The Rewatchables - 'True Romance' with Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: September 20, 2018

The Ringer's Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey honor the 25th anniversary of the action-packed romantic black comedy 'True Romance' starring Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, and many more, and written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly. Here are a few things to check out in the ringer universe before the end of the week. We've got an oral history on the movie Rounders 20 years later going up on Thursday. So read that and then check out the rewatchables episode that Bill and Sean did on the movie earlier this month. And don't forget about our extensive football coverage. We have a new pod going up every day of the week on the ringer NFL show and more football content on the Bill Simmons podcast, dual threat, and against all odds. Subscribe to those and more on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Is it White Boy Day, guys? Must be White Boy Day. It ain't White Boy Day, is it? True, romance, the rewatchables. Coming up. From the director of Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop 2. Hello, baby.

Clary? I'm a married man, buddy. A con man. Ask him if you got the letter. Did you get the letter? A call girl. You call for a day? Huh?

What are you doing in L.A. And a suitcase full of trouble. My name is Vincent Kokotty. I work his counsel for Mr. Blue Little Boyle. The man your son stole from. Now, all that stands between them and their wildest dreams are 60 cops. 40 agents. And this kid Clarence, I like them.

30 mobsters. I haven't killed anybody since 1984. You thousand bullets. We're all going to die here at the United States. Are Cops. Not since Bonnie and Clyde Have two people been so good At Being Bad Romance.

All right, Sean Fentic is here. Chris Ryan is here. It's the 25th anniversary this month of true romance, a much imitated movie that when it came out in 1993 was like an atomic bomb. It was like, what is this?

It was a roller coaster ride. There were a ton of actors. from him I knew at the time in 1993 and some I didn't know as well who now we know all of them and uh it really holds up it's probably about 10 minutes too long felt a little fat in a couple parts but has some of the great scenes of the 90s and a lot of people at the top of their games Chris Ryan yeah uh this came out when I was I guess I was 15 and that time period in your life between like 15 18 20 is like whatever the coolest thing you've seen is the coolest thing you've ever seen in your life. And that was definitely the case for this run of Reservoir Dogs in 92,

True Romance in 93. And then you can even bring in a lot of other stuff. Like Wu-Tang Clan's album came out a month after this, I think, in 93. And it's no understatement to say that my life changed in that year. Just in terms of introducing me to a whole world that I didn't know about. I think the, I think Check Your Head came out then, the Beastie Boys record, which was another big, like there's so many references. There's this whole world of like movies and soundtracks and records you don't know about. And it, it was just so intoxicating, man. And I still, I think Tarantino just was like kind of a big bang for me. Like he was kind of a comment. And I still like, I'm just so gassed on everything that he,

he's ever really done. But this movie for all, it's, it's problems and problems in retrospect. It's still rocks. Sean? Yeah, I think Chris hit on something really smart there. What? This is one of those movies that shows you about a hundred other movies. There's so many other movie posters. There's so many movies playing in the background of movies. There's so many songs that you never would have heard if you hadn't seen them in these scenes. There's so many actors who you wouldn't have thought would have been right for parts like this and they find their way in.

Tarantino and I guess Tony Scott, the director. In the same way that, like, Wu Tang and the Beastie Boys introduced you to new stuff. They introduced you to a million things in this movie. And some of it is like way over the line. and some of it is ridiculous and purposely trying to like poke at you. But man, he just showed you so much new stuff. It was such a sensory overload. It's such a fun movie.

It's like a big brother movie. It's like where like you see it and then you see Christian Slater and Saul Rubenek talking about fear and desire. And somebody leans over and like, you know, that's Stanley Kubrick movie. Like, I don't know that. I don't think I'd ever seen Walkin and Hopper really in movies before when I was this young. I mean, I think maybe, but like never like this. Yeah. Maybe Hoosiers probably before this.

I'm trying to think of what are the big. movies that those guys were in that you would have seen when you were 12 or 13. I think it's hard to overstate the Tarantino dialogue and how unique it was at the time because it's been so ripped off ever since. You know, Reservoir Dogs was the first one. But even like in this movie, when the first time we meet Gary Oldman is with Sam Jackson, they're doing a drug deal and they're talking about eating pussy. And that stuff just wasn't in movies.

Yeah. And characters who were, you know, it was basically good guys, bad guys, cops, drug dealers. and those people didn't have conversations like that. And he was able to make all of these people likable that were actually bad people. And I don't remember, I guess the Godfather did it to some degree that, you know, that was like a family mafia movie. But the way he just entered this world in the dialogue,

you always knew it was a Tarantino movie. Oh, yeah. And you could read, I remember getting all the books. I'd go to like Walden Books or Brentanos or whatever the bookstore was and I'd buy the scripts and I'd read them. Me too. They're actual books. The script's just really fun to read.

The script is really, really fun to read. You know, and he's obviously drawing a lot from like Elmore Leonard and stuff. That's the Detroit's setting. A lot of crime movies from the 70s. But the thing that was also happening was within the world of these movies, within the scripts and within the actual cinematic universe. He was building a cinematic universe at that time. Characters were there would be lines like,

Did I Lie Joe to a damn if I know. Or there'd be themes that kept coming up like cops being like you have to act, talking about acting, you know, like the Tim Roth. monologue and reservoir dogs. And then that kind of comes up again with Tom Seismore being like, act motherfucker, you're an actor, you know? These ideas started popping up.

And then with Pulp Fiction, later on, you start to find out that there are actually these connective characters that are happening in here. But even so, in true romance, like they mentioned, like, Lance runs the comic book store in Detroit. Lance winds up, I don't think it's the same person,

but that's the name of Eric Stoltz's character in Pulp Fiction. Like, there's just like this feeling like you're being led into, this whole other world of references, jokes and sayings, and also characters that may share the same world. It feels like all the characters

from those three movies could have intersected in a different movie. Well, Alabama comes up in Brows for dogs, right? She's mentioned in the movie before this as a partner that Mr. White used to work with when they were Robin Banks together, which is Harvey Keitel's character.

Yeah, it's weird. It's one of those things where Tarantino, if you had met him, I think, in real life, you would have thought, like, this guy is the classic archetype of the obnoxious video store clerk, record store clerk, you know, in this movie, the comic book store salesperson who is just knows more than you, is kind of obnoxious, has a ton of information, but to get to the information, you're like, oh, man, I got to talk to this guy. But in movie form, him doing his vision of the world was so bracing and so effective and so fun. And this movie is like,

it's one part autobiography, one part fantasy, you know, one part aspiration of what he wanted to be. There's something so funny to watch somebody try to put themselves on screen in that way and also like make themselves Christian Slater, which is not who Gwen Tarantino is. Yeah, and I think they struggled with that part, the casting part of it. There was one thing when I was researching it, there was like a 500-page screenplay that was basically three different movies. Yeah, it was the open road. Yeah, where Alabama ends up going on the road with Mr. White from Reservoir Dogs. It's natural-bore killers, right? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, his story is worth noting at this point because I feel like this is right. He sells, he sells this, he sells this, he sells this, he sells this reservoir dogs, he keeps reservoir dogs to direct for himself and sells this. Tony Scott wanted to direct both of these movies. He was paid 50K for true romance. Use that money to fund reservoir dogs. Right. And then gave Tony Scott the choice.

Right. And then the thing that's really interesting is that obviously he's this outsider. He's working at a video store in Manhattan Beach. She's friends with Roger Avery. they're kind of like he's been trying to get get work. Once it happens for him, it goes zero to 60. He's immediately considered no tour. The one thing I wanted to ask you, because you were probably...

I was right out of college. Older, like, did you, when was the first time you heard about him? And did you hear about Reservoir Dogs before it had theaters? Like, or... Because there was a lot of talk about Tarantino. It was like, all those actors who were in this movie were like, I have to be in this. Yeah, and Reservoir Dogs played Sundance. was like a major thing when it played Sundance.

But did you... I saw True Romance first and then circle back and saw Reservoir Dogs. I never saw Reservoir Dogs in the theater. I think it came out. I think I was in college and I just missed it. I think it was like one of those things that didn't even really know this happened. It's not like it was a box office success. And it wasn't in, you know, 5,000 theaters.

It wasn't those things. I saw True Romance in the theater. And there just wasn't movies like that. I think now people have tried to imitate those type of movies so many times. where this exhilarating ride with characters and actors that are really going for it. And a couple twists and turns and some big-ass scenes. But in 93, that wasn't happening. And it was also a pretty weird time for movies, not necessarily a good time.

You know, it was like very generic kind of. Yeah, it's right at that tipping point from going from like driving Miss Daisy into that, like, the Sundance Brats like moment where Robert Rodriguez. This is when things take off. Tarrantino, Soderberg, all these guys come along. And then Fincher, Paul Thomas Anderson. And then movies change. Like, movies in the 90s change a lot.

This is kind of, you're right. This is like a crux point. We're setting up 96 to 2000, which is one of the best five-year movie runs ever. But 94 is one of the best mainstream movie years ever. But that 90-91, 92, it just wasn't that good. It was a lot of sequels. It was a lot of people being disappointed. That's when William Goldman was writing a lot for New York Magazine.

just constantly like what the hell's going on. How is everybody missing on this stuff? Where are movies going? And then this movie happens. The big picture. That's all of his essays collected, which is the name of my podcast. It's basically 88 to 93.

Yeah. And, you know, a lot of it's like, yeah, pretty woman, how did this happen? Richard Garrett made 10 straight, terrible movies. And then all of a sudden he's in the biggest, but there was really no rhyme or reason of what was going on.

But what was really not going on was a lot of creativity. Yeah. And then Tarantino came in. it's like, oh, movies. Oh, cool. Yeah. And he obviously stimulated something in the people who are working with him, but most of all, what was interesting was that after dogs came out and he obviously set himself up as this otore who's going to direct his own work, but then you have Tony Scott's reading of his work, like Tony Scott's rendition of his script. And it looks like Beverly Hills cop. It looks like top gun. You know, it's got Jeffrey Kimball shooting it. It's got Hans Zimmer music. It's really, really

interesting and this is sort of right where I think there starts to be a critical recognition of what Tony Scott brought to movies and what he did specifically. He's become kind of a hip director posthumously. But back then people kind of like to Tony Scott as the guy who made like Jerry Bruchheimer movies, right? Yeah, well he did the hunger in the in the late 70s, early 80s and people like, this guy's a great artist. And then he does Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop 2. And it's just like, oh, he's a Hollywood guy. He's a slick Hollywood guy. But did everyone feel that way? Because I love Tony Critics did. Critics did.

Yeah. I didn't care what like Peter Travers thought. But I loved it. So he he rips off. Tony Scott rips off. Top Gun. Uh-huh. Beverly Hills Cop 2, which is a great movie and was super satisfying and made a lot of money.

And everybody came out of the theater and was like, that was awesome. I loved it. Days of Thunder. Cruz did a lot, the racing car movie. Revenge was his only miss, the Kevin Costor movie, which didn't work and probably you should have. I don't really know what happened. But it's sort of lived on as like a. film Tumblr, like look at this still from revenge.

It's so awesome. Yeah. But then Last Boy Scout was when there was backlash. And I remember being disappointed with Last Boy Scout because it was like Bruce Willis at the height of his powers. Damon Wayans, like everybody's just so ready for another Eddie Murphy. It's like, hey, a funny black guy. And action movie and their sports and people just wanted that to be awesome.

It's actually kind of better than Shane Blackscript, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's better than people remember. But at that time was just considered kind of, it didn't totally work. Famously horrible production. Everybody on the movie hated each other. Everybody hated Bruce Willis.

Joel Silver and Tony Scott didn't get along. This then influences true romance quite a bit, which we'll talk about. Yes. Yeah, it's funny. Tony Scott, though, at the time, I think everybody was like, he's all sizzle, no stake. Like, he doesn't really have anything to say. He's just got amazing style. And, you know, there's a case for that.

But him with a good writer and a good movie star is awesome. Yeah. And then he does true romance and crimson tight air, which Tarrantino did a little. a little bit of dialogue polish on, on Cerns of Tide. There's a Christian Slater moment that has to be mentioned. Yeah. He does Heather's, which was a really important indie movie and really creative in a thing. It was him and Winona.

It's hard to believe that movie got made now. It's basically like a school massacre. It's really dark. Yeah. I don't know. It was dark 30 years ago and now it would be even darker. But one of my favorite movies that year, I even remember where I saw it just. fucking loved it. And then he does pump up the volume, which is this iconic 90s, indie great soundtrack.

Christian Slater invented podcasting. Christian Slater. A volume invented podcasting. So we've talked about that. Where did we first talk about that? I don't remember. We've talked about it before. Christian Slater 100% invented podcasting.

He's the original Joe Rogan. He's like, I'm out of here, man. We actually should do like a rewatchable's or a second watch or something of that movie because I think people would be stunned that it really didn't invent podcasting. then he does Robin Hood, then he does Untamed Heart. Yeah. And it's kind of falling apart a tiny pit for him

because there's this moment where it was like that's the next Jack Nicholson. Sounds like he had somewhat of a rocky off screen life at that time. Yeah, he had some substance stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, he had, I think he was arrested. He was arrested multiple times. Yeah. He also was a child actor because he was in a couple of things when he was like 15, 6. He was a legend of Billy Jean. Yeah, he's gluing the cube.

He'd done a much stuff. But I had, I had a lot of personal equity in Christian Slater. I think a lot of people did it. It was like, that's our Nicholson. That's going to be our guy. And it didn't happen. And then he's thrown in true romance. They dye his hair. And it was kind of like make a break for him. He ended up being really good in it. But he was the sell of the movie. Wines up having like a pretty much a lost

decade after that. What's interesting is Brad Pitt's in this movie right after Thelma and Louise. So he had some smoke and cachet. It's kind of surprising they just didn't have Brad Pitt as the lead of this movie or at least push for it. It doesn't seem like that even ever occurred to anybody. It was always Slater. One of the things is really interesting when you go back and read about all the movies of this era is how many different people were going for these parts. And also just in terms of like the production schedules, I can't remember what Brad Pitt did right after Thelman Louise. Was that seven?

It's right. California maybe. No, seven was like 94, 95. He did the Thelman Louise, which I'm going to say was 90 or 91 because I was in college and then made a couple weird movies. He made like California. California, Legends of the Fall. Right.

There's a handful of movies in that. But he's like, I'll just do like three days on this. He's wanted to be in it. I just want to be in it. There's a couple people like Kim, Val Kilmer, who was just like, can I just have a part? Val Kilmer won the Slater's part. Yeah.

Yeah. I'll do anything. Valcomer, I think, would have been too old. Yeah. He would have been. It would have been. But he had worked with Scott and Top Gun. So 92% of Rotten Tomato, Sean.

Don't care. Robert Ebert. Really like this movie. Roger Ebert, the great Roger Ebert. No, he's talking about Robert. Ebert. Roger Ebert and Robert Ebert. Roger Ebert.

Come back on the rewatchable. It's the last three that we've done. He's really like. Hard to believe the most famous and good film critic of all time. I was worried about his taste. A box office failure. Bonded. Yeah.

Spent 12.5 million made 12.3. It's tough sell. It's funny to read the stories about them trying to do the test screenings and the marketing of this movie. They didn't really know how to sell to the audience. And also, like you said, I think it's a great point. People didn't really know how to deal with a movie like this. The reviews, we live in a culture now where he's like, oh, my God, this is so offensive about everything.

But the reviews of this movie, people are like, this movie's way over the line. When people were reading the script, I think Patricia Riquette was like, this movie is like real racist. You know, and like, and they had to like work through it and totally, I mean, that was, that's a whole other thing where it's like, this isn't like going back and being like, oh, yeah, man, everybody was like all movies were like this. No movie was like reservoir dogs. No mainstream movie made by a guy like this. Yeah, that was the dialogue in these movies. is still pretty scandalous. Dogs had the ear cutting scene

was the big one from that that became a whole story. Whether that went too far, should that have been in the movie? Should this be rated X? But even the Madonna conversation in the beginning, you're kind of like,

is this really happening in a movie? Like, I can't believe this. I was trying to think what the legacy of this movie was before we get to the categories. I would say it's peak Tony Scott. It's really Tony Scott throwing all his pitches.

It's a complete game, 15 strikeouts, seven walks, three hits, kind of Tony Scott movie. If you're going to say, I'm trying to explain to somebody what Tony Scott is, I have to show them a Tony Scott movie would probably be this movie.

It's got incredible scenes with cars. It's got an incredible shootout. And it's got men and women looking beautiful. And humor. And dialogue clicking. Also, he's the master of like, you know what this shot needs, steam coming out of a grate?

You know what this shot needs? all the streets have to be wet. Everything should be neon. Everything should be like blue light hitting her face in this. It's a painterly movie. You know what else it has too that is the Tony Scott thing? It has a train. You know, Dennis Hopper.

There's so many trains in Tony Scott movies. He loves the things that are moving all the time. I'll say this. When I was a kid, you know, because like obviously, like when you're a teenager, you basically have your hometown and maybe like the one or two or three places your parents have ever taken you in your life. This movie made L.A. look like another planet, man. And I think it's interesting to listen to the cast members

talk about. They were all obviously young, had some money, probably were partying a lot. And they're like, it kind of captured this moment in Los Angeles of like shady producers, everybody going out for auditions, everybody trying to get movies. And there's a couple movies around that. And all these people are in this movie at the time. And the film that they're in kind of reflects their life. And it sounds like it was a very fun loving set in terms of how much they partied and stuff like that. And especially given like what happened to a bunch of the people in this movie. I mean, yeah, it's The player was like that too, swimming with sharks. There's like four or five movies from this era that was kind of like Hollywood looking at itself, which was great because we didn't have the internet back then.

I didn't know anything about Hollywood. I just had a couple books that I read and that was it. I love watching these movies now too, having lived in L.A. for a while, like when Floyd gets confronted by the gangsters and he's given them directions about how to get to the Beverly Ambassador. And he's like, just go down Beachwood for a while, make a right, and keep going. And it's like, I know what that means now. He was actually trying to give them directions to Sunset Boulevard. And, you know, like, when I was 13, I didn't know what that was. It is slightly more fun to watch this movie when you're in L.A.

This is one of the craziest cast we've ever had. Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Rappaport, Bronson Pinchot, Saul Rubidick, Dennis Hopper, James Gendofini, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Chris Penn, Tom Seismore, Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer, Sam Jack. I think this was the first movie that was like, fucking we're going for it. We're just, here's the all-star team. I think it has the most five minutes or less great performances of maybe any movie ever. Yeah.

Where people have such limited screen time, but they're awesome when they're on screen. I mean, like Sam Jackson, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman, and Saul Ruminick. It's the best, the end waiters award. It's the best day and waiters award we've had in all the times we've been rewatched. We have to expand the field. I thought heat was like number one for, Dion Waiters, but I think this is better. This is actually almost self-aware. It's self-aware of Dion before Dion was Dion.

It's like, they know that they're only going to do six pages of script, and they're going to light them all on fire. Craig, Craig, the producer, who's doing the pod today, who hadn't seen it before, he was like, man, all these actors are really going for it. Yeah. It was kind of like, I'm getting in the game, I'm jacking up shots. Well, because you're talking about that time period in movies, and then Tarantino comes along, and if you're an actor, you must be like, it's like going from playing plotting half court basketball to Doug Moe offense.

You know, it's like all of a sudden, you're just, you're throwing, going up and down the court as fast as you can, and it's probably really thrilling. Yeah, I mean, white men can't jump was another example of, like, man, this is really original dialogue. I'm not used to this. But for the most part, it was a lot of like in the line of fire

with Kleenez with John Malkovich type of movies. Yeah. Movies you could tell from the poster what it was and where it was going. some cases it's guys trying to recreate how they talk to their friends and in some cases it's guys taking like detective novels and kung fu movies and stuff that they liked and like

just turning them to the left a little bit but you know the Tarantino voice has been written about over and over and over again it's like it's it's one in a billion it's one in ten billion like just somebody like that comes along it's also ultimately someone who doesn't play by a lot of dramatic rules because what he's basically saying is like all the voices are the voices

in my head yeah and everybody is going to sound in a certain way. It's not like those characters, it's not like the voice deviates when it's someone who's maybe not as well read or hasn't seen these movies. Everybody here has an anecdote. Everybody here has this performative monologue

and everybody here has these little ability to do this pattern that is just all in one dude's brain. Yeah. I'm probably under-over-rate or underrating 92-93 because there were good movies. I guess they were just not movies like this.

Let's hear it. I was looking at like the domestic grosses. So you had Jurassic Park, Mrs. Delfire, the fugitive, the firm, Sleepless in Seattle, indecent proposal, in the line of fire, Pelican Brief, Schindler's List, Cliffhanger, Free Whitley, Philadelphia, Ground Dog Day, Grumpy Old Men, Cool Runnings, Dave, Rising Sun, Demolition, man, I keep going. But there wasn't a movie like this, but there were, like, very smart, popular. Yeah, it's a lot of Lee Castle Rocks and Grisham, you know, movies, like. Yeah, of those movies you named, I feel like,

Dave is one of the only ones that has like a distinct voice point of view. Like, you know, Jurassic Park is a perfect movie, but it's a big blockbuster. Yeah. You know, it's Stephen Spielberg doing his thing. When you get, when it gets a little further down the list, it gets a little more interesting, like alive. Sure. That's okay. The piano, falling down, menace to society, poetic justice.

Those movies have voice in point of view. The crying game. A lot of those are L.A. movies, too. falling down, poetic justice. This one was one of a kind. But the worst part of this whole Tarantino era was all the terrible movies they spawned later. That was the tax.

You know, I like a lot of those movies. This is a funny thing we talk about. Are we going to have the amongst friends conversation now? I don't love amongst friends. Amongst Friends is really interesting. That's a Long Island movie. Two Days in the Valley. Well, two days in the valley and things to do in Denver

when you're dead were the two movies that really got killed for this. People were like, these two movies are ripping off Tarantino so hard. But B-Mines Tarantino is. still better than C minus anything coming out. I still arrive for things to do in Denver. Things to do in Denver is a cool movie. Yeah. Let's take a break.

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at Lisa.com slash rewatchables, enter promo code. Rewatchables at checkout. We save some meat for the categories because there's so much going on in this movie. Most rewatchable scene, though, I really only think there's five.

Okay. I think there has to be five choices. Clarence versus Drexel. Clarence goes back to get the money from Drexel. So if you haven't seen this movie in a while, Clarence falls in love with this hooker that his boss hires him and they get married. And he decides... She's a call girl, Bill. She's a call girl. There's a difference, she says. He decides he has to emancipate her from the pimp. He just, he can't handle it. He's got to go, like, get his stuff and make it clear to the pimp. She's with him now. Drexel Spivey, played by Gary Oldman.

Yes. That leads to a shootout. He takes the wrong suitcase, and they end up going on the run. Suitcase full of cocaine. Yeah. First rewatchable scene, Clarence goes to confront Drexel. Second one, Hopper versus Walking, I think, which might be the most famous scene of both of their careers. It's possible.

Wow. Gandoffini versus Alabama. a complicated scene. I love how all these are verses. The Coke sale with the Beverly Ambassador. Not when it all goes bad, but when Slater shows up and he's talking about his movies, that whole thing.

The Vietnam movies? In there, he's being wired. He's in a body bag? What's it called? Coming home in a body bag? We're calling it body bags, too. Got more tasting my penis. And then finally the big shootout,

the big three-way. Tarantino's second. three-way shootout in two movies. What is the most re-watchable scene? I personally think it's... Clarence v. Drexel is one of the great five minutes of the 90s. I just can't get enough of it. I think it's the Sicilian story.

It has to be. How can it not be... It's Tarantino's favorite scene he's ever written, or at least it was whenever this last time I read about it, and it's like three-dimensional chess. I can't believe how good that scene is. Oh, my God. It's a fact. You see, Cossilians have black blood

pump it through their hearts. And no, if you don't believe me, you can look it up hundreds and hundreds of years ago. You see, the more has conquered Sicily. You got out with that, too? 100%. I think, one, you got Christopher Walken playing a Sicilian, which is a ludicrous choice.

He's the least Italian person I've ever seen in my life. and he pulls it off. Yeah. You've got Hopper, who's at this fascinating moment in his career when he has survived the nine stages of fame.

He's done horrible things in his life. He's been like an amazing Trailblazer filmmaker. He's been a celebrated actor, Academy Award nominee. He's been like villains. He's been heroes. He was shooter. He was Frank and Blue Velvet.

He was all these great characters. And he actually, Chris texted me this last night. He's like so warm and like powerful in this movie, his performance, his relationship to Clarence, the way that they talk to each other, the way that they set up that relationship in like three minutes.

Yeah. And then you get to this moment in that scene. He's so incredibly good. And just the dialogue's amazing. The way that all the characters sort of gangsters surround them in this circle, the way that it's shot. It happens in like the middle of the day, but it looks like it's three o'clock in the morning.

It's so darkly lit and there's like a spotlight on them. And then the dialogue is crazy. It's two guys telling crazy Tarantino stories. Who are you? I'm the anti-Christin. You got me in a vendetta type of mood. I mean, are you kidding me? It's great.

All right, you talked me into it. I just, I love Drexel. Drexel is one of my favorite characters. Gary Oldman was pretty famous at that point. Like, he'd been in Dracula. He was a guy that everybody talked about as like, this is going to be one of the next great actors. And out of all the people in this movie seeing it 25 years ago, that was like, is that Gary Oldman? Like, you didn't even know what was going on?

What's wrong with his, why is he ever had on? Why is he talking like a black guy? What's happening right now? Let's see. We're sitting down here, ready to negotiate. You've already given up your shit. I'm still a mystery to you. But I know exactly where your white ass is coming from.

See, if I ask if you want some dinner? And you ready everyone start to try down? I said to myself, this motherfucker, he's coming on like he ain't got a camera in the world, and who knows? Maybe he don't. Maybe this fool's... Such a bad motherfucker. You don't got to worry about nothing. He just sit down.

Watch my motherfucking TV. It was such a strange. I don't even know what the 2018 version of casting would be, him in that role. There's some disagreement necessarily about, like, where the inspirations for the character come from. Yeah, Tony Scott and Gary O'Ma had disagreed about that, right? Yeah, Tony Scott says that Gary Oldham called him in the middle of the night and was like, I got it. I figured out who Drexel is. He's my drug dealer.

And then when Gary Oldman was asked about it, Gary Lom was like, fucking Tony Scott's trying to get me arrested. I don't have a drug dealer. And then his version was he just heard a bunch of black kids outside his trailer and was emulating them. Tony Scott had a really big heat check way after this movie where he gave crazy interviews and clearly didn't like Christian Slater and took credit for a lot of stuff. Yes.

I don't know. Gary Ollman could not have been happy about that stuff. No, Drexel is he's a complete Tarantino original character, though. He's fascinating. Every single word he says is entertaining. I just think it's just so rare in movies to come across the Sicilian scene. It's also just like this is another example of, I don't know if they do Drexel and they shoot it basically the way that Reservoir Dogs is shot just pretty flat. The lighting is pretty, you know, I mean, obviously because of the budget it was, they shot Reservoir Dogs for the most part in a warehouse, you know.

And if you shoot Drexel pretty straight up and you don't have the music and the lights and he's throwing Chinese food or he's like have an egg roll, all that stuff, this may just not work at all. Like that's where Tony Scott kind of makes this movie something completely different in Tarantino canon. That's why I think that's the best Tony Scott scene.

Because the music's perfect, that weird crazy techno music. Nymphomaniac is the name of the artist on that song. He's pushing the light, the light swinging back and forth and the whole dialogue where he's just like, see if you had said this, then I might have been like, this is a crazy motherfucker. But like instead you gave up everything and I gave up nothing. And he's like putting the light back and forth. I mean, it's just... And then it seems like Slater's super intimidated. And he's just kind of listening. And then he's like, well, first of all, and then he has an answer for the seven questions. Yeah. I don't know.

I just love that. I'm not watching the TV because I've seen the movie already. It's the Mac from 1972. And I'm not hungry. What's age the best? Feel free to throw in your own additional ones here. Gendolfini, young Gendalphini. Now, as this is age, you have this whole Tony Soprano experience with him. He's basically auditioning to be Tony Soprano in this movie. I mean, so many of the things that he does are in Tony Soprano.

I love this movie, and it was one of the first DVDs I bought, and I watched it a lot of times in the 90s before Tony Soprano happened. He was always the guy from this movie to me. It was always like, wow, that guy was amazing. I don't know who that guy is. Where's he from? This and he's bare and get shorty. And I always thought that those were like the two poles of Tony Soprano.

Tony Soprano was like so sweet and so charming and so evil and so menacing and so violent. And like that's that's him. It's doing the audition. Next one, age the best. Floyd. As the Beverly Investor. Where's that? Well, you go.

No. Yeah, go down. Go down. Beach, you guys want to smoke a bowl or? Oh. Go down Beachwood and drive a while and then you're going to turn right, okay? And then you go and you'll keep driving and you keep driving. Floyd was...

Did some cleaning products. Floyd was an A-plus plus in the 90s and especially in the DVD air and especially if you were getting baked at two in the morning like I may have done a few times in the 90s. And Floyd was kind of our spirit. animal. And it was interesting. I don't want to step on the internet research, but I didn't even know this until I did it. The Judd Apatow, the whole idea of Pineapple Express came from, they loved Floyd. And they were like, what would have happened if Floyd chased the Italians? The perfect thing about- The-perfect thing about Floyd, too, is, it's not like in Tropic Thunder when Tom Cruise is doing it a cameo and he's just like, I'm going to work it so hard

and make, like, I'm almost trying to go viral in that movie. Yes. Yeah. It's like, Brad Pitt is actually just like, I'm just going to lie in this fucking couch, man. And I'm going to like say a couple of improv lines. It's the only improv dialogue aside from Dennis Hopper saying you're an eggplant and Christopher Walken saying you're a cantaloupe. All the Floyd stuff is largely improvised by Pitt. He's just like so perfectly woven into the fabric of the movie. He's not trying to do anything else. But the three times you see him, you're like, I can't believe I got so lucky as to see this, this freaking performance. The thing about it is, though, he's the most.

important character in the movie. Because he's the person who gets them all together for the shootout at the end of the movie. I mean, he really is the turning point. And the whole, don't condescend me, man, I'll fucking kill you. Like that part, which is my favorite line in the movie. Don't condescend me is a good. I'm going to say it. I need to start saying that to you more often.

Don't condescend me, fantasy. I'm fucking kill you. You could kill me. I will say it with the Brad Pitt thing. And I can't remember if we've talked about this in the rewatchables before. He has this alternate path where he's one of the great character actors of all time. Yeah. Where he's created like these 15 non-essential but super memorable, fun.

He just could have done that, but it was almost like he was so handsome. Too pretty. He had to be a leading man. Yeah, I mean, like he still does that up through, I mean, like, burn after reading where he's just like, I'm going to play this like waste of space, but it's just going to be, it's actually probably what he was born to do and what he would probably prefer to do, but he's unfortunately the most famous person in the world. Seven, he's not Brad Pitt.

He's, it's like there's some character he put thought in that I can't even really describe. But that I think is a time period where he's coming to material that's not written necessarily for him, whereas I think everything after that has started to be creative for him in some way, shape or form. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. It also sets up this relationship with Tarantino now. He makes him glorious bastards like 15 years later. And now Tarantino's next movie is starring Brad Pitt once upon time in Hollywood next year. So that's another age of the best.

Dennis Hopper is Slater's dad. we talked about, but there's something so fucking likable about Dennis Hopper, especially as he got older. Like, you're really attached to shooter. You're really attached to the guy in this movie. Even like the villain in speed, it was hard to root against him. I didn't really want to accept evil Dennis Hopper. I just liked them.

Also, it's actually like a crucial scene, the Clarence Clifford scene, because we always talk about the dialogue or like these two lovers on the run as this plot point. but that's really economical film writing to communicate a lot about who Clarence was. And it's like, he's like, you're just like your mother. You know, I haven't seen you in three years. Hopper's obviously supposed to be a recovering alcoholic

because he doesn't drink beer, but he can. You know, he's like, what's the strongest thing you've got? He's got a seven up in there. You learn so much about Clarence and why he might be the kind of guy who's going to throw it all away just for this one chance. And that's actually brilliant writing.

That's the thing that gets underrated about Tarantino because we're also dazzled by the structural stuff and the dialogue. But almost because Tony Scott told this movie much more straightforwardly, we get to see some of the bare-bones stuff that Tarantino does. That's so good. That scene is funny too because it has two lines from two classic movies that Tarantino just lifts

and puts into the movie. Just like your mother is something that Hopper says in Rumblefish. Yeah. And that's the reason he gave him that line. And the beer line, the Clarence is like, beers all I ever eat is from the last picture show. And those are just like, there's little tiny things like that throughout this movie

that Tarantino lifts and puts in. And when I first heard it, I was like, what a cool line of dialogue, beers all I ever eat. And then 10 years later you see Last Picture Show and you're like, oh shit, he did that. You know, you dropped this little Easter egg in this movie. Yeah.

It was pre-internet and movie quotes and pulling stuff from the past and stuff was just a little more important. Now that's having kind of a renaissance because the Twitter gifts, now when people have reactions to stuff on Twitter, they'll just grab moments from movies. But that was kind of like,

people actually talked like that in the 90s. That's why when I started writing my column, I would throw that shit in the thing because that's how me and my friends, we just did movie lines all the time. Like that was one of the ways we connected. Another one, what's age the best? This one's for you, Chris Ryan.

Seismore and Penn together. Yeah. Just like the cop show we never got that I would have loved. Them on Fox. Like this 12 episodes. Fox cop show that got canceled. They tried to make a couple of cop shows of Tom Seismore.

He wasn't quite able to... It had to be the two of them. There's something about the two of them together. Yeah. I mean, can you imagine a more drug-addled set than Chris Tom Seismore or Chris Penn? I think so. I mean, we saw, Sean and I saw a live read of the script a couple years ago at the Ace Hotel that Ritman put together. Incredible cast of people reading that.

Was there a Ritman thing? It wasn't a Ritman thing. It was different. It was at the Ace Hotel. Yeah. So they had Christian Slater and Pritchardt do Alabama and Clarence, but the cops were the Duplas brothers. And it was like, actually, I was like,

oh, I would love to see a Duplas Brothers, like, straight up cop movie of them playing these guys. Yeah. Yeah, Seismore and Penn are incredible in this. They're incredible. I misspoke. It was a rightman thing. This was the lineup of people that did it.

It was J.K. Simmons reading the part of Clarence as a estranged father. Nice. Kevin Pollock doing walking. John Favreau did Gandalfini. Mark and Jay Duplas is the trigger happy cops. Kegan Michael Key and Paul Shear were Drexel and Elliot Blitzer. Wow. May Whitman was a number of characters, I guess.

And Jason Siegel was Floyd. Jesus. Yeah. Another one's age the best. Coming home in a body bag is just fucking funny. Right on the heels of went 40 Vietnam movies. The entire Saul Rubinick as Lee Donowitz as Joel Silver. and Bronson Pinchot.

Was he watching the screeners or the delis? He was watching the helicopters. And so the whole like Joel Silver, Lee Domoitz thing. And then Bronson Pinchot being his assistant, the blonde security. Boris. Yeah, Boris. He's like, I forgot to tell you something, Lee. I hate cops.

And then Dick Ritchie constantly trying to be like, does he know I'm an actor? Did you know him an actor? I love Lee Dano. It so much. One of my favorite movie characters of all time. Yeah. Elliot, how much of this cost me? Save it for Dionne Waiters, because it's a fascinating Dion Waders argument.

The last one stage the best for me is the Han Zimmer score. Yeah. It's really, really distinct. I like it. It makes me happy. And I think it gives the movie a little bit of levity that it needs. Here's movie nerdery for you. So that score is based on a composition from the 1500s by a German composer, I think

named Carl Orff. Yeah. And then that score is picked up and integrated into Badlands, the Terrence Malick movie from the 70s. And then Hans Zimmer essentially redos it for this score. And it's an homage to Badlands. True Romance starts with Patricia Arquette's voiceover, which very much mimics Sissy SpaceX voiceover in Badlands.

This is just a movie full of stuff that has pulled the best parts of stuff from other stuff. Yeah. What's age the best, by the way, out of all those things? Gando Fini, Floyd, Hopper. Personally, I think the way it looks has aged the best. Like, I think that of all the things in it, I just really go back to this as like the peak of Tony Scott's, like, just neon vision of urban America.

I still am responding to the dialogue the most. You know, the way that it's written. And obviously, it's like so over the top and violent and offensive. But, like, that's the point. That is the point. It's pulp. And I don't know. The Gandalfini one is, like, obviously,

they predicted one of the biggest TV stars ever. I would say Gandoffini. It's this. Yeah. It's like watching, I don't know, Michael Jordan in college or something. They're like, oh, there's Michael Jordan to have you 37 on North Carolina. Like, that means something. I don't know.

What's age the worst? Smoking in movie theaters. That's kind of jarring. That's your first choice. In the pay phone. Smoking movie theaters at a pay phone. I was like, oh, because for the most part, this movie could have come out right now. Yeah.

There's a couple small things. I think Gandalfini beating the shit out of Patricia Arquette for 10 minutes. probably wouldn't come out today. I don't think that they would do that. I don't know that they could do Drexel today. Probably not. Although, here's the thing. I don't know that you can do the Sicilian today.

I mean, I honestly, like, I think that... I had the eggplant speech as... Tarantino still doing that stuff, though. I know, I think they would have done it. I think people get way been out of shape about it, 2018. Because we live in the... Everybody has to be perfect all the time.

Outrage society and everyone will line up for that one. Tarantino, why does he keep doing this? But we're going to go through it again. He's going to do crazy shit and once upon a time in Hollywood there will be this whole cycle of like, can you, can you not do this? I still think he's doing the movies

that he wants to do. The thing is, is like, he always describes himself as a dude who grew up around mostly black people who had a lot of black friends as a kid and so he feels like he has access to this experience

and he always writes about it and he always has Sam Jackson in his movies and every time this comes up, Sam Jackson is like, Quinn's not a racist, Quinn's cool. I love Quinn's dialogue and he really understands something. And we go through this every single time.

So the Sicilian speech, he said, is based on a conversation that he had with a guy that he was friends with who was black who told that story. He puts it in the words of an old white guy, so it's more offensive. The Sicilian speech also is rooted in a very, like, that's a very true to life kind of character

of a guy who's like very lonely and reads a lot of history books and is like, I know a lot about the world because I read. 100%. It's a fucking guy that I've definitely met over the course of my life. Who's just like, guess what?

You ever read this book? You didn't read this book? didn't read this book. I'm going to tell you something about this. And you're like, oh, great, here I am. I'm going for a ride with this guy. And that's the thing, I think, is the very important distinction about this is that there's, like, probably for better and for worse, we're losing our ability to distinguish between the creator and the creation and whether or not the characters that we see on a screen should match our moral values, right? And whether or not seeing somebody with moral values that you find reprehensible at times,

it still makes them worthwhile characters to watch. And by the way, it's our, and it's fake. I never had that. I've never had that problem. I'm also a white man, so I've never been, like, really, like,

the target of, of the things that would make me upset about it. But with Tarantino, it comes from a tradition of pulp, crime, gritty,

fucked up people who are not good. Nobody in this movie is good. And, like, even Clarence and Alabama, for as much as we like them, are essentially criminals.

And it's just, like, you just have to kind of, like, change your compass a little bit when you're watching this stuff. And I guess I'm just personally, like, way interested in these kinds of people,

but I never get confused about whether or not Tarantino is racist or where he thinks, like, this is really cool what's happening to Patricia Arquette. But let's talk about the other stuff in the movie. We talked about this last few good rounders, too. It's like, there's a movie about dirtbags and crooks. We make a movie about dirtbags and crooks. They act a certain way.

I put the eggplant speech down for this, but at the same time, I don't think it's age bad, but I just think the country's changed. and in whatever new prison wearing, people would be like, oh, what is this? But the whole point of that is,

those are the characters. He's not condoning the dialogue. And the guy's, Hoppers basically knows who's going to die. And he tries to get him walking 10 and fuck with them. And he's like, that's the worst possible thing he can think. Yes.

We should still be able to do that in movies. The Gandalfini Arquette scene, I'm going to defend the scene. And I think it could still happen in 2018. The whole point of this movie is everybody's bad. the behavior has to be over the top to warrant that we're invested in these characters. And she's the hero of the movie.

And she wins the scene. She kills him. And it goes so over the top in a way that is, you can't believe it. She's this hooker who has had this come around and I'm rooting for her. I'm invested in her. I want them to sell the suitcase. And now that Gandalfini's in the hotel room. And she's for some reason not scared, doesn't turn around and run, tries to deal with.

of them. It goes super duper dark. He's just pounding her and she survives and gets out of it. Like to me, it's no different than Uma Thurman and Kill Bill or something. There's also like the... I don't feel like it's like a domestic violence scene. No, no, I don't either. That scene gives this movie like a tremendous amount of gravity and it may be, it's, it's, it's uncomfortable to watch. It maybe is like unwatchable to some people. And I totally understand why. But so much of the beginning of this movie and up until this point is fantasy. It's a fantasy of clarinces to have a woman like Alabama. Her name is a fantasy. Like, nobody's named that. She looks like a pinup girl who walks off of a poster. Everything about what happens for them where

like he kills the drug dealer and it's a bag full of Coke. And then they get in a cattle. How does a guy like that have a Cadillac like that? A purple Cadillac. It just drives off to the desert. He goes, gets from Detroit to California in a snap. And it's everything about it is this dream. And then this ends that dream because this is the consequences of all the fantasy. I mean, obviously the Drexel scene is violent. He gets his face punched in a little bit. But this is a guy who's seeing Elvis in the bathroom. And then finally, this scene happens and it's away from Clarence. And this is like who these guys really are. This is what they're willing to do to people. And it completely changes the sort of stakes of the movie. And by the way, Gendofini sets it up

really well in the scene. You know. Let me take a look at you. He plays, he plays it almost like He's a masochist. He's like, you get a shot at me. You stab me. But he's almost like, there's something likable about him until he actually starts hitting her where it's like, oh, he's kind of flirting with her. There's this weird dynamic that I can't remember seen before. And then it gets violent.

But he sets it up after he hits her a couple times. And then he goes, you know, the first time you kill somebody. And he's just taught he's a fucking psycho. And the whole point of it is that guy's a psycho. Yeah. And she has to defeat him to keep him. to keep going. I'm so into it by the end of that.

When she kills him, you're like, yes. She's hitting him with the rifle. I don't know. I just think it's great. The only thing that will get legislated is when Tarantino does stuff like this, it's not beautiful. It's usually very gross and raw and real. Tony Scott makes really beautiful things. And those scenes are weirdly shot beautifully.

There's like the slow motion when she goes through the shower. There's her getting pushing. against the mirror. There's all this like art film stuff going on. When she kills him at the end, it's almost like a like a caveman killing like a woolly mammoth or something. She's like the phone, like it's. Yeah, exactly. And I think that people would be like this, that is a glamorization of stuff like this.

And it's also the scenes are, it's basically three scenes cut up because they keep cutting back to it. And it's just really long. It's just a lot of time spent us watching Patricia Arquette get her ass kicked. And she kills him in like 30 seconds. But there's just so much time spent showing her getting beat up that I think today you just wouldn't have it that way. It would probably be the other way. It'd be like he knocks her around for 30 seconds

and then she beats him for three minutes. And then I think totally it's like the one thing about that scene is that it smacked like he comes back and rescues her, but I think it smashes right into Bronson Pinchot getting arrested right after. Is that the next scene I think? Yeah, that's the next scene. Which is like hilarious, but it's almost like totally a little bit of a collision with like what you've just seen.

They're definitely going for it with the immediate next scene is him getting a blowjob in a car. and the lady knocking cocaine all over him. I think it's the most important scene in the movie because after that you're like, A, anything is possible and they will absolutely kill these two people that I've become attached to. And you don't totally feel that way until that scene.

The actual answer for what's age of the worst is this anecdote about Tony Scott came up with what he calls a, quote, persuader when trying to get Patricia Arquette to get to where she needed to be emotionally for the scene. He would occasionally slap her before they started shooting and it became such an occurrence that she ended up approaching him

and asking him for the persuader before their heavy scenes later in the movies and then he jokingly said after it's called English School of Directing. I'm positive that wouldn't go over well in 2018. It was kind of hard to believe read in 2008 was kind of crazy. Indefensible and weird.

That's just a weird story. Really fucking weird. So that came out. There's a maximal moral history that you can read online. And that's just in there. One of the stories is like, oh yeah,

I used to slap Patricia R. That's a story you hear about directing in like 1957, not 1993. Definitely like the late 60s and 70s like peck and paw and he's just like him and Charlton Hester beating the shit out of each other

before a shot or something like that. Well, that was the SNL sketch that Balushi played Peck and Paw like beating the shit out of his cast members. Casting what ifs? A couple good ones. For Alabama, Tarantino wanted Joan Cusack. What a fucking genius.

He wrote this in the late 80s. John Cusack. No, I mean like he's the one man. like that's so smart and genius. She's amazing. Joan Cusack is amazing. That is like his, you can't raise your eyebrow at that.

This guy put John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. I don't think she has enough sex appeal for that character, personally. I always thought that weirdly that Joan Cusack never got a role to show off her sex appeal. Okay. She's in, she's pretty sexy in the Adams family. This is the Joe Cusack. Could she have pulled off a sexy character argument that we've been waiting?

It's the replacement for day trail. I agree. I thought that was kind of an interesting idea. I mean, the thing is is that Patricia Arquette is so hot and so cool in this movie that it's hard to see anybody else. But Ridley Scott won a Drew Barrymore. And I really thought about this. I mean, I'm sorry. Tony Scott.

And so 93 Drew Barrymore was, I think, a year before Mad Love, which I remember seeing in the theater because I love drew Barrymore. And I wanted to see her play like a crazy girlfriend who was. unraveling. And I think she could have pulled off Alabama. And I think it was the right point of her career where she had this career baggage and she had some drug alcohol stuff and kind of gotten her shit back together. I think she would have been good in this movie. And I actually think she would have been an A-lister after this movie. Patricia Arquette, for whatever reason, this did not propel her to, I mean, I guess the reason is only made $12 billion. Yeah, but she's fucking iconic in this movie. She's amazing.

My high school girlfriend started like curling her hair the way Patricia Rican. has because she was like immediately like this complete model like model of cool like immediately in this movie. It's a role that some of the actresses now would absolutely murder somebody for. You know it's funny about it too though is like I think we talked to about Maddochipxy Dreamgirls a couple episodes ago. She's totally fake. I mean she's totally this creation, the whole not just the setup that gets her into Clarence's

life but everything about her. And I'm listening to the commentary with Tarantino last night of the movie. and he literally says on the commentary and he's not embarrassed about it. He says, I just didn't have a girlfriend until I was 25. Yeah. And I was writing this movie

and I was like, he's just inventing his dream girl. A girl who will watch Kung Fu movies with him. Eat chicken, drink beer. Yeah. And just hang out and be funny and have a lot of sex and smoke. And this is, it's just what he wanted. And she's, for whatever reason,

she was just the perfect actress to embody that idea in his head. Jack Plaque was cut from the movie. He played an usher in the Kung Fu movie theater. Thelkele-Kilmer desperately wanted to play Clarence. You mentioned that earlier. Tarantino originally viewed this role as, like, David Carradine, and I think being a little bit more of like an older loser.

And so I think that was probably like, if Kilmer had gotten it, that would have been like a guy approaching middle age more than a pretty cool dude, like, who happens to be working at a comic book store in Detroit. This was a really good casting. What If? Tom Seismore initially cast as James Gandalfini's character. Hmm.

Wasn't comfortable with the scene that required him to beat up Patricia Arquette, asked to play the police cop instead, recommended Gendolfini because they had been in a play together. Gendalphini gets his big break. I didn't know that. That's an interesting one. Four degrees of Tom Seismore. Yeah. Do you want to do your little rift right now, a riff right now about when he goes for the heat check against aero?

The bank is worth the risk. For me, the action is the juice. Long pause. Yeah. For me, and De Niro's just like, just staring right at him. And he's just like, Seizmore is like, this is my cutaway where I act against De Niro. And he's like, for me, the action is the juice. This is like the ISO for Michael Mann isos for Tom Seismore.

And he's like, all right, post up De Niro. And Seizsmer's like, I got this. Cutaway. Long, dramatic pause. Michael Mann gave Tom Seismore is Michael Mann's Joe Kim Noah and Michael Mann is Tismore. He just keeps giving him shots. He's like, I'm going to put you out there and give you minutes. The only thing that doesn't make sense about that Seismore story is that like a year later,

he's in Natural Born Killers as like the most disgusting person in the history of time. So the idea that he's not comfortable beating up Patricia Arquette's character on camera, and then he plays that fucking evil prison warden detective. I think he might have had some domestic violence stuff in his past maybe. Yeah, I mean, he famously dated Heidi Fleiss tons of substance issues. Might have hit too close to. on the Joey Pants Award named after Joe Panoliano. Two great ones in here.

Ed Lauder. Ed Lauder is the guy. He was Eddie Albert's sidekick in Longest Yard. He played the quarterback in the other team. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was the head coach in Youngblood. He's been in basically 100 sports movies. And he's the bald guy.

He's kind of like not as attractive as Ed Harris and is in those movies in the 70s, 80s. He's always the lieutenant. Yeah. So he's the lieutenant. this. Right. And then the other one is Saul Rubeneck, who I'm not positive. Everyone knows that Saul Rubenek's name is Saul Rubenac. They just kind of know him from things. Like, oh, that guy. Why the fuck did he know your name? You a little piece of shit! You can forget about acting for the next 20 years. Your fucking career is over. I treated you like a son. You fucking stab me in the heart.

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Yeah. That guy's not Mandy Patank. He's that guy. Yeah. Yeah. So I think he wins for this one. Well, this is the iconic Saul Rubenek performance to end us all Rubinick performances. Absolutely. So this is going in Joey pants, not in Dion Waiters then. Well, he's also eligible for a Dean Writers.

Okay, so I just want to throw out two more people. Victor Argo is one of Christopher Walkins. Oh, yeah, yes. Yeah. And also Conchata Farrell, who is the casting agent. Who's like, thank you. And he's just like, hey, over there. Like Michael, Michael Rapoport's audition.

And he's just like, thanks so much, Mr. Ritchie. We'll give you a call. It's great. Let's take a break and then we'll get to the most important Dion Waiters Award we've ever had. Hey, imagine learning new recipes from Gordon Ramsey or photography tips from Annie Leibovitz. Now you can with Masterclass. Masterclass offers online classes taught by the best in the world. Each class shot with cinematic prediction quality offers on-demand lessons loaded with exclusive content you'll find only on masterclass.

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I think this is a really cool idea. And I'll be interested to see how many things they added. Maybe at some point they'll have a rewatchables class. We can just talk about what makes a rewatchable movie. The rewatchables listeners can unlock access to every masterclass for a year right now at masterclass.com slash rewatchables. Unlimited access to over 35 world class masters, all for one surprisingly low annual price. Once again, masterclass.com slash rewatchables for unlimited access to masterclass, learn from the best in the world at masterclass.com slash rewatchables.

All right, we're back. I don't know what to do with this. These are individually you have probably five Dan Waiters Award winners. It's like one of those Oscars categories where all the movies could win. Val Kilmer can't even crack the top five in this. I have him sixth. What do you think of his Elvis just generally? Yeah, it's fine.

When's the doors? When's the doors? 1990. What a moment for Kilmer just floating around Hollywood being like, what rock star can I be? By the way, Chris Ryan, anytime you're ready for the rewatchables, the doors, I'm here. You know my number. I'm here. Can we just do Val Kilmer's 1993 really quickly?

Yeah. The Real McCoy, a little underrated, Tombstone. Yeah. True romance. Incredible. Wow, that's incredible. Tombstone. Obviously, in Tombstone, that's like one of the all-time great supporting performances ever, his Doc holiday.

Gary Oldman is Drexel, the white pimp who thinks he's black. Brad Pitt is Floyd, a character so great at Spawn Pineapple Express years later. Christopher Walken, playing a Sicilian and somehow pulling it off. James Gendofini as the most evil kind of hitman assassin person. Is Hopper count as Dan Waders? I think so. He's only got two scenes. All right.

So I got sixth then. So Hopper and then a surprise entry, Saul Rubeneck. Are we not going to put Pinchot in there? I feel like he's in it too much. He kind of has a big part. I feel like Kim and Rappaport are both in this movie and too many scenes. God, he's amazing. You want to talk Pinchot first and then we'll do the award?

Well, no. I mean, I just think that like his scenes, he got to see. script when he was finishing Perfect Strangers and he had been in Beverly Hills cop, right? He's the guy working at the art gallery. Was it two? Sears. No, he's in both. They brought him back for two.

He was so popular in one, they brought him back for two. The roller coaster scene is just incredible. Apparently, all of them were either throwing up or high on Quaywood's doing that scene because they needed to be sedated. Why did they have to film that for two days? Who fucking knows? Like, what is this movie?

Tony Scott's a maniac. But I I just think he's great. I do want to ask a question. Wait a second. Can we go backwards with Bronson Princeau? Sure. Risky business. He's one of Tom Cruise's buddies, and he's really good in that.

He's cop one, cop two. Perfect Strangers was just flat out a hit. I mean, that was like a very popular show for a long time. And then true romance he's in this thing. Not a bad, like 11-year run for Bronson. I think he became a punching bag after the fact, but it kind of unfairly. Yeah, I was just going to say that. I think he probably didn't have the career he deserved,

which is a weird thing to say about Bronson Pinchot. He's pretty good. He's great. I mean, the elevator scene, too, is really great with Seismore and Penn just being like, you know, he's bluffing, Elliot. He's bluffing. And Elliot's just like, I want to.

Him and Andrew McCarthy, I think, were two people that for some reason became punching bags. Yeah. Andrew McCarthy was the weekend of Bernie's movies. And him and Jonathan Silverman, I was like, fuck those guys. Yeah, yeah. There was a kind of, like, light comic actor that could be a, star in 1989 but not be a star in 1999 and for whatever reason

those guys didn't really make it. Can I ask a walk-in question? Yeah. Are the two scenes he's ever done in Tarantino movies the watch speech and Pulp Fiction in this? Yeah. That's fucking nuts. If we ever do Pulp Fiction on this show I will spend 30 minutes on the Winnaki speech.

That's like one of my favorite things that ever happened in a movie. It's crazy that walking got to do both of these speeches. That's what I'm saying. It's so crazy. So I don't even know what to do with this. I do want to give the shout out to Saul Rubenico. I think Rubenegov. Doing a Joel Silver impersonation at like the height of Joel Silver to cocaine.

Don't give him a finger on you fucking killed. I treated you like a son. He's. When I hear about veterans of that fucked up war. I can't really right be the winner. I love when he says. He does the most of the least. Like Oldman.

Bars, what the fuck are you? doing. Oldman, Gandofini, Pitt, all these people, they have a lot to work with in the parts. And then saw Rubenix. He's smoking and driving his Porsche on the PCH. Elliot, why are you calling me on Sunday?

I don't know. Who do you got, Chris Ryan? I think that this is the first one where I can't really decide. It's something between it's Pitt, Rubenek, or walking for me. I love, I love Oldman, but like I think that. Gandofini, just, he's in three scenes and he's out.

of control. Yeah. And older might have the line of the movie. Is it white boy day? It's still probably like the... You must have thought it was White Boy Day.

I'm... It's honestly saw Rubenek in a walk for me. Because he's never done anything else. That's where I wanted to go. We need your decision making here. We need your decision making. All of those other characters have great careers. You know, they all went on to do amazing shit.

They won Oscars and Emmys and everything. Like, for Rubeneck, the highlight reel starts here. Also, the incredible thing is funny. The Rubeneck didn't know it was Joel Silver. He was like, I'm just doing a thing. And they're like, yes, you are. Also, probably heard his career. The character is not written as Joel Silver.

The character is just written as a producer. And Tony Scott, who hated Joel Silver, made him Joel Silver. Like, that's really great. And so honestly, like, Tony Scott gets a lot of credit for the Rubenek performance because he molded him into it. But holy shit, I just love that character. It's so funny. Yeah, I guess the whole conceit behind Dion Waiters is somebody comes in and has a heat

chick, right? And we always do the basketball box score analogy. And you can go through and do the... This is one where Saul Rubinix's like the 11th man on the team and shouldn't have been able to score 20 points in seven minutes. We shouldn't even be... We shouldn't even be talking about him right now with all the other shit going on, which I think is the definition at the end waiters.

When I quit the ringer, will you be like, I treat you like a son and you're stepping... Why do you know his name, Elliot? Why do you know his name? The best one, though. you said it earlier is that thing the body bags too. I've got more taste in my penis. Like just the way he delivers that is so good. Elliot,

what did this cost me? And he's like, $357,000. And he's like, Elliot, I swear someone is stealing from me. It's really good. All right.

Unexpected Saul Rubenek was like 20 to one odds heading into that category. Gary Omban's in the stands applauding for him. Like, just can't believe he lost. He's just glad that he's like drug dealer isn't looking for him. Like, you owe me money for Drexel. People who have thought about this movie less would say Oldman 10 out of 10, right?

Because Oldman is doing... On Twitter, when you announced everybody was like, it's going to be Floyd or Drexel, it's going to be Florida or Drexel. And we understand that. We accept that, but I just love Rubeneck. Yeah, watch the movie closely. Rubenek is the correct winner. Half-Fast Internet research, Tony Scott changed the ending because he loved the characters.

Originally, Clarence died in Alabama got away with the money, and he just didn't want Clarence to die. Do you like the ending? I don't like that he gets shot in the eye. I don't like that clearance gets maimed. If we're going to have him live, I want him to have both of his eyes. Just like a shot in the shoulder. I think it's fascinating that Quentin Tarantino wound.

I think it's interesting that they did shoot both, apparently. I think there is a version of it where he dies, right? So she gets away. I love that like Tony Scott just liked him too much and just didn't want to let him go. It's classic Tony. Yeah. So sentimental. I want to see, maybe we should make a ringer video montage of all the characters who ended up on the beach playing with their kids at the end of a movie.

Is it the same beach in Mexico? That's always just perfect. You just go down there, you bring $300,000 in a suitcase and you're just able to just buy a place on the beach. I'm trying to go. It's a picture like Red talking to Alabama. You know, what are they talking about? Yeah, they're just standing a boat. And Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster from Fast 7.

It must be quite a community. What a beach. Great place. It's right near Zawatina. like about two miles away. Elvis's estate would not allow them to use any Elvis music. Do you like the music in this movie?

I would love to talk about it. I love the... You'd obviously like to open the movie with an Elvis song, but Charlie Sexton's Graceland is a great song. That's a song that opens the movie, and it's basically just Charlie Sexton doing Elvis.

Really awesome song. It's a weird mishmash of music, though. Yeah. It's so 1999. Especially since Tarantino's movies are so tightly controlled in terms of the music, to have just like,

randomly a late period Aerosmith song plays. You're just kind of like, what the fuck? That feels way out of... I gotta say, I actually thought the music's a missed opportunity. You could... That should have been in what stage the worst,

the more I'm thinking about it. Because you could have grabbed from like the Pixies and all these kind of... You get one. Post-alternative punk type bands. You get outshine by SoundGuard. Yeah. That's the one song that's like,

Floyd definitely would have been listening to that. You know, like it's in the room when that's happening. Yeah. And I also love... I love the 50 stuff. I love the Hello. Big Bopper thing when he's on the phone with Dick Ritchie,

and I love the weird Burl Ives song that's on when Dennis Hopper's walking. That stuff feels really Tarantino to me. The stuff that is like... Techno music. Also, like Drexel listening to techno anyway is kind of weird. Yeah. You think he would be listening to Wooten. Yeah, he probably would have.

But that techno scene, I think you needed the music for the... Probably unsettling vibe. But you're right. Yeah, Wutang would have been good. Let's... Daxil's weird eye came from the Dracula prop box. Really? That's funny. Gary Oldman said,

Tony and I had tea at the four seasons, and he said, look, I can't really explain the plot. But Drexel is a pimp who's white but thinks he's black. And Gary Oldman said, that was all I needed to hear. I said, I'll do it. Amazing. Saul Rubenek said, I was auditioning, and Tony said, you got him exactly right.

That's Joel. You nailed him. And I said, sorry, I'm confused. Joel. Joel Silver, he said. I had no idea who that was. They filmed the hotel drug deal at the abandoned ambassador hotel where Robert Kennedy was shot, which is, it's near the end of Beverly right as you're about to hit Silver Lake on the 101.

My daughter actually practiced there for half a year at Virgil High School, and I had no idea that the ambassador was next to it because now it's a dog hospital. It's like a dogs and cats hospital. Which I knew none of this. The shoot was abandoned. And they renamed like the schools in that neighborhood RFK. Yeah, all that stuff is named after Kennedy. The shootout scene also, there's like a funny line where in the oral history that Maxim did, I think,

where Seismore was talking about how they got his death in one take at the beginning of the shootout. So he had to lie on the ground with feathers in his mouth for like four days. Yeah. I saw that. The director intended to shoot Watkins part of the scene first. Walkin begged him to shoot Hopper first. and Scott noticed Walkin finding his character as you watch Hopper's half of the scene play out.

I thought that was cool. Yeah, that's cool. Apparently Warner Brothers was going to change the title to reckless hearts. Terrible. And Arquette Slater and Tony Scott basically threw their bodies in front of, along with Tarantino.

Probably would have killed himself of that up. The drug money exchange scene, it was supposed to be at a zoo and the location fell through. That's how they ended up at Six Flags. Gendofini got into character as mob enforcer Virgil by staying at a dingy hotel and not showering. He looks unclean.

Yeah, he didn't change his underwear, I think, was the... Last but not least, Slater and Arquette seems like there were sparks on and off the set. Yeah, definitely seems like they were having sex. It's pretty evident in their way they connect. Scott said, we met with Patricia. Christian had a Woody from the first time he saw. Patricia fell in love with Christian. Yeah, Patricia fell in love with Christian.

He with her, they had true romance. Our cat said, romantic, magnetized relationship, a sexual attraction between us. Christian Slater, it was love at first sight. Working with Patricia was tricky because I was in a relationship. We both made attempts to be professional,

but that age, it was difficult. The phone booth scene is one of the more believable sex scenes in movie history. Yeah, he's like ramming his tongue in her mouth. He's going for it. Yeah, so there you go. Apex Mousel. Mountain. I took out all the people who obviously weren't Apex Mountain like Brad Pitt.

Rubenac. Heroneman. Rubenek. Slam dunk. There's never been more of an Apex Mountain candidate. Rubenck is like in a theater production of On Golden Pond. He's like, I'm doing my best work. Rubenek was in one of my favorite cable movies and the band played on about the, about how they tried to hide AIDS in the 80s. And he has like some great Rubeneck scenes in that, too. Rubeneck is also an all-time law and order guy. He's been on like 40 episodes. Yeah, I love Rubenek. Big winner of this podcast, Rubenek.

Apex Mountain, Christian Slater. I'm going to say yes. I'm going to go, Heather's. Too early. I think it's pump up the volume because he invented podcasting. Yeah, good point. All right. None of us picked Broken Arrow or Hard Rain.

Broken Arrow is great. I like Broken Arrow. Sure. That's when Travolta. That was the real comeback. That was when the wheels came off the steering wheel and he just started going for it. Patricia Arquette, she's had some incarnations over the years.

I think he's got to be boyhood. I mean, she won an Oscar for boyhood. Yeah, I was, yeah. Yeah, I'm going to go boyhood. Because she goes on, wait a second. No, I'm not. Okay. Yeah, not personally, I personally,

subjectively, I don't think it says. Okay. Personally, for me, it's true romance, but career-wise, it's got to be winning an Oscar. Is this category supposed to be personal or objective? No, I just don't want to just agree with you. I think I have so much of a deeper... It's supposed to be when they were at the peak of their powers

and their career and they had their most options and the most people respected what they were doing and the whole thing. What did she do right after this? She's pretty unknown at this time. A lot of bad stuff. She's pretty unknown at this time. Rough next seven, eight years.

Tony Scott, unequivocally for me, yes. This is the coming off a run. So you think this over a man on fire? Yeah. because he had had these commercial hits and then it faded and people were like, eh, we're sure Tony Scott's good? And then boom.

And then that leads to Crimson Tide and the combo of those. His career was never in better shape than somewhere between True Rumi that's a crimson Tide. But this is a crimson Tide is this apex mountain. He made Top Gun.

What are you talking about? It wasn't a flop with critics. Top Gun's one of the biggest movie hits of all time that influence an entire generation. and basically launches Tom Cruise. I'm trying to remember. No? I don't even like Top Gun that much.

Here's the counter. I never felt like that was a Tony Scott movie when I saw Top Gun. Disagree. No, but you were eight years old. I'm telling you what it was like in the mid-80s. Yeah. When it came out, it was like...

In retrospect, it was part of all his work. Yeah. Yeah. But in the time, it was not like, whoa, who directed this? was like, whoa, Tom Cruise is the biggest star in the world. Tom Cruise was the narrative out of that movie. True romance, he was part of the narrative. And I think that's why I would say Apex Mountain for him.

But I see the Top Gun thing, because Top Gun was one of the five biggest movies of the 80s. I mean, it's definitely not, this is my favorite Tony Scott movie. So that's not Apex Mountain, though. No, I know. After about 25 podcasts, I've realized that that's what Apex Mountain is. I don't understand any of the categories. You don't understand Apex Mountain?

I like that it's a little bit elusive. It's like the MVP award. That's right. What are we voting on? Everybody sees it differently. Can I throw this at you? Yeah. The most critically acclaimed movie he did

out of these eight. Hmm. Is that true? Somebody that was searching for critical acclaim, but was a commercial success. And now this movie, he kind of had his real chops as a director. Gosh, I wonder,

because this movie's not that well reviewed. I guess it is. It was well reviewed. You said. Yeah. No, but the critics liked it. Even Ebert liked it that fucking crank. Jesus.

Bronson Pinchot? I'm going Cop One. Cop one was a massive, massive hit. And he was like one of the breakout stuff. What's he offer Eddie Murphy when he comes in the gallery? Oh, an espresso. Espresso. And they go with a little twist of lemon.

Seismore? Heat? I think I'm looking at the Niro. Yeah. The action is the juice is the definition of that Apex Mountain. Carrying the kid in the shit. When you get to the top of Apex Mountain, someone says the action is the chick's team. Chris Penn?

No, it's dogs. The reservoir dogs. Got to be. Yeah. Nice guy, Eddie? Wawking? Hell no. No.

What is the Wakan Apex? He's a fucking deer hunter. Yeah. Can I make an early 90s walking case? Sure. S&L hosts it. I looked it up Fall in 92. That's when he did Trivial Psychic and Stock, which were like two of the best sketches in the history of the show.

Trivial Psychic is still like probably one of the seven best sketches in the history of the show. Then he has this movie in 93 and then Pulp in 94. And somewhere along that whole line, it was like this awesome Wauken Sants. Yeah. Where I was like everyone was in on Christopher Wacken. It was like part ironic, but part he was a really good actor. And then there was like that's when like was it J. Moore who does the Wockett imitation? All of it.

It just felt like Wocken had like a real moment there in that three. year stretch. But deer hunter has to be the Russian roulette and deer hunter. I think that's his apex mountain. Here are my three favorite super weird walking performances. Okay. One is true romance. It's more of a heat check than a performance. Two is

King of New York. Oh yeah. Which is fucking amazing. If you haven't seen King of New York, watch it immediately. The subway ride? Yeah. Three is Wayne's World Two. I can't overstate how funny and good he is. Yes, same year.

So that's the... That's that 90s time you're talking about. The flip side to that is just that in Deer Hunter, I actually do believe he's playing Russian roulette. Definitely. One of the most convincing performances ever. Also, in things to do in Denver when you're dead in that 90s period, and he's great now.

Yeah, that's true. Treo, Bouchemey or Michael K. Williams for this movie. They all would fit. Yeah. Maybe you got to pick one. I have a definitive choice for this. Michael K. Williams. Yeah.

I think he easily could have been in the Sam Jackson. and any of the Drexel scenes totally would have fit in. I think he could have been, I don't know, I just think he would have worked on this movie. Could Buscemi have been Dick Ritchie? That's interesting. He's a little old. Or Elliot Blitzer?

I think he's a little old for Dick and Elliot. In 93, though? He looks a little old. Oh, yeah. I mean, you used to imagine Dick is going out for, like, Decaprio, Walberg, like, those kinds of, like, he wants to be in that generation, right? That's what he's supposed to be. But Shemmy's like a little like Cohen Brothersy guy.

Mark Ruffalo, they knew. There's only one choice. Bruno and Boris, the bodyguards. They're just going for it the whole time. Yeah. They have like three lines. I fucking hate cops. I think I think Rubenek might win this one.

I think Rubenek could have to stop in the heart. I'm never going to get it. I'll say fucking Rubenek could almost replace Ruffalo here. The Elliott. it. I treated you like a son. And you stabbed me in the heart as the new they knew. Done. What a run for Mark Ruffalo. It's over. It's now the saw rubric. Thanks for playing Mark Ruffalo. What a great 57 episodes of the rewatchables. Now we have the saw rubenic.

At some point in like, you stab me in the heart. I'm going to be doing a rom-com rewatchables with a man dead. I'm just going to be like, I traded you like a son. And you step. All right. Awesome. Bruno and Boris, congratulations. We can't give it to Rubenek if we named the award after him. Boris and Monty. Whatever their names are.

Yeah, Monty. Picky Nitz. I only have three. How much money does a movie theater manager have to buy a call girl for an employee's birthday? Not inexpensive. Can I be honest with you? Yeah. Not really sure on the economics of call girls in 1993.

Yeah, also, Alabama has only been a call girl for four days in this movie. So that's my next one. Can I give you a quick little L.A. tidbit, too? That movie theater is the Vista. on sunset. Oh, wow, really? Yeah. Did they do the exteriors in Detroit?

All the exteriors are the Vista. Tarantino tells this great story about how they put the Sunny Chiba triple feature up on the marquee at the vista, and his movie nerd friends would drive by it, and they would call him, and they'd be like, dude, you're not going to believe this. There's a Sunni Cheap and triple feature. He's like, no, man, that's my movie. Yeah, that's the movie trope of The Hooker has only been a hooker for a couple days. one of my favorite movie devices.

I'm a hooker, but only since last Thursday, I've only had two tricks. Would they really get out of the Beverly Ambassador at the end of that movie, Slater and Arquette? Well, not according to Tarantino. There's a thousand cops down there. She's carrying them. They're both covered in blood.

They're carrying a suitcase. Nobody even looks there sideways at them. Best quote, don't condescend me, man. Now, I know I'm pretty, but I ain't as pretty as a couple of teeth. titties. He must have thought it was Wet Boy Day.

It ain't White Boy Day, is it? If there's one thing this last week has taught me, it's better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.

I love that. Son of a bitch was right. She tastes like a peach. I like the gun line and I think it's a good senior yearbook line for the kids out there, the high school students

that thing. I would use that one. Lee Donovan is not a PIP. I know that, Richard. But one thing this last week has taught me it's better to have a gun and not need it.

than I need a gun, not have it. If there's one thing this last week has taught me, it's better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it. Clarence Worley, 1993. I think it's... Throw that in your yearbook, folks. It's not white boy day, is it? Yeah, that is.

I mean, when we said we were doing this, that's what Zach Mack, who's one of our producers, immediately emailed us. That might have been because there's three white boys talking about this movie. There's like a hundred more. I mean, it looks like she fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. I felt like I had that one initially, but I don't feel like that movie created that line. It may not have. My stepfather was saying that in the 80s.

Just kudos to him. It was probably the first time I heard it and that I felt like I heard it for the rest of my like all through high school. Yeah. Like that's just one of those things. There's a whole bunch of those, though. I mean, I'm not a whore. I'm a call girl. There's a difference, you know.

Like there's a whole bunch of stuff that he wrote in this movie that then became kind of in the culture. I don't know. When I'm with somebody, I'm 100%. I'm 100%. That's of minor importance. What is of major fucking important? is that I believe you. Can I just, and also just, Vincent Kakadi, I'm the Antichrist.

You got me in a vendetta kind of mood. You tell the angels in heaven you never seen evil so singularly personified as you did in the face of the man who killed you. That's pretty good. I love that. Man, this boy, Clarence is a wild one. I like him, you know, when they're in the elevator. Seismore's appreciation of Clarence is one of my favorite parts of this movie.

I like this boy. I like this guy. Oh, I also love Marty, you know what we got here. motherfucking Charlie Bronson. Mr. Majestic. That's good, too. That's good, Tarantino. Probably unanswerable questions.

Is it true that there are 17 different things a guy can do when he lies to give himself away and that a woman has 20? Never heard this before or since. Have you Googled? It's so weird. I googled it. Nothing really came up other than just this one part.

And it might have been Tarantino talking out of his ass. I don't know. I want to believe it's true. It's one of those things that we... Why 17? It's such a weird number to get to. It's like a science question. I don't know.

Yeah. Well, if anyone knows, email us at the mailbag at the wringer.com. For some reason, there's some truth in that. Why wasn't Patricia Arquette a bigger star? Why not? Why didn't happen for her? Why it takes so long? I'll say this.

I'll say this about Patricia Arquette, is that she has a very distinctive vibe. It's just like wholly her own. It's kind of like that her voice is very, like, specific and unique. Her look is unique. So I can kind of see why she, she didn't necessarily translate over into being in Julia Roberts type movies. But I think it is still sort of sad that she never really got a career going.

I mean, she was on medium for a really long time. She's not a successful crew. I mean, she's in a couple of maybe not huge movies, but I think very memorable movies right after this. She was in Ed Wood, and she was in flirting with disaster. And she's one of the stars of both of those movies. And those are really good movies that people like and still watch. But she does have this weird time. And she was in Lost Highway, the David Lynch movie.

But she never was in like a big blockbuster. You know, she was never in a movie that you were like, this is the best movie ever and everyone saw it. I'm summoning the spirit of our friend Wesley Morris. I think she got market corrected by Drew Barrymore. Like Drew Barrymore is like in fever pitch and stuff, but is she really like in a ton of movies that Patricia Arquette was... Rom-coms, Charlie's Angels,

Mad Love. I always thought Patricia Arquette was cool and a little weird. And I never thought that about Drew Barrymore. Even though Drew Barrymore was iconic in her time and the David Letterman. She could have a ton of hands. Drew Barrymore was weird. What are you talking about?

Yeah. That was her appeal in the rom-coms is that she was kind of weird. But just not weird enough that guys would want to date her. She was really cute, though. You know, there was, there's something.

Pritch Arquette is a little bit more like hard bitten somehow. What's Alabama doing right now? She's working in that bow yard with red. She's in Mexico? I think so. Running a surf bar? Well, okay.

That's a great question. That's a great question. some point. I think Clarence probably died from complications of not having particularly good eye surgery. Gangrene in his eye. I always would like to, I'm sure that this is on some sort of deep, deep web Tarantino database about how she hooks up with Harvey Kytel's Reservoir

Dogs character at what point? Well, initially it was because Clarence died. So she just goes, yeah. She goes on the run as a professional bank robber. Wow. Interesting. I have two really good ones for an answer, well. I'm really excited about both.

please. Where exactly did Dick Ritchie and Floyd live? I honestly think it's Los Filles. It seems like somewhere up in Beechwood, right? Yes. Because he says you got to go down Beachwood, which leads me to think they're in the hills, just basically you keep climbing on Beachwood and they're somewhere in there. That's right. I think we're Beachwood Cafe is right where they are.

It looks a lot like the Los Felas Hills, the Franklin Hills. Like, yeah. When we start the Ringer video series that I wanted to do for two years where we just go to movie locations or movies we liked, we've got to figure out where this was. It's probably in the internet. This is the most important question of the movie and maybe of my life. Oh my gosh. Did the Italians kill Floyd?

I think they liked him. I think they were like, get a load of this guy. No, they didn't. They leave. They leave. They don't leave? I thought they leave. You don't know what happens.

They leave the first time, the second time. They don't leave. But Gandalfini comes. He leaves. He leaves. Right, because he tells him. He asked the Italians if they want to have a bull or whatever and they cock their guns. But then it just kind of ends.

We don't know if they killed them or not. Have we mentioned Kevin Corrigan playing an Italian gangster? No. Kevin Corrigan, one of the most Irish guys of all times. Yeah, that was weird. The last line, the last time Floyd appears in the script, the early draft of the script from 92, he just says, well, you go down Beachwood. That's his last line.

There's no, like, and then they kill him or anything. I think he lives. I think he dies probably of lung disease two years later. Yeah. Well, they wouldn't have to kill him, right? And that just leaves a trail for them if they kill him. There's no reason to kill that guy. Okay.

Who won the movie? Here are the choices. Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Tony Scott, Quentin Tarantino, Tony Chiba, Floyd, or Saul Rubidick. It definitely put me on to Sunny Chiba. I never heard of Sonny Chiba before this movie. The Johnny Chan of this movie. He's just a big winner.

He didn't really do anything. I don't know, because it wasn't a hit. It's got to be Tarantino, right? Yeah, I mean, I think it kind of brant. It just minted him. You were just like, okay, this is going to be something that I watch these movies for the next 20 years. I think that that was like, it was a sustainability after Reservoir dogs. Man, I'm trying to think.

I mean, the Slater thing is weird. He's almost underrated in this pod. his performance, like, we haven't talked about him very much. He's kind of Christian Slater in every movie. Yeah. I think by this movie, it was like, oh, he's Christian Slater. It's funny that you were so excited about him as like your Jack Nicholson because that was also the thing that was held against him.

Yeah. You know, that he was doing the Jack Nicholson impersonation. Yeah. He was genuinely exciting in Heathers. He was like, wow, this guy. This guy's going to be one of the most important actors in my life. I think he's a good actor and is believable. And this part, even though there's a case to be made that this movie is about him being schizophrenic,

like Chris underlined, all the fact that it's all kind of happening in his head a lot of the time. And everything is sort of wishfulfillment. It's like the woman is exactly the woman that he would dream up. The scenario is a classic crime fiction scenario. You find a bag of money and you're on the run. All the gangsters are so note perfect. It's like, you know, Vincent Kakadi and, you know, like all these guys. And everybody likes him, you know?

Yeah. The cops like him. Saul Rubenek likes him. They all kind of connect with him, which is just highly unlikely because he's a loser working in a comic book store. Right.

I think Tarantino wins it because it proves their reservoir dogs wasn't just this weird indie fluke that really wasn't that huge of a movie anyway at the time. It established a narrative.

It led to Pulp Fiction. It's belatedly great. It feels very Tarantino-ish. Probably the most personal of all the movies he's made. Clare's on a biography. And I would say if you're Tarantino, the dream for this movie is that it didn't do that well and then became

really beloved, which is kind of what that's in his wheelhouse. I mean, the biggest one is really of this whole thing is what if Tony Scott had done Reservoir Dogs and Tarantino had done true romance? I wonder what changes. Tony Scott was my runner-up choice. This movie really needed him. And I'm not positive it works in the wrong hands. And I think especially the Gandalfini are Ket seen in the wrong hands if the tone of the movie is off really goes badly. Do you think it works in Tarantino? his hands, though, if he's the director? Not in 1993. I don't think so. I don't think he would have known how to direct. He may or may not have done it as long as Tony Scott did it in terms of

how long that scene plays, but it would have been closer to like the way that the ear-cutting scene in Reservoir Dogs is shot, I think. And he also famously not on the set of this movie. Yeah, is that right? Yeah. He was not present for the shooting, which is obviously common for screenwriters, but he was such a big deal at the time. You know, that being said, Pulp Fiction, full-blown masterpiece, he pretty much starts making it three months after this comes out. It's a 90% blown masterpiece. There's 15 minutes in there that need to come out still.

Are you still fucking trolling us about this? Everyone agrees with me about the girlfriend. No one agrees with you. Every email I get. You get three emails from three loser burner accounts that you invented. And then you're like, yeah, hey, everybody agrees about this character. No, it's 100% full-blown masterpiece. It's like sports guy 2002 is tweeting at you being like.

Do we need to just do a Twitter poll and settle it once in for all? Bill, just do the fucking pot. Let's do the Pulp Fiction point. Don't send me any more tweets from at. Sil Bimmons. That's all I'm saying. Silbimmons. Tom Shady 300 is like, sounds good, Bill. Yeah, I know. Bruce Wilson's girlfriend

submarines that movie. Bill, you know what I'm going to say if you ruined Pulp Fiction for me? You stop me in the heart! Just to remember, you're my number one boy, Chris Ryan. That's it for true romance. Great stuff. What a great movie. It really enjoyed it.

It's on Amazon. It's on YouTube. It is unfortunately not streaming anywhere else. And not really on cable. Get on it. Stars Showtime HBO. It was for years. Yeah, now it's kind of faded off.

It's a movie that could never be shown on T&T. So it really has to be the HBO Cinemax Showtime. That's a good point. How about Epics? Where are you in this whole thing? Epics? Get your shit together. Stop showing Creed so much.

We are going to be back. I got a reaction out of Craig. One more episode of the rewatchables. And then we're done with this 20-episode run. Yeah, we might have a special one in October. We have a couple. But this was, I think, episode 19 and 20. And then we're done.

That's it. Chris Ryan, Shaw, Tennessee. Thank you. Thanks, Bill. All right, thanks so much to Sean and Chris. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to Lisa.

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We are back next week with one last re-watchables for this 20-episode cycle. And then after that, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see how bad do you guys want more of this? Until then.