Rushmore / Stranahan's Original American Single Malt

0:00 In 1999, director Wes, Anderson and starred. Jason Schwartzman gave the world as splendidly offbeat, romantic comedy, that follows no known formula in 2022. We returned to Colorado to try a single malt. The film is Rushmore. The whiskey is Stranahan is original and more view them, both. This is the film and whiskey podcast.

0:44 Welcome to the Billman 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 diving into a mini series of films from director, Wes Anderson and we're kicking things off with his 1898 breakthrough Rushmore Bob this is like the long-awaited movement back into the territory of Wes Anderson. I've been really excited for this Brad because I did not expect you to enjoy the Royal Tenenbaums like after after the Eternal Sunshine debacle. I was thinking that like anything out of the ordinary, might just be a red flag and you really love Royal Tenenbaums. And to be fair like I think you've actually brought up how excited you were about this more than I have. So, like, I'm really, really pumped to look at these three films over the next few weeks bread. Yeah, I think that when you dive into the world of movies as deeply as we have over the last two and a half, almost three years at a certain point, it's fun to just get a really original unique vision and sit with it for a little bit. So I'm excited for these next three movies, man. You know, I'm going to try to draw parallels between Wes Anderson, and other directors, and this movie and other movies as we talk today.

2:06 But this is Wes Anderson's. Second film, his first movie was called bottle rocket. That came out in 1996 and it was a very small Indie movie that really didn't make any sort of a dent critically or commercially and but it's, but it opened the doors for him to make Rushmore, which was a much higher budget, comparatively and became a critical darling. And there are Still a lot of people out there that would rank Rushmore as their favorite Wes Anderson film. The critic, Matt zoller Seitz, he calls this one of the very few perfect. American movies ever made. So like there's a lot of people out there that think not only is this the best Wes Anderson movie but it's like a perfect film.

2:47 So we're really diving in here with a guy who had made one movie prior and then kind of explodes on the scene similar to Tarantino with Reservoir Dogs and then Pulp Fiction, just being like this atomic Bomb that goes off in the Indie movie Community. Yeah, and jumping into Wes Anderson, feels like kind of a big commitment because similarly, to Tarantino, the way he constructs a movie is just so vastly different than almost any other filmmaker out there that it's definitely a bit of a commitment. You know, I'm going to say this, I'm going to challenge the two of us as we, as we talk about Wes Anderson, for the next three weeks to try our hardest to not. Not use the word quirky because it's not just that it's so overused to talk about Wes Anderson. But from the time Anderson, really burst on the scene here in 98 to now, Cinema has really undergone a lot of different iterations of what quirky is.

3:48 And for a while there it was just like Wes Anderson and people who made movies like Wes Anderson. And I remember reading an article that was about like the new quirky and it was Wes Anderson. And at that time, it was David O Russell's. Soul who had just made the movie. I heart huckabees and they were all about like this very meticulously put together. Offbeat kind of comedies that these two guys were making, but I think quirky could mean a whole bunch of different things in today's landscape of movies. And when I think about Wes Anderson, I've been trying to think of words to describe, not just his directing style, but his attention to detail. And so, I'm going to do my best to be a thesaurus here and use other words besides quirky Cuz I just think like the word quirky has really lost.

4:32 Its meaning a lot. Especially in relation to Wes Anderson. Yeah, I think that the main word I would use to describe Wes Anderson after having seen two of his films. Now would be deliberate. Mmm like not only is every scene kind of very deliberately lit. And the color scheme is all you know aligned and obviously people talk about is symmetry a lot but even his Is the way they all act. It's almost like everybody takes a pause to think about what they're going to say next. Yeah, before they say anything. And it seems to be this trademark that he's a he's a very patient director and he and he wants all of his characters to come across as well thought and you know really working through what they want to say next. And every scene, I'm really excited for the three films. We're doing we're doing Rushmore followed by Moonrise Kingdom, followed By The Grand Budapest Hotel and along with Tenenbaums, I would say those are probably his for most well-regarded films and Rushmore kind of Falls right in the middle of the other two. If you're plotting Anderson out on a spectrum. Because I think that in in more recent years, Wes Anderson has gone so far into the stylistic and the like attention to detail in the sets that sometimes the story seems to take a back seat if I'm being honest and Moonrise Kingdom, for me is Where I mean the attention to detail is definitely still there but it is like all story.

6:04 All heart. And really seems kind of like an outlier among more recent Wes, Anderson's and Rushmore Falls. Like I said, right in the middle of those two Brad, I think the word that is coming to mind for me, when I think about Wes Anderson, and it's word. I know I've never used on this show before it's the word fastidious, and that is a great word and I'm glad I got a chance to use it. That's, that's what you call a ten-dollar word right there. That's a heck of a word. Bob, here's the definition. Ignition, very attentive to and concerned about accuracy and detail. And that is, you know, like if you wanted to be negative towards him, you'd call him like nitpicky or finicky. And I don't think that's necessarily the case, but he just loves filling his frames with these tiny little details. That only would come from the mind of somebody like him. And I'd be curious to hear about how he is on set, because in my research for two facts and falsehood, it seems like everybody gets Along with him pretty well which for somebody who is, you know, pays so much of attention to detail. You might not always get.

7:08 So I it seems like he's a director that simultaneously can care for his cast and and his co-workers. Well but at the same time really bring about a unique Vision on screen. Yeah. And I think that he's such an interesting character because he's so unique but he also shares so much in common. With many, many other directors, like before Wes Anderson, I think, like the king of quirky, if you wanted to call him that would be like Tim Burton. You know, if you watch Edward Scissorhands, or it Tim Burton's Batman, or any of the movies that he produced, like Nightmare Before Christmas, you're like, okay. Like I get this guy and his weirdo Tendencies, and then Wes Anderson comes on the scene, and I don't think he's a weirdo. I think he's just very like, he's a kid that grew up in Texas, that went to boarding school like a Rushmore. And has this kind of like in some ways punk rock mentality but also frames everything in his movies through that very prim and proper lens.

8:10 It's such an interesting world that his characters, inhabit and Brad. I think that's a good segue into talking about Rushmore. This was your first time seeing Rushmore correct? Yes, it was Rushmore was a big blind spot for me until about two years ago. My wife and I decided to watch through all of Wes Anderson Filmography in order and maybe this was only like a year ago actually. And so we went through Rushmore was the first time I'd seen it. And I wasn't a huge fan especially for knowing that it was one that was considered like a perfect movie and it was on like Amazon Prime. Maybe six months ago, I went back and watched it again thinking. Maybe I'll like it better this time and now I've watched it a third time in the course of like a year. So I feel like out of nowhere, I went from being totally unfamiliar with this movie too.

9:00 Intimately familiar with what happens in this movie. You almost became one might say obsessed with uh, it's like a theme. It's it is like a theme. All right, man. Hey, let's jump over to Brad explains the part of the podcast where Brad breaks down the plot of the film that he has just seen often for the first time. As we know, this is Brad's first time with Rushmore Brad. We're going to give you 60 seconds on the clock. Can you break down the plot of this movie? Rushmore is a body. A young preparatory, school boy, named Max. He is precocious and takes part in every single extracurricular activity that he can, however, his grades are suffering because of it, he has the belief that he can overcome any obstacle, but he can't when he meets the first grade teacher Rushmore, who is a middle-aged woman who was a widow and he tries to win her affections, he becomes friends with a A steel tycoon played by Bill Murray, tries to enlist his help to win over the first grade teacher.

10:07 However, Bill Murray falls in love with her too. And he goes after her, it turns into quite the love triangle with with schwartzman's character. Just going absolutely insane for a large portion of the movie and he eventually settles into his life as a Barber's son, and writing plays at a local high school. That is not a Fancy Preparatory School, boom, nicely done, sir, thanks man. Hey I don't usually give notes on Brad explains but I'm gonna I'm gonna say one quick correction here. Mmm. I don't know if I would call the middle or the first grade teacher middle-aged like, 35 know, she's like somewhere between 20 and 30. Dude, she just she's not dressed like it's 1998. That's just everyone wore, the equivalent of burlap sacks back then.

10:55 Now, she first off to say that she's between 20 and 30 implies that she Could be 21. Well, she's old enough to be a teacher, but she's clearly young. I mean, if she's middle-aged, we're middle-aged is what I'm saying. Yeah, we are. I don't know where. I don't know if I could tell myself to be in the middle of my life here. Yeah, I mean if you do the math on it, Bob you see if you live the average of 76 years then clearly 31 years old. Alright is early middle age. Alright so we're going to call her 30 and we're also going to say That, that equates to middle-aged now that's mine. All right.

11:35 All right man, I think a good place to start is actually just to continue this conversation about Wes Anderson for a minute, because I want to compare him to the director that we just came from Edgar Wright. You know, they kind of come up at around the same time, obviously, Wes Anderson starts about 10 years earlier, but very similar types of directors in that like they bring a very unique energy to their movies. And Edgar Wright. You know, we joked about the like, really fast montages and insert shots and whooshing sounds in the background and Wes Anderson, doesn't really do that. But his movies tend to move at a pace that's actually quicker than I think, sometimes they get credit for and like, he's really, really good at using montage and jumping from scene to scene in a way that like, propels the action forward. It's just the his movies or not like he's not making baby driver, you know what I mean?

12:30 No, he's not his camera. Work is very Not slow. He'd man, I already used this word. It's deliberate Bob. Yeah, but I think sometimes deliberate means like slowly paced and I don't know that either of the movies that we've watched by him for the podcast so far, I would call like slow-paced movies. They tell small stories, but they still move pretty quickly. I don't know, man, I will say that this time around with Wes, I would, I was feeling a little bit bored, a little bit slow with the movie. Yeah. Yeah, I checked how much time was left and there was still an hour and six minutes left and an hour and 33 minute movie.

13:11 And I was like oh this is a this is not the Royal Tenenbaums know. This movie definitely has some pacing issues and I think that's probably my biggest nitpick with this movie is that, you know, for me it didn't really hit until ironically the part where Max has kind of decided to grow up a little bit and everybody seems to be making up and the movie seems Kind of on an upswing and there's like maybe 25 minutes left in the movie at that point and that last 25 minutes for me, felt like an hour. So yeah, I did. I could long time. Sure. I definitely think this movie has pacing issues, but I don't know if I would call him a like a long-winded director overall. No.

13:53 I mean, in the end, this is falling into the beautiful category that we call the 90-minute movie. Bob. I know you love the 90-minute movie. I am such a fan of the hour and a half long film. And so it's not that this movie takes terribly, long to say what it wants to say. It's just very I don't know if 10/10 is like the fastest paste movie you've ever seen. I would paste this. Probably at like a three and a half to a 4-0. Wow it just it really takes its time to get where it's going, even when there's a lot of things happening in the midst of it. So part of the reason I brought up the Edgar Wright, Then was because I want to compare this movie to Scott Pilgrim, because I think it's, it's a very similar story to Scott Pilgrim. Obviously like it's not, there's no like older man in a love triangle in Scott Pilgrim.

14:46 But there is the sort of like Pursuit of somebody that he may or may not actually be good for and the growing up process. But, but mostly it's because, when I was watching Scott Pilgrim and I made this point in our episode, I had a really hard time understanding During the rules of the world, that was on screen. Is this a completely Fantastical world where these things can actually happen? Or should we just be understanding this to be like metaphorical, for what's really going on in this young guys brain? Right? Like it's he just kind of projecting these things and using that to understand what's going on around him. And similarly the world of Wes Anderson is, sometimes they just sometimes seems like there's eccentric people in a very real world like Royal Tenenbaums and other Times.

15:34 It seems like these people exist in a completely fake Cinematic Universe. That could only exist in Wes, Anderson's head, and kind of similarly to Edward Scissorhands with Tim Burton and this movie kind of feels like it has one foot in each of those polls and I couldn't quite get a grasp on. Like, are these real people? Does this world actually work like this? How is this kid getting away with all these things or like is this just a fantasy? World. I will say, it feels like Brian Cox plays the most, like grounded character in the movie other than Max's, dad and the, how angry and annoyed Brian Cox gets with him is probably the best part of the movie like like when he wakes up from his coma and his wife's, like that's the first thing he's said in 10 days it's just it's exactly kind of how I feel about Max and he's like Like I don't think he knows it's me and he goes, it's Fisher.

16:40 It's so good, man. I do love the very first time. They're in the office together and he's telling him like, Hey, I'm gonna have to expel you, you're like flunking out of every class and they do the Godfather reference where he's like, hey can't you just let me Float by For Old Times Sake because can't do it Max. I just, yeah, I love Brian Cox's character in this. Yeah, he is brilliant getting That's your main point though. I think man the the biggest issue I have with this film as a as a point of comparison to the Royal Tenenbaums is that Wes Anderson is it has such a unique way of writing characters that you know, he and Owen Wilson, right? For this movie, that either everybody in the film needs to be odd.

17:29 The way they are in Royal Tenenbaums or nobody can like like the World needs to be a Wes Anderson style character or, or none of them should be because I get caught a few times wondering, like, what the heck is Max doing in this world? Like, none of this would work. None of this would make any sense and yet somehow it happened. So I'm with you I wasn't as with you as much with Scott Pilgrim because to me that very clearly felt like a stylized world. But with this one, Anderson seems to be kind of straddling, both sides of the equation and it kind of De tracks from the film for me. Well, in the thing is like I think sometimes people think of Wes Anderson is this guy who just like lives in a in a world that is not our own, that's not true. Like he at at his core was raised on certain types of American Media that he still has a really deep appreciation for and he loves really goofy comedies like he all him. And Paul Thomas Anderson talked about this kind of stuff all the time and so like I think At its heart. This movie does have that sort of almost like If this movie was made by Will Ferrell, we wouldn't be having this conversation because we would know for sure that they were intending this to be a world where stupid and Fantastical things happen and I'm Adam Adam McKay. Yes, exactly.

18:53 And like collaboration. I think that's kind of the vibe he's going for in a lot of ways here that like yes just accept that. These these two men one who's 15 years old and one who's like you know, middle-aged can be having this back-and-forth war with each other and that's The rules, this movie Works under and it's funny and just go with it. But when you stop to think about it for any length of time in a real world setting, they'll the whole thing falls apart. Fun fact, Bob Olivia Williams is 31 years old when she filmed smooth. Was looking it up as you were talking about her. So there you go. Clearly middle-aged. I'm just saying, man, she's an adult. Well, let's talk about the cast.

19:35 Since we've been kind of circling Bill Murray and Jason, Jason Schwartzman and Olivia Williams. I think we should start with Jason Schwartzman. I didn't come to Wes Anderson films. Until I was like, in my probably, in my early 20s. I had like avoided him like the plague thinking I would never like his stuff. And in a lot of ways, I'm glad I waited, because I can appreciate like, the, you know, the style more than I could have almost at the quirkiness. I all, I caught myself, you've you have said that word at least four or five times. Since you said, we shouldn't say it. I'm trying my best dude. I've been fastidious about avoiding that word. There it is. All right, so I'm kind of glad I didn't come to them until my 20s but because of that, I wasn't really familiar with a lot of Jason, Schwartzman stuff.

20:24 And I always assumed he was older than he actually is I just thought that he had been working for a long time and I was thinking that, you know, he's got to be like in his 40s now and then find out. Oh, he's only in his early 30s and way he makes this movie when he's 17 years old. It comes out when he's 18, and I don't want to consider this like, a child performance, but he's, you know, he's not quite 18 yet and to hang a movie on an actor. This young really says something, and I think because Schwartzman has gone on to have such a really great career. We forget that he started here as a 17 year old Brad. He's like incredible in this movie. Well, and not only that, but he auditioned against about 15 or 1600 other. More.

21:10 Yeah, the role of Max. So he beat out some pretty stiff competition to land this role and you're right, he absolutely sells the part, you know, I think that Wes is trying to shoot for this, this Visionary playwright, you know, type of Trope for his character and and Schwartzman just pulls it off. He is so full of himself throughout the majority of this movie, till he does a little bit of growing up. Up, he embodies that, that idea of the college student who thinks that they're better than the professors who are teaching them, you know, like we like I can literally think of somebody in our, in our undergrad. Bob that, that just fits this, this that meal. Yeah, I think you probably know who I'm talking about. I'm going to move away from that before the first census angry, angry mail here.

22:05 But I will say that part of what makes the character work to the extent. It does work and it sounds like there may be parts of this movie where it doesn't work for you Brad but it works to the extent, that Wes Anderson lets, you know, very early on in the movie that a, he's full of crap, right? And he's lying about all this, but be he's lying about so much of it because he is so deeply. Deeply insecure that he is a kid, whose mom has died. Who is ashamed of his upbringing in the face of, like, all these rich people around him who's trying to hustle his way to the top. But like clearly has Some limitations like, he's not a good student at all, and he tries to cover for it by being. So involved in things that he is good at. And I think it's a really, like it's a really beautiful portrait of.

22:50 I mean, it's a kid who acts like an adult but behind all that is still, very obviously a kid. Yeah, the line where he's talking to his dad and he's like, well, I've tried doing all the things to be popular, but it doesn't seem to work. Maybe I should just go after girls. That's what everybody else is doing. And it just has this feel of this. I don't like I know this is like your favorite television show of all time, but it feels like a Sheldon desk feel from Big Bang Theory, right? That like he's just so far Advanced from all of his peers that he doesn't even know how to interact with them on a normal level and it and it works because he's at Rushmore, which is a very strange Preparatory School full of people from all over the world.

23:37 Old that are very interesting. I like when he finally goes to Grover Cleveland High and Edison the public school because there is an amusing, Just Fish Out of Water. Yeah, yeah. Where he's just totally, you know, flopping around trying to get his bearings. And even when he's thrown, you know, a lion to help him by Margaret Yang, he doesn't even know to grab onto it. Yeah, and his character is extremely Written and Schwartzman. Really does a phenomenal job with it, alright? And then the to supporting players that really kind of make up the the, you know, the Triad we've been talking about here are Bill Murray, and Olivia Williams. Let's start with Bill Murray.

24:22 This is his first collaboration with Wes Anderson. He would go on to do many, many, many more Wes Anderson, always appreciated. The sort of deadpan humor that Murray did. But I think that what he does with Marie is he takes that sort of like fu, You deadpan attitude that he had, and he turns it into this sort of like Sad Sack energy that he, that really elevates Murray's acting performances like he does it here. He does it in Tenenbaums, he does it in Life Aquatic. Like I just really really love what Wes Anderson has done with Bill Murray and like you know if it wasn't for this and Tenenbaums, you don't get a movie like Lost in Translation a few years after that, that gets Bill Murray nominated for an Oscar. And so you really do see the seeds of it planted here. I think he's really, really great here. And on top of that, he gets some terrific, like, one-liners and punch lines as well.

25:15 Oh, he is absolutely hilarious in this film and I think that he does a really great job of showcasing. A middle-aged man, who is just completely beaten down and doesn't really know what to do with his life. I mean, the the scene where he kind of graduate ask Dives under the water and just like sits on. Underneath the water trying to avoid his responsibilities is, it's kind of everything you need to know about his character. And so when he meets this teacher, you know, played by Olivia Williams, you can understand why he falls for her. Even if spoiler alert, she's not very interesting of a person, that's very true.

26:01 But I want to ask you real quick, you made a graduate reference and I mean, there's so many allusions to the movie, The Graduate. In this movie. I Didn't Know. Have You Seen The Graduate before I have seen it so interesting. I am not a fan. Yeah, I mean I like it. I think it's a really important movie in the history of Cinema but like I've never thought that it was in my top X number of movies. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's why we haven't talked about it on this show before. So yeah, I watched it one night when Haley was working, it was on Netflix and I was like yeah it's a famous movie, I'll watch it. And I was like, wow. Well, I don't know if I can look at this song, the same way anymore, like it kind of bums me out. Oh man.

26:45 Alright, so let's talk about the mrs. Robinson of this movie apparently and that is Olivia Williams as the first grade teacher. I think she's really delightful here. As like you said, she's a person that has very little personality but like everyone else in this movie is deeply, deeply sad and really going through some stuff and having to withstand the Advances of two men who are equally sad and desperate. And I think like they put her in a position where she is playing the straight man in, you know, in the comedy triangle and everybody else gets the funny stuff, but I really like her performance, Brad. And she's an actress that she just made a movie two years ago with Anthony Hopkins called the father, which was up for a ton of oscars, and she's really great in that movie. I wish that I saw her in more things, but I really love her here.

27:36 Yeah, she She, she is such a straight-laced straight-faced character that it's easy to miss her for a little while in the movie. But those moments where she talks about her life, where she engages with the other characters, you know, to talk about her husband, who has passed away, and why she's working here at Rushmore. Like, even the moments where she gets little pieces of Comedy where she's like, I never asked anybody to build an aquarium for me and they just like brushed past. It was like, Like almost like drew a chuckle out of me the way she delivered the line. So I think that she does a phenomenal job with what she's given and if not for her, this whole movie would completely fall apart.

28:21 I want to say real quick, before we go to break, I think the line that made me laugh. The hardest is Bill Murray's delivery of what he. It's just like you're right. I should not have given him alcohol. That was my favorite part of the whole movie. What was your favorite line bread? Oh man. What would be my favorite line, Man. Favorite line from the movie. I I don't know if this is my absolute favorite but I do love when Max says to Bill Murray I saved the Latin. What did you ever do? That's a great line and because it's also like it's kind of I don't want to say it's sweet, it's really sad and he doesn't realize that what he's saying is like, dude, you're a kid. You don't realize what you're dealing with you and you don't realize that like, what your meddling in is actually affecting grown people's lives here but it's also like when you're a kid and you don't have any other frame of reference and you want an adult to understand what you're doing, like you say, stuff like that, and because that's the most important thing to you.

29:25 He saved Latin. So yeah, I love that. Why no longer God, no longer a dead language. I love that line because it works on so many levels. It is funny but it's also funny. One of those ways that make you go like, ah, like poor kid, you know, I love the way you think of this, this poor child, Bob. All right, man. Hey, let's take a break, let's try this strand, a hands American single malt. What do you say? Let's get to ABAB some whiskey Nation. Do you ever think about Awards course he do you drink whiskey and watch movies which means that, you know, that nothing is validated until a group of random people say hey we love what you're doing. The awesome thing about doc Swensons whiskey is that it isn't just some group of schlubs that are And them Awards, they have been winning attention from some of the most important whiskey experts, you can imagine, they've been voted best distillery in Washington state by the New York International Spirits competition.

30:23 They've been voted the best Independent bottler by the Ascot Awards, as well as the best finished bourbon from the Ascot awards for their La. Mente exploratory Cask their exploratory Cask series is where they release some of the most fascinating and adventurous experiments. If you're ever checking out, docks line up, and see a white label. There's a really good chance that that's the only time you'll see that bottles, make sure you snatch it up. Doc Simmons, has been offering just phenomenal finished and Blended whiskies for quite some time. Now, you can find them online at Doc's, whisky.com? That's the OCS whisky.com. Alright today we are checking out Stranahan 's original American single malt. It has undergone a little bit of a name change. I used to be known as Stranahan is Colorado, whiskey, which is still the name of the brand but they've added all these other little bits of language.

31:18 So, stranded hands. Original American. Single malt is what we're drinking from Colorado, from Colorado. We even had a Colorado whiskey in a while Brad. We had that at one years and years ago. Tin Cup that, oh, that's a Colorado one. So it's been a minute. I think laws, whiskey house operates out of Colorado. So we've done some of their stuff on bonus episodes, but it's been a minute since we've had one that's widely available that we can do on a regular episode, and we're back into the world of malt, once more. Hmm, Baba. The, the more we drink malts, the more convinced I am, it's a phenomenal style of whiskey, I mean it's the original That's right. C.

31:59 OG the only sheet for a good reason, I believe. So Stranahan was founded way back in 2004, a lot of the information for this particular expression online comes from around 2017, which is when this was launched, I'm not entirely sure how much of it is still accurate Brad. But what we do know is that this is 94 proof, it is 100%, malted barley. I am a big fan of what I'm picking up on the nose here. Brad, what are you picking up? But yeah, the nose has some really nice. It's got some Cola going on with it, but some kind of an orange zest when freshness as well that it has this underlying Foundation of barley, it's a pretty nice nose.

32:46 I think I'll give it a seven and a half. Yeah, this had some really interesting characteristics on it where I couldn't tell if it was, like, really young because so like the 2017 notes that I'm finding online, say that the the End of Whiskey's that goes into, this is between two and five years old. And so at first, I was like, oh this smells really young but then it had this depth to it that I couldn't tell if it was younger, if it's just super unique. But to me it smelled like pretzel dough. I like a real or a freshly baked sourdough. Pretzel. I really, really love that. It had like some dark bready, almost Pumpernickel, type notes on it for me, too. I got a little bit of like, so there's some earthiness to it.

33:26 We're getting into the fall season here. Brad. It reminded me of like walking through a corn maze in the fall, where you've got the corn that's like starting to dry out and it doesn't it? No, it doesn't smell like fresh corn anymore. It smells like Dusty. Like hey, almost and then you're right on the back end of this on the nose. I got a lot of cinnamon and a lot of cola. I think this is pretty complex, whatever age it really is. I'm going to give it an 8 out of 10. Yeah. And then we get into the palette that orange continues to come through, almost like an orange rind. But You're on the pallet man. I am getting all sorts of a nice sweet honey. And a little bit of like a dark cherry on the backend mixed with a little bit of like, not even like a mint flavor, but almost like somebody, like, kind of crumbled up a little bit of mint in the room and you can just barely smell it.

34:17 It's a really nice flavor throughout. I think, I'll give it an 8 out of 10 on the palate. Yeah, I'm going to come down. Just a step to a 7 out of 10 on the palate. It's sweet on the front. It does taste slightly young and it has that kind of vegetal note, that weird like weed note that I keep getting on things like it has that going on a little bit almost like some rise that we've had. And the more I sipped it the more I realized this honestly tastes like just a slightly more diluted version of that laws Henry Road Mulch that we just had a few weeks ago that had all of these notes on it, but that was a hundred proof. This is 94 proof and I think it reflects that It's just a little bit more watery and because it's so similar to that. I did ding it a little bit and gave it a 7 out of 10. Yeah.

35:05 And the thinnest here, you start to get some of that Oak flavor. The the honey is persistent throughout the finish and it really kind of had a bit of a peppermint feel. At the end lately, I've been drinking like a good peppermint tea at night and it really struck me with those notes. It's definitely come down a little bit, though. It's not very long-lived. I'll give it a 7 out of 10 on the Finish. Yeah, I'm coming down again. Brad, just like you. I'm down to a six and a half on the Finish. There's just not much of one, like it's not unpleasant. It's just kind of short and nondescript. For me, it was red, apple peel. It wasn't really even Apple. It was just apple peel and I liked it. But again, like it just it got less and less distinct. The more the farther along, it went through the tasting experience.

35:54 So I'll start us off on balance. I think this is a reasonably. Well, balanced whiskey, but there was definitely a drop-off from nose to taste and then also from taste to finish. So I'm only going to give this a seven out of ten on balance. Yeah, I think I'll give it a seven and a half on balance. I think that there's a pretty consistent note going through out with that orange and there's a lot of nice honey, little bit of cola. The Barley flavors come through that it's complex enough that I think it's a pretty solid balance, but when we get Into value Bob, we are looking at a 55 dollar bottle of whiskey here in the state of Ohio, which I don't think is necessarily a bad value, because there's not a lot of American single malts out there.

36:41 It's definitely a growing industry. Now, we're like sub-genre of whiskey, but it's still not. There's not a huge selection to choose from. This is still made in small batches from what I understand and I think it's pretty good, it's not quite as good as that laws Henry Road. You had, but you can't get that everywhere. So it's like, hey, if you could get a whiskey, that's like 85% as good as this and it's widely available and it's 55 bucks. I don't think that's terrible. I just wish it wasn't 55. I wish they could sell this at 35 and then I'd be like, oh this is a pretty good 35 dollar whiskey. That 55 when I factor in the market and everything else, I think I'm only going to give it a six and a half on value. Yeah, I'll give it a 7.

37:25 I think it's a solid value at the $55 range. It's just not out of this world. So like you said, American single, malts are pretty rare, so we'll give it that, but I'm coming to a total here of a 37 out of 50. Bob, where are you at? I'm at a 35 and I feel for myself at least like that's just slightly high for what I would. If you just told me like drink this and put a number on it without scoring anything out. I don't know if I land on 35 but it's just solid enough to earn that distinction. I think I would Trying it at the bar before I'd recommend buying a bottle of it. Like it's just pricey enough that I don't know that I like send someone out to go buy a bottle but it's definitely not a bad whiskey.

38:09 Yeah, I'm struggling to decide if I would recommend a bottle. I think I would stay recommend a poor first just to make sure you know what you're in for and if that's good for you, then go for it. But yeah. I think I'd recommend poor don't buy which is not one that we usually do. We usually Say bye. Don't pour yeah it seems like lately. We've been in much more of a buying vein than a poor vein. Usually the the scale tips, once you get into the 50 and up range, the poor price isn't going to be enough to make you also just say a skirt. I'm just going to buy a body Wears Like a thirty dollar bottle of whiskey.

38:50 You're still going to pay five to eight dollars for a poor of it which at that point was just go spend $30, right? You'll get 750. Love it. All right, so we are coming out to a 36 out of 50 or 72 out of 100 that has been strata hands. Original American single malt, Brad. What do you say, we get back into talking about Rushmore? Well, let's get to it. Today's sponsor is a little bit of a departure from our usual area of expertise. And man, oh, man, I was blown away by their product. Once we received it, I am talking about manscaped. Now, if you're like me at all, you probably seen The manscaped ads and kind of Wonder to yourself like, do I really need like some sort of specialty trimmer to take care of my downstairs business.

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40:30 Whiskey that's name is much longer than I would have expected coming into this. Yeah, for sure, dude, that's a that's a mouthful but you know, it isn't a mouthful. Bob Canada's favorite segment, two facts, in a false to facts and a falsehood, you have been coming back lately, Robert. Dude, IM 500 I'm five and five on the season and just like any good Browns, team five and five is a Odds, for celebrate was going to say, that's the goal. Mediocrity is away. All right. So for those of you who may not have heard before, two facts, in a falsehood is our segment where Brad presents, three items, all of them as fact, and I have to figure out which one of the three is a bold-faced lie.

41:14 Brad. Why don't you hit me with your two facts and a falsehood fact number one, the speech about privilege that Herman Bloom played by the illustrious Bill Murray. Gives it the beginning of the film was inspired by an actual speech once given by Robert Wilson, father of Andrew, Luke and Owen Wilson. Fax number two, the played near the end of the film. Serpico, was originally supposed to be a modern adaptation of Hamlet to show how Max believes he is. Truly greater than the greatest. Playwright of all time of her own Wilson. Suggested a Play version of Apocalypse Now. Which one Anderson over, nice. Fax number three, Wes Anderson had.

41:55 We envisioned that Noah Taylor for the role of Max Fisher. But eventually Jason Schwartzman won. The role Anderson did eventually work with Taylor on The Life Aquatic with Steve zissou? Hmm. Hm. So I know from doing research that he wanted, Wes Anderson wanted like a Mick, Jagger type to be Max and wasn't thinking about schwartzman's type at all. And you know what Schwartzman impress him so much that he basically said after the movie, like the final product of this movie is all Jason Schwartzman. And so I'm kind of led to believe that three might be the case.

42:37 Number one also sounds like something that would would be real, from Wes Anderson's life. I freaking love that. So funny that Bill Murray speech in Chapel. So I'm going to say to is the falsehood based on nothing more than I just think it sounds like it would be the falsehood. Bob, you are 100% correct. Hey, look at that. Dude. You you are just on a roll. My frie guess. So, what do you think you'll do at the end of the the season? If you are over 500, I'm going to get myself a trophy. I'm just going to buy my own Trophy, and it's going to say you're above average.

43:19 Yeah, you're Bobby. You're supposed to say, I'm going to Disneyworld. Yeah, exactly. Thanks. All right, man, let's get back. Into talking about Rushmore, Brad. I'd like to hear where you want to go with this because again, this is your return to the world of Wes Anderson. Maybe this would be a good place, to kind of talk a little bit about similarities or differences from Tenenbaums, but I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on this movie and on the to Wes Anderson's that you've seen thus far. I think that Wes has a really beautiful ability to dive into the human soul. And If there is a strength to this movie, it's that all three of the main characters.

44:01 Have genuine trauma that has happened in their life while it's partially it, like, kind of outrageous and you can tell that it is highly stylized. They're all acting in ways that completely make sense for where they're at in their lives. And so, I just really love the characters that he writes in this movie, and it's really the only reason the movie stays afloat. Because I think that, With Royal Tenenbaums, you have a lot more polished of a movie. This one's still feels kind of raw and that makes it funnier at moments and has some higher Highs but I think that there's some lower lows as well. I'm with you.

44:42 The first time I saw this movie, I was really underwhelmed, especially because the first Wes Anderson I ever saw was Royal Tenenbaums and then I went back and watched Rushmore and like it just didn't do it for me. Like I appreciate even In some of his more, fastidious movies where it's just like, all flash all style and I think I'd put like Grand Budapest in there. I would probably rank even that above this and we had a conversation with Jackie's, I can where we talked about Darjeeling Limited. I went back and watch that about a year ago and I loved that movie and that's like probably Wes Anderson's most disliked movie and I still think that it does what it sets out to do better than this movie.

45:24 Does it what it sets out to do, it's hard. Seeing him too much because he has such a clear and unique and singular style. That I think he's operating it, like, 90% of what he can do in this his second movie, but it's still very clearly like his second movie to me. It just needed a little bit more tweaking, if he'd made this, this movie even 23 years later. I think it really might be a masterpiece the way that Tenenbaums is but it falls like just short of that for me and that's no. Knock on Anderson know like he is putting together a fantastic movie here. That is really engaging and kind of Darkly funny at moments and really utilizes Bill Murray and in such a beautiful way. I the more I come back to this the more I'm just like I think that bill just knocks it out of the park here. Even even looking at some of the smaller characters Seymour Cassel, who plays His dad is just such a rock. And so loving, like, he might be one of the best movie, dads in, any movie that we've ever watched and he's barely in the movie.

46:40 Mmm. Yeah, but he but he gives a phenomenal performance. And you see Schwartzman or well, you see, Max the character able to be himself when he's around his dad and I love that. The more time he spends around his dad, the more he's Able to leave the lies and the deception behind and just be authentically himself like even now as I think about it, I'm like that's a great writing decision because if there's anybody who's known for just being authentically themselves in media, it's Barbara's like as a character. They know who they are. I mean, they're, they're kind of like the daytime version of bartenders, like, you just have to sit there and listen to people's problems all day.

47:25 Yep. And that's there's no. There is no pretension there at all. All right, man. Before we wrap things up, let's let's try our new segment, but we just implemented a week ago that were calling. I'll make it a double and that's where we pair. This movie up with another film to make the best possible double feature. Brad, if you had to pair up Rushmore with another movie, what would you choose? Hmm, I was thinking about this, because you asked me right before we started recording, I think I would pair it with a much much newer film. By somebody you mentioned earlier today. I think I'd pair it with licorice. Pizza from Paul. Thomas Anderson. Oh man, my favorite movie of 2021.

48:06 I loved that movie. Yeah, I think that the underage male stocking and pursuing a much older female. It fits both directors are very interesting in their own rights. They both have their own like, dedicated cult, fanbase. I think there's a lot of similarities there and I think if you enjoy Rushmore, you would really enjoy licorice pizza. I love licorice pizza, man. That is a movie that I would for sure. Call slower paced. It's like it's essentially a plotless movie and it's just kind of like this is what it was like to be a teenager in the 1970s and I'm going to tell it the way that your memories are like when you think back to being a teenager and it has this almost kind of dreamlike aspect to it.

48:51 Yeah man. Fantastic choice actually wrote down a list of three movies that I'm that I thought that I could pair this up with With and licorice pizza was one of them. Hey, another one of them was the graduate which we've already talked about. So I'm going to go with my third one, which is compared to those other two. It's a little bit more of a stretch, but I think the themes are still there, especially because it's a movie about a boy, who has a lot going on in the world around him, that he doesn't quite understand. And he Metals in the lives of adults in ways that don't make sense to him in the moment and have really kind of devastating effects. Um because he when you're a kid, everything you do seems to be the most important thing. But it's his growing up story and I have a long enough Brad it's one of your favorite films from The Last Five Years JoJo rabbit.

49:40 Oh bro. And like I said on the surface, I don't think those were those would be two movies that you would stack up next to each other. But when you think about like what's driving, the two main characters in these movies and the sort of semi Fantastical world's, they inhabit It. Like I actually think that would be a really great pairing. I think the JoJo rabbit is a phenomenal pairing with almost any movie. So, I am in with JoJo, rabbits. Are you gonna blame me a movie that you couldn't pair that with ice could say our go-to for like oh you can't pair it with that would be Schindler's List but you kind of shoot ya somatically it. Likes that's a big yikes. All right man, let's give our final scores here on Rushmore. I have come up on this movie.

50:27 My three viewings of it now but I still don't think I'm ready to put it any higher than 1/8 and I think, based on the fact, it took me three times to get here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it a seven and a half. It's the seven and a half. That you give a movie that is like, very obviously well-crafted and by a master filmmaker but it's it's still a seven and a half. Yeah, it just didn't click for me the way that the Royal Tenenbaums did and that's okay, I'm with you Bob I'm gonna give it a seven half out of ten. All right. That was that was pretty painless. We didn't have any disagreements like all day. Except for what constitutes a middle-aged woman. I was a film. A whiskey Nation. What do you think?

51:07 Wait, wait in on this because you also call aged you also called, I'll just say you called Bill Murray, middle-aged to, and he's very clearly like in his 50s here. So, how long does middle-aged last? I think this is the question. It's like 30 to 60, so you're just talking like the middle third of someone's life. That lets you literally just use the word middle. Okay. Okay. Yeah I just think that when people say middle-aged it's usually like a nice way of referring to people who are in like they're late their late 40s, early 60s. Oh, I thought you were going to say, like, 38 to 41, that's that's middle-aged. I'll tell you what, we'll look it up on Google after this. But I also want to hear what filmin whiskey Nation thinks. So please let us know what you think of Rushmore. Let us know what you think of Brad's measuring of people's lives.

51:55 You can find us on social media. You on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and new Leon Tick-Tock at film whiskey, or you can jump onto our Discord. We are on there every single day talking to the members of our community. You guys, if you want to join the conversation you can find a link to our Discord at the end of every single one of our show notes. Next week, we are going to be watching. Maybe my favorite Wes Anderson film, that's 2012, Moonrise Kingdom. So join us for that next Monday. But until then, I'm Bob book, I'm Reggie. She and we'll see you next time.