322: Killers of the Flower Moon

[00:00:00] 31, 2024 Best Picture nominees. Let's get to Killers of the Flower Moon, which is the third

[00:00:11] Best Picture nominee that we have done so far, and we will be doing all 10 in the next couple

[00:00:16] of weeks now that the Oscars are over. Finally got caught up on all of them and so figured

[00:00:20] we'd just knock them out real quick. Killers of the Flower Moon is directed by Martin

[00:00:26] Scorsese, Co-written as well, also Co-written by Eric Roth who also wrote Dune, A Star's

[00:00:33] Born For His Gump, Munich, Benjamin Button, the guy's amazing, and Star's Leonardo

[00:00:41] de Caprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantuk Cardinal, John Lithgow,

[00:00:48] Brendan Fraser, Lysko's on and on and on. And the snopsies is when oil is discovered

[00:00:54] in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one until

[00:01:01] the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery. So like many I am a huge Martin Scorsese fan,

[00:01:10] Leonardo de Caprio is one of my all time favorite actors if not my number one favorite ever

[00:01:15] and obviously they've worked together many, many times over the years with no Indian

[00:01:21] sight which I'm so appreciative for because I think they are a perfect match. And this

[00:01:26] one is a film that I had wanted to see for a long time but I knew it was three and a half

[00:01:33] hours long. I think it's his longest film to date. It's a really heavy story. It's

[00:01:37] a lot to take in and I wanted to make sure I had the time and energy to really sit down

[00:01:42] and watch it in one sitting. I wish I had seen it in theaters but sadly I didn't get

[00:01:47] a chance to. Also one quick thing now that the Oscars have happened, I am so sad that

[00:01:53] this one got completely shut out yet again for Scorsese which is incredibly undeserved

[00:01:58] but he is Scorsese so everybody knows how great he is. Anyways, this movie, it's hard

[00:02:05] to even really know where to start. It's a lot of movie like that's the best way to

[00:02:11] describe it first off. There is so much going on, there's so much story, so many ideas

[00:02:17] and while it's not a film for everyone considering the runtime, the sort of story it is, I know

[00:02:22] that there are some people who think it's too long, it needs to be cut down this that

[00:02:26] in the other end. While I think from a personal taste, I get that but I thought the movie

[00:02:34] flat out was amazing. It wouldn't even be like top five Scorsese for me. It's definitely

[00:02:40] one of his recent best but he has so many great pictures in his career that it's even

[00:02:46] hard to rank this one against all the other great ones because as is obvious, no one makes

[00:02:52] a movie like him really time after time after time. He can do anything and he has done basically

[00:02:58] everything and every time I watch one of his movies, I'm like how does this work so well?

[00:03:04] Like how did the story come from nothing or all these different pieces and how did it come

[00:03:09] together to be this unique, amazing thing that nobody else could tell it in the way

[00:03:13] that he does? And for anyone who doesn't know the story, I'm not an expert on the story.

[00:03:19] I haven't read the book. I'm interested in doing that but it is this true story about

[00:03:24] these very, very wealthy Native Americans who had oil in their land and then a lot of

[00:03:32] white people discovered this and they slowly started killing them off one by one like just

[00:03:38] shooting them in the street, blowing up their homes. You name it, they probably did it poisoning

[00:03:43] them. It's pretty insane and as it touches on a little bit, it did lead to the basis for

[00:03:52] the FBI because these lawmen were sent in from Washington to investigate and they faced all

[00:03:57] these problems and jurisdiction issues. It was a complete mess and it was very, very easy,

[00:04:04] especially at the time to cover those murders and other crimes up that the FBI had a lot of

[00:04:10] problems dealing with. And getting more so into the story itself, DeCaprio who again is amazing.

[00:04:19] His character is very, very interesting because he's a bit of an idiot like kind of a doofy

[00:04:25] impressionable sort of kid in a way like he's a war veteran and he comes back and meets with his

[00:04:31] uncle King who is played by a Robert De Niro and he's basically the big man on campus and he

[00:04:37] has a lot of connections with the Osage as well as other businesses in the area and is basically

[00:04:42] like the mayor in a way, the unofficial mayor. But what I loved about that character in terms of

[00:04:48] not liking him quote unquote more so just being interested in the story and also the performances

[00:04:55] he's such an impressionable kid that he necessarily and I won't spoil anything too much don't

[00:05:01] worry. He wouldn't necessarily have gotten involved in the stuff that he did if it weren't for

[00:05:07] Robert De Niro's character like he's someone who could have married, this isn't a spoiler,

[00:05:14] he could have had a family with Lily Gladstone's character and not been involved in any of De Niro's

[00:05:21] dark dealings but he did and so I think that also gets into the ideas of racism and how people can

[00:05:27] be influenced by parents, by guardians, relatives, just their surroundings because you aren't born racist

[00:05:35] you aren't born a criminal but if you're led in that direction no matter how good a person you

[00:05:40] are it's possible that sort of thing can happen suddenly and so that arc of that character is very

[00:05:46] interesting the courtroom stuff at the end is great and one thing that Scorsese does incredibly

[00:05:54] well and pretty much better than almost anyone is his editing and that's partly direction too

[00:06:00] and his writing in this at least but the editing in this movie could have been a complete catastrophe

[00:06:08] because it's three and a half hours there's so many characters, so many plot lines, so many ideas

[00:06:13] and that easily could have become a complete mess you wouldn't know who was connected to who

[00:06:19] why was someone doing this or that and then also the pacing like the pacing for a three and a half

[00:06:24] hour movie a period film is near perfect like there were points where I was thinking wow this

[00:06:29] is actually still going on like there's two hours left and already a lot has happened that's

[00:06:35] pretty insane but I was never bored I was always thinking wow this is just going just going and

[00:06:39] going and going and going and going and going it could have been five hours and would have been all

[00:06:43] right with that masterclass of editing and so maybe that isn't the way everybody feels maybe

[00:06:50] somebody gets an hour and a half and they're like all right I get it I can't watch two more hours

[00:06:54] to this I understand that but I thought it was perfectly put together in that sense the storytelling

[00:07:00] the editing the directing the score is excellent it looks amazing of course the twist on the

[00:07:08] epilogue credits I guess you can call them in terms of what happened after the fact in this story

[00:07:14] I love that like it's kind of jarring at first but once I figured the twist so to speak after

[00:07:23] the fact I thought that was brilliant I had never really seen something done like that and the

[00:07:27] cameo in that moment is great as well so I think it is one of his all-time best movies I'm sad

[00:07:33] that it didn't get more of a box office draw I think it sort of flopped in a way despite all the

[00:07:38] really good reviews and Oscar Noms hopefully it'll have a shelf life which I feel like it will but

[00:07:44] it's definitely one of his most personal I think and passionate projects considering the story

[00:07:49] itself the runtime like this is a sort of movie that does not get made very often anymore usually

[00:07:55] you get a three hour superhero movie and that's it but this is a film that I think everyone should

[00:07:59] watch even just watch some of because I think that there's a lot to think about there and enjoy

[00:08:05] and despite the darkness of it all it's brilliant to me and I think he is doing some of the best

[00:08:13] work that he's ever done this last decade or so I think he is an absolute genius and if you haven't

[00:08:19] watched many Martin Scorsese movies or you haven't seen his most recent string of them check him out

[00:08:26] even if you don't love him they're so unique so original so refreshing and I'm so appreciative that

[00:08:33] there are still people like Martin Scorsese around so absolutely must watch it that's what I say

[00:08:40] that is a heavy five out of five