Talking Pondo: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Violent Night

 In this episode, Marty gives Clif the film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs to watch and Clif gives Marty Violent Night to watch.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Violent Night

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to Making Pondo and Talking Pondo. Talking Pondo is a podcast where we pick out two movies each week and talk about them in detail. Making Pondo is a podcast where we talk to people we've made films with and we discuss all their experiences on set.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Okay, well I guess we're back, right?

unknown 0:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

Yeah, once again.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Another week, another two movies, right? Yeah, another two movies that I guess have more to do with what we watched last time than what they do with each other, right? I mean, they're both pretty violent, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

I I would agree to that. Yeah, I would I would definitely agree to that. Um both uh in a way have a have uh a lot of dark tones. They they share a lot of dark tones and a lot of dark themes, uh, in my opinion. Um yeah, they're they are similar in a way, in a weird way. Although one's although one's a Christmas movie and one's basically a western.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

So we picked uh so this was so okay. So for if you don't remember or if you weren't listening from last week, we picked I picked for Marty um um Violent Knight. Uh which uh I I personally quite enjoyed. Uh and then he picked for me the ballad of Buster Scruggs, which uh yeah we'll get into. We will get into.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

So a couple of more recent choices.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yeah, more recent movies. We're gonna we're in and if you're listening and you're thinking, are they just gonna do these more recent ones? No, we're gonna we're gonna deep dive into some weird stuff eventually. But we're just trying to kind of warm up and get used to this this format and this fun and really really figure out how we want to attack this.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Yeah, like I have an idea of what movies from week to week, but it's always constantly changing.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

But right, right.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

I don't want to be like next week you're watching The Empire Strikes Back or something like that. Because I feel like something like that, we we who knows, you might throw that at me next week is the fun thing. But for personally, I would wait quite a while before tackling that. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

And I don't want to throw the godfather at you. Yes, right. Like let's level let's you know, let's let's get used to the format, let's have let's get used to having fun. Maybe, you know, eventually maybe we get some feedback about hey, we like this, we don't like that. You know, we'll focus up a little bit more. But now we're just gonna watch movies and we're gonna talk about what we liked and what we didn't like and what we thought about them.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

It's a podcast. All right. So uh you want to cover yours first, or you want to Okay, sure.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

So we we uh it only took four episodes to pick a Cohen Brothers movie, and we ended up starting at the end because they haven't made a movie together since this, and that's been a little while. So before discussing the movie itself, uh I have heard rumors that they're kind of semi-retired or retired from making movies, and I wonder are they did they finally just get tired of it? Did they get tired of each other? Is it difficult to find a spot in the theater for a Cohen Brothers movie? Because you know how it's so hard to find room for something even remotely different or slow, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

People love the Cohen Brothers, but you only in small, it's like the their movies hit in very weird areas, and not all you know, I mean, I think Fargo, they I think they were nominated Drink Cold Blood, right? Fargo. They haven't, you know, they've made a bunch of pictures, you know. Of course, World Brother was kind of their big pinnacle, but they made a bunch of a bunch of pictures in between that that nobody really noticed, or you know, Bart and Fink and you know some other stuff that nobody really noticed. Yeah, I guess Raising Arizona was a small hit for them too. Um, you know, they've always always made quality films that I think filmmakers and and critics love, but the general population doesn't really grab on to. But they've gotten better at that as they got farther into their careers. You know, old brother War Art though is for me on my side of the family, who comes lit grew up in Missouri on a farm, that is like a quoted, often referenced, and if it's on cable, the whole family will watch it type of movie. They love that movie. You know, me, I'm like, let's watch the Big Lowski instead.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

Also a future episode, but no, no, maybe sooner than later with that one.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

I I assume I honestly assume both of those movies will come up in the future. You know, I mean O Brother and that one will come up in the future.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

So it is interesting to kind of start where they've left off, and that was just not by design, it's just because, you know, for a different reason that I'll talk about in a minute, but I I do find it interesting that it's like, oh, I so I guess that makes Hail Caesar their last real theatrical film, because this one, as I was watching it, I thought, and I hadn't seen it in five years, I'd only watched it like once, which I thought, you know, uh this really f feels oddly made for television. And then I realized it was made for television.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

A Netflix movie, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Yeah, it they were gonna put it out as a series at one point was one of the movies. And I'm glad they didn't because that would have been too too weird.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Each one of these individual stories, it I don't think it would have been enough in each one of the things with the very with the varying length with the varying length of the vignette of the different stories, I think it's yeah, I don't think it would have worked.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

You know, and strange, an anthology movie to wrap things up. I remember reading, uh I had a book about the Coens a few years ago when I was re-watching all their movies, and I remember reading uh that they had an idea for this Western anthology thing, much like Suburbicon, that movie that they wrote that Clooney directed, I think. Uh it was like, oh, you're doing clearinghouse here. These are older ideas, and it's like, okay, we're finally getting around to making it. Here's this anthology that pops up.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

So that's funny you mentioned that. It's kind of one of my first notes when I started watching the movie was I said, you know, I wrote to myself and I said, you know, um Stephen King and Dance McCabber like to talk about how after he wrote a book, there would always be a no a novella left over, right? Like a short story left over. Because of all the stuff that you come up with, but you end up cutting and you don't use, or what a great plot line, blah blah blah. That's a story in and of itself. I'll just do that separately. And that's what this felt like was like a bunch of these kind of leftover stories that they were like, okay, we couldn't put it in that and that, and we had this idea from that, can't go in there. Boom, anthology series. Yeah, you know, like a like a all the leftovers of True Grit and O Brother and all these other pictures that they'd done, you know, um, boom.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

Yeah, right. Like here's a little bit more of this here, here's a little bit more of this, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Yeah, there's no, I mean, there's really no um there's really no through line to the film. Like there's no character that walks through all the vignettes or ties everything together. They're just they're just separate stories about the old west. And in the Cohen Brothers version of the Old West in this movie, the Old West is just basically like a dreary, fucked up, violent place that you get killed in at any second. Like it's it's insane. It's dark, very dark.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

Yeah, I looked at it like, oh, this felt like their creep show to me in a weird kind of way. But yeah, you're right about that that darkness. Like that brings me to uh the first of the six. The ballad of Buster Scrugs, yeah. Yeah, but the self-titled one, I guess it was, as it were. Uh and it ties into what you were just saying. Like, at first the Buster character seems like a joke, yeah, and then it gets real violent, real quick. Super quick. And I'm like, oh, this is like, and this this kind of tone continues throughout where I thought it was like satirizing the whole horrible nature of the old west, like, oh, we like to look at it like it's just the cowboy playing the song, riding along, and the next thing you know, they're fucking killing everybody, and it's horrible, and it's like so they're showing the two ways that it's represented on film throughout the years, and it's like, oh.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

I felt that there was a especially in the beginning when you know in the beginning when he walks into the first stuff, he walks into that first saloon and he kills all those guys, there's a lot of great dialogue, right? And a lot of and a lot of breaking of expectations. Like that it's this turns into this sudden violent mess. And then he just hops on his horse and he rides off. And then he shows up in this next town and he ends up and he ends up killing uh uh that dude by kicking that table. And it was just and and and that felt very like okay, that's I can see the Cohen's and Raimi getting along here. You know, that's you know, because that's I I have to admit I laughed. Yeah, I was like, that's that's just hilarious, you know, the way it was great. It was it's you know, stupid as hell, but it was very funny. Um it's so and again, you know, the breaking like this, you know, unexpected, you know, that they they they did they did a lot of things that sudden and violent and unexpected, right? In an unexpected way a lot of times. Um for me, there was for that one especially, it's just like there was way too much singing. I I don't mind it, I don't mind a musical, but for me, it was just like that especially that last piece with the bad guy and the cowboy going to heaven. And I'm thinking he's not a cowboy, he's admitted he's a he's basically an outlaw. And outlaws don't go to heaven. Why is he floating up to heaven? Anyway.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

I think probably out of all six of them, that one might have been my favorite because it was short and it had a few really memorable moments in it. And I enjoy the rest of it, but it almost feels like diminishing returns in a way as it goes on. Not necessarily, as we'll discover as we go through. It was it was not my favorite.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

It was not my favorite.

SPEAKER_03 10:48

Um the next one was uh the one that gave us the oh, is this your first time meme?

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Yeah, the first time meme, the classic, absolutely classic meme, which was as soon as I saw it, I started laughing.

SPEAKER_03 11:01

I was like, yes. That's another short one, too, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:04

That one goes by pretty quick. Yeah, that one goes, I mean, it's it's basically kind of a gag. I have to say, um uh Steven, what's his name? Um played the banker. Um yeah, we didn't look at IMDB before the uh we didn't look at IMDB, guys, sorry about that. But um trying to just remember his name real quick without news radio and yeah, news radio and um Steven Root, jeez. But yeah, so um it was it was fun to see him again playing a very he's great playing those weird characters, the super you know that super weird banker with the shotguns and the comes out with the tin pots all over his body. That was great. That was really funny.

SPEAKER_03 12:05

Yeah, that one was just uh an excuse to have the whole how long can I hang on the horse scene kind of, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Yeah, and I felt like we'd already seen Franco do that in 127 hours. Oh yeah. You know, so you know, no, I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

Uh but it just uh definitely a more DC comics feeling of them, I I guess. So let's see. Uh the next one.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

I think that was Meal Ticket, wasn't it? I think so.

SPEAKER_03 12:35

I should have been writing the names down of them, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah, I I think I wrote them all down, so yeah, Meal Ticket was next. And um this one overall just I mean moved right into like complete depression. Where it was just like, God, this is fucking dark. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:52

It's uh I wrote every anthology seems to have that weird entry.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

Yeah, there's this story number three that almost felt like a Stephen King short story to me in a weird way, you know, like something you read in the middle of Skeleton Crew or something.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah, yeah. This weird 12-page diversion. Like a dark. Yeah. Like a like a weird, like a Twilight episode, so uh Twilight Zone episode that's really, really weird. We're like, oh, that doesn't even make any sense. What the heck, you know? Um, it was it was repetitive and kind of dull, you know, because it was like, and uh I I will say I thought it was interesting that the the character I can't remember the actor who played him with no arms and no legs. Um he was great, and uh but the only words he said during the whole thing were that speech those speeches. He never had any actual agency as a character, he was just this thing that said things. And it was kind of very easy for Nissan to just throw him off the edge of the thing and walk away from it with a new with a chicken as a new and who you know, you know, I you uh you don't want to say who wouldn't, but you know, chickens are a lot easier to take care of, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

Yeah, that's I mean that's a very odd diversion. Yeah, the self-indulgent one where it's also like if you made this a series and now that's a whole episode, that's that that that's just too weird, you know. You can cram it in the middle of the movies, but he's a human being. You can't throw it on, that was terrible. Yeah, that one's that was very that that is that the strangest of them all. Oh, I guess we'll decide who we think so.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

But like like it never explained who they were.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Um, why is he taking care of him seemed to be the only reason seemed to be money? Like they didn't, you know, was it his son, his brother, was it was it somebody he just found and turned into this? How did this person become you know get to act? It was just this kind of weird, sinister sort of like, because especially once he found the chicken, you were like, oh shit. Yeah, you know, like, oh shit. And I think even the dude knew it at that point when he was riding along with the chicken swinging next to his head. He's like, I am I am effed.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

He knew it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

I am effed, you know. And it's just kind of like horrifying where you're just like, good god, man, really.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

It's among the things in their entire Cohen's catalog, when I think about it, is it's it's fucking dark.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Like it's super dark, man.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

Well, one thing I will say about it, and leading into the next one, which I don't know, maybe the next story is my favorite one. Uh Gold Canyon? Yeah. Yeah, that one's that's my favorite. A lot of the times when the Cohen brothers can't get Roger Deacons because he's busy on another project, they work with Bruno Delbano, who was the DP on this movie, and he's got a few other others. And every time I watch one of his movies, I'm just like, this guy is probably my favorite DP because especially in that gold prospecting one, it's just there's some really great shots going on. That's one opening one with the sun coming up. I'm thinking, oh, I wonder how long you know they sat up there, and you only get one shot to grab that reverse of it. I'm like, I bet that's another day.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. I love I love that he enters and leaves the valley. That's how the story begins, begins and ends. It's him entering and leaving that canyon. You know, um, and the canyon's gorgeous. It's you're right, it's really well shot. Everything's it's so pretty.

SPEAKER_03 16:41

Yeah, it's it's and so tying into Sisu, here's another movie about the prospector and people trying to fuck with him, right? They're trying to steal his money.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

I liked it. He I liked that they they wrote it so that he had a system, you know, that he wasn't just out there, you know, just he wasn't guessing. You know, he knew that he was in a natural canyon where where you know things would kind of run down and then come to a point, you know, wash down, and eventually there's gonna things are gonna collect or whatever. I don't know much about Cold Prospect, but I assume that's it has to do with knowing how the how the soil moves and the rocks move and all that shit, so you can pick that stuff out. Um but yeah, it uh waits was great in it. You know, he was really, really good. He's a he's turned into a really good actor, in my opinion. Like for the owl eggs, where he's all alright, I'll just okay, I'll just take the one, fine. And uh I like that it's the minute he finds the gold, he gets shot, like the minute he finds it, like the minute after all that digging, bam, shot in the back.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

They did make the system make sense, right? Where it's like, oh, you see a couple specs here, but then it stops. And it's like, okay, so it must be between here and here.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Right. Well, and he finally got to the top of that pyramid, right? Like he dug all those holes within a kind of a pyramid, and then he stood at the tough and he looked down at the sticks that he had placed, and he was like, all right, it's right here, bam, go. And sure enough, you know, he hit it.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

And he didn't hit anything important. Went clean through.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Went clean through. And uh him in the water screaming that is pretty, pretty intense stuff. It's good acting on again on Waits' part.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

He's probably the best character in the whole movie, I think. But again, in the moment, ultraviolet.

unknown 18:40

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Like just ultraviolet.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

It's like we're back to blood simple again, and people are smacking each other around.

unknown 18:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Um, but it was yeah, it was it's clearly my favorite. I liked it. He's funny and kind of gruff and um interesting to watch on film. Like it's it's you know, it's one of those things where it's you watch one person doing quite a bit for by themselves for 10 minutes on screen. He's just he's just doing it the same, and you're kind of comp it's just like, oh, okay, what's he doing? It's not boring. Um, you're actually you know compelling and you're you're following along.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

So yeah, interesting to put that one after that really weird one to kind of like pull you back up. It's yeah, if I'd seen this in a theater, that would have been the one to be like, oh, the spectacle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The next one's based on a story that somebody else wrote, too. I think the prospecting one is based on somebody else's material as well.

unknown 19:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

But uh this other one here is just uh it's like, oh, the Oregon Trail the movie. You know, like that video game we used to call it.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

It's called the Gal Who Um Got Rattled. Got rattled, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

For me, it was um kind of the most realistic for the most part. Um like it without you know, the the rest of them again surrounding it are all kind of this hyper crazy violence and really dark and sinister, and like that one you could kind of feel you kind of felt dread for her the entire time, but at the same time it wasn't that that sort of violence, you know. Um I I did thought that Indian standoff was really cool, the standoff with the Native Americans um was very, very cool.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Yeah, it's it is interesting because if you're sitting there watching the movie all in one big chunk, it's it's like this movie's gone on for quite a while here, and now we're hitting story five that I think is the longest one. So I I always feel kind of drained by the time I get to the end of that story. Yeah, and so flowing into that last one where they're just where we're just in pure Cohen Brothers weirdness as they're going along in that coach. I've almost checked out.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

I remember that happened last time too, where I was like, oh yeah, it's tension, but it's still it yeah, it's it's it's like it's sort of brutal in a in a very like, well, you know, like she gives that dog up to be killed immediately, basically because she can't have people in the wagon train being mad at her, right? And it's not really her dog, so it's like it's not my responsibility if you want to take care of it. Which is kind of messed up, but at the same time okay. Um it plods along, you know, the story plods along, much like you would plod along on the trail getting from one place to the other. And there's that whole romance on the planes aspect, you know what I mean? But uh I kept waiting for the danger or the unexpected, and then f I finally got it when she wants you know, and and he it he it he hints at it when he you know he uh Her fiance says, you know, you shouldn't go on her the you know, the the planes are like the sea, it'll swallow you up pretty quickly. And then sure enough, she's out there again. Um but again with that end, it's just like geez, you know. And it makes sense. She saw she saw him get bonked on the head and get knocked out and figured Yeah, more Stephen King So Dark.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

Where it's like, no, just wait, just wait a minute, you know. Yeah. And it just cuts off with like, oh, he didn't know what he was gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

It's it's just it's so funny. I mean, most most westerns are just predicated on this idea that you know the old west wasn't really a great place, you know, which is weird because a bunch of people moved out there. So, you know, I guess they all move to these terrible places that just sucked, right? Like it's you know, because in the westerns they all it's always these shit ass towns they go to with people running them and terrible sheriffs, you know. Like, wow, this is like you know, the bad streets of of a giant uh city over and over again, you know, just in small small town doses or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

I don't know what I'm saying. That's the one that felt like it. I mean, it it it works in its short format, but it's the one that felt most like its own movie, kind of in a way.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Yeah, yeah. It's it almost yeah, it almost felt like if you put a little before and after it, you could add a whole feature.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

And so when we get to that last one where it's just the people and the coach, I've I've kind of always checked out both times I watched it, where I'm like, yeah, this movie's so freaking long. And it's it's alright, moments.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Immortal remains is what that's called. Yeah. It's felt like a it felt like a very weird Cohen Brothers version of the Hateful Eight. Um you know, the beginning of the Hateful Eight, where they're all in that coach together for for 45 minutes or however long it is. Um it's nice to see Tyne Daly in a movie. I ain't seen her in a long time. Um but yeah, just watching that I I kind of it felt like um like I don't know, like a like a uh here's dessert, you know, like here you go before you go, here's a nice here's a nice little weird one that's pretty short. I think it's like eight or nine minutes, maybe ten minutes. So I was like, over, so here's this, you know. Yeah. And it's a it's a very like, you know, if that one reminded me a bit of Lost, because you're like, are they in hell? Like are all these people on this coach actually dead and and and being taken somewhere, or are these guys actually just bounty hunters taking a body?

SPEAKER_03 24:53

Right. That's the debate online, like all these characters are dead. Some people were trying to go so far as to say e each one represented somebody from each of the stories, and I was trying to piece that, and I think that's just people trying to come up with shit that's not there.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

It it gave off very ghost story vibes, you know, that sort of um old type type of ghost story, you know, like the one like the one the dude tells in the in the coach.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

You know.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Um yeah, the co the coach turns into the coach ride of the dam.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

You know, it was just and so yeah, I looked up and sure enough, this was financed by a TV distributor. So it really is a made-for-tv movie. Okay, that's interesting. The only one that they ever did. And then when the credits started rolling, I thought even more, yeah, this does feel like like it was made for TV. I mean, it was that's not a knock against it. I was saying that's just caught from it.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Yeah, some some made for TV stuff is fine. I mean my favorite thing lately is watching Millennials online or whatever generation uh react to the day after tomorrow. You remember that nuclear holocaust movie that we all watched back in the day, and they're like, oh my god, this is hardcore. And I'm like, oh god. Wow. Anyway, yeah, but um, no, I look overall it was I thought it was pretty it's it's a Cohen Brother movie, so it's well made. Yeah, it looks great, it sounds great, it's got it's clever, you know, it's it's got all the Cohen Brother marks on it. It's just for me, it's not one I would watch a lot. Yeah, you know, it's too it's just too frigging dark. You know, it's just so dark. The prospector stuff is great, but even that's dark. Yeah, it's about getting shot in the back when you when you achieve your goal. And this is like, oh nothing positive in any of these. That's the and that's the thing. There was nothing positive in any of those. There were no heroic wins. I guess maybe the prospector won because he lived and he got his gold out, but that poor girl.

SPEAKER_03 27:11

Yeah. And they kind of lay it out in that first story where it's like, oh, I'm the happy singing cowboy, but everything's dark and violent, and it's like, oh, we're getting this false.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

This is yeah, this is what we're doing. Okay, so this is what we're doing. And so it and it was and it was consistent with that.

SPEAKER_03 27:29

So and to this day of this recording, there is still no DVD or Blu-ray release of this film. You can only watch it on Netflix.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Yep, that's what we had to do.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

So uh you I don't know how tucked away it is on Netflix at this point, if people have completely forgotten about it, if only Cohen completists are looking for it. But hopefully at some point, maybe when whatever contract there is for their exclusivity, they might actually finally give us a 4K release or something, and then more people can see it. I feel like it's tucked away. I give it three out of five stars, leaning towards three and a half because it looks nice, but I still say around the middle.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

I I I have to go really I don't know, out of five, three. I gotta go three.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

You know, it's one of those that you're just like, all right, watched it, good, cool.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Um I'm not gonna watch that again for a while.

SPEAKER_03 28:32

Yeah, I still would like to see a physical copy at some point. The Western Barton fake.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

That's what they should write on the box when they finally put it out. Um I think I just you know, just thinking of what you were just saying, I just had a uh I I'm just such a genius, everyone who's listening to this podcast, because I just had this idea. I think Netflix has a very, very good case for a print on-demand Blu-ray business with just the things that they own. Like we own these, they're Netflix exclusives, and we can and we're gonna make a physical print media because I think you know, I mean, obviously you'd have to look at the contracts of you know whatever. Maybe you didn't include physical media into that contract. But I I would imagine since they had a physical media outlet for a long time that they did or do and you know, I think just I don't know, right? Like make get 500 people to sign up for a physical run of something and print it print it out.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

Yeah, that's not gonna that's nothing hurt their streaming. No, they also feel never. I mean you look at Oppenheimer 4K selling out places, so there's obviously still some demand.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

So yeah, overall I give it a three. Not something I watch again, but I love the Cone Brothers. It was beautiful to watch. It was beautiful to look at, it was just a dark, dark movie.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

Yeah, when I first watched it five years ago, I gave it like three and a half, I think, and now I'm watching it again. It was like, oh, okay. It's it it not like it didn't hold up, but I just realized oh, it's just a little too. Yeah, I didn't get as much out of it the second time, especially.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

So well, all right, folks, you heard it here first. And feel free to feel free to write us emails and tell us how stupid we are.

SPEAKER_03 30:23

Uh I think I might have liked it more five years ago because I was watching all their stuff in order, and then I got up to that one, so I had all their other shit fresh in my head, and I was like, oh, it feels like this, and this, and this, and this, and this, but then when you take it as its own thing, yeah. So it's funny because last time I watched C Sue on your request, and I said, This movie feels like the spiritual uh successor to Dead Snow. And so then what do you do the next week? You give me a movie from the director of Dead Snow. I was like, oh, that's interesting. So we got this director from Norway making this movie in Manitoba. This is from Canada. I have I can always tell when other countries are trying to make movies about American culture because it's a little bit off, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Just a little bit it reminds me of. It's like an is like an Australian doing an American accent.

SPEAKER_03 31:23

Like those Italian-dubbed movies from the 80s where they'd give everybody American names and try to make you think, see, they shot this somewhere in America. No, you didn't. You didn't. And so Violent Night is what we're led to. Violent night. This is interesting, because I guess as far as violence, it might be equal to the ballad of Buster Scrugs. This one might be a little bit more violent, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

I think it was pretty violent.

SPEAKER_03 31:55

Yeah. When I realized it was from the director of Dead Snow, I went, oh, okay, it's this type of movie, so I'm going to take it a little less serious now. And uh it was also a US production as well. It was a joint US-Canada production, but much like at the end of Cisu, I'm seeing all these Finland names, and I see the big Manitoba tax credit thing go up, and I'm like, whoa, I don't think I've seen that one before. So they're there must be moving along up there. Right. Uh one of my first uh observations about Violet Knight. Boy, that house is uh jarringly huge. Isn't that living room gigantic? Yeah, it's so spacious and everything's all sprayed. The guy loves those long, big. So that was that was interesting, I thought. An interesting choice. It's like Beverly D'Angelo's all the way over here, whispering on the phone, and then they're over at the couch going, I'm like, and they can't hear her. But this is from the director of Dead Snow. Turn your brain off a little bit because this is just the setup part, much like in the diehard template, where we put everybody in place on Christmas Eve, and then everything will go completely. Everything goes to shit. Yep, everything goes to shit. So hero gets to go ape shit and save everybody. We have literal bad Santa. Not bad Santa with the dude from Slingblade, which who knows, we might get to that one in a few years, but this is Santa himself is is is bad Santa. Dude from Sling Blade.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Dude from Sling Blade. Billy Ray, Billy Bob Dorn. Billy Ray, Billy Ray, Cyrus Bob Dorn. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

But the this actor, I remember him from that Black Widow movie. He was probably the best part of Black Widow. What was David David Harbor?

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Is it David Harbour that you're talking about? The Santa who played Santa? Yeah. Yeah, he's Stranger Things also. Oh he's the sheriff in Stranger Things, and he's great in that. That's kind of I think where he first got his big rise. I like him. He's a good actor. He's comes off as a pretty big dude, um, plays physical comic physical pretty well. He's got good comic timing, too.

SPEAKER_03 34:16

Yeah. So he's puking and shitting all the way through this movie, and it's like the aversion to puke in a comedy. This might not be for you, but it tells you that from the first five minutes. So I've got to give it a lot of credit for that. Uh I think this is the movie Judgment Night want it to be. That type of tone, that energy of because it once it gets going, it does get pretty crazy. They somehow managed to fit every Christmas trope you can ever think of in there, including into the score, because it's all little pieces of familiar Christmas music interwoven. And so it's like, yeah, they really went all in with the with the game.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Yeah, they did.

SPEAKER_03 35:01

They really better than a cocaine bear or a sharknado or anything. It's like this is more exactly.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

And there's there's been this um this recent slate of like violent Christmas movies, you know. And I mean, uh if you know, another one we may end up getting to is um Fat Man. Oh, yeah. Uh, which is kind of this, you know, again, it's Santa Claus kicking ass, this concept of Santa Claus kicking ass, which I'm not sure where it came about, but it's an interesting trope, and I kind of enjoy it to be completely honest. Well, then if you I mean if you if you're against that, then you're against America.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

It's like Roadhouse, you know. Patrick's missing Christmas. You know what this movie really felt like? It felt like an R-rated kids' movie. Yeah. That's the title of a Christmas film. Oh, I want mommy and daddy to get back together, and then what the fuck? He's got the sword hammer, you know, so it's it's having it both ways. I'm like, well, who is this movie for? Because the kids shouldn't be able to go see it, and the adults might think it's too kiddie, but then I realized if I was 10, this might be the greatest movie in the world that I was not supposed to be watching. Yeah, yeah, see, see kicking ass.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Santa's kicking some ass. Wasn't there uh I liked uh wasn't there like some if I remember it's it's I it's been a minute since I've seen it. I watched it about two weeks ago, and then I watched Scrugs yesterday. So Scruggs is much more fresh, but isn't there a scene where he's like got like tattoos or mystic kind of fucking weird Santa's going on? Santa's all tatted up and stuff, and it's like okay. So was he a Nordic warrior or was he Santa Claus? Well, apparently he's both, and this is fantastic. Let's go, you know. He's like a magical dwarf that grew six feet tall and passes out presents or something.

SPEAKER_03 37:02

And much like C Sue, here we go, fucking dude again, who just wanted to be left alone or to do his thing. Yep. And so basically the plot of Violent Night to keep it uh simplified is you know, rich people are hold up in their nice little compound on Christmas Eve, and then oh, that's the evening we choose to do the heist. Gee, I feel like we wrote a script at one point about a heist on Christmas Eve even. But the twist here is Santa's delivering presents to that very house at that same time, and now Santa has to help this family get out of the mess. So it's kind of diehard template through uh the filter of home alone. You know, I look at it as the actual sequel to Hereditary We Never Got, where after they turn that shit into the demon lord or whatever, then Santa shows up and starts kicking some fucking ass. That's just fantastic. That's just me.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

So oh my god, that's that's hilarious. Oh, I can't stop playing. Oh, okay, that's great. No, I I I liked it. Like I he felt very John Wickish in parts to me. Um but at the same time, like with a touch of Thor or something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 38:23

Oh, yeah, yeah. More than a touch with his uh skull crusher. Which showed up too late. He'd already done all the skull crushing, but now maybe, you know, there might be some more naughty people along the way. It opens itself up for Violent Knight 2 and etc. You know, they they could go more with that if they really wanted to.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Uh it's nice how to killing Scrooge, by the way. Mm-hmm. Grabbing him and then just going up into the chimney. Oh, I was just thinking about it. It was like it was like Yeah. One of the things about Cisu that I I remember I was telling you when we were talking about was kind of every kill was sort of its own little painting.

SPEAKER_03 39:13

Oh, and so was this when it was all that kills. Yeah, yeah. We even get a Christmas tree being shot at. You know, it's funny, you you we were thinking the same thing because I was thinking about that going up the chimney thing. Because this does that Chekhov's gun thing, but they bury it because he can't make his magic work to do his nose thing, but you don't think when he's gonna kick it in and it's gonna be the thing that fixes everything at the end, and it's like, oh, okay, cool, clever, because I didn't see that coming. And so that wraps it all full circle there. Uh I did notice that the the family, the the the main characters, the broken up couple, they kind of stopped being the main focus of the movie somewhere around the middle, and then towards the end they suddenly become the focus again. So I did think it was a little too long. I felt like it was meandering a little bit to get to where it was going. Yeah. By the time it got there, I was like, oh, I was expecting a little bit more, but I still enjoyed it. And it's funny, coming from me, I think there was too much cursing. Really? Mm-hmm. Because I'm like, oh, I must be getting old because I'm like, some 10-year-old's gonna see this and that they hear fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Maybe I have PTSD from screenings where I'm like, oh, you can't say fuck that many times in a movie. It it turns some people off, but this is Violent Night.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

This is the first time. Well, and people who don't know us or haven't seen that movie, we we wrote a movie where I don't know, we were trying to, I don't know, it was like we were trying to outdo Tarantino with how vulgar the film was, and it was vulgar beyond belief. Um we thought it was funny, but it wasn't.

SPEAKER_03 41:06

No, that's why you do more than two or three drafts before you put something into production. But we less trying to go fast, you know, the whole thing. Lesson learned, yeah. And then I remember sinking into the chairs, you know, a little bit of making bondo for you here. I remember sinking into the chairs, hearing, you know, every time somebody said fuck on the screen, which felt like every other word. Every other word. So maybe I'm watching this one going, wow, sorry for fuck a lot. But I guess maybe that's the shock factor. But that it brought me back to if Bad Santa was the action hero, you know.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

Well, it was rated R.

SPEAKER_03 41:39

It very much is.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

You know, it was an hour and fifty-two minutes, so maybe it was a little long. I could agree with that. Maybe you could have whittled maybe seven or eight minutes out of it. Yeah. It was fine though, for what it was. I enjoyed it. I did too. I thought it was pretty funny. Refreshingly violent.

SPEAKER_03 42:03

Yeah, what a strange one. I uh watched that one over the course of two days. Ah, okay. I wasn't certain if we were recording this week, but I figured, okay, let me watch this one and the other one again just to get kind of a ramp up. So I would say both movies, probably a little too long. But Buster Scrugs is definitely long. Well is this one?

SPEAKER_00 42:31

I mean, Buster Scruggs came in at what 212, 215, something like that. It was long. Yeah. It was long.

SPEAKER_03 42:39

Would its pacing be weird if a story was remote from it?

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Uh, which one are you gonna remove? That's that's the thing, is yeah, it's it's almost like a it's almost like going up and down a hill, right? Where it's like it's like short, you know, kind of a decent length, short, and then long, another long one, and then back down to a short one again. You know. Uh I don't know what would you remove? Maybe maybe the James Franco fit bit.

SPEAKER_03 43:03

Oh yeah. But I guess they do kind of fit their own timing and palette cleansing in a way. Because then you have others that butt butt up against each other.

unknown 43:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:14

No, maybe they had more of a blank check on it, you know, it's like do whatever you feel like.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Yeah, Violet Knight, I definitely think they could have trimmed it a bit. I think I I can I could see that in my head also. Yeah, you could have yeah, you could have lost a bit there.

SPEAKER_03 43:27

I just would have here we go, here I go, rewriting somebody else's movies. Sure, sure, sure. What what would I do different in that movie? Uh and it would see it changes the movie, obviously, but you make the the parents you care about those characters a little bit more, keep them more front and center throughout, and set up Santa and get to the action quicker.

unknown 43:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

But hey, that's a good thing. Yeah, and and then also you don't have to drag the action out as much. I I a little drag it's the action of it dragged a little much, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_03 44:06

But for limited budget, you know, because that's obviously not that huge of a movie. The most of the money was probably paid to some of the actors. And I think they did a really outstanding job for what they had.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Yeah. Yeah, I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

I'm still gonna say two out of five. Really? Two out of five? Mm-hmm. Wow. Leaning towards the two and a half, but I was just still like, yeah, it's cute. You know, I enjoyed it, it's fun, but I don't know if I'm going back to it anytime soon. I like I'm glad that I watched it. For me, it's one of those.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Yeah, don't well, don't don't let me talk you out of your rating. But I mean, uh I for me, it's gonna be one of those ones that around Christmas I'll watch every year. Yeah, oh, I'm gonna hold, I'm gonna, I'm gonna drag that out and watch that. I'm I I watch Fat Man every year now. I watch that one, I watch Scrooged, you know, every year. Those are my Christmas. I don't like the the happy light Christmas movies. I like the and I'm not like I, you know, I'm not a big fan of a lot of the horror Christmas movies that have been made. There's a couple that are alright, but I prefer to watch those rather than It's a Wonderful Life or you know, stuff like that. So uh Miracle on 42nd Street or whatever Hallmark thing we're trying to shove up your butt this year, you know. Um but so for me it's one that I'll go, and that's why I'm gonna give it like a solid three. I'm gonna give it a solid three because it's one that I'll go back to over and over again. Um this is gonna eventually we'll have to do um not anytime soon, but um we'll have to do like a holiday favorites, you know, like the ones that are always in rotation during holiday, because like that'll be my cousin Benny, planes, trains, and automobiles, uh Christmas vacation. That's another great Christmas movie, Christmas vacation.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Um, you know, Uncle Buck, all those ones that the families all sit around and watch that are always on TNT or whatever. You know, if you've got Google Plus or cable still. Night of the Comet. Hey, what?

SPEAKER_03 46:10

Night of the Comet Christmas movie we've covered. And so, oh, this movie also reminded me of this Brian Possein Christmas movie from a few years ago. I think it was called Saint Nick. I might be getting the title wrong or Uncle Nick or something like that. Really should do my research, right? But that was another one of those where it was like, it's funny and it's cute, but you're really trying to do that edgy Christmas thing, you know. But hey, good luck to them. They fucking did it and put the movie out. I'm sitting here on a podcast talking about it, so who am I? Right. But it did remind me of those kind of vibes, all that that one's just a straight uh extreme comedy, you know, it's not an action movie or anything.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03 46:55

Uncle Nick. Uncle Nick. Yeah, I discovered that. I'm like, oh weird, a Brian Hossein Christmas movie. Okay, I'll watch this. It was alright, you know. Okay. It was a little interesting. But it did remind me of, you know, your recent oddball Christmas movies. They keep putting out weirder and weirder ones, and much like C Sue, this felt like 20th century in a blender. Like, this is what happens years after we've got all these movies. Now we're gonna blend them all together, and Santa's an action star. I love it. And his Rangers came back to him. Yes, they did, they got scared off. Man, his scroll that did all the naughty and nice thing was an interesting touch, you know. Yep. It's unreal. I don't know how it works, it's Christmas magic. I, you know.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Yeah, like I said, I enjoyed it. I I really think it's one of those that uh yeah, I'll watch, I'll watch probably once a year or so.

SPEAKER_03 47:52

So now you have two D'Angelo Christmas movies, right? The vacation.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

I mean, yeah, Violet Night. Good point. I did not know that it was made by the guy who did Dead Snow. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 48:05

What a weird coincidence, right?

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Yeah, that's a very weird coincidence, man.

SPEAKER_03 48:09

I looked it up and I'm like, Dead Snow, Dead Snow 2. And I think he's done a couple other Violet Night. And then I was like, well, that makes sense then. You know, that makes sense that it's this gonna be hyper, kind of turn your brain off. It's almost akin to a slasher movie in a way, but Santa's the slasher, but he's not the bad guy slasher like we've seen before. This is killer Santa, but killing the bad guys.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

This is this is killer, this is righteous Santa.

SPEAKER_03 48:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

Yes. This is not this is not just going out and killing for no reason, Santa. This is saving the kids and reuniting the family, Santa. You gotta save Christmas and get back to the reindeer, Santa, you know.

SPEAKER_03 48:50

Yeah, you can you can use that rage for for good. Like I was getting Christmas vibes from it.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Alright, so so a three for Buster Scrugs from you and a two for uh Violet. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And I I was a sign again, I was a three on Buster Scruggs, and I think a solid three on Buster Scruggs. We're gonna have to find some movies that are really polarizing here. We're just kind of landing in the middle of it.

SPEAKER_03 49:23

Well, I'm sure they'll just happen. That's the thing, is you almost don't know from week to week what's gonna Well, I think I've got one for you this week. Alright.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

I think I do. But you go ahead. If you if you want to announce yours first, please feel free.

SPEAKER_03 49:41

Okay, so my pick, after much deliberation, my pick is going to be the first film from the 71 film Cliff 80s classic playlist. Oh no. And your film is Dragonslayer. Dragonslayer. Okay. Why? So it'll force myself to finish watching it as well. I have seen the film before, but it's been a long time, and I've started it and I needed an excuse to finish it, and I'm like, you know what? It's part of the list, anyways. It's going in. We're back to our D type movies.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

So mine for you is, I believe, I think it's gonna be a polarizing movie for you. Not in a bad way, but just in a way where you're definitely gonna have something to say about it. And it's a m it's a movie called Bottle Shock. Oh, okay. So it's uh it stars um Alan Rickman and Chris Pine, who wears the worst wig known to man. Yeah, I saw it a couple years ago. Yeah. Oh, okay, good. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 50:52

So you said good revisit.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

Yeah. Okay, cool. All right, so I'm I'm interested to see what you think on that one when we talk. Yeah. Um, because I it's one I for me, it's one of those movies you're either gonna love your name. It's like sideways. You either like that movie or you hate that movie, right?

SPEAKER_03 51:09

Sideways also potentially coming eventually. It's uh there's a lot of movies coming.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

There's a lot of movies coming eventually, guys. Yeah. I mean, we're gonna be doing this a while. Yeah. Even if you're not listening, it's fun for us to have a record of this. So that's that's what we'll do. Uh all right. Well, that was interesting. Um Dragon Slayer, it is. I when was the last time you looked at that? Uh it's been a decade, I think. I think it's been a while. Maybe no, maybe not. I I I I have it on Blu-ray, so I've watched it a while back, yeah, maybe seven or eight years ago. So almost a decade.

SPEAKER_03 51:51

Yeah. Yeah, I have uh in compiling ideas of movies to watch next, I kind of have my next eight sort of lined up, but it just switches back and forth, and so one that kept getting bumped, got bumped again, but the who knows, maybe that one will be the next choice.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

Dragon Slayer. Alright.

unknown 52:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 52:18

I feel like that's like you said, that's just so you can get through it on your list and move on to other things to watch.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

But it's also part of the 71 film collection, 80s classics. That's compiled by Cliff. The 71 film collection. And not necessarily going through those in order. Well, and that's not necessarily a complete collection. That's just what I happen to have on hand. It's just a random smattering, but in a way, that list, which who knows, I almost feel like revealing it on a letterbox, but then that'll tell you what's on it, was the list that I went, that's such a good list. You could make a podcast just based on those 71 films. And I feel like the next thing you know, now we have this, so it's like, well, hey, those movies gotta go in. And some of them might be next week, some of them might happen fucking years from now, some of them we might not ever get to, but they're there, and some of them you might pick before I pick them.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

Classic 80s 71 items. Yep. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 53:22

See, I thought Last Starfighter was on that list, but no. This is the second item on that list.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

I think I put that in B. I think I put it at the 80s B movies, yeah, because it is kind of a B movie.

SPEAKER_03 53:34

I went through the B movie list and I was like, well, everything eventually. You know, the the the 80s list was the one where I was like, yeah. Because these are all like foundational for movie podcast type movies, and you know you can instantly get at least a half hour conversation out of any one of those films.

SPEAKER_00 53:56

So well, and see that's that's that's why I'm that's why I'm coming from the opposite angle and trying to do like stuff outside of that. So we're not hitting the same genres constantly. So like I'll be throwing Tarantino at you and weird stuff like that, and and um you know, uh Fenture or Villa Nueva or something like that, just to kind of keep all this you know 80 stuff at bay, you know. So it at least is an interesting mix, which would be good.

SPEAKER_03 54:24

And the 80s list is only one sub-list, you know, like another 200 movies off to the side that I'm typing phone too.

SPEAKER_00 54:31

So we're gonna be doing this forever.

SPEAKER_03 54:33

Yeah. By year three or four, that's when it starts getting really interesting because then we have to click weird, weird, weird shit because we did everything else.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

So 400 blows. Yeah, okay. Um, all right. Well, Marty, you got anything else to say about these two movies? No, I think that's about everything.

SPEAKER_03 54:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

I think I think that's it. All right. Well, I guess we'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

All right, man. Later. Thanks.