{"id":393716,"date":"2026-04-11T19:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T19:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/393716\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T19:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T19:54:08","slug":"bill-simmons-says-sf-film-had-most-famous-movie-moment-of-the-90s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/393716\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Simmons says SF film had ‘most famous movie moment’ of the ’90s"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday night, a sea of balding millennial men in Bay Area sports apparel (I count myself among this lucky group) poured into the American Conservatory Theater<\/a> in San Francisco for a live taping of the Ringer\u2019s \u201cThe Rewatchables\u201d podcast<\/a>, a beloved movie-focused offering from Bill Simmons\u2019 podcast empire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although Simmons is best known for his sports takes, \u201cThe Rewatchables\u201d has become one of the Ringer\u2019s most popular podcasts, earning a spot on Spotify\u2019s Top 100 list and in\u00a0Netflix\u2019s burgeoning podcast library. Each week, the podcasters \u2014 Simmons was joined onstage by Mallory Rubin, Chris Ryan and Van Lathan\u00a0\u2014 dissect a classic movie, handing out awards that are both serious (Most rewatchable scene) and absurd (the \u201cRon Burgundy flute\u201d award for the best time for a pee break.)<\/p>\n

On the docket for the San Francisco live show: \u201cBasic Instinct,\u201d which Simmons called a \u201cMount Rushmore San Francisco movie,\u201d where he said it joins \u201cVertigo,\u201d \u201c48 Hours\u201d and \u201cMrs. Doubtfire.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 1992 erotic thriller takes place mostly in San Francisco and Stinson Beach (although many of the Stinson Beach scenes were actually shot in Carmel<\/a>). It features Michael Douglas as an addiction-addled San Francisco Police Department cop working on a murder case and a star-making performance from Sharon Stone as his prime suspect.<\/p>\n

For those who haven\u2019t seen \u201cBasic Instinct,\u201d it\u2019s important to know two things: Don\u2019t watch this movie with your parents, and, contrary to what the film would lead you to believe, it actually is frowned upon for a detective to sleep with his main suspect and\/or his therapist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The podcasters were up front that, while they adore the film, they don\u2019t take it too seriously. Throughout the evening they made fun of the movie\u2019s lack of subtlety including its many outrageous sex scenes. \u201cBasic Instinct\u201d nearly earned an NC-17 rating upon its release and the live podcast was hardly any cleaner. If you plan on listening to this podcast in a public place when it\u2019s released next week, I can\u2019t stress enough the importance of using headphones.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among other things, discussion points from the evening included a lengthy debate about whether or not Douglas and Stone were wearing genital guards during sex scenes, Rubin arguing the film featured \u201csome of the most guttural orgasm sounds ever entered to the public recorded on film,\u201d and Simmons declaring the movie\u2019s infamous leg-crossing scene<\/a> to be \u201cthe most famous movie moment of the \u201990s.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to all the NSFW chatter, the podcasters made a point of singing San Francisco\u2019s praises as an ideal movie setting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sky, the light, the fog, there\u2019s like an atmospheric element that San Francisco movies tend to bring into play,\u201d said Ryan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are lying about your city. When I came around here, I expected to see Batman patrolling the streets. It\u2019s f\u2014king gorgeous,\u201d Lathan said, echoing other sports media personalities<\/a> who were surprised to learn reports of the city\u2019s demise were greatly exaggerated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was far from the only time the hosts played to the city crowd. Simmons gave the \u201cWhat\u2019s aged the best\u201d award to \u201cpre-tech San Francisco\u201d;\u00a0Lathan wondered aloud if the film would have been improved with the inclusion of 49ers legend Jerry Rice; and Ryan went a step further by introducing the inaugural \u201cCR is pandering to the audience award for safest home field take\u201d and declaring that San Francisco is the best movie city.<\/p>\n

The podcasters, who all live in Southern California, even learned some useful lessons about Bay Area nomenclature.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was warned by multiple San Francisco [people] not to say \u2018San Fran,\u2019\u201d said Simmons. \u201cThe San Francisco people don\u2019t like it. So do you have a nickname for San Francisco or no?\u201d<\/p>\n

This devolved into a short back-and-forth with the crowd over the merits of \u201cFrisco\u201d versus \u201cSF.\u201d Much like the ending<\/a> of \u201cBasic Instinct,\u201d the conclusion about San Francisco\u2019s correct nickname was left rather ambiguous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Wednesday night, a sea of balding millennial men in Bay Area sports apparel (I count myself among…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270,169079,174340],"class_list":{"0":"post-393716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-sfgculture","13":"tag-sfgsports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}