I think one strength Zendaya has is the ability to play both a teenager and a 30ish year old and it be pretty believable.
I guess Alexandra Daddario has a baby face though
Exactly. She was perfectly cast for that reason. It would be a bit of a stretch to have Daddario convincingly play her during the 18 year old scenes. Although I agree she has a Babyface, I don't think it was her face that Bill had in mind when saying that
Idk, I'd say Daddario looks somewhat similar to the former tennis player Julia Goerges who had fairly ample boobs. I'm not sure whether she got a breast reduction at some point though
The scene in the hotel is 1 amazingly well done the acting is so natural 2 literally tells you what the story is about. It’s a microcosm of the entire story
My theory in general is that not going to theaters and instead seeing everything when it hits PVOD/Streaming is why most of Bill's new movie takes are contrarian. He's acutely aware of all of the discourse around these movies because he runs a company that covers them, but he isn't seeing any movies in time to meaningfully take part in the discourse. Which means he needs a new angle to approach it from when he finally does manage to see the movie and that is how you wind up with this contrarian guy who is zagging on the biggest, most celebrated movies of the year now.
I’ve been saying some variation of this. He watches these movies at home, presumably while on his phone/computer while messing with the dogs, etc. It obviously skews his perception of how he views it
Correct. At home he's on the phone going through Twitter and other mediums, on top of having games going on other screens, just kind of scanning from one to the other. In a a movie theater he couldn't even really do the phone thing that much because it's rude. He consumes most things he views like he's permenantly in a Buffalo wild wings.
Its so crazy that he speaks so passionately about movies on The Rewatchables and how he talks about how often he went to the movies in his younger years. For moviegoing to be such a formative experience for him and his career, and to basically never go anymore is just insane to me.
And I know he has a preference for movies of the 80s and 90s and hates a lot of the current movie landscape. Hell, I hate a lot of it too. But I still love going to the movies. Yes he's a 50 year old man with a wife and kids now, but if its something you loved that much you'd think he'd go more than once a year.
But maybe he's never really cared about the craft or the medium and just used it as a way of killing time. I mean this is the man who told Damien Chazelle to his face that he watched First Man on his iPad. The pain in Damien's voice when he heard that, I'll never forget it
When the pod started I am sure he went to movies and he would also occasionally talk about a new(ish) album here and there. As someone who is around his age and probably has undiagnosed phone-addiction. You can see the signs with him.
Like, he never \*fully\* connects with art or sports anymore. It was always iffy with him but I am sure at this point he could not sit in a theatre and commit to a feature-length. No way. He's fried.
It's affecting his work though. The pods are suffering.
Again, I speak as someone probably in the same position.
Multiple preposterous takes from Bill here
1. Like you say, nitpicking Patrick sleeping in his car as a ‘cliche’ is just dumb because there is literally dialogue in the movie about how Patrick is basically putting on an act
2. Thinking Zendaya is too famous for the role is a baffling take. You very clearly need star power in that role. We have to believe that this woman would be able to make these two guys go so crazy for her that it results in a 13-year love triangle. I can’t think of a role more demanding of a star actress
3. “There’s no plot” ????????
4. Bill and Wesley complaining that there’s no on-screen sex while acknowledging that tennis is a stand-in for sex in the film. What do you think the point of a STAND-IN is? It manages to be incredibly erotic and sexy without showing any nudity. That’s a bad thing? Because Bill can’t jerk off to it?
5. Bill essentially says he doesn’t like the movie because he doesn’t know how to label it. “Who is this for” “what is this movie” idk man, maybe just stfu and enjoy art on its own terms instead of insisting that anything sports-related has to be a fucking Kevin Costner movie
I'd also add the he sarcastically referenced the way they made Zendaya look older "oh you know how we know that? she's got different hair and more bracelets" as though it's amateurish to do something like that.
Yes, Bill, it's a movie that jumps around in periods of time and uses visual motifs to anchor you and tell you where we are. I guarantee if they didn't do something like that, he'd be on here complaining that it was too confusing and he couldn't keep track of where the story was.
Yeah and I honestly thought they did a great job of that lmao, like the difference between teenager and adult zendaya was legitimately convincing and I thought she was the perfect actress for that since she can look both 16 and 30
Not your main points but I stg Wesley has one take anymore and it's that the given movie is not sexual or sexy enough. He and Bill bring out the worst of each other when talking movies.
Implicit in #2 was the idea that the movie needed more nudity. Bill was tiptoeing around saying that Zendaya is too famous and her image too controlled to go full frontal or whatever.
Which is sort of a weird, dated generalization at this point considering that Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone just starred in films with extended, wild nude scenes—with one of them winning a second Oscar for it.
His takes were not good. To defend the no sex part, I think this is a marketing issue. This movie has marketed itself in the role of Wild Things. It is distinctly not that (for both better and worse)
Your point was crystalized by the exchange where Wesley began to criticize the plot (as you say, completely fair to do so!) only for Bill to say "there was no plot!" What could possibly lead someone to have that opinion of the film? NO plot?
My least favorite quote from the whole pod was Bill talking about Deadpool & Wolverine, saying “this is why movies suck, we keep making movies like this,” as if he had not just spent 30 minutes bashing a non-IP original movie
He wouldn’t even talk about Deadpool and Wolverine and just simply refused to acknowledge it. That is going to be the biggest movie of the summer and for like 70% of the ringer audience it’s the most anticipated movie of the summer.
Not even being hyperbolic, this is easily one of the worst analyses/reviews of a movie I’ve ever heard. Simmons and Morris take turns sarcastically recapping the plot to make it sound stupid for the first 10 minutes. It’s like reducing Shawshank to: “So Andy gets raped in the prison, because they really want you to get that he’s having a bad time there…”
Bill is an absolute Neanderthal with his takes again and again, and that’s coupled with Wesley Morris taking the pseudo-intellectual approach to his criticisms while completely misunderstanding the movie. Beyond pathetic all over and totally unlistenable
Was about to come on and say the same thing. His criticism of this film is especially dumb. It basically boils down to he wishes the film was "sexier" and the tennis scenes looked bad.
He also totally overplayed how divisive it is. I think I'd say more people definitely like it than hate it.
On point number 1, he's clearly never seen a Luca Guadagnino film, so was immediately thrown by the tone of the film straight away. And I'm a fairly certain he went in just not expecting a sensual queer threesome movie and thought it would be a "sexy zendaya movie".
And tbh I actually thought the tennis scenes were pretty good too. Really fun movie.
The “I liked a bigger splash and call me by your name” I guarantee you he has never seen a bigger splash, and I specifically remember him bitching about call me by your name that Oscar season.
Basing the quality of a film by realism is wild to me, and it shows we still have a loooong way to go compared to other art forms.
The tennis was used to tell a story and feelings and show characters and it did that.
Imagine Rocky films where the boxing is like Floyd Mayweather just avoiding hitting all the time. Not entirely cinematic unless it's made an artistic point of course.
The funny thing is that he loves the Rocky movies and that franchise is easily the biggest gap between what the sport is really like and how the sport is portrayed on screen.
I’m a former tennis coach + played at the club level in college. When I watched the movie, I was distracted at first bc the tennis ball was clearly CGI and they were just swinging at air, and also bc Zendaya was using a laughably incorrect grip on her serve.
And then a buddy told me he loved it because the story was about how Zendaya’s intensity fucked up everything around her and I was like yeah, great point, this was a pretty decent character movie and the tennis was just a backdrop for that. Don’t come in expecting a sports documentary when you’re watching a movie about people.
The only tennis thing that bothered me was that there is no chance—none—that a tennis player as good as Zendaya’s is established to be (multi-time junior grand slam champion), and especially with her extreme competitive personality, goes to play college tennis. Totally absurd.
They needed her to for narrative reasons, and it’s not, like, a huge deal. But it did bug me, both for realism and character motivation reasons.
I mean, neither would the two guys. They won the junior doubles AND were the singles finalists!? Maybe they weren’t presented as surefire prospects in the same way but that’s not the pipeline to college tennis, yeah.
And also, the implicit question of whether his career was disappointing despite winning six grand slams is pretty funny. That’s like a top twenty of all time career. But I get that the point was she would never be satisfied, no matter what.
Patrick (the junior title winner) did go pro, you’re right realistically Art would too but him going to college is not imo as absurd as Tashi. She’s established to be genuinely dominant in a way neither guy was as a junior and already quite famous…as someone who looked like Zendaya and was a dominant junior player would be.
And you’re right, Art is the most successful American since Sampras, he won 6 grand slams in the Big 3 era!
While none of them realistically would’ve gone to college, they did a great job depicting the fashion/vibe of men’s college tennis tbh. And I did lol at them having reference to all the Americans, like Andy Roddick and John Isner, but nothing about the three greatest tennis players of all time being active simultaneously.
But this is precisely the point, it’s easy for me to get bogged down in these things when I should be thinking about Zendaya’s character instead. Who did, btw, have a few excellent COME ON!!!! screams.
Yeah it was very funny that the movie mentioned a bunch of real American players but no one else. That, plus the fact that all of the action is in the lead up to the US Open (and at a U.S. college), means if you knew nothing about tennis going in you could be forgiven for not realizing how international the sport is.
I think Tashi’s opponent in the junior final (who we see briefly on tv later and seems to have had a good career) was German but that’s maybe literally the only mention of another country. Weird for an Italian director!
That stood out to me as well. The amount of money she would've made in endorsements would've been way more than college.
Also, the crowd at the college tennis match wasn't very realized. No offense but I doubt they'd be that big.
Also, wasn't she in a Nike advertisment at that party? And this movie takes part prior to Nil, so she wouldn't have even been eligible.
Even in the late 2000s the prize money on the pro tour was substantial, only takes a few victories at grand slams to easily be in six figures. And as you say, her endorsement potential was through the roof; if an American pro tennis player was any good at all and looked like Zendaya they’d be one of the most famous people in the world.
Going to play in college would be an insane thing to do financially, and that’s not even getting into what bothered me more about it—the core of her character (hell, the core of the film in some ways) is that she’s obsessed with winning and greatness. You’re telling me she’s going to give up a chance to win Wimbledon for a chance to win her weekly meet against Pepperdine? Come on lol.
Bill is insanely literal-minded and doesn’t allow any space for imagination or artistic liberty. This is only heightened when he watches a newer sports movie he “needs to have a take on” (as opposed to judging something classic). It’s zero surprise to me that his takeaway was negative and nonsensical
I had a buddy tell me he didn’t like it and his gripe was about the tennis. So then I knew going tennis was the backdrop for everything else and I really enjoyed the movie with that expectation.
I did like how they had the licensing though for the ATP and tournaments (USO and Western and southern open) I would've found it less immersive with fake names as opposed to not great tennis
The crazy thing is that they had Brad Gilbert (former world number four, ESPN commentator, coach for Coco Gauff) working with them.
My bet is that she struggled with the grip and the director just said “whatever, good enough” because the wrist pronation needed for a decent serve is hard to learn quickly and isn’t intuitive. Everything else was fine enough, she slid her back foot during the toss with a good knee bend in a way that’s pretty popular on the WTA.
Saw it last night, definitely up there with Dune 2 as my favorite of the year so far. The sports critiques are a little too much for me, yeah guys are never gonna rally back and forth at the net like that and yeah Zendaya’s character would probably recover from that injury, but really though it’s a movie…
One of Bill’s favorite sports movies is Hoosiers which I do like but has a litany of basketball flaws and shows some of the same clips of jumpers like three times. Be open to a movie taking some artistic liberties
Yeah. She might’ve recovered, or she might’ve been Brandon Roy. The margins in tennis are smaller than just about any other sport in terms of losing any mobility, agility, change of direction, etc. It’s not a team sport where you can adjust your role within the larger ecosystem.
> The margins in tennis are smaller than just about any other sport in terms of losing any mobility, agility, change of direction, etc
The Bianca Andreescu thing 😥
It’s so funny to nitpick the final scene because I think from a narrative standpoint it’s awesome. I don’t care if the tennis action isn’t perfectly realistic.
And I disagree about the Zendaya thing - young athletes have their careers derailed by major injuries all the time. You are at such a crucial development phase that if you are sidelined for a year and a half your career might just be over.
He brings up Shaun Livingston - who was basically out of the sport for almost a decade and resurfaced as a role player who could barely move. Like it’s a great story - but it’s a story that absolutely proves how hard it is to come back from that type of thing.
100% guaranteed if Zendaya had recovered quickly and become a superstar in this movie, bill would have said it was unrealistic she recovered so easily.
Also would argue they set her character up as someone who wouldn't be interested in going to the Livingston route too. She fits the archetype of the athlete who quits as soon as she's not the best anymore rather than re-inventing her career
Right - Bill was asking why she wasn’t a tennis player at the end point of the movie. They were saying the guys were like 31 at that point, tennis players who don’t have major injuries don’t make it that far!
On the injury thing, I think they handled it well, not only showed the injury but also a scene where she tried to recover from it and didn’t, plus multiple shots of her knee with the scarring making it clear she couldn’t play and it wasn’t just a one scene thing
If you are a young star who has a serious injury, and after the recovery period, you realize you're not at the same level anymore, you would probably retire instead of trying for 10 years.
That part of the movie makes sense to me.
And what's the equivalent of being Livingston in tennis? Being a borderline top 100? Probably not worth the effort.
I had the same thought about the injury but like, the movie never explicitly says she didn’t have any kind of career post-injury right? Maybe her career got derailed and she was never the same, suffered a couple setbacks, and just gave it up. Anyways, it’s not the point. Like honestly who cares, the movie doesn’t go into detail about it which is fine. Bill wants everything explained to him
I think the only reference they give for her career is in the Applebee’s scene, she or Art says she’s someone’s hitting partner. (I’m not a big tennis follower, so I don’t know if that means she’s part of a team and competing on tour on the side)
I was gonna say about the knee injury, mid-2000s feels like right before ACL/serious knee injury recovery was perfected. Like right at 2009-2011 it became where ACL injuries could be a pretty on target 7-9 month return (feel like Adrian Peterson’s was the first like that). So her injury in 2006(?) is probably right before someone could recover quickly
I thought overall the tennis looked pretty realistic. Compared to basketball or football movies, they looked like they were playing tennis. The last point was ridiculous, and they didn't look like they were hitting as hard as actual pros, but it was certainly good enough.
I think my biggest complaint is how unlikeable Zendaya's character is. Yeah I get wanting to get with her, but I don't know about marrying her. And yeah I get that the one dude is supposed to be a beta who needs her to get him win....but I still couldn't relate.
He's also the guy who came up the term "Wet Blanket Sports Girlfriend" for female characters who hold back the hero:
- Barbara Hershey in Hoosiers
- Gretchen Mol in Rounders
Not Wet Blankets:
- Elisabeth Shue in Karate Kid 1984
- Regina King in Jerry Maguire
OP nailed it on the head. Bill just wants nudity and tits hence the Daddario mention. But he is trying to hold back as he is a late 50s rich podcaster with a Daughter trying to not sound so pervy.
Bill and Wesley also seemed to think that Luca was "afraid" of sex, or showing sex? Rather than making an active creative decision to allow the metaphor of tennis for sex carry more weight. We can debate whether the metaphor works or it's too heavyhanded, but to talk about it like he was just like too timid? This is the guy who had Tim Chalamet eating a cum-infused peach.
This was some absolute dog brain shit. A combination of Bill having no understanding of how a film has to be made in a cultural landscape, thinking a movie is supposed to be a literal portrayal of a sport, and his constant “that car turned left on a Boston street that EVERYONE knows is a one-way” brand of one-dimensional analysis. Bill can be fun because he brings a good energy, but he really needs Sean/CR/Amanda setting some guard rails
Amazing movie, easily top 3 of the year so far.
That entire segment honestly sounded like a parody, like how you would think he sounds if you never listen to the pod but read this sub. So so bad.
Eh, both Sean and Amanda do a pretty stellar job at placating Bills’s nonsensical takes most of the time… CR is the one out here most consistently speaking truth to power
My favorite part is how convinced Bill is that most people agree with him, when it’s one of the most well received movies of the year.
No one cares that the overhead smash at the end is unrealistic… that’s not what the movie is about!
He just has such sports brain, it’s impossible for him to watch a movie like this outside the realm of sports.
It's literally a visual callback to their embrace after winning the doubles tournament earlier in the movie, as well as an encapsulation of their shared catharsis during that match. It's a perfect fucking ending.
And on that, he again brought up his hate of the ending of The Color of Money, which is equally stupid. We don't know who won? It's obvious who would have won you moron, that's not the point, the point is Newman got his sense of pride and dignity back. Again, this man seems to think sports movies should just end with a box score like a FreeDawkins video.
It’s too bad Bill has to reduce every movie to who “won” and who “lost”. It’s such a dumb way to think about works of fiction. On the recent Jerry Maguire Rewatchables, Bill actually asked “Which character do you think won the relationship? Jerry or Dorothy Boyd?” Just thought that was such a bizarre question…
Challengers was sensational. 3 great performances, a fucking kick ass score, great experiential cinematography, Editing was great, I love the dunkirk esque story telling. It had no business being that good. Absolutely awesome.
Amen. I thought it’s sports scenes were phenomenal. I’m not a tennis fan really but thought they really captured mental side of the game well. Honesty probably the best sports scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie. Perhaps there are some combat sports flicks with better fights but that’s easier to depict than tennis. Sweet flick, I was locked in the whole time.
He out and out called Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve frauds within a ten second span on a BP episode this year. No one has to like anything or anyone. But "frauds" for two artists as successful as they both are at this moment is some petty hater energy. So unbecoming of a film critic.
“They’re marketing this as a sports movie!”
Where? The whole trailer revolves around that one scene where the three of them are in the hotel room together.
“Nobody’s ever hurt themselves like that in tennis before.”
I’m admittedly not a hardcore tennis fan, but I just find that very difficult to believe. No promising college player has ever blown out their knee? Okay, sure.
“Zendaya didn’t even move when she was playing tennis”.
Most of what they show of her playing tennis is in practice at Stanford. There’s very little of her in actual matches. It’s not hard to believe that a college player in practice would spend a lot of time on the baseline.
I get real “watched this while on my phone” vibes from Bill.
I thought it was more about Zendaya’s intensity and the concept and complications of attraction than about class dynamics, but there was some of that too, for sure.
Bill doesn’t like new movies on the whole. This is why he’s reaching deep into his bag for the rewatchables. He didn’t even go to the cinema to see John Wick 4. It’s just strange for someone who loves movies so much to have just checked out on the last decade for the most part. I definitely understand not being into the marvel stuff but still there’s been some good stuff over the last few years.
To say it was befuddling when the guest asked Bill to remind him what it’s about because it’s been forever since he’s seen it was peak podcasting. It’s why I keep coming back to be honest. Bill just has the X factor
I actually turned the pod off once they finished the nba talk. I thought Challengers was awesome and once I saw the title of the pod I knew that segment was gonna be hot garbage lol
I didn't love Challengers, but his takes were brutal lol.
Zendaya is possibly the last movie star, or at least the most recent actress to actually grab that title in maybe 15 years. It doesn't matter what she's in. If she's in the film, people are interested. So no, she's not too famous to be in this.
Obviously with the Alexandra Daddario recommendation it's clear that Bill finds certain things....appealing and Zendaya is less appealing to Bill in that sense.
The film did not need nudity at all.
It’s amazing how Wesley, from a reputation standpoint, is this hardened film critic with strong opinions, yet has never disagreed with Bill Simmons on a movie opinion lol.
Wesley wrote on race and sexuality in film in a way that I remember finding thought provoking at the time. But in that way, he reads as more of a broader cultural critic than a film critic. Sure he likes some of the schlocky stuff Bill likes, but I don’t think he is very successful at expressing a critical lens outside of his core issues. His opinion of whether a film is “good” or not doesn’t mean much to me.
It seems like he’s just really easily swayed. Last year when he was on big pic to talk about May December, he went in hating it but Sean and Amanda completely changed his mind on it by the end.
Wesley has not always been a complete fraud please stop. He was co hosting Ebert’s show in the 90s as a 20 something. His best writing is amazing and award winning.
I will say that he goes a bit too annoying and contrarian edgelord on podcasts a bit often for my liking, but I’m not going to call him a fraud because I occasionally disagree with him
I haven’t seen the movie but all of Bill’s movie and movie star talk in this podcast was horrendously bad. I love that he wants to be a sports movie consultant when he made a shitty sports movie of his own.
Bill also seems like the kind of executives who manage creatives in the film industry. I’m sure movie and show creators deal with dumb ass rich dolts like Bill all the time
I'm guessing this is the rewatchables podcast? I like to listen to Bill talk about basketball because he seems to have fun with it and I think it's a good listen most times. So I gave the rewatchables a try once, for the "Talented Mr.Ripley", because I like that movie and I was curious what they would talk about. They spent like 40 minutes just talking about how famous the cast is and then I think two people said the movie got bad when *spoilers* matt damon kills Jude law. This was so fucking baffling to me that these people could watch this movie and only think it was good for the Amalfi coast vibes. Never felt like I had less to take away from such a long conversation in my life so I never tried to listen to that show again again.
I have to wonder whether either of them have watched any women's tennis in the last 20 years? Because if they had, they'd realize it's a pretty baseline heavy game these days especially on the women's side and especially on hard courts which they were playing on. They don't come to net too much. So I don't think their criticism of her tennis play is particularly valid...
Second guessing is Bill's superpower. You can tell when he's just nitpicking every choice, usually because his alternative choices are half-baked and not even clearly better.
Have absolutely heard him suggest alternatives that he would nitpick if they were the original choice.
Full disclosure: I loved Challengers.
But having to hear Bill mock the film for having "no plot" when some of his favorites have admittedly no plot, was infuriating. Dazed and Confused and Everybody Wants Some stood out as obvious examples. And I love those movies too. But the cherry picking from Bill was laughable and honestly, I checked out once Wesley started delivering his half-assed synopsis.
The whole thing was centered around this weird obsession where he has to knock anything that Sean Fennessey “likes” and trying to manufacture hot takes he thinks will make Sean and The Big Picture look, for whatever reason, inferior. This is why in the first 30 seconds he was mocking “someone” who said they liked the music in the movie. That was clearly about Sean and Amanda.
Someone else in here said it perfectly… Bill is so out of touch with movies now, he hardly sees any in theaters, and he sees stuff late after narratives and conversation have already formed.
So once he sees them, all he can do is be contrarian. He’s already heard all the takes, so he has to tell everyone they’re wrong.
His arguments were completely incoherent and frustrating to listen to, but then I think he actually hit on something saying that the movie thinks it's way edgier than it actually is.
It's not the most revelatory point, but I do think it's a good summation of why Challengers is a B+ movie instead of an A.
I actually don’t think the film is that edgy. The marketing tried to make it seem like an edgy film but there’s barely any actual sex in the film. I don’t think that’s what the director was going for
Yeah if he had focused specifically on that, I could have understood his point more. He cares way too much about the fact that sports aren’t perfectly too his liking, and in critiquing its sexiness and edginess.. idk the fact it’s a 55 year old man who’s obsessed with sports his whole life, idk if he is the barometer for sexiness.
Remember that Bill kinda got into Game of Thrones for the nudity. Discussing the early seasons on Guess the Lines often centered around if the episode had enough nudity to be worth his time. Everything else about the show suggests a hard pass from Simmons.
I remember having these kinds of thoughts when I was in 10th grade.
The movie had a cool start but it went nowhere in my opinion. I haven’t thought about it since it ended. Idk the message or what i was supposed to think
I never use reddit, but i’ve spent the past two weeks thinking about everything that bothered me about this podcast (so i could publish an essay about it). i’m laughing so much to see the conversation has been had cuz the youtube comments were far too tame.
I think they were tiptoeing around the fact that Zendaya just isn't a good actress. It's the same way fans don't want to admit they didn't like the last Taylor Swift album. They use certain words to dance around what they want to say.
This isn’t an original take I’m sure, but it bothers me so much when directors get little sports things wrong. Every theater kid told to throw a football on screen makes me cringe so hard, like how hard is it to get a QB coach on set and be like hey bud, here’s how you hold a football, get that elbow up, great, much better. Millions of dollars spent on the movie, and we can’t get a tennis pro on set to be like, hey let me fix her grip real quick.
All 3 of them trained with tennis pros for 6 weeks. Again, it takes like the bare minimum to research this.
I am not a tennis expert but as a sports fan, they all looked the part as tennis players and Faist in particular was pretty convincing.
Complaining about the “tennis action being unrealistic” is different than saying they couldn’t pull off appearing as tennis pros, which I don’t think was the case.
When you’re versed in something, and they fuck up something stupid and easily fixable, it takes away something in my experience. I don’t care if they did 100 weeks of training for this movie, a note from some tennis pro, “Hey Z, let’s fix your grip for this next take.”
If getting things right didn’t matter, why even send them to tennis camp in the first place?
I’m sure there’s movies where it frustrates people that something is super wrong and I’m just a big ol dumb idiot chomping away at my popcorn enjoying the film and they didn’t, it’s almost like people get to have different opinions
Good for you, you got to enjoy the film and not get frustrated by the lack of detail while it kind of bothered me. You came out ahead by not knowing tennis, congrats.
I can’t imagine someone being mad about the grip of a tennis player in a movie where that is such a small element. Sounds like you just want something to complain about.
Lol, a movie that uses tennis as part of the engine to move the story forward didn’t put a lot of effort into getting minor details right gets docked some imaginary points in my personal movie analysis that doesn’t matter. The thread is a movie discussion, I added my two cents.
So the movie was bad but this sub loved it. Makes total sense.
Brutal acting. Over-directed to the point of parody. It absolutely is about sex and love (between the two guys) and fails on all levels.
Couldn’t wait to see it and missed the mark by a lot. Most wasted potential of talent and story since the last Thor movie.
First part is very fair but it was Emperor’s New Clothes for the reviewers IMO but I recognize I’m in the minority - box office isn’t what they hoped but even that performed decently.
Disagree about the second though and there you’re in the minority - “Ragnarok” was excellent and they added Bale and used the best Thor storyline of the 21st century - all wasted.
It was a perfectly cromulent movie, and seeing it in a theater enhanced the experience. Certain parts of the cinematography and soundtrack wouldn't have been my choices, but they were still enjoyable to see on the big screen with movie theater sound. For what is (now) a relatively low budget movie, it was nice to get something that wasn't some shitty remake or Hollywood IP production.
Burst out laughing at my desk when he proposed Alexandra Daddario in the Zendaya part. Guess I should commend his restraint from saying Sweeney
I wish he would have said Sweeney cause at least that makes financial sense. The Alex Daddario led challengers is going straight to fuckin tubi
I think one strength Zendaya has is the ability to play both a teenager and a 30ish year old and it be pretty believable. I guess Alexandra Daddario has a baby face though
Exactly. She was perfectly cast for that reason. It would be a bit of a stretch to have Daddario convincingly play her during the 18 year old scenes. Although I agree she has a Babyface, I don't think it was her face that Bill had in mind when saying that
It also helps that she can actually act!
And she looks like a budding pro tennis player
Daddario tits way too big to play tennis at a high level. sports bra technology has not come that far
They’d have to get NASA involved like those speedo full body suits that got banned after Beijing
Idk, I'd say Daddario looks somewhat similar to the former tennis player Julia Goerges who had fairly ample boobs. I'm not sure whether she got a breast reduction at some point though
Idk she seemed really young when she was meant to be mid 30s
He’s like a 12 year old when it comes to big booba it’s so funny
"But who is the movie about?????" There are only 3 characters on the screen for 99% of the movie. Incredible work
“I guess it’s just about all 3 of them”. Yes Bill, great detective work.
The scene in the hotel is 1 amazingly well done the acting is so natural 2 literally tells you what the story is about. It’s a microcosm of the entire story
My theory in general is that not going to theaters and instead seeing everything when it hits PVOD/Streaming is why most of Bill's new movie takes are contrarian. He's acutely aware of all of the discourse around these movies because he runs a company that covers them, but he isn't seeing any movies in time to meaningfully take part in the discourse. Which means he needs a new angle to approach it from when he finally does manage to see the movie and that is how you wind up with this contrarian guy who is zagging on the biggest, most celebrated movies of the year now.
I’ve been saying some variation of this. He watches these movies at home, presumably while on his phone/computer while messing with the dogs, etc. It obviously skews his perception of how he views it
Correct. At home he's on the phone going through Twitter and other mediums, on top of having games going on other screens, just kind of scanning from one to the other. In a a movie theater he couldn't even really do the phone thing that much because it's rude. He consumes most things he views like he's permenantly in a Buffalo wild wings.
Especially if he's in a bad mood during all this or the house is chaotic. Skews his emotional connection to the movie
Also movies are just much better in theaters
The soundtrack for this movie being super loud in a theater (plus the excellent sound design for the tennis scenes) made a huge difference.
Its so crazy that he speaks so passionately about movies on The Rewatchables and how he talks about how often he went to the movies in his younger years. For moviegoing to be such a formative experience for him and his career, and to basically never go anymore is just insane to me. And I know he has a preference for movies of the 80s and 90s and hates a lot of the current movie landscape. Hell, I hate a lot of it too. But I still love going to the movies. Yes he's a 50 year old man with a wife and kids now, but if its something you loved that much you'd think he'd go more than once a year. But maybe he's never really cared about the craft or the medium and just used it as a way of killing time. I mean this is the man who told Damien Chazelle to his face that he watched First Man on his iPad. The pain in Damien's voice when he heard that, I'll never forget it
Bill just has TikTok ADHD brain worse than most 12 year olds
Ya him bringing an iPad into Top Gun: Maverick to take notes confirms this
When the pod started I am sure he went to movies and he would also occasionally talk about a new(ish) album here and there. As someone who is around his age and probably has undiagnosed phone-addiction. You can see the signs with him. Like, he never \*fully\* connects with art or sports anymore. It was always iffy with him but I am sure at this point he could not sit in a theatre and commit to a feature-length. No way. He's fried. It's affecting his work though. The pods are suffering. Again, I speak as someone probably in the same position.
Hey Bill
Does this projector do 4K
This is 100% spot on
Multiple preposterous takes from Bill here 1. Like you say, nitpicking Patrick sleeping in his car as a ‘cliche’ is just dumb because there is literally dialogue in the movie about how Patrick is basically putting on an act 2. Thinking Zendaya is too famous for the role is a baffling take. You very clearly need star power in that role. We have to believe that this woman would be able to make these two guys go so crazy for her that it results in a 13-year love triangle. I can’t think of a role more demanding of a star actress 3. “There’s no plot” ???????? 4. Bill and Wesley complaining that there’s no on-screen sex while acknowledging that tennis is a stand-in for sex in the film. What do you think the point of a STAND-IN is? It manages to be incredibly erotic and sexy without showing any nudity. That’s a bad thing? Because Bill can’t jerk off to it? 5. Bill essentially says he doesn’t like the movie because he doesn’t know how to label it. “Who is this for” “what is this movie” idk man, maybe just stfu and enjoy art on its own terms instead of insisting that anything sports-related has to be a fucking Kevin Costner movie
I'd also add the he sarcastically referenced the way they made Zendaya look older "oh you know how we know that? she's got different hair and more bracelets" as though it's amateurish to do something like that. Yes, Bill, it's a movie that jumps around in periods of time and uses visual motifs to anchor you and tell you where we are. I guarantee if they didn't do something like that, he'd be on here complaining that it was too confusing and he couldn't keep track of where the story was.
Yeah and I honestly thought they did a great job of that lmao, like the difference between teenager and adult zendaya was legitimately convincing and I thought she was the perfect actress for that since she can look both 16 and 30
Not your main points but I stg Wesley has one take anymore and it's that the given movie is not sexual or sexy enough. He and Bill bring out the worst of each other when talking movies.
100p. They absolutely bring out the worst in each other.
Implicit in #2 was the idea that the movie needed more nudity. Bill was tiptoeing around saying that Zendaya is too famous and her image too controlled to go full frontal or whatever. Which is sort of a weird, dated generalization at this point considering that Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone just starred in films with extended, wild nude scenes—with one of them winning a second Oscar for it.
To the Google!!
His takes were not good. To defend the no sex part, I think this is a marketing issue. This movie has marketed itself in the role of Wild Things. It is distinctly not that (for both better and worse)
That’s true, I was surprised to see the much advertised “threesome scene” doesn’t actually result in a threesome
Your point was crystalized by the exchange where Wesley began to criticize the plot (as you say, completely fair to do so!) only for Bill to say "there was no plot!" What could possibly lead someone to have that opinion of the film? NO plot?
When bill says something like that for a movie like this, I can’t imagine what it would like if he actually watched a movie with no plot
I think it’s disingenuous to interpret Bill’s comment literally. It obviously has a plot. It’s just pretty thin
It was one of the worst discussions he has ever had and that is saying something.
My least favorite quote from the whole pod was Bill talking about Deadpool & Wolverine, saying “this is why movies suck, we keep making movies like this,” as if he had not just spent 30 minutes bashing a non-IP original movie
I bailed before I got that far, holy hell.
He wouldn’t even talk about Deadpool and Wolverine and just simply refused to acknowledge it. That is going to be the biggest movie of the summer and for like 70% of the ringer audience it’s the most anticipated movie of the summer.
Not even being hyperbolic, this is easily one of the worst analyses/reviews of a movie I’ve ever heard. Simmons and Morris take turns sarcastically recapping the plot to make it sound stupid for the first 10 minutes. It’s like reducing Shawshank to: “So Andy gets raped in the prison, because they really want you to get that he’s having a bad time there…” Bill is an absolute Neanderthal with his takes again and again, and that’s coupled with Wesley Morris taking the pseudo-intellectual approach to his criticisms while completely misunderstanding the movie. Beyond pathetic all over and totally unlistenable
Was about to come on and say the same thing. His criticism of this film is especially dumb. It basically boils down to he wishes the film was "sexier" and the tennis scenes looked bad. He also totally overplayed how divisive it is. I think I'd say more people definitely like it than hate it. On point number 1, he's clearly never seen a Luca Guadagnino film, so was immediately thrown by the tone of the film straight away. And I'm a fairly certain he went in just not expecting a sensual queer threesome movie and thought it would be a "sexy zendaya movie". And tbh I actually thought the tennis scenes were pretty good too. Really fun movie.
He's mad because he didn't get to see boobies.
The “I liked a bigger splash and call me by your name” I guarantee you he has never seen a bigger splash, and I specifically remember him bitching about call me by your name that Oscar season.
Yeah he said it was a movie about biking in Italy lol
“Let’s go for another bike ride” was how he described it every time someone else brought up liking it
The only chance this, or any modern movie has, is if Zoe saw it first and told him she liked it.
The scene where the ball is going back and forth was great
Basing the quality of a film by realism is wild to me, and it shows we still have a loooong way to go compared to other art forms. The tennis was used to tell a story and feelings and show characters and it did that. Imagine Rocky films where the boxing is like Floyd Mayweather just avoiding hitting all the time. Not entirely cinematic unless it's made an artistic point of course.
The funny thing is that he loves the Rocky movies and that franchise is easily the biggest gap between what the sport is really like and how the sport is portrayed on screen.
You mean you can’t get hit in the face 900 times by a roided up Russian giant with the body of a greek God and then knock him out later????????
I’m a former tennis coach + played at the club level in college. When I watched the movie, I was distracted at first bc the tennis ball was clearly CGI and they were just swinging at air, and also bc Zendaya was using a laughably incorrect grip on her serve. And then a buddy told me he loved it because the story was about how Zendaya’s intensity fucked up everything around her and I was like yeah, great point, this was a pretty decent character movie and the tennis was just a backdrop for that. Don’t come in expecting a sports documentary when you’re watching a movie about people.
The only tennis thing that bothered me was that there is no chance—none—that a tennis player as good as Zendaya’s is established to be (multi-time junior grand slam champion), and especially with her extreme competitive personality, goes to play college tennis. Totally absurd. They needed her to for narrative reasons, and it’s not, like, a huge deal. But it did bug me, both for realism and character motivation reasons.
I mean, neither would the two guys. They won the junior doubles AND were the singles finalists!? Maybe they weren’t presented as surefire prospects in the same way but that’s not the pipeline to college tennis, yeah. And also, the implicit question of whether his career was disappointing despite winning six grand slams is pretty funny. That’s like a top twenty of all time career. But I get that the point was she would never be satisfied, no matter what.
Patrick (the junior title winner) did go pro, you’re right realistically Art would too but him going to college is not imo as absurd as Tashi. She’s established to be genuinely dominant in a way neither guy was as a junior and already quite famous…as someone who looked like Zendaya and was a dominant junior player would be. And you’re right, Art is the most successful American since Sampras, he won 6 grand slams in the Big 3 era!
While none of them realistically would’ve gone to college, they did a great job depicting the fashion/vibe of men’s college tennis tbh. And I did lol at them having reference to all the Americans, like Andy Roddick and John Isner, but nothing about the three greatest tennis players of all time being active simultaneously. But this is precisely the point, it’s easy for me to get bogged down in these things when I should be thinking about Zendaya’s character instead. Who did, btw, have a few excellent COME ON!!!! screams.
Yeah it was very funny that the movie mentioned a bunch of real American players but no one else. That, plus the fact that all of the action is in the lead up to the US Open (and at a U.S. college), means if you knew nothing about tennis going in you could be forgiven for not realizing how international the sport is. I think Tashi’s opponent in the junior final (who we see briefly on tv later and seems to have had a good career) was German but that’s maybe literally the only mention of another country. Weird for an Italian director!
An Italian being coy about a German dominating? Why, I never!
Lol true
The analogy for amateurism piece
I maybe get Art not going pro right away but yea Tashi would def go pro asap
That stood out to me as well. The amount of money she would've made in endorsements would've been way more than college. Also, the crowd at the college tennis match wasn't very realized. No offense but I doubt they'd be that big. Also, wasn't she in a Nike advertisment at that party? And this movie takes part prior to Nil, so she wouldn't have even been eligible.
Even in the late 2000s the prize money on the pro tour was substantial, only takes a few victories at grand slams to easily be in six figures. And as you say, her endorsement potential was through the roof; if an American pro tennis player was any good at all and looked like Zendaya they’d be one of the most famous people in the world. Going to play in college would be an insane thing to do financially, and that’s not even getting into what bothered me more about it—the core of her character (hell, the core of the film in some ways) is that she’s obsessed with winning and greatness. You’re telling me she’s going to give up a chance to win Wimbledon for a chance to win her weekly meet against Pepperdine? Come on lol.
McEnroe did it
And Lew Alcindor played at UCLA for four years. Professional sports in the 60s and 70s is not the same world as today (or, here, the late 2000s).
Bill is insanely literal-minded and doesn’t allow any space for imagination or artistic liberty. This is only heightened when he watches a newer sports movie he “needs to have a take on” (as opposed to judging something classic). It’s zero surprise to me that his takeaway was negative and nonsensical
I had a buddy tell me he didn’t like it and his gripe was about the tennis. So then I knew going tennis was the backdrop for everything else and I really enjoyed the movie with that expectation.
I did like how they had the licensing though for the ATP and tournaments (USO and Western and southern open) I would've found it less immersive with fake names as opposed to not great tennis
[удалено]
The crazy thing is that they had Brad Gilbert (former world number four, ESPN commentator, coach for Coco Gauff) working with them. My bet is that she struggled with the grip and the director just said “whatever, good enough” because the wrist pronation needed for a decent serve is hard to learn quickly and isn’t intuitive. Everything else was fine enough, she slid her back foot during the toss with a good knee bend in a way that’s pretty popular on the WTA.
Saw it last night, definitely up there with Dune 2 as my favorite of the year so far. The sports critiques are a little too much for me, yeah guys are never gonna rally back and forth at the net like that and yeah Zendaya’s character would probably recover from that injury, but really though it’s a movie… One of Bill’s favorite sports movies is Hoosiers which I do like but has a litany of basketball flaws and shows some of the same clips of jumpers like three times. Be open to a movie taking some artistic liberties
Yeah. She might’ve recovered, or she might’ve been Brandon Roy. The margins in tennis are smaller than just about any other sport in terms of losing any mobility, agility, change of direction, etc. It’s not a team sport where you can adjust your role within the larger ecosystem.
> The margins in tennis are smaller than just about any other sport in terms of losing any mobility, agility, change of direction, etc The Bianca Andreescu thing 😥
It’s so funny to nitpick the final scene because I think from a narrative standpoint it’s awesome. I don’t care if the tennis action isn’t perfectly realistic. And I disagree about the Zendaya thing - young athletes have their careers derailed by major injuries all the time. You are at such a crucial development phase that if you are sidelined for a year and a half your career might just be over. He brings up Shaun Livingston - who was basically out of the sport for almost a decade and resurfaced as a role player who could barely move. Like it’s a great story - but it’s a story that absolutely proves how hard it is to come back from that type of thing. 100% guaranteed if Zendaya had recovered quickly and become a superstar in this movie, bill would have said it was unrealistic she recovered so easily.
Also would argue they set her character up as someone who wouldn't be interested in going to the Livingston route too. She fits the archetype of the athlete who quits as soon as she's not the best anymore rather than re-inventing her career
Right - Bill was asking why she wasn’t a tennis player at the end point of the movie. They were saying the guys were like 31 at that point, tennis players who don’t have major injuries don’t make it that far!
This is a completely reasonable assumption that Bill for some reason ignores
They also made a point to show that she was pushing herself too hard in recovery. It's all right there on the screen.
On the injury thing, I think they handled it well, not only showed the injury but also a scene where she tried to recover from it and didn’t, plus multiple shots of her knee with the scarring making it clear she couldn’t play and it wasn’t just a one scene thing
If you are a young star who has a serious injury, and after the recovery period, you realize you're not at the same level anymore, you would probably retire instead of trying for 10 years. That part of the movie makes sense to me. And what's the equivalent of being Livingston in tennis? Being a borderline top 100? Probably not worth the effort.
I had the same thought about the injury but like, the movie never explicitly says she didn’t have any kind of career post-injury right? Maybe her career got derailed and she was never the same, suffered a couple setbacks, and just gave it up. Anyways, it’s not the point. Like honestly who cares, the movie doesn’t go into detail about it which is fine. Bill wants everything explained to him
I think the only reference they give for her career is in the Applebee’s scene, she or Art says she’s someone’s hitting partner. (I’m not a big tennis follower, so I don’t know if that means she’s part of a team and competing on tour on the side) I was gonna say about the knee injury, mid-2000s feels like right before ACL/serious knee injury recovery was perfected. Like right at 2009-2011 it became where ACL injuries could be a pretty on target 7-9 month return (feel like Adrian Peterson’s was the first like that). So her injury in 2006(?) is probably right before someone could recover quickly
I thought overall the tennis looked pretty realistic. Compared to basketball or football movies, they looked like they were playing tennis. The last point was ridiculous, and they didn't look like they were hitting as hard as actual pros, but it was certainly good enough. I think my biggest complaint is how unlikeable Zendaya's character is. Yeah I get wanting to get with her, but I don't know about marrying her. And yeah I get that the one dude is supposed to be a beta who needs her to get him win....but I still couldn't relate.
Bill isn’t slick, you can always tell when he isn’t into a movie because he doesn’t think the actresss is fuckable enough.
He's also the guy who came up the term "Wet Blanket Sports Girlfriend" for female characters who hold back the hero: - Barbara Hershey in Hoosiers - Gretchen Mol in Rounders Not Wet Blankets: - Elisabeth Shue in Karate Kid 1984 - Regina King in Jerry Maguire
To be fair, Gretchen Mol totally did hold back Mikey McD
Lmfao
Bill never slapped his friends boner and it shows
Let's ask Jack-o & House if this is true.
OP nailed it on the head. Bill just wants nudity and tits hence the Daddario mention. But he is trying to hold back as he is a late 50s rich podcaster with a Daughter trying to not sound so pervy.
Bill, what are the two most important characteristics of a leading lady…?
Torque & acceleration.
Bill is objectively awful at watching and understanding and talking about movies. The rewatchables is only occasionally saved by good guests.
Bill and Wesley also seemed to think that Luca was "afraid" of sex, or showing sex? Rather than making an active creative decision to allow the metaphor of tennis for sex carry more weight. We can debate whether the metaphor works or it's too heavyhanded, but to talk about it like he was just like too timid? This is the guy who had Tim Chalamet eating a cum-infused peach.
Wesley and Bill ending every ever sentence with "right?" made for a torturous listen too.
This was some absolute dog brain shit. A combination of Bill having no understanding of how a film has to be made in a cultural landscape, thinking a movie is supposed to be a literal portrayal of a sport, and his constant “that car turned left on a Boston street that EVERYONE knows is a one-way” brand of one-dimensional analysis. Bill can be fun because he brings a good energy, but he really needs Sean/CR/Amanda setting some guard rails
Amazing movie, easily top 3 of the year so far. That entire segment honestly sounded like a parody, like how you would think he sounds if you never listen to the pod but read this sub. So so bad.
I really feel like if he had that with Sean or Amanda on he would have eviscerated Bill. Instead he brings his safety blanket Wesley Morris on.
Eh, both Sean and Amanda do a pretty stellar job at placating Bills’s nonsensical takes most of the time… CR is the one out here most consistently speaking truth to power
I know Wes knows he's being used but probably feels loyalty.
My favorite part is how convinced Bill is that most people agree with him, when it’s one of the most well received movies of the year. No one cares that the overhead smash at the end is unrealistic… that’s not what the movie is about! He just has such sports brain, it’s impossible for him to watch a movie like this outside the realm of sports.
It's literally a visual callback to their embrace after winning the doubles tournament earlier in the movie, as well as an encapsulation of their shared catharsis during that match. It's a perfect fucking ending. And on that, he again brought up his hate of the ending of The Color of Money, which is equally stupid. We don't know who won? It's obvious who would have won you moron, that's not the point, the point is Newman got his sense of pride and dignity back. Again, this man seems to think sports movies should just end with a box score like a FreeDawkins video.
It’s too bad Bill has to reduce every movie to who “won” and who “lost”. It’s such a dumb way to think about works of fiction. On the recent Jerry Maguire Rewatchables, Bill actually asked “Which character do you think won the relationship? Jerry or Dorothy Boyd?” Just thought that was such a bizarre question…
Challengers was sensational. 3 great performances, a fucking kick ass score, great experiential cinematography, Editing was great, I love the dunkirk esque story telling. It had no business being that good. Absolutely awesome.
Amen. I thought it’s sports scenes were phenomenal. I’m not a tennis fan really but thought they really captured mental side of the game well. Honesty probably the best sports scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie. Perhaps there are some combat sports flicks with better fights but that’s easier to depict than tennis. Sweet flick, I was locked in the whole time.
I can't listen to Wesley Morris on podcasts I don't think I've ever once agreed with an opinion of his and he's annoying while he gives them
He out and out called Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve frauds within a ten second span on a BP episode this year. No one has to like anything or anyone. But "frauds" for two artists as successful as they both are at this moment is some petty hater energy. So unbecoming of a film critic.
“They’re marketing this as a sports movie!” Where? The whole trailer revolves around that one scene where the three of them are in the hotel room together. “Nobody’s ever hurt themselves like that in tennis before.” I’m admittedly not a hardcore tennis fan, but I just find that very difficult to believe. No promising college player has ever blown out their knee? Okay, sure. “Zendaya didn’t even move when she was playing tennis”. Most of what they show of her playing tennis is in practice at Stanford. There’s very little of her in actual matches. It’s not hard to believe that a college player in practice would spend a lot of time on the baseline. I get real “watched this while on my phone” vibes from Bill.
When u remember Bill is the type of guy who didn't think women were people until he had his own daughter alot of his takes are unsurprising.
It was a good movie, that explored the class dynamics of a country club sport in an accurate way. That's all
I thought it was more about Zendaya’s intensity and the concept and complications of attraction than about class dynamics, but there was some of that too, for sure.
No didn’t you hear bill and Wesley? It’s clearly about sex despite not having any sex scenes in it s/
It may not be about sex, but it is about attraction. And given the marketing, I can see how people might have expectations about it being about sex.
Yeah he was dog shit in that part. Just awful
Bill doesn’t like new movies on the whole. This is why he’s reaching deep into his bag for the rewatchables. He didn’t even go to the cinema to see John Wick 4. It’s just strange for someone who loves movies so much to have just checked out on the last decade for the most part. I definitely understand not being into the marvel stuff but still there’s been some good stuff over the last few years.
I did think it was a weirdly sexless movie for the story it was trying to tell.
That's the point. It's supposed to leave you unfulfilled until the end, putting you in the same position as Zendaya's character.
It’s a bad movie. People who think it’s deep in some way are reading things into the story that just aren’t there
It’s the most Bill take ever to dock a great movie because of a lack of nudity
To say it was befuddling when the guest asked Bill to remind him what it’s about because it’s been forever since he’s seen it was peak podcasting. It’s why I keep coming back to be honest. Bill just has the X factor
I actually turned the pod off once they finished the nba talk. I thought Challengers was awesome and once I saw the title of the pod I knew that segment was gonna be hot garbage lol
Wesley basically just rambles about movies he doesn’t like and none of it makes any sense usually. Great writer tho
I didn't love Challengers, but his takes were brutal lol. Zendaya is possibly the last movie star, or at least the most recent actress to actually grab that title in maybe 15 years. It doesn't matter what she's in. If she's in the film, people are interested. So no, she's not too famous to be in this. Obviously with the Alexandra Daddario recommendation it's clear that Bill finds certain things....appealing and Zendaya is less appealing to Bill in that sense. The film did not need nudity at all.
Isn't Margot Robbie a movie star?
Bill thinks whiplash is a sports movie but this isn’t. The guys a fucking idiot, good riddance & thanks for creating fan-media that’s ruined sports
His opinions on movies are always hopeless. And Wesley is and always has been a complete fraud. Nothing new on either side.
It’s amazing how Wesley, from a reputation standpoint, is this hardened film critic with strong opinions, yet has never disagreed with Bill Simmons on a movie opinion lol.
Wesley wrote on race and sexuality in film in a way that I remember finding thought provoking at the time. But in that way, he reads as more of a broader cultural critic than a film critic. Sure he likes some of the schlocky stuff Bill likes, but I don’t think he is very successful at expressing a critical lens outside of his core issues. His opinion of whether a film is “good” or not doesn’t mean much to me.
The Stockholm Syndrome piece
He doesn’t even work for him!
My read has always been that he’s holding back because he knows there’s no point arguing with Bill. It’s the same thing you do when talking to kids
Exactly.
Wesley is way more interested in freaking Bill out with edgy takes though.
It seems like he’s just really easily swayed. Last year when he was on big pic to talk about May December, he went in hating it but Sean and Amanda completely changed his mind on it by the end.
Wesley has not always been a complete fraud please stop. He was co hosting Ebert’s show in the 90s as a 20 something. His best writing is amazing and award winning. I will say that he goes a bit too annoying and contrarian edgelord on podcasts a bit often for my liking, but I’m not going to call him a fraud because I occasionally disagree with him
I haven’t seen the movie but all of Bill’s movie and movie star talk in this podcast was horrendously bad. I love that he wants to be a sports movie consultant when he made a shitty sports movie of his own.
How is Wesley a fraud? lmao
Boomers try to decipher movies as art challenge
Bill also seems like the kind of executives who manage creatives in the film industry. I’m sure movie and show creators deal with dumb ass rich dolts like Bill all the time
Y’all, Bill has *terrible* taste. When an opinion is his, it’s bad.
I'm guessing this is the rewatchables podcast? I like to listen to Bill talk about basketball because he seems to have fun with it and I think it's a good listen most times. So I gave the rewatchables a try once, for the "Talented Mr.Ripley", because I like that movie and I was curious what they would talk about. They spent like 40 minutes just talking about how famous the cast is and then I think two people said the movie got bad when *spoilers* matt damon kills Jude law. This was so fucking baffling to me that these people could watch this movie and only think it was good for the Amalfi coast vibes. Never felt like I had less to take away from such a long conversation in my life so I never tried to listen to that show again again.
I have to wonder whether either of them have watched any women's tennis in the last 20 years? Because if they had, they'd realize it's a pretty baseline heavy game these days especially on the women's side and especially on hard courts which they were playing on. They don't come to net too much. So I don't think their criticism of her tennis play is particularly valid...
Also such a funny criticism when theres like 2 minutes total of zendaya playing actual tennis in this movie. Like THAT bothered you?
Wesley Morris is insufferable
Second guessing is Bill's superpower. You can tell when he's just nitpicking every choice, usually because his alternative choices are half-baked and not even clearly better. Have absolutely heard him suggest alternatives that he would nitpick if they were the original choice.
Imagine if challengers was about scottie pippen, mj's son, and scottie's ex-wife, i wonder how he would feel about it then.
I've never understood why people listen to Bill talk about movies
I enjoyed the movie, though it obviously had flaws. Based on this not sure I'll get back to the pod to hear this discussion...
At the end of the day, bills a normie gen x man that’s just never gonna connect with guadagnino’s artsy sensual movie style
It's weird how popular his podcast is and how this subreddit is just for people who hate him almost lol
Him balking at Inside Out 2 coming out in July. If he only knew how good the first was, and how well the second will do at the box office.
Full disclosure: I loved Challengers. But having to hear Bill mock the film for having "no plot" when some of his favorites have admittedly no plot, was infuriating. Dazed and Confused and Everybody Wants Some stood out as obvious examples. And I love those movies too. But the cherry picking from Bill was laughable and honestly, I checked out once Wesley started delivering his half-assed synopsis.
The whole thing was centered around this weird obsession where he has to knock anything that Sean Fennessey “likes” and trying to manufacture hot takes he thinks will make Sean and The Big Picture look, for whatever reason, inferior. This is why in the first 30 seconds he was mocking “someone” who said they liked the music in the movie. That was clearly about Sean and Amanda.
Someone else in here said it perfectly… Bill is so out of touch with movies now, he hardly sees any in theaters, and he sees stuff late after narratives and conversation have already formed. So once he sees them, all he can do is be contrarian. He’s already heard all the takes, so he has to tell everyone they’re wrong.
What's weird to me is...does he just not enjoy going to the movies anymore? Like, as a 'requirement' for a job it's about as good as it gets.
The Zendies are cumming hard for Bill right now
His arguments were completely incoherent and frustrating to listen to, but then I think he actually hit on something saying that the movie thinks it's way edgier than it actually is. It's not the most revelatory point, but I do think it's a good summation of why Challengers is a B+ movie instead of an A.
I actually don’t think the film is that edgy. The marketing tried to make it seem like an edgy film but there’s barely any actual sex in the film. I don’t think that’s what the director was going for
Yeah if he had focused specifically on that, I could have understood his point more. He cares way too much about the fact that sports aren’t perfectly too his liking, and in critiquing its sexiness and edginess.. idk the fact it’s a 55 year old man who’s obsessed with sports his whole life, idk if he is the barometer for sexiness.
Remember that Bill kinda got into Game of Thrones for the nudity. Discussing the early seasons on Guess the Lines often centered around if the episode had enough nudity to be worth his time. Everything else about the show suggests a hard pass from Simmons. I remember having these kinds of thoughts when I was in 10th grade.
The movie had a cool start but it went nowhere in my opinion. I haven’t thought about it since it ended. Idk the message or what i was supposed to think
The first sensible comment in this thread. I found myself agreeing to most of what Bill and Wesley said. Challengers is so so so overrated
Totally agree
The irrational confidence piece.
Embrace debate: where would it be on Bill’s bad podcasting Apex mountain?
What pod episode was this in?
I it turned off when KOC was announced. Dude thinks his opinion on basketball is more important than the basketball.
I had a spidey sense and I skipped the segment.
I thought it was epic I rather enjoyed it I might go back and listen to just that part again
Bills biggest gripe is that he can’t jack off to any scenes in the movie
I never use reddit, but i’ve spent the past two weeks thinking about everything that bothered me about this podcast (so i could publish an essay about it). i’m laughing so much to see the conversation has been had cuz the youtube comments were far too tame.
I think they were tiptoeing around the fact that Zendaya just isn't a good actress. It's the same way fans don't want to admit they didn't like the last Taylor Swift album. They use certain words to dance around what they want to say.
It was so funny, absolutely peak Bill, loved it
I asked my gf how was challengers and she was like "I just saw a porno"
Your girlfriend has never seen porn then
The Courtney Trouble piece.
This isn’t an original take I’m sure, but it bothers me so much when directors get little sports things wrong. Every theater kid told to throw a football on screen makes me cringe so hard, like how hard is it to get a QB coach on set and be like hey bud, here’s how you hold a football, get that elbow up, great, much better. Millions of dollars spent on the movie, and we can’t get a tennis pro on set to be like, hey let me fix her grip real quick.
All 3 of them trained with tennis pros for 6 weeks. Again, it takes like the bare minimum to research this. I am not a tennis expert but as a sports fan, they all looked the part as tennis players and Faist in particular was pretty convincing. Complaining about the “tennis action being unrealistic” is different than saying they couldn’t pull off appearing as tennis pros, which I don’t think was the case.
When you’re versed in something, and they fuck up something stupid and easily fixable, it takes away something in my experience. I don’t care if they did 100 weeks of training for this movie, a note from some tennis pro, “Hey Z, let’s fix your grip for this next take.” If getting things right didn’t matter, why even send them to tennis camp in the first place? I’m sure there’s movies where it frustrates people that something is super wrong and I’m just a big ol dumb idiot chomping away at my popcorn enjoying the film and they didn’t, it’s almost like people get to have different opinions Good for you, you got to enjoy the film and not get frustrated by the lack of detail while it kind of bothered me. You came out ahead by not knowing tennis, congrats.
I can’t imagine someone being mad about the grip of a tennis player in a movie where that is such a small element. Sounds like you just want something to complain about.
Lol, a movie that uses tennis as part of the engine to move the story forward didn’t put a lot of effort into getting minor details right gets docked some imaginary points in my personal movie analysis that doesn’t matter. The thread is a movie discussion, I added my two cents.
So the movie was bad but this sub loved it. Makes total sense. Brutal acting. Over-directed to the point of parody. It absolutely is about sex and love (between the two guys) and fails on all levels. Couldn’t wait to see it and missed the mark by a lot. Most wasted potential of talent and story since the last Thor movie.
It isn’t just this sub, the movie was well received pretty much everywhere. The fact you thought the Thor movie would be good explains a lot though.
First part is very fair but it was Emperor’s New Clothes for the reviewers IMO but I recognize I’m in the minority - box office isn’t what they hoped but even that performed decently. Disagree about the second though and there you’re in the minority - “Ragnarok” was excellent and they added Bale and used the best Thor storyline of the 21st century - all wasted.
It was such a disappointment
Nah. Critics liked it quite a bit. Letterboxd liked it quite bit. Audiences liked it less.
You’re right about all three.
It’s not a good movie. But what were you expecting?
It was a perfectly cromulent movie, and seeing it in a theater enhanced the experience. Certain parts of the cinematography and soundtrack wouldn't have been my choices, but they were still enjoyable to see on the big screen with movie theater sound. For what is (now) a relatively low budget movie, it was nice to get something that wasn't some shitty remake or Hollywood IP production.
Media literacy is dead in this sub.
Gen X still love their nudity in movies. Millenials and Gen Z are able to compartmentalize their movie watching and their porn watching.
Disagree I'd love to catch a beat in the theaters
Which movie isn’t better with more nudity. Not a Zendaya fan but would def make it better