‘Along Came Polly’ With Bill Simmons and Sean Fennessey
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Hey, it's Bill Simmons. Excited to announce the launch of our new YouTube channel. It's called Ringer Movies. You can follow us right now on YouTube at youtube.com slash ringermovies to get full video episodes of the Rewatchables and the big picture, plus a few years of Rewatchables archives, plus a lot more coming soon, maybe even some shorts. We're going to try some stuff to celebrate the launch.

We're going live Monday, May 13th at noon Pacific with our first ever live rewatchables episode featuring me, Fantasy, CR, Van. Click on the link in this episode's description to follow Ringer Movies and witness Chris Ryan impersonating the one and only Wayne Jenkins. Or maybe he'll do Byron Mayo. Or maybe he'll do evil laughing Ramon Raymond. You can see it live on camera. YouTube.com slash Ringer Movies.

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On August 16th, the scariest movie of the summer, Alien Romulus is coming to theaters everywhere, including IMAX. This movie looks terrifying, and I cannot wait to see it. Alien Romulus comes from Fede Alvarez, the director of intense horror movies like Evil Dead and Don't Breathe, and it is produced by the legendary Ridley Scott, the mastermind behind iconic films like Blade Runner and the original Alien.

Can't wait for this one. Alien Romulus, rated R, in theaters everywhere, August 16th. Get your tickets now. The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where Sean Fantasy hosts the big picture. Let's go. Raindance! Raindrop! Along came Paul East next.

He's calculated the odds. Oh, whoa, whoa. What? You don't eat mixed nuts at a bar. Only one out of every six people wash their hands when they go to the bathroom. He's analyzed the risks. Space jumping! It's one of the most dangerous activities a human being can do. Have you done it? But on January 16th, the most cautious man on Earth will experience something he's never felt before. Along Came Polly. Rated PG-13.

All right, so it's May. This isn't going to be a theme month. It might be, maybe, but I was thinking about the concept of slow burner, Sean. I thought you were going to say sharting month. Shart month? Shart month is a great idea. Are there other movies with sharts? It's like where you almost, it was almost a mess, but then we saved it at the last minute, you know? Shart month. Shart week? I guess we can make this shart week. Shart week. Love it. It's great. It's branding right there. It's shart week here in the rewatch. Still got it, SG. So...

There's cult favorites, which is kind of the foundation of the rewatchables. Escape from New York, Swingers, Shot Caller, Den of Thieves. Hey, Shot Caller episode, A+. Thank you. One of my favorites in a long time. It's a great one. Really great. Proof of Life, cult favorite. Not A+. Not everyone loves Proof of Life. D-. 8mm? 8mm? Yeah. Yeah. Cult movie. Cruisin'.

Yeah. For a certain kind of person. Along came poly is not a cult favorite because it made a lot of money. It was a big hit. So I was thinking, but it was critically, eh, came out. There was stiller fatigue. There was Aniston fatigue.

But it was a cult favorite that also made money. So I was thinking this is a new category called slow burner. Okay. Okay. Slow burners. Miami Vice, the movie. Mm-hmm. Made money when it came out, but people are like, eh. And then as I got to know Chris Ryan, early 2010s, and we're like, eh, I kind of like the Miami Vice movies. Like, I do too. Mojitos. And by 2016, we're like, we got to do a podcast. You guys were in go-fast boats together straight to Cuba.

So I Married an Axe Murderer, I think is a slow burner. Good one. Did well, but not respected, but then grew. Definitely.

Hardball with Keanu Reeves. See, we've done all these on the rewatchables. Came out, people are like, what the hell? Keanu's smoking, he's gambling. This is like I've just put on the Bill Simmons sunglasses, like in They Live. I can see the world through your eyes. This is how you see movies. The slow burner sunglasses. Limitless with Bradley Cooper. Good one, yeah. Did really well, but nobody took it seriously. And then it went on cable and people were like, this movie's incredible. You're describing movies that seem like you can write them off when they are released, whether they're successful or not.

But when you dive into them, there's a lot there. There's a lot of meat on the bone. Are they Citizen Kane? No, they're not. They're definitively not Citizen Kane. But they're kind of great in their own unique, mediocre way. I don't even think I saw A Long Came Polly in the theater. And I don't really even remember when I first saw it. But Hoffman was the thing that jumped out of it. And as the years passed, and it was 20 years. It's actually 20-year anniversary of this movie. It was in January. We missed it. And...

I was at the parade. We did a parade in Times Square. Yeah, it was huge. It was incredible. The fact that Hoffman was just so great in this and in such like a special, unique Hoffman performance turned this movie into something else. And now it's like almost a classic, which is crazy because it's like a generic Ben Stiller rom-com for the most part with this insane Philip Seymour Hoffman performance in it. Yeah, I think it's a solid comedy of its era that happens to have...

basically rocket fuel inside of it in the form of Philip Seymour Hoffman. And I wonder if we would have seen it in quite the same way if he hadn't tragically died when he did. Because now you look at like every Hoffman performance and you're like, what can we cherish about this? What did we overlook about this? Why didn't we celebrate this in time the way that we deserve to? But he's doing something that he almost never really did again, which was just like pure, broad studio comedy. He really did not do very much of that. He's often funny in movies, but

From the very first moment you see him in this movie, he's doing a pratfall. Like, he's doing a Farrelly Brothers gag. And so, you know, this is the one time when you can really lift him up and be like, he could have been also Jim Carrey if he wanted to be. Well, you're the world's preeminent Phil Hoffman expert. Am I? You've done an entire Phil Hoffman podcast. I did. You've written about him. No, but I think you've...

A lot of people loved him, including me, but I think you probably loved him the most. He was my favorite actor. I think one of the things I love about this movie is it's the equivalent of, I don't know, if you took LeBron James in 2013 and you just...

Put him on a college basketball team for like 10 minutes stretches. But it would be like if you put him on a college football team, you know, like it's not because this is true. You're right. If this isn't like he was just a wide receiver and he was like the best wide receiver in college football. And you're like, what? So he's basically doing this part that has existed in rom-coms for the entire time we've had rom-coms. And in a different universe, it's a Jack Black part. I wonder if they even thought about him for this part.

Yeah, he's probably the second call if they couldn't get Hoffman. Ben Stiller did a movie with Jack Black in this same year, actually. A movie called Envy. Right. Galifianakis and The Hangover is another example of this where it's actually somebody a little overqualified to be in the part. This is the most overqualified I think an actor can be for a movie. It would be like if you just put him in Scream in the David Arquette part. And it's like, here's Philip Seymour Hoffman as...

What was that character's name who's got slightly brain damage? Randy. No, what was the Scream character's name, Craig? I don't know. Binky?

Screen? The Jamie Kennedy part? No, the David Arquette part. Oh, the David Arquette part. Dewey. Dewey. It's like if Philip Seymour Hoffman was Dewey, we'd be like, this is weird. But he did this a few times in his career, which is one of the cool things about his career. Like, he's just in Twister randomly. He's the prep school kid and son of a woman. He's Scotty J at Boogie Nights. For some reason, he's... Then you flip the other side. He's in Magnolia with, like, the...

kind of the most nothing part in the movie but makes the most of it and this is just seemed like what drove him I just want to do this weird part this weird part you get the impression I mean a lot of those roles you just mentioned were when he was still trying to make it as a movie actor yeah like in Twister he's still coming up he's not a character actor yet people don't even know who he is at this point in his career he's pretty established as Philip Seymour Hoffman yeah you know it's it's

I'm not sure how much of this was for the money and how much of it was that he liked movies like this. And, you know, we know, like, for example, his buddy Paul Thomas Anderson loves Adam Sandler, loves broad studio comedies. You know, like, that's some of his favorite stuff. You could imagine them bonding over movies like this. So the chance to get to do a movie like this is not that surprising. I mean, two years later, he's in a Mission Impossible movie. Same thing. It's like they put...

a battery in the back of that movie by putting the world's greatest actor in a villain part. So he had a good sense of how to use his tools in mainstream stuff. Yeah, because he does Red Dragon in O2, which was one of his first...

Oh, this feels like slightly like a paycheck role. Yeah. But he's still good in it. Yeah. So like every two years he would do one of those. So he does along came Polly, which he turns into more than a paycheck. I think it's probably one of his most beloved. He walks away with the movie. Yeah. Yeah. Um, mission impossible three. And then ironically it all is the last two movies on his IMDb or hunger games movies, which, um,

Even in The Hunger Games, he jumps out of every scene. 100%. He has the greatest character name of all time in that movie, Plutarch Heavensby, which I fucking love. I've always loved that name. And yeah, it's a much more controlled performance, that last one, and it is exactly what we're talking about, where he's like, I'm sure the money was good for that one. It's a huge franchise. It was like the conclusion of that franchise, and it's a really important part. He's like the game maker. But...

It's weird that that's how things ended for him. You know, somebody who was in so many great movies, but doing a very similar thing. Always playing very rarely at the center. Always just left of center to the leading man. Yeah. Well, this one, he comes in, he falls down. He's eating wedding cake icing. Yeah.

And just immediately, it's the movie I want to be with the whole time. And then he just kind of pops in and out. It's like Paul George in a Clippers playoff game. I believe you compared to a cat. Yeah, Paul George, just jumping on your lap and going to the garage. Yeah, Phil Hoffman's like a cat in this movie. Oh, he's back. He popped in the room. Oh, my God. The funniest person of the year is back. I love Sandy Lyle. So we have...

I'm really curious why he wanted to do this. And there's been a lot of interviews. The director, John Hamburg, has given a few interviews because one of the things that happened with this movie is the basketball scenes. As YouTube hit, they became a YouTube thing. Then it became Instagram, Twitter. Then it became TikTok. It's just whatever social media form, just him firing shots against a backboard and screaming, white chocolate! Just like his...

his, uh, his bat, it just has, it's just going to live on and on and on now. Uh, I think there's just like something incredibly recognizable about that character of the guy who's just like, I'm a baller for real. My shirt is too tight and I am screaming on the pickup court about how good I am and I suck. I just absolutely suck. So it can be applied to like,

when, you know, I don't know, James Harden throws up a two for 17 in a playoff game, you know, exactly. So I think it's like applicable all the time. You know, something that I said about Hoffman when I did that pod earlier this year is like,

He kind of is like an athlete or like a dancer in movies though. Like if you look at like Talented Mr. Ripley when he first shows up and he drives up and he hops out of the car and he runs towards the restaurant. Like he had kind of like a grace. He had like a dancer's grace to him. So even in this comic part where he's being a bad athlete,

He's kind of mesmerizing to watch. Yeah, he's definitely not a bad athlete. You can see him move. He can run around. Like, he played baseball and he wrestled as a kid. Like, you can see he knows how to handle himself. It's Chris Farley-esque. Very much. Very much. He's got, like, a grace in all of his clumsiness. I mean, Belushi is the most famous for that because Belushi was, like, really good athlete and they always tried to leverage it into SNL sketches and other stuff he did. But, yeah, it's funny how some of the best comic performances or performers, the physicality

And the athleticism is such a big piece of that. I mean, Jim Carrey, there's this SNL account that I like where they show the old sketches. They had one where, remember that Night of the Rocksbury sketch they used to do with Will Ferrell that they turned into a movie? And they would be at the bar and they'd be like talking to the girls and do like, you, you, and they'd walk up and come back. And Jim Carrey's in it and he comes out and his head starts doing like- I remember this. His head's like going over here and there and it's just like-

He was just such an incredible, I don't even know if that's athleticism. He was like the Bo Jackson of physical comedy. You know, he could do anything. Nothing could stop him. Because I think that's probably the best SNL ever.

I remember that one vividly. What was it? Was it for like Truman Show or the Majestic? Or I can't remember what year. Maybe Man on the Moon? Might have been Liar Liar. Liar Liar. Okay. Somewhere in there. Yeah. He does the lifeguard sketch with Will Ferrell. Because Will Ferrell was big at that point. And then Carrie came in and just blew it away. Anyway, we're getting carried away. But the Hoffman has it. And...

you know, I'm glad he did it. It kind of made me wistful that he didn't do more comedy. I consider Scotty J, even though Boogie Nights has some of the most serious moments, but when we did the Boogie Nights pod, we talked about how fucking funny Scotty J was. Yeah. I mean, sometimes he's really funny in a movie on purpose. Like, he's really funny and talented, Mr. Ripley. Yeah, he is. You know, how's the peep in and all that. Freddy. Like, he knows what he's doing there. He's really funny and alive and almost famous. He's

on fire in Punch Drunk Love as Mattress Man. Yeah. You know, with the shut, shut, shut, shut. Like he's, he really, but after like in the 2000s, most of his stuff is quite serious. Like Synecdoche, New York and Doubt and these really grave, dire movies. Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah.

I haven't revisited that one lately. When are you doing, are we doing that on a rock bottom month? Part two rock rock bottom month. Granite bottom month. Well, he's also in happiness, which I was a runner up for rock bottom. Kind of a funny movie though, but like in the most fucked up way imaginable. I called the producers of rock of a happiness when we decided on the lineup for rock bottom month. And I'm like, sorry guys, it's not, it's not you. This is just the lineup we had.

You did nothing wrong. Sorry, Todd Salon. Yeah. In another world, you guys could have made it. Sorry, Dylan Baker. Yeah. So this will be Hoffman's seventh rewatchable. Really? Yeah. We've done Scent of a Woman, Boogie Nights, Talented Mr. Ripley, Magnolia, 25th Hour, Long Came Polly, and Moneyball. Pretty good. And what's crazy, you could argue he might end up with five more on the roster. Hold now for the master. Almost Famous. Almost Famous. When will that be?

It's probably the last episode. Okay. Twister. 100%. We should do it this summer. Big Lebowski. You know there's another Twister. I'm aware. Okay. Big Lebowski. We've done that. You weren't on it. Did we do it? Yeah. I think it was. Are you sure we did it? Me, CR, Concepcion, and Shoemaker. We did it? So he's been in eight rewatchables. I'm counting him for Big Lebowski. I know he didn't have a giant part in that. You forgot about my Patch Adams solo episode. Yeah.

Patch Adams. My wife and I, we always used to joke about that and call it Patch Adams. Like it's such a bad movie. Mission Impossible 3, did we do that one? No, we did not do that one. I think we've only done two Mission Impossible movies. The Master and Happiness. So 8 puts them near the...

He might be top 10 now for most rewatchables movies. Denzel, the Toms, Julia. Who else is up there? Well, Cruise is 15 now. I was thinking the 10 movie club is kind of our equivalent of the five-timers club for us and our hosts. Yeah. You get the 10 rewatchables movies, you've had a special career. I think we can get Denzel to come on in here, sit down. We can put the 10 movie medal around his neck. He definitely would not do that.

And then you refuse to talk about... I don't talk about my old movies. Let's talk about the Knicks. What if we did like the Bone Collector to celebrate him coming in though? Just put him in a bed? But back to slow burner month. Why do you think it happens that way? Why do like movies that actually did well and made money...

but then something shifts and they become a thing. In this case, we know it's Hoffman. Does it have to be just a unique thing about the movie? What is it? I mean, there's so much to talk about with this movie contextually because there were five Ben Stiller movies this year, and that's evidence of what kind of a time it was in Hollywood when this is Craig's hobby horse, just like why do we not have more studio comedies? At this time, we were cranking them out. There were so many of them, and it also dovetails with

kind of DVD dorm room culture where I think movies like this really succeeded It's also doubles as a date movie so you can watch this with your girlfriend. Yeah, it's also the rise of YouTube so you put all that stuff in a stew and if you want to just watch Hoffman cook and

You can just watch Hoffman. If you want to watch this movie with your girlfriend, you can watch this on the couch at home. If you want to go to see a funny movie on a Friday night, like this is kind of at the top of your list if you're a moviegoer at this time because it kind of has something for everyone. And you get to go to St. Bart's. As you know, I like going on locations. That's true. If you're a fan of Hank Azaria's Abs, we've got that. You know, there's some stuff on offer here.

I'll say this in 2004, I don't feel like it was as big of a deal that Hoffman had. This part was in this movie and I think it was really fun to have them in it, but I think the legend grew with him year by year. And partly the legend grew because the movies he was in became so rewatchable. You know, I, everyone was like, this guy's great. Right. He was in this guy's great territory basically from late nineties on. Yeah. But I think,

Late 2000s range it started to go up a level and then obviously when he died that but when when somebody dies that pushes their people's appreciation of the work to a different Stratosphere well, I mean literally the next movie that he makes his Capote and he wins Best Actor Yeah, and so that I think pretty significantly alters how we consider him because he was the kind of guy who like hardcore movie fans and

You know, people who really were into acting. And, you know, he's a big Broadway performer, too. I saw him in True West years before this, I think. With John C. Reilly. Actually, it might have been 04. I can't remember what year it was when I saw him. It might have been the same year. And he just blew everyone's mind. Like, he blew everyone's mind 10 years later in Death of a Salesman. Like, he... People who were fans were hardcore fans. But Capote, I think because he had that long run of Oscar campaigning and then eventually won...

consecrated him in a way. And then after that, everything he did was kind of like, what will be the next great Philip Seymour Hoffman performance? And he kind of defied expectations. You know, he kind of reverted back to I do supporting parts. He didn't do a lot of movies where he was at the center. And if he did, it was usually a very small movie, an independent movie, and not a mainstream studio movie. So I think people came to appreciate Along Came Polly and what he did in it even more so after the fact because they were like, wow, the guy who played Truman Capote,

did the sharding movie. You know, like, that's range. It'd be like if Daniel Day-Lewis had had that part. Exactly. EDL! How many best actor, previous best actor winners could have played Sandy Lyle? That's a good game. You know, could Frederick March have played Sandy Lyle? I say no. Yeah, you start getting into, like, Adrian Brody, Pacino. We start going through. Pacino! I love that. Pacino as Sandy Lyle? Raindrop! The basketball would have been tough for him. Well, you mentioned this weird era. Yeah.

There were too many Ben Stiller movies, and I think that was one of the things that hurt this movie. He was just too omnipresent. Always playing Ben Stiller. Yes. He had a comic... He has a comic persona. And it's the person in this movie, it's the person there's something about Mary. Anxious, uptight guy. Well, I like it. Like, he zags with Zoolander. That's really the one. But yeah, the upside... Meet the parents, same thing. And Aniston is basically the same person in every movie. She just changes her hair. And I think that...

Something about when this movie came out, it was like, really, these two? We were already kind of all getting tired of the two of them as personas, which is why the Hoffman piece is so important. But as the years pass and neither of them

You know, Stewart didn't make that many more rom-coms. He did like The Heartbreak Kid and maybe like one or two more. And then, you know. Yeah, you're right. He doesn't do a lot of them. I mean, he went on to do a lot of interesting movies, but he went away from this formula. He veered away from this. But I think as the years pass, that part is more tolerable than maybe it was in 04. When you put out five movies in a year, that's just a suicide mission. Nobody wants that. Yeah, it seems like it was kind of

and circumstance and a variety of things that factored into it. But, I mean, he didn't just put out five movies in a year. He was the... Actually, he was in six movies this year. And he was the star of four of them. Like, the star. Along Came Polly, Starsky & Hutch, Envy, Dodgeball, and Meet the Fockers. All in that same year. Plus, he does a little bit part in Anchorman. And so...

And Starsky and Hutch was a big-ass movie. Todd Phillips. There was real excitement about it. But yeah, this was the comedy boom. I think he's a little bit of a...

I always say like a black licorice guy where, you know, like I can't eat black licorice. Like I put it in my mouth and I'm like, there's something poisonous about this. I thought it was poisonous. I don't eat black licorice. Yeah, I really don't like black licorice. And some actors or actresses are like black licorice for people where they take a bite and they're like, ugh. I worked for a guy at a magazine years ago who was just like, we will never feature Ben Stiller in our magazine. I find him incredibly annoying.

Wow. Which I always thought was really funny because I always liked him. Like I liked his TV show that he had. I like a lot of these movies. I thought he's amazing. And there's something about Mary. His persona always worked for me, but he comes from like a legendary comedy family. He goes on to make like great, you know, Tropic Thunder, like really great comedy classics. But I always keep that in the back of my head that for some people, they're just like, he's not for me. Yeah. There's something about Mary's 98. He rips off Meet the Parents, Zoolander, Royal Tannenbaum's.

Along came Pauly Starsky and Hutch, Anchorman and Dodgeball in the same year. Meet the Fockers, Heartbreak Kid, Tropic Thunder. That's all in 10 years, plus a bunch of other movies that he did too.

There's something about Mary is hanging over this movie too because that launches the R-rated comedy boom. There's some DNA from that movie in this movie. Like there's another bathroom scene with Ben Siller. We're in the bathroom with him with something embarrassing happening and it's kind of the tail end of the R-rated comedy and then we start moving into the Apatow version of it. So this is like the we're at the tail end of 1.0 version of this and then Apatow becomes 2.0. Yeah and he always kind of operated a

alongside those guys but not totally with them yeah which I always thought was kind of fascinating his career after this is really interesting like he keeps making Night of the Museum movies and he does some franchise stuff does Zoolander 2 he does a few movies with Noah Baumbach but do you remember the last time he headlined a movie

Well, he was directing too, right? He did the prison thing that Chris and I loved, Escape from Dannemora. Escape of Dannemora, and he does Severance now. That's what he directs in Severance. Both of those shows are great. But as a movie star, he hasn't really top-lined a movie since 2017. The Meyerowitz story is the Bombeck movie. So it's been seven years since he was the star of a movie. That's pretty crazy for somebody who at one time, I think you could credibly say was one of the 10 leading men in Hollywood. We made a lot of money.

Tropic Thunder was his probably biggest, most ambitious swing. And it was a huge success. Yeah, really funny. And a really cool, original, unique movie. Craig's generation doesn't like it. You know, Craig's triggered by it. I adore that movie. I thought you were triggered by Tropic Thunder. Don't put that on me. Triggered month? Triggered month. No, Tropic Thunder is amazing. Aniston's movie career. Yeah, here we go.

I had forgotten it wasn't going well until 03. She had not made a $100 million movie until 2003. And then it just blows up. She does Bruce almighty.

That makes $485. Pauly makes $178. That was entirely chalked up to her, too. She was on the poster, front and center. Hey, listen, man. She's Scottie Pippen in that movie. Sure. Pauly, The Breakup, 206. Marley and Me, Just Not Into You, The Bounty Hunter, Just Go With It, Horrible Bosses, We're the Millers. So she has a decade of she's a bankable A-plus list actress for comic movies, which I was not sure...

It was looking a little dodgy when she was in Rockstar. You were like, I don't know if this is going to happen. It felt a little friends might have overtaken her. Like she's just Rachel and people can't accept her. She's good in office space.

Very good. Very funny. But that's, again, these are all kind of girlfriend parts and it takes a long-came poly for her to get out of the girlfriend parts in a way. She did do a couple of smaller, like The Good Girl. She's really good in The Good Girl, which is like an indie that she was doing, I think, to break out of Rachel. The thing that is notable about this, I think, is that this movie is the last movie that she made while Friends was still on. Wow. And it was right as Brangelina's

Right. In the works. We're on the way towards Mr. and Mrs. Smith. So it feels like her career is...

We're Friends is over. And then all of a sudden she becomes an even bigger star and then the movies start hitting and somehow becomes a bigger star than she was in Friends. Yeah, she picked a couple of really good projects. I think the breakup was like really smart to make a movie called The Breakup after Mr. and Mrs. Smith was very smart. Also a movie we all thought we were going to like and it was just missing something. Not a huge fan. Yeah. It's a grim two hours. I've struggled with her a little bit. On Friends, I'm like, this is one of the great

like we were just mesmerized by her in the 90s. You know, we were kind of interested in her every move. As a movie actor...

I wish she was always given a little bit more to do. This movie is kind of an interesting mix, though. Like, it obviously is a classic opposites attract setup, and they have chemistry. Like, they work together. So I think the movie really lives and dies on scenes like the stabbing the pillows scene, you know, where you're like, oh, I feel their connection, and I want to hang out with these people. Because that's what this kind of a movie is. It's interesting. I'm zagging on you a tiny bit. I didn't totally feel it. Really? Yeah.

Yeah, it's like, do you see those two people together, I guess is my question. Well, that's what Roger Ebert says. He's like, I'm not sure if I buy this. You're not sure if you buy the two people? Yeah, I like them together. I felt like they...

It seemed like they liked each other in real life. Seemed like they had some energy together. Yeah, they seemed like people who would date for a while and then decide they should be best friends. Yeah. You know what's another weird thing about this that is sort of related is, you know, he goes on to make the Heartbreak Kid remake. Right. Which is kind of the same movie. Yeah. It's like a movie about a newly married couple that goes on a vacation and then they break up on their honeymoon. Right. It's very strange that he did this twice. And it's with Billion's...

with uh Alan Ackerman yeah yeah she was your favorite actress of the year Billions debuted right felt bad always felt bad criticizing her but that character just didn't work um you won't even look me in the eye when you say that Bill I won't I was looking up I forgot to do Raj for this a rare miss for me that's okay I'm helping out no I Raj was uh two stars yeah he didn't love it but weirdly well he he notes Hoffman

He's like, I'll tell you what I did like about this movie. Philip Seymour Hoffman. It's like the second to last graph of the review. Yeah. I did like Philip Seymour Hoffman as Sandy, Ruben's best man. Yeah. He's in on Philip Seymour Hoffman. Can't find anything else nice to say about it? Listen,

The story of this movie isn't really up Raj's alley. You know, it's... Not the best on broad comedy, Raj, over the years. No. You know, we talked about this on the Tommy Boy up with Sal. You know, you just, you didn't get it. It's okay. It's okay that you didn't get it. Sometimes you miss. You missed. Along Cape Holly is no Tommy Boy. Where does your generation stand on Ben Stiller, Craig?

I think all of the most popular Ben Stiller roles in our minds are the character spots that he played. Like, when I think of Ben Stiller, I think of Happy Gilmore. Like, I like Ben Stiller when he goes weird. I think straight man Ben Stiller, you know, it's fine. Oh, your fingers hurt? Yeah, that's like the best role ever. You're going to need a warm glass to shut the hell up. Well, he also, he did the best Cruise impression. His impression of Cruise was the best celebrity impression ever.

Maybe of that decade. Yeah, I like Weird Stiller better than just like classic straight man Stiller. Yeah, in Dodgeball, he's really funny. Yes, he's the best at that. Yeah. He does this movie, I don't remember if we've ever talked about it in the rewatchables, Friends and Neighbors. Oh, yeah. With Jason Patrick. Absolutely, your guy Neil LaButte. Yeah. Yeah. And it's one of the most fucked up late 90s movies.

I don't know what theme month we would be doing it for in the rewatchables, but it would be like a definite fucked up one. Yeah, castration month. Yeah. Right, castration month. But he's in that and it felt like there's... I always felt, and I have no evidence of this, that deep down Ben Stewart just wanted to be like a weird indie dramatic actor. And...

you know, do those kind of movies. And like in an alternate universe, it could have been him instead of Adam Driver in Marriage Story. Yeah. I mean, look at his big breakthrough as a movie person is directing Reality Bites. I mean, that's really who he is. And the, you know, that movie is such an interesting blend of like

kind of movie stardom and these very attractive, beautiful people doing cool things, young, cool things, but also has that like odd edginess and a little bit of like a Gen X dissatisfaction with the world. And like, I think him doing the bound back movies later in his career, um, is it kind of a testimony to how he sees the world? Like the Greenberg, um, Meyer with stories. And what's the one in between while we're young, the,

Those three movies are all like almost him getting movie stardom out of his system. Greenberg, especially that, that was one where you could feel him going for it. Yes. Do you like that movie? Um, interesting. I think it's a really good movie about how some people react to Los Angeles. You know, they're like, some people are just, it's kind of how black liquor, it can be a black liquor city sometimes for some people. This movie was written and directed by John Hamburg, who also did. I love you, man. In 2009 that I really like should also be rewatchable.

I randomly, I met Paul Rudd a couple weeks ago and we were talking about a bunch of stuff and I asked him about I Love You Man.

And I was like, what's the reaction of that movie now? And he's like, oh, people like that movie now. But I was like, but it didn't do that well when it came out, right? It's like, it was all right. Yeah. Didn't do great. But it was another example of like, sometimes the clusters with comedies, they can just come out at the wrong time. Yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, slap it to base, man. That's like burned into my brain. I think a lot of the movies that we're talking about here, like if you saw it when you were like 11, right?

it stays with you forever yeah that is the tommy boy conversation for me i just saw it when i was 11 it doesn't matter what happens for the rest of my life i always think that movie is funny yeah i think that's an example of a movie that a lot of people saw when they were 11 and like i love that movie i'm holding on to that movie forever because other times i was thinking about this with the glenn powell sydney sweeney movie that comes out it was just kind of the right time for a movie like that yep and it was marketed perfectly it's totally watchable

It hits every checkpoint. And now I feel like it's a movie my daughter is probably going to watch 12 times. It's also bad. Well, that's the thing. It's not a great movie. No, it's not. But it came along at the right time and had the right conceit and had the right stars in it. And now it'll kind of last probably, which is weird because it's not that good. I'm really hopeful that that movie and The Fall Guy and a couple of other movies that are happening right now

are like slowly easing us back into the era when in 04 like they were just at our fingertips all the time. I feel like audiences being excited about Anyone But You is very exciting. Whether or not that movie's any good, I don't think it's that great. You did. We're taping this before the weekend. You're doing The Fall Guy for Big Picture. We did, yeah.

You should have brought me on for two minutes to discuss how important Heather Thomas and Marky Post were in the context of the 80s. Next time. I mean, the floor is yours. We can cut it into the episode. Two hugely important people of the 80s. At the risk of spoiling anything about the Fall Guy, maybe Heather Thomas makes an appearance. Oh, that sounds great. I'll be there. Did you see the Fall Guy? I see that in the theater.

We're going to take a break. Oh, by the way, $42 million budget made $178 million, which is like, I was actually shocked that the movie made this much. That's insane. This is the heyday of comedies. Yes. I wonder where that stands in the Ben Stiller. I guess he has them. He has some big ones. Yeah, he's got some big ass ones. That's a shitload of money though for a movie like this. It's a lot of money. We'll take a break. We'll be back with rewatchable scenes.

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All right, most rewatchable scene. This movie starts out with a banger. We're at the wedding and we just get Hoffman right away. Best man's in the house! He does a great pratfall.

He does like five things in this movie that absolutely, like I rarely laugh when I watch movies, but when the guy has the wedding icing, what are those things called? I don't know. The squeezer. The squirters? Yeah. And he's like, give it to me. And the guy's just squirting wedding icing. Yeah.

Hey, aren't you that kid from Crocodile Tears? That's right. I'm Sandy Lyle. Man, I saw that movie in high school, that bagpipe scene. That was the funniest shit, man. Yeah, we had a good time in that picture. You want an autograph? Ah, no thanks. It's good to see you, man. I thought you died like 15 years ago. Ah, nah. I'm very much alive, my friend. I've been doing a lot of stage acting, getting back to my roots. Sandy, we should get going because... They're making an E2 Hollywood story on me, so that should clear up a lot of your questions. So they're really doing one of those shows about your life? Yeah, I got a camera.

Within the first few minutes, you're like, all right, Phil Hoffman's going to do anything he can, no matter how disgusting it is to make us laugh. Yeah, you know immediately. You want an autograph? No, I'm good. Thanks. Yeah.

You're the kid from Crocodile Tears. Yeah. And then we also get to see Ruben doing his wedding risk assessment. It's just a really strong four minutes. We get a wedding. Yep. Then all of a sudden here comes Alec Baldwin. He's kind of doing his departed character. I'm obsessed with Alec Baldwin. You want to save this for later? Sure. In Dursky? Yeah. We'll save it for later. So we got that scene.

We have after, unless you want to count him walking in on Debra Messing getting railed by Hank Azaria on the boat. I think there is something perversely entertaining about the entire Hank Azaria introduction and like watching Debra Messing's eyes in those scenes where she's just like, I want to bone this guy like the second he shows up. I enjoy that.

I like when, uh, when after the, first of all, the scuba things hitting the side of the boat is hilarious. But then when they're on land and her hair is like completely fucked up and she's like, I'm going through something. And she just looks like she'd had like the craziest sex ever. And this is also at the height of Will and Grace too. You know, she was a big star at the time. I was in Hank's area, big star from TV. Yeah. She's good in this, but that seems fun. Um,

I also like when he backs the car backwards, but then the next cut is him, Hank Azaria, driving him to the airport. He's just holding him angrily. Ruben goes back to work and pees with the Nersky. I have as the next rewatchable scene. I will fire this one up on YouTube every once in a while. There's a great fart. He sidles up right next to him in the air. Does like the longest pee.

She's a dime store hooker and she always will be. I heard about your honeymoon. Just terrible. I knew that girl was a slut the second I met her. Yeah, well, you know, it's kind of complicated. Hey, don't make excuses. She's a dime store hooker and she always will be. Just put it behind you. Speaking of which, you ever hear of a guy named Leland Van Loo?

That's just... That guy is Long Island to me. That's one of my dad's friends, unfortunately. So you think that's what he was going for? A Long Island accent? Jersey, Long Island, East Coast. And then he said, this accent, I had such a good time doing it. I'm just going to bring it to Boston and the Departed. And just not say the R's, but basically do an Ersky. And both the Departed and Along Came Polly come before 30 Rock. They're right before 30 Rock starts. And you can see he's like...

I'm in a new era. Like, I'm doing only this kind of thing now. I'm only having fun. This little mini pocket of Alec Baldwin is a great time. Well, it really starts with Outside Providence when he's the kid's dad. He's like, hey, whatever. He has the terrible nicknames for his kids. He's just talking like this. Well, the next scene that's going to be the winner, we go from

I just sharted right into the basketball scene. I mean, this is like some of the best seven minutes of the 2000s. Hoffman in the elevator saying that he only knows this guy, this artist, and they're going to his gallery because he sold him some good pot in the 90s. And then it's like a cutaway and it's an overhead shot of him surrounded by 20 artsy looking people and saying, I'm so horny. It's incredible stuff.

I just sharted Falla by the way he's kind of like walking, like the way his body's moving is also amazing. Trying to keep it tight and loose at the same time. Yeah, it's incredible. So I'm combining this with the basketball scene because it's this whole seven minutes. Let it rain, rain dance. What was that? I'm just messing with you, Sasquatch. Let's get it on. Hang it on! Hang it on! I like rain dance! Yeah!

white chocolate then Ben Stiller asked for the switch he's like no no I've figured out this guy's moves I can't switch

Yeah, it's one of the most legendary athlete performances in movie history. I was thinking about there's this whole subgenre of really fun sporting event scenes in movies happening in weird New York parks like that. Like Big has the handball scene. But we have to come up with a list of those at some point. Gosh. Maybe for the new YouTube channel. But it would be fun to do all the goofy... Top five New York sports scenes. Well, because it's always like a really terrible...

like half court basketball court. Right. Or it's like, you know, like this kind of a racquetball court, but people are also playing tennis and... Right. Not a lot of soccer scenes taking place in New York City. Not a lot of soccer scenes. Yeah. Not a lot of soccer. There's racquetball in this movie too with Brian Brown. Yeah. I had... I'll do this now. I was going to do what's aged the worst. Does racquetball age the worst? Has racquetball been replaced by pickleball? I'll tell you, I've never played

In my whole life. I played in the 90s a little. Yeah. It's a violent sport. It is. You really, you know what wasn't helping me was like going out in Boston and having cigs every once in a while and then trying to play racquetball. You really need lungs. You were heaving. Need your lungs. It always just seemed like a little too intense. Like not, like tennis is fun.

I'm like, I don't want to get punched. Racquetball is a good place to get inadvertently hit with a racket to blow out your ACL, to sprain an ankle, to hurt your Achilles. I love racquetball. You do? There's a lot that can go wrong. You played in college? Yeah. Like in an organized way? Our gym had a couple racquetball courses that you could rent out. It's super fun. It's so fun. If you play with someone, it's like ping pong or tennis or like volleyball. There are certain sports where it's like,

The people playing have to be good. But then if they are, it's amazing. And I feel like if you're playing with the right person with racquetball, it is really, really fun. Other than basketball, probably the highest percentage of...

you're about to get into a fist fight with somebody when you're playing racquetball. Because there's all these different ways you can screw each other up. You're literally in like a windowless box. That's not a good scenario for me. As you guys know, sometimes I kind of blow my top. So I don't know if that's, especially in sporting circumstances. It's a violent sport. I like racquetball. Bring it back. It should come back. I always thought Highline racquetball, maybe we should revisit both of those. Your beloved pickleball may have replaced it, unfortunately. Pickleball for losers. I mean, honestly. Yeah.

Next rewatchable scene. Sandy eating the greasy pizza. Every single moment in the pizza scene. The way he's preparing it. The insert shot when he takes the cover off the red pepper and digs his fingers into the red pepper jar. Takes Ben Stiller's pizza slice so he can pour more grease on his own pizza.

Oh, man. And then that goes right into Ben Stower's, I guess I should call him Ruben. It's the name of the movie. But the Moroccan dinner date. Are you okay? Because you're sweating pretty profusely. Yeah, no, I'm fine. I always react this way to spicy food.

Okay. Yeah, but I love it. God, you know, I can't believe you're not married. I mean, even when we were kids, I always saw you as that guy that would settle down at a young age, you know? You were always kind of like an old, young guy. Yeah, well, it just hasn't happened. But what about you? You ever gotten close? To the whole marriage thing? Oh, God, no. No way. No, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not really big on the whole long-term commitment thing. Okay.

Why? Are you coming out of a bad relationship? No, I'm kind of coming out of like eight bad relationships. Eight? You sure I can't get you a towel or something? No, no, I'm good. But I mean, if the right person came along, things might be different, right? When he's like, you're not going to tell her about the, you're going to bow? No, no, we're going to some place. It didn't sound too ethnic. Al-Fareez. And then the next scene is him just eating like Moroccan shit with their hands. Have you ever been in a situation like that where you've got a date

You're excited about this person you're going on a date with and they want to do something that you're like, this is a bad idea for me. Oh, man. Hold on. Let me think back. Go back in the brain, David. Yeah. I don't have a lot of experience. I can't remember a date where it was like,

I'm really taking one for the team here. Like, I really need to get laid so badly. I'm doing this. Because this is really like, this is the big question of the movie is, and this is the thing that I think Ebert bumped on in the movie is, is Jennifer Aniston appealing enough? And is Ben Stiller's character in as low a moment as he is, like enough to justify going, for example, to this dinner date? Yeah.

There's a different reading that is related to the Philip Seymour Hoffman character, which is that because he's still such a fastidious, uptight guy, he's drawn to people who are a mess. And Dursky's a mess. He works for him. He's trying to change that. Sandy's a mess. He's disgusting. Polly is all over the place. He's drawn to her. And that that's like maybe his...

inner anxiety reaching out which I think is kind of a maybe an overread of a silly movie like Along Came Polly but kind of interesting but also Ebert was like this doesn't make sense or he's it's self-loathing he's trying to like torture himself could be could be I'm fine with him going on a date but you don't if you know like you're gonna have real problems and it's especially in New York City there's no way you're going up you'd be like hey I had a great time I'm out of here

That's my biggest nitpick of the movie. You're like, oh, cool. Oh, it's a two-room studio where you've been in those apartments. I lived in one. The bathroom's like right on top of that. You can hear every noise in the bathroom. There's just no way he's going up there. Not ideal. Is this Apex Mountain for IBS? I was thinking about that. It might be. Could be up there. I can't remember a better IBS scene. There's another character.

Right on the tip of my tongue about IBS, but yeah. I definitely learned about something like this from movies. This is pretty gross. The bathroom disaster. I'm not a huge bathroom humor guy. As you know, I love...

You'll have a juvenile sense of humor. I love juvenile shit. Not a gross sense of humor. I just feel like every version of a bathroom scene has been done at this point. So even in 2004, this felt a tiny bit tired. But it is funny. It's pretty funny. What if I was like, Bill, I'm a huge toilet humor guy? Would that just be the biggest zag of all time? Top nine toilet scenes. I think it's okay. It's fine. It feels a little, like you said, redundant. There's something about Mary's scene in the bathroom with the zipper is...

just legendary material followed up by the earlobe later on in the movie. Like that is the funniest of the funny. This one is okay. It's just like, oh, you shit in front of a girl. It's very similar to the Dumb and Dumber one. It is. Just not as good. It is. I like that you said the earlobe scene and not the cum shot scene. I like that you went PG instead of R. This is a good edit. Is this a family program? Well, not really. The salsa date I have...

To just quickly get more hoops thrown in. Iceman! I don't know why they haven't put the 15-minute unedited Hoffman playing basketball cut. They should air it at MSG during playoff games. I would be fired up. Yeah, seriously. Raindrop! Every time Brunson drops one, yeah.

Pauly finds the list. Just good drama. We'll get into some of the issues with that later. And then the two last big rewatchable scenes, Jesus Christ Superstar. You knew we had to see that one being performed. Goes terribly, but leads to the dad's big speech. Yeah. It's not about what happened in the past or what you think might happen in the future. It's about the ride for Christ's sake. There's no point in going through all this crap if you're not going to enjoy the ride. And you know what? When you least expect something great,

When you least expect it, something great might come along. Something better than you even planned for. All of a sudden, there's like real wisdom in this movie. I totally agree with that. It's all about the ride. This is what you said to me right before we started The Ringer. You know, you were like, just think if you stick it out for nine years, we can do the top nine toilet humor movies of all time because it's all about the ride. This is what I said when I was trying to convince you to work for Grantland.

I'm like, look, I laid out a couple of things that might be issues. And then I was like, but remember, Sean, it's all about the ride. Yeah, that was definitely what it was like at Grantland. It was the ride for sure. It was definitely a ride. And then the last one, Sandy handles the big meeting. This movie does something really interesting where it flips. It feels like it's just doing the generic. Oh, here's the hero running to go catch the girl before their relationship blows up.

And rips off when Harry met Sally and Billy Crystal running through. We've just seen that scene. They're like, ah, they're going to do this again. But no, we go to Sandy Lyle. It's actually Sandy Lyle's moment. He's finally going to do it. He's going to come together and save the big account with Coughlin from Cocktail. And all of us here at Endurby and Friends are willing to lay our asses on the line and proudly recommend that Leland Van Loo receive 50%.

million dollars in life and health and automobile insurance for a duration of no less than 20 years. What do you think, guys? Are you that kid from Crocodile Tears? You're goddamn right I am. I thought so. Impressive presentation. He's insured. Bloody Ripper!

I love that scene. Hoffman's performance is incredible when he puts his hands on the shoulder of the wrong guy is one of the funniest bits in the movie. And don't forget about it. Are you the kid from crocodile tears? In that scene though, he is directly channeling Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting. He's like retainer, like the same kind of performance.

What do you have for most rewatchable scene? If you're going to pair up the art gallery sharding and the basketball scene, that's in like a comedy Mount Rushmore sequence. It's got to be the winner. Best seven minutes ever. Yeah. That would be a good idea for the YouTube channel. Just run that scene. Best seven minutes. Best seven minute sequences in movie history. Best seven minutes. Seven minutes. I love to real time brainstorm with you. This is how we make the content here.

Dirt from the moment he shows up at the pool party and meets Reed. Reed's like, they start making drinks. You lift. People tell me I look like Han Solo. All the way through the pool jump. I don't know. Maybe if we just did seven minutes Hoffman. So it's just different seven minute stretches. Like Hoffman listening to the jazz record in the record store in Ripley when he's just getting down. Love that. What's aged the best?

Baldwin's accent. I love all movies with Baldwin accents. And Durski is a legend. World News 10, plenty of bartenders. Good things. Good things. It's too bad Baldwin shot somebody and is going to be in a trial for the next 10 years. I loved Alec Baldwin in movies. It's hard to unwind Rust from Alec Baldwin now. Sounds like a rock bottom month sequel. Yeah. It's tough. Craig's generation knows Baldwin as like, oh, he's the guy who shot somebody on the set.

I'm not like 12. I just like Craig's generation. That also means that 12-year-olds are reading the Rust news and being like, this is just a tragedy. One of our greats. 12-year-olds are on the Hollywood Reporter news site. Baldwin's 30 Rock for me. Okay, great.

When we do Malice, you'll really fully understand Baldwin. And that's definitely a movie you haven't seen. There's also, I like the reading that the Baldwin character is his character from Glengarry Glen Ross, like all grown up, like wearing the suspenders and he's got the belly, but he's basically like a shark, you know, the overgrown shark. I like that. And Nersky. What's aged the best? Semi-underrated New York movie. Remember we were talking about when we were going to New York for the live rewatchables and we were like, New York movies and...

There's both like a ton of New York movies, but then also not a lot of New York movies. I wouldn't say it's in the Serpico Dog Day Afternoon category. Definitely not. Okay. But has...

A lot of New York scenes. It does. It's definitely a New York movie. Yeah, I mean, it looks like it was shot there. Yeah. Well, it was shot there, right? And they're going to galleries and, you know, you feel like you're in New York. It's, and same with like the restaurants. Like those are, that's absolutely the way that you would go out on dates. And if you, especially if you live downtown, like my wife and I, when we were living there, we're going to places like that all the time. I have a bunch of what's aged the best, but do you have any ones before I step on all of them? Um, I think the Aniston Ark movie

looks a lot better than it did at the time. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I think her as a movie star, because I thought about this a lot too before we were talking about it, like, there was a lot of questions as to whether it was going to work after Picture Perfect. You know? Like, that movie, it didn't fly. And... I've seen it, like, 12 times. I seem to recall you being a big Picture Perfect guy. You know who wrote that movie, right? Aaron Sorkin. Is that true? I think so, yeah. I mean, Aniston's, you know,

Say it. Just say the words. Mid-90s Aniston. She was beautiful. All-timer. Yeah, she was beautiful. All-timer. Her film choices were not great. But now you look back and you're like, even something like Worth of Millers, which is similar to this movie, which when it came out, I was like, okay, this is kind of funny. And then was a massive hit.

And helped kind of like continue to elevate her status as a comic actress. And now you'll go down her CV and be like, actually, she has like five or seven or nine movies that I really like. Horrible Bosses worked when it came out. It was a good one for her. Another good example. Yeah. Like we don't really do those movies too much on the show. No, but... Like 2011 on comedies. Well, because some of them have an age grade and then others...

Others have aged really nicely like this one, but it kind of comes and goes. Yeah. But definitely Aniston, um, Hoffman kind of goes without saying. And then Craig's generation killed comedy. That's the next thing that happened. That's right. That's what triggered month will be about. Yeah. We just, we're just too anxious now for comedy. We're sad about everything. Craig's, Craig's was, people were like, I love neighbors. And Craig's like, they should do neighbors too, but flip it.

And that was it. That was the death of comedy right there. I made that call. Craig made it. What about the sorority? Somebody asked him. Yeah. Yeah. Craig's like, what about the other side of this? What about a film told through the perspective of the administrators at the university? That would be the more idealistic version. What's aged the best? The concept of the child actor who peaks when he's 10. Ingenious. So when I was in high school,

We had the kid, I talked about this in the Kramer versus Kramer podcast, the kid from Kramer versus Kramer was in the high school. And it was just like, he was the kid from Kramer versus Kramer. There was that, that was his identity. And it's, that's a tough thing to break out of, but I went to, I went to middle school and high school with a child actor as well, who I won't name, but who was in private parts and was in Richie Rich. Oh, and, uh, I'm sure we can't Google that was a super talented actor and a really nice kid. Um, but,

I remember when he got cast in private parts, I was like, can this happen? Like, is it possible that a child who lives on Long Island could possibly be in a movie? Like, I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of what, like, all child actors to me were kids on Dawson's Creek, basically. And this movie kind of sums up the, like, sad but not tragic likely outcome of childhood stardom. Hamburg said the director...

And Ryder. He said he auditioned for The Champ and didn't get it. And then it always thought about what would have happened if I got it. He personally auditioned for The Champ? Yeah. Oh, interesting. What would my life have been like if I had just been the kid from The Champ? And that was where he got that idea. Then that led to Bagpipes Kid from Crocodile Tears. Really, really funny. What do you think Bagpipes Kid was? What was happening with the bagpipes? Sounds like he played them. Beyond that. It sounds like this memorable, hysterical scene, but I don't...

know what could have happened? I have no idea. And was Crocodile Tears a comedy or a drama? It'd be great if it was just like consenting adults. Was it like Curly Sue? Like a Home Alone type movie? Or was it like a Kramer versus Kramer type tragedy? I thought more of like a Bad News Bears kind of a thing. Hmm.

What do you think it was, Craig? Crocodile Tears? Gotta go comedy. It's gotta be like a classic. Like a kid's comedy? Yeah. Like the Sandlot? Like School of Rock or something. Yeah. Morewood Saged the Best. I love her children novels. The Boy with a Nub for an Arm is just high comedy. So this seemed like ridiculous at the time, but as somebody who has purchased and read many, many books for kids in the last few years...

It's kind of where we are right now. Yeah. You know, this is not so far afield from what a lot of children's books are like. And Ruben says, well, it's very graphic for a children's novel. And they cut to the picture. It's just somebody missing an arm, the arms next to the fireworks. What's age the best? St. Bart's as a movie location. Great call.

We don't have enough movies where they're just like, we're going to St. Barts, Hawaii. We're going to the Bahamas. This is your favorite thing about the Happy Madison productions. You know, this is what Sandler does. And he did it. He's a genius. What's the Aniston Sandler movie that your family loves? Just go with it? Just go with it. What's the Aniston Sandler movie? Come on. It's like, what's that De Niro boxing movie with Scorsese? What's that one called? What's that called? Yep. That's Great Comp.

Yeah, I've said this before, but during COVID, we just went all locations when my family was watching movies. That was nice. I like that idea. We were just like, let's go somewhere. Where are we going today? Hawaii. That was me, but just re-watching the Hackman scenes in the firm. The concept of Riskmaster?

Yeah. I think it's just good. I liked it. I like that he's just constantly assessing risk because that's his job. Yeah, I mean, my wife is an actuary. Like, this is not so far afield from what she does. So I wouldn't say she's quite as anxious as Ruben is in this movie, but it's a type. You got to have a certain skill set to do this work. We have 29% of the people here are over 70 at this wedding. Okay, so I'll wait. I'll wait.

Oh, I had that actually as a wood sage the best. I know that I have a 0.013% chance of being hit by a car on my way home or a one in 46,000 chance of falling through a subway grate. I think that's true. I was wondering the same thing. Is that data accurate? One in 46,000. That doesn't seem like I never walk on subway grates. I know, but we have that iconic image of Marilyn Monroe, you know? Right. Coghlan's in this movie.

My guy. Huge W. Playing some version of Rupert Murdoch. Crossed with Coghlan. Meets Coghlan. Yeah. Well, speaking of anyone but you, Coghlan also featured in Anyone But You. Young Flanagan, my best friend in the world.

Fucking love Cogwood. Should we re-cocktail? We should re-cocktail. Maybe that's what we should do for the live YouTube Ringer Movies thing. If we ever launch a channel, that's what we're going to do. If they re-channel, we will re-cocktail. That sounds great. One of the great movies of all time. Seven minutes of Kelly Lynch. Seven minutes of cocktail? You'd have to go TGI Fridays for the seven minutes.

Yeah, I think so. I think so. The demonstration. Crowded bar in New York City. Nobody wants a drink. Totally happy to see these two guys work their magic. It was great to see Coughlin. Married to Rachel Ward, one of the hottest actresses of all time. Beautiful. Against all odds. Another one we'll be doing on the rewatchables at some point. See the feed? We might be able to get to 350 movies. Fingers crossed.

It's all up to you, Bill. Jesus Christ Superstar Rehearsals? Uh-huh. This is what's aged the best? What's aged the best when the kid goes, I thought I was playing Judas. And he's like, it's Judas. And I'm playing both of them. I think that's... He's playing Jesus and Judas in the rehearsals. Yeah, that's Masi Oka, who would be one of the stars of Heroes. Remember? He was a huge star of Heroes. Oh, good call. Sandy Lyle. I just love that guy.

Ruben's theory on bar food treats is age their best. I've felt this way for years. I don't go near the giant bowl of anything. But you just flipped my what's age the worst, which is bar snacks. Like now you don't, when you go to bars in LA now, they bring you your individual tray of bar snacks. You can order like Trolli for $11 because they no longer put out, if you go to a dive, obviously they'll have pretzels or whatever. But if you go to like a

a medium scale bar it's all individual snacks yeah they want to protect you and then you go home and have unprotected sex that's that's the irony of that whole thing that's that's uh uh impromptu impromptu base jumps always works in a movie that's good one yeah i've never seen a movie where somebody's on top of a building and they might jump and you're like i'm gonna go get some popcorn is that like a shout out to fx the brian brown film or something yeah yeah it might have been

the fighting off premature ejaculation which could be another series for uh a rewatchables month but less than seven minutes counting down and he's like 55 54 50 i love the scene later in that movie where jennifer anson's talking to missy pile and she's like is it normal for a guy to just scream 50 at the orgasms and she's like yeah it is like she has experience and then the only other one it just makes me laugh when he uh

When he finds out, when he decides to confront Javier, the salsa guy in the thing, and he's like, everything okay, Ruben? And he's like, no, actually, me, no, not este, too good, Javier. I think when people mix English and Spanish in comedies, it always makes me laugh. Ben Stiller's whole comic persona is, I'm the dipshit. So it works in this situation. Den of Thieves, Benihana, where it's seen still in location, St. Bart's.

It's just look great. Where would you go? If there's any other local grimy New York. I mean, that Indian restaurant is very recognizable to me. I'm sure I had a dinner there with my mom at some point. The kid Cuddy pursued a happiness award for best needle drop. They just dropped lost cause by Beck, which plays well. It's a song that I always forget how much I like it.

And it makes me just think like I just should have spent more time with that song. That's a great one. It's in that typical moment that comes in every movie like this where there's 28 minutes left. Something bad has happened. And you're like, oh, they broke up. It's never going to work out. Or he screwed up. Yeah. It's like 24 minutes left. Somewhere between 28 and 24 minutes left. There's a bunch of like very memorable needle drops though.

Like there's a black eyed pea song in this movie in the gap playing in the gallery. There's some salsa. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, uh, let's do it again by the staple singers. That's a great one in this movie. Some good, good music. Big Kahuna burger where best use of food and drink has to be the Moroccan dinner with the stick your hands. It looks disgusting. Not the pizza. Oh, it should be the grease. You're right. Pizza grease wins. You're right. Good call. Great check order award. Most cinematic shot. We don't have CR. Sierra's not in this country. Sierra would have been here.

Yeah, we miss him. Come back, Chris. You think he's going to stay? You know, I have been planning if he doesn't come back. Yeah, we, you know, we'll make it work. It's like when, you know, the Pats Tom Brady went down, we threw Castle and we were fine. If he tells us he's not coming back, next episode is Pulp Fiction. Just putting that out there. Yeah, what movie could we do if he doesn't come back that would hurt his feelings the most? Gosh, I'm trying to think of what's the most Philly movie imaginable. I mean, it'd be Rocky, but I don't think he cares about that one.

No, I also don't know how much Chris likes Philly. Wow. Dubious of that. That's tricky territory. Who leaves during the NBA playoffs when you have a 30-year-old former MVP center and you never know what you're getting every year? And Chris is like, I'll see you guys later. I'm going to Europe. You got to ask CR that one. What if we just foreheat?

Which one? For Heat? For Heat, me, you, De Niro, and Pacino? I want to do Heat with Burt Reynolds. I just think we have to bang that out. I've been thinking about that because it's been on and I'm like, it'd be amazing to do Heat and then people listen. You mean the 80s Burt Reynolds movie called Heat? 1986 Burt Reynolds where he actually punched out the director and got sued.

I thought you meant- That's a half hour. Record the movie Heat with Burt Reynolds as a guest. No. Well, that would be good too when he's dead. No, he filmed a movie called Heat in 86 and he punched the director who then sued him.

And it put Burt's career in shambles. It was already on the wane at that time. Yeah, it wasn't going great. But he's also, it's a movie set in Vegas and he's wearing a sharkskin suit the whole time. Yeah. Incredible content. Yeah. And they need him alone, which is, I think, worse. I can't remember. One of them is worse than the other, but they're both bad. Maloney's like an assassin or like, yeah. No, he goes to a small town. That's right. It's one of those movies. That's right. And it's the girl from Youngblood. I don't know. Yeah.

Okay. Great shock order award. We don't have CR, but I think it's the overhead shot when Hoffman says I'm so horny. So I was going to say the Sasquatch slow-mo on stiller hitting the guy's stomach with the sweat. No, you're right. That's it. That has to be it, right? You're right. That's and then it keeps going and it's got the doing the work in that scene spitting the guy's sweat out. Yeah, it's great. The Butch's girlfriend award for weak link of the film. What do you have for this? Um, hmm.

I have one, if you don't have one. Is there somebody who's not up to snuff in this movie? No, the weak link is the risk assessment list, Pauly versus Lisa, is just directly ripped off from season two Friends.

When Ross is dating the girl he brought back from China or whatever. Right. He makes the list. The pros and cons. And Chandler and Joey are like, you got to make a list and figure out he makes a list. And of course, Rachel finds the list and it becomes one of the most traumatic moments in the history of NBC. It's the same idea. Yeah. With Jennifer Aniston finding the list. I always thought that was super weird that they did that. Question for John Hamburg, I think. Yeah. That's a tricky one.

And only like four or five years after that happened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's tough. What's aged the worst?

I mean, E! True Hollywood Story, they don't have that anymore, right? So that's age the worst in a weird way, just because they don't exist. You could also say it's age the best because I used to really enjoy E! True Hollywood Story. It's a great time capsule. Also, the joke is so magnificent when he reveals that he hired those guys himself to shoot his own. I'm all in on the joke. I'm just saying the concept of that show. What is E! True Hollywood Story now? Now it's just like Instagram. Craig, what do 12-year-olds know about E! True Hollywood Story? Too busy being sad? Yeah, we're on TikTok. What's age the worst, Ben Stiller running or

Not you don't believe on a scale of one to cruise. I have a man 3.5 That's good. How about Hoffman's running, you know, and he's kind of circling the perimeter looking for the open shot We mentioned bar snacks so this story bummed me out this was in one of the one of the Hamburg's done some interviews about this movie and he said several years later

After an NYU alumni screening of the movie, Hamburg remembers walking home with Hoffman through Greenwich Village. As they talked, Hoffman recalled being initially frustrated by fans recognizing him on the street and shouting, let it rain. By then he'd won an Oscar and he'd worked with prestigious directors. Why was he still being recognized as the sharting, brick-throwing Sandy Lyle?

I think he wrestled with that for a little while, Hamburg says. I didn't like that Phil Hoffman was upset that he was in this movie. Oh, you know, famously complicated guy. And a little bit tortured. I think he's like...

liked doing stuff like this, but then also didn't like dealing with the ramifications of being in the public eye very often. Tortured artists in a lot of ways. It's just walking to get a pizza and somebody's like, white chocolate. That's the other thing is that he's a New York guy. He's from the state of New York. He also is very believable in a New York movie. Um, but yeah, if you're a famous person in New York and you want to spend time on the streets, sometimes people are going to talk about how you sharted in a movie, you know, these are the breaks.

Ruffalo Hannah Rubinick Partridge overacting word. They knew and they let it happen. Don't you call me lady. I come in here. I give these things to you. Give me all you got. Give me all you got. I treated you like a son. You fucking stabbed me in the heart. Fuck you. Fuck you. Ben Stower's salsa dance. He's dialed it up way too high in that one. Not a huge fan of that scene. Yeah, I don't like that scene that much.

Was there a better title for this movie? Hamburg said initially they were going to call it Sorry About Your Wife because remember he comes back from the honeymoon and it's like sorry about your wife and that was the title and they decided it was a little too much of a bummer. I think that would have been less commercial but more accurate. Sorry About Your Wife. Yeah.

I feel like A Long Came Polly is kind of a weird, sweet title for a movie that isn't that sweet. I agree. It's also confusing with something about Mary, A Long Came Polly. But it feels like that's what they're going for, right? They're almost trying to draw you into this. I think I like Sorry About Your Wife. It's good. Yeah, it's good. It feels more like, you know, there's an aspect of this movie that is very much like a kind of like a 70s comedy with George Segal or something. You could see it feels very similar to that kind of a thing. And A Long Came Polly is not what that movie, one of those movies would have been called.

The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford, hottest take award. I think there's like four other people from this decade I would have rather wanted in this movie than Ben Stiller. And I like Ben Stiller. I just feel like he played this character one too many times. This to me, and it's too early for him. It's a Paul Rudd movie, but he's not Paul Rudd yet. It's like in 2009. He's too handsome. Paul Rudd? You wouldn't believe.

Debra Messing cheating on him in the way that you would believe Stiller cheated on. Is Paul Rudd that handsome? I think so. Is he not? I never thought about Paul Rudd as like a...

Casanova. I think that is the hottest take right there. Do you? Is he a 10? He's a 10? Paul Rudd? I don't know if I'm qualified to weigh in on whether he's a 10 or not, but I think he's considered a handsome man. He plays the prince in Romeo and Juliet. But I think the point is that guy, Hank Azaria, is packing heat to the point that nobody has a chance. You think it was just completely dick related? Yeah, I do. Wow. She stared at him for three minutes. Like, is Paul Rudd in the same category to you as like Patrick Dempsey?

No. He's not. Paul Rudd is... He's not. He's on like the Jason Bateman level, which was the other guy I was thinking for this. Yeah, Bateman. Could this have been a Jason Bateman level? Bateman, I would believe. Rudd, I don't... Rudd is not... Anxiety is not the foremost trait that you get from Rudd. Yeah, he's pretty... Whereas with Bateman, he's chill. He's chill. Yeah. But here's where I landed for who this should have been. Okay.

Mike Myers. Yeah. He could have pulled this off. This is the So I Married an Expert or Mike Myers. I like this version of Mike Myers. And he didn't make enough of these movies and Ben Stoder made too many. Mike Myers only made one. Right. He just made So I Married an Expert. And Ben Stoder made seven. So we could have just flipped that seesaw. I do think Mike Myers could have been aided by not trying to be Peter Sellers all the time. Yeah. It would have been nice. Do you have a hottest day in honor of CR moving to Europe? I...

Debra Messing is a super weird celebrity now, but in this movie, I was like, yeah. She was great. Maybe Debra Messing over Jennifer Aniston? Is that crazy? Obviously, she cheated on him. That's not ideal, but she's pretty appealing in St. Bart's. Bitchy Debra Messing is the most I've ever liked Debra Messing. Pretty hot. Yeah. I don't know. I liked everything about what she... I liked her in the wedding scenes. I liked when she came back.

Yeah, that's an interesting one where could they have just flipped her and Aniston in this movie? What's the movie? Hmm. I don't think you can quite do. It would be more believable that Aniston would leave Stiller because she'd be like, I'm above you on the food chain, you know? I'm glad you brought that up. I really like messing in this movie. Casting what ifs, couldn't find any. Best that guy word, Missy Pyle. How many people know she's Missy Pyle? I don't know, but this is exactly what she does well.

Two scenes, the best friend gets at least two funny lines in the movie. Did you know her name was Missy Pyle? No, but I immediately recognized her. She wins best that guy. I actually didn't know her name until I was doing the IMDb research on it. This movie has a bunch of people who were that guys at the time. Right. Who emerged. There's one Kevin Hart scene. Yeah. There's one Cheryl Hines scene.

There's one other, Judah Friedlander, who would be in 30 Rock. There's like a handful of people here like, oh yeah, wow. Why is Cheryl Hines just playing the angry catering manager? Yeah, it was like a scene got cut. Kevin Hart looks so young in this movie. He looks like Kevin Hart's son playing the cameraman. Yeah, and this is before 40-Year-Old Virgin, right? Yeah. When he has the incredible scene in Best Buy.

Really tough Dion Waiters award, which I think speaks to the quality of this movie. Because we have Hank Azaria. The accent worked for you 100%? I think it worked. I think it's funny. Baldwin, accent definitely worked. Lou Ben. Brian Brown. Yep. Roxanne the waitress we just mentioned. And then I want to make a case for Ruben's mom, who's in like two scenes. She used to be Michelle Lee. She used to be on Dallas. She seven minutes played eight of nine from three.

I'm going to ask this nice native American man to get us a table. Can we get table? That seems unbelievable.

I think she wins. On the one hand, it's like a great joke because it's about like an older generation entering like a PC world and trying to be thoughtful but not having the tools to do it. On the other hand, didn't this woman like live in New York her whole life? How could she not understand? It's so funny. I think she wins. She's pretty funny. It's either her or Baldwin. I mean, the Baldwin probably... Most people would say, oh, Hank Azaria has to win, but I don't know. I don't know.

baldwin's good what does he say i knew she was a dime store hooker from the moment i met her yes you want to give it to baldwin let's give i love baldwin in this movie stan and durski recasting couch or director or city so i'm just going to give you some names for the jennifer aniston part okay just for thought experiment gwyneth paltrow 2004 gwyneth paltrow didn't she do shallow hell in 2004

Would you rather she did this? Yes, definitively. Yes. Again, Jennifer, Gwyneth Paltrow has a, an unrelatable quality that I think would have made this a little bit of a harder part for her. Okay. Like I think Jennifer Addison's good at being a girl who's like, yeah, I move around a lot and I can't really commit to things. And I'm a little all over the place where, whereas Gwyneth Paltrow is like a perfectly manicured human being. This is really a 1992 Meg Ryan part.

It's Meg Ryan. I'm not sleepless in Seattle, Meg Ryan. I'm going to get a little goofy. My hair's going to be a little weird. I'm going to be flighty. Totally. And that's, Meg Ryan was a one-on-one. So that's, it's a hard one to fill those shoes. But I'll give you a couple more. Okay. Winona Ryder. I think she was having some issues at this point, but there's the reality bites 10 years later. I could see her. She's a little older, a little flightier. Yep.

maybe some bad decisions and some miles on the odometer that you could see in the character. I thought she could have worked. You know who I thought about was like a mid-90s Geena Davis a little bit too. Oh. You know, like, because she played, you know, accidental tourist. Like a quick change. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That era. Katie Holmes, no. But I always wanted to see Katie Holmes in a movie like this before she got cruised. She never really recaptured why guys like me were infatuated with Joey.

You know, from Dawson's. Never did it. She never really like hit that in the movies. Because she never had a movie like this. Yeah. Why not? Why was she not a romantic comedy star? I guess she did do a few romantic comedies, but nothing that ever worked. Maybe the auditions didn't work. I liked her in Go. I thought she was good. Great in Go. Go's another one. See, we make it to 360 movies. Doug Liman. Limania. Two more choices. Our girl Heather Graham. I think she could have done it. She's extremely hot. I know. Like in a way that it is like...

Almost weird. Overpowers the movie. Yeah. Okay. She's Felicity Shagwell at this time. You know? She's not. All right. Well, I'm going to give you the winner. Michelle Williams. Is she not too young? Coming out of Dawson Creek.

She plays older. Okay. She's a year away from being Brokeback Mountain. You really had Dawson's on the brain. I just like, I always wanted to see Michelle Williams in a movie like this. Why does she always have to be in movies where the most traumatic things possible are happening to her? It's a great take. I don't know. It's like, oh, my husband's going fishing again with Jack Twist. Great. Yeah.

You're going to be gone for two days again, huh? Yeah. Let's have her in a happy movie where she's eating Moroccan food and, you know, hanging out with Phil Hoffman. Julia Louis-Dreyfus? Too old at this point? 04? Seven years after Seinfeld? Six years after Seinfeld? What about... That's not a bad one. Well, what if we just did a friend swap and it was Courtney Cox? I... No.

No, just a no. Nah, I don't think it. I actually think Lisa Kudrow would have been more realistic, but she's probably too old. Talk about who never really made it happen in the boobies. Yeah. But this brings my point. The Meg Ryan part is really hard. Let's take a break and then we'll do Tony Romo or Chris Collinsworth.

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Tony Romo or Chris Collinsworth, the director's commentary. I was actually thinking this is a good Collinsworth one. Oh, Al. He got the loofah out, Al. He's trying to clean that toilet. Look at this. I love bathroom humor, Al. I was thinking of doing the basketball scene too. Oh, Al. He's making it rain, Al. Look at that Sasquatch, Al. That guy's so hairy, Al. I do think Romo could do like, you know,

He's reaching for the cloth, Jim! Jim! He flushed the cloth! I was thinking of the boat. Oh, he's going to go on the boat, Jim! He's not going to like what he's going to see, Jim! Oh, he got their flippers on, Jim! Huge cock in Hankazeria, Jim! Sounds like a tripod! Debra's loving it, Jim! Have faster internet research. The ferret did bite Ben Stiller a couple times during production. Oh.

What did you think about the one moment when he was like, should I wipe with the ferret? It did make my wife go, no, he's not going to use the ferret. That was good. I like that. The building that Leland Van Loo, which we should have been West Sage the Best, the name Leland Van Loo. Yeah. That was our original choice if I had a son. We would have gone Leland Van Loo. Leland Van Loo fantasy. I like it.

That was the AT&T Tower, which is 611 West 6th Street. Not that far from the Spotify office. That was down here. Yeah. So maybe the movie wasn't filmed in New York. Maybe I've got that wrong. No, I think they just filmed that here. Oh, okay. So this is, I'm just going to read, because again, Hamburg for some reason gave a bunch of different interviews about this movie, but this is him talking about the boardroom scene. And he said, I had rewritten it the night before,

And Hoffman had come from more of a theater background and dramas where you don't change the script. Whereas I came from comedy where you're constantly writing. So it was my fault. He's basically saying Hoffman couldn't get the thing. Couldn't figure out his character for the boardroom scene. We broke for lunch. Alec Baldwin sat with him and did some sort of magic trick. He talked to him actor to actor, something I couldn't do. And Phil came back after lunch and it's the entire performance you see in the movie. I was just like, oh, I'm watching one of the great actors of our generation do this monologue. It was just magic.

He was so relieved and I was so relieved and so appreciative of Alec for looking out for a fellow actor. Alec Baldwin. I'm still in. I'm buying everybody's Alec Baldwin stock. I'm in. Give me your stock. Yeah. Can you trade stocks when you're in prison? I don't know. I'm not saying it's an expensive stock. Yeah. The sweaty guy in the basketball scene, they had to lather his chest with a glycerin solution that looked like sweat

And then they had him jumping into a trampoline and landing in a stiller's face so it could smack against it. And they did 12 takes. Never say Ben Stiller doesn't want it. He really wants it. He wants it. He wants it. Apex Mountain. Ben Stiller, no. No. Aniston. What is Ben Stiller's Apex Mountain? I mean, it's got to be Meet the Parents.

Wow. Yeah. Are you going to meet the parents? Yeah, it's on the list. Didn't Hamburg co-write that? I think he did. Yeah. That's how they... He worked with Stiller a bunch. Yeah. He wrote a lot of those movies. Not Zoolander? I don't think so. No, it's meet the parents because it's coming off of There's Something About Mary, then meet the parents. Then he can do whatever he wants. Okay. Aniston, no. Hoffman, no. But I think it's... We're getting close. Capote to Mission Impossible 3. Yep. Agree. Spanking, no. Debra Messing, probably yes. What year did Will and Grace start? It's...

In the 2000s. Remember when like 29 million people watched Will and Grace? I was one of them. I never watched one moment of it. I still don't know what the plot was. You don't know what the plot was? Was she Will or Grace? She was Grace. I'm kidding. I know she was Grace. So that show ran from 98 through 2006. Wow. I missed every episode. Komodo Dragons? Apex Mountain? No. No.

Ben Stiller bathroom mishaps in a movie. No. White chocolate. Is it Jason Williams? No, it's J. Will. It's gotta be. White chocolate was a problem. Yeah, he was a problem. He really was a problem. White chocolate was really literally a problem. What about, where did he go after Sacramento when he was like, oh, the heat. It was like, he's playing the game the right way now. Memphis. He went Memphis to Miami. Memphis and Miami, yeah. Throw pillows, possible. Apex Mountain.

I hate throw pillows. Big passion of my mom. She loves a throw pillow. Loves throw pillows and wine. How many pillows are on your bed right now? On my bed? Less than 10. I'll tell you right now, it's six on mine. Six. We've got a king-sized bed. Yeah. Two, two, two.

I think that's the math. No throw pillows. They're like just big pillows. They're like heavy pillow and then a regular pillow, big pillow, regular pillow, big pillow, regular pillow. That's the math. You don't need more than that. You probably don't need that many. Six is good. My mom is giant pillow, throw pillow, the mini throat. When people do the mini throw pillows, you're just a sociopath. You should be jailed. Yeah.

IBS? Possible. Apex? Possible for a movie. Just for all living humans or for a movie? Yeah, possible. It was early stage IBS. Jimmy Kimmel was the first person I'd ever met who had IBS. I've heard him talk about it a lot. Did work with him when he was in the bathroom, working on his monologue, putting him in the toilet for a half hour, talking to him through the door. So that was my first IBS experience. He's talked about it. I'm not telling secrets. Yeah, it's great.

Salsa? That was me not commenting on Jimmy Kimmel's IBS. Good non-comment. Salsa. There's probably been better salsa moments. There's probably been better moments of the ferret. Salsa is like, I don't know, like Save the Last Dance or Dirty Dancing or something like that. Hippo monologue is probably yes. You think this is the number one hippo monologue of all time? I remember another hippo monologue, yeah. You must be like the hippo. Hippo. All right, it's time. Wow. Crews or Hanks?

This is the best category in the podcast now. This is the toughest one we've had. Each one I've had a lean. I think you can make a case for both. I think Hanks absolutely could have played this, but I think Cruz trying to play Ruben. The answer always seems to be it's so much funnier if Cruz plays blank. That's it. Because...

Hanks could have made this movie in 1995. He could have been Ruben in 1995. I think he answers Hanks. But why would Tom Cruise be Ruben? Tom Cruise as Ruben is iconic. He would just never have done it. He never wants to be the loser in a movie. He wouldn't have done it. Hanks would have happily done it. Maybe that's what's been missing from Cruise's last decade is John Hamburg. The comic stylings of John Hamburg.

What do you think, Craig? Well, we have to decide what this category is. Is it... Cruise or Hanks? But is it a... The movie better with Cruise or Hanks? Better movie or funnier movie? Better movie. Better movie? Well, what is better? It's Tom Hanks. It's Hanks. Hanks is the answer. But like, does better mean more believable? Because if it's... If the answer is funnier movie to us, Cruise wins every single movie. It's always going to be funnier with Cruise. But better movie is a different one. But that is the... That's the decider in the great argument of this show.

That every movie is more enjoyable with Tom Cruise. But Cruise couldn't have been in like Saving Private Ryan. He absolutely could have. He just wouldn't have been as good as Tom Hanks. Maybe so, but he could have been in it. And there are so many Tom Cruise movies that Tom Hanks could never do.

Hanks wins this one. We're tied at four. Hanks is pulled back to even. I felt my thumb on the scale there. I think it's 4-3. I think it's 4-3 Cruise. You sure? I think so. I'll double check. I think it's 4-3. Craig, have you noticed Bill keeps doing Tom Cruise movies on their watchables without me? Yeah. What's going on? What do you think is going on there? We talk about this behind the scenes. What do you think's happening there? You can be in the next one. Because Bill feels compelled to do Cruise movies because they're so special. We've done 15. I know. They're great. There's 20 more.

Racehorse, Rock Band, Wrestler, or Fantasy Team Name. Crocodile Tears. Works for all of them. Crocodile Tears. Good fantasy football name. Could see Heifetz calling his team Crocodile Tears. I'll let him know. What about Al Hafez? It's not an epic place. It's called Al Hafez.

Picking nits. I mean, nobody lets their wife go scuba diving with a French guy with a giant crank who lifts her up and brings her into the boat to start off the scuba diving day. Do you wear those Speedos when you go to St. Barts? Not only do I not wear the Speedos, to me it's a character test. Oh, wow. You meet a man wearing a leopard print Speedo, you're out. Out. That's such a weird move. Who does that? Well, it's very French. It's weird. Okay. All right.

Should I throw away all my Speedos? Would CR do it? He's probably wearing one right now. He's in Europe, right? He's probably on the beaches of Greece. Yeah, luxuriating in a cheetah print Speedo. I could see Van Lathan wearing one. Absolutely. With a cowboy hat. Yeah, absolutely. Totally. We mentioned no way Ruben goes up to her place on first date with diarrhea in the works. Nitpick.

The poop date's going to be it for them. She's not calling again after the poop date. I mean, after watching him sweat his way through that meal, she'd be like, nice seeing you again. Farewell. They would not be going back to her apartment after that. He's disgusting. Yeah. It's a deal breaker. I have one more giant pick at Nick, but do you have any? I think the whole premise doesn't

It's not, they would never, I know opposites attract, but they just, the whole thing would just collapse in on itself the whole time. The whole time I was watching the movie, I was like, why is she into this? Yeah. What is the case? And there's even that scene where she's talking to Missy Pyle about it. And she's like, this feels like a sympathy thing. And she's like, no, no, no, I like him. And you don't really buy it. Agree. Here's my biggest pick in it. There's no fucking Knicks game in this movie. You've been stiller.

And you have Philip Seymour Hoffman, two of the most famous Knicks fans. Huge Knicks fans. Ben Stowers banned at all these games. If Philip Seymour Hoffman was alive, God rest his soul, he would have been at every one of these games. Yep. They couldn't have worked like Sandy and Ruben at a Knicks game talking about Pauly? What the fuck? We could have gotten... Think of who we could have gotten in the 2003 Knicks. Yeah. What a mess that would have been. Yeah, that would have been difficult. Who was on the 2003 Knicks? I'm going to look this up. But we could have had this...

Awesome 2003 Knicks scene with the legs of... That's right before Marbury, right? So they would have had to film it, what, fall of 2003? So that would have been... We had three coaches that year, Sean. We had Don Chaney, Herb Williams, and Lenny Wilkins. Yeah. Oh, you had Vin Baker, Howard Isley, and...

Allen Houston was still on the team. The Allen Houston contract was still on the team. Tim Thomas. Yeah. Kurt Thomas. Penny Hardaway. I guess. Keith Van Horn was on that team. Antonio McDyess. Jesus. Steph got traded. Steph got traded during that season. In 03 to 04. Yeah. I don't know what they were doing. The biggest miss, just the all-time layup. And we had basketball earlier in the movie.

Put Philip Seymour Hoffman. What jersey is he wearing in that scene? Oakley? No, Anthony Mason. Yeah. Anthony Mason. No question. Yeah. Good call. Can I add one small picking nit? Yeah. So Jennifer Aniston's character is a waitress. It doesn't appear she has a ton of money. She bought a $200 loofah. I think that's a character note that the reason that she's a waitress is because she does dumb shit like buying $200 loofahs. Okay. See, this is how I can tell Craig never waited or bartendered.

I was a host at a Mexican restaurant in high school. When you're getting that money, it becomes like Monopoly, where you have like three good nights around your... It's cash. That was when I bought my giant TV. I'm like, oh my God, I made $600 this week. And all of a sudden I was at... Any job where you get paid in cash, you think you're richer than you are. It's like drug money. I didn't even know there were $200 loofahs available that were being made. I'm not sure that there were necessarily, but...

It's like having, like, it's like being in a fantasy draft where you just have money. Yeah, I'm going to get Marvin Harrison Jr. for 48. That's me paying $26 for Malachi Corley in September. That's definitely going to happen. Did you do that? I probably will. Oh, this September? Yeah, I'm going to be like, this guy's going to be Aaron Rodgers' number one target. I also just want to say Malachi Corley as often as I can. Is he really going to start for the Jets? I think he's going to play out of the slot. Wow.

Would you rather have Alan Lazard in the slot? I don't think so. I would not. Sequel, prequel, prestige, TVL, Blackcast are untouchable. All Blackcast is kind of a fun premise for this. This is one that I feel like they could have remade. Okay, so who is it? Kevin Hart. Yeah. Who is it?

2004 or 2024? Yeah, 2004. It's Taye Diggs. Taye Diggs plays Hank Azaria. It's just pick anybody. Nia Long. Oh yeah, Taye Diggs. Yeah, Nia Long. It's Nia Long and Vivica A. Fox. And Vivica A. Fox is Debra Messing. Nia Long is Jennifer Aniston. Gosh, who else is in this movie? Who's like Cedric the Entertainer is Sandy Lyle.

Who else? This movie sounds great. Could be a funny movie. Yeah, that's... Who plays the parents? It's like Ozzie Davis is the dad and he has the one speech and he's got gravitas. Yeah. Yeah, I think this would be a good movie. I feel like David Alan Greer is here somewhere. Absolutely. He's in Dursky. Yeah, he's in Dursky. Great, we did it.

Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Sam Jackson, JT Walsh, Byron Mayo, Harley Mays, evil laughing Ramon Raymond, or Philip Edgar Hall? I actually have Ramon Raymond for this one as in the salsa scene. He just comes in and says, what are you doing, Ramon? He's Javier? Yeah, okay. That's good. That's pretty good. I couldn't even possibly fathom trying to do Bernthal, so I won't. Just want to ask her who gets it.

Clearly Hoffman. Here's your best supporting actors for that year, just for the hell of it. Morgan Freeman wins for Million Dollar Baby, a movie that should be shot into the sun, eviscerated and burned. Okay. It's a very reasonable opinion. Even for Rock Bottom Month, we were like, fuck off. Who's we? Me. Me and the committee. Alan Alda for The Aviator? That's a weird one. Literally don't remember what his part was. I like The Aviator, but I don't even... So that spot's open. Yeah.

Thomas Hayden Church in Sideways. Great. Great one. Jamie Foxx in Collateral. I'm fine with it. Pretty good. Why wasn't Cruise nominated there? Is Cruise the star? Isn't Jamie Foxx the star of Collateral? Jamie Foxx was the star of Collateral. He's in... He's nominated for Best Supporting Actor? Pretty much every scene. Yeah. The Oscars. That's weird. Weird.

Clive Owen for closer. Yo, homie, is that my briefcase? Cruz, the man. Clive Owen in closer is Larry Gray. Pretty sure we could redo that one. I kind of like closer. Also could have been rock bottom month. Some tough times in closer. I feel like Hoffman could have snuck in there. Imagine if he got nominated for this. He's like, what? And they showed the sharting scene and hit the Oscar clip. Probably unanswerable questions. Was Philip Seymour Hoffman actually good at basketball?

I think there's signs that he was. So... There's a coordination that you could tell he's intentionally tanking the shooting. He's in a really sad movie called Love, Liza. And there's another... There's a scene in that movie where he shoots hoops alone in a gym. And you can tell, like, he kind of knows what he's doing. Yeah. I saw Love, Liza. Yeah. It's pretty depressing. He made a couple...

Depressing ones. Owning Mahoney, it's a tough one. Some sad ones, yeah. Savages, it's a sad one. So this is actually a debate on the internets. Did this movie invent sharting? Had anyone ever thought of the word shart before? I think a man had sharted before. That's something I can confirm. Sharting had happened. Had anyone ever called it a shart? My career has been leading to this moment. The theory was...

The theory was sharding existed pre-movie, but this popularized the shard. Absolutely. I mean, cavemen, they sharded, of course. The actual name sharding. Somebody saying, I sharded. Did John Hamburg coin the term sharding? That's the debate.

I would say maybe he didn't invent it, but that it had been in the ether. It had been in the world. That's how I feel. It had been in fraternities. It had been in the universe of discussion, and he popularized it. It's like how I invented Las Vegas, the modern Las Vegas. It's the same thing. When I started going, same thing for John Hamburg and sharding. I have your back 100% on that. Thank you. Appreciate it. So Hamburg says something here.

In one of the many interviews he did about this movie. And I just wanted to talk about it with you. You were really grinding tape on this one. Yeah. Going through the Hamburg interviews. I love it. I really like this movie. He said, I think some movies, if you have a bathroom scene, you have a true uphill battle to get good reviews. I just feel like some people can't see beyond that and can't look at it like, oh, this is a real life situation. We've all been in these situations. Mm-hmm.

Does a bathroom scene automatically drop you by like a star? It's an interesting concept. Critically. Like would Ebert have given this a three if there was no bathroom scene? But isn't there something about Mary critically acclaimed? True. So that's where Hamburg's theory falls apart. So I feel like actually it's shit. If there's a scene where shit is in the movie, that kills it. Down a star. Okay. Best double feature choice with this movie?

Would you go another Ben Stiller movie or would you go another funny Hoffman movie? So neither. I would do the original The Heartbreak Kid with Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd, which is a masterpiece Elaine May movie that is very funny and has a very similar setup. And also is about like discomfort and weirdness and anxiety. I like that movie. Yeah, it's really funny. That was one of those classic, why are we making this? Who wants this? The first one, the original is perfect. And then the new one kind of misunderstood what made the first one so perfect, but whatever.

The Indian Reds of Watanay Award, what happened the next day? Hamburg says they never got married, but started a family and they're with their kids surfing in Costa Rica. Is there any chance Debra Messing may have come back there? Or she popped in one night and was like, hey, still thinking about you? My take is they last like four more weeks. And maybe he does end up with Debra Messing. Is it Polly's fault or is it Ruben's fault? I just don't know how good of a hang Ruben was. Did not seem very good.

It's like, oh, you learned a salsa with Javier for me. Is Ben Stiller the most successful actor of all time at playing guys? You're like, I don't think I want to hang out with that guy. Yeah, he's a rough hang. Who is he? Seems like a nice guy for life. No, but the characters he picks, they're always, but I think that's why he picks them. Like meet the parents. He's a nurse and that becomes the running joke. There's always some form of weakness that somebody can pick a scab with him. Yep. That's his move.

What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? There's clearly one answer. The game used basketball from Hoffman in the rain dance. Craig told me before we started recording the loofah. That's what he wanted. $200 loofah? Yeah, game used. Okay. Coach Finstock Award for best life lesson? Well, it's got to be the father's speech, right? Enjoy the ride. Just like you told me in 2012. And then who won the movie? Hoffman.

Do you think that, were people saying that in 2004? That Phil Hoffman won this movie? I don't know because I didn't see the movie until it was on cable and Hoffman was the thing that jumped out at me right away. I would have thought actually they probably felt like Aniston having a hit

was probably the winner winner initially right yeah no that's a good call it's like oh aniston finally she did it yeah and her name in the title of the movie and yeah she's on the poster and it's sold maybe she can be a rom-com star yeah but now it's clearly hoffman all right what'd you think craig i hadn't seen this in a long time i can't remember the first time i saw it and it kind of just lives in clips now because i think of the hoffman scene um yeah like if you look at other 04 comedies it's like or around then anchorman and

a 40-year-old virgin in like old school. I don't think it's on that level. It's definitely like a B comedy compared to it. But it's really enjoyable. It's almost like a great like background comedy now. But if this movie came out today, I would be afraid that it, I don't know, it would just get buried and nobody would be able to find it. I think one thing that was so nice about 04 was like,

because of the lack of competition for people's attention, this movie just had time to breathe and it was on cable and everybody was always constantly being reminded about this movie. It's like if there were only 100 movies on Netflix, maybe No Hard Feelings would be a huge hit because it would just be one of the only things you can watch. And I think that's kind of why this movie has endured because from 04 to 14, they're just like, I don't know, you were just on cable and this was on all the time. And so you could just see it more. And now No Hard Feelings will be buried amongst

10,000 other movies every day, even though it might just be, it might be just as good. I have a pop quiz for you guys related to the point that Craig is making. Can you name the last movie that John Hamburg directed? No. What is it? It came out in 2022. It's called Me Time. It starred Mark Wahlberg and Kevin Hart.

And it went straight to Netflix. Yeah. And that is not a, is that a movie to anyone? Me time. Like that's a movie with two bonafide movie stars. Probably like a hundred million dollar budget. Yes. Huge movie from the director of Along Came Polly and I Love You Man and big comedy hits. And who saw that movie? Is that, has there ever been a conversation outside of the one we're having right now about that movie? Like that is actually exactly what you're describing.

You know, I was talking to my daughter yesterday and she was texting me. She was like, you're not going to believe what I'm binging right now. I'm like, what? Sex in the city. I'm halfway through season two. Liz is rewatching that right now too. We had been trying to get her to watch sex in the city for five years. Cause it was like, there's no way. My daughter actually has a sense of humor. It was like, there's no way you're not going to like this. And she's like, those girls are kind of gross. They're too old. It's an old person show. But then it went on Netflix.

And now she's ripping through it and she's like, these four are so funny. The show's so great. Oh my God. I wish I had started watching it sooner. The only reason she watched it was because it was on that Netflix, that first thing. So it makes me think like, does Netflix have the power to just do that to anything? Like if Along Came Polly was just in the new movie thing, would this become a massive movie for a month?

Just because Netflix was like, hey, this movie. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I... What has ever in our lifetime had more power than Netflix deciding we'll put this in our carousel? I mean, NBC at 8.30 on Thursdays in 1997. Not with movies, though. Not with movies, no. With movies, no. I mean, just the sheer audience, the hundreds of millions of subscribers, there's nothing to compare it to. Felt like in the 80s, HBO, when they premiered a new movie...

Like, I remember they would be like, next month, Rambo First Blood Part II. Like, oh my God. Yeah. Rambo's gonna be on HBO. But you gotta think about it like this. Like, not to be the biggest dork version of myself, but in 1930...

When there was nothing to do at all in the universe. Whatever was in the movie theater. Every single person in America went to the movies because it was affordable and it was the number one form of entertainment. Well, that was The Godfather. It was in the movies for, what, nine months? And that's almost 50 years later than what I'm talking about. Like, you've got to imagine a world in which there's 250 million people and they're all watching movies. I'm talking about the power of a movie that otherwise would not be considered. Just having somebody with this magic wand being like, boom.

And now all of a sudden that movie becomes like, cause Netflix has done that over and over again. Like they just did it with the accountant, which I think, and it's probably the accountant will probably be doing in the rewatchables pretty soon. Good movie. A good movie. Gavin O'Connor.

like it. Yeah. And then it was in the Netflix went through the system and it's been on and it's on and it has these different legs now. But my point about me time is that they actually can't always do it with their own movies. Like Rebel Moon they want it to be their Star Wars. Yeah. And people are like Star Wars on Netflix I don't know if that really makes sense. I want to see Star Wars in a movie theater. Right. But a movie like you're describing is

It's like, oh, The Accountant. This is easy to watch at home. Or like the way that Craig described Along Came Polly. It's like put it on the background. But it's rom-coms, it's smart action movies, and it's horror movies. Those are the three things that if Netflix just cherry picks anything and throws them on, it seems like it works. Because people decided that they're comfortable watching those movies at home. Yeah. And the algorithm likes it.

Sean Fennessey, great to see you. This podcast was produced by Craig Horlbeck. Hank Azaria, man, absolutely yoked in this movie. What was that guy doing off screen? He is so big. How is he so ripped in this film? And then at the end, Ben Stiller also seems kind of ripped when he's walking in. Like, it seems like everybody was doing squats.

Hank is one of the more ripped people I've ever seen on screen that isn't an athlete. He is shockingly cut. Honestly, he showed this off in the birdcage like 10 years earlier, too, where he's playing the housekeeper and he's also jacked. Was he taking steroids? You can't really look like that unless that's your job. Yeah, he looks like he's in the Iron Claw. He's so big. Zach Efron. I don't know how he got so big. He had a match with Bret Hart that night after Lou Ben. Well, do you think...

After Pacino yelled at him, because you got a great ass! Or he's got a great ass. He got your head all the way up it. And he's like, ah, I'm not strong enough right now. Man. Good call, Craig. Craig, good to see you. We'll see you next week on The Rewatch List.