‘The Pelican Brief’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Amanda Dobbins
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I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And together we host The Big Picture, the Ringer's film podcast for new releases, career retrospectives, director interviews, movie drafts, top fives, and so much more. Twice a week, we break down the latest releases, argue about whether movies are doomed, and debate our modern film canon. Listen to The Big Picture on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Rewatchables is brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find the big picture in Jam Session with Amanda Dobbins, the big picture with Sean Fennessey. What are you up to, CR? I forgot. I'm piloting a bunch of stuff right now. I'm excited to present it to you. Oh, good. Can't wait. End of the year? Yeah. Sounds awesome. Would you say you're composing a brief? That's right. One thing CR is going to be up to, end of January, the week of January 29th,

We are hitting four cities in five days for the rewatchables cold weather tour, Chicago, DC, Philly, New York, all the details on dates, venues, times the movies we'll cover. And more importantly, how to get tickets is that the ringer.com slash events. So tickets will go on sale Tuesday. This podcast will be up. Tickets will go on sale Tuesday, 10 a.m. Eastern time. Pay attention, Chicago. That's 9 a.m. Central.

All the details are at TheRinger.com slash events. Again, rewatchables hitting the road. Chicago, D.C., Philly.

New York City. What could possibly go wrong? Four straight nights of cruising. We're doing four and five nights. We're going to put a break in between. Okay, I'm in LA, so I have to get up at 7 a.m. To get tickets? To buy tickets, yeah. January 29th through February 2nd. You can find out the movies. The Philly movie is still TBD, but we're doing The Fugitive in Chicago. We're doing Forrest Gump in D.C. And we are doing...

Rounders, the re-rounders in New York City. So we hope to see you there. We'll be disappointed if you don't come. And now we're going to talk about a movie that's way too long from 1993 that I love anyway. The Pelican Brief is next. Everyone I've told about the brief is dead. I'll take my chances. From the best-selling author of The Firm and The Client comes the suspense thriller of the year.

Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington. The Pelican Wraith, rated PG-13, starts Friday, December 17th at a theater near you. All right, Amanda, Sean, Chris, Amanda, this is one of your favorites. Why? Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, John Grisham adaptation. I was nine years old and I didn't know better. Sean? Um...

I don't know if it's one of my favorites, but it's basically one of my three or four favorite film directors of all time. Kind of...

digging into his old bag of tricks to elevate something that is maybe not even necessarily worthy of his bag of tricks. Some Alan Jay karaoke? Yeah, a little bit. And of course, like the star power that Amanda talked about. And I was, you know, 10, 11, 12 years old when Grisham took off and I was reading those novels and kind of into those novels. And at the time I was like, this guy's like the new J.D. Salinger. I was like, this is a great fucking artist. This guy can fucking write. Yeah.

these characters. You were like Franny and Zooey, Ray's hide-in-the-roof beam in the Pelican Brief. Yeah, so I was into, I really liked this era of Grisha movies, so it's a fun one. CR, one of the great book-slash-movie ideas of all time. The Pelican Brief? Which I think we've mentioned before, but here's the premise. Two Supreme Court justices with nothing in common are murdered.

So why? Oh, a 24 year old grad student who happens to be very attractive comes up with a crazy conspiracy theory. But one thing she's right. And now she's in danger. Yeah.

I can sell that in a room in 10 seconds. Yeah, you just did. I think you should have done the voiceover for the trailer. Like instead of the, the guy's like in a world, like you should be like, who says no? That was the 90th trail ever. But do you remember anticipating this? Yeah, I think that, um, you know, it's funny since it came out, I, I think I looked at this movie as probably a little bit of a less successful adaptation as the firm than the firm. Um,

But since its release and like over the decades, it's become just like a very, very, very pleasant like movie to have on. Like it is kind of to go back to the core foundation of this pod. Like the kind of thing that when it's on, you're like, I'm going to watch 20 minutes of Pelican Breeze. And I felt that just this time watching it for the pod. Two major stars.

Absolutely. At a nice point in their career. Yes. Julia is on a little 88 to 93 Mystic Pizza, Steel Magnolias, Pretty Woman, Flatliners, Engaged, leaves Kiefer Sutherland at the altar. Little Jason Patrick starts moving toward Lyle Lovett, Dying Young, Hook, two years off. A lot of rumors. Comes back with the Pelican Brief.

And reclaims her Julian-ness. Yes. But it still doesn't really totally happen for her until 97 when she grabs the crown again. This is another, she's trying things. She's trying to work her way back in. The press coverage in 93 of her return and the two years that she took off and everything before is absolutely nuts. You sent us some of it. I did. She was also on the cover of Vanity Fair.

And there's a long Q&A that is just, it's not how we cover celebrities anymore. It's confrontational? Yeah. Yeah. It's more like, prove to me you weren't a coke addict. Yeah. Right. You weren't? You sure? Do you ever see cocaine? Yeah, they don't do it that way. And she is also in 93, yeah.

just way more engaged. And there's just so much, there's so many quotes. She's feisty. And she is just also like talking at great length about anecdotes and all of this nonsense. And, you know, and she read this and she disagrees with this. And she has like lots of theories on the press coverage of her, which I, you know, she's always been very personable. That's part of her charm. But it's fascinating to read her just be like, no, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Yeah. I saw her on The View and they were like,

boy, Matthew Perry passed away and like, did you ever watch Friends? And she just like scoots right past the question. It's like not even just like, oh yeah, well I was on Friends and blah, blah, blah. It's like, yeah. She had the famous underwear episode. I know. I had the premiere magazine that I dug up where she's on the cover and it's like the Julia comeback piece written by Christopher Conley. And, um,

It's weird. She goes after the Steel Magnolias director at one point because there were all these rumors about Herbert Ross's means around the set, which she confirms and then just absolutely annihilates him and says...

He was mean and he was out of line in my opinion. I don't give a shit, but if you think he can talk about me in such a condescending way and not have me say something about it, then he's nuts. I remember him saying to me once, when this movie is over, you're going to take acting classes? And she said, why should I? Blah, blah, blah. But just like annihilates him. This stuff never, does this ever happen anymore where somebody just goes off on somebody? No, everyone's really careful. It's really funny though that her reputation is as America's sweetheart because her personality

persona is as a very flinty, defiant, strong-willed person. So even though she's so beloved, I feel like one of the reasons she's beloved is because she was willing to do things like this. She was willing to say, screw you. I'm who I am. It was a good Letterman guest. Yeah, but they're definitely, I mean, I heard the rumors in Boston and I didn't know any Hollywood people. I was like, oh yeah, Julia had to go away. That was, you know, the vestiges of the 80s. But she's like adamant, I didn't do drugs.

I think she got so white hot famous that people seem to deal with that in different ways, as we've discussed many times. At a very young age. Yeah. She was really young when she got. She was the biggest female star in the world in 1990. Yeah. From that movie. And it happened so quickly. It's like sleeping with the enemy, like isn't even out or she's filming it when she's doing pretty woman. And suddenly everything overnight just becomes like the Julia Roberts show. Yeah. She's 20 when she was cast in mystic pizza. I mean, that's crazy.

I just watched a piece of that recently, and she's great in it. It's hard to believe that it took two more years for her to become a major star because you watch that movie and it just seems like a Julia Roberts movie in the catalog now. Sean, would this have been a better movie in 1976 with Robert Redford as Grey Grantham and Jessica Lange as Darby Shaw? Does this movie make more sense in the 70s? I have a follow-up question to that, which is, is this movie better if Gordon Willis shoots it?

Should this movie have just been a 1975 movie? Is it 18 years late? I'm really, it just boils down to the script for me. Like, I think if it's a better script than yes, but it's not. And Pakula wrote the script himself. He adapted the book to me. It's not about the time that it takes place in because honestly, like,

this story is very resonant right now. Like, you can make this movie right now and you could find an interesting way. Like, our fascination with the Supreme Court and the geometry of the Supreme Court is kind of eternally interesting. So, I think you could have made it at any time.

I wouldn't want to trade away any of the big three from the Paranoia trilogy that Pakula made. I wouldn't want to put in the Pelican Brief instead of Parallax View or President's Man. It could have been the fourth one. It could have been. He could have punted on Comes a Horseman and done this instead, and that would have been interesting. But I don't know. This is a weird one because...

He didn't write a lot of scripts, Bakula, but the ones that he did write were often adaptations because I think he looked at source text and was like, I know how to do this. I know what this is in my head. It's like Chris scanning the rewatchables lineup and saying like,

Forrest Gump. I know exactly what to do there. I take KOC's stuff and I just move it into where it needs to be. The case for it existing perfectly in 1993 is what it meant to Julian Denzel. This is Denzel in the same month he has this in Philadelphia. The larger Grisham thing and it happening as the Clinton era starts and is going and this idea that...

A younger generation of idealists could fix the corrupt institutions of the world, or there is still this idea of justice that could supersede the corruption that's out there. And as we found, I don't know if that's exactly true, but we'll probably talk about that more throughout the pod. This is...

See how your energy seems low. Third pod today? Fourth? No, I'm waiting to hear where we're going to go with this. Reddit conspiracy probably changes this movie a little bit. Yeah. Yes. This movie might have created the Reddit conspiracy board. You could make a case. She does the hardcore law library, like putting it all together by hand, though.

She's doing the work. I have a lot of questions about that, though. This could be a long picking nits segment. Yeah, absolutely. And unanswerable questions also. Do you want to use this as an opportunity to entree your feelings about kind of the greater conspiracies of this country that you've been thinking about? Sure. I mean, this is stepping on my hot take a little bit. Do you want to do Vince Foster right now? Oh, you want to do Vince Foster? Sure. Now I'm back. CR is up!

No, I, you know, just at some point while we're talking about conspiracy theories, I did want to point out that it is the 60th anniversary of JFK. And I don't feel like I've gotten enough content from you on that besides what's up on Twitter. So, you know, anything you want to say. I'm biding my time. You didn't do what the doctors saw. We haven't done a pot.

Listen, who says I'm not? There's just a lot of content. When I need the content, I dive in. It is high season for you, yeah. There's been some good stuff. I've been on some text threads. There's been some conversations. Will you be declassifying any documents or...

I thought the doctor's JFK doc was pretty illuminating. Like they, all those dudes were in the hospital and were like, yeah, his back of his head was blown out and they changed the autopsy. I don't know. I'm going to take that seriously. How does that fit with the four bullets theory, which is your, are you still, I think there were four bullets. Do you know, I listened to the JFK rewatch bowls like once a year when I need some comfort. That's like,

if I had to like distill what I love about the three of you and how weird you are, it is like JFK rewatchable. Is Sean refusing to hear the truth? Yeah, Sean is just like, I'm not prepared for this. And you're just like, I think LBJ knew something. And you're just like, he knew. Maybe it wasn't him, but he knew. You're just like throwing in the CIA or whatever. It's really, it's very special. Let's see. I definitely was about to say that.

One thing I learned this last time that I didn't, wasn't in my research was that there were military people that were there, people who had fought in wars. And when they heard all the shots, they heard them from different places. Cause when you're fighting in battles, you're trained to kind of think, oh, that's coming that way. That's behind me. And as they were there, they were, they were like, some shots are to the left. Some shots are to the right. Okay. I thought that was telling. You and I did the work. We went to the book depository. We did.

Was it you who did it? Did you pull the trigger? No, we're just investigating. We're doing our own research. Back to this movie. This was the big Denzel A-plus lister breakout month. He is this in Philadelphia. He is acting with the two biggest white actors in the world at that point, Tom Hanks and

And I think Hanks had grabbed the belt from Cruz at that point. Maybe Costner's in there too. He's somewhere in there. Julia is the biggest female star we had. Yeah. And he just bangs both of them at the same time. And then from that point on, it's Denzel season tickets, which starts the year before Malcolm X. I was trying to figure out whether or not for Denzel and Julia, Julia here, like other times that the two biggest stars of male and female star were paired together.

And like, especially for this one, which we'll probably get to, is to not have a romantic plot line be a part of that. It's pretty wild. But it doesn't happen very often in Hollywood. You'd think they would effort to make that more and more common. A lot of research on this, which will, I don't know when you want to go to it. We're doing a podcast. Let's go, man. Go ahead. You're in charge. Well. I already got my JFK stuff, so. One thing, there's an urban legend that the studio squashed the interracial romance.

which is not true in the research. Yeah, it's like easily debunked. Julia was in the novel, they're both white. They cast Denzel because she pushes hard for Denzel. And then she was up for, let's keep the novel. And Denzel was the one who squashed it. And he was like,

I just don't feel like the audiences want that. But he was really, as it came out later, he later admitted his core audience, a big piece of it was black women. And they, and he was worried that they would be upset if he hooked up with Julie Roberts in a movie. And two years later, same thing with virtuosity, same thing with Kelly Lynch, cut it out. It was just like, he was almost like a political candidate. I know what my base is. This is bad for my base. And he was the one that squashed it. But I had thought for 30 years that the studio squashed it.

Yeah. Studios did other stuff. Like they squashed Eddie Murphy and Golden Child. They cut that out. Beverly Hills Cop, they said no love scene for Eddie. Really? Yeah. So there was a couple, but in this one, it was Denzel who did it. Do you think that the movie suffers because of that? I mean, it's 141 minutes. They probably could have thrown in a three minute cut.

Something? What do you think, Sean? He's keeping his powder dry for Mila Jovovich and he got game. If I'm going to kiss a white woman on screen, it's going to be a prostitute in this film. Well, that's when he changed. I don't think that there's a really good case for them

up in the movie except that we just want to see it. Yeah. I mean, like, of course you want to see like two of the most beautiful and charismatic people alive get together. But in the mechanics of the story, I actually, especially at the end, I really like that it's like a partnership and a friendship that concludes the movie. It feels like a more fitting ending. What do you, what do you think? I,

Journalistically, it would be unethical, you know, just on a basic journalist source. You should still be mourning Tom. Plus, this is the span of two weeks, and we don't need to get too far into my rules of mourning. How long will you be giving it? When Zach is destroyed by a car bomb. Zach's a great guy. I would be upset if two weeks later you were like that. Listen, okay, since we're there, let's get on the record now. Two weeks would be too short. Two weeks is tight.

you know, plus they also are solving like a conspiracy. So like that a ton of times. But they're just thrown together in these incredibly intimate situations. The cabin, the rain, you know. The camera really lingers both in that hotel room. What's that one scene where their heads are in the room and they're touching each other but not really? Right. And they're just like

Like pouring over Liz. You know, it's sort of unavoidable. And then that last scene, I agree with you, Sean, that like you want them to come together as partners, except it's like scored as like a romance for the ages, you know? And she like runs back and it's like a classic movie. Ooh, they're going to kiss. I would have been fine with one kiss, you know, just to acknowledge. Can I do my David Spade voice for that? I liked that ending the first time I saw it. When it was called The Bodyguard.

They totally ripped it off. It was like a year before. But it still got me. It was good. Yeah. I think Denzel's character should have been married and that would have solved it. Here's why they don't get together. Have the two scenes with him and his kids and...

The fact that he's single and she's single makes it seem like it's going to happen. Listen, the movie's already 141 minutes and you don't want the sissy space act JFK. Where are you going in the middle of the night? This weird guy keeps calling me on the phone. I'm kind of into single Denzel. I like that house. If we're adding more minutes to the movie, you want more Tucci disguises. I see. I would have turned into the spin and had Denzel have a white wife.

Like Ashley Judd and then he's cheating on her with, you know. Interesting how you had Ashley Judd right at your fingertips there. Someone you thought of. Also, why is 40-year-old Denzel Washington, who's a successful newspaper reporter, single in this movie? That's weird. And he does seem a little older than her, but I don't, would say in real life, probably like 10, 12 years older.

I think he's in his late 60s and she's in her late 50s. Because Moe Better Blues was on TV the other day. It's unreal. That movie's amazing. We got to do that in the rewatch world. But he looks so young and skinny in that movie. And it's only three years before this. It's like he ages 10 years in the three years. He seems like a 39-year-old guy. He's like a real sex symbol in that movie. He really is. And as he's making decisions in his career, you can see that he's like, I'm the guy in the suit.

Like you mentioned, it could have been Robert Redford in this movie in the 70s. He's like, I'm the guy who's in charge. Like in Philadelphia, I'm in the suit. In this movie, I'm in the suit. Even in Virtuosity, I'm in the suit. So...

I think that that's like a very conscious choice for him to kind of like age up a little bit. Yeah. Bernstein and Woodward aren't dating in All the President's Men. They're not dating each other? Well, no. I mean, they're not dating each other, but they don't... No. Carl is a stick man, but I don't know what's going on. Yeah, right. He's hitting on... Legendary stick man, Carl Bernstein. And banging out cancer sticks, too. Just sticks everywhere. Yeah.

He's just smoking in the elevator. This just sets off 30 years and counting of Denzel, though, this month. Yeah. We are 30 years removed. This movie came out 30 years ago, and he's still in A-plus list of leading movies and throwing them on posters. Amazing run. He's the man.

Cruz is like, I made another Mission Impossible. Just step back from the ledge, honestly. Mission Impossible 11? Did you see Mission Impossible? You're pitting us away. I refused. What? It was pretty good. Really weird movie watching year from year. This is loser behavior. This is absolutely ridiculous. I just wasn't in the mood yet. I'm going to watch it at some point. I'm appalled. I'm going to watch it. Are you trying to denigrate Cruz, who's basically the patron saint of this podcast? Cruz is my favorite actor. I haven't gotten around to it yet. It's a 30-year drought for him. I don't do movie karaoke.

What does that mean? It's like the ninth Mission Impossible. You've done Rocky III on this pod. What are you talking about? It's just not there yet. I haven't been ready. It's been a busy year. Football, basketball, a lot of content. I think you should watch it. It's a good movie. I'll get there. I'm saving it. The Pelican Brief Theory goes like this.

Oil tycoon Victor Matisse. No relation to Victor Matisse. Wasn't that the guy's name in Beverly Hills Cop? That's right. That's weird. He's exploiting the oil found beneath Louisiana marshland. It's a habitat for endangered subspecies of brown pelicans. And there's a court appeal that denies him the drilling rights. And our girl Darby believes that.

She attacks it really smart. She says, all right, why these two judges? Yes. What do they have in common? What do they rule for? Oh, they're both pro-environment. Hmm. Deep dives. Somehow does this without the internet during the LexisNexis era when...

I was in grad school for this era. You literally couldn't find anything. No. You couldn't even find out who George Washington was. It took two hours. If it wasn't on the back of a baseball card, I didn't know. Yeah, it was... I just didn't know it. You're just in a library and just... What was that modem noise? Yeah. That was the worst. But she somehow figures this out. And it's a pretty good premise. It's one of those movies that makes you wonder, like...

Couldn't somebody do this now? It's almost like it's too close to home. Couldn't somebody be like, I'm going to take out two justices because I want to flip some law or some rule? Okay. Could someone pull off this plot? Not could someone write the Pelican Brief? No, could someone actually do this in real life? Literally anyone could write the Pelican Brief. The Pelican Brief feels inevitable now. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Supreme Court assassination plot, I mean, you know, we don't have to get into the Supreme Court right now too much, but the last five years, there's been just like

this incredible chess game of strategy around, you know, elections and positioning. When people are going to retire. Yeah, when people should have retired or should they not have retired. Or, you know, I remember when Scalia died, there was like, it was in a place that was kind of odd and people were like, is there a conspiracy correlated to his death? Like, so all of, that's what I meant earlier when I was like, all of this really still resonates. There's also been like a couple of incidents in the last couple of years of like Supreme Court justices where they like find some guy down the street from his house or like, can

Like, because Avanor or something like that, like there's definitely been like a heightened sort of pressure put on them. Absolutely. Grisham had some good ideas. Yeah. Great premises. Yeah. I was just talking about how like they stopped making Grisham movies with Runaway Jury, but he wrote like 15, 20 more books or whatever. Yeah. And it's like, but we do 45 Marvel movies. Like we keep pumping those out, but nobody's like, you know what? We got to do a newer Grisham. How come? I don't know.

Also an underrated, unbelievable name creator for characters. Mitch McDeer, Darby Shaw. Just like really good stuff. Like AI couldn't spit out better combination names. You don't think AI could come up with Mitch McDeer? No. Okay. It's too good. I think you underestimate AI. Great random. Because he hasn't seen Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning. That's true. The FBI's Gavin Verheek. Yeah, that one was good.

I always enjoyed, do you remember what Susan Sarandon's character's name was in The Client? What? Reggie Love. Oh, that's right. Incredible stuff. He was the goat. This movie cast includes... He's alive, by the way. Yeah, he is. This movie cast includes the future president, Tony Goldman. Yeah. Robert Culp is the president. Can't wait to talk about him later. Our guy, Tucci, as Camille, the assassin. Yeah. When did Tucci know? Yeah.

Where's he ranked for you? As an actor? As an assassin. Yeah. He's been in a few of your favorites. Tucci is very important to me. Miranda will pay me back. She always does. I mean, incredible. Wonderful. And Julie versus Julia, the Nora Ephron film as Julia Child's husband.

This is, I think this is probably the first time that I encountered Stanley Tucci. Villain Tucci. Yeah, Villain Tucci. I mean, I wouldn't say that this character or how he's portrayed in the media has aged the best out of all of the things in the movie. But, you know, what are you going to do? How he's portrayed in the media in the movie? In the movie. Yeah, you know. Where's Camille from? That's the thing. They just say the Middle Eastern terrorist. It's not great. I have a guess.

Okay. Is it the Middle East of Sicily? I think he's supposed to be like French Algerian. Okay. Okay. This starts a great Tucci run. Is this before Big Night or after? Before. Because then he's in the Caruso Nick Cage movie. Plays one of the evil cops. It could happen to you. No. Oh, no. Kiss of Death. Kiss of Death. I'm thinking of the other Nick Cage movie. A lot of people don't know this, but Kiss of Death is going to be the last rewatch. I love that movie.

30th anniversary, we're done. 2020. You get the call from Daniel Ek. Time to wrap it up, BS. I see you need Kiss of Death. Congratulations. This is your final episode. You have to stop making these jokes because when you did Goodfellas, I got really stressed out. And I was like, is Bill okay? What's going on? Do you think Daniel Ek would do Kiss of Death rewatchables with us? I think he would do Warrior. He's a big MMA guy. Wow. People know when it's almost famous and...

What's the other one we haven't done? Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction. Those are the last two. And be like, we might see you next week. And then the feed just does. I'd say there's roughly somewhere between like 125,000 good films we could do. Yeah. Fair. John Lithgow's in this movie for some reason. Hugh Cronin. Yep. Anthony Heald. Yeah. We'll get to him later. Miranda from Sex and the City. Sure is. James Sicking. Yeah. Hill Street Blues. And then Sam Shepard.

Absolutely. Are we doing it now? We're not going to do it yet. Okay. All right. But Sean's guy, AJP, the last movie he wrote and directed, we've done all the president's men on here. I can't believe we haven't done starting over yet because that's like the last great Boston movie. We haven't done Presumed Innocent yet. Really good career. Do the nerd out for like a minute.

Long Island legend, Alan Jay Pakula, started out working as a producer for Robert Mulligan, who directed a bunch of movies in the 50s and 60s, most memorably To Kill a Mockingbird. Heard of it. And learned basically how to become a film director and a writer and a producer and matured at the perfect time, like in the early 70s when directors were empowered more. And so he's responsible for basically the signature paranoid thrillers of that era. Yeah.

Clute and Parallax View and All the President's Men are considered like the Trinity. Obviously, like Three Days of the Condor, the conversation are also in that conversation too. But kind of like the world's greatest craftsman. Great taste in collaborators. Chris mentioned Gordon Willis earlier who shot a lot of his movies. Really good with movie stars too. Really good at putting movie stars in exciting positions and thrilling movies. They say that about Chris too. It's true.

All about shadow, all about tension, all about good pace. So just a truly great filmmaker. Kind of similar career trajectory somewhat to Sidney Pollack, who directed Three Days of the Condor, where they transitioned from like the 70s kind of

very paranoid, conspiracy-minded thrillers into the more big screen, huge Hollywood star 80s stuff and into the 90s, yeah. Does he have a movie where he wears suspenders and stands over a dead prostitute? Yeah, I'll share that with you offline. Okay, thanks. Pox, like, hold my beer. Yeah, this is, I'm going to say a little meandering. This movie. Yeah. I think the 1970s,

Alan Jay would have made it. Well, okay. So I, I wonder whether or not that has a little bit to do with Grisham's hold on like the American reading public and the potential of them being like, you know, the, the audience for these movies is like this guy, like,

These books were being read by like one out of every three people in the country. And you have to imagine that the investment they would have that they were like, okay, I want all the stuff from the book and the movie. And they're pretty plot based. They're pretty, they're pretty propulsive, but the, the firm's really long too. You know, like the, I think a lot of his, the adaptations of his books are not 90 minutes long. We talked about it when we did the firm podcast and me being disappointed when I went to the theater for that. Cause the book was so good.

But it was just because I had read the book and I knew it was going to happen. And it almost like it took a couple of years. This one's different. I don't think it's as rewatchable as The Firm is, but I think it's fascinating for all these different reasons that makes it fun to rewatch. Not like The Firm has like just like the Brimley part. Yeah. All the stuff that we hit and the music's really good and it's really it. And Hackman just like this really crazy Hackman performance. Right. And then Cruise at the height of Cruise and

It's more... The firm is more fun. Totally. This is kind of a sad and elusive movie. You know, it's like the man she's infatuated with dies early on in the film. And also, we don't really know...

who the bad guy is ultimately in this movie. And then even when we find out, we're kind of like, okay. Like, it's not actually that exciting. I had that in, uh, nitpicks. Would we be better off knowing that guy in the movie? If Matisse is in the movie. Matisse has, like, three scenes. It's, it's odd. I think it's cool because you get so much Oval Office stuff to have the

president be the avatar of the evil plot yeah but you could make the argument that that Matisse would have been a more effective like heavy in the movie yeah 45 million dollar budget made 193 that's a lot pretty good that doesn't quite qualified for that made how much money I actually thought it was gonna make more yeah Ebert three stars

He wrote,

a good director can create the illusion of meaning even when nothing's there. Ebert, not a huge Grisham guy. Yeah. No. Not a lot of plot for him. But that's the thing. These movies are really... The books are really plotty. And so it feels like all of the adaptations of the books are long because they're trying to just get all of the beats of the story into the movie. But in this one, it feels like from minute like 85 to 122, you're like...

Why are we taking so long to get on with it? The long passage where they're trying to figure out who Curtis Morgan is is interminable. It's almost like that happens too late in the movie because you're like, this can't possibly be the climax of the film. And yet, it sounds like we're down in the movie, but we all really like it. It's fun. It just makes some weird choices. It's serving this great dinner, but then you're like...

Wait a second, why do we have sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes? That's weird. Right. It's just like four of those choices. It's a great metaphor. So many pies. Yeah. Why didn't we just pick two pies? Why do we have seven? But also you like all the pies. Yeah, it's like, all right, I'll try the pies. I think a lot of it is like, it is like 70s karaoke, right? And it like reminds you of all the present men. It even goes for the Washington Post. Exactly. It's like Lithgow's in it because he wants like an Oscar for playing Ben Bradley part two. Yeah.

We all know it's not, it's obviously not as good, but I still like it. I left a lot of meat on the bone. Let's take a break and we'll do a most rewatchable scene. This episode is supported by State Farm. Think about your first reaction after you have an accident. What do you do? You scream, oh no, or man, why did this happen? On the flip side, let's say you buy a new car or you lease a new car. Get in there and it smells great. And you're like, man, this is awesome.

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First rewatchable scene, we get the two judge murders, which happen at a nursing home and a gay movie theater. And this is, we're in peak gay movie theater as a plot device because we also have it in Philadelphia the same month. Is that a nursing home? Or is that his home at live-in? I think that's his home at a live-in nurse. Oh, you're right. I guess it's... That'd be pretty funny if a Supreme Court judge was just also at a nursing home. Yeah, nursing home is the wrong... He's like, oh, I gotta get back for dinner. So you wrap up this appeal. Yeah.

It's mac and cheese tonight. Tucci sitting behind the guy is great, though. Yeah. In the theater. Yeah. It's good stuff. He's got the popcorn, and then you see a rope. You're like, oh, this isn't going to go away. Should we start talking? Can we talk about his costumes as we go? We're not there yet. Okay. Oh, okay. You're like the Pakula of directing this pod. It's all that light and shadow. Julia piecing together the Pelican brief. I studied a printout of the Supreme Court docket. I even made a list of possible suspects.

And then threw it in the garbage because they'd be obvious to everyone. And then you look for areas that Jensen and Rosenberg might have in common? Exactly. Jensen was generally consistent in his protection of the rights of criminal defendants. Some notable exception. He's written three majority opinions, strongly protective of the environment, and he was near perfect in his support of tax protesters. Ah, so you think they might have been assassinated by some insatiable tax collector. Well, as yet I rule no one out.

Everyone is assuming that the motive is hatred or revenge. Or an attempt to influence the social agenda of the court. What if the issue involved old-fashioned material greed? A case that involves a great deal of money. I have as the next one, she throws the theory at Sam. Her boyfriend, Sam Shepard, her professor. Yes. Hold that one. Does a little library research. Could see Julie in a library. Yeah. Can I take out of that?

one of my great fantasies when will Julius get into a library than Julia Roberts asking to see publicly available information are you familiar with the Freedom of Information Act so good yeah next one Sam's car blows up right after he says Miss Shaw you take my breath away which I have for best quote of this movie and then Julia does a yeah you look just like her just now thank you I have John Heard gets killed right into Tucci trying to kill Darby

And a great shot, Gordo nominee, Chris, for most cinematic shot. The camera staying on the mirror on the hotel closet and then the closet slightly moves. As Kamala comes in, yeah. Good stuff. You also enjoy the shot right after that where John Hurt admires his torso in the mirror, right? I actually, the wallpaper in my bedroom is just Stanley Tucci with a popcorn box over his crotch. Yeah.

John Hurd's really kind of cooking in that scene. Oh, yeah. This is also a great time for John Hurd coming in for five minutes of a movie and being really in the line of fire as the model car guy. Great John Hurd run here. Julia meets Denzel. In NYC. Yeah. You must think I'm crazy. Yes, I did. Until I checked New Orleans. Callahan was killed exactly as you said. I also checked on Verheek, according to the FBI.

They found his body the day before yesterday in a hotel room very early in the morning. They said he'd been dead for at least eight hours. I can't be. You want to talk about the brief? Everyone I've told about the brief is dead. I'll take my chances.

Powerful stuff. How do we feel about Julie's acting in the middle part of this movie? When she's just really quiet and scared. I would like to. And adjusting her. Want to save that? We don't have to save it. No, let's save it. Ready to comment when you guys need it. It's a great usage of, you know, when she's in there, she gets back to the first hotel room and has to like address her 90s rap dress with the buttons and it's shaking. It's just, that's a, it's great period detail. I have the Lithgow Denzel reunion. From Ricochet, yeah.

Yes. They're back, baby. Okay. First time they meet, it's like, oh, in the last time I saw you guys together, you were intentionally giving him VD and trying to murder him. Now you guys are collaborating on a story. This is kind of the editor-writer version of giving you VD, though. Their relationship is fucking stupid. It's brutal. But we also get a Pakula Washington Post newsroom reunion, even though it's not the Washington Post, but it is. Get him back there.

I have four more. Goldman tells the president in the limo that the Pelican Pref won't die. That's good. Yeah. And does the Mr. President. You don't want to know. Oh, yeah. I always love when anybody who works for the president says that. Darby goes to get the security deposit box with the parking garage chase. The president finds out Goldman in the camera room. It's like a weirdly good shot because you think he's going to kill himself, but he doesn't. He's just watching. And then the farewell hug with the Denzel interview with little Edmund Newman. Yeah.

Gray, the ripple effects of your story just don't seem to stop. As of this broadcast, Victor Matisse, one of the richest men in the country, has been indicted, along with four of his aides and lawyers. Fletcher Cole, president's chief of staff, has resigned. And we're getting strong indications that the president himself will not even run again. Well, that's what we do know. Let's get to what we don't.

We know that the Pelican Brief was written by a woman named Darby Shaw, but we don't know who that is. Who is Darby Shaw? I think that's a question for Darby Shaw. All right, that leads me to my second question. Speaking for thousands of our colleagues who are in a feeding frenzy to interview her,

Where is Darby Shaw? I think that also is a question for Darby Shaw, but I know that she's not available to answer questions as long as this feeding frenzy continues. Does that mean you don't know where she is? I didn't say that. Then you do know. Anything else? What'd I miss? I like this sit down with Boyles at the end.

When it's just like, and it's Julia and Denzel across the table, just because it's like, that to me is the most victorious moment of the whole thing. So you're the little lady who started this whole brouhaha. Yeah, exactly. I feel like that's not the first time that line was said in a movie. It's a deep Abe Lincoln cut, yeah. Yeah.

That's what he said to Harry Beecher Stowe. Yeah. Right? What do you have for most rewatchable CR? I like the Riverwalk assassination and the whole thing with him pulling out the gun. And this is also something that you could nitpick, but I thought it was a great crowd scene. I love everybody scattering once the body hits the floor. Yeah. I like John Heard and that combo. I think that's my favorite part of it. And since you're kind of in the dark about her being protected at that point...

it's really like what the hell is going on? Like who killed him? And you're in the dark, even if you've seen the movie five times, but we'll get to that later. What's your favorite shot?

I think the most 90s scene in the movie is the one I enjoy the most, which is when she's in class and being taught by Sam Shepard. Oh, they don't do those in the movie anymore. And he's like pitching some questions to the class and they're answering. I think that scene's really fun. Now she's just like, you're triggering me. Definitely. Why are you singling me out? Why don't we just burn this book?

What do you have? Can I do all the Sam Shepard scenes together as a group? You can, because that takes us right into what's aged the best. Yeah. Sam Shepard, just be in more movies. Yeah. What were you doing? He works pretty steadily. He was funding his thriving play. I get it. He was one of the great playwrights. I get it. Just sneak some more movies in there, Sam. Do you think that is this Amanda Dobbins' smoke show of the week? Is Sam Shepard? Absolutely. It's so... Am I allowed to do this now?

Yeah, we can do it now. It's fine. No, we don't. I can save it. No, it's fine. We can do it. So this plus baby boom just operates like a really specific late 80s, early 90s, like ideal. Like this is the true American man. You guys can have your cowboys and I have Sam Shepard. Just kind of not in a big city, just alone. He's seen some things. He's lived some life.

He's a little weathered, incredibly handsome, and only has eyes for me. It's very special. My wife felt exactly the same. All women love Sam Shepard. I think that's one of the rules in life. And I had this later for unanswerable questions, but he really probably could have been one of the biggest stars in the world. Like he could have been Brad Pitt if he's just like, I'm going to act.

I mean, but he was an avant-garde artist. I get it. You know, like he was... Also eclectic taste in the ladies. Patti Smith. Mm-hmm. Joni Mitchell. Jessica Lange. He was married to Jessica Lange for a long time. Ever. Pretty complicated guy. Seems like it. A very tortured person. Yeah. An incredible artist. Like a great actor. One of the great heads of hair in the last hundred years. Yeah. But I mean...

You can, you can like hand wave the playwriting, but I mean, there were like five of the signature American plays, you know? And then he wrote Paris, Texas, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's turned out great for him. Yeah. But there's this other path. He had a lot of demons and I think that probably helped, probably prevented him from being like a classical leading man. Yeah. It's like when you watch the right stuff,

And you're watching him, you're like, exactly what you're thinking. You're like, how is this guy not like the biggest movie star in the world after watching him play Chuck Yeager? You know who's psyched that he decided to write plays? Tom Hanks, Kevin Costner, all the people that he would have been competing against for roles in the late 80s, early 90s. Yeah. He couldn't have been in Sleepers in Seattle. Yeah, but... Same Shepard as the widow in Sleepers in Seattle. Wow. Wow.

He could do it. It would be a darker movie. Because to Sean's point, there are demons, and that's part of the appeal. You think you'll be the one to fix it. But he would be wonderful in Sleepless in Seattle. You trying to fix Sam Shepard after Jessica Lange could not is a movie I would watch. I can fix him. Being a woman is hard. These are the goals we set for ourselves. I admire your fortitude. Thank you so much. What's your favorite Sam Shepard movie? Red Stuff?

I think that's his coolest part. Yeah. I think he did a good job at the latter stages of his career of playing the kind of grizzle. He's really good in Mud. Yeah. You know that movie, the Matthew McConaughey movie? Yeah, he's awesome in Mud. He's in a lot of good movies like that too. But I think that's your favorite, right? Chuck Yeager? Chuck and Days of Heaven. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good too. Days of Heaven rewatchables coming soon? Probably not. What saves the best?

What's the best? Murderers who change their appearances during the movie. Say no more. A fucking BS favorite. Do you think that Kamau came, knew he was going to get the guy in a gay movie theater, a gay porn movie theater, and had an outfit planned for that? Or was that... Where did he put his gun? We didn't have a gun.

What are you talking about? When he comes up? Well, I'm sure he'd get a gun in the United States. That probably isn't a problem. The first murder, then he's a jogger. So he must have dumped the gun. Yeah, he dumps the gun. But when he gets the other justice in the theater, it's just such a great, like, I'm going to a porn movie outfit. And I just wondered whether or not that was something he planned in advance or something that he improvised on the scene. Well, it seems like he doesn't.

learn about his targets until he takes the motor, you know, the motorboat in and arrives at the hotel and gets the picture with just the two circles. What aged the best for me is the whole looking for Mr. Sneller routine, which is how I'm going to start communicating with Sean. Where I just slip an envelope under his door. That's fine. Let's do that for 2024. Wait, but here's my other Tucci question. And Tucci apparel question. Yeah. So, he's wearing the toupee. Yeah.

Yeah. When he's jogging. Right. For when he kills Rosenberg. He'd get adhesive tape for that. Right. But then he removes it for the gay club. Yeah. But then it's back when he goes to Dulles. And it appears to be the same toupee. Put it in his pants? I mean, just what's the storage? Yeah. What's the plan? Don't know. Or maybe it had multiple toupees. Sean, you can have...

One of these three jogging to Chi hotel businessman to cheer gay movie theater to Chi just as a look for like six months What about house to throw in dad bod to Chi when he gets that? Yeah, I don't want the ladder because I'm a little close to that right now. Uh, I think jogging The spirited night jog movie theory. You have to look at me Also disguises for what saves the best Julia

She breaks out the pigtails and the sunglasses. Super cute. She breaks out the pretty woman wig from the 20-minute mark. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't overlook the Knicks hat, for Christ's sake. She brings out the Knicks hat. One of the most iconic hats from the 1990s. I like when Julie's on the run and wearing disguises. And she's repping for Anthony Mason and Charles Oakley. The river walk, the pigtails, and the...

That like could be like an Instagram, like any Instagram ad that is so on trend right now. Oh my God. My daughter's literally worn that. The fanny pack tails? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the fanny pack and the- Thick pigtails are in. The button, oversized button down, button up to the collar. It's really good. Yeah. I mean, her number one look of all time was the brown dress and the polo scene in Pretty Woman. Yes, of course. Which might be the best anyone's ever looked in the history of mankind. But the pigtails are strong.

The whole, all of the looks are back, which just happens when you do a 90s movie. What's aged the best? Professors having affairs with their students. Oh, wait, no. But great Shepard-Julia chemistry in this. It's also acknowledged by Verheek that Callahan does this quite a bit. He's like, how old is she this time? You know, like.

I love when they work that into a movie. Another leading lady here, huh? Very mature. Yeah. Yeah. More what's aged best. Tony Goldwyn playing a scumbag. Yeah. Really good. He always gave great scumbag. Yeah. I mean, Ghost, nobody's better as a scumbag. Newspapers?

And age the best? And the worst, but age the best. Okay. Just the newspapers are cool? Fun to have a movie centered around newspapers. It's the best. Newspapers breaking stories. Yeah. One of my favorite genres. We had a couple around this time. It was in the paper right around here, right? Yeah. What do you got, C.R.? I like, I think what's age the best is having a secret room where you film your boss. Dun, dun, dun. The hell?

I think New Orleans as a filming location is just awesome. Good call, CR. That's why you're here. Telling the cab that you jump in to follow another cab. Oh, god damn. That's a great one. That's fucking awesome. I want to do that, but it's just all ride share now. But wouldn't it be great if you and I just one day, like, you get in a cab at the Omni Hotel and I'm like, follow that cab! Yeah. What is the percentage of time in real life that the other cab...

would actually follow the cab we can't know until we try like it's maybe 20% right I think if you're like there's another hundred in this for you if we yeah you gotta bribe the guy yeah let's all go to LAX together we'll all get four separate cabs and we'll try to chase each other around what do you think that's fine it probably works better in New York City but I'm down for the that would actually be good YouTube content for the rewatchables is to see if anybody would be like yeah absolutely I'll follow that cab okay

More would say it's the best. Don't die in a fiery crash. If the White House looked familiar, that's because it was. They used it in Dave. Yeah, that's right. One of the great movies of all time. Incredible. Darby Shaw and Greg Grantham, I wrote.

Jack Horner voice. Those are great names. And then Roger Ebert, drive-by shooting of John Grisham. He writes in that review, John Grisham, current king of bestsellers list, bestseller list is also taken seriously in some quarters, but I'm not sure why.

His plots are no better or worse than average, and his characters are at their service. His novels exist to be filmed. His next, for example, has been sold to the movies before being written. Ebert. Well, didn't he write this for Julia? Like, he wrote Darby thinking of Julia Roberts. That's what he said. Yeah, that is what he said. Although that's convenient that they make the film star Julia Roberts. Anything else for you? What's said your best? I like the hallowed director's late career comeback. Because...

Pakula was like down in the 80s. Like, I would be surprised if... It's like Sophie's Choice and then three movies I haven't heard of. You've never heard of. Yeah. Like Orphans and Roll Over and all these movies that nobody's seen. He did Dream Lover. Dream Lover. And then... Even I didn't like Dream Lover. Like a bat out of hell presumed innocent, this the devil's own consenting adults. Four movies that people were like, I'll go see that movie. And, you know, he was like in his 60s, 70s and made a great comeback. Yeah.

And I'm reminded everybody what a great filmmaker he was. You guys always do the like director who's been the best director working in each decade, you know, and like whether somebody can have multiple decades. But you could make the argument that he's the best thrillers director in the 70s and the 90s. Yeah. You could make the argument. I would take Tony Scott over him in the 90s probably. But yeah. I mean, there's a case.

Anything for what's aged the best? Self-publishing conspiracy theorists. Oh. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah, I mean. Good one. Also jogging. I mean, like, you know, two-sheet looks obviously complicated, but it's a great outfit, as Sean mentioned. Denzel's jogging outfit's awesome. And then Denzel's jogging also. I guess those short jogging shorts. Men wearing shorter shorts. There we go. I got to it. See, it's back. It is back, but I think everyone should. Cooper Flagg, very short shorts. Yeah.

I have a hot Denzel take I was going to do later. Not a great jogger in movies. Good athlete. He seems like he wants to show us that he knows how to jog. He has a very front of the feet kind of high hop run. And it's not cool. But do you think he's sending subliminals at crews like this is how you run? He runs to me like a guy with bad knees.

I think he runs like a guy who isn't planning on running for very long. He just is running for as long as the take is. But I think he jogs in this. I think he jogs in Crimson Tide. I don't like his jogging.

He jogs on the submarine? Bad jogger. Don't they jog on the submarine to like get exercise and stuff? You would know better than I. I'm pretty sure he jogs in that movie. Can he jog and remember the Titans? He might jog in there. There you go. On a scale of one to Robert Patrick in Terminator 2. Robert Patrick is the best runner of all time. That's running, yeah. He's the best. It's him and when you watch those old clips of sprinters from like the 1920s and 30s. Okay. And Robert Patrick. He has this, right? He has like

He's also made of liquid in that. I was watching Terminator 2 two weeks ago. He's chasing a car that's going like 35 miles an hour. It's completely believable. Yeah. I totally believed it. So what age the worst is Denzel's jogging? No, I just, I don't like his jogging. Okay. I love Denzel. He's one of my favorite actors of all time. Just not a great jogger. Pretty good jump shot. Good athlete. Good movie athlete.

Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness Award for Best Needle Drop. Doesn't really exist in this movie. Big Kahuna Burger Award for Best Use of Food Drink. Kamal's Popcorn. Oh. Yeah. Great. I was going to say the chocolate that he eats. Oh, that's good. After killing Gavin. That's right. I like it. Den of Thieves, Benny Hiner Award, scene, still in location, New Orleans. I was going to Riverwalk or on the podium, Mount Vernon, which I've never actually been to. I've been. Quite beautiful.

It's been kind of a, it's more of like a theme park now that appears to be in the film. There's a lot of stuff going on at Mount Vernon these days. Do you think Russo has been to Mount Vernon? He must have, right? It's probably his Christmas vacation. Ten days at Mount Vernon, solo. I will listen to every minute. Went to Mount Vernon. A lot of people say don't go there for vacation. I did. Runtime, two and a half hours.

People say it's not a great place to go out, but I beg to differ. They've got a kids club. She's a little kid there. We talked about Washington. Big BCS guy. The Vincent Chase Award for are we sure this character was actually good at his job? It has to be Tony Goldman as the chief of staff, right?

So what's your plan to swing the Supreme Court? We're going to actually kill two of them and don't worry, it's not going to come back to haunt anyone. But he doesn't do it. But he knows about it. I think he's aware of it, right? After the fact? You're squashing that thing immediately if you're anywhere close to the president. What do you have, Sean?

Well, we're just like veering into like the structural issues of the movie. Yeah. This is a deeply flawed story. Like no one in the movie except for Gray is good at their job. Yeah. There's not a single, now Darby doesn't have a job. Darby's trying to solve a conspiracy, but that's not her job. Right. But every other person, the director of the FBI, the CIA guy, the Gavin Verheek guy,

Fletcher Cole, the president of the United States. These people are incompetent. Gray's editor. John Lithgow. John Lithgow. These people are terrible at their jobs and they're in the seats of power. Yeah. Like, can you imagine if working at like a major company that was like that? No idea what you're referring to. I think they'd also argue, like, is Gray Grantham that good at his job?

It's debatable. At least he listens to Darby and is like, probably someone out of the millions of people alive should investigate who killed two Supreme Court justices. No one else seems to care. Right. There's like no other coverage. John Lithgow's like, why don't you get down there like everyone else to cover the primary? And it's like, well, sir, because two Supreme Court justices were assassinated. Yeah, this would be the biggest story in 60 years. What are you talking about? If two Supreme Court justices were murdered in America, this would be the story of the century. And he's like, look at the world.

I don't know. I think part, one of the things that's aged the worst is our capacity to be scandalized. I don't know that that would be, that would be that big. But at least. In 1993, people stormed the Capitol for the rat certification of election. Sure, but they've been covering it. And on the morning show. At the,

Bradley Jackson's brother. Bradley Jackson's brother. I don't know. Almost killed the guy. I disagree. When you think about the Clinton affair, which is something that happens like proximate to this, everything that was made out of that, everything that was made out of OJ, it was like no one knew who Nicole Brown Simpson was and that was the biggest story in America for two years. If this happened...

the idea that John Lithgow's character would be like, you need to get down to Arkansas to see what's going on with this new candidate. You don't have it. Exactly. It's insane. You work at the Washington Herald. You are in D.C. Also, Julia Roberts, a.k.a. Darby Shaw, is the only person trying to figure out who thought of this. Yeah, and it's just like, oh, I've got it. So this gets into a fundamental thing. I was reading about the movie online. There's a

from a long time ago on a site called alternateending.com. This guy Tim Brayton wrote a pretty good piece that articulated kind of always this thing that was in my head about this movie where he lays out how this is different than all the presidents met. And in this movie, and this kind of gets to your point, is Darby is smarter than the audience. We don't find out what the conspiracy is until midway, two-thirds through the movie where you find out about the Pelicans and the Marshes and the court and all that stuff. But

But for the movie, the entire movie, she's running around knowing what is happening. I mean, she must know it's Matisse the second Callahan dies. She's like, I am now in the center of a vast, violent conspiracy. But the audience never is allowed to catch up to that until the midway point where then the audience becomes much smarter than Darby and Gray because we know that

The president and Fletcher are coming after them and that all these people are like amassing against them. So you never actually have that thing where you're going step by step with Woodward and Bernstein. You're like, I know how this ends, but it's really fascinating to watch these guys uncover these things step by step. It's like they're already on step L and we're on step A and it doesn't quite work the same way as all the president's

I wonder if that's just because one is a true story that we experienced and the other is completely. But you could have done this story where the movie is her putting together the theory. Yeah. Like her, it's her step by step in the library, essentially uncovering the truth about this. And instead it's like, that has to be the thing that catapults her into the conspiracy. The Butch's girlfriend word for weak link of the film, which somehow isn't everything Chris just laid out. I think that it's represented in Gavin Verheek.

Tucci dies, his assassin character, and we have no idea who killed him or why. And then they kind of throw it in in the ending. The way he does it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they say, she's like, who killed Kamel? I was like, oh, that was actually that other guy who stayed falling down. I've seen this movie like five times. I still don't totally understand it. I don't either. I mean, I'm saving it for a different category. But yeah, I agree.

Well, let's do it now. Okay. It's the weak link of the film. Yeah. I just like him getting killed. It just makes no sense because you feel like it's leading to something and then it leads to nothing for an hour. Mm-hmm.

And I don't get it. We build up Kamau. We build him up, build him up, get shot. We don't know who did it or why. And then we don't find out. The way that they film it also looks like maybe he accidentally shot himself right through the pillow. It is confusing. He did like the plexiglass burst. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what it was. Yeah. I got that. You got that? I did. I listened. Everybody sleeps on you.

What's aged the worst? Why is this movie 141 minutes? It's three minutes longer than all the president's men. Yeah, that's tough. 141 minutes. Yeah. There's a lot of time spent being worried that Nicholas Woodison, who plays Stump, the kind of like follow-up assassin, is going to kill them. And just a lot of shots of him like looking and making sure that they're nearby. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Just to feel like there's some wasted time. Yes.

Robert Culp as the president. How are we feeling about that casting? Very believable to me. I enjoy it. He's doing Reagan if he was Clinton. At the time, I remember in the early 90s, that was probably what I thought the president was like. Just kind of a glad-handing... Couldn't have gotten it with fire? Not like now. Not at all like now. With fire? For an actor? Like a better actor? Yeah. Well, isn't the point that he's supposed to be...

pretty goofy. We're doing a Grisha movie. Can Robert Redford be the president as like evil Robert Redford? Can we? What is it? I'm just saying somebody like super famous. It's like a, it's a pot, like. Evil Paul Newman? Okay, I guess evil Paul Newman, that would be fine. I just don't know what you have against Robert Redford. Let's go A plus Lister. Okay. I'm just trying to think of A plus Listers. Nicholson.

I think there's something clever about a guy who's best known as a TV actor, kind of a B-tier actor playing the president because Ronald Reagan was the president. You know, like that's, he was a B-tier actor. He feels like a TV actor. The Ron Burgundy flute award for best time for a pee break also works in The Witch's Age of Worst. This movie can start eight minutes later and we're fine.

The opening credits is three minutes of these pelicans flying around in slow motion with credits of everyone in the movie. Then there's another four minutes. Nothing happens. The pelican part of the brief. Yeah. It's like, we get it. There's pelicans. And then Tucci gets an envelope under the hood. We're at minute eight. And he's like, oh, here's the envelope. It's like, cool. Start the movie that way. I think they have to do some stuff to get Grey in the movie.

in the first 40 minutes because he really shouldn't necessarily be in it until Darby calls. But you have to set up the whole car seat. Who's Greg Grantham's real-life comp right now? Mags? Adrian Wojnarowski? Maggie Haberman, you think? Adrian Wojnarowski? Kevin O'Connor? Whoa, another gray ball! Julia and Denzel do not appear on screen together until the 68-minute mark of the movie. Yeah.

I think that's cool. I want to start standing up for this movie because I do enjoy it a lot. And I think that that is cool to feel like the middle of the movie is the most momentous part. And we're waiting and waiting and waiting for them to come together. Any other what's-its-or-worse? Your computer's gone, so are your floppy disks and your red expandable files. Which is just, yeah. Floppy disks. What a time. Floppy disks. I still have expandable files in my home. Do you really? What's in them?

documents, critical briefs about the future of this country. I have a porn theaters. Yeah. They don't have them anymore. There's just an article in LA times about the last porn theater in Los Angeles. It's one left. What's it called? The Tiki. Should we do live, live, live rewatchables there? What would we do? Cruising again? The recruise? Do what other, we could do a hardcore with George C. Scott. I'm in. I'm fully in. That would be iconic if we did that.

It's you buy at the one porn theater left. It's a six-hour ticket. You can come in and have a theater. It's like an NCAA tournament game. You can come and go. I get to see Michigan and Arizona.

Well, why do they want you to come and go? Well, you know why. I don't mean to be sinister, but I'm guessing you leave. So I have a question about this scene and just the general etiquette at porn theaters. Yeah. Because... Direct that question right to Chris. Well...

Yeah, he's right here. Kamau sits like really close to the Supreme Court justice. And we get a wide shot so we can see that everybody else is like spaced out. There seem to be some unwritten rules. And it's just like, wouldn't someone sitting that close to you raise some? I know. You don't think so? It's the exact opposite. Oh, you seem very sure about that. I think the whole the etiquette or the protocol there is the closer you get, the more it's on. Okay. All right. Yeah.

Did I ever tell my porn theater story? Get in handy while you're watching a movie. I don't think so. Have I told my porn theater story in the rewatchables? I don't think so. Which camera? Turn the TikTok camera on, Kyle. Freshman year of college, they had this porn theater in Worcester, Massachusetts, where I went to college, called the Adonis Theater. And we thought it would be hilarious if we just went to a movie and just made jokes. Because you and roughly 35 other men? Yeah, it was like six.

six or seven people in the hall, including the great Jacko. Oh. I don't think Joe House was there. He was probably playing basketball. Blue Boy? Well, Blue Boy was there. Nice. We went, sat down, made jokes, did the whole peanut gallery thing. So you guys are doing like the mystery science theater version of this. Yeah, we're just having a great time. It's just us in the theater. We're like, what a great idea. You're not ruining anyone else's time. No. Okay. Are you like, look at the schlong on that guy. Like, what are you saying? We're just, just having a great time. Okay. And then somebody came in

And they sat down in our row on the other side and pulled their pants down. And we ran out of there like a tsunami was coming. We were out of there in 10 seconds. Do you think that that was done to get you out of the theater? Or was it just like, it's Tuesday. I got to drop my pants in the movie theater. Oh, you think like the popcorn guy was like, I got to get these fucking idiots out of here. So I'm going to go drop trial. I actually told this story wrong because there was one person in the theater who was laughing at some of our jokes. Oh, that's great. Come join us. Yeah.

And then the pants down guy came and cleared us out. We were out. That was my one porn theater experience. Departed. Best porn theater scenes ever. Departed's in there. Philadelphia. This movie. What else do we have? Hardcore. Hardcore. Hardcore. Oh my God. Oh Jesus. Still going. My George just got hardcore.

I'm so glad that you made us this next year. Have you ever seen that movie? No. It's every father's worst nightmare. I think we should fly Paul Schrader in for the hardcore live rewatchables pod at the Tiki here in Los Angeles. At the last board of theater in Los Angeles.

Was this better title for this movie? I have a couple of ones that are the worst. Oh, you do? Let's have CR. Just Thomas Callahan, Mulder of Young Minds. Darby's I'm scared voice that she employs after Thomas dies, which is just basically whispering about us brazen egrets.

And pelicans. And it says she talks like that for most of the rest of the movie. And I just think that that's a one note thing. And then I would also say it took some way too long to find Curtis Morgan. Yeah. And that whole thing with the registrar's office and then going to the rehab center. And just like so you guys could find out that that was Jake Webber. It seems a little bit far fetched. Better title for this movie. I'm going to say now. No, this is good. Okay.

We'll take a break, come back with how to stay. Okay. Well, is it better if it's just the brief in keeping with the titles of all the other John Grisham films? The client, the firm. Well, runaway jury. But the thing I like about it is the way they use the Pelican brief in the movie. And it's like, hello, have you heard about the Pelican brief? Oh, here's the Pelican brief. You know, I love when they say the title. Yeah. Yeah.

There's got to be a couple other sketchy briefs circulating Washington. You know what I'm saying? I'm pro-Title. Taking a break doing hottest take after. Kickstart the school year with Apple gift card. You can send it via email or send a physical card to your loved ones. Inspire their curiosity with a world of apps. Boost their productivity with Apple products like iPhone and iPad.

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How does it take CR? What do you got? If Victor Matisse is one of the most powerful, richest businessmen in the country to say nothing of the world, he can really only afford Kamel and Woodison to be his assassins. Like, it just doesn't seem like there's any safeguards on this whole situation.

It doesn't seem like there's any more assassins is your note. I think that they're, they, they seem to be going out of their way to make it as difficult as possible to get Darby. Yes. And, and also Woodison gets his ass kicked by like three new Orleans bouncers. Yeah. So maybe it's, it's time to like pull his card and put someone else on the job.

Like Monty Williams in Detroit. That's right. You've lost 17 straight. Time for some new blood. What do you got, Sean? Julia Roberts is wildly miscast and misused in this movie. Oh, that ties right into my hot estate. This movie is unquestionably better in 1993 with Sandra Bullock. I was thinking Jennifer Jason Leigh. Like, you need a quieter actor. Like, I'm waiting the whole movie.

Julia Roberts to laugh and be charismatic. That she doesn't get to be effusive. And she never does. It's only with like two Sam Shepard scenes. Yeah. Sandra Bullock is so, I mean, she does Two Years Later in the net, which is not nearly as good or polished or have many as actors. But similar vibe. But same kind of I'm on the run. Yeah. And she's way better at it. Yeah. I would have believed it more. I mean, it's obviously a huge hit because of her. And it is fun seeing her with Denzel.

But I want to see them in a more fun movie. I mean, I do too. It's not good acting from her. As Chris said, right around like the hour mark, she just goes into this like monotone voice thing for trauma. I actually know like she's like, I just watched my lover explode in a car and find myself chased by like evil forces. I can understand why she's whispering everything. But like there's just there's just so much of it. That's how she communicates. Also, you just did this in Sleeping with the Enemy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

What do you have for us? Take anything? Yeah. Are we sure it wasn't the CIA? Oh. I mean, just what's up with Rupert? You know? And as you said, it's not resolved. And even the strategy, how does it benefit Matisse to kill her

once the brief is out there, it's only drawing more attention to it. But if the Pelican brief and Julia Roberts and Matisse are being used as a decoy because the CIA funded it and set it up for nefarious reasons, and then that's why Rupert

around to make sure. It does seem like a real self-inflicted wound by the Oval Office. Yeah. It's something that they could really easily dismiss. And instead, they're like, no, we have to get multiple law enforcement and intelligence agencies involved. I did forget to mention this during What's Aged the Best, but I do feel like the pressuring the FBI to back off a case does have like that Trump-James Comey resonance, though. Or like the interaction between those people.

the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Oval Office is, like, very tenuous. And there's not supposed to be that level of communication about open cases. Right. But then there's also in that, in the very first scene when they come to inform him, and it's this FBI director and the CIA director. William Atherton plays him. Yeah. And...

The president is immediately like, I'm asking you right now, is the CIA involved? And he's like, I'm shocked that you would even. But then that's it. Yeah. There's nothing else. And then the CIA is just lurking around the rest of the movie. And they do stuff. And it's not explained. I'm just putting it out there. Can I ask you a side question on this? Yeah. Are you a CIA person or an FBI person if you had to pick one? Great question. In what sense? They're feuding. Whose side are you on? Oh, CIA. CIA. Absolutely.

I think I'm pro-FBI. You know why? Because CIA killed Kennedy. That's a good take. You're CIA? Would you rather work FBI or CIA? Yeah, definitely I think I'd rather work CIA. I think I'm really more of an FBI kind of guy in my core, but CIA is cooler. Amanda and I love to travel, so we'd like to... Right, international intrigue. I think they're both pretty dangerous organizations if I'm being honest.

Especially the CIA who killed our president in 1963. I think there's some guy at Langley listening to us right now. He's like, God damn, Sean really took my wind out of my sails. They're going to stick Woodison on me. But this is also, you're supposed to think that because this is a pro-FBI movie. It is. Ultimately. James B. Sicking is kind of noble. He's great. He's a good character and maybe that's because the CIA did it. I'm just putting it out there. Casting what ifs. Grisham...

He really wanted Julia Roberts to be Darby Shaw. I don't know how hot of a take that was in 1992 when she was the hottest female star in the world. Yeah. To get for a part. Yeah. Everybody was offering her scripts. And his favorite baseball player was Ken Griffey Jr. Yeah. The reality of Grisham at that time is he's like, I'm writing these books and instantly the biggest movie stars want to make them. Yeah.

This is always my favorite in the cat. This is Julia related. When she decided she's going to do the part, she spent some time at Tulane Law School to prepare for her role and attended a couple classes. Denzel was at Washington Post. Denzel did that as well. Can you imagine if you were just like 92, you're working at the Washington Post and then Denzel Washington walks in. You think he was hanging out at Kornheiser? What was he doing? Probably was.

The Ruffalo Hannah Rubinick Partridge Overacting Award. They knew and they let it happen. Don't you call me lady. I come in here. I give these things to you. Give me all you got. Give me all you got. I treated you like a son. You fucking stabbed me in the heart. Fuck you. Fuck you. So I'm going to zag on this for the first time in like 317 movies.

I have the Julia Denzel Pelican Brief Underacting Award for underacting. For Julia and Denzel? Have we had an underacting award before? For both of them. I think they're both kind of underplaying it. They are. Except for the car bomb scene. Right. And she kind of gets two takes to do like first her shaking reaction and then her screaming reaction, you know? She's great.

It's one of her best. Julia, she has like a convulsion basically. Okay. Yeah. She's underactive. Best that guy word. Anthony Hill's in this movie. So it's a wrap. Yeah. He just automatically wins. No other contenders. I would say Sicking is up there for that guy though. Yeah. But he, Hill Street Blues was 20 million people. I think Atherton is on the list too. Yeah. I know he was going to be a star in the 70s, but never really got there. So that's fair. Jake Weber too. Yeah. He's that guy. Oh yeah. Dion Waiters Award. Yeah.

Lithgow versus Tucci versus Shepard. Shepard counts qualifiers, so he's got to win, I think. It's absolutely Shepard. You guys don't think it's Tucci? For Dion Waiters? I think it's definitely Tucci. It's Tucci. Shepard's really great. Shepard's in a lot of this movie, though, too. No, he's in four scenes. He's not. He's in three scenes. He leaves an indelible mark. Of course. That is the definition of Dion Waiters. Go winners. As I understand it, right? Recasting couch, 2023 version.

Zendaya and who? Tom Holland. This is now becoming the Tom Holland and Zendaya category. You think Tom Holland is great grandpa? No, he's too young. It's got to be somebody a little older. What if you gender swap it and you do Zendaya as the reporter and Tom Holland as the aspiring law school kid? Wow. I mean, that's... Yeah. That's basically... But he's an incel. Don't worry, darling, but I would still watch it, you know? It's okay. He said, don't worry, darling, but I would still watch it. Yeah. Who's in the Denzel...

kind of zone right now. It'd be like Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal and Zendaya or something like that. I mean, but then that's like Zodiac. Driver? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Driver. Driver's a little older though. Denzel's a little older. Denzel's 38 when the series was made. Driver. Driver would be great. Driver's great. Did you see Driver's SNL skits? He did well. I thought he did solid. Yeah, he was good. Did you watch any of them? No, I didn't see any of them. What was that Adam Driver movie? The Report. Yes. Yes.

He was pretty good in it. Also about the CIA. Yeah, he has to solve some stuff. Does he have principles in that? I can't remember. How about Zendaya and Pete Davidson? No. Pete Davidson is Greg Ratham? Straight doing drama. Yeah. You won't believe him as a Washington Post reporter. Definitely. Absolutely. Maybe he's a TikTok user. Yeah, there you go. We could also recast Tony Goldwyn as the president. Ooh. Oh, yeah. He could be the president. That's always fun when that happens. Half-assed internet research. Yeah.

Julia won Best Actress in 2000 and then the next year presented Denzel, his best actor. Just the karma of the whole thing. She was so excited. Do you remember that? Yeah.

And then I somehow forgot this, how Pakula died tragically. Awful. It's awful. The worst possible way to die on the highway where the pipe, somebody hits a pipe and it went through his windshield and killed him. But he, I always thought he retired. I forgot that he died. Yeah, I... Probably had like five, six more years of movies. I forgot all about this until I was reminded of it. It's very sad. There's a good documentary...

that you can get on Amazon called Alan Pakula Going for Truth, where basically every big movie star who appeared in one of his movies talks about what a genius he was. So just for that, where it's like Redford, Harrison Ford, Julia Roberts, everyone sat for it. And if you want to learn more about his career, it's really good. Even Goldman loved him. Goldman was a pretty straight shooter on who he worked with. He was like, that guy was fucking amazing. Apex Mountain. Tulane?

I mean, does Tulane have like a bowl game that I don't know about? The John Hot Rod Williams gambling scandal in the early 80s? Honestly, like, prove me wrong. I like it. How about Grisham? Firm? Pelican brief? He's selling ideas as movies that he hasn't written yet? Conspiracy movies? No. No. How about the saying goodbye off the plane, reconsider, run back for the second hug? Still the bodyguard. Still the bodyguard. Edmund Newman? Yeah. Yeah.

He did host SNL once. Do you think that was a bigger audience share than this? Hosted SNL, did sketches with Eddie Murphy when Eddie Murphy was the biggest star in the world. Denzel Washington, is this filled up in the same month? But I'm still going to say no. I think it's the training day. I think so too. Yeah, I think he's at that point a major box office draw. He's not quite a huge box office draw at this point by himself. Julia is still Pretty Woman.

Yeah. She could have made any movie she wanted for the next five years after that. I think that's true. Also, Notting Hill into Erin Brockovich and winning the Oscar. And this has adult movie theaters until Nicholson waves the dildo. What about John Heard?

I would have said big. It's huge and big. I'd probably say Home Alone. It's Home Alone. Home Alone? Are we going to do this again? It's that time of year. Yeah, Home Alone is. Yeah, it's probably Home Alone. To me, he's Kevin's dad in Home Alone.

To me, he's a bartender in After Hours. Last night during the football game, Mike Tirico and Collinsworth were talking about Home Alone. They had a... Collinsworth's like, you like Home Alone, right? And he's like, and Tirico goes, I watch it every year. And I'm like, there's just no way Mike Tirico watches Home Alone every year. He's like, oh, it's December 15th, time to crank up Home Alone. You don't think Tirico's on the road, Bengals game, but it's Jake Browning instead of Bro. Craig, what do you think? Does Mike Tirico watch Home Alone every year? Does he have children? No.

I have no idea. I don't have children. I watch Home Alone a lot. You and Mike. You should watch it with Mike. Me and Tariqo. I just don't believe it. It seems so like, yeah, I watch it every year. It's like, all right. I would have loved to have been like, all right, first hour after the family's away. Like, just ask them. Would you let me and Tariqo do a re-Home Alone?

But I do it as Collinsworth. Oh, Mike, this kid's got ingenuity. Craig plays the clip and it comes back and you go, oh, he's just having fun out there. This kid's got a great future. Pickin' nits.

there's probably better protection for Supreme Court justices. I know they self-referentially say it in the movie, but you just walk into the old guy's apartment and just shoot him.

He's got one caretaker. How does he get in? Because the establishing shot is, like, I guess the FBI agents, they're not Secret Service agents, like, changing shifts. Yes. And you see, like, the nursing aide, like, wave from the window. I think he's supposed to be, like, in the book. You see how he leaves. He is the world's greatest assassin. Right. So I think he's able to, like, maybe scale the wall or, you know, cat burglar style. Okay, that's... That was my take, yeah. Okay. Okay.

Great Grantham goes away to his cabin and then Darby just calls the newspaper and pretends it's his sister. And they're like, here's the address.

Meanwhile, it's a major investigation. And then she can find it without GPS? Yeah. No editor has ever been to their writer. Like, why don't you just go away and think about it for a while? This is my biggest problem with this movie. How editors act? You never said this to Zach Lowe in 2014? I just don't understand what the fuck that guy's talking about. He's like, let's not focus our energy and time on the biggest story in the history of American politics. Let's do something else. I can't afford to keep you on that story. I'm sending you to Arkansas.

The Times, the Journal, the networks already have their guys down there checking out that judge they're about to nominate to the court. I need more time. For what? You've lost your sources at the White House. You've had no luck with Garcia. You've lost the girl. On balance, not your best week. You can't take me off this story. What do you know for a fact? Some guy who won't identify himself says he knows something about the assassinations. You think he works for a law firm, but you don't know which one. Now he's cut off all contact with you. That's not promising as these things go.

You can't take me off this story. There's something there. I can smell it. Evidence based on olfactory prowess is inadmissible, in case you didn't know. And then there's this girl with her bird brief, for which you still can get no confirmation, correct? Not yet, yeah. She also has cut off contact. Cutting off contact with you is reaching epidemic proportions. They're still waiting for you upstairs.

Like, it makes no sense. Maybe that's why it was the Washington Herald and not the Washington Post. But it makes you think, it made me think at least when I was watching the movie, that like John Lithgow's in on it because John Lithgow, it's like, it's right after Ricochet, it's after Cliffhanger. He's trying to redirect him. You're like, okay, so is he in on this conspiracy? But he's not. He just sucks at his job. It's so weird. Is this movie more fun if it's the guy from Ricochet as Denzel's editor and he doesn't realize it? Yeah. Would the FBI really flip out about a Pelican brief?

Well, now, you mean in 93 or now? 93. Probably they wouldn't take it seriously because they're not great at their jobs. I'm going to say they just throw that in the garbage. John Heard says he's, tells Darby he's 5'10", 180. Mm-hmm.

No. Just no. You think he's heavier? No. You think he's adding like a Chris Paul two inches there? I think he's like 220. Oh. And 5'8". Yeah. I don't know. I actually, I was thinking about this because when I was pregnant, at the very end, I was like...

I think I was like almost 190 and like the similar shape that John Heard is in this movie. And I was like, oh, so 180 like actually probably does make sense because I was like protruding. You had another human inside you though. He just has like a lot of hoagies. Sure, but I was like, okay, so if I was 190 with another, like my son was really big, then 180 and five, I'm like almost 5'10". It sounds...

sounds about right honestly I think I can verify it you know and the way it's distributed I think you're being generous I think he's just fat okay but he's like fuck it I'll be topless in the night he's going for it John Hurt always goes for it in movies same with the Sopranos he's disgusting in the Sopranos and he's so good oh yeah

Sequel? Do you have any nitpicks? We covered basically everything. A lot of it is just like when you rewatch this movie a bunch of times, how many major plot points hinge entirely on luck. Like they should have died in the parking garage, but the Doberman attacks the woman who's hunting them. Also, who is she working for? The woman who follows her into the safe deposit? No idea. Oh, I thought she was one of the Matisse people because then she is...

In the garage. That's right. Yeah. And then she sees them in the rearview mirror. The other thing is just like at the registrar's office, like the guy, like the chance that the guy is standing next to Denzel is like, hey, I just wanted to tell you about the like the person you're looking for. I have two really small ones. Yeah. Number one, right after the registrar office, they finally find the really the hallucinating the law student on leave.

Why is he so hot? It's really distraught. They just like cast an incredibly like handsome Abercrombie model. Yeah. Just very confusing. Might have been somebody called in sick for that part. Might have been like River Phoenix was supposed to play that person. Right. Okay. Sure. Had a bad day. And then number two in like the video affidavit. Why is that? It's a Grisha movie. Huge cast.

In the video affidavit, it's just like no one has that many saws in their basement. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's a great take. It's so many saws. So either he's up to something or that was just a bad thing. Yeah, that was like he's actually Jame Gump. Yeah. Jame Gump.

sequel prequel prestige TV all black cast I got the I got the sequel that's just ready made for you oh I was gonna say prestige TV so was I I felt like this could have been easily on Amazon let's do it let's just do it why not with somebody but yeah in the book Darby goes to the Caribbean yeah and Grey goes and meets her there and is like we'll stay I'll stay for like a month with you because they're together

How are we not doing Denzel and Julia Roberts cocktail sequel? They're living in the Caribbean and they started a bar. Can Cruz be in it? Sure. Can he be Flanagan? He can be the Brian Brown character teaching them how to bartend. That's pretty good. Pelican Brief 2, Cocktails and Dreams. The Pina Colada Brief. I actually had... I'm thinking about it. These two tones are going to work together. I had to tweak off...

everything you just said. So when they do these movies and the person escapes at the end and they're in some awesome location, her location was like a little too awesome. She's just on the water. How did she get that TV so quickly? She's in Fiji. How does she have money? Is she in Fiji? I don't know. It just seems like it. What's her bank account? Did she get paid by anybody? I'm sure they, I set her up with a Swiss bank account and they're just like, here's $200,000. Just don't ever say anything. Is that something they do? I don't know.

Like in real life, she's probably on the third floor of some seedy motel in Fiji just making ends meet. Classic Fiji motel location. Where she is, she's in the freaking water in this awesome place. It looks like Hawaii. Or Mexico. Yeah. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Catherine Hahn, Steve Buscemi, Sam Jackson, JT Walsh, Byron Mayo? Yeah. I finally listened to that one. Really, really good stuff.

You can congratulate Chris because Sean and I just... You mean Byron. Yeah, you can congratulate Byron. CR, what's the answer? The answer is JT Walsh as Matisse. Oh. It's just right there for them and they don't take it. But...

If Wayne Jenkins had been in it. Yeah. And he had said, God damn, Darby! How you know I was working with Jim Garrison over here? You put together a conspiracy that might save the country itself! And an endangered motherfucking bird! You better stop dating your teachers, though, or that guy's going to jail a long time before!

Is that your first experience with Wayne? No, I had it during Mr. and Mrs. Smith, too. Oh, that's right. But it's really special every time. But I think JT Walsh would have been better. You're really yelling really loudly. I thought you were going to go with Byron Mayer. Last time I was sitting next to him. Darby Gray, let's get in your bed. I know you and Gray are sharing a cabin. It's wet outside. It could be wet in here. Come on. I got a king size bed, baby.

I always protect my sources. Me and my friend Kamal went to a little movie theater last night. Broke out some popcorn. What happened happened between consenting adults. Another film by Alan Bakula. I feel so violated. We're sitting so close together.

Robert Loggia and Sam Tucci. Sam Tucci had a fucking adult movie theater. They're like, I love this movie. I love when the sailors come in. Let me tell you, this guy's not a cable installer. Pizza's not even warm.

Just won an Oscar. Does anyone deserve an Oscar for this movie, Amanda? I don't think so. Sounds like Byron Mayo might have if they found a way to work him in. Probably unanswerable questions. Could Anthony Hilde have ever played anything in his prime other than a huge, oily, sneering scumbag? Could he have been the dad in Home Alone? No, because then you'd be like, where's his torture chamber for Kevin? Yeah. Yeah.

Like talk about typecast. You just see him like, ah, this guy sucks. Hate this guy. Um, Greg, Grant, them dating, married, divorced, asexual, gay. What's going on here? Um,

There's some divorced energy. There is. I was thinking divorced. Like home, office. Exactly. And it's like... Maybe just mention it for two seconds. Yeah. I was going to say, I'm like, why is this guy single? Now that I'm divorced, dot, dot, dot. This is a guy who's going on PBS on Sunday mornings to talk about the biggest news in the world. Right. And it looks like Denzel Washington. I'm going through a divorce. I'm going through a divorce. I'm separated. Where did Darby's plane land? So he says...

You can take my plane wherever and then you can disappear from there. So am I trying to pick like what connecting airport she picked? Yeah, this is why it's an unanswerable question. Okay, like Dallas? Like, you know. Oh, I thought, well, her plane eventually lands in like the Caribbean, Bahamas, Fiji. Okay, where she eventually goes. Hawaii?

I think the Caribbean. It felt Caribbean-ish. I basically learned about the Caribbean and certainly its tax structures from John Grisham novels. The Kamens. Yeah, exactly. It would be cool if she was working at the bar that Avery Toland goes to. Right. If she hooked up with Hackman, that's the sequel. Grishamverse going. Okay.

Could somebody write a movie, a book about John Grisham doing something illegal in the Cayman Islands and that he's been telling us all along in all these different books? Oh, yeah. That's a great one. This person puts the puzzle together and gets murdered and then a college didn't have to figure it out. We should cut that out of this and try to develop that. Did Darby and Gray win a Pulitzer, Amanda? And did she go?

I don't think she went. I hope they want a Pulitzer, but it's pretty political, you know? Do people win Pulitzers for having good theories that are right? Well, she wrote the story. She got the co-byline. Yeah, that's true. Good reporting. They had to get chased a couple times. Parking garage. I forgot to mention in What's Aged to Best, the...

Doberman in the car coming out of nowhere to bark at somebody who's already in danger. Always works. Just a lot of Dobermans in cars in action movies. How long do you think Grey would be able to fend people off of Darby? Because you would think that people would be like, my mission in life is to find out where Darby is. Well, you would also think that people's mission in life would be to solve...

who assassinated two Supreme Court justices, and it's just Darby. So... Best double feature choice of this movie. Would you go with The Firm? Sure. Just bang them out? Yeah. It's a long evening, but it's a fun one. I might recommend The Parallax View from Alan Jay Pakula. Oh, a little before and after? Yeah, which I think is, like, closest, actually, to what this movie is like in terms of, like, there are dark powers behind this country, and it's hard to know who they are. What about Hardcore? Hardcore.

Yeah, sure. Oh my god. Do you want to announce the additional second leg of our live tour across the porn theaters of America? Just the combat zone? Yeah.

They make it sound like George C. Scott is coming when you do that. But that's what's so weird about it. It is weird. You are communicating that. George C. Scott. They're like, George, dial it up. We're going to do one more take. Can you just dial it up one more? He's never had to be asked to dial it up, I assure you. That's what he does. The Indian Reds want an air word for what happened the next day. Here's what I have. Darby disappears.

for 22 years and then does a narrative podcast that becomes bigger than Serial. That's good. That is really good. Have we considered that she's a Duaneo? Oh, interesting. It's kind of got that energy. How much, like, is she still using her, like, I'm scared voice as the podcast voice? No, she's got her voice back. Her name's Darby Shaw. Thank you for listening to Serial. Still scared. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie, Sean?

John Lithgow's desktop computer with the green and black screen. Oh, yeah. I was taken back to the early days of the... When you go cross-out. Oh, my God. I used to, like, had double vision after being at the Herald for eight hours.

I would go with the original Pelican Brief, how they had it with the five-barbie shot. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. That's a cool one. You usually get mad when I pick the car, but I would like Callahan's car. We should put that in What's Aged to Best. I forgot. Denzel's Howard University t-shirt. Oh, that's good, too. I was going to do the Mets hat.

And then wear it during every... Oh, it's Knicks? Yeah. Oh, I wrote down Mets because I thought that it would taunt you even more. It's Knicks. That's a legendary photo among Knicks fans. Is Julia looking cool in a Knicks hat? The Coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lesson.

If you find out about a giant government conspiracy, just keep it to yourself. Not worth it. Would you do that? Just keep it to yourself. You end up being chased in a parking garage, getting saved by a pit bull. You would sprinkle it on pods. Just... Like, you would... Like, don't aggregate me, but I think this is who killed the Supreme Court justices. You literally, on this podcast, talked about who you think killed JFK. On this podcast. That's because it's factual. Who won the movie? Amanda? Hmm...

Can Sam Shepard be an answer? Sure. It can be whatever you want. There's no peer pressure on the rewatchables. I guess Grisham. John Grisham did. I had Grisham as well. Yeah. I'm going to go Denzel. Here's my case. Denzel never has to rely on another movie star again after this movie. Every other movie he makes after this, he can do it on his own. Yeah. Did he even say Crimson Tide?

I think if you had swapped out somebody less legendary than Gene Hackman, that movie still would have worked. Yeah, if it's Anthony Held. Yeah, that movie was sold on Denzel. Yeah. It wasn't sold the way that Pelican Brief is sold on Julia, the way that Philadelphia is sold on Hanks. So to me, this is like him crossing the line from A to A+. I'm going to go Conspiracies.

Oh. In the movie. Like just the idea of conspiracies are just, it's a very rich text, still relevant. And I like, I like the way Pakula handled it. And honestly, way more fun in the early nineties pre-internet. Yeah. Yeah. You just sit around, smoke some cigarettes and argue about who killed JFK and then everybody went home. Yeah. Then something changed. What do you got, Craig?

I don't love the slander on the acting in this movie, on Julia Roberts and even a little bit of Denzel. I think that we have a very strong relationship to a certain kind of performance from her. I think this movie is, like you guys said, it's too long. It's kind of slow. The plot's pretty murky. You really got to focus and pay attention. And there's a lot of jargon and talking.

And the fact that this made $200 million and it's still a good movie to me is a testament to Julia Roberts and Denzel, like keeping you there the entire time. Yeah. I like that this movie was unfussy. And it's unlike most movies today where it's like, this is just the two of them. It is a political thriller. There is no real action. There's no CGI. It's like, they just got to act in the movie. And they held my attention the entire time for a movie that I feel like has a million flaws. Was it a first watch? Yeah. Liz and I both.

That's a good summary. Holds your attention the entire time. Pretty flawed. Major star power. Fun to see the two stars in one movie. And I think to the point we were making earlier, it's actually a fun movie to watch in chunks. It's not a bad movie to be like, oh, wow, middle of the pelican. It feels like a TV show converted into a movie. A little bit. It feels like it was 10 episodes and they condensed it down. I really do think they should just...

remake it that was like Oppenheimer yeah oh Jesus Christ I'm with you not now Bill it's like three one hour episodes Bill welcome I just I was Oppenheimer a miniseries or a movie I just got a concussion from that take it's amazing I've been concussed what are your your view at the cinema

You got more takes you want to uncork, but now's the time. I wanted to watch Oppenheimer at home because I had to take notes with all the plots and characters. You should do it. This podcast will self-destruct in three minutes like pot where you're just like, here's the year in movies. Oppenheimer too long. Who says I'm not going to do that? Yeah. Okay.

Can you do that plus JFK? Revisited? You did need a whiteboard for Oppenheimer, right? Did people actually go into the theater and just kind of watch that blind? I think you could just pay attention to it. Follow the characters. But I did that twice and I still don't know what happens in the last hour, so...

but you know Robbie Malek is writing it down on his clipboard he'll yeah he'll yeah he'll explain it's pretty legible I don't know I thought it was good I like that movie Oppenheimer's good I like it yeah it was good need to see it three four more times I loved it yeah it's good yeah it's great what's better Pelican Reef or Oppenheimer

That's the rewatchables. Thank you, Amanda. Thank you, Bill. Great to have you on. Sean. Thank you, Bill. Chris. Pleasure as always. We got three more until the break, including we're going to flip on Christmas Eve. We're going to run the rewatchables on Sunday night and run my pod on Monday night because the football schedule is just super weird. So we're going to put a big one.

on that Christmas Eve one. Anyway, that's it for the rewatchables. Good to see you. Don't forget about the rewatchables tour. Where can you buy tickets, Craig? Ringer.com slash events. Yeah. Yep. Great. There's only one place you can see Byron Mayo in person. Oh my God. How are you going to decide between Wayne and Byron for each city? I think I'm starting to look more like Byron. So I may have to lean into that. Thanks, everybody.