Scoring Kathryn Bigelow + Two New American Whiskeys

0:00 Today on the filming, whiskey podcast, we will be scoring out our most recent director, Kathryn Bigelow. Then we'll be trying to American whiskeys from wildly different places. This is the film that whiskey podcast. Hey everybody. Welcome into the film and whiskey podcast. I'm Bob book, I'm Brad G. And today we are coming at you with another special bonus. Episode bonus episode.

0:46 We have finished out another director Brad in our season. Oh, directors. And that means it's time for us to apply this director to our tried-and-true metric of how good or bad are you as a director? And let me tell you what, Bob, this is the first time we've ever scored out a female directors, so, I feel like we're in dangerous territory. Sure are the entire burden of female directors rests on the shoulders of Kathryn, Bigelow, and Brad. We're going to be measuring three films by Kathryn. Bigelow, The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark, Thirty and Point Break on our five-point metric.

1:27 Brad, can you break down like the impetus behind Find this whole metric thing that we do. I made it up. Yeah, no, I think that it kind of came out of the the scoring of whiskeys, but there is, I don't know man. There's just something fun about tinkering around with scores and trying to say, hey, like as a director, how good is this person at directing actors? How good are they at editing? How Today at like bringing about unique ideas in the world of Cinema. Hmm. And I think that it's fun and if I'm being honest I feel like our scores are beginning to take shape.

2:12 Now that we've done it for an entire season's worth of directors last season. And if you miss that, go join our patreon. You can get access to all of those. But I mean, at this point, we're probably on our 10th to 12th director. Yeah, at least and it takes a little bit of time to build the body of work of scoring. And here we are. I feel pretty confident in and where we are scouring our directors at this point. Yeah, absolutely. And just, you know, a brief history of B, not why we do this but how we did this, we had a bonus episode last season and we kind of talked about what are the major categories that if you were going to determine what a good director should be good at, what would you call those categories?

2:55 And we kind of came down on five categories, the first of which is performances So like Brad said, how good is this person at directing their actors? What kind of performances is he or she getting out of the performers cinematography? How did the movies look? I mean you know, I'm not saying that every director has to have Lawrence of Arabia type cinematography, but you gotta know how to use the camera a little bit or it's going to count against you. The third category is editing this is where we consider, you know, basically how does the movie look, how does the movie sound? How does the movie flow? This is where we really get into the rhythm of the movie. I think some directors Brad are just known for being a little bit too self-indulgent, and their movies runtimes reflect that you can have a long movie. That's still paste.

3:42 Really. Well, you could have a short movie that's based off Lee, and I think that's the place where we would kind of Ding A director for that. The fourth category, we call, cohesion does everything holds together. Does everything makes sense. What kind of world is the director creating and then finally uniqueness and this is where we measured. The director against his, or her peers, do they have a unique and singular voice in cinema? And so, it's time for us Brad to put Kathryn Bigelow through the wringer here. And again, we're only judging her on the three films that we watched this season. So, let's go ahead and jump in with performances. What did you think of her ability to get good bad? Medium level performances.

4:26 I mean, I think in the three films, we watched The Hurt Locker Zero Dark Thirty and Point Break. I'm struggling with the performance of Patrick Swayze and not in the sense that it wasn't good. We both agreed. He was incredible in that film. Do you think that was Bigelow directing him or Patrick Swayze? Just being Patrick Swayze? Mmm. I think that was the sways through and through man that like, that's kind of what I think. Like, I don't know if I'm discounting her as a younger director, at that point. But I, you know, I will give her credit she directed and that's the form of performance. We got. But, you know, Patrick Swayze was just go and go and full sways on us and it was incredible. But I think when you go to the to Modern films, I think you have some really solid like B+ performances out of almost every single actor we see on screen.

5:25 Now, I may not be entirely fair for me to be doing this Brad, but I have a nice little spreadsheet in front of me. Where I keep score of all these director metrics were doing and the other two directors. We've done so far this season were in order, Clint Eastwood and Billy Wilder and in the performances category we gave Eastwood a seven because there are some actively bad performances in those movies that we watched from him, especially Gran Torino in Billy Wilder's movies. We really liked most of the performances. We gave him a 9 out of 10. I think. Bigelow, frankly didn't have any performances in any of these movies that I thought were nearly as bad as some of the untrained actors in Eastwood's movies. But I don't think any of them really hit the heights of some of the better performances in Wilders movies either. And so I really feel like I'm just going to split the difference here and give her an 8 out of 10 dude. I am in the exact same spot.

6:18 I think that the performances are solid serviceable. A. Yeah. Yeah. Serviceable really like really solid Jeremy. Renner was pretty good. I liked Anthony Mackie. He was great. Or in that room. Yep. You know Jessica Chastain gives a good performance. So yeah, overall I think eight out of ten is fair. All right. The second category is cinematography and this is an interesting one because Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker have such similar cinematography it's that late. You know, W shaky-cam that we know and love and then you get Point Break, which very much looks and feels like a 90s action movie.

7:00 And they are very very different and yet I don't think that. Hmm, how do I want to say this Brad? I don't think the cinematography takes away from the movie in any of these three instances. I can't say that it's necessarily a strength of any of these movies either. Even though I know some people to like talk about the hurt lockers cinematography, I thought that Zero Dark Thirty had some really great moments of framing especially and you can see that that movie had a much larger budget than The Hurt Locker did. But again, I think the cinema Geography helps tell the story and doesn't get in the way of things more than it's a point of like we're going to hang our hat on how good this movie looks. So I think I'll give her an 8 out of 10 again, you know, I'll say this, I'll give her a seven and a half because it's like, serviceable it serves the plot and that's all it needs to be Baba.

7:52 We're that these episodes are going to get a little boring because I don't have anything else to say, I'm with you. She's good here, not great similar to her performances. I was at an 8 out of 10 the same as before. All right, well why don't you take us into editing then so I can stop yammering on for a little bit. I'm as if I'm being honest I think editing is probably her strongest suit. I think that both the modern films and Point Break move at just such a nice Pace you know the if there's one place to another Knock it would be Zero, Dark Thirty. I think that film runs about 20 to 25 minutes, too long, but other than that, I think that The Hurt Locker is the right length.

8:41 Every scene takes about the right amount of time. I think that point break has a really fast Fun Pace about it. So I, you know, overall and and as we're going through this, we have to remember that editing also includes the musical score. So as you think about these three, Holmes, Bob, I guess I would say that the the music doesn't stand out for any of them but it doesn't detract from any of them either. Yeah. And and also we're not necessarily just talking about the score but also the entire sound design of the movie and I think that that's a point of strong emphasis with Kathryn. Bigelow, The Hurt Locker is especially really really good at this. And some of those tents, you know, diffusing of the bomb scenes Zero Dark Thirty does a good job in Point.

9:28 Break is an early 90's movie and it. Has these like weird early 90s sound effects in some spots and that's just you know it is what it is Brad. I'm kind of conflicted on the editing score here because a lot of times we try to walk the fine line between like what should be counted in editing and what should be counted in cohesion? I think I'm going to score her really high in the cohesion. The cohesiveness of these movies but in editing, there were actually some moments. You know, Zero Dark Thirty is way too long. And then in Point Break, the very first scene at the beginning of the movie. Introducing the robbery. It's edited in such a way that it's like, it's completely incoherent. It's too fast paced, you don't get a sense of the interior of that bank. And I think there's a few moments across Point Break, where it's just kind of seems like, you know, it's almost like a Michael Bay movie the way that they cut every second before you really get your bearings.

10:21 So, I'm going to reward it because The Hurt Locker is almost a perfectly edited movie, but then the other to death. We had some flaws. I think I'll give her an 8 and a half in editing. This for me was her her strongest category. I give her a nine out of ten here because I'm with you, I think that The Hurt Locker is an impressive example of how to edit a very tense war movie and the other two are really solid in the category. So so 9 out of 10 here for me. I don't know you you start us off and cohesion here Bob because you seem to think that this is where she's at her best, you know, I don't think I'd ever actually phrased it this way before today.

11:06 But I think thinking about world-building is a really good way to think about the cohesion category, like does the movie hang together is a kind of nebulous question, because I think that's like a way of asking. Does it just work for you or does it not work for you? And I think a better way of phrasing, it is like has the director done a good job. Job of building out the world of this movie, not that it needs to be some sort of like high fantasy tolkien-esque epic. But like, you know, does Point Break hold together? And honestly, as as goofy and dumb as that movie is, I think she does a really great job of creating this completely insane, fictional counterculture Surfer, Robin Hood world and it totally works for what she's trying to do. And I think that cohesion is definitely the his suit with Bigelow because the world of The Hurt Locker, you know, you and I talked about some of the logical inconsistencies in that movie. But I think that for what she's trying to craft and that that paranoia and that feeling that war is a drug. The cohesiveness of that movie is pretty stellar and I would say the same for zero-dark thirty. So I'm actually going to give her the nine-and-a-half that you gave in editing.

12:19 I'm going to give it to her here in cohesion. Yeah, I think that cohesion is solid but not great. Now, I would say it's solid. I am going to give her an 8 and a half here. I think that the world of Zero Dark Thirty makes the most sense to me. The, the CIA realm that Chastain is working within, I think that there's too many things that kind of fall apart and hurt locker of him, just randomly leaving the base. And, and the way he gets away with stuff, just wouldn't really happen in the Army from from what I have heard from a lot of my Army. My friends. So, so that one kind of falls apart for me a little bit.

13:00 I'm with you though, on Point Break, like when you take away the realism of the, the two later movies and just let them be like, hey, this is the FBI in California, and this is how we roll. Like I I can get down with that and the, the World building that she goes on. So, so eight and a half here. Alright. And then our last category is uniqueness and this is I think if any area of this Metric is going to be kind of a Minefield for us to navigate Brad. It's this one because by virtue of her being our first female director and being one of only three female directors to ever win the Oscar for best director and she was the first one to do it.

13:40 She is unique, right? She has a singular voice in Hollywood, I think aesthetically artistically. There's not a lot that is singular about the way she makes movies. Do you know what I mean? And I would even say if we're talking about the three, women directors, who have won Oscars, her movies are probably the least artistically unique. I kept comparing her to Ridley Scott. I still think that's a pretty good comparison or I wouldn't have made it. However, like, Bob standing on his Laurels, you know, I was reading a really good book about it was about women directors. Hours and Kathryn Bigelow was such a point of interest in this book because she has. So often actively said, like I am not trying to bring a woman's perspective to these movies.

14:29 I'm just making the movies that need to be made and by virtue of me being a woman like it's a Woman movie like I'm not trying to force some lens upon this movie and the book was really interesting in talking about how a lot of people say that she is anti-feminist. Then to impose some set of rules that you think a female director should be bringing to a movie is kind of anti-feminist and itself. So what do we do with Kathryn Bigelow? And and that's where I think you just kind of have to come back to what's on screen and how unique is it visually, you know, cohesive cohesively even a word like artistically and I think it's just not really there. The way it is with some of the other directors. We've looked That I'll give her a seven and a half because I think that she's a really great director, I just don't know that there are a lot of Hallmarks of her style that you can hang on to and say yes this is a uniquely Kathryn. Bigelow thing.

15:32 Yeah, this is where I'm going to ding her the most I you said everything perfectly. Bob I think that we get so caught up in the intersectionality of it all. We're like yeah she's a female and she First Oscar for best director, as a female. And that's a huge accomplishment, that's really, really cool. And honestly, it's for a movie that deserved it that year. Like I think that between that and up in the air like they're both really solid movies that year. So sure, I'm glad that she wanted. You're forgetting Avatar but I the clear and deserving winner of the 2009 Oscar am I right? Yeah.

16:14 Yeah sure, sure thing. Bob that good. Old Avatar. No. But, but Jimmy cam, Jimmy. So I will say, I'm glad that that hurt locker one over that. Yeah, me too. He's to meet soon. What a percent. But I think what I'm trying to say is when you just look at the product on screen, as you said, Bob it's not the most unique is it well made? Yep. Are there Great Performances? Yep. Is the sound design. Incredibly well done, especially in The Hurt Locker heck. Yeah, but it's not the most unique so I'll give her. Seven out of ten here. All right, Brad, that is bringing me to a 40 1 out of 50 on our metric. What are you coming out to a 40.5. All right, so that's taken us to a forty point seven five out of 50 again, guys, she is like a well, above average director. That's kind of doesn't even need to be said she's won an Oscar. Like you don't typically win best director if you're not good at directing with maybe a few notable exceptions. You know, that one or two the, the lowercase Oh, Oscar doing. Exactly.

17:21 Alright. So that was Kathryn. Bigelow. We would love to know what you think about Kathryn Bigelow, which of the three movies that we did was your favorite, which is the one that you think she should be remembered by, you can always find us to let us know on our social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram at film whiskey Brad. We've got two whiskies to check out before we get out of here today. So what do you say? We try this Westland whiskey and whiskey Gypsy. Hmm. Let's get to a man. I'm excited for this peated. American whiskey. All right, our first whiskey of the day is from Westland whiskey. We have tried Westland before on the podcast.

18:02 You may remember a few seasons back. They are back with a new range of Whiskey's that they're calling the Outpost range and the first one among them, they are calling Solem Sol. Um, so Loom Saloon, this is an American single malt whiskey as are all of their Whiskey's, but this is the first one that's come out of their Distillery to be a peated. Whiskey. They say they've been experimenting with Pete for a long time, but this is the first one that's actually made it to shelves and apparently, to our glasses as well. Brad, this is a single mold American whiskey, which is aged in New American Oak casks. And then finished in X bourbon casks. It says that there's a minimum maturation time of 41 months. So the youngest whiskey in here is about three and a half years old and the ABV on this 50%.

18:52 So, we're drinking 100 proof or today. Yeah, we sure are. And I honestly, I really enjoy seeing peated whiskies at a little bit higher of proof. Sometimes like, I I love me some 86-82 proof, you know, single malts. They can really hit the spot and have so much flavor but every once in a while it's nice to have the option to water it down yourself, Brad. I just poured this out into my glass and I think the thing that's most surprising to me about this is how bright and sweet. It is on the nose. It smells to me like like strawberry glaze, like it's really, really Barry forward. And I don't think I've ever gotten that on a peated whisky before.

19:34 Yeah. No. That's I wrote down crisp. Apple. There's some honey. There's some Citrus it gets a little bit almost time, like kind of seasoning ish feel to it, but all that being pushed to the side. For the fact that yeah, there's raspberry, there's blueberry. And it has a little bit of sugar Enos to it. That reminds me of like I do almost like my wife's like blueberry cobbler or something. Yeah. Like like, but if you gotta bite mostly of the blueberries and just a tiny bit of the, the cake, you know, I know that most people peated whisky is like the final frontier for them and they really hold off on trying it because it's just, it doesn't sound that appetizing. You know what I mean?

20:20 You should play the Jurassic Park theme song, the background. The final frontier. I guess what I want to say is this this is the most appetizing that I've ever had a peated whisky smell, it is very inviting and that peat smoke really accentuates. Those Barry notes really, really well, I'm excited to dive into this man. Yeah, I obviously already have, as I said, there is a lot of complexity on the nose as we got into the palette that continued for is for me. Good. Yeah. Sorry. I can't wait anymore, man. I'm sorry.

21:03 Yeah, man, for me, this was very herbaceous. There is a lot of really, really cool almost like an herb garden notes going on here. There is some pine needle. Yep. It felt like a really dark honey like that. Like a really light bright honey, but like a dark more aged, honey, it's a little bit Smoky and the oak comes through and just A little bit of a seasoning way that kind of allows it to give some some maturity there. Bob this is a damn good whiskey bro. This is like 45 out of 50 type whiskey right now. This is Stellar.

21:44 I don't know what to say. I'm so caught off guard by this. It has that note that I get on Craft whiskey a lot which is it's not just herbal but it's almost has that it goes beyond pine needle into that kind of like the smell you get on your hands when you're Cutting weeds like really Woody weeds out of like an overgrown area of your yard or something like that. It has that note on it. But then it's rounded out by really sweet apple and Barry and then that really Pleasant kind of subtle Pete like this is the perfect amount of Pete to complement the flavor profile of this whiskey. While you were talking Brad, I looked up the price on this that it's retailing for and it looks like direct from Westland at selling for 145. Dollars.

22:29 This is an expensive whiskey. I almost don't have any hesitation in still recommending it like I don't think that I would give it a 10 out of 10 on value, but this is one of the best peated whiskies I've ever had. And so if we're just going on that and especially from the American side of things, I don't know if you have ever had, maybe one or two other American single malts that are peated. And if we have, I don't really remember them because this thing just blows everything else out of the water. Yeah. Bob this Westland Outpost Range is truly one of the best peated whiskies I've had and it's because they don't dive too deeply into the realm of the Pete. They keep it back just enough.

23:14 That it truly enhances the flavor on everything happening around it. There is just enough smoke that it gives it the Savory charcuterie feel but you don't lose sight of all the berry, all the honey, all of the the herbs that are going on here. So this whiskey is called Solem once again, that's the name of this expression, it was just voted as the best American single malt by the world Whiskey's Awards. And I gotta say, I can't disagree like this is just fantastic. And that means that our next whiskey on the docket, has a lot to live up to Brad because this is a tough act to follow. We're going to be looking at Whiskey Gypsy, this is called Legacy volume. 1: the journey, that's the name of this expression, whiskey. See is a new Venture from country music star? Eric Church?

24:06 He has started up a new Spirits brand. Yeah, they're sourcing this whiskey. It's a blend of different kinds of whiskey. The first of which is a 70% corn bourbon, which has been aged seven and eight years from Indiana 21% of this blend is Canadian rye whiskey, which has been aged for 20 years and then the remaining 9% is American single malt which was aged for four years. So, the youngest whiskey in here is For years, the oldest whiskey in this blend is 20 years old. I'm excited to see what notes come out on this Brad because it's mostly bourbon. But with some really well age dry in here as well. I know you've tried this before. I have not tried it yet. I'm just pouring it out.

24:47 Why don't you give us your nosing notes? Yeah, the the nose here there's a lot of ethanol coming right at the front. It's very alcohol forward. Once you sit with it for a little bit I got some cherry cordial. Some Corn caramel vanilla, a lot of really nice bourbon denotes but not with a lot of complexity or depth to to underlay them. I don't know about you, Bob, but I thought that the nose was solid decent. Yeah, this is pretty subtle Brad, there's a little bit of astringency on this. Like, I'm getting like The faintest Whisper of almost like nail polish remover on this.

25:28 But underneath that, there's that kind of like a medicinal bubblegum sent, you know, like when you were a kid and they gave you that bubble gum flavored medicine. I get that a little bit. It's really Wang zi and I think that's kind of why it's hard to find really prominent notes on this. Definitely a more subtle scent than the last whiskey we just had but I don't think it's bad. Yeah I think it's a it's a solid experience. There's just something missing and I feel like it's a little too potent. I feel like the alcohol hits. Real hard on the nose and kind of prevents you from getting some of that complexity. Yeah and I would say that carry that carries forward into the flavor as well.

26:12 This is a lot more like immediately sweet on the palate than that peated. Whisky was that we just tried. It's also much more prickly and it's also a much. Her mouth feel which I wasn't expecting with a 20-year whiskey blended into it. Yeah, Brad. If I'm being honest about this one, I think that it definitely stays in that kind of alcohol forward range. It's not an astringent taste but there's just not a lot of depth or complexity here for me. Yeah, that I hate to say it man, I'm struggling a little bit and to be clear, like I drink these whiskies pretty far apart like I drink the Westland one day. I drink the Gypsy the Next day, so there's no hangover from this, you know, peated whisky. I just thought that it was a decent palette. The sweet corn came through, there was something that cherry coming through.

27:05 It was kind of like a really grainy rye and there's almost a little bit of like an orange juice, citrusy feel to it, but overall it was just very grainy with a little bit of sweet tacked on there. Yeah, this reminds me of some of The Whiskey's that are blended with like neutral grain Spirit. Like a Seagram's 7. Like, it almost has that unflavored alcohol with a tinge of whiskey flavor to it. Hmm, I will say this, this whiskey is even more expensive than the Westland was. This is retailing for 199 dollars, a bottle, it is a very cool looking bottle, it is endorsed by a celebrity, so they're clearly targeting the premium Market here and Brad, it's not saying nothing that we're using an Eight year old bourbon.

27:52 A seven year old bourbon and a 20 year old Canadian rye. So I expect this to be triple digits. I just, I think even then asking $200 for this is asking quite a bit. Yeah, I would say that asking $100 for this is way too much bomb that. Like, for me, this is like a 50 dollar whiskey. Yeah, it in. If that, no, I, this is like a 50 dollar whiskey. It's solid. It is a, it's Unique experience, it's just a little bit too grainy and to ethanol forward for me to ever say, spend more than $50 on this. I just took a third sip.

28:33 I think the malt really starts to come out on the end on the third sip. But again, I think I always say that if it takes you three or four steps to start, picking things up on a whiskey than it, probably just isn't the most complex whiskey. So I didn't mean for these two to go head-to-head today, but it's just the way things shake out. Sometimes when we get samples sent to us, we got a double up to get through them all. And I think the clear winner today was this Westland solum this stuff Brad is going to be making my end of the season. Best whiskies I tried all season list. This is fantastic stuff, man, 100%, and I'm thankful that Gypsy sent us their product. I will say it came in one of the coolest product Delivery Systems I've ever seen.

29:17 Yeah. Why don't you explain that a little bit before we get out of here? Yeah, do the They sent me a book that was like, completely full and it had a cutout in it that you received the sample in. And it was one of the dopest whiskey things I've ever seen big big fan of the, the prohibition level packaging. I'm just sad that we didn't do this paired up with Shawshank Redemption, like this would have been the perfect carving something out of a book to smuggle something in. Yep. Really, really cool Packaging. Yeah, so thank you to both of these companies. Thank you to Westland. Thank you to Whiskey Gypsy. We're looking forward to seeing what both of you guys do in the future. Brad in our near future.

30:00 We are pivoting out of Kathryn Bigelow territory and throw in at way back to the silent era as we kick things off on Tuesday, with the first movie from Charlie. Chaplin on our list. 1930. Ones City Lights. Yeah. Super excited for that. Baba. I have never fun. Fact. Watched a silent film. Will you? We'll now Brad cos it's finally time so join us Tuesday for that. But until then I'm Bob book I'm Reggie and we'll see you next time.