June Hackmonth: The Replacements (2000)

Brian and Cargill continue June Hackmonth as they hit the field with The Replacements! It's one of the greatest football movies of all time without even breaking a sweat...I mean the players probably sweat but...you know what I mean! 

No scabs, all flab! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
That's a mean junk and watching Rabbi s you gonna
come out and stop me?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
All right? This is Dick Miller. If you're listening to
junk Food Cinema, who are these guys?

Speaker 1 (00:46):
What separates the winners from the losers? Score no Falco winners.
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Com dot com dot com dot.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
We're the show with miles and miles of heart. This is,
of course, the weekly Culton Exploitation film cast. So good
it just has to be fattening. I'm your host, Brian
salas Brand. I'm joined as per usual by my friend
and co host. He is a novelist. He is a screenwriter,
a lieutenant of Mega Force, the man who puts the
ass in fifteen yard penalty for roughing the passer, mister
c Robert Cargill. That that meant something, right, I don't know.

(01:23):
I don't know what it meant. I just threw it
out there like a hail Mary, hoping that you had
this sticky substance like Clifford Franklin on your hands and
that you would just catch that.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
I am I am new Clifford Franklin.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
I mean, we have only breached the surface of how
good Clifford Franklin really is. Clifford Franklin is the reason
that Clifford Franklin is being discussed on this Clifford Franklin podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
That is correct.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Holy shit, I can't wait to make seven up yours
as we talk about Orlando Jones in this movie. But
first giving I have to let you know that this
podcast is available on your favorite podcatcher, and you can
also follow us on social media at junk Food Cinema.
And if you really like the show, I mean you
really like the show, you like it as much as
I am fucking jazzed up for this week's movie, you

(02:04):
can go to patreon dot com slash jug fud Cinema
financially support the show so that we do not have
to go on strike. We greatly appreciate that. Holy shit, Cargill,
it's still June hack month. I look at you, and
I see two men. The man you are, man you
ought to be.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Someday those two will meet, should make for a hell
of a football player.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
And we are. We've rolled into a movie that is
one of my absolute personal favorites, that represents a giant
purple circle on the Brian Susbray Vinn diagram of movies,
sports movies, and sports history all just rolled up into one.
I can't believe that we finally get to talk about
the replacements.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
They had other commitments and other careers, so that style
of dan Zio would be is not taxless time. But
on the field they.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Were out of.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
They belonged to each other. Believe Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman.
That's gonna let bit more the replacements. Look for it
on video cassette and DVD.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
This is one of those that has been on the
list for a while and is really really part of
our core values.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
You know we talk about our core values a lot.
But this is a movie with such an interesting history.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Not a great history, uh, but an interesting history.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
And based on actual history as well.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Based on actual history that also just has found its audience.
This is one of those movies that failed, uh failed
for a number of very valid, real reasons. Uh. And
then time was just very kind to uh. And now

(03:59):
you mentioned the replacements. Everybody's fucking seeing the replacements. You know,
it's playing on television all the time. It's on you know,
streamers all the time. It's it is one of those
readily available movies. It is an infinitely rewatchable movie. It
is a movie I don't know how many times I've
seen it. I couldn't even tell you, but I've seen

(04:20):
it a lot. I mean, it's one of those films
that when we were doing gene hackmnth and Brian asked
me last week, which one do you want to cover?
And I was like, look, I'm going to be out
of town all weekend. I got to go to Tribeca
for the world premiere of our Friends movie, and let's
do the replacements. And he was like why the replacements.
Were like, well, I've got it on my iPad and

(04:41):
I know it by heart, so I can talk about
it without having to sit down and do a deep
rewatch because I just know this film inside and out,
beat for beat, and I've always loved it. That's one
of the things. I have some interesting backstory on it
that comes from my love of the film. So it
is definitely one that has is pure core junk food.

(05:07):
It is just a lovable film. It is a flawed film.
It is a movie that never got to be what
it intended to be. It is a movie that the
people that made it aren't particularly proud of, but it
is a film that has found its audience, and that
audience fucking loves it.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
I mean tipping my hat slightly to the labor dispute
origin of this movie. What I asked you, Cargo, when
we started June Hack month is what are your non negotiables?
What are your movies that absolutely have to be covered?
I presented mine and you gave me yours, and I
was I was pleasantly surprised to see that replacements was
non negotiable for either of us.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
I mean, it's a film we have to talk about,
like and in terms of, you know, in terms of
what this podcast is and our love of it and
our histories with it. It was something that if we
didn't talk about it, what's the point what are we
even doing?

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Very much so so the replacements for those of you
who haven't seen it. And what's interesting about covering a
movie from two thousand, Cargill is I feel like this
is the apex of all of the age groups that
listen to this show. Like by the year two thousand,
there's nary a demographic that regularly listens to the show
that wasn't going to the movies, like you know, the

(06:20):
older guys were getting out of college and going to
movies like whipper Snappers. Like me were, you know, starting
off in high school and going to the movies. You know,
the people behind me were you know, kids and still
getting to go see movies like this, Like it really
is just two thousand Is that really interesting year? I
think that represents so many of the movie watching journeys
of so many different demographics that listen to this podcast.

(06:42):
But if you haven't seen The Replacements, it's a movie
in which a professional football league goes on strike and
they have to finish out the season with replacement players
so that they don't have to completely put the whole
season to bed. Considering we're right at the end, We're
right at the end of the regular season, there's four
games left. We're gonna get replacement players to come in

(07:03):
because none of the actual players will cross the picket line.
And what ensues is essentially your motley crew of wacky
mismatch people you know, of various skill levels and all
these big personalities coming together to be a team. And honestly,
what I think is interesting about The Replacements is it
might be one of the very last perfect examples of

(07:26):
slobs versus snob's comedy. It works on that level so well.
My only complaint with the movie, as what we're definitely
gonna get into the history of this, is that it's
a little bit wrong headed about who the snobs actually are.
Because you can't talk about this movie without talking about
the nineteen eighty seven NFL.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Strinth, Right, I mean you can. I was. I was
ready to do it, but apparently apparently we can't do that.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Look, I told you one of the circles was not
just sports movies, but sports history. I am obsessed with
weird stories from sports history, and the eighty seven strike
is definitely a weird story. The collective bargaining agreement, the
contract was coming up, and the owners didn't want to

(08:15):
agree to the provisions that the players Association was putting
forward for the new contract, the new collective bargaining contract,
so the NFL Players Association, la led by former player
Gene Upshaw, staged a strike. It ended up lasting twenty
four days where the players were just like, we are
not going to play, and throughout just that short period
of time, what you had is management breaking players to

(08:38):
the point that, like the most famous guys in the
league started to cross the picket line and agreed to
play again. Guys like Tony Dorsett, guys like Joe Montana,
like literally like the biggest names in the league at
the time, slowly start to cross the picket line because
they can't afford to just not have a paycheck for
that long. But the Washington football team, and that is
how I will refer to them in this historical context,

(09:00):
the Washington football team of nineteen eighty one, Washington who
the Commanders as they are now called. We'll just go
what do they used to be called? It's not important.
Look the Washington racial slurs where the only it is
the only team in the NFL whose players never crossed
the picket line. So while so many teams in the
league went out and found replacement players, Washington was the

(09:23):
only team that kept those replacement players until the very
end of the strike, when everybody crossed the picket line.
So what happens here is the Week three of the
season is canceled because of the strike, and the replacement
players come into play weeks four, five, and six. Now,
back in eighty seven, we weren't talking about a very
long season in general. I think like the winner of
the division the NFC or the AFC east of the

(09:46):
time was like nine and six, So I mean, it's
not a very long season to begin with. But yeah,
so this strike is going on, Washington's getting these replacement players.
This is all important because the replacements is base basically
the bio pick about the eighty seven strike, where they
just the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

(10:07):
But there are so many similarities between what actually happened
during the strike and the movie. I mean, from the
buses rolling up with the replacement players and being harassed
by the current players before they're even off the bus.
That actually happened. From teams parolling guys out of prison
to play that actually fucking happened, to like, you know,

(10:27):
the replacement players doing well enough to get the team
to a successful place to win a Super Bowl but
then not even getting rings or any kind of recognition
that happened. There's so much about that, right down to
the fact that we're the focus of this movie is
the Washington Sentinels, which is a fictitious NFL team, But

(10:47):
come on, they didn't pick Washington out of a hat.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Here, guys, too, there is another film that came out
in this same time that is exactly the same kind
of thing, and we've talked about it in the past,
and it's Velvet gold Mine. This is one of those
stories that is based on reality, but the people involved
got so disenfranchised with it that they had to file

(11:10):
all the serial numbers off and consider it fiction.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yes, exactly, exactly. And that's another crazy thing is that
the eighty seven strike was aided by the fact, like
most of the replacement players they got were guys that
these teams had cut at the start of the season
to get their rosters down to what they had to
get it down to. You know, now it's fifty three.
I don't know what it was at the time, but
they were not only taking guys that they had formerly cut,
but they were benefited by the fact that the Montreal

(11:36):
Alouettes of the Canadian Football League had just fallen apart
for the third time in eighty seven, but then also
the year before, the USFL, which was a competing football league,
had just folded, So all of these guys that were
suddenly out of work were up for grabs as replacement players,
and it was really interesting. There's a great documentary about
this that ESPN made called Year of the Scab. And

(11:57):
what's interesting is how the fans react, being so fucking irates,
being irate at their own players for you know, not
getting back to work and they're so entitled, and there
a bunch of millionaires blah blah blah to going to
a play. To all of a sudden, in the pro
union towns, you had a lot of fuck these scabs,
scabs go home, like harassing these guys they didn't want
to watch. You know. There was a line three hours

(12:20):
long in Washington of people returning their season tickets because like,
we paid for professional football, not whatever this is like.
And then by the end of the season, when the
regular Washington team came back and struggled in their first game,
you had people in the stands chanting bring back the scabs.
Like you want to talk about going full circle on
the fan reaction to this strike. It's a really fascinating story.

(12:44):
But the movie, the movie. What the movie doesn't get
right though, when I think is really interesting here, is
that the movie makes villains out of the players when
the whole situation is on the ownership. Do you know
what they were striking for, cargil. Do you know what
they wanted added to collective bargaining in eighty seven?

Speaker 2 (13:05):
What did they want?

Speaker 1 (13:06):
Free agency? All they wanted was free agency, which is
now not only a basic standard part of the game,
but prior to their being free agency, when a team
drafted you, you were beholden to them until you retired
or they traded you. Everything depended on how they wanted
to treat you. Before free agency and professional sports, it

(13:26):
was essentially indentured servitude. So absolutely something that was needed
in professional sports. And yet that's what the ownership didn't
want to relinquish, was that control over players. So again
the enemies, the villains of the story is ownership, not
the incumbent players.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
Well, I mean that is one of the core problems
with this movie is that it's easily ignored. But there
is a lot of snark thrown around this movie, and
as you mentioned, a lot of villainy that is very
Reagan era. It is a very anti union movie. Yeah,
you know, the the Union players are the evil ones.

(14:06):
They are abusing the scabs. You know, the scabs are
the good guys. They're just there because they remember the
love of the game. They're not here for the money.
They're here for the glory and all the intangible stuff.
They're not sissies who want, you know, to pay their
bills and they stress the you know, there's a comment

(14:26):
like they want eight million dollars a year instead of
seven and a.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
Million dollars more. Hold on, that's what the strikes about.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Hold on. But before we get there, that entire concept
ignores that the bulk of the NFL exists at a
bottom tier level that in this day and age, I
think the you know, the lowest paid players are making
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, which you know,

(14:52):
can seem like a lot when you don't make that
kind of money, but when you're considering what they're putting
themselves through, how much you know, punishment they're taking, how
much of that goes to agents and fees and other
things as well. You have guys who are living upper
middle class lives who are sports heroes, you know, and
that's what they That's a lot of what they were

(15:14):
really talking about whenever these strikes come up is it's
rarely about the top guys. You know, we just went
through a big strike with a WGA, and the entire
strike was about, you know, the bottom rungs of the WGA.
It was about keeping people paid, keeping rooms full enough
that people could get hired. You know, it wasn't about
there were no provisions in there that ultimately impacted the

(15:37):
top tier, you know, the A Liss screenwriters. You know,
we didn't get anything out of that in terms of
overall stuff. There were several people going, oh, this is
about the rich guys, and it was all about making
sure the working class writers could pay the rent. And
that's a lot of what these strikes were. And this

(15:57):
movie pretends that is not an issue at all while
it talks about you know, you've got Keanu Reeves living
on a boat because he's poor. Yeah, you ultimately have
you know, these characters that are supposed to be in
this movie that are the bad guys because they want
an extra million dollars a year. Like there's literally a
joke where it's like, do you know how much money?

(16:20):
How much insurance on a Lamborghini costs? Like that's how
they're painting the unions. And that is a very Reagan
era idea and idea that they were wrestling with in
eighty seven, and that carried over to this movie in
two thousand.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah, And I mean they go so far as to like,
we're going to talk about the insane Pro Bowl level
cast that this movie has. But one person who's in
this movie for about ten seconds is Keith David, and
Keith David is basically playing a buffoonish version of Gene Upshaw,
the then you know NFL Players Association president. So this

(16:55):
movie really lets you know whose corner it was in
during that strike. And I think that is the wrong
headed part of this because then you got you got
Jack Warden, the amazing Jack Warden, whose character is almost
assuredly based on Tech Shram, who was the Dallas Cowboys
GM at the time, a guy who you know, for
all the things he brought to the game, instant replay

(17:15):
and moving the goalpost from the front to the backs,
cheerleaders on the sidelines, like so much of what and
if the game of professional football is today came from
his innovations. But at the same time he was a
real son of a bitch, and he concocted a way,
along with the other owners, to basically break the backs
of the striking players without giving them what they were
asking for. It was a really ugly situation.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
And he's one of the good guys in this he's a.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Good guy in this movie exactly Like, it makes absolutely
no sense. And I want to go a step further
here and say, definitively, I don't think the scab players
were villains either. These were literally guys who were driving
trucks and working in warehouses and had just been cut,
their dream had died, and they're told like, we're gonna
give you another shot. Who the fuck wouldn't take that chance? Like,

(18:02):
I don't. I don't blame them for a second, but it's.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
I mean, it's one of those it's one of those
things that you know with the WGA, it's we have
a very very strong anti scab policy. Sure, but as
a writer, you kind of get it. You get why
somebody who's not in the WGA, someone who's not broken
in yet, would be willing to risk their career to
break in in that way, unaware that if you do that,

(18:26):
you're never getting into the guilt, like you're you're done.
So this is why you know they these unions have
to do this, But you get why people would do it.
And you'd absolutely get why guys would be like, yeah,
I'll go play some football for a couple of weeks.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah, and it's it's yeah. It's worth noting too that
when professional baseball owners pulled this same stunt in ninety
five when baseball went on strike, they tried to bring
in replacement players. And that's the reason Michael Jordan left
professional professional baseball because they refused to cross the picket line.
He didn't want to be he didn't want to betray
the guys that were striking and was like, no, I'm

(19:02):
not doing that.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
So he mean, he's doing so good at the time.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
I get it, but that is the thing that drove
him out, as he didn't he didn't want to cross
the picket line. And what's what's insane because you mentioned
the writers gualed and correct me if I'm wrong, but
I think y'all have a resolution like this. The players
that ended up, you know, the replacement players that came in,
the scabs that helped finish the season, got blacklisted by
the Major League Baseball Players Association, so that like that,

(19:28):
they they did not tolerate the replacement players as much
as the NFL did, although the NFL, you know, failed
to acknowledge those replacement players for a long time, even
the ones in Washington's case who helped them get to
and then win a Super Bowl. You know a lot
of those guys didn't even get rings until twenty eighteen.
So while they didn't get blacklisted the way that you know,
baseball replacement player scabs did, they weren't acknowledged. So it

(19:51):
was a really just ugly situation. But all of that
to say, this is all really interesting context for watching
a movie called The Replacements, that is a slobs versus
snobs sports comedy that fucking works on that level.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
After these messages, we'll be right back. We're gonna be
a tough team to beat. Now you come for the ride.
A tough coach he turned losers into fighting, the enemies
into plays. I've played Coach Day's ego's.

Speaker 3 (20:19):
I go challenges into trials.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
If you put your effort in concentration into playing to
your potential, in my book, we're gonna be winners oushers.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
It'll go straight to your heart.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
Rated DJ starting tomorrow and so linked theaters near you.
As we get into this, we've got to talk about
where Keanu Reeves was in his career and where Gene
Hackman was in his career, because I think it's a
very interesting, uh, it's a very interesting nexus point here
because this is two thousand, Keanu Reeves had just had

(20:50):
a huge resurgence with the Matrix.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yeah, and this needs to be this needs to be
stressed because I've talked about this in the past, and
people do they they push back because peopleeople who were
not there or were barely there, do not understand. But
Keanu Reeves was done. People actively did not want to
watch him in movies. When the Matrix came out. We literally,

(21:13):
you know, I was. I was working in a video
store I love video here in Austin, Texas, and I was,
I was, I had put up we had gotten early
posters and I'd put up on the wall and I
had him, you know, put I know, kung Fu out
the side of people like what the fuck is that?
It's like, oh god, you haven't seen the Matrix yet,
And they're like, no, I don't watch Keanu Reeves movies.

(21:33):
And the number of times I got that was staggering.
People thought it was cool to hate Keanu Reeves, which
sounds bananas now, you know, with his body of work
and who he's had. He's had three different careers, and
this after the Matrix, was his.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
Comeback, which is interesting to me because while the Matrix
was huge for him and put him back on the map,
anything between nineteen ninety nine and two thousand and four
that didn't have the word Matrix in it pretty abysmal.
Like this is the absolute best of his non Matrix
movies from that time period, because outside of that you

(22:13):
get movies like The Watcher, Sweet November, Hardball, Something's Got
to Give, which she has a small part in, But
it's not really until Constantine, which is in five that
it's like, okay, cool, here's another solid Kila Reeves vehicle.
And even that one, I feel didn't catch on the
way that it would.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
You know, it's remembered so much better than it was received.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yes, like that movie, much like the Replacements.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Oh yeah, yeah, no, no no, And arguably yeah he was.
He was all over the map at that time because
they were trying to figure out, you know, what to do.
He had essentially he had had a string of he
had a couple of big hits, you know, over the years.
You know, he was the guy they really made. You know,
he blew up in the early nineties. Know, then he

(23:00):
decided to go up and do some very interesting indie work,
but indie work that didn't connect with other people. And
then he had some famous weird ones like much Ado
about Nothing, where he just felt out of place in
a Shakespearean drama or comedy rather but speed took off.
But then he had a number of really not good
movies like Johnny Mnemonic and Chain Reaction, or stuff that

(23:22):
was seen as cheese but was really good if you
like that kind of stuff like A Walk in the Clowns.
But then he started having some flops and people really
had turned against him. But yeah, in this era, there's
just some weird stuff, you know, I would disagree with.
There's nothing else good in there. I'm gonna mention it.

(23:43):
I believe we've covered it, and if we haven't, we will.
But he's in the Gift, and he's great in the Gift.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah, that movie does sneak in there. In two thousand,
a lot.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
On Hardball, well received as cheesy at the time, has
had a reappraisal and people are like, this is actually
a cute movie. This is not bad.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
I don't I don't care for it, but I guess
I could kind of see that. But then even after Constantine,
you get interesting but completely dismiss things like Thumbsucker and
a Scanner Darkly.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
And then and then Street Kings, which is great but
nobody nobody understood at the time, and then Banana stuff
so bad that even they knew it like the lake House.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
Street Kings is great to guys like us, Guys that
Drew McWhinnie would call Deep Sea Diverts. That movie is
great to guys like us.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
I'm no good.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
I'm not about to sit here and tell you that
if I recommend it to everyone listening that seventy five
percent of people aren't gonna go, the fuck is wrong
with you?

Speaker 2 (24:43):
I mean, also true, but it's also fucking amazing.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
And it's really not until John Wick in twenty fourteen,
where we all went, oh yeah, Keanu Reeves is kind
of fucking awesome.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
Well, that was his comeback because he had done a
couple of bad movies. He directed one that's not bad,
but he directed Man of tai Chi. Just his career
was he was just kind of done. He was still
a huge movie star, but that kind of movie star
that it's like, oh, this is where normally you'd go
off to Italy and you know, make Italian films because
your name's still good enough for that. And instead, you know,

(25:19):
John Wick blew everyone's doors up. I was at that
first screening where he was at and where nobody in
the public had seen it yet, and it blew everyone's
doors off. And from that point on, he's the Keanu
Reeves we know now, and he's back, and he's a
movie star and everybody loves him. And if you say

(25:40):
fuck Keona Reeves, you're gonna have a problem on your
hands because everybody else around you will be like, the
fuck is wrong with you? Everybody loves Keanu Reeves.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Now I don't. I don't want to speak ill of
the dead, and I also loved this person, so it
hurts me to say this. But one person who didn't
learn that lesson was Matthew Perry, who put very unfortunate
joke about Keanu Reeve Eves into his biography thinking it
was going to be a nothing, throwaway joke because he
had not been paying attention, evidently to what was going
on with that.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
And what happened. Even God was pissed off at Matthew Perry.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
Okay, that's where I didn't want this to go in.
It went there, Well, you shouldn't have brought it up.
Could we be anymore inappropriate? Okay?

Speaker 2 (26:18):
I mean, look, all I'm saying is Matthew Perry's gone
and we can't get Elon Musk into a hot Tub's
what's wrong with this world?

Speaker 1 (26:24):
That's true. Yeah, God, God is kind of cruel, is
the lesson I learned from this. But let's juxtapose now
Keanu Reeves's career at this point, where he's just had
a massive success that amounts to a comeback, and everything
that happens after that is kind of like shaky and
you're not like it didn't feel like he was allowed
to capitalize on that comeback the way he should have,

(26:45):
whereas Gene Hackman had just I wouldn't even call it
a don't call it a comeback, come on man. But
the ushering in of a second golden age of Gene
Hackman when he wins the Oscar for unforgiven last week's movie,
the movies that he made after that, holy shit, did
he go on a fucking run? He ends up? You know,
he does the firm in ninety three, which is a

(27:06):
massive fucking hit, like the biggest hit John Grisham's adaptations
have ever had. Then he does a movie with Walter Hill,
then he does a movie with Lawrence Kasden, and then
in nineteen ninety five, in just nineteen ninety five, he
does The Quick and the Dead, Crimson Tide, and Get
Shorty all in the same year. That blows my mind,

(27:30):
m hm. And then in ninety six he does The Bird.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Cage, which is Titanic.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yes, absolutely and definitely something that will be covered during
this series. The only reason Quick in the Dead and
Crimson Tide aren't going to be covered in the series
because we already fucking covered those movies.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Same with Enemy of the State.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
An Enemy of the State comes later, like it just
the run that he has post winning the Oscar for
Unforgiven is absolutely, like you said, Titanic, it is a
spectacle to behold. But by two thousand, like it's starting
to slow down a little bit. It's starting to you know.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
It's it's not starting to slow down, he's starting to
slow down. He starting This is one of the things
we need to talk about because I know this from experience.
So okay, so my career, you know, starts in two thousand.
That's where I first get published and start reviewing movies.
In two thousand and one, I start working for Any

(28:25):
Cool News. My first big event that I'm at which
made me an ain't cool news writer was the event
for Made with Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughan, and I
ended up in a corner with Jon Favreau, who was
a he was a writer, who he was a director,
a writer, a director, but an actor that was hoofing

(28:47):
it at the time, like he was just coming up.
You know, he'd had swingers and so he had indie success.
He had heat on him, but he hadn't broke through yet,
you know, he wasn't the legend that he is now.
And we end up up drinking in a corner and
I tell him how much I love the replacements, and
he gets this look on his face and he goes,
I'm really glad you enjoyed it, and I was like, oh,

(29:10):
you didn't. He goes, it's not the movie we signed
up for. And he then went on to explain to
me the movie they signed up for. And I'll get
to that in a moment, but one of the things
was he was so excited to work with Gene Hackman.
He couldn't. That was the big thing was he was
making a movie with Gene Hackman, you know, one of
his heroes. And he said that Hackman was just checked out.

(29:34):
That any of the long scenes where you'd see everybody
out on the field, he insisted he had a double.
He didn't want to be there for those, you know,
anything he didn't have to do. He didn't want to
do that. When he was on set, he was great,
and he would you get Gene Hackman, but he didn't
want to be on set and that it was really
he found it very disappointing and disillusioning to have worked

(29:57):
with him so late in his career. And that's the moment.
You can tell he's starting to check out. And he
would have a few more really good movies, you know,
or really well liked movies. There's a movie everybody likes
that I don't that he did, but he's great in
But this is the moment where he's slowing down. He's
being a bit more demanding. He doesn't want to be there,

(30:19):
and it's not It did not surprise me when you know,
less than four years later with Welcome to Mooseport. That
was his last kick because.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
He Ray Romano killed his career, Yes.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
And no, he was done. We liked to joke that
Ray Romano killed his career, but I love.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
To joke about it, and I just I know you do.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Because it's a terrible, terrible movie. But the truth of
it is he was just slowing down. He was just done,
and he wanted to retire, and he wanted to enjoy
his retirement, and he did. He retired from there. He
would go on to live twenty more years, you know,
paying the bills by you know, doing voiceover ads for
Home Depot or Lows Lows.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Home Depot, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Lows and so you know, he became the voice of
that brand. And so that's what he did, and because
he wanted to, he wanted to be done, and I
respect that considering how old he was. You are. I
think there's an unfair thing in entertainment, and I think
I've talked about this in the past, but there's this
very unfair concept that you're never really allowed to retire.

(31:23):
If you're good at what you do, you're not allowed
to have done it for forty years and then be like, hey, guys,
thank you so much. I'm going to go and retire
the same way you're looking forward to retiring. And I'm
going to spend fifteen twenty years hanging out with my
wife and my dogs. And I think I've earned that.
Everybody gets disappointed and go when you're going to do
another one, come on, come back, write another book, write
another movie, direct another movie. You know, directors aren't allowed

(31:46):
to retire. Actors aren't really allowed to retire. And he
had the stones too, and did so when he could
probably feel himself wanting to tap out. And you know
this fast run. You know, I would say his last
three films are you know, shrug worthy, but you know

(32:08):
they aren't hated. I mean, we joke about Welcome to Mooseport,
but you know it's it's got a half way decent
score on IMDb at least. But in there he did
he did Heist, which we fucking love, yes, and the
Royal Tenen Bombs in which a lot of people love.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
But yeah, this is where this is where he slows down.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
And I will say someone else who was clearly excited
to work with Gene Hackman was Keanu Reeves because he
took a ninety percent pay cut from the Matrix to
be in this movie. Like he literally, uh took two
hundred grand for this movie. He had taken two million
for the Matrix, but in order that Gene Hackman could
be paid for his full four and a half million dollars,
Keanu Reeves took a pay cut because he just wanted

(32:48):
him to be in the movie. And Hackman, when he
learned of this, later said that it was the kindest
thing that any actor had ever done for him in
his career. And I get what you're saying, and I
fully believe what Jon Favreau said about him not wanting
to be there. The thing about Gene Hackman is Gene
Hackman phoning it in is still better than eighty percent
of actors at their very fucking best.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah. So that's why I didn't say I go back
and relis it to that. I didn't say he phoned
it in when he's there. He was fucking there.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
He just didn't didn't want to be there. Yeah, But
even somebody like Gene Hackman not wanting to be there
is still better than eighty percent of actors who do well.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
He's fucking great in this movie and you can't tell.
And that was The thing was, you know, you watch this,
it feels like, you know, part of the uh, you know,
the the Salisbury Ism, but it feels like they left
it all out on the field.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yes, and I'm glad you didn't fumble that joke.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
And at the end of the day, what Favreau explained
to me and why they were all so excited to
make this movie and why they got such a great
epic cast, is because they were they were making slap Shot.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah, yes, they were.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
They were told they were making a rated R, hard
R raunchy sports comedy about the guys that aren't necessarily
the goody, and that's what they were. They went into
this with we are scabs, We're gonna come together, we're
good people and all, but you know, we've got you
know there it was. There was a lot cut out
of that movie, and by the time they got the script,

(34:15):
the script had already been toned down, and then the
movie got cut beyond that. And that's what Favreau was
particularly upset about, was they were going to make the
modern sports comedy for the year two thousand. You know,
this is post American Pie. You know, American Pie was
a huge fucking hit. It's got a teenager fucking a

(34:35):
fucking pie, and they're like, why does this have to
be PG thirteen? Why are we trying to tone down
a sports comedy that's clearly for people who are over
the age of eighteen, And the studio insisted on cutting
it down to PG thirteen and it left a lot
of really great material on the floor and left the
cast very disappointed. And the interesting thing about the release

(35:01):
of this movie is that the studio realized they had
fucked up so bad that they put the video release
into motion faster than any anything else at that time.
So the movie dropped in August, I think August eleventh
of two thousand, and by November of two thousand, the

(35:21):
DVD and vhs were in video stores being rented. And
for a three month turnaround on a major motion picture
was unheard of at the time. You were waiting bare
minimum five months, mostly six months, but big movies could
be nine to twelve months before you'd get a physical release.
It's not like today where there's you can pretty much

(35:42):
set your watch by it. Within three months, it was
out because they knew in advance this movie was not
going to do well because they'd misread the market. But
rather than recutting it and holding it off and releasing
it as are, they ended up just kind of putting
it out there in the August dump, which at the

(36:02):
time August and late August and early September and then
January were the two times nobody could make money. So
you dump your movies then, and then when they didn't
do well, go oh, well, you know, it's just the
market at the time. It's certainly not the suit's fault.
It's the market that's bad. It's not us having butchered
the movie and made the movie that the cast didn't want,

(36:25):
you know that nobody wanted. It's definitely the timing. So
we're going to put it out on video and capitalize
on all that marketing we just paid for. And they did,
and that's where it found its audience, where people would
watch it and go, I really like this. Like I
remember sitting down to watch it when it came in.
I was working at a Blockbuster at that time, and
I was like, all right, here we go, this terrible,

(36:47):
fucking Huanore's football movie. And I put it in and
by the end, I'm like, oh my god, this is
fucking rad I love this movie, and I started watching
it over and over again. It became, you know, just
one of those deep fried favorites of mine. And then
over the years, more and more people discovered it and
they're like, oh my god, that movie's great. Right, It's like, yeah,
but they really, they really kind of worked it. And

(37:08):
and so in the years after, as it would be
brought up to various members who worked on it, they
they have a disdain for it. And those are the disdains.
It's the you know, they were excited to work with
uh with Gene Hackman, and he was just you know,
getting old and done, and the studio really fucked them
on making the movie. And to this day, I'm shocked
nobody went back in and tried to recut a rated

(37:31):
R replacements with any of that extra footage.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
With a DVD that had the R of replacements big
and red.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah, absolutely right, you know, the rated replacements, the Rated
R replacements. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm I'm shocked nobody
tried to go and make that movie, you know, recut
that movie, considering how beloved it is, and also it
could be you know, a lot of movies at the time.
You know, that footage gets destroyed. I mean, that's the
that's the issue we have with VN Harazen there. You know,

(38:05):
everybody wants that director's cut, and that footage just doesn't exist.
And so maybe that's what happened here. Maybe too much
of it got gutted, you know, over the course where
they had a writer doing rewrites, and so the stuff
that was on the page as they were sitting down
to to you know, perform and shoot, it just didn't
exist anymore. But there there is an alternate reality where

(38:28):
there is a rated R replacements that maybe was a
huge fucking hit.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
I really want this to be true because I love
the idea of both Morpheus and Neo have movies with
an uncut version we desperately want to see that's been
lost the time, Like that's amazing to me. And I
get what Jon Favreau is saying. And yes, there probably
would have been a better movie in an R rated
version of this, and there probably is somewhere on a
cutting room floor or swept away to a dumpster, the

(38:52):
better version of this movie. Why this movie still works
as a PG thirteen is largely on the backs of
its charming casts functional underdog story that it really understands
the drama of how football is played and I and
I appreciate that, and and the tie into the history
of the game, you know, whether or not they diverge

(39:12):
from the point of that history or not. Like and
on top of that, we load this movie up with
enough Jockjam soundtrack that you know, like it all.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Not just Jockjam soundtrack. I mean, we're talking about the
mix of Jockjam and the most late nineties shit ever.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
This movie is so y two K?

Speaker 2 (39:33):
How y two K?

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Is it? It's show? Why two K that it opens
with a song by Lit and not even one of
their two big hits. It opens with Ziplock, which is
a song I only know because I put.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
It in my pocket. I put it in my pocket.
In my pocket.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yeah, I had that fucking CD as a teenager.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
That's how I fucking I had that CD signed by
Lit because I met Litt at a concert.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
Wow, I feel like your soul patch just screw back
as you said that, did your shirt suddenly have flames
crawling up the sides? You just would full guy Fieri
on me, my.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Brother in Christ. It was. It was one of the
greatest shows I ever saw. It was the one on
one X Springfest of nineteen ninety nine, and it had
the most nineties fucking post grunge lineup ever. It is unbelievable.

(40:30):
You want to hear who was at this show that
I went and saw with litt.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
My brother in Jars of Clay. Please tell me who
was at the show.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Soul Coughing of course, local h uh huh, Collective.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Soul Soul Coughing, and Collective Soul I love it. Oh yes,
Collective Soul Asylum also there.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
No, but Eve six was stabbing Westward, Yes, Sponge, come
on blank No, the Flies.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
Oh, you've got the You've got this lineup right, I
want it.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
Marvelous, three oh Man Lit, Dovetail Joint and Austin favorites
at the time, the Leleho Wow. That was one day.
That was It was unreal. And my roommate at the
time had one tickets. He had signed up for something
with one O one X, and so he got offered

(41:21):
two wrist bands for the vip tent at this concert.
The vib tent was right by the stage, and so
you got to be right by the stage watching the concert,
and then after the bands were done, they would come
in and you could meet them and hang out with
them while they served barbecue and free barbecue and drinks
and so literally one of the best festival events of
my life. And that is as a nineties kid. That

(41:42):
was fucking great because I met almost all of those bands.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
It's sensory because I can both smell the Jinko jeans
and hear the clanging of the wallet chains. Oh yes,
as you read that lineup.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Oh and all the women in belly shirts of course.
Dear God nineteen ninety nine, I miss with.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
The little diamond studs in the belly buttons. Yeah, absolutely,
because they're all genies in a bottle. We just got
to rub them the right way. I understand. I'm picking
up what you're putting down. This movie is So White
two K?

Speaker 2 (42:11):
How y two K?

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Hey?

Speaker 1 (42:13):
It is show White two K. The composer literally creates
soundalikes for the Offspring in Blink one eighty two.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yes he does.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
There are two moments of this movie where I was like,
because my wife is the music Maven the way.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
I hear and wait, that's not that's not an offsprings.
Oh no, it's very much not an offspring song.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
But wants to be it's the legally distinct offspring. I
literally had my wife, who is to music the way
I am to movies. I was like, she likes this
movie too. I was like, just listen to the scene
for a second, and I was like, what song does
that sound like? She goes, well, let's keep them separated.
I'm like, no, it's not, it's not at all the offspring.
It's just meant to sound like that. And toward the
end of the movie, you've gotten all the small things

(42:52):
sound alike. I guess they spent so much money on
Gary Glitter and Gloria Gaynor that they were like, you
know what, we're to do our own version of the
Offspring of Blank one eighty two. We can't afford to
go to that concert that Cargill did with the Free
Barbecue and all the grungiest new metal bands of all time. Like,
let's just do something else. Uh.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
You know, it's funny you bring up Gloria Gainer, because
this is one of the interesting things about this period
of time is that this is in that weird three
year window when disco made a comeback and where all
the nineties kids. It was ironic because you know, we're
gen xers. We don't do anything seriously. Everything about us
is ironic, from our T shirts down. It's uh. But

(43:36):
this is there's that period where all of a sudden,
disco kind of got a reevaluation. And it was because
it was hated for so long and it was so
cheesy and over the top. But at the time we
started listening to it again and dressing like it again.
And there was a weird period where dressing, you know,
like a disco gal was the thing you did in
the late nineties, and songs like I Will Survive I've

(44:00):
made a huge comeback, and in fact, this one, that
one in particular, became popular again after Cake covered it
in ninety seven and a bunch of and it became
a hit on the radio, and then people went, oh,
I love this song, and it regained popularity and of
course became one of the epic you know songs. Now

(44:20):
it's a well regarded song. But yeah, this was in
that weird disco era where you have to keep in
mind because watching this film now, it feels like such
a timeless movie because of the cast, because of the
way it was made. It feels like it's almost out
of time. Except these moments where the music kicks in
or where there's a pop culture reference and it's like, hey,

(44:43):
you're like that that line where it's like, yeah, I
remember you. You're that big coach back in the eighties.
And this was a movie made in ninety nine, so
that was supposed to be like recent, but now it
feels like, yeah, you're that coach from thirty years ago. Yeah, oh,
the Sugar Bowl of ninety six is only happening three
or four years. This is a This is a guy
who clearly has left college. Keanu Reez is supposed to

(45:04):
be like twenty four or twenty five in this movie.
He's not supposed to be in his thirties, like it
feels like he is.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
I want to say two things, Hey, Marcy Playground Disco
Lemonade is a lyric in that fucking song in nineteen
ninety nine. And two, I don't think I've ever heard
a more gen X bullshit thing in my life than whatever.
I like this go fuck you, like absolutely that made
a comeback just because y'all were like, n uh like
that is the most gen X shit I've ever heard

(45:33):
in my life, And I fucking love it.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
After these messages We'll be right back. Max Stern's new
partner has a good personality and a.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
Bad personality do you feel Lucky?

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Punk, and a lot of other personality love and Max
Stern would like to kill them all.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Watch Gene Ackman Dan Ackroy.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
You guys, I'm a cop. I don't know what the
hell he is. Loose Cannons Rated R starts Friday, February ninth,
a theater near you.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
The Coach thing, what's really interesting about that is the
eighties were kind of the last bastion of the long
tenured coaches. Like the whole thing that people don't remember
about the eighty seven strike is that Tom Landry was
still coaching the Cowboys. Tom Landry coached a full season
after the strike. Tom Landry was coaching until nineteen eighty eight.

(46:28):
So when Shane Falco says to Jimmy McGinty, you're that
old coach from the eighties, he could have been talking
about Tom Landry, who had been coaching since the sixties. Yeah,
fucking insane. And yes, now that we're halfway through this episode,
let's actually talk about this movie.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
Uh, you should look at a clock, because we're not
halfway through this episode.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
Fair enough. This is one of my favorite sports movies
of all time. It is not only one that I
have loved ever since the first time I watched it.
It is part of the Salas Boys shorthand. My brother
and I have this weird language where it can be
set up by the slightest thing, but if it even
sounds like the cadence of certain movie lines, those movie
lines will get thrown out. And in this movie it happened.

(47:11):
Literally last weekend. I was meeting my brother. We're going
to look he's really into collecting baseball cards right now,
and we were going to this antique mall to look
for baseball cards in tik mall is a fucking flea market,
and it was awesome, but I couldn't find him, and
he texted me and in the text it was I'm
inside to the right, And I immediately texted back, it's
to the left, because that's a line from this movie

(47:33):
that has just infiltrated our psyche and it's it's the
shorthand that we speak. And like all of the perfect
sports movies, this has perfect sports maxims. And what I've
always appreciated about great sports movies is that they all
have a little bit of philosophy to them, just a
sousson of Zen, right. And there's just so many lines

(47:56):
in this movie about winners want the ball when the
game's on the line, and you know, we gotta have
miles and miles of heart and all these little sayings
that apply, of course on the field, but can be
extrapolated further into life. And that's what I love about
all great sports films. Which I knew this was even
as a fifteen year old kid seeing this movie. How
did I know this was a legit sports film? Cargo,

(48:16):
How did you know? Because John fucking Madden is in it.
Face is of mice with a helpful hardware fulk loas.
And when I was young, if John Madden turned up
in your football movie, you were making a legit football movie.
He's in this, which was a hugely big movie for
me as a teenager, and he was in Little Giants,
which is a hugely big movie for me as a kid.

(48:36):
And by the way, this movie wholesale rips off a
gag from Little Giants involving the sticky substance on Clifford
Franklin's hands because it can't catch good. I look like
I did jacked off an elephant, just saying. This is
a great sports movie, one of my very favorites, in
which once again Keanu Reeves and I feel like we
got to talk about. This is for the second time

(48:58):
in his career playing a former Ohio State quarterback, and
the last time he did it was a full twelve
years before this, and yet somehow footsteps Falco. The character
he plays, Shane Falco in this movie, supposedly played in
the Sugar Bowl in nineteen ninety six. I looked it up.
Keanu Reeves was thirty one in nineteen ninety six. Yes,

(49:20):
this was a full twelve years after he played Johnny
Utah in Point Break, who was also a former Ohio
State quarterback. Yes, he's a buck guy through and through.
I guess. I guess that's just what we're learning here.
I also love that, you know, as much as this
may have not been the movie that they signed up for,
and as much as it may have you know, whatever

(49:40):
and whatever sports comedy, I as much as this is
Keanu Reeves trying to capitalize and write those blank checks
off of the success of The Matrix, he is committed
to this fucking movie. He gained twenty three pounds of
muscle to play to play a quarterback. In this movie,
he interviewed former NFL quarterbacks. He went to three train camps,

(50:01):
like literally, just to learn how to be a quarterback.
And he throws left handed, which is something I didn't
notice until this viewing Shane Falco. Keanu Reeves is a lefty,
which is even fucking harder to learn how to carry
yourself as an NFL quarterback, but he did so well.
I don't know if you know this. Gargil the Baltimore
Ravens offered him a tryout after seeing this movie. That

(50:24):
is a true story. And what's insane about that is
if he had accepted their invitation and made that team,
that team won the Super Bowl six months later, he
would have a fucking Super Bowl ring.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
I mean, there's an alternate reality where that exists, and
I love it.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
I love the hell out of it, just like I
love the hell out of this Pro Bowl cast. Hackman
e Keanu Reeves Marquee stars obviously, but the collection of
character actors that they get to fill out these rosters
is remarkable.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
They all have something unique to bring the game.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
We're gonna take those people try to put together winning team,
nothing else.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
They should be fun to watch.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Oh yeah, Like, let's just start off with the assistant
coaches that are played by Art Lafleur and Gaylord Sartayne,
who are two guys very important to my youth because
we're talking about Babe Ruth in the Sandlot and Chuck
from the Ernest p. Worrel movies respectively as Gene Hackman's
assistant coaches.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
And they're both fucking great, and they're both just two
guys way in over their heads, like how are we
gonna make this work? And you've got Gene Hackman, whose
performance of this movie feels like he's doing a weird
amalgam of Tom Landry and Joe Gibbs. Joe Gibbs who
was the coach of the Washington team in eighty seven
during the strike, who was just very folksy and believed
in his team and had that sort of you know,

(51:43):
rapport with his players. But then you got Tom Landry,
who's a very stately coach and he's wearing literally the
same hat that Gene Hackman is wearing, so like he's
just completely confident in this process the whole time. And
his assistants are the ones freaking out and it's a
great dynamic. But then you get players like Reese if
Fans playing the fucking Welsh.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
Kicker in his golden age yep where he was showing
he had blown up coming off of notting Hill notting
Hill and was starting to book everything, and he was
he was the color you added for fun if you
wanted the movie to be funny and raunchy. He was
the guy. Which that's one of the things that I'm

(52:24):
sure is on the ground on the cutting room floor
somewhere is raunchy rife. Rice Ivans bits.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Yes, yes, one thousand percent. And I love that he
comes out on the field and is smoking a cigarette
as he's kicking a field goal. And I love that
at one point in this movie he kicks a sixty
five yard field goal, which had never been done in
the NFL at that time and only has been done
in the last couple of years. So it's just like,
at that point that just seemed like no way any
human could kick a sixty five yard field goal, and

(52:50):
someone has since kicked a sixty six, So I just
I fucking love that. And then, of course, because it's
a movie in the year two thousand, We've got to
get Orlando Jones in there. It's just like it was
a requirement in Hollywood. It was like, if you're going
to make a major studio comedy in two thousand or
two thousand and one, Orlando Jones must de facto.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Be in the movie, even if it's animated, even.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
If it's animated. And I feel bad because this is
like the height of Orlando Jones, but it's also the
game clock about to expire on his superstardom. I don't
know why his window was so narrow, but I fucking
love that guy.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Yeah, yeah, no, he was always I've dot him, always likable.
I'm there was a weird shift in advertising in the aughts,
and I don't know because I can't remember exactly when
the shift happened.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
The shift was, dude, I have fucking sidebar. So the
other thing that I'm completely obsessed with is advertising. And
I noticed about the time that Quizno Subs started releasing
those weird Hamster commercials, everybody started going with wacky, off

(54:00):
the wall memorable commercials.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
But that wasn't that. That's not where I'm going.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Oh I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but no, no, that is.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
All correct, and I know that that element of it
and how quiz NOO's plays a big part in that,
But I'm talking about it. For a long time, it
was considered ghosh for a list actors to appear in commercials,
and so you'd go over and YouTube commercials in Japan,
you Chube commercials, in Hong Kong, you do some European stuff,
but never in America. And that was really funny for

(54:29):
a time because we would get these weird foreign commercials
with big stars, and those were some of the earliest
viral videos. But Orlando Jones jumping on and becoming the
spokesperson for seven Up was not viewed well. And I
can't remember if he it predated it being okay like today,
you know, you see a big name star in a
Capitol one ad and you're just like, you know, Sammy

(54:50):
got to get paid, but you know, sam Jackson got
to eat. But you know, back, you know, twenty five
years ago, that was considered uncool, and so I can't
I don't I know if a lot of the blowback
against him was him selling out to seven eleven or
the seven Up or whether it was just something else,
because it's not like It's not like he was bad,

(55:12):
it's not like he did anything wrong. He just everybody
kind of got tired of him weirdly.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
And I feel like it does a little bit tie in.
And what was interesting about those Make seven Up Years
commercials is it was kind of the crossover between what
has become after the fucking Quiznos and it was Quiznos
and it was Old Spice that really pioneered the idea of,
you know, people are gonna watch videos online with ads,
so let's make our commercials weird and off the wall

(55:38):
so that people don't want to skip them, and then
they'll start googling or they'll start looking for our ads online, like.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Cream, berries and cream. I'm a little lad who loves
berries and cream.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
That was their whole thing, is like, let's just be weird.
Quizno started it, and then Old Spice picked up the
ball and ran with it, and it diverged into two
completely different avenues for advertising. That still happened today. And
if you watch it of commercials, guys, I'm telling you
you'll see this. Almost every commercial falls into one of
two categories. Super weirdo Old Spice type commercials or the
person using this products a total fucking dick. Like I'll

(56:09):
give you an example when I just saw the other
day a woman who is feeding her cat and she's
like slowly feeding her cat fancy feast, and you hear
off screen her daughter's like, hey, I cut myself. Yeah,
there's band aids in the cabinet. It's really bad. Well
used two then, and she just doesn't care because she's
feeding her cat. Literally. That's the other type of commercial
you see is use our product and be a total

(56:31):
dick to everyone. So it's either wilding off the wall
kookiness like old spice, or use our product and be
a dickhead. And I feel like, what's great about the
Make seven Up Yours commercials is kind of a little
bit of both. It was kind of the the nextus
point of those two add mentalities, those philosophies of advertising.
So that is interesting though that maybe it was the
make seven Up Yours commercials that ended up hurting him.

(56:54):
Although was that was that always or because I know
Godfrey was an actor and a comedian who those for
a while, did it start off as Orlando Jones and
then get moved to Godfrey?

Speaker 2 (57:04):
I don't know, I can't. I think it would have
to be the other way around, because Godfrey was you know,
he was the affleck Duck for a while and then
got canceled because of a a joke about the earthquake
in Japan. Oh oh yeah. Yeah. And that's if you

(57:25):
watch the amazing documentary Gilbert, which was made towards the
end of his life. He goes very much into that
and how he really fucked up with a single joke
and how it went south for him. So I would
I have to think it was the other way around
because Orlando Jones was the seven up guy.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
For a while, so it looks like he was. You're right,
it was Orlando Jones from ninety nine to two thousand
and two and then it switched to Godfrey. So it's interesting.
So I just wanted to make sure we weren't confusing
those two guys. But yeah, it looks like they both
took part in those commercials. All of that to say,
I love Orlando Jones. I'm sorry that his career wasn't
as Y two K compliant as I would have liked
it to ben because I could have seen him be He's.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
Always The thing is with Orlando Jones, He's always great. Yeah,
you know, sometimes he goes a little broader than the movie,
but you know that can be a direction issue and
not necessarily a performance issue. But yeah, I've always been
an Orlando Jones fan, and anytime he shows up, I'm
always happy to see him.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
You know, we mentioned Jack Warden, who this was his
last movie before he retired. He's great as the basically
playing Tech Shram, the GM of the Dallas Cowboys, and
then John Favreau in this movie is completely unhinged and
I love everything about it.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
Well, Favreau was a like the thing is is people
forget Favreau was an actor. Actor Like, he's a real
fucking actor, and he just fell in love with writing
and directing. And one of the things I love is
that this is the movie he met one of his
lifelong friends, Faison Love on YEP, and they became friends
and he started putting him in all of his movies

(58:56):
because Faison Love.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
Fucking rocks absolutely.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
But yeah, no, Favreau is unhinged in this film and
unrecognizable compared to many of his other parts. You know,
he's he's such an iconic actor now because he you know,
inserted himself in the Iron Man movies. Is happy, and
so he you know, he exists in that realm as
part of this cinematic universe. But but yeah, he's fucking

(59:22):
great at Bateman here. Like my favorite, one of my
favorite scenes in this movie is when Orlando Jones comes
up and is talking.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
To Earl Wilkinson Michael.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
Earl Wilkinson Mike played by Michael Jace, and they're just
sitting staring at one another. It's Favreau and Michael Jays
just like giving each other the stink guy because one
is a criminal and one is a cop and they
both know it. And Orlando Jones doesn't know that Bateman's
a cop and creates one of the best comedic scenes
in the movie.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
And another Salas Boys shorthands. Anytime we see a dessert
or a dessert table, look butut cake. It's something I
don't know why we still do this. It's just a
thing that allegedly alleged those cops.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
Orlando Jones is really good at that scene.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
And John Favreau, this is one of the few movies
that I'm like legitimately scared of him, you know what
I mean. Like he's not always a heavy, but he's
about as heavy as it gets in this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
But then that great time where he has to get
tackled by Kean.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
Because he won't go down, He's gonna run out the clock.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
He just hits him and he's like, that's a good hit, Shane,
good hit.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
And I love the way IMDb bends over backwards because
they're like, normally the quarterback is not on the field
for special teams plays and I'm like, yeah, but they're
also who knows how many replacement players they got, so
I'll buy it, you know what I mean, Like they
may not have enough people to stock an entirely separate
special teams unit. So fine, he's on the field. That's great. Uh.
Brett Cullen in this movie as the supposedly spoiled, definitely

(01:00:52):
dickish Washington quarterback. And you know what's interesting about Brett Cullen.
I mean a lot of people got to know him
because of his role on The Lost, but he's one
of the rare people that's in two different, two different
cannon thread lines of the same characters universe. Like a
lot of people would be like, oh, they're in a
Marvel movie and a DC movie. Yeah whatever, I don't

(01:01:13):
fucking care. But Brett Cullen is literally in The Dark
Knight Rises as a like crooked senator. But then it's
also Bruce Wayne's dad in the the uh Joaquin Phoenix Joker.
It's just like, wait, what the fuck is happening right now?

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
That's too confusing, none of those universes linked together. But yes,
he's also technically in a Marvel movie, even though it's
not a MCU movie. Which one is that your favorite
ghost rider.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Roy from the Office is in this movie as the
deaf tight End and I fucking love him in this.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Oh, I love that you call him Roy from the Office.
It's David Denman.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
Now Roy from the Office Forever, forever and ever. He's
done some great movies, but he's still Roy from the
Office for me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Some great movies. He's still working today, still doing great shit.
He was just fucking in Rebel Ridge. He's in The
Equalizer fucking three. He's in one of our you know,
beloved cinematic fucking universes. Like he's done so so much shit,
does a lot of Logan Lucky bright Burn a movie.
I love that. I hope we cover at some point

(01:02:20):
Power Rangers.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
What okay, that's shocked you know what, I will agree
to do that Power Rangers if you agree to also
on that episode talk about the nineties one that was
huge for me as a kid.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
I mean, yeah, I'll watch that. Yeah, yours.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
It's a hostage exchange episode, folks.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
No, I mean, we're talking about a guy who was
in so many fucking great movies and he's just Roy from.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
The from the Office. You don't understand how much I
love The Office and how much I go back to it.
It's not I'm not denigrating the man. I'm saying Roy
from the Office is who he is to me forever.
Despite him being great in this movie, he was amazing
in bright Burn. It's something that I always now think
of him. Right alongside The Office and right alongside both
of those is him playing the deaf tight End in
this movie. And I think one of the moments that

(01:03:03):
solidifies Brett Collins character as a complete piece of shit
is when he's yelling at at this tight End and
like grabbing him by the helmet, like you can't hear me,
just go left correct. It feels like straight up abuse
and it's just like okay, uhh, Like I know the
movie's wrong headed about you? Being a bad guy. But
they also established pretty well that you as as a
person are a complete piece of shit, and that's a

(01:03:24):
great way to do it. You know, we mentioned faise
On Love. He's great. I love the moment where the
guy the players keep tipping over Shane Falco's truck and
then faise On Love and uh, the guy who plays
his brother in this movie show up because they're the guards.
They oh, son of a bitch, I'm a son of
a bitch, and they're.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
Like, that's the line that I quote from this movie
on the regular.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
So good so and then the moment after that where
they dissolved to the team meeting and Art Lafleur is like, so,
if you have any firearms, just go ahead and turn
him in, no questions asked, and there's just silence in
that room. So fucking funny, and just real quick, before
we move off this cast, we mentioned him already, Michael
Jace sidebar. Here's where life imitating art imitating life gets

(01:04:15):
really insane and tragic. I didn't realize until the most
recent viewing of the replacements that Michael Jays, who plays
Earl Wilkinson, who's the defensive player the Sentinels literally parole
from prison to play also plays Officer Julian Lowe on
The Shield, and if you've ever watched The Shield, Julian
Lowe is a super sympathetic character. He is a cop

(01:04:38):
in the LAPD who is gay and has to hide it.
And it's just like he plays such a very sympathetic
character on that show. I didn't realize he's also scary
ass Earl Wilkinson in this movie. Also, this character is
based on former University of Tennessee quarterback Tony Robinson, who
was actually paroled by the Washington football team to play
as an eighty seven replacement player. Actually led them against

(01:05:01):
the Cowboys to a win that won them their division
and got them into the playoffs. Like Tony Robinson was
a hugely important character in the story of the eighty
seven strike. But I also didn't know that Michael Jase
is currently serving a forty year to life prison sentence
for murdering his wife. So this actor who is playing

(01:05:23):
the character who was paroled from prison to play football,
which is based on a real person who was paroled
from prison to play football, is currently in prison. Like
it's just insane to think about it. Will make your
mind completely collapse, something that's occurred obviously after the movie
came out, but it's just it's absolutely madness. By the way,

(01:05:44):
this movie shot by tak Fujimoto.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
Oh, before we get there, we're not done with the
cast yet.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
We're not done with the cast yet. You are correct.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
I mean we've got Brook Langdon Brook.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
And it's so cuteness.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
She's so cute, so lovable. And also she was familiar
to those of us, you know, gen actors at the
time because she's Nikki and swingers. Correct, And she came
out of the Second City and said, upright, citizens bigade.
She was a comedian who I think her looks worked
against her because she was the person you cast as

(01:06:16):
the really attractive girl and a thing, and like, this
movie doesn't give her anything to work with. For as
funny as she is, she would go on to be
a popular TV actress after this and very funny and
a lot of things. But here she's not really allowed
to be funny. She's got to play it straight against
a bunch of other very funny people.

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
But despite her not having a lot to work with
to be funny, she has a ton of agency in
this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
Oh, Yeah, she is.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
The smartest football mind in this film, and I really
love that she's the head cheerleader. She's the one that's
like telling Falco, hey, you need to you know, increase
your your scramble on this and this guy you know,
tends to blitz, and like she understands football on a
level that like nobody else in this film can really comprehend.
She's also the one who come sip with the idea
of hiring the strippers as cheerleaders because they need replacement

(01:07:04):
cheerleaders too, and that whole scene where they're distracting, Like
I can understand how an R rated version of this
it went way further, but it still cracks me up.
This the entire defense of the entire opposing team, like
turning and watching them just like grind on each other
and not paying attention is such a fucking funny moment.
And again they use a different disco song for that scene,

(01:07:24):
so you're right, Disco make it a huge comeback in
the lague.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Man girls up the back girls. And also in this
h you know, rounding everything out, you mentioned uh you
mentioned John Madden. Yeah, this also has Pat Summer.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
All Pat Smmer all thanking it legit.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
The whole thing and making this legit is take at
that time, in this time, if you watched if you
watched football at all, they were the voice of football.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
I mean, here's a guy. When you hired John Madden,
you're also good summer all. I mean you put the
watching a movie and that's that's good. That's gonna make
your legit film.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
Brett farm just we can't do. I can't do a
summer all impression. Else I would have jumped right. It's
hard to do with my summer all impression. I'm sorry everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
I mean, of the two of us, you are the
summer all, the guy that is beleaguered for years by
the loudmouth co host and is just trying to keep
things on track. That was pat We were both.

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
I thought the problem with this podcast is we're both
the loudmouth person who tried to keep it on track.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
Yeah, the problem is that we're both Madden in an
NFL two K world. I think that is the.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
Problem, is exactly it. After these messages, we'll be right back.

Speaker 3 (01:08:39):
Hey, I'm the guy who makes seven up.

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
I also write the avatars, and I just came up
with a great news slogan.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
Make seven of your us, make seven up your us.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
Thank you, I appreciate it. Make people just love it.
Seven off makes seven of yours, makes seven love your
saying to you, saying to me, see is catching on already?
Makes of you a man up feelings. Oh we go
on global with this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
Baby, But yeah, that cast fucking incredible. Just it's and
it holds up to this day and it's so charming
and every character introduction is wonderful. That's one of the
things this movie does really well. Every time we need
a character, we get to know who they are right
away and also fall in love with them, you know,

(01:09:30):
even in small moments like tak Fujimoto when he shows up,
is you lost weight? I don't say that, coach, like
just the it just really works.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
So, uh, the the character that you're you're talking about,
who is the former sumo wrestler in this so I
think it's fucking hysterical and they get him because he's
an expert at pushing people around. That actor's name is
ace Yonamney. Tak fuj Moto shot this.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
Movie and it's oh wait, you can put that name
in my head and it's Fumaco's his last name. Is Fumaco.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
Yeah, oh well, see, now we've incepted each other because
now I don't know what the fuck is happening anymore.
But he's the guy that literally shot almost everything that
m night shyamal on every Day. He shot Silence of
the Lambs, Ferrispeeler's day off Gladiator.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
We've talked about him in the past.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
Yeah, it's this tak Fu Jemoto on IMDb. I don't
know anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
Uh, he's you're right, No, no, no, ace A or Yoman,
you know. I always sorry, Japanese always throws me because
I spend too much time with Spanish. Sure, but he
plays Fumaco.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Got it okay?

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
And I thought his name was tak Fumiko because the
thing is on IMDb. It doesn't have any of the
first names, right, and so they say him in the movie,
but everybody's listed only by their last name. So that
was where my my stupidity is stubblic.

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
We've incepted each other in a really weird way. And
that's another salad boy shorthand iss. Anytime either one of
us gets mad non disco like just instantly disca like,
I fucking love that. But tak Fujamoto shot this movie,
and you I just listed off all these incredible films
that he dped. I'm not sure the Replacements is going

(01:11:23):
to make his real uh, you know, and I love
his work, but I mean the way this movie is
shot is pretty pedestrian at best, and sometimes out of
focus and awkward, like I don't know what was going.
If that's a symptom of how they cut the movie,
I don't know, but there's literally shots that aren't even
in focus, and it's really weird for somebody who is
as accomplished and talented as tak Fujimoto. I also noticed.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
That that might be part of the cutting down.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's these are the takes.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
These are the takes we can use that don't have
the rated AR material in it, and they they you know,
it's all we have.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
Yeah, one way or another, it's not making is real.
But you're right, it could be, like I said, a
symptom of that cutdown. I did notice that this came
out the same year as Unbreakable and how constantly he's
worked with m Night Shymalan, which I can't help think
this was the reason he wasn't available to shoot Unbreakable,
which I still think is m Night Shyamalan's best movie
by a country mile.

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
I mean, you're wrong, but it's what is his best movie?

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
No, we're doing this, what's his best movie?

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
The sixth sense.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
I still think it's Unbreakable. I still think I'm Breakable
is a better movie. I don't know. I just think that.
I think.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
No. No, I said, it's an interesting opinion to have.
It's just it's wrong opinion. Oh no, no, no, you are wrong,
and I could prove it. Give me pen and paper.
I will show all my work. You are wrong. It
is a great movie.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
The big twist is Cargil's wrong, and he was wrong
the whole time.

Speaker 2 (01:12:49):
The big twist is the twist happens, and then we
get a thirty second crawl of what happens afterwards instead
of showing us, which is a big disappointment to a
lot of the audience, something that doesn't happen in the
sixth sense.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
They called me miss the crass on this podcast. Look,
all I'm saying is that I don't think this is
going on tax reel. I don't think it's necessarily his fault.
But none of none of that meant like, the shortcomings
of this movie don't really matter when you get to
that finale, when we get to one of my favorite
things about a football movie, specifically, the quarterback or the

(01:13:20):
star player, whoever it was that was ostracized or left
for whatever reason, comes back at halftime when they're you know,
they're in the hole and leads them orchestrates a comeback.
I fucking love that story every time it happens.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
Yeah, no, it's you need heart, Oh, Miles.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
A heart, just like a duck man. You're like, everything's
calm on the surface, but underneath those feet are just
going a mile a minute. I again, the philosophy of
a sports movie is something.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
No one could lead this team to to a victory.
I can't.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
He's just he's so committed. Like, say what you want
about counter Reeves in this era, I don't give a shit.
He is fully committed to this role, and I believe
him as a quarterback.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
He was always committed. You know. Part of the problem
at the time was everybody bought into this idea that
he was an idiot, and he didn't push back enough
on it. There. I remember when this movie came out,
he was asked a really just insipid question in the
Q and A during an interview, and I read it
in the piece and the interviewer talks about how he

(01:14:21):
sits there for seventy four seconds. He timed it without
saying a word as he mulled over the question and
then looked up and said, what was the question again?
And people would paint him as an idiot for stuff
like that when that was his tactic to run down
the clock of a bad interview.

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
Yeah, it's more about you than it does him.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
Bro, Yes it does, because you're like, yeah, he didn't
want to answer that question. That question was stupid.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
I can tell you from being in interviews with him,
you know around the time of John Wick that he
is one of the most thoughtful, well spoken, articulate, fucking
people I've ever And.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
He's a close friend of Scott's, Scott Dirk's and my
partner in crime. He's told me all about him. He's
a deeply intellectual person. He's just a very private person,
and that he he likes being off alone. You know,
people talk about his you know him like liking to drink.
It's like, yeah, he likes to go off and drink
and that's.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
His private Idaho. That's what he wants.

Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
You know. He's he's had a lot of tragedies in
his life and and he wrestles with it. But he
is a deeply thoughtful, spiritual person. You know, when when
he and Scott were touring for Day the Ear Stood Still,
they ended up in Rome, and Scott's like, we're in Rome,
what do you want to do? And and Keana's like,
let's go to museums. And what they would do is

(01:15:38):
they would like shut down the wing of the museum
for for Keanu, because you know, because they were like, well,
he'll get mobbed. And so he and Scott had an
entire wing of one of the main museums that they
just got to wander around and just look and take
in all this art. And he just talked about how
Keanu knew so much about so many of the paintings

(01:15:59):
and the hit history and would would want to talk
about it and discuss, you know, how you know, the
meaning and how Scott felt about this particular piece and
things like that. And that's the type of guy he
really is. But he's that type of intellectual that doesn't
need anyone to know. He's an intellectual, so he was
fine with people thinking he was an idiot, and that
played into that appearance at the time. But yeah, he

(01:16:23):
very committed actor, deeply committed.

Speaker 3 (01:16:25):
Payne Heels, Chickstig Stars, Glory Last Forever.

Speaker 1 (01:16:31):
The other thing I really love about this movie is
that it understands football on a level that I feel
like not a lot of football movies do. And by
that I mean things aren't always clean, like the scene
at the end of this movie where they need the
touchdown to win, and they get the touchdown like Shane
Falkel runs it in He's the hero, right, We're celebrating,

(01:16:54):
and then what happens flag for holding. We got to
come back and do it again. The amount of times
as a football fan that you will see your team
score a touchdown that is desperately needed, only to have
it erased by a penalty is part and parcel with
being a football fan. So I love that that moment
exists in this movie. And then what do they do.

(01:17:14):
They go back and they run a different play, They
make a different person in the hero, and they they
they managed to overcome their own mistakes. Like that is
so fundamentally professional football, and I feel like you know,
the only other movies that really get that right are
a lot of times the movies where the team doesn't win,
like because that's another big part of being a professional

(01:17:35):
football fan. Like I can speak as a Colts fan,
you don't always get to see your team win. Hey,
you want to talk about comebacks at halftime? Talk about
the two thousand and seven AFC Championship between the Colts
and the Patriots, and will fucking talk about comebacks? And
here in the Super Bowl. They won that Super Bowl,
thank you very much. They didn't lose the Super Bowl
a couple of years later against the say, don't fucking

(01:17:56):
test me on this. I will fucking push back every time.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
I just threw shade at your team, and I was
giving you the ability to back it up.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
You know what. Let me let me pause for about
seventy four seconds and then ask you what your comment was.
Hold on the thing with Keanu Reeves taking that pay
cut to get Gene Hackman to be in this movie,
it apparently touched Gene Hackman so much that he agreed
that if they made a sequel to this movie, he'd
come back for it. And I'm gonna tell you I'd
be here for that sequel, and it probably sounds from

(01:18:28):
our discussion like the reason the sequel wasn't made is
because the movie, you know, it premiered third when it
was released. It had eleven million it's opening weekend, behind
Space Cowboys Damn You, Clint, and Hollow Man Damn You
Invisible Man. So both of those movies were in their
second weeks and beat The Replacements, which ended up making
its money back, like basically breaking even.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
Well worldwide, it made the same as it cost. But
at the time, you know, keep in mind when you
add in advertising, that movie needed to make a hundred
million dollars to break even. Sure, and it did not.
And now I'm certain it's profited since because it is
always it is one of those classic you're flipping around

(01:19:13):
cable and oh, The Replacements is on movies.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
Yes, yes, that's exactly correct. And so you might get
the impression that because we're talking about the movie and
how it did the box office, that's why the sequel
was canceled. That's not true because despite the box office,
it did so well on video and on cable that
the company who produced the film, bel Air Entertainment, started
developing the sequel. They were gonna bring the writer back.
They were gonna bring Howard dutchback, who we haven't even

(01:19:38):
really talked about, the director of this movie, who got
started making movies like Pretty in Pink and some kind
of Wonderful and you know, you know, directing movies like that,
and I don't think ever made a movie this good again, unfortunately,
But he was gonna come back. Keanu was coming back,
Gene Hackman was coming back. But what happened was in

(01:19:58):
the early two thousands, bell Air's subsequent films that they
made for Warner Brothers, like Pay It Forward, Proof of Life,
Sweet November, which also had Reeves in it, Rockstar, and
Collateral Damage. Some of those movies or episodes, they were
such failures at the box office that Warner Brothers canceled
their deal with bell Air and the sequel went in
to turnaround. So it wasn't the box office returns that

(01:20:22):
killed the sequel. It was Pay It Forward, Proof of Life,
Sweet November, Rockstar, and Collateral Damage. It was the uh,
it was this team of bad movies. It was the
the nineteen seventy three oilers of bad movies that killed
the sequel.

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):
To the replacements, I think you could make one now,
Oh absolutely, you could. You bring back Falco as the
coach as the coach.

Speaker 1 (01:20:44):
And here's the thing, carg Gil. Even though there hasn't
been a strike since eighty seven, plenty of players have
sat out to protest their current contracts into the start
of the season. It happened with Leveon Bell with the Steelers,
is happening right now with Trey Hendrickson, like it happens
all the time. I note where players take their own
personal strike until their contracts get reworked. You could work

(01:21:06):
in a plot about that without there having to be
a new, you know, league wide strike. And yes, coach
Shane Falco would absolutely be the one.

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
I mean, come on, coach Shane Falco gets brought in
for to you know, uh, put bring a bunch of it,
doesn't even have to have a strike, but brings together
a new bunch of misfits, brings back a couple of
members from the old cast, like you know, defensive coach
Jon Favreau.

Speaker 1 (01:21:28):
Yes, you know, dude, for players are coaches all over
the fucking NFL. It would be the most accurate thing possible.
And where are they playing, Cargill, They're playing at coach
James McGuinty Stadium. Yes, that's a tribute to Gene Hackman
and name the goddamn stadium after him.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
I mean, now, see now, I want to see that
because Falco gets brought in and he has to put
together his coaching staff. Yes, and that's where we go
and we find you know, Orlando Jones. It's where we
get Jon Favreau. It's where we get face on love,
you know, bring them back and have them be the
coaches while they're dealing with their shit, trying to get

(01:22:05):
this new generation of misfits to work together the way
that they did. I'd watch the fuck out of that movie.

Speaker 1 (01:22:11):
Why didn't Clifford Franklin get picked up by another team? Well,
he had a disastrous soda sponsorship that Come on, it writes.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
Itself, It writes itself.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
Oh, I would watch that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
Bavreau went on to drive chauffeur for the Richest Man
in the World.

Speaker 1 (01:22:30):
Don't bring me back. I'm too happy where I am. Look,
the movie rights itself, and we would watch that sequel.
But if you haven't watched the Replacements, you were doing
yourself a disservice. This is one of that and I
will say, I think this is one of the truly
great sports films of all time. And if that's rose
colored glasses, fine whatever. If there's a better version of
this movie that almost existed, fine whatever. If this movie
takes wild liberties with the point of the story that

(01:22:53):
it's adapting, fine whatever. I still think what's on the
screen works. You are one great sound fit. You now
know that, of course, only a crazy sarm of bitchuit
eat eggs aforetant game, and that brings us to the
junk food pairing and cargil. I guess I could have
gone with two dozen hard boiled eggs that you eat
right before a football game.

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
That's one thought. Or ooh, bunt cake, but.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
Cake, it's bunt cake. Sorry, it's bunk cake. It's it's
fourth and ten and I'm gonna bunt That's what I'm saying.
It's a butnt cake. Okay, yes, I know that's a
baseball term, but it rhymes with punts a funk off.
It's gonna be bunt cake. Is the junk food pairing?

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
Okay, well, I would say a tray loaded with some
of your favorite kind of junk foods. I'm talking about tiktos,
I'm talking about tacos. I'm talking about Chinese spare ribs.
You got to bulk up for this movie, and a
plate full of your favorite junk food is the way
to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
I love that it's an appy sampler for you, Like,
that's that's where you're going with your junk food pair.

Speaker 2 (01:23:47):
I mean that the plate that you see Phase on
Love walking up with. Oh yeah, it's not Phase on Love. Somebody.
Somebody's winding up and then phaseon Love is like making
comments about what this Chinese fair rib is. But I
look at that and I'm like, oh, that looks good.
That's good eating.

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
Michael Tellaferrow is his his partner crime in this movie.
He plays andre H. He passed away in two thousand
and six, so I thought we would just give him
a nod as well because he's really good in this movie.
Uh but yeah, no, there is football football the way
they just fucking leave that poor rapper like they're supposed
to be guarding and they're like.

Speaker 2 (01:24:21):
That poor rapper. Do you know who that poor rapper is?
That's old dirty bastard.

Speaker 1 (01:24:25):
No, it's fucking not.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
They leave old dirty baskard to go play football. Look
it up on IMDb. It's old it's ODB.

Speaker 1 (01:24:34):
Oh baby a cameo, Old baby a cameo. It's fucking ODB.

Speaker 2 (01:24:40):
Holy look, look all I'm saying ain't nothing to fuck with.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:24:46):
By sidebar.

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
At the end of the show, I love an end
of the show. Sidebar, this is now an overtime.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
Did you see the new trailer for the Wu te
video game?

Speaker 1 (01:25:01):
No? Is it okay? Is it gonna be better or
worse than the last Wu Tang video game, which I
think is criminally underrated.

Speaker 2 (01:25:07):
It is an Asian themed RPG, okay, in which you
have to go around and battle all these you know,
evil entities and evil martial artists to locate and find
all the members of the Wu Tang clan.

Speaker 1 (01:25:21):
Okay, That sounds slightly better than Wu Tang Shaolin Style,
which was their PlayStation game. However, the soundtrack that is
a put together for Wu Tang Shallin Style the PlayStation
game is legend fucking dry.

Speaker 2 (01:25:33):
So yes, well, I mean anything by the risk, come on.

Speaker 1 (01:25:36):
Yeah, I mean it's the Wu Tang and there's there's
very little that's not legendary about the Wu Tang in general,
but that the How Hard He Goes for a video
game soundtrack is law Chef's.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
Kiss Stargrove.

Speaker 1 (01:25:48):
Stargrove. At the end of the episode, we went to
double overtime. Thank you for joining us as we continue
June Hack Month and talk about the replacements one of
our deep fried favorite sports films. If you would like
to hear more of this, we have eleven years of
this horseshit on your favorite podcatcher. You can follow us
on social media, and if you really like the show,
I mean you really like the show, you like it
as much as cash does indeed rule everything around me,

(01:26:10):
you can go to patreon dot com slash Junk Food
Cinema and financially support the show. We greatly appreciate it.
We're gonna get out of here by reminding you pain Heels, Chicks,
dig Scars, Glory Last Forever, and make the sequel to
this fucking movie.