(upbeat music) Hey folks and welcome to the Daily Ratings Podcast. It's a show we're each week. We're gonna be sitting down the Vincent Daily to get his thoughts on the latest movies he's been watching. Both older films and new releases. And don't worry, there's no spoilers. Vince will give a brief review of the movie. Share some thoughts and of course, then rate the film. The Daily Ratings are always fair, honest, and most importantly, they're consistent. On today's show, Vince will be rating and reviewing. We have 1948's Red River, directed by Howard Hawks. 1970's El Topo, directed by Alejandro Dodorowsky. And finally, we have newly released now in theaters, allowing me to the moon by Greg Relanti and Long Lakes by Oz Perkins. So it is gonna be a great Western and new release week, folks. Let's see what Vince has to say about it. Stay tuned and enjoy the show. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Mr. Vincent Daily, how you doing? - Tommy Boy, how's it going? - It's going okay on this side of the table. Turn you down, how was your week of movies? - Week was good. I actually really enjoyed this week of movies, even the kind of the lackluster one we saw together. - Yes, yes, it was a little lackluster for both of us. - Yeah, yeah. But in the short week, happy to get into Western slots, including our John Wayne slot. Don't know if I almost don't know where to begin with El Topo, it's a doozy. - Well, you're gonna have to start somewhere. - Yeah, yeah, but yeah, really, really happy with this week of movies. - Okay, good, good. - And any other opening notes or? - No, no, I mean, no alternative titles? No, no, nothing, okay, we can get right into it. - Well, I guess we're gonna jump back to 1948. We are covering John Wayne in our John Wayne July. Yeah, so we covered stagecoach, little last week, and that was in 1939. Howard Hawks comes out with this in 1948, it's Red River, still black and white, although they did colorize it, and the colorization is all right, like it looks okay, you know how some of the times that old footage when they review it, it doesn't like keep up with it a little bit, it could be a little off, it does look okay, but I kinda like watching the black and white version myself. This is kind of a fictitious story of a cattle drive from Texas to Kansas. It was like a very brief period where this was like a huge thing, and apparently there's several movies about it, but Howard Hawks made this, it's really highly praised and critically revered, but it's not talked about all that much. - Yeah, yeah. - Like when John Wayne comes up, through Gritty Chorus, you have Stagecoach, you have some of his other stuff in the shoot. - The Libby-Valence stuff. - Right, the shoot is 'cause it was his last one. Red River kind of takes a back seat. This is one of the last films I saw of John Wayne. - Really, okay. - Yeah, just like in tackling his filmography. - Just going through his stuff, yeah. But anyway, so let's take a jump back to 1948. Why don't you set the film up, Finn? Obviously I gave this a fresh watch as well, and we'll take it back and forth. - Yeah, well directed by a legendary name in Hollywood Westerns, Howard Hawks. Once again, someone who we will come across quite a lot in these John Wayne movies. The film was originally released in black and white despite having the option for a technicolor production at the time. When speaking about this choice, Hawks has kind of contradicted himself over the years, stating both opinions that the color technology would make the film too garish, quote unquote. - I don't know what that was so garish about some color with it. - While also stating that the film, if done in color, would have made a lot more money at the time, and I would probably agree, especially in '48. Folks, the luxury you have today is the choice between either of the two. While I couldn't find many details on this colorization process, the film is available in both black and white and color. And Tom, on this rewatch, I definitely watched the original 1948 black and white version like yourself, but do you remember what we originally watched it in? 'Cause I remember, you know, John Wayne's white hair and like-- - I think it was color. - Yeah, yeah, I think we did. - Yeah, I think we did. - The hard thing is that I was having a lot of trouble finding when this colorization took place. I think it was sometime in the 1990s with Criterion, but not really sure otherwise. - I didn't do any research on that part now. - An interesting choice out of the gate. Red River is what I lovingly call a real ass cowboy movie. It is an odyssey across the West that introduces us to the real work cowboys did, showing us how ego pairs with the personalities on the frontier, and most of all, how justice was often in the hands of the most dominant in the West. We begin with the start of the frontier cattle empire marked by the brand showing the Red River D. - Red River D. (laughing) - Two lines of Red River and marking with a D. (laughing) - Which is a line that you'll hear a lot of the film. - John Wayne plays Thomas Dunson, a successful but ruthless cattleman who we see abandon his love for opportunity in the West. After a quick 14 year gap, Dunson is one of the biggest players in the Texas cattle game. But business is dried up, and this dry spell calls for a good old fashioned cattle drive up to Kansas. But for the many cowboys pulled in, this will serve as their last on a hellish journey led by a man that demands undying loyalty. I mean, I was real happy to cover this. - It's probably been about five years. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And even longer. - Maybe longer, yeah. - Since we've watched it. And I think you've only watched it once, right? - Yes, yes. - As is the case with a lot of these John Wayne films. - That's true, that's true, yeah. - Pre-podcast background, folks. Tom and I had a series, was this part of what we had the whiteboard and we were picking and choosing the different things? - I mean, that's true, I forgot about the whiteboard. - But, you know, obviously Tom is a huge, huge fan of John Wayne. And an effort to watch a lot of these movies, where I came from, as far as like old Westerns go, liking Clint Eastwood, liking more of the spaghetti Western routes, so. - Yeah, John Wayne was a little bit comical and old, maybe movie, that just cliches of what people know about John Wayne. - Exactly. - Who don't even watch a John Wayne film. - Exactly, exactly, and that's really, you know, the honest boat I was in. I think why I was so happy to cover it for this month, that's dedicated to the man himself, is because this is probably my favorite movie role, John Wayne is in, by a good margin. This is mainly the case because you see him take on a character for once, you know. In every, you know, even the positive coverage that we've done of Wayne so far, he's always the same guy through and through. That's absolutely his strength. That's also a factor that you're gonna get with old Hollywood. - Also hilarious why you hate the searchers. (laughing) Everyone loves that movie for the role John Wayne takes, and facing a great character. (laughing) - We'll get to the searcher. I don't, maybe that should actually be the last slide. We were folks who were talking about, - Oh, no, I don't know. - Kind of the order of this, I mean, this would be a lot of heavy hitters. First John Wayne July. (laughing) - But this is the first time, one of the first times he took a role like this, 'cause the searchers is in the 50s. - Absolutely. - And this is still just 48. - Yeah, yeah, untraditional. And, you know, well, let me give you some background of why I like this character. You know, here Thomas Dunson is a morally gray character. Not exactly a villain, but definitely an anti-hero by his ethics, by his actions. And often making decisions that visibly creates conflict within the group he's traveling with. This is good in two directions. This conflict shakes things up, I think, for the plot, that separates this from your normal Western cattle drive type of story. On top of that, though, he is a character acting 100% in the logic of what the character is built up to be. He is headstrong in his decision making, but equally the reason he has success is because of those headstrong nature that headstrong nature to him. He's also a character that has critical faults, which I feel like is so interesting to unpack over the runtime and those faults obviously might lead to his downfall. I understand in Old Hollywood, if you're in the lead star, you never wanna be seen doing anything else for PR reasons, but I love that we get to see him acting as this anti-hero because it makes for a genuinely interesting story arc Western or not, which I think has been kind of a theme this month that these are really good movies worth checking out because of characters and because they're kind of good beyond just being a Western. - I totally agree, totally agree. The arc that he takes in this, it's just you don't see it with John Wayne films. - Yeah, absolutely. - And just with the hair, he's got a dirty blonde tear and it's longer and it's totally different. - He's wearing all black. - Yeah, he wears a lot of black in the film. - It's awesome, it's so great. - It is, it's very cool. It's a very cool style he takes on. - Yeah, I love how the action is done in this. It's very sudden, it's very shocking, but it's very lethal in the ways that this is not like a blown out shootouts or dramatic deaths. - Often times when people die, they're like cold dead and then it's left with this awkward silence often at the hands of Dunson's controversial type of actions. I just love this character though. I think this is exactly what I want to shake up the old dusty Western and no less from 48, it's not even dusty yet, it's just the Western, you know. - I mean, I'm coming hot on this film. - Yeah, yeah. - And much like stagecoach last week, I know this film and I probably have turned this on probably 12 times. I've probably watched it all the way through. It's almost like saying a stage show, it's like four or five times. - Yeah, yeah. - And returning it to again, it's like, damn, this is just better than I thought. Every element about it, I love it. I even thought that I used to think it was too long and I do think maybe some time could be shaped off. And I was like, well, the first half is electric and then it kind of tapers off. But then I'm watching it and I'm just like, this is way past half ways at electric. It actually doesn't start to stall a little bit and kind of we have to introduce some new things until like we're three quarters for the movie already. So even more of it was just right there, the stuff that I loved about it. So I don't know, great returning again. His character has a huge part to play with that. And so much of his arc that it takes. You want to see what the next day is gonna bring. - Absolutely, absolutely. - And it's smart that you pair it with a young talented Montgomery cliff. I think it's great having those two together on screen 'cause I think they help bolster each other persona. - Absolutely, I think that's another example of where on rewatch, I was kind of expecting the same thing that I knew after a certain point. I was like, ah, this is probably fat to trim. And specifically a romance with Montgomery cliff. But honestly, on this watch, I was like, no, this is kind of important to the mirroring or the countering that his character is to Wayne's anti-hero. - Yeah. - So I'm 100% with you, but there was a lot more appreciation this time around to watching this, even where I expected, you know, there to be none. Love affair for John Wayne's character here for Thomas Dunson. I mean, man, I just can't get enough of this character. Not to nerd up this Western, but this arc is pretty damn close to my favorite character in the "Mell Your Solid" series, Big Boss, you know, both of these characters-- - I've never these two. - I'm the one to make it. Mr. Kojima, I'm the one to make it. - I love it, I love it. - But seriously, you know, like both of these characters have become great as a result of their might, but ultimately that might is what leads them to ruin. That's the arc. And again, not necessarily a villain, but a true anti-hero, not even like how anti-hero is used. It's like, oh, this is a badass superhero or something. No, an anti-hero in the sense that like, he's clearly the lead of our story. He's driving it forward as a protagonist, but at the same time, on a rocky path, it's leading him to ruin. - And his principles are strong and his determination is crazy. Like a such good, like manly, moralistic traits, but they start to come crumbling down at his own expense almost. It is a great character. It is a great character. - And that's why I say like, it's still 100% within the character's logic. This is not like frustrating in the way that I've commented and probably countless reviews in the past of like this character's turn doesn't feel realistic. No, every decision he makes is like, yeah, that's a guy that probably made it hard 14 years, cattle ranching, you know? So it just, I can't praise this enough. And I think it was, again, I was so grateful to cover this in John Wayne July because it really is like a shining John Wayne film specifically. - Yeah, I mean, you had this on the list early. You were like, I'm watching Red River. - Oh, yeah. - Which is awesome. - Even like last year, I think it might have been in the cut. So. - It's great to hear. - Yeah, yeah. - This is great to hear. - Video game Tanger to side with my comparison. My favorite quote found around this switchup came from our legendary director from last week, John Ford, who after seeing the range, John Wayne had and was able to bring on screen, he said, I didn't know the big son of a bitch could act. (laughing) I was just like, that's awesome. - That's so funny. - I feel like that's the best one liner I could give around this movie. So yeah, I didn't know John Wayne could act. - He directed it multiple times. - Yeah, yeah. - And the funny thing is with John Ford, John Ford would always bitch at John Wayne like while filming. - Oh, really? - He would always give him a hard time. - Wow. - When the hell are you gonna learn how to act? (laughing) Like constantly, it would be great, John Wayne. - Yeah. - But he said, this is, we have range here. - Yup, yup. (laughing) - That's great. - Yeah. - And Howard Hawks is such a great director. - Absolutely. - I mean, this is Howard Hawks. - Absolutely. Unlike a John Ford is so strictly in the Western. - Yeah. - You could just see that it's his wheelhouse and a lot of quality comes with that. - Yeah, I actually push, you're saying John Ford is strictly Western? - No, no, Howard Hawks. - See, I would actually disagree with that. I think if you go through his IMDB. - Okay. - He takes a tackle at a decent amount of stuff. I mean, don't forget that he did the original star, Scarface. - Oh my God. - Like he goes. - I totally forgot about Scarface. - If you look at Howard Hawks's list, he had some shining nuggets. - Yeah. - Totally not in the Western realm. - Wow, wow. - Okay, yeah. - But when it comes to Western, it's great. I mean, for those who maybe don't know the name quite, he also made the classic John Wayne Western Rio Bravo. - Yep. - That's with Dean Martin. - Mm-hmm. - And so this is kind of the caliber that he's at. - Interesting. - Highly, highly respected. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And again, like Ford, man, just like working, you know, his ass off in the early days. - But he's poised to get back then. - Yeah, yeah. - Wow. - I would say one area where the film shows a little bit of its age is a good dozen exposition scenes done with journal tech store, kind of letters being written. - I wanted to ask you about that. - Yeah. - What your thoughts were. - I think, you know, they're used in a good spot in the story to jump past probably the vast amount of nothing days that are happening during this cattle drive on the trail. And in themselves, you know, you kind of feel hawks as an older style director in that, they're probably just an artifact from silent movies and older films where that's the type of scenes that were commonplace. - Yeah. - To get you up to speed with just a block of text or some sort of like rolling exposition. - It kind of seems like in how it's set up, folks, it's just, it's almost looks like a large journal with cursive writing. And then it's a little bit, it's a little bit darker at where he wants you to read is just ever so slightly bright enough. You always have to figure out where he wants you to read. - Yep. - But it kind of takes a thing of it just, it explains something in the beginning, the beginning of the film it's used as far as setting up the film. And then when it pops in, like in between scenes, it's more so just to get you, you know, there are many days that it was hard and the men were tired. And it was just like, it's like adjectives, essentially. - Yeah, yep. - Absolutely. - It's kind of unnecessary, but it definitely, like you said, that's where it's showing its age and I would agree with that. - Exactly, yeah. - I didn't hate it, but. - And really, like I said, it's not bad, just kind of stale, and stale in a modern day watch is where I'm coming from. - Yeah. - Again, it's kind of an artifact of an older style movie to begin with, you know, it would just be one area where I wish was changed up. Apparently in one of the versions, I don't know if this is the colorized version that we watch, it's actually animated to be like pages turning. Not in the 48 version that we both watch for this week, but I don't know. - I did, no, I think it's the black and white. It might have been, I think there was a page turned and then it does the highlighted text, I think. - Oh, okay, okay. - It's very slight, it's very slight, yeah. - So, not necessarily a bad thing, not a deal breaker by any means. Tom, I don't have too many notes on our supporting guy, Montgomery Cliff, other than kind of some curiosity of what you know to be happening of his career, 'cause he always got like 16 films under his belt. Does he just disappear? I think he disappears when you're 16. - He died early, I believe he dies young, and this is one of his first big films. I don't know if it's his first film, but it's almost brought Montgomery Cliff to the screen. - Absolutely. - So it's a big deal, this film was a big deal for him. But no, like I made the comment last week where he was one of the first kind of rugged, yet handsome, manly kind of actors. I was saying, he came before Steve McQueen, he came before Paul Newman, kind of who took those roles, and there's others that we could mention as well. And this is now going off memory from doing past research on the film. I wanna say that he got to some type of car accident or something like that. I wanna say he was one of the first people, one of the first really Hollywood actors to get like worked on on his face. - Oh, wow. - And prosthetics and stuff because of the accident or something like that. But I do wanna say he died young, which is a shame because he's electric, and I really quite liked them in this. - I don't know if I was super sold on him on this rewatch, but I did definitely tune into the fact that he's given all the hero shots, the hero shots that would otherwise be John Wayne. And a lot of close-ups just, he's got a nice set of pearly teeth. He's always like grabbing his face or something like that. So I feel like this does feel like a vehicle for him, whether that was intended by Howard Hawks directing or not. - There are just like amazing one-liners all over this film. I'll rattle off a few. There's only two things better than a quick gun, a Swiss watch and a woman from anywhere. (laughing) That's amazing. I don't like seeing things go good or bad. I like seeing them go in between. (laughing) And that's just like a random guy. These are also not from John Wayne or Montgomery Cliff. These are just like random supporting characters. The standout scene for me, I love the quick scene, starting the cattle drive where it's just like a dozen or a handful of close-up shots of all of our cowboys out in Yee-haw. - Yeah. - You like that? Oh, I love that scene. So cool stylistically and kind of like a countdown in the moment of that action. - Yeah, I did, yeah. - And there's such a buildup for the last 10 minutes of the film, basically. The boy's getting ready. - Absolutely. - I think that's also the scene that Hawks was referring to that he wanted it to do it in color. - Oh, interesting. - I'm not really sure why that specific scene, but a great scene nonetheless. And man, do I just love John Wayne's threats in this? We don't get John Wayne threats very often, so I'm really stoked for this. Towards the end of the film, and surely because he just sounds like actually badass, which I feel like is not in, you know, I mean, John Wayne, a moral upstanding, you know. - Right, when it comes to gritty badass, you're thinking Clint Eastwood, that absolutely needs your steps in. - Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I can't just tell you how much there's a, I have a love affair with this character and how refreshing it is, so. - Now, folks, well, I might not be as hot on this as last week's pick, or even something that we covered last year, like Liberty Balance. I feel like this is still a very great movie and well worth your time. Whether, again, you're kind of interested in John Wayne or not, whether you're interested in Westerns or not, where those two films in John Wayne's catalog would be recommends, regardless of the Western here, I feel like Red River has that quality, but on the other hand, is a great deep cup for any hardcore Western fan out there. It's because of how realistic this real cowboy story is. It's not about gunsling, it's about cattle work, you know. - I know, and it goes places. - Yeah. - It really does go places. It's not just about getting from point A to point B. It's okay, how does this guy get there? Would we get to see kind of his struggle? And it's, of course, the big arc with Montgomery Cliff and John Wayne, there's enough there that makes us a much larger film than some of those older ones can be. - Absolutely, absolutely. And there's just so much to appreciate here, especially in the authenticity the story has surrounding itself with this real cowboy work that they're doing rather than cartoonish gun slinging. And I feel like that can be appreciated side by side with the more cartoonish spaghetti Westerns that I feel like are just equally have a place side by side in the Western genre, but this achieves something more real and good for that reason. And if there is any payoff for John Wayne fans that haven't seen this yet, you have one hell of a treat seeing our boy dressed in black matching an unexpected villainous spin. We're gonna go ahead and give Red River a 75 on the dot. - Okay, 75, pretty good score, pretty good score. We'll take it, we'll take it. I'm almost surprised. I thought maybe, especially after watching this and enjoying it the most just his fast watch for me, I almost thought this was gonna be higher than stagecoach. - Really? - Just because the, the bigness of the film, the completeness of it. - It's very true, very true. - But it does drag a little bit. You know, there are areas that it does drag towards the end. - But 75 is a great score for a 1948 Western. - Absolutely. And again, folks, if you're intimidated by Westerns or John Wayne, give it a shot. I feel like all the ones we've covered so far this month and even Liberty valance in the past, like these are something to the ones to jump into the pool over. - Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. - Do I even want to dive into these? - Definitely, definitely. And I just, yeah, I want to just want to also buttress, you know, John Wayne his side. Montgomery Cliff really takes a huge stand here. - Yeah, I like him, but also are the third man in action kind of, which is Walter Brennan. - Yeah. - Walter Brennan was in over 200 films or 300 films. It might have been, right, there might have been over 300 credits to his name, which is crazy. But like a classic actor, he never takes the spotlight. He's always second or third guy there. He's also in Rio Bravo, but I just liked, I think it's important that the three of them with these characters help make the film. I think if you take Walter Brennan out, I think it would actually lose something. - Really? - Yeah, I do. I like to play on three. I like how Montgomery Cliff and Walter Brennan's characters are totally like side by side and they get it a little bit and it's more of a push against John Wayne as well. - Sure, sure. - But yeah, I just, I love it completely. Really like this film. And it almost went into this same thing. I mean, I'll tell you, I was like, okay, you know, we'll probably be two shoes and everything like that. And the good two shoes and we'll enjoy it. But two shoes, one lace. - Excellent. - Easily, easily. - And these are top Wayne films. I feel like we might be shooting ourselves in the foot a little bit. - You know what I thought about that too? - Getting these like super, super positive ones out of the way and then I don't know. We'll see where. - We'll see, it just starts a tank next year. (laughing) But 75% for Red River folks, check it out. I told Vin this over the weekend too. If you happen to find both versions or you happen to get them for free, I like, I've done it in the past where, like Vin said, there's a point where things jump ahead of 14 years in the future. And I've done it where I've watched black and white for the beginning and then as soon as that jump comes, then I go to the color version. - Which I love. - Pull the Wizard of Oz thing. - That's so awesome. We should make a custom cut for the daily ratings. Just doing that. (laughing) - I like how you said your favorite scene too. I don't, I love so many separate scenes. - Yeah, yeah. - But there's something for some reason when it's the night before the drive starts, a cattle drive starts and John Wayne comes in to tell everybody what the stakes are again. - Yeah. - And he's just like, hey, if you don't, I don't know, something about that scene, I really like. - Yeah. - 'Cause all the boys are there. John Wayne's just like, this is what we're gonna be dealing with. If you don't wanna go, don't worry about it. He's just like, it's okay, you'll have a job when you get back. - Yeah, the one guy says to me, he's just like, I got kids, he's just like, don't have to explain. - Right. - Yeah, it's great. - Yeah, something about that scene I really like. But so many good scenes in that film. - Absolutely. - Okay, so that was 1948. Let's jump to 1970. - This director is Alejandro Jodorowsky. He did a famous film called Holy Mountain. - Yep. - Which is the most bad shit. - Infamous, really. - Yeah, the most bad shit crazy movie I've ever seen. - Yeah, yeah. - Vin and I somehow got through it. - Oh, yeah. - Didn't love it, it has a big cult following. And we also know Jodorowsky recently 'cause in our Dune episode, he was planning on making a Dune movie and never came to fruition. So then there was a documentary about it that was called Jodorowsky's Dune, which Vin also really liked that documentary. - Yes, yes, apart from Jodorowsky actually directing, you just got to kind of experience how eccentric a Dune works. - Yeah, which is cool. So basically here we are in 1970. He directs a western called El Topo, Topo. - Topo. - I know nothing about this. I hadn't heard of it before, so Vin dive into it. - Well, I am very, very happy. We have the chance to cover this because much like my efforts to cover deep cut sci-fi, I'm always looking to find the gems in a specific genre. And like you said, Tom, after covering Jodorowsky's Dune as a documentary, I found myself very curious about other films that the Madman actually directed, but also equally scared shitless, knowing how much I just didn't connect with projects like Holy Mountain. El Topo is Alejandro's Jodorowsky's second feature film, but really responsible for the start of his career. The art house scene of the late '60s gobbled this movie up with showings hosted at the museum of modern art. And for nearly two decades, the only way to watch this movie was exclusively at midnight showings. How interesting is that? - Really? - Yeah. - Is that just something that happened? Or is there something-- - I think that was Jodorowsky's wishes. - Wow, wow, that's wild. - And also maybe another reason to circle back to that documentary 'cause you find out about his relationship with production partners and how close Jodorowsky was with who we worked with, like kind of emotionally close. So Jodorowsky directs rights and stars as the lead role in the film. So it's no wonder his, you know, the combination of how insane his other movies are, that it would establish kind of a cult following around his projects and kind of him as a guy, yeah. - Exactly like a creative visionary, all of which strike a line between profound and absurd and while I would like to say El Topo maybe was a little more straightforward, unfortunately he'd really just jump off the deep end like all of what I've seen from him. - So it's not the whole film, he carries you for a little bit? - I'd be like 20 minutes. - It's over two hours, I was shocked to see that actually. - Yeah, it is a little long for sure. El Topo translates to the mole in Spanish and for the decade that saw the genre co-opted by the Italian spaghetti western, I was excited to see what a Mexican western might bring to the table. The mole is a wandering preacher gun slinger dressed in full black leather, traveling with companions such as his seven-year-old boy played by Joe Narowski's real son or a rescued slave woman, overall unflinching in showing them the brutality of a lawless west. Many moments in the story, this is where I was like, before and or even for the recording, I was like, where do I begin with this movie? You know, many moments in the story will bounce around from semi-surreal biblical scenes. They may not, may or may not be meant to taken literally, paired alongside with like campy western action. A great example of this is one moment they are creating water and eggs in a lifeless desert. The next he is hunting down the four master gun slingers of the endless desert. Like, can you not like it? - I don't think you get more spaghetti western than that, you know, four masters. It sounds like a kung fu movie, you know, like a Bruce Lee movie. - With each new challenge, we learn a new parable and that's where this kind of like biblical spin comes into play. It's definitely like a quasi-religious film showing these guns slingers philosophy on life but the more El Topo tries to dig towards what he thinks he wants, the more destruction he brings and to quote the opening of this film, that's until the mold digs deep enough to find the sunlight only to be blinded by it. I feel like there's a lot of things that this film has to say. It's just that, like any Jodorowsky movie, it's just like, I don't know what to take seriously, you know what I mean? The surrealism gets so silly and so sexual and so 70s, you know. It's just a lot to take in and kind of dilutes, believe it or not, the more striking moments. I feel like these guns slingers, these master guns slingers, the philosophies we kind of unpack with them, definitely out there, but like meaningful. And I feel like meaningful to the violence we see in westerns or spaghetti westerns specifically. Totally though, the madness of the film feels closer to something like a clockwork orange or boy in this dog. Especially in the final act, which, going off the deep end, I mean, the deep end is the Marianas Trench, like as deep as it goes. When it comes across any kind of, when coming across any directly evil character, they're often taken to such an extreme, it's hard to not laugh at the movie. It becomes a bit harder to then decipher every other character, however, including the intentions of El Topo himself when sometimes he is the moral superior to everyone on screen. Other times, he is a sinful trickster doing anything he can to win. What I totally did not expect, though, was how hyper-violent the film would be. This feels like Tarantino might be taking some notes from him. Why would you not expect that? Oh, just to the degree that it went into. Okay, all right. Looking first, by the way, this or Holy Mountain? Holy Mountain is three years after this. Okay, gotcha, yeah. And probably only a result of the, I wouldn't say mainstream success, but the cult success of this. This has more gore than probably every single John Wayne Western combined. (laughing) And I think it's an element that defines this film among the countless other kind of cheap knockoffs made in comparison, or cheap Westerns made in comparison. Don't get me wrong, some of the blood definitely does look like a bunch of red paint thrown around. There are also really inventive uses when it comes to gunshot wounds and dramatic deaths on screen that I found visually striking. If there's one thing I can say about Jodorowsky, the dude's got an eye for the unconventional. We saw this in Holy Mountain, you see it in the concept art of the Dune doc. There's something to the visual storytelling that strikes you even if everything else is nonsense, you know. - I think that's a good point. And the shame of it is, it's like he keeps you strung along because it could be visually, weird or visually intriguing, but then the content is just like, what the fuck is going on here? (laughing) - It's like that guy in the theater for "Constant Kind" is where he's just like, (laughing) please, please, please, please, help me. So there's definitely a lot of that that you have to sit through for the, we'll call it the visual candy of what he's able to do on screen. So there are unfortunately many moments that the production itself stripped me out of the experience, however, which already demands you jump through numerous hoops to stick with, but that's for anyone that kind of gives it a shot. Certain props and wardrobes not only look like they don't belong in a Western, but are so clearly from the 70s, it hurts. Like the amount of silky disco shirts in this is shocking. (laughing) It's like, please, just like throw some dirt on it or something. The movie also has an unusual abundance of lesbian kissing scenes. (laughing) Like, I get old Alejandro, it's probably a pretty sensual guy in his prime, no less coming out of the 60s, but it's a bit distracting. There's a lot of moments where it's like, all right, this feels not only like exploitative in that era of exploitation, but it's just like, I don't know, did he do this just because he could get two girls to kiss on screen in 1970? Like, it's all right, you know. (laughing) I always feel a little bit embarrassed and that this kind of piggybacks off of our coverage of "Yorgos" and his kind of sexual films, that I'm not bringing these critiques up because I'm prudish or anything like that. I feel like it's a distraction. - You still need to be concerned about that. - Okay, okay, just trying to, you know. As far as my takeaway here, those folks, this is a film that offers awesome cinematography, especially in really unique on location shots in Mexico. Much of the storytelling was either total nonsense or deeply perplexing allegory. The visual storytelling here was the real highlight and the reason why I might find a case to recommend this to someone. On that note, in addition to the few films that I mentioned, if you enjoy some of the surreal notes that we touched on in our Alejandro Inaritu study, I feel like this could fit alongside that a little bit. Something that could be an interesting watch, maybe paired with, like, Bardo for a type of Mexican surrealism people had. - Interesting, yeah, yeah. - Because it really did capture that type of same energy that you're on a ride with it. But be warned, because Jodorowsky got his reputation for a reason and this is just as crazy as any film he has done in the years to come. We're gonna go ahead and give El Topo 1970 a 56. - Okay, 56. I'm kind of surprised that you found it good enough. - Yeah. - You have to put it over the bar. - That's true. - I guess you didn't feel like your time was wasted. - No, again, not completely, and I feel like, again, there was watching the film. I feel like I could find some movie watchers to really genuinely recommend this too. With the caveats of saying, "Hey, you can get ready." But, like, I know a type of movie watcher, even including myself, that the visual fidelity of this and the cinematography, there's enough interesting to go on to say, "Wow, my time wasn't wasted." - Right, but you're not in the camp of, you're not a cult follower. Where cult followers like love his movies. - No, no. - You're not going that far. - Yeah. - But there's something enough there where a certain mind could be interested. - Absolutely. - I guess that's a 56 as well. - Yeah. - It's for slightly a certain, very certain argument. - Yeah, definitely driving on the point that 40 to 59 is a wild card puddle of all different types of recommendations or maybe stay or steer clears. - Excellent, okay, so that's 56% for 1970s El Topo. So, okay, well, we have two more films left. They're both in theaters. So, before that, let's thank a producer because we have a producer for this week. So, John Frampton. - Oh, excellent. - Which I believe is the new donor. - Yeah. - Or new producer, basically. - I think so. - So, John donated, I believe it was 30 bucks and he covered the charge because it came out to be $31.40. - It's so courteous, all these courteous covering the charges 'cause it is quite courteous. John also wrote a producer note in. So, let's see what John has to say. He says, "Hey, guys, absolutely love the show. "No matter if it's an entire episode devoted "to baseball-themed movies, "which I'm glad someone liked that episode." - Oh yeah, we love that, I think that's an excellent episode. - I'm not sure if everybody loved that one. No matter if it's an entire episode debated to baseball-themed movies, which much like Vin, I am not a sports fan at all. Or a look at films from the early 1900s, you guys make it so damn interesting and enjoyable to listen, I never miss an episode. My question is around, quote, the perfect movie. Is there such a thing, is there such a thing as one? And by perfect, I mean a 100% score. Unlike Rotten Tomatoes, unrealistically throwing around 100% left and right, is there a film Vin would consider absolute perfection? And what would it take to achieve the perfect score? Lastly, can you please have Vin read this part out? I totally miss this. (laughing) - Will you want me to come around? - Oh, I don't know if I can let him say this. No. (laughing) I'm sorry to, no, he will not read this. I will read it. (laughing) And with that said, we're gonna give The Matrix, the first one, of course, 100%. (laughing) - Definitely a great movie. (laughing) - Thank you for the endless hours of entertainment and here's to a 100+ more episode. - Oh, excellent. Thank you so much, man. - Thank you so much. - Thank you for your donation. Thank you for your note, great note. As far as the conversation that we've ever actually like haven't talked about on the podcast. - Yeah, true, very true. Yeah. I would say behind the scenes, Tom and I have talked about kind of that similarly, that gap from what 95, 97 to 100. And even kind of a pressure to push movies that I love like with my whole heart and soul. - Right. - Even further just to demonstrate that they're that much closer to 100, you know? The internet operates off those perceptions of like, oh well, if it's not 10 out of 10, you know? Why am I wasting my time or something like that? - Right. - You know? Tough to say though, I think just like, you know, 5% to zero, it's really hard to determine something that has no redeeming qualities. It's really hard to determine actual perfection. - So that's the thing. - Basically, well, I think I mentioned it in like, you should say it in the maybe the old producer, pitches and stuff like that in our earlier episodes. But it is true where I don't think actually we'll ever give a, I don't think a movie exists where it is 100%. There has to be something that can be slightly better or changed a bit, but also it's the fact of, I would be wary for you to give 100% because the next month, the next year, five years down the road, if a movie came out, happened to come out that you liked better. - I don't know, I mean, I guess that's just picking hair, so sure, you can give it 100% as well. - Sure. - But I think there's something to, you almost have to cap it for us at 99%. And when you die, we'll really know if something can be 100 or not. One thing that we toyed with basically is overall, before we did the podcast, and before we went live on the podcast, I think we had about 600, 620 films already rated. - Yep. - My thing was, and I actually went back and forth a lot, even when we went live with the podcast, it's our scale good, it's our scale okay. Now, the scale has to be okay, because it is generally just how you feel. - Sure. - It's however you process a film in your mind, and your scale, the number that you give it, that's kind of what we need to stick to. But my thing is, and I think you'll remember me saying this, is I almost feel like, why don't we take, before we went live, why don't we take all of our scores, and bump them up by 4%. And the reason for saying that, basically, is that puts our highest rated film, "Godfather Part II", at a 99%. - There we go. - And then it also kicks a lot of other stuff that in the 70s could be 80s, but I think I was thinking more, "Markability", right? Because, and I'm glad that we're not really going for "Markability", we're just going for a good product here. - Yeah, yeah. - And listen, but "Markability" as far as like, what if we get really big? It would be very cool if people were just like, "Hey, the daily ratings gave it such and such." Well, the problem is, an 82 or an 84% is gonna be one of the highest rated films of all year, but it's not sexy to come out and say that. - Right, right. - You know, for anyone attached to the film or whatever for marketing purposes, it's not sexy to be like, "Wow, this got an 82% "on the daily ratings." - Yeah, the exact reason why we find it annoying of the, you know, dime a dozen, 100s that Rotten Tomatoes is putting out there. - Exactly, exactly, and-- - So, maybe it shoots us in the foot as far as that marketability, but-- - But we don't care now about Rotten Tomatoes. - Yeah, yeah. - And another way I kind of thought about it, too, was like, "Okay, you take "Godfather Part II", and 95%. Well, does that mean if 100 people, it almost is like, it's good for two ways, because I bet there's 5% of that entire film that could improve it. - Sure. - You know what I mean? - Yeah. - There's also-- - Long as hell. - If you take 100 people and have them watch it, I would not be shocked if five people walk away not liking the film. - Yes, right. - So it's also that kind of. So I almost think that it's the more I thought about it and gave thought, the more I kind of liked our scale and how rigorous and difficult it is. I often compare people ask us the scale or some people ask online or something like that. What are we comparable to? I kind of say Metacritic, but that fluctuates. - Sure. - I think Metacritic gives a little bit too easy at times. And then at times, it's just totally unfair. It seems like Metacritic hits a certain scale where if it's not a good movie, it's just taint completely. - Yeah. - And that's not good because with ours, I think there's a lot of nuances in our 40s and 50s, like we just talked about. - Absolutely. - And the reason why the podcast is the companion piece to this, to give breathing room to that explanation and also maybe make a case that if the movie's for you or, you know, why I think definitely steer clear of it. So, last thing I'll say in regards to this as far as kind of the score talk, 'cause we haven't, it's a great note 'cause we really haven't talked about it just straightforward on the podcast or given an opportunity to. I feel like when it comes down to some of the wording that we use in earlier episodes of, you know, how much that score translates to being worth your time or how much it's worth the time for those audience members, I feel like that also prevents something from being a zero or a hundred as far as the, you know, the extremes of that. - Oh, sure, yeah, yeah. - I feel like the worthiness aspect, I mean, definitely my ratings are about the quality of the film and my thoughts on the experience, but there's a utility that comes with the podcast to say, hey, this is about whether you should watch the movie or not, and we don't do spoilers for the exact same reason, it's about a piece to recommend you new films and hopefully discover films, not to do a deep dive analysis of why something is the greatest or the worst, you know? - And it's true because everyone has their own particular likes and dislikes, so that it's true because every film will have the people that should watch it or not watch it. And I think that goes also into the fact of just like, I bet 5% of people don't like the Godfather, you know what I mean? I bet 10% maybe don't like do it. - After every woman that's watched that movie, it looks like the Juggen Barbie. - I think that is a really good point where it comes to usefulness for the individual, and it is a great, why the podcast is a great companion piece. - Yeah, ultimately the choice of why we're doing a long form podcast versus any other medium talking about film in the endless internet, so. - It's so. - That's good, I'm glad we were there to actually talk about that. - Yeah, great, no. We have had a great streak of notes. - Producers coming in, it's phenomenal. - Yeah, absolutely. So thank you all so much over the weeks, and thanks so much, John, I really appreciate it. - Yeah, man, John, you are executive producer of episode 143. We thank you so much for your $31.40. And like Vince said, we've had a good influx of producers, and it's not even so much also about the money as we're getting the word out and stuff, it's the fact that people are enjoying it, and they're getting value from it, which is incredible. - Absolutely, absolutely. - People were going off of the value for value model. Basically what that means is Vin and I are not gonna show up ads in your face, or do any advertising even on our website. We also don't have tier structures, or pay walls on this site, it's not pay to play, it's not pay to get access to our content. Vin and I do the podcast, and the website is just out there. So essentially everything is out there that we make, and it's for free technically. But the idea is, if you're listening to the podcast, if you're using the website, that's a form of value in your pocket, we ask you, "Can you give us value back in our pocket?" So you go to the donations tab on the dailyradings.com, and through your monetary support, through your donation, you show us what value you're getting, and then also through that, you become a legit actual producer of the daily ratings. Just like in Hollywood, when you financially support a project, you are a producer of that project. So like we said, John decided to, you know, this week, "Hey, I'm getting this much value "from the daily ratings right now, 31 bucks, 40 cents." And with that, he's an executive producer. So if you go to the dailyradings.com, head to the donations tab, and we do have some fun set donations, like buy a bin and movie ticket, Gump Club, become a godfather. But also there's the big value for value button right there. And basically what that is, any number that you want, any amount of money, that's what you can send in. I've been saying, if you didn't buy the cup of coffee that you usually do this week and you got an extra five bucks, you know, if you're getting value from us, five bucks is huge. I don't know, if you didn't buy that new drone this week and you have an extra $500 in your pocket, hey, send us $500, I can't tell you how much we would appreciate it, that would be in the world. The point is it opens up a through line to you as well, because when you're a producer, we wanna, you know, give thanks and show our appreciation. But we also wanna hear what you have to say. When you're a producer, send in a producer note, just like John did here and it could be questions, comments, critiques, ask us anything, whatever. If you're gonna produce, if you're gonna donate into us, it means something we wanna recognize that. So again, John, thank you so much, executive producer 143. And if you wanna be a producer for episode 144, just head to thedailybradings.com. All right, then, let's continue with the now in theaters films and newly released. I think we're gonna start with the- - It's drastically different. - I think we're gonna start with the one that we went to. - Yeah, yeah. - I have a feeling that you're gonna wanna save long legs for last, so we're gonna jump to Fly Me to the Moon. I don't think, I didn't see a lot of marketing for this film. - Yeah. - Nobody's talking about this film, except for some internet bites with Charles Johansson and Chatham Tatum. I was looking forward to this all year. - No way. - Just because I knew that Ray Romano was gonna be in it. (laughing) But why don't you take us through it a little bit? Just tell us what the film is, we'll take it back and forth. Fly me to the moon then. - Yeah, well folks, this is the new comedy romance from Apple TV, but if only to spit in the face of naysayers was fully released in theaters where nearly every other film in the genre has been streaming fodder for I would say the last good four years, maybe eight years. The only reason why this was on my radar next to Ray Romano (laughing) was due to large swaths of the internet saying that an accusing this of being AI written or at least feeling like a fake movie nobody asked for. After watching this, I can't really say much evidence is in that accusation. The only factor that made me a little bit suspicious of it is an extremely novice writing team split between three people with very minimal writing credits period. So, take that for what it's worth. - One thing I can't get credit to with that initial thing that you read online is it is a movie no one was asking for. (laughing) - And honestly, I didn't know it was an Apple film until we were seeing theaters. - Dido, dido, absolutely. - Right away, I was like, oh boy. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think we both grown down it, yeah. But yeah, yeah, Tom and I saw this together. The packed theater boomers, you know, you're really. - Not really. (laughing) - Yeah, yeah, I always say mildly. - This also comes from writer, producer, and director Greg Berlanti. He primarily made his bones connected to, I'm not kidding, nearly every CW superhero show you could imagine. So I'll let that speak for itself if that's a good thing or a bad thing for you. (laughing) But even dipping into the genre with 2018's Love Simon, the mix of drama and more traditional rom-com beats left this movie with not much of an impact on screen, coming out as kind of a whatever experience that honestly probably would have done a little bit better for streaming fodder. - Did we got box office data on this? - Yeah, it didn't do great. It was fifth in the fifth of the weekend, it made 9.4 million. Did you happen to look up? Did you happen to look up how much the film costs? - No, no, oh God. - Well, watching, I'm just like, okay, this is $30 million project. - Sure. - Right? - Yep. - $100 million, $100 million this film cost. - So they were like, we gotta put in a few minutes. - Civil War for May 24 was 50 million. (laughing) Folks, if you watch this film, if you watch "Fly Me To The Moon," you're gonna be like, well, where did all the money go? - You're right. - This is a small film. - Yeah. - And it is, I think you were about to get into, it cuts through this. It cuts through the rom-com with drama. - Yep. - And it kills the film. - It kinda does, yeah. It really, it's down to the editing of it. I feel like everything moves along at such a quick pace that when the dramatic beats come, they don't stay along enough on screen to actually feel real for these characters. - For sure. - Absolutely. - And then the rest of the breezyness of it is just like, okay, you know? - Yeah, it's a little lame. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Vin and I were talking, we were kinda like, okay, this is going for 90s rom-com. - Right, right. - But I'll tell you, this is no sleepless in Seattle. This is no, you've got mail. - He loves pulling these examples. - I mean, you know what he's comparing this movie to sleep as in Seattle, by the way. (laughing) - But I love you've got mail. - Right. - I mean, that is a classic movie. - And if you want, I mean, this is a great rom-com. - Yeah. - Like a great rom-com. - Yeah. - Boy, this is not it. And the industry is struggling right now to get a film that's like this. - Absolutely. And that's where I opened with like, why is this in theater? I feel like it would have even done even better just growing straight to Apple TV. But I guess that's Apple's approach this year. "Fly Me to the Moon" tells the story of the Apollo 11 moon landing, but in the eyes of operations at NASA, Scarlett Johansson plays a 1960s man and hadn't advertising exec that is tapped on the shoulder by the feds to overhaul the PR of NASA. She is headstrong, adaptive, but most of all running away from a shady past that keeps her on the leash of Woody Harrelson playing our man in the suit. Channing Tatum, on the other hand, is an astronaut holding a lot of guilt about what he can do to make his mission successful and what he could have done more in the space program in general. Not really a funny role for him. - Yeah. - Which kind of is actually like Channing Tatum. - Yeah, a little bit of a moody, Channing Tatum as well. But I doubt his fans will even remotely care whether he's funny or not. - That's true. - Yeah, that'll be it. - And I will say like, Channing Tatum, with Magic Mike and everything like that and his persona with like the women love him and everything. - Right. - We have respect for him. - Oh yeah. - Like you even liked him in that first Magic Mike. - Yeah, I think we liked him in Logan Lucky. - A sure? - A lucky Logan, whatever the hell it's called. (laughing) - That's so true. Like even to this very moment, I don't know which one it is. I don't know if it's Logan Lucky or Logan Lucky. - I think it's Logan Lucky. (laughing) But the point is I think we respect him that he has chops. - Yes. - Oh, what a Fox catcher as well. - Oh, very good call. Yeah, absolutely. - But with this, he just seemed too normal guy. - Yeah. - And what was also disappointing is, you know, we're set in the late 60s. So it almost maybe stylistically, or he changed something up for us. - Yes. - You know? - Yes. - Absolutely. - Where Scarlett was, all in that. I mean, Scarlett totally changed it up. - Yeah, absolutely. I feel like she brought a lot to this character, but Channing was, - A little flat. - Yeah, a little flat. - Just looking for that apple money. - Yeah, for real. They are brought together by a floundering space program. In the heat of the space race between the USA and the USSR, while Scarlett wants NASA to become a household name, Channing sees all of this as a distraction to the mission and its success. But being such a chameleon comes with a pass that threatens to catch up to Scarlett and might be the one thing she can't talk her way out of. Let's start with some positive secret Christmas movie. Been a while since we called that out. - Is it? - Yeah, start. - You saw it. Yeah, the beginning is during Christmas. Like during the diner scene and whatnot, that's all Christmas. - Are you sure about that? - Yeah. - Yeah, are you sure? I mean, less happens. - How did the movie start? - Well as I was dazing off. Yeah, she's still the Manhattan exec. That's all during Christmas time. - Wow. - Comes out of Florida. - Wow. - It's revealing this for the first time to a dog. - I would say Channing and Scarlett are pretty decent as far as chemistry on screen. If anything held up exclusively by Scarlett playing a fun, dynamic character that keeps the story from being too boring, a lot of scenes just fall into a vexing, will they, won't they type of romance? But with a media runtime of two hours and 12 minutes, holy shit, let me say that again, two hours and 12 minutes for this rom-com, the story does need to kind of play keep away with the romance, a good deal. So Scarlett is willing to bend the truth and like any good marketer, understands perception is reality. This makes Channing feel like a, just a total stick in the mud on the other hand. - It really does. - Yeah, I feel like as good of a job Scarlett is doing in this kind of, you know, we'll call it a Don Draper type of role, kind of, is that the detriment of really harming Channing's performance in the role. I know you were-- - He's a total wall. He's just a wall. And Scarlett, I mean, had some moments where she's really acting. - Yeah. - She's still such a talented actress. - Absolutely. - So it's almost like, hit your legs a little bit. - Yeah, yeah. - Get out of the Marvel costume. But I would say-- - Yeah, after the legal battles. - I also, I mean, her character is muted in a way too, but that's just the writing that's a directing. It's everything about the film that's kind of boring, hurts her into character. - Absolutely. - But as far as acting wise and chemistry, she's got it all on this. And she, I mean, she's talking to a brick wall. - Yeah, yeah. This has a halfway decent supporting cast. Ray Romano of course got Tom's ass in the seats. - Sure. (laughs) - I don't really have any of me notes on Ray Romano. I didn't see your backlash from the man on the other side of the table here. - Oh, how are you? - We're tackling John Wayne, but you're afraid to talk about some Ray Romano. - The funny thing is Ray Romano is a good actor. - Yeah. - I mean, it's crazy to say. - Yeah, he's very much Ray Romano in this. - I was expecting a Deborah. - No, but he's different. He's like, "Sombre." He's "Sombre." I mean, the movie's like true. Like, it's not a good movie, so that's a shame. - Right, right. - We both at the end were just like, "We needed more Ray Romano actually in this." - No, we needed more Ray, absolutely. The real surprise for us was a little-known actor named Christian Clementson. A name probably no one recognizes, but he's mostly a TV actor and comes from Boston Legal, which is a huge guilty pleasure show for us growing up and is still the same person from Boston Legal in the movies. (laughs) - It really is the same guy. - We were both were so happy to see him. - Yeah, it was really, it was like seeing it all for us. - For days, I mean, we're talking high school days, we get wings and watch Boston later up, old episodes of Boston Legal, our friends basement. - Yeah, yeah. - And then, of course, the supporting of all supportings. - Which is? - I forgot his name. What's his name? I wanted to say Harley, I don't know why it says- - Woody Harrelson. - Woody Harrelson, yeah. - Which is, he's so Woody Harrelson, like even down to the point, like him- - He's annoying. - He is, you know, it is, I like Woody Harrelson, but I'm with you, like, I can see like someone being done with the shtick. - Kind of, a little bit. - Yeah. - You know, we just covered, I mean, I really love him when we covered no country for old men. - Oh, yeah. - You know, we love him in three billboards outside at the Ebbing Missouri. - Yes. - You know, he's great. - Absolutely. - This Woody, I'm done with this Woody. - You're done with silly Woody, yeah. (laughs) I'm kind of with you there, but yeah, needless to say, I don't really have any notes on him. When it comes to some of the praise with this, like, snappy pace, I did like some of the editing here, which has a lot of fun and kept things snappy for the film to kind of keep it upbeat, but it does highlight what I think is the key issue of the film, with scenes just not having enough weight or even just time on screen to feel impactful, especially when the more serious story beats are incorporated. Totally, this feels like a schmaltzy nostalgia fest fueled by pulling on late '60s Americana, wherever it can, to say this was going for some kind of Zemeckis style, feel good slop is really an understatement. I feel like this was trying to capture this '90s feel that we talked about, and Tom, you and I, were on the same page out of this. It was just like this feels stripped from the '90s in a lot of ways. - In a bad way though. - Yeah, yeah, in a bad way, in a stale way. - Like it didn't do a good job. - You're right, right. - I'm saying, like, if this came out in the '90s, this would not be remembered at all. - Oh, true, true. - That's what I'm saying. - Okay, fair enough. - Like what I'm saying is nice try, but you failed. - You failed at even recapturing what it's trying to do. - And I would love if those '90s rom-coms came back. - Yeah, true. - Personally. - Right. - This was not that. - Yeah, it really wasn't. Now, I think this works when pulling from real TV footage or articles, I always kinda like that type of stuff, especially to get the heavy lifting of the history out of the way. However, not so much when the serious moments come through with it fluctuating a bit too drastically. I'm glad there was an attempt to create a little character arc for both of them, but it's so clear the tone doesn't sit right in the moments that we snap back from the serious. Fun upbeat tones highlighting how these serious beats just didn't have enough breathing room on screen to mean anything remotely important to characters or impactful for us as the audience. I think in both cases, the serious backstory unveiled for Channing and the serious backstory unveiled for Scarlet are so quickly unveiled in like a last moment and then are back to like, "All right, let's send someone to the moon." It just felt meaningless. I kinda wish he was cut entirely, especially for trimming down that runtime, you know? - Yeah, I think the whole movie felt meaningless. I mean, I felt like they never made me care about any scene or the story. So even when things are ratcheting it up and we're coming into the third act and the things happening, I didn't care. - Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And other than that, I really don't have too much to say on this one. It's very long to the point that I think it hurts the stronger parts of the film, mainly, you know, Scarlet and Channing being, you know, faces that audiences wanna see. - Yeah. - And in Scarlet's case, a really fun role for her. But if you're a fan of either lead star, you'll probably gonna enjoy your time with this one. And I can confirm this with our annoyingly positive theater crowd. - Oh, very positive. - As let's just-- - We were the Debbie Downers on that theater. - Yeah, yeah, we were hating. We were the haters for sure. But yeah, it's just, I don't know. I find myself kind of scratching my head over why this was made as is much of the internet. And all the money in the world sitting in Apple's pocket and they couldn't even license the real Frank Sinatra song. We're gonna go ahead and give Fly Me To The Moon a 53. - 53, okay, okay. That is very middle of the road. That's very blah. - Yeah, I think it's a blog experience, but-- - I think it's actually, I think you did. I think you're helping it out there. - Really? - Yeah, I think you're helping it out. - I guess where I'm coming from with, let's say, those three to four points in the positive is that I like Scarlet and I feel like those type of personalities in a rom-com shell, it's gonna be a lot of people's bag. You know what I mean? Including the kind of-- - Oh, including everyone in the theater? - Yeah, right, right. So that's I think where I'm coming from. Maybe just, if anything to our point in the producer segment, not being overdramatic in the sense that, yeah, parts of this movie didn't work, but it didn't necessarily equal like a horrible movie. - Right, right. This film gets a Tommy flip-flop. - No! - This film-- - This film. - And it's just-- - You're thinking it's Lucky Shaw's, the Ray Romano's doing a lot of leg work on this one. Ray Romano's doing a lot of leg work. It was just, it was boring, the jokes. I don't think I laughed once. When we laughed was when Ray Romano came on screen. - Yeah, in anticipation of his voice. - But everything from the stupid black cat joke to this that, I mean, really. - Oh, yeah. - This movie tried to flip and it flopped. - Yeah, I-- - This is a Tommy flip-flop. - Wow, wow, love it. Love it. - But not because of Ray Romano. (laughing) - He is untouched. - He's a golden boy. - Unfortunately, I mean, even on IMDb, he's got no movies coming up at all. - Yeah. - It's kind of an eight series. He has like 23 episodes of a show that he did recently. He's got another eight series, eight episodes coming up. Anyway. - Wow. - So that just real quick, I cut the joke, I wrote about the cat stuff, but that's also the growing suspicion around AI scripts that if a cat jokes are included, it's pulling from the vast amount of cat jokes on the internet and thinking that's what we want. So yeah, I mean, for what it's worth, there were cat jokes in this and there's another movie that came out this year that had horrible cat jokes that was pretty damn bad. - And I did give below 50s. - Yeah, yeah. - Okay, all right. So let's move Argyle, by the way. - Yeah, I was kind of leaving it, you know. Let's move on to a film that did pretty well. I mean, talk about box office difference here. - Yeah, yeah. - What are the numbers on Longline? - So this one, well, as far as budget wise, less than 10 million. - Oh, sure. - And it made I think like 23 million already for opening week. Did really well among even despicable me and inside out still doing well, it's actually been a pretty good month, of course. Quiet place, it's still doing okay. But, yeah, long legs, second best of all weekend. Anyway, this is Long Legs. This is our boy is back in town, Mr. Nicholas Cage. This is a rated R, I've just heard crazy things about this film. I have heard a wide audience speak on this film. - Really? - And with mostly pretty positive reviews, I still know nothing about it. - Yep. - I got your very brief 30 second kind of review on it, but obviously it's rated R. It's a quick hour and 41 horror film. Get into log links, log Long Legs for us. - Yeah, a tongue twister. Well, the hype train is here, folks. This film's viral marketing campaign around Nick Cage's acting transformation paid off big time, as this was one of the most crowded theaters I've been to since doing the podcast. I think this film had a lot of style to it and gunning for the type of shock value that makes a cult classic and horror. The sheer abundance of reviewers calling this the scariest movie they've ever seen, kind of being a double edged sword on your own expectations watching it. I gotta be honest here, though, this was one of those times where Nick Cage was equally a burden alongside the insanity we all crave to see from him in a movie. So, I mean, if you were beware, but it's also a horrible piece of viewer beware, I guess that's kind of the takeaway here. Actor turned director Oz Perkins hasn't done too much, but this is already evidence that that's gonna be turning around very quickly in the coming years, seeing this again in this cult classic category right on release. 2020's Gretel and Hansel was something I had passing interest to check out, despite not really doing well on release for a handful of reasons, COVID most importantly. But otherwise, this seems to be the biggest release by far. And most stylish as well, which is the reason why I would say it's worth checking out the film. This film's style is the type of moment where you're watching a movie and you just feel there is not that there's lack of a studio hand, but something so specific to a director's vision. And really refreshing in that way. If there's a soft spot I have, it's for those moments that even if the film's kind of a little bit of a mess, I appreciate them pulling off the impossible and doing what they wanna do on screen. - Yeah, we should know, neon made this one. - Yes. - But it sounds good if they were able to kind of just do your thing. - Absolutely. - Let the director make his vision. - Yeah, yeah, and while their neck and neck competitor A24 as far as a studio house, they're moving towards more quantity over quality. They're kind of taking a step backwards into more of the classic A24 where it's just like they do a lot of things. Neon has had a seriously good track record as far as the daily ratings podcast go. - Really? - Yeah. - And I thought we kind of put them on a lower scale. - Definitely I get that feeling that from them working with like the Cronenbergs and whatnot, they definitely seem a little bit freakier in other projects. But yeah, I've been really liking everything coming out of neon shop quite a bit, something to pay attention to. This is definitely one of them. All right, we'll get ready for it. This is a doozy. Long Legs is a semi-psychodelic psychological horror film and probably one of the coolest new films you can see this summer for how unique its presentation is. Set in sometime in the 1990s, we follow a FBI investigation of a series of murders connected but lacking incriminating evidence to a satanic freak that goes by the name Long Legs. Mike Munro is a deeply antisocial agent in the program but has a master analytical mind which will be well needed to decipher the cryptic breadcrumbs left by the killer. The issue is nothing directly ties together with the notes Long Legs leaves. This series of murders seem to be sparked by the sudden bout of madness, families murdering each other on a suburban summer day and the chaos sprouting from within their innocuous homes. It's really shocking. This movie has a, I mean this in such a good way, a drastic heavy hand on the volume knob. It goes from zero to 11, like out of nowhere. This has like some really shocking sudden violence and as that relates to an experience of horror, that's where I'm saying like, this is one of the coolest movies you can probably see this summer. I'm not like as hot as the internet is on this but I think there's a lot to love here. Folks, I'm a sucker for a good opening and boil boy does this have one (beep) excellent opening. The creepy grooves of a T-Rex song, leading strong with your villain, which is a concept we covered many times in the podcast and a slick presentation for the opening credits. For the first half of this film, I was honestly in awe of what Oz Perkins was pulling off on screen. This also introduces an interesting aspect ratio for that the film uses off the bat. I'll be honest, I don't know really exactly what to call it. (laughs) It's a type of letterboxing on screen but it also has like these rounded edges possibly to communicate kind of like a home video aesthetic. - So it's more squarish. - Squarish with rounded corners. - Yeah, yeah, but also the film will also play with extending this aspect ratio. - Interesting. - And like widening it as you see it play out on screen. So this in combination with blinding shades of red that are used all over the film and definitely used all over the marketing or for the film creates a genuinely unsettling look to this. And we haven't even spoken about Nick Cage yet. (laughs) Prior to seeing this movie, I had it described to me as a silence of the Lamb style thriller. And as a massive fan of that film, it piqued my interest. I mean, it sounds the lambs, 90% on daily ratings, would love to do a deep dive into that at some point. After watching this however, it's much more directly a horror than a thriller. In that case, when I was watching this, I was like, okay, good man, I didn't make Tom watch this. (laughs) Nick Cage, no, it's very much like not a thriller. It's a horror. This comparison is useful though, because it kind of gives us the broad strokes of what the framework of the story will be. We get some time on the FBI side. And as we break away from that, we see what the killer is up to periodically. And that's kind of our silence of the Lamb structure. Beyond that though, this has so much of its own thing going on. And where I think calling it a thriller as a mistake is really true to how things unfold, especially for our characters. In many ways, I get some serious David Lynch vibes from this, especially for how dreamy moments feel. Most of all, it is a horror over that thriller vibe, because our characters are having control taken away from them rather than be empowering or unpacking the mystery in a brick-by-brick type of style in the way that a thriller or a mystery would be done. It's very much about depowering our characters, take stripping that away from them. And I think that's the mark of a horror much more. Like I said, this movie is surprisingly intense. We get short bursts of crazy that just kind of come out of nowhere and hit you with a haymaker. Long breaths of the runtime will be filled with quiet moments that are often built up to be kind of trance-like in tone. That's where the psychedelic vibe comes into play. Then out of nowhere, like I said, we're turned up to 11. It's like, whoa, oh my God, it's a lot. But absolutely the reason to watch the film because that's where that shock is kind of coming into play. Our lead, Micah Monroe, is an actress we've covered a few times on the podcast now. And here she's really kind of identical to the soft-spoken roles we saw in, such as 2022's Watchers or My Personal Favorite, 2014's It Follows. Hey, you're a fan of that one. Oh, yeah. I mean, nothing against Monroe, but she really is the same character all the time. She's always kind of like this quiet, soft-spoken protagonist. The real star here has got to be Nick Cage. I hate to compare this to Mandy because the films are extremely different in almost every level. But a similar Nick Cage energy is captured where he is doing fine playing the character. And then a handful of times you can just feel that the director just let him off his leash. (laughing) And, you know, it's been a while since I've had to give like a caveat around Nick Cage. That can be a good thing. That could be a very bad thing. You know, folks, it has been well-documented over the course of the podcast that my opinion of Mr. Cage has turned around a great deal in the last few years. Yes, it has. Yeah. So I believe me, I was kind of ruined for it. And there's a lot to love in how crazy this performance is. However, there are moments where he is let off the leash and it killed some of the actual horrifying experience of the film. I think what is there, what is suffering by this Cajism? (laughing) At least let out of this Caj is sacrificing what is actually a scary experience. And that's where like where the buzzer or the buzzphrases around this film of like this is the scariest room I've ever seen. I don't know why I went with a Western accent for that. It's, I'm telling you, it's much more of a Nick Cage movie than the horror movie in parts. And if he just toned down a little bit, it would still strike horror. Oh, yeah. Basically he's taking you into the goofy realm. Absolutely, absolutely. Now it can be scary depending on how you're freaked, how much you're freaked out by this character. Right. It does dip into that goofy and I feel like what suffers is the horror. When otherwise it was spotless for the first half. No spoilers to his appearance, but he goes from legitimately terrifying in every single moment he's on scene to a little too blatantly Nick Cage behind the makeup. And I'm very sad to say that it killed some key moments in the second half of the film for me. Again, I was, I was rooting for him. I've become a believer. But there's just a little bit much towards the end. But overall I still think the whole experience is worth checking out as it starts extremely strong and its style holds up all the way through, regardless of your thoughts of Cage. Without going into spoilers, I felt the story became a lot weaker. The more was unveiled about their mystery. And I think my short opinion on it is I would have rather some of the loose ends stayed untied, especially around our lead character played by Monroe. Other than that though, I really can't say too much more without spoilers. And the great news is that this movie is worth not getting spoiled on. So check it out when you can with Batman theaters or whatever streaming service it comes to. Maybe around Halloween, we're gonna go ahead and give long legs a 74. - 74%, okay. I mean, that's a pretty good movie. As far as modern day horror, that's good. Because the one thing, for how much horror we cover, you know, we've been covering it for two years, basically. Not the biggest fan of modern day horror too much. Like it's rare that we can get something that's like, it impresses you. - Yes. - That something different that excites you. - Yep. - You know? - Absolutely. And even to the point that there's a lot of horrors that I can appreciate, but just don't do anything interesting and are just so by the books and what not. - It doesn't help that we have so many too. - Exactly. - I mean. - Yeah, I think the result of us covering so many horrors is that that's what's been pumped out in the last three years. - Does, dozens, dozens. - Which is a shame. - Yeah. - And for new listeners, by the way, like 74%, I would say that, I don't know, 65% is a good movie, 75% is a very good movie. - Yeah, if not virgin on great. - Right, exactly. - No. - So that just goes to show, just because we were talking about it in the donation segment, 74% for a new film. Okay, all right. - And I think where this film in the beginning, I was like, whoa, is this like, am I gonna have to see this again? - Right, right. - Like that type of thinking. - Because it was so stylish and so interesting. - It's funny, you love this for the style, but not really so much for the characters. I mean, you say the main, our main actress, Mika Monroe, is just typical Mika Monroe in your eyes. - Yeah. - And that's not anything for you. - Yeah, good at acting scared as she wasn't in followed. - Right. - And watch her for that matter. But, you know, Nick Cage, he just, he just bulldozes the whole thing for better or worse. - It's the least surprising thing. Yeah, I would have thought of my thinking. - They are keeping under wraps though, really, what he looks like. I'm keep on scouring, trying to look for pictures. - Yeah, yeah, and in that way, I'm really happy, you know, and maybe, I don't know, maybe I even verge too much on spoiling some of the structure of the film. - I don't think so. - It's the prep people, we're prepped. We're prepped if you want to go see it then. - But I really do mean my last kind of, my last notes on that review is that this is worth not being spoiled on, and in that case, maybe rush to see it because it's only a matter of time until Nick Cage's appearance enters into meme-dumb of the internet. - Right, right, yeah, yeah. Okay, all right. So, 74 for long legs, Vin, looking at this less any other finishing notes you want to give, anything for next week? What's going on for-- - Well, next week, we have a little bit of a shorter episode, Twisters in the John Wayne slot. - Oh, yes. - Yeah, yeah. I will finally, I've been just collecting so many jokes about Glen Powell throughout the year, I don't know. - Yeah, so anti-Dump Powell, it's crazy. (laughing) - I mean, it's not anti, I don't know, bustin' chops on it, clearly someone that's being shoveled out to us. - That's so true. - Nepo, baby. But I'm excited to watch Twisters One again. - Me too, I cannot wait to read Twisters One. - Yeah, there's a lot of iconic scenes like "The Diner" and stuff like that. So, interested to watch it. And then, just with the kind of press schedule and obviously a very exciting release, we'll be doing some work ahead of time for, of course, our massive, massive release. The sole MCU movie to be coming out this year, period, is, of course, Deadpool 3, Deadpool and Wolverine. So, I'll be tackling the Deadpool this week. And yeah, I mean, I gotta be honest, as much as we're no stranger to hating on Marvel, I find myself a little excited to return to the MCU. Yeah, I know, I'm surprised, but actually pretty excited to see Deadpool and Wolverine. - Okay. - A lot. - He's not with me. - I'm not, but I know a lot of America is, so I'm happy for everybody else. (laughing) I'm just happy. By the way, next week, I'm happy to watch three Godfathers next week. The John Wayne movie that no one's seen. (laughing) - Alongside Twisters. - Which I really pushed it. Yeah. Actually, next week is gonna be great. So follow along if you wanna watch the original Twisters, watch the three Godfathers, John Wayne film. That came out in '48 or '49. But okay, anyway, Ben, thank you so much for watching these films, for rating them, for stopping by here tonight. Folks at home will run it down one more time. We have Red River with a 75% and a two shoes one lace. El Topo with a 56%. Fly me into the moon with a 53 and a Tommy Flip Flop. And then finally, we have Long Lakes with a 74%. So folks, thank you so much for listening. And we'll see you next week on the Daily Ratings Podcast. (upbeat music) Hey, if you enjoyed the podcast, if you would, give us a good rating or get the word out and tell a friend about us. And just a reminder that the Daily Ratings is completely producer supported. We wanna stay away from advertising and we don't wanna have any paywalls or tear structures or subscriptions. It's all just value for value. So are you finding value in any of the things that we're doing here at the Daily Ratings? Then become a producer and donate whatever amount of value that is. Just go to the donations tab on the Daily Ratings.com. And while you're there, be sure to check out the massive amount of films that Ben's has rated. So thanks so much, everybody. We'll see you next time on the Daily Ratings Podcast. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
