‘Good Will Hunting’ Live From Boston With Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
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Sorry, that was awkward. I should have done like a fist pump point thing. Thank you to Loon by Atlassian for sponsoring this. Thank you to the Red Sox for winning today. It's like yesterday. So we've done a lot of these live rewatchable shows. We have never come to Boston, Massachusetts. I want to introduce to you, well, he's from Philly, but it's fine. Chris Ryan, tortured Jets fan, host of the big picture Sean Fantasy. Yeah.

For the first time ever, the four of us with this guy, Ryan Russillo. So we were going to do a live rewatchables about Good Will Hunting, but Russillo wanted to do two hours on Stephen A. and LeBron, so we're offering... Were those guys going to work it out? What's happening? I feel like that's done. Okay. No, we're doing Good Will Hunting because we're in Boston. We got this Coolidge Corner movie theater thing.

We're doing heist movies and Boston movies this weekend, including this one. We did this on the rewatchables first year. We didn't have a lot of the categories yet, so we're doing it again. And for me, I'm going to do Boston movie, Mount Rushmore, quickly. I don't know if there's a right answer, but for me, the verdict, Good Will Hunting, and The Town have to be in the three, and then I think the four spots are arguable. Is there anyone that has to be in there for you, Russollo? Well, I was going to yell Departed, but I don't...

I like the town so much better than The Departed. I'm glad you went that way. Yeah. How about you, Sean? Celtic pride and fever pitch. Pick one. Chris? I don't have anything cute. It's The Departed. Even though a lot of it is shot in New York, it's still The Departed. Or Toronto. Yeah, when we did The Departed, we had a lot of thoughts about Nicholson's Boston accent, which was from the Bronx. What part of New York was that accent actually from? I know this is a big thing for me and Russillo. Yeah. Wahlberg...

Not a close friend, but... We were doing promotion for Patriots Day. You guys both love fitness, though. I mean, you have a lot in common. Yeah, true. I do. I always love how really big celebrities end interviews in a way that you're like, he's like, hey, man, maybe next time we'll just do it in person. We'll get a workout in. I was like, awesome. And then...

He closes the Zoom and Cerruti and I are like, "That's never gonna happen." But he had a great rule, because accents would be a big part of this discussion, is I said, "When you were casting for Patriot State, what did you tell everybody?" And he was like, "You have one chance, and then if I don't like it, you're just gonna talk like a normal person." And I think it's a great rule.

It's a good rule. But nobody was going to say that to Jack. Yeah, the last 15 years, I feel like we've gotten better at it, especially movies like Gone Baby Gone and The Town. They actually started using locals. So we're doing better. Bill, wasn't it on the Departed pod that we talked about the combat zone? That's where we were all afternoon. Yeah, Chris and Sean didn't believe me when I was telling them the combat zone stories. I believed you.

I had to send them pictures. Sometimes it'll be on Twitter. I'll be like, Combat Zone photo. Different times. I mean, this place, it used to be Avalon and Axis. I was more partial to Avalon, which I think you were too, CR, right? Axis was like a little bit of a different crowd. But yeah, now it's House of Blues. So Good Will Hunting, Damon and Affleck. Let's do the back story of this. This is, Sean, one of the great Hollywood...

Out of nowhere, although it wasn't really out of nowhere because they'd both been in some movies, but one of the great bet on yourself moments ever, correct? Probably the greatest since Rocky, right? Yeah. Anything else? Those are like the biggest two in the last 50 years. I was living in Boston when this was happening. Were you here then? No, I was still in Vermont. Okay. Because I remember there was an improper Bostonian that came out with those guys on the cover and they were filming it. I'm going to say it was 96 or whenever.

It was like, these guys, local kids, took them years to get this made, and now they're making it, and they're so excited. I was like, oh, man, I hope it works out for those wacky kids. Matt Damon, and I knew him from school ties, knew Affleck from Dazed and Confused.

Never thought it would work out for them. Like it did like this. And now this became the thing, Chris, that I think, I don't remember a movie propelling two people at the same time like this. Yeah, and I think it's really cool that they still obviously have a place in their hearts for like, they're like, it's never going to be like that again. And it's the most special movie I think either of them have ever made to themselves. When you read that oral history that was in Boston Magazine, you can tell they still like think about this experience so clearly. Yeah.

It's kind of like how we feel about Grandland. Sure. That's right. Yeah, they said there's, in that oral history, the first day of shooting, they filmed some scene with Skarsgård and Robert Williams, and Damon and Affleck were watching it on the side, and they were both bawling. But not sad bawling, just so happy, because it was a five-year odyssey, and the whole backwards of the story was that

There's like a year where they're in Davis Square, living there. They'd already spent their money from when they had sold it. It was in Turnaround at Castle Rock. They're trying to get it made by anybody, and they're just kind of living in Somerville, doing these other parts of movies, not knowing if this movie was ever going to make it. And the biggest fear they had was they were going to age out of the characters. Yeah.

that they were going to hit their late 20s. Now, as we know from Hollywood, it doesn't matter if you're a jet of the characters. They could have been 45 and played this. Well, wasn't one of the other things with Castle Rock that they wanted to be DiCaprio and Pitt?

There was a DiCaprio pit thing, and then there was a big thing with the script that the original script, this whole second part of it was a spy caper. Yeah. And, like, the government's after them. And a couple people gave them the note, like, just lose the spy shit, man. Just do the first part. Do the first part of the script of The Therapist. And then that became the movie. And then it became Unqueer, who it seemed like Rob Reiner maybe had that note.

Yeah, Goldman had the note too. William Goldman too. It's still their script. But yeah, I think the NSA scene towards the end of the movie might be one of the remnants of that spy caper. One of the funniest things with this movie was as Castle Rock is basically just giving them the runaround, they get so pissed that these guys are doing that. They write this whole scene where I think Will Hunting gives Lambo a blowjob. Yeah.

And they just put it in there to see if anyone was reading it and nobody would mention the scene. And they were like, these fuck guys aren't reading it. And then finally when Harvey Weinstein read it for Miramax, complicated character these days. He was like, leave that in. But yeah.

Affleck said he gave two notes. I don't like the chess thing because they had a part where Will Hunting played chess. He's like, get that out. Dude, what else are you going to be awesome at? You're like a smart guy. And then he's like, in the blowjobs, they got to come out. And Damon Affleck was like, we've got our guy. This is it.

He read all the way and then it became, the big thing was Damon got The Rainmaker, which was a John Grissom book when those Grissom books made it. And they told Harvey and he was like, oh my God, those movies make a hundred billion. And then all of a sudden they're making it. So five year odyssey for this. Do you want to go through some of the elements of a Boston movie, Rusillo? What are you looking for in a Boston movie? What are the essentials for you?

I think it would have made more sense. Other than play it gladly. Yeah, right. Although, with the newest information... Stock up or stock down? Yeah, right, right. Does anyone have Mint Mobile? Like, what the fuck are you texting me from? Uh...

I think for it to be... Well, I don't know if we're fixing this movie because I think it was pretty good and people liked it, but I think Damon needs to be hammered on that red line towards the end. Sober to Braintree. He's going to wake up North Station going, what?

So he slumped over against that metal car thing. I don't think that's like a... I know he didn't have a car until the end. I'm so lost right now. No, but I just... I really like that train shot, but I don't think Will Hunting is sober for that one.

CR, you lived here for five years. What do you need in a Boston movie? What are the essentials? I think this movie captures it. It's the, like, you think you're better than me. It's, like, all over those four guys, and they're constantly fighting against their lot in life, and Will's their, like, shining star who can break out of it. How about you, Fantasy? I think I should have moved it to New York. I feel like it didn't get, like, really a gritty story, a true story about living in a real city, you know? Oh, my God.

Fantasy lost the crowd. Jesus. I wrote a couple things down that I think all the Boston movies have that worked. They used the city, like different parts of the city. It's always a staple. To get the accents right, you got to bat at least 90% with the accents, right? Yeah, I mean, if we want to be real difficult, I think in the Boston Common scene, which is an incredible scene, which I know we'll get to, but...

Williams has a couple. Williams stumbles with it. He loses the race. Wins the Oscar. Unbelievable performance. I'm not saying we should take it away. The R's kind of come and go. Hauser, I think, knew that he didn't have the accent, so he's more of a mystique charisma part. But I think for the most part, they nailed it. Another thing, you just have to involve the Red Sox or Fenway somehow. There's an overhead shot of Fenway in this movie for no reason at all. But you just have to do it.

By the way, what about Casey wearing the I hate L.A. t-shirt? Well, that's another one. Yeah. Right. But like that had to be a hand-me-down. Yeah. His older brother had it. I would love to be there the day they were like, Gus, we have to have a drone shot of Fenway. And I hate L.A. shot. I think the bars are crucial.

All the best Boston movies. Like, The Town has that. They filmed in old sullies. That was great. The bars in this movie, the L Street Tavern, like some of those, the Cambridge ones. And then I think you have to capture...

It just has to feel the essence of people that live here. And I don't even know how to quantify that, but you know what I mean? There's people in this movie that just feel like Boston people that you know that somebody from Boston made it. Does that make sense? Yeah, because I think, you know, obviously the thing that's really cool in the Affleck scene with Damon where he's just like, you know, I'd kill to have what you have. You know, depending on where you're at, especially when you're younger and you're kind of like accepting your fate a little bit.

I think they did a really good job with not overdoing it. Like, those guys are about every day getting up, completing a task, beers afterwards, rinse, repeat, and they'd already accepted it. And they didn't do it in a way that, like, you just kind of already knew who they were without having to have, like, extra scenes of those guys doing the same stuff over and over again. Here's two things they miss, Sean. Well, these are things that happen in Boston movies but don't happen in real life. The weather is always awesome in a Boston movie. Nobody is ever cold. It is just...

Early May all the time. And then there's no traffic ever. You just get anywhere you want. The T is empty at all times. Doesn't matter what time of day. There's always a parking spot. And the common, you just walk around, grab a bench. Nobody's going to be there. Nobody's walking around. There's no ducks. Those are the four things that we have. Sean, let's talk about 97. One of the great movie years ever. It is. Where we launch Affleck and Damon together.

We have Titanic. We launched Leo and Winslet. We have peak James Cameron. Jack Nicholson wins the Oscar. Robin Williams wins an Oscar. And it just feels like Boogie Nights is out there. It feels like something's shifting. What's shifting?

That's a great question. I mean, I think it's like the simultaneous moment when movies are still the biggest thing in all of entertainment from the studio perspective, plus all the Sundance kind of Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson era of guys are starting to get their chance to make big, expensive movies. So like Jackie Brown is this year. Chasing Amy is this year. There's also all that new class of generation combining with movies.

Titanic, the biggest fucking movie ever made, which is convenient. L.A. Confidential is this year. There's a bunch of movies. I'm not really riding for that as good as it gets. Nicholson win. That's not... Yeah, we're going to litigate that later. It's not one you rewatch. No. There's also, like, even in the credits for this movie, there's Kevin Smith, there's Lawrence Bender. So they're all, like, these names from that indie scene pop up behind the scenes in this one. Yeah, it's like in the NBA when we just have, like, a class.

And you're like, oh, man. Like Scoots class? Yeah. Yeah.

Like, this year's class might be like that with all the guys in the 25 class. Or you have, like, in football, you have, like, the quarterback class. You just look at the guys in 97 range. It's like, oh, man, we were loaded. I was listening to you guys, I think, when you did the Pulp Fiction stuff and, you know, the story of this kind of indie film. But, you know, obviously, like, once people got involved and it just became this blockbuster, but you can kind of, like, lose sight of the origin part of it. But I still think, like, we're only a few years removed from that where...

people all of a sudden wanted these movies that felt smaller scale. And the budget for this is nothing. But it's funny that it worked as kind of an indie movie, but at the same time, you could have seen it cast with all... The story just still works. So it doesn't feel like you're watching Slacker or something, or like, okay, did you guys shoot this on VHS? But there was just a demand for all of these years after that run of...

I don't know how it falls in, but it's kind of like a hybrid of those two. Do you remember your Damon Affleck thoughts in 97 heading into this movie? I don't. I mean, I think I remember seeing... Like, I remember seeing Affleck in...

and be like, that guy's a prick. He seems like, like that'll be like what he does in the movies. Oh, Banyan. But it wasn't like, I was like, these two guys are marked for superstardom for the next 30 years. Damon was encouraged under fire and it was like, who is that guy? Lost a bunch of weight. Yeah, that was, I remember that very vividly.

And then that was a movie with Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan and people were like, who's that guy? So that was a good sign. I had, so he's in School Ties and plays like the most reprehensible preppy NSMite probably ever captured in a boarding school movie. And he was so reprehensible in that that when you would see him after, you'd be like, oh, that guy from School Ties, he's a fucking prick. And the Will Hunting thing finally and losing a million pounds for Courage Under Fire. Affleck to me was just the dazed and confused guy.

And then he was in Chasing Amy, which I thought he was really good in. But, you know, it wasn't like there was a huge history, right? Do you have a history with him, Ursula? No, the only thing that's really funny about the Affleck part of it is he went to UVM and dropped out. So I remember I had, everybody at this year had, like, left. I was like, hey, we're all staying here, like, five years, right? And then...

Literally everybody was gone. And so then, you know, whatever. I hope everybody makes fun of me because I know Bill's ready too. I think that's when I started buying the Sid Field books and I was like, let me figure this screenwriting thing out. That might be a path.

And then in a classic Boston sense, like there was a couple guys from my group that are Massachusetts guys that made it as screenwriters. And then there was a bunch that wanted to be screenwriters that hated anybody else's success. So when this first started making the rounds, you're like, what happened? And you're like, oh, this guy was a Harvard kid. And then I guess Damon was there five years and dropped out. So credit to him for staying the course.

But it's like he got together with this dude that was at UVM, but then he chased some girl to California, and they're both Boston guys, and I guess they're getting this movie made, and it's going to be awesome. And then classic, again, Massachusetts dude in our friend group was like, they didn't even write it though, dude. It's like...

He already was ready, like, preemptively to be like, if this thing works out, fuck those guys. So that actually kind of influenced... These guys were way more into it, and I was just buying books. I wasn't even reading them, but I was like, yeah, I'm going to figure this deal out. And it just was such a classic New England, specific to this area, where it's like a couple of homegrown dudes about to make it great, and the immediate part of it was like,

yeah, those guys actually suck, though. Well, what's funny is in Hollywood, that's happening, too. They're battling this story that started going around that they didn't write it and that William Goldman rewrote it. He was one of the great screenwriters. Yeah, like one of my friends was so excited when he heard this. Yeah. He just felt better about himself that he hadn't done anything. Right.

I wonder if that's happened where on both coasts people are like, yeah, they didn't do it. They didn't write it. Fuck these guys. Well, so before the internet, you could really just let that one rip and nobody really could check you. So you'd be like, ah, I heard William Goldman wrote it. I feel bad in a way that we're even doing this this early because I don't think any of us actually believe it. No. If you go down the wormhole of this, because I remember like...

checking up on it. Being like, is this real? Like, okay. They didn't write it. I'm doing great. It's such a fucked up thing when you do when you're younger. And the whole argument was, so these guys just...

out of nowhere write this oscar award-winning screenplay and then they don't write again but i mean the easy counter to that is no they just became two of the biggest movie stars in the world two of the 10 biggest stars i love that what goldman said when he finally fully addressed that he was like you know why they didn't write another movie after this the same reason that sylvester stallone didn't write another movie because it sucks to sit in your writer's hole by yourself when you can get paid 20 million dollars to go act in a huge movie it makes sense

Yeah, Affleck's not on the set of Armageddon going, I really miss just being at Dunkin' Donuts working on a scene. I love Microsoft Word. Well, there's so many touches that you can tell, like two guys from here wrote it, but one of the things they talk about a lot is they wanted to write an awesome part for a famous actor.

and that's the Sean character, the professor. So they had Morgan Freeman or Robert De Niro in their head as they're writing that character, and they wanted him to have a couple big monologues, which he ends up having. And they end up getting Robin Williams, who starts out on Mork and Mindy. That's how I got to know him, which was a sitcom in the late 70s, but then has this whole movie career. He's in Garp and Birdcage, Good Morning Vietnam, Mrs. Doubtfire, Dead Poets Society, but then this is what he wins the Oscar for.

And I still feel like Dead Poets might have been... What was the right Oscar for him? Rewatching this movie this time, they are throwing alley-oops to him. He really has a lot of meaty scenes in this one. It's pretty good. What do you think, Sean? The genie in Aladdin is elite. Like, that's...

That's high-level animated voice acting. I think this is probably the right choice. I love this part. I love this performance. Like 55-45 for me between Deadman. I did some percentages for you, Rousseau. You can feel him when you're watching it, though, working so hard to not be super annoying talk show Robin Williams. He's got nine guys holding him back from not riffing and doing a voice, which I appreciate. It is possible when you put on those cardigans that he's wearing. No.

You just become immediately more sensitive and thoughtful. This has been my dad's trick for like 50 years. He's got three cardigans on all the time. What do you think, Grisela? Wearing cardigans, Dad. Yeah, now that you mention your dad, it's like Robin Williams is a PD version of your dad. Right, yeah, totally. What do you have for the Oscar for Robin Williams?

Well, I, like, you kind of grew up with him as Mork, and you're like, how long is this going to go? Yeah. But I don't know that I was, like, seven going, I don't like this guy's runway dad, you know? Probably didn't look at the world that way back then. But I just love when anybody breaks out of, like, the typecasting of what you are. And clearly, like, Garp was the first... I don't know if that's his first movie, but he's probably the first time he was a star. It's his first big drama. His first big part. Yeah, we're going to do it on rewatches at some point. So now you're starting to realize. But no, he...

I don't know if it's going to come up during the Dion Waiters Award thing, but on the most recent rewatch, and again, I watched it today because of travel and how it worked out. I mean, I'm so fresh off of it. I...

I mean, every single scene with him... It's crushing it. It crushes and it works. Yeah. There's not one piece of dialogue with him where it's not, like, setting up some other payoff. And I still think the Boston Common scene, like, getting to write that and having, like, hey, here's this whole explanation, and he's not going to come at him, but then it all just ties in together. Like, that's really... That might be the most impressive part of the entire movie. Yeah. Minnie Driver got nominated as well. She's really good in this. She had a nice little run. Four or five...

Four or five movies in there that were great. Gus Van Zandt, you want to do a little 30 seconds on this, Sean?

Yeah, he's incredibly important in this movie and I don't think it would be nearly as good if it wasn't made by him because his whole thing is like the invisibility of the camera. Like you feel like you're watching real people and every intimate conversation that probably would feel really overwritten by a bunch of 23-year-old guys from Boston don't feel that way at all. It feels super real because of the way that, you know, they talk about it in that oral history, how he just like sits next to the camera and lets them figure out how they want the part to go. He let Robin Williams try to do it 10 different ways.

but Ben Affleck only wanted to do it two ways, and he let them do whatever they thought was right. And, you know, he's an independent filmmaker from Pacific Northwest who's made a ton of great movies over the years. This is probably the most mainstream thing he's ever done, but he's got, like, a little bit of, you know, realistic secret sauce that I think elevates it. Any relation to Van Zandt from Heat? You know, it's funny you should say that, because the other...

director up for this movie was michael mann and he wanted to make the guys into car thieves and when i found that out this movie got five percent worse to me because i was like shit i need goodwill car thief you know i had this coming later but let's talk about this now so this is a what if for this movie he shoots a whole day of footage with them for a screen test

And then goes with this whole thing about how he wants Mexican car thieves to be in it. And they're explaining to him that that wouldn't really feel like Boston. And he's all fired up about it. So the title of that would have been Good Will Hunted. Do you think he does that, though, for every movie he's up for? He's like, Shakespeare in Love, but they're car thieves. Titanic. They're stealing the Titanic. There's time. And they're running out of time. Yeah, but if you think about the pitch of what it really is, it's like it's a girlfriend in therapy.

Like, I can't believe I saw it. Well, this movie won two Oscars. Robin Williams won for Best Supporting Actor and the boys won for Screenplay. Damon, fourth person ever at this point to get nominated for acting and writing in the same year. Sean, can you name the other three? I can't accept that that's an erroneous fact.

I saw this fact as well. What is it? Are you rattled? I said to this point. Well, off the top of my head, Rocky did it. Slash the Lone, Orson Welles, Charles Chaplin. But also Woody Allen did it for Annie Hall because he was nominated that year. Also, there was...

Whoa. You may recall. Listen, we're all friends here. And then I'm just correcting the erroneous internet fact. This is like the math scene. Sean's like, you know how easy this is for me? It's a fucking joke. Yeah. Don't put a whiteboard in front of me, man. I got markers. It happened again one year later with Life is Beautiful. Roberto Benigni did it. Oh, that's a tough one. And you know who produced that? Harvey Weinstein. Yeah.

Well, we have two big Oscar debates that come out of this. Do we? Yeah, we do. Buckle up, Ursula. It's coming up next!

Jack Nicholson wins for As Good As It Gets. The other nominees were Matt Damon, Good Will Hunting, Robert Duvall, and The Apostle. Peter Fonda and Uli's Gold. That was the other choice for tonight. And then Dustin Hoffman for Wag the Dog. And all these years later, I just think Damon should have won. Agree. And As Good As It Gets, which was really good when it came out. It was James L. Brooks, and it was a thing. Helen Hunt got nominated, too.

I just don't think it's aged well as a movie. And it makes me mad that Matt Damon didn't win. CR? Damon's unbelievable in this movie.

Do you ever think about him writing his own speeches, though? Do you ever think that that should be some sort of demerit? Because if Jack Nicholson could always just write his own scenes... Is this you justifying never having won an award? No. If you write all your own material? But I think Damon is like... Even scenes that I thought of as Robin Williams scenes, Damon is unbelievable in them. So he is very deserving. I thought he was awesome. What do you think, Priscilla?

Look, I don't think I've made it all the way through as good as it gets. That might disqualify you. Yeah, I don't even think I should have a vote. This is like, hey, have you watched the NBA this year? Do you want a Defensive Player of the Year award? I'm like, sure. I mean, somebody the other night said that Miles Turner's in the running, and I'm like, what the fuck? But I guess Robin Williams is so good.

That I think it may have hurt Damon's case. He got outshone. I think it's a good take. He should have won. Affleck did not get nominated. Robin Williams wins. And he beats all of the people in Boogie Nights. Burt Reynolds got nominated, but everybody else who could have gotten nominated. And then do you wait? Do you agree with that? Well, he beats Robert Forster and Jackie Brown. Sean is like very partial to I'm not as partial.

Greg Kinnear in As Good As It Gets and Anthony Hopkins in Amistad. You voted for Anthony Hopkins. I did, yeah. It was John Quincy Adams, I think, in that film. Honestly, just rough luck for Burt Reynolds. That's brutal. Because I think he wins in a lot of other years. It's very similar to Stallone not winning for Creed, where that whole time everybody thought Burt was going to win and then he lost because everybody realized that nobody likes Burt Reynolds in Hollywood. Right.

By the way, that's going to happen to Draymond Green with Defensive Player of the Year this year. He's favored right now. That got Rosillo. No, but I mean, it's like after the cat thing, he got destroyed and the odds changed. I'm like, have you not paid attention to all these media members? Yeah, who are disgusting. Everybody is on the same page about him right now. So there's a little Sunday preview. And then Good Will Hunting wins over Boogie Nights. What do we think all these years later for screenplay?

It's a tough one. I don't know if I have an answer. What's your answer if we're not doing it in Lansdowne Street? Yeah, that's what I'm trying to not respond. I mean, Boogie Nights should have won everything. I think Boogie Nights is a better movie. Thank you, Ryan. Who won it?

Who was Best Director this year? James Cameron. Yeah, I think Paul Thomas Anderson should have won. Well, this got nominated for nine Oscars. Elliot Smith nominated for Best Original Song for Miss Misery. He's all over this movie, and it's awesome. And Danny Elfman lost for Best Score to Titanic, because Titanic just obliterated everybody. $10 million budget made $225 million. Roger Ebert. So every time we do rewatchables, we read Roger Ebert's review. Three stars. Yes.

Maybe he had some bad Mexican before the movie and just wasn't a great frame of mind. Did you read Ebert's review? Yeah, he said, the film has a good ear for the way these characters might really talk. Might? The outcome of this movie is fairly predictable. So is the whole story, really. It's the individual moments, not the payoff, that make it so effective. It's a borderline fuck you, Raj. I've got to be honest.

I don't like his tone. Also, in the body of the review, Ebert just gives away Chucky's monologue. He's just like, oh, and then Chucky says this. And I'm like, this is the best part of the film. Right. Yeah. Well, all right, we're going to do some categories. That's some... I'm still... I didn't know that. I'm sorry. I know you guys, like, read these every week. So... I...

There's so many bad versions of this movie, and this one made it feel authentic, and it was a good ending. It was a happy ending. Yeah. And it didn't, you know, all these movies are like, oh, it's just going to be happy at the end. Cool. This one felt like you actually felt really happy at the end. Three and a half stars seems fair.

I think he gave it three stars. No, but I'm saying three and a half, I think, is about as low as you want to go. His take was kind of the consensus take, though. And I think that a lot of the critics who were not in Boston were like, I don't know, is this authentic? I'm not sure. And it seems like everybody here feels like it was very authentic. Do you think Ebert saw the Michael Mann screen test footage? Could be. Good Will Hunted. He was waiting for the cars to chase Damon. We're doing the categories. I have a special category. I didn't tell you guys.

The single most Boston thing about this movie. Our nominees. The Overhead of Fenway Park. Morgans I Hate L.A. T-shirt. The old school red line trolleys that they kind of brought out of retirement because those were done. A big scene on the beach in Boston Common. The L Street Tavern. Bunker Hill Community College, which by the way looks literally exactly the same. Like exactly to a T. Eating at Kelly's and the Tasty. Very 90s.

Very 90s. Sean has a really cool Red Sox jacket. I want to shut that out. Yeah. I thought Will's apartment looked very Boston. Dunkin' Donuts is just omnipresent, which I appreciated. But here's our winner. This is an Affleck story from the oral history, and I'm just going to quote him. One night we took Robin to the L Street Tavern. Robin wanted to get a taste of Boston. I remember thinking, this is a fucking mistake. Yeah.

And then it just turns into a mob scene. Guys got really drunk and wanted to fight me because I had my hat on backwards. That's the most Boston thing about this movie. I'm going with that. So he's making the movie. He's from here. Yeah. And his hat's on backwards. And somebody's like, yeah, exactly. I mean, it's the same thing as people hearing about them writing this amazing screenplay. It's like, so they're going to make a movie? What, do they think they're cool? You think you're better than me? I don't want to jump it, but this is Apex Mountain for Bunker Hill.

I mean, it's been all downhill since. And no offense to any alums, but when your boy fucked up his first semester at UVM, and then I got a three-and-a-half-hour speech on the ride back up after fall semester by my father, we drove by Bunker Hill on 93, and he was like, we could just stop here and drop you off. And so I've never thought of Bunker Hill in my life without that moment of, like...

It's a lot cheaper. Yeah. This is the effort you're going to put in. I don't have to drive three and a half hours, three and a half hours back. He's like, we can find you a place in Somerville. It's going to be cheaper and we can just wrap this up. If that's it. I was like, all right, look, can we just let's just get back to Vermont. I'll try harder. And so every time I would drive past Bunker Hill, I'm like, there's a Rosillo path there could have gone different.

It's on my son's list for two years from now. Can you get in state? The 99's right there. Yeah, 99. $10 chicken parmesan in 1998. It was great. We're going to do the categories. Most rewatchable scene. The playground fight scene. Got some notes. Hey, come on. Remember me? Really good slow motion battle. We got a little Baker Street from Jerry Rafferty. What about the music choice for the fight scene? Yes or no?

I'm still confused. I think that was, he was zagging. We couldn't throw a little Edo G or Tim Dog in there when they're fighting? Like, I just didn't get that. Yeah. Not the berry, but the fruit, y'all. Yeah. Next rewatch of the scene. No one got that Roxbury reference. Ofer. The Harvard Bar scene at the Bone Arrow. Here's what I wrote in my notes.

ponytail guy comes in talking market economy in the southern colonies and then in all caps, we're Sillow's dream encounter in 1997. Yeah, I don't know what, I'd be like, you think Shea Hillenbrand has become more patient because he takes the first pitch now, which everyone in the league knows that he's going to do, which actually counteracts his patience because he's the most predictable at-bat in fucking Major League Baseball.

That would happen. It wouldn't be markets. It wouldn't be capitalism. Yeah. How many times did you and ponytail guys circle each other when you lived here? I was a little bit... When I got here, how old was I? I was like 27, 28. Okay. So it was kind of out of me by then. The funny thing is I actually got bigger when I needed it. And when I was more of a dickhead, I was smaller. So...

It didn't really match. It's actually probably better for everybody involved. Yeah, probably right there. The seesaw tilted correctly. CR, this is a Hall of Fame friend scene.

We're using all four guys perfectly. Yeah. I think the thing I've always wondered is, was that guy named Clark? Is the Scott Winters character? Yeah. Is the ponytail a tribute to Revolutionary War era hairstyles? But yeah, I mean, it's just incredible back getting by the friend group. He was a huge Amistad fan. That's right. And Stellan Skarsgård in Amistad. If he had just been nicer, he might have met his hero. Some good shout outs to Thomas Zinn.

Howard. Howard Zinn. No, Thomas. Who is the Thomas? Howard Zinn. Gordon Wood. Gordon Wood. Wasn't there a Thomas too? I don't know, man. I have a big doc here. Thinking of Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent? I'll tell you what though, imagine if you were really in that field and you're like watching that movie and you go, Damon actually just, I'm not a free thinker. I'm 43. Right. Right.

Like, that's exactly, I believed all of, like, that scene fucked up at least one person in a way that we'll never understand. And it also makes me like, did Damon just hate that course so much? Yeah. Yeah, it was building inside him for 10 years. Yeah, because that's not just normal dialogue. Yeah. My boy's wicked smart. There's some really good quotes in here, and then it leads to the do you like apples scene, which we could tackle now or later. Up to you, man. Why is the answer yes?

There's no good outcome by saying yes. If Clark just goes, I'm not, and turns back around to the three girls at Dunkin' Donuts, the night's over. But he gets to throw the Schuyler's number up. Can we just dissect it a little bit more, though? Yeah. I'm glad you're doing this. Let's go back to the bar. Clark's in the bar. He's there with his dorky friends. They're standing behind him when he's starting to go at Affleck. First of all, Affleck's got like eight inches on him. He's a giant. And he's a townie who will break his fucking head open. Yeah.

And he's, Clark is not hitting on the girls. He just, he knows them. He's just being a dick. But they're not interested. Yeah. And so he's challenging a townie, which like, let's just say I'm Clark for the sake of conversation because I'm a skinny dork.

I would never say shit to a guy like that. Right. So then Damon's idea to counter that is rather than break his head open, he's just going to explode his brain, right? So he embarrasses him. But then Clark's like, all right, see you later, man. He doesn't try to hit on Minnie Driver or anything. So where does the do you like apples even come from? Like, what does he even... Yeah, what was the win? He already won. Right. It was like a double win. He came back for more. See, I had this for nitpicks for later, but...

In real life, they beat the hell out of this guy at 2 in the morning. I mean, they just do. But I like that Clark walks it up to the edge twice where they're just like, do you want to go outside? And he's just like, no, I just want to be pedantic about Gordon Wood. But does that work in far-fetched scenarios? I've never fucking tried it. To be like, it's cool, man. It's cool. Don't break my head open. Ryan, you tell us. When you're ready to break a guy's head open. There's a couple things. I've never quite understood what it meant.

Uh-oh. I don't have that counter. This is the most iconic scene in this movie. I know. And every time I watch it, I love it. And then I start to think about it, and I'm like, what really happened here? Whatever. I mean, there had to be some, I guess, final moment, and so they came up with something. I've never heard anyone ever say that until the movie came out. And then it, obviously, a bunch of dudes said it for a really long time. But...

Your thing on why would you even go with these guys, I would disagree with that. Because I think when you're... The whole point of them being in Cambridge...

And I remember even, you know, back when I was in school, like this ROTC crew would come out when they had to leave. It was the worst. So we're all like 185 pounds with our game hats on. But there was, we were all just clones of each other. So no one was really afraid of anybody else. And then these ROTC guys would come up and like hit on these girls from Greenwich, Connecticut. And they were like horrified. Like, what are you on student aid or something? Like, you know, get the fuck away from me. You know, I'm, I'm from Riverside. Like this is...

What the fuck? You know, I'm from Newton or something. And they were just like, why are these commoners talking to us? And then they'd grab one of us morons and be like, hey, dude. And then it would be like, what have you ever done for your country? And we'd always get our ass kicked. But the point is, is that you would feel protective of your neighborhood. And I think in this case, Clark is just like, even if you guys would kill us, you're not supposed to be here. And look, Minnie's at Harvard. No.

Next scene.

Possible rewatchable candidate. Will's first meeting with Sean when he breaks down the painting and it's really awkward and then he says maybe we married the wrong woman. Watch it there, chief. I will end you. I will fucking end you. Trivia for this. Gus Van Sant painted the picture. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was Pesci's mom in Goodfellas. No. No.

Possible Great Shock Ordo in here, CR, for this? For the light on it. For the way he filmed Damon with the lace? Yeah. Okay. Also love Damon saying, let the healing begin. Yeah. Will's second meeting is the next one because we get that incredible Robin Williams monologue we mentioned. We get Boston Common. Great to see it. Build a statue! Well, there's a big thing about building a Robin Williams statue near that bench. This is another great Boston fact.

When they filmed this scene in the Common, there were 3,000 people just far enough away so they weren't on camera watching. And this was the heyday, and I was living here when this happened, of when they were filming stuff here, it was like the coolest... Like, they filmed Blown Away with Tommy Lee Jones. Great accents in that, yeah. And everybody was out of their minds that they were filming it here. And then the real world house was in the fire station at Beacon Hill, and it was like, oh my God!

The real world, but everybody, those kids were in trouble. You were still here. No, I was still here, but the kids were in trouble because they would go out and people would be like, ah, real world, huh? Um...

That's 100% true. When they were here, everyone just fucked with them. Yeah, it completely fucked up the show. Did you apply? You notice they've never done it here again? Never. Did you apply for Real World Boston? I didn't. I kind of wish I had. Is there any existing audition tape of you trying to get on a reality show? No. Thank God. But then they filmed this. Two roommates of mine did it, and he...

they didn't hit stop on the camcorder. So one guy sat down, did his thing, and then got up, and then the next guy... And so to this day, he's like, I don't think they waited to see mine. Yeah, that was the problem. And you're like, do you think that's why you didn't get picked? Because of patience? This monologue's great, and I'm not going to read it to the crowd, but...

I think this is some of Williams' best work ever. Yeah. It's really great. And I hope they give him the statue. Next one, the Game 6 story. We get Carlton Fisk footage, which, I don't know, it's been... Does the Fisk Homer still matter to the younger people out there? That's great, because it was one of the most important things of the 70s if you were a kid growing up here.

He doesn't go to the game, and he tells the story about how he had to go see about a girl, and it still bugs me that he didn't go to the game or so long. To be fair, I think it would bug you if he was skipping a Hornets-Blazers game. You'd be like, what? No, this is a tough one, though. They're down 3-2 in the World Series. They'd only been in 67 and in 46.

Everybody loved the 75 Red Sox team, including me. And it was the Linden Rice team and Yaz was still there. And he's just like, yeah, I have to take my ticket. I'm not going to go. I really feel like his friends would have like fucking fought him. Right? Or they would have just given it to somebody who wanted it really bad. I don't know if I come back from it. He's a fictional character. That's a good point.

I always forget that. And this story serves as the emotional metaphor for the entire movie. I kind of agree with Bill. I don't think that guy doesn't go to game six. I just, I'm trying to think like what, how great would the girl have been? Yeah. She would understand too if it was the right girl. That's a good take. Actually, should she marry him if he didn't go? He would sell out the thing he loves the most right away. Yeah, I wouldn't trust him. Um,

This is a short one, but next one is the, do you know how easy this is for me? Do you have an idea? It's a fucking joke. I just love when he lays in a Lambo, that loser. And then I got to say, the last 30 minutes of this movie is out of control, Sierra. Yeah. From a rewatchability standpoint, we get Skyler leaves to L.A.,

Looking back, seeing if he's in the... No, he's not in the airport. We go right to the construction site. Affleck gets his big moment. Then we go to Lambo versus Sean. Then we go to the, it's not your fault, it's not your fault. Then we go to the last scene, and then all of a sudden, see about a girl, and we're good. And it's just like, every scene is a home run. Yeah, it's funny. It's one of those runtime movies where you're like, wait a second, they haven't done X, Y, and Z, and they're just hit after hit after hit at the end of the album. Yeah.

Kid Cudi pursued a happiness award. We didn't pick the rewatchable scene. No, no, I'm putting it in here. I think because that Elliot's in Los Angeles, I think when she's waiting to see if he's going to show up at the airport or not, I think that's the winner. The Affleck monologue. You've been known to write some screenplay stuff from time to time, Marcello. In 20 years, if you're still living here, coming over to my house, watching the Patriots work in construction, I'll fucking kill you. If you're still making that joke in 20 years. LAUGHTER

You know what I think it did? It's funny because when you start to really see the stuff that works, it can be really, really predictable. And then if it becomes too predictable, it kind of loses it. And the funniest thing about this movie for me and why I appreciate it so much is that it's actually very predictable, but it never feels forced. It's not that you have to be surprised here. It's just the flow of the storytelling. And so for something as innocuous as Affleck to be like, I just hope

you know, the best part of my day is that moment where I'm hoping you're not there. Yeah. So then you kind of know, like, that moment's going to happen. That closes it. See about a girl. There's like three different things that close it. The car, because they have to give him a car because he didn't have one to drive cross country. There's just these things that you guys are talking about, just the heat zone that you're in at the end of this movie. I don't know that it's not that there's some twist. It's not that there's something that shocks you. It doesn't have any of those things.

And there's so many movies that fuck this up. Yeah. And they're just perfect with it towards the end. Yeah, there's some bad versions of this where he shows up at the airport or there's some version of it where... Or he shows up right after the plane leaves. Yeah. He's running toward the gate and doesn't... That's like the 1995 indie movie version where it's like, ah, shit, plane left. But yeah, I mean, getting into what his trauma was, also giving the therapist as much...

time and space to have his own story usually doesn't happen. It's just such a great character study. Yeah, Ryan was alluding to it. I mean, nothing really happens in this movie. You know, he meets a girl, they go on a few dates, and he goes to therapy. He kicks Carmine's ass. Don't forget about it. Carmine takes a beating. No, but Sean, you're right. There's not really this... Like, when we were thinking about the rewatchable scenes when I was even prepping for this pod...

I was like, there's a couple good lines, but there's no... Do you want to be emotionally drained and watch It's Not Your Fault a couple times a week? Of course not. It wasn't his fault. It's a really heavy drama, and you mentioned the part about how Castle Rock bought the script at the start of it, and that they were renowned for their ability to develop material, and that everybody wanted to work with them. And they give that big note to be like...

This is a thriller and an ordinary people style drama. And they were like, do the drama, which is like the least commercial aspect of the story. And yet their instincts are totally right. And the movie is like weirdly propulsive, even though there's no chasing her down at the airport scene. There's no scene where like, you know, Chucky and Will like have a falling out and then they have to get back together. Like it doesn't have any of that conventional stuff. So it's kind of miraculous in that way. In the research, they said Van Zant wanted them to...

Right, an extra scene where Chucky gets killed in a construction accident. Like, for real. Jesus. And they actually wrote the scene and they're like, this does not work. America does not want Chucky to get hit by a crane. But you know what I mean? You're right. In a two-hour movie, you're like, okay...

There's something bad and then it has to get even worse. And I'm pretty sure because they made it, they're going to figure out how to make it better. I mean, really for this, if you're going by that simple formula, which is basically almost every form of storytelling,

What's the thing? Like, it's the breakthrough. You know, the breakthrough, but normally that wouldn't be allowed to even have it happen that late. Like, I bet you if you try to make it now, the note would be have the breakthrough at like an hour. It's like when we do the movie about how we never stop believing in Scoot Henderson. Yeah.

That one game that night when we were texting each other, that was the breakthrough. Same thing. Is that better as a Netflix series? Yeah, eight episodes. One thing with the Affleck scene, I thought this was great in the research. I mean, they worked on this movie for five years, and this was his big moment, right? Damon has the better part in the movie. They're together, and he's the sidekick, but the construction scene's his big...

and he's building up, and then finally the day's the day, and it's like, all right, I'm going to do my scene. He does the take, and he nails it. And they were like, that was great. You want to do it again? And he's...

And he just, he didn't know what to do. It was like he had just hit like a game-winning homer and they were like, all right, do you want to do this the other side? Now we'll shoot it behind Damon. And he was just like, I just felt like I climbed Mount Everest, basically. But it's cool when you watch that because that's the scene that kind of sets up the next 30 years for him, I think. It's also fun to imagine Gus Van Zandt being like, can we have some rebar fall?

and hit Chucky right here. Right as he finishes it. No, but it's a great point because he doesn't get to show off until that moment.

Well, that's why when I did that... I mean, it's pretty crazy if you wrote the screenplay. It's like you didn't hook yourself up a little bit earlier. Well, that's why those guys... Damon's so protective of Affleck, but when I did a pod with them a couple years ago, and he was so mad about how Affleck was treated after the movie, even now, when he was like, SNL did a sketch, and they made Damon seem like the star, and Affleck was like his loser Boston sidekick, and he was like, Affleck sacrificed... Like, I had the much better part in that movie, and Affleck didn't.

Really have one. A couple other parts near the end here. The farewell therapy scene right into when Will gets his car. Cole Hauser's best moment. Yes. Yes. It's a good car. Good car. The engine's good. The engine's good. You can see the seeds of someday this guy's going to lead a Taylor Sher to the show right here. It's a good car. And then the ending. Affleck goes to see him. He's not there anymore. And we get the first of many Ben Affleck faces. Yeah.

And he does the whole sequence. We see it many times over the future. Then Morgan jumps in the front seat and then tell him, I'm sorry, I went to go see about a girl. And then Robin Williams ad-libs, son of a bitch, you stole my line. Can I ask you a question? Is that the next day after he tells him I'll fucking kill you? Because it takes him a long time to realize what's happened. It was going to take a long time to pack, I don't think. Good point. Not a lot of stuff. But Affleck is really...

laying it on thick there at the end. You think he propelled him to drive cross-country? It's possible. Seems like it, right? What do you have for most rewatchable scenes, CR? I think it's probably the first therapy scene, actually. I really love that one. And I love the analysis of the art. It's just such a great setup for those two characters. Sean? Sean?

I have two that you did not list that are my favorites. The first one is Retainer. Retainer.

When Affleck goes in to do the job interview of McNeil, which is so funny, which might be the funniest full scene in the movie. And then the second one is the two jokes. Is Affleck telling the joke about Uncle Marty and stealing the cruiser, followed by Minnie Driver delivering a great joke about an old Irish couple. I just think those are two great scenes that feel like... They feel like things that actually happened that they put into the movie. What do you got for us, though? Most rewatchable. By the way, the State Trooper story...

I heard that in college from a guy like Hingham and then thought it was real. So is that like the life serial kid died eating pop rocks? Yeah. Like every single one of us has heard that story. And then when it happened in the movie, I'm like, Holy shit, that happened to him too. Maybe no one's ever had that story, but it was just a legend thing. Rewatchable. We haven't given, um,

We haven't given Minnie enough love here. Okay? It's coming. We can do it now, though. The first kiss scene is like one of the most natural, cool, non-forced, these people from completely different walks of life, and having that moment where you're immediately comfortable with somebody in a way that just seems impossible when you barely know them, that is the most brilliant part of them. I mean, the Robin Williams stuff is tough to compete with, but...

She's so believable and the relationship is so believable. I mean, other than he's just like, I can know how to do everything when they have coffee that day. I just, I don't know. It hit me today. I was like, man, all of these scenes with her are just fantastic. And you never, it's not like I wanted the whole movie to be about her, but I just thought that lunch and burger kiss was really cool. Yeah. Let's get the kiss out of the way. They were trying to make it like the opposite of this dramatic moment, which it would normally be in every other movie.

Yeah, I wouldn't have put this as most rewatchable, but she's so awesome in the breakup scene. Like, it really feels like he's actually breaking up with her. Like, she's immediately devastated and just crushed by it. I have the construction scene as my most rewatchable. What's the most 1997 thing about this movie?

I was going to say just young Damon and Affleck with their whole careers in front of them. As we get older, it's kind of amazing this thing exists. What do you have, CR? I have the fact that there's no internet, so Will Hunting doesn't spend all his time on Red Sox Reddit shit-talking Mo Vaughn. This guy can't fucking hit with guys on runners on base. We were saying that.

Payphones and the convenience that payphones afforded you when you could say, I forgot somebody's number and go back into the car like a coward. Yeah. You know, like that's just great. If it was now, Skyler would just bang that number into his phone. That's true. There's multiple payphone scenes in this movie. Yeah. Good point. What do you got, Russell? It's a pretty diverse film. I don't know in 2025. What do you mean? There's Irish and Italian guys in this movie. Yeah. Carmine. Carmine.

I don't know. Michael Mann might have been on something. Yeah. What's aged the best? I have a bunch of them. I'll turn it over to you guys, but I want to start here. Giving someone a Dunkin' Donuts coffee after you pick them up from jail is a what's aged the best for me. What do you have, CR? I got a couple. I got Will explaining how jokes work to a character played by Robin Williams. And Will's art criticism? I think you're one step away from cutting your fucking ear off.

You kind of lost that sharp elbow style critique of popular culture. I've got to bring that back. And just like the formation of the group, the smart one, quiet one, loud one, dumb one, like perfect. The Beatles right there. Sean? Yeah, definitely Matt and Ben Industries. You know, the idea of them being this iconic duo now for 30 years running, which is amazing that it lasted this long and usually doesn't work out that way. Um,

And then I think this is the conversion of Robin Williams' legacy from comedy person to iconic actor. And if he doesn't have this movie, even though he did plenty of dramatic parts, he's really thought of more as a performer and not Mork. Even if he had done Dead Poets and he had done What Dreams May Come or whatever. Yeah, because he was struggling a little bit from an IMDb standpoint. He made that movie Jack.

He made that movie, What Dreams May Come, with Cuba Gooding that you just mentioned. He was a little bit of a slump. Although, if not for Jack, he might not have done this movie. True. Because he asked Francis Ford Coppola, who the fuck are these guys? Because he had just made Jack with Francis Ford Coppola. And Francis Ford Coppola cast Damon as the Rainmaker. So that was a critical, even though Jack sucks. Sorry, Jack. Sorry, Jack. Look, that's the right answer, because I was watching the Oscar acceptance speech this morning.

It's great. That's a good message. They are... I mean, it looks like a bit. Yeah. Security's supposed to come over and be like, who are you guys? Yeah. I remember Dennis Miller, when he had his HBO show, he played the clip, and he goes, what we didn't hear when they went to commercial was, we're going to get so laid. Right. This sheer euphoria, which also in that clip, you can see Minnie Driver miserable, because Damon dumped her in real life. Yeah.

And he's like, dude, I'm about to win a fucking Oscar. Like, you know, I'm not staying. Like, I can see what's in the mix. But, um...

Boston accents, I think, age the best because I had guys, as we know, it skips generations. It skips geographical areas. Like, you can be separated by five miles, and you're like, I know what you're saying, and you're never going to pronounce the word drawer in your entire life. And so we had guys come back that summer...

Like, I had a buddy, and we were out at a bar, and the girls were like, where are you guys from? He's like, oh, I'm from Lubin. I'm like, who the fuck are you? Right? Because he never had it. He never had it. I go, what are you doing? He's like, dude, you know, and I'm calling him home, you know, like, I just pick it up. I'm like, yeah, except you've never had it the whole time I've known you. Like, this is our fifth year of knowing each other, and you've never...

You've never picked it up. Like, come on, like, what are you doing? And Good Will Hunting is responsible for that. And Good Will Hunting, Boston guys became like a novelty in L.A. Like, they were like, hey, we've got this really dumb kid from Framingham who's going to talk like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in real life. So, do you guys want to go? Let's hire him as a PA. Yeah, right. Like, do you guys want to watch him talk and get some drinks? So...

I mean, the accent's kind of still... This movie changed it, man. Yeah. Now Rhode Island is the state that that happens to. This PA's from Rhode Island. You gotta hear him. I have a couple more. The friendship aspect, which we mentioned. The clothes...

The cardigans for Sean, but really Chucky's outfits. His tracksuits. These tracksuits, and they're both, it's cheap and fancy at the same time, but it's perfect. There's a great bit in the oral history about, like, the costume designer wanted to dress them almost like in, like, homeless rags, and, like, they had to, like, call somebody from Reebok to rush tracksuits to Chucky. Right. Yeah.

The top four guys in this movie, so it ends up Casey wins an Oscar, and then Cole Hauser is the star of the biggest audience-wise TV show we've had the last 10 years, and then Damon Affleck, but you rarely go four for four. It's like when you have a family that has four siblings or more, probably not going four for four with the siblings. I'm one of four. Maybe go three and a half for four. You have four? I'm one of four. You go four for four?

I mean, yes. So imagine if I was like, ah, there's one rotten one, you know. Sorry, Kyle. I was just making fun of House because he had two brothers and it was like, which one's the black sheep? I still can't figure it out. Affleck has a late 90s director's DVD commentary.

Before the era that we knew social media and the internet was really coming the way it did. And he's just on one the entire time. He's the best director. He's the best. No one's better. I mean, the Armageddon one. I'll randomly remind myself to watch those clips. He's unbelievable in these. The therapist scenes are just really good. Wanted to shout those out. George Plimpton, I don't care if you put from the rough. I don't know where they came up with that. Phenomenal.

That whole scene is insanely funny. Damon doing the club stuff is elite. Just fucking with George Plimpton. By the way, George Plimpton. And then my last one is the girl in the bar at the beginning who starts making fun of Chucky's dick and calls it Irish Curse and a Tootsie Roll. Just on brand. There's two that are lost here. Because you could argue this movie is really about math culture.

Yeah. Which I don't see brought up a lot. But when the professor is at the reunion and the undergrad is like, hey, and he's like, it's Saturday unless you want to have a drink tonight. You're like, what the

I had that in What's Age the Worst, but I'm happy to flip it. Jerry's Boundaries. You want them going best. That's great. Because then... The second one is better. The second one is better. Is it the post-Plimpton session? Yeah. Right. So Plimpton yells, Ballyhoo. Plimpton kills it. We'll see how the awards shake out, but...

We just come into the scene and he's turned to some other undergrad. He's like, math is erotic. And like, they don't, you kind of wonder, like, is there going to be, I don't know that you would be allowed to just throw that in there without somebody giving you the note of like, where the hell does that go? Yeah. The Sean Penn, I brought my own pack award for excellence in onscreen smoking.

Damon, 10 out of 10. Oh my God, but Bill, we have a moment here. Cole Hauser's last cigarette in this movie is the smoking equivalent of Daniel Day-Lewis building an oil derrick in the beginning of There Will Be Blood. He comes into the bar when they give him the car. Last puff.

smokes it down to the butt, grinds it out, and then goes like this to be like, I got the car for him, and gets beers with one gesture. It's just like a fucking triple axle plans it, and then the next thing you know, he's outside, he's just like, it's a good engine. Yeah. Houser. King. King.

Sierra, what'd you end up with for Great Shot Gordo? I love that when Chucky's monologue starts, they stay on Damon. And so the first half of Chucky's monologue is like Damon with the construction, the bulldozer behind him. And it's like, this is this guy's future if he doesn't listen to his friend right now. But it takes a lot, like you guys were talking about with Affleck's humility in this movie. It's like, that's his Oscar reel. That's his highlight tape. That's the one. And he's like, spend half of it

on my best friend. That's, that's incredible. Can I give you one other great shot Gordo? Yeah. There's like a one second overhead shot when Robin Williams is pushing Damon out of the way when he's telling the Carlton Fisk story and he's matching it with the overhead effect during this. It's like very tiny little move, but you love just seeing, watching Williams push him out of the way. Good call. Um, Den of Thieves, Benny Hanna award for scene stealing location. It's,

Gotta be the Boston Common, right? I always loved Au Bon Pain, personally. The Au Bon Pain outdoors? Great turkey sandwich. Sean, what'd you... Oh, the racetrack. The dog track. The Chess Rockwell and Brocklanders Award for Best Character Name. Chucky Sullivan. Chucky wins. Professor Gerald Lambeau is pretty fucking good. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that is pretty good. His full character name is Morgan O'Malley. Are you sure we're not going to overlook this? I just wondered if they would go, we can't do Sullivan, and then maybe they argued about it forever, and they were like, let's just make it Sullivan. They felt like they had to pick a more obscure one. Right. Well, Lambeau, that leads to the Vincent Chase Award, named after Vincent Chase from Montrash. Are we sure this character was actually good at his job? He's a professor at MIT.

He probably knows. I mean, just because he couldn't hold up to Dane. Counter. Are we sure he deserved the Fields Medal? Do you know what drives me crazy? Guy's getting blown out of water by the janitor. Like, come on. We were talking about this backstage. Math podcasts are starting Fields Medal conversations way too early. You know, every four seasons. 30 games into the season. If you don't have one. Can I zag on this? Yeah. Are we sure Dr. Sean McGuire is a good therapist? Oh. Oh. Okay. Okay.

You're gonna lose the crowd again, let's go. Let's just start here. Commits physical violence during a therapy session. Right, that's true. Not good. Yeah. Has no considerable scientific psychological point of view whatsoever. Neither Jungian nor Freudian. We have no idea where the... His whole bit is just like, so what do you like? He's just borrowing, he's remixing. You wanna fall in love? That's not a therapy strategy. I have more.

Clearly a shitty college professor. Nobody in that class is paying attention. Right. It is Bunker Hill. Yeah. It's fair. Here's one thing I'm confused about with that character. Was he a math guy? Yeah, I never got this. Who pivoted to therapy? Yeah, what did he teach? To therapy? Yeah. What did he teach at Bunker Hill?

He was teaching therapy. He was teaching psychology. But he was best friends with Gerald Lambeau and they were competing for a field medal? He made me reconsider him. I gotta tell you, if he had a math background, he didn't want to talk about it with me. Right. Like he's sitting there with one of apparently the three best mathematicians on the planet and he was like, my wife farts a lot. Uh-huh.

Butch's girlfriend award, weak link of the film. I already talked about giving up the game six ticket in my issues. What do you have, CR? I got this. It's Tom, the graduate assistant. Just... Fucking...

He gives absolutely nothing in this movie. Nothing. No emotion. There's a really good plot line here where he could get really jealous of Will and he's just like complete Hannibal Lecter the entire time. I know he's an actual mathematician and was there for Verissa Millitude, but Jesus Christ, he's just so straight-faced the entire time. Pretty good one. What do you got, Ryan? So you're talking about the actual character or a question?

Weak link, whatever you want it to be. That car doesn't make it past Springfield. I got this later. I had it later too.

What was Will's plan here? Chuckie's picking him up later that night. They get into a fight in Springfield. They get their asses handed to him. He's in the breakdown lane. He's right before Sturbridge. Then the hour's another movie where they go back with a bigger crew. It's like right after the I-90 exit, but before Sturbridge. This was actually my Z-Want-Nail award for what happens the next day is that the car breaks down somewhere in the Midwest and

Will goes to a bar while the transmission's getting fixed, gets in a fight, gets regarding Henry, becomes dumb, forgets everybody else in his life, and is destined to work as a janitor in a community college. Oh, that's amazing. Regarding Will Hunter. And he doesn't have Skyler's number, so nobody knows, you know? Oh, that's great. That's a great point about the car, because...

You know, they patched some parts together so it could get him from South Korea to Cambridge. Oh, there's also another part. Why are those three guys chipping in to buy a car for the only guy that's about to make 80 grand a year? That's a great point. Like, those guys would be like, fuck him. Like, I'm not. I think Cole Hauser was like, wait a second, he's driving that car cross-country? I put a lawnmower engine in it. Yeah, right. They thought he was just going to Cambridge. Yeah. You have a weak link, Sean?

I think it would have been more fun if Marky, Ricky, Danny, Terry, Mikey, Davey, Timmy, Tommy, Joey, Robbie, Johnny, and Brian actually existed. Oh, we had a scene with them. All right. What's aged the worst? Harvey Weinstein being the hero of the movie? Tough one.

Awkward. See, you can feel this, even the little silence right there. There's one other one that is, you know, related, which is that Mel Gibson was going to direct this movie until he ultimately agreed not to. So the two heroes of this movie getting made are Mel Gibson and Harvey Weinstein.

We lost the crowd. They're done. I'm sorry. These are facts. Yeah. I feel like Mel's had a slightly better re-entry. Yeah, absolutely. You and Chris should debate that. Damon's hair with the frosted tips.

A 1997 made sense or it just looks horrible now? You'd have to tell us, man. I didn't see a lot of that in Boston. Don't remember that look. Right? Insane. I don't remember that look that much. Backstreet Boys. But that feels early for Backstreet Boys, though. Yeah. Do you think the guys from Southie were really modeling their hair off Backstreet Boys at the time? Damon said, even in oral history, he said, maybe I would have done that one differently, the hair. Herbstree had frosted tips. What?

What else do you have for the what's aged the worst here? Jerry Lambeau not having heard of Ted Kaczynski in 1996 after he had been arrested and was like one of the most famous criminals in the country. Yeah, that's tough. Will attacking the drywall over Skyler's head. Probably want to dial that down. And the last one was, oh yeah, pre-Jason Bourne fighting from Matt Damon.

Oh, I like what you did there. I think he took it up a notch, but the slow-mo is not his best work. A little badass over here. What do you got for what said your worst? Probably math is erotic, again. Yeah. Also, probably the 10 plus years of any conversation with my buddies, if there was a dramatic pause, and then they would look at you, and they would go, it's not your fault. Yeah.

That got old after a little while. Yeah, that's a what's aged the best and the aged the worst for this movie. The it's not your fault joke was one of the better pull it out of a movie with certain real life jokes. I didn't even bring that up when I was destroying Dr. Sean Maguire's resume. But I mean, that's your final boss move. It's not your fault. Like your mom can tell you that when you're nine years old. What are we doing? What would you have done? It worked. It's a movie, dork.

Name-calling. It's Sean versus Sean violence. Going to Kelly's for takeout, just because Kelly doesn't exist anymore. We got a Gerald Lambeau hitting on college students in multiple scenes, and then calls Minnie Driver's character, and she's like, is this Professor Lambeau? Hangs up on him. Yeah. So they made him super creepy as a way to like, oh, we got to give him some color and some depth. Let's make him a really horny...

Early 50s guy. I'm glad there wasn't any reveal on where that was going. It's funny that they just kept throwing it in. So she answers and says, is this Lambo again? And then hangs up and says, freak. Although the day scarf all the time checks out. See our smoking indoors at bars. I don't know if it's a what's aged the worst. It's what's aged the most fondly for me. Yeah.

Was there a better title for this movie? I don't think so. Good Will Hunted is really creeping into my brain, though. Wicked Smart? Wicked Smart. It's a double entendre. Well, I was thinking The Janitor, if we go like The Accountant. Oh, yeah. Just The Janitor. Just starring Jason Statham. Yeah, The Janitor. That's to be a little slower. All right, the CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. Hottest take award. Named after the time CR thought Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford.

We still have a lot of years left to go to see whether this thing pans out. You're not done yet. You know?

I have, Will is actually the guy who he is making fun of at the Harvard bar. Because when he goes into Robin Williams' office and starts kicking all the Howard Zinn shit to him, he is talking to a guy who actually went to Vietnam and has had all the experiences, but he's just regurgitating what he read in Chomsky, which is exactly what Clark is doing in that bar. So Will, no better than Clark. Interesting. Landed the point on that. What do you got, Sean?

Is it possible that the Midnight Run-esque NSA thriller that they wanted this movie to be could have actually been better than the real Good Will Hunting that we got? You know, I thought about that. It's not impossible. I still want to see it. Yeah, I would have wanted to see the movie. Damon did star in The Bourne Identity and it was awesome. Like, he could do it.

No? No, they described it as like Midnight Run crossed with like a spy movie. And it's like, that sounds awesome. I would have seen that in the theater. What do you got, what do you got, Russell? There's no way it works when he gets to L.A. because he's not going to fit in in L.A. He's going to hit everybody. His smart powers, nobody's going to give a shit about. He doesn't even use them for good. How do you know all this? LAUGHTER

I can't really follow that up now. 97? That guy? Mine's not even that hot, but I just think this is the best Boston accent ever by Damon in a movie. Like, by a star. Wahlberg's got close. Is there anybody else where you're just like, wow. I just think everything Damon does, he has the right level of anger to it. Blake Lively, I do appreciate somebody yelling at him.

I think Alec Baldwin, The Departed, The Driving Range is... I mean, it's not the volume, but the wind shares per 48 are... The world needs plenty of bartenders. Right. Unless you know your dick still works. So casting what ifs, we did most of them. So Gibson develops it for a few months, and he's also working on some other stuff. And then Matt goes to him and says, look, man, we're getting too old. If this keeps going, we can't play these parts anymore.

Is there any chance you'd let it go and give back to us? And Gibson said, yeah, I'll do that. And then he probably drove to Moon Shadows and said something offensive to a cop on the way home. But that was a great moment for him. And then Kevin Smith declined. And then Ben Stower also declined. The Ben Stower Good Will Hunting movie. Kevin Smith was basically like, I'm not good enough to make this, right? Yeah.

Really? Yeah, he was like, I'm not a visually gifted actor. Yeah, Kevin says, I would ruin your movie. Yeah, he said, I wouldn't dare direct this movie. Honestly, I mean, is he wrong? Then he got him in Dogma, which is very similar. It's true. Best that guy word, it has to be the ponytail guy, Scott Winters, who ends up in Oz.

As the Geico guy's brother. Yeah. It's his real brother. Ryan O'Reilly's brother. Ryan and Cyril. Yeah. Yeah. Just an all-time that guy. Two of the great Irishmen of all time. Dion Waiters Award. I'll give you the following possibilities. Carmine. Hervé. You might remember him from Juvie. It's... It's Harmeet Kareem. Yeah. The Boston girl who made fun of Chucky's Tootsie Roll. George Plimpton.

Or the one I think is the winner. I think Cole Hauser is eligible because he doesn't have a lot of lines. Can I nominate one more person? Yeah, let's hear it. Jimmy Flynn, the judge. You hit a cough. You're going to jail. He's just doing JFK also as a judge.

What do you got, Russo? You know the Jimmy Flynn stuff, right? Yeah. So he was like a real dude. I'm fine with Jimmy Flynn. We're doing that. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like Cole knew he was dealing with three local guys and he deserves it because he didn't try to keep up with him. He just knew. And he's like, I'll make the most out of these things. And then he was named sexiest man alive 25 years later. Is that true? Yeah, because I interviewed him and I was like, do you regret getting married so soon?

Just going to hang on for two decades. Yeah, if you just rode this out until you were Rip, who knows? But he didn't want to answer that. Did you look at Rip? Did you give the second Fast and Furious a chance? Because you were like, all right, cool. Who are you talking to? Of course, I saw it in the theater. Right, but was there an extra moment of like,

I never gave up on Cole Hauser. I just never did. I always liked him. Yeah, always liked him. I would see him be like, oh, Cole Hauser. And then Yellowstone happens. That's that. Recasting couch director of City. I'd like to combine this with what role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played in Volunteer Him for Harvard Ponytail Guy? Playing him as Freddy from Talented Mr. Ripley? Oh, yeah. I just think the movie's better. Or his character from Sensible Woman. Whatever. Yeah.

You guys down with that? Can we move on? Yeah. Did this movie have a porn parody? What do you guys think? Oh, it did. Yeah. And it was called Good Will Humping. Can I suggest a better title? Good Milf Hunting. Well, that was the title. Good Will... Good Milf Hunting. Good Milf Hunting. Oh, interesting. I looked up Good Will Humping. That's almost too creative for porn, though. Yeah. Yeah.

I looked up Goodwill Humping on my Spotify computer today. Oh, Jesus. All right. I'll work it out later with them. Have FasterNet Research. Will's address you can briefly see when they go to see the other custodians. It was 357 Q Street, 3D in Southie. There you go. Okay.

Damon started writing this movie in a playwriting class in Harvard. It was a 40-page script. And then eventually Affleck developed it with him. And the rest is history. Cambridge scenes. Bow and Arrow, The Tasty, and Au Bon Pain. Those are the three. And a lot of this was sadly filmed in Toronto. The interior shots. Minnie Driver's character Skyler... Yes. Named after Damon's college girlfriend...

Who left Damon for Lars Ulrich. Yes! Metallica drummer. He's not as old as Lars Ulrich. Before filming began. Yeah.

That's a tough trade for her. Borderline Luka Doncic level type of trade. She could have bought in on Damon going up. Instead, ends up with a drummer from Metallica, one of the most dysfunctional bands of the late 90s. I did spend quite a lot of time on metal websites today from 2000, like 1998 to 2000, trying to track that relationship. It was rocky, yeah. Imagine hitting on her post Lars and Matt Damon and just being a regular guy. Yeah.

Like, who does your auto insurance? Apex Mountain. Sierra, you want to tell the audience what Apex Mountain is? Sure. It is the best something has ever been in a movie. Let's say that. Or in real life. That's not what it is. We still... 375 movies. It's when something had the most juice in its career it ever would have had. Why don't we call it Juice Mountain? That's disgusting. Yeah, that sounds terrible.

So, Damon and Affleck know. Would you go Red Line Trolleys? Has it ever been used better? Bunker Hill's my answer for like four of the categories. Bunker Hill? It's also like a haunting image. Would you go with Gus for this one? I have Gus Van Zandt. Okay. Elstree Tavern? Math? Math? This or pie? Or Beautiful Minds. Beautiful Minds? Yeah. Is that math or is that yarn? Like the history of math?

Like not the theory of relativity? Yeah, all math. No, we're not including real formulas. I'm just talking about math and a movie. I don't know. I feel like we haven't really done it. He's apparently the smartest math person in the world. Oh, we have this coming up in Picking Nits. We have some nits. No one had found out prior to this? No. No special... He never advanced in a class, nothing. Nobody noticed. Pfft.

Minnie Driver? I think so. Oscar nominated. Let me just offer up Gross Point Blank. Dynamite. As a part of the conversation. She's amazing, but not as much Juice Mountain. By the way, again, maybe Apex for accents, not just because the boss is part of it, but in this one we get... She's from London, right? Again, we've lost... I mean, I don't want to get into immigration right now, but...

We've lost so many roles to the English. Right, it's true. I thought we sorted out in the backyard over here a couple hundred years ago. But... Right over there.

She's from London, so I didn't know that at first. I was like, God, she's nailing that. Makes sense. But then she gives us a little Irish, right? She gives us a little Russian and a James Bond deal. And then, even in gross point blank, she throws a few Jamaican phrases at you. So, you know, five tool. Yeah.

Her Juice Mountain's right around here. Juice Mountain sounds like it would be opening on Newberry Street. Don't make fun of me because I am just trying to explain it. Juice. I like Juice Mountain. I have Juice Mountain clothes. Please stop saying Juice Mountain. Please. Stellan Skarsgård? He's been in a lot of stuff. Andor, yes. What about Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves?

Oh, Ronan. Dune Part 2? Hey, what would you say for Miramax for Apex Bound? Is it probably next year or Shakespeare and Love? We don't. Let's not. No, for when they had the most power in the movie. They weren't Shakespeare and Love. They weren't Best Picture. Don't get all pissy with me. We've already done a lot of Harvey, I feel like, on this pod. Shakespeare and Love is probably the most juice they have. They beat Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture. How about Howard Zinn? Yeah. Yeah.

Isn't Shallon's character in Lady Bird reading a people's history of the United States like on a car? Yeah. Which I think would be maybe higher. Cheap tracksuits? No. Sopranos. Okay. Sopranos. The Mass Pike. We get the Mass Pike the entire end credits with Elliot Smith for like four minutes. Now it's the Tulane part, but... Yeah, but what was that shot?

Like, was that the hardest shot in the entire movie? And then somebody was like, yeah, we're going to do it in the part where everybody leaves. Right. Yeah, was it like a helicopter flying low? I don't... Yeah. It was probably a truck driving behind him, right? Maybe, but I mean, if you think about the budget for this film and how simple most of it was to shoot, I had to think somebody would be like, why are we actually making the most difficult shot of the entire movie on something that no one is going to watch? My last question is for the audience. Would you go...

Boston Common, Apex Mountain for a movie? I call it the Common. I call it the Common. Did somebody just try to correct you? Well, they know what I mean. I'm sorry, guys. That's the end of the show. Thanks for coming out. Thank you, Philadelphia! But would you say or would you go with something else? I think the TV show Boston Common is Apex Boston Common, which I still can't believe wasn't picked up. Excuse me. Cruise or Hanks?

Cruz. I think Hanks would have done a good McGuire, but I think young Cruz would be a perfect... I'm sure Cruz was kicking himself. He's like, I've never thought to be a janitor who's also a genius. Where do I run? Am I fast? Yeah, they would have put a... He would have run home from Cambridge. Yeah.

Rather than T's clothes. Because I think it's really funny they went with a choice where Damon's still putting his clothes on.

On the green in Harvard? Yeah. Like his shirt is off and he couldn't put his fucking boots on. He was in such a hurry. Like, I get the walk of shame. It's like, dude, lace him up first. I know. And I know you look pretty good with your shirt off. It's a violation. Cruise would have been running. I think young Hanks could have pulled off Chucky, potentially. But I think it's Cruise. All right. The Sean Fennessey Award for a stealth homage that gives every movie nerd a criteria orgasm. What do you got, Sean? I have two runners up.

The first one is the job interview that Will sends Chucky on is for a company called Holden and McNeil, which is the name of the character that Ben Affleck plays, Holden McNeil in Chasing Amy, which was released in the same year. I got some applause. Thank you. The crowd's back on show. Yeah.

Thank you. The how do you like them apples line is actually a very subtle homage to the phrase that Jake Giddy says in Chinatown when he says that after a joke. Yeah. And then the best one is when Morgan says, I swallowed a bug in the Harvard bar scene. It's a reference to something that happens in Hearts of Darkness, the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, where during a scene,

Francis Ford Coppola is shooting Marlon Brando and he has to stop because he swallows a bug while he's performing and says to Francis Ford Coppola, I swallowed a bug. Wow. And we should have mentioned, apparently Affleck ad-libbed like half of his lines in this movie. Like they would just write, in the script it would be like,

Morgan comes downstairs and then he would come down and just have a baseball glove and make it seem like he was just jerking off into the baseball glove. They would never have any idea what he was doing. Seeing that scene again, I was like, does that move the story at all? If you're Cole Hauser, are you like, so this guy just gets all these lines? Like...

I have a nerd one for you. The dedication of the movie at the end. Like, there's no way anyone, like, it's such a young guy thing to do. Like, this goes up to Ginsburg and Burroughs. It's like the last thing at the end of the class. It's the last thing, a dedication of those guys. Yeah. And I wouldn't have noticed it because today I was like, how long does this shot go again? And then I saw that dedication. I was like, that's something we're, like, we're going to show everybody. Yeah.

All right, we're going to pick some nits. So nobody else in this MIT class could solve the math problem. It was really hard. You're not asking a bunch of math whizzes up here. So Lambo's like, I'm going to create this problem. I'm going to put it on chalkboard and make you guys all feel like shit and then try to fuck you later. That's his plan as a math teacher. That's a great point. Like, that's it? This is the guy inspiring me at MIT? Do you think anybody's checked the actual math?

Yes, you can look. There's interesting Reddit threads that are like, it's not that hard. I love that. Yeah, I could do this easily. Can we use that one? Second meeting, they go, he's like, instead of the Will and Sean, he's like, let's go for a walk. And then they go from Bunker Hill Community College all the way to the Common. That's like a 10-minute cab ride if there's traffic, maybe like 15 minutes.

So how did they get there? What did they talk about on the way? I just have a lot of questions. I know they're doing movie devices with that, but it's a lot of silence on the way there. What do you have, CR? Picking nits. Why is Will pitching at the batting cages? And if this is Boston, aren't there a bunch of guys like, get them trying to hit! Like, what are you doing over there? You know, like...

I also feel kind of in the same vein. I've never seen anyone allowed to actually just start pitching to his buddy. Yeah. And they're not even, like, working on Chucky's swing. They're, like, doing all this jerking around. Yeah, but see, I think once we saw Affleck shoot and on the way back, it was like, uh-oh. That's why they had Damon throwing. Yeah. And then they never let Affleck take a cut. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

The only other one I had was when Skyler is talking about, like, I'm a basketball player. I should be in the NBA. I feel like a guy with Will's temper would have been like, you don't know what MLK has to do to get those guys ready every night. H1 Walker and Dana Barrows. There's a lot of personalities in that locker room. You couldn't do that. What do you have, Sean? By 1997, wouldn't Will Hunting just be a hacker?

And wouldn't he be making millions of dollars hacking if he's the smartest guy in the world? Because it's like year three of when the modern internet's in shape. Yeah, we got windows. You know, yeah. We got MS-DOS. Versus like being a spy guy? Like, he's fucking broke. Right. He's living in that building. The first shot of the movie is like that old lady in the rocking chair, you know? That's a good point. It's like, you don't want to live there. Well, when they start writing the script, the internet's not even the internet yet. So maybe they didn't, they could have zagged. He could have gone to the library, you know, gotten on one of those computers. Yeah.

What do you got, Russell? Would Casey or Cole Hauser call ice on Minnie? Like, dude, she's fucking weird. Like, weird. She talks funny. Maybe if they did it now. Small nitpick. Cole Hauser's character is named Bill.

Could we have done better? Could we have gone with like a Murph? Murph is... Like a Fitzy. Right. Patrick. His last name's McBride, right? Like in terms of like, that's what it's credited as. Would you call him Billy? Would you call him Mickey then? Yeah, something. Here's my big one. So the end of the movie when Affleck has this big scene and Wilhunting's not there, the guys are going to pick him up to drive him to work. They just gave him a fucking car. Why are they picking him up? He has a car. Incredible. There's also another car there too, which...

Begs the other question, was Will Hunting a hoarder? Also, he has a car and they pull up and then Chucky's amazed that he's not there. His car's not there. You just gave him the car. That's really good.

This is why you're you. Any other nitpicks? Because I wonder when they wrote the script, they're like, okay, the end is, we're building to the end where he chases the girl, he drives to California, right? Yeah. And it's like, well, he doesn't have a car. So maybe that was like a last minute thing. Like, hey, we have to have some moment where he gets a car for his 21st birthday. But you're right, that doesn't make sense. Can I raise one more? Yeah. Why doesn't

We'll just call Skyler and be like, hey, babe, I really want to come out to California, but I got this job. I'm making $84,000 a year working for McNeil. Let me just get one paycheck and I'll fly out and meet you. Why does he have to drive? Just work for two weeks and then go see her. He really likes the car.

But as we know, he's going to get picked up by Chucky when it breaks down. I think other than the fighting, morally, they're pretty good. Because Chucky should be dealing drugs. You mentioned the hacking part of it. So maybe because he's like, I at least got to give him my two weeks. Will's like six weeks away from starting a serious Holden poker obsession anyways. Right. Yeah. Sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all black cast are untouchable. So... All black cast would be interesting. The...

What was the last Before Sunrise movie called? Before Midnight. 30 years later, would you be interested in any of these characters? Catching up with Will Hunting in his mid-50s? Yeah, for sure. So what's he doing? Well, I mean, in my version, he's still a janitor in the Midwest, and they're all looking for him. Based on what we saw from him inside that bounce castle, I feel like Bill is in UFC right now, choking guys out.

Would you want to catch up with these guys in 2025? No, because I know what's already happened to the other three, so that's not a mystery. But I just cannot express how much Will is going to hate going out in Santa Monica. Right. Is that Barney's being arranged? Yeah, he's going to be like, dude, what? You know, it's just not. Yeah, tries out Sonny McClain's once, hates it. What would you think of Manhattan Beach, though?

Oh. He'd probably like it. Yeah, I think he'd be all right there. He'd find his people, hang out with some kings. Especially in 97. I mean, granted, he's not going to have the down payment. So maybe he can get some sort of government loan, lower rate. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson, Nell, Byron Mayo, Barney Cousins, Tony Romo, Harley Mays, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Long Legs,

Or Wilfred Brimley in The Firm. What do you have, C.R.? I do like the idea of as Will and Skyler are breaking up and Chris Collinsworth's just like, oh, Mike, he's only breaking up with Skyler because of the generational trauma. It's led to self-loathing. Don Shula always told me, you gotta love yourself before you love somebody else. And then as Skyler's crying, the Fox NFL injury jazz plays.

Or we could do... How do you know I was working with Superbrain? You out here solving intermediate graph theory with an adjacency matrix? And closing on Skyler, you better stop getting in fights with Cormon Scarpaglia in public or you're going away alone. You're not following that, Sean? What if Daniel Plainview is Sean McGuire?

Was who? Dr. Sean Maguire. Oh, okay. So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the Pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? Nice. I don't have one of those. Okay.

I'm going to bring you in, though, for mine. Okay. I did want to mention Tony Romo watching the ending going, he's got to say about her, girl, Jim. He's got to say about her. Since we're in Boston, I think we have to add Felger and Maz to this. Do you want to be Felger or Maz? No, I think you know what you want to do, so I'll be Maz. I think Maz goes, I don't know why we consider him a genius for solving one math problem, Mike.

Wait, are you mad? No, and then Felger goes... You're both. I guess I'm doing both. Because I was like, man, that's a high-pitched Felger. You're going to have to go even higher? Do you want to be Felger? No, I really don't want to do anything. Just watch. I think Felger says, I mean, he got lucky. He had a chalkboard in the hallway with nobody looking. Can you do it every time, Tony? We have no idea if Will Hunting can do that. We don't know if he's an alpha dog. He can't do it, Tony. No, Felger, all right.

I just feel like they would disparage his credentials at mass somehow. Yeah, look, you know, hard markers in this town. So I just, I still think there's like, what is he capable of? Will hunting? Yeah. Yeah. We don't know. He hasn't won any playoff games. He didn't get the Eastern conference finals or the regular season math. Yeah. It's regular season math.

CR, just one Oscar. Who gets it? I'm pretty fine with Robin Williams getting the Oscar. No Damon? We're just doing one Oscar, so I'm good for Robin Williams. Fantasy? I said Damon. Elliot Smith? Great. Great shot. I got Damon. Probably unanswerable questions. Russillo, Chucky or Jim? Better Boston buddy sidekick.

If you had to pick. Oh, no. Chucky. You can't. I mean, look, Jem's more fun. Jem's more fun. Jem's like, yeah, right. Bullshit. If you had to rent a house in the Cape, would you rent it with Chucky or Jem? Chucky. Okay. I agree. CR, what happens if Affleck and Damon switch parts?

I think it would be good, but it would be nowhere near what we get. I think Damon probably has access to a little bit more of that golden boy vulnerability. Affleck is the perfect, I'm kind of happy-go-lucky, here for a good time guy. Sean? Damon is surprisingly good at playing dumb.

So maybe he could have pulled that part off? I wouldn't have thought that, but then... But can you see Affleck solving math problems in a chalkboard? He does it in The Accountant. That's true. I mean, he's basically... We've learned, yeah. He's a genius in that movie. I can see it. I don't think it's as good of a movie, but it's an interesting thought experience. It just feels weird the bigger guy's good at math. Fair. Any other unanswerables? We did a lot of them. Yeah, no, I just...

What happens if this movie is set after 04 and after the Red Sox win the series? Oh, it becomes Game 5 LCS maybe? Yeah. Yeah, because I think there's like a nitpicking thing. If he turns 21 in this movie, it's 97, whatever. So that means he is born in 76 and he's freaking out about Game 6. But the thing is, we know here, like I was zero or I was a couple months old when that game happened and I knew about that game.

Like I knew about that game in a way that I don't think people would understand how you could be conscious of this game that happened before you were born. Because, you know, at the time it was pretty much considered the greatest game in the history of baseball. So I think there have been people that have given that whole part like it doesn't match up. The time doesn't match up. It's like, well, no, you don't understand it, because if you don't grow up with that, you understand that every kid that grew up a Red Sox fan knew about that game. Even it happened years before he was born.

Yeah, and it was a weird one because we lost the series. And yet it felt like we won because of the Fisk Homer, but they lost the next game. I think I actually, when I was really little, I was like, it blew my mind when I was seven. It was like, they lost that? Yeah. Tough times. The Zawantanay Award would happen the next day. I have Chucky marries the girl who made fun of his Tootsie Roll. I think they end up together.

I think Morgan gets banned from the Fleet Center for five years for something happening in a preseason game against Toronto. And then, so, see, I had Will spends three weeks in California, punches out a Lakers fan who made a Patino joke, drives back to Boston, car breaks down in Cleveland, never seen again. So we're basically great minds. What do you have for Zuanneo? Anything? What happens the next day?

Well, no, I mean, I kind of already hit on it that I think he ends up in Springfield and Chucky comes to get him. And then, you know, Springfield, I think, is actually late 90s scarier than Southie would ever be. And those guys would overestimate their Southie upbringing. Yeah. And you're like, well, we got this. It's like Springfield's a whole. Yeah, they think it's like a 12 seed against a five or something. Right. I don't realize. Like, I know you think you're going to win. Right. Sean, Zewantaneo, anything? Skyler Dumpson for Steve Jobs.

Oh, I like it. Yeah. Comes the first lady apple. Yeah. What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie? Not the glove. Yeah. It's a not the glove. Not, you said, yeah. The painting would be interesting. Yeah, I like Robin Williams' socks jacket. It's great. Yeah, I had that too. Coach Finstock Award. We're almost done. Best life lesson. It's not your fault. But sometimes it is. This is my whole thing.

I actually think there's a lot of people walking around thinking it isn't their fault. Matt Damon picked a fight with Carmine. I mean, that was his fault. Right. He didn't have to pick that fight. Yeah, he's never run into him since he was five. Like, that was the day. I have, you could be one of the smartest people alive and still not know a damn thing about life is the message of the movie. I think bet on yourself with Damon and Affleck is kind of the bigger lesson.

from the movie, right? These guys were like, they were like, we're starring in this, we're making it, it has to be, we have to be in it, and they do it. And then don't answer yes or no if somebody asks you if you like apples, I think would be another life lesson. Just say I'm out. No thanks. Granny Smith's, but not Macintosh. What do you have for best double feature choice? I have air, just to bookend it, and plus after it gets to the end of Good Will Hunting, I don't know if you want to get super serious and watch Ordinary People or something. I have air. Fantasy? Fantasy.

I picked The Martian just for the Matt Damon being a genius canon. Oh, yeah. Priscilla. Armageddon. To give Ben a little bit more chance to shine. Yeah. I had The Town. I mean, it's then Affleck's the star. We're in Boston. We get to be in Charlestown again. Who won the movie? I have Damon, even though he doesn't get the Oscar, but Damon is the star of the movie and the writer of the movie. He's great in this. Damon. Damon.

I think it's a rare case where it has to be two people because Matt and Ben both win. Yeah, we have a rule for this is the last category who won the movie. We always say it can't be two people. I don't know how this can be not the two of them. I think it has to be, right? Especially when you go watch the Oscars speech. They fucking did it. It took them five years. They made the movie. They made it happen. They did it and they stayed. Yeah. Because you were short of them as a stock after that speech.

He'd be like, okay, well, this isn't going to work. And it works. And they've done... I mean, it's just the way people always think. And probably in a weird way, it's like, okay, cool, you got this thing, but now go away. Like, I don't want you to really have this work. Look, I don't know if... They're not complete outsiders because they had roles in other stuff. So normally, if we were just talking about a character or whatever, Robin Williams nails every single scene. But...

I just can't imagine what that feeling would be like to be in your 20s, have this idea, pursue this thing. Everybody's telling you it's not going to work. All the moments where you're convinced it's never going to work, and then you're sitting there holding an award for best original screenplay and then back it up with three decades of work. I don't know how you split it up. Yeah, Affleck was the youngest person ever to win the screenwriting Oscar. I got that right, right, Sean? You got that right. Jesus. How many games are the Red Sox going to win this year? 91. 91.

How many do they have to win before you pot about them? Oh. Gambling's legal in Massachusetts. Yeah. I have multiple Red Sox bets. I think they're going to be good, including the 90-plus win bets, which was like plus 136. I also, the NFL Overrunners came out today, which is a cover of my podcast. Pat's seven and a half, fucking over. I did that. We're not going to be four wins better? I mean, what the fuck? We're going like at least eight and nine.

They're saying Diggs' ACL is untorn now? Who's they? Who's they? His ACL is solid? His dad. Was it Dr. Sean McGuire who told you that? It's not your fault. Dr. Bill. I know, I think it's great when a receiver who's already been on like two teams in the last 12 months and is still available, and you give him $26 million guaranteed in the first year, who he seems to get along with everybody. Yeah. Can you do it any better than that? Yeah.

He's 32, turning 33. Producer Craig Krobeck, who's here, his counter, because I was saying I wasn't totally happy with the Diggs signing. He's like, you don't have a receiver, was his counter. I'm like, I had no counter to that counter. So I don't know. I'm super excited for the Pats. Oh, so Tatum, Tatum, Drake May, who's number one right now? All right. Okay. Hey, Craig.

Oh, Pritch, please. That's in episode eight of the Celtics doc. Yeah, episode 10. Thank you to Loon by Atlassian for having us. Thanks to House of Blues. It's really cool to be here. I mean, I was here when it was...

It was called Avalon, but they did a good job with this. We almost did it across the street at MGM. I kind of wish we had, but I thought it was awesome. Hey, well, because we had a lot of people that wanted tickets, so I felt bad. But thanks for having us. No, this was perfect. I like seeing the people up there. I just wish we had more people. CR? Yeah. What's next for you? Well, we're going to be at Coolidge all weekend, hanging out. Good friends. Yeah.

And heat tomorrow. TheRinger.com slash events if you want tickets. We're probably going to talk after a couple of the movies, but we're doing heat, Goodfellas. Good Will Hunting is actually Saturday night. Sean's going to be doing therapy for people for free on the street. I've been studying the McGuire method. That would be quite the meet and greet. Sit down. Russell, what's next for you? We got an Uber headed to the Squire about 15. Fantasy? Fantasy.

I'm going to drink a few more beers tonight, I think. All right. Boston, thank you for having us. Appreciate it. Thank you.