‘Days of Thunder’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Kyle Brandt
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Hey, Rewatchables fans, you already knew we were coming to Boston for a sold-out show on March 27th, but what you didn't know is we're sticking around that weekend. We're going to host our first ever Rewatchables Film Festival while we're in Boston. We're screening some of our favorite movies, movies that we have done on this podcast, plus maybe a couple others, at the historic Coolidge Corner Theater. We're doing it all weekend from March 28th

through March 30th, one of my favorite theaters in America. We might even make a few surprise appearances at a couple of these screenings. It's your chance to see some of our favorites as they were meant to be seen.

on the big screen. Classic mob heist, Boston movies we love, Goodfellas, The Town, The Departed. Oh yeah, we're doing Heat. Again, it's going to kick off Friday, March 28th at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline. Visit theringer.com slash events for showtimes and ticket information. Hopefully, we'll see you there.

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You might say all kinds of stuff when things go wrong, but these are the words you really need to remember. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They've got options to fit your unique insurance needs, meaning you can talk to your agent to choose the coverage you need, have coverage options to protect the things you value most, file a claim right on the State Farm mobile app, and even reach a real person when you need to talk to someone. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

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Bank of America. References to charitable organizations are not an endorsement by Bank of America Corporation. Copyright 2025. The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find...

What's it called? The watch. Yeah, that's it. Right. TV, TV, TV podcast. Yeah. Culture pod with you and Andy Greenwald. You're on the big picture as well. Try not to ring your Philly specials sometimes. Yeah. Not a lot of Sixers talk there lately. That's Kyle Brandt. Yeah.

We can find you. Where can we find you? Tell us. It's Offseason NFL. You can find me on the Good Morning Football program, as always. I did it this morning for four hours. I'm ready to do more content with you for the NFL Media Group. And I'm ready. Let's do it. Is it good to get you groggy after four hours of content? Or are we just getting like...

I don't know. It's like you've played your second NFL game in the same day. I'm concerned. No, but the good news is I had a 72-ounce mellow yellow, so I'm ready to rock, Bill. Let's go. Change my tires. Days of thunder. I guess it's sports movie month. Let's go. You're very quick. You gotta see me drive.

Heat. Yes! The power. You want to control something that's out of control? Absolutely. The thrill. Woo! That lasts long after the ride. Tom Cruise, Days of Thunder. Rated PG-13. Starts Wednesday, June 27th at theaters everywhere.

All right, fellas, I guess it's officially Sports Movie Month. We did Rocky. We did Best in Show. We did Days of Thunder. And we're more than halfway through March. This was a special Kyle Brandt request. Yeah. Why? Well, listen, very personal to me. I've never spoken about this publicly, but I first seduced my wife with two packets of Sweet and Low. So it's a very personal story. No, listen.

Is this movie Timu Top Gun? Yeah, maybe. But Bill and Chris, it's great to be here. I have not watched this movie in like four years after dozens of watches. And as I'm watching it on the rewatch, as the credits are coming up, each name that pops up,

I find myself saying, fuck yeah. Like over and over. And it became like the team America, Tom Cruise. Fuck yeah. Tony Scott. Fuck yeah. Hans Zimmer. Fuck yeah. Fred Thompson. Fuck yeah. Is it a great movie? No, but it's really fun. And it was like running into an old friend. And it hit that 1990. It comes out and it's just on cable for the next 15 years. Just straight. And you could jump in when you want. What's your relationship CR? Yeah.

Yeah, like Kyle said, I also regard this as essentially like a cloned Top Gun. But man, this clone looks good. And I have to say that as far as like movies that have aged well in terms of like if you get a good if you watch this on 4K or something like that.

This movie has no business looking as good as it does. Like Tony Scott, despite the fact that it sounds like Don Simpson was doing eight balls and pushing him out of the way of the viewfinder every five seconds, shoots the shit out of this. And you really can just jump in and watch like a few races and a few scenes of tall Nicole Kidman kissing short Tom Cruise up against the wall.

And you're good for the rest of the month, man. Yeah, and it's also one of these movies that, as the years have passed, becomes just more interesting from all the side plots of when they made it, what happened with Cruise and Kidman. The half-assed internet research for this movie is almost too much. It was one of the rare times. If we're doing Boogie Nights or something like that, there's going to be a shitload of research, and it's worth it.

This is like, how long do we go about Don Simpson? Do we go an hour? Do we go three hours? Like what's, should we do a separate pod about Don Simpson trying to catch himself in the movie? Well, we might have to, because you know, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, these legendary eighties and nineties producers, they, and they're starting this giant paramount deal. They did, which according to premier magazine was five movies, $300 million, which is crazy. Um,

And it's, and there's been podcasts about these guys. There's been books written about them. They've been, the story has been told ad nauseum about just how crazy Don Simpson was. This was the craziest he, he, he was during this entire run 1990, where he's just like budget. Fuck it.

Is it 35 million? Let's go 65. Let's, let's just argue on the racetrack about a scene for an entire day while we pay, you know, hundreds of extras and then not film the scene. This is like the kind of shit you would see in a movie about Hollywood. Yeah.

That would seem like, wow, they really went for this movie. This is crazy. This actually all happened. This budget ends up being like $65 million. If it was actually $65 million, I'm six foot three. Right about 100. You guys, I'm sure everybody has different takes about what's happening with the economy now, but I think we can all agree we want to get back to a place where a movie production can literally take over the city of Daytona. Yeah.

Right. Yes. And and put up neon signs outside of nightclubs and whatever that say Days of Thunder where their producers just lord over the city like kings. And Tom Cruise has like a coterie of like handlers and all this like this must have been such a mind blowing thing just to be right fly on the wall for that. It actually is almost as good as the movie itself.

Yeah. We're coming out of the cocaine era. We're coming out of it. That's right, Bill. There was no cocaine. Well, there's a Don Simpson's trying to keep it alive. Uh, and it's that eighties excess era. That's still kind of going in 89, 90, these big budget movies, a lot of sequels at this point. Um, I was trying to think like in 2025, uh,

What would be a more sure thing idea than this was in 1990 where you have Simpson and Bruckheimer and a red, red, red, red hot Tom Cruise basically redoing Top Gun with race cars.

I, there's no scenario where somebody could be like, all right, it's going to be, let's say Chalamet. Yeah. It's going to be Chalamet. Okay. Who is a producer that was more reliable at this point than Simpson Bruckheimer? I can't think of one. What's the sport that hasn't been dove into like this. I can't like Kyle. I don't,

I just think this is like a one-on-one in a weird way, even though the movie is not great. No, if you, if you heard today that Chalamet was teaming up with Chris Nolan to make some crazy thing, that's really cool, but it's not the nitroglycerin effect of Tom Cruise over the last five years he had with Jerry Bruckheimer. And you're right. It sounds like a fake movie that would be being made in a movie like Christopher Maltesante making Cleaver. It's like,

Days of Thunder even sounds like a fake name. It sounds like a stupid fake name that would be in a movie. And I love that Simpson's going to get shine here today because Bruckheimer, I think, is so much more famous, contemporary to the young people. But it feels like Simpson was really the wild one of the group in everything you hear. Right. Well, Simpson...

So they're talking in the premiere magazine. And basically, the premise of this is there hasn't been a cool race car movie since Le Mans with McQueen, which is a very cool movie. It's a little dated now. The movie is like 51 years old, but it's still cool. And I think it was really inspirational for people who care about cars. The Porsche that was in that movie, I forget what actor had it.

It was like Kevin Costner, somebody like that. Got the actual Le Mans car? Seinfeld bought it for like a million dollars in 2001 and sold it for like $25 million in the last year. But it was... And since that movie, there was a couple other ones like Bobby Deerfield happened there. People kind of dipped in this pool, but I felt like... Yeah, I think they felt like this was sitting there. And the other thing that was in that premiere piece was how excited NASCAR was...

to welcome these guys into their world. They basically, this is like if somebody made an NBA movie now and they were like, hey, we need the actors to play in an exhibition game. We need to have all your uniforms. We need like scenes of them in the fourth quarter playing with your players. They're like, cool, take it. What about a regular season game? Okay, great. Let's put them in that too. We'll do 10 day contracts. That's how crazy this is, Kyle. You know what it's like? Okay, so Dark Knight Rises, the NFL is like, you're not using our teams. You're going to blow up a stadium. That's crazy. However,

when a sudden death with Van Damme goes to the NHL and is like, can we have the penguins and the Blackhawks? Even though we're going to blow up the stadium too. They're like, sure. You're going to make a movie with the NHL. Please. We'd love to have you. You want yogurt? Yeah. And we'll put them in the movie. We don't care. Take it. That's the NASCAR here. So the, the, the premise of the, or the, the, the bones of this movie CR. Yeah. Tom Cruise will go into the moment he's having his career.

Bobby Duvall, big shot Bob. Fresh off turning down Godfather 3 for $5 million. He's like, you know what I'm doing instead? Days of Thunder. Nicole Kidman, 23 years old. Had only really done Dead Calm. I saw Dead Calm in the theater. We all marked it. We were like, this lady's great. Really interested to see what happens with her. Did not expect to see her in Days of Thunder with Tom Cruise. Michael Rooker. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle, we'll put him on the side. We're going to talk a lot of Rooker. I think this might be our third Rooker together. We do a lot of Rooker. The rest of you guys can do the Tom Hanks and the Daniel Day-Lewis. We do Michael Rooker. I was going to say, I think Rooker has officially passed Daniel Day-Lewis in rewatchables now. When we do the rewatches, Rooker is going to get a special achievement for some of his great moments. So we got Rooker. We got John C. Reilly.

We get carry always who just keeps popping up in movies in the eighties and nineties, but there's no carry all these conversations. We get a Fred Thompson, Randy Quaid. We get a produced by Simpson and Bruckheimer story by Robert town and Tom Cruz. Yeah. This feels, this felt flimsy to me. CR. Well, apparently the idea for the movie came from Tom Cruz and Paul Newman doing like a charity race, uh,

And Cruz got obsessed, had been obsessed with racing since he was a kid. And then he got Robert Towne, who's a big running sports, like aficionado, passionate fan. But let's just say they weren't at Starbucks banging out plot points on a yellow notepad, I'm guessing. I agree. But Robert Towne becomes like Tom Cruise's sensei for the next four or five movies. Right. So this is a written by Robert Towne. Robert Towne for the younger ones listening. Legendary screenwriter.

70s and 80s. Chinatown, shampoo, last detail. Yeah, if you're just mentioning, hey, who are the great screenwriters? His name is going to come up in the first five, six names you mentioned. So he's in there. Music by Hans Zimmer and Jeff Beck. Fucking A. Go, Kyle. I mean, listen. Just cook right now.

Zimmer, you can have your John Williams. Zimmer is my goat. We just saw him in the headlines for the Oscars, but he has handed this white trash redneck NASCAR script and said, just make it cook Hans. And I said, I got you. If there's a wheelchair race, I'm going to score it. And he is one of the stars of this movie. Not to step on casting what ifs, but movies first offered to Harold Faltermeyer. Yeah. Really? And Harold goes,

You know, I'm not feeling it. Can I introduce you to my friend Hans Zimmer? And they're like, sounds great. And Hans is like, I'm thinking...

there's some like orchestra stuff, but like a heavy electric guitar. Yes. And we just, and, and that's my, and they're like, go cook Hans. Yeah. And I say in the middle of movie, we put the guns and roses, usual losing the one out of nowhere. Let's do it. I met Jeff Beck at a dinner party. He's going to come in and do the electric guitar. Uh,

And then directed by Tony Scott, CR. Yes. Tony Scott now moving into first place in the all-time director rankings. As it should be. In the rewatchables. Tied for first now. I was thinking about this with Unstoppable, with Top Gun, with Days of Thunder. Is there anybody better at shooting moving vehicles than Tony Scott? Yeah. No.

No, like maybe the best director of like movement that we have we ever had. And Chris, Tom Cruise has talked about this many times on record. He still thinks there are things ripping off of this movie and the way that they shot that and how good it is and how good it looks. And I remember when the three of us, I think the last the three of us were last together on Roadhouse.

And after we made some like stupid comments at the beginning, CR jumped in and was like, this movie looks great. It's got bones. And this movie for all its idiocy and wheelchair racism we'll talk about, it looks amazing. And I think Cruz was super proud of, he still is. He still talks about it.

So there's, I sent these guys a video that NASCAR has put up all like these old Daytona 500s, the CBS broadcasts of Daytona 500s on YouTube. You can watch like they're the two and a half hours or whatever. And it's really awesome just to go back in the time machine and see how like TV broadcasts were in 1990. Right. But one of the cool things about it is you can watch Daytona from 1990 and see how a CBS TV camera shoots it. Mm-hmm.

And then you can see how Tony Scott and Ward Russell shoot it and all the color they find and all the shadow they find, all the texture they find. And it is literally what cinematography is. It is something that isn't necessarily there and embellishing things and lighting things in a way that brings out story. And it's so awesome to check it out.

Well, and then the other cool piece is, so in the nineties, we had the square TVs all the way through the two thousands. And now widescreens really helped us HD. You can get this on 4k Blu-ray now. And it fucking looks amazing. You got your beak. Did you get this on Blu-ray? You know, I, I didn't cause it wasn't going to show up in time, but I'm going to, okay. I'm going to get this in rush actually. Cause as you know, I love rush, but I think those two. So in the all time rewatchable standings,

Cruise is now up to 16 rewatchables movies. He's a three movie lead over De Niro and Pacino. But more importantly, Tony Scott moves up to nine in a tie with Michael Mann. And I don't know what we do now, CR. I feel like we almost have to get Michael Mann

We have a few left. I think we got to shoot one next. We can't have him be tied for first with anybody. Yeah, but we're going to have a Ted Michael band movie next month. Yeah. No, there's some good ones left anyway. Yeah. I just wanted to flag that because I, you know, I know Michael's a huge fan of the pod. He takes it, takes it really seriously. And I don't think he wants to share first. We've been teasing the revise for a while. Yeah. Well, maybe that'll be it.

So Richard Petty said of this movie, the only thing they got right was the numbers on the side of the cars. I don't think this was very, uh, very well, like King settled out Richard Petty, uh, Tom Cruise's first prime 1986 to 93. Yeah.

I think it's similar to LeBron, Brady, some of the great athletes where it's like, oh, this first specific prime of Top Gun, Color of Money, Cocktail, Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July, Days of Thunder, Far and Away, Few Good Men, The Firm. It's like this confined eight-year run. Mm-hmm.

And then we get a little weird with the interview of the vampire. And all of a sudden we're at Jerry Maguire into eyes wide shut vanilla sky, which is kind of like the first mission impossible. That's kind of the second cruise prime. Then we end up with that, that long stretch following Oprah sofa where we get reacher. We get some good ones, some bad ones. It's a little like when Brady didn't win a super bowl for a while. And then top gun Maverick.

And then some mission impossibles. Now Cruz is like in his fourth prime. I'll put tomorrow in that, in that tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. So four prime, but Kyle, this was the first cruise prime and he's basically playing variations of Pete Maverick Mitchell in as many movies as possible. Where does Cole trickle rank for you in the cruise rankings? Cause I was,

I'm kind of maybe one of my least favorite cruise characters of this run. Yeah. It's, it's Kirkland brand Maverick. It's, it's not the best character. It's not, it's a funny name, but we never get, we never get the scene. Like in Maverick,

He has the scene in his tighty-whities where he breaks down over Goose's death, and that's a really powerful scene. He does really good acting. When you're talking about this era of his prime, and I had this in What's Aged the Best, it is Cruise with the greats of the old guard actors in the ring delivering. He goes from 86 to 93. Newman, heartbreaker.

Hoffman, Duvall, Hackman, Nicholson, every single movie, it's him and a first ballot hall of famer doing high drama. And like, I like that he jumps off giant buildings right now and it's fun, but he used to go at it with the giant actors. And this kind of brought me back to that. Yeah. And then Leo kind of followed that blueprint a little bit too. How can I work with great directors and great stars? But yeah, this is a great run. So, and then he, he's in few good men in the firm.

You know, few good men is like the super cocky, sarcastic cruise. Rain man is the full of confidence, charisma cruise. Cocktail is to me, peak cruise. I, that's like my favorite cruise. I just love cocktail cruise. And then this is kind of in the top gun camp, right? CR is there. I guess color money is a big charisma, like tough cruise. But I think that the thing you're locating is probably a few,

result of the fact that they didn't really have a script when they started shooting this thing. So there is like, or when they finished shooting the gestures towards like Cole's, you know, father being, you know, a financial criminal and ruining the first part of his career. Um,

Then there's like, this is a guy who wears button up white shirts all the way to the top and yet is in NASCAR. So like, where's he coming from? What's he doing? He's from Eagle Rock. Ultimately, at the end of the film, I walk away with it being more of a movie about the Duvall character than it is about Cole.

And it's about the ball character learning to like trust a driver again after what happens with John C. Reilly's dad and everything. But yeah, I, for me, this is way more about racing than it is about people. And it's way more about watching shit go fast than it is about like guys doing great scene work. Kyle, do you think Cruz was trying to make this guy like enigmatic and

trying to figure him out? Was this like, was that like the cruise angle? Cause it's a pretty muted cruise performance. Like you could argue this easily just could have been Kevin Costner.

Like this isn't like a cruise dependent role. Whereas the other cruise movies, like you can't have cocktail without cruise. You can't have few good men without cruise this. I feel like you could have other actors. Those guys of his ilk are always begging for demons. Like there's legendary stories about Leo DiCaprio would follow James Cameron around Titanic. Be like, you got to give this guy some backstory. This guy is a huge pussy. Jack Dawson. He's just totally nice. And there's a little bit of that going on with cruise. Like when he's Maverick,

he's referred to as like, it's gotta be hard when you're Pete Mitchell's kid. Like that is a heavy burden. This is like kind of just an idiot who shows up in a motorcycle and his character twist is that he doesn't know anything about cars and like a completely, completely half-baked father storyline that CR just talked about. Right. Probably because they're like, you know, guys, shouldn't we figure out that dad thing for Cole in the third act? And they were like,

Just more fucking racing. Yeah. And Cruz, basically, it is like watching LeBron on the 2018 Cavs just being like, I'll turn it on this game and put up a 32, 11, and 12. Yeah. He has like four scenes where he's like, I'm going to cruise it up this scene. So it's enough that he still gets the win for being Cruz. It's interesting, too, because there's probably...

more vince from color of money than there is um pete from top gun in this movie where vince and top in color of money it's like he's being manipulated like what does paul newman call him like you're the you're a great flake you know like you're kind of an idiot but i can use that i can use your your arrogance and your idiocy you know against other players um

Cole's confidence and his sort of like I don't really know anything about cars I just know how to drive Like that is a kind of electric idea But they do away with it once a brain surgeon falls in love with him Yeah You can see somewhere in the middle They were like no Cole's actually an emotionally You know he's like very like unpacked So that we can have Nicole Kidman be in love with him Yeah I think if you're redoing this movie And you could cast anybody from any era

This is like a Brad Pitt mid-2000s part. Well, they're doing it now, right? I mean, kind of an F1. This is like, you want the guy to be handsome, a little enigmatic. I can't read him. Cruise has too much charisma to do that, and I think he wanted to be that, but eventually you can't contain your inner Tom Cruise if you're Tom Cruise Kyle. I think some of the things he has going for him in this movie is great Cruise hair, really, really cool hair for 1990. Maybe the best hair he's ever had. Really, like a full,

pert plus commercial a lot of body and then listen the top gun comparison he's really good at a tight shot of his face wearing a helmet with his name stenciled across it saying one line at a time when he says harry this guy's going down it's fucking awesome and it feels like maverick is back it's cool you left out one piece of the cruise pie the uh the the blank

face of fear. I don't know how this is going to turn out. Maybe I shouldn't do this, which they use leverage perfectly with the smoke scene. Driving through the wreck being the blank cruise. I'm not sure this is a good idea face. It's his re-engaged maverick going through the wreck. He's sitting there saying,

Talk to me Rowdy Talk to me He's looking at Rowdy's dog tags And it's like Trickles re-engaging Yes It's to the note The same motion and scene Do you think they thought about Calling Rowdy Goose or no? Goose burns Nicole Kidman Her first mainstream movie Because Dead Crown was an indie

She's 23 years old in real life playing a brain surgeon. Just want to point that out. But she could have a little Doogie Howser action going there. She could have just been different grades. She aced the SCTs in Australia, whatever their version of it are. Probably cool. She looks...

Fantastic. Yeah, it's great. And when you think she's been in our lives since Dead Con, but really since this movie, and it's a 35-year run, and just thinking about, what was that movie called? Baby Girl? Baby Girl. Fucking insane movie. And she's still cranking it along and making weird sex movies and still going. This person here, it's almost like watching the Nicole Kidman now, like her redheaded daughter.

Is in this movie. Like she just seems so young. And now you watch this movie with this whole backstory of, Oh, cruising Kidman fell in love on this movie. CR is this the prequel to eyes wide shut for you? Yeah. I have some eyes wide shut notes actually later for the different category. Okay. Good. Yeah. Great. Uh, cold trickle.

loosely based on the careers of Tim Richmond and Jeff Bodine. Tim Richmond, we did a 30 for 30 in season one about was a pretty crazy NASCAR driver ended up getting HIV, um, passed away. Pretty tragic story. But, um, under even came out, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, but Dale Earnhardt jr. Said he thought the movie was based on a rivalry between his dad and Bodine. Um, and then they stole a bunch of NASCAR stuff. Like, um,

The Cole and Rowdy will drive to the dinner thing together. That came from an actual meeting when they were trying to get Earnhardt, Senior, and Bodine to kind of get along better. Cole deliberately blowing his engine by over revving. That was a famous Tim Richmond story. He did it. Trickle can't pit because the crew is too busy eating ice cream. Apparently that happened in 1987 Southern 500 with Benny Parsons. And then Cole and Rowdy destroying rental cars.

Apparently in the 1950s, these two NASCAR superstars, I know you're very fond of them, Kyle. Joe Weatherly and Curtis Turner. Those are my guys. Supposedly would just rent cars and then just fuck them up and race them. Ever since I got Enterprise President's Club, I do that. You do? Yeah. You and Fantasy on your waiters shoot? We like to drag race civics. Just crashing into each other. Can I ask you guys, 1990, what's your relationship with,

to nascar because for me this kind of slots into one of those movies like to some extent rounders color of money this a movie that goes really in depth into a world that i am like that's cool i'm not going to now become a nascar fan or a billiards fan or a like a holden poker fan but i am very interested in this movie's version of this world so the complaints about this not being accurate to me don't really bother yeah i don't care much

I don't care. But if they did this about football and probably took the liberties they took with this movie, the three of us would be going nuts. We would. There'd be only 10 guys on the field for the final sequence. Like, what are they doing? And I'm sure NASCAR Reddit is up in arms about how it's treated. But this is a NASCAR movie, like...

Point Break is a surfing movie. Roadhouse is a movie about owning a bar and what it's really like. It's ridiculous. So I get it. But I'm just... Listen, in 1990, I was in fifth grade. And what I knew about NASCAR was this movie. And if you went to Hardee's, the restaurant, they had little matchbox cars you could buy. And I had a couple of them. That's it. I'd never seen a race. It was this movie. I saw this movie the summer... I think it was after a sophomore year in college. Uh-huh.

I just saw it for cruise. It didn't make me want to care about NASCAR at all. It did make me wonder why there weren't more NASCAR movies. And then every once in a while, who was that Burt Reynolds movie with a slice alone, Burt Reynolds driven. Oh yeah. 2000 range with kid Pardue from remember the Titans for sure. And that was like that every decade somebody goes for it. But I mean, I'm sure when producer Craig pops in, he's just good. He probably, he hadn't seen this movie till last night.

And this is basically Talladega Nights is a parody of this movie. Yeah. Right? So that's, I think, people's relationship under 40 with this whole world is Talladega Nights. I thought that NASCAR back then, because NASCAR obviously made that big push where it's like, actually, secretly, this is the biggest sport in the country. Yeah. They tried to do that a couple times. 10 years ago. But it was still very much like a regional phenomenon, I think. I was aware, I think my dad would watch like,

the Daytona 500 and every year I'd be like, so this is like their Super Bowl. And he's like, yes, but it's also the first race. And it's like, it would always, that was basically, it was like Indy 500, Daytona 500 were the extent of the car races that I would watch. I think, I think NASCAR is apex mountain for,

sports that you have to be there in person to really enjoy and that's what everybody says and like i've gone i went to a race once i went to a race 15 years ago and it was outside chicago and you cannot fucking believe how fast the cars are going yeah you watch it on tv and it looks like they're crawling and i remember i got to like i got to go in the pits and like super randomly this was the time in the chicago area that rex grossman was there and i was like what's up rex grossman and he was enjoying it too but when you go it fucking blows your mind it really does

Rex is like, I'm thinking of taking us to the Super Bowl and then completely falling apart. Kyle said, that sounds great. Yeah, but first have the opening kickoff be returned for a touchdown and your dumb ass still blows it. Yes, that's what he was talking about. My relationship as a kid of the 70s and 80s with this whole world was every once in a while Sports Illustrated would write about it. Like I just looked it up because I remembered it was Cole Yarborough. I didn't remember who the other person was, but there was a big fight.

In 1979 between Cole Yarborough and Bobby Allison. I think Bobby Allison. Yeah. And Sports Illustrated wrote a story about it. And I was like, whoa, these guys fought on the track. Like NASCAR seems kind of cool. And they never watched it.

And then the other thing would be if it was on a network that had football, they would promote it. Coming up next, Daytona. But it just never took. I always felt like it was just kind of in the South, just kind of happening over here. You know what, Bill? When I used to work with Jim Rome, we would book NASCAR drivers as guests. And the reason we would do it is because

They would talk shit and they were open and loose. And it wasn't like basketball or football players. They don't care. So you'd have Tony Stewart on and he would say some crazy bombastic thing about another driver that no player on the Knicks would ever say. So they were really good talk show guests and they were always the NASCAR is always providing them anybody you want. They're trying really hard. And that was part of the draw the personalities. Yeah.

Like the first two months I had my podcast for ESPN 2007. Tony Stewart was one of my first guests. Did Tony Stewart call in on the Subway Fresh Take hotline? I don't even think it was Subway Fresh Take yet. And I did the research and I saw that he had a car number 33. Yeah.

So I was like, oh, this would be a good icebreaker. My favorite number, Larry Bird. And we started off, I'm on the phone with him, so I can't see him. And I'm like, yeah, you know, you're one of my favorites because you raised number 33. And he's like...

Uh, I'm actually number 20 or whatever it is. I only ran 33 that a couple of races. So it was just, couldn't have been off to a worse start. And then he withdrew and it was like one of the, it was probably the worst anybody I'd ever, ever did for the podcast. Kyle's point though, about like how loose those guys were. I was just talking before we started recording about, uh, I think it's the 88 Daytona 500. I was watching last night. I kind of went down the rabbit hole. Just doing the work. There's a Richard Petty.

crash in the 88 500 really bad it looks really bad but they they like you know pull them out of the car they're like towing the car off they're like oh this is so bad this is so bad and they go down into the you know the infield

And they have like the sideline reporter guy is outside of the medical tent. And AJ Hoyt walks out of the medical tent. He had been in there too. And they're like, AJ, how's, how's Richard looking? And it's like, what if he's like, Richard's dead? Like, like what? Like, like I was like, what are you guys doing? There's no, this would be like basically like going up to AJ Brown and being like, Saquon's in the tent. How's he doing in there? And AJ Brown was like, I think he blew out his knee. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, do you remember when a Rogers tore his Achilles? They went to Tyrod Taylor and said, how's Rogers look? And he's like, oh, he's fucked. I'm going in. We're going to take a break. And then when we come back, we're going to talk about a famously fucked up shoot.

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on cars.com. Where to next? This movie was filmed in and around Charlotte and Daytona beach. And, um, when 25 to 30 million over budget, they say, which is probably really 50 because we had Simpson and Bruckheimer. We had Tony Scott, uh, legend, uh, a rewatchables hall of famer, uh,

I'm not positive he was that easy to work with from time to time. So you have him and then you have Robert town who's on the set with like crazy power. And then you have Cruz and it's the four guys. And then sometimes Cruz just arguing about everything because they keep changing the script.

the crew members apparently made so much overtime that they didn't have to work for like six months after scenes were written day of the filming. I, this almost seems too crazy to be true, but apparently Cruz would have cue cards on the windshield because the scenes are being rewritten so fast. He wouldn't know his lines. And town sometimes would be on the radio telling him what to say. Yeah. Well, Cruz ends up almost crashing because the cue cards. So they decide that's a bad idea. They have to put the earplugs like he's,

a quarterback in football with Towns as the OC calling in plays. What were you saying, Kyle? Tom, Tom, right now on this turn, say, I'm dropping the hammer. Say it, say it. Tom, just I'm dropping the hammer really quick. Filming finished three months late

And it's crazy shit. Like, Towns really wanted, I guess, Duvall's character to have an awesome barn. Mm-hmm. So they built the barn. And Towns like, I don't like it. Let's do it again. Knock it down. They build it again. He's like, and now still didn't get it right. They knock it down. They build it a third time. He's like, nah, let's use the one we scouted before. So they built three barns. Didn't use any of the barns for like four weeks of filming. Now, I just want to say,

Yeah. I will die on the hill of Robert Towne should get to do this. And this is what I write for. Yeah. When you hear stories like this, you kind of understand why they shoot everything on the volume now. And everything is like VFX and CGI. It's like, we're never getting back to the place where one coked up screenwriter could be like, build me another book.

Well, Chris, that video that you sent of the real race where they shot this movie. One thing that jumped out to me is in the CBS coverage. There is a shot of cold trickle on a spine board being lifted up from a helicopter that is not in the movie. So they paid for a fucking helicopter to lift up Tom Cruise. But they show shots. They show them. They don't show. Yeah, they don't show the wide shot in the movie. You're right. It's not in the movie.

You gotta use that if you pay for it I think it's because I wonder whether it's supposed to have happened Well no it is, it happened at the Winston 400 They just probably decided not to The other thing is they did all these reshoots They went all this money over budget And then realized after they finished the movie That they didn't have Cole Trickle Crossing the finish line In the biggest race And had to go back And redo that part after it was already done It was probably the only thing That really truly mattered to get on camera They didn't get it

Simpson and Bruckheimer, they spent $400,000 and this is 1990 money. So what's that like 2 million now? I don't even know to have part of their hotel that they were staying in converted into a private gym. Oh my God. That also had a large neon sign on it that said days of thunder. So that happened.

Simpson had a whole closet of Donna Karen dresses and he would offer women that he met either the dresses or come be my assistant, stuff like that. They were throwing parties every night. Disgusting and amazing detail. Yeah. They had parties with people like Tone Loke rapping. Post-production was five weeks instead of five months because they took so long to film this thing.

that they were like, this movie's coming out June 27th, 1990. This is it. It's coming out on this date. They don't finish until mid-May. They now have five weeks to edit and finish and complete and get prints out for the movie. Paramount was so upset afterwards that they asked for a $9 million refund on the profit participation from Don and Jerry. We're told though, and then ended the relationship that had just started. So basically like Buffalo gives Josh Allen that $330 million deal. Right.

He has one bad season. They're like, we're out. We're just going to pay you off 120 million. Done. Bill, my mind is wandering to that gym you mentioned. I'm just wondering like $400 million gym. What happened to it? What, no, what were like, what were the top five exercises? Those assholes were doing in that gym. I think it's a lot of like curls for the girls, bicep, tricep, decline, bench press, calf raises, like all the, I would say caps and biceps, right? Such a sweetheart for thinking that

there was any exercising going on in that gym well maybe they really used it once right no but can you imagine if there's one guy who's like guys i just want to get a pump in with all the other stuff going on here i

I think the best time to get a pump in was probably between 7 and 9 a.m. in the morning because Don Simpson was probably still out. Those would be the Rosillo hours. Ryan's like, hey. Can I work in on that lap? Pull down, Jerry. Jesus Christ. I don't know if there was a lot of gains being made in that gym. There was one of the stories about it. They're talking about the gym. Yeah. And they make a point of saying how Cruz didn't work out in the gym because he was renting a house and built his own gym in the house. They're just like,

They're shooting $100 bills all around the Carolina area. Has there ever been a scene-stealing location award for something that's not even in the movie? I want to hang in that gym so bad. Well, they did a lot of press, too, about...

This paramount deal they did. They took the newspaper ads for themselves, congratulated themselves. They did all that. So Hollywood was lined up at this point. Hollywood was in full fuck these guys mode. CR sent us a spy magazine ad.

One pager where some of the stuff that we're talking about was in there, but it's like 450 words were out and it's everything you need to know about like Hollywood access. It's somehow, it's basically written like a very, very erudite party report. Yeah. And this person is obviously talking to people on the set, but it's just such a great portrait of these guys, uh,

Just going full Babylon. Well, and it fucked up. So their next movie is supposed to be Beverly Hills Cop 3. Yeah. And still catching Eddie at the tail end of before I think he moved into a different phase of comedy. And that gets delayed for three years. By the time they make it, it ends up being one of the worst sequels in a while. But then Simpson just...

is a fucking mess for most of the 90s, and then has the one last comeback with Bad Boys and Crimson Tide, ends up breaking up with Bruckheimer, and then dies, overdoses. Phil, here's an unanswerable question, and you mentioned this. Is Cruise part of the decadence? If it's Blow and women and partying and all, is Cruise into that? He's in Scientology by this point. Already? Yes. Yeah, because there was even a little tidbit about how the...

The brain surgeon who's Nicole Kidman's boss is named after his, like one of his Scientology associates. There's some slightly weird Cruz stuff with that. I like Cruz, but you know, he gets divorced from Mimi Rogers near the end of the eighties.

There's stuff in here about how he selected Nicole Kidman to be his co-star in this. They started dating and it does feel a little recipe-ish. And we'll leave it at that. $60 million budget, allegedly. I'm going to say it was really about what, 85 CR? Yeah, 85, 90. Yeah. The $400,000 jib, maybe not in that budget. It did make $157.9 million.

Are you going to ever have a Don Simpson phase for me, Bill? Like, are we ever going to really ball out? I've had it. It's like Watergate. I can just go back and do it again. I've already, I've already done it. I've already read all the books, but I'm happy to redo it if you want.

No, I actually mean like when we go to Boston for the live show. Oh, me having a dance. I'm too afraid of cocaine. Out late at night in the combat zone, you know, putting up a Days of Thunder gym. I'm too afraid. The limb bias put the fair guy to me. Okay. That's it. But you're also fascinated by it.

But I'm probably like Cruz. I like being peripherally near where the debauchery is happening, and I like hearing the stories after, but keep me out of the rooms. But do you ever think about the fact that Don Simpson was probably your age when he was making Days of Thunder? Oh, I think he was younger. Yeah, was he? Oh, yeah. Okay. I think...

I think during the cocaine era, like my 55 was like 42. They look 55. Yeah. Don Simpson was 37. Holy shit. Wait, wait, wait. 47. Sorry. 47. So Don Simpson's my age making Days of Thunder. Yeah. So you just add another 10 years. Cruz made $9 million plus points for this movie. It got nominated for an Oscar for best sound.

Roger Ebert, three stars. Days of Thunder is an entertaining example of what we might as well call the Tom Cruise picture. And then goes through all the beats of Tom Cruise movies, which I don't need to read. Parts of the plot are beginning to wear out their welcome, but the key ingredients are still effective.

And then he says about Nicole Kidman, Kidman has little to do as the love interest and doesn't make much of an impression. I disagree. I think she glasses it up. Yeah, I do. I thought she looked awesome. Our guy, Quentin Tarantino loves it. Loves it. Yeah. I saw this. This is awesome.

I'm a big fan. To me, Days of Thunder is the movie Grand Prix and Le Mans should have been. Sure, it had a big budget, big stars, and a big director in Tony Scott, but it had the fun of those early AIP movies. I just don't think it works if you take the whole thing too seriously. He also loves Tony Scott, we should mention. Speaking of taking this thing too seriously, I just want to throw out a Robert Towne quote about this film. Days of Thunder becomes the struggle of a driver to replace his belief in his own infallibility with

with the true courage of a man who recognizes that even if some things are beyond his control, he must go on to face them if he is to race to win and to live his life. Come on. That's what he said. That was not my takeaway. He's driving and he goes, son of a bitch. And like, that's basically it. Yeah, that was not my takeaway. That should be a new category. Okay, Bobtown. Sounds good. You're good there, bud. Got it.

Yeah, I mean, Bob Towne probably was thinking about this like the way, like to me, without limits, the other, the Prefontaine movie with Billy Crudup. That's the version of Days of Thunder. Bob Towne probably had this said, but that's not what is on the screen. That's not what Tony and Don were thinking. That's not what they're thinking. All right, categories. I'm swerving with you guys. I have two categories at the top before most rewatchable. Oh, yeah. What do you got? I moved some stuff up because I think it's too important.

The Chess Rockwell and Brock Landers Award for Best Character Name. Yeah, come on. Our nominees are Cole Trickle, Rowdy Burns, Harry Hogg, spelled H-O-G-G-E, or Buddy Bretherton. I think it's Rowdy Burns. What do you think, Kyle? I think this category could be renamed the Cole Trickle and Rowdy Burns Best Name Awards. It's Rowdy. Listen, Rowdy says it all. And again...

A guy named Rowdy directed Roadhouse. And you know what you're getting from someone named Rowdy. And his last name is Burns, which is also like fire. It's just absolutely perfect. Rambunctious fire, Rowdy Burns. That's the name. We're due for a Rowdy in sports. Yeah. We are. Like, if...

I guess Abdul Carter is a pretty good name, but like Mason Graham in the NFL draft right now, Mason Graham's name was rowdy. And he was like, it's rowdy Graham, the Michigan defensive tackle. I'd be like, Jesus, that guy's got way up the big board. It should be a quarterback who kind of like flames out at Notre Dame or USC and winds up at like Washington state.

Or something like that and sets the world on fire. It's like, Rowdy Burns is back. Rowdy Burns. He's 25. It'd be like Johnny Football. Yes. It'd be like that. I think it's been a long time since we lost Rowdy, Rowdy Piper. So it's like we're due for a Rowdy refresh. We're due for a Rowdy. Yes. Well, another category. This is a brand new category, CR. Okay. 376 movies. I think it's a decent ad. You're still surprising me.

The Dr. Claire Lewicki Award for Worst Character Name.

Why is her name Dr. Claire Lewicki? She's a fucking redhead from Australia. How did they come up with Lewicki? In addition to never filming the checkered flag at Daytona, I think they also forgot to maybe tweet the name from the first draft. Once they hired Kidman, couldn't she have been Dr. Claire Sanders? Yeah. Lewicki doesn't sound like it. What's the story about the Beatles, like Eleanor Rigby, like Paul...

Paul McCartney just opened a phone book and chose a name. And that was literally how they came up with that name. That's how they came up with Claire Lewicki. They just never too lazy to take it out? I don't know. Lewicki, fine. Like, I just watched Youngblood. The coach's daughter, like, could be, could have been a Lewicki. Like, she's living in nowhere Canada. Like, but Dr. Claire Lewicki? Yeah.

Town's like boom I'm taking a break I can't I can't believe I came up with such a great name What's the fact that it's paired with Cole Trickle and Russ Wheeler like those are bangers And then they just fall off the table What an amazing New York Times wedding announcement NASCAR driver Cole Trickle Is paired with Dr. Claire Lewicki 23 year old neurosurgeon The groom wore mellow yellow green Yes I think she keeps her name of Claire Lewicki Trickle That's it

Most rewatchable scene. So Cole's first scene. What's going on? He's had second thoughts. You said you'd look at it. I've looked at it. I paid $2,500 to use his track today, Harry. Forget it. He needs a brand name like Exxon or Richard Petty. Well, I know a damn race driver when I see one. What's going on, Harry? Has this happened or what? Do us all a favor, Harry. I know a damn race car driver when I see one. Let me drive. I won't make a fool out of you.

Uh, we get that whole thing. Cruz showing up on a motorcycle is hilarious. How many times has Cruz broken out a motorcycle in a movie? If you had to guess, I should have done the research on this, a compendium of Tom Cruise's character entrances. Yes. Oh, that's interesting. Thinks about,

I think it's something that he's very conscious of. It's almost like professional wrestling. Yeah, one of my favorite ones is in Collateral, which is kind of the opposite of this in terms of the smoke and everything. But the door just opens and Collateral Vincent is just standing full on right in front of the camera. He's so good at making a huge first impression with these characters.

I'm so glad you said that. I mean, listen, I think of the Magnolia entrance with the 2001 theme on the stage. But when he rode the motorcycle through the smoke onto the track on this rewatch, I laughed out loud. I was like absolutely hysterical. And that opening scene...

That scene between him and Rowdy is what you call in scene steady class, like a dick swinging contest. It is so much back and forth. I like that Rowdy goes and sits on his bike to reclaim status. I like that Cole puts his duffel bag on the hood of the car. It's so much back and forth. I love that scene.

Yeah, I had this written later, but Randy Quaid was in Brokeback Mountain and that somehow wasn't the gayest sexual attention movie that he's been in because Colin Crowdy. Incredible. You build me a car and I'll win Daytona next year. I love when people just say shit like that during a football movie and you're like, you

You get me an offensive line. I'll win the Superbowl next year. It's like, you're from fucking Eagle Rock, California. You're racing like gimmick. What are you talking about? Uh, next one. Cole's first four races disaster. We do get the, uh, kid Cuddy pursuit of happiness award. Best noodle job for give me some loving. Yeah. And I would actually go, uh, we need to kind of maybe come up with a subcategory here. I think you can make the argument to give me some loving is the most effective montage song ever.

That we have in American cinema history. I was thinking about this. So I was going to go a different way. Are we at capacity now with Gimme Some Lovin'? For sure. Is it almost like in the air tonight for football games? Like just no more. Like we're good. We had a great run.

This is a little bit of a slow first 15, 16 minutes. You know, a lot of talking to the car frames, a lot of like, hold my duffel bag stuff. We're giving me some loving kicks in. You're like, Oh, fucking Tony. Yeah. That's damn right. Uh, he rubbed you. Robinson is racing. You get stuff like that. We get to hit the pace car. We get that. We're busy. We're eating ice cream. Um, we get lines like, what do we do? We end up looking like a monkey fucking football out there.

Can we talk about that line for a second? I had sponsors in the stands and I'm hugging and holding hands and kissing them in the ear and praying for a good showing. And what do we do?

We end up looking like a monkey fucking a football out there. We all work in sports. I work implicitly for the NFL. I have never heard the expression a monkey fucking a football out of nowhere. I don't know what that is. It's never been said. And I also think it's the closest in the movie that Randy Quaid gets to being Cousin Eddie.

This is one year after Christmas vacation. And when he says fucking a football, he is this close to saying Catherine revving up the microwave and pissing my pants for five minutes. It's so good. I love that line. Great Randy Quaid run. We also get Cole saying there's nothing I can't do with a race car, which I think if it's story by Tom Cruise and Robert town, he probably suggested that line. I'm just throwing it at the wall. You can use it. You can reject it, but just what if this guy won't be heard if we don't use this, but I think it's good. Uh, next one, Cole wins his first race.

I like the whole concept of I'm going faster. Everyone else is going slower. Cause it feels like there's some deep NASCAR shit going on there. I don't fully understand it. We get the pit disaster. We get Cruz flipping out. Son of a bitch. This is before he had like the voice leveling stuff. Cause when he screams, his voice goes too high. Harry lies about the tires. I like, and then, uh,

Always fun when it's the boy doesn't have the balls to pass me on turn four. None of us understand NASCAR, but it's like, yeah, that sounds pretty crazy to pass them on turn four. It's going to, are you going to try that?

I always, that, that line should be the, the, the freezing cold takes Twitter account. Like he doesn't have the balls to do it. And then he does it. And then also Russ Wheeler at the end. I know Cole. He always goes outside. Oh, he's going low. I know Cole. I've raced against him four times, but it's kind of like, it's like fun for October. It's the crazy Ivan. It's going to go one way or the other. It's like, it's not like he can go underneath of you, man. You might want to be aware.

I enjoy that part. I enjoy when they win a race in car movies. Just a brief scene, but Cole getting stopped by the police stripper. Yeah. I mean, that's a very important scene. Do you think that was a Don Simpson special? He was like, I need to rent out this willow tree, light it beautifully, and then have an unnecessary stripper scene. I think when you say Don Simpson special...

odds are strippers and or cocaine are going to be involved. So in this case, we get one. What did you think of Tom Cruise's... If this movie was rated R, this scene could have definitely... Talk about it. We could have explored the studio space with this scene, I think. Well, looks like we found something. What's that? Concealed weapon. Where? Right here. Now...

The only question is, will he actually use it? Well, I have a question about that. And I had this later, but so that woman's a prostitute, right? Like, I don't think she's an exotic dancer, Kyle. I don't think so. Chris, exotic dancers don't immediately kiss you on the mouth. Show some respect. I,

I did. And God bless the sex workers. I think. And my question was, does Cole have sex with that woman? Because again, the stripper doesn't show up and immediately kiss you in the mouth. That doesn't happen that way. I think she's a prostitute. The implication is there's a little bus orgy right after that. Oh, I thought it was more like he's a bus orgy. No, they all have sex with her. What?

I thought there were more, there's more than just one woman. No, it's a bunch of guys. It's like Nick. Oh, you're right. My second woman, my unanswerable question is what happens next? Like right when that scene cuts, like what do they all do with that woman? Does she strip in front of nine dudes? They let Cruz go in the van. She goes in the bus with Cole. I thought there were more women, but you're right. So wait, last, last question about that woman. And,

Do you guys know who that is, that actress? Do you know this? Can you save it for casting? Yes, yes, yes. I'll save it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's unbelievable. I just want to make sure you know. I couldn't believe it. Oh, I couldn't believe it. Chris, do you know? Do you know Chris? Do you know CR? I do. Okay. You want to do it now? Now let's save it. Let's save it. Let's save it for the audience. Now they're excited. Yes. Next scene's another short one, but Cole thinks Dr. Claire Lewicki is another stripper.

After the crash. After the crash and puts her hand. There's some violations here, but it leads right to the wheelchair race, which is a phenomenal scene. But this whole stretch is pretty funny. This is probably my favorite part of the movie right around here. Like the wheelchair, the racing to dinner. Cole wins his first race, the bus, all this stuff. The accident. The accident, all this stuff. I enjoyed the rental car race. How did they end up in the water during this? If you had to guess.

In the water? In the rental car race. Oh, down by the beach? We're banging in the street. All of a sudden, we're on the beach just going through water that's spraying. Yeah. But then we're back. No, listen. My senior year in high school spring break was Daytona Beach. You can drive on the beaches there. There's an actual beach where there's cars. That's a real thing. The valet situation is funny, too. Yeah. Cole ruins Russ Wheeler's victory lap when he comes out and just rams his car. I love that part. Fantastic.

They write in a little, little Cruz Duvall. Like let's do a little four minute emotional scene here. Yeah. I'm not getting back in my car. I'm getting in Rowdy's. Oh, well, that sounds just dumb enough to be a race driver. You think you'll hide from your bad luck in his car and what the hell for, for Rowdy? If he can run tomorrow, he cries you to win the race. He's mean. He's no particular friend. So why? Because he asked me to. Oh shit. You just want to race again.

So do you. It's really the only time Cruise dials it up as an actor for two hours. And Duvall's, you know, he's going against an Oscar winner. There's a moment. That is the only problem with that scene is there's all of a sudden, not only does Cole know a lot about cars, but also you're like,

we're going back to the guy that died on harry's watch which only got mentioned in the first scene yeah yeah thank you and there's a lot of like forensic kind of like oh no he didn't have a heart attack he was talking you know like yeah right yeah yeah it's like what happened i'm watching this movie for the first time and it was something you casually mentioned an hour and a half ago what it strikes me as someone had a moment of sobriety on stage and they're like

All right, hold on. We got Duvall and we got Cruz coming off 4th of July. We got to have some acting in this fucking movie. Let's throw a scene together and you guys just talk about some shit. It felt very ad-libbed from the hip because you got those guys. They got to act a little bit. I did like the whole idea that Cole blew his engine on purpose because he had the yips. Afraid. Yeah. Last one. Cole's big Daytona comeback.

Seeing the smoke driving through it's symbolic in a lot of ways, Kyle. A little like I'm sure Josh Allen watches this movie and thinks there's going to be another moment on a fourth and one. I just got to go through the smoke. That smoke is the chiefs every single year. But it's cool because he got Joey Bosa who plays like three games a year. That'll be the difference. For 12 million bucks. We're set. Good signing. We're set. I like the big... We got to... I mean, none of us understand race car driving at all. The piece car? The whole...

We got to get out before that pace car comes around. They show the pace car back to the thing. Oh my God, the guy can't get the lug nut in. Everybody, oh, oh, we made it. Very fun. And then he's going high. He's going low. Awesome. I had this later, but I'll do this now. Now this is really good. This is almost like a social clip.

So if you're the hero of a sports movie and you could pick any, any movie, what would be the single most fun scene to reenact?

if you were the actor, because I would make a case winning a huge race in either Indy 500 or NASCAR, and then you get to do the thing where they all lift you up and they pour champagne on you and you're celebrating. That seems like it would be number one. I couldn't think of another one that would be better. Maybe a perfect game running toward the catcher and jumping into the catcher's arms. I thought baseball as well. I was thinking of...

William Hayes going home on Clue Haywood and the Yankees. He slides into home and the Indians win and they storm the field. And then the dugout jumps on him. Yeah, like the dog pile like that. I would love that. What about like a game winning, like a natural Roy Hobbs wins the pennant home run try? I wouldn't want to be bleeding out of my side, but I would like to break the lights with a home run. That's pretty cool. Because then you could do like the Vanderbeek winning in varsity blues end zone celebration. Yes. You could have the Jimmy Chitwood

uh making the making the jumper at the top of the key to win the state title and the whole the whole arena comes at you a fun part of it too is it in with with vanderbeek and with cole trickle is you get a victory make out like right there in the celebration yeah your first face is awesome involve all the characters boxing has like you win and everybody comes in the ring but i really think racing is number one for this

Cause you get all the characters in the movie, things poured on you and you get to kiss somebody. What's the most 1990 thing about this movie? So I'll give you three choices. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman falling in love, which seems like it happened 130 years ago.

For sponsors, we have Tide, Snickers, Skoll, and Exxon. And then Mellow Yellow. I think Exxon and Mellow Yellow being sponsors have to be in there. Exxon was like, nothing can go wrong for us. Yeah, this would be great. They're still cleaning off those poor ducks just covered in oil. I feel so bad for those ducks.

Guys, we have this spot in Days of Thunder. Yeah. This is the peak. Buy the lighthouse. We're good. I think, unless you guys can come up with another one, I think I have the winner. Is there anything else you think is 1990? I got one, too. Russ Wheeler's girlfriend. That's what I have! She's basically Brigitte Nielsen. Right, with dark hair. She has the high-top fade and the crazy boxy blazer.

It's just like only in 1990. It's Bridget Nilsson wearing some sort of pantsuit with Mike Allstott shoulder pads underneath the jacket. It's unbelievable. The only thing that I was missing was Fred Willard as the announcer going, look at that happy fella.

I think I have the winner. Okay. This is just from the research verbatim. The film's theme song, Last Note of Freedom, was sung by White Snake's lead singer, David Coverdale, at the request of Tom Cruise. Fucking awesome. Yeah. I,

Is there any other point in the history of America where Tom Cruise would have requested a song from White Snake's David Coverdale? No. We're looking at 88 to 90. That has to be the window, right? It's also amazing, too, because David Coverdale is probably like, God, you know, I did Here I Go Again. I'm with Tawny Katane. Yeah. I'm in Days of Thunder. And then Nirvana comes like nine months later and wipes him off the face of the earth. Yeah.

David Coverdahl's at an Exxon rap party and they're just like, guys, this is going to get better for all of us. He has $2 million from Exxon to perform Is This Love for five minutes and then walk off stage. That's the winner. What's aged the best?

Robert Duvall is the crew chief. Rarely do you see somebody this overqualified to be in a sports movie where they actually care about the movie. Gene Hackman's in The Replacements. He's mailing it in. It's still fun. R.I.P. Gene Hackman. Duvall's like...

I actually like this character. I'm going to explore. Maybe I can steal this movie from Cruz. I just think he's really good. I would honestly watch him talking to car frames for like half an hour. Yeah. He's like, I'm going to build you close to the ground. Give you a good restrictor plate. You know, like is, is it a hot take to say this is a top five favorite Duvall movie?

Pretty hot. Cause he's been in a lot of good movies. Yeah. Well, the other take is that this is a Robert Duvall movie featuring Tom Cruise and Duvall wins the movie. Like that's, that's another take. Cause every time Harry's on, it's good. It would be like Tom's winning top gun. Yeah. Hmm.

The hairdos, you mentioned this is the best Cruz's hair has ever looked. Ever. I almost feel like there's been some decisions in the last couple years where he's gone to the barber slash hairstylist slash dye job person. Sure. And been like, hey man, here's some Days of Thunder photos. How close can we get to this? Can I give a special shout out to the Top Gun comparison?

Russ Wheeler shows up with the same Iceman hairdo. It's the same shit. It's a blonde spike. It might as well be Val Kilmer. It's ridiculous. I know. But it looks cool. And curly hair Kidman is a special place in my heart. Yeah.

Because what happens when, especially really, really attractive women have hair like that, they ride it into their mid-20s and then they start straightening it out and they never have it again. And I just like to stand up for the girls. I was having a conversation with my wife last night about Nicole Kidman's hair. I think her hair was like fifth on the call sheet. She's like, her hair is amazing. And I'm like, look at the cars. She loved the hair. It's like a running quarterback, you know? They do it for a few years and then it's like, no, no, no, I'm a pocket passer.

It's so good. I just thought she was lights out back then. I remember, did I ever tell you I was at a restaurant once with the great John Walsh in the early 2000s after I moved to LA. So it was probably 03.

And all of a sudden Nicole Kidman walked in and the entire restaurant stopped. And it was the only time I've ever seen that. And it stopped not because she was famous because she was like so beautiful. Yeah. Everyone was like, oh my, it was like watching like dolphins jump in the fucking ocean. It was incredible. Everyone's like, oh my God. It's like tall, just like great. But shit, what a great run by her. Two best, age the best, two Oscar winners, Kidman and Duvall, like sharing actual scenes together. Yeah.

I don't think he was thinking this lady is going to be a multi Oscar nominee someday as he was banging those cold trickle scenes out with her. But Bill did, did Walsh offer Nicole Kidman or part on around the horn? Like when it'd be one of the panels, bring them in. Come on. He's like, I'm going to introduce her to Eric ride home. John C. Riley basically as Reed Rothschild in this movie for the best. Is there any difference with him and Reed Rothschild from what we can tell? No, no.

No, and it's fun because he's in Talladega Nights. I know. It's very meta and it's cool. But no, he's young, dumb, and he even plays guitar like Reed Rothschild does, which is really cool. So yeah, same dude. I think Paul Thomas Anderson was just like, just do the Days of Thunder guy. That's Reed Rothschild. And the idea is basically that Duvall has kept Riley, that Harry has kept Bucky on because his dad was the driver that died under Duvall's watch. Yeah, that story by Robert Towne and Tom Cruise. Yeah.

Also, Bill, I have to jump on this. The town of Cruise. When you mentioned P.T. Anderson, so the scene when Cruise meets Russ Wheeler and he's on the phone and kind of just mails in the handshake, that is the exact scene when Jack Horner brings Johnny Doe to meet Dirk Diggler and he's like, this is the new guy here. Oh, good point. Yeah, it's the same scene. I bet P.T. loved this movie. Oh, no question, because we know he loves Cruise and Riley, too. Yes. Carrie always has a dick.

I don't think there was... Val Kilmer is probably 10 out of 10 best dicks of the 80s, 90s, but Cary Elwes was always a solid 8.5. I have two more, but do you guys have any more? What's the best? I burned all mine. What do you got, Chris? I'm always here for drunk Tom Cruise. It's like watching an alien try to speak French. Just him having a butt. It's like trying to watch a monkey fuck a football. Yeah, it just really is like...

So fucking funny And uh We've discussed this before It's clear that he's never had a drink of alcohol In the last 40 years It definitely seems that way Cause he's just When he gets drunk at A Few Good Men When he gets drunk here It's just like Hey man that's not exactly how it goes It would be like if I tried to film a cocaine scene And I was like

And you rub your gums. Yeah. I also just love when Rusty is like, I'm going to pull this rookie's chain. I love like hazing rituals happening at 185 miles per hour is awesome. Two more for me. I'm more afraid of being nothing than being hurt.

Great yearbook quote. Just pencil. What are we in March? We're still like handing in high school yearbooks. Throw that one in there. Somebody couple racing lessons. As I've mentioned many times, we don't really understand this world. A couple of lessons I took away. Driver has to trust his crew chief. Sure. Just know that going forward. Tires win a race. It's dirty secret. Yeah. Not about the car. It's not about the drivers, the tires.

don't have two race teams if you're the owner like randy quaid you gotta pick one you're gonna have tension and then um this was probably the best advice they're calculating drivers and kamikaze drivers which one are you so bill when you're like i don't like it when you do two other pods on a rewatchables day is that because you're trying to keep my tires right yeah you're doing like four your tires are like freaking a mess no can we talk can we talk about the wheelchair scene is it time

That's amazing. Go ahead. It's just Tony Scott being like, it's like when we were at the masters with Chang once and he just made us a pizza out of stuff in the fridge and it was like salt teens and like a tomato and some broccoli. And he's like, I can make a pizza out of this. That's Tony Scott.

Tony Scott and Hans Zimmer saying, let's do the stupidest scene ever. And yet, am I crazy? It's my favorite race in the movie. I like it better than any of the car races. It's more entertaining to me. And if you really get into the tape of it, like dive into the tape, the funniest movie of the wheelchair, part of the wheelchair race by far.

is at one point cole's nurse catches back up with him and takes the handles and fucking rowdy hits his hands away from cole's wheelchair to preserve the integrity of the race like i'm gonna win the right way and i think the subtext of that scene is cruz was not to do any any driving in the whole movie he wasn't allowed to drive the car for insurance reasons i feel like that scene was his daytona like

this is the one race they let me do. And he's fucking serious. But it was actually kind of unfair because he's coming off of born on the 4th of July. So he's been in the wheelchair. He has like the better part of the last two years. Well, when I heard it wasn't in the research, but I'm guessing Rooker was in the $400,000 gym. Just, just working on a wheelchair treadmill that Don Simpson bought him. Triceps. You're right. Getting it going. I forgot to ask you guys what your most rewatchable scene was. Cause mine is also the wheelchair scene. Hmm.

Chris? Mine is, mine is probably the, the montage, the give me some love and montage. Okay. I'm here for Rooker. And the most Rooker scene in this movie is when he first meets Cole is you run good. Now get your own car and me in a crowd. Like I love the opening scene. Taking one more break. This episode is brought to you by Emirates. We all love the thought of a vacation to Europe, but have you ever thought about looking a little further like Dubai, a city everyone talks about,

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shipping to many countries worldwide. See details at eightsleep.com slash ringer. The Big Kahuna Burger Award, best use of food and drink has to be Mellow Yellow just being a sponsor, right? We can't top that.

I actually looked this up. Mellow Yellow still exists in some markets. Do you know that? I didn't. It's still alive. Is it Coke's answer to Mountain Dew or vice versa? One of those? Yeah, it's kind of like it doesn't really work anymore, but they don't want to officially cancel it. The only other thing I had was when they finally get to the dinner with Fred Dalton Thompson and Cole goes for the crudite first. Has a NASCAR driver ever had crudite in the history of mankind? It's from Eagle Rock. Yeah.

Would you have Kyle? I mean, do we consider sweet and low to be food? It is a sweetener. Sure, let's do it. Okay, that wins. The double packet into the thigh is mine. Great shot, Gorder Award for most cinematic shots. You have one, CR? Yeah, you know, every shot in this movie is pretty much everything that modern blockbusters are not. But there is a shot at the Daytona 500 when the cars are passing like the last officials before they get ready to start. And there is a low angle shot of...

of all the cars going by and all these fucking balloons are going up in the background. And I'm like, Tony Scott, you are an absolute demon for this. This is such a great looking piece and it's just a throwaway shot. But like pretty much everything in this movie is, is could be a painting.

um i i zag bill i the shot that should be in the smithsonian is during the physical when cruise and kidman are actually standing face to face and you can see how short tom cruise is he never let that happen again that's ever avowed by him yeah he's only ever been posted up by kidman and mcgillis those are the only two times he's gotten dunked on yeah in the 4k blu-ray he actually had them add six inches to his height yeah they're the same height

CR, you're up with a flex category from categories we don't normally have. Yeah, I got Vincent Chase Award. Are we sure this character was actually good at his job? And I got to say, it might have been the brain injury talking, but Rusty's, Rowdy's idea to let his wife design the $10 million house when she maybe has no background in architecture or project management was maybe like, hey,

Rowdy, maybe one more brain surgery before we turn over the blueprints. She's from Jacksonville, Rowdy. Settle down. That's good. I like that one. The Butcher's Girlfriend Award, weak link of the film. What do you got, Kyle? All right, so I have a little one and a bigger one. The little one I have is that

We never really get full rowdy burns. Like he never really goes super, super intense. You don't yell. It's not like he, it's a very underplayed performance there. And I'm always waiting for that one scene, like in cliffhanger where he just screams at Stallone and goes absolutely nuts. And we don't get it. But my bigger one is just, it's,

It's a little too much talking going on in the second half of the movie. We got too much talking and you're like, get us back to the racetrack. I get these scenes of Duvall talking to the car and them and Cruz. The second half drags because I think in a race car movie, we just want to see ass kicking a little too much talking. I think I know I had the same. I think I know why that is. OK, and it is one of my what's aged the worst.

I think the crash happens too early in the movie. Interesting. I think it would be cool if maybe that montage scene had been two, two montages or whatever. It would have been five minutes longer, but that crash happens. Like you don't really get that much time with Cole racing in a, in a, in his prime before now it's all of a sudden, this is a movie about CTE, you know? Right. I had the, I had right after the middle of the movie, I think it craters for about 25 minutes.

Rowdy's battle with a career ending injury Just kill him off Cole's road rage incident And her being like Nobody has control Every scene where Claire is like Mad at Cole or they're trying to establish Some sort of tension with them It just doesn't work Let me out of the car Cole I like the idea of moving in

I like moving the crash later. I think that's a good idea. I would also, I, you could have talked to me in a, a hairy stealth cancer battle. Ooh,

That Chris finds out about When they have the big back and forth Creed Rocky plotline I like it Yeah, a little Creed 1 Something's wrong with Harry And he doesn't want to tell Cole And Cole finds out I think this movie's better off with Rowdy just dies We lose all those scenes Yeah, they goose him And they probably didn't want to do it Because they didn't want to have the goose parallel But we have that And then we have a Harry cancer battle We can give Carrie Elway Val Kilmer's hair

Yeah. But we can't act over it. Guys, they're not going to take us seriously if he dies. Come on. Hey, now we get to do the Elizabeth Shue is an Oxford electrochemist award for most ridiculous casting.

A lot of options, but it's hard to pass 23-year-old Nicole Kidman as Charlotte's best neurosurgeon. Second best. She's got a boss. I had this as my flex. I was going to reach to the top of the Elizabeth Shue Oxford. And I just, I want to establish for the record, if any of us were in 1990 in Daytona Beach, Florida, of all places, and needed emergency care,

We would get it from a 5'11", 20-something, beautiful-looking Australian doctor who was also completely DTF. I don't know if that is the fit that you would get. The odds have got to be long. What was a more unrealistic character, her or Kelly Lynch in Roadhouse, if you had to guess? Most unrealistic, why are you living in this part of the world and why are you this good at your job?

I think it's Lynch is unrealistic because she's in Jasper of all places and is a billion out of 10 working the ER and Jasper, at least, at least page in the wiki or whatever her name is, gets the fallout from NASCAR. Claire, Claire, the wiki. I think it's the Kelly Lynch scale of ridiculous physicians. Yeah. Do you think that Lewicki is in Daytona because that's where all the good brain injuries are? Or do you think that nobody believes a 23 year old could do this job so she could

only get a job in Daytona. Yeah, this is the best way to do it. But I think she's supposed to be like 29. Right. But she, I mean, she looks like a kid in this movie. Anyway, she's young. What's aged the worst? The video game for this movie stunk. I just wanted to get that on record. It's terrible. Bad. Really, really disappointing during an era where our expectations for video games were starting to go up.

And this was bad. And in general, most driving video games were bad in the eighties and nineties. But this one, I feel like that you spent a hundred million dollars. You fucking build a gym for Simpson and Bruckheimer. You can have a good video game. CR come on. Yeah. It's that's a tough one. What was like kind of the preeminent driving game right around this time? Well, arcade wise pole position was great. Yeah. Yeah.

Pole position was iconic for five, six years. And that's days of thunder. At least should have had an awesome arcade game with Cruz's face on it. Like, I don't know how they fucked that up. No, like in the arcade at this point, there's a game called outrun and Nintendo was a rad racer on Nintendo was kind of the standard. Yeah. I mean, there was fun stuff, but this guy on the golden eye scale of like

movies being made into video games, this is a two. The Top Gun game was way better and you couldn't fucking land. So this game is really bad. Um,

Give me more of what's aged the worst because I have three left. What do you guys have? There's just too much baggage in this movie. Everybody's got some sob story with the exception of Lewis Lewicki. There's just and it's hard to navigate it. It's hard to separate it. John C. Reilly never even gets like a moment to like grapple with his dad. But Harry's talking about him all the time. I just feel like there was like one too many things on a whiteboard that they put in the movie.

Yeah, it's an eight-episode prestige TV series as a one-hour and 40-minute movie. Yeah, and then the only other thing would be knowing that they had to go back and reshoot the end of Daytona. I feel like they could have spent one more half a day on nailing Cole's reaction to winning NASCAR's biggest race, which is, all right, all right! Yeah, it's a great one. It's the worst. I couldn't agree more. Let Tom Cruise be like, let's fucking go!

No, you're right. He should have done the KG. He should have like, think how many times he unleashes in cocktail, which is only two, two years before, like at least break out that Brian Flanagan for a split second. You have anything, Kyle?

Yeah, I have Cole's courting of Dr. Nowicki as one of the most deplorable, ridiculous things that's happened. Four steps of being a creepy stalker slash asshole. Step number one, you take the doctor's hand and put it on your penis in a room full of witnesses and they all just laugh.

Stage two, you then wait for her in the parking lot by her car, which is what serial killers do. Stage three, you fill her apartment with $10,000 worth of flowers and balloons, which is the terrible thing to do. And if you do that, they call the cops to have it photographed. And stage four, after...

After you kiss her in the middle of the physical, you walk out and say, how are you ignoring me? Which is really the line from Fatal Attraction. It's like from start to finish deplorable and gross. And she apparently just fucking loves it because she's in. It's almost like this is a character who's probably dyslexic and has a massive brain injury. Right. She has to. He has to. Both. That's a great. I love that, Kyle. I have some small ones.

I really liked the scene when Harry's building Cole's car and he's like, he's got the hands and we see like the frame of a car. And then in 10 seconds, there's the car. I could have gone three more minutes with them. Him like instructing people. No, no, you got it. The fenders got to look like that. Like I just, I was so interested in that part and just is gone immediately. I could have done, I could have done a whole scene. Randy Quaid's character is named Tim Dalland. Yeah.

This is a movie with Rowdy Burns and Cole Trickle and Dr. Claire Lewicki. We couldn't have done better than Tim Dallin. Can you just talk me through financially? What's Tim Dallin on the hook for here in the beginning? It's like he's basically putting up all his money to get into NASCAR and then hoping he gets sponsored. But then over the course of six races, is swimming in it enough to have two cars going? Yeah, so some bigger motorsports entity comes in. Okay. Yeah.

It's like a Hendrix Motorsports. Cole won like six races in a row. Oh, that's right. The greatest rookie start ever. Which also I looked up had never happened. I don't think it ever happened. Yeah. So I think he's looking to expand on the Cole, riding the Cole gravy train, and he gets the second car, and then that's it. Is that a nitpick, CR? Nobody wins six races in a row in NASCAR? At least the way I looked it up, it was something like he had won five out of six or something like that, and it was like, I think the...

Like if you win like two in a row, people are like, holy shit. Like we're, we're in a rarefied air here. So this is any given Sunday, but Willie Beeman throws for 590 yards, five weeks in a row. Yeah. And 400 TDs. All right. My big one. I'm really excited to share this with you guys. Let's do it. How much, how much you, uh, you love this, uh, awkward Tom Cruise bedroom scenes. Go on. This is yet another one with the,

In bed, he's got...

They're lying next to each other. It's like, did they have sex or are they about to have, you can never tell what Tom Cruise in bed. It's like, did he just come? Is he about to come? What's going on? Maniacally laughing in Jennifer Connelly's face. So much comedy in bed. Most guys are in bed. They're just like that girl's hot. I'm going to try to have sex with her. Tom Cruise is like, he's on serious channel of 94 doing like comedy bits on Netflix is a joke. Um, he brings out sweet and lows. There's always props with Tom Cruise. Yeah.

he can't just be like, Hey, you know what I'm going to do is make out with this person. And then, then let's do a genital thing. He's like, now I'm going to bring him some condiments, some sweet and low. But I was trying to think like the awkward Tom Cruise bedroom scenes of all time. Go on. This is like an eight and a half.

I think that with Gina Gershon and cocktail, that's, that's like a solid eight. I don't know what they're doing there. They're bouncing around. They fall off the bed. It's like, nobody has had sex like this ever. Top gun with Kelly McGillis is a nine and a half. And I think the 10, I think a solid 10 top gun Maverick with Jennifer Connelly, which is the most chased sex scene in American history. We, we broke it down when we did the, the immediate rewatchables after seeing that movie twice, uh,

I still don't know what happens every time it's on, on, on cable near that scene. I watch it cause I enjoy it so much. Um,

He's just laughing. They're just laughing hysterically. It's unclear what's happened. Did they just make out? Yeah. So Kyle, why can't Tom Cruise get this right? What's wrong with him? I think you hit something there is that when you watch a bedroom scene, you should know unequivocally if they already did it or they're going to. And I have no idea. And I will only jump in. I got more sex scenes I'm thinking about.

Jerry Maguire with Dorothy Boyd They're playing a jazz record And she comes out and he starts laughing And then they start doing awkward kissing And I'll tell you And Bonnie Hunt's listening to the laughter It's like why is there so much laughter Why isn't there grunting Bonnie Hunt go to a 7-Eleven What are you doing Get the fuck out of here Bonnie Best Tom Cruise sex scene ever

Same movie, Kelly Preston. And that's because she goes to fucking town and he just sits there. And I feel like Cameron Crowe after like six takes was probably just like, Kelly,

Just go fucking nuts on him. All right. Just go nuts. All right. I got it. Cruz doesn't get it. Just can you go, can you go complete ham? Well, he has the risky business, risky business train scene. He starts out great with the sex scene. Yeah. Then we have all the right moves with Leah Thompson, which is like a very tender high school. Oh, here's the first time you've seen me without my shirt. It's one of those. It's like very early eighties. I was going to pull my shirt up. Yeah. But yeah,

uh awkward whatever but as the 80s go on into the 90s it just gets weirder and weirder and then eyes wide shut in some ways eyes wide shut is the most erotic he's done is the most erotic because that's just like it's capturing him is at his weirdest but once he was on the sofa with oprah i don't know if we ever saw it again other than a maverick and then a maverick

I still can't explain it. Are they watching Seinfeld? What's happening? Are they waiting for a post-mates order? What are they doing? I like Dave Farkasi! What are they laughing about? She's like, I had this customer yesterday and he tried to pay with a five, but he gave me a hundred. He's like, SNL is so back! Anyway, all right. Ruffalo Hanna, Rubinick Partridge, overacting award.

probably cruise in the car a couple of times. I would say you want to go all of Carrie always. There's a very specific thing that Duvall does in a lot of, of his films, which is fucks with a guy to the point where the guy gets mad at him. And then he laughs at him. Yeah. So when he's doing the ice cream thing and cruise gets out of the car and he's like, Oh, like a real, like De Niro, Cape fear, crazy Duvall. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So the CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. How does take a word? I have one. Do you guys have one? I do have one. So in my research for this film, there's a lot of stuff that is unattributed. But I loved this one so much because of what it means to movie history. And I think without Dr. Jerry Punch, there's no Eyes Wide Shut.

Hmm. Because apparently it was Dr. Jerry Punch who saw Dead Calm and mentioned it to Tony Scott. And Tony Scott cast Nicole Kidman off of that, thus starting the ball rolling down the hill that leads to Stanley Kubrick making one of the craziest movies of all time.

There's so many weird sliding doors, Nexus event, butterfly wings in this film. If this movie had been more on time, we would have gotten the better Beverly Hills cop three. We have basically half the cast of justified winds up in this movie with Nick and Margo Martindale. There's all these little things that are so amazing.

Wow. That's a good one. What do you have, Kyle? And we never get the Cruz Kidman marriage, like of all that produced and like all the places that that went. Yeah. Mine couldn't be more. We never get the two kids they adopted that Cruz doesn't talk to anymore. We don't get those either. Shout out to those kids. I hope you love the pod. Yeah. I was trying to do a days of thunder is better than top gun take, but I just couldn't get there. I can't justify it. So it's not, it's not. Fighter planes are cooler than race cars. So my take is this.

I miss Tom Cruise's old teeth. I miss them a lot. And I think that they were better. If you watch this movie. I thought this too. I liked it too. They were like going all over the place, but they worked. They're everywhere. And if you don't know, in the early 2000s, he got braces and he has normal teeth. I fucking like the old ones. They're real. They're authentic. And I love that the biggest movie star in the world had a snaggle tooth. It was just kind of cool. It was like a B of Julia Roberts had a straight end gap.

And now it's like everything is fucking veneers and it's all bleached and we look perfect. I wish Cruz would go back. If you would like unvisalign the thing for one more time, like before Jordan played his last game in the garden, he wore the Jordan ones. I want the old teeth. They look better. I'm telling you, I stand by it. It's a wonderful, wonderful hottest take. Thank you. I have a warm up hottest take and then a hottest take.

We've talked about Rooker many times, and I think this is a good spot. I still don't understand why he wasn't a way bigger star in the late 80s, early 90s. When he does this movie, he's coming off Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. He does Sea of Love. It feels like there's going to be a Rooker moment. We called it the Rooker-sants. Everything peaks in Cliffhanger.

And then he just kind of moves into like, kind of graduated from that guy land and pops up at a bunch of stuff. It's always fun to see him. I remember when he showed up in walking dead, it was like, Oh my God, Rooker. Yeah. This is amazing.

I just felt like there was more there. I know Kyle, we've talked about it. I mean, we don't even almost don't even need to hear your thoughts. Yeah. It's like, it's almost like saying like, yeah, it'd be nice if the bills won a super bowl. It'd be cool. Um, I just don't understand what happened with Rooker. I feel like, like CR, what,

What was he missing? I feel like he was maybe missing Bill Paxton's sense of humor because I feel like Paxton being Sizemore and Rooker were all circling a lot of the same parts. And if you had your number one draft choice every time seemed to be Paxton. And he just missed a couple of those roles. Yeah. So that's a good point with Rooker. Like, could he have been in Heat? 100,000%. He could have played like six characters in Heat.

So there was, it turns out like his iconic role was cliffhanger being mad at Gabe for trying to save his girlfriend, which we broke down for 20 minutes. She trusted you and she died. I think CR is right. I think he's missing Paxton's sense of humor, but I also think he's missing Mel Gibson or Val Kilmer's leading man looks too. It's like, he's, he's, it's not quite there. And listen, he was, he was huge in the MCU when it was still cool. The walking dead. He's had amazing career run, but never the face on the poster.

Well, that's not my hottest take. My hottest take. This movie is way better if Cole Trickle is just Brian Flanagan and it's called Cocktail 2 Days of Thunder. And Brian Flanagan has gotten divorced. He's given up the bar restaurant business. He always enjoyed driving and he's just playing Brian Flanagan. And

And he's doing it. And he's got, he's far that much farther removed than cold trickles actual origin, which is right. I, they just put me in a car and I was good at driving. Yeah. Like let's just make a plan again. He's got every time he looks through the dashboard and Coghlan's right there.

And he like pats the dashboard, Coggins. Maybe he has the reconciliation with Elizabeth Shue, but it doesn't work out. It leads to Kidman. I just think it's more interesting. I think also like his sponsor has to be Captain Morgan or Malibu Rum or something from the bar. Oh, it's perfect. Casting what ifs. Cruz wanted Kurt Russell for Rowdy Burns, but Russell did Backdraft instead. It's a pretty good what if. I have a casting what ifs lineup here that I do think rivals what we got.

You mean Robin Wright being the first choice of Dr. Claire Lewicki? Robin Wright as Claire Lewicki. Tom Sizemore as Tim. Kurt Russell as Rowdy or Dale Earnhardt as Rowdy. Yeah, that's another one. And then I like the idea of Paul Newman coming back and doing Harry.

Hmm. Dale Earnhardt Jr. said that his dad was disgust for Rowdy and Dale turned it down because he didn't want to play a bad guy, which goes to show you how little of the script they wrote, because what they ended up with Rowdy was a hundred percent, not the bad guy. Right. Like he actually should have played Rowdy. And I think this would have been a good hottest take. I think you could make a case like unbelievable career move for Dale Earnhardt Sr.

to be Rowdy Burns in a Tom Cruise movie. Like I know he is the most famous driver in that world, but people like me and you, like we barely knew who he was. Yeah. So he's been terrible. Who knows? I don't know if you can pull it off. It could have been awful. Or it could have been Brett Favre and something called Mary. I, or somebody. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Um, this isn't quite a casting with it, but we haven't talked about it yet. Don Simpson put himself in the movie as, as driver Aldo Benedetti. Yeah.

B-E-N-N-E-D-E-T-T-I. Later to be seen in Inglourious Bastards. This movie wasn't deranged and kooky enough. It had a producer, and you see him in the beginning, and it's so fucking funny when you know it's there. Apparently his acting was so bad and his scenes were so awful that they ended up cutting out a lot of the Aldo Benedetti stuff. He only has one cameo.

And then there's the story after who knows if it's true that Tony Scott shot long, terrible scenes with him. So Simpson would know how bad he was and just had like five, six minute long scenes of Simpson mangling dialogue. Yeah. So it'd get fucked up and it ends up just being a cameo. But how much cocaine do you have to be on to think you should be in a Tom Cruise movie? You should be an Italian race car driver. Italian. His name is Simpson. Um,

Danny McBride Award for playing yourself. Richard Petty, Rusty Wallace, Neil Bonnet, Harry Gant, Dr. Jerry Puss. So we have that. Who do you have for Best That Guy Award? Because there's a great one in here. I have JT Quinn, who is Rowdy's pit guy. And he is forever the guy in Maximum Overdrive who gets blinded by gasoline. Oh, that's where you went first? Yeah. Come on, CR. What do you have? Well, you got a great one.

No, it's JC. It's JC Quinn or JT. JT. I have them too, but he was the chef and vision quest. Oh man. Oh yeah. Okay. It's not about the six minutes. He's the chef. What happens in the six minutes? They've been one of the great sports movie characters. Always love seeing him.

He also plays the dad in the program of the quarterback. I had Nick Searcy, who's the ranger, who says everyone's under arrest for transporting the alcohol. It's the same guy who's the ranger in The Fugitive who says Wyatt Earp here is going to take over. Same guy. And then he goes on to be a marshal in Justice.

Yeah, and he has that great scene. He's in a castaway with Tom Hanks where he's like, we had a funeral and I put Elvis records in. That guy's Nick Searcy. He's been around for decades. Yeah. Margo Martindale is no longer that guy, but this is, I think, her first feature. I like Quinn. Dion Waiters Award. Here we go. So not going to say the winner yet, but Fred Thompson is our runner up.

who just calls people monkeys, tells a long story about causing the Japs with lettuce. Sure does. Fred Dalton Thompson, always reliable to come in and be mildly racist and be awesome, but also mildly racist. The Japanese inspection starts great. He's not the winner though. The stripper police officer. Go on.

The Lonnie Sorrell, AKA like, Hmm, where does she, she looks so familiar. What else did she do? Fucking Roxy from basic. Yeah. When we did the basic instinct pod, it was like, why wasn't she one of the biggest stars of the nineties? I, she does that basic instinct. And then that's kind of it. Was she dating Simpson? No, somebody else was there. I have that in the half as they, the other girl in that scene, who's on the bus.

Simpson cast and then ended up dating and marrying. But then didn't Tony Scott also wind up dating? He dated her and Tony Scott married her. That's what it was. Yeah. She became eventually Mrs. Tony Scott. And she's on the bus. Wasn't Sharon Stone up for Lewicki too? Like that could have been the full crossover. Definitely. I think she was up for everything.

But listen, this movie, when I was 10 years old and we had the VHS from Blockbuster, that was a very important scene for us. That was fully erotic, completely titillating on every level for fifth grade kids. PJ13 erotic. Yeah. Roxy, just an iconic 90s character. I hadn't thought about Roxy since the pod. Recasting couch director of City.

I mean, just get Val Kilmer for Ross Wheeler. What are we doing? Great. What are we doing? Yeah. You guys could have taken a little bit out of the gym budget and hit Kilmer's. What are we doing? It's there for four days. Just say, Hey, I know you're shooting the doors. Just, can you come down to Charlotte and just shooting the door? We're going to put a flat top hairdo on you. And just, you'd be Ross. Morrison leather pants. Yes.

I'm throwing it for my flex category. Was there a better title for this movie? Okay. And I just not really happy with days of thunder. I don't know what it means. Stupid. What does it mean? It's corny as hell. Yeah. What if you just called it Daytona? Yeah. Or like, I mean, the F1 movie is just calling it F1. You know, like would you call it trickle? No. Dropping the hammer. Dropping the hammer is not bad. Checkered flag. Something with tires.

I don't know what the answer is. It turns out Days of Thunder might be a good title. You know what? It's incoherent, though. What else could... I mean, Days of Thunder could be about anything. I don't even know what that means. Days of Thunder? I don't know. It's terrible. It sounds like a Storm movie. It sounds like Twister. Yeah, we still don't have the answer. Half-assed internet research. Only a couple ones. Hendrick Motorsports supplied the main cars, and they were actually raced in real races three times to get the extra footage.

Cole and Rowdy raced rental cars in the beach and they show birds scattering out of the way. Apparently they put bird seeds on the beach. And the first time they filmed the scene, the cars just ran over a bunch of birds. There was bird death. Yeah. Peter violations were had, uh, Donna Scott, the pit girl in that scene with Roxy, uh, broke up with Simpson, dated Tony Scott. They got married, had two kids. And then, um, Cruz apparently got a speeding ticket.

in Carolina, 85 and a 55 because he was revved up. There's one here, Bill, that might be one of the great pieces of IMDb trivia I've ever come across. What is it? Nicole Kidman wanted to study neurosurgery for her part, but the producers told her it would be a waste of time. Yeah, okay, Meryl Streep.

I saw that it didn't include it because it seemed too crazy. Do you think that was true? Yes. Don't worry about it, honey. We need you on set. Oh, Dawn, could I go and maybe study neurosurgery? Could I get you to the hospital and talk to some neurosurgeons? That's awesome. Apex Mountain Cruise? Probably not. We're in the cruise vicinity, but I still feel like it's a few good men in that range.

Yeah, I mean, I think 89, 90, 92 is about... We're in range. We're not quite there. Duvall, no. Kidman, not yet. Cruz's hair and teeth, I think. I'm going yes and yes. Yes, yes. NASCAR, no.

Lunatic Don Simpson stories. I think, yes, I think we, this is apex right here. Yeah. I mean, my favorite one is still David Milch's from, from bad boys, but yes, this is, this is incredible. Cruise as a believable real life playboy bachelor coming off divorce, landing Nicole Kidman. I'm going to say, yes, I'd had no questions when I was in 1990. They were so innocent. Rooker cliffhanger, right? Cliffhanger. Yeah. It's him and Stallone toe to toe the whole movie. Okay.

John C. Reilly, no. Carrie Elwes, no. What is Carrie Elwes as Apex? Princess Bride? Princess Bride. Yeah, I think 87, I think. Hans Zimmer, probably not. Simpson Bruckheimer, no. Mellow Yellow. Car racing movies? Car racing movies. Probably Talladega.

I think that's had better legs. And then a mellow yellow. Yes. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. That's that song that inspired the soda song by Donovan, like an old hippie song. But I think this car and the movie and everything has got to be. Yeah. Cruiser Hanks. Cruise is in it. I'm willing to have the Hanks convo. Yeah. I can't get there, but cruise. Sure. So I don't know what the standings are now for those two. What do you have for Scorsese or Spielberg?

I would like to see the Scorsese version of this.

A lot more cocaine. Simpson's like, yeah, let's have Cole become a cocaine addict. Cruz goes on to work with Spielberg a bunch throughout the 90s and into the 2000s. But I always wished he had done more with Scorsese because I love Color of Money so much. So I'll go with Scorsese. I got Scorsese too. Harry had this wonderful system for doing the moonshine. He would slice the barley so thin it would liquefy in the jar with just a little yeast. It's Scorsese.

What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played? You could see him a little bit older as Harry. You could see him a little bit younger as the John C. Reilly. Yeah. Rooker would have been interesting. That part. Rowdy. As,

as Russ would have been cool. Like as a gear change at the end, showing up and just being like, Hey Cole, like I like, I had, I want to see if we could get him in a race car too. I don't know if that works, but like full on talented, Mr. Ripley, cocky asshole over the top. Yeah. Freddie. And then I also had him potentially just stealing the scene as big John. Uh, it's just turning around and talking about the Japanese, this and that. Yeah. So, uh,

Philip Seymour Hoffman at Freddy as Russ Wheeler. That's it. Going, going, cool. How's the CTE?

how's the ct racehorse rock band wrestler fantasy team name heart the top cold trickle cold tricklers anything with tricklers yeah i got a i got a cool cool punk band called japanese inspection i think they fucking rock oh that's the blues peaked in the early 80s with a couple songs yeah all right craig come on camera for this one because you have a flex category for us

I'm going to keep this one somewhat wholesome. I'm just going good old fashioned best quote and I'm

I generally think this movie, you could probably just enjoy it with the sound off. And that's complimentary. I mean, in a complimentary way. But there's a couple moments where Towne and Cruise nailed it. I thought, Bill, you hit one with, I'm more afraid of being nothing than I am of being hurt. Great line. Duvall has a line. You can't hide from your bad luck in his car. Great line. And then Rooker has a quote where he's like,

When I grew up, I hated farming. All I wanted to do was race cars. Now I'm a race car driver and all I want to do is work on a farm. Just like a couple of bangers. I got to say. I'm starting to feel like Craig might've liked this movie. We'll find out at the end of the pod. Picket Nets. A NASCAR driver from Eagle Rock is just ridiculous. CR, you walk the streets of Eagle Rock a lot. See any possible NASCAR drivers floating around there? Just fantasy. Yeah. Jesus.

Uh, Lewicki falls for a coal in about two minutes. Yeah. That's tough. I want to mention that. Yeah. And he's off to a terrible start. And as Kyle laid out the whole stalking scenario with him, um, unclear why she doesn't have a boyfriend either. Another classic, like, why don't you have somebody? Cause unlike Kelly Lynch and roadhouse, she's in Charlotte. That's like a pretty big city thing that she works 24 hours a day. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is extreme. Dream, dream girlfriend. Smoking hot doctor is on call all the time. Sounds great. I'm going to watch sports. Tell me when you get back from the hospital. Yeah.

Any other nitpicks for you guys? I had one about Dr. Nowicki. Awfully preachy and judgmental about race cars for someone who jumps on the back of a Harley with no helmet and some asshole driving her around that she just met. I don't know if a lot of doctors are just doing that, especially if they're just constantly talking about the lunatics who are race car drivers. It doesn't really jive for me.

I have one more small one. Cause this is a movie thing that happens a lot where the passenger wants to get out of the car and then open the door. Yeah. In real life. I just think Cole keeps going. Go ahead. Fucking here to fall out of the car. I dare you. I dare you. You're gonna fall out. I'm going 80 miles an hour. Um,

Um, I had my, my two or three here. Two of them are interrelated. One is cold drove Indy cars or open wheel cars before NASCAR. Yeah. I just don't think you can get to the level he's at with the level of car aptitude that he claims to have or lack of car aptitude that he claims to have. I don't know what you guys are talking about. Like his weird, like, I don't know how to read thing is, is strange. But then when he confronts Harry, which would only have taken place like six months, nine months later, um,

maybe he's like a car expert where he's like, Oh, NASCAR said the carbon monoxide and the, and the, the, you know, the restrictor plate. So it's like, so are you Mr. Good wrench or did you not know anything about fast learner? Yeah. Fast learner maybe. And then the other one is just that I feel like this film is too reliant on the high pass.

I could have used one more cool car move. Yeah. Yeah. And, and every race basically hinges on can Cole pass this guy high until he passes him low. Right. It's like, if this was a football movie and it's just a tush push is the only place single time we got to get to fourth and one for another tush push. It didn't work last time. A sequel prequel prestige TV, all black cast are untouchable. So yeah,

Less than six months ago reported Tom Cruise is going to do a Days of Thunder sequel. Yeah. And doing it with Top Gun Maverick. I guess he's hairy in this. Yeah. Well, he might be cool. He might be cool still. Is that when Top Gun Maverick was being developed, the whole idea is that

Maverick was going to be Viper. Like, but he was going to be the teacher and that these younger guys were going to take over just like Jeremy Renner was going to take over mission impossible. I will believe Tom Cruise passing the baton when I actually see it being taken out of his cold, dead hands. We could do CGI and also do that same speech about LeBron and Luca Dodgers. Hey, LeBron's going to retire past the torch to Luca. Yeah.

Oh, one other nitpick I had just briefly is for the extremity of that accident that Cole and Rowdy get into, Cole just having like the cutest little burst blood vessel in his eye. Mm-hmm.

That's his only... It's adorable. Yeah. Get a little scrape in there. Yeah, give him like a high ankle sprain, something. Yeah. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Doris Burke, Sam Jackson? No. Byron Mayer, Barney Cousins, Tony Romo, Harling Mays, Chris Collinsworth, Daniel Plainview, Long Legs, or Wilford Brimley in The Firm? CR. Goddamn, Cole! I didn't know I was working with Super Driver and a mother...

Australian girlfriend you better pass Russ on the high side or your lady is going to be doing AMC theater intros a long fucking time get the fuck out of here I just wanted to do that for Kyle I actually think DB would be great yeah we see you Mr. Trickle we see you passing high you didn't know anything about cars when you got behind the wheel of a 195 mile per hour vehicle

That's like going after Vince Carter in the dunk contest. But I've always wanted to do this one, and I'm so thrilled. I'm going to take my shot. I am going with Wilford Brimley in the firm. Yes! Because we got Cruz right there, and I think the premise is Cole is going to leave the race team. He's like, I'm out of here. And then Randy Quaid says his head of security to take Cole for a little drive. Oh, stripper. And he takes out, and he says...

Imagine this, Cole. Here's your page. One day walking to the mailbox looking to get her Red Book magazine. What does she find instead? Heartache, Cole. And it's the pictures of him with the stripper from the bus. Not just screwing, Cole. Intimate acts. Oral and whatnot. Impossible for a young Australian doctor to forget. That's the scene. I need it. Wow. Those are two great ones. I almost don't want to follow it just with Roma going, you might go hide, Jim.

The guy's going low, Jim! Just one Oscar who gets it. Hans Zimmer?

Don Simpson said Robert town should get an Oscar for this. Disagree. It did get nominated for best sound. So maybe that wins the Oscar. Yeah. Uh, probably an answerable questions. Cole's Daytona odds. I have no idea how to do a race car odds, but Cole coming off major accident, not doing that. Great. Not going to guess a hundred, not his car. I'm guessing a hundred to one or higher. Right. Something like that. Yeah. Um,

All right. Here's well, I have one more, but do you guys have any, any answer for us? I had a question for the, for the, the panel here. Yeah. Do you guys think you'd be good at driving a pace car?

hmm like a pontiac out in front yeah it'd just be so nerve-wracking you're driving like a chevy lumina and like all these stock cars yeah i just wouldn't enjoy it yeah i'm gonna say no i think it's i think it's very deceptively difficult to drive on those tracks the way that they're curved and arced and everything like that and plus you're just it's like being the drum major in front of the marching band like don't fuck up everybody's looking at you i get nervous just thinking about the question

Harry telling him to hit the pace car is one of my low-key favorite moments. Yeah, that's awesome. And he's going to do it because he's that stupid. I have a question about Kidman and Cruz. So they met on set. The romance starts. Yeah. At what point of the shoot or at what scene do you think that they were getting together? And was it before or after the bedroom scene? Were they a couple at that time or were they flirting together or not? When did it happen?

Good question. If I had to guess, I would say really practically speaking, probably upon casting. Yeah. Right away. CR. I think so. My take was, I think it's right after the violent makeout in the hallway where she's like, I'm not ignoring you. Because honestly, like Kidman really goes for it. It's very hot. It's very sexy. And I think after that scene, they're like, we should do this for real. That's my take. And Cruz is like, I've always liked tall girls. Yeah. Mimi Rogers was like 5'11". Mm.

kind of cruises thing. Katie Holmes is like, yeah, here's my unanswered. But what happens if Duvall does Godfather three instead of this movie? Who's Harry? And I think it's Jack Nicholson. Oh, wow. Yeah. I was going to say coming right up Batman. I think they just throw a giant check at him and he's like, ah, you guys are going to Don Simpson's going to be on the set, right? That sounds good. All right. Don's a fun time. All right, I'll do it. But then do they still do a few good men a few years later?

Maybe not. That's another, we get a what if off the what if. What piece of memorabilia would you want or not want from this movie? As a hat guy, I would love the super flow hat that they have. I like that one too. Yeah. I want the, I just want the mellow yellow racing suit embroidered with cold trickle. And I feel like my eight-year-old could wear it for Halloween costume. It'd be fun. Oh my God. That's amazing. I think the mellow yellow suit is the answer. I mean, you could go cars, but we said this is no cars allowed category.

Does he want an award for what happened the next day? We're bringing this back. All right. What happens here? Does he end up with Claire Lewicki? Do they have kids? They don't, right? They break up. No, no, no, no. One of the most improbable couples to last. No way. Unless you see it differently, CR. I think they're done. Well, so the question is, is do you think Claire...

becomes okay with the racing, the dangers of racing? Or do you think Cole retires after winning Daytona 500 and becomes like a house husband? No. The scene is when they're in bed together. She keeps, I mean, I think they just screwed or they're about to. And she's like, isn't there anything else you want to do? Don't you have any other dreams? Like that's very relatable. You don't want to be in that relationship.

I forgot to mention this in nitpicks. She goes from, she's 24 hours a day saving brains and working on people and then just available to go to any race. Yeah. She's just bouncing between Charlotte and Daytona. Yeah. Yeah. Where's the next race? Oh, it's in Virginia. I'm there. Yeah. Hold on. I'll get something to cover my 16 hour shift. I heard Dover, Delaware. It's amazing. Coach Finstock award for best life lesson.

I'm more afraid of being nothing than being hurt. I'm just going to take that into my life. I think I liked rubbing is racing. Yeah, I did too. It's, it's so everywhere now and it applies to life. It applies to sports, everything. Sometimes there's going to be some shit that happens, but that's life. What do you have Kyle for a best double feature choice? I broke the rules. I'm doing triple feature. I'm doing days of thunder.

Far and away and eyes wide shut. I want to see that relationship. I want to see all of it from the beginning to end. Unbelievable choice. Great job, man. Thank you. Yeah, I'm not topping that. All right. This will get interesting. Who won the movie? I got Roxy winning the movie. No, um,

I think it's it's Cruz is just such a one seed that's hard to knock off. I love Duvall, but I'm not taking my eyes off trickle either. I know that I do directors a lot, but I just think in the hands of somebody else, it does not. This does not work. Tony Scott makes every car racing scene, every crowd shot, every the smoke going across the road like he's just an artist. And I think he makes this thing worth rewatching.

I had Duvall one a and Tony Scott one B. Yeah. I know Cruz is a one seed. I just love Duvall in this movie. And I think he saves it from actually being a bad movie. Yeah. I think if he's not in it, we're in a lot of trouble and it's just becomes like a, and Tony Scott has made these where it's just like, it's just Tony Scott doing stuff, but the movie's bad.

I think that's where this lands. I don't feel that way about this movie. And it's 35 years old this summer. Yeah. Listen, if Tom Skerritt's gone from Top Gun, we're going to be fine. But if Duvall is gone from this movie, you're kind of fucked. You need that to hold it together.

All right. Big moment. Producer Craig had not seen this movie. Come on, baby. I know he loved the runtime, which is like 141. Somehow the rewatchables pod is going to be 15 minutes past it. What'd you think, Craig? I have thoughts on the runtime that I'll get to in a little bit. But yeah,

You know, it hasn't been the best couple of months for this country, but this movie reinvigorated my love for America. Yes. And I watched it on Pluto. So every commercial break was just the Harrison Ford Jeep commercial. So I was really kind of ready to run through a wall for the red, white and blue hour and 55 minutes. Why is Tony Scott, who's a Brit, so good at making patriotic films for America?

Oh, great question. That could have been a good unanswerable. You're right. How did he become our most patriotic director of the last 40 years? Just like raw, over-the-top patriotism in this movie. Great music. And yeah, it's like Top Gun, true romance. It feels very American. And Tony Scott's a Brit. Crimson Tide, yeah. Crimson Tide, yeah. Craig, how did you feel about in the first 30 seconds of the movie, no less than three Confederate flag shots in the movie?

Yeah. They kept going back to it. Like I said, like I said, pure America, raw America. Uh,

My hot take about the runtime for this movie is I think it could have been a little longer. I wanted actually a little bit more. I think this movie feels like 20 minutes are missing at the beginning. Yeah. Like, this movie starts, and it's just like Randy Quaid in a cornfield talking to Robert Duvall. I don't know who either of them are. I don't know what the fuck's going on. And then, like, three minutes later, they're, like, basically racing. I don't know who Tom Cruise is. There's no backstories to anybody. Yeah.

Now, you saying that the movie only had five weeks to edit makes sense because they're like chopping scenes left and right. There are scenes that like kind of cut in the middle of the climactic moment, even the crash. It's so quick when it goes from the crash and he's just getting airlifted and then he's in the hospital. There's like no time to breathe. I wonder how many of those car scenes are like, we only can do one take of this. Yeah. You know?

Yeah, what if they told Tony Scott for like the 15-year anniversary, can you go back and do your director's edit of this with a little more time? I wanted like 15 more minutes. I really did. Wow. I thought this was a take I was expecting from Craig. I know. Craig usually goes so short. There's no closer at all on Rowdy Burns. We're supposed to see him one more time. That's how the movie works. He had the surgery. He's okay. I want Bertier from Remember the Titans in the hospital bed. Like, cheers. You show them in the hospital bed cheering and they don't even show him.

Yeah. I think Don realized that two months later as he was on rail number nine. It's like, oh, fuck. We should have shown Rooker in a hospital bed. Yeah.

Also, iconic final shot. You guys didn't really talk about it, but the race. Oh, the freeze frame. The freeze frame and the race. I rewound it, watched it like three times. I mean, there's something about the old guy running next to the young guy. Cruz is so happy in that scene. Yeah. Craig, how do you feel about Tony Scott from 90 to 94, 95, four in a row, Days of Thunder, Last Boy Scout, True Romance, Crimson Tide, just fucking banging him out back to back to back?

One of the greats. It's a bummer we don't have him around still. Yeah, I know. Yeah, so he's nine. So now he's tied with Michael Mann. Can I throw like a picking nit at you guys? What about the scene, the all-time flag for targeting that goes unpunished?

When Trickle just sneaks out of the pit zone or whatever that's called and just T-bones Carrelli's car. Is it after he wins? Is the race over? Yeah, Carrelli's has won. Yeah, he T-bones him to ruin the car and then 20 minutes later, Randy Quaid is back on his side. Yeah, he's like, I'm going to give you a fake, like my engine. Also like,

NASCAR doesn't punish him in any way like that wouldn't that have been the craziest story in the history of NASCAR you can't help him and he's like that's my engine in that car well Craig the football equivalent of that is Jalen Hurts is on the podium with Terry Bradshaw getting the Lombardi and like Chris Jones runs up there and hits him blindsides him de-cleats him after the game is over it's ludicrous

You know what Craig just made me think of that this movie is missing? This would have been a good pick and knit. Where is ESPN SportsCenter? There's such a natural cut to Chris Berman and Tom Lee doing some crazy thing happened today in NASCAR. Russ Wheeler won a race. Watch Cole Trickle here. Comes in and they just do the whole... It's called Magic Trickle. We get some bourbon. Yeah.

Goes after Russ 18 Wheeler Well 90 we would have gotten maybe Would that have been Kilborn back then? Not quite Kilborn yet We're still Berman Gale Gardner Trying to think Scott's not even there yet Rowdy Montgomery Burns

Yeah, because they could have, because by mid-90s, they were really starting to shoehorn ESPN into these sports movies, but I hadn't thought of it yet. All right, so thumbs up from Craig. Way to go, Craig. Huge thumbs up. It's like my top choice for a movie to be on in a bar, and I mean that in a very complimentary way. Sure. So, Cruz, 16 rewatchables right now, Craig. It's going to be tough to catch them.

Three up on De Niro and Pacino. There's some good De Niro left. There's less Pacino. Cruz has whittled me down. And I honestly used to not have him in my top three or five favorite actors. And it's because I've only seen old Cruz. And I think a lot of people my age are the same way. I was texting my brothers-in-law who are like 23 and 26.

and I was texting them about Days of Thunder because we liked, they usually watch Rewatchables movies with me whenever they're in town. They had never heard of it and they're like, man, there are so many young Cruise movies that I've just never watched. Yeah. And it's like all my favorite Cruise, like I love Risky Business. I now love this movie. I think I like the persona that young Cruise brought much more than old Cruise. Obviously, we only really have Mission Impossible and like a few other things.

Yeah, it's hard to go back to that pre-Oprah zone where it was like his approval rating was in the high 90s, where it's just like, ah, man, every movie he makes is pretty great. Yeah. Well, Tom Cruise, we still have a few left, too, which is amazing. We still have a bunch of Mission Impossibles left. There's some really good ones. Craig, thanks for producing this podcast. CR, always great to see you. Kyle Brandt.

A pleasure. As usual, great to see you here on the Rewatchables. Don't forget, you can watch this on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel, and you can always watch these podcasts on Spotify. See you next week.