The Lion King (1994) / Henry McKenna 10-Year Single Barrel Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon

0:00 In 1994, Disney Animation Studios and star James Earl Jones gave the world a dynamic coming of age story that still freaking rules over 30 years later. In 2024, we try the whiskey that changed the game in the world of bourbon. The film is The Lion King. The whiskey is Henry McKenna 10 year single barrel. And more of you them both. This is the. Film and Whiskey podcast. Welcome to the Film and Whiskey podcast, where each week we review a classic movie and a glass of whiskey. I'm Bob Book.

0:55 I'm Brad. Gee. And Brad, we are a little bit past the halfway point of Season 10. How are you feeling about this revisit of all of our Season 1 films? I don't know if you want to hear that, Bob. This has been fun folks. Welcome into film and whiskey. This is your first time joining us. Where have you been? We are in our 10th season now. We are 300 plus episodes into this bad boy and what we're doing. Wild. And what we're doing this season to celebrate is we're revisiting all of our really poorly recorded episodes from Season 1 and we're redoing them. So if you'd like to hear us from when we were just little baby podcasters, we've taken those episodes down from the public, but they are still available on our Patreon feed, patreon.com/film Whiskey.

1:44 I say that, Brad, to say that The Lion King episode, like many of our latter half of Season 1 episodes, sounds like poop. But the content, oh boy, is it good content, Brad. The the way you said. Poop like like an Anchorman. You, you poop. Mouth you poop. That's pretty much. So I noticed, Brad, that in your little opening spiel you said that this movie still freaking slaps. And I think that is the place to start when talking about The Lion King. It is a movie that, like many 1990s films, especially for those of us who grew up on 90s films, it is so familiar.

2:29 It is so ingrained in my childhood and who I am as a person that every time I go to watch it, I wonder if I can properly evaluate it. And this time through, I mean, spoiler alert, I can. And it does slap. But this time through, I think I think that. I'm awesome at this. In addition to realizing how much it affected my childhood personally, I really started to pull back a little bit and think about the cultural kind of bomb that went off as a result of this film. You know, we've talked a lot about how this was not like Disney's A tier movie. They were trying to put people on other films and The Lion King happened and then they were like, oh crap, that I guess this is the one people want now.

3:16 They were like putting all their eggs in the basket of Pocahontas. And once this movie came out, there has not been a Disney film since Brad, at least not that I can think of, that has had quite the impact of this movie. Dude this movie just wrecked the world of animated film. I remember watching this just countless times as a child and you're right, the the needle moved so much it almost redefined like what a 10 out of 10 animated film could be as far as like box office return. Yeah, and I already noticed that you're giving this movie a 10 out of 10.

3:59 So should we just go ahead and spoil final scores now? Oh, I I don't know if I'm giving a 10 out of 10, Bob. This is good. This is good. Tease it, Brad. Make sure the listeners stick around. No, I'm being serious. I so coming back and reviewing all of these Season 1 movies again. I have paid special attention to movies that we gave a 10 out of 10 to and I go into the movie looking for ways to reduce it to a 9.5. Yeah. So, but like, like just to be honest, like if it's already at A10, there's nowhere to go up. Therefore, we have to look how we can tear it down, deconstruct this. Thing we have to Yeah, it's our it's our moral obligation to tear these things apart.

4:47 It's our, it's our duty. I went on record in our first episode on The Lion King talking about how I do think this movie has flaws. And it's hard to parse out for me if the flaws are really apparent or if they would be as a parent if I was a first time viewer. Or if it's just because I'm so familiar with the movie and I'm like, I have every single beat and every line essentially memorized that the flaws become more apparent on the 50th rewatch, you know? And so this movie is one that I think I'm still in the place where the first time around I gave it a nine and a half and I'll just spoil it right now. I can't decide if this is a 9 1/2 or A10. That's kind of where I'm at on this, Brad, because it is flawed. And I think that to, you know, this is no surprise to you, but Beauty and the Beast is a movie that I think both of us at the time we reviewed that movie, said this is about as perfect and as perfectly structured and as perfectly paced as an animated movie can get.

5:44 And I do still think Beauty and the Beast is a more perfect film. But I've also come around to the idea that you can have flaws and still be a 10 out of 10 film. Yeah, 100%. There's no such thing as a perfect movie because cinema is such a subjective art. Like the the director might say that my film is a perfect film. I'm sure Zack Snyder says that for every one of his movies, but we all know that it it all depends on the viewer. And so sure, you have lots of Christopher Nolan fanboys out there that are going to give his movies 10 out of 10 running the score up on IMDb. That's like that's great. You do whatever you want. At the end of the day, you're going to find problems with any film you watch.

6:30 The real question is what is your metric that makes something a 10 out of 10? And I personally will accept if somebody says it just did it like I like if somebody says to me, I don't know why this is a 10 out of 10. I can say that here are some flaws, but it just worked for me. I, I can't fully say why. It's something intangible, ephemeral. It's something that just, I can't quite put my finger on, but it worked for me. I, I'm actually OK with that. I I don't think we should have perfect measurables for rating art. Well, then what are we doing here, man? We've been given stuff scores for 10 seasons. Are you?

7:17 Are you, are you losing faith in our metric, Brad? No, it's just a vibe. Like it's just vibes if this movie is just a vibe. Dude here's the thing, a movie can be technically well done and if it doesn't pass the vibes check it's gonna be like a 7 out of 10 at best. Yeah for sure. I mean tell tell me I'm wrong though. On the other hand, a movie can totally pass the vibe check and be objectively a crappy movie. And those are the best movies, those. Are the best movies, man Mighty Ducks? Let's go. That's definitely a vibe. All right, dude, let's get into our first segment of the day, which we call Brad Explains. Brad's going to give us the movie plots with only 60 seconds taken on the clock, so let's go ahead and do your take with this little segment that we call Brad, Explains Brad Plains is the part of the show where Brad breaks down the plot of the film that he has just seen often for the first time this season, definitely for at least the second time. Brad, if you had to put a number on the number of times you've seen The Lion King, I mean, take take an educated guess here I. Mean I was never a watch a movie over and over and over and over and over until my parents want to murder me kind of kid sure. So if if I'm being honest, I probably have seen this movie like 12 to 15 times.

8:39 That's got to be like right up there at the top of the bread. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. I've seen, I've seen this movie a lot of times of those, let's just say 15 times. Of those 15 times, probably 12 or 13 as a kid, like maybe once as a teenager, once early for the podcast and once again now. So like, you know, maybe 3 times in my adult life. All right, well, I want to share a little bit about my most recent viewing of The Lion King after you break down the plot of this movie, but I won't step on Brad explains any longer. Brad, you get 60 seconds on the clock to spoil everything about this movie. Folks, if you have not seen The Lion King again, what what are we doing here? Go watch The Lion King.

9:23 It's it's like an hour and 25 minutes without credits. It's it's great. Come back and then listen to Brad explain the whole thing. Brad, one minute on the clock and go. The Lion King is a film about a monarchy of lions ruled by Mufasa. His evil son Simba seeks a way to dethrone him and eventually has him tossed off of a Cliff into a herd of stampeding wildebeests. His uncle Scar sees this happen, tries to save Mufasa, is unable to, but is successfully able to drive Simba off from the Pride Lands to try and protect the rest of the the the tribe from the evil machinations of Simba.

10:14 Simba eventually returns with a massive army of hyenas, wipes Scar and the rest of the lions off the face of the map, and rules with an iron fist for the rest of eternity, ending the circle of life. Written by Scar that was the Brad exploits from the perspective of scar right? Yes, this evil, this evil 5 year old has ruined everything in this Kingdom, man. Speaking of five year. Old man, go watch Lion King. Let me let me talk about this since the last time we watched The Lion King, you know, my kids were far too young. Actually, the first time we watched The Lion King, I only had I think one child. So spoiler, I didn't have any. I've got two of them now and yes, go, that's a lot of kids, isn't it?

11:02 And my oldest son is like very sensitive to scary things, you know, like he does like watching things where people die or things die. And so The Lion King was always one that was like your. Youngest son though. He's he's like, show me the murders, Dad. So I finally got them to the age where I tried Beauty and the beast out and again, like beating the beast I associate with this is a movie for like 3 year olds and up, you know, But hey, guess what? It's really not, not if they're not prepared for it. So. Kill the beast. I got them to watch Beauty and the Beast. They liked it. And then I was like, we're doing The Lion King and I said I got to watch it for the podcast with Uncle Brad and they both watched it. They both liked it.

11:48 Enough time passed that we didn't end up recording the revisit for The Lion King that we watched it again. They still like it. Like, this has been such a great couple weeks, Brad, because I have introduced The Lion King to my children and boy howdy do I have some thoughts on how dark this movie is, dude. Bro that's what happens when you watch movies with your small children. Like, come on, man, I've like. Again, it's so familiar that you forget the extent to which it is like perversely dark. It goes to places that quite frankly no other Disney movie is willing to go and especially anything made after like 2010.

12:32 The villains are a joke at this point. Everybody's like superpower is that they're overcoming some sort of trauma. It's like no no like you. My uncle murdered my dad in front of me and then blamed me. Gas lit me into thinking it was my fault and drove me out of the Kingdom until I almost died, then starved and beat my mother in front of me until I I threw him to hyenas to get viciously attacked to death. Like that's the plot of this movie, dude. It's wild. I I also like how you you tried to like rewrite my, Brad explains. I'm trying to reframe it, you know, I'm trying to lead, lead. People astray from what this movie is actually about. I do want to talk about how dark the movie is, but maybe we should just start at the beginning of the film because the beginning of this film is up there with films like Raising Arizona, another of Brad's favorites in terms of best openings to a movie ever.

13:30 And and and I say that. That was a pretty great opening. The circle of life, obviously everybody knows it as like it's a banger of a song. When the drums kick in at the end, it's incredible. It is one of the best examples of how to use montage in filmmaking that I've ever seen. And not just like when we think of montages, I think sometimes we think of Rocky Balboa training. Like you just put 18 clips of Rocky running up a mountain together and that's your montage? But but specifically bearded. Bearded Sylvester Stallone? Sure, of course that goes without saying. But in this movie, it's, it's not just a collection of clips that are put together to music. It's there's the the sense of movement. There's the sense of you.

14:16 You get like immediately ingrained into the fact that this is an epic tale. And I don't mean epic in terms of like, well, that's epic. Like it is quite literally, it feels like you're being set up to to watch one of the great myths. There is something like legendary and mythical about it even from the very beginning when Simba's being held aloft by Rafiki and a freaking sunbeam comes out of the sky and you start to understand there's going to be like spiritual, supernatural elements to this film. It like it communicates so much in so little time that I feel like the rest of the movie almost has to try to catch up to the cinematic heights you've achieved in the first 3 minutes. Yeah, you're like waiting for the the Holy Spirit to descend upon Simba and a voice to call out. This is my son.

15:06 Who am I? Who? I I mean it, it literally does that at one point. I know dude, the when they're in the montage and they have the ants crawling on the log and the zebras in the background and the camera focus switches and you're like, I thought this was animation. Listen, this is my one big thing for the day. If I can share something about the world of filmmaking with with film and Whiskey Nation. Today I want to talk about what it means when we say the term rack focus. Rack focus is a technical term when you are watching a shot in a movie and say everything in the foreground is in focus and everything in the background is out of focus. And then halfway through the shot it changes. It pulls your eyes to the back and now all of a sudden everything that's close to you is out of focus. That's called racking focus.

15:53 And this movie does that so, so well. You know, for a long time, traditional Disney animation was made on plates. They would, they would like basically paint on glass and they would stack them on top of each other and move the camera in and out. And that's how you would give the illusion of depth perception. This movie really took it to a whole other level in terms of being able to like separate those plates, rack focus with the camera. And they do it multiple times in this movie. And that was, like, the first time watching it through the ants and the zebras that I was like, oh, OK. Like, I love me some Beauty and the Beast. This thing is doing some cinematic things that Beauty and the Beast could have only hoped for. Yeah, the, the idea that they can do that with an animated film is still like a little bit mind boggling to me.

16:40 Like I, I know that I'm a little bit of a simpleton when it comes to technology. I'm, I'm still somebody who thinks that like radio wave technology is one of the coolest things in the world and we're like 7 steps beyond that. But man, it's incredible what they are able to do in this film. And even even just some of the close-ups. Like I I'm thinking about when he when Rafiki thumbs over Simba after Simba supposedly dies. Like even just the animation of the painting being like smudged feels almost like Pixar level quality of those intricate close up shots of like small particles.

17:26 And this is 1990. Four. Yeah, yeah. And there was like, rudimentary computer animation being used in these movies, but it's nothing like what they can do at Pixar now. You know, when you watch Wally and you see Wally going through these abandoned streets kicking up dust, it's photo real. And they're doing it with traditional animation here. But Brad, going back to that Circle of life montage, just for a second, I really do think, you know, there's a program every year called Ebert Interrupt Us. It's like, it's the thing that Rodger Ebert did. I think it's at the University of Colorado that he would do this every year. They would pick one movie. Rodger Ebert would host this big compendium and everybody would come watch this movie.

18:06 And you're allowed to tell Roger Ebert to pause the movie at any time. It would take them like 2 days to get through a movie. I'd say watching is a strong term. Yeah, but you could say, you know, check out this thing in this shot. Look at how they've, you know, look at the symmetry in a Wes Anderson movie. Look at how the it's panning back and forth, whatever. Now our friend Josh Larson is the one that hosts that every year. And I really think you could do an interruptus on just the circle of Life montage because every single shot is so perfectly placed, whether it's designed to cut on movement to the next shot, whether it's like there's one shot where there's four elephants that are trumpeting at once and they're arranged in like a diagonal from the bottom to the top of the frame on like a Dutch angle. Kind of.

18:53 It is just such picture perfect movie making that's and it kind of makes sense because like you can design whatever you want when you're animating, like why not make every shot perfect? But you know what, that's not what happens with most animated movies. And I think it's it's worth noting when they put that much care and attention into it here. And and like the definition of epic is when the circle of life montage ends and they just give you this hump. And like that final drum beat with the black, the red title on a black background, Oh man, that like it's like a chills inducing moment. I think that the first 40 minutes of this movie are like picture perfect.

19:39 I would not change one jot or title of this script or this movie until like until Timon and Pooba come. And I know this was my big thing last time, but like, if you just take everything that leads up to that moment, it is like it's intense and it is perversely dark, but it has it has this perfect effect of like, things are spiraling very quickly and everything logically flows from the prior scene. There's no fat on it whatsoever. And as you're watching Scars Plan unfold, I think the thing that really got me this time, Brad, is put yourself in the shoes of a viewer in 1994. They had never let animated Disney had never let their animated movies go to places like this.

20:22 And so when you're watching Scar, you have in your mind, like every Disney villain ever, Like, oh, yeah, the, you know, Gaston might come for the Beast, but he's going to get thrown off the side of a mountain at the end of the movie. And so you're thinking, like, Scar's going to get thwarted somehow. And then not only does Scar succeed, like the crushing blow of what happens to Simba after that is like, holy shit this movie is screwed up dude. Yeah, well, especially because they they do such a good job of setting up Scar as this, like, languishing, buffoonish, you know, brother of the king. That's like, oh, you made me lose my lunch. Oh, like it's this ridiculous, over the top cartoonish performance that feels appropriate to what Disney villains were before this.

21:18 And then by the end of the film, you have him as Adolf Hitler. Yeah, literally. Yeah. Like, like it's a wild transition. It is. Let's talk about Irons for a second, because after the circle of life, the first thing you fade up on is a little soliloquy by Scar where he's talking to this mouse that he's caught to eat as a snack. He's talking about, you know, I'm never going to live to be king. He gets called out by Mufasa for not showing up to Simba's presentation. He challenges Mufasa to his face. And from there on, you're, you understand, like, OK, this is clearly the bad guy, but his plan gets put in motion pretty much immediately. He's praying on Simba and Simba's trust. And I I think that like Irons is so great because he is at 110 the whole movie.

22:05 He's not even operating at like 100%. He is so hammy and so over the top. But this character honestly wouldn't work if he wasn't the hammiest character in the whole movie. No, it works because you're looking for a character who is more manipulative than he is powerful. And so I I think that's why when he's being ridiculous with the food, when he's double talking to Mufasa, like you see little hints of the evil coming out, but he always masks it so well behind this guise of like, I'm world weary. I don't really care about this whole thing anyways.

22:48 Like I've just accepted my lot in life from what it is, and it's not until you see him with the hyenas that he really lets his inner demons come out so. I, I think I've already kind of hinted at it, but I think the thing that I love so much about this movie is that it, it leverages the fact that you don't know how dark it's going to get and they really kind of toy with you as an audience member as a result. Like, to your point about how buffoonish Scar sounds, you think it's like your typical Disney villainy, and right in the middle of this scheming plan of Scar, you get this really happy, joyous song plopped in there in I Just Can't Wait to Be King. Which, you know, it underscores why Simba or why Scar hates this kid anyway, 'cause this kid's cocky as hell, but he really wants to be king.

23:37 And I think for me, the reason that that song works in a way that like some of the Timon and Pumbaa stuff gets a little bit old for me is because once again, like the directors of this movie are kind of toying with you. They like they're they're offsetting how dark this movie's about to get by kind of misdirecting you with this really happy song. Not to mention the fact that the song slaps, obviously. And I love the animation style and the way it changes to these like unrealistic colors. But I think just the function of that song, it makes so much more sense there because they're they're they're like, hey, look over here, It's something shiny before we kill the dad in front of you. And it also gives you almost like an I Want song for Simba, but from the view of like, you know, I know he's like 5 or 6 in the movie, but like a 12 year old, right? Like if you had a 12 year old Prince who wants to be king, that would be his I Want song.

24:36 Like, those are the things he desires out of this world. And you've already received a hint of the darkness of Scar, and you're about to get a full dose of it. But you you start to understand the amount of maturing that is going to have to happen in order for Simba to be the rightful leader of Pride Rock. And it's just like you said, the I Just Want to Be King is such an incredible character development device because it sets the bar for where he's at and how far he needs to grow. This movie is such a like, it's such a Platonic ideal of a pairing of sound design, music and then visuals as well. And I think one of the first places I really noticed it is in the following scene when they get caught in this elephant graveyard.

25:33 And it's the first time like a little, I don't know what you want to call it, like a geyser of steam comes out and you get that like deep bass boom of the steam shooting. And then it cuts to like a Dutch angle of the steam shooting up with the elephant's Tusk in the background. And the kids are scared. And it immediately plops you back into like, oh, this can be a very intense movie. And I think that that really sets you up for where the movie ultimately goes, which is Scars big song. Be prepared. Which as a kid, I hated that song, not just 'cause I hated Scar, but like, I always found it to be kind of a boring song. Now as an adult, I'm like. The lyrics are great, the visuals are great.

26:15 Like this song is so good. Brad. It's it's incredible man. Like I the juxtaposition of all of the bright like it almost reminds me of a what was his name? Saul the the guy who made all the openings. Oh, Saul Bass. Saul Bass Like there's parts of I Just Want to Be King that remind me of a Saul Bass opening title sequence with the way the colors shift as they're like riding the ostriches past. It's this bright, bubbly, fun thing. And then you get to be prepared and it is like black, grey, green, and it's just this super dark, like Slytherin ask vibe that I'd like I'm here for. It's incredible.

27:04 And Jeremy Irons gives an incredible performance with the singing element here. I want to share a fun fact about the song, but I don't want to step on. Are any of your two facts and a falsehoods about? Be prepared. I don't think so. OK, so I don't know if you know this, but Jeremy Irons in the recording of the song. Be prepared got so much vocal strain that they only used his takes through the end of that second verse where he he jumps down the ground splits open it's like red underneath him and he screams you won't get a sniff without me. That's the last thing that Jeremy Irons sings in that song. And because this last verse was like unusable, they brought in voice actor Jim Cummings, who's famous for playing Winnie the. Winnie the Pooh.

27:54 To what? To voice match Jeremy Irons. So that whole last verse is actually Jim Cummings and you. He's so good that you can't tell unless you're really listening for it. But yeah, I found that out just a few weeks ago. Bob, that's not Jim Cummings, that's Winnie the Pooh singing. Be prepared. I agree. Would it be if he just if he just did Winnie the Pooh though? Have you heard him so? So prepare for the cool of the century. Have you heard Jim Cummings do the Winnie the Pooh voice but with like completely not Winnie the Pooh lines? No, but I need to look that up now.

28:35 Oh, they're pretty great, man. Yeah, I I love. Be prepared. I'm with you about the 1st 45 minutes, like everything about the first. You know, half of this movie, a little over half. It flows so easily from one place to the next, like the circle of life song turns into oh, here's a predator to the circle of life and scar. And then we get Simba going on his adventure and then he has his lecture with his dad. And even with the lecture, the there's, there's so much beauty there. James Earl Jones is incredible. I do remember thinking as he's talking about like, but dad, we eat the antelope and and James Earl Jones like, well, son, we turn into the grass someday. I remember that I I was thinking this time for the first time ever, I was like, yeah, I don't think one dead lion is going to turn into enough fertilizer for this entire this. Is not balanced.

29:38 You ate 40 of us bro. I feel like the power dynamic is a little bit off, but it's all right. It's a circle. Of life. Well, while we're talking about that, let's let's throw out some more hot takes about the Kingdom that Mufasa and then Scar and then Simba rules over Scar from one perspective, a master diplomat. I mean, he really does bring the unification of two nations together and and history will look kindly on that, I think. Dude here's the thing though, I never caught this before but when the hyenas are supposed to kill Simba in the elephant graveyard and fail, Scar is talking to them. And the way the hyenas talk about Mufasa is not like hey we want to murder this guy he's ruining our lives. Like they they actually have like this respect. For it.

30:33 Like, like, yeah, like, life's not perfect, but we have what we need to survive. And like, it's almost like they are supporting the circle of life that Mufasa is like enforcing on the the pride realm. Yeah. And it's like Scar is the only one who is trying to upset the balance. I like to think of it as like the hyenas are the Toronto Raptors the entire time LeBron James was in the Eastern Conference. And they're like, you know, like you, you keep us across the border from you at all times. Like man, we hate Mufasa. We hate LeBron. What are we supposed to do, kill LeBron? Like that's not it hasn't even come into their mind like because all they do is get freaking owned by LeBron all the time. And it's not till he leaves that they can have that they can rise to power.

31:21 Dude, I I am with you on this analogy but all I hear you saying is that Canada is the dark place that we don't talk. About I mean, yeah, that was. I thought that was a given, dude. OK, what with? Their yeah, you were clear on your point. And free healthcare, you know? Yeah. Someday when you're running for president, Bob, this is going to come back to bite you in the butt and be like, hey, this Robert doesn't understand foreign politics. He hates Canada. You know who does understand foreign politics though, is Scar. That was my point. My second hot take, Brad. Yeah, very clearly. How how susceptible to getting completely overthrown is this Kingdom though?

32:02 Because when Simba comes back and and defeats Scar, Scar is a feeble old man who clearly can't fight it. Like, literally, he gets tossed by Symbol one time and he's dead 'cause he gets eaten by hyenas. Now everyone else in the Kingdom are the female lionesses who are emaciated from having no food for God knows how long, and Simba has been living on a strictly vegan diet for like 12 years. So like I. Don't. I don't know if bugs are vegan. I mean, OK, sure. I mean it's like the veganism of the lion world, I guess, is what I'm saying. Because they they don't call him a carnivore anymore. So like the first lion that shows up that had protein, like clearly is the new king of this Kingdom. Right.

32:48 Obviously, Yeah, no. And, and obviously the moment that the hyenas kill Scar, they all just are like, yeah, we'll piece back out to the elephant graveyard and hang it out there. I was going to say like, there's there's no final battle. They're just like, all right, we got Scar and now everything's back to the status quo. Yep. Yeah, dude, I'm just saying like the second that some dude bro lion that eats like raw meat and listens to Joe Rogan shows up in this Kingdom like it's it's a wrap, dude. I was about to say, 'cause if we're talking about Matthew Broderick as the king, like, come on. My main complaints about this movie is wrapped up in the fact who the heck decided that Matthew Broderick was the the next king of Pride Rock? What was going on there?

33:43 I like, I know he had some popularity back then, but Dag gone. Do you know how disappointed James Earl Jones would be if his son grew up to sound like Matthew Broderick? Yeah. I will say one thing about Matthew Broderick that drives me absolutely crazy. And first of all, I like Matthew Broderick. I like him as Ferris Bueller. He is fantastic as Leo Bloom in The Producers. He's got a great singing voice. He's. Dude incredible in the producers. I've never heard a recorded voice performance for an animated movie that let's their actor make so many mouth sounds.

34:24 And what I mean by that is, Brad, when I'm editing our podcast, every time that you or I start a sentence with like a tongue click, where we go, I I have to cut that out. It's it's infuriating to everyone who listens. Matthew Broderick does that for every line. It's like they'll tell him like, OK, say your line now and he'll go and then he'll say his line. They'll be like Simba come back to Pride Rock and he'll be like, sorry. Every single line it drove me Batty. Dude, I couldn't get over how many weird mouth sounds he made. And it's not just the the mouth sounds, it's the lack of editing. Like yes, everybody does that. Just edit it out. You're freaking Disney.

35:06 Like I know it's the Disney B team, but if you could do rack focuses all day long, you can edit out Matthew Broderick's freaking breathiness. It is, he's certainly making choices with the way that he is delivering that voice performance. And like, I understand that it is on purpose. I understand that they're trying to show that he's unsure of himself, that he has that sense of youthfulness 'cause, you know, Broderick does not have like a big booming voice. I just think that it is the most colossal misstep of this whole movie. Yes. Yeah, easily. And I know you're not a huge fan of Timon and Pumba. I think I can get down with Timon and Pumba. I I actually really like the the choices of the voice actors.

35:50 I enjoy them as characters, even though I still contest that they are the true villains of The Lion King. But you know, that's, that's my thing. I'll I'll die on that hill by myself. I think that Matthew Broderick is the major misstep in this movie, as well as the choice to move from a very sassy black young girl to a very white Nala. At the end of that, I mean like young Simba is voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas, but the singing voice is not white either. He's he's voiced by Jason Weaver, who I I mean, I don't know if you would know this Brad, but like I know him from the Jacksons miniseries. He played Michael Jackson and I like that was a big part of my childhood too.

36:40 He's got a great singing voice. Everybody goes from being young and black to old and white. And I don't I don't like it like the the loss of any sort of soulfulness in their singing voices, in their like voice performances. It is like a a big clear Ding on this movie. Yeah, like I said, dude, I don't think James Earl Jones would be happy if his son ended up sounding like Matthew Broderick. OK, here's my, perhaps my, perhaps my hottest take of all. I think this is James Earl Jones's best singular voice performance. And I don't, I'm not trying to say that collectively that Darth Vader is not what he's going to be known for. But if you think about like what Lucas asks him to do emotionally as Darth Vader, you know, Darth Vader's mask, like the the mechanics of the mask.

37:30 I don't know what the lore is Brad, but I imagine that like it's specifically like so robotic that it literally takes the emotion out of, you know, even at the in the Episode 3 when he screams, no, there's not a real emotion there because he's speaking through a robot mask. There's not real emotion there. You're such a hater. I know, but I think you know what I'm trying to say. Like the in the in the world of Star Wars, like the robotic voice you're hearing isn't the character Darth Vader's real voice, it's his voice as projected through like his his band mask, you know? It's modulated, yes. Yeah. And I think what James Earl Jones is permitted to do here with his range is just, Oh my gosh, man, it's unbelievable. And I have this, like, really great sound set up on my upstairs TV now.

38:17 I have like, the sound bar and the subwoofer. My guy was like rattling my walls with his bass voice. It was incredible, dude. How do you do that with kids in the house, man? They were watching it with me. They loved it. Yeah, I guess they were watching it with you, man. I we are thinking about getting rid of our TV. So that's. Like all together. Wow, I'm telling you dude, by the time this podcast is over, like you will be full Amish. You're like you're trending that direction. I've I dude I've been legit thinking about getting one of those phones from techless. Have you heard? Of Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no screen on it. Yep. Well, it it's a it's a there is a screen, it's a smartphone that has no Internet like accessibility, like you still get GPS, you can still take pictures, you can still text call, you know, it's got a few basic things, but the main thing is you can't get on the Internet. You don't have YouTube, no Instagram. I'm I'm.

39:20 What I'm what I'm hearing is that all of the things we have to do week to week to promote this podcast are fallen squarely on Old Bob's shoulders here. Has has it been any different this whole time? No, it hasn't, but I wasn't gonna out you like that. All right, dude, I think we should take a break here. I'm really excited to get into our whiskey for the day. Henry McKenna. As we said, this is kind of a game changer whiskey in the course of our podcast. But in the broader whiskey world, I have not revisited it in a long time. Brad, have you had Henry McKenna since we had it for the show? Nope. All right, ten seasons later, let's see what Bob and Brad think. What do you say? Let's get to it.

40:04 All right, so today we are revisiting a whiskey that has had its ups and downs over the years, and that is Henry McKenna. Bottled in Bond Single Barrel Bourbon. This whiskey is, first of all a mouthful to say. Usually when you refer to Henry McKenna, you can just say Henry McKenna and people know that you're talking about this bottle, but they do actually make a kind of bottom shelf cheap version of Henry McKenna and it's like a brown label. And that stuff is unpalatable, like real bad. So today we are drinking the good stuff. And when we say the good stuff, you know, what I'm referring to is that this is the whiskey that I would say kind of precipitated the bourbon boom when it was named best in show whiskey at the 2019 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. This was a $40 bottle of whiskey that was beating out, you know, 2530 year age scotches for best in show Whiskey I. Think it was like 35 bucks.

41:07 Yeah, yeah. Like, like really Jeep back then. And, you know, Brad and I have heard our stories about how this whiskey came to be named best in show. And it's a very kind of backroom political story that we are not at all at liberty to share. But in any case, it, you know, it won some awards and after it won the 2019 award, it was unfindable for like 2 years, absolutely exploded in popularity and in price. Oh yeah. Brad and I were lucky enough to get our hands on a bottle when we first started the podcast, and that's how we were able to review it. I've only bought one more bottle of this in the year since, and I've revisited it one time since then.

41:48 It's a good whiskey, but I'm excited to see what we think of it now, now that we've tried like 500 of them. Yeah, I'm, I'm really curious if you could make a meme of like, Henry McKenna being Mufasa and price gouging being Scar ripping its claws into Mufasa and throwing him into the horde of wildebeest 'cause I I have a feeling that at $35, this is a really solid whiskey, and at $65, it certainly can be called a whiskey. Yeah. I mean, you know, this is the whiskey that kind of caused the damage that we're seeing now to the bourbon industry in terms of pricing. But at the end of the day, like even if it is 50 something dollars, it's a 50 something dollar single barrel that's right in line with the market.

42:39 And very few of them are 10 year age stated like this one is. So I don't think that it's exorbitant even for what it is. Brad, let's go ahead and dive into tasting this whiskey. We'll start with the nose. What are you picking up on the nose of this Henry McKenna single barrel? There's a little bit of cherry on the opening with there is caramel and vanilla. It gets into a really nice peppery phase, the 2nd and 3rd nosing and I do get like a really nice gentle peanut brittle that goes along with it. It's it's a really pleasant nose that I'm going to give it a A7 and a half two. Yeah, Heaven Hill has just really nailed this mash bill. This is like their standard mash bill for whiskey with rye in it. A high rye whiskey kind of the same thing on the other side with their weeded bourbons.

43:34 So this is, I believe, the same mash bill that we would drink if we were trying the Luxe Row products that were higher rye mash bill. So I already love it. It's everything you would expect from this kind of a mash bill. The rye is like much softer, which I really like, and it brings out some of those dark cherry notes that you were talking about. This is just like a really good middle of the road bourbon whiskey scent. I'm going to give it a 7 1/2 out of 10. Yeah, and as we move into the pallets, the peanut butter really takes the forefront at 100 proof. The viscosity isn't quite where I would hope it would be, but the peanut butter flavors come through.

44:15 There's caramel, there's a little bit of like a salted popcorn kind of vibe going on it. It's a really pleasant bourbon to drink. I think I'm going to give it an 8 out of 10. Yep. You know, like when you get a jar of the natural peanut butter and it has that layer of like peanut oil that's. The only peanut butter the G household imbibes and. Felt there you go. I was going to say it doesn't taste like Jiffy peanut butter or or Jiff peanut butter. It tastes like more of the oil that you get on top, much more of that kind of natural peanut oil flavour. I really like that it does coat the tongue, but you're right, it's not very thick.

44:55 It's a really thin mouthfeel. The spice comes through really nicely, though. The rye makes itself known on the back of the pallet and it's it drinks a little hotter than I would expect honestly, Brad, for 100 proof, I think this is like the perfect bottle of whiskey to to jump your game up. You know, like if, if you're, if you've just kind of gotten into bourbon and you're, you're like, I want to try a single barrel or I want to try a 10 year bourbon. This is like it's, it's not super complex, but it reminds me, I flashed back five years to when we were first trying this and we said, oh, this is different than anything we've drank to this point.

45:38 Yeah. Now, have we had better stuff since then? Obviously. But this is it's like a nostalgic for me at this point. So I'm rambling now. I think I'm going to give it an 8 out of 10. This has nothing to do with whiskey Bob, but have you ever had like a friend who has chickens and they give you eggs and like compare that to store bought eggs? Yeah, where the yolks are like so much more orange and stuff. Just like vibrantly yellow orange and then you go back to store bought eggs and you're like, this looks very sad. We keep a small jar of like Kroger brand peanut butter for the dog to like put on their Kong toy and the color of that peanut butter compared to like smuckers all natural. You have to stir it up peanut butter. It's the exact same experience, man. The Kroger peanut butter is this like really light brown that feels almost like sickly and Juan compared to like real peanut butter.

46:44 It's wild, man. Nothing to do with whiskey. Finish Are you? Are you saying that this is the sad version of like a? Good whiskey. I don't think I was making any comments on this whiskey. I I think this has a really nice peanut butter flavor and I'm with you that it's a nice real peanut butter flavor. The finish is once again that salted butter for the rye. It turns into a really nice like black peppercorn freshly cracked pepper flavor for me and the caramel flavor matures into this really nice like burnt brown sugar on the finish. I'm going to stick at an 8 out of 10 on the finish.

47:26 It it is really pleasant. I'm going to come down to A7 on the finish. I had a second sip of this and it kind of confirmed what happened the first time. For me. That cherry flavor turns into like an almost Robitussin kind of flavor. There's a little bit of medicinal something going on in there and I think it's the barley. I think the barley is making itself known. It doesn't quite like tip sour, but it really tempts itself with that. And so I think overall the finish, while long lasting and fairly pleasant, was probably the worst part of this experience for me. So it's just a 7 for me on the finish, on the balance.

48:06 I actually think this is a well balanced whiskey. It like it knows what it is and I think that we can get into talking about this part of it with the value, but this is not something that you need to line up around the liquor store to find a bottle of. This is like a really solid single barrel bourbon that should cost $40. And at that I'm I'm going to read that back onto the balance here. For what it is, it's well balanced. Like I'll give it an 8 out of 10 on balance. Yeah, I'm, I'm at a 7 1/2 out of 10. On balance, I think that this offers some really great flavors. Nothing too complex, but it's what you would want out of a 10 year single barrel, so 7 1/2 out of time on balance.

48:50 Here's the rub. This bottle will cost you $65 in the state of Ohio and I I'd say that's representative of what you might find it at in price controlled states across the nation. There's definitely places in non price controlled states that you might find this for 80 to $100 and I would say that's just ridiculous. At $65. I think this is about $20 too expensive, Bob. Agreed. Yeah, just for what you're drinking now, again, A10 year single barrel. I think the only thing I can really compare this to is like a Russell's Reserve, which is similarly priced to this. So I don't think that they're like price gouging you. But I also think that I've had a lot of Russell's Reserve that I like better than this single barrel that we're drinking right now.

49:39 So I'm with you, even though it is fairly priced and the whiskey in the bottle, you know, it doesn't scream like you should pay $65 for me. Yep. And I do kind of wonder like once this whiskey blew up and sold out everywhere, how many barrels that were never intended to become Henry McKenna, then had to become designated as Henry McKenna barrels. So, you know, the 2019 stock I'm sure was better than this. Sure. And that, like that's nothing against Heaven Hill. They're a huge operation. They have plenty of 10 year old barrels to go around. But I do wonder if it kind of diluted the brand down a little bit. Yeah. And at the end of the day, like this is a really solid 7 1/2 out of 10 on all of the flavor elements of the scoring. I think that value wise, if this had jumped with inflation and the bourbon boom, if this had jumped from 35 to $45.00, I would be 100% like 7 and a half, eight out of 10 value. This is a really good whiskey.

50:45 You should pick it up at $65. I think I'm going to give it a 5 out of 10 on value. It's not a bad bottle of bourbon. You're going to enjoy the experience. You're just paying a premium for a Double Gold award 1 five years ago. Now, again, this is not a fair comparison because this is a single barrel. But at this price point, you could get a bottle of Wild Turkey Rare Breed and still have $10 in your pocket. You can get a bottle of Old Forrester 1920 and still have a couple dollars in your pocket. I just think that there are better whiskeys out there at the price point, regardless of if they're, you know, age stated to a certain year or if they're a blend as opposed to a single barrel. Yeah, so.

51:29 Woodford Double O. Yeah, exactly. So I'm going to give it just a 5 out of 10 as well on value. And that brings me to a 35.5 out of 50. Brad, where are you? I am eminently higher than you. Just blew you out of the water Bob, with a 36 out of 50. All right, so that takes us to a 35.75 on average or a 71.5 out of 100. Now again folks, you might see a 71 and think that this is like AC level whiskey. I don't think that's true. We always have to factor in the price point and whether people are getting kind of screwed on the price. I think Henry McKenna the bourbon is perfectly fine. It's a well above average whiskey. I'd recommend trying it at the bar. You know, if you really want to get a bottle of it for the status symbol, I guess, sure, go ahead. I just think you're paying about $20 too much. Yeah, I I am with you in lockstep on this, Bob. Obviously we came out to almost exactly the same score. I think we're kind of in lockstep with our movie as well. The Lion King is a hell of a movie, and I'm really glad that we're reviewing it today.

52:40 How about we get back to that that review? Sounds good, Brad. Let's get to it. All right, everybody, that was Henry McKenna Bottled and Bond Single Barrel, a whiskey that set the hype train moving in a similar way that Angels Envy did around barrel finish. That's true. And it like. Yeah, I I good comparison. Thanks, man. I I'd say that I like Henry McKenna a little more than I do angels envy like in the realm of what it did, but like it, you know, it got the train moving it it changed the game as we knew it helped alter the rules of the deal.

53:28 But here we are years and years later going man, we've come a long way because there is some daggone good stuff coming out of heaven. Hell, that's not just Henry McKenna. All right dude. Well on that note, what do you say we keep this train A roll in and we get into our next segment for the day, which we call 2 facts and a falsehood. Brad is going to try to stump you ball 2. All 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, none of which is about the song.

54:08 Be prepared. I'm really glad that I checked with you beforehand. Although I really, I just keep it in my pocket and get this right, you know? I didn't say that one of them was. All three of them are about. Be prepared. All right man, hit me with your two facts and a falsehood. Fact Number one voice actor Frank Welker provided all of the lion roars for the film. Not a single recording of an actual lion roaring was used because the producers wanted specific sounding roars for each lion. Fact #2 The Wildebeest Stampede took Disney's CG department approximately 3 years to animate. A new computer program had to be written for the CG will to be Stampede that allowed hundreds of computer generated animals to run but without colliding into each other.

54:57 Fact #3 Casting director Andrew Phillips had a difficult time casting the role of Zazu, as both Rowan Atkinson and Chris Rock had tried out for the role. When Rock found out that Atkinson had also auditioned for the role, he graciously bowed out, stating that the role fit Atkinson like a glove. This is interesting. OK, so #2 stands out to me, not necessarily for being false, but I think it was one of the few places in the movie where I could tell that there were some CGI elements. And in particular it's like when the camera pans, I don't even pans it like lifts up to reveal the wildebeests on the like plateau above. You can tell that like that's definitely like a computer assisted thing. It looks different from the rest of the movie when they start running down the face of that Cliff that looks like the Cliff kind of looks CGIA little bit, but everybody. And I watch Attack on Titan together, which is an anime and most of it is all hand drawn, but there's a decent amount of CG stuff in there.

55:55 And every time we see something that's CG we we go CG wheel, CG flag, CG horse and pointed out. And I literally had that moment watching this where I was like CG wildebeest. See that was the thing, I don't know if the wildebeests were CG or not. That's what I'm trying to think of it. If they just like put them on top of ACG environment. So that one, like I'm flagging it. But I definitely noticed CG in that scene for sure #3 Rowan Atkinson is fantastic as Azzu. They could not have picked a more perfect person for that. I will say that like I have never watched like watched the full movie of the 2019 Lion King. But if you're going to recast Rowan Atkinson, like John Oliver is actually pretty good casting for the Floyd Sasu.

56:40 He he just reminds me of an annoying, you know, dodo or whatever it was parrot. The the casting of birds in the 90s was pretty top notch because Gilbert Gottfried in Aladdin is incredible. I just love that they're like, OK, we're in like Saudi Arabia. Who should play this bird? Gilbert Godfrey. Give me the roll. OK, so that kind of leaves number one. I dude, I just don't believe that every single lion roar was done by a human being. That I maybe it was, but I'm going to put my eggs in that basket. I'm going to say #1 is the falsehood, Brad.

57:22 Bob, I was hoping you'd pick that because that is the first fact on the IMDb page. What is it really? That one is true. Yeah, it's 100% true. And I am telling you, I immediately went on YouTube and typed in Frank Welker, Lion King. It is the most psychotic thing I've ever seen. This man is literally screaming into like a tin like silver medal trash can and like holding a tambourine looking thing and he's like angrily screaming into it and it sounds exactly like a real lion. That's crazy dude.

58:05 It's it's literally one of the most bonkers things I've ever seen. And as as soon as I saw it, I was like, oh, I'm going to get Bob with this. Yeah, you did. I was like, there's no way. OK, So what is the falsehood? #3 was the falsehood. Oh nice. Yeah, nothing about Christmas. Had him pegged from the beginning. Yeah, yeah, Atkinson very obviously is the perfect casting. It's so funny because he's such a good voice actor and his most famous character is basically a silent movie character, you know? Yep. Yeah, no, I, I will say I think Mr. Bean is one of the greatest comedic characters ever created in the history of comedy, film, television.

58:50 Like anything he did, he is absolutely perfect then. Well, you know, Speaking of super hilarious things, we're going to segue back into the death of Mufasa, perhaps the most crushing thing ever to be hoisted upon. Children. I laughed pretty hard. The the only thing funnier in the movie than that is when Simba thinks that it was his fault. Yeah. Oh yeah, gaslighting, am I right? Let's talk real quick about the the Stampede scene, the death of Mufasa. I think this is another one of those areas where their ability to kind of animate like dust clouds is really, really well done in the scene because there's a shot, it's right after Mufasa jumps out of the herd of wildebeest and is you get that shot of him struggling to get up the rock and try to hold on.

59:40 And then it cuts back to like an over the shoulder of Simba looking and between him and his dad trying to climb up the face of this Cliff is there's this this cloud of dust obscuring everything. And it's like the most there's so much visual information going on in that shot. And I just have to say again, you know, if we can consider that an action sequence, the geography of that space is so well done. Like they lay the whole thing out for you. They show you where the wildebeests are. They show you how they get, you know, goaded into stampeding. But even things like. The direction of everything moving left to right, and then Mufasa has to go down among them, and then he gets to the end and turns around and comes back and now everything's moving right to left or whatever, you know what I mean?

1:00:23 Like whichever direction, it's just so, so well done that it it's a chaotic sequence, but it's never incoherent. And and the way that they end it where when Simba's looking for his dad and the and the one wildebeest kind of pops up out of the smoke and runs past him, which gives you that perfect like you're watching something and you're like, oh crap. And then you see the broken branch that Simba had been on and his dad lying just corpse like underneath it. It. It's chilling dude, it's so well done. I don't remember watching Bambi as a kid. I don't know if my parents ever showed it to me. And you know, all I'd ever heard was like Bambi's mom, Bambi's mom.

1:01:07 I watched Bambi as an adult. First of all, incredible movie. You don't see Bambi's mom die. You hear a gunshot and then like they can't find Bambi's mom and that's it, dude. This movie goes so much further and like arguably further than it should. This movie is like deeply fucked up for for like 5 minutes there where you see a dead body. The kid is trying to get his dad to wake up and like we got to go home and then realizing not only is my dad dead, I'm scared and we're alone here and like cuddling up to him because he doesn't know what else to do. Heartbreaking. And then the the most screwed up thing is like you don't even get time as a viewer to truly grieve Mufasa before Scar is right there again and the first thing he says is Simba.

1:01:55 Dude, the way the way he appears out of the smoke. It's just like looking down at him and he says, Simba, what have you done? And it's like in in lieu of being able to actually kill him, now I can leverage this against him. And the the second that he says, you know, the fact remains, the king is dead and he'd still be alive if it wasn't for you, I'm like, Oh my gosh, dude. Like this movie is like psychologically screwed up. It is like one of the more twisted psychological thrillers I've ever seen. Ever. So one of the things that we talk about at my job, the the company I work for is that darkness and evil is always seeking to twist things against you, that it's always seeking to give you the worst version of something to believe.

1:02:51 And I don't know if I've ever seen a better illustration of that. Then when Scar walks up to him afterwards and does all the things you just said, like the the amount of gaslighting that he does to get symbol it to get Simba to believe this lie at the core of his being that I am a murderer. I not only am a murderer but I killed my father the the person I look up to more than anything else in the world. Like tell me that people aren't walking around this planet believing lies about themselves to be true, and those lies that they believe about themselves lead them to become a person that they were never intended to be. The same way that, you know, he becomes going off and eating grubs.

1:03:44 And like, it's wild how accurate this movie displays that reality that is so true for so many people on this planet. Man, I hate to like even have to segue out of that. Good, good point well taken Brad. Enjoy your moment for a hot 2nd. We do need to talk about the back half of this movie because it is, I think. Do we though? I just think it's weaker than the first half. I think that kind of goes without saying. But I have come around on it in the fact that it's like the Timon and Pumbaa stuff only really suffers from the fact that it's like an 8 out of 10 movie and the rest of the movie around it is a 10 out of 10 movie. And so it's kind of unfair cause the comedy works. I do think they could have done with like two or three less pop culture jokes.

1:04:32 Cause like, how do you know how to do the hula in, in the African Savannah, you know, in drag, right? Exactly. Like how do you know quotes from the movie in the heat of the night? I don't understand. Where are you watching these films, Pumba? Is is that the you can call me Mr. Yeah. Yep, Yep, Yep. OK, yeah, I I had no idea what that was. We'll watch that movie someday. It's a great movie, but and also if you see that line in context, then you'll be like, why? Why are they making fun of that lion in The Lion King? So anyway, all that just say like. I will say in our household the song that Timon sings are yakin for some bacon that like we sing that song at least once a week in our. House.

1:05:16 That's funny. I mean, listen it as Hula's go, it's a good one. It just is. It's an incredible, a very wrong part of the globe to be doing that. Bob, here's the deal. You can be a big pig too. So, you know, it's funny because like I I still don't think this movie has really any fad on it, but there is just something about the fact that you go from A10 to an 8 pretty quickly that after Hakuna Matata when Nala shows up, it's all like plot like it. The everything there is essential to the movie, but it's kind of like if you need to take a pee break, you really can right there. You can come back 5 minutes later and it's still, you know, 'cause then Rafiki's like, hey, come follow me through 18 twisted jungles until we can see your reflection, dude. Which that scene is.

1:06:05 Again, the scene is good, but he it's not. When he smacks him in the head and then Simba gets mad at him and he goes why does it matter? It's in the past. Come on. Dude. Oh, it's great. And then Simba goes, but it still hurts and I'm like, oh, it's so good, man. You can either learn from it, right? Run from it, or learn from it. Rafiki's great. Dude, it's it's probably the best advice Disney has ever given in a movie. Here's another hot take. So Simba did not recognize Rafiki. He had no idea who Rafiki was. When Rafiki shows up. Now Rafiki is like the shaman of this village, like Rafiki is their spiritual leader, which goes to tell me that Mufasa was raising his sons in a godless home.

1:06:54 Apart from apart from the presence of Rafiki, perhaps the reason that bad things happened to Mufasa is is the lack of a a spiritual moral compass. Yeah, he needs those good Judeo-christian values in the home. As evidenced by the baboon Rafiki. Sure, yes. So once Simba decides to go back and they have that great shot of him running across the entire, you know, Sahara desert to get back to Pride Rock, the movie really picks up again. And the final fight is great. But dude, I there are moments in animation. And I don't mean this as a slight to animation, because animation is a very legitimate art form.

1:07:39 The moment that Simba walks back up the rock, when Graffiki says it is time, and then you get the Hans Zimmer score with the two big in slow motion. I forgot that I was watching a cartoon. It is one of the most affecting, triumphant, truly epic scenes in the history of cinema and it ends that movie on such a high note that it's like I don't care about any complaints I had before this. It is perfect movie making. That's incredible, man. There's even a moment during the final fight where you hear Inception in the in the music. Did you notice that?

1:08:27 I didn't notice it but I was going to say, how early did Hans Zimmer start stealing his scores from all of his interns? Like, was this actually written by somebody else or is this a Hans classic? I, I mean, at this point, I assume that not much of it is right, which makes me sad because like, it was fun having another like legendary composer in the world other than John Williams. And then, you know, he he just kind of sucks, but still gave us some incredible music, even if it was his interns, right? I the the final shot of this movie once again, you return to the beauty of that opening montage and all of a sudden you have another final drum beat cut to black Red Lion king logo.

1:09:18 It's just an incredible, like the movie is the circle of life and it's the beauty of what it means to become an adult in a dark and dangerous world and to fight for something that you believe in. And I think that we need more movies like 1994 Lion King in the world today because it it teaches you all about the things that are important about being a human being in this world. It's just, it's so good. And you're right, man. That final scene when he's coming out and Rafiki's holding his child out, that looks like they ran out of money, so they just reused baby Simba.

1:09:59 It's so good, man. All right, dude, I think that is the perfect segue 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 episode, so thanks Listening to the film and Whiskey show. Let's have 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 the part of the show where we pick a movie to pair up with this one to make the perfect double feature. Brad, I'm still trying to pinpoint exactly what my Let's Make it a double should be, so I'm going to throw to you first. Please vamp while I decide my my choice. Bob, if you're looking for a movie that leads you into the darkness, that gives you no hope for a future that is traumatizing to young children, there are no other choices for Let's make it a double the 1988's The Land, The Before Time. A truly devastating film.

1:11:01 I I mean, if the focus of this episode for us has been man, this movie's way darker than I remembered. Let's go watch Land Before Time, my dude. What do you actually remember from that movie besides just the mom dying? I remember the mom dying. I remember them walking across like a tar swamp that that like sticks out really strongly to me. And I think just the characters like Littlefoot and the triceratops and I, Is there a pterodactyl that travels with them? Yeah. Ducky, Ducky. Yeah. So like I, I think like just the characters, the tar swamp and the mom dying. Those are like the only things I remember from that movie. What's the name of the little triceratops? I can't remember.

1:11:47 Maybe that's that's not Ducky. I don't know. No duck. Ducky's the. There's like a very specific way that they animate that triceratops that like every now and then I'll see like a little kid who has that kind of like blank dumb stare on their face and I'm like like that can't look Bob exactly like the Triceratops child. That child is made in the image of God. That child is loved by his or her mother so much. Tell me that you don't know exactly what I'm talking about. And they've got the little, like, the little, like, triangular lip thing that comes down to. And they're just like, yeah, dude, it's that kid looks just like the triceratops.

1:12:29 I'm telling you, I see it all the time. Bob's doing his best efforts to get us cancelled. Let's move on from disparaging people's children, which I will not partake in publicly at least, and get to your let's make it a double. It might be because I've watched this movie recently, but you know, there's a ton of animated movies I can pair this up with. There's something about the sort of like weightiness of regal responsibility in this movie, like the the idea of stepping into your role and like having to fulfill something that is not just a governmental responsibility, but like ordained by the spirits or God or whatever that movie is, is giving you that.

1:13:15 I think the only movie that can really think of right now that that goes really well with that is the first Black Panther where you get the great scenes on the ancestral plane. You get the the idea of going to visit your ancestors, communicating with your ancestors. You know, Killmonger can't visit the ancestral plane because he's like forfeited his right to do that. And I think that like there's something there in the connection between remembering who you are, living up to who you are by birth, and your own regal kind of responsibilities and birthright, that I think you could do a heck of a lot worse than The Lion King and Black Panther. Yeah, great, great pairing, man. I I'm gonna stick with Lamb before time, but you? Do you, man?

1:14:00 All right, dude. It is time for some final scores on this movie. Brad. Is this a 9 1/2 or A10? I? I think that's really the only two options we have here. I think it's a nine and a half. I like, I adore this movie. I think the messaging is great. I think there's so so much love here, but there are some flaws that keep me from vibing this all the way to a 10. It definitely is flawed. They're like little things that bother me, like in the last fight with the scar, the weird crappy, like jittery slow motion that they do for 11 seconds straight. Just like, why did you do this? Why are they?

1:14:40 Why are they standing up and like boxing each other? This is not a lion's fight, dude. It's like an old timey English like. So the first time we reviewed this movie, I gave it a nine and a half, you gave it a 10, and we came out to a 9.75. I was already leaning towards 10. I think it would be the most appropriate thing here for us to just reverse rolls on this one because a 9.75, a 97 out of 100 is like the perfect place for this. It is a transcendently great movie that just happens to have a couple flaws. I think if you were like scoring out point by point the way we do whiskey like this would end up in that 95 to 98 area it it wouldn't be right there at the top. So yeah, I'm, I'm with you, man.

1:15:34 I think 9.75 is a good combined to score between the two of us. All right, there you have it. 9.75 out of 10 on average from Brad and Bob, but we wouldn't know what you think. Do you still love The Lion King? Is Black Panther or The Land Before Time the better pairing here? You can let us know on all of our social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Film Whiskey. And if you have any children who are lovely and definitely do not have a blank expression on their face at all times, you should jump onto our Discord to tell Bob how cruel and mean and misogynistic he is.

1:16:14 Join us on our Discord. You can find a link to it at the end of every single one of our show notes. Next week we're staying in 1994 to look at what is arguably the best film of that year that isn't called The Lion King. It's Quentin Tarantino's all time masterpiece, Pulp Fiction. So join us as we revisit that movie. But until then, I'm Bob Book, I'm Brad G and we'll see you next time. Music.