‘The Saint’ With Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt
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and see a bunch of old rewatchables that we've done, including ones with Kyle Brandt, who's here today. Val Kilmer passed away. We're going to talk about one of our favorite Val Kilmer movies. Not a movie you probably expected, The Saint. It's next. For an American scientist caught in a world of espionage, there is no escape. Bring her to life. And now,

The man who was hired to betray her. Amens Thomas Moore. Argos Christopher. Martini Boris. Is the only one who can save her. If you want to live, you have to leave my side. Val Kilmer. Elizabeth Shue. I love you. The Saint. Starts Friday, April 4th, everywhere.

All right, Kyle Brandt. You're basically, you were kind of semi-off this week. Kids were off from school. Wasn't really a rewatchables taping week for you, but you had to move stuff around because Val Kilmer passed away this week. People, I don't think it was a massive surprise because he'd been sick for a long time, yet it was a total surprise because Val Kilmer is no longer with us. And we were texting. We had talked about doing The Saint forever, which I don't think would crack

most people's top five Val Kilmer list, but for us, it does. And we'll get to that in a second. But Val Kilmer, big picture, 20,000 feet overhead. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I've been really moved by this, more so than I even expected to be over the last 48 hours. I've been upset. I've been on our show, Good Morning Football, talking about it as much as the NFL will allow me to just talk about an actor and not Cam Ward or Shadur Sanders. And I think I'm a little surprised how upsetting it was because...

This is not Tom Cruise or Harrison Ford or Tom Hanks. It's not one of these like all time leading man legends. It's just someone who has shown up for in our life for years and years and was always cool. And I'm looking at him, Bill. It's like we lost the coolest character actor of all time. And that I think really was what he was. And that's really his legacy. Looked like a leading man, had the talent of a leading man, but was better off playing bass instead of being the lead singer.

Yeah, it's weird because he could vacillate. He could lead a movie and be on a poster, right? He could be on Batman. He could be in The Saint. He could be in The Doors.

But usually there was some sort of gimmick that came with it. And he was really at his best in a movie like Heat. I always felt like if you're thinking of him like an athlete, you think of like Randy Moss, somebody like that, that Randy Moss could be on the wrong team and go four and 12 on the Oakland Raiders. Or you could put him on an awesome team with weapons everywhere. And then everybody's like, oh my God, Randy Moss is amazing. And there's other actors like this. I think

There's a Brad Pitt case a little bit too, where he's just way more fun in movies like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But with Kilmer, I thought what was so weird about him, super handsome. Yeah. Like anyone I've ever dated has loved Val Kilmer. So he had that. But really quirky and just kind of hard to put a finger on. And I think that's what... So like he...

I don't really know what he's doing in that part. I just know I like it. The Saint, I'm not even sure he's good in The Saint, but there's something compelling about watching him the entire time. And then there's other movies like The Doors and some of the other Tombstone, the classics that he's been in where you're just like, God damn, this guy's great. Top Gun comes in just like all-time DN waiters every time he's in. So he could do everything. And yet you're right. It wasn't like the type of career that...

of a cruise or some of these other dudes that could just go for 35 years. There was a shelf life to it. Definitely. And, you know,

To continue the Randy Moss comparison, he at the end of his career, before he got really sick, it was Randy Moss on the 49ers and then the Titans. And it just wasn't happening anymore. But I think also part of his legacy is like, go to anybody and say, what's your favorite Val Kilmer role? Or you know what? What's your favorite three Val Kilmer roles? I bet he's not the lead in any of those movies. I bet he's not.

It's like his four most famous roles or five, six even. It's just like we're at Iceman, we're at Doc Holliday, we're at Chris from Heat, and then just other kind of supporting stuff. Like his lead vehicles, even though we're doing one today,

The Saint is a hack for him. He figured it out. He said, I want to play cool little interesting side characters. So just give me a movie where I play 10 of those and sew them together. And that's why it's fun to watch Val in The Saint. Yeah, and he could also be good in movies that weren't that good, which was another weird superpower. I really like Ghost in the Darkness. Goldman wrote it. Val's great in it. And Michael Douglas is horribly miscast, which Goldman wrote a whole chapter in his book about. But Val's good. He makes sense. He's got this weird...

I think he's like a British accent or South African accent, whatever it is. He always has to bring some sort of weird wrinkle to it, even in heat.

you know, he's the hair is a little different. He's like volatile, but also hard to figure out, but kind of cool. And, and then the way he works the gun, like they always say how like, uh, military people would study how he, how well he was using a gun in that the doors, he just disappears into Jim Morrison. There was some stuff, the SNL account that I really like on Instagram. They ran all the things from his SNL that he hosted in 2000. He's amazing. He was like one of the best

random in and out hosts they've ever had. He's doing Top Gun. He does Jim Morrison again. He's just floating around all these different things. If you're looking for some Kilmer this week, and we all are, one of the sketches Bill's talking about is it's with Chris Parnell and Will Ferrell and later in life Tom Kizanski is just an airline pilot, but he's still doing all this. He's like, we got a bogey at 6 o'clock. He's got tone on us. And Parnell's like, that's the 935 out of Tampa. Calm down. It's a great

sketch he's going on the flight attendant i don't like you because you're dangerous do you want decaf well i shave with a mach 3 if you if you think you're dead all right tom it's it's a perfect sketch he made fun of himself and it's funny bill because like it's a pretty serious guy it's it's a very serious actor you know like we we can get into the whole thing if people don't know like

Oh, I'm ready right now. Let's do it. Youngest student ever into Juilliard in New York City. And if you've never seen his upbringing, this guy grows up in Chatsworth in LA in the Valley. He's got a couple of brothers. His younger brother is the creative one in the family. He's the director. He's going to go on and be the successful brother. His younger brother dies in the family jacuzzi at 15 years old. Just dies there, right there on the property. And shortly after that, Kilmer shows up at Juilliard and like, let's act. And he is like a true, true fan.

thespian who is all about characters, acting method, all of it. But then he wound up in movies like Top Gun, which just are for kicking ass and eating popcorn, which was fun. And he could do comedies. Yep. He could do weird accent movies. He could do weird part movies. And he would say over and over again, whatever movie he was doing, he needed some sort of challenge, some sort of thing that made it interesting to him. And it's funny because in the 90s, when

And all the magazines kind of showed up. People covering the industry just got way better in all these different ways. The internet's coming in the late 90s. But there was an awareness I had, just somebody living in Boston who liked movies and knew nothing other than what I read of like, oh, Val Kilmer's kind of difficult. That became a thing with him. And it kind of added to...

just the mystique of him. Like he does Batman once and he's signed to do other ones and they basically like let him out because he was kind of a pain in the ass. By the mid-90s, pain in the ass, Val Kilmer. And it was kind of like hard to say what was real and what wasn't real. There was an Entertainment Weekly story about him in 96. Yeah.

that kind of hammered him. Premiere had this piece about him in 97. I have some quotes, but EW in 96 called him Mr. Unpopularity. He was saying how he was committing six million a picture and nobody liked working with him, which I don't think was totally true. But he was coming off from 85 to 96. Top Secret, Real Genius, Top Gun, Willow, The Doors, Tombstone, Batman Forever, Heat, Ghost in Darkness. And then it starts to get weird right around The Saint, the movie we're talking about, because he's doing Island of Dr. Moreau

which I might be the only person in America who likes that movie. I've never actually seen it. It's batshit. It's batshit. It's the craziest. I was trying to convince CR to do it for rewatchables and even CR is like, I don't know, man. It's like you're offering a plutonium and he's doing the scene. But there's, this is from the premiere in 97. Opinions about Kilmer swing from pro, parentheses, artist, to violently con, disturbed,

With demanding and difficult somewhere in between, he's aloof, though he's shy, he's a liar, he's terrific, he brings out the worst in everyone, you just have to know how to handle him. And then a quote from Tom Sizemore, "Never had I heard so much crap about an actor "I had such a good time with. "It's all bullshit, he doesn't explain himself to people "so people talk." The action is the juice. - And to me, I miss the juice. Maybe this should go under what's aged the best,

I miss the problematic on-set actor shoving the director and busting up the hotel room. We got it a few years later after Kilmer. It was Russell Crowe. Right. I mean, listen. Eddie Vedder was difficult. Axl Rose was a complete asshole. Those were my heroes in music. Yeah. And there was something that was...

I don't know if it's romantic, but maybe it was just good old-fashioned cool about, oh, yeah, he and Joel Schumacher exchanged blows on the set of Batman. Kilmer won't take any shit. He's so hard to work with, but he's so talented. They still do it. I thought that was kind of cool back in the day. I miss it. Yeah, and Schumacher, I don't think history has treated him kindly the last 30 years, but he was one of the people that was killing him left and right. And then John Frankenheimer, who directed him in Island, Dr. Murrow, said...

I will never climb Mount Everest and I will never work with Val Kilmer again. There isn't enough money in the world. And Schumacher was throwing him under the bus left and right. But I think he was just a really passionate artist who never wanted to be as famous as he got. But all these dudes at the same time, they can't resist it. It's like, here's the Batman suit. And they're like, oh, fuck.

all right, fine, I'll be Batman. And then you like hate yourself that you did it, you know? Well, I think that's why also the Saint is actually a great movie to do for the Val Kimmerer tribute, because I think this is the most interesting juncture of his career, like at the, he's at the crossroads. So he's doing his thing. This is, this is post heat. This is post tombstone.

Michael Keaton decides I'm out on Batman. I'm not doing it. Kilmer gets a call while he's in Africa saying Batman's yours. Doesn't read a script, doesn't do anything, signs up for it. And he talks about this in his documentary. And this is when my opinion of Val Kilmer jumped leaps and bounds.

He was so miserable playing Batman, not just because of Schumacher, but he's surrounded by Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones, who are actors, actors and performers. And they're just painting scenery and chewing shit up and like owning every scene. And he's sitting there saying these stupid Batman lines and he can't move and he can't act. And it was like torture for him. I just it was it was heartbreaking to hear it for an artist. He's like, everyone wants to be Batman. I don't think everyone necessarily wants to play Batman. Like that's Val Kilmer.

So The Saint, which was a TV series that had been bounced around, and we'll talk about how this was like a big TV remake thing. And it comes out and it does well. It doesn't do amazing, but I had always heard about it. They're going to try to reboot it. And Mission Impossible beats it by a year. Same studio, Paramount. And we'll talk about all the ways that was bad for The Saint. So I'm living in Charlestown in 1997 in Boston. Yeah.

I had the illegal cable box. Great. Which I've talked about many times in the rewatchables. And it would have like 12 pay-per-view channels. And if it was like the Saint was now on pay-per-view, it wouldn't be like you got it on demand. It would be, it would run from two to four and then four to six and six to eight and eight to 10. And that's how I would watch some of these movies. It was like a train. Just keep it on. I would be like writing my Boston Sports guy comment. I just have the Saint on the background for three days.

And I think that's why I like the movie so much because the movie's incoherent. Yeah. We'll go over the plot. The plot is like, you have to watch this movie seven times to even fully understand what's happening. It's what it is and why I like this so much. It's a great hang.

This is like, I can't think of a better like airplane movie than the saint. You can, you're paying attention. You don't really have to pay attention. Elizabeth shoe looks amazing. Kilmer looks great. He's wearing weird disguises. There's a couple of chase scenes and it's a hang and it's over. And this is where I'm going to throw. I'm doing it right now. The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harris for it. You're going to do it in the open. Let's go do it in the open.

I've said this forever and I'm going to say it now. This should have been born Mission Impossible. There should have been six of these. It really makes me mad. I've felt this way for 30 years. And it wasn't ostensibly because it was a hit, but not like a mega hit. And then Kilmer was probably difficult. And then what is the other reason sitting there? I don't see it.

So Mission Impossible comes out in 96. And why not go head to head with that? They can't do it. Maverick's got too much for Iceman. Is that that's the reason? So I think I think there's other reasons. They didn't really hit the full potential of what this could have been. Partly because Mission Impossible had already happened. Now, there's this whole alternate universe where the Saint just comes out in 94 and probably shifts what Mission Impossible is. Yeah. But I think the reverse happened. But if you just look at it.

Great name. I know what it is. The Saint. Yep. Repeatable action movie gimmick. Guy who's like kind of a spy, but he's a thief and he disguises as his gimmick. Great lead actor. I want to spend more time with Val. Just like Damon starts Sporn. Okay, great. More Damon. Mm-hmm. We have a superhero origin story in the orphanage. Yeah, we sure do. And the girl falls to her death and it's like, oh shit. We're on location. There's action. There's villains. Mm-hmm.

What else do I need? I know. We should have had five of these. I know. The Saint, Budapest, the Saint, Argentina. Like, what the fuck are we doing? Yes, let's go. It's like Real Housewives. Just move them all over. The coolest thing that the Saint does is the costumes, right? Like he,

The problem is, though, is that Mission Impossible almost does the exact same thing with the masks, almost kind of in a cooler way. Kind of better. Yeah. It's like they take their best club and hit it better. You know what I mean? And it's just, Cruz is a little more compelling than Kilmer when he's just being the agents. And so I hear you on that. Like it's Mission Impossible's superior product. And then the Saint would have to market correct it a year later and it didn't have that kind of firepower. It's an all-time market correction. And the irony of it,

is you have Maverick fucking beating the Iceman yet again. Maverick just outfought him one more time. Same thing. No difference than Kaczynski flying in that whatever conflict we were in in 1986 and Maverick became the hero. All Kaczynski did was just kill it. Top of his class. Just getting wins left and right. Goes on, has a better job as we found out of Maverick. Has just way more important in the country and Maverick still somehow wins. Same thing here.

And it cuts even worse because meanwhile, you know, Kaczynski is trying to make up for it by getting with Maverick's girl from Cocktail. And like that doesn't do anything either. Like there's a whole universe involved here. It's fucking bullshit. I love this gimmick.

There's a couple other things I love, but we got to do the disguises now. I can't wait for the categories. It's so early. I have everything written down. You guys want some coffee or something? Go, do your thing. Do your thing with the disguises. They're the best. You said it's a great hang movie or airplane movie because the lead character changes every 10 minutes and you get a different cool voice from Kilmer and he just gets to cook. So I did a top five. I got the top five characters in this. And I'll start with number five.

Number five is at the end of the embassy. It's Southern accent goatee guy. Little tombstone in there. Yeah. He's number five because he sounds like Doc Holliday. And it's like, oh, shit, he's doing Doc. And he has to get into the file himself. Number four, Spanish guy on plane who's swinging the medallion. Yeah. Yeah.

Super Jim Morrison. Like once again, dips into past roles. It's a little Jim Morrison ish. He's got a little bit of the lizard King. His hair almost looks like Ron Perlman and beauty and the beast. He's got number three. I got the, the old, the grumpy cold fusion, mumbo jumbo. You don't believe in this type of stuff. I like him. He's like a cross between Ernie McCracken and Joseph Lieberman. Like he's just all over the place. That's my three teeth, right?

Terrible teeth. Yeah. Terrible comb over. And he hits on the young girl too. I got a German lipstick guy. It's so early. Do you want some coffee or something? Love in the train terminal with the lipstick and everything. That's the one I wrote. His name's Bruno, right? I can't remember their names. Is it named Bruno? I wrote that he looks like a Danish hairdresser or the fifth BG or both. Yes. He has the hair like the guy from firehouse. Like it's, yeah.

And then number one, I got the artist Thomas with the wine and the sculpting. I think that's the best part of the movie. That's my guy. You? I had all those written down. I don't want to sleep on first time we see him. He's the gimp from Pulp Fiction climbing the building. We're in the same outfit. He's Verbal Kins. Yeah. He's got that. I also enjoyed Russian Maid Lady.

Sure. Quick cameo in the background with a mop. I honestly could have spent another 40 seconds with Russian made lady with him. And then Ivan Tretiak lookalike guy. He's cosplaying Ivan Tretiak right to his face. It's great. I like that. I mean, so in the research, they openly say this because this is what he was all excited about.

They didn't want him to do as many disguises because they felt like it was stepping on Mission Impossible. It was like, you motherfuckers, you were developing this before Mission Impossible. But Kilmer was like more, more, more disguises. And they were like, no, no, Les, you're on the corner. I feel like every scene he could have been somebody different.

I'm actually, listen, I actually don't like the scenes when he's not somebody like this. We're going to the weak link of this movie bill. Like when he's not in disguise, he's not that great. Like it's, it's kind of a little bit boring when he's just Val Kilmer. You're like, get back to the disguise. Even the Australian guy was like, eh, guns make me nervous. Like I, I like it all. I don't want him out of costume ever. So Roger Ebert, I won't step on his review later, but he, he wrote, I've been trying to put my finger on the movie's key problem. And I think it may be that Kilmer plays the Saint too realistically.

If you take a step back and really think about James Bond, you'll realize that he is mad. So is Batman. So is the Phantom. They live in fantasy worlds in their own creation and bring a certain style to their delusions. The Saint still harbors ordinary human emotions and that will not do. But that was interesting. He's- It is. Val Kilmer almost plays it too straight. And yet, I think that's why this movie is such a good hang because I don't feel like-

You know, I never have to be too involved in fucking character arc and any of that shit. Get one flashback to the girl falling over her death in the orphanage. Other than that, he's just having fun stealing money from people. Yeah, he's driving his car around. He's kind of fucking around. He's leaving notes for her. But when he's just Simon, it's like,

You know how you said, like, you don't really know what Kilmer is doing in heat. He's kind of just under planing and brooding. Like that's he's not doing much as Simon. He's just letting the action handle it. He's letting Moscow handle it because it looks really cool. Yeah.

The old TV show remake era, we have to mention really quick. Sure. This is a stretch of two Brady Bunch movies, The Flintstones, Adam's Family, Charlie's Angels, The Fugitive, Beverly Hills, Hillbillies, The Saint. There was more. And for some reason, I feel like if you look back, even though the 90s were amazing for movies and we had all these great stars and directors in there, this is also Hollywood telling us they're starting to run out of ideas. Yeah, it's tough.

They were like the same. Sure. Let's okay. Greenlit. Let's go. Sounds. And they're just doing this with basically everything that came out in the sixties, seventies and eighties. As a guy who was going to movies all the time, you and me as well.

Were you going out and being like, I got to see John Goodman as Fred Flintstone? I'm there. I wasn't. I didn't care. I was kind of annoyed by it. I was a late teenager. And even now, I'm like, those movies I have no desire to watch. I would never show them to my kids. Yeah, it almost seemed like the thing that hit the hardest was the casting. Even before you came out the movie, it'd be like, so John Goodman's going to be Fred Flintstone. I'm like, okay. And then you would go see the movie. I remember one of the weirdest ones was Lost in Space, a TV show that wasn't even like...

You know, I don't I'd never felt like that show held up. And then all of a sudden they're making it. And I think like Matt LeBlanc is in it. Matt LeBlanc's in there. Lacey Chabert, William Hurt. Right. They rounded up some folks. Why did we do this? And it amounted to nothing. We don't need it. It's not like Star Trek or Star Wars. Lost in Space is kind of a reach, guys. We need that. But they're like anything that was on TV. Let's do it. They never made a Gilligan movie, but I'm surprised they didn't.

Yeah. Like I remember in the 2000s. Yeah. I was really, when I finally had like just enough juice to even get a meeting with anybody. And I was like, you got to remake the white shadow. Got to remake the white shadow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you realize like,

If something hasn't really existed for 25, 30 years, why do you even have to remake it? Because ultimately the people that are going to carry a movie or a TV show are in their teens or their 20s and they have no history with the show. If you remade The White Shadow right now, nobody would fucking know what it was. You know, so like I felt that way with The Saint. I don't know what The Saint was. It was like, oh, Roger Moore TV show in the 60s. It was like, great. I wasn't there. I don't know what that is.

Well, they're now making White Shadow, but in 20 years, they're going to be remaking White Lotus and people are just going to absolutely love it. It's cool. They just hang out at hotels and fuck around. The shows we're watching now in 20, 30 years, they'll be something. Yeah. Well, The Saint apparently inspired 14 movies. This was the initial thing which started. It was all these books in the 20s written by Leslie Charteris. Just wrote dozens of novels. So no different than Bosch or some of these ones that exist now.

And it kind of peaked with the 60s TV series, which was with Roger Moore, who then became Bond. Another piece of this movie, our girl, Elizabeth Shue. Let's go. You know, after Karate Kid and Cocktail, there's not a lot left to do. Like she wanted to ask her, so what?

Like Oscars over here, best actress, fine. Other people have won best actress. Not everybody has gone toe to toe with Machio and Cruz in a five year span. I don't know when you fly that coast to the sun, Kyle, I don't know what's left for your IMDb, your career, whatever, but she wins the Oscar.

And this was one of her big movies after. The Oscar was really weird with certain actors. Like Adrienne Brody's another one. It's actor or actress. Sometimes it's not what you think it is. And in this case, she makes the trigger effect, the scene, deconstructing Harry and Paul Meadow are her next four movies. And the moment kind of comes and goes. But this was the memorable one. Well, then let me say this as we remember Kilmer. Shue has an Oscar.

Val Kilmer never nominated for an Oscar, never nominated for a Golden Globe ever in his life. And I've seen a lot of things this week. And I think we should we should mention this. A lot of people are saying, oh, my God, Doc Holliday and Tombstone. How is he not nominated? It's an outrage. He wasn't nominated. I'm like, yeah, he's incredible.

I went and did the rewatchables thing, Bill, and I looked at who was nominated that year for best supporting actor. Holy shit. Loaded. All right. 1993, it was Tombstone, so it'd be the 94 Oscars. Let me read you the best supporting actor nominees. Leonardo DiCaprio, Gilbert Grave. Jesus. Ray Fiennes, Schindler's List. John Malkovich in The Line of Fire.

Pete Postlethwaite for In the Name of the Father. And the Oscar goes to Tommy Lee Jones for The Fugitive. I knew that was an elevated train. Dude, that's a lineup. And there's other stuff from that year, too, that's even worse. So he was in the 92 Oscars. Here's what we have for that one for Best Actor. Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs. Not going to argue. No. De Niro and Cape Fear. No argument. Max Cady. Robin Williams and The Fisher King. Pretty good.

Nick Tolti, Prince of Tides. Maybe. I don't know. Warren Beatty and Bugsy. But Bugsy's just infuriating. Bugsy's all over the place in the Oscars. And it's like, really, Val Kilmer? He sings...

All of the music as Jim Morrison in the doors, not to mention everything else. So I think that was the one for him that he got boned on personally. And remind me, that would have been before everyone started shitting on how hard difficulty was or maybe that's part of that. No, that was before. He made it through a movie with Oliver Stone, who I don't exactly think was Mr. Drummond from Back to Life. No, I...

I think it worked. And we talked about this, but we get now up to The Saint where I remember the story about it was more than about the movie. It was about Val Kilmer as an asshole. The story was written about it. Sometimes this happens, especially back then before internet. Waterworld is expensive and it's not that good. Don't even like it. We're even seeing it now with

with Snow White. It's terrible, it's terrible because of all these reasons. You don't even have to see the movie to know it's a disaster or at least be told that it is. The same had some of that going on where it's just, it's the Val Kilmer asshole project and it's not good, but it is pretty cool. - And it's also a really good Elizabeth Shue movie. - It sure is. - I thought she's a really important '80s, '90s person. We also have Ivan Tretiak played by the bearded bad guy from Taken 2 all those years later.

Still evil. Younger, but just as evil. And then more importantly- Don't you just smile when you see that guy? I love that guy. I love him. I'm not even going to say his name because I don't care what his name is. I just know him from The Saint and Take It Too, but he's been in 40 things. He's in everything. You need a Russian guy who's kind of evil, but charismatic and has a cool beard. Yeah. That is your guy. And then his son, Ilya. Yep. Who's also really good because he has a sleazy ponytail. Yeah.

Yes. He's got a cocaine watch. Didn't even know those existed. Oh yeah. But most importantly, an evil cane. When did,

Do we just not do props enough with our action movies? I don't know why he's running around with the cane. He's using it. It's almost like you would use it if you're walking on a tightrope crossing buildings. A balance beam. You need that balance thing. But the cane, I guess he can hurt people with it. It's made out of metal. It's never explained. He never talks about it. What is it? He's totally able-bodied. He certainly doesn't need it to walk.

It's this and this is this is a little window dressing, a little lipstick to put on him. They even occasionally he'll do the like like and they'll add the sound effects when he does it like he's Zorro or something. And then at the end, you knew there was going to be a weapon. And there's like this little sticker that comes out of the end. That guy, like, let's just say we can revisit that actor when it comes to recasting. And I think they're like, we got to give this guy some. We got the ponytail and we got the cane and the cocaine watch. Let's dress him up a little bit.

At least if you're going to carry the evil cane around all movie, I need you to do some nunchuck stuff with it or

Or like be able to flip it around and like be just be a little more intimidating. He's carrying it. It's like, is this guy disabled? Is he doing this so he can get a better parking space? What are the ironic thing was Kilmer's last movie before this is Batman Forever in which Jim Carrey has a cane that Carrey has talked about. He worked for months to get to do all those like the baton twirling thing. And he does it the whole movie. That's what you're looking for from the young Trediak.

You know, I haven't revisited Batman forever in a while. It is kind of crazy how loaded that cast was. They basically, they basically 2024 NBA dream team, the Olympics with the cast. We have, you mentioned Tommy Lee Jones and, and Carrie coming off 94 when he had the three monster movies. Yeah. Nicole Kidman's in it, right? As she's doing. And then Chris O'Donnell was like, basically. Big deal.

gonna be Matt Damon and then Matt Damon's like, fuck that, market corrects him with Good Will Hunting. But the five of those people were pretty massive. No, that movie played. That movie got the plane down. The next one that came out was the disaster with Clooney and Schwarzenegger and that one is just unwatchable garbage. Well, Schwarzenegger is Mr. Freeze. Yeah, it's like a career ender. Everybody chill! It was just...

And by the way, like Kilmer is look back. And at the time they're like, you said no to a Batman movie. Nobody does that. He made the right choice. He dodged that bullet and he gave us the same instead, which is way better than Batman and Robin. So the biggest thing from this movie and the legacy after it came out, other than I kind of liked that movie. Yeah. The music was amazing at the, at the time.

It's amazing now. There was a real moment and I was a big, like I was a big at the same time, simultaneously like hip hop rap, but also obviously grunge. Of course. And both of those things are exploding at the same time. And I love that. And I wasn't really the electronic scene.

I was about a year late too. And I had a couple of friends that were in it. And there was a couple of clubs in Boston that had it. And I was like, I don't get it. I don't get it. And this movie kind of got me into it. Um, that we have orbital does the theme song, which I think is one of the better action theme songs. It's got the sneaker pimp song six underground, which I think it's so good. Anytime you hear that in a movie, it's so good. I love it. Daft Punk does the funk.

Moby has Oil One, Underworld Chemical Brothers, and Fluke is in it. And then Duran Duran's in it as like the old guys trying to play this music. And there's more stuff in there, but there was a specific moment. And I think this is the only movie that hit it correctly because by the late nineties, that moment kind of moved into something else. But all of them, and it's all in there. And it's, I think it's a big,

drawing card for this movie. This wasn't your music. You were more Pearl Jam. Oh, well, I was more Pearl Jam. But listen, and this is my what's the most 1997 thing about this movie. He's sitting around on his like shitty 1997 computer negotiating with the mafia, just blasting some smashing pumpkins in his apartment. No problem. And then he's in a chase scene with a shootout and he puts the pumpkins back on as he drives. And it's like,

There was some exec bill that went to the filmmakers. They're like, we got to get some pumpkins in. They're hot. Just put them in. And we're like, it's a movie in Russia. It doesn't really fit. Fucking put them in. Yeah. It's a cover of a car song and they're driving a car. It makes sense. Just put in. And I, I'm bobbing my head. You're all I've got tonight. Oh yeah. The, uh,

It was a really important CD in the mid-90s. Yeah. Because, you know, we didn't have Spotify back then. We didn't have Apple. We didn't have anything. And it's like you had to buy CDs that had as many possible songs that you might have liked as possible. And this one was great. So listen, 90s soundtracks, if you want to put it up there,

The Crow is up there for me. Last Action Hero. Singles. Judgment Night. And singles, obviously. Singles is probably the number one. But those are the ones you had to have. Yeah. Above the Rim, I'd throw in two. Directed by Philip Noyce, who did Dead Calm, a really good movie with Nicole Kidman that made her not a star, but put her on the radar for everybody. Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger. Hell yeah. The Saint and Sliver.

with Sharon Stone. So he was busy in the 90s. But I have some thoughts. Kirkland Brand Basic Instincts, also known as Sliver. Tough one. I have some thoughts on him for later. Let's take a break. And then I want to tackle the plot really quick. Let's go.

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All right. So I watched this movie with my wife who really likes it. She loves Val Kilmer. We've watched this movie a couple of times. I think we might even been dating when it was on pay-per-view or maybe was on HBO, but I was always into it and she just likes Val Kilmer. So we're watching it and I look over and she's smiling and I was like, you like this movie? And she's like,

I really like it. I don't know what it's about and I don't really care. And I was like, that's perfect. You should have been on the movie poster. I'm going to try to explain what it's about. All right, go. Just for the people who have watched this and kind of sort of understood. So we see Simon when he's dressed like the Gimp. He steals a microchip from a Russian oil company. He's caught by Tretiak, by his son, Ilya. All right, who's Tretiak?

He is an oil billionaire. And this plot, which is really hard to figure out because they don't have somebody actually explaining it to you, he's withholding energy from the Russians. And they're having the worst summer ever because he's trying to make the president look bad because he wants to overthrow the president. And people are freezing to death because they can't heat their homes. Yes. So he gets this microchip and then Tretiak and his son

hire him instead of just killing him, which I guess is a nitpick. They could have just murdered him. But instead they're like, no, we're going to use him. He's going to try to get this cold fusion thing from us and then we'll be able to use it. And then he's going to kill Simon. So Simon figures this out.

He learns that this guy, instead of selling the cold fusion formula, he's going to sell a fake formula to the president. The president's going to have this rally and he's going to show how the cold fusion works. Then it's not going to work. Right. And the Russian people are going to go, what the fuck? I thought you said we had cold fusion. We've got to overthrow you. And now Tretiak is going to take over. Who he doesn't realize is the saint.

He has 12 hours and he gets the real formula in. So when the president shows them how cold fusion is going to work, it works. And then Tretiak, who's been saying it's not going to work, he basically becomes the Nico Harrison in this whole thing. And he's like, you traded Luka Doncic? We fire Nico. Fire Nico. He's the fire Nico. And his career's over. And that's how the saint wins. That's what happens in this movie.

I watched it 15 times before I understood it. Same with me. I think you just said some things that explained it to me. I'm supposed to pretend I know what you're talking about. And I'm nodding. I'm like, Oh, that's what happened. But you know, it's the same thing. There were same reactions to mission impossible the year before was no one understood what the fuck the plot is. And, and why is this guy alive now? And he wasn't, and it was very, very hard to follow. And, uh, in the meantime, in this movie, it's like,

what is this cold fusion? I had no idea what that is and what that means, especially me seeing it at 17. And then I knew the girl who was on the soccer team with Daniel LaRusso invented it. So it's very confusing. And I don't know where we're going, but thank you for explaining it to me. Nevermind the people. I'd never gotten it. So it actually on paper sounds great.

I don't know if they executed it. I don't think if they executed the narrative, the narrative, uh, as well as maybe they could have. And if you're going to nitpick maybe one or two more set pieces like that, you know, one of the best scenes that we'll get to is when they're running along the river and he has to go in the water. Yeah. It's like two scenes short of stuff like that.

But this is what makes me so mad why we didn't have the Saint 2 because I think the Saint 2 almost would have been like John Wick 1 versus John Wick 2 where John Wick 2, they're like, we've learned John Wick 1 worked.

Some stuff didn't work. Let's fix it for John Wick 2 and it'll be incredible. And I think this scene too would have been incredible. I really do. It's like a huge missed opportunity. It would have been a anything you can do, I can do better with Mission Impossible. It would have been a cold war because they would try to one-up each other every time. And, you know, Mission Impossible, Cruz is hanging from the wires above the floor. Like, it was really cool.

Saint 2 would have been there. Also, owned by the same studio and there's this whole alternate universe where the Saint and Mission Impossible kind of cross over in a movie and we get Maverick versus Ice again. Maybe they're trying to do the same thing. Yeah, why not? Uh,

Hey, this movie had a $90 million budget and made $169 million. So it wasn't a failure. That's another thing. Like this movie made money. Why? What the fuck? What are we doing? I'm just mad that they didn't have the crossover and that Ethan Hunt and Simon Templar didn't have like a shower scene in their towels where they're just nipping out and looking at each other and telling them you're everyone's problem. Like that's the scene we need. Rick Rasevich is there for no reason. Goose is there.

Roger Ebert, two stars. He called it a James Bond wannabe, which is an irony since James Bond in a way is a saint clone. Says the fight scenes go on too long and are not interesting. The villains aren't single-minded enough.

what does work is the chemistry between Kilmer and Shu who seems to have a certain charm. There's a Siskel and Ebert TV review of this and Siskel goes, Siskel hated it. He goes, I think the disguises are a big mistake. I think it becomes the nutty saint, if you will. And my response to that instead of fuck you Raj is fuck you Gene. Yeah.

Nobody asked you. Yeah. Sorry to like disguises and locations and action. Fuck you. And I like the Nutty Saint. Did you not like the Nutty Professor? Because it was hilarious. I don't know what you're talking about. The Nutty Saint sounds great. I would watch that right now. Most rewatchable scene. So our choices are Moscow Microchip Heist, which is the Gump from Pulp Fiction disguise.

but then bushy mustache, English accent disguise where he's basically like a hockey coach. It looks like he's like coaching the Buffalo Sabres in 1996. Kind of, kind of a look. Um,

But he's... This is where we find out Trediak Gas and Oil Industries. You know we're in good shape there. We get the Russian National Anthem. I know that's always... Always brings it to your feet. Yeah. You think of Nikolai Volkov. Red October. Yeah, Red October. And we get the jump off the roof into the pit. Sure. Which these movies will do...

It's just the truck is lined up down, you know, and that there's just enough padding that you can fall 16 stories and it's fine. I don't know if it works this way in real life, but I'm not going to question it. How about the flex on Simon as he's falling down? He removes his mustache as he's falling. I don't know if that's totally necessary, but he lands on what looks like an inflatable truck. And every time he fucks over the Russians, guys, you get that. Yeah.

It's pretty badass. When he takes off his mustache, you think it's going to turn into a parachute. It's like, no, he's just fucking with him. Next one, long hair Val, your favorite character. What's this guy's name? Thomas Moore? Thomas Moore, the artist who is like, he does the South African accent, which is very difficult to do. You saw Damon pulled it off in the soccer movie and then

Kilmer learned it on set in Ghost in the Darkness and he showed up. It's very difficult to do. I have a lot to say about this scene from start to finish with Shu and the painting and the sculpture and the wine. It's fantastic. It's why you watch this movie. So he seduces her at dinner. Yes.

There's an uneaten entire plate of spaghetti and meatballs in front of Shu for the first part of this. I don't know if my hot cold fusion scientist was really a spaghetti and meatballs person. I don't know. I'll allow it, I guess, but she never touches it. And then it all leads to seduction, seduction, seduction, abrupt departure. Yes. I'm going to go smash a wine bottle against the wall for no reason. I'm

I'm going to blade like I'm Bruno Sammartino in Shea Stadium in 1978. Just blading, bleeding. And that's just too much for her. She has to have sex with him. It's full Bret Hart, stone cold razor. Cut yourself. And when he falls, there's that awesome moment where before he cuts himself, he goes,

what are you doing? And then he does it. And he's like, I was weeping and I was thinking of you. She just falls for it. I have this unanswerable questions about it. First of all, because this comes after the badass move with the wine where he's like, sir, that's 400. Well,

which no waiter ever does. And he goes, let's take two of them. You count it. If you did that entire sequence to a woman, like would that work in 2025? Like, would it just go disastrously? I don't know. If you're bleeding and cutting yourself, I probably not. Right. I think it only works in Phantom Thread, the Paul Thomas Anderson movie with Daniel Day-Lewis. It's the only other time that works. Yeah. It's there's some sort of you're preying on

on a woman who's very professionally busy but has no self-esteem with men, which I think is the way they drew this character. Smoking hot, but nobody's ever hit on her because all she's doing is the cold fusion every day. Hasn't had time to meet anyone, and this guy just hits it. By the way, I skipped over a scene with her that's one of my favorites. Yeah.

Dr. Emma Russell answers cold fusion questions. Yeah, let's go. The raw natural power just waiting to be harnessed. You could drive your car 55 million miles. It would be the end of pollution. She's going and going and I'm just like, I'm in. This all sounds great. At the same time, I still feel like

Brian Flanagan talking about cocktails and dreams with him. I still feel like it's a 10 out of 10 for her as a career apex. This is pretty good though, her laying out Cold Fusion. - This is, I guess, one of the smartest, most progressive scientists in the world. She gets up in front of students and she goes, "I don't really have anything to say. "Do you have any questions?" And then they don't, of course. She's like, "Please." And finally one of these students is just like, "How's it work?"

And then she starts spouting this shit about, well, positively charged deuterons attached to the palladium cathode. It's like, is this like a 12th grade science project? Does she have a diorama? It's the most unsophisticated shit ever. And Val just sits back and he's just got hard eyes. He's like, I'm going to give away my entire style of living for this girl. I love her. And I guess so Bill Simmons did too. You know, I thought it worked. Well, here's the thing.

I think they were, they were, they probably look at it like, all right, this lady's specialty is nuclear cold fusion. Yeah. These people probably aren't the greatest hangs. So,

And how do we excuse the fact that she's also beautiful and fun to hang out with? So what's going to be her vice? They'll be like, oh, I can see why she hasn't found anyone. I just think they made her try to be super insecure. She's doing the thing, right? And I guess on the positive side, mission accomplished. Because she looks like she's a 13-year-old giving a seventh grade project to a kid.

This is my book report on Are You There, God? It's me, Margaret. What are you doing? There's no gravitas at all. Listen, I know we're jumping around. One of the key character moments for her is when they're about to do it

And she goes into the bathroom and she's like, this is really happening. This is really, I'm like, are you a fucking virgin? Like, what is this? Why do I feel like you're 16? The homecoming dance. This is so weird. You're like in your thirties, I think. She's like, you guys, this is about cold fusion, but Judy Blume's one of my favorite authors. What are we doing? All right. A couple more rewatchable scenes. The mouse race club.

Let's go. Anytime there's evil Russians, you know, there's going to be a fun club and you know, they're all going to be hanging around a table with their arms around hot Russian women. And there's going to be some sort of weird gambling event. And in this case, it was a mouse race. And I got to say, I was kind of in like, I know ESPN is trying to come up with counter programming, like pickleball. And, uh, what's that one? The cornhole mouse races. I was really intrigued by.

Bad news for ESPN, though. Dana White's already adding it to his slap fight repertoire. We're going to race rats. Listen, I had this for Benihana. This is a movie that features Red Square in Moscow. And I'm still like, I don't know. The Russian mafia rat race prostitute coke den is pretty badass. Bill, they have a fucking mariachi band inexplicably there. I don't know why. That place is wild. I want to party there. I love this scene. It's so good.

And then we have Simon dressed up like Trediak going, you know what the hardest part of being you is? Pretending to be bad in bed. Whoa. Next one is Emma confronting Simon after he's escaped. And she somehow figures out right away where he is, which we'll get to in picking nets. But she says, I would have given them to you if you asked, being in the cold fusion. I like calling it cold fusion. I don't even know if I'm right.

Is that what it's called? Yeah. It's Cold Fusion, right? Cold Fusion, yeah. Exactly. That's like the whole thing. Why doesn't Starbucks use Cold Fusion instead of doing the cold brew? Why don't they add like a Cold Fusion? Because it doesn't even necessarily exist or be the right thing. We have Cold Fusion macchiato, no sugar for Bill. For Bill. With triple nonfat vanilla. It sounds like something my daughter would order. Okay. Okay.

Here's my favorite scene. I'm just going to tell you this is my most rewatchable. Simon and Emma escape from Ilya and his crew. They watch out of the river and they're running alongside the ice on the river, which is just fucking cool. It's definitely one of those, how did they do this? How did they not fall in? And then Val has to go in the water. I think this also gets great shock order award.

Val's, I think, going to be dead in two minutes, maybe 30 seconds in that water. He's looking up. He's looking up again. She pulls him out. Really good stuff. We needed like two more of these scenes in this movie. I remember being in the theater in this scene and people were losing their minds. They could not believe that they were pulling this off. And I hate to have this angle on. I'm watching it yesterday and I was like,

Tom Cruise does this before he has breakfast now. I've seen this so many times done way bigger. At the time in 97, it was like, wow, Kilmer's holding his breath for that long? Tom Cruise holds his breath for an hour while he's spelunking. It's just the game has changed since back then. You know what I mean? It's like now everybody's running 4-3. The linebackers run 4-3. It's different now. Yeah, Cruise is doing this for real now.

And there's 17 doctors on hand because he can only be in there for three minutes and 22 seconds before his body will shut down. But Cruz wants to do it. Yeah. And he's 25 years older at this point. He's just outdoing everybody. Yeah. Well, we also get the Emma stripping to warm him up. Great gimmick. I have hypothermia. Can you lie on me with just your bra on?

Can you make sure it's like a smoking hot black bra? Like make sure it's not just some like entry level thing. Like I need something sexy. So that's, that's a landmark scene for me. And then, uh, escaping the waterlogged tunnels, heading to the embassy is good. Get a good little embassy run. Absolutely. Not quite an angry run that you've patented. Um, cause cause she's a little, little sloppy. Ilya comes in for the grab, but she gets in and then, uh,

Then we get a little Russian roulette with Val during that scene as well. I like when we do a gimmick that's named after the country that we're actually in. I think they get bonus points for that. And then last one I have is a cold fusion parade rally. That's the actual ending question mark. Sure. That's how they end this movie with a cold fusion rally.

They do. And Bill, I don't know if you have this here or somewhere else, but you sent me the link of the alternate ending that they did. Yeah, I have it somewhere else. Okay, good. I'm happy to discuss it now. Well, discuss it because I had never seen that before and I watched it, riveted, and it's radically different what they did. Yeah, so it's a big, it's on YouTube and it's in Russian for some reason. It's not an American. I don't know how it got out, but it's a whole action thing where

Kilmer goes in and it's like people are getting shot and it's building, things are blowing up and Ilya dies. It kind of seems more like a Mission Impossible movie and I have no idea why they didn't include it. The only thing I can think of is did they decide they didn't want the saint to actually kill anyone in this movie?

Because he doesn't kill anyone in this movie. Yeah. I think that they pivoted to the bigger love story because there was reshoots and I know Shu was in a bunch of them. And after the light comes on in the Red Square, it turns into a Nicholas Sparks novel. And it's like they're at a cottage making love and kissing each other in bed. They ended it with the love story and that was a choice. And they're like, let's have more Shu. And I watched the video. It looked like a Pierce Brosnan era James Bond ending. It was fine. It was fine.

Well, how they ended it, it made somebody like my wife happy. She was just like, I really like this movie. I know. I like it ending in the cottage. So what do you have for most rewatchable? I still like my guy, Thomas, the artist, when he's just like, I'm just a traveler searching for truth. What are you searching for? And she's like, I found it. I'm looking for you. Let's jump in the sack. That's my scene. What's the most 97 thing about this movie? I'll give you some options. Go ahead. The soundtrack we talked about. Yeah.

A movie not realizing that Mission Possible also existed as they were making it. I think their choices are a lot different. Every scene involving the internet, like all of them. My personal winner is the Nokia 9000 Communicator. Yeah, that was cool. Which was a cutting edge phone in 96. It was a handheld, but it was also a clamshell pocket computer. And it had a little keyboard and apps. And I did not have it because it was expensive. And I...

might not have known anyone that had it. And I might not have ever seen it until this movie. Yeah, this was still paging people, 911, call me. Nobody had that thing. And that's why it was so cool. I do like what you said about everything about the internet. How come when they email each other in this movie, it looks like a Wheel of Fortune screen where there's like six words at a time. That's all you can do. And it blew our minds back then. We could have done a rewatchables month of just how they got the internet wrong with movies in the 90s and Disclosure and this movie and The Net.

Like there's a four year window where they're like the internet, we got to work it in. And they have no idea what they're doing with any aspect of it. Yeah. This is up there. It's, and it's, he's constantly on the computer and they're in their car and the computer. And there's like one of those antennas that comes out of the car to get internet signal. The emailing is very strange, but again, I'll go with the phone. I had smashed pumpkins early, but I like the phone that turns into a computer. New category just for you. Oh, what do you got?

The fatal attraction guy gets framed award for original ending that the test audiences hated so much they had to reshoot it. In the original version of this movie, Dr. Russell collapses and dies during a lecture with about a half hour of the movie to go. And what happens is Ilya, she's doing a lecture and Ilya comes from behind and stabs her with his evil cane.

And it's got poison on it. And that's how it goes. And then the last 30 minutes is the Saint just wreaking havoc on everybody John Wick style. And the test audiences did not like it.

and they had to do two giant days of reshoots over eight days in December '96, and then another eight days in January '97 that cost two million bucks as they turned it into what you just mentioned. - This was happening-- - And that's why I think that Russian ending was in there because he's getting his revenge. - Because in the last 30 minutes it turns into Death Wish and he just starts kicking ass.

I'd always heard that at the end of Pretty Woman that Edward was going to die or something before he goes back and gets Vivian. And they're like, no, no, no. Give us a good ending. It's the 90s. People want this type of thing. Well, we just did the Good Will Hunting one and Gus Van Zandt was saying that he wanted Affleck to die in a construction accident.

Right before Will went to see about a girl and they like wrote the scene out and they're like, this definitely doesn't work. Let's get rid of this. Yeah. Bad ideas. No, don't do that. Because then we needed to bring Shu back for the sequel that we never got to. Sucks. Well, anyway, so that happened. And then that leads to another category that we never get to give out that often. Named after Elizabeth Shu.

The Elizabeth Shue is an Oxford electrochemist award for most ridiculous casting. Emma Russell, she's hot. She has a heart problem. Yep. And she's making big strides in cold fusion. I wrote down, I love when hot single woman with unbelievable jobs can't resist a movie hero who's obviously horrible for them. Yes.

It works every time. I'm always in. It's a great, great little thing that happens. And you and I, we've been on this a lot lately because you and I in CR, we did Nicole Kidman in Days of Thunder as a brain surgeon. We obviously had Roadhouse and Kelly Lynch is like the 10. She's the local surgeon just stapling up guys from the Double Deuce and Jasper. And it's the Kelly Lynch scale. Not to say...

that incredibly beautiful woman couldn't have positions like this, but it's a very small percentage. I also don't think the male neurosurgeon is going to be like Legends of the Fall, Brad Pitt. Like, that's not going to happen either. You know what I'm saying? You're not going to look like that. Well, see, there was the Peacemaker had one of these too. I think Nicole Kidman might have been in two movies where she had crazy jobs. Yes.

And she and Clooney both together just sultry on the screen, but they're trying to disable nukes in the middle of New York City. I love it. It's so rare that we get to give out the award for the actual movie we're doing. We're going to take one more break and then we'll do what's best.

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All right. What's aged the best? I'll start us off with crazy wild, wild West 1990s Russia. And then post USSR Russian villains. Hollywood's just trying to feel its way out here in the mid nineties. And they eventually settle on, let's get a guy who looks like the taking the eventual take a two bad guy, big beard, kind of handsome, charismatic, and he's going to have an evil son with a cane. Let's go.

I love it. The second I see that guy, whatever his name is, we'll get to it later,

He makes me happy. He also shows up on Eyes Wide Shut with Tom Cruise. He runs the costume store. He's the guy who always runs it. I have one. I always like when there's any kind of laser force field you have to navigate to get through to steal something very securely. Me too, with the red lights and you're like, oh my God, how did he do that? So many red lines. And he has that cool suit that puts his body temperature. That shit always works. I also like when someone says,

kill him, but bring her back alive. That sets up a great dynamic. And there's always a follow-up line where someone's like, he's still alive, you idiots. Watch where you're shooting. That always happens. It's so fun. I do love that too. Using Catholic saints as aliases. Yeah. Great work.

They have a Ku Klux Klan Knights moment out of nowhere. It's so weird. I kind of like it. They were like, hey, are these guys evil enough? When we do the reshoots, can you just do a quick scene? Just work the Ku Klux Klan in there. Why? Just do it. Don't ask. Just put it in. I don't know. I rewound. I was like, is that a Klan poster? What is that doing here? No idea. Not a clue, but I guess that just makes them evil or something. Don't know.

I have watching someone put on cool disguises. I just enjoy. Russian bad guy cruise. Love it.

Opening credits produced by Robert Evans. Yeah, baby. Here we go. Elizabeth Shue. She had the kind of lips that wouldn't quit. Apparently he was trying to develop this for years. And when they finally ended up making it, he wasn't involved at all. They paid him off to go away, but he got to keep his credit. Oh, well. Bob Evans. Bad guys with a prop we mentioned. Cold fusion. Just, I think it had a moment, which we'll get to later. And then, uh,

Runs to an embassy, I think is my favorite. What's aged the best when the embassy is right there and it's like 75 yards, just somebody sprinting to the embassy. Like what other aspects of life are like that? Or you have 75 yards to get there. If you don't get there, you're basically getting killed, but not really. You're just getting captured.

I had this under unanswerable. Bill, is this the way it works? If I'm in some place with conflict, can I just sprint to the U.S. embassy and start screaming, I'm an American, I'm an American, and then it becomes this game of Red Rover and you have to run through them? Because if I'm screaming I'm an American, I feel like they would gun me down or something. That's alarming. I can't work that way, right? I'm an American just seems to work.

It just seems to be the secret key to getting into the embassy. Do they know you're American? Like, do you have a Springsteen t-shirt on or something? Like, how do they know? I have no idea. Yeah, why couldn't a Russian pretend they were American and get into the embassy and then start killing everyone? Because you know they're Russians. They can't hide that shit. You know. There's not a chance. They're trained to spot those guys. Any more What's Aged to Best? Because I want to get to the Big Kahuna Burger Award for best use of food and drink. No, do it. Do it. We covered it. Simon breaking the wine bottle.

And then blading San Martino style. That would be my pick, but I do want to shout out the uneaten spaghetti and meatballs in Russia.

Why is that your order in Russia? Is that in Russia or is it in England? I lose track of where they are. Or England. Wherever she was, it was not a spaghetti and meatballs area. Or she was in England, I guess. I think Dr. Emma eats her feelings a little bit. She's very lonely and she goes to that restaurant. It's right down the block from her apartment. She's like, oh, Emma, you want the regular spaghetti and meatballs again? Yes, please. Isn't it like shepherd's pie or something? Fish and chips? Yeah, fish. You're in England.

By the way, I know you're a kind of wine guy adjacent like I am. It's the Latour 1957. And apparently all the wine snobs online, did you see this? They say that it stops being, it was last drinkable in the mid 80s. So him ordering it in 1996 is like you're a decade late. So they're odd on this movie. Loses all credibility. I don't give a shit about it. But you know, that's the kind of thing my mom would have picked up. I probably should have made her watch it. So that's my bad. We should have had that earlier. Yeah.

The Den of Thieves, Benny Hanna Award, scene, ceiling, location. I still think it's that river unless you have somewhere else. No, unless it's the rat race coke den with the prostitutes and the mariachi bands. Oh, good one. Yeah, one of those two. A lot of great scenes in this movie. Kid Cudi Pursued Happiness Award for Best Needle Drop. It's either the Pumpkin Song or Sneaker Pimps, Six Underground. Oh,

I like how they weave in the sneaker pimps. So I'd probably personally book. It's a little more subtle than, than, than Kilmer blasting on his Bose speakers and his Volvo with the pumpkins. So sneaker pimps is cool. Six underground. Take me down. It's awesome. Great song. The funny thing about him. Yeah, totally him, him, uh, blasting pumpkins, Billy Corgan and Val Kilmer together probably would have lasted about four minutes before one of them offended the other.

That's true. Two of the all-time be careful around those guys, guys. Yeah, I wouldn't go there. And it's not even like a cool pumpkin song, like something off Gish or Disarms. It's a Cars cover I never heard of since then. The Chess Rockwell and Brock Landers Award for Best Character Name. I mean, Simon Templar is pretty good, but I'd really enjoy Ivan Tretiak.

I don't know. That guy could be, he could be a Russian mob boss. He could be the best goalie in the NHL right now. He could be the person who overthrows the government. He's like every, he could be a wrestler.

What can Ivan Tretiak do? I think he might be an MMA as well. He's fighting Pereira next week. It's like he didn't want to take the fight with Ivan Tretiak because he's a ground game guy, but he's going to do it anyway. Tretiak ground and pound is lethal and Joe Rogan is just talking about it. He can stand up. He's a little vulnerable, but you get him down. It could be anything. He could definitely be standing on his head winning the consmite for the Buffalo Sabres too. That's a great, great name. Yeah.

Butch's girlfriend award. Weak link of the film. What do you got? We've had a lot of them already. It has major third act problems, as we know. But I just when he's not in costume, Simon's not great. He's not terribly charismatic. He's underplaying it. He's doing this puppy dog love thing. It's I don't love when Kilmer is just being Kilmer in this movie. I like him when he's dressed up.

Is it better if he's just doing Tom Kaczynski the whole time? The whole fucking time. Like arrogant, like just super arrogant spy guy with like frosted hair?

She's like, you stole my cold fusion. What's your problem? And he goes, you're everyone's problem. I don't like cold fusion because it's dangerous. It's unsafe. That's what I want. The whole fucking... With aviators too. I agree. I had a weak link in this similar area. Val Kilmer, master of disguise in this movie. Yeah. You can recognize him every time. There's not one disguise where you're like, that's not Simon Templar. Yeah.

And those British police, they're like, same build as our suspects. Yeah, it's like, no, he's definitely... There's a couple that are just basically like his hair is longer or shorter. What's aged the worst? Do you need the first seven minutes in the orphanage for the back setup of...

If you haven't watched this movie in a while, you might have forgotten the first seven minutes in which a kid gets caned by a priest and then two 10-year-olds kiss and one falls to her death. I don't want to see dead kids in the first five minutes of my Val Kilmer movie. What is that? It sucks. A dog pushes the... And it's like, okay, if you want to give them the superhero origin backstory, I just need more information then. So this girl fell to her death and this is why you became a thief? I think so. Yeah.

And listen, when Michael Keaton does Batman and they kill his parents, it's not the opening scene of the movie. First, he's going to kick a little ass as Batman. Like, I don't want the dead kid to start the movie. Yeah. This is definitely a start the movie seven minutes in on. It's on a bunch of places like Paramount all over the place. But I would I would start at seven minutes in the Internet in 97. We mentioned as an age, the worst.

Philip Noyce said afterwards that he made a mistake casting Val Kilmer and that he should have chosen Russell Crowe instead. And I just want to tell him to fuck off. He chose correctly. Maybe direct a better movie.

Maybe this is why your career hasn't gotten that great the last 28 years. Maybe look in the mirror a little bit. Well, Noyce, who sounds like a Key and Peele sketch, he is just coming off working with Harrison Ford for two straight movies. And maybe he liked that experience a little bit better. Now, listen, Bill, let's not pretend that the idea of like a young, badass, like LA Confidential era Russell Crowe wouldn't have killed it as the same. Let's not pretend. No disrespect to Val. We're here for Val, but it would have been pretty cool. How about this? I love both.

You're standing for Val. You're right. It's Val Week. Listen, we've done proof of life on the rewatchables. If you want to know how I feel about Russell Crowe, you just go there. That was one of the four most stunning movies we've done. I love Russell Crowe. He would have been great in this movie. But I also think it's an important Val movie because all the reasons we talked about at the top, it's such a weird movie. If Russell Crowe's in it, it actually has a chance to be...

a better movie that's probably not as memorable. I know it's, it's bad form to after it's, it's not looked down great to blame Val. I mean, you tell me, is this, this is JJ Redick not losing in the playoffs and being blaming LeBron? Like, isn't that like, it's the coach blaming the player. It's not cool. I don't like it. And then, uh, we mentioned this earlier, but Kilmer constantly pressing for more disguises. Yeah. But Paramount was nudging him off because they really liked that gimmick from Mission Impossible. I don't know. Hurts my feelings. Um,

Any other what's aged the best? Because we'll move on. What's aged the worst? Oh, what's aged the worst? The stunts aren't up to par in 2025. The stuff they do in this movie, Cruise does in his personal life for free. It's just, we've seen so much since then. It hasn't aged great. Great point. Ruffo, Hannah, Rubinick, Partridge, overacting word. I honestly couldn't find anything. I think there was some underacting.

The underacting award would be interesting. The Val Kilmer is the same underacting award. It's I'm a reach like Kilmer after he comes out of the freezing water is really going for it, but he should be going for it. He's freezing to death. I again, Elizabeth Shue, who is probably 35 years old and acts like she's never had sex before or kiss the boy in her life in her bathroom, fixing her hair and say, this is happening. This is happening. Take it easy. It's a little much.

The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford hottest take award. I already gave mine, so if you don't have one, we can move on. Or do you have one? I have a hottest take. Okay, let's hear it. I was going to go Val, but all roads lead to Shu for me. That Shu always fits. I think Elizabeth Shu is the greatest...

movie kisser of all time. I think she's the girl. She is fucking going for it in this movie. Every time she and Val kiss, it's intense. It's kind of an open mouth. And then I had the pleasure of going down to YouTube wormhole and just go in every time she could cocktail. She and Cruz in the water and Cruz is real weird, but like, there's like

full tongue and everything. It's intense as hell. Cruz felt like he got a boner under the water there. I think so too. They were really kind of going at it. Yeah. And if you look at her and LaRusso outside the arcade, they're like really young and it looks like it, but big time, like no little tight lip thing. I even watched Leaving Las Vegas in which she's kissing someone drinking himself to death and it's still gorgeous. I think she- Wow, you really did some scouting for this. Yeah. And it was just Elizabeth Shue kissing. My computer was like, wow, this stuff's light for you. This is great. I can handle this. This is PG rated.

And I think she is the greatest kisser of all time. She goes for it so much in this. It's awesome. I love it. Thank you. Great one. Casting what ifs. We'll go through this quick. Mid 80s, Pierce Brosnan, allegedly attached, didn't work out. 94, we have Robert Evans, Steve Zalian writing, Sidney Pollack directing. Ralph Fiennes offered a million dollars to be in it and pass. Oh, Schindler. Yeah. And Ralph Fiennes, actually, I have it because it was in

I went and found the piece where he kind of shit on it.

He said, this is in a premier magazine, 1994. Yeah. He's red hot. Quiz show's coming out. Yeah. He's in demand. He's like, yeah, I turned down the saint. Quote, we've all seen the sort of sophisticated, smooth tuxedo gent working his way from gambling tables to sports cars to helicopters to beautiful women in bank vaults and villains with funny voices and mustaches and mountaintops and grease or whatever, says Fiennes. I just think it's been done. It's boring.

How about this? Fuck you, Ray Fiennes. Double fuck you in this episode. Right there, buddy. Gene Siskel and Philip Noyce. Triple crown of fuck yous. Why are you shitting on things that I like in movies? Who invited you to the party? Just pass and say it wasn't for me. That's all you need to say. Sorry. Sorry. Your little fucking snooty career. You didn't want to like jump from...

a helicopter to a casino table with beautiful women and villains with a bad mustache. Sorry, buddy. Jesus. You don't want to save Cold Fusion? That's your business. But somebody else can play the role. What a jerk. I'm glad he didn't win the Oscar. Yeah, he didn't. He lost. Did you see Bill, like, in the recastables or the... Did you see Schwarzenegger's name? Was that there? I didn't believe it. So here's what I believe.

So they definitely, Noyce had Mel Gibson. That was for real. And they developed it for a couple months and Mel Gibson decided he had just spent a bunch of time away from home for Braveheart. Didn't want to do it. Passes. Hugh Grant meets with Noyce. Didn't like the director's approach. Passes. Hugh Grant? And then after that,

It's like Kenneth Branagh, Schwarzenegger, all these. I just don't know what I don't believe in. You don't believe in all this cold fusion mumbo jumbo, do you? We got to save the cold fusion. I just don't see it. How is he going to do a South African accent? He can't even do an American accent. He's been here 50 years. No. What is he doing? I don't see it. Val Kilmer then turned down Batman and Robin. Made it easy for everybody. Best that guy word.

Take a two guy we mentioned. I've never seen Ilya again, so he's thin, but in the crew, face scars guy who's been in a couple other movies who has the big scars on his cheeks. And I swear, I don't even know where he's from, but I swear I've seen him in other stuff and he jumped out to me. Okay.

He's in a lot of stuff. That's our guy, Tommy Flanagan. He's in Braveheart. He's in the game. He's around and he's in, and his character in this movie, it's ridiculous. His character's name is Scarface, which is so on the fucking nose. It's like, I don't even know why they call them that. But you know, I'm, I'm sensitive now with the bat guy ever since Craig got all sensitive and became, I know Tommy Flanagan's name. It's like the Bob Balaban rule. So I don't know if that counts. I know Tommy. I mean, I know his name.

It might be Ilya because I don't know if I ever saw him again, but I would have immediately said Ilya. You want to know something cool about Ilya? His real name, his first name is Valerie, V-I-L-E-R-Y, and he goes by Val. So he was two Vals on the same fucking set chasing each other. Double Val. Isn't that weird? Yeah. You don't see it.

Dion Waiters Award. Emily Mortimer plays the stewardess. Oh, yeah. And she's just a minute and a half in and they had been together in The Ghosts of the Darkness and I think she liked Val. So this is the case of like Val Kilmer, obviously not a bad guy. Some people liked working with him. She came in and flirts with him for 90 seconds and is out. So who did you have for this?

I thought you were going to say Emily Mortimer did not enjoy working with you. You know what? Fuck you, Emily Mortimer. No, no, no. She doesn't have to fuck you. We're out of fuck yous. We've already handed three fuck yous out. Ray Fines with the big one out of nowhere. Yeah. What a dick. Fines is competing in this one. Jesus. Who asked you?

Beautiful woman, bank vaults, villains with funny voices and mustaches and mountaintops in Greece or whatever. Or whatever? Yeah. Oh, that sounds great, you dick. Yeah, or whatever. It's so snooty. Get out of here. Get out of here. Yeah, go make your little Vatican movie. The little big twist at the end. Good luck. All right. Next one is the recasting couch director. What do you have for this?

I mean, we can't change the city. It's post-Cold War Russia. It looks fucking amazing. I watched the movie. I'm like, are they really there? They are. They're really there. It's incredible. So you have nothing? I wouldn't change the city. How about actor, director? I have director.

I've done Philip Noyce because he can fuck off. He's in the fuck you line with Gene Siskel. How about Young Fincher? Let's bring him in. I'm always up for Fincher. Don't do the game. Do this instead. Then do the game after.

This would have been right after seven, I think. He's still in the game, but maybe he could have snuck out the Saint before the game, like right in between. Yeah, because Kilmer and Douglas are friends from the Lion movie. Like they would pass it along. Like there's a synergy there. I listen, I would take Fincher. I'll always go with a Val Kilmer, Tony Scott. Like it's sitting right there. Oh, Tony Scott. That's a great one. Val's his guy. I mean, that's like those guys are tight. What do you have for flex category? Um,

I have. Oh, I had a couple of them. I was going to do the porn parody, but that's too easy. It's just called the taint. And then I was going to do. I think I'm going to do, Bill. I'm going to do the Dan Campbell. Holy shit. They're really going for it award. Yeah.

And that goes to, oh my God, Elizabeth Shue's actually going to strip down and press her body against freezing Val Kilmer in the black bra. We rewound that scene so much. That was in the 90s Rewind Hall of Fame. It's sexy as hell. I love that scene. And it kicks it up a notch because up to that point, Elizabeth Shue's the girl with the diorama and the spaghetti. And now she's like, all right, I got to become a woman right now. It's awesome. Great one. Half-assed research.

Voice of the radio announcer at the end of the movie is Roger Moore. Yeah.

Who knows if this is true, but this was in some of the stuff written. While filming The Sane in 97, the crew was allegedly instructed to avoid making eye contact with Val Kilmer entirely. I never believed this. Anytime I see this in the research, I automatically don't think it's true. This is why it's half-assed. I'm just trying to think of like... Imagine you're doing Good Morning Football. Or let's say you're doing the Sunday Eisen show. And they're like, hey...

We had talked to the crew. Eisen doesn't want anyone making eye contact with him. When he's coming through the hallways, you just got to look down. Like that's insane. No, anyone who's actually been in a set or a crew, anything like that, the amount of people you have to pass by constantly, how do you tell them to look down when they see the star? I've never believed this.

Well, you're about to believe because your instincts were just off. It's not Rich Eisen, but I'm breaking some news here. The reason Peter Schrager left Good Morning Football was he had a no eye contact rule on set. Oh, shit. And eventually it rubbed the crew wrong and they kind of turned against it. They said it's him or me. And then so he went to ESPN. I don't know if he has the same rule there, but Peter, I'm sorry to break this, but you know it's true as well. No eye contact with the Schrags. Fuck. I'd always heard rumors about that, but... I can confirm.

That's a bummer. Our relationship is over. I'm just going to burn it down now. It's over. I don't care. Screw it, Peter. Sorry, bud. You got stuff on me too. Air it out. No eye contact for Peter ESPN. It's a good feud. Don't do it. It's a great feud. Make people take sides.

I thought, Bill, you're going to show up for this pod wearing a Team Schrags t-shirt. I'm so relieved that you didn't. I thought for sure you were. No, I have complicated feelings about it. I know. As you know, because it's ESPN, the alleged worldwide leader. A May 96 Entertainment Weekly set report cited Val as being volatile on set, missing call times, and putting out a lit cigarette in a crew member's face.

Elizabeth Shue and producer Mace Newfield denied the misconduct, praised his professionalism dedication, and pointed out how he eventually worked seven days a week during the reshirts, which were three months before the movie's release. We'll never know what actually happened. He put out the cigarette on the crew member's face. I'm going to say that reeks of bullshit.

That's like Redfoot flicking the cigarette in McManus' face and usual suspects. You don't do that. If you do that, someone gets killed. You can't do that. We're going to take one more break and we're going to do Apex Mountain. Apex Mountain. Kilmer? No.

Right? It's a no. I think it's 95 when he does Batman and Heat. I think Batman's his apex. When he's doing this, his reputation is in the gutter and people don't want to work with him. It's the year before this, I think. Two years before. Elizabeth Shue won an Oscar, so this can't be it. Disguised movies, probably not because Mission Impossible, Mark, I corrected it. Post-USSR Moscow movies? No.

I need to see a complete list. Did Born ever go to Moscow? I feel like he went everywhere. Yeah, probably. It's up there. It's cool. The electronic music scene in the 90s. I'm going to say this is right around the apex. This was the one that really, and especially Orbital I had, Sneaker Pimps, definitely. Moby's really feeling it right around now. All these people. It's all happening for the whole scene.

You know it's big because the Trediak's guys, his goons are driving around blasting the electronic movie in their cars while they're looking for somebody. When you're looking for somebody, you turn the volume down when you get there. I can't even make it through a Trader Joe's parking lot with music on and they're zipping around looking. It's cool. It's energetic. I have one more Apex Mountain. So if you have any, rip them off. No, no. Give me what you got. I feel like you're about to crow hop into this one.

Yeah, this is going to hurt. What do you got? I don't know. What do you got? Cold fusion. I think this was Apex Mountain and here's why. I did some research and here's what the research basically came with. This is where it came out. All right. This is from Wikipedia. Yeah. There is currently no accepted theoretical model that would allow cold fusion to occur. Mm-hmm.

It's the entire premise of this movie, including the ending. And apparently it's just not a thing that can actually happen. So I have this, it's impossible. And because it's the opposite of hot fusion. You just do it at room temperature. I always looked at cold fusion, Bill, like people look at hoverboards. Like, when are we going to have that shit? When are the flying cars? And where is free, clean energy for the entire world? That movie has been out for 30 years or something. There's still no cold fusion. I guess it never will be.

It's not happening. - Yeah. - Cruz or Hanks? Obviously Cruz and it kind of hurts to give this one to Cruz to begin with 'cause he market corrected the Saint. Scorsese or Spielberg? - I have Scorsese because part of Kilmer's story when he was young, he would make audition videos for himself

And he made an entire short movie of him as Henry Hill that he got to Martin Scorsese because he wanted to play Henry Hill. And this is after he gave one to Kubrick to play Joker in Full Metal Jacket and also didn't get it. I think he was completely obsessed with Scorsese, and I would love to see him do it. We'd have to do it probably in Rome instead of Moscow or maybe Milan or something, but I think it works. I think with all the reshoots and rewrites, probably moving some stuff to Rome would have been pretty easy. The Oxford...

Cold fusion specialist is just now in Rome. Yeah. We'd have to upgrade Emma's pasta and meatballs to, to something that like, then the pasta meatballs makes sense. Yeah. Now we're doing chicken parm and there's like some, yes. Aaron Cheney on the side. Um, what role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played in,

Yeah, the cold fusion specialist is where I landed. The guy who has 12 hours to basically make it work. He's wearing a Scotty G, Scotty J t-shirt that's too tight. That's the problem with this category. I, anytime I either, for some reason, I just think of Scotty J or I think of what's our guy's name and a talented Mr. Ripley. I always try to put those two guys in and those guys are so weird. My answer to this is I want to see him play the fucking saints.

I want to see him do all those parts. Oh, wow. Let's really let Phil Seymour Hoffman cook and be the Russian guy and the artist. Like that's the artist part. That's what I want. I like it. Pick a nits. Yeah. A cold fusion scientist is going to tell some random handsome guy with a bad accent that she met three minutes ago that she's figured out everything with the future of the world at stake. Just volunteering this.

And she's also going to write it on some fucking post-it notes and put it in her bra. What are we doing? It's the secret of the world. Everyone's looking for it. Why don't you just put it in a save for a computer? Anything. It doesn't make sense.

I have a bunch. So what did you rip off yours? And then I'll go. All right. I have a couple. Doesn't his wig come off during sex? Like they de-robe and they go at it and he's got a wig on and it doesn't even become a skew or anything. It just tells me that maybe the sex was kind of tame and the vibe I'm getting from Emma might indicate that. Yeah. I have a similar one.

Right after she's lying on him for like however long to warm him up, is it possible he can get up and run away from the Russians with a massive erection? He definitely has. There's no fucking way he's running up and down stairs like that immediately after that. It always struck me as like, God, that's so hot. I don't think he'd be able to run afterwards. I think he's fully aroused. Yeah, he probably has some weird saint thing that he can like...

put something like a little like Saint tack, just push it against the boner goes right down. Like a reverse Viagra. So those pick nits with me. And then the only other one I have is like, she's sitting there with those British detectives or wherever they are. And she starts listing saints. And she's like, isn't it obvious? It's all saints names. Are there any, it's like you caught that, that fast, that felt like the tone. Loke, this slick thing is no joke moment from heat where like the whole movie turns on that. It's a little much. Yeah.

I had that as well. First of all, if he's like this amazing state-of-the-art spy, you probably don't want to leave a calling card of just saints. Anybody can crack that one in five names. Simon recovers from hypothermia in about 12 minutes. Yeah, really fast. That's the power of Shu, man. Just incredible. Pretty sure you're in the hospital overnight and they're feeding you intravenously and trying to bring your body temperature back up. He's fine. Clothes are still wet. Doesn't matter. Yeah.

he waltzes into the Russian president's office at one point and is like, I'm an American. And the guy's like, I just believe this guy right away, even though he somehow got in here. Nothing, not afraid. It's very strange. Not enough disguises that we have mentioned before.

How does he keep changing this many disguises when he's on the run all the time? And where does he keep them? What's in that backpack? Yeah. He's got wigs, mustaches, hair pieces. Everything is like state of the art. Perfect.

Just when he kisses her, the last kiss that he has before she goes into the huge like auditorium, he shows up two minutes later in the full Ernie McCracken wig, glasses and teeth and everything in a completely different outfit. Just perfect. Does that in a men's room? Or like a phone booth or anything. He just gets nothing got damaged during any of their, he's in cold water at one point. And then, uh, this is my big one.

So Emma has a heart condition. We've established this right away. Oh, yeah. This is a big thing. It's the first thing we see is she's grabbing for pills. She's running around the last half of this movie like she's fucking Jackie Joyner Kersey.

Those heart pills are gone. The heart condition has been solved. She's just flying around. She's Zola Budd, just sprinting. When she gets to the embassy, she turns into DK Metcalf running down Buda Baker. And it's like, Jesus, Dr. Emma, you're in the wrong field. That's the real one. That's fucked up.

Ridiculous. Sequel, prequel, prestige, TV, all black cast are untouchable. We covered this. Definitely a sequel. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson, Nell, Byron Mayo, Barney Cousins, Tony Romo, Harley Mays, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Longlegs, or Wilford Brimley in the firm? What do you got? Well, it is still the NCAA tournament going on. So,

I would like to hear Gus Johnson calling Elizabeth Shue warming up the saint with her body heat, and I think it would sound like this.

Simon Templar, young fella, ha-ha, freezing his ass off in the Russian slums. No shot clock. Dr. Russell strips down. Going tit for tit for 98.6. Hot fusion. Yes, sir. Woo.

Gus, I love you. I don't know how you do it. I love it. I gotta add Gus to the main thing. You've done it now three times. We love Gus. Oh, it's the best. I love Gus. Love you, Gus. I was gonna do, is this movie better with...

Peter Schrager fake laughing to a Mike Greenberg Jets joke in mid-October. But I need to workshop it. I need like another month. All right. Well, I have not seen that happening because I'd be like that guy in the reality show who's watching his girlfriend have sex with a new guy. I can't watch Peter Schrager on Get Up on ES. I can't do it. So I've heard it's happened.

And I'm glad it's happened. I'm very happy for Peter. But we had a nine-year marriage. I can't see him with his rebound relationship or his new marriage. I just can't do it, Peter. Can't do it. I love you, bud. I'll tune in eventually. I just need an adjustment period. It's going to be a while for me. Just one Oscar. Who gets it? So probably the theme song. Do-do-do-do-do-do.

Like the score? Listen, I laugh out loud when he drives past the British cops at the end. He honks the horn of this fucking Volvo and it goes like it's Dukes of Hazzard or something. Why does he have the signature honk?

The probably unanswerable questions for me ties into the Zawadney Award for what happened the next day. Yeah, sure. How long are these two lasting? She's just solved, killed fusion. He's a fucking really weird guy with clear damage from an orphanage who likes to wear disguises, who doesn't seem to have any sort of loyalty to anything. And now they're just in a cottage together. And it's like, hey, should we adopt a dog? Have my eye on an Irish setter.

I've always wanted to start a winery. Should we do that together? No, I don't think so. I can't see them playing Scattergories on game night. But I don't know if he's going to leave her. Isn't she the one who has all the power now and all the money? He's trying to get up to $50 million and she has the trillion dollar idea. So maybe he's trying to stay with her because he's driven by money as much as anybody.

But she's never kissed another man before. That's the problem. As we find out in multiple scenes. So maybe she feels indebted to him. Remember in Wedding Crashers when Isla Fisher tells Vince Vaughn that was her first time? I feel like that scene was missing from this movie. Like, I just want you to know, that was my first time, Thomas. What? What do you mean? I think that was her first time.

Uh, unanswerables. I we've covered everything. I don't have any other ones unless you have any. I just had the question is Thomas's seduction of Emma illegal or immoral where like he goes, finds out everything about her completely seduces her based on like information from breaking and entering her apartment. Um,

It's probably not, not, not ideal, but they did it in 1997. Nobody batted an eye. And then we already covered running into an embassy and saying you're American. So I actually do have one. I look at my document correctly. Cold fusion saves Russia. Yeah. Keeps the president in charge. Yeah. What are the ramifications globally of a warmer Russia? Yeah, that's tough. Um,

Where are we now all these years later? Does Putin even take over? Oh, he takes over. Where are they going? I think he grabs it anyway. Does he hoard the cold fusion for himself? Does Russia become more of a superpower? Like, are we speaking Russian right now? Is Ivan Drago, does he win in creed too? It's just a lot of ramp. Does Trump ever get elected? Like we could just keep this Peter Schrager event up on get up.

Fake laughing at a Justin Fields joke in mid-October. Like, what? What?

What happens? Peter, I didn't see the joke. I'm sure it was a very funny Justin Fields joke. I'm sure you're killing it. I love you, bud. I don't like the idea of Russia getting this free unlimited energy, especially since Bill, that president is a beta. That president is soft as hell. He does not have the clutch gene. He's sitting there in his jammies while people are kicking his ass. He's going to be out in seconds and some dictator is going to take over. And I don't know what the translation in Russian is for get up, but I think we would be saying it right now. Yeah.

Coming up next. Can LeBron use cold fusion to play 82 games next year? We're going to find out with Monica McNutt. Can Dak Prescott win Super Bowl? We talked to Peter Schrager and get up.

Love you, Bill. Great job over there. These jokes are all out of love. What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie? Obviously, the cane would be just a huge win. Bill, you love that cane. You're the only other person who would be excited I had it. But I also, the original Nokia phone, I think, would be pretty good.

I'm going to look on the online if I can see and get you that cane, like an end of the year gift. Mine is always, if there is a film, and we do a lot of them, where there is a boot that has a hidden knife in it, I want that fucking boot. I want the boot, whether it's from Roadhouse, whether it's from Cyborg, there's a knife and a boot that is always going to be my piece of memorabilia. You know, I didn't write this down. Yeah. And I should have. And it would have been a great, probably unanswerable question because I thought it when he did it. And then I just forgot. I must have been distracted. Okay.

How do you get the blade to come out of the boot? Is there, is it like, do you have to tap your heel a certain way? Is it like a little button attached to it? I've never understood how the bad guys can make the thing come out. Okay.

Do you have to tilt your foot to the right? Like, what do you have to do? You couldn't because it would come out when you're just walking then. The Roadhouse guy is so white trash that his blade is just out all the time. Right. There's no retractable. But I think probably for Simon, he has something digital like a remote in his wrist or something. But I don't know. You flick it out with your toe. I'd like to find boots with knives. Do they make them like for people who are self-defense and things like that in bars? I don't know if that's an actual industry. But his knife was even better. You could remove it out of the boot.

Yeah, you're right. It was just stored in there. Yeah. I don't know. I had a lot of questions. Same. Yeah. Same.

Maybe Nike will start making them. Please. The Coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lesson. I narrowed it down to either if you have an idea that can save the world, don't put them in cocktail napkins in your bra, I think is a good life lesson. And then change up your aliases. Don't stick with the Saint gimmick. If I become a spy, I'm not just going to use dream team basketball player names. It's like, today I'm Carl Malone.

Tomorrow, I'm Christian Leitner. We saw there's a Kevin Love on a flight to Moscow. It's like, no, I'm not. You're not going to be able to solve my aliases. I'm just going to use different aliases. It kind of looks like evil spy Bill Simmons. Nope. Says right here, Clyde Drexler. Let him pass. That's it. All right.

All right. They're tight. It's ridiculous. You're doing it that way. You kind of want to get caught. Like, what's the upside? The upside is you guys are so stupid. I was using saint aliases the whole time and you didn't figure it out. Like, it's like this weird arrogance.

Yeah, I think you hit it right. It'd be like if you just did, you know, my secret thing is I do Red Sox outfielders. They'll never find out. I guess they will. There's only so many Catholic saints. It's not that many. I'm using Get Up partners of Peter Schrager. Do you want to do a rewatchables of just tomorrow's episode of Get Up? We're just going to have to have him come on and do one with us. He's probably not allowed. Double feature choice.

Mine's controversial, so you go first. So is mine. All right. I think it's like, we're bringing it full circle about Val Kilmer. Once I see this and I see him play these little characters and do these voices, I'm putting on Tombstone. I'm ready to play for Blood. I'm Huckleberry. I'm fucking ready. And Vino Veritas. I'm going to watch Tombstone.

Mine is The Island of Dr. Moreau. Come on. No, it really is. Make the case. I'm the only person who likes this movie. I have nobody to do it on the rewatchables with. And the only reason I like it was because it was on that pay-per-view channel and I had it on all the time and I became fascinated by it. And just the concept of this island where they were basically mating people

humans and animals and then these hybrid kind of creatures were on the island but then Marlon Brando's there and it's the end of his career it's falling apart he's just fat and crazy in every scene and then Kilmer's in it with this look like what's wrong with my career um

I think you might need to give it one more chance. Even as someone who hasn't seen it, I know there's one part of it that you're forgetting. Isn't it the world's smallest man is in it? Like a very small human being. Yeah. Is that the guy who became friends with Pedro Martinez? Is it the same guy? Not positive. Yeah. Or it's like his brother. Yeah. I don't know. So I know he's in it, but I've never seen it. I've got to say, Bill, probably not going to be seeing that movie at some point. I don't think I might have to solo that pod.

I might just have to do it myself. Like I did with Castaway during COVID. I might just have to do the self Dr. Moreau. It's a better play. Any free time I have, I'm trying to allocate to Jim Cotta. I can't dedicate it to Dr. Moreau. I'm trying to put it all towards Jim Cotta. That's for you too.

Well, I was mailing you pictures of Billy Jacoby this week, trying to get you properly excited for that. We know that's coming down the road. We're definitely doing just one of the guys this spring. It's happening. Listen, it was locked. And then Val Kilmer passed away. Like it changed the whole schedule. I was, I had takes already. I was, I was ready. We'll get there. It'll happen. All right. Who won the movie? Val Kilmer. Val Kilmer, the late, I hate saying this, the late great Val Kilmer. I agree. I miss you, Val.

Thanks for doing this on short notice. Thanks to Jesse Lopez and Craig Horlbeck for producing. Don't forget, you can always watch these on video on the Spotify platform and you can check out the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. So next time you're on, probably just one of the guys, something, we're going back to the 80s. We've done too many modern. We're not modern people. Let's go back to our favorite decade. Kyle Brandt. Great to see you as always. Thanks, man. You too. Thanks, man.