‘Before Sunset’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Mallory Rubin
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Oh, it's such a clutch off-season pickup, Dave. I was worried we'd bring back the same team. I meant those blackout motorized shades. Blinds.com made it crazy affordable to replace our old blinds. Hard to install? No, it's easy. I installed these and then got some from my mom. She talked to a design consultant for free and scheduled a professional measure and install. Hall of Fame's son? They're the number one online retailer of

Custom window coverings in the world. Blinds.com is the GOAT. Shop Blinds.com right now and get up to 45% off select styles. Rules and restrictions may apply. The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where we can find the big picture with Sean Fennessey. That's right. House of R. Yeah. With Mallory Rubin. Mm-hmm. What are you up to again? Any pod that'll have me, man. Yeah. The lady of the night of the Ringer Podcast Network. The new CR pod. You'll hear him on Off the Pike with Brian Barrett a little bit later. Yeah.

My name is Bill Simmons. Did you guys see what Almin Thompson did to the seas the other night? My name is Bill Simmons. This is Before Sunset. We did Before Sunrise last week. And now, the sequel, the classic, Before Sunset. Nine years ago, two strangers met by chance and spent a night in Vienna that ended before sunrise. Before Sunrise.

They're about to meet for the first time since. Hi. Hello. I can't believe you're here. Well, I live here in Paris. I wanted to talk to you for so long. Yeah, me too. How long do we have? 20 minutes and 30 seconds? Let's go. We got more than that. Now they have one afternoon to find out if they belong together.

I remember that night better than I do entire years. Do I look any different? What if you had a second chance with the one that got away before sunset? All right, everybody. First four-person pod we've done in a while in studio. Really exciting. Mallory, you heard the before sunrise pod. Oh, yeah. I booted it up on my television. Do you want to do all your notes now?

I thought it was a fantastic pod about a beautiful movie. And I have been meaning to reach out to Sean to discuss with him how much of his commentary about Jesse was clearly about himself. What do you mean? Oh. I did not think that. You thought that? A lot of like, boy, this is just a really cool, smart, interesting person who's tall and thin with brown hair. And only when you get to know him do you realize how deeply insecure he is and desperate for your love. Yeah.

Well, I don't know what you mean at all. I just think it's really great writing, really a great performance. I admire the craft of acting that Ethan Hawke brings to that character. So Before Sunrise, 1995, but it was really set in 1994. Before Sunset comes out in 2004. It's set nine years later. I'll start here. The six great questions of life. How did we get here? What happens after you die? Who killed JFK? Yeah.

Why does fantasy log rewatchables movies on a letterbox and spoil movie is coming just to impress a couple of dweebs?

That's number four. Really tough start to the pod for you. I believe it was Chris Ryan who spoiled Before Sunrise, not me. Number five. He said we were doing it. I'm not done with my six questions. Number five, did Stern suspend MJ? And then the sixth great question of life, what if you had a second chance with the one who got away? Now, would you say that those are in order of importance? Can we start with JFK? No.

We already did that part. But this movie taps into that theme. There's been other ones. This did it the best. And it's one of the many great reasons why this is an all-time classic. Mal, go ahead. Oh, my God. Just from the jump, what do I think of this movie? No, the second chance with the one who got away. Well, it's something that people think about forever. That's one of the reasons that Before Sunset and the entire Before trilogy is...

I think so indelible and so important to so many people. It's like simultaneously an experience that you probably feel you've never really gotten to have, right? Will I ever feel that way about somebody ever? What would it be like to feel that specific spark? And then that's just like the most deeply human and relatable thing, second guessing your decisions. Did you do the right thing?

Do you wish you could have done something differently? Are you spending your life with the right person? Shouldn't Lamar have locked in that pass to Andrews a little bit higher? It's always great to be with you and share our passions together. You were going to wait until after the pod. Yeah, you do remember that, right? You didn't say you were going to wait. Unbelievable. Literally said you're going to wait. The wound is still so raw. See our second chances?

Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty profound movie in that way, where you are having this very unique experience with this film because of the time lapse between the first two, right? And you're once attached to Jesse and Selene as characters, right?

attached to Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as people, and then also attached to who you are both in 94 and in 2004, 95 and 2004. And so there's like this triple layer of things happening that all culminates with, I think, maybe one of the greatest acts of wish fulfillment in the history of movies at the end of this film. Sean? I think that when I watched this movie, it became clear to me that I'm nine years behind the characters.

And that they're making the movie every nine years. And so this movie felt a little bit more predictive about the future, which is also true for the film that comes after this, in ways that are really impactful on your life. Because when you're a teenager, you don't really have to worry too much about what's coming in your early 20s. But when you're in your early 20s, your early 30s are kind of a scary time. And Selene literally has a nightmare about this feeling. And...

So just being able to capture that specific feeling would have been enough to make it a really indelible movie. But on top of that, it's so deeply romantic and so intoxicating and so convincing. Like, I really feel like I'm watching something unfold just like I was when I was watching Sunrise where I'm like, these are not characters. This is not a movie. This is something that I am...

I got lucky enough to observe. And it is an all-time movie for me, this one especially. And it works just as well on me right now as it did the first time I saw it. I saw it in 2004 summer at the, what's the place, the La Malay, whatever that is? Lamley, yeah. Lamley in Crescent Heights and Sunset.

We had lived in LA for, I think, 18 months. My wife didn't really like it in 03, and then eventually was starting to like it. And by summer 04, liked it. And I was at a completely different place in my life than the first time I saw it, where I was dating somebody, but I had no idea where my life was going. I was living in Boston. Nine years passed. Now we're out here thinking about maybe we had a dog, thinking about maybe having a kid. And it was just a great experience. I was so excited that this movie was coming out.

So it was like, man, it would be cool if they made a sequel to that. And I was like, hey, you hear they're working. And then I was like, no, they're making it. And that's like, oh, I hope they don't fuck it up. Oh, yeah. And then a couple of people I knew saw it and they were like, it's great.

I'm like, really? It's great. And then you go and it's like, oh my God. I remember leaving the theater being like, I don't know what to do. Let's go get coffee. It was one of those. And it still is. 21 years later. It still fires me up, especially the last 50 minutes. I think it's one of the great movies of that decade. Oh, absolutely. It's also just like the three of the movies, each in their unique way,

you walk out and you're just like, I need to talk about this movie for a really long time. I need to talk about how my life is like that and how my life is different. And you're usually watching these with a partner. And you're like...

It can be a little bit tender at times, and it can be a little bit tough, but it's like... Especially the third one. Yeah. Should we all bring our spouses to the before midnight pod? What do you think? I don't know if there's going to be a third. I think people are going to be expecting the trilogy pod, and I don't think it's happening. I'm there when you need me. We might be saving that for some sort of theme month. We're getting divorced. Pull my intestines out of my body through my rectum month. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I am at the age that those characters were at in that movie. And so I'm kind of eager to revisit it because I haven't seen it in a really long time. But it's the exact opposite feeling that this movie gives you. Also, this movie is like so much less ambitious than...

even in the first one. Right. They have like really no side characters at all. No set pieces. It's basically one conversation. No poem. One conversation over a few sessions. It's like a one-act play. Yeah. And so you really feel like you're inside of their heads and they're giving you their inner monologues to each other. Right. Which is, I mean, there are very, very few movies that are able to accomplish this. Like people don't usually try it because it's not usually cinematic. Well, the other thing, so they're also playing off the first movie. Yeah.

Which was so ambitious and works. And then they're like, well, how do we top that? And they basically just run it through. It's almost like the Goodfellas nightclub, walking into the Copacabana scene, and they're just trying to do that as the movie. Yeah. But watching how nervous they are around each other and how the barriers start coming down, and by the time they get into the limo,

Now it's just like, fuck it. I'm just going to... Incredible. I have no more secrets. I'm just going to tell you what I think now. And by the time we get to the apartment, you just watch these. I've never had an experience like that with a movie. Well, it's like the sensation that you were describing of the anxiety you brought to...

the encounter of seeing the film. Like there's a very meta quality to that. You know, you watch Before Sunrise and it is for us as viewers what they are for each other. It's this like magical moment in time. And then you think about it and you long for it and you wonder if anything else can ever really live up to it or match it. And then of course you would be nervous. Yeah.

In the first moments of, like, that return. I mean, structurally, the way that the entire movie is just basically when you remove the opening and end credits, it's a 75-minute conversation that takes place over a handful of locations. And it's... All three of the movies are very talky, but this one is particularly talky. And that feels so perfect because, like...

They're all really true to life, but that aspect just feels like if you spent nine years thinking about whether you would see this person again and then you did, I love when they start debating the state of the world. And it's like, guys, you don't have time for this. You need to figure out if you're supposed to be together. But of course that's what you would do, both because you're sort of trying to like –

delay and evade the where the fuck were you that Jesse finally builds up the courage to say out loud. Well, he says it like in a couple of different ways over the course of the... Yeah, they're inching toward the thing they've been waiting to say to each other for nine years. And that just feels very true to what the experience would be. Can I just read something that Linklater said that's basically exactly what Mal was just talking about? He was talking to Filmmaker Magazine when this came out and he said...

To me, the tone is different. The visual style is even more minimal. And in the first one, there is a much greater time span and they were actively seeking out Vienna. They had all that possibility and a lot of time to kill. That was night too. Very romantic and full of mystery and possibility. This one was just the opposite. This one's daytime. They've both got earthly obligations. We're in a town that she lives in. We're in a town that he's basically working in. He's got real life appointments. He's got to leave for the airport in 80 minutes. So this...

So the tone is very real world. And because it's sort of a document of real time, I wanted it to be a quote eloquent documentary. And I thought that was such a beautiful summary of what he accomplished in that. That is how it plays. But with incredible oners moving through Paris, which is really hard to pull off. It also seems effortless when you're watching it. There's three different themes going on, I think. And one is that what happens if you have a second chance with somebody, uh,

And the second one is how do people change over the course of a decade from their 20s to their 30s, which I think they nail with this. And then the third one, which I think she does a really good job talking about, is like she's talking about all these relationships she's had and how each one took something out of her. Right. So when you're idealistic, when you're 23. Yeah.

And then nine years later, and she'd been in some things, and these people that she was with took little things from her that she can't get back. What do they do with them? And even that whole road she went down, I was like, this is never in a movie. What happens? You have these little pieces of yourself that you give to people. I mean, everyone who's ever dated a bunch of people thinks about that. Sure.

What it's like, it's like these, they're not gifts, whatever these things that somebody else is just storing. You're never going to get them back. She's talking about them in this point in her life, less as gifts than it's like robberies. Yeah. Right. Right. She feels like she's violated something that she has given another person and then no longer has obviously specifically with Jesse. Like one of the really heart wrenching moments of the movie is when she says, basically I had this like life altering night with you and then you took everything with you and I didn't have it anymore. Right. And, and,

The way that she speaks in general... I mean, obviously, you guys, I thought, did a beautiful job in the first pod of talking about how they are... This idea of, like, are you a romantic or are you a cynic? Really, they're both both. And part of what makes the trilogy this great treatise on love and, like, evolution inside of a relationship is they move across the movies, but they move inside of the movies as well. And so when she's talking about how she...

would prefer to be alone because like that's actually better than being lonely with somebody you've chosen to share your life with. Which is what's happening to Jesse. Yeah. And right. So of course he understands that keenly, but he's also like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. You just said you can love and you want to be loved.

She's like, right. And that's actually why I'm pissed because you made me remember that I used to feel that way. Yeah. Like the beauty and the devastation of that are inextricable from each other. But is it dead inside or is it dormant? And that's the other thing. And obviously it's just dormant because it comes back to life. Can we talk about Julie Delpy though? Because we were three guys who all had a crush on her. Talk about her in the first part. But we didn't have the female perspective on that character in the first movie. Now the second one. Did you notice? So let's hear it.

I don't know what you mean. I felt like I adequately represented the female perspective in my discussion of her. Let's hear the female perspective on Julie Delvey's character. Did Khalil Shakir get mentioned more than Julie Delvey on the McForge Sunrise? No, we talked about her a lot. We did. But your take on that.

I mean, she's an all-timer. She is an absolute all-timer. Like, just a queen and an icon. Everything that she does in all three of the films is perfect. I know I'm not really supposed to talk about the third movie, but I think I'll find that really challenging. We're trying to combine it to this.

Don't we have to save it for pull my intestines through my rectum. You can only talk about the two tailors, not about Return of the King. It'll be human centipede, saw five before midnight. I mean, she's the best. And like part of the reason that they are so well matched is because they are like both utterly distinct, but also share this,

unique blend of like humor and charm and doubt and yearning like the yearning that they're both it's just emanating off of them in waves and ripples it's like almost unbearable my favorite I was so glad that you two both picked the listening booth as the most rewatchable scene because that is like genuinely maybe my favorite movie scene

ever. Wow. Like period. And the way that they're looking at each other and looking away from each other and how you can feel this like crackling desire when you port ahead nine years to this movie and they're in the car together and you have the evolution of that. He, when she's looking away and he turns to touch, to try to touch her hair, but then can't. And then he's looking out the window talking and she reaches for the, to cup the back of his head, but then can't. It's like,

They're both able to convey something that is so specific to their characters but feels like just a part of their harmony together. It's perfect. The reason that we have to do Before Midnight, though, is not only because, hot take, that's the best movie in the trilogy, but... Oh my god. Way to go, Luke Wilson. Hell yeah. Because, I mean, they're all... You spoiled that category. They're all perfect.

They're all perfect. My favorite one genuinely is the one I happen to be watching at that moment. But I think I admire that one the most. And we need to do the pause so that we can talk about the moment when they go into the little Byzantine church and she's like, sorry, am I not supposed to talk about blowjobs in a church? And he's like, yeah, you probably shouldn't. And then she does this. Got to do the movie just for that.

I'm so glad you're sitting on the couch. The thing that seemed more clear to me as I watched the movies again is that it's very purposely like a seesaw experience for how they see the world. That in the first film, Selene is mutilated

much more openly romantic and idealistic. And that he is relying on his cynicism as a shield. But also, you can tell that he believes some things. You mentioned how he talks about his parents in the first film and that that is a defining mode for him. And then in this film...

to your point about what's been taken from me by these men who are no longer with me or that line that she has about, you know, I'm the girl that guys date before they get married. And there's like a wounded quality to her in this movie. And then in the third film, she's extremely severe and blunt and hurt. And, um,

In the third film, you can feel him trying to hold on to the hope of the future. And in this movie, they feel like the seesaw is even. They both know that they need change, that there's still the possibility for something, that they probably need each other in a very specific way. And...

I don't know if that equilibrium is part of what makes it so exciting for me, but it's a perfect middle point for this story and kind of relates to maybe why they didn't do a fourth one. Well, the big picture is the first one is about the idealism of everything. Yeah. And this one is kind of like when you've had –

You've had some experiences, good and bad. Is it actually better because you appreciate it a little bit more? Kind of like how Mal didn't win the Super Bowl for 10 years and now she'll appreciate it more the next time it happens. Some respect on Joe Flacco's name. There's been some losses, some pieces taken from you. But it is interesting. What's better? I would argue that it's still being in that first before sunrise phase of the world is wide open.

I don't really know. I haven't really been hurt yet. I still believe in all these things as a better place to be, but this is also a really interesting place too. Yeah. You know, I was thinking about the line in the first one in Sunrise where Jesse is talking about how he still feels like he's the 13-year-old boy. Yeah. And she feels like, I feel like I have the soul of an old woman. Yep. And how much they change...

Yeah. In between the first and the second one, the way you guys are talking about where she becomes obviously so much more cynical and then something about what happened to him in Vienna makes him so much more of a dreamer and idealistic. But the thing that's so amazing about these movies is the way that they're they experience like this transference from those nights together and those days together. And so that they obviously change one another so much. Yeah.

This is my second favorite movie sequel ever. I actually went through everything to make sure that was true. Porky's 2? Godfather 2 is still my favorite. Dead of Thieves, Pantera. Yeah, okay. I can't put anything over Godfather 2. Fair. But it's on that short list. I had Terminator 2, Aliens, Maverick, Dark Knight.

which I think counts as a sequel. I'm talking about official sequels, not like the fourth movie and a thing. We were following up this movie with this one, which I think goes wrong most of the time. And it's either we didn't get one person that we thought from the previous movie we couldn't get them, or it's just like, this is a money grab situation.

This is like a true sequel in every respect, which it's weird. It just, why is it so hard to pull off? It's, well, I think part of what we talked about with Sunrise that is so powerful is that the stars are the co-collaborators, the co-conspirators of the story. And this movie more than any, which I'm sure we'll get into, it just feels like they have suffused so much of the story with their personal lives. So this doesn't feel like

a Lord of the Rings movie where you're like, oh, there's all this mythology to acknowledge and this world building and how are we going to do it? Or, hey, we've got this precious IP that we need to make another movie for. It's just artists trying to find a new way to communicate about how they feel about the world. For whatever reason, Richard Linklater is the only filmmaker who thinks this way because this isn't even the first time that they are reunited since Sunrise because they had that vignette in Waking Life. Yeah.

So he sees all of his characters and his stories on this continuum in a way that very few filmmakers do. Tarantino has a whiff of it, but he's never really fully committed to it. He does, and people pointed out to me what I was trying to think of, which is who's the character who ports over in a film, you know? And it's Ray Nicolette, who's in Out of Sight, and who's also in Jackie Brown. But that's just a very uncommon thing, and it's very hard to pull that off. And, you know...

It would be interesting to watch more filmmakers and actors try to pull this off of like more small scale movies. This is closer to like Michael Apted's End Up series than it is The Godfather. I mean, the trip movies with Coogan and Bryden are kind of like this, but they were TV series in Europe. Yeah. Usually it goes the way of another 48 hours. Yeah. We've all packed some pounds on. Eddie put on some weight. Yeah. We got you out of jail again. And Nick Dolphy's not a smoking racist anymore. Where are we? Why did this happen? Um,

Can we talk about the Oscar piece of this? Sure. Yeah. We have to take a break. Let's take a break and then we'll do the Oscar piece of this. At Sierra, discover top workout gear at incredible prices, which might lead to another discovery. Your headphones haven't been connected this whole time. Awkward. Discover top brands at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving.

All right, so I try not to do this with every movie we do, but I found the 2005 Oscars for the 2004 season confusing when it happened because this movie was critically adored. And I think I just don't really understand it. Not that we can make sense of the Oscars ever, but for Best Picture, it ended up being Million Dollar Baby 1, The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray, and Sideways.

Were the other ones. Best Director, he didn't get that. Criminal. Best Actor and Best Actress, not nominated. That actually doesn't make sense. So Best Actor, Jamie Foxx wins for Ray. Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda. Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland. Leo and the Aviator. And Clint Eastwood, A Million Dollar Baby. I'm positive Ethan Hawke was one of the best five performances. Best Actress, Hilary Swank.

Annette Bening being Julia, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maria Fulgrace, Imelda Staunton and Vera Drake and Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine. I feel like Julia could have snuck in there. If there were 10 nominees like there are now, this obviously would have gotten in. It's also more along the lines of the kind of movie that we get in nowadays. This is in the halcyon days of...

These are all studio movies that are nominated for Best Picture. Million Dollar Baby, The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray, Sideways, all from major studios. They all have very powerful campaigns behind them. And this was a much, much smaller movie by comparison. I just don't know...

How many actors could have been in those parts? And especially what Julie Delpy has to do in this movie. Yeah. Which I think is, I think she has the harder part in this movie because she's all over the place and you have to pull it off without seeming like you're not. CR, which Julie Delpy, which Celine were you more attracted to? Before Sunrise Celine or before Sunset Celine? I think it's Sunset. Because I think it says a lot about. It's Sunset. It says a lot about us because I was more attracted to Sunset Celine. Yeah. And I think that says a lot about me.

What does it say? That it was just more interesting. She was crazier. Yeah.

Smoking cigs. It's like she lit that cigarette. This movie did get nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. And it's adapted because it's a sequel and all sequels need to go into the adapted category. I forgot about that rule. I read about it when we were researching this. I guess I had known it, but I think it would have been very tough to win in either of these categories because it's the Year of Eternal Sunshine, which is like a

a masterpiece screenplay. And Sideways, which was a phenomenon and people really loved that. We talked about it on the show. By the way, this was a kick-ass movie year. Yeah. There was a lot of good stuff from this year. Like even from the comedy side, like Anchorman was this year. There's a bunch of good bunch of horror movies. Like I was surprised going through it.

Because in the moment, we're like, movies suck now. What's wrong with movies? Now, I would take half of 2004. I would be hard-pressed to think of a movie that came out this year that I like more than the one we're talking about today. This is probably, if I was doing that list back then. In 25 or 24? In 2004. Yeah. $2.7 million budget made $15 million. Our guy Raj, he let us down in the previous three-star Raj. Tough. He said, understand these boring Gen X people. Yeah. 3.5 stars for this one.

He said it was a remarkable celebration of the fascination of good dialogue, but Before Sunset is better. That's what he said, Before Sunrise. Before Sunset is better because the characters are older and wiser. They more to lose or win. And perhaps because Hawk and Delpy wrote the dialogue themselves. The film has the materials...

for a lifetime project. Like the 7-Up series. This is a conversation that could be returned to every 10 years or so as Selene and Jesse grow older. And yet, they only made one more. Raj was ready for Before Midnight. He gets it. Well, so far, they don't have to stick to the nine-year thing forever, right? That was nice, but... If you're putting Before Midnight 1 as Sunset 2, or is it... So, my answer, honestly, is like a little complicated, which is genuinely whichever one I'm watching in real time is my favorite because they're all perfect.

So, like, whichever one you're with, you're like, of course this is the best one. Yeah. Right? I think people probably fire Sunset up the most. Right? I think Sunset's the best. Yeah. I do, too.

The case for Sunrise, in addition to everything you guys talked about, is just it's the only one that exists in a vacuum. So that's like a special thing, right? Where they didn't know anything about what we had to do. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. Yeah, Sunrise gets a degree of difficulty because they're starting from scratch. Yeah. Yeah. It's a premise that probably shouldn't have worked. Yeah. We're not going to get producer Craig's feelings on the trilogy yet. Did you watch the whole trilogy? No. I just want your feelings on this. I won't be watching before midnight. 80 minutes. 80 minutes.

80 minutes for the second one. Did you pass out? Were you delirious? Yeah, it was shorter than most TV finales. It was fantastic. Oh, definitely. Could you believe it, that it was 80 minutes? You rarely see sub-90 these days. If you see an eight in front of the runtime, it's shocking. I know, it's astonishing. It's so short, I almost had that for What's Aged the Worst. I kind of wanted six more minutes. We got to 86? As soon as they get in the back of the car, I'm like, oh my God, is this almost over? Not ready to be done. Yeah, but it's almost like the...

And movies never do this anymore, but they want you leaving... Wanting more. Wanting a little bit more. Yeah, absolutely. You're racing against the clock just like they are. Yeah, as soon as they get in the limo, it is kind of... They get off the Paris boat and it's like, oh my God, this movie's got like 18 minutes left. Yeah. It's amazing. What is the exact perfect age to see this movie, CR? I have after you're married. So whatever age that is? Yeah. What do you think, Mal? I think I agree. Like...

Part of the beauty of the trilogy to me is just that you can age with them and you bring a different perspective to them when you revisit them. But the case for this, for me, the case for this one is the best.

is like building off the line from Sunrise, like the answer must be in the attempt. Like this is about the attempt. Every movie, all three of them hinge on some sort of choice for them. But this is the one where they make the most active choice. Jesse wrote this book hoping Celine would find him. Celine went to the bookstore hoping that she would get to see him. Like they really chose to try to rediscover each other. Sierra went on off the pike

Exactly. See him on there. I was like, I'd love to talk, Celine, but I got to do press box. Can I hear you on the 25th anniversary of Noma? You can only, I think, really understand that perspective if you're a little bit older and have some regrets. I think you have to be at least early 30s and

either married or at least settled with who you're supposed to do it. You have to have a couple of long-term relationships under your belt. Fantasy, what do you think, though? You need a basketball reference page with some seasons in it. Yeah, gotta have a couple of nicknames. I mean, my personal history, obviously I'm married to the girl that I was dating in high school. I saw this movie with her in a movie theater. I vividly remember it was right after we graduated from college. We'd both moved to New York together. We saw it at the Angelica.

I had misremembered it when I was talking to her about it, but she remembered it cold. She remembered the entire experience. You know, there's that train that runs right next to the Angelica. So if you sit in there, it shakes the seats. Oh, I like that. And it was such a memorable movie going experience. We both loved it. We went out, we did the thing you talked about. We went out and had coffee. We talked about it for hours. We'd already loved sunrise together. But if you look at it in one way,

It's a real cautionary tale movie if you see it in your 20s. And I think I internalized that probably. That sort of, because what Jesse says in this movie, which is something that a lot of people think that are married,

is chilling. I mean, there is a horror movie quality to a lot of that confession that happens in the final 15 minutes. Running a nursery. Yes, running a nursery with someone I used to date. And I mean, the writing is brilliant in this movie, but they both get to say things that people think and do not ever verbalize.

And so it's kind of like, it's almost like, if somebody hugged me, I'd dissolve into molecules. But like, the movie is almost like a challenge if you're in a relationship too, where it's like, make sure this is what you want. Because you could turn out like these people who are 32 and are at the edge of their own sanity because of the choices that they made.

This is so interesting. I feel like this is our version of the conversation in the bookshop about, like, it's a test for you whether you thought they showed up six months later. Like, are you the romantic, the cynic, or undecided? Because, like, I definitely think that's true, but I also think you could view it the other way. It's like...

it can be affirming that you don't run out of runway. Like you can make your way back to happiness. There's just that pregnant moment where it's like, I'm your Jesse, right? There's not a Jesse out there, right? And you're like, still thinking about it. I actually disagree with my friend Sean. I think this is an optimistic movie.

Well, it's been with... I think it ultimately is like a lot of weird shit can happen and you could give up and think that the moment passed, but sometimes it doesn't and you still have a chance. I think you're right ultimately and the movie is ultimately on that side. But I see what you're saying about like the... This really lays out the baggage that can happen

Yeah. With some bad choices. You know, it's child of divorce. The answer is probably like... How can I not be thinking about Henry when I'm watching this movie? If Linklater was here, he would probably say, you're both right. Yeah. Because there are multiple realities where Jesse, where Selene just gets the day wrong and doesn't go to the bookstore. And Jesse's...

His life goes on, you know? And that's the whole point of these movies. But the flip side of that is if the grandmother doesn't die, she's in Vienna. Well, the flip side of that is that if the German couple aren't arguing on the train, they never meet in the first place. I mean, it's just like the whole thing. That's what's great about this movie. There's 40 different points that this could have gone bad. It's true. Most rewatchable scene, Jesse in the bookstore.

I'm just going to start there. I weirdly really like the press conference of this random book because it's so absurd. It would never happen in real life. Please tell me what the book of basketball version of this was for you. Please. It didn't exist. Like, be in Paris, like, just doing like that. Get the hands going. Here's the thing about Kareem that a lot of people didn't realize. Like,

Like, this would just never happen, but I like watching Ethan Hawke just be full Ethan Hawke. Yeah. Just doing Ethan Hawke stuff, doing the, it's like my grandfather said, to answer that, take the piss out of everything. It's just slightly overacting, but I'm still into it. Someone's like, MJ or LeBron, Bill. Right. It's like, grandpa. I like how into it that one reporter is, too, where she's a little, like, a little sweet on Jesse. Sure. Oh, yeah. I mean, how could you not be? But then...

Watching her, the way they're using the flashbacks, I just think that scene is so well directed. So good. Cutting back and forth with the new one, and then it's that part when they're memorizing each other's face from the first movie. They're flashing back to that. And then it cuts right to her now, and it's like, oh my gosh. So good. It's also like the same cinematic language of the end of the first one, which is the montage of the places they were. Yeah. And now it's like a montage of who they were, and it's just like, ah, shit.

It's really great. And his reaction to seeing her, everything about it, it's just great. Well, also, like, the whole time he's talking to the reporters, he's waving his hand, like, you see a wedding ring. You don't know. Yeah. Is he married to her? Like, we do not yet know. Oh, I didn't even think of that. That's a good point. And so there's that second when you see her, and she could just be, like, the proud wife who's there watching her husband. He reacts, though. But the second you see his face, and he's just, like...

There's a 1.5 second pause where you're like, he's excited and destroyed at the same time. And it's like this melding of heartache and euphoria because you realize that they have not been together, but also that they're there together again. Yeah. It's amazing. Good bookstore too. Shakespeare and Company, incredible. I basically just have the whole movie as we watch those things, but we have the awkward walk. No, no, you were there, weren't you?

Oh no, terrible. Oh no, I'm laughing, but I don't mean it. Did you hate me? You must have hated me. Have you been hating me all this time? You have. No. Yes, you have. No. Oh, but you can't hate me now, right? I don't hate you, all right? Come on, it's no big deal, all right? I flew all the way over there, you blew the thing off, and my life's been a big nosedive since then, but I mean, it's not a problem. No, you can't say that. Oh, I can't.

I can't believe it. You must have been so angry with me. I'm so sorry. I really wanted to be there more than anything in the world. I swear. Honestly, I swear. I mean, you called me angry and I... My grandmother, I mean... No, I know, I know. I honestly thought that something like that might have happened.

Just that whole little mini roller coaster. I also love him being like, the book is actually a composite of you and this other girl. Gretchen. Gretchen. That's great. Great stuff. I also like when she says, do you think I'm neurotic? Oh my God, you must think I'm so. And it's like, yeah, you're being neurotic right now. At the cafe is really good. Do I look any different, skinnier? Oh my God, I love that part. Okay, come on, tell me. Skinnier, I think. A little thinner. Skinnier.

Did you think I was fat before? No. Yeah, you thought I was a fatty. No, you thought I was a fatty. Yeah, you wrote a book about a fat French girl. No, listen. Seriously, all right? You look beautiful. Do I look any different? No. No, no, no. Oh, actually, you have this line. I know. It's like a scar. A scar?

You thought I was a little fat French girl? Wait. But most importantly, the cigarettes come out CR. We'll talk about it in a minute. Big moment for you. We get quotes like, desires the fuel of life. They're really cooking in the cafe. So good. Then we get to Celine pretends she doesn't remember having sex with him. Yeah. In lines like, I remember that night better than I remember entire years. What did you think of Jesse's...

Six months later, lottery winners are the same no matter what their plate is, whether they're paraplegics or

They revert back to where they were. Felt like when he dialed up. Felt like a bit? Sometime. Yeah. Sometime like, you know. Coming up later? Yeah. It's in the zone of, you know, how are there so many souls? Well, no, it just feels like another version of when he's like, you know, well, life's supposed to be hard. We have to suffer. How would we learn? It's like, you just know that this is what he's been telling himself since she didn't show up at the platform. It's amazing. We've become such perverts in the last nine years. Oh my God.

The boat ride. I don't know how the boat ride doesn't win most rewatchable scene, but it's not going to. Is it possible to have a bad on a boat going slowly down Paris scene?

I'm trying to think of any movie that could fuck this up. I think if you were doing it right when they were worried about the river being full of feces before the Olympics, you'd probably be like, this is harshing our mellow. But any other moment, this end is just pretty much... Pretty good. I just don't know a single movie that could fuck that up. It's like unfuckable, fuckuppable. It's also, for as much as this movie is so realistic and feels so actually a second-by-second document,

In my mind, when I close my eyes, if somebody's like, what's the perfect day in Paris? It's like the day they're having. Yeah, of course. And even though I know it was like super hot while they were filming...

It just looks like the platonic ideal of being in it. You just got to throw in like a corner crepe or two. Yeah. Again, not quite enough eating in this one. It's just a great way to experience the city, which is just to wander. To not be a tourist, but to just be somebody wandering into cafes, wandering into gardens, wandering onto a boat. It's an amazing way to experience Paris. How do you feel about Jesse's Notre Dame story?

prescient you know do you think that was a real story or was that another thing dipping into the routine I think it might have been something he heard at a bar closing time yeah that's a great one he would be an unreal podcaster Jesse he's got so many takes so many like apocryphal anecdotes can I pod with him he should be there yeah

You guys would have a good book pilot. Spread his legs for Jesse already. Jaws with Jesse? Yeah. Featuring Z. That'd be great. Put him on the Prestige TV pod. He would be good. He's just breaking down severance. Yeah. Then we get near the end of the boat. You want to know why I wrote that book? So good. All right, now I know for sure. You want to know why I wrote that stupid book?

so that you might come to a reading in Paris and I could walk up to you and ask, "Where the fuck were you?" No. You think I'd be here today? I'm serious. I think I... I wrote it in a way to try to find you. Okay, that's... I know that's not true, but that's sweet of you to say. I think it is true. What do you think the chances were of us ever meeting again? After that December, I'd say almost zero. But you're not real anyway, right? You're just characters in that old lady's dream. We also get the line,

I guess when you're young, you just believe there'll be many people with whom you'll connect with. Later in life, you realize it only happens a few times. Very painful to hear. I thought about this a lot, even set aside the romantic aspect of it, because there's a whole other way to think about the movie. It's just finding people that you make that connection with.

And when you get older, you really, or at least I do, really protect myself against that. You know, like I don't really like over invest in long-term relationships now because I think I also don't want to get hurt in the same way in addition to being lazy. And so you're like way less open. Yeah. No, for sure. When you're young, you're like,

it'd be great to get laid tonight. It'd be great to make a friend forever. It'd be great just to have fun. But as your life comes smaller, these opportunities, like they're kind of at a pretty significant pivot point here. Your early 30s is when that starts to go away. You know, when you're like, I've got my people. That's when your capacity in your nightclub starts going down.

getting cut down. You go from like a 350 person capacity to like 70. You wrote about this, I feel like. Yeah, when you hit your 40s, it turns, it's like a 25 person. It's like a invite only social club. Yeah, speak easy.

We also get, I feel like I'm running a small nursery with someone I used to date. Man. And if someone would touch me, I would dissolve into molecules. There's a lot of stuff going on. Plus the 11th and Broadway thing. Yeah. Revelation. Tough one. That one fucks me. Like that fucks me up. Even on my way to my wedding. Yeah. I thought I saw you. It basically is you might have seen me. I forgot like when she said she lived there from 90. Is this like when you saw Dana Wheeler Nicholson going to a deli in New York? Dana.

I thought it was you. Edie Falco asked me for a light outside a boat in Brooklyn in 2003. Then we get to the limo freak out when we find out what actually happened, that she was fine until she read his fucking book. Magical scene. You know, it's not even that. I was fine until I read your fucking book. It stirred shit up, you know?

It reminded me how genuinely romantic I was, how I had so much hope in things. And now it's like I don't believe in anything that relates to love. I don't feel things for people anymore. In a way, I put all my romanticism into that one night and I was never able to feel all this again. Like somehow this night took things away from me and I expressed them to you and you took them with you. It made me feel cold like if love wasn't for me. I don't believe that. I don't believe that.

I put all my romanticism into that one night and then you took it with you. Yeah. It's really playing all the hits for Mal. That seems incredible. Then he has the good joke, I'm happy to see you even if you become an angry manic depressive activist. A little comedy in there. Oh yeah, always. Really some great takes on an unhappy marriage where you're really for the full depth like, oh man, this guy. And when he says the thing about

He, it's all worth it because he doesn't want to give up one minute with the kid or whatever that line is. And it's like, yeah, there's a million people like that who are like, you know what? I'll suffer the rest of this because I don't want to miss anything with this child that I created. It's so sad because then he goes right into like, but there's no joy or laughter in my home. Yeah. It's like, I don't want to get to 52 and...

finally have to like admit that this was all a pretense and i don't love my spouse yeah very tough to hear very painful then she's like wait i'll get sadder than this after she almost touches his head but then he says that he's had sex 10 times in four years so it's like he's doing great put that thing away that's exhausting

Yeah, how do you not have 10 kids? The thing about this scene to me, which is my favorite scene in the movie by far, and I think is one of the most incredibly well-written scenes in movie history. And how long did they go for? It feels like eight or nine minutes. Yeah, it's like a...

At least nine. The thing that really hit for me this time when I was watching it is we actually do see a lot of scenes like this now in popular culture because everything is so therapized. And people are all about finding ways to talk about your feelings. But it's done using the language of therapy. This is a scene where people are really honestly talking about how they feel, their most vulnerable feelings in the world. Like you can, what they share together

is very, very intimate. But it has none of the casing of that language. This was traumatic. Exactly. All of those... I was triggered when you weren't there. All those buzzwords, all that like, I'm signaling to you my pain. It's none of that. It's like super fucking real. Yeah. And if you think about where these two actors were at in their real lives, you can feel them putting their lives into what they're saying. Well, we should mention that. He's getting divorced from Uma Thurman. What was going on with her?

Um, I think, I think that they were just raising young kids and that they were both working people and that they were falling out of love in a way. But what was it going on with Delpy? Oh, well, she's been married a couple of times now. She has had many boyfriends over the years. And I think because she was,

She was such an ingenue in Europe and such a kind of like desired woman because she had such fame in the movie culture that I think she always had a complicated relationship to the way that she was viewed versus how she viewed herself. And so like if you look at her career now, like she's directed eight movies. She's written a lot of those movies. Like she's...

She's more than what she was presented as basically when she was a teenager. Yeah. And was like kind of a lust object. Yeah. And so I think she is bringing all of those feelings into what she wrote in that sequence too. So it's just, it's very painful and very impactful but just feels very true. Yeah. The good thing about it

The good news is she's not a lust object anymore. And nobody was online last night looking for photos of her smoking to send to CR. I didn't do that at all. That's not in my Google history. And I did not respond with a ready-made photo album. That never happened. She's not a lust object. Called from the Google image search, Julie Delpy smoking. That never happened. There's no evidence that any of those moments happened. Yeah.

Was that on your air gap iPad that you use for all Delphi materials? That's the one where all my off the pike research happens there. She also says, I think I might've given up on the whole idea of romantic love. I might've put it to bed that day when you weren't there because she's like, how do I Trump this guy bearing his soul to me? I'm going to just say I'm dead inside. And that's where we land as we head to the last 15 minutes of the movie. We get a walk. We get the song.

Nina Simone, and we get, baby, you're going to miss this plane. Oh, yeah. Baby, you are going to miss that plane. I know. Yeah, man. So it's either between the limo or the end of the movie for me. I would go with the ending just because I think it's one of the best last 15 minutes of movie ever. And the song is just...

Especially the first time you see this movie, this song is just one of the breathtaking... When she sings to him. When she sings the Walt song. It's one of the great moments of this century in a movie. You meant for me much more than I've met One single night with you little Jesse Is worth a thousand with anybody I have no bitterness, my sweet

I'll never forget this one night. And she's so good at performing it. It's incredible. Just the lyrics and everything. The whole movie leads up to that moment and then it like crushes it. It's like a sports scene. Yeah. And...

Again, it's just something about it that feels so true. If you have never written a love song for somebody you then thought about and yearned for for nine years, you can't relate to that part of it. But the like, she's so embarrassed, right? She's so embarrassed. But she's also so good at it. That's the thing. Yeah, like it's a very natural continuation of the car scene because there's this like unburdening. Yeah. I'm not just singing this. I'm finally singing this to the person it was about. I would pick the car ride as the most rewatchable scene and the best scene, but the single best moment in the movie was...

Other than, I guess, on the bench when she's like, what do you think of the word pussy? He's like, I love it! That is his face when she says his name. Yeah. It is unbelievable. He, like, widens his eyes.

Yeah. She makes a lot of great facial gestures while she's singing where she's like rolling her eyes at herself. Yeah. She's trying to remember, but then she remembers perfectly her like anxiety about saying the word Jesse that is communicated only on her face. I mean, it's like a beautiful, it's mesmerizing. The last 20 minutes of the movie are just, it's, they hold you. It's the limo scene. Like it, the, her reaching out to him and not touching him.

I was like, this is like when Christian Laettner hit the shot to beat Kentucky. And the crowd is going wild, but Thomas Hill is sobbing. That's me. I'm both in the crowd, freaking out, but also like walking around crying. Like, to me, the way that they... Because you think about that, that's almost like...

Do they do coverage? I think it's mostly an uninterrupted shot. No, it's uninterrupted. There's no cut. I don't think there's a cut. So just even for her to time it so that she goes for his head, I don't even know if that was like improv or what. Because she, like about 10 seconds before she starts to do it, but he turns. So she's like...

I was like, that to me is harder than like the fucking liquid Terminator in TT. Also, to act in a limo is just like bizarre. It's tight. They're moving around. Yeah, you got Philippe up there. Who knows what's going on with that guy. My guy Philippe. I can't get out of my head since the moment I saw it. You go by and you go by and you go by and you go by.

And the way that he delivers that story about the dream is so... That's the last second he sees her is her going by on the train. It's a cop-out, but the answer is everything from the boat on. But then if you go everything from the limo on. But if this movie's on, it's like, oh, they're in the limo? I'm going to watch this. And it's so achievable. It's 78 minutes of movie that you can just get through. I would pick The Waltz as the single most for me. What's the most 2004 thing about this movie? What do you have? Celine's Freedom Fries joke. Mm.

Great one. Really good one. Globalism takes. That's a good one. That's a very topical one. Good one. I was going to say no Facebook and how easy if it's two years later, they're hunting each other down. Yeah. Yeah. The fact. Yeah. I have some questions about why they couldn't have hunted themselves down in 2004. We had enough technology at that point.

We'd email, we'd Google. Does he even know her last name? No, but she knows his now because of the book. Because of the book. That's the thing. Well, he also, didn't he say, he must have known her last name. They must have exchanged full names. Because how would she have stumbled upon the book? You know what her last name was? Smoke Show. Yeah.

No, I don't know. Can someone translate that for us into French? What's aged the best? What do you got, Mallory? For what's aged the best? I mean, everything, literally everything. Obviously, the two leads and their chemistry and their involvement in imbuing their own experiences into the story. I think for me, it's...

Like both the way that the movie is shot as a real time. We've got this 80 minute block until you're supposed to catch your flight, but also just in general, like Linklater's interest in time, his fascination with time. This trilogy, Boyhood is one of my favorite movies. I absolutely love that movie. He's now attempting to do this with Merrily We Roll Along. Like he's just obsessed with time and the way that they talk about time. And I love like Jesse at the book event at the opening and,

when he's quoting Thomas Wolfe and saying, you know, we're all the sum of the moments of our lives. Like, each movie being a day, a part of a day, set nine years apart. It could have been ten, but it's not. Like, why is it nine instead of ten? It's just these little touches. Because they got the funding. Yeah. I mean, it's just...

I love that part of it. And then the way that the time travel is in every movie in some way. You know, like when Jesse's pitching his next book, talking about the pop song and porting across time with this link in your life. And obviously the time traveler is a character. Yeah.

Who he invokes in the first film and, you know, won't spoil the return of the time traveler in the third movie, but plays a very crucial role, the idea of time travel in the third movie. So I just love the way they talk about time and the way that the movie engages with time and how it's made. I think my other big age the best is just the restraint. Like, they don't kiss in this movie. Forget fucking.

The only time we see them kiss is in the flashback footage from Sunrise. And the hug, because of that, when she says, I want to try something and hugs him goodbye, like, I just want to sob watching it. But when she's doing her little Nina Simone dance, it's like one of the sexiest scenes in movie history. Despite the fact that they're not, they're 10 feet away. Exactly. It's all about the longing. Yeah.

Yeah, Benny? A lot of the callbacks to Sunrise, like walking through the cemetery. She says, I think when she's like, do I look like the way you remember me? He's like, I had a pretty clear picture of you because he took the mental picture of her before they leave. Celine talking about having a 13-year-old's perspective. That was Jesse's bit in the first movie. And then another, what's aged the best was Celine almost calling Notre Dame burning down.

Because she's like, Notre Dame will be gone one day. Almost. Almost was. Very sad. Wow. That's a really good one. It's a sad one, but it's a good one. I had how they're talking about

serious early 30s stuff as small talk whereas when they were in their 20s they wouldn't have done that they would have just been like oh vienna and you do like that idealistic but it's a little bit of a crutch because they're afraid to talk about what they really want to talk about so it's like it's work it's like oh the world these platitudes like you guys are such a great job yeah yeah it seems like a little bit fake a little bit forced that's early early 30s yeah yeah um

This is a really good one. I'm surprised. Uh, wanting you to mention it, the living in New York at the same time with somebody else and not realizing they were there. Yeah. That's like a big city thing. Yeah. Yossi who we work with. We live in New York at the same time. We're going to the same bars and the same shows across the street, literally across a building, a apartment building across the street from Ben Lindbergh before I knew him. True. Even being alone, it's better than sitting next to your lover and feeling lonely.

call back to Neil McCauley. I'm not lonely. I'm alone. Definitely. What was going through everybody's mind at that time. They were channeling Neil. Can I just shout out one thing that's aged the best? It's probably the hottest anyone's ever looked is when Delpy's on the boat

On the set, the wind blows her blouse up for a second. The little peak of the... Side waist. And then that comes back when she's dancing. The split in the back of her shirt. Makes me want to do Bill Simmons, Celtics drafted James Young. It's perfect because they're always talking about little body parts. Like when he mentions the dream, he's like, I touched your ankle. And your skin was so soft. She's like, you've got this line right here. It's like a scar. The red in your beard. It's these little pieces of each other.

I would suffer all the torture to be there for all the minutes of his life was the divorce quote. That's just a good quote. Wow. I wonder if that will have a bearing on the third film in the trilogy. Middle finger tricks. Yeah. Always been a sucker for those. Yeah, it's good. And I don't really like cats, but good performance by the cat.

I've got some thoughts. You're not a cat guy. I thought it was just more of like you didn't mind them, but it was just you have dogs. I'm a dog guy. I feel like you have to choose. You don't have to choose. There's enough room in your heart to love all animals. I think also the primacy of bookstores and of the international book tour. Yeah.

These are not as common, these things. I'm going to say they weren't common in 2004. Got some questions about that. Oh, okay. Interesting. So this book, not enough of a success to justify? I think this would have been a monster book. We can talk about that. That's like literally my only pick in the end of the movie. This book is not about the NBA, though, mind you. This is a story that can be translated across time. He said it's a bestseller. A minor bestseller. Minor, minor. So that means like New York Times extended list. It's like number 22. Yeah.

I just don't think he's getting a European book tour. Yeah. It's like the only picking it on the entire movie. What if he's big in France? Like we do have American artists who don't translate. But there's more journalists there than there are fans. And he says it's 10 cities in 12 days. What's the big newspaper in Paris? Le Monde.

The Lamond editor's like, hey, who do we have going down to the bookstore? Jesse Wallace. No, no, that's not enough. He's number 24 on the extended bestseller list. I need one person who believes in cynicism. Well, there's a fire downtown. Don't we want someone to cover that? No, no, we need to be at the bookstore. Great shot, Gorder Award. Most cinematic shot. What do you got, C.R.? There is a moment on the boat ride on the Seine where he's

He's facing the camera, but he's looking at her. She's looking out off the boat, and the sun is illuminating her hair. It's like a halo. I don't know how they did that, how they caught it, how that happened. He said that they only shot at the same time of day every day. Yeah, they have continuity. Which is crazy then when you consider it was only a 15-day shoot. They had to fucking nail everything. You get the impression this was a very difficult movie to make despite how modest it is.

I actually like the very, very ending for most cinematic shot that she's dancing and turning and it just, the way it fades out is really well done. Yeah. I like that. You don't know if the movie's done yet and then it's like, no, no, not only we're done, we're going to fade out. One thing I, one scene that I love is when they're showing up to her apartment for the first time and they're walking in and the woman comes out of the doorway, which is her real life mother, and she's like,

And the camera turns. And for one of the only times in the whole movie, the camera is not on one of them. And it's on the courtyard. And you see that there's this meal, this sort of barbecue that's happening. And her real-life father is there cooking. And it is a five-second snapshot of what it would be like to live here. And you just understand everything immediately. And it's like incredible storytelling. You can see Tony Parker and Boris Diaw in the background. But that's like...

He never takes us away from them except for that one moment. Yeah, that's interesting. You're right. It's a weird but a cool choice that they make. Kid Cudi, Pursuit of Happiness, or Best Needle Drop has got to be the Nina Simone song because it's the only needle drop. But inspired by your speculation in the last pod about 94 songs or 95 songs that they could have picked, it is really funny to imagine Jesse putting Drop It Like It's Hot by Snoop on.

You heard this? Neptune's produced this. These guys are great. They're doing amazing stuff with hip hop production now. Oh my God. Then I really would have voted to Jesse. But don't you think then, Celine's like, cool, get in your fucking limo. Right.

Den of Thieves, Benny Hanna Award, scene still in location. We don't always give this one out, but I really liked her apartment complex. Just that whole building, everything was beautiful. It was great. When they're driving in, he's like, you live here? He's so blown away by how beautiful it is. We don't get to give this one out either that much. The Miley Rubin Award. Did this movie need a better sex scene? No, it's the rare, possibly only, maybe I've said once before, no. I think no. It's perfect. The fact that you are experiencing the same desperate desire. It's the Sandlot need a better sex scene? No.

I don't know if that category made it into the Sandlot pod. Yeah, I don't think I snuck it in. Oh, man. Yeah, you have to be in the same place as viewers that they are. You're just like consumed by your need. And then you leave and you wonder. We'll take a break and then CR is going to do his flex category. Oh, my God.

All right, see our flex category. What do you got for us? The Sean Penn I Brought My Own Pack Award for Excellence in On-Scene Smoking goes to Julie Delpy. Hell yeah. Oh. At the LaPure Cafe. I feel like she didn't smoke enough. Well, nobody smokes enough in these movies, but knowing that Julie Delpy, there's a not-so-long-ago Guardian profile of her that opens with, Julie Delpy is smoking. She is constantly smoking. Yeah.

Yeah, I have it here. Julie Delpy smokes and smokes. She smokes so much she should consider wearing ashtrays as trinkets. It's the first two. Your dream woman. Honestly, pornography, yeah.

No, I love also that he gets so excited that she's smoking, has a drag, gets his own, lights it off of hers. True smoker behavior. Respect. Wonderful. I'm still upset that they didn't smoke in the first movie. That's fine. The Butch's girlfriend award, Wink Leak in the film. I mentioned this earlier. I just felt like they could have done a slightly better job of trying to find each other.

If this was the true love of your life and you've never been the same since it didn't work out that day, I just feel like by 2004, you could maybe hunt the person down. You get the impression that she didn't go the extra mile. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. She's pretty busy. She was in New Delhi.

You know, it's like all-consuming. Pretty bitchy. She was in New York for four years. She was in the United States of America for four years. Yeah. But didn't know his last name at that point. We had AOL at that time. Yeah. How many Jesses are in Texas? I just feel like she would have known his last name by the end of spending 20 hours together in Vienna. What is his last name? Wallace. Wallace.

What's aged the worst? I really have nothing other than I wanted Delpy to take a couple more puffs from the cigarette. She might say it, she takes one, and then really doesn't smoke it anymore. I'm not sure to be a dick, but can we just talk this out? Can we have the meeting? Jesse's second novel idea is not good. Oh, yeah. The pop song one? That idea was...

Hmm. That was like a bad podcast pitch. I liked it. And yet what he says. Zag for me. Fits very well into my flex category. Okay. Oh, we can do that right now. So my flex category is a three-way tie. It's the Dracula, the musical award for best imitation of real art. Yeah. The three things that are tied are Celine song, a waltz for a night. Yeah.

The cover of Jesse's book, which is called This Time, which looks like a real novel that you would have seen at Barnes & Noble in 2004. And the third is the answers that he gives during his impromptu press conference after his, and including...

his quote-unquote reluctance to share what he's going to say for his next novel, and then immediately reveals it in full to French journalists at the end of his book tour. And the idea is super flawed and kind of stupid, and yet the way that Ethan Hawke has an amazing ability to do in being interviewed imbues it with so much...

quote unquote meaning that you're like, I might read that book. It's a pre-order for me. No doubt. Absolutely no doubt. Like if I remember correctly, he's like,

his daughter who is talking to him reminds him of the girl he loses his virginity to. That part is a little weird. In the proud tradition of I'm an old woman and you're a 13 year old boy, there is a little bit of oddness to it. But this is again like a through line for Jesse. You guys talked about like, did Jesse invent YouTube and live streaming like the 24 hour program idea? Then he has this pitch for the, the whole book takes place in the span of a pop song across time. It was,

You know, without getting into any of the particulars about where we find them in Before Midnight. There's like a seven-minute scene where he's ripping off, here's what my next book is going to be about. And everybody has their own. And the other guy's just like, this idea doesn't make sense. And even the way you are describing it is clearly not accurate. And Jesse's like, here's why it's great. And I'm like, I side with Jesse. This is just his thing. It's sophomore slump. That's what I'm saying. Is Jesse...

a great artist or is he the future inventor of meta? Like he, a lot of his ideas are like kind of where we are with technology. A lot of the time they're much less having to do with creativity. Yeah.

What if I could just pay somebody? I didn't like the second novel idea. I had it in picking nits that he would just volunteer to these strangers. Yeah. Workshopping it. It was probably my biggest nitpick in the movie because if you have an idea, the last thing you want to do is be like, what do you guys think? Because then somebody else could just write it and take it. Yeah, you never do it. That one French journalist who was being kind of a hard-o who was like, there's no way they got back together. Yeah.

He's just like, I will write the pop song novel about this lazy American. He was kind of the woe John LeBron circa 2012. Before anyone could just tweet about it. So that's helpful. Does anyone have a CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford had a stake award? I do. Okay, let's hear it, CR. Uh...

Jesse kind of fucks over his wife and Selene fucks over her war photojournalist boyfriend who's probably in a war zone when she decides to get back together with this guy. I don't know. Last night I was rewatching this and I asked Adam what he's movie is and my husband said to me, we had a very like sensible measured conversation. He's like, it's probably like try to find your first love again. And I was like, yeah, is it like it's like okay to cheat on your spouse?

I mean, just to say, if you could make... I'm married to my first love. Before sunset, from the perspective of Jesse's wife, who's home with a five-year-old boy, waiting for him to get back from this lark of a book tour for his kind of bestseller novel, when she knows this second novel is not going to take off because it's a stupid idea.

And she's like, okay, when you get back, you have to take the kid for like a week. And then it's like, yeah, hey, when does he make the phone call? It'd be like, crazy thing happened. Missed the flight, but I'll jump on one in a couple of days. I think when your sex PER is under three, all bets are off.

That should be part of the Prime Video's Amazon X-ray feature is that you can see the sex PER for every character on screen at any given time. That would be great. That would give a lot of depth. I was also thinking like in Midnight, he wants to move to Chicago to be closer to the sun. So I don't know if they're living in Chicago at the time. He thinks he wants that.

Okay. We're not supposed to talk about the third movie. I'm just saying there is a possibility that while Jesse's on his European tour, his wife's banging Kirk Heinrich. Yeah. They're not in a good place.

They're not in a good place. But they're in New York at that time. They're not in Chicago yet. Is there a deleted scene where Jesse's wife is just angrily stalking around in the airport because he has his plane? He wasn't on the plane? Or hysterical, like, where is he? I mean, I think this is a completely valid point. That is one of the things about the movie that it makes you complicit and kind of rooting for them to commit adultery. But you were very swept up in... Yeah, both things are true, right? You want to see them together and also...

he's clearly destroying Henry's life and his psyche for the rest of his life. All of that will be dealt with in the third film, right? In a way that is very, very hope. What's your hottest take? All right, here's my hottest take. We haven't talked enough, obviously, about Che the Cat, but it's time. And my take, I honestly don't know this is very hot. This is a tepid take. Selene, who I love and is a very important character to me,

Terrible cat mom. Terrible cat mom. She is so boastful about the fact that she just deposits every morning this beautiful creature in the mean streets of Paris to fend for himself in the 100 degree weather. No. Terrible. No, that's a hot take.

But I mean, cats are animals. Yeah. Who would just kill rodents and different things. Bring a dead rat back into your living room and be like, look, mom. My cat sleeps in my arms in bed. Your cat's like 15. He's doing great. He's thriving. Watch it. Careful. That cat's going to live forever. Careful. There is a line. You can make fun of Mark Andrews. We've never heard it yet. Don't talk about my cat. There is a line.

I texted this and I think I believe it. I think the car ride scene is, I don't know if it's the best scene of the 2000s, but it's the scene that makes me feel the most kind of a

electrified when I'm watching it and it's on a list with two other scenes that I can think of right off the top of my head which is one the truck flipping over in the dark night where I was like oh my god like this is so exciting and crazy when that happened for the first time then the other one is yo homie is that my briefcase from collateral when Tom Cruise shoots those two guys in the street and I was like what the fuck like holy cow and I was so like just pumped up and excited and this movie is

That scene does the same thing in a different way, obviously, but where you just can feel everything inside your body when it's happening. You're thinking really hard and you're feeling really deeply at the same time. So you're saying that should get the, okay, motherfucker, award for when the movie goes up and down? I think so, yeah. Yeah, I think so. Casting with Ips, there are none.

Best that guy award, there are none. Victor Dobchev, is that his name? The guy who's Jesse's French handler. I had him in the Deanne Waiters. Stealth, stealth, stealth, that guy. I'm just stealthing it up. I had him in Waiters as well. Yeah, he was my Waiters. 730 at the very latest. Deanne Waiters award, the press tour questionnaire, the limo driver who looks like Larry Zbysko. What do you got?

My Dan Waiters is the guy Chris just talked about. Yeah, I think it's the bookstore manager. Philippe doesn't really do anything. No. He just kind of nods. Yeah.

Probably could have been drawn out a little more. Yeah. Post script editing. It's unclear what, if he understands anything Jesse says. Well, it's also, it's like, does Philippe get paid either way or is his job to get Jesse to the airport? Otherwise he's assassinated at the end of the day. Right after the fade out, they're about to do the deed and Philippe's like, Mr. Jesse, you're going to be late. Recasting couch director of City. I mean, we can run this back in Boston.

Jesse's book tour in Boston. I'll just say that the idea of Jesse and Celine being in New York at the same time is very intoxicating. And like that idea of like, what if like,

He's on, I mean, even if you want to get crazy, on his way to his wedding and he sees her and they have like an hour long conversation. Oh, that's like a prequel, postquel. I think even though it's like very appropriate that this takes place in her home city, it makes sense that that would be where they discovered each other again. I really do like the idea of it being in New York because it lends then even more heft to the which continent should we build our lives in question. Yeah.

that will do largely if we had actually seen them for however briefly in the States together, we would have had that measuring stick. And we still have not seen them in the States together. Right. You didn't give Celine the ED Falco and Copland award as well for the character that became three times hotter as soon as they had a cigarette. It's not even three times hotter. She's already like non-smoking heavyweight champion of the world. Half-assed internet research. Originally Linklater considered, uh,

A larger budget with four locations could not get the funding. So they scaled it back. What would that have been like? I don't really even understand that. It just feels like it completely betrays the whole point of the first two movies to be like a bigger budget. I just didn't get it either. They filmed it in Paris, obviously. Shakespeare and Company is the bookstore. It's on the left bank. Yeah, I've been. The Puree Cafe.

The promenade plantee part. Can I just tell you one thing about Le Purée Cafe? It is 45 minutes walk from Shakespeare. Yeah. So it's a little bit of a movie magic going on. There's some other French stuff that I'm not going to try to say the names, including her apartment, which was filmed in Cours des Tours. You guys have your social clip. You said you weren't going to say it. It was one of the hottest summers on record, 100 degree weather during the filming.

And then the man and woman that Celine speaks to in the courtyard were her actual parents. Yep. You can see a review of Jessie's book. Yes. Next to the picture where she looks like a cross-eyed baby. That would have been my, like, this time capsule, you know, best, like, 2003 thing about it. Still clipping out, like, things from a newspaper or magazine and taping them to your wall. The CD is Tomato Collection by Nina Simone, which weirdly was recorded on June 16th, 1968. Oh. Yeah.

Apex Mountain Hawk. Can I just say one more internet research thing? Yeah. I'm sorry. The guy who jogs past them when they're sitting in the park, there's a guy who runs past them. He's wearing a Horace Pinker t-shirt, which is an early 90s pop punk band from Arizona. Which is very Linklater to do that, I think. And very CR. Also, they apparently were writing the final scene, the Celine's apartment scene, at 3 a.m. the night before. They were still working on it. Wow. Yeah.

Apex Mountain. We already did Hawk and Delpy. I think this is it for Delpy. Probably. Yeah. Gets Academy Award nominated. This movie is a beloved classic. Paris? Nope. No. Paris in movies? No. What is it? Ratatouille. No. Amelie? Not for me. Not an Amelie guy. Midnight in Paris? Breathless? Yeah. American in Paris? Any number of Godard films. It's a pretty long list. Yeah.

Sequels, no. Romantic sequels. Might be. Maybe. Romantic sequels. It's a short list. Yeah. Mamma Mia 2. What else is on that list? Penitentiary 2. I'll get back to you when they make a sequel to Past Lives. Do you guys think it's Apex Mountain for film endings? Oh, holy shit. It's a huge question. I have Casablanca. Not ready to answer that. It's an inverted Casablanca. There will be blood.

Godfather. Rocky II. Shawshank. Did you say Rocky II? Yeah. The Suicide Squad. I think for me it's probably Shawshank still. Or The Shining. Movies set in one day? There are a lot. Draft Day? Yeah, Draft Day.

Bueller. This is a good movie set in one day. Yeah. It's definitely on the list. It's supposed to be real time. I forget. Is it supposed to be 78 minutes? About. Yeah. He's saying it's like an 80 minutes between. There is some cutting where we don't actually watch them do every single move out of the cafe into the cafe. I don't know if this is Nina Simone's Apex Mountain. It's not. But you could make a case because this movie will live on for like 100 years in a weird way. She was a world famous star at the time. No, I get it. I'm just saying.

What is her Apex Mountain? Maybe it's her... Feeling good, probably. Her posthumous Apex Mountain? Yeah. Could be her posthumous Apex Mountain. Yeah, I think that's a good answer. There's a great documentary about her. There's a very bad biopic about her starring Zoe Saldana. Paris bookstores. Paris boat rides. And love. Those are my last three. I was going to say, is this the best movie couple? Is this Apex Mountain for love? Apex Mountain for love. For couples.

It takes them out for movie couples. I think so. Yes.

Wow. You live their lives with them. Alvy and Annie. Yo, come on. Yeah, what other woodman characters you got on the list? I think if you apply it to the whole trilogy. The two of you are full of shit. Where would you put Manhattan? Oh, CR, you're really off the reservation there. I guess this is the last rewatch of us.

I was trying to think like Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan. These two are way better to me. Yeah, that's what I'm just trying to think of famous couples in a movie. Yeah, I think there's obviously a lot of... Oh, I know it. It's De Niro and Fonda. Jackie Brown. So number two. There's a lot of movies from the 40s that...

Yeah. Obviously in the conversation. Yeah. I get it. I know. I'm just, I'm just, my story was referenced in their first film, you know, and if fair to remember, that's the one that jumps to mind, you know, Casablanca is a huge one. Cruiser Hanks. Can you weigh in on Cruiser Hanks? So I, I don't think there's a, uh, I enjoyed your discussion. I don't think there's a place for, for either of them in this film, unless we got that. That's not the point of Cruiser Hanks. Alternate four city version. Yeah.

There aren't other characters in the movie. What if they just recast Jesse with Cruz but didn't acknowledge him? It's not something that we can consider. It doesn't matter. Cruz or Hanks in the Jesse part. Pick. Yo, homie, is that my Celine? I would go with Cruz. All right, so Cruz wins. Cruz wins twice, Craig. Yeah. It all takes place over a random pop song. You go buy! You go buy! You go buy!

I would dissolve into molecules. I've had sex 10 times. Scorsese or Spielberg? What do you have, Mal? It's got to be Spielberg. I don't think you can consider Scorsese for the trilogy until Before Midnight. I considered it. Scorsese. Karen! Scorsese for Before Midnight is very true. That was the only second novel idea I had!

What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played? This category is really growing on me. It's got to be Philippe. Philippe the limo driver. How's the cheating, Jesse? How's the cheating?

So I have a little special mailbag interlude from Courtney C. Yeah. Who writes, the Rewatchables mailbag episode was fantastic. Thank you, Courtney. I was thinking about that email that suggested a female counterpart category to the Cruz versus Hanks category. Yeah. How about this? Pick a Jennifer.

Would the lead female role be better with Jennifer Aniston, Lawrence, Lopez, Connelly, Garner, or Coolidge? Oh, Connelly, Jennifer Connelly. Jennifer Roulette. Oh my God. I didn't hear Love Hewitt in there. Then she writes, P.S. I love the podcast.

Whenever you get together with CR, it always feels like I'm hanging out with the guys I grew up with. Keep up the great work. Wow, thanks, Courtney. Thanks for making us feel great. We must have had some cool friends. So Jennifer Love Hewitt could be in there too. Could Jenna Ortega be squeezed in? Oh, wow. Jenna Ortega? Jenna Ortega. No, Jenna's done count. She hasn't earned it. Not yet. She's not there. But Jennifer Love Hewitt, I think, could be in there. What about Jennifer Jason Leigh?

Jennifer Jason Leigh could be in there. What about screen icon Jennifer Jones? Think of all the great Jennifers. What about Jennifer Flowers? Yours favorite. So all Jennifers are open? Do you like this category?

All Jennifer. Any Jennifer. All Jennifer's are open sounds like the porn title for this movie. I like this one. So who would be the Jennifer for this movie? I can't conceive of this character not being French. So until you give me an alternative French accent. How about Jennifer Connelly with a French accent? Yeah, sure. Okay.

I mean, who says no, honestly? Yeah. The Dan Campbell scale for holy shit, are they really going for this right now? The waltz. Yeah. Oh, she's going to play it? Oh! Yeah. All right, Mallory, it's time. Your flex category. Okay, I'm going to do, did this movie have a porn parody? Oh. And...

Are you surprised? No, I didn't know where you were going. You were working on these a little earlier. Go ahead. So I don't actually know the answer to the question. I assume it's no. I didn't want to Google that on my work computer. But I think we should discuss if it could have been. You just started doing this a few moments ago very organically, Chris. I would like to nominate as the title Before Cum Set.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We talked about this. I was like, we forgot to say before cum rise. Yeah. And this is before cum set. The days and days and days of fucking. It's before cum shot. You're being a little bit direct, aren't you? Before cum rise and before cum set is pretty good. What is cum set? What do you mean? It's like the crusty, befouled surfaces of the apartment after they close the blinds and they fuck for 10 days and sweet little Che has to like just...

Why do you wait for secretions to get to his food bowl? I'm just going to look it up. Craig's going to take the safari cachet hit. I like when Mal, when we do movies with pets, Mal always remembers the pet's name. Yeah, sure. What does it mean? In Argentinian, it means hope, I believe. Is that what she said? Yeah, because Jesse's like, you're a commie. Yeah.

Bit of a hard line. It's kind of right wing, Jesse. Or is he just... He's very undermining of a lot of her left-leaning ideas. 9-11 had a big impact on him. Yeah. You know? It radicalized him? I don't know. Jesse dedicated this time to Donald Rumsfeld.

Did Jesse start in the Capitol on January 6th? Huge Wolfowitz guy, Jesse. He loves the Department of Defense. I have to protect the green zone. We did all my picking nits. Actually, and then the 47-minute walk.

There's one where the extra in the red shirt is about to walk by them and then doesn't walk by them when they flip camera angles for like 10 seconds. That's just like a fuck up. Do better. We hit everything else. You don't have anything to pick, right? Mine was the 45 minute walk is actually, it's like eight minutes in the movie. It's actually 45 minutes. Sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all black cast are untouchable. This became a trilogy. Mm-hmm.

Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson, Nell, Byron Mayo, Barney Cousins, Tony Romo, Harling Mays, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Longlegs, or Wilford Brimley in the firm? CR? I was thinking about how funny it would be as Jesse sees Celine. It's the culmination of this nine-year wait. And then Wayne Jenkins walks up to him and he goes, God damn, Jesse! Hey, man, that's some great fucking auto fiction, dawg!

I didn't know I was here with Super Novelist and a motherfucking bestseller spot. You better get back to your wife and kid or your royalties are going to come alimony for a long fucking time. I was hoping you'd do it. Incredible. You think Wayne spends a lot of time in Paris? Yeah. Yeah. Really cultured guy. Loves to travel. You're not doing Romo?

Jimmy's going to miss that plane. Yeah. It's a 10, 10 flight. Jim. It's going to lose that commission. After nine 11, it takes a ton of time to get through security. Jim. I actually was thinking Collinsworth would be pretty good for this. Yeah. Like, Oh my, she just nailed the waltz. Mike. I mean, you can't, she didn't even remember the lyrics that she was nailing it. Mike. Oh,

Just want to ask her who gets it. Delpy. I think so. I like that. Here's the argument. It's Linklater for Sunrise, Delpy for Sunset, Hawk for Midnight. And they each get one. If the world were just. Hawk's performance in Midnight is unrivaled.

Probably unanswerable questions. When did he actually get on the plane? How many days passed? So do you think he calls her and is like, I'm not coming back because I'm going to have 10 days of sex with Celine? No, I think he waits to share the lie. I think we're in the lying stage. He goes back a day or two later. No, he's there for days and days and days. I'm meeting with the book company here about the second book. Yeah, they extended the tour. It's some lie. Then he goes home and he's like, I...

have had an incredible amount of sex with the love of my life. We're done. Hey, they're running a fucking nursery. Yeah. We're done. We're done. That's a wrap. What do you think?

I think they probably have a sort of illicit affair over time and he doesn't go back right away and break it off immediately. And they try to figure... Oh, I disagree. I think he stays three extra days and then tells his wife when he gets home. He's like, I'm packing. Guess what? Hank's going to camp in France. Yeah. They get into all that. I think maybe just my affection for Hank. You know, I want to believe.

Hank's collateral damage in the love affair of a lifetime. Hank will be fine. He's got a cool new stepmom. Yeah. Yeah. Hank got pardoned. That's definitely what Before Midnight is telling us. Hank got pardoned from January 6th. He's fine.

He's doing good. He internalized all of his father's ideas. Any other unanswerable questions for you all? I have a couple. I have a couple as well. All right, let's hear it. You think Hawk wrote in all the stuff about Jesse being a stick man, like in terms of like his lasting sexual impact on Selene's life? Oh, that he added that? I was like, why don't you say this? Yeah. Those were his contributions to the script. And, um,

I mean, what do you think Philippe's thinking this whole time? This is one of my huge ones. I think he's just stoned. Do you think he understands English at all? I wonder that many times. Because there is actually, it's sort of like a little disturbing when like this woman is in the back of his car begging to let her out. She's speaking French, obviously. But like, yeah, how long does he wait? Like you said, before he goes and...

pursues Jesse and tries to figure out if he's going to be able to fulfill his mission. A lot of Philippe questions here. I will say in the grand scheme of things, like the fuck you let me out of the car is like one of the hardest things to navigate when you're driving, whether you're being driven or driving. If somebody's just like, I'm getting out and you're like, we're on fucking La Brea, where are you going? But he didn't say that. He was like, the man said, no, I'm going to keep going. Yeah. They're only stopping if you're like, I'm going to throw up.

Then they'll fucking stop. Then Philippe stops. Philippe stops for that one. How do you guys think the song about Che the Cat went? We know that that's one of the three English songs. One is about an ex, an ex-ex. I had a question. I don't know an answerable for that, whether she was singing the waltz regardless of which one he picked.

Because the choices she gave were like pretty lame choices. I think that that's on purpose. I think that she gave him those choices so that he would pick the Waltz. That's what I'm saying. And she offers it up last. Because who would have been like, oh, let me hear the song about your cat. That sounds fucking awesome. And we certainly wouldn't want to hear the song about the ex. No, of course not. But the song about the cat would have been great. The only thing for the ex, she's like the ex-ex would be like, is that about me? Maybe I'll pick that one. Possibly. Possibly. But we know she's had many men.

Many men. Many. Pieces of herself were handed out all over Paris and New York. Nope. She takes her health very seriously. Remember?

That was part of her lie about, I mean, that part was probably true, but when she's lying about remembering having sex, she's like, I take my health very seriously. Unanswerable question. Jesse, you think he's a BookTok star today? You think he'd just be crushing it on BookTok, writing romance novels? I mean, he's a 60-year-old man, so he'd be super creepy. Probably not. I think Jesse would be huge on BookTok today, and I wish he had gotten to live in this time. I have probably an answerable question. What's BookTok? BookTok?

Oh, boy. It's answerable, I assure you. BookTok is a subset of TikTok that is about books. I figured I could tell. I'm not on TikTok. It's big for romanticism in particular. And as you know, Jesse writes romance novels and likes to incorporate some fantasy elements into his stories. You know why I'm not on TikTok? Because I'm going to be like Will Smith and I am legend. I'll be the only one left after the Chinese take everything from TikTok. It'll just be me.

They'll not have my info. But it was out of bounds for me to like Andy Hall, though. Oh, man. The floor is yours, for the woodman. Do you guys think that Jesse insisted on Paris being the last stop on the book tour? We all agree that it's a picking nit that he would have a European tour. I like that. But was he like, Paris has to be last place?

Do you think Jesse's in any position to make such demands? I need some press with the press. He somehow got a 10-city European tour, so maybe. Wouldn't you argue that the opposite would be the way to go, though? That he should start in Paris so that she could join him if they hit it off? She's definitely wounded when he's like, yeah, I was here last night. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe he wasn't fully strategizing for this because he'd already had his heart broken so badly.

And the book was published and was reviewed and she never tracked him down. So, okay, let's build on this and it gets to the questions you were asking earlier, another unanswerable, if he had not had a stop in Paris. Because she says, I saw the event. This is my favorite bookstore. I come here, I saw your face, I saw the event. Easy enough to go. But she also says, I read about your book. Yes. Seemed vaguely, strangely familiar. She read the book, she read it twice. The French covering this time breathlessly. In raptured.

If he had not come to Paris, would she then have gone to find him? Because she knows for sure who he is, where he is. She's been reading about him, reading about the book. I think no, too. I think she's too scooped out at this point. She's pretty beaten down in this movie. Yeah, she's in the Neil McCauley range. Why are you so interested in what I do, lady? You've really got Neil on the brain, I feel like. I've been studying lately. The scouts are out.

It's senior bull time. It's coming up. Boy, you see Sizemore running the 40? Like what I'm seeing from him. I have some real questions about whether she would ever know the book came out in 2004. She's got a little clipping.

That means she's reading the newspaper from cover to cover. Does she seem like an I read the newspaper? People did do that in 2004. Okay, let me ask you a question. There's a world where she just never knows the book came out. Thank you. You'll answer.

You had a crush on a girl in high school. Okay. You hadn't thought about her in 10 years. We had Facebook in 2008. Did you ever just pop that name into the search bar? Sure. But they didn't have Facebook enough for her. This is the equivalent of that. But this is the equivalent of that. But it hinges on that she had to see that this book was coming out with this guy, Jesse Wallace. But was she- She had to know that's the Jesse Wallace, so why didn't she look him up? Is it possible that she hasn't fully revealed how closely she's been tracking him? Yeah.

Oh, she's stealth like been monitoring it. And maybe some time had passed and she hadn't thought about him as much, but she got lonely or she got, she turned 30 and was like, oh my God, am I not actually where I want to be? Once Google got better, she Googled him, found out he was married and decided to...

Maybe she knew he was married the whole time. But what did she Google? Jesse Texas? She could have just written his publisher and been like, I was just looking for Jesse. Incidentally, I'm the woman in this book. This is the thing. They didn't exchange phone numbers. They don't actually know that much about each other. The last name is important. We don't know if they exchanged last names. That would be crucial. I don't think they did. You say no. Okay. I think that's crazy that they wouldn't have exchanged last names.

When they're 20 hours together. I have another question because we couldn't answer this in the first one because we didn't know if they had sex or not, but they did. Yeah, twice. Way to go, Jesse. Jesse put all his stuff in a locker. Mm-hmm.

Did they have condoms? Yes. 1994. They talk about it in the story. He says he remembers the brand of the condom. Yeah. Oh, you're right. Has him in his wallet. Has him in his pocket. Stopped to pick them up. As soon as they leave the bar, he's like, you already gave me a free bottle of wine. Give me some condoms. He got them. Condoms in the wallet era. Is that era over? What do you mean? It's a dark era. You don't know about this? What's each the best? Lambskin. Just in case.

You had an exciting night with a big opportunity. You always kept one in the wallet, but that was not a good idea. I'm saying the condom's in the era for when you're single and that's part of your... The question is really like, what condom was Jesse carrying? But they told us not to do that. Why? Because it would erode the usability. Also, if the guy who had the condom that was in there so long that it would make a ring on the wallet. Terrible. Deeply sad. Deeply sad. You had the bad motherfucker, but for unused condoms wallet.

What kind of, like, was Jesse carrying, like, a Magnum so that people were impressed? Was he carrying, like, a ribbed for her pleasure? Yeah. What kind of condom do you think Jesse was carrying? Good question. A cheap one. He runs out of money at, like, 7 p.m. that night. Yeah, he probably got a condom from, like, one of those things that drops them out of the bar in the bathroom. Yeah. The thing he put in, like, 10 cents and you turn it. So for what piece of memorabilia would you want Jesse's cheap condom from the first film? Yeah.

I'd want Jesse's sign book of this time. Me too. I think is the easy, obvious answer, which raises the question, was this time a good title? Yeah. Can I ask a secondary question? What would you have done if the book had been called Before Sunrise? I don't think I would have liked it, actually. That's one degree too, like, through the looking glass. It shows restraint to not do that. Yeah. I think this time is a terrible title. Yeah.

Before Sunrise. Right, but Before Sunrise is a beautiful title, and so it feels appropriate that Jesse picks. I actually think it should have been called Before Sunrise, even though it's corny. It makes more sense to me than This Time. What does This Time even mean? It sounds like the name of a Kenny Loggins song. Yeah. He should have done Heart to Heart. But then he writes That Time. That's right. That's right. Actually, What a Fool Believes, if we're going Yacht Rock, would have been a better title. Coach Finstock or Best Life Lesson?

Memories are a wonderful thing if you don't have to deal with the past. That was a great quote from her. Really good. I have sometimes you got to miss that plane. Yeah, that's might as well. Best double feature choice has to be Before Sunrise, unless you would say Before Midnight. No, I would pick Before Sunrise. Who won the movie? The only thing I pair Before Midnight with is My Sadness. I feel like the first one is kind of Hawks and this one's kind of hers. Maybe that's too simple way of looking at it.

There's something about... I feel the opposite. I feel like I'm watching him through her eyes in this film somewhat. But you feel the opposite. I feel the opposite, yeah. But not by much. Like I said on the last one we did, I felt like it's really close, but the last one is more up. And this one, even though it has this amazing romantic ending, there's way more pain in this movie. I think Delpy wins. That's why you're my guy. If I had to pick, I would pick her. Because the movie hinges on if the waltz isn't really good, the movie kind of...

That's true. Gets a little scraggly at the end. But it hinges just as much on his face as he's listening to it. It's tough. You almost can't pick. Yeah. It has to be both of them. It's almost like it's a made-up category on a podcast. Well, buckle up. Producer Craig, who had not seen any of these movies, and then watched both of them. On a plane. Does that bother you that I saw these on a plane? No, I think that's actually perfect. Yeah, you were traveling. You didn't miss that game. Give us your thoughts on one and then two. Okay. Okay.

Truly mesmerized by the first one. Beautiful movie. Sean mentioned in the first part about the dialogue kind of being that early 20s dorm room philosophizing. I completely identified with that. I fell in love with Celine, who didn't. She's very funny. I think the only thing, so watching, so I love that entire movie. I love that they, my favorite quality about the movie is that

about both movies really is that they they don't fully get along always they don't they're not they are a perfect fit but that's not a literal term and i think a lot of times when they try to build relationships in movies the perfect fitter like you all like the same things and you have the same views about everything and they don't have that and it's messy sometimes but you still know that they are they should be together but that doesn't always mean you agree and so i thought that was really smart writing um i really enjoyed the ending i i was like you bill like a hopeful

I thought they were going to get back together, or at least I wanted to believe that. And you don't want to think about it too much, the possibility that they wouldn't get back together. Um, I also was a little bit annoyed that she liked Ethan Hawke so much in the, at the beginning of the movie. Cause I think he's, he's not the best hang. He's a little bit smarmy and smug. And I was almost jealous of, of Jesse. I was just like this fucking guy. I'm like, he's really getting Celine right now. Um, but then I think that's, I think it's part of it. Uh,

They kind of soften each other and their differences come together. The movie doesn't work if she's not French also. She has to have an accent. Honestly, she has to be French. I firmly believe that if she was Jennifer Connelly, it wouldn't work. And then before sunset...

I was terrified, didn't want to watch it, was upset that it even got made. Maybe I'm just burned out from sequels nowadays where I'm just like... Especially the delayed sequel where it's not immediately planned. Yeah, yeah. Where, you know, it's like when they put them together and they come out two years apart and it was like a part of a whole thing, it's fine. But I don't know. It's like... Dumb and Dumber 2, 20 years later, you're like, God, this is going to suck. I knew obviously these movies were beloved, so whatever. But...

Once again, I was beautifully surprised. I liked that their perspectives switched in many ways. And again, it was clunky and they took time to warm up to one another once again. Because at first you're like, I don't know. They're not really meshing once again. The only thing I think what's aged the worst in this movie. Oh boy. No, no. I think both these movies are honestly perfect. But the only thing that aged the worst is I think that young people...

are aging slower now? Because how old are they before sunset? 32? 23. Sunset, they're 33. 32, 33. 32, 33. I think that's too young now.

To have like a kid and stuff. Yeah. I think the idea of like you're 32 and your life is over is no longer identifiable for people my age as a 30 year old myself. Now I'm just like, they seem like a weathered 32 to me. He's got two kids and a wife. She's had a whole life. It just feels like nowadays people are getting started so much later that they, in my head, they should be like 37 having this issue, not 32. It's a really good point.

I think that's accurate. If it's later in their life and they haven't seen each other, it's almost like it breaks through some wall of like, yeah, but that was like 15 years ago. Do you know what I mean? There's something about... That's why this movie works so well with the years it was made. Because you'd also, if it was made now, there'd be phones. She would have hunted him down in five seconds. There's all these reasons why this movie could never happen in the way it happens. Yeah. Um...

Yeah, I it really feels like I can't believe it worked that the sequel came out and it before midnight worked. But it really does feel like you're getting like a it's kind of suspenseful. It's like you can't believe that you get these 80 extra minutes with this couple that you have no idea what happened to. And it's the most captivated I've ever been watching two people talk. It's like you genuinely are like, I can't miss a word they're going to say.

But you did not watch the third one. A good review from Craig. I know where it's headed and I don't want to go there. You don't know where it's headed. I'm happy now. You don't know where it's headed. I'm happy where I am now with this franchise. You have to watch it. No. What? Craig. At least, can I live with this for nine years like everybody else got to? Craig. No. Don't watch it. I think that's not a bad idea. Yeah. But.

You run a very serious risk, which is you will be very close to the age of the characters in the movie when you watch the next movie. Which I was. Which is a little risky. But isn't it worse if I watch it at 30 now and going, that's where I'm headed? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think if you find yourself associating with the feelings in the third film, you will have a full-blown midlife crisis. Do you agree? I actually...

Can I answer that or is it getting into too many spoilery territory? You got to ask BS. I think there is a take. Are you going to ruin, pull my intestines through my rectum month? You've nailed that every time, by the way, like the phrasing of that, which is very impressive. I kind of think you...

I think there's something comforting about it, actually. That is so defining about you. I know. But it's like you see other people also have problems, even the dream couple. It is actually totally normal to go through these things. I'm not saying it's not, but to be confronted by it is a lot. It is a lot. It's a very painful movie to watch, but very important. Mentally, I am still closer to the sunrise phase in my life than I am to sunset. And so I don't even want to think about midnight. Right. You're thinking about wife number two or what do you mean?

How dare you? These movies are so good. Unbelievably good. You have to watch the third one. It's a masterpiece. The Listening Booth is... When I heard you guys say it was the first take... You can tell. You can't... It's my favorite. I didn't know that this movie was 80 minutes when I saw it. And I just remember freaking out when it ended. Yeah. I don't know if I've ever had that experience of like, what do you mean it's over? Right. Desperately wanting it to continue. It's good that if this movie were two and a half hours, it would feel...

like overindulgent and sequelized. I actually love it. Well, there would also be more opportunities to be like, maybe they shouldn't. 100%. Yeah. But weirdly, 80 minutes is also kind of the perfect podcast interview length. When anyone I've done, I've always felt like around 70 minutes, it starts to get a little gamey. So once again, Jesse, a pioneer. Yeah. We'll see you next week. Not with Before Midnight, by the way.