Episode 175: The Mule + Unforgiven

[00:00:00] Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Film Buds podcast. This is episode number 175. And my name is Henry. And I'm Paul. This week, we have a bit of a Clint Eastwood special for you. We have a review of The Mule from 2018 or should say two Clint Eastwood directed

[00:00:35] films, The Mule and then Unforgiven from 1992. And then we have a listener question concerning Clint Eastwood. So it's going to be a bit of a lot of Clint Paul. All right. Yeah. I think you're up if you're okay with that.

[00:00:53] I mean, we certainly signed up for it. So I mean, I guess it goes without saying that it makes sense that our listener question would also... Yeah. So yeah, thanks again for joining us once again. Paul, how you doing?

[00:01:08] I'm doing well. Just sort of hanging out. Nothing too much new to report honestly. You know, I had a nice weekend, celebrated Juneteenth. My parents are out of town, so I didn't celebrate Father's Day with my dad. But we celebrated my mom's birthday with both of

[00:01:29] my parents right before they left town. So... Cool. Yeah. How about you? Not too much really. I went up to the mountains this past week in the blowing rock boon area of North Carolina. So that was nice. I hadn't been up there for a fair bit of time.

[00:01:47] So that was nice. And other than that, yeah, kind of same here, kind of uneventful, unexciting, but a good week, sturdy week. So yeah, I guess not a whole lot else to mention Paul. Anything for you in particular? No, not really. Yeah. Well, okay. Well, we're

[00:02:11] just killing it this week. Yeah, we are. We're just exciting people. I guess with all that said, I guess we can go ahead and get into some movie reviews. So let's get to the mule from 2018 and we do have a clip. So take a listen.

[00:02:32] He'd help, sir. Oh, officer. Hi. You need any help? No, no, I'm fine. Thank you. What do you got there? Peacans. I deliver any pecans to my niece. Peacans? Yeah. Peacans. She

[00:02:46] makes a worse pecan pie ever tasted. I feel sorry for her husband, but and I feel sorry for the pecans too. I don't know what's wrong with him now, but this dog has to pee every 15 minutes.

[00:03:01] Okay. So the mule is directed by Clint Eastwood and it also stars Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Michael Peña. Oh man, this is all mixed up. Let's see. Clifton Collins Jr. Yeah.

[00:03:22] Geez. The wife. I can't remember her name. Well, you'll, you can look up all that stuff on your own. The synopsis is a 90 year old horticulturalist and Korean War veteran turns drug mule for a Mexican

[00:03:42] cartel. So yeah, this one, a couple of years ago, this one came out and he's done, I guess he did Richard Jule since then. And I think he has one more coming up. So he's just churning him out.

[00:03:58] Paul, had you seen this? I had not. No. Okay. I suggested we do this one. So would you like to kick things off? Sure. So I hadn't seen the mule. I'd seen some Clint Eastwood movies, some that he had just started and some that he had directed.

[00:04:17] I'd seen like Gran Turino and Hereafter, Sully, J. Edgar, Invictus. So I think years ago I did see Space Cowboys. Oh yeah. So I've seen a bit of Clint. I think he is fine. I think that

[00:04:35] lately I haven't been as interested in some of his stuff. So I haven't really seen a lot of his stuff more recently up to including the mule. Didn't really know what to expect, what I was

[00:04:47] getting into. And I don't know. It was fine. Yeah. It's kind of, you know, it's a typical Clint Eastwood movie where he gets to sort of daughter around and be old man Clint Eastwood. Great stuff. And that's sort of my wide shot review. What about you?

[00:05:15] Yeah. So I kind of just, I don't have a, you know, some huge attachment to this movie. I kind of just chose it because I feel like the last couple of episodes I've been picking like my

[00:05:25] absolute favorite of a director. And I feel like I tried to distance myself a little bit. And for the most part, I really like Clint Eastwood. I kind of grew up with a lot of his

[00:05:39] like 2000s directorial efforts. And so I like him a fair bit because it's just a very classical style. There's not a lot of fluff there. Sometimes there should be, but you know,

[00:05:54] I think for the most part it works out well. I agree that a lot of his films recently have not been great. They've been, you know, watchable, but it's pretty middle of the road. I mean, he's kind of notorious for doing like

[00:06:07] one take, you know, for a scene and all that stuff. And sometimes that really shows like American Sniper, which we talked about on the show was not very good. Like Jersey Boys, the 1517 to Paris, things like that are pretty subpar. I do really like flags of our

[00:06:27] fathers and letters from EOJIMA. I like, I like Jay Edgar to a certain extent. And I actually enjoyed Richard Joule a little bit, but in the anyways, this one I saw in theaters.

[00:06:39] I didn't have a whole lot of interest in seeing it, but I was bored. So I went not watched it. And I agree. It's, I like it. I like the simplicity of it. And I think one thing

[00:06:51] that Clint Eastwood kind of has going for him is there's not a lot of nine year old leading actors, you know? And so in a way, I enjoyed watching him on screen just because

[00:07:02] there's so much experience there. And it's kind of rare that you get that these days. And I do really like his performance. I find, and I even thought this in the theater. So Bradley

[00:07:15] Cooper, this came out, I guess three years ago now, when I saw this, I felt like this was a movie that he did like 10 years ago, but it only came out now because this role kind of seems

[00:07:28] beneath him at the time. Cause like by, you know, 2012, 2013, he was doing like Silver Lightning's playbook place beyond the Pines American hustle, like really meaty roles. And I was thinking like, what are you doing in this movie? Now, of course, obviously it's

[00:07:43] a Clint Eastwood movie. If you want to just be in it for that reason, that's fine. And he had been an American sniper as well before this, but I agree it's kind of coasts along. There are

[00:07:55] moments I like about it and it's probably slightly better than a lot of his films right before this. And yeah, I don't know. I guess that's my kind of long winded review, initial review.

[00:08:11] And again, it's not not one I chose it because I didn't have a big attachment to it just because I kind of wanted to look at him from a more of an objective perspective.

[00:08:21] No, I completely get that. I completely get where you're at with Bradley Cooper. You know, I mean, this wasn't too far off from like a star is born, you know, this is after Rocket Raccoon.

[00:08:32] Like, you know, we're dealing with like definitely a-lister sort of, you know, Bradley Cooper. So I have no idea why he's in this movie, especially since it's not a very meaty part.

[00:08:45] It's a very by the numbers, procedural FBI guy kind of role. For him and Michael Pena both, honestly, it's even a little bit below. It's a little bit not saying that any actor is below

[00:08:58] anything, you know, if the part's right, you know, in a good part then it's a good part. But like these were three very generic FBI guy boss, FBI guy lead, FBI guy second. And you waste Lawrence

[00:09:14] Fishburne, Michael Pena and Bradley Cooper in all three of the parts. They waste Andy Garcia over as the gang leader of the cartel or whatever. Right. So a lot of actors and characters,

[00:09:30] a lot of characters are filled by actors that have a lot of like pedigree, that it feels like they came and did this because it was a Clint movie which I don't know, maybe if this

[00:09:40] were a Martin Scorsese film, I'd feel more inclined to just show up. But like, you know, a Clint Eastwood film, I saw the trailer for Jersey Boys. That was enough. Yeah. So saw that one in theaters. I'm sorry. Me too. So, you know, I think it's definitely

[00:10:00] an odd movie for me. I think that it falls into like two of its fine. It falls into two of his worst isms for me. And those are the weird kind of, I'm an old man who doesn't understand

[00:10:13] modernism and PC culture of like a grand terino. And then we get it a little bit here. It's more charming, I think quotes around charming here than it is in grand terino where he's meant to

[00:10:26] be sort of, you know, an irredeemable asshole. But it has that going for it, which it makes for a lot of just like weird, cringy, awkward moments with 90 year old Clint Eastwood. Yeah.

[00:10:41] I will just say I did love when he was like absolutely ragging on like millennials and cell phones and the internet. Amazing stuff. Just absolutely tearing him a new one. And just grumpy old man Clint. Yeah. You don't get that much these days.

[00:10:59] Oh yeah. And then the other issue is that, and I think you run into a little bit in, you know, our next movie Unforgiven, he does just sometimes just sort of let things happen,

[00:11:12] you know, and not in like a sort of Robert Altman way. It's like a slice of life sort of moment. It's just sort of like a why this? Like we really could have cut right here.

[00:11:23] You know, we could have trimmed up on some of these, you know, tracking shots of his truck moving through a landscape. You know, we really could have trimmed up certain things or not even trimmed up. We just could have put scenes in certain spots that I think would

[00:11:39] have helped the movie because honestly for me, it's whole theme of, you know, you got to hold on to your family. I think was just talked about a lot more than it was

[00:11:52] ever shown. If that makes sense. Yeah. And also one thing, and I mean, we can get to with Unforgiven, but like, and I've talked about it on the show a lot. Clint Eastwood is at the point where

[00:12:04] he really has no subtlety in his movies. He may have, you know, themes and ideas like, you know, black and white, you know, black, gray and white, but there's no real intertwining of those

[00:12:18] ever. And in this, there are some pretty, you know, kind of eye roll scenes of him talking about or someone talking to him about how he disregarded his family and things that discussions that you would never really hear and felt very written and he's not,

[00:12:37] doesn't have the finesse to really work that in naturally. It just feels very forced and very sentimental. And so, you know, I don't know. There are touching moments, I think, and I enjoy him getting involved with the cartel and just doing it, just showing him doing these runs,

[00:13:02] these drug runs. And I kind of like that even if it's very fairly simple, I like how the relationships kind of develop a little bit over time. And not that you would want to be friends with

[00:13:14] these people, but it's in a way kind of charming to see this like 90 year old guy just talking and joking with these like drug dealers in a way. And yeah, I feel like I had

[00:13:27] something kind of big to say, but it'll come to me in a second, I think. No worries. No, I definitely, I think for me, I did enjoy those little bits of him, you know, interacting with other people. And that sort of, that leads me into one of my

[00:13:44] things that I think could have improved this movie for me, which is that I needed the movie, I think to focus up on certain things a little bit tighter and let some other things

[00:13:55] sort of fall aside, you know, to better serve the theme of it, you know, because I think that we cut away to like his family and him interacting with his family and him interacting with his

[00:14:08] community. And we have a few scenes of him with some of the guys mostly at the garage. We have him having lunch with his handler, like once. And then we have like the party scene

[00:14:24] and so then we also get, and we have like the one interaction that he gets with Bradley Cooper about Bradley Cooper needing to fix his life. And he sort of spreads this theme of,

[00:14:37] you know, you need to be a part of your family with everyone, but it doesn't feel echoed anywhere else, you know, he tries to have this moment with his handler after the party where he's like,

[00:14:47] you should give this life up and you should quit and you should find a different life because these people don't care about you. And it came really out of left field for me because I

[00:14:55] was like, these guys haven't bonded yet. I haven't seen these guys bond yet. And with Bradley Cooper, you know, it was like we're so busy putting in some other scenes like we didn't ever once have

[00:15:07] like the sort of mirroring of Bradley Cooper on the hunt for this guy, you know, not being at home, missing birthdays, being home late, so forth. But it just got told to us, you know,

[00:15:22] it wasn't like we saw that it was happening to Bradley Cooper and then, you know, Clint talked to him and we saw Clint without his family. So it just felt very vague and very scattershot

[00:15:34] in sort of how it was trying to handle it. And I feel like that's why we ended up having like a lot of just people conversating and lecturing and telling us about Clint and his family and

[00:15:46] how important his family was. My favorite scene that was really about him and his family was when he goes to see his wife who's played by Diane Weist. And she's dying. And I think that's probably

[00:16:00] one of the best parts for me regarding him and family in the movie. But for the rest of the time, I felt like it was very scattershot, very vague and didn't really incorporate the theme as fully as it could have even in his interactions with people.

[00:16:15] Yeah. And also with the handler subplot or storyline, not only is it not set up as to how they've been bonding, but also there's no payoff really for that at the end. Because the last

[00:16:30] scene that you see the handler in is when they're in the woods and there's that threat of violence. And I guess that scene is meant to be, okay, he's made his choice. He's staying with the

[00:16:41] cartel, but it's not satisfying enough to where you're like, you see him make that decision in his mind. Like, okay, I'm disregarding what Clint said. I'm staying with this group. And so there's no setup. There's no scenes of them talking together and Clint Eastwood saying,

[00:16:58] huh, maybe this guy is smarter than he looks or doing something more than is expected of him, but there's not that. And so that could easily have been lost. And I do like the scene

[00:17:15] at the end where he is in court and he just says guilty. Like he just says, yeah, I've done it. That's it. And even though it is kind of fairly on the nose, I do like the line that he gives of

[00:17:28] he could buy everything but time. I think that works well. And I think there are moments with Clint Eastwood in his performance that are touching and you see that kind of classic Clint Eastwood

[00:17:42] performance come through, which I like. Yeah. Also one thing across really all of his movies, I really enjoy Clint Eastwood's scores. Some people don't, but I really, it's like sometimes just simple piano or guitar. And that's something I always enjoy.

[00:18:01] No, yeah. His movies are pretty unfussy and their pacing is very unfussy. And I think that sometimes that can be a good thing and sometimes that can be a hindrance to varying degrees.

[00:18:17] And here, you know, I don't think it hurt the movie, but I also certainly don't think it helped it in any way either. Yeah. I like the scene where he's with the drug sniffing dog.

[00:18:34] I like that scene where he gets pulled over. I enjoy that. And yeah, I mean for me, I mean you're talking about there could have been fewer scenes of him driving across the

[00:18:44] desert. But I think for the most part, I just enjoyed being with Clint Eastwood in the truck. I just like seeing him do his thing. And I think that when he got involved more with the cartel,

[00:18:56] that's when it became less interesting and more generic for me. And I think also it felt the pacing kind of felt got, it kind of dragged at that point. I just wasn't as interested in all

[00:19:11] of that. And so I enjoyed the simplicity of the first half where he is kind of growing within the cartel and just driving around. Yeah. No, I completely agree with that. I think that I'd

[00:19:24] have almost enjoyed it more if it had been this weird sort of slice of life movie that never got too complicated. And it was just this weird story of this old guy just making friends in criminal

[00:19:37] land and like, you know, what the hell is that life like? Yeah. I think that it would have been, I think for me, a slightly more enjoyable experience. Because yeah, the FBI stuff is all

[00:19:50] that stuff is just a really big kind of like bland procedural. Like it's easily the most dull part of the movie. Yeah. And now one small logic issue. So towards the end of the movie,

[00:20:06] the FBI or DEA are trying to track down because he drives a black truck and so they're stopping a ton of black trucks on the highway. Why don't they just paint the truck a different color?

[00:20:20] Of all the resources and the money that they have, I feel like, yeah, say, hey, let's paint it white. Let's paint it blue. Yeah, I feel like that could be done fairly easily.

[00:20:29] Not a big deal, but I was like, that seems like a cartel. That's like would be one of their first ideas here. Let's change the color of it or let's get you a different truck.

[00:20:40] Yeah, absolutely. No, there were definitely a few logic breaks for sure along those lines. Nothing too major, but that's definitely the biggest one of them all. My only other honest big note for the movie would probably just be

[00:20:57] the daughter, his daughter finally accepting her father and deciding that she loves him for me came completely out of left field. And then I also really enjoy her like almost making a joke when he's being carted off to go to jail for the remainder of his.

[00:21:22] I'm like, what did you really make this joke right now? I guess we'll always know where you are. Oh my God, I couldn't believe it. I was pretty astounded that the movie threw that one in there. Classic Clinton comedy.

[00:21:38] Oh yeah, one weird thing. Did you know that so Taysa, I guess you say Taysa, Formiga who plays the granddaughter, did you know that she's Vera Formiga's sister, not daughter? Yeah, it's the younger sister. Yeah.

[00:21:57] Very strange. They really look like they should be mother and daughter, not sisters to me. There is like a decent age gap on them, but also I feel like we've seen Vera Formiga.

[00:22:09] She has that effect. Certain actors have that effect for me of like, I've seen you for such an extended period that even if I caught you when you were really, really young and now you're only like 40, mentally to me, you're just sort of like ancient because I've been

[00:22:25] seeing you since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. So like Raven Simone isn't that old. Raven Simone is like Methuselage to me. I'm astounded that she's still with us, but it's just because I've seen her

[00:22:43] since I was literally like as long as I can remember I've seen Raven Simone on a screen. So I think that that's some of your dissonance. The way that the sister got into it was she started out playing like a younger version of Vera in a movie. Right.

[00:23:01] Now, how does this compare to some of the other recent Clint Eastwood movies you've seen? My favorite of like, okay, if I were to look at, let me look at his movies and I'm going to, I also need to look at...

[00:23:17] Oh, Oh, uh, change Ling is my favorite. That's my favorite of his. Yeah. So if we're counting, I guess like modern Clint is anything like from, I'm going to say after 2010, then my favorite thing from after 2010 is probably Sully. It's a simple movie, but I love Tom Hanks.

[00:23:40] I enjoy the story. I love how he used iMacs cameras for the whole thing. I think it gives it a really nice big look and I really enjoyed it. And I thought that it was just

[00:23:54] like a really fun straightforward little movie. So I really enjoyed Sully probably the most out of out of everything from 2010. If I go beyond that, then my favorite Clint Eastwood movie is probably Clint Eastwood directed movie. I guess I should be specific.

[00:24:14] Probably, probably like Letters for Me with Jima. Yeah. That's probably my favorite of his overall. Yeah. All right. Anything else about the mule? No, I don't think so. Yeah. Okay. Out of five stars. I'll go with good. I'll get, I'll give it like a two and a half.

[00:24:41] All right. I'll go, I'll go light 3.5. Okay. Yeah. Very light. Just like just hitting it. Yeah. You got lucky, lucky Clint, you know. Cool. Well, I guess then we can get on to Unforgiven and we also have a clip for this. So take a listen.

[00:25:04] You fat man. Speak up. Uh, I own this establishment. Bought it from Greely for a thousand dollars. You better clear out of there. Yes, sir. Just hold it right there. Hold it! Well, sir, you are a cowardly son of a bitch.

[00:25:43] You just shot an unarmed man. Well, he should have armed himself. All right. So as I said before, Unforgiven was released in 1992 and it's also directed by Clint Eastwood and stars him as well,

[00:25:57] as well as Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, uh, Saul Rubenek, Francis Fisher, Anna Thompson, James Wolvet. Uh, am I forgetting anybody? No, I think that's everyone. Okay. And the synopsis is retired old West gunslinger William Money, uh, reluctantly takes on one

[00:26:21] last job with the help of his old partner, Ned Logan and a young man, the Skollfield kit. So this one, Paul, you suggested we do this? Yeah. So why don't you take it away?

[00:26:34] Sure. This one, um, you know, has had quite a shelf life. And you know, I think I saw it for the first time back in college and I heard it was like one of these, you know, great

[00:26:45] Westerns. And I was like, okay, I guess I have to watch it, you know, to be accepted by the cool kids. And at the time I liked it, I didn't love it and rewatch rewatching

[00:26:58] it. Excuse me. I don't think I'd seen it since then. I feel about the same. I don't love it as much as some people do. I think Clint Eastwood is great in it as well. I mean,

[00:27:08] everybody's great in it. Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman. And as people know, I love Westerns. And so that draws me in for sure. Pretty much my only issue with the movie both times is

[00:27:21] I find the middle kind of drags for me and also, and I feel like this, I'm starting to sound like a broken record here. For some reason, I couldn't get fully invested in the story. I feel like

[00:27:33] we're a few episodes in now where I'm saying the same thing, but the first time and this time I've watched it, I felt like I was never really in it. But I like the ideas of, you know,

[00:27:45] the gunslinger kind of dying like a red dead redemption ask kind of tale and also the idea of Western film kind of dying and Western stars such as Clint Eastwood kind of fading out of

[00:27:59] memory and popularity. And I think all of that stuff is very interesting and just the the good versus evil and how that can be kind of twisted around is quite compelling and emotional.

[00:28:13] So overall, I think it's solid. It's not one of my favorites of his or one of my favorite Westerns, but I think it's worth a watch. And I see why some people really love it.

[00:28:24] No, yeah. I think that that's pretty fair. I think that that's pretty close to where I hit. So I've seen parts of it over the years, but I've never sat down and watched it in and watched it

[00:28:35] in one full sitting. So I thought that it was really interesting. I liked a lot of the, I liked some of the character work. My favorite character of the whole thing was probably not because he's a good person in any way, but probably was Gene Hackman just because

[00:28:55] I thought that he was the most interesting from moment to moment. And I thought that he was the one with like the strongest sort of worldview and sense of things. I think it definitely has a lot of

[00:29:08] those elements of, you know, sort of the gunslinger at the end of his time kind of like with John Wayne's The Shootest or even with a modern comic book movie like Logan. But it definitely has

[00:29:21] that issue, you know, again of it's a slow movie. Not even really like a slow burn. It is, it's just kind of a slower movie and that's a fine choice. There's nothing wrong with that,

[00:29:34] but it definitely feels like there were moments that could have been tightened up a little bit in the name of runtime because it's a two hour 10 minute movie. Yeah. Which is not like the longest thing in the world.

[00:29:49] But it needed to be just a little bit more fine tuned, I think, you know, there were definitely some scenes that just sort of seemed to drag for not much of a particular reason. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm sitting with it for the most part. Yeah.

[00:30:13] And I thought Clint was just okay in it. Yeah, I mean he in this film he kind of has that almost like stereotypical Clint Eastwood performance that I guess maybe people will try and you know joke about now where it's this very

[00:30:28] stern kind of monotone, very grisly kind of delivery. And I think sometimes that works really well, but also at times I can't help but think about the parodies and things like that

[00:30:42] that have been done. And I feel like his performance in this feels a little bit dated at times. And I like I'll talk about it in what we watched, but I watched Dirty Harry and that was about

[00:30:55] 20 years before this. And I think that kind of performance still holds up totally. And so I think that his performance in this is not one of his best. I think it's probably in

[00:31:08] terms of his direction, probably one of the stronger ones. I like the look of the movie as well. I think there's the Skullfield kid character who's just kind of you know lies through his teeth about what he's done and really brags about it. But at the end of

[00:31:28] the day he's kind of a scared little kid and I like that angle. I like Morgan Freeman's character and how that triangle bounces off each other. And I think the scene, the whole sequence at the end

[00:31:45] in the rain at the saloon is awesome. I love all of that. And even just the sound design of that scene is great. Yeah, but other than that, you know, again it does,

[00:32:00] it drags in a little bit for me in the middle and I feel at times I struggle to get really invested in the characters and what's going on. No, for sure. And I think that that's because

[00:32:13] the stoicism of classic Clint Eastwood characters here just comes across as just sort of wooden. It doesn't feel like he's really in it the way that he needs to be honestly until that last few

[00:32:27] moments of the movie. You know, he's been shooting movies for a while and he had been by the time that he was doing Unforgiven made his life doing Westerns and he definitely knows how to

[00:32:40] make a movie that looks like a classic Hollywood Western and is paced a lot like an old Hollywood Western. But I think that he managed, I do think he manages to put some interesting themes throughout

[00:32:51] the movie. I think it's interesting how I think the strongest thing for me about the movie is that it's about a sort of trio of characters who are not necessarily meant to be good people.

[00:33:03] You know, the Skullfield kid, even though he's a liar at this point in time, you know, he's pretending to be a killer. You've got Ned, who's a former killer and gunslinger, and you've got Bill, who's a former killer and gun or William,

[00:33:19] who's a former gunslinger and killer. But slowly the movie really assures you and builds on the notion that the antagonist of the movie is the sheriff of the town. You know, it's it's Gene

[00:33:33] Hackman. And they start out by making him, you know, a sort of interesting classic Gene Hackman character of, you know, is he good? Is he bad? He's a little bit in the gray area,

[00:33:44] but he definitely drifts further and further into into the black. And I think that it was a really, I think that was a really good arc for his character. And I also like the fact that,

[00:33:58] you know, money had a home. Ned had a home. Gene Hackman had a house that had no other family and it had no one else in it with him. And it was this sort of ramshackle, crooked,

[00:34:17] leaky, unreliable thing. So I think that he did some clever stuff throughout the movie. But no, it definitely is a harder one to get into. I mean, for a great example, you know, my wife did completely fall asleep during this one. Yeah, she managed to make

[00:34:33] it through the mule, but but she got pretty cozy while we were watching Unforgiven and she just completely tapped out during that middle that you talked about, you know, being a little bit slow. Yeah. Also, one idea in the movie that I like is it kind of

[00:34:50] tackles this idea of someone getting what they deserve, even if they don't always end up getting it. So like someone who, you know, an evil person who should be taken down isn't always taken down, but sometimes others are. And I like how that the movie,

[00:35:06] especially within the Western context, tackles that idea. And I think that's really interesting and the good and bad of all parties involved. And yeah, you know, it's, I really prefer just talking about his westerns. I really prefer some of his earlier ones, not even just once he's

[00:35:28] directed like the Sergio Leone trilogy and a lot of the earlier ones that he directed in the 70s and 80s, even if he didn't direct all of those, I kind of prefer like outlaw Josie

[00:35:40] Wales and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. And so I for the most part, I very much prefer those over this one. Okay. Yeah. No, I think that's very fair. I mean, I'll probably go back to

[00:35:53] this one again, but it's probably there will probably be other westerns that I revisit before I revisit this one. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's worth watching for sure if you're

[00:36:06] a Western fan, even if you don't love it by the end, I think it's still worth a watch and there's a lot to unpack there. And it definitely was a pretty defining film in his filmography.

[00:36:20] No, yeah. At the time. Well, and I think it's interesting for me to go back to the movies. I was born in 92. So it's interesting for me to go back to movies from when I was born and when

[00:36:35] I was growing up that I didn't see at the time, didn't have access to at the time and compare them to some of the other movies that I have already seen from that time.

[00:36:44] So it's interesting to think that one year after Unforgiven, you have Jurassic Park coming out. Yeah. It's interesting to think about what else was coming out at that time. Who else was working at those times? And also, it kind of speaks to the movie itself in terms of

[00:37:02] what it's saying where the Western is kind of dying. Like next year we had Jurassic Park. And that the year after that had Pulp Fiction. Yeah. And the cowboy has always been an icon

[00:37:17] of film. I mean, he was an icon of silent film and then he kind of had a little bit of a falling out and then he came back and then he fell out a little bit and he never really came

[00:37:27] back to full prominence. But that story at the core of it is essentially someone with their own sort of vigilante code working outside of the means of what's considered normal to do the

[00:37:43] right thing, the just thing, what have you. And so that archetype may have changed out of the Western form, but it's still definitely very much alive in media and it transitioned into cop stories

[00:37:58] where you had even things like Dirty Harry. And now I would say that it's probably most modern equivalent is the superhero. People like Punisher or even Tony Stark. Really when you boil it down

[00:38:12] aren't all that much different than a man who goes and takes up his rifle to ward off, you know, invading, marauding outlaws. Yeah. Also, I like how he kills Gene Ackman at the end.

[00:38:31] Yeah. I like how it actually goes for it and doesn't. No, absolutely. Also, while I was playing or while I was watching it, I realized how much of this was a reference point for Red Dead 2

[00:38:43] because there's an entire plot about it's a it's a B plot. It's a side mission that's about a gun slinger who's an old drunken Laos and is telling all of these stories to a biographer. And he has

[00:39:00] Arthur go out and talk to all of these former outlaw gang members of his and all of them are like that guy is completely full of shit. And then at the very end of it, you capture one guy

[00:39:14] and bring him back and the two of them get into a duel and well actually they're potentially going to duel and the one guy refuses and he gets shot in the back

[00:39:26] and then you end up shooting the outlaw and they write it away into the biography as like it was this last epic showdown between the the two classic lawmen.

[00:39:38] Man, I love Red Dead Redemption. Hell yeah. I love it so much. Both of them are works of art. Yeah. All right. Anything else about Unforgiven? Almost a criminal misuse of Morgan Freeman.

[00:39:57] Yeah. Almost. Yeah. Out of five stars then? I'll go three. Maybe three and a half. You know what? I'll go three and a half. Yeah, I feel like I rated it four stars on Letterbox,

[00:40:16] but I think I was just being generous. Three and a half. Yeah. Yeah. Three and a half. All right. I guess we can get going to the next thing. The Film Buds podcast at gmail.com is where

[00:40:33] you can reach us at also Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Film Buds and also at the filmbudds.com. If you're a new listener or if you have been listening for a while, you can send us any questions, comments, greetings, anything you'd like to see more

[00:40:48] of or less of on the show. So we love hearing from you. And the one we got this week was from via Facebook, Facebook page and it comes from Kip. And Kip says,

[00:41:02] Hi guys. I see you're doing a show on Clint Eastwood. He's one of my favorite actors and directors. What do you think of his career? Do you think he's one of the last

[00:41:12] true quote unquote movie stars? Love to know what you think on the matter. Yep. Well, Paul, I mean we've talked about him a little bit already, but do you think that Clint Eastwood is deserving of the icon or legend that a lot of people refer to him as?

[00:41:36] What are you thinking? I'm not sure that he's one of the last great movie stars. I think he is one of the last vestiges of classic Hollywood on a certain level. And I know that that sounds like I'm splitting hairs and

[00:41:55] I suppose on a certain level I am, but I feel like it's a little bit of a distinction just because a movie star for me is probably someone who achieved huge success, big, big name,

[00:42:11] and was pretty much also just one thing I think. And that thing was probably an actor. Whereas Clint has sort of dabbled around enough and also there is a whole generation who I think has no idea really who Clint Eastwood is. Right.

[00:42:32] So I think that he's one of the last sort of classic vestiges of an older bygone era of Hollywood, but I'm not sure that I would call him a last great movie star. On his career overall it's as mixed bag as any.

[00:42:50] You know, everyone has highs, everyone has lows. Some people have more, some people have more highs, some people have more lows. So I think that it's pretty indicative of someone who was working in the studio system for a long time he was like a studio director.

[00:43:09] And so some of those things were probably things that he really wanted to do and some of those things were probably things that he just got for a long time. And I think that he'll always be remembered for certain things, but I'm not sure

[00:43:23] you know if I fling myself 50 years into the future. Do I think that there will be a handful of Clint Eastwood things that we still talk about? Yeah. Do I think that we'll be talking about Clint Eastwood still on the same level as we do today? Probably not.

[00:43:42] And I think that there will probably be other Western, I think that he'll always be known for his involvement really in Westerns. I think that there will probably be specific actors and directors who are known for their overall careers

[00:43:58] more than Clint. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's a good point. I mean, not to get like two more bit here, but I think I will be very sad when he dies. Like when he's no longer there,

[00:44:12] I'll be very upset even if we're not getting or even if he's not putting out the best work right now, I'll be very sad when he passes away. I hope that's not for a long time, but

[00:44:21] he is someone of kind of the aging class of Hollywood that I'm glad he's there or he's here and he did help to kind of I guess cement or popularize the you know, some version of the anti-hero rebel character. And I guess he did help to in some

[00:44:41] ways keep the Western alive for a while and he made some great ones and really some of the best of all time. And it seems now in terms of how his films do, he still has an audience like the

[00:44:53] mule I was surprised made a ton of money. Did it really? Yeah. Let me see if I can find it here real quick. Actually, I was very surprised about how much it made.

[00:45:03] Yeah. So the mule for one thing, it had a $50 million budget. That seems way high for that movie. But anyways, and it made 174 million. Oh, wow. I was expecting it to have made like

[00:45:17] 25 million at most. But anyway, so I really have a lot of respect for him. I always enjoy going back and looking at his early roles like, you know, seeing dirty Harry was awesome. And I think there is something about him that is truly unique. And it's, you know,

[00:45:36] saying Clint Eastwood, it for me at least it really rings. It just feels very iconic in a way. And I agree that he has his fair share of duds and downers. But I think that

[00:45:51] he still has a lot of great highs and he is an icon in a way. And whether that's kind of Hollywood or society kind of building it up when it shouldn't be, I don't know. But I see him

[00:46:04] really as a pretty iconic figure of Hollywood. And you know, and as you were saying in 50 years, I don't know, I think there will still be some films that will look back on him and really

[00:46:17] respect maybe not all of his directorial efforts or something like that will be highly regarded. But I think that he will still very much be in the history of Hollywood. Oh, yeah. I just

[00:46:30] in one way or the other. No, yeah, I just I just think he'll eventually become a little bit more kind of like at some point, I think he'll almost be like people who, you know, when they

[00:46:41] really want to get to horror, they then start to learn some horror directors. Yeah, you know, with that kind of thing, you know, they're going to eventually start getting into like Westerns or something like that. And then they're going to land on on Clint. Yeah. And

[00:46:56] you know, in terms of that, like the Westerns, like the good, bad and the ugly, that trilogy, like his performance in that and his look in that is amazing on its own. Like he just and he and Sergio Leone, they captured something so special in those those movies

[00:47:12] that I remember the first time I saw them maybe back in college, I didn't really know anything about him. But I knew instantly that it was something really special. And he just Clint

[00:47:22] Eastwood has that thing, that you know, unique thing that he was able to do over and over through all of those films over the years and the late 20th century. And yeah, you know,

[00:47:35] I like Clint Eastwood a lot. As you were saying, there's, you know, he's not without his downsides, you know, and lesser works, but there's a lot of great stuff there. No, yeah, absolutely. What are, do you have a, I guess, like a top five?

[00:47:57] Well, I've directed or acted just in general. Well, directed as I said, it would be changeling, I think with maybe flags of our fathers being second. I love is it, I think is it a for a few dollars more? The second one of the

[00:48:16] fistful dollars shoot it is. So it's the second one. Yeah, for a few dollars more is my favorite of that trilogy. Some people like the good, the bad and the ugly, but I actually prefer

[00:48:29] the second one. Okay. I don't know if that's a hot take or not, but and one that's not necessarily a top favorite. I love escape from Alcatraz. Have you seen that? That's a cool one. It's like this really quiet procedural of him trying to break out of Alcatraz.

[00:48:47] It's amazing. Yeah, letters from me with Jima. That's great. I like that outlaw Josie Wales as well. Pale Rider is good and Dirty Harry, even though I don't think it's a five out of five,

[00:49:01] I really enjoyed that a lot and that was worth the wait. Yeah. What about you? Dirty Harry for sure. These are in no particular, not any sort of category. These are just favorites of mine,

[00:49:15] either acting or directing. Dirty Harry, I actually am a big fan of hereafter. I know a lot of people do not enjoy hereafter. I think it's kind of a weird little quiet movie. I mean,

[00:49:29] you want to talk about like a slow movie. Yeah. Impossibly slow at times and definitely not for everyone and not for every mood, but I thought that was interesting. I liked it. Probably flags of our fathers and letters from me with Jima. Yeah.

[00:49:48] Play Misty for me is a good one. One of his early roles. I like that one a lot. You know what? Say what you will. I actually do like Space Cowboys.

[00:49:59] Me too. And as I said, I really enjoy it when he does his own scores for his films. I really like that a lot and I listen to them on my own. He's left a lot of work behind him.

[00:50:16] No, for sure. And a large part of that career is with Warner Brothers. Yeah. So it's interesting. Yeah. All right. Anything else about Clint Eastwood in general? If you haven't seen it yet, go and watch him talk to an empty chair.

[00:50:35] Yeah. Great moment. Just go and put in Clint Eastwood empty chair 2012. You'll have a blast. Yeah. I was wondering if I was going to try and bring that up. Yeah. So cool. Well, I guess, yeah, if anybody out there has Clint Eastwood favorites or anything

[00:50:55] like that, send us your thoughts on email or on social media. We'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. And thanks again for the question, Kip. Yes, thank you, Kip.

[00:51:07] So, and yeah. And once again, the Film Buds podcast at gmail.com is where you can send us those and all of that is in the show notes as well in case you need clarification or spelling

[00:51:17] or any of that good stuff. So Paul, do you want to, what do you want to do? You want to end off with some picks of the week unless there's any news you had. I don't

[00:51:26] have any. No. I was just going to let listeners know also that I'm now on Letterboxed as well. That's right. Yeah. You could go and find me at PBDJ92 over on Letterboxed. I've added in, I went through and added in

[00:51:42] some old favorites, some stuff that I've been watching for Film Buds. Not all of that is reflective of things that I have necessarily truly watched recently. Some of them are. I did recently rewatch Jurassic Park actually. But yeah, so you can go and you can

[00:51:58] see some of the reviews for stuff that I watch beyond what I watch for Film Buds. Yeah. Yeah. And mine is at Henry Farity and I can put Paul's account in the show notes as well.

[00:52:11] And yeah, we got a few followers on Letterboxed from Film Buds people, which is cool. And also Jacob Bowers is also on it and Sky Tilley, although I think he's, he used it for like a day and then kind of gave up on it. But Jacob Bowers,

[00:52:26] who's been on the show a lot, has one as well. Oh, and Nick. Nick Deladio has one too. Yes, friend of the show. Nick Deladio has one as well. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:52:36] So cool. All right. Well, I guess we can end off with our picks of the week. Paul, what you've been watching? So I've been watching a good amount of TV lately. I recently started watching

[00:52:51] the Modak cartoon on Hulu. It's a new sort of robot chicken-esque stop motion animated show about the character Modak, who is one of the villains from Marvel Comics. And it stars Patton Oswald and it has several other actors who were comedians cameo in it

[00:53:13] throughout Bill Hader shows up in it, Nathan Fillion shows up in it. The first episode is not my favorite, but I think that the show gets better progressively as you get into it.

[00:53:24] And I really enjoy the characters and some of the things they do with animation. There are certain parts of it that are very grating and very, it feels like they sort of checked a box. We need

[00:53:39] weird child that is openly just the weirdest quirkiest child. Every quirk is in this child kind of thing. Like if you put all the Belcher children into one almost, it feels like.

[00:53:53] So that's a little bit of a down note, but for the most part I think that it's enjoyable. I like it well enough that I think that if you're into comics and also want to watch adult

[00:54:04] animated things, then this is a good bit of adult animation for you to go. And I think all 10 episodes are already posted. So that's a good one. I started watching Love Death Robots on Netflix. Have you watched any of it? The first season.

[00:54:24] My wife and I have just been skipping around watching random episodes. And it's an absolute blast for us. I think we're pretty much halfway or more done with it. We've really, really been enjoying getting into those. I think they're so fun. I think that they're super cool.

[00:54:44] And I'm a big, big fan of that. I've really been enjoying that. I don't know if it's supposed to get a third season or not. I don't know. I mean the second one just came out. My guess is

[00:54:53] that they probably will, but I don't know. I think my favorite, one of my favorites that I've seen is the very first one. That kind of like anime-esque, I don't know what you call it, Mortal Kombat almost kind of thing. It's only a couple minutes long as well.

[00:55:12] Like kind of Ghost in the Shell. I love that. My favorite honestly, I think so far has been the one about the giant that washes up on the shore. Yeah. That one's one of my favorites so far. I really enjoy the one about yogurt taking over.

[00:55:29] Some of their hyper more violent action ones are super fun and super visceral and cool, but I really enjoy the ones that kind of take their premise and really live in it. In a big, big way. My least favorite so far has probably been the junkyard one.

[00:55:47] It's about this guy who lives in a junkyard and like this city slicker comes to push him off. It's just okay. Yeah. Actually, my top favorite is the one with the... It's actually more

[00:56:05] Ghost in the Shell where the girl is running through the city. I don't think I've seen this one yet. It's in the first season and it's about her being chased by someone. That's all I can

[00:56:15] remember. And I think it's said in like Tokyo or something, but it's awesome. Okay. I'll have to give that one a look then. Yeah. And then movie wise, I recently rewatched Zack and Mary Make a Porno.

[00:56:31] Oh yeah. Classic. You know, I really like that movie. There are definitely some jokes in there that are very early 2000s that don't necessarily 100% stay in the test of time. But they're not that bad in the grand scheme of things. And they pretty much for me happen

[00:56:52] almost exclusively in like the first 15 minutes of the movie. Right. And I think it's a really charming, sweet little movie. I like Kevin Smith a fair bit though. Yeah. I know that a lot of people don't see anything cute or charming and how vulgar

[00:57:06] and weird he can be, but I'm taken in with it. I think that he does interesting little movies. And Zack and Mary, I think is one of the most legitimately out and out like funny movies that he has done. I agree.

[00:57:22] And that's a lot of what I've been watching lately. I've also been playing some train simulator, which has been a lot of fun. Yeah. I like trains. Fun fact. I'm terrible at it. Oh, okay.

[00:57:39] Oh, and actually one Paul, one little piece of news. I saw that the upcoming Transformers film that's going to be directed by the Creed II director and starring the in the Heights guy, the main guy is coming out in 2022. It has an official release date now.

[00:57:57] Yeah. We'll see how that goes. Yeah. So anyhow, not a whole lot for me. I've been rewatching a few Colombo episodes. It's, you know, it's awesome. It's one of my favorite shows. I watched, as I said, I watched Dirty Harry for the first time, which I thought was

[00:58:15] awesome. And I'm looking forward to seeing the other films. It's, I wasn't expecting it to be so tame. Like I thought it was going to be a little bit more crazy, but

[00:58:25] one thing is the villain in this movie is like disturbing even now. Like it's a pretty crazy performance and character even for the, even now. And I can't even imagine at the time. And so

[00:58:40] yeah, I really enjoyed it. Really the where the plot goes and how it ends up is really interesting that different ops and downs and that I saw. I really enjoyed that and I really like Clint Eastwood in it. I've also been watching the first season of vice principles,

[00:58:59] the HBO show with Danny McBride and Walton Goggins. And they're these two vice principles at a high school and they really hate each other and they try and sometimes work together other times, bring each other down. And it's just a very absurdist comedy and it's co-created,

[00:59:17] I think, and written by Danny McBride. And so you can kind of expect, you know, it's very, I don't know, it's Pineapple. He didn't write it, but Pineapple Express in a way and, you know, a little bit of your Highness in there or something like that.

[00:59:33] Yeah, well, it's he and if I'm not mistaken, they, it's their production company jointly. It's Danny McBride and David Gordon Green. Oh really? Okay. If I'm not mistaken because it's definitely David Gordon Green's production company that helped with

[00:59:51] production of that film. I know that for sure. Gotcha. And so yeah, it's really fun. You know, my really only complaint is I the first season is like nine episodes and they're about 30

[01:00:02] minutes each. And I, I'm on episode five and I feel like it could end here. Like it, it feels a little extended for what's there, but there's still some really funny moments. And I really

[01:00:15] like Danny McBride and Walton Goggins a lot and they're great together. And so that's been fun. And then lastly, I rewatched Spider-Man Far From Home last night, which I really enjoy and Jake Gyllenhaal is amazing as I've said before. And I love the Mysterio character. I love the

[01:00:34] twist with that, all of that. And I love the look. Yeah, it's my, it's my favorite of the Spider-Man films in the Marvel and the MCU. Okay. I'll have to, I'll have to let you know

[01:00:47] how it stacks up when I get to that one. I've gotten a little derailed in the Marvel films. I think we just did a homecoming. So next up is Black Panther for us. Oh man,

[01:00:58] that's going to be a big one. Oh yeah, it's a great one. Yeah. And I believe that is it. I haven't been watching a whole lot this week. No, yeah. We've mostly been doing a lot of TV.

[01:01:12] Oh, we did the Rick and Morty season five premiere. Oh, how was it? Really solid episode. You know, I mean, it's not one of their big like mind bending, you know, crazy episodes. It was just a really, really solid

[01:01:28] Rick and Morty episode. It was funny. It was interesting. It did have like one, it did further Morty's story in like a really interesting way, but it didn't overextend itself for a first episode. It was really, it was a home run,

[01:01:43] you know, first episode back. Yeah. I liked it. Okay. All right. Paul, anything else you want to mention about anything? No, I think that's pretty much all I got. Yeah. All right. Well, I guess that is about it for the show this week.

[01:02:00] Unfortunately. Now next week, Paul, what you thinking? I mean, there's, you know, a lot of, I mean, I suggested we do the Clint Eastwood thing. So if you're feeling something in particular, you know, I'm up for it. There's a million possibilities.

[01:02:15] I don't know if there's anything new on VOD coming out really, but not that I can tell. And one thing at some point, with you having brought it up, I haven't seen a lot of Rick and Morty. So at some point, I should do a

[01:02:30] Rick and Morty show at some point. No, I'd be game for that for sure. We could do it season by season if you wanted or we can try and do like the first four seasons kind of at large

[01:02:42] in like a special episode if you wanted to. Yeah, for sure. Anything striking your interest or should we wait? Let me look just a second. Yeah. Or let me look at it and I'll message

[01:02:57] you shortly in the next few days and we'll get it all passed. All right, sounds good. So yeah, stay updated on social media for that and at thefilmbuds.com and you can find out more about the show there and get some bonus shows, all that good stuff. And

[01:03:16] so yeah, well cool. Paul, I mean, thanks as always man. Appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. It's always a good time. It's always a good excuse to watch something interesting and that kind of thing. So it was a good time. Yeah, same here. Okay everybody, well we

[01:03:34] hope you enjoyed it as much as we did and we'll see you next time.