeah, yeah. And then he's like, you know, these things have 15 minute shelf life. And he says, fame has a 15 minute half life.

Infamy lasts a little longer. That's like a really good line of dialogue. And then knowing what we know, it's also a dart. There's some really well-written, like, lines. It's a great script. Like I was reading the insider quote page. The top one on the IMDB was the Mike Wallace says,

who are these people? And Lois says, ordinary people under extraordinary pressure. Mike, what the hell did you expect? Grace and consistency? There's a lot of like, just really well written, scripted whatever's. I enjoyed it. I really, really enjoyed rewatching this. Love to Philip

Baker Hall being like, you're an anarchist. By the way, we didn't talk about the Philip Baker Hall in 90s run. How about just his 99 Magnolia and this. You go from 89 to 99 because then you can get midnight run in there and that like 11 year run.

I'm going to stab you with a fucking pencil, Sidney. Have a cream soda. Boogie Knights, Seinfeld. It's incredible. Heart eight. Hard eight. Sydney? Wait, one more line.

Yeah, sure. I like. I just, I can't get Pacino's voice out of my head now. He's like, I fought for you and I still fight for you. It's great. Apex Mountain. Yeah.

Puccino, Pro Plummer. Bruce McGill, definitely. Is it Pacino's the Apex Mountain? No, God, no. Not for anybody. I don't think it's Crows either.

I think Crows is gladiator. The golfing henchman guy, definitely. Yeah, that guy, Kepka. That guy was amazing. It's either this weekend when he wins the PGA or that scene. Or when he golfed in a suit. God, so good. The really nice swing.

Striping it. It's great. Just the next shot shape. Kept his weight back. Yeah, fading. It really kind of exploded through wearing a suit. It's hard to do. I guess, is this Christopher Flummer's Apex Mountain?

Yeah, sound of music. Yeah, I think it's probably going to be sound of music. Nobody's Apex Mountain. This is the longest Joey Pants nominee field, the biggest fields we've ever had.

Is this, is this man's Apex Mountain just in terms of his ability to do, because getting this movie made is a kind of an amazing achievement. I think it's indicative of where he was after heat. He takes like four years after heat. He does this.

That's in the truest constitutional, originalist reading of Apex Mountain. But he allowed him to do that, In heat, he had De Niro and Pacino at a point when that still mattered and got like the best possible movie out of them. We've talked about every single person. And he's getting two rewatchable podcasts out of the same movie. That's true.

Pecks Mountain. I don't know what it is. We had so many Joey pants guys. Philip Baker Hall, Gina Gershian, Stephen Toboloski, Rip Thorne. Torne. Sorry. Rip Torn. My bad.

I mispronounced that. Rip Torn. Kind of wasted in this movie. Why couldn't he have been Wingshouser? They never filmed him head on. I think he had stuff that was cut. He must have, right? He was big then because Larry Sanders had just ended.

He was like ripped torn momentum. Hallie Eisenberg, the Pepsi Girl from the Pepsi commercials, plays Yagan's daughter, Comfior, Debbie Mazar, Lindsay Krauss, Michael Gambon, and Esther Serrano as the FBI guy. For me, the winner, because we already did Bruce Weigel, unless we're just going to give this to Bruce McGill again. I like the idea of McGill winning the Triple Crown. The Triple Crown is fun.

I do think Lindsay Krause, a lot of people don't know what her name is. And meanwhile, she's like this really, really accomplished beloved actress. Go find House of Games. House of Games is amazing. Yeah. So one of those two, I would go. Could this work as a 10-episode Netflix show in 2019? Yeah, it would be amazing.

I would watch that. Yeah, definitely. Okay. Would it work if it was filmed in the same way? More smoking. Like all this, like the Gulf. It was like an episode was just looking at the golf. To make it truly 99 feeling, we replaced Dead Can Dance with Rage Against the Machine on the soundtrack.

Good. Good idea. Yes? Yes. Who I'd run. Or a sequel where he, Jeffrey Wagan, starts dating the broadcast news lady. Nice. What if it's just...

They met on a, like, a investigative piece. Yeah, Jeff and Sue. Jeff and Sue. It's more of a Benny and June style movie. She gets mad about the golf thing. She's high energy. I actually think that's a good match. That's great.

I would watch a Twitch stream that was just Lil Bergman and Jeffrey Wigan watching Nix games. Watching the semifinals together. What do you think about Farity and Wigand on the golf channel together, teaming up? Jeffrey Wiggan.

You golf and loafers, sir. How hard was that? And you didn't break your confidentiality agreement, sir. You're wearing a tie. Was he wearing a tie, or is just he had this shirt? When I think of the great performances on a Sunday, sir, I think of Brooks Keppka at Aaron Hills. And you at the Louisville men's driving range.

This is the same accent as Bono. That doesn't sound anything like fair. He said it's as Bono as David Ferry. It feels like it's also retroactively shaking your confidence in Bono. Like you're now wondering whether or not Bono isn't Bono. It's not. Can I tell you a Bono story? Sure.

I saw this movie about Luciano Pavarotti. Yeah. Bono is interviewed in the movie and he's talking about how Pavarotti is one of his truest friends. We talked about how he tricked him into participating in the Pavarotti and friends charity concert. And he described him as, I can't do the Bono voice. Maybe you could just repeat this, but he called him a world-class emotional arm wrestler. He's a world-class emotional arm wrestler, sir. And David Faraday?

And he said he'd break your arm if he could. That's great. Yeah, it was good stuff. Jesus. Love Bono. Bono. What a blow heart. Nobody's more of an artist than Francesco Mollonari with a six iron on his hand.

It's a painter. A Renaissance painter. It's a little hot in this room. Yeah, let's get out of here. Who won the movie? Oh, unquestionably for me, Pacino. Pacino. I thought he was so good in this movie.

Completely agree. What a year for him. This and any given Sunday in the same year, that's iconic. I love this performance. Yeah. For Charlie Ward, for David Farity, for Jeffrey Wyagand. And for Luminary Media. For Luminary Media.

I'm Chris Ryan. For Bill Simmons and Sean Fenicity. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to Rewatchables 1999. We have more coming. I think we have like four or five more in this run and then a bunch more coming. And if you don't subscribe,

you fucked you! All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Craig Horlebeck for producing as always. Thanks to Chris and Sean. And we will see you next week with a brand spanking new rewatchables. See in a week.