Raging Bull / Jack Daniel's Bonded

0:00 In 1980 director Martin Scorsese and star. Robert De Niro gave the world. A mopey drama about a boxer who is in over his head everywhere but the ring in 2022 we try the second of two new expressions from America's favorite Distillery the film is Raging Bull. The whiskey is Jack Daniels bonded and we'll review them both. This is the filmon risky podcast. Fast.

0:47 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 keep the ball rolling with our mini series of Martin Scorsese films with his 1980, classic raging All Brad. This was a movie that I will just say up front. I kind of gave you a fair warning about and this has happened a couple times already this season, where you haven't seen the movie yet, and I've seen it before and I've said, hey man, I expect this to be one of those episodes where Bob comes in with a hot take. We've only had a few where it's like Stone Cold Classics that we've both come in and been like, yeah, I don't like this movie that much. It happened with 2001.

1:31 I mean, it very clearly happened with you with it. ET. We ruined Back to the Future for many people and rate both Raging Bull and Taxi Driver were two movies that I could just never really crack. Like I they just seemed impenetrable to me and we re watch taxi driver and I loved it and I said, all right, man, I don't expect to catch lightning in a bottle twice. I think I'm going to still hate this movie and I got to be honest, man. I really liked this movie again. So, did you? You know, I'm not coming in, with the hottest of takes, I will We'll say, like, I'm not crazy about this movie, and I don't think that it necessarily deserves quite the reputation that it enjoys, but I think it's a darn good movie. Yeah, coming into this, I was in a similar places, taxi driver. I was like, man.

2:23 Everything that you told me about Taxi Driver, led me to believe that I would not like that film and leading into Raging Bull. I knew it was about Robert De Niro as a boxer and that he gained a lot of Of wait, those are like the three things I knew about the movie. Yep. And so that didn't necessarily lead me to a place where I was not pumped about watching it, but I wasn't pumped about watching it. I don't know your warning kind of you know, it back to me off a little bit and then I watched it and I have thoughts. Yeah, yeah well Brad, I'm excited to talk about those thoughts and I didn't mean to like, jump in with evaluative comments on the movie. So soon, in our podcast, because I think a lot of people might know where we're going.

3:07 Already, you're just coming out swinging just like, Jake LaMotta, I need to learn how to bury the lead a little bit here. So why don't we do this Brad? Let's let's do a very early, Brad explains and as we transition into Brad explains which is America's favorite segment. We want to remind you that whether it's your first time listening, or you've been listening to film and whiskey for a long time, you can always join us on our patreon community. At patreon.com film whiskey. You can support the podcast at three, different Levels of support three five and seven dollars a month. We have tons of bonus perks at each tier, but all three tiers. Get you access to a special discounted server that we are on every single day, talking with members of the film, and whiskey community. So, please consider making a donation or a long-term subscription to us at patreon.com slash film whiskey. All right, it's time for Brad explains. This is the part of the podcast, where Brad breaks down the plot of the film that he has just seen often. For the first time and Brad, I know, this was your first time seeing Raging Bull.

4:11 Mmm. Sure was. So before we even give any background about the movie, I feel like we should just go ahead and get Brad's take, not your take on the movie, Brad summary of the film out of the way, because a lot of times, I feel like your true feelings kind of creep into Brad, explains a little bit and I'm excited to hear how you might spice things up with some hot takes. So Brad, you have 60 seconds on the clock. Can you break down the plot of Raging Bull? Raging Bull is a film about a boxer named Jake LaMotta? Who has just the wildest of childhood traumas that we don't see?

4:52 And the entire movie is about him being insecure and unable to come to terms with his relationships. As soon as I think that the core of it, if I want to play what is Tommy was oh, call it Junior psychologist. If I was a boy, Junior psychologist, I would say that for some reason, Jack Jake LaMotta hates himself, and he thinks that everything he touches is destroyed and that is the truth throughout the movie. He destroys everyone in the ring that he fights, and he destroys everyone in the ring. That is a part of his out of the ring. That is a part of his life. Hmm, the end.

5:32 Yeah. I mean it's a very tragic movie like it's bro. I was like the whole movie. I'm like, man, this is just not working for me and I was like, there's no way escorted by the time we got like an hour and a half in. I was like there's no way Scorsese can pull this off. Like there's only like 30 minutes left and then they put him in the isolation chamber and when he like representative Lee when he is literally and Dave Lee all alone? No one is left in his Corner. If you will, his true feelings come out and he's weeping as he beats the wall saying like that. He's like I hate you.

6:14 I hate you talking about himself and at that moment I was like oh this is but like I almost started crying. Yeah. And he got me, he got me. Do you sort of like Tia pulled it off you, you were the Jeff Goldblum you crazy, son. You did it? Yes, Brad. There's a lot of directions. We can take this episode and any angle that we start talking about this movie from. There's a lot of Juicy tidbits to talk about. Like, if you want to dive in on Scorsese, there's a lot of backstory we can go into because this comes out at a very tumultuous time. In scorsese's, life, all sorts of cocaine use.

6:55 Lots of cocaine, we could talk about De Niro and and what this role and this performance Means in the history of Cinema, there's just so much kind of Rich backstory to this movie, that is in a lot of ways, almost more important than the movie itself. And so I'm going to leave it up to you. Where do you want to start with this episode? Honestly, at this point, I literally knew almost nothing about Raging Bull. I like, if I represent the every man on this podcast then like, I guess I would be curious to hear some of the History behind the the movie, some of the impact that it had on Cinema.

7:37 And I think we can, as we do that, we will talk about the main performance. There's probably three performances that matter between Pesci, Moriarty and DeNiro. But I think we can talk about those as we talk about the impact because if I'm being frank, as I did a little bit of research for two facts in the falsehood, it seems like people treat this movie in like Citizen Kane, dirt Yeah for sure. And so I was flabbergasted to read that because I would have like just being a person who watches movies casually. I had, I'd never really heard of it so hit, so Hit Me with it.

8:17 What makes this movie so daggone important, Robert? Well, Brad, if there's anything that I've learned from studying as many screenplays as we have like, we need a good framing device. So maybe the best way to approach this is like let's lay out on the Table what this movie's Legacy is and how it's regarded and then I think we can spend some time kind of dissecting and parsing out if it deserves that reputation. So, this movie comes out in, 1980 the 80s as we know or a decade of movies that are just kind of filled with big action, violent, Just Popcorn, movies that don't have a lot of depth. If I'm, if I can characterize a Whole Decade like that. And so, by the end of the decade, many a many, many critics point back to Raging Bull, as kind of the only film that still represented.

9:07 What they loved about Cinema from the 70s. And so, even by the end of the 1980s Raging Bull, had, really achieved classic status and it grew and grew and grew in stature, especially among directors, directors love this movie. And by the time you get to the American Film institute's, top 100 list, the first one comes out in 1998, Raging Bull, I think cracks the top 25 in that list and then They redo it in 2007 for a 10th anniversary and Raging Bull is named. The number for movie of all time. Like, it's ahead of Lawrence of Arabia. It is right behind Casablanca, The Godfather and Citizen Kane. And I remember thinking like, well that's that's a big move that really moved up quite a ways. That's a bold strategy cotton and part of it is because when you look at like the voting body of the AFI at that point, they were really going.

10:02 All in on appreciating 1970s Cinema, what we call the new Hollywood. And we've, we talked about that a little bit with Scorsese and Coppola and dipalma, and Spielberg, and Lucas to some extent. But, you know, celebrating this kind of independent spirit that had risen up in Hollywood and this was like the Pinnacle of that to them. And so you have a movie that is just really widely regarded by Cinema people and yet like I'm on Twitter way more than I should be Brad. People that I follow on Twitter or almost all film critics now and Raging Bull doesn't really seem to move the needle the way that it did even 15 years ago when that list was made.

10:42 Like, I think, if we redid that list Raging Bull would still be very highly regarded, probably still in the top 25, but I would, I'd be shocked if Taxi Driver didn't move up farther, if Goodfellas didn't move up farther, it just seems like a movie that people agreed was incredible. And then we never talked about it again, once again. Got kind of canonized as the number four film. Yeah, it's amazing how there's certain like arguments and debates. That will just permeate human history and any debates around like greatest of all time status or even like top five seem to just percolate forever in The Souls of anyone who's passionate about anything.

11:26 And so it's amazing to me that we haven't had another AFI top 100 movie list. Up since 2007. Yeah. Like that seems. It seems like a really long time. Bob, I completely agree. I think that part of the reason this movie is so high up though is that when you start talking about what's the greatest movie in American history, you start kind of getting into the territory of what movie tells quote unquote, like the Great American story and in that regard I understand why Citizen Kane is always number one. I understand why Raging Bull is top five because cuz this is a very Citizen Kane type story. It's just about like a big brutish guy from the Bronx instead of about a newspaper magnate and it really does embody that sort of tragedy that we really love reading in our American literature.

12:17 So like, you know, from that point of view, I understand it. But Brad, I just even as a guy who likes this movie, now, I'm truly shocks that it's considered top five ever. Yeah. I mean it definitely has It's almost like the anti American Dream story because it's the story of a man who truly like pulls himself up by his own bootstraps, but to his own detriment. Like, if anything, like, I don't think I'm being controversial by saying that modern Americans on the whole don't really like America ton. This just feels like an early version of that critiquing like one of the big American Myth.

13:02 Illogical stories that we told for a very long time, as a country about, you know, bringing yourself up out of nothing. The rags to riches like he does that, but it destroys him in the process. Yeah, I mean, there's so many parallels that we can draw from this movie two other movies, Citizen Kane, being one of them. I think the Godfather is another one where it's it's this really tragic sort of Arc and yet Brad. It sounds like Raging Bull didn't quite do it for you in the way that a Godfather. Citizen Kane did. So, let's kind of dive in a little bit on what worked for you about the movie. What didn't work for you about the movie. Joe Pesci works for me. Holy crap, is he amazing in this? I don't know who he was up against for best supporting actor.

13:49 But oh my gosh, did he deserve it? And while we're at it, Cathy Moriarty probably deserved it for best supporting actress as well. Yep. Like the three of them De Niro Moriarty and Ah, she were fantastic in this film. The crazy thing about Pesci's character is I have a hard time explaining his performance because De Niro is, is so I don't want to over the top, but he takes up so much bandwidth in that cast because he has the prosthetic nose. He's doing the, you know, the method acting, he's chewing scenery in some scenes. And Pesci's character is not like underplayed. Like, he's very much, the loudest guy in this movie and everything he does, is that forget about it, like he's just doing it.

14:39 Talion guy in New York and yet there are many many scenes where he is under playing, and he is the most subtle performance in the movie. And it really is a thing of beauty. How in those scenes, where De Niro is kind of reserved, or even like mulling over his thoughts and his suspicions, and You can see Pesci starting to understand like what's what? He's being suspected of and then he gets angry watching those to bounce off of each other. It really is a dance that you're watching these two actors perform and man Pesci's so good in everything he does. He was so good in the Irishman just a couple years ago doing this same thing where he was under playing a lot but I still don't think he gets the credit he deserves.

15:25 It is. I mean like it was a breathtaking performance from Joe Pesci. Did the way that he called shoulders his brother at the end of the film, man. And like, na people talk about how De Niro gained, 60 pounds for this, which is nuts, but Pesci, very clearly lost. Probably like 20 pounds. Mmm to get down as skinny as he was, at the end of their. Like, he, he looked very skinny. And, dude, the way he plays that off, the pity that he has for Jake who he used to, like, look up to as this prize fighter. Yeah. Oh dude it just hurts. It hurts so bad man. I want to just jump out of performances and talk about that ending sequence for a minute. So, you know, it culminates the movie kind of drops you in at the beginning, in the middle of lamotte has Chase for the title and you start to slowly learn more and more about him outside the ring that he's I mean for lack of a better term, he's just ask he's mean to everyone and he there is no satisfying him he is going to suspect.

16:29 Of things and he's going to be distrustful of everyone in a circle and it finally comes to a head when his second wife played by Kathy Moriarty you know, in a moment of rage, just kind of tells him what he wants to hear and says like yeah, I slept with your brother. I slept with everybody on the Block and says it just to get him angry and he goes over to his brother's house and he'd beat him to a pulp and his wife chases him there and he just sucker punches her in the face, knocks her out cold and it's I mean, talk about a sucker punch of a scene like he hits her in the The face. And I'd like immediately, I was like, oh my God, like, the way they filmed that, the, the vist way, the way the way that she drops. Yeah, man.

17:10 But even like the visceral way they film it from when he's like choking out Pesci's character and then it's it's almost immediate. You see his last fight that he gets demolished in and then it cuts forward, a few years and he's gained so much weight and it cuts forward, a few more years and he's you know, this sleazy guy. That's a club. Her it cuts forward, a few more years, and he's back in New York and down on his luck again. And the whole last, you know, 25, 30 minutes of the movie, is like this very extended epilogue to the Jake LaMotta story. And I think that if you don't like this movie, then that that extended epilogue can kind of feel like a totally different film. But I think you really need all that to kind of explain everything you saw before or to like give Jour to to justify what you watched before.

18:03 I thought that was the strongest part of the whole movie. Brad, like watching his life, take on the sort of like a Greek tragedy was the best part of the movie. Yeah. You see that he is gifted with Incredible physical prowess but he never tries to develop the relational IQ skills. He needs to get by in life to match. And I think that the the like you said, the final 25, Minutes of the movie, 100%, just give you what he deserves. And I think I would agree with you and I think that's a really strong point of the movie. Yeah, I mean, like, it's almost Shakespearean, right? Like it's I just watched a few months ago they made a new version of Macbeth with Denzel Washington as Macbeth and Frances. Mcdorman is Lady Macbeth.

18:50 It was directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and it was really good. But there's something about when you watch a Shakespeare tragedy happen, there is always a moment of no return and then everything starts to go downhill and you're just watching the inevitability of those choices play out. And this really does kind of take on that almost Shakespearean thing. But the thing that always blows my mind is that they make this movie very much while LaMotta is still alive, like LaMotta was a consultant on the film Pesci, followed him, or her Pesci DeNiro, followed him around to get, you know, cues as to how to play the character. And apparently it wasn't until seeing the That LaMotta, finally realized, how horrible of a person he had been.

19:34 And he went and talked to his ex-wife and asked her like was I really that bad. And she said, no, you were worse, but it always blows my mind when they make a movie like this about somebody's life, that is clearly not flattering. Like, I have to imagine that De Niro and Scorsese. You kind of slept with one eye open for a little while like fearing that this guy was going to come after them because they paid him in the most unflattering light possible. Well, and I read that the Brother played by Pesci actually sued, you know, I think it was Universal Pictures that put it out. Yeah, as United Artists. Yeah, United Artists for like, I don't know if it was like liable or, you know, whatever it was, basically, he said that they were slandering his character for the way that he was portrayed by Joe Pesci, which is so weird.

20:21 So she's like the hero of the movie 100%. Yeah, he is the hero of the film other than the black and Use of black and white, obviously, for sure of the fit, for sure. So, talking about his brother, to De Niro had been kicking around the idea of doing this movie for years and years and years, trying to get Scorsese to make it Scorsese kept saying no, especially because he was never a sports fan. Boxing was never compelling to him. He couldn't visualize it and he had a friend. Take a crack at a screenplay. He liked parts of it, but it was real conventional and eventually. Robert De Niro says. Let's ask Paul Schrader to take a pass at this. And so Schrader comes in, and does his like, unhinged thing, where he's like, adding weird sexual subtext to everything and in doing research, Schrader finds out. Oh, LaMotta had a brother and apparently LaMotta, like just doesn't really mention his brother in his autobiography because they were on the outs with each other and in researching the way that, you know, the Joe Pesci character in real life was also a fighter was, apparently, the better looking of the two and that fueled a lot of the jealousy from LaMotta.

21:29 Schrader was like, I've got my movie now. I know how we can make this into a movie and that's kind of where the whole thing took off from. Yeah, because the the relationship between he and Joey is is the Crux of the film like he's the only one that's able to get underneath, you know, Jake's skin a little bit. And and I mean that in like a healthy way like he's the only one that's able to get past his defenses. And yet even him by the end of the film, has been beaten out of Jake LaMotta is like, yeah, for sure. And that, and that like, I don't know, man, Pesci's performance, just illustrates that. So perfectly the very last scene in the movie where, you know, De Niro's back in New York and he's apparently trying to sell himself as I'm going to do, monologues on stage because people will want to pay to see me do that and he's practicing in the mirror and he's doing Brando's monologue from on the waterfront, a movie we've done on this podcast.

22:24 Fast. And he's so bad like he's just he's such a bad performer. But it's such a brilliant, little touch and apparently they were gonna have him recite Shakespeare at one point and Scorsese had given the script to another director friend of his and the guy said like you can't have him do Shakespeare at the end. It's just it's above him. Like he wouldn't understand how to even go about understanding Shakespeare and so De Niro said, hey let's make him do on the waterfront because that would be something that's kind of in his world. He would have known that. Movie and that scene comes right, after Pesci, blows him off. And says, like, yeah, I'll call you later. And you never see Pesci. Call, I mean, you know, he's never going to and it cuts right to him.

23:06 Rehearsing this speech in the mirror, where he is playing Brando, who's talking to his older brother, Charlie in that movie and saying like, you sold me out, you, I looked up to you and you betrayed me and you can tell that as De Niro's character as LaMotta is practicing it in the mirror. The irony is completely lost on him. He doesn't understand that. This is exactly what he did to his own brother, even after he's been confronted with it, it is, it's such a brilliant, little touch to have this guy who you think has learned his lesson, then, recite this scene, which lays bare everything he's done to his brother. And like, it doesn't make any connection with him at all.

23:48 He is utterly self-absorbed? Yeah. Like, whether whether it's in his hatred of himself, or His posturing and his puffing up of himself like he literally cannot see past the tip of his massive prosthetic nose. All right. But listen, man, that knows in some scenes is like, alright, cool. I get it. And then another seat that's like, wow, that is one of the worst worst Prosthetics I've ever seen in my life. Oh man, it's bad. It is there's an episode of SpongeBob where SpongeBob carves? Like Michelangelo's David out of marble. But Squidward is his art teacher and he thinks he needs to impress Squidward.

24:29 And so he makes this really crude like knows that looks like Squidward's nose and he just like puts it on them on the David's face and reminds me like I did just seems like some days, the makeup artist just kind of threw a glob of clay at De Niro face, and they were like, that's your nose for today. Go with it. Like, can you make it look like the mound that that Richard Dreyfuss makes and close encounters? Just put that on his face. All right, man, let's talk about Cathy Moriarty for a minute. She's 18 years old when she makes this movie Brad. And she plays, she plays the span of probably, what, like, 15 years across this movie. Yeah, she is utterly incredible and part of what makes her so incredible.

25:09 Is that she is such an unseasoned actress that she's really just behaving. And I hate to bring like my personal experience into this. But like I went to Catholic school and I feel like in every Catholic school there is there a number Our of a tropes that exist. And one of them is like the Husky voiced, Catholic school, girl, who becomes wise about the ways of the world years before, she probably should. And what are you talking about? And her character just reminded me of that. So like so heavily that I was like, Wow, either you experienced this in Life, or you really knew a bunch of people that did because like, she is just when they're like, she's 15 years old. I was like, I know she's not. 15 but also she reminds me of some of those girls that at the end of my experience at Catholic school I was like, oh yeah, I like your the world's gonna hit you hard sister you know and it just a couple of years and to see her go it's going to be in the form of Robert De Niro's fish and to see her go from that to, you know, the end of their relationship together where she is ostensibly like in her late 20s.

26:19 Early 30s. She plays that character with so much rage. Like it's pretty incredible. Yeah, I thought She was stunningly good in the movie. I mean they she's a little bit of a one-note character. Like there's only a few times where she really gets like up in arms about what Jake is doing for the most part, she plays it really cool calm collected but I thought her performance was really, really beautiful. She the way that she challenges Jake from the very beginning and like is able to like keep an emotional distance from him. Is really just it's a great character and a great performance.

26:59 All right, let's let's have the DeNiro conversation because I think two things can be true at once and this is an incredible performance, like it is layered. It is nuanced, it gets more complex as the movie goes on, which is what you want it to do. As this character starts to understand things about himself and grapple with them. And it is also one of the like showiest performances of all time And and and again, that doesn't always mean that he's out here chewing scenery and giving like a big broad performance. It's very subtle at times but this is kind of the Pinnacle of people falling all over themselves to reward method acting. You know, it starts with Brando, ushering, it into Hollywood, and Montgomery Clift.

27:43 And some of those guys and it kind of regains popularity with this new wave of actors in the 70s, with your Dustin Hoffman's, and your Pacino's and your De Niro's. And it gets to this point where De Niro gets an incredible shape to be a real fighter. And then takes a couple months off gained 60 pounds to play like this, you know, fat 40-something now, and he wins the Oscar, like, it's held up as a pinnacle of acting in cinema people go into acting because of this performance, like it's just, it has that sort of Legend behind it, but I think it also is one that you can really point to as everything. That's Good and everything.

28:24 That's really bad about method acting. Yeah. Bob and it's interesting because when you look at the the history of method acting, it does not feel like it has been in a good place since like, I guess I don't know much about any method actors in like the 90s and early 2000s, but it feels like over the last 10 years. The acting world has like pretty unanimously, like come out and been like, no, like the only time you're a Method actor is when you're playing like an, a hole in a movie like nobody method. Acts mr. Rogers, right? And so, it's like, you know, I mean, who knows maybe Tom Hanks, does his whole life has just been method acting as mr. Rogers but like, you only ever method act when you're playing like a wounded hateful person, right? And so at a certain point, I think the acting community and you can correct me if I'm wrong.

29:20 So you know, a lot more than I do, it feels like they're pretty much Now, like method acting needs to go the way the dinosaurs. Yeah, I mean, like the most popular one. Now, the most famous one now is Daniel Day-Lewis, who does it in. There Will Be Blood and wins an Oscar and then does it again as Lincoln and wins an oscar. But, you know, even a couple weeks ago, I was reading, something about how so many actors misinterpret, how to be a method actor, when it comes to being on set, like yes, you get into the character and yes Daniel Day-Lewis never breaks character but like in between takes as Daniel Plainview View like he wasn't berating the cast and crew. And I'm like, he just kind of asks you about your day in a weird voice and, you know, kills time as Daniel Plainview. And so if you're I feel like he just be walking around with a bowling pin spattered with like stage blood and like staggering muttering about milkshakes.

30:12 Yeah but yeah, so I think when I say that it embodies the worst of method acting to it gets back to this movie script and kind of Fame. SLI. A lot of people have always said this movie didn't really have a script because it had some, some first drafts and then it had Schrader's passed at a script, which featured some very scandalous, things that didn't make it into the movie De Niro, and Scorsese, go off for a week to kind of pound out the final version of this script together and Scorsese says, like I've got the script handwritten on yellow legal pad still to this day, but for the most part, they came up with the movie but so much of this movie is improvised and You can tell that it's improvised and I think that's still my biggest problem with this movie is that, especially in the first 45, ish minutes of the movie, there's really no rhythm and there's really no flow to what's happening. And as different characters get introduced, you can't really tell who's going to be important to the story and who's not and it really just felt like, it felt kind of masturbatory. It felt like Scorsese and De Niro, kind of showing off what they could do with the camera and with their In chops respectively, and so many scenes go on for so long. And so many people just keep saying, like egg, put the stake here.

31:31 Put it, what are you gonna do with my steak? It goes on forever. And I think that, like, that's my big problem with rolls like this, is it calls so much attention to itself that you respect it, and it's still really good, but it's almost more of a begrudging respect than anything. Yeah, I think that Schoonmaker. Who receives the Oscar for her editing of the fight scenes in this movie and I think deservedly so they're very jarring and almost like psychedelic scenes that you don't normally see in boxing movies. However she did not win an Oscar for the editing of the rest of the film. And the I think I read somewhere that the boxing scenes took up ten minutes of the it's like an hour and 15 minute movie. So clearly, I am not a huge fan of the editing in this movie, outside of the boxing scenes because of what you just said. It feels like Scorsese was just kind of like a let's just point the camera at him and see what happens. And I think that what you were talking about the script is so important because everything I read about this film is that De Niro literally just immersed himself in the role the same way he did for taxi driver, right?

32:52 Like he spent a month as a See driver New York in this movie. He trained as a prize fighter and he actually entered three boxing matches in New York City and apparently he won two of them. So, like he threw himself into the role so deeply, that it felt like each scene just kind of had a general blocking notes of like, hey, this is kind of the goal of this scene, this is where you should be, just go be Jake LaMotta and that's what he did. He was just Jake LaMotta in in every scene but the the movie just felt like it was just Meandering around and just took forever to get anywhere. Yeah, and I just really struggled with that man. So I definitely have different thoughts on the movie than you do.

33:40 I think it really picks up in the second half of the film, but we can hash that out when we come back from break because it's time for us to try Jack, Daniels, bonded, what do you say, Brad? I think when we get back from the break, we're gonna talk like we The entire time and that's offensive and we're not going to do it. Let's get to it. Bob Alright, today we are checking out Jack. Daniels bonded. This is a new release from Jack Daniels and it came out at the same time as last week's product, the triple MASH, which is to say, it's just been released in the last couple months and shockingly, this is a completely new product for Jack Daniels, like they have never done this before.

34:25 And it really blows my mind that a corporation as big as Jack Daniels producing some of the most popular whiskey of all time has never thought, like, Let's do it. Bottled in bond version of this and if what you're doing is working, I guess, man. It's the Jack, Daniels is the Woody Hayes of the whiskey world. That's not so there, I don't have a lot of, like, background info on this. This is the first time they've done a bottled in Bond. As we know it is Tennessee, whiskey. It's not bourbon because of the process that Tennessee whiskey goes through after it comes off the still before it goes into the barrel. They let it drip through charcoal filters because they say that. That really Mellows and Smooths it out. It is the same Mash bill as regular Jack Daniels, which is 80% corn.

35:13 I believe it's 12%, barley and then eight percent rise. So it's a real low-rise whiskey aged for, at least four years, and that's pretty much all you need to know, man, it's a four-year 100-proof, Jack Daniels. Bob, I'm really pumped that you mention the barley there because I did not know the mash bill when I took my notes on this. But when I got into my nosing notes, but the the main thing I said I was like, there's like a lot of really nice barley notes on this. Hmm. And I wrote barley ask because I wasn't sure if there is barley in it and I don't want to sound dumb if there wasn't, but I'm going to change it. There's barley on the Note.

35:54 Hey, there you go. But yeah, there's barley. There's Apple, there's caramel and there's Oak and it's a really nice pleasant knows. It definitely is. It does hurt. Find me a little bit of a product. We had just a few weeks ago, called laws bonded malt, which was a 100% malt whiskey. Yep, there's something about. When you use malt in bourbon or, you know, a bourbon type whiskey. Like this, that it contributes like wheat wheat whiskies. And we did. Bourbons always remind me of cola, multi bourbons and, and, you know, High corn Whiskey's, always remind me of like double bubble bubble gum. It has this real kind of Dusty, That like bubblegum medicine that you had when you were a kid and it's really, really nice.

36:40 I just don't know why it always takes on that character for me. But I'm getting that in Spades here man. I really like this a lot. Super inviting really Pleasant. There's not a lot of ethanol on the nose and I'm digging that it seems like it's going to be a really smooth easy drinking experience. I'm going to give it an 8 out of 10 on the nose. I think I'll give it a seven and a half, but when I get into the taste here once again I get a lot of Apple Oil almost like a, like a sweeter green apple on the tip of my tongue and then like, mid the back palette, there's all sorts of like, like I don't know, like a stone fruit, maybe like a plum, no going on. That is it's really dark and refreshing and I really like it a lot. I'm actually going to jump up and give it an 8 out of 10 on the taste.

37:29 I think I'm going to come down just a little bit on taste and it's because I don't think that there's a lot of complexity going on. Here it has some very Standard kind of mid-shelf bourbon notes, like it reminds me a lot of an Elijah Craig or you know, insert thirty dollar bourbon here. You're right. You're right in that. It has a lot of Apple notes on the front, I do get quite a bit of that bubble gum note as well and there's a ton of black pepper on this. For me. It's real spicy and I like it but it's just kind of like yeah. This tastes like what I would expect a very good thirty dollar whiskey to taste like and there is nothing wrong with that. But compared even to last week's triple Mash, this just doesn't have a lot going on on the pallet so I'm going to give it a seven and a half out of ten. Yeah and then we get into the Finish there's some really nice fruit notes.

38:17 I think it's that Plum that kind of lingers for a while with a little bit of Oak and a little bit of like a baking spice for me. I think I'm getting into that peppery territory, but it lacks a little bit of a punch. So I'm going to come down a little bit and give it a 7 out of 10 on the finish. This is really nice. It's mouth-watering. Ring, there's not a lot of ethanol burn on this for being 100 proof. That the alcohol hits you like right before you go to swallow and then after you swallow, you get almost a kind of cola aftertaste for me. I'm not getting any of the fruit you're talking about. And I was really trying to go through, like, a catalog of fruits. I'm like, is it melon know? Is it pineapple know? Is, you know, is it that Plum stone fruit that you're talking about? I'm not really getting any of that. It's just kind of a standard Cola taste on the Finish. Very pleasant, but just not not very complex. So I'll give it a 7 out of 10 on the Finish. Yeah, and our balance score, I think it's going to sit at a 7 for me, that like, this is not a very complex whiskey. But it has some nice notes that are consistent throughout. It's a decently balanced, whiskey. I'll give it a 7.

39:25 I'm not even going to add anything to what you said. I'll give it a seven and a half. I really like this. And I think at the price point, which we'll talk about in a moment. It's a very good whiskey. But it's kind of just like, hey, I can pull this down off the shelf and be satisfied with it at any time. And I will not be any more than satisfied with it, but I think there's a place for that, so I'm going to give it a seven and a half on balance, and now we're getting into value. So this and remember we're losing 50 ml here. A 700 mL. Poor of this will be 33 dollars in the wonderful state of Ohio. Yep, I don't know. Bobby. Like this is a really interesting poor that I enjoy, but it's not like crazy impressionable. I think it's a decent value at $33 though. I don't know.

40:16 Where are you at? Well, I think and I don't know if it's Jack Daniels or if it's Ohio, that's trying to kind of manufacture scarcity for this. But the MSRP is 2999 so they're marking it up, you know, ten percent more than they should basically, in Ohio. And if you do the math at a thirty dollar price point, if You made this into a 750 milliliter bottle, it would be 32, and some change. So let you know if we're going on manufacturers price. I really don't think this is a bad value at all. And even with the state of Ohio at 33, I don't think it's a bad value. I'm assuming that outside of Ohio, more people can get it at the price that it's supposed to be sold. So I'm going to go into this with the 30 dollar price tag in mind.

40:59 I'm gonna give it a seven and a half out of ten. I think this is worth 30 bucks. It's a really good whiskey, like I I said, it's nothing more than a whiskey that will satisfy you but it will satisfy you all the time. And like sometimes it's really nice to know that you've got a seven out of ten Whiskey on the shelf for whenever you want it. And that's kind of what this is. Yeah I'm with you I'll think about it at the 33 dollar Mark and give it a six and a half which brings me to a 36 out of 50 Bob. It's a whiskey that I really like. I'm going to 37 and a half out of five. Which brings us to a 73.5 out of 100 or thirty six point, seven five out of 50. That means we are over the 35 out of 50 Mark where we typically start saying, yes, I recommend this Brad. I think that I would recommend buying the bottle before I would recommend getting a poor of this at the bar. Yeah, I feel like you're going to pay anywhere from like five to eight dollars at the bar for it at which point like if you're able to get your hands on a bottle, just grab A bottle. It's a good share with some friends. Yeah, I think man I've always liked Jack Daniels. They definitely had a little bit of a Resurgence for me when we tried it on the podcast.

42:16 But man, I just am super impressed with these two new offerings that they're given us Bob. I would definitely say that I prefer the triple Mash to the bonded of the triple match is one. That's like it's not just satisfying me but it is. I recommend this to people. There's some complexity there for sure for sure. This one's good too. Like, if you can't find the triple Mash, this one's really good. I would just think about it the way that you think about regular Elijah Craig or, you know, whatever your other thirty dollar, whiskey, is that you'd like to plug in there? It's not going to knock your socks off, but it can be your Old Reliable if you want it to. Well, Bob the I think that about does it for Jack Daniels bonded.

42:57 How about we get back into finishing our conversation about Raging Bull, let's get to it. Brad. All right, everybody. That was Jack, Daniels bonded, a whiskey. The Bob and I are really happy with. Yeah, I really enjoyed that man. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. You can't ask much more, you know, at the at the 30 Buck price range, like the like, that's what you're looking for me. And I'm not looking for a 50 out of 50 whiskey there. Absolutely not. But you know where I am looking for a 50 out of 50 score. Bob, is it too fast to falsi to fax in a falsehood Brad, you have to remind me. I did I get the taxi driver one?

43:39 Correct or incorrect. You got it incorrect. You guessed. That. Peter Boyle had tried out for ya. The other movie. Alright so I am at 2 & 3 on the season. I'm looking to get back to 500. I was on a little bit of a streak there. I started out 0 & 2. I got hot and got two in a row and then I missed last week so let's see if I can pull myself back to dead. Even in our standings hit me with your two facts and a falsehood all Right. Fax number one, Robert De Niro, accidentally broke, Joe Pesci's rib. In the sparring. Seen the shot appears in the film when De Niro hits Pesci in the side and Pesci, kind of groans. But then there's a quick cut to another angle and you kind of lose the scene. Fax number two to achieve the feeling of Brotherhood between De Niro and Pesci.

44:29 They actually lived and trained with one another for about a month and a half before the filming began and ever. Since then, the two have been very close friends. Fax number three in the scene, where Pesci is shutting, his name is Frank Vincent. I had written down salvi because that's just a great name. When he's shutting Frank Vincent's head in the cab door, he actually caught his arm at a really awkward angle and pulled his shoulder out of the socket and tore a ligament my God. And so in the next scene where he and Tommy and Joe Pesci are patching things up Sling that he was reeling was not a prop. That was his actual, how sling?

45:15 So I know that number one is a fact. Like, I remember hearing about Pesci's ribs getting broken in that scene. So it's really between two and three and those both sound like, very plausible things. I know DeNiro trained for the movie and like you said, he entered a couple fights. So it's possible that Pesci lived with him and I know that they're very close. Fact, number three sounds like it could have happened as well. You know, I actually think that I'll go ahead and say that fact, three is a fact. I'm gonna say fact to is the falsehood Bob. Fax number two is a true statement. Damn it, man. You're getting too good at this. Brad, I'm getting phenomenal in this. I'm entering like the week.

46:00 Six of the Cleveland Browns. Every year territory, I met two, and four on the season. Nah, man, a lot of Hope to start the seat. Wow, that's not true. The Browns never win the opening their mouth. All right, you got me again. Dude, I'm loving where this is going. I will say, Bob, if we get to the end of the season and year 2 and 30, I will, I don't know if I'll be enjoying it anymore. Well, what's that supposed to mean? Like, I'm trying my best here, man, I don't know if I like being as good at this as I am. Never mind. I love it. All right, man. Let's get back into talking about this movie. We left off, you know, hinting at our thoughts on De Niro. Do you have any other closing?

46:46 Thoughts on De Niro or do you want to hop into other territory? No, I just I think that De Niro's performance is impressive but not great. Hmm, like it is impressive. What he did the way he embodied, the life of this, terrible human being I don't know if I would call it great, though. Like, it felt It just didn't strike me as very difficult for him to do, and like, I'm not saying that like denier is a bad person, but the, the only scene where that felt like there was raw emotion and, like, true steaks for him was when he was in that isolation chamber, that was the only time in the movie that I like connected with him as a character. Yeah.

47:36 And like, I understand that there's movies where, like, the, the main characters, Supposed to be a schlub but I don't know man. Like I get that that Scorsese is like throwing Sports tropes on their heads here but like the beauty of a boxing movie and and maybe I'm getting into like big picture stuff here, but like the beauty of a boxing movie is that, you know, move like boxing. Movies are supposed to be about like the Bulldog of Bergen like fighting in the ring and fighting in his real life. Like For something. And this movie is not that at all. No and opposite.

48:17 It's the exact opposite. It's a man having an outlet for his violence and still not utilizing it. Taking that violence home with him. Yes. And that like that for me, it just didn't click for me. At any point, I saw what he was doing and I walked away unimpressed. I mean, I don't know if I agree with that because I think that scorsese's telling It's a story that is probably more true to life than most of those movies that we've watched, you know what I mean. Like there's probably more boxers that go home and have this sort of mentality. Honestly you know what, it reminded me of and this is probably the hottest take I'll deliver in this whole thing. It reminds me of when I watched the last dance and I watched Michael Jordan you know who just seems like such a sad lonely man at this point in his life. Mmm.

49:06 And the way that he just pushes everybody away and it seems like he has no Real good relationships and he was so competitive on the court and in his real life, that just no one really wants to be involved with him anymore, and everyone gives him his flowers and calls him the goat. But it's kind of like what good is. It being the goat? If, if no one likes you like, what have you really accomplished? What will people remember you for other than just those things and with LaMotta? It's even more than that. And Brad, you brought up three points. Just now that I think we should kind of hit In order you brought up, you know De Niro's performance, you brought up Scorsese and then you brought up the role of the boxing movie.

49:49 And so just to kind of put a bow on De Niro's performance here, I'm with you in that it's a really good performance and I think the last 30 minutes are what win him the Oscar because he's really convincing playing someone who's much older than he is in real life at that time and that scene where he's trying to track down Pesci in the parking garage and he has this limp to his gate because he's so heavy. And Beat up in life. Like it's very very convincing. I think that that whole sequence is really well done. But again that first 50 minutes, when it just seems like they're doing like improv activities at the Actors Studio and and scorsese's just kind of filming it. It wasn't compelling to me and that kind of takes me into the Scorsese of it all.

50:34 This is the first movie in scorsese's catalog, that really feels like it has the Rhythm and the editing and the The work of what? We've come to know Scorsese for it, either. Comparing it to Taxi Driver, like it's shot by the same guy, Michael Chapman, but it's edited. So differently. In the camera is so much more frenetic here and you get, you know, they're breaking the 180 degree rule all the time. It carries that editing style forward into all of his movies from here and it just really strikes me as a movie, that is a director's, wet dream, like, directors love this movie because It hits everything you want to hit as a director and it's the kind of the same critique we had when we talked about Apocalypse Now that it's just like it's this kind of self masturbatory thing that directors had total control at the end of the 70s with what they produced and it Parts.

51:28 It feels like Scorsese is doing kind of like a documentary-style film making or like a cinema verite thing at other parts. It's so highly stylized. Like what happens in the ring with the blood dripping off the rope and the The smoke coming out of nowhere and that final fight with Sugar Ray where it seems like kind of cosmic punishment, that that will Mata is calling down upon himself. Like it's so highly stylized that. Does it all work? I don't know that it all works, but damn it. He's gonna try and it's like a very big bold artists statement. But when you're just looking at it, not from a cinema studies, point of view, not from like a guy who wants to write a thesis about the movie and just a person who walks into the Movie theater looking for an entertaining film.

52:13 I don't know if every decision Scorsese makes translates to that kind of a reading. Yeah. The the amount of artiste things that he is doing is just overwhelming at a certain point and when you have an actor that is chewing up, scenery the way De Niro is, it just comes across as too much and I think that for the average viewer this Just isn't a movie that many people are going to enjoy. And and I think that there are artistic films out there that are serious and take themselves seriously and don't aim to entertain and pleased that the average person can enjoy but this one just didn't strike me that way.

52:58 Yeah well this was like an intensely personal movie for for Scorsese at the time almost at Spielberg for Scorsese at the time because he was like coked out of his mind, he almost died. I mean it's a very famous story that he literally almost Dies DeNiro. Convinces him to take this movie on to try to get him kind of out of his depressive State. And this is the first movie that Scorsese kind of said, f it like my last movie was a flop. I'm going to put a lot more of my personality into this. I want it to be about people that I know that I grew up with in New York and it really does kind of have that feel of, you know, Italian life in New York City. And at the same time though, I want to compare this movie to Goodfellas, which is a movie that has never really worked for.

53:41 You Brad, but this film feels at multiple points, like, Scorsese was trying to make the Great American film and Goodfellas never has that vibe to me, like, Goodfellas is a big sprawling movie, and it does such a good job in the first half of like showing how the life can seduce you before it all falls apart but that movie feels so much more like a Scorsese who has 10 more years of maturity as a person and doesn't have to try to wow. You with his art. Three at every turn that I ultimately think Goodfellas is a more successful movie at doing what he's trying to do here. I think that one of the scenes that like pissed me off the most, what? Not, even a scene, but the shot actually. No, the whole scene did piss me off. When De Niro takes Vicki, you know, Kathy Moriarty's character out on a date.

54:34 Hmm. Like a, I don't know what kind of world Scorsese grew up in but if he's portraying Ins as he knew it, then I like, I'm not saying this about real Italians, I'm saying it about scorsese's version of Italians. They are the most shallow human beings. I have ever seen written into a movie. Like he literally just goes up to this 15 year old girls like stares at her as like, like like it might as well be delivered by Sylvester Stallone like led the car. Yeah, I'll take you for a ride in the car you want. Now, like it is the most boring stupid dialogue I have ever heard in my life. The funny thing is I remember to leave. I remember watching that scene and when you watch something on Amazon Prime, which is where this is streaming right now. It has that thing called x-ray, where you can, like, tap the screen and it tells you facts as they happen, and it was like, fun, fact, this scene was totally improvised by a Moriarty and De Niro.

55:35 And I was like, you don't say really this for minute scene where they like, have 30. And pauses between every line and you can tell that they're trying to figure out what to say next. This was improvised gosh, it was horrific lie, bad and then on top of all that they're out mini golfing and denier or DeNiro. Like, you know, does the classic guy thing is like, hey here, let me, let me show you how to put the ball and, you know, puts his arms around her and she puts it and the ball like disappears underneath the windmill and she goes to look for the ball and the camera. Like like Zooms in from behind her as she looks back at him.

56:16 Yeah. And it that shot called so much attention to itself. It felt like a film student, trying to like, make a statement about the male gaze. It drove me nuts. I like watch it three times and I was like, Scorsese. Come on bro. Like you're better than this? Yeah, I didn't have that reaction but so I mean fine. Finally, I guess I'll say this to your point about the boxing movie tropes. I like that this movie portrays, and I want to say in a cynical way, but in a more realistic way, the other side of the world of boxing. And it's not that this is representative of boxers or anything like that but using boxing as a metaphor for people like LaMotta, it really is brilliant and I love that final fight where he's, you know, he thinks that he's won by telling Sugar Ray.

57:11 Never went down. I never went down. He's sitting there all bloody and he can't see out of either eye and they cut to the reaction shot of Pesci. Watching it on TV and he's like, oh my God, like you're embarrassing yourself and he just can't see it. Like he truly is blind to how destructive he's being to himself in the name of some like false sense of Pride or insecurity and I think ultimately that's why I still really like this movie. Brad the first 50 minutes. I was ready to come out here, swing in and say like this is six and a half out of ten but the last half of the movie makes so much sense and and everything follows upon the decisions that are being made in such a Shakespearean way.

57:52 That I still think I'm going to come out on this movie to a 9 out of 10. I think Goodfellas is better. I think taxi drivers better, but I can see why this movie is so widely regarded II. See where they're coming from. Like I I get it, it's a well-made movie in certain aspects. And it is a very Earnest movie. Like you can tell that Scorsese and De Niro and I would say Pesci as well, like really poured their heart and soul into this film. That being said, I was with you man, first, like, our hour and 10 minutes into the movie. I was like, this is like a 6 out of 10. The last little last half of the movie, I really liked.

58:35 I think that they redeemed themselves in a lot of ways. I think that that scene where he's in the isolation chamber. ER, is genuinely one of the most brutal psychological scenes I've ever seen in a movie, like the honesty that he has with himself, to just say, I hate you. And like, he just has so much self-loathing that has destroyed his entire life. It's this vicious cycle and, and you see it portrayed. So I as with all Scorsese films, I get to the end of a Scorsese movie and I don't think Anybody in film can do this better. Scorsese has a point like to every single movie. He makes he is making a very clear and direct point and he's not going to let the audience off the hook and I think that's what I love about Scorsese as a director, but that being said, the first half of this movie was wildly rough for me, I will come out to a seven out of ten.

59:41 Wow, on Raging Bull for. All right. All right, there's the hot. Take we were looking for so film and whiskey Nation. We're coming out to an average of an 8 out of 10, but we'd like to know what you think. Have you seen Raging Bull? Do you love Raging Bull? Do you hate Raging Bull? Where do you fall on the spectrum of appreciation? You can reach out to us and let us know on our social media accounts, Facebook Twitter or Instagram at film whiskey or jump onto her Discord. We're on there every day talking to you guys our fans. The people that we just Really enjoy discussing movies whiskey and just about everything else Under the Sun with. So if you'd like to join that Community you can find a link to our Discord at the end of every single one of our show notes.

1:00:26 Next week, we'll be back to finish out our Scorsese miniseries with his 2016 film silence but until then I'm Bob book, I'm Reggie and we'll see you next time.