To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) / Tullamore DEW Irish Whiskey

0:00 In 1962, director Robert Mulligan and star Gregory Peck gave the world a book adaptation that sought to capture the heart of a man dedicated to justice for all. In 2024, we returned to a budget favorite from Ireland. The film is To Kill a Mockingbird. The whiskey is Tullamore Dew. And more. Review 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.

0:54 I'm Brad G. And this week, we are revisiting the 1962 classic To Kill a Mockingbird. Brad, this has been one that I'm really excited to go back to. And folks, by the way, if this is your first time joining us, welcome into film and Whiskey. This season, we are revisiting all the films that we looked at in season #1 for our 10th season anniversary. It's been a really fun exercise so far. This is, I believe, episode 9 of Season 1 or of Season 10 rather. Brad, as I recall, our recording process from season #1 what we would do is we would kind of sit in a room. We get together once a month and we would knock out four episodes in succession. And it would take us like a full 8 hour day to do it.

1:37 So this would have been our third recording. And I remember this was the one where we went to your friend Eric's house and recorded 4 episodes in his living room. Oh yeah. As well as a bonus episode with Have a Shot of Freedom. So we we recorded quite a few episodes of This Day Man. Yeah, and the audio quality of those episodes reflects that. It was echoey and we were getting a little schwasty because we were drinking a lot of whiskey. What a great time. I remember, I'm, I'm sure I've shared this before, but that was the day that I had just had my wisdom teeth out about a week before and the like. The pockets were still healing and it was the first time that I felt comfortable eating solid food. And we got pizza and a Shard of pizza crust went right down into one of those pockets and I blood everywhere. And then we had to go record some more and drink. Whiskey it was dude, the dedication that you have shown. Since the beginning.

2:35 Life and limb on the line, my friend. Life and tooth, at least. Well, the film and whiskey audience thanks you for the sacrifice of your gums, Robert. Yeah, man, listen, this, you have to protect this voice and all of its, you know, attenuating things. Yeah, as much as you can. So let's not do that again is what I'm saying. Yeah, I am well over the days where we recorded for 8 hours straight. Me too. All right, man, let's turn our attention to To Kill a Mockingbird. A true American classic if ever there was one. This is, I think, ranked #25 on the more recent AFI Top 100.

3:16 It is a beloved movie. Atticus Finch was named the greatest hero in American movie history by the American Film Institute. So we have a lot to kind of live up to here, Brad. And, you know, I did not go back and listen to our Season 1 review. Sometimes I'll go back and listen to the whole thing just so that I I try not to repeat myself. Sometimes I'll go back and just see what I generally thought of the movie and then turn it off. And then there's days like today where I just have not had time to go back and listen. So maybe I'll completely repeat myself, but I'm more interested in your impressions of the film nine seasons on, from the first time you watched it. Now remind me again, was season one the first time you saw the film?

3:57 I think it was. I know that I read the book, you know, back in 9th grade, 10th grade, whenever. I don't think I ever actually saw the film until Season 1, but Season 1 has been so long ago that I I can't remember well. Hopefully you remember. Have you seen the movie since then? I have not. OK, so we're going to just go out on a limb and say that this is watch #2 for you. Sure. And yeah, that's a fair a fair guess given my history of the movie. Going to say, if I was a betting man, this seems like a safe bet to me. Now before we get into, Brad explains, I do want to kind of get your general impressions of the film.

4:38 Don't spoil too much of what you think, but like, is it what you remembered it to be? Did you find it a more rich experience this time? Was it significantly worse than the last time? Where you at on this one? I, I feel like I remember the first time through we both were like, this is a decently average film with one of the best courtroom sequences we've ever seen. And the second time through, I think that I'm kind of in a similar place, but I would say this is a average to below average film with a one of the best courtroom scenes I've ever experienced. Oh man. OK, so that whole thing about hey, don't get into your spicy takes, let's bury the lead. That did not.

5:22 That didn't take, apparently. I I mean I I guess not. All right, well, Brad thinks this is an average to below average film. There's your headline for today, and in order to justify that claim, I need to hear what Brad thought the movie was about. And that means it's time for, 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 explains is the part of the show where Brad breaks down the plot of the film that he has just seen for the second time. Now Brad, we are going to spoil this movie. So if you have not read the book or seen the film, I almost said American Sniper, To Kill a Mockingbird. I, I don't know, I was just thinking about shooting birds, you know, snipers.

6:07 I. Don't know. Yeah, basically the same movie you. Know To Kill a Mockingbird. You should probably go do that and then rejoin us for the rest of. The A dog A dog is assaulted in both movies. True. Yeah, All right, man, You have 60 seconds on the clock. Spoil this film and go. To Kill a Mockingbird is a film about Atticus Finch as seen through the eyes of his daughter, Scout Finch. She and her brother Jem are living in the Depression era Deep South in Macum, Alabama, and they watch as their father Atticus attempts to defend a black man who is on trial for the rape and assault of a young white woman in the town.

6:53 Throughout the film, they experienced different elements of difficulty. They're tried to be taught by their father the values of decency and respect for all people, and they witness the unjust guilty verdict of the man that Atticus is defending. And somehow, Boo Radley plays into it all. Yeah, somehow this is a good starting point, Brad, because I want to talk about where I think the film really succeed. Not even the film. Let's talk about the story. So you know the book by Harper Lee, you and I have both read it.

7:34 It's it's a classic. It's a Pulitzer Prize winning book that is since become like a lightning rod of controversy in the last 1015 years. Again, there are a lot of schools that have re banned this book and it's really funny because of, you know, originally the book was banned in a lot of places because those places were still very segregated and racist. And now they want to ban the book because it includes the N word. So we've come around to the complete opposite side of the spectrum and we're banning the book ironically for using racist language in its anti racist narrative. But that's beside the point. Let's talk about the narrative of the film itself. I feel like this is at the same time a story that feels very meandering and unfocused, and yet every metaphor or theme that is set up gets a payoff later in the movie. So I can't decide if it's like really brilliant or really unfocused.

8:37 And I kind of feel like it's both. I feel like it's the latter, Bob. Now here's the thing, the film and the book, the story is told through the lens of a unreliable narrator, right? Like we're talking about a 6-7 year old child. I think she is supposed to be at like as our viewpoint, which necessitates the reality that the view we get on all these situations is very simple and black and white. And because of that we also get what a six year old would be interested in. And so a lot of the movie is focused on like, these small experiences of a child, which underplay the narrative of a man being unjustly tried for murder.

9:34 And I think that the difference between those two prerogatives is like such a huge gap that I really wish they had just chosen one or the other to stick with and make a movie about that. I just found myself this time through being very bored because the movie didn't seem to be going anywhere specific. I don't disagree with you, and yet I'm going to to play devil's advocate. So let's put a pin in that for a second 'cause I do want to come back to that. And I think my overarching point is that this narrative, including the script for this movie, which wins an Academy Award, is better on paper than it is on film.

10:24 I just think that like, you can see the themes more clearly. You can see the Chekhov's guns and the pay offs way more clearly when someone's explaining it to you or when you're reading it then when you're seeing it on film. Because in the film, everything has equal weight to it. And I think that's kind of gets to your point of like, some of these things seem way weightier than the other things. Why are we spending an equal amount of time on both of them? But I really do like how every character that's set up gets a payoff. Like the guy who is who has the entailment to Atticus Finch that's bringing him like the chestnuts or whatever, and then she beats up his son. But then they have a son over to dinner. And then that pays off later in the movie when he arrives with the angry mob and her appealing to him.

11:09 His own indebtedness to her dad and to being friends with her son kind of gets Tom Robinson and Atticus out of some trouble. I like that. The whole thing about Tom Robinson not being able to use his left hand so that he couldn't be beating on Maela Yule's right side of her face actually comes back later in the movie when Jem is attacked at the end of the film and you see him laying in bed and his right eye is bruised. And so then when the sheriff walks in and sees which eye on Gem is beat up, they don't even have to say anything. It clicks with both of them that this guy was attacked by Bob Ewell. Like it? I really like those little moments throughout the film. I just want to be clear.

11:50 Robert E Lee Ewell. Yes, yeah, yeah. If we weren't clear about what this man represents. The greatest thing about that name Brad is that he has 2 middle names, one of which is a last name and the other of which is just the letter E Yes, his first middle name is E. Yes, his second middle name, Lee. It's incredible. To be clear, it is not incredible. The the naming convention is very funny. It it really is. So yeah, I I think that there are a lot of things in the script that pay themselves off really well, and they do them in very subtle ways sometimes. And I want to give that credit.

12:32 However, in the course of watching this movie, the 1st 10 minutes of the film, I was like, Oh my gosh, I forgot how good this is. I forgot how brilliant the setup of seeing these things through the eyes of a child can be because everything is given equal weight. And we've watched so many of these like white people interacting with black people and learning a lesson, movies for this podcast. And so often they get accused of being like white savior movies. This movie kind of miraculously has avoided getting that much pushback. And I think part of it is because it's a it's seen through the eyes of a child. But I think if you really wanted to, you could still give the movie push back and say, well, the black guy is only used as a tool to educate the white people. And like, if I guess if you wanted to do that, you could. But I really appreciate it in this film that, like everything is treated as something that a, a young child is inquisitive about, is curious about, is learning about. And it doesn't feel insensitive.

13:34 It doesn't feel antiquated in the way that it portrays the racial politics of the South. And quite frankly, I also really liked that it didn't shy away from using really harsh, really, you know, denigrating language like the N word, which we've seen movies like The Help and Green Book won't even touch that word in in 20/20/2024. You know what I mean? Like I think it's more frank about race in 1962 than a lot of these other big Oscari race playing movies are in this day and age. And the reality is if you are going to set your movie in the Deep South of the 1930s, you have to, I mean, you don't have to, but you ought to, in my opinion, represent the time period well, which includes a lot of things like having the proper costumes and the proper stage sets being built and the proper accents being used.

14:34 And, and that includes like using the words that they would have used in the time. And I, I think it's just important to portray history as accurately as possible so that a modern audience can watch a film like this and understand the brokenness that was going on in the system. So I, I'm with you there, man. I I think that the movie does a a fairly good job of honestly portraying what the Deep South might have been like for a young white child trying to understand what's happening in the world around her. I think overall the theme really does hit home too, of you have to learn as you grow up that the adults in your life or just whoever you might come into contact with are very flawed people and are often very wrong people.

15:26 And in addition to this, Finch baby, well, in addition to that, like the people that they tell you are dangerous might not be. And the people that are embraced by society might be the dangerous ones. This movie does a really good job of that. I was going to say too, I think one of the best payouts of the movie or the best callbacks is at towards the end of the film when you find out that Tom Robinson is dead. And you know, it's implied that he was shot out of malice. But even if you don't think that he was shot out of malice, they call back to a scene earlier in the movie where Jem has been hounding Atticus about not letting him get a gun and he says that Atticus is basically a coward and he'd never use a gun. You find out Atticus is the best shot in the county when a dog with rabies wanders into the neighborhood and the sheriff hands the gun to Atticus and says, you do it, I can't shoot. And so like that comes back later in the movie where the sheriff and his deputies have bad aim. But the the phrase they used to describe how Tom Robinson supposedly ran away is he ran like a Mad Dog. And what, what really comes up in that moment is, was he running like a Mad Dog because he was put down like a dog. But we've already established the theme of killing a mockingbird, which is somebody who doesn't do anybody any harm. And So what they think they did was shoot a Mad Dog. And instead what they did was they shot a mockingbird. And I just, I, I really love, you know, that's directly from the book.

16:53 But I think they do a good job of folding those things in into the movie in a way that's not like overly schmaltzy or calling attention to itself. Now we can get into what the movie doesn't do so well. But I did, I did want to set aside like it does a lot of things very, very well. I just don't know in the balance of things if those things shine as much as they need to. Yeah, and they, they don't shine quite as much because there's enough moments that feel really forced that I it, it feels like a very up and down type of movie. And so for me, like the moment when the lynch mob goes to the jail to kill Tom Robinson and Scout comes in and starts talking to, you know, the farmer and gets him to feel bad and call off the mob, it's moments like that that feel so fake and for like a variety of reasons.

17:51 One of the reasons is that you can hear their voices. Echoing off of the set. Oh my gosh, dude. And this was so the director Robert Mulligan is not like a very famous director to this day. Like this is by far his most remembered film. And I will say that, like, again, in the 1st 10 minutes of the movie, I was like, the cinematography is beautiful. They put so much effort into this. There's actually a shot, one of the first establishing shots is when the guy that has the entailment, like, gets off of his cart and is walking with his bag of like nuts up to the side of the house. And the camera pans over with him and stops. And then Scout swings backward into the frame on a tire swing. And she's like narrating.

18:35 I was six years old. And then you see her for the first time. It's a great little economical use of the camera. And you can tell in this movie, more than most movies we've done on this podcast, which scenes they put time and effort into and which scenes were like, either we're running out of time or we're running out of money. Because some of them are outdoors, some of them are like really well choreographed. And then you have sequences like this mob sequence where it is clearly a sound stage. The sound quality is awful, the direction is bad. Like they're not even directing the members of the mob very well. They're they're the most quiet, respectful group of men that want to lynch someone. I like. It's, it's unbelievable, dude.

19:16 Yeah, 100%. And I think that was my frustration throughout the film, outside of the courtroom sequence, where it just felt like the quality of the filmmaking, whether it's the script, whether it's the cinematography, the sound design, it just felt like they were all at odds with one another throughout the movie. That you might have a great moment of the script, but the sound design isn't great. Or you might have a great moment of sound design, but the camera work isn't really up to par. And, and it just felt like a very uneven experience throughout. And then in the middle of all that, you have Gregory Peck just freaking knocking it out of the park with pretty much every line he's given, but especially as he is operating within the courtroom.

20:07 Why don't we save the courtroom sequence for the second-half of the show? Because I think we're kind of on a roll here with identifying what's wrong with the movie. And I always like it when we suggest fixes for the movie, too. Because as everyone knows, if there's anyone who needs to fix a 60 something year old film that's considered one of the best of all time, it's Bob and Brad Obvious. That's what they call us in for. It's what we make the big bucks. For the fixers, the. Fixers, man. I do think a you need to lose 20 minutes off this movie, and those 20 minutes all need to come from the sequences of them sneaking around the Radley house. There are way too many of them and there are only a few that are actually like germane to the plot of the movie in terms of, you know, he he picked up my pants and hung them up for me. Like literally that's the only part of that that you need to to establish that Boo Radley is not harmful and that he wants to leave presents for people.

21:01 But there's like 3-4 different sequences of them sneaking around that house and they just get so repetitive that it really grinds the movie to a halt. There's a great sequence where the judge comes and assigns the case to Atticus and it it happens right after the kids are reminiscing about their dead mom. It's like a beautiful sequence of this film and the stakes are established. And then the very next scene is her like fighting with this kid Walter at school and then this extended sequence of him coming home for dinner. And man, those both of those scenes only exist to pay off that scene at the the lynch mob. But it's like you invested, what, 8 minutes of the movie into a 22nd payoff later. And I just don't know if the balance of that works out for me.

21:50 Like you, you got to trim some of the kids sneaking around stuff. Tell me this Bob, does the movie change at all if you just completely get rid of Boo Radley? Like, obviously you have to change up the ending of the film a little bit. I don't think you have to do a lot of work to make it make sense. No, I think Boo Radley is necessary for the point of the movie to make sense. Like Tom Robinson is frankly dispatched with so quickly and so quietly, and it's because he, you know, he doesn't overlap with these children's lives. But then that principal comes back into play with Boo that like, they killed Tom Robinson, they killed a mockingbird. We're not going to do the same thing again with Boo Radley. He's a guy that doesn't harm anybody. And I like, it's the only hint of progress in terms of like the way people are thinking about others in the film. So I think you have to keep Boo Radley in it. I just don't know that you need to hammer it in that much of of him being a threat or him being spooky aside from one maybe 2 scenes.

22:53 But the the problem is nobody in the movie changes like like Scout, even at the start, it's not like she's this racist little kid who needs to learn how to not be racist. Like, the sheriff is the only person who, like, maybe kind of a little bit changes, but like, they establish him early on as a generally good guy. And even when he's in the courtroom, he isn't presented as somebody who inherently believes that Tom Robinson did what he was accused of. So like nobody in the movie changes at all because of the court case, because of what happens because of the death of Tom Robinson. Like all of the black people in the top of the courthouse believed he was innocent and still believe he's innocent at the end.

23:45 All of the white people in the town who are racist or presented as racist are racist at the end of the movie. Atticus Finch is not racist and he's not racist at the end of the movie. At like I just don't understand how the story can matter when nothing really changes. Yeah, but I mean, like the, I, I hear what you're saying, but think about a movie like The Help, which we've watched for this podcast. Now, nothing really changes in the social strata of that movie either. It's like little small victories on an individual level that are the emotional payoff of that movie. So I, I don't necessarily think that you have to have huge systemic structural change. I'm like everybody linking arms, if you know what I mean, Like, and I'm not suggesting that you're actually saying that, but I, I, I don't know, it didn't bother me that much. And I think that you can cut out so much of the kids being kids stuff as long as it doesn't directly pertain to a payoff later in the movie.

24:44 And I think 90% of the fat on this movie is gone. And it's a quicker movie. It's a. You can draw through lines across the characters much more easily. In any case, I it's got to lose some time somewhere. Sure, I I guess I just feel like, you know, even your example of the help there are individuals who slowly change as the power of what's her name, Tilly. I think Hilly Holbrook. Hilly. Yeah, Hilly Holbrook like as her power is broken over the community, like individuals change and grow and thrive. And and you see the black women of that movie become more empowered as their story is given voice in this movie. I I just don't see any of that.

25:32 I I actually care less about this is going to sound bad. Don't don't take this as a sound clip. I care less about the overall societal change within the structure of this movie. Like within just make them Alabama of this movie. I care more about individuals or an individual moving into a better place. Like, I almost wish that the movie, that the story was about an older scout who lived with her mother, who was extraordinarily racist, and the mother dies and she has to be returned to Atticus. And it's a story about her growing to respect and understand that black people are humans as well. Like like this sounds like the most problematic movie. I'm just picturing small scout Finch casually dropping the N word in this movie and I don't know if that if that's going to fly I I mean, I know what you're saying though. Yeah, like, like tell me it's not more impactful if the audience stand in, grows rather than is just a little kid the whole move.

26:40 It sounds like you might be a fan of. So I think we talked about this a little bit in the first go around. Harper Lee, the only book that was ever published by her was To Kill a Mockingbird. It was long rumored that she had an alternate version of it that she wrote as a first draft upon her. I don't think she was dead yet, but she was like incapacitated and it threw some various sketchy circumstances signed away her rights to this book. And they released this book in 2015 as a ghost set A Watchman was the name of the book. And in that book, an older scout is reminiscing about her growing up in Make Em. And Atticus Finch is like a virulent racist, like very much so.

27:23 And he's portrayed as both a good dad and a good guy and also real racist. And people really struggled with this book. I I mean, I've heard it's not that good anyway. But like, now you've taken a true American literary hero and made him this racist guy for whom I don't even know what his arc looks like or if he's just, if it's just accepted as fact that he like doesn't like black people. But it it does kind of sound like a little bit what you're suggesting that like you need to give the main characters something to overcome rather than just be like this tabula rasa and like impartially observing everything. Yeah, I I would much rather Atticus start the movie as a racist and through his interactions with Tom Robinson and Helen, his wife and his family grow to a place of not just believing that Tom didn't do it, but recognizing that black people in the South in the 30s are real human beings with desires and brokenness and and, and the full range of the human experience.

28:32 And by the end of the film, he has become a new person with a vigor for bringing about justice in the world. I think that's a way more fascinating film. And I think that if that was true of the first half of the movie, then that courtroom scene where he is defending this black man not just because he has to, but because he wants to and believes in the cause, tell me that that's not way more emotionally powerful than in a scene that's already incredibly emotionally powerful. Yeah, man, I I think what we're both arriving at is that this is a Great American story and it's an important one, but that this adaptation needs a little something to tighten it up a bit.

29:17 And I think, Brad, when we get back, we're going to talk about the best part of the movie, which is that courtroom sequence, which I might have a spicy take or two about as well. But before we get there, what do you say we drink this Tullamore do? I am so excited, Bob. Let's get to it. All right, so today we are checking out Tullamore DO, which is labeled as Tullamore DEW. There's little periods in between each letter. I have never known exactly if you're supposed to pronounce it do or DEW, but I'm looking at the Wikipedia now and it it lists it as do. We're going to go with Tullamore. Do Brad.

29:57 It also like the actual branding has all of the letters being capitalized in Tolemore and do. But if you see it in like press releases, Tolemore is spelled normally with a capital T in all lowercase and then do is all capitalized correct? But it's almost like they're yelling at you like Tolemore do. They want to compete with Mountain Dew. You know this is the Tolemore do, damn it. Don't get it confused. So this is one of the world's most famous Irish whiskeys. We've obviously reviewed it before back in Season 1. We've done a couple other little offshoots of Tullamore Do that were finished in different kinds of barrels. I believe one of them was called like the Tullamore Do Caribbean Cask or something like that.

30:45 We really liked that one. I'm excited to dive back into Tullamore Do because we have long lauded Jamieson as our favorite mass produced Irish whiskey, but Tullamore has always given it a run for its money, literally because they're like the same price and just because you and I appreciate a good budget pour of whiskey. Yeah, 100% Tullamore DO was recommended to me long, long time ago, like before we ever started the podcast. I remember telling a friend that I really like Jamieson. Jamieson and Ginger was like my go to drink and he told me why don't you try Tolmore do some time. It's like at the time it was like a few bucks cheaper than Jameson and I remember trying it and being a fan of it. So I like literally from like 2015, I want to say I've always been a fan of.

31:36 Telemardu So this is a triple distilled Irish blended whiskey. It's a blend of malt whiskey, grain whiskey and pot still whiskey which are the three major categories in Irish whiskey. It is proofed all the way down to 80 proof and it is non age stated. So we have no idea how old this is, although I believe it has to be at least three years of age. So Brad, let's go ahead and dive into it. What are you picking up on the nose of Tullamore? Doo Doo more Doo. The nose here has some really nice lemongrass. It's like a little bit earthy, a little bit citrusy. The honey is there. There's a really strong, like, I don't know if I'm going to ruin this for you, Bob, but once I realized it, it's the only thing I could smell.

32:20 It's got a really strong apple juice element on the nose, really pleasant, comes across nicely, very soft and gentle as you would expect from an 80 proof Irish whiskey. I'm going to give it a 7 out of 10 here. Yeah, I like this a lot. And I will say that the, I hate to call it cheap, but the cheapness comes through after a little while on Irish whiskey, Brad and I almost always get these like bright citrus, apple leaf. We get melon and we get like Peach pear. Sometimes those are like the, the big notes we get on Irish whiskey. Sometimes we get those on blended scotches as well. And what I found is that if that's going to be like your baseline for the nose, then the mark of quality is how long can it hang on to those kind of much more gentle, subtle notes as you knows it.

33:12 And this one, it's right there up front. And then for me, 30 seconds in the grain whiskey in this really starts to take over and it's like a it, it just gets a little bit of a funk to it that may be coming from some of that pot still whiskey, but it just kind of smells like unflavored, unseasoned grain. And it starts to tip into like, oh, now I'm getting the ethanol notes. Now this smells a little bit harsher to me. So it's good for what it is. But like I I think even in the blind I could tell this is not a super expensive whiskey. I'm going to give it a 7 out of 10 on the nose as well. I think the palate is pleasant without being impressive.

33:52 The apple juice is really, really strong here. It's got some really nice floral notes. There's honeydew. It doesn't get into the nice honey flavors that yeah, I really hoped for. It's pleasant and bright. I actually do like it a little more than the nose. It is very simple so I'm going to I'll bump up a tiny bit to a 7 1/2. Yeah, I'm going to. I mean, I think in terms of just pure enjoyment, this is like an 8 1/2 for me. I'm going to give it an 8 on flavor. It's simple, but once you kick it to the back of your pallet and the sort of like cigarette ashy notes start to come up that we get a lot on Irish whiskey, it's a really nice transition.

34:34 It fades you into it very, very well. And I expected it to be a lot harsher and a lot more sudden for those kind of bitter notes to come out on the back. It doesn't do that. I am going to Ding it on finish because that's where the bitter notes really take over for me. It's a long lasting finish, but it's really grain forward. And it's, it's like straight ash for a little bit, quite a bit more bitter than I would have liked it to be. I'm just going to give it a 7 out of 10 on finish. Yeah, I I actually am lower than you on finish. I'm going to give it a six out of 10 here. I literally my first note is cigarette ash, like the IT is so ashy on the finish. There's some green apple, but like kind of like a sour, almost like an apple.

35:21 You wouldn't quite want to eat type of sour green apple. There's just it. It drops off on the on the finish Bob. See, and that would be more forgivable when we keep the value in mind. I know we're still getting into balance here, but like a lot of times we say, OK, it's well balanced for a $20 whiskey. It's no longer a $20 whiskey. So I have to keep that in mind as well. But as much as I can say in a vacuum, is this a well balanced whiskey? No, not really. I'll give it a 6. I feel like that's probably a little bit generous, but this is like this is a below average whiskey. This is not what you want. You know, I would recommend you buy like a $40 Irish whiskey over this.

36:03 I will help it out when we get to value, but right now we're just talking about in general. Is it well balanced? Probably not Brad. Yeah, I'm at a 6 1/2 on balance It it's interesting, but it's not complex in any way. I think value wise, this is sitting at $29.00 in the state of Ohio. This isn't a whiskey that's going to get gouged across the country. So I'm guessing you're going to see it anywhere from 28 to $30. I'll give it a 7 out of 10 on value. I I still think it's a good whiskey worth drinking, but there are better options. And I love what you said, Bob. I would I would push you towards a lot of like 38 to $42.00 whiskeys before I would say go drink Tullamore dude.

36:50 You said it's $29.00 now. Yes, Sir. Yeah, that's a 4 or 4 1/2 five. I'll give it a 5 out of 10 on value. I mean like Jameson's the same price. I do think Jameson's better than this. If Tullamore do was undercutting them by 5 bucks, it'd be a great value. I'm sure this is a good mixer. I think if you wanted to throw it in with some like apple cider or something in the fall would be really, really good with those apple notes in it. But $30.00 for a mixer is kind of pushing the upper limits of what a mixer should cost. And at that point, if you're going to be doing that, I'm with Brad just, you know, save up 10 more dollars and get something that's good meat. So that's taking me to a 33 out of 50.

37:32 Brad, where are you at? A point higher I'm at 34 out of 50. So that takes us to just a 67 out of 100 or a 33 1/2 out of 50 on average. Do I recommend this? It's a soft no. Like I think I would pass and get something else. It's not like offensively bad. I I'm not offended by the price of it. I just think it's slightly overpriced for a slightly below average whiskey. Yeah, if you are experienced in the world of Irish whiskey, I would say pass on this. If you are looking to try Irish whiskey for the first time, check out what it's all about. Like you can find a 50ML of this for like $1.52 bucks.

38:15 I'd say go buy a 50ML, pour it, enjoy it, try it out. It's going to be worth that. And if you like it then keep a bottle of it on your bar. It's not that expensive. All right, Brad, let's get back into talking about To Kill a Mockingbird. What do you say? Let's get to it. All right, everybody, That was Tola more. Do do do. You know what? You haven't been doing well at this this year, Bob. Do you know what it's time to do now? It's time for 2 facts and a falsehood, Brad. Is it's going to try to stump you ball 2 are right and what is wrong?

39:02 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 and I have to determine which one that is. Brad, you've gotten me a couple times this season. I I don't know about this one. There's a lot of directions you could go because it's very famous movie, won a lot of Oscars, but there's also the whole literary adaptation background. And I definitely didn't do enough research to cover all these bases. So you, you might get me today, dude. I am ready to do you in Bob. All righty fact #1 The watch used in the film was a prop, but Harper Lee gave Gregory Peck her father's watch, who she based Atticus Finch off of after the film was completed because he reminded her so much of her father. Fact #2A scouting agency was instructed to find as naturalistic of actors as they could find for the main children in the film and conducted interviews with over 400 children before settling on Mary Badham and Philip Alford as Scout and Jem Finch.

40:16 Fact #3 Philip Alford told his mother that he did not want to go to the auditions for the part of Jem Finch, but when his mother told him that he would miss half a day of school if he went, he immediately decided to go. OK, they all sound very plausible so I will give you your kudos for that. Remind me real quick #1 again. The watch was a prop, but she gave the real 1. I'm gravitating towards either one or three as the lie. So if you're doing a little dance because number 2 is the lie you already have, you've gotten me already. I'm going to say I'm going to say #1 is the falsehood.

41:03 But I have no basis for that other than it just seems like the most made-up PR thing that I could think of. Bob, you are wrong. That was a true statement. Number 2 was the falsehood. Oh wow. OK, there you go. I don't feel like I often just like so completely pull the wool over your eyes that you immediately are like, oh that falsehood totally a fact. It just seemed like, you know, the most asinine of the of the bunch. So yeah, 400 kids got interviewed. Cool. That's exactly what my high school teachers told me about me, the most asinine of the bunch. That was that was what you won in your yearbook as a senior, right? Most likely to be asinine.

41:49 Of the bunch. Of the bunch, sure All right man, let's dive back into To Kill a Mockingbird now the most famous sequence of this movie, and arguably it's best, is the courtroom sequence in the middle. I guess the second third of the film. It's about 35 minutes long. It is a powerhouse of early 60s cinema. It's a great courtroom sequence. I said I'd have some spicy takes. I'll just kind of get this out of the way now. It's so completely changes the perspective of the film that it does kind of bother me that they don't cut away to the kids more often or have camera setups in the balcony looking down at the proceedings from their point of view more often.

42:32 Yeah. And I think that that gets to your point, Brad, about kind of undermining that this is a story told through children's eyes because it is told literally at the eye level of Atticus Finch for 35 minutes in a row. And he becomes the actual, like, subject of the film. And I think that that really does bother me. Like if this is a movie about kids learning through the their own eyes what's around them, then you got to actually like put the camera in the point of view of the children more often. I mean, I would argue that Atticus Finch is the subject of the entire film, and I think that's why Boo Radley just kind of isn't a great addition to the story. I think at the end of the day, this movie is not interested in reality. It's interested in creating a mythological figure that we ought all to strive towards Aspiration. Yeah.

43:24 Like Atticus Finch is a an Odysseus type character for modern Americans to strive towards in the way that they treat black people. Like if you are talking about the perfect person in regards to race relations, you have to talk about Atticus Finch. Now you're saying, like, let me, I don't mean to interrupt you, but like what you're saying is that's how the movie's putting him forth. Not necessarily that like Atticus Finch is Odysseus, but that the movie portrays him as that. Yeah, portrays him as a mythological aspirational figure that we should learn from and try to emulate in our own lives.

44:09 And so for me, the the courtroom sequence not being shot from the children's point of view, while it is tonally a massive shift from the rest of the movie, I think it's like betraying what the movie is really about. Like, the movie's never about the kids. The movie has always been about Atticus Finch. OK, well, I think maybe that's a good place to kind of talk a little bit about Gregory Peck, who wins the Academy Award in 1962 for best actor. This is one of the most fondly remembered performances in American film history, and I think for good reason. There's a really a really good quote from Pauline Kael, who didn't love this movie. And she says Gregory Peck was better than usual, but in that same virtuously doll way.

44:58 And I will say I kind of see where she's coming from a little bit. I don't find Gregory Peck to be a particularly charismatic actor. But what I do find is that in this movie, more than others, he has just the slightest little facial tics or expressions. Or can he glance sideways real briefly in a way that clues you into how knowing he is as a character? I do think it's just it's a phenomenal performance even from an actor that I don't really love outside of this movie. Oh, it's such an incredible performance. Like the amount of emotion that he lays into his speeches, his questioning that lies under the surface of a cool, calm, collected lawyer like it. It deserves every bit of recognition it gets as just a superb performance in a courtroom drama scene. And then it's undermined when the script asks him to like, gently consider a glass, an empty glass and throw it at his defendant Where I'm like, OK, come on. Here's my spicy, spicy take about the courtroom scene. I I got real bored during Atticus Finch's closing statements.

46:20 I think that in 1962, like having a white man advocate for a black man is compelling stuff in general. But I'm like, as he continues to be like, you know, she was a Sinner and what was her sin? Why tempting a black man and why did she tempt a black man? Why? Because it was like, Oh my God, dude, just stop. Like make your point and sit down, bro. And and he has that real famous line where, you know, in the name of God, do your duty. It's great. It's fantastic. That's it's one line amongst a sea of exposition that I wish was shorter.

47:00 I like there's just a couple moments, even in that courtroom scene that I think you could trim up if you really wanted to tighten up this movie a bit. Yeah, I, Bob, I am not disagreeing with you at all. I, I, I think that it's a great bit of acting. There's a lot of great moments, but once again, it just feels like Mulligan. As a director, Are you ready for this? Ought to have taken a few mulligans. And yet, Brad, to Mulligan's credit, I think that everybody that gets up on the stand in the courtroom sequence is like nominate this person for an Academy Award level performance.

47:43 It's like the it's like the wife in network winning for like a 4 minute scene. I mean, like Bob Yule, really villainous villain. You know, his face kind of reminds me a little bit of Robert Patrick, the guy that played the T1000 in Terminator 2. But like when he gets older and he's like the mean dad and walk the line, like, sure. I just think that if you're remaking this movie, Robert Patrick is Bob Yule. All of a sudden they come back with a not guilty verdict and he starts like morphing and shape shifting. I think that Maeela Yule, that is like you, you think that you've reached the pinnacle of like how powerful a performance can get because she's clearly lying.

48:25 She's clearly under duress. And then she snaps at everybody with that, like, you know, it'll all be for nothing and storms off. And then they put Tom Robinson on the stand and Oh my gosh, what a heart wrenching 10 minutes that is, man. Dude, like what a performance what it is. Brock Peters is so relatable and honest and open and vulnerable and kind and like if the goal of the movie is to present the image of how evil it is, To Kill a Mockingbird, he. Nails it.

49:09 Yeah, it. I mean, it might be pound for pound, it might be the best performance in the movie. I I think it might actually be better than Gregory Peck. And Gregory Peck is fantastic, but Brock Peters on the stand when he is finally asked, did you rape Maela Yule? And he's breaking down crying, saying, I did not, Sir. Like, it is just that is, that is to me, that's the indelible image of this movie. And I think that once you leave that courtroom scene and you get the news about Tom Robinson dying, it's really crushing. And you're kind of wondering, where's the movie going to go from here? And it makes sense where the movie has gone 20 minutes later when it's over and they put a bow on what you've just watched for the prior 20 minutes. But that transition from Tom Robinson is dead to, like, Scout in a ham costume.

50:00 I'm like, what are we doing? Why is this still going on? Wasn't that the end of the movie? And, and again, like, you get the closing 45 seconds of Scout narrating and that beautiful score, and, you know, her saying, like, I would look back on this summer and Tom Robinson and Boo Radley. And then it fades to Atticus in the window and he's hugging her. And it does get me. Like, it's an emotional moment. I cry at the end of this movie, but I cry because the filmmaking is so good in the last minute and a half, not because of the 20 minutes that have preceded it. Yeah, the, the final bit of this movie is terrible, Bob. It's it's not good the whole scene. And once again, I think Mulligan's hands are kind of tied here by the source material that she's in this stupid ham costume.

50:52 And, and once again, we've returned to the, we're going to show this from her viewpoint, which means we can't really show any of the fighting. The, the whole thing isn't good. It's not good visual storytelling. Like you said, I think that in a book format, it makes a lot of sense. In a visual medium, it's boring and doesn't come across well. And I, I just, I really struggled with the final bit of this film because I'll go back to my main point. Nobody changes in the film. Everybody is who they are. And the the tragedy of the film is that Atticus Finch, the pinnacle of someone using whatever power and influence he has to defend those who are underrepresented, fails. And like that like, that's the brutality of the movie. And so to tack on this thing where, you know, Gem and Scout are attacked and, you know, Oh, well, now that now that Tom Robinson has been killed and the person who had him killed is killed, like that's just this baby. Like they got each other in the end. I, it just feels I, I don't know. I really did not like the ending of this film, despite the fact that Robert Duvall gives a great

52:24 silent film performance. Good old Robert Duvall. All right, man. I think it's time for us to get to 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 the part of the show where we pick a movie to pair up with this one to make the perfect double feature, Right. There's a lot of directions you can go here. I mean, we haven't really talked about the year in film. That was 1962. It is one of the best years in cinema history. I mean, we've we've only done a couple of films from this year on the podcast, but the big one that took all of To Kill a Mockingbird's awards away was Lawrence of Arabia.

53:12 So if you just wanted to do a really, really long 1962 double feature, I guess you could pair it up with that 4 hour movie. But I'm really curious, man, where are you going to go with your? Let's make it a double today. Oh, this is a tough one, Bob. I I don't know, I like, there's a few places I could go. I, I think I'm going to go with a movie that I think takes what happens here in this movie and does it better. I'm going to go with 12 Angry Men. I like I texted you jokingly throughout the film when I was watching it and said I want to see the companion movie to this 12 Angry White Men about the deliberation that happens for the Tom Robinson case.

53:58 I think at the end of the day, 12 Angry Men takes the same premise on what if somebody used their voice to give a voice to somebody who's underrepresented and somebody who general society views as lesser. Like 12 Angry Men does that in a really beautiful and raw and honest way, and it's way more concise about it. So I just, I think 12 Angry Men would be a really good companion piece to this film. This movie has one of the best remembered scores of any film.

54:38 And I'm, I'm just wondering like we, we only really talk about the score of a movie when it's your boy John Williams. You know, there were moments in this movie where it really reminded me. This movie was scored by Elmer Bernstein. It reminded me of Leonard Bernstein's score for On the waterfront a little bit. And I thought that some of the more documentary feel elements would make a really good let's make it a 22. But I think ultimately what I was thinking about most was the narration part of the movie. And I hate the narrator of this movie. I hate the way she talks so much Brett, like from the very beginning when she goes make them was a tired Old Town. I'm like, oh God, I've been for two hours of this dude. But there's like this small subgenre of movies that are like movies that take place over the course of a summer or a year about a kid and and his older version or her older version is narrating it and it's.

55:35 Like say, like my dog Skip. Yeah, it was actually my pick. My dog Skip is mine. Let's make it a double. Is it? It really was, because here's the only movies I could think of that fit in this small subgenre. It's To Kill a Mockingbird. There's a movie from the 80s called My Favorite Year. The Sandlot fits into this. A Christmas Story. They're all like the same cheesy narrator over children learning things. And I think the one that's closest to this is my dog Skip, where instead of, you know, weird racist lessons happening, it's just a dog. It's just a dog teaching your life lessons, so there. I can't believe you picked it before I even got to it, but that's my pick.

56:16 That I feel prescient, Bob I 100%. All the movies that like, that's crazy dude. I did not know how I picked that out. I haven't thought about my dog Skip since I watched it as like an 8 year old. Oh man, I think that might be the best pick in our history of let's make it a. Double why thank you so much, Sir. Simply for the fact that I called it out. All right, man, let's give this movie some final scores. I'm going to give this an 8 1/2. I was at a 10 out of 10 for the 1st 10 minutes of the movie. It bounced back up to like a nine a couple times and then it just keeps tripping over itself on the way to the finish line. I feel like.

57:04 And any time we're watching a movie that is at least 60 years old like this, you have to remember that it's only the good ones that have even survived this long. So yes, the pacing seems slow, but that's, I mean, that's just old movies, man. And I I'm not, I'm not usually the guy that talks about how old movies are different than new movies. But let's be real here. Even with that taken into consideration, you know, I mentioned On the Waterfront, I think On the Waterfront's a better movie than this. I think it accomplishes what it wants to do better than this. And it's eight years older than To Kill a Mockingbird. So with that caveat, that's an 8 1/2 for me, Brad. See, I I actually, I didn't even think about the pacing in the film.

57:44 I like, I think the problem with the movie is way more structural, where the scenes themselves don't matter in a lot of ways. And so whether or not it's paced well doesn't really matter to me. I think that the movie struggles to understand what it's really about and the, the cinematography and the viewpoint of the camera and the viewpoint of the narration is like taking you away from what I think the script is actually trying to say. And so it just feels like the whole movie is a clash of, of, of visions of what they're trying to do. I am going to give this a 7 out of 10. 7 out of 10. OK, so that takes us to what, a 7.75 out of 10? On average, we are below the IMDb average on this movie, which is I believe an 8.3.

58:42 So folks, this is probably our hottest take yet this season. I mean, I can't, I can't think of anything else that would be hotter unless you want to count Brad's many times that he has given Goodfellas like an 8 or an 8.5. But we want to know what you think. Is To Kill a Mockingbird still the classic that it's always been regarded as or is it closer to Brad's 7 out of 10? You can let us know at any of our social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok or YouTube. Film whiskey or you can join the conversation on discord. We have an entire server dedicated talking about movies, whiskey, and anything else you really want to bring U.

59:22 So if you would like to join that conversation, you can find a link to our Discord at the end of every single one of our show notes. Well, we have made it through the gauntlet of one movie about racism, and we're doing it again next week, Brad, because it's time for us to revisit that infamous Best Picture winner, Green Book. So we'll be back next week to talk about Green Book, but until then, I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad Gee. And we'll see you next time.