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After this many years in sports, I feel like in baseball, if you're cheating, I know what advantages are being gained. If you're doping in cycling, I know the advantages being gained. Football confounds me in the cheating department because I still don't know what advantage, if any. And I read about physics while I was studying this investigation the Patriots got from deflating footballs. But now Jim Harbaugh is in a bit of a mess, already sat out the beginning part of the season, a season where it looks like his team is one of the best teams there are in college football. And now comes this story that they were what sounded to me like advanced scouting and stealing signals. And I assumed everybody was trying to steal signals. So I'll ask you, Mike Golick, help me understand what kind of advantage. I haven't read anything good about this. All I read is scandal, scandal, scandal. But I don't have anyone telling me in a way that I can understand, okay, how successful were they at it? Because Harbaugh has turned that program around.

Yeah, that's the hard part. And that's what his detractors are so happy about right now, is because football is such an interconnected sport. I've heard Dominique talk about why Tanking is so difficult in the sport for that reason, because there's so many variables on the field in a violent game with a weird shaped ball that there's only so much any one thing can do to influence the outcome. But now everyone's going to look at Harbaugh's record post a certain point in the last couple of years, and the fact that it is these two most recent seasons where we have all these reports coming in, and it's just going to cloud it for most people. Because I think in the initial reaction to this, you saw a lot of people that have been around the sport, covered the sport, played the sport, kind of roll their eyes to a certain point before we found out it was videotaping signs. Like there's always that line in the sand. Because, Dan, to your point, everyone's trying to steal signals. It's why even back when I was playing so 2008 to 2012, we would have three guys on the sideline, and each of those guys would be sending signals in.

Two of them would be dummy signals, and one would be the real ones, because you knew people, someone's job on that sideline was to look over and see, because it's not a down in and down out thing like steroids or something like that, where it's this massive advantage overall. But in my mind, science stealing is all about all right, in high leverage situations especially, can we give ourselves a slightly better chance of what we've been trying to do all week, which was no tendencies enough to be able to predict where we think the staff is going to go. And so if, quite literally, we can look over there and see what they're signaling with the communication, then from the sideline for us, in a big third down or in the red zone or in one of these areas in football where the game is most influenced, we can have a better idea of what's coming our way and respond accordingly to that. That, to me, is where the advantage lies in this. But it's also why it's extremely difficult to find it in this, because teams change their signs. They have so many elaborate ways of trying to withhold that from other teams that even if, you know, it would still be pretty hard to actually believe that you've got it nailed down in the body of a given game.

So let's see what prompted this, because an investigation has already turned up that tickets were bought for a specific staffer and they found up to 30, I bet, on this game. So I was watching it. Greg Giano's, Rutgers playing Michigan, and Greg Giano gives a halftime interview, which is, like, scattered and weird. And it's a pretty close game at halftime considering the size of the spread. And I was feeling pretty good about Rutgers. And Greg Ciano is like, there's some stuff going on here. I don't want to get into it, but we're dealing with a lot of stuff that's not good. It was a very OD halftime interview. But also, Greg Ciano is kind of OD, so I didn't really think much of it. And then this news comes out and sure enough, social media rediscovered that clip. And you mentioned how you have dummy signals because there's a bit of gamesmanship to this, but filming filming kind of crosses that threshold and said, this is beyond gamesmanship. That's poor sportsmanship. Is that cheating? And you mentioned deflategate. Remember, the original Patriots scandal was them actually filming practices, trying to get an edge over there.

There was stuff with the Cleveland Browns and Ray Farmer getting text messages and pretty punitive measures from the NFL on this because they actually deem it to be a serious offense and one that you get an advantage over. I have something for you that you probably haven't heard anywhere else. And this could be circumstantial. You take it for what it's worth. Take it with a grain of salt. I know a staffer that was on Western Illinois in the early 2000s. Well, he was in college and he's older now, and he was telling me, like, oh. So I was this staffer and we found someone on the Western Kentucky staff. They had an extra person in the press box and they were filming opposing sidelines, the Western Kentucky head coach at the time, Jack Harbaugh.

So this is the Harbaugh family heirloom, a tradition passed down through generations.

So if we want to believe this, and I have no reason to not believe this, this is a learned behavior. And it makes me think, wait, are the pleated pants and the milk and the eccentricities that is Jim Harbaugh and the Harbaugh family? Is that all just a sophisticated cover up for one of the genius cheaters of our yes.

Yes.

He's like, well, I can't videotape. I've got khakis and glasses, and I look like your father. I got to put my spectacles on just to masturbate. I have no idea what I'm doing. How would I videotape sidelines? I love that.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

No. Harbaugh cheats at Halloween, right? He told us that his kids, he dresses them, he makes them sprints around the neighborhood and then puts them in another costume and then makes them go again so they can get more candy. Jim Harbaugh. The Harbough family, right? The Thanksgiving prayer is if you're not cheating, you're not trying. Correct.

Well, they start every morning with let's attack the day with the intensity of 10,000 sons right. That they're looking to win their competitionaholics. So all this kind of tracks, and it's unraveling fairly quickly, from what I'm understanding, and how it's looking. The Greg Giano halftime interview maybe prompted something that was a pretty open secret. And I'm sure if you asked Irvin Meyer, if you asked Ryan Day, they'd probably have a lot of circumstantial evidence that makes a lot more sense.

Would also and this is always the interesting part, because generally when we see impropriety like this in college sports, all of our assumption is everyone else is doing some version of this, which is why most people don't say anything. You very rarely get people betraying other.

People inside and honor amongst thieves.

Yes, exactly. Mostly because they know, too, if people start going and looking in other houses, you might find some broken glass in there. And so it does speak to, apparently, the views on Harbaugh. And I know a lot of Michigan fans have this sensitivity that this is an elaborate ruse to try and forget about affecting this season, because I don't know what's going to get done and how quickly now. Right.

And they're having a damn good season.

Like, they could very easily win a national championship this year. That's real and vacated, wins, all that stuff. Doesn't really matter if you've got the hardware at the end of it. You can do that, but you can't remove the feeling and what we all know and saw. But it would be would this be a punishment enough on the back end that gets Harbaugh to think about the NFL as this gateway, the Pete Carroll method of all this? And now if you're Michigan, you're sitting there going, yeah, we got this thing, but we were on track to be this for a long time, and now could this subvert it? But it's all just interesting to me. Again, Harbaugh draws this much ire to make normally, a place where it'd be pretty tight lipped amongst people that we are imagining doing some version of the same thing.

All this happening from a guy who is obsessed with Judge Judy and then.

He breaks the rules.

This is to me, put him in college football court. Have Judge Judy rain down fire upon him.

Do we make a Judge Judy? Who would be the judge in college football?

Got it's got to be Lee Corso.

I go with Gene Katie. Gene Katie.

That's a reference.

Jet black hair, comb over just gives, like, Judge and my cousin Vinny Fred Munster vibes.

Are you totally sure he's still with.

Katie or the or Fred Munster?

Gene katie. Both.

I'm not exactly sure.

I'm not just I think you've just appointed a dead judge, which is stuff we do in Florida.

But hey, I understood the assignment and I said a name and it was a good name.

Gene, it is a good name because he's got the comb over. It is a good name, admittedly.

I actually think that the NCAA sees this opportunity and this is now repeat offender stuff within one season because Jim Harbaugh and I think all of us like lying over a cheeseburger. Come on, guys. And in the age of Nil, this is whack. But this is one opportunity that the NCAA has to actually seize on something and kind of reestablish itself as an authority. Because this doesn't have to do with the Wild West of name, image, likeness, and recruiting. Because if you come after one, you come after all. And that mutually assured destruction, right? If the NCAA decides that you're doing nil the wrong way, you're doing recruiting the wrong way, in this day and age, they run the risk of everybody saying, I'm not going to let you punish me. I'm breaking off. We don't need you whatsoever. But when it comes to actually cheating, cheating the game, potentially, if you're filming sideline, that's something that you could rally everyone against.

And that's already codified too. Like your point about the nil stuff is we're waiting through this. Everything that we know about that the NCAA is kind of written in pencil and the courts are breathing down their neck, so they're afraid. This has been on the books. We know, hey, you're not allowed to advance scout. That's a 94. That's a budget thing. And just coaches, I don't think, wanted to be bothered. But videotaping sidelines, it's in there. There's a rule against it. So they can point and say, yeah, we've already got this here. This is easy for them. This is a layup.

You say that, but I look at everything on the macro of what it is that's happening around here. And I don't know how it is that you get someone as competitive as Jim Harbaugh who is looking everywhere, where he can skim advantages and tell him to start making someone built like that, to start making these moral choices where he's not rationalizing away whatever the penalty would be with rule breaking. Because even if it's against the rules. My guess is that he believes somewhere that if this is happening the way we think it is, and if he thinks he could get the advantage from it, that the reward is worth the risk. That the risk isn't actually that strong, where you're asking football coaches to be moral men about things just because there are rules somewhere that say they should be.

See, now I'm wondering, is Harbaugh videotaping other things? Because, like, when he said, it's not offense, it's not defense, it's not we fence. Was that something that he videotaped, some comics say, at the Comedy Store, like, a few nights ago?

How do you think Jim Harbaugh jim Harbaugh, given his general esthetic and approach to things, I imagine he thinks he could get away with this with an old school, like, VHS recorder.

It's just rolling up there like a solo news.

The way they took big photographs in the 1920s where the photographer would put himself underneath a curtain and there's the.

Plume of smoke coming off of him.

What's going on over there?

Where there's smoke, there's fire. It's an actual photographer's light bulb. Hey, you're advanced scout. You're going to have to send me two weeks, though, because of the time it'll take for these photos to develop.

What's the penalty going to be?

I hope that look, as a sports fan, I understand what the story arc was for Jim Harbaugh. It got off to a pretty bad start. And so me reading these stories, I'm like, oh, so that's how they got good. They were cheating. That's where most minds go. Because college football, it's unique in that if it ain't your team, you're predisposed to hate them.

Punishment is that he has to go back and coach the Bears.

Don Lebotard.

Did you guys see Gilbert Arenas's assessment of Zion Williamson? Agent zero stugats. Did you answer my question there or no? No? Okay, very good.

This is the Don Levitar show with the stugats.

One of the things that I enjoyed as we continue this conversation with Brad Williams, mike Golick, Jr. And Mike Ryan about the evolution of our industry is the evolution of the take. How it is that in the modern age, with everyone at this trough giving opinions, how you go about evolving the way you're giving your opinions. We have arrived at the Stephen A. Smith watch your mouth portion of the takes that he directed at Tyree Kill. That's not something I've seen much from journalists, but somebody here who has arrived at the take game and really is interested in being at things first. Emmanuel Acho has started the conversation about whether a college player should sit earlier than I've ever heard. It started about Caleb Williams as soon as he lost to Utah last weekend. Acho's like, you're not playing for a national championship. You're not going to play in the bowl game. Start sitting right now. And I think his take would have held up fine if not for this whole pesky idea that this is a paid professional athlete now who's expected to play college football for money.

Where my mind went, okay, Emmanuel, are you you're not writing the checks. And Caleb, it's been well reported what he gets in Nil, they're not paying that with the expectation that he's just going to opt out and say, forget it before November. I know it's become commonplace now for people to opt out of the bowl games. And my whole attitude as someone that does contribute to Nil programs is, I'm paying for us to win the Sun Bowl. Sure, I want to win the Sun Bowl.

What a depressing sentence that is, by the way.

It's year two of a four year plan. I'll see you there. My God.

It is so interesting, though, that point, because that's always been at the forefront of the argument that those of us who and God, all of this is like a weird conversation about who's presenting these ideas in good faith. Or not who is coming to it with the best interest of the players in mind or who just wants to contribute from the national level with something that feels accessible under the conversation. I don't know what any of those look like for this isn't about him specifically, but with that, it was always.

Well, with players devastated to hear that.

Yeah. With players sitting out games like the Sun Bowl and stuff, it was, well, if you want them there, pay them. And so now we've gotten to that point where there is money on the table for that. And in Caleb's case, they're not out of the Pac Twelve race yet. It feels like that, but they've only got one of those losses in conference. The Notre Dame loss doesn't hit the same way. And so this whole conversation about what actually matters in college football also kind of works its way into that and there's still real stakes on the table for them.

Yeah.

And the whole thing is Caleb might actually come back, or he's threatened to come back to USC and say, like, oh, if I'm going to go to a team that I don't like, then I'm just going to stay at USC and still make more money than a lot of quarterbacks in the NFL. So he doesn't have the threat. So it's like, yeah, no, he can just stay at USC. I'm saying this as a USC fan and alumni that I would like to stay at USC. Keep going.

You're highlighting exactly why this is the one dude that shouldn't do that because it's such a big deal and his options are so great in that if he doesn't like the pro fit, he can just say, no, I'll stay at USC. Well, part of that is playing for your pay, and if you're going to opt out on a season that can still be very good, as Lincoln Riley's trying to build a program. And I do think legacy does matter in Caleb Williams case because that's a great school with a lot of great quarterbacks. He's got a shot considering how much he's played at some all time records and also the last two games, not the greatest film. To the point that the national discussion is, oh, Drake May is in this conversation again, there's considerably a lot to play for, including money, the money that you're paying. Like, these deals are season long deals and sometimes there's a handshake agreement. Okay, we're a three loss team. I know we made it to a New Year's bowl game, but we can all understand Kenny Pickett, you're the best on this team. You've been here for a while, you've given a lot.

You can take this one off. But we're having this conversation in October because the quarterback in particular had a three interception game two weeks ago and lost again to Utah. Like his direct performance has a say on whether or not he finishes the year.

But I guess the thing is, if we wanted to take this as the ultimate high level thought version of this, of does Caleb Williams need any more college football to prove anything to anyone in the NFL, the answer is no, he does not need college football.

By that standard, he could have not played this season. He just needed to play.

He would have been the number one pick.

Like, he could have sat out the entire season. If you're going to stop him playing now, you might as well have stopped him playing before. You wouldn't have hurt his value anymore.

No, we learned that during the Pandemic season when you had players like Jamar Chase and I believe Panay Sewell also didn't play that fall and were still top draft picks. They were still first round draft picks because at a certain point, you know, and we already know with Caleb Williams you can have and we will. And I thought it was going to take longer to get to the Drake May thing, but we're here now because of that performance. But even still, it's not that he needs college football anymore to accomplish those things, but it's all those other things that's what I try and explain to people all the time is these aren't easily made decisions by these players to stop playing with their teammates to set out even a bowl game. That seems meaningless. Like the insinuation that bothers me most is that these guys are somehow lesser competitors because they've opted out of playing in the Gator Bowl or something like that. No, but they've had to for so long weigh the economic disparity between college and NFL. Part of that conversation has changed now and because of that I think you might see some different decisions made.

But it's still for a lot of guys, too, the destination for everyone is not just college football. For me, it was the more I think about it in retrospect, I grew up wanting to play at Notre Dame, but for a lot of guys, they want to play on Sundays, and so some of it's the economics, but it's also just like, hey, I'm this close to my dream. I'm this close to the thing I've wanted, and I've seen what happened to guys who got really close and then got hurt and how much it can throw that off.

Lincoln Riley, where are we with him? He comes in, immediately creates a gust of expectations, immediately creates offense. They win a bunch of games. Their last season ended right toward the end when they looked like they were going to be in the playoff and possibly win the national championship. And now he comes off more and more like he's got some dictator tendencies that I didn't know about when he was at Oklahoma. He's limiting a lot of access to his players, wants to be controlling the media, isn't allowing his players to talk.

After losses for the first time in USC history, by the way, players were not made available after a loss.

Yeah. And it's very interesting to have that come in now in one of the biggest media markets in the world you.

Can do, but it doesn't care about sports. This market does not care about sports. This market Los Angeles does not care about. Mike's been trying to find a bar that'll show him a game for two.

Tell I had to break it to somebody that the Rams were back. Hey, can you put the local game on? They're like, which one's? That they won a Super Bowl here two years ago.

We care.

We just care about the Lakers only when they're winning.

I think it's less than this market because they definitely don't care here. I can assure you that that's why they got outsourced to the Big Ten. But people do care about USC, and that's the difference is Oklahoma and the national conversation relative to USC and the national conversation, my God, is that a different world?

Yeah, but I think it washed over me. Lincoln Riley was always kind of earmarked as a guy that'd be, oh, that's an innovator linked to Cowboys jobs in the pros. And I see how he's handling just this media market. And it's not a hardcore, passionate media market about college football. It's just there's professionals here that don't necessarily need the program to succeed, for them to succeed. And I see a guy that cannot handle the NFL and the pressures of that job and the media scrutiny of that job right now. And it's not what I expected because I didn't know this aspect of his personality in Oklahoma.

I think the one thing, because a lot of that there was an issue with a journalist beforehand who reported something that apparently they heard outside of it.

That he took a student journalist that.

He took umbridge with, and that's more what I latch onto, not making players available for the media after the game. I can almost spin to that's someone who's trying to protect them from what's coming. And part of me as a player does appreciate that idea. You're making things worse.

They don't need protection from learning how to respond to a loss at Utah. They had plenty of experience there.

They need protection from Bill Plaske.

They need protection from Utah on the field, is what they need.

Cal whittingham makes what? Half of what the Damon I said Deion Sanders, but it's always my takeaway. How does Cal Whittingham do this? Just ruining season after season.

Lincoln Riley hasn't beaten Utah yet.

Correct.

Lost three times to Utah.

Yeah. You mentioned what Caleb Williams has to prove in college. I'd like to see him beat Utah.

It'd be one more year to start. Dan, you bringing up Lincoln Riley. And Mike, you bringing up Lincoln Riley. Relative to the NFL. I thought that was the most interesting. There was an article in the La Times about him last week, and Lincoln off the field through the last couple of years has been through the wringer. He lost a couple of his coaching mentors in very tragic fashion, mike Leach being one of them. And the article sounded so much like a guy that was having a bit of an existential crisis with his playdohs at this level of the sport. And a lot of it, and I think this is the read from a lot of people, was a guy who looked longingly at what the NFL afforded you as far as balance of lifestyle wise and seemed to be really openly pining for that in a way that was surprising for one of the kings of college right now.

Do I have this wrong, though? Because I associate this kind of coach, the Mike McDaniel, the Sean McVeigh, I associate them with being a little more media friendly, less of a dictator type. None of these coaches have any use for the media. We're intrusive. We are there to create problems that they don't want and they don't need our publicity anymore. But I think of the young coaches as having a different relationship than the Belichicks OCS.

Typically more media friendly defensive coordinators grind their molars into dust like Bret Venable.

So it surprises me when I hear this about I don't know what I'm doing there. I think, well, this guy creates offense and is a young person, therefore he's not going to be a jackass or he's going to have less jackassery when it comes.

What you're doing is recency bias, and it's honestly not something I knew about Lincoln Riley prior to this here. And I think you highlighted something important. This may not just be an existential crisis, this might be a midlife crisis.

Yeah, he did just turn 40.

That makes sense to La. The signs are there.

If he starts, like, driving around a Porsche and dating a 19 year old. We're going to have issues here, but.

I made him urban.

Meyer imagine being in college football without the success that pressure cooker. And looking at the NFL head coaching be like they have more work life balance.

But that's true.

Those are guys that haven't figured they have a full 35 minutes a day to see their families.

But that is true. And that's why the NFL is actually paying guys less than college guys right now. I was speaking to an agent and college coaches are having a very difficult time staffing with the top of the line candidates. You don't have to look any further than the top of the line when it comes to college football. The book on Nick Saban was that is a head coach rehabilitation program. You go there, you'll get a job somewhere else within two years. Look who his coordinators are. No offense to Tommy Reese, but not top of the line. It's not the Bill O'Brien's of the world. Hell, he took Miami's old defensive coordinator last year who essentially was parted ways with it is not the same hustle because the life balance, there is no such thing. It is nonstop. It is all consuming.

I cannot tell you that I have many sentences in my life that start in a more unpleasant way than you just started that with. I was talking to an agent, Don Lebotard, at the end of our conversation with Alex Smith and we talked for about 30 minutes, but I feel like nobody is going to remember anything about that conversation other than how you fell flat at the end with your very last word. Listen to how Stugatz here at the end of this interview says goodbye. Just exhausted to Alex Smith. Stugats, what happened?

Alish dan, I'm exhausted.

I haven't stopped talking in a month.

I mean, I don't know what to tell you.

This is the Don Levatar Show with Estugats.

I have worked with words for a living for damn near four decades and I do not have the words to explain to you just how crappy the zoom backgrounds are for Adnan Burke and A. It's a kitchen. It looks like that they're sharing behind.

It'S very clearly built a scale.

It's weird how it looks. And I'd like you guys to please, at your leisure, fix this because it doesn't look very good. But I want to read to the audience something that Adnan sent me that made me want to throw up on my telephone. I've never had both this reaction or received a text like this. It begins with attended the critics screening of Killers of the Flower Moon last night. Another extraordinary film from Scorsese. I'm speechless. Profound on every level. I know this reeks of hyperbole, but I was shaken when I walked out of the screening and felt the ground beneath me start to vanish. Unbelievable. This is something Scorsese is going to want to put on his. Movie posters. Mike Ryan has also seen it. And I'm looking at David Sampson's face right now. I sense that you are not invited to any critic screenings and you have not yet seen this movie that you want to see.

David, you sense correctly, I'm very disappointed. The fact that Adnan saw it and he texted you, and he also texted me and whatever, Adnan, I'm glad you saw it. I'm glad you sat there for 4 hours.

That's classy of you, David. And I think, listen, Dan said he want to spit up all over himself. I think the key is I was self aware. I said, I know this reeks of hyperbole. And yet still I went further and the ground beneath me did start to vanish.

A bit of a high bar. I don't think it cleared that for me. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. It was a good movie, but I didn't feel the ground shake no more than that.

Mike, you texted me, you said, Great film.

Wow.

Lily Gladstone.

Yeah.

Lily Gladstone was a tour de force.

There you go. Now we're talking critics. I like that.

I like that Mike got a boy.

I mean, not just holding her own, but just bossing scenes in which she's holding with Leo DiCaprio, who's a very accomplished thespian in his own right. I thought it was an unbelievable, powerful performance. I was in a great movie theater for it. Everyone was pretty locked in. The music was great. If you're a music fan, there's so many bit roles that I think ardent music supporters and fans of songwriting will really love in this movie. It was powerful. It does stay with you. I'm still trying to process it because I went in not having read the book, having only seen trailers, not really knowing what to expect and the twists and turns that this film takes, you can't anticipate from the trailer. I love the film. It'll surely be in contention for best.

Picture we will do in honor of John Lithgow being in this film. Top five John Lithgow movies. But because Scorsese and De Niro and we'll get to Adnan's thoughts on the movie in a second. He's seen it twice already. David hasn't seen it at all.

That's an entire day.

I know it's almost 4 hours the entire movie. But how do you guys feel about the idea that Scorsese could have made this as long as he wanted and put it in four or five parts or six parts, and everybody would have watched it just the same? But he's somebody who wants to be film guy and doesn't want to acquiesce to modern norms.

I love it, Dan. I'm always amazed by people who say, oh, man, how long is it? Three and a half hours? And I say, but you've got the time to watch Binge, watch some crappy show on Netflix. People will do that all weekend. Some six part nonsense. And this is our greatest living director, an auteur for the ages who's making a passion project which took him years to make. Three and a half hours. But it's about the osage, and it's all those films that really needs that epic sweep. What happened in the 1920s, this buried part of American history which he's bringing to life, and he's doing so with our greatest talents, like Bob De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, and actors we don't know now will like Lily Gladstone. So I'm always amazed that someone goes, oh, man, three and a half, it's too long. I'm like, no. What do you mean? It's not long enough? Quite frankly, if you're having art to experience, even David can agree with me. I don't care how long art is. Art exists for its own sake.

They're both reacting to you calling him Bob de Niro.

They think you don't have the right.

To call him Bob.

Let's start with I've interviewed him on my podcast. I started by saying, can I call you Bob? He said, yes, we can play the clip if you like. He said, yes.

And the other thing, Adnan, is that every movie takes years to make. So for you to give some sort of accolade because, oh, my God, it took them years. It just shows that maybe you don't understand the industry, that's all.

Wow.

Well, maybe you don't understand what you're talking about. Because they wrote this script, marty and Eric Roth adapting David Grant's book. It took them two years. And DiCaprio is going to play the FBI agent who's now played by Jesse Plemons. And then Leo said, you know what? It's not a very interesting character. He's too much of a street. What if I play one of the villains? What if I play Ernest?

Who's?

De Niro's nephew. So then they rewrote the script again for the year. So, yeah, this isn't like the classic film which takes six months a year. This was four years. I think that's notable when a film takes four or five years to get made.

Did Leo also give you permission to call him Leo on your pod?

I think if he knew who I was, it wouldn't be an issue. Let's be honest.

Can you tell me what you believe to be? Because De Niro and Scorsese have worked on ten films together. Tarantino hasn't even made ten films. What is the best of the ten? The best of the ten? Scorsese and Bob.

Three way tie. Raging Bull, taxi Driver at Goodfellas. Raging Bull transcendent film. De Niro literally changed acting by putting on 60 pounds for the role. He's so lean and mean as Jake LAMATA and then morphs into a fat failure. But that literally influenced a generation of actors. Taxi Driver. There's never been a better film about urban alienation and loneliness. And Goodfellows might be the most rewatchable movie ever. Samson agree.

I agree with you, Adnan. Eric. Can I call you Ad? But the way you say things, it's as though you're reading out of some sort of dictionary or playbook of how to sound like a highfalutin critic.

No, what happens is I am a critic, so then I talk like a critic talks. That's how it is.

You did go to a critic screening.

Yeah, exactly. So I am what I am.

I'm a critic.

You don't think I found this in Oppenheimer a little bit, with Rami Malik's role in it? Did you find it distracting that actors like Brendan Fraser and John Lithgow had these particularly minor roles? I like the thought, because they're obviously great actors, but I found it to be a tad distracting and in Brendan Fraser's role, too distracting. It took away from his performance, really.

If there is to be a minor quibble of the film, and I'll say in the article, Mike, I can't remember what website saw, but it said, should Brendan Fraser give back his Oscar after Killers of the Flower Mood? Because he's only in at seven minutes. But your point? It's very overwrought. He's really going for it. Once David and Dan see it, they'll know what I'm talking about. Once in the way he says, you dumb boy. It's a little excessive, but I don't find it overly distracting, quite frankly. I think Fraser is giving a role, and if Marty doesn't edit it out, I guess that's what he's hoping for in that scene. But if it's a nondescript actor versus Brendan Fraser, I'll take Brendan Fraser. I don't think it's his finest hour, but I didn't have a major issue with it. I was amused by it. And Lithgow, I thought, was excellent in the movie, so I was happy to see him show up.

In honor of that, let's get your top five David Sampson, John Lithgow movies, are any of them going to be within the last ten years or so?

There aren't many choices that I would say in the last ten years, so I apologize in advance. But these are still five movies that I would have anyone see, no matter the demographic. Number five, leap year. You're right. If you don't enjoy relationships or love or what you would do to find true love, amy Adams is in.

Amy Adams wishes she could scrub this off her IMDb. This is before Amy Adams became a celebrated actress.

David, come on.

Even if you're Irish and this was shot in parts of Dublin, they'd say, we don't disown this movie. Let's just give this one to Scotland. We don't want to own this one.

Leap year pass off to a roaring start. Number four.

David Cliffhanger.

The first five minutes of Cliffhanger are wonderful. First five minutes. The rest of it is a mountain of elephant crap.

Mike takes words out of my mouth, though. Way too low. Go ahead, David.

He has such great range for him to play that part and then the part that he plays in number three means he's an all time actor. Number three terms of endearment. It's the number one most emotional movie that anyone will watch in their lifetime. It has performances. Adnan the performances in terms of endearment. Criticize them. I want you to criticize Jeff Daniels. Criticize Jack Nicholson. Deborah Winger. John Lithgow. Do it. Criticize him.

Right.

You watch these movies just so you can get your tear ducts working. Like you watch these movies, just so you can cry and get in touch with your emotional side. It's laughable.

I'm fine with that characterization, actually. And I wear that and so should you.

Shirley McClain there's a scene in the hospital. It's so overwrought. I mean, there's some good moments in there, but I call this one a lithgow. Nobody says exactly. You just list all the other actors. I would think of Shirley McClain. I think of Know. Obviously, supporting is really good. Daniels is good. But John Lithgow in the movie. I don't even remember John Lithgow in Terms of Endearment. That's how forgettable he is.

Just for clarification. Are these Lithgow performances or just how much you enjoyed the art?

I do a combination, actually. When we're doing top fives that we do, if it's top five movies of 2000, obviously it's just the movie. But when it's an individual actor, I take into account how I felt about the entire movie and how I felt about the performance.

So why was Cliffhanger number four?

Because I didn't love the movie, but I thought his performance was outstanding.

He was a great villain.

Number two?

Number two footloose. John Lithgow played a character that if you've ever been in high school or ever wanted to go back to high school, he's the exact type of person and the adult in your life that tells you, no, you can't do it, you won't do it, because we're going to do it my way. And those are the type of characters that I have disdain for. But his performance was outstanding.

John Lithgow, also in that classification of knowing the secret to aging is looking 50 for 40 years.

Yeah.

That is also the way I shake off daily frustrations. I go dance at a warehouse. Number one, David, the best performance I've.

Seen is in a movie called The World according to Garp.

Really just hitting that young audience. Go ahead.

No, but I'm 41 years ago, this movie came out on a side note. I have a son who's a junior in college and he is watching movies from the he was born in 2003. He's doing it because he wants to be a cinephile. He actually wants to do it without googling or reading critics lists. Movies.

Help me with that. I should have your son on. Once he watches movies, I'll have him. That'd be good.

We are almost out of time, Adnan. So give us your top five. Fast as you can, please.

You got it. Number five bombshell. John Lithcop playing Roger Ailes. And it's a current film, I might add. Fantastic.

Number four.

Number four. Cliffhanger.

Cliffhanger.

Number three.

Number three raising Cane.

Oh, come on.

Number two harry and the Hendersons. My man can make a family movie, too.

Stop it.

And number one killers of the Flower Moon working with Scorsese. It's the best picture of the earth.

You are such a.

The floor is vanishing beneath me.