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The Rewatchables ·

Training Day

year 2001decade 00sdirector Antoine Fuquagenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennesseyhost Shea Serrano
All 15 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 17:33

Diner scene (2-1 in studio) vs poker/table scene (Shea's pick makes it 2-2)

Four candidates are laid out: Denzel bullying Ethan Hawke into smoking pot that turns out to be PCP, an amazing mental chess match of challenging somebody's manhood; the nine-minute robbery of Scott Glenn, where the crew goes back to shoot him and take his money and the guy in the bulletproof vest really does get shot, which Jake refuses to join; the poker scene with the Latino gang at Smiley's house, which has no Denzel in it; and the final Denzel-versus-Hawke shootout in the house.

Their first meeting in the diner, the 'tell me a story' scene, is one host's favorite and makes it five candidates; the 'this is a newspaper' beat is recited.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 59:08

"King Kong ain't got shit on me"

Nominees recited: 'King Kong ain't got shit on me', noted as an ad lib, 'man the fuck up', 'finish that shit', 'all that jelly no toast', 'it ain't checkers' and about a hundred others; it has got to be the King Kong one.

The film

Training Day (2001)

Directed by Antoine Fuqua · Drama

122 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Denzel Washington Detective Alonzo Harris ( LAPD )
Ethan Hawke Officer Jake Hoyt (LAPD)
Scott Glenn Roger
Tom Berenger Stan Gursky ( LA County DA's Office )
Harris Yulin Detective Doug Rosselli (LAPD)
Raymond J. Barry Captain Lou Jacobs (LAPD)
Cliff Curtis Smiley
Jason Lopez Merit
Dr. Dre Paul (LAPD)
Snoop Dogg Blue
Macy Gray Sandman's wife
Eva Mendes Sara
Nick Chinlund Tim (LAPD)
Jaime P. Gomez Mark (LAPD)
Raymond Cruz Sniper
Noel Gugliemi Moreno
Kyjel N. Jolly Alonzo's son
Peter Greene Jeff (LAPD) (uncredited)
Terry Crews a gang member (uncredited)

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

17:33

Most Rewatchable Scene

Diner scene (2-1 in studio) vs poker/table scene (Shea's pick makes it 2-2)

Diner scene (2-1 in studio) vs poker/table scene (Shea's pick makes it 2-2)

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:17:33Read transcript
  • Four candidates are laid out: Denzel bullying Ethan Hawke into smoking pot that turns out to be PCP, an amazing mental chess match of challenging somebody's manhood; the nine-minute robbery of Scott Glenn, where the crew goes back to shoot him and take his money and the guy in the bulletproof vest really does get shot, which Jake refuses to join; the poker scene with the Latino gang at Smiley's house, which has no Denzel in it; and the final Denzel-versus-Hawke shootout in the house.
  • Their first meeting in the diner, the 'tell me a story' scene, is one host's favorite and makes it five candidates; the 'this is a newspaper' beat is recited.
  • Asked whether any character in a lifetime of watching movies resembles Alonzo, the answer is that he resembles older guys on a high school team: charismatic but terrifying, guys who could kick your ass but whom you might also die for, messing with you while trying to indoctrinate you, leaving a younger man completely confused; as a younger man this host thought that way about Dave Jacoby. — Chris Ryan
  • Another voice objects that Jacoby is not threatening and is told they did not know him back then; picks then split, with one host going diner scene alongside Sean and reciting the 'tell me a story' exchange, and another going poker scene for the Latino street gang's crude 'shit pushed in' question.
  • Revisiting it during the nitpicks, one host thinks the most rewatchable scene might be the one after the diner where Alonzo makes Jake take the drugs, with Alonzo pulling a gun on another motorist who just stays cool and stopping in the middle of intersections.
  • Asked for a favorite scene seventeen years later, the phoned-in answer is the table scene, the best scene in the movie even though it does not involve Denzel; another voice says that was their case too and that the boys picked the diner scene.
  • The diner scene is called good, but the poker scene is an incredible nine minutes that left one viewer tense, back knotted and stomach nervous, not knowing how Jake gets out; the escalation is laid out from gangsters taking your gun, to your ride leaving, to being asked a crude question, which is the end of the line.
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20:42

Biggest Oscar Travesty

Ethan Hawke losing Best Supporting Actor to Jim Broadbent in Iris

Ethan Hawke losing Best Supporting Actor to Jim Broadbent in Iris

In the discussion (10)
Approx. transcript time · 00:20:42Read transcript
  • The new category is introduced as something these podcasts have circled before; it is expected to be really funny for a Roadhouse episode, with a case that Ben Gazzara was robbed in 1989 and for the Jeff Healy Band (as transcribed) for Best Original Song.
  • 2001 was a dark Oscars: A Beautiful Mind won Best Picture over Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, Lord of the Rings and Moulin Rouge with no Training Day, and Ron Howard won Best Director over Ridley Scott for Black Hawk Down, Robert Altman for Gosford Park, Peter Jackson and David Lynch for Mulholland Drive, with no Antoine Fuqua.
  • Several of those nominees are liked, In the Bedroom a lot and Gosford Park pretty good, but Fuqua and Training Day should have been nominated; Lord of the Rings was a tough hang that soaked up nominations for years in a way Star Wars never could, even though one host would take Star Wars a hundred times.
  • Early validation from a nomination might have set Fuqua on a different course, since the movies he made after this resemble Training Day; Denzel's Best Actor win over Russell Crowe, Sean Penn in I Am Sam, Will Smith in Ali and Tom Wilkinson in In the Bedroom is fine, and Halle Berry won for Monsters Ball (as transcribed).
  • Best Supporting Actor is the travesty that keeps one host up at night: the field was Ethan Hawke, Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast, Ian McKellen in Lord of the Rings, Jon Voight in Ali for about three minutes, and Jim Broadbent in Iris, and Broadbent won.
  • As in Rain Man, where Tom Cruise is the best person in the movie but Dustin Hoffman won, the performer who blows everyone away obscures how good the other one was; Hawke had to avoid being blown away by Denzel, be on PCP for half an hour and be believable in the fight scenes, which is likened to Chris Paul playing on a hamstring.
  • Nobody here would pick Kingsley in Sexy Beast over Hawke, though he is good in it; two-hander movies like Butch and Sundance, The Sting, The Color of Money and Rain Man raise the question of how filmmakers present the straight man, and Redford is seen as more important than Hoffman in All the President's Men.
  • Hawke is in more scenes and the movie starts in his house, so he could be argued as the lead with Denzel supporting, but really both were best actors, and doing it otherwise is like making Geena Davis supporting in Thelma and Louise.
  • Later, on the phone, the Hawke loss to Jim Broadbent is called terrible and one of the few times an actor was right there with Denzel, alongside Viola in Fences, Morgan Freeman in Glory and Hanks in Philadelphia; he should have gotten that award.
  • Earlier, the hosts note Denzel had only a supporting Oscar before this, having been passed over for Malcolm X, He Got Game, The Hurricane and Remember the Titans.
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25:05

What’s Aged the Best?

The Dr. Dre needle drop and the film's L.A. feel; the two lead performances; the anti-hero crime storytelling that an...

The Dr. Dre needle drop and the film's L.A. feel; the two lead performances; the anti-hero crime storytelling that anticipated The Shield; Fuqua's modern, propulsive direction; Ethan Hawke's career moment

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:25:05Read transcript
  • Hearing the Dr. Dre song takes one host straight back to 2001, the second decade of hip hop, with Dre then turning up in the movie later; the music and the legitimately L.A. feel are that host's pick.
  • The two performances discussed for thirty minutes still work perfectly; the film sits close to where TV was heading, the anti-hero era of The Shield that became consistent in cop and drug-dealer stories, and the Denzel performance splits the difference between that and the Sidney Lumet and French Connection documentary grit of the 70s, in a period with fewer crime movies than anyone in the room would like.
  • The direction is totally modern with nothing dated, like Fight Club; Fuqua is slick and bright, Hollywood dirty, with great pace and propulsive movies even when they are not good, a cross between Michael Bay and William Friedkin, and the locations are authentic even though parts of this movie do not hang together.
  • Ethan Hawke has aged nicely, this being the next step after Reality Bites, Before Sunrise and Gattaca; they will give him an Oscar at 70 for a grand old man performance even though he deserved one for six or seven movies, like a player who never won the MVP but could have.
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28:08

What’s Aged the Worst?

Dr. Dre's performance; Macy Gray's appearance; the opening scene with Jake's wife

Dr. Dre's performance; Macy Gray's appearance; the opening scene with Jake's wife

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:28:08Read transcript
  • Dr. Dre's performance was bad then and is worse now that there is more history with him; it was a miscast, in sharp relief against Snoop, who won that head-to-head.
  • Macy Gray's appearance was not bad but sticks out like a sore thumb because she is no longer part of the culture the way Snoop and Dre are.
  • The opening family scene with Jake's wife feels like something added after a test screening to get a strong female character, a weird, bad first five minutes with bad dialogue about bringing it and making the shield, though it may set up his return home at the end.
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29:11

Casting What-Ifs

Tobey Maguire trained for the Hawke role but Fuqua was never sold on him; Davis Guggenheim was set to direct Sam Jack...

Tobey Maguire trained for the Hawke role but Fuqua was never sold on him; Davis Guggenheim was set to direct Sam Jackson and Matt Damon; Eminem and Christian Bale turned down Jake Hoyt; Mickey Rourke was Fuqua's first choice for Roger; Bruce Willis turned down Alonzo; Gary Sinise and Tom Sizemore were attached

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:29:11Read transcript
  • Woven through the ZipRecruiter read: casting Tobey Maguire in the Ethan Hawke role would have been disastrous; Maguire spent two months on undercover narcotics runs, lost weight and got in crazy shape, but Anton Fuqua (as transcribed) was never 100% sold; he would have crushed Smiley in the poker scene holding pocket rockets.
  • Davis Guggenheim was set to direct with Sam Jackson and Matt Damon as the stars; that movie wins no Oscar, and Jackson would have been almost a parody of Denzel, red meat and meta where Denzel feels real and cinematic, though one host would have watched it and thinks it could have worked.
  • Eminem and Christian Bale allegedly turned down Jake Hoyt; Eminem is really good in 8 Mile and very funny in Funny People, and his career would differ if he had gone Will Smith and left music, but he could not have played this role, and it is hard to imagine him punked for 90 minutes or fighting Denzel, since he is pretty skinny.
  • Mickey Rourke was Fuqua's first choice for Roger but the studio turned it down; Bruce Willis allegedly turned down Alonzo, which had the potential to be awful; Gary Sinise and Tom Sizemore were attached, with Sizemore basically making Training Day on his own, driving around L.A. with PCP.
  • Earlier, Will Smith in Training Day is imagined as just weird; nobody else could have played Alonzo, and the what-ifs are promised for later.
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32:26

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Snoop Dogg; Cliff Curtis as Smiley

Snoop Dogg; Cliff Curtis as Smiley

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:32:26Read transcript
  • Nominees are Snoop Dogg in a wheelchair, Eva Mendes in a rookie performance and Tom Berenger, with Smiley and Bone added as the other two heat check performances.
  • Tom Berenger looks exactly like this host's father, which is disorienting, so Berenger from Training Day to Inception is like watching that father in a movie; Berenger also plays a narcotics cop here, which the father is. — Sean Fennessey
  • Berenger was a massive star for about six years after The Big Chill and Platoon, shows up as the Marine recruiting Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July, and Someone to Watch Over Me, with Mimi Rogers, is slated for year seven of the show.
  • Scott Glenn is ruled out as a Dion Waiters candidate because he is coming up in a different category and one host is not allowed to talk about him yet, though when asked for a heat check a voice still answers Scott Glenn.
  • Snoop, by all accounts, should have been bad and Snoop in a wheelchair should have been one of the biggest movie disasters, but his crack-corner lines are recited admiringly as really good Snoop stuff; a nomination for Harris Ewan (as transcribed) is held for another new category.
  • Bone was played by Klee Shahid Sloan (as transcribed), an activist and documentary director who worked to reform gang culture from inside the Athens Park Bloods, part of how much Fuqua worked within L.A. gang culture to make the movie authentic.
  • One host gives it to Cliff Curtis for Smiley, now on Fear the Walking Dead and great in Danny Boyle's Sunshine: Smiley did not have to be so interesting, making you feel it will be okay with menace underneath and the tattoos; another concedes Smiley is great but gives it to Snoop Dogg because it was so unexpected.
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35:24

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

Scott Glenn; Harris Ulan (as transcribed)

Scott Glenn; Harris Ulan (as transcribed)

In the discussion (13)
Approx. transcript time · 00:35:24Read transcript
  • The segment is announced as 'New category. The Joe Pantoliano Award' and named for Joe Pantoliano, which is why it is recorded under the existing Joey Pants that-guy family.
  • The award is for a then-that-guy who became a that guy or never did: Joe Pantoliano was Guido the Killer Pimp and the guy from the Cruisers movie for five years, then Running Scared, The Matrix and The Sopranos made him Joey Pants; the two nominees are Scott Glenn and Harris Ulan (as transcribed).
  • Harris Ulan (as transcribed) is a flat-out that guy: a hundred movies, almost always evil, usually the lieutenant or someone in the DA's or mayor's office, an amazing theater actor; the two performances burned in are the judge in Ghostbusters 2 and Mel Burstead (as transcribed) in Scarface, a role he has essentially played for 35 years, including a version of it here.
  • Scott Glenn's recognition of Hoyt as a strong safety from North Hollywood High is recited, and his one-shot character in the Apocalypse Now director's cut, painted and surrounded by Montagnard Indians at Brando's compound, is imagined coming back to the States to become an L.A. drug dealer who scouts high school defensive backs.
  • Why does Roger wear a black tank top tucked into jeans with a green bathrobe, drinking scotch at 10 in the morning, with a photographic memory for a player from 10 or 15 years earlier, before YouTube mixtapes, like the invention of Pro Football Focus; weird little flourishes like this elevate the movie.
  • Roger is understood as an ex-cop turned dealer, and there is a brand of cop really into local athletics who goes to high school games for no reason and asks about the quarterback, a provincial type who probably has a Letterman jacket from 1957.
  • The script had been banging around since the mid-90s and is based on the Rampart scandal, drawing on the Raphael Perez (as transcribed) case of cops stealing and selling drugs, with Alonzo modeled on Perez down to the beard and look.
  • Wesley Morris's 'there can only be one' market-correction game: Tommy Lee Jones market-corrected Scott Glenn; Glenn was the rival who sleeps with Debra Winger in Urban Cowboy, a weird film that has not aged well, while Jones was in The Executioner's Song with Rosanna Arquette, and they ran parallel through the 80s until The Fugitive and Under Siege made Jones a top-tier star and left Glenn to play Roger.
  • Glenn belongs to the early-80s generation of The Right Stuff, Silverado and Terms of Endearment whose careers were derailed by the mid-to-late-80s action boom; he took second-in-command roles in The Hunt for Red October, Silence of the Lambs as Jack Crawford, The Player, Backdraft and Absolute Power, grouped with Kline, Costner and Dennis Quaid.
  • Personal Best, Robert Towns's (as transcribed) directorial debut, is a weird film that has aged badly and incredibly well at once, with Glenn's character crazy and the two-athletes-falling-for-one-another premise interesting; it will never be on the show.
  • One voice thinks it has to go to Scott Glenn; another argues for Harris Ulan (as transcribed) because Glenn was already Scott Glenn, Alan Shepard in The Right Stuff, a known quantity 20 years earlier; Roger is called his best part, three great scenes, though the other would take Personal Best and The Right Stuff over it, and no single pick is settled.
  • Roger's football recall is riffed on: the game against Crenshaw, picking off two passes, going nickel in the third quarter, the safety blitz, all offered with scotch and a bathrobe.
  • Earlier, during the heat check, a nomination for Harris Ewan (as transcribed) was held for this new category.
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44:21

Half-Assed Internet Research

Fuqua gave the poker-scene actors instructions without telling Hawke, who did not understand the card game; 'fuck' is...

Fuqua gave the poker-scene actors instructions without telling Hawke, who did not understand the card game; 'fuck' is used 211 times; the opening diner was also the Seven diner where Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow meet; the studio wanted to cut the three wise men scene

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:44:21Read transcript
  • During the card game Antoine Fuqua gave the gangster actors instructions without telling Hawke, who did not understand what game they were playing, so he would seem more confused; the over/under on the word fuck draws guesses of 72 and 47 against an answer of 211.
  • The opening coffee shop was also used in Seven for Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow's first meeting, two scenes with a lot of dark humanity between two people; an oral history of that diner is proposed, and, in the spirit of buying the Boogie Nights house, buying the diner on 7th and putting the Ringer offices there.
  • The studio wanted to cut the three wise men out and the scene was fought for and kept, allegedly; it is one of the half scenes in the movie but thought necessary.
  • Asked whether the research covered Hawke knowing Denzel would slam the diner table, it did not, but the guess is he did not know and Denzel did it to throw him off; the King Kong line was definitely ad-libbed, and in the poker scene the rules were mixed up on Hawke and the other actors told to do weird things so he would be confused and uneasy.
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47:53

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

Smiley's a crazy poker buddy (as transcribed)

Smiley's a crazy poker buddy (as transcribed)

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:47:53Read transcript
  • The 'they knew' bit is skipped because there is really one person, 'Smiley's a crazy poker buddy' as the transcript has it, which reads as Smiley's crazy poker buddy, really feeling it and ratcheted up, as if Antoine told him to go up two more levels and passed him some of the PCP, out of control.
  • The white kid in the driver's seat of the Volkswagen Beetle, apologizing, was really solid and is thought to be Fran Kranz, Joss Whedon's guy.
  • Denzel has no chance of landing in the overacting category, even though he draws out the diner scene and the two-gun scene feels like an Oscar play; the diner is the only case to make, since the character was not fully figured out and he is doing the Jay Pharoah version of Denzel with all the tics rather than just being Alonzo.
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48:41

Apex Mountain

Antoine Fuqua; Denzel Washington (1 yes in room, 2 for Malcolm X; Shea splits acting vs cultural); Ethan Hawke (one y...

Antoine Fuqua; Denzel Washington (1 yes in room, 2 for Malcolm X; Shea splits acting vs cultural); Ethan Hawke (one yes, one switched to 2001, one for Before Sunset)

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 00:48:41Read transcript
  • Ethan Hawke gets an initial no; the alternative apex offered is Before Sunset, the second one, which came after Training Day, with Before Midnight and Before Sunrise also liked, Reality Bites arguable as his movie-star apex, and Boyhood, where he is amazing but not on screen much.
  • Whether who you are married to counts prompts the ruling, deferred to the person who invented the show and the category, that it is only about performance, not life; still, the case for 2001 is made, a hot celebrity couple and a respected actor newly proven in action, and one host switches their pick to 01 while another stays with Before Sunset.
  • Hawke's turn in Fuqua's Brooklyn's Finest, basically playing Alonzo, gets a shout-out as an idea hatched at 2:30 in the morning after eight beers.
  • Antoine Fuqua is a yes: a good career, but how do you top directing Denzel at his peak performance, something to tell your grandkids; The Equalizer 2 is the most anticipated movie of the year for one host's father, Dr. Bill, who loves Denzel and The Equalizer and should have been on the episode, and of the four Denzel-Fuqua movies this is by far the best.
  • Eva Mendes and the other supporting people are not at their peaks here; Scott Glenn's apex is The Right Stuff, when in the 80s he looked like a potential top-tier actor.
  • Denzel gets a yes from one host; others answer Malcolm X, a movie about one man featuring three primary characters played by the same actor, a 19-year-old gangster, a 25-year-old militant and a 30-year-old spiritual leader; the Training Day case is that Denzel, already America's most beloved actor with a unanimous approval rating, lacked an Oscar and a Michael Jordan 1992 Finals moment and then played a part nobody else could in a movie that should not have worked; it is called neck and neck, a total coin flip.
  • Favorite recent Denzel: Flight is growing on one host, the two Travolta movies are liked and Unstoppable is called better with a fun Chris Pine; Denzel inhabits characters for better and worse, probably smoking for three months here and drinking through Flight, and he struggles only when he tries something smaller that recesses from essential Denzel-ness, as with Roman J. Israel.
  • On the phone, the acting apex is Malcolm X for a single performance, but the cultural apex, the Denzel moment, is Training Day for sure: everyone followed along waiting for the Oscar, Halle won the same year right before him, and his two-birds-with-one-stone comment played out perfectly.
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54:30

Is This Movie Better With…?

Yes: any of the poker-scene gangsters, any of the dirty cops, Alonzo or Jake Hoyt

Yes: any of the poker-scene gangsters, any of the dirty cops, Alonzo or Jake Hoyt

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:54:30Read transcript
  • Called the easiest category: Trejo could have played all five guys in the poker scene, with CGI, any of the dirty cops, Alonzo or Jake Hoyt, everyone except the three wise men; a David Ayer L.A. crime movie is where Danny Trejo eats.
  • A Google search for why Danny Trejo was not in Training Day found nothing definitive; it is called a slight, he must have seen it and wondered, and he could have been Dr. Dre's partner or the waiter in the diner.
  • The phoned-in take: Trejo cannot be in every movie, but of all movies this one would have made too much sense, a scene with Mexican gangsters where you would ask how many lines he has; he probably took another movie where his head gets cut off, since this was too arty, and a CGI version of him playing everybody at the poker table is floated.
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55:19

Picking Nits

The near-assault rescue and the wallet Jake carries around are flimsy; Alonzo's intent to frame Jake for Roger's murd...

The near-assault rescue and the wallet Jake carries around are flimsy; Alonzo's intent to frame Jake for Roger's murder only becomes clear after the three wise men lunch; Alonzo stays after getting $4 million; the wise men and Russians corruption plot is another movie; the Vegas killing is never shown; Denzel kept replaying the Alonzo persona like Pacino after Scent of a Woman

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:55:19Read transcript
  • The movie hinges on a weird near-assault scene in which Jake, on PCP, sees something, saves a girl from two crackheads and randomly picks up a wallet he then carries around until it saves his life; the premise that Alonzo is breaking in a kid he will frame for Roger's murder is flimsy and only becomes clear after the lunch with the three wise men.
  • Alonzo gets his hands on $4 million and stays rather than leaving the country; the defense that he has five kids is waved off, he loves the streets and cannot get away from them, and there are a million why-are-you-doing-that moments that only the compelling performances carry.
  • The police corruption, the three wise men and the Russians are another movie the film only dips into; it is rewatchable because at any 17-minute interval a Denzel-Hawke scene is about to start, the five most rewatchable scenes staggered roughly every 20 minutes.
  • Not seeing what happened in Vegas with Alonzo killing the Russian is a nit, since it is such a big part of the movie; one host would drop the first five minutes with Hawke and his wife and open with a Vegas prelude, then the credits.
  • A tiny bit of Scent of a Woman is in this: Denzel stumbled on a new character with King Kong and then became that guy in about seven more movies, the way Pacino became the Scent of a Woman guy over and over.
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59:08

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie

"King Kong ain't got shit on me"

"King Kong ain't got shit on me"

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:59:08Read transcript
  • Nominees recited: 'King Kong ain't got shit on me', noted as an ad lib, 'man the fuck up', 'finish that shit', 'all that jelly no toast', 'it ain't checkers' and about a hundred others; it has got to be the King Kong one.
  • The 'I'm the police, I run shit here, you just live here' speech is recited through to the King Kong line; a Ringer column by Shea covered the whole speech; the ad-lib is admired as pushing a scene that was not going far enough, and 'I'm the zigzag man' from the car is a good random one among many great Denzel pop-offs.
  • In the appended interview excerpt, the actor reports people throwing 'Jake, you got the money, Jake?' and 'King Kong ain't got nothing on me' at him pretty much daily, putting it in his top three.
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59:55

Probably Unanswerable Questions

What is Jake's tomorrow? Did watching it make anyone want to try PCP, and how long would it take to wear off?

What is Jake's tomorrow? Did watching it make anyone want to try PCP, and how long would it take to wear off?

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:59:55Read transcript
  • One host has no questions beyond not knowing enough about PCP; what is Jake's tomorrow is floated as another sequel, the day after Training Day, whether he is still a cop.
  • A likely trajectory: like Edmund Exley, the Guy Pearce character in LA Confidential, a straight arrow who sees the dark side and wants to rise, Jake would try to make lieutenant very young and climb the ranks, with the wise men asking what it takes to keep him quiet.
  • Asked directly, one host has no other unanswerable questions; the closing question is whether watching this ever made anyone want to try PCP or wonder how long it takes to wear off.
  • Nobody wanted to try it, but it gave pause about laced pot, something to look out for; the possibility of accidentally smoking dust and ending up in a situation like this had not really landed before for a guy working at record stores.
  • One host recounts being in the Bahamas with his wife, wanting pot they had not brought, going downtown to a shady part of town, and his wife saying she had it and going off alone, the alpha dog in these situations, Alonzo in that moment. — Bill Simmons
  • The others call it one of the all-time great what-ifs, how Bill did not get murdered buying drugs in a foreign country, note it was good he did not bring pot to the Bahamas, and ask the statute of limitations on a crime committed 17 years ago.
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1:03:44

Who Won the Movie?

Denzel Washington

Denzel Washington

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:03:44Read transcript
  • The who-won-the-movie take is saved for a phone call to Shea; a suggestion that maybe Ethan Hawke won is met with a no, followed by the garbled line 'Ethan Hawke's Denzel Washington won this week' (as transcribed), and a joke that Shea might come in with a Scott Glenn take.
  • On the call, the in-studio hosts say they saved who won the movie but already think they know the answer; the first question instead is whether this is the guest's favorite Denzel movie, and it is.
  • Shea is told this is Denzel's finest achievement and that he has written about it; no formal declaration or vote on who won is ever made, so Denzel is implied rather than declared.
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More from the conversation

The hosts open fresh off the Social Network episode, joking they won a Pulitzer; Jake Hoyt's day is recapped, smoking PCP for the first time, fighting two crackheads, getting beaten by a Latino street gang and by Denzel in what is scored a 10-8 round, around 29 guns pulled on him, slammed on a car yet still functioning, a Gronkowski-type performance; his strong safety at Hollywood High is debated as more of a slot receiver, and the film is on Netflix until June 1.
Approx. transcript time · 00:01:08Read transcript
Denzel won the Oscar and his Training Day turn became the standard Denzel impression, the one Jay Farrow (as transcribed) does on SNL; he passes the who-else-could-have-played-it test with value over replacement off the charts; one host calls it his best movie, others might say Malcolm X, and He Got Game, Malcolm X and Philadelphia are weighed.
Approx. transcript time · 00:02:56Read transcript
Looking in deep agreement otherwise, this host will not go as far as calling Training Day better than Malcolm X.
Approx. transcript time · 00:03:39Read transcript
A taxonomy of Denzels: leading-man Pelican Brief and Crimson Tide Denzel; toxic, seedy Denzel of Man on Fire, Flight and the crooked-cop film where he sleeps with Dean Cain's wife; important, this-movie-matters Denzel of Malcolm X, Moe Better Blues (as transcribed) and Fences; and a fourth, He Got Game Denzel, the average black guy whose life did not work out, angry but hopeful, a register Will Smith never reached.
Approx. transcript time · 00:04:26Read transcript
Ethan Hawke, on the BS podcast, marveled at Denzel's decades-long run; Denzel combines Tom Hanks-like ability with De Niro and Pacino chops, blow-the-other-guy-off-the-screen power and sex appeal, and Hawke is holding on for the first half hour; Denzel has a unanimous approval rating like Giannis in the NBA, and someone who disliked him would seem like a Russian spy.
Approx. transcript time · 00:06:07Read transcript
Career origins: St. Elsewhere (transcribed 'Stand Elsewhere'), A Soldier's Story and Cry Freedom, then Glory's supporting Oscar on a $27 million gross put him on the map; a Hanks thread follows, Denzel as the only other possible Castaway lead with an angrier relationship with Wilson, and the sign of a powerful star is swapping him into other people's movies, where The Pursuit of Happiness with Denzel would be an Oscar winner.
Approx. transcript time · 00:07:42Read transcript
Denzel does not always pick the best material and makes paycheck movies; borrowing the Black Mirror episode where a person is only an outline, Training Day with an outline in the lead does not hang together, the plot held by dental floss and Denzel; he is a genuine villain you root for, like Neil McCauley in Heat, who lines his trunk with garbage bags and walks away from anyone in 30 seconds.
Approx. transcript time · 00:09:26Read transcript
Hanks versus Washington in the 90s: Hanks's run from A League of Their Own through Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Toy Story, Saving Private Ryan and The Green Mile, with two Oscars, is called unassailable; the Denzel list runs Moe Better Blues through Malcolm X, Crimson Tide, Devil in a Blue Dress, Courage Under Fire (with a bad Meg Ryan miscasting), He Got Game and The Siege; it is likened to Clyde Drexler versus Michael Jordan, Ricochet's roofie-and-blackmail plot is defended by some, the cut Pelican Brief sex scene with Julia is lamented, and Denzel is set as a plus-400 underdog.
Approx. transcript time · 00:10:51Read transcript
Hanks is preferred in Castaway, since a Denzel version would not leave Helen Hunt with the dentist; Hanks could not have played Training Day or Malcolm X and would not have wanted to, Denzel could have done more of the Hanks movies than vice versa, and Hanks in Ricochet is unimaginable.
Approx. transcript time · 00:13:35Read transcript
In 2001 Denzel was at an inflection point, coming off Remember the Titans, The Hurricane (a Norman Jewison film whose Bob Dylan song gave the story away, a rough watch) and The Bone Collector, hunting a Best Actor Oscar since supporting is likened to a sports Emmy; this was a genre-y summer movie elevated by him, directed by Fuqua on his third film after The Replacement Killers and Bait, with lots of two-shots keeping Washington and Hawke in the frame together.
Approx. transcript time · 00:15:09Read transcript
A Pulp Fiction tangent: one host may skip that episode, having seen it too many times, calling the Bruce Willis girlfriend stretch the worst ten minutes and Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer not good, while the Uma and Travolta dance has gained steam; viewing counts for Training Day run about eight for one host and ten-plus for another, a college DVD hangout movie, and one host went twice in two days on release, alone after a record-store shift and then with anyone interested, which makes it a shame that Chris Ryan and another host lived in the same city seeing movies alone without knowing each other.
Approx. transcript time · 00:46:01Read transcript
A prequel tangent: an Alonzo prequel would mean casting young Denzel, a suicide mission nobody wants, which is why the TV version switched the races and could have switched genders; a prequel about the three wise men and the corruption is the movie David Ayer has tried to make for 20 years, an awesome 10-episode Netflix series; Tiffany Haddish's Training Day is floated and judged not the tone, her dramatic chops unproven.
Approx. transcript time · 00:58:01Read transcript
LA Confidential is offered as a double feature, the same story of corrupt L.A. cops; on the unseen Vegas killing, the 30-to-45 minutes of references to his crazy weekend and the $4 million needed to pay off a million-dollar debt feel very crime novel, like Harris Ulan's (as transcribed) crude story in the three wise men scene, speaking to a wider mythology of crime in the city, so a flashback is not wanted.
Approx. transcript time · 01:00:37Read transcript
This is the guest's favorite Denzel movie, as a big fan of bad-guy Denzel, who does it better than almost anybody; the guest was not rooting for Denzel by the end and was ready for the Russians to run him down.
Approx. transcript time · 01:05:04Read transcript
Asked whether this is a top-ten movie for the number of Latino and Mexican actors squeezed in, the answer is absolutely, the Cypress Hill cue announcing they are about to run up on a bunch of Mexicans; the guest saw it in a theater two days in a row in college for that table scene.
Approx. transcript time · 01:06:34Read transcript
The He Got Game basketball scene is called the best eight minutes in any sports movie: Denzel took an early lead and talked trash, Ray Allen got mad for real after Denzel's extra lap, and reportedly Allen was supposed to win 10-0 until Spike Lee told Denzel to try to score, so the four straight baskets were not in the script.
Approx. transcript time · 01:08:02Read transcript
Denzel versus Hanks in the 90s is likened to Jay-Z versus Nas, one big showy guy against the arty one making weird choices, a 95-94 game that the guest gives to Denzel; saying Denzel is overrated at a party is a fight on sight, unlike criticizing Russell Westbrook, and a brother-in-law's claim that Jamie Fox (as transcribed) is better was unbelievable, since Denzel sits in a tiny part of the pyramid above even the Daniel Day-Lewis level, the greatest actor and movie star of anyone's lifetime.
Approx. transcript time · 01:08:50Read transcript
A hypothetical Training Day 2, with Alonzo surviving 48 bullets in a vest, a three-year coma and a return to the dark side in his early sixties, would still be an opening-night ticket, since every Denzel movie is; Fences was bought blind, a title that could have been a baseball or cop movie; Denzel could have played Castaway but his personality is too dominant to seem likely to die; a Denzel-or-Hanks podcast with Kurt Goldsberry (as transcribed) stats is pitched.
Approx. transcript time · 01:11:50Read transcript
A hypothetical about a spouse cast opposite Denzel is answered with a joke about asking what he smells like; Denzel is called the one actor who feels like an athlete, with Ethan Hawke describing scenes with him the way teammates describe Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan, game seven every take, so the first 20 minutes show Hawke, actor and character, holding on before catching up.
Approx. transcript time · 01:15:21Read transcript
Shea has written two Ringer pieces on the film, Denzel versus the man he played in American Gangster and a long breakdown of the King Kong speech and the historical accuracy of its claims; the hosts note it is on Netflix until June 1 and plan to meet at the Finals.
Approx. transcript time · 01:17:52Read transcript
Outro: the Ethan Hawke BS podcast section on working with Denzel is appended at the tail for anyone who missed it; ZipRecruiter is thanked; next week's episode is Ocean's 11, posting June 7, while Ocean's 8 is said to open the day after this episode posts; Chris Ryan will be on it and this host will not.
Approx. transcript time · 01:19:05Read transcript
In the appended excerpt, Hawke says he knew Training Day would be a monster, MJ in his prime with a great script and an exciting young director; Antoine and Denzel wanted him but others did not, so despite being offered movies he ate humble pie and auditioned for the part; Denzel is the alpha male, friendly with Michael Jordan, confident, filling the room and expecting a lot, hard on any shrinking violet, and they worked together again on Magnificent Seven.
Approx. transcript time · 01:20:27Read transcript
Hawke places Denzel as a 30-year international movie star and world-class actor, on Broadway in The Iceman Cometh, who makes Flight an event rather than a neat indie, on a par with Marlon Brando while carrying the extra weight of being African-American, a role model facing racism; a 25th-anniversary Malcolm X screening in Brooklyn played like a rock concert, a performance worth five Oscars, which leads to a 40-pound Oscar riff about Iguodala's four-pound Finals MVP, LeBron deserving it in a loss, and Donovan Mitchell and Ben Simmons sharing a 40-pound Rookie of the Year.
Approx. transcript time · 01:22:57Read transcript