Quantum Recast: Your Favorite Films, Recast In Different Years
We are a time-traveling film podcast that journeys through time to take classic films, blockbusters and cult favorites, to recast them in different years!
Quantum Recast: Your Favorite Films, Recast In Different Years
Troy - 1997: Managing Myths, Brad Pitt & Greek Epics
What if 'Troy' was recast in 1997?
Strap in as Cory, Nick and Ash give us an epic of an episode, reimagining the 2004 Wolfgang Petersen epic, during an era when action icons were handing over the reins to fresh faces. We don't just speculate; we create an entire alternate universe where 'Troy' dominates the silver screen alongside that year's blockbusters. It's a rollercoaster of laughter, hypothetical casting debates, and a touch of cinematic wanderlust.
Join us as we dissect Brad Pitt's portrayal of Achilles in the original 'Troy', scrutinizing his character arc with the glee of history buffs at a renaissance fair. Our discussion meanders through the intricate web of Greek mythology, silver screen adaptations, and the broader scope of Pitt's film choices. From critiquing the film's storytelling, we peel back the layers of this iconic film and contemplate the effects of a late 90s version.
Wrapping up this auditory odyssey, our casting caldron bubbles over with the ideal blend of star power and thespian skill for our dream cast of 'Troy'. We pitch actors against each other for the prized roles of gods and warriors, balancing charisma against muscle and finesse. Tune in to find out who we cast!
(00:00:59) Intro
(00:06:00) About the Movie
(00:11:57) Useless Critic Stats
(00:21:23) Why We Chose This Film
(00:29:48) 1997 Box Office
(00:33:12) Oscars
(00:34:32) Other Notable Films
(00:42:36) Rules
(00:44:47) 30 Seconds or Less Casting
(00:54:58) Briseis
(01:05:00) Paris
(01:14:42) Agamemnon
(01:21:42) Helen
(01:29:32) Hector
(01:41:55) Achilles
(01:56:18) Final Cast
Thanks for listening; If you feel like supporting us, this is where you do that!
Patreon (Just a buck to show your support!)
BuyMeACoffee
Check out or other content/socials here.
Linktree
Tapbio
Hosts:
Cory Williams (@thelionfire)
Nick Growall (@nickgrowall)
Co-Hosts (Season 5):
Aly Dale (@alydale55)
Ash Hurry (@filmexplorationah)
Cass Elliott (@take5cass)
Terran Sherwood (@terransherwood)
Voice of the Time Machine:
Kristi Rothrock (@letzshake)
Editing by:
Nick Growall
Featured Music:
"Quantum Recast Theme" - Cory Williams
"Charmer" - Coat...
2004. I love Helen. I want her back. Will you go to war with me, brother? They're coming for me. He's bringing them close. This'll be the greatest war we need.
Speaker 4:The greatest war. Be careful, King of Kings. No son of Troy will ever submit to a foreign rule. Then every son of Troy shall die. Is that Troy's bird for this woman? Is there no one else? Is THERE NO ONE ELSE woman? Is there no one else? Is there no one else?
Speaker 2:I will be the one that gives you immortality. Take it, it's yours. Welcome to another episode of Quantum Recast. I am one of your hosts, corey, the one that talks a lot, but with me, as always, is Nick and our man from across the pond, ash Yo what's up. Guys, I'm going to start this podcast off by saying Sean Bean survived. He did it, he did it, he didn't die For a movie in which everyone's dying.
Speaker 1:Sean Bean pulled through which is funny because he's like he didn't die, but he's going to spend the next 10 years trying to get home. Corey, yeah, but he's going to make it. He's going to make it, he's going to make it, that's Troy 2 right there, he's going to die immediately. But hey we're just prepping. I'm still waiting on that movie, by the way, just the Odyssey guys, just the Odyssey, just wants the Odyssey to happen.
Speaker 2:But yeah, no, I'm pumped. I just, you know, sean Bean shows up in a movie and you're like, ooh, ooh, he's not gonna make it very long. But the good thing is if you're studious, the second he introduced himself as Odysseus, you're like hey he's gonna make it you're not gonna have a good time of it, but you're gonna make it so but, yeah, so if you clicked on this, you've seen that we're talking about the movie Troy, that's right.
Speaker 2:You also probably see a weird year next to the movie Troy that said 1997. And that is not the year Troy came out, it's not, because that's what we do on this podcast.
Speaker 2:We take a movie out of its original release year and we uproot it. We take it either forwards or backwards in time because we want to know what that movie would look like in a different year. So we either forwards or backwards in time because we want to know what that movie would look like in a different year. So we're taking 2004's troy to 1997. Yo I gotta say, guys, I was not a fan of this you.
Speaker 2:You found it challenging, the late 90s was hard for a sand and sand, a sand and a sword and sandals.
Speaker 1:Epic yeah a little bit, a little bit didn't make others yeah around this time, I agree. I agree, it's a tough braveheart that comes out a few years before, and this is also sandwiched between that and then Gladiator that's going to come out in 2000. What it?
Speaker 2:is is we're in a transition like the late 90s is a transitional, like the stars of the late 80s, early 90s, kind of aged out of like the hero role Exactly, and I think they're not like.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:No, I was just going gonna say what. You're sorry to interrupt, but 96 to 99 is like a era of its own. Those like three years.
Speaker 2:You're taking it to a different whole decade yeah, and you're like looking at who am I gonna james vanderbeek? It's not gonna be achilles, it's like you're not old enough, man I hope nick cast james vanderbeek rewrite my uh cast, but yeah
Speaker 4:we.
Speaker 2:But before we dive into Troy, just some house cleaning. We do have social media. Check us out. Please follow us. Follow. We have a TikTok. Follow that before it's gone.
Speaker 1:It's still there for now we do things yeah.
Speaker 2:Enjoy it while you can.
Speaker 1:Share it, follow it, tell your friends.
Speaker 2:That's how, what we're doing on this chaotic podcast at quantum recast. That's what we're gonna do. We're gonna talk about troy, the movie. We're gonna break it down, talk about why we love it or why we hate it, because we don't always love the movies we do here. Um that's fair, see highlander. Um gremlins essentially stop naming everything tanner like essentially anything my cousin tanner brought to the podcast I just kind of it was a new different perspectives.
Speaker 2:C Corey Okay, I agree. Love you Tanner, love you About time. All right, all right, all right, but yeah, we're going to dissect it. But then we're going to talk about 1997. Then we're going to talk about what this movie would look like in 1997. Primarily, what the cast would have been. Yeah, but before that we need to dive into the movie Troy itself, released May 21st of 2004. I graduated high school like the next week, nice. That is exciting.
Speaker 1:It's in the middle of mine.
Speaker 2:Maybe this is the first movie I saw as a high schooler. I'm just going to say Sure yeah it was Directed by Wolfgang Peterson, Strong name Famous for Outbreak, the Poseidon remake, Air Force One, Das Boot and the Perfect Storm. He's really into big blockbuster movies.
Speaker 3:Looks like it Of the early 90s.
Speaker 1:What I didn't know was that it was offered to Chris Nolan to direct it, which I guess this is after Memento before Batman begins yeah, right before Batman begins. Then Terry Gilliam was offered the chance to direct it.
Speaker 2:That would have been a wild ass movie.
Speaker 1:That would have been an interesting film. Yes, 100%, Especially for a late 90s Terry Gilliam movie like post 12 Monkeys.
Speaker 2:Basically, that would have been wild, but he supposedly read five pages and said I'm out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2:I'm good, this isn't weird enough for me I took out the gods.
Speaker 1:So yeah, also I got this don quixote thing coming.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be huge don't worry, it's coming it's coming. So um, but yeah, um, apparently wolfgang peterson also did this, because it's like a. It's like a sean connery gandalf situation where you know, connery turned down gandalf because he said it was confusing. Kind of made me regress to that one. Wolfgang Peterson turned down Gladiator he did. When this came he's like yeah, I'm doing it. Alright, stop, we gotta do it. So yeah.
Speaker 2:It happens, Written by David Beinhof and of course, based on the Iliad and sort of the Odyssey, Homer it and sort of the Odyssey. Homer, it stretches into the Odyssey.
Speaker 1:Right right right and so yeah, there's some definite deviations from the Iliad and other essential reading for the story of the Battle of Troy and stuff, and Benoff is one half of the D&D writing team. That was Game of Thrones, really, yeah, so it's interesting to go back and watch this and go, oh, this is Now fair credit. This is the one nice thing I'll say about them is that they're good at adapting material. The problem they had with the end of Game of Thrones is that they didn't have material to adapt. They had to figure it out and they had upset George RR Martin and they were like I don't know things happen.
Speaker 3:Let's just do something. Yeah, I don't know. Things happen. That's just new to me. That's the cool thing about interpretation, isn't it? It's mythology at the same time but there is written stuff about it. Whether it's too far-fetched for it to be believable, I guess doesn't matter. That's what's good about Troy. It's quite grounded in terms of what is written which makes it better, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Personally I would watch one with the gods and everything involved with it. But but. I felt like this was a good. It's also it's kind of like a, it's almost like a gateway to like greek mythology and stuff a little bit. It's like here's a little bit more grounded. There's there's some allusion to the gods. It's treated more realistically like this is a historical piece and that was the whole like tone and angle they were going for when they were writing and making it was like we wanted to be more as a historical piece.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they present the gods as a historical thing, like hey these people believed in apollo.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know exactly, and they're all mentioned, but yeah and it's kind of cool because hector and even one scene, so I sort of mimics how we would mimic like, maybe, religion in the scenes like, oh, bird calls, we're going based on bird calls and I kind of like that and I think this is a film that literally defines the word grounded, because you never float up into heaven and meet zeus.
Speaker 3:You're always on the ground, you're with the battle, it's on earth, you never go anywhere else and it's just reference. So I think they've, I think the direction for this is spot on, if I'm being honest, yeah, yeah, I mean it's interesting.
Speaker 2:I I was watching it and like yeah, they're like doing things with birds or whatever and they're like the war's gonna be good, you know, and you're kind of like that's weird. But then I'm like I remember my grandpa would go fishing if the cows were laying down at a certain time of day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's the same thing, right, it's literally. He shouldn't say oh the gods, but he's like, oh, the fisher bite. And it's like what are you talking about? It's like, but yeah, it's the same thing. Budget of $175 million and it came in just short of making half a billion $497.5 million. It made money.
Speaker 1:You never know with marketing and stuff if that is included in their full budget. Oftentimes I think people talk about to make be successful you have to do double plus of your movie. Basically it seemed like it was your movie, basically yeah, but it seemed like it was a successful movie but it seems to have been forgotten a lot of the time um yeah, um, they uh wanted to.
Speaker 1:Um uh, turkey, turkey, turkey claims that troy was here, right yeah, like yeah though I think historians argue over where troy actually was I don't think they've ever actually pegged it down, I think yeah, you just build cities on top of old cities so there's not really no one's really sure where troy actually was, and that actually influenced some of the because they want they were talking about filming it on sites and stuff and then they kind of found out that the, what is alluded to, or people think, is troy, like the locations what's left of them.
Speaker 2:It seemed like it was much smaller than you would think yeah, yeah, they were like oh, it's not that big. So when they were making, the movie.
Speaker 1:They're like let's, let's bump this all up about. If the statue's 12 feet, make it 40 feet. The walls are only 20 feet high.
Speaker 2:Make it 100 feet high, pick it up, that's it yeah uh, but turkey like contacted the movie and said, hey, you can totally film here if you want. Yeah, and if you premiere the movie here, like, we'll even like give you some money, I guess, or fund some of the movie, yeah, and instead they premiered it in berlin, right, because of? A little thing colonization and they stole all their stuff, yeah berlin just has all the troy artifacts but also the the war in iraq.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as well as we're coming right off of 9-11 we're a little iffy about that part of the world they had to.
Speaker 1:They had to move uh production from mor, baja California or Mexico. Basically, yeah, wow, in 2003.
Speaker 2:Yeah, things were a little crazy. The war on Iraq had started over there.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Attention. And Brad Pitt is, he is, he's just. He's just walk around that bright blonde hair. I don't know if that would have been safe. There's like I kill that guy. That dude is not from here. Wait, that is that no one has that hair color. It's just like kill that guy.
Speaker 1:That dude is not from here. Wait just a minute. No one has that hair color in real life period.
Speaker 2:No one's supposed to be that sexy.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Sir what do you have on site?
Speaker 2:This beautiful man, someone from Al Qaeda, is like do we hate these people? They're gorgeous, the war is over. He could have completely brought peace, but instead him at big sir mex and baja, california, sir mexico man we didn't know what we had brad okay all right half those jokes are probably not appropriate, probably. I apologize, um, but uh, it's just brad pitt. We're just having to talk about sexy he. He is Because Brian Cox apparently thought he was gorgeous. He did.
Speaker 1:He openly was just like, hey, I'm a straight man. But I saw him walk on set and I was like good God, that man's attractive.
Speaker 2:I saw that I was reading. Cox was just struck in awe by Brad Pitt Like oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:He's so blunt. Honestly, brian Cox, he just says it.
Speaker 1:Cox, he just says it, he doesn't care, he really is. He's on that run right now, post succession, where he's like I'm just going to say whatever I'm an old man now he really is.
Speaker 2:He is on a war path right now and I'm kind of here for it.
Speaker 3:No, I love it. Yeah, I love Brian Cox.
Speaker 2:The Trojan horse. Turkey did get something out of this. They got to keep the Trojan horse. That's what happened. Yeah, so apparently where people go to visit what is probably Troy, you can there's a hotel or something that where you stay that has the Trojan horse prop.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's worth it. Sure, I go check that out.
Speaker 2:But so we need to talk about the useless critic stats of this movie. What did the critics think? Imdb gives it a 7.3 out of 10. Rotten Tomatoes a 73% score. Metacritic 56 out of 100. Letterboxd 3.3 out of 5. Respectable those first four. It comes in strong.
Speaker 3:It's like a B+.
Speaker 2:Ebert out of his goofy four star system. Man two out of four stars, hate pretty mid pretty mid um rude.
Speaker 2:I'll say this I've read enough ebert reviews now doing this podcast that I'm not really sure why we ever let critics be a thing. I don't know either. I just I don't understand the point of critics. I understand at one time, maybe in Victorian times, when there's plays and there was just this aristocratic part of society and they needed some guy to be like something's going to happen. But why did we let that falter down to our level?
Speaker 2:I don't know, why do we have anybody telling us what a good movie is, and why did we let roger ebert be a thing I don't know, because he's, he's all over the place.
Speaker 1:Like we've talked episode to episode, he'll, he'll change his mind. We'll think we've got like an idea of like what his area is, what he likes and like. He'll just and a lot of times he just blames it on. I was just in a mood that and you're like, okay, this is your job, get out of the mood, I think, for me.
Speaker 2:I've read enough of these now where I'm just like, okay, it's mostly a synopsis. He's mostly just telling me what the movie is about in kind of detail, which is if I'm reading a review, it means I kind of want to know. It's like I would assume I came to you to know if I should go see it. He pretty much just tells you what the movie is, which already seems like a bad, bad form.
Speaker 2:And then he just kind of just gives a bunch of personal opinions and I'm just kind of like why is this a thing?
Speaker 3:because he can he's just a man, he's just he's a go-to guy, isn't he? I mean, yeah, I kind of agree with you, corey. It's interesting to say that you know we don't need critics, but then you know, I'm guilty of reading reviews and critics of films I've probably even watched or about to watch, and, um, some people you latch onto. It's kind of like why you watch certain actors or watch certain films of directors. But ebert's just, he's very well articulated, he phrases it in ways that's actually quite, you know, quite clever, and he makes these interesting metaphors. But yeah, sometimes he hits on the head and sometimes he doesn't. But I mean, you'd have to be like exactly in the same mindset to agree or disagree with him. But yeah, there's always, there are some films that are questionable. What? Why he's given it four stars, or one For sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I just don't know. I feel like I've just never been blown away by the writing of a review by Ebert Even.
Speaker 1:It's just I mean, it's just more like we know that. We know the pattern. He always starts with an opener that grabs attention like this. He says Troy is based on the epic poem by Homer. According to the credits, homer's estate should sue. So right from the get it's like okay, hot, take. And then it's about three paragraphs describing the movie and then he wraps it all up saying something. But mainly he went in pretty hard with Brad Pitt and saying that these Greek stories shouldn't be modernized or brought down to a realistic point of view.
Speaker 2:Okay, so here's my thing. I agree that I don't necessarily love Brad Pitt in this movie. You can tell he's not like in it.
Speaker 2:He did it as a favor to the studio he owed the studio movie he dropped out of the fountain, the Hugh Jackman abysmal movie, and then he's pretty much said well, I owe you a movie, I'll do this one. And I agree that you can kind of tell Brad Pitt's not really sure what to do. He's just there, there. It's almost like it's the only time I think I've ever seen Brad Pitt just be like I'm just real hot and I'll let that do a lot of the work he said he kind of didn't like it.
Speaker 1:He didn't like being in the center of the camera like he's used to venture and stuff where it's like there's more going on and I'm like bro look at yourself in the mirror.
Speaker 2:Yeah, andbert's like. He kind of just goes on the well and he says pitt is modern, nuanced introspective. He brings complexity to the role where it's not required and his main fault is like well, that's not how greek mythology works. And it's like ebert, it's a damn movie all right, we came for the nuance ebert.
Speaker 1:We did. It's not. We're not preaching to the back of the theater. All right, johnny oklahoma gave us this greek god and brad pitt.
Speaker 2:We're not preaching to the back of the theater, all right, johnny Oklahoma gave us this Greek God and Brad Pitt. We're just going to make a movie with them and just let them go.
Speaker 1:I argue that it helped helped his performance, that he was that into it because the portrayal Achilles is very much like. I don't want to go to this war, but I'm doing it because it's going to make me famous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I kind of yeah, I, my wife was, I OK, I okay, I kind of oversold troy oh no, when I made her watch it, I was saying this is better.
Speaker 2:You can't oversell, troy I said it was better than glad, better than gladiator, which is her all-time favorite movie. That's pretty that's a pretty big, so the movie was not gonna hit with my wife, no matter what, um, but she did ask him like about okay when she spoilers. If you've not seen troy we are not a spoiler-free podcast we will tell you what happens um once.
Speaker 2:Uh, achilles makes hector his total, total bitch yeah like and and hector put up a good fight, sure, but and drags his body away. My wife's like is he the hero? And I was like you know? No, I don't guess, so I don't know what he is in the movie. Well that's, I think that's the beauty, rewatching narcissist they're all complicated, like it starts, even like talking.
Speaker 1:You can talk about menelaus. It's like he's portrayed as a villain, but like in other, in like the Greek world, he's seen as a good man, like his brother's. Like no, you've never asked me for a favor, you followed the lines and everything like in his cultural mindset, like he's considered a good man but he sleeps around on Helen, he just treats her as an object. So like it's fair to see. Like yeah, I would leave too if I was Helen. So there's a lot of. They do a good job blurring some lines of like where some people are good, some people are bad.
Speaker 3:I think they need to as well. I mean, like, the hero that walks away is the guy that kills achilles, and that's the guy that is a wimp, withdraws from battle and looks completely like smaller than the rest, and that's the guy who actually ends up alive at the end and walks away. Yeah, and it's because of him. So it's a very complex movie. The star of the movie is technically the villain, and if you look at it from, if you look, if you look at it just as the film and not with greek mythology in the backdrop, um, you know he's technically, you know he's just killed his brother and you know I've avenged you. And it's a very complicated movie, a lot of layers. Obviously there is greek mythology backing up each character and then there's journeys before and after, but for this, you know, two-hour journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you can call brad pitt the the the villain in some ways he's an anti-hero, like you're rooting for him when he charges the shores and stuff you're. You're not sure how to feel with. The hector and achilles fight like. You know why achilles is doing what he's doing. But you're also like Hector. Everybody liked you. Why are we? No, don't go out there, you're gonna die.
Speaker 2:He's a demigod basically yeah, and my wife was also I think I'm rubbing off on her a little bit. She was like, wow, this guy's gonna die, isn't he? And I was like it is kind of a weird scene that they're pretty much everyone's just like crying and hugging him. I was like, yeah, they're telling you how this fight's gonna go down.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for your support, right yeah, that's true, that is true it's a tragedy, guys.
Speaker 2:It's a tragedy, I mean it is all right, our letter box scores for the movie. I'm sorry I left us out of critics stats. We are amateur critics. Nick Ash, you both gave it a good 4.5, sure, or four out of five. I gave it a half out of five.
Speaker 1:I think either is fair. I think it's. It's a solid movie and me personally, I really enjoy it. I think there's plenty to like pick apart and like find. Like I don't, I didn't, you know. Peter o'toole was kind of felt out of place to me in parts and then, like some of the filmmaking feels a little dated for the time, like it feels like it's some. At some points it's filmed like an old big epic, like from like the 60s and 50s and it doesn't translate to like 2004 very well. But there's other parts like the dialogue, the blurring of the lines, the very detailed layer characters definitely fits into this era.
Speaker 1:Yeah no, for sure.
Speaker 3:No, I didn't mind it. I mean, 2004 was a bit of a weird year and it was sort of like a bubblegum year, and I don't mind this film to gladiator and I think the good thing about comparing it to gladiator as well. They're two completely different films as well and I think this one's the more attractive film and gladiator is a more gritty, heartfelt film, but you get the same emotions at the end. So it's a coin toss depend. I could watch either one, but it depends. If I want to just stare at the movie aimlessly, I'll watch troy, and if I want to really like have an emotional experience, I'll watch gladiator.
Speaker 1:So I think both do a good job. Like visually they're very appealing, but also like you can invoke things from different characters a lot. Um, I remember watching this in 2004 with my friends and it's the one time I had to get up and walk away from my friends because they were they're not film people like it was our, just our gang of high school friends. And yeah, the the style of the filmmaking where it's cutting to pre-em and Peter O'Toole's just sitting there very kind of over the top, like staring for forever, like it kept cutting to him and they would laugh and laugh and laugh and then like when troy's being sacked and it shows him and he's just like wide-eyed and grit teeth. Like peter o'toole is too old for this movie. That's my hot take. Like dude looks like he's one's foot in the grave, like he's he's got, he's on his way.
Speaker 2:Like crypt keeper going on pretty hard I would argue he has like the best scene in the whole movie, though he does when he comes to get brad pitt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like it's for everything else, everything else he's doing. It's like he's, he's very big, like when, when hector dies and he faints. It's just so like flamboyant his faces are weird he has weird faces a lot yeah which are odd but the scene with brad pitt where he's come to like collect hector, like that it's almost worth it. You're like like, okay, it's a good scene, it's a solid scene.
Speaker 2:This is where it's like all right, let Peter O'Toole.
Speaker 1:That's why we call him Peter O'Toole. Yeah, it's almost worth it. Ashford, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm sure it's on some level like Wolfgang Peterson's. Like how do you tell?
Speaker 1:Peter O'Toole, that don't make that face.
Speaker 2:Stop overacting. It's Peter O'Toole. All right, All right guys. Why are we doing Troy? Why did we pick this movie?
Speaker 1:I think because we all really enjoy this movie.
Speaker 2:All I can say is it's been on our list forever. Yeah, it has just been on the list forever, and I think we just finally found a time to put it in. Right yeah, and it's like what it's the 20th anniversary this year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anniversary this year yeah, we're sitting on the 20th anniversary, basically like, uh, like nice, so it's not getting talked about a lot either, which is interesting. But I I mean, yeah, personally, when I watched it, I remember really enjoying it and then getting to watch the extended version, like you got more nuance, more character development and stuff. But, ash, is there a particular reason, like you enjoy it or wanted to do this?
Speaker 3:honestly, I think, with the regurgitation of films, like borrowing the same themes and the same stories and the same characters, this is one of the stories where I haven't actually seen it being duplicated, like I haven't actually seen another film where Achilles is in it and it's mainstream, or I haven't seen another film where Hector's in it and it's mainstream. You know, I've seen every other film that's good and I've probably seen the same film again, but this one I mean, yeah, the theme, a greek mythology film, um, with achilles in or with hector in. I haven't seen that and it's been 20 years. So I think, yeah, and it's got big stars and they're all against each other and it's kind of a good time and it like visually it's really good and I think it still holds up pretty well, but I think it does as well, yeah, and I honestly think it's actually correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1:This is maybe just bullet train has come out, but this is probably brad pitt's only action film well, if you think about mr and mrs smith as well being an action movie there's a few peppered in there, but not on this scale like this was definitely like we're brad pitt's a movie star and we're putting them in front of everything, like all the all the dvd boxes, the posters. It's brad pitt just sitting there looking like a literal grief.
Speaker 3:God, like this is like. Is bruce willis's, you know, die hard? Or liam neeson's taken?
Speaker 2:this was brad pitt, sure this is yeah, I never thought about that. Yeah, because that's an interesting perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's a character actor like he most of his 90s run. Like the two late the 2000s is where they're trying to be like you're a movie star, be a movie star. Go be with angelina jolie in this movie. Go do troy I think you do yeah but then and then he's slowly pulled away from it like think about your favorite, one of his is killing, killing them softly.
Speaker 2:I mean, he makes these action movies, but he makes action movies that are more narrative story driven, which is like my cup of tea. Yeah, I think brad pitnett would be friends no, I don't.
Speaker 1:We need to find out absolutely.
Speaker 3:I don't think he's like sold out, like I think finch has taken a liking to him and that's just lucky because fincher makes you know great movies and maybe not all of them, but you know he's done that. But I mean he hasn't like ridden the wave of action and he could have because he's he sort of stayed quite niche and nuanced and maybe like rom-com being attractive. He has done a few rom-coms as well, but you know the crimes and the thrillers, the oceans films and the killing me softly in the jesse james film you know, I think he's spicy, he's got like spy game and fury.
Speaker 2:I mean it's kind of like one of those things where he did a lot of more like thriller, suspense kind of actions like snatch and things like that.
Speaker 1:It's more just narrative based, and I exactly, yeah, I think he's just. He's like johnny depp, where he kind of they both are trying to go against type. They're both viewed as very objectionably attractive people, and so they were constantly trying to play against that.
Speaker 2:Yeah good luck, brad jeez. Legends of the fall brad pitt's the most attractive thing that's ever lived, tristan that name.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm watching that right now, cory, and I found out that, uh, chris hemsworth named his son after the main character, tristan, because he said brad pitt was like the most gorgeous man. I'm gonna name my son tristan because of him.
Speaker 2:It's fair in the bar, high man yeah, I'm like fair enough, but okay oh, wow, okay, no, I that's interesting. I never thought about that. He's never done like, I guess until bullet train like just like a straight up kind of action movie. I don't think he has maybe the close he yeah, no, no, a lot of its stuff was more just kind of nuanced action like thriller type of stuff. He just it was usually him and then some huge name like hey look, it's me. And uh, harrison ford, hey look at me and clooney.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's me and clooney, and yeah, bruce willis uh, who, uh, what's that?
Speaker 2:one guy that was real famous in the 60s. Who's Sundance Robert?
Speaker 1:Redford.
Speaker 2:Half the people just turned this podcast off.
Speaker 3:Credibility's gone, alright.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, so we mainly just picked this movie because we like it. It's a poor man's gladiator that I prefer over gladiator. I honestly don't even know why I love this movie, because every time I watch it I see the flaws, I kind of see the warts in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I feel like it's just, but somehow it all works. Yeah, it's like there's flaws there, but it's, it doesn't make them, it doesn't pull you out of the movie it doesn't?
Speaker 2:I? All the romance stuff's real wonky. Yeah, that's because in the actual iliad it's pretty wonky. The iliad is literally about a power struggle between achilles and agamemnon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's like the girls are props pretty much yeah, I mean, if you, if you really look at like the greek story of it, like helen doesn't choose to leave with paris, like literally it's a few between the three major goddesses that are trying to get paris to be like which one of us is cuter and which would you, which would you marry? And he's like i't know, you're all pretty hot. And then one of them's like I'll give you power, I'll give you wisdom. And then one of them and then Aphrodite's like I'll give you the highest girl on the planet. And he's like uh bet, so yeah.
Speaker 2:But I mean it's the love story's kind of wonky. You know it's not real well, that type of stuff's there, but yeah, it's not so bad that it takes you out of the movies. I like the, I watch it and I go. I don't know, maybe we give Tyler Durden too much crap for being this toxic character, when maybe Achilles is ten times more of a toxic bro character than Tyler Durden was. Because he's just saying all these cool um, because he's like he's just saying all these cool one-liners and he's just like unbeatable but he's also very anti-war at the same time, like he's he's.
Speaker 1:He's very self-centered, he's narcissistic.
Speaker 2:He's narcissistic, it's just like I want to be famous and people are. He's literally telling hector like hey, people are gonna remember who we are right? Yeah, you know, I was thinking about this.
Speaker 1:Like the reason I think I like this movie too is because, like we had that trend for a while, there would be like this is the roman empire and like the joke is this is my roman empire. Like I don't really roman roman empire is interesting, but greek mythology is my roman empire. Like I would much rather watch clash of the titans or something and or 300, just to get some greek myth stuff going on. I would watch a hbo miniseries run of, like the Battle of Troy, like the entire thing. Yeah, I would watch that with the gods involved in everything. 100%.
Speaker 2:I mean, I like it. My nickname, Lionfire, literally comes from I love the lion. Forget, let no man forget how menacing we are. We are lions. I think I used to quote that, or something.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that More you know.
Speaker 2:That's where the nickname came from. I didn't know that that's where the nickname came from. I didn't know that. Well, ethan and so um. But yeah, like I like that and so um, I don't know I. Brad pitt works, even though you can tell he doesn't really want to be here. I'm telling you and that he's like there's even, like things he does some really unnatural things with swords in the movie sometimes where it's like he's not even sure the camera's running.
Speaker 2:He's like just playing catch with the sword. I'm like I don't even know. That seems out of character yeah, at one point, even like he's like pointing and he flips it like he's making an acting choice and the camera just said I keep it yeah and so it's just but it all kind of works, I don't know. It's like a guy who's not afraid of war because he's immortal, except for one stupid heel yeah, and so um yeah and uh, um, I I that's like because his mom dipped him yeah, she dips him in the river.
Speaker 2:In the river to make him immortal but since she's holding that ankle, right, yeah, yeah, that's right, it didn't get the immortal juice, right yeah, that's right and that's why we have the achilles heel.
Speaker 1:Fun fact brad pitt tours or injured his achilles heel while filming oh, that's a bad omen right, there they should
Speaker 2:have just shut the production down right there or is it?
Speaker 1:or is it the passion of the christ thing where, like when jim caviezel was on the cross, like there's like two strikes of lightning around him and everybody's like this is a sign it's?
Speaker 2:like making a film, mel gibson, yeah that's what made jim caviezel a hardcore christian. Probably he's like okay, I believe I mean that was the same. It was yeah, yeah, god was at work um pat, we, we will not be doing that on this podcast in case anyone was ever, ever, holding out for passion of the christ.
Speaker 3:Come on, not doing it. Recast jesus christ.
Speaker 2:God help us yeah, not gonna recast jesus, and also I never want to watch the movie again. It's just so brutal, it's um. It's so brutal, yeah, it's so ridiculously hard to watch the movie again.
Speaker 3:It's just so brutal, it's so brutal, it's so ridiculously hard to watch.
Speaker 1:So what year are we taking this movie to Corey?
Speaker 2:We're going to talk about 1997. That is what we're going to do, and so we have to get a feel for the year 1997. Alright, so what were the people watching? So what's the top 10 at the box office? We do in-year releases. So what were the people watching? So what's the top 10 at the box office for the? We do in your releases? So anything that came out in 1997, the top 10. This is what the people were watching. Number 10, good Will Hunting, nice Ben and Matt, and then as good as it gets.
Speaker 1:I'm surprised that that popped in the top 10.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the Nicholson I have honestly, it's one of my gaps you haven't watched it I thought you were the one that told me to watch it. No, I said, something's got to give oh right right, right, yes, okay, okay got it. Oh, speed two, speed two, cruise control it did it, it did it.
Speaker 3:Leave it alone.
Speaker 2:It's a good film jason patrick as keanu reeves, oh no.
Speaker 4:I did not.
Speaker 1:Maybe Ash can defend that sequel to you. I will happily defend that sequel.
Speaker 2:I would have to, I think, watch it in its entirety. I don't know that I've ever made it.
Speaker 3:Win him the phone, man. He's so good at that, oh gosh.
Speaker 2:Hey, our buddy, wolfgang Peterson, director of Troy, coming in in 97, at number seven with Air Force One.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, Jim Carrey still on his run with Liar Liar coming in at number six. Nice Number five the Lost World Jurassic Park. Not popular with you, Dinosaur.
Speaker 1:With Ali, Right? Yeah, that was my first Jurassic Park, so I enjoyed it. Oh, so you ended up Go. Blimmy Number four.
Speaker 2:Batman and Robin yes.
Speaker 1:Ages like a fine wine.
Speaker 2:Batman and Robin is not a bad movie. It gets better. You just have to watch it for what it is.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's literally just pretend it's a cartoon Just pretend they've made an Adam West 90s movie.
Speaker 4:That's all it is. You're just like this is off.
Speaker 2:the series Got it Also. I think that only the second time that the villain got popular it Also. I think that only the second time that the villain got popular. Yep, Men in Black coming in at number three. Gosh, this was a year it was. Men in Black might change my life. I've never watched it since, so I guess not that much. Wow, Ash, you're going to appreciate number two here. Oh God Bean.
Speaker 4:Mr Bean Rowan.
Speaker 2:Atkinson coming in at number two. This was shocking.
Speaker 3:That is shocking. Do you know what it is? It's based on a show that only had 12 episodes. I loved it.
Speaker 2:We got that 12 episode Bean thing on HBO. When I was a kid, hbo picked it up and we could watch it. I loved.
Speaker 1:Mr Bean, as a kid I had no idea of this movie's existence until the time it came out. It's great.
Speaker 2:He was so good. Did you ever watch Blackadder?
Speaker 3:Yes, Blackadder's amazing. I love that you love Monty Python and Blackadder, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:I watched a lot of BBC as a kid and then the only thing that could possibly beat Rowan Atkinson unfortunately in 1997, was the one, two, three punch of Leo Cameron and Dion Titanic.
Speaker 1:That's true, yep, oh damn it. Just one of the biggest movies of all time. That's what you have to take to defeat Mr Bean.
Speaker 2:It's like being, I guarantee you, to this day. Rowan Atkinson talks about how close he was to the peak and then flipping Titanic came out the same year.
Speaker 3:He was right there.
Speaker 2:Oh man came out the same year of all the years. Oh man, oh my gosh, it's if he had just had a banger song that's all he needed, all you needed all right, um, okay, the academy awards.
Speaker 2:what were the cinephiles super into? Supporting actress kim basinger for la confidential okay, she won the oscar before she fell off the map. Pretty much. Robin Williams getting his Oscar for Good, will Hunting as Best Supporting Actor, helen Hunt for as Good as it Gets. And then, of course, her co-star, jack Nicholson, bringing in, I think, his fourth Oscar at this point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is the one I've seen. Yes, I've seen. As Good as it Gets, okay, yeah, all at this point, yeah this is the one I've seen.
Speaker 2:Yes, I've seen as Good as it Gets, okay, yeah, all right, I'm not seeing this one. I am a Nicholson fan, so I should see it and then best picture. The nominees were LA Confidential Good Will Hunting, the Full Monty. I remember how big the Full Monty was, for some reason in 1997. That in 1997. That soundtrack was all over the place as good as it gets, but no one of course could beat the mighty Titanic.
Speaker 1:It was just too much.
Speaker 4:It was a tragedy.
Speaker 1:We're going to try to find a spot for it.
Speaker 2:It's wild. Titanic won everything except for acting, it's just like yeah, but so yeah, obviously, 1997 was just an absolutely like. Maybe it's just because of our age, I don't know, but it was a huge year for me. So, guys, anything you need to talk about from 1997 that has not been mentioned yet.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a lot, but I'm going to talk about one that I really want to see, Just because I was actually getting to go to like some video store and browsed a bit and I was like and I finally texted. The core is like what is this movie? Because it's called Wishmaster. Oh, Wishmaster is incredible and it's got like four of the biggest like slasher film villains in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got Kane Hodder and Robert Ingram in it yeah like, and also Candyman's in it, yeah. Yeah, tony Todd, tony Todd, wes Craven directed it man. Yeah Well, actually Robert Kurtzman directed it, wes Craven produced, wes Craven's, the producer, wes Craven's wish.
Speaker 1:So I'm kind of intrigued to watch it, just because I'm like I mean you'd like it.
Speaker 2:You're into Aladdin. It's just about a genie, Okay.
Speaker 1:The dark side of the lamp.
Speaker 2:It's one of those things you wish for it and then he gives you the monkey paw virgin that just kills you. It's pretty fun. It had like a lot of atrocious sequels but the main actor, I think, stuck with it. He does really good.
Speaker 3:Anthony Perkins in Psycho.
Speaker 4:Andrew Deboff, the djinn.
Speaker 2:I just remember him as like the terrorist that takes over the boys school in the Toy Soldiers movie.
Speaker 4:Sam West.
Speaker 2:Gamgee takes his prep school back.
Speaker 4:Nice.
Speaker 3:I'm so glad Ash knows what Toy Soldiers is. It's on Channel 5 every Sunday.
Speaker 4:I'm moving to.
Speaker 3:England.
Speaker 2:You guys had it right over there.
Speaker 3:Do you know what they had the other day? They had Weird Science on at 4 o'clock on a Saturday.
Speaker 2:Damn see, they're just over there enjoying great movies on just cable oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:They have an excellent baking show.
Speaker 2:And we're over here, our next president's in court right now. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:So, ash, what movie did you want to? Did you want to talk about?
Speaker 3:um, yeah, like cory said, there's so many films out there, but, um, there was a film called um copland. I don't know if you guys have seen it. It's got sylvester sloan in it and ray liotti and I just it was. It was sylvester sloan's I think one of his best roles. He just plays it down. He doesn't play that macho guy, he just plays like, yeah, beaten down car it was just trying to get.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I watched his. His documentary that came out this year about his life basically and they're talking about this is when he was trying to be like, hey, I can act still, like you guys forget I. I wasn't rocky and rainbow when this all started, like I was trying to be an actor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no Copland's on my watch list because that's what I've read about. It is that it's like a weird, like subtle Stallone performance. Right, yeah.
Speaker 3:He's really good in it. I think he's fantastic in it and, yeah, of course, like film as well. Who obviously did the new Indiana Jones film and went on to do bigger things, but it's a terrific film. 98. If you get a chance to watch it, corey, it's so good yeah for sure, yeah, I'll knock that off.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I'm trying to think movies I've mentioned when we've been here in the past, because I feel like I've talked about Double Team, the Van Damme movie, yeah, and I feel like I've talked about Father's Day, this underrated Billy Crystal, robin Williams bunny movie. Okay, yeah, no, that's good, nick, you watched Breakdown recently.
Speaker 1:I did, and you got to experience the perfect movie. That's what I should have talked about.
Speaker 3:Breakdown's so good, oh God, that film.
Speaker 1:Kurt Russell. Oh my gosh it's so good.
Speaker 2:I will say this it was a big year for Young Corey that Mouse Hunt came out this year, which is amazing Wild America awesome.
Speaker 1:The big three.
Speaker 2:And then under wraps, this Disney that's right channel original movie. That was like back when Disney channel original movies were like going strong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they had that run, it was like the Mummy.
Speaker 2:I think it's like the Mummy's by the guy that voices Patrick Starr oh is run. It was like the mummy. I mean, I think it's like the mummy's. By the guy that voices patrick star, and it's like I got disney plus for the sole reason to watch it, and they made a different under wraps, like a reboot of under wraps, and they haven't given us the mummy one. Oh my gosh, and so I'm upset.
Speaker 1:Well, that's just disappointing, no good, and I could be wrong about who plays the mummy I just know that bill foggerbach, however say foggerbach, and however he says his name, who plays patrick? He's in it.
Speaker 2:Oh so I'm pretty sure he's the mummy, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah and so, um yeah, I'm I'm just upset that we never that this movie still not on disney. Plus, it's like, why am I even paying?
Speaker 1:well, disney has this weird they do the whole vault thing and like you have to like, and they really keep all these move tv movies like for lack of a better phrase under wraps.
Speaker 2:I also don't know how streaming works, Like I don't know. Nobody does, they're like, well, we pulled Willow off. And it's like was it costing you money to have Willow there? Like I don't understand it. What you've already made it, it's there. You've already spent the money on it. Like it's all just they have to keep paying. How expensive can Warwick Davis possibly be? Probably Val Kilmer.
Speaker 1:I am a huge fan of Warwick Davis.
Speaker 2:That is not an insult to him, but he doesn't seem like a guy that's holding them up for like big bucks of money.
Speaker 1:Listen, he made Leprechaun. It's corporate greed, corey. They're all greedy right now. They're all taking money from everybody and they don't want any. They're trying to get computer actors, cory. They're already doing it?
Speaker 2:yep, it's already happening, whatever okay all right. Um, yeah, 90, 97 is awesome, which does not bode well for what we do on this movie. Um, but I, normally we ask how the movie changes, but we're dealing with an epic here.
Speaker 1:I, yeah, it doesn't, because it generally doesn't the only thing I think that changes is really just the discussion that happens around the movie, Because it comes out in 2004. And I think even when it came out and re-watching it you can tell that there's some commentary going on about war.
Speaker 1:You could kind of allude it to the Iraq invasion. You could talk about all that kind of stuff and a lot of the dialogue between Agam memnon and achilles or definitely is like poking around with those ideas when you move it to 97. There's not really that struggle going on, at least for america like it's.
Speaker 2:It's sandwiched between a lot of stuff, no, no, the biggest war going on 97 was like in seeing the backstreet boys yeah yeah, spears v that was just starting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah so I mean yeah so no, I'm with you there, I'm with you. Um, which pre-fontaine movie were you gonna go watch about that runner? There's two this year. Oh, that's right you can either get the billy crudup or the jared leto version, so, um, all right. So the movie doesn't change much other than, yeah, the conversation, but we're still dealing with sandals and swords, so that's really about it. I'm guessing the CGI military would have been less impressive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably. So you still get the real practical actors, which I think a lot of this movie. It still translated pretty decently.
Speaker 2:I think they used enough. They did balance well. Apparently they took boats out of the final movie. Apparently they just had. The entire sea is nothing but boats in the trailer and someone said you gotta bring that back.
Speaker 1:They're like all the Greek and boat nerds were like well, actually you wouldn't sail that close to each other because it would throw off your sails and you wouldn't sail that fast, You'd be catching each other's wind and you would go anywhere.
Speaker 2:I don't know how wind works.
Speaker 1:I'm like this is a movie Making a movie. It's a visual pleasing yeah.
Speaker 2:Those same nerds at Rise of Skywalker are like that. Many Star Destroyers cannot be in the sky at the same time. How can they not? The Star Destroyer's real clumsy? Not a lot of maneuverability.
Speaker 1:They needed Wi-Fi to take off Corey, so they're all just hogging the Wi-Fi. None of them are going up.
Speaker 2:All right, is it time to cast? It is time to cast this movie, all right 1997.
Speaker 3:Old party Very shagadelic. Divine back in the box. How?
Speaker 4:do you like them? I'd like to take his face off my plane.
Speaker 2:Time before this lost world is found.
Speaker 4:Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French girls, wearing only this.
Speaker 1:You have arrived.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, we're difficult and we're not allowed to just cast movies just willy nilly. We gave ourselves rules. How dare we? Because I think it's more fun that way. Sure, all right, ash, you're the director, so you'll be telling us who we're casting, and me, and Nick and I, we have prepared cast lists.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we're going to pitch you, each our actor and you will choose. However, Nick and I are bound to rules, Four rules to be exact. Rule number one Whoever we cast in the respective role must be alive in 1997. Rule number two anyone we cast must be free to show up to set. They cannot be incarcerated or anything of that nature. When it comes up we make a judgment call on pregnancies.
Speaker 1:Yes, only come up once.
Speaker 2:Number three anyone we cast must have an acting credit in this year. They have to be a working actor, so they have to have at least be working in 1997 or prior to Children. They don't come up in this episode, so we don't have to really talk about that. Anyone we cast in this movie rule number four it's the big one loses all major acting credits in 1997. That's why this year being so awesome is a little, creates a little problems.
Speaker 1:Creates a little bit of a problem.
Speaker 2:We have burned down incredible things in the past.
Speaker 3:We'll see what happens. I feel like you two are going to decimate 1997.
Speaker 1:honestly, I'm going to destroy everything you love. Ash, it happens.
Speaker 3:Not under my watch.
Speaker 2:Hey, the good news, Ash, is that you get some power-ups here um because, we're bringing you to cast list um, and you're gonna get to choose here.
Speaker 2:Your first power-up is called the old switcheroo. At any time, even after all the casting is done and over with, you can switch any two actors in their respective roles if you choose to do so, um, which sometimes you play that well, and you cast someone you like early, knowing you can move them up later. Yeah, yeah, um, you can get there. But your bigger power up, the second one, the override at any point, and only once, and it's during the respective casting of the character, you can tell nick and I to go f ourselves and you can just put your own person in you call a sax wine and tell us to go jump into the ag and see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I will, um, but you are bound to the same rules we are. So, okay, choose wisely. If you choose to override, all right. So, um, for the sake of brevity, we always do a 30 seconds or less, which is where we cast some of the more minor characters that we do enjoy. We do love, but we just don't have the time to really dive in or tell you why. Um, and this one's not really bound to the rules, because these are small roles. They could have shown up for one or two days on set most of the time. And so, ash, yes, tell us who we're casting in 30 seconds or less.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. So we are going for Eurydice, if I pronounce that correctly, sort of the captain of Brad Pitt's Achilles and his merry men. And then we've got Andra Key um, played by saffron borrows. Uh, she is the wife of hector. Uh, why is that right, andra?
Speaker 1:key. Uh, yeah, andreki and drama drama key, something like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so okay, fantastic and then we've got a disclaimer we are not greek scholars scholars, if you want to email us and let us know if we pronounce that correctly or not. But yeah, uh and then we've got menelaus played uh by brandon gleason um, who went on obviously to do banshees of inner shirin and of course, paddleton too and then we've got patricklus, who was played by Garrett Hedlund, a person who may have been Brad Pitt's or Brad Pitt's Achilles cousin or lover, we're not sure which, according to his show.
Speaker 1:They were best friends, guys. They were best friends. All right, best friends, okay. Yeah, I think that's the one thing I would be bold enough to change, not to get us on tangent. It's like, let let it just. It's too, it's 97, so it's, we're not doing. It's not a great time for the lgbtq community and to go backwards in general but I say I don't.
Speaker 2:I think you take out the cousin part and just let people interpret it as they want to interpret yeah I think, I, I don't know that it was uh and or I think it was a cousin and possibly lover, because I don't think they were. I don't think they were above incest.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know if they were actually. I don't think they were cousins, I don't think that's the. They were lovers.
Speaker 2:You think that it's in the original Iliad that they're lovers? In the movie Just said cousins right yeah?
Speaker 1:It's interesting Trying to fix it yeah.
Speaker 2:They don't really hint, but it is the sort of catalyst that provokes him to kill Hector. Yeah, no, you need the character and he needs to really care. It is weird doing cousin Like I don't know. I think if Tanner died I would be pissed. If Jesse, I would probably get over it.
Speaker 1:You better pray, they're not listening. So, according to Wikipedia, patroclus was Achilles' first cousin, once removed through their paternal family connection to agina okay, so achilles was the son of pelas and the grandson of achilles, son of agina, by zeus. I said all those names probably wrong, so forgive me, I'm just playing.
Speaker 2:Jesse won't be the first time he's got tattoos, but anyway.
Speaker 3:Yes. So with these, uh, the next one we're going to uh cast in the 30 Seconds of Lesser's King Priam, played by Peter O'Toole, famous actor of Arabia, and finally, mr Sean Bean himself playing Odysseus, and you know him from every other film where he has died Lord of the Rings, game of Thrones, goldeneye, which we have watched.
Speaker 1:Check that out. He survived this film. He did it. He did it. We're so proud of him D he survived this film, he did it.
Speaker 2:We're so proud of him. He died twice in GoldenEye.
Speaker 3:Literally yeah.
Speaker 2:Alright, okay, so how this is going to work is Ash, you're just going to name the character and then one of us will go first and we'll just speed toss you without a whole lot of explanation.
Speaker 3:Alright, okay, you guys ready for this? Yes, I am going to flip my imaginary coin and it's flipping's, flipping. It's still going and it is nick is going first so first character, we are going for erodus okay, I'm throwing you tom sizemore.
Speaker 2:I like tom sizemore I'm bringing you in his film debut, jason statham jason statham with hair, or does he go bold? No, I can't give them here flies more Tom size, more okay who's also bald. He is horrible. Hey, there where they be bald.
Speaker 1:It's funny, it's fun, they got good beards who don't like that.
Speaker 2:I got penalized.
Speaker 3:Cory, you'll have another chance. Okay, Andrew Key.
Speaker 1:Nick Elizabeth Perkins, nicole Kidman.
Speaker 3:Oh, nicole Kidman coming off Batman Forever. But then I love the Flintstones.
Speaker 1:Before Eyes Wide Shut.
Speaker 3:Sorry, I'm going Elizabeth Perkins. I love her and she should have done more. Okay, next one, menelaus Nick.
Speaker 1:I'm pulling him out of Goodwill Hunting. I'm giving you Stone, skarsgård.
Speaker 2:I'm bringing you Liam Neeson.
Speaker 3:Liam Neeson 1997. What's he done? He's not taken, yet Schindler's List came out.
Speaker 2:He's pretty much done. Les Mis, he's working his way up. Yeah, he's working his way up.
Speaker 3:He's tall, he's still you know. Yeah, I'll go, liam neeson I like that one. Yeah, minnelli is liam neeson yes I like that. Okay, uh, much debated, patrickless, uh cory paul walker.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, I'm bringing you can't hardly wait zone. And also he's in the twilight saga. Apparently I haven't watched them, but I'm bringing you peter fascinelli oh, carlisle from twilight and I should know that why I've just admitted that I've watched twilight, so that's not good.
Speaker 3:Can you edit that out, people? Uh sorry, uh, paul walker oh, when was the first fast and furious? Was it 2001? Uh, yeah, it's like 2001 he's right now.
Speaker 2:Paul walker is making high school movies. Okay, enjoy your ride. When was that how?
Speaker 3:it was to varsity blues, yeah he's like about to do varsity blues, oh god. And then you watch this back when he dies and he dies yeah, best of years hits 2001.
Speaker 1:Varsity blues hits in 99.
Speaker 2:Okay okay that's paul walker. He's buff and he looks good.
Speaker 3:He's full of moxie, peter fest and emily, just just because I understand when patrick has died, and if I see paul, yeah, I remember what. No, I'm going Paul Walker, just because of the. You played to my heartstrings there, so there you go. Okay, next we're going for King Priam Corey.
Speaker 2:Clint Eastwood.
Speaker 1:Interesting, I'm going to give you Christopher Plummer of Sound of Music fame.
Speaker 3:Two good A-listers. And Clint Eastwood's how old would he be? He's still young. He's doing Space Cowboys or something.
Speaker 1:Space Cowboys is old people. It's not old guys, it's space.
Speaker 3:He's in his 60s, he's 93 now and he's still going. He's still in the 70s, he's young-ish, he's spriteful in the 90s. Plummer or Eastwood.
Speaker 2:He'd be 67 probably, just complain, peter O'Toole being too old, so like.
Speaker 3:I can't see Eastwood begging To bring his son back, so I've got to go, plummer.
Speaker 2:That's what makes it powerful. When he has to kiss Achilles hand, yeah, but is that out of character? You're like Achilles is a badass Eastwood just kissed his ring.
Speaker 3:Do I feel lucky? Okay, no, I'm going. I've got to go. Christopher punnett for that, yes, for sure. And the last one, nick odysseus.
Speaker 1:Okay, this might be a this might be a a big hell, mary, but I'm giving you george clooney. Oh my god, I think he's gonna have a lot of fun being the trickster smart guy. He's heisting in Greek times.
Speaker 2:I'm bringing you a guy who will this year choose to take his entire career off course. Okay, I'm bringing you Val Kilmer.
Speaker 3:Oh, val Kilmer, oh my gosh. What have you guys done? You've got an A-lister in this role. Okay, it's.
Speaker 1:Odysseus.
Speaker 2:It's the promise that there'll be more we're hoping that Val Kilmer gets his own movie by 99. George.
Speaker 3:Clooney's got a great odyssey. They're both incredibly good looking, especially in 1997.
Speaker 1:He's got a beard on him. Grow the hair out.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking they can't upstage Achilles and they've got every scene with Achilles in this movie, so hold on, let me think about this. I know it's 30 seconds or less. Who's better looking at it?
Speaker 2:Well, in 97, kilmer's still gorgeous, that's true.
Speaker 3:Clooney's on the come up at this point Clooney's playing Batman, or won't be now.
Speaker 2:Well, no, that's 30 seconds or less. He can still be Batman. He can still be Batman Kilmer's doing the saints.
Speaker 1:We are pitting Batman against each other.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm going to do. I'm going to be tactical. I'm going to pick Val Kilmer here.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, because Val Kilmer could move up. Maybe who else?
Speaker 1:could he be? Yeah, true, I'm going to park that one. Okay, Nick are you all right? I'm okay, I'm good, I'm good, I no, no, I'm good, I'm good. I got a backup. I got a backup. It's off the chest Hand is off the chest piece. It's too late, it's too late. The damage has been done. Oh gosh, okay.
Speaker 2:Also, no one's writing any of these down I did, I, did, I, all right, all right. So that is our 30 seconds or less round. So that gives us kind of a foundation, we, we, nick, can you read it for me, just so I can see how this movie is looking so?
Speaker 1:far, yeah, so far, we got your. This is Tom Sizemore and drama key is Elizabeth Perkins. Menelaus is Liam Neeson, Patrick Lisa, Paul Walker. Rest in peace. Odysseus is Val Kilmer.
Speaker 2:I feel like we're off to an okay start.
Speaker 1:It's a solid start, strong Start strong.
Speaker 2:The late 90s is so weird.
Speaker 1:And I think to be clear, I think we're not really trying to play on. Can they do a British accent?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh no.
Speaker 1:Because that's definitely when you really think about it. It's like, yeah, when you do period pieces, it's a Greek movie. That's. That's not how Greeks talk. So it's all I think. I'm, I'm, I'm casting with it out the window ash, so I hope that that's not gonna throw off things too terribly, but I don't know if. Corey.
Speaker 2:I think Corey kind of was in the same no, I literally texted and said how much did you think about an actor's ability to do a British accent?
Speaker 1:and I said none.
Speaker 2:I put Tom Sizemore for one. Yeah you, you said none so yeah that guy I don't know if he's got it hey, we're good.
Speaker 4:Yeah, chris farmer's there, I know that's gonna work out, yeah we're good so even if we go that route, we're fine so far.
Speaker 3:We're fine so far okay, um, no, I'm happy I got tripped up a bit with odysseus, but we're okay, we're okay. No, no, we're good, we're good, we're good we're good, okay, okay, all right.
Speaker 2:So that that brings us to the but we're okay, we're okay, no, no, no, we're good, we're good, we're good, we're good, okay, okay, all right. So that brings us to the top. We're going to have a little bit more discussion here. We're going to get to really defend our choices and try to pitch them to Ash. So we're going to start in at number six. Briseis, brise by an unknown Rose Byrne at the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've known, men like you, my whole life.
Speaker 2:No, you haven't you think you're so different from a thousand others? Soldiers understand nothing but war. Peace confuses them.
Speaker 4:You hate these soldiers.
Speaker 2:I pity them.
Speaker 4:Trojan soldiers died trying to protect you. Perhaps they deserve more than your pity.
Speaker 2:So Ash, tell us about the character.
Speaker 3:Yeah, briseis is the sort of catalyst to achilles's heart. Achilles obviously has his heart in battle and war and this uh woman, briseis, cousin of hector and paris, gets kidnapped by agamemnon and achilles rescues her and falls smitten to her and intentionally basically causes him basically to rethink his destiny.
Speaker 2:But yeah, she's a very interesting character people were so precious about their cousins and troy well, you know, it's got to protect the family.
Speaker 1:It's all about ben diesel would love it. He's gonna be a great achilles on cory's list of corona. Well, well, you know this character, briseis. She's kind of like a merger of two characters, because I guess there's the, the slave character that achilles falls in love with, but there's actually there is a sister of paris and hector that they kind of just, I guess, fuse with this character. Um, but she was a prophet, prophetess or prophetess. However, he's able to see the future, but cursed to have her predictions ignored. But it seems like a blend of those two characters were put in this and Eric Bana apparently recommended Rose Byrne to Wolf Pearson because they're both Australian and she's kind of like I'm sure that probably helped to have somebody be like hey, check out this girl. Keira Knightley also auditioned for it and they were offering it to a Bollywood actress and I'm going to terribly say her name, but I should wear a right back, john if you've seen her before you recognize her yeah very gorgeous actress.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you say it, ash?
Speaker 3:I'm sorry sure right Sean there you go.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, with sex scenes she's uncomfortable getting naked with Brad Pitt yeah the fool you can't even kiss in a Bollywood movie.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, there's a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I understand that. Yeah, we're definitely talking about cultural crash. I think they can now.
Speaker 2:I'm sure something inside of her was struggling Like oh yeah, I could kidnick it with Brad Pitt, break a lot of barriers here. Because I would have gotten naked with Brad Pitt, I don't know. Hey, I'll put on a wig. We just shoot from the back, corey volunteers for the Patrickless role. But yeah, no rewrites.
Speaker 1:No notes. We're going to kiss, all right, okay, cool I think it's pretty good, but she's a big catalyst for yeah she's like she's part of the reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kelly starts questioning things well, that's his whole, that's the whole thing. From the moment we see his mom, she's pretty much saying like if you go, your name's gonna be etched in history like you're gonna go to war. You can do all the things or you can stay here and live like a very normal life, have family, have kids. They'll love you, but you're get forgotten. And that's kind of one of the major themes of the movie is like trying to etch your name in stone.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And a lot of them being forgotten.
Speaker 2:Yeah, got it, got it. Yeah, ok, cool, yes, again. I mentioned Rose Byrne was like essentially nobody right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ok.
Speaker 4:But she went on to be the next class insidious bridesmaids neighbors.
Speaker 2:she became a thing so good job hey good job. You left a mark on hollywood somehow um right there with rose burn um. Okay, ash you, you can decide who goes first?
Speaker 3:who? Goes first uh, let's see, I'll let cory go first, and so let nick go first we'll see, we'll see so cory, what you got for me, for briseis, bring me a lovely young actress oh crap, I wrote two.
Speaker 2:I wrote two names down, never came to definitive. You better decide. Oh no, um, you know what? I'm just gonna go with my girl. I wrote down rose mcgowan, but I'm not giving it to her, I'm gonna give it to christina ritchci. I'm pulling her out of that. Darn Cat Okay, not that Darn Cat. I love that movie. Sorry, if people love that Darn Cat, never seen it. I just really like Christina Ricci. I feel like I wrote down these two actresses because Briseis, she is a fighter, she is. So I brought two alt girls here, two alternative, strong-willed, strong-minded female actresses here. Sure, and I'm just going to throw Christina Ricci. Okay, rose McGowan just came off screen, that's fair. She got something, yeah, and I don't. I just, you know, I think Christina Ricci's filmography can do without that.
Speaker 2:Needs a little boost I'm gonna get a sleepy hollow soon, so let's just go ahead and throw okay, let's throw in this role.
Speaker 3:Fun, okay. Christina ricci a big fan of her. She's coming out of that mold of you know, the wednesday adams and becoming a teenage adolescence. Okay, fine, I get that. Okay, and you know, everyone knows who she is. She's coming a bit of a maybe a bit of a symbol in terms of you're gonna have her bursting out of teenage, her childhood teenage, acting into this very sexual sexual 17 at the time in 1997, 1980 talking about greeks.
Speaker 1:Man, like they did, they would stick it in anything like you're we're gonna talk about the morals of the greeks, semantics of the hollywood, just that she's. This is like this is this is that moment in disney actors lives where, like I'm an adult, damn it hold on.
Speaker 2:In all fairness though I kind of sped watch troy, I don't know how graphic the sex scene gets so if I made a mistake I wouldn't call it.
Speaker 1:They're not graphic sex scenes.
Speaker 2:There's just a few moments where there's skin involved, like I just feel like you're staring at brad pitt the entire time. I mean, yes, they.
Speaker 1:They definitely brad pitt is the most naked man in that whole scene exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she's not doing too much. It's not like basic instinct or anything like that.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no no, I think for the first time ever, I realized that there were naked women around him when he's shown for the first time. When I watched this I was like, oh, there's other naked people. I was just staring at brad, that's why it was a really good dream. Corey, I just looked at Brad Pitt. Okay Okay, he did a lot of work on that body for this movie His body was ridiculous. That's why he was cranky he was. He was very cranky about that. It worked.
Speaker 1:It worked To counter Corey's Christina Ricci. I'm going to bring you someone that isn't fully established yet. Their big movie is coming in a couple years with the Mummy. But I'm going to give you Rachel Weisz. All right, I think she kind of hits that Rose Byrne vibe she does. They look exactly alike. But she also can play the timid, likable character but also is feisty and can put up for herself as well and isn't going to let Achilles just walk over her and stuff.
Speaker 3:They're going to have those back and forth conversations about war and what, what the gods mean to them and things of that nature. But yeah, I think she's just got the charm about her too. Okay. Well, look rachel vice and christina ricci both, you know, probably up there with my favorite actresses. I mean, rachel vice has definitely got the british thing. She hasn't done the mummy yet. She's basically playing the same character in the mummy as well. She, you know, kind of, yeah, she gets held by someone she doesn't want to and then gets rescued by, you know, a good looking man.
Speaker 3:So we know she can do it exactly and she's very on the nose. But now I need to entertain also.
Speaker 2:17, I should have looked at that.
Speaker 3:Oh sorry yeah mine's 17.
Speaker 2:That's where I was.
Speaker 3:I messed up okay it's okay, because christ Christina Ricci, I think at the age of 14, she stopped growing physically, but then in the darn cat she's very much a teenager in that film. But, like you said, is it a bit too? Will we get a bit of heat from the critics if I put a teenager in this role, with our potential?
Speaker 1:Achilles you might. It's the 90s.
Speaker 3:I think I need to play it safe, corey, I need to go for Rachel Price.
Speaker 2:Don't take it off the chess piece yet. What are you trying?
Speaker 1:to pull. What are you trying to pull? The math ain't math in.
Speaker 2:Corey, I think I can maybe come to some sort of defense.
Speaker 1:It just depends, depends on a certain role. How old was Rose Byrne, rose Byrne when she came out. When she did this movie.
Speaker 2:Please be 17.
Speaker 1:She was definitely not 17,. I guarantee you that she was born in 79, so 2004,. You're looking at?
Speaker 2:25. Okay listen, alright. Just a year from now, Just a year from now, christina Ricci's gonna appear in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as a sexualized teenager. Fair so, and they got no guff for it. That movie came out. It was critically loved, it's?
Speaker 3:I'm just saying, if it's all about playing it safe, we're fine okay okay, all right, okay, I like, I love christina richie, I do and I like the idea.
Speaker 1:Here it comes.
Speaker 3:I just Just do whatever.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to make my one call here. I know there's a movie that sexualizes her as a teenager and I want to know what it was.
Speaker 3:I love Christina Ricci, but I mean Rachel's got the British voice as well. That goes for her. I'm not saying Christina couldn't do it, and she does look like it. I'm afraid I'm going to have to go on the nose with this one. I do like the wrist, though, and I do want to put Christina.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, on the nose is good. It's probably not the age thing as well, it's more like the fact that I'm I'm 94 and people still like it for some reason, and that literally sexualized a child it's okay, I'm going.
Speaker 3:Rachel Weisz. Yeah, nick, I'm going for Rachel, and hopefully it doesn't tarnish the mummy in any way at all. Okay, right, okay, okay, nick's on the board. We've got Rachel Weisz for the role of Briseis in 1997.
Speaker 2:Right, I'm just embarrassed that I didn't research that. It's okay, we've all done it. I wanted to play hard. I just wanted to play hard. I want to be in the game.
Speaker 4:All right, so ages of my other.
Speaker 2:Who's next? That brings us up to Paris. What you're saying is true. I've wronged you.
Speaker 4:I've wronged our father. If you want to take Helen back to Sparta, so be it, but I go with her to Sparta. They'll kill you.
Speaker 2:Then I'll die fighting, played by Orlando.
Speaker 1:Bloom Of Pirates fame. Lord of the Rings and Pirates fame. This is like the middle of all that.
Speaker 2:Yes, Ash, give us a rundown of the yes played by Orlando Bloom of Pirates, Lord of the Rings, and he tried this again with Kingdom of Heaven and it didn't work out. He tried another epic and give us a rundown of the character of Paris, please.
Speaker 3:Yeah, paris is the pretty boy, he's the Prince of Troy. His brother is Hector, the oldest son everyone looks up to and sort of gambles away the peace of Troy to steal Helen away from Melanais and cause a war in the upsetting and has a chance to redeem himself and fight for his honor, but then chooses to carry away and he seems to be very good with a bow and arrow which chooses the coward's weapon, cory. Yeah which actually defeats the greatest warrior in greek mythology.
Speaker 1:So I was an archer as a kid I found some tidbit that said that back in that time. Yeah, I know you would have.
Speaker 2:You were considered a coward if you're an archer with an archer fighting someone mono right but apparently.
Speaker 3:Um yeah, paris is meant to be one of the most attractive men in Greek mythology, according to, I think, pandora, I can't remember, oh no, aphrodite, sorry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because Aphrodite and Athena and then, I believe, zeus's wife were all pining for him at one point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so he's a very attractive young man yeah yeah, for sure, greeks are just so horny all the time. Yeah Well, amber.
Speaker 1:Bloom saw the character as a coward and an idiot and I think he played that well. He did.
Speaker 2:Apparently, though, he blocked this movie out and did not enjoy it. Oh really, yeah, apparently he did not like playing the loser?
Speaker 1:Well they, they definitely made him a loser. I think that's. That's kind of a thing, if you like, sure, let him, let him get his ass beat by Menelius, but like, don't just make him out to be just a complete like incompetent warrior or anything like that he, I mean he, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know how else to play the character. It's just like I get that it's not a fun character to play. Yeah, but it's like that needs to be the character. Like you're just the dude that goes you're the hot younger brother going around sleeping with everyone the lizard lounge yeah, and it's just like that comes to bite you in the butt when you slept with the wrong woman and then take her home your mom and dad and so yeah, so I I think he plays fine, I think the character's fine.
Speaker 2:It's just. Yeah, it's not a good one. No, I agree, I agree I agree about it.
Speaker 3:It's a good role. Like you've got to be just good looking, you know. Arguably he is the hero of the story. But again, like cory said, you've got the anti-hero in achilles and you've kind of got the hero that we don't like in orlando bloom, who is actually, I would say and then you're probably going to correct me here but he was probably the biggest star at the time because parts of the caribbean blew up and kingdom of heaven was ridley, scott's baby and lord I would say he's.
Speaker 1:I don't know if he's the biggest I don't know, like he's peaking at this time for sure. Yeah, he's Lord of the Rings ending, pirates getting started and then, yeah, kingdom Heaven after yeah, he's kind of like um Pedro Pascal of the 2004.
Speaker 3:He's in everything, maybe not he's not.
Speaker 1:He's not, tom.
Speaker 3:Cruise, but he's the Pedro Pascal yeah yeah, that's fair, that's a fair assessment.
Speaker 2:I'll say this do y'all think that everyone handled the news of him taking that dude's wife kind of well?
Speaker 1:Orlando Bloom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, I mean, I feel like when he takes Helen of Troy, oh like, and he shows his brother, his brother's, just kind of like damn, and then his dad just like, oh, hey, the dad's unfortunate well, hector is very much like turn the boat around.
Speaker 4:We gotta take him back and as they're talking, you're like you know what we can't?
Speaker 1:it's already done. They're gonna kill you. I can't. You're my brother, I don't want you to die.
Speaker 2:They're gonna kill her too I still feel like everyone's a little reserved, like they should have like started beating him, like you just started a war you ass.
Speaker 1:We literally just had a a big meetup to talk about.
Speaker 2:You can't keep it in your pants. Paris, we are screwed man, you've literally.
Speaker 1:You've literally fucked us.
Speaker 2:You just, I just wanted someone to be more mad, is all I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I just feel like he's kind I'm saying, but I think at the same time, paris is just like come on, guys, we'll laugh about this later.
Speaker 2:I kind of feel like this is like well Paris. This is why you suck at fights. Everyone coddles you like.
Speaker 1:There are no consequences for your action until the big bearded man shows up your dad gave you the sword of Troy and beats you in front of everybody this is your king, is this your prince?
Speaker 2:I'll say this I think the one thing maybe what I think, what we're all in agreement is there's something missing with paris the character, and I think we just don't see that moment where he feels his own shame and decides I'm gonna stand up yeah, I think that's all it is.
Speaker 1:It's until, like, even when the scene where helena's, helen's taking care of him and stuff there's not like this, there's moments where he tries to stand up and be like no, let's stop this war, I'll, I'll, I'll just fight menelaus and so that nothing bad has to happen, but immediately goes back on it when he's like yeah, I'm about to push comes to shut me down. He's gonna drop my head off.
Speaker 2:Yeah all right, all right, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, nick, you made it, so that's right okay, ash, I'm gonna bring you somebody very 90s. He has a big, a little bit of a run here and then kind of gets forgotten. His wife that he divorces later has the bigger run Reese Witherspoon. So I'm gonna give you Ryan Phillippe if you guys know him from. I know what you did last summer Cruel Intentions. The late 90s was his time to shine.
Speaker 2:Yeah he, he's in Studio 54. Yeah, and then essentially never made it to the year 2000.
Speaker 1:Right Never just appeared really.
Speaker 3:In and out of some random films, yeah, so you're pulling them of.
Speaker 2:I know what you did last. I am yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think, if you're not, if your name's not Freddie Prince Jr, or worry too much about it, oh I love horror movies and I would pull anyone out of that movie.
Speaker 4:It's not great.
Speaker 2:It's a solid horror movie, but it's like I could kill it. It's just a scream ripoff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but just based on the movies that are coming out at this time, he does a good job, kind of being unlikable, but I think that there's a layer to him as well. Like in Cruel Intentions, he starts off very pompous and un him as he learns and grows through the movie. So I think you could have a similar performance going on in troy with him playing paris yeah, yeah, I can.
Speaker 3:I can see ryan philippe. I like that one. He's a good um I want. His first film was crimson tide, uh, with denzel and gene hackman a very small role, but he's in and out of these random films I think he's doing. He did this jack ryan series. He's actually quite good in that um, but yeah, he's sort of falling off the map. I think he's slowly getting what josh hartnett's getting a bit of a resurgence, but it's very slow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the 90s guys are getting their, getting their middle age time to shine, like brendan.
Speaker 3:Frederick has just had his.
Speaker 1:I think josh hartnett is definitely getting his now, like yeah, yeah, everything, yeah, and I'm happy holding out for that, freddie prince jr come back to us, freddie.
Speaker 2:Oh, come on put down your toys and come back.
Speaker 3:He still looks good as well, Freddy.
Speaker 2:He does.
Speaker 3:Yeah, really good.
Speaker 4:Alright, okay.
Speaker 3:We've got Ryan Felipe on the mat. Corey, who do you have to counteract?
Speaker 2:Ryan. If Paul Walker wasn't currently not with us any longer, I would have moved him up higher, but I'm not going to make him play this cowardly role. I'm going to honor his memory by letting him be Patrickless, who's a lot more brave. I'm bringing you though one of my favorites of the 90s. He is probably towards the no. He'll have one more really great movie with Paul Walker in 2000 before he kind of falls off, also in a bit of a resurgence. Now, though, I'm bringing you Charlie Conway of the Mighty Ducks, joshua Jackson.
Speaker 3:Oh my god, Corey, I don't know if you're a genius or you just got lucky there joshua jackson joshua jackson was married to diane kruger, who played helen of troy in troy what are you serious? Yeah, they divorced, but they were married for like six years I know she found herself a paris and and left. Was that on purpose, corey, or was that no?
Speaker 2:I was just going through my like. I weirdly like a lot of these 90s dudes well, yeah, joshua Jackson and Diane Kruger were married. I just feel like Joshua Jackson pulled this off pretty well.
Speaker 1:He's boyish handsome. He's coming off.
Speaker 2:D3 the Mighty Ducks, yeah he's coming off D3, the Mighty Ducks he's about. He's gonna make the skulls with Paul Walker in just a couple years from now.
Speaker 3:Yeah okay, okay. So joshua jackson and ryan felipe I mean, I love the fact that joshua jackson was actually married to helena troyer in real life at some point and I don't know if that's a stroke of genius there, cory, and he does suit the part. I mean, I don't know if you guys remember the opening scene of oceans 11, when brad hit playing cards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, one of my favorite scenes I love that moment.
Speaker 3:It's so funny and joshua jackson playing himself playing poker, oh my god, and that sort of reminds me a bit of paris and I like that scene a lot. And ryan felipe looks more like what I've got in my head, but I I think I didn't even think about joshua jackson. Um, I really like it. I kind of like the irony that he was actually married to Diane Kruger. So I'm going for Joshua Jackson. It's that opening scene in oceans 11 as well. I can just see that timidness, that sort of you know that naivety, yeah. So, yeah, the Achilles teaching him how to play poker and him being married to the real life. Yeah, there's to play poker and him being married to the real life. Yeah, there's a lot of connections there. I like that. Corey, I see what you've done there, okay, cool good, good, good.
Speaker 2:He's essentially a free agent this year, except for he's in a similar scene in scream 2. He's a cameo in scream 2. He's in the film class and he's arguing the sequel thing with jamie kennedy. He is my spirit animal in scream 2 because he thinks sequels are better, so it's all.
Speaker 1:It's all making sense now. It's all coming together.
Speaker 2:It's the only scene he's in. He's not a heavier part of that movie at all. He survives it, I'm assuming.
Speaker 1:Is that your pick, Ash?
Speaker 3:No, Shwood Jackson is my pick.
Speaker 1:Hey easy, Corey feels like he's won. He got one in who's next?
Speaker 2:We are moving up to Agamemnon, played by Brian Cox.
Speaker 4:Tomorrow we'll batter down the gates of Troy.
Speaker 2:I'll build monuments to victory on every island of Greece. I'll carve Agamemnon in the stone. My name will last through the ages.
Speaker 4:Your name is written in sand for the waves to wash away. Be careful, king of kings.
Speaker 2:First you need the victory so I argue, is the happiest person to be in this movie he is. He was super psyched to be in the epic brian cox. Just see like he was loving every minute of being in this movie when all the other actors were kind of like.
Speaker 1:I don't like this as much apparently it's the only role he's ever pursued orlando blooms mad.
Speaker 2:He's playing a coward brad pitt's.
Speaker 1:Like I had to quit smoking do you have to be pretty on screen, kind of like I had to shave my chest. This sucks, brad pitt. Do you have to be a movie star? Oh, so far for you oh man.
Speaker 3:So yeah, uh, tell us about agamemnon um ash yeah, he's sort of the quintessential leader manly don't want to mess with him the warlord of greece, and he uses helen to take over troy, something he's wanted to do for a long, long time. This personal vendetta he's had with yeah to storming the walls of troy and this was the perfect catalyst for it very good character.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, great role. He's really good. He's incredible in this yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:It's just that scene where, um, you know, um, his brother gets stabbed and then he just screams that that scene it's just like.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's like. This is my epic moment, right but you.
Speaker 1:But he plays the scream also works so well too, because it's like, clearly, like he's it's a half and half, like yes, he's like oh crap, my brother's dead.
Speaker 3:But it's also like this is my moment, I can use this like he's so good, like I mean obviously the opening scene, you know, when brad pitt's fighting that giant and he's like you call my warrior, I'll call yours, and then he's got that really cocky look and he's like achilles. And then like someone comes in and is like where is he? And it's just that switch up from being egotistic to like where the hell is he?
Speaker 1:He is 100% a politician in this movie, like a warlord, but also playing all the people like chess pieces for sure. Oh, your wife left you. Oh, that sucks. Yeah, we'll go get her. Yeah, no problem. Get a couple ships. Yeah, about a thousand more plus. Maybe We'll take Troy. Maybe I think it's your turn, corey.
Speaker 3:Corey yeah, Corey, you made the last one. I liked it. It was good you seemed confident you seemed confident in your pick.
Speaker 2:No, I'm okay with my Agamemnon pick. Can I say what I wanted to do, though? Sure, I really wanted to pitch a Travolta-Cage combo for Menelaus and Agamemnon. I wanted Travolta playing Menelaus and I wanted Travolta playing Menelaus and I wanted Cage playing the conniving warlord of Greece.
Speaker 1:You would have destroyed Face Off.
Speaker 2:But Face Off came out in 1997.
Speaker 1:You would have destroyed Quantum Recast.
Speaker 2:It is literally inspiration for this podcast, so I couldn't do it. I texted Nick last night. I was like can I kill Face Off?
Speaker 1:I was like I don't really think you can.
Speaker 3:I don't know if I can convince Ash to, but and technically, Con Air came out the same year as well, so he'd be killing. That it's true. It's also this year.
Speaker 2:But it would have been brilliant. We know what Longhair Cage looks like. It's glorious, and just him pretending like he cares about Travolta and anything and he just wants to take over Troy. He would have been unhinged and it would have been great and his scream, wide-eyed scream, would have been brilliant, oh God, all right. So instead of that, I'm bringing you he's older, but he's a pro I'm bringing you Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman as Agamemnon, because Gene. Hackman's good at playing the old man villain.
Speaker 1:He loves to play a villain. He's good at it. He's great at playing the old man villain. He does well in both roles, I would say, but he's definitely known for being a villain.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, he's just so good. It's that whole weird, uncanny off-putting villain. You think he's your friend the whole time and he's not.
Speaker 1:He's got a cockiness to him too, like whether he's playing lex luther or the guy the character in the clint eastwood.
Speaker 2:Uh, absolute power, yeah so he's just gonna pretend like he gives a crap about. Uh, whoever we cast um, whatever nick, christopher plumber or no, not christopher plumber, uh, oh, liam neeson, that was my guy you're a dumb pick, cory. Yeah, sorry, my dumb pick. Yeah, he's gonna pretend like he cares about liam neeson just to get his war. I like it.
Speaker 3:I'm a big fan of Gene Hackman, love him, I want him to do more stuff. And this is two years after what Crimson Tide, absolute Power is going to take a hit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can take that. Yeah, he's not going to play the president this year. Instead, he's going to. Yeah, so instead of corrupt president, we get corrupt warlord of greece. Well, that's a pretty strong choice, and you know, it's hard to argue against it, so much so that I also picked gene hackman. Nice, did you really? I did, I was on the fence. I will say I was on the fence with sean connery that would have been interesting I was very on the fence about it.
Speaker 2:I just don't know if sean can commit to a villain to that well, you get, you get the rock, the.
Speaker 1:That would have been interesting. I was very on the fence about it.
Speaker 2:I just don't know if Sean can commit to a villain.
Speaker 1:Well, you get the Rock the year before, so it's kind of like he's an anti-hero. So you're kind of like maybe this leads him into it, maybe we're like you had fun doing that, right, how about playing Agamemnon? So, for the sake of argument, ash, I'm out there. But if you, if you're, if your heart's already set on gene hackman, I understand.
Speaker 3:so, um, so if you were to pick sean connery and cory remains with gene hackman. You're asking me to choose between the two. It's something to think about. It's not a direct pick to gene, I think now here here's.
Speaker 1:Here's why I switched to gene hackman, because I just it felt too much like he would fail out of place, like it's almost like maybe he's too big a name or like his Scottish accent's gonna really throw things off. It's gonna be a Highlander situation like where everybody else is kind of doing kind of the English thing and he's just full on like Scottish. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean Britain, gleeson, where's?
Speaker 1:he from?
Speaker 2:No, that's true, yeah, he's also Irish.
Speaker 3:I think we're okay with any European accent yeah, that's fair I actually think the only American in the top six is Achilles, brad Pitt, everyone else is from Britain I think that's true or Australia. But no, I think I would probably go more Gene Hackman because he's the better actor and I know that's blasphemous, but I think Gene Hackman is one of the best actors out there.
Speaker 1:I don't think that's out of pocket to say necessarily. I think he's fantastic actually, yeah, and I really got that ego about him as well. I know sean as well. Sean's got it for sure. But I mean, you're gonna root against, uh, gene hackman in this movie for sure.
Speaker 3:On with, intentionally, like you're gonna be like yeah he's, he's a bad dude yeah, it's hard to have james bond there as well. Um, I know you're just coming off the rock, but you do kind of love Sean Connery in the rock.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and you love Brian Brian Cox in this movie, but it's just because he's so good at it. Yeah, he's just the acting, but yeah, no, I like, I like.
Speaker 3:The fact that you both picked Gene Hackman and Sean Connery has, you know, made me think a few more seconds longer, but no.
Speaker 2:What's next? Well, we're into our top three now, and we're going to start that off with Helen of Troy.
Speaker 4:They're coming for me. The wind is bringing them closer.
Speaker 2:It should be noted that this particular role was, I guess, difficult for Wolfgang Peterson. Halle Berry, keira Knightley, kristen Kruk, jennifer Lopez, jennifer Lopez, sophie Marceau, connie Nielsen and Katharine Jones were all considered. Even Katie Holmes auditioned. She actually did screen testing, screen testing. But Wolfgang Peterson apparently wanted a no-name. He just said we need something, just otherworldly.
Speaker 1:I guess he almost didn't want Helen of Troy in the film at all. He was like we're not going to show her because the expectation was too high.
Speaker 2:It's 1997 and the studio's like just cast a babe was too high. It's 1997 and the studio's like just cast a babe.
Speaker 1:Just cast a babe. Please Find the prettiest woman in the world that can act and put her in there.
Speaker 2:But yes, played by Diane Kruger, apparently Mrs Jackson for a while, for 10 years and of Inglourious Bastards and National Treasure fame. So she would work with Brad Pitt again.
Speaker 1:Not really. No, not really in this one did I Not that not really. No, that really in this one. No, no, no scenes All right, but they had to keep the pretty people away from each other because they didn't want to put Helen and Troy next to Brad Pitt in peak 2004. My eyes, Everyone's suddenly like wait, like wait. What? Who are we fighting for?
Speaker 2:it's too beautiful, um, all right.
Speaker 3:So, uh ash, give us a quick rundown of helen of troy well, helen of troy is meant to be the most beautiful woman in existence. She's the wife of menelaus, she's not exactly smitten to him and she eventually runs away with paris, sparking the war of troy.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think I think diane kruger, because this is like her big breakout role and I think she does well she's not given a lot she's. It really is like kind of sit there, look pretty like, look out the window kind of thing, like you're you're.
Speaker 3:You're very much being treated like an object, literally with the film, but also with, like her husband, alais, and stuff like she's, she's a, she's a, she's a chess piece that all these people are working around, yeah, and and this, this is the thing as well, like they did this thing with once upon a time in hollywood of margot robbie, and she doesn't say much as well and she's more of an image, and it's sort of hard to sort of give someone who's been deceased or killed you know horribly, uh, speaking part and it was the same. I think they what they should have done and I kind of agree. But you know the film air that ben affleck with Matt Damon, yeah, they never showed Michael Jordan and I thought that was actually quite a good move to do.
Speaker 3:I didn't that was brilliant, yeah, yeah, I read about that. I was like well, what does that mean? How they're gonna do that, and I think if they did that with Helen of Troy it it might have worked. Now that I've seen it, now, now that I've seen it in air, it could have maybe worked.
Speaker 1:I get the idea. I just think when you're making an epic like this and you're in the whole point like yeah, you're trying to sell the michael jordan the shoe, but like people are trying to fight for helen of troy, I I kind of weirdly with ash on here.
Speaker 2:Let's make her a macbeth and we only ever see her from the back and we just have people's faces going oh gosh. Wow, she's hooded like you can never see her.
Speaker 1:It's just well, I think, I just I think they did a decent enough job giving her some characterization in this movie there's.
Speaker 1:There's the scene before, uh, the big battles start happening, where she tries to run away back to menelaus just so and and hector actually has to stop her and she's like I'm dooming all these people, like actually it's after the first battle and all the the wives and stuff are crying over the the bed, the dead that are being buried and stuff in the funeral pyre. So so I think they do a good enough job giving her work to do, because there is a lot of just the sit there and look pretty. They give her enough moments. I think maybe it's also in the extended edition where she's given more layers and stuff as well. Character development.
Speaker 3:Alright, alright then.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, we both made it, and you made it previously with your Mighty Ducks pick. So who do you have, corey?
Speaker 2:Okay, helen of Troy, you know it worked for Nick. I'm going to go pretty on the nose here, ash, but remember you praised Nick for it earlier. But Groundwork, I've never seen Devil's Advocate with.
Speaker 3:Keanu.
Speaker 2:Reeves in Al Pacino. But I'm pulling Charlize Theron right out of that and she's going to be my Helen of Troy.
Speaker 1:That's a strong choice. That's hard to argue that yeah, it's Charlize Theron.
Speaker 2:She's gorgeous.
Speaker 1:She's incredibly gorgeous. She's just getting started. She was just in that thing you do, yeah, and that was just her starting role. Tom Hanks just plucked her out of obscurity and then, yeah, she's Whoa, she's attractive. Put her in movies.
Speaker 3:No she is absolutely, she is attractive. I like the pic South African early on. She's good in Devil's Advocate.
Speaker 2:And she's also really good at acting.
Speaker 1:She'd also say that Sorry.
Speaker 2:Charlize, on top of being no, you listen.
Speaker 1:You are also a phenomenal actress. Our local friend.
Speaker 3:Monster was unbelievable Hers and probably Christina Ricci's best role, Furiosa too.
Speaker 2:I mean, she did so good in a movie, they made a different movie.
Speaker 3:I can't wait to see that it's coming out next week, I think.
Speaker 1:It's coming up. It's coming out. It'll be out by the time this episode's out. Yeah, exactly Right on time she was a Children of the Corn actress.
Speaker 3:Oh, she was on Crypto.
Speaker 1:This year. Yeah, she's Hollywood Confidential Devil's Advocate, then she's doing. The next big notable thing was Mighty Joe Young, the Disney movie.
Speaker 2:She was in a mock bus act in 1997?.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then Astronaut's Wife Cider House Rules. Yeah, she's getting Reindeer Games. That's a fun one. That's a fun one, that's a, that's a fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's an astronaut's wife with death men of honors as well. Yeah, this is pretty much the start for her career, but like, yeah, so I'm even, I'm even in line here that we're kind of getting a relatively unknown yeah yeah, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 3:So I like that nick.
Speaker 1:What you got, my choice is the only other person that I was considering, other than my choice, was bridget wilsonSampras of Mortal Kombat and Billy Madison fame Veronica.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh, veronica.
Speaker 1:I was very tempted to throw her in, but we're two for two, Corey, because I also picked Charlize Theron. Are you serious? Oh no.
Speaker 3:I'm having a swell time everyone.
Speaker 2:He's just bored.
Speaker 3:He's like I guess yeah you're're right, unless I pull an override, no I won't know, you could well listen, listen, I'll tell you something I was about to do. Uh, you've both picked the same actress. I like her. I was seeing if you were going to go a different direction with her, maybe like a brunette or something like a brunette all right, no, just something a bit more.
Speaker 3:I don't know, but you know what I'm tempted. I do have someone in my pocket, but I'm I'm saving it, because we've got two big names coming up and I don't have a clue what you guys have done there. So who?
Speaker 4:would you have?
Speaker 2:considered for this now oh well, for 1997 no, yeah for helen. If you said you had someone in your pocket but you're not going to do it, who was it?
Speaker 3:alicia silverstone.
Speaker 1:Oh okay, yeah, that's fair, that's a fair one too, I think Charlize works well too, because she hasn't blown up yet but she's Batgirl this year.
Speaker 2:You can't take her out of Batman and Robin Ash, she's incredibly important to the storyline, she's Alfred's niece something.
Speaker 1:I think Charlize works here because she is a bit of a no-name at this point, and like yeah and so when people they're not going to attribute uh, clueless or anything to her, they're just gonna be like, wow, she's stunning. But then they're gonna be like, wow, she's a really good actress.
Speaker 2:On top of this, too, she's killing it but some badass in the theater's gonna like whoa, that's the girl from children of the corn floor. Right, I knew she's gonna be a thing, dude.
Speaker 1:I told you she was going to be huge, alright. So before we go on to the next one, apparently so. Homer was intentionally vague For the readers in his description of Helen, but in another poem she's described as Xanthe X-A-N-T-H-E, which translates to anywhere between blonde, light, brown and reddish. So really, really vague.
Speaker 2:So essentially the color of a king's hair. In this movie, it's just just gold. All right, all right. Move it up to our top two, which brings us to hector, played by the incredibly underrated eric bonner.
Speaker 1:He's, he's kind of mvp of this movie. He's awesome in this movie mvp of the movie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he wants to plan a strategy based on bird science actor.
Speaker 4:Show respect. I've always honored the god's father. You know that. But today I fought a greek who desecrated the statue of apollo. Apollo didn't strike the man down. The gods won't fight this war for us you're just like.
Speaker 2:I feel like he should be a bigger deal he, just he.
Speaker 1:This was like the. This was the two-face role of this movie, the aren't hulk movie, is it?
Speaker 2:that bad to kill a career? What is it?
Speaker 1:the angley hulk movie, I guess I think that one gets hated on because of the air it came out, the expectations about it, but then when, when you look at it now, you're like angley was making a comic book movie and he was like trying to do something with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah I, I think eric bonner, just yeah, his, his, his career just got kind of cursed because, yeah, he does phenomenal work in this role and he played I guess he was more of a comedy actor at some points because he's known for this role in chopper, which I haven't seen, but he's also in munich, the spielberg movie yeah, chopper's actually a very violent film.
Speaker 2:He's really good in it yeah, but he's got fantastic range. The australian criminal yeah, yeah, a lot of range yeah, he pops up here and there, that's right.
Speaker 1:He was the villain in the jj movie, the star trek reboot yeah, it was in nero, wasn't he?
Speaker 3:yeah, no eric barner is is just, he's always around. He's very, yeah, very, very attractive man as well and he's um. He should be more, and I think there was a consideration he was going to be Bond in 2006. Nice, I would have watched this. Funny enough, he was with Daniel Craig on the Munich set when Daniel Craig found out he was going to be Bond.
Speaker 2:That sucks, oh no Did you get the role.
Speaker 1:No, I didn't get it?
Speaker 3:No, I got it. Craig walks in like guys.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's literally like yeah, and I was in the audience Eric Bonner.
Speaker 2:Eric. Bonner's just sitting and catering, like talking to, like some of the other guys, like, yeah, man, I'm really like me and my agent are pretty high hopes about Bon. And then Daniel Craig like bursts in and goes guys, I'm the new James Bon. And just like cracks a beer, open farts. And like Eric Bonner's, just like congratulations his pager goes off hey, you got Troy, yay. Congratulations, I'm really happy for you, his pager goes off. Hey, you got troy, yeah which is why eric bonner also doesn't look happy in this movie.
Speaker 1:He just found out so apparently, one quick tidbit was brad pitt and him did not use stump doubles for their duel at the end. Uh, they made a gentleman's agreement to pay for every accidental hit 50 bucks for each light blow and 100 for each hard blow. Pit ended up paying bonnet 750 dollars, and bonnet didn't owe pit anything eric bonnet is a professional, professional professional well, actually, uh, you know what?
Speaker 3:I, me and my friend were obsessed with it. We tried to rehearse, rehearse, like the fight scene loads of times back in, like when we were 15, 16, and we realized that brad pitt swings more times than hector does. Hector's actually just defending and swings only three times. So it would logically and probability wise, brad pitt would probably end up doing that more oh yeah, he's kind of he's.
Speaker 1:He takes the, the strategy that he told paris, like mental is big and he's going to tire out. So just tire him out, and that's what he's trying to do with Achilles. But he's, achilles, dude, literally has a motor that won't stop.
Speaker 3:And he changes his tactics because when he swipes him and then Brad, he kind of just sort of forfeits and is like, okay, you're gonna kill me now, wait I have a question Does someone tell Paris about Achilles' weakness?
Speaker 1:tell Paris about Achilles' weakness On the ankle. No, I think it's just a stray thing.
Speaker 2:So he's actually a shitty archer he is he's like aiming for? Brad Pitt's head and just happens to hit him in the ankle, because I think Brad Pitt's immortality leaves Again, we're playing with the idea that they're very low-key, that the Greek myths aren't being pushed around.
Speaker 1:I'm sure there's the legend of Achilles going on, I was sure there's the legend of achilles going on, I mean I was just literally wondering in the movie if someone tells you that remember it being like, like it would have been hilarious.
Speaker 2:Forlando bloom knew the whole time that he had a weakness and forgot to tell his brother, yeah yeah oh shit I for aim for the ankle, it's quite.
Speaker 3:I think in the movie they cover it quite. They cover it quite well because um paris, paris sees her, sees him and he's hugging briseis. So the only part that he can't risk hitting Briseis is his leg.
Speaker 1:So he picks the furthest point away from Briseis, which would be his ankle. So there's some strategy to it, because he practiced for like three days, corey. Yeah, three whole days.
Speaker 2:My idea is more fun.
Speaker 1:I like it more. The gods decided, Corey.
Speaker 2:Ash quick quick. Descriptor of Hector Eric Banner. God's decided Corey, but Ash quick quick. Descriptor of.
Speaker 4:Hector, it's been a long time. Yeah, hector.
Speaker 3:Eric Banner play in Hector. First born son of Troy, he's the leader of the Trojan Aria and he's you know, he's considered the greatest warrior in Troy, Thinks logically, trusts his own instincts and he doesn't listen to any of these omens or priests. He's quite leader of all leaders, I would say, in the Greek mythology.
Speaker 2:The moral compass of the movie, I would say. There's a lot of scenes where it's like they're doing the omen thing and he's like, ah, this again.
Speaker 1:That's his whole struggle is trying to be the strong leader and then constantly being screwed over and he's just surrounded by his coward brother his superstitious dad.
Speaker 2:He's like, damn it, Just his coward brother, his superstitious dad.
Speaker 1:He's like damn it, Just stay inside.
Speaker 2:They clearly can't get in.
Speaker 1:I say we go out there and kick their ass. I say we go back out there, stop and butthole them and kick them back to the Aegean Sea.
Speaker 2:Some dude's playing with bird's eyes and he's like no, no, we're going to go back out where they kicked our ass yesterday. Only this time we're going kick their ass hector's, literally like guys did.
Speaker 1:We defense wins championships.
Speaker 2:Okay, come on the bulls would only had two rings if it wasn't for dennis rodman. You guys are clearly misunderstanding this. Uh, all right, all right, all right. So, um, nick, I'm gonna let you go first here, because we've tied twice now and I feel selfish, and you and what you don't know is you took my pick for Hector early on with Val Kilmer, so I had to.
Speaker 1:So I guess we're not going to nail that one, unless you just happen to have my second pick pulled out.
Speaker 2:This is a wild theory honestly.
Speaker 1:So we have, corey and I have done three in a row before where we've had the same pick. We did 1969's Sleepless in Seattle, we did the top three, remember. There we've had the same pick back. We did 1969 sleepless in seattle, we did the top three, remember right? Yeah, so if we there's potential here that we could potentially do do more, but I don't think we're going to no, I went wild here I.
Speaker 1:I'm tempted to just pull george clooney up my casting chart and just put him here for you to pick. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna. My pick was crazy as well. So my second choice and you talked about it earlier, it's movie. You said you really enjoyed it and it was a subtle performance for him. I'm used to alone.
Speaker 1:Okay, sylvester Stallone. I think it's more of his wheelhouse like, where he was trying to play the cop and cop and he does a great job here. But I think it's because the mystique of stallone was too far in place and it became too left field for him. Okay, but you give him this role where it's still action, it's still tied in his world, but he gets all those abilities to have the nuanced performance going on, you get to see like, wow, stallone's got someone's got more in the bag than than we thought he did.
Speaker 1:So I think, like being the older brother, being the strategic leader, like everybody's gonna be, like well, stallone, he's gonna talk like this the whole time, but it's like, no, that's the character of stallone. Like yeah, when he's 70 he talks like that, but right now he's like in his 40s and he's still like in pretty much the tail end of his peak run, I would say yeah. So I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you the aging, the starting to age stallone here to give us, like a Copland style, performance of a subtlety, but still get to be an action hero of it.
Speaker 3:We'll call it a passing of the torch moment for whoever Achilles becomes okay, just to clarify here and to our viewers you were gonna pick Val Kilmer, yes, but Corey stole it from me.
Speaker 2:Ash still has a switcheroo. That's true.
Speaker 1:That's true you can put.
Speaker 2:Stallone here and then switch him to Odysseus.
Speaker 1:You're not out of the game yet.
Speaker 2:This is my biggest roll of the dice here. That's because I'm not going to go through this without Titanic getting out of this intact. That movie's too precious to everybody. I'm going to attempt to just kick James Cameron in his left testicle. Who do you got? Who are you pulling? I'm not bringing leo, he would be terrible yeah too young for this, I'm bringing you the villain billy freaking zane.
Speaker 1:Billy zane billy zane's just majestic looking, I think he could play.
Speaker 2:I think he can play face. He didn't tombstone, he played face, he tried with the phantom or whatever. I'm just sick of the saint and the phantom. I'm just killing all those movies. Forget this. But yeah, I feel like we could put someone else in that role in Titanic and it'd be fine, it's not like it made his career.
Speaker 1:It gave him the phantom and he just blew it right away the phantoms.
Speaker 2:After this, I thought it was a late 90s thing, early early 90s thing. I thought it was like after oh no, there's that while they tried to do the fandoms 96, so this is okay, so he's already, oh man so titanic should have got him back.
Speaker 1:Should have, should have jumped him back, but he, he does not know. Hey, he's an ssx tricky as a voice. I didn't, he'd be in a cool video game. Yeah, kingdom Hearts you know he's Billy Zane.
Speaker 2:He looks like a guy that belongs in an epic sand and sandals movie.
Speaker 4:And I like the idea of him being a good guy instead of being the douche on the boat.
Speaker 2:Ok, ok, so sure, sure.
Speaker 1:A face turn, if you will.
Speaker 2:In my mind. I thought Hugh Jackman acting in Australia right now, but that seemed like a pretty easy punch.
Speaker 1:Like the pull him out of obscurity a bit.
Speaker 2:Let me just bring him over a couple years early. He is acting, he's mostly doing song and dance man over in Australia. That's fair, but it just seemed like I'm just bringing you the Eric Bana again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for me this is the best performance of the film and Nick Bronson, stallone, stallone's underrated Rocky and Nick brought you Stallone.
Speaker 1:Stallone's underrated Rocky doesn't work, he sucks.
Speaker 3:I've got Stallone and I've got the Phantom.
Speaker 2:Nick brought you post-demolition man Stallone.
Speaker 1:He's an aging older warrior, his biggest rival is playing Mr Freeze this year.
Speaker 3:it's a layup for him really I need to think Hold on a second Right. So still Vesta Salone and Billy Zane, okay, the good thing about what? Eric Banner was perfect for that role simply because his compass was always facing north and you could see that in him, and we didn't really have a lens of Eric Banner being anything else unless you did watch those indie movies like chopper or anything like that.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah heartthrob.
Speaker 3:He, you, just, you, just look at him. He doesn't even need to speak and you get it. You know who he is, I look at stallone override I look at stallone and I look at billy zane.
Speaker 3:Now, billy zane's a very good looking guy, um, and he's played heroes before, sure, but he does have that hint of antagonism in him, and that's very obvious from Titanic. He's got that. I don't want to use this now, though. Okay, this is where I need to be tactical. I need someone who I am going to like and someone who I'm going to fight, okay, so this is what I'm going to do. I can't pick Stallone for this. I'm sorry, nick. I can't pick Stallone for this. I'm sorry, nick.
Speaker 4:I can't pick Stallone, come on.
Speaker 3:But I can't.
Speaker 1:You could pick Stallone and swap him with Val Kilmer.
Speaker 2:You could pick Billy Zane and switch him with Val Kilmer.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. Okay, I'm going to put Val Kilmer in there. So I'm going to pick Billy Zane and we're going to swap him for Val Kilmer. So, and we're going to swap him for Val Kilmer.
Speaker 2:So Billy Zane is now.
Speaker 3:Odysseus, odysseus. So Billy Zane is now going to be the guy that thinks of the good old Trojan horse trick. Okay, that works. And then Val Kilmer will play Hector Okay, yeah, that's what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2:Who was your original pick?
Speaker 3:You know Billy Zane's got the exact going to do Val Kilmer's playing Hector. I'm picking Billy Zane, swapping him over. That's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:So in a roundabout way I got my pick. You think you?
Speaker 2:won, so you got your original choice but it's my.
Speaker 3:Val.
Speaker 2:Kilmer. That got the role.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I picked Corey's role to swap for your original role. That was actually Corey's role in the 30 seconds or less Got it Got it.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, great, all right. So listeners, billy Zane is now playing Odysseus and Val Kilmer has now been moved up to Hector, which just leaves us with one person left Corey. Achilles, played by Brad Pitt. You can end this war with a swing of your sword. Think how many songs they'll sing in your honor. Let him go home to their lives.
Speaker 4:Imagine a king who fights his own battles. Wouldn't that be a psych?
Speaker 2:who is the biggest movie star of the world, probably even at this point he's huge he's up there, he's he's hit the a-list. He's done fight club motions 11 he's going to do once upon a time in hollywood and he's going to regret doing Mr and Mrs Smith over and over and over again, because that wrecks his whole life. Should have just stayed with Aniston man. Alright, so give us a rundown of the character of Achilles.
Speaker 3:Achilles, the greatest warrior of all time. He was meant to be a demigod, and still a bit of debate about who his mother was. And he is the person who is meant to be invincible and only has one vulnerable point, which is his heel, the only part in which his mother I think it was his mother dipped him into the sphinx river. Yeah, I didn't touch the water. Everything that touched water was invincible, which is shown actually in the movie when he's having a fight scene and he actually puts the shield on the back and arrow just about hits him, and that's a very interesting scene because it implies the gods are watching over him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a very interesting character yeah, apparently there's a lot of arrow imagery throughout the movie to like allude to what's coming.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, okay yeah, okay, I'm thinking back on it. Yeah, for sure, for sure. He was his first choice to play. Uh, achilles was wolfgang peterson's and then, like I said, yeah, he tore his left achilles tendon during production. He trained for six months, stopped smoking and that's what made him groggy 17.5 million, though, oh, you had to stop smoking, oh I'm so sorry for you. Brad pitt listens nick listen, he needs to be told, he needs to be brought down a notch. He's probably like yeah, you're right, you're right, you can smoke all you want now, brad, it's all good.
Speaker 1:Smoke away, I think he does, for not wanting to be in the movie and not really being into it. I think he does a decent job. You, corey, said that it didn't connect for you or anything.
Speaker 1:No, it doesn't connect, but it works that it doesn't connect I think, I think you he's not in it, but he still, he still is a professional has come up like a guy that's like I'm getting paid $70 million here and I look great hey it's probably the it's you can put it up there with like the greatest a human beings probably looked in a movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's, it's wild, so all right.
Speaker 1:Whose turn is it?
Speaker 2:I'm honestly, Ash, I have no idea whose turn it is. Hold on Hold on, we've tied. There was a switcheroo. Nick got what he originally wanted Nick.
Speaker 3:Technically it's Corey's because I picked Billy Zane. That's true, corey. I am going over to you. God, help us, achilles, give me someone, corey, who you got.
Speaker 2:I've approached Achilles, I think in the same way Wolfgang Peterson approached Helen Troy. I'm someone, cory, who you got. I've approached achilles, I think in the same way wolfgang peterson approached hello troy. I'm like this is kind of untouchable. I can't just bring anybody, some a-lister, to this and put them up against pit, true, so I didn't really go a-list, though I am pulling a guy probably out of the biggest movie he did at the time. Um, I've just never seen it. Nor do I care about this movie, this Oscar nominated movie. But I'm bringing you Guy Pierce and I'm pulling him out of LA Confidential. Guy Pierce is British, he looks good, he's buff and I don't know what. I just don't know anything about LA Confidential enough to care about it.
Speaker 1:I just know that he's in it pretty much his movie like that between that and Memento. Those two are going to be the ones that everybody remembers him for.
Speaker 2:Iron man 3? Iron man 3, yeah, the one-off.
Speaker 3:The Shane Black classic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was great. He was good. He was good. I'm sorry. I just feel like you have to bring a dude that's not going to like. I can't bring an A-lister here. He's just not going to look good, it's not going to feel right. I'm bringing just a guy that I feel like has a lot to prove.
Speaker 3:Okay, all right, you've gone a different angle. I like Guy Pearce, and Guy Pearce is a very good actor and he's got a great body. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:And while it confidential, you put him in this kind of role and there's potential for him to have a very different career.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm not taking him out, I'm not making him freaking Odysseus here. I'm giving him the role to be Achilles here, okay.
Speaker 3:Just digesting that. Okay, guy Pierce. Okay, fine, nick so.
Speaker 1:Corey, I went exactly the opposite of what you were thinking. I'm bringing you the biggest movie star in the world, cory free agent this year. He's about to go on another run of his many runs. We don't get to talk about him too much because he's always busy. This is where I'm dropping tom cruise, cory. He's five foot three. It's the magic of filmmaking, cory.
Speaker 2:Everyone's short in hollywood everyone's short, maybe kilmer's kind of tall, but it's a solid six one, he's six, he's solid, six one.
Speaker 1:But they'll make Tom Cruise look good. Hey, listen, you don't got to be tall to be a good warrior, corey, he's got to look good while doing it. It could be. Achilles is portrayed in this movie as as a dude that has solid, solid hops, has a, has a horizontal, he can go anywhere he wants to on the field of play. This is not a bulking, hulking Schwarzenegger role. This is.
Speaker 1:This is an all-around NBA, all first team right here multi-tooled athlete here and then you got to think about the star power like Cruz is just going to eat up those that scenery when he's arguing with Agamemnon and Gene Hackman. He's going to seduce and him and Rachel Weisz are going to have a nice little love story going on and then hit him and Val Kilmer get to have a rematch from Top Gun.
Speaker 2:I'm coming off like Jerry freaking McGuire, jerry McGuire.
Speaker 1:It's right before the Mission Impossible 2, magnolia Longhair I was going to say the second.
Speaker 2:I argue this is not a good run. Everyone gets precious about his weird 2000s run.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's going to add to it, it's going to make it.
Speaker 2:Eyes Wide Shut's a shitty movie. Magnolia's a shitty movie. Vanilla Sky's a shitty movie. Minority Report's an overrated shitty movie. The Last Samurai's a shitty movie. Collateral's a shitty movie. It gets back on track at War of the Worlds.
Speaker 3:Everyone thinks it's a shitty movie but me.
Speaker 1:This is Corey's pleasure of the Tom Cruise run.
Speaker 3:I'm with Nick on this. I like that run. I really do. I hate it.
Speaker 1:This is just going to add to it. This is where he was trying to really be an actor's actor and an action star at the same time. I hate it. And somebody had to say pick a lane dude.
Speaker 2:I hate it and I'm glad he said I'll just make eight more mission impossible movies. I would rather just strap my ass to the side of a plane and hope for death but here he's gonna strap a shield on one hand, sword on the other you know, he's gonna drag val kilmer's body around the the troy walls?
Speaker 2:it's like okay, here's my thing, I'm gonna have opinions about tom cruise here. Okay, it like in 1997, we have not seen a buff Tom Cruise, we haven't, for whatever reason. He decides to get buff in his fifties, he decides I'm not going to work out until I'm 50 years old. Well, as we know, in Jack Reacher and in rock of ages and stuff, the guy can put on sure Like he can put on some mass and he can look good, you know. And so like he can put on some masks and he can look good. I don't doubt his ability to do it when he's a young man.
Speaker 1:Top Gun is a thing that exists. There's a volleyball scene where they're all topless Corey, but he's not in great shape.
Speaker 2:He's in shape Val Kilmer's, making him look stupid out there we're going to put Val Kilmer through that again, being bested by Tom Cruise. Yep, listen, not everybody gets maverick and iceman not everybody gets desert.
Speaker 2:Not everybody gets to be the leading man but what I'm saying is like I don't doubt his ability to put on mass and put on muscles as a young man, yeah. So I'm not gonna like necessarily get like too lost in the fact that we all know he's technically kind of a small. Sure, sure, it is hollywood, we can make him look bigger, blah, blah, blah, and it's just. I don't guess I have that much. If I can get past that, I can't like really bash it too bad, because he's a great actor yeah, yeah, I don't think you do an accent british accent well, neither could brad pitt for some reason yeah, brad pitt's wasn't great.
Speaker 1:So you just listen. Tom cruise is gonna make you believe he's. He's got a british accent or it's just whatever accent they decide to go with I don't know, it's interesting uh, I once again um lost, um torn hey, but you kept your override, that's true.
Speaker 3:You do have your override safe here I've got an override and I do have a name that you didn't pick, but I'm just thinking so look, nick's, right, you do need a name. This is the person in front of the poster. This is the image. You need a big name. You do need an a-lister.
Speaker 2:I agree with that we got one, we got uh val kilmer, she happened joshua jackson tom cruise.
Speaker 3:I just can't see on a horse for one. I know he's done it in last samurai on a horse in this movie.
Speaker 2:I love that ash is getting caught up on the horse barely on a horse the horse is gonna make him look small, he's fair, he's fair.
Speaker 1:I don't even know a scene. He's on a horse. I have to get a miniature horse.
Speaker 3:I don't know if he's on a horse in a scene, I mean when he rides up the chariot, the only scene that would make sense the chariot, cory, stack it.
Speaker 2:I just we'd ruin this for action on the top two.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've got rocky, I've got oh my, yeah, it's just. There's what the direction this has gone is interesting. Look, guy pierce is perfect for the role. However, he's not a name. That's the thing. He's like willem dafoe he is an a-lister to hollywood, but to audience members he's not. He's in and out of mainstream indie movies. So guy pierce is perfect for this, but he's not the person that's going to sell it, and I don't want val kilmer to sell it because it's not his movie. He's going to carry the movie, but he's not going to sell the movie. We need the bodess, we need the front cover and we need a name, and that's where tom cruise literally falls short. He's got, he is the name, but I just can't see him playing Achilles, because Achilles is this power, this demigod.
Speaker 1:Achilles is like. It's not like Brad Pitt makes him this hulking mass. He's very agile, achilles.
Speaker 2:He's an ectomorph. He didn't put on a lot. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:I'm not saying you go Chris Hemsworth on the role or anything like that.
Speaker 1:But even think back to the opening scene when he shows up and takes out the Goliath eight-foot-tall looking dude. That's setting the tone to me. It's like no, Achilles isn't like the Schwarzenegger Stallone in the 80s type of dude, he's the agile. I know how to fight, I'm the greatest warrior.
Speaker 3:So my override was going to be and this is a guy who can definitely buff up and he's done action films before and I think he is probably better looking than Val Kilmer and that would be Kurt Russell and I would put him as the role of Achilles and I think he could definitely do the role. Yes, I would have a tombstone reunion, but that doesn't matter, that would be okay. And he is a name, because he's an 80s name, so I'd have the name, I'd have the good looks, I would have to take him out of whoa.
Speaker 1:What, yeah, hold on, hold on whoa breakdown. I told you we're gonna decimate 1997 he's playing a regular dad, my regular husband, try to make it happen this is the thing I, kurt russell, has all three of those.
Speaker 3:He's the name, he's got the name, he's got the looks and he has the. He can have the body for sure.
Speaker 1:He's had the body before I didn't think about kurt be 46 at this point. Yeah, 46, and I don't think there's any drop off. You know, I think I think the 80s you're definitely like yeah, I get, I totally get where you're going with it, but it's like the 90s, he's not having as big a decade as he was and that's why I kind of want to put him in this film, because I kind of want to just sort of recharge him because he's still looking good for that age and breakdown.
Speaker 3:He looked good sure sure he's got the hair, he can do that. The accent's the only thing that worries me. Yeah, I don't care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I think in the 90s we're generally fine like yeah, braveheart's a thing that happens a few years earlier and everyone's very, it's very accurate. But this is kind of like sword and sandals to the t of like it's. It's that 80s mentality of like yeah, we don't really care if you have an American accent, the British accent, like just make us just do the things, fight the fights, kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Do you know? What I'm thinking about is the fight scene that they have with Val Kilmer. So who's going to have? I can't Top Gun. Maverick will ruin it for me, no, maverick Iceman fight will ruin it for me.
Speaker 1:No, it's great there's a little meta-ness to it, but at this point you've already substantially put them into the roles. It's the slow build to this fight at the end of the movie. This is Hector, this is Achilles.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say something In Breakdown which I'm not pro-killing, but he wears a very loose shirt throughout the whole movie and I think that's because in breakdown he is extremely huge. Because this breakdown happens right between escape from LA and soldier, which is you're at peak, massive Kurt Russell like probably doing roids at the time, Like he's huge in soldier and he had really good arms in escape from la, like he went sleeveless in escape from la so he's in shape.
Speaker 1:He's in shape in 97.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not like he's not like you're gonna get like somebody goes uh, this man, yeah, no, he is big yeah, I think the body's fine, like again, we don't need to be like the rock or anything, but he needs to be quick as well. Like you need to see, like the, you know, when he's storming the beach and achilles takes that entire front. I think you need to see that agileness with the character. Kurt russell can do that and I've definitely and this is the thing tom cruise can do that, but he's just. I just don't see him as achilles. You know what? Yo, I've made my decision. I'm gonna use my override. I'm gonna put kurt russell in here. I'm sorry, guys, I need the name, I need the name. I need the name I gave you the name.
Speaker 4:I gave you that name no, no, tom cruise is.
Speaker 3:No, I can't do something. I just don't see him on a horse, I just don't see that. One scene will ruin the movie for me, honestly that's the only horse. It's not even the big horse in the movie there's the chariot and then dragging his body away, where you're meant to be mourning.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna be like he's not on the horse. Those are long shots. We can get a double.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm having Kurt Russell. So sorry, lads, I'm going to override those decisions and I'm going to put Kurt Russell in there and take him out and break down Crushed.
Speaker 1:I'm devastated. But you do get a white-up Doc Holliday sort of fight. That's true. It's a reunion, just not the one I was hoping for, you guys made me not work in the midsection.
Speaker 3:You made me work really hard for the last two.
Speaker 1:We did, we did make you out, even out. Well, corey, do we want to do the breakdown of this full list here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want to run it down for everybody. Please run this movie down, okay.
Speaker 1:So, from the bottom to the top, here is the final cast for Troy 1997. Uranus will be played by Tom Sizemore, andromaca will be played by Elizabeth Perkins, menelaus will be now played by Liam Neeson. Patroclus is going to be played by a young Paul Walker. King Priam is a Christopher Plummer classic actor Odysseus in a switch. We Plummer classic actor, odysseus in a switch. We now have Billy Zane playing him, being the crafty man that he is. Perseus will be played by Rachel Weiss. Paris will be seen by D3, mighty Duck fame Joshua Jackson. Helen of Troy, or sorry, agamemnon, will be played by Gene Hackman. Me and Corey both picked the same on that one, and the next one, which is Helen of Troy, will be played by val kilmer and achilles played by kurt russell that's a very attractive list.
Speaker 3:It's a very attractive list. Like everyone is just pete good looking. I like billy zane as a vicious.
Speaker 2:I'm liking that you know, as weirdly, once we read it all, I don't it. I thought this was going to be far more of a train wreck. Honestly, I will just tell the audience right now this was the worst time I've ever had casting a movie. I think I'm going to ban Sword and Sandals movies from this podcast.
Speaker 1:We're done, we're done.
Speaker 2:It's not this era. Corey 97 was such a weird place.
Speaker 4:It's a hard era. Don't blame the era Everyone felt too old or too young, don't?
Speaker 2:blame the genre, Corey. I just don't. I don't know. There's plenty more fun to be had in the genre. I don't know that we Honestly. The only thing I really think I hate is Tom Sizemore. Thanks a lot, Nick, it's fun. But it's fine. One character that's an all weird Greek.
Speaker 1:Reagan really got to run.
Speaker 2:There is like the Greek backup guy yeah, yeah so yeah, you're the real dude something in your eyes. You're real loyal to your guy, so but okay, cool, cool yeah. So yeah, the 300. We're never doing that. Maybe I'm done with these movies, I hate it, I'll talk, I'll talk with him.
Speaker 1:I'll talk with him, I'll talk right.
Speaker 2:Well, that was Troy, as done in 1997. I think we did as best as we could possibly do. It was. It was this wild, some real hot takes, some weird choices, and we've used all the power we did.
Speaker 3:That doesn't happen often, not often.
Speaker 2:I've never used the override before, just saying that is impressive that's how disappointed I pretty much always come in cocked and loaded to use it, and I know where I'm going to use it. So, um, as you're a better man than me. But again, we're quantum react, quantum recast on all social media. Go, follow us, engage with us, tell us how we did, what you loved, what you hated, what you would have done differently. Probably just take it a completely different year than 1997. That's fine, that's fair, but hope you enjoy listening. We'll see you next time. We're still figuring out that movie. Yeah, we'll figure it out. We're still debating it. We're behind the scenes today. We might break up, who knows, oh whoa, but hopefully we'll be back with another episode. Tune in, say goodnight Nick, goodnight Nick.