Rushed to beat The Wanderers; Fox was meant to end up with Mercy; the Dingoes subplot was cut after Beck and Van Bakkenberg's chemistry showed; the Rogues drove a 1955 Cadillac hearse; Michael Beck became born again; Sunny Landon was hit by the bat; Mercy's stitches and broken wrist; production paid off gangs via an NYPD contact
The movie was rushed to get ahead of another gang movie, The Wanderers, by Philip Kaufman of The Right Stuff, with Ken Wall (as transcribed) of Wise Guy; two hosts have never seen it, prompting a joke about being only 26.
Fox was originally to end up with Mercy; in the book and original script Swan was captured by a gay gang called the Dingoes, who had Dobermans, and escaped later, but Walter Hill saw the dailies, noticed Beck and Van Bakkenberg (as transcribed) had chemistry, and rewrote everything to drop the Dingoes; Dobermans are compared to Halle Berry's dogs in John Wick 3.
The Rogues drove a 1955 Cadillac hearse; Michael Beck partied too much during filming and became born again; Sunny Landon (as transcribed), later in Predator, was the cop Swan hits with the bat, and in one take Mercy was hit in the face and needed stitches.
Mercy broke her wrist running with the stunt double, which is why she wears the jacket for the rest of the movie, explaining the odd 'where'd you get that jacket' exchange; to film anywhere in the five boroughs production paid off whoever ran that turf, with an NYPD contact telling Marshall the producer which gang members needed paying.
Jason Patric turned down Mitch two years before Speed 2; Cruise was probably Plan B and expensive, the biggest star in the world at the time.
Gene Hackman joined late because the producers wanted to gender-swap Avery and cast Meryl Streep until John Grisham objected; one host thinks it might be a better movie without the beach scene, but another says Hackman is why the film makes sense, and Streep never played that older, divorced, sexualized, secretly bad character.
Robin Wright turned down Abby, as she seemed to for every movie, and Halle Berry auditioned for the woman on the beach, which one host would have preferred.
The 'spot the sucker' opening line; the Billions DNA; the Mike McD face; the throwaway poker lingo; Damon and Norton at fun points of their careers; the look and the New York setting; Russians as villains; Teddy KGB's accent; the World Series of Poker ending
The first line, 'if you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table then you are the sucker', may not be the greatest opening line in movie history but is one of the most memorable; the hosts want to see that list, which must exist on the internet, and float it as a vacation column.
There is Billions DNA in the film: watching Rounders is like watching Tracy McGrady on the Raptors, and the pop culture throwaways such as Buckner going into Shea became signatures of Billions, which also brought in Malkovich in season three.
The face Mike McD makes after losing the 30K is one of the best acting moments of Damon's career: the face everyone makes when destroyed in poker or blackjack, the life sinking out of your body; the sports-fan equivalent is the Marco Bellinelli corner three or the Case Keenum pass.
Having a big hand cracked while deluded with euphoria is called the most crushing unimportant thing that can happen in life; all the throwaway poker lines have aged beautifully and one host understands the lingo partly because of this movie.
Damon and Norton at fun points in their careers: Norton arrives with Primal Fiction (as transcribed), American History X, one of the most interesting performances of the last 25 years, then Rounders and Fight Club; 25th Hour mixes that guy with Worm; also Everyone Says I Love You, a terrible Woody Allen musical, and The People vs. Larry Flint, which has not aged well.
The Larry Flint writers, Larry Krasuski and Scott Alexander (as transcribed), also wrote the OJ Ryan Murphy show and Ed Wood and set the template for the clever, controversial biopic, like Man in the Moon, a style that now lives on TV in 13-episode runs.
The late-nineties talent cluster: in a fantasy draft Leo, Damon and Norton are the top three or in the top five, with Brad Pitt, Affleck gravitating to popcorn movies, feeder films like School Ties and Dazed and Confused, and Vince Vaughn; weirdly no black actors went to the stratosphere, Halle Berry aside.
Clooney, Matthew Perry twenty years ago, Wahlberg after Boogie Nights, Will Smith and Jim Carrey round out one of the best clusters, all 35 and under, compared with the Godfather generation around Brando; these people get credit as movie stars rather than actors, in the era when the Entertainment Weekly cover mattered and Carrey got $20 million a movie.
Norton took a left turn after the mid-nineties string: directing Keeping the Faith, which Juliette Littman likes, The Score with De Niro, Death to Smoochie, then 25th Hour, probably his best of the 2000s, and The Illusionist; he never had the Pacino or Gene Hackman career one host wanted, though he may still.
Worm is a character unique to Norton, out of the John Cazale 1970s: the lovable scumbag you root for without knowing why, with a little Fredo in him.
The movie looks surprisingly cool and undated for 1998 and is a good New York movie that still looks like the New York the hosts remember; the Chesterfield is based on a club called the Mayfair, and one host once played in a private room like it, the film's room being a slightly nicer red leather version of his, with that seedy but exciting feeling.
Russians as villains has aged the best: in 1998 the Cold War had ended eight years earlier and Russia was in free fall, but twenty years on Roman, Maurice, Teddy KGB and the underground network are far more believable villains.
Forgotten from aged best: Teddy KGB's accent, ridiculous in 1998 and loved in 2018 largely from familiarity; in the theater it was the movie's biggest flaw, a completely unnatural choice in a natural film, but twenty years later it works, is distinct, fun to imitate and almost a parody of bad Russian accents.
The ending of Mike McD heading to Vegas and the World Series of Poker makes far more sense now, since within five years that became the dream of basically everyone who played; it could have been aged best too.
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.
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).
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.
An earlier, more comic-relief version of Annie was reportedly written with Ellen DeGeneres in mind. — Bill Simmons
Halle Berry reportedly declined the rewritten Annie role; she is considered a promising alternative. — Bill Simmons
Bullock is preferred because her charm develops over the film instead of relying on immediate glamour.
Berry reportedly thought the role would have reduced her to a black bus driver; the discussion both detects bitterness and concedes she might have been right. — Bill Simmons
