‘F1’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan - podcast episode cover

‘F1’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan

Dec 23, 20251 hr 46 min
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Summary

The Rewatchables crew breaks down 'F1,' praising its groundbreaking visuals and thrilling theatrical experience that drew audiences back to cinemas. They explore its production challenges, Brad Pitt's iconic performance, and how the film modernizes classic sports movie tropes while also serving as a commercial for Formula One racing. The discussion also delves into Jerry Bruckheimer's producing legacy and director Joseph Kosinski's rise as an action filmmaker.

Episode description

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan revisit one of the best movies of 2025,  Joseph Kosinski’s ‘F1,’ starring Brad Pitt, Kerry Condon, Damson Idris, and Javier Bardem.


Producers: Craig Horlbeck, Chia Hao Tat, and Eduardo Ocampo


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Transcript

Podcast Intro and F1 Overview

This episode is brought to you by United airlines. Here's something worth watching the award-winning United airlines app on every trip. You can flip through time-saving travel hacks, like a personalized airport map with door to gate directions.

Binge watch real-time flight updates like a live counting or boarding, even if your home screen's locked. And watch it automatically move you from a middle seat to an aisle or a window if one opens up on your flight. Get it before your next trip at united.com slash app.

The Rewatchables, brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find the watch with CR. That's me. Is this our third Rewatchables this week? Yes. It's the third published Rewatchables. Are you tired of seeing me? No, I love it, man. You're the reason I get up in the morning. Higher Learning. Midnight Boys. Midnight Boys. And then… Almost forgot the name of the podcast. The Ringer Tailgate. No, because that was… Which is just coming into its own. It is.

It's quite a podcast. Billy Gill came in. He shook things up a lot like who is Beecher's guy in Oz? Who's the guy that Chris Maloney played? What was that guy's name? When he came in and shook up us. He shook up Beecher all right. He shook the shit out of him. He really did shake him up. Billy Gill, but his name is the Duke, though. That's his name. The Duke? The Duke. Like as in Escape from New York? That's Billy's nickname. You are the Duke! That's on the list to redo.

This is our last rewatchables movie of 2025 because we have a very special episode coming a week from now. We're doing a 2025 movie. The second 2025 movie we've done because we've done Sinners. A movie that has now been maligned and shut out of all the critics lists. Do you have any feelings on that? No, I don't want to get into it. Entertainment Weekly.

put it on it's van i think it's really big of you to come by and do one battle after another rewatchables like this yeah that's coming up next now we're doing uh f1 the movie is next

This episode of the rewatchables is presented by State Farm. Whether you're debating watching that award-winning sports drama or rewatching your comfort buddy comedy movie for the 10th time, choices are important. When it comes to choosing coverage, a State Farm agent can help you find options that are right for you. Go online at state farm.com or use the award-winning app to get help from one of their local agents. Like a good neighbor state farm is there.

F1 Production Challenges and Impact

All right, F1. I have it as the number one, I can't believe this actually worked out movie of the 2020 CR. Felt like a bust for two years. Like the meter was running on this one for a while. There's some controversial reporting and back and forth between the production and our own, our buddy Matt Bellany about how much this movie cost.

It was like, is this just going to be on my iPhone? What's going on? Apple's heavily involved. It's like, what do they know about movies? Brad Pitt, maybe at the tail end of seeming realistic as an F1 driver. There was a solid 24 months where it's like, F1 is still shooting. They are shooting like...

in this country, in that country, at this race and the strikes and COVID and everything that slowed it down. But they're in like Abu Dhabi, but they're in like all over Monaco, wherever they were having races. Yeah. Movie making is a complicated thing, but the story of making the movie should never be complicated. Like, the more complicated the story of making the film is, the more people feel like it's just going to be a disaster. And this was a complicated from...

the technology that they needed, from the strikes, all of the stuff that was going on. It was a very, very complicated production. I'm glad Van's here because I wanted to sort of lead the conversation with a declaration, which is that I feel the way... The way I'm supposed to feel about Avatar, I feel that way about F1. That's what I'm talking about. Like, this is fucking incredible. How did they do this? This is pushing movie making forward. I don't really care what the story is. This is…

F1's Cinematic Relevance and Tropes

mind-blowing. Well, a good movie to end 2025 on, too, because I do think this was the year we got sucked back into movie theaters. Sucked back. Sinners, F1, One Battle, Minecraft. Sure. Conjuring Last Rites. Saw that in theaters. There were a bunch of movies this year where you're like, I don't want to wait until that's on my TV. I want to go see this. And F1 was a great example. You had to see it on IMAX.

It was fucking awesome. I went with my whole family. We did like a 9.30 showing at The Grove. Oh, wow. And nobody was on their phone the whole time. Drove home. Everyone was exhilarated. We were like, that's what we want from a movie right there. And it's good at home, watching it a second time, still good on the TVs. Not as good as in the movie theater, but classic sports movie, has a lot of tropes. But just a thrill ride. It's a strangely important movie. Like...

Just in terms of this type of movie making, a big star-driven 80s-style movie that's about a cultural phenomenon. Yeah, that catches the cultural phenomenon in time. Right, so like...

We used to have all of these. Like, you had Gleaming the Cube. I mean, some of these aren't big blockbusters, but we used to do these movies. Gleaming the Cube, Skateboarding, Over the Top, Arm Wrestling, all of this stuff. You put a star or emerging star in a movie about a thing, and it's a big deal. Then they kind of stopped making those.

movies. Yeah. Like, movies were expected to be something that's more than just, like, a vaping. No Holds Barred with Hulk Hogan. No Holds Barred. Yeah. We could do this. There's so many different films we could talk about. Even, like, Days of Thunder, NASCAR, all of that. And then they stopped doing them.

because we could no longer make the movie that's just kind of vapid. It seemed like an affront against the filmmaking gods to make a movie that was just kind of vapid but fun. Yeah. And this movie is that. There's not much depth to the film, but...

The Allure of Car Racing Films

the film in the total sum of its parts really, really works and really means something. I mean, I think that in Hollywood, it's all about IP, but Formula One racing and car racing in general is good IP in general. And it's like... I'll go see almost any movie where cars race. Like, it's just... It's a cinematic thing. Yeah. I mean, I went through a bunch of car racing movies last night and I was like...

These are all solid. I was like, I got no notes, man. The Fast and the Furious. Cars doing cool shit. I was watching Grand Prix with James Garner last night. I was like, This rules. Like, we can go back to the 60s if you want. Well, the history, LeMond, Bobby Deerfield, Days of Thunder.

Driven was the only one that didn't work. And that had Stallone and Burt Reynolds too late. And Kit Pardue was terrible on it. Talladega Nights, Senna documentary. Rush, a movie that I love that's on the rewatchables list. Ford and Ferrari. F1.

Movies Versus Real Life Sports

All the fast movies. I was going to do this later. I'll do it now. I wish I liked real racing as much as I like racing movies. I know exactly what you mean. Like, F1 does nothing for me. It seems fine. You go, you sit, they go by at crazy speeds. I've never cared about Indy 500. I've never cared about NASCAR. I've never cared about anything. But I love racing movies because they're basically awesomely edited.

races combined with like the behind the scenes stuff. And I think that's just where I've landed. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. It's just what I want. What are some other things that you would only prefer to see rendered as movies? Like... You know what I mean? I don't want to go deep underwater in the ocean. I would say cooking movies. I was just about to say cooking. I don't watch a cooking show, but whenever there's a part in that movie, Chef, where…

Favreau is making, is it a grilled cheese sandwich or something? Well, he makes a grilled cheese sandwich for his son. Yeah, it's like a panini. But he makes something for Scarlett Johansson. Yeah. Oh, he makes her a pasta. Makes her a pasta. And just him whipping up the pasta and her watching him whip up the pasta, you're like, God damn, I would like to be able to do that.

That is incredible. But you wouldn't have watched it on Instagram for 30 minutes. I'm not going to watch it on Instagram. But it looks cool to watch somebody with a mastery of the kitchen like that.

But like in actuality, I'm not trying to see. This is what's great about the movies though. You watch at an F1 race and people love F1 and I like F1. I think I had like most people, like my short-lived affair with Drive to Survive. Get up at six in the morning? I never did that because I'm already up.

early enough watching soccer, I can't have two global sports that make me wake up at weird times. But I will say that, like, take color of money, right? Like, if I was like, let's watch billiards, you'd be like, I'm good. You know, like there, there's gotta be.

Van's like, is that tall Asian lady playing? Are you talking about Black Widow? Yeah, is the Black Widow playing? The Black Widow? Jeannette? Jeannette Lee playing? I think she got sick after a while. But if you watch Color of Money, you're like, Billiards is the most exciting.

cinematic thing anyone could possibly do. How about ping pong with Marty Supreme? That's another one. Okay, I have to... I do enjoy watching both of those sports. Yeah. Earl Strickland, Efren Reyes when I was into pool. What about darts? Darts, I've never, I like, but there are sports I like to watch, like, you know, guys throw axes and then lumberjacks and all that. But ping pong is the only thing that I don't know that I like watching it until it's actually on.

So I will never go watch ping pong. You never seek it. But when I see ping pong or table tennis then playing it, it is one of the most amazing things I feel like a human being can do to play the sport. Well, I wrote down if I'm paying 30 bucks for a movie.

Advanced Filming Techniques in F1

I want the ability to feel. I want to feel things. This movie made you feel. It's a human response movie. That first crash, which when we do rewatchable scenes, first time you see it in the theater. The Monza crash? When JP crashes. It's like you just can't believe it. And then it's so cool in the way they do it and the way it's shot. I mean… I love that in 2025, we're still getting better at stuff. And I think in this case, we're just getting better. This movie in 1990 was Days of Thunder.

Right. Which is a very cool movie that I like a lot that we've done on the rewatchables. But it's night and day when you see some of the shit they did with the cameras. Yeah, I mean, in some ways, like in terms of filming movement, I would argue Kaczynski is... the first person to push it forward since Tony Scott like in terms of filming like a piece of machinery going like Top Gun Maverick this and it's like he really is an inheritor of some of like his Tony Scott's like stylistic

The last scene when he's flying, basically, when Sonny's about to win the race. The first time seeing that in the theater. And he kind of knew it was probably going to happen because he set it up in the monologue. But then when they do it and there's no soundtrack.

And it's just the sound. And it's just Pitt's face. And it's just incredibly well done. A really easy scene to make corny. Yeah. If the background... of that happening hasn't been established if you're not in with sonny's character all the way yeah and also if the movie is any less technically proficient she did the monologue

Brad Pitt. I'm going to do the Brad Pitt face a couple times for this. The coolest thing about that is also… Everything on the side was left mouth. The cut to Bardem's face. Right. So it's like a really… Bardem had some good celebration acting in this. I always thought the chef in Vision Quest was my number one.

Unpacking Sports Movie Tropes

There's been a lot of good crowd celebration guys over the years, but I thought Bardem was really, really good. You know who my favorite crowd guy is of all time? Put him in a body bag, Johnny! Yeah! That dude was on Johnny Dick. Yeah. Like, he was into it, man. Like, that's my favorite crowd guy in the movie. Don't forget the Godso from Rocky. Go get him, Rock!

He had some good ones. That'd be a good montage. Like somebody just doing the 25 best sports movie celebrator crowd guys. Sports movie tropes. We did. You and I talked about this on my podcast. I did not listen to it. So if we over. over we go back on some of the stuff we talked about i apologize but i did grab this from the notes for that sports movie tropes here the best that never was sure

That was, I think, the most underrated 30 for 30 we ever did when I was there was the Marcus Dupree one. Excruciating. That is also where I met you, was at the screening party for Marcus Dupree. And I remember John Hawk, the director of it.

He found all this high school footage of Marcus Dupree that we weren't positive existed, or I can't remember how I found it. And then to see that guy and you do that, this guy was the best that that never was. And then you actually could see the footage of him.

But anyway, this is a sports movie trope that it's kind of undefeated. They've used it for action movies in some ways, too. Like Roadhouse, Best Cooler. You don't understand how good this guy was. We've seen this over the years, but it works best sports movies. So that's one. Old guy versus new guy. Never, never doesn't work. White and black, not getting along and then teaming up. Seen it. Come on, van.

Like white men can't jump. Like white men can't jump. That's the only thing they didn't do. Let's be honest. It's the truth. That's the only thing they didn't do in this movie. Yeah. He never looked at them and goes, you know what? Your type.

Just can never get to the pure. He did kind of get a little TDI with him. He did. The participation trophy thing. Yeah. But then you have Damson come back and what do you mean my type? Yeah. And white men can't jump. They just straight up say it. Yeah. Like.

Black guys will whether to look good and lose. White guys will whether to look bad and win. And that's actually funny. But this movie, they were like, let's stay away from it. Times are tough. The downtrodden team that's about to go under and desperately needs to spark. That always works. The monologue about chasing the something, the one great thing, you know, once upon a time, my dad, when my dad died, he told me blah, blah, blah. Like you need that one minute something.

Subverting Female Character Tropes

The big accident monkey wrench. I've seen that a million times. And then the climactic race fight game. Can I throw one newer one in there? Give me. This movie gets compared to Top Gun Maverick a lot. Same director and kind of like... broadly like some of the same story. Cruise and pick the switch parts. Probably been fine. It's kind of money ball on steroids though. Because it's about a scrappy group of underdogs.

figuring out how to exploit the margins and the jigsaw puzzle movie. How do we put together the puzzle? But it's also like plan C is the whole like is basically Billy Bean. You know, it's like, well, we can't beat them just straight up. So we have to do all this other stuff. to beat them in the aggregate. Pitt has that great speech about...

If I can get one tenth of a second better. And you can get one tenth of a second. That's five seconds. There's a second. I'm like, yeah, that is a second. We'll save like 70 seconds. There's also one that you miss. They don't do it in this movie, but it still happens in this movie. Okay. This movie doesn't have the scene where Javier Bardem's character is sitting around with the rest of the people and they're like, we really got to win. And he goes, I know one guy. I know. Yeah.

I know one guy. I don't know if he'll do it. It's assumed that that happened. But then you got to go get this guy out of retirement. Well, they do have the whole, how many guys did you call before you got to me? Seven. That's a good action one, too. A sports movie trope they do not have in this. And they actually have the reverse of it and so much better is that the female, the lead female in this is not like the, you can't do it. You're going to die. It turns out she has.

The coolest job. She's not doing the age read. She does a cool job. Yeah. And she's a great character. And I think that's one of the reasons this movie is so rewatchable. I love the Carrie Condon scenes. I believe the character. I want her to get better. I believe that she's in on Brad Pitt. I want them to end up together at the end. It's just another hard one to pull off. CR loves her. The little spark plug Irish lady. You like that type of shit.

And it's CR's wheelhouse. You like that type of shit? CR saw her that big pint in the bar and she's like, yes. If she was smoking in this movie, I'd probably leave my wife for her. She's got a big, long Virginia Slim. Yeah. Well, you...

Brad Pitt's Enduring Star Power

They make the character, like, you know, aspirational in other ways because in some ways, I mean, she gives up the ass super quick. Just straight out. I don't know about that. Well, it was a whole season. It was like three, four months. They had seven races until they get to Vegas, right? I mean, normally, what I'm saying is... She was sweet on Brad, though. Normally, in a movie like that, the virtue of the character is in that she doesn't give up their ass.

But then she gives up the ass. And then, I mean, she's straight up loving him. She's on the whole thing. She just kissed his shoulder. She really liked him. She really liked him. I think they kind of zoomed past the ending that I think she would have been a little more upset. He was just like, all right, I'll see you later. I have some stuff about that. I know we're in love, but I'm going to Baja. Come back. Ring me when you get back, Tiger. No, what? You just out.

Well, one thing I love about this, the casting, and she's really cute, obviously. But I think in the 90s, they just would have picked whoever the best-looking actress is and made believe she was this. I really believe that she was trying to put together the perfect car. Yeah.

I also believe that the two would end up together. I don't know. They did great job. Brad Pitt. So, I don't know where this is going to rank on the best sports movies of the 21st century so far. I may or may not have a list at some point. Not today. Oh, okay. Appreciate it. But Brad Pitt was in two of those movies, regardless of what your list is. Moneyball and F1. Double duty for this.

I did when you and I did our... Or maybe I did this with Wesley. I can't remember. I did it on my pod with somebody. The four decades of Brad Pitt as the leading man in all the arcs where the six stages, basically. Up and coming, handsome guy. leading man on training wheels, A-lister, Brangelina Hay Day when he goes to another level of fame, Brangelina Swoon. And then in 2019 with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, we entered the Brad Pitt as the icon.

Yes, when we do Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at Astra F1. He got $30 million for this movie, and I think he's a big reason why people took it seriously. This is now a 35-year career CR, and yet I still feel like... People would have Cruz above him. I even think people would have maybe Damon above him. Are you nuts? I think Leo would be above him. Like Matt Damon?

Yeah, I think when people think about the biggest actors… What are you talking about? Is like a box office draw? Do you think he gets enough credit, I guess, is my question. I think the thing with Brad Pitt… Would people throw him out second after Cruise? No, I think Leo would go second. I think Brad Pitt works more than those guys, it seems like. He's had more misses. Yeah, and he takes more swings and he produces more stuff. And I think he also has kind of settled into now, finally, like…

Paul Newman, Color of Money era. Like, maybe a little younger than Paul Newman was at that point. But he's starting to embrace the idea of being like, this is the twilight part of my career. And the roles are really great because of that. What do you think, Van?

Pitt's Unique Path vs. Other Stars

I think that Brad Pitt carved out a Brad Pitt thing that makes him incomparable to a lot of his contemporaries. His career is really interesting. Like, Tom Cruise... embodied not just the movie star, but the hyper celebrity. Like the whole thing, the entire deal. Brad Pitt became a leading man that was in some big movies, that was in some smaller movies. He became the cool, like...

A-plus actor that just kind of did whatever he wanted to do. He didn't get with Scorsese and do the next 10 Scorsese movies. He just decided that he lived his life in a laissez-faire kind of way, and he just did. the thing that he thought was the coolest at the time that it was in front of him. And that's really, it doesn't seem like he planned his career out. Yeah, the big difference between him and Cruz 2 is that he never picked a character that he played for like more than...

couple movies. Right. So in that... He never did his version of Bourne or that stuff. So in the way that Leo said, you know what? I'm going to get to a certain point and I'm going to work with these directors who are just... It's unassailable in the quality of the film. And the way that Tom went, I'm going to give you big budget, genre, five, four quadrant type of movies. It just seemed like Brad got a script and went, okay, cool.

And he was so Brad Pitt that he could make that work over the course of the whole career. Let's do it. Like, whatever it is, let's do it. So, I was going to do this for Hattest Take later. I'll just do it now. I think that him just... Crossing paths with Angelina at the time he did was almost like an athlete tearing an ACL and missing two seasons. I think that sent his career in a different direction. That Brangelina thing became so big.

And so it kind of like swallowed up both of them. I think both of their careers, like the kind of movies that they made, they did stuff together. Like he has this whole, basically 15 years after Mr. and Mrs. Smith. where I'm not even really sure what happened. And I think part of it was all of a sudden he was with Angelina Jolie. They have five kids all of a sudden. They're making movies together that weren't really any good. And I do wonder what happens. Got really into politics.

Yeah, I do wonder what—and he got into producing and did some good stuff. But I feel like there was like three or four more Moneyball-type movies for him in there, and he just didn't make them. Whereas like Cruise was working all the time. Yeah, it's hard to tell whether or not it's the movie industry that changes or the actor that changes. And maybe Brad Pitt was like the kinds of movies I could lead.

At a certain point, he stops being interested in doing movies like Troy. You know what I mean? Whether it's because he got older or because he didn't want to be a beefcake A-list movie star in that way. He wanted to be more of a character actor and appear in different kinds of stuff. So he made Benjamin Button and Gorious Bastards and Moneyball, basically middle of 2000s through 11. But then his 2012 to 18, Killing Them Softly Allied.

Fury, By the Sea, World War Z, and produced 12 Years of Slavery. Gotta say, in retrospect, a couple of those movies are quite good, though. Yeah. I mean, if you look at it, like, just for the movies that he's in...

World War Z ended up being a movie that was kind of a troubled production. And it was a huge hit. But that's a big, huge movie. It's like a gigantic film. How many times have you watched it? Probably like three. Two or three? The zombies are really aggressive in it. It's not the easiest watch. I wasn't a fan. The outbreak starts in Philly. Yeah. But look, the big short, he's in that. He's...

He's an interesting... That's towards the end of the time that you're talking about, though. But he's in interesting films here. Inglourious Bastards, Benjamin Button. These are interesting movies. He's having an interesting career. Burn After Reading. That's an interesting choice for Brad Pitt at that time in his career.

He has that same Redford quality of like, you could just kind of throw him in anything and it's probably going to work. It's fun to hang out with him. Paul Newman was like that. It's that kind of actor we just don't have anymore.

And this is, you know, he's playing a guy in his early 50s, but he's really in his early 60s. He's doing... It's interesting to me always to see what... performers like this do with that little wilderness period so like the part that's right over you guys know what I'm talking about you know you're in the league

you're averaging 29, 30. You'd already made like a bunch of awesome movies. Yeah, and then like when you get down to 26, 25, 24, how they navigate that point until they become elder statesmen. Oh my God, look, they're taking a chance. how they navigate that is always interesting. Cruz just went into franchises. Yes. But he really struggled for a while too. I think Damon's had the most interesting approach to it where he seems to make a combination of like...

big choices, smart big things, and then like kind of weird cool swings and just doesn't seem to care what hits and what doesn't. Can we come back to this real quick? You think that Matt Damon is fucking with Brad Pitt in any way, shape, or form?

The Brad Pitt vs. Matt Damon Debate

I think it's an interesting one because if you go, if you go the seven, I think the seven movies that Brad Pitt made over the last four decades that probably have the longest tail, seven, Fight Club. Ocean's 11, Bastards, Moneyball, Once Upon a Time in F1, I think would be the seven. I'll hear that. So the question for me is, could Matt Damon top that with his best seven? I think if you're counting Odyssey next year.

Which we can't because we haven't seen it. Cutting the Departed. Good Will Hunting. Martian. Born. His 7 versus Pit 7 is a pretty good battle. And they probably made... The same amount of money and the same amount of movies. And they have similar things where it's like, they'll just be like, I'm getting behind Kenneth Lonegan. Or for Brad Pitt, he gets behind Andrew Dominick. Yeah, I think it's close. They pick their directors and they... What are you laughing at? It's absurd.

You think... No way. Matt Damon is just not on Brad Pitt's level? No. I think Matt Damon is... You think I'm being a Boston homer? Of course. I think Matt Damon... Shots fired at Matt Damon. I think Matt Damon is fantastic. Oscar winner.

It's an Oscar winner. Matt Damon is fantastic. If you were to use those movies as a metric, you could probably pull out, I bet there's probably more people that if we talk about guys that have been around this long, you could probably, if you just pull seven movies. I bet you could also do that for Ben Affleck. I bet you could in terms of rap. If you just pull seven movies. But if you talk about the space that they take up in culture, how they're regarded, just...

Overall, how audiences respond to them, I think that Brad Pitt is in a different level than Matt Damon is. I forgot about Mr. Ripley. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Who do you think is a better actor? I think Matt Damon has a little bit more range. Me too. I think. But it feels more like a movie star. It's tough. It's like, I also think like... It's interesting in Ocean's Eleven...

Pitt has kind of the more outsized role than Matt Damon does. They have very similar things going on where like every once in a while, like they'll be like the supporting character in something. Like it's a really tough conversation. Hey, don't want to be argumentative.

I just do not disagree. I just... I like when we argue. I don't like when we argue. I think that if you look at... You hate Boston, it's fine. At the full... I can't wait for you. Well, never mind. The full range of the roles. Yeah. Like from... 12 monkeys, all the way to cool leading man in F1. I don't know how we could say definitively... Yeah, but we could do that with... With Damon. We could do like Courage Under Fire through Bourns. Courage Under Fire. How about School Ties? Yeah.

How about school ties? Yeah. As we're talking about, okay. Anti-Semite 1940s football player. Who's better? Tough, tough, tough, tough role to get in character for, for a guy from Boston. He had no one to study. I'll be running to Matt Damon now. He's a fantastic performer. I'm just saying, I think Brad's probably...

He's certainly a bigger movie star, in my opinion, but I also think that— Well, I think the Angelina thing made him a bigger movie star, though. It wasn't until that happened. That vaulted him into A-plustom.

The Brangelina Era's Impact

Whereas Matt, on the other hand, got married. You'd never hear anything about him. He's been married for like 20 years. He's like intentionally low profile. Okay, so Brad was like, here I am. I am dating the hottest actress we have. Off the back of dating Jennifer Aniston. Yeah. Right. And Gwyneth Paltrow and whoever. The only problem with this is also when we were talking about Brad Pitt's movies, we left out Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But the only problem with this is that they met.

on a film where they were together in that film and it was Brad Pitt as the star of this big gigantic action movie. How would Van Lathan get out of this one? You dating Angelina and you doing a movie with Angelina Jolie in 2004. That's actually... Where were you? I called you in the trailer. Oh, I went to get an espresso. I didn't hear the phone. Poor thing. I still feel bad for Jennifer Aniston.

after that. It's a tough one. It's a tough one. Speaking of, uh, Sonny, Sonny, uh, what was Sonny Hayes? Sonny Hayes. Great name. I made in, uh, I wanted to move to, to, uh, Damson. The...

Athletes as Cinematic Icons by Decade

Athletes that captured the decade the best, if we're going to make a list, going back to the 70s. Athletes in movies? Movie athlete. Okay. Nick Nolte in North Dallas 40. 70s. Grizzled football. China, tell us where football's going. 1980s, Ivan Drago, Rocky IV. Cold War. We'll do anything for an edge. Put more steroids in me.

1990s. It's either Rod Tidwell or Willie Beeman. I'm not sure who. Maybe Willie Beeman, but you could also talk me into Rod Tidwell. Okay. Realistic. The most realistic version of an athlete I've seen in a movie. says something about the 90s in general. When you look back, it's like, that's a very 90s character. But also with Tidwell.

A very three-dimensional character. Yeah. Like a family man and all of that stuff. My favorite sports movie character. Yeah. 2000s. Tim Riggins. Any given Sunday. Yeah. Friday Night Lights. Yeah. I'm sorry, Friday Night Live. I wrote down any given time. Tim Riggins from the TV show? Yeah, well, in the movie. Yeah, in the movie, okay. Which one was Tim Riggins in the movie? Garrett Hedlund. Oh. Yeah. His dad.

being mean to him, Tim McGraw, putting the thing... But then he comes up and puts the ring on his finger. Bro, that movie, I know you guys are obsessed with the television show. No, the movie's great. We did the movie. That movie is perfect, bro. It's the best halftime speech ever given. Like, that's a perfect… Pacino is pre-game. Yeah. I mean, also, I would put Billy Bob… saying forever's about to happen like up against man he looks at those boys and without even raising his voice goes you know

My heart, I got goosebumps. Like, my heart is full. I've done everything that I can do. It's Pacino and Billy Bob in the finals. Yeah, when's, is the miracle speech? I don't know when the last time you watched Any Given Sunday. Oh, I watched it. It's kind of in the Pluto rotation right now. Just saying. It's been popping on Pluto. Do you have eyes for other free streaming services besides Tubi? It's been on Pluto. Tubi.

the halftime, the pregame's great. And then cutting the Fox and he starts moving toward Pacino. Great stuff. Uh, I have Riggins for here because movie and TV show. That was when we started to realize, oh, IP could be all over the place. 2010's Adonis Creed. 2020's Josh Pierce in F1. I love how they do the social. I think his whole backstory with his mom and his handler and how he's trying to basically be a star when he hasn't done anything yet, how he approaches his public persona.

It's the best I've seen in a movie this decade, I think, for where we are in the 2020s with social media. We'll just have to wait for the Puka Nakua story. Man's trying to close the deal on it right now. But this Josh Pierce character on paper... Might have not worked. And it worked really well. So why did it work? Super charming. Obviously, he's from like broke big with Snowfall. But I don't know. He has…

a limited amount of screen time in this movie compared to Pitt. Like there's clearly like other stuff. I think that they shot like a whole love interest with him that they left. Yeah, they cut it out completely. I didn't realize that. And the fact that you can still piece together who he is, and he has to say things like, I had to climb a mountain to get here and really sell it. You know, like, that's basically his exposition. And it really works. He's a really, really dynamic performer.

Character works for the same reason that the movie works. Like, the movie assumes that you know who he is. Which is why they could cut a lot of that stuff out. The movie assumes that you realize that it's tough for a kid coming from where he's from to achieve an F1. The movie even assumes that you understand his talent because we never really see it.

They basically just tell us over and over and over again that he could be a great driver. But we don't really get anything on screen to demonstrate that to us. But that character, that archetype of it's all right there in front of you, but you...

Subtlety in F1's Character and Teamwork

you're distracted by bullshit. Yeah. The movie assumes you know that character. It's kind of interesting. One of my favorite parts about this movie is that it's not like J.P. is Luke Skywalker. And they're like, we just need the right mentor to get this kid. It's like, he's pretty good. You know, F1 is really like a lot about the car, right? As my understanding is that the cars are kind of like…

And it seems like the teamwork is important. And the teamwork is important. Being the leader. But it's like they only really bond once, then they backslide, and then they bond one last time. And JP sacrifices for them. They do a great job with the morning jog.

Yeah, that's... Continuing to come back to that, and there's more and more people, and then eventually JP's leading the job, and it's like... But see... They don't bang you over the head with it. That, to me, is why I say this is 80s and 90s moviemaking, and Kaczynski is so good at this stuff. It's because...

You used to just have that scene. You used to have that scene of somebody getting up in the morning, stretching, and they're doing it by themselves, and then all of a sudden somebody else is there, and you see it rather than somebody having to give a long speech about the importance of togetherness. Yeah.

And then by the end of it, you get that there's something that happened between all of these people that brought them together. We'll have to be belabored. Yeah, this movie's long, but I don't feel like it's long when I'm watching it. Even like some of this stuff.

Jerry Bruckheimer: Producer Extraordinaire

pitches, like, in his hotel room or whatever, flicking the cards. He kind of needs it. Like, it has, like, a nice, the right kind of pace to it. Talk about that later, flicking the cards. A lot of things I got to talk about. Five decades of Bruckheimer. I'm glad you're bringing this up. How many rewatchables do you think we've done of Jerry Bruckheimer? 10? What do you think, Van? We've done 417 movies. This will be 418.

Bruckheimer? Yeah. No, no. We've done four. No, no, no, no, no. Overall. So I'm saying what? 15, 20? 16th. Wow. Yeah. So we've done Gigolo, Thief, American Gigolo, Thief. Cop 1 and 2, Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Crimson Tide, Dangerous Minds, Bad Boys, Con Air, Face Off, Armageddon, Enemy of the State, Remember the Titans, and Top Gun Maverick, and F1. Fucking bangers. I feel like we should have a picture of him in the studio here. This is 80s, 90s. It's five decades of him. Yeah.

And his 2010s weren't great. He's basically doing the pirate sequels and Lone Ranger and then kind of gets his mojo back. So many people have gotten distracted, decided to become tech moguls. Yeah. Start.

political action committees do whatever they're doing when they're movie producers this guy's just like i i do one thing and i do better than anyone else in the world it is this movie is really a monument to producing When you think about the amount of money that must have changed hands to make this movie, the amount of negotiating that must have had to happen with all the different countries they're shooting in, with the strikes happening.

with COVID restrictions. And Jerry Bruckheimer's got like fucking 15 new cameras inside of F1 cars. He's getting Apple to make him like these inch-sized cameras. I mean, it's just… That's what movie producers are supposed to do. Take some fucking lessons, man. Yeah, it's true. I look at him and I bet he calls movies pictures. And that's the kind of producers I like. I like it when they say picture.

We're working on a big picture here. Right. He's one of the last one of the guys that says, hey, I'm getting Brad Pitt and Kaczynski together. We're doing this racing picture. Like, the guys that put shit together, get shit done. It's about putting guys together and letting them get their talents off on the screen. And you'll do anything for the movie. Because of like the preponderate, like the amount of visual effects and like the amount of stuff you can do inside of a computer now.

And also just because of the last couple of years in the industry, when you watch movies now, you're kind of like, oh, I can see they tried to save money here. for whatever reason. Like, in any movie. You didn't get this feeling once during F1? When you watch F1, you're like, how much did this fucking movie cost? Jesus Christ! But to be honest with you, though, if people out there are wondering...

what a good producer does. Yeah. It's exactly what he's talking about. A movie that's well produced, you cannot see the seams. That is what a well-produced movie is. A well-directed movie maintains the dramatic tension and the narrative from the beginning all the way to the end with every scene kind of adding to that. A well-produced film...

you can't see the seams. It's almost like he was like, let's spend more money. You know what I mean? And that's kind of cool. Because you're like, you're getting it back in your movie ticket. Brockheimer's like, yo, Kaczynski, gonna have to shoot that final scene in Saudi Arabia, it looks like.

And we got to put the sheiks in as we're hitting the trophy. But we get an extra $50 million to spend. I do it. He's like, great. It's for the picture. It's for the picture. Great job by him. There's a couple we haven't done from him. We never did Flashdance. We didn't do Black Hawk Down, Quentin Tarantino's favorite movie in the 21st century. We didn't do Gone in 60 Seconds. And we didn't do Bad Boys 2.

Which we've discussed for like three years. Are you saving that? Yeah. We just haven't done it yet. When you guys do Black Hawk Down, because I'm not going to be on that one. When you guys do Black Hawk Down… We're not going to be on it because of…

Nah, it's not my type of deal. But when you do... Will you be on the Oz season one rewatch? I love that. Okay. But you guys, it should be you guys, and then you should bring in somebody from special operator YouTubes. There's this one guy I watch. It's like Valhalla guy. He's a special operator. Do you guys follow what's going on in the special operator community? I actually probably do.

Honestly, I'm surprised I don't know the guy you're referencing. Sierra and I have spent a lot of time in the Providence Reddit scene the last five days. I love listening to special operators talk about...

Inside F1's Production and Screenwriting

like what they need to be effective on a mission. If you guys do it, bring in a special operator to talk about it. Bring in Valhalla. The F1 stuff in this movie, based on the 2023 Formula One season filmed in 23 and 24. There was a bidding war in late 2021 for the movie. It had Pitt, Bruckheimer, Kaczynski, and Ethan Kruger, the guy who wrote it. Aaron Kruger. He's an interesting writer.

It's an interesting collection. My bad. Sorry, Kruger. Apple won the thing for $130-140 million. Gave Pitt 30 of it. Pitt and... Damson did all the driving up to 180 miles an hour, and then they tapped out after that. See, Damson had to... Part of getting the role was him. Yeah, he had to beat out. And unfortunately, this movie just happened, so there's really no great casting what-ifs for it, so I'm just going to send him some more. There was apparently a huge competition for the JP role.

Aaron Kruger did Arlington Road, Reindeer Games, The Ring, three Transformer movies, and Top Gun Maverick. Yes. It's a good career. It's worth noting that there... On top of a whole bunch of other stuff. ...is a... After the film, there is an additional literary... contributions credit for Aaron Sorkin yeah I saw that Christopher Storer and uncredited Jez Butterworth and Kara Smith cleaned up some dialogue I think that's where you want to get to in life as a screenwriter where they're like

Joseph Kosinski: The Action Director

Here's 500 grand. Can you just read this script and send us like 10 notes? Can we have a little dialogue? Hey, I've talked about it before. I can't. Arlington Road, underrated. I like it too. Kaczynski. broke through he'd been around for a while but broke through with top gun maverick in 22 he understands me cr yeah he knows what you like that's what i want yeah

He understands what I want in a movie. And he's done two of the only rewatchables ever that we've done in the same year the movie came out. We'll probably do another one when Miami Vice comes out. I mean, we'll be doing that from the theater. He's the only person who's ever made a movie that we've done the rewatchables the week it came out, right? Didn't we do Top Gun Maverick really soon after it came out? Yeah, because we both went nuts.

Yeah. Also directed one of the greatest commercials of all time. What's that? You guys remember the Gears of War commercial where it was, is that an R.E.M. song? What's the song? The song? No, Tears for Fear song. Oh, Everybody Wants the Ruler World? No, it's… Who makes this? I don't know who makes… Pill Shelter? No, the song is called… We're just going to go through all these records. It's obviously a commercial that stayed with you. No, it's called Mad World.

Mad World. Yeah. Mad World. Shut the fuck up. It's called Mad World. The Gears of War commercial. Yeah. He did that. Mad World. Yeah. But I think, like, this is a really important movie for him because it's the... Now he is, to me... The big budget action guy. Yeah. Well, $200 million budget at least made over $600 million so far. It's at like 630 as we record this. So I think he's...

Apple's Movie Strategy and Box Office

It's also going to be the now flagship movie of Apple for five years, probably. Well, that's the other thing. And we could have put this- Like every time you turn on Apple TV, the first thing you see is- It's still there. I went to go find it to rewatch it this week and there it was just staring at me. I don't know what category that fits in for the rewatchables, but it gave Apple-

movie credibility that it just didn't have. It was a big bet. They were kind of, they felt like they were just stupid money. Um, people taking advantage of them in some ways. And then this movie changed the calculus of it and then ended up with them getting F1 recently. the actual sport that is going to now be on Apple. So before this, Apple had put out the Ridley Scott one, Napoleon. Yes. I think that movie was... When you go and watch that film...

First of all, Ridley Scott is obviously fantastic, but the movie itself is just a mess. It seems like it's something that's overwrought. It's overspent. It's the entire deal. It doesn't seem like there's actually real craft in the filmmaking there. It's precisely the type of movie. that Apple would not want to make. It looks like a film made by a big streamer with no constraints on anything. And they had a few of those. And this movie looks like the opposite. It looks like a movie...

that even though they spent a ton of money, that everything was done with such care and such craft that it solidifies them as people who know how to make good films. Also, I think we've seen some success this year with... We'll release the movie in the theaters for a few weeks and then it'll be on our service and we're going to win two ways. Cause we saw it with one battle. We saw it with sinners. Saw it this movie. We saw it with weapons. Um, this formula that people thought.

Well, that doesn't make sense. Why am I going to go see it in the theater if it's also going to be available for free? Yeah. And it wasn't. So this was eighth worldwide in 2025. It was as big as Superman, Van. Yeah. Take that fucking Superman. It's an interesting development though. Yeah. Have some of that. It was Pitt's biggest film ever. Worldwide at least.

It surpassed Cars 2 as the highest grossing sports film worldwide. Is Cars 2 a sports movie and I didn't get the memo? Isn't it animated? Yeah. I mean... That was in my research. Cars 2 was the biggest sports movie. It's like what... I don't know what the actual biggest one is.

Speculating on Roger Ebert's F1 Review

I forgot to mention, soundtrack by Hans fucking Zimmer. And the Hansettes. Coming at John Williams now. Has John Williams in his sights? Roger Ebert did not... review this movie because he's been dead for like 10 years. Do you think you would have liked it? So I looked up some of his racing reviews. He gave Rush four stars. Days of Thunder two. Top Gun two and a half.

I didn't do the chat GBT to find out what he would have thought. I was about to ask. You got uncomfortable last time. No, I didn't. No, I do. I do chat GBT all the time. Look at this. Dog population estimate in the world. College football scandals. Explain to me sovereign AI. What is a hostile takeover?

All kinds of violent history of the KKK. This is what I ask. You could just Google that, though. But ChatGPT does it better. I think Raj would have given this three stars. Too long. Racing scene's incredible. I said three stars as well, and I think he would have paid special tribute to Kerry Condon.

And how she was a well-developed female character. The floor is three stars because the movie making is so great. I know. Yeah. All right. We take a break. Then we're going to do most rewatchable scene. This episode is brought to you by Dead Man's Wire, the new film from Roque Entertainment.

We love all kinds of movies here on the rewatchables, but sometimes the true stories can be the most thrilling. Like Zodiac, a movie that we did a long time ago that I wasn't on and I want to be on that podcast again, but a classic just diving into something that...

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with Coleman Domingo and Al Pacino. I've heard of him. In select theaters January 9th, everywhere January 16th. This episode is brought to you by Subaru. For Subaru, the holiday season is a time to give back. That's why during the 2025 Subaru Share the Love event from November 20th to January 2nd. Subaru and its retailers will donate at least $300 to charities nationwide for every new car sold or leased. They've supported over 2,700 local causes. And by year's end, donations will reach 300.

Rewatchable Scenes: Introductions and Training

$50 million. Learn more at Subaru.com slash share. All right, guys. I have a few here. I'm going to try to zip through them. All right. Most rewatchable scene, the opening scene, Sonny in a trailer. Is this Cliff Booth? Is he back? It's just such a great character introduction. The lead step just coming in. They're like...

Not only have we spent a lot of money on this movie, we got fucking Led Zeppelin. Dude, when you see this shit in IMAX, and a whole lot of love starts, and then he dunks his face in an ice bath, and then he's like, 24 hours in Daytona, Shea Wiggum, let's fucking go. And another thing, like, you ready to go, A, he's sleeping. And then the person says, five minutes until you have to get into one of those death machines and race around. You just right away know so much about the character.

And then he gets out of the car and he goes, lose that lead. Lose that lead and I'll kill you. Puts a bunch of zins in. Yeah. Spend your whole life starting over, Sonny. Anyway. Next one. Sonny shows up. Does the I can get within one second of JP challenge. Flips the car at the end, but he made it. Enjoyable. Sizing each other up. Some good sizing.

Some good sizing in this movie. Didn't super understand that. It seemed like he had one good sector but stalled once and then crashed. That's our guy. He's 52 and he crashed. I also really like when... When they're like, is he auditioning? He's like, no, he's auditioning us. That is a trope. I have Sonny and Kate having a beer.

Right into the Rocky IV training montage. Training montage is great. It's like, JP's doing the new school version, but there's our guy, Sonny, old school. Just doing pull-ups. We don't talk about that trope. Old school, new school training montage? Old school, new school training. Stallone invented that shit. They invented it, yeah. I can't... I gotta say, CR's been in my life for so long that when the two beers scene...

For some reason, I just think of CR immediately as I'm watching it. I'm like, CR would have loved this, watching this girl with a big pint. Yeah. And if she pulled out a cigarette, like you said earlier, I think it would have been all over. We don't get a lot of pint scenes anymore. It's also a very idyllic pub on a canal. It's just a beautiful, beautiful pub. They look great. Yeah, they look awesome. I mean, neither of them is really drinking the beer. No. Yes.

F1 as Commercialism and Rule-Breaking

She leaves, it's like just that much is gone. I wondered if that was a F1 thing. Because the only person who's really drinking alcohol in this movie is Tobias Menzies. And everybody else is kind of... having non-NA beers. Yeah. You know, we're this deep into the pod. We haven't really talked about this movie as a function of F1 propaganda, commercial stuff. I mean, every single driver's in it.

I didn't want to spend too much time on that because there was so much written and discussed about it when the movie came out. But we probably shouldn't talk about it. It's a two and a half hour commercial for F1. Yeah. I mean, Lewis Hamilton's in the end. Nobody's a villain. Lewis Hamilton is part of the filmmaking team. Yeah.

There's nothing like Ferrari is the bad guys or Red Bull are the bad guys. There are no bad guys. Although I will say, interestingly enough, I'm sure we're going to get to this at some point, the F1 community.

Kind of mixed on this movie. Yeah. Surprisingly. And some of the drivers even were just like, eh. And I wondered if it was like, they have to be like, Carlos Sainz has to get passed. You know what I mean? Like… max gets passed by these dudes like i'm interested because i saw that in the research too i'm interested in what they would have wanted yeah but that's the thing like if somebody it's like when they made that rom-com about the place that seemed like grantland

And we're like, you fucking guys. Does that sound like that? My office wouldn't be that nice. What is this movie? It was the Glenn Powell movie, right? It was the Glenn Powell movie with Zoe Dich. They were working at— And they admitted it was based on a Grantland type of place. Oh, interesting. And it was like so much nicer than great land in the office. We just had like, we worked on people cram together. Yeah. Um, so, Oh, I forgot in the beer thing. This was another like mini trope.

They're saying Sonny isn't a has-been. He's a never-was. I feel like I've heard that line before. There's some lines where it's like, oh, this definitely got pulled out of AI. Next scene, Sonny exploits the rules by causing... minor crashes to get JP into the top 10? I'm just going to do this as a nitpick now. Can you do this? Uh, there...

I don't think so to the extent that they do it. That's probably why the F1 people didn't like this. Well, I think when you read, like, I was reading reviews of the movie in F1 and auto racing magazines. And they were like, this is ridiculous. This is ridiculous. No one would ever do this. You couldn't do that. So I think if you're a general fan of like, if you're obviously a movie going fan, but if you are like, I am broadly aware of F1, but don't understand the minutia of it.

Dramatic Climax: Monza Crash and Storytelling

you love this movie and if you do understand all the details of F1, you're probably like, well, that's bullshit. So, I always think, what would I have if I was a banker? Yeah. And I was watching the big short. Because The Big Short is the only other movie that I can compare to this film that has to do work in order for the narrative to be understood. Yeah. Has to do work in educating the audience as you're watching the movie. And obviously, it...

It's fabled. They did it in a very ingenious way. But in this movie, if not for that part that probably doesn't happen, I would really not know what was going on. There's like a couple of different parts in the film where... some of the stuff that they use in story explains to me… That's a really good example. Because Big Short has all those direct-to-camera moments with like Selena Gomez and Anthony Bourdain. But then also like… In Margin Call…

There will be times in margin call where a character will be like, explain this to me like I'm 10. And it's like, well, you probably understand a little bit more of a sophisticated version of this, but… If you want Jeremy Irons to say that, you can have it. That way, the audience understands how the housing crisis starts. I was trying to think of the sports that we watch all the time. What would be the example of him causing the minor crashes, but it somehow being legal?

Being football, if you're like, there's 30 seconds left, the other team's on their 20, and you just did pass interference every time to chew the clock up, like five yards right off the line of the scrimmage. and it just chews up five seconds, and then the other team's at the 45 with no time left, which I've seen teams try to do. And if that was an even more blatant version of that strategy, that's kind of like... It's a little hack-a-shack. Yeah, a little bit. Hack-a-shack.

Hackashack is a good example. Yeah. JP crashes in the rain. This is an incredible sports movie scene. The Monza, the whole Monza race is amazing. Every piece of this is great. The combat chant right into the Sonny is putting it together montage. Say something about the crash real quick. Another reason why that crash is great is because in the movie, you don't know if he's going to die.

It's very... Well, it's unexpected. Yeah. You think he's going to win the race. You're just like, oh, he's going to pass this guy. But once he crashes, I could see them killing him. Yeah. It's a Brad Pitt deal. He's there. I could see the character dying. It's not like when you...

In a Marvel film or some of these other big budget IP movies, these people are signed up for, nobody's gonna die. There's a danger to this film because you don't know what's gonna happen. I could see them killing him. I thought maybe he was dead.

Character Moments: Poker, Monologue, Defiance

The combat chant, Sonny putting it together, montage, really good music. The poker game, I have some thoughts on the poker game later, but it's an enjoyable scene. The first time through, yeah. Carrie's wearing the strapless. Gonna be completely candid. There is like an hour and a half version of this movie that's just the races. That is just like...

That's all I want to watch in my life. Well, they need this though to set up the hookup with her. But I just like when anybody plays cards in a movie. The balcony scene. The Brad Pitt face. I was going to be world champion. Best there ever was. Then it was all taken away. Chasing that moment every time I get in the car. I don't know when I'll find it again, but man, I want to. It's in that moment I'm flying.

It's pretty good. Yeah. That's good stuff. You like that. She's just licking. They got the balcony with Vegas. Great scene. I like when they don't want him to race. If it's the last thing I do is drive that car, I will take that life. Oh, this is after Vegas? Yeah, after Vegas. I had a question, though. Why not, when they're trying to decide whether Sonny should race or not, why not have Javier Bardem...

Do a coin toss. All of a sudden, his hair is parted forward. And he's just like, call it. Call it, sonny. Then the final sprint. And then them winning.

Hottest Take: Sonny's Controversial Victory

and a champagne spray celebration. That seems really fun. Did the right guy crash? Let's just do this now. Oh, this is my hottest take. Let's hear it. Let's just do it now. This is a better movie if Sonny crashes. My Luke Wilson hottest take is basically... Sonny winning Abu Dhabi, much like Maverick, where Maverick has to be the one who saves everybody's asses, is probably good for this movie, but bad for the movie industry.

And it is kind of like a metaphor for like baby boomers staying in their houses. Like we got to get you guys out of the paint. And it's not good for the movie industry if we don't build more Brad Pitt's and more Tom Cruise's. And if these guys keep making movies like this where they're like, no, no, no. I win. I'm the champion. But thank you for your assistance. It's bad for the movie industry. So I like it in the movie.

we talked about this crash at the end. I remember we talked about this when we did the thing on my pod. Cause my, that was the one thing I had walking out of the theater where I was like, huh? The better movie is if Damson wins. Yes. Well, it's and Sonny puts him forward and pays it forward and the team wins.

but they have Sonny win, and it's just, and then it's like, you'll win more later. You're going to win 10 of these. It's like, will he? I don't know. So the best version of this, to me, that's ever been done in this old dog, new dog thing is In Color of Money. Yeah. We're at the end. Newman wins, but he doesn't know that he actually didn't win, that he's in a world now to where he can't see the angles anymore. So actually, Vince won.

So you walk away, you kind of get the best of both worlds. Now you get Eddie Filson renewed and all of that, and you get the actual character walking away smiling, the young guy smiling. In this movie, though... I'm gonna keep it all the way real with y'all. I didn't go to the movie.

to watch Damson win the race. So here's the only flip I would say. What you are saying is true, but by the time we built it up to him, because they didn't do enough for Damson's character in the movie to make him winning the race. satisfactory if his mom would have needed, if we knew more about all of this stuff. I completely agree with you. But like, they didn't do enough for his character for him to win the race. First time I was shocked that he didn't win.

Second time, Pitt winning made more sense to me in the context of the movie. But I still think it's more interesting if they flip it. It's just a more interesting movie. Like the movie that probably did the handover the best is Creed. And it's also a very successful franchise about a new quote-unquote character, even though it's like a legacy character. I was going to say Any Given Sunday. Because Cap gets hurt right before halftime. Sure.

Makes the Dennis Quaid face. But Cap, like, once again, in that movie, there's no stakes in Willie Beeman taking over Cap. We barely get to know Cap. We're doing it in 2026. But it would be kind of cool if, if, like... It's a redo. Sonny crashes in Vegas and he's not allowed to race anymore. Like Ruben won't let him race. So he becomes the guy in the ear. You know, Kate.

And nobody wants that. I know. But I'm just saying, like, it's bad for the movie industry if we do not make these dudes into, like, superstars. I don't disagree. Like, you wonder if in F2, if JP gets to win, or if they even— They could— Literally not bring JP back for F2. Fuck. I mean, F2 could just be Brad Pitt and Baja and I go see it. Would you see that? Yeah. I'll probably go watch it. Brad Pitt, Sonny Bunch and Baja. Yeah.

Let Taylor Sheridan ride it. The cartel's coming after him. Okay. So that was my hottest take, but we put it in for Abu Dhabi. You know, when you get old in life, things get taken away from you. It's part of life. You only learn that when you start losing stuff. Find out that life is just a game anxious. Are you just doing any given Sunday? What's happening?

I'm just getting you guys ready for 2026. And this team, we fight for that inch! I was like, did Sonny say that? What's going on? That probably would have been the way…

Top Rewatchable Scenes: Monza and Friendships

to have Sonny not race in the final race as he gives a pachinko like any given Sunday speech to JP. What's your most rewatchable scene? Monza. It's fucking awesome. The virtual safety car, the rain coming in. Sonny cuts off Max. I like when the guy whips the fire thing to him because Sonny's closer. Good little details. The slingshot move in the rain spray is awesome. I also really like the British Grand Prix when Sonny doesn't start.

Like it's like the race starts and Sonny's just sitting there and they're like, what's he doing? Yeah. What's he doing? He's playing us. Yeah. If not for him, flying is definitely Mazda for me. But the flying part was just really cool. That's my answer as well. There's only one other scene that I like. I love the ending in this movie. I love any scene in a movie.

where two old friends see each other, but at first they pretend like they don't know each other. Yeah. That's what Sierra and I are going to do. Oh, at the diner? Yeah, at the diner. You old son of a bitch. Come here, you son of a bitch. Come here, you son of a bitch. You old fucking son. It's good to see you.

see ya. Like, I'll love any scene like that. We should start doing that every time we see each other. Every time we see each other. That's when I come find CR in London in 25 years. I'm having a beer with Kerry Condon. Yeah. And you gotta go, we gotta pod one more time.

F1 as a 2025 Cultural Phenomenon

I got a new podcast idea. It's a rewatchables of Oz. I need you. What's the most 2025 thing about this movie? Well, this just happened, but... I'll give you a Drive to Survive reference. The F1 having a major race in Las Vegas could only have happened in the last two years. And then JP watching Sonny's 1993 accident on YouTube.

Those are my three choices. Those are really rooted in the 2020s. Making a movie like this about F1 at this particular point. F1 has taken over. F1 being internationally beloved, celeb-infested, mega-sport. I want to know how you… How you feel about this? So to me, F1 is the new soccer. In that it's a sport. And nobody actually watches it? That you have to...

Act like you care about if you are a cosmopolitan. You're talking from an American standpoint? Yeah, if you're a cosmopolitan sports fan, like us regular sports fans that get into baseball. playoff baseball, football, and basketball, maybe a little tennis, maybe a little golf when there's a dominant person. Then you're pretending you know something about the World Cup. Right. I think Croatia could beat England. I heard that, by the way, on you and Zach. Just like last year.

There was friends of mine that were going, yeah, I'm going, I got to go support my fucking driving team. I'm like, get the fuck out of here, your driving team. What the fuck are you talking about? I will say, the under 30s, there were some people that jumped right in. But that's a part of it. Our podcast does pretty well. I'm not saying it's a...

Shout out to Meg Schuster. I'm just saying everybody now has to have like a soccer team. You know, everybody has to have a soccer team. And it's like, if you're... You're a true sports fan if you're into soccer, if you're into the WNBA. You're a true sports fan. Yeah, that's... Before the WNBA went on a three-year strike. The WNBA cooking right now.

It's fun to watch. I hope it's cooking with regular season games next year. Have you seen Audie Crooks? Where did she play? Who are you talking to? She plays for Iowa State. Iowa State. Have I seen Audie Crooks? All right. Just making sure you're supporting the league, Bill, because they need you. I'm supporting. If you don't, because you've been in the past. I was texting with Shanae yesterday about it. I was. Name dropping.

Because she's going to come on the pod soon because we really have to figure out this WNBA strike before it becomes a strike. Yeah, it's true. This is not a good situation. Do people with F1, do they more cheer for drivers or teams? I think it's drivers, right? Like the people I know that are into it. I think it's like basketball where some people have teams and other people have drivers. So if the driver switches team, it's like LeBron.

Oh, LeBron's on the Cavs again. I'm rooting for the Cavs. Let me ask you this. Michael Schumacher was F1, right? Sure. Yes.

What Aged Best: Pitt's Persona and Soundtrack

In the 90s, he was everywhere, right? Those guys also moved around. They did Indy. They would race F1 and also race other. Did he have a feud with Cole Trickle? Schumacher? No, it wasn't even set up. We're racing. It was going back and forth. What's age the best? Brad Pitt living in a trailer. I'm just in every time. Yeah. At this point. I don't know if anyone's ever lived in a trailer better than him in a movie. It would be funny if he was playing like FDR, but he was living in a trailer.

Back on the White House. They should just release a movie called Brad Pitt's Living in the Trailer. Yeah. That's just the movie. Brad is these buddies FDR. As good looking as he is, he does slovenly really well. He does... It's because if you're that fucking hot, you can just do whatever you want. Who's your favorite bad print character ever? Is it Moneyball guy? Nah. Tyler Bird. My favorite is probably either True Romance or...

Or Fight Club. Mine is Floyd in True Romance hands down. One of my favorite characters of all time. He's coming back. And then Burn After Reading would be like an honorable mention. What stage is the best?

What Aged Best: Strong Female Lead and Villains

I like movies with just a great expensive soundtrack. Yeah. That they're just like, we're going to have Queen and Led Zeppelin and some other shit on this. And money was not spared. They also just did a full album of new music for this record. I have a bunch. What do you have? I'm just a fucking Irish guy who loves Carrie Condon. Yeah, I got Carrie Condon. I love it when she goes...

What's wrong with the car? The guy is sitting in it. And her shit is thick. And we also, we got to bring, we got to start saying box, box. Next time I have to pee, I'm going to be like, box, box. I'm going to walk off set. Like the F1 pit call when they're like, I have to bring the car into pit road. They're like, box, box, box. Did you notice that? I did. Okay.

I was thinking about should they have added a scene when because we never see Damson's dad if JP's dad they're like what happened to him and Carrie Conner was like, I gave him a taste. She took to it right away. Took to it right away. You did the chemical way. It was on. I told Ciara it was on the other day. I watched the entire movie. I'd just seen it like three months ago. I'm going to be real. If it's on, I just hop in. I watch a lot of villains.

say a lot of evil shit. Flower guys. Being like, I got your mom strung out. That motherfucker saying that to him is the most evil shit. And then your dad let you think she just ran away. As he's doing the fucking flower. While you're putting your fucking flyers out there. That's one of the most evil villain monologues that I've ever seen. That was an evil motherfucker in that movie. Spirit animal. What else do you have, Ciara? Just like our introduction to Sonny as a guy who's like...

What Aged Best: Technical Aspects and Immersion

listening to Led Zeppelin, doing his clothes at the laundromat, listening to the radio. I just think it's like a great character beat where you're like, this is a dude that's out of step with modern times. The technical stuff. Had that as well. Like the in-race scoreboard graphic helpers. All of the tech, all of the technical stuff.

how beautiful this movie almost looks like it could be it takes place in the present time but like this movie looks like it could be like a near futurist film with how much stuff is going on it's also crazy how much you kind of like I never really truly understand what the fuck is happening

But like by the end of the movie, you're like, oh my God, he's going to undercut him. You know what I'm like? I didn't know what that concept was before I watched this movie. And as a commercial, this might be the single most, and maybe you guys can think of one that's better. This might be the single most.

effective movie commercial, maybe other than The Wizard. Like, when you were a kid and you were watching The Wizard, you wanted to play Mario 3 like crazy when The Wizard came out. But this, knowing that that world exists, like... these incredibly rich, beautiful people, watching people drive these, that looks like an intoxicating world to be a part of. It made me sort of almost halfway, half a 1% interested in F1. And I've never watched it.

Yeah, the outdoor luxury box situation they have with the evil villain guy entertaining his guests. That seems pretty fun. Who wants some caviar, guys, as we watch guys raise five? It seems like 80% of F1 audiences are in executive suites somehow.

I had the same thing with the scoreboard graphic helpers, how we always know where we are in the race. I just think we've seen so many sports movies where they fuck that up. You don't know what the score is or they have announcers. And here comes Sonny.

What Aged Best: Enduring Sports Movie Tropes

Sonny Hayes, we didn't expect to see him. And they just screwed up. I have asking diner waitresses for advice. Oh, it's a win. What do you think there, Luis? How much are we talking? It's not about the money. Diner waitresses are just undefeated. They've seen a lot. They've been through a lot. It's really funny. They've seen a lot. They're like bartenders but they've seen even more. Brad Pitt got $30 million to do this movie. He's like, it's not about the money.

The morning jogs we mentioned. The old school opening credit sequence. Awesome. We don't do opening credits anymore, Van. Yeah. Brought me back to the 90s. And then my last one. There's another sports movie trope of many ones. In this case, the jumpy pit crew member. Yeah, Jody. Where you're like, oh, she's going to be redeemed. Yeah. She's going to come through. Mm-hmm.

Rewatchables Awards: Cinematic Excellence

We're going to have a changeover at one point. She'll have her shit together. I always enjoy those. Okay. Big Kuna Burger Award. Best used food and drink. The beers. Pints. Easy one. Honorable mention to Bardem and Pitt's diner scene. That's good too, yeah. Great shot, Gordo. JP's car crash in slow-mo. Yeah. That's a clear winner, but I was trying to think. There's so many awesome shots in the movie. That's a clear winner. You know what just gets my fucking heart going is just the shot of...

Sonny taking checkered flag and the fucking fireworks going off. It's like, God damn. That's gorgeous. Beautiful, yeah. Great use of fireworks in this movie. Kid Cudi Preceded Happiness War, Best Needle Drop. It's clearly a whole lot of love. Led Zepp. But I do like the Chris Stapleton song.

That plays over the practice race. That when, when, when Sonny first gets to the team. Chess Rockwell, Brock Leonard's best character name, Sonny Hayes. What do you have? The British media, the sports reporter, Don Cavendish. Sonny! Sonny, you're a gambler. That could have been... That should be a new category for 26. What part could CR have played? That would have been... Easily could have been Don Cavendish. Yeah. Cavendish comes up.

Oh, you have a flex category. What do you got? Oh, when would I have died? Now, most people would probably say when they were driving. I think I would die cleaning gravel off of the track.

Weak Links: Minor Characters and Age Inconsistency

I think I would be, like, busy listening to something and then, like, getting distracted. Final Destinations and shit. Butch's girlfriend award for weak link of the film. I have a glaring one, but what do you have? Do you have one? You go. No, you go. It was hard for me to like find one, but it was probably his manager. Punch it in. Yeah. It's… The guy… Samson K.O. is good in it. Yeah. But it is a nothing party. Yeah. It doesn't mean anything. Yeah. Is he a bad guy? A good guy?

And even at the end when JP decides not to do it, they haven't committed enough to the character. He just daps him up. He's like, cool, we're not going to do social media anymore. I don't have a job. You just fire me, but that's great. They're probably cousins or something like that. Yeah, they are.

You guys exist, though. It's like the Anthony Edwards' buddy in the Adidas commercial. But you need, to me, you got to commit to that character a little bit. Give that character something to do. Make him a little sinister. Yeah, he has to be like... I want to go to these parties for myself. I need you to come to get me in. I'm trying to get laid. Either funnier or more serious or something. Sonny's way too fucking old to be an F1 driver.

Title Debate and 'Aged the Worst' Moment

That's picking nits, though. No, this is the weak link of the film. I looked it up. The oldest Formula One driver ever to win a Grand Prix was Luigi Fagioli. He's 53 years old. That was in 1951 at the French Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton is the oldest 21st century driver to win a race. He was 39 years old in 2004. Sonny crashed in 93.

So he's either 19 or 20 when he crashes. So that makes him 51, 52, or 53 in this film. This would be like fucking Jack Nicklaus winning the 86 Masters multiplied by seven. It's impossible. Right. There are no 50-year-old F1 drivers. It's also like how many old F1 drivers have also had major spinal surgery. C5. And never were really in an F1 before. Yeah. All of this is improbable, but I love it. And that's why I want to put in the pics.

Was there better title for this movie? In 2023, ESPN reported that the film was titled Apex. Terrible title. Terrible title. I don't like the title F1. I don't think it's a good title. I think it's too confusing with the actual property and I think they should have come up with a better one. What do they call this? Sunny Hayes, Apex.

F1, it's like you Google it and F1 comes up. I think also F1 calling it that made it seem more explicitly like an advertisement for the, for the, for the racing. So it almost like is like a little like flying. No, but that's the thing is like, what are you going to call it? But you know, if you're trying to, I don't like the Apex name. If you're trying to do a commercial for F1, like I said, the movie, it lives inside of this.

The fact that it's straightforward and vapid. All right, Counter. If this was a movie about an NBA player and they just called it NBA. That'd be weird. It wouldn't make any sense because the sports are well established. You guys going to see NBA? No, man. I'm going to see Atlanta Hawks. It's kind of the independent version of NBA. That's a bad title. What's age the worst?

Weak Links: Pacing, Overacting, Plot Holes

So, we don't know because the Spoonville only came out six months ago. I got one. What do you got? A real one. So... Lewis Hamilton's beloved dog, Roscoe, is in this film. Oh, and yeah, now he's dead. Roscoe has passed away. It was very tough for Lewis Hamilton. He talked a lot about it. And when I went to go see the movie at first...

Roscoe was still alive and well. It was cool. He meant a lot to F1. He was kind of an F1 mascot. When you see him now, you think about how much that must sell for Lewis Hamilton. I had this as more than a nitpick, so I put it here. This movie ends three times and I think you can make a case you just stick with the first ending. Which would be what? He wins the race. He's walking off. It could have ended there.

He's got to say goodbye to Kerry Condon so you have that moment. It could have ended there. Then he's got to say goodbye one more time to JP. Easily could have ended there. And now we're going to Baja? Yeah, Baja. Baja was too much.

Baja was sick. What the fuck? Baja was fine, but just make that a deleted scene. It was like, they liked how they shot it. Or post-credited it. Like, Baja was too much. Right. End the movie, maybe make that just post-credits completely, but there's no way that should have been the ending.

You could have just ended this with him spraying the champagne. I think you're right, but it is like, this is a guy who does what he says he's going to do. And it's not about the money. It's about the driving, you know? So you have to have that hammered home one more time when he gets.

when he gets to Baja, when he gets to Mexico. All right. I find it hard to believe this guy's like, my F1 career is now over. I won my one race. Age the worst. I mean, this is also a nitpick, but we kind of mentioned this. I think there should have been more scenes of F1 drivers interacting with these guys and or commenting on.

the fictional reality of the movie. Well, even that one scene with the talk show, with the guy, with the guy who ran Apex, with the two real guys. Yeah, with Zach Brown and, yeah. Ruffalo, Hannah Ribnick, Partridge, overacting award. I would probably say your English reporter guy. He's dialing it up. What is that guy? He's like on cocaine? Yeah. Treating people like shit. Asking crazy questions. Yeah. It's paid out in the end.

Flex Category: Old Guys Schooling Young Guys

You got a flex category, man. I do. I got another top five. This is the top five scenes of old guys schooling young guys in movies. Five to one. Number five, Joe Clark to Sam's in Lean On Me. Yeah. On the roof. Yeah. Why don't you just jump? It kills your brain cells, son. It kills your brain cells. Sam's looking at it. He's overtaken by the fact that he's actually on crack.

And Joe Clark is trying to save his life. I don't think you're allowed to do that in schools anymore. Probably not. To fake that you're going to put somebody off the roof of the goddamn school. LA Times continues to investigate. Right, like Joe Clark. Number four, Rocky beats up Tommy Gunn.

God, I can't believe how much we have to talk about this. I'm sorry, bro. Rocky putting them hands on Tommy Gunn. Tommy was asking for it. Tommy was asking for it. Okay. That's very meaningful to me. Come into the bar and start talking shit. Number three. Shit. out-dueling Kyle Watson in the one-on-one game and above the rim. 15 straight 14-footers. And then at the end, you hear that? You hear that? You talking to his friend?

He says, I'm cool. It's good. Number two. That's where they probably would have put him in a straight jacket. When he's talking to his buddy. You hear that nutso? Nutso. Nutso. You hear that nutso? He liked nutso more than anyone's ever liked one of their friends. Did you ever have a friend you cared about more than nutso? I have a couple of them, but no friends that I would play basketball on the roof with with no fence.

And then the way Nutso died is fucking absurd. It's the best. Okay. That movie's elite. Number two is Split. One, Yoda schooling Luke. Yeah. when Luke cannot raise the X-Wings in Dagobah out of the thing. And then Luke's dad also got schooled. Kenobi stood there and he said, Anakin. Don't try it. Don't try to jump. And Anakin went, you're underestimating my power. He jumped.

And Kenobi cut his fucking legs off. Spoiler! Jesus. No, you're talking about the prequels. I'm talking about in Revenge of the Sith. It's just one of my all-time favorite you-got-too-much-dip-on-your-chip moments. Anakin's like, I'm the chosen one. I could jump. So that was two Star Wars as number one. No, no, as number two. Number one is very clear. This is the best, and I hate to give you this props.

The best old guy schooling young guy scene ever to me is Robin Williams to Matt Damon on the bench in Goodwill. Just watched it with Ben Simmons. Did you really? Ben Simms and I watched Good Will Hunting and Shawshank Redemption back-to-back two nights ago. Does Ben like F1? Yo, he loved it.

Yeah, that's some hardcore bonding right there. Good Will Hunting was great. He's sitting down there and he's telling them the whole thing. He just cuts Will down to nothing. You looked at a painting for five seconds and you cut apart my fucking life. My whole fucking life. You ever been on a plane before? Like the whole nine just takes his whole shit apart because Will is a genius, but Robin Williams is experienced. Your move, chief. Your move, chief. Yep. It's a great one.

Personal Hottest Takes: Card Tricks & Racing

I will say watching Shawshank with Ben was one of my highlights of 2025. He had no idea what was going to happen. And he was like, is he going to, then Andy gets the rope. He's going back to his cell and he's like, he's going to hang himself? Like, what the fuck? And then the next day they were like, he doesn't come out for the cell and he's gone. And Ben was just like, he lost his mind like four times. Forget how great that movie is.

Hottest take. C, I already gave his. Did you have one? Yeah. I don't like anybody in real life or in movies that throws cards for fun. It's also, have you ever in your life seen somebody do that? It's like, think about what kind of obsessive bastard you have to be to throw all them cars for fun. I don't trust you at all. I think that, number one, you got to go clean up all the cards, then you got to do it again. Crazy alone time you got to spend. Number two is kind of violent.

You're throwing cards. I feel like what you really want to be throwing is like ninja stars or some shit like that. Like a switchblade. Like a switchblade. Like you want to throw something at somebody. I just never trusted anyone that's like...

that's, like, too into cards and using cards as tricks and throwing cards. There's one guy in the history of throwing cards that was cool. One dude. Gambit. X-Men. Charge a card, kinetically throw it. I was gonna say that. Yeah. You're really pushing Bill with Revenge of the Sith and Gambit from X-Men. Come on now.

You got to know it. It's a useless skill just throwing cards sitting around there. They always make it as a cool movie thing too. You're just tossing cards. I've never liked people that done that before. My hottest take was that I like racing movies 10 times more than actual racing. Yes. Let's take a break, and then we'll do some casting what-ifs. This message is brought to you by Apple Card.

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V-U-O-R-I dot com slash Simmons. Enjoy free shipping on all U.S. orders over $75 plus free returns. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Casting what ifs, you mentioned. Damson Idris was hired after passing the F1 driving test. We don't know who the other actors he beat out were, but we'll find out in about 12 years as the internet starts making up names of people that are around the same age.

Simone Ashley, we do know that she did promotional tour interviews, is in the movie as his love interest, and then just got cut out. I must suck. Yes. Can you imagine?

Because you're probably like, I'm going to be in one of the biggest movies of the year and I'm like a big part. And they're just like, yeah, it just didn't work. But then you go to the movie. I went to have fun. Where were you? But you go to the movie and you're like, oh, so we needed another jogging scene. Yeah. Thanks, motherfuckers.

Pitt was supposed to be in the original Ford vs. Friar with Tom Cruise, and it was called Go Like Hell with Kaczynski directing, but it fell apart. Yep. And they ended up working together in this. Best That Guy Award. I mean, there's a few. What do you, what'd you have for this? I have Kim Budnaya from the dude from killing Eve is Casper, the team principal. Like the guy who's like got his family coming to visit at the garage and stuff or.

Will Merrick, who's the dude who's always like, box, box, box. Who's the guy in the first scene, the whole Lotta Love scene? Shea Wiggum. Yeah. That's not a… He's not a that guy, right? That's a fucking major dude. That's a guy. That's a dude. He used to be that guy, though.

Sure. But he's been in... He's a graduated, that guy. Very much so. Yeah, he's Shay. Although maybe not because I couldn't remember his name. Maybe he hasn't graduated. Would you give him Dion Waiters? That's my Dion Waiters. Shay? Because I can't, he's so much more of a that guy than me, to me, that I could not understand why he showed up in the movie for one scene and then had three lines and then you never see him again.

Apple. Apple money. Like, come on in. I wonder whether or not he was supposed to have a bigger part. I don't know. And then he was also maybe trimmed down or cut out. Dion Waiters. Could we go with the aggressive English reporter, Don Cavendish? Could you do with Don Cavendish? I have…

I went with Tobias Menzies. Do you think Peter Banning is in this movie too much? I think he's in too much. He might be in a little too much. That's a good one, though. Because when he's in it, he's dialing it up. I don't really think this movie needed that character. Yeah. It's a nit.

The villain turn is like completely wet. And like the whole like betray Ruben and I leaked the papers. It's like, I don't know. It was going fine. You could go with the McLaren and the Ferrari guys in that one scene too, maybe. Yeah. Just coming in hot. shitting all over the bus. Recasting Couch Director of City, I wouldn't change anything. Well, he also used all the cities. Yeah, he used every city. Craig is not here. Craig's on vacation. He has no flex category. Have fast enough research.

Bruckheimer said it took a year to convince everyone to be able to do this on race weekends. Uh, everybody was worried about being the villain. He promised everyone no villains. The trailer uses the chain by Fleetwood Mac. which apparently Formula One's been using on BBC since 1978, but that's not in the movie. The crash that ended Sonny's career was based on the actual crash of Martin Donnelly in the 1990s Spanish Grand Prix. He was an advisor in the film.

Kaczynski said they had over 5,000 hours of footage in two years to edit because of the strikes. And he thought that was one of the reasons the movie was so good. A former F1 female strategy engineer named Bernie Collins from Northern Ireland CR provided the inspiration for the Carrie Condon character. Sure.

Could be wife too. Who knows? I don't know what she's doing. You just put it into the air right there. She smokes Marlboro Red. Rick and Six. The F1 album has just a lot of famous people in it. Sheeran Stapleton. Yeah. Sponsorships from various brands in this movie brought in at least 40 million bucks. There's another reason why they disputed the budget stuff. Yeah.

There's a whole bunch of camera stuff that I'm not going to go through, but if you're interested in it, you can read about all the ways they mounted things, Apple making them, how they made the smallest cameras ever. I looked around for a doc on all of this, and there's not. Yeah, there's mostly stuff about, like, Damson and...

brad learning how to drive stuff but like the the cameras were essentially like the kind that they used in top gun operated by remote control and like the stuff that they're doing where it's like on Brad Pitt's face and then snap panning to another driver whether that's a visual effect or what it's incredible well the the director said that one of the primary

focuses that they had was making sure that when they were on the guys during the race racing scenes that they didn't have to act it's like one thing that can throw the racing scenes off is if the guys faces don't match the intensity of what's happening. Yeah, Cruz, I'm sorry, Pitt looks like he's, especially in the last scene, it really looks like he's flying to outer space. Apex Mountain.

Too hard to do when the movie just came out. I do think it's Apex. I think F1 has a real Apex bound moment. F1 and Kaczynski, because now it's back-to-back huge movies. I don't know about anybody else. Maybe Carrie Condon. I could argue that. Yeah, I could argue that Kaczynski was top of the gun. But it's this. It's F1 for sure. I think Maverick with this, that guy is now… We're going to his next movie. I don't know what it is. Miami Vice. Did we meet him last month? We did, right? Running Man.

Yeah, I tried to be cool. Who, Kaczynski? Yeah. He came to the office. Jack Sanders. He's super cool. Jack Sanders completely embarrassed me. Why? What did he say? So... Like... Fucking Jack Sanders. Like, Jack Sanders comes with all... Did you try to go up to Joe and go, Joe Kaczynski, you son of a bitch! Jack... Me and Jack have this thing that we do. Yeah. to where I see Jack and I go, what time is it? And Jack says, it's nigga time.

Jack Sanders? Yeah. And he said that Jack says that, right? And it's a part of me and Jack's bonding. Yeah. And so it's a part of me and Jack's bonding. And we say that. That doesn't happen. So I walked up to Jack. Man, this is fucked up if you're lying. He's been doing this. Also, can we actually, he's got like this weird new thing he's doing.

There's this story, which did not happen. I know it didn't. And then the other day he sent me like 14 fucking text messages being like, Chris, Chris, Chris, Tua wants to come on the watch. I was like, Tua. From the Dolphins. And he's like, yeah, Tua likes the show. He wants to come on the watch. And I'm like, man, you're fucking with me. But like...

Honestly, like, I don't really know if we would have a spot for Tua if he doesn't watch shows. He's like, what does Tua want to talk about? And you're like, why don't you just answer me about whether Tua is allowed on the watch? What's wrong with you? Don't you have enough to do? This is your best bit of 2025. So I walk up to Jack. We can't run this. There are going to be people who don't know you're joking. You have to say at least you made that one part up. So listen.

So he's dead. What the fuck are you talking about? Wait, I've asked this to be a bit for me and Jack, and Jack has never agreed. No shit. Right, so I've asked for this to be a bit. between me and Jack. And Jack has never agreed. And Kaczynski was in the... Kaczynski was in the office. And he was doing The Big Picture. And so I walk up to Jack when he's with Kaczynski, and I go, yo, Jack, what time is it? And Jack goes,

man, leave me alone. I'm doing important stuff. And then I realized that Kaczynski was with him. Yeah. And he walked away and Kaczynski turned around and was the boom. So your point is that Jack has never said that. No, Jack has never said that. Jack refuses to say it. I'm glad that came at the five.

I kept telling Jack that made me cry. I was the most powerful man in the world right now. He could single-handedly hit Jack. I kept telling Jack over and over. I'm like, Jack, come on. Jack's like, no, man, no. I'm like, all right. So Tua didn't want to come on the watch. He didn't even reach out. Bro, I was so high when I was seeing this. I love this. Cruz or Hanks? Cruz. Yeah.

And there's been, like, Kaczynski said this, I think, in somewhat jest. But it was like, F2 could be Days of Thunder 2. Like, we could have… Hey! I saw that. Cole Trickle and Sonny Hayes together. Yeah, listen, a 65-year-old F1 driver sounds realistic. I mean, just do it. Just do it. Just for what? Fuck it now, right? Senior tour?

What if there was just like a car racing movie and it was just Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise sitting in the stands drinking Michelob? It should be a movie where Tom Cruise has to get his driver's license renewed. Yeah. That's the movie. It's called Renewal. We have Renewal.

Scorsese or Spielberg's Scorsese? Spielberg. Perfect movie for Spielberg, right? Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. Perfect movie for Spielberg? I would like Scorsese. This is essentially Jurassic Park, but with cars. The cars or the… Alright, fine. What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played? The villain investor. There's no question. Yeah, Peter Banning. Pickin' Nets. I have a slew of them, so go ahead. I mean, the number one thing...

From what I've gathered from F1 is that Sonny would not be allowed to just fly to Abu Dhabi and race. fly premium economy walk onto the track and be like I'm racing well there's on top of the fact that that's like a 30 hour flight and he'd be completely jet lagged he's just like Where's my helmet? He's also getting in premium economy seating for like a global flight after.

screwing his back up. Right, the whole nine. Yeah, that's the thing. He's not flying more than four hours without standing up and just going up and down. They said it is a breach of Formula One rules, by the way. You have to qualify. You do yours. Well, I got one. Yeah. Have we ever... paid attention to the fact that when we compare Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, there's one thing that Tom Cruise is clearly better at. Brad Pitt is a terrible runner.

He looks terrible. Like Seagal level bad? Not Seagal level bad. Are you seeing that because of the outfits that he wears while he jogs? I'm watching him in the movie when he's running, and it was jarring to me. that he was running like this. He looked terrible to me when he was running. He's a bad runner. He's a bad movie runner. Isn't he running in chucks in this movie too? He might be.

That might be the reason why his Achilles might be sore. So I thought he was doing a bit because Sonny has a bad back trying to run. He's running in characters. Maybe. I tried to think of other movies where he ran. There's a little bit of running in Troy. Troy, he looks like deadly athletic, but like...

In this one, the running was bad. Bad running from Pitt. No Seagal, though. No, come on, man. No Seagal. Seagal just running with his hands by his sides. I have a couple of picky knits, including the clumsy Pitt boss blonde. What was her name? Jodi. She's fired 10 minutes in the movie. You fuck that up once you're done. Is that true? No, I just think they fire her. Okay. They're like, oh, we'll give her another chance. She just cost you nine seconds. She's done. Gotta be careful.

Fires, she goes to Ronan Farrow. I have a new award to give out. You're fucked. In kicking nits? Yeah. But I think this is a new award we could carry over. It's the Michael Rooker and Cliffhanger. What the fuck are you mad about a word to JP's mom? What is she mad at Sonny for? Yeah. Her fucking son.

Audible, didn't play hero ball. She doesn't know what happened. Crashed. She doesn't know what happened. She's yelling at Sonny. He tells her later. Yeah. I know, but come on. He tells her later. She doesn't know what happened. It's actually like...

Isn't all that stuff on radio and captured? Wouldn't anybody be like, hey, Sonny's mom, like, Sonny actually— Well, how's she going to get to the radio? She's not part of the team. Yeah, but it's— Don't they broadcast that shit on television? I don't know. Listen, Sonny pulls her aside and is like, yo. Yeah, somebody's got to be like, yo, Sonny tried to tell him to wait and he didn't. Michael Rooker is still the worst one, though. What are you mad at Gabe for?

It's climbing on a line to save your dumb ass girlfriend who shouldn't have been hiking. You a cliffhanger guy? Yeah, cliffhanger. I like it. Come on. 1993, Sonny. When they do the flashback. Come on, we have better special effects than this. Spend $300 million on the movie, and it looks like Brad Pitt wearing a wig. He looks like he's wearing Wayne's World's, the old Garth wig. Yes. Just bad.

I wanted more realistic. I sent you guys the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix. Yeah. On YouTube. Yeah. In its entirety. And it is really crazy to go back and watch like how bad… the tv coverage of that was because there's so much time we're like oh there's a crash you guys can't see it uh because we only have two cameras yeah and it's just like some dude hobbling out of his car he's like oh that was that was terrible but i i don't think we

caught that but if you did right like poker game should have been way better here's a really good nitpick so sunny gets out of the hospital in las vegas and the The investor comes to see him. He's like, I thought I'd catch you. And Sonny's van is in Las Vegas. Why is Sonny's van in Las Vegas? Is he just driving around in a van to all these tournaments? How did it get there? Well, no, I mean, he's been in Europe.

Yeah, he's flying around with the crew. How does his van get into Las Vegas? How does his trailer get around all these places? That's a great nitpick. Because Bardem picks him up in Florida and is like, here's a first-class ticket. Theoretically. Sonny drove his car to Nevada and put it in a parking lot. A parking lot with no other cars. It's just bizarre. Yeah. You should just be getting in like an Uber. Right. Because at some point, he's globetrotting so much that…

the van has to be like an afterthought. And then the… I just don't think you can hop in an F1 car after a 30-hour flight from Abu Dhabi when you have a metal rod in your back. No. There's just no way. I would also say one of my picking nets is… I think F1 cars, to me, drive way too fast so that if you're having like double vision or any kind of cognitive problem while you're driving them, you're just dead. Like you can't be like, oh man, I kind of can't see Max back there.

Sequel, prequel, Prestige TV, all broadcasts are untouchable. Too soon to say. I would go... But probably sequel is happening. Sequel, for sure. 90s prequel of Ruben and Sonny in the earlier days of F1. Oh, okay. Prequel. Yeah. Austin Butler as Sonny. F-1. F-1. Yes. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Mad Dog, Russo, Doris Burke, Buffalo Bill, Sam Jackson? No. The rest of the crew.

Wilford Brimley and the Firm. What do you have? Will you do a little bit of Mad Dog for us? Mad Dog talking to Cavendish? I was going to do a little Herb Street. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Herb Street, NFL Herb Street. NFL doing the game. Let's hear it. After the crash, in the final scene, when JP crashes with, I think, Lewis Hamilton. And then Sonny's gone for that last lap and Herbstreet halfway through the lap goes, Al, I think he can win this.

He might take home the checkered flag now. Do you think Herb Street Michaels last night with the Seahawks-Rams game were like, what the fuck? We actually have a game on our hands? Herb Street didn't realize they were going for the... the two-point conversion until they're on the 10-yard line. Al is out of it. It was just brutal. No, Al is out of it. Al missed that. That was a long game for Al. I love Al. I know. Four hours is a lot. Al was like, oh, a touchdown.

Spooka Nakua, he's got it. I mean, that was the most exciting NFL game we're probably ever going to have on Thursday night. I can't believe he scored. Okay, let's go. If we had had Kevin Harlan on that game, he'd be dead. They'd be like scraping him out of the seat. Did you have a... some Mad Dog or no? No, I was just, I wanted to, you're the better Mad Dog, yeah. What would Mad Dog be mad at in this movie? Just cue me up.

Mike, they can't race at Monza when it's raining! They would change the tires, Mike! You can't go hard, soft, hard! Here's Impax going through seven drivers! Is that on a 51-year-old sonny bunch? Just one Oscar who gets it. Probably the editing. I had the cinematography. I had the guy who invented the cameras. Yeah, so what does the camera thing go under? I don't do cinematography. Okay.

Probably an answerable question. I brought this up earlier, but is this movie better if Javier Bardem is dressed like Anton Chigurh the entire time? That's true. Just every scene, he's just dressed like that guy in all black with the bull haircut. Is Sonny anti...

Is Sonny a little bit racist in this movie? I didn't get it. Like a whiff of racist? There was like a line when he's just like, we just called that a participation trophy. I don't think so. I don't think that he is. I think he's probably... He clearly was a fuck-up that had some skeletons in his closet, but I never got that from him.

This is Van's 2026 podcast we're launching, where we go through famous movie characters. Are they racist? Van tries to decide if there is a whiff of racism. Who do we start with? Start with Superman? Oh, Jack Nicholson, Colonel Jessup.

Oh, shit. Well, Kiefer is super racist in that movie. Just all the characters in Few Good Men. They just go through the whole cast. They're also all anti-Semitic. They're all like Mr. Weinberg. Lieutenant Weinberg. Lieutenant Weinberg. He hates him. Yeah, he really can't stand him. What piece of memorabilia Would you want Or not want From this movie What do you got I got the helmet And a part of So the helmet The helmet's good The helmet's good Maybe The wreckage From one of the cars Oh yeah

What I would want? What I wouldn't want is the fucking card. I don't like people who throw cards. The deck of cards? That's what I was going to get you. No. Sonny's Watch. It's a good one. Watch is a good one. Trailer would be good too.

The only other thing was that racing magazine that they doctored up. Oh, yeah. Thought that would be good when they get framed. Could look right behind Vin. Coach Finstock Award. Best life lesson. It's never too late to not be the best that never was anymore. That's… Very wise. I have create your own breaks. Best double feature choice? I have dip your pin in the company ink. It might work out. What?

It worked out. We've seen it. It's worked out. You know what? That is an office romance that worked out. Office romances should come back. Yeah, bring them back. Okay. Double feature? I'm going Grand Prix, the John Frankenheimer movie from 66.

I got to go Days of Thunder. Days of Thunder was my favorite racing movie before this. I think this is not my favorite one. Days of Thunder because of Brookheimer. There you go. And then who won the movie? Brad Pitt or F1? I'm going to go Joe Kaczynski. Joe Kaczynski. I was going Brad.

But that's probably the answer. Brad is the easy answer. I think that's probably the answer. Because this means more for Kaczynski than it does for Brad Pitt. I don't think the Russo brothers could have... You could fuck this movie up. He's the best. I think the answer is Brad Pitt.

Because a little bit of a rocky last 10 years for Brad, to say the least. And then once upon a time, pulled him out of it a little bit. But I think he needed one more. Yep. Now I feel like he's bad. He's back and nobody talks about. The off-the-field stuff with Brad. Jesus. Yeah, we didn't give into that. Now, does Brad do... Because Kaczynski's going on to do Miami Vice. Does Brad hitch his wagon to Kaczynski now?

try to get more films with him. He's doing an Edward Berger movie and something else, but I think they'll make F2 before it's too late. Yeah, before Brad gets completed. Too late, he's going to be like... He's 62. Well, there is a world for him to be, like, out of the car. I mean, he could be in the movie and sell it, and it could be Damson versus, like— He could be the guy who runs the team. He could be the guy who runs the team, or if they want to make Damson, because Damson—

to me, has a trajectory that's out of this world. Creed franchise for Damson? Something like that for Damson. And it's perfect for him because he's English and it's a cosmopolitan worldwide sport. God forbid he was not English. Who, Damson? Yeah. God forbid we got a win. The Americans? Yeah. It's just a bigger thing for them, like for British people. Can we get some more wins in America here? Sonny won.

He won the rest. Same with actors. He took it from a young black British driver. UK people taking our parts. Okay. Oh, that part. That's what I mean. When I saw that Spielberg trailer and it was like blunt. And Josh O'Connor pretending to be American. I was like, damn. Fucking had it. We have 50 states. It can't be— A gillion people here. It only bothers me, and we've had this conversation. It only bothers me when it's like, I don't know, fucking—

David Yelowo played Martin Luther King Jr. Yeah. And then Daniel Kaluuya played Fred Hampton. All of these guys are fantastic brothers, great actors. But we do need, at some point, coming up now, like... Leroy Jenkins Jr. is Jesse Jackson. We do need at least one. Cynthia Erivo, Harriet Tubman. Everybody's the same. No separation. We all cool. We're together. But just give me like...

Darius Washington is mega Everest. Just give me one. All right? Like, I need one. Jalen Thomas. Just one of them. You know, Coleman Domingo did Bane and Russ and all of that. So that's the only thing. For a while, it was getting a little spooky. Okay. Let's take our corners back. Yeah. Come on, guys. Thanks to Gahau. Thanks to Craig, who's not here today. Thanks to Eduardo. Thanks to Eduardo. Yeah.

That was our last one of 2025. Do you want to tease what the next thing is? No. Well, we have a special episode next week. I don't want to tease it, though. What do you think? What was the best movie we did in 2025? The best movie or the best pie? What was the one you're the happiest we did? I have to think about it. I mean, honestly, it's like recency bias, but high fidelity. That was good. Interesting. Yeah. That was good. Because of Mahoney?

Oh, I forgot to give him the hottest take. The Rob Mahoney, yeah. Yeah. He turned the whole grunge universe against him. That take pissed a lot of people I know off. I liked Jaws too. For me, my favorite one… Just because the movie is just crazy, oh, it's Halloween 2. Halloween 2 is nuts. The guy getting hit by the car. That was so fucking hysterical. That was really fun. Halloween 2 was nuts. Die Hard 3 was fun. We did a lot of good ones this year. All right. Thanks, man. Thanks, CR.

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