EP.47 July 4th Movies

Hosts Tyler and Justin are joined by special guest Nathan on the Newbies To Movies Podcast to celebrate the Fourth of July by comparing two wildly different takes on American history and conflict. The trio dives into the Revolutionary War epic The Patriot and Oliver Stone's harrowing Vietnam War drama Born on the Fourth of July, analyzing their differing portrayals of patriotism and military life. After breaking down both films, the guys wrap up the episode by conducting a fun, engaging American-themed movie draft.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Hello, hello.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to New Beast to Movies. I'm Tyler. And I'm Justin. This is a podcast where we like to talk about new movies that we're watching. This week we have a guest, Nathan. Is it the fourth time on the podcast? Welcome back, Nathan.

SPEAKER_04 0:31

Yeah, I appreciate having you guys invite me back on. It's always a lot of fun doing this.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yeah, glad you're back. Uh this is also my first time back in about a month. So I'm excited to be talking about these movies this week for the theme of July 4th. So pretty much American theme type of movies. Before we really get into that, let's talk about some new movies that we've been watching or anything you want to shout out, Nathan, if you want to get started.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

Yeah, the newest movie that I've seen is Super Mario Galaxy. That's shouting out to my nieces for making me watch it. It's a very action-packed movie. It's a lot of fun to watch. It's got a little bit of good storytelling to it and a lot of Easter eggs that incorporate the video games.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

Cool, cool. Yeah, I haven't seen it yet. I definitely need to check it out. Damn, we're really some little kids. I watched Pixar's newest movie, Hoppers, this week. It was pretty good. Obviously, Matt had it ranked in her top 10 Pixar movies. I don't think it was there. I think it was cute. I think it was a good story. Pretty interesting story for Disney to be running about protecting nature, even though they built Disneyland and Disney World on a lot of uh natural forests. Interesting coming from Disney. But yeah, I liked it. It was pretty neat. And there he goes.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yeah. Talking about Hoppers, I've been kind of cooking with some movies I've been watching lately. I had to take a little break for some personal reasons, but uh I've watched 15 new movies this year of 2026. So I'm gonna give my top 10 so far this year, with number 10 being Hoppers. That's kind of right of a segue off of what Justin just watched. I really enjoyed Hoppers, obviously a very Pixar-esque kind of movie, but like kind of a weird Pixar movie, I would say more than anything. Kind of brings robots into it all as well. So number nine, Devil Wears Prada 2, a surprise sequel that really I really enjoyed. I didn't I was wondering where they were gonna go with the story, but it made complete sense and the characters actually grew within it. Number eight, the people we meet on vacation. I'm a big rom-com fan, so just had a shout out that one. Super rewatchable. I've probably rewatched it like five times. Number seven, Over Your Dead Body has Jason Siegel and Samara Weaving. Very enjoyable horror comedy type of movie where they both are trying to kill each other, but then there's like criminals that come into it, and there's a really funny, but like not actually scary horror. Number six, backrooms. Really uncanny horror done well. I think a really hard horror genre to do well, but I think backrooms did really a good job of the character growth within the movie, as well as uh making it still like feel like a very uncanny feeling to the whole thing. And then getting top five, Is God Is. Um, a movie about revenge onto their father who burned them when they were young. And honestly, a really fun drama thriller that I just love revenge stories. Remind me a lot of Django and Kill Bill, which if you don't know me, both movies are right up my alley. Number four, 28 years later, The Bone Temple, one of the first movies I saw, and it was just insane to watch in theaters. Ralph Phoenix should get nominated for more stuff because he's insane in it. Number three, Obsession, one of the more enjoyable horror movies I've seen in the past like five years at one of the newer ones. It's just really re-watchable as well, really unique idea, and it's cool that it came from like a guy that was making Instagram reels and is now like one of the hot commodities and made a crazy amount of money for less than like 750k of a budget. Number two, Project Hail Mary. This movie's just a spectacular watch. You have to watch it in theaters to make up for injustice. And number one being the drama. Once the moment I saw this, this made me like rethink, like made me think about it for like months. I still think about like how the movie was, and it's not even like the controversial part of it. It's like actually the character growth and the plot and how the dynamics go. With two great performances by Zendaya and Robert Pads. So those are my top ten.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

Yeah, it's a pretty awesome list, and there's a lot on there that I need to check out.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yeah. It's a pretty dynamic or like a diverse list, too, which I was surprised when I started making it. Because you got like an animated, you got a sequel, like kind of popular movie, you got four horror movies, and then you got like a thriller, and then a rom com and then a space epic. So I think that also speaks to like the new movies coming out this year as well. Awesome. So this week being American themed or July 4th, as this will come out the week of July 4th. So first before we start out, uh Nathan, what do you think of American type of movies or movies that are focused-centraled or centered around like America?

SPEAKER_04 5:08

Oh, personally, I really like them. I like the patriotic themes to them. I like the supporting of kind of American beliefs and freedom to do which whatever you want to do. I think it's interesting because you can there's some instances where it can get very tricky with how it gets presented or what you could be battling against.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

Yeah, I think um I'm sure we'll get into it here today with at these two types of movies that we decided to watch, The Patriot and Born on the Fourth of July. Just getting into patriotism in general and all the different directions it can be coming from, right? You have people that really love and support uh the country and the people in the country, but um some very different opinions about how and what patriotism looks like. So I think that'll be a really good discussion for today, but with American movies overall in general.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Yeah. When first thinking of like the theme for this week, it's kind of hard because a lot of movies are set obviously in America, but it you gotta bring it down to like, all right, what about American core like themes? Because like if you're just gonna do, oh, it's set in America, the list is like endless. But like, what are the centered themes about America that's brought into it? And I feel like both of these movies hit on two different factors of it of like American like patriotism and then as well as American like uh problems that have within their society. I think both of them challenge both of them that I really enjoyed seeing the dynamic of the two. So cool. Uh Justin, do you want to get right into it with the Born on the Fourth of July?

SPEAKER_03 6:42

Yeah, yeah. Um so Born on the Fourth of July, um, it depicts the the real life events of Ron Kovic. Uh he was an idealist, idealistic uh American who kind of eagerly enlisted in the Marines, um, kind of following the culture of you know, talking about the glory for young men to go fight for their country. And he ended up fighting in Vietnam. Um after he was eventually paralyzed in combat and kind of struggling with the PTSD and the lack of support with feder for veterans, he kind of transforms into a very impassioned, outspoken anti-war activist. So this is kind of the idea of that I was mentioning, uh, talking about the different forms that patriotism takes. And with this, I gave this plot an eight. I thought it was really well done, kept me engaged the whole time. Um, definitely a longer movie, but uh really interesting. Yeah, you want to go first, Nathan?

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Sure. The plot is for me, the biggest thing that took a big turn was when he got back from war. And it kind of opened my eyes up to everyone saying they understand kind of what a veteran has been through, but no one truly does understand the the things they're told to do, the actions that they have to do, and then it kind of just getting swept under the rug so that no one else can know about it, and the dynamic between him and his parents of yeah, they're there they're supportive, but it's they don't truly know and a way to help him get through his the mental psyche that he been he's been through while he was overseas.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Yeah, I think you hit it really well, except I would say this is really centered around Vietnam, right? Probably one of the most controversial, no, not one of the most controversial war in American history about getting into something where they thought they were stopping communism, but really putting their hands in something that they did not know about or really understand. For me, the plot was an eight because I came into this movie expecting it to really touch on the protest side when that was really only 10 minutes of the movie of his actual protest part of his life or really touching on it. But rather it was that growth to notice that about himself and to re-find himself. I saw this as like a rediscovering movie rather than just an American protest kind of movie. It like the whole movie centered around him re-rediscovering who he is as a person because he was just like this it guy. He was like literally the director talks about how he wanted Tom Cruise because he came from Top Gun and he was like this charismatic it guy star, and he wanted to see him go through the challenges and rediscover himself, and he thought he was like a perfect guy to like put in that role, and I think that's like the center of the movie itself.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

Yeah, I agree. Kind of getting into that with Tom Cruise's character, Ron Kovic. I gave the characters a seven. I think all seven points are because of him playing Ron Kovic. Obviously, in this movie, you're telling the story of somebody's his entire life pretty much. So a lot of different characters coming in and out of the plot. So I think that's why to me it felt like a lot of the other characters were lacking, besides really his parents who were who were there throughout the whole story. But I think all the characters were interesting, yet just kind of one-dimensional, because again, you can you only have so much time to really dive in and flush out the other characters throughout uh his whole life.

SPEAKER_04 9:58

I'm up yeah, I mean to just to piggyback off Justin, the characters were good. I gave this like 7.5, and all of them were for Tom Cruise because he played Ron Kravik so well.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Himself was. And I think he did the whole whole point of the movie was to not pinpoint people that helped rediscover himself, but rather aspects of these people that helped him rediscover himself, if I would have to note anything. So like there's certain aspects about different people. There's like the one guy right when he gets out where he still has this let where he still like is trying to get get attempt to walk before he breaks it, who's super cheerful and it's like super enthusiastic, and then like that horrible thing happens where he breaks his leg but can't even feel it, and then he's just mistreated as like because the government was not giving enough money to the the veterans at that time, and then re f refining a group pretty much because his family kind of pushed him aside as he was going through the trauma that it was. So yeah, it's centered around him biography, so obviously it's going to. Um, but I got I couldn't give it any higher than a seven just because there's not a single side character. I was like, you know what, that was developed.

SPEAKER_03 11:06

Yeah, yeah. And then getting into the cinematography, I gave it an eight. Uh very hyper saturated. Uh, I specifically think about the the scene in Vietnam. Um was very bright visual style, and then immediately cutting to him in the hospital, right, is very dulled out, a lot of uh blues and whites kind of showing the the depressive state that he's kind of spiraling into was one of my big takeaways for it. But overall through the whole movie, I think the cinematography was really well done.

SPEAKER_04 11:35

Yeah, the for the cinematographer, cinematography or whatever. I enjoyed the the the battle scenes and then also bringing back into the historical aspect of being at the the two different committees and incorporating the real life, I guess, footage from those speeches from Nixon that were given. So I enjoyed that pretty well.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Yeah, I think you bring up a good aspect, Justin, with like the different color schemes depicting his moods. Um, I specifically think about when he comes back home for the first time. It's like a dream-like sequence to it. I I I thought it was a dream at first. I'm not gonna joke. Like I the first five minutes, I was like, oh, he's just dreaming of this, and it's gonna pull back to like reality. But no, it was like actually was because he was so excited to be back home. He's like, oh, it's gonna be just like how it was, and then like quickly it isn't just like how it was for him, and he realizes it, and that's when he discovers that like he really hasn't talked about or gone through what happened to him over there, and how pretty much that hit all of his innocence that he had before and what you understand of home has pretty much been broken, and no one there knows that about him.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

Yeah, yeah, I think it was really well done and portrayed throughout the whole movie. Getting into dialogue, uh, I had a favorite line from this one. He said, This wheelchair, our wheelchairs, this steel, our steel is your memorial day on wheels. We are your Yankee Doodle dandy coming home. I just thought it was perfect. Uh, this was towards the end of the film, and I think yeah, it's just such a good way to portray kind of his full turn, right? We see this uh this full turn in him as a character, and finally everything all came together to this point in his life.

SPEAKER_04 13:16

Yeah. So with the dialogue, I mean, the beginning of the movie, it's showing him, Ron, as very patriotic and wanting to support the USA and wanting to join the fight against communism, and then it shifts after he gets home, and it's a lot of why? It's well, why go why are we doing this? Why do should we support this when you're sending us and doing stuff like essentially criminal acts on people that shouldn't deserve it? And so then a lot of it shifts to questioning and trying to go back against what the everything is being being told to him on what's right rather than it's it's wrong.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Yeah, you bring up a lot of critical dialogue points. Um you got like his rants part of the movie where he's just straight up ranting about like woe is me, what is this, rather than tackling on what happened to him, which is like the five stages of grief, right? Uh-huh. Kind of like the lash out part or the anger part. And you could see that throughout the movie, how the dialogue attaches itself to different parts of grief and like acceptance of being towards the end. Just shout out to William Dafoe, always being the weirdest guy in every single movie that I've seen with him. In this movie, once he showed up, I was like, Yep, he's gonna be a weirdo, isn't he? And guess what he was? A weirdo. So William Dafoe, weirdo guy.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

Yeah, and then getting into set design, I gave it an eight. Uh kind of interesting fun fact about this is obviously uh his hometown takes place in Long Island, and what they actually did to get like an older feel, uh, especially the scenes where he was still a kid. Um, they went to a small town in Texas, uh, just that that was kind of run down and had a lot of older infrastructure to shoot it there rather than in uh Jersey just to kind of make it give that old feel. Um, but I think that was really d uh done well as well as the uh the convention scene at the end felt really real, like Nathan was talking about the kind of interworked in speeches for the actual things that happened. That was done well as well as a Vietnam. It was interesting to see it on a beach, as typically, you know, everything we see of Vietnam is just the jungle, but uh a lot of different uh parts of Vietnam that are yet explored for a lot of movies.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

One thing I really took away from the set design was how they portrayed the VAs, the hospitals was it was very run down, you had rats crawling across the floor, it just looks miserable, and that was supposed to be the place where you're supposed to get help, and it seemed like it really more hurt hurt you rather than actually trying to help you get better.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Yeah. Yeah, you kind of stole my uh talking point there, Nathan. But uh yeah. It yeah, I think it represented run down. But you can also tell before like when he's trying to walk around and all that, it looks a little cleaner, it looks a little nicer in a in a sense. And then the moment like that bad like him him breaking his leg, it like all of a sudden like like looks even uglier, worse situation. You never see the nurse again. So it's just like interesting to see how like as well as the lighting, but also they've specifically set up the design to look even uglier after the fact. It wasn't a different facility, it just was uglier to him based off of what was happening in his life, which I think is really cool to add as a part of set design. But uh yeah, overall i I think the Vietnam was cool. I've seen some movies do it a little bit better, so uh, there's nothing crazy to point out with it. But yeah, I enjoyed the set design.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

And then acting, I gave it a seven. I like it. We kind of talked about already really standout performance by Cruz here. A lot of depth in this role for sure, um, and a lot of character development over the time. So to see him portray that was really well done. Yeah, I think everybody else, like we talked about with the characters, it was okay. A lot of one-dimensional characters, but uh yeah, Willem Defoe being weird, always a big, big hit as well.

SPEAKER_04 17:07

Yeah, just to piggyback off that, it's very the emotional heavy. Everything is tackled toward the emotions of trying to get everybody to understand the sacrifices that are made from that that were made for the people that were sent out to Vietnam. And I found it very, very interesting and a good watch.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Yeah, I I gave the acting a nine pretty high just because I don't even think this is a hot take. I think this is Tom Cruise's like best performance and my favorite performance of his. You could tell he's going all out for it. Like I think this is his like Oscar run at this point. Uh he's a little younger in his career. Uh he's going like and kind of like anti-Golden Boy Hollywood. Like I talked, like I brought up earlier, but like this is like kind of risky for him at this point. Like he just did Top Gun. He's been doing these where he's like the guy in the movie, where like the kind of like the everyone wants to be him. While this one, it's the complete opposite. You see him go through tragedy and all this, all these things, and really risky move by him, but I think it really paid off in my favorite role of his.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

Yeah, for sure. Getting in directing, I gave it a nine. Pretty well done here. Oliver Stone, he adapted the autobiography of the real life uh Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Kovic, and he ended up winning uh the Oscar for best director for this film.

SPEAKER_04 18:30

I kind of tied in theme and directing together. I kind of see them as kind of both. To me, it was the patriotism versus disillusionment for the movie. You start off very patriot heavy and wanting to support the country and join the Marines, and then after the fact, or after the war, you see the disillusionment from that same group of people that you wanted to try and help and fight for, that they don't have your back after the fact, even after everything that you've been through, there's not a whole lot of help after.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Yeah, I agree. Go ahead, Tyler. Yeah, I'll bring up like my final thoughts about the themes of the movie because I I gotta quite insert on it. That's like more personal basis, as I am all in the military. And so I feel like I can connect to this, those feelings a little bit more. But with the directing wise, so he was he was a Vietnam veteran in himself, so he wanted to represent that type of uh war because he also directed Platoon a couple years earlier before this. Uh big hit won Best Picture, I think, that year. So he really wanted to represent like a more personal basis because the other one was how it was out on the battlefield, while this one was how it was back home for him. And then also, fun fact about this movie was five years prior to it coming out, or I think even more, like 10 years, Al Pacino was play wanting to play Korvac, and they went through like a whole sit-down and everything with Korvac, with the studios, and then they wrote up a script for it, and then it fell apart and uh ended up being getting caught up uh 10 years later to be signed on.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Yeah, that's really neat.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

How different would it have been, you know, to Yeah, because it was supposed to be like before the 1976 like uh convention, which ends the movie in this one. Um it was supposed to be like that was like the end scene still, but it it was supposed to be directed right after that. So they you didn't get to see like the long-standing uh tenure of like what happened at that convention rather than just like an immediate response to it kind of uh feel.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Yeah, that makes sense. Kind of getting into theme like we were talking about, it obviously explores the devastating and shattering uh pain of the American dream, right? This guy thought he had everything and kind of the downfall of that. But I I said too, like the duality of patriotism, right? I don't think he ever stopped uh being a patriot. He loved the country, but he kind of just redefined what he he thought his idea of patriotism was. And like we talked about earlier, the differing opinions on how to be a patriot and how to work the best for your country is such a thing that'll always be brought up.

SPEAKER_04 21:02

To pick up another topic within the theme could be um isolation, is when he felt he had nothing else to do. He had to go down to Mexico and just try and get away and maybe try and find something different. That's a sense of isol isolation that a bunch of veterans thought that they could do or that could help them get through what they were going through.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah. No, definitely I a cholesterolism uh is a key factor in this, to where he wanted to be around a group of people that he felt connected to. I want to start off like right at the beginning of it, to where he has this innocence of where he's like, I will die for this country if I need to, not understanding, and where when he comes back to his family, he's like, You made me do this, you lied to me, and all this stuff. And I don't really view it as in a way that the family lied to him. Maybe his dad could have told him what it was really like, but it's also what are you gonna tell a kid at that age to actually gonna listen? You know, actually gonna like he wants Do this thing. He said he he's been meant for this all his life. He lost in wrestling. So he's like, well, I can't do anything else in wrestling. So you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go serve this country during this big war. And then it kind of converts. He I don't I don't see this as an anti-pa patriotic movie at all. I see it as a patriotic movie that kind of challenges societal norms in a way to where like to be a patriot doesn't mean you you just you're a yes man. It means that you're always challenging for America and the society to be the best that it is. But getting into the more military side of it, you see a lot of it happen. Like right when you join, you have this innocence where you're like, okay, this is how I think it's gonna be. I want to serve my country, I want to like make everyone around me proud. But it's like there's a realism to it. At the end of the day, the military is a capability or a mechanism to really hurt people to in order to protect and free and create this freedom for a society in the United States that that's pretty much what every single military in the country is made for to protect their country. But we have to do it on a different landscape because we are this world power. So that's just kind of touching at like the military side of like when people go in, it's not all you think it is because it is like at the end of the day, like a very uh violent nature mechanism of a of a organization.

SPEAKER_03 23:19

Yeah. Getting into soundtrack, I gave it an eight. I got uh no, you could soundtrack, I gave it an eight. I got uh my needle drop of the week was American Pie uh playing during the kind of pivotal scene of when uh you know Kovic ri receives the medical news that he's permanently paralyzed, never walk, or have children again. Um what a great song choice for that. Kind of just d displaying the the downfall of him and being at his lowest point uh that he's been throughout the whole movie. Yikes.

SPEAKER_04 23:51

Yeah, so I think the soundtrack, not really picking up any songs added in like American Pie, but I'm pretty sure John Williams scored this movie. If that's the case, there's yeah, there's nothing else to say, but it's just John Williams.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. John Williams is uh one of the GOATs coming out with disclosure day as well this year. So he he was cooking. He did both of these movies this week, actually, which is quite interesting. I didn't really notice until looking into it.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

And then kind of getting into the editing, I think the editing was done really well as well. Obviously, a lot of visual shifts we talked about with cinematography, the use of color was really big in this movie. And then uh at the end, um, I think it was really edited well with like uh Nathan talked about uh the Nixon speeches at the convention uh worked in with uh Ron Kovic being there, as well as uh Ron Kovic's final speech when he finally got on stage and everything like that. I think it was done really well.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Yeah, I thought the editing was pretty well done. There's some like slow motion to the movie, um, as well as like overall the editing style of it all. I think slow motion is like the biggest key point to me. I think both movies for some reason to me had a lot of slow motion focused scenes.

SPEAKER_04 25:02

Yeah, to piggyback up on that, it's the it cuts sharply from a really chaotic scene to then something very calm within the movie. I found that very interesting.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

Yeah, probably you know, to kind of show what was going on in his mental state at the time too, um, which is just so well done and such such uh so well thought out to you know make the viewer feel kind of that PTSD, I guess, of the chaos followed up by the calmness and back and forth and was really well done. So overall, I gave this movie a 8.1 out of 10 or 81. I think it was really well done. I I haven't seen much of Tom Cruise's like full discography, but yeah, definitely one of the better ones I've seen from him.

SPEAKER_04 25:45

Yeah, for me it was 8.3 out of 10. 8.3 out of 10. So it was right there with you, Justin. I we I think we have the roughly the same score for all of the categories. It for me, this movie really opened up my eyes to back then with the Vietnam veterans and what they really had to go through and kind of how society treated them with not really understanding what happened. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

I uh um I gave it an 80, took we took five weeks off, but yeah, somehow me and Justin are on the same page. Got it 80 out of 100 or 8.8 out of 10. I'm pretty on par everyone we've been saying. I think this is also an interesting movie to focus instead on like the war not being right, but rather like also what these veterans came into it thinking. Time of innocence. They're all their parents were in World War II, one of the greatest like American hero ages of any generation. And so they always they looked up to them, they wanted to like be that, and then they get put into this war where they don't even know what they're fighting for, but they just know they want to fight, and then they come back to it just being absolutely disgraced. Awesome. So that will lead us right into the next movie, which is uh quite a different war. The first war you could call of the actual United States of America, um The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson. Um get right into it. The plot I gave a seven. This is like a this is an epic, right? This is an epic about epic revenge story, really, where it revolves around Mel Gibson's main character, where he doesn't want to get involved in the Revolutionary War because he has family, and he's like, I don't want my family to get hurt, even though his son doesn't listen, played by Heath Ledger, and then they force him to get involved by his son getting shot, and then he goes on to be like pretty much a badass the rest of the movie and just kill a bunch of freaking red coats, and the movie ends with him stabbing him to death, the red coat, and being like, hell yeah, America, literally running across the thing with an American flag. So lives up to the name of the Patriot. But uh what what do you think, Nathan?

SPEAKER_04 27:50

So I'll talk more about it as we go on and talk about theme, but for me it's it's a lot of internal conflict with Mel Brooks or Mel Gibson, not Mel Brooks, Ben, essentially, between him wanting the peace because he's already been in a war, he's a veteran, he's done his time, so he wants to stay on the farm, raise the family, and just relax. But then you have the other portion of it is then you have to protect or you have to get the revenge aspect because you have this war that's also going on in your backyard.

SPEAKER_03 28:23

Yeah, I agree. I think I think the plot was really good in this movie. The only thing I'd say was the revenge aspect got a little exhausting because they would keep going back and forth, getting one up on each other. And after like the fourth time, I was like, all right, dude, can we just have a final battle? Like put you two out in the field and just get there. But then there were still like two more, and I was like, dude, this is getting this is getting old, the back and forth.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

You guys keep getting one up on each other, and then Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

He was already like a despicable villain, Jason Isaacs. But then when he burns like the whole village in the church, that's when you're just like, you know what? Fuck yeah, fuck the English, fuck the English. Like this was about taxes at first, but you know what? Actually, fuck Great Britain. Yeah. Um and then getting into characters, I gave it a six just because I think there's a lot of character growth with Mel Gibb Gibson's main character, but other than that, there's just no like character development. And maybe comparing it to Born on the Fourth of July, where like both main characters are the focus of the movie. There's just so much more character growth I sort of saw on Tom Cruise's on Core Corbeck than I saw in like the dad. I didn't see him change. If anything, he went back to his old self and like this revengeful part of himself. Yeah, just for me, the characters, even Heath Ledgers, like if anything, like he just stayed the same way. And then I mean he did what everybody would do. Like, you're gonna kill my wife, and I'm gonna go after you, motherfucker, and try to kill you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

Yeah, I agree. It's uh not a whole lot of development with everybody. It's very kind of this happens, then this happens, and this happens. It's kind of in order as you would expect it to go. There's not a, I would say, I guess, change of heart throughout the movie.

SPEAKER_03 30:13

Yeah, I think the one that bothered me the most with Heath Ledger's character was he kind of went to his dad and was like, you know, I s you told me I would understand once I had a family, but I never saw any actions for him to understand. He just got married. Like that was it. That was the only thing that like made him understand why his dad didn't want him to go. But he he was like right back. I'm going right back out there. Which I get it. He killed his wife, but yeah, I didn't see any real development in any of the characters besides Mel Gibson, really. But like you said, technically he just went back to the way he was before.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Yeah. And it was pretty much just good versus bad characters, you know? Like there was just like no like anything else. There's just, yeah, this guy's good, this guy's bad. That's all you need to know. Yeah. Something else funny about characters is that they had nine or they had seven kids. They originally they had six kids in the movie, but then Mel Gibson had a seventh kid, and so then they added a seventh kid to match the amount of kids that he has in real life during the filming of this. So the funny thing about the characters is that the amount of kids in the movie originally was six, but then Mel Gibson was having a seventh kid during the filming. So then they added a seventh kid for the to match the amount of kids that Mel Gibson actually has. He now has nine kids, so like, dude be pumping them out, but uh I thought that was interesting. Yeah. So cinematography, I gave it a seven, just like how I talked about with Born of the Portugal. A lot of slow motion scenes. This is a lot like Braveheart, a lot of other epics where it's just filmed in a way of like a third-person kind of view, but not really one person, if that's a good way to describe it. But nothing like crazy happening out there. I guess some of the war scenes were cool because it's like old war and like it's supposed to be cordial and orderly about how you battle each other and kill each other, and then they and then they were and it kind of demonstrated how they were like, fuck that we ball, and then they just did it. Listen, didn't do it that way.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

Dude, it just blows my mind lining up and shooting at each other in an open field. I can't fathom doing that.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Yeah, it's actually insane. Nathan, what you think?

SPEAKER_04 32:23

Well, you kind of stole mine. I was gonna talk about how with the cinematography it shows these wide open landscapes, and you have tens of thousands of guys just lining up 50 feet in front of each other, and they just take turns shooting rounds at each other and just seeing whoever lasts. I thought that was that's crazy that that happened back then. Yeah. But I mean, it's it's cool to see the old style of the houses within the downtown, what is it, uh Charleston, South Carolina, seeing all like that kind of stuff and thinking back to today, how most of those houses could potentially still be there or are there. So it's pretty neat seeing kind of just history stay within within the cities.

SPEAKER_03 33:04

I thought it did a decent job too at showing um kind of how it basically the war was in your backyard. Like we we pulled up with Heath Heath Ledger's character, and that guy is hauling ass out of his house, and then Heath Ledger walks into the house thinking something is in the house, and then he just looks out the back window and there's a whole war outside. Uh it's just kind of a crazy thing to think about. You know, we'd never think about that, but it happened. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

It's the same with like how the Civil War was thought about. Like uh at the beginning of the Civil War, how they had picnics because they thought it was gonna be like a nice thing to watch, and then they're just like killing each other, and it's like, well, never mind, maybe maybe this isn't a picnic kind of gathering. It's like I think Colonial America it gets studied all the time because just like the thinking back then was just crazy to me. But uh talking about dialogue, I gave it a six. A lot of corny lines in this movie, like a lot of epics, a lot of old old English sometimes. It like pick and chooses where it wants to use old English and where it doesn't. And I'm like, all right, you gotta you gotta choose one. Either you go all in or you're like, all right, let's make it a modern English. But aim small, miss small was memorable, and then at the end when he's like, My sons were better men, it was like, damn right, America. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:18

One thing I took away from like the with the dialogue of the movie was when Ann was calling out kind of the members of the assembly saying, So you guys will speak and be all patriotic, but then when it comes time to wanting to defend, you'll just stay here and not do anything. So yeah, call them out for for being two-faced, essentially.

SPEAKER_03 34:39

Yeah, I agree. I think the dialogue was pretty funny at some points, especially with the the accents and when they decided to use it and when uh not to. I thought one of the better lines was uh from Ben. He said, Uh, mark my words, this war will be fought not on the frontier or on some distant battlefield, but amongst us, among our homes. Like we were talking about with the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, it's right there, it's coming at you, uh, whether you like it or not, and you're gonna have to figure it out. Just pretty crazy thing to think about.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Acting, uh, I gave it an eight because I feel like this movie, though like it sounds like maybe I'm like like kind of hitting on this movie, but I've actually thought the acting of this movie was really well done. It's a very patriotic movie movie, and I feel like the actors make you feel that. I think Heath Ledger, uh, rest in peace, but like one of the best actors of his generation. The roles, the people that went up for this role were Elijah Wood, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Rylan Phillip, and Heath Ledger got it over them. Would it be interesting to see like some of them, because some of them are just not as big dudes as Heath Ledger is. He's just a big dude in this movie. Like you're like, oh, when you look at him, like that's a tank. Like that guy could take out some people. But yeah, I thought the acting was really dumb. Mel Gibson, I mean, he's pretty much playing the same guy from Braveheart, let's be quite honest. Where he just gives great speeches, carries American flag compared to Braveheart, where he just shows up the blue face running back and forth. I'm like, man, dude, he's really good at just like pumping up the crowd.

SPEAKER_04 36:08

Yeah. The world's best hype man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:10

Yeah, I think the acting was good uh all around. I think surprisingly, like the children did a pretty decent job in that four scene, the the two youngest boys. And then especially showing kind of how they both took that PTSD differently. One was very offstandish from his dad, and one was like, No, I'm ready to die for like this shit too. And I was like, Whoa. Like, yeah, it's just it was actually pretty decent uh from them, especially in that scene.

SPEAKER_04 36:36

Yeah, I think at least with acting, Tyler kind of took my Mel, Mel kind of took away with the movie. But I mean, Jason Isaac, I think he did a very good job of being the antagonist and kind of showing that, or at least having the audience hate him for having the the merciful or not merciful, the very follow the rules. If you're not gonna stay with the king in Great Britain, then you're not gonna be your own colony. And whatever the means are for you to listen or to die, it's gonna happen. There's nothing in between.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

Yeah, he's like a sadistic kind of evil character where he plays that really well but also being cunning at the same time and a way of like not even saying anything cunning, it's just the way he is. And I know for a fact that the Harry Potter casting choices saw him in this movie and were like, Yep, that's uh Malfoy's father. And then they casted him for all the Harry Potter movies right after that because he plays such a similar character in their Harry Potter movies, and I was like, Yeah, he's like perfect for this because he's just like an asshole, but like so dissentistic at the same time. Getting into sound design, another John Williams film, so it's so it's great. He got nominated for an Oscar. Uh I think he won for this as well. And there's like so many parts to it where like it's showing out the scene, but then like the scores behind it, and uh, and I was just like, yo, why does the score stand out stand out more than what's actually happening in the movie?

SPEAKER_03 38:00

Yeah. I noticed that too, especially I didn't realize Born on the Fourth of July was John Williams too, but I could tell in a lot of the big battle scenes in this movie. I was like, oh, there's no chance in hell that's not John Williams. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:14

He did a very good job of keeping it kind of period accurate too. He was able to maintain the the century or the like the 1700th century, I would say, music sounding, even for all of the big scores. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

No, it's uh he's one of the goats for a reason. Set design. So it was filmed mainly in South Carolina on like real battlefields because they really wanted to demonstrate what it felt like during the a Revolutionary War, and like if you're gonna make a movie in America, and especially about the Revolutionary War, you got the whole East Coast to film on, so like why not film on the East Coast in the forest and all that kind of stuff. So it was it was really cool. Uh and they like went to the Smithsmo uh Smithsonian to like replicate all the costumes as well. That's neat.

SPEAKER_03 38:57

I thought the uh I thought it was really cool, like their swamp, uh I guess base you'd call it. Uh kind of their home base was uh really well done, I thought, and I thought that was like a a neat little nod to the the south and the swamps that form there.

SPEAKER_04 39:12

Yeah, you guys kind of took both of my answers, so I don't think there's a whole lot for me to piggyback on.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Yeah, the swamp was just a good setup because like the proper English, the way that they thought war should go, wouldn't want to go get dirty and stuff, you know, to like to like go find them. Getting into directing, this director is called the master of disaster because a lot of his movies he does is like epic like disaster movies too. He came out in 2012, the day after tomorrow. So he's done done a lot of like big-esque type of movies where they're just like epics that really rely on like these third person overslating things. And this is just like another one of those movies where you're like, yeah, this is like super rewatchable, and like I can easily put this on in the background, like whenever I want to, or if I just want to feel patriotic.

SPEAKER_04 40:00

Yeah, I tied in the directing and theme just like how I did for Born on the Fourth of July. And the thing that I found with the theme that the director I think chose is the internal battle between the wanting to be peace and wanting to stay out of the war, and then as soon as conflict strikes and messing with his family, and then the eventual loss of his two sons, then gets the the revenge type of freedom from Great Britain, and then taking over on the battlefield, running the militia himself, doing everything he can to essentially get revenge for his sons, is what I saw within the movie.

SPEAKER_03 40:41

Yeah, I think uh the directing was pretty well done. Obviously, you kind of talked about those revenge themes, but I think I think it was uh well done throughout the whole film, and from what I can understand, uh pretty accurate in the sense of the time period. Obviously, there's a lot of kind of disnified stuff, I'd say. Yeah, a lot of like history made up stuff that gets some critiquing too. So but yeah. I mean, I know you want to make the most noble guy in the South, but the odds of him actually having freed slaves working for him out there, dude. Out there. But I did like the the plot points too of uh the African-American gentleman, you know, wanting to be out there even after he's already been uh become a free man for fighting with the militia. That was pretty neat too, just a small thing to throw in there as well.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Yeah. So I I think the person that's I don't want to like butcher the name, but the main person that's that he's based off of is he I'm pretty sure he did have like freed workers with him, but they kind of downplay like the atrocities that he would do as like a warrior, not just during this war, but the previous war, and like he would just do some sadistic stuff, and like some historians are like, Yeah, he was, but like that's why he's known as a hero now because he did because if not him, then who? Yeah, during that time. Yeah. Getting into themes or getting into editing for me, there was nothing crazy special. A lot of slow-mo, but I'm gonna take off points for this and like part of plot where I think that you could take off a lot of fluff in the movie, I felt like a lot of like addition of stuff where I'm like, I just feel like the movie could have been in a lot more linear, and I just feel there's a lot of a lot of fluff in the movie that I'm like, I don't really get anything out of this because we already talked about how there's not a lot of development, and then there's some stuff where like, what are we getting out of these scenes other than just like something though cool to watch, I guess. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 42:33

Yeah, I've I felt the same way as it's I think as you say fluff, I would say filler, just kind of there within the movie.

SPEAKER_03 42:40

Yeah, there was a lot of stuff like that. Uh you probably could have taken out the whole wedding sequence. We knew he cared about her already, so if she died in that church, regardless, he was gonna take revenge. But again, he told his dad, like, I understand now, but I didn't see any action off of that. So again, just kind of filler stuff like that. And it was a really long movie, too.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

Yeah, super long movie. Yeah. Themes revenge, patriotism, and F England. That's the main themes of this movie. Really when you boil down to it. I think you can get into like what does it mean to be a patriot at the same time, but like I feel like that's even deep diving into something that doesn't really deep dive into, to be quite honest. I really liked it. I know it's been I read into it that it was critiqued for not representing the English well in the way where there's a lot more loyalists, like in the actual Revolutionary War than this demonstrated in here. There's like one guy that fought like in America or from there, and he's kind of supposed to represent all loyalists, but they said it was a lot lot more than what was represented. But I think whoever whatever historian made that was probably from England, so I don't really trust it.

SPEAKER_03 43:47

Yeah, if I had to add one, I would add uh greed just with the the commanding officers of England. Uh they definitely thought that they were gonna roll in here and not catch a piece of work, so they got greedy, especially Their the idea that they were gonna get all this land once they won the war, definitely sitting fat and happy for a while just for them to blow a 3-0 lead.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

Yeah. And France finally showing up at the end, like they always do.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

That scene was funny. He's like, you really trust France to show up when you ask them.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

He was like, uh Yeah.

unknown 44:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

I think it's also interesting. I think that's just like an example of America about like how you just said up England thought they could just like roll up on us and not expect any work. And that was like kind of the thought in the Vietnam, how we could just show up to somebody's land and just be like, fuck it, we ball, and not expect any uh people are gonna do some crazy stuff to defend their homeland. And like at the end of the day, it it's life or death for them, which is just way different. I don't know. It's also like their livelihood.

SPEAKER_03 44:47

Yeah, well, it's the same exact thing, but they showed up here in the the southeastern woods. They didn't know how to navigate that. They were fighting in open fields, and we did the same thing in Vietnam. It's crazy how it came around.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Yep, exactly. Crazy how history repeats itself if you don't read up on it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

Overall, I gave it a 7.1 out of 10 or 71 out of 100. May have sounded like I was critiquing the movie a lot, but it's really just deep diving into it. I still enjoyed this. It's a very patriotic kind of movie. Hence the name. Makes you really like love America, you know, and be like we we started off with a banger. But yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:25

Yeah, I gave this a 7.8 out of 10. I thought it was a good watch.

SPEAKER_03 45:29

Yeah, I gave it a 7.3. I think it was a fun movie. Uh yeah. Kind of just a good popcorn movie to sit down and watch, not think too deeply about.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Yeah. And I think we may find some similarities when we do the draft with a lot of those movies where they turned up to be like, or at least there's a certain category that I can think of where we're like, yeah, these are kind of just popcorn movies. These aren't like too deep of movies. Yeah. Awesome. So uh that kind of leads right into our draft. It's a American draft, July 4th draft. It's it's an overall kind of American theme draft, though. Uh Justin, you gotta write down what each team gets pretty much.

SPEAKER_03 46:09

Yeah, I got it.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Okay, awesome. So I'll go over the categories. So the first one is American Dream. So the movie has to be centered around the American Dream of like any person being able to achieve a status and equality of processing to get that status or get what they want in the in America. Uh 4th of July, so either it's set on the 4th of July or some main critical scenes on the 4th of July. Uh patriotic, so that at the end of this day, this movie makes you like really like America, and that's like the whole point of the movie is for you to be like, heck yeah, I'm proud to be an American. American Challenges, it's a movie kind of challenging the idealism of patriotism. Really ch challenging like America's not perfect kind of thing. Like we have our own struggles, or like this brings out the worst in people. Uh then fifth one, chasing after money. So a lot of people in America, capitalism, people just go after money and then they either end up regretting it. So it's a movie that kind of centers around that really uh agreed and uh capital gang. Sixth one being Colonial America, so it's either it's set in colonial America, uh, so yeah, pretty much it's set in colonial America. And then last one is wildcard, so it could be any of them, as long as it's American theme focused, because there's a lot of movies set in America, but like we'll we're gonna be kind of strict with each other about it. Like we can't just be like throwing out any movie just because it's set in America, you know what I mean? See. That was for wildcard?

SPEAKER_03 47:34

Yeah. Okay, just double checking. I'm gonna spin the wheel. Do we want to do it where we pick what draft position we have, or do we want to just do first, second, third? First, second, third. Okay. Spinning for the first name. Let's see. This is a tight one. All right, Nathan. Nathan gets the first pick. Nathan, and then for a second pick, it's Tyler. Okay. All right. Nathan started off.

SPEAKER_04 47:57

Alright, well, I guess for the American Dream film, I will do four scump.

SPEAKER_00 48:03

Good. Four scump. A mentally challenged man, be able to make you successful in the world.

SPEAKER_04 48:09

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

Jenny's the villain of the movie, by the way. I think I've said it before on this podcast, but Jenny is the villain of that movie. Screw Jenny. I hope she never finds any happiness. Yeah, that's that's how I feel about that. Good movie, though. Really rewatchable movie. Yeah. Okay, so man, this is hard. I'm gonna take 4th of July, because I think this is a very like small category of movies, looking into it. And I'm gonna take Jaws. Almost it's entirely set on the Fourth of July. Um, that's a big critical part about it. They open up like the beach is like motherfuckers are getting eaten by sharks on the 4th of July. That's pretty much what the movie is, but then it gets like super deep in the movie. Um, you never see it. If you haven't seen Jaws, like grow up and go watch a shark movie, like for God's sakes. It's such an Americanized movie, too. That's also why I wanted to take it. One of those first summer blockbusters.

SPEAKER_03 49:01

I'm gonna take set around the 4th of July. I'm gonna take the Sand Lot. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 49:07

I had that on my list. Let's see here.

SPEAKER_03 49:09

Some categories I think are way deeper than others, so I'm gonna try to get some of these out of the way. Let's see. For Colonial America, I'm gonna take The Last of the Mohicans. Um have you guys seen that one? I've heard. No, but I wanted to watch it this week, just didn't get to it. Yeah, that one's really good. I actually had to watch that for my cinematography class. I definitely recommend it for anybody. Daniel Day Lewis.

SPEAKER_00 49:34

Yes, sir. Awesome. Yeah, I do think some are more deep than the others, but I'm going to go Colonial America as well. And I think it's quite a twist on Colonial America. I'm gonna go with Little Woman. It's set during the colonial times about the woman growing up in a society that it's a lot very challenged for them too, but they but they are still a family and they're growing pains with each other. It's a love story at the same time. Really enjoy this movie. I think Justin knows I really like this movie as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:04

Alright, so I think I'm gonna go with American Challenges. And I think with that, you know, yeah. American Challenges, I'm gonna do American Sniper.

unknown 50:16

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 50:17

Explain the movie a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 50:18

So American Sniper is, is it who stars in it again? I forget. Pratt. Chris Pratt? Pratt. That's who it is. He's one of the world's most famous snipers that is stationed out in the Middle East, and to me, he has to go through a bunch of challenges with having to deal with does he have to execute some of these younger kids that are walking around with RPGs or bombs that could be trying to harm Americans as they're out there in the Middle East, and it takes a big toll on him when he goes back and forth between tours.

SPEAKER_03 50:51

Yeah, that's a good one. Definitely um kind of surrounding the PTSD of soldiers as well.

SPEAKER_04 50:59

Yeah, and then I think I'll do set around the 4th of July, and I will do Independence Day, just to make it easy. Yeah, that one's good. Shit.

SPEAKER_03 51:09

All right, well, we'll pause it there. 110.

SPEAKER_04 51:12

We're so at least give I give American Sniper the justice it deserved. Yeah. With describing it. I think that was a good good pick for it. Yeah, it was. I was worried that was gonna get picked anyway, so I wanted to do it early.

SPEAKER_03 51:25

Yeah. There's for American challenges, there's a lot of different stuff you can go towards. Yeah. Jesus Christ. Or just that was the weirdest one because it I I stayed in it. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Alright, so Nathan picked Independence Day, so you can pick up with your next pick. Okay. Cool. What was it? Did he pick it for Patriotic?

SPEAKER_04 51:44

I picked it for Settle Fourth of July.

SPEAKER_00 51:47

Okay. Cool. So I'll get to my next pick. Just some opinion real quick, though. Not a big fan of American Sniper personally. Not a very enjoyable film for me.

SPEAKER_04 51:56

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 51:56

So for me, I'm gonna go with American Dream. There's a lot of good options for this, but I'm gonna go with the one and only Rocky. That's good. Yeah, one of the biggest underdog stories of all of all time, just as a movie itself, winning Best Picture as like such a small budget film as well. Like crazy. Am I allowed to take another Rocky movie? That's why I wanted to pick mine first, because it's kind of cheating, you know, to pick another Rocky movie. Even if I already had it.

SPEAKER_03 52:28

Alright. It's fine. It's fine. I'm gonna go ahead and take for patriotic movies, I'm gonna take Miracle. Yeah, the feeling Justin was gonna take that one. I bet you did. Yeah, obviously great movie kind of uh taking place during the Cold War, but uh about the US college uh players going to play for the uh US hockey team um in the Olympics and then playing against, you know, the Russian pros basically and pulling out a miracle and winning. The fucking commies. Let me see what I got here. Uh I think for I'm gonna go ahead and do chasing money and I'm going to do There Will Be Blood. Uh we did this one on the podcast, I believe. Uh yeah, we did. Uh got two Daniel Day Lewis movies now. Yeah, great, great movie, a setback in the day, but obviously about him just chasing money and riches and kind of what it does to his life and the people around him. Man, where do I want to go with this next one?

SPEAKER_00 53:30

I'm gonna go patriotic and I'm gonna go with Top Gun. Yeah. I mean, it's a movie about the most elite Navy pilots, Tom Cruise, and then they complete a mission, but then it's like kind of heroic ending to it, to where at the end it's just like everyone cheering it on, and then you're just like, Yep, America.

SPEAKER_04 53:49

Oh boy. Let's see. I think I'm gonna do chasing after money as well. And I think what I'm gonna choose is Big Short.

SPEAKER_03 53:59

It's not where I thought you were going there, but that's a good one. Yeah, I thought I was going somewhere else too.

SPEAKER_04 54:04

What? What would you think?

SPEAKER_03 54:06

No. You'll see.

SPEAKER_04 54:07

Okay, well, the big short's about essentially the 2008 market crash and taking advantage of all of the loans that people were getting to buy houses and I forget what type of people they were that were just making commission checks off of all of these loans and just pocketing all the money. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:27

Yeah. Bunch of mortgage brokers in the banks. I had this one in my American challenges. So yeah, I mean it falls under both, but yeah, I me too. I also had it both.

SPEAKER_04 54:37

Let's go with I'm gonna go with wildcard already. And I'm gonna choose Olympus Has Fallen. Okay. Because that's essentially just about attack on the president and essentially America getting taken over by foreign nations and trying to defend everybody trying to defend the president within the White House. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

Pretty hard to like say it's that American movie when it involves the president and on the poster has American flag.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

Yeah. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

I'm gonna take Chasing After Money, something that I thought you were gonna take, and I'm gonna take Wolf of Wall Street.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:13

Jordan Belfour, classic story of like get rich, party, and all that, but then it like catches up to him at the end. Leo DiCaprio just cooking in the movie as well. So penny stocks, baby, penny.

SPEAKER_03 55:27

All right. So for my next one, I'm going to take for American Challenges, I'm gonna take all the president's men. Obviously, about uh the Watergate scandal. We just watched this movie uh a couple weeks ago. I really love this movie. Uh I think it was really great and awesome, well done by the uh reporter's perspective, right, of it all. So trying to dig deep and find out more information about it. This next one's just gonna piss Tyler off. Boy God. I'm gonna take for American Dream. Give me La La Land. Fucking damn it. Vito. I love La La Land and I'll never stop taking it. Yeah. Obviously, portion of this is just uh both in the music and acting industry, just you know, chasing after those dreams and kind of how those dreams and the sacrifices you have to make to get to where you want to be in America.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

Yeah, I I agree with you where it's like definitely American Dream is one of the themes into it, but it's not one of those movies where I walk out of it and I'm like, that's an American dream type of film, you know?

SPEAKER_03 56:34

It's not like Rocky where you're just different.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

Rocky, where you're like, dude, that was an underdog. He committed to the American Dream or Forrest Gump. That like he he did it, he ran, you know. Um, all right. Getting into wildcard first, because American Challenges, I don't think any of you are gonna take mine at this point. I'm gonna take Social Network. I love this movie. It's about the what it takes to be a billionaire, pretty much. I've got thought about taking this chasing after money, but I think it fit perfect in the wild card portion, where it's such a critical part of what America is now about entrepreneurial ship, but also social media being a big factor in the movie as well. And it's one of the best edited movies of all time.

SPEAKER_04 57:15

All right. Well, I will do I guess Patriotic Movie is one of the two that I have left. I will do Saving Private Ryan. Good one. Yep. That was on my list. So that's essentially Tom Hanks. They go over this is during World War One or two, right? Two. It's essentially going out and trying to find Private Ryan and going through the the difficulties of navigating through uh Western Europe during World War II, trying to find and help get Ryan. Yep. Now this is where I struggle.

SPEAKER_00 57:52

You got colonial America.

SPEAKER_04 57:53

That's what I have left. Alright, I think I'm going to choose this is gonna be out there along with Justin's answer. But I'm gonna choose Pocahontas.

SPEAKER_02 58:03

Yes. I knew somebody else had it.

SPEAKER_04 58:06

That's what I'm gonna choose.

SPEAKER_02 58:07

I had it on my list for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:09

The Disney Right Disney adaptation. Mm-hmm. The cartoon depicting Pocahontist, pretty much. It was it was a good kid, or it was a good movie watching as a kid.

SPEAKER_00 58:21

Just troubled all people growing up to learn the true story of what happened to Pocahontas.

SPEAKER_04 58:27

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 58:28

Yeah, it was a love story, right? Actually quite opposite. Yep. Yep. It is a good movie though, good for kids. American Challenges. I got so many options that I'm looking forward to like the honorable mentions part of this. But what movie is gonna stand out as like really challenging what America is about? And I don't want to do a religious thing because I feel like that challenges more religion. They have a really good religion one. But I'm gonna do get out to where I think it tackles a certain part of America that it really is, and it's all centered around racism that I think was a very uh critical part in American history that I think really challenges. It's a made-up, obviously, like horror-centric movie, but I think at the core it's a very Americanized movie that is challenging some super hard topics.

SPEAKER_03 59:15

Yeah, okay. Uh for my final one, I think I'm going to it's my wild card. I'm gonna go ahead and take Remember the Titans.

SPEAKER_01 59:25

Good movie.

SPEAKER_03 59:26

This movie just feels super American to me, obviously, at such a pivotal time uh in American history with the desegregation of schools, but obviously football. Who doesn't love football in America? So really great movie and Ryan Gosling still liability at corner.

SPEAKER_00 59:41

Hey, you got two Ryan Gosling films on here too. So that's good. Do we want to count get out? You you can veto it if you don't think it counts. Because you look because you both were like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 59:53

No, I don't think you gave it a good uh I think you fought for it well.

SPEAKER_03 59:56

Yeah, at first I was kind of like but I see what you're getting at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

Yeah. Like even though it's a made-up story, I don't think it needs to be a a nonfiction story or to for it to like still challenge what America is about. Because I think those topics are specifically challenged in a way. So my team, American Dream, Rocky, Fourth of July, Jaws, Patriotic, Top Gun, the first one. American Challenges, Get Out, Chasing After Money, Wolf of Wall Street, Colonial America, Little Woman, and Wildcard Social Network.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:27

Yep. And uh my team was American Dream, the La La Land, set around the Fourth of July, the sandlot, a patriotic miracle, American Challenges, All the President's Men, Chasing Money, Thill Be Blood, Colonial America, The Last of the Mohicans, and Wildcard, Remember the Titans.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:45

And then for me, I've got the American Dream is Forrest Gump, set around Fourth of July, Independence Day, Patriotic Movie, Saving Private Ryan, American Challenge, American Sniper, Chasing After Money. I've got the big short, Colonial America, Pocahontas, and then Wildcard is Olympus's Fallen. Awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:04

I have some honorable mentions too.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

You want to go first, Justin, or you want me to?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:09

Yeah, I can. Pursuit of Happiness was a big one. I'm shocked nobody took Scarface, Citizen Kane, and Wardogs off for American Dream. Fourth of July, obviously the Patriot, which we watched this week. I was gonna just make Tyler Madden take the Shining because the picture in the Shining, it was taken on July 4th.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

I saw that, and I was like, if they pick it, I'm gonna get I'm gonna be like, dude, it's literally like snowy for most of the movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:34

So Patriotic. Uh I was gonna take Rocky 4. Tyler took Rocky, American Challenges, Snowden is another one, Chasing Money, Heller High Water is another one. And then Wildcard, I also had Stand By Me, kind of what it's like coming age in America.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

So for American Dream, I had Minari, a movie with Stephen Yoon, straight up about like these Koreans uh moving to America and then want to make a life for themselves in Arkansas. Really, in essence, like American Dream type of film. Like I really recommend it to anybody. And I also had McFarlane USA. Um, I thought that was also a very good like American Dream type of movie. Uh I really like McFarlane USA. I think it's really enjoyable. Danny Diaz. Yeah, Danny Diaz, man, coming up front. Uh, 4th of July, grown-ups.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

A part of me thought Nathan was gonna pick that. Like I swear. Not on my list.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:30

And then American Challenges was my deepest list by far. I had Apocalypse Now. But I feel like that was more war-centric to where it's like, yeah, it's challenging America, but it's also like just challenging war itself. So I was like, maybe not necessarily civil war, another made-up thing, but directly challenging a civil war of America, what it would look like now. Spotlight, that's the religious one I was talking about. It challenges like the Catholicism as a religion and how they're hiding things, which kind of goes back to the like Italy or like Rome and the Vatican and all that. So I was like, it's not really American-centric, but it was all set in America and in Boston. Priest. And full metal jacket, too. But again, another war-centric one. Chasing after money, no country for old men was like a really it was either that or Wolf of Wall Street. If somebody took Wolf of Wall Street, I would have taken No Country for Old Men. Hello or Highwater as well. Colonial America, you have Lincoln, and then The Patriot of the Witch, scary movie as well. And yeah, that was it. Cool, cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:26

I had Goodfellas for American Challenges, as Honorable mentioned. That could have worked, I think. Mob.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:34

Yeah, the mob.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:35

That or casino. Yeah, awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

Cool, cool. Oh. Thanks for listening to this week's episode. Uh shout out to Justin, as there was like five times that I went in and out, so he's gonna have to edit this. But thanks for listening this week. Thanks again, Nathan, for coming on to this this episode and uh happy to be back.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:54

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Can't wait to be back.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

Happy fourth. Happy Fourth of July.