‘The Replacements’ With Bill Simmons and Van Lathan
01:47:04 Share

What's happening? It's Todd McShay, and I'm back with a new home and a new show at The Ringer and Spotify.

The McShay Show. It's a video and audio podcast coming to you year-round with all my NFL draft information, big boards, mock drafts, and player movement. Plus, I'll be chatting with some of my best friends in football, including some of your favorite football analysts. During the week, we'll have episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays that'll include discussions about my player rankings, who's rising, who's falling, and who your NFL team should be keeping an eye on. Plus, we'll be reacting each week

to the college football playoff polls, and giving you previews and picks for each Saturday slate. In addition, I'll have episodes on Saturday nights with my immediate reaction to the full day in college football every week. So if you love the college game, the NFL, the draft, or all of it like me, make sure to like, follow, subscribe, and get ready for the McShea Show on The Ringer, Spotify, and wherever you watch or listen to podcasts.

This episode is brought to you by Viore. Viore is performance apparel that's designed for working out but doesn't look or feel like it. And let me tell you, the Ponto Performance Jogger is a game changer. It's part of Viore's Dream Knit collection. It's super soft. It's lightweight. It's perfect for me because as you know, I like to walk. I walk all over the place. I do Zooms. I make phone calls. I listen to podcasts.

and it's about to get cold. It was short season for a while. Now in LA, it's a little chilly, especially in the mornings.

You can walk around in these all day. Keep you comfortable for hours without sacrificing style. You can relax them in your house. Go to viore.com slash ringer to get 20% off your first purchase. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot. Whether you want to knock it out of the park gift-wise or treat yourself to a little extra, The Home Depot's got you covered with the gift that keeps on giving. Pick up a select battery kit,

and get a select tool from top brands like Ryobi or Milwaukee for free. That's right, for free. Whether you're building out your personal workshop or buying for someone else, you can choose from reciprocating saws, multi-tools, circular saws, and more. Get Black Friday tool savings delivered from the Home Depot. Limit one per transaction. Exclusions apply. Full eligible tool list in store and online. The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer.

Podcast network where you can find Higher Learning with Van Lathan. Yep. The Midnight Boys with Van Lathan. Pew pew. You still doing that? Are there still Marvel and DC comic movies coming out or no? You know what? So this is what- What's going on in that universe? Anything? Star Wars? I can't wait for 2025. First of all, Skeleton Crew is coming out. Are you back? 2025 is going to be the most consequential year in the history of superhero movies. Really? Superman.

Fantastic Four. Superman. Wow, they've never made a Superman movie. What's the angle going to be? Let me guess. He comes from another planet and has superpowers?

And then bad people try it. Oh, wait, I've seen that nine times. You know what? I love it because this is your product, the podcast. So making people uninterested in what it is that we talk about. Why don't they create new superheroes? We can't get a Plastic Man movie? There's a lot of, but this is, but see, okay. Seven Supermans. We can't get one Plastic Man? This Superman is the beginning of the revamped DC universe. So you'll have access to all types of new and different. They got Mr. Terrific in this one.

Black superhero. Guy's smartest guy in the world. Mr. Terrific. I like that. Mr. Terrific is his name. So there are some new superheroes that are going to be in there. Exactly. So Superman, Fantastic Four comes out next year. The Thunderbolts. Well, the Penguin was good. The Penguin was fantastic. Yeah. Look at you. So maybe we're getting better. 2025, gigantic year. Can't wait. We'll cover it in the Ringerverse. You can follow all of the videos and clips from this podcast on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel.

We're about to do a movie that has wore me down over the years. I can't believe we're doing it. The Replacements is next. They had other commitments and other careers. So that style of dancing I would be. Is live dancing a style? But on the field. Falco. They were out to prove they belong to each other. You're unbelievable. Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman. Yeah!

That's going to leave a mark. The Replacements, rated PG-13. Sneak preview this Saturday. Starts Friday, August 11th. All right, man. The wear you down rewatchable movies. Movies that you never considered would be in your life when you saw them the first time. I was like, eh. I wrote about this movie for Eastpain in 2001. I made fun of it for 3,000 words, but still enjoyed it. What was your take then on your first...

This is what I wrote in 2001. Yeah. You know what you're getting even before it begins. Keanu Hackman, a cast of motley, cliched characters, some football scenes, and a happy ending. It reminds me of the summer when my old roommate Birdman grew a ghastly goatee, which was best described by our buddy Nick's father as, quote, delightfully unappealing. That's the replacements. That's what I wrote in 2001, and since then,

It's been on. It's like by about 2007, I was like, I think I like this movie. 2012, I texted you about a month ago because it came on after an NBA game and they just went right into the replacements. And of course I started watching it and I was like, the replacements are on. And you were like, oh, I know. Yeah. I'm watching with Kalika. How did this happen? How did this become a rewatchable?

Sports culture changed. And so now the replacements as a movie is actually a relic to how we used to look at sports. Oh. When the movie first starts... When we love scabs. Kinda. I'm serious. That's true. This movie casts the players as the greedy bad guys, the genteel old owner as kind of, at least in the beginning, as the nice guy. Yeah.

Who's being screwed over by these greedy millionaire players. Who's being screwed over by the greedy millionaire players. That's completely changed. You're right. So you look at it now, the players are labor. They're the good guys. The owners are these ridiculous capitalist titans. They're the bad guys. So when you look at this movie, there's a quaintness about it because we really do not look at sports, particularly football, like we looked at that stuff when the movie first came out.

I thought we were going to do this later, but I'm glad we're doing it now. So this movie comes out in 2000. This is a year after the NBA lockout, which pissed people off. It's six years after the baseball strike, which pissed people off. And the theme was, these guys are so lucky to play sports. How dare they?

How dare they think they should be paid whatever. Like, come just play your games and entertain us. And you're right. In 2024, that's like an impossible thing. If you made this movie now, you could argue the owner's evil.

The replacement players are evil. And the good guys would be these guys trying to basically break up their replacements so they can come back and play the Cowboys and cross the line and settle the strike. The version of this movie now is the actual players go and start playing in like a flag football league or something like that.

It's a different sport. Oh, like a billionaire funds a flag football game so they can make money. Yeah, that's a good idea. It's like they actually go play something different, but it's literally about how they can't get what they want from their owners, and so they have to go do something else. It's definitely not a situation where someone crosses a picket line

and becomes a hero no fucking way they flip his car they throw eggs at the bus you're like look at these guys what jerks throwing eggs at the bus the nice players who are striking for more money right or locked out well think about the eddie martell character the villain in this movie the old quarterback i don't even know like we don't we never have a character like that now we don't even have a person like that in sports well we do who is it aaron rogers

Oh, that's a great point. Yeah. I'm trying to think. Eddie Martell as Aaron Rodgers. Just a deeply unlikable. And look, you guys, I'm not talking about his political or social beliefs. Aaron Rodgers is an entitled arrogant asshole. Arrogant teammate. Yeah. Like, so he's kind of that character. Yeah, the one he did to Mike Williams this year. Yeah. Backs that up. Yeah. Threw him under the bus. Mike Williams catches a touchdown pass for the Steelers. Takes shots back at him on Instagram. Yeah. So that's kind of that guy. But.

It would take a long time for us to get to the point where we don't like that guy. At the end of the movie where Martel says, hey, I'm an all-pro, two-time Super Bowl champ. I was like, this guy's pretty impressive, man. He's kind of the man. They said he was the best quarterback in the league and he was an arrogant prick. Yeah, you're right. I can't believe how they make the Rodgers connection. Rodgers is Eddie Martel. It's a good one. Well, the plot was loosely based on the 1987 NFL strike.

When teams hired scab players, there was the Washington Redskins at the time. They actually got a boost from their strike players, and that helped them, I think, eventually win the Super Bowl. People still came to the games, really kind of destroyed labor in the NFL for all intents and purposes. Well, they had another strike in 82, which I forgot because I was reading up on this, and I was like,

I might have, this might've been so traumatic. Like when something terrible happens to you as a kid and you block it out of your mind and usually it's something horrible. I think for me, it was the 82 NFL strike. I think it was so traumatic. I blocked it out of my mind. They didn't play football for eight weeks. And I don't even, in 1982, I'm 13. I don't really remember it because I think I must've been so upset. I just like shelved it in my head. Can you imagine not having football for eight weeks? Can you imagine the cataclysm?

If it happened now with the gambling fantasy infrastructure? With the gambling fantasy thing, if week two, they just say, fuck it, we on strike, and they don't come back until like week 10. Craig, what would happen if we had a strike this season starting week two? Would that be the most traumatic American event of the 21st century?

Yeah, what it would do to fantasy. I mean, it would be the biggest thing since DeMar Hamlin ended the Chiefs-Bills game and nobody knew what to do when they had like Jamar Chase or John... It would be that like times 12. It would be that for 10 straight weeks. I don't feel like they could be on strike for more than a week because I think people would be so mad. Like so many, tens of millions of people would be like...

You guys are ending this now. Like, you better get... We are so football-oriented. People would lose their minds. But imagine if you could have a new fantasy draft with all the replacement players. That would be actually kind of fun. That would be fun. But see, here's something else, though. Like Shane Falco, second round. Here's the thing about the replacement players now. We get a taste of the replacement players.

We see it. We see it in the XFL. Oh, true. We see it in the USFL. We see it. We see it with the Panthers. It's the quarterback playing the blocking are the two. Yeah, we see it with the Panthers. So Keanu Reeves, this kicks off just a bizarre stretch of his career. He's got the Matrix the year before. Yeah. So he's got Point Break. He does a bunch of good movies in the 90s. Speed. Speed, he becomes an A-lister. Mm-hmm.

He's in a devil's advocate. He's hitting a bunch of them. Matrix kind of goats him for the nineties as like a, a real a-lister that becomes a poster boy of a whole type of movie. You would have bought a ton of stock for him in the two thousands. Like what's next for this guy? This guy's an a-lister. And then he gives us the replacements, the watcher, the gift, sweet November,

Hardball, a movie we've done on the rewatchables that we have strong feelings about. Something's got to give Constantine Echo a scanner darkly and by 2006, The Lake House. And he's just, that's it. And it kind of starts with this movie where he loses the A-list. Doesn't really get it back until John Wick 2014. This starts a 14-year sabbatical from being an A-lister. Yeah.

But in 2000, I went to the theater to see The Replacements because Keanu was in it. Smoking hot. The Matrix was a game changer in film. He's Draymond Green. What does that mean? Meaning has a plethora of tools, but you got to have him in the right situation. Right. You can't have him. You can't be like, Draymond, we need 35 from you tonight. No. He's got to be in the right situation. John Wick...

is perfect. Speed is perfect. Probably the less words, the better for Keanu. But when you let him do his thing, when you let him do his thing, he can give you Hall of Fame characters. But he's not the type of guy that you could put him in Washington, Orlando, or New York, Houston, and he's going to be a Hall of Famer wherever. He's got to be put in the right position.

And he learned that throughout the 2000s because all of those roles. Speed is the perfect role for him. Kind of speed. There's a speed matrix John Wick triumvirate. Out there point breaking too. Point break as well. Although it's a little of some overacting in there that makes us love point break. But when he's. I am an athlete.

FBI agent. But that works, though. I am an FBI agent. That works, though. It did. That works. And the rest of the 2000s show me that. He likes to do the occasional weird movie. He fucks around a little bit. He did. Yeah, I would say you could even argue he might not have the best taste in scripts. He's made 20 bad movies. Like, bad. I know, but I also do think that there's a part of him

He seems like one of those guys who almost doesn't know what the limits of his actual wheelhouse are. Because there are other times where he's in films where you go, huh, like a fantastic performance in, say, Parenthood. I was going to say Parenthood. Or a fantastic performance in, what's the Gus Van Zandt movie, My Own Private Idaho? Right. A fantastic performance in Gilbert Grape. You know what I mean? He's in that one, right?

Maybe. Because he was in one of those around that era. Whatever. But in these films, he tries it a little bit and it works. But in other ones, he tries to get us there and it just doesn't come together. There's something else he brought to the table. What? Unintentional comedy. Right. It was a huge part of the Keanu package. It's something that Matt Damon doesn't have. Somebody who I like him, I'm rooting for him.

But it's also really funny sometimes when he delivers lines, when he has reactions. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a 100 out of 100 on the unintentional comedy scale. Keanu was in the 90s and has some scenes in this where I don't think he knew who this character was. He kind of plays him as almost like he's had too many concussions. Yeah. What he says. Yeah. And it's just kind of like.

Says his lines like this. Right. But it works, but it's also funny. It's his attempt at a burnout. Yeah. People don't know how hard it is to play a burnout. To play a burnout and like someone with a light has come out of their eyes. He's got the light in his eyes. I could see he's down at the bottom of the fucking ocean in the first scene running plays. Right. With a metal trophy. With a metal trophy. He's still got the fire in him, you know? There's that scene when she goes to visit him.

And she's like, what are you doing? And he goes, oh, my job. You're a professional football player, the girl says. Sure, this week. But when that's all over, you know, I'll be back here. I don't want to lose my customers. Like he's just delivering. He's not. It's almost like a work in wrestling. You're shitting on this man so bad right now. This is how he acts in the movie. But this is what I like about the movie. I know.

I guarantee Keanu is not like, man, I nailed the replacements. He has multiple scenes where you're like, why didn't they do another take of this? I will say this, though. That same type of attitude works when, say, the guys flip his car over.

Because he's supposed to be so nonchalant about it, so virtuous in a way, that you can't get a rise out of him. And so it works there, the fact that it doesn't seem like anything sticks to Shane Falco. He stays with it the whole movie. Even when he loses his job, he goes to the bar, and he's like, I'm not going to be there on Thursday. And they're like, what? They stop it, and he tells the team, and you think it's going to be this big speech, and it's just...

He never has it. He doesn't do it. His quicksand speech is good, though. I like Keanu in this movie. I think one of the reasons it's rewatchable is now we have this whole John Wick history with him, too, where he's so fucking cool in John Wick. He hasn't really figured out the cool part how to do in this movie, but I still like it. Gene Hackman's also in this movie, which I was outraged by.

in 2000 because he was norman dale and hoosiers one of the great coach performances and it's like why are you being a coach again like what do you know you know why why this was we only have four more years so this was part of his retirement package right so we have this he's in the mexican in 01 he's in heartbreakers we get horny hackman i love heartbreakers yeah we've never talked about my love for heartbreakers he's so gourney and a

prime Jennifer Love Hewitt, who at that point is fighting for the title of number one white girl. It's like really they're going, because in the 2000s, the title, the number one white girl crown was really being pulled back and forth. A lot of contenders. A lot of contenders. And Jay gets in there right there, Jay Love. That was when you were cataloging your Maxim magazines.

FHM, Maxim, the whole deal. You were getting different takes on it. All different types. Tara Reid, like just a brief two-month run and just faded out. She flirted with it. And then I saw this thing on- Charlize came off the top rope. Where'd she come from? When Charlize came- It was over. She was doing her thing. The thing with Tara Reid was-

I saw her one time on this MTV, Ludacris did this MTV video, making of the video, Ludacris type of situation. And he went to lunch and Tara Reid was at the lunch. And I was like, I already know what's up. What does that mean? Figure it out. Okay. Heist 2001 for Gene. Royal tan and bombs. Behind enemy lines. Runaway jury. And can you guess the last movie he did? 2004.

Last Gene Hackman movie. So you did, you said Royal Tenenbaums. Yeah. Oh, I know they re-released the Donner cut of Superman 2007. Doesn't count. Okay. Welcome to Mooseport. Oh, welcome to Mooseport where he plays, it's like the president. So Gene could have had this whole...

late 70s, early 80s run as like the old guy and been like a judge and he was like, I'm out. Yeah. I made enough money. That's Ray Romano, right? Who becomes the president of the United States or something? No. I forget. Whatever, whatever. Yeah, but then after that, so Gene Hackman's done. So when you look at some of those movies, he's fattening up the wallet a little bit before it's time to get out of here. I wrote down in my notes, he's basically Norman Dale with a fedora and a mustache and three drinks in him. Yeah. That's his... He has quotes like...

Winners always want the ball when the game's on the line. Yeah. A lot of cliche quotes. I look at you and I see two men. The man you are and the man you ought to be. These are actual lines from the script. By the way, he's...

The Judd Nelson award, he's in a completely different mood. 100%. He's in a very serious football mood. Yeah, let's just give him Judd Nelson now. A real man admits his fears. There can only be one leader out there. You be it. Right. It's like, did you guys work on these lines at all or you just decided to just have Gene say them? He's like a, what's the old, he's like Tom Landry out there kind of coaching up the guys. Here's the thing about him. When I watched this movie,

I remember that he also automatically gave the movie credibility because a lot of these actors that are in the film beyond Keanu Reeves. Yeah, there are a lot of bits. It's a motley crew of guys who we would know better going on, but we didn't really know well then. And Gene Hackman was in his final form when I came to know who he was. Yeah. So anytime you put him in a movie, the movie has automatic credibility with me. I completely agree. I didn't feel that way in 2000. I wrote...

I kept hoping Barbara Hershey would emerge from the stands dressed in all black and shoot him in the chest. Remember she was the bad, the black lady in black of the natural. But now I've come around. Also, he gets to be in scenes with Jack Worden. This was Jack Worden's last movie. Pass away after. Yeah. He has lines like, I've seen monkey shit fights in the zoo that were more good as this. He played the Sentinel's owner, Edward O'Neill.

He was also in two other football movies. Can you name them? Jack Worden. Secret Sports Movie Hall of Famer. Like, maybe not elected the same way like a Keanu would be, but... He was not... Was he in Heaven Can Wait? What do the Oscars do? The Lifetime Achievement when the old guy gets it? I think he might get in late. Was he in Heaven Can Wait? He was crucial role in Heaven Can Wait. He played Max. And then he played...

The Coach of the Bears, George Hallis, and Brian Song, the saddest sports movie of all time. Yeah. You've seen Brian Song, right? Nah, I don't fuck with it. TV movie. What do you mean you don't fuck with it? It's about Gale Sayers. I know. Brian Piccolo. I get it. But I've seen, once you see like the one scene in it, I feel like that's like the whole movie. I'm not trying to be like, I've seen like really grown guys get super emotional about this shit. I'm not trying to do that whole shit, man. It means a lot to you, doesn't it?

I think it's an important football movie. Okay. I just thought differently of you. That I would watch? I just thought you knew your football movies. Well, I know the movie. I'm sorry. And I know the scene, but- Not the scene, it's the whole thing. Okay, what else about, by the way, before you guys get super pissed off, I'm not pissing on Brian's song. No, the movie came out in 1970. I'm not mad that you didn't watch it. They remade it. No, I didn't watch the remake. Who did they have? Omar Epps in that joint? It's bullshit they remade it. Mekhi Pfeiffer? Anyway.

There's a bunch of sports movie cliche characters that you've definitely seen before that they brought together in this movie, including the floundering QB who needs to turn his life around. Shane footsteps Falco. Yeah. We'll get to his footsteps thing later. Right. The token psychopath, a SWAT team officer, crazy linebacker played by.

Jon Favreau. Jon Favreau. This has to be the weirdest thing about this movie 24 years later. Yeah. That Jon Favreau is the Brian Bosworth...

Ray Lewis, I don't know whoever, crazy middle linebacker character. It's dumbfounding. This is the stuff that makes a movie rewatchable. Yes. You have Orlando Jones, who's going on to have a great career, but who also achieved... He plays the comic relief black guy, the Billy Mays Hayes role. He achieved cultural ubiquity as the 7-Up guy, but now has gone on to have a great career. You have Jon Favreau, while he was still trying to be an actor,

And by the way, it felt like it was going badly. Him trying to be an actor? Well, because now he's in this movie, it felt like he's kind of

He had been on Friends. He was hosting that IFC show that I really liked, actually, that part, Dinner for Five, whatever. But it felt like the moment it kind of passed him and Vince Vaughn was going to be a bigger star. Well, yeah. And then he flipped the script. Well, Vince Vaughn, well, he flipped the script because he got back to his roots. I mean, remember... Well, he does Iron Man in 08. Iron Man in 08. But he really came into the game as more of a creator, as an actor as well, because he wrote Swingers, right? But...

And during this time, you still were used to seeing him on screen. Now, we still see him on screen. We just thought he was going to be an actor. We didn't know he was going to be like a director person. Right. And then that completely changed. So when you see it now, that also gives the movie a little novelty. He was in Rocky Marciano, the Showtime movie. Yeah, he was in Rocky Marciano. He was in, um, uh. I mean, he's ripped in this movie. No, he is in great shape. And that's another thing. Craig, were you surprised? Yeah. I'm curious what he was taking behind the scenes.

Something going on perhaps. I don't think there was testing on the set that year. Probably not. All of these guys take something, though. He was a believable Bill Romanowski-type middle linebacker. You forget that he is actually a really great actor. He still acts, by the way. He's still in the MCU stuff, Chef, all that stuff. We have the token crazy foreigner, the drunk, chain-smoking Welsh field goal kicker, played by the guy from Notting Hill. He says things like,

You just hoed it and I'll kick the bloody piss out of it. Yeah. I kind of liked him. He smokes during scenes in games. His bookies travel. Yeah, his bookies travel. Across. Unrealistic. You have to owe a lot of money, I think. You're flying in from England to watch the game and intimidate from the stands. They travel across the sea to get to him. In the epilogue of this movie, that guy just gets shot behind the stadium after the game. He's done. We have...

So, Fast Black Guy Who Can't Catch, which they do in every Motley Crue football movie. Always do it. Like, they even did it in the little movie, was it like the little giants or whatever the kid can't catch? Like, Fast Black Guy, you like that one, Craig? Well, it's like Billy Mays Hayes. You see Craig, Craig. I just saw that movie growing up. Like, Craig likes that one. Billy Mays Hayes is a baseball player. I was acknowledging you were correct. Can't hit for power. Can't hit for power. Super athletic. Can't do the skill thing. We see what y'all do.

The two bouncers turned offensive linemen. Yep. The intimidating black guys with a heart of gold, which we also had in Blue Crush a couple years later with Kate Bosworth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kate Bosworth, surf movie. They might have even been the same guys or they stole those guys from this movie or stole the characters. One of those guys' face on love. Y'all face on love. The menacing ex-convict. Mm-hmm. Ooh, I got a story. Or Earl Wilkinson. We have some stuff for him later, but he's the Joe Boo. Oh.

Oh, right. He's Joe Boo from Major League. But the men's next convict? Yeah, save it. Oh, you know. Oh, yeah, I know. Okay, okay, okay. We have likable handicap guy, deaf tight end. Yeah. And we have the obscenely obese offensive lineman guy who in this movie is Japanese. Japanese or? They just check a ton of boxes. Do you know why? Because this movie is essentially a remake of

Of Necessary Roughness. Yeah, it is. It's not essentially a remake. It's like the same movie from Necessary Roughness. Literally, they copied almost all the characters. The only one missing is kind of your Sinbad character. But it's like legitimately the same movie. Well, the female field goal kicker was the line they wouldn't cross. Yeah. They didn't want people to realize how badly they were. By the way, I'm all for ripping off Necessary Roughness. I like that movie too. Yeah, it's great. We're missing a couple of token characters.

We don't have the semi-racist dumb guy from the South. Maybe they couldn't find the casting for it. They kind of get you there with the cop, but I get what you're saying. Remember the Titans guy? The guy then, when Gary finds like, hey man, you got to leave the team. I don't know if we need to go that far, but we definitely needed somebody who was- That guy wasn't a semi-racist. Well, he was a full racist. I'm saying, could we have dipped in that pool? That guy went on to be Grand Dragon. Right.

That guy was, that Bertier had to get him off the team. Yeah, Bertier's like even, look man, it's 1970, you have to go. That's a bridge too far. What, you want to be with one of them? You're off the team. We were missing the token washed up weight safety, like Scott Bakula coming back. Scott Bakula was a QB. Oh no, he could have played back. I'm saying having Scott Bakula come back. Yeah. As like the weight safety who retired two years ago, but misses it and he comes back. The Don Beebe.

And we were really, I can't believe they missed this. The ladies' man who's just hooking up with multiple girls at a time. I don't know how they didn't have that in this. The person who was like, he basically fucked himself out of football because he was having so much sex. And now he's back, but it might have been a mistake. He's just going too hard. He loves the cheerleaders the most. We got to talk about him. We also have, I think, a new record of seven cliche sports scenes. The bar brawl. The dance. Puking on the field. Mm-hmm.

The teammate dance sequence, which happens in jail. The opponents getting distracted by the cheerleaders, which I don't think has ever happened in real life. Not once. No. The big fat lineman catching a pass and running. The QB throwing the ball at a defensive lineman's head, body, somewhere, trying to knock him out of the game. Just ripped off from longest yard. From longest yard, yeah. Ripped off. And then the injured veteran...

With the, you got to do it speech to have the guy who scores the touchdown, the big game. And he like blows out his knees sideways. Keanu comes over. He's like, Shane, you got to do it. It's like, you got to do it. I scored my one touchdown. So those are the seven, right? Were there any more at those were the seven cliche scenes? Um, no, not, I mean, obviously some of the, the romantic stuff, but in terms of sports movies stuff that those are the big ones, I guess. No, no, no, no, no, no. Did you do quicksand speech?

Oh, the locker room speech. Locker room speech. Well, that's like a, you have to have that in every sports. Right. They, they double back though. Yeah, they do. We're, I'm afraid to be great. Quicksand speech, but then they also come back to chicks, dig scars. Guy comes in at halftime to win games. Save your hero. Right. Same thing. Um,

I don't know if this counts as a cliche thing, but the, we think they got the winning score, but it turns out there's a flag on the play and we got to redo the winning moment. I don't know if this movie invented that, but I like, it's a good one. It's effective. That's that's. I thought you scored. Oh wait, you didn't. That's the best shot in the whole movie. Yeah. $50 million budget made 50.1 million. So it lost money. No, it literally broke even. No, no. I mean, after the marketing, it lost money. Roger Ebert, two stars. Yeah.

And honestly, words hurt because he wrote, slap happy entertainment painted in broad strokes, two coats thick. It's like a standard sports movie, but with every point made twice or three times. If you think The Replacements has the nerve to surprise you, you've got the wrong movie. Right. Raj. He's right. He's right. Yeah. He didn't know that it was going to be on TNT for the next 23 years. We missed a cliche. What is it? Maybe you brought it up. Maybe I just missed it. Whiny baby athletes bat.

whiny, rich, bad athletes. Anybody that wants to make money playing sports, bad. It's funny because at the beginning of the movie, a guy goes- Because that's Corbin Bernson in Major League. That's Corbin Bernson in Major League. At the beginning of the movie, a guy goes, I'm telling you, five million ain't what you think it is. When you do taxes- Yeah, Eddie Martell says that. My manager gets it. And I'm thinking to myself, now I'm thinking-

I mean, he kind of spitting a little bit. He's got a point. Like he makes 5 million, but it's not a real 5 million. He needs to go for more. Remember the NBA lockout in 99 when Kenny Anderson, it came out, he had eight cars and everyone lost their fucking minds. See, that's different. I mean,

But I'm just saying like the whole concept of the 90s and early 2000s was like, I can't believe this guy's complaining about. Free will feed my family. All of that stuff. People were getting sick of it. Now. Now the money is so fucking crazy. But also what happens now is this movie is a low information sports fans movie.

because we don't know at this point how much the league is making. We don't know what the TV deals are. We don't know any of that. So when we see these numbers, we go, how could they be making that much money? Now, when we see how much money they're making, we go, how could they not be making that much money? Today's the most rewatchable scene brought to you by Paramount+. A mountain of movies awaits on Paramount+. That means a mountain of heart-pounding action, blockbusters like Top Gun Maverick, Mission Impossible Fall, and Gladiator. You saw Gladiator too, right? I did see it.

Denzel? I just want Denzel to be good. I don't care if the movie's good. Denzel's good. Okay. A mountain of jump scares with thrillers like Scream 6, Smile, and A Quiet Place Day 1. Did you see Smile 2? I did see it. Heard it was good. I'll never watch a scary movie that you've recommended ever again. Okay. A mountain of fun for the kiddos. Family favorites like If, Paw Patrol, The Movie, and Dora, and The Lost City of Gold. Family favorites like what? If. Oh, I thought you said It.

No. Oh, I was about to say. It's not a family favorite. That's not a family favorite. No, that's definitely not. Yeah. Discover something new every week on Paramount+. So most of the watchable scene, Jimmy goes to see Shane. Jimmy McGinty goes to see Shane to talk him into it. We find out Shane lost the 96 Super Bowl by 45. I have a lot of Super Bowl questions later. The Sugar Bowl. Yeah. Lost by 45. I have more questions about that later.

Jimmy says, you know what separates the winners from the losers, kid? And Shane goes, the score. And we know we're off at this point. And Shane says, I don't want to be remembered at all. It's a dark place, cleaning boats, embarrassed in the Sugar Bowl. What real-life college football character is Shane Falco? What college star from the last 25 years? Is there a Shane Falco? Um...

Oh, you know what he could be? Uh-oh. He could be Troy Smith from Ohio State. Oh. Ohio State's cruising. Yeah. On their way to an undefeated season and a national championship. And they run into the Florida Gators. And somebody help me, but I think the score of the game was something like 40-14. Yeah. Yeah.

Very unexpected. 41-14. 41-14. Very unexpected. Troy Smith went on to not really have very much of a career in the NFL. Not sure how much of a career he was going to have before that, but it was a game that really, really injured the perception of him, if you ask me. It would have been the Georgia quarterback this year, but they're not going to be good enough to be a member of the team. Troy Smith is a great comp. In that game, he threw for 35 yards.

Jesus. Really? Who's your LSU Shane Falco? We've had a lot of Shane Falcos. Seven Shane Falcos? We didn't have a quarterback legitimately. We didn't have a quarterback for like 10 or 11 years. So we've got Shane Falcos in spades, man. I don't want to name any of the guys because I love LSU too much. Next scene, Annabelle.

the hot cheerleader who we'll talk about later gives shane a ride home and drives like a maniac for a minute for no reason a lot of the stuff in this movie happens for no reason and then says nothing personal shame but i don't think quarterbacks like all right you'll be back yeah we know that's talking about come on love her car very like 90s early 2000s like driving that car you know it was like 40 degrees in washington they don't care um jimmy and shane before the first big game i look at you and i see two men

The man you are, the man you ought to be. Someday those two will meet. Should make for a hell of a football player. I remember when I said that to you in 2020 when we decided to work together. That pushed it over. It was right before Higher Learning was launched. Yeah. Go fuck yourself. But, like, we haven't talked about how much of a cliché

She is. Can you hold it? Because I have a great spot for it. We have the puking in the huddle to, I need that ball. And Favreau going to get the ball and coming back, I got you the ball! Which was ridiculous in 2000, but now I kind of like that scene. Falco's almost game-winner.

And then the highlight of this whole scene was Pat Summerall and John Madden, who we also haven't talked about yet. And they're in this movie a lot. And they're doing the notes and Summerall is talking about the running back, the ex-con, doesn't realize he's an ex-con. And says, it says here that he likes embroidery. They just slid that in. So we get that. We get the bar fight. That's fun. I like bar fights. Always like a bar fight in a sports movie. We get her circling back and

How he got his truck back with the girl and Keanu. We get the, I need you to get me the ball. I got you the ball exchange, which was, I think I got that out of order. Keanu's quicksand speech. Fantastic. Which I'll have Craig play the clip of because he'll do it better than me. But I also want to do an imitation of it. You're playing and you think everything is going fine. But then one thing goes wrong. And then another. And another. And you try to fight back.

but the harder you fight the deeper you sink until you can't move you can't breathe because you're in over your head like quicksand you're playing you think everything's going fine but then one thing goes around another and another and you try to fight back but the harder you fight the deeper you sink until you can't move you can't breathe because you're in over your head

The quicksand. Right. That's how he delivers it. That's the way it is. Garrett Nussmeyer versus Texas A&M. Our guy Orlando Jones comes in and goes, that's some deep shit, Shane. That's some deep shit, Shane. This movie's great. I love this movie. And then it goes to each one of their faces. Yeah. It's like he's giving the greatest, he's like Martin Luther King and giving like the greatest speech of all time. Be careful. But he, but he, he, he, but he's talking about not just football, but

But he's also talking about their lives as well. So when it flashes to each one of them, you're like, we've learned a little bit about their backstories and why they didn't make it. And everybody's like, I don't want to go back to the mini-mart. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do that. So same works. Favreau's character seems like, I'm actually fine going back to killing criminals again. Next scene, I just, this is self-explanatory. The stripper cheerleaders cause an offside and lead a comeback. Mm-hmm.

Really fun. The coach in that scene is hilarious. It's great. He slapped her on the ass, ref. Ref, she slapped her on the ass. Like, that guy is really funny in that scene. I mean, the last 25 minutes of the movie is probably the pick. Right. Because we get the first half of the big game with Eddie Martell crossing the picket line and just going full Aaron Rodgers jets on the entire team. We get Falco coming back. As Eddie Martell says in the locker room at halftime, nobody can beat Dallas with these losers. I can't. I can't.

Now get the hell out of my locker room! Which is just an immediate overacting award winner. So, what took you so long? Traffic.

It's kind of a Jerry Maguire type of situation there. Oh, we're getting into it in nitpicks. Yeah. I have... Okay, so the opening scene sets the cultural stakes of the movie. It tells you all about where sports culture is and how you're supposed to look at the good guys. It literally defines the good guys and the bad guys. Yeah. The first sequence of the movie, right? Yeah.

But then like the first practice slash training camp-esque type. Oh, the little montage? The little montage of everybody going through their thing because you get to see the deficiencies of all the characters. Hey, one guy can catch his ass off, but he's deaf. One guy is fast, but he can't catch. One guy has all the intensity, but no discipline. One guy is huge as fuck, but he has an eating disorder. So like you go through all of the different things. And in movies like that,

In movies like this, I say that's the one scene you have to have because it really gives you a lot of exposition in one little scene. We didn't mention the ending. One more thing I want to say. The wild yam scene. Yeah. Wild yam. That's the, hey, love matters scene. He's not going to be the coach of the, or he's not going to be the quarterback of the team for a long time, but he's going to have her forever. She's rubbing her wild yam on his shoulders. Didn't mention the ending.

I know you're tired. I know you're hurting. And I wish I could say something that was classy and inspirational. But that just wouldn't be our style. Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever.

Would that have been your yearbook quote, Craig, if you knew that? I actually think that is like an objectively great sports movie quote. It's the highlight of the movie. That would work. If I was on his team, that would fire me up. You ready to run through a fucking wall? We get the fake field goal, which I think is a really well-written smart wrinkle. The kicker's like, I'm going to have to miss this. And Keanu sniffs it out, runs for the touchdown, called back.

And then we get the game winner, which I have some questions about. I have a question before we move on. That's my pick for most rewatchable. Most rewatchable is the last scene of the movie. Yeah. For sure. Right? But back to Craig's point. Of all the sports movie speeches that you've heard, I'm not going to ask you for a top five. What are the most effective sports movie speeches ever? First of all, you came to the right place. Okay. Probably the best person on the planet to answer this question. Humble.

The longest yard with Paul Crew is the best speech ever. When he calls timeout when it's fourth down and brings everybody over to the sidelines and does the, we've come too far to stop now. Yeah. For Granny, for Nate, for Caretaker, who just died. Oh, fuck. The best. The best one. Can I give you one that means something to me? I think there's been a lot of good ones. There's a lot of great ones. Billy Bob Thornton. Oh. Friday Night Lights. Good one. My God.

And I know that they're about to go out there. You know, they're probably going to look, but my God, that's a great one. Billy Bob Thorne, Friday night lights. He's, he's like imparting this upon these young men. And he's letting you know, look, my heart is full. I'm here with you. Like that movie to me is it's kind of actually, uh,

I look at that film as actually the time that sports movies changed a little bit. Sports movies are a little bit, they're a little bit more meta in how they do their thing now than they used to be. That started with like Moneyball, late 2000s. Yeah. Yeah. They're kind of a little bit more meta now. The sports movie now is,

almost always rise the line between sports movie and documentary. Yeah. Um, because documentary has changed how we saw sports just in general. Yeah. But like, I love that fucking speech. That's the speech that makes me want to write. Any given Sunday with Pacino is an all timer. Yeah. The inches are all around us. The inches are all around in that movie too, in the locker room. People was like, what the fuck is going on? They just, Jerry Maguire's speech to Tidwell's good. Yep.

Remember the Titans for me has some good ones. Will Patton and Denzel, both. Yeah, Denzel was great, like fantastic in that one. You know what? Hoosiers, don't forget. I know you have some issues with Hoosiers. I don't. Great speech that leads to the slow clap. The slow clap is just crazy in every movie that they do it. It seems like these movies, they're not as many great sports movie speeches in basketball movies though.

The best one's probably He Got Game. Which one? The speech that when they're walking on the boardwalk and Denzel's talking to Ray Allen. Yeah. That's near the end of the movie when he's talking about how he has to get the hate out of his heart. It's not necessarily a sports speech. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's an unbelievable scene. When he's basically telling him, like, I'm your dad. Yeah. This is what I want. And I'm telling you, even if you don't give me this...

then what you have to do is be able to move on from everything that's happened or you're never going to reach your goal. Get rid of this hate in your heart. Get rid of the hate out your heart, son. It's a good one. There's been a lot of good sports movie speeches and I think we hit a point. Miracle, there's some good ones with Kurt Russell. We hit a point in the late 90s when people, we had enough of a sports movie library

that people knew that they had to have some sort of speech in it. Right? So that's what they're trying to do. They also do you that shit in real life, though. That's another thing is the sports movie speech is accurate to the way they try to motivate you when you're actually playing sports. Yeah. I remember watching Doc Rivers. Doc Rivers is on the sideline with the Celtics, which, you guys, Doc Rivers is a good coach in Boston. And he says something to them. He goes, listen.

He doesn't like draw up a play or anything like that. He says something. He goes, listen, listen. If you play together and you believe in each other, you're unbeatable. They can't beat you if you play together and execute together and look out for one another. I'm like, God damn. If we play together, we can't be beat. It actually was inspiring. Pretty great. Yeah. Supposedly. And I think all videos have been destroyed.

But in 2006, Pat Riley and the Heat, when they were in Dallas trying to finish off Dirk and those guys, and supposedly him in the second half, the cameras that were there recording the stuff that he was saying was like all time. So he had like no clipboard. And he was just like, you guys are tougher than these guys. You guys have to rip their heart out right now and was doing like crazy sports movie shit. But it was working. And those guys came out and they just took it from Dirk and them. Yeah.

All right, so what's your most rewatchable? My most rewatchable is It's Like You. It's the last one. It's the final scene, but the opening scene is up there too. Today's most rewatchable scene was brought to you by Paramount+. From action blockbusters to thrillers to favorites for the whole family, find something new to watch every week. A mountain of movies awaits on Paramount+. Plans start at $7.99 a month. Start streaming now. We are going to take a break.

Whole Foods Market has Thanksgiving gatherings covered. First things first, reserve your no-antibiotics-ever fresh whole turkey today, starting at $2.99 a pound. Or go with their organic spiral cut bone-in ham, full of seared-in flavor. For sides, choose Whole Foods Market grab-and-go platters.

Go even further and get your whole meal catered. Just order online by November 26th. Get Thanksgiving ready at Whole Foods Market. Terms apply. Blinds.com is kicking off the savings early with Black Friday mega deals all month long.

A Blinds.com design expert can help you make the perfect selection on your schedule. We can even handle everything from measure to your whole home installed for just one low cost. With over 25 million windows covered, Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. Get up to 45% off site-wide and a free professional measure right now at Blinds.com. Rules and restrictions may apply. What's the most 2001 thing about this movie? I'll give you some options. All right, give it to me.

Intentionally attacking football opponents. Using good vibrations by Marky Mark in a sports celebration sequence. Oh, that's way up there. Stick them. That's more like the 70s, though. No concussion protocol for the deaf tight end in the final game. Just comes right back. Yeah. Or stripper cheerleaders. Okay, so I'm going to make a case for stripper cheerleaders later. Great. That was my number one pick as well. Really? No, that wasn't my number one pick, though. I'm going to make a case as to why that should happen. But it...

My number one pick is the concussion protocol. Mm. Bruh, we've talked about it on the pod before. There is legitimately, like, you made a joke about it, but there's actually one. There's actually an ESPN jacked-up segment. Right. Where the dude gets hit by Nnamdi Asamoah. Yeah. And he's doing the fencing pose. He's like this. He's like this. And Tom Jackson goes, uh...

You know, when you see the hands like that, that's when you know you got jacked up. I'm like, what the fuck? He literally is doing, Tom Jackson's voice goes down. And he goes, you think he's getting serious for a second?

He comes back with the jacked up. So that- Those segments, those ESPN jacked up segments look like they're SNL segments of them parodying ESPN. But they're actually the actual ESPN segments. The real thing is like, you got jacked. Look at him. Look at him. He's not moving. He's not moving. He got jacked up.

The guy's like dead. He's like fucking out. He's unconscious on the football field. It's so funny. Jacked up. Remember there was a Madden game one year when the whole, it was like a 30-second intro before he started playing, and each hit was just somebody getting decapitated or annihilated. Yeah, right. Different times. So obviously they're not- The death tight end is so- But him getting fucked up and then coming right back in the game, it's just a different sport back then.

A category we don't get to give out very often. The Elizabeth shoe is an Oxford electrochemist award. Okay.

Goes to Washington's cute and bubbly head cheerleader, Annabelle, who also owns a bar in downtown Washington. Yeah. And she's single. Yeah. Because this person exists. She is breathtakingly beautiful. Yeah. She's saying, no, can't find a guy. She's breathtakingly beautiful, financially independent. Yeah. Hard worker. Cheerleads basically as a hobby. Yeah. Because she only makes 50 bucks a game. Right. Has to shut down the bar. Probably costs her money. Costs her money to do it, right? Yeah.

And just striking out. Either that or the sequel to this movie is her carving up his back or doing something crazy because there's got to be a reason why she's not married. Or a backstory with her and some football player. Maybe there's a reason why. The second one's an erotic thriller. Right. She starts stalking Shane. Shane, why didn't you come by the bar? They hint at it near the end of the replacements when he no-shows the date. And she's basically turning the light on and off. Yeah.

Right. Like, Fatal Attraction style. I told you I don't date quarterbacks! You're right. Exactly. She was played by former Melrose Place star, Brooke Langton, who ended up getting involved with Billy Campbell on that show, Andrew Hsu, who was kind of the homeless man's Keanu from an acting standpoint. What a call. Yeah. Same kind of blank faces and unenergetic line deliveries. It's funny that he would be brought up when his sister...

Elizabeth Shue. Elizabeth Shue. He was a thing for a while. He is one of the all-time. Andrew Shue. What the fuck happened to that guy? Season one of Melrose Place. He felt like he was going to be one of the biggest stars in the world. He had commercials on TV and stuff, and then gone. What's aged the best? I have a bunch of stuff. You can give me your best one. All right. Now? Yeah. Okay, so Keanu Reeves just aged super the best. Sex Workers.

The way the sex workers are portrayed in this movie, the strippers, it's age-based. It's totally different now. I have them in this as well as what's age-based. I love those characters. I think they're hilarious. And they were kind of, they give the movie some spice, and it's like a TNT spice because it's not too dirty, but it's okay enough for TNT, but it still feels like in the bar, she's giving the deaf guy like the fake blowjob thing, and it's like. What'd you do? Right? That's for video. You guys got to see that.

I do the Trump where Trump's like... Yeah, they... It's like they're winking at you. They're not showing you that that's very 90s too. Because now there'd be some bit where they come out there with no underwear on. It would be forever. That was that era though. That was 1999, 2000, 2001. A lot of the stuff that was going on on MTV.

That was the Woodstock 99 that we did the documentary about where everybody's taking their tops off. It got a little crazy there. It did, but they're winking at you here. The strippers dance, the ladies, they dance a little bit different. They do a little bit different. They're a little bit more out there. That is the best. And just like sports labor discussions have aged the best because we do not have them now anymore.

The way we used to. There's too much money at stake now. Now they're just like, let's split this up. Let's not argue about this. The baseball, the strike of 1994 is, the NBA strikes and the football strikes, all of that. The strike of 1994 was a watershed moment in the way that I view sports. Yeah. Because the season leading up to that was so fucking special.

Tony Gwynn was hitting, like, what, 394? Expos. Montreal. Yeah. Like, the season was so fucking amazing. And there was this collective grief over the fact that we weren't going to see if he could hit 400. Yeah. We weren't going to see if Montreal could get to the World Series. I think the home run record might have been...

it really cost people something. I think after that, that really kind of changed, at least me as being a sports fan around that age, kind of changed the way I looked at sports and labor. It was bullshit. The 99 NBA lockout wasn't great. The hockey lost an entire season. A whole season, yeah. I have some smaller woods, age the best. Keith David as head of the players union, always liked Keith David. Doesn't come back in the movie, though. Doesn't come back. Feels like he probably had some deleted scenes. Got some shit cut out, yeah.

The TD celebration where Orlando Jones shoots the guys with the football. And then himself? Yeah. I think they were making fun of any given... Not any given Sunday. The last boy scout. It's funny. Yeah. I like the blue Washington Sentinels hats. The blue with the Washington. I would buy one of those on eBay. So this is a what's aged the best in real life. Keanu took less money so they could afford Gene Hackman. Oh. Team player, Keanu. Yeah. Like a Tim Duncan. Is he...

So people fall from grace. Kobe wouldn't have taken less money from Gene Hackman, but Tim Duncan would have. I'm just telling you. People fall from grace. Another Tim Duncan win. Your agenda is crazy. I'm begging Keanu Reeves, just don't let us down, Keanu. Because he is like the guy when you think about, hey, you can still be decent. You can still not care. You can still be...

If we find out Keanu got three hoes locked in a basement somewhere, it's going to be such a dark day. The Matt Lauer buzzer. Yeah. It's like just Keanu. Like for us, bro. Just keep it above board. Always your hands up and do the bottom. I think we're good with him. What's aged the best? Hey, Falco, you're not even a has-been. You're a never was. Great insult. Yeah. Really cuts deep. Madden and Summerall.

So we have Vince Gullion for Love of the Game in 1999. And it turns out like these guys, they do these games, they disappear, they end up on YouTube. But Vince Gullion is like a key character in For Love of the Game and he's really good. Madden and Summerall, this felt like a money grab in 2001. We had a lot of Madden and Summerall in our lives because they were the announcers for the video game, which everyone played. Like Madden 2001, everyone's playing it. But now I'm like really glad they're in this movie. It's actually nice to see them.

Because I miss Madden and Summerall. Miss them big time. I miss them doing lines. Like, Summerall's kind of awkward. Madden at one point does this thing like, it looks like they're necking when they're kissing. Like, the Madden and Summerall team is just like the golden age of football watching for me. Yeah. It made me super nostalgic seeing it. And I think putting them in the movie probably gave the movie a little bit of credibility. Them and Hackman. They didn't have...

Hackman as well. They didn't have like licensing. Yeah. So it's like real football of John Madden and, and, and some are all calling it. Um, I like the kicker smoking butts during the game, even in the game. I just thought it was like, they really went for it with that one. Cougars jokes during the Gene Hackman parts. Not afraid to make a couple of like, I want four handoffs before every pass. Like just we're, we've nosing. I like the cheerleader with the deaf guy.

My favorite two things, though, for what's aged the best. Shane Footsteps Falco. What a great nickname. Kudos to the screenwriter for that. Did we ever get a reason as to why they call him that? I think because in the Sugar Bowl, he got hit so many times, he just started taking self-sacks. Hearing footsteps or feeling footsteps. Jim Everett. That was the famous Jim Everett in the 80s when he thought he was going to get sacked and fell down, but there was nobody there. And it haunted him forever. Be careful speaking on him.

Well, that's why... I know. You think he's going to jump out? He likes to get busy. I watch that shit live when it happens. Can we call Derek Carr Derek Footsteps Carr? Yeah, you definitely can call him anything you want. Let's bring it back. All right, here's my big one, though. Keanu looks good as a QB. Bro. I'm ready to have this combo right now. He...

I do this a lot where someone makes another point and I go, wow. But realistically, he looks like he could get it done. He's athletic. He looks like he has... He's got the kind of build to where he...

He's lean, but still sturdy. Kind of looks like Tua. I got to be honest. Like watching it, I don't really know the difference. Like even in Point Break, which by the way, I'm going to get to my multiversal theory a little later. But like Point Break, when he's Johnny Utah, he looks like a guy who could have played football. A lot of times they put people in these roles that

And obviously there's the guy from the Amanda Bynes movie when you see him throw it. Have you ever seen that clip? You ever see the guy in the Amanda Bynes movie? Which movie was it? Was it Freddie Prinze Jr.? No, it wasn't him. Freddie could get busy. But it was... I don't know why I just big up Freddie like that. I just like him. I like to think he could throw a football. Okay. But there's a guy, he's throwing the ball. Is he doing like one of those? You have to see this. I'm going to show it to you. Okay, I'll check that. But Keanu...

is very athletic. He looks athletic and he's got a good football motion and like a good constitution. At the time I would write, I wrote that he was very Scott Mitchell-y, which was a compliment because I think Scott Mitchell from the Lions. Yeah, he made money in the Lions, but he had that kind of lefty kind of lumbering, but athletic. And you felt like it made sense if he scrambled for 15 yards. Two is probably the comp now. I'm ready to do it. The best quarterbacks in a sports movie. I think Burt Reynolds is still one.

longest yard. He's like amazing. Like he's like, he's like Lamar Jackson in the longest yard. Kind of shouldn't count, but I get it. It counts. He's star of the movie. I'm not, I'm just saying he played college football. It's a real football player.

I got to hand it to Jamie as Willie Beeman. That's one way up there. Once again, high school football player, good one, but way up there. Like felt Kaepernicky 10 years before Kaepernick, like same kind of slasher, you know, like quick throws, but also could run athletic. At the time, it was Aaron Brooks was the comp for him. You want a fun fact? Jamie did most of that, but the guy who filled in for Jamie was

And some of the football stuff was a gentleman by the name of Sam George, who played quarterback for Southern University in Baton Rouge. Interesting. HBCU. I thought Jamie did all that shit himself. He did most of it, but there were some things that he didn't do. I got Ronnie Sunshine Bass up there. Way up there. Once again, real football player.

Rifleman and all the right moves is my dark horse for this category because he's never mentioned, but go watch all the right moves. Watch some of the things he's doing in that movie. It's really impressive ahead of its time. Even some people say I got Keanu in here. Anybody else for you? James Van Der Beek. Really? Yep.

Make the case. Okay, so... I thought he's... I didn't think he was good or bad. I thought he was passable. I think he did a good job. I think he did a good job. Paul Walker did a decent job as well. I know a little bit of... Inside this, there's a... We did a movie back in the day in Baton Rouge, and one of the producers on the film was a lady named Sarah Flam, and she was coming out there, and she was, like, throwing the football. Yeah. And she was, like, rifling the football. And I asked her, like,

you know, I mean, are you quarterback princess or something like that? By the way, you did mention Helen Hunt. Are you quarterback princess? And she goes, well, no, I did a movie called Varsity Blues. And on this movie, there was a quarterback coach that gave all the people there intensive instructions on like, like how to be a quarterback. Like they really put it into it. I think when you watch the movie,

James Van Der Beek, it shows. It shows to me him. Good tutelage. That he really took it seriously. How'd you feel about Bakula? He's okay. He's okay. I bought it, though. I bought it. I wouldn't put him up with the rest of the guys. A lot of the guys you named are actually football players. Craig Sheffer and the program, he's fine. They didn't really unleash him that much. They didn't put too much on him as the QB there. What about your Friday Night Lights television show? Was anybody from there? Well, MBJ was on that. He was good. Yeah.

You know what we found out this week? It's reboot. You know who's never seen one episode of Friday Night Lights? Who? Craig. Explain yourself.

Craig's defense was, it came out when I was 12. I was like, well, fucking cheeseburgers came out in 1910. So you can't eat them? It's not a similar argument. It's outrageous. You haven't seen that. It hits every interest you have. I know. You actually care about content. You care about well-done content. You like serialized shows. What channel was it on? It was NBC, like barely making it because we didn't have streamers yet. I haven't seen the show. Oh. What? What?

Friday Night Lights? Yeah. What do you mean? I haven't seen it. I've seen an episode of it. What? But I didn't watch it. There are dozens of us. I didn't watch it. What in the hell? I've seen an episode of it. I remember I watched one episode where Michael B. Jordan was running wind sprints and I was like... Outrageous. I haven't seen it. Joe, this is the Joanna podcast. Have you fucking seen all seven Superman remakes and you haven't watched Friday Night Lights? No.

Stop coming at my culture. You've seen Superman 4 and you haven't seen Friday Night Lights? I've seen Superman 4 dozens of times. That's terrible. But I haven't seen the Friday Night Lights show. I've seen episodes of it, but I haven't watched a show in its entirety. It's an amazing show. Incredibly important show. The Fortune 3 Clap Award for most gif-able moment is any crazy Jon Favreau clip, I feel like. Right? Great Shot Gorder Award. This movie wasn't good enough to qualify.

Oh, no, I got one. What do you got? There's one little one I think is a good shot. In the last play where Falco takes the, he pulls the kick and he scores. Yeah. There's a great shot

of him running and the flag coming in at the bottom oh the flag yeah i did notice that they don't just cut to the flag yeah the flag flashes in on the bottom of the camera almost in real game solo cut yeah yeah that's smart then they come back to it good call yeah denethy's benihana award for scene-stealing location probably the bar like the bar

I think DC has strong bars. DC, but also just RFK, right? Weren't they in RFK? Oh yeah. Well, but now they were actually in Baltimore. Oh, were they? So no. Yeah. Yeah. Before we do Kid Cudi, we got to take a break because it's an important category.

Hey, it's Kaylee Cuoco for Priceline. Ready to go to your happy place for a happy price? Well, why didn't you say so? Just download the Priceline app right now and save up to 60% on hotels. So whether it's Cousin Kevin's kazoo concert in Kansas City, go Kevin, or Becky's bachelorette bash in Bermuda, you never have to miss a trip ever again. So download the Priceline app today. Your savings are waiting. Go to your happy place for a happy price with Priceline's Black Friday sale. Save now and travel later with our best deals of the year. Go to your happy price, Priceline.

All right, Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness Award for Best Needle Drop. Craig theorized that 90% of the budget was spent on the music in this movie. I don't know if it was that high, but it might have been 80. Yeah. But I really like the Stones' Blinded by Rainbows. So there's two songs from Voodoo Lounge, the 1994 Rolling Stones album that I would say is not considered a classic.

That then featured prominently in two pop culture things that you love. One is Blinded by Rainbows. Can you think of the other? I can't. I'm going to try. Sopranos. Last episode, season two. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Keith Richards song. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'll give you that. I'll give you I Will Survive in Jail.

Or I will give you the We Can Be Heroes ending. So it's probably I Will Survive. We Can Be Heroes is also great. But just a little shout out to Lit Ziploc, the way the movie starts. The movie starts literally, I thought about Craig because he put that in the chat, but I thought about Craig when the movie, it starts off like right on. With one of those happy early 2000s songs. Happy early 2000s, late 90s kind of jokes. But I'm going to go I Will Survive because it's like,

thematic to the movie. There's also, it's just the pure volume of music. There are so many songs. They're just like ripping banger song after banger song. It's like a 40 song playlist on this soundtrack. It feels like a very era specific movie. This movie feels like it came out between 1999 and 2001. And there's the only three years that could have come out without they do it. And don't they have the police, the police play every breath you take. I want to get into that later. It's important.

The Big Kahuna Burger Award, Best Use of Food and Drink. Probably the Japanese guy eating the hard-boiled eggs. Yeah, that or them throwing the eggs at their car. The ex-millionaires are egging them, but it's definitely eggs. The Butcher's Girlfriend Award, Weak Link of the Film. Probably the premise of The Scabs or the Heroes is an interesting one in 2024. That is by far the weak link of the movie. They just are like, you know what? We're doing it this way. You're either with us or against us. Yeah. We rarely get to give this award out. I think we've given it out three times.

The Seth Rogen-Katherine Hagel Award for Worst Chemistry.

Keanu and Brooke Langton. Can we talk about it? Yeah. I can't say it was electric between the two of them. It doesn't. She's trying hard. She's getting cleavage going and big smiles and wink winks. And I never felt like he totally likes her. Too great. Look, wait a minute. You never felt like he totally likes her. I never felt like he was like, I would risk everything for this lady. I feel like she just, I think she deserved that. I feel like at the end of it, she was just kind of, I felt like it was the opposite. She was kind of like, I ain't naked.

like you would have been controversial you know i'm saying like it would have been but like she was just kind of like okay whatever oh i think she but he kept coming at her he didn't show up for the date i think that you're gonna break up after that she's never forgiving that they're going well for three months and then she has two drinks and she's like it's like when you didn't show up for the date that time you motherfucker yeah it's over what stage is the worst um

Ebert on Madden and Summerall. This is what he wrote. Stashes them in a booth with a couple of TV monitors, has them stand around awkwardly as if looking at a game. Sometimes they're not even looking in the same direction. I rarely get to say this, but fuck you, Raj. Oh, no. Yeah, settle down. Don't go after Madden and Summerall. You can't do it, Raj. American treasures can't go after other American treasures. I didn't like that at all. Just stop it, Raj.

And then I wrote this about Jon Favreau in 2001. And I recant it because I actually like him in this movie now. And I wrote, how the mighty have fallen. It's impossible to overstate how dreadful Favreau is here. He makes you wince in pain during certain scenes. A career-ending performance. Yeah, that's not a good take. That's a freezing cold take. That's a freezing cold take. He's like literally one of the five most powerful guys in the whole fucking town. I take it back. Yeah.

The Gary Glitter song always ages the worst when you hear it in a movie because he had one of the darkest Wikipedias you'll ever look at. All right, so tell me if this is a what's aged the best or what's aged the worst. Keanu finally makes a move on Annabelle and they're playing the Every Breath You Take song from The Police. And then they use Madden and Summerall commentary. Okay.

But it bleeds it in the football game, which is why they're doing it. But it makes it seem like the commentary is about Shane making a move on Annabelle. Does it work or does it not work? I fucking love it. Okay, good. Okay. I have it in one stage, the best, then the worst. I have it. It's like legitimately one of the more inventive things they do in the movie. Because the movie is pretty paint by numbers, pretty predictable. But that's actually like pretty cool. That's like one of the, that's one of the more,

unique things about them. You know, in the deleted scenes, they cut to those guys and they're just in their underwear. Like watching them on monitors? Yeah. That's the erotic thriller. It's about them. They've had it in them. With John Madden. And then the last What's Aged the Worst, I can't think of a paragraph that's more in your wheelhouse. Wilkinson, played by Michael Jace, was afraid to go back to prison in the quicksand scene. Careful.

And in 2016, was convicted of second-degree murder in real life for murdering his wife and went to prison for 40 years. This guy went to my church. This was going to be a Van Lathan fun fact. There was a church, and I don't know if it's still going. It's called Oasis. It was on Wilshire.

I was embarrassed by a friend of mine that was visiting in town because Common showed up at the church one day and he went up to take a picture with Common during the service. Oh, no. But one time I see this guy there and he's ushering people and it's Michael Jace. I'm like, oh my God, I know this guy. I know him from a movie. He's in a horror movie, right? He's been in a bunch of movies, but there was one specific movie and this is like a underrated classic that it's called Thickest Thieves.

The movie is with Alec Baldwin, Michael Jai White. Wow, I don't know this movie. I can't believe I don't know this movie. It's Michael Baldwin. That sounds like something got stolen and then the guys escaped, just knowing nothing. It's a movie about... I'm going to look this up. Alec Baldwin plays... I haven't seen it in a long time. But there's the mobs involved and Michael Jai White runs one part of the...

the underworld, and these two people are like up against each other. But it's very funny. It's very cool. I think Janine Garofalo's in it just like for a little while. She played like Alec Baldwin's ex or something like that. The IMDb is...

A thief is betrayed after a well-done job in Detroit. Returning to Chicago, he decides on revenge. Things escalate. How the fuck have I not seen this? It's really good. I'm outraged at myself. It's really good. It's a smaller movie. I don't know if it got theatrical release. It's really good. It's like Michael, Alec Baldwin is trying to get revenge and all that stuff, whatever. Andre Brower's in it. Andre Brower plays...

Michael Jai White's number one in the movie. Sounds great. Michael Jais is in that movie, so I recognize him from that. And everybody's like, oh, Michael Jais. But he was like serving at the church, like ushering people and helping out and all of that stuff like that. And then one day, he got arrested for murder. It was like a thing. Talk to the guy. Can we workshop the title of this bit and maybe not call it Van Lathan's Fun Fact? What?

I don't know if we can get that one sponsored. Van Lathan's unfun fact. Van Lathan's fun fact presented by Arby's. I remember it was like deep fried turkey sandwich. And do you know, and the way that I learned about this, this was one of the early TMZ moments. This was somebody that I knew and then all of a sudden it comes into TMZ and I'm standing up, I'm like, I don't fucking know that guy. But yeah, 40 years, murder in a second, right? Van Lathan's maybe not that fun fact. Maybe not that fun fact.

Was there a better title for this movie? Scabs. No? Nah, probably not. What do you think, Craig? Scabs? I like The Replacements. That's fine. The only problem is there was another movie called The Replacements, right? It's confusing. Oh, I don't know another movie called The Replacements. Ruffalo, Hannah, Rubinick, Partridge, overacting word. It's either Favreau with the give me the ball, I got you the ball, I got you the ball. But I really think it's Martel

Falco, it's great to see you. Now get the hell out of my locker room! He goes Pacino for a split second. Yeah, I got Orlando. I got Orlando Jones a little bit as well. Love you, Orlando. But he was hamming it up in this one. And Favreau to give me the ball thing. Can you dig it a word? Most memorable quote. Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever. Great job. The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. How does it take a word? What do you got?

That they should actually have strippers in real NFL stadiums. Okay. Okay. We're gearing this stuff for kids, all right? And the reality is, is that, let's face it, we've passed the point where it's for kids. It's just not for kids anymore. It's not. It's not for kids. Didn't the XFL try to do this, basically? Perhaps, but maybe it used to be. You guys can't. We know too much about the game now. Yeah. For you to, the game is a bunch of people

Fuck, literally poisoning their brains. Right. Yeah, let's just own it. Like, yeah, it's not for kids. The game isn't for kids. Whatever, kids can enjoy it. I'm not saying that we put the strippers out there in front of the kids, but there should be an adult part of the stadium where you can get a little, you know what I'm saying to you? And I'm with that.

gambling, all of this stuff, all of this stuff is for adults. We're grownups. All of this, we're grownups. We're grownups watching this grownup sport that we like, where guys are literally shortening their lives. Bring some ladies out there. Let them make some money off the NFL. The strippers are making money after the games. Let them make money during the games. Yeah, it's a first of a two-part day for them. That's what I'm talking about. Here's mine. It's not even, this isn't a typical hot take. I had a friend who was really upset that I mentioned how

I wanted to do a hot take for body double that Frankie goes to Hollywood could have been queen, but I backed off. I was like, I can't do it. I can't. Cause that's the whole point of the hottest take is to say something crazy and try to defend it. I don't think this is crazy. I just don't think we've made enough football movies. And I don't know if, if, you know, new president, maybe I know he's got some initiatives. He's naming a cabinet, but.

Maybe this could be part of it. What the fuck are you talking about? More football movies. Maybe a four-year commitment to more football movies. What are you... There are guys in this movie that could be, like, actually named to his cabinet. You never know. He might... Maybe Trump needs a sports movie consultant or a sports movie czar. He might put Michael Jace on his cabinet with some of the appointments he's doing. Do we have enough football movies? No. The answer is no. We're, like, one-third where we need to be. Bill, the... I would watch 20 versions of The Replacements. The sports movie itself...

is in peril because we know too much about sports. The sports movies now... So documentaries... It's better. ...have ruined sports movies. Because, like...

okay, so the sports movie now, remember like the movie that Adam Sandler had a couple years ago with the big guy from Spain and Anthony Edwards? Hustle. Yeah. Okay, so that's a good movie. Yeah. Because it's a small story more about basketball culture than it is about the actual NBA or college basketball. High Flying Bird, movies like that. But movies about teams in sports leagues and stuff like that, they don't work as good anymore because the archetypes of these athletes and stuff

They've been destroyed by what we actually know about them. Can I pitch you a movie? Give it to me. You know how sometimes the rich guys can have their son is on like North Carolina as like the 15th man and they basically give money to the team and the guy's on the team but he never plays? A lot of injuries. That kid becomes, gets into a game, does really well, has to like play minutes and then it turns into a whole nepotism argument. That's all I have so far.

So that's the whole movie. No, that's half the movie. Like Dan Hurley's kid on UConn. Yeah, it's a sports movie. I was thinking about that Gonzaga kid who got dunked on, who was the coach's son, and the kid got violently dunked on. And I was thinking, what if there was a scenario where this kid actually came into play during March Madness and was like Ollie from Hoosiers? That's all I have so far. And he starts cooking. Yeah. That's interesting. So it's all the Nepo babies maybe combined for one team. It's Nepo babies. Maybe Bronny James plays the son.

Well, because you want a skilled basketball player. Right. And then you have a whole meta element to it. I'm with it. Nipple ball. Nipple ball. I said the word Brownie James and Van's lip just curled. You didn't even know where it was going. Not sure. The agendas. Casting what ifs. Uh-huh. Couldn't find any. Not a lot of info in this movie. I can't say. There was no oral history. There was no 20 years later feature. But the deaf guy...

became Roy from The Office, which was apparently a big deal to people who watch The Office. And then I like to think Andy Reid is the Cowboys coach in the last scene. I like you disparaging for people who watch The Office. I just don't watch The Office. You're mad that I haven't seen Friday Night Lights and you're disparaging The Office? Listen, I like to pretend Andy Reid is the Cowboys coach in the end. They cut to him a couple times and he looks like Andy Reid. You know what? I forgot something that aged the worst. Oh, what is it? Andy Reid? No. He aged actually the best. Okay.

Coaches wearing suits. When I watched this, remember Austin was talking about coaches need to wear suits. Everything Austin says, people go fucking nuts. But like coaches wearing suits. When I saw him on the sideline, I was like, oh, coaches used to wear suits. For some reason, when you say Andy Reid. You know who ruined that? Mike Nolan on the San Francisco 49ers. When he made a big thing about suits and fedoras and the team sucked. And he got fired in like two years and people were like, we're done with that.

Hey, we don't get to this out that often. The Van Latham word for this movie, Need More Black People. No. Pretty well represented. Yeah. Yeah. Best act guy. Michael Jace doesn't qualify. No, he's out. The assistant coach who looks like a chubby Ed O'Neill. Oh, he's been around a lot. He's one of those guys? Yeah. His name's Art LaFleur. But I think the winner is Eddie Martell. He's played by some guy named Brett Collin. I can't name one other thing I've seen him in. If I see him in anything, I just think he's Eddie Martell.

But he's been in a lot of shit, though. Wait, did you know his name? I didn't. What do I know? What's his, this wouldn't be- You know him as Eddie Martell. You'd be like, oh my God, that's Eddie Martell. I'm trying to think. He's a that guy. He's definitely a that guy. But I think he's a that guy from a different movie. I think of him as somebody from a different movie. I can't think of the movie, though. I'm thinking of a Western that I know him from. He's somewhere. What about Faison Love?

I think he's Faison Love. Faison Love got too much juice to be. I feel like people my age just to see him as the guy who plays Santa in Elf. But Faison Love, remember Faison Love. I think he's Faison Love. Yeah, people from my age think of him as Big Worm from Friday. Friday, yeah. So, you know. Yeah, he's been into many things. But Faison Love is the. Dion Waiter's a word. I'll give you Madden and Summerall. I'll give you Jack Warden as the owner. And I'll give you the winners, the two stripper cheerleaders. The two stripper cheerleaders are up there. I feel like this is Madden. They're going to be in the bracket, Craig.

I feel like they're up there. We're doing a Dion Waiters bracket, like March Madness style. You don't feel like Madden and Summerall are the clear winners here, though? Over the two stripper cheerleaders? I get it. I get it. But Madden and Summerall. They're pretty great. They're pretty great. Co-winners. Yeah. First time ever Madden and Summerall get to share something with two stripper cheerleaders. We don't know what happened on the road. Recasting couch director of City.

We got to get a different Eddie Martell. I feel like we could have done better. I'll give you a couple of choices. Matt Dillon. Oh, that works. Steven Weber. Single wife, female. Oh yeah. Yeah. The guy who's getting the blow job at the end. Yeah. God, I'm going to tell her from, um, uh, from wings, from wings. Yeah. On NBC. David Duchovny. Doesn't have the football player type. All right. So you'd like Matt Dillon, Matt Dillon, or Steven Weber works too. Okay.

Romo Collinsworth or someone else for the director's commentary. I got to be honest. We don't need other announcements. Matt and Summer are so good in this. I don't know if I would put another announcer in this. Not even Ryan Rucco. No. Matt and Summer were perfect. Those guys are the goats at what they do. Everybody's chasing them. Half-assed internet research. So Shane Falco's meltdown in the 1996 Super Bowl. Sugar Bowl. Sugar Bowl.

I literally have Sugar Bowl in my notes and somehow fucked that up anyway. There was no Sugar Bowl in 96. They played on December 31st, 95, and they played on January 2nd, 97. Oh, wow. So maybe they used 96 because there was no Sugar Bowl that year. Maybe so. Something else that, you know who he lost to in the game? Who? In the Sugar Bowl. LSU? Nah, he lost to, he, Shane Falco lost to Florida State.

Oh, which you talk about something that has aged the worst. Yeah. Nobody is losing the Florida state, right? Are they going to D three? You think Florida state is in all time. Hell right now. Yeah. Tough one. Keanu gained 23 pounds for his role as Shane Falco.

And then apparently in the I Will Survive dance scene, Keanu is replaced by a stunt double who's hiding his face. I don't know if that means Keanu can't dance or maybe he was sick. I find it hard to believe he can't dance. He does all the John Wick Matrix stuff. He can't dance. He can do like 10-minute fight scenes. He can't dance. Maybe he couldn't. There are times when you see and it looks like he could be struggling a little bit. The electric slide isn't for the weak. Apex Mountain, not a lot of candidates here.

Keanu, no. Brooke Langton, no. I still think it's Melrose Place. Madden and Summerall, no. Jack Ward, no. It's no's around, except for throwing a trophy football underwater. I'd never seen that before. Yeah.

Scabs? Scabs. Movies about scabs. Movies about scabs, definitely. No movies celebrate scabs. If you think about any movie about labor celebrates labor. Celebrates like Norma Rae. Norma Rae, yeah. This is the apex mountain of movies about scabs that I can think about. 21st century football movies? Remember the Titans? Remember the Titans? I'm just mentioning it. I think it's probably Friday Night Lights.

But you could also talk me into Remember the Titans. Remember the Titans is... Which goes back to my original point. All these movies are early 2000s. Yeah. Like, we haven't had anything since. All right, one more break, and then we're doing Cruiser Hanks. This is the sound of your ride home with dad after he caught you vaping. Awkward, isn't it? Most vapes contain seriously addictive levels of nicotine and disappointment.

Know the real cost of vapes. Brought to you by the FDA. Well, this is one of the best Cruiser Hanks' we've ever had. I agree. Cruiser Shane Falco is unbelievable. I also feel like 80s Hanks could have played Shane Falco, but I'm going with Cruz, and I think he's the right answer. I think he's the clear answer. Either guy could have done it, but... This is an amazing Cruz. This is basically cocktail...

crossed with Cruz being a replacement strike quarterback. Nothing to Keanu. Love him. Yeah. If Cruz is in this movie, it makes $150 million.

I think more. You think so? Yeah, $200 million. I don't think he could have thrown the throwing scenes. I'm just judging from War of the Worlds when he's trying to throw the baseball. I don't know if he could have done the quarterback stuff. He's also very small. Yeah. He would have to be like a Kyler Murray. Yeah, he's going to be scrambling around. He's going to be a whole Doug Flutie. That's why he lost the Sugar Bowl because he just got killed. He didn't get drafted. He's too short. He's too small for the game. There's Doug Flutie biases. Remember Doug Flutie didn't get a job for a while. I think it's Cruz.

Racehorse Rock Band Wrestler Fantasy Team Name. Wild Yams is pretty good. Yeah, Wild Yams. I just had yams, but... Pickin' Nets. I like yams. So Shane's All-American Trophy is just at the bottom of the ocean under a boat? He obviously threw it there. Nothing happened to it? It's just still there? I mean...

What do you mean nothing happened to it? Why did he throw it there? Was that his boat? Well, he was, he's cleaning boats, but he also lives out there. So I think the... So he got drunk and threw his trophy out? He got drunk or he's moving on from football. Wouldn't have sold the trophy. We have eBay in 2000. He threw his trophy down there. The only question is him seeing his trophy and then wanting to play with it again after that maybe, but it's clear he threw the trophy off the boat into the ocean.

So they have a strike. The players go on strike. The cheerleaders also went on strike? Yeah, the cheerleaders. The cheerleaders are in the National Football League Players Union? Yeah. Solidarity. What? Yeah, they decide to do it. Whatever. Nigel Gruff kicks a 65-yard field goal to win the game.

which would have been a record by two yards. Like maybe go 61. Like settle down. You're not beating Tom Dempsey in 2000. Shane Falco is recovering onside kicks. He's out there in that formation. No, he's on the other side. He's trying to get the onside kick. Oh, yeah. Well, oh, yeah. No, he's on. Yeah, he's on the receiving. Wait, he's trying to get it. Oh, he's on the kickoff team. They're onside kicking team. He's on the kickoff team. He's the quarterback. They're not doing that.

Why wouldn't Shane have stayed on as backup QB for the last game? Why did he leave? They only had one QB? By the way, that's another thing.

He's their starting commute and their holder, which happens sometimes. It hadn't happened since Romo, right? Nobody else is. Romo killed it. Romo killed it. But he just decides, okay, I'm too good to be the backup. And they don't seem to have a backup quarterback on the team. They seem to be one deep at quarterback. It's a hole. Again, sports movie consultant agency fixes that pretty quick.

Why does Eddie Martell care about Annabelle the bartender in that scene where she's like, she's too good for you, Shane? Are there like five scenes missing? Why is he involved? Did he used to date her? And if he did used to date her, why not have that scene? Yeah, something got cut. Something got cut because- But put it back. He just throws that out there.

As if he cares about who she sees or whatever. And he also... Well, obviously they dated. I know, but he also knows that they've got something going on, which there's no indication in the movie that anybody knows that, really. Right.

It's a hole. My guess is it was another cliche scene and they're like, we're already at eight. We can also have Eddie Martell dating Keanu's new girlfriend. There could have been like a whole storyline where Keanu doesn't go to meet her because he finds out that she slept with Eddie Martell as well. Or maybe Eddie Martell is the reason why she doesn't date football players, especially quarterbacks. That's, I mean, that's clearly the answer. Yeah.

Why did Madden and Summerall announce every Washington game? They didn't move them around? There wasn't a Giants game? Just four straight weeks of their doing Washington games? Right. I thought it was suspicious. They could have worked in Gus Johnson maybe for a game. All right, here's the big one. Do you have other ones? I have a huge one. It might be the same one. Were they the only team with replacements?

Well, they say how Dallas' whole team crossed. Right. So we're supposed to think the whole league was using replacement players, right? Well, yeah, except for the fact that they play other guys and they list off their accolades. Yeah. They say this guy did this. So maybe that was just Dallas. Maybe. Maybe that was just Dallas. But, like, the movie actually—

The whole movie is actually a huge nit. But it is. But that was my big one. My big one was it was unclear to me how many teams were actually using. They were missing a sports center scene where like Rich Eisen's telling us how 240 of the 300 whatever offensive players or scabs or whatever. Right. Here's the big one. One more thing for me. Okay. Shane Falco fucks off one college football game

What kind of prospect was he? He fucks off one college football game. So I have this unanswerable question. How bad was his box score in that game? It doesn't matter how bad it was. We know he lost by 45 points. Yeah. Would you say over or under five and a half turnovers? You're going over or under? Well, they lost 45 to nothing, so he had to give them some points.

So if I said he, two lost fumbles, three picks plus a pick six, right. Six turnovers and a fumble touchdown and a pick six as two of the six turnovers. Yeah. And it's so bad.

That he literally can't get drafted? So no one drafts him. Does he take a shit on the field? He gets hit, he just like loses his bowels? Like, what's the worst thing that could happen to him in this game? To where he just, to where no one touches him. Does he start crying? Like a Little League World Series person? Does he walk off the field during the game? Does he leave the game? Yeah. Here's my biggest nitpick. Shane Falcone watches the first half of the big game on his boat. Uh-huh.

And the half ends and Gene Hackman's coming off the field and they're like, what happened the first half? What are you missing? He's like heart. Shane Falco's watch is like heart right here. Gene Falco turns off the TV. He's at the dock. Three minutes later, he's in the locker room.

A, how close was the doc to the football stadium? B, even if you get there, you got to park in the poorest parking lot. You're running through. It's 25 minutes minimum. Yeah. Right? Right. He's there in four minutes. And they're like, we hope nobody notices this. Well, it's like, guess what? You're on TNT now for 24 fucking years. It's absurd. You should have left at the end of the first quarter. This is why we need Mallory. Because the only question I have is,

If this is Baltimore... Well, it's Washington in Baltimore. Yeah. Washington in Baltimore. Baltimore pretending to be Washington. That fucking changes it then. Yeah. Because...

I don't know. I was going to say maybe if it's Baltimore, then you're around the Bay. It's 25 minutes minimum. Yeah. Yeah, I tried. So the move should have been, if we were the sports movie consultant agency on this one, it'd be like, no, make it so a Gene Hackman interview at the end of the first quarter. Right. When it's 17-0. Then he turns off the TV and leaves. But he's listening to the game on the radio, so he could hear it kind of like in Moneyball. Yeah. Where Brad Pitt is listening to the game. He goes back. Yeah.

sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all black cast are untouchable. Leave it alone. Prestige TV. You could talk me into really. Yeah. Like, uh, like, you know how they do American sports story. And it's like this, this season it's Aaron Hernandez. Maybe it's just every season's about scab replacement players. We just do it that way. Mm. Mm.

Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Sid Goldberg, Sam Jackson, JT Walsh, Nell, Byron Mayo, Harling Mays, Evil Laughy, Ramon Raymond, Long Legs, or Philip Baker Hall? Can I give you Sam Jackson as the defensive assistant? I was about to say, go ahead and go for the Sam Jackson. Go for it. The movie needs Sam Jackson. I agree. Give it to us. Deep Blue Sea cameo Sam Jackson. He's just four scenes. Sam, here's a million dollars.

Just four scenes, two days. Yeah. Just stand on the sidelines and be like, what the fuck are we doing? And do a couple of Sam Jackson things. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What do you want them to do? No. I want you to do something. It's a new America. Things are different now. Oh, Sam Jackson is haggling. No, give us your best Sam Jackson. When this other, when this, when this, when this. It's a new America. What does that mean? When this, you know what the fuck I'm talking about. When like, when this.

When this happens, I normally get my man CR, CR somewhere. I normally get a voice. You got to give us a Sam Jackson. So maybe at halftime, Shane Falco comes in and he's like, I got it. And Eddie Martell says, get out of the locker room. We go back and forth. And then Sam Jackson turns to Eddie Martell and goes, I don't remember asking you a goddamn thing. I like it.

I like it. That's it. It's got five lines. Just one Oscar. Who gets it? I'm going to go with the rare. Nobody. There are no Oscars given out for this movie. I want to go with nobody, but if you had to do it in the spirit, Hackman is the only person taking the movie seriously. Probably an answerable questions. We did Shane Falco's box score. What kind of, what kind of business was this for Annabelle? This bar that she had, that she had to close every time there's a football game.

I'm just worried about her financially. Right. So I would think the football game would be a big night at the bar. Are we sure that she's the only person that works there? She's literally the only, they don't even have like, like bar backs or another bartender or bus boys, anything. Yeah. She's closing it herself. There's no bouncer. I made up a whole backstory. Whoa. Okay. What is it? So Annabelle is the owner's daughter, but not through his marriage. Illegitimate. Boom. Boom.

Annabelle is the owner's illegitimate daughter. See, we made Annabelle so much interesting just in this podcast. She's dated Eddie Martell. She's going to turn into Fatal Attraction. She's the owner's daughter. That's great. I love it. He gave her a bar. She wants to be close to him, so she cheerleads. Also to bother him a little bit. So she doesn't really need the money when the bar closes for the games. Best use of every breath you take.

I will give you Stranger Things, Billions, Risky Business, Third Placements, or Sopranos, first episode, season three. Sopranos, first episode, season three by a mile. That's my answer as well. I'll listen to Risky Business though. Best double feature choice. So you'd go Unnecessary Roughness right into this so you could compare and contrast. No, I thought about it, but I actually go Any Given Sunday because these are the last gasps of the NFL football movie. Yeah.

You could also talk me into Hardball, the Keanu double feature. Sports double feature. Did he do another sports movie after? These are his only two sports movies, Hardball and this one. It's Point Breakout? No. Yeah, it is. It's surfing and football. Yeah, it's sort of.

The Indian Reds won airward. What happened the next day? So what does Shane Falco's next few years of his career look like? He's 26 or 27. Look pretty good in these replacement games. Yeah. Can he catch on as a backup for like in Pittsburgh? He's Cordell Stewart, third string quarterback. Maybe get some time for like a year and a half. He gets a Matt Flynn like deal. Matt Flynn. Yeah. Maybe he starts three games. Out of the league in three years. Yeah. The Lions get excited about him.

I feel like he has at least 10 NFL starts. I have Shane Falco founds FanDuel. Interesting. It was a different way. He talks to the guy about gambling, the kicker. Yeah. They start talking about it. He gets in on the ground floor. His wheels start turning. Wheels start turning. He's giving the picks right now. Combine this movie with 240 Money. That's his future. I like it. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie?

The Shane Falco jersey would be pretty great. I want the trophy. Trophy's great. Yeah. I like the hat. Oh, the hat. The hat would be good. Yeah, that Washington hat. Their merch is cool. Yeah. I like their merch. Coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lesson. Pain heels, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever. Who won the movie?

This is a tough one. I had a lot of, I didn't, I put question marks. This is a tough one. I don't feel like Keanu won it. I don't feel like he won it either. This is the most. Can we say Brooke Langton won it?

I think everybody loves her in this movie. And I think the common refrain is like, why didn't... So she was in Swinger. She was in Melrose Place. She had like a 10-year run. This is the most... This is the least leading part from a leading man I've ever seen. I don't feel like Keanu won this movie.

If anything, scabs won it, but I can go for it. The stripper cheerleaders? Stripper cheerleaders could win it. I'm into that. Who won the movie, Craig? I finished this movie because of Brooke. I probably would have bailed. Desperate to know what you think. Yeah, all right. Let's hear it.

This one might be only a rewatchable because it's not a watchable. It's not a first-time watch. You can't watch this movie for the first time in 2024. And honestly, it's not even because of the problematic stuff. There are plenty of movies that have problematic stuff that came out a long time ago that you can still watch now and appreciate. This one... This one's just not good. This one's like...

This is like someone else's hand-me-down. Yeah. You know? This is my reaction when I saw it in 2000. Right. It's like, this movie's not good. They didn't really try that hard. There's no charm for me. It's somebody else giving me a hand-me-down from their family. And I'm like, this doesn't mean anything to me. Uh-huh.

What is your favorite older football movie? This movie came out the same time as... It came out a month before Remember the Titans. That's my favorite sports movie. That and Sandlot, probably. So this is why we call it the wear-me-down rewatchable. Right. It took literally seven, eight years for me to admit that I kind of secretly enjoyed this movie. I think the reason why this movie is weird is because it's like trying to be dodgeball and also a little bit of Remember the Titans, and it doesn't pick a side, I think,

I think, remember the Titans and Sandlot and a lot of those movies have like real...

you can take from it. This movie doesn't have any of that. But this is what the early 90s sports movies were like. But then they should have just leaned in and like, I think Gene Hackman is miscast. I think it actually, they should have went even sillier and just made it completely slapstick because Hackman tries to reel you back in and make it a real movie and it's not. I agree with that. This movie doesn't know what it is. It doesn't. It kind of doesn't know what movie they're making. Because even The Sandlot is a movie where a lot of funny stuff happens. Totally. But The Sandlot is really about something. It's coming of age. Coming of age. And yet,

It came out a month ago after a basketball game, and both of us started watching it. Oh, I like the movie. How did it break us down is the enduring question of this. You know what the reality is? And, you know, it gets thrown around a lot. A movie just doesn't have to be good for you to like it. Yeah. You can like a movie for all kinds of reasons. It can be amusing. It can be funny in spots.

This movie is not a good movie, but it is incredibly watchable. Most pieces of content are just tied to when you saw it and how it made you feel and what age you were. It's like why people's favorite music is always the music they listened to when they were in high school or college. It doesn't mean it's the best. But this movie is funny, though. Yeah. I mean, to me...

It's funny. It's like, she's beautiful. It has stuff to look at. I like Keanu Reeves. I like Gene Hackman. It's not a movie I won't watch. The big sign to me is that TNT, TBS, like it just, it's still on. Because people still want to watch it. People still watch it because they study this shit. And they're like, every time we put the replacements on, it keeps whatever rating. Yeah. Also, I just thought about this when you guys were talking, so I could be wrong. This might not be fully baked, but I think sports movies about professional sports are worse.

You know, every worse, like in life or just like, no, like the movie is just not as good. I feel like it's harder to work. Everyone's older. If it's about professional sports, the characters are older. There's like a business element. That's not that fun. It's not coming of age. When I think to all the best sports movies, they're always about kids or like college, high school or college, high school or college. It never, you loved Rudy. Yeah. Rudy, what's the, what's the best pro sports movie?

None of them have 100% worked. Any given Sunday. Major League? Oh, Major League. Oh, you're saying any sport. Yeah, any sport. Major League is by far the best thing. Yeah. Major League. But you know what? Slapshot. I'd say that like about movies, if you're talking about baseball movies though, baseball movies might be better when they're about pro baseball. Well, it's because there is no, college baseball is not a thing that people follow. The natural. Or you have to go down to kids. Where do you stand on Eddie?

The fucking movie with the- The Whoopi Goldberg coaches the Knicks. Yeah. Comes out of the Stans movie. That's kind of like this movie to me, where there was this silly sports movie era that kept going until, I don't know, early 2000s. Where do you stand on Celtic pride? It's terrible. It's really bad. I would say if it was about any team. It's just not a good movie. Yeah. It's not a fun hang. It's a weird one, yeah. Yeah, I don't really like it. Also, this movie's two hours. Why is this movie two hours long?

This movie needs to be 140. Craig and Ebert. Yeah. You know what's funny? Craig's going to text me like six years from now. He's like, you know what? Replacements was on tonight. I'm kind of in now. I'm on Pluto and I'm drunk. Replacements. I'm on Elon's rocket watching the replacements. I'm talking about the streaming service, not the planet. Eating ice cream pellets.

Pluto the planet. You couldn't tell me either Pluto. All right. That's it for the rewatchables produced by Craig Krobeck. You can watch this on the ringer movies, YouTube channel. Thanks to Ben Lathan. See you next week.