Excuse the Intermission
Alex and Max take you on a journey through film with this discussion podcast about movies.
Excuse the Intermission
Our Kevin Costner Batting Lineups + 'Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter One'
Did Kevin Costner's latest film "Horizon: An American Saga Chapter One" redefine the Western genre or miss the mark? Join us for an in-depth exploration of Costner's storied career, from his rise to fame in the late '80s and '90s to his current passion projects. We'll recount our early morning Cinemark viewing of "Horizon" and discuss its potential impact on Costner’s legacy, comparing his bold career choices with contemporaries like Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford.
We'll lay bare our mixed feelings about "Horizon," praising its stunning visuals while critiquing its convoluted plotlines and fragmented storytelling. This episode takes a closer look at the innovative release strategy, presenting the film in an extended, episodic format. We'll dive into standout performances, with notable mentions of Abby Lee's compelling portrayal and the intriguing Apache tribe subplot, while also considering Costner's significant financial commitment to this ambitious project.
From the box office implications to casting decisions, we analyze the multi-faceted storylines within "Horizon" and share insights from an exclusive interview with Costner himself. Our conversation wraps up with a spirited debate on the best Kevin Costner films, ranking them in a hypothetical baseball lineup. Whether you're a die-hard Costner fan or just a movie enthusiast, this episode promises a comprehensive look at his enduring legacy and latest cinematic venture.
How's it? I'm Alex McCauley, I'm Max Fosberg and this is Excuse the Intermission a discussion show surrounding movies and, on this week, the career of Kevin Costner. Costner's new film, his 20-year-in-the-making passion project, horizon and American Saga Chapter One, is in theaters nationwide and giving us a chance to reflect on one of the great modern-day Hollywood careers. We'll talk about the films of Costner's, our thoughts on Horizon, maybe even a few other things that we fit into our schedules recently. Those conversations up next on the other side of this break.
Speaker 2:This episode is brought to you by the Seattle Film Society. The Seattle Film Society is a filmmaker-run project dedicated to organizing, cultivating and celebrating the region's filmmaking community Through screenings, educational opportunities and community initiatives. Seattle Film Society strives to be a centralizing force for Seattle-area filmmakers.
Speaker 1:Their monthly screening event, Locals Only, is held at 18th and Union in Seattle's Central District and spotlights local voices in independent filmmaking. Tickets start at $10 and are available at seattlefilmsocietycom To keep up with the Seattle Film Society.
Speaker 2:be sure to check them out on Instagram or Letterboxd at seattlefilmsociety or on their website, seattlefilmsocietycom.
Speaker 1:Come be a part of the next generation of Seattle filmmaking today. All right, max, we're back. We're recording on what? July 2nd, but this episode will be released on the 4th of July. On the 4th of July, happy 4th, yeah, happy Independence Day to you. We'll probably both be out on the water, I'm sure, somewhere together, the same residence, maybe out in a secret location yeah, a secret location, um, near the purdy spit, though purdy spit for those in the pacific northwest usually delivers pretty well on the fourth of july as far as fireworks go, so that'll be fun.
Speaker 1:The fourth is, of course, always a very good time to binge movies or TV shows or go out to the theaters, and we did that this morning bright and early to consume what is Costner's perhaps final, the start of the final chapter of his career. Who's to say, who's to say, but it feels like this was a pretty momentous event for him and just I mean big for us like this. This was an eye-opener. You talked about it a couple episodes ago, but the cinemark, the rustin cinemark, like 8 am, 9 am window start time, is remarkable it's amazing, I'm right there with you.
Speaker 2:It's the best. It's by far the best way to experience movies during the summer.
Speaker 1:It's going to be a new thing now. I didn't even realize I'm a member at Cinemark, so you got the Member Tuesdays Member Tuesdays you go early for a matinee, it's a good price regardless. And wow, yeah, I just I feel like I can see so much more now. And wow, yeah, I just I feel like I can see so much more now and especially so many more mainstream movies that will be released in you know, big high definition formats, like we could have seen this film today in what is it D-Box? Is that your 4D? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, XD. They asked. They asked me if I wanted to see it in D-Box, which would have been fascinating.
Speaker 1:To know when those cues, the movement, yeah, would have hit. Yeah, it would have been weird, like like every time, I guess, like a lot of horse riding. Horse riding, oh yeah, horse riding would have been good. You think there would have been a jolt every single time someone's impaled by an arrow. Perhaps that could have been a lot, um, but, but I digress a little bit. We we're here to talk about kevin costner. We're here to talk about horizon. Where do you want to start? Kind of, who does costner mean to you? There's, we want to try to keep this episode under the runtime of horizon, so we're aiming for under three hours here. A lot to unpack, though, so I know you've been doing the work for a long time costner is fascinating.
Speaker 2:Uh, he is you. You know in the nineties, you know late eighties to mid nineties. He is like the A-lister, right, like he is the number one box office draw, no matter if the movie is bonkers, if the movie is good, if the movie doesn't really even like make sense, but somehow becomes a cult classic.
Speaker 1:Um, kevin costner was a huge a-list box office draw uh, and just to interject real quick because something that I've thought about and going back and looking at his filmography, I grew up having almost his entire career on display on my family's VHS shelf growing up, so I had a ton of these movies in my life for a long, long time. It's interesting, though, because, even though as a kid, I can remember seeing a lot of these for the first time, he is unlike a Tom Hanks or some of these other people from that same era Harrison Ford, even a little bit where he never really made movies for kids, families a little bit, but most of his stuff is pretty adult. Turn him into this, this goofball, this quirky guy that'll go out on a limb and take a chance on these movies, whether or not he finances them or not. But but right, like he's not going back through his cv, you're not like, oh, here's where I get to like the toy story part right here's where I get to the indiana jones movies well, no one believes in costner more than costner
Speaker 2:right, it's true, like he is, very true his, his, um, confidence, self-confidence is remarkable all through his career, I mean from the beginning where I think he had one line on some movie and he made the director, do you know, 13 takes of it because he just wasn't getting the right read for the character, right read for the character. Um, to where now he's making this grandiose western, four-part episodic western film, yeah, four-part film. Uh, that has really never kind of been done this way before, um, and he's, you know, he's put most a lot of his own money into this production, um, but you know, he, he he's just, he's a fascinating guy because I've also heard him talk about where he thinks he is like jimmy stewart, like he is, he is car, he is Cary Grant, you know which? I don't think he is no.
Speaker 1:I don't either.
Speaker 2:At all, but that's the kind of like self confidence that this man has in himself.
Speaker 1:Those actors from like the golden era of Hollywood just had way too. They have so much charisma and that's not to say that costner isn't charismatic but in a lot of the movies that I think he's most known for he's kind of brooding and a lot of them but also without being this like classical hollywood tough guy like a bruce willis or somebody like that, where, like you think about bruce willis and some movies and yeah, he maybe or maybe not, delivers some big emotional monologue or impactful speech. Costner has some moments like that, but he also just kind of doesn't. He doesn't really talk a whole lot in his movies either.
Speaker 1:Like there's one in particular that I watched for the first time, um, this week that I'll get to a little bit later when I'm talking about my kind of career highlights and I'm like, wow, this movie should impact me. I still enjoyed it, but it should impact me way more emotionally. But like Costner just doesn't give you that much. It's so, he's so reserved and I think that he thinks he is one of those like classical Hollywood leading men, but he just doesn't quite have that I. It's funny to hear you talk about guys who he, I suppose, has compared himself to in the past because I was trying to think about who is kevin costner now and the closest name I got to was like ryan gosling, because gosling has kind of like an odd filmography there during certain spans of his career and does a lot of this nonverbal communication stuff as well.
Speaker 1:Like you think about his very limited dialogue in something like Drive, blade Runner 2049. Yeah, blade Runner 2049. Those are kind of movies that I could see if Costner was 32 right now. Could see him being drawn to parts like that. So that was kind of my modern day comp. Could see him being drawn to parts like that, so that was kind of my modern day comp. But so that just kind of goes to show you that he's on this wide spectrum of actors and he is just kind of a one-of-one though where he stands out as yeah, I mean he wrote Horizon, so as a screenwriter he's directed a ton of movies obviously, and then as like a leading man in Hollywood.
Speaker 2:I guess that's the other side to his coin, right, is that he is also like a very accomplished filmmaker. This accomplished artist right and filmmaker, academy award winning, Academy award winning for Dances with Wolves, I mean, and I think, because of that moment with Dances with Wolves, I think that allowed him to continue to take these wild swings, yeah, cause that was some pretty early.
Speaker 1:That was that success was pretty early on in his career where he really became like a leading man around the mid to late eighties and then dances with wolves happens in 1990. Right, so that I do think that that was. That was very fortuitous for his future career, because it did kind of give him this blank check.
Speaker 2:And he continues to spend it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's never let I think the people around him forget. Let I think the people around him forget. And he's one of these guys too where, when you look back at the credits on a lot of his movies where he gets the same people producing and writing and stuff like that, so he did find his team that just kind of lets him cook. And there's stories of him taking over certain productions and directors being quote, unquote, fired, where Costner's probably the one directing a healthy fraction of the film as opposed to whoever ends up being credited at the end of the film. So he is. But he's also not one of these guys that you hear stories of him being like an asshole on sets, like seems to be well liked amongst his peers and his contemporaries. But I do think that people just kind of like in a way that maybe people kind of let Clint Eastwood sort of do whatever he wants to do, like kind of let Costner do whatever he wants to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean he's had such a huge he does have, he does hold this like very uh. You know strong power of um. Uh, you know strong power of um. Uh. You know influence, I guess, or or or power of. You know people are drawn to them, uh, and I think you you witnessed that when you watch the movies, but also, I think, from some of the behind the scenes stories. You know in one of the movies that I'm going to talk about my lineup, you know I'll just throw it out there. It's called a perfect world and it's directed by clint eastwood. Eastwood was never going to act in that movie until costner talked him into it. Costner had already been uh cast and you know he like went to eastwood and was like it's one of my dreams to act against you on screen. So there we go, like this can be the the passing of the torch.
Speaker 1:You know I am you again him thinking of himself in these very yeah you know, traditional classical ways, right?
Speaker 2:or, or you know, kevin reynolds, who he made three films with. I think there's a quote out there where he's like yeah, I had to drag kevin reynolds across the finish line for fandango, for robin hood, prince of greeve, tell me this, and now water world. Yeah, kind of under the bus yeah, totally throws them under the bus. But but yeah, it's really interesting and you know he is obviously had a huge resurgence lately because of the show Yellowstone, which now he's I'm pretty sure he's not coming back to.
Speaker 1:There's some sort of labor dispute. I was talking to my dad. My dad's a bit of a Kevin Costner expert, as most dads are, as most dads are Right, like that's, that's where all these VHS is growing up came from. Was, like my dad, just loving field of dreams and for love of the game and JFK and, and I'm sure both of my parents were into him, but like it is such like dad core his, his movies, um and and yeah, my dad huge Yellowstone fan, so he's kept me up to date on the whole.
Speaker 1:On, you know, this was a big collaboration between kevin costner and taylor sheridan and now it's become this other thing where costner's breaking away from taylor sheridan and it's funny because you can say that horizon is costner from probably 1990 and I know we wanted to get the film made as early as like 2000, so so it has been 20 to 30 years in the making, but it really feels like a direct response to the last five years working on Yellowstone and especially after and you know we've already mentioned that we saw the movie earlier today, so it's fresh in both our minds. I feel like I just went to the movie theaters and watched three episodes of a TV show, which I'm not complaining about at all, but it just feels. It just feels like Yellowstone and I know there's been Yellowstone prequels, 1883 or whatever. I'm sorry if I got that year wrong, but that is what Horizon is. It's just an extension of this fascination that he's had and that is mostly, and especially most recently, been told on TV with the American West.
Speaker 2:Horizon is if we want to get into Horizon now.
Speaker 1:Let's do Horizon, and then we'll do our special edition Kevin Costner batting lineup.
Speaker 2:Horizon is really interesting because it is first off. It's three hours long.
Speaker 1:Max and I have yet to share our thoughts on this. I don't know, I just pumped out my Letterboxd review. Yeah, I don't know if you read it yet.
Speaker 2:I haven't opened it up yet. Okay, it is.
Speaker 1:Did you like the film? Let's start with that.
Speaker 2:I didn't like it as much as I thought I would like it. I didn't like it as much as I thought I would like it. I didn't care for it that much. I thought it was pretty empty. There's lots of plot going on, there's lots of plot lines, there's lots of characters. There's lots of names. I don't know who's who, other than like the actors, Like yeah, the Will Patton, Luke Wilson storyline, yeah, or the Sienna Miller, sam Worthington.
Speaker 2:They're sitting in Kansas and they're on a wagon trail and they're doing this. Or the Sienna Miller storyline with her daughter and fucking Avatar boy Sam Worthington and he's in the Calvary, or whatever. And that's in Montana and that's yeah, that's in Montana and then Costner's in Wyoming, with Abby Lee's in Montana and then Costner's in Wyoming.
Speaker 1:With.
Speaker 2:Abby Lee's yeah, helping Jenna Malone's sister escape some men.
Speaker 1:Some men who I'm fascinated by.
Speaker 2:I do love the aesthetic. I think you know obviously we're on location shooting this film. However, they are shooting on digital and it it looks very much like a tv. Like it looks I don't know if it's shot 30 frames per second, but it looks like it's shot 30 frames per second, which is how, how like soap operas are shot. So like that is. For me personally is really hard to get over when I'm watching it in theater.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have a cinema look to it the way that something like there will be blood.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or filmed in a similar or like shot on a similar location.
Speaker 2:Yeah, honestly. So it looks a lot more like the Hobbit, right, as opposed to because the Hobbit is 30 frames per second and like it, just it. It has an interest, it has like a um, it's just a higher frame rate and, like your, movements are just a lot more smoothed out as opposed to a traditional film which is shot at 24 frames per second and really can have like some character if you're creative with the camera. But, um, so it does very much look like a tv show and again, lots of plot lines, lots of characters, but not really a story going on. No real story. We're pretty empty for me, other than the one part that I keep like that I loved is when he's walking up to Jenna Malone's sister's house and this, this other, this bad guy is following him and there's a cool moment where the guy gets behind cover and just starts shooting and it's a water trough and it shows the water trough and in the reflection of the water trough, Costner has moved to another position and then just shoots him in the face, right.
Speaker 2:Very exciting, Very cool. I loved that part. And then some of the moments after that too, where he's like you got a little bit of time to get out of here or whatever, and or, like you know, he like nods to his buddy in town.
Speaker 1:It's like it's very much like just it's a man with a gun in a western yeah, yeah, yeah and it is funny that he has given himself he's that role in this whole movie, which is what you expect. It's totally what you expect, of course it's totally what you expect.
Speaker 1:It's also really interesting he doesn't show up until like an hour into the movie right, yes, an hour in, you're just like where the fuck is costner so the man you alluded to, kind of this, this rough neck, what's his name? Do you know how? So? So he's part of the sykes family, the the sykes family, um, and he's the younger brother of junior sykes. Um, junior sykes is played by john beavers. John beavers I'm I took out a second mortgage and I'm buying all the stock that I can't fellow for for john beavers this guy is.
Speaker 1:This guy is superstar, um potential, and him a couple people in this movie I'll get to him when them when I start talking about what I like about it. But I do think that, just in regards to that, the particular light in which Costner has chosen to paint his character in this film, who I'm going to pull up his name here too, because he has a great name in this Hayes Ell'm gonna pull up his name here too, because he has a great name in this um, hayes ellison is very I I thought it was methodical and it was for me it really worked to not meet the kevin costner character until the second. You can't call them chapters, because this movie is all chapter one but and so I guess just the second segment of chapter one, and so it's not until you're in the first into the first and or second, however way you want to kind of word that um hour of the film. And so I I really appreciated that because it allowed me to kind of like set my footing, get familiar and comfortable with the time period, sort of what the conflicts are going to be. We go through that whole first segment with the introduction to the sienna mill character in this homestead, which is obviously the most important thing because that is horizon, that is what I guess we're supposed to assume is like second generation horizon settlers trying to make life on this river that is hunted by indigenous Apache Native Americans. And so I really liked that we didn't that we that we were able to just have that whole first segment without feeling like 10 minutes in or 20 minutes in, costner's going to show up and he's going to be this Mod Podge of all the other Western Costner characters of the past and it's just going to be microwaved really quick and we're just supposed to digest it and off we go with Horizon.
Speaker 1:I thought that that was a really good choice and it really helped me just find my footing and and appreciate the movie more. I think, because it wasn't I, I felt like there was immediately I could understand that there's going to be a pace to this and maybe we, maybe I, get everything that I I want to get in chapter one and maybe I don't. But with the knowledge that there's going to be a chapter two, I'm okay with it and we'll see about three and four. That'll be an interesting conversation because now, after seeing chapter one, and maybe we should save this to the end, but like, I'm really excited for chapter two. But we both know it's not like we went to an advanced screening or anything like this, like we already know what this movie did weekend one at the box office. And if it's any indication of the public's response and their desire to consume more content like this and like yellowstone and everything else, it's not there right now. And so what does that mean for chapter two? And we can talk about? Let's talk about that at the end, but just kind of something to think about because I'm like the way that this story played out. There's a lot of characters that I wish I could spend more time with.
Speaker 1:That's my biggest knock on the movie, even though going into it. Hell of a trailer. First time I saw a trailer, I believe, was before Dune part two. So I was hooked then and thought, cool, like I'm, I'm in, as ridiculous as this might look, as bizarre and as kind of like unprecedented, as the presentation of this film is saying this in two chapters.
Speaker 1:And on that first trailer they told us that chapter two would be coming out like six weeks after chapter one. Just, it's never been done. We've never seen it done before. But we love a big swing, right, we always say this swing for the fences, and so I knew, going into this one, that I would probably like it. I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought. I feel like it's a, it's a low 80 for me right now. So somewhere like you have four stars, I think, somewhere between like an 82 and an 85, um, because honestly, for the three hour runtime I could I, I wanted more. Like I wanted more right away. I and that's not to say that like I wanted chapter two right away, because I don't necessarily I wanted more from the characters that I met in chapter one yeah like I wanted to see more.
Speaker 1:There's a very interesting decision that um abby lee's character plays maria gold, who's kind of the running mate of costner during his story. I I needed to see more events that led up to the final decision that she ends up making when we leave her character in this movie. So I'm like there's more. Even though the movie's three hours long, there's more to be seen during this film. The Apache tribe that we're with that makes the attack on the Sienna Miller homestead on the Horizon lander homestead on on the horizon land. Um I they kind of like split up and and they go off into two different um factions and I we don't revisit that during chapter one and I'm like I need to see more of that.
Speaker 1:There were some very interesting characters that we were introduced to then. So for as long as it was, I'm so happy. When we went to an early screening because I had my coffee, I was reclined in my seat, but for the most part I was like I held my attention. I was like ready to go and wanted more. So I'm I can definitely recommend this movie, but only to I think you know this is not for. You know, kevin Costner did not make this for the TikTokers. He did not make this for probably anybody under our age or under our demographic, because this is like. This is episodic, this is a time investment. This is asking a lot of your audience to buy in.
Speaker 2:It's really interesting that they went to theaters with this, like if this goes just straight to paramount plus as a mini series, I think it's. I I think it has much more of an impact, much more of a cultural moment. Footprint, yeah, um, and maybe because that would be just like directly in competition with Yellowstone is why they did do that. But again, I mean, we know the numbers from the weekend.
Speaker 1:What's Yellowstone on? And am I dumb for not knowing that CBS? I believe Yellowstone's CBS, I think so. Okay, so that would be paramount, that would be paramount.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Why did I think it was like AMC or something. We could both be totally wrong on this. I have no idea what Yellowstone's on. I'm pretty sure it's Paramount Yellowstone might be Showtime, who knows, who knows Okay.
Speaker 2:Who knows, we digress. Well, yeah, no, I think it is CBS. Anyways, yeah, so this, even like the end, is a preview montage of things.
Speaker 1:Next week on Game of Thrones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, which I've never seen, that I've never, ever seen that at a movie theater.
Speaker 1:You turned and looked at me and I just kind of had this dumbfounded smile on my face. I did not like that, no, but at the same time, again, never seen it done before, never seen that done. And so you know, I I feel like this was a big saying of mine two years ago or something just show me something, show me something. And guess what, like that was that was, that was out of pocket. What they did there, like that was just, it was too much they. They were doing way too much in that moment, and I can see why, or I can see how, like in the pitch meeting or whatever, in the writer's room, like this, think about it.
Speaker 1:Just like smash cut to this and we're going to show all these new characters and we're going to show characters that you already know and they're going to be in different settings and they're going to be interacting with each other and you're not going to know how they got, how they got to meet. Like I, the execution was just, it just went so off the rails, um and so, that that definitely works against like a four and a half or certainly a five star rating for me. It was like that is just not the way you end a movie. Yeah, it's just not. Um, but again like kudos, and my hat's off to you for for attempting it, costner it's also really interesting.
Speaker 2:I was listening to an interview with him with costner this week.
Speaker 1:How is his press tour? I haven't paid any attention to it. He's got pretty good. He's got to be out there working right like if he, because he's still looking for money.
Speaker 2:He can't put up 40 million dollars every time he wants to make one of these right, yeah, he's got one and two made and he's trying to raise the money for three and four and one and two reportedly has cost or he has spent is it 38 million of his own money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow. And it's so funny because he's like I'm sure this is a sales tactic, but also like just an odd thing to say, where he's just, he was on an interview show and he was like, well, you know, horizon three, that's where all the shit's going to go down, that's when it really takes off. It's just like what are you doing? Is that because you've made the first two and like you're just like shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anything here. So I got to dangle this carrot in front of everybody now. Uh, yeah, I don't like that. I need to watch. I feel like he would be a very interesting person in an interview. Yeah, I need to go back and get caught up on some of this stuff before he's chapter 10 is out.
Speaker 2:He's pretty candid about stuff and he's pretty, you know uh up front about most things.
Speaker 1:It seems like uh so so, out of kind of the three chapters that we got, we have the mon, we have the montana, which is focused on the building of the settlement that's called horizon. We have wyoming, which is costner and abby lee, and they're kind of like on the run journey that they go on, and then we're in kansas, on the santa fe trail out west, with luke wilson. We don't get introduced to that storyline until like to the very end, like almost like two and a half hours into the movie. So so of the three, kind of break them down, what did you like, what did you dislike about each of those?
Speaker 2:Well, I think my favorite one was I think, obviously, is the Coster Wyoming story. Yeah, when I'm going into a movie with Kevin Costner a Western with Kevin Costner on the poster, directed by Kevin Costner, written by Kevin Costner Produced, yeah, I want to watch Kevin Costner walk around and ride horses and shoot people, uh-huh.
Speaker 1:So I think You're a simple man. Yeah, are you not? Do you have a kid out there somewhere and listen?
Speaker 2:I think Dad core If he makes just that Wyoming movie. You know, say it's a 90-minute movie where he goes into a town there's some bad guys. Where he goes into a town, there's some bad guys, he saves a damsel and they ride off and we're going into Horizon 2. Like that's a great Western movie. It's a lot more traditional.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a lot more of re-microwaved things that we've seen and kind of like you waited 20 years to just tell this story.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah, but it would have been fine. This is definitely much more grandiose, right, the idea of you know different plots going on at the same time and all that, all that jazz, but but yeah, so I, I really enjoyed that. I, I love that part of the american west, you know where it's like wooded, but like we still have planes. There's it looks a little cold, but oh yeah, it's like wooded, but like we still have planes there's.
Speaker 1:It looks a little cold, but oh yeah it's snowy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So, um, I was enjoying that. Uh, I think. Honestly, I think my least favorite of the three is the Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay. Um and which is definitely the most action packed and the one that I think we are supposed to have the most emotional ties to right now, because we've seen a lot of death and we've spent the most time with those characters in in chapter one, but it didn't work for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't even know really why.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's got the most action, but like was sienna miller not doing her brooklyn accent from 21 bridges and that did it for you so then, miller, not that great, sam worthington not that great.
Speaker 2:You get both of them on screen at the same time here's that great.
Speaker 1:Can I tell you something that I put at the end of my letterbox review? I said a phenomenal job all around by the casting director because I really, I really appreciated a lot of the performances, and especially a lot of the performances from these unknown actors. Like I thought the the girl, the young woman, georgina McFall, who played Lizzie Kittredge, who is Sienna Miller's daughter, star in the making, deanna Miller's daughter, star in the making, like she hasn't say much, very few lines, but her eyes and the way that they can dart around, and how she performed during the raid scene. Like you know who I kept thinking of. I was like, oh, this hidden penitentiary. No, julia Butters, you better, you better come back with something quick, cause you're about to get market corrected by by this woman, because this girl, this she's, if she wants it, I think she's got it like she could launch herself into, into the next level of superstardom she was.
Speaker 1:She was really good, but at the same time, her as a young actress sienna miller, abby lee who abby lee had stock in her since you know she was one of the five wives and fury or in mad max fury road, and then she's great. This was a fun little for all the nicholas wending reffin fans out there. This was a big neon demon reunion for jenna malone and abby lee. But so abby lee's awesome. She worked with gaspar no before. Like some of my favorite directors, she's awesome in this movie.
Speaker 1:All of these people way too beautiful to be in covered wagon times, though, and I and so I put at the end of my review I was like we almost can't make these rugged period pieces anymore because of how good looking everybody is. Yeah, like they're just, and that's why I really some of the, some of the smaller moments in this film, like there's a really, really intense uh scene in a like at a trading outpost of sorts where there's a bunch of men and they're with one of the boys from the horizon homestead that has decided to branch off and go try to track down these Apache who have who have raided their village and and killed their family members. And they are in this, this trade store, trying to buy a gun from the most Shea Whigham lookalike I've ever seen before. I got to look up his name because I thought it was Shea at first. I was so excited. But that scene is so intense and all those men are so rugged and feel like they are pulled from an 80s Western movie or something, and so that I really really liked.
Speaker 1:But when, like sienna miller gets pulled out from underground and she is still just like glowing and looking like the most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life, that takes me out of it a little bit and so that's just tough right, because people are just gorgeous nowadays and so it's hard to put them back in 1860 and try to say, oh yeah, this person would have these like perfect curls and like, oh, they're not wearing makeup but like the most beautiful skin you've ever seen, and it's like no, they would.
Speaker 1:Everyone would smell. Like this idea of being clean and using drinking water to like bathe yourself or whatever in the covered wagon story and we'll kind of get to your thoughts on that one too but like some of this stuff just started getting a little ludicrous because of just you know how, how good looking everybody was in this movie, um, but but I digress, the cnd miller stuff I thought was fine, I, I think that it's to me, I think it's probably second to the costner abbey lee story, just because I feel like sooner or later we'll have a merger of those two plot lines, the covered wagon one. Just because we haven't spent as much time with it and I feel like when it came in like that's the one time when the movie tries to have a little bit of a sense of humor is when we're first starting to meet some of these characters really odd, like I was just kind of like I heard you say something. You kind of leaned over and you were just like this is not the same movie, or like what, what is this? You know? Like so what do you? What are your?
Speaker 2:again, we don't spend too much time with it, but like any expanded thoughts on that little segment yeah, you know it is, it is kind of out of left field and but I I really look wilson. I really appreciate seeing luke wilson. Did you okay and will?
Speaker 1:patten.
Speaker 2:Yeah, never gonna, not like will patten on screen I think those two fit in the world pretty well. It is there. Are I mean this couple that they're dealing with the like english couple couple. I think those two fit in the world pretty well. It is there. Are I mean this couple that they're dealing with the like English couple?
Speaker 1:Yeah, very goofy, that's all very goofy and, however you know, they do have that moment where, like they see, like the scouts you know the Apache scouts on on a hillside and they have to like ring up, uh, at night with all the livestock in the middle of the circle the wagons yeah, circle the wagons, Um, so like it me if I'm wrong, but it is very Oregon Trail, right? It was the thing it reminded me of. And I remember you said that you wanted to watch this movie a couple of months ago. I don't know if you ever got to it, but did you ever watch Meek's Cutoff? Yes, okay, in a much more grandiose way, because Meek's Cutoff Kelly Record film, which is so contained, so nuanced, so small but presents a lot like the dread of just being on the open plains and what luke wilson in this film says, like we got 14 hours on foot tomorrow, 14 hours the day the next day, so like, choose how much time you want to spend staying up, worrying about what might happen in the night.
Speaker 1:I feel like that. That's basically the whole vibe of meek's cutoff and and the threat of becoming sick and ill and dying or a wagon wheel busting. You get a little bit of that in this, in this covered wagon story here, when, when we meet all these characters in kansas. So I do think that, like, what I would hope for in chapter two is like more of the despair of of just being on this cross-country covered wagon journey, because I think that could get really, that could get really intense and make for some some really kind of thrilling, um, intention-filled filmmaking, and so I I hope that we get more of that. I just felt like that was. That was the one part that I felt was like kind of under undercooked a little bit.
Speaker 2:This, this go around, though yeah, yeah, we'll have to see I, because it's gonna be crazy, because I think even more people are going to be introduced in chapter two oh, definitely.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, we didn't. Giovanni risbisi. Has giovanni risbisi billing in this movie and he's in it for 30 seconds, 30 seconds hate.
Speaker 2:Uh, thomas hayden church is going to be showing up at some point. Um, yeah, it's gonna be really interesting to see how they continue to do this, or if I'm guessing, if, if part two doesn't do better than what part?
Speaker 1:one did. Well, yeah, this is where, before we get to like Costner and his whole career, we got to talk about like what? What happens? Because, like, if you release this movie as a standalone film and you button it up a little bit more, maybe make it three and a half hour movies, because we know he's made three and a half hour movies in the past and so, like you, just you know, you put a ribbon on this one at the end no-transcript, logical move to do I'm pulling a box office mojo right now because I want to see what this is at.
Speaker 1:It's already fallen in the dailies to fourth place. Bad Boys Ride or Die is making more money than this movie is currently, and that's not good. That film's been out for weeks and is the fourth installment of a film franchise that I think was basically dead after two, but continues to do business. So this is no shade to Will Smith or Martin Lawrence, but continues to do business. So this is no shade to Will Smith or Martin Lawrence. But just looking at Horizon here, it had an opening weekend of $11 million. Over the past couple of days it's only added another million onto that. Total worldwide gross right now is 12.2 mil. That's not going to have. Maybe that gets a second weekend bump because of Word of mouth. But or fourth of july, just more people do go out to the movies this weekend traditionally. But like it's not going to do more than that, like it might make another, I think what would be best case scenario is it makes another five million.
Speaker 2:This is another problem with making these three and a half hour movies. You don't have enough time in the day to show a lot. That's so true you know, to have enough show times to make it up money.
Speaker 1:You and I went to a 9 45 screening and there were only three showings after us right 9 45 in the morning. There's only three other opportunities to see it if you don't go to that early early morning one whereas something like I know we both went and saw quiet place day one yep, 100 minutes.
Speaker 2:this weekend minutes. This weekend, a hundred minutes. I could have seen that. Yeah, I was looking at show times. I could have seen it every hour on the hour. Yep, right. So that's just way more opportunity to get someone to come see your movie.
Speaker 1:I think we'll give that movie a little bit of shine here at the end of this episode. But like that movie crushed. Yeah, that movie did great business, awesome business.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I don't know, and that's a third movie in a in a franchise again that nobody really, I think, was asking for.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's a great story, everyone's enjoyed the film so far, but no one was like we need another quiet place movie um, a lot. In the same way that I don't think anybody was like we need kevin costner's final word on the american west and the great frontier um, true, in the box office is. It's a fickle thing because it is certainly reflective of our feelings on that right now, even though I think you and I were super into it. And 12 million dollars where the people have been into it, but, like with a quiet place, that surprised everybody. I guess we did really need or really want more from that story right now. My thing with with part two I already talked about what I hope they expand on. I think you're right on with introducing new characters, giving giving the characters that we met in chapter one, just deepening their story. It's. It really feels like we're going to be focused a lot more probably on the, the establishment and this like third generation of people who are then going to try to make horizon work as far as a homestead and and it, who knows, maybe just ends up being this like unattainable utopia, like that's a picture they're kind of starting to paint now.
Speaker 1:The giovanni risbisi character is going to be really interesting. Like, is he a good guy? Is he going to be a villain? Like who is he to this story? Because he's, from what we've gathered in 30 seconds worth of screen time, he's like the operator of a printing press, and so I don't know how much sway he has, although you know he's trying to sell the idea of horizon. He is, he is, he is. Keep the beaches open.
Speaker 1:So so I don't know. I don't know what kind of energy he will, he will bring to it, but it I don't know. I'm just, I'm worried that if you didn't go see chapter one, if you don't go see chapter one, why are you going to go see chapter two? And inevitably you're going to have people that saw chapter one that it didn't enjoy it or maybe enjoyed it, but to the point where they're like, once this does go to paramount plus or wherever it ends up, because costner, as like the lead producer and he'll have final, say, I'm like what streaming service ends up having it and that could, he could use that to his advantage a little bit. Like this movie doesn't do well in theaters, pull it after 17 days and then put it out there for more people to see at home so that that drums up excitement for chapter two experiment about putting out a sequel to a movie six weeks after the original put it on streamer.
Speaker 1:Put it on streamer right away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and and get everyone who didn't want to go see a three and a half hour movie to watch it at home, to watch it at home and then go see your, your next that's how you have to do it.
Speaker 1:If the box office is gonna be what it is and I don't think anything's gonna change what it is right now like there there has to be, whether or not that's necessarily a change in their marketing strategy. But you just have to be able to adapt and like right now, this is what the field is telling you is. Your next move, I think, is like get chapter one on a streamer before chapter two comes out, because who's going to go see chapter two? You and I and the rest of the early birds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the other four people who are in the theater today all of whom are baby boomers and older.
Speaker 1:They might not be here in six six weeks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hey, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so so I don't know. Listen I I enjoyed the film. I I hope it has a little bit of a second week bump in its numbers because again we appreciate the effort from Costner. Big swing, huge swing. Let's transition to our batting lineup. Cowboy has never looked better than Costner. No, let me tell you.
Speaker 1:No, and he has a funky hat. He's got like a. It's a mix between like a cowboy hat and a 10 gallon hat. Yeah, it's not like your a cowboy hat and a 10-gallon hat. Yeah, it's not like your traditional cowboy hat. Pulls it off, though. Listen. Men wearing scarves has never looked better in this film and this blue duster he's got going on. Listen. The wardrobe department crushed it on this movie.
Speaker 1:Everyone's looking really good Again, though almost too good. Abby Lee's character the most drip Like her outfit, insane. Okay, so we have not done this since last summer, and I think it's really interesting because the last actor who we did a batting lineup for was Harrison Ford, who I think is a huge contemporary of Kevin Costner, think is a huge contemporary of kevin costner. You could kind of interchange them in a lot of roles, I feel like, and say that this person would have done this just as well as the other person, if not maybe better. Also, I think that the batting order lineup is very apropos for kevin costner because the guy loves sports movies, especially baseball, baseball guy, yep. So so we have our batting order here.
Speaker 1:Think about how a major league baseball manager really any baseball coach constructs their team. You have your leadoff hitter through, you know your power spots. You have your middle of the lineup and then you have your seven, eight, nine batters who still bring something to the table. But you know, maybe they're there's morale guys. They're your catcher, yeah, they're your catcher. They're your left fielder. Um, don't hit every time they get up to the plate. Maybe don't get a hit in every game, but they contribute something. So that's kind of how we've we've delineated our films, we have our, our rosters, one through nine. I'm very interested because we have what 60 something I think I saw like 64 credits on imdb. Oh yeah, so a lot to play with here. Who's? Who's your leadoff batter?
Speaker 2:my leadoff batter. Uh, in the leadoff spot. I want some speed. I need a younger version of Costner. I need someone who can get on base, maybe throw down a bunt every now and then. Someone who's a little sneaky Okay, because this is a sneaky good film For early on in his CV. Tony Scott film called Revenge Okay, we can get him on base and then he can create havoc on the baselines. Uh, tony scott, one of our, our favorites here. Kind of the beginning of like the, the modern version of tony scott. After you know, something like top gun, where he's got like the very like shaky frame speed up the film, kind of stuff going on and you know costner plays kind of a bad guy here. Uh, one of this is such a weird movie.
Speaker 1:One of the like moments when costner never does that so I have this film later on in my lineup, so I'll save my thoughts for it then. I'm happy that you have it, though, and I think it makes sense as to where you have it though. Um, because it introduces that's the other thing that you want your lead off better to do, right. You kind of want them to introduce the opposing pitcher or, in this case, like if we were having a film festival or an audience or whatever introduce them to what like might be to come and and revenge is a good balance. I think of like kind of this, this leading man, romantic lead, kind of Hollywood hard throb, but also this, this guy who sort of is trying to fashion himself as like a drama action star, so, so I think it does both of those things Well, um. So I do like that, those things well. So I do like that. And my leadoff spot maybe this is boring and safe of me, but I think your leadoff hitter. You want your leadoff hitter to be your most well-rounded hitter, hit for a little bit of power, but they're obviously not like batting third or in the cleanup spot or anything like that, but you want them to get on base. You want them to have the highest batting average on your team.
Speaker 1:I think the movie of Kevin Costner's that has the highest approval rating is Bull Durham, and it's a baseball film, so that's why it's in my number one spot. It works every time and it shows you this athletic guy who I think that you. I tried to honestly, it was hard to sort of limit how many sports films I have on my lineup, because I think he is really good as an athlete in his movies, but again, I think this is the best version of that. It's incredible, his, his chemistry with someone who, like Susan Sarandon and Kevin Costner Like I don't think of Kevin Costner as the way that I think of, like Harrison Ford, I'm like I can see why women would just be like fascinated and in love with him or whatever, but he is a Ford, right? Or, yes, I would Harrison Ford. I can see it.
Speaker 1:With Kevin Costner Not so much, but that's why I think this movie works so well, because Susan Sarandon has that same kind of like intangible attraction about her too, where she is not like one of these leading women from the 80s who was just like a knockout, but she's so beautiful and she's so gorgeous and so I think the chemistry between them. It's a love triangle, of course, but the chemistry between those two and we're talking about Costner, I think, works really well. Another one that I just like. Once I was old enough for this one this was not like I just pop it on at any time, but like this movie really works and I've always, I've always got it. It's never been a movie that has like taken a minute for me to appreciate like it's a great sports film, it's a good romance film, it's just the kind of movie that until maybe something like challengers, you don't really make anymore.
Speaker 2:It's yeah, challengers for dads, like honestly, it really is. I mean, there's a love triangle in there, there's lots of good sports action, lots of good sports action.
Speaker 2:Um, it is a really good, solid, clean adult. Like comedy, yeah too, right right. But it is really interesting that you mentioned you don't see Costner as this traditional. He's not Richard Gere, yeah right, and I didn't either. But a lot of the women in my life this week who I've talked to about Costner, they're just like Little H-y, oh yeah, he's daddy, oh no, they're just like, oh yeah, he's daddy. Like he is. He is the like the man, like the rough and tumble man's man.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:It's really strange, and I had no idea there was this kind of underlining like, yeah, costner is very attractive, kind of feel out there. So but uh, bull Durham, surprisingly not in my lineup. Okay, fantastic film, though, and makes a lot of sense in any spot in the lineup. Um, my number two you know the way I set up my lineups. I want my two hitter to be my, my best player, and I think his best performance to date is jfk. I think that is where he is the most consistent. I think he is. He is the showiest, but also at the same time, the coolest.
Speaker 2:He in in a film where there are a lot of strange characters walking around, he is the steady beat he is yes, of that film, also some of his best voice work, which he really tries to go for it sometimes and it really does not work with some of his accents, but I think he does the new orleans thing pretty okay. Um, and it's the first movie I think of when I think of costner to be is this interesting? Yeah, okay, back into the left, back into the left. That whole courtroom monologue moment is, yeah, kind of the ultimate costner moment for me once.
Speaker 1:Once this film hits like the second to third hour of the runtime, it's all.
Speaker 2:It's the costner show it is yeah, yeah, and it takes a little bit to get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah and it's very confusing, but that's an oliver stone film for you.
Speaker 1:That's not a caught, that's no oliver against costner yeah and what I think and I have this later on in my list, so I guess I'll just kind of I'll save some of my thoughts for then. Actually, but, yeah, I, I hear you. I like it in the number two spot. It's coming up shortly for me. In my number two spot I have the bodyguard. The bodyguard for me is in the two spot because for my two hitter, I want them to be a little crazy, I want them to you. You have to have a high batting average. Again, I think that the bodyguard was such like the way. From what I know my mom has told me about the bodyguard because this is I think this is probably my mom's favorite costner movie um, and I'm sure she'll get at me if it's not, because I know she listens and she'll bet me. You know who knows, maybe she's a field of dreams person. She'll be mad because I left that off my list actually. But like, I'm pretty sure it's the body guard and I'm pretty sure because it's like that movie is just so. It's so what's the word I'm looking for? Like outlandish, it's so, like it's crazy, like I was gonna say it's kind of like unrealistic, but then I I didn't want to use a strong word, but it is so unrealistic, like the Whitney Houston character is in so much peril and requires Kevin Costner to put in so much work, whereas, like your number two hitter has got to be ready to go up and hit for power or lay down a bunt. Do all these different things you have to. You know they romantic, romantically entangled in this film. You gotta be ready for that as well. Um, and so this movie is just like bringing everything to the plate, including the best sound, the best selling soundtrack of all of all time. So it's got that going for it.
Speaker 1:I think that, like I, I don't think that it is particularly a great Kevin Costner performance, but he's great in the role, if that makes sense, the right guy for the job he is. If he's not that good at it, he is. Because you think about some of these other actors who we've already talked about. I guess Harrison Ford could have kind of done this role, but I don't think Richard Gere could have done this role. Tom Hanks wouldn't have done this role. All the other people from this time. This was a perfect Kevin Costner performance. Could Cruise have done this role? I don't think so. No, I would not buy Cruise as Whitney Houston's bodyguard. I think Denzel could have done it. I think the movie obtains a different level of prestige, though then at that point, um, and I don't think that, like, yeah, I don't think that tom hanks I don't know if I already said his name, but I just I don't know. This is the perfect costner movie yeah, uh, I love that number three for me.
Speaker 2:I think we might have this one the same the the third person in my lineup is is field of dreams, oh okay, we did not then uh, so field of dreams. For me, this is like the captain of the team, this is the heart and soul. I feel like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Biography, yeah, and therefore it's the heart and soul of the lineup. Uh, you know, this is where he starts calling himself Jimmy Stewart. He calls this his wonderful life. It's a wonderful life for Costner. It's.
Speaker 1:Field of Dreams. I mean, it's that quote-unquote magical and fantastical. It is an insane movie, yeah.
Speaker 2:To go back and read about what it's about and rewatch it Like it is really really strange. So the fact that this even got made in the nineties pretty, pretty wild.
Speaker 1:But I do. I also feel like it makes sense, though Right Like I can't imagine yeah, I can't imagine another time that this film would have gotten me Right. I think this would have gotten laughed at in 2007.
Speaker 2:Totally, totally. But yeah, this is also, I feel, like the kind of the popular vote or the fan favorite.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, this is the one time, I think, going back to what we talked about at the top, where this has the most mass appeal. This is like the family film that I think everyone sits down and watches with their kids. It gets on base. Yes, oh yeah, absolutely yeah. So you want that in your three hole? You do okay in my three hole. I have perhaps not his best performance, but I think I think this is the best movie that he's been a part of, and that's the untouchables this is.
Speaker 2:This is he's in my four spot okay.
Speaker 1:well then, I can imagine it's kind of for some of the same reasons. So we can just kind of have the conversation of my three spot into your cleanup batter. Because him as elliot ness before he's really kevin costner, the way that he became kevin costner in like the early 90s, leading up to something like Waterworld De Palma tagged him early because this is 87, I believe 87 or 88. And he's like you. There's a couple of times here and I'll talk about it when I get to JFK with him and Oliver Stone feel that, like he, he did not have maybe the freedom to to play a character in the way that he maybe necessarily thought he could take it like, oh, I'm gonna go off in this direction, I'm gonna try this or whatever.
Speaker 1:Like de palma, I'm sure was pretty firm on how he wanted his alien ness to be and I think it works so well where, like you see this sometimes with some of these huge a-list celebrities, where, like when they just give themselves over to a really creative and focused and accomplished director, like great things happen. And you can say that like this certainly helps by having andy garcia and sean connery and robert de niro as a part of the ensemble, and it does. But like you look at this movie poster and it's Elliot Ness with the gun pointing at the camera, like this is a Kevin Costner movie still, and he's he's pretty good in it. The film is great and for that alone I think has enough merit to be in my third, third hitter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and so JFK, I think, is his greatest performance. This is my third hitter. Yeah, yeah, and so JFK, I think, is his greatest performance. This is my favorite.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you put it in the four. I put it in the four spot because you need power there and it's a power performance in a power movie. Yeah Right, Like I think it's De Palma. It could be De Palma's most powerful, like best movie. I mean, Mission Impossible is right there as well, but I I feel like it's probably the juice, yeah was running. Also like sean connery's, only oscar like. Granted, it's kind of a here's something for the career moment, but you know, could also be his most powerful with diploma.
Speaker 1:It's definitely again kind of when you just go on like approval rating, it's definitely mission impossible. And the untouchables, yeah, as far as like, it's a good end, they're both entryways exactly. It's not like sitting them down and saying watch sisters or watch body double, right, you know, right, um, so that's that makes sense. And my four spot is jfk, for a lot of the similar reasons. Yeah, the same things that you can say about your three hitter you can say about your four hitter. You said really well when you brought it up just a minute ago. Again, I think that just like Oliver Stone even though he's from everything that you know we've read, is it like a little bit more of a loose cannon, but still like very much in control for the most part when it comes to like communicating his vision as a filmmaker and being on set and, with jfk, just being like the epic saga that it was. And I can remember so many times like having the double vhs at home, how many times that this was just like on, like my sister would just put it on, my dad would just have it on, I would put it on and you don't watch all of it. It's really hard to watch all of it, especially in one sitting. But like this is this field of dreams. A few other things are just like the. They are I.
Speaker 1:I guess which one did you say is like the film you think of when you think of costner? Did you say jfk? Yeah, I mean, it's some of like my earliest introduction to kevin costner and who he is, and especially as like a leading man who is. It's a movie of prominence that features all these high profile people and from a high profile director and just at a young age that's very impressionable when you're like, oh, and he's at the center of it, yeah, so, and he's like you know, he's an america, I I think also he goes on to do this archetype all the time, right when he is, like this American, this proud American who's trying to do good for America.
Speaker 2:Like I think that's very important to the Costner legacy, yeah it is. As characters that he plays. I mean I was rewatching it the other night like he has that very early on in the movie.
Speaker 1:He's just like you know, today I'm not proud to be an American and it's just like that is just the most proud American thing you could say Exactly To like expose your own flaw Not, and not to be a character without flaws and not to play a character. Like. You know, I don't this movie. I remember seeing it when it came out and it's funny because I looked to see if I could like re-watch it again.
Speaker 1:Um, hard to find something like mr brooks, where he paints himself gone as like. Basically he's patrick bateman, he's like american psycho-esque in that movie, um, as this serial killer, as, um, this guy who like has this dual life as you know, he's like a high executive with an office job, but then he's also like a killer of women and at night moonlights is that? Um, you don't, you can't really hard to like find that movie now, because I that is not. Yeah, that's not the archetype that he wants to movie now, because I that is not. Yeah, that's not the archetype that he wants to project for himself. Um, okay, so we are to your number five now, who's your?
Speaker 2:five hitter. Uh, my number five is open range. Oh, okay, and so this is uh what early 2000s kind of hollywood video classic right here. Yeah, kind of into the line, some, some big swings in the late or mid to late 90s miss. He goes back to kind of what again, this Western archetype, to which now he will build upon this up until we're still doing it in. Horizon yeah, because he directs open range as well, directs, I believe, co-writes or writes solely maybe, but yeah, directs stars, puts himself next to someone like Robert Duvall.
Speaker 1:It's a great Duvall performance.
Speaker 2:And just a beautiful movie. I really really love this movie and I guess, going into Horizon, I really wanted like open range too right, Like I really wanted something centered completely around Costner. We're out in the open, out in the Wild West, where I think that's where some of my disappointment comes from Horizon, where there's so many other things going on that we have to spend time with other people.
Speaker 2:Makes sense horizon, where there's so many other things going on that we have to spend time with other people makes sense, um, but yeah, so in my lineup I like him in the five spot because this is like the blue collar locker room. You know, in in first outlast works real hard, you know, keeps his head down, does his job, doesn't, doesn't, you know? Not there to get famous. We're just out there. We're herding cattle and we're out there. We're hitting the ball, we're playing defense and you know we'll hit for average.
Speaker 1:So, okay, you want to talk about average. So this was a pretty hard lineup for me to put together. I'll just be honest and admit that right now, my five spot, however, was the first position that I filled in, because it's Waterworld, because for my five hitter I'm putting up somebody in the five spot that's either going to strike out 200 times a season or who might hit a 470 foot home run.
Speaker 2:Love that.
Speaker 1:And so that's Waterworld because, well-documented right. Very rarely has there ever been as big a swing that someone has taken than there was when Costner decided to make Waterworld. You know, steroid era black mark this smudge to it, like when you talk about like a Sammy Sosa or a Raphael Palmaro or Mark McGuire, where like go back and you watched, you watch those uh highlights.
Speaker 2:You're like God, God, god, god, god, God, god, god, god God.
Speaker 1:God, and that's Waterworld man, because Waterworld is, it's so entertaining and I think that everything else that happens in the press and that was spun it just gives the movie this, this black cloud that I think like if, if people just didn't compare it as much to like Mad Max and if people just didn't care so much about how much the quote-unquote box office failure was publicized, because the movie actually ended up doing okay and it now has, like this 4k aero release, um, so like it's lived on with boutique collectors and physical media collectors. It's this object of cult fascination, like absolutely, and so it has so much going for it to where, like it couldn't be any lower in my lineup but it also couldn't be any higher, so I have it at the eighth spot.
Speaker 2:Okay, what I wrote was the overpaid vet that had all the potential. Sometimes he hits a double and you get nostalgic. Yeah, I like that and I love Waterworld. I think Waterworld is good.
Speaker 2:You know, for so long it did have like this reputation of just being like one of the biggest fiascos, one of the worst movies of all time Star Wars era. But sitting down this past week and putting in a disc and watching it and just being like wow, we're used to fucking spectacle, make shit like look at this, like this, the, the fucking wave runner thing, wave runner ring thing sunk like three times, yeah, in production, like they overcame so much out there off the island of hawaii, much out there off the island of Hawaii, uh, making this film, it's, it's, it's an amazing watch and Costner is, is, is odd in it, like he's like half fish, that like there's never really dives into any of that other than like, oh, he's got gills so he can swim fast, um, and he's kind of an asshole through the whole movie. But but yeah, I, I love this movie. This this kind of goes with, like you know, you look at movies like water world, something like robert altman's popeye, something like um the flintstones, I think from the late 90s.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like these are real craft, heavy physical tactical movies and even Postman. You know which he then tries to do after that Costner tries to do after Waterworld. It's just in a day and age now where everything is blue or green screened, everything is done on a computer.
Speaker 1:It's really refreshing to see something that's been not being.
Speaker 2:It's pretty amazing to watch these movies.
Speaker 1:I did not watch the Postman for this podcast because I know that film's like three hours long as well or something. There's only so much time in it is long as well or something.
Speaker 2:There's only so much time in it. I read a review where it was like this is a lot like that Tom Hanks cowboy movie because it's news to the world or whatever. Oh, oh, world news or whatever. That was News of tomorrow, maybe, yeah, something like that, where he's going around reading the news, yeah, and the postman, kevin Gossard, goes around and reads Shakespeare, and so they're like, if you've seen that just you know, imagine it's in the future, interesting, um, okay, so we need your do your number five.
Speaker 1:Number five is open range, okay, okay, so then your number six my number six is a perfect world, uh.
Speaker 2:so this movie, this is the clint eastwood movie, uh, that he made, where he it's a double hander with Clint Eastwood. Again, he plays a bad guy in this film, which is pretty rare for Costner, but I think, again one of his better acting performances throughout.
Speaker 1:He's still kind of like the protagonist of the film, though right, like you're rooting for him. You're rooting for him, yeah, though right like you're rooting for him.
Speaker 2:yeah, uh, he's extremely charismatic, uh and charming as as a escaped convict who then abducts a child and goes on the run, uh, and you've got clint eastwood as this, you know texas marshal who's chasing him down, um, but yeah, good, good thrills. There are some weird child molestation moments. There's other convicts involved, so it gets uncomfortable as well throughout. But it's also a period piece, like in the late sixties. So that's really interesting early sixties, um, but just a an interesting movie to watch. Very much like Costner be handed the baton from Clint Eastwood, right, we, we love seeing that, that dynamic in films when an older actor has a, a young sidekick, come in and and it is a younger Costner. So I thought at the sixth spot, especially behind Open Range, which then kind of becomes Costner as that old dog, to have the younger sidekick right below him from A Perfect World. Good movie, go check it out.
Speaker 1:I like that. Okay, my sixth spot is the Upside of Anger. Yeah, I knew this was going to be on there. Of course it was going to be on there and I couldn't do it any. I couldn't do it. The disrespect of putting it in my bottom. Third, yeah, it's 7, 8, 9, because I, you know, I'm again, don't know your, your, the rest of your lineup, but I feel like we're going to be pretty devoid of, like the rom-com, just romantic drama.
Speaker 1:Kevin Costner and like, unless you surprise me and pull message in a bottle out here in a minute, like we're just I don't know, rumor has it, yeah, rumor has it. I just don't think we're really going to see that side of Costner reflected here. So, the upside of anger he really retired from trying to make those. He retired from being as interested, I guess, and filling his day-to-day, year-to-year career with big ventures where he was okay, kind of collecting a paycheck. And for me this is just the best version of that because there's still that like he plays a retired baseball player, so there's still some of that athletic leading man quality to him. He is the male lead of this film, even though it's really carried by joan allen and and the actresses that that play her daughters. But costner's so good is this like alcoholic washed out radio host which, like he, would totally be a podcaster now if they remade this movie? Um, and he's, he's, basically he's playing. The movie is not a sequel to for love of the game but he's basically playing a burnt out version of his character. Maybe maybe like five years to 10 years after his character from For Love of the Game would have stopped playing baseball. So I love that little, just kind of like niche Easter egg. There's like a picture of him in the Tigers uniform on a poster in his garage or in his home office or something so fun little tidbit there to watch.
Speaker 1:But he and Joan allen have great chemistry in this movie. He's really funny in this movie and he just seems so comfortable and like in his lane playing the character in this movie and something else that I really appreciate. I think he and joan allen do such a good job of both delivering like on a really high emotional register at times. We're, like talked about it earlier, costner's not one of these guys that really likes to talk a lot in his movies where he doesn't really like have those big explosive moments. There's a part in this film where he kicks down the door to Joan Allen's bathroom because she's just being such a bitch to him and he basically is like we are perfect for each other. You need to pay me the the respect that I deserve for being here for you. It's a little bit toxic, but it's also just like. It's a great like three minutes of acting from him. Um, I just I've talked about this movie before on the pod. It's just got a soft spot in my heart and I don't really know why, but it's my six-hitter Another one that's really hard to find too.
Speaker 1:This isn't available to stream anywhere. Sooner or later it is. It's over two hours. No Blu-ray release. He loves making a long movie. No Blu-ray release. Loves making. Yeah, no blu-ray release. One day my dvd is just gonna stop working and that's gonna be a really sad, sad time.
Speaker 2:Um, okay, my seventh spot. Uh, so I I kind of, I kind kind of have two movies here. Oh, because I feel like for the seventh spot I wanted to put in maybe his smaller roles where it is much more of an ensemble and he comes on but he might be the best part of the movie.
Speaker 2:So like a pinch hitter, or like a hitter and then a pinch runner situation yeah, yeah, okay, like he maybe doesn't play every day, but if it's, you know, bottom of the ninth and we need a run, we might be putting this guy up to date. So the first movie is the Company Men. Ben Affleck in this movie is like a CEO of a car manufacturing business and then gets, you know, furloughed or laid off or fired or whatever, and so his, you know Ben Affleck's world comes crashing down and Kevin Costner jumps, steps in and like is like well, I guess you can come work for me. Here's some boots. And you know it's very kevin costner, it's very like again, very like american, like blue collar, hard-working do-gooder. Okay, um, and it is that's in?
Speaker 1:no, respectfully. Yeah, that's the movie that's, that's part.
Speaker 2:The part that kevin costler is OK. Yes, I've never seen this film. The whole movie is is Ben Affleck dealing with you know, used used to be a yuppie, very well off paid CEO, now fired.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:And the recession in America and so now he's got to deal with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, didn't this come out like 2007 or something around that? Ok, right around, ok.
Speaker 2:And so come out like 2007 or something around that, something okay right around, okay, um and so, uh, so, yeah, so, and I think costner is kind of the best part of the movie. So I, I love that role. And then I do not like the movie man of steel. Oh, but kevin costner as jonathan kent, as stepdaddy, stepdad to Superman, makes a whole lot of sense and works really, really well and again, I think he is the best part of that movie. Uh, it's been memed to death, but like the moment when he, when the tornado is happening and he looks back at at Superman, is just like stay, I'm gonna gonna, you know, I'm gonna die with this fucking storm okay, you don't chase you, you don't you know whatever you don't yeah, you don't chase you for years, you ride, you, ride them okay.
Speaker 2:Um, that'd be amazing if caster shows up in twisters. Uh, but again a movie I don't really like at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but when I'm watching it I'm so surprised to hear this.
Speaker 2:But when I'm watching it, the Kevin Costner part is like perfect.
Speaker 1:This is just man of Steel, right, man of Steel, because I know he shows up, doesn't he show up in BVS too, and stuff he does. But it's like a mephos Flashback or something. Okay Okay, bold or something Okay Okay, bold choice. I like it. I mean, we got to get crafty at the bottom of the lineups, right In my seven spot. That's where I have revenge Now. You already spoke about this.
Speaker 1:I'd never seen this movie until this week and then when I was looking through the filmography trying to pick out what I wanted to watch and or just like to sit down and watch this two-hour-long Tony Scott film from 1990, because I had never heard of it before. I have no idea how that was possible. Kevin Costner this is the most confusing movie. That's really enjoyable. Kevin Costner is like a Navy pilot. This movie basically starts out and you think you're watching a Top Gun sequel where they are in F-18s doing a practice run over the desert and it's kind of awesome, like it's really awesome, and you feel like you're just you've taken, you've gone from one Tony Scott film to the next and then it just becomes this like guys in rooms with that smoky hazy. It was on your list, so I assume you watched the whole thing. Yeah, just like the, the. You know just kind of that like late 80s, early 90s tony scott aesthetic, but also this aesthetic that, like a lot of other movies had, like this is like got a lot in conversation with like body heat. Yeah, at times totally, where it's like it gets steamy. It's this erotic drama with it's also like an action revenge story and I think that the romance stuff between madeline stowe and kevin costner. It works well, even though it's like very problematic. It's. It's problematic. It's. It's also really confusing kind of why this tibby character, who is this like mexican businessman who's a shady crime figure as well, or at least has dealings with either the cartel or the mafia, the it's, it's just so. It's it's so muddled like why he would even let this man around his beautiful younger wife in the first place, when he's just this like newly retired bachelorette who's this is like when he. I can get it if you're watching this movie and you're like, oh, this guy's handsome as hell because he certainly is in this movie, and you're like, oh, this guy's handsome as hell Because he certainly is in this movie.
Speaker 1:Also side note, just when I thought I was out, not out. I'm never going to be out on tennis. I love playing tennis, but like this might be the summer of pickleball for us. Yeah, I loathe who I have become. I bought a paddle the other day. I know you just played a lot this past weekend. We have plans to play like once a week here over the next couple of months. This movie got me all the way back in for tennis. Yeah, that's a great. Some great tennis in this movie. Um, but again, like the costner stuff is just so weird because I feel like once he turns into this like man on a mission, um, like vengeful character that that we've seen in other movies and we've seen done better in other Tony Scott movies Now they hadn't come out yet, but like this is basically Tony Scott, I feel like test running a ton of ideas for man on fire.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Where, like Kevin Costner basically has to turn into Creasy Bear and go rescue someone who has been taken hostage, and that stuff doesn't really work for me in this movie. Like it just it gets so weird. It's all really entertaining but like that's why he just doesn't have that. Like when Denzel is under the bridge and he's got you know, the C4 up the guy's ass and he's like I wish you had more time, like all that I'm just like, yes, but like ready to run through a brick wall could do that he tries to in this movie, when they're in that like mexican cantina, that dive bar, and he sees a guy and you know he takes him out in the bathroom and then he just comes back and he's like I killed a man who I hated today and I'm like well did, well, did you hate him? Like I don't. I don't know, I didn't really feel anything when that happened. So I don't know this. This movie's in my seven spot because you're seven hitter. You know he's batting like 230, 240. So this movie it's more effective than that.
Speaker 1:Like I gave it four stars on Letterboxd because I feel like 80% of it really works. Letterbox, because I feel like 80 of it really works, um, as just like a 90s artifact, as like kind of this like, and who knows, maybe I am just like completely in the dark on this and I don't want to be naive, but like as kind of this, like hidden gem of a tony scott movie, totally, I, I had never even heard of this, right, right, and I'm a huge tony scott, oh for sure, like tony and ridley, I feel like I've basically seen everything they've done and yet this movie just completely has passed me by. It's like the black rain for tony, totally. Oh, that's a great comp, yeah, um, so definitely. I'm glad we both gave revenge a shout out, oh yeah uh, my eight spot was water world.
Speaker 2:Oh correct, yeah covered that already. What was your new?
Speaker 1:eight spot. So this was tough, my eight and nine. I had a lot of different things. Here Again, I did not want to go too heavy on the sports films and then I kind of looked at the other genres that I had represented and I did not have a Western, so call it recency bias. But in the eighth spot I put Horizon in American Saga, chapter one.
Speaker 1:Because I think, when it's all said and done, if he pulls this off in four chapters and we end up with basically like 12 episodes or 12 hours of content or however you want to look at it, four different little like mini seasons of like a really good story where everything comes together and, who knows, maybe there's only like a hundred thousand of us watching at that point on paramount plus. But like, who knows, at the end of chapter four we could be like, yeah, he's freaking, got the juice still. Like what's next from costner? Yeah, yeah, who knows? We could also be like we're never going to hear from him again because this is such a failure, he's bankrupt. He's like, you know, like we just don't know. But fresh out the theater.
Speaker 1:I made the change right before we went on air here. I I decided that I I had a good enough time with it and because I didn't have something like open range or anything else on there, that I wanted the westerns and I don't have dances with wolves. So I was like I need something that represents that niche interest of Kevin Costner's life, not just his career, but like he's made this a part of him. Yeah, um, and so just kind of like how the eight hitter is still a part of your team, whether or not you're excited when he comes up to bat or not, like the Western cowboy, not so much like white savior, even though you can say that like some of his Westerns have suffered in the past of having some white savior complex. Other times, though you can kind of look at him, just be like he's.
Speaker 1:Because that was something that I was a little hesitant to like celebrate about horizon was exactly how the narrative is being told, and yet that's still where I wanted more from the apache tribes. But I think we're going to get that and so I feel like this is pretty well-rounded and and deserving of being in the lineup where it's just like dances with wolves. I couldn't do it because that movie's just again another one. They're like it's a bore that vhs, just like the vhs got boring to look at, yeah, growing up as a kid. Um so I I just couldn't do with that one, so I'm gonna do it with horizon, though, and put it in the lineup love that.
Speaker 2:Uh, my number nine. I just I I threw mr brooks on there, oh, and I said this guy's a serial killer, yeah, you know, uh, I, I want someone kind of crazy in my lineup who's a loose cannon, uh, who it can either go up there and again it can like strike out, or like maybe they're going to get hit by a pitch because the other team hates them. So much.
Speaker 1:I know my dad has a copy of this DVD. I need to get it from him.
Speaker 2:I need to grab it from him and uh, and and do a watch party downstairs, yes, um, or you know someone who could, you know, easily get thrown out of the game, oh, yeah, and I think mr brooks is. I've only seen it once in theaters because I believe I was working at the movie theater when it came out and, uh, it's not. I don't remember it being good, but it is again just like this weird artifact of his career where, like he does not, he doesn't do this at all, ever, and that's why I think why it's so hard to find uh anywhere, at least online, yeah, um. So, yeah, mr brooks is going to be in my nine spot.
Speaker 1:Uh and uh, we, we love that chaotic energy at the end so I had the upside of anger in the sixth spot, not so much out of sentimentality, Like I truly believe that that movie has value to it. This film I'm not sure how much value it actually has, but it is such a sentimental favorite it's that guy that the manager just can't get out of the lineup, Like you can't put him on the bench, you can't send him down to AAA. And it's another sports film. It's for love of the game, Because my dad and I watch this movie together all the time. Like this is it's such again like he can't just make.
Speaker 1:I guess Tin Cup is pretty straightforward, but he's an asshole in that movie, Total. Whereas like for love of the game, he's a likable character, no-transcript, like whether it was just like dad core or whatever we were coming out of there. And like the two thousands to to early, to like mid, uh, mid two thousands where, like you had this and you had the rookie and you had all these guys who wanted to do, like their aging dad, baseball movies or whatever. So it just holds that nostalgic place in my heart and I kind of, when I looked at all the movies I was just like I can't get rid of it, Whereas, like got rid of some other things for love of the game, a Sam Raimi film, so bizarre, Unbelievable. Um, we made that book. I just I couldn't. I couldn't put it on the bench.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I couldn't put it on the bench. Yeah, no, I think that's great. And listen, it's important in the sports wing of the Costner legacy.
Speaker 1:You know what I almost had here, what I did have here at one point and then took it out what Draft Day.
Speaker 2:Draft Day. Yeah, I looked at Draft Day a lot. I looked at Robin Hood, prince of Thieves.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Even though that movie is just not good. No, I couldn't do that one, but it made so much money. It was a hit, huge hit, so much money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in the early 90s. Is there anything else that you almost had on there?
Speaker 2:What else? I took the Guardian for a spin, another like-.
Speaker 1:Just straight, dadcore. I know Ron McCuley has that dvd. It's just sitting on a shelf collecting an inch of dust yeah, yeah, not a bad movie.
Speaker 1:I I wish it was anyone other than ashton kutcher the costner stuff and the like coast guard rescue stuff is all really good. Yeah, like it's on paper. You're right, on paper I think it's a really good movie and it could have almost been with the right actor. And that's a tough thing because I think this comes out in like again, it's around that 2006, 2006, 2007 range where, like I understand why, the studio was like here's your passing of the torch to Ashton Kutcher, but but wow, were they wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they were wrong.
Speaker 1:If you have, someone like ben foster gosling dude. This would have been gosling this foster, I don't know. I you want because, like the thing that I get about, see, there we go. Now we're talking because what I like about kutcher in the film is that kutcher's like big and I can buy him as kind of like this military kind of meathead who would have been perfect, though I don't know if they're around really in 2007 is chris hemsworth I any of the chris's evans pine yeah, hemsworth pine and evans actually really good, evans would have been great in this role.
Speaker 1:And then I think we're really cooking and it's in the lineup. I don't know man. We're like let's take this guy who's got a prank show on MTV.
Speaker 2:Before that he was like the stoner pretty boy on that's Every Show yeah.
Speaker 1:I just I don't know, because that's a miss, that could have been a big hit. Yeah, yeah, bad um, the guardian great movie, great movie, just that's what we got to do it like a dad core hall of fame, just kind of like a. What were they thinking? 2000, 2000s, that would be great. That would be because there's so many movies like that from like 04 to 2010. Yeah, um, a lot of swings were being taken that you know, probably like believed in people. $40 million movies that probably made $40 million went to DVD, had a good run in rental stores when they were still a thing and now just haven't been uttered. You have not said the name the Guardian on a podcast, until Kevin Costner has a new Western coming out in 2024. Yeah, I just don't know how movies just become irrelevant like that. But there you have it. I guess that's how it happens. Okay, well, I love your lineup, man. It's a great one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, Same here. Man Costner's got a lot to offer. He does Good and bad.
Speaker 1:It's really interesting because I made the comment to you before we started off on this venture last week and I was like he kind of just has his couple genres that he really gets into. But then you made the comment to be like, but he goes off in so many weird directions, weird With those interests, yeah, yeah, and it's so true. Yeah, like there's the kind of kooky political, like 13 days is one we didn't mention, like he returns to this world of the kennedys, um, and so like he's got this weird fascination is another, yeah, american political system, um, and then of course, all the post-apocalyptic stuff we hardly touched on, the, the rom-com, kevin costner, um, just just an interesting guy, who, who I hope the best for, because we don't have very many kevin costner's left, like I again, who is he now? Because, like gosling's, not making movies. You know, like who are these people? That like is john krasinski.
Speaker 2:I was just gonna say krasinski could have been cost he still could be. I feel like he's too much behind the camera, you don't think?
Speaker 1:he's gonna go in cost anymore.
Speaker 2:He was behind the camera, but he was filming himself, right yeah right krasinski needs to get back in front.
Speaker 1:we'll see what krasinski does after his third quiet place movie. Because it'll it'll be, because quiet place three, oh, is going to be. It's still a thing, even though it'll be quiet place. It'll be the fourth quiet place movie, but the krasinski directed quiet place movies are not done yet Interesting, I did not know that. Good little segue into just kind of talking about A Quiet Place Part 2 or, excuse me, what did we watch? A Quiet Place Day 1. Okay, which we both saw this weekend. So before we put like a huge bow on the episode, we're done with Costner for now, but a couple things that we just wanted to talk about, because after seeing horizon today that was, I marked three days in around the theater for me, like it is summertime, like I love it, um. So saw a quiet place day one. What'd you think of it?
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, I, I, I was happy. Usually, when you get prequels or like a third installment in a franchise, you're worried that like it's going to be like an all out, Like I was worried that this was going to be like we're in the war room, we're trying to destroy all these monsters. This is a big global look at the, at the invasion or whatever. He kept it very small, very contained to this little story in New York about a woman who is terminally ill.
Speaker 1:I thought you know that about Lupita's character going into it. I did not, did she had cancer. I had no idea, yeah, um, so I thought it was great Made for a great little device in the story.
Speaker 2:I thought it was great because then it makes so much sense where it's like I'm going to go get pizza, yes, right. It's like I'm going to die, yep. Like I think that takes a lot of pressure off of like, well, we have to get her to safety Right, which I think makes you more creative with the storytelling. Safety right, um, which I think makes you more creative with the storytelling. So I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 1:That, uh, what motif, or so what you just talked about was what I was really hopeful for.
Speaker 1:I think I talked about this a couple episodes ago, but when I saw that it was michael sarnowski directing same director as pig, I was like I think he can take a lot of those kind of that contained chaos of a movie like Pig, where it's just like Nicolas Cage fighting with his own inner demons and his own self and his own interests, and translate that kind of in an interesting and hopefully like in a good way into a quiet place story.
Speaker 1:Totally worked for me, totally delivered, I thought, on still keeping it very tight, very contained in this big metropolis of a city where I was a bit worried as well, and it's not that you still don't get that. The things that I wanted to see from A Quiet Place movie set in New York City on day one as far as clickers jumping off of skyscrapers and running through the subways and throwing cars, snatching people up yeah, you get all of that. Jumping off of skyscrapers and running through the subways and throwing cars yeah, snatch, you get all of that Get all that, but then you get a lot of.
Speaker 1:And now Lupita Nyong'o. Hello, I mean like her emotional register, without saying much. We saw it in Us. It's insane. We've seen it before she's not in a movie every year.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, but in a movie every year? Yeah, I'm yeah right, but I mean now, here we're seeing it. Maybe it's a quiet place some of it's got to be to her credit, though, but like a bankable star, you look at the movie she's been in 12 years a slave best picture. Black panther makes a bazillion dollars. I mean us. It's not my favorite jordan peele film. People love it. Yeah, there was talk that she should have been nominated for an oscar for that film. I'm not here to argue with that at all. And then this movie, a huge box office success, made 50 million dollars domestically opening weekend and just smashed expectations. Yeah, and really kind of like I think, helped in a negative way. Horiz performance. You just had so many more people go out to see this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kind of yeah, if there was supposed to be. I saw somewhere that someone like doctored up a, a mixed poster of the two, and it was like this is our barman, I'm right, right, like horizon day one.
Speaker 1:And yeah, no, it was no competition. No, no, it certainly wasn't. Um, yeah, I mean 50 million dollars is remarkable. I'm trying to think like what oppenheimer's opening I mean barbie smashed that weekend, but oppenheimer, if off the top of my head, if I can remember, made I think either like 60 or 80 million domestically opening weekend. So now like 10 million to 30 million. Yes, that's a huge gap, but like to say that quiet place day one was not that far off of an opening like that. Pretty remarkable stuff. Thought the film worked really well.
Speaker 1:Love a movie that features a cat as opposed to like a dog. Great movie. Cat couldn't be a dog, couldn't be a dog. Don't be too loud, yeah, and I still think the cat was probably too loud at times, probably too loud as well. Everything's too loud, the people are too loud. There were times where you do have to suspend disbelief a little bit, where there's, like this mass exodus of people.
Speaker 1:It was a lot of um, it's funny two mentions of 21 bridges on this episode because, um, you know of course, sienna miller earlier um in the film, but it also has. It has a little bit of the 21 bridges vibe, but then it also has a lot of the dark knight rising energy where, like, we have to blow up the bridges, um, why not, we don't have to. But bane blows up the bridges and contains gotham. You're, you're, part of the bane cohort. I am, yes, I am, yeah, it was my idea to take over heinz field. Um, but also, too, the other film that it really reminded me of in a really good way, in a really positive way. It was cloverfield. Oh yeah, clover, like it, just it would. I also thought about the, the planet of the apes movies?
Speaker 1:no sure, yeah, just this really good kind of amalgamation of a lot of the different, like alien takeover, lost, slash, trapped in a city, you know, horror thrillers, these action movies that I really like, and so I mean again, wash, rinse, repeat. I hate to think that, like Hollywood is just becoming more creatively bankrupt but like keep making these movies.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and no, right, I did feel a little fatigued where I was just like okay, so, and you know it's a prequel, so of course we're not going to see anything really new, right? But now that you have told me that there's going to be another, yeah, more of the Emilyily blunt story like where?
Speaker 2:where does that go? How can we evolve the conflict with these clickers, right? These creatures that hunt by sound, right? How do we evolve, how? How can we up it to that, other than than just like we have to be really quiet, yeah, and trap them somewhere or something?
Speaker 1:yeah, you do almost have to have like a edge of tomorrow lived, I repeat, moment where you find like a hub, you find the, the omega, you find some centralizing force that's driving them all or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know to, just to, to then annihilate them like it almost has to become like something yeah, I don't know to just to to then annihilate them, like it almost has to become, like, you know, apocalypse, wars or something, um, which is again not what works well in these movies. What works well in these movies is when it's contained and quiet and you can really focus on the sound design, which again like really good sound design. But but, yes, back to kind of what started this tangent the whole like mass exodus of people heading towards like the south street bridges or the ferries or wherever you're supposed to go. I'm like every footstep, you guys are fucked. There's like a thousand of you walking down the same street.
Speaker 1:Um, not gonna work and and sooner or later stuff does happen, um, so you know I I wouldn't say that like reality stretched too thin, um, in that given situation. But you know that's wouldn't say that like reality stretched too thin in that given situation. But you know that's kind of neither here nor there. When you sign up for one of these movies, there's going to be a few plot holes, ok, and then the other one that I know we've both seen and that I wish we could spend more time talking about and do a whole episode on. But things are just coming so fast and so furious.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't be surprised if we end up talking about this at like the end of the year. If we do a top 10, though, is kinds of kindness. Yeah, uh, yeah, I loved this. I loved this. I mean as, again, as someone who is new to the altar of of your ghost, yeah, um, and really someone who really, really loved poor things. Now, this is nothing like poor things. This is and from what I hear, this is much more yorgos than than poor things was, um, but the fact that yorgos alathamos was like I just made my most popular movie and got a bunch of award buzz it won best actress. I'm going to go make an pretty much an experimental anthology short, three shorts yeah, uh, like two and a half hours.
Speaker 1:The way that like um horizon, yeah is told in three chapters where they're intersecting and it feels like this magnolia type story where everything's going to come together, that's the Kinds of Kindness, is straight up anthology. Did you know that?
Speaker 2:going in I had no clue. I think I did know that Okay.
Speaker 1:Yes, I knew that. So for me, when the credits roll at the end of the first story, you should have seen the look on my face. I was just, I was elated. It was so was just, I was elated, it was so cool because I was like I was already having a good time and I'm like, here we go, just hit me with another one, like this is just like your ghost makes the twilight zone and I get to sit here for two hours and 45 minutes totally.
Speaker 2:I wish more, more directors would this.
Speaker 1:I think it's brilliant, I think it's so great and even though, like so, my favorite short out of the three was the last one which is so interesting to hear because that's my favorite as well, and everything that I've read on people's Letterboxd reviews that's their least favorite and they like the first one the most, which I feel like the first. Go ahead, keep going.
Speaker 2:I think the second one is the weakest. Okay, agreed, yes, I think, I think. Well, okay.
Speaker 1:Third, first second.
Speaker 2:Okay, third, first second okay, yeah, um, but yeah, I I think what a cool, what a cool way to use your power as a, as a power player in hollywood to be like I, I'm gonna do a blank check, whatever, and I'm just gonna do these little stories and like it left me wanting so much more, but in the best way, like with the cult, the cult short, like I was like stretch that out, that could be an hour and a half movie or a two-hour movie. I want to see the rest of that world. I want to spend more time in this Willem Dafoe cult in the fucking sauna. I was so into that. The pool of tears yeah, I was so into that of tears, yeah, I was so into that, um, and I just I found all of them extremely disturbing, depraved a little bit comedy in there.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, um, like I was the only person laughing in my theater. Yeah, that's no surprise because I saw this member monday earliest showing at the grand cinema. Um, which I think just it put me in the theater with a lot of folks who, I feel like, have probably only seen yorgos through the lens of poor things exactly, and this is much more, I think, the first, the first short. I think it's it's well constructed because the first, the first short film is most representative of where I think Yorgos is currently at.
Speaker 1:I put this in my review and his career-spanning focus on control and well-being and influence and what people do to each other and influence and what people do to each other, and so I think that like that's that was his most refined story in terms of like, when you start to really think about and read about like poor things and the willem dafoe's character and why he's trying to reanimate somebody and raise them to be a certain way, and then you look at what willem dafoe's character is doing in that first short the death of our RMF is dead, or the death of RMF, or however it's phrased, is like this commentary again not in a fantastical sense like how poor things is.
Speaker 1:But Jesse Plemons is this like workaholic and somebody who just wants to like rise the corporate ladder and have this perfect relationship and do all these things and I thought it was hilarious. It was so cool to see Jesse Plemons in the world of a Yorgos film and I think he's the best part of that short film. Like I think oh, let me rephrase that Of the Jesse Plemons performances, I liked his the most in that first film, that first one, yeah, yeah, I thought he was really really good. Well, it's also really interesting.
Speaker 2:how so? The first film is pretty much Jesse Plemons, yes. The second one is like a almost even split of him and Emma, and the third one is like all.
Speaker 1:Emma, that's so true. Yeah, it like fades. Yeah, fades to Emma Starts with Jesse, fades to Emma. Second one, I thought reminded me the most of the lobster, and yeah, and was, and was playful and like, only only the way that I think that you know your ghost and a few other international directors can be playful with their dark, dark sense of humor where, like we're talking, we have we've introduced doppelgangers, we've introduced this dream of an Island where dogs can talk and are in control of these doppelgangers, and then at the end, it turns out that the woman who Jesse Plemons has been interacting with, who's played by him a stone, is indeed one of these people and you know, he's able to convince her to do all these different things because she just takes these orders.
Speaker 1:Like I just I was having so much fun. I think that was the one that I probably laughed at the most and I could feel the audience that I was watching it with, just like they were, it was losing them and but it like fueled my enjoyment of the film more. And then, by the time we get to the third one, I was like we are full dog tooth, cold fascination, like really depraved, like trigger warnings is like for the, for the entire film, but especially for that third, that third segment, um, really tough stuff. But like, oh my gosh, it, it, it, nothing say. Killing of a sacred deer to me is like, uh, that's kind of like on an s? Tier outside of everything else. I think that that is just like his, I think that's his magnum opus, I think it's perfect. But dog tooth, that's also something that I don't think has been touched since. It's come out in a different way. And for me, this third segment RMF Eats a Sandwich, I believe, is what that one was called.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that's what happens after the credits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was it for me. Like that was. We were back, we were talking about religion, we were talking about cult, which is right up the same avenue that dog tooth um lives on, and I was like man, this is. This is just so funny to see it come full circle to where you have emma stone and you have margaret qually and margaret qually is great in that one and then hong chao as well and wonderful. You have all these actors that have so much like public clout and credibility right now, and so it's not like the weird barry kyogen in 2017, when people don't know who he is, or it's not like dog tooth, which was all greek actors and an international cast, and so you don't have a relationship with those people and the which can kind of influence how you perceive their weird actions on screen. Like this is emma stone doing these things and buying into it all, and it's it's so upsetting to people and it's so exciting to someone like me. Um, like I just shot up in my seat, I'm getting so excited talking about this stuff.
Speaker 1:Um, this movie really struck a chord with me. I have it at like number six right now. I think it's dope and I just I think I have it at six as well. Yeah, I got to do more thinking because, like right now I have it behind Inside Out 2. Did I like Kinds of Kindness more than Inside Out 2? Absolutely. But like Inside Out 2 is just kind of like perfect. You know, in a way, that Kinds of Kindness can't be perfect. So I don't know, I don't know what that means as far as like pretty arbitrary Right. Like I don't know what that means as far as like an end of the year list or ranking, but like I was so happy walking out of the theater from this.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of speechless. I love it. I love it, man. Listen, I was so hyped going in and then you got a little worried, right. Then I got a little worried right towards the end, right, because I was like okay, I'm either going to, I'm either going to buy in and like be all about this, or or I I gotta, I gotta, leave right now. And I was like you know what Fucking Yorgos is the man, let's do it. This is what you want. This is the kind of fucking cinema you want. Yeah, this weird this, this fucking limit pushing this original, you know like this is. This is just, it's such good, world building creativity, yeah, so creative, fucking, just swinging for the fences, you know, you know we've been talking about Costner and how he takes big swings. I think Yorgos also does that in his own way. Um and God, yeah, it's, uh, it's just so exciting, yep, because he's got another one coming out next year with Emma, so it's just a very exciting time.
Speaker 1:And we talked about this too, because you and I saw Willem Dafoe in a trailer for something this morning, and Willem is also on an all-time run right now. All-time run.
Speaker 2:I can't wait for the. I want to do a Dafoe episode. But like Is he in Nosferatu? Yeah, he's in every movie, every month he's in. Beetlejuice, which one yeah?
Speaker 1:Which movie are we going to choose? I don't know. It's just so weird too, because he's not the star of any of these films, but I'm trying to figure out. You know again here, racking my brain, like who is he right now? Is he like Like he's on, like some Charles Barkley kind of run right now, or whatever, where he's like just the MVP? He's not winning championships or anything right now, but he is just the most valuable actor to come in and give you like 35% of your screen time.
Speaker 2:He's one of the best if not the best character guy of all time. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's remarkable what he's doing right now. Yeah, just great, great stuff. And Yorgos is's remarkable what he's doing right now Just great, great stuff. And Yorgos is really helping drive that for him right now. Okay, so that's going to do it for us this week. I'm all worked up. I'm ready to go see Kindness again.
Speaker 1:Join us next week after the holiday as we celebrate the release of Maxine and a review of that film that has been high on both of our watch lists for some time now. Originally, this in a review of that film that has been high on both of our watch lists for some time now. Originally, this was supposed to be a 2023 release, so now we get it in 2024. This is like the big fourth of july opening film. What a time to be alive. Cannot wait for that discussion.
Speaker 1:Um, again, I'm a little bit in the same boat that you were in with Kinds of Kindness, where I've I don't think that I'm going to get let down, but again I'm just like. X was great and then Pearl got better for me, and so I'm very hopeful, but a little bit hesitant to like put all my eggs in the Maxine basket, and I know I don't have to, because it's going to be a great summer for horror, but like this really helps kick things off, so hopefully it's a success. In the meantime, follow Excuse the Intermission on Instagram and the two of us on Letterboxd to track what we're watching between shows, and we will talk to you next time on ETI, where movies still matter.
