‘American Gangster’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan

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The Rewatchables brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network.

We can find the watch with Chris Ryan.

Still Chris.

Great to be back.

Yeah.

Vin Lathan.

You're in three podcasts now.

Yeah.

College Football Tailgate.

We call it the Ringer Tailgate.

It's a College Football Podcast.

Coming live on Saturdays.

Yeah.

Wednesdays as well.

Plus student higher learning.

Plus

pew pew, pew pew.

There you go.

Yeah.

finally on board.

I'm Bill Simmons.

This is the 400th movie we've done on the rewatchables.

Wow, I was looking back at all the people, so fantasy's in Tellerad, so he couldn't be here, but Fantasy was a huge part of this podcast really since we launched it in 2017.

We'll tell the story in a second.

Shay Serrano, Jason Catsepsion, yeah,

really big parts of the first, like first half of the feed.

Kyle Brandt,

huge part of the last five years.

We've had Mallory and Dobbins and Wesley, Koppelman, Rosillo, Juliet, all of them popped out many times.

Tarantino twice.

Three times.

I was getting to that.

Oh, sorry.

Three times.

We've had some extended cameos from Joe, Joe, Joanna Robinson, Big Waz, Greenwald, Rembert, Chang, Mina Kimes, Logan Murdock, Cousin Sal, Chuck Klosterman, the Dannies.

with Craig a couple times.

We had Quentin Tarantino, Michael Mann, Bill Hayter, Aaron Sorkin, Jed Aptow, Bill Lawrence, Jimmy Kimmel, all making memorable stopbys.

Jennifer Lawrence was stopped by not as memorable.

She didn't understand the categories.

My wife was on an episode.

Oh, that's right.

My dad was on an episode with me and CR for my 50th birthday.

We did Shawshank Redemption.

That was great.

Craig's wife was on an episode.

When she was my assistant, she requested Country Strong, polarizing

strong polarizing episodes.

We were originally produced by

Liz Kelly.

Yeah.

Yeah, Liz Kelly.

I'm just saying Craig's wife.

He said his wife.

For the comedy.

Zach Mack, original producer.

Nephew Kyle, did a few.

Jason Gallagher was involved a little bit.

Are you retiring?

What are we doing?

Ronic.

I'm just doing the list.

Okay.

Richie, who else?

Who else was producing in the background, Craig?

That's

basically it.

Dylan, maybe a couple times.

Yeah, Dylan Berkey.

Now we have Gahal.

We have producer Craig, who's been with us, I would say 80% of the pods, Chris.

Yeah, right?

2019, I think.

Started as a podcast intern.

You can just see the hunger in his eyes, man.

That was it.

He's been with us ever since.

He's hosted a couple.

He's on one that he might be on 401 or 402.

Van Lathan, do you remember your first rewatchables?

I do not.

I'm not even going to try to act like a lot.

It was Boys in the Hood.

No.

No.

I do not.

Eight millimeter.

No.

No, that couldn't have been the first one.

But that was the one when I was like, this guy's a regular.

First of all, he requested eight millimeter.

Yeah.

You spoke by language.

Yeah.

No, your first one was higher learning.

Oh, yeah.

That's good.

Yeah, that's a memory.

That's a nice

memory.

And then CR, the legend.

So this started in my little pool house, my old house.

Yeah.

20th anniversary of heat.

And we said, let's just do a

entire podcast about heat on my podcast.

We did, I think, in December.

around Christmas time.

You came in.

Back to a pilot.

We just talked about heat for an hour.

And we had no idea if anyone would want to listen to it or care.

It was the Wild West back then.

Put it on my feed.

And the general response was like, that was fucking cool.

Wow, I loved heat too.

So we were like, huh.

And then tried to figure out the rewatchables.

It got a little rocky for the first year, trying all kinds of different things.

And then I remember the July 4th, 2018 area, we taped JAWS, Mew and Fantasy.

And we had had the pod for almost a year at that point.

We tried a bunch of different things, but we kind of knew what it was at at that point and that was the first one where i was like oh this this pod's gonna go a while like we've we've kind of cracked the code on this you remember that i do and i also remember like feeling like that was the first one was that the first super long episode that we did yeah we were like more category we just kind of were like this is what the pod should be yeah been doing it ever since made some some hairy times during covid sure uh

We were doing stuff on Zoom.

We're doing two a week.

I did Castaway by myself.

That's right.

We were doing two a week.

You did Castaway by myself.

I did Castaway by myself.

By the way, Solid Pod.

Really?

But CR, great to have you back.

Thanks.

And obviously, this wouldn't have happened if we weren't in the guest house that day.

So 400th movie.

Anyway, I gave you the call.

I said, you picked the movie.

I know.

And it's CR said, my man.

My man.

You know, there's a couple of white whales out there, but I was really eyeballing American Gangster because it's been on Netflix a lot recently, or it's on Netflix.

And this has just been,

you know what, it gets suggested in my YouTube algorithm a lot, scenes from this movie.

Yeah.

And I saw there's a couple scenes that have like 5 million views.

And I was like, I think, I think there's like a groundswell behind American Gangster right now.

I flew to Boston a couple of weeks ago and it was on AMC.

Can't say it was the best American gangster experience to be on AMC, but it's been, I've been circling it for a while.

I saw it in the theater.

I remember being exhilarated and disappointed.

And then over the years, it's kind of grown.

But on the AMC, and then I finally texted him.

I was like,

I'm watching American Gangster in AMC.

And CR was like,

I immediately grew a Josh Brolin mustache.

So anyway, American Gangster, our 400th movie, is next.

We're going to take a break.

American Gangster 2007.

I wrote down, this is like if CR typed into ChatGPT, make me a movie combining French Connection, Scarface, Goodfellows, Heat, Serpico, Black Caesar, and Godfather 2.

And ChatGPT was like,

here it is.

I'll put Denzel Washington in it.

Can I interest you in a quick scene in Bangkok?

Six minutes out of nowhere.

Why why do you love this movie?

It's kind of what you just said, which is that it's a collection of some of my favorite like genres, my favorite parts of American history, my favorite parts of like criminal underground history in a sort of environment that honestly, like I never, ever, ever get bored of 1970s New York.

It is like the never-ending maze that I could just live in and explore for the rest of my cinematic life and reading about it life.

And it somehow really Scott like brings it to life in a way that I think is reminiscent of some of the Sydney Lumet stuff from the 70s for sure.

But it looks different.

It feels different.

And, you know, he's got these hitters in it.

This is one of the, this is one of the best casts assembled in the century.

Whether or not they live up, the movie itself lives up to like all the talent that's assembled is another conversation.

But like I was going through looking for Dion, looking for that guy.

And I was like, where do you stop?

It was a long Dion.

Are we this is like a 2016?

Dion Rod is like a basketball team.

Yeah, we had like a bench.

That guy list.

Like, I just started grouping them together.

Yeah.

Like, and the whole squad could be of that guy.

You know what I remember about the movie?

The lore leading up to it.

The rumors of the production.

Denzel getting paid.

The movie's going.

Then the movie's not going.

Fuch was on the movie.

Then Scott comes on the movie and changes the movie.

And so then the version of the film that we get is kind of this mishmash of all of these visions.

Then the cultural push behind it.

Jay-Z, the theme album, the this is Denzel's first $20 million paycheck, all of the whispers.

So by the time you got to see the film, you were actually, if you were like a cinephile, trying to see how this entire thing was going to come together after years of it being kicked around and stuff.

It's very similar to Heat in the 90s.

You knew about the movie for a while.

It was two people I wanted to see in a movie again because they were in Virtuosity.

It was Ridley Scott.

It just felt like a big movie.

It's like, I can't wait to go see these.

He's being in the theater.

You're saying that people saw Virtuosity and they were like, let's run it back.

No, I'm just saying, but they did Virtuosity.

Denzel was a big star.

Crow is not.

But in 07, Crow is a massive star and it felt a little Pacino De Niro-y.

Well, there's an experience I had with this movie that is not dissimilar to what I had with Miami Vice, which is

you hear about that this is going to happen.

You find out who's going to be in it and who's making it.

And you're like, this is, I'm going to wake up soon and find out that I dreamed this.

This can't be happening.

Like a Harlem gangster story with Denzel Washington and Russell Crow's the cop chasing him.

Same kind of thing with like Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx playing Crockett and Tubbs and it's Michael Mann going back to it.

And then I think the initial reaction to it.

probably Miami Vice because of how beautifully strange it is and American Gangster where there's just like you're watching it and you're like, I want this to be Godfather, but it is, it is a different kind of movie and it's got a different kind of message and idea and it's different kind of like.

Were you disappointed when you left the theater?

I think so.

I think a little bit.

I was, I was disappointed.

It didn't take me until this decade to really grow into this movie.

I remember Miami Weiss, we said it was like seven, eight years before we were like, wait, is this movie good?

Yeah, yeah.

This movie was always pretty good, but I, I, I look at it now, it's just like a collection of scenes.

Yeah.

It's like almost like watching those SNL best of Will Farrell, and it's just like a bunch of awesome wolves.

Now you look at it, you could just jump in anywhere.

It doesn't, the script's all over the place.

Like it's just a fun hang.

The movie is insanely dense, like insanely dense.

Everything is happening in every single scene, right?

You look at the film now and you still see

a better movie in there somewhere.

Yeah.

Well, I think that people seem to think the director's cut, which was like 30 minutes longer, filled in some of the blanks.

But I'm not positive this movie needed to be longer, Van.

I don't think that it needs to be longer.

When I say it's, you know, a better movie, I'm talking about some really big choices.

Like, it almost feels like if the movie focused more on Roberts or more on Lucas, that the film would have been better.

What would you have chose?

What would have been your choice?

Probably an interesting topic.

I was going to do this later.

Probably more,

more Frank Lucas, a little less of Richard Roberts.

Yeah, yeah.

But I think that's the issue with the movie is Crowe is such a big star.

They had to almost put more, and they're making up all kinds of shit about that character, too.

But it really should have been a Frank Lucas movie.

And

it kind of, to me, I always thought,

because Brolin is at the perfect point in his career

where if the Roberts role was smaller, that he could have played it.

Right?

Because he was with Josh Roland.

He's an entity that we've known for a very long time, but he wasn't.

he was in the wilderness before this movie right well this is no country yeah so like this is that's a situation too if that role were a little bit smaller you could have put him in that role and maybe the movie it streamlines a little bit but don't you think the thing i love about this movie but it's also frustrating is trupo and his whole crew just could have been the movie sure you and then you have frank lucas and his whole thing that could have been the movie dude frank

getting the drugs out of vietnam

that could have been the entire movie

roger winiver smith and denzel washington getting drugs out of caught from coffins this goes van used the word dense i think this is why this movie was such a slow burn and why i like it so much now it's there's five fucking movies in here and and when you saw it the first time you're just like it's like being overfed at thanksgiving or something but now you there's so many different beats and the way it moves and it's just like such a fun hang and then you know though one of the reasons we're doing this is denzel who's in the spotlight again i think he's going to get nominated for the Spike movie, but, you know, he's been bringing it now for four decades.

This is

probably not be a good rewatchables guest because apparently he doesn't like watching movies.

No, he doesn't want to talk about the past.

But in this one, I was thinking like the Denzel dialing it up scale

and training days of 10.

Yeah.

Where he's like, I am dialed up.

I'm going all out.

Like game seven, the NBA star.

Philadelphia's is maybe an eight where he brings it up

highest to lowest maybe a seven he's like a six in this movie and it there's just a couple scenes like the piano scene where he just fucking brings it but other than that other than that he's playing this pretty cool for pretty ice in his veins i mean the the tango scene you know what i mean like the entire point of the frank the characterization of frank is that like he's not going to get flustered he's not going to get distracted it's only when he wears the chinchilla that anything starts going wrong for him.

And the whole time, he's kind of got a code for all of us.

For all of us, yeah.

Yet at the same time, he is always

one step away from violence.

Like one step away.

One of my favorite scenes is towards the end when he's being interrogated by Richie Roberts, or actually, he's more interrogating Richie Roberts.

He's recounting the thought of this encounter with the police that he's had, and he's just getting madder and madder and madder until he snaps.

That happens so many times in this movie.

To wear the chinchilla or the fur or whatever it is, and then to have it go bad, and then to come back after your wedding and burn it in front of your wife while she cries is all time psychotic.

You know what I mean?

So he's

like, My wedding night went better.

Yeah.

Tell us about it.

I wasn't arrested by the police.

I didn't burn my chinchilla.

It's a pretty average thing.

Detective Trupo didn't pull you guys out.

Trupo was a.

I love that character.

You bring up a really good point, though, because the film concludes with the most revealing traditional character moment with Frank.

That's where he tells his life story.

That's where he gives his biographical background and talks about why I am the way I am.

What we usually see is: all my life I've wanted to be a gangster, and then it's Henry Hill's childhood.

Michael Corleone is going to become a senator or a congressman, but then his father gets

a hit on him and it changes who he is, and he becomes the godfather.

Frank is Frank when we first see him.

The first image of Frank is shooting a burning man.

Then it's bumpy for like five minutes and Frank just becomes this great white shark out there immediately.

And I think for some people watching this film, it's a little disorienting because you're used to take me on the arc of this character.

How does this guy get to the point where he's shooting Idris Elba in the head on the street and not caring about the consequences?

And we only really get that at the end.

And at the end, it's almost like two minutes of Frank Lucas is the good guy.

Right.

Well, and that's another thing that was always awe to me about the movie.

The abrupt ending.

Well,

the idea that Frank is like, I'm a cop now.

The idea that like, so let's kill some coffee.

The movie has to reconcile itself because they've made Frank into this immensely likable character.

And then you have to watch him fall.

Now, normally, what happens in these films is when the drug dealer falls, besides Blow, which is tragic by the time George, like legitimately tragic, right?

Yeah.

But normally, the drug dealers, it's a fictional characterization.

The drug dealer dies, and oh my God, the excess got to him.

In this one, we know that that doesn't happen.

So, how do we feel good about Frank going to jail?

And the way that they do that is, aha, he put a lot of bad cops away.

And this kind of uh allowed him to get all of the trauma that he had from the police blowing off his cousin's head out because he put cops away.

But, like, I remember when the movie came out, we left the movie, and so, and

culturally, we're thinking, so, like, Frank Lucas is a snitch, right?

He's he's working with the police.

Well, they flip it so that the cops are the true bad guys, right?

That's the thread of the whole movie: cops don't steal drugs and do

I don't think they quite get there.

Yeah.

Like, you know what I mean?

And I don't think that they quite get there.

That's why you'd have had to have more Frank to do that because you were more Trupo.

Right.

Yes.

Trupo is kind of limited to

we don't really know why Trupo is doing what he's doing.

I mean, he just seems like a fucking asshole and is just like, you know, nobody's allowed to come into New York without paying my taxes.

But we don't get a ton of time with him ultimately for a movie that's two and a half hours.

Could have had more time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Josh, Josh Brolin was a borderline.

Did I steal the entire movie kind of candidate?

When you think he did this in no country in the same year.

Yeah, it's incredible.

And was just this child actor who had bounced around forever.

And then all of a sudden he's doing these two movies.

He's doing W's, hosting SNL.

He's married to Diane Lane.

How does that happen?

I always think about that.

So before this, the last thing I can remember really seeing Josh Brolin there was like Hollow Man.

Remember that joint?

Where like they were invisible and Kevin Bacon's dick is in the movie for some reason.

He wanted to show it off.

Yeah, he does it fluffed himself a little bit.

He fluffs himself and then bangs it out.

Self-fluffing.

Like that guy in Saltburn.

That guy was tugging it.

He was like, hold on.

Oh, it's my shot.

Don't take action, Dan.

Hold on, hold on.

All right.

Just got to play with myself a second.

All of a sudden, we are in the era of Josh Roland.

Like, and it's a fun era.

One after another, one after another.

You know what?

He gets to that point.

And I have a lot of Roland stuff later, but like, it's that funny thing of success truly coming later in life.

And you're like, I'm not letting this opportunity pass me by because Broan works and does two or three movies a year at a time when most guys are like, Cool, I'm in my 40s now.

Like, I can, I can dial it down a little bit and do maybe one big one and one, you know.

I always liked him though.

I'll tell you when he went on my radar as a real guy into the blue, a ripoff of the deep with Paul Walker and Jessica Alba.

wait a minute that was her pedro 1999 season

this was a very important moment for me into the blue

yeah like um into the blue like formatively no yeah man in the 20s at that point i'm no no no no no i'm but i'm still forming

the beginning scenes of into the blue yeah i remember we went to see this in theaters it's like well the beginning scenes of into the royal we or who who's who's we this is this movie knew what it was yeah very attractive People are gonna scuba dive and then get in trouble.

Really, I cannot even remember really what the movie is, but they find like a treasure or something like that.

Josh Berlin's the bad guy, he's the bad guy, and he's a really good bad guy in that.

But that film was interesting because everything happens at the beginning, and you know, Jessica Alba, these scenes had linked on the internet, but they leaked on the internet.

Jessica Alba was like in the bathing suit, and the whole nine is happening.

And then we just keep waiting for that scene to like happen again.

Yeah, we keep waiting for us to to go underwater with Jessica Alba again.

And then it kind of doesn't happen.

That's what the deep was like.

And the movie gets really serious about like real stuff.

And I'm like, I kind of didn't come here for that, man.

I kind of wanted to see her look for fish.

Yeah.

For the entire time.

That's the deep with Jack.

The deep, by the way, a classic.

Definitely watch this on Tubi movie.

It starts out with Jacqueline Bissette.

in a white t-shirt scuba diving with Nick Dolte for like eight minutes and then getting back on the boat, just white t-shirt, you can see through through everything.

You're like, oh, this is going to be a fun hang with a half name.

And then all of a sudden, voodoo's involved and Lou Gossett's like an evil Haitian guy.

But yeah, they rope you in and then they get into the pot.

CR remembers.

No, I'm just imagining what's going to happen when you get your hands on like the AI tech that's like voice to video where you're just like, I just want to see Jess Galba scuba dive for like 20 more minutes and then just make a video.

But it's true because really they start getting close.

This is one of the things when Craig's Generation took over.

They stopped doing this.

They stopped getting us to the movies

with fucking Craig's generation.

Oh, because it's like the woke mind virus kept just Galib out of scuba gear.

We stopped going to the movies.

They would say, Hey, we want you to know that there is a ridiculously good-looking person in this film, and you should come watch it.

And then we're going to do a movie as well.

Maybe into the blue head Paul Walker for the latest.

Can I refer you to the film that just won Best Picture?

Honora.

We're back.

Anora.

Oh, yeah.

Could be.

Could be back.

Could be back.

back.

My generation is bringing it back now.

Well, so Denzel in the rewatchable standings, Cruz has been 17 rewatchables.

Pacino and De Niro were tied for second place at 13.

And Denzel is at 12.

He has now moved into second place.

Wow.

And we have several.

Several Denzel movies, including some huge ones, right?

Some huge ones.

Even like...

Come on, Deja Vu, out of time.

Well,

this is my favorite era.

What's the one with Sonal Lathan?

Sonal.

Sonalth.

That's out of town.

I love that movie.

We have to save that for Sleazy Florida Keys month.

Oh, yeah.

We just have that wild things.

And I don't know what the other two are.

What's the Florida Keys with Gene Hackman and Melanie Griffith?

Young Melanie Griffith moves.

Night moves.

Is Miami Blues in the Florida Keys?

No, that's Miami.

That's a Miami.

Yeah.

We'll find that.

We'll

sleazy Florida Keys.

Not enough time.

That and New Orleans, the two most underrated movie locations.

Uh, anyway, Denzel, uh,

making it happen, and then Russell Crowe.

Oh, I should mention one thing with Denzel.

So, remember, the Titans is 2000

training day, wins the Oscar, John Q, Antoine Fisher, at a time,

Man on Fire, my single favorite Denzel performance, as we've discussed.

Manchurian candidate, really interesting movie.

This aged

fantasy's a big Manchurian guy of the Demi one, yeah.

Uh, Inside Man,

Deja Vu.

American gangster.

That's about that's an eight-year run.

That's about as good as it gets.

It's for us

made for us.

Yeah.

That's like a

list of films.

That's 10 movies in a row over the span of eight years that you could just take on a Desert Island and be probably okay with.

You always wonder how someone's going to respond to the best actor, best actress Academy Award.

Like now,

especially when somebody wins it like Denzel.

I mean, Denzel,

who had been a Hollywood mainstay for all of this time, right?

A bunch of movies.

People loved him in these films.

And then he makes it to the

top of the mountain with the best actor.

Now, Denzel solidified top five,

top 10 leading man, maybe of all time.

And that also, because he was a black actor, that also had like triple significance.

Huge.

The Oscars didn't even know black people existed until like 1970.

It was a bad, the 90s was bad for that.

So huge.

And what does he do?

Like, how does he round into being this gigantic magnetic star?

And then he kind of gives you every different part of Denzel with all of these movies.

But all of these movies have edge.

They're edgy performances, which when you look back at the 90s, it...

It's not that Denzel wasn't in edgy movies.

It was that he gave you a different side of himself than he did in the 2000s.

He also, I think in the 2000s, creates the idea of like a Denzel Washington movie rather than being another people's season tickets thing.

Yeah.

I have a movie coming out, and you will see it.

And I think, I think, guys, like,

I mean, the first person who jumps to mind who has obviously tried to like mimic that, although I do not think he's anywhere close to the same actor, is Wahlberg, where, you know, Wahlberg will make a family movie, an action movie, and a drama, and like has a lot.

And he's making more and more action and thriller stuff now.

But Denzel kind of like decides, like, what I like doing is working with these guys.

I like making these kinds of movies, and I'm going to make two of them a year or one of them a year and always have something going.

And now, you know, more recently, yeah, Tragedy of Macbeth, you know, doing the August Wilson films, you know, like he's, he's coming, he, he's trying different things, but for that 2000s run, he's kind of making Denzel Incorporated movies, you know?

Yeah.

Well, he's also

goes head to head with Hanks.

Hanks is his big kind of rival in the 90s.

Sure.

But they're in a movie together that they elevate each other.

Hanks is his rival in the 90s.

And Russell Crowe is his rival in the 2000s.

Hanks is his rival.

This is kind of over here.

Yeah, but

I think.

Look, so American Gangster is like 98%.

Sounds like pretty much made up.

Based on a true story, which then you can just do anything you want.

The guy's name was Frank Lucas.

Let's go next.

Yeah, I really like Russell Crowe's performance in this movie, but there is like a question of whether or not Russell Crowe is almost like too deferential and too like,

I'm going to be down here so that Denzel can be up here in the course of this film.

And what would have happened if Russell Crowe had kind of chewed more scenery and

made Richie a larger than life character in that way?

Looking back on it, when I watched it, it almost felt like he did it as a favor.

Like Russell Crowe, the character doesn't have any bite like at all.

Well, Ridley Scott was this guy.

They had just done a good year together.

They had done Gladiator, obviously.

And I think he just wanted to do another movie with them.

They seem like they beefed the part up a little bit for him.

This was the Russell Crowe run.

Speaking of runs, this goes back to 99.

Mystery Alaska, which we've not done yet.

Where do you stand on that movie?

I like that movie.

The Insider, Gladiator, Proof of Life.

When are we doing the reproof?

I mean, when are we doing that?

Where do you stand on that?

Well,

I remember this was very controversial.

i enjoy the movie but i said that the movie was the film that like

no no what what am i doing i don't like that that you don't like proof of life no

the way how'd you start it i like that movie it is like the cut the cuck part yeah

it is like hostage cuck i don't i don't like so i like proof of life as a movie proof of life is okay wait a second listen here's the deal proof of life does not exist as a movie to me it exists as the cucking of a man and the ruining of his, like, I can't separate the movie from the scandal.

I can't, I can't.

The movie itself is okay, but it ruined America's sweetheart, Meg Ryan.

You know what it is?

Stuff of legends.

It ruined America's sweetheart, Meg Ryan.

It bears Dennis Quaid.

She had to die for Dennis Quaid did not ever get it back together after.

No, he never did.

The movie is just like a bunch of fucking mess.

Well, Sierra and I love it.

And he followed it up with a beautiful mind.

Yeah.

Then Master and Commander.

I remember Concepcion was a big Master and Commander.

I love it.

I'm a big Master and Commander.

I am a movie.

Yeah, Jason is.

I am Cinderella.

And many, many people are.

Now, that's an underrated movie to me.

Yeah, I think there was just too many boxing movies in a row.

Man, that to me.

I gotta watch that one again.

That is an underrated movie.

When people talk about sports movies and particularly boxing movies, they don't mention it as much as they should.

I love that movie.

That Ron Harrow.

Ron Harrow.

A Good Year, 310 to Yuma, an American Gangster.

That's all niggas.

That's sick, by the way.

The crowd best in 2000s, I think, of all actors.

That is the best movie out of all of those movies to me, besides the insider.

Yeah.

Lovely.

He won the 2000s, I think.

I mean, especially.

He was in the most like high-end good movie.

2000 to 2010.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, this was it.

This was like kind of the last one.

This is the next year.

He's in that war.

You like, I wish.

He hadn't taken a couple of miles per hour off the fastball.

Do you wish like he was a little bit more?

I got to say, I really like the crow parts.

I just think

it's a different movie.

We're kind of over here.

The child custody stuff is just bad.

they should have cut it none of that makes that should not be so i do like me like a cop

don't me like a lawyer

um oh uh he

they that's the part of the movie that's overstuffed we just don't need to know that about him yeah no that's by the way in real life he didn't have a kid i know right it's like why is this in here they were like oh we got to beef up gotta beef up this character it's like no you actually don't i guess it's an attempt to give him an arc

I mean, anything.

You don't know anything about him.

But it's like interesting enough that he's like, I'm trying to go to night school and I don't like public speaking.

Like, those feel like real details.

The kid stuff is just like.

It's the classic, like, the cop has to be neglecting his family to do his work.

But

we do get Carla Gucci now.

We do.

But once again, like.

Not in the perfect way.

Yeah.

She just never landed the plane in any of these movies.

And I just want to do her career over again.

So many at best.

Since City.

um oh that is true yeah but here's the thing we already had the the the crow piece of this that made me understand him is that he gave the money back he's honest that's it that's all we need yeah honest dude he's not like these other cops we're good drilling in on him as a police man

that would have been better than any of the family stuff or even What was really interesting to me was the pressure from his old friends trying to bring him into the criminal life yeah like all of that stuff give me two more scenes with that two more scenes with that and like people stink eye on him again in the police station craig russell crowe denzel you grew up with these guys denzel obviously bigger but what's what's your russell crowe relationship um

i think always seen as a guy who could do like a ton of different things.

I always, Russell Crowe was one of the best actors in my mind growing up.

Beautiful Mind and Gladiator were probably the two biggest movies that I remember growing up.

He was just like a guy who was always in the top five, I think, for me.

Yeah, the cool thing, we talked about this when we did the Insider, the ability to do the Gladiator type of movie, but then to also be able to just slip into like the Insider guy.

Or a character like

in Insider, he's kind of you don't even know it's him.

Yeah, he and he's also kind of the marshmallow man in that movie.

Yeah.

He's the guy being poked around and who doesn't know his thing.

Between 310 to Yuma and Gladiator, the 310 to Yuma character is the most alpha character in a movie ever.

That movie is so good.

Like, ever.

Just getting to it.

When

he gets the fork, he steals the fork.

And then he just

wakes up and he's killing that guy and the whole deal.

And they pull him off of him and he's laughing.

I'm like, this guy is fucking diabolical, but amazingly charming as well.

It's funny.

So he hits the 2010s.

And then it's over.

Yeah, he's, I think he partied pretty hard in the uh,

yeah, and now I think he kind of moved into like he's a different version of himself.

Kind of, I mean, he's not making exactly like red box movies, but he's in like three exorcism movies a year now.

Like, yeah, he was the by the way, I've seen all of them,

but at least we didn't have a Bel Gibson moment with him, the other uh Australian, kind of that part of the world with uh

you know, hard, hard-partying dudes.

We didn't have a Russell Wow!

Wow, Yeah.

Did you ever see Land of Bad?

I liked Land of Bad, where he's the drone, yeah, drone pilot.

Land of Bad's good.

Yeah, yeah, he's been all right.

You know, it's funny is he ends up playing Jorrell in Man of Steel.

Yeah.

And

so, yeah, you know, I just found this out because I'll never see that movie.

Well, he played Jor El and Man of Steel.

Actually, the best parts of Man of Steel to me are the beginning parts where they're in Krypton, which is like really good stuff to me.

But his career kind of goes in like a brando-ish, older, brando-ish way.

yeah where you know brando physically changes obviously and he is bringing more of his reputation as marlon brando to movies than actual like real characters certainly did that in the exorcism movies yeah it's like that's russell crow he's put the cute cards right there he likes them a little closer can you use red ink on the cute cards so he can make sure uh we'll take a break we'll talk about uh the rest of the big picture stuff here this episode is brought to you by angry orchard re-watch your favorite horror movies with this perfect drink that's crisp and refreshing, but not too sweet.

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All right.

So we talked about Brolin, four Oscar winners in this movie: Denzel, Russell Crowe, Common, and Cube Gooding Jr.,

and then Josh Brolin,

Ruby D, John Hawks.

What was he nominated in?

The Jennifer Lawrence?

The one where he's paraplegic, I think.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And Chiwate,

and Twitter Ijavour.

How do you say his name?

Chiwatelle.

Chiwatelle.

Chiwatelle.

I knew I was going to mangle that one.

He got nominated too.

Lodicast, plus a bunch of that guys.

That's an understatement.

I mean, it's like a 26-person where you're like, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Including, I think, some CR

all-stars.

Yes.

Yeah.

Including Richie Coster, John Ortiz.

John Ortiz?

Richie Coster, Devo is, who just comes in hot.

Who plays the crazy killer in Black Hat,

but in this is

Richie's childhood friend who's now in the mafia.

Is it possible Michael Mann and Ridley Scott just shared a Google Doc with actors they liked?

I just think that those guys are like,

yeah, I'm ready to go, like, put the camera on me.

New York guys,

throw them in a movie.

If you need the movie to feel authentic, authentic, you want to put some texture to the movie, you throw it in the movie.

Costa's English, I think, or Welsh.

Yeah.

But yeah, it's crazy.

That's how they use it.

Yeah, yeah.

So the story of the movie, we'll get to some of those guys when we do the categories, but

there was a New York magazine story called Return Return of Superfly in 2000, Mark Jacobson, great,

yeah, good story.

I remember when it came out, it was like, holy shit, what an amazing and then Universal Imagine purchase the rights.

Fincher, we're doing most of the casting winners here, but you kind of have to because that's the issue of the movie.

Fincher kicks the tires, couldn't figure out a budget.

They start negotiating with De Palma, and the movie's called Drew, True Blue at that point, falls through

Antoine Fuqua, Denzel, Benicio Del Toros, Richie.

That's March 2004.

It's happening.

Fuqua gets fired over creative differences.

Peter Berg almost comes in right around when he's doing the Friday.

Denzel approves of Peter Berg coming on if that's what's going on.

Budget's so high, the studio panics, they back out.

They cancel production.

Denzel and Del Toro have pay or play.

Denzel just gets 20 million.

Del Toro gets five.

Sounds amazing.

What a great game.

I have that for big picture episodes.

Yeah.

Almost gets revived in 05 with Will Smith.

Uh-huh.

That movie sucks.

I'm just going to like Will Smith trying to be Frank Lucas.

That movie's going to be bad.

Yeah.

It's not going to work.

They bring in another screenwriter named Terry George, who plans on downsizing the budget, writes a script, and he's going to get his guy from Hotel Rwanda, Don Cheadle, fans guy.

Okay.

Want to text him right now?

I will.

He was going to be Frank Lucas.

They turned down the screenplay.

Steve Zalion, who wrote the original screenplay, now he's back.

Yep.

And all of a sudden, we have Scott and Denzel and Crow.

And I remember that.

I had forgotten until I did the research, but remember they were calling it the Black Godfather as they were filming it.

Yeah.

They're like, this is it.

This is the Black Godfather.

Also, just to throw in, somewhere in there, there is a Richard Price draft of like either a rewrite of the Terry George script or there's a draft of Richard Price's script.

I couldn't find it.

I don't know if it's like actually even in existence.

They go back to this huge like 170-page zalian script but when you look at like the names involved with the

shepherding slash almost did this it's one of the great like

oh i could sit here all day and think about what the da palma version would have been how about what the what is the fincher version of this oh i mean it would have been it's just all the process it probably steers more toward richie right

fincher and denzel washing and working together

i mean

asking denzel for the 71st take do 100 takes of one scene my man we're done yeah like can you imagine that the fuco version I learned a lot about the business through the painful production process of this movie because the fuco version was being battle-hooed and people were talking about it was Antoine Foucault and Denzel reuniting doing another movie after training day

and

it comes out that Denzel has gotten already 20 million dollars he's they've paid him so and it's pay or play what does pay or play mean meaning that he did that they've paid him and he gets the money no whether they make the movie or or not it doesn't matter and then so you're feeling figuring out they're going to make this if they pay 20 million dollars to denzel washing the benicio del toro part didn't even know and then year after year the movie's not coming the movie's not coming the movie's not coming because you don't understand that it's going through so many different eyes and to me it still feels like the crux of the creative differences with Antoine Foucault is that he wanted to focus his movie on Frank Lucas and he did not want the Richie Roberts character to be as big of a deal.

And maybe that's almost what Denzel Denzel thought that he was doing as well.

So when you saw the film, when it came out, you go, oh, the movie has been really scotted a little bit.

Almost like Clockers.

Yeah.

Clockers was when

Scorsese had it.

It was more on Harvey Kattell's character.

It was going to focus.

There's going to be De Niro, too.

Right.

And then Denzel gets it.

Excuse me.

Spike Lee gets it.

And then Spike Lee reorients the movie to be around Mikai Pfeiffer's character.

And it's a completely different film.

It's almost like this movie happens, but in the reverse here.

They're like, Denzel,

here's where we are.

And he's like, am I still getting my 20 million?

Do you want to weigh in on script?

Am I still getting my 20 million?

I'll be there.

When's our first day of filming?

I just think he was moving from movie to movie at this point.

I think that's his process.

Denzel or Senzel, I think he wants to work with a director that he likes.

And if he likes the story and likes the character, he's in, he's good.

Like he's cranking out basically a movie every nine months at this point.

You know, you're moving on on and on fast.

His first $20 million paycheck.

First time it ever happened for.

This is a very difficult thing to balance in these kinds of genre movies where you've got the crook and the criminal and they don't, they're not necessarily in contact.

I mean, they're,

when does Richie figure out it's Frank at the fight, right?

That fight is

the fight, but even then more so with his friend.

Remember, his friend goes, leave Frank Lucas alone.

And Richie goes, huh?

Oh, the mafia guy.

Yeah.

He's like, I'm here to give you a message to leave Frank alone.

yeah that's an hour and a half and yeah yeah where

that's not even like yeah vincent hanna being like this crew is good in the first 10 minutes of heat even though he doesn't know who he's talking about so

it's a it's a delicate balance and then to your point like where clockers like if you read the novel clockers like there's it's 50 50 between strike and the the detective and like the detective has all like all this personal stuff going on and that and yeah like the director will orient it and weight it kind of like where he wants to go yeah sierra likes the new studio

he's he's like settled in

legs crossed got the hands moving

steve zalien for 93 he writes searching for bobby fisher which we did in the rewatchables clearing present danger schindler's list mission impossible the civil action hannibal gangs of new york the interpreter what was that one uh that was the sean penny uh kidman movie all the kingsman american gangster money

Girl with the Dragon tattoo, and that's all in less than 20 years.

And he just directed that's impressive.

And wrote Ripley on Netflix last year, and he had done The Night Of with Richard Price a couple of years ago.

Yeah, so there you go.

Anyway, they finally make the movie and they have a comeback movie for him a little bit.

Yeah, a little bit.

All the Kings Men,

tough.

And then Ridley Scott, who this will be, I think, the fifth or sixth one we've done for him.

Is that all?

Every seven years, he just has

like an eternal banger: Alien, 79.

Blade Runner 82.

Black Rain, 89.

For me, it's CR.

Heavy.

Oh,

I'll send you your E-vite for the Black Rain you're watching.

No, that one's one I fuck with.

Heavy.

I'm really underrated.

Someone Louise, 91.

G.I.

Jane, 97.

Gladiator.

Gangster.

Martian in 2015.

He's just, he's, oh, you don't go more than seven years without him being heard from.

Although we have now

basically making a movie and prepping a movie at the same time, and he's been doing that for basically the last 30 years.

And I think he has an incredibly high floor and an increasingly lower and lower ceiling.

But every once in a while,

because he's 80 years older than Jerry John.

Exactly.

Bridley Scott definitely would have traded Mike.

Britley Scott is like,

we're getting two first-round picks.

And it's, and you,

you, like Napoleon, right?

Yeah, you would have thought that there was no way that the movie could miss, yeah, because the last duel is fantastic, right?

Football coaches and directors, you would have thought that there's no way that no, and then you go and you watch Napoleon, and it is a mess, and you're like, How is with all of the talent and how is this this boring?

Yeah, did you ever see the duelists?

His first movie, yeah, it's awesome.

I've never seen that, it's amazing, yeah, it's really weird, but then he also he has small it's a tubi classic, yeah, but like matched.

Match isn't like he's the he is the king of, I saw it in the theater and I was so excited and it wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be.

And then 10 years later, you're like, you know what?

Robin Hood's okay.

Yeah.

I kind of enjoy costume.

There's seven accents in this movie.

Even this, American Gangster is,

and like a lot of the stuff that we've talked about this film, a lot of the people that they threw in this movie is because I think you can.

you can feel the pressure of making this movie a huge, huge deal for everybody in it with the amount of people that's in that comment.

everyone got to go see it um so they they overstuffed the film because after all the rumors and after everything they had put into the production they needed people to get out to the theaters to go see this it was a big part of denzel's career all of that stuff but also

just in the ridley scott uh

like denzel washington like portion of this movie like These drug dealer biopics, they're not as many of them as you think they are.

Right.

Like most of the drug dealers.

You're saying we need more?

Well, I'm saying that they're hard to make.

Yeah.

Like, most of the drug dealer movies that we like that are legendary are about fictional characters.

These stories don't turn out well.

You got this, you have Playtime Fool, you have Bloat.

All of those movies end up in profound tragedy.

Somebody going to jail, leaving their daughter, whatever, whatever.

And so these stories.

And nobody just gets away.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, it's also the more nuanced, complicated versions of these stories has moved into television.

So, like, I mean, Bumpy Johnson is that that's Godfather model now.

But Narcos and the Wire kind of like created a much higher standard of like, here's the nuances of how this stuff works.

Task, our new show.

Task.

Yeah.

And what I'm saying, where did you see Task?

I saw you guys are getting really excited about it.

Like, the movies aren't easy to make.

They go.

Did you say big boner?

Big TV boner for task.

Is it that good?

I saw you guys doing prestige on it.

Craig, what do you think?

What's your best season hbo show ever

true detective okay i think it's as good as true detective season one true detective i do wow i've only seen three episodes though i'm i'm i'm waiting i i watched the first one but i don't want to watch ahead so we i watched ahead only because we we banked a couple prestige pods you think it's true detective season one level good i do wow i do and i as you know i don't say stuff like that lately i was blown away okay

also

set in CR's, Pennsylvania.

And CR was in a biker gang when he was there.

So it's like there's a lot of.

Me and Sir Kristen Cole riding around Philly.

Yeah.

Two Oscar nominations for this movie, Art Direction and Ruby D for supporting actress.

I forgot this until I did the research.

This was one of the first

sabotage campaigns because they were so loose with the facts.

It became a huge story as we headed toward the Oscars.

Yeah.

When this came out, people were like, Denzel's getting nominated.

And by the time we got to the Oscars, people are like, They made all this shit up in the movie.

No way, kind of happened with Gladiator 2 just recently, where it was like, Oh, Denzel nailed on, it's gonna happen.

And yeah,

uh, $100 million budget made $269 million.

How about this, Van?

Biggest opening weekend out of any film for either Denzel or Russell Crowe.

I can see that in 07.

Yeah,

Roger Ebert.

He's right to your right.

He's looking at you right over there.

Great.

Two books right here.

I read this review.

Four stars.

Wow.

An engrossing story told smoothly and well.

Russell Crowe's contribution is enormous.

He was really into Crowe, but

he said, the film ends not with a Scarface style shootout, but with Frank and Richie sitting down for a long, intelligent conversation written by Zally and showed two smart men who both know the score.

As I hinted above, less godfather than Wall Street.

Blah, blah, blah.

raj

really into it really liked our 400th movie uh all right let's do the categories so here's why you know it's a rewatchable i have like 14 rewatchable seats yeah it's a whole fucking including the opening credits because this movie starts with denzel setting a guy on fire and shooting him six times

and we're off yeah

um totally kind of like you're like okay

here we go All right, I'll just throw out some and then if I forgot any tell me after.

Richie finds $987,000 in her trunk and debates with his partner john ortiz what to do we'll be pariahs

cops kill cops they can't trust that true cr

uh in the 1970s perhaps yeah uh we also get ted levine

didn't mention him in the top yep he's the uh the sergeant

she big fat person

you don't know what prayers lady

Love seeing him.

I can't unsee him out of that every time I see it.

I think he knows he just kind of kept changing hairstyle anyway how his hair is what he's doing i see that every time i can't i can't i can't unsee it it puts the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose again

yes she will precious

um

small scene but i like when richie screams at the park hoodlums when he's arguing with his wife oh yeah yeah good times uh i just wrote down denzel goes to bangkok i don't even know there's like four scenes in here's defeated army man when has it ever been bad to go to Bangkok in a movie like this?

I'm going to say never.

It's also like

it is the movie that wasn't there, but you're like, this guy going to Bangkok and the Golden Triangle and negotiating with this fallen army for uncut heroin would have been.

That's Dan, you come back from 1970s Bangkok.

No, there's one scene.

There was one scene where, you know,

Denzel calls his connect and the guy's getting a massage.

I'm like, that's the life I'm supposed to be living, man.

Just multiple massage people, multiple massage people.

And I don't know about the Bangkok part, but I do know, like, in Saigon, that was true that there was like a lot of black GIs had clubs and stuff like that.

Yeah, sure.

They, and they kind of, uh,

some of them that once again, I was about to say that, like, that's the more interesting film is like navigating that.

Some of them stayed there, made lives there, had children there, the whole night, yeah.

Yeah,

all right, more rewatchable scenes.

We haven't talked about this yet.

Jake unravels John Ortiz.

I had to do it, man.

So John Ortiz, for the people who don't realize,

he's the guy who jumps out of the car in this movie.

Yeah.

After he's, they have to, this is the scene where they have to pretend this guy's still alive.

They will him out, even though he obviously killed this drug dude and stole money from him, and he's lost his way.

Same guy from Miami Vice.

Yes.

Who played the one who worked with,

or who was, what was the name of the bad, the main bad guy?

The main Cuban drug, or the guy who's in the Colombian jungle, yeah.

And he becomes the villain of the movie, and he's amazing in that movie.

He was also in a couple other ones, so we'll talk about it.

Carlito's Way, wasn't he in that?

He's in Carlito's Way, yeah.

I'm a leopard because I listened to you, and I gave up a million bucks.

He's just on one.

I like when people jump out of cars in movies, too.

I mean, you're going to desperately die every time when you do that.

There's two really crucial like connections that they make earlier.

One is when the

John Polito is talking to Frank Lucas or the John Polito character is talking to Denzel's character about they're still stepping on the French connection dope.

Like the cops who got Popeye Doyle's dope from Marseille are stealing it from the evidence room, stepping on it and selling it.

And it's like heroin is, it just sucks now.

And there's no order anymore, and these cops are such bastards.

So, like, the connection to the French connection, the film and the story, and then also just the idea that if you were an upstanding cop in 1970s New York, you were a pariah, and that, like, that would drive the John Ortiz character to drug use, you know, like

that's one observation, one thing that the movie really gets right is all of the competing cultural narratives in the 70s.

The corruption of the cops,

Harlem exploding as a center with celebrities and partying, but also this tremendous drug use.

And then just sort of

Frank Lucas and his criminal connection to the source in Vietnam.

to all of the stuff that's happening on the street.

Yeah, and also just like an entire generation of men coming back from Vietnam and one in three of them's got a

drug problem, yeah.

So, that part of the movie really gets all of that stuff right, Craig.

Out of your two fantasy partners, Danny and Danny, who's more likely to lose it like John Ortiz does and this and jump out of a van

is constantly on the verge of jumping out of moving cars because of a bad fantasy picture.

Keep an eye on him, he's getting paid under the table by fantasy.

So it's everyone's doing it, man.

Um, next

dart flops, hyvets will jump out of a moving car.

The blue magic drug montage scene.

I love the making it, making the drugs montage.

It's always fun.

Right into Richie in the courtroom, right into the kitchen with his

lawyer.

With his lawyer, which I'm going to, we rarely get to get this out.

The I used to fuck guys like you in prison award for craziest quote.

This to KD Strickland.

Richie fucked me like a cop, not a lawyer.

Boy.

Was there like a is there a different way?

Like a lawyer, he would have been like more gentle?

Was she trying to get out of it?

Richie also low-key great stick man and has to answer the phone yeah post or during sex multiple times in this movie yeah he's got a little sly smile to him yeah i think the i think the cop is probably you know

i think that's probably like more primal yeah because the cop is authoritative and He's working for overtime.

Yeah, the cop doesn't care about your rights.

The cop is imposing himself.

Meanwhile, the lawyer is probably, you know, caring about your civil rights and asking

a lot of caveats, a lot of precedents and all that stuff.

A lot of feeling okay.

Nah, the cop just comes out and plants the dick right on you is probably what she wanted, right?

KD Strickland never got close.

Never quite made it, but

really close.

Got close, man.

I loved her practice.

This, she did a Tyler Perry movie.

I always thought

she was close to the Tyler Perry movie?

I think it's called, I think she was in the movie called The Family That Prays.

Okay.

Which is the best Tyler Perry movie.

She was in it.

Like she got, she almost, she almost got there

next scene sier's favorite frank kills tango yeah

the sugar jar

fuck you gonna do frank

it's great

fuck you gonna do frank

you want to shoot me that's the scene in this movie that lives on every great gangsta movie has to have a scene just one scene that lives on throughout the movie at least one that's i was gonna do this for apex Mountain, but we can do it here.

Better Idris Elba on-screen death.

It's Stringer.

It's Stringer.

It's Stringer, but I will say

Denzel pulling the gun and putting it to his head, the facial expression he makes is the hardest thing I've ever seen in my life.

Craig, you hadn't seen this movie before, right?

Nope.

What was your reaction to that moment?

They never do this.

I can't think of a night where the guy who's like, What are you going to do?

Shoot me in the street, and he actually shoots him.

It never happens, it's amazing.

Yeah, it is great.

Yeah, string, string still gets me, though.

When I do a wire rewatch, string just kind of get on with it.

Yeah, like Omar tells him, and he's like, you know what?

If that's where I'm at, just take me out.

You know what I'll say, though?

Is Frank doesn't even get the satisfaction of letting Idris Elba's character know that he did it.

You know what I mean?

Like, I would almost shoot him in the leg first and then, like, the heart so he can think about it as he's done.

Insane person.

When you shoot him in the head, he doesn't even know what he's doing.

I knew it was something behind those eyes, man.

You're like, listen to him.

In the Bay Area, dark camera.

He's like, what are you going to do?

Shoot me?

He technically doesn't even know he got shot.

You know what I mean?

Are we positive Frank was going to shoot him before he said that?

Do you know what I wonder?

I don't think he expected him to actually give him the money.

I think he was like, look at this motherfucker.

I wonder if Frank would have shot him if his family wouldn't have been there.

Because it was to show them.

I think he was making a fucking statement to.

Because they had just gotten to New York, yeah.

And so he goes out there.

I know Frank was about his shit, but he goes out, he's talking to them, and then he's like, oh, here's an opportunity to show them either this guy's going to pay me right now or he's going to pay the price and it just asks for it.

Should have shot him in the heart.

Yes, you need him.

Craig wants more suffering.

Craig wants to.

You need him to do it.

Craig is like, I want the man that I killed to look me in my eyes as he dies.

Fucking crazy person.

Yeah.

Well, now we know.

Right.

Exactly.

uh a pretty a pretty enticing dn waiter's resume from idrisilba in this movie yeah a lot of swagger uh richie gets his money back from trupo enjoyed that

so this might be my number one oh that's uh trupo though that's never come here unannounced yeah this might be my number one frank freaks out at his own party yes

there's a piano assault Somebody says, come on, man, that's your cousin.

Yeah.

Always enjoy that.

I almost wish they would have delved more into Frank's discomfort with the trappings of being a big-time drug dealer.

That's your 10 extra minutes that you could have had from all the stupid and his like constantly like take the sunglasses off.

Don't do this.

Don't do that.

And then like when he tries to get into it, it blows up in his face.

It's just really fascinating.

Damn, that's $25,000 alpaca.

Yeah.

You blocked that shit.

You blocked that.

You blocked that shit.

The most interesting thing about the character is that he is so

loyal to his family.

He brings them up to make them his organization because he feels like they are the only people that he can trust.

Yet they vex him throughout the entire movie.

Yeah, they're country, they're stupid.

Probably not a great professional move.

He was so untrustworthy for people that he would have had to go into business with that he had to do this.

And then at every turn, they become his undoing.

And that scene is kind of the first thing.

It's just, he's so flabbergasted, beats him up, everybody get out.

And I love scenes where people get kicked out of a party.

The part when Stevie, played by T.I., is like, I don't want to play baseball anymore.

I want to be you.

It's like,

it's such a great moment for Denzel because it's like, is he flattered or is he disappointed that this is what it's come to?

You know, he brought him up there.

To play for the Yankees.

To play for the Yankees.

Yeah.

So that he did not have to be him.

Yeah.

And everyone is just descending into what Frank is rather than ascending to something better than what he could be.

Got to be be honest, the scene could have been two, three more minutes.

The baseball?

The party, just the whole party.

This next one, too, the Ali Frasier fight with fake Ali and fake Fraser.

One of the worst Ali's that I've seen in film.

I had it coming up on what stage is the worst.

Yeah.

They didn't even

try.

But they're like, hey, is it a black guy?

All right, cool.

Just

the depiction of that's the garden, right?

Is that supposed to be the garden?

Like, you're like, early Scott, man, make a boxing movie.

Like, this is incredible.

So I wrote wrote down this could have been three to four more minutes that I would have liked to have sitting around.

Yeah.

Right.

Like, just, it didn't have to be the 15th round, the famous round.

I throw me in the fourth round as somebody's eating a hot dog.

But just to live in that moment, I mean, obviously, it's a formative moment for the lore of Frank Lucas.

I mean, that's the one lesson, the enduring lesson in the movie is don't wear the fur.

You know what I mean?

But that is a really important historical moment.

We could have stayed there and hung out with Sammy Davis Jr.

Frank Sinacho was there.

Like everybody was there.

Woody Ellen and Diane Keaton.

Wow.

I have that as a nitpick.

I don't think they were dating for another six years.

That's where they needed the ringer consultancy firm.

Hey, guys, scrap that.

Thank you.

And even better in the Godfather.

Trupo ruins Frank's wedding day.

Brolin's just like, I just like Brolin in this.

I like the bro, just

the Brolin cooking.

Yeah.

Frank sells Cuba Gooding on Blue Magic.

What's interesting here is this is just who Cuba Gooding became in every movie or TV show, this character for the next 20 years.

Uh,

even he played OJ Simpson like this.

I have to say, he's this is you're talking about the catch me, infringement, insist that scene, just like dialing it up, seeming like a little bleary actor.

Good.

I he's good at this movie.

That scene.

I like you have Idris as Deion Waiters, I have him as

pretty good drunk acting.

Because

in the you forget, because he's one of these actors that his public persona has become bigger than the work, right?

But when you watch that scene, yeah, he's great.

He plays it

real cool.

I love it.

He's going up against it as well.

He's like, I'll call Redmatch.

It's not as good of a fucking name.

You know what I mean?

Like, he's just, he's really got that guy nailed in that one scene.

The plane search is great.

Frank's,

what's what's uh I'm blanking on Russell Crowe's characters and Richie.

Richie.

He's searching the coffins.

Brolin's looking for the dope.

Brolin just kills the duck.

That sucks.

That's when you know Trupo needs to die.

But I love that whole part.

And then we get the final police thing shootout.

We get naked gunfight.

We get Frank coming out to church of 400 cops.

It's amazing Grace is playing.

There's a Crow versus Denzel section that's fun.

Normal is to me.

I ain't seen normal since I was six years old.

Denzel gets a nice speech.

And then Trupo kills himself.

Yes.

What did I miss?

You didn't miss anything.

This is a very strangely constructed movie because the scenes are very fast.

There's a lot of them.

There is a lot of like dense visual information in every one of them.

But it's like, this isn't one where I'm like.

There are a bunch of scenes.

I would probably say like Tango is the most re-watched scene for me, but my favorite scene is the final Richie Frank interview.

Back and forth.

Yeah.

I think the most important scene in the movie is actually Frank bringing his family from North Carolina and the moment that they see everything.

Yeah.

And walking through Harlem for the first time, kind of, or the big house that they've got.

The big house, his mother, and all of that, because that becomes the central struggle of the movie.

Like a guy who has all of this trauma, who believes deeply in America, but not in the America that is supposed to work for him, the America that actually does.

And that's why everything he does is illicit and he listens to to Bumpy and all of that.

So that's one scene.

But then I just like whenever Denzel and Armand Desante are on screen together, like those two scenes, your success took a shot at you, like all-time green line.

Yeah.

What do you have, Craig?

Anything in Bangkok.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm like this.

I'm learning it about you.

Yeah, Craig's the dark side coming out hard.

Episode 400.

Bangkok.

Craig goes dark.

Yeah.

What's the most 2007 thing about this movie?

Normally we have like five, six, seven choices.

There's only one answer oh i have one what's yours

oh you you go ti and common as up-and-coming young rap like actors in this movie yeah done that's fine young ti

it's not what i had so that that's that's i mean the movie has ti anthony hamilton and common and common in it like the rappers like that's that's a good runner-up choice yeah what's yours what's yours

uh They invited Jay-Z to a screening and he was so impressed he made an album called American Gangster.

That's the most 2007 thing ever.

Hey, that's a very important moment in hip-hop.

Well, because it was a little comeback album for him.

Well, he had come back with, I think, Kingdom Come.

He had done Blueprint already.

Yeah.

Well, he had, no, he had done the Blueprint, but what I mean is Jay-Z had retired.

Yes.

And then he had come back with an album that was very controversial.

Some people loved it.

Some people hated it.

It's aged really well.

But then American Gangster is a...

theme album and that's kind of like hove is still hove is very important in his career to me

We'll take one more break and then we'll do what's age the best.

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Woodsage the best.

What do you got, Sierra?

A couple of things.

Number one, it was nominated, but the art direction and and the production design, Arthur Max, who does all of Ridley Scott's stuff, there are shots in the montage of people ODing on Blue Magic, where you see like a bathroom or a bedroom or, you know, even on a street corner, and you're like, holy shit, like there's more depth to this like set dressing and like what like props are in this shot than there are in some like entire films or TV series.

So it's just always

so like layered and interesting to look at this movie.

I also really think that there's like some good thematic coherence in Zalian script where it's like, for instance, Bumpy talking about the department store ruining the corner store and how it's like, well, these guys just buy straight from the manufacturer.

And what does Frank do?

Buy straight from the manufacturer.

Like, he takes different lessons.

Like, a lot of the capitalism stuff, it might be a little on the nose, but I think like the script does a really good job.

And the movie does a really good job of being like, this is more about capitalism than it is about crime, you know?

And I also just really enjoy watching topless women pack drugs.

Always, always works.

So I had that as well.

What stage is the best?

I don't think it's ever not worked in a movie.

Why do they do that?

Yeah, it's because they can't steal anything.

Yeah.

It is.

That's why.

It is.

Couldn't they wear like what the actresses wear the tape over their nipples?

Like, could they could be like somewhat discreet?

But also, you need them to commit.

You need them to say, hey, if you want to handle the dope, you got to come in here naked.

You need to buy in.

I'm pretty sure it's an HR violation, but I'm not positive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You have to be completely naked.

Do you think Red Top was doing HR as well as

Flame Andrew?

I know if he had HR.

I had.

Do you have a name what's H the best?

I do.

This movie to me is the beginning of the Denzel era we're in now.

This is where it starts.

Like there's the Denzel on his climb, and then there's Denzel in his solidifying stage.

And then this movie begins kind of the era of Denzel as an entity.

Denzel Incorporated.

Yeah, as much as an actor.

Because after this, he just starts, he no longer does any movie that he feels like.

He just does stuff that is cool to him.

And that's kind of the, we kind of, it kind of starts unstoppable, being on a train.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then when he decides, like in the spot that he's in now, when he decides that he goes, okay, well, I feel like the art is not being elevated.

I'll do fences.

I'll do some Shakespeare stuff.

I'll elevate the art through movies that I'm actually in.

I like it.

I had had what's age the best.

Anytime a movie has a character named Bumpy,

I'm probably feeling good about where we're going.

Yeah.

If the first person we're hearing from is named Bumpy,

I'm probably going to see this movie nine times.

Charles Williams, yeah.

I was trying to think of what athlete could change their name to Bumpy.

Like, could this save Kyle Pitts?

Laurie Marketing.

I'm not Kyle Pitts anymore.

I'm Bumpy Pitts.

Bumpy Pitts is a hard ass name.

Bumpy Pitts.

Like, shit.

I think Bumpy Pitts is coming back this year.

Bumpy Marketing.

And it was just like, oh, you don't want to to test him marketing.

Bumpy Marketing.

Bumpy Marketing.

Sam Hauser becomes Bumpy Hauser.

Oh, shit, Bumpy.

What about Bumpy Wembanyama?

That's kind of like where it maybe goes the other way.

Yeah, it's nice.

It's got to be a cook one.

Bumpy's been portrayed on film a lot.

Bumpy seemed great.

Gave away turkeys.

I think twice.

Well, now he's Forrest Whitaker, right?

Forrest Whitaker, Lawrence Fishburne.

Lawrence Fishburne twice, maybe.

Did he?

Because I think maybe he did it in a cotton club, too, maybe a young man.

Oh.

but he had some big picture thoughts about life.

Yeah, and very much.

You also couldn't fuck with him.

Yeah, I had

Vietnam's whole, they had that news story about Vietnam and all the heroin opium addiction with the soldiers.

And I was like, could spend another like eight minutes on this.

I'm really interested in this.

Yes.

Has that been in the mood in a movie in the right way?

Because I was racking my brain.

It's uh, so there's a

amazing novel called Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone that got made into Who'll Stop the Rain, the Nick Nulty movie.

Right.

right?

And that's about bringing drugs back from Vietnam.

Um,

there's a there's there's a lot of writing about it, there hasn't been as many

as many films, yeah.

Van, 360 scenes filmed in 180 locations,

crazy that is just a what stage is the best for holy shit.

Yeah, uh, I put we talked about him earlier.

Any movie with Ted Levine,

I just like seeing him.

Yep, that's awesome.

Oh, I have one.

She big grand lady.

Roland's face when he gets his car blown up.

Yeah.

The car itself.

The car isn't.

Was it what kind of car is that?

Like those cars came back.

Like John Wick brought those cars back.

Like, yeah, the car itself, beautiful fucking car.

And then I love the exchange between Trupo and Frank when he's just like, how about I like throw you and your brother in the fucking river?

He's like, how about next time I blow up your fucking house right yeah frank got some balls on him they didn't call frank with a couple kilos of raw yeah in the trunk and frank still like the cop is a full-on criminal they're just doing criminal talk so there's a little thing in here when frank starts pouring a lot of sugar in his coffee that means his bodyguard has to

be officially moderating the situation.

I'm going to start doing that.

Who's your bodyguard?

Just for all, for all podcasts.

It just think that's what I think.

Kyle has going over and winning.

All of a sudden, I'm just pouring sugar.

Craig's like, oh, shit, something's going wrong with Bill.

Like, I don't know.

So you're the bodyguard.

Not the bodyguard, but just...

To be honest with you, now I feel like you could fucking do it.

I'm going right for the heart.

Going right for the heart.

You're going to know that Horlbeck killed you.

Ben Cock, Craig, Horrobeck.

Naked Ladies Cutting Cocaine.

John Ortiz, in the span of two and a half years, Miami Vice, American gangster, fast and furious, and public enemies.

Yeah, God bless that fucking dude.

I love him.

I have a quick towel of American gangster I wanted to put as what stage the best.

These five quotes.

Okay.

You could be successful and have enemies, or you could be unsuccessful and have friends.

You think that's true?

I just think great yearbook quote.

Yeah.

Put that throw.

I'm going to tell Ben when it's his senior year.

I'm going to just have him throw that in there.

The loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room.

Not untrue.

Doesn't work for podcasting, but yeah.

Right.

Or maybe it does.

It works for ESPN.

Oh, shot.

Jesus.

Come on.

Was that a shots fired?

It's not what works at ESPN.

It was a shots fired, but hey, get your shit off.

I'm fucking with it.

You are what you are in this world.

That's either one of two things.

Either you're somebody or you ain't nobody.

Yeah.

The number one fear of people isn't dying.

It's public speaking.

That's in there.

And then quitting while you're ahead is not the same as quitting.

Yes.

What a great quote.

You know what?

I think this, this is how you know I was never cut out for the street.

Because I think

you up 60.

They see 250 million.

But do you feel that way in Vegas?

I don't gamble, though.

Okay.

So I'm saying is like, that's probably the probably reason why I'm like, hey, if I'm Frank, I'm like, hey, bro, you up 100 million, man.

Wash that.

75, you got it after you washed it, right?

Take that, put it in the S P 500.

Like, you're good.

It's over.

But they can't stop because it's never actually about the money.

It was like Craig and the Danny's in New Orleans.

Yeah.

The crafts table.

You quit.

You quit where you're at.

You could have paid away.

Walked away, but nope.

I'm there playing blackjack with people vacuuming under my legs.

If I could tell the story of all of the ringer people huddled around the

that was an eye-opening scene.

That was some blue magic magic right there.

That was some blue magic watching everybody that you work with.

I'll be honest, I'll just admit this now.

It's the 400th episode.

I'll never fully forgive Raheem for bidding on the don't come line in craps.

Maybe in a while 10 years from now, I'll forgive it.

Yeah, I just thought it was completely unacceptable.

So,

the people he works with and his friends.

I'm going down Zach.

Craps is hunkering down together.

Yeah, it's all craps is all about community and togetherness.

Do you remember at Vegas Summer League when we had that weird Caesars suite that you guys filmed?

It was extra.

I don't know if you were working with us yet.

No, he was not.

It was 2018.

And there was, I was sitting in this suite and it was him, House, and Chang.

And House and Chang, I think, had been up all night and then gotten off strip gumbo somewhere.

Yeah.

And then come back to the hotel room to talk about the previous evening's gambling.

We did like basically a morning show, morning post-game wrap-up.

Shang winning a bone white chip that he needed to have like his social security number to cash out or something like that.

And these guys like betting

not just the table, but like different people at the table.

Like they're betting against like, how, how deep did it go?

Like the layers of how.

We were basically in Bangkok, even though it was Las Vegas.

And I was sitting there watching it and I'm like,

this is probably what it was like to watch like Miles Davis and John Coltrane on stage together, except for being a degenerate, not playing jazz.

I loved it.

I remember we're in New Orleans and it's Super Bowl and like people are walking by and they're going, was that Bill Simmons right there?

Yeah.

Bill is locked.

Why is he yelling every day?

He's locked in.

Like Bill is locked in.

I love it.

Super locked in.

And then Craig, because Craig, you went on a little run that night.

You did.

Yeah.

I kept the night alive.

The Dannies were hugging like they won the the Gabe 7 of the World Series.

It was the most community that I felt at the ringer.

Everybody was together.

It was fantastic.

Can I throw one more What's Age the Best out there?

So, are you saying we should do a Vegas ringer trip?

I think we definitely should.

Yeah, we should do it.

All right.

Right after Trupo and Richie meet for the first time, when he's like, Don't ever come here unannounced, one of Trupo's guys goes,

Let's go hit some balls.

I got a tea time.

I didn't remember that.

He's like, I got a tea time.

The guy's getting in the car behind the triple.

But it's like, is he driving?

Like, where is he going?

And one of those guys, Eugene from Eugene from the Sopranos, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hey, here's a category we don't get to give out that often.

The Sean Fantasy Word, sadly not here, for stealth homage that gives every movie nerd a criteriorgasm.

So the very last scene is an homage to the very first thriller when the robber looked at the audience and pointed a gunfire and the screen went blank.

The great train robbery in 1903.

Same thing.

Sean would have

Joe Pesci, straight to this camera.

Big Kuna Burger War, best use of fruit or drink.

I think it's pouring all the sugar coffee, right?

It's definitely the sugar jar.

Yeah.

What do you have for Great Chuck Gordo?

There is a shot when Frank brings his brothers to the apartment building where Red Top.

has all the ladies for the first time and as they're walking up the stairs, it cuts into the apartment.

And there's a shot of a naked lady wearing a shower cap with her feet up on the table reading a magazine that says, like, it's like for Jamaican rum.

It's an ad.

And she's smoking, and the news is on TV.

And if you put that picture, if you freeze that and put it would be like Life magazine.

It is unreal how deep, like every prop makes sense.

And it's just this awesome, like languid shot in the middle of this like crime thriller.

I love that shot.

Also, the

slow kind of reveal of Richie standing in front of Frank at church.

Yeah, it's good.

Kid Cutty Pursued Happiness, where Best Needle Drop.

That 110th Street song is good in this, but The Amazing Grace for the Mass Arrest is pretty good, too.

I don't know what we do, we'd have.

At the end, The Public Enemy, when Frank, like, it's my favorite public enemy record.

Can't trust it.

When Frank, like, leaves and he's back out on the street now, and he's like a man without a country, and everything's kind of changed, but everything kind of is the same.

That's mine.

Do you think they should, because American Gangster came out after this movie, do you think they should retroactively go back and cut like two of the songs into this movie since he basically was inspired by the movie?

What are you talking about?

Oh, you're talking about Jay-Z?

Yeah, oh, like, and put them like almost like a director's cut re-edit or like with that music in it.

I think it takes you out of the time, period, though.

Probably so.

Yeah, you want to stay in there.

Uh, the Chess Rockwell Brock Landers Award for best character name is obviously Ice Pick Paul.

Yeah, I had Moses Jones for this character, but I also like anytime there's a character named Bruiser.

Bruiser.

I love a character named Bruce.

How about Bangkok Craig?

Bangkok Craig.

Shoot him in the heart.

Shoot him in the heart.

Bangkok Craig was married.

Hardshot Horolbeck.

Hardshot Horoback.

CR, you have a flex category.

I brought two with me today.

Sean Pren, the Sean Penn, I brought my own PAC award for excellence in on-screen smoking.

John Hawks is smoking all the time.

It's just cameras happen to be on.

Yeah, and he is getting really, really down to the filter.

Like,

that's when you know it's real, is when guys are down around the stub because that's where they keep the good stuff.

Good one.

Uh, Ed Norton, reverse dunk award, did this movie need a random sports scene.

A little bit of a variation on this.

Are you telling me Harry Dean Stanton couldn't play Billy Martin and come watch Stevie Lucas pitch a little bit?

Yeah, he's sitting right there.

He's the perfect age.

That was my flex.

I wanted to see, I wanted to see that scene.

I wanted to see T.I.

How about rip it at 95 miles?

He obviously, I don't think he could because right when he's like, I'm about to throw it.

They would cut away.

Yeah,

I would have, I would have betted that.

I would have wanted an Ollie Frazier round.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Butch's kind of wild, though, also, that we don't get any like pickup poops.

We don't, you know what I mean?

We can't go to the golf course with the cops.

Everybody talks about sports, but there's no sports in the movie.

Butch's girlfriend award for week link of the film we mentioned earlier, but all the accuracy issues.

it feels like lucas was fabricated he wasn't nearly like as sophisticated as they make him in this movie and it wasn't uh

it just wasn't like this everyone's like he wasn't like this and then richie um never had a child

they just made up basically this whole character story with him because it's based on a true story yes this is

pretty much right around when

people

i mean

because the internet people started getting out of the movie.

You started getting the slate article where it's like all the inaccuracies in this movie.

And it starts to kind of, it kind of got to you a little bit, you know?

Yeah.

A federal judge who assisted in the arrest and trial of Lucas, Sterling Johnson Jr., he said the film was 1% reality and 99% Hollywood.

There's a whole bunch of other stuff about

him rising above the mafia and being the mastermind of the Golden Triangle that he frank

lucas's biographer is like not true yeah didn't happen um

but hey i think the website yeah like a lot of people say the cadaver connection never actually even existed yeah what's age the worst we mentioned fake ollie and fake frasier we didn't mention fake will chamberlain

i mean ridley scott just

gave

you a if these guys look even 10 like three of the most famous athletes of the 70s oh my god vote for three

Like, just go and get, like, Greg Odin to be Will Chamberlain.

They did that in the movie Rebound.

Remember, they had Will Chamberlain in the movie.

He was played by Kevin Garnett.

They're like, oh, okay.

It's Kevin Garnett.

Right.

In Rebound, like, they're playing at the Rutger.

Yeah.

Joe Mooney's mustache in this movie.

I don't know what the fuck is going on.

They were trying to make him a dandy.

He was a dandy.

Joe Morton, I think.

Joe Morton, yeah.

Joe Morton.

Joe Morton.

Yeah.

Why'd I call him Joe Mooney?

Who's Joe Mooney?

I don't know.

Joe Morton, our guy.

Joe Mooney?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He was a Paul Mooney.

But everybody knows Joe Morton, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's always nice to see him in movies, and I think he's like,

that's a real character, he's like a gambler with that under the mustache, just like I would have gone back to the you're you have this intricate early 70s Harlem set designs, you're getting every detail right, yeah, you're like, hey, just throw that mustache, you gotta find out because I don't know the guy he's portraying, maybe Charlie Williams, Charlie, was it what's his name?

I think it's Charlie Williams.

Maybe Charlie Williams really had that mustache.

Yeah, I think he was probably like Van, you're not gonna like my next what stage the worst.

Let's hear it.

Arman Asante is a mafia boss.

He's fucking French.

What are we doing?

Okay.

So many Italian actors.

Fuck you.

How about that, Ridley Scott, you dick?

All right.

Remember, you know, when people get banana shape when somebody doesn't play a character,

this is more offensive than anything.

It's a fucking French guy.

So you Italians hate the French.

You've never seen Gotti?

HBO original movie Gotti?

He's French.

He's fucking awesome in that.

He's French.

He's new in HBO movies now.

Oh, my God.

The HBO original movie, man.

I want to do a whole re-watchable situation of just HBO movies.

I love them.

Gotta one I forgot when I made my list, but he's watching the other time, like a couple weeks ago.

Oh, the one about uh too big to fail, too big to fail, yeah.

Barbara's at the gate, and the blamp played on rebound, rat pack, all of that.

He played Gotti in one of the movies.

By the way, I just looked this up and it says he's he's of Italian and Irish descent.

So he's you,

he's you, Bill hates himself.

My bad.

I thought he was French.

I wanted to make sure.

I do like

that before.

I do like the

basically like

what about your fellow dairy farmers scene?

That conversation between the two of them.

Yeah.

And it's just like about price fixing and stuff.

I have a better idea for that

actor when we get to a later category.

What do you think of the central romance of this film?

Of Frank's relationship.

It's all right.

Craig, you want to go ahead and get to it now?

We watched part of this movie in the Spotify screening room yesterday, and Craig had some, because, you know,

some thoughts on Frank's wife?

On Frank's wife.

I thought she was a great actress.

Lovely woman.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Seems like a great hang.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you think it was a good character?

And a thoughtful, deep human relationship, you know what I didn't really get?

Well, what I wanted that we didn't get is we didn't really get the crash out, you know, like the Ray Liotta with

Lorraine Brocco.

Yeah, like there's no like flush the coke down the toilet scene with with Frank.

There's no Karen.

That was all the money.

You ran down with her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I gotta say, we watched that movie in the Spotify theater with like seven people.

Every single one of them was like,

she's got it.

Yeah, she's got it.

And we have it.

We looked up her IMDB.

Craig doesn't want to cop to what it was that he said yesterday.

That's cool, Craig.

Craig didn't look it up.

What did I say?

Craig didn't look it up.

Bangkok Craig

Bangkok Craig looked it up.

Yeah,

heart should have been a heart horror back.

Hard shot horror back.

Uh, I have another what's age the worst.

I don't think this movie had the right title.

Uh, which one do you like?

So they called it True Blue, which I don't like either.

Why is this movie called Blue Magic?

The whole movie is about Blue Magic.

Great name for a title.

It doesn't sound like a gangster movie.

It doesn't sound like a gangster movie.

Blue Magic?

Not really.

Doesn't sound like a gangster movie.

American Gangster feels like AI just like spat in the middle.

I think it's just kind of like with Ridley, it's like,

what is this movie about?

It's about gladiators, then we'll call it Gladiator.

Is it a movie about American gangsters?

Then let's call it American Gangster.

Movie about command, Matt Damon.

Is Matt Damon on Mars?

It's called The Martian.

Yeah.

So this is a Ridley Scott thing.

Yeah, duelist or two guys dueling.

Duel guys dueling.

He does him and Louise.

What's alien about louise

he doesn't

he doesn't hide the movie in the thing they bring like 12 titans like fuck it just call it alien yeah it's not like bonaparte it's not waterloo it's napoleon blade burner is a good title blade runner is also not you know like that's also william you know like uh philip k dick like it's in there you know any other what's aged the worst for you guys um so you know there's a couple of things obviously they come in with a no-knock warrant that aged the worst but there's a scene

that's obviously that's a terrible thing, but there's a scene in the movie that

is not great.

There's a scene in the movie, you know, at the end where

they're executing the search on the plane.

Yeah, and

Rich Roberts wants to go through and look at all the coffins, and they don't want him to.

They get Roger Bart, the U.S.

Attorney.

The U.S.

Attorney comes in, and they have to make sure that they make the U.S.

attorney the bad guy in this scene.

The most fucking racist guy.

most racist guy you can.

So he goes for a double that you don't ever really see.

He drops an

innk word.

Yeah,

and you can't do that.

Like he drops even me.

Like, I was like, oh,

that's a little saucy right there.

Like, he comes in

because Roger Bart is a wonderful actor and Broadway stage guy, but like his job in American Gangster is to be the most racist person in New York City in the 1970s.

That's incredibly difficult.

His racist PER was like yokic in the 23 playoffs.

Yeah, he don't even really explain who he is.

He's just like, stop what you're doing, and and K.

Right.

And he's,

I'm like, okay, well, you know, you then he goes, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa,

chill, man.

It's wrong.

The Ruffalo Hannah Rubinik Partridge over acting words.

Sadly, I think I have to give this targir Carla.

You're going to the same hell as the crooked cops you can't stand.

Oh, my God.

This is Denzel.

It's Denzel Washington.

He tried to kill my wife.

Yeah, it's Denzel.

I wasn't going to give anything on this to Denzel.

Like, Denzel is a little bit more.

These guys are all going to be.

Denzel is going so hard in this movie at certain times.

He is

getting it all out in this film.

Slapping people around, knocking shit over.

He gave this to Denzel.

I mean, we were also going to probably give him the movie, so it's okay.

Yeah, that's fine.

Ben, you have a flex.

Oh, you already did it.

I already did it.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's do the CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford.

Hottest take award.

What do you got, CR?

Josh Brolin has had the best post-American gangster career of anyone in American gangster.

That's true.

Oh, uh, Denzel Washington's highlights after this are Unstoppable Flight, Tragedy of Macbeth, and Gladiator 2.

I'm not saying he doesn't have good movies other than those.

I'm just saying, like, those generally are like people are like, damn, that was really a great Denzel performance.

Crow, it's almost negligible.

It's this body of lies and the nice guys.

Josh Browen did W, Milk, True Grit, Inherent Vice, Sicario, Hail Caesar, Dune 1 and 2.

It's nice to see that.

And is in weapons.

Like, he clearly just catapults out of this movie and is, I think, just got better material.

Obviously, he's doing different kinds of roles, is doing supporting roles,

but it's kind of wild.

He also was, he also could take.

Yeah, it's perfect.

He also was still ascending.

Yeah.

So he could be a little bit more like.

What do you have?

Ridley Scott

ruined what could have been a classic, overwhelmingly classic.

This ties into my take.

Yes.

I think you're right.

I think he might have been the wrong director.

I think some of the other directors that were thrown around for this movie would have made this.

into not a great rewatchable movie that we love because this movie serves you so well when you're watching it at home because there's so much in it but i think the story the godfather-esque crime epic, like timeless story, I think it's in there, but I don't think really Scott was the right guy to do it.

Who do you think was of the directors that were up for it?

Um, I'm interested in the Fuchs version, uh, uh,

but if you're looking at like maybe even Fincher, maybe Fincher takes this movie too seriously, but he takes it so seriously that you get somebody who focuses on one of the ideas that could have made it a movie.

I would do Fincher for the Bangkok Golden Triangle story.

Yeah, I would do De Palma for the New York City crime story.

You feel like De Palma had lost it by this point, though?

Well, I don't know.

I mean, Carlito's is why I still work at the Ringer is to do Carlito's way one day.

No, I'm just Jesus.

No, I'm just waiting.

Not to work with Bangkok Craig.

No, it's to do Sean Penn's hair in Carlito's way.

Yeah, and then Fuqua.

Can we lead this into my hottest taste?

Please.

This would have been Michael Mann's second greatest movie, Behind Heat.

I just think he crushes this movie.

It's all the stuff he likes.

It's weird characters and people just coming in and out and all these different locations.

The Golden Triangle, which he did in Season 1, Miami Vice.

And he never worked with Denzel.

He did work with Russell Crowe.

A lot of the people that were in his movies anyway are in this movie.

Some of the ideas in the film are ideas that we have.

He goes backwards.

He loves going backwards.

The Ollie Frazier fight, he absolutely would would have fucking filmed at least a round of that.

Sure.

I just think he would have crushed this movie.

What's Michael Mann's best period piece?

Public Enemies.

Public or Last of the Mohicans.

I think it's a lot of fun.

The Last of Mohicans is fucking fantastic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Public Enemies.

CR and I.

You guys are in on public enemies.

There's been some text.

Yeah.

There's been some revival.

We're interested in a revival.

When was the last time you watched it?

When I saw it in the theaters.

Yeah, it's it's on this, it'll be in the 400s somewhere.

Yeah,

it does feel like Last of Mohicans is the obvious answer now that I think about it, but that feels like even different Michael Mann.

But he, that's a fucking amazing movie, perfect movie, yeah.

Stay alive, I will find you

casting what ifs

we did most of them, but uh,

this one kind of broke my brain.

Somebody turned down the role of Trupo before Brolin, yeah,

James Gandalfini.

Oh, wow, yeah, it's tough.

I love Brolin in this movie, but man,

Wow.

Gandalfine is Trupo.

It's pretty good.

Yeah, it is pretty awesome.

It's pretty good.

It's right after Soprano, and I just think he didn't want to play another bad guy, probably.

But man.

There was some around the time of the sort of first iteration of this movie conversation about Ray Liota as Richie.

Yeah, I have him in another spot.

Brad Pitt lingered in this for a second.

There was an Eddie Murphy was involved at one point as maybe somebody, but no.

Best That Guy Award.

Can we graduate John Ortiz

to the John Ortiz award?

No, just John Ortiz is not a bad guy anymore.

I'm fine with that.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

So who do you have as that guy?

Roger Guinevere Smith as Nate, the Bangkok Nate.

Roger Bart as the racist U.S.

attorney.

Or John Polito as Rossi, although John Politico.

I'd like to throw in Katie Strickland, too, because I'm not positive people know who she is.

Guinevere Smith is one of the most underrated, amazing actors.

Great and social media.

Dan Winters.

Yeah, he's multiple Spike movies.

I always like seeing him.

He always has an edge to him.

He's so cool in that scene where he's getting the massage that I want to get.

I mean, they could have remade the Warriors.

That looked like a good scene.

I don't know.

That was nice.

They could have remade the Warriors early 2000s just to have him play Cyrus.

I thought I was going to get more variety.

I wanted to let it.

Oh, for the me, my bad guy is like just his whole crew, his whole crew of cops.

Those are different.

Oh, John Hawks, Abruzzo.

Not Rizza.

Yeah, Yula Vasquez.

Yeah.

Deion Waiters Award.

It's a long list that includes John Ortiz, Idris Elba, Cuba Gooding Jr., Richie Coster, KD Strickland, Racist DA,

or Nate the Troops Connection.

Can I also throw in Rick Young as Kun Sa the

future channel?

Yep.

Yep.

What's the answer?

It's Cuba Good and Cuba and Genie.

It is.

It's Cuba and Genie.

It's got two scenes.

First scene, kind of interesting.

He is, he is.

It's like, he can't believe he's not winning this.

Yeah.

He is.

It's got to be.

That might be the defining portrayal of Nikki Barnes.

Cuba's in his own movie, but in a good way.

And we just could have easily just made another movie.

I'm very curious about that movie.

Yeah.

Recasting Couch Director City.

I'll offer you Ray Liada.

Ray Liota as

over the Armand Desante character.

Ray Liotta as the Mafia boss?

Ray Liuda as the Mafia boss.

I would rather have Ray Liota, Copland, Ray Liota as Trupo or Richie.

Oh, yeah.

Can I offer you Eva Mendez as Frank's wife?

You may.

Ooh, you definitely can.

For sure.

thank you jerry jones yeah i will take that deal

craig you have flex category i always hate it when you guys kind of already get to mine unfortunately i did have armanasante as the judd nelson oh yeah i don't care if he's italian i don't care if he's like lucky luciano's son in real life he was he's like a human cannoli in this movie this i he was way over the top

i thought he sucked too i didn't think he was good the only other thing i had was the katie strickland who's killing it but kind of the george ellerby two weeks of pay award character who should have definitely been fired as Richie's divorce attorney.

I mean, she doesn't say a word in court.

She gets dressed down by Carla Gugino.

She has sex with a client, and he does not have any shot of winning custody.

Kind of just all-time bad divorce.

Then finds out that he has sex with strippers.

And she's more turned on by that.

Yeah, she's just into it.

Yeah.

Richie is really putting in work, man.

That's what that's one thing, man.

He's a stickman.

Half-by certain research.

They had to pay back $3 million, Brian Grazer and Ridley Scott, because they ran so far over budget.

Rarely happens.

The BET TV series, American Gangster with Ving Rames.

A lawsuit or something, right?

It existed before this movie.

Russell Crowe gave Rizza a mint condition 1961 Gretsch guitar.

Yeah.

Because he really liked him.

They've been friends since.

They hang out.

So Frank Lucas's driver

in real life,

Melvin Combs, father of

Puffy Combs.

Interesting.

Shot to death at age 33 when Puffy was two years old.

And then

the location stuff was really hard trying to find parts of New York that they could turn into.

They basically went into the 110s in that range.

I would wonder.

I'd be really curious to know whether they could shoot this today

in Harlem and have it not cost a billion dollars because it's like I think they're CGIing.

Well, it's just it's so interesting because, like, when you read about like Tarantino making Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and him

how he was able to set dress Hollywood Boulevard or Sunset Boulevard or something, and still would be like, this frame is still what it would have looked like in the late 60s, you know, and New York.

I feel like in 2007 or whatever, when they made this,

you could still get some 1970s New York in like in shots, but now I wonder whether or not there's just too many corporate joybirds.

Yeah, you know, like or whatever.

Wait, you said Frank Lucas' driver is Diddy's father?

Yeah.

In real life.

In real life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Did you come across the bit that Coppola

reportedly considered making a Frank Lucas or Frank Lucas type character a big part of Godfather 3.

Yeah.

It's pretty fascinating.

I had that in here somewhere in my weirdness.

International Mobiliary?

No, I think it was like, I think as they were like, what would we make Godfather Part 3 about?

International Mobiliary!

The National Memobiary!

Apex Mountain,

Denzel, no.

Russell Crow, no.

Disjointed gangster movies.

I'm going to say yes.

Dope.

Big sprawling.

What's it up against?

I don't know.

It's not that many of these.

Like Once Upon a Time.

So high up the apex.

Once upon a time in everything else.

Once Upon a Time in America?

Yeah, sure.

That movie could be a lot of fun.

But are you also

considering,

I don't know, like Triple Nine?

Like,

how low down are we going for disjointed gangster movies?

Here's my answer.

Is a Bronx Tale a disjointed gangster movie?

Carlito's Way,

not disjointed.

Carlito's way and disjointed movie.

I didn't put a lot of thought into that one.

That's okay.

Um, Ridley Scott, no, no,

no.

John Ortiz,

one of my favorite performances by him.

Yeah, it's like he's just coming off by MV Vice.

Uh, Hawks,

not yet, it's coming.

Yeah,

Harlem movies,

not to me.

What do you have?

So, I mean, Harlem Knights?

Harlem Knights, one of my...

Harlem Knights is not a great movie.

It's just

got great people in it.

I don't know.

Just be just be careful.

You coming off a little bit like a U.S.

attorney, right?

Come on.

Eddie Murphy never directed again at Phil.

I mean, the reality is that

the in-roads that you've made after the Sinner's pod, like, we can't even really talk about

what you did, but you could give it all back right now.

You don't want to do that.

right?

I didn't say it was an entertaining movie, I wouldn't say it's like a it's not a better-made movie than this.

My favorite movie of all time takes place in Harlem, and it's Mo Beta Blues.

And so, I would say that Mo Beta Blues is better than American Gang.

The golden triangle in a movie or TV show, uh, the answer is the two-part episode of Miami Vice with Edward James almost being reunited with his wife.

Um,

one of my favorite.

Do you remember that?

Of course, I did.

yeah they're at uh they're at an outdoor bar tubbs and castillo played by edward james almost and he talks to tie and the waiter and tubbs goes captain i didn't know you spoke tie castillo is like the least fun friendly guy ever yeah you've given all of the sinners goodwill back with golden triangle you know with that

that oh you was that did you do tubs or crocodiles you just did tubs yeah i did tubs you're back at zero

that's how tubbs talked he spent a lot of energy.

Is it?

Watch the scene.

I bet I nailed it.

Okay, I will.

Captain, I didn't know you spoke Thai.

Man, you did it again.

Yeah.

Watch it.

It's a social media clip.

I nailed it.

Josh Berlin.

Oh, fuck no.

No way.

Although 2007 is

perhaps his Apex Mountain Euro.

He's no country in this.

The lady who played Denzel's wife, I'm going to say yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's definitely hers.

Yeah.

You think this is?

No, it's not.

Horrible impersonations of Ali Fraser and Will Chamberlain.

Yeah, 1960s and 70s athletes being terribly portrayed.

All right.

Cruiser Hanks.

Oh, no.

I got, and I got, I got another Apex mind.

I got to ask you guys.

What is it?

Dope kingpin biopics.

When I looked at it, it's not as mean as you think.

Yeah.

It's really like Blow,

right?

Tony Montana.

That he wasn't real.

Oh.

So, like, Blow, Payton Full,

and then this are the three that stand out.

I looked around for other ones, like actually like drug kingpin biopics.

So much of it is TV now.

So, yeah, the guy actually

had us take.

We needed more drug kingpins to make biopics of.

There were so many of them.

It's too late.

And like a lot of the guys, they show up in this movie, and we've talked about them.

We've talked about Nikki Barnes, we've talked about all of these other people.

They pop up in different things, but

they're kind of hard to make.

They all end up the same way.

The guy fucking goes to jail.

Like, they all end up in the same way.

They got him eventually.

Captain, I didn't know you spoke Thai.

There you go.

Zoe wanted, man.

There you go.

Is that Santa Tai Sanchez?

Hey,

Captain, I didn't know you spoke Thai.

Can you speak Thai?

Cruise or Hanks?

I have Cruz as Richie.

Really?

Yeah.

I thought this was such an obvious Hanks part.

As Richie?

I think Cruz would be like, I am trying to get through night school.

And he would go to night school in real life to try.

you know.

Like, and I could see him being like, I'm a fake nervous about public speaking, and then at the end, he gives like his great summation.

I wish we had a little bit more in-court stuff with Richie, it was pretty cool.

No,

I don't see

Cruz as a 1971 New York detective.

I don't know, I just would feel like it was Tom Cruise the whole time, yeah, like he was playing house.

Woody, you're the tiebreaker van.

I have Cruz as Frank.

I want to see it.

I want to see Cruz.

That's Al Paca.

I want to see Cruz.

I want to see Cruz play Frank.

And

I just want him to make the movie and not even address it.

And the thing, you know that Frank lose.

Whatever.

So who's winning here?

Hanks?

It's fucking.

Hanks has Richie.

We're talking about.

Did you pick Hanks?

Hanks is Richie, yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

So Hanks.

I have Hanks as Richie as well.

Score Sazier or Spielberg.

Score Says EZ.

Score Sazer, yeah.

What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played?

Trupo?

I think Trupo.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Although, you know what?

Philip Seymour Hoffman is Richie as an interesting.

That's actually really interesting.

Pretty interesting.

The stickman part would have been tough.

Kind of, I would have, I would have paid to see it.

You know, Philip Seymour Hoffman having sex like a cop, I would have paid to see it.

He got down in When the Devil Knows You're Dead.

Oh, he got down all right.

He was getting busy.

Marissa Tomei.

Another one.

Jesus.

Hall of Fame.

All right, picking it.

Frank has this golden triangle connection.

Yeah.

How does he have any competition in Harlem?

What do you mean?

He's just got by far the best stuff.

He's like in the NBA with a $900 million salary cap, and everyone else has a 40 million cap.

How does he have anybody coming at him?

He's just blowing everyone away.

He's getting all this crazy drugs.

That's the best drugs that he can sell for.

Yeah, but that is what happened.

But every, but you know, he shouldn't have any competition.

But the competition isn't necessarily in the product.

The competition is in the territory.

Yeah.

That's what I mean.

He should have all the territories.

Well, he's going to have to.

He's not selling to the people who would be able to do it.

He should be crushing everything.

He's going to have to go to war.

He should be like Vince McMahon.

He started wholesaling now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's when the mafia comes in because he goes, I have 110th to like, whatever, 150th river to river.

Yeah.

I run Harlem.

And then they're like, but we can go to Jerusalem.

I think he should have gone national.

It would have been like Vince McMahon in 1982.

That's legitimately what Armand Asante's character said.

He said, let's start going to California.

He didn't want to do it.

It should have happened in five seconds.

This is what you would have done if you were Frank.

I would have done the Vince McMahon.

Let's go national.

Cable's coming.

No repercussions at all for Frank shooting

Tango in the middle of the street.

Harlem had his back.

Yeah.

He did it right by Harlem.

So Harlem's going to do right by him.

Woody Allen and Diane Keaton.

Not only were they not dating in 1971, nobody knew who the fuck she was.

We mentioned that earlier.

I have one more, but what do you have for picking this?

It's kind of goes along with what you're saying: I could stand a couple of more,

what year is it up on screen or what time of year is it?

I have no idea what you're doing.

And so sometimes you're like, is this two weeks later or is this seven years later?

You know,

that the time stuff gets a little bit murky in this.

My nit is like, mama, you know, I'm selling dope.

Oh, yeah.

I mean,

yeah, mom knows.

Mama, you know, I'm selling dope.

Great scene.

Great scene.

Disconnected from the reality of the video.

You know, I'm selling dope.

You know what's going on.

But it is cool when she's like, no, you know, everybody knows you don't shoot cops.

Yeah.

All right.

My My last one is a big one.

So we do these based on a true story things, which basically means

this was a guy who existed.

Now we're just going to make up shit.

And then they go to another level in the closing credits where they're like, Frank served 75 years.

It's like, no, he didn't.

None of this happened.

It's all, I just think they should have done Frank went to prison and became a centaur.

Richie Roberts left the force and coached the Lakers to five NBA titles.

Like, just fucking go nuts.

Trippo came back to life and became a vampire.

Just keep going.

Anti-Roberts and Princess Dyer living in the Cayman Islands under assumed identities.

Just go nuts.

You've already made up everything.

Have fun with it.

Sequel, prequel, prestige, TBL, by Caster, Untouchable.

Should we switch this to Prestige?

Based on Van's suggestion, all-white cast?

All-white cast.

That's new category.

All-white cast.

All-white cast.

Ruffalo,

you know, Adam Scott.

Yeah.

Adam Scott is Nikki Barnes.

Adam Scott as Nicky Barnes works.

That works.

Rob McElnaney

as

Cruz as Frank.

John Taylor,

who plays Frank's mom?

Sally Field?

Do you realize how funny it would be if

in the current America wearing if somebody's like, I'm just doing an all-white American gangster?

And J.D.

Vance was like, this is great.

J.D.

Vance is like, I don't know, I invested in this.

I'm telling you, I love this fucking story.

God, God, the essence of America.

This is so cool.

Yeah, the story.

What we wanted to do is we wanted to take the story and just tweak it a little bit, make it more American.

And introducing JJ Reddick.

I'm just going to all white dudes.

JJ could play Stevie, the athlete.

JJ could play Stevie the athlete, and you change it to basketball.

Sure.

Is this movie better?

Is this movie better than Wayne Jacobs, Danny Treyo?

Mad Dog Russo?

I added him.

Doris Burke

just tragically got pulled off the A-team.

Sam Jackson, Nell, Byron Mayo, Tony Romo, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainboo, Long Legs, Bangkok Craig, or Wilfred Grimley in the field?

Bangkok Craig.

What does it see?

We got to do one more for DB.

Yeah, I think.

We see you, Mr.

Lucas, taking the lessons of your mentor, Fumpy Johnson, as you take the ball straight into the heart of Cheng Kai-shek's defeated army and buy opium straight from the manufacturer.

Long before there was Magic Johnson, there was blue magic, and you, Mr.

Lucas, are the wizard.

Au revoir, PB.

I actually, I feel bad.

Yeah,

yeah, I like her.

I think you should have said something in Vietnamese at the end.

Just want to ask her who gets it.

I'm going to, this is not the answer you want.

It's either Harris of Vitis for direct for cinematography or Arthur Max for correction design.

But I think they did get art direction, right?

Or they got nominated.

I would say art direction just because that got nominated.

Probably unanswered questions.

How is Mark Ruffalo not in this movie?

What was he doing?

How is he not in there?

Well, he's in our all-white version, but he should have been in, though.

There's 19 19 parts he could have played for two scenes what year's uh two classes what year's collateral uh

that's 05 oh so he could have just gone right

in the zone when he just dropped the brain because of tax i do tax yeah but like he could have been nine parts in this

was this the denzel performance that created the jay farrow impersonation

Where he just goes over the top as Denzel?

Right.

This is the beginning of this.

He goes, my man.

Yeah, yeah, it is.

Was this the movie or was it like training day plus this?

Like, I wonder, I feel like this is the beginning of the Denzel as a character, Denzel as a character, like I said before.

Do you have any other unanswerable?

How long would this movie have to be for it to be too long?

I, I mean, I could have got another hour.

Yeah, like if I was like a three-night special event, six hours of American Gangster, including like an hour in Vietnam and Bangkok, an hour of

Rivera's fall from being a cop to a junkie to jumping out of an ambulance, like a good 45 minutes.

Way better for prestige.

On Stevie Lucas, trying to make the Yankees.

He failed.

That right there would be a fucking awesome subplot to investigate.

Yeah.

That character, like trying to be like his uncle, blowing it with the Yankees, Billy Martin, all of that stuff.

But like, even Frank's fall, it happens pretty abruptly.

Yeah.

I would have wanted to like dive into it more.

My unanswerable question is.

What's Trupo's home life like yeah what what happens to trupo's so one-note he has a housekeeper yeah what golf club are they members of yeah exactly where are they going what are they doing

um did frank's wife set him up

no oh she might have she made him wear the jacket i've always thought this i don't trust her anyway we can move on

i don't know i'm not defending her like like i don't trust her okay she made him wear the jacket he goes there he's wearing the thing i think another thing that i would like to i think they got to her i think the government got to her

that's pretty interesting because there's a couple scenes that are kind of missing like there's that one scene he goes to the bathroom and he's wearing like the fake beard that he takes off yeah but we don't know why he has a fake beard on i think because he's going to look at tango's like operation

yeah

i feel like there's there's some choppiness that maybe there was like a scene where they think richie got to her the richie got to the wai tie richie the stick man

um what piece of memorability oh wait i have one more unanswerable question just related to the sports stuff but

could you go from like the street to the yankees in 1974

like or was he on keith law's top one

in the nba back then okay like the nba guys would show up nobody even knew of where they went to college okay baseball i don't know

but because they had the minors and it was pretty hard for somebody to just show up and make the majority meeting with billy martin yeah so a drug dealer is gonna well frank lucas would have arranged that, though.

Yeah, but like, that's, that's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

So a reputed drug dealer is going to call the New York Yankees organization and say, hey, I want to try out for my nephew.

And then they're going to go, like, yeah.

Yeah, because they don't want to die.

Or he'll give them a million dollars and like

a piece of memorability you'd want or not want from this movie.

I'll offer you the piano.

Game used head slammed into the piano.

Piano.

Frank's suitcase was cool.

That old school big brown suitcase.

Frank's entire outfit from the Ali fight.

The jacket, yeah.

Yeah.

What else do you have?

Trupo's leather duster.

Very cool.

Trupo's car.

We kind of usually

do virtual.

The jacket, the outfit.

That's the most iconic piece of move.

At least the hat.

Yeah.

If you have the hat, I think that's the move.

Coach Finstock War for Best Life Lesson.

Quitting while your head is not the same as quitting.

Someone?

Yep.

Best double feature choice, virtuosity?

French Connection.

Oh, you're going drug and drug.

It's the prequel.

French Connection is

that they get the Marseille drugs off the streets, but then they go pumped it back in.

We wouldn't do Virtuosity so we can get Crow and Denzel 12 years apart.

I would do the French Connection.

Not a Virtuosity guy cigar?

I like Virtuosity.

We haven't done The French Connection on this pod either.

What's the movie where they give Denzel V D?

Is that John Lindsay?

No, that is Rico.

That is Ricochet.

That is

fucking crazy.

That's an insane movie.

movie that's like i can't believe this was in theaters and i saw it

i gotta revisit the lady that's gotta be in two be that's a crazy movie that's that's to me is a huge rewatchable huge so much ridiculous happens john lithgow gets he's out of his mind of that movie uh the

armor and fights of the arian honestly is one of those movies that made me like suspicious of john lithgow as a person for for a swell long time after that i agree with that yeah video have for who won the movie?

I have Blow as best double feature choice, by the way.

Oh, Blow.

Yeah.

Blow.

Who won the movie?

Denzel.

Denzel watched it.

I wanted to say Crow, but it's Denzel.

Who do you have, Craig?

It's Denzel, I think.

Craig, what was your take?

Never seen it.

Really enjoyed it.

Yeah.

I didn't have a problem with the length at all.

I mean, it's so ambitious and it's so jam-packed, but man, it's moving.

Like, there's so much going on.

I think it's really smooth, really well-paced.

I think it's probably like, I think the reason why it doesn't get to that next level, like it's a perfect rewatchables.

It's like a Pro Bowler, but not an all-pro.

I just think the character arcs don't officially get there.

Very well put.

You know?

Pro Bowler, not an all-pro.

Yeah, because just the characters, you don't really feel for anybody too, too much in this movie, I would say.

Richie or Frank, you don't quite get there all the way.

But I thought this was great.

Super fun.

This is a movie you can jump in at any time.

It's almost like you don't even know where the movie starts or ends.

You

join.

My more recent relationship with it really is typing an American gangster scene in YouTube and then watching it out of order.

Yeah.

And then you're just like, oh, that was awesome.

And every scene that Denzel is in, he's giving something crazy.

Yeah.

And not very many scenes where he's in the scene and he's not making some type of grand point about something.

I mean, there's that first time Tango goes up to him in the diner, the first scene when he's just like.

now you owe me 20% the jar is empty and before he gets killed denzel like cleaning his hands yeah from his toast with with jam.

You're just like, this, this whole thing, he has thought.

He's like, you're going to kill him one day.

Yeah.

Like, you know, that now.

I don't know why this movie hasn't persisted, though.

And, in the, I mean,

I feel like it has.

Oh, just not like, like, in the human movie.

I don't think this movie was my movie.

It was just, I think it was like, did well on the Netflix.

I think on Netflix, it had a resurgence.

Which is now it's coming off Netflix.

Yeah, ironically coming off.

It's just crazy.

I always forget that Goodfellas made $45 million and this made $230 million.

Yeah.

I mean, I think things had changed.

He fucking loved Denzel Washington.

Yeah, I mean, Denzel was like a gigantic star.

But I don't know if culturally, if like people talk about scenes from this movie, moments, it hasn't really lived on in that way compared to a lot of other famous gangster films.

I think I feel like I hear the Tango scene referenced a lot.

You hear like some of the.

We just started it.

Yeah, we did it.

We watched this.

We got the ball rolling.

Now, American Gangsters.

My life

is shoot the guy in the heart.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So he can see your face as he dies.

You want him to know what you did, Bill.

I didn't know you spoke Thai.

I didn't know you spoke Thai.

I didn't know you spoke Thai.

You were more like, I didn't know you spoke Thai, Jive, Turkey.

Get back, Jack.

That's kind of how you're just saying.

You see Tubbs at the middle of the day.

You know what I mean?

So

fuck with it.

YouTube will back me up.

Yeah, I'm sure they will.

CR, happy 400.

Great to be back.

Fan, great to see you with Zoe.

Thanks to Greg and Cajao as well.

Um, and Eduardo and Eduardo.

Uh, I'm not sure what's happening for 401.

Oh, and Ronic, too.

Got a whole team, whole team for the rewatchables.

Uh, and you can check us out on the Ringer Move's YouTube channel as well.

Great to see you guys.

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-litre jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called it truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia made to travel.