The Rewatchables - ‘The Warriors’ With Bill Simmons, Shea Serrano, and Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: February 5, 2019

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Shea Serrano, and Sean Fennessey come out to plaaaaaaay to rewatch the 1979 action thriller ‘The Warriors,’ starring Michael Beck and James Remar. Can you dig it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to The Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Liz Kelly. With the Super Bowl and the books, I wanted to let you know about all of our coverage across the site. We have Kevin Clark, Robert Mays, Roger Sherman, and more breaking down every aspect of the game, including winners and winners and losers' players from the game, including down the game. Also, make sure to check out our YouTube.com and YouTube show performance. I want them all. I want all the Warriors. I want them alive if possible, if not wasted. But I want them. Send the word. The Warriors coming up next. Are the armies of the night?

Can you dig it? Can you dig it? You guys are the big dudes, huh? Now they're in the Bronx. We're going back. 27 miles behind enemy lines. It's the only choice we've got. They've got one chance.

They've got one night The Warriors All right Bill Simmons is here Shea Serrano is here What it what are Sean Fantasy is here Hello

It's the 40th anniversary of the Warriors Coming up in February February 9th And we are going to do A podcast About in my opinion One of the greatest action movies

A lot of time Okay It's top seven Top eight for me It's interesting that you would even I don't even know If you can call it An action movie anymore

What would you call it? A thriller? It's like a gang movie. Yeah. A gang. I don't know if that's a genre. That's definitely a genre. I don't know if I could search for that on Netflix.

Well, I have two like theories about it. Okay. One is totally ripped off from the director, Walter Hill, who basically thinks of it as a comic book movie. So it's a comic book movie without superpowers. He's a little too over the, or he was a little too over the top of that. He's very...

Is he alive? He's alive. He's very excited about that idea. So that's from him. And the other kind of movie is it's basically Westside Story without the musical numbers. You know, it's a very, like, balletic, choreographed, unrealistic portrait of how gangs operate, you know? But it's very stylized.

It's a very high level. It's not like the Fast and the Furious. It's not like, I don't know, Cobra, you know, it's not like our class. It's not Terminator 2. There's something, I don't know, kind of ridiculous about it in a way that makes it really fun. You know, it's supposed to be both gritty, but there's guys dressed up like baseball players wearing face paint. And mimes. And mimes.

Yeah, we're going to go over the gangs later. Shea, I made you watch this. You hadn't watched it in a while, but your dad loved it. He loved it. And so you jumped into it. Yes. What were your thoughts? My thoughts is, it's in my top 250 actions.

Wow. You're down on it? Yeah, it was not great. This is a movie that you, I feel like you have to have watched it when you were a kid. That way when you watch it now, you're like, you have those feelings about it. Because you watch it now, and you're like, oh, this baseball bat fight scene. Pretty terrible. You can see them counting.

One, two, three, four. Okay, your turn. One, two, three. I get it. I'm used to now watching John Wick. Is Shay down in the baseball Fury's fight scene? I think so, yeah. This is unbelievable.

This is your hottest take of all time. Okay. Four against nine? Yeah. The Fury is running through Central Park. Yeah. There were a lot of parts that I just didn't, was like, if I had seen it when I was a kid, I would have liked it.

The one thing I thought about when I was. I finished watching this movie is I need to call my wife and apologize to her. For all of the times I have made her watch like Bloodsport or Kickboxer or any of the other stuff. Because I love those. She must feel watching those. You're putting Bloodsport ahead of the Warriors? Absolutely. Well, that goes to your kid theory.

Absolutely. Bloodsport is openly terrible. I love Bloodsport, but it's terrible for 20-minute stretches. There's no way. There's some really bad scenes in that. I think you got to put the movie in context to talk about what both of you guys are saying. I agree. So in the 70s,

action movies were Dirty Harry. Enter the Dragon. The same year that this movie came out, Mad Max came out. If you watch Mad Max, it's a very similar feeling of like, whoa, this is like pretty jankly made and the choreography is weird and all of the things we've come to accept

about what an action movie is now, they were just starting to figure out in the mid to late 70s. Well, I think escaped from New York's like that too, which is an action thriller. Very similar. Yeah, I grade this on a curve because it's literally 40 years.

old. So to me, it's like when I watch the Warriors, I feel like I'm watching Dr. Jay highlights or something. Totally. If you watch Dr. J. highlights now, the way people talk about it, I'm like, if you watch the ABA documentary that HBO did years ago, and people like, Doc was, he was the one, he was amazing. And now it's like just split screen him and Janus. And it's like, oh my God, Janus is like Doc on steroids. Looks like a different sport. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that's the case with lawyers. And as Sean said, there really wasn't a lot going on action-wise. That wasn't just the one white guy taking down a bunch of guys with a gun. Or Westerns. It was Westerns, cop movies, kung fu movies, and black exploitation movies. Those were the action movies of the time. And I feel

like this movie in Mad Max kicks off kind of a new era. And it kind of an era of like expanded universes, for lack of a better word, like there's so many people in this movie and so much mythology in this movie, even if you don't even try to unpack any of it, they're trying to introduce, like, it's world building, you know? And there's something really cool about it being one of the first movies that really tried to do that, because that's really all movies are in 2019. So it came in 1979 based on Saul Eurek's 1965 novel of the same name. Okay. And that was apparently a big novel back in the day. I was not alive. I haven't really had a lot of conversations about it in the last 40 years.

I think it's one of the better kind of setups for a movie I can remember. It's a great idea. There's a gang summit, nine delegates from 100 gangs. They're all going to go into this place in the Bronx and listen to what this guy has to say. No guns. Nobody's going to waste anybody. Let's hear what this man Cyrus has to say. Cyrus comes up.

He's basically the forerunner of The Rock and Barack Obama. in 1970, comes in, he's just the most charismatic, amazing guy. And this was during a time when Jimmy Carter was the president and we had all these politicians

that were the opposite of this. And this guy comes in, he's just so magnetic. And it's just a great, great premise. And then something goes wrong. And the worst have to fight their way back to Coney. They have to go 28 miles on the subway

with everybody thinking that they did the murder. Yeah, I would say something goes wrong as a kind of a light way of describing what happens. A guy gets shot. A assassination. With the Jesus Christ, Willem Defoe, arms spread, falling backwards. Such a great stunt.

I love that shot of him falling through the terrace there. It's amazing. So it opened in like 670 theaters. They didn't have a lot of advanced screenings. They didn't really run commercials for it. It did well. 3.5 million in the first week. Then over the next week or so, there's vandalism.

there's fights in the theater. Three people are killed at three different locations. And everybody freaks to fuck out. I remember this because one of the places where something bad happened was in Boston. And it was a huge story. And we were living in Boston at the time. And it was basically like, oh, my God, they got to ban this movie. And it actually really helped the movie.

I was nine years old. I'm like, what's this movie? People are going to kill the theater? This sounds amazing. And I really wanted to see it. And I don't remember the first time. I definitely didn't see it in the theater. My parents wouldn't take it.

of me. But there was this mystique about it if you're a kid of the 70s like this was the movie. They, you know, there was violence and went crazy. But apparently if you read about it now, the gangs and the people that were going, they were treating it like it was Rocky 3. And they're cheering during the fight scenes. And they're just like losing their fucking minds, basically. And it sounds like it would have been a really cool movie theater experience. Definitely. Maybe not for a nine-year-olds. Have you been in a theater where people end up cheering at a thing or like celebrating before? Yeah.

For what movie? I mean, Rocky 2 and Rocky 3 were like that. Was it? Yeah, that was like people were cheering for that. Like, that was an actual game. This happens all the time now. 48 hours was like that. I've written about this, but I saw 48 hours in Stanford, Connecticut.

And it was a mostly black theater, and people lost their fucking minds when the torture scene in the cowboy bar when he's going off on the rednecks. It was like people were going nuts. I feel like this is a big thing in Los Angeles. Like if you go to an Avengers movie now on opening night, it's a stand up and yell. Like Chris Evans showed up on screen the last Avengers movie and people were like having a heart attack. Really?

Yeah, it's different from what you're describing, which I feel like is a little bit more organic as opposed to this kind of coordinated social event where everybody's like, we go to Avengers tonight and we all dress up and we yell at the screen. It was very similar with the last Star Wars movie too. But there was something a little bit more communal

and unorganized. about cheering at Rocky or cheering at the Warriors, you know? Creed, I heard in some places people cheered, especially during the first one. Yeah, they cheered in my theater. We didn't cheer. We cried at my theater. You cried?

We cried. There was no clapping. Oh, when he went down the first time, spoiler alert. So by it six week, it had grossed about $16 million, which is a lot. And the critics were behind it. Most interestingly, Pauline Kale, the most influential movie critic at the time, she wrote, The Wors is a real movie maker's movie. The Wors is like visual rock. So it does like, it does have pieces of things that we would end up seeing in the 80s,

including like that Miami Vice style of the music, like entire scenes without dialogue really and things that would eventually become a thing. It's all style. It's costumes. It's music. It's the lights. It's the colors in the movie. It's the visual aspect of it and what Pauline Kiel is talking about is totally right on. That's actually why I think it's important. It's maybe not why it's fun, but it totally sets a visual template for what movies like this will be. And then the other thing that I think is really fascinating about this movie. I mean, there's other stuff too, but it just, there's this whole 1970 stretch of New York movies that you and I have talked about in the past, but it basically goes from like, I don't know,

72 to 79, where New York is just a character in these movies. And the Woody Allen movies are like that. I think Death Wish is like that. Death Wish is like a really distinct New York movie. Yeah. The Sydney and Lumet movie is Dog the Afternoon and Serpico. Yeah. Serpico is another one. There's been a lot of them. And this is really, you really feel New York. You're thinking about the different spots they're in and especially now how much Brooklyn's changed. And they have to, did the map line up in this movie? I was going to ask you this. I mean, they cut to the subway a lot and they use that as a sort of guidebook for the viewer. But I I mean, you really have to pay close attention to whether the stops are correct.

For the most part, it seems like they're correct, but you don't always know which stop they're at. They shot a lot at one of my old stops when I lived in New York, Hoyt Skirmarmerhorn in Brooklyn. And you see that station over and over again. But also those stations look completely different. The subways look completely different. The turnstiles look completely different. The stairwells like New York subways, there's still Hellscape's for sure, but there's something unrecognizable in a way about how they are now. So it's kind of hard to track whether you are moving in the right.

direction the whole time throughout the movie. What about the park? That all looks right to me. Because I was wondering how they went from 96th and Broadway to Central Park. That seemed like one of the, I guess we could talk about the nipicks. It's a little bit, I mean, the whole travel is a little bit unrealistic. We also don't know, like, what time did the summit start? You know, what time did they leave?

And then when they arrive at Coney Island at the end, is it 6 a.m.? Is it 10 a.m.? Like, we don't know how much time is actually going. It is a great all across one night movie. Yeah. But the actual, I mean, maybe we should hold it for picking this. Yeah. Gene Sisko, one star.

Tough beat. I like it more than one star. Roger Ebert, two out of four stars. I like the two stars. Said, despite Hill's cinematic scale, the film is implausible and the characters lack depth and spontaneity. And he said, he wrote, no matter what impression the ads give,

this isn't even remotely intended as an action film. It's a set piece. It's a ballet of stylized male violence. So I agree with that, but I think it's good. To hold that against it, I think, is actually a kind of a weird criticism. So I was judge this stuff when you're talking about the movies from the 70s and 80s by what came before it, what was the degree of difficulty, how original was it, and things like that. And that's what always strikes me with this movie is like, how do they even think of this,

especially compared to what else was going on at the time? And then to try to pull this off where they're filming at the middle of the night. They're filming with real gang members. They have to come up with the different gangs. It was just really creative. Yeah, on location in New York, too. It was really hard. And then Walter Hill, who directed it, he also did some really bad movies, too.

But he's one of the most up and down directing careers, I think we've had. He's fascinating. I mean, he made a movie right before this called The Driver, starring Ryan O'Neill. It's like more or less a silent film about a getaway driver that is so interesting. And it was similarly received. It was like, it didn't do any business, but critically there was a split where half the people thought it was a total masterpiece and half the people thought it was like a dull mess. Yeah. And it has now gone on to be kind of a cult film, not as big as the Warriors.

And then he went on to make like a lot. He made Geronimo. He made Wild Bill. He went on to make a lot of really interesting movies. He made Streets of Fire, which is a crazy movie. It's like a street gang musical. Michael Paray. Eddie and the Cruisers.

I like these movies where they have the plot is like you can say it in just one sentence or two sentences. I really like those sorts of movies the best. They're easy to follow. They're fun to get into. You're like, oh, it's a team of mercenaries fighting an alien in the jungle. All right, cool. Let's go. The one sentence explanation.

So you think about action movies from the Warriors going through to, let's say, lethal weapon two. What was the 89? Diehard's Die Hard. 88 is Die Hard. 88's Die Hard. The Death Weapon 2, I think, is 89. But just how action movies change from this point right here.

going all the way through and then we hit like First Blood's 82 First Blood is another one that's an all-time classic you watch it now and it's like all right like if I'm 22 and I watch First Blood probably doesn't feel as influential

as maybe it was at the time but this whole thing of that's actually like a Vietnam movie and it's not the action movie that you kind of think it is because it eventually turned into Rainbow 2 and Rainbow 3 and all the rainbow became this America and steroids character. Yeah, you can...

First bloods of Vietnam, I'm traumatized by the war, and how do I fit in movie, and then it kind of goes into action. Yeah, it's the transition out of New Hollywood in the 70s and into the kind of muscular 80s action movie template where the movies didn't actually have to be about anything. They just had to be about the movie itself. The key person, I think, in the Warriors here,

about what you're describing is Lawrence Gordon, Larry Gordon, the producer of the movie, who spent a lot of time working for Roger Corman in the 60s at American International Pictures, and then goes on basically after the Warriors to make die hard. He makes point break. He produced all of these kind of like, he's one of the patron saints of the rewatchables.

He was involved in a lot of the movies that we really like that we point to and say, like, this is what cool action movies are. That was his style, him and Joel Silver and a handful of other people during that time. And you can see that he had, he formed a partnership with Walter Hill early on. And they wanted to make movies like this. They wanted to make these masculine, highly stylized action movies that became a template. There's also, it taps into something that was going on in New York in the 70s where New York

had kind of lost its mind and there was a ton of crime. We had even the police drank in 1976, the blackout, son of sand by Spike Lee's, or Summer Sam. Sam, yeah, it was a little bit about this. The Bronx is burning, Jonathan Miller's book. New York just kind of lost it and was rudderless and out of control. and this movie kind of fits in with that. You have this gang leader who's basically like,

hey man, if we all get together, like we can run New York. It seems unrealistic now, but in 1979, it was unrealistic, but it wasn't like impossible. Right. That all the gangs could have been like,

we can overpower the cops and actually like start some shit. What did you guys think of the math that Cyrus is using at the beginning where he's like, he was making it up. I love that. They dubbed like all of a sudden it's 20,000.

and then it's 40, and then it's like, that's 60,000 soldiers. It's like, 20,000 loosely affiliated men that we were organized around the city. Yeah, there's some flaws in his plan. How does he, how do they cut everything up? It's really funny. They beat the cops. Then what happens to the money, they're controlling stuff? Is the National Guard not going to get involved?

I don't know if he had thought out really that much. But in the moment, it made sense. It's like, hey, man, it's 60,000 and 20,000. We got this. Let's all get together. That checks out. All right, let's get to the categories. Most rewatchable scenes.

And this movie is basically it's just these six scenes that are really fun to watch over and over again and then kind of lagging until it gets the next one. Cyrus's speech is amazing. I like the platform they built for him. The little wooden thing,

they had gone there earlier and built this little thing that he could climb up. I don't think they got a permit for that. It fell apart real easy when he bumped into the back of it. He's got 900 people there. And he's just like, can you count suckers? Everybody's quiet.

Yeah. 900 juvenile liquids. And then just rattles off one of the classics. 60,000 soldiers. Now, there ain't but 20,000 police in the whole town. Can you dig it? Can you dig it? Can you dig it?

Apparently, when they filmed this, they, they just didn't have the money for 900 extras and they actually had to use real gang members. And as he's doing the speech, the gang members got really excited and we're like genuinely cheering and going crazy. Like, that's all genuine. Like they're like, this fucking guy's awesome.

Yeah. Let's take it. So I don't know what happened to that guy. His name's Roger Hill. He was an actor. He worked. But this is like an all-time performance. It's one of the most members.

I mean, he says three different things that are just in. the lexicon. Yeah. He's really great. And when the rock became a popular wrestler in the late 90s, it really seemed like he was just doing a Cyrus impersonation? What were the three things?

Can you count suckers? Can you dig it? Can you dig it? And I think there's a couple. I say the future is ours, if you can count is kind of a famous one. And also, you know, one little piece of turf, you know, him kind of describing to them like what they're sort of...

Their border mentality is. That's crap, brothers. Ten feet of turf. But can you dig it is iconic. And then when this movie had the Renaissance in, whenever the video game came out, it was probably like 20 years later. Hit that nostalgia thing.

It was like 20, 20, 23, 24 years, something like that. And there was this Warriors Renaissance because it had just been on cable for 20 straight years. And the Cyrus, Can You Dig It became, I think there was like a rap song about it, like using sampling that, can you dig it? And it just kind of had this whole renaissance. And it was right after the rock had really, you know, gone nuts on WW2.

I just feel like they were linked. Yeah, there's something, it shares a little bit in common with like Scarface, where it was kind of adopted by a later generation in a different way. There was obviously the very famous Craig Mack Flavoring Your Year video with puffy saying bad boy, come out and play, and that's obviously inspired by this. Like there's just, I think literally for people that are my and Shay's age, a lot of people who grew up watching it, you know, in their dad's living room, just absorbed it and started repeating it and not realizing they were repeating it. You know, it's just kind of embedded in the time. Scarface is another good one for this.

So Scarface was 82 and was considered a bust when it came out. I was like, what the fuck is this? Why is what's going out without Pacino's accent? Why is it so long? Why is it so violent? And then it had kind of the same arc that the Warriors did where it hit cable. The whatever the laser disc VHS era comes in and it just kind of took a life of its own. More rewatchable stuff.

I love when they're running to the first train station after Cyrus get shot when they're trying just to get in the Turnbull A-Cs are driving around in that school bus. Yeah. With like 25 guys and they're all like kind of hanging out with like bats and T. White Force. Were they already looking for the Warriors at that point? point? Yeah, I think they were. I think the word was out. Yeah.

That's just not how they spent kind of their Thursday night, just kind of cruising around 30 guys on the bus. It might have been. I had a lot of questions about the turbo ACs. What was going out with them? The baseball fury scene, which Jay, uh, she just blasphemed.

The, they come out of the subway. It's probably the best moment of the movie. They come out of the subway. And Ajax is just like, what the fuck is that? And the camera cuts to these four dudes in baseball uniforms. Why are their faces painted?

They're the baseball theories. I mean, that you can't. That's not a question you can ask. No, that's a question you should ask. I actually, we have, I have that coming up later, what's going on with them. Are they mimes also? We're going to get to that. Okay.

That whole sprinting through Central Park, they run for like a mile and then just stop and ready to fight. And fight. That was the only guy in the movie I was like, so you're watching them run all the time. I'm like, these guys fucking have good cardio. It's good shape. And then finally he says that. He's like, I can't run anymore. I'm like, this is who.

I am in the movie, whoever this guy is. You know, they shot all at night during the movie, and Michael Beck talked a little bit about this on a making of where he just said that, you know, they would shoot all night and then he would go back to his apartment in New York. He would sleep for six hours. He'd wake up at about noon and then just do two hours in the gym before he had to go back to shooting because this is like one of the most running movies that have ever existed. They're running in like 12 scenes.

It must be exhausting. And, you know, when you're making a movie, you're not doing it once. You're doing it 20, 30 times. You know, you have to keep shooting it and shooting it. How long could you? run if nine guys with baseball bats are chasing you? Like, you know if they catch you, it's a fucking ramp. I don't know.

I think you find superhuman strength in those moments, right? But eventually your lungs just must go. I thought, this was like several weeks ago. I was in an airport. Yeah. And I was, I was in Oregon. The flight got delayed because of fog or whatever reason. I was there for like an extra 20 hours at the fucking airport.

Were there baseball furies in the airport? Baseball series waiting outside. So I finally flew to my next spot before I could go home. And as I was getting in, I got the alert that said they're loading this plane here. So I was like rushing it to super long airport. I see the terminal I have to get to. It's like half a mile away from where I am. The plane comes in.

I get out. I'm fucking booking it as fast as I can. I've been at the airport at this point for like 20-something hours. I know if I don't make this flight, I'm screwed. And I only made it maybe like a quarter of a mile. and then I was just like, fuck this, I'm going to walk. Like, I couldn't, it was like, whatever. You needed the baseball fears.

Yeah, I would get caught really fast with the Furies. I don't know. There was always like an S&L sketch that never would have happened, but where they finally stopped running and the furious catch them up. And instead of fighting, everybody's just like, hold on a second. Hold on a second. Let's fight in like 90 seconds. I just got to catch my breath.

The bathroom battle with the roller skating gang. I like that one. Which they filmed for five days. apparently. They really did. It was like 8 to 7 every day them just filming all the stunts. I don't know why it was harder to do stunts

in the 70s compared to like the John Wick era now. Was that their actual name? The Roller Skate gang? No, they're called the punks. Oh, okay. Because only one guy had the roller skates. Right.

I liked him. I like the check it out if you ever watched again. The super tall guy. There's like a 6'5 guy. He's kind of like the Miles Plumley of the punks. He looked like he would have in trouble in that fight. He should have done a better job

in the fight. Warriors come out to play, which was apparently ad lit by the dude. He grabbed the three bottles. I love that guy. David Patrick Kelly. I was wondered why the warriors, the actual Golden State Warriors, didn't just do that before every game. They do it. Maybe there's some gangcom. I feel they've done it. I feel like they adopted it.

Feels like that should be their thing. Flip side, you know, you don't want to be riding for the rogues. You know, the rogues are an evil gang. So maybe the warriors don't want to put their energy in there. Those guys are bad news. And then the end of the end.

ending where Swan basically throws the knife, hits the leader of the roads. Great throw. Good throw. And then it's like riffs. And we look up and there's 150 riffs who have just materialized in silence. We're watching from afar. And leading to the, you guys are good. The best.

Your war is a good. Real good. The best. The rest is ours. That part reminded me of when they do like a similar, thing and Revenge of the Nerds, when the nerds are getting beat up. Yeah. And then the Tray Lambs all show up and they're all there.

Same thing. The Gramercy Riffs are pretty great in this. Yeah. They all know Kung Fu. They have like a number two guy who's ready to go right after Cyrus died. That's what I was just going to say. Maasai just rises up, right? Cyrus is dead.

And then this guy's just ready to be in charge. He's got the mirrors, tinted sunglasses. And that guy looks like he was born to be the leader of the Gramercy Rills. It's great. Maybe. I mean, you could have made the camera. case, maybe he had Cyrus killed. Oh, wow. Working with the rogues.

A little prequel, yeah. Interesting. And that's probably why at the end, they don't even question anything. They're just like, we have to kill this guy because he knows we set him up. So what's the most rewatchable, Sean? Gotta be the Cyrus speech. Gotta be. That's definitely my favorite part.

That's also the scene I've seen the most from the movie. Yeah. I guess we have to go to that one. What about the fight with the Lizzie's? You wouldn't put that on the list? We're going to get to that one later. I wouldn't totally put that on the list. Okay.

I personally like the baseball fear scene most because I like I like when they're running and then they stop and they're like, do we lose them? And he's like, I don't think so. And it's just coming over the hill is that baseball, the first baseball fury guy, he's a fucking assassin. How did you feel about their swing form, you know, the furies?

You feel like they look like they be, what are they like, two hitters? Let's do this now. Okay. Because I had this for later with, I had this for picking net. how do they lose that fight? Their whole gimmick is they're a baseball gang. They have nine guys.

All they do all day is swing these bats and practice bat shit. And then these four dudes, one of whose goes down right away. The cowboy goes down immediately. So it's nine against three. The tired guy. And they fucking get their ass kicked. And it's like, so Ajax does the, I'm going to shove that bat up your ass and me turn you into a popsicle.

Fight's the first guy. The other five guys are just like standing there. Yeah. They made that common mistake that you see. So there's some honor here? Like just jump Ajax and beat the fucking shit out of them with the bats. I mean, terrible planning about that.

Maybe they're just like more Florida Marlins than Boston Red Sox, you know? Like maybe it's just not talented baseball fighters. Like this might be a weak squad, you know, low salary. Too much honor. I think you look at the baseball theories and obviously all gimmick, no substance. Yep, clearly. It was like, as you said, you were wondering why this might. that much time putting makeup on.

It was a lot. I don't understand the face, but I don't understand why they're not saying any words. I don't understand why they're wearing cleats. So it's basically a bunch of bad athletes who couldn't make their high school team who decide they're going to start this baseball game. They're inspired by the 77, 78 Yankees. They're kind of somewhere near the Bronx. What were they?

96. They're near Union Square. Well, I was trying to figure that out with every gang. It's like, so were we supposed to think that the gang correlates to the neighborhood that they're in at that time? I would guess. Because they strike me more as like, a little bit of a Murray Hill, like, corny white guy gang.

You know, they don't strike me as... I think they were a corny white guy gang. Yeah, not like a gang that would be from Harlem or from the Bronx or from Brooklyn. Like, they kind of just struck me as, like, frat boys who had a bad idea to put on face paint, you know? It's like Tyson Douglas. Yeah. Like, their whole thing was the bully. And then Tyson always had that thing about everyone has a plan until they get hit.

The fears are basically like, this face paint, baseball uniforms baseball back in. Right. He's really going to carry us. And then Ajax is like, all right, let's go. I'm going to turn that bad up your, throw it up your ass. Maybe we're just underrating James Remar and what a badass he was. He was incredible. Just really full-time heat check from Ajax.

We have a lot of James Remar territory to cover. I will say, though, great playing by Swan there. There's four of them running with the baseball series behind them. They cut around a corner and Swan's like, hey, with me, and grabs the two guys to sneak off. And so then they can come behind them and catch the one baseball fear. who's not totally in shape. Right.

Get his bad and keep going. Amazing. Hey, you might remember Academy Award winning screenwriter and playwright Aaron Sorkin was recently on my podcast discussing his long career in his great movies and shows that he's been involved with, including the West Wing, the newsroom, social network. Oh, yeah, we talked about all of it. He has a new play on Broadway. It's an adaptation of Harper Lee's Poetser Prize winning to Kill a Markingbird, which was

recently voted America's best love novel. of all time, not just of 1961 or whatever it was, of all time. To Killamockbird has become one of the most popular and toughest tickets to get on Broadway. It set a record as the highest grossing American play in Broadway history. It's also been selected as a critics pick by the New York Times. NPR called it one of the greatest plays in history. Two-time Emmy Award winner Jeff Daniels. Stars live on stage as Atticus Finch variety said,

one of the greatest stage successes of this or any Broadway Csies. and it is not played to a single empty seat, unquote. Rolling Stone said, unforgettable and unmissable, all rise for the miracle that is mockingbird, unquote. New York Post said, if you want to do one thing for your parents, your grandparents,

or your children, or your children, whatever, buy them tickets to kill a mockingbird. Better yet, take them yourself. This is what great theater is for, unquote. Well, it's sold out for the next several months, But tickets would make a fantastic Valentine's Day gift when purchased for available performances this coming summer or fall.

Tickets are available directly through telecharge.com or the show's website, which is to kill a mockingbird Broadway.com. Check it out. What's age the best? I really was into Cleon, the original Warriors warload, who gets killed after the rogue guy claims that the Warriors trying to. That guy with the little leopard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Leopard head thing. Awesome. In the uncut movie or with the deleted scenes, he's actually more involved. He's got more scenes. There's scenes with him and his girlfriend. He was like really good. He gets killed by getting elbowed a bunch of times. By 25 guys.

Yeah, I don't understand why that was the move that they all decided to use on him. They all gather around him and they shoot from the top. And then you just see a bunch of fucking elbows getting dropped. I think there were some kicks coming eventually once he got down. So he dies. You don't know in the movie. They beat him to death? Yeah, they beat him to death.

I always love the way that he kind of flicks David Patrick Kelly, Luther off of him when he jumps at him. That's an amazing move. You know, he barely even, and then the hard elbow to the face. He's got some moves. I like Cleans. I kind of was a warlord. Yeah. I know they needed Cleon to die so Swan could take over, but I was in the Cleon.

I really, the Cleon reign. Maybe we need a Cleon prequel. It would have been great. You know, the rise of the Warriors. I think the jackets were amazing. The Warriors jackets. The vest? Yeah.

The vests. I liked it. How to fight in those? I like that there's no shirt underneath. Good. What did you like about it, Sean? I don't know. One, a vest with no shirt is never going to be a win, in my opinion, unless you're a professional wrestler.

Disagree. Would you rock that? I wear it to the beach when we go to the beach. What? I wear a leather. Shut up. It's got two pockets, one for sunscreen, one for my cell phone. Are you serious?

No, I'm not serious. I'm not serious. I believe that. At all. The vest part, though, that was the one part of the movie that I, like, connected to the most when they meet the orphans.

Yeah. And the orphans are going to let him pass. And then the girl comes, I forget her name. What was her name? Mercy. She's telling them, you know, some kind of man, you are.

You just let anybody... Back. Yeah. And then he tells him, you have to take your cut off or your colors off. But I was thinking, I really like sons of anarchy,

and they wear a cut. That's what they call it in that show. And there are a couple of times where they try to, like, take it off of them and you have to die before that happens. I understood that part. Nobody takes the better. Don't you fucking take that off, Swan.

Don't you do it. Central Park age really. I like Central Park in 70s movies. It's just creepy. Nobody's ever there. It just seems like bad things are always going to happen in Central Park. It was very dangerous. Yeah.

It was very dangerous at that time. Luther, the leader of the rogues. Just an amazing. Over the top villain, like, he's going for it. I think we already know who's going to win the Saul Rubin. Rubinick they knew over her or the Sal Rubidic they knew over acting Word. He's really going for it. He's so evil.

You really hate him. My son loves watching this movie with me. And he loves how over the top that guy is. I love that there's no reason for anything he does. He's just a crazy psychopath. I love it. I love where he's just like because we can. That's his whole attitude

for the movie. More movies should just have that. Trying to explain why a villain does something as a waste of time. The Joker. Also disagree. I also disagree. Oh my God. I need a reason. You need a reason? Yeah, I like Luther. He's just a sociopath.

He was one of only two people in the movie that I recognized. He recognized him from Commando. Mm-hmm. And I recognized Raiden from Mortal Kombat 2, Rymar. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So he was also, Luther was also in 48 hours and played Luther. Two Luther.

He was the guy who turned on Eddie Murphy and the whole crew. Very purposefully recast by Walter Hill. Yeah, he's done a lot of stuff. I mean, he was on Twin Peaks. He was on, and, then he was on the new Twin Peaks that came out a couple of years ago. He's been in a bunch of Spike Lee movies. He's a real, like, Hollywood character actor guy you'll see all over the place

over the last 40 years. Walter Hill, he just, he hit this zone with this movie in 48 hours of just this kind of early how a movie should, how an action movie should move with the music, with the soundtrack. 48 hours also had an awesome soundtrack. Both these movies, and the soundtrack's another thing that age really well on this. Dvorizan who's had a bunch of stuff, but that's like that weird guitar and it just feels very 70s.

I will say, though, I'm not totally sure that guitars and a big Joe Walsh song to end is necessarily like the sound of mostly black and Hispanic gangs in New York City in the 70s. Like that there is a little bit of cognitive dissonance between like a black gang beating up the rogues at the end of the movie and then you hear Joe Walsh's voice. Like, that's not, those two things. It's weird because it's a good song, but it's also like a very strange song to end it. Yes. I really like that song a lot.

It's just, it's not really the song you'd hear. In the movie's defense, it is 1979. We like literally don't have hip-hop rap. I don't, I don't really know what they could have picked. What would you have gone with? Because when they play nowhere to run when they're running, that feels like perfect for the movie. But I don't know what they would have ended with on this. I know it shouldn't have been Joe Walsh.

I mean, even though I like that song. You know, we're still a few years away from Grandmaster Flash, I guess, you know, but we're not from Sugar Hill Gang. So it's not like rap is, rap is it exists. That was 79 when Sugar Hill Gang would have been amazing. It exists. I mean, that's probably a little too exuberant, maybe for the ending. But I don't know. You want like a funk band basically doing something, like a hard funk record, I think.

Hmm. Or like across 110th Street or something like that. That makes more sense to me. I like the orphan scene is too long. I love the Wachai orphans leader though. I feel so bad for him. How could it be a big meeting if the orphans weren't there? I know that poor guy.

He's just had no idea of the meeting was even happy. That hurt my feeling. I like the themes for the different gangs, which we'll get to in a second. The gang DJ is great. There's some gangs. Everybody, there's no internet back then. There's no texting. There's no Twitter.

That's a great play, though. From the DJ? Yeah. How do we get this information out to? everybody. The coded language. Yeah. The 70s prom couple,

that's a weirdly effective scene. Because I think the cool part of this movie for me, having watched it 380 times, is it's really about like these guys don't really have any hope. And their lives suck. And they're fighting to keep whatever. And it's not even, they're not even keeping anything.

Like when they get back to Connie Allen after they fought their way back, and one of the guys goes, this is what we fought all night to get back to. They're just looking around. It's like the fucking Wonderwheel. It's like, Great, we're home. Awesome. It's kind of the act sucks here.

It's the action movie version of the end of the graduate, you know, where Dustin Hoffman and Catherine Ross look at each other, and they're married and they ran off together, and they're like, now what do we do? Now we have to have the rest of our lives. Our lives are not good. We live in Coney Island. Right.

It's amazing. And that 70s prom couple comes in there all happy, and they look at mercy and she's got dirty feet. And then she goes to fix her hair and swan, like, stops her. That whole scene's pretty cool. And then the, you know, you guys are real good. The best.

That's good. What stage is the best for you, Sean? Hmm. I think you guys are real good. The best is like, it's almost like a precursor to scenes like Carl Weathers and Schwarzenegger

like, you know, high-fiving and then the zoom in the creditor, you know, there's like a couple of, they're like intentionally hokey, melodramatic, but also iconic action movie moments. And a lot of the dialogue

in the movie is stilted. Like part of the reason I think younger people won't be as into this movie is because you don't realize that it's purposefully trying to do this comic book style stentorian, almost like it's based on a Greek tragedy.

The reason they're doing it this way is to make it theatrical, you know, and the best. And the way it's like, no one is talking the way anybody actually talks. And I like that about it. So I love those lines of dialogue. What's the best for you? I think for me,

the, Sean was alluding to this earlier, but the world building that happens. Like after this movie, it came out and it was just like, all right, you can do anything you want in a movie. We have this elaborate gang network. We have this way that they all communicate. We're all sort of connected in this weird way. It's thousands of people existing in this sort of subculture, and we all have rules, and we all

have like systems in place. That's cool. You see parts of that in movies today, especially. Like when I was watching it, the first movie I thought of was John Wend. Wick because they have the assassin network and all, like that whole stuff is in there. Before this movie, we didn't have stuff like that. Right. To see it now.

It's like, oh, it makes so much sense. That's why if you watch a movie, all of those pieces still sort of fit because you understand immediately, oh, I get, I get, I do get that part. If I don't understand the comic book, theatrical Greek tragedy part of it, I understand what they're doing here with this part. That part, that's really like, that's undeniably cool. What do you say, Bill? back to the baseball furies

I think Cyrus's age the best Cyrus was awesome in the moment and now it's just 40 years later he just still works this life sucks here's this one guy who's gonna give us hope

and he doesn't really make sense but this is basically how Trump got elected Cyrus is Cyrus versus Trump the proto Trump's its own thing but it's just like I have the answers but if you listen carefully

it's like wait this doesn't make any sense. But the speech is so good and he's so charismatic and so compelling. It's just like, I'm in. He's right. We can get these guys. She's really good. It's really hard to pull off in a movie. It's a five-minute scene. And he just like crushes it. And then when he dies, it's like, I met the guy four and a half minutes earlier. It's like devastating. It's, oh, fuck, they killed Cyrus. You're right, though. Like, as an allegory for, you know, relevant and successful political leaders, it's, what do we vote for? You know, we vote for the people who are like, that person's cool. I like, I like how. I like how

they say what they said, not necessarily what they said, but how they're saying it. Right. And that's what Cyrus says is. I mean, honestly, Obama in 2008, he's going up there and he's like trying to give hope and he's doing yes we can. And he was charismatic like that. And nobody really knew that much about him, but they were in because they just liked him. They were like, I like this guy.

I want to buy into him. And so Cyrus has in 1979, 100 gangs who are all like, why the fuck am I here within three minutes. He just has everybody and they're cheering, including real gangs. What's age the worst? A couple bad ones here, but Ajax is simultaneously a great character, but he's

aged badly. The language is bad. He's a sexual assauter. There's some issues. We don't have to dwell on them. I personally don't think that he's aged badly. This is a movie about Gang. It's like literally a movie about people who stalk the streets and probably commit crimes.

Like the subtext of this movie is that if you're in a gang and you want to organize and beat the police, you're committing a crime. True. And if Ajax was like a good dude and super woke, it'd be like, why are you in a gang? Right. Why aren't you like a middle school teacher? And so him like doing some terrible things. He obviously is in total contrast to Swan who has this like, this moral code. Yeah.

this kind of King Arthur kind of quality about him. And he feels different in contrast. But like, I don't know, did it really age badly that, like, there was a bad guy in a gang in New York in 1979? That's pretty plausible. Probably. I was just saying some of the language and stuff. It's hard to hear. You hear you like, you could have just said bitch right there.

Yeah. True. It could have just said motherfucker. True. Mercy, the orphans girl and some of the things they say to her is great. Tough. Yeah. Cleon dying has aged terribly for me.

It really fucking hurts my feelings every time. I love Cleon. The stunt double getting thrown into the tracks and that character never being mentioned again has aged the worst. That would be my vote. You know that whole story? Yeah, I think we should talk about it.

I don't know the story. What's the story? So they make this movie and the two stars are going to be Michael Beck who plays Swan, who's the leader. And then the other guy is the guy Fox, who is the big curly-haired guy who, when Cyrus gets shot,

he's the one that sees that the rogues guy did it. He's kind of the number two. When they go to talk to the orphans, he's the guy with Swan. his, the actor's name was Thomas Waits, I think. That's right. And from the get-go, he's just feuding with Walter Hill, the director. And he's just being a dick and telling him what to do.

And Walter Hill gets so fed up midway through the movie that he literally kills his character off and rewrites the last 45 minutes of it. Initially, he's supposed to be the star of the movie. And he's like, fuck this guy. He fires him. Find some stunt double that is a crew member that just had the same. hair. And if you watch that scene, everything's going nuts in Union Square. And then he grabs the girl and you see like the stunt doubles walking with mercy. But you never really see his face.

You see him from behind. Then a cop tackles him and then throws him in the train. And he's never mentioned again. Right, right, right. Because later the guys get back together near the end and they're like, what happened to Ajax? They got him. Nobody's like, what happened to Fox? Right. Oh, he, Fox got thrown into a train. So I can't remember a more dramatic firing during a movie where they just basically rewrote it on the fly. And I didn't even know that story until a couple years ago. Because I think he started talking about it when they were doing the 2015. They did this whole thing.

It's online. They assembled the Warriors and they had them do the ride to Connie and the subway. All the guys now. And that guy was in it and he told his whole story about how he got fired. Bizarre. That's great. He was the one guy. So they do that zoom in of him seeing Luther shoot. And there's

just something about his face that I didn't like. I was like, I hope this guy dies. Well, what you wish? Yeah. And then when he's, he did, I was like excited. I was going to pick this same thing, but for a totally different reason. So with the way the movie is set up, we've got this gang who has to get from one place to the other.

Yeah. And they've got to, you know, you've got to get there for some reason before the morning. And everybody's going to try to kill you. So it should be this very suspenseful, suspenseful thing. And when they kill him, when they kill that character, I felt like that was supposed to be the part where we go, okay, now we understand what's at stake here. You can die if you don't get to this point. So by the time they get there, it should have been like this great feeling of relief.

But the way that that scene is done when it happens, he dies. And you're just like that was really quick. I didn't get like the emotional impact. There's no payoff. Yeah. It didn't make me feel nervous about the rest of the people. It's just like whatever. A guy just got thrown in front of a train.

I just don't like the way that that scene didn't hit. Should have hit. It didn't work. I think it's because it's just so hamstrung together. Can you remember in a movie that happening before? I mean, I can think of times... Somebody getting fired halfway through the movie and then just audibly with the dead seat.

Nine brave souls. It's fucking crazy. If it happened today, they would just recast. You know, it's like Eric Stoltson back to the future. You know, it's just like, this isn't working. We got to get somebody else. So they get Michael J. Fox. Like, that's just what they would do.

They wouldn't write the guy out of the movie midway through. They might do that on the TV show, but you wouldn't have to concoct, like, in the middle of the night, a stunt coordinator trying to figure out how to throw a body onto a train to get rid of one of the four most important characters in the movie.

It also causes a problem later when Swan, they fight the baseball furious, and then he goes back to see if he can find the others. At this point, a cop has thrown one of them into the trains. There's just no sign of anything. There's no ambulances there, no police. It's just empty. It's like, what I? There's a dead guy and in front of a trade. Why were they running from the police?

Because they're a gang? Yeah, they're a gang. They just assume that bad things are going to happen. They're wearing gang colors and they're in a place they shouldn't be. I think there's also a lot of stuff that's happening that night. The fire that happens. We don't know who's responsible for that. The kind of police are on alert.

The police, obviously, there was an assassination. It was a murder in the middle of the park that the cops were at and they were staking it out. So I think there's an awareness that there's trouble here. And maybe the Warriors are at the center of the trouble. Maybe they're listening to the DJ. I think that's a big mistake that they made. Smart move to start the fire, though. By the other gangs.

Oh, for sure. And the Warriors go. They're like, okay, cool, guys. We're going to start a huge fire. Five stops down. I like that. Smart strategy. Who's the new guy

who took over for Cyrus? Masai. Messiah, yeah. Masai was pulling all the strings. He was a predecessor of Messiah Uhi. He was. He knew how to pull the strings. Casting what ifs in the book,

none of the characters were white. And Walter Hill said, Paramount, did not want it all black cast for commercial reasons. Let's do that movie. Yeah. And then the only other one, Tony Danza was supposed to be Vermin.

This is the best. And was cast in the sitcom taxi instead. So Vermin was cast with some guy, Terry Michos, who is now a news anchor and Wapanger Falls in New York. Oh my God. Which one's Vermin? Vermin is like the real slick Italian-American guy who's like, I got the big one. Yeah, you know. He's the comic relief guy.

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That is $20 off your purchase. Code rewatchables. The black tux, premium rental suits and tuxedos delivered. Deanne Waiters Award. heat check. I mean, it has to be Cyrus. It's season for four minutes,

and it's one of the great heat checks ever. You could also make a case it's Ajax. Or you can make a case it's Luther. I think it's between Cyrus and Luther. Yeah, it's those two. And the battle,

maybe each one has to get a different award. One gets Saul Rubenek and one gets Dionne Waiters, right? I was going to give Luther Saul Rubenek. Automatic? Cyrus, the stats for him in that scene are pretty up there. He basically plays eight minutes and hits seven threes and then comes out.

Yeah, he needs the Dion waiters for. I think he's got Deion. Yeah. Halfass internet research, they rush this movie to get ahead of another game movie called The Wanderers, which I had told John Stry, I somehow never seen. I haven't seen it either. It's Philip Kaufman, though. It's the guy who made the right stuff.

It did pretty big director. Ken Wall was in it. It would eventually be the wise guy. Remember that show? Really great drama. Just check it out. How old are you guys? I feel like you all are very old right now.

I'm only 26, so a lot of this stuff is beyond me. Originally, the character of Fox was supposed to end up with Mercy, and that obviously when they had to murder him halfway through, so that didn't happen. Swan is good. Wait, are we sure that? In the book, and in the original script, Swan was captured by a rival homosexual gang known as the Dingoes,

only to escape later. Walter Hill, he'll watch the delis and realize that Beck and Van Balkenberg who played Muriel. had great chemistry, so they rewrote everything. Got rid of the dingoes. A homosexual gang, the dingoes? Is that what you said? Who had dobermans.

In the book, they're a gay gang that has a... That is dobermans. That's a little bit like Halliberry's dogs in John Wick 3. That's way more affected than a baseball bat and some face paint. The dingoes. The dobermans. The rogues were driving a 1955 Cadillac Hearst. In case you're wondering what car that was.

Michael Beck party too much during the filming and became a born again. Really? Okay. There you go. In the take when Swan throws the bat and hits the cop,

Sunny Landon, who ends up being in Predator, they did a take where he accidentally hit Mercy's face and she had to go to the hospital and get stitches. Oh, no. And later in the movie,

she got hurt when she was running with the stunt double before he gets thrown into the thing and broke her wrist. Jesus. And that's why she has that jacket on for the rest of the movie because they had to hide the broken wrist.

And he's like, where'd you get that jacket? He's like, I stole it from somebody. It's like, because she had a broken wrist. That line is always so weird to me. That makes a little sense. I couldn't understand why she has the jacket. Yeah, that points confusing. That's where they, she's because they're looking for somebody in pink.

Yeah. So she put that on. So to film anywhere, to film anywhere in the five boroughs, production had to pay off whatever individual or a gang ran that piece of turf. And they had a contact inside the NYPD who would tell Marshall, the producer, which gang members needed their palm. greased. That's pretty cool.

This is New York in 1979, where it's like, the NYPD is like, yeah, so you're right, you're in the Bronx, you got to do the Van Cortland Rangers and give that money. Amazing. All right, we did all that. Apex Mountain, I mean, probably everybody in the movie except for James Reimar.

I think 48 hours was his Apex Mountain, but you could say it was sex in the city other than that. I mean, no Mortal Kombat 2 was his apex. Maybe, whatever. No, whatever. He would say he was a new rate of. Lynn Thigpen.

Apex Mountain is where in the world is Carmen San Diego. She's the DJ or Sesame Street. Or Lean on Me. She's great and lean on me. Hmm. I'm trying to think if there's anybody else who had a major moment outside of, I mean, maybe Terry Michos,

the Furman when he got the gig as the newscaster in Woffinger Falls, New York. When I moved to L.A., James Remar lived in my neighborhood and you just see him like having coffee outside. I was like, I'm so badly want to talk to James. I emailed in two of my favorite movies ever. I interviewed James Jamar once.

He was the most straight talking person I've ever interviewed. He was very serious dude. But he was like, this is my, as close as I can come. Here's the fucking thing, Sean. You got to remember when you're an actor,

it's a lot of work. You have to remember that. I love those guys. I love those guys. I love those guys. He's just a very direct, always dropping F bombs in the middle of sentences for no reason.

He was nice, but he was just like hard-edged, hard-talking, I guess, I assume he's from New York. Yeah. But he was cool. interesting guy. Well, he's also going to win the Joey Pants Award. Because I think most people know who he is, but they don't know his name's James Remer. I didn't know who is. That was his name.

What about Mercedes Rule? Well, she was the other one. I feel like Mercedes Rule became somebody. Oscar nominated. Hard not to, hard to totally know it's her in this movie. She's super young. She ended up playing the mom and Big. And what did she get nominated for? Is it the Fisher King? Yeah. Is that right? She's the undercover cop. So it's one of those two. Would this movie have been better with Trey or Bouchemmy or Michael K. Williams? I think Michael K. Williams would have been incredible in this movie. I don't know which gang he should have been in, but I know I want him.

I think he really would have been nice as the new Messiah, as Gramercy Riffs, would have been great. Anywhere. As Cyrus. Osiris. I want him as Cyrus. Well, maybe in the remake. Yeah. The Saul Rubeneck, they knew a word that clearly goes to Luther.

He is going for it, man. Incredible thing. He's in the convenience store and she's like, hey, you're going to pay for that? He's like, for one. I do like that part. I do like that part. Yeah. Picking Nitz. So the Malatov cocktail that ruins the orphans, the orphans are, we're going to raid on you warriors.

And then it's like, all right, we get the Maltov cocktail. They throw it in a car. And the orphans are just complete. Now you know why they're a D-level gang. They're so bad. One Maltov cocktail. They don't even know what to do. Yeah.

They were not invited to the party for a reason. They're pretty weak. That was one of the notes I wrote down was the soon as they ran away. I was like, oh, come on, guys. Come on. I was rooting for the orphans. I mentioned how it's a little weird

that there was no police or ambulances after one of the Warriors dies at Union Station. The Lizzie's, so they have the Warriors, they're in a pretty confined space, not much bigger than the space we're in right now. She has a gun, they're all there, and fires like 19 shots and just misses everybody. Yep.

Maybe don't have her as the shooter. Like really, it's like these gangs were terrible. It's really the bottom line. There's a lot of missed opportunities for the gangs. Yeah, they should have, the orphan should have killed them. Who are the ones in the bus? They should have killed them. Oh, the Turmbal.

Yeah, they were all fucking up. Why did Turnbullet Cs drive by the entrance where the guys are running up to go to the other entrance? You're in a bus. Come on. Just fucking run over them. Yeah. And then, I was wondered when, when Swan throws the knife at Luther right as

Luther's shooting. Somebody behind him. There's three people behind them. Somebody should have got hit. The knife hits him, like, where did the bullet go? Did it go up? Did it just go through?

Is it like a magic J.F.K. Boy? What happened? Yeah, that was a really good question. I never understood that. Can we just unpack that scene just a little bit more? Yeah, let's do it. What's going on with Luther's reaction to getting a knife in the hand?

Like a knife in the hand, I'm sure that would be painful, or the wrist, I guess. I'm sure that would be painful, but like, he basically goes down like, I might die. Like this might be the end of Luther. And he's so dramatic. And all of the rogues are frozen.

They don't respond. They don't rush at the Warriors, even though they've outnumbered them. Like, nobody rushes at the Warriors. Nobody uses numbers. I don't think anybody liked Luther. I don't think even their team even liked them at all.

Well, he also, when he charges Cleon at the beginning, Cleon just annihil it. Yeah. He gets nailed right away. Obviously not there for his fighting. Luther's a bad leader. Yeah. He's abusive.

I just like doing things like that. I feel like they only picked him because his chin was pointing. Somebody saw his chin and was like, you should wear a bandana and be this guy. Best quote, I'll shove that bat up your ass and turn into popsicle. My son's favorite quote. Wait, are we done with picking nits? Oh, let's pick some. Because I feel like 200 of them.

Okay, go. Okay, here's an easy one for your beloved Cyrus. There's no way everybody hears what he's saying. There's no chance. I thought about that at all. It's just to take a little leap. He doesn't have that basso-profundo, though, you know? Can you dig it?

No. Not in a park outside with 900 gang members. You don't think the makeshift platform was maybe souped up for sound? I don't think they thought that far through. It's not like sonos beams all over the place. You mentioned the orphans running off at the fire. Big mistake. So are they actual orphans?

Did they grow up as orphans? They all have sort of dirty faces. Is that like their version of the face paint? That's a very good question. that I don't have an answer to. They have shirts with orphans on the back, but it's like not written. It's like a dirt. Like, you have a little bit of money at least.

I don't know if they did. They had graphic design, though. Yeah. With the undercover cop. Yeah. When she handcuffs him to the bench and starts blowing her whistle, it takes like a minute and a half. Like, the cops get that very fast.

They're far away. And then they fucking come flying in on the car sideways. Yeah, that seems bad. You could have been behind the tree. What's Ajax thinking there? They're on this race to get home. It's the horny guy. His hormones got the best of him.

And he's a sexual, softer psychopath. Yeah, he went in hardcore right there. He's got some issues. Because she was like, I'm with it. He's like, I'm with it too. Boom. He misplayed that. Okay, this is a, maybe this is because I live in Texas.

I mean, I'm listening to you guys talk about all this New York stuff. But the whole time I'm watching this movie, I'm like, you don't fucking have one friend with a car. You can't make one phone call with and have somebody come pick you up. It's a good note. What's going on here? Just call somebody. So I wondered about, like, they picked the nine delegates from every gang. If you weren't one of the nine, it's like some Terry Rozier, Jalen Brown type tension, right?

You're like your minutes? Yeah. Why aren't I one of the nine? I'm a good way for team chemistry. I'm the 11th most important person. Yeah, you figured the 10th guy might have a car. The other thing, too, is that you'd think, so theoretically there's a hundred other members of the gang based on Cyrus's speech. Yeah.

Where are the other warriors? Why do the Warriors only have nine members? Right. We never hear anything about any other members of this gang. Yeah, where were the other ones waiting for them when they got back? Yeah. Why didn't they call them on a pay phone and say, hey, we need backup? We're going to have some shit going down.

Yeah. We're being framed. Why didn't more gangs go to Coney Island and just beat the shit out of the remaining warriors? Yeah, we know where we're from. What were those guys doing that night? I don't know. It's a little bit like what was Michael Corleone doing, you know, between 1946 and 1951. What was he doing?

Is that what you're saying? He was going to grad school. Wow, apparently. What he was doing. And then at the end, when he says they're the best, they're not the best. You like several of your people die. Yeah, that's not the best. The roofs are clearly the best.

They did fight their way 28 miles from the Bronx, Coney Island. I don't know. They made a lot of mistakes. Real good. It's great. Great stuff. It would have been funny if he said the best and the, and the Grams for Riffs guys, like, well, I mean, to be fair, the baseball fear is sure to be beaten me.

They did have nine guys. Yes. That was ridiculous. It was a complete strategy era by them. Best quote, I'll shove that bat up your ass and turn you into a popsicle. I'll shove that bad up your ass and turn you into a popsicle. Warriors come out to play.

Can you dig it? The Warriors are good, real good. The best. I don't know what the answer is. My favorite quote is, I'll shove that bat up your ass to turn you into a popsicle. But I think the iconic quote is probably the Warriors come out to play. Yeah.

That's the last in 40 years. Definitely. Come out to play. It's between that one and can you dig it. And can you dig it's got to be that. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? In 2016, Yes.

Hulu and Paramount Television and they got writers and people started working on it. What happened? I don't know. It's an idea that's been sitting there in my entire life, basically. And now you think about in the cell phone, Twitter era, what does it look like?

Right. I know I want to at least see the attempt at this point. Yeah. That's probably the one hurdle that you, that's hard to get past. This is a whole movie looks different if there's no, if there's a cell phone involved. It's totally different. But if you do make it and you set it back then before cell phones, that's a fun, that's a fun TV show. You have it so that every episode you meet a new gang.

That's what I was thinking too. I think it's focused on one different gang each episode. Yeah. So could you set it in like 1995? like right before the internet basically. Yeah, you said it whenever. As long as there's no cell phones around. Or we just pretend like cell phones don't exist.

Maybe that was part of the truth. If we're just making shit up, let's make up that there's no cell phone. The cell phones is a huge obstacle for the remake. It's a problem. It's a problem. Also, Uber is a bit of an issue, I would say. Uber might kind of solve this movie pretty quickly. It kind of makes me want to see the remake more, though, when you add all the technology to this idea. What does that look like?

Yeah. Maybe it's like at a time when there's a blackout or, you know, people or maybe it has to be more post-apocalyptic. I think this movie is supposed to be set slightly in the future. I think it's not supposed to be necessarily present-day New York. So maybe there has to be just a little bit more mad max on it to make it make sense. I think one person that loses their job is the DJ in the remake. Think so? Yeah.

DJs don't have that kind of power now. It's just the podcaster. Yeah. It's just somebody going live on Periscope, you know. So unanswerable. The answer is I would like to see somebody at least try it. We have 500 TV shows. Everybody has, there's a million TV show ideas right now.

This seems like that could work. Probably unanswerable questions. Who are the worst who didn't get invited? We talked to that. Would a radio station with a DJ communicating in codes to gangs really have worked in 1979? Wouldn't the police have just listened to that radio station and found out what was going on?

No, they're too smart about it. I think that's like an underground situation. We just don't know. We're not saying it. Nobody's going to tell anybody anything about this. Our baseball fear is struck out, and it looks like our boys are still going. Yeah. Now here's Jackson Brown.

I don't know. I really like that part. I think that, to me, was the most clever part of the movie. How do we get all this information to all of these people all at the same time? Oh, I got it. I agree. It's really clever. Plus, you got Lynn Think Pen, you got that shot is so cool of just her mouth against the sort of like pink, red light and then dropping the needle onto records.

That stuff is really slick and cool looking. Yeah. Also unanswerable. How long did Swan and Mercy stay together, you think? Maybe like a week? Yeah, tops. She's like, it's kind of far to get out here. I don't want to, this is not going to work.

I don't know. He probably had to see her after a shower at least to get a really good look at her. She didn't shower in about a week. I feel like Deborah Van Valkenberg should have had a better career. So she was in Too Close for Comfort, which was a Ted Knight's sitcom that I feel like was borderline iconic. But it was early 80s. I just love Ted Knight. I definitely saw too close for comfort.

It was her. She was the brunette sister. And the other one was like the blonde bimbo sister. That was like this character that was going on for, you know, Suzanne Summers and Three's Company and Lonnie Anderson W. W. Karpie and this was in this one. and she was good in that. She was like the smart, sassy daughter. She's got spark.

You know, there's something about her. I'm surprised she wasn't more successful. She was good. The gang's in the movie. Oh, I forgot about the unanswerable questions. Ajax probably dead within three years. So he gets, he just goes to jail, right? That's what happens, Sam.

But he gets out, but then he, like, does an armed robbery where he gets shot. Ajax doesn't live to see 25, I don't feel like. I want to see the other version of that where. He grows up to be the rich guy from sex in the city. It's the same person. That's amazing. Yeah, that's what I want. That'd be good.

He used to be Ajax. Before we do, who won the movie, the gangs. So here are the gangs in where their locations were. The Gramercy Riffs. Thumbs up. The rogues who killed Cyrus from Hell's Kitchen. Okay. This is all according to the book.

This is another nitpick. I just remember this one. Why don't you just have the gun ready? We see like the shot of them passing the gun. People doing it? Yeah, down the line to him. Like, you should have had the gun. I think it's for dramatic effect.

Okay. So I think it's because it wasn't even planned. Somebody else had the gun, and Luther is crazy and is making decisions on a whim, and he calls for the gun. And then they pass it. So it's not like he, it's not like it was even his gun. Right. It just happened to be among the rogues, and they decided while Cyrus was talking to do it. That's my, that's my theory.

Turnbull A-Cs were located wherever. That was supposed to be in the Bronx. Yeah. So there's somewhere around there. The orphans were in... Poor orphans. It seemed like Brooklyn? Almost?

I mean, it's only halfway through the movie, so they wouldn't be that far south yet. No, they wouldn't be in Brooklyn. So they never really say where that is. Baseball Furies, it's right near Union Square, 96 and Broadway, where is that? Union Square and 96 and Broadway are nowhere near each other. 96 and Broadway is Upper West Side. Union Square is 14th Street.

So they were 96 in Broadway trying to get to Union Square. Yeah, so that's sort of like upper, upper west side before you get into Harlem. So that ties in with your whole, these are some uppity rich kids trying to start their own gang and dressing up like baseball players. Yeah.

A bunch of like barred flunkouts, you know. Yeah, exactly. Have either of y'all ever been in a gang or even like a pretend gang? When you were growing up, was that the thing that you did? No. That wasn't on my list.

Okay. You want to talk about your experiences? Yeah, we did it, but it was like a... It was a fake gang? It was a fake gang. It was a fake game. It was a thing. We were pretending.

We'd heard about a gang called the Bloods. Yeah. Obviously very popular. That's a new gang. And we're like, oh, we're going to tell people that were with them. Because we saw, we learned like somebody's cousin, learn how to make the blood symbol, this thing. So we all learn how to do it.

And we're like, we're going to be that. And then we were at the mall together, like four of us, and we saw actual real bloods. And we were like, this is not, we're not this. No, thank you. I hope the crips aren't watching. Baseball fear is, we're going to say 96th and whatever. The Lizzie's?

somewhere in Union Square Okay The punks So these ones are all in the book And people on the internet seem pretty confident Yeah they were the Bowery Gotta be Lower East Side That was the guy with the roller skids

Now if you watch the opening credits The Boppers They were the guy who looked like The guys They were black guys who looked like They were wearing the Oh the purple They looked like they were headed

To some Motown concert Yeah yeah They're from Harlem Okay Their rival was the Hurricanes also from Harlem, which are briefly shut. The mimes were called the high hats. Sure.

Why not just the mimes? They were the high hats from Soho. How do the mimes feel... Artistic community? Feel about the baseball furies. I don't know if they ever interacted. Are they squaring off and just nobody's talking shit to anybody? Pretty much.

Okay. The big rival for the high hats was the electric eliminators, which you see briefly, you see their jackets. is these guys that they're wearing like these sat and baseball jackets and it says

electric illuminators of the bed terrible name rough name really bad that's a lot of letters yeah and they were also

in Soho so then we had two Bensenhurst groups oh to Saracens who were the guys in the blank tank tops I'm pro Saracens

because of Matt Saracen and then the Jones Street boys so Savers calls those guys out in the beginning and say we got the Saracens

next to the Jones Street boys it's both Bensonhurst what's Bensonhurst like now. It's nice, right? It's a very ethnic community. A live family from Bensonhurst. Yeah, it's fine. It's kind of suburban-ish.

I thought if the Jones Street boys are still there. I thought that was a person, Bensonhurst. I was like, oh, was he into... Benzschey. The motorcycle gang was called the Satan's mothers. You've seen them very briefly in the crowd shot. The Satan's mothers? Yes.

The Satan's mothers. I'm grammatically confusing. How many mothers did it? Maybe I wrote that down wrong and it's just Satan's runs. It's a male gang called the Satan's mothers. Yeah. They were in Brooklyn. The moonrunners were in the Bronx.

So were the Van Cortland Rangers. I love the Van Cortland Rangers. That's great. Probably the best gang name. That sounds like an EPL team. The gang in the beginning that's paying the subway respectfully, the tokens. The one guy's just putting the tokens in and everybody's going through. That's the gladiators.

I don't know where they're from. I like that. That's funny. Like they're on a field trip. There's another one, the Boyle Avenue Runners from Queens, which you see briefly. And then this is my favorite one. You see these guys, it's very brief, but they're waiting on the subway to go to the thing. They're all Asian guys.

This is the savage Huns of Chinatown. It has an incredible gimmick. Incredible gimmick. The Savage Huns? That's not great. Of Chinatown. Apparently they might have cut them out. How many races?

things can we have in one name. Give me all of them. Did I get everybody? I saw a lot. So 21. 21, okay. So going through Chinatown would have been an interesting move in this movie.

There's just so many other parts of Brooklyn. I'm surprised there weren't more broke. Because, you know, to go from the top of Brooklyn, essentially, down to Coney Island, is far. It's really far. So I checked out the map last day to prepare for this,

and I was like, God damn, Coney Island's like really far. away from like where our offices in Brooklyn. Where's our office in Brooklyn? It's in Brooklyn Heights, which is right over the bridge. Right over the bridge. And then you look where Coney is and it's like, damn.

It's very far away. I mean, I took a lot of train rides there. They used to put on a Village Voice used to put on a music festival there. And I would go there probably once a year in the summer. And the only reason to not go is because it was fucking two and a half hours on the train just to get down to Coney Island. You have to change trains and taking unreliable trains. So yeah, I could see why this would be an arduous journey for the Warriors. How many miles is it, though?

So it's 28 from the Bronx to Brooklyn, but I think just going from like where our office is in Brooklyn to Coney Allen, it's like another 10, right? I'm not sure what the mileage is, but it's far. And it's a lot of stops. That's the other thing we don't see is enough train stops. Like how did they catch the express at like 3 o'clock in the morning? That's not easy to do.

All of the stuff that y'all are saying about New York just doesn't make any sense to me. Because I'm all in, like, everything in Houston is 30 minutes away. and that means it's 25 miles away. Here's the thing about New York. It is incredibly poorly designed. It's just such an inefficient place to live. It seems like it's inefficient, but it's really small and it's hard to get around.

When I was looking at the map, it was so clear that they just need more bridges. Like three more would be really nice. Yep. It's not really easy to build a bridge, just for the record. It's like a whole book about this. So what gang would you have wanted to be in? I listed 21.

First, let me be in the Saracens. only because of Matt Saracen. My second choice would be the gladiators because they were respectful enough to pay. Respectful gang. I do like that. I want to be in the roller skate gang only if I can be the roller skate guy,

like the lead guy. That's good. So do you think when he abdicates his throne, the next guy also has to know how to do roller skating? There's a whole ceremony where they're handing the roller skates over. The skates over. Those are my three picks. Turnbullet sees as cool of a band,

gang as it was. It also seems like they were probably the skinhead, so maybe remove them off the list. But white and black. Yeah. That's progressive. That's a progressive skinhead gang. What do you think their gimmick was? Just like to be shaved head scary days? hating everybody. I don't know. Somebody had a bus. We've got a bus.

And a two by four. I think the Van Cortland Rangers just best name. I don't like that name. I don't understand why you like that so much. The Van Cortland Rangers? Yeah. I like it. I think the electric, the electric, what? Well, the electric eliminators is terrible. I think that's a better name.

Because if you're the Van Cortland Rangers or the VCRs, that's dope. That's bad. No, I like that. But if you're the other ones, you're in an eliminator. Eliminators are cool. And you're also, I like electricity. Electricity is great. I like to eliminate things.

We're checking out both of the lists. What's Hell's Kitchen situation in 2018? It's nice. It's expensive to live there. There are some bringer staffers who live there. I won't name names. It's on the far west side in Midtown. It used to be tough, really tough, part of New York City.

That's famously where Matt Murdoch, Daredevil, the Marvel character lives. But it's nice now. You think Luther still lives there or no? Like if Luther were still alive if he didn't die from a wrist injury. Wrist injury and getting beaten by 100 people? Do you think they kill him at the end? That should be an unenational question. I think not only did they kill him.

I think they killed him slowly over the course of many, many days. Oh, wow. I think they brought him back to that weird dark compound, that weird dark cement parking garage, wherever that was. They were all lined up like military style too, which I thought was, like, there's a reason they were the most intimidating. They were clearly the most organized of all the groups. They seem like precursors to like the S1Ws, the public enemy dancers, you know, there's some of that sort of like the black militant identity of that group is a, is like, it's like post black Panthers, but pre kind of public enemy and that whole movement and wrap. It was interesting. And then it's like the soldiers dress a certain way, but then the hierarchy, they don't have to wear the kung fu outfits, basically.

Was there a Mexican gang? No, I mean, we had the one Asian gang that didn't work out great for them. I guess, let me join those guys in. The Mexican? The Mexican Asian alliance were super, like, we're connected. I need to join them. If there's no Mexican game. If there's no like, like Las Susias, if there's not them, then.

They didn't put enough thought into that. Gramercy, by the way, Gramercy's nice now too. Isn't it? Beautiful. It's one of the nicest parts of New York City. So why were the riffs located in Gramercy? New York in the 70s is completely different.

I actually don't know specifically what Gramercy was like back then. Gramercy now is very tony. I mean, that's where Gramercy Tavern is, one of the nicest restaurants in the city. There's a gated community in the middle of Gramercy Park. Yeah. It's a very, very nice part in New York. Who won the movie?

I'm going with Walter Hill, the director, because I think he created a prototype for everything that was about to come with action movies. That's a good pick. That's a good smart pick, but I didn't know his name until you said it on this podcast. You like Swan. You like how Swan handle his business. I do like Swan a lot.

Swan to me seemed, number one, he was like a sweetheart. He was clearly trying to take care of all those people. He was smart, but also he wasn't afraid to turn it up a little bit when he needed to. Like when they stood off against Orphan, his first instinct was let's just get to this peacefully until he got challenged and he's like you know what fuck you guys we're just going to do what we want to do

I like swan but I don't think he won the movie Luther clearly won the movie he's the one person everybody knows he's the only person you can play that clip anywhere if you just play Warriors somebody's going to know the next four words you can make case Cyrus won the movie too even though he does you can make the case

that Dwayne the Rock Johnson won the movie for ripping off Cyrus's whole bit He really did. I've never heard him 100% talk about it. But I remember when he was coming up on WWI, I was like, this guy's doing fucking Cyrus. It's awesome. What a great idea.

It's really funny. Keep this going. Yeah. I think there's a case for New York. There's this great story that Andrew Laslo tells. He's the cinematographer of the movie where he and Walter Hill are talking, and they're afraid it's going to rain during the shoot. And if it rains during the shoot and you're shooting at night,

it's tough because you know the film is not shot chronologically so you'd have water on the ground or you'd have rain coming down and you have to account for that as you travel through the city so they did set up a scene early in the movie this was Laszla's idea

to have a rain sequence you know when they run for cover you know when they're first kind of racing after the assassination and then after that they wet down the streets every night and what you get is this glimmer off the ground

that sort of like that beautiful post rain shimmer effect yeah And it makes New York look really cool. It makes all the neon lighting look amazing. All the colors that they're trying to make in the movie, it kind of elevates it. And it also just makes New York look like it's like a dingy crystal palace. You know, there's something about it that is both beautiful and ugly at the same time.

It's just a cool movie to just see New York at that time. Even more so than like Serpico or Dog Day Afternoon. You're seeing all different parts of the city. So my vote is New York. That rain thing was something they did in Miami Vice Season 1. that was like a big thing. If you'd look at a lot of like the night shots, the streets are always wet,

even though it had never rained. And then that became a thing. I think a lot of people do that. But I do think you're right. I think the Warriors might have started that. It's a cool trick. Very smart move by the cinematographer. That's it, guys.

That was fun. Were you convinced that the Warriors is maybe better than when we started this podcast? It's more influential. I mean, I never doubted that part, but to just sit down and watch it. you need them hooks in you as a kid. Yeah, yeah.

I can't believe you were a Crip. No, blood. A blood. Blood. I can't believe you were a blood. What a mistake. So the real gang in our neighborhood, they were called the Northside Rowdies,

and we were like too scared to join those ones. That's a good name. Yeah. They could have been in this. So we made our own. Could replace the electric eliminators with the Northside Rowdies. It's really bad.

When I became a teacher later, I lied about, I was in a gang, about being in the blood because I knew the sign and several of our kids in the area were that. and I connected. So it worked out.

Sean, Shea. A pleasure of those. Thanks, Bill.