‘Crash’ With Bill Simmons, Van Lathan, and Joanna Robinson
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on video, on Spotify. You can see our beautiful hosts, Joanna Robinson, Van Lathan, myself. We don't normally do this. We usually do movies we love and we can't stop rewatching, but it's the Oscars. And we're going to do Crash, which won the 2006 Best Picture Award. And it's unbelievable. And it's next. ♪

I just had a gun pointed in my face. Experience the most provocative and powerful movie of the year. We need his man here. He dies. I promise I'm going to find out who did this. He put in rubber gift crash two thumbs way up. You had a conversation with God, huh? What did God say? One of the best films of 2005. Crash. Rated R. In theaters everywhere Friday.

All right, Joanna Robinson is here. Van Lathan is here. You guys have sorted out all your Marvel stuff? Yeah. Captain America, Brave New World. It's a text exchange. Yeah. So just a spicy text exchange. Yeah. You don't care. Why do you even ask? I don't care. I don't care at all. I do care about the biggest Oscars Travis did in the 21st century, Crash winning over Brokeback Mountain. This is a weirdly watchable movie. And I would even say a rewatchable movie.

That is also now kind of a comedy. That's what you said. I want to know what mood you're in when you sit down to rewatch crash. There's good scenes in this movie, but the totality of it leaves me going. I can't believe this happened. What's happening on a day where Bill's like, I'm going to fire up crash. I got to, I got to get my crash flipping channels. Yeah. It's like, Oh, Matt Dillon's running up the hill. Okay. He's going to try to save her in the car. It's like, all right, I'll watch this scene. Um,

Yeah, so I hadn't seen the movie in a while. I've seen it a bunch of times. I hadn't seen the movie in a while.

It's not very watchable. I have not seen it since I saw it in theaters. Maybe we call it the hate watchable. We're celebrating. I thought it was the 20th anniversary of when it won, but it's actually the 19th anniversary. It came out 20 years ago. When you get into the movie, there's just like a wave of nostalgia that hits you because of the cast and because of what place we must have been in society.

for this movie to have been made and been taken so seriously. Because, like, everybody in the movie is at a weird type of position in their career. Yeah. Terrence Howard's as hot as he ever was in this movie. But we don't know that in 2005 when he's making it. No. Because he has this and Hustle and Flow the same year. Yeah, yeah. And this is it. Sandra Bullock is in a sort of

And Brendan Fraser as well. Like, Brendan Fraser more than her. Brendan Fraser's in a weird limbo. It's almost over for him as a star. Right. Sandra Bullock is like, I'm being typecast in rom-coms. I gotta break out of this. I'm gonna play the biggest bitch who's ever been in a movie. Meanwhile, Michael Pena is... On the rise. On the rise. This is his first big job. Cheetle is taking control of his Hollywood A-list status in this one because he's also a producer. Yeah.

And then you look throughout the cast and there's just other people who this is either their first big serious thing, they're making a turn. Or Matt Dillon near the end of being a major star. Right. But this was supposed to be sort of his revival. Yeah. And it didn't quite work out that way. Although he did get nominated. He did. Which I was shocked by. He was the only actor nominated out of this movie and that's just one of the many delightful things about Crash. What did you think on your rewatch?

I agree with Van. I don't think I've seen it. I saw it since I saw it in the theaters, but I remember it so well. So rewatching it, I was like,

These are sort of iconic, comical, but iconic film scenes. You know, the Matt Dillon, Tindy Wynne Newton car crash scene, Michael Pena with his daughter. Like there's just a bunch of moments. Santa Bullock falling down the stairs, whatever it is, you know, there's something for everyone. But I just remember this movie so well. Why did she fall down the stairs?

You know what I'm saying? It's karma, man. I know, but like... And she had a lesson to learn. Why did she fall down the stairs? So he could find out that Carol's a bitch. It just... You know? That's the kind of thing... She needed a scene with the maid. Yes. You're the only friend I have. There are a couple of scenes in the movie that get it devastatingly right.

I'll talk about... Did you get emotional during this movie at any point? A little bit. There are times, just because the sheer human agony that's happening on the screen, sometimes you relate to it, but it's so ham-fisted, overwrought,

and heavy handed that you in its totality, you just cannot take it seriously in its totality. It becomes funny because you start to think what race thing can happen next.

Like, if all the characters at the end of this movie would have joined hands and started singing We Shall Overcome, it would have made sense in context of the movie. Yeah. Except instead you have Loretta Devine, like, coming in and saying, like, speak American to me in the car crash scene at the end. Race. I like the nostalgia angle. I'm just saying, every single... Look, in a lot of ways, I can make an argument that this movie brought me to L.A.

We, okay. You saw this movie and you were like, that's where I want to be. Yeah. Yeah? Because... He's like, I want to be in a place where people have to crash into each other to feel something. To feel something. To feel something. Yeah. I'm in Louisiana this whole time and Louisiana has grown...

Tired of my schtick. They know it. I've been doing this since the sixth grade. I'm in the all-white classes. I'm injecting race into everything. They're immune to it. It's not working on them anymore. And Crash comes out. I'm 25. I'm 24. I'm looking around. I'm like, where could I go to where I can revitalize the thing that I do? Boom. That's the place. 2005. Right as Matt Dillon's running up that hill, Van's like, I'm running to LA. So, okay. So when do you think LA is going to...

grow tired of your shtick? What do you think? Never. Probably not. It's just too many people. It's too much shtick. He keeps adding stuff. He added the hat last year. He keeps adding wrinkles. It's true. You got to come up with new gimmicks. Also, it's now the point that I've actually grown tired of the shtick. I came to the ringer and now I just want to talk about Star Wars and basketball all day long. But every time I walk down the street, NFL draft, somebody grabs me and they go, see what happened to South Carolina? They outlawed Negro. And I'm like,

Got to spring to action. Right. You're just on call at all times. So that's the thing. So we ride until the wheels fall off. The nostalgia thing, one of you mentioned, which I thought is an interesting point because this did make me nostalgic for this pre-social media era of movies like this.

where people kind of didn't know any better, and they just went for it. And there wasn't a fear of a backlash, because it was much harder to have backlash back then. Back then we had newspapers. We had early internet websites. We had deep, deep message boards. No, I'm just saying there was less of a mechanism to kind of respond in anger to a movie like this. So this was a slow build, and I don't think it really... I don't think people really got pissed off about this movie until the Oscars.

When it won best picture, and you can go back and watch it on YouTube, Nicholson's the, he's the presenter. And he does it, and he reads it, and he's like, the winners crash. And he goes, whoa. And you hear the crowd? The crowd was.

Which I don't know if I've ever heard this at the Oscars. They make like a what the fuck noise. They're like, oh, it's like one of those noises. And that was when this movie, it turned. I think especially because at that Oscars, Ang Lee had one director. And once he won director, people thought, oh, Shirley Brokeback is going to win Best Picture. Well, there was a thing. Brokeback was the only movie to win PGA, DGA and WGA and not win Best Picture Oscar. Yeah.

Which, by the way, Anora, we're taping this before the Oscars, but Anora is the next one that could. The conversation became really divisive after a while because what started to happen was it almost was like the Hollywood liberal elites wanted to award one type of film and they chose Romance.

race over a movie with gay themes because we still weren't there yet. We weren't. We actually weren't. Yeah. But now it's Brokeback is such a great movie and it's kind of It's a fantastic movie. It's kind of insane that it didn't win. There's some back there was some backlash before the Oscar win and I only know this because I read a really embarrassing Roger Ebert column where he was defending We're going to hit that later. Yeah. Where he's defending the movie against its critics. He loved it and then had a second

He went back. He had another bite of the apple when people were like, actually, it's not very good. And he's like, how dare you?

Here's what you're missing about Crash. Here's what you don't understand about Crash. Let me, Roger Ebert, explain it to you. So that was all before, I think, the Oscar win. But yeah, then it really cemented itself as, I think if it hadn't won the Oscar, I mean, we definitely wouldn't still be talking about Crash. We would be talking about it a little bit, but not the way we talk about it, where it became sort of the most famously egregious thing.

Oscar Best Picture win? The first hit piece I remember heading into an Oscars, remember reading, was my favorite writer, William Goldman. He wrote a Saving Private Ryan review before that Oscars, and he just fucking torpedoed it. And it was great. And it was like, oh my God, I can't. And it was kind of like, it was a glimpse of where the internet was probably going with some of this stuff. But by 05...

This, some of the crash pieces, they're really funny to reread. People were on it pretty early. Like this movie made people mad. I also like that movies like this exist where people either get super mad or super defensive about it. Cause now where do we have this in movies in the same way anymore? Yeah.

We don't because everybody kind of runs and huddles to their corner. Everyone's in their little spheres. A movie over here is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Right now, everyone is in unison about Amelia Perez.

There are not very many Amelia Perez defenders. But that wasn't the case two months ago. I think we do still get those debates. I don't think it was the case two months... By the way, when I say everyone, I mean the people. The industry seems to love the movie, right? You're saying the fantasy people? Yeah. They're on Letterboxd logging that they saw Amelia Perez? The people, everyone that saw it was just immensely offended by the movie. However...

the critical acclaim for the movie is perplexing them. It's actually driving those people to hate the movie even more. Oh, yeah. But you have two very distinct, different factions. Crash was a movie that people were told that they should love, and they were told that this movie is an incredibly biting and important criticism on race. The conversation that we all need to have. And then when you watched it,

It was so comical. From the very first scene, it was so comical. I was like, what? For real? We supposed to take this seriously? Every single stereotype is approached and then sort of validated in the movie to a point to where it kind of doesn't mean anything in the end. It's just funny.

I think the other difference, like, there's the... If you want to talk about, like, online outrage culture, that's one thing. But there's also, like, we aren't all collectively watching movies like this anymore. This is a $7 million movie. It's a small movie. I don't think...

You get the people, as you're saying, don't go in droves to see this in the theater. If they're watching it at all, they're maybe watching it at home in the background. So you won't get an opportunity for people to have that kind of debate about a movie like this because they're streaming, I don't know, White Lotus instead or whatever else they're watching. Cheadle gave it real credibility for me when it came out. The fact that he was a producer...

It doesn't get made without him. Yeah. And just at the point of the career he was at, I just really liked him. He'd been in stuff I liked. And the fact that he was in it, it was like, oh, maybe. But it was even in 05 pretty notable that it was a white director. And that's something in 2025, there's no way a white director makes this movie. I think it's zero chance. No, it's interesting. I don't know. I don't. You think not a zero chance? I don't. We're just not that far away from Green Book. Like, you know, there's just like, everyone.

Every time I think we're done with something like this, every time I think we're done, we come back to it. They'll never stop making Green Book. I have a list of movies like this. They'll never stop making Green Book. They'll never stop making the movie where white people solve racism. That's going to exist so you guys can feel good about yourselves in perpetuity. Thanks. I'm so happy. You guys always will have one of those. Thanks. This movie, though, I feel like can only be made by a white director.

Okay. Why? Well, yeah. Crash. A black man cannot have directed this movie. Why? Because the movie, it's a movie about race that's obviously made by somebody white. Yeah. It ignores, in my opinion, so much historical and contemporary context to put everyone in these trite, stupid...

Like racial stereotypes. It's working so hard to make you believe that we're all a little good and we're all a little bad. The movie actually has one of the most grotesque scenes of police misconduct that I've seen in a movie. You know what I mean? Beyond like a cop just shooting somebody. Yeah. Literally a sexual assault. Then has that exact same police officer.

saved a black woman's life. You cannot justify that scene. And I think it was like 12 hours later. And be a black director. You cannot justify that scene. And be the hero. And be the hero in that moment. Matt Dillon running up that hill to be the hero. It's a hero shot. Yeah. Hero music too, where it's like, ah.

There's no possible way you could justify that scene if you are Steve McQueen, Barry Jenkins, Ryan Coogler. It's impossible. Also, to your point, I think all the racism is so obvious and broad that it just ignores...

the subtle or like microaggression factuality of how we navigate our lives. And so everyone is such like a caricature of a racist that can make you feel good. Watch you, a white person watching it are just like, well, I'm, I'm no Sandra Bullock, so I'm fine. I'm not racist. You know? Right. The movie starts off with these, obviously there's a scene before that, but two guys who we don't know are carjackers, right? One dude is ludicrous. His character is, uh,

ridiculously hyper aware of every racial microaggression that exists. He's also hyper aware of this entire construct of American racism. And he's even talking about how big the windows on the bus are. All of that stuff, right? He's what you would consider to be woke.

However, he is chosen to be a criminal, a criminal with a code that he doesn't rob black people. He's got this entire worldview, this entire politic that he's chosen to go out there and be a criminal. The moment they got, cause we got guns. I'm like, yeah, let's get into it. This guy, he's talking to me, but he's telling me about, yeah, let's, let's, let's, let's go. We're going to have a wild ride with this one. Um,

First best picture film since Rocky in 1976 to only win three Oscars to show what a shocker this was. By about the 10-year anniversary, the first thing at the end of the decade, that was when the first backlash really happened. By 2015, they're writing about it. And Paul Haggis, the director, he said, was Crash the best film of the year? I don't think so.

Crash, for some reason, affected people, touched people. People still come up to me more than any of my films and say, that film just changed my life. I've heard that dozens and dozens and dozens of times. So did its job there. I mean, I knew it was a social experiment that I wanted. So I think it's a really good social experiment. Is it a great film? I don't know.

That's also Paul Haggis on his, like, I'm no longer a Scientologist tour. Yeah. That's a whole part of this narrative. Like, why did this win Best Picture? Part of it is Scientology. Explain.

Paul Haggis is a massive Scientologist, and a lot of this is, like, Scientology at the height of its secretive power in Hollywood before it starts. Like, in 2007 is when you start getting bigger exposés on Scientology, and people start saying, like, oh, hey, where is Shelley Miscavige? Like, what has happened in Scientology before that? They're operating in the shadows, and this is, like, one of their biggest, you know. Haggis...

wins for Million Dollar Baby. He wins the screenwriting for Ready. Yeah, wins for Crash, does like three films the following year. Like he's on a heater and then he leaves the Church of Scientology and the minute he does, he's gone. Yeah. And that's just like,

I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound like conspiracy Joanna, but that is connected. I'll give you the background on him. Longtime TV writer in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s. Won the back-to-back screenwriter Oscars. Walker, Texas Ranger. Won best film for this movie. Yeah, did Family Law. Was that with the bald guy? I don't know. I don't remember Family Law. 35-year Scientologist. Left in 2009, three years after he wrote Casino Royale, which is like his last big Hollywood thing.

And then he's one of the ugliest Me Too stories. Yeah. Had like a civil suit for rape and got bankrupted by it two years ago. Claimed that church framed him. Yeah. Pretty ugly reading. He got like arrested abroad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's part of the history of this movie. Yeah, I don't talk about them people. The cast includes two future Oscar winners. Yeah.

Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock. Terrence Howard, Matt Dillon nominated, Cheadle nominated, Michael Pena, Ryan Philippe, kind of tail end of the Ryan Philippe era. Philippe, uh,

You mentioned Newton. How do you say her first name? Is it Philippe? Tandui? Oh, Tandui Newton. Tandui Newton? Yeah. I call him Ryan Phillipe. That was Tandy. No, she goes by Tandui Newton. Yeah, she changed it. She added a W. Yeah, that's very important that she did. Ryan Phillipe, you call him? Ryan Phillipe. Ryan Phillipe. I call him Ryan Phillipe. Ryan Phillipe. You call him Ryan Phillipe? Well, call him what I want. I mean, you can. I'm just saying, I've never heard. I've literally never heard Ryan Phillipe. You heard it now. Jennifer Esposito. Jennifer Esposito.

Ludacris. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Lorenz Tate. Yeah. Interesting Lorenz Tate role. So I was going to do this later, but I genuinely like him, and I like him in every movie, and I don't know why he wasn't a slightly bigger star. He was in a lot of movies that I liked playing guys that I liked in the movie. He had a really nice 10-year run, and then he just kind of went to TV, and that was it. It's an interesting role for him because he spent the entire 90s

building an undeniable momentum to become a Hollywood star. Yeah. He kind of was Cheeto five years before Cheeto. I mean, he literally went from critically acclaimed performance, New Jack City, right? Dead Presidents, another incredibly important cultural movie. The Postman.

Like, that's your big, huge Hollywood joint, right? Then he has his starring role. A couple rom-coms. A couple rom-coms. He has Love Jones, beloved film. Then he has Why Do Fools Fall in Love, which he's Frankie Lyman. That's your big biopic. He normally, he spends all of that time building up. And then when Crash comes out, he plays, number one, he plays a lot younger. He plays like a 21-year-old, 22-year-old kid, which in and of itself is interesting. Yeah. And then two, he plays...

second fiddle to a lot of people that he it felt like he should have been on their level yeah it felt like he should have been maybe almost it felt like he made more sense in actually don's role oh really at that point like to at that point his career but don was the producer i know that was the producer and don was further along in his career than than what they're about the same age yeah but but when you when you looked at it i was but even when it was on back then i was like oh

it seemed like a role where he was trying to re-enter the conversation after having a couple of cool years or something like that. He is second fiddle to Ludacris in this movie. He is, for sure. Yeah. Ludacris is a hell of an actor. Ludacris is,

His IMDb, I was looking at it and I was like, man, I like a lot of these movies. Ludacris is genuinely great in this movie. He really is. Ludacris is a good actor. I was surprised at how good he was in the movie. I was surprised. He's good in every Fast movie, too. I mean, he's good in the Fast movies, but he's not trying to do anything in the Fast movies. I just like him. I think he's good. So this was inspired by a real-life incident.

Where Haggis' Porsche was carjacked in 91 outside a video store in Wilshire, Boulevard. The movie completely, by the way, just real quick, I didn't know that until I started doing my research on the movie. The movie totally makes sense now. Yeah.

Totally makes sense. And he kind of had this idea, filed it away, wrote an outline for it, didn't do anything with it for 10 years. He wants to make a movie about all the microaggressions and the societal reasons that he was carjacked. He wants to make a movie about that, but he can't quite do it without bringing everybody else into it. And he feels the need to tell everybody's story, but...

To where really the story that he wants to tell. It's about being him, a white guy being carjacked. He wants to know why that happened to him. Yeah. And then that ends up becoming this entire movie where he has to kind of litigate why that happens to anyone, why everything happens to everybody. But really, that's what he wants to talk about. It's obvious to me.

Well, he said he wrote Crash to criticize racists and bust liberals for the idea that the U.S. had become a post-racial society. Yeah, he got us. Got us good. He showed us. They had a $7.5 million budget. He took out three mortgages on his house. They reused locations to try to save money. The cash took way less. And they sold it in Toronto for $3.5 million. Released it in the spring of 2005.

Built it wide, put out the DVDs in the fall, and then Oprah. That was the big stamp of approval. That sounds right. The whole cast comes on the show in October. Oprah stamps the movie. Then they decide to put DVDs to the different guilds. They were the first movie to send the DVDs to all the guild members. All of a sudden, you win a Best Picture Oscar. ScreenerGate, love it. They created it.

Oprah and screeners. Oprah and screeners. I remember two things about the Oprah thing. Number one, I remember the big deal that it was that Ludacris was on Oprah's show. He was on Oprah's show as Chris Bridges. Oprah didn't really have rappers on her show. Yeah. And Ludacris went on the show and he kind of called her out on it. Yeah. And they kind of went back and forth. I think part of it was taken out of the show. It was a big deal during the Oprah hates hip hop era. What an era that was. It was a huge era. It was a big era. And then also-

We should do a retrospective on Oprah's decision-making. We really should. Want to do that now or after the break? Let's do it after the break.

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All right, Van. Retrospective on Oprah's decision-making. Wasn't expecting this in the outline. Here we go. We're coming for Scientology and Oprah. Let's do it. No, Van's not going near Scientology. Staying away. One time I saw them people on Hollywood Boulevard recording people's faces. Y'all got it. Whatever y'all need.

But you're not scared of Oprah? Not as much. Okay. Not as much. Because I love Oprah, but this is with love. Sure. We got to look, we have to look back at some of the decisions. Number one, Oz, Dr. Phil, obviously we took two huge L's there. Correct. Um,

Crash the movie. Yeah. Okay. What was the guy that wrote the movie, wrote the book, and he was on Oprah, and the book was great? Oh, and he turned out to be a plagiarist? Oh, really? James Fray? Yeah. James Fray? Yeah. I think that somebody should do, like...

an Oprah spreadsheet. Ringer narrative pod? Ringer narrative pod. Episode three, the guy who lied about his book? A spreadsheet about the things that Oprah has put us on and whether or not it's actually been super dope. You know what? You missed 100% of the shots. Are you going to call it Oprah lose-free?

There you go. Yeah. There you go. Doesn't roll off the tongue, but we can workshop it. That's an interesting title. I like it, Joe. Here's my question about Paul Haggis pitches this as a TV show. Yeah. What does Crash the TV show look like? Well, we found out. They made it on Starz. Oh, my God. And then he died. Yeah. But what is it? He died. That's why the show got canceled. But what does it look like in the mid-2000s? Where is it airing?

It's HBO. I would say Showtime. No. Showtime is a great call. HBO passes. Might be Starz because it was on Starz. I think it's Showtime. I think you're right. How about 10 years later is Crash? Is it a Netflix? It's for sure Netflix. It's the fourth show they make. So a couple other things. Terrence Howard, we mentioned, huge year. Bullock is in the movie for like less than 10 minutes, but was really important. I remembered her being in it so much more. Here's...

Before we get to the categories, who's the worst person in this movie? Ryan Phillippe. Why? Why do you think? I think it's super miscast. No, I'm saying character, not actor. Oh, worst character. Yeah. Well, he also does a murder, but... Yeah, I mean... So it's not a bad pick. What about Fickner? I gotta be honest with you. That scene between Fickner and... Cheadle. Cheadle.

That is the one scene in the movie that overwhelmingly works to me. Oh, I think the Tony Danza scene's good. That's a good scene too. I think the Danza scene. I thought that was one of the most realistic scenes. That's the one that's closest to like an actual conversation that a human has had in their life. But either one of those things, either one of those scenes, like I've literally been both of those black dudes. Yeah. Like I've been the black dude where some white guys like, like sitting you down and he's telling you, you just don't know when to take a win.

Like you need to do, you have to get a little dirty to get what you need to do. And I've also been the other guy. I fucking got fired for that. I also have been, I've been the guy where they're trying to tell you to ramp it up a little bit. Yeah. And you're like, don't tell me how, but I didn't, he cucked out. I apologize for that. You've never, don't even play like that. Don't even play like that. Cause people will believe that.

that first conversation, the one that you said, the Cheadle Fickner conversation, when you had that conversation, did that person say to you, Black people, am I right? Is that something that they said with their mouth to you? What, they don't, obviously they play the scene up a little bit. They don't say it like that though. But what they do is they rap

they're trying to get to their end. It's a shit sandwich as a gift. Yeah. They're trying to get to their end and they tell you, listen, you're not going to be able to do what you want to do by staying pure. You're going to have to get dirty and play the optics of it. This is how the world works. This is how it works. Yeah.

Yeah, that conversation, just not the way that it plays out inside of this movie. No, because he said all that to grab his attention, to rope him in and make him know that I'm shooting straight with him. I think the worst character in the movie as a human being is Sandra Bullock.

It's completely unredeeming in every way. There's not one redeeming thing. I was going to bring that up later. Did she create the Karen character? Is this the first Karen in the movie? As I, your most Karen-adjacent member of the Ringer staff, she's way worse than a Karen. Like a Karen... Because the thing about a Karen...

Is that it's sometimes subtle or insidious. Yeah. And there's no subtlety here with this character. You know what I mean? I still go for Matt Dillon and I'll tell you why. Wow, it's a good choice. It's a great choice. So I'm not going to argue it. Guys, there's no bad options in this movie. It's true. They don't give Michael Peña...

He's got no red in his ledger. That's true. He's the only character maybe in the movie. Well, he's the answer to the other question, which is who's the best character in this movie. Easily. Easily him. Easily him. They probably deleted a domestic violence scene with him or something. Or something like that. I gotta make them not like him. But she gets traumatized early in the movie. And the thing about that is that her fear...

gets validated. She's scared of the guys. Yeah, she's holding the purse. But at the same time, they actually robbed her. So the rest of the time that she's freaking out about stuff, you're thinking, well...

Her instincts were right before. You could almost, like, argue it away as her being... Validated. Yeah, validated a little bit. But with him, he literally is having issues in another area of his life. He's the nightmare police officer. He's the cop that's having a bad situation at home, that's having a bad day, that got stuck in traffic. And because of that, he kills or assaults you. Like...

He did save the lady at the end and he is going through something with his father, but that's like the worst version of the fear that a lot of people have of the police. I think there's also, I mean, for me, it's because it's all systemic. The Brendan Fraser character and the Fickner character and that whole...

you know, office. Again, it's, it's like, it's Settler, especially the Brendan Fraser character who you could argue if you're watching it, you think, well, he's close to a good guy. He doesn't want his wife to say racist shit inside of his house and stuff like that. But like,

No, there's nastiness there too. And the nastiness that's hidden, I think, is much scarier than her spewing it around the house. At the end, though, it looked like Brendan Fraser was getting it in. That's the type of shit that we're talking about. Deleted scene there, definitely. Yes. Yeah. Nona Gay. 100 miles an hour. Jesus. Where's Nona at? I interviewed her at the Ali Junket. I told you about that. Yeah. How'd that go?

She's unbelievable. I don't know why she wasn't a gigantic star. I don't really understand it. It seemed like she didn't want it. I don't think she did. Because there's a moment here, there's this, the Matrix, I'm missing one. Oh, and Ali. She was one of the most beautiful actresses of that decade. It felt like it was all sitting there for her. It kind of seemed like at the end, she just kind of, she wasn't into it. Probably. $6.5 million budget made $98.4 million. Lowest grossing film domestically to win Best Picture in 18 years. Last Emperor.

It's a great film. One Oscars for picture, screenplay, editing. Nominated for director, Matt Dillon, and one more. Roger Ebert. Here we go. We love Roger Ebert. Every once in a while, he misses. The great ones miss. Larry Bird missed a couple game winners. Michael Jordan missed a couple game winners. Roger Linsbury. Four stars. Best film of 05. Quote, not many films have the possibility of making their audiences better people. I don't expect Crash to work any miracles.

But I believe anyone seeing it is likely to be moved to have a little more sympathy for people not like themselves. Give the context, though. What's the context? Give the context about Raj. Why this movie might have touched him and affected him. Oh, because of his wife. Yeah.

You think that's it? Yeah. I think he watched... I think that he watched the movie and... What do you think she thought of the movie? She probably was like, Raj, that shit sucks. But she was like... She was probably like, I don't want to hear no more about that. Get that movie out of here.

But he probably felt like in a place where he's been probably judged and people have made a lot of decisions about him and his life because he's married to a black lady. He probably looked at the movie and went, huh, I get it because some of the shit that Rogers probably got probably came from the black community, which sometimes can be deified in conversations about race relations. So a movie that paints everybody as a little fucked up, he probably was fucking with it a little bit, a little more than another critic would be.

After the Oscars, he said, Yeah. See?

See? And or minority group members. Raj was tired of people looking at him crazy at the NAACP Awards. And he's like, you're racist too. Yeah, exactly. Same thing. Coates called it the worst film of the decade in 2009. This was the first wave of the backlash. He said, I don't think there's a single human being in Crash. Arguments and propaganda violently bumping into each other, impressed with their own quirkiness.

It's a kind of unthinking and curious nihilistic multiculturalism. Nothing tempers my extremism more than watching a fellow liberal exhort the virtues of crash. Then he just goes on and on and on, killing it. Let's get to the categories. What's the perfect age to see this movie? Exactly. I have 65.

Oh, I wrote 15 babies first racism. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think? You're a tiebreaker. 15 or 65 for crash? I'm going to go in the middle. I'm going to go like 23. Why? Oh. Because I think that 23 is at the point where you could have, which is the perfect response to crash. It's called the 10 minute regret.

Crash is a 10-minute regret movie. We've all seen it before where you leave a movie and you go, shit, that shit was okay. Yeah, that shit was pretty good, man. I see what they was doing. And then on the drive home, by the time you make it home, you're like, man, fuck that movie. You know what I'm saying? By the time you make it home, you keep- I like this. 10-minute regret. I've heard Van drop this take on countless superhero movies. It happens all the time. You leave the theater and you're like-

They did it. And then by the time you get home, you're like, man, that shit sucked.

And Crash is the perfect movie and the perfect time at 23, 24, you think you know the world. You know just enough to know that what you saw is bullshit. There's a cousin to the 10-minute take, which was my stepfather after we saw Godfather 3. Yeah. Which is the, I've just lost my leg because it got bit by a shark, but my dad is telling me it's okay. We're leaving Godfather. He's like, no, no, it was okay. It was okay. It was good. There was some good stuff in there. It's like I have a bloody stump for a right leg. I think...

Seeing it when you're younger and thinking it's really saying something and then watching it again when you're a little older. I think Joe's right, but I think old people still, the 65 and up crowd. Craig, what do you have? I literally wrote down 72-year-old rich white man because those are all the people that voted for this movie at the Oscars. Yeah, that's true. It's so validating for every old rich white dude. Correct. Can't wait for Craig's take later. Categories. Most rewatchable scene. Carjacking scene. It's a good scene. I say Pena and his daughter.

We're going to list a bunch of them. You have Payne and the daughter. The locksmith scene. Both being just a bitch from hell as poor Michael Payne is working on her door.

I would like the locks changed again in the morning. And you know what? You might mention that we'd appreciate it if next time they didn't send a gang member. A gang member? Yes, yes. You mean that kid in there? Yes, the guy in there with the shaved head, the pants around his ass, the prison tattoo. Those are not prison tattoos. Oh, really? And he's not going to go sell our key to one of his gangbanger friends the moment he is out our door. We've had a really tough night. I think it would be best if you just went upstairs right now. And what, wait for them to break in? I just had a gun fight.

Point it in my face. You lower your voice. And it was my fault because I knew it was going to happen. But if a white person sees two black men walking towards her and she turns and walks in the other direction, she's a racist, right? Well, I got scared and I didn't say anything. And ten seconds later, I had a gun in my face. Now, I am telling you, your amigo in there is going to sell our key to one of his homies. And this time it'd be really fucking great if you acted like you actually gave a shit.

This motherfucker, Michael Pena, was going through it. He really was. Rough two weeks for him. Like, two weeks. This is like two fucking days. It's 24 hours. Yeah. So he literally catches two calls. One where he gets called a gang member when he's a loving, devoted father. Yeah. And then the other one where he tries to tell the guy, like... Yeah, fix your door. Fix your door. And the guy goes off on him. Yeah. He wants to murder him later on. Yeah. Yeah.

The locksmith scene, Brendan Fraser not being able to tell the difference between black and Iraqi, kind of an underrated racist moment in the movie. That's what I'm saying. He gets swallowed up by 28 other racist moments. He's a stealth winner there. Yeah.

The Dylan Newton harassment scene, I don't know if rewatchable is the right word, but it's a pretty affecting scene. And I think Terrence Howard- I think she's really good in that scene. Terrence Howard and her are both fantastic in that scene. Terrence Howard's great in that scene. The way his demeanor slowly changes. That's the confusing thing about this movie is the actors are really good in it. They all are. They got top-flight actors. I'll tell you something about this movie, though. Terrence Howard doubled up really well in this movie. I mean, in his career. Yeah.

Having DJ from Hustle & Flow come right after this was a gift.

It was a gift that these movies were out at the same time. Because if not, this is the type of movie that could Orlando Bloom you from Troy. I don't think Orlando Bloom ever recovered from Troy because he was too much of a bitch. Okay? He was... I'm sorry. Orlando Bloom was the man. And then in Troy, he was just such a bitch that I think it really hurt him for years to come. And his character is so feckless in this movie.

that is the kind of thing that can stain you, particularly with the community, for a while. Interesting. But DJ kind of got him back there because DJ was a straight G. I'm so confused, though, but he's throwing trash into a car fire at the end of the movie. Isn't that a show of strength and character growth? Yeah, he got his strength back. Yeah.

He never got it back. He's throwing stuff in the fire. He never got it back. Brave role, though. Seriously, brave role to take. And he had a lot of issues, to say the least, in his personal life. Yeah, certainly. Terrence Howard. Yeah. If those issues don't happen, I think...

I think we... If those decisions don't happen, he's still Rhodey. I think he would have been in a bunch of great stuff. I think it made him unhirable for a couple years there. I'll say this. He's had a fantastic career, even still. Yeah. But I think when he started having...

his issues because right at the time he would have been drifting off these two movies my thing is a testament to how talented he is is that he kept getting hired right after these things became obvious because think about it prisoners is after this yeah empire is after this oh yeah like he and he's back now he's the world's smartest man he's figuring out astrophysics and all kinds of shit he was the first hired onto iron man the first actor highest paid highest paid yeah um a couple more the tony danza scene

Excuse me?

Is there a problem, Cam? Terrence Howard, there was an oral history about this movie, and Terrence Howard said about the Tony Danza scene, I remember Paul telling me about when he worked for a network, there were execs who told black jokes, and his black colleagues had to just laugh along. He wondered what their lives were like and what it felt like to be ethnically neutered. Shit.

Tony Danza, by the way, incredible stunt casting. Never. I don't think I could see him like that. Never before since his dance had done something like that. I think so. No way. Yeah. He's pretty good in it. He's good. It's kind of surprised. Dylan saves Newton.

Just a really well-filmed scene. It's absurd. I think if I'm her, I'd just rather die in the car. That scene makes me sick to watch, honestly. It's really well done, though. I have a new category. I have least rewatchable scenes. This movie has. Despite it was eight of them? Least rewatchable scenes. And that Terrence Howard getting carjacked and then fighting back would be the only other one I have. So that's one of the more absurd scenes in the movie that kind of works.

That they don't check the car. They don't... Nothing. They're just like, okay, our bad. Like him sort of getting to the thing and he's in front of the cops because actually I've seen people

They're just tired of taking shit. Yeah. Make mistakes with the police like that to where they just, you're taking the wrong time with the wrong group of people to assert your manhood. I'm not going to let you tell me to move and all that stuff that that kind of thing. Actually, they might've stumbled onto something that actually kind of happens. So what do you have for most rewatchable scene? Yeah. Michael Peña and his daughter. Okay. Like the invisible cloak scene. I got Lickner and Cheetle.

I watched that scene. Fickner? Fickner. I'm sorry. Fickner. Lickner. He's doing with Ryan Phillippe? Ryan Phillippe. William Lickner. I have him and Cheeto. I actually watched that scene three times. I think that's a great scene. I think Cheeto is great in the scene. I just think that's actually a legitimately great movie scene to me.

You know, I know all the sociological reasons why per capita, eight times more black men are incarcerated than white men. Schools are a disgrace. Lack of opportunity, bias in the judicial system, all that stuff, all that stuff. But still, it's it's got to get to you on a gut level as a black man. They just can't keep their hands out of the cookie jar. I'm a Fichtner fan. I mean, he's a Fichtner fan.

Fickner doing voice only work in Mr. and Mrs. Smith is one of my top tier stealth great performances. What's the most 2005 thing about this movie, Joanna? The landline on Sandra Bullock that she drops as she falls down the stairs. Ooh, landline. That's really good. My dad still has a landline. Yeah. Won't give it up. Oh, does he? Yeah. Interesting. I have no camera phones and unironic racism.

Huh. Unironic racism is an enduring legacy, Bill. But yeah, no one filming any of this police stuff. Yeah. If they're doing this in 2025, somebody's filming something at some point in one of these scenes. Yeah. Yeah. What do you have, Van? Smoking in Los Angeles. Oh. Smoking in Los Angeles. Happier times. People just, he's like, he's just ripping cigs, going crazy, smoking in Los Angeles. Yeah. What's aged the best? We mentioned Michael Peña. Yeah.

This is an important Michael Pena movie. It gets the train rolling for him as a movie guy. I'm a huge fan of his. I actually wish he was in more stuff. I agree. I was so fired up when he was in Landman. And then, spoiler. And then he was fired up in Landman. And then he was literally fired up because they blew him up in one episode. I haven't seen it yet. Yeah. What do you have for what stage of best ending? The MCU. A lot of MCU peeps in this. Oh. Yeah. Two different roadies.

Both roadies are in this movie. Double roadie. Double roadie. Michael Peña. Michael Peña. I think I wrote him down here. The dude who helped Iron Man is the shop owner. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, the Persian guy. The Persian guy. You're right. Who helped Iron Man. Yeah. Oh, so he should win the That Guy Award. I forgot that he was in that. There's another great That Guy in that one, too. But the guy who helped Iron Man. And Michael Peña, Luis.

So I'm looking at the movie and I'm saying all of the MCU people that are in the movie. What do you have for what stage is the best? Anything, guys? Indictment of the LAPD, top to bottom. Yeah, that stage is nice. You know something else about the movie that makes it very 2005?

So the film is actually coming off the worst. Criticizing the LAPD now is actually kind of trite. People don't actually do it as much as they used to. It's not a top of mind thing anymore. There's still obviously a lot to talk about. But this movie kind of buttons that up a little bit.

like the, the, the conversation around the LAPD, the LAPD was by far the most notorious police department in America throughout the 90s. It was a 90s thing that I think people had forgotten about a little bit. We're bringing it back. Yeah. I will say a critique of the health insurance industry. Oh, that's a good one. That's age. Yeah. First rewatchable. She's doing great. We're all in the heat. Really doing great. I have a what's age the best. Cause I didn't notice this until I watched this movie twice in six days.

The very ending, when the car gets rear-ended, that's Shaniqua. Yeah, Loretta Devine. Yeah. Yeah. I just, for some reason, didn't notice that. And the insurance guy. Yeah. That's who? The insurance guy. I know, but who is that, though? Shaniqua. I just never thought I'd hear you. That was a name. Did you hear you say Shaniqua? Yeah. It was the character's name. Okay, no, I'm with it. Shaniqua. Shaniqua. Put a little sauce on it. Don't do that. Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. This isn't American Idol. Bill, I'm not taking your bait. I'm not taking your bait.

I have Keith David, who I love in every movie. He pops in this one. And just delivers. Yeah. And just delivers in that one scene. Yeah. I'd say the cast is a wet stage the best for me. That's a good scene. That's a good scene. Yeah, Keith David's scene is very good. But do you understand, though, that like,

If there's a, this guy is riding high, right? Because he just won an Academy where he can do whatever he wants. There's a version of this movie that has more scenes like the Keith David scene, more scenes like the Figner scene. That's not as. You're talking about Haggis riding high off a million dollar baby. What I'm saying is like the movie loses itself and how important it actually thinks that it is. Yeah. Because that scene with him,

is a perfectly good scene where a black man in authority is saying, you're not going to fuck this up for me and it can be fucked up. This is what you're going to do. This is how we're going to work this around. Like that works. And that's under, for me, that's under the umbrella of the LAPD indictment because there's like Keith, from Keith David to Ryan Phillippe and everything in between. It's just like, there's no good corner at the LAPD in this movie. I have one more. What's the best, but you guys, if you have anything left, tell me now. Uh, no,

I like when Sandra Bullock gets a little Randy with her movie pics. Yeah. I like angry bitchy Sandra Bullock. Like she did it in The Blind Side was like a totally different character for her. I liked her in what's the movie when she gets gravity? Mm-hmm.

I felt like the seesaw of her with rom-coms versus her pushing herself. And maybe Hollywood didn't take her seriously as a serious actress, but I think she's a really good actress. Well, she won an Academy Award for the line actress. I know she did. But I think she just got pigeonholed in this Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan category for almost two decades.

Yeah. And then it finally kind of broke out of it a little bit late. But I think she's really good. And then she made All About Steve and changed it all around for herself. You know what I mean? All About Steve. I'm pro Bullock is my point. I like her a lot too. What's each the best is Bullock. Do you know what the funny thing is? You just brought up Gravity.

That movie's good. It's on the rewatchables list. People don't talk about Gravity. Have I been neuralized? I completely forgot about how much I loved and enjoyed that movie. It's a great movie. People don't talk about it. You'll be getting it on rewatchables this year. Interstellar is talked about every six weeks for some reason. Not on this podcast. Interstellar's fucking great. Yeah, whatever. You don't like Interstellar? No.

You don't like... Are you a Nolan guy? Hold on for a second. Just allow me 30 seconds of latitude. I like Gravity. I like Gravity as well, but you don't fuck with Interstellar at all. I haven't watched it since the year it came out. Interesting. You should rewatch it. You should rewatch it. That's actually a really good rewatchable. That one gets better every time you watch it. I might sit that one out. What? What about Inception? Do you like Inception? No. Oh, you don't like Christopher Nolan. Never mind. Move on. Inception's too weird. You don't like... Memento? Memento?

Love memento. Yeah, you're a memento guy. Oh, so you're early Nolan. Yeah, yeah. I love Dark Knight.

That's kind of Nolan. I respect all the Nolan movies. I wouldn't crank up, oh, let me get Inception on Blu-ray and crank this out. I think Inception's a polarized movie, though. Yeah. So is Interstellar. Yeah. But I think they're all better the more you watch them. I might be wrong on Interstellar. I know I'm not wrong about Contact. That's the one where I'm like, that movie sucked. You'll never convince me otherwise. That movie was bad. Wow. Fickner catching another stray. Yeah.

contact. Jodie Foster. The Carl Sagan joint about aliens and all of that stuff. David Morse. Hey, this episode of the rewatchables is brought to you by State Farm. Life is full of reasons to celebrate. And now at the State Farm personal price plan, you can keep celebrating when you create an affordable price just for you when you choose to bundle home and auto. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with the personal price plan.

like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. Back to the podcast. I love having a State Farm commercial on the Crash episode. That's great stuff. Great. Great Shot Gorder Award. Most Cinematic Shot. I don't have anything here. This is an ugly looking movie. Matt Dillon pulling...

Pulling Newton out of the car? We can shoehorn that in, but this movie is so obviously low budget that they don't really have it. This is a screenwriter who tried to direct a movie. The one flare is the reverse zoom on Michael Peña when he's screaming because he thinks his daughter got shot. I'm going to make Van Reenact that later. Or maybe at the end of Ryan...

Philippe. Philippe. Ryan Philippe. And Philippe. Yeah. Like burning the car, which that shot him with the gloves. Taking the gloves off, yeah. Signaling that what

Matt Dillon said to him earlier in the movie has already come to pass. Just wait till you're on the job a little bit longer and it'll grow up to him. Wait a couple hours. Wait a couple hours. It happened that night. Do we have a Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness award for best needle drop? There's no music in the movie. Yeah, there's really no music, right? There's a Stereophonics Maybe Tomorrow drop right at the end, which I like, but there's also, it was nominated for best original song

Kathleen York who plays the cop early in the movie. She plays one of the cops early in the movie. Her song in the deep plays and it is the most like we want to be Magnolia Amy Mann moment. Yeah. Okay. But no, but it's bad. Good answer. But you win though. But it's terrible. That's good enough to win. Chess Rockwell and Brock Lander is the word for best character names. Say it, Bill.

Shaniqua. Shaniqua. There you go. There you go. Put a little sauce on that motherfucker. Shaniqua Johnson. Van, you're up with the flex category. You get to pick any category.

I knew you were going to screw this up. Any category? I have my own category. Yeah. Okay. You want to use your own category here? Yeah, right here. Go ahead. Let's hear it. This is an all-time We Solve Racism movie. And I gave the top five We Solve Racism movies of all time. I put it in here. Okay. So I got to figure out what the category name of this is. Vans...

Van's historical... Go for it. The Van Lathan historical take a word. The Van... Impact? Historical impact? Yeah. Top five we saw of racism. Yeah, yeah. Top five white people saw of racism. At number five, The Blind Side. That's where racism loses to athleticism. At number four, A Time to Kill. Blacks deserve revenge. Are you just doing Sandra Bullock movies? No. I mean, they're all... She's been in a lot of them. Right.

Number three, we're all racist and it's beautiful. Yeah. Number two, the help or how white women will save us. Yeah. Number one, driving Miss Daisy. Yeah. How elderly sexual tension makes a cool Oreo swirl. Yes.

It's an amazing list. That's it. Stop it. I really wanted Miss Daisy to be number one and you didn't disappoint me. Yeah. I was really hoping the help would be on there. That's what I was really getting for. The help and Miss Daisy are two movies that after the screenwriters or the playwright finished writing the movie, they went, yeah. I did it. We've done it. But the help is another one where it's an absurd movie. Yeah.

But the actors are pretty good in the movie. You feel bad because there's good scenes. It's like this movie. Ridiculously good. Emma Stone's really killing it in this. I was working in a bookstore when that book came out. And this woman that I worked with who was in her 60s or 70s who worked at the store with me hated the book so much. But people were coming in. White women were coming in by the droves to buy the help. And she was like, oh, the HEP?

You want to get the hep? You just call it the hep? Like to their faces and they thought they were mishearing her because she was this older woman and she could just get away with it. It's great. The Butch's Girlfriend Award for the weak link of the film. This is tough to narrow it down.

I have the Persian shop owner because I still have no idea what's going on in that character and what his arc was in this movie. This is a 9-11 commentary. Well, he doesn't realize he has a gun with blanks even though the box says blanks. He can't read English. He can't read English. It says blanks. He can't read English. He says that earlier in the movie. He can't read his insurance policy. He doesn't read English. And his wife is Diana Troy from Star Trek. Don't the blank box even say blanks where it explodes and there's nothing there?

No? What are you... Like, there's a cartoon of, like, it's very clear that there's no bullets. It's just blanks. I mean, I didn't see any cartoons on this particular box. He shoots a little girl with blanks, and then everyone's like, okay, we're going to go inside now. Well, what do you... If there's a madman on the street with a gun, let's say. They just went back in the house. Who wants some cereal? I mean, they might have called the cops. You don't know what they did when they got in the house. Honey, you want a Pop-Tart? Yeah.

Is that crazy guy still out there? Oh, he is. Yeah. Hey, you guys want to watch a movie? It's Christmas, too. This is a Christmas movie. Oh, it sure is. There's wreaths and Christmas trees everywhere. Yeah. And then it snows and nothing. Could he understand English or he couldn't? He could understand it. He couldn't read it. He could speak it poorly and he could not read it. Because...

Kane is like, you need a new door. Fix the lock. You need a new door. And the guy's like, you're trying to change. But the language barrier, he's functional enough to be able to run a store, but the language barrier is part of the social dysfunction that's stopping them from understanding each other. But if he's so dysfunctional that he can't understand he needs a new door, how does he run a store?

Like, they make it so that he literally can't understand anything. But yet we're expected to believe he's working 40 hours a week running a store. I had a good joke, but we can't do it. He thought an angel saved him. This character sucked. What do you have, Joanna? It's good old Philippe. Ryan Phillippe. A miscast? I think, A, it's miscast. There's an amazing casting would-if for this that we won't say now. I agree. And it would be a lot better with that. But I think...

He's miscast because Ryan Phillippe has... I'm just saying it wrong now. Ryan Phillippe has a face that I don't trust ever. I've never trusted him. You want him in Cruel Intentions. I want him in Cruel Intentions. Great in Cruel Intentions. I don't want him as like a, oh no, not him. He shot someone. Which is sort of what you're supposed to feel in this moment. And then the turn from that character...

Doesn't make any sense. Makes no sense. You need a beat between, or you need to see him visibly shaken from the interaction with Terrence Howard or something like that. There's really no wrong choices with the Butcher's Girl. Honestly, it pains me to say this. It's Lorenz Tate. He's miscast. He's totally miscast.

He's playing this so wide-eyed because he's trying to seem younger, but we know him. Yeah. And we know that he's more senior than this. We remember young Lorenz Tate. If the O-Dog era, Lorenz Tate, they tried to recast O-Dog, it makes a lot of sense. He just doesn't work for me. Paul Haggis, the wire is right there. Just grab him. You have 20 different good actors. A bunch of people you could have grabbed. Yeah.

Actually, you know what's funny? Is J.D. Walker, who plays Bodhi in The Wire, would have been perfect in that role. They could have had Omar. I mean, they could have picked anybody. What's aged the worst? Sandra Bullock falling down the stairs. This movie won for best editing. I encourage people, if they watch this after, to watch how bad the editing is. It's honestly like if we made a Spotify movie about The Ringer and we just did a quick cut to try to... It's so bad. They must have run out of money for that scene.

Two movies named Crash in eight years is just weird. I think there should be a rule if I was the movie czar.

You get a title, you at least get 20 years with the title for the next one. Yeah. How good or watched does the movie have to be in order to get that title? I think it has to make at least like $5 million. Okay. Yeah. Did you see the other crash, the 96 crash? I saw it in the movie theater. That was weird. Let me tell you something. That movie gets after it. That movie gets after it. I remember I had to see it. I remember going to Buffalo Video, Baker, Louisiana. Yeah.

And renting that movie and a lady at the front going. Judging you. Son, that is a weird movie. And I still had to see it. Spader has sex with the cut in her leg. Yeah. We saw pitched in this text exchange a James Spader freak era rewatchable series. A rewatchable with Spader? Yeah. Do you know the other Crash, Craig? No. Oh, Craig. Oh, my God.

my God. Craig, you got to get dirty. You know what? So we already did 8mm. But what we should have done was... Fucked up movie month? Yeah, we should have done 8mm. Crash is too fucked up. Ah, dog. That's one that deserves a revival. We should have just done Crash month. Are there two other movies named Crash? I bet there are. I'm going to start taking clips from Crash and just putting them on my Twitter without any content. Ha ha ha!

I am. That's a crazy movie. This is the new cowboy hat. You should have done that after the Luka Doncic trade. You should have just started making clips of Crash. What do you have for what stage is worse, Jo? The Matt Dillon hero turn. Easy work. The Matt Dillon stuff and the fact that he's then the only actor nominated for this movie. Have you seen that clip? Well, there's a reason for that, though, because Howard...

that they wanted to push him for hustle and flow. And I think Howard would have gotten nominated over Dylan. Yeah, but there's a lot of other great options that's not Matt Dylan. There's this clip that comes around to me every so often of Aubrey Plaza hosting the Indie Spirits Award when Black Klansman came out. And she was like, Adam Driver, congrats on being the only actor nominated for Black Klansman. You're the best one in this movie. And that's what I thought.

saw matt dillon was the only actor nominated for crash uh yeah i'm surprised newton didn't get nominated actually because i thought she was excellent the image of this movie the image of this movie is her clinging to him yeah yeah after the crash yeah yeah for sure they played that up and made more with in la we're trapped behind metal and glass you gotta crash into someone to feel something

Joanna's like, Joanna might move here. This movie's going to get in her head. She might not move here now. When I first moved to San Francisco, I was walking down the street. This is like right after this movie came out. And this guy, and this is going to sound unreal because I recently said on a different podcast about an Inception pickup line that a guy tried on me. But I bumped into this guy and he's like, let's crash into each other like the movie. And I was just like, like literally. Wow. That is a thing that has happened to me. San Francisco's freaky. Freaky. Freaky.

Freaky place. Oh, it's since the 60s. Yeah, going for it. Like a weird, freaky place. Who said something like that? He probably was a vampire. Do you think he was talking about this movie or do you think he was talking about the James Gator movie? It could have been either because it's a car crash situation. Morewood's age to worse. Cheeto calls his girlfriend Mexican.

And she responds by saying angrily, my mother's from Puerto Rico and my father's from El Salvador. And then he responds by saying, why do all of your people park their cars in their lawns? Yeah. That's an actual exchange. Well, it's because everyone's racist, Bill. That was where they're like, don't like Don Cheadle too much. She's got this side too. They're just trying to slide that in there. Sidebar. Can I just throw something in, in the movie that also really works?

The whole thing with Don Cheadle and his brother and his mother, that's effective. Yeah. Like that actually is effective how she has the one upstanding son. But for some reason, I don't know how many times you see this.

They gravitate towards the fuck up son. Yeah. And try to like protect him and the whole. She's projecting that it didn't turn out well for the son and it was her fault, but she wants to blame the brother. I know it's your fault. Dan's talking himself into this movie. I'm not. You keep complimenting. The canvas, whole foods bags, the canvas, whole foods bags. All that stuff. I'm just saying that the movie actually has some talent in it. It's just, it falls under the weight of itself. What else do you have, Joe? That's it. Okay. Um,

The Ruffalo Hannah Rubinick Partridge overacting award. Ooh, this is a good one. I hate to give it to Michael Peña, but the 10 second scream. What is happening? Why is it so long? It's just weird. I think it actually kind of works on him in a way, unfortunately, it doesn't work for the wife character who we literally don't know. Yeah. Because she gets a really long like, like a platoon. It's not his fault. It's the editing. By the way, that wife character, I don't know the actress's name. That's Ugg.

classic that girl yeah i don't even know what her name is but eight one eight seven i think stand to deliver maybe dangerous minds a bunch of different movies what do you have for that category uh van's gonna get mad at me what but i think it's beverly todd is mrs waters says don cheadle's mom oh interesting okay you're gonna get mad at me i think it's how you say her name then do we tend to newton it's tend to newton

The scene where she's crying and telling him that he lost his dignity in the thing. She has a cry thing that she does sometimes. She's supposed to be drunk, I think, is part of it. Are you talking about the one where she comes to his work? Well, she comes to his job. Oh, after. I agree. I don't like that scene. I think the bedroom fight is good. The bedroom fight is good, but she has a cry thing that she does. Her cry is overpowering. Ugly cry. Ugly cry that she does. Joe, you have a flex category.

What do you got? Oh, I am stealing in honor of House of R. I'm stealing the Mallory Rubin award. Did this movie need a better or an additional sex scene? Oh, that's so great. That's a great one. I'm sure I'd be so pleased. And I'm going to say we deserve to see Brendan Fraser and Nona Gay have sex. Yeah.

When Cedar Bullock calls him at the end. Hard R for this movie. Yeah. When Cedar Bullock calls him at the end. Hard R. Be careful. Hard R. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's R and there's Hard R. It's like borderline NC-17. You know, that was something I never knew was a thing. What? Hard R. Hard R? I heard somebody say Hard R for a movie. Hard R's a thing. What are you saying? You can't make it up. But if you say Hard R in a movie that's about race. I agree. I just didn't know Hard R was ever a way to describe an R-rated movie.

Interesting. Soft R, hard R. Soft R. So you just want him to knock some boots. Well, I just think when Sandra Bullock calls at the end and she's like, I fell down, and he's like, your friend's a bitch, he should have been having sex with her rather than just glancing at her at the elevator. And if they cut in

I don't want to direct the scene, but if they cut to him in the middle and he's out of breath, he grabs the phone. Huh? You know what I mean? In the wire or in any of these others. Or they do the Eternal Affairs where it starts with him and it scales back. Yeah, and then you find out that he's having sex. Good one. Mal would have been honored. The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. How does it take a word? I already gave mine. I think Bullock's character was the original Karen. You guys disagreed.

Did you have a lot of think for this? I think it's the first Karen. I think it's like the Neil Armstrong of Karens. Right. I think there's a really good short film in here that's just the ludicrous scenes. Hmm.

Chris Bridges, our guy. Yeah. Gave it back to Oprah. Edited it out. Never heard from him again. Just put together the ludicrous monologues and I would rewatch. That's rewatchable. He's good. They could have, he, the movie needed more ludicrous for sure. You have a hottest take or keep moving? My only hottest take is this is the least effective anti-slavery movie I've ever seen.

Okay. At the end... Certainly not hot. At the end, he literally frees slaves. He literally frees slaves. He gives them $40. $40?

No mule. And a mule. Oh, interesting. He gives them $40. $40 he gives them. Tells them he's completely racist to them. And at the end, y'all really feel good about it. You see a guy sink down on the street and you're like, he's just going to stay there. He's just going to stay there. He's going to be there in perpetuity. Were they trying to say something when one of them goes into a video store and sees all the choices for movies? Is that hitting us in the head with something? Story has the ability to transport and change us, Bill. Yeah.

He's looking at all the MCU where it's going. Casting what ifs. Yeah. A couple of good ones. Forrest Whitaker was supposed to play the Terrence Howard role, but the filming got delayed. I thought the Cheetor role. Is it the Howard role? I have Terrence Howard, but it was one of them. Cusack was attached to Matt Dillon, had to drop out. And then the big one is Heath Ledger was supposed to be Ryan Felipe. Okay.

and dropped out and this is kind of a different movie if he's in it because i mean he makes dead so good for him but um yeah i think keith ledger i mean i actually have different casting ideas for that role but i think keith ledger is a huge improvement in the ryan philippe role that that character still needs one more scene at least to get where he gets could it be like a monster's ball cop heath ledger performance

Oh, Monster's Ball. I haven't thought about that in a long time. I like Josh Hartnett. Not on the rewatchables list. Well, there are certain reasons why it's rewatchable. But Josh Hartnett could have played that young cop. You know what? When you said the John Cusack thing, he should have done it. No, Cusack in the Dylan role would have been great. It would have been fantastic. Genuinely great. Legitimately great. I don't know that I've ever seen him play a role like that.

Like, I don't know. He's tried to be bad guys a couple times. But not that kind of bad. Not like that. I think seeing him like that would have been super awesome. I think Cusack would have been, I think of those three, Heath Ledger's like sort of the big one, but I think Cusack is the stealth. This would have been a much better movie with Cusack in the Matt Dillon role. So best that guy, it's the guy from Iron Man.

That's a great one. You know who I have? Who else did you have? Jack McGee. As the gun store owner. That's mine. That's mine. Yeah. I looked at his CV. This guy usually plays cops. And here are some of his character names that he's played. Detective. Detective.

sheriff deputy the chief there's so many roles he's played that it's just like the name of the rank of the police officer I remember him from Scrooged yes you can barely see them nipples Scrooged is my favorite Christmas movie you can barely see them nipples Fichtner used to be that guy but then he became he did too much good work Keith David was also that guy for a long time yeah it's probably somewhere in the 90s it flipped I think it changed with something about Mary yeah yeah

Uh, Dan Waiters award. Jennifer Esposito is eligible. Probably. Yeah. She's great in this movie. Yeah, she is. I always liked her. I never understood why they just didn't have anything for her to do. I always felt like there was a better career for her. She, they just didn't have enough for her to do every time. She's, she's, I,

obviously gorgeous she's talented yeah they just didn't have enough for her she's dope like there was no series for her there were not a lot there was like a feisty police woman series that she should have been on CBS for eight years it's not too late for Jennifer Esposito that's my take could have been like whatever that when they started spinning off CSI Miami all those it could have been like CSI wherever and just she's the lead um

Dan Waiters, one more. The guy who runs the Chop Shop. I didn't want to forget him. When he says, he's my pick. And when he says, do I look like I want to be on the Discovery Channel? Right. Loved it. Love that guy. I like that guy. And also, I would say the woman at the locksmiths who will not give up Michael Peña's name.

Who's just like smoking and over it and snatching her chair and wearing all the eyeliner. I really liked her too. I was trying to remember the relationship that Jennifer Esposito was in. Eddie Murphy, right? Early? No, she was married to Bradley Cooper. But she dated Eddie Murphy in like the 80s. Oh, did she? Yeah. Interesting. I didn't know that. Bradley Cooper. Bradley Cooper. 2006. A lot of choices for Bradley Cooper. Yeah. Recasting couch director or city? Joe has something. For... Okay. Okay.

On the Ryan Phillippe role. Yeah. Matt Damon. Oh, almost like Departed type character. Yeah. Departed. Is he too old? No, he's the exact same age as Ryan Phillippe. I looked up actors that were the same age as Ryan Phillippe. He's the exact same age. This is the year he made Eurotrip and Ocean's 12th. Yeah, he's available.

Your trip, greatest cameo of all time. Also, additionally, Tobey Maguire, Casey Affleck. Casey Affleck would have been really good. Casey Affleck works. That's a good one. I think Josh Hartnett works too, but Casey Affleck works. I don't think Josh Hartnett is good enough. As an actor? Not at that. I like late stage Hartnett. I have a director for the recasting. Quentin Tarantino's Crash would have been unbelievable. Oh, brother. N-words, bruh.

Three hours and 30 minutes. It would have been amazing. You just wanted to see Sandy's feet more than when she fell down the stairs. This movie would have gone down the inward path, bro. We can't do it, dog. Spike Lee's crash would have been interesting because then Spike Lee's crash. A lot of crane shots, you know what I mean? Of people, you know, where she has.

But Quentin Tarantino's Crash is going to be- Is Spike Lee's Crash? No, Nagai is having sex with Brendan Fraser. That's what I'm saying. Probably in the first 20 minutes. Of course. Thank you for not doing- I recast Crash in Boston. I was dreading that monologue. Thank you for not doing it. We're just going to keep moving. Crash is Boston. No. I'm not letting you do it. No. Moving on. Half-assed internet research. Crash, first Best Picture winner to be released on Blu-ray.

Interesting. June 2006. Fun fact. Haggis had a heart attack during the last part of the filming. Yeah. He missed a week. He was like, it's just so good. Yeah. I'm just making my masterpiece. This movie needs me. People have to see this. In 2015, Hollywood Reporter, they found a bunch of the Oscar voters and asked, what would you do if you had to do this over again? Yeah. Brokeback Mountain won convincingly. And then I didn't really understand how this went.

I'm just going to read what's written down. Newton wore special protective underwear for the assault scene because Haggis wanted it to look real from the camera's perspective for Matt Dillon to go there.

I'm going to guess no intimacy coordinator in this movie. Yeah, it's a wild step. What is that? What kind of underwear are we talking about? How special is that underwear, right? Like, are we, is it like. I don't know what to make of that. Well, they have like the modesty stuff that they wear, right? Yeah, but he's like real, like. Yeah. He's really up in there. Yeah.

Do you have anything else? Are you envisioning like the metal chastity belt from Robin Hood Men in Tanks? I'm sorry. I shouldn't laugh. That wasn't funny that Joe said that. But when she said he's really up in there, he was. That's what I'm saying. I tried audience. I tried.

I'm like, how protective can that underwear be? What does she... It would almost have to be like an adult diaper with seven different panties in it. I think it has to be like the metal chassis belt from Robin Hood Men in Tights. I think you need something... A barrier. Apex Mountain. Oh, shit. I'll just keep reading stuff until you tell me if it was anybody's Apex Mountain. Okay. Sandra Bullock. Brendan Fraser. LA Race Relations. Undercover cops shooting each other.

Terrence Howard, there's a case because Hustle and Flow came out the same year. Oh, well, that moment. Yeah, for sure. 2005 is his apex moment. I don't know. Empire Season 1. That's pretty. He was pretty big. He was a big star on TV. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. So yeah, it's pretty big. Bigger than Hustle and Flow? Best actor nomination, Hustle and Flow is pretty tough to beat. Matt Dillon, no. St. Christopher statues? I don't have a lot of experience. Human trafficking? Probably not. Don Cheadle, no. Michael Pena, no.

Ran Philippe? Philippe? What would be his apex moment? It's growing tensions. Yeah. Thanh Duy Newton? No. No. What is her apex moment? Westworld. Wasn't she in the first Mission Impossible movie or one of them? It's Mission Impossible. Two. Two. The worst one. Lorenz Tate, no. Ludacris. It's one of the fast movies. I don't know which one. It's Paul Haggis'. Jennifer Esposito, no. No, it's Paul Haggis'. It's Paul Haggis'. Paul Haggis' apex. Paul Haggis' apex. Yeah.

The Church of Scientology's influence, Apex Mountain. One more break, and then we're going to do Cruiser Hanks.

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Babbel.com slash Spotify podcast. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash Spotify podcast. Rules and restrictions may apply. Cruz or Hanks? And what role would you want them to play in this movie if you pick? Hanks kills as Brendan Fraser's character. Kills. Would love to see Hanks in that morally gray. If you have Hanks, you gotta have the sex scene. Would love to see him. Has Hanks ever had sex in a movie? Other than Forrest Gump?

I can't think of one. Bet that never happened in my class. Yeah. Got it. Hank's kills in that role. Can I test drive Tom Cruise in the Matt Dillon character for you guys? I want Cruise in this because if we're doing Magnolia methadone, we might as well go all the way. And I also think you need cozier energy in this LA movie. Tom Cruise helping out the dad. You get the Magnolia angle yet again with Tom Cruise's weird dad issues. But then...

like evil Tom Cruise as the cop. But then Tom Cruise trying to save somebody from a fire. I mean, my vote's Cruise. I say Cruise. Is this the rare movie where you could put Cruise and Hanks in it together? Yeah, you probably could. Hanks could be Brandon Fraser. I mean, certainly not at this time in his career. Hanks doesn't belong here. I don't think. I don't think so. Craig, Cruise?

I like Cruz in this. This movie is kind of like a Magnolia type movie. You could even just get Cruz's character from Magnolia, jam him into this movie. Because you could also put Cruz in the William Fichtner character, just have him come in for one scene. If it's a church or Scientology joint, why not invite Tom Cruise? Yeah, where was he? It's true. How is he not in this? Can I say something about the Cruz thing now?

He works in Magnolia, but then there are other big ensemble, one-scene movies where he doesn't work. He totally ruined Lions for Lambs. He was terrible in that. That movie kind of sucked. That movie sucked anyway. He's not the reason that movie sucked. There were other reasons too. That was a great script. I read that script and thought that movie was going to win 10 Oscars. We forgot to do Apex Mountain for Church of Scientology. I think this is- Haggis wins the Oscar. Cruise is jumping on Oprah's couch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oprah's couch. Cruise, the jump. Lose free. Oprah lose free.

Another Oprah mistake, just to let you know. Soft launch and hard launch. Is that Oprah's fault, though? I'm just saying. She was part of the hard launch of that whole deal. Another mistake. By the way, anytime the Scientology thing is mentioned, just blackmail me. Scorsese or Spielberg? Martin Scorsese's Crash. This is great. This is a movie Spielberg would have tried to take on, though. I feel like he easily could have. I could see him doing it. A little edgy for him.

But that's the thing. It's like safe edgy. But yeah, Scorsese is the answer. Scorsese. Okay. What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played? One best actor this year, too. He did for Capote. I'd throw him in the Matt Dillon role as well. I think he'd do it. I'd like to see evil cop Philip Seymour Hoffman. Let me tell you something, though. If he's in it, the redemption part doesn't work as well.

Because he's going to play... Was Matt Dillon actually redeemed in this movie? He wasn't. Not to me. The movie thinks he is. The movie thinks he is. But if he's in the role, Philip Seymour Hoffman is going to be so loathful. And he's going to play it so well. It would be funny if he played it like talented Mr. Ripley Freddy. How's the peeping, Tommy? Tommy! I think in the Fickner role, in his Charlie Wilson's War mode. She's coming in hot. Yeah.

The Van Lathan Award. Did this movie need more black people? Perfect. Nope. We're good. Picking nits. Can't wait. Wow. Where do you begin? I just wrote, oh God, all of them. Like, I don't know how you pick nits inside of this movie. I have 10.

What are your Bill Simmons top 10 nitpicks of Crash? I know she's a horrible person, but you just start screaming with the locksmith like 40 feet away. Nobody does that. She's angry. Nobody does anything that they do in this movie. Nobody would ever do that. There are no human being behaviors in this movie. Matt Dillon runs into Don Dewey Newton twice in like three days.

Yeah, and Ryan Phillippe runs into... He rests her and then it just happens to be there when she has a car crash in Los Angeles. Ryan Phillippe runs into Terrence Howard. I have that later. Ryan Phillippe happens to...

Pick up Don Cheadle, his brother. LA's a gigantic city. You could literally go... You could go 10 years without seeing the same person again. How many times did you ever... By the way, the only time I ever run into somebody I know is when I randomly see you walking down the street. Well, that's easy. I'm walking everywhere. Phil's always walking. We're sitting down and my brother goes, yo, was that your... I was like, yeah, he just walks, bro. He's on a Zoom. But you could literally go 10 years without...

Without like randomly running into somebody. If you're not at a function, just like out of some way. But that's the disease of this kind of movie. The vignette everything's connected movie. Yeah. The like fable. It's only really worked once. Magnolia. I guess twice then. What's the other one?

Playing by Heart with Angelina Jolie. That movie's fucking awesome. No one knows about that movie except for me. Ryan Phillippe's in that movie. Dennis Quaid's in that movie. It all comes together in the end. It's like, whoa, they all know each other. Gina Rowland. Sorry, spoiler. Great Gina Rowland movie. 27 years old. There's a monologue about dancing about architecture in that movie. It's a good movie. Oh my God. Jon Stewart's in it. Literally, I don't know anyone else who's ever seen that movie. It would just be me and Joe in Rewatchables. Rewatchables, Playing by Heart. Let's do it. Yeah.

Wouldn't Matt Doan just let her die in the car? In real life, probably. But remember, he's... He's like, oh shit, this is the lady who could probably get me kicked off the force in a five-year lawsuit. I should just kind of let her go. There's another version of this movie where he runs up to her and he sees her. He looks around.

And he like drops a cigarette. Yeah, drops it in the head. Oh, yeah. That's a better movie. Yeah, better movie. She's catching it. She's like, he's just walking away. Yeah, that's a better movie. So when Terrence Howard gets carjacked and drives off,

And the cops see something happening, right? And then they decide something's happened to the car. They chase it. Chase it to this driveway where he's driving erratically. They don't walk toward the car. They don't check out, make sure nobody else is in the car. Well, Luda is slouching. Yeah. I'm just, I'm just, it's just how police work goes. It's a felony stop at that point.

So on a felony stop... You're at least putting him in handcuffs for two minutes and you're at least checking to see if anyone else is in the car. Oh, no. You're talking about after. Yeah, when they have him... When Ludacris is slouching in the front seat. They're checking the car. Well, hold on. But Ryan Phillippe's like, let's just walk away from this. At the beginning of it, you're not checking... These guys are policemen. At the beginning of it, you're not checking the car. You're on a felony stop. You have to neutralize him...

first it's you ever been you haven't obviously oh i'm saying once they neutralize them you're still checking the car you're gonna go check the car but they hadn't ever really neutralized them because he was still walking it's an absurd scene he was advancing towards them so like they're gonna be like they go get out the car get out the car get out the car you get out the car but whatever whatever but like they're gonna deal with him first before they go check he wouldn't even sit down on the curb right like they weren't doing anything um

Don Cheadle gets into a car accident right where his brother had just been killed. What are the odds of that? Like one in a kajillion? I think he was supposed to show up to that scene. And gets in the car accident. All right, fair. The white van just has keys in it for 12 hours. Nobody just takes it. Sure.

The Chop Shop guy knew exactly what to do in an unexpected human trafficking situation. He just knows how to sell people. Not his first rodeo. Not his first human trafficking. Is this a real human being? I would think... Hold on, I'm going to call Al. Wait a minute. He's like, first of all, they're Thai or Cambodian. Secondly. Yeah, he knows the whole deal. I would think that he would be like,

I mean, he didn't want the heat of the blood spatter from earlier, but he wants the heat of selling human beings. But trapping sounds great. Yeah. So I would think he would have been even more freaked out, but he wasn't. He got all fucking... I think he knows what he's doing. Thomas Jefferson with this shit. He was like, oh, slavery. Are Chop Chop guys secretly the most evil people on the planet? That's one of the lessons from Crash. They're actually supposed to be kind of cool. That's what I thought. Yeah.

Any other nitpicks? No, just the whole movie. Sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all black cast are untouchable. We mentioned earlier it became a stars TV show in 2008. I think there's a prestige version of this show that you could try to make. I wouldn't want to watch it.

But I think it makes more sense in that context than a movie. I think it's untouchable, but not the way you usually use untouchable on this show. True. You could orient... It's touchable. It's touchable. You could orient a prestige show around the case that Don Cheadle was on, right? Yeah. Around that case, like with the dirty cop and the whole deal and the machinations within City Hall. Yeah.

And then it could spread out from there into the DA, into his brother. It would have to be a black showrunner. Yeah. The sequel to this is The Hunt for Ryan Phillippe, right?

Is Ryan Phillippe going back to work? He burned his car. Is he going to Mexico? Oh, he's going back to work. He's going back to work? Yeah, he's got to go back to work. So Don Cheadle's looking for the murderer of his brother who was on the force. All of that. That's part of the show. Cord Jefferson's Crash. Cord Jefferson's Crash. But it's a comedy? Yep. Oh. After he does Entourage, he does Entourage. After he does Entourage, he does it. Guess what? It's already a comedy. Crash is already a comedy. He just does it. Yeah.

It's like when Gus Van Sant did Psycho as a shot-by-shot remake. Right, a shot-by-shot remake. Kord just does a shot-by-shot crash remake. Yeah, give it to Vaughn. What is he doing?

Is this movie better than Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Berg, Sam Jackson? No. Byron Mayo, Barney Cousins, Tony Romo, Harley Mays, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Long Legs, or Wilford Brimley in The Firm? The question is, how is Danny Trejo not in this fucking movie? He must have been filming another movie. It's so LA, crimey. How is he not in it? They didn't find anything for him in this anywhere. Wilford Brimley in The Firm in the Fickner role.

Because there's that whole scene in the firm where he's showing Tom Cruise the incriminated photos of him, the dossiers. You know what that's going to mean, Cheadle? Heartbreak. I think Wayne Jenkins is the Matt Dillon. We won't do a Wayne Jenkins impersonation without CR, but Wayne Jenkins in the Matt Dillon role would have been pretty interesting. You don't want to try? No. Okay. Do you want to say Shaniqua again? No. Just one Oscar, who gets it? I mean, it got three Oscars, but I think in retrospect...

I'd probably say Terrence Howard. Yeah. For Best Supporting Actor. If I had to give an Oscar. I would say Terrence Howard. What about Ludacris as a nomination? That would've been really fun. That would be really fun for Ludacris. I thought Fast 7, he got robbed. Luda on the award circuit? Would've been great. Yeah. Probably unanswerable questions. If this movie had a black director but was the exact same movie, what happens? They don't...

And a serious rewrite of the screenplay? I'm saying it's the exact same movie. Exact same movie. Every single moment is the same, but the director's black. Run him out of town. I'm telling you, man. It would have been. Oh, it doesn't get any Oscars. Yeah. They'd run him out of town. It would have been. He or she would have just gotten destroyed from all sides. Any other unanswerables?

How did this movie beat Brokeback Mountain? I guess that's not really the question of the category. I think that had more to do with Brokeback Mountain and where the country was in 2005. Yeah. That's it. And the Academy specifically. Yeah. And old white dudes who were probably 70% to 80% of the vote at this point. I'll say something about Brokeback Mountain. Brokeback Mountain went forward. When you were in the theater watching Brokeback Mountain, that actually made me read the short story after it.

When you were in the theater watching Brokeback Mountain, Brokeback Mountain didn't make that story for consumption with people that would be uncomfortable with any of the... And not even just the sex, the love and the affection between the two men. Brokeback Mountain said either you're ready for it or you're not. And they weren't quite ready. It doesn't seem...

Like we're probably doing it this year for rewatchables. It doesn't seem as crazy now when you're watching it as it did in 05, that there was a mainstream movie that was going for some of the stuff it was going for. Now it's like 20 years later. It's like, of course they made this movie. Well, it was mostly, it's mostly, I think that like Gyllenhaal and Ledger were, but like Ang Lee wins best director. It's not,

It's not inconceivable that it wins Best Picture. I think it was really, really close. Well, I think that's why everybody was shocked. I think it was a heavy favorite. Yeah, no. It's just like if it's going to lose. Now it's crazy. Now if you're redoing Oscars, it's one of the first ones you redo. Of course, but if it's going to lose to anything, that it loses to Crash is just like. What else was nominated that year? Well, there was, Munich was nominated that year. Capote. Capote. Capote was the other one. Yeah.

And then Good Night, Good Luck, which is not a good movie. So not an incredibly strong Best Picture year, right? No. But Brokeback should have won. It's crazy that it didn't win. What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie? It's probably the fortified underwear would be my pick for the not want piece.

Game-worn, fortified underwear. No, thank you. You don't think Tenduia Newton kept that? Probably dumped that one. The St. Christopher statue. I was going to say the St. Christopher statue. That's probably going to be the most notable thing. Coach Finstock wore a best life lesson. Everyone's a racist. But also...

everyone's not a racist you can be racist you can be a redeemable racist yeah everyone is a little bad but everyone is we're all like pizza how about so bad how about public transportation it's not so bad it's better than getting a car with right yep good point yeah best double feature choice what do you have joe uh 25th hour oh interesting interesting one wow

That movie has the hyper-racist rants from all the characters inside of it, but it's like, we did this better. This is how Spiked it. Grand Canyon. That's a great line. Honestly, that's the answer. I was going to say American History X, but Grand Canyon's perfect. Because that's like the previous generation of this movie. Uh-oh, we took a wrong turn coming back from the Laker game. Oh my god.

That movie's funny, too. I still fuck with Grand Canyon. I kind of like Grand Canyon. I know everybody. She finds a baby. I know everybody hates it. Mary McDonnell finds a baby. Yeah. That's amazing. It's her baby. I fuck with Grand Canyon. Who won the movie? I guess Paul Haggis. Yeah, Paul Haggis won. And we all collectively lost, I think, as a culture. Craig, had you ever seen this movie? No. No.

I've never been more interested. I had heard about it, certainly. So you knew. You were a little prejudiced by what you had heard. Yeah. I thought this was like the best movie I've seen in 10 years. I'm completely lying. I was about to say, bro. What the shit? No, no. You know that meme that's like, my expectations were low, but holy fuck? Yeah. That is how I felt. I thought this would at least have something I could kind of grab onto. I thought this was a horrible movie. What was the worst part of this horrible movie for you? Uh...

honestly, how unsubtle it is and how lack of nuance there is. Um, just, I don't know, shocking at 2005. Maybe that was a terrible time. And you know, what's funny is I do think the movie, if it were to come out now, I kind of think it would still be really successful.

I think this movie would still make a lot of money amongst a certain crowd. Because it's kind of like if a Facebook post was a movie. Like, there's that kind of Facebook pseudo-intellectual, like, warped sentimental bullshit that I think a lot of people would like. It didn't even make a lot of money then. It didn't even make a lot of money then. No, it made like $100 million. I mean, that's crazy. Yeah. Like, relative to the budget. But, like, we used to live in a society where we watched more movies. But,

That's true. Who is watching this movie now? Everybody's on Facebook. Craig, the movie would come out and we would go apeshit. It would end careers. It was like we... People... It...

movies queen and slip like any movie that delves into this that doesn't do it authentically now is is held up in such detest you couldn't make it with any of the big names or anything like that but what was that um what was that movie that came out a couple years ago that religious movie that was that did really well so my god's not dead no it was about like the trap the like sound of freedom oh yeah you talk about like something different though yeah but i think there's like it's like there's a world in

catches fire in that way because of that kind of side of society. Wasn't Sound of Freedom the one that they like astroturfed the theaters though that like people weren't actually seeing that? That they were just mass buying tickets to make it seem like people were seeing that movie? Also mass church groups.

mega churches would get their people and take their people to go see the movie after church. But to be honest with you, I might make one of those. Those movies do well. I'm being for real. I might make one of those. What is your mega church scam movie called, man? Ooh, that's a good one.

Yeah. Oh, you know what it is? He won't be making a Scientology movie. We've learned that during this pod. They blacked his face out again. Yeah, blacked my face out again. Mine is going to be about a prosperity preacher, like a black prosperity preacher that preaches kind of like Leap of Faith. It's a shadow remake of Leap of Faith with Steve Martin. It's about a black prosperity preacher that's actually just trying to get money, but then something happens and he really catches the spirit.

He really catches the spirit. And then I'm going to put all of the people in it. David's going to be in my shit. And we're going to put all of the people in it. And then we're just going to go church to church to church to church to church, running it up. I can't believe every actor. It's called The Price of Heaven. I can't believe every actor read the script and was like, yeah, this is an awesome choice for me in my career right now. Craig, I guarantee you.

They were so thrilled. I know, I bet. I really think it's hard to overstate how weird 2005 was. Well, I could see how in the moment- Just as a stretch in society. I could see how in the moment, if you're an impressionable young person and you go see this movie, like your 10-minute regret thing, I could even see it being like a year-long regret. I'm surprised Ebert didn't walk it back because he usually does when he has bad takes. But you can see how in the moment somebody could walk away being like, this felt important. But just put it in context, okay? So post 9-11, we are dealing with a lot of

Like 9-11 was almost... It was the big... It wasn't the beginning of online... It was the beginning of this really harsh approach to discourse. Where we're like... Tribalism. Yeah, to where we're like really litigating all the idiosyncrasies between us and all of that stuff like that. This movie deals in that. Then you have like...

the Bush era where we thought we were divided. We weren't even nearly as divided as we are now. It was actually a movie perfect for its time in a way to look at the LA. I feel like we weren't,

I thought 9-11 in some ways brought people a little closer. It did, but... And then Tom Brady and the Patriots started winning Super Bowls, and that brought people closer. It did. But it gave people license to say... I feel like it gave people license to say things that they weren't saying in the 90s. You know what I mean? Like, we went through a phase in the 90s, the political PC culture, right? And then 9-11 happened, and it just sort of let the lid off of a lot of things. It's happening a little bit again right now. Right, but then also remember that, like, by the time 2005 comes...

we're just beginning to sort of re-examine all of this stuff. Well, but the OJ verdict starts it, right? The way everybody reacted to the OJ verdict was illuminating in a lot of different ways. And that kind of led toward... But then by the late 90s...

I don't know. It felt like things had... Oh, we were... You know why? Could be kind of moved on. You know why? Why? Because everybody was getting money. Yeah. And we were having fun. And then 9-11 happened. And then... It's like, oh, shit. Bill Clinton, party president. Party president. Party president. We were having fun. Fucking NSYNC, Backstreet Boys. Everybody was having a good time. The economy was good. Everybody was having fun. And then stuff starts to happen. And we start to go, oh, okay. Joe Francis, girls were going wild. Bruh.

2 a.m. 2 a.m. We're in South Padre Island, Texas. Wrestling was the best it's ever been. Wrestling, the attitude era. The 90s was fun. The 90s was hell of fun. There's nothing better than the 90s. Movies were great. Nothing better than the 90s. TV shows were coming on. The music was amazing. You would have loved the late 90s, Greg. I was there, Kanye. Internet was starting. Internet was just starting. It was a great. It was a good time. It was an amazing time. The what? Was the internet a mistake? It was inevitable. Yeah, it was inevitable.

That's what we're saying about AI right now. I thought the Cambodian children part, I was like, all right, we've gone one step too far. We didn't need that. That's what broke you. I was like, what do we even... All the way through the movie, and then we broke him. Cambodian children and women in it. I'm like, all right, Paul, come on here. Another reason why everybody did it is because of Paul Haggis.

Yeah. Million dollar baby. Million dollar baby. Also, I love that the only character he didn't redeem was the store owner, the Persian guy. He didn't redeem, like, he was just like, oh, God saved me from killing this little girl. I think he had as much of a redemption as Matt Dillon where they're just sort of like,

Christmas in LA. But Haggis tried to redeem Matt Dillon, even though it was ridiculous. Like, he didn't even try to redeem. What was the redemption for the story? They're getting rid of the gun. Yeah. And he's not going to go shoot people in the street anymore. He tried to kill me. It's like God saved him. He killed a kid, bro. I don't care. He did it. He guilty. 100%. That's a charge. Yeah.

See, that shot is also, the two shots they use in the promotion of this, like when you're Googling this movie, is the Tandy Newton in Matt Dillon's arms and then Michael Payne's dream. Crash, coming Friday. I would watch Amelia Perez 20 times in a row before I watch Crash again. Actually, to be honest with you, Amelia Perez is kind of the Crash of its day.

Similar similarities. Except we, we took a turn before it won best picture. Here's a question for you. We sure did. Watching this movie. Did you think you were watching the kind of movie where like the

The kid is going to die. I did think the kid was going to die. Yeah. Or like, it's a different experience re-watching Crash. I actually, I hadn't seen it in a long time. Like Terrence Howard gets out. I thought Michael Peña died in the movie. That was my memory of it. Oh, yeah. When he didn't die, I was like, oh, I forgot. There's certain stakes in the movie when you watch it the first time. Terrence Howard gets out of the car with a gun in the back of his belt. You're like, something terrible is going to happen. Yeah, yeah. The Peña scene was nerve wracking. I was going to be really, I was going to be killed. I like the movie.

No, it's just, but then you rewatch it knowing the girl's going to be safe, Terrence Howard's going to be safe, and you're just sort of like, well, it's just Lawrence Tate and we don't really care. This movie won Best Picture. I'm telling you, man, I don't know what movie I'd rather watch than, or I wouldn't rather watch than this. Like, The Room.

Tommy Wiseau. I would watch that. Well, that's just fun. I would watch anything over this. Liz came in halfway through and was like, what is going on? Every five minutes, this is ridiculously over-the-top racist interaction. Yeah. Yeah. That's Crash. That was the rewatchables. There you go. You can watch us every week on Spotify now on video. Watch us on Ringer Movies. You can see these two in House of R and Midnight Boys. Midnight Boys, yep. Beep, beep.

Beep beep. Wait, did you guys say beep beep?

That's all I'm going to do now. That's all I'm going to do now. I didn't realize what he was doing. It's pew pew. No, no. I said beep beep. It's Pew Pew. I don't care. I did beep beep. Why would you do beep beep when it's pew pew? It's beep beep now. Because I did my own version of it. It's beep beep now. Free country. Midnight Boys, beep beep. Johnny Five. Like a little roadrunner. Yeah, beep beep. And higher learning as well. Yeah. Thank you both. Thank you. Thank you.