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

Episode Date: April 1, 2021

You better bring The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan their money or you will wear your ass as a hat. We head to the streets of Chicago to rewatch Michael Mann’s first theatrical film, ‘Thief,’ starring James Caan, Tuesday Weld, and Robert Prosky. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome into the Ringerverse from The Ringer. My name is Mallory Rubin. And I'm Van Latham, Mal. Before we get started, does anyone want to know what the Ringiverse is? The Ringerverse is one podcast feed with multiple shows on all things, superheroes, nerd culture, and fandom entertainment. Instant reactions to new releases, theory breakdowns, fun takes on the latest news, and more. Whether you're a casual fan or an obsessive like us, our shows are worthy of all your fandom needs.

So head into the Ringerverse and follow the show now on Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one creative studio with AI-powered image and video generation. Build for today's creative process, Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast, because the asks aren't getting smaller. And the timelines? Ooh, yeah, still tight. With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Learn more at Adobe.com slash Firefly. I sold my car in Carvana last night

Well, that's cool No, you don't understand It went perfectly, real offer, down to the penny They're picking it up tomorrow Nothing went wrong So, what's the problem? That is the problem Nothing in my life goes to smoothie

I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch Would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. I need a knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this table wood? I think it's lamated.

Okay, yeah, that's good, that's close enough. Car selling without a catch. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. We're also brought to you by the ringer.com and the ringer podcast network to my favorite places. Coming up, where were you in prison? Would you pass the cream, please? Thief is next.

Tonight, his take-home pay is $410,000. Tax-free. I am like no one you have ever known before. Come on. I am. They've got to be big scores. They've got to be fast. I'll make you a millionaire for a month They don't run me And you don't run me

James Kahn Thief, Grated Art Thief, now playing at a theater near you All right Chris Ryan is here Sean Fantasy is here It's the 40th anniversary of Michael Mann's first

theater movie Thief I don't say first movie Because his first movie Was the Jericho Mile Which I still feel like Is one of the ten best sports movies ever made

But it was a TV movie on Wikipedia or IMDB one of those The description is An Ace Safecracker wants to do one last big heist for the mob Before going straight This is basically heroin for Chris Ryan This is just that sentence is just injected into your veins

I don't where do you want to start here This is Michael Mann's first real movie Or James Kahn's last great movie We could go either way you pick Chris Let's do Michael Mann first Okay So a lot of people know, you know, we sometimes on this podcast, we do one for them and sometimes we do one for us. This is actually, you know, people may not know this. This is the story of us. This is very similar to how Bill found me and Sean. Sean and I were just independent bloggers out there making sports content. We were, you know, we could come and go as we please. And what is this, this, you know, regal figure in the media game comes up to. He's like, I can put you into malls in Davenport, Jacksonville. And then the next. And then the next. Next thing you know, he owns the fucking paper on our life, baby.

I bought you a kid. I gave you a house. I own the fucking paper on your life. No, I want to talk about Michael Mann because it's pretty rare. I think that you see a first feature from somebody that is so clearly the notebook scratching is for the career that he would have. Like so much stuff that happens in thief. So many of the themes, so many of the visuals, so much of like the kind of musical choices,

the aesthetic choices that he makes are the building blocks for what you wind up seeing in heat and collateral in Miami Vice in so many of his films to come and it's really cool it's like looking at Picasso

scribbling on a napkin except the napkin is a fucking amazing movie I had some of it written down actually it's got all the ingredients of a Michael Mann movie right at least one great actor at the top of his game

inspired casting at least three people who are like wow this person's in this the music, which is so important to how he does stuff and usually tries to set the tone, the details how he's like, oh, this person has this job, I'm going to go at the highest possible level of understanding every nuance of what this job is. The visuals, there's so many great, and this is a movie that's been helped so much over the years by Better TVs and The Criterion Cut, all that stuff where it's like,

they have the wide shot of the used car shop and all the cars are nice and washed and the lights glistening off them. There's crime. There's somebody who's a criminal, but we're rooting for them. There's diners, bars, and pay phones, all staples, wet streets, and the blues. What else did I leave out, Sean Fentanycy? There is a man who lives by a code and that code is being corrupted by an outside force. And there is a lot of procedure. there is a lot of how does this work

and how does someone do what they do? How is someone good at their job? And just to hit on Chris's point earlier, despite the fealty that I've pledged to you, Bill, and the time we've spent together, I am Joe, the boss of my own body, and I want you to know that on this podcast. Do you, Chris, we've seen Heat more than this movie.

I don't feel like Heat rips off this movie, but there's some DNA. So let's just get it out of the way at the top. How do you feel about the DNA? How do I feel about the DNA? Well, when you watch Steve, does it make you think slightly less of heat? No, no, no, no, no.

No, I think that I, because I feel like this is, you know, there are some musicians, each album is like a complete deviation from the album that came before it. There are some filmmakers where every time I see a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, there might be some thematic coherence, but like I kind of expect him to be speaking in a completely new visual language

every time I see a PTA movie. With Michael Mann, I feel like it's all one movie. He's making variations on a theme. He's just, he's expressing different accents. He's investigating different nooks and crannies of it. But it's all one movie. It's all about the same thing about like, you know,

basically this pursuit of excellence and being pulled away from that pursuit by these other forces in society. Yeah, even Black Hat, I guess you could say. Yeah, man, that guy just likes to hack. He has a code. He literally has code. He literally has code. Yeah.

Sean, you don't love heat as much as Chris and I. That's a weird thing to say. You guys are heroin addicts for heat. I am merely a weed smoker. This is more your kind of jam, Thief. This is a movie. You're talking about 1981, which was a pretty awesome movie year.

I was wondering if you're going to bring that up. So these are just movies that I wrote down eight movies that I just don't think would ever happen now. Thief, eyewitness, which is on HBO Max and Sigourney Weaver, William Hurd, it's really good. Blowout with De Palma and Travolta. Taps. Yeah.

I feel like Taps is now just like a bad Amazon Prime show set in a boarding school where all hell breaks loose and there's some Disney stars the lead. Escape from New York, which was just so ahead of its time and creative. Body Heat. Lawrence Cazden, William Hurt, Kathleen Turner. I have the Needle. Donald Sutherland, Kate Nelligan, another one that's just like a, really weird, cool,

psychological thrower that... Never seen that one. You never saw either. New? Good one. And then Atlantic City, which did the best out of all those. Atlantic City got nominated

Lancaster's thing, but there's just a vibe with the 80s. That year, Charitza Fire won for Best Picture. Reds was that year. Warren Beatty won for director. On Golden Pond was that year. Arthur was that year.

Nothing more got nominated for an Oscar. We had like only when I laughed. and things like that, absence of balance. But I think when looking back at 81, it's kind of these underrated movies made by these storytellers like Kasden and Michael Mann. It's kind of last gasp of the new Hollywood. Prince of the City is another movie from this year,

Time Bandits. There's a handful of movies that these extremely creative guys who became filmmakers in the late 60s and 70s who had kind of carte blanche creatively, and that was starting to fall away after Gates of Heaven, or Heaven's Gate, rather. But there's still some embers, you know? And Michael Mann uses Jerry Bruckheimer in this movie, who goes on to become such an important producer.

And those two guys collaborating together, he still gets a chance to do his vision. This is a vision movie. This is a singular guy who's got a clear sense of the story he wants to tell. And in order to do so, he needs to make sure everybody's going to work an 18-hour day. He needs to make sure that all those cars and that used lot are as clean as you said so that the neon will shimmer off of them. You got to, it's very precise and not everybody has this much power, but very early on in his career, it's only like 35 when he makes this movie. He knows that he has to lay claim to that power to make the movies he wants to make. I think about Thief a lot in partnership with Blade Runner.

Just because in Blade Runner comes out the next year, I believe. Blade Runner also just feels like a new era. Like these two movies definitely feel like there's elements of 70s filmmaking that's that you can see in Thief. there's even elements of like 70s and even 50s film like in that you see in in blade runner but they felt like something new they felt like there was like a new chapter of of movie making it's like these neo-noir stories lone lone hero kind of like moving through a weird dystopian landscape i think that there are times when the way man shoots chicago like in the rain and the dark it just feels like a completely other planet um and obviously blade runner has gone on to have this huge reputation as a

sci-fi movie and the multiple different Ridley Scott cuts of it. And I think part of the reason why Blade Runner is so picked over is because it's inscrutable. Like, there's a lot of disagreement about what it means or what happens in it, whereas Thief is much more straightforward. But, you know, Ridley Scott uses Vangelis. Michael Mann uses Tangerine Dream. Like these, it sounds different. In a lot of ways, it's really like a new turning of the page for movie making. Yeah. And it's also, it's interesting his age when you think like young filmmaker, but he's 35, and the same thing happened in comedy. You had, because you look at man, what he's doing in the 70s, and he's writing for TV shows, and he's writing, I think he might have been even a writer on Starsky and Hutch.

Yeah. And then he does like an uncredited rewrite for straight time. He does the Jericho Miles. It's a TV movie. You would, it would take years to break through. You know, somebody like Coppola was almost an anomaly or Scorsese. You had to be so exceptionally talented to be a young director in your 20s. And that would flip, I would say, over the next 40 years.

This one, it's like the dude had put in the reps. You know, he'd thought a lot about story. He had thought a lot about the kind of movie he'd want to make, but didn't necessarily have the chance to make it. Now I think if 24-year-old Michael Mann comes along in 2020, he's probably, I mean, think of how many different options you would have now. Back in 1981, they're making, what, 100 movies a year? And there's three TV stations and maybe four cable stations.

So there weren't a lot of PT reps for this stuff. Now there's 500 channels and there's 10 streamers. And if you're 23 and you're half decent, you're running something. So I do feel like there's a patience to this movie that is really unusual. You know, and I think Hardee, it's another one with P.T. Anderson that, you know, that movie has some flaws, but there's, he's trying to do something in that movie, which I think is like the rarest thing for a first time director, right? I feel like both of those movies that you cited are movies that are very aware of movie history, too, and it takes a, like an obsession with movies. You know, in Thief, you can feel Humphrey Bogart movies. You can feel Rafioree movies. You can feel French New Wave. You can feel all. this stuff, but it's also just a Chicago crime movie, too. If you want to experience it purely as a Chicago crime movie, it's awesome. It's really effective. It's a little bit meditative. It's maybe

not as purely pleasurable as like a shoot-em-up movie, but it does do the nuts and bolts thing. He cracks a safe. He gets a girl. He blows up a house. Stuff happens in the movie that is just purely exciting. Chris, the detail of the safe cracking and the fact that these guys were actually trained two crack safes and to actually do all the real work and they used real safes. Yeah, carrying around 200 pound drills and stuff like that. You know, man told Robert Rodriguez in an interview, like a TV interview that he did a while back. I think it may have been for El Ray Network, but I'm not sure that he didn't, you know, obviously like the film has like it, it pays homage like Sean saying to a lot of films from the past and stories from the past, but that

the nuts and bolts, so to speak, of the story he wanted. He didn't want that to feel like it was being pulled from crime novels or crime movies. He wanted it to feel like it was being pulled from Folsom. It was being pulled from Juliet. It was being pulled from the stories he had heard from the guys he had met working on Jericho Mile. And obviously, like, he just has, like, a pretty deep affinity for dudes in prison. Because, like, it comes up over and over and over again in his films that, like, going to prison and coming out is this purifying, like, almost religious experience for the characters.

he writes about where they once don't ever want to go back but because they have been there have these experiences that allow them to see the world in a different way. Yeah, so straight time, which was the Dustin Hoffman movie, which he's not credited on,

but he definitely did a draft of and he started spending time in prison for that. And then Jericho Mile, where he's in a prison, where they actually filmed in the prison, they used real convicts. That movie's amazing. And it is a theme

that pops up ever, even in heat. There's a lot of, I'm not going back. All those guys met. I'm never going back. They all met in prison. All the guys in Neil's crew are like from our jail buddies. Yeah, and that's the famous diner monologue, which we'll get to later.

Really keys on that. All right, can we talk about Jimmy? Talk about our guy Jimmy Khan. Yeah. Here's the stretch from 71 to 81. Brian's song, Brian Piccolo. probably the most famous TV movie, I would say ever.

Most famous two-hour TV movie, I think it was, it made Billy D. Williams' career. It made James Kahn's career. He won an Emmy for it. It's still really good. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's 50 years old.

That movie's good. Next year, Godfather gets an Oscar nomination, Sonny Corleone, top 12 most iconic character, probably ever. you know, for better or worse, became who he was identified with, does the gambler, a movie that we all love. Freebie and the Bean, funny lady, rollerball, which Sean has never seen, which you suck, Sean.

A bunch of others, chapter two, but it's starting to fade, by the way, it's 70s. And we're getting into the Playboy Mansion, Living a Hard Life Party version of James Con. This was the last time he kind of held it together, and then in the 80s it falls apart. an incredible, incredible amount of literature about James Conn. There's great interviews, there's great quotes. We'll get into some of them. But, Sean, is he almost like an athlete who you look at like a David Thompson? You look at his career and you're like, man, if he'd only stayed away from blank, blank and blank. No, no, no. He gave us so much in the 70s. I mean, honestly, he's, he also worked with,

Alan Pakula and Robert Altman and I mean, his CV is unreal. And a lot of those 70s movies are lost or not as celebrated. He obviously, he's got the godfather, right? So the godfather stands alone. That's one of the most seen celebrated movies of all time. So he gets to be a part of that forever. But he did a lot of really good work. And he was a really interesting actor while also simultaneously being like the meanest uncle

in my family, you know, the guy who every time you would sit down at Thanksgiving and be like, you fucking stupid? What are you stupid? Like he is so queen. I would be so nervous. to spill anything around doing him. You ruined it! Alan Siegel wrote a piece about Thief for the Ringer that went up the day we're taping this.

And even in that piece, James Conn's like kind of going at him. He's like hated out. He's like, if you want to be entertained, go to Magic Mountain. So what is he mad about? You want to meet somebody, go to a Rotary Club. The best way to say that James Con is a Hallfamer is that nobody has recreated him since. He's a one of one. He's a unicorn.

There's been nobody like him. I don't, I guess he's Jewish, but he could pass for an Italian. We've talked about this during the godfather. Yeah. And just was the most testosterone, agro leading man, I think, of this entire era. I think that that's like his superpower too, though, because whenever he has to be vulnerable and he has a couple of moments like this in The Godfather, and then he has a very famous moment in this movie when he goes, when they go to the adoption.

agency, you know, where he is so rageful. And then as soon as he says, I was state raised, you're like, oh, my God, this is freaking heartbreaking. You know, this guy's been, he's been destroyed. Like, his life was destroyed the moment he was born. And he's, he's a really powerful actor and a very sophisticated actor, even though he's one of the all-time tough guys. He's not just, no, not just, you know, a head smasher. He's something deeper than that. He doesn't move that. I don't the guy really can, I think, I can't really think of another actor who does this move, which is he's the guy who will completely scream in your face and dress you down and then burst into tears. Like that move he pulls, and we'll talk a lot about this scene, I'm sure, when he goes to the adoption

agency here, and he's just like yelling at the lady, won't let him adopt a kid and is making him feel bad. And then as he's walking out, he's like basically doing the sunny Corleone biting his knuckles thing and you can tell, like, you don't ever see him really cry, but you can see him choking up a lot. actors don't do that anymore where it's like you're a tough guy with it bursts into tears like that is that that kind of like playing a character who the emotions are all at the surface like that is usually just one way it's not a two-way street there's an unbelievable moment when they tell him will and else's character died oh my god and the doctor's staring at him he's just staring at the doctor and you think he's gonna punch him and he's staring at him for like 20 seconds and in the research it said the guy the actor who played the

actually got scared. I'm sure. So his reaction is genuine. He like looks down and he's like shaken. And it looks like he, I think he probably as an actor was like, oh wait, is this guy going to add lib and actually like punch me in the face? Nobody else had looks like that. I don't think. It's interesting to hear interviews with Scott Con, his son, who's a famous actor as well. And, you know, obviously whenever Scott Conn's interviewed, people want to ask him about his father, Jimmy Khan. He's a legend. And Scott Con is very careful. It's almost like he's talking about like a like a retired boxer or something, you know? He's like, yeah, you know, it was interesting. My dad is a really interesting guy and he's a really passionate guy. And you can, it's like, it's like afraid he's

going to hit him or something. You know, it's very, it's very careful because he does have, does have the sense of like being a hair trigger personality while also being this big emotional load bearing like Brian's song. I mean, that's like one of the saddest movies ever made. And he's, he pulls that off really well. But also in this movie, I, you, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, hyper-focused in every scene and you feel like he's almost too focused that he might snap at any moment. It's a pretty great culmination of his career. He's pretty unique among man protagonists too because after this movie, man never really goes back to this kind of guy. They're more like Neil and Vincent. They're more like, I've stripped the crying part out.

I have stripped the wanting to adopt a child part out. Like all I am is a samurai who crack safes or or or takes down guys who take down scores it's interesting to think of who and in following generations were kind of the james con and i was thinking how walberg walberg probably wanted to be james con but he's 50% there there's pieces that just aren't going to be there but it was interesting that walberg was the one who remade the gambler because if you were going to say like walberg and boogie nights like when he breaks down in the bedroom with his mom but then in the scene on the pool of Bert Reynolds and he's showing real anger

but then much like Khan the ability to just fall apart in one second but there's no James Conn and I wonder like one of the things I love about him is he feels so 70s to me because James Conn if you just fast forward him 30 years

I just don't think he would have been a guy who would have been like cool I'm going to make four born identity movies I think he would have made a lot of really weird movies He probably would love to work with Tarantino. He definitely would have been in like The Hateful Eight or one of that stuff and kind of gravitated that way. But I really feel like he wanted to be an actor.

And that's a lot of the research was him just being mad that everyone wanted to make sequels. Everyone wanted to do this. And that was why he was so enthralled with this script. And as it turned out, he kind of falls apart after this movie. There's some good research. So this is from a 1991 New York Times piece. Mr. Khan's reputation is difficult and temperamental and is well-known bout with what he calls, quote, craziness in the late 1970s, early 1980s.

The bitter breakup of two marriages, poor career moves, emotional repression, highly publicized bouts with cocaine, money problems, and a family tragedy left him devastated. Then it says, Mr. Khan was offered an array of major roles that he turned down. Kramer versus Kramer, parentheses, quote, it was such middle, class bourgeois baloney is James Quad on Craver James Cotter Cravers Cramer Apocalypse now Superman

Mash and one flew over as the cuckoo's nest. He turned all of those down. He turned the best parts in each of those movies down. It also said he walked off the set of one movie, the whole Croft Covenant and was replaced by Michael Cain. This was the most

loose canony guy in the 70s. It's kind of amazing he put together that 10-year stretch of movies. He's so discriminating. It's almost tragic that he winds up making like five turkeys a year. You know, like after misery, he does like, misery, he does elf. Like there are like little like flare-ups where he's like, oh, James Kahn. He's back. Maybe James Kahn's going on an Oscar or something. But like, for the most part, he's like, there's a lot of trash on this filmography.

He's got two really interesting movies that nobody talks about. One is hide in plain sight, which is the movie he directed, which is really good. And also Gardens of Stone, which is probably the least disgust of Coppola movie where he plays a, a military man. That's also a very interesting movie. He did do some things in the 90s that were interesting. Misery being the peak. Yeah, that was big. I mean, that was a huge film and he's great in it. And he was like the eighth choice or something for that role, if I recall. And he turned out to be perfect for it. And he has this weird ability to be a tough guy whose intellect is clear. You know, he's like, he studied at Neighborhood Playhouse and with Sandy Meisner. Like, he studied with

like the great actors of the 50s and 60s. He's in, in class. literally with those people. So it's not as if he's just like Charles Bronson smashing a thugs face in the street. You know, he comes from a very sophisticated background, but also he grew up in Sunnyside. I'm sure he was in a fight in a stickball game every day for 10 years. And it's such a unique blend of movie star persona. Like there's almost nobody you can compare him to. He also has a great, just kind of body for a movie.

Like he has those big shoulders, almost like he's wearing football pads on. Oh, my God. The first time you see him in this movie, you're like, is he wearing shoulder pads? The way he moves around, Rollerball is the best example of this. You really have to believe in Rollerball that his character is the only guy

who can survive. They're basically trying to wipe out the entire sport. And he pulls it off. By the end of it, you're like, yeah, that made sense. I wrote down a bunch of James Con quotes. I'm only going to read you four.

Hookers? Well, I never paid for them. You know, I just gave them all the cocaine they wanted. James Con. One day you're playing the bulls, boyfriend and Nicole Kidman, the next, you're playing her dad. That ain't fun, but what are you going to do? My least favorite phrase in the English language is, I don't care. If you ask somebody, you want to make love or you want to play tennis and they say, I don't care. Well, fuck you then. I don't want to play. And then this one was my favorite. I used to say marriages were like tornadoes. There's all this blown and sucking at the beginning. And at the end, you always lose your house.

James God. What a fucking legend. Does this guy need a podcast? I don't feel like he does. I was going to ask if he wanted to do the James Conn podcast. James Con on the NBA Trade Department? Kyle Lowry. I always stays like a tornado.

Two weeks later, it'd be like Spotify has decided to cancel the James Conn podcast. So Thief got shut out in the Oscars. And it was a 5.5 million. our budget made $11.5 million. So it made back its money and then a little bit. That's it. Roger Eber loved it though.

Yeah. So did the French. Three and a half stars. He said, quote, one of the most intelligent thrillers I've ever seen. This is Raj Katnip. There's a lot of Raj in this movie. Chicago. Yeah.

Chicago, deep character development. This is everything he's looking for. All right, we're going to do the categories. But before we do, today's most rewatchable scene is presented by Blue Moon. Blue Moon is on a mission to bring some brightness. to your life, and if you need a little brightness these days, a rewatchable scene is perfect. Find one you haven't seen in a few years.

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We'll start here. I just wrote down, Khan goes to the plating company to get his money. I just, I have con goes to the plating company. Three hours. You will pay me my money. $185,000.

I am the last guy in the world that you want to fuck with. You found my money on gigs. Let us pretend that you don't know whose money it is. That's right, for Christ's sakes. I don't know who you are. Three hours. I will call the set of meat. You will pay me my money, $185,000.

We get to see Farina for the first time there. I love the office too. It's like the eight horrified people just working in this 1981 office. When we worked in an office, that's how CR would enter my office. He would always come in and move the chair on the side of my desk so he could see whatever was happening on my desk.

What do you want, Chris? And I'm going to be like, I'm here to do business with you. And I'd be like, this is a podcast company. What do you want? So good. We have to put Willie Nielsen's big scene in here. I don't know how I feel about it. It's complicated, but it's fascinating.

There's incredible eye contact stuff going on. It seems like their faces are a foot away from each other. They're just, and they never stop staring at each other. It's like almost a staring contest. Willie Nelson is, he's just, I don't know if he's a good actor, but I enjoyed watching him try to act, I guess. It is a wild scene. The Oklahoma scene in Juliette is really, really intense.

There's some real vibes going on between those two guys. I get the impression that Michael Mann doesn't have a lot of friends, but the friends he does have, he has insanely intense connection to. Yes. You know, he is like, we don't just talk about what happened in the ballgame last night. We talk about what is in the true nature of our souls. Yeah.

Like, you can sense that he is pulling from. And the fact that the Pruno operation got, bust it up. Morris's Pruno operation. It's a scene that you're not positive is working, but they're both so into it. And then it really pays off at the end when he just does the...

I don't want to die in here, Frank. Not in here. It's just fucking great Michael, man. It's really good. I really like that scene. I don't know if Willie Nelson is a good actor. But I like that he's in the movie. Ten months on you're on the street.

You know, Doc Shelton? Yeah. He's killed him. guys than the electric chair. Yeah, well, I got angina something and something and something. And I'm not going to last 10 months. And I don't want to die in here, Frank.

Not in here. I like him. I like him as an actor. I mean, he's not as precise. You feel like you don't necessarily know where he's going every time. And sometimes he'll read a line. He'll be like, I don't even know why you read it that way.

That's just an odd line reading. But, you know, he's got those big blue eyes and that his face is just it's all empathy, you know, he's so open that I think it really works. It's like very, very emotional for the first 28 minutes of this movie, but I think it really works.

He's on the postcard, right? He's on, so when I first saw it, I remember, I can't remember when I first saw this movie, but it even happened to get on rewatch because I kind of forgotten that Willie Nelson was in this for some reason.

And you look at it and you're like, why does this guy have Willie Nelson on his postcard? Right. on his dream, on his vision board. And then you're like, oh, yeah, this his best friend. But for a second, you're just like, this guy was really like Willie Nelson. Big fan of his music. Next, we watch him, we'll see.

Praski's first scene. Our entrance for Praski, we'll just do it now. We could do it later, but we might as well do it now. His first movie ever is 51 years old. He's somehow the same age as me right now, and I feel like I'm 30 years younger than him in this movie. No nothing. How is that possible?

It's like, it's like worse than Wilford Brimley where it's just like the complete laws of aging and everything. Well, the thing is, is he in this movie

dresses exactly like my grandfather dressed. And my grandfather was in his 70s. You know, with like the golf shirt tucked into this to press slacks kind of thing. The,

uh, the story in this was they couldn't find the guy's name was Leo, the evil mob boss. And man additioned dozens and dozens of people in New York, couldn't find anyone, got super frustrated, asked Brookheimer what he was doing wrong,

and man said he gave me some of the best advice of my career. He said, the right person has not walked in the room. So he kept looking, and Praski was just a theater actor. And then it led to an incredible that guy career by Robert Praski, where he eventually became Robert Praski. He shed that guy's status. What was your favorite Praski, Sean? Of all time?

Best Praski ever? Yeah, peak Praski. Well, he never got back to this specific thing, which was this avuncular, warm, familial, familiar sensibility with this just pure layer of evil right under the surface. You know, like he is an absolute assassin. You try to do it in the natural. Yeah. Yeah, I guess that is close.

He was just too evil in the natural. He was never likable in that. But he kind of became like just the first part as his career went on. He became, you know, like the theater owner and last action hero who was like, come on in, kid. He's like out of film. Mrs. Dalfire, right? Mrs. Dauphire, same thing.

Yeah. And he became just like your favorite uncle. And he never was quite as, I don't know. He's a, he's a very important actor, though, for, for, for Chris and I, because he's the guy who originated, uh, Shelley Levine. from Glenn Gary Glenn Ross. Yeah, him and Mantania are the two big mammic guys, right? That's right.

Khan lays it all out and he says, and all the things he won't steal, which I really enjoy in this scene, he's like, no nothing, just diamonds are cash. That's how I operate as well. That's right. Diamonds are cash. Yeah, I don't want any of that or the shit.

No coin collections? No. Next scene, the diner monologue, which is the reason we're doing this podcast because I think I texted Chris like two months ago. I was just flipping channels that it was on. And it was like a minute before the diner scene started. And then I was just watching the diner scene.

I was like, oh, my God. This is like one of the great scenes. It's the best moment of Khan's career, I think. I think it's better than any Godfather moment. I think it's better than any other thing he's done in a movie. Does the thing, you got to forget time. You got to not give a fuck if you live or die. You got to get to where nothing means nothing.

He basically lays out the entire spine of this character in four minutes. we'll get to the part later about what was the relationship between these two people we have that later put it this way it's in picking nits this is my favorite first date

in movie history it's the most and it's funny because we always joke and heat about why you're so interested in what I'm reading lady and that ends up with falling them in love

so it's basically the same ridiculous premise for love that movie like the EDI and Neal date is like something out of a Nancy Myers movie compared to this date where James Scott is two hours late picking her up.

His mate good is like, what do you bust in my balls for? Let's go get some coffee. What else you got going on? He grabs her. He pulls her out by my shoulder. They go get coffee. They scream at each other the entire drive to the diner,

going to a coffee shop. And she's like, my ex-boyfriend was a Coke dealer. And then he's like, you're waiting on a bus that's never going to come. And then he tells this whole story about, you know, I was basically next up in the gang rape fantasy league. And word comes down and then I'm next. And it's just like, you just met this woman like 10 minutes ago?

What's happening? But it is so compelling. They would go into these cells and grab these young guys and bring him up to hydrotherapy in a mental gang bang. If a guy puts up a struggle, they beat him half to death and he winds up in a funny farm. Anyway, word comes down that I am next, and I do not know what I am supposed to do. I am scared. 11, 30, 12, lights come on, and I got this pipe from plumbing.

And I whack the first guard in shins. I go through a convict and another convict. Anyway, I get to Morphus, and I whack them across there twice. boom and then they jump along me do a bunch of things i spend six months in the hospital ward but morphus he is also fucked up real good cerebral hematoma they pinching him out and he can't walk straight he dies two years later which is a real loss to the planet earth con said it's uh the scene of which he's the most proud of in his career and then the wide shot they filmed it at some Howard Johnson's in Illinois that man had a connection to.

Wide shot. Some heat DNA, although in heat they don't have, you never see the two guys. So I think that's how he tried to make it different. But just a memorable scene. Sean, what was your reaction when you saw it again when you rewatch this? Just thinking back to my experiences with Captain Morphus, you know, the tough times that I had with him to. All my lead pipe battles. No, it's like, it's an amazing piece of filmmaking.

and I think one man is clearly a guy who's obsessed to drinking coffee at midnight and frankly, I relate to that. I really relate to that whole idea of it's really late and we need to get coffee. But I think in addition to the diner part, the most underrated part of that whole sequence is after he pulls her out of the club when he's late and they're in the car and he's giving her the speech and he's like, let's get on with this big romance. And it's like, what, what happened? I love the idea of two people who have never spoken to each other who've been looking at each other for eight months. And they've made eye contact and they know there's a connection. And so they've cut out all of the games, right?

That's what he's interesting. He wants to cut to the chase. I crack safes. I'm going to crack this love affair as quickly as I can. See? See what? See? I am a straight arrow.

I am a true blue kind of a guy. I've been cool. I am now unmarried. So let's cut the mini moves and the bullshit. and get on with this big romance. James Khan being so impatient with somebody that he is planning to spend the rest of his life with is fucking hilarious.

That's so funny. This guy is so precise in every other part of your life. Every time there's a one last job movie, I always don't understand. It's like, why don't you just ask her out after the last job? Right. Do the last job and then be like, guess what, baby?

I'm rich because I just got all these diamonds. I'm on my way out of town. One way to take. it. We're going to Panama. We're gone. Like, there's no like I'm going to move you to the suburbs, but then I'm going to stop coming home at night. And then I am going to weirdly go to L.A. for six weeks. It's like, no, just be like, the one last job is done. Now you and I go to Disneyland. The one last job, and then this woman is complicating just how you're supposed to do the one last job, basically. That's a Michael Mann recurring thing. So I wanted to ask you guys in terms of the restaurants.

Yeah. So we've got the coffee shop. another huge, huge great scene in this movie is at the Chinese restaurant. What do you think are a man's top four, top five type of restaurants? Obviously, diner number one. I would say Chinese restaurant number two. Probably Muso and Frank style steakhouse number three. Yeah. I can't believe he's never filmed in like Dan Tannas.

Yeah, really like, I would say. Close confined with like booths. Yes. And then I would probably go like very, very traditional sushi. No, I think habachi. Habachi. I think he's all about habachi. The blades, think of the blades glimmering off the light.

That's pure man. Borderline Dian waiters' performance by the waiter in the Chinese restaurant. Yeah. David. Did you have a name yet? David's a good name. Yeah. All right.

Next scene is the elevator scene is like weirdly harrowing when you're watching it. Like just how they do it when they cut this square and then he looks down and it's like this 40-floor shaft. And he's like, okay, cool, I'll just dangle over this and cut. And you're like, what are they doing? How are they doing? And then you realize, like, oh, they're getting the wires to cut the thing. Just the precision of that scene is Michael Manette as best. And it leads to them breaking it.

But I actually weirdly like the elevator scene more. It's fun to watch them crack the safe, too. I watched the movie with my wife, she was watching it for the first time last night. And anytime people were talking, it seemed like she was riveted. And any time they were drilling, they were drilling something, her iPad was in front of her face. And it's interesting because like, I think we skip past the first safe crack too, but I think that opening sequence too is really, really great. Especially you get that shot where he goes into the drill and you're like, oh, oh, God, this is, okay, this guy is obsessed. He's got a keyhole sized camera.

But I still find that stuff really cool to watch every single particular bit of procedure. Well, I wonder, like, so Fincher does panic room and he probably saw Thief like two weeks before he started filming and was like, fuck this. Man thinks he did a good job in Thief. Watch what I'm going to do here. I'm going to go into walls. I'm going to bounce around.

Like, he doesn't even care about the actors. Next scene with two more most watchables. I wrote, Praski lays down the law. An incredible Proscue monologue. Some of it is NFSW, but, you know, a whack-out. your whole family. People be eating them

their lunch tomorrow and their wimpy burgers and not know it. And also, a man switches the camera so he's like upside down is he's, it's,

it's from Frank's POV so Leo's like upside down to him. That seems amazing. Your kid's mine because I bought it. You got him on loan. He is leased. You are renting him.

I'll whack out your whole family. People will be eating them for lunch. lunch tomorrow in their wimpy burgers and not knowing. You get paid what I say. You do what I say. I run you. There is no discussion.

I want you work until you are burned out. You are busted. But you're dead. Great process. Also, Belushi gets dropped in acid at the end of it. Yeah, that's a tough end for Belushi. Just to kind of, like, put an exclamation point on the sentence. They're like, by the way, here's your best friend.

Yeah, I was going to have the scene before when. when Belushi dies, but I actually wanted a little more from that scene. Yeah. I could have gone like another minute. Yeah. They're setting it up with the guys hiding behind the wall and Belushi. And I just, I thought that could have been better. That's a sensitive subject because as Sean knows, that's how I respond to any,

any criticism or edits of my work. I just go around to all of my places and blow up my apartment and blow up the office. That's true. And you dip all the people who tweet at you in acid at the end. And then last is the ending. Yeah. I have some issues with the ending, but I think it's really fun to watch. I do like that he just, you know, it's the typical, this guy's getting revenge on everybody and at the end.

I love that it hinges on a taglia getting a glass of milk, though. You want some milk? What do you guys think about the fact? Well, this is, so this isn't the ending that he wrote. At the ending he wrote, he reunites with Jesse at the end. What do you think about the fact that we just see him kind of walking off into the distance in the final scene. I would have liked to have seen the girlfriend again.

A reunion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I thought that would have been just a little bit more satisfying. I get the point that it's like he's a man alone, right? He's best when he works alone and he doesn't want to be encumbered by the business of these criminals. But I don't know.

We get all invested in Tuesday well throughout this whole movie and then he puts her in a car. And then what? What happens? Yeah, I guess I kind of feel like when he burns the, the vision board postcard, he's sort of giving up that idea of himself as somebody who could be happy. And that like to do what he does and to be what he'd gone through, go through what he's gone through, he can't really like make himself emotionally available. Although James Kahn is certainly emotionally available.

He can't really do that with a woman. And so also he did, you know, he did just murder five guys. So the heat might be still on him a little bit. My biggest in pick is I think he would have gone back in the house and stolen some shit. all those guys are dead anyway. I mean, maybe you have to get out of there because there's gunshots, maybe when neighbor's cousin's...

Leo's wife or whoever was watching the TV is still in there. I'm taking her out. At that point, like, there's five dead. It's definitely five and six. She's out and I'm going to steal some stuff and that's it. But that's such a purposeful choice that he doesn't kill her, right?

She's an innocent and he's sparing an innocent and he's taking out everybody who would do violence to him. I don't know. He's a man who lives by a code. He's a samurai. It's funny. So he has...

Michael Mann has this movie where he has to send the wife packing. Miami Vice, which I think he had a pretty big imprint on season one, the greatest episode, the two-part, the two-part, Kyle Daron's Revenge, where it seems like Sonny Crockett's getting back together with his wife and then realizes it can't happen, sends her off. And then Heat, the same thing, right? He walks away. He's 30 seconds if you can't walk away, blah, blah, blah.

and he's, Amy Brenneman's in the car, the hotel's blowing up. And then Neil's just kind of walking by her and going, but it's a recurring theme in the man movies. It's weird too, because hasn't Michael Mann been married to the same woman for like 50 years? Like, why does he have these weird representations

of like, this woman will hold you back and get you killed in an airport hangar? Like, what is it? Why don't know what was happening? It is one of those things where if you're the wife after like the seventh time, it happens in a movie, you're kind of like,

hey, what are you trying to tell me here? Yeah, maybe you want to go get coffee at midnight and tell me about what's going on? Do you regret not walking away from me in 30 seconds at the Howard Johnson's? All right, that's it for most rewatchable. Oh, what do you have for most rewatchable scene? I think it's probably the, honestly for me, it's the diner scene with Tuesday Well. Me too. Okay.

Can I just throw out one more honorable mention for rewatchable scene? Yeah. Or actually, you know what? I'll do it in what stage the best. Go ahead. All right. Today's most rewatchable scene was presented by Blue Moon. Blue Moon on a mission to bring some brightness in your life for fresheny flavor, Valencia,

orange peel, subtle sweetness balanced by a hints of Coralander. Let's face it, we could all use a bit more brightness these days. I know James Conn's character in this movie could celebrate responsibly. Blue Moon Brewing Company Golden, Golden, Colorado. A.L. Okay. What's age the best? Chris, why don't you start, since you were saving it for what stage is the best? What age is your best? The dialogue.

So my, this is basically like, he's riffing, I don't know, I can't remember what the David Mamet chronology is here, but like clearly it's influenced by David Mamet. And I was watching this video interview with Belushi and he was talking about how man was very insistent that these guys never speak in contractions. That it's like, it's never, I can't, it's always, I cannot do that because they're so detail-oriented. They're so precise in their work that they never want to be misunderstood. And the dialogue is my favorite kind of dialogue, because, because it never dumbs down for the audience. There's no character in here who's like,

hey, what are these guys talking about? And they're like, well, I'll explain it to you. It's all this incredibly deep lingo and vernacular of the criminal underworld in Chicago. And that goes for, I was going to mention this is the most rewatchable scene. It goes for the criminals. It also goes for the cops.

Because we haven't mentioned Dorese yet. And the cops in this movie. But that whole speech that Jimmy Khan gets when he's getting his ass kicked by the cops. and they're like, you're taking a trimming. Like, you know, like you're a good guy, maybe a ball game. But you're a prick, you know, and it's just like this amazing, like, this amazing underworld language that I just think has just aged incredibly well.

I agree. Morwood's aged the best. Tangerine Dream. What a run for them. Yeah, man. Early 80s. This is really all we had for cool music. We had this and Vandellis and Howard Falemeyer.

Hot off of their work for Sorcer. They go sorcerer score, thief score. And then risky business. That's right. That's elite. Yeah. Great job by them. Chris, I want your thoughts on another way it's age of best.

Frank's collage. It includes photos of young children he doesn't have, a car that he doesn't have, a house that he doesn't have, his mentor who's in jail, Willie Nelson, and a lot of skulls. 12 skulls. This is what he looks, 12 skulls. That's what he looks at to, uh, stay motivated. Do you have your own collage? And is Sean on it? Yeah, Sean is on it. It's really just Sean. It's shot at different phases of his life. It's just my skull, actually. And the

cool thing about it is it's now an NFT. So you guys can buy into it if you want. It's, it's Sean, it's, uh, Matisse Thibel. It's a child I don't have. Sam Hakey. A nice house in North London. The Nick Falls Philly special. So does Michael Mann know that he invented Pinterest? Is he aware of that? Oh my God. Great point.

This is a mood board, man. I mean, he did it. Invent a movie. Another one stage is the best. James Kodd saying, I want a boy and Praski going, done. You've got a boy. Fucking unbelievable. Done.

Done. That actually, that is my favorite conversation. That second meeting with Praski. The two of them, in that bar and the energy between them, the like Khan trying to push it harder and harder and harder. And every time Proscke's like, whatever you want, baby doll, whatever you want.

Shut it. I think that's the part where Praski says, kids are special, a miracle, a little hoochie-coo, drop of energy, Wham-Bam Magic Sam. Wham-Bam Magic Sam. Praskey. Morwood's age the best.

This was the film debuts of Jim Belushi, William Peterson, Dennis Farina, John Capulos, the janitor from Breakfast Club, and Prossi. Farina was a Chicago policeman at the time of filming. But Belushi was such inspired casting

in 1981. I didn't know who the fuck he was. By the way, I forgot to tell you, I saw this in the theater with my dad. Wow. In 81? I think I was either 11 or 12, yeah, in Boston. Wow. And I just, when they saw James Ballucci, It was kind of like, James is that?

And then he looked like John Belushi. John Belushi was still alive. He was one of my favorites. And this is really, really early Belushi. Like, he's local guy. He's doing, what's the Chicago Improv? I'm Blank and Groundlings. Second City?

Second City, yeah. So he's there. They pull him out, which leads me to another what's age the best. John Belushi visited the set often. And apparently the cast and crew hung out at Belushi's speakeasy. the Blues Brothers Bar,

which is their famous bar in Chicago, that they didn't charge anyone any money so they could just stay open all night. I'm just going to throw this out there as a what's age the best. 1980 James Conn and 1980 John Belushi hanging out in Chicago, there's got to be some stories.

Probably had some fun. Yeah. Got to get James Con on a podcast just to be like, hey, just wondering, what happened in Chicago with you? you guys. Morwood's age the best, Belushi's sideburns. I thought they were fantastic. And Tuesday Weld, let's talk about her. I texted this to Wesley last night and he approved. As you know, Wesley invented the concept of market correction. Jessica Lang, kind of market

corrected Tuesday Weld, just sent her packing right around here. It's a great call. It's a great call. She had a very good career. She did. I'm nominated for an Oscar. She was. And, you know, she got very famous on Dobey Gillis, right, in the 60s on TV and was like a, kind of like a Sally Field-esque kind of like really cute actress from that time. And I think she's terrific in this movie. She is awesome in this movie. She's really good. But she didn't do, I mean, she hasn't acted in 20 years.

I mean, she didn't have that thing that a lot of actors of her generation had where they kind of evolved into like the mom role in the 90s. She didn't really do anything like that. So she has kind of like shifted out of the consciousness for the over the last 30 years. But again, watching it, I was like, she's perfect in this movie. She's great. I thought it's the most glaring looking at the Oscars. The best supporting actress category is pretty weak.

And she probably could have nailed that down. It's also, I think, you know, you could knock these kinds of movies for the short shrift. They give the wife or girlfriend characters in these films. I would love to see more, at least try something like. this where it's like, look, yeah, basically you're going to be the third person in a couple of scenes. But like, here's a 20-minute scene to just go absolutely, like, come off the bench and score 22 right here. And like, you're going to, you can have a career off this scene, basically. Yeah. Last one. This is what Mann said about the final decision in the movie.

I think this is from the ringer piece. He's vulnerable and weak. Why is he vulnerable and weak? He had nothing. Now they have something. And when he has something that has me, meaning it can be threatened to be taken away from him so that weakens him. So his act at the end is the only act he knows. It's nihilistic. Destroy it. Return myself to having nothing anymore because then I have the power. I have tremendous power when I have absolutely nothing.

Michael Mann, fun hang. I feel like that's you once you finish the last man movie on the rewatchables. Just delete the feed. Burn it all down. I have nothing. I own all the podcasts. Sean dips me in acid. Bill's just walking around.

We do heat for. it's the 500th episode. It's me, Chris, and Tom Seismore doing heat. And then that's it. That really will be the end of the feed. Yeah, that really. Definitely. What stage is the worst. I only have two things here. The film was nominated for a Razzie Award for worst musical score. It completely invalidates the Razies. How do you come back from that? Yeah. Just a horrible call. And then I have Willie Nelson as a What's Age the Worst, or where it's not for his performance in the movie, but the stunt casting aspect in 1981

of having Willie Nelson in a movie was like a real thing. I don't even know, it would be like having Taylor Swift in a movie now. Playing like somebody who's in prison. Like, Willie Nelson was really famous in 1981. He was like him and Dolly Parton, I feel like we're the two biggest, most famous artists in that whole genre. He had very purposefully, though, started acting.

Like he was in Electric Horseman and Honeystuckle Rose before this. And so it felt like, there was a thing where he was like, I'm an actor now. And he did a like a bunch of movies up until like 85, 86. And then I think when Farmaid becomes a much bigger concern, he pulls back from Hollywood again. It's so strange to see him though, because there are certain people who are so famous in a very specific way. Like they're indelibly themselves that you're like, I can't really imagine you as somebody else here. And so when he pops up, you're just like, why is Willie Nelson here? Is this a dream sequence?

Like you're really shocked by it. Yeah, it was, I think it really helped the movie when it came out. It was James Con and Willie Nelson were like the two draws. Nobody knew who Michael Mann was. Nobody knew what thief was. All right, we're going to take a break. We'll do this. Wait a second.

I have another What's Age the Worst. Oh, let's hear it. This is age the worst, but I'm bringing it back. I just want to give you guys a heads up. All communications, Craig, if you need me, Bill, if you need me, Sean, if you need me, they're running through my favorite bar. You got to call the bar to find me. When I go into the bar,

I expect the bartender to have a couple of messages for me. If I'm leaving the bar, I expect like some degenerate gambler to have to chase me down the street to be like, Chris, Bill's on the phone. I like, that is an underrated, like we're being bombarded by Slack messages and text messages and Twitter and everything else.

Like, let's all start taking our phone calls through the bars. Let's bring bars back in 2021. that's great. What's the name of your bar, Chris? I don't know, but like it should be like Chrissy's Fifth Amendment. You know what I mean? There was a, wasn't there Jackie's Fifth Amendment on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn? Remember that? That's actually great. I'll put some money behind that. I'll put that money on the street. Taking a break coming back with the rest.

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All right. Casting what ifs. So Jeff Bridges was Michael Mann's choice to play Frank. Was rejected by the studio because he was too young. They didn't feel like he was experienced enough to be a hardened criminal. I don't like it. I don't get it. I think he's a little too young. He's not tough enough.

Yeah, you seem in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. He's not that guy. He's a sweet guy, Jeff Bridges. James Connell hit you in the back of the head with the butt of a gun. It says there's research that says, Gene Hackman and Roy Shider were considered. I don't know if that's true or not. I thought Rush Shider was a good one, though.

As you know, I love Rush Shider. They both would be good, I think. They both have the same end of the tough guy energy. Hackman feels like too close to a couple of the roles he's played in the past. But Roy Shider, I would have been all in on. Michael May had originally intended to score this movie with all Chicago Blue stuff, realized it was the wrong energy and gravitated toward Tangerine Dream. So it could be a little more pulsating, a little more energy.

but then circle back and collateral with me and Chris, one of our favorite scenes. Audio slave or with the jazz scene? No, the jazz, the blues and that guy and them talking about... Miles Davis, yeah. Yeah, all that stuff. Tom Cruise talking about Miles Davis

is better than anything that's appeared in any other Michael Man movie. The film's original title, Violent Streets. That's tough. A little on the nose there. Yeah, that one didn't make it. When Thief is not the most on the nose title, you know you've got a problem.

Yeah. Best That Guy, aka the Joey Pants Award. I don't even know how we give this out. I mean, there's... The movie's 40 years old. Nobody... But I will say Praskey was a that guy. Dennis Frina was of that guy.

They both became who they became. I was almost going to say maybe we should change it just for this movie to the old rookie of the year award. Because none of these guys are particularly young, but Praski, Farina, and Peterson coming out and just... and just blowing our doors off and being such staples for the next 30 years is, I guess, worth mentioning. I think the only guy who held back-eye status is Ataglia, Tom Cigarelli. He's the only guy who he's been in a ton of stuff.

He's always like the eighth goon and everything. And he never became a famous person. De Vincent Hanna, give me all you got a word for overacting. I mean, it's either Khan on the first date with Tuesday Weld. What do you think I do? I'm a thief. Come on, come on Come on

Every morning I walk in for five months say hi What the hell do you think that I do? You sell I'm sorry, that's what you do I wear a hundred and fifty dollars slacks I wear silk shirts I wear eight hundred dollars suits I wear a gold watch

I wear a perfect D flawless Three-carat ring I change cars like other guys change their fucking shoes I'm a thief I've been in prison all right So what? I don't care. So what?

Don't tell me. So what? I never even told my wife that. I don't care. Who is now born? Or everything he does in the adoption scene is so over the top. Oh, no, I love it. Oh my God.

No, it's great, but he's dialing it up. He dialing it up both times, both of those scenes. So we have to give it to him. The Jud Nelson Award for the person who seems like he might be in a different movie than everybody else. I got to say Willie Nelson, just because it's Willie Nelson. Everything about that scene is just kind of. You've been nosing around criticizing Willie and I won't have it. I'm not criticizing him, I'm just saying.

Willie gets to say, lie to no one. If there's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they? You've got to lie to them. That's amazing. He also details the sexual proclivities of guys in Juliet where he's just like, like it used to be, they got like the peters and the rapists in here used to get those guys out of General Pop. Get him on the funny form.

Yeah, get him on a funny form. Bimon in the old days. Dion Waiter's Award. We can give this to Willie if you want. Praski's probably in this too much

to be eligible. For Rina doesn't really do enough. Santucci for Detective Resee? Love it. I was going to say Balushi. Mitch is good.

I think Arise gets it. I just enjoy it, but I just it's the Belushi you're right, Belushi doesn't dial it up enough, I guess. So you're saying

because I had the the Sarge, I had him recasting couch. I had a better idea for an actor. Okay. Because that guy was basically a jewel thief that they threw into the movie as a sergeant. Was thinking, what about Jonathan Banks? Would have been like the perfect time for him. Oh, yeah. This is back in a... 48 hours, right? Same year as 48 hours, basically. Two years for Bev Hills cop.

Just to... I could just see him in this movie. He's like the one type of person that's missing. the guy who ended up having the 40-year character actor career. I like how you went Bev Hill's cop, but not B.HC. You could have got BHC. So for Dian Waders, who do you guys have? I have John Santucci as. I agree.

I really like him. And it's nice that he has the store. I mean, that's the guy. He was like the consultant. We get 10 points. Is Tuesday Weld eligible for Dian Waders? She's probably in it too much. I think she's in it too much.

She's in it for a amount. All right. Have Fast Internet research. We mentioned how they hung out with real-life crooks, learned how to rob shit. Man brought Khan to Gunside Academy of Firearms School in Arizona. So that's why when he goes in the house, he looks so realistic. That Howard Johnson's restaurant, which, according to Alan Siegel's research,

he took his future wife there in 1971 for coffee at the exact booth that they filmed that scene in, and they talked all night. and 50 years later they're still married. Pretty interesting that it has that connection and it's the best scene in the movie. All the burglary tools, burglary tools, were not props, but they were real tools and the actors were trained to use them,

which I thought it was crazy. A 60,000 gallon water truck was used to keep the streets constantly wet, which was another man's staple. I honestly think he might have invented that. Because that was definitely a Miami Vice thing. It was definitely a thing a lot of his movies, like just wet streets,

light glistening off things. And I don't know, if it wasn't him, I don't know who else would have kind of invented that. Would you, Scorsese did it a little bit in taxi driver because I remember that was in our research, but just like, man was like, every scene in this movie, the streets are soaking wet. Well, there are a lot of interviews with man

where he talks about his visual sensibility, and he tells this same kind of like non-an anecdote over and over again, where he says, before he was a filmmaker, and you guys may have talked about this on the show before, I don't know, but he would say I would drive around and I would look at things.

I would look at bridges, and I would look at the water and the way that the water hit a bridge or hit the shore, and I would start to think visually about the world I was living in. And on the one hand, it makes man seem like kind of,

kind of a weird guy. That seems like kind of a weird way to spend an afternoon, just driving around looking at bridges. On the other hand, he's all about the urban landscape, you know, colliding with the natural world, right?

Those are the things that really interest him visually. And so the slickness of the rain off the neon lights, these are like signatures for him. And they're clearly something that are, you know, that resonate in his mind. And he goes back to over and over and over, like in collateral, same thing. Look at the way the collateral looks. It looks totally different from any other movie you've ever seen. So I think he's just got one of those like singular brains. The same way, Bill, you don't ever forget anything about what happened in the NBA between

1965 and the present day. I wish I could. He has his mind. More half-ass internet research. So that green mill, it's a jazz club and cocktail lounge in uptown in Chicago. It was an Al Capone hangout. And the booth they shot in, which was kind of in the middle where you could see everything,

was the Capone booth because he'd like being able to see all the parts of the club at the same time. It's based on a book, but man said they optioned it, but he didn't really use stuff from it. And then Balushi begged to do his death scene himself and absorbed a dozen, dozens of squib shots, and they had to give him a perk a set. The last thing for Half Fast Internet Research, I highly encourage you guys to read Tuesday Welds Wikipedia. It's lit. What's on there? There's a lot of stuff on there. It's a lot.

I'll just give you a brief tidbit. Between marriages, well-dated, Al Pacino, David Steinberg, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Omar Sharif, Richard Gere, and Ryan O'Neill. And then in parentheses, it says, Mikhail Berishnikov, whose previous girlfriend, Jessica Lang, had Ben Weld's best friend.

Whoa! The Wikipedia is loaded with stuff like that. It's like her trying to get Lolita with Stanley Kubrick, and she was... So she was best friends with her own market correction. Yeah. That's got to be a first.

A lot of stuff. Very, very, very enjoyable. This should be like a podcast of just like the top 100 most fascinating Wikipedia pages because hers was way up there. Apex Mountain, Jimmy Con, no. No.

Tuesday, well, I would say no. Even though she's really good. Michael Mann, no. Praskey? I mean, it's a hell of a debut, but I feel like he's in like Hoffa, Mrs. Doubtfire. He's in like a bunch of stuff in the late 80s.

It feels like it's early 90s. He became Prosky in the early 90s. Chicago Diner's? Well, I wanted to have the Chicago movies conversation. We'll do it as the last one for Apex Mountain. Okay. Chicago Diner's? Yes.

Yes for you? What are some other Chicago diner moments? I don't know. How about illegal adoption? Apex Mountain? Legal or illegal? Illegal. I mean, he cut out.

the middleman. It's like a great podcast advertiser, you know? It's like, hey, you guys like stamps will cut out the middleman. You guys like underwear will cut out the middleman. Praski's just like, look, these ladies, don't get mad at the kid because their mom's an asshole. I think that kid grew up to be a happy kid

who now has to grow up without a father because he needed to nihilistically destroy everything in his life. Thief two. Yeah. Where are we, Michael? I know. I mean, it's like, what are you doing? This guy, this kid is starting to take down scores and then Frank comes back into his life to tell him like, hey, don't make the same mistakes

I did. Sign me up. I'm in. Let's take a break to talk about buyababy.com. Buyababy.com. You go to Robert Prosky. Apex Mountain. Willie Nelson, no.

Robert Prosky death scenes? I'm going to say yes. Yeah, probably. Great one by him. He's herking and shirking. One of the first times I think you ever see someone make noise after being shot in the head. Yeah. It was good.

This is a good one. Juliet, the prison. Because you have Blues Brothers and you end next year a thief with Willie Nelson shooting. And I don't think it ever got better for Juliet. Maybe Blues Brothers, but somewhere in here is the Joliet Prison Apex Mountain, I think. All right, Chicago movies. Yeah.

Let's go. Let's mention a couple of the Hall of Famers, right? And you guys tell me what you think is like the, maybe the best three. I think you got to put, Well, you just mentioned blues brothers, right? Fugitive and Blues Brothers. Ferris Bueller. Would you guys consider Home Alone a Chicago movie, or is it a suburb?

Is it too suburban? It's an Illinois suburbia movie. Okay. Hoop Dreams? It's in there? The answer is Ferris Bueller. Okay. More so than Running Scared, Bill?

Is too much of the running scared take place in the Caribbean? See, this isn't fair because you know that I love Running Scared the most of most out of any human being. I'm literally the number one fan of Running Scared. And the fact that Running Scared 2 didn't happen still keeps me up at night sometimes. So it's a tough fun for me to answer.

But I think Ferris Bueller uses the city of Chicago the best. Yeah. As we covered when we did the podcast on it. It hits all the pieces if you're making, if you're trying to pull out a Chicago movie, I think it does it the best. Untouchables? Widows.

Widows. Widows is going. Candyman? I would argue there haven't been enough good Chicago movies. I think it's kind of upsetting. I don't know why it's why maybe the Illinois needs to change some of the tax stuff, but why are so many movies in Boston? There's literally an Academy Award Best Picture winner called Chicago.

Fair. Yeah. Fair. Public enemies. Speaking of man. Well, send it to Sean's Twitter replies if we left out of Chicago. Thanks. Picking Nets.

the James Conn Tuesday Weld relationship is just super confusing I actually think they edited it where they made it seem like they just met when they filmed it and then they said in the director's commentary that they actually kind of did some surgery to make it seem like they had had this

eight month kind of back and forth thing to try to make it seem more normal yeah instead of him going up one time to try to make it seem more kind of organic but it's still a little odd that they just go from him showing up hours late, grabbing her by the shoulder, yanking her out of a nightclub. I just love that her story is as crazy as Hibbs, where she's just like, I was in Bogota,

I didn't have any visas. And it's believable because you can totally see her as the hot girlfriend of some cocaine guy. Let's get out with this big romance. The boat professed at the end is not obvious enough. And I think they know it because they, man's talked about it in future stuff. He's pulling it off and he's trying to show it but it's...

I just think that could have been done better. I agree with you. That whole shootout is very reminiscent of the shootout at the end of Manhunter, by the way. It's basically a dry run for that. Any other picking nits for you guys? We've covered some of the other ones.

Yeah, I have one. Are we sure that like the mall deal that Praski was offering him was that bad? It's like, it entirely hinges on like this whole thing. Now, granted, when Praski's like,

here's 70 grand, I put the rest of your money into shopping malls. But as we know from the 1980s, shopping malls, that was a rocket ship, baby. If you were invested in shopping malls in 81, you were loving life by 84. So he gets so mad at him for being like, I put your money back on the street a little bit. What do you guys think? Well, it seems like a perfect way to launder stolen money. Yeah.

How do you feel? So first of all, two interesting things about this movie. One, you learn that when you steal stuff, you don't get even half the value of the thing you've stolen. It's a $4 million robbery. He gets $800,000 in that. Yes. So you're getting a very significantly smaller take because you can't sell it wholesale because it's stolen goods.

Two, what does he do with the money? He's going to get audited. What the hell's going on here? He's going to put $800 grand in the bank? He's going to leave it in his house. He needs to put it into a mall. Seems like a good plan. Trust Proski.

Trust the Proscis. There's an alternate universe where Thief 2 is just Praski calling him being like, malls have taken off. They're filming weird science. We got the license. They're filming weird science in our mall this week. We've made another 50 grand.

Any other picket? No. Not for me. Is baby stealing this easy? How do you get a social security card for stolen babies? Hey, come on. This is Chicago.

You know how many times these guys can vote? Chris, were you stolen baby? I wouldn't know. You know what I mean? Late 70s, these things moved around a lot, you know? I'll tell you this. as somebody who's had two children, I was shocked the first time in the delivery room.

Like, it was honestly like being at the bank. Everything monitored, alarms. They always know who's going where. And it's kind of sobering that there's this many checks and balances to having a kid. They make sure that your kid is somewhere at all times monitored everything. Thank God. Yeah. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show?

my answer to this was fuck you yeah i think i'm ready i would like to know what the 2021 uh paramount plus netflix apple amazon whatever the version of this now what is it what kind of technology does a thief have in 2021 and how would this movie go in the modern age where it's not like chris said earlier where you're getting calls at your favorite bar where now it's all text and destroying burners encrypted text messages and stuff yeah well much like the inside man question, is it one job per episode or is the whole season about a job? Yeah, it's like an eight episode season about one job, right? That's what I would think. Probably in answerable questions. What happened to Frank? So, um, in the piece that Segal wrote,

he said there's some debate between man and con. Man doesn't have an optimistic view. He said, quote, where's he going? Nowhere. Um, Khan thought a man with Frank's determination would get everything he lost back no matter what. I don't know the answer. I think that's one of the reasons I like this movie. He's just kind of wandering down the street. You don't know what's going to happen to. He's also still got like all the

cops to worry about. You know what I mean? It's such a great, ambiguous ending. Thief First Heat. So, Khan said in the Siegel piece he thought it felt familiar so when he ran into Pacino he let his friend know it. I said, you

fucker, that was my movie. All the scenes that weren't used in our picture came over to you guys. Do we believe this? Oh, yeah. Like Chris said at the beginning, you know, it's all one movie for Michael Mann, right?

It's all the same motifs over and over again, but in slightly different ways. And I guess the big difference is that, like, thief is about a man alone and Heed is a showdown movie. He does a head-to-head movie. Yeah, exactly. All right, last unanswerable question.

you've got to get $5.5 million out of a bank in downtown LA. Who were you calling? Frank or Neil McCauley? Neil. Frank is so combustible. Frank can get taken off

his square with like a bad white sock score. Frank hears about like a fucking guy. Oh my God, my fantasy baseball team is ruined. He just starts bursting into tears. Neil is just like ice cold. Neil can't be rocked. Do you go to Neil directly or to go to John Voight's character?

Oh, you got to go to Void's character. Yeah, you got to go through Void. That is one thing I was going to say is that it would have been amazing if Voight was Frank. Like if Frank was what the Voight, like if Frank became voice. Oh, Chris. Like years later, he's just like setting up scores for other guys. And like, why didn't they do that? Well, how about this?

was my last unanswerable question. James Conne never in another Michael Man movie. Yeah, well, this is a guy who has used a lot of actors over the years in multiple projects. And this one, he's like, I think I'm good, Jimmy. See it the Mansion. There's a great interview with Khan on the criterion disc of this movie. And he also very carefully talks about this, but he's like, Michael Mann, he's a workaholic, you know, 18 hours a day. I'm like, enough of this shit, you know? I don't know. really, really, really funny. It is funny that one of the most notoriously difficult actors ever

and one of the most notoriously difficult directors ever made one movie together and decided, yeah, we're good. This is it. Yeah. They did do the commentary. They made something perfect. Chris, what piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? I would love to have, I mean, I would love to go back to Oldsmobiles, you know,

so I would love to get one of Frank's cars. other than that, probably Praski's yellow golf shirt that you wears on top of the building in L.A. tucked into his khakis. Yeah, yeah.

What about you guys? What about you, Sean? I'd say probably like the 2,000-pound thermal lance, you know, just keep that around my house in case I need to burn down my garage. I was thinking the big booth in the bar that they hang out

and would just be such a cool thing to have like in your living room. Like, where's that big booth? booth from and then it's got a whole story. Sure. Be a fun one. Who won the movie for you guys? Obviously, the obvious answer is Kahn, but the more and more I thought about it, the more I was like, Praski is one of the great crime movie villains I've ever seen.

It's funny, I have Michael Mann winning this movie. I can't get Kahn in the car doing, I am a straight arrow. I am a true blue kind of guy. I can't get that on my head. I'm unmarried. I've been cool. So Jimmy Conn. I love James Conn. All right. I've been. You guys won the vote. Let's bring in producer Craig, who was born minus 15 years after this movie came out.

You'd never seen this movie. No. Give us your Gen Z reaction. I don't know if I'm Gen Z. I think I'm on the borderline of Gen Z and millennial. Whatever the hell your weird generation is, give us your reaction. I don't know if the Gen Z will claim me with my age. I, you know, I enjoy it. I thought it was a little slow at the beginning,

but this was a movie that my girlfriend was not interested in, did not want to watch with me. But I like that. I like seeing Sunny, you know, get his revenge. I hate seeing Sunny die. So that's my connection to it. I loved it. His girlfriend didn't like it, so he said,

you're leaving right now, get your stuff. I have a guy picking you up in 10 minutes. Take the baby. I was two hours late because I was watching The thief. Craig, I have a message. for you. Yeah. I was state raised and this is a dead place. Hey, for the people out there, you can watch Thief on HBO Max if you have it. And it's also on HBO on demand. It's a classic. How many Michael Mann movies have we done now? Is this the fifth one? We got to do,

we got Manhunter, Black Hat, and Public Enemy's left, I think. And Ali. I don't know if Public Enemies is happening, Chris. I don't know. I mean, it's probably more likely that we'll do Black Hat, but we're going to do Manhunter, aren't we? Guys, what about the Keep? You're forgetting the keep. Jericho Mile has a much better chance of happening than the keep or public enemies. I don't know. Do you like public enemies, Chris? I don't hate it. I mean, I wouldn't call it a rewatchable, but it's like better than a lot of movies. Fantasy? It's okay. It's kind of tough with depth now. Yeah, depth sucks. Yeah. I'm mad on Depp. Yeah. I really like Black Hat. I'm like two more screenings away from getting sucked into Black Hat. Craig, have you seen Jericho Mile? No.

I'm higher on that one than Sean and Chris, I think. It's available now, though. I have the Blu-ray now. You can buy it. You couldn't see it for years. It was impossible to find. And somebody, I think, Twilight Time or something, put it out last year. It's probably one of like the four greatest TV movies ever.

All right. Check out Thief on HBO Max if you're interested by any of this. We'll see next week on the rewatchable. Sean, Chris Craig. Thank you.