The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) / Old Overholt 4-Year Rye

0:00 In 2007, director Andrew Dominic and star Casey Affleck gave the world a hauntingly boring flick about the lonesome nature of ill gotten fame. In 2025, we try one of the whiskey world's oldest operating brands. The film is the assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The whiskey is Old Overholt 4 year Rye and we'll review them both. This is the film and. Whiskey Podcast.

0:52 Welcome to the Film and Whiskey podcast, where each week we review a classic movie and a glass of whiskey. I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad Gee. And this week we are returning to Brad's favorite movie in the history of this podcast. And one that folks, I have just been looking forward to like crazy. It's 2007's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, heretofore known as the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford because Brad will not. Let me talk. About this movie without saying its full name. I mean, Brad, Bob, it's it's a matter of semantics. Like, if we don't give things their proper title, how do you really know what we're even talking about? Yeah, and I mean it.

1:36 It adds so much context. Who's doing the assassinating? What kind of person was the assassinator? You know what I mean? To be honest, it's almost like you don't even need to watch the movie. Well, I see, Brad, that we're going to get into some spicy takes pretty quickly here. And because of that, I called in some reinforcements. Now, folks, if you remember, we are in season 10 of the Film and Whiskey podcast, and we're revisiting all of the films from season #1 in the process. Now in season #1 we had some Brad, dare I say, poor audio quality. So that's kind of why we're redoing this now. And, and we figured with six plus years of context now and all those reviews behind us, it's time to revisit those movies from season #1 I have been holding out hope that as we return to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, that Brad might come around on it. It is already looking like that might not happen. And so I wanted to bring in somebody that I know for a fact has an appreciation for this movie to balance out Brad's take.

2:43 It's our friend Zach Johnston from Blackwood Distilling. Zach, welcome back, man, it's been a while. Thanks for having me, gentlemen. I am very excited to be here and I am very excited to talk about this movie. I am very excited that you're here, Zach, That that just like warms the cockles of my heart. I'm I'm sort of in a bit of a conundrum now because I know so much about this movie. It came out when I was in film school, I saw it at the Arclight in Hollywood. But I also know a lot about Jesse James and so I'm worried I might spoil 3 facts or two facts and a falsehood by just getting through this.

3:24 But we'll do our best. Yeah, spoil away, man. I love it. I love it when we accidentally trip Brad up and he comes in and says like, well now I only have two things I can share because Zach already shared one of them. No, honestly, that's happened like maybe two or three times in the history of the podcast. And when Bob will go on one of his long like 7 minute, you know, exposes on something about the movie, I'm just like frantically typing in the background, which is hard now that we're on. Video we can see what you're doing now. Yeah, you can see when the eyes glaze over and Brad starts opening a new tab here. So that's why we brought Zach in to help add some of that context without it being just me for 7 minutes. Zach, before we dive into Brad explains and Brad can offer some context for his return to this movie. Tell us a little bit about your history with this movie. I mean, you said it came out during film school. You're already a big history buff, so you knew a lot about Jesse James.

4:19 What was it about this movie that that got its hooks into you? And I guess you know, don't spoil too much, but does it still have its hooks in you all these years later? So this is a film I watch probably once a year. I own it. I don't just rent it. I think a big part of it is it reminded me a lot of the, the like, I hate this term, but revisionist westerns of the 70s and 80s that led to Unforgiven. So everything from Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid to, you know, became Miller and, you know, Heaven's Gate and that sort of big, epic, but very cinematic, unique sort of Western film that this is obviously the progeny of.

5:12 It just sort of was the films that my dad and I would bond over. Even, you know, if you look at Eastwood from, you know, outlaw Josie Wales and the sort of the way that was able to revise a look at the West, Jeremiah Jones, you know, films like that as well that also led to Unforgiven. And then this was, you know, if you kind of take a a little bit of a travel back in time, there haven't been a a true western revival ever. Really like that was in the 70s eighties. Well, sorry, 50s, sixties, 70s, little bit of the 80s. Unforgiven was sort of the last Great Western arguably until this. You know IA big fan of 310 to Yumo which I think came out in O 8 or maybe around the same time I think. It might have been the same year as this. Yeah, obviously No Country for Old Men is a modern Western, which I think again came out the same year. So there is a definite for me, this film was kind of like a reawakening of that revisionist era of Western film that it could be epic, it could be big, it could be very cinema forward and not just, you know, you know, silly shootouts and killing Indians in like the back lot at, you know, some Italian studio.

6:38 And not that there's anything wrong with those films. They have their place. But you know, this was for me and that, you know, now that I'm thinking about it, I was in film school and I wrote a western after this film. So this was probably why I wrote that Western SO. There you go. Well, are you going to, are you going to share it with us here? Are we just going to turn this into a a table read for your western script? No, it was about a older brother getting his little brother to safety after a bar fight that he accidentally killed, like the, you know, the big guy in town's son and then sort of them on the road in in like between Washington and into the mountains back in like the late 1890s.

7:28 So it had a little bit of that, you know, stuck between the past and the industrialization of America, even in the West. And, you know, it's a very classic story of, you know, family doing everything you can for family to a point where, you know, sort of destroys them, destroys everybody and. What I hear you saying is it was like the Fast and the Furious set in the 1890s. Exactly, Exactly. It actually stars Vin Diesel. Brad. Yeah, that's all right, guys. Well, let's let's talk a little bit about this movie. And I think the best way to get into that is to get into our first segment of the day, which we call, Brad explains. Brad's going to give us the movie plot with only 60 seconds ticking on the clock, so let's go ahead and do your take with this little segment that we call Brad explains. Brad Explains is the part of the show where Brad breaks down the plot of the movie that he has just seen, at least for the second time.

8:24 Now, Brad, I am going to go out on just a massive limb here and say that you have not even remotely thought about rewatching this movie since 2019 when we first watched it. I we've known for a while now that we are going to do this rewatch season. And so I have been like holding on 'cause I have been curious. I really hated this movie, Bob. I found myself the first time we we watched it. I was like, I don't know, 50 to 60 minutes in and I was so bored and I, like checked how much time was left and I literally felt like anger and hatred in my soul towards you specifically.

9:06 Yeah. I, I couldn't understand the idea that you were making me watch this. And I, and looking back, I always thought I was like, man, like I I need to give it a second chance. Maybe I was having a bad day and so I watched it again for the podcast. Once again, you made me watch this movie, Bob. I did, I did. And Brad, you've done such a good job at hiding your feelings so far. Thank you so much for burying the lead. No one can tell what you think of this movie to this point. And I think Trap Baby, let's keep going down that path and let's give just the most impartial, objective take about what this movie is about. Because you have 60 seconds on the clock, Brad, to break down the plot of this movie with full spoilers, this movie that is once again called The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. So, Brad, one minute and go.

10:00 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a film that follows the aforementioned Jesse James and Robert Ford as they enter into the end of the Jesse James gang. They have finished their last heist, if you will. It follows Robert Ford as he joins the gang for one last heist on a train. After that, all the gang members slowly go their separate ways and Jesse gets super paranoid and slowly starts to kill them all. All the while Robert Ford, who was obsessed with Jesse James as a child, realizes that he actually hates him and maybe wants to have sex with him and gets the reward money for killing him. The end.

10:47 When Zooey Deschanel's in it randomly and then James Carville's there and they're just kind of doing things. Why not man so? Can can I say when the very end of the film, when Casey Affleck is like finally like resigned to his fate and like he's like older at this point. I don't know if it's like 1015 years after, you know, he kills him. Incredible. That last like 5 minutes of the film. He is stellar. And I was like, in the rest of the movie, not so much. I, I think here's the best way to approach this, Brad, I want you to be able to speak your piece today before getting steamrolled by both Zach and myself. And so you know what, the floor is yours, man. I would like to hear a pawn rewatch. What are your thoughts on on this movie? Have they changed at all or become more nuanced at all since the last time and now especially since we've seen so many other movies in between?

11:51 And in particular, I, you know, I kind of texted you and said I was excited to see what you thought of this on the other side of Unforgiven. You know, does this work the way that Unforgiven does? Does it not, you know, talk a little bit about those things. Like I said before, we just cut you off and tell you that you're you're not allowed to talk anymore. Yeah, no, totally. I Unforgiven works in a way that this movie never could because Unforgiven submits itself to the traditional movie narrative structure. And while it upends a lot of the, you know, Zach, like what you were talking about earlier, it it kind of upends these tropes about what a Western was in the revisionist history. Like Unforgiven dives into the grittiness and the grossness of what it means to be a killer in the West. So I but it's still like falls within a traditional structure that is enjoyable to watch.

12:51 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is about as long as its name is in comparison to other movies. It. And it doesn't have a point to the length. I think that, like, that's the frustration for me is that the movie doesn't need to be this long to give you what you get because what you get is like 0 character development. Like it, it moves at a glacier's pace for you to get to know all these side characters who are about the shallowest human beings I've ever seen. It's one of those things where I'm like, when I heard about this movie, or like I saw that we were watching it the first time, It's like I knew who Jesse James was, but I have no memory of learning about Jesse James, right?

13:42 Right, right. You know what? I mean, I'm like, yeah, yeah, I just, I'm like, Oh yeah. He was this like Western bank robber guy. Yeah, where I picked that up from. He almost falls into like the comic book culture of like, you read Hulk but you didn't read Iron Man, or you read the Hulk but you didn't read Batman, right? And so if you didn't read Batman, then who the fuck is Batman, right? And especially with these guys. So then we'll get into this later. They're so mythologized and the the actual Jesse James isn't even real anymore 'cause the real guy was a huge piece of shit. But I have a point about that later. But it's sort of it's, it's interesting because 28 movies every single decade, there's a couple. Yeah, that's nuts.

14:41 None since this though. This was the last one. It killed it man. This movie destroyed it. Assassinated Jesse James. He was like, man, if this is what it does to a a director's career, I'm out. Yeah. All right, guys, I want to get back into talking about the movie a little bit here. And if you're watching the video, you will see that Brad and I have now changed clothes. We're recording this on another day. So you know what, Brad, welcome back into talking about Jesse James. Technical difficulties. Somehow Bob and I still managed to match. Almost. We look great, and Zach is still wearing the same shirt he was wearing three days ago. So like, he's just been sitting at the desk waiting for us to return, I think is what actually happened here. Zach, I just believe in continuity. Yeah, I think it's really interesting your point about there being 28 Jesse James movies and this being the last one.

15:35 And I want to get back to what Brad was talking about. You know, you said Unforgiven was much more successful than this film in your eyes because it followed that sort of conventional structure and that this one didn't. And I, I want to go a little bit deeper on that. What about this movie to you didn't follow a conventional structure? Because I, I hate to throw around terms like poetic, but I definitely do think this movie is very much like look a leaf look the the field of wheat that we can linger on for a moment. And and I still think the story itself is very linear and like well thought out and pretty conventional. So is it just something about like the pacing of the movie that felt unconventional to you?

16:21 Well, it I mean, yes, the pacing is glacial. Like this is one of the slowest paced movies I've ever watched and I like, I don't mind a slow paced film. There are movies that deserve a slow pace. I don't know if the waning years of a famous outlaw and his final days deserve a two hour and 40 minute runtime. And I I've I feel like another thing that shows me that the director didn't know where he was going with this film. It it's a really small thing, but the the narration of the film feels very off and it doesn't, it doesn't fit or vibe for me. And it feels like a tacked on, like he realized at the end, like, ah, crap, we this movie isn't quite making sense. We need to throw some narration in there, partially because of things like and Jesse James had a condition where he blinked his eyes too much and then that's.

17:30 Actually, my favorite thing is that they don't. He's like, it's a holding on his face and he doesn't blink the whole time they're talking about that. Raise my hand. Go ahead. Go ahead, Jack. Go ahead. So what's sort of beautiful and I actually ended up reading this whole script in the last three days. It's sort of phenomenal script while. You're sitting in that chair waiting for. Us to record that's. All I was doing the last three days, just sitting here reading the script, the narration is 100% there. There's actually way more of it. And so they actually turned the narration down. And what's beautiful about the narration, especially in this film, is when all the stuff they're saying about Jesse James, they're showing the exact opposite because everything they're saying is a myth. Rooms did not get hotter when he went in them. He did not do any of this shit they're talking about. He didn't have that condition where a blink. That's a myth that we're in all the dime story novels. And So what they're doing is Dominic's doing is setting up the juxtaposition between this is the myth that everybody thinks here's the actual asshole he was because he was a terrorist and an idiot.

18:31 And in the opening narration, it's actually 4 pages long in the script, which is insane. It goes much deeper into who he really was, as in he was superstitious and he believed the dumbest shit imaginable because he was, it was 1870s and 1880s of people believed in dumb shit. You know, like bleachers are going to cure your tuberculosis or whatever. And, you know, he believed he was really superstitious and he was, you know, he didn't believe in religion, but he was like super into God. And you know, all this stuff that was supposedly reported, what he was actually like, and also the fact that he was a man of his time and he was an uneducated, dumb shit terrorist. That's what it. Should have been called assassination of the uneducated. Dumb shit terrorist.

19:15 But they, and so they, they sort of condensed that in the film to that 2 minutes, a narration that we actually do get to show that this isn't the myth. This isn't the other 27 films about Jesse James. This is who he is. And at this time, he's a paranoid weirdo. Yep, living amongst idiots like they, they go to great lengths in that narration state. This is a whole new crew and they're all country rubes. You know, they're people who are uneducated, lost in Missouri, basically lost to Kentucky, this, this Tennessee, you know, who maybe probably maybe saw the war, but were probably born a little bit after it during Reconstruction when, you know, there's probably no access to education just basically. And so that's what's sort of brilliant about the narration, because it shifts towards not getting too far ahead of ourselves here.

20:08 But as it shifts towards when Bob decides he's going to actually kill Jesse, when he's in that last house and he's walking around by himself hit, the narration shifts to his inner monologue of him writing the myth of Bob Ford and how he makes the rooms harder when he's in them. And he does that. And so it's him thinking that he's going to take that place that Jesse took. And that's why the narration shifts. And man, every time I read like a critic, I respect being like, why are they telling me what's he's doing on screen? And it's like, that's the point. It's him telling the story in his head, the way he thinks the dime store novels are going to tell it, right. And so, you know, as I sorry if we've, I think we've mentioned this offline, but you know, Roger Dinkins loves this film. The cinematographer, he's on record recently still saying that the Train Robbery scene is his favorite shot he's ever done in cinema, which is wild when you can go look up the guy's resume.

21:09 But he still defends it. He says the four hours cut a can, the four hour cut of this was incredible. And you understand why when you read the script in that it is a two-part film. The first half is Jesse James and he gets killed, and the second-half is Bob Ford. So that whole, like, truncated last 30 minutes. It's actually what would have been the second-half of the film that Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers was like, well, Brad Pitt's dead. We got to get out of here. So they cut out all the Bob Ford stuff where you see him get famous and not become Jesse James because he killed him. He didn't become him right now. He wasn't. You know, you can't turn a murderer into a Robin Hood figure, whether it's real or not, right?

21:54 So that's what's sort of fascinating in that what was taken out actually would have made it maybe better. It would have. Deepened it a little bit, yeah. And I want to go back to this narration thing because, Brad, I feel like in a lot of ways, it kind of is the skeleton key to the whole movie. Not just in that it, like, blatantly tells you what the movie's about, but like, I think the first time we watched this, I compared it to the movie Seabiscuit because that is another movie based on a novel. And the opening narration and the narration throughout that movie is designed to situate you historically, not just in the time period. But everything that the narrator in that movie talks about is technological progress and like, the development of the Model T Ford.

22:37 And then you have these three guys who can't break into a society that has moved past horse racing, and the fact that they can't is what actually brings them together around this horse. Seabiscuit It's a really interesting way of using narration, not just to describe what's on screen, but to, you know, tease out the themes of your movie. And I feel like this movie does that as well. And I, you know, I keep going back and forth on like, should my let's make it a double B Seabiscuit? Should it be Unforgiven? Because we've definitely dealt with themes like the mythologizing of the American West before. But I don't know if we've ever seen it done quite like this where, you know, not only is your central figure a bad guy, Allah, the searchers, right? But then you're constantly grappling with the myth versus the reality, Allah, the man who shot Liberty Valence. So like there's there's homages to other westerns. There's a there's homages to this overly mythologizing of the American West.

23:39 And I think that for me, that's kind of the entry point. I'm with you in that, like, it's a slow paced movie. I don't think every character decision always makes sense. And I kind of like that. I like that from scene to scene. It's like, you know, if Jesse was able to be diagnosed with something like my guy is bipolar, like my guy legitimately has bipolar disorder, and no one would have been able to tell that. But then it's not just that. It's the it's the actual earned paranoia of I'm being hunted by the law. I can't trust anybody. I want to be able to trust somebody. And I think Pitt is at his best in this movie in those moments where he's either purposely needling somebody and seeing how they'll react and then getting disappointed when he can tell that they're going along with it because they're trying to throw him off the scent. Or the opposite, when he's actually being vulnerable with somebody.

24:33 And then something clicks within him where he realizes this person's also betraying me. And you see the woundedness of Jesse. I I just really like that Pitt is able to play everything from manic to super depressive to cold blooded killer to kind of almost like jilted lover in a lot of ways with with the people around him in this movie. And dad, like you see him playing with his kids earnestly, you know, and I think I mentioned before, this is Brad Pitt entering his daddy phase after his pretty boy phase as an actor. You know, this is around Tree of Life. And you know, Inglourious Basterds comes right after this and that's when he becomes Daddy Pitt. And you know, it's sort of it's funny though, I think the real unsung hero of this film after we watching it again is Sam Rockwell, cause Rockwell as.

25:23 Absolutely. As Charlie Ford, like he's this dip shit, funny guy, always having fun with the boys. But that moment when they're at the grocery and he brings Bob Ford out, you know, to bring him back into the the fold. And Charlie's standing there behind the horse. And then he just, like, turns into this, like, very serious person. He's like, listen, man, this isn't a fucking joke. This is real. And he's like that whole Charlie Ford we've seen up until that point is completely gone. And he is like, an utterly different character. And you realize the whole time, you know, this is some poor kid who basically got through life by being the funny, dopey guy who I'm sure, you know, we've all been a little bit of or we all know someone who was like that in college. You know who that was what helped him get by to, you know, make friends and, you know, get ahead when, like the when things are cards are on the table.

26:15 The way Sam Rockwell is able to shift that character while making it believable that he's still the same Charlie Ford we saw sitting there joking about, you know, women in the forest with, you know, Dick Little and wood height at the beginning of the movie. Or you know the guy who's serious with Brad Pitt as well, like the scenes they have in the house when he's sleeping over and they're talking and like there's just a just a beauty to his performance. Sam Rockwell is far and away the best part of this movie for me. Like he it is that moment where you can tell that the dumb Hick is not totally an act. But when he lets it drop and goes, look, I understand what's going on here.

26:59 Like, and he does it once with Pitt when Pitt is like interrogating him in in the middle of the night. And then he does it with his brother. And that that descent for him into madness and suicide and committing suicide. I like if they made a movie about that, if you had like the train scene and like 20 minutes of Jesse James getting murdered and then a movie about Rockwell's descent into depression and, and I would, I would have been totally in for that because Sam Rockwell is incredible in this movie. Yeah, yeah. And I and I think sort of picking up on what you're saying, Bob, about like the American Western especially, but I think the American story, and I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here, but like people misunderstand the Superman is in the American ethos mythos, right?

27:54 People always think Superman is Jesus. Zack Snyder made Superman, Jesus. Brian Singer made Superman Jesus. Superman is not Jesus. He's specifically Zack Snyder. Yeah, he's specifically Moses. Like Jerry Siegel has said, he is Moses, period. He is here to lead us out of the desert. That's the whole point of Superman. And thank God James Gunn understood that like, he's not Jesus. And this is, I think what is also exemplified with Jesse James is Jesse James is a prototype for a comic book character, a hero that wasn't real but was mythologicalized as someone like that. And people I've reading reviews for this film try to put the Jesus parable onto it with, you know, like Bob washing his hands before he kills them.

28:41 It's like, well, that's not what's happening in that scene at all because he hasn't decided to kill him yet till he goes inside. But like all these things. And it's like, that's not it. Like Jesse James is a false idol. He's a golden calf that we are desperate, desperate to find because, and this is the mythos, Americans are the Israelites lost in the desert. I mean, this isn't me making this up. This is manifest destiny. People have made this, been making this point since the 1800s. And we have a desire to worship a new God, to worship, you know, something here as we move West. And Jesse James was one of those first false idols. I mean, it's so pointed in Andrew Dominic's film that when O'kelly goes to kill him, he stops at a blacksmith's and melts down metal to put it in his shotgun. Just like Moses belted down the idol and made the idolaters eat it when he came off the mountain and raged. I mean, it's the same thing, you know? So there's the idea that, you know, Bob worshipped Jesse James as this false idol, as a Moses, and then he realized that maybe I can be the idol and was not and was, I mean, literally shotgunned with the melted down medal of the idol. And boom, there it goes.

30:05 Yeah. So we we don't need to preach anymore. We're done. Zach's got it, man. But, you know, and that's needs having a very basic understanding of that sort of story, like I and that's, you know, just the bullet points. But I I find that fascinating. Those are some great bullet points, Zach. But it's also that's the American story that's unforgiven false idol tree. You know the whole duck of death, right? Like that's that or even little Bill. Same thing with outlaw Josie Wales. Like they make Josie Wales into this idol and he's not their hero. Like he he has to tell them over and over and you can come with me, but I'm not be the good guy, you know. And of course, you know, it's it's it's manifest destiny. And that's what sort of is beautiful about this film for me is seeing that in that we have to stop worshipping these false idols.

30:57 Jesse James was a terrorist and a bad person, and he was not a hero, no matter what the newspaper said in New York or what the newspaper said in San Francisco. But the idea that we're so desperate for these heroes and it it, it rings for me. It rings true as a deeply American story. I want to go back just a little bit though to what we were talking about with among the cast of characters here, because you guys were talking about Sam Rockwell. I do think Sam Rockwell, especially in the cut that Zach is describing, the four hour cut, this sounds like a guy waiting to collect his Oscar, right? Like that, that role is perfectly set up to see that arc that you don't get to see now because of the the two hour cut, 2 hour and 40 minute cut.

31:44 And I keep thinking, you know, top to bottom, this cast is incredible. And a lot of these guys were kind of on the cusp of stardom and hadn't quite gotten there. And that's how you get a cast, you know, a bench this deep. Like Jeremy Renner. You don't expect to see him in a movie like this anymore, but you could catch him as wood height in 2007. But when I kind of zoom out and look at the overarching story here, I do wish that we had gotten 20 more minutes post assassination to watch the fallout. And you could cut 20 minutes of Dick Little commenting on people's genitals and would height and him and their hijinks. And I understand that it's for Jesse.

32:25 It's kind of the inciting incident that that sends him on his murder spree that remind, you know, it's like when Robert De Niro has everybody killed and Goodfellas after the Lufthansa heist. It's it's like that except stretched out for 45 minutes. And I just feel like if there's a stretch of the movie that needs tightened up drastically, it's that stretch of the movie. I thought when he went and visited Garrett Delahunt, whatever his name in the movie is, you know, the guy that's like living by himself and looks hollowed out and is terrified when Jesse comes. And man, that's incredible stretch. It's so good. It's like one of the best 10 minute stretches of the whole movie. But Paul Schrader getting stuffed into a small, what's that? Ed Miller, the Dick little character getting stuffed in a closet repeatedly and found by people is just. We needed to move that along a little bit, Brad. Agree.

33:19 And that's the that's the problem is the the film wants to have a tone like a capital TI am an artiste. Then I am setting the tone and then you have Dick little just running around following his penis trying to get laid and you're like. Country roofs. I mean, yeah, but jeez, Louise, does it have anything to do with Jesse James and Robert and the coward Robert Ford and the tension between the no. What are we doing here? Man, well I mean it sets like the I agree 100%. It can be. If you're going to cut something out, you can cut that down to 5 minutes and it sets up that Bob is a killer because he kills wood without any sort of remorse, but you can accomplish that so much more quickly.

34:10 Honestly, cut the entire thing out and we the audience don't even know if Dick Little did it or not. Tell me that that's not better because now it sets you up as like, oh man, I don't know if Robert Ford is defending an innocent or you know, I guess wood height isn't necessarily innocent or guilty. He's just trying to protect his father. So it's like, is he helping the right person or the wrong person? We don't know. And all of a sudden there's more ambiguity about it. And you didn't have 45 minutes of of Dick. Little running. And I think this is this is also sort of a problem with revisionist historical drama in general, where they stick too close to the actual story because that's what did happen in real life. All that, you know, like they could, you know, the Kentucky plantation house and blah blah, blah, like that did happen to be wood and Dick and so but it's also like it's a movie, man. Like we can take artistic license also to say this more quickly.

35:07 Why do their names have to be Wood and Dick? Come on. Because. Because history loves us. It's it's beautiful, man, having a character named Dick Little. It's just it that should have been like the 5th Anchorman at the Channel 4 News team. That's. Like. It's it's perfect. Oh my God. I do want to end on the street Dick Little move up a level here and and get to like our two leads, though we've touched a little bit on Brad Pitt's performance. I want to talk about Casey Affleck. So Affleck is nominated for best supporting actor at the Academy Awards, which I, you know, I think is category fraud. Jesse is definitely more of a supporting character than Robert Ford is here. And, and again I maybe if this is the four hour cut, then we see Casey Affleck getting the lead actor nomination instead of the supporting actor nomination.

35:57 Brad, I bring this up mostly because I remember in season 1 you, you found the Casey Affleck performance to be really grating. And I'm wondering if that's still the case because I thought he I, for me, I thought he did a really good job of playing a, a super insecure 19 year old. I think when we meet him, who has worshipped somebody all through his boyhood, who hasn't quite reached adulthood yet and is feigning maturity, and then to see where he goes at the end of the movie, I really found the performance to be excellent. I do think that like his I'm a teenager voice. Sure, that could use some tweaking, but I thought it was a good performance overall. Brad.

36:39 Yeah, I I think that Casey does a really good job here overall, and this is nothing that he could have controlled. He does not look 19. I think that's one of the problems is when he's like scrambling on the floor to keep the guys from looking at his Jesse James collection under the bed. He looks like a 31 year old scrambling under the bed trying to keep them from his like superhero comic book collection. That's your point. Have you seen the meme that go that's been going around of like the Penn State offensive line from like 1988? And it's, it's like guys staring at the camera being like, I'm, you know, Biff Jones or whatever.

37:21 And they look like they're 48 years old, dude. And this was just in the 80s. So I can't imagine what a 19 year old in the 1870s looked like. The amount of drugs that they were doing by the time they hit like 19 or 20 in the 80s, yeah, it does. Yeah, I remember people being mad that. Frank, I thought you were going to say I remember doing doing all those drugs in the 80s. But it was like, like, because Frank and Jesse were in their like, late 30s, early 40s. I was like, yeah, Frank James lived through the Civil War as an adult. And like, yeah, he might have only been 44 or whatever, but he looked like when you see pictures of him from then, he looked like he was 60.

38:09 Five, yeah. Speaking of another character, I wish we had more time with him 'cause he felt like he could have been a meaningful insight into Jesse that we just never got. Which I mean, like I understand it's about Robert's point of the Bob's point of view, but he. Had to go sell shoes, man. He had to go sell shoes. Yeah, that's that's what we all have to do after we spend 12 years robbing people. I mean, that's what she it's shocking because that's what he did. It that's wild. Yeah, he just, I mean, he did other stuff, but mostly he ended. He did. He became a shoe salesman, did some other stuff, tried to be like a lawman, went back to selling shoes. Hey.

38:51 If that's not a classic, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Americana story, literally. We. Started on he. Even sold those bootstraps to himself. As petty criminals and now here we are, entrepreneurs. What's, what's even more wild is that, and I mean, I don't know how much you guys know about like Wyatt Earp and all that mythology, but you know, Wyatt Earp went to Hollywood to be a basically consultant, right? Jesse James Junior, the son of Jesse James who we see in this film, played Jesse James in the first two films about Jesse James in 1921 and 1922. There you go. That's why. Which is, yeah, like is how close that is basically in time when you think about it. Yeah.

39:34 And. Well, dude, I. I just saw a thing the other day. The last widow of a Civil War vet died in 2020. Did you guys know this? Yeah, because she. Was 17 and married a 90 something year old so that she would get his civil war government benefits right. Right. Wow. Wow. Wildman. Yeah. That's like when you. That's like when you hear that, like James Polk's grandson is still alive or something, you know? Yeah. Wait, what is happening, Brad? Do you know what it is? This is wild time. Do you know what else is old Brad?

40:14 What's that, Bob? Overholt Boom. Overholt is so old. I think that what we should do is let's hit pause here, Brad. We'll talk a little bit more about Brad Pitt when we come back from the break because this is a very Brad Pitt centric season on film and whiskey. And I think that we we've really seen the different shades of the Brad Pitt acting experience. And so I want to pick your brain. 50 Shades of pit. 50 Shades of pit baby. New podcast name I call it. Let's drink this old Overholt. Brad, what do you say? Dude, I'm ready. Let's do it. All right, so today we are checking out Old Overholt 4 Year Rye.

40:59 Now, Brad, this is a super complicated history of old. And four years old don't necessarily. This doesn't jive right. I mean I guess being as this is from like the oldest continually operating distillery in America or or label in America, it started in 1810. Perhaps given the infant mortality rate back then 4 was considered old. You never know. That's true. Yeah, that is very true. Lots of history has been happening with the old Overholt brand, which is owned by Santori now as part of the Jim Beam portfolio. So when we tried this in 2020, the baseline expression was an 80 proof whiskey and then later in 2020, it looks like I'm reading off of a website here, they did a full relaunch of the brand with a proof change that upped it to 86 proof. They also released a bonded expression, hold, over hold, bottled and bond, and an over proof version, the 1:14, which we've tried on the show before, but now they've actually gone back and redone the standard version again. Not only is it 86 proof, but it now carries a four year age statement, whereas the previous version was a blend where the oldest was only three years old.

42:13 So there's been tons of different changes. I'm kind of glad that we didn't try them all and we can just kind of come back to whatever the standard version of old Overholt is now. Brad, suffice it to say, it's still super affordable because they only sell it in a one liter bottle. And I think Brad, we paid like $21.00 for it in the state of Kentucky. So I'll take that all day, man. Yeah, this is not an expensive whiskey. In Ohio I believe you can get a 750 for 20 bucks. From where I look. Up so which is still very affordable yeah very affordable whiskey. I'm going to dive in. I like the nose on this is it's all sorts of sweet mint like I I think about like a gum, like a sweet mint flavored gum.

43:04 There's vanilla frosting on it. It's not an overly complex nose that like it doesn't dive into being very spicy the way I would want it to, but it's an overall pleasant nose. I'll give it a 7 out of 10. When I was in Korea, I fell in love with these treats that they had there that were not quite a cookie. It was almost like a a cross between a sponge cake and like a shortbread. It was real chewy and dense and inside of it, it had a pineapple filling that was not like, it wasn't like a donutty jam filling. It was like it was sweet but not overly sweet. And dude, I ate so many of those freaking things when I got when I got home, I was like, we have to find them. We ordered them on Amazon.

43:48 They're like $30 'cause they had to ship them from freaking Korea. This is that all day. It's cakey, it's bready. And I got, when I popped my bottle, dude, I got 5 minutes of just uninterrupted pineapple on the nose of this thing, which I never ever get on whiskey. I just put pineapple cake and pineapple juice all day. It's like a tiki drink made of rye. 9 out of 10. That's all I got to say. 9 out of 10. I loved this nose dude. Wow, yeah, I dude, I'm happy for you. I I wasn't like blown away by anything, but it was good. Yeah. I mean, I think for me it was like, I know that this is probably not going to be a nine out of 10W, but I've never experienced this before, so I might as well reward it now before something lets me down eventually.

44:38 Yeah, totally. Dude. I I think on the palate, what I really picked up, that sweet mint continues to stick around. It has a nice simple syrup vibe going on, a nice pleasant sugariness to it. The the thing that made it stand out for me is once again, it didn't really get spicy on the palate. It reminded me, to your credit, Bob, of like a Lorna Dune shortbread biscuit type of flavor. That was really pleasant. I liked it. Once again, not very complex. I'm going to come down a tiny bit from the nose. I'll give it a 6 1/2. This is this is like a nice pleasant minty rye. Yeah, I do think that over the last couple days, as my bottle has kind of like gotten acclimated to being open, a lot of that pineapple is gone this time around.

45:25 So I'm looking at my notes that I took from four days ago versus right now. It's definitely more in that minty rye category. I will say, almost no actual rye grain on the nose or the palate, which makes me wonder if this is more of like a 5149 kind of rye mash bill. I'm not entirely sure. I like it. It's pleasantly sweet. It does have that kind of like spearmint gum thing going on. There's a hint of fruitiness. I wouldn't call it pineapple. I'll come down to a 7 out of 10 here on the pallet, Brad. The finish is where things kind of for me fell back into the rye category. The mints turned into like a dill eucalyptus kind of insinuation I guess. The shortbread stuck around that Lorna Dune vibe and the rye finally kind of stuck the landing. I felt like as I let it sit for a little while and like remembered what I had drank, I could taste that rye spice coming through.

46:29 I'm going to come back up from that 6 1/2. I'll give it a 7 out of 10 on the finish. And I think balance wise, I'm at a 7 out of 10. Like, like it's not complex, it's not bad. There's a lot of nice pleasant rye flavors that end with the rye spice so. Yeah, I'm, I'm way more disappointed than I was a couple days ago. I'm like changing my scores in real time here. I do think that, like, you know, the finish is pretty good. It just, I wrote down sweet and fruity. I think today I would add minty. There's a touch of bitterness to it. You said eucalyptus. I started thinking like Vick's Vapo rub. There's a little bit of that like almost medicinal thing going on at the back end here too.

47:09 Still, for a $20 whiskey, it has character. Do I love every note in the the palette here? Not necessarily, But like this could taste a hell of a lot more bland than it does and I'm glad it doesn't. So I'll give it a 7 out of 10 and I'll also go ahead and give it a 7.5 on value or I'm sorry, on balance overall, 'cause I think that the nose definitely tipped me off into like, well, this is going to be some tropical fruits that it didn't really deliver on overall in the, you know, the pallet or the finish. So 7 1/2 here, Brad, when we get to value, we tend to judge it by what we can get in the state of Ohio. So if you're correct that there's a 750 in Ohio for 20 bucks, I would give that like an 8 out of 10 value. I like the one liter that we got for $22.00 or whatever, a lot better than that, but I don't really think my score is going to change.

48:04 This is not like the the world's greatest budget whiskey, but it's a pretty darn good mixer rye that you can also drink neat. I'll give it an 8 out of 10. I'm right there with you Bob. 8 out of 1020 bucks. There's some good flavors here. You can drink it neat. If you wanted to make a Manhattan or another ribase drink that this would work. I'm coming to out to a 35 1/2 out of 50 Bob. Yeah, I'm coming out to a 38 1/2 Brad. So like, this is pretty darn give. It a nine out of 10. I mean. Let's on the nose. Let's not split hairs here, Brad. Come on. Look, this is a really wonderfully cheap expression of rye whiskey.

48:46 If you're looking to try out a rye on the budget shelf, Old Overhaul Rye has got your back. It's 86 proof. It's got a good amount of flavor. It'll let you have a good time with it. I'm I'm, I'm in for this. I would recommend it. I would too. We're coming out to a 74 out of 100 or a 37 out of 50 on average. Brad in the old Siskel and Ebert Vane I I would say 2 thumbs up on this bad boy. I like this a lot and it's freaking cheap so you know. Yeah, pull up a chair with your friends Wood Height and Dick Little and grab a bottle of old. Old Dick and Wood. Brad, what do you say we rejoin Zach and get back into talking about the assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford? I would love to talk about the assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

49:40 With you and Zach. Let's get to it, man. All right, that was old Overholt 4 year rye for my taste at least, Brad, a hell of a budget rye pour. I will drink that all day. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Man, a really beautiful $20 experience. Brad, it's got me feeling pretty confident because we have with us here a guy who has read the entire script of the four hour cut of this movie, which bodes well for our next segment of the day, which we call 2 Facts and a Falsehood. Brad. Is gonna try to stump you. Ball 2 are right and what is wrong? 2 facts and a falsehood. 2 Facts and a Falsehood is the part of the show where Brad presents me with three items as fact about the making of this movie, one of which is a complete lie. Brad, I'm I'm kind of iffy this season and I'm up and down. I don't I don't know if I've even had a two game win streak yet this season.

50:42 So you've definitely been keeping me on my toes here. I I'm curious to see how this one goes. You. You don't sound confident in yourself here man. I just, I've done this enough to know where this is going to end. So Are you ready? The way you said that, no, I'm not ready. I'm going to ask you a question first. The way you said that, you sound so resigned. You reminded me of Jesse James at the end of this movie and and now that makes me wonder in our relationship, are you more likely to? Turn around and Polish this copy of Tree of Life here for a minute. Don't mind me. Are you more likely to be the Jesse James or the Robert Ford of the two of us, bro?

51:23 I am obviously Jesse James. Oh come on, man. I'm just, I'm just saying our relationship is pretty, pretty clear here. I have always been jealous of your height and ability to to snag women, you know, So I'm just going to, I'm going to be jealous of you. I'm going to shoot you in the back of the head. What's going to happen, man? I don't blame you man, you, You do what you need to do. The Lord will judge us all. Hit me with your two facts and a falsehood, Brad. Fact number one In reality, Jesse James suffered from a syndrome that made him blink much more than the average person. Although it's mentioned at the start of the film, Brad Pitt barely blinks during most of his scenes. Fact #2 The Ballad of Jesse James was a folk song based on a poem written by Stephen Foster, one of the first popular songwriters of the 19th century.

52:20 Fact #3 When Jesse goes looking for Jim Cummins, another great name, he introduced himself as Dick Turpin, legendary English rogue and Hwy. robber of the 1730s. Turpin was romanticized in English ballads and popular theater of the 18th and 19th century. All right, Zach. Here's where I'm at with this one. I'm pretty sure that you just said that the Jesse James blinking thing was bullshit. So I've got #1 circled multiple times in red pen. But just for the sake of good content here, I think that number two, I, I've read something to that effect.

53:00 Now I don't remember if it was Stephen Foster, but I'm pretty sure that the poem that Nick Cave performs in the movie as a song is a real pre-existing poem or song lyrics #3 I don't know a thing about Dick Turpin. I did wonder why, he said. That that's that's real. That's definitely yeah. Dick Turpin is a oh, Noel from Bake Off. He just did a show about Dick Turpin on Apple TV. It's a very famous, very famous old highway, all right. Well, then it kind of sounds like we're we're taking #1 here I. Was just reading all the songs by Stephen Foster like 2 days ago.

53:43 Don't remember seeing the Ballad of Jesse. James song. Wait a minute. As it so happens, I was thumbing through the Great American Songbook 2 days. Ago I was I was catching up on the chord structure of parlor music. I know that sounds weird. Actually. Yeah, yeah. You know, the, the progression from Beethoven's Turkish March to, you know, Cap town races, There's a progression there. But because it threw me, because it was like I I just looked through his whole like list and because he wrote like my old Kentucky home and Cap on races and all those things like, and I don't remember seeing, I think he was dead already before Jesse James died because he died young. So are we going to?

54:34 I I also like it's I positive that the whole blinking thing was made-up like it's been it's a myth that he had that whatever that condition was. OK. Then listen, I'm not we're we cannot stray from God's truth here. I. Content Bob. I'm trying to make content. I'm going to say #1 is the falsehood and that Zach just skipped over one page in the Scott Foster songbook. Stephen. Stephen Scott Foster is an NBA referee. That's yeah. He has no songbook. He has a playbook maybe? I have so many thoughts here, guys. A greatest line in film and whiskey podcast history.

55:17 I was thumbing through Stephen Foster's song book the other day. Really. Zach and B, That is 2 losses for you, Bob. No, now I want to remind you of two key things. Key thing #1 When we have a guest on, it's worth 2 losses if you lose. Key thing #2 My facts are lifted straight from IMDb and I, I just made-up #2 Zach, you, you nailed me. You had me against the wall. I, you shot me like the coward Robert Ford. You had me dead to rights. Yeah, like I said, he died before Jesse James did. 100% I just, I literally googled who were famous songwriters in the 19th century and it said Stephen Foster wrote Camptown races. And I was like, I've heard of that. We're using Stephen Foster.

56:17 I'm so mad right now. I'm sorry, Bob. Zach, listen man, This is why we bring experts on. I can say you pick not me and and you said my hands are clean my friend. Well, I I'm it's frustrating because I caught it too. Like I caught a lie because I was like you. 100% caught it, yeah. But I was like, but wait a minute. If there was ever a time, Bob, that you deserved both losses, this is it. Well, but then he said also I'm positive that number 1 is a lie, so. Well, IMDBI mean. Yeah, I was going to say, if we can find conclusive proof that one is a lie, can I claw back one of the two losses? I'll still take the L for being overconfident. If if you want to make sure that film and Whiskey Nation knows the truth about Jesse James's blinking condition, you can have that win back, all right.

57:08 Well, it looks like Zach's doing some research here. I'm going to segue us out of this weird, weird segment that we just had and back into talking about the movie. And we left off with Brad Pitt. Now, Brad, we've just talked about Brad Pitt a few weeks ago in Tree of Life. We've had him on the podcast this season with Inglorious Basterds. I'm sure there's one that I'm forgetting as well. I like that you say we've had him on as if he was a guest talking about. And honestly, just today I was at the movie theater and I saw a screening of the movie 7, which I have never seen in theaters before. Regal Cinemas is doing this cool thing this month where they're showing a new classic movie every day and I got to see Brad Pitt in Seven and it was really interesting to see young Brad Pitt's acting style versus a more seasoned Moneyball era Brad Pitt.

57:56 And watching him here is interesting too, because he hasn't quite gotten on to what I like to call the post Moneyball autopilot that he's been on. I feel like he's just been playing Billy Beane for 13 consecutive years, which still works. I like Brad Pitt, but it's a very like there's not a lot of modulation in the performances anymore. And and I you. Know man, he's he's not just like doing doing Donuts in a truck randomly in a parking lot Once Upon a time in Hollywood. That's true. I I do feel like here, though, you still get the kind of last glimpses of young Brad Pitt before, as Zach said before he's entering fully into daddy Brad Pitt territory. And you have to remember, like he's coming off of what, like Mr. and Misses Smith is probably the film that he made just before this.

58:47 So, I mean, at the height of his stardom, the, you know, Brangelina thing is blowing up on him. He's grappling with tabloid stuff, and he's making a movie about a guy who has been overly mythologized, who is, you know, has the weight of the world upon him, who can't trust anybody. And I think he plays that sort of hauntedness really beautifully here, Brad. Yeah, Pitt, while I'm with you guys, that Casey Affleck feels like the star of this show, I do think that Pitt's fame and talent on screen is a magnet every time he's on the screen. And it's meant to be that way.

59:28 I think Dominic recognizes that he needs to allow Pitt's presence to play into the mythology behind him. His actions don't really play into it. His madness doesn't really play into it, but his presence makes him feel like this mythological figure that raises the temperature in any room that he walks into. And so I think on that level, Pitt like knocks it out of the park with his brooding deep intensity whenever he stares somebody down. You can understand why so much of literature has kind of this like great man theory of of these these wild men of the world that like you just quake in their presence a little bit. I think.

1:00:13 I think Pitt come portrays that incredibly well. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's interesting. Ocean's 13 comes out earlier in the year, then this is Pitt's run. 2007 to 2011. Assassination of Jesse binge by the Carrot rapper Ford Burn after reading Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Glorious Basterds, Tree of Life, Moneyball. That's a run. Yeah, man, that's a great run. You did forget his one vocal performance in I believe the film Megamind starred Will Ferrell. But we're not going to count that. We're just going to skip over that one. And. Run credit. Everybody gets one. Everybody gets one, Peter He. He he also narrated a World War 2 documentary, Dinner, as well. That balances out, right?

1:01:00 And then, after Moneyball, happy feet, too. Oh yeah, see, we will count that one that ends the run. Fury. Fury was somewhere in there 20. 14 Yep. Yeah, Brad, you know, we were joking about 50 Shades of Pit. Literally weird daddy and fury. That's true. Before we went to break, we were joking about 50 Shades of Pit. I have developed a significant level of respect for the variations on the Brad Pitt, you know, mythos that Brad Pitt is able to evoke. And it's kind of like Tom Cruise a little bit. But I think there's even something maybe more subtle going on there than there is with Tom Cruise. Yeah, from from one end of the spectrum where he can play broad, goofy comedy, like a Burn After reading to something that's really quiet and subtle like a tree of Life.

1:01:48 You know, I think this falls definitely closer to that end of the spectrum. But he's lived on that end of the spectrum for so long, and for him to not make every single performance feel like a carbon copy of each other is really a sign of what a good and subtle actor he can be. Yeah, yeah. I man, my, do you want to know where my brain went? I completely off the rails. You talked about Tom Cruise and my heart started fluttering a little bit. Of course. I really want now that Tommy's done with the Mission Impossible franchise, I want him to have like a like a late era Paul Newman, just like killer movie that you're like, how did we get this, the most charismatic being of our generation in a film like this at like 74 years old? Well, you know, for most of his career, especially since he turned 40, I would say Pitt has been kind of talked about the way we talk about Clooney as like this generation's Cary Grant and how he seems to have modeled his career that way. Everyone has always linked Brad Pitt and Robert Redford. And I think that, you know, we just found out today that Robert Redford passed away at 89.

1:03:03 Absolute legend. And I, I've always found Pitt to be this interesting mash up of Redford's career and Paul Newman's career. I think your your point about Paul Newman is really spot on, man, because as he's gotten older, the roles he's taken on remind me more of late era Newman than they do of late era Redford. But then he, you know, Pitt is also doing a ton of stuff behind the camera. He's got his own production company. He's been nominated for and won Oscars as producer. So he's got his hand in a lot of things. But I look back on a guy like Robert Redford. And as much as I love Redford, I think Pitt as an actor to me has always been able to take it to one more level of I am. I can go beyond my movie stardom to a point where my performance is kind of commenting on my stardom. It's a it's a level of meta that I don't think Redford really ever dabbled in the way that even someone like a Newman did. It's like a like a Birdman.

1:04:04 Yes, yeah, Zach, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, though. Yeah, I think that's pretty valid. I mean, I love Redford to death, but he made some baffling choices in the 80s, you know being. We all, Zach. Yeah, like I've. Established. Already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, he did that film with Michelle Pfeiffer where he's like, you know, 30 years older than her. And there were a couple. And he did that film with Daryl Hannah and Deborah Winger, same sort of thing. And, you know, those movies were pretty bad even for 80s standards. But also, I mean, Redford was a producer. I mean, what he did with Sundance and all that, Like he was, he was a film guy.

1:04:50 And I think when you look at Newman, like Newman was a stage guy, like what he did with Joanne Woodward, you know, like really bringing people into the theater so they could come up then into film, you know, so, so, so many people. I feel like Pitt does that more with his production company Plan B, because he produces so many TV shows and so many movies that it's really incredible. Not to say that Tom Cruise doesn't, but Tom Cruise definitely has that. Like what do you still doing this in your 50s, sixties for kind of vibe like Redford was in the like mid to late 80s, early 90s. You know, a decent proposal with Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore in their 30s and him in his like mid 60s in the 90s. Like that kind?

1:05:41 Of. Reminds me of Cruise. If you put if you put Brad Pitt in that movie today and you know, freaking Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson or somebody. And yeah, but I'm just. Saying Pitt doesn't have to pay. That's dude, that's. All I'm saying, all I can think about right now is network in in network when the whole movie, they're calling these like 67 year old men, middle-aged. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. That's like a major point of yours in that episode, Brad. You're like, where's the middle of middle age? Network Network is a 10 out of 10 movie. I don't know if it understands what middle-aged is. Like we we do have to be barreling towards a pit and Cruz re team up just because of the interview with the vampire stuff and the fact that that was successful, especially for Cruz, like that was him like really sort of breaking out of that.

1:06:33 Like you're just a good looking, fun, funny guy. You know, like obviously I'm born on the 4th of July before that Rain Man, but he was always sort of the Dick. And then he does interview with a vampire where people take him seriously as a character actor a little bit, which then puts him on a run. That's insane, because then he does Mission Impossible, Jerry Maguire as wise shut Mingolia like back-to-back, which is, you know, for insane. And then Mission Impossible 2 and it's like, oh, OK, we're going to reset now. And then Vanilla Sky. Oh man, no, but. Then Minority Report. Yeah, it bounces back eventually, right? So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Guys, I think this is actually now that we're just naming movies at each other.

1:07:17 I think this is actually a really good point in the podcast for us to get into our last segment of the day, which we call let's make it a double. We're near the end of the episodes of Things, listening to the film and Whiskey Show. Let's pair another film with this one. Even if it's struggling. It's the final segment of the day. Now let's make it a double. Let's Make It a Double is where we pick a movie to pair up with this one to make the perfect double feature. Guys, I'm going to jump in and give mine first here because I've been thinking about it all day here. And Brad, you alluded to the Movie Network, and one of the films that I recently saw at Regal in their lineup was Dog Day Afternoon, a movie that I have not revisited since we watched it for the podcast. I freaking love Dog Day Afternoon. And I forgot how the like the slow reveals about Al Pacino's character of Sonny in that movie happen. And in the first hour of it, it's really a movie about the interplay between crime and media and people's desire to be in the spotlight.

1:08:19 And I'd say all that to say, that's not even the movie I'm picking. But it made me think about how this is like a a sub genre of movie. And I recently revisited a movie that I can't wait for us to. Men in tights. Yes, I can't wait for us to get to this actual movie on the show, Brad. Hopefully in the next season or two. I'm I'm going to pick 1967's Bonnie and Clyde, which is one of the most revolutionary movies in the history of American cinema. From the way it's edited and shot to how shocking the violence and sex is in that movie to the point where like you know, the the ending barrage of violence feels like you are just hurtling towards this almost anti climax. And then Bonnie and Clyde are killed and the movie cuts to black and it's over.

1:09:06 And it reminded me so much of spoiler alert. Yeah, I know, right? It's almost like calling your movie The Assassination of Jesse James. It reminded me so much of how this movie ends, but how much the Bonnie and Clyde story was about two bumbling idiots who were just horned up and wanting to like live in the fast lane and how America mythologized them into being these ingenious bank robbers and they were constantly in love with the image that was being created for them. And yet the real people behind that were nothing like it. It was such a fascinating treatise on that and and this movie I think relies heavily on the legacy of Bonnie and Clyde.

1:09:49 So I think it's a perfect match up. Excellent choice. It also gave us Gene Wilder. Yeah. And Gene Hackman. And Gene Hackman, the two genes. There you go, Gene Squared. That's a great choice, man. That's that's an interesting film for sure. And it's a great way to like just keep that same mythos track going. That's really, really good choice. I think for me, I am going to focus on the characters within the story and I think that with my Let's make it a Double, we're going to follow Big Little into into Parks and Rec. Yes, that's the same actor I forgot about. That hey, by the way, not the first time Paul Schrader has been on this podcast. Brad, do you remember where we've seen him before? Give me a year he 2000 in the movie. 2005, 2006 Elizabeth. Town.

1:10:44 Yes, he was the cousin who played drums in Elizabeth. I pulled that so far out of where the sun don't shine. Another perfect film, Brad, but please proceed. So for my Let's Make It a Double, I'm going to focus on the characters inside the movie. I think you should watch The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford first because the narrating main character starts off in a place of love and ends in a place of hate, and the movie I'm going to pair it with starts in a place of hate and moves to a place of love. I think you should watch Amadeus. There's a ton of Amadeus in this movie. For sure, yeah. I, I think following that pattern of like Salieri starts in a place of hatred towards Mozart and jealousy and rage.

1:11:30 And by the end of it, he has this like, it's not even like a begrudging respect. It's like a weird fanatical, like obsession with him that I just. I, I think that that interplay between the two movies would be, would be really interesting. Yeah. I mean, he turns Mozart into his God, yeah. Exactly. I mean. Yeah, which is ridiculous, but poignant. So I mean maybe, maybe the opposite would be better. Start off with hatred, move towards idolizing, go to idolizing, make yourself an idol and die. The way we all have to the path we all have to find where we don't have Moses. No, that's good as well.

1:12:12 Because it is. That is a great movie for mythologizing as well, you know. Yeah. You know, I mean, just notoriously one of the most historically inaccurate films after what Braveheart probably, but effective. Like goes back to the point with Dick and Wood hi in this film where it's like, take some artistic license and move this along. I just really wish that Casey Affleck had picked up the pistol that Brad Pitt gets him and looks at and goes the nickel. It shines in the light. Perfect little piccolo. Yeah, perfect dude. That's good.

1:12:54 I'm going to go back to the 1980s, gentlemen. So I actually grew up on this movie. It's called The Long Riders and it's Walter Hill Western. And it had, it's actually, it had a gimmick which a lot of people didn't like at the time, but I think works amazingly. All the brothers from the the James younger game and all the people are all played by actual brothers. So the James are James Keach and Stacey Keach. The Millers are Dennis Quaid and Randy Quaid. The Youngers are David Keith and Robert Carradine. And the Fords are Christopher Guest and Nicholas Guest. And like, oh wow, Christopher Guest like that Christopher Guest. And so what's great about this film is this film covers like everything from kind of the end of the Civil War to basically where assassination starts.

1:13:50 And so it the big climax of the film is the Minnesota robbery that went wrong. We're all everybody gets killed. Basically we're Ed Miller's brother gets killed and the Youngers get killed. And and at the very end is when Charlie and Bob come in like to join the gang and the film tacks on like A5 not even 5 minute like a 2 minute scene where Frank comes back to take his brother's like casket to go be buried. And so they tack tack on like the death of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. But that's not the film at all. The film is sort of them dealing with being losers from the Confederacy in the world and resorting to crime. And he he just sort of like turn the movie off there and start the assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It is perfect because it is picking up and the literally the next and last robbery they do.

1:14:47 But again, the brothers make sense and they actually work in this sense, you know, especially with the Carradines. I mean, they were Keaches are great actors. Like these are all really good actors. I'll have to. Check this movie out, man. I like, I've I've never heard of the movie before, but you've sold it to me now. Especially the Randy Quaid anecdote. That's what really put it over over the top for me, man. So let's let's review here. You're picking the long riders. I am picking Bonnie and Clyde. Brad, you are picking what was it again? Amadeus. Amadeus That's right, a quadruple feature for the ages here, guys. Back-to-back to back-to-back before we move into final scores. We really haven't talked at all about Rodger Deakins. You know, Zach, you've hinted at it a couple times. Deakins is just the goat, man.

1:15:34 Like, this movie is beautiful. I think one of the things that I wanted to make sure that we pointed out was the way that Deakins uses lenses and panes of glass for like very specific purposes in this movie. So like, you know, when when you're viewing something through like one of those old tin type cameras, like when they're taking the picture of Jesse James's dead body at the end of the movie, there's that sort of distortion along the sides of the camera. But Deacons does that at multiple points throughout the movie, whether it's just like looking at a landscape or a couple times it's like Bob Ford is looking out the window at Jesse's house down at like Jesse's kids. And you get the distortion of like that old WAVY glass in a window. And I just love the way that they insert those shots into the movie as a way of kind of putting you off off kilter a bit and putting you in a sense of like unease. And also commenting on this idea of like, the lenses that we view these people through are distorted by the stories we have been told about them.

1:16:38 I just like it. It never became overbearing for me 'cause I think a kind of visual metaphor like that really could be. But you know, once again, I don't know how much we need to comment on it. Brad Rodger Deakins good at filming things. Who who knew what a great photographer of film. Absolutely. And also, what a year? I mean, 2007. I mean, this is no country for old men. There will be blood. This like, super bad. Like there's so many. This was a great, great year for cinema. And Rodger Deakins still loves this movie The most. Yeah, man. And deacons did No Country and this movie in the same year, which is just.

1:17:18 That's freaking staggering, man. Yeah. You know what's funny is I just rewatch No Country and Llewellyn is a country rube. He's one of the dumb asses, just like. Just like watching that movie. Can you stop being so goddamn stupid? That's brolin's so good. I love that movie though man. I love that movie so much all. Right. Well, I think on that note, it's time for us to get into final scores here. I suspect I'm going to be kind of in between the two of you. I've definitely cooled on this movie over the years. I think that it is over long. And yet I'm curious about whether a longer cut of the movie may have actually improved my experience. But the cut that we got, it seems to me that they trimmed parts that I would have preferred to explore more, and they left in parts that felt fatty to me.

1:18:05 And I think that I'm going to come down from where I was when I saw this movie at like 18 or whatever. And I was like, this is an art film. This is what films are supposed to be like when they're poetic, right? I've definitely come down a step. I still think overall this is a very successful movie. Brad, I'm going to land an 8 out of 10 on this movie. I, I give this like a four out of 10 the first time around. I don't think it's that bad that like I've got, I've kind of realized in our 5-6 years of doing this, like if I'm at under a six out of 10, we're getting into like bad movie territory. I, I'm going to give this, I think you guys have talked me up a little bit.

1:18:47 I'll give this a 6 1/2 out of 10. It doesn't work for me. I, I really don't enjoy it that much. I recognize what deacons was doing. I think that the ideas of mythologizing and for trying to create himself into an idol is, is interesting. Probably not enough for me to ever return to it. That's fair. I think that's totally fair. I think if Warner Brothers hadn't hacked this movie up in the edit. Yeah. We would have had like a nine out of 10 movie, you know what I mean? Maybe maybe even a 10 out of 10 if you can just be believed. I can see the, I can see the bones of that in this. I I just think there's a lot that needed to be cut and then a little expansion on who Robert Ford was post killing.

1:19:34 And yeah, this could be a nine out of 10 movie. Yeah, and that's, and I've actually cut because I read the script, it made me come down on it as well because of what we got was so inferior to what we should have gotten, especially that can cut was, you know, this was so frustrating when a studio doesn't believe in what they have or can't see the forest for the trees, however you want to put it. I'm going to give it a 7 1/2. I think it's, I think I love this movie to death and I watch it once a year. But now having read the script, it's kind of just like, God damn this got butchered. Yeah, man. You know, I mean, I'm still going to keep watching this movie. Don't get me wrong, I love it for what it is. But you know, it's just, it's a damn shame this movie isn't what it should have been.

1:20:22 Yeah, for sure. Wow. All right. That's the business, right? That's the movie's boys. Zach Zach is the rare guest that picked his movie and then came in and gave it a 7 1/2. You're the guy that we talk shit about all the time, Zach. Like who? Who would do that? It's you, my friend. Now see if we had finished this before I read the script, I was going to be like 9 all day. Wow, that's. We need to read the script, Brad. Yeah, that's a big. Bounce down now, Zach, can you think of any movies that were the opposite happened where you read the script and you're like, how did we get this masterpiece based on this script? Groundhog Day is 1. OK.

1:21:03 Because Groundhog Groundhog Day has this whole subplot, whereas he's actually been cursed by an ex-girlfriend who's a witch, and the whole thing is him getting out of that curse. And thankfully Harold Raimi's got rid of all that to the point where they didn't even film it. There's like, I'm not doing any of that. That's stupid. And so, yeah, I mean that's. That's thank God for that. Yeah. An example of the beauty of the director doing the right thing. Well, there you go. All right, Zach, give us a quick plug. What are you guys been working on at Blackwood and what can we expect here in the coming months? And where, crucially, can we find you to purchase a bottle of your delicious juice? Yeah.

1:21:47 Thank you guys so much for having me on again and have let me talk about Moses and Brad Pitt was it's been a delight. So Blackwood Distilling Company or Distilling Co, we based in Kentucky, we're available in Texas, Florida, Wyoming. We're about to launch in Nevada next week, California this month. We're also in DC. We're going to be launching in New York later this year. We're going to be launching in Germany, France and Denmark November 1st. We're launching in Australia mid-october. So I'm going to make sure Andrew Tommen gets a. Puddle. They actually have done re screens of this film several times in Australia, including this year.

1:22:27 So I I'm going to show up with a bottle and. If you want to, if you want to really quickly go and that's why I think The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Rob before it is a 10 out of 10 film. We will send that to Andrew. Donald, do it. Do it while holding the bottle, like right next to your face. Yeah. I I have a feeling he'll agree with me that Warner Brothers butchered his film, but yeah, so, yeah, Blackwood. You can also get it online at Bourbon outfitter.com, which we shipped to 44 states now if you happen to be in. Probably not Ohio. Probably not Ohio, working on Ohio, probably be late 2026 when we get in there. We are working on a big play right now with grocery store chain and if that happens, that'll open up more ABC states that are a bit more closed for us just because it's it's automatic distribution sort of thing. It's great.

1:23:22 We are the official American whiskey sponsor of North America's 50 best restaurants, which is part of the world's fifty best group. So we're going to be doing a big activation at the win in Vegas next week. You'll see that online. If you follow them on YouTube or Instagram, you'll see us there. And you know, we're very, we have a lot of very good and hopefully sustainable growth because we're we're focusing on markets that I think are very interested in what we're doing. So. But we can't say enough great things about the brand, man, that I've said it before, the one O 5 rye is like that is that is like the platonic ideal of a film and WW where the price point is just right. The the proof point is right in our sweet spot. You know, Brad and I are both lovers of rye as something different, right?

1:24:11 And that is just like the notes that you pick up on that rye are among the best that we've tried in the history of this podcast, man. So yeah, Zach, I got to say thank you for your continued support of the show and thank you for joining us today, man. No, thank you, guys. I mean, it's sort of, you know, we, we can't do what we do without, without support. And I've always, you know, been a huge fan of what you guys do and you're, let's just say vercillimitude when discussing film and whiskey. And you know, it's, it's also, you know, it's just a, it's a fun time to always come on here and talk with you guys. And it's always fun to share a drink as well, for sure. Yeah, dude, it's a blessing to know you. Film and Whiskey Nation. We will be back next week with another regularly scheduled episode, but until then, I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad G.

1:24:59 And we'll see you next time.