Gran Torino / Benchmark Single Barrel ft. Noah Gittell

0:00 All right, everybody today's episode is sponsored by blind barrels. A company that offers an exclusive blind, whiskey tasting experience, Bob and I tried their product in season 6 and it led directly to the sad because we are such huge fans of what they are doing. If you are interested in sampling, the very best in American craft whiskey, then use our code film 10 at their checkout for 10% off a yearly, or quarterly subscription or even office. Single box to try it out. And remember if you're hunting for rare Whiskey's, you can always buy. By the whiskey you've tried on their website often at prices cheaper than MSRP. Check them out at blind. Barrels.com and use code film. Ten for ten percent off on your order. In 2008 director and star, Clint Eastwood gave the world a gritty drama, about how to gain a backbone and be a real man.

0:49 In 2023, we return to a flight of five whiskies from Buffalo Trace. The film is Gran Torino. The whiskey is Benchmark, Single Barrel. And we'll review them both. This is the film and whiskey podcast, welcome to the film. And whiskey podcast, where each week, we review a classic movie and a glass of whiskey. I'm Bob book.

1:30 Look, I'm Brad G. And this week, we are wrapping up our mini series of films, by director, Clint Eastwood, with his 2008 film Gran Torino, Brad before we dive into anything else. Today I gotta get your like immediate reaction having just watched this movie. Hmm. Thoughts on these three Eastwood films, do they feel kind of like of a peace? Do they feel very different from each other? Like, are we going to have? That are consistent throughout all three here. That's an interesting question. I think that Mystic River stands out partially because Clint's not in it like that definitely makes a difference but Gran Torino kind of feels like, I don't know.

2:16 The the baby boomer version of Unforgiven. Is that fair? Yeah, I think so. Like like he's been around the block a few times. He's back for one last Rodeo. I think it's More like the you know, the greatest Generation version more than even a baby boomer version. But I'm with you man. You know, over the last couple weeks I've been kind of kicking around this theory that I don't know if it's really a theory or if it's just generally accepted knowledge that ever since Unforgiven, his directorial output has really kind of all revolved around the themes of the effects of violence and that and violence can be interpreted a number of ways and Unforgiven. It's, you know, literal handgun. Murder violence in movies.

2:59 Like No, changeling. It's violence. That's inflicted upon people by corrupt systems, in Mystic River. It's sexual violence in this movie, it's racial violence and, you know, the effects of War, which is something he also touched on in the two movies he made prior to this. I really do think when you view any one of these Woods movies, post Unforgiven through the lens of, how is this movie about the lasting impact? And effects of violence, it really did help me reframe and A number of his movies, and it actually gave me a much greater appreciation for this movie than I would have expected coming into it. Mmm, you know, Brad, I'd seen this movie when it first came out and I thought that it was a much more simplistic and kind of frankly, like, amateurish movie than some of the ones that he had been making, you know, he wins the Oscar obviously for Million Dollar Baby.

3:51 And then he has this incredibly ambitious back-to-back to movie stretch, where he does Flags of Our Fathers and letters from Iwo Jima which Basically tell the opposite sides of the story of Iwo Jima from the American and the Japanese side of things and they're both really brilliant movies in their own right. But for Clint to take on something that ambitious especially at that age, I think people will really like lauding him just for the attempt in that way. And then Gran Torino comes out and I think because it was so different and it seemed like such a return to form and it was on such a smaller scale. I actually think people swung the pendulum too far the other way. And they weren't willing to go along with Clint and what he wanted to tackle in this movie, and they basically just dismissed it as like, oh, it's Dirty Harry as an old man.

4:41 Hmm, yeah. I don't know if I would have thought about that especially the Dirty Harry reference. I mean, I've only ever seen the first Dirty Harry. So maybe there's, you know, stuff in the other ones that would Point towards this being a continuation. Yeah, I think it's more, just like the, you know, Taking matters into his own hands, the political incorrectness of it, like the fact that he's driving a Ford, the fact that he's doing the growly Clint voice again, you know, there's just a number of things that it seems like in a lot of ways. I actually think he's using this movie to comment on Dirty Harry and not relive Dirty Harry. Yeah, that's interesting to me, I think for me, Gran Torino is a movie that when I came into it, I knew almost nothing about Clint.

5:29 This might be My first Eastwood film I've ever seen when it came out. So this was like my introduction to Clint and I remember walking away from this film just thinking, wow, He knows how to play a racist guy, really well. That was that was my big doing? Yeah, that was 18 year old. Brad's take away from this film. We'll save that for Brad explains which we'll get to in a minute. But before we get there, we have a guest today. That's been patiently waiting here on the other end of the line. His name is Noah gittel. He's joining us for the first time, he is a film critic for Washington City paper. He has by lines, that have appeared in the wringer, the Atlantic La Review of Books.

6:12 He's been in jail. Cue the guys been all over the place. He's one of my favorite follows on Twitter, knowing how are you today? I'm great and I was listening to your theory with great interest. I'd love to know how Space Cowboys fits into the consequences of violence, violence against the ozone layer, man. Come on. I totally forgot the Eastwood directed that movie, he directed it. He also directed Bridges of Madison County on this time. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I really like your theory. I just every every now and then his filmography he stepped out to make like a kind of silly movie. Maybe we just need to like bring it a little closer. It's like every movie post Mystic River.

6:52 Follows this Theory, you know. All right, so no is going to help us break down this movie because Brad, if I'm being frank, I think this is the trickiest movie of the three to review. Even though last week's movie was about, you know, people dressing as cops and Priests and molesting children and like this movie. I think If you read it at surface value or at surface level and face value, I think it is hashtag problematic and I think you can easily dismiss what the movies really trying to say because it is really deeply buried in a. Not very good script and underneath a ton of racial slurs and yet, however, I think Eastwood is not just trying to comment on those things but he's actively.

7:43 Using that form to comment on like he did with Unforgiven on himself, on his own career on America. I really walked away from this movie, having a ton of respect for what Eastwood did as a director, especially like I said, taking a script that I don't think is that good and doing a lot with it. Well, I was just going to say, I think I think his presence makes it better just be cut for all those reasons you know, when Eastwood is in a movie, these days, it's not just a movie. It's a comment on the evolution of the Eastwood Persona, you know, he has been this symbol. Like, as you rightly point out of violence of often American violence, sometimes of State violence, you know, in the Dirty Harry movies. And I think in the hands of someone else, you know, Roger Ebert in his review mentioned, maybe one other person who could have played this role would have been someone like James Garner, but he points out, you know, he's probably too nice. And Clint Eastwood is not really nice at his core, so I think in the hands of anyone else, it would have been pretty close to a disaster.

8:46 But when you add this other layer of, we are watching Eastwood comment on his own Persona. That makes the whole thing go down a lot smoother because we're almost a little detached from it that way. I think it's a good point. And I guess I want to ask you this because Brad, and I have been like, circling the drain with it a little bit for the last couple weeks. But Eastwood commenting on his own Persona and in some ways I want to say condemning it but definitely contextualizing it and you know, like in the case of And it does seem like he kind of comes down on the side of like sometimes these horrific acts of violence are necessary. And yet you can't divorce necessary acts from the effect that it has on a person's soul after the fact, even if it was necessary.

9:27 I guess my question is with a movie like Gran Torino that came out to, you know, pretty substantial critical Acclaim and was one of the biggest hits of his career. Why do you think that for the most part General audiences seem to miss the fact that That he's commenting on these things and continue to read them as if he's like, championing them. I don't does that. Does that question make sense? Yeah. I mean I don't remember what the reaction was at the time. From the public. I mean this movie was it was a big hit, so people liked it. But you know, did they like it because they liked that he was racist? Or did they like it? Because he stopped being racist, you know, I don't actually know, but I do. I do think the timing of the movie is really important. You know, this film did.

10:13 I'm out in 2008. As you pointed out in December of 2008, a very significant event happened in America in November of 2008, which was the election of our first black president and I think maybe at the time it was just a little bit hard to get past all of the racial slurs and to get past the white savior as I'm, although white savior ISM would would continue in film for some time after this there aren't a lot of examples. Where the character is really as kind of as bigoted, and as Prejudiced, and as vile as he is early on, in this film. And I think, you know, the film and come out 20 years ago, 20 years before that, it might have those. Those things might not have been as much of an issue, but one month after the election of Barack Obama, I'm not sure if the academy was interested in this, I'm not sure people really wanted to celebrate it, even if they kind of couldn't deny that, it had a certain power.

11:10 Yeah, the fascinating thing to me is that you On a budget of 33 million which, you know, Clint always keeps himself on a low budget. This made 148 million domestic and 121 million worldwide. Wow. This wasn't like, you know, coming in just under two hundred seventy million. So it's not like this film only played in America, like it played overseas and made some good money out there as well. I think they like Eastwood in Europe, if memory serves and this film was nominated for the says, are awarded like the French Oscar's for they're like best non French film. So amazing. They liked it, at least. Yeah, I know that I think Eastwood shared con the year that Pulp Fiction won the palme D'Or. So like they have always really embraced Eastwood at not just as an actor and like an icon of Cinema, you know, from the you know, the coyote Cinema days but like as a naught or I really think that they examine his movies at a much deeper level than American audiences typically, do, and Speaking of examining movies, really deeply our resident film critic here. Brad G has seen this movie for what the second time. Now Brad, I think this is my third time. Okay.

12:24 Wow, man, that might be a record for you, dude. Yeah, but they very well, could be. So if you're new to the show, the conceit of our show is that I grew up a huge movie nerd. Brad grew up, not watching quite as many films as I did. And so, I took the opportunity to introduce him to some of my favorite movies and some classics. That he had as blind spots and we've just continued on with it for Seven Seasons now. But what that usually means is that Brad has seen the movie Just For the First Time and because of that, we instituted a little segment that we like to call Brad explains Brad's gonna give us the movie plugs with only 60 seconds ticking on the clock. So let's go ahead and do you take with this little segment that we call?

13:04 Brad explains? That's right. Brad explains the part of the podcast where Brad breaks down the plot of the movie that he has just seen. Often for the first time Brad as you know you get 60 seconds on the clock to explain the plot of Gran Torino. I have my finger on the sensor button ready to go because I don't know how much trouble You're Gonna Get Us in with this movie but you have one minute and go. Clint Eastwood is playing a older gentleman named Walt. Kowalski Kowalski, who has just lost lost his wife. He lives in a neighborhood that has slowly changed over time. And largely has a minority among population living in it.

13:47 His new neighbors are a young long family, who slowly, in Deers themselves to him, mostly through the use of food and attention. But he takes a young man named towel under his wing to help, keep him away from the gangs that are trying to lure him in, and this becomes violent. After a while, leading to Clint's going to Shouldn't for the first time in probably eighty seven years with a very young, crappy priest named father Janovich. And he then goes and sacrifices himself, like Jesus. So that Tau will be able to have a future.

14:30 Is that how the story of Jesus goes? I mean, he lies on the ground in crucifix. That's true. Are cruciform. It is, yeah. It's pretty hard to miss that, that symbolism there the other. It says close to a Cyril white savior movie as I think we've. Yeah. Well I mean and like the there's like blood like spilling out from under his wrists. Yes, like he like he got pierced in the hands for our transgressions. Man, this is gonna go off the rails real quick today. You guys. We've got a lot to talk about Brad. I'm gonna let you steer the ship here because there's a lot of things I have many thoughts on this movie. A movie that I will say, I liked quite a bit and was not expecting to, after the first say, 35 minutes of this movie, but there's many directions we can go. So, where do you want to start today? I, I want to get the bad stuff out of the way first so that we can focus on the good stuff because I really do like this film.

15:26 But Just going to go out there and say it. The only reason this film could even come close to working on a just, just the film standpoint. We'll get to all the the other things later. But as a film, this would be like a sea movie if it wasn't for Clint being a really great actor. Yeah, and that's because the script is terrible. The dialogue is terrible and the acting is terrible outside of Clips. So I'm just going to put it that bluntly. I don't know how you guys feel about it. Well, I mean Cliff has been doing this thing of late where he really likes to use untrained actors in his movies. It's a very very neo-realist thing.

16:08 He's been working on here and this a culminated a few years back, he did this movie called The 1517 to Paris and it was about this real-life story of a train that Got Hijacked and they were some American Marines or some sort of soldiers on board that the war did the attempt and Clint recreated this as a film using the real people as his actors and it It's a difficult movie to watch because they are not good actors and it's like I feel like that's a therapist pipe dream like he paid you to recreate the traumatic experience, you had to go through. Let's talk about the right. So anyway, I mean in this movie he does the same thing and there's move was completed in like, 32 days.

16:51 I think was the shooting schedule and this movie, and we talked a bit about this last week, Clint likes to go at a Breakneck Pace. He likes to use the First Take, Almost always and never really does a second take of anything. And in this movie he said, it was especially important because a lot of his actors didn't speak English. And so he was giving them basic acting, 101 kind of things, and then would take what you got and go into the next thing I guess. My question is, why do you do that? Clint Eastwood because you're right man, like I really think that outside of Clint Eastwood and maybe one or two bit Parts, there's not very much. It acting happening in this movie. Mmm.

17:32 It's very strange that he does this as you point out because if you're going to use non-actors or let's say first time actors, I could understand the value of doing that if you wanted to really shape their performance. But Clint Eastwood does not do that. You know, he famously as you only shoots one or two takes he famously doesn't give his actors a lot of Direction. He doesn't even say action when he started take because he wants to keep everything as relaxed as possible. Well which also might make sense if he was going for some sort of naturalistic documentary feel in his films, you know? But this is like melodrama, it's like myth and to have actors who clearly are doing the first acting they've ever done in their life.

18:13 It just it doesn't make a lot of sense. No, not at all. I mean, and here's the thing though, Brad and I was kind of texting you about this as I was watching the film. The two main, I do want to call them kid actors, but let's be honest like they're they're probably teenagers. So I'll call them the two main kid actors. I give a pass to in a lot of ways because they at least to this point we're not really professional actors and I think they've both had acting gigs since then the one that really got me is the guy that plays the priest and we were talking about this Brad you and I are very sensitive to portrayals of ministers on film as two guys who went through Seminary and are still very in tune with that side of things, I appreciate what Clint tries to do, or what the script tries to do with that character, but especially Especially in the first 45 scenes, where the priest shows up? It's like he needed a second, take man, because the dialogue is so forced and so hard hard for this guy to get through it. Like, it was, it was a bad performance, Brad. Yeah, it really was.

19:17 I mean if he's trying to give a honest, look at a really awkward, you know, Catholic priest, then man, he nailed me. But as far as like a To the plot and give you something just to enjoy as you watch you know because that's kind of why we watch movies. There wasn't much there, Bob, I wanted to punch that. I mean, maybe that was the thing. He wanted to punch the priest in the face and I kind of did too. I do think that's part of it, you know, and I did think we're supposed to also be annoyed by this priest and find him insufferable. But at the end we're supposed to sort of admire him. So, you know, and I didn't at all, but I think I think maybe maybe. Maybe you're onto something though. I wonder if part of what's going on is that he wants to be the best actor in the movie.

20:05 You know. He wants the movie to center around him and he doesn't want to be challenged. I mean honestly that priest the guy who played the priest he looked like he was intimidated by Clint Eastwood and I could see that working for the character but it didn't work in the film because he's not a good actor and I think maybe maybe Clint's egos getting the better of him. In this case I won't step in and defend him a little bit. His name is Christopher Carly the script does him. Favors. And this is especially apparent towards the end of the movie where the best scene featuring the priest, as he comes over to Walt's house after like this horrific act of violence has happened. And basically, it seems like he's consenting to or at least acknowledging that Waltz about to go kill some people and he drinks a beer and he's like, you know, like screw it, like what can you do kind of a thing and it's like, okay.

20:52 Like Clint is really showing that this priest is a real person too. And he doesn't have all the answers and then the very next scene Clint goes back to church and it's as if the whole prior scene hadn't happened, it's like they relive the same conversation and the priest has a completely different take on it now. And I really threw me because there was like, no link between those two scenes whatsoever and it almost seemed like you could have had one or the other but he used both and it really hurt, I think for me at least the characters reputation and it also really negatively impacted how I evaluated that. Let's yeah. 100%. Like when he's yelling after him with, what are you going to do Walt?

21:36 And then, like you see him. I don't know if it's the next see, but soon. After you see him at this house, where he knows that there's going to be violence and he's like, imploring, these police officers to say, stay and then their frog, marching him into their car and leaving. And I'm like, that doesn't happen in real life like that, like that. See. In was the most egregiously just dumb and should not have been a part of the movie. The cops saying like we have strict orders to keep you wherever we go. Let go, you don't? Yeah, let's just sit like the taxpayers are not funding this, come on man.

22:19 Well between that and the confession scene it is almost like there was a late late stage effort. We have to make the priest more sympathetic or we have to give him more Authority in the Or something and maybe it's just the filmmaker losing his nerve a little bit or trying to satisfy a Catholic audience or something like that. Who knows? But it does seem to come out of nowhere at that stage of the movie. So this is a good segue I think into talking about the script a little bit and also going back to Brad your initial statement that this movie doesn't work if it's not for Clint and I think that's true, unlike a number of levels. It doesn't work if not for Clint because clinched the best actor in this movie by Leaps and Bounds but also because without Clint in this movie, she then this movie is not a commentary upon anything else other than like what's on the page.

23:05 And when you look at the script, it's written by a guy named Nick schenk who then becomes kind of Eastwood's go-to guy for his last few movies. He's had shank right all of them and he said that this script had been kicking around Hollywood for quite a while and no one wanted to produce it. And all of a sudden, Eastwood picks it up, he films the movie in 32 days and then it comes out. And shank says that he went and saw the movie and Eastwood didn't change a word. The script and he was amazed like I can't believe this didn't go through a bunch of revisions and I think it's because Eastwood is so concerned at this stage of his career with making movies that allow him to comment on the things that he feels he needs to comment on before he retires that the script kind of doesn't matter to him.

23:50 Look I was thinking about this with million-dollar baby when we were re-watching, it for a bonus episode that's coming up Brad. And that is a significantly better script than This movie but I also don't know that everything in that script is is intended for East. Like East was not intending that to be a commentary on everything that he wants to do. But he, he takes these scripts that give him opportunities. Like in this movie, it's an opportunity to kind of go back to The Unforgiven. Well, and do the whole I'm commenting on this phase of My Life, The Dirty Harry's, the Vigilante kind of thing and the effects of that, and I just kind of Wonder like is that really the best approach because I feel Like Eastwood is probably a smart enough guy that he could have doctored this script a little bit himself instead of just taking it verbatim because again like the first, I don't know. Brad.

24:40 What would you say? 30? 35 40 minutes of the movie are legit bat. Yeah, they are and it feels like he just continues throughout the whole movie to just give you little like, vignettes of what's happening. And then there's an awkward transition and we're just on to the next vignette. Of something that feels very surface level. And I think that's the big problem with no revisions here on the script. Is that every single part of this film, takes a lot of digging to get to anything meaningful. And I think the reason this works Bob, or I guess I should say, I think the reason this worked for the public, the this is going to bother.

25:26 I'm venturing into your territory here. Yes. This not only, I could feel it coming off of you right now, man. Yeah, this film plays well to an audience. That's just like, man. Like yeah, we shouldn't be racist but like he's pointing out some truths here. Yeah, but see, here's the thing. And this is crazy. I feel like we are in opposite political sides that we normally are Brad. Like, I really think that this movie is doing a lot more covertly than it seems like it is because everything seems like, it's right out in the open and, like, like you said, the, the Jesus symbolism at the end and the Very obvious racial dialogue, that is throughout the movie. But then you get like, little little things in the background. Sometimes even the way shots are framed. Like, every time you see an American flag behind Walt in this movie, it's when he's doing something that is abhorrent like it's when he's being racist or it's when he's threatening somebody and it's this really interesting little thing that Eastwood's throwing, any doesn't comment on it, but it's like only when Walt is doing things that we as Americans don't like, you know, at least that we wouldn't admit that we like is when he is showing American, I cannot, I cannot graffiti in the background So like it's really interesting because I think that you can read this movie in the most surface-level way possible. But there is a lot going on under the surface, but I think that's the issue is that he

26:58 didn't take the time with it. The subject matter. And the way the script goes about, it is so difficult that he needed to spend more time with it to draw out those nuances. So that the audience would get those things more easily, I don't think anybody would from the average movie-going population would be like huh. Every time he's an a-hole, there's an American flag in the background. I get it, I get it. You know what I mean? Yeah. All right. Noah you set us straight here a little bit. Like I mean do you think that there's a lot under the surface here or do you think it is a pretty easy to understand, surface-level movie?

27:42 No, I think you're both right. I think it's what makes us both an engaging experience watching this movie and a frustrating one, I will say, I think we might be giving him a little too much credit when we try to determine the origins of his methods of not changing. The words of the screenplay, and not giving his actors, any direction, and only doing one takes like, is it possible? He just doesn't really want to do things like he's not just wants to have a nice day at the office and go home. I mean, I don't, you know, in a way that that's fine. I mean, the movies turn out, okay? But I do think they would maybe turn out better. If he paid a little more attention to some of the details.

28:28 If he made, if he tightened the script up, I think. You could lose some stuff from this room, frankly, one of the things I liked a lot about the movie because it's sort of a pet issue for me, is the the portrayal of just what it's like to be an old person. You know, like the way his kids treat him the way his grandkids treat him. I don't know that I'd ever quite seen it portrayed that way before and yet, I think that's quite realist. I mean my wife is a realtor. She sees people trying to kick their parents out of their homes all the time and I really liked that part of the movie, although I don't I really think it was necessary at all. Like, I think you could have cut quite a lot of that stuff. We didn't need to see his son, calling him trying to get Lions tickets out of him.

29:11 If they had focused a little more on the relationship with the family, it really tightened to stayed tight on that I think. I think the film would have been a lot stronger. So it's one of those movies where it's about, a lot of, a lot of things and he probably didn't need to be about that many things. The only reason that works we keep coming back to this point is, when you have a star, Our of his just absolute magnetism at the center of had to kind of tie it all together. Otherwise I think this movie goes off into a million different places and and I do think there's some lovely touches in the film. I noticed the American flag stuff as well and and, you know, I mean movie like this, isn't that different than something? Oliver Stone might have made in the 80s or 90s.

29:52 This is a movie about the trauma of war in many, many ways. And that's, that's, that's probing, and that's thoughtful. And we like those kinds of movies. But it's just so rough around the edges. And if we're sitting here asking if that's accidental, or if it's on purpose and something has gone wrong. Well, I will say, like I'm going to give Clint a little bit of credit here. Because as I'm thinking about this movie and thinking to myself, like, yeah, I don't know of any any other filmmaker could have made this even more overt than Eastwood did like in certainly not subtle and then you said, Oliver Stone and I was like oh there's one likely, there's a guy who's known for his subtlety, but I'm with you man. I think that this is not a long movie like it's an hour 55 so I'm like that and yet, it feels like they probably could have trim this down to like I'm tight 90 and, and really made it about the core story here, hinted at the stuff with the kids dabbled in the stuff with Catholicism, but the whole priest storyline is really unnecessary everything with his kids is really unnecessary and I keep coming back to this idea of like the 35, 40 minute, Mark in the movie, being where it picks up because that's where it becomes a very kind of traditional Standard narrative, you know, complete with Montage of him mentoring this kid.

31:09 And it's not till that relationship gets established. And, you know, the character of Walt starts to soften a little bit and there's some human connection made there. I found myself really enjoying this movie from that point on and especially that final confrontation with Walt on the lawn of you know the gang members house. It's cut really well. It's paste really well there's some genuine suspense there. I think the movie really starts to click in that last hour but it's just so uneven in the early going here. We talked about his plan a little bit. Yes, there is yes. So I just want to make sure I understand it correctly. His plan was to get killed by the gang in public in the hopes that the neighbors would be watching and be willing to testify against the gang. Is that correct?

31:55 Yes. Which, which relies on a lot of things because he thinks get looked. It looked like the Howard Beale. Seen a network like everyone coming to their windows and be like, what? Because you have to imagine that the neighbors have seen this sort of thing a hundred times before. And not only are they going to their Windows to look, they're like putting themselves in the way of machine gun bullets to check out what Waltz doing. I don't like the plan makes absolutely no sense. They've never seen Clint Eastwood do it and that's the whole point. See, that's the thing they believe in the white savior. He's going to be the one to actually stand up to Them. So they got to get a front-row seat, man. I mean it makes sense. It makes no sense but it the reason it works is because we're not just watching it as a movie, we're watching it as a Clint, Eastwood movie and exaction, we're watching him. And instead of Unforgiven where he uses violence to stop violence in this movie, he refuses to pick up that gun. He refuses to use violence and sacrifice himself instead and we see that as an evolution and maybe a moving. I'm moving Evolution.

32:58 Do you think that the choice to give him I would assume lung cancer, almost takes away from that sacrifice. I do. Yes, he doesn't have to be dying. That for me was the most confusing thing where I'm like, if you really want to make that sacrifice meaningful, you shouldn't make it like, well, he's gonna die in three months. Anyways. So I might as well die for this kid that I kind of like like there's just there's too many little loose threads hanging off of this plot. They really good at hiding it up. I do. We keep coming back to this idea of like the white savior movie. And around this time is when I think that the, the discourse started to really emerge about white savior movies because the following year after this is when Avatar comes out and that's when everyone's like, you know what, the Last Samurai Gran Torino haven't talked like, it's just like, everybody was, like, done with these kind of movies at this point.

33:51 I do think that in some ways, though, this movie does comment on that a little bit, even while using the genre or like the form of Because Eastwood is clearly commenting on his Dirty Harry Persona here, but the solution is the exact opposite of what Dirty Harry would have done. And for me, the key scene in this movie, the most moving scene in this movie, is after his neighbor's house gets shot up and the neighbor girl, Sue is raped and she comes home like bloodied and bruised. And when she finally emerges inside the house and Eastwood sees her for the first time he drops his Glass, Eastwood plays that scene, beautifully. But its first time in the movie, that the movie like overtly acknowledges.

34:38 This guy's plans. This guy's anger. This guy's trauma and woundedness from the war and thinking that he has to treat everything as if it is. The war is having this kind of effect on other people and like it. He is actively screwing everything up for everybody else and that's not the, that's not the kind of consideration that you typically get in a Wait, save your movie, which is like my presence. Here is actually actively hurting everybody. And I did like that they folded in that touch because I don't know what it looks like on the page. I don't know if that realization hits as hard in just the script. But Eastwood really did I think make sure that that was felt, you know, from a director standpoint, I think it's a great great point and and you know, obviously that plays out where he locks towel in the basement and refuses to let him get her.

35:27 He realizes, this is something he has to do himself. I think it's well All done and I think it does make the movie complex, you know. We'd also maybe gets a little bit of raced by the literal low white savior as I'm at the end. You know, the fact that he does that sacrifice I think is kind of overpowers any complexity in some ways to the film but you're right that it's a nice touch and that that moment stood out to me as well to drop into the glass is really well directed that sequence to give it a lot of impact. And I'm curious, because having watched Unforgiven two weeks ago, It was to me, I don't know if this is an obvious homage or, you know, reversal but Unforgiven in order for him to enter the game again, he has to drink and you know, you have that great shot of him and the kid and he just takes the bottle and starts drinking when he finds out.

36:19 That Morgan Freeman is dead. And yet here, he's drinking the entire movie. And when does he stop drinking when he realizes, he needs to take action? Oh, interesting. I just thought that That was an interesting thing. I don't know if Clint thought about that, but I think that we're probably thinking about this movie more than any three people on earth have ever thought about this. And that means that it's probably time for us to hit pause. Brad, we need to start drinking this whiskey. The third in our lineup of Benchmark products. So we're going to try this single barrel. We'll come back, we'll talk a little bit more about this movie and we'll segue into talking about things we liked. So what do you say? Let's get to it.

37:01 So, here's the deal everybody. We just absolutely love producing as much content as possible for film and whiskey Nation. But if our regular episodes aren't enough for you, then you can head on over to patreon.com film whiskey sign up for one of our memberships and you will get a slew of extra content for your listening. Pleasure, check us out on patreon.com film whiskey. All right, everybody. Today we are drinking benchmarks, single barrel, and 95 proof whiskey in this lineup of five that we've been drinking the last few weeks. Yeah, we're slowly moving up in proof point.

37:42 We started at 80 proof. We moved to 90 last week with the small batch. Oh, you're right. You're right. 86 to 90. And now we're at 95 proof. I think this is the first time I've ever seen 95 proof on something Brad. Like I think you're right. Like I've said before, and I think is 94. Yeah, knives. Yeah, 294. But never like right in between 90 and 100. Yeah, good job Benchmark. You do, you did it my wife and I we shared this image back and forth. Every once in a while it's from like, remember years and years ago, when cake fails was a thing on, on the internet, like eczema got really. All right, well, there was a whole website of like, people that bought cakes from the store and As Mrs. S on that on that like Vine.

38:28 Venae what was that website v-neck. So there's there's an image of a cake and it was supposed to say like, congratulations. And the cake says, Congressional and then under Congressional it says, you done it. It's a every time either of us accomplishes something very small will just text each other, the picture of congressional, you done it. Yeah. So this was like a perfect Congressional moment for bench mauritians All right, I'm a little nervous about this Brad because we don't typically like single barrels for the purposes of reviews and that's because whatever. You pick up on the Shelf, dear listener is going to be different than the barrel that we're currently drinking and she to, to do the our whiskey segment as if you're writing a letter and like 1943, the French front, my dearest Dolores.

39:21 I raped. I am to assuage myself of the guilt. I feel from Okay. So anyway, I'm a little worried about it is all I'm saying and after last week, you know, we were split a little bit because you liked the small batch more than I did. I like the top floor from week one a little bit better and now we're getting into Single Barrel where some of the rougher edges of a barrel may not be rounded out so much by blending, and especially since they're cutting it down to 95 proof. I just don't understand single barrels that don't release at. Barrel strength. And I don't mean to be like a barrel strength, snob about it and there's always some good ones. Like Russell's Reserve is always really good at like whatever that is 110 proof or whatever.

40:04 That one might be but it feels like 95 is a long ways off from wherever the sparrow. Yes, 100%. That's my issue with it. I don't know, man. I'm ready to dive in. Before we start sniffing this thing. How much is it going to set you back? Brad? This is I think the most expensive of the lineup at $5. Wow, 25. We have really upped it here from the 18 we said last week, so yeah, you know, we do it for you filming. Whiskey Nation. We spent 25 total American dollars on this drop in the big bucks. This seems like a Walt Kowalski kind of bourbon though. Like this, this seems like the kind of thing you reach for after pounding.

40:44 Some pbrs on your porch. Yeah, I was gonna say the the fact that it has words after Benchmark, I think would turn him off to it. I feel like I feel like he's a benchmark. Kind of guy, $10. Yep. All right, Brad. What are you picking up on the nose of this Benchmark? Single Barrel. There's, there's stuff Bob. There's four for me. It was Sour. Apple, like a light brown sugar like specifically, it's not a dark brown sugar. It's very light and ethanol. Yeah, I don't know if you've ever gotten an ethanol nose before but, but it's here. Yep. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly. What I'm picking up.

41:25 When I first pour it into the glass, it had. This almost artificially caramel smell like a caramel sauce that you get out of a jar for ice cream. Topping caramel sauce. Yeah. You know like the things they squirt in your drink at Starbucks. That's called caramel sauce. It's not caramel yes caramel sauce. Yep. Yeah it's 100%. It smelled like that and then that went away and it was replaced with the artificial green apple like Jolly Rancher. Yep. Just covered up in. Oak and ethanol. So, you know what it is. It's the, it's the green apple caramel suckers that you buy. I want to compare it to that, but those are so much better than this. That is like, it's not fair to the sucker, you know. So I'm gonna give this a 6 out of 10. It's not like a ffensive.

42:11 It's just there's not really much here, and the ethanol is pretty prominent. I'm at a five and a half, it's okay. When I got into the actual palette, It got a little worse like like it's still a sticking in that tart, green apple. I got a little bit of cinnamon going on here and then there's for me, it was just a lot of corn coming through hell. Yeah, man. This is I'm sipping it live. I know you've already tried it but Artificial green apple candy and I've never tasted a whiskey. You know, I've had like Crown apple and I, you know, we've tried A really lovely one from Traverse City their Michigan. Apple phenomena, dude, it's so good.

42:54 This doesn't have like the candy flavor of that but it's just it's like the Lacroix of Jolly Ranchers. Ha ha. And really harsh ethanol to go with it. It's it. Mimics like a spiciness, but it's not spicy at all. I don't get a lot of baking spice on this. It's really just candy apple and ethanol. And it's pretty right down the middle with that again, not offensive, but just not really that good. And it's crazy to me that the top floor was ten times as complexes this. Yes. But once again I'm only going to give it a 6 on the flavor. I give it a 5 on the flavor. Bob I'm really struggling with this one. Compared to the top shelf and these small batch this is drinking a lot hotter than I have proof. I almost don't even mean to say hotter, but like once in a while, we talk about this idea of the Kentucky hug, where your, your esophagus cries out for help as the, the whiskey travels down it and this one, it is not only, is it crying out for help but like, I feel like, I have heartburn. I feel like I need a Tums after this because of the way that it is just like camping out in my chest and Buffalo Trace. Does this sometimes usually for me, Buffalo Trace products present as a little more okey Then they are ethanol. But man this one is just really heavy on the alcohol like forward - yeah.

44:16 Yeah. And that's why for me, the finish. I give it a 5 and a half. It's almost like a soured Oak. Little bit of vanilla, the the Tarts almost sour apple continues on, through to the end. It's not a terrible finish, but it's not great. I had just a little bit left in the bottom of my Glencairn and it's not like enough for a sip but it's just enough to kind of get the tip of your tongue wet again. And it was really saline heavy, like I didn't pick up on the saltiness of it before but it actually was a lot better taste like salted caramel. I just don't think that's really present while you're drinking it and the Finish is almost non-existent except for that Kentucky hug to remind you of what you've just been drinking.

45:02 There's nothing left on my It except for some very, very subtle corn and Oak. I'm just going to give it like a 5 on the Finish. Yeah. And with balance I'll give it a 5 as well. It's just average all around and there's nothing. There's not enough complexity and not enough good flavors here to give it any higher on a score. Yeah, I'm gonna give it a 5 and a half. I'm with you. I again like I always feel bad giving anything like a five or less just because we so rarely actually go under the halfway They mark on our scores Brad. Like it's really rare that you get less than a 25 out of 50. If you age a whiskey 24 years, and put it in a bottle and it gets to our glass. It's at least a 50 out of 100 most times. Yeah.

45:46 And so, no, I'm with you, give it a 5 and a half on the balance but you're right everything. You've said I agree with that. Brings us to value at $25. This is terrible value, really, really bad value. When you can get the Benchmark, top floor for 15 bucks, that is like week after week that thing is doing nothing but improve in my mind this one is like A 3 out of 10 on value. That's that's what I give it. Yeah, I mean I will say to get a Single Barrel Bourbon at $25 is pretty much unheard of but that's why this is a $25 Single Barrel Bourbon, hmm. Like this would not be good enough to bottle under any of Buffalo.

46:30 Trace has other labels as a single barrel and they just kind of slapped Benchmark on it, to indicate value. And I don't think it's a very good value. I'm coming out to a 25.5 out of 50. Brad. Yeah. With that 3 out of 10 on value, I'm coming to a 24 out of 50. Alright, so we are just at a forty, nine point five out of a hundred, so we actually are under that 50 Mark or a twenty four point seven, five out of 50. I am not going to recommend buying. I am not going to recommend trying with the small caveat. This is a single barrel so I have no idea what the variation. In between barrels looks like for a product like Benchmark where they're going for Value Above All Else.

47:15 Yeah, I think that it's safe to say that this is a reject from some other, you know, lineup and that there's just other really great values in The Benchmark 6 that are worth picking up. I mean, if I'm being very blunt with you, Bob, I think I would prefer to drink ten dollar Benchmark over this. I probably would, too. I mean, I'd have to try them side-by-side but they are at least comparable enough that it gets me a little angry to think about the fact that Benchmark and this are similar. And there's a fifteen dollar difference in price. I think we need to demand our money back from Party Source. All right man let's get back into talking about Gran Torino what do you say?

47:59 Let's get to it. All right everybody that was Benchmark Single Barrel oh A whiskey that we drank. We sure did. And that's, that's pretty much all we can say about it. But yeah, that's it man. But now we will leave that experience behind and we look forward to Canada's. Favorite segments to fax in a falsehood, is gonna try to stop you by all right? And what is wrong? Two facts, in a faucet to facts in a fall. This is the part of the podcast where Brad presents three items. As fact about the making of this movie. One of which he has completely made up and it is my job to determine, which one is the LIE?

48:49 Luckily, I have a guest here with me today that I can use as a phone, a friend. As we all know, Noah is an expert in the making of the movie Gran Torino. So I'll be calling on him for some help here, Brad. I can't imagine that. There were a lot of trivial things about the making of this movie. Since it only took like five. Days to shoot. Yeah. The the list was a little bit shorter than most IMDb lists. Yeah, I will say, important caveat. We usually call these facts from the IMDb trivia page. So, you know, we're going to put the word fact in quotes on this but only one of them was actually generated by Brad. I was going to say that that's the key thing. Is that one of them I completely made up and the answer. Some of them someone else out of the internet. Yes exactly.

49:38 Yes, yes. Yes. I hope you at least a bronze that 90% of I am to be users found interesting because that seems to be a pretty good measure. Yeah, I love that like five out of five. People found this helpful like okay I'm sorry. Sorry that my knowledge of this movie wasn't helpful for you. All right dude hit me with your two facts in a falsehood. Alrighty, fax number one, Ford Gran Torino as were built in. This is my editorial comment, God. God's greatest gift to mankind, the beautiful state of Ohio. They were built in Lorain, Ohio, 145 miles from Detroit Michigan. Waltz truck could have been built in Wayne Michigan. 20 miles from Highland Park.

50:21 Okay, fax number to waltz dog. Daisy is actually Clint Eastwood's beloved family retriever in real life. Hmm, what was what was the dog's name Daisy? Actually Daisy. Oh, that was not a part of either. ERM. I'm making it up or the IMDb trivia, that all right. Cool. Is this a fax? Number three. The production of the film was delayed in early 2008. By a few months due to unforeseeable conflict of the government. Bailout of the big three Motor companies and the studio was deciding whether or not it would be profitable to attach the vehicles name to their movie. So interesting.

51:03 Huh. Well, okay, hold on. Noah, you gotta help me out here. Fun. Fact about Noah. This is an actual fact. You used to be a, in the political realm. That's true. So was the, was the bailout in the Obama Administration, though? No, it happened during the campaign. So Kate did happen in 2008, I believe. Okay. I was thinking like, oh man might have been like one of the first things that happened under the Obama Administration. I remember those guys Obama and McCain like going, Going back to DC during the campaign to hold very important meetings about the bailout interesting. Okay? All right, listen, I'm leaning towards to being the falsehood just because, you know, there's no name on this dog.

51:47 This this seems like an important part of the fact to leave out number one, sounded true enough and this is the key with Brad. Noah, is that if it sounds plausible, Brad probably didn't write it. So, can I say something about the dog? Yeah, go for it. I think you know that dog was very well trained and based on what we're kind of determining about Clint Eastwood's work ethic that I'm not sure he would have taken the trouble to train that dog, but it, but he's also too prideful to let somebody else train. It really. Well, I was going to say it's not as if they ask the dog to do a lot like the dog just laid on the porch, I think you could train most dogs to do that, so, I'll go out on a limb here so that we won't put know his reputation up on the line. Brad, I'm gonna say twos, the falsehood that Walt's dog. Daisy is actually Clint Eastwood's dog. Yes, that's my final answer.

52:44 That is a truth. No fax. Number three was the falsehood, man. I would they were not concerned about the impact of the auto bailout. Nope, they sure weren't seems obvious in retrospect have been Has a house. Like I finished writing that one and I was like, I don't have the energy to write a different one but I think this might be one of my worst. That's hilarious. Yeah, I guess that's true. Like the the studio execs would have just been like Ford's back, baby. Let's let's feature them as prominently as possible. All right, so I have dropped to 1 and 2 on the season, man.

53:28 This is not good. No. Alright guys, so we're steering out of my colossal, failure into facts and a falsehood and we're going to steer back into talking about, hey, steer back into talking about Gran Torino car metaphors. Things we liked about this movie and I again, I'll say I liked this movie quite a bit and when I texted you Brad during my watch of it, I was around that 40-ish minute Mark and my exact words to you. Were Gran Torino es no bueno, and it got a lot more Bueno after then it's like it's a good movie and I feel like we spent a half hour talking about all the things they could have fixed with it, but I would like to go in a little bit on what you thought was successful about this film.

54:17 Well, for me, what I thought was successful is something that you guys kind of hammered in the first half. I don't know if I actually think that this is a white savior movie. Why is that? Well, so you guys, you guys talked a lot about how the family portion of the film just wasn't necessary. And I actually think for me at least in my final interpretation of the film, those were actually some of the most necessary Parts. I'm with you that the Catholic priest you can get rid of him. He was useless but the family segments even as poorly acted, as they are the, the sun's feel like they belong in a really Good Christian movie.

55:04 But I think that what you have here is a movie about how a person has grown old. The entire world has changed around him. His children don't care about him. His wife has died and he finds refuge in a place that he never expected to have found it. And so in the end he fights and sacrifices himself. For that new family. And so the impact of that for me was to say that. Walt's isn't going to die for his children. Like his children have abandoned him and as he slowly moves from a place of racism into understanding this, this group of people who he did not, like before they become a people that save him from a meaningless life and a meaningless existence. Because if he doesn't die for Tau, then he looks at his life and goes what the Because the point like I have these kids who suck and grandkids who are even worse and I've amounted to nothing and yet now he has somebody who is worth dying for. He has a family that he cares about and in a certain sense they save him from a a meaningless life. What you have just described Is the exact plot of the movie Avatar.

56:32 Hmm. Now. But for real, so here's what I'll say, I think we need to Define our terms a little bit because we've been using this term, white save your movie. And I think that, you know, in some regards it's a, you know, it when you see it kind of movie but I think a really great example is the movie The Last Samurai, which I love, I love that movie. It's a good movie, but it is the idea that a typically white male enters into a Culture, that is not his own and a culture that has an insurmountable problem, that needs to be solved. That the, you know, the quote unquote, natives in that environment, can't do themselves and only through the help of the white male, can they be saved? And I think Brad that I hear what you're saying, but I think that this is the perfect corollary to this is Unforgiven. And I've seen a lot of people call Unforgiven and anti-western and it's not an anti-western, like there's a lot of These set in the American West that are not westerns. Unforgiven is 100% a western.

57:35 It's a western that's commenting on westerns and I think in the same way like I kind of hinted at that this in the first half I think this is a white savior movie that is commenting on white savior movies because in very few of these movies. Do the characters actually have to reckon with The effects of them bringing their culture and their arrogance and their dominance into the environment that they're in. And I think this movie does that really well? But I do hear you in that, like Waltz isolation is like a huge key and know you were talking about this to like the the kids thing is a big part of this movie. His kids rejecting him Is what kind of separates this I think from a lot of other movies that you could call a white savior movie, you know. I think Brad, what would you were saying made me think about it a little differently, which is, you know, when I think about white savior movie, I think of a movie. Also, something like the help, you know, which is supposedly, which is purportedly about this marginalized group, right? Is it about any mole in a prior era who were discriminated? Against marginalized oppressed, that is what the movies about. That's the points, the movie is trying to win from the audience, right?

58:54 Except the only way that it can do that is by Framing it as through a white characters eyes, right? And having a white character lift them out of poverty or oppression, or whatever them a voice. Exactly. And the one thing I will say in favor of Gran Torino, not being a white savior movie is there is not any more. Moment in this movie that I think Gran Torino is about the Hmong people. It's not. It is about Clint Eastwood's character, 100%. He doesn't, I think it is interested in discrimination against them and the challenges that they face, but not that interested. I think it's much more interested in Clint Eastwood's attitude towards them. So that either makes it the most white savior, a movie, or it makes it not one at all because it's not, it's not selling itself as a film that like, has something meaningful to say about.

59:46 That group of people? Yeah, no, I'm 100% with you. I, as I was kind of percolating. This idea of it. Not being a white savior movie, it hit me. I was like this movie is, is so deeply cemented in Walt's point of view and like the honestly the most white savior, anything that happens is when he's teaching Tao how to do these things. You know, like care for his home and you know, reap Chip paying off the thing, repaint homes and all that. Like, that's fine. Ty was a young kid but it's when he's sending Tau to, like fix up other Hmong people's homes that it's like, oh, none of these people know how to care for a home unless Clint comes in and helps them like that. Like that's the only thing that for me really like strongly smacks of white savior is MM, but the rest of it, like you said, Noah feels like It's honing in on his isolation, and what's going to save him from that? I did like the scenes of him and Tau hanging out getting along. It's felt very formulaic to me, like a, you know, a man called Auto.

1:01:01 I haven't seen a man called Auto, but I assume something like that happens in it. When old grumpy, man, you know, learns to open up by being around a kid. That is really, that's good stuff. Listen, I ate that movie up, I was like this is terrible and I love it. I did not enjoy and called on it whatsoever. All right. Real quick, I want to touch on something that we really haven't talked about very much Brad and that is Eastwood as composer. So we mentioned it. I think you mentioned it in your two facts in a falsehood on Unforgiven. And we talked about it a little bit last week with Mystic River and how the weird major chords and that movie don't work for us. But here it Eastwood does something that's probably the most egregious thing I've ever heard. Him do as a composer and I kind of still loved it and it's when at multiple points in the movie your you're immediately attuned to the fact that he was a Korean war vet. And at multiple points in the movie they play these. Like When Johnny Comes Marching In drums underneath Eastwood's actions and I kind of loved it and it's a terrible score like I would never turn this on in the car to listen to like however once again I think it's this really Yes. But kind of neat thing that he does of commenting on a certain thing and it's like you could read that as hell. Yeah, Clint Eastwood's going to ride into battle and kill these guys or like, you know, justifying his vengefulness and his anger, but it's really not.

1:02:32 I think it's 100%, you know, because that that theme stops once. Walt has that confrontation with the consequences of his actions, in the home of his neighbor. It is very much a comment on like He has been trained by what he did in the military and by the trauma that has been caused by that throughout his life to retaliate, as if he needs to go into battle. And so when they play that theme, you as an audience, member are not supposed to be like rooting for him or you know, perhaps it's like implicating us in our own like desire. To see Clint Eastwood kill people because it's fun to watch. Police would kill people - I really like that little touch and I know that like yeah, you guys have both already said I'm giving useful.

1:03:15 Too much credit. And I didn't think this would be the movie that I would do it with like, over again, Stephen Unforgiven, but it's really nice to see him still dealing with those same themes, even into, you know, 2008 with this movie for me, all of the little drum drum rolls that they, he gives himself. I thought that it was just kind of like a callback to be like, hey, have you ever heard of PTSD? This is it. Yeah, yeah, I can't do it. Either I can't name another movie that does that, but I feel like a hundred other movies have done that. Yeah, mmm. I just, I love that. It was like this Rob eat, you know, they could have made like a really eerie strings or something, when he's having PTSD, but they play it as if it's, you know, the Revolutionary War.

1:04:03 And like it's just just a really interesting choice and there is another interesting choice. That Noah you were saying that you wanted to mention as well. I did. Yes, it goes like this. Gentle now the A breeze. Blows Whispers through my Grand Torino and those are the lyrics to the song that Clint Eastwood, inexplicably, sings or rasps. I think would be a better word. Yeah. Over the closing credits of this movie, is it Clint Eastwood? Or is it Tom Waits? Are we sure or is it like late-era Bob Dylan? That is perhaps singing that song There's a fine line between rasping well and raspbian badly but this this makes it a little clearer.

1:04:46 I think it just it makes no sense to me. Why Clint Eastwood sang this song? He does not have a good voice. The lyrics are not good. The song apparently was written by Jamie Cullum who I don't really know who that is, but he seems to be a songwriter of some Renown. He got his song into a movie. I mean have you ever done that Noah certainly not that's certainly not. Okay. So I remember Jamie Cullum having like a really minor pop hit in the The early 2000s, I do remember what it was, but I remember the name did. He also sing, there's like a song that plays over a montage in the movie and it sounds like discount Coldplay. Do you know what I mean?

1:05:29 It sounds like The Scientist by Coldplay but not as good that that's probably him. That sounds like Jamie Cullum. Okay, alright, cool. I feel like he just keeps got bodied by us and he didn't even deserve. We don't even know who he is. Where are we supposed to think that Walt is singing that song from Heaven? Is that, is that the vibe you're getting, that's the only way to interpret it. Noah that. Let me tell you guys. I have never turned off a movie Faster than like the second. I saw the fretted directed by Clint Eastwood. I was like, and I'm done because I heard three lines of that song and I was like, oh, I'm not doing this for a minute and a half and I'm glad I did I heard, I didn't even know that the the words Grand Torino were in the song because I think I checked out before we Got to that point.

1:06:15 I mean, it, that that's the thing is, like, we want to talk about this movie and how complex it is, and how ambiguous its portrayal of Walt is, but in the end, it's Walt singing a song from Heaven about his car. I mean, the car which is a symbol of this kind of old-school masculinity. Like it does make me it doesn't make me wonder in this final Choice. How much Clint Eastwood really is ambivalent about all all that. The movie. Well, getting back to what you were saying in the first half of like, you know, maybe Eastwood just didn't want to do this or didn't want to do that. I mean the guy has won two directing Oscars. He's 12 best pictures. He's never won for acting even though he's been nominated a couple times.

1:06:58 And I think, you know, maybe he just comes back to do this movie because he's like, I want my acting Oscar and I want to be recognized for writing music so I'm not only am I going to compose the score? I'm going to sing this song so that I can get on stage at the Oscars. And sing my Oscar nominated best original song. Like I wouldn't put it past him that that's what he's doing here and it's a tragedy that it did not happen. Can you imagine seeing Clint Eastwood on stage at the Oscars singing this song we've seen worse performances at the Oscars. I just want like I want Clint Eastwood and Jamie Cullum to basically be doing the Bradley Cooper Lady Gaga shallow moment on stage together.

1:07:44 During a piano bench and canoodling while they sing this song or maybe sitting or maybe singing to an empty chair at my work. All right, guys, before we wind down today, we do have one more segment left and that is perhaps my favorite one and it's called. Let's make it a double we near the end of the episode. So thanks for listening to the film and whiskey show. Let's pair another film with this one. Even if it's struggle, it's a final segment of the day. Now let's make it a double. This is the part of the podcast. Where we Pick a movie to pair up with the film. We've been reviewing to make the perfect double feature Brad. I'm going to start with you because I've really been racking my brain to try to figure out what I want to pair this with. And I'm not sure.

1:08:27 So I'm gonna I'm going to Vamp for a couple more seconds and let you go ahead and do it. Oh man, I don't think this is a good pairing Bob, but I'm gonna do it. Anyways, I'm gonna pair this movie with another film, largely about cars and one that Made car, chases famous. I'm going to pair it with bullet. How interesting, I don't honestly know why other than the fact that the Gran Torino came out, you know, in the same era as all the cars and bullet and I think that'd be a fun fun little evening. And on a bit of a lighter note with both. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right, knowing how about you? Well, I've given this a lot of thought and I'm going to pair it with with blue collar which to me is another movie set in Detroit and another film about race relations. But one that's going to make Gran Torino look very bad in comparison because I think it has one of the more thoughtful Nuance to portrayals of race labor issues and some other things that you will that you will find in a movie So I'd make it a Detroit double feature and you know Gran Torino is going to come out on the losing end on that one, unfortunately. Yeah yeah yeah.

1:09:47 I mean we could we use paired with a ton of Detroit movies. You Beverly Hills Cop the obvious choice. Well he's from Detroit, Axel Foley. Okay. Here's what I'm going to do, Brad. I'm going to use my, let's make it a double to correct an error that I know Mission. So I said earlier, that aside from Eastwood, there was only like one or two bit players. I thought were really good and one of those is the character actor. John Carroll Lynch, who I love in every movie. He does Brad, we've had him on the show a couple times before he played Marge's, husband in Fargo, he shows up here as the barber and he doesn't really have a lot to do. It's one of the more like hashtag problematic Parts in the movie because of what it's trying to say about like how men just break each other's balls like what like the initial the initiation rites of becoming a man but I really love him.

1:10:40 As an actor, we will get around to watching the movies. Zodiac one day that he is phenomenal in. But for now, I want to pair it up with another movie that features him really prominently because he doesn't get enough discussion as one of our great character actors. He is really fantastic in a movie that came out a few years ago called the founder. And this is a movie about Ray Kroc, the guy who basically expanded the McDonald's Empire, taking it away from the McDonald brothers, who founded it? It's essentially The Social Network. For Baby Boomers. It's a really good movie with Michael Keaton and John Carroll Lynch plays one of the McDonald brothers, and I just want to give the guy a little bit of love. I think that I would, I would absolutely watch a double feature with this movie and Fargo to see him with this movie and zodiac to see him.

1:11:27 But I'm going to give a little bit of love to a movie. I really, really liked called the founder. Well, the founder that is a choice. Bob, I think very clear if any reason if only the McDonald Brothers had held up. Raycrockett gunpoint and said, get off my lawn that what might have been? Yeah. What might have been. We wouldn't all be consuming. Just terrible food for us all. Yeah, man, that would be a sad all true alternate future Bob. Well guys, I think we've said a lot of things that have needed to be said about this movie. We probably could have gone a lot more deeply into certain areas, but I think we're kind of getting to that point. What are Guys, is final scores for Gran Torino. Brad, I'm gonna give this movie a seven and a half out of ten. I think that there are moments of this movie that are, they're quite good.

1:12:19 Like, I would probably give parts of this movie and eight and a half out of 10. I would give the first 40 minutes at this movie about a 3 out of 10 and I guess it kind of washes out. It's a good movie. It is the worst of the three that we watched, just remove filmmaking standpoint and especially from a scripting standpoint but it's still worthwhile and I I didn't expect it to be worthwhile and I think it's to be frank, like, kind of a minor miracle that it ended up being a worthwhile movie. That is a pretty good feather in the cap for Clint Eastwood, even though he's still making movies, 15 years later that we didn't expect him to be making. So it's a seven and a half for me. Yeah, I don't know what to do with this because I remember walking away from it.

1:13:03 The first time I saw it and being like, oh, wow, I like that movie those those fine, it was good. And the second time I watched it being like huh this wasn't as good as I remember. There's there's some issues here and then the this time my third time watching it being like, oh wow, there are some problems with this movie and it's not just the, the racial stuff like that, like the acting and the script and, you know, even the way he transitions from, from one scene to scene, it's kind of like he just was like, well, I'm done with that now so I guess I'm going to start this new thing. I like this movie a lot but I'm gonna give it a six and a half or wow.

1:13:47 Okay. It's the highest six-and-a-half. I would ever give it like a film where I'm like. Yeah, I'd probably watch this again at some point but it just doesn't really work for me and yet it kind of does. I don't know, man, I'm almost up here. There is like there's a part of me that completely understands that. This is like your two and a half out of four star movie that you catch on AMC. E on a Saturday and you're like, yeah, watch part of Gran Torino, that's fine. Yeah, yeah. I get it. You know, I think I agree with both of you like this is not bad enough to be a six. Definitely not good enough to be an eight, right? It's that kind of movie. Yep. The thing about it is as we've been talking about it, I feel my opinion of it getting lower and lower and lower because when you start unpacking it, and you see the contradictions and you see the flaws, it really doesn't hold together, but there is a power to the filmmaking. I mean, Eastwood knows what he's doing somehow. He's getting home by.

1:14:45 Our time and he's making a good movie and he does know how to do this. And I'm trying to put myself back in the space that I was in when I watched it which was that was a pretty good movie. So I'm going to split your difference and I think I think this is a straight 7, a lot of it. All right, so we are all coming out to an average of a 7 out of 10 but we like to know what you think. Have you seen Gran Torino? Did you see it? When it first came out 15 years ago. Have you re-evaluated at since? Then you can let us know your opinion on the movie. By reaching out to us on our social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram at film, whiskey, or jump onto the Discord. We are on there every single day, talking to you guys, the fans of the film and whiskey podcast. So if you want to join, you can find a link to our Discord. At the end of every single one of our show notes, Brad, we are leaving, Clint Eastwood behind and we are going in the Wayback machine.

1:15:39 Revisiting Classic Hollywood for the first time in a while. I'm really glad to be thrown at way back to the 40s and These again, because we are going to be doing a mini series of films by one of our favorite directors. Billy Wilder, and we're kicking it off with what might be his Masterpiece 1950s, Sunset Boulevard, bro. I am like, so jazzed to watch this movie and to, you know, to watch three billion a row. Yeah, I can't wait, man. Well, we want to say thank you again to Noah gets all for joining us today. Noah, what do you have coming down the pike that you can plug here? Oh, okay. Well, nothing urgent coming up. I would just encourage folks to keep an eye on my Twitter account, which is Noah could tell that's two T's and two L's.

1:16:22 And like, most folks, I have started a sub stack over the last few months, it's called good eye, and it's about movies and also about baseball quite a bit and a little bit about baseball movies. We did a mini like a bonus episode a few years ago and we did the best baseball movies and we shook out to I think the final two were Moneyball for people who don't like baseball. League of Their Own, which I know is the film that you have since crowned, as the best baseball movie, I know that you're doing. I think this coming weekend, you're doing like an intro of the movie. I am at the measure graph in New York. It is my favorite baseball movie, but Moneyball is the correct choice for people who are not Baseball fans that movie was not designed for baseball people. Baseball, people pick it apart, especially, baseball players. I've spoken to quite a few of them, and they really hate that movie.

1:17:12 But I know a lot of folks who don't like baseball at all, I think it's great. You guys aren't going to put Trouble with the Curve up there. Boy your boy Clint Eastwood. I'm ready to do another pot on Trouble with the Curve. Listen man, come back on. We'll revisit the, the power ranking of baseball movies and we'll dive debug Trouble with the Curve. I would love to. Alright, that does it for us this week, we will see you next Tuesday for Sunset Boulevard, but until then I'm Bob book, I'm Brad G and we'll see you next time.