Season Eight Bracket Challenge, Part 1

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0:52 Get it in Ohio, guys, visit blackwooddistillingco.com. That's Blackwood distilling co.com and hit that shop button to get yours today. Today on the Film and Whiskey podcast. It's part one of our season eight bracket challenge. This is the Film and Whiskey podcast. Well, hey everybody, welcome into the Film and Whiskey podcast.

1:42 I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad Gee. And we're coming at you with another special bonus episode. Bonus episode Not just any bonus episode, Brad a sponsored bonus episode. Sponsored bonus episode. Oh, I'm sorry. Sponsored bonus episode. See. Oh yeah, I forgot you like to do your little old tiny radio voice when we have sponsorships. It's kind of my favorite thing to do. It's, it's throwing back to when people could actually make money from being on the radio, you know? Yes, exactly. It's a it's a call back. I I'm glad you understood it. Well, we want to say thank you right here at the top to our friends at Blackwood Distilling for sponsoring today's episode. Brad, it is time for us to put a bow on season eight. We've done 32 movie reviews and even more whiskey reviews than that.

2:33 But for the purposes of today, we're we're strictly focusing on movies folks, because we have taken all 32 of those movies and put them into a tournament style bracket. And we are going to eliminate movies from existence as we pair them up with each other until we whittle it down to the top eight. So this episode, Brad, is a lot of names being read and a lot of movies being eliminated. And I'm going to be honest with you, I really like the second part of the bracket where we pick a winner. But I think it's more fun to just have the chaos of episode one. I think I enjoy episode one more when we do it. Oh 100% man, it gets a little bit wild and the Coin of Destiny often gets flipped a little bit more in that first episode, so. That's that's very true.

3:25 Although I think last season didn't we have like 3 out of the top four were all coin flips. There was something crazy like that. Yeah, it was an insane time. Folks, we're already using terminology that if you are new to the show, you have no idea what we're talking about. Like I said, we put all these movies into a bracket. Now, how do we determine where the movies go in the bracket? Well, if you listen to our episodes, at the end of each episode we give a movie a final score. And so Brad and I have an average score for each film, and based on that, we can basically rank these movies 1 to 32. However, in the spirit of fairness, sometimes you get to the end of a season and you say something like, you know what, Maybe The Last Jedi wasn't so bad after all.

4:07 Maybe I was, maybe I was a little too harsh on that movie. And So what we also do is, apart from our scores that we gave in that week, Brad and I just kind of look at the list of 32 movies and we ask our heart where, where should these movies go? And we reorder those movies just in terms of personal preference. So at the end of this whole thing, I have 3 lists. I have the list from the week that we did it, and I have both of our end of season. Here's my heart list. And based on all those, we can determine where each movie gets seated, with the number one seed being the one that we liked the most and the 32 being the one that we liked the least. And what's really fun about having all three of those lists is that it inevitably creates match ups in the bracket that really, really suck to have to decide Brad.

4:55 Yeah, really often we get match ups where even if it's like 12 versus 18, seed it. It makes a really difficult thing for us where it's it's this movie's gone forever, it's in the fiery furnace. What are we supposed to do without How the Grinch Stole Christmas in our lives, Bob? Luckily, we won't have to wonder about that for long, Brad. We will be coping with that reality here very shortly. So once we have the bracket created, it's uploaded onto our website. So if you'd like to follow along with us, you can go to filmwhiskey.com. There's a tab right at the top of that says season eight bracket on it and you can download your own bracket, fill it out for funsies and see how you do versus US and the Queen of Destiny. But Brad and I have each filled out our personal bracket so I I can see what I want to win this season. Brad can see what he wants to win this season. And as each match up comes up, we will reveal to each other what we picked to move on.

5:53 If there is consensus, then you know all is right with the world. But if there is a a, what's the word? What's that? Tie No. A loggerhead head? Is that what it's called? What's it called? When if we come to loggerheads. Is that what it's called? I don't know. Anyway, a log jam? Is that the word? I don't know. Sure. If we're at odds with each other, we flip the coin of destiny and. No, Bob, I just want you to keep going. What are what other words could you use there? I just. Can't think of the word. I guess log jam is the word I was. Trying to think of you're on fire tonight, Bob. Keep at it. Clearly. So Brad has a coin that he flips, and I am always dubious of whether there's a real coin and whether he's actually flipping it, but he assures me that it is the case.

6:37 And if the coin flip goes through, then hopefully it favors me. Folks, that's about all you need to know in terms of rules being laid down. Brad, is there anything you want to say before we jump into our bracket? I would like to say that you have impugned my honor one too many times, Bob. I do not lie about coin flips. The integrity of the game is far more important than any individual movie. Now, in the past, folks, we have had whiskeys lined up to drink across these episodes and Brad and I kind of conversed off to the side and said, hey, that's a lot to try to fit into two episodes. So if you're here for whiskey content, I'm really sorry, but this is going to be 99% movies. We have not lined up whiskeys to review today.

7:19 However, as we go through these two episodes, we are going to be counting down our top five whiskeys of the season. And Brad, I believe you're also drinking our sponsored whiskey for the evening. Right. Yeah, I sure am. I'm drinking this Blackwood toasted bourbon which fun fact Bob incredibly. Delicious. Yeah, We just reviewed it in a kind of mini capsule review a few episodes back. So we were. We're not going to give too much air time to them other than what you've already heard. But suffice it to say, if this had been in our list of 32 whiskeys for the season, Brad, I think it would have been pushing for that top five list. I think it probably would have been in it. I mean, you said yourself toasted whiskeys are not usually your favorite.

8:01 I'm usually OK with them. This one is easily one of the best toasted bourbons we've ever had. That probably the best toasted bourbon. So as I looked at our top five whiskeys for the season, Brad, I realized that I only have four of them left because one of them was a really, really small sample that both of us got through really quickly. So I have four of them left on my shelf, and I thought maybe I'll just kind of drink them as we go through these two episodes. And if you don't mind me revealing our fifth best whiskey of the season, it's one that I really wanted to revisit tonight because it was the first whiskey we drank this season and I don't remember a damn thing about it, Brad. And that is Old Poultney 12 single malt Scotch whiskey.

8:45 This is a whiskey that received a 39.75 out of 50 from us. So almost cracking that 40 mark. You had it at a 41 1/2 out of 50, Brad. So this is one that you really, really liked. And I'm, I'm just pouring it out. I'll give some notes as we go, but it's nice to revisit old friends in Old Poultney here. Yeah, I remember really enjoying it. I don't remember exactly what stood out to me. So you'll you'll have to give me a reminder. It's so funny, Bob. People will ask me though, like, Oh yeah, I was listening to your Toy Story three episode the other day and I don't know about what you said with this, this and that. And I'm like, hey listen, I do this every single week and I don't remember what I said about the movie we reviewed last week, let alone something from 7 weeks ago. All right, so this is a Highland Scotch. It's really light in color.

9:39 It's very, very floral. It's got some honey sweetness to it. And then I got kick of like PD Smokey goodness on the back. It doesn't like it's not a super PD whiskey, but Highland scotches are not usually PD. And so this is kind of like the best of both worlds. I can see why we really like this one, Brad and it, it's a really easy sipper. There you go, there's, there's #5. Beautiful. Well, while you're sipping on that, how about we get started with our bracket in the very top left quadrant? I know that we've come up with names for them before, but right now I'm just going to call the northwest bracket the Nicolas Cage. Match.

10:22 I love every season you just pull out random actors names. Yep. I don't think Nicolas Cage was in any of the movies we discussed this season. But you know what? He sure wasn't. It's the Nick Cage memorial. Quadrant Memorial Memorial. Is it for the terrible job he did in raising Arizona? No, it's not because he was freaking phenomenal in that. All right, So our first match up of the day is perhaps the easiest one that we're going to get through, Brad. It is the number one overall seed, up against the number 32 seed, Ron Howard's How the Grinch Stole Christmas. All right, say one nice thing about Ron Howard and his directing of How the Grinch Stole Christmas I.

11:05 Can say many nice things about Ron Howard. He's a great director. He's made some incredible movies. I cannot say one nice thing about his direction. This movie is like a true abomination. Everything that any American movie is ever accused of. You know, crass commercialism, ugly aesthetics, cynicism, it's all here in this movie, Brad. This is like every Snooty thing that the French have ever said about us was proven right by this movie. Yeah. I mean, I would love to disagree with you, and I think I would on a very small measure that there's some good stuff, there's some redeemable qualities, but not nearly enough to make my heart grow 3 sizes too big.

11:50 Up is up is the easy the easy winner here. Well, it's pretty obvious that Up is going to move on into the round of 16, but let's take just 2030 seconds here, Brad, and talk about the fact that Up is our number one overall movie. I'm a little surprised by that because for me, I had it ranked, let's see, 4th on my list. It's a great movie and it was obviously one of the best ones here. But when your list came back, Brad, it was your #1 ranked film of the season. So yeah, why is up the champion for you? You know, I don't think it would be the champion in a lot of other seasons. I feel like this season eight was just kind of weird in the fact that while there were a lot of movies I really enjoyed, I don't know if any of them really stood out to me as like all the time. Yeah, classics and so up is probably the closest thing I would get to that.

12:47 Fugitive was up there as well. Really loved American Sniper. The especially the more I think about it, the more I really like that movie. So that, you know, there's a few that I really loved, but up I, I think it has that mixture of I saw it when I was like 1819 years old. I've seen it many times since my wife loves it there. There's so much beauty and meaning to it as you get older that you don't necessarily have when you're younger that it just hits so many different boxes that it's a it's a number one for this season. All right, so up is moving on into the round of 16. Brad, why don't you introduce our next match up? Next up, we are going to be looking right to the middle of things #16's Black Panther versus #17 at night at the museum.

13:38 This is an interesting conversation piece and I think Black Panther being at 16 is the spicier take. But just for a second, I want to focus on Night at the Museum, a movie that I had never seen before. We watched it with our friendly Diaz and I was expecting it to kind of suck. Honestly, in the first thirtyish minutes of the movie do kind of suck, and then the rest of the movie was an utter delight. It's a movie directed by Sean Levy, who has gotten a lot of crap for the movies that he's made since then, like Free Guy and the most recent Deadpool movie and I got to see. Deadpool and Wolverine. I sure did, Brad. How is that Bob? It was exactly what you thought it would be.

14:18 It was Avengers end game with a more of a wink to the camera, you know? I don't think that's what I would have expected, but sure. There's so many cameos. It's just like, you know, here are Marvel fans. This is all we can do now is bring dead people back to life. So enjoy. Yeah, and and have Ryan Reynolds making fun of them. Absolutely sucked. All right. Yeah. So Night at the Museum better than anticipated. Brad, what are your like enduring thoughts about Night at the Museum? Another movie that I remember watching as a teenager and really enjoying and returning to it as an adult. I was genuinely surprised by how much it held up versus how I thought it would.

15:02 I, I did not think the humor in the movie would work. I, I was like, this feels like it's going to come across much more like a kids movie. But man oh man, I was pleasantly surprised here. Really enjoyed my return tonight at the museum. Now Black Panther on the other hand is a movie that I really like and I remember Brad telling me not really my jam, but he gave it a 6 1/2 on the episode. However, when I got back his ranking of movies for the end of the season, Brad, you had it ranked as your fifth lowest movie of the season behind some truly God awful films. So did you, did you just turn on this movie or do you feel like you were pulling punches during the episode?

15:46 I don't know if I was pulling punches. I would say that 6 1/2 is a pretty low score for me. If you like. If you took every single movie I've ever rated, I would say 6 1/2 is in the bottom 30 to 40% of movies I've rated. For this podcast, that's probably fair. We do tend to watch really good movies on this show. Right. Yeah, usually we're anywhere from a 7 1/2 to a nine out of 10 on our scores. So 6 1/2 I I really didn't love Black Panther. Man, well, I have to be honest dude, this was a pretty easy one for me. I really like tonight at the museum, but Black Panther moved on relatively easily for me. And I'm assuming that you are trying to push Ben Stiller through to the next round.

16:31 I sure am. I mean, come on, dude. This is a good Ben Stiller performance. Yeah. It's no Walter Mitty or Derek Zoolander, but it's pretty good. Basically the same performances, all right. So honestly, weirdly enough, Night at the Museum is almost a combination of Derek Zoolander and Walter Mitty. Like if those are, if those are the extremes of the Ben Stiller spectrum, this one kind of gets a a little dose of both. I would say that this is a good Ben Stiller performance, but I don't even remember his name in the movie. Is it Larry? Is his name Larry? I think so. Yeah, see, it's not that good. OK, Brad, we're gonna flip the Coin of destiny. Black Panther will be heads as the higher seed, and Night at the Museum will be Tales.

17:19 So, Brad, flip that coin. Bob Night at the Museum will be moving on to the next round. That's OK because I'm looking ahead at the next match up here, Brad, and I'm putting all my hopes on this one. This will be perhaps the spiciest of all spicy takes in the history of our show because you are forcing me to put the number 24 seed, The Last Jedi, a film that you notoriously gave a 0 out of 10 to up against not just any film, but the film depicting our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Passion of the Christ.

18:09 Baba. You are forcing me to choose Ryan Johnson over Jesus Christ. Brad, what are you doing, man? I'm not forcing you to do anything. If you choose Ryan Johnson, you're not just choosing him over Jesus Christ, over Mel Gibson, bloodied, scorned Jesus Christ who is on the cross for your sins. OK, well, first of all, let's let's pull back a little bit from that. Not true. I'm just, I'm just saying if that's what you're choosing. If the Passion of the Christ shuffles off this mortal coil and is thrown into the fiery abyss as a film, I still take comfort in knowing that I serve a risen Lord and that He is not tied at all to the fate of that. Pretty good movie.

18:53 I mean, you got naked Jim Caviezel rising at the end of the film, man. You were on one today, dude. All right, let me be honest here. This was a very easy one for me. I think The Last Jedi is just a more successful film than The Passion of the Christ is. I think the Passion of the Christ is a good movie that we both acknowledge has some weird decisions and definite flaws in it. The the power of that movie, if especially if you are a believer kind of overrides that. But it is a more deeply flawed movie and it in terms of the actual direction and movie making I found as well than The Last Jedi. Now I know that you were going to vehemently disagree with that Brad.

19:35 So please have have the floor for the next 30 seconds make your case and then we are going to flip a coin because I know where you stand on this. All right, so page 13 of my 22 pages of notes. Let's get back into this. No, if if you want to hear my rant, go back and listen to our Last Jedi episode. It is the longest episode in film and whiskey history for good reason. That movie sucks. OK, there you go, Brad. Here, Here's the thing Bob, I like. I will fully equip myself from any amount of favouritism here. If you want to flip a coin like I, you go right ahead man. I will fully recuse myself. I'm a OK with that.

20:20 I mean, OK, so I I haven't seen your bracket, I have to assume that you pick a movie over the Passion of the Christ at some point. Nope, it's my bracket winner. OK, I will be the one then. Do you want me to flip the coin? Yeah, go for it, man. Well, I don't have a coin handy so I'm going to have to do an online coin flipper. You don't just have coins in your pocket at all times. I don't. What kind of what kind of mid? What kind of Midwest dad are you, Bob? Coin flip. OK, so we are going to say that the Passion of the Christ is heads and the Last Jedi, one of my final four entrance is tails. I am a little bit nervous about this. All right, we're flipping now, Brad. Yes.

21:11 Would you like me to share my screen so you can see this? Sure. Right there, baby. Folks, The Last Jedi is moving on to the next round. That's disgusting. I live to. Fight one more day, it's going to face a lot of coin flips. I was going to say, yeah, I know. It's, I will say though, if it gets all the way to the Final four where I have it, I don't have a going any farther than the final four, Brad. But like it's going to have to get through like what, two or three more coin flips just to get there. And at that point, it's going to feel destined. I'm just going to be honest. I I all I have to say, Bob, is that movie is hot garbage and it makes me doubt your ability as a cinephile.

21:59 Yeah. OK, let's do something that's a little bit easier here. The next match up is the number 8 seed, Rise of the Planet of the Apes up against the number 25 seed, Sister Act. Brad, I think we both really like Sister Act for what it was. It is like the definition of a 6 1/2 out of 10. It's like a perfect, you know, if you're on a four-star scale, it's a perfect like 2 1/2 star movie. Yeah. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is like a three pushing a 3 1/2 like a really good movie. And I think that I don't, I'm not going to stump for it or anything. I just think it's a, it's a, it's a pretty obviously better made movie than Sister Act. Yeah, I'm 100% with you.

22:40 I think Rise of the Planet of the Apes is enduringly fun. Like it does an incredible job of being like a pre pandemic type of movie there. There's some good drama, there's some good action. All of it is at like B minus to B plus level and and that's all it needs to be. It's a really fun movie. I'm going to move it on past Sister Act pretty easily. All right, so that does it for the Nick Cage Memorial Quadrant. Our four entrants into the Sweet 16 are up Night at the Museum, The Last Jedi and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Brad, why don't we go down here into the lower left quadrant, the southwest quadrant and?

23:26 Also known as the Jessica Chastain. Memorial, memorial brackets. OK, what's our first match up here, Brad? That is going to be the number 4 seeded Toy Story 3, going up against our favorite, the Michael Bay Transformers. We're running long already. I have many thoughts on how Toy Story 3 got seated because you have it ranked as like your eighth highest movie of the year, which I was shocked to see it that low, but I had it as my #1 ranked movie of the season. So it kind of balanced out. We we ended up with a four seed. Transformers is a movie that we acknowledged is brilliant in its action sequences and then the rest of the movie is like inept. So I don't know, man.

24:15 Would you have anything else to say on this one? Transformers is fun like one time and then never again, so Toy Story 3. Toy Story 3. All right, that was easy and we're moving down into the number 13 seeded Star Wars The Phantom Menace, up against Men in Black, the number 20 seed. You're going to hate me like all day, dude. I. I know what you're about to do. Well, I just don't think I like truly what you think about The Last Jedi. Well, no, that's not true. No one thinks that about any movie. I just think that The Phantom Menace is probably the worst Star Wars movie except for maybe Rise of Skywalker. And like, I just think it's a bad movie. Oh.

25:00 Come on, it is so much better than Rise of Skywalker. Yeah, come on, I just almost don't consider Rise of Skywalker to be just like, you know what I'm thinking? Like, oh, what's the worst one? I'm thinking of like the six, not the nine. So it's bad, and I think Men in Black's better. And yet you had it ranked as like your 4th best movie of the season or something. I don't remember if it was quite 4th, but it was up there, yeah. What? OK, Why? Like, just why, Brad? Because I love this movie, man. I think it's an incredibly well made film. I think that it's a great Star Wars film and I, I think that all, all of the detractions against it are much more muted when you actually watch the film then everyone makes them out to be. So I mean, once again, this film hits the nostalgia, it hits the action, it hits the the grand world building that you would want from a Star Wars film.

26:00 And there's a lot of just incredible sequences. I mean the combination of the John Williams score with the final fight between between. See even you don't remember. Yeah, my my brother Darth Murray. Ty. And. Yeah, yeah, the the final battle is just some of the best film making ever. So yes, I'm going to move The Phantom Menace on. I had this movie as my seventh lowest movie of the season, and I initially put it lower and then I was like, you know what? That's actually not fair to this movie because I focused solely on the pod racing sequence, which is Ben Hur level chariot race filmmaking.

26:46 And I have to be honest, I think the whole rest of the movie around that thing sucks, but it is good enough on its own to bump it up from being like my third worst movie to the 7th or 8th worst movie. And so there you go George. That's your consolation prize. I did move Men in Black on and so I know we have another coin flip here. Brad, do you want to flip a coin? Yeah, I'll go ahead and flip it, Bob. The Phantom Menace will be moving on. OK, heads, heads again. OK, let's see. We've gone heads, tails, heads so far.

27:28 So, you know, we're on a pretty good pathway towards the 50% margin. All right, Next up we've got Home Alone, the number 12 overall seed up against #21 Independence Day, a movie that I am just still attached to from my childhood. This is like one of the 1st movies. I remember feeling the sort of summer blockbuster feeling, you know what I mean? Like when you went to a movie and it was like, that was entertaining as hell. That's everything I want out of a movie in the summertime when I go to the movies with my whole family. Like it just knocked me out of the park when I was 6. And I watch it now and I'm like, yeah, this is the kind of movie that would knock a six year old out of the park. It's deeply flawed.

28:12 I think I still just I have more of a soft spot for this one than I do Home Alone and I'm and Brad, we even talked about in the Home alone episode, like it picks up in the back half of the movie, but the first half of that movie not not great. Yeah, there are some issues with Home Alone, but it is like ubiquitously known as a top three to top five Christmas movie like that. Like this is something you watch every year and, and for good reason. I, I think when you pair the ridiculousness of the back half of the movie with the meaningfulness of the lessons that Kevin is learning, I I think it's a great pairing of like a coming of age story set in the Christmas season.

28:59 Yeah, it's a good movie. It's it's a top five Christmas movie. Counterpoint, Independence Day is the top one. Independence Day? How many movies for that holiday? Well, it's like this and Yankee Doodle Dandy. Like what else are we watching on Independence Day? Man? Come on. Oh, man, I, I, I have to be honest with you, Bob, I still don't think I understand why we have quote UN quote summer blockbusters. Like, what is it about summertime that you're like, oh, this is the only time we can have a dumbed down action movie? The The summer blockbuster started in earnest when Spielberg released Jaws in 1975, and it became the highest grossing movie of all time.

29:45 And then every year after that, studios tried to replicate that. Question, what if that had been released, like, I don't know, in March? Yeah. And and all of a sudden, it's the spring blockbuster. I think that's a valid question. Yeah. There's no, there's nothing inherent to summer that's like this is the time to go see movies. It's just that we've been doing it for 45 years now, almost 50. OK. Yeah, I I can get down with like, there's no real reason other than the reason itself. Yeah, that's fine with me. All right. Did you move on Home alone or Independence Day? Home alone. Independence Day, which means it's time for hour. Bob. I mean what? I just like it better. I I, I mean, are you surprised I went on a whole soapbox saying I like it better? Yeah.

30:28 But Home Alone is very clearly a better made film. Maybe get out of here. All right, go ahead. Am I flipping this time? Yeah, we'll, we'll take turns. We'll go ahead and flip. All right, All right. So Home Alone is going to be heads and Independence Day is going to be tails. Bob, what is that result? It is tails, Brad. Look at you go. Independence Day is setting itself up to get absolutely annihilated by American Sniper in the next round 'cause I know how much Brad liked that movie and but its first round match up is right here. The number five seed American Sniper up against the number 28 seed, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, A film that I went from being just fine with and and kind of feeling pleasant towards to absolutely hating.

31:24 I wish this movie was ranked even lower. I didn't laugh one time watching that movie again, Brad. I I do feel like My Big Fat Greek Wedding is the largest anomaly in this bracket. Like, like, think about all 31 other films and then tell me that My Big Fat Greek Wedding fits in with like top grocers of these last 32 years. I, if I recall correctly, that was 2002, right? And so we went pretty far down the list to find my Big Fat Greek Wedding. We, we know we had like three options that were like the 5th, 6th, 7th highest grossing. And we were like, you know, it would be cool to do My Big Fag Greek Wedding 'cause we did a Star Wars Episode 2 for the patrons as a, as a makeup episode to apologize for My Big Fag Greek Wedding. So yeah, I mean, it doesn't fit in, but it's also like, you know, that's what happens when you pick the seventh highest grossing movie of a year.

32:22 It was only the fifth highest grossing Bob. Yeah #5 just behind Mel Gibson in signs. What a freaking great movie. Let's watch that again. Dude it made more money domestically than the Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers. Americans, am I right? All right, dude, American Sniper is moving on here. Oh, very clearly. Yeah. Incredible. Once again America defeats Greece, so here we go. That is the Chastain Quadrant. We've got Toy Story 3, The Phantom Menace, Independence Day, and American Sniper. What a dude bro quadrant that has become. Yeah, very much so.

33:07 This is a heck of a heck of a quadrant for Jessica Chastain to be in. All right, let's speed through this next set. Brad. We're going to go to the upper right quadrant, which we are dubbing what the. Billy Crystal. Memorial Bracket. OK, we've got #2 The Fugitive up against the number 31 seed, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a movie that, despite Spielberg's best efforts, absolutely blows. Like, just not a good movie. And I wanted to defend it, and I tried to defend some of the cool camera work, but just not a good film.

33:48 Yeah. Terrible movie, Fugitive. Incredible movie. And we'll talk about it more later. And we sure will. All right, moving down to Shrek, the number 15 overall seed up against Avengers End game, the number 18 overall seed. Now, don't get your panties in a wad, Avengers fans. I already told you I don't like this movie. I am responsible for it being down here at 18. Brad, I think you had it in like your top eight or nine of the season, which I was, I was a little bit surprised by. I love that movie, man. It like not even because it's a Marvel film. There's just something about it that hit me this time that it worked really beautifully and made me cry multiple times. Do you like it better than the original Avengers? Like the 2012 Avengers.

34:37 I think it's more meaningful than the original Avengers. I don't know if I like it more, but it definitely has a deeper impact on me. Yeah, I mean, it has the benefit of being like the final chapter too. You know, no one ever gives credit to like the opening chapter. Yeah, I mean that it's kind of like in general I'm like, I like Fellowship of the Ring is such an incredible film. I I might give it my favorite, but then I look at Two Towers and Return of the King. I'm like, wow, it's kind of hard to do that because those have such different impacts on you as a viewer. So I, I don't know man, it's tough. OK, where are we at with this one? Let's see what I moved on here 'cause I don't like either of these movies. Brad, I moved Shrek on here.

35:22 I am. I am an agent of chaos. I assume you moved end game on here? I I did move end game on I'm. Going to be real with you, whatever gets moved on is going to get defeated by the fugitive and I will be glad to see that happen regardless. So you want to flip a coin? Sure. All right. Shrek is heads. End game is Tales. Let us Thanos one of these movies out of existence. Bob, the gods have spoken. Shrek survives another day. Freaking Shrek dude. What a stupid movie. Oh man, I you crap over both of these movies. I actually like both of these films, but not enough to put them past The Fugitive.

36:10 But you you need to give things the credit that they are due. I mean, Shrek's fine, I just don't think it deserves to be like one of the most enduring classics of animated film. I think you just found like way too weird of stuff on the Internet in the 2000 tens about Shrek and then that's why you don't like the movie. All right, on that note, let's move down to the next match up #10 Rain Man up against the number 23 seed Batman, the 1989 Tim Burton film 88 versus 89 Brad. These are the 1st 2 movies of our season and they're squaring off against each other. Now we have said the entire time we're millennials who were just a little bit too young for Batman when it came out, mostly because it came out before we were born.

36:57 But like I. Was about to say a little too young. By the time that we were like of movie watching age, I just feel like we had completely shifted the tone of the aesthetics of what superhero films were going to be. Yeah, as I say, I remember watching Batman Begins when it came out and like, that set the tone for me for what a Batman franchise should look like. I mean, even Sam Raimi's Spider Man, right? Just, you know, just completely sets the bar so much higher for what superhero movies should be and. Raimi's Spider Man has those cheesy elements to it, like Willem Dafoe is just like, it's a ridiculous cartoony performance. But what Tim Burton is doing in Batman, despite some really great set design and cinematography and some great moments, there are just as many moments that completely undermine that movie.

37:49 I think Rain Man moves on pretty easily here, Brad. Yeah, I'll, I'll move Rain Man on I I don't remember any of the lines, but I do know that Jack Nicholson has some wild lines in that. Movie. What does he say? Like don't, don't do something with another man's rhubarb. Yeah, yeah, what a freaking weird movie it's. The peanut butter sandwiches of the 1980s? Exactly. OK, our next match up is #7 The Avengers. We were just talking about that versus the number 26 seed Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, the 1991 Abomination. What an incredible film. What the? Hell are you doing? Man?

38:29 I saw your list, you had it up in like the top ten or something. It was not in the top 10. But like, it was way higher than this movie ever needs to be. And I was like, Brad, that movie objectively sucks. And you were like, it sucks and I love it. Objectively, probably the best movie we watched all season. I mean a truly terrible movie. Alan Rickman is godly in that film. There's there's so much feathered hair in that movie that you wonder where were they getting their blow dryers and Aqua Net back in those days. All I know is that that film rocks.

39:10 I every single decision for that movie is turned up to 11 and I I don't know what it was. I was ready for it to suck so bad and I was so pleasantly surprised by what I received. Oh my God that movie is awful. The Avengers is moving on, and I get to say once again how cool the moment is where he goes. Hulk, now would be a really good time to get angry. And he goes, That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry. And then he punches a spaceship in the face. What a freaking great movie. Not just a spaceship like a space worm, it's like a space. Dude, yes. Yeah, it's the greatest man. Yeah, I I'm moving Avengers on. I love Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, but the the first Avengers oh man what a what a great film. OK, so the witch memorial is Billy Crystal Memorial bracket now features these movies in the round of 16 The Fugitive, Shrek, Rain Man and The Avengers.

40:12 And that takes us down to our final quadrant here, Brad, which is, I guess, going to be named after some unfortunate woman. Yeah, it's not an unfortunate woman. It's going to be the Audrey Hepburn Memorial bracket. It's actually a memorial bracket and we're kicking it off with a match up that I am so happy to see. The number three overall seed James Cameron's True Lies, the little movie that could the movie that cost $200 million. I would say that was not a little movie. Versus the number 30 seed, Frozen. Now, if there is a movie, Brad, that I feel like I can accuse you of being a little bit too harsh on, Frozen is a movie that I don't like and I feel like morally, like I hate what this movie did to cinema. I don't think that it's an incompetently made movie. It's definitely like a severely flawed script, but it's not. We're not talking about like, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves here.

41:12 No, we're not. I mean, Bob, you, I gave this my fourth worst rating. You gave it the 6th worst rating on your list. Yeah, but then we also. Right next to each other. OK, that's fair. I just feel like you really, really crapped on this movie in the episode about it. Oh, that's because it deserves it. It's a garbage film it, but once again, I think my anger is for the fact that it could have been so good. Like the the pieces are there and they nail them in certain elements. And then so much of that film is hot, horrific garbage that it just, it makes me angry. And yeah, I am reading the Disney of the decade following back onto that film because I think that film started a a lot of the trends that we've seen in Disney's decision making. Process touché.

42:06 All right, so True Lies sounds like it's moving on pretty easily here. Oh, no, I'm, I'm moving frozen on Bob come. On All right man, why don't you introduce our next match up? Yeah, so we now have the number 14 seed Rogue One, a Star Wars story going up against The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. These are two movies that I feel like remarkably ambivalent about. Rogue One. I loved that movie in the theater, and watching it again, I was like, man, this is kind of like a 6 1/2 movie. And I ended up giving it a 7 1/2. And it's mostly because of that cool Vader scene.

42:47 But I was like, frankly kind of bored watching it this time. And Narnia has just always felt like berate Lord of the Rings. Like it, it's Lord of the Rings made by less talented people, despite what you think of how good the story itself is. Like the movie, just it, it seemed like the JV squad showed up to try to make a Lord of the Rings movie. So I I don't know man, where are you at with this one? I mean, at the end of the day, we came out to a 7 1/2 average for both of these films. So I, I think I would lean towards Chronicles of Narnia as my choice to move on.

43:30 I I think Rogue One has a lot of merits, but overall I think I'm going to vote against it just based on once again, what Disney has done to the universe that I'm just so unimpressed with. So you're voting Rogue One? No, I'm going to vote for Chronicles of Narrative. Move on. I voted for Rogue One. We can flip a coin. I truly do not care. Do you just want to move Narnia on? Bob, it's up to you. This in order for it to move on, it has to have two votes. So you, you cast your vote where you will. I know where me and my house lay. Let's do this. Let's flip the coin. Let's let. Let's let fate decide. Rogue One is heads. Narnia is tails. Brad, flip the coin of destiny. Bob, I have flipped a heads meaning Rogue One will be moving on to the next bracket.

44:21 OK, And that leaves us with only two more matchups in this round of 32. The number 11 seed Armageddon up against the number 22 seed Goldeneye. Goldeneye, a movie that I don't know if I'd ever watched all the way through before, and it had been hailed as one of the best James Bonds. And I think that it is like half of a great James Bond movie and half of an absolutely awful James Bond movie. And they just kind of slapped him together in a weird Frankenstein E way. Armageddon is a preposterous film, but it is a Michael Bay movie through and through. And it has a very unique vision to it. And at the end of the day, that was the deciding factor for me. Armageddon moved on for me, Brad. Bob, I am with you 100%.

45:06 Armageddon is the better film. The action is better. There are so many great one liners when the the group is deciding like what they want from the government if they destroy the asteroid and they just keep tacking things on about like taxes and having their criminals records stripped like it's just wonderful. So I like I'm with you. Armageddon is moving on until like a tank bursting out of a wall at the last second, I remembered I have to move Goldeneye on because it has a tank busting out of a wall. It sure does. It's the it's the greatest thing I've ever seen. And so I moved Goldeneye on.

45:49 It looks like we're going to flip a coin because I have Armageddon winning at least one more round after this, too. So I have to defend the honor of Michael Bay here. Armageddon is heads. Goldeneye is tails. I do not have the coin flip thing pulled up, so I'm trusting you, Brad. Flip. All right. That coin? Bob the Flip has come up in favor of tanks bursting out of walls. Goldeneye is moving on. Right, and that leaves us with only one match up left. Pirates of the Caribbean, The curse of the Black Pearl, the number six overall seed up against JJ Abrams.

46:32 The Force Awakens at #27 I don't even want to dignify JJ Abrams with a conversation. Brad. Pirates of the Caribbean moves on for me. I'm ready as well. Yeah, let's move pirates on. All right, so in the Audrey Hepburn quadrant, we're moving on. True Lies, Rogue One, Goldeneye, and Pirates of the Caribbean. The true dude bro quadrant of all dude bro quadrants. Yeah, very much so. The This is a lot of action movies, not much depth of intellectual thought. Brad, let's take a little break here and then we'll come back and we will whittle our 16 down to 8. What do you say? Let's get to it. All right, so we have 16 movies to get through. Brad, I have just poured out our #4 whiskey of the season, one that was a damn good whiskey on its own merits, but is affordable and is winning prizes all over the place now. And it comes direct from our good friend Aaron Harris down at Green River.

47:36 It's the Green River foolproof bourbon. Dude. Now I can't say this is a daily drinker for me because it's foolproof, but like every time I've just wanted to pour myself some whiskey lately I've been like, where's that Green River? That stuff was really good. This has become kind of like my go to and even for people who are just getting into higher proof whiskey, I'm like, you got to try this. It's really affordable and I feel like it's a crowd pleaser even at a foolproof level. Yeah, the Green River just hits on so many levels and like you said, it is affordable. So if you have not gotten your hands on the Green River Foolproof Bourbon yet, you need to get on it because man, they're making some great, great whiskey down there. All right, man, we talked a lot in that first round. So I'm going to try to speed us through this round of 16, especially where it's a no brainer. And I think the first no brainer for us is the number one seed up against the number 17 seed.

48:36 Night at the Museum Up is a better movie. I don't think there's much conversation that needs to be had here, Brad. Yeah, the up is moving on. I freaking love that movie night at the museum. Good fun time. But just like our friend Robin Williams, it is all done for memorial. Oh my gosh, that's not how you honor someone who died. They're all done for. Has he made anything new good? Lord Brad, all right up is moving on and that takes us to the spicy take match up of all spicy take match ups. The Last Jedi up against Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

49:19 I have already said Last Jedi is in my final four, so I moved it on here. I assume you moved on Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Actually I I originally put Passion of the Christ on. You had Jesus defeating the apes in in hand to hand combat. That would be a heck of a movie, Bob. OK, so your your pick is just completely eliminated. Yeah. Are you, are you, are you going to put Planet of the Apes on here? I'm not even gonna Dane to answer that question. Do you want me to flip the coin or do you want to flip the coin you. Can flip the coin. I trust you. Heads is. Well I guess heads would be Planet of the Apes. It's the higher seed.

50:01 Tails is the last Jedi. Flip the coin, Brad. Bob Jesus has been resurrected into avenge to avenge its loss to the Last Jedi. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is moving on. All right, so we've got up and we've got Rise in this quadrant. Moving on to the bottom quadrant, the Jessica Chastain Memorial. We've got Toy Story 3 going up against Star Wars The Phantom Menace. Now again, Brad, I will say Toy Story three was my #1 ranked movie of the year, and you did in fact, put The Phantom Menace as your fourth highest grossing or highest grossing, your 4th best movie of the season, which was higher than Toy Story 3. So now I'm curious, did you move The Phantom Menace on over Toy Story 3?

50:57 Bob, if I answer the question, would I prefer to watch The Phantom Menace one more time in my life or Toy Story 3? The it's such an easy answer. I am choosing The Phantom Menace to move. On Oh my gosh, if somebody asked me the question, would you like $10 out of my wallet or would you like to pay me $10.00 for me to erase the memory of having ever seen The Phantom Menace? I would say let me give you $10 cuz that movie. Are you trying to use the plot of one of my most hated films of this podcast history to get me on your side? Are.

51:39 We gonna Eternal Sunshine, The Phantom Menace. I mean, that's what you're trying to do. Also, what a cool title for a movie that would be Eternal Sunshine of the Phantom Menace. Dude, that's pretty dope. Yeah, all right, let's flip the coin, man. Toy Story 3 is heads. Phantom Menace is tails. Now, Brad, I will spoil everything before you flip this coin. Toy Story 3 is the winner of my bracket. Oh my goodness. So if you knock it out here, I might be legitimately pissed off. Don't be pissing me Bob. Be mad at the Coin of destiny, Robert.

52:21 The coin has spoken and you do not have to quit the podcast because Toy Story 3 is moving on. Thank. God, I think that's one of the few ones where everyone listening to this podcast is going to be like, Bob's pick was objectively right, like IMDI. Don't know about that. IMDb score is like almost two full points higher for Toy Story 3 than it is for The Phantom Menace dude. Toy Story 3 is a great movie, I I liked it, It's no phantom menace. Oh my gosh, no it's not. And that is a badge of honor which takes us to Home Alone. No, not Home alone. We knocked that out. Independence Day up against American Sniper. Do I spoil Brad's party again?

53:11 That's up to you, man. You liked American Sniper? I did like American Sniper and I think American Sniper is just an objectively better movie. It's. Such a great movie. Yeah, American Sniper moved on for me, Brad. Like I I think back to was it last season or the year before when we watched Zero Dark 30 and what, what was the other film the the bomb film? Oh, the Hurt Locker. Yeah, we watched Hurt Locker in Zero Dark 30. I feel like American Sniper is like the peak, like the perfected form of that genre of film. Brad, I'm going to be honest with you. I just checked my bracket and I absolutely did put Independence Day on over American Sniper.

53:59 No, you. Didn't. I did. But here's what I'm I'm trying to I know in my head that American Sniper is the better movie, OK? However, if we move American Sniper on, I I expect that you will pick that over Toy Story 3 in the next round. So do I just try to sabotage things by hoping a coin flip will move Independence Day further on in this thing? I'm not going to do that. I will respect the integrity of the bracket and I will move American Sniper on. But so help me if that fake plastic baby doll from American Sniper beats Toy Story 3, I'm going to be so mad. Fake plastic baby doll. Did we not talk about that during the episode?

54:41 Oh dude, the the one scene where they're like arguing and he's trying to like shush the baby the whole time. It's not even like a professional doll. It's like they went to the store and got like the crappiest baby doll and like it's egregious, dude. I did not notice that. Oh man, I'll have to send you clips. It's really funny. Yeah. All right, American Sniper's moving on here. And that takes us to the upper right quadrant, The fugitive versus Shrek. Do we need a conversation here? No, OK, no. Shrek's moving on. Is obviously moving on. Yeah, Bob, I, you know, Shrek's a great film, Fugitive. Incredible film. Easily moving on.

55:24 And that takes us to one of the more unique matchups of our bracket Rain Man versus The Avengers, which sounds like the world's worst comic book. Yeah, Rain Man. Rain Man like walks out of one of the portals and he and he's like 417,287 bad guys. They're they're right over there. OK, I moved The Avengers on rain. Man's a good movie. I I just really think that the original Avengers is, it's not perfect, but it's kind of like the platonic ideal of what a Marvel movie should look like. And it's a really fun time at the movies. So I moved The Avengers on here.

56:06 Oh man, I this was probably one of the hardest decisions for me because I really love Rain Man. I I think the story of brotherly love being developed is really incredible. And I think it's I almost want to move Rain Man on just as like an homage to quiet dramas that people used to love to go to. But I but also I wasn't, I was just say I wasn't born in the 70s or 80s Dog day afternoon doesn't do it for me. Rain Man, great movie. I'm going to go with The Avengers. All right, so Fugitive and Avengers are moving on and that takes us to our last two matchups in the round of 16, True Lies versus Rogue One.

56:56 This was not difficult for me, Brad. I really do think that True Lies has a chance to play spoiler throughout this bracket because it is such a fun, silly but incredibly well made movie and like every other kind of blockbustery fun time at the movies movie that it's going to come up against, I think it just does it better. So True Lies like kind of dominated on this side of the bracket for me. Yeah, no, True Lies is easily a better film than Rogue One to point out one specific thing. Jamie Lee Curtis is incredible in that movie. Yeah, I I mean, she plays so many different roles so incredibly well, even if if you have not seen it, but you have seen Everything Everywhere All at Once.

57:47 Like her character in Everything Everywhere All at Once is what would have happened if the character from True Lies never went on an adventure, right? Like, and and she plays that so well. And yet she also plays this like action sex symbol spy so incredibly well. So yeah, True Lies. Great film. OK, that leaves us with just one match up here, and it's Armageddon. No, it's not. And it's Goldeneye versus Pirates of the Caribbean, the Curse of the Black Pearl. Now, I had Armageddon winning this round as well, and it got knocked out. So that leaves me kind of a a man stranded here, but I think number. Six seed Bob.

58:32 Yeah, dude, Pirates is a better, You like it better than I do. Like, I think it's a really solid 7 1/2 and you were like, this is a 9 1/2 movie, but it's better than Goldeneye, so there you go. Yeah, 100% Pirates of the Caribbean. We haven't talked about it much yet. Incredible movie and it's moving on over Goldeneye. So there you have it, we are down to 8 movies. We did it Brad in just under an hour. And here are the 8 films up Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Toy Story 3, American Sniper, The Fugitive, The Avengers, True Lies, and Pirates of the Caribbean. I have used the word dude bro a lot but holy shit dude. Like this is.

59:19 There is no brief encounter to balance things out this season, Brett. No, no, this is like I said, this is a really weird season. I I don't think I realized what we were getting into when we said we were just going to do like top grossing films from the last 32 years. But here we are, man. I mean, up up kind of balances it out a little bit. It's not a dude bro movie. It's a movie about two dudes being Bros. That's right, they are hanging out with a bird, you know what I mean? OK, so there you have it folks. We'd like to know what you think of our what do you want to call this? Our round of eight that's left here. You can let us know what what did we knock out that we shouldn't have knocked out?

1:00:01 What has gotten way too far along in the process here. Find us on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok and YouTube at Film Whiskey. Or if you want to jump into the conversation on our Discord, you can find a link to it at the end of every single one of our show notes. We will be back on Friday to finish this whole thing out, so make sure to join us for that episode and make sure you download your bracket at filmwhiskey.com. But until then, I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad G. And we'll see you next time.