Shooter moved from the title game to the hospital; Chitwood actor's later life; filming locations; NCAA suspensions; Hopper's drunk trick; Chitwood's one-take final shot; real Milan details; Hackman's joke to Hopper; Merle actor's death
Shooter was scripted to attend the title game, but Hopper, newly sober, objected that the character would fear relapsing, so he was put in the hospital. — Bill Simmons
Jimmy Chitwood's actor, Maris Valainis ('Maris Valanis'), became a golf pro in California and was the only player who didn't play college ball. — Ryen Russillo
Most Hickory scenes were shot in Richmond, Indiana. — Bill Simmons
The NCAA suspended five college-player actors for being paid in the movie. — Bill Simmons
For drunk scenes, Hopper's trick was 10 seconds' notice before action and spinning in a circle to look disoriented, a trick from James Dean in Giant. — Bill Simmons
The fans-rushing title shot could be filmed only once; the Chitwood actor missed in rehearsal but made it on the take. — Bill Simmons
The locker-room blackboard lists real Milan names; Milan won 32-30 in 1954 on Bobby Plump's shot from about the same spot; it was filmed at Hinkle Fieldhouse. — Bill Simmons
Hopper's laugh in a montage came from Hackman saying they would never work again after this movie. — Bill Simmons
The actor who played Merle, Kent Poole ('Kent Pool'), killed himself in 2003. — Bill Simmons
Jack Nicholson wanted to play Coach Dale, but a lawsuit sidelined him for six months, so the production went with Hackman. — Bill Simmons
Nicholson later told the director that with him as the star it would have been a mega hit. — Bill Simmons
One view agrees it would have been a bigger movie with Nicholson, then one of the biggest stars, though he would seem to want to get drunk with Shooter. — Bill Simmons
Hackman is more believable, and after 35 years the role can't be reimagined with Jack; Nicholson might have played it scaled back like Terms of Endearment. — Bill Simmons
Hopper's performance: if he were an athlete he would be one who could have been even greater with his life together. — Bill Simmons
Hackman ranks as a movie basketball coach, compared with Nolte doing Bobby Knight in Blue Chips and Affleck in The Way Back; he is as believable as anyone who has coached in a movie. — Bill Simmons
A critical note: it was unclear what Hackman's system or offense was at the beginning beyond passing. — Ryen Russillo
The concept of a Jimmy Chitwood, like Kelly Leak in Bad News Bears, is a fun sports-movie trope; Steph was a Jimmy Chitwood at Davidson. — Bill Simmons
A personal story: after being overlooked, the storyteller skipped senior varsity, worked alone for the seniors-versus-faculty game, scored 17 in the first half and told curious fans to 'ask them'. — Ryen Russillo
Candidate: Norman Dale kicking George out of practice, with the 'two kinds of dumb' threat played as a clip and the 'what kind of team do I have here' reaction. — Bill Simmons
Candidate: the coach visiting Jimmy with 'I don't care if you play or not'; Jimmy makes his first 12, misses one and finishes 13 for 14, and whether the miss counts is debated. — Bill Simmons
Candidate: the town meeting on firing Coach Dale leading into Jimmy joining and the winning montage; Myra's line about not wanting Jimmy to coach at 50 is called one of the meanest in a sports movie. — Bill Simmons
Three of Jimmy's four lines come at the meeting ('I play, coach stays; he goes, I go'); only Ivan Drago did more with less; the sequence is called one of the best nine-minute sequences in any sports movie. — Bill Simmons
Candidate: the picket fence game, Hopper's greatest scene: Hackman is ejected, Hopper freezes, his son pulls him in, and the delivery of the instructions shows the fog parting. — Bill Simmons
The defensive instruction does not seem to match what happens, but the play works and ends with 'You did good, pop'. — Bill Simmons
Teams run versions of the picket fence today, compared to Warriors sets for Steph Curry and a 'hammer'; a fifth-grade team ran a double-screen play because of the movie, called 'Ted' after Ted Williams. — Bill Simmons
Candidate: the Turhoun game fight, with Hackman's 'that's a gutless way to win' line praised as perfectly delivered. — Bill Simmons
Candidate: the Linton game; Strap should have played more, and Ollie's dribble off the foot seemed staged and his air ball was implausibly short. — Bill Simmons
Having the worst player hit two free throws to reach the state finals is called one of the most brilliant moves in any sports movie, and the second shot is praised for how it was filmed. — Bill Simmons
Ollie probably goes one for two at best in real life, and an opposing player with adult chest hair bumping him evokes Teen Wolf. — Ryen Russillo
Candidate: the 'way past big speech time' pregame speech with Merle, Flatch, Buddy and the Reverend's David and Goliath, which had a second life with the Jumbotron slow clap. — Bill Simmons
Hopper arguing a call off a bender and Coach Dale's 'you stay in the game' to Flatch is called an underrated chill moment. — Ryen Russillo
Candidates: the basket-measuring scene and the last few minutes of the title game, including Jimmy being carried off and the South Bend players' reactions. — Bill Simmons
One pick is the Ollie scene in the Linton game, for how it is shot. — Bill Simmons
Hackman going to Hopper's shack is liked, with a question of when a man on that kind of bender had time to scout teams. — Ryen Russillo
The other pick is when the coach seriously tells Hopper to be on the staff, praised for its writing and for having someone's back. — Ryen Russillo
Hopper's 'wing dinger' line about the suit and his awkward walk in a suit at the first game are praised. — Bill Simmons
Tony Scott changed the ending so Clarence lives; Elvis's estate refused any Elvis music; Drexel's eye came from the Dracula prop box; Rubinek did not know his audition was Joel Silver; the hotel deal was shot at the abandoned Ambassador Hotel; Sizemore lay with feathers in his mouth for days; Walken asked to shoot Hopper's half first; Warner Brothers wanted the title Reckless Hearts; the money exchange moved from a zoo to Six Flags; Gandolfini stayed in a dingy hotel; Slater and Arquette had an off-screen romance
Tony Scott changed the ending because he loved the characters; originally Clarence died and Alabama got away with the money, and apparently both versions were shot; one host dislikes Clarence being shot in the eye and maimed, wanting a shoulder wound if he lives; another loves that Scott liked him too much to let him go, classic sentimental Tony.
A joke about a Ringer montage of characters ending up on the same perfect Mexican beach with their kids and 300,000 dollars in a suitcase: Red talking to Alabama, Shawshank, Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster from Fast 7, about two miles from Zawantaneo (as transcribed).
Elvis's estate would not allow any Elvis music, so Charlie Sexton's Graceland, basically Sexton doing Elvis, opens the film; the music is a 1993 mishmash, a late-period Aerosmith song feels out of sync for a Tarantino film, and one host calls the music a missed opportunity that belonged in aged worst when Pixies-type bands were available, though Soundgarden's Outshined is what Floyd would listen to; the fifties stuff, the Big Bopper on the phone with Dick Ritchie and the Burl Ives song feel Tarantino; Drexel listening to techno is odd, Wu Tang would fit, but the techno gives the scene its unsettling vibe.
Drexel's weird eye came from the Dracula prop box; Oldman's account is that over tea at the Four Seasons Scott could not explain the plot but described a pimp who is white but thinks he is black, and that was all he needed to hear; Rubinek's account is that at his audition Scott told him he had Joel exactly right, and he had no idea who Joel Silver was.
The hotel drug deal was filmed at the abandoned Ambassador Hotel where Robert Kennedy was shot, near the end of Beverly by the 101, now a dog and cat hospital with the neighborhood schools renamed RFK; a host's daughter practiced at Virgil High School next to it for half a year without his knowing; in the Maxim oral history Sizemore recounted that his death was got in one take at the start of the shootout, so he lay on the ground with feathers in his mouth for days.
Scott intended to shoot Walken's part first; Walken begged him to shoot Hopper first and found his character watching Hopper's half play out; Warner Brothers was going to change the title to Reckless Hearts until Arquette, Slater, Scott and Tarantino threw their bodies in front of it; the money exchange was meant for a zoo and ended at Six Flags when the location fell through; Gandolfini got into character as Virgil by staying in a dingy hotel and not showering or changing his underwear.
Slater and Arquette seem to have had sparks on and off the set, evident in how they connect: Scott's account that Christian was instantly attracted and Patricia fell in love with him, a true romance; Arquette on a romantic, magnetized sexual attraction; Slater on love at first sight made tricky by being in a relationship; the phone booth scene is called one of the more believable sex scenes in movie history, with Slater really going for it.
Earlier, during aged best, the Pineapple Express origin story is flagged as stepping on the internet research.
There are individually probably five Dion Waiters winners, like an Oscar category where every nominee could win; Val Kilmer cannot crack the top five and sits sixth; his Elvis is fine, and his 1993 of The Real McCoy, Tombstone with the all-time Doc Holliday, and this is incredible; a Doors episode is offered to Chris Iron (as transcribed) whenever he is ready.
The field: Gary Oldman's Drexel, the white pimp who thinks he is black; Brad Pitt's Floyd, so great it spawned Pineapple Express; Christopher Walken pulling off a Sicilian; Gandolfini as the most evil hitman; Hopper counts with only two scenes; and a surprise entry, Saul Rubinek; Pinchot is left out for having too big a part, and Kilmer (as transcribed: 'Kim') and Rappaport are in too many scenes.
A Pinchot tangent: he got the script finishing Perfect Strangers, was Serge in both Beverly Hills Cop films, the roller coaster scene was shot over two days with the cast throwing up or sedated, and his run from Risky Business through Perfect Strangers to this is not bad; he became a punching bag unfairly, like Andrew McCarthy, light comic actors who could star in 1989 but not 1999; the elevator scene with Sizemore and Penn bluffing Elliot is great.
A Walken question: his only two Tarantino scenes are the watch speech in Pulp Fiction and this one, which is nuts; a Pulp Fiction episode would spend thirty minutes on the watch speech.
Rubinek is shouted out for a Joel Silver impersonation at the height of Joel Silver on cocaine, doing the most with the least while Oldman, Gandolfini and Pitt had a lot to work with in their parts, smoking and driving on the PCH asking Elliot why he is calling on a Sunday.
Cannot really decide for the first time; it is something between Pitt, Rubinek or Walken, and Oldman is loved too. — Chris Ryan
Oldman is in three scenes and out of control and might have the line of the movie with white boy day; one host has Saul Rubinek in a walk because he has never done anything else, which is where another wanted to go; all the other characters' actors went on to Oscars and Emmys, while Rubinek's highlight reel starts here.
Rubinek did not know he was doing Joel Silver; the character is written as just a producer and Tony Scott, who hated Silver, made him Silver, so Scott gets a lot of credit for molding the performance; it probably hurt Rubinek's career.
Rubinek is the eleventh man who should not be able to score twenty points in seven minutes, the definition of the award; favorite moments are the taunt about knowing Elliot's name, the Body Bags 2 taste line and the 357,000 dollars someone is stealing; he was 20 to 1 heading in with Oldman applauding in the stands, Twitter expected Floyd or Drexel, but watched closely Rubinek is the correct winner.
Earlier the cast is called the best Dion Waiters field the show has had, better than Heat, with Sam Jackson, Val Kilmer, Gary Oldman and Saul Rubinek in five-minutes-or-less performances; it is self-aware, actors knowing they have six pages and lighting them on fire, which Craig the producer, seeing it for the first time, noticed.
During aged best, the Lee Donowitz discussion is saved for a fascinating Dion Waiters argument.
Smoking in movie theaters and at the payphone is the first offering; for the most part the film could come out right now, but Gandolfini beating Patricia Arquette for ten minutes probably would not, and Drexel probably could not be done today.
Whether the Sicilian speech could be done today: Tarantino is still doing that stuff and people get bent out of shape in 2018's outrage society, a cycle that will repeat with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; he grew up around Black friends and feels he has access to that experience, always has Sam Jackson in his movies, and Jackson is quoted every time saying Quentin is not a racist.
The Sicilian speech was based on a story a Black friend told Tarantino, put in a white guy's mouth to be more offensive; it also fits a true-to-life lonely guy who reads history books; the hosts worry we are losing the ability to distinguish creator from creation, and that characters with reprehensible values are still worthwhile to watch.
Tarantino comes from a tradition of pulp crime about gritty, bad people; nobody in this film is good, Clarence and Alabama included; a host who is a white man has never been the target of the material; the eggplant speech is put down but has not aged badly, the country has changed; Hopper's character knows he is going to die and needles Walken's with the worst thing he can think of, which movies should still be able to do.
The Gandolfini-Arquette scene is defended as something that could still happen in 2018: everybody is bad so the behavior has to be over the top, she is the hero, she wins the scene and kills him after surviving the pounding, no different from Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, and it is not read as a domestic violence scene.
The scene gives the film tremendous gravity and ends the fantasy: Alabama is a pinup dream with an invented name, the Cadillac and the snap drive to the desert are a dream, and this is the consequence; it happens away from Clarence, who has been seeing Elvis in the bathroom, and shows who these men really are, changing the stakes.
Gandolfini sets it up almost like a masochist, letting her get a shot at him and stab him, almost flirting before he hits her, then the speech about the first time you kill somebody shows he is a psycho she has to defeat; the one thing that might get legislated is that Tony Scott shoots the violence beautifully, slow motion through the shower, the mirror, art-film touches, which could be read as glamorization.
It is basically three scenes cut together, a lot of time watching her get beaten before she kills him in thirty seconds; today it would be reversed, him knocking her around for thirty seconds and her beating him for three minutes; it smashes into Bronson Pinchot's arrest right after, caught in a car with a woman and his cocaine spilled, and it is the most important scene because afterward anything is possible and the two leads really could be killed.
The actual answer is the anecdote that Tony Scott used what he called a 'persuader', occasionally slapping Arquette before shooting to get her where she needed to be emotionally, until she approached him asking for it before heavy scenes, which he joked was the English School of Directing; indefensible and weird, from the Maxim oral history, a 1957 story rather than a 1993 one, likened to sixties and seventies directors brawling with actors like Charlton Heston and the Belushi SNL sketch about it.
Young Gandolfini: he is basically auditioning for Tony Soprano, and this and his Get Shorty role (transcribed 'bare') are the two poles of that character, sweet, charming, evil, menacing and violent; the film was one of the first DVDs a host bought, so he was always the guy from this movie.
Floyd, who gives the directions down Beachwood to the Beverly Ambassador, was an A++ in the nineties and the DVD era, a spirit animal for anyone getting baked at two in the morning; the whole idea of Pineapple Express came from Judd Apatow and company loving Floyd and asking what would have happened if he chased the Italians.
Unlike Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder working to go viral, Pitt just lies on the couch with a couple of improv lines; the Floyd stuff is largely improvised, as are Hopper's eggplant and Walken's cantaloupe lines; Floyd is the most important character because he gets everyone together for the shootout, and 'don't condescend me' is a favorite line.
Brad Pitt has an alternate path as one of the great character actors, fifteen non-essential but memorable parts up through Burn After Reading, but he was so handsome he had to be a leading man; Seven is a character he put thought into before material started being created for him; the Tarantino relationship continues through Inglourious Bastards and the coming Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Dennis Hopper is so likable that even the Speed villain was hard to root against; the Clarence-Clifford scene is economical writing, 'you're just like your mother', three years apart, a recovering alcoholic who only has a Seven Up, telling you why Clarence would throw it all away; two lines are lifted, 'you're just like your mother' from Hopper's own line in Rumblefish and the beer line from The Last Picture Show.
Pre-internet, movie quotes and pulling from the past mattered more; a host's column threw in movie lines because that is how he and his friends connected, and Twitter gifs have given it a renaissance.
Sizemore and Penn together are the twelve-episode Fox cop show we never got; the hosts saw a Reitman live read at the Ace Hotel with Slater and Arquette, the Duplass brothers as the cops, J.K. Simmons as the estranged father, Kevin Pollack as Walken's part, Jon Favreau as Gandolfini's, Keegan-Michael Key and Paul Scheer as Drexel and Elliot Blitzer, May Whitman in several parts and Jason Segel as Floyd.
Coming Home in a Body Bag is funny right on the heels of forty Vietnam movies; Saul Rubinek's Lee Donowitz as Joel Silver, Bronson Pinchot as his assistant, Boris the bodyguard who hates cops, and Dick Ritchie constantly asking whether the producer knows he is an actor; Donowitz is one of a host's favorite movie characters, saved for the Dion Waiters argument.
The Hans Zimmer score is distinct and gives the movie levity; according to a host it is based on a composition from the 1500s by Carl Orff that Terrence Malick used in Badlands, which Zimmer redoes as an homage, and Arquette's opening voiceover mimics the Badlands voiceover; the film pulls the best parts of other things.
Asked for a single best out of all of it, one goes with the way it looks, the peak of Tony Scott's neon vision of urban America; another is still responding to the dialogue, over the top and offensive on purpose because it is pulp; a third says Gandolfini, like watching Michael Jordan at North Carolina.
Five candidate scenes are set out: Clarence going back to Drexel, Hopper versus Walken, which might be the most famous scene of both careers, Gandolfini versus Alabama, the coke sale at the Beverly Ambassador when Slater shows up wired and talks Vietnam movies and Coming Home in a Body Bag, and the big three-way shootout, Tarantino's second three-way shootout in two movies.
A recap for anyone who has not seen the film in a while: Clarence falls in love with the woman his boss hires for him and they get married. — Bill Simmons
The recap is corrected: she is a call girl, not a hooker, there's a difference, she says; Clarence decides he has to emancipate her from the pimp, Drexel Spivey, played by Gary Oldman, which leads to a shootout, and he takes the wrong suitcase, full of cocaine, so they end up on the run.
One pick is Clarence versus Drexel as one of the great five minutes of the nineties; another insists it has to be the Sicilian story, Tarantino's favorite scene he has ever written, three-dimensional chess; a clip plays and a third goes with it 100 percent.
Christopher Walken playing a Sicilian is a ludicrous choice, the least Italian person imaginable, and he pulls it off; Hopper is at a fascinating career moment, having survived the nine stages of fame, a trailblazing filmmaker, an Academy Award nominated actor, villains and heroes, Shooter and Frank in Blue Velvet; a text the night before called him warm and powerful here.
Hopper's relationship with Clarence is set up in about three minutes; in the scene the gangsters surround the two men in a circle, it is the middle of the day but lit like three in the morning with a spotlight on them, and the dialogue is two guys telling crazy Tarantino stories, the antichrist and vendetta lines; the Drexel proposer is talked into it.
Drexel is one of a host's favorite characters: Gary Oldman was already famous from Dracula and talked about as a next great actor, yet audiences 25 years ago could not tell it was him under the hat and the affected Black vernacular; a clip of the negotiation speech plays.
Tony Scott and Oldman disagreed about where Drexel came from: Scott's version is that Oldman called in the middle of the night to say Drexel was his drug dealer; Oldman's version is that he had no drug dealer and was emulating kids he heard outside his trailer; Scott later had a big heat check of crazy interviews, clearly disliked Christian Slater and took credit for a lot.
Drexel is a complete Tarantino original, every word entertaining; shot flat the way Reservoir Dogs was shot in a warehouse, without the music, the swinging light and the Chinese food, the scene might not work at all, which is where Tony Scott makes this something different in the Tarantino canon and why it is called the best Tony Scott scene; the techno track is by an artist named Nymphomaniac, and Slater seems intimidated before answering all of Drexel's questions.
