The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The Astros Cheating Saga and 2020 Oscar Movies With Adnan Virk | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: February 21, 2020

Russillo breaks down the current climate surrounding the Astros sign-stealing scandal into three parts: punishment, apology, and defense (4:05). Then Ryen is joined by Adnan Virk to discuss MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s approach toward the team (20:05) as well as 2020 Oscar movies, including: ‘The Irishman,’ ‘Parasite,’ ‘Ford vs. Ferrari,’ ‘1917,’ ‘Joker,’ ‘Marriage Story,’ and more (37:20). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm in a great mood today. Just a great mood. Excited because we have Ed and Ann Burke from... I can't keep track of all those jobs now. And I have a little open here on the Houston Astros, which I have not talked about. We taped with Craig Kilbourne. That one is coming out next week

because I just don't know that the world could handle Cal Heard Kilborn back-to-back 72 hours. I don't want to have the number one rated podcast in the world. I just want to stay solid. I want to peak in Valley. So, boy, it really feels like I'm sliding Adnan there, so I didn't mean to do it that way

today's episode of the Ryan Rosillo show on the Ringer podcast network is brought to you by State Farm just like basketball the game of life is unpredictable talk to a State Farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected basketball is back that's what I got for you you know what's unexpected watching Duke lose to NC State

Duke looked terrible basically everyone loses that's supposedly good. So I'll tell you what. Don't get mad at your local AP college basketball voter because I don't know what the hell you're supposed to do with your top 25. Get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Talk to a State Farm agent today. Kyle, checking in, sir.

How are you doing? All right. Just booked a round-trip flight for a wedding in Syracuse. First one. It's very expensive. This is your first wedding with your crew? Yes. Yes, my first one.

I'm not expecting many more either. There's been talk. We were Chicago for the All-Star game. Ran into your boy, Big Cat. We were talking about weddings. I'll leave it at that. Not that he's already married. married yeah i'm not getting married yeah but all right this is this is a weird time for you this is a very so this is your first one how old are you again 26

you're 26 oh i gotta get your car payment for christmas this month too i forgot everybody yeah yeah no well i didn't do it that way like look I'm giving you a Christmas gift. I told you what the Christmas gift would be. But I said, you know, the LLC over here, we invoice. It's quarterly, right? Yeah, we do. We have a different process over here. So J1 wasn't going to work. But 2-1 is usually. So I never get an invoice, but we'll take care of that today. How's that sound? I appreciate that. Thank you, man. We'll get you Thursday off right. And then you're going to be like, hey, I don't even need my car payment this month.

And then you're like, damn it. Text me tomorrow. Yeah, that first wedding is, I'll just leave it at this because I don't want to give content away here. But that first wedding is always an interesting one. The first couple for dudes. I waited too long to book the hotel so i'm in a different hotel i'm in the wedding i gotta get a suit this thing's gonna be like a thousand dollars i can't believe it so you waited too i've done that i did that a lot my 20s apparently too long was six months

early i don't know whatever yeah i mean this there's some real grown-up stuff that happens when you start booking weddings in your 20s where you're like what people book hotels more than four days in advance like what the hell is this? Insane. I remember my roommate in college, when his parents dropped him off our freshman year, they were like, oh, let's make sure we stop by the Sheraton so we get a reservation for graduation weekend. Wow. And I was like, wow, that is a safe bet. My parents did not do that to me.

They didn't drop me off going, all right, let's check in in 97. I took the bus when I went to college, by the way. You did? Yeah. Potsdam, New York. Like a 10-hour bus ride. That sucks. Yeah. let's check in in 97 i took the bus when i went to college by the way you did yeah pot stand new york like a 10-hour bus ride that sucks yeah did you end up having a car when you're on campus no not till never junior no junior year junior year i did okay yeah yeah not freshman year no no they don't want you leaving but you know what would be weird is if you're the type of person that was

going to leave college every single weekend you're probably not acclimating to college life the way most people are. You're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. Yeah. The idea that because you can't have a car on campus as a freshman in college means that you're going to matriculate and you're going to be like, oh, okay, I don't have the option of leaving every time. Hell, I didn't want to go home on Christmas.

So a car wasn't going to change the way I adapted to the surroundings. Okay, before we get to Adnan, I have this week's open, and it is about not yours, not your Houston Astros. Three parts on this, punishment, apology, and defense. When somebody does something wrong, we lose our minds about what we think is an acceptable punishment. We want it to be consistent, which is impossible. As I've said forever, punishment is not consistent. It's not consistent with public figures. It is not consistent with awful things.

It's not consistent with your situation and your siblings growing up, and it's definitely not consistent at your place of work. Things can happen at work where you go, wait a minute, what does that guy get? And then every time we do this punishment cycle of things, it never seems to be enough, which is really weird because as we're moving on in society, we seem to want more of it. We want more punishment to somehow satisfy us. And I still think that that's really odd where you go, hey, does everybody, you understand what we're all suggesting here is that we want punishment to be more, we want it to be more severe, it to be more severe more games more money all of these different things because if you tweet out when

miles garrett smashes mason rudolph over the head with his helmet that now three games everybody'd be like you assault you don't take assault seriously how could you say it was only three games now he missed the rest of the season and he's coming back and i'm glad he's coming back i don't know if i believe miles garrett i don't know if I believe Mason Rudolph. I just don't know. I don't feel comfortable saying publicly, hey, this guy, I'm 100% behind. I think there are problems on both sides of this argument, but when it came to the act, as bad as it was, if you had tweeted out, ah, three games, you would have been like, I can't believe it. Do you not understand? He could have killed somebody, and that's kind of

what it is. I always think we should maybe wait a day or two before we start talking about what a punishment should be for an act, especially if we keep it in the lane of sports. But I don't know why we do that, because it feels like if the punishment is excessive, it's almost like a reality show. We like reality shows because the people on the shows, for the most part, suck. It makes us feel better about ourselves. That's why it's been successful and it was not a fad. It's been around 30 something years. Punishment is this thing where I guess when another team, certainly one you don't root for, is punished beyond what you thought it

was going to be, that it makes you feel better. It's satisfying. But I got to imagine that that's completely temporary. You probably forget what the punishment is months removed from the actual thing. But the problem for the Astros in this is that what they did is they did something different. They did something we didn't really know existed. These guys were on the Mayflower of cheating. And I think most of us as reasonable people understand that cheating has gray areas, that there's levels. And even the players themselves know, okay, that's kind of acceptable. That's the thing that works. And that's the thing that's crossed the line. And clearly this, in the players' eyes, and despite what you think of Rob Manford, the commissioner, in his eyes, the way he tried to solve this thing

was by taking it seriously and realizing that this is beyond anything that we've ever understood. They have changed the goalpost, the Astros, on what we think is possible as a team that cheats. They set up the camera, relay those signs in, and then bang on a garbage can to suggest the off-speed pitches and all this different stuff, right? So we know the story. We know all that part of it. But what is difficult here for the Astros is like, no, man, this isn't just signaling from second base. This is a choreographed deal here that's beyond

anything else. And that's why everybody is so upset. So you're going to have to deal with navigating through this critical world that's never, ever seen anything like this. And again, the literal person is listening, going, wait, cheating is cheating is cheating. No, because if that were the case, you would be the person that goes to the food court mall that goes up to the place that's offering up free samples and you would eat every single free sample. And the guy behind the counter might say, hey, dude, like, you know, you get how this all works. Like you grab a

couple of samples, you move on and then you go, well, it says free sample and I will continue to sample as long as they are free. And it's like, well, no, no, no, no. Like everybody else kind of understands how this works. And I think that's why baseball has been so upset is that baseball people, even that cheated in the world where it was accepted, cheated. They're looking at this being like, this is so brand new. This is so beyond anything that's been accepted before. We don't really know what to do. So off of punishment into what the Astros have done, what is the fair punishment? Because all the players are given immunity to help in the investigation. And that doesn't seem like it's enough because the other players want the players

that are caught up in this Houston Astros thing to be found guilty in some other way, other than just being ripped nonstop. We'll get to that a little bit later. Front office executives have lost their jobs. Two managers are out of work here. These are significant things. Three managers are out of work now, and we're still waiting on what the Red Sox investigation

is going to be, and I got to tell you, if the Red Sox, and I've heard that it wasn't as bad as the Astros thing, but I almost think there could be some sort of punishment correction with the Red Sox where baseball's like, okay, we are taking this seriously. Some excessive punishment to the Red Sox because everybody's felt like they got the Astros thing wrong. Because if you said right now or did a poll where you said or asked the question,

did the Astros get punished enough? The majority of people right now would say no, but I also think that that's really a sign of what we do as a society when it comes to these kinds of acts. Now, should you strip the World Series championship from the Houston Astros? Initially, I said, no, I don't love the vacating of titles in college football and college basketball, but you know what? I mean, if you feel like the team is guilty of something, the program is guilty of something, as much as you may not like the NCAA, I can kind of understand that they do it just to be

difficult and go, you know what? We're just doing this and whatever, and don't hang the banner and all these different kinds of things. I feel like baseball, as Manfred said, he didn't want to set that precedent because even if you think what the Astros did led to them directly winning the World Series, and I can't tell you that you're wrong, I'm sure baseball doesn't want to go, okay, now that we've actually done this act, we've stripped a team of a world championship after the fact because of them doing something wrong. What does that lead to down the road? These leagues hate setting any kind of precedent. Judges hate setting any kind of precedent. So I understand Manford pushing back on that. Even if you think every time Manford has explained his position on this, he's done it

poorly. And trust me, the players all have ripped him because that relationship is impossible. Players are never going to sit there and say, oh, you know what? I really love the commissioner, especially in baseball and all the Dodgers, you know, Turner specifically ripping Commissioner Manford saying, you know, this guy's never played a sport and all these different things. Manford screwed up. He should have handled it differently, but I can understand and sympathize with him not wanting to do something where from now on, anytime someone does something wrong in baseball,

there's a chance that we're going back and taking trophies and championships away from teams. Now let's get to part two, the apology, because we want an apology and we never really get the apology that we want. Rarely when someone gets in trouble, do we get, okay, you know what? Like that guy totally owned it and he apologized for everything. And now I feel better. So now maybe I don't need as much punishment because the apology was pretty good. And this is where the Astros have completely missed the mark. You guys look like assholes right now. Do you not get that? Are you not understanding this? This isn't the world crumbling around you unfairly. This is you being caught guilty of doing again, something no one ever knew was going on. It was beyond the accepted levels of cheating.

And in doing so and getting exposed, now you're dealing with criticism that we've never really seen before because now you think, well, everyone's out to get us. No shit. All right. Now, some of the quotes from the last two weeks are ridiculous. Josh Reddick was asked about it in the Washington Post. He said, quote, at some point you have to move on and not give a shit. We're going to go out there and win and shut everybody up. That's not rallying anyone. No one listens to that and goes, ah, you know what? Redick. Sweet. He gets it. How about Carlos Correa, whose insane emotional two-minute tirade didn't make any sense, but I'm still going to explain it to you.

He said after Bellinger, the Dodgers was kind of going off. He said that Bellinger should shut the fuck up and starting pitcher Lance McCullers continued with his message saying, quote, but we're moving on. That's not what people may want to hear, but we stood here as men and addressed the scandal. We're just looking forward to playing baseball again. Um, there was another thing saying like, Hey, we're going to have to play some of these guys and they're going to have to play us. And some of the other guys mouthing off. Well, they're mouthing off because they never have to play us. Do you not understand that nobody listens to that and goes, oh, you know what? Smart. That makes a lot of sense. But I guess I can do this because I can explain why the Astros are doing this, even if this is not getting them anywhere. All right.

It's not getting them anywhere. And I also understand like a two days not going to get up there and say, you know what? I'm probably like a two 50 banjo hitter. Uh, I love using banjo hitter. It doesn't get used enough anymore. No, Bregman's not going to say, you know what? I probably, uh, I don't even know if I get this big of a contract. Hey, we wouldn't have beaten anybody. I mean, these guys are all really competitive. So they've convinced themselves that no matter what they did, they're still really special baseball players and that their team was still going to win some games, but they just did this thing. Now that doesn't make any sense to you. It doesn't make any sense to me, but that's just the way these guys work. So that's how they've come to this

point where they're now going back at everyone else because here's what they're also doing. And not to compare stealing signs to murder, let's get that PSA out of the way, but OJ, and I'm going to play a cut for you here in a second, but OJ's big thing was he went at the media nonstop after the fact, after his murder trial, because he pointed out little things that they got wrong. Guess what? He was probably right about a lot of things the media got wrong or maybe even the prosecution got wrong.

And that's what you do when you're guilty of something. You can be guilty of the act, but a lot of the information that will be built up, you're like, wait a minute, that's not what happened. And that's not how that worked. And that quote is wrong. And this guy is not telling the truth. I'm sure there's tons of inaccuracies throughout this entire Houston Astros scandal story. So what you do as a player of the Astros,

you're like, well, wait a minute, let me do a little deflection here. Now the bigger issue may be true, but here's all the little things you're getting wrong. And that was Correa's point. And it looks ridiculous. It doesn't get anybody to feel better about the situation, but that's what you're doing when you decide to then be defensive. I want to play you this cut, though. I'm going to do an aside here and play you two cuts because Graham Bessinger, who was this young kid who, right as I started at ESPN, so I was like 29, 30, he was in Syracuse. And he's got this great interview show now, A-listers across the board. But it was like, wait, this guy's in Syracuse, and now he's a a student and he's interviewing OJ? I went back and watched the interview because I remembered it.

And this part, I mean, this is tough. Everybody has a different style in interviewing. Some people are good at it and some people aren't. There's ways to disarm somebody if it's going to be hostile. Sometimes you just want to disarm to have somebody feel more relaxed. And when you're sitting down trying to figure out a way to ask OJ about the murders, Graham starts off with essentially like, hey, before we get to the killings, let's talk a little ball here. One, did you start off talking some football? You still pay close attention to the game?

You know, not quite the way I did in the past. It's not like I'm looking at the rosters of every team, trying to figure out who's going to impact what team. But the reason I'm bringing up the OJ thing is that, because here's a guy that we all looked at and were like, you're so guilty. But it's a little like the Costanza thing, where it's not a lie if you believe it, where his first defense, OJ, or his continuous defense of the situation,

wasn't, hey, this is where I was and we found out who the real guy was. It was, here are the things that the media got wrong. And, you know, we've talked in the past, and I'm not going over, but Barbara Walters, some of the most respected people in this country, you know, I gave you facts what they did in my case so that they couldn't dispute. That was just totally wrong. I mean, couldn't be 180% away from the facts, yet they reported it. And when they found out the truth, they never corrected it. They never went on the air to correct it.

You know what my favorite thing about that interview was? Is that afterwards, and here's Graham, I don't even know if he's 20 yet, and he went on OTL with Bob Lee, and Bob Lee challenged him a little bit on something. The whole thing was kind of like, what's going on? I'll tell you one thing, like in life, older people don't like younger people that are way beyond, like when it's a kid who's at Syracuse and now he's on OTL talking about his OJ sit down. That's something that somebody 20, 30 years,

no one was going like, I love this. I love this guy's hustle. It turns into like jealousy and actually just full on resentment. But Lee had said to him, well, you know, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, but I'll never forget it. Or Lee was like, well, wait a minute. Didn, well, you know, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, but I'll never forget it, where Lee was like, well, wait a minute, didn't you, you know, shouldn't you have done this? And then Graham went back at Bob Lee and said, well, it is important to remind everyone that OJ was not found guilty in a court of law in the criminal case. And Bob Lee's face, it'd be like Bieber hanging out with Mozart going, you know, this is actually the way chords are supposed to work. All right. So that aside is over. But now you get the point. You get the analogy. Again, not the same thing. But this is the lesson in all of this, whether it's the punishment,

the apology, lack of or the defense by the guilty party, it leads to one massive conclusion. Here's an example. College football fans everywhere when the polls don't work out in your favor. And basically, that's all the other conferences outside of the doubt and bias after they won a national championship because they stayed ranked the entire year and played in the playoff. Despite the fact that everybody that watched him every single week was like this team isn't as good, but that's always the thing you want to know why you want to know why you

believe in those things. It's because you never, this is very hard to do this. It's hard to go. This guy's better at my thing than I am. Okay. If there's another guy that you're working with and he's rewarded better and he's getting a bigger promotion and all these things,

how many times have you sat there and said, that guy's just flat out better at his job than I am. We have the same job and he's better. It sucks. It sucks to come to that conclusion. And in a cool way, maybe it's better that we don't ever really want to admit that stuff and that we're competitive and we never want to concede. I don't know what the lane is. I don't know what the perfect lane of confidence, self-awareness is ever supposed to be. Maybe that's the journey in all of this. But it's much easier to suspect that everyone is out to get you

instead of just saying, you know what, my team's just not as good. Or, hey, you know what, my conference isn't as good. And what happened here, what the Astros do not understand, is that there's already 29 fan bases that don't like you because you're in the way. There's already 29 other locker rooms that don't like you because they feel like you did something that they either never would do morally or just didn't think of. So since they didn't think of it, they didn't do it,

so they're okay ripping you the entire time. But what happened here is every Dodgers fan that lost to the Astros in a World Series is sitting there and saying, I've always thought things are against us. I've always thought my team never got any call because I can only see it through my emotional lens with my favorite team. But what the Astros did by being exposed is prove to me that it actually does exist. That it's not just a bias, that there is this conspiracy and not just a conspiracy, this entire orchestrated cheating scandal that denied my favorite team something that I always knew they were worthy of. And that's the lesson in all of this. Hey, before we get to Adnan, we want to remind you, DraftKings, there's plenty going on at DraftKings, the leader in daily fantasy sports. DraftKings

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good friend. Loved working with him. Never know. Adnan Virk of... I can't really keep track of all the different places he's working at. We know MLB Network, Zone, anything else. You popped up in a big way post-Oscars. This is kind of your time.

I appreciate it, man. I'm as shocked as anybody that somehow I was able to finagle my way back on the Levitard show. But echoing your thoughts, I miss you, man. Good to be back with you. And yeah, the Zone MLB Network, I'm doing NHL Network tonight, which I've done three straight days of this week. I'm going to the Devils game Saturday because we're on Ovechkin Watchers. He's close to 700. I know you're locked into that.

Sirius, I'm filling in the MLB Network Radio, which, I mean, listen, we always had a blast together, but what's better than doing radio from your basement? I can literally walk downstairs and knock out three hours of Power Alley today on MLB Network Radio with Jim Duquette. And then Cadence 13, of course, my podcast, Cinephile, which is laboring mightily,

unlike your roaring success, which I'm thrilled for. Cinephile is drawing flies, but we thank the loyal listenership we have. And GM Shuffle, of course, my NFL father from Bardia. I know ringer fans know Mike. He is carrying us there with, surprisingly, a good NFL pod. So it's been great, man. I'm glad that you're busy grinding away as well. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Can you give me, before we do this baseball stuff and some movie stuff is there a basketball equivalent for conor mcdavid and what this guy is doing what he's capable of what he means to the sport oh it's a great one man i mean he's such a special player because you know he came in with such expectations you know obviously gretzky is so much hype eric lindros did sydney crosby did and mcd McDavid is just the latest one of those guys who is like, you know, an enormous talent who's actually lived up to all the hype. But if you ever watch him, like, just even for a few minutes, it's just as, it's a lot of elements of Gretzky. You know, that's why you draw the comparison.

Not only the fact that it's the Oilers, but their size and shiftiness and anticipation and able to jump out of the play. He's actually been banged up the last few games he's been out. And Dreisaitl, who's also an Oilers, is actually leading the league in points with 95, which is crazy. So then you've got these two incredible players. McDavid is the league's best player.

And then you've got Drysaddle, who might win the Hart Trophy this year. The crazy thing is this, though, Ryan. The Oilers are in a battle just to make the playoffs. Think about that. So you've got two of the best players. Maybe this is like Oklahoma City. Maybe you could say back in the day,

Westbrook and Harden, you've got two of the best players in the league, but it's. Maybe you could say back in the day, Westbrook and Harden, you've got two of the best players in the league, but it's like a battle right now just to make the playoffs because the Pacific is tight and their defense is a little bit lacking, but he's a lot of fun to watch, man. It's awesome. Yeah, every night that I catch it, and again, my thing is I watch what is important to what I'm doing.

I rarely will watch something that has nothing to do with work when it comes to sports. And that's unfortunate, but just give the way, like if I, if I sit there and be like, Hey, there's no basketball tonight. All right. I'm just going to bang out hockey for four hours tonight. Like, I just can't, there's no way. But you have, you have underrated hockey knowledge because you know, as we all remember,

you were gracious enough to give me, but you were gracious enough to give me the NHL playoff minutes. So that'd be at least, at least you gave me that. And your buddies are there in Miller. And let's not forget, when Martin and Stan Louis came to audition, and I texted you, you came right away. You guys are, I mean, you've told the stories, I'm sure. I don't know about the ringer pod, but your friendship with Marty, bartending together in Vermont.

So, there's hockey knowledge there. Yeah, now I'm surrounded by all the guys. You know, when a king gets traded, I may be losing a volleyball buddy. So, that's, you know, I got gotta check the wire to see to see how our volleyball game may be impacted by by any kind of nhl trade deadline let me start with the baseball thing though uh which is 32 lakes i've started with our stuff does mad dog know your name yet because it's been a couple years right i was hoping you'd be all over this because i figured people uh would be enjoying this um i get and listen you and i all over this because I figured people would enjoy this.

Listen, you and I have discussed this, right? As you said to me once, you grew up in, obviously, Revere. You want to do radio, talk radio. Everyone knows Mike and the Mad Dog and how critical those guys were in our business and how influential they were. But for a guy who is, and I don't use this term lightly, I think he's a broadcasting legend. I think Mad Dog is. He is. Right? Everyone knows. He is.

Right? Everyone knows who he is. And as you know, doing radio. For God's sakes, I listened with you and Colin, and you made the point, which is completely accurate, that Colin's as good as it gets when doing solo radio. Just the fact that even up until a couple years ago, Matt Dock was doing five hours of radio a day. I'm like, you know how exhausting that is? And I get the fact. You and I would joke about this.

Well, you know, if you're taking calls, it's a little bit easier, but still five hours is five hours. So I, I respect his stamina, his energy. And like me, a big baseball guy, also a big tennis guy, but he is not great with names.

He has made a career of malapropisms to put it lightly, butchering of names, Bruce shine, who is his producer and also researcher. I mean, he goes, that's my, my most critical job is whatever name he butchers just to quickly jump in there. He's like, you know, Adelberto modesty. I mean, he goes, that's my most critical job is whatever name he butchers just to quickly

jump in there. He's like, you know, Adelberto Mondesi. I mean, there's no way some of these names, he goes, we look at Danny Echeverria. I mean, as soon as we see them, I just know it's like a train track, but it's kind of his thing. It's like, hey, Mad Dog's going to screw up names, but it does deny his passion for the sport. So he knows me.

Does he know my name? Not really. Yeah, I've caught clips where I think there's like three or four different variations. I was amazed to hear Cowherd, because I always assumed like Cowherd, when he would get done, he was not the type to throw on SVP and Rosillo and listen the entire ride home. Like he probably just, he wasn't going

to do that. And so I go, what do you listen to now? And Mad Dog was his first, he was like, yeah, Mad Dog. So for anybody that listened to it, or if you missed it, check it out on Tuesday. Let me get to the meat of the stuff now though. I can't believe, by the way, all this years of friendship, I feel like I know you pretty well. The fact that you grew up in Maine. I mean, I had no

idea. Cowherd had to break that news to me. I want to hear about the mean streets of Bangalore. Okay, well now you're... Yeah, he doesn't know. But even Simmons at times has been like, wait a minute, did you grow up in Vermont? I'm like, no, I didn't grow up in Vermont. I'm like, no, I didn't grow up in Vermont. I'm going to set the record straight.

Ryan Russillo was born in Hartford, grew up in the vineyard where he waited two years to watch Barry Levin's Toys, and he went to UVM and he used to live in West Hartford. Go ahead. There you go. There you go. Perfect. Yeah, because there were rumors I was born in Wyoming. There was also, for a while, there was a rumor, it was on Wikipedia that I was born in Compton.

And so then this like rap magazine reached out to me to be like, this is an amazing story. White guy born in Compton ends up in Vermont and now has a talk show. I'm like, yeah, that would be an amazing story, wouldn't it? I go, but I didn't grow up in Compton. Somebody screws my Wikipedia page, man. And the guy was kind of like, oh, really? He's like, well well will you still do it it's like yeah no problem and then uh whatever all right so i just did an open about the astros

where i'll summarize it here is that whatever punishment is we seem to want more of it now i don't know what the right punishment is the players for the astros have completely missed the mark here they're not just bad at apologies. Now they're like attacking because they're mad, which I kind of get. And then I always think if you're the one that's being prosecuted publicly, that you're going to look for inaccuracies and then feel better about yourself and start pointing out that stuff with the defense. But really what this comes down to is like a line was crossed.

So let me get your summary of what you think we're dealing with now, like to this point of the story and then I want to follow up with the players that you've talked to. So just go ahead and take any direction that you best need to get your thoughts on this scandal. Well, I think it's fascinating. As you and I would talk when we do radio, the fact that the NFL

is a year-round sport, the NBA has been so successful with free agency at dominating headlines in the summer. And for baseball, it's been tough to kind of get, you know, round-the-clock coverage, whereas this year has been amazing. I mean, the last two off-seasons, you and I both were so brutal in terms of signings and nothing was happening. And you go, God, guys are getting squeezed.

This year's been unbelievable. I mean, Garrett Cole goes to the Yankees. You got Rendon going to the Angels. You had plenty of Mookie Betts, for God's sake, going to the Dodgers with Price. And then you got this Astros-Science- scandal with Chip LeBron James tweeting about February. So I've never been one of these bad publicity is good publicity. Like, I'd rather not be tarred and feathered. But I do think there's some of the fact that everyone is talking baseball, and everybody has an opinion on this.

Now, it's a fascinating story for many reasons. And as you pointed out for the Astros, you know, everybody's screwed up in life. We've all made mistakes. And you would have thought the PR firm or whoever would advise these guys. So you come out and just go, hey, I'm real sorry, man. Like, we screwed this thing up. Like, honestly, it's just, you know, when you're out there playing baseball, you're so competitive.

You're looking for every edge. And yeah, we definitely crossed the line. We know what we did was wrong. We're accountable. We're sorry. We're moving on. And that's it, right? Like, the worst thing you can do, which is what they've done, which is not appear particularly contrite. And then when pushed, because I Like, the worst thing you can do, which is what they've done, which is not appear particularly contrite. And then when pushed, because, I mean, it's astonishing how many guys have spoken. Mike Trout's allergic to controversy.

He won't say anything. And he's crushing these guys. Chris Bryant is saying stuff. I mean, you're expecting Trevor Bauer. But Cody Bellinger is saying that Altuve stole the MVP from Judge. And, I mean, everybody is so passionate about it. And then for Correa to come back. And I get the fact. Listen, I remember, by the way, you and I interviewed Correa. He passionate about it. And then for Correa to come back and I get the fact,

listen, I remember, by the way, you and I interviewed Correa. He came to ESPN Radio. Nice guy, had a fedora. Big fedora guy. Big fedora. Oh, a big fedora guy.

I was like, you were surprised he hugged it out with both of us. He gave us, he got in there for the good one, but it was the least surprising fedora of the history of fedoras. But listen,

I appreciate he's sticking up for Altuve and said, hey, Cody, you don't know what's happening. But then to tell Cody Belger to shut the F up, like, no, this isn't the part where we do this. This is the part of the story where we just say, hey, I'm sorry, and you don't say anything else. You just say sorry like 20 different times or 30 different variations. And then when you want to write a book five years from now, and you want

to blast everybody to get back, go for it. If you win the World Series this year, and you want to taunt everybody, okay, fine. I'll give you that one then. It's interesting how, as you said, the apology hasn't been very good, and that seems to have gotten noticed. I just think the fact we so often in the media want guys to speak their minds and give us quotes.

These guys, everybody in the game has been giving us really good material and speaking very passionately. I'll say this for Rob Manfred. It's, it's a spot again. You and I interviewed him in Miami, the all-star game. And I don't want to speak for you, but I think he's always appeared to me at least to be progressive and open minded. And he's willing to tackle issues.

He's not one of those guys that says, yeah, baseball's property. He's like, no, listen, let's improve pace of play. Let's work on some things. Let's make the game more national. I wish that Mike Trout was out there more. We could sell the stars more. So I always liked that about Rob. I think he's progressive. But certainly

the fact that players are so upset that he didn't suspend them. I mean, Marwin Gonzalez is down on the twins. What are you going to do? Give the guy a 20-game suspension or some of the Asher's in 2017? And we all know that, listen, unless the players were granted immunity, why would they tell the truth? And for people to get mad at the union, what's the point of the union? You and I like

the Irishman. What do you think Jimmy Hoffa's doing? The union is to protect the players. So no, we're not going to let guys talk in the issue that they may get punished for something, which they're going to say, oh, there wasn't a clear delineation of rules and blah, blah, blah. So I think it's amazing, man. It's really an amazing story from multiple perspectives. And at the very least, it's generated a lot of conversation. Yeah. One of the things that I've seen a lot of in Adam in adam silver you know to have your first controversy be something that's actually not that controversial donald sterling owns the clippers nobody likes him everybody knows his history his history it's awful um it's filled with racism and then he gets himself in a situation

where there's tapes of him saying these things to that girl um the bunny rabbit girl there and everybody's just like this guy sucks right i mean it's just like consensus this guy sucks and then all all commissioner silver has to do is go to the other owners and be like hey you know what like it's time right and even cuban said i don't know man like the precedent we're setting and even said slippery slope as bad as sterling may be like you can just be taped saying something and then you can lose your franchise. But this had been coming for Sterling for a long time. So when people go,

well, look at what silver did. He was, he was swift. He was decisive. There was no other side of that. Okay. As much as this business is filled with the other zag,

nobody was like, ah, Sterling, not as bad as you think, like doesn't deserve to lose his team. Like everybody was on the same page there. So it was incredibly, it was a headline,

but it was an incredibly easy decision for Silver where he had all the other supports of the 29 partners that wanted one of theirs gone. This is so different. So for anybody to say, well, look how good Silver was and look at how Manfred is bumbling this, Manfred has done some things wrong. I don't think he's a bad commissioner.

I don't. I know that's going to be unpopular to say today. I actually have faith in him and talking with him far more than any time I ever interacted with Bud Selig. I'm not going to make it personal here, but Manfred is a different guy. He's made some mistakes clearly, but I can't handle anybody trying to draw some direct line because as you mentioned, the union protects guys that have been charged with domestic violence their their sole purpose to exist is to protect their members and even though there's 29 clubhouses that hate their supposed colleagues in this situation the

union will still be there to protect them so manford goes all right well i'm going to go this route and i've read all the different legal stuff. I've read the Michael Kahn stuff and what could or couldn't happen. But to compare the two to act like Manfred got it wrong with Silver got it right, they're two completely different things here. It's a great analogy because you're right. Both those guys, I mean, Silver and Manfred take North for a long time, commissures, and Stern and Seeliger certainly made an impact.

And you're right. I feel like Adam Silver, like everyone's a good guy. He's genuine. The players all like him. He's not, he doesn't surely have that, you know, the draconian aura of David Spurn and, and obviously great things that Stern did, but you know, obviously there's, there's downsides to it as well. I think in the case of Rob, like you said, he took ownership too.

Like, listen, he didn't have to apologize, but the fact that, listen, I'm sorry that I said, I called the World Series a hunk of metal and I misspoke. I'm a cannibal. That's on me. Like he, and that apology was better than anything. And the Houston Ashers have said in terms of just how to say sorry and just try to be contrite and move on. So I do want to go back to what you said though, too, about the Ashers. I do understand their perspective. As much as people are ridiculing them, I do get the fact when the whole world is crashing against you, it's hard not to bounce back a little bit, right? When the whole world's killing you and going, you guys are cheaters. You guys suck. You guys are the ones who are going to go, you know what?

And I'm sure that in that clubhouse, that sentiment is, hey, we weren't the only ones doing it. Perhaps the Asher's are the most egregious. Okay. Perhaps the Asher's were the most willfully aggressive. Got it. Perhaps Lunau had a reputation for smug, arrogant, to build in light, the analytics. Okay, all that is true. And I get that. Maybe there was a feeling in Major League Baseball and they got caught when they got burned. Hey, that's a good comeuppance to them.

We never liked them anyway. But it's awfully tough, Ryan, to think that in 29 other Major League clubhouses, there wasn't any sort of behavior in which technology wasn't being used for 100% of the most appropriate means. And to that point, you know, what's Rob Manvers was to go. Okay.

Yeah, we got the ashes, right? Who's next. We'll work on the Red Sox right now. That investigation is next week. All right. Yankees.

We'll get to next. We'll do Dodgers in May. Like eventually you go, Hey, listen, all this has to stop. We threw the book at these guys, at least in our mind. Now the players are saying we didn't do enough.

Last time I checked, you suspended a manager and a GM per year. Both of those guys lost their jobs. Alex Corr lost his job with Boston. Beltran, obviously, the Mets reneged on that job. Like, that's pretty big when it comes to as far as jobs being affected. And I think that basically baseball, like, nothing was more better than just the baseball to start to keep moving on. Because I know there's people who said, oh, well, there's smoke, there's fire, there's other teams.

Well, yeah, but I don't think they're going to systematically go through every single team and figure out what everybody was doing. Yeah, we're still too removed from the NFL offseason thing cracking up. The CBA can be a distraction. It happened right during, like all the back and forth happened

when the NBA takes their week off. So, you know, the NBA games will start back up. We'll have March Madness. I mean, that's really in all of this. As bad as it feels right now, if I were friends with Manford, I'd go, look, you could have done a better job with some of these quotes. This is unprecedented

territory. There's plenty of arguments against him. He said you shouldn't have given anybody immunity, but I know what you were trying to do. You were trying to turn the page and move on. Guess what? As heavy as that page may seem, it is going to turn. It is going to turn, and then people are going to move on from this because it was cheating in baseball. All right? That's what it was.

Right. And ultimately, you know this as well as I do. In every sport, you have great villains. And the Ashers, now, this is fascinating because if they get off to a great start, right, if they're 20-5 out of the gate, I'm like, oh my god, this is amazing. Because they're like, screw you guys. They're a talented team. Everyone knows Springer's a great player, Altuve,

Bregman, etc. Even more incredible might be if they get up to a bad start. And Altuve's like a one for 20 spot. Then you go, oh my God, the whole world is cheering against these guys. So I think they're going to be must-see TV, especially out of the gate. A little movie time with Adnan. Before we do that, today's podcast, the Ryan Russillo Show on the Ringer Network. Sponsored by ADT Commercial for Business. ADT commercial serves businesses

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That's ADT.com forward slash gameday. Let's do movies. I've watched Parasite once upon a time in Hollywood, 1917. I did not see Judy. I know that surprises you. This was an incredible year though, but let me,

let me propose a theory. Ever since Oscar's so white and that controversy and that trending topic that now the awards have shifted to be more inclusive. Like I'm not anti-P shifted to be more inclusive like i'm not anti parasite winning best film i'm not anti moonlight i think some of the stuff that's been suggested is best picture i'm like wait a minute what what's going on there and believe it or not there are

white bodies that i also don't like um which i know people you know whenever i've done this it's like what like i don't really get the mule no I don't know does that make me an ageist but where are you right now with what Parasite means for the way Best Picture is now thought of because I think five years ago Parasite would have been like what was that like yeah that's not winning

Best Picture are you kidding we have Leo and Brad Pitt in the same movie well you're absolutely right but Oscar's still white changing everything because the Academy took it seriously, and they really looked to get more inclusivity and to get more people of color in there, and to get more women in there as well. And you've got different voices and different people.

So right now in the Academy, you've got Old Hollywood and New Hollywood. And Old Hollywood, the favorite was 1917, which is a terrific film. I had it as one of my top five films of the year. I think Roger Deakins is the best cinematographer alive. He's 65 years old. He got his 15th nomination.

And he just won his second Oscar. The guy went 0 for 13, and now he's 2 for 2. He went for Blade Runner 2049 two years ago, and now he wins. Mendes is obviously a great director. Revolutionary Road, Skyfall, which I thought was the best Bond movie in years. He also won an Oscar for American Beauty and Road to Perdition. Scott Van Pelt won his favorite movie. So everybody says, all right, Mendes is a well-respected British theater director.

Obviously, he pulls off this great war movie. It looks like it's one shot. It's one of those classic films that's timeless, et cetera, et cetera. And I would have had no issue if it had won Ryan. Like I said, I think it's really high craftsmanship. And I thought it was going to be the favorite, as everyone digs. It won everything. It won the BAFTA, which is the British Academy Awards.

You know, it won the Golden Globe Best Motion Picture Drama. And it won the PGA. PGA is the big one. Producers Guild Award. The winner of that award, eight of the last 10 years, wins Best Picture, including last year, for Green Book. So Paris said the reason they had a puncher's chance was they had won the SAG for Best Ensemble,

and the biggest group in the Academy is the actors. There's 8,127 members of the Academy. It's always expanding. By the way, it's expanded by about 2,000 since Oscar's so wide. So they're really trying to get more people in there from different backgrounds, et cetera. They're really big, like 25%. Think about that.

So all of a sudden, you get these new people coming in there. They go, hang on a second. And what most of the Academy members said is this. I think 1917 is going to win, but I really loved Parasite. And enough of those people voted with their hearts and said, listen,

The Irishman is an incredibly well-made movie. 1917 is a well-made movie. Marriage Story certainly has incredible acting. You know, all these, but Much About Time in Hollywood is a beautiful production design, which it won the Oscar for. It's stellar acting. But the movie I love, the movie that when I walked out of it, I go, holy crap, that movie's unbelievable, was Parasite. And I think that's why it won the Oscarars, that it had a real charge to it and people had a real visceral reaction to it. And it really shouldn't be as much of an underdog as we think.

It won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May, which is when I heard about it. Something went to the Palme d'Or. That means it's normally pretty good. It opened in theaters in November, was selling out in New York City because everybody who knows movies was like, hey, this movie's awesome.

And it got word of mouth, et cetera, et cetera. It went into the SAG Best Ensemble, which Spotlight won Best Picture, even though that was like, hey, this is awesome. And they got word of mouth, etc., etc. It wins the SAG Best Ensemble, which Spotlight won Best Picture, even though that was an underdog, but it won the SAG Best Ensemble. So Paris certainly had a chance going into the Oscars. And the biggest shock line wasn't Best Picture, but Best Director. That one was honestly flattened,

because Mendes had won the DGA, which is the Director's Guild Award. He'd won the BAFTA Best Director. He'd won the Golden Globe. There was no indication that Bong Joon-ho was going to win. And he wins. And can you get a guy

who's more endearing, more self-deprecating, and more humble? He goes up there and he dedicates his entire speech to crediting the other directors. Like, he rightfully

credits Scorsese right away, gives a great quote of Marty's. They get a standing ovation for Marty, which was awesome. He then credits Tarantino for always championing Asian cinema. He thanks Sam and Todd, even though Todd Phillips is Joe Christian Menone, was awesome. He then credits Tarantino for always championing Asian cinema. He thanks

Sam and Todd, even though Todd told us Joe Christian had been nominated, but whatever. He thanks him. He's like, I'm going to drink until next morning. This guy's awesome. What did he say about drinking? Wait a minute, what did he say about the drinking quote? He thanks Chris Duffy first. He gives a quote from Marty. He says, thanks to Quentin for helping Asian cinema.

He goes, thanks to Todd and Sam. I'm going to drink until morning. By the way, the rest of it was all with translation, thanks to Todd and Sam. I'm going to drink until morning. And by the way, the rest of it was all with translation. In English, he says, I'm going to drink until morning, leave. Thinks he's done. And then five minutes later, oh, by the way, he just won Best Picture. So in answer to your question, how does this change things? It's already wildly successful for a foreign film. It's made $175 million worldwide.

For a foreign film, which is not an action movie, not like a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, those are extraordinary numbers. Domestically, it's made $35 million. That was before it won Best Picture. Now it's going to be in like 2,000 screens. So people are really going to go see it. And you and I both know a lot of people say, well, I'm not into foreign films,

but if it won Best Picture, I better go see it. And I'm glad you liked it having seen it after the hype, because that's my fear now is people are going to say, ah, it's okay, but I mean, I don't know about best picture i saw it in november and i was blown away i thought that was an audacious unpredictable film aside from the irishman it was my favorite movie of the year so i was really really happy that it won man and listen if people want to draw stronger parallels like you said in terms of diversity and a foreign film winning yeah all that stuff's great but parasite's an incredible film anybody who just takes it at face value

sees the fact it really is a special movie. Yeah, I watched it after the hype. Like you said, it's completely dangerous. And he had a great line about subtitles. Like, come on. I mean, look, anybody who's an artist enough to write some of the stuff that he's written. I mean, these guys are special artists.

So the idea of the stuff. But it's true. Like, subtitles are like driving on the highway. Like, after a while, you don't even realize that you're driving on the highway and you're just going and you're paying attention and you're just mind works that way. And that's what happens with subtitles. Like the first four or five minutes you're on the flight, you're like, oh, I got to read everything.

And then you just, you just consume it. So, you know, anybody that's letting that get in the way, um, you're, you're screwing yourself up because it isn't, it isn't a straight line. The movie is, is a bunch of different things and I'm constantly sitting there and you go, okay, you know, good movies are, are good stories with bad endings.

Great movies are, are good movies with great endings that I'm not expecting. And there's, it's not like some usual suspects type of Kaiser. So say twist here, but it's just, they do. So I'm not going to give away too much here,

but they just do a lot of good things. But as you ran through all the other names, like I didn't mention Joker, cause we've already talked about Joker where now Joker's become, and I appreciate your dislike of it because it's specific and you feel like it's not paying homage to, it's borrowing from too many other things. And I concede to you on that one. But one of the movies I hadn't seen before, so it didn't hit me the same way. And I liked the way that they showed the evolution of somebody losing their mind. I think Phoenix did a great job with that, but it's become uncool to

actually like it, which I think is another a great job of that, but it's become uncool to actually like it, which I think is another byproduct of everything that's gone on. But then you bring up Marriage Story, which I think is one of the most brilliant openings to a story that I've ever seen. Like it made me think differently about like what you should be doing in movies

and how efficiently you can tell the beginning of the story. And then I know, I imagine sentimentally, you were upset about Irishman, but probably not too surprised. But what, this is like the Trailblazers in 99-2000 when I think about this year in movies. Just to remind you that this roster had Rasheed, Rasheed, Wallace, Scottie Pippen, Steve Smith, Damon Stoudemire, Sabonis, Detler Schrempf,

Brian Grant, Greg Anthony, Bonzi Wells, Jermaine O'Neal, Stacey Augman. Those were your top 11 in minutes for that Trailblazers team that won 59 games. That was a deep basketball team. Listen, I love Stacey Ogwood and the Running Rebels. And by the way, it's a bonus. Nice to see DeMontis representing the All-Star game. But to your point about film, what was the popular sentiment the last couple of years? Oh, I don't watch movies anymore.

I just watch TV. All the good stuff's on TV now. I'm just going to watch Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, et cetera. This was a real comeback for film. If you're somebody like me who loves movies, who loves going to the movies, who believes in the silver screen, and as sentimental as that may sound,

it was an incredible year. As you mentioned, as you said before, Barrett's story is a great divorce movie. The best one they've made since Kramer vs. Kramer. That's been 40 years. Tarantino, again, pays homage to Hollywood in a way that only he can. Again, a great script, as usual. QT, he's got two unbelievable performances

from Pitt DiCaprio. Robbie's full, underwritten, fine, but she's representing the essence of Shannon Tate and what she represented. And that's one of those movies, I think it helps the second time you've seen it. I've seen Once Upon a Time twice, and I liked it a lot more the second time.

Not necessarily because I knew what I was getting, but I could just appreciate, again, the homages he's making, the humor of the movie specifically. 1917, we've already spoken about it. And listen, The Irishman, I stand by it. Of the nine movies that were nominated for Best Picture, The Irishman is the only one that's not won a single Oscar. Four versus Ferrari wins for Best Editing. I mentioned Once Upon a Time in Hollywood for Best Production Design. Irishman gets nothing. But to me, that doesn't discredit the film. I think if you still watch, you know, this is clearly high craftsmanship,

clearly really talented guys, legends in their own right, working at a high level. And I think it's the way that people will watch yours now. I think with the Irishman, I'm curious your take, because you read the book as did I. I think it was hurt by the association with Netflix in two ways. One, I think people in Hollywood really don't vote for Netflix. So let's be real. If I put a movie out and I'm with Paramount and the movie stinks, well, everyone knows about it. Like, let's use Cats. Everyone knows Cats was a disaster. I haven't seen it yet, so don't say too much about Cats.

I haven't seen it yet. I won't spoil it. Other than to say it was a disaster, apparently, according to everybody who saw it. I haven't seen it either. But by critical drubbing and by the box of it gets smoked, right? James Corden is going to apologize for it, et cetera. So in the case of Netflix, you can put a movie out and nobody knows what the box office is. Nobody knows how many people are watching it.

Nobody knows what McDowell's getting. Who knows? Whereas in Hollywood, any other film, you know the box office, et cetera. Plus, you've got to wait three months from the theatrical release until it's available in home video. So a lot of these, listen, Spielberg came out openly a year ago and said Netflix movies should not be in consideration for the Oscars. He's a good friend of Scorsese's. He loves movies. And he's saying, this isn't fair. So I think absolutely there's enough

academy to listen. The Irishman is a high quality. Clearly these guys know what they're doing, but there's no fricking way I'm voting for Netflix to win best picture, period. The other thing that hurt, and I think for fans, because I will readily admit, I don't think it got a rate reviews. If you just did word of mouth. I think more, if I took 10 people right now and said, watch Parasite, they'll be more wowed by Parasite than they will be The Irishman. And part of it's hurt by the fact, when you're in the theater, for lack of a better term, you're chained to it. You have no choice. You're going to watch the movie. At home, if you watch The Irishman for 15 minutes and check a couple of texts, then go for a run,

oh, I'll pick up the rest tomorrow. I think that really hurts the movie. I think you had to watch it more to appreciate it, and certainly for guys like you and me who have read the book, I think you're bringing more to it as well, but that's just my feeling on it. I think some people had a really hard time with De Niro playing that many different ages. Is he 70 now? He's going to be 70, right?

Yeah, he's 76 now, yeah. 76, gosh. Okay, all right, looking great then. Pci is is immaculate a good way to describe him because i think he's that clean through the whole movie like he's that good he's got this kind of understated thing to him that that conveys power but there's you know it's the subtleness of of the great actors where he's you know even though pesci can overdo it and other stuff he is not doing it here and it works perfectly. So I thought he was great.

Yeah, I was going to say, of the three actors, unanimously from people, everybody, anecdotally, critically, everyone seemed to agree. Pesci gave the best performance for what you just understated. Very atypical what you've normally seen in a Scorsese film. Okay, so I also think in reading the book that Frank, the character, he is a mule. He's not an educated guy. He's a guy that gets back from World War II, drinks a lot, and kind of hangs around bars. And guys are like, all right, cool. Do you want to start stealing stuff? And here you are, you're in with the union. And once they knew that he was painting houses, meaning he was a killer, and he was just willing to follow instructions. and he was just willing to follow instructions. So De Niro actually nails that part of it, but it's not a show-off type of character. Like other characters that De Niro's played have more pop,

and this character Frank, to play it the right way, it wasn't going to have that kind of pop. I thought Pacino was great as Hoffa, but the Netflix part of it, in years we'll look back and think it's silly that anybody ever said that about a Netflix release because because that's just the way it works the same way with a radio where you were like hey do you want to just do a podcast instead of have a radio show and you'd be like no way i don't want to do that like i'm not just a podcaster that's ridiculous so the netflix thing is true because you know we can just do the basics and say yeah i thought some scenes dragged a little bit it's really long that's okay but i consumed it in a completely different way than when I went to 1917 and got stuck in the front and was blown away by the way the director did that for two hours.

You know, like that first moment where they get out of the bunker and they kind of get into that middle battle section and they're rolling around in the dirt and the mud and the bodies. Like that is a different experience. And you're not going to hit pause and check your phone during that. So you're absolutely right in the consumption part of this i'm not saying it should have won best picture but it felt like it had a lot of things going up against it there is a scene hour 37 mark of 1917 i know that specifically because i watched the screener and i'm jealous by the way i know that sucks being in the front row but i'm jealous for everybody who saw it in the theater i'm so lucky you know doing the bfca, the broadcast, the

Association, I get so many screeners, so obviously it's just easier for kids, et cetera, jobs. I'll watch them at home. So when I watch 1917 in my basement, there's this, at hour 37, you know the part I'm talking about, it's when Schofield disobeys the general and just does that mad dash. That one minute might have been the best one minute

of any movie of 2019. It's incredible. He just does this mad dash running across and the camera's furiously tracking back. You got bombs going off everywhere. You got armies converging. I mean, he slips at one point. There's mud on the camera. It's unreal. Like I read Roger Deakins said that shot.

I mean, they did 30 takes. Think about that. 30 takes over and over. I get bombs. Because something would happen. Oh, one step to the right. No good. Oh, actually, the sun's coming up now. The cloud's and over. I get bombs. Because something would happen. Oh, one step to the right, no good. Oh, actually the sun's coming up now. The cloud's not good.

Lens flare. Somebody blew a line, whatever. Like, I agree with you. The level of craftsmanship with 1917 is remarkable. I hope, listen, it did very well at the box office. It made about 130, it'll end up with at least $150 million. So I'm glad you saw it in the theater so many days.

That is one of those event movies which people got to see on a big screen You know what my favorite minute is and by the way if you're doing the scene that's going to be the best minute of the entire year as crazy as 30 takes would have to be to reset all of that stuff that must have been brutal

it's worth it because that is kind of that scene where he's just running along but what DiCaprio did on the second watch of Once Upon a time of hollywood is is incredible like he's really playing like four different roles of the same guy in the same movie and it works like think how funny it is to go okay leo you're gonna have to do this thing where you're sort of this washed up tv actor and you're trying to resurrect your career but you drink too much and you're just not locked in and you are gonna kind of suck at acting and then you're gonna recover and the like you know how many people would screw

that up like he's he's purposely acting as a bad actor that doesn't get it anymore but he's not overdoing it too much that you're like okay you're just you're just actually a bad actor acting like a bad actor and i i really think that that's kind of said like the more i think about it what he did in once upon a time in hollywood is more impressive than what he did in the revenant but the revenant's the one that wins you an oscar yeah i i i will agree with that because i think pitt stole all the headlines he'd never won an oscar before but that's one of those weird ones where they're they're both kind of co-leads just the way that the company markets it okay let's put pitt supporting leo lee but they're both like leads. It's like a true supporting actor,

somebody who obviously comes in and has much less screen time. But to your point, that whole sequence where Leo is berating himself, you know, if I drink too many whiskey sours and stuff like that, that is an example of what a great actor he is because he shows you the frustration.

Oh my God, he's still pissed at himself. It's so funny the way he does it. And by the way, apparently the scene I love, obviously because I love Al, when Pacino and Leo meet early on, god because he's still pissed at himself it's so funny the way he does it and by the way apparently the scene i love obviously because i love al when pacino and leo meet early on apparently the that scene could have been like 20 minutes and tarantino cut it and it just is a bunch of flashbacks right when they're showing leo in those movies but they're saying that tarantino may release a four-hour cut for like a netflix or something like that and we still show that whole

scene so i'd love to see pacino and leo going back and forth like a good 20 minutes the way it was apparently in the original cut i can't even believe i ever doubted tarantino i think because pulp fiction set the bar so high that was like the first time i ever really thought like wait a minute you can like do different stuff like this and take all these chances and tell stories in these these odd timelines and you know pulp fiction no one can ever say to me oh it's overrated like it absolutely changed what we thought movies are supposed to be to me it's it's one of the most important movies in the history of movies it just is and now to hear him do these rewatchables here at the ringer i'm like you're gonna be kidding me and i like asked fantasy sean who does most of the rewatchables

like how did this happen he's like well he just started emailing and he was like i'm just sitting around watching movies he's like he just sits around watches movies and then he comes in and he starts telling you about this stuff and you know i guess the flamethrower scene where dicaprio like they're showing like hey was that a real flamethrower and he's like yeah yeah i know it was and in real life when he when he turned it on and started using it for that scene he's like man this is hot like is there anything we can do about this and tarantino's like perfect do that leave it in like hey something we can something we can do about this turn it down man that's hot well dicaprio's sitting here dicaprio's worked with

marty five times and the next week him and square sense you're doing it's called killers the flower moon and it's about the murder of the indians you know in the old stage in 1920s so probably the book is phenomenal. And Scorsese is saying it's going to be like my first Western. And he's got his two muses. He's got De Niro, who he's done nine movies with. He's got DiCaprio, who he's done five movies with. And Leo was talking to Marc Maron about Tarantino and Scorsese.

He goes, you know, Marty's seen every movie made before 1980. And he goes, like, you know, foreign films, obscure stuff. Like, his memory's insane. He goes, now, Quentin, he just sees everything, but it's like all over the place. Like he goes, you know, Marty's watching like, you know, French cinema of the 70s. He goes, Quentin watches the bizarre Kung Fu movie that nobody's heard of from 1983. He's like, oh, this movie's awesome. And so it's like, it's so funny when you deal with those guys, like where the reference points come from.

They're both geniuses, but like the level of stuff that they put in their brain and they're able to retain it and use it somewhere else it's incredible yeah i i just it has to be so much fun you know it has to be so much fun and obviously you have to be established enough to be like hey i want to do this but whether it's a simple flame thrower thing or the scorsese scene or not scorsese excuse me pacino scene which tarantino said on the rewatchables like he flat out wrote that for him and was like, do you want to do it? And then you're Tarantino. And I actually threw on The Hateful Eight last night.

That beginning is so good. I mean, it's just that shot on that wooden cross and the music is absolutely perfect. And even the graphics, like the font of the graphics and it speaks to like, no, it's kind of like this thing of, hey, yeah, a lot of cheesy

movies like then you start to understand like you're right like this guy sits around he watches all these these crazy weird movies and probably some of them you could sit there and say that's actually a terrible movie like why are you interested in that but it's like no no i'm picking up something from that that i like and i want to use in my way of storytelling oh and by the way when i do it and i have these things that look like outdated you know graphics from the 70s or some some like really aggressive musical track and all these things is going to come together because i'm an awesome writer and director and these are going to be some of the best movies like the guy's been on fire even though i know it takes a while but uh i can't i mean i'm glad you like state play because popular opinion became a state play it was a

mess i remember i said you on your show no because i, this is what, and this is what the theater experience is so important. I saw it in Dallas. I think I was there for the Cotton Bowl and they had the road show. And Tarantino actually, he did this for like 20 theaters in America. And they did like an intermission.

There was an overture before the start of a movie. The sound was incredible. Like, I remember the sound of the wind in that movie. Like, and that theater was amazing. Like, I'm so glad you like tape play as much as I do

because that's when people aren't as big on it. I love it. I think tape players. That's what people aren't as big on. I love it. I think it's great. Yeah, I don't know what it is about him and how he takes way longer than anybody could ever get away with and trying to sell you the anxiety of a scene. But even when they go out to just hammer the stakes in so that they have a rope line to the outhouse during that massive storm and the way that music is like, I just turned that scene on last night. Like, I watched the intro. I watched the setup for a bit. I go, you know, know i just want to watch that i can't believe like i'm sitting

at home and i go i'm going to spend 15 minutes and turn this way up and watch this scene where they're putting in stakes to an outhouse that doesn't really move the story except that it's just it's unbelievable like in and again like the spawn ranch deal it that thing takes forever i counted it up because i watched the scene on a flight and it's like 22 minutes from the start of that to the end nobody else would get away with that or nobody else would even try to get away with it they'd be like alright let's keep it moving let's keep it moving and the fact that it takes that long

it works and I just I don't know how many other guys look I'm not saying he's the only guy that can do it but it was a really it was an awesome year for it so what are you most looking forward to this next year what's the one movie you have to see if you can only see one? I haven't looked yet, to be honest. I know

we normally look at the draft. McShay does his mock draft for the next year. I haven't looked intensely yet this year. I'm more excited because Pacino hasn't done a TV show ever. And Hunters is coming out tomorrow as a matter of fact. I know we're taping this Thursday. This will be out already. But it's coming out on Amazon Prime.

And it's from Jordan Peele, who, of course, did Get Out. And it's a bunch of people hunting Nazis in modern-day America. I don't know where he came up with this idea, if this is based in fact or not. But Pacino is playing the ringleader of these guys. So I'm just excited to see Al, who's turning 80 years old, April 25th. The fact is that there's a TV show with Al Pacino in today's world. I can't wait to watch it and binge watch it. Can't wait, man.

All right, I'm going to let you bounce. You can check out Adnan. Go through the run of stuff again. Yes, MLB Network, NHL Network, The Zone, Cinefile, the podcast. That's the one we need the most help with. GM Shuffle, me and Michael Lombardi, obviously talking NFL, and Sirius Satellite Radio. You can hear me talking baseball and MLB Network Radio as well. GM Shuffle, me and Michael Lombardi obviously talking NFL and Sirius Satellite Radio can hear me talking baseball

and we'll be network radio as well. This was fun, man. All right. Thanks a lot for your time, Adnan. Continue success. All right, Ryan. Take care, buddy. Talk soon.

Okay. Good week. I really appreciate everybody talking about the Cowherd stuff. I know you're going to like the Adnan baseball and movie thing. So a reminder, every Sunday night,

Bill and I will be taping kind of our NBA recap of the week. And that comes out. Is that actually out on Sunday night or is it just Monday morning, Kyle? Depends on what coast you're on. I'm dropping about midnight every Sunday. Well, there you go. 3 a.m.

All you drivers out there in the car early. That and next week, Tuesday, Craig Kilbourne. What is going on? 90-minute conversation with an aristocrat. Please subscribe, rate, and review. We're Sillow Show Podcast. Thank you.