Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (2019) / Eagle Rare 17-Year Bourbon (2024) ft. Noah Gittell

0:00 In 2019, director Quentin Tarantino and stars Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio gave the world a sprawling reflection on the death of the golden age of Hollywood. In 2025, we just couldn't stay away from this brand for more than a season. The film is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The whiskey is Eagle Rare 17 and. We'll review them both. This is the The Film and Whiskey podcast.

0:49 Welcome to the Film and Whiskey podcast, where each week we review a classic movie and a glass of whiskey. I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad G. And this week we are looking at Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film Once Upon a Time Ellipses in Hollywood. I I expect you to hold that ellipses with respect to Bob. I know you do. We need, we need to pause for reflection as we say the title of this film. You know, Bob, I never knew when we watched The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford that there would be so many titles that I could use to just be annoying. Yeah, and you have really paid dividends on that bit, man.

1:32 It's been 6 years here on film and Whiskey Brad, this is an interesting movie for me to record today because it's one of the first films that came out after we started this podcast that I remember doing like a video review for using our podcast social media channels. And this is back in the day where we were only reviewing movies from like the 40s. So it is it's just very strange that we're all the way up to 2019 now. We're talking about a movie that I have not seen since that first time in the theater in 2019. And I'll give a huge spoiler here, Brad, because the first time I saw this movie, I was not a big fan of it. Bob, Robert, what? What is wrong with you?

2:16 I listen. Believe me, I have. I have searched high and low for answers to that question, Brad not not just as it pertains to this movie. I need to talk to your therapist. Well, we have somebody here that could maybe play the role of therapist today for us because we've brought back one of our favorite people to guest on this episode today. It's our friend, critic and author Noah Getell. Noah, how are you tonight, man? Guys I've had 8W sours and I'm ready to go. The best point about that scene is he's like you couldn't have just had 4W sours. Oh man. What a great scene. It's so it's so good, man. Brad, I have so many thoughts on this movie. I don't want to dive in too quickly. So let's set the stage here.

3:02 Let's let's tease our audience just a bit. Folks. If you're new to film and whiskey, welcome in the title's pretty self-explanatory. We talk about movies, we talk about whiskey this season of the podcast. What we're doing is going back through the last 20 years of cinema history, and we're asking the question, does this movie deserve to be considered a modern masterpiece? We're trying to build the 21st century Canon here, Brad, and we have an interesting artifact here of the 21st century. This is a movie that I'm pretty sure you have not seen until this watch. Is that correct? That is absolutely correct Bob and I have done my best to stay as spoiler free as possible. I, I think the most I knew was that Brad Pitt is a stuntman and Bruce Lee, well, there is a cameo.

3:53 How, how do you say it? Bruce Lee is not in the movie, but Bruce Lee is in the movie. Yeah, sure. You would say an actor plays Bruce Lee in the room. There we go. Thanks, Noah. I believe that's the technical terminology is is. Portrayed in the film. I I think that's what I was trying to say. There you go. All right. So that's that's the extent of Brad's knowledge on the movie. And I think that provides us the most natural segue into our first segment of the day, which we call, Brad explains. Brad's going to give us the movie plots with only 60 seconds taken on the clock, so let's go ahead and do your take with this little segment that Brad explains. Brad Explains is the part of the show where Brad breaks down the plot of the film that he has just seen, often for the first time.

4:39 Brad, this is very much true today and given given what you said you knew about the movie, I'm very excited to see you dive into explaining the entire plot here, folks. What we do in this segment is allow Brad free rein. He will spoil the hell out of this movie. So if you have not yet seen Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it is bananas. So you should probably go watch it and then come back and listen to the rest of the episode. Brad, you have 60 seconds to spoil the film and go. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a film that follows Rick Dalton and his stunt double Cliff Booth, played by Lena Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as they wander about Hollywood, pondering their futures, trying to figure out if what they are currently doing is right for them or if they need to take a new pathway for their careers. It also follows Sharon Tate, played by Margot Robbie, as she lives just an idyllic few days in Hollywood. It all culminates in a few months spent in Italy by Cliff and Rick.

5:53 They come back and have a very Tarantino just incredibly peaceful, beautiful, philosophical ending. Yeah, very much so. By this is by. Philosophical You mean aortic spray then yes, we we have achieved that for. Sure dude, when Brad Pitt just like slams that girl's head into like 8 different objects across the house, it's. Incredible. Let me tell you something before we do anything else here. And I want to get to Noah. Watching that scene in the movie theater with the sound design of that scene, I have never been in such intense discomfort as as listening to the noises that were being made by flesh hitting objects in that scene.

6:42 Unbelievable. It's absolutely brutal and it and it definitely is a discordant tone to end the movie on compared to everything that has LED up to it. I think that is a wonderful setup for where I'm going to go today. Brad. Noah, I want to throw to you, though. You know, we gave you the option to choose any movie on our list this season, and you immediately jumped at Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. You did throw in the caveat that you didn't want to talk about baseball movies, and that is understandable at this point. But why this movie? What What attracted you to this one on our list this year? Well, I was really excited to hear Brad do the Plot Summary. In fact, I've been looking forward to it all day because I've watched this movie 5 or 6 times and I'm not sure what the plot is. I would say, were you satisfied with me skipping over pretty much all of it?

7:34 You actually did really well. You did. You did better than I would have done. I would have said something like an actor and a stuntman hang out and watch TV and then this other actress that goes to a bookstore. And then there are these cult members who almost kill someone at the end, but then they. Get killed. I did forget to mention the cult, which is a somewhat major part of the film. It is somewhat major and also like not at all important in a way. Like that's kind of the whole movie to me. And that's it's kind of what I love about it and why I will always come back to it to try to understand more of what Tarantino is doing.

8:15 And I've come to the conclusion that I don't think he knows exactly what he's doing. I think this is in some ways like his most out of control movie. He has said it's his most personal movie, which is odd considering he was only 6 when the events of this film took place. I mean, I know he was in LA, but I don't think he was super conscious of all this. Maybe some of it. So I don't know exactly what he's thinking and what he's doing. I have a few ideas, but my my guess is that he started making this movie and he just fell in love with these characters. You know, because this is a movie. I think it's his his most tender movie outside of maybe Jackie Brown. And I think it's it's his only movie that would be like qualify as a true hangout movie like from beginning to end. And I think he got Leo and Brad and Margot in this movie. And he was like, I just want to watch these people play these characters and live their lives.

9:14 And it's an immensely pleasurable experience to me, despite the fact that two of those 3 characters are probably terrible human beings. But that's the genius of the movie. That's the genius of these actors. And in some ways I think that's the point. But we can maybe unpack that a little bit more as we go. I actually think I, I don't want to speak for Brad, but I will speak for myself. I think you've actually nailed it. I think that is everything you said, I completely agree with. And yet I feel like I fall on the complete opposite side of the fence on this movie. It is by far his most unfocused movie. And I, I said this to Brad earlier, it's my least favorite Tarantino by a considerable margin. Like I'm not counting Death proof. I don't really, I know people love to count that one. I don't really count that one of his, you know, own unique works. I think it's my least favorite Tarantino. And this was only my second watch. So I gave it a good, you know, five years in between to make sure that I really understood what I was doing here. And I'm still landing in the same spot. And Noah, you said that you had a few ideas behind why the movie shook out the way it did.

10:19 I'm wondering, Brad, if it's OK with you. Maybe we just kind of let Noah give us the outline for the episode here. Let's let's listen to his theories and debunk them one by one as we go. Well, these are the things the movie makes me think about while I watch them. And I don't know how much of this is intentional because I did read the novelization Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and he makes things explicit in the book that are ambiguous in the movie. And I'm less interested the more explicit he makes them. For example, I don't really want to know that Cliff Booth, like, was part of a dog fighting ring and that's how he got Brandy. Like, that makes it less good to me to know that Cliff Booth was out there. Like letting dogs murder each other for money. Somehow that's worse than him killing his wife. I'm not exactly sure why, but that's another thing that is unambiguous in the book.

11:06 Not a big Michael Vick fan, no. Hardly. No, I I was the owner of two pit bulls. So Brandy is a special, special dog for me. So again, I don't know how much of this is, is intentional, but what it makes me think about is he's making a movie about a transitional time in Hollywood history. So he's probably also thinking about the current era and the transitional moment we're in now. And, you know, one of the things that is has been much written about, much discussed of this era is that we are losing movie stars. We just don't have them anymore. We don't have people who can carry movies the way they used to. We have characters, superheroes and comic book characters who are more important than the actor playing them. And, and how this is really bad for the business. And, you know, in some ways, I think this movie is him showing us the power of a movie star.

12:01 It is him lamenting, maybe even call it an elegy for an era that is going away, just like Rick Dalton is is represents an era that's going away in the film. And the scene that made me realize this was the scene when Brad Pitt is on the roof and he takes his shirt off because that is a a moment that Harkins back to how Brad Pitt got his start taking his shirt off in Thelma and Louise. And like, it's his trademark. His chest outside of his face is probably his biggest trademark. He's got a lot of trademarks. And I feel like in that moment he was saying, look at Brad Pitt.

12:42 He's still got it. And once you do that, we're in in meta text, you know, we're now talking about the actors as much as the characters. And when I spoke earlier about how terrible these these characters are, you know, Cliff Booth in particular, this is a man who killed his wife. And yet I maybe Bob doesn't feel the same way. I still really like these guys and I still want to hang out with these guys. And I think that the only thing I can say for certain is that that's part of the statement Tarantino is making here is he's saying, look what a movie star can still do. If we give them the chance, they can make these despicable people likable, relatable and somebody you want to drink whiskey sours with. So that's one, that's one idea. Should I move on or do we want to talk about that one? No, let's talk about that for a second. And, and I hope I don't throw you too far off track, but you, you are falling victim to a classic blunder here. And I, I feel like I need to address it. It's it's a thing that Brad and I have interrogated a lot, especially with well established directors who have some amount of cache due to making really good movies. And it's like, once you've achieved master status, can you still misfire or, or are you given such a benefit of the doubt that, you know, for me, I think this is a a very poorly plotted movie.

13:59 I don't, I look at the way that it's set up and it's, it is a hangout movie and it is very shaggy. But then there's also a lot of questions I have about like, why is the scene filmed this way? Why is it structured in a two or three day stretch for most of the movie? And then there's a jump forward in time. Six months. What is the Sharon Tate character even doing in this movie? Should we have just kept her behind a fence the whole movie? And then him being allowed behind the fence is like, it it, it's almost more impactful that way if we don't really see her throughout the movie. I, I say all this because I think that you're already talking about meta textual stuff. And we're giving Tarantino a lot of credit in saying that, like, he's leaving behind the plot of his own movie to take you into Meadaville and like an interrogation and an examination of stardom.

14:45 And I'm not saying he's not doing that, but I, I feel like people so easily dismiss the weirdness of this movie in Tarantino's like Uvra because they just want to give him so much the benefit of the doubt and say he must be doing something more. And I just want to pause it like maybe this is just not his best effort. I do wonder why with a lot of directors we kind of skip over that part of the thought process. Well, I would say first of all, I'm not a Tarantino fanboy. Like there's several of his films I don't love at all. And in fact, as a person, I find him very, very great in and maybe even worse than that, maybe worse than that, I'm not sure I would want to ever have a conversation with him in real life. So I didn't necessarily go into this movie like expecting to love it or wanting to be him in a masterpiece. Although I agree with you if that happens, you know, and this is where we differ.

15:38 But like, my retort would be like, this is an immensely pleasurable movie. When I watch this movie, I am smiling the whole time. I even took a picture of myself watching it 'cause I was like, I want to remember how my face looks when I'm this happy. That's what I did the other night when I watched it. And, you know, obviously our your mileage will vary, unlike whether this is an enjoyable experience for you. But like, there's only so many times as a film critic, I can just say this movie slaps. You know, like without getting into the ideas behind it. And I will acknowledge, and I have acknowledged, and in this case, I'm not sure all that I'm reading into it is intentional. But that's never stopped a film critic before, and it's certainly not going to stop me. Yeah, I mean, I listen to you guys and I, I feel like I watched a different movie because for me, yeah, I don't feel like this movie is shaggy in the sense of, like, lacking direction and focus to, to me, like, even like the character of Sharon Tate feels like the optimistic view on what Hollywood can be even as it passes away. Like I, I feel like she represents a very important role in the movie of like, regardless of the old guard of Hollywood, there's always something new coming on the horizon, Somebody who still enjoys watching themselves in a movie. And, and there's just something

17:10 beautiful about that character. And you, I don't know, I found myself utterly entranced by every single character, by so many shots there. There are so many incredible, beautiful shots in this movie. And I like as I think about Tarantino pointing out the transition of one era to the next, I find it fascinating that this movie came out in 2019 because like, obviously there's no way he knows what's coming the next year in 2020. But he and other film makers have gone on record of saying, like, ever since 2020, like cinema just has completely been altered.

17:51 Like the, the whole deal between was it HBO and WB where they were streaming all their movies right away for the year and now they're back to the cinematic releases. But like so much happened in COVID that it really feels like 2019 to 2020 was a 1969 to 1970 type of transition. And so I, I don't know, I just, I was thinking about all of these things as I was watching it. I did not for a moment feel like this movie was really shaggy. Interesting. Yeah, I I do think that even if you don't find it Shaggy, what what I noticed reading reviews of it and you sent me a couple reviews as well as that everyone sort of acknowledged that the general vibe of the film.

18:37 Maybe it's the pacing, maybe it's something else was totally new for a Tarantino film. And he's like a master at hangout level dialogue, right? Like the the opening restaurant scene in Reservoir Dogs and the opening scene in the car in Pulp Fiction. Like he's always just been a guy that really cleverly writes 2 dudes hanging out talking about stuff. And yet I feel like formally, functionally, this movie is just very different and he's trying something new. And Brad, you actually brought up earlier when I told you that I wasn't a huge fan of this movie. Like, how could you not be a fan of this movie? This is his licorice pizza. And you know how much I love licorice pizza.

19:19 And I would actually posit something different. And you can't argue with me, Brad, because you haven't seen the movie I'm going to reference. But Noah can argue. I love licorice pizza and I understand like it's a California set hangout movie. So yes, there's definitely some parallels there. This actually reminds me a lot more of a movie from PTA that I didn't like either. And I'm in the small minority on that one. And that's a movie called Phantom Thread, which I found to be his most indulgent movie. It's a movie that is essentially built to one final scene at the at the very end of the movie that's kind of a rug pull and kind of a really funny, really dirty joke. And it made the whole movie for me feel like.

20:01 You you undermined what you've been building with the end of the movie and this just felt like a really self indulgent joke upon the audience. I don't think Tarantino like committed the level of sin to me that PTA did with Phantom Thread. But I always just found that like, it's really clear that he wanted to write a story about the Sharon Tate murders and do his revisionist history thing with them. And so much of this movie feels like I I need to cobble together some stuff to get us to this point. And I think that's why it ultimately reminds me more of Phantom Thread than Licorice Pizza. Noah, I can see you by by your hands obscuring your face over here that you are in utter disagreement with me. So, So please take me down.

20:45 But that's kind of where I land on this one. Only I only disagree with you on everything you said. No, no, not exactly. Phantom Threat is my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson movie, so we'll get that out of the way. And. Get him Noah. I, I, I agree, I agree with you in theory that I mean, I agree with what you're saying. I think I just disagree with like how it worked out. This movie was compared to Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained when it came out as like another film in which some of history's most famous monsters are revenged upon by Quentin Tarantino.

21:25 And yet this film does not feel at all like those movies. I'm not entirely sure those movies feel exactly like each other, but this one feels more different than either of them do to each other. And there are even scenes in this movie that feel like they're supposed to be like the scenes have long drawn out tension in those films. You know, Inglourious Basterds has like 3 or 4 of these incredible long scenes of tension. The opening scene for example, I think the Strudel scene and the the Tavern scene and Django and Chain has a couple of them as well. This movie you have the Spawn ranch scene, which I think is supposed to be as tense as those, but it just isn't. And I don't feel that that is a failing of the movie. I don't think I wanted it to be that. I do think it got away from him a little bit. But as I said earlier, I think it got away from him because he he loves these characters so much. I think this is his softest movie. I think it's a movie that shows Quentin Tarantino is not the hard ass that he used to be.

22:27 There's a tenderness towards the characters. There's a love towards the characters. I almost feel like he doesn't want to put them through what he put through his characters in his other films. And I'm a sentimental person. I like sentimental movies and maybe that's why I like this movie more than you do. But I will just on the Licorice Pizza comparison, I do feel compelled to point out both Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Licorice Pizza. You know, in addition to both being hanging out film set in LA, they have something else really weird in common. And I don't know what to say about it except it's a really weird coincidence, which is that they both are littered with actors who are the children of famous Hollywood figures. You know, and Once Upon a time in Hollywood, all of those Manson women are like, it's it's it's Margaret Quali, it's my Hawk, it's Rumor Willis.

23:16 There's a bunch of other ones. And Licorice Pizza has, you know, Cooper Hoffman, it has Leonardo Dicaprio's father is in Licorice Pizza. So not children, but family member Paul Thomas Anderson and my Rudolph's kids are in the movie. 2 of Steven Spielberg's daughters are in the movie. I don't know how these two directors who are friends ended up doing this in both of their movies at the same time, but it that's just one of many things about this movie that I don't totally understand but continues to fascinate me. Crucially, only one of the films, though, features a line about enjoying peanut butter sandwiches. I was literally about to say, Bob, if Pussycat got into the car with Brad Pitt and Brad Pitt just immediately said, do you like peanut butter sandwiches? Would would that have like notched it up a half point for? You immediate 9.5 out of 10 for me if we'd gone. There, I told you off camera that I'm single again. I've been trying.

24:14 That line does. Doesn't work. No, not so much man. Not that was a very 1973 line, you know they. Haven't tried the line on Bob. You you do that line on Bob and man, he is ready to go. Good to know man, buy all that away. Yeah, please do. No, I'm with you, though, in that I, I do agree that this has Tarantino's kind of tender streak all through it in a way that Jackie Brown did. It's actually what I love most about Django Unchained. And I, I found that critics have really diverged on their opinions in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Django, Django seems to get crapped on a lot on film Twitter. It's actually my personal favorite Tarantino film and it's for all of the reasons that you just said about this movie.

24:59 I, I find it to be his most humanist movie. I find that he's not trying to, like, bludgeon the audience with violence in in a way that's like almost insulting to the people that it's pretending to champion. Which is like, there's a lot more gunshots. In that than there is not so much bludgeoning. Yeah, but but yeah, I'm with you. And, and what I really noticed was at the very, very end of the movie that that great scene with Emile Hirsch and Leo DiCaprio. And then like the the fairy tale kind of music at the end, it's that all three of these sort of revisionist history films that he made, they ended in very different ways.

25:40 And Inglourious Basterds ends, you know, with them carving the swastika into Christopher Waltz's head. And it's a very kind of sick joke at the end, but it's like one more chance to screw the Nazi, so why not? And Django ends on a very triumphant note, you know, with them kind of riding away together after the house blows up. This one actually really lingers after the comeuppance. Like, he clearly wrote it to set things right. And I found that to be, like, for me, the most profound and impactful part of the whole movie because it's so quiet and so sweet. And I think that, like, I'm going to be honest with you, Brad, the last 20 minutes of this movie really boosted my overall score of the whole film. Dude, I I think that the end of this film, you said it earlier, Noah, it is the softest, most tender Tarantino that we have ever gotten.

26:32 That the film's ray of light, that Sharon Tate, this bright bit of sunshine, little piece of joy that just wanders around LA, she survives. And I think that's this whole movie for me kind of came down to Tarantino loves movies. He loves old television and he loves the magic that it can bring into people's lives. And if it's up to him, he is going to guard that magic, even if it means making a movie to revise history to keep that magic true.

27:14 Like, like that for me felt like the point of this movie. And, you know, it kind of comes back to a debate that we've talked about before, Bob, like, do you go to movies to be entertained or to like think more deeply about the world? And I think Tarantino does a little bit of both here, But he he does the let's think deeply about the world in order to protect and preserve what is beautiful and good. Well said. And yet here I am, still by far the lowest score of the three of us. Unmoved. Unmoved by your persuasive skills, man. No, let me, let me ask you this. I want you to introduce your theory #2 to us here.

27:54 But you said something that stuck with me a bit ago that like you do think this movie got away from Tarantino a little bit. And yet it's still a a, a resounding success to you. Yeah. I mean, is it fair to say that this is in some way like an accidental success, then like it, despite Tarantino being LED astray, it still somehow works. I. Absolutely think it is. And part of me thinks that a lot of Tarantino's movies are accidental masterpieces because when I listen to him talk, I don't think I've ever heard him say a self reflective thing in his entire life. You know, he is, he is not an introspective person as far as we know, unless there's this whole other side of him that we've never seen. But given how much, how many words this man has spoken, you'd think some truth would come out from time to time. And yet I find his movies so intellectually engaging. And honestly, watching this movie and reading the novelization was very illuminating for me because I thought the novelization was terrible. Like I, and I've read his other book too, and I don't, I don't, I don't think he's a good writer of prose. And it's bizarre because he's a brilliant screenwriter and a brilliant image maker.

29:09 I mean, I think that's actually his his bigger talent. I know he gets a lot of credit for his dialogue, but I think he's even a better director than he is a a screenwriter. So part of me thinks that once he starts making the movie, that's like things start happening on an instinctive level, you know, and because this movie, he says, is his most personal, and I don't know exactly what that means except he grew up, He was in LA at when this was happening and, and maybe it made an impact on him. I wonder if that's why it got away from him a little bit, you know, and the movie he wanted to make ended up becoming something different. I mean, he talks about this movie almost like it's a memoir piece, you know, and that is just so vastly different from anything else he's ever done, which is always playing with with genre. So But I I think that's the kind of movie I like the older I get, to be honest with you.

29:55 I like movies that are a little bit wild, you know, like my favorite Wes Anderson movie is is Rushmore, which I think of as as a little bit out of control as well. Like there's, there's, there's a psychology in that movie that he hasn't quite, he doesn't quite know exactly what he's doing. And it's obviously very personal to him. And that's what I like about it. I, I like the rest of his movies too, but they're obviously much more controlled. So I think that that is a bit of personal taste for me. I'm really curious to hear, so if this is like Tarantino's, like personal childhood love letter to Hollywood memoir, how, how would you compare it to something like Meet the Fablemen's then? Because I, I feel similarly that like, you know, Spielberg is one of the greatest of the greats.

30:44 But like, for me, that movie felt a little bit Shaggy, like it got away from him a little bit. Where do you think we're at with director? And, you know, maybe this isn't a question about Fablemen's as much as it is. Why is it so hard for directors to keep memoir type films from getting away from them? Well, I feel compelled to point out I don't want to sound like a broken record, but The Fable Men's was my favorite film of that year as well. So all the movies you guys think are just OK or worse are my favorite films. I I like the fable men. 'S I like it too. Yeah, I was going to say I enjoyed it. Maybe not my favorite of the year, but.

31:24 Well, you know, I, we should point out that like, this was a thing that's happening around this time where a lot of film makers were making their memoir pieces and there was a lot written on it at the time. And people were saying it's because the kind like it won't be possible to make movies like this at this scale for much longer. So film makers like Alfonso Cuaron and Spielberg and Tarantino, and I'm sure there were a couple others, I guess Paul Thomas Anderson as well. On some level they're kind of doing it now and they all were sort of getting it out in in the late twenty 10s. So I think this movie totally slots, you know, right alongside all of those others as a memoir piece. And I don't know if these movies are like better than these film makers other films, but I like them more. I like seeing a director who is very controlling and like someone like Spielberg, who really, you know, explores the the breadth, the depth of the cinematic possibilities. I like seeing him get a little loose and a little weird, talking about his own childhood.

32:32 I found The Fablemans to be as affecting as as any of his movies. And he did it without any of the narrative crutches that he usually uses, without spectacle and without fantasy and without visual effects. And it's one of my favorite Spielberg movies because of that. I'm, I'm, I'm moved by his courage in doing it, in going to this place. It's so late in his life, looking back at this painful time in his history. And I'm moved by his ability to bring the same ingenuity and skill to it that he does to these massive productions. So maybe I'm just a sucker for this kind of movie, but for me they work almost better even when they're not totally in control, because that's more in keeping with the spirit of the of the film, what the film makers going through. Absolutely, man.

33:18 I, I think every single human knows on an innate level that we are weaving a story with our lives that, that we are meaning making machines. And when film makers take the time to reflect on the meaning that they have made of their stories, I, I'm with you, man. I, I think it's a fascinating endeavor. I think it's why people are fascinated by autobiographies. The fascinating thing for me is I don't know if necessarily I did not know enough about Tarantino to necessarily know that this would be a memoir like film. So that makes it even more meaningful in a sense. Yeah, I mean, you're you're right in that people want to be able to narrativize their lives and put their lives into stories.

34:07 And it's worth noting that Tarantino's version of telling his story revolves around the central question of what if I could burn a hippie with a flamethrower? That, you know, that that seems to be the question that he's been sorting out in his own psyche for all these years. So and. Can I also say his his version of his own history is the story of an actor whose career gets revived, which is what he has done to so many actors over the course of the It's not a story about himself, it's a story about an actor who he does texturally in the film. What he did for many actors like often. That's actually a good point. Once again, not an introspective man. He's just championing his own abilities through this story. Noah, you brought up Wes Anderson a bit ago. And I think what I'm ultimately doing with this episode is just trying to figure out if we have the same taste in movies or not. But I do kind of think that you're you guys really pinpointed this, this trend in Hollywood that some of our more established film makers are getting their own personal pieces out while they still can.

35:09 Wes Anderson's an interesting one because I feel like his early films were very personal in a much more raw type of way. And what you're seeing now is him kind of playing with form. He's, he's figuring out how much of a labyrinthine Rubik's Cube can I make my scripts into Brad, he made a movie a few years ago called The French Dispatch and it, it's such an interesting movie from a narrative standpoint. What I'm, what I do think, though, is that as interesting as it is to like, read the text with Wes Anderson, now, I, I'm detached from his movies in a way that I never have been before. And I'm kind of getting the same vibes with Tarantino in this movie.

35:50 It feels like he started this movie from a novelist or a memoirist standpoint. And he really wanted to be able to demonstrate his encyclopedic knowledge of movie history of 1960s California. And there are so many scenes in this movie where it's like, did I really need Kurt Russell to narrate a dinner held at some random restaurant that is not in any way pertinent to this story? And so I think he kind of falls in the same trap that that Wes Anderson does. Whereas Wes Anderson is, like, really focused on this, the art form of the screenplay. Tarantino seems to be like, how can I make this a novel? Well, you know, it started as a novel. He wrote the novel first, actually, and then interesting. Yeah.

36:35 As he was writing, he was like, I think this would make a better movie. And then he made the movie and decided to finish the novel and and put it out there for whatever reason. So I think you're I think you're on to something there. I just think when you talk about this movie, like what is necessary is like it's a tough that's a tough conversation to have because there's almost nothing that's necessary because I don't there's not a plot, right, Correct. Yes, there is no plot. So I don't think any of it is necessary. It's a question of whether it's enjoyable or not. I honestly think this is a movie. This is a movie that you either enjoy or you don't enjoy and there's there's nothing that can be done if you fall into that. This does not make me smile, camp.

37:16 Yeah, it's absolutely a Are you along for the ride? Like when Brad Pitt takes a drag on the acid cigarette and goes, all right, here we go. Like, like that could have been at the very start of the movie because that's the essence of the film. It's like, here we go. Are you are you with me or are you not? I think part of it is the way it's edited too, like so for a long time, Tarantino worked with this editor, Sally Menke. They had a great relationship. She passes away and then I think from Inglourious Basterds on or maybe Inglourious Basterds was their last collaboration. But it's it's worth noting that his movies continually get longer since that point too. I think he probably has more input in the edit.

37:57 This is edited differently than any Tarantino movie. It has almost, forgive me for this, Noah, but it has like Family Guy style cutaways at at points in ways that are like anathema to what I'm used to seeing in Tarantino. You know, somebody at one point he pulls out the acid cigarette and he goes, where'd you get that? And he goes, oh, I got it from some hippie. And then they just show him buying it from the hippie and they cut right back to the scene again. It's a completely, once again, it's an unnecessary cutaway. I'm with you guys in that it's a vibes movie. But I think what I'm bucking up against is that for all of his really Florida writing, sometimes, especially with his dialogue, there's always been like an economy to a Tarantino movie. Like, Reservoir Dogs is an hour and a half long and this, this is by far his least economic writing. And I think that that's like it.

38:49 It really sticks out like a sore thumb among his filmography for me. Brad. Dude, I, I just, I never once thought to myself, man, it, it when's this movie going to be over? Which like. I thought, could this please go on forever? That's what I think. Yeah, I wanted to spend so much time with Cliff and Rick that like even when Rick I I don't know how he manages this when he is talking to Jay Sebring about about what happened and he and he's. Like and the. And the last one, I, well, I, I don't know how to say this, but I, he's a flamethrower, Jay. I don't know how.

39:33 He's like, I roasted her or something and he's like, you roasted her? He's like, yeah, I got that flame thriller and. Then he just looks at me. He goes, yeah, the 14 cliffs of what? What should we call it? There's a great like the facial expression on Leo. It is so earnest. There's a cut to him when Sharon Tate is talking to him through the teleprompter, the teleprompter through the like the PA system and just says, well, is everybody OK? And he goes. Well, can hit these aren't, I could tell you that much. Oh, it's so good, guys. I think this is probably a good place for us to hit pause. We've been stepping all over Noah's list of theories here, so we'll come back. We'll listen to theory #2 after the break. Brad, it's time for us to drink some whiskey. What do you say?

40:20 Let's get to it. All right, so today we are checking out for the second time this season Brad Eagle Rare 17 year that. Might be the craziest sentence that has ever been uttered in this podcast history. It took us like, what, nine seasons to even try it? And then we got it twice in one season. We we've apparently gotten inside the good graces of Buffalo Trace, despite all the things Brad has said about them over the years. I I don't know what you're talking about, Bob. And they've sent us a sample of Eagle Rare 17. I think back in like January, it came in and we were way down the distribution list.

41:01 So we got it kind of after that initial rush, we've been sitting on it for a while because at first it was like, do we want to do the same whiskey twice in one season? We typically don't do the same whiskey twice ever. But again, folks, this is B.Tech. This is some of the most sought after whiskey in the world. I kind of feel like, Brad, if we're going to be like do our due diligence here, then we have to go all in and and try this whiskey. And this is a service that we do for you folks. It's it's hard work, but someone's got to do it. Yeah, we, we take our task very seriously and and we will sacrifice on your behalf. Now the 2023 batch. So what?

41:42 Let me say this, this is the 2024 batch. It just came out in the fall. We tried 2023 earlier this season and that proved to be one of the best whiskey's Brad has ever drank. On this podcast. I'm looking at your scores, Brad. You gave it a 45.5 out of 50, so a 91 out of 100. This one has some big shoes to fill, a lot to live up to here. It does of course clock in at 17 years, this one specifically 17 years, four months. There's some really cool things that Buffalo Trace does with the fact sheets they send out with B Tac it like including the evaporation loss on every one of the B tacs because they're so well aged.

42:23 This batch had an evaporation loss of 86%, so only 14% of the whiskey that went into the barrels that made this blend up was remaining when they actually blended it together. That's insane dude. I can't imagine a world where you put liquid in at 100% full, the barrels completely full, and there's only 14% left. That's like. That is mind boggling to me. How frustrating that has to be as a distiller. Yeah, like that's insane, dude. I can't imagine how hazmat this was in the barrel before they proved. It down.

43:05 Oh my. 201 proof, like it had to be in the one 40s at least, dude, minimum. All right, let's dive in. Brad, I am picking up on the nose here and I'm drinking this live. Brad's already tried it. I don't know if it's this Glencairn I've been using, but I've been using a Glencairn from our friends at Doc Swinson's that they branded and sent to us a long time ago. And it's got a like a, a, just a little bit of a wider kind of bell curve to it than the one that I had been using for the last season or so. One of them curvy Glens. Oh. Dude it is thick with two CS daddy and listen it. It really adds a perfumey note to most of what I've been drinking. It's like almost a Cologne type note.

43:47 So like I, I wasn't expecting to stick my nose in this and get notes of Old Spice, but there's there, there's something going on here that is both like perfumey floral and a little bit Old Spice, like Old Man Cologne and it is really throwing me off. That's the first thing I noticed. I'm going to dive in. Brad, why don't you keep giving your nosing notes while I figure out what's going on over here? Are you sure you didn't like accidentally spray that glencairn with Cologne and then like like bake it in somehow? That's actually how I test all my colognes is I'm like, I'm going to spray the inside of this glass first before I put it on my body. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, give it a nice Kentucky chew. Oh yeah. Bob, the nose on this Eagle Rear 17 is wild and complex.

44:33 There is cranberry there. It's got a really nice bready flavor to it that there's a bit of like a chocolate cacao nibs. There's caramel. I I think that this has a lot of really nice fresh notes about it. I'm going to give it an 8 1/2 out of 10 here. I'm going to give it a nine. I I can't get past these perfumey notes, Brad, but they are like kind of dancing above all of the notes that you had here. It's a classic bourbon with a little bit of that kind of dusty floral. Noah's Mill, you know, will it funk a bit? It does have some really tart Berry notes as well. I like this a lot.

45:15 And I think that I'm already on board with this to the extent that I can remember the 2023 version. I'm on board with this more than that already just because this seems like it's going to go to some interesting places. Yeah. Yeah, I, I mean, I think for me, the palate has a lot of really nice things going on. It's got a bit of like a a Baker's chocolate. There's cinnamon, it's got Graham cracker there. There's a bit of like a mixed Berry tart light. Like you get a little bit of that pastry flakiness along with like a really nice tart mixed Berry. I'm going to give it a nine out of 10 on the palate, Bob, this is delicious. Yeah, I agree. And Eagle Rare has always been in that kind of like spicy range where I prefer my weeded bourbons.

46:02 I prefer my bourbons a little more mellow. Eagle Rare is definitely it packs that peppery punch, and this one does too. I'm you can tell how much my mouth is watering. I think it's really prickly on the palate. It it drinks hotter than 101 proof, but that doesn't mean that it's unpleasant by any stretch. For me, the note that I'm getting on top of all this is a really fresh ripe Peach, like it's it's got Peaches for days. It tastes like a summertime whiskey to me. I am really digging this man. It's it's the classic eagle rare notes with just a little bit more of an oak punch, but not over oaked and not char and not ashy. And then you get this great summer stone fruit thing going on top of it.

46:46 I'm going to give it a nine once again. I think the finish is where this one really stands out. The the oakiness stands in and gives it like a firm foundation. It gets into those really nice pepper places. The cranberry really comes through on the finish. It reminds me of like a baked oatmeal with like a mixed Berry yogurt on top of it. I really like the finish a ton. I'm going to give it a nine and a half. Yeah, I'm going to come down just a little bit to an 8 1/2. I actually really love the flavors here, but it's just not quite as long lasting. And when you said yogurt, I think what's actually lacking for me here is like a sense of creaminess or oiliness or anything that kind of gives that lasting like coat your tongue impression.

47:34 This one gets a little bit thin. And I mean thin in that like the ethanol kind of lingers a little bit and it makes the finish dissipate more quickly. It's still a really good finish, but I think for me, I do wish it had a little bit more like creaminess, flabbiness to it here. So it's an 8 1/2 for me. You know you like them, flabby baby. How many times do I have to tell you? Yes, we all know that. Proudly. Oh my goodness. Moving on from that, I think, I think balance wise this is a nine out of 10. Like there is complexity of flavor. There is all sorts of really interesting notes that work incredibly well together.

48:17 It's a nine out of 10 for me on balance. I think I'm going to be in the same spot, Brad. I, I actually feel like I like this whiskey more than a nine in almost all these categories. But being objective about it, it's, it's not quite to the level of the like transcendent B tax we've had, but I do think this is probably better than any of the 2023 B tax. Like we went through that entire line up and I was in the 39 to 44 range and I feel like this is something that feels more special than any of those ones did to me. I, I think I'm not quite with you, Bob, that this one has amazing flavors.

48:58 It is complex. It's deserving of the title of B Tac. I think that the 19 year Eagle rear 17 from last year just had more of a punch, more complexity, a little. It was a little more interesting of an experience and like deserving of the B Tac moniker. I think for me when it comes to value. And obviously folks, if you've been around filming whiskey for long enough, you know that once we hit like $250 plus we're talking luxury whiskeys now, I know that this is technically $150.00 MSRP. We can call this a luxury whiskey, can we not? Very fairly, yes.

49:40 Yes. So in the world of luxury whiskey, I'm going to give this a 7 out of 10 on value. I like I think it's really, really good. It's not quite at the level of other Eagle Rare seventeens that I've had. And I I found myself at the end of the day wishing that this was like 111 proof instead of 101. I do think we really like whiskeys that fall between that one O 7 Weller proof point and then like the 1:14 one sixteens. That really does seem to be the sweet spot for us. Brad, I'm going to do something before I give my value score. I just looked behind me on the shelf and I have literally 1 sip left of the 19 year from 2023 and I want to try it just to see which one I like better. If you will indulge me for just a minute. Yeah, have at it man.

50:30 I, I love that 19 year. I think, I think this is like the fascinating element of B TAC, though, is like they've created this like elite culture where you, if you want to be in the know, you have to get every single year at least one of the five bottles. And I that's like what I hate about B TAC. But it does make for an interesting experience where you can compare and contrast the different years and releases of the whiskey. I mean, how many people who are huge sport fans don't spend time debating like which version of your favorite team would win the, you know, the 80s championship winning team or the 2000s team that almost won a championship?

51:18 Like who would have won? Like, you know, I I think all the time about the 2019 Buckeyes and how they should have beaten Clemson and won the national championship, right? I appreciate you vamping so much for me to take this sip. Oh, I. I'm back. I'm ready to to dive in The the 2023 is definitely like 10 times more viscous and syrupy and it has almost like a a really dark wine grape character to it. But it tips way too bitter at the back end. It actually, I don't know if maybe just because of this sample bottle having so little in it, maybe it got a little oxidized. It was like unpleasantly bitter for me. I definitely prefer this new one, but I can see how people who enjoy the sort of thing I just drank in the 23 would like that one better because it does feel more like a it.

52:10 It feels like a luxury bourbon on the tongue, where this one just feels like a really good bourbon. Feels like it has the elbow patches on its sports jacket. Very much so. All right, So I'm going to go ahead and give this a 7 1/2 on value, Brad. That's taking me to a very high 43 out of 50. Where are you falling on this one? I am at a 43 out of 50 Bob. After saying that it doesn't achieve the heights you know. Yeah, well, it doesn't. I, I, I would say for the level of notoriety that B.Tech has, it needs to hit 45 out of 50 for me to say, yeah, this is worth it.

52:53 Yeah, You know what I mean. Like so you would call this just by that definition, a disappointing B.Tech? I think so. Interesting. Yeah, I like and that's that is all to say this is a 43 out of 50 folks. It's an incredible whiskey compared to the heights of B Tac that you know, some of the stags that we've had the the like dude, the Thomas H Handy, like those are the peaks, the the beautiful mountain tops of AB Tac experience. And I hate to say this, Bob, because I like eagle rear 17 was my Unicorn for years and years and years. I think the eagle rear night, the 2023 edition, I think hits that level of wow factor to make it worth it. I don't think the 2024 edition does all right. Well, folks, there you have it.

53:50 We're coming out to the exact same score, but for me it's an achievement and for Brad this is a let down. So take do it that what you will. It's still coming out to an 86 out of 100 or a 43 out of 50. Brad, would you recommend trying or buying B Tac Eagle Rare 17/20/24? If you have a choice between this and other B tacs or even other Eagle Rare seventeens, I think I would say move elsewhere. If this is your only choice and you know, you're like, wow, do I want to spend 40 bucks on this? I do think it's a really good pour. Like, I don't know, I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money.

54:34 You figure it out. All right, man, what do you say we rejoin our friend Noah Gatel and keep talking about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? Let's get to it. All right, everybody, that was Eagle Rare 17, a whiskey that Bob and I ranked almost exactly the same. Oh, or exactly the same. Were we both at a 43? We, I think one of us was at a 43 and a half, one of us was at a 43. Beautiful. And you said only negative things about it, and I said only positive things. Somehow I don't think that's where we're going to end up today with the movie, though, Bob. Yeah, not so much, man.

55:16 But it it, it might be where we end up with our next segment, which we call 2 facts and a falsehood. Brad is going to try to stump your ball. 2 are right and what is wrong? 2 facts and a falsehood. 2 Facts and a Falsehood is the part of the show where Brad presents me with three items as fact about the making of this movie, one of which is a complete lie and I need to figure out which one that is. Brad, I'm coming off of some some ups and downs these last few weeks. Luckily I have a guest here for the first time in a little while. Noah, the way this works is that if I tap you in to help me answer and we lose, I get credited with two losses on the week, but only one victory if we win. So Brad, this, this is his way of trying to like get back at me because I'm not going to just like not engage with you, not going to ignore you.

56:10 So be prepared to take me down here and give me two losses. I really hope you know more about this movie than me, is what I'm saying. I believe the last two times I have helped you with this we have lost, so maybe the third time will be the charm. Noah. Come on man. Fact #1 Stuntman Cliff Booth was partially based on Jean LaBelle, a real stuntman, professional wrestler and two time national judo champion who came to work on the Green Hornet after complaints by other stunt performers that Bruce Lee was, quote, kicking the shit out of the stuntman. Like Booth, LaBelle was suspected of murder but never convicted.

56:52 Fact #2 The controversial scene where Cliff Booth fights Bruce Lee was originally a 7 minute showdown, but test audiences thought it was too epic and it overshadowed the rest of the movie. Fact #3 When Sharon goes to a showing of her movie The Wrecking Crew from 1968, the film makers chose to use the actual film rather than recreating the scenes with Robbie. The real Sharon Tate briefly does appear on screen. All right, I I was typing something during fact #2 what was the showdown was what, 2 minutes long? Bob that, that. No, no, no, no, no problem. Hey, listen man, one of us has to take notes to make these episodes coherent. What's fact?

57:33 #2 Brad The fight scene was originally like a 7 minute showdown. But it got the fight with Bruce Lee. Yes, sorry, the Cliff, Cliff and Bruce fight, OK. Noah I mean, I think it's got to either be one or two like that's. I think I've got. This one I'm. Sorry to say I'm really reticent to say, but I think I got this one. All right. Well, let me let me turn it over to you here. I think it's #2 and I'll tell you why. I mean, I know, I know the well, Brad just made a weird face. Now I'm not so sure. That's just his face, don't worry. I know the character is based on a real stuntman. I don't know the name of that stuntman, but it would not surprise me if it was some obscure person I've never heard of.

58:19 How many stuntmen have I actually? Heard of? Are you also insinuating that stuntmen are just, you know, murderers that don't get convicted? Some of them, perhaps. Some of them, yes, and here's why #2 just strikes me as false. I just don't think Tarantino would trim down a scene that he loved because audiences felt it throughout the pace of the movie. Not a Bruce Lee Brad Pitt bites. I don't buy it. I mean, as we know, this movie is famous for its impeccable pacing anyway. So yeah, I think I'm going to be with you.

59:01 Noah. Listen, if we're going to go down, we'll go down together. Brad. I will say with Noah that number 2 is the falsehood. Gentlemen, you are 100% correct. Yes, that is. The fault finally broke the street. As soon as I read the words test audiences, I was like, oh, Tarantino wouldn't give a shit about his audiences. Why did I write that? Come on, Brad. Yeah. That's great, man, honestly, Noah, I Bob said that he was typing and I was like, maybe he maybe he missed the test audiences thing. Not me, buddy. See, that's why we bring in a guest. All right, Noah, we have been stepping all over your list of theories here on why this movie is the way that it is. I'd love to hear theory #2 if you'd be so kind. All right, Well, look.

59:52 Two or three, did we? Did we get OK? I'm going to sort of combine 2, which is this movie is regressive as like this this movie when I think about the politics of this movie. I like it less because so this is essentially a movie of Cowboys versus hippies, right? Like Dalton's a cowboy on screen. Cliff Booth is kind of a real cowboy. Like what that would really be like off screen. He's an actual hero and a murderer. And the cowboy versus hippie dialectic has been part of American politics for like 60 years.

1:00:34 Like a really big part of American politics for 60 years is the reason Ronald Reagan wanted to be seen on his ranch all the time. I mean, he was an actual Western star, but he understood that the power of that image. And George W Bush, same thing, always off clear and brush on his ranch or whatever, whatever he was doing down there. And, you know, the cowboy is a traditional alpha male. And that's certainly those are some values that are associated with one side of the political divide. And then the hippies, you know, have been used as a scapegoat for, you know, so many things by the right towards the left. Even these days when they talk about, you know, crime in inner cities, like, or in how disgusting New York is, things like that, that it that Harkins back to the like, you know, liberals are hippies, hippies are an American hippies are criminals. Like this has been part, a huge part of the American discourse, political discourse for years.

1:01:31 And in this movie, it plays out right. It is hippies versus Cowboys. And he picks this moment in time and he makes the hippies, he picks the worst possible hippies to represent hippiedum in this movie, the ones who were actual murderers. Like that is that is tipping the scales. That is putting your thumb on the scales in a major, major way. And on the other side, you've got Rick Dalton, who, you know, I think Tarantino's knowing about the fact that he's not a real cowboy. He's a fake cowboy. But you've got Cliff Booth, who is a wife killer. And yet we're rooting for him over the hill.

1:02:13 OK. And that's another thing. That's another thing. I have another theory. I'm glad you said that. So we never see Cliff Booth kill his wife, right? I have had this whole theory at the time, I don't know how much I believe it anymore that that whole thing was meant to be Tarantino's comment on the ME. Too. Natalie Wood. Oh, I thought was Natalie Wood. OK, OK. No, it's definitely. Reference movement? Where? Where are you going with this man? Because this wasn't. I thought I had it pegged here. No, I think it's definitely referencing Natalie Wood. I think you're right about that. But you know, you got to remember this was 2019. He's writing it in 2017. He's shooting in 2018. This is right in the wake of the Me Too movement. Like, a lot of stuff is still coming out in this era. And here we've got a a figure in movies who is accused of a violence against a woman and his career is suffering as a result of it. And nobody knows what happened because nobody else was there. And Tarantino doesn't show it to us. He lets us see like everything up until the moment and lets us form our own own conclusions.

1:03:13 And I thought that was an incredible provocation at the time, like, you know, trying to just touch on the the mood of of the moment and provoke us and make us think about this sort of thing until I read the book and I saw that don't know Cliff Booth totally, completely brutally killed his wife. But it ties into the overall theory, which is like he's totally he's stacking the deck for the heroes, but in which is normal in a movie. But in this case, in the in the context of the cowboy hippie dialectic, I think it's really kind of politically problematic. And I don't think that team is aware of any of this, but. A a couple things that I'll say on that. This most recent theory you just shared. I, I agree with you.

1:03:56 And I think that looking at his movie prior to this, The Hateful 8, which is a movie we haven't even talked about, which I, I actually think might be his worst movie, if I'm being honest. Like, I'd like it less than this in that it's mediocre, but I've always viewed that movie and essentially as Tarantino's summation of his thoughts on race relations in the United States. There is like this central letter from Abraham Lincoln that is established very early on to be bullshit. And inside that letter is all of the platitudes that we consistently like parrot in the United States about how to get along and respect each other. And the way that movie ends is like, everyone's out for their own survival.

1:04:41 We're all trying to screw each other over. And the only way that the main black character and the main white character actually end up working together is acknowledging the inherent hypocrisy in each other and in the system. Like, it's a really cynical read on race relations. Sounds like a Coen Brothers movie. Yeah, I mean it. It kind of is in the way that it ends. So I don't think you're far off here with this potentially being his comment on the Me Too movement because, you know, Hateful 8 comes out in the wake of so many, you know, police shootings and everything else in that political climate. I I really do think that there might be something there. And I think it's notable that he cast Emil Hersh in this movie, who was persona non grata at the time because he strangled a a a female executive, a movie executive.

1:05:27 And he hasn't really worked since then in a mainstream movie. So it does seem like I don't know if Tarantino's commenting on me too movement or he's opposing cancel culture. I mean, I think that's all on the table for him based on what I see in the film and. I think you're caught you're Cowboys versus hippies comment too. It's interesting that you know Tarantino's favorite movie of all time is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He loves spaghetti westerns. He's on record saying this. So yes, it makes sense that he's going to send Rick Dalton to go be in a bunch of spaghetti westerns. It's interesting, though, that, like, he doesn't see the upheaval of the Western genre as part of the hippie part of on the hippie side of the equation.

1:06:07 Like, at the end of the day, even though Rick is hesitant to be in these movies, he goes and does it. And then like, it is brought into the fold of Rick's side of things, which is like championing good classic Hollywood, the past, you know, not the future, not this ruination of this beautiful thing that we have. So yeah, I I think there's a lot to unpack there for sure do. You think is the good man, the ugly, supposed to exist in this world? Because Rick Dalton says very disparaging things about Italian westerns. But this is 1969. I mean, the whole Mam and No Name trilogy has come out already by this point. That always struck me as a little strange. All I know is that they say that the the director he's working with is acknowledged as the second best director of spaghetti westerns. So I assumed that like, it's got to be Leone, right? And it's possible that Dalton is just an idiot and doesn't know that.

1:06:57 Like they're actually great spaghetti westerns. That 100% tracks. You know, the more I think about it, I don't know if I want to spoil my let's make it a double, but this would be such a weird let's make it a double that I, I think I'll say it now. You guys keep talking about the Sharon Tate character and I, you know, deep down, if I'm being honest, I think this is a waste of Margot Robbie. I'm I'm sorry, guys, She's barely in the movie. She does nothing. I love Margot Robbie to death. This character is a nothing burger. But I think it's really interesting how Tarantino is using Sharon Tate, the person as a symbol, a symbol for like, the lost innocence of Hollywood. Like, that her murder was a turning point in Hollywood, both as an industry and as like, a community, a real geographic community.

1:07:46 And that by correcting the wrong of her murders that, you know, we we've now set Hollywood back on its idyllic course. And I think like, if there's something that that reminds me of, it's the song American Pie by Don McLean, where he, he pinpoints this, you know, the day the music died, where the plane crash happened and Rock'n'roll died as like the moment that a generation of people lost their innocence. I I find it really fascinating that like you said, 6 year old Tarantino would pinpoint this this thing that happened as like the turning point moment in Hollywood. Well, I do think historians have sort of cited this and the Zodiac killer as well as like the two the moment the hippie wave sort of turned dark, you know, when it when it crested as as Hunter Thompson said. So I don't think he came up with that on his own necessarily. I feel like that's been that's been discussed before, but on the on the, on the Sharon Tate point, you know, I don't see it as a waste of her.

1:08:46 Like, I, I understand where you're coming from. Like it's not, there's no character there. Like she's just an Angel. It's completely one-dimensional. But there aren't that many actors who could do what she does in that movie theater scene, you know, where you could, she could sit there and be goofy and insecure and gorgeous and like have you be right there along with her. That is a it's a rare gift, I think. So I give her credit for that. And I do think the character has a purpose. I mean, Brad alluded to this earlier, but if there is an idea in the end of this movie, I think it's that as Rick's time was ending, there's two ways it could go. You know, there's the really dark way, which is the way it went.

1:09:26 That's what could happen to Hollywood. The Manson Family could like that, could be the new character of this place that Tarantino loves, or there could be these young, hip, beautiful people like Sharon Tate who could be the next wave. And in this movie, Rick Dalton kills the bad way and saves the good way. And so I don't think the movie would make much sense if that character were not involved to that degree. Brad, it occurs to me that we are like almost at the one hour and 10 minute mark or whatever here. We really haven't talked about like the actors or the the if we thought they did a good job in the movie. Brad Pitt do so good. Listen, Brad Pitt wins an Oscar. Brad Pitt's phenomenal in this movie.

1:10:06 No, I'd love to get your thoughts. We've had Brad Pitt on a couple times this season. This might actually be his third appearance. Yeah, he's guested on this show quite a few times. Brad Pitt has started doing, it's like the He's challenging himself to play every character more and more understated, which is like really rare for a MW star of his caliber. Moneyball, I think kind of being like the apex of that where it's just like, I don't know if he was just sleepy on set or if he's really doing an understated thing. He kind of does it here too. I I'm wondering what you think of like 21st century pit as opposed to 90s movie star pit.

1:10:47 Well, let me of of Moneyball, of which I I know a few things. Let me say that people who know Billy Beane well say Brad Pitt's performance was uncanny. So I don't know how much of A, you know, low energy thing it was or if it was really him just kind of matching the tenor of that particular person. Got it, Got it. You know, when I think of his earlier performances, I mean, I all actors have more energy when they're younger, I think. So Thelma and Louise and 12 Monkeys, which is like a very energetic performance, you know, that's that's a young actor really trying to make a name for himself. And it worked. You know, he became a star with one and he got Oscar nominated for the other. But, you know, Brad Pitt's 61 years old now. I mean, he's older than Paul Newman when he did The Color of Money.

1:11:36 And I don't think it's unusual for a movie star to settle down a little bit as they get older. And I don't know, Brad Pitt, I don't know if his personality has settled down or not. I've there've been some stories in the press that maybe, maybe not, but I don't I think it's, I think it's good and normal and natural for a movie star of his age to settle down. Frankly, I would I'd rather see him make doing more performances like this. And and if you were like, whatever Ferrari is or not Ferrari, the F1 movie that's coming out soon is going to be because that doesn't look at all interesting to me personally. But on the other hand, you know, I think it's worth noting that he also is doing more kind of action than he's done in a while. Like he did this movie, which has some actual action scenes in it, real physicality for him. And he did bullet train, you know, not around this time as well.

1:12:25 So I think he's still doing unusual, like varied things, which is sort of what he's always done in his career. I, I think Brad Pitt is perfect in this movie. I think that was like my main take away. I loved the, the juxtaposition of DiCaprio and Pit in this movie that they're both kind of the same person, but just like the yin and the Yang of each other. And I like, I think Tarantino just wrote two fascinating characters. The the thing I loved about the two of them together was that it wasn't until about halfway through the movie that I was like, oh, they actually just genuinely really like each other.

1:13:06 Like their characters really like each other. Like, he does such a great job of setting them up as, you know, the movie star and the entourage of a fading movie star. And yet by the end of it, you realize you're like, oh, these guys just genuinely really love each other and they understand their roles in relation to each other and, and I think both of them like pull off that dynamic perfectly. You know, the scene that you're making me think of is when they get home and he says to him, do you want to come in and watch my FBI with me? And he goes, oh, I just figured we would. I got a six pack in the back and we're going to order a pizza. And then they sit there and do, like, a director's commentary of that episode.

1:13:54 And I love the moment when when Rick Dalton appears on screen in the TV show and you just hear Cliff Booth say something like, oh, here comes trouble. And you just know these guys love each other. I've never seen anything like that in the Tarantino movie. Well, and then like again, you get a really sweet moment at the end where they're putting Brad Pitt into the ambulance and like through the closed door, Leo just says like, hey, you're a really good friend. And I was like, aw, I can't believe that. Like there's, there's no snark, there's no irony to it at all. It's a, it's a truly genuine earnest moment, which I don't think Tarantino is a supremely confident person. I think we've established that. I, I don't know if he would have had the self-confidence to put a moment like that in a movie in the 90s and, and just let it sit there without commentary.

1:14:42 It's it's a really beautiful moment. Do you think that there's a bit of meta commentary there on Brad Pitt's career that he asks for bagels? He's like, hey, I haven't been seen eating food a single moment in this movie. I need you to bring me. Food I can't get out of here man without eating a carb. I need it. Well, you know, DiCaprio improvised the whole scene in the trailer and that's a very rare thing that people are allowed to improvise in Tarantino movies. So maybe Pitt improvised the the bagel line as well. All right, Noah, any outstanding theories on why the movie is the way it is?

1:15:23 No, but I forgot to mention in the whole Me Too movement thing that like Roman, Polanski plays a significant role in this film as well. I I was, I didn't get around to saying it, but I was like, man, we're talking about me too. And Roman Polanski is a huge part of this film. Totally innocent in this movie does does nothing wrong. No commentary upon anything he's done. I mean, if Sharon Tate did doesn't die. Yeah, I mean. That's true that that's that's maybe he prevents the whole, you know, the history of sexual assault and harassment in Hollywood from happening with this film. Yikes. It it probably never happens. Man, guys, I, I, it occurs to me that we haven't really talked about Leo, once again, a fixture of this season. Brad Leonardo DiCaprio.

1:16:07 I don't know if this movie will ultimately be on his Mount Rushmore the way like The Wolf of Wall Street was. That's a bigger, flashier, showier, more outsized performance. But I will say that between that movie a few weeks ago and this movie, he is such an underrated comedic actor. He doesn't necessarily have like what I would consider great comedic timing, but he does that thing that really good actors who are in comedies can do. And I've already alluded to it. It's like he's so perfectly plays the earnestness of that character and, and gives that kind of dimwitted character so much heart that everything he does is funny as a result of that.

1:16:49 And I'm glad that he's not trying to go broad and he's not trying to be the funny guy on screen. It's very much like, you know, when you watch De Niro in a movie like Midnight Run, like De Niro's funny as hell, but he's not trying to be a comedian. He's just being Robert De Niro. And I I really appreciate that about DiCaprio here. And he gets the biggest laugh line in the movie when he says, in 15 years, you're going to be living it, which I still remember in the theater. Seen this movie like Pack House. It's almost out of character. It's like a little too clever for Rick Dalton. But DiCaprio totally nails it. And you're right, he's not he's not turned it into a punchline. He's speaking from his own place of despair and and his deep knowledge of the industry and his cynicism about the world.

1:17:36 And that's what makes it so funny. So I think that that completely speaks to your point, Bob. I I think one of the funniest moments for the character of Rick Dalton is when a 8 year old child like compliments his performance and he like starts crying as he reflects on how great he was. And then like you, the audience think about like I and like to be clear, it was a great moment of acting very good. Yeah, very, very good. But then you the audience go, yeah, it was a great moment of acting on some like C level TV show. And it just, oh, it's such a beautiful moment that made me laugh so hard. All right, guys, we've established that Brad Pitt is great and Leonardo DiCaprio is great, so we broke new ground here on this podcast today.

1:18:29 Can we can we say Mikey Madison is great in this movie? Yes, yeah, let's yeah, let's talk about the Tarantino to Oscar nomination pipeline going on down the cast list here 'cause you've got your Austin Butler's, you've got your Mikey Madison's. Like you said, Maya Hawk is in this movie. There's there's so many young stars that were kind of Sydney Sweeney, thank you very much, that we're catapulted to fame after this film. Former young stars Dakota Fanning. Yeah, listen, so we're recording this the Sunday after the Oscars. Mikey Madison has just won the Academy Award for Best Actress. And it's it's interesting because I was certainly not opposed to her winning.

1:19:10 She was not who I thought was going to win. But I will say, if you didn't want to see Mikey Madison win an Oscar, then watching what happens to her in this movie, it's very interesting. Next step in that process. My God, Brad, I can't. I've never seen anything happen to the human body so badly in a Tarantino film. Does she receive the worst treatment of any Tarantino character? Because I mean to be brutalized by a Pitbull to be? Does she get shot or just stabbed? Or does her fat? I can't fully remember, it was such a blur.

1:19:52 I do know that she ends up getting torched. Yep, by a flamethrower. She sure does. It's it's rough, man. I mean, what happens to all three of those individuals? You could. I mean, you could power rank the deaths if you wanted to. They're they're all really brutal deaths. I think it's the most like, to me, it's the most violent sequence in any Tarantino movie. And then because. Of how soft the rest of the movie. Has been exactly. And it's not like, you know, shooting Hitler in the chest 1000 times or something like that. This is a gentle movie in so many ways, and these deaths are deeply felt like when he is slamming the redhead's face against the mantle.

1:20:36 I mean, it's it's. I mean you do the inhale like. You. Know yeah, it's it's rough. And yet I'm laughing at the same time. That's the amazing thing. Yeah, well, you are a twisted individual when? Austin Butler says I am the devil and I'm about the devil's work. Like and he just. The most terribly dark humor funny line because. That's, I mean, that's like on record as something that was said and then to have him undercut it with like, Nah, I was Dumber than that. And he said, and the booth repeats it later, the cops, he said I'm the devil and I'm here to do some devil shit.

1:21:17 And. Then he goes. I don't think that's verbatim. All right, guys. On that note, I think it's time for our last segment of the day, which we call let's make it a double. We're near the end of the episode, so thanks listening to the film and Whiskey show. Let's have 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. Let's Make It a Double is presented by Blackwood Distilling Company. It's the part of the show where we pick a movie to pair up with this one to make the perfect double feature. Now, I already suggested a plethora of I think we've all suggested movies here. Licorice Pizza. Was it the master? No, it wasn't the master.

1:21:58 What was it? Phantom Thread, American Pie. There's a there's a ton of stuff we could pair this up with. Noah, you are our honored guest today. I'll give you first pick in. Let's make it a double. You know, with the Tarantino movie, there's like an endless array of options because he wears his influences on his sleeve. Obviously you could pick any one of the other Once Upon a Time in movies to pair it with. But I'm such a huge fan of Westerns, particularly neo Westerns. I love movies about, you know, aging gunslingers, people who represent a different era. And there were quite a few of them that came out in the the 20 tens. And the movie that I would pair this with is Logan, which is I'm not a big comic book guy.

1:22:40 I'm not a big superhero guy, but I love Logan because it is so true to the conventions of the Western. You know, I mean, you can go back to Shane. I mean, that's probably where all this starts. You know, a guy who's from a different time, from a different place coming in to defend civilization. But that's what Logan Wolverine is doing in that movie, and that's what Rick Dalton is doing in this movie. And they're both just phenomenal movies, so I would love to watch them in succession. You know, no, I hate to disagree with you, but Logan does not have a flamethrower and there's no hippies to burn. So I will say it guys. I've only seen. So I watched Logan with a group of friends who had all seen it and they wanted to watch the black and white version and so I watched that.

1:23:26 I really enjoyed it. Do you think it's worth going back to watch the actual full color edition? I actually haven't seen the black and white, so I couldn't tell you, but I will say he he captures the color of westerns really well. Of course, there are a lot of great black and white westerns too, so perhaps. He also captures the color of gratuitous blood and gore quite well. Yeah, you could. That's what I was like curious about because I'm like black and white does not capture blood and gore quite the same. I think it would feel much more vivid overall in color. I would do it. I mean, it's a great movie. If you have to watch it again, then it's just OK. I don't think you know that's not a problem. All right, Brad, what's your? Let's make it a double today.

1:24:07 You know, I with all of Tarantino's references to films of the past, along with it being a buddy, just get along with it. Have fun movie. I am going to pair this with the nice guys because I for the life of me, I like I grew up with like six or seven VH s s of Abbott and Costello. And when Ryan Gosling is like pounding his chest, I literally I I pulled a Leonardo DiCaprio and I like pointed at the screen and was like Lou Costello. Lou Costello.

1:24:49 I've seen that before. And it was like a beautiful moment and I felt like a film nerd and I felt proud of myself. And I'm going to pair it with the nice guys. Both great LA. Movies, too. Yeah, very much so. You know, it's amazing to me we haven't talked about Robert Redford and Paul Newman at all, which this this movie was kind of billed as like this is the Newman and Redford movie of our generation and Brad Pitt. I feel like it's such an interesting combination of both Paul Newman and his demeanor and Robert Redford and his looks that like we could have gone with the sting. Brad, that's a great movie. Butch and Sundance would have been a great movie to pair this way. What a. Great film. I dude, I was so surprised by the sting, it was incredible.

1:25:31 Oh, it's so entertaining, man. I'm actually going to go a little bit farther back with my let's make it a double. I'm going to say that, yes, this is Tarantino's western, but it's also Tarantino's riff on another classic Hollywood movie, a movie about two guys hanging out in Hollywood, one of whom is a movie star, one of whom hangs out behind the camera. They hang out with a bright, upcoming young ingenue who's trying to become a star at a time when Hollywood is on the precipice of a huge change. That movie, that movie is called, That movie is called Singing in the Rain, Baby. I knew it. I mean, this is Tarantino's take on a Singing in the Rain story. That's a good cut, man.

1:26:14 Love it. If Gene Kelly had murdered anyone with a flamethrower at the end of that film, it probably would have been even better. That's all I have to say, Brad. Bob, would you pay to watch that movie? Lena Lamont getting torched at the end of that film. Talk about a character who truly deserved it. Brad, come on. Gene Kelly does not kill anyone with a flame flamethrower, but Leonardo DiCaprio does dance briefly in this movie, so I think that's. True the the hullabaloo sequence, yes, he wins, I think. All right, so there are our picks for Let's Make it a double. But no matter what you choose to pair this movie up with, you can always make it a double with Blackwood Distilling Company.

1:26:55 If you go to bourbonoutfitter.com/film Whiskey and use our code Film WHISKEY at checkout, you'll get 5% off your bottle of Blackwood as well. Guys, it's time to give this movie some final scores. I'll go first 'cause I'm the low man here. I was at when I first saw this movie, I was at like a legitimate 4 out of 10. I really truly disliked this film. I texted Brad with about 20 minutes left in the movie and said I'm I'm up to about a six on this. And then the ending was so good that I think I'm going to come up to A7 out of 10 on this movie. It is still, I think my least favorite Tarantino film, if if not his worst. But it says a lot about Tarantino that a 7 out of 10 is like, this is his worst movie. So that's where I'm at, Brad.

1:27:40 Bob, you're dumb. No, I want to hear what your score is. Well, last time I was on this show, guys, I believe I gave Armageddon a nine, so. And right, Lisa? So I'm going to also give this a nine. I can't possibly go lower than Armageddon and I don't, I don't think it's a 10. So I'm going to go that's. That is the incredibly difficult thing about having 8 1/2 seasons now of scores under my belt. It's like the inevitably there's going to be a movie that I gave like a nine and a half and Bob's going to be like, you gave this a nine and a half and then I'm like, yes, Bob, I I don't I don't keep it all in my head all at once.

1:28:23 Well, it. Speaks to, you know, as a film critic, you look at a movie and you say how well did this do for what it is trying to be, you know, and I maintain that Armageddon got really, really close to what it was trying to do. And I I think this movie did too. I certainly prefer this movie over Armageddon, but for what they are, I think they are equally good. Yeah, what you're saying is not all nines are created equal. There you go. That is much more succinct than the way I put it, a. 100% man. No, I'm with you. This is a nine out of 10. I loved this movie. I like I had so much fun with it. It connected with me. I I thought it said a lot of interesting things, but more than that, it had great characters and I like I will come back to this movie. I do think that this movie is going to be divisive, like there's no way to walk away from this movie and not feel passionate about it.

1:29:21 And so like to go back to what Bob said at the start of the episode, I had no doubt as to why you picked this movie, Noah. It's because this is a movie that draws passion out of people. It doesn't leave you standing in the middle ground. And I, and I think that could be said about all Tarantino films, but this one, because it feels so personal to him, feels like it has a little bit extra bite and edge to it in a really beautiful way. All right, So it's a nine from Noah and from Brad it's a 7 from me. So for me and Brad, that brings us out to an average of an 8.0 out of 10 guys, Any final thoughts on this? And I guess crucially, the question for us to answer is, is this a modern masterpiece?

1:30:11 That honestly, that's a tough one for me. I because, and it's tough because it's reflecting on so much history of Hollywood. I like, I'm going to come out and say this. I, I think apart from me, this is considered 1 of Tarantino's best films. So I acknowledge that it probably will be considered a masterpiece. I think that I, I mean, I think Inglorious Basterds is better than this. I think Django is better than this. I I would put this on par with at least the Kill Bill movies. So I know we're not capping directors entries into our fictional like pantheon here, Brad, but for me it's a no.

1:30:54 But it's just because we have so many other really good Tarantino films. For me, it's a yes and I put it in the top tier of Tarantino, which probably has for me has four films in it, this Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction and Bastards. But I think it will be very interesting to see how this film ages because he's got one more in them, right? He says he's making 10 movies. This was his ninth. He almost started production on a new one last year and then pulled it at the last minute. I'm kind of not surprised after he got so open and vulnerable and tender with this movie. It's kind of like, where do you where does he go from here? And and with the pressure of it being his last one, I can see why it would it would cause him some, you know, hesitancy. But if his next movie is like Stone cold Tarantino masterpiece, I can see this movie sort of getting forgotten or considered a minor, a minor Tarantino. And that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Some of my favorite films are minor films from acclaimed directors.

1:31:55 But it might make us withhold the modern masterpiece designation. I think I'm going to say no. Like this is the hardest answer to that question that I've had this season. Because I think that quality wise, it's up there. It's just on the edge. Like if this is a 9 1/2 or 10 out of 10 for me, yes, then it's a modern masterpiece. I think there's just enough of this film that feels casual for me to keep it out of the pantheon of modern masterpiece, but man is it close.

1:32:38 I don't know, I might change my mind after we stop recording. We could always just meet in the middle and put licorice pizza in the pantheon. Then you get the rest of both worlds. We have not reviewed that movie, Bob. Oh, fine. All right. Well, Noah, I can't thank you enough for being here tonight. Man, we. It's always a freaking pleasure when we have you on the show. Where can we find you? What are you up to these days? Well, you know, I'm not doing that much film criticism anymore, but I'm still apparently giving terrible takes on Twitter, so you can find me there and on Blue Sky at Noah Gitell GITTELL. And I don't know when this episode's coming out, but I will be appearing at the Music Box Theatre on the 23rd of March. Will it be?

1:33:21 Yeah, will be up by then, introing a screening of Eight Men Out and selling copies of my book Baseball The Movie. That's awesome, man. Cannot recommend the book highly enough. Cannot recommend the guy highly enough. Folks, this has been Noah Gettel. Thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you guys. It was great as always if you. Want to learn a little bit more about film and whiskey? You can find us on any of our social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, or YouTube at Film Whiskey. Or if you want to join the conversation, we are on Discord every single day talking about movies, whiskey and most recently tariffs on Canada. It's it's a wild time on our Discord server. If you want to join the conversation, you can find a link at the end of every single one of our show notes. Next week we will be back with a frequent Twitter sparring partner of Noah Getell as our friend Daniels YO to talk about the movie Argo, the 2012 Best Picture winner. So join us for a healthy dose of Ben Affleck next week when we talk about that movie.

1:34:25 Is Ben Affleck just like cheap Brad Pitt? It's it's a question that that echoes down throughout the annals of time. We will discuss it next week, Brad. But until then, I am Bob. Book I am Brad. G and we'll see you next time.