Transcript of ‘Speed’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey

The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you find The Big Picture with Sean Fantasy.

Yes, sir.

Flops draft this month.

Yeah, what do you think? You want in?

Is it— did it happen yet? No, no, I never get invited to the movie draft.

Flops draft? Of course.

You were just on a draft just recently.

I want to be in on the flops.

Yeah, did we not talk about the flops draft? No, you're invited.

August 25th.

Yeah, I thought it'd be a good idea.

Great idea.

Yeah, any movie— what's the threshold?

Is it sub $30 million?

Sub-$50 million at the box office. We got to figure it out.

I like how you were like, yeah, sub-50% on Rotten Tomatoes.

You know, like, what is a flop? How do we define it?

Can't wait to talk about it. Thanks for the invite.

You're welcome.

Hey, thanks for the invite. I appreciate it.

Of course. CR. Yeah, much like the people were trapped on the bus in Speed, you were trapped with Adam Friedland for 6 weeks. You escaped.

You're back. A wonderful bus ride around Los Angeles with Adam.

And you were going soccer.

You were going 50 miles an hour the whole time.

That's right.

And you're doing some, some throwing.

Is that done yet?

Thrones ends, uh, Sunday the 9th, so by the time people hear this, we'll be done.

Are we in the 1300s yet or no? 1200s?

Uh, yeah, you know, King Henry just came up, came into this picture. We're excited about some changes he's gonna make with the dragons.

Aren't in though. No. All right. No, we are going to do, uh, maybe the greatest action movie of all time. Speed is next. This episode of the Rewatchables is presented by the movie Mutiny. Only in theaters August 21st. Our guy Jason Statham stars in Mutiny, the new action thriller from the director of Plane. I like that movie. When an international conspiracy turns deadly— that always happens— Statham goes off the grid on a one-man mission. I love one-man missions to take down those responsible. And if you're a fan of The Beekeeper, The Meg, or The Expendables, Guilty. This is exactly the kind of movie you want to see. Statham in— you've sold me— one of the defining action stars of the last 25 years doing what he does best. I agree with that. Think Die Hard on a boat. That sounds great. Mutiny, only in theaters August 21st, rated R for strong bloody violence and language. There you go. You already did a Rewatchables episode on Speed in 2017. Now you have more categories. What do you do?

What do you do?

Yeah, we did this movie 9 years ago. Fuck it. It's the re-Speed.

I told Eileen that we were doing this, and she said, no, you guys did that already. And I was like, I've never done a podcast about Speed. I love Speed. I was so excited to get the text from Bill about Speed. And she was like, no, I know that this happened because I listened to this episode and loved it. But it was almost 10 years ago that that podcast was on.

It was Donnie Kwok, Concepcion, and Shay. It was 1 hour, 4 people, and we had like 4 categories. It was one of the first 10 we ever did.

That's amazing. Was I on it?

No, you weren't on it.

Yeah, I think you were salty that you weren't on it, actually. I think we had some ringer chemistry issues.

You and me?

There was a trade demand.

Wow.

And then you came and put the rings on the table.

Yeah, you demanded to be traded to SB Nation.

That's right.

Calmed it down.

I was gonna say PFT for CR straight up. Who says no?

I texted you guys. We were all texting about it. Craig, is this your favorite one we've done?

Love this fucking movie.

Yeah, this is like when we do film school and it's like, let's learn about Citizen Kane, Kubrick. Like, this should be an entire— not only a class, but you could do a semester on why Speed is the perfect action movie, because I think it is.

The art of blockbuster filmmaking. I think that should be a class. There's— this is— this movie has very specific goals and it achieves all of them.

And it doesn't rest for really a split second.

There's not— there's one scene where people are standing still.

Which one is that?

When they— when that— when Jack gets his medal and then they go to the bar. That is the only scene where somebody is not running, walking very quickly, on their way somewhere. A vehicle is moving. Somebody is falling. Somebody is running.

And that scene's good because it ends with Jack going, I'm going to go have sex.

I'm going to go have some sex.

Yeah.

Um, this is the definition of a rewatchable. It's been on for 32 straight years. I remember seeing it in the theater. Um, it could be on TNT, it could be on real cable. It's scary, but it's not too scary. Um, it's really fun to nitpick. I couldn't believe how many nitpicks I had. I have so many nitpicks. I think I have 15 nitpicks, but they're all out of love.

Yeah, I think it's okay for a movie like this to have some plot flaws because it's Fucking absurd. Yeah, it's a movie about a domestic terrorist who's putting bombs under buses, right?

I'll also forgive any nitpicks or flaws this movie has because if you tried to make it today, it would cost $1.3 billion because they use the actual 105 freeway. They shoot in anamorphic all over Los Angeles, blowing shit up. Like, there is no movie industry world in which this is not being shot in Romania now. And using a ton of CGI in Poland.

We need more movies where buses drive into private jets and explode on screen. Like, what happened to this country?

The thing is, in Tenet, they're like, Christopher Nolan, man, nobody does it like— I'm like, Jan de Bont did this already for $31 million.

It's funny because it was Die Hard on a bus.

Yeah.

Die Hard's '88. They're ripping off Die Hard right after, and they do this.

Is Under Siege really the first ripoff?

No, they're— they're— they're— Pasture 57, right? Underseasoned. Yeah. Sudden Death is being made with our guy Jean-Claude. But they did a whole bunch of cliffhangers. Cliffhanger's another one. It's Die Hard on a mountain. Yeah. So nobody wanted to be in this. And now you look at it, they say, fuck it, they do it. They basically— Keanu is not the first choice. Sandy Bullock's been floating around, hasn't made it. De Bont's never directed a movie. So they do this. And for the next 3 decades, everyone rips this movie off. I feel like this movie's been ripped off almost as many times as Die Hard, at least where it's like, let's, let's try. It's really fast and it moves like speed. Yeah, but nobody's pulled it off.

The vibe of it, for sure. I feel like people are trying to— they're chasing the high of this movie, which I still don't totally know how they— what they did, what the chemistry was. And a lot of this— I have a lot of bias because I was 12 when this movie came out and I saw it in theaters too.

And I was like, holy shit.

Yeah. When I got out of the movie, but I think that was true for most people. I mean, this was like a great word-of-mouth hit. People loved this movie.

Well, I was doing nothing in 1994. Like, I didn't have a lot going on for those 3 years. Even I knew they moved the movie up. Yeah, it was like—

it was—

and I don't know how I would have known that other than reading like magazines because we didn't have the internet. But it was like, this movie's so good, they fucking moved it up. And it ends up going a week before the O.J. chase, which is just you know, the most bizarre wrinkle just in general. This movie comes out a week later, O.J.'s on the car chase, and you're watching it through the prism of like, I've never— I'm in Boston, I've never spent this much time with LA freeways in my life.

Yeah, I mean, it makes Los Angeles seem like a, like, reasonable place to navigate driving-wise, weirdly. Like, I mean, like, they're almost surprised that there's traffic on the 10 in the morning. They're like, oh no, I'm gonna be late for work. Yeah, but it's like The— it, it made— it was still a time—

like, nitpick number 16.

Well, the three of us grew up on the East Coast, and we spent most of our life up until, you know, 30. I don't know, when did you move out here? Old— how old were you? 32. How much time had you spent out here?

I only knew LA through Beverly Hills Cop. I mean, Beverly Hills Cop, this movie, and 90210. Yeah, it's like Die Hard, Speed, Beverly Hills Cop, Beverly Hills 90210.

Like, your idea of what Los Angeles is like— and Speed is kind of different because I don't like— Jack and Annie are like regular everyday people, kind of, even though they have extraordinary things happen to them. I mean, Jack, I guess extraordinary shit happens to him all the time.

Did this movie make you almost like sad that this wasn't the LA we moved to? Like '90s LA, like the vibe of it. Um, and you could feel it in the old 90210 reruns too, where it just seems like you could move around better than— oh yeah, than now. Yeah. Like even at the end they go from, they, they save the bus at the end, but then they have to go all the way downtown for the money drop. And he's like, tell him 30 minutes and 24 minutes later they're all downtown. I was like, that would be like an hour and a half now to go from the airport to downtown LA.

I always wonder if that's just like movie magic. You know, we always joke about that with Collateral where they're getting across town so quickly. Um, or if there was, if it actually was like half the amount of people lived here. Yeah. You know, was that actually the case?

I mean, that's like when you read that, there's like that Didion essay where she was like, we were at our place on Franklin Avenue and then we just cruised over to Malibu. I'm like, what do you mean you cruised over to Malibu?

Like, that would take 2 days. Oh my God. Especially now. So when you talk about perfect action movies where you like look out the star, the plot's simple and great, and then it moves the way.

Did you make a list? I did. I'm very curious to hear what you guys think about this, but you were there for the '70s movies. Like, there was an era of huge action movies in the '70s, you know, that were more event spectacle movies like Towering Inferno, Poseidon Adventure, that were massive hits. And those movies, I think if you watch them now, don't really hold up. They're not really that fun to watch. You might have some nostalgic feelings for them if you watched them at the time, but they all feel overlong. They've got these really baggy set pieces. It's full of like all-star casts, but nobody really giving their best performance. Like, swollen. Yeah. But in the late '80s, early '90s, something happens and it's kind of like this hangover effect from movies like Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop. Like Hollywood figures out a pacing and editing energy. Yeah. And then everything that comes in the wake of it is basically incredible for 10 years. Now I have rose-colored teenager goggles on with these movies, but no, I think you're right though. So tier, I'll do what I think is tier 1.

Can I give you one movie though that I think defied that from the '70s? The Warriors. Yeah, that movie is 91 minutes. Similarly, a movie that where people are on the run the whole time, right? That movie is the same kind of thing where it's like, I don't even know what you would cut. It's just like a filet mignon, which is what Speed's like. Anyway, go ahead.

Okay, maybe I'll do tier 2 first. Okay, tier 2: Broken Arrow, Con Air, Independence Day, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Cliffhanger, True Lies, Last Action Hero, Last Boy Scout, Demolition Man, Fifth Element, Hard Target, Executive Decision. I'm sure I've forgotten some here and there, but that's mostly what I'm thinking. Tier 1: Die Hard, Crimson Tide, Hunt for Red October. T2: Point Break, The Matrix, Blade, Face/Off, first Mission: Impossible, Lethal Weapon, Fugitive, Heat, Under Siege. And I think at the top of the heap is Speed.

I did an action movie championship belt starting with First Blood. Because I think First Blood was the first modern action movie where it's like it starts out as a movie and then all of a sudden action gets added to it. Right. But I had First Blood, Terminator, First Blood 2, Predator, Die Hard. It's just the belt getting passed. Lethal Weapon 2, Total Recall, Terminator 2, Under Siege. I have Cliffhanger in there. Other people don't. I think Cliffhanger is great.

I think Cliffhanger is aged pretty well.

I agree. The Fugitive and Speed. Yes. And you can just see, like, so that's 12 movies in 12 years, and they're all kind of leading to Speed. And Speed's learned lessons from, like, hey, what made the Terminator work? Yes. You know, what made— what's the best part about Die Hard? And then it just kind of was like an AI intelligence of all these other things that worked, and they just made it all happen together.

So one of the things about Speed and Fugitive Uh, those are two movies of my, one of my earliest recollections of saw the movie, went back and saw it the next day, which goes to show you like the word of mouth that came out about both of those movies, even in the '90s when I was still like a nascent, like I'm starting to understand what film culture is like. And even though my dad was in the house, like being like, oh, lots of people like this. It was like you were running around to your friends like, have you seen Speed yet? Oh my God, dude, we gotta go. And both of those movies are action films, but with thriller conceits. Like, Fugitive is a Hitchcock movie, essentially, like a wrongly accused man. Yeah. And Speed could have been a Dirty Harry movie. Like, Speed could have been like, there's a crazy man, mm-hmm, like targeting buses in Los Angeles, but bomb squad detective Jack Traven. Yeah. Bronson, Eastwood. It could have been like a McQueen movie, but they turn it into this like widescreen, explosive, never stop action movie.

Yeah. I feel like adrenaline is the thing that they tap into. Exactly. It's that feeling of just like, you just, you're shaking the whole time you're watching the movie and having fun with the soundtrack.

I would say adrenaline, problem solving. Like the guys that came, this next wave of action movie guys like Keanu, Snipes, Willis, Nic Cage. There, it's less about like those guys winning fights and being like the strongest, like, which is what we had in the '80s. And it's more like How do we get out of this? I'll try anything. Yeah. Oh my God, he's going to do that. Like when Keanu gets under the bus, it's fucking insane. No normal person would do that. You know? And it's same thing with Die Hard. Like, Die Hard. And I feel like Die Hard cracked the code on that when he's like, oh, what was it? The elevator shaft? What was the craziest thing he did in that movie? Or when he's swaying off the top? Yeah, I mean, but he's like a normal guy. Like, I guess I got to do this.

I just think also, like, the taping to the back. I mean, all these. Yes. It's, it's like, it's using your brain as much as your body.

Yeah. And pretty regular guys, like Keanu Reeves barely wins a fight with Dennis Hopper. Like, he's actually on his back.

Well, the Hopper thing is another— it goes back to Alan Rickman in Die Hard, or even Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, where they're also like, the key to this movie is to grab the guy who's Tommy Lee Jones, Dennis Hopper, Anthony Hopkins, the villain who people are going to be absolutely like magnetized by it.

And, and Connery in Hunt for Red October, where you're just like, there's a hugely overqualified screen legend who is like, I'm just gonna let it rip on this one. This would have been a fun Nicholson part.

I think Hopper's great, but it's, it's right in that zone where it's like you can almost steal the movie if you're in the evil guy part. Um, Hopper's another one. Hackman, I guess. Yeah, he does it. But that— but they all kind of dabbled in it. De Niro's one was Cape Fear. Were you born the year of this movie? 2 months after it came out. See, that's why he loves this stuff.

Born for it. Who showed it to you?

How old were you when you saw it? This was a movie that was like, my dad put it on for me and it was— it just felt like it was always on like TNT or something. And it was a big cable watch back when people did that for me.

Keanu. Yeah. Point Break, Speed, The Matrix, John Wick. Yeah, just those 4. That's about as good of a Mount Rushmore of What kind of action movies did you make back in the day, Keanu? Well, you might have heard of John Wick. I made 4 of those, did 3 Matrixes. Um, but between Point Break and Speed, it's a little dicey for him. And that was part of the charm of this movie, is like, really, Keanu? Just watched him bomb in Dracula. He had like a tough run.

Terrible in Dracula, but that was a big hit. That movie was very successful. I think it's— he was trying to do a thing that you see a lot of actors do now. This is something like Chalamet does, where you're really trying to balance the quality work with the mainstream work and trying to find a middle ground for those two things. And you could see that, like, after Point Break, he kind of very strongly pivots against that. He's like, I'm going to do Shakespeare. I'm going to do, you know, arthouse films.

I have the movies: Bill and Ted 2, Private Idaho, Dracula, Much Ado About Nothing, Cowgirl Gets the Blues, and Little Buddha. This was a fucking bender.

When are we doing My Own Private Idaho? It's a really good movie. It would be like the greatest zag ever for us to do that.

I wonder how many— have you seen it? I mean, it's the movie that made those two guys best friends. Yeah. And then the research— I didn't even realize this, that River Phoenix died when they were filming Speed, and Keanu was so upset about it they had to, like, fix the shooting schedule.

Yeah, I didn't know that either. It was his best friend. My Own Private Idaho would be a good episode. It's a really interesting movie.

Do you want to participate?

Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's a really good one.

But that's, it wasn't, it's, that's obviously not a big hit. He's making a very specific choice to do something.

He's great in that. He, I, I think he's, I think he's fine in Much Ado About Nothing. I mean, like, he got a lot of grief for it, but he, if you go back and watch it.

I think Dracula's worse. I think Dracula, he's, he sticks out like a sore thumb.

Dracula was a laugh in the theater.

Yeah, because Dracula is a cool movie. That's like a really fun. Horror movie that Coppola made, and he is not at his best.

It's fine. This Point Break, it's obviously iconic. It was one of the first ones we've done, but it's kind of fun to make fun of him as it's happening a little bit at some point. FBI! Um, I think he's just really good in this.

He's a little more yoked up in this and jock-like. Like his hair. Him and Harry are in the, uh, office building right after they've rescued the people from the elevator, but they're trying to figure out whether Howard is in the building. And Harry's like, he would want to be close by. And Jack gets up and he just like points at him like he's Joe Burrow. And I was just like, this guy's fucking cool, man. He really is. I love it.

You know one thing I was thinking? Because they overthink everything now with TV and movies, and everybody has to have a backstory and all kinds of shit. I like that we just don't know anything about Jack. Where's he from? I don't care.

You know anything about Annie? Yeah, right. Nothing.

Is he a vegetarian?

Who gives a shit? Where does he live?

We don't have the scene where he's just like getting ready to go to work in the morning and he's like, like everybody else in America.

Yeah.

Also, the villain does have a traumatic past, but it's not played for any kind of like character dynamic. It's just like, he's just like, fuck you, give me my money.

Like, don't you think if they made this now it'd be a half hour longer, which is fat? Yeah. Yeah. And we would definitely see Jack like working out at Equinox and, you know, and he just, he just broke up with his girlfriend. Yeah, like they would just add all this dumb shit.

Well, it's even like, you think about Harry's death in this, it's like they— he takes 2 seconds to mourn him. He's just like, no! And then he's like, all right, let's move on.

We're still on the bus.

We can't— like, what are we gonna do?

I think he does say, I'm gonna rip your fucking spine out.

And he's like, you'll do nothing like that.

Yeah, it's actually a really good scene because Bullock, who's unbelievable in this movie, she's so great. But she's like, Jack, I need you to stay with me. Yeah. Like, you got a lot of people counting on you. But he's not just like the typical— and that's what they were doing with these movies where they would have your hero, but he would also have some sort of Achilles heel, or he sometimes couldn't handle the moment. He might get overwhelmed. A lot like watching Joe Burrow with a bad offensive line. That's right. Justin Herbert. Wow.

CJ Stroud. You've been doing your research.

Sandra Bullock. I don't know if this is the—

does that not apply to Drake May? Shaky offensive line. Good.

We're taping this on July 31st. Good Drake May performance today.

Yeah. Oh, at camp, hit AJ a couple times.

Did he? Yeah, the reporters are impressed.

How are you going to feel watching AJ?

Fine.

Fine. That's how I'm going to feel about Jaylen Brown. We both win. Sandra Bullock. I don't know if this was—

I definitely won. I got LeBron.

Okay, but that's what, that's what they said when the Trojan horse was delivered.

Me and all my Trojan buddies were like, we did it!

Oh, we got it! This fucking horse! Look at this thing! Lift that thing up!

Uh, so Jalen Brown is the Trojan horse in this scenario? Yeah. Wow, interesting.

Sandra Bullock, is this the all-time you're gonna have a fucking crush on me at the end of this movie performance, or just on the top shelf, way up there.

I'm pretty sure I saw Love Potion No. 9 before this though, so it's not like this was the first time I'd ever seen— I saw 4 movies with her.

She was in Demolition Man before this.

She was. Yeah, I think she was in that.

Yeah, The Vanishing.

The Vanishing, was that before this? Oh yeah.

And she's smoking hot in that. And then she's in— I'm not sure that's supposed to be the takeaway, but no, she's in it for— you guys see The Vanishing? Smoke show. Absolutely. That's why it's 5 Alarm. 3 years looking for her. It's got posters of where she got abducted. And then she's in, uh, That Thing Called Love, whatever that movie, the River Phoenix music movie.

Peter Bogdanovich movie.

Yeah, she's still one of the weirdest things I've ever done professionally is sit in a really small room with you and do The Vanishing. Oh yeah, you're in that weird room and you just did the voice like for 60% of the Bridges voice.

Yeah.

Hello, Jeff. Hello, Jeff, I'm Bonnie. I'm the man you're looking for.

We should bring Barney. Should be, uh, one of the voices for the pod.

I'll do it today.

Would this movie be better with Barney? Yeah.

That Thing Called Love had her and Samantha Mathis. Yeah, sure did.

And River.

So it was on my radar. I saw it in the theater. Not a lot going on in '93 either. Um, so yeah, it was— but this was— I, I wrote in my notes a little Indi Navarrete-ish, where it's like by the end of the movie you're like, that person's gonna be in my life now for 20 years. Yeah, yeah. They will be repeatedly casting her in movies.

She has an incredible ability to have chemistry with any male lead, and it does not matter how old or young they are. She is like born to be a mainstream movie star. She's a good actress, but like she's just really good at connecting with other people on screen, and then you feel connected to her.

That's a great way to put it. Yeah, you're right, she could be with— I mean, she was with Ryan Reynolds.

Yes, and that movie works so well. I don't really like Ryan Reynolds, but that was a huge hit, that movie.

To your point about like what they focused on in this movie and what the screenplay focuses on. What's Annie's— do we know where Annie is going to work? Do we know what her job is? She's sped. I know she speeds. She has— she smokes. CR. Yeah, I'm just saying, like, she doesn't just smoke. But who it is, it's Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves.

She doesn't just smoke. Morning smoker.

Yeah, well, that's a whole level of darkness.

We'll explain that.

Darkness or lightness? Like darkness or like the sun just came out because we're having—

I'm having a coffee and an 8 AM dart, getting on a bus. What would you be? Were you a morning smoker?

Yeah, you were.

I would get up, go downstairs, smoke, go back upstairs when it happened, whenever I got up.

Like 11 AM or 9 AM?

For the longest time when I was working retail, we were not greeting the morning, you know what I mean? So I— but I would get up, smoke, and then go shower.

My takeaway, knowing nothing on that character, is just those little two tidbits told me she was out till 3 in the morning the night before.

Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Okay.

Probably had 4 hours sleep. Might not have slept at her own place.

Oh, interesting.

Rallied back with the coffee cigarette. She's late for the bus. Fortunately, she knows Sam. She knows Sam.

Are you calling Annie a loose woman?

No, I think she might have had a big night the night before.

Okay. That's why she was running a little late for that bus. The 8 AM.

Yeah, to be like, that bus is a half hour, let me wipe out this dart right before I get on the bus. Half hour's a long time. Just takes a couple puffs. Meanwhile, she's great and can drive a bus. I mean, she was really the dream girl. Yeah, I like when she apologizes when she has the bomb vest on. She's like, sorry.

She's very special. Drive a bus, is that on your hit list for things you want a woman to be able to do? Just jumped right in.

I mean, would you know how to drive a bus here? Uh, no.

I mean, I, I like— what is it? Is it— would you know how to drive like driving a long car?

Would I know how to drive a bus? Probably not. I feel like just getting a handle on that would take a bit.

I think turning is probably the challenge.

When she makes the sharp turn, uh, to get on the, the freeway, I'm like, that's impressive.

That's one of the best parts about him, uh, her and Keanu in the movie, is when he's like realizes she's done a good job and he's like, wow, hey, pretty good, you know. That's That's them connecting.

It's kind of funny that he doesn't ever like say like, I'll drive for a little bit.

That's true.

There's a lot of time where they're just standing there and she's driving. Yeah, I think as the cop, he'd be like, I got it.

Well, there's what, 40 minutes into the movie, he's like, yeah, I might take a crack at this one once we get off the bus. I don't know what she's doing later.

Yeah, I think she's thinking the same thing.

It's, it's funny because we did Obsession, we recorded that one on Monday, and it it's very similar to India Navarrete in that movie where you're just like, I like this person. Yeah. And Sandra Bullock always had it. She finally put it together. And now we're— I just saw a trailer for Practical Magic 2. Yes. Um, it's still going 3 and a half decades later.

I was at CinemaCon in April, and she came out to talk about that movie when I was there. And she's like 62 years old or something. She looks like she's 39. It's insane. How many—

she doesn't really make that much stuff anymore.

I think I was shocked she had less than 60 IMDb credits. Yeah, I think she's basically been 2 a year max.

She have kids now?

Is this her first movie since The Lost City? I feel like it is. She, she hasn't really made a movie in about 4 or 5 years. She does have kids.

Yeah, I actually know— it's a long random story— but the person she's with now, just like normal LA person. Cool. Yeah, that's great. But I was— she always had the—

Sam the bus driver?

She ended up with Sam, but she always had the rep for most normal Hollywood star, because some of them you'd be shocked to know aren't that normal.

She's one of those people like Leo or Denzel where like they still matter. I like— people actually will still just— like, people went to go see The Lost City regardless of whether or not you like that movie. That movie was actually a hit almost entirely because she is still a draw in a unique way.

Well, the funny— we haven't done Gravity yet, it's on the list. Oh yeah, but that's one where that's basically a Matt Damon The Martian, like Tom Hanks, Castaway. I think that's your biggest thing. Yeah, it's just me for an hour. Yeah. And that's like the last level of movie stardom if you can carry a movie like that. Just like, it's just me, guys. You're going to enjoy watching me try to figure out stuff and get mad at myself.

You also just like, if you think about all the different ways you could have shuffled the deck of the two people who could have been the cop and the woman who's driving the bus, and if it's like, and there's a version of this movie that's like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Natasha Henstridge, and you're just like, That, that movie probably is like borderline entertaining, but you're not like zoomed in on what's happening at the wheel of the bus and watching these two people kind of fall for each other.

Yeah. And also like really magical chemistry with them, which is just really solid. They're wonderful together. Yeah. In an action movie.

Yeah, I agree. And I think that it's more likely that you were going to get that. That's part of the reason why the movie is just, is a forever movie. It's like they kind of nailed all those particular choices that had to fall into place.

Yeah. When you go through the casting what-ifs, it's not like, oh, well, we were looking at Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. But we just— it's like this— they were like, I guess we'll try Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. Nobody knows who she is. And he was in Point Break a couple of years ago.

But the same goes for Jan de Bont. Like, it could have just not been him. It could have been any number of other filmmakers because it was just like, this is a hot script, studio movie. You got to pick the right people. He'd never made a movie before. But you get this Dutch maniac who's been studying under Verhoeven for 25 years, and you get a guy who's willing to do all this crazy shit in this movie. The practical stuff that they're trying to pull off, that they do pull off, dude, that movie is insane.

And he brought a bunch of new stuff that wasn't— yeah, like the bus jump was like his idea, right? The whole elevator first 20 minutes, like, he— that was him.

But even like when, uh, when the first bus blows in Venice and Jack is like running up to it and then like the flames are jumping, he's like, ah, ah. I'm like, is that Keanu Reeves next to like actual active fire? Probably. Yeah.

Did they have any over That's the thing is the flip side of it is this is clearly a much less safe time in Hollywood, but so many of the things that they do in the movie, so many of the action set pieces, when they were making— if they were making it now, they would have just said, ah, we'll just fix that in post. We'll just— we will be able to digitally touch this so it's all fine. And some of the sequences wouldn't look as good. They definitely wouldn't feel as good. They wouldn't feel as deep and real. Also, all the stuff like the elevator shaft is all miniature stuff that they built by hand and then shot together. It's just like, it's kind of the last moment, right? It's pre-Armageddon, it's pre-Independence Day, where it's pre—

it's a year before Twister, a year and a half before Twister.

Yeah, it's just right at the end of that CGI transition where everything big and explosive just goes into that approach instead of this approach. And it's why it's such a forever movie.

But this one is—

sure, I love those movies as well, but this one is almost entirely like—

it's like The Fugitive. It's like, let's take Let's take this thriller concept, but take it to its most extreme, but still plausible and logical, like, extension of, like, have a train crash, have, like, you know, this guy, have this St. Patrick's Day parade be the, the setting for a chase scene, and then, like, have buses.

And we love The Fugitive, and we've done it twice, including in front of a live audience in Chicago. This movie moves way faster than The Fugitive. Sure. Fugitive is, there's a couple slow parts. Did you ask Danny Kelly if he would change his name to Ian?

Not yet. Does Danny Kelly know that Gary is playing a character named Danny Kelly? Yes, he was just informed.

Somebody on Twitter sent him a screenshot of— because they talk about the character's name being Danny Kelly in the show, right?

Being very Irish. Does anybody call him DK? No, not yet. Okay. Not yet.

That was a Bill Simmons note. Changing to Jan. Can't both be Danny in the pod.

And now neither of them has to be. It's Heifetz and DK.

Yeah. Hopper. Little Hopper resurgence. True Romance.

The Hopper side. I would argue that the Blue Velvet Hoosiers thing is what puts him back on the map. That in '86 he makes those movies. He gets an Oscar nomination despite being one of the well-known maniacs in Hollywood history. Like, literally a crazy person who did crazy shit in the '60s and '70s. and then he makes this crazy comeback, and then he gets like a 15-year gravy train where he gets tons of studio movie parts.

True Romance, Speed, and Waterworld. Yeah, all back to back to back. Um, I didn't know who— I wasn't like a going backwards movies guy. I knew him from Hoosiers first. It's like, oh, Shooter. Wait, Coach is getting kicked out, let Shooter take over the team? What's going on here? Um, but he ended up having a nice run and I would love to say, oh, it should have been somebody else for this part, but I think he's like a home run. Yeah, I mean, I think he's so good at this.

He has like this malevolence that can come out of nowhere that went, you know, even going back to, to Blue Velvet, and an energy that you can see in Apocalypse Now and see in any of his like classic performances that is that kind of like aging method wildcat, untamed animal.

True Romance, talking about the moors.

Yeah, I mean, it's just so special, man. It's just really special to watch. And even though Howard, I'm not even really sure what his ideology was. Yeah, or like what the plan was.

Like, it seems like, why did he blow up that house? That wasn't a nice location. Do you think that was his house?

Whose house was that? It was his house.

That day they tracked him down.

Yeah, he had the chip pushed all the way, right?

So he blew up his own house just to kill Harry. That's kind of crazy. I was gonna move anyway.

That's what Mike Gansey did to get LeBron.

He was like, just to show you how in I am, blow up my own house. He's getting— then we got Jeff Daniels, who pulls off the double Harry in 1994. He's a Dumb and Dumber and Speed.

Kind of a weird movie where like he's slumming it a little bit, but it makes the movies, both of those movies, so much better that, you know, skilled actor Jeff Daniels is in them playing the fourth lead. It's really strange.

I think he, in the research, he was basically saying, I didn't realize this movie was good until I saw the movie. Yeah. But I think he was probably like how everybody felt filming season 1 of Cape Fear, where it turns out it wasn't good. Yeah, it turned out it wasn't good. But when you watch Cape Fear, by about episode 5, you can start seeing when each actor loses their will to be in the show. Yeah. Patrick Wilson, by episode 7, is like, just fucking kill me. Just shoot me in the head.

Have you stuck with Cape Fear? No. Okay.

It's the worst show of all time. But Jeff Daniels was probably like, yeah, I'm doing this Jim Carrey thing. I think it's going to be big. This fucking Dutch guy, this bus movie. I don't know.

We wanted John McTiernan. We couldn't get him.

Yeah. I'm getting a cinematographer.

It's like Keanu's the lead, and then he gives the movie a lot.

He really does.

He gives it, like, a credibility. He's got a different tone in his acting style where everybody else is just, like, so locked in. Yeah. And he's, like, much more laconic and easygoing.

Also, he gives it the face he makes, which I had later for the most giftable moment from this movie. The, oh my God, I'm fucked face.

You just kind of the OG Shamet face. Yeah. Have we addressed how the Shamet face needs to be completely retired? How Shamet is now like a god? Have we addressed it?

He is on any Bill Simmons podcast. Yeah, he got a new contract. Yeah. Yeah, a great deal. So Shamit face got replaced by a Jeff Daniels face? Possibly.

Jeff Daniels is about to be exploded into a million pieces face.

How do you feel about Dumb and Dumber and Speed? Same actor, same year, couple months apart.

6 months apart. I think it was like Christmas and summer.

Yeah, I mean, that's like an all-time two fucking weird parts that have nothing to do with each other.

That's got to be up there for any great year for any double rewatchable movie actor.

Yeah, also probably helped Dumb and Dumber when it was coming out. People are like, oh, guy from—

oh yeah, well, yeah, but he was, you know, in terms of Endearment, and you know, he was in a ton of shit.

I agree that he's important for this movie. Yeah, he gives it some credibility. Not in that much, he's in 30 minutes.

Yeah, there's, um, him and Joe Morton, I think, give it a lot of credibility.

Oh, fuck yeah, Joe Morton's incredible. Yeah, there's a quality to the screenplay. So Graham Yost writes this, it's his first I think produced screenplay at least, but he was pretty young hotshot. He goes on to do Justified and, and like tons of TV stuff, um, bunch of movies. But he wrote this script, I think it was almost all on the bus when he wrote this, his version of it, before it started to go into development. I wouldn't say it's like William Goldman or, or whatever, but it is a rock-solid screenplay. And even though these characters aren't real people, they are perfect movie characters. Yeah. Where like you can see, like Harry says to Jack, you need to start thinking and not just be so instinctual. Guts will get you so far. And by the end of the movie, like Jack has to think his way through this situation. And Harry ironically dies by being instinctive and running into a house that he shouldn't run into. And it's like just really good, solid Hollywood screenwriting that's happening while most people are like, that fucking bus is about to jump over a gap.

Mm-hmm. Josh Whedon did some rewrites for it too. I was trying to— I was looking at Joe Morton's IMDb. It's just never a bad thing when he's in a movie. He's probably secretly been in like 7 rewatchables. Do you think he was just in Ali? Yeah. Yeah. Um, but it's great. I think he's really good in this movie. He doesn't have a lot of lines, but he's got great reactions. I love when the bus jump happens and they cut to him and he's just like, fuck yeah.

Yeah. Or when like, he's just like, you're all fired.

Yeah. And then I had— yeah, the screenwriter-director, the score by Mark Mancina. Da da na! Da dun dun dun duh nuh!

Hired in part because he was coming off of being basically Hans Zimmer's number 2 on True Romance, and they were like, I want some of that energy in this movie.

And then the only other thing I had for the intro was just favorite, like, I'm In LA movies. It's weird because this movie's— it's basically LA under attack, but it's some nice different snapshots of— we're in Venice, downtown, near the airport. We're on all the different highways. We're in downtown. We end in two different spots in downtown. We're using the trolley, we're using the bus.

I fantasize about being able to get off that exit going to the airport with not a single car on the highway. That is one of the worst places in the universe.

Like, I think you have to do it at 3 in the morning if you want to have that kind of experience.

Well, that was literally the only positive of COVID that I could think of, driving to the airport, other than having more family time. No, just no traffic, just flying around.

No traffic, then more family time. Family time, 1A.

Traffic would be then no other happy things. Speed won 2 Oscars. Yeah, sound, right? Sound and best sound effects editing.

Yeah. Who are the favorites this year, Sean? The Odyssey is going to dominate all the below the line stuff. Also, they've combined those two categories, just so you know. Now it's just best sound. They no longer do sound editing.

Do you think Odyssey will be—

they have best stunts, right? I think that's next year.

Next year.

Yeah. Okay. I'm already emotionally prepared. It's a lot like the Pat Super Bowl where deep down I kind of knew we were going to lose of of Matt Damon being the favorite for 7 months and then losing for Best Actor.

He's gonna lose to, um, Andrew Scott in a movie called Elsinore that I've not yet seen, but I can, I can already see— I already, I can— I'm just looking at all this.

This is what we were talking about with these. So, right, she's gonna win, and I'm like, no, she's not.

We said she's the, she's the favorite right now, but we also haven't seen 80% of the movies, right?

Yeah, I got to talk about this for 9 months, so I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I can— I can— for whatever reason, in my bones, I'm like, this Andrew Scott thing is gonna happen. I don't know. I don't know why I feel that way, but I do.

It's the fucking helmet catch for the Oscars for Boston fans. It's like, Matty D, here comes Boston people, and the nominees are— we got this. He's one of us. This kid, Odysseus, motherfuckers.

You treating Matt Damon like Curt Schilling on the Red Sox is so weird.

He's a Boston team. Both of our guys, they started out from Boston.

Has Joe Mazz weighed in on the Odyssey yet?

Oh, wow. Great question. That is a surprise. It is a real— I'll watch this 10 times in a row.

What if I had Austin just ask Joe Mazz, Bill wants you on, doesn't want to talk NBA, just wants to talk Odyssey.

No, Re-Town.

Re-Town with Joe Mazz.

That's the one we want to do over and over again, right?

If we just went to the town with Joe Mazz. In, in live in Boston, you could probably sell out the Garden, right?

After watching Shane Gillis sell 76,000 football stadium— did he really? Yeah, he sold out the fucking football stadium.

Philly. Yeah, it makes sense.

All right, settle down.

Kind of a dig. Uh, $35 million budget for this movie, made $350. Bang. Pretty good. Fifth biggest 1994 movie. 1994.

Banger, banger year. Do you have the— I don't have the list. Do you have the list of what was above it? Oh, I can look.

I'll look after we do the break.

'94 is Pulp, right?

Yeah, biggest star of the whole pod. Roger Ebert, 4 fucking stars. I knew it. Speed is an ingenious wind-up machine, smart, inventive thriller. We've seen this done before, seldom so well. And then he said, films like Speed belong to the genre I call bruised forearm movies. Because you're always grabbing the arm of the person sitting next to you.

Great line. He reused that line on the TV show. I watched him, Siskel and Ebert, talk about this last night. This, this is what struck me. They both love the movie, right? This was like a critically acclaimed summer blockbuster, which is a very rare thing, right? They talked about the movie for less than 2 minutes and then went on to the next movie on the episode. If this movie came out in picture format, we would have done I would have done at least 3 episodes of The Big Picture about this movie. I would have found a million ways to cover it. It was kind of fascinating to think about the fact that, like, what our media was that was supporting movies. Like, it didn't require all that much to get people to get up and go to see the movie.

Would you do one good blurb on a bus for Speed?

Sure. Yeah. I've been on an LA City bus before.

Yeah. It's one blurb. It's not one good blurb.

My bad. One blurb. As the executive producer of one blurb, I didn't mean to confuse you.

You still want it to happen.

You just come out of the theater. Sean Fennessey just saw The Odyssey.

Does he have to introduce himself on his own social handles every time?

Yeah. Okay. Hey guys, it's me, Sean Fennessey. Yeah, just saw The Odyssey. Just test drive it. A magnificent reinterpretation. Fuck you, Emily Wilson. Sign off. Boom.

Boston's son is coming home.

Listen, you guys think I'm kidding. So top 8 domestic '94: Forrest Gump, Lion King. Yeah, yeah, saw that on a date.

Did you just stay with it?

No, we were, we were dating at that point. Real date.

Speed and Lion King were in the same Siskel and Ebert episode. These are two of them.

How long did they talk about Lion King? More minutes.

Okay. Santa Claus, still haven't seen it. Uh, The Flintstones, which made $130 million somehow. I still don't understand that. Dumb and Dumber, Clear and Present Danger, Speed, The Mask, Pulp Fiction of the in-year releases.

Director of The Mask, Chuck Russell, just passed away.

Awesome movie. But then there's a whole bunch of— wow, '94 was— we've done a lot of these. Couple disappointing ones too. Like what? Cop 3. I'm still coming to grips with how bad that was.

I mean, Shawshank is '94. Shawshank's '94.

A lot of good stuff. It is JFK '94.

What year is JFK? '92.

Maybe so. We didn't know how well we were eating in '92, '93, and '94. We're gonna take a break. We'll do rewatchable scenes. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Imagine you're running a professional sports team. Nice, that would be a dream of mine. Imagine the player contract report is due today. Not so nice. You've got performance notes from the coaching staff. You got a salary spreadsheet from your analyst. 3 rounds of back and forth emails with the agent. And all of it is scattered absolutely everywhere. Well, that's where ChatGPT Work comes in. It's a new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. Give ChatGPT Work access to your apps and files and can create real work documents. For instance, spreadsheets, slides, structured reports. You can bring all those to your next meeting. And when you don't need answers, you need help just getting the work across the finish line. Guess what? ChatGPT Work can move your projects forward while you stay in control. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started. Just go to chatgpt.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus, and pro plans. Most rewatchable scene.

This movie has 25 minutes in an elevator, and you always forget when you start watching it.

The opening 23 minutes. Holy fucking shit, this goes so hard. That's my only note.

The one scared lady not wanting to come out of the elevator. Yeah, that would be Sean. Come on.

Yeah, Sean would be like, no, fuck that. First guy jumping out.

Yeah, Sean would be like, don't worry, the people.

So I just had— I did a really cool interview that hasn't run yet on the pod with Patrick Fischler, who is the guy who, you know, who is a very well-known character actor now, who's in this movie. This is his first credit in a movie. He's the guy who's getting picked on in the elevator where he presses the button. Yeah. And we had an awesome conversation about like his, the arc of his whole career. But he talked about getting cast in this movie in that interview where he was just like, yeah, Jan liked me. And that just like set me off on a that guy run for my career.

Did he have any memories of like how they shot the elevator scene?

Yeah, we talked about it a little bit. I mean, it obviously wasn't as exciting as it looks in the movie. Um, but he was just kind of blown because it was his first, like, really big movie set that he was participating in making the movie.

DeBont got the idea from working on Die Hard and always thought elevator shafts were scary and was like, what if we did this?

Can I just throw one of my favorite unintentional comedy moments? Is in, uh, like, in that office building before they get on the elevator, the way that all of the characters, all the actors are about to go on this elevator ride to hell, but they have to do 10 seconds of like, great meeting, Dick. I thought the blueprints for that building were excellent.

Actually, you know, but you know you're in a— what's going to be an awesome movie because in that scene it's not like the camera's set up on a tripod far away. It's like the camera is like spinning around in that meeting room and you're like, holy shit, like Jan de Bont is on.

I think this project's gonna be a rousing success.

Crazy Dutch guy. Uh, and then you think the elevator's over, but then we're in the freight elevator. Yeah. And we're doing that whole thing. Great stuff. Uh, first bus blows up. That gives us the pop quiz hotshot.

Do you, do you, do you think of Howard shooting them out in the freight elevator and then taking Harry hostage as a separate scene? Or is that all the same scene?

I think freight elevator is its own scene.

Yeah, I think there's 3 scenes within the first 25. It's like the people in the elevator, the freight elevator, and then the basement with the hostage situation. Shoot the hostage.

The freight elevator also has a great moment when they were trying to figure out if he's in the building, and Daniels is like, I think there's a freight elevator. And Keanu's just on the run, ready to roll. Um, first bus blown up, the payphone. We're gonna have to do some nitpicks as, as we go through the movie, but bus blows up. Jack's getting coffee in the morning, you know, just talking to the bus driver, just having a— just ready to start the day. Yeah, this bus blows up, he chases it. Now it like blows up again. Now it's on fire. We don't know how many people are on, but the driver is definitely dead, and the payphone starts ringing. And Jack's just like, "Payphone. I should get that." I just— I just don't know.

He has a feeling.

He has a bad feeling. He's an instinctual police officer.

And then Hopper has it figured out so that the bus is gonna blow up and roll to the spot where these two payphones are, and banking that Jack's gonna run after it. I'm gonna say 100 to 1 odds.

Does Hopper have eyes on the bus blowing up in some way?

That's the thing. He's right by there. He's nearby. He's calling on his cell phone, like, down the street. Okay. Because you can see the flames in the windshield of his car. Okay.

Uh, are you answering a payphone right there or no?

Well, I mean, I, I think that for kicks, like, like back in the day, I used to answer kicks. Yeah, like if you were like hanging out and smoking a cigarette with your friends and the payphone rang, sometimes you would pick it up.

What are you talking about?

Would you not ever pick up a payphone that was ringing? No. What, what if it was for something you need? Psychopath? No, not to be like Pop Quiz Hot Shot, but to be like What's up? You never know what if fucking Sandra Bullock was calling, you know?

Okay. I wouldn't do that.

Well, that, this got stolen for basically every video game where somebody's on a run or doing a mission where it's like, oh, the payphone's ringing.

There's a whole movie called Phone Booth that is based on this feeling, this vibe of what happens in the movie. I have a quick question about this scene that I'm very curious about.

Another Speed ripoff.

Um, it is. I'm not— what's up with him forgetting his muffin? What do you mean?

He gets coffee and a muffin?

Keanu gets coffee and he forgets his muffin and then the guy behind the counter is like, hey Jack, you forgot your muffin. And then like, so Jack turns around, and at first you're like, okay, so maybe this is so that he doesn't like get on the bus or something, but he's never gonna get in the bus. He drove there.

I think it's just supposed to be a slice of life, like this guy likes a muffin but sometimes he forgets it, sometimes he's in a hurry, sometimes he's, he's thinking about maybe like, like Sandy having the morning dart.

Same thing.

Follow-up question: is Jack Traven the kind of guy who eats a muffin?

I was asking my wife about that.

It's like an egg sandwich.

Yeah, like where are we at with muffins, like popularity-wise? I feel like they're really falling out of favor, especially at your specialty coffee shop.

Donuts came back. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I feel like the PR for muffins is bad because now everybody's like, well, this isn't good for you.

Well, they're like, it's 3,500 calories and it's like— and sugar.

Yeah. So you're going to crash.

The thing now that, that, that has been going on is the PR for bagels is out of control and they've convinced like hot people that eating a bagel in the morning is totally fine.

Yeah. That we've made the yeast better and it's actually better for you.

Courage and Layla Bagels and all these like fancy bagel spots. It's like you see these like women in workout clothes at 8 AM having a bagel.

I've been team bagel for a long time, so this is huge for me. You know, the fact that I can Eat a bagel.

Just went like full Nithya.

That's why I'm gonna change LA. You should run.

You should run for mayor. You would win.

Courage and Layla Bagels though, both— they're great. Both home runs.

Eastside, we got Mori's, we got Bell's. We got—

starting their daily bagel every day now because of the, like, the PR spin on bagels. It used to be like a hungover Sunday morning, you have a bacon, egg, and cheese.

It's like basically having pizza.

Start your Tuesday with a bagel.

I'm a half Jewish guy from the East Coast.

You don't have to tell me. I know on Long Island, bagels are a religion. Yeah, we eat bagels every Saturday. Love the bagels.

Next scene, Sandy gets on the bus. Sam holds the bus for her and makes her run a little bit, though. You can see her. She has to throw down the dart, hops on, gets— sits next to Connor Roy.

Would you seek out a woman smoking when you were a young man?

I would have filed it away.

But like when you saw a woman smoking, were you like, you're going on the list? I'm interested. No, it's more, it's, it's fellow traveler.

What did it tell you? It's like you're outside, you have a smoke break, she has a smoke break, or you're outside a bar, you're in, you know, like, do you have a light? It's just like an icebreaker. Got it.

It's like when Cruise sees a fellow Scientologist. He's like, how does he know they're a Scientologist? Let's talk later about the thetans.

We're cutting that. We're trying to get Cruise on the—

No, keep it. Um, so she gets on the bus. Keep it. I have no secrets. She gets on the bus, meets all the weirdo people on the bus. Keanu hops in his 1974 Bronco Sport. Damn, that's a nice car. One of the best cars ever. Not a car I'd want to chased down a bus and though, no, yeah, rickety, a little wobbly, uh, gets in, finds, finds, uh, they won't let him on, gets Glenn Plummer. Yeah. Oh yeah, out of nowhere, pops into the Jaguar, figures out how to get on the bus. It's just a wonderful 7 minutes.

Probably doesn't need to, to strike the two doors on the side of the car. That felt like he was going a little extra.

Well, so yeah, I think that there's a cool move. The elevator's great. Uh, the bus blowing up is great. When he opens the car door and slams on the brakes to smash up— to almost start a 40-car accident. That's when, that's when the prayer circle starts.

And they just, they just did that.

He was doing tricks on them.

That just happened. Yes. Yeah. Like that's just a real thing that they did while making the movie.

There's a couple of things. I don't want to step on great shot, Gordo, but it's not that important of a category. There, there's a couple of shots in this where I'm like, so what was take 2 going to be? Did you guys have another Jaguar with the exact same Jaguar? Dutch directors.

Yeah. Dutch directors. Dutch directing and soccer. Just think about this. Out of the box.

This 12 months in Jan de Bont's life is he shoots Basic Instinct as the cinematographer. He's the man behind the camera for the most notorious scene of the 1990s. He finds the key light. Yes. And then he makes Speed. This guy is fucking crazy.

And then he's like, what's next for me? Twister. Cows are going to be flying in the air. Truly. Stand or get off. Really good one. I forgot to mention it's not a rewatchable scene, but I love when the guy, the criminal on the bus, thinks Jack's there for him. Just shoots Sam. Yeah. Always fun when somebody just gets randomly shot but lives in an action movie.

The old lady blowing up, moving Sam off the bus, and then Beth Grant's character getting blown up is one of my favorite moments in the movies in the '90s. I sent you screenshots of this.

I have to, Annie. You could see it cuts to her and she's like, almost like a crack addict.

I got to say, the fucking guy who should be exiled to Siberia is the one cop who's like, come on.

Yeah.

It's like, this is, this is like widely communicated that they're not allowed to get off the bus. What are you tempting these people for? Run.

Just jump, lady. Uh, the bus jump. This movie just does not let up. Every time you're like, oh, let's get some backstory. It's like, nope, next problem. It's amazing. They didn't finish the bridge. What do you mean?

Um, he shoots it like the Charge of the Light Brigade too, where it's like Joe Morton watching the bus go off as like the sun is starting to crest and it's like So we—

I mean, we might as well do the nitpicks for this now. This is probably the most unrealistic great scene in the history of movies, but physically possible.

Wow. I wish I'd prepared for that.

The bus goes up.

If there is an incline, there is physically possible.

When you look at how they do it, it's pretty straight.

I read on Reddit, r/Physics. I read on Reddit. I know, but I went to like a real Reddit board.

Sure. Oh yeah. Not one of these fake ones. One of the verifiable ones.

They did a Mythbusters episode. In 2009. And here's what we found out. It was impossible under real-world conditions was the legacy of this.

In your face, R.

All they're saying is that it's kinetically possible. You know what I mean?

I think it would have to go. I think the ramp would have to be like this.

Yeah. Looks like it hits something that kind of pops the nose up.

It does. It was like when you'd go over, like, a little hill with your BMX bike and you'd be like, oh, got a little jump.

So this was a little crazy Dutch thing where he heard about that there was a space between the two highways. He's like, we will do a jump. And they just do it. There's YouTube.

You should do him as Goldmember. Like, you think he just talks like Goldmember? I love speed.

Speed, we'll do a jump. They do 2 tries. The bus collapsed the first time. There's YouTube videos. Yeah, the bus lands and just like, yeah, they were like, it breaks like the submersible. Yeah, it's like, wow. And then the second one was 2 days later. It went further than they thought. And there was a camera where the bus was supposed to go right into the camera, but the bus went further and destroyed the camera. So they had to use the side shot. But that Fucking crazy Dutch Jan had this, like, awesome bus coming at the camera. Camera's gone. Incredible. So anyway, I think that became the most famous part of this movie, though. The most discussed. I agree.

It's also just such a great in-the-theater or rewatching moment if you forget it a little bit, where you're like, they're like, there's a gap in the road ahead, and you're like, what the fuck?

Really? Yeah. How are we going to get out of this one?

Didn't finish the highway. Yeah.

The chopper shot of you see the gap. Yeah, same thing for when they do the turn when they're getting the highway ramp and it's like, we're not going to make it. And he's like, everybody get on this side of the bus. It's like fucking smart.

It's great. It's Danny who's like, we're not going to make it. He's like, shit, we're not going to make it.

I will say if there was a gap in the road in Los Angeles, everyone would know about it because that highway would be shut down for a period of time. So that would be common knowledge amongst Angelenos.

They're making the 105-110 interchange at this point.

It's like the beginning of the 105. Okay. Jack on the pulley thing going under the bus when Joe Morton says, don't get dead. Yeah. Does the gas screw move? And I just think he dies. Okay. There's some movie magic with this one too. I think Jack under the bus is just going to— it's just going to not work when that bus is like bouncing. Yeah. I don't think he makes it, but it's fine because I believe like Indy under the truck.

I would like to also know like how close they were, we were to losing Keanu Reeves during the shooting of this scene.

Who insisted on doing all of his— Yeah.

And he was like, I don't really understand how they're shooting it if it's not incredibly dangerous.

It seems like he's going fast. Yeah. Um, good Joe Morton. How many lives you got, man? Yeah. Uh, Harry blowing up.

I love the way that scene is shot though, where you see them surrounding the house and they go inside. Yeah. Why do you think though? I don't know if this is an answerable question or not, but why does Hopper's character put a bomb that has like a light and a timer? Like, obviously it's for the audience, but if you had a bomb in the house, wouldn't you just like press the button? You don't need to like indicate to the people that it's motion-sensored.

Yeah.

Oh, is it motion-sensored? I thought it triggered.

Yeah. Oh, okay. Got it. Bus escape. Um, getting all the passengers off, but it's just them. Just Jack and Annie. And then he figures out, we'll open that little hatch and we'll just zoom out from the bottom of the bus. Again, this is 100 to 1 odds you're pulling this one off.

I don't know how long the runtime would be, but if they had just ended the movie with them kissing as the— yeah, we're probably fine. Are we better off as a country? It's a great 88 minutes.

132 or so, thereabouts.

Yeah. Come on, dog. That would have been just good stuff. I know you have to go get Howard.

Where do you guys stand on the giant plane blowing up in this scene? That's fucking—

it was like, were people in the plane?

Do you remember when we talked about anyone? I don't think anyone—

the implication is that it's a freight plane being refueled. Yeah, it's being serviced. And the guy who is the refueling truck driver does run away.

It did remind me a lot of— you remember when we did Die Hard 2 and we were like, holy shit, they blew up that plane in Die Hard 2. Like, you could never do that in a movie ever again. 300 people just get killed. But like, in 3 years later, they they just did it again in this movie.

Relationships that start under intense circumstances never last. Yeah, great quote. Uh, Dennis Hopper dies. Yeah, but I'm taller. I have some thoughts about that. Just quick sidebar, my favorite TV or movie decapitations ever. Here are my top 4: Game of Thrones, Hereditary, Black Rain, and Speed. Got it. 4 best ones.

I'm gonna go criteria orgasm here and say Kurosawa's Ron. Incredible decapitation. Yeah, Bloodsport fucking waterfall of blood. Yeah.

And the subway crash ending, just true love from Keanu.

He's like, you know what, if we're going down, we're going out together.

If I can get out of this and we don't die, I'm definitely having sex with her tonight. I gotta roll the dice. I've been putting in foreplay for 8 hours, 7 hours, whatever. This is the— I just gotta do it. I gotta find out how this is sort of a Zhiwan Neo thing.

But when do you think Annie lights up after this movie? Like, what? At what point is she like, goddamn it, I need a new—

by the way, why wasn't she lighting up when they, when they end up in downtown LA and she's like, I'm gonna take a little walk? Why wasn't that a smoke break?

Yeah, what are we doing? Honestly, on the bus you could just be like, if I, I'm fucking— light them if you got them, you know?

Like, that would have been a way to get rid of Connor Roy.

Spending a lot of time on cigarettes here, guys.

Oh, it's better. Made her even more attractive. What was the most rewatchable scene?

Um, controversially, I think it's, it's the elevator scene for me this time around. I rewatched like the mechanics of it and how they shot that.

It's like just a deep cut. Yeah, it's, I think it's like you being like Nirvana. Yeah. Smells Like Teen Spirit wasn't the best song in the album. It's actually this one.

It's just this time around it was so fun to watch that and to think about how they did it.

Sean?

Uh, I think in the theater the most euphoric moment was the bus jump and Joe Morton. You know, doing the fist pump. But rewatching the movie, I don't know. I really like them getting Sam off the bus and then Beth Grant getting blown up.

I have Keanu getting on the bus initially. Yeah. And that whole chase scene. And underrated, when Glimpse Palmer drives into the water things. I've always kind of secretly wanted to do that.

Hit one of the water jugs.

Yeah, you see the water fly up. Like, if you're ever gonna crash, would you rather see—

felt for that? Bill Simmons, famed sportswriter and podcaster, tragically died last night after driving his car directly into a water tank.

That should be the punishment for your fantasy league, just driving to those things at 40 miles an hour, drive 90 miles per hour. What do you have for most rewatchable?

I think it's Jack Under the Bus for me, on the little sled. Yeah, this is—

it means it's a good movie when we have 4 separate rewatchables.

No question. Let's take another break. I did check on ChatGPT decapitation scenes just to make sure I didn't miss anything. And I think I'm now on a government watch list. What'd you find? There were some other ones, but I thought I had the right faces of death that come up.

Did ChatGPT recommend Kurosawa's Ron? No. Okay. That's why you're here.

Only you can do that.

What's the most 1994 thing about this movie? I'll give you 5 choices. Let me know if I missed anything. Okay. Starting a movie with 3 minutes of credits and graphics.

It's just— it doesn't happen anymore.

Yeah, it feels longer. We just start with movies now, you know, like, this is like this decade, we're off. Yep. This movie now, we're just in the elevator.

And yet somehow every movie now is 30 minutes longer than it was back when this movie came out.

No cell phones, no social media, obviously. Young Keanu and young Sandra Bullock. Like, can't be. We've spent 35 years with these people at this point. Uh, no homeless people under the highway underpasses or in Pershing Square has to be mentioned. And then all this time we're spending on the LA freeways, but nobody makes an O.J. joke is the most 1990s, in my opinion. For O.J.? Yeah, it's shot in '93. Oh, okay. I just feel like if this movie's a year later, there's 3 O.J. jokes. Like Connor Roy saying, ah, I think I just saw the white Bronco. Or Kellen Rock. And he's like, maybe I should— maybe we should have gotten Al Cowlings to drive the bus. Like, we just would have— nice. Yeah, it would have been very self-referential. They're just not. What did you have? You missed one.

Uh, the nickname for the 1993 Arizona Wildcats defense was Desert Swarm, featuring Teddy Brewski.

You know, I researched this because it felt weird that he went with Arizona football and not Arizona basketball. They were like 10-2. 10-2 in '93. Pretty good. Yeah.

But Lute Olsen was there by '93, right?

And Arizona had made the Final Four in like '88.

Isn't Sean Elliott like—

Yeah. Arizona had had moments.

It is the time when that is really starting to happen, right? '94. The football team was going though.

I have one more.

Yeah. Just not thinking about being surveilled at all. It's kind of— you could say that age the worst, but I like that the best, where it doesn't even occur to Jack that there might be a camera in the bus that is keeping an eye on him. Because it's a time when you don't just get a speeding ticket from a camera on a flashlight or on a traffic light.

What'd you have for Floyd Gundahoy's butter on my ass lollipop in my mouth for something you just enjoy? I have two.

Okay. One is anytime a high concept movie has a ticking clock. Clock convention. So like, there are a lot of movies in the '90s that are riffing on this. We already mentioned Phone Booth. Um, Nick of Time is like this. Panic Room is like this. Captain Phillips is kind of like this, where you're like stuck in a place and there's a certain amount of time before something goes by. But the thing I really like that is really simple is the way that Keanu holds a handgun with two hands and like pivots and turns the way that a police officer always does. And he has been using this move in the Wick movies, and this is where he learned to do it. It's not Point Break. It's in this movie when he goes down into the subway and he's looking for Hopper. Great shit.

What do you have for Gandoli?

Yeah, uh, the Hans Zimmer JV soundtrack of— it's like you could put that over— yeah, playing a video game, making like a hamburger, you will feel epic if you're doing it.

That should be the new Rewatchables theme song. Anytime we do an action—

my wife and I have been all week, we've just been like randomly been like, you want to license Mark Mancina's score from Speed limit.

I'll just ask Mark later. Okay. Okay. See what he's doing. I have two as well. Anytime we have to repeatedly cut to something like the speed limit here where it's like, oh, we're at 52, we're back up to 55. Uh-oh, we're dropping down to 51 again. And it's just like the easiest to keep you locked in on the tension of the movie. You could just do it forever. But my number one is the the crew of super annoying people waiting to be saved that I'm supposed to be rooting for. But an hour in the movie, I'm like, fuck these people. Yeah. Like, the lady who ends up dying. Connor Roy. Yeah. The fucking criminal. Like, half of these people. The one that figured this out the best is a movie we'll do at some point on the Rewatchables, probably when we're in the 700s. Daylight with Sly Stallone. Sure. Where he's trapped in this tunnel, he breaks into the tunnel to save everybody. And they're so fucking annoying. They're like giving him shit the moment he shows up. And you just want everyone to die. And I like when they do this.

Isn't Paul Guilfoyle in Air Force One like this, right? Where he's like the Secretary of State, but he's the most annoying guy of all time.

Yeah. Who does, uh, Rebhorn play? Is it— is he— he's like a secretary or something in Independence Day. Yes. He keeps trying to get him to nuke Atlanta.

Yes. Yeah. What's aged the best? We mentioned young Sandy and young crew cut Keanu. The Clooney-Keanu haircut, the buzz. Clooney did it for ER where he kind of pushed it forward, but that had a moment. I tried it out. Mentioned the score. Incredible gum-chewing Keanu performance in this movie. Gum-chewing is like a character to kind of figure out what's going on with him. Bullock learned to drive the bus. Passed yet another thing. Didn't actually have a cigarette puff, but did drive the bus.

Um, probably one of those days to be like, man, it's so fun to be an actor, I just get to like go practice driving a giant bus.

I read that she passed on her first try.

Yeah. Hopper's quote: Poor people are crazy, Jack. I'm eccentric. Yeah, yeah, that's coming up later for me. Yes. Jack's Ford Bronco, 1970. How about a former cop with a grudge? Has that ever not worked in a movie?

I mean, specifically a former bomb squad cop who's got his— got his hand taken off.

Yeah, former blank with a grudge. Would that work for podcasters? Uh, it's a former failed podcaster with a grudge.

Treat CR nicely, you don't want to find out. Careful with this 6th season.

Stop trying to trade and beat on me.

CR's furious about the watch 20 years later. Um, all I got was this watch. Uh, this is my favorite, I think. The criminal who shoots Sam and is handcuffed to the bus, but then they unhandcuff him by the end. He's just part of the team.

He's like, sorry, I didn't mean to shoot him.

Are there charges? Like, he shot somebody. Yeah. Is the police waiting for him? Throw away everything. What happens?

Also, like, what did he do?

You know, Stan or get off just as using that as a what's age the best going forward with Pop Quiz Hot Shot. Yeah, those two things moved into the lexicon for a while.

Pop Quiz Hot Shot had a 20-year run.

It was crazy. Yeah, yeah.

All the stuff about Reeves being, uh, performing his own stunts— Keanu, the Jaguar to the bus jump. Um, I never know what's apocryphal and what's not with some of this stuff, but it really did seem like he did most of this. How—

I was gonna ask this impossibly unanswerable questions, But how fast do you think the traffic was actually moving? So if the bus is going 50, like, did you think it— is it actually going like 35 or 30? Like, how fast do you think Keanu was going in that Jaguar? It looks like he's going 75.

Yeah, it feels like at least 60.

I don't know how you could actually do that at that speed with the actual actor. I mean, he's the star of the movie. It had to be slower than that.

Yeah, that's why I always wonder as the years pass, like, yeah, he did all his stunts. He could kind of just say anything. I do do all my research for the rewatchables myself. You do? Yeah. Wow. I do. It shows. Thanks. Um, no help. It shows. Bill does all his research.

Do you think— so Keanu, I think, is one of the only actors of all time to have a legitimately great action movie in 4 consecutive decades. Yeah, I think Eastwood is probably in the mix there. I couldn't really think of anybody else. Maybe Harrison Ford. Yeah, Harrison Ford.

It's like how Charlize Theron has looked fucking smoking hot in a movie for 4 straight decades. Same thing.

Because what, Cruise doesn't have an '80s one?

I mean, Top Gun is kind of—

yeah, he kind of has 4.

Yeah, Cruise is on the list.

Let's make sure Cruise is alive. What are you doing?

Cruise.

Cruise might just not be— he might be—

did you get a hard no from Cruise?

What happened? Are you zagging on Cruise? This would be an interesting zag from you, is just like, I'm out on Cruise in 2026.

Yeah, yeah, fuck him.

I don't want him.

Uh, I want Jesse Plemons to come on for Digger. How about that?

Yeah, I think I believe a lot of the, the Keanu stunt stuff because the John Wick guys are like, we have to drag him kicking and screaming to do it with stunt guys.

Well, it's also like he's like, I have chronic back problems from all the fucking times I've fallen off of things. Yeah.

I have two more really good ones, but what do you have for what's the best?

I already mentioned the pre-CGI era of action filmmaking and it's just incredible.

The, uh, there is a shot of, um, when Jack and Harry go up on the roof of the skyscraper to attach the elevator to the crane. And there's a shot of downtown Los Angeles and you're like, they are on top of a fucking skyscraper. Like, this is really happening. And it's that kind of verisimilitude or like that feeling of heightened reality that I think movies sometimes miss now. So that's kind of aged the best for me. Also, basically people in Venice dress like Jack and Annie now. Um, it's just like cool work pants, t-shirt, probably cost like $500. And then her socks are back in actually, I think the little frilly ankle socks.

If I could pull off Jack's haircut, I would do it in a heartbeat. That's the most manageable haircut in the universe. It's like, do it over vacation.

Do it. Cut your hair off. I should.

I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you?

No, I just think it would be cool. I want to see you go for like, I want you to go blonde for like the Knicks season or something crazy. Always wanted to. Platinum. I like Jeremy Sohan style.

Sean's second year at Grantland when he had like the weird beard. Oh yeah, that was fun.

Every once in a while he'll beard up. It's pretty cool.

It's all white now though.

For the Wood Sage the Best on cranes, it's, it's been an action movie thing before where they tie something to like a crane or something, but then the thing, the bolt comes out. I love when it, when it bends and it starts, and it starts bending, or they— and it's always, it always works.

The sound design when it bends is just like, oh yeah, that's not good.

Also just like, it's gonna hold, it's gotta hold, you know.

All right, my two favorite Wood Sage the Best: Alan Ruck being in this movie, maybe Now, this whole new appreciation post-Succession of you're watching it just pretending it's Connor Roy, like it's a young Connor Roy taking the bus for some reason, and then breaking the phone out and being like, "The Conheads would really love this footage here of me on the bus." Just doing the Connor Roy lines. That's one.

I mean, he was Cameron when we saw this movie. You know, that's who he was. Yeah, it was actually like, "Oh my God, Cameron!

He's alive!" But the Woodstage is the best for me. There's some iconic Keanu line delivers in this movie. Reach out and take my hand. I'm not here for you. Let's not do this. And then when she hits the cart. Cunts. Cunts.

Why do you think he's Arnold Schwarzenegger?

He just stopped saying Rs and does this weird— I don't know what it is. And then, Harry, tell me some good news, man. Those are my 4 favorites. Is that a bad Keanu? I don't know.

Now I can't unhear it. You know, like, now I'm going to go back and watch this.

Reach out and take my hand.

So this is actually my weak link of the film, is all of Keanu's punchlines in the movie where he's being given all of these Arnold lines.

Yeah, I feel like they probably even dialed him back and he kept a couple.

But I'm taller. It's like, Yeah, what? You have to do that. What is that, like an inch maybe?

Yeah, you had to do that in the '90s.

Yeah, or when he's like, didn't have anywhere to be just then, you know, like he's— or he's like, he lost his head, you know, those are all commando lines.

What was the elevator one where it's like, the only, the only thing that could stop this thing is like the basement? Yeah, I like it.

Uh, can I add a What's Age the Best? Yeah, I think the, the premise and the bus would be exactly the same in 2026. Like, I think it's just still the same situation would happen.

I think they would have to use 30 miles an hour though.

Yeah, the traffic anywhere in Los Angeles would necessitate it. It would just— the bus would explode.

Like, bomb under the bus, how do we stop it if it can't go below 50 miles an hour? I'm like, I'm not sure modern technology could do it. I think it's too complicated.

Howard should ever do below 50, the bomb, the bus goes or if anybody tries to get off, the bus goes up. But like, making it both things, I would almost, if I was him, be like, you know what, for entertainment's sake, if you can get people off this thing going 50 miles per hour, more power to you, right? I won't blow it up.

Or it's like, I'll let you one person an hour, you can let off. How do you decide?

Yes. I think Howard was fucking insane, so I'm not sure that that was really in play.

What do you have for Great Jack Gordo?

Uh, so the— I talked about the door scene, the car door. But there is a shot when Jack comes out of the coffee shop, puts his coffee on the hood of his car, on the roof of his car. Camera pans around Jack, bus explodes. What the fuck? How many buses do they have? Like, it's also, it's not like shot of Jack, explosion in the background, cut, sees. It's, it's the bus explodes in the background of a shot. And I also happen to love when the payphone is ringing. All of the flames are reflected in the payphone and it's like, ah man, Howard's on the phone. But the bus exploding is incredible.

There's two that I really like that are somewhat similar, but they're, they show you the scope of the production similar to what Chris is describing. One is just when it becomes clear that they have the police escort and it's just like, it's a low helicopter shot and you just see the cop cars run riding alongside the bus. And it's like a moment of calm because like they've at least figured out, okay, we've blocked off the highways and this is going to be okay for a minute. And then the other one is just the bus going into the fucking jet and then it explodes.

I remember being in the theater and being like, what the fuck? That's crazy.

How did that cost $30 million?

Yeah, I would have thought that would have cost $30 million. How did they do it? How did they blow up the jet? Must have been like a broken jet. I don't know. I had a— I like when Jack and Annie are the only two left in the bus and everybody else gets off. And they do that shot of the other bus with all the passengers. It's kind of going away and they're all in the window kind of watching them. Yeah, effective.

That's good.

But it's like, yeah, we don't know what's gonna happen. Uh, Chess Rockwell Brocklanders Award, best character name. Sam the bus driver.

I don't know. Officer Jack Traven and Detective Harry Temple is— we can't do better in the '90s.

Jack, did Keanu seem like—

it's a perfect cop name.

Does he seem like a Jack Traven?

No, he does to What's his name in Point Break? Johnny Utah. Johnny Utah. Yeah. He's always got the very short names. John Wick, Johnny Utah, Jack Traven.

They're all riffs on John. Was there a better title for this movie? It was originally called Minimum Speed.

Minimum Speed.

Minimum Speed. I was thinking about this. What would you think if the movie was called Jack Traven and it was the first in a line of Jack Traven movies?

I think that they were hoping for that after the success of this movie.

I'm zagging the other way. I'm going to ask you guys the greatest title ever for an action movie. First Blood, Terminator, Die Hard, Cliffhanger, Face/Off, Under Siege, or Speed?

I think Die Hard's pretty tough to top.

Die Hard's the best though, right?

Die Hard or Lethal Weapon.

Yeah, those are both good. The Terminator is a great title though. It is. About to Live and Die in LA. Yeah, it's a pretty good one. But those are just great ones. I think Speed's a great title.

What if it was 50 miles per hour? Or 50 mph. Or 50? Sure. You can't drive parentheses lower than 50. That's pretty good.

What do you have for flex?

Uh, it's a book about medals award for the belatedly best quarter exchange for you're fucking crazy. No, poor people are crazy, Jack. I'm eccentric. Real hopper. Also kind of, kind of funny that this bomb squad guy is like class consciousness So yeah, I liked it.

Speaking of Hopper, Hans Gruber scale villain ranking? Pretty high.

Way up there for me. 8.5. Yeah.

Rickman's a 10.

I think just for the fact that Howard is not physically imposing, maybe like a point or two down, but in terms of—

feels like the right number. What do we have for the Sean Fantasy Award for, uh, criteria orgasm?

Uh, name on the truck used by the terrorists in Die Hard and Die Hard with a Vengeance is Pacific Pacific Courier, and the plane destroyed by the exploding bus in Speed has the logo Pacific Courier Freight on its side. This is an in-joke by production designer Jackson Dagovia.

That's very funny. Wow.

Butch's Girlfriend Award, weak link of the film. Hey, it's the bus jump, but I, I don't— this movie has no weak links.

Oh really? You think that's a weak link?

Well, it's just, I, I wish it was going up when they jump. It's just the physics of it.

Every time you watch, you're like, All right, so I love the bus. In the original screenplay, I think, or at least I didn't read it, but the accounts of it are is that Harry is the villain, that, that the, the Jeff Daniels character in Unanswerables. Yeah. And at the end of the movie, I think you can kind of feel like now we have— because like the movie should kind of conclude with them getting off the bus, and then they're like, shit, we have to go get Howard. And they can't just do Jack and Howard, so they bring Annie downtown, which is like a huge fucking like, what are you talking— why would you do that? But so I just think that there— that the, the weak link is the need for an additional 25 minutes to like settle this movie because it was maybe written with a different villain in mind.

Yeah. So yeah, I think the first 90 minutes are like perfect. The last 20 are good, maybe not like amazing. Like, I felt like Howard's whole speech about like, bombs need to go off, this is what bombs do— I was like, oh, this feels forced a little bit.

Yeah, I have some picking nits around that sequence as well.

What's aged the worst? Did you have a Butch's Girlfriend weak link, Sean, or no?

I already mentioned Keanu's punchlines. Okay. But I'm taller.

Okay. Give me your hand. What's aged the worst? Dennis Hopper running. It's true. Not as bad as Nicholson running in The Departed, which I watched recently and forgot how fucking funny it was. When does he run? He runs at the end when they have the SWAT thing. Right. Nicholson has no vertebrae. I have a couple more, bro. What would you have for this?

Dennis Hopper watching college football on a weekday? Yeah, in the morning. It's like, come on, just ask the Sportszar. Could have just cleaned that up for you. I had that in Pigs and Nits. Is he watching highlights? Because he goes like, yeah, he's watching.

He's like gambling. Yeah.

So he's gambling on tape delayed college football. Go, go.

When do we think this movie happens?

Uh, it was shot in late summer to December, right?

Like, what time of year?

I think it happens in the fall, in early fall. So it's got to be— he's got the Baja on when he's—

but it's, it's not on the weekend because they're going to work. Yeah, so it would have to be a Friday college football game that starts at noon PST. Sports Art could have helped out.

In '93, was there a college football game happening at 3 o'clock? Watching Mac football?

We should have been watching Premier like, you know, Howard's—

Howard is a fruitcake, you know, he's just a nut bar. So who knows what's going on.

I text you the guy this— I, I have a counter. It seemed like a pretty good hang, Howard. Yeah, like gambling. Yeah, what, had, had an early TV setup, like an ice cold Coke and a sex doll.

Yeah, is the whole soda thing just so there's that one scene where he pees?

I think it's so that you also like see his busted hand in action. Yeah.

Also, like, you know, he got maimed by his duties and didn't feel properly appreciated.

This is unanswerable, but is he deaf in one ear? Why does he keep holding the phone on the opposite side of his head? I know he's got his hand blown off on the other side, but why is every time he holds the phone, he's holding it like this?

I gotta say, J.D.

be more into blowing up buses than he is being consistent with how injuries affect people over a long period of time. I think Harry's leg limp changes a couple of times. It does.

It does. Yeah. And then disappears when, by the time they do the SWAT team of the house, he's like vaulting over a window.

A lot of continuity errors in this movie.

The stereotypical bus crew. Janeane Garofalo has a really great half hour that she did in the mid-'90s. Remember this, which is on HBO, and she does a whole thing about speed, about how when they get on, it's the most stereotypical. And she's like, why didn't they just have an Eskimo and an Indian with a headdress? But it's like they check every box of who's on the bus. In the, in like the caricature-y kind of way.

Is that the same special where she's talking about how much she loves NYPD Blue and she's like, the cops, they have their badges on the chain and she's like, ah, fuck, that's so hot.

Yeah, she's a great special. It's really good. I highly recommend it. Um, Speed 2 with Jason Patrick. Yeah, I had that.

Making a speed movie with Al Pacino.

It is one of the most reviled sequels of all time, and I think it really hurt Jason Patrick's career. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. And Sandy was unscathed.

I also hate the breakup story where it's like, oh, I broke up with Jack because he wouldn't leave the bomb squad. I'm like, Jack being in the bomb squad is why you're fucking here, baby. Like, what are you talking about, baby?

Jack's agent.

You knew what you were getting into, baby.

Exactly.

When you signed up with me, baby, you were going to have to share me with the bombers. I live my life like Speed 2 never happened. Yeah, I have— I don't watch it. That's Defoe. I remember it's like a really, really iconically bad JTB directed it though, right? Yeah. Okay, he had to. Um, my last one from Wikipedia: the character of Annie was originally written as an African-American paramedic to justify her ability to drive the bus. The fuck does that mean?

Keep going.

Well, because she knows how to drive a large vehicle. But why does—

what does her being black or white matter? Yeah, but wow, get to the second part of this.

You woke down, it was gonna be Halle Berry.

Yes. I just don't understand like why, why it was written that way.

I don't see color.

I just thought it was weird.

That was good. Phil's like favorite subgenre is black guy, white guy hanging out.

Would be like, I don't know why, why does she have to be a black lady?

Well, it leads to them trying to get Halle Berry.

She would have been good. She would have been fucking incredible.

She would have been good.

So this is 93, 94. Halle Berry.

Yeah.

It's like 2 years after Boomerang. Uh, Ruffalo Hannah Ribbenick Partridge overacting award. The crazy lady. Yeah. Helen. Yeah. What do you have for flex?

It was the same as Chris's, but he used it a different way. The Jesse Eisenberg. That's good. You should be proud of that right there. Don't worry if you don't make it any further. Award for best line reading. Which just comes right before when Howard Payne says, do you know what a bomb is that doesn't explode? It's a cheap gold watch, buddy. Pretty good line. Eisenberg.

Yeah, he's on a heater. Did the smartest— saw a preview with the trailer where he's got the Julianne Moore debut. Yeah, he wrote and directed, but he also wrote the lyrics. I'm a little nervous.

Another person who's coming for Indy Navarrete's Oscar is Julianne Moore. Does she—

she has one though.

She does, for Still Alice, Sierra's favorite movie. Um, Still Alice is good.

Yeah, I like that, and I like The Father with Hopkins. My two favorite. You like when—

my favorite part movies. Yeah. Okay, interesting. We should do Alzheimer's Month. Are there enough?

Let me know. I'm gonna go to fucking London.

Still Alice rewatchables would go crazy. That's, that's really—

Still Alice, Drugstore Cowboy.

No, My Own Private Idaho.

People still Still talking about Fucked Up Family February.

That was a great month. I loved that.

Yeah. I listened when I was in Hawaii. I listened to the first half hour of our Kramer vs. Kramer podcast. Might have been the peak of the podcast.

I don't think I can do better. I don't think I can do better.

Was that Mal who was on that?

Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. Me, Mal, and Sean just talking about divorce in profound ways. You just learn a lot about all of us. Yeah. That was a good one. Yeah. Like that. Um, The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. How does Take a Word? I have a doozy, so I'll go last.

Okay. I wonder if a lot of really volatile moments between citizens and cops could be defused if more cops would just say, I don't know you, man. I don't care about your crime. Whatever you did, I'm sure that you're sorry. So it's cool now.

Should we just try it? Yeah, let's just see what happens.

Keanu doing, so it's cool now. It does feel like he wrote his own lines.

Yeah, I'm putting down my gun and my badge. We're just two cool guys. What do you have, Sean?

Uh, this is the last truly great American action movie.

Then we moved into CGI.

It's no sci-fi, no superheroes, no fantasy elements, no secret societies, no mythology. Pure action. You can make the case for Mission: Impossible movies. You can make the case for The Rock. I might make the case for The Rock, which I love. You could make the case for Ambulance, which is kind of a similar movie to Michael Bay movie. You think Wick has too much mythology?

Even the first one?

I do. Just the High Table and all that stuff is way too much.

So I would offer you a little movie I've seen 10,000 times called Taken as one of the only ones that has kept the legacy. Yeah, they didn't really need—

that's true. Matrix has too much.

Yeah, it moves nice at a nice pace, which is why it's been such a great rewatchable.

I would listen to Bad Boys takes, Mission Impossible takes. I think those— that makes sense. But this movie feels like it stands on its own.

I agree. Um, well, I'm going true hottest take, old school definition. Okay, they're better off just letting the bus blow up. Well, I think that that's 18 lives. It causes $7 billion worth of damage. I don't know. It's a calculation.

This is, this is shoot the hostage, take them out of the equation. So that would be—

they set it up.

Old Jack, before he meets the Wildcat, is maybe thinking, I'm not gonna, like, you know, what do I care? Or like, maybe we have to take—

protect and serve.

Yeah, we have to protect and serve, but he's got to protect and serve all of Los Angeles, not just a bus.

How many billions of dollars of damage from this 3 hours with the bus.

I don't want you on the fucking bomb squad if that's your attitude.

Yeah, but I have like— I have incredible nerve. I don't get rattled. Uh-huh.

Many people are saying, when are you in high octane situation?

I think Sierra would be—

I think in the bomb squad, I wouldn't know anything technical, but I think I'd keep everybody on level. I'd keep everybody happy.

We should do a narrative podcast series about Chris training to be on the bomb squad that ends with him dying trying to defuse the bomb.

As the guy asking, what's— what do you see under there? Yeah. Green. Is there a green wire? Yeah. Can you take that out without cutting the wire? I would be good at that. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Who are you in this scenario?

Joe Morton? Yeah. I'm like, oh, you got 9 lives, man. Casting what-ifs are incredible for this movie, including Speed being under development at Paramount Pictures with Jeff Speakman. Yeah, attached as Jack. I can't name a single— do you know Jeff Speakman is action star?

He was like a martial arts action star.

He was like the three guys who— budget Steven Seagal, but like 99 Cent Store, or like Chuck Norris.

The three people who are up for Jack tells you a lot about what their expectations for this movie was.

Well, Stephen Baldwin was one of them. Yeah, and Richard Grieco, right? Stephen Baldwin was having A semi-moment. Like, he's in Usual Suspects. People— Richard Grieco, I don't— I can't for the life of me understand that one.

He said he turned it down coming off 21 Jump Street. Yeah, basically.

My favorite is when they have these stories, when you research them, and it's like, it's the biggest regret of my career. It's like, I would fucking hope so, Richard Grieco. Really? Really? It was a huge regret not being in this one?

That and not doing Summer Stage.

Yeah.

And they said there's this urban legend thing about how they wrote the female role as, like, comic relief, and it was going to be Ellen DeGeneres. And then everybody's like, that's not true, but it's funny. The Halle Berry thing is true. She said— she stupidly said no. But when I read it, the bus didn't leave the parking lot. And then there's, like, a million people who were allegedly up for Annie. I don't know what to believe.

I think they wrote, like, in the movie, in the original script, I think the bus is just, like, driving around Dodger Stadium or something like that.

Yeah. And it's going to crash into the Hollywood sign. Um, Craig T. Nelson offered the Joe Morton role but was filming Coach, couldn't get out.

Too bad.

You like Coach? Never liked Coach.

Did you not like Coach or you just didn't watch it?

I just thought it was bad.

I kind of liked it. Yeah, I watched it.

Jack's sidekick Carrie was going to be played by Ed Harris when he was going to be evil, and then they pivoted away.

That would have been good.

And then he gets to do that in The Rock. McTiernan said no. Yep. Renny Harlin said no. Our guy Tarantino said no because he was finishing Pulp Fiction, so—

but has regrets. McTiernan does— is it D.H. with a V and then Last Action Hero, or vice versa?

It's, uh, Last Action Hero, then D.H.

Yeah, because I think, yeah, like, D.H. with a V is almost like the makeup a little bit for Last Action Hero because it didn't perform as well, right?

I'm the world's number one Last Action Hero fan. However, I do think if you put McTiernan in the chair on this, it goes from like a 10 out of 10 to a 10.5 out of 10.

Oh, what kind of cap? Aside from his legal issues, like it was Medicine Man, right, that kind of capped his career, right?

No, like 13th Warrior, and he made a Basic. He made a bunch of movies that didn't work in a row.

Michael Bay wanted to direct, um, banged on the door, and they— he had never directed anything, and they were like, no thanks, Michael Bay.

I mean, it's probably best that he didn't because I don't know that we would still have Los Angeles. Like he probably would have blown up the 10.

And Bad Boys is one year later. Yeah. Joey Pants Award for best that guy. It's Joe Morton is not eligible.

I don't think so. Is Glenn Plumler available? Sure, I think so. He's coming off of Menace to Society and it's right before Showgirls, so he has like a hot run there. Yeah. Um, my pick was Hawthorne James who plays Sam because he is also the security guard in Seven who turns the music up in the library when Morgan Freeman is researching Dante. That's right. That's a good one. That's a great call.

I had, uh, David Kriegel, who's the guy on the bus with the like slightly longer hair who's like, "That's your plan?" He was in Alive. Oh wow. He was one of the guys, one of the rugby players in Alive.

I have the guy from Blood In Blood Out who's just amazing in this movie. The guy who's like Jack's helper, the gigantor.

Yeah, yeah, home run.

Like easily could have spun him off into a second movie.

And Fischler too, I guess.

And Fischler, of course. Yeah. Him. Uh, Dion Waiters Award, I think he's eligible for that as well. Glenn Plummer. Um, Ruck. Ruck, who I think is pretty annoying. I have Morton. Yeah, I think Morton's the answer. I do want to shout out Sam the bus driver pre-shooting. Yeah, don't you start with me, Eddie! He's doing a couple like just generic bus driver lines. I'll kick you off this bus right now. He's, he's good. Recasting couch director city, I wouldn't touch it.

Of course not. I— could you pull this movie off in New York City?

I don't think the highway—

just have to go up and down the FDR. Yeah. Or the West Side Highway.

Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to do a whole Boston thing, but we just don't have the highways in Boston. Yeah, it just wouldn't have worked.

Yeah. I'm just trying to think of the action set piece of trying to get across, you know, the east side to the west side, 34th Street. And a bus bombing down a New York City street.

Yeah, I mean, in some ways McTiernan kind of plays with that a little bit with Die Hard, Die Hard with a Vengeance.

But yeah, flex. Can I do two quick ones?

Yeah, dude, do as many as you want.

I want to bring back the old— we used to have an old category called like 5-word description of the movie. Yeah, I think you can go down to 3. I think it can be bus can't stop, and there's just a million questions that come from that. Yeah, why can't the bus stop? Who's in the bus? Who planned that. Like, you could get in an elevator with one, like, an executive in 1993, and you're like, bus can't stop.

I think Die Hard on a bus was the pitch, and they were like, here's 3.

You could also say bomb on bus, same thing. Bomb on bus. Yeah, yeah, it's good.

I'm also going to give Keanu Reeves the Tom Cruise Award for the most valiant attempt to emulate a normal human when he goes, University of Arizona, good football team, Arizona Wildcats.

And Sandra's like, yeah, it's like the mug smashing in Usual Suspects.

He sees the Kobayashi.

Arizona Wildcat. Arizona Wildcat.

It's like Sherlock Holmes. Wildcat. I used to sing in a barbershop quartet in Skokie, Illinois.

Half-assed research, um, this was inspired by Runaway Train, Runaway Train, Die Hard, and Silver Streak.

This ending is very similar to Silver Streak, the train derailing.

Silver Streak was a huge deal and just has kind of died. I don't know if it's just not—

is that Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor?

I think Jill Clayburgh.

Oh yeah, when I was a kid, Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor were like the peak of comedy duos. Yeah, they made 4 movies together.

Yeah.

Uh, Josh Weed we mentioned. Oh, here's a good one, CR. Jack is transported in Goodhue Ambulance. The same ambulance service used in Heat that they blow up. See that shit coming out of their ears, slick? They can't fucking hear. The prosthetic dummy head of Hopper was too realistic when he got beheaded, and they had to use a different angle from it because it was—

this is really funny, you should mention that, uh, there have been a couple of, uh, beheadings on House of the Dragon this season. And I feel like it's pretty obvious that they're using very fake-looking decapitated heads because I bet if you really let a makeup guy cook, he's like, I can get you a pretty good-looking head.

I just saw From Dusk Till Dawn at the Academy Museum and there's a bunch of decapitated heads in that movie and they all look amazing because it's the best makeup crew of all time on that movie.

I think they're taking a little bit off their fastball now.

We peaked with Charlie, probably Hereditary.

So good.

Just an incredibly bad performance by the brother. Brings Charlie to the party, doesn't make sure her food allergies aren't—

I'll re-Hereditary tomorrow.

It's still the best podcast I've ever been a part of.

Incredible. It's a great—

it's where your long legs voice came from.

Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Here's good research: Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock developed secret crushes on each other during filming. I'll bet they but didn't admit it until decades later on separate appearances of The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

I don't believe that for a second. They later appeared in The Lake House together. Yeah. Seen that one?

I'm going to say they climbed in the ring and went a couple of rounds.

Climbed in the ring? Yeah. The octagon.

I think they laced them up.

When you go home today, you should say, Phoebe, you want to climb in the ring?

They knew each other. They had a history. They had a history because River Phoenix was doing the music movie with Keanu. Keanu definitely visited River Phoenix on the set at some point, so it was probably on the radar.

Did he definitely do that, or are you just making that up?

That's his best friend. Yeah. Yeah. Is Sierra gonna come visit me when I go to New York next week just to say hi?

I'd love to, but I'm gonna be on a lake. Wow.

Must be nice. Yeah. Like the lake house.

Yeah. Like the lake house. Yeah. Like the Fredo Lake.

Yeah. Who do you think fishing— if you had to hire somebody to take CR out on a canoe on his little lake, who would it be? He'd never believe that. Yeah. I was going to say Debundo. Hey, buddy. I feel like Debundo would take him out. Yeah.

Oh, Debundo would be a great one.

So what would that have to be like? Would I do—

he'd know Austin Gale immediately.

It would be like, oh yeah, this is fishy.

Yeah, but my crime—

what are you doing here?

What would my crime be? Like going on Pardon My Take without asking you, and then like, and then like I'm on vacation.

Yeah, no, it might be the crime would be just CR— the year of CR has gotten too big.

That's right, we got to shoot him in the back.

LeBron going to Philly, the Eagles start out 11-0. Like, it just— this is too much.

That would be great for the Ringer's business. Yeah, just assassinate me.

I think the controversy would do wonders. Yeah. You know, we'd definitely be on the Chiron on ESPN. Sure. Was Chris Ryan assassinated by Bill Simmons?

The DPD is like, that was my brother. I know this is a business and Bill Simmons had to make some tough decisions, but as a fellow Philadelphia legend, do you think he would be acknowledged by any figures in the Philadelphia sports world?

Do you think like Like, would Jalen Brown honor you with something on his jersey?

I think the Sixers would wear black armbands for an entire season. If I got fucking killed by Craig Horlbeck, I think VJ Edgcomb would go, CR! every time he fucking dunked.

I was just thinking of the next couple weeks. How bad we would be when people who were friends with CR did tributes like this fucking guy, this blogger.

Yeah, we would be screenshotting tweets, sending tweets, going back and forth.

Look at this guy.

What this guy doesn't understand is CR had to go down. CR hated this guy.

Oh my God.

Not going to name any names.

Uh, people post— we're gonna take another break. Let's take another break.

Brian Curtis writes, and now they tell us Chris had a fucking crippling steroid addiction.

All right, let's take a break. Apex Mountain. What you guys don't know is Chris Ryan used to bet on cockfighting.

Uh, how come Edwin Diaz didn't go down for that? Did you notice that? You know, Edwin Diaz, they said he was—

because he was on fucking Mark Walter's umbrella of protection. Yeah, that's real.

That's real. Conspiracy Bill's been following that very intensely.

Conspiracy Chris is all over it. The fucking, like, my insurance company is loaning me billions of dollars.

Come on. Phillies fan who doesn't want to see the Dodgers in the playoffs right there.

Well, don't worry, this is our last year before we don't have baseball for about 7 years. Seriously, like, enjoy it while you can.

These are our last playoffs. I expect 9 Mets to have been traded during the recording of this podcast.

Apex Bound, not for Keanu and Bullock. I think it is Apex Bound for Die Hard ripoffs, even though it's demeaning to call this movie a Die Hard ripoff. It kind of is.

I agree with you. Yeah.

LA Freeways, I think it's O.J.

Cops with a Grudge, maybe this one for LA Freeways. The chase in this one is up there with Speed. That's a good point.

Cops with a grudge. I think there are other cops with a grudge that we could think of. Name one. Big Boy.

I mean, does Popeye Doyle have a grudge in French Connection? I guess not really.

I mean, my dad. Sean's dad. Sean's dad.

Good answer. Uh, LA buses. Yes. Okay. How about 1994 LA just in general? Fucking crazy year to be here.

Yeah, it is kind of weird that they made a movie where you're rooting for the LAPD like 2 years after the riots though.

A little weird. But The Bomb Squad, I think, is like a circumvention of that.

Yeah, I was trying to think of other stuff that was going on in LA this year in '94. I think The Real World, I think it was here in Vegas, either '93 or '94. 9-0-2-0 and Melrose Place kicking. L.A. Law is happening. Um, all the movies were still being shot here. And then you had Speed using all the parts of it. And, uh, the O.J. thing, which taught people like where Brentwood was. People like us that had no idea where anything was in L.A. And yeah, I don't know, I just felt like, like it was in the mix in a completely different way. Was this kind of an irrelevant time for the Lakers? It was. It was post-Magic. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Um, Dennis Hopper, no, obviously. Jeff Daniels, I think '94 was apex mountain.

Yeah, I'm hearing Dumb and Dumber and Speed.

This set up like the next 10 years.

Did he win an Oscar for anything?

He won an Emmy for Newsroom. Newsroom, yeah.

I think you can make the case Newsroom is his apex mountain. Even if that show wasn't good, he was the star of a massive HBO show created by Aaron Sorkin.

10-minute monologues every episode. Movie characters named Annie, because you could also go Annie from Misery.

I think Annie Hall is probably number one.

Or you go Annie Hall, or you could go Annie the musical. Annie, that's right. I don't know what the answer is.

Annie, get your gun. Yeah.

Easiest Cruise or Hanks of all time? Cruise.

Yeah. In fact, I wonder if Cruise is like, I could have done that shit. Do you think he watches?

I think Cruise was furious when he saw this.

This is Interview with the Vampire year.

Yeah, he is furious.

But when he sees Keanu, the haircut, back surfing on that little piece of plywood—

I wonder if this pushed him to make Mission Impossible.

I wonder. Definitely was like, I can't believe I didn't get a call. He's like, I need my Die Hard. Yeah. I've been messing around with this new category for— because we have Cruise or Hanks, but actresses, depending on what the movie is. 1974, Goldie Hawn. 1984, Sharon Stone. 1994, Cameron Diaz or Sandra Bullock. 2005, Scarlett Johansson. And 2021, Sydney Sweeney.

Can I get 26 Navarretti for this?

Or 26 Navarretti as Annie.

What's the idea? I don't know. What is the category? Who could have beaten Bullock?

Like, who would be better? Why are you—

you always ask the good follow-up.

Well, I don't know. Like, I think Bullock wins. I think she beats anyone at any point in history.

These are all great actresses and they're all hot. But like, what do Goldie Hawn and Sharon Stone have to do with each other?

I think this would have been a great Goldie Hawn role. I agree with that. Mid-'70s Goldie Hawn. Like, I'm just a fun hang. I am a little more talented at stuff than you're giving me credit for because you think I'm a ditzy blonde.

'74 is like right after Sugarland Express, right before Shampoo, right? I think I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't change anything about Sandra Me too.

The Edie Falco and Copeland Award for the character that got 3 times hotter by smoking. We'll never know. Sierra, she never lit up that dart, but she puts it out.

She just doesn't. She never— we never see her take a drag.

Never have her at the station. Yeah. Not realizing the bus took off. Nobody did this for Flex, the Rick.

Because it was in the regular categories this time.

Oh, yeah. Oh, did I put it in there? Yeah, you did. The Rick— what is his name? Cassetti? Rick Cecchetti? Or did we say—

I don't—

this is your category and it's amazing. Listener category.

Okay, Rick Cecchetti Guard Meat Award for the most memorable death by a security guard or other bystander whom the movie treats as inconsequential but who probably has a spouse and kids who love him at home. It's obviously the elevator security guard in the first scene of the movie. I think there's 3 people who gets fucking ice picked in the ear.

The knife in the elevator scene.

Poor elevator guy. Hey, do you have a pass? Yeah, um, you have a work order? The bus driver on the first bus, that guy's just going to work. Yeah.

And then, yeah, that guy is the— that same actor is the guy, I think he's the other, the detective from Ace Ventura, the police detective who's a bus driver.

But the winner is the guy in the subway train, the subway conductor. Yeah, Hopper shoots him like 13 times in the back and then laughs.

This is an unanswerable, but what's Hopper doing with that like chrome-plated AK-47?

Those guys This, we are still in a full, like, post Commando, like, everybody seems to have an Uzi zone.

Yeah. Pickenitz, uh, Keanu answering the payphone, mentioned, why didn't he shoot the tires before it got to 50? Just shoot the bus tires. Great one. Spin it out.

Great. You can't— that's the best one.

Um, being able to stay over 50 on the highway in Los Angeles for more than 10 seconds. Yep.

I defy anyone to try this Monday through Friday. Stay above 50 while doing a hairpin turn.

Impossible. No way. Uh, college football on before 9 AM PT during a work week. Keanu stabbing the gas tank, um, and then has to hold on with a screwdriver as we go 55 miles an hour. Also stinks of gas for the rest of the movie, not mentioned again. And then, um, the gas tank just leaks out but lasts 20 minutes. Isn't that thing— that gas tank's done in 90 seconds. Harry gets shot in the leg and has a cane, but then he's fine. He's vaulting windows. An LA cop in the early 1990s putting his gun and badge down with a suspect who's pointing a gun. That wasn't a great run for the LA cops here from '88 to '93. The explosion of the old lady blows out the front tires of the bus, I think, and the bus crashes. Yes, it's an explosion, but nothing else happens to the bus, just the little walkway. And by the way, if he uses— if he blows out that thing again, can't they now get everyone else off the bus? He's already used the bomb. Um, in 1994, you could just take a bus, go through security in the airport, and just drive around the runway.

So could other people do this?

Uh, but furthermore, why wasn't that like the first thing Joe Morton thought of? They're driving around out—

yeah, get to the fucking airport.

He's like, we're gonna always get to the airport. Go to the airport, we'll shut down LAX, just drive around.

I think they were very far from the airport at the beginning of the movie.

Well, he's in Venice at the beginning of the movie, right?

That's where the bus starts. Yeah, that's where it's going from downtown. Oh, and then back.

So I guess they are heading downtown, but like, so they go down, they go from Venice to downtown and then back to the airport. Yeah, they get on the 105 and go back and then go back downtown.

No way this would— they'd be able to do that. Um, I, I feel like the, the biggest thing in that part when they pull onto the, into the airport is the tire blows immediately when he, when she drives into the airport because she's going over the reverse. Yeah.

How's the bus not going?

Bus should just like tip over. It's a bus. You can't have a blown tire in that situation. And it blows later in the movie.

My answer for all these things at all times, every time I watch a highway chase on Channel 5, Channel 9, or Channel 11, let's go to the fucking airport. The copters can't follow you to the airport. And if I'm trying to escape the police, you get to the airport, you get in a parking garage, and then you just take off.

And the whole thing with the choppers, the whole thing is just like freedom of speech. Stuff like, why can't police helicopters be like, ground your helicopter, this is dangerous. We need, we need you out of the air.

I don't know the rules there.

Uh, my biggest one is there's no way somebody as savvy as Harry is like, I'm going to go to a serial bomber's house. Just waltz in and go right in and not think that it's booby trapped. This guy is conducting all of this from Sun Valley is highly unlikely.

How do you feel about remote cameras working on a bus in 1994?

I've seen a lot of really nice grief about this online. I mean, it— I'm willing to go with it.

I like the tape loop trick that they play on him though. That's, that's a clever part of the movie. Um, I mean, there's some like broader stuff too. Maybe this is more unanswerable than a nit, but like, shouldn't they have just paid him? It's like, he's asking for $3 million.

Were they even planning on paying him?

But what are they like? It would be— it's what Jack pulls off is a 99 out of 100 impossible thing to do. You. Just— he's asking for $3 million. Just pay the guy.

Well, it costs $3.7 billion of damage, at least by the end of it. Uh, and then, uh, airport to downtown in less than 30 minutes, middle of the day?

No way. The collateral route.

I don't care what year we're in, unless it's 1944.

I'll be doing it tomorrow at 5:30 AM. It'll take 35 minutes.

There was also— did you guys notice, like, at the end of the movie on the subway when, when Howard's holding the bomb trigger and he's like, you got to keep your hand on this. And then she gives it to Annie. He's like, ah, you're too hysterical, give it back to me. He's holding it. But then like 10 minutes later, he has two hands on an Uzi.

I totally agree. Where is it? Did he turn it off?

No, he's— I look for this. He's holding it the whole time, but it's a little unrealistic.

He's fighting Keanu. Where's the—

but he's always holding the—

but when he dies, he would have turned the safety on.

It takes it from him. So he's holding it right as he's getting beheaded. He grabs it.

He's two-handing the Uzi into the roof.

There's also a lot of like, uh, like door closed, but then there's an explosion and when it explodes, like the doors open, like there's continuity problems all over. Like Keanu breaks the—

I mean, the biggest one by far is when he's fighting with Jack on top of the train. He doesn't have any paint on him. He's opened up the bag and he gets the paint all over him. And then when he's fighting him and he gets beheaded, he has no paint on him. Him being like, I got this.

I'm going to go fist fight a 30-year-old cop with one hand.

That's my final And somehow all of these—

I'm not bringing the gun.

All these nitpicks don't pass the bunch— don't, uh, pass the bus jump. That bus, none of them matter. And guess what? We've seen this movie so many times, the more nitpicks you have, that just means you've seen the movie more.

Yeah, well, also just like the fact that it takes so long for Howard to get the news that the bus is blown up at the airport. Like, the news would have been on that instantaneously. Even if there are no copters there, that would have been reported. There would have been a cop on the phone with the news in a second.

How many months do you think we would be forwarding tweets and tributes about the late CR to each other that enraged us that people died?

I have been making a list in my mind of the 20 people who would send disingenuous tweets trying to honor him as if they knew him. Like, there's so many people who would be like, Chris and I once shared a beer in an alleyway. There wasn't a nicer, more genuine guy than Chris Ryan. He just did it for the passion. Who would trigger you?

Would, like, JD Vance You didn't know him, man.

You know, it'd be a lot of stolen valor for me and Bill. Yeah, me and Bill Stan— me, Bill, and Greenwald, we, we've been on Team CR deeply, more profoundly than anybody. And that's why we have to kill you. We got to get Andy in on this, this plot to get you killed.

Debundo's our guy. Yeah, he'll never suspect it.

Yeah. Anthony, what are you doing here on this lake? I just want—

I just want a vacation.

I want to talk public. Uh, sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all Black cast, or Untouchable?

They did make a sequel and it was bad. And could I just suggest what they could have done?

It wouldn't have been a speed too, just for—

how about Bomb Squad? I just—

a spin-off. My idea was Howard Payne prequel, Bomb Squad in Atlanta.

Oh, I would just watch a Joe Morton movie, like Joe Morton with two new guys who have replaced Harry and Jack. He's like, you got big shoes to fill.

You know, I have an important question, but I can't ask it to the two of you because your answer would be yes. Okay, Craig. Craig, I think, is a better litmus test, but his answer is probably also going to be yes. They— when's the next big movie thing where they announce stuff?

Would that be like an event?

CinemaCon, you mean? What's the next one where they announce?

Probably not till next April. CinemaCon. Yeah, we just had Comic-Con.

Isn't there— isn't there a convention in September?

There's a New York Comic-Con in September.

What's the film festival?

Isn't there like, there's a Disney one. There's Telluride.

There's a D23 or whatever, the Disney thing.

Is that happening this year? It's in August. Yeah.

Okay. D23. Next film festival. They announced Speed 3 is happening and Keanu and Sandra Bullock have signed up. Is that an immediate I'm going? Is it like a Heat 2 situation?

Or do you have fear? Are they bus passengers? Like, what are we doing?

That's all we know is Speed 3.

I'll go see it. Is JDB involved?

We don't know anything other than Speed 3.

But he is 83 or something, and he hasn't made a film in over 20 years. It's Jan Jr. I'm trying to think of who would I actually be fired up? Like, if it was Chris McQuarrie, yeah, I would be down.

What if Speed 3 was they actually end up with each other and they're married?

It's a domestic drama about their family.

It's a little like The Lake House, but, but, uh, something happens and now they're in peril again. You know what? It's like Howard Payne's son. Work with me here.

They're married. They've gotten back together after Speed 2. Now they're in their dotage. They're on a road trip because the marriage is on the rocks. So they go on a road trip to try and save things. He gets on the highway, goes above 50, a little light goes on, and then he gets a phone call.

It's Howard Payne's son.

It's Howard Payne Jr. He's like, you killed my dad. Wow. Now it's time for you. Now you and your wife can't slow your Tesla down to below 50.

If the battery goes below 50%.

Yeah. Um, they're driving to go to their daughter's wedding.

Yeah. It's about an EV. EV.

What if it's like Father of the Bride crossed with Speed? Yeah. They're throwing the—

Yeah. And it's, and it's—

They're throwing a wedding for their daughter. Played by—

come on, why are we— we start our lives like Sandy and Keanu's daughter.

It's on a ferry going from Boston to Martha's Vineyard. So we have another crack at Speed 2 because it should have worked.

While we're talking about this though, I was thinking about how the best person to kill CR would be Juliette Litman, that he would never fucking see that coming. You're thinking about this now too much. He would be so excited to see Juliette.

Wesley is the best person. You'd never suspect Wesley.

I mean, I would never suspect you.

You would, though.

You would. It would make sense as you were dying.

You know the look Jeff Daniels had when the bomb went off? It was always ECR.

Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Fergie the Florist, Zane Lowe, Robert Evans, Dr. Charles Nichols, Ted Levine, or someone else? You missed CR debut John Bernthal from The Odyssey. Main alliance voice.

Yeah. Yeah, for Obsession.

Would you run it back for me?

Did I do it from Obsession? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, no, I was going to—

let me tell you a story about a man, about Freaky Nikki.

Uh, I was going to— in honor of Hopper, how about, uh, if Frank from Blue Velvet was in this movie? Oh, but just if he was bartending when the bomb squad is having celebration drinks and he's like, Heineken, fuck that, Pabst! Pops Blue Ribbon.

Frank Booth is good.

Frank Booth could go on the list.

Do you want to throw some Barney in here?

So what part is Barney? Is Barney on the bus?

What if Barney was Jack?

It sounds like Barney's just one of the passengers.

He's like, I need everybody to go to the right side of the bus. And Barney's like, hello, Jack.

We should do a movie character draft of people you you'd want on the speed bus.

Oh my God. Yeah, party. Just one Oscar who gets it, obviously. Sound.

What about Jan de Bont? Come on, Best Direction. Show some love.

Yeah, giving it to him over Tarantino.

Hopper never won a competitive Oscar, only nominated once.

Who won Best Supporting Actor this year?

This was '94. Yeah.

Oh, it's a tragedy. Jackson. Yeah, it should have been Sam Jackson's Oscar.

Terrible as Jules. Probably unanswerable questions. Um, you mentioned earlier in the original script Harry was the bad guy. Is this a better movie if Harry's the bad guy? I don't think so.

I like what they did. I think it's—

I think it winds up being great the way it is.

I agree. You agree with that? Best yawn ever. Jan de Bon or Jan Hammer? Who's your favorite yawn? If you could— if you could only feel about including— good son dropping one yawn.

What about getting a Jan in there too? Because you got Jan Michael Vincent.

Yeah, I think it's a Jan. The best, uh, who is the more important Jan for you, CR? Mine is Jan Hammer.

What about Jan Vesely?

I gotta say, I think, I think Jan de Bont is a little bit bigger and for me than Hammer. Hammer, great contributions, but Jan de Bont directed Speed Force, shot Die Hard, and these are great, Basic Instinct and Flatliners. Yeah, he's probably more important, kind of shaped my '90s. All those are, are possibly unanswerable questions. Yeah. What's the hierarchy of the bomb squad? It's a lot of like calling audibles, a lot of guys just kind of doing their own—

a lot of offensive coordinators at the top.

Yeah, but you know what I mean, where it's just like— I know, no selling. Sadler. I'm sorry, it took me a second. Um, but like, Max in charge, but like Harry and Jack are like, we're just gonna do this, we're gonna tie a crane to the elevator.

Sometimes you improvise, just make choices.

What? CR wasn't just a great writer and a great podcaster. He was an even better person. Who the fuck is this guy? I wouldn't know him.

I learned so much from CR. I loved when they just let him cook.

I hope every month is CR month.

Everyone knows that the really great CRs on music exist, but most people haven't heard it. But I heard it when it came out. I subscribed to the Rewatchables 1999 just to hear CR's thoughts. I got a Luminary sub.

A week, a week and a half later, Awful Announcing runs a hit piece. Yeah. Bill Simmons never did Hunt for Red October. Does he regret it now?

CR died in vain. He never got to do Aliens.

Yeah. I had one more.

He's like, why did CR keep liking these Sophie Cunningham tweets?

I want the forensic analysis after your death of your socials. Yeah, yeah, we're definitely hacking his passwords.

Um, my only other answer was how far in the movie are we in before Jack realizes he needs to get off the bus not to save the passengers but because of how he might have sex with Annie that night? I think we're like 40 minutes in.

I think it's like you can tell when he moves past Harry so quickly. Because he's just like, "The thing is, I'm getting late." Yeah.

He said, "Mett Attinger." Uh, memorabilia you'd most want from the movie? The bomb trigger stick? Gold watch.

Gold watch. I was thinking about how every time I did Metz Corner on Zach's show, I would want to wear Jack's earpiece from the opening sequence. You see the earpieces that they're wearing in the bomb squad? Those are awesome.

One of the buses from the film auctioned off in 2018 for $102,000.

Whoa.

Wow.

Oh, where do you put that thing?

Uh, in a museum? Or like in a, like on a studio lot tour?

Just outside your house?

It's a weird thing to own.

It's like, I saw this thing online about Jerry Seinfeld has the world's best Porsche collection. Mm-hmm. He's got like 70 vintage Porsches and they're on this giant glass warehouse.

That's cool. Yeah, for what?

Once he finds takes a ride over to the warehouse and is like, I'm gonna drive the '63 today. It's weird. I never understood that.

That you're surrounded by thousands of movie posters. Yeah, but he gets enjoyment from these.

He, he gets to look at them every day. Jerry Seinfeld can't.

John Belushi right there. Yeah, that's him. Can't drive John Belushi around. Coach Finstock, Mr. Miyagi Award. Best worst life lesson: luck runs out sooner or later.

Guts only get you so far.

Little cousin of Miami Vice.

Those are good times.

Time is luck. 20th hand.

I thought maybe I'd get a call this week about a revise, like a surprise revise.

I put the 3-and-a-half-minute scene of them on the boat going to Cuba. Yeah, he goes and straps the seatbelt on her, and she's kind of like— it's like a very sexual seatbelt scene. Might be the number one sexual seatbelt scene I mean, Gong Li. Gong Li is just— they just had a vibe. Actual seat belt power rankings. Good, good title for a movie. Best double feature choice, CR.

I'm gonna go, uh, Die Hard, which is pretty—

I had Die Hard as well. I had Die Hard as well.

What do you have? Transformers. Who won the movie?

This is a really tough one.

I think it's Keanu. I think it's Keanu as well. There's a case for Bullock. You're on Bullock?

I had Bullock because I think Keanu was already a star, and I think Bullock had had some bites at the apple.

I just love how they never have to shoot around him, like, and it's just like his running is good, like his— all his action shit is so believable and, and cool, and you never have to like cut around like, oh, but he's not gonna run across the street into a—

do you Is he your number one draft pick for just a cop in a movie like this?

I think he actually, he might be my favorite action star ever.

He's on the shortlist.

Who's, who's he going against? Arnold, Sly. They're so different.

The styles are so different, you know? Like, I really love Cruise. Um, anytime Cruise has to go running somewhere, I'm interested. I want to know what's happening.

How tall is Keanu Reeves? I mean, he's tall.

I think he's like 5'10", 5'11", 6 feet. Yeah. What's he listed at? 6'1".

So I think the thing with Keanu is you can feel his athleticism and his physicality. The only thing limiting Cruise is you can feel he's a little short. You can just feel that when you watch him.

So what quarterback is Keanu? Like Baker? Herbert?

No, Herbert's huge. But relative to action stars, it's all about relative to action stars. Like a 6'1" movie star is like enormous.

Quarterback. Sure. Yeah. I think he's like Mahomes-y where he can do different things depending on what the situation is. Keanu? Yeah. Like Mahomes can have those playoff games when he just rushes 14 times.

But it's weird because like if you put Keanu in the wrong movie or the wrong part, like he can't really do anything with it. Whereas like Mahomes, I feel like you could put Mahomes on the Panthers tomorrow and it would be incredible.

You couldn't put him on the 25 Chiefs, I'll tell you that much. There you go. 6-11. Hey, have some. Tom Brady never went 6-11.

You okay? I feel like it's been a really interesting watching the Celtics humiliation ritual with you. Like, do you've been going in a lot of directions? You've been, I feel like you're testing the boundaries.

We're fine.

Still waiting for the Paul George press conference. Is that coming? The welcome to Boston Paul George.

Right. Is that happening?

Week 3? Week 4?

Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Because I'm not going to see you for a while. I'm going on vacation. I was listening to you and your dad. You guys were like circling back to the regular season. You were talking about, you know, 156 games. Is there any part of you that thinks that maybe like the regular season doesn't matter at all now in the NBA?

I mean, that was, we, that was a constant podcast subject the last couple years.

But so why? It's almost like two different universes. But you've been, you were hanging your hat on how much you valued Jalen because of how well he did in the regular season.

I just like when guys show up for work, like CR.

That's right. That's right.

Until you kill him. Yeah. Until he trades me to Bundo. Yeah.

Okay. I was just curious. I was listening and I was like, I watched the Knicks. They were kind of uninspiring during the regular season and then they won.

It's the conundrum of the NBA now is you build one team for the regular season and then another team for the 10 weeks, which is going to be the issue with, with Philly. With LeBron and Embiid having to play.

Yeah. I'm just asking if we can see it a little bit first before we start trading people hypothetically to other teams. Okay. Yeah.

If Joel Embiid wins a title as a Sixer, is that significantly more meaningful than if he's traded for Anthony Davis or something like that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

What were your speed takes? That you didn't say yet? Just like the platonic ideal of a movie.

Like, this is just all you want in a movie. I would pick Sandra as the winner. She's probably my number one draft pick '90s actresses. Number one. I'm just kind of in love with Sandra Bullock.

I think I'm in there too. Like, I— Julia Roberts, like, higher ceiling but more— a little more in beat-ish actually.

She, she does— she plays a normal person really well. Julie Roberts is like an alien. Sandra Bullock plays a normal person really well. And I do feel like this movie hinges on her ability to convey emotion well. Yeah, like you feel the stress of the situation through her. Yeah, because Keanu's calm, everybody else is kind of in the background, and she is so good at like when she sheds the tear and like when she freaks out when the woman falls out.

I don't even know if we really did the can scene, but she's so good when she thinks she's hit a baby carriage.

You're like, it clearly just a kind person.

Yeah, yeah, like if you gave her a nomination for this movie, I wouldn't blink at it. I think she is so good, like her just her face feeling emotions, and it is amazing.

I think it's a harder part because it could also just be a nothing part or just like a hot girl part, but she actually brings more to the table.

Also, just like other great LAs, like ending at the Chinese Theater, you see the CVS ballerina clown in Venice at the beginning of the movie. Yeah, there's just great stuff like that.

It's awesome.

It really does use everything but the beach. The beach is the only thing—

it's too bad that they didn't end like the two of them sitting on the, like, the Venice Boardwalk being like, wow, crazy And then she fucking lights up.

The other like redundant move is like at the very end when they're like in the subway and they're like, the track isn't finished, and you're like, we just did that.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. For the tracks not finished, I don't love that. Yeah, uh, but it's great.

To your point about the practical effect stuff, like I feel like Nolan now, because of The Odyssey, everyone's like talking about that stuff again, rightfully so. But it's so good that you can't have CGI in this movie because they would have They would have been like, awesome, we can make it even bigger. And the fact that—

yeah, there's the cars flying up in the air and stuff.

Yeah, like Keanu would probably be like 50 feet in the air flying in something if you had CGI. The fact that it has to stay as grounded as it is because of what, like, the limitations of what you can physically film—

the only thing we forgot to mention was the bomb on the bus paper flying off and then landing on the windshield. Another great gimmick. This movie just had great ideas. Yes. Great ideas always win, Sean.

You know, you reminded me of one other take that I had that I'm going to share with you as soon as I pull it up that was related to this, and it was in a different category.

It's not about Sierra's death? Uh, no.

I'm happy to keep going on that though. I really enjoy that, Jag. Uh, okay, hold on.

I was a struggling writer in 2012 and I sent Grantland an application and CR sent me a really nice note saying, keep it up, man.

He'll be missed. We fucking love it when an original genre movie comes out of nowhere. This is one thing I wanted to say. So what happened with this year with Obsession is also what happened with Speed, which is just like, what the hell is this? Who is Sandra Bullock? This happened with with The Sixth Sense. It happened with Alien. It happened with Get Out. It happened with The Terminator, Inception, Pulp Fiction. When an original movie— Weapons was an example of this. You're like, I've never seen this before. Usually there's one or two people you've never seen before in the movie. Yep. And you're like, goddamn, we can still do new things. Yeah. That's our, that's the, that's the best thing at the movies in my opinion.

Get Out was a good example of that too. Do. Yeah, it's like, what is this? What's happening?

This movie also makes me think about— I think that there's a— the current space for action movies is kind of weird right now because the superhero stuff took over all that, and now that's kind of slowing down. Wick and Bourne and Mission are all kind of slowing down, and it's like there's no real big action movies that are made.

They're also like— they've gotten so overleveraged on like the CGI stuff that it's like, uh, like there's never any real feeling of stakes in these things anymore.

There's no like action stars being minted. There's No new Die Hards, no new Speeds. Like, there's no big original action movies anymore. I thought your streaming—

the streaming movie star thing was really interesting that you did with Amanda, where you were talking about Alan Ritchson. Yeah.

And Alan Ritchson in 1997 would have been an insanely big star. And he actually is a really big star, but only in one way. Yeah. Like, only in— on Reacher or in that—

the Netflix movie War Machine. The other thing we didn't mention— well, two things about the movie big picture, and then we'll wrap up. But one was moving it up to June then basically shifted the whole summer movie schedule, which we've talked about before, because these were supposed to come out in July and August. Yeah. And then all of a sudden now they're coming out in May and they're trying to get the first jump and stuff like that. The other thing is like the Netflix and Amazon, all these people making versions of Speed but for a streaming movie. Like, what was that Jason Bateman airplane movie with Taron Egerton?

Yeah, yeah. Carry On. Carry On. Air traffic. Traffic or security guys.

So these were getting ripped off for, I don't know, 10, 12 years with like Phone Booth and The Cell. And not The Cell, what was the phone call movie with Halle Berry? There's a movie she was like working the— when a stranger calls?

No, is it One Missed Call?

I think it's The Call.

The Call. The Call. The Call.

Movies like that where it's like just this premise and we go, and they, they— it feels like they've moved to streaming. Yeah. And they're just— it's always like the DNA of this movie.

I also think this is like cell phones, smartphones kind of killed a lot of the tension in these. It's like really hard to be like, so you like, I could just Google who you are while this is happening. You know what I mean? Like you would just be like, Howard Payne is this. Oh shit. You know, we got him.

Uh, CR, pleasure as always. I hope you keep kicking it for another 50 years.

Yeah. I hope I make it through this lake now.

Wait, isn't the line reading, that's our scumbag. That's what we're going to say when CR goes down.

Uh, Sean, have fun on vacation. Thank you. I look forward to being on the, um, flop draft. Yeah, that I signed myself to. Craig, Fantasy Football Show, we're heating up. Draft's coming. Drafts are coming.

A lot of drafts at the end of August. I know.

Yeah, things are getting ready. Yeah, am I doing it?

It's up to you. You're doing it. You're fucking— you're gonna be the—

I think I responded maybe to the invite.

You did.

You actually responded yes and then switched it to maybe because you're thinking about how how you were treated last year. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which was unfairly and rudely. But you know what? Didn't finish in last.

I finished in last. How, how sweet would it be if you came back and won?

Am I allowed to have T draft for me again?

His own team. You're your own team. That's right.

All right, thanks guys.

Thanks, Bill.