Transcript of Crazy NFL Trade Deadline Swings and the Future of Filmmaking With Sheil Kapadia, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan

The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, as well as the Ringer podcast network. We put up a new rewatchables last night. We did the Truman show with special guest, Glenn Powell, and he was great. The podcast was awesome. I would highly encourage you to go check that one out. You can listen not only on the Ringer, but on the Ringer website as well. All of our football stuff, Trade Deadline happened this week. Some head scratchers. Shiel Capate is going to come on in one second and talk about that. Then I'm going to run something. Yesterday, Sean Fante, St. Van Lathen and I did a rewatchables, and we did two hours on a Brian De Palma movie. At the end, as I was saying goodbye and wrapping it up, we got in this conversation about De Palma and filmmakers and just movies and went for another 75 minutes. And it was an argument, but we're all friends. So it was just more like a debate. And we ended up talking about the future of the movie business, how to find young filmmakers, what is creativity in 2025. It just goes all over the place.

We decided to cut it out of the rewatchables and just run it here because otherwise the rewatchables would have been three plus hours. Plus, I think it's something that can hold its own. I thought it was really good. It's the stuff that I don't know, sometimes in pods, I think people are afraid to really disagree with each other and get mad at each other and the whole thing. I think with us, because we've all known each other for so long, we can have conversations where it's like, nobody's trying to win the conversation. We're just arguing in a good way. I thought it was really good and I wanted to run it here. So we're going to have Shio Capote and I are going to talk about the NFL Trade Deadline and Dallas and the Jets and all the... And did the Super Bowl picture change. And then me and Sean and Van talking about movies. Let's take a break, bring a Pearl Jam. Sorry, my video isn't great. I'm in Boston, but so be it. Anyway, take it a break. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm.

It's like needing the protection of offensive guard on the football field, but getting an elementary school crossing guard. Sure, they're both guards, but you can only trust one to keep your quarterback safe when the game is on the line. So don't settle for just any insurance. When you can have State Farm, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, we're recording 4: 15 East Coast Time, the host of the Ringer NFL show as well as the Philly Special. His fingers used to work a lot more. You're moving toward me with the fingers not working as much. Shil Kapati is here. You can still break them out every once in a while.

I can still break them out. I just wrote a little blurb about what the Eagles did at the trade deadline, just not as good as they used to be.

Well, since you stopped writing as much, your pics went in the tank. I don't know if that's a correlation. The year from hell. All of us, the Ringer 107. Embarrassing, but that's not what we're here to I talk about. I didn't expect to do an NFL Trade Deadline top of the pod today because usually it's a disappointing Trade Deadline. So many fascinating things happen today. I don't even know where to start. What was your number one most fascinating thing that happened today?

I mean, that sauce Garner Trade was crazy. Like you said, usually on Trade Deadline Day, we see, all right, some minor moves, maybe a third round pick, a second round pick, if you're lucky. I can't remember the last time an in-season trade, two first round pics for a guy who, I don't know about you, I read all the coverage. I don't remember anyone saying, hey, maybe the Jets will trade Sauce Gardner at the Trade Deadline. So that was a stunner.

Well, I know I have some Jets fans in my life, as do you. None of them were doing backflips about how Sauce Gardner was playing for the last year and a half. And I even noticed, it's not like I have the Jets on the multi view every week, but I've watched a bunch of them, and it just felt like he was a little better two years ago. Still really good. If I'm giving that up for a cornerback, you better be by far the best cornerback in the league. If they did this for Sertan, I would be like, All right, I get it. That guy has been lights out. I get it. They also throw in Mitchell, who was their second-round pick a year ago, who might be a good receiver. He basically got banished after he had the stupid wave the baby over the goal line move. So I just thought they gave up so much. We can talk about that piece, but is that too much for Sauce Gardner?

I say yes. I'm looking at people's reactions, and they're all excited about this. But to me, if you're the Colts, like you said, for two first-round picks, it's either a quarterback, Miles Garrett, or Micah Parsons. If you're offering me two first- Anybody else?

Justin Jefferson?

Yeah, I think you could make the case for a Jamal R-Chase. I mean, there's probably maybe 8 to 10 players. But basically for a defensive player who's not an elite pass rusher in their prime, if I'm getting off for two first-round picks, I'm listening every single time. And so if you're the Jets, He is on a good contract. He's young, but I like getting the two first-round pics for him. And if you're the Colts, to me, if you're not settled at quarterback, to me, there are some red flags here, Phil. The Colts are telling us they feel like they can win it all. They can get to the Super Bowl. They feel like they found their quarterback in Daniel Jones, remember, he's a free agent at the end of the season. So they're like, Oh, this is our Super Bowl window. And to me, it's like your friend who goes out on two dates with someone, and they're in love. They're ready to propose. Take it slow. Let's get a little bigger sample with Daniel Jones. We have six years of history with this guy because those pics, you might need those pics to get a quarterback.

I hate to say it, but let me ask you this question. A year from now, what are the odds that we're saying the Colts need a quarterback? A year from now, early November, that we're saying, you know what? The Colts are in the market for a quarterback.

Fifty-fifty.

I agree.

So fifty-fifty. I love your two dates analogy, too. And by the way, they had an awful date last week. Yes, terrible. They got in a fight at the restaurant, and she threw up in the car on the way home and disappeared for eight hours. Yeah. And then had diarrhea all over the place. That's how bad that date was. So if they made this trade a week ago, I'd feel a little better about it. But coming off that game, here's like, all right. And both of us were like, shit, this Colts offense is for real. This team is checking all the boxes of their blowing teams out. They can run the ball, throw the ball. They're really well coached, at least so far. Let's see it on grass. I picked them last week in Ringer 107. I thought they're better than the Stealers. That's a game. If you have a really good possible Super Bowl contender team, you're going to Pittsburgh, you're taking care of business. And it was the opposite. It was really bad. And I don't think Sauce Gardner changes my fears about them on the road on grass. Now, maybe they're thick and chill.

We're not going to play on grass. We're going for the one seed. It goes through us through a dome, and we won't even see grass again until we get to Santa Claire is the only thing I can think.

If you're a Colts fan, like you said, you're probably excited about it because you're like, oh, we got a stud corner. We're having a very fun season that we didn't expect with Daniel Jones. So I get that perspective if you're a Colts fan. But yeah, I'm just with you with the 50-50. And even this year, they're having a very good season. We're talking about an eight-game sample that has been an outlier from anything Daniel Jones has done previously in his entire career when you look at what he said. And it's not nine games because like you said, they sucked last week. They looked terrible. He turned into a pumpkin. And by the way, they had the heartache It's the hardest remaining schedule in the NFL. If you just look at the betting markets, they do the strength of schedule. It's the hardest remaining schedule in the NFL. So I'm not telling you it's all fraudulent and they're going to stink. If it were me, I would say, All right, I can see being tempted, But let's just take it slow. We have a good team. Maybe we make a more minor move here at the deadline, trade a third-round pick for somebody, that thing.

Let's see where we're at at the end of the season. Maybe we franchise tag Daniel Jones. Maybe we don't. We have those picks. We could trade for a player in a future year. To me, it's just two years from now, we could be looking at that pick if the Colts win. I don't know, how many games are the Colts going to win next year? Are you confident they're going to win that division? I'm not. That could be a top 15 pick in 2027.

I looked up at Fandil as you were talking. Even this year, their over-runer is 11. 5. They're seven and two, six and two? No, seven and two.

Seven and two, right?

Yeah. And seven and two with The Leverage game happening.

Right.

Really, probably six and three. But fine, seven and two. I don't know if I would go over on them this year. And then next year, everybody's a year older. They got They got one more really awesome, healthy Taylor season this year, at least so far, now that I'm their pick. I guess the bigger thing I'm looking at this is I'm not against the spirit of the trade. If it had been a second this year and a first next year, Do you feel better about that? Because I know like everybody... Like, McShea has been saying this, and please listen to McShea's show this week. He's talking about that 27 draft is like a smorgasbord for quarterbacks and wide receiver. That's Everybody's pointing at, watch out for that draft. So you want to keep that first round in that draft, I guess. But would you care about this one? I don't know. Is that not enough?

I still wouldn't be willing to be that aggressive at this point in time. I mean, my hope- So you haven't done that.

You wouldn't have done a second and a 27 first for Sauce Gardner.

I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't push my chips in right now, because if I'm in that Colts building and in the meeting room and they're having this conversation, if I'm the Bills or something, a team where you're just like, we have our quarterback the Patriots even, I could say, All right, let's go ahead and take a big swing on something like that. We know we are not worried about quarterback right now. If I'm not set at quarterback, I want to keep all my options open for maybe a trade, maybe a veteran, maybe having to draft somebody in the future. And I know the Colts might not be at that... The Colts and I view Daniel Jones differently, I think, is what I learned this afternoon when I was looking at all the analysis, because I'm just like, I need to see more to actually trust it. So, yeah, I would have wanted to I want to keep my picks. I want to keep my options open. I'm with you on the spirit of the trade. I'm not Sam Hinkie, like worshiper or anything. I'm like, yeah, I like it. You have a chance, go for it.

I just don't view them as that. I would still be very, very surprised if the Colts were in the Super Bowl this year or next year.

Well, it's interesting because my beloved Patriots, they did the opposite. They didn't do anything. This is a team that really needed, over everything else, an edge rusher, which your Eagles went and got Jalen Phillips. Maybe the Dolphins didn't want to trade in division. I don't know the history behind that. But the Patriots needed an edge rusher. They really needed a wide receiver other than Diggs, who can get open on third and eight. And Diggs is playing between 40 and 55% of the snaps. You look at the guy, once Boody went out last week, Matt Collins played three-fifths of the game. Kyle Williams, who I can't remember a single play he's made all year, he played half the game. So I see whether it was somebody like Shahid, which we'll talk about in a second, I thought that that guy's always open five times a game. He just has never had a quarterback who can reach him, but he's always down the field with three steps on somebody. Whether they got somebody like that or a Cooper Cup type. Cooper Cup, obviously not him because he's on a team, but they did nothing. Do you feel like the Colts are that far ahead of the paths to try to make the AFC title game?

I don't feel that way.

No, no, absolutely not. And I thought the Patriots were going to be aggressive here because they're one of those teams that has the cap space, as you know, in season. So they could have taken on a Trey Hendrickson.

We have $48 million. That's what I'm saying. We have 17 million more than anyone else in the league.

I know. So you could have taken on someone like Trey Hendriksen here. I thought Chris Olabe on the Saints. I thought, do you get aggressive and give them a second round pick for Chris Olabe? Do they do that deal? I'm with you on Shahid. The deal the Seahawks made, I would have done that deal if I were the Patriot. So, yeah, I would be a little disappointed if I were the Patriot. I mean, I think they have a chance. Again, those future draft picks are valuable, but they know they're not going to need to use those on a quarterback. I can't believe Trey Hendriksen didn't get... I mean, what are you doing if you're the bangles? This, to me, is organizational malpractice, where your team has no shot this year. The guy is a free agent at the end of the year, and you're trying to... He's going to leave. You can't just say, I think the price is a first round. The price is what someone is willing to pay. So you shop him, what's the best deal I can get? And those teams, if I'm a fan of one of those teams that is out of it and just held on to one of these guys who's gone after the year, I would just be so upset with my front office.

Their season ended on Sunday.

Yes.

Just period. And it was probably over already, but it definitely ended on Sunday with Caleb Williams hit and loved one over the middle and three guys blowing the tackle. I I'm with you. I mean, they do this. And if you go, as you know, I like searching the team reddits. It's one of the only reddit searches I do. I just like to check the mood. I have all the teams bookmark. Bangles reddit is a grim place, man. That is about as dark as you're going to get out of the 32 teams. They just don't spend money. They don't care about anything. They're basically like the Clippers when Donald Sterling on them. I'm just happy to cash all the media paychecks from the league, spending just enough money to seem like they care, but not really. And then the team they put together this year just to pay Burrow and two wide receiver have no offensive line and no defense and think that was going to work. It was idiotic.

Yeah. And they've spent so much draft capital on that defense. They've tried to invest resources, and none of the picks have been. I mean, that's one of the worst defense. I think you said it on Sunday. It's absolutely in the running for one of the worst defenses I've ever seen. I think there's five games this year where an offense has had 500 yards, and three of them have been against the Bengals.

They're really, truly, generationally horrible. Like one of the worst defenses I've ever seen. Back to the Jets. The Patriots played them twice, which I was like, I have a... So please, trade all of your best guys. We still have to play. So basically, the pats are nine and two right now unless they have just a catastrophic loss. Anyway, the Jets get Indy's first, Dallas's first in the Williams trade because it's either the choice of Dallas or Green Bay. I'm going to take a guess that Dallas is going to be worse than Green Bay. So Indy's first, Dallas is first. And they made their own first better with these trades. I looked at Fandil, the over-under for them right now is three and a half. You could do Jets under two and a half plus 270. I'm in Boston. I did think about it. It might be happening later. But three really good picks, two potential top 10 picks. The problem is it's Groundhog Day. The This is what the Jets did four years ago. So this is just who the Jets are. They draft, they hit some pics, they blow it with a quarterback. Four years later, they just trade guys and they start over, rinse leather, repeat.

Yeah. It doesn't guarantee them anything. Like you said, it could just be the same thing in three years from now. We're like, oh, they drafted those guys, and they're trading them. Now, I do feel like at least it's a plan. And I think their biggest thing is, how are you finding a quarterback? I mean, there's got to be... Are you drafting one? Are you doing one of these reclamation projects? Are you trading for somebody who might be unhappy after the season? So I think this at least gives you options. You have five first round picks, two second round picks over the next two seasons. Again, it doesn't guarantee you anything. But if I were a Jets fan, the one thing I can say about those two trades, they absolutely maximize the value. If you would have asked me a week ago, Hey, Shiel, what's Sauce Gardner going to get on the open market? What would Quinn and Williams get? I would not have said you're going to get back three first-round picks and a second-round pick in that deal. So I think they at least-A second-round pick from a bad team, potentially. Yeah, like you said, they get that option.

That's going to be a top 42 pick.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's no guarantee. So that's a lot of draft capital to work with. It doesn't guarantee anything, but it gives you a chance to find a quarterback, build your... I mean, they do have two good offensive tackles. They have a wide receiver once. It's not like some of those premium positions, they do have some players, at least.

The guy who made the trade, what's his name?

Mujy.

Mujy?

Yeah. I don't know how you pronounce it. I guess I should.

He was getting a lot of praise inkjet circles today. Rightfully so. Those were two really good traits. He also did give Justin Fields two years $40 million. Correct. That also happened. I have a bunch of Jets fan friends in my life, including my friend Mark Smino, who is so upset about Darnold being good now because he always felt like Darnold was good and they screwed it up, and they didn't buy. And they basically just ruined him. They basically had this nice house, and they just did not take care of it. And the ceiling started to collapse, and the sewage system blew, and they just blew it with him. And he actually watches Darnold wherever he goes. He watches the games to torture himself because he's a Jets fan. But that's how dark it is for this Jets thing. They actually did it correctly. They did land a quarterback, and the guy bounced around. And now he's potentially going to be on a one seed after going 14 and three last year's show.

Jets fans have a... I found this, too. They have a very soft spot for Darnald, where like me, you're probably like me. If the guy gets traded away and you're like, oh, my God, screw That guy. He couldn't do that here. That might be more hour speed. But yeah, I think because Darnal just seems like a very cool, likable guy who was just in this horrible situation. And it's like, oh, they're genuinely happy for him, which is something you don't see Often in sports. But yeah, you look at that now.

Because they know. He was in the worst situation for one of the worst franchises. I don't think they blame him. Also, he grew. The beard thing, I think, was a great move by him. I agree. I feel like it did change his It's a meaner. Something seems cooler about him. But yeah, he's going to be in the mix now. I want to save Dallas for a little bit later. So Indianapolis, where Where do you have them in the AFC right now after this trade? If you had the gun to your head AFC Super Bowl pick, how many teams would you have to list before you got to them?

All right. So definitely the Chiefs, definitely the Bills.

I have both of those as well.

I think I would still have the Ravens in there. I know it's a long shot. Really? To get to the Super Bowl? Because we're talking ceiling here. We're not talking about regular season wins. I think the Ravens have a higher ceiling than the Colts. I don't know if that's controversial or not.

I wouldn't have gone that far. I had Denver over them. You're higher on Denver than them. Only because of the defense. I am. There's a little bit of a Horseshoe stuff with them. I thought when they played, the teams were even, and I actually thought Denver should have won. New England, I would not have over them just because I think New England has some real holes. Are you? What?

Are you sure you're trying to be like, are You might be leaning too much anti-Homer here, I feel like. I don't think anyone's ever told you that. I think I would have the Patriots over the Colts. Well, we have...

May is a better player than anyone on the Colts. That's what I'm saying. Except for Taylor would be the case. But The hits that he's taken the last three weeks, this is all I talk about on my Pat's threads. He's 17 sacks in the last three weeks and six in the last two. I thought Atlanta really pushed him around and got in his I thought they made it really difficult for him. I'm really worried about the injury possibility with them. I don't think they have a lot of depth. But this schedule, they might be able to get a two-seat and be that team that we all look at and they're like underdogs in a round two home playoff game because nobody believes it's legitimate, which would be great. I would take that right now.

Yeah, Vrabel has won as an underdog before in the playoff. I think-Unbelievable. I would trust Drake May. The other thing with Daniel Jones, and I feel like I'm really I'm going to... Colts fan, sorry. But he's never gotten through a season and played well and been healthy the entire... I mean, he has a very long injury history as well. So that's far from a guarantee. So I think I would go Bills, Chiefs, Ravens. And I think I would have the Patriots ahead of the Colts. Wow.

I would go... I'd go Bills, Chiefs, 1A, 1B in some order. I want to see more, but they have to be the top two. I'd go Denver 3. I think I'd go Indy 4, New England 5.

Okay.

Baltimore has too much room for error with the way they've constructed their season. Any other injury, and they might not even... Plus, you have Pittsburgh, who just has... It's the Pittsburgh this year's Horseshoe Up The Ass team. The Steeler fans both know it, but then also get mad and say, What do you mean? It's like, All right, we had 11 turnovers forced against the Colts and Pats. That's unusual. Let's all agree that that's unusual. Like punts hitting a punt returner. That doesn't happen with other teams. It's just you guys. So I'd probably have the Steeler's seventh out of that crew. Chargers are a cross-off. The Chargers traded for a tackle from the Saints today. I think less to try to win the title and more to just make sure Justin Herbert doesn't get killed. That was my takeaway on that trade.

Yeah, I don't think they can I mean, you lose two offensive tackles. And if you look at their numbers this year when Joe Alt has been on the field or off the field, I mean, it turns them from the sixth ranked offense to the 23rd ranked offense. So I just don't think they can withstand that. I mean, I'm with you. Now, I was slow on Darnold last year. I was slow on the Vikings, but it is just very hard for me to get to a point- You're rightfully slow.

They lost.

I guess so. Yeah. But I mean, Daniel Jones is going to beat Josh Allen or Patrick Patrick Mahomes in a play, or even Lamar Jackson in a playoff game, that Colts team. I don't know.

I was trying in my head to look at Houston every year, as you know, because we both started the same stuff. There's always the second half jump team that's like two and six, three and five, and they make the jump. I thought Houston had a real case to do that with the defense they have and getting their receiver healthy, et cetera. That loss last made me so mad. I'm still mad about it. I still can't believe the game management, and I really worry about... I think the coaching stuff has been really dicey with them. I think people have just because they made the play-ups the first year, everybody's like, remember we were celebrating Ryan's and Bobby Sloak. Bobby Sloak is not there anymore. Ryan's, the stuff he did on Sunday, I thought it was really, really concerning. Get to overtime. You're not going 60 yards with Davis Mills in 70 seconds to kick a field goal. Davis Mills has done nothing for two hours. To not read that, I just thought, really made me turn on them.

Then you zoom out. If you're a defensive head coach, your biggest hire is, can you find an offensive coordinator. And he didn't have it the first time. And then personnel-wise, their offensive line is still terrible. So I'm with you. I've been holding... My Ringer 107 record is so bad. If you take out my Texans' picks, I swear I'm 500. They're killing I mean, I lost on them every single week. But their defense is so good. I still like Stroud, even though he's developed bad habits. But yeah, last week's loss, now he's got the concussion. I think you're right that it's probably too much has happened with them.

All right, we'll take a break, and then let's talk Dallas. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Thursday Night Football continues to deliver, and FanDuel is keeping the energy up with their $2 million Thursday Night Football jackpot. You heard me. Place an anytime countdown score bet using your profit boost. And if your player scores the first or last countdown in the game, you earn a share of $2 million in bonus bets. So for this game, Vegas versus Denver. I'm feeling R. J. Harvey. Yeah, I think R. J. Harvey, second half of the season, rookie running back. Something good with him. You can check out R. J. Harvey's Touchdown Bet. You can head to fanduel. Com/bs to download Download the app and get started. Fanduel, an official sportsbook partner of the NFL. Must be 21 plus, President of Select States, or 18 plus, President DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Opt-in, must apply profit boost token on select market, prize pool to be split equally among all eligible participants who made the correct first or last TD pick. Bonus issued as non-retrable bonus, betch would to expire 21 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.

Fanduel. Com. Game problem, call 1-800. Gamble or visit rg-help. Com. Call 1-888-789-777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Every football season, the same thing happens. The game somehow makes everybody really hungry. Quarterback scrambles, clearly a sign for breakfast burritos. Yeah. Turnover, suddenly dessert at 2: 00 PM doesn't sound so crazy. Wing formations, well, those can only mean Buffalo wings as if they're ever not in play. Even the goalposts start looking suspiciously like French fries. It's almost like football sending a message to eat more food. Yeah, the good news Uber Eats makes those cravings easy to satisfy with game day deals all season long. From wings and pizza to chips, drinks, and even last minute grocery runs. Don't sleep on those. You'll find savings on all your favorites delivered straight to your door. Order now on Uber Eats. All right, the Dallas Cowboys. I'm proud of us that we didn't lead with them. Maybe one of the only football podcasts or shows that didn't lead with Dallas. Just kudos. Fist pump for us. Dallas is drunk. This is one of the worst... You can make a case for the indie trade.

I still didn't like it. If we were doing grades, I'd be in the C minus D plus range. This Dallas trade is fucking bonkers. This is like a crazy NBA trade from the 2000s. If I was a Cowboys fan, my head would be doing 360s. You're three, five, and one. You have no chance to do anything in the playoffs. What are you doing?

You should be absolutely livid. So you add it all up, and here's what the Cowboys essentially traded, if you add up the Parsons trade. So they traded Micah Parsons and a second for Quinan Williams, Kenny Clark, and a first, plus they get some cap space and money. So essentially, they move up from the second round to the first round and swap Parsons for Quinn and Williams and Kenny Clark. And though, let's Let's not forget this. They lost games this year because they didn't have Micah Parsons. And so now you're in a hole here. They don't know what- And you're giving away this year's pick that you made worse because you traded Micah Parsons, basically.

That's right. Congratulations on that. You've made history.

And the 2027 pick, by the way, nice move by the Jets, this is according to the reports out there, is the higher of their pick or the packer's pick. So if Jordan Love goes down with an injury next this year, and the packers have a bad season, you get a little bit of optionality there with that as well. And who knows what the cowboys are going to be doing.

Wait a second. Can you say that again? I didn't see this. This is a new wrinkle?

Yeah, this is a new wrinkle. So the 2027 first round pick that goes to the Jets as part of this Quinn and Williams tree. The Jets get the higher of the Cowboys pick or the packer's pick. So that's a nice move there by the Jets that just if you have Dak Prescott as an injury next year, if Jordan Love an injury and one of those teams goes really bad, now all of a sudden, you have an even higher pick. So can I tell you, do you know how many Sacks Quinn and Williams has this year?

Three?

One. He has one sack, he has three quarterback hits, and he ranks 90th in the NFL in pressures. Now, I'm not trying to kill him. I think he's a very good run stopper. I think he's a very good defensive tackle. I am not giving up a first and then a second with... Or a second and then a first with flexibility for Quinn and Williams, months after I traded away Micah Parsons. Just unbelievable mismanagement.

These Jets trades were so crazy. As you were recounting what they got in my head, they got two first for Quinn and Williams because this day was so crazy. Yeah. But yeah, that... Wow. The '27 draft, everyone's saying it's so loaded. All right, you're in the room with Jerry Jones. How do you stop him from doing this? What's your case?

I have no idea how you stop him from doing this. I would have stopped him from doing the Micah Parsons trailer. I would have tried my hardest. At that one, I would have gone to the point where I'm locking us in the room or taking away his keys or grabbing his cell phone.

Taking away his cell phone reception. Yeah.

Whatever I need to do, getting him another drink and just saying, Jerry, let's sleep on it and talk about it tomorrow here. But then to come back, he's been foreshadowing this for weeks and months now where he has done his weekly radio appearance and been like, well, don't sleep on us trading one of these pics for a player. We're going to improve that defense. And it's like, all right, if the right deal comes along, go ahead and do that. But I would not have done it for this deal in a season where you just lost on Monday night and looked terrible in our three, five, and one. So you're essentially doing this for what? Next season now? Or you think you're making a run this season? I don't get it at all.

That's the key point is you were terrible last night. Yeah. By the way, this trade is probably still sitting there in February or March.

100 %.

Right?

100 %.

Why not just wait? What are you guys doing? They were so bad last night. We had Berset last year in the Patriots. He, first of all, couldn't really move. He was so bad that it was a whole conundrum with the Pats fans. Do we throw Drake Mayan, even though we can't block, and just hope he survives the year over having to watch another Berzett game? Then I don't know what's happening in Arizona, maybe the offense is better. But he demolished Dallas last night. They were not one, Quinn and Williams, away from, Oh, this game would have been totally different if we had been I'm going to control the middle line. Guys were wide open all over the place. They were doing whatever they wanted offensively. Honestly, it's like deranged old man behavior. It is. It's the thing like when you're watching TV shows and they have the old guy owns the oil bear and the 85-year-old grandpa, and it's like, Wow, he still has the car keys to the business, but we got to figure out how to get away from him. That's where we are now with this guy. And he won't turn down an interview with anybody.

He invited Stephen A. Smith. He's doing a live series show. It's like, What are you doing interviews about? You guys haven't made a Super Bowl in 35 years.

Listen, I'll give him credit. He's good for content, and he knows the content waves. He was foreshadowing that he was going to make a trade. And then everyone's waiting, and they trade for Logan Wilson, the linebacker who can't get on the field for the worst defense in the NFL in the bangles. And you're like, wait a minute, was this the trade? He was actually foreshadowing. So he did make a splashy trade eventually. So nice job with him with the content. They got a lot of headlines in the offseason with Parsons. They got a lot of TV segments. So I guess if you throw all of that into the trade, along with the picks, maybe it comes out a little bit more even in his eyes.

This is a good example of what's removed the second-round pick. Would you trade your first, and it's the higher pick between the Cowboys and Packers for Quinny Williams. I don't know I would even do that if I was three, five, and one. I'm just waiting until March now, right?

Yeah, that you could at least consider. That wouldn't be unreasonable. He's 28 years old. He's under contract. I think he's like a top five, top 10 defensive tackle. So you could at least talk me into that making some sense. But it's not a no-brainer. It's not a home run. And now you threw in the second round pick as well.

The rest of the week must love having Jerry Jones in the NFL allowed to make trades. Did Did you have the Cowboys as a playoff team before the year?

I did before the Micah Parsons trade.

Pre-parsons trade, you had them in.

Then post-Parsons trade, I didn't. I had them out after the trade.

Well, they're going to be really bad. Their schedule after this Raiders game, Eagles, Chiefs, Lions, Vikings, Chargers are all on the docket.

Wow. Yeah.

So if you're the Jets, Kuda Dinos to the Jets fans. Now you have teams to root against. You have these extra draft packs. You can throw yourself into the 2026 draft. It doesn't really matter anymore if you go one and 16. I guess the one thing is they weren't able to trade Brees Hall, which I thought was surprising. They wanted a third-round pick for him, I guess. I did think about it for the Pats. I wouldn't have done it. But if the price was a fourth-round pick, I would have done it.

I thought the Chiefs I mean, I was doing fake trades on the Ringer NFL show, and I'm like a fourth that maybe can turn into a third if he does certain things.

If he makes the KFC title game. It's a third rounder.

I mean, I don't really understand playing hardball with that. Again, he's a free agent at the end of the season. So if you're not bringing him back, you see what the best deal is, and you just take the best deal rather than say, no, we're holding because you're holding out. And now you got nothing for him. And now he's probably walking at the end of the season.

Well, I don't think they wanted to trade him in division. I'm trying to think for the NFC teams, none of the contenders really would have needed him. Just go through. I can't find a single one that would have wanted him. So that means you're looking at the AFC and you look at the top AFC teams I just don't think any... The Pats were really the only hope for them unless they were looking at the chargers. And if you're the chargers, now that you... The chargers lost both their tackles. They're not making the Super Bowl. They lost two of the best five guys in their team. So So they're out and then you go through. It's a weird one. What did you think about... It wasn't a huge price, but Jacksonville getting Jacobi Myers. I was just thinking the amount of pics and money that they've thrown at running back and receiver to try to show that Trevor Lawrence could be a franchise guy. It's staggering.

I was unmoved, I guess, would be the kind way to put that with Jacobi Myers. Yeah, he didn't give up much. I think they gave up a fourth and a sixth. He's It's okay. It's just, yeah, that doesn't move the needle for me. Travis Hunter is injured.

He's okay and the Jags are okay.

Yeah, the Jags are... I mean, the Jags are such a dumb team. It just feels like they can't get through a drive without doing something absurd, whether it's a penalty, a dropped pass, a miss Trevor Lawrence throw.

Their red zone stuff is the best.

Oh, my God. One of the most entertaining things about the season so far.

When they're inside the tenant, it almost feels like you're entering the matrix. My favorite trade was Shahid. I thought the Seahawks had a real chance to make the Super Bowl even before Sunday night because of their defense and the way they can throw the ball and they can block better than people think and what happened in the Niners, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Adding Shahid with the way that that Donald has been throwing the ball and how good Smith and Jigba has been. And then they have Horton 2, Cup. Nobody knows if he'll be available in January. But Shahid is like, that's a real dude that could have a huge impact for them. It fits what Darnold's strengths are. I really like that trade. Third rounder, I think.

Love it. Fourth and a fifth. So they didn't even have to give up. Fourth and a fifth. I think it makes sense for the reasons. Right now, Jackson, Smith, and Jigba has 948 receiving yards. No other receiver on their team has more than 293.

I mean, that's shocking when somebody else makes a catch. Shocking. You're like, 85. Wait, who's that? I forgot. What guy is that?

Shahid played for their offensive coordinator, Clint Kubiak in New Orleans. So it's like, all right, he's going to know the offense. He's going to be a scheme fit. I thought that was one that made a lot of sense. They just need another pass catcher there. So that might have been the best trade of the Trade Deadline Day.

Best value, certainly. I think if you're giving a fourth for a guy who can swing your play off destiny a little bit. I mean, same thing for Jalen Phillips that the Eagles got for your team. I know you already talked about it, but I don't think he was playing that great. He certainly wasn't jumping out of TV for the Dolphins, but how he always stockpiles all these extra things, and then he could just give one away and take a flyer of people. But you were okay with that trade.

Yeah, I thought that was a good trade. My whole thing with Trade Deadline is if you have a realistic shot to win the Super Bowl, I am fine with you being as aggressive as you want to be. And Phillips has played for Vic Fangio before. It's just a rental. You don't owe him money after this season. I think when teams get into trouble is when they talk themselves into stuff and then get really aggressive. And then you get to the spring and you're like, Man, why did we give away that draft pick? Or you get to next year and you're like, Why did we give away that draft pick? But FanDuel has the Eagles as the favorites in the NFC. Right now. I was looking earlier today. So they haven't had those season-ending injuries that some of these other teams have had. Their guys who have been injured are all coming back. So, yeah, their pass rush hasn't been very good. So you add a player, you take a swing, and you see if he can help you.

Eagles plus 380, Rams plus 440, which I think is really surprising. I would not have guessed that they had the second best odds. Lions plus 450, Packers 5 to 1, Seahawks 6 to 1, Tampa 11 to 1. I think the Seahawks should have the second best odds. I think they're the second best team in the NFC right now behind the Eagles. The Eagles have the pedigree. They have just a shitload of talent. They've been there before. We know what we're getting with them. I think Seattle is really good.

Those five are in the top tier, I think. I change my mind every single day. But yeah, you watch that Seahawks game from Sunday night and you're just like, man, they are explosive on offense. I trust their defense against great quarterbacks. If they had to face Matthew Stafford, and I think they play in a couple of weeks here, so we'll see. But they're going to have a plan, and they're not going to get blown out. I think their defense is too good to get blown out, so their offense is going to stay in it. It's going to come down to just like, all right, who's healthy in January? January. But those, to me, are the five teams that can actually come out of the NFC.

One thing I like to look at, especially around now, is are you in every game? Have you played shit games? What's your record in either or games? And stuff like that? The Patriots, I know that the schedule, by the way, is 16th strength of schedule. It's not quite as bad as everyone thinks, but they played six shit teams. Patriots have always been... How many times do you think they've been behind by 10 points this year?

I can't remember in that Raiders game.

Ten points, not a lot.

Once?

Yeah, the Raiders game. Raiders game, okay. They were down exactly by 10. Seattle is another one. Seattle has two losses, but had a chance to win both of those games. They haven't really played a shit game. They haven't been behind. You look at the Broncos. The Broncos have been behind by 14, 10, 18, and they've climbed back. But I feel the same way in basketball. I think it's a bad sign when you're just way behind games. And I look at Seattle versus the packers, where the packers have just played a couple of shit games. The Browns game was a shit game. The one last week, that Panthers game, that was just a shit performance. And it makes me not trust them. But I think that's the Matla Flore in a nutshell. You just never know when the shit game is coming.

Yeah. The packers are the NBA team that regular season, you're like, and then they think they can flip the switch in the playoffs, which you You know there's NBA teams, but the packers haven't done anything to warrant that. That's my thing with them. It's like if they were defending Super Bowl champs and this was happening or they always get there and you're like, oh, we've seen this before, like the Chiefs. You're like, all right, we know where this team is going to be, but they haven't done that, yet they still just play with their food for a half every single game. I think they're still really good. I think they have a high ceiling, but they are a pretty frustrating team to watch.

The crafting is massive.

Huge.

I just couldn't I believe that. Not to mention, I had him on a couple of fantasy teams, but I just thought he was really blossoming as like, oh, it's third and five. You know where they're going. He was really becoming one of those guys in real-time. I'm not sure Maybe there's more Matheo Gold than now. I'm not sure. Where are they going on third and eight? I think it's always a great thing to think about. I think this is the thing I worry about with Buffalo. In a playoff game, we're down three. There's six minutes left. Where am I going on third and eight if Josh can't do something? Who is the guy? Is it Kincaid? Is it Cooke coming out of the backfield? Who is your guy in this spot? The Pats have at least found Diggs, right? The Chiefs, they always have Kelsey, and now they have Riceback. But yeah, Green Bay, I don't really know who that guy is.

Yeah. Who's going to get you a bucket? It's man coverage. They're not playing soft. It's third and long. I'm with you. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that the packers do have that guy. So that's a big... I thought Kraft was the best tight end in the NFL. I mean, he was a beast. Now, Brock Bowers, I can be like, all right, Brock Bowers now that he came back, he was ridiculous.

That Brock Bowers performance on Sunday. He did in week one, got hurt, took eight weeks off. And he was... I mean, that was one of the best games anyone's played all year. They were just trying to take him out. They couldn't even take them out. They were just moving them around doing different things. Yeah.

Very uncommon for a tight end can just lift your entire offense. But I thought Kraft had the belt before Bowers came back. And so you're losing. I mean, any of these contenders, you lose your go-to guy in the passing game. I think it's a big, big deal.

So who do you have in the NFC?

I still am sticking with my preseason pick, which was the Eagles, getting back to the Super Bowl, especially when you look at their division and how it's going. They're not going to be needing to sweat that out down the stretch. So I think they're in a good spot just from a health standpoint. But I change my mind every week on that. I had the packers last week or two weeks ago, so who knows?

I had the packers before the year. The craft thing. I want to see what happens with Seattle over these next two, three weeks because people now know they're good. They're in a different space now. This is like, hey, This is a real team. We got to get up for this game, and I want to see how they handle it. But the Darnold thing has been a home run. We didn't know if that was like Darnold versus Gino. How's this going to work out? Is Darnold damaged good? He was so bad, and Darnold's doing great. They can block. The defense is probably... It has to be in the top three, depending on what's going on with your defense, top three or top four. I don't know. If I had to pick from a value standpoint right now, I would probably do Denver with Seattle, which is... What do you think that is, Denver versus Seattle in the Super Bowl?

Oh, my gosh.

Just for a value pick.

Plus... Just got to be, man. 900? Am I close?

It's 50 to one.

Oh, my gosh. I was not even close.

Well, put the eagles in there instead with Denver, and that's 36 to one. You put Seattle with, let's say, Buffalo, 25 to one. But I think Seattle, I think they really have a chance to get a two-seed. If they get a two-seed and they get at least that first home game, and then the two, three, they have two home games, and then defense travels, and they go into Philly, potentially. And I think they'd have a chance, but then you'd have Darnold on the road on grass, which after interception three, you're like, Why did I bet on this?

The biggest thing with Seattle is the way they want to play offensively is they get all the tight ends in the fullback on the field on early downs, and then you bring on your big... And then they do play action, and then they hit you with explosive plays downfield. So my question with them is, if it's the fourth quarter and they're down by 10 and the defense is like, screw you, you can run the ball if you want to. We're not loading up to stop the run. Can they do it? They've only attempted 48 passes this season when trailing in a game. It's by far the fewest of any team in the NFL. So I'm not saying they can't do it. Darnold has looked great, but that to me is what I want to see here in the weeks ahead. Like I said, they get the Rams in a couple of weeks. They get some of these opponents that maybe we'll see them in that game But they've looked legit. There's really nothing to knock about the Seahawks so far.

Well, and now a Shahid, who knows? Might tilt the field a little. All right, before we go, give us 48 seconds on VJ Edgecom and what it's meant to you these past six weeks.

I haven't been this into a Sixers team in 25 years, and people laugh at me. They're like, What are you talking about? The last eight years, 10 years haven't been that bad. And I'm like, I've never just the watchability where I'm like, when do they play next? And adding it, okay, they're at seven. I'm going to pot it this time. I'll catch it on DVR. That type of energy that you have with a team that you love hasn't been there for me in 25 years. I knew he was springy. I knew he was athletic. I knew he was competitive. The basketball IQ on this guy, he is making unbelievable passes and just mentally sharp plays, and his teammates love him, and everything about him is just so exciting. So this is, yeah, they get McCain back later, I think on Tuesday night here. So the The best part for me is that the whole, is Embiid playing? It doesn't matter. Embiid is going to the locker room? Cool. I'm still locked in, and I can't wait to watch the second half with this team. I have been just energized by this team this season. I don't care if they win the championship.

You're going back to '01 Iverson.

Yeah, that was my favorite team of all time. That's the last time you were this excited. Senior in high school where I was just like- We go through the 2012 when they almost snuck into the- I did like that team.

Most Eastern Finals with the Derrick Rose.

Doug Collins.

That was fun.

That was fun.

All the process, 2018 when they lost to the Celtics. 2019 losing in the last second to Toronto. No?

Listen, 17, I was into it because it was for the first They now have a... They're finally back in the playoffs. But this, again, is just the, hey, it's a Tuesday. It's a Tuesday in January. They're playing the Hornets at seven o'clock. Do I want to watch that or do I want to catch up on with my wife. No, I'm watching the sixth year, so I'll watch Landman. That energy is what really has me.

Well, don't turn your back on Landman.

No. We'll catch up on that.

Maxi and B. J, nothing else matters. You have your two guys, you'll be able to build around them. Edgecom is going to be in this contract for, I don't know, three, four years before they have to extend it. If I'm a Utah fan and I could have potentially traded marketing, taken Paul George back, but gotten that third pick and had three and five and got an edge comb, that one would be haunt me because I wonder if that was possible. Because Darryl was definitely shopping that three pick, trying to look at who was around. Anyway, it all worked out. I'm with you. When League Pass is on, I'm like, Oh, the Sixers are on. This will be fun. They've just turned into one of those teams, whereas I hated watching them the last couple of years. I couldn't stand it. There was just everything about it. The energy, the crowd was off. Now it feels like a Philly crowd again. They really like these guys.

Listen, I was googling some eight-game plans earlier today. Philly, my daughter wants to go. Oh my God, Sheil. Yeah, I'm excited. Yeah, I can't wait.

All right, you can hear Sheil on the Ringer NFL show and on the Philly special. I'm going to pop on Ringer NFL at some point in the next couple of weeks, maybe after... If the pats have a good win, that might be my virgin appearance. But good to see you. Thanks for coming up.

Can't wait. Talk to you soon.

All right, as promised, this is the conversation that Sean Fentasey and Van Lathen and I had near the end of a rewatchables taping on Monday that went for so long. We just decided to run it here. And it's about movies and creativity and what drives people and all kinds of things. And it goes all over the place. We all had a really good time arguing about it. We just thought, you know what? Let's run it here on the BS podcast. That's what you're about to see. We tape this on Monday.

I was thinking about this. If this movie came out today, this exact movie, would people think it was good or terrible? I would argue probably people would not like this movie if it came out right. The exact same movie comes out tonight. I feel like it would get panned.

It would be a streaming movie for sure. It just wouldn't go into theater as a movie like this. I guess you could say that the most recent Austin Butler movie, Caught Stealing, is like this movie, which is like a crime drama with a movie star at the middle of it with some gnarly incidents.

I mean, this movie costs $75 billion.

So this is my thing.

But is the bar higher? Are the stakes higher now? Why would this movie If it's the exact same movie, why wouldn't it work now?

Well, it's not that it wouldn't work. It's about why you... To me, and Sean could probably give a more thoughtful answer, but when the movies like this are back in theaters, to me, that will be when that experience is back. I look at films like this, cool ideas, executed by really talented people for everyone to see, but you have to get up and go to the movies.

It's no IP. It's slightly smaller in terms of what it's saying, I guess.

At the same time, there's no IP, but this movie has a gigantic movie star, a legendary director, a big budget. There are reasons to go and see something like this, but as long as this movie would exist on streaming now, I think that's the problem, at least.

Well, one of them, probably I would guess the single most popular genre of movie on this show over the years, if you had to do a data analysis of every genre, it's probably crime thriller, right? Yeah. Action thriller. Yeah, that's one of your favorite kinds of movies. Those movies are really fun to talk about.

They're the most fun to talk about because they always have nitpicks.

But those are movies specifically that don't work now, that you don't see coming out.

They also all have a hint of being funny because there's some cheesiness in them. Yes. That's completely gone now. Again, I don't know why that is.

De Palma has a big sense of humor. He doesn't do comedy ever, but he has a really good sense of humor about characterization.

What's the specific thing about the action thriller that you feel like audiences aren't responding to?

I think it's because it's just in It's in the middle. It's like this movie costs a lot of money to make. It's shot in an arena with hundreds of extras. It's got a big set piece with this rolling ball coming down the hill. It has the trappings of a big movie.

This would probably be panned as a movie that was not profitable because it made a little bit more than its budget, but it probably ultimately lost money, although maybe with the DVD sales, it didn't.

That's another thing. Totally.

But now, if this happened now and it was a $70 million movie that made like '95, the variety would write about how this movie lost Not profitable for De Palma.

Maybe we should just shoot Variety to the Fiery Pits of the Sun. How about that idea?

I'm definitely sick of reading those stories.

I don't know. Why do those stories exist? Why did they do that with the Dodgers? The Dodgers won their back-to-back World Series, but they spent $330 million, and they didn't make their money back. Fuck off.

Well, so this is the deal. Number one, and obviously, you guys know I've played into this. I think that the economics of whatever it is have become such a part of of what it is that we do. When people started reporting... Do you remember when Strip Tees came out? One of the biggest stories about Strip Tees was how much money she got paid to do the movie. They gave her $12 million or something like that. I remember when Selena came out, it was the first Latina actress to make a million dollars. That started us talking about the salaries of the actors and what it meant to be a $20 million actor. Started us on Will Smith in this movie.

I think Will Smith and Jim Carrey were a big part of that in the '90s. Then you also had movies like Fire of the Vanities and Waterworld that were like, the budgets were constant.

But it also was the whole infrastructure of people writing and reporting this for the first time in a real way.

They predid this with Titanic. The Titanic was a very troubled production.

We talked about that in the pod.

It cost a lot of money. Everyone thought it was going to be a bust. But that has evolved into this entire section of discussing movies that is about how profitable the movies are. Obviously, people are listening, and they know I've talked about this stuff based upon the talent and the budget and all of that stuff.

Well, the thing that you hear now, you hear maybe not normal people, but just general movie fans say things like, Well, when you factor in the marketing, it's actually 70 million more. It's like, you don't have to know that. That's not important for you to know as a movie fan. I talk about box office all the time on the pods. I do think it is important because it tends to dictate what kinds of movies get made. It's valuable to understand why movies are working and not working. But the race to be like, this movie failed after six weeks, I always find to be really strange. I'm not always making it.

It doesn't acknowledge the infrastructure we have now for movies where some people just wait till they're on Amazon or wherever. And there's no visibility into VOD. Or they want to buy a Blu-ray or whatever.

But for variety or for whatever publication is doing it, they're doing it because it incites people.

It stokes rage. Yeah, it stokes rage.

It incites people.

The sports media is no different. It's all the same shit. It's like, what can get a headline in traffic and people to read this?

The thing about the budgets for these teams, they're different because of just the amount of joy boy that people get from the team itself. There's always going to be a conversation, particularly in baseball, about how much the rosters cost and all of that stuff like that. But if a movie is a dud and it costs $300 million or $250 million, like one of these Marvel movies, there's just a different experience that people have.

But why do people care? I care in sports when the Red Sox get some pitcher for $180 million and the guy sucks. It's like, well, that affects me because we We only had four big money spots to spend, and we fucked this one up. I'm mad.

Okay, I have a question.

I don't care if Paul Thomas-Anderson spent $100 million on a movie that we all liked.

I know you're mad, but to me, that was the same thing as Kugler. I felt exactly the same about both of those experiences. The Dodgers thing I wanted to ask you about, though, is the one thing with this Dodgers title is that this... I could be wrong about this, but I think this is the first World Series champion in which the 10 best players on the team bought. They did home grow Will Smith and Max Munsey, but every star on that team is a free agent or they train for them. Now, that obviously reveals that the Dodgers are willing to spend on other teams or not. But in sports, does it change your mind at all.

This changed in '92 and '93 with the Blue Jays, ironically, when they got Joe Carter and Jack Morris, and they went and got the best homegrown guys from other teams, and we were all pissed off. I was pissed off. They didn't do this fair. But now it's like, this is 30 years of baseball.

I am chronically and annoyingly in favor of the little guy in all things, to the great annoyance of a bunch of people. I get it. The same reason why, I guess, I criticized the big budgets in the movies when the movies aren't profitable. It's because I'm always thinking about smaller creators. But I will admit this. At a specific time, at the time we're in right now, where there are so few things that we can actually agree on in terms of things that are good art. When you get good art, it shouldn't really matter how much it costs. Because at this point, there is just... I don't know if people are paying attention to it. There are a lot of great movies that come out. There are a lot of great records that come out. There are a lot of great albums that come out. But the things that really, to me, seem like truly inspired art, that people are making it and putting their all into it and all of that stuff, it just seems like there's not as much of that that I can connect to as I used to. I'm not saying that it's necessarily true that people aren't making those things.

I'm saying that there is something to be said, and I've thought about this after some of the conversations that we've had about one battle after another. After everybody on set not having to worry about anything other than just cooking, about everybody on set just being able to not having to worry about when the money going to run out or when you're going to do this or how you're going to pay. Just Nobody just worried about there's something to be said for that. I think that concentrating too much on the financials gets us away from it.

Because that was not a conversation, I'm assuming, when snake Eyes came out. Nobody was like, Was this profitable in the same way, Babylon, which made $70 million and cost probably similar rents to snake eye. That was the only thing. Oh, this movie lost so much money. It flopped. Yes.

You know what's interesting, though? In movies, this has always been a conversation, and in sports, it hasn't. I remember when I was a kid inside, I think it was inside sports, they ran an article, a cover story about the first million dollar athlete, Nolan Ryan. And it was the cover. And it was like, these guys now make a million dollars. I remember being a kid. I'm like, whoa, that's a lot of money. But it didn't make me think differently of the athletes. But in movies, Talking about whether something costs too much. You go back to Cleopatra in that era. The Godfather, did this cost too much? Did they make a mistake? Is this going to bankrupt the studio? This has been the lingo for, I don't know, 70 years?

The trades are predicated on driving interest, but with a winners and losers mentality.

It's just an angle to talk to criticize something.

And to create panic for, Oh, they could be done if this doesn't work.

We're treading in a dangerous, I'm not attacking your territory But I do think that the era of Fandam did create a us versus them mentality amongst people, mostly online. In real life, people aren't like, I like this and I don't like this. But people are very eager to rush to tell... People love to tell me that one battle after another is a flop because they know that it's my favorite director, my favorite movie of the year, and they want me to feel bad, that it didn't make money. The thing that I like is more important and better than the thing that you like, which is a insidious thing that has happened in culture over time.

That has to do with the nerds. It's just a fact because I'll just be completely transparent. If you grew up, I'll speak for me. I'll speak for the nerd and me. If you grew up, and I know that we have a similar upbringing as far as it's concerned. If you grew up and you collected over 3,500 comic books, and you read them all the time, And constantly, constantly, constantly, over and over again, that was something that was supposed to be niche and something. No matter how much people love Superman, was something that was supposed to be niche, was something that was supposed to be weird, whatever. The comic book Revolution, the Star Wars, IP Revolution, all of that stuff was a validation of everything that you did in your life. And you being able to do that stuff, do that and talk about it and having that go mainstream. I remember I used to be on TMZ being like, you guys would call us nerds. I'd be like, there's no nerds. The movie made $2 billion. We won. Those movies exist. They have to have gigantic budgets. They have to have huge budgets, but they are only validated.

Nobody cares about how good Robert Downer Jr. Was in Avengers's Endgame. Those movies are only validated if they make money. So the minute that they don't make money, it doesn't matter what. The minute that they don't make money, people shoot at them. People shoot at them. They go, All right, well, your big special thing that you love or whatever, it flop. Nobody cares. Nobody cares just like they never cared. And then you just go, Okay, well, the thing that you love, it flop. Nobody cares. What's the difference? And if the difference is just the quality of the art, that's always subjective. That is legitimately, there are very few movies that we can all agree. That's always subjective. That comes back to taste, which taste comes back to hierarchy, which opinions are actually important enough to be deemed important, which opinions are not important, which movies matter? Which movies don't? That's a tale as old as time when you're talking about art. We have that same... That's a Jay-Z versus to live qua lead conversation. You know what I mean? So all of that stuff is- But how does that explain why anyone would care if sinners or one bad after another spent $25 million more than they should have.

Who fucking cares? That's the part I don't get.

The response to the Sinners thing was the fact- Who cares? The response to the Sinners thing was the fact that, at least initially, it seemed as if those two movies were treated in different ways. Sinners had a gigantic open, and the variety headline, or at least what made it to Twitter was, this movie opened big, but- It's got a long way to go to become profitable. It's a long way to go.

But it was one news piece, though. It was almost like the Lamar Jackson, how one person said he should be a receiver, and then that just became everybody said he should be a receiver. It's like, no, I was one idiot.

But you do understand, though, that a movie that is that connected and that undergirded by a celebration of Black culture, variety, which is by far, to me, at least, the most relevant trade, taking that spin on a movie that opened big. It actually opened. It opened big. I'll just be honest with you, for a Black man, you're good, but you're not quite good enough. I'll just say, Okay, fuck you guys.

Bill, the answer to your one battle thing is why are people upset? They're not. No one gives a shit. These are like the 0. 001% of people online who are not real people are stoking these flames that don't... Every normal person you'd see on the street would be like, I don't even think about movie budgets. How much did it cost? What does that even mean? I liked the movie.

It's It's also just a context-free recency bias in terms of reflection on what a movie means. One Battle and Sinners are made by the same studio. The profits of Sinners benefits the ability to make more movies like Sinners and One Battle. We're cooking this year. The second or third biggest movie of the year is Minecraft, which was also made by Warner Brothers. You don't make Minecraft to make an art film. You make Minecraft to make money so that you can take chances on other films. That is the story of Hollywood. That is what made Hollywood studios great, is that they had this fine-grained balance between, Oh, you got to make a wrestling picture because people like Wallace Beery movies in the 1930s. They're going to show up. That's going to guarantee X number of dollars. So then we can take a chance on something a little bit more audacious with an artist who we think is really interesting. That is a 100-year-old story. So if on Monday morning, when you're looking at the box office's terms, you're like, Man, this sucks. One battle. It costs 140, and it's only going to make $207. Gosh, this could have been way better because you got to factor in the marketing.

It's really disappointing. But that discounts the fact that It exists within a system in a studio, and that system exists around all these other studios and all these other companies that are thriving right now. So it's an incoherent fight that I personally am having every other day, and I'm a little exhausted about, but I also feel complicit in because it just drives the discussion. It really does keep people interested in this stuff in an ugly way.

The only time I've ever cared is when the studios would spend money on two... This is probably a more 2000s, early 2010s thing. They'd have the money to really splurge on three things. They were always the wrong three things. And then if they did well, I would monitor that. I'd be like, Oh, fuck, we're going to get more of this shit. You know what I mean? It's like, Oh, man, that worked. God damn it.

So last thing I'll say about this is, obviously, you guys know I bring a ton of baggage and bias into this, right? Because...

You?

Fuck, come on, man. Why?

Baggage and bias. That's going to be the next Van podcast.

Bagage and bias week on the rewatchable.

Bagage and bias for Van Lichten.

I bring a ton of baggage and bias into this.

Hey, everybody, welcome to Baggage and Bias.

It's fast. I own that because when they are choosing to overspend on these movies, they never do it with Black creators. There's a scratching and a clawing. It doesn't matter how good you are, what you've made. It's just there is a... Some of that's demographic. Some of that's like, what does it mean to have a four quadrant movie and all of that stuff like that. What I think is if we get back to just making cool movies-We're back to that.

I was thinking a little bit about- I think 25 is a year.

I'm going to think of that.

If we get back to just making cool movies, I'm cool with a truce, but I am completely unconvinced that in any type of way we're going to see a situation where Black art and made by people that don't run the town and sit in all of this stuff is going to be able to get $150 million and go out and not be profitable.

I think you can point to Sinners and at least say that's something, that that is a movie that nothing has really happened like that ever before. But the one thing I was thinking of while watching snake Eyes was MBJ is at a similar place in his career that nick Cage was in. He's in his late 30s. He's done every movie. He's done serious drama. He's done IP spectacle. Sports movie. He's been at the center of a sports movie.

Legal trial movie.

Yeah, he's been in the military movie. He really has touched all of the genres.

He's tried Comedy.

Bad Rom-Com.

Comedy, yes, that's right. People don't even fucking remember that movie.

We all agreed not to talk about it..

What was your point with him, though?

Just that a movie like Sinners is a movie that elevates you out of I'm a good star into I'm potentially going into a forever mode. There's going to be an awards push for him now, the same way the cage got his awards push and that led him. He could make pretty much any movie he wanted for seven years in Hollywood after leaving Las Vegas. His decision was, I want to make action spectacle, but you can go in another direction. You wouldn't have the same clout that you had in the '90s. But it's interesting. These guys, the decisions that they make at this point in their career also dictate the future of Hollywood. Leo has spent 25 years being like, Fuck I really like Scorsese. I'm going to get as many Scorsese movies as I made as I possibly can through the absolute center of my career. That has been his primary focus.

And raise money to make the movies, even.

That's the whole story of Wolf of Wall Street. It's him going out and raising the money to get that movie made so that Scorsese could direct it. It is also incumbent on the stars who are at their center of movies to use their power to get cool stuff made and not just be cynical and not just make the same old boring action movie where they reach their quote. It's like, Oh, I'll do it for Netflix, but I won't do it for Paramount because Netflix will pay my quote and Paramount won't. You have to sacrifice something to get that thing, no matter whether you're white or black or whatever in Hollywood.

Yeah. I mean, look, you're not wrong. For me, I just look at there being such a contagion inside of the system of that. We could talk about Michael B. J. He's not Leonardo DiCaprio. Leonardo DiCaprio, at one point, was the star of the biggest movie of all time. There are things that factor into this that are different. One thing I do know is this, is that knowing as many people in this town as I do-Oh, I like that in this town.

It's true.

That are looking to create, all they want is story. There's nothing else. For the majority of these people, there's no agenda, there's no nothing. They have things that are burning inside of them, and they want to be able to tell these stories. And they want to tell them. Sometimes they're going to be easy to understand. Sometimes they're going to be they're going to be great. Sometimes they're going to be bad. Sometimes everybody just wants to get their shit out. And all of these other conversations are wrapped into age-old schisms that have existed in America since time immemorial. But we just want to watch and make movies. And that, to me, sometimes we talk about a lot of other things, but we just want people to be able to make movies and watch movies and all of that shit.

How are you grappling with the fact that perhaps the decline of the superhero movie might be the thing that actually saves original storytelling?

I think everybody. I mean- Would you?

Is that a trade-off that you're willing to take?

Certainly. I think everyone... It doesn't matter what type of movie is being made. The action star that we talked about before, Van Damme, Schwarzenegger, all of those guys, they got market-corrected. Seagal. Seagal. Those guys got market-corrected. Stallone. They did. They got market-corrected. Their genre, their movie making-They were heroes. They were heroes. They Their movies didn't last forever. We'll see what is next, and we'll see what happens next. I'm good with it.

I think it comes down to the same thing as always, writers and directors. The thing I hear-We always talk about who's the next movie star, and do we need more movie stars, and obviously we do, and it's always nice to have them. But if you have the ideas and you have somebody who knows how to make it, you can win 12 games with Alex Smith, basically, to use a Kansas City Chiefs analogy.

That is in this town, the thing that I hear the most is, who's the filmmaker? Is there a filmmaker who can bring to a story this sense of event? That's the thing that everybody is looking for, is how do you eventize something that in 1998, maybe didn't necessarily need to be communicated like that. But if you look at what the major studios are doing now, it's like Warner Brothers putting their arms around Kugler and PTA and Zack Krieger this year. If you look at Universal putting their arms around Daniel, Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Jordan Peel. These are strategies happening inside the studios where they're like, these... Bankable, awesome guys. Netflix is going all out for Greta Gerwig, for Narnia. That is the move. The problem is the thing that you're describing, which is that the studios don't develop the talent like they did in the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s. They don't let people take shots the same way. You got to make it for yourself. Then if you get lucky, you get noticed, and then you get plunged into the deep end. Right.

Even those guys were talking about them. Those guys had to break the system. These filmmakers, once again, not a new phenomenon. When you talk about, it doesn't seem like it now, but Lucas Spielberg, De Palma, all of these guys, even the generation of actors that came before them, Hoffman, Nicholson, all of those guys, they had to break a system.

They functionally worked in independent cinema. Right.

They had to break a system. We got to a point to where a lot of this stuff there needs to be, if not a breaking of it, but certainly a resetting of it.

But people are a man who says the '70s, and the '70s were bonkers. If you look at how they made movies back then, then the '80s were basically all cocaine. But the '70s were just like, here's money. Just like, I mean, how many books do we have about all the crazy shit that they just let people do? That's not coming back. The '80s aren't coming back. The '90s are probably the closest to where we need to be.

How do you mean? What do you mean?

Just letting people Letting young filmmakers or letting good filmmakers, giving them real money to make what they want to make. Well, then it's over. I think it's coming back. I really do. I think we're closer than we were.

It's just smaller. What I'm saying is, if there is no... That would be like taking away high school baseball. If there's no appetite for letting smaller, less established filmmakers get reps, work out story, and do all of that, that has to exist.

There's an interesting thing happening next year at the movies. There's this movie, A24 is putting this movie out called The Backrooms. I haven't seen it. I can't remember the filmmaker's name, but he made these YouTube videos that are creepy pastas. It's like a horror movie idea that he made on YouTube. Based on this idea, he was drafted by the studio to adapt what he made on YouTube into a feature film. The film's got real stars in it. He's 20 years old. It is the thing we're talking about. It's a studio trying to identify somebody really early giving them a shot. Caine Parsons. Caine Parsons, that's his name.

I read about this.

I don't know if it's going to be good or not, but that's what Corb was talking about in his speech. The Backrooms is not going to cost probably more than $5 million. Take more bats.

Even if it's bad, even if it doesn't work.

It's worth trying. Because if you did find one based off of his YouTube videos, then that's an annuity that's going to pay off forever. If you're a studio, if you sign that person up, if you're trying to find the next Christopher Nolan, you got to give them chances to try to make their movie.

I think the '90s were the last time where this actually happened, though. There are a bunch of reasons for that. I also feel like Kevin Smith. Yeah, and it was pre-Internet. And I wonder, sometimes does the Internet in some ways make it less likely for somebody to just have an imagination to come up with a story because they have easier things.

You're saying the talent isn't there?

No, I just worry sometimes that there's so many distractions. You think about When people make art, a lot of times it happens because they're bored or they have nothing else to do. And it's like, I guess I'll just write this chapter or this book I was thinking about, or I guess I'll try to make this song, or I guess I'll try to flush out this movie idea versus I'll go on Instagram. I sound like the old guy, but I do really worry about that.

I think that's real. I don't think I've ever disagreed with one statement more. Let's hear it.

But you don't have kids, though. I do. I watch how my kids spend their time versus That's how I spend my time.

I think the idea of making a movie feels so arduous and long, and now you can just get famous on Instagram. You can make smaller jokes.

There's shortcuts everywhere now.

There's smaller sketches on TikTok. There's other ways to get your creativity out.

I am not saying that kids are not preoccupied with other things right now. Two things. One, the idea that people created out of boredom before, to me, just skips over the fact that... I don't think that Quint Tarantino was bored. I think Quint Tarantino was- You're misunderstanding bored.

But what else was there for him to do? There was no TikTok.

No, he was obsessed.

But I'm saying he was- But the reason you became obsessed is because you had less to do.

That's why I read every sportsbook that existed.

The only thing he could do was make a movie. Now, there's like a thousand other things you could make using digital tools that doesn't necessarily mean a feature film.

I get everything that you guys are saying. I'm not at all discounting.

Hasn't Tarantino himself said, If he were alive now, he's like, I would have never made it as a director.

I would have been too distracted. He said he would not have been a filmmaker.

That's fine. I'm telling you That's concerning. That's fine. I'm telling you right now, right now, I'm in no way conjecturing this. Right now, there are thousands, if not millions of people that want to get their movies made. They want to get their movies made, and they don't want to get their movies made because they're bored. They want to get their movies made because- You can't weaponize the word bored.

I'm telling you, people became passionate about stuff because they had less options for what to do every day.

I think you're both right. I think the thing is that there are still people that have always existed who have an artistic idea burning inside of them, and they're obsessed with the medium that they're supposed to make it for. I have a couple of friends who are younger filmmakers. I have a couple of people I've interviewed on the show and become friendly with over the years who are in their 20s, who I'm like, this person is just born to do it. This is all they've ever cared about. It doesn't matter that they're Gen Z. They love movies, they worship movies, they have something to say. But there are less than there were. Because there is more around that you can put that energy into.

Yes. Yeah, maybe it's more like distractions than being bored. It's just, I don't know. I wrote a book once because it was like, all right, what am I going to do late at night?

I'll just do this. I think video games are an amazing rejoinder to this because the amount of time you can spend just playing video games and going into those worlds. That doesn't mean the people that weren't throwing themselves into cinophilia and seeing every movie ever and then still going out and making movies.

So That's a bonus. You can watch so many more things now. That's your passion. You could just be like, I'm going to watch three movies, four movies today.

You know what I think is tainting my opinion of this?

Well, you know a lot of people that are trying to get shit made.

Well, I've produced some movies.

But that's over there, though. That's a separate topic. Well, no, it's not. Think about this when you're in your car. But when you're in your car driving and you're at a stoplight, what do you do?

Look at your phone. Right.

What do you do when you shower?

You listen to a podcast.

The Godfather isn't available. I still watch a shit ton of movies.

But I think people are distracted way more than they used to be. Back in the day, your imagination would run rampant because you didn't really have that much else to do. At a stop, you just thought about weird shit.

Partially, I think that's right. You guys, it could be. I'm telling you right now, there's a guy, and it's so weird. I haven't I emailed him back. There's a guy that emails me every single day, every day.

Now you're just encouraging him.

No, I'm going to eventually get back to him. I got to watch the movie. He emails me every day about the movie he made. Every email is different. Every email is like, This is a film that we came together and made in Toronto, and it's about this, and let me tell you this. Then the email on top of the email is, Van, I know I've worked as a radio DJ. I know so few of these emails get through, and I've read every single one.

Not to crowd you out, but this dude also emails me.

Does he? Yeah. Okay. But that's not about crowding me out. That just shows to me, that just shows me- He's hustling. How important it is that his thing gets seen. I get that people are creating all types of things. I get that they are. But guys, people out here are desperate to get their stories told.

That's no different than 1990.

I'm telling my story every Every time I get a stack of Blu-rays from the same director out and put them in chronological order and take a photo of them and put them on Instagram, that's me making art.

I feel like Tarantino saying that if I were alive now, no way I would have been a director is the beginning and end of the argument.

I love him, but he's a contrary. I think that's also a horse. I think he's trying to fuck me.

I actually think about what I've written in sports columns. If I grew up 40 years later, the way people grow up now.

You'd be making awesome YouTube videos.

I think it would have been pretty different, right? You'd be breaking down the most amazing-I would have done something, but I don't know if it would have been the same thing, and I definitely wouldn't have read all the books I read.

But what you did about Game 5 on your pod, if you were not who you are now, you would have found a way to do it in a different venue in that way because that's the most consumable way. That's the other thing is that it's about wanting to be seen, like wanting your stuff to be seen.

By the way, people consume stuff now.

Everybody wants to be understood now, and everyone feels like they can be understood because we have this, right? It's harder to make a movie. It takes a year, five years.

It takes a million dollars. Oh, so the blue light later night kill your brand.

I will tell you this, it's harder to make a movie, but there's also no substitute for it.

Oh, I agree. You know I agree with that.

It's definitely harder. It's definitely harder to make a film. There's also no substitute for it. There is some kid, as much as we're talking about, we're leaving out one portion of it, which is inspiration. There is somebody that went and they watched Sinners, and they sat down, however old they were, and they were. They saw the medium that was on the screen telling a specific story in a way that you can only tell it up there. As much as you would want to do it, the only way you can do it is if you take the cinematography, the action, the direction, the scope, all of that. 10 million people watch Ryan Cooler talk about the way you should watch and shoot the movie. There is an interest for the art of storytelling, the relationship that you have between you and the screen, that to me, I see it all the time. People like shorts, all of that stuff, all the time. I think it's still very valuable. I just hope that there's an ecosystem. We agree with you. I know. But what I'm saying is I hope that there's an ecosystem that nurtures that for the next group of people.

But then you got to remember the part that Ryan Cougar didn't just fall out of bed and make sinners. That's like a It's a 15-year journey. Exactly. That includes Fruitvale Station and somebody letting him do that and him fighting to make it.

That's the point. My entire point is- You got to support it at the beginning. You do not get to sinners unless there is Fruitvale Station. When I went to the LA screening of centers, Ryan Coogler talked about why Omar Vincent Miller is in the movie. Omar Vincent Miller is in the movie because Ryan Coogler went to a screening when he was still a film student of Miracle at Saint Anna. And he saw Omar Vincent Miller in Miracle at Saint Anna. And after that, congratulated him and said, One day we're going to do a movie together. And then, years and years after he's gotten the opportunity to make his movie, taking that opportunity and made the most out of it, he goes back and he cast that guy that was in that thing that he liked almost a decade before. That journey is how you get centers.

But the problem is, Kugler is one of the most talented filmmakers we had in the last 20 years.

They all can't be good.

No, but that's like saying, why can't we have another shade, Gildas Alexander?

I think people are always going to watch movies and be inspired and say, I want to make a movie. That's always been there. It's just a little bit easier now, I feel like, to try for three years and then go, I'm just going to start a YouTube channel instead. I'm going to start a podcast. What if I go the TikTok route? What if I express myself in a different way?

This whole conversation is blowing my mind. Of course, Shade Shea Gillers, you don't wake up to be Shea Gillard, just Alexander, right?

No, but he worked his ass off.

He had to pick the basketball up. Somebody had to nurture it. Somebody had to give him the opportunity to play. There had to be a game for him to play. There had to be a team that was like, Hey, we'll take you and you will play. I'll tell you something else about him. That actually makes my point. He is Canadian. 15, 20 years ago- He is. He is. I don't know if you guys know this. 15, 20 years ago, the Him being Canadian would have meant that there was not enough basketball culture where he was for him to, number one, see a game that he loved, participate in a game that he loved, and have the infrastructure that he needed to work to get to $10,000 to get great at the game that he loved. The fact that he, as an international player or WMDBE or whomever else all of these guys are, it shows that that sport is still evolving where people get opportunities.

I guess where we disagree My agree is. I think this infrastructure has been here the whole time. I don't think... I mean, we've had since Sundance and there's been the film school boom happened in the '90s. This has been 35 years of people knowing.

I don't even think there's that much disagreement going on.

That's what I was going to say. We're not actually arguing. I do think what's interesting about it, though, is that we're talking on the Monday after the lowest box office performance weekend since the '90s. One of the reasons why that happened is because Friday was Halloween, which is unusual, and the studios were afraid to release a new movie on Halloween. So there were no new releases over the weekend. And they were banking on the Colleen Hoover adaptation, having a good carry-over from the previous weekend. And it's something that's been happening a lot, obviously in part because there were strikes a couple of years ago, but also just this past year, there are just weekends where no movies come out.

Well, that goes to the... There are these big directors that these studios are rallying around.

But then everything else...

It feels now like there's 10 spike weekends each year where it's like the Nolan weekend, the Spielberg weekend, the Kugler weekend, and then everything in between is just dead.

This has been my big point in the last five years. It's just that the eventization is not going anywhere. Movies like that will continue to happen. Kuglers will come up through the system. The floor is falling out. The Andrew Davis, the guy who's like, God damn, every Andrew Davis movie is really good. But you never knew Andrew Davis's name. He made the fucking Fugitive. He made Under Siege. He made the Package. Every time you watch an Andrew Davis movie or Out for justice, this movie is going to be good.

I'll fuck with it.

But he wasn't famous. That is the thing specifically that is going to me.

Who was the guy that made the Dallas connection? You guys never saw that anyway. But I used to like Andrew. Whatever. I used to like his movies, too. This is what I'll say about this. You're right. That's why my thing is intentionality always. It's intentionality. Not whether or not you're going to get a director. It's like I always used to tell celebrities that would be mad that they were getting their asses kicked by TMZ. They would be like, Van, I don't have any allies in the office. I'll be like, Why don't you make one? If you want an ally in the office, if you want somebody in the office that cares about your story, why don't you make one? Why don't you be intentional about what it is that you want to exist? If you want an ecosystem for up and coming movie makers that are going to undergird, I keep using that word, the next generation of films, why don't you be intentional about it? Now, I will say this. I think that other artists do this. I do. I think that other artists reach back and put people on all the time. Be intentional about the fact that there's talent to be found and cultivated and developed over the course, and that these stories, these stories that are about the changing landscape of society that...

You know what I would want to watch? I want to watch the movie about the kid that's so bored that he starts making TikToks. I want to see these stories. I about their perspective.

There was a great movie came out last year called Dede by this guy, Sean Wong. He was a kid who was in eighth grade, trying to make friends and a little detached, growing up in, I want to say it was Central California?

I think it's the Bay.

I In the Bay.

Sacramento, maybe even. Freemont. Freemont.

Yeah. And YouTube is just getting going. And he starts basically trying to make friends by making skate videos, having his own YouTube account that have pranks on it, trying to find his way. And it's a nostalgic movie, but I'm sure I know how we've talked about it before. I know that that is a movie that resonates with people because it's the actual experience that you're describing. And that's when Sean came out of the Sundance system and he developed his skills. I think he worked at Google for a minute and then developed his skills over time to figure out how to become a better, better filmmaker. To me, that guy, that filmmaker, specifically, is somebody whose studio should be like, Let me put my arms around you. Your next movie is going to get $75 million. Make it good. We're going to vet the script heavily. The executives are going to be hard on you, but we're going to make this movie good together. Then your next movie, if it does well, it's going to get $75 million, and we're going to keep growing together. That, to me, is the essence of the system because it costs so much money to make movies that are at scale.

If you want to make independent films, that's a different story. Raising money yourself, being strategic, you know all about that world. But this thing that I like, and the thing that I'm talking about every week is getting these kinds of movies in front of many people as possible. Like make a movie that can play on 3,500 screens. I really value that. Snake Eyes is an example of that.

But getting it in front of as many people as possible means it should be on Netflix.

Well, that is a one battle after another. They're It can be both. There can really be, there can be a streaming service is making movies, and there can be studios putting movies in movie theaters.

I think that there is no doubt about the fact that we are living in an ecosystem where there are movies that are just going to be for streaming. There are films that I am not the best for. I went and saw everything. I saw all the movies. It was the only place you could see them. I saw all the movies. The DVDs came out in the 2000s, and they were going crazy. So there were certain movies that I saw, and I never experienced them on the big screen. But as soon as them bitches came out and they were playing on the big screen, I was like, Guess what? Suicide Kings, big screen? I'm going to see it. All right? So I get that. And I understand that that passion for the actual experience of going to... I know that that's different. There are movies for streaming, movies for all of this. I see there's a 2B type movie. I watch these movies all the time. I watch these 2B movies that are set in New Orleans. I just want to see what people are talking about and what they're trying to say. I watch these movies all the time, right?

I hope that the person that you're talking about is allowed to fail a couple of times. I hope that they're allowed to take chances on films that got decent budgets and that those movies came out and people didn't understand them, people didn't fuck with them, and they're able to fail. Cooler is bad than a thousand. That is difficult. That is tough. I just hope that some of these people that have this artistic sensibility like Spike. Some of Spike's movies, at the beginning, Spike was on a run, but then Spike would take chances and he would make films that weren't for everyone. But I feel like we're more enriched if there is a gigantic gumbo of creators and people that are allowed to create and have their say. That has to be nurtured intentionally. You have to want more people to have the opportunity to get their stories out. You have to... I don't know.

I just don't buy it. I just don't. I think it's like gobbledygook. Like, oh, yeah, we got to have everybody tell stories. Telling stories is hard. Putting the time in day after day to make something good, to learn how to be good at something. I I think some people want to take the shortcuts, and they don't understand what process it is. I get it. I think it's just really hard to make good shit. It's not as easy as, I want to make a movie. Oh, here's my movie.

No, no, no.

The whole thing is like, this is a fucking process. It takes years and years and years and years to become even decent at something. I really wonder sometimes if people realize that. That's the number one question I get asked all the time. How do I do this? How do I do this? It's like, all right, you want to be a writer? What are your favorite books? Well, what do you mean? What are your favorite books? What book have you read the most? What do you mean read the most? Read a lot of times? Yeah. Have you read a book 20 times and studied every page from it? I really think sometimes that people want to just get to the end without remembering. There's a whole journey to get to the end.

But you understand that that's not what I'm talking about, right?

No, I know. But I'm telling you that's where I'm coming from with being bored, the shortcuts, the whole thing. It's like, this is really hard. I wonder sometimes if people realize that.

So I was thinking about this a little bit when you were talking about coaching people up in the TMZ office, because the other thing is you guys have both worked really hard, but you're also incredibly talented and charismatic. There's also just some people just got it. There is a just got it factor to some of this. That sometimes the person who just got it isn't nurtured or taken care of or doesn't have an opportunity. There's no denying that. But sometimes some people just walk in and they do have it. If they work hard enough at it, then they can make it happen.

But Van is a good example of this, though. You got all these reps for years. Yeah. Did those reps make you better?

Certainly.

But that was an unconventional path, right? For years and years, you just have to come up on a fly. And now CNM. Figure I had to interact with you. Yeah, now you're not seeing it. To figure out how to interact with people. You had to figure out what worked that didn't work. You could have a trial and error situation where if something didn't work, it wasn't the biggest deal in the world because the platform was a little more forgiving. And For a while, you've figured out like, Oh, this is my style. This is how to express myself. Oh, I'm getting better at this. I have confidence here. But that's the whole thing. Craig and those guys have been doing the fantasy show. How many years have you been doing it?

Five.

If you went back and listened to the first year of the show, would you be fired up to listen to it? You'd be like, Oh, my God, we sucked at this. Why were we so bad at this? This is the whole thing. It's a fucking process.

There's a talent component. I'm not disagreeing with that. I think about when you talk about me at TMZ, I wrote my way on to the TMZ tour. Tiffany Drucker, shout out to her. She was a production coordinator at TMZ. They were looking for tour guides. I sent in my resume, but the cover sheet of my resume, I wrote something funny. When she got it, she's like, I had to interview you, even though we'd stopped because of what was on there. Then I get on there and I get on the tour bus. Everybody else would do the tour. Me and Kalika would run the tour after the tour bus. We would get in the call car and run the tour bus around town. In the car, we would drive and run the tour bus around town, and I would stop and do my whole thing. When Harvey came on to take the tour, he saw it and went, Hey, why don't you come into the studio and do it? Then boom, it starts. I started there in April. By June, I was on TV every day. I'm not saying that I'm not naturally charismatic, unbelievably handsome and tall and beautiful.

You didn't say any of those things.

I'm not saying But what I'm saying is, though, is that there was an opportunity given to me, and there was an opportunity given to me by people who were like, Oh, interesting. New, different. And then the X factor was the fact that every time I see an opportunity or a chance, I go, What the fuck do I have to do? That is a different thing. However, in this, where there are millions of dollars at play, there is sometimes some people that need to be able to look and look at somebody and and see people and go, There's something there. What can we get out of it? Talent capitalization. I don't understand how we're having this conversation.

You've seen these movie studios. None of them have the wherewithal to do that. That's like a fantasy world. I don't think that's true. I don't think they're good enough to figure that out.

You know what's funny? I just don't. I'm not about to start glazing. That's just really hard.

Yeah, I don't think that's crazy. I found PTA. He's 19. But PTA is like a prodigy. That's very difficult.

Pta was making elaborate home movies when he was 15. You're just not going to become PTA.

It's not about being PTA because it doesn't matter if there's only going to be one PTA or two PTAs per generation. There are a lot of films out there that are better than the people who actually created their films. There are a lot of films out there that are the result of a certain dedication to storytelling, a sincerity. There are people that made the story of their life and couldn't make the story of anything else. There are all kinds of situations out there where that exists. Rap phenomenon. Your first album is your best. Why? Because it's all in your- Your whole life story. It's your whole life story. What I am saying is there is A portion of this that in order to whatever it is that we're talking about, whatever it is that we're talking about, that if you want the next great anything, you have to invest into it. The NBA right now is in Africa, and they're investing money to Africa. What you are seeing is a return on that investment. It's a return on talent that was overlooked. You can almost do this in any sport. If it is the Dominican Republican in baseball, you see a bunch of people who have a passion for something.

They're using milk cartons as gloves. What if you gave them a real glove? What if you gave them a real bat? What if you took somebody that was 13, allegedly, and then you brought them to the Dodgers training facility and you gave them what they need? After a certain point, would you get an all-star out of it? Not everybody will be an all-star, hence the movie Sugar. Great movie. Very good. Not everybody would be an all-star, but you would get more all-stars than you would get if you didn't do it.

You would get more- I just think creating shit is different than being good at basketball.

It's the exact same thing.

I disagree because somebody who's creating something, it's the sum of a lot of the experiences they've had in life.

There's also technical expertise that goes into it.

It's the work ethic piece. It's the stuff they've watched. It's did they care about this from the moment they were six years old? Any of the great directors, none of them were at age 20. Oh, I think I'll try this movie thing. These were people that from the moment they were six, were seeing everything this way. I just don't think it's basketball where it's like, that guy's 6'8. Maybe he'll be good at basketball. Some of it has to come from you. When you say we need more stories, we do need more stories. But then that's got to come from the people and they have to care the stories they're telling and the experiences they have. And by the way, you have to learn from all the content that we have out there. There's a lot that goes into it, I think.

This is one of the great Everybody's Right conversations I've ever had. I don't really disagree with anything anyone is saying. I do think that movies are going to continue to be a little bit smaller as a business. It's not going to get bigger again. I've been getting my head around that for the last couple of years. And so to me, the thing that I value the most, you could see it in how I try to book interviews on the big picture. The two kinds of interviews I'm trying to get are the filmmakers I really love or who have made a big movie and first-time directors. That's the two categories I'm looking for. Who is a new voice this year? The most recent one is Ava Victor, who made Sorry Baby, and Alex Russell, who made Lerker. Two really cool debuts that I thought were really interesting. Talk to them, figure out what gets them excited, what's inside of them, what's the thing that motivates them to do this, and then how did they do I always ask them, How'd you raise the money to do this?

The Sorry Baby lady was like that. She had a really unconventional background.

Yeah, like an online comedian who is making YouTube videos. But there's more and more people that are coming out of that background that are doing, that are trying to get into this work. Because they love movies, that's what you find out invariably is ultimately they do love movies. But then there's still 180 people who are master filmmakers who I'm always interested and curious to talk to, and I hope that they continue to get as as possible. But the thing in the middle that I'm talking about is the thing that is not really there anymore. It doesn't even really matter what your background is. You used to be like, you're a white guy, you got a leg up. You're going to be able to get a $75 million movie made because it's got Steven Segal in it. That whole part of the world just feels gone. Caught Stealing was treated like a miracle that had happened because Aronowski was like, Yeah, I'll make a shit-eating New York crime movie, and they'll put it on a million screens because we got Austin Butler. That was the weirdest thing that happened in movies this year, and it didn't really do that well.

I think that there is a much more global thing going on. Maybe it's boredom and a lack of motivation. Maybe it's a lack of opportunity.

I don't think it's a lack of motivation. I just think there's way more distractions than there used to be. There's too many things pulling people in different directions.

How many times do you think Ben has gone to the movie theater this year?

Probably five.

Do you know what they would be?

The biggest ones to go to, and a couple of horror movies. I think his generation, horror movies seem to be the things that have a lot of life right now with the under-25s. You got to see this in the theater. It's scarier that way, whereas comedies feel like they're just dead. Nobody's like, You got to see this comment in the theater. It's so fun to be around all these people laughing. No. That hasn't really happened anymore. Even going, remember when the hangover came out or there's something about Mary or like, I got to see this in the theater. Everybody loves this. Now it's like, I'll just stream it with my girlfriend or whatever.

I think even some of the streaming Some of the streaming stuff, they haven't really figured out how to... I mean, we can't really agree on what makes us laugh anymore, what you're supposed to be laughing at. I think.

That's the problem. Maybe that might come back, though.

I haven't watched I Love LA yet, but to me, Rachel Senate is a prime example of this, where it's like 30 years ago, she would have been a movie star. They would have been building movies around her for a decade, trying to make it happen. They would have forced her down our throat. And now, after a couple of movies, she's got a TV show on HBO.

I think there are a lot of ways to say what you want to say, and sometimes you don't even have to put in a story. You just say it on Twitter and all that stuff. I think there are a group of people, a group of creators, that will feel constrained by the limits of two minutes to tell their story. They will feel constrained by the limit of what the reels can do to tell their story. Until this changes, and maybe it will, one thing I'll give the movie industry credit for is is that they've maintained the prestige of what it means to be an important filmmaker. And all of these different disciplines- It's still the highest achievement. Of all of these different disciplines, prestige is very important. It is meaningful. You are taken seriously. You are lauded, you are looked at in a specific way when you are a good, important filmmaker. That's changing in a lot of other disciplines. I think in music, that's changing a little bit. But in film right now, if you can make a movie that literally gets people out of themselves, we still revel when we talk about Denny, when we talk about PTA, when we talk about all of these, we're still waiting for the next one.

That has not gone away. I think people will chase the importance and the prestige and what it means to tell stories. But I also think this. I think, legitimately, there is some kid in South Louisiana right now that looks around and his shit is fucked up. And he's like, I I want everybody to know. I want everybody to see this. A documentary ain't good enough. I saw Nickel Boys. I want to fuck with the camera. I want to do some different shit. I think it was people that when they saw Clarksdale and Sinners, they were like, You know what? I come from a place just like that. I want to do some crazy shit, and I want people to understand this. You cannot understand. No one can make a TikTok and make you understand Clarksdale, Mississippi, or the Blues, or that culture as much as it is when you see the sweat coming off the I think that's still meaningful. I just hope that we are really, really intentional, I'll say again, about giving people those opportunities because your master filmmakers, they've always existed, and I respect them. I respect them. Sometimes I watch movies and then I'll actually stop the movie and then go look at the script because I'll be like, How the fuck is this written?

I can't see how you would write that if you wanted to do it. And Sometimes when you look at it, it's so fucking different than what is... I know you read a lot of scripts. It's so fucking different than how you would see. And if it were something that you were writing, they would be like, What the fuck are you doing?

Well, the even crazier thing, it's appropriate that we're doing this with the De Palma conversation, but I was at the Academy Museum with my daughter on Sunday, and there's a Bong June Ho. See?

At the Academy Museum with his daughter, she's going to grow up with a specific appreciation for film and go into the Academy Museum.

She's going to turn 11 and turn on him.

She might. I'm giving her opportunity to your point to learn. But she didn't really care about the Bong June Ho. It was for obvious reasons. She was very into the Greenwood and Spencer production design of Barbie. But I was able to explain to her very clearly because in that exhibit, which is really cool, Bong storyboards every movie, and he storyboards every single image he wants to see. They have the storyboards up in the museum, so I can hold her up and show her the images and say, This is a movie that I've seen. The man who made this movie saw the entire movie in his head before he made it. While he was writing the script, he was drawing the movie so that he could create the images. This is something Martin Scorsese does. He storyboards all of these shots. In that documentary, he designs all this stuff. It's both things. It's like there are people who can see these things and who have these skills, but also those people have been protected and supported over time. That's why my daughter will be a master filmmaker. Case closed.

This is legitimately the last thing I say because I know that this is probably be broke out as a separate podcast.

This is the first episode of Bagage and Bias.

Bagage and Bias. That's a good first. I will say this.

Bagage and Bias with Van Latha.

Bagage and Bias. I will say this. You guys realize that the bad NBA players are as important as the good ones. So you must have bad movies. Bad art is as essential as good art. Michael Jordan doesn't exist if there's no one to compare him to.

The average- Okay, but you're leaving out the part that it's worse to fail in the 2020s than it's ever been. This is the thing that has not ruined writing, but really changed it and affected it and made it so much different than it was 15 years ago and why the essay writing and features and everything seems so much more there's a sameness and a blandness to it that just wasn't there when we were doing Greatland. Because people didn't care if they took a big Now everyone is always worried about getting full-laid on the internet about whatever.

It's why I think there's no nick Cages right now because nick Cages' authentic weird self would get destroyed in a movie now.

But you almost can't speak about this because you feed off the heat. You're like fucking Razor Ramone. You're like, Yeah, give it to me.

But these are the TMZ reps.

You developed your thick skin. Yeah, it callets me over. There's still sometimes they get to me. But it callets me over.

But what I am saying is- Tyler Shuck jokes. Still hit the...

Fuck that shit. What I'm saying is it is essential. Failure is essential. But you say that this is where you do the van thing.

Most people don't want to fail. They don't want to take a chance and fail once. But you have to fail to be good at something. You have to take chances. Sometimes it's not going to work.

I still haven't made a good pod. I've been podding for almost 10 years. I'm still waiting for my first good pod.

The ability to embrace a failure and be like, That didn't work. I learned from Now I'll do this next thing, I think is really scary to a lot of people. And part of it is from how people grow up now, what they're told, what they read, how mean people can be online. That's very true. There's a whole bunch of factors that go into it.

Part of what I'm talking about is maybe us changing our relationship to that.

I saw a movie- That's another one. How's that going to happen?

I saw a movie earlier this year by somebody who I know is a talented filmmaker. I know for sure they're a talented filmmaker. I could see it in the movie. The movie itself is just not very good. It's just not that good. But you can look into the movie and see pieces. You can see it.

I could see that with Jake Leravia, though. He's so close to being good.

He went for like 32.

He went off. Well, now he's been good.

Stop being racist towards white people.

The Whites are saving the Lakers.

If he was Darius Washington, Leravia, he would be like- The Lakers need the Whites.

The Reeves, LaRevia, two-man game. Was it Friday night.

Jj Coaching, going crazy. Wild. Head again. Going crazy.

The same house around there will be great.

The Mac and Roll. But what I'm saying is that there has to be... I'm just talking about... I'm talking about believing in people.

Everyone believes in people. I know.

You keep presenting you have this magic elixir. The most noble point of view, which it is noble.

I'm not saying it's noble. I'm just saying... No, no.

Can we have 35 years of film schools and scholarships and Sundance?

They could be doing more. I'm not saying it. No, they definitely can. They definitely can. I'm not saying it to sound noble. I'm not even saying it to be noble. I'm saying it's legitimately the only way the thing keeps going.

I agree with you. I agree with that.

That's why I'm a little bit...

Got to give me more people, more shots all the time.

It's the only way you find it. Totally agree.

I'm just curious, who's giving them more shots? We've already established none of these movie studios give a shit about anybody.

That is a real problem.

That's never changing. That's been in movie studios for 100 years.

That's not true. What's not true? What movie did PTA make after Hard 8?

Boogie Nights.

Now, how difficult of a sale did you make a Boogie Nights was?

Do you know why they did Boogie Nights? Because they thought it was going to make money. That's why they green light every movie.

They definitely thought it was going to make money, but also it was just a cool fucking idea.

Because the guy was a fucking prodigy.

I understand, but there are so many films, though.

Very specific time. Indie films are taking Mike DeLuca really wanted to work. The Weinstein era was all of the independent- Everyone was looking for young filmmakers.

It was like a moment in time. As we give- That can happen again.

It should.

It can happen. It can happen again.

No, it has to.

Yeah, it has.

It has happened. Because we just talked about one battle after another. Legitimately, if somebody doesn't go, Oh, my God, look, interesting. This guy, great, amazing, dude, then the movie never happens. And by the way, not only does the movie never It's going to happen, but you then get- You can't mention PTA, though.

That's like saying, Yannis is great. We got to find more people from Greece. Pta is like a generational prodigy.

What do you mean? It's like saying Yannis is great.

He's literally named the freak.

But do you understand Pitey is the freak. But do you understand what I'm saying, though?

Pté was making 8 millimeter, 90 minute movies when he was 15.

So think about this, though. What is Yannis? Yannis is a physical freak. But he's also the eventuality of- With an amazing work ethic. Just let me get it out. I see what Vannis is. He's also the eventuality- Investing in Europe.

Of investing in Europe. Of investing in Europe. Of spreading the game around the country.

So Yannis did not just happen because of an individualistic set of circumstances. That's part of the reason why he is who he is. But in 1986, there would have been a Yannis who would have never made the NBA because we weren't there yet.

This is another way of thinking about this. You've both made a good point, which is that also movies have just become internationally democratized in a way. There are many of the biggest movies of the year not made in America anymore. We thought of America as the absolute hub to movie make for forever.

That's the really sad part of this.

But Asia makes so many of the most popular films around the world. European cinema is still pretty strong, not as strong as it used to be, but still pretty strong. There's obviously African cinema, South American cinema. These are things we don't watch. Bollywood is still is massive right now. We're watching anime coming out of Japan. It's enormous, even in this country. It is like what happened in the NBA 20 years ago where it was like, oh, wow, the All-Star Game is actually 40% European, and it's going to increasingly be moving in that direction.

It's going to be first to go on the NBA this year. It's going to be all European, it looks like. I'll tell you this. I've been working on, I think I'm going to do a podcast, and I thought I was going to already do it. But as you know, I feel like I'm sports movies. That's been my favorite thing to write about. What? I was going to do the 20 best sports movies of this century. Okay. I've been watching them on this side, and we've done some of them.

Happy to go to number one.

No. I really love The Way Back with Affleck. Me too. I think that's a great movie. It's a good movie. I think that's probably my favorite sports movie this decade. But anyway, I was watching in the last week, and then the movie ends, and it's directed by Gavin O'Connor, written by Brad Inglesby.

That's why that movie is good. Yeah.

Affleck, by the way, is probably the best he's ever been in a movie in that movie. But it's also the pedigree of the writing that he and the person who directed it who is a fucking artist. You need all these different pieces to have a good movie. Did you see... I think that's- I mean, no disrespect to Gavin O'Connor, whose movies I love.

But the next movie that Gavin O'Connor made also started Ben Affleck, and it was The Accountant 2. The accountant isn't very good. The Accountant 2 isn't very good. That movie was made because...

I refuse to watch it.

It needed to get made because it would further people's careers and be good for the studios. I legitimately think Gavin O'Connor is a gifted artist, but that is actually a testimony to how fucked up everything is right now.

What's the Robot Lady movie that they came in?

Companion.

Did you see that?

Yeah.

Did you like it?

I really like the performance by the lead.

Sophie Thatcher. Okay. She's terrific.

I think she's really good. I think she's really great, too. I didn't really like the movie, and I would never want to watch it again.

Are you out on Jack Quid?

Not only did I like it, I loved it. I liked it a lot. I loved the movie. I thought it was fantastic. Robot Lady. Everybody, Robots. We don't know who the robots Very cool. All set in one place. All of that. Remember, I watch movies. Remember, 'Worth Winning' with Mark Harmon? Had you ever seen that? Remember that? Mark Harmon trying to...

You always pull this move. You just say in a movie from some 30 years ago, remember that movie? That was good. Often it was.

But it's a totally unimportant movie. That's my thing. My thing is it's worth winning with Mark Harmon, where Mark Harmon plays a handsome weatherman who is trying to figure out, I think, what lady to marry or something. It's a totally unimportant movie. I get that the Wayback is one of the best sports movies, and they had all of these guys behind it. But sometimes good movies are totally unimportant. They're for the moment. They're films to be consumed and ideas that people had. There does not have to be a murderer's role of creators behind every film.

Do you think there should be a movie about Gooner culture? Yeah.

I'm already writing that. I write it every day.

I was wondering if the three of us should write a film for Carla Gugino.

And Gooner culture?

This podcast itself is a bit of a Gooner.

Yeah. It really is. Anyway, we should have invited people to a theater. All got together. Yeah, I guess we should probably wrap it up.

Probably should wrap it up. Getting a little light-headed. Me too. I need something to eat. But the last thing I'll say is, you all talk in all of this? You all do this every day.

Do what every day?

Every day, I see people that I used to be a fucking PA or an intern or a producer or all of that shit. Every day, I see talent developed at The Ringer. Every day, I see capitalization of people.

Here comes the Glaze.

It's not The Glaze.

That's the other band podcast. Can I be real? It's a secret to bagage your bias.

Here comes The Glaze. Can I be real with you, though? The only reason why I'm- This would be a huge hit.

Here comes The Glaze.

The only reason why I'm saying that, though, is because I come from a place where that didn't happen as much. I'm blown I'm going away with the young people that we have at The Ringer and how they do it. I can't believe you. I can believe. I can't believe you. I can't believe that you are against young filmmakers and young filmmakers. Just stop. I'm fucking with you guys.

I'm fucking with you guys. Just takeaways. Bill says, no more opportunities for young people, especially filmmakers of color. Absolutely not.

My takeaway. Done. Here's my big takeaway. Go to TikTok. Use your imagination. Yeah. Read. Watch stuff. Sit at a stop light. Just look around at the lights.

Yeah. Buy physical media if you can afford it.

Buy physical media. Learn from the best people.

Watch the Mac through True Romance.

That's been subjective, but yeah.

Watch Jake Leravia. Don't doomscrolling. See how he worked hard to get where he is today, even as a white American. Is he American, Jake Laredia?

I think he is. Okay. And by the way, now we have to respond to that guy. He do. I've read every email.

Tell him I've read them, too, but I won't be responding. Yeah, I know.

Sometimes you can't, but I've read every email.

It's secretly me. It's my script.

Is it you?

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Shield. Thanks to Van. Thanks to Sean. Thanks to Gael and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back on Thursday at some point with the third podcast of the week, and new rewatch was coming on Monday. So I will see you on Thursday. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for a Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in President DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800 Gamble or visit rg-help. Com. Call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat-in-connect, or md-gamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8 Hope, N-Y or text Hope, N-Y in New York.