The Stephen A. Smith Hottest Take Award
Burns’s unrealized movie-star career; Out of Sight or The Truman Show for Best Picture
In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 01:20:28Read transcript
- The suggestion that the last battle is better than the first is considered but withdrawn as a take the speaker does not fully believe.
- Burns is praised as excellent and as a potential major mainstream star whose focus on writing and directing repetitive personal films limited his acting career.
- Burns is imagined in the commercial lane Affleck occupied, including Reindeer Games and Pearl Harbor; Affleck replacing him in Ryan is considered possible but inferior.
- Burns’s familiar Long Island charm is described as appealing for a few hours but lacking a further dimension, beginning a counterargument about his range.
- Burns’s films are described as variations on the same romantic problem; his real-life attractiveness and relationships make his unlucky-in-love persona less convincing. His screen presence is distinguished from acting range.
- The gap before 15 Minutes and the subsequent film choices are cited as missed opportunities for a cop or crime movie; replacing Norton in 25th Hour is floated but Norton’s greater acting ability is acknowledged.
- A Long Island crime film is imagined as a direction Burns never pursued, with the geographical difficulty of escaping after a bank robbery becoming a joke.
- The assumption that Ryan deserved Best Picture is challenged through a present-day preference for watching Out of Sight, leading to a debate about what Oscars should reward.
- The Truman Show is proposed as the more original and prescient film of its moment, with Carrey at his peak.