Rewatchables Reference

• Winner: The soda can beating (Mick loads pillowcase with soda cans, beats Viking and Tweety).
• Runner-up: The final fight between Mick and Paco.
• Also: Walking into juvie / the spit parade; learning the point system; Horowitz telling Mick he's the new barn boss.

• The prison hierarchy (barn bosses, drug guys, gambling, cigarette economy).
• Illinois State Penitentiary as a filming location.
• Early 80s Chicago as a setting.
• Viking's blonde permafro hairstyle.
• Eric Gurry as Horowitz – makes the movie work as narrator character.
• The gambling/odds element ('What are the odds on me now?' 'Three to two, against you').

• Bill: Final scene wide shot of Penn walking back to his cell, everyone reassembling.
• Chris: The one-take shot of Mick being introduced to the reform school – camera pans around to all the guys clapping.

• Chris: Whatever song Viking is listening to before the boombox explodes in his face.
• Bill: The song playing when Tweety leaves juvie with the boombox ('Superstar, you're a star').

Mick's escape to see his girlfriend – he gets there, is there for 90 seconds, gets caught immediately. Too abrupt.

• Manual steering / the car scene where Mick hits Paco's younger brother (no power steering).
• The title – confused with the 1995 Will Smith 'Bad Boys'.
• Boomboxes (don't exist anymore).
• The movie cribbed from the 1979 British film 'Scum'.
• The rape scene – brutal, drawn out, characteristic of the era.

• Chris as Stephen A. Smith: J.C.'s dad is the worst dad of all time – at what point do you move your daughter away from Chicago?
• Bill: Esai Morales is a 'fucking awesome actor' who had no parts because of the era; in 2022 there would be parts galore.

• Matt Dillon wanted the role of Mick. Rosenthal said Dillon had 'already done the role in My Bodyguard' and was too big a star.
• They wanted someone the audience was still discovering, which is why they went with Penn.

• Paco's mom ('you don't think that's something that makes you a man?').
• Under-acting award: Paco's younger brother barely reacts to being hit by a car.

• Winner: Renny Santoni (Poppy from Seinfeld; also in Cobra).
• Clancy Brown discussed but considered to have graduated beyond that-guy status.

• Eric Gurry as Horowitz – went toe-to-toe with Sean Penn, matched him in every scene.
• He quit acting, became an investment banker.

• No one can play Mick O'Brien in 2023.
• Chris's pick: Jack O'Connell (did the movie 'Starred Up' set in prison).

• Sean Penn broke his ankle during filming; production stopped for 3 months.
• Penn wanted his teeth filed down and capped with ugly ones; his mom stopped him.
• Opening credits photos were real-life photos of Sean Penn and other actors.
• Penn encouraged actors to actually spit on him; Esai Morales required them to use mouthwash first.
• Penn rode with Chicago police for a couple days; got roughed up by a cop who thought he was a street thug.
• The movie they watch in juvie is 'Kiss of Death' (1947).
• Jamie Lee Curtis has a cameo walking on the street.
• Rosenthal turned down 20-22 films after 'Bad Boys', didn't know he was 'hot,' then made 'American Dreamer' which bombed.

• Young Sean Penn: Bill says yes; Chris says At Close Range is his apex.
• Rick Rosenthal: Yes.
• Clancy Brown: No – Shawshank (Captain Hadley).
• Esai Morales: No – La Bamba.
• Exploding boomboxes: Yes.
• Juvie movies: Yes.

• Paco's crew carrying a suitcase of drugs for 5 blocks through downtown Chicago conspicuously.
• Would they really have a soda machine in juvie? So many ways to use cans as weapons.
• Mick didn't get additional time for escaping.
• Putting Paco in the same room as Viking (terrible admin decision).
• Not locking doors at night in the cells.

• Both very enthusiastic – a 5-season juvenile hall drama.
• Chris: 'It'd be hard to cap how many episodes of this show I would watch'.
• References The Wire dipping into juvie; Sleepers doing it in a dark way.

• Did 'Bad Boys' create 'Oz' (the TV show)?
• Would Eric Gurry have made it as an actor?
• What would the plot of 'Bad Boys' 2 have been?
• Would you rather take 4 weeks solitary or 4 months added to your time?

• Bill: Tuff Turf (1985) with James Spader.
• Chris: 'The Warriors'.

Bill and Chris: The exploded boombox.

• Bill: Everyone needs a barn boss.
• Chris: You can never have too many sodas on hand.

Sean Penn – unanimous.

• Craig had never seen the movie. Found the first 30 minutes (pre-prison) a little cheesy.
• Once they got to prison with Horowitz, the boombox, and Viking, he was all in.
• Horowitz won the movie for him – he wants a Horowitz spinoff.