Hey, rewatchables fans. You already knew we were coming to Boston for a sold-out show on March 27th, but what you did know is we're sticking around that weekend. We're gonna host our first ever rewatchables film festival while we're in Boston. We're screening some of our favorite movies, movies that we have done on this podcast, plus maybe a couple others at the historic Coolidge Corner Theater.
We're doing it all weekend for March 28th through March 30th. One of my favorite theaters in America. We might even make a few surprise appearances at a couple of these screenings. It's your chance to see some of our favorites as they were meant to be seen on the big screen.
Classic mob, heist, Boston movies we love, Goodfellas, The Town, The Departed. Oh yeah, we're doing heat. Again, it's gonna kick off Friday, March 28th at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brooklyn, visit theringer.com slash events for show times and ticket information. Hopefully we'll see you there.
The rewatchables brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. You can find all of our video on Spotify as video podcasts, as well as the Ringer movies, YouTube channel. You can find Chris Ryan doing the watches. It's right.
It's some good TV lately, finally. Uplifting adolescents. Yeah, good fun. Yeah.
And then White Lotus, Last of Us has come in, a lot of good stuff. Yeah. Van, higher learning. I learned.
Van, boys. Don't do it. I said, keep you. Thank you.
Lots of political news, lots of news in the superhero space. Great pod that we did. Just recently, me, Sean, Joe, Cion. What was the pod?
It was about the state of the MCU and superhero movies. And he's skipping that one. OK, so Bill tells people not to listen. So yeah.
He's skipping it. Yeah. It doesn't mean that. That sounds like a great idea for a pod.
You know my feelings. I could have just come in for a cameo at the end and been like, yeah, I've been here for 10 years. He's got a lot of more candles for Abdul Carter, for exactly. Start coming up.
Cleveland Browns for Puerto Rico. We're gonna talk about a very polarizing sports movie that is somehow weirdly endearing. Blue chips is next. We don't buy athletes.
Probably as soon as we go into the country. We opened this one. I'll figure out 30 grand, like Kevin Cash. Did you cheat?
You're fine. I know we've got them. Did you take money? We owe it to a McNulty at Shaquille O'Neal.
Blue chips right at PG-13, starts Friday, February 18. That's theaters everywhere. All right, guys. So I wrote this in the mid 2000s about blue chips.
I wrote that it turned out to be the Penny Hardaway of sports movies, ironically. Unlimited Potential, Great Start, peaked early, sum ups and downs, ultimately disappointing, and then kind of grows on you year after year. And I wrote that mid 2000s. We did kind of a tester sports movie, Hall of Fame Pod, maybe eight years ago.
It's kind of like the more. Yeah. And now we're in 225 all these years later. And I like it more than I used to.
And I think it just makes me nostalgic for whatever this weird era of sports movies and young skinny Shaquille and young Penny Hardaway and McNulty and whatever they're trying to do in this movie. I don't know. I really enjoyed rewatching this. I think it actually is an inverted sports movie.
And if you look at that way, it works better. It's inverted because it's a feel bad sports movie. It starts out with them losing. It starts out.
Then it goes to him compromising on his principles. And then it goes to his careers over. There's no heroes. There's no takeaways.
No. There's a lot of unintentional comedy, Van. There's some really fun basketball that shot in a super weird way, but it's still compelling to watch. But you're watching it going, why didn't they?
Just bring the camera back. I just sort of love to have seen all these famous players from the 90s play together. And Louisiana's in it. So I know your feelings.
Love it. Well, first of all, it was part of Shaq's media rollout as a pro. Shaq and Penny together was like, oh my god, Shaq and Penny are in a movie. But we barely knew who Penny was.
Barely knew who Penny was. Shaq had real gravid shots. Shaq was a gigantic star. But Penny was, Memphis was still Memphis State at this point.
Penny was this silky smooth big gar from Memphis State. And then when you see him in the movie, it's part of what makes him a celebrity. But the film itself also is interesting in that it predicts the future. It gives your film to watch retrospectively, because so many of the things that it was about, like came to pass.
It's like, it's how we want to do this. Now we're in the NIL era, which is the era that Blue Chips was telling us for 30 years. We should be in this era. And now we're actually in the era.
And it's, I remember I saw this movie in the theater with my dad and my buddy Kurt Sanger. And we were really excited. There's something every time you mentioned a guy you went to the movies. Kurt Sanger, the Juice Man.
The Juice Man. The Juice Man. The Juice Man. The Juice Man.
The Count Juice. It was one of those things where we would give, we decided to Fred day next year. We would give our friends weird victims. Yeah.
We would do like weird football in the 40s. Oh my God. Just for normal people. Okay.
But anyway, we saw this movie, super excited, Nick Goldie, Free Fan. Super excited because you thought it was going to be like, I thought it was going to be great. It's like, and this was the era where sports movies had shifted from that Rocky model that we talked about in the Rocky Pod, which goes from like through Hoosiers to the late 80s. Then there's like a little kids era.
But then the Ranchette Nair comes in. He wrote this movie. Both arms happened. We're moving toward like a more sophisticated sports movie, but we're not quite here that there yet.
And this movie never really figured out what it wanted to be, but on cable still really rewatchable. And I think it has a weird kind of tail. Yeah. Yeah.
For sure. Number one, I mean, you know, it has that tail because of nostalgia. Has it tail because of the relevance of the subject matter of the movie. Yeah.
But also it's an easy watch. It's a easy watch. The movie doesn't, it talks a little bit about some of the poverty that the players live in and like what they're going through, but it doesn't get too deep into it. It talks a little bit about the corruption of the NCAA, the NCA or their draconian rules, shall I say, but it doesn't really go too hard into it.
You know, happy is a very easy villain to root against. It's like the only reason you be struggling. It's a rooting against them. To Chris, this is a happy movie.
It's a JT Walsh. It's a little JT Walsh. You know, it's funny. In today's world, happy is the hero and P.
Bell, the guy who doesn't want to pay the players, he is the villain if you do the movie today. There was a nostalgia thing in a couple of different ways. But one of the things that, you know, it was such a big deal that all these college guys were in the movie and even like Calbert Cheney and Hurley and people like that in the game scenes. Yeah.
And I was just thinking about how much we cared about college basketball when I was in college. Like we were talking about, it was the same Patrick's day and I was on a thread with my college buddies. And like one of my great sports members in college was Princeton and Georgetown on St. Patrick's day.
And we were just at a party watching that and the entire campus was locked in on that game. Like we all watched the late-ner-shock game together. We really cared about Kenny Anderson and Georgia Tech and what Shaq was going to do on OSU and just, and late-ner was like a college God and UNLV Larry Johnson just showing up and being like, seemed like he was like 25 and just kicking ass. We cared about all these people.
So them being in this movie with Bobby Knight, with Patino, with Bayheim, with Tark as like these funny characters that get really meant something back then. Well, we also, obviously, naively believed in like the power of these institutions to recruit these players just like based on the reputation alone. And one of the things I remember so clearly about like my college basketball fan and back and Philly was like, when a kid would go to a school that was kind of on a little bit of a downswing. It's like, no, like Mark Makin's going to revive to this guy's going to LSU.
It was amazing and we were with short of like we were like pounding recruiting newsletters or anything but we were like very aware when a big-time freshman would come into his school and how that might change everything. Yeah, Shaq and Chris Jackson who then became a part of the road. But those guys being at OSU together was like a huge thing. You're going to be going to Memphis but the fact that this movie was so explicitly broadcast as being about recruiting and about bringing these guys in.
And it was very obviously that could be like this is like UCLA, you know what I mean? And there was a bunch of real coaches, real players were going to be in it. It was like, I think you were almost led into believe like this is going to be basically a movie version of my college basketball fandom and it wound up being like, hey. But it was directed by the guy from the extra system.
And this whole thing is about as about as morally uprated as New York City was during the French connection. Yeah, you know, at that point, just back to the shoe, Shaquille and Neil thing, at that point, there was just so much interest in him. Yeah. Like in a way that I don't know, I mean, I guess LeBron, right?
Like in terms of- All those college, like Fab Five, Shaq. Yeah, but there was a lot of massive stars. And Shaq didn't do the thing that a lot of players do where they play four or five years in the week and then they go, you know what? I want to be a multimedia star.
I want to rap and I want to do all of that stuff after they've gotten their feet went basketball. Shaq got into our cultural sphere and was like, I'm going to do all of these things and you guys are going to deal with Shaquille and Neil as an entertainment force for like the rest of his- It's backlash for it. Right. He did a lot of that.
We were in a tech start talking about that. And I was saying how I thought it took a while for Shaq to become kind of, he was pretty polarizing because he was trying to, he was trying to be in movements, he was trying to rap. He was doing commercials and there was this attitude of like, you haven't earned any of this yet. Like when a playoff series, what is this guy doing?
What I'm saying is that was a testament to the fact that you could become a real deal superstar off college basketball. And you could become like this complete household name based on what you did in college basketball, like Christian Laytonard did or Patrick Ewing did. Chris mentioned Mark Naked. I was invested in Mark Naked.
I really liked his game. But there was like 50 of those dudes. That year Kenny Anderson was with D Scott, who was the third guy, Brian Oliver. We love that team.
I remember watching a March Madness game with late night with those guys. They're on the West Coast hoping, you know, what do I care about Georgia? And before we started recording, you mentioned that Nolan Richardson, 48 minutes or 40 minutes or 40 minutes or whatever. These teams all had like weird identities.
Some based on the coach. Like Knight in Indiana was the best version of that. Right. Some like it would be like there were the teams that ran this very smooth like incredibly elegant offenses.
And they were like slam their hands on the court defensive teams and they were the run and gun teams. There were the teams where you're like, man, like whoever tarps. Yeah, exactly. The prep school killers from Duke.
Yeah. And then like the UCLA Edo Band and brothers with Toby Bailey and Cameron Dollar and all these different guys, it was like a legitimate, there was a whole landscape of stars to choose from in college. And they were there for three or four years. And UNLV Duke was kind of that and then the Weber Time Out game, the late night shot.
And then there were all these like beats. Hank Adler's dying was like probably the biggest word for that. What year is that five? Five started 91.
And it went through. Yeah. So this comes after Fab Five, right? I got, well, I'll say if I have a Fab Five, I think that's good.
But we also have Friedkin Directing, which was a big deal for the movie nerds. And I was like, he's coming a movie nerd, but didn't really fully understand the impact of how weird that would be to have this guy who did the French connection and the exorcist. We just knew he was a good director. Yeah.
But obviously has a pretty dim opinion of humanity. You know what I mean? Like I think he's like, we are all basically like corrupt hustlers. Yeah.
So basketball, there's this crazy backstory with him where he was this massive Celtics fan and had a chance to buy the Celtics in the end of the end of the way. So you know the story? There's this guy, Herb Levin, who ended up switching franchises with John White Brown. Freakin could have been Chisholm.
Herb Levin, John White Brown on the Clippers. Herb Levin on the Celtics. Herb Levin didn't want to on the Celtics anymore because he couldn't deal with Red R. Bagger, the fans were mean to him because he didn't live in Boston.
And he, Freakin was this huge Celtics fan. He's like, I'll let you buy one third of the team and you can run it. And Freakin was like a famous director. You can read that.
He tells the whole story and he's really thinking about, should I do this? And then ultimately decided not to do it. And then he switched franchises. That's how the Clippers end up moving to LA.
John White Brown sells and we get Larry Bird. Did you ever get Freakin? No, but I had no idea if I did the research, what a massive fan he was. And it's why Coosie's in this.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because he was friends with Coosie. Like he asked Coosie for advice and then spoiler alert, Coosie wins the movie.
Like this is an all time incredible Bob Coosie. Like Coosie is a natural actor. Yeah. And he has the free throw scene.
CR is this a Nick Nolte movie, a JT Walsh movie or a Shaq movie for you? It's a Nolte movie. Okay. I think the two things in my mind that I keep turning over about what ifs with this movie are, what ifs with some of the different played people and what if Ron Shalin directed it?
I think if Sheldon directs it, it probably has a lot more humor. More fun. And there's a little bit more warmth to it. And I think Nolte is perfectly cast because these coaches do have this kind of like a rassable, never happy vibe to them.
Like, you never saw Beehiven smile. You never see Tom is a really smile until the end of the season. Like, these guys are always screaming. They're always coaching.
And Nolte really brings that out. Yeah. I don't know what it would have been like if Redford had been Pete Bell or something. Yeah.
In a weird way, it's almost the most realistic possible version of this. It's interesting because he's obviously doing his Bobby Knight thing, right? And when she shout out to me. You know what it is?
What? It's Bobby Knight crossed with Jack Gates. Oh, yeah. This sucks.
But there's something else. Give my girlfriend a high-hard one. But sit down here. Jesus Christ.
Sure. Cough loose. But there's something else that we never got to see from Bobby Knight. Every time we saw Bobby Knight, he was either being like, you know, kind of a rascal, like very humorous, picking at people or, you know, being a guy who was right on the edge of being too intense and then obviously crossed over that edge later on.
But they do something in this movie where they show you times where Pete has to humble himself, where he has to like contend with the fact that he doesn't have a handle on his team anymore. He has to kind of ask his wife for some ass a little bit and get rejected. Like, they kind of knock him off the perch of all powerful college basketball coach. Yeah.
And that is why the character works. Because like- But you can just walk around apparently in this part of LA where the university is just have a walk back home to your house. There's no people anywhere. Where is this?
Well, it's like something that's like UCLA, but it looks more like USC, but it also looks like Louisiana. It's a giant arena that has no parking lots and no parking lots of houses right outside. Well, no people. The interesting thing is you could probably could walk home if you're the coach of UCLA.
You definitely can't walk home if you're the coach of S- Right. Right. So you definitely don't want to be walking around down there, but I always thought it was supposed to be UCLA because of the colors and all that. But they're on S-E-S.
Yes. Well, one of the things with this movie, and it was a big part of the marketing and Friedkin talking about it and just in general, it was like, we are going to do basketball correctly. We're going to have real players playing real games. We did all this shit.
We had Patino coaching a team against Nick Nighalte with the players. Everything was like, boom, same thing with Bobby Knight. There's all these stories about Bobby Knight taking it too seriously. They filmed it in Indiana in front of a crowd of 6,000 people and they're like, we are not elevating the sports movie.
And it doesn't totally work. It turns out there's still some good stuff and actually just structuring sports movie scenes. I think basketball is the hardest sport to shoot. I just think over and over again, white man can't jump works because it's 2-1-2.
I think full court 5-1-5 basketball is so difficult. It's why the angle is like, when they change the angle in an actual game, you're watching an NBA game, you're like, please just go back to it. As soon as they're like, you're just a full baseline shot at this. I'm like, no, I want to see coaches angle.
Yeah. And it's like, I think that that is whether it would have been freaking or Scorsese or Copola or PTA, like 5-1-5 hoops is just incredibly difficult to capture. But that's why some of the 70s stuff, I know you'll win a shadow of pickup as a mustiness. Some of the 70s stuff, they just didn't overthink it.
They're just like, hey, wack camera, let's just watch them guys playing. And then as soon as they tried to get fancier, who's yours has some good stuff and some bad stuff? The thing that I like about you is when you have an agenda, that agenda is all encompassing. I like the 70s basketball footage.
You love white shadow so much. He kind of wants to do white shadow instead of blue chips. Nah. It's now it's due dated.
It's like 50 years. But now it's like Coach Carter, we hit that finding for us the Coach Carter era of basketball where they went back to the white shots. You went from white shadow to Coach Carter. So I'm just saying that's where the basketball move is.
Like a DI thing you did. No, they went backwards though. And they stopped being like, we're going to be right on the court. We're going to go, here's the white shot again.
And then the way back, I think we did a good job. Only back is like, you know how I feel about that movie. That's completely underrated sports movie. I'll say this.
It's properly rated because we're doing it this year in the rewatch. Oh, right. I'll say this. This movie was attempting to do something that I think they do agree with you.
They overthought it. Because they're trying to shoot the game from the coaches perspective and put us right on the the bench where you can see that the team comes out there playing with a lot of energy and then the game is getting away from them and you can you watch the coach just unable to control the fact that he just doesn't have the talent and you're supposed to be able to see that. And it just doesn't quite work. But every time I watch this movie, something always don't tell me you watch so many basketball movies where they're playing basketball, nobody is sweating.
Nobody looks like they're into it. This does have the feeling because of the competitiveness of that the fact that they're actually playing basketball at a high level and trying to beat each other. So when the drama comes and it looks like this team is overwhelmed, that kind of does work. But the basketball itself doesn't work that well.
Widescreen helped it a little more during the Square TV era when this was a rewatchable. It was combined with that. They shot it. It was really hard to follow the basketball and then you'd watch like Teen Wolf.
Yeah. Can you be like, man, these basketball scenes are great. My favorite basketball scene in this one is probably the Indiana game because I find it very easy to like navigate Bobby Hurley on the court. And I feel like that was the one where maybe this is because I was so familiar with Bobby Hurley at the time.
Really missed his game. I like this. But he's like, that kind of swaggy. Yeah.
Yeah. Like his car accidents kind of underrated. I think he would have been a good run. Little swaggy, confident, right playmaker.
Tuts you get. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And he just directs traffic in a way where you were kind of like, oh, right. There's a pick and he's going to go over there. That stuff is good. But they don't actually even flash the scoreboard that much.
I mean, Western gets their asses kicked most games of this movie except for towards the end. You know what I mean? I have a lot of thoughts on that. I wasn't one thing about the basketball.
Do you know what the best basketball in the movie is to me? The practices. Yeah. The practices to me and the coaching and the coaches in the practice.
Put your leg behind him and he's spinning around. I like all that stuff. Like all of that. It's his hand right up on Ricky Rose.
Yeah. He's like right there. Get out of here Ricky. You're like, take a jersey off, right?
And you go with the blue thing. Like all of that stuff. The practices are the stuff to me that like actually grounded the movie and being an actual college basketball and authentic. You know what I mean?
When I tried to recruit Van for the ringer and he's like, I want 30k and Jim Bag and attract you. I said, get out of here, Van! Take that! You don't have to wear it.
The two days later, he was working for us. It was like, like, it never happened. Never ever stood that part of blue chips with the with the pay stuff. So the movie kind of shifted, especially as in the last 10 years, people like these guys got to get paid and that whole thing.
By 2020, Esquire was writing, Shelton and Friedkin seem to be foreshadowing the everyone sells out influencer culture of the 21st century. Hmm. I don't know if I 100% agree with it, but it does foreshadow something. I don't know if it was intentional.
Because I really think they were just in the moment. I think they were saying the quiet part loud, which is like these guys deserve get paid. This is multi-billion dollar business and the players deserve to get put in. But we did this in the 70s though with one on one and with a fast break.
Those are the same premises. Like, how can we cheat to win basically in college basketball? Sure. I think also like there's an argument to be made that a lot of what Happy says is like kind of make sense.
Do you know what I mean? Like where he's just like the collectives will take care of these people. You don't have to know about it. Like Happy kind of is.
Which is why the gambling stuff is in there with Happy. Because if it's not, then what Happy is acting the same. But even the gambling stuff now, it's like almost quaint. Tony shaving points in a victory to miss the line.
I mean, yeah, but it still that at least still has enough of a stench to it that it is actually affecting somebody's giving less than what they should be competition wise. You're right. Yeah. But what Happy has the gambling stuff only because Happy is making so much sense when he's talking to Coach Bell.
Just talk about Happy. I love the pool. I love the pool. Just the random women in the pool for no reason.
JT Walsh does something so crazy. Like it's so swag. JT Walsh goes out on his diving board as he's dressing down coach Pete and he's just bouncing back. He's like, he's like, he's like, what are you to talk to me?
Fuck and make it work. I'm bouncing on the top of the two playboy playmates. What is he saying about that when he introduces them to Pete? He's like, they're both using his fans.
He's like, the movie kind of easily taken like he got game turned. I'm like, they're a coach. The problem with this movie is happy is by far the most interesting character. Yeah.
Like he has that one thing he's dressed up to play tennis. What do you think Happy does? That's a good question. Hollywood in some ways.
I think he's probably made all his money in. I feel like he's like a film producer. He's like the kind of he's like a song. He's a lot of time to worry about Western basketball.
He plays tennis part too. He's a tennis player. If I ever got divorced, I'm just turning it to Happy. He's just going to be like dressed to play tennis all the time doing phone calls about the bouncing time.
I'm not going to run the Harvard West, two cougars in the pool. And I'm just trying to boost that pull across. I didn't want to know cougars. You go go.
Those were the ones he introduced the coach. Those were 25 years ago. What are you talking about? What are you talking about?
That's what you're you talking about? They're like 30s. No, no, no, no. Which ones are we talking about?
We're talking about the boys. He's like in the bar. All right. You're right.
That's fair. Don't do that. But I'm saying, Happy is the man. Happy is the one.
Hey, is there somebody you can call to tell me whether or not, you know, if I leave school at my mom, the mom will lose a house and job, call him. Hey, he's the coach. You're the coach. Get on the plate.
His mom's going to house with the yard. I'm like, talk your shit. Happy. I'm like a bitch.
He didn't know how to be an emotion offense. He needs to be a different. It's really good as a motion offense. It's so funny.
Watch this movie and listen to all that terminology and just like, you almost have PTSD from basketball practice of guys yelling that out. Like it's like one four two three three. Yeah. Like box of one.
Now it's all like a three man. We even all of that stuff. So Nolte's having he's coming off the resurgence when he cleaned up a little bit. Yeah.
Another 48 hours down and out Beverly Hills like he's paid for your time. He's a pretty famous star. So they build it as a nickel to move in and made a big deal. He shadowed Bob Knight.
He modeled people after Bob Knight. So we have that with the Shaq and Penny stuff. And I got to say, I think Shaq's good with this movie. Shaq takes a lot of shit for his acting.
I think he's like borderline stealing scenes when he's in there. I love every time he's in there. He's really funny. He's very funny.
They let Shaq kind of be Shaq in the movie. Yeah. He's a bright spot, which is good because every other athlete that acts in the movie is fucking terrible. Yeah.
It's time. I thought Penny was okay in the home. Shit. No.
I didn't. Like it. One thing that I learned that I not learned one thing that sparked my brain while I'm watching is athletes as actors has come really, really far. It's probably because these guys are so used to being on camera now.
They're on camera. You get my like, you get my head where it's a hustle. Yeah. It's better and they didn't get as many reps back in the day as they do now.
But there's some rough, rough athlete acting in this movie. It's also like a really kind of. That's a great choice for Penny and Shaq do it honestly for all of the people who participated in this movie to do it because it's a pretty dim portrait of college basketball, right? I mean, the craziest thing is they let Indiana use the uniform on Bob Knight.
I just have no idea what he was thinking with that. And nitpicks, if you're going to let Indiana do it, then why do we have to get fake teams everywhere? Western Texas. Yeah.
So we're going to do a movie about digital media and the corruption and terrible stuff. Can we use all the ringer studios and all your logos? Like, sure. You're a color.
You want to put Greg? I just don't understand why they would even participate in this. Tony is a good actor. I think he's an actor.
He is an actor. I know him a little bit. He is. He's also here we go.
He's dropped pieces. I know he's from bullshit. But he's actually a real basketball player. Anthony C.
Hall, right? Yeah. He's a real basketball player. He was the only one they cast because he actually could act.
Yeah. Yeah. Sean Coosey Bird. Talked about the legend in the second.
Tarkanian. Some of the players, Alan Houston. George Lynch, Wex Walters, Greg Graham, Chris Mills. Or you got Rick Fox.
How about Chania? So there's a lot of people that it's this glimpse and I could have done this for a probably an answer for questions later. But I'll do it now. I don't know where the fuck the fat by this.
Like Jalen. Jalen not being in this. Personally, that means me. Have you ever talked to Jalen about this?
No, I wish we could almost like call him and find out. Maybe call Jalen who is instead of call. I don't like he's right there. He's as famous as any player they use that he would have been perfect.
Honestly, he could have played Tony. Yeah, I think you can act it. Yeah, probably yeah Story like you go to Detroit instead of going up to Chicago like yeah, you know what? When I did do research for the movie they said Kevin Garnett is in the movie somewhere.
I cannot fucking find Kevin I'm gonna be the most you he's too young. Yeah, he would have been like a years old. Maybe he maybe as a high score Yeah, your hammock is in the movie though. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah So the back story Ron Schalen developed it in 1981 for time-life films bouncing around the whole decade ends up at 21st 20th Century Fox Script goes and turn around and then Whitman can't jump hits and they're like well this movie Paramount Pictures acquires it bears it and then Sherry Lansing the famous Sherry Lansing who was green lights a freak at the time or game There might have been some romantic something Gets free kid because she'll can't do it because he's writing a directing cop Which is an insufferably bad movie like if you want to have a bad two hours watch cop.
I have tried over and over Oh my god, I've tried so hard to like that movie And everything's perfect about it except the fact it's unlikeable and not fun at all Such like I've tried so hard like a couple of months ago. It's not a watchable It doesn't work. So that's why he didn't do it basketball scenes film that Frankfort high in Indiana and Friedkin was talking about finding basketball players who could act because real actors just don't work about some of his They kept changing the script and then eventually did the peep for Bobby night Last game and they could not convince Bobby night to basically throw the game He was telling his guys what to do on defense and fucked up two different versions of the ending before they finally got to Check out yeah, but they said it was like Just full games play pickup as hard as you can we're filming everything and then they had a couple set plays at the end And that was it 35 million dollar budget made 26 money a rare loser of money for the rewatchables But I bet it made it back in DVD and all that yeah, I feel like it's still around in the culture and it's I'm referred to a baby. It's box office for sure our guy Raj.
What do you think? He didn't fuck with it. I think he liked it three stars Okay, what freakin brings to the story is a tone that feels completely accurate the movies a morality play told in the realistic Sometimes cynical terms of modern high pressure college sports I have a question for you guys. Yeah is the 90s the best sports movie decade I mean, it's my sports movie decades blue chips the program white man can jump above the rim tin cup Rudy necessary roughness Little big leaky guy game Ricky the year hoop drains during a quiet and he gives us a Yeah, so like you're looking at a complete.
It's not just because some of these movies are like super laudable wires in there, too. Yeah, it's like It's like the sons of the rocky areas at the most I don't know if there's with exceptional McGuire's not really but like a movie like say Rocky or moneyball that kind of transcended out of sports movies to become like critically acclaimed film as much I don't know There's not I think the 90s were the best because they made the most of them They've learned from all the mistakes from the other generation But then the model kind of worked like this is my friend Mike tolling They made like seven of these like he would make Varsity Blues coach Carter summer catch like you just get making them over and over again Cuz it worked every time you make them for 15 million and they make 30 million in the box office I think that the money kind of shipped against it eventually, but I just think they made like a shitload of Also think that so I think you're right. So culture was at a point to where there were more things to litigate Yeah, so they were just it the underdog story is something about sports that will always work But when you get to the 90s now you're talking about marketing you're talking about yeah agents Like some of these movies are about sports culture. We know I changed what documentaries come at the end of the 2000s Yeah, that's when the sports docs came in and the content was immediately as good as a lot of these sports movies and doing the same Themes and some of them it's like I'd rather watch the great documentary of this Actually watch the last dance that Michael Jordan or I'd rather watch YouTube highlights is happening because everything was filmed Yeah, it was just less access and I think that the territory was just ripe which is why I still like I loved air I loved it.
I loved air because I'm like huh I want to know air could have been done as a documentary. Yeah, but I want the dramatic version of all of that shit happening Yeah, I was just when I was doing research and I look at all the movies I'm like wow like this is a very very deep decade for the sports movie I used to when I had my own site out I would always read about sports movies and then when I got to ESPN I would do reviews every time and It got pretty dark in the mid 2000s. They were kind of running out of ideas like after front-end lights or whatever We moved into like this kind of gridiron gang era of these like specific ideas They're trying to do and there'd be one big star or what was that movie with Josh Lucas was another one? Oh, yeah, I was better than the poster One star for the poster they kind of cheap out on everyone else to try to make it for a certain amount of money They're a lot of like they movie you'd already seen clearly gonna be an inspirational story right?
Yeah, they'd like shot shot or this or something where it's like oh, you know, I just like watching dudes curse all the place words Um, let's take a break and then we'll do the categories This episode is brought to you by loom by Atlassian It's always so frustrating driving work being really excited to do a podcast and then these guys that I'm doing the pod with take shots at Bob cruising Boston that's frustrating It's also really frustrating when you start feeling stuck at work with too many unnecessary meetings and luckily There's a simple solution for that use loom video messaging It can simultaneously record both your screen and yourself share a quick update provide feedback train a colleague and everything in between plus Add loom a out of your meetings for instant written notes and recordings try loom today at loom.com L O O M dot com Alright, this is a fun one. What's the exact perfect age to see this movie? I'm gonna say like 1415 when you're a college basketball junkie, but I don't know if 1415 year olds are college basketball junkies anymore I went with I went with 13. Yeah 12 or 13.
I went a little bit younger Um, but now we're talking about now. I'm actually not sure my duty five. It might be a little yeah But for me, I saw it at the perfect age. Yeah, I was like 12 or 13.
I would have said 16 in 1994 Like oh, yeah, that's basically what I was. Yeah. Yeah, most rewatchable scene Possibilities people's first scene awesome. It comes back in two times.
Just yelling at them comes back Domestee my forever coached. Um, it's a good note. It's a good way to start a movie Every time we get ready to play. I just want to throw up.
I'm goddamn sick. I'm watching you guys play There's not one of you not one of you that's learning how to win We got camera class four games and it stops right now You keep playing away your play. We're gonna get asked me to get in tonight So the press I don't want to talk about it I'm through fighting you sons of bantas Don't escape. I ever coached You guys think of something.
It's also like an interesting gambit. No, this is such a vulnerable Actor he really doesn't need big glory moments and in fact seems to hunt the opposite Yeah, think about all of his characters like like kates character in in princess tie at princess tie it's this He's just a punching bag man And when he comes on screen, you're like oh, this is gonna be cool He's gonna like give them a motivational speech. It's anti motivational speech and then like just the way that you contrast him with patino Yeah, he's hunched over patino standing tall and is like, right? You're a great official.
That's why you're the best You know like a smooth. Yeah, I love you. I love you. And that was like peak patino then.
Yeah, Pete's wearing every loss Next thing koozy shooting free throws Wow Oh my god, well, let me give you some backstory Watching interview with bob koozy yesterday He said nullty suggested this because nullty was kind of a jock and nullty's idea was you will do the scene You should free throw when you miss i'll get the ball then i'll shoot we'll go back and forth Because he kind of wanted to show office free throw shooting And koozy said he made 21 in a row and they filmed it So in the movie he makes 10 straight including a lefty And he's like don't you ever miss yeah, and that which was ad lib because nik ulti was getting pissed because he thought When am i gonna get to shoot my free throws? Um, but the whole scene is good too because he's like you got horses When he needs his throw breads because he can barely say throw breads because he had the french accent Um But then we get the two reasons i'm capable of cheating One is when he's french accent he's french he's a french immigrant That's why he had that weirdie can say i was like i thought i was always just like a boss to ask No, he's like this french then the boss then that's why they were like When did he come to his parents were like french immigrants So like when did he come to america america? He probably born there or came earlier i can't remember but yeah he's french accent I know that you can learn more about that watching the seltics document His character i you don't even have to really think about it as bob koozie Well, he's allegedly named vick but you Kindly figurehead who's kind of like what i don't know i don't know you know what i mean But he's like we're a good program, but it's like your guys are fucking corrupt he's doing the tom hagan Yeah, it's like yeah, we went to the match this is the idea what's happening I like i like it works for him you feel the worst for him when people goes off on his knee And they go back to koozie if he just put his hands on because the ad's gotta go to Right now you're gonna get rid of everybody wait so you guys are telling me bob koozie hitting 10 straight free throws during a scene Yeah, well i can't be banners i need players i need horses You've got horses what you're neither throw buts Everybody in the country's buying these kids out of high school giving them cars money under the table. God knows what?
Don't you ever miss? That's the idea of the game put the ball in the hole. Is it rewatchable for you? I was like 70 i'm sure you would fucking like it said the crew was going nuts after what crew was going nuts JJ right with you right now the crew was going nuts You just saying that about yourself like when i was interviewing michay.
Oh my god. So Rudy was going nuts Everybody was applauding me well koozie tells the story that the day before they filmed the scene with shack and he missed like 14 or 15 free throws Yeah Listen you saw what he could do he's the best basketball for the first 15 years of the league how dare you? Go ahead. I'm jakey redder Multiple big eight-time champ He literally says that interview he said the crew reacted because shack was so bad the day before It's on youtube Next siege So my favorite part of this movie is when he goes recruiting.
It's awesome This is the best 15 minutes stretch by far. I love seeing butch McCrae Chicago I love the gimmick of the other coaches there and every stop. It's getting like the red the red carpet Some bit we get to see real penny hardaway highlights and just kick an ass in some Chicago gym Some guys really willing to take some smaller roles it'll be in my three scenes. Yeah, yeah Robert wool was in one scene Alfred Woodard Alfred Woodard's one scene Is this the origin story of arless?
Oh, man. I haven't thought about that show in a long time. I thought gosset was great Fantastic one scene uncredity. That's like after toy soldiers like it wasn't like he wasn't red hot He had already won an academy war.
Yeah, so that's saying toy soldiers. I got a little worried about Lou It's kind of awesome too. If you know we didn't every watch was I love that movie It helps to know a little bit about college who's recruiting at that time period or whatever But like he comes out of that office and you're like, I know this guy is he's the dude who runs his catholic school He always has a fucking awesome player. Yeah, but he does look out for their best interests He knows all these guys and for whatever reason pete and him are good You know when he comes out and he like he positions this as essentially a slave auction Right?
Yeah, you can tell that he's having fun with it But he has a cynical enough opinion of it to keep these guys in line and he can read and write that whole thing It's perfect. Alfred Woodard Sucking a cancer stick at one point there. So you're maybe has a line of the movie when when Pete's like what's he gonna become? And she's like a millionaire.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, she wants to job in house Then we go to see the legend in Indiana Grunting He's grunting because he's the same feeling I just had just get it off your chest do it first of all I'm obese Bennett. Okay, you know where they filmed it though In French with his house. Okay, okay You know what else is filmed at house what the greatest commercial the 80s?
Yeah, we're the same drive peach drives down the same drive with that magic drive I'm in the limo for the converse commercial was the day that they became friends became boys I thought Larry's not terrible as an actor I don't think their eyelines are matched up. So at one point like Pete's like looking over here and talking to Larry Bird and Larry Bird's like Hey coach. Yeah, hey coach. How are you Larry has enough aura like the kids say aura Yeah, it's kind of Larry Bird his way through anything.
Yeah, so when you see Larry Bird and Larry Bird is like keeping it like a hundred percent real When I'm just you know tell me what you want. It's it works Do you think Larry Bird in 94 was still just going out into the hot Indiana Sun and getting shots up or was he? I had something for this later, but the the short answer is no He had like two back surgeries. There's no way he's like I'm just gonna have chits to pick up I have like my own three-out For sure a pretty surgery repair donated discs Get some shots on free from Mrs.
Then we go see Niana now cheers Give us the out cheers scouting report. Um, well, cuz it seems hard to get there Well, it's West Bank New Orleans. It's not as hard as they made it Okay, it seems like they're going to like you After that because you know in Louisiana when people go to Louisiana in a movie They always make it seem like you got to ask an alligator directions, right? You're getting around the state is not like that.
No, it's not as West Bank New Orleans So you do have to like I don't know that you have to go through the swamp by you. Yeah, yeah to get to get there Places like that, but they're further south in the state. Listen don't spoil this It's like the deepest recesses of America You need it. You only have only one guy can get you there with silk and you got to get through it And climb the hill can't ask one question about the recruiting Visit with with Bell with Ricky Bell or with a real girl.
Yeah, I had a lot of Ricky Rose on this was was that race? By his father the first Baptist Church second after church when I did take some racialisms I second Baptist Church more black was the end of that Southern Baptist Southern Baptist I was like I always thought that he was just but then I watch it now with my race eyes And I was like Good video give it Make free for free throws with race eyes. They're trying to make shackled bad with this. Yeah, exactly.
So like what was he was he being racist? Like that there's a wonder terms. I don't really know a lot of Andy and it has like the greatest history with this is the most kick I can be really good though is Ricky Rose dad. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, I think there was a whiff of something I fuck with Ricky wrote a mozo. I think this game Ricky Rose cool. Just wanted girls and money man Ricky where we lost him to an ACL think about what modern medicine could I done for Ricky Rose?
He's on the tractor right now wondering what happened? I Niana now Spotted he was six Ricky Rose the secretary of defense. He was one shooting back in the blue sea scratch again He's totally rise there, but coach 5'20 you get 400 for signing your name. Yeah, that was all it's all dark for him I like all the shexans.
I like when he brings the next one was when he brings she active very McDonald's Intergrant class of first-degree class. That's fun. Can you play with the kids? How Jack Ricky is?
How like he is and the Shaq basketball scene in Algiers is just fantastic. He's playing in a basketball Shaq and a barn Yeah, but somehow it's like seven NBA players. Yeah, there's a lot of questions The size they're playing like five on five half court and just exclusively throwing him out of use right there At one point he tries to block a shot and then gets the ball and then dunks it. Yeah, what are the rules?
No take out at all? So how far is Algiers from New Orleans? I'll just give us enough. I'll just give you some more.
It's like it's like Brockton, you know I'll just give you some more. So the big lesson is it's not nearly as hard to get there as they may Yeah, he makes it make up New Orleans. You take a ferry across the river to get there Okay, my favorite thing about the recruiting trip for Neon is that for about 40 years if you had a scene in New Orleans You could either use Suzy Q or baby, please don't go House of the rising sun But at this point they would have dropped like Bling Bling or some classic cash money some juvenile I was gonna do this later, but the lack of hip-hop in this movie where it came out I'm just saying by 94 options Next thing JT wash lays it out for people You're better coach when you're pissed off my money's untraceable. See I just you want to cook on this I know you love happy.
I mean I just love I love his like brazenness in this and I love how like they position this character He's not doing anything. He's like everybody is a cheater I'm just gonna cheat better than everybody else when he brings those girls up to him and he's like two big dolphins fans But I have like a I just feel like happy essentially invents collect and I'll collect this right like Pre-cursor for that and he's just like friends of the program. We owe them this money. Yeah These athletes generate millions of dollars What do they get?
You get a multi-year contract you get a six-figure shoe deal So your team to be a walking billboard and that is all legal and then you get another six figures for that lousy TV show In this money, can we just give him the Ruffalo Hannah Ruben a part your job right now and do we throw him into the category? It's up there. I don't understand. I mean it's so good.
He's just going for it But it is an overacting extra person competing in with him is the assistant coaches just like Freddy I'm afraid the guy is like Tony's my guy. Oh, that's my guy. I There's my favorite JT Walsh scene of all time. Yeah, it's an outbreak That's my favorite one where he's talking to the people he's only in it for the one time He was like well anyone there was no other way you're with the president But this is to me the most JT Walsh of JT Walshiness that exists even go break down breakdown is to me It's like a like a stripped down JT wall sit down JT wall This is the most JT Walshy that JT kids love JT Walsh Do you think in any of the Saints they should address like lieutenant markets and I had that for later We owe them this money we owe it to them I like the montage when everyone gets paid off.
Yeah, which is mom gets a job in the house Coronavus Ricky gets a tractor Ricky gets a gym bag with money Yeah, it's a Lexus, but makes the point that he didn't ask for it. That's for it. We're playing some cool music They also only pure solo movie fun one next one butch is homesick we talked about that earlier like that Happy telling Pete. I own you.
Yeah, I bought one of your boys coach I own you Pete your mind. This is a minute after he says I didn't break any rules you did and then he's like by the way Own you I shave points Shave points or is he just aware that Tony did shape? I'm happy Yeah, he's just like getting a little bit there. So he's like a booster It's also shaving points like happy's all booster ever.
You know what for happy the action is the juice So we go right into the point shaving game which is my favorite part of the movie Western U of Earth State 1991 Yeah, what a clean program here man. It's hard to keep this program clean Guaranteed didn't cover this Must be a reaction in Vegas somebody got rich Where's case of all having a few years I've been here look? He was a freshman Freddy's making freshman mistakes a bad leg Do you don't get that all night all night mistakes all night? No signs at all that this game might have been shaved as we see Tony just throw the ball the other team over and over again And look at the clock to see how the time is going.
I don't know how they do You think this is a better point shaving scene or the one in the gambler? Yeah Gammers a little more so he's cool out like they use video footage to like to start to like look at how he lets I like in the video cuz that's too So this is the best thing in the movie, I know this is the best thing in the movie, but this is the best thing in the movie You hate Freddy. I hate Freddy's such a guard Freddy wasn't there. He's just being out of the home We did think the entire time Freddy doesn't have he doesn't have any skin in the game here because he didn't recruit Tony He's not hanging out with Tony as well.
Look at this kid. He's just throwing a team First ball play the bit the people in Vegas way crazy that night and he's pissing this fucking guy off They've just spent all of this time praising Tony and it just builds and builds and builds and builds until it explodes That's the best thing in the movie to me Tony was my guy right guy my guy It's also funny now because when you watch like mind the game and they're like oh yeah That was the third quarter of a February game against Toronto and I read back screen like the assistant coaches are like I think I remember this game. It's like it happened last year Writing a novel, why don't you remember this? Good kid, baby.
He's a good kid. He plays acoustic guitar, you know Yeah, then then Nick goes to go seeing people and we get the kid cut your shit happen It's worth for best needle job all the sudden Hendrix and all on the watch power It's the one time the movie gets supercharged by a song and all those those those songs are so college Yeah, so cool cuz like that's the time when you realize like it feels more like a campus cuz he goes from the gym to the guys Housing over there and it's like oh, yeah, you could just run across here How do you feel about Pete's performance in the scene son? You took the purest thing in your life you corrupted it for what like he's talking about himself I think that's the whole way we're sorry about it, but then Tony stays on the team. Yeah You can't get rid of Tony Tony's gonna go fucking tell everyone I wish you look at me off the team But that's a more interesting scene.
What do you mean? Oh, there was more interesting scene if like Tony going am I off the team and Pete's like He's more guilty than I know but I want to see that in the scene like Tony actually is leverage over Pete because I think the year before Pete would have kicked Tony off the team. Yeah, I think that he's into deep Yeah, he's frustrated that he kind of has to shut up as well The big basketball scene I'm thrown in I enjoy Bobby Knight yelling at the refs I agree with your Bobby early point. The last play is so terrible and out of yeah Just we're watching ever been a game-winning alley you like that.
I know like the end state thing happened But like I watch this thing more for the nitpicks and I can't believe the music sound choices with this the music in the sound of this scene It's such a fucking fuck up the crowds out that I don't know what that there's like this weird droning synthesizer scene And I went back and I looked at all my favorite 1994 like hip-hop rap songs If you just put holler if you hear me in here for four minutes This just seems amazing and instead it's like he's just got this weird journey since says we're maybe the Randy Newman the natural score Or sure shot by the beasties the other one I was thinking like you need like this is fun We're watching people by basketball. I need to like tap in my leg as I'm watching I think that they're going for high drama though. I disagree with the choice. Yeah, I mean But you know like above the rim is like we know we are we're gonna have a nice ball scene here and we're just gonna be good music But that was street ball and that's like suppose to have that raw energy or whatever This was supposed to be like a more of a symphony of basketball Yeah, I just didn't agree with it and then Pete's final press conference would be the last thing I'm gonna go and does the SVP see our he invented it.
I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask you Coach what is up with Leon's new Lexus. Yeah, he's not a car. It's a fine automobile. Yeah, but a helping you It's a nuclear surfboard you guys asked me to win and I gave that to you it's about money It's the goddamn money happy does a great meltdown.
I become what I despise I become what I despise you did myself and she did basketball. There's two words I didn't think I'd ever come out of my mouth. I didn't think it'd ever be the same I quit Cheated my profession. I cheated myself at you to basketball.
I quit. This is kind of the basketball version of the of the now imagine She's white For us we watchable the press conference. Oh, yeah, the press conference is the most rewatchable But the Tony scene is the one that I'm always so gleeful to watch when I'm russing I love the point shaving. Yeah, I love the point shaving scene about crazy intense Free throws fucking man.
Oh the cool way they shoot the point shaving is I think Nolte's in the back They don't really even focus. It's the two coaches up front and Freddy talking shit Yeah, it's just pretty makes that scene pretty just like grating on the other I would have noticed this by the way That's about the other team. What's he doing? What's the most 1994 thing about this movie?
I have a going for this. It's the sportscaster guy is like it's time to tell Pete Bell to take a hike Like early jungle room. Yeah He's probably the actual sports like broadcaster for the little news and they're like you can have 22 minutes after the college Games to do like you're he's like Exactly. Yeah, and he's like okay.
I love Ron. Yeah, it's early takes me shit He's working on it and he also ruffles feathers when he interviews Pete Bell on the court. Yeah Right now that guy's out around the horn saying goodbye to everybody Young Shaq and young penny That's the most I need for thing, but I want to shout out VHS tapes and crappy TVs for coaching staffs Just how like did you did you really now? He'd be like let's find that game above a press it up It would be a plasma When Pete goes over to Jenny's house the first time after they lose to patino and he pours himself a glass of the good stuff and immediately Goes to game tape.
I was like this bill. This is what bill would love to do every night is go home for a glass of the good stuff So I watch a little bit of you got bumped up on that by my around the horn joke What's next the best I got Tony flunking TV Really like that always love the classes that they would come up for yeah for college And Jerry Tarkate and sing which McCrae couldn't make it at his school academically right um, you know, it's age the best It's it's weird. So this movie is supposed to be at UCLA right? It's their code.
I mean it's technically technically it's a gesture in sports. Yeah, right? It's actually UCLA that broke college sports I'll go band in here It'll band in suit and that lawsuit you know made it all the way up to the Supreme Court and in Australia It was tight as Eddie on the O'Bannon teams or is that he works? I was a joy-tizing I have a one what's age of best off of that was age of best.
Okay, when sports movies had to use Well when they had to use like Western University big state They had to use these fake college names. There's two Western universities because the other one is in a one-on-one with Robbie Benson Oh, yeah, same thing. I think that might even have the same code. So what is Western Texas's patinos team?
No, he's Texas. What does he coach? It was like no, it was like Texas Western or Western Texas Western. Yeah, yeah Yeah, I really like some of the music in this movie with a dinner Yeah, it's good the Ricky Rose outdoor hoop I wanted to shout out with Just nice little touch the phrase friends of the program that's become a big podcast phrase all over the place I don't know if it started with this movie, but I noticed that I Like whether it bends the rules or not doesn't bother me nothing because it ain't my rules thought was a good quote Using brooms as fake shop-blockers van loved it.
Mm-hmm. Low is I thought I just thought a lot of the touches with the coaching the players Was really high level. Oh, yeah, I really like that part It's also like it feels very real when I mean obviously because they were actually playing games that they were just filming but Latino and night coaching Yeah, I felt very real like they were giving like actual instruction and the coaching stuff in the movie is actually They didn't really lean into it that much but the coach is actually really good because yeah We're coaching against each other and it was like don't guard this guy Don't go that guy then you hit the other guy trying to adjust off of that It was like a little deeper look into like the scheme and strategy of the game yet It was good basketball nerd kind of even down to like when Nolte's when Pete's like I'll go into the India India in a locker room and give Bob night our game plan because it doesn't matter I was like yeah Rick patina in the closing credits of this movie is Richard patina. I just wanted to shout out He was thinking might maybe I'll move back Honestly like kind of awesome in this movie.
Yeah, I have him and Larry buried a Bob Coosie All being awesome in the sports movies of what's his best There's a locker room sign and the people locker room that says what you see here what you hear here Let it stay here when you live here that I just want to flag for later for the more thing Here's my number one though. I almost feel like there should be a new category because we had this last week with Nicole Kidman Asking if she should study neurosurgery Like We're good just show up and get your scenes on time and don't wear heels because you're already taller at the time This research Nick Nolte wrote a 200 page novel about Pete Bell to tap into his character psyche Sorry man and gave it to free can and free kids like Yeah, it was okay You gotta get the green light before you write the 200 page novel So is this a new rewatchable award? Maybe it's conditional that Nick Nolte's 200 page people novel word for most ridiculous commitment to a movie Yeah, like that's the fucking insane. Yeah, you run a 200 page novel about people can we get it though?