Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
This week on Movies for Grownups:
Greg & Joe receive a concerning JEEP alert, and in turn write a love letter to the new Kathryn Bigelow CLASSIC A House of Dynamite. It’s a movie that answers some questions, and seriously DOESN’T answer others. The result? A new category of movie for this podcast!
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Greg: Joe in the movie we watched this week. A star of saved by the Bell becomes a coach of a fledgling high school basketball team. Except one of the players ends up being an orangutan. My question for you is, oh.
Joe: Wait, wait, is this a drill? Is that your phone? That’s my phone.
Greg: Oh my phone too. Are you getting a JEEP alert right now?
Joe: I am, where’s my SAS card? All right, I got it. Are you ready? Okay.
Greg: Let me get out my book. Okay. Okay. I have.
Joe: Alabaster. Orange juice. Calliope. Alpha niner. Estelle Getty. Lobster bisque. Gamma. Tony! Toni! Toné! En Vogue. New edition.
Greg: Alabaster. Orange juice. Calliope. Alpha niner. Estelle. Getty. Lobster bisque. Gamma. Tony! Toni! Toné! En Vogue. New edition. New Great Bad Movie is authentic. We have to unlock this thing.
Joe: Oh, wait. All right, all right. On my mark.
Greg: Three. Two. One.
Clip: I always thought I’d been ready to point to the world straight face to see how prepared we are. Now it’s time to nuclear war. Approximately three minutes ago, we detected an ICBM over the Pacific. Current flight trajectory is consistent with impact somewhere in the continental United States. If we do not take steps to neutralize our enemies now, we will lose our window to do so.
Clip: If we get this wrong, none of us are going to be alive tomorrow. Original plan B. We did everything right, right.
Clip: Was it just ready to blow?
Clip: The year is.
Greg: 2025. In fact, last Friday, a movie came out. Kathryn Bigelow had an idea. She talked to the guy who runs NBC news, Noah Oppenheim, and they made a movie called a House of dynamite. We are talking about Rebecca Ferguson. Idris Elba, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-king, Greta Lee, Jason Clarke shows up in this movie and a million other people.
Greg: We’ll just leave it there. Joe Skye Tucker is a House of dynamite, a great bad movie.
Joe: I don’t think it is. I think it’s a great movie. Oh, wow. I loved this movie. There are directors that I really love and respect. You know, we just did another Tony Scott movie. Totally love him. Kathryn Bigelow is probably in the top for me of directors. This is like her perfect kind of movie. Yeah, it follows a little bit of a disaster movie, kind of some of the tropes that you kind of get in a disaster movie where there’s a big cast, big opening yet, but her ability to build character that doesn’t feel like it’s cliché.
Joe: Quickly. And also just every movie I’ve watched of hers with a couple exceptions, the tension that she’s able to bring in each scene is remarkable. And it doesn’t feel heavy handed to me. So I was riveted by this movie. You know it’s going to be really hard. So if you want to watch this movie you should probably stop listening to this.
Joe: And then watch the movie and come back, because we’re going to spoil some of what happened in this movie. And if you kind of want to be a little bit in the dark when you watch it, which is where I would prefer to be, like, I wouldn’t want to listen to a podcast about it. All I knew was Kathryn Bigelow.
Joe: Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson. Nuclear war. Like, yeah, those were like my bullet points. And I was like, I’m in. I will watch any movie that she directs at. This did not disappoint. I was basically riveted from the opening moments of this all the way through to the end. I know the end is a little bit. It doesn’t answer any questions.
Joe: It kind of leaves some things to think about. Now, there are some moments in this movie that are a little silly, but for the most part I loved it. And I this is in my real back of the box, but this could be a three act play. I like how she is able and how the actors are able to convey the tension of the moment.
Joe: Yeah, without really like it’s not an action movie. This is a drama through and through. To me, maybe a thriller.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, but it’s so tense.
Joe: Yeah. And there is no other director that I would want directing this movie. Like, her hand is so deft. And there’s a scene with Rebecca Ferguson where she’s calling home. Yeah. And she’s crying. Right? And trying not to cry, but being at work in the middle of this chaos. And that’s. She gives it the moment it needs to breathe.
Joe: It’s like one of those just remarkable scenes to me. So I’ll stop. I’ve just gone on and on. What did you think of this movie? Greg, I’m very curious.
Greg: So I think this is a great, bad movie. I was so excited about this episode all week, because this is a different kind of movie for us to talk about. This isn’t a big, dumb action movie. It is kind of a big dumb drama, but it does kind of stick with you in a way that I think everybody involved wanted it to.
Greg: So I think it’s effective. But the whole time I was watching it, I had no idea what kind of movie I was watching. Yeah. It’s so tautly crafted and the way that it’s shot by cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, I kept thinking that the house or the building behind our characters was about to blow up at any moment.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And in that way, it’s definitely like the series Lethal Weapon when a house blows up in every episode of that show. But I was like oh my gosh, I feel like the thing behind them is constantly about to blow up.
Greg: And at the end of the movie when the credits roll. Yeah, we should say that we don’t know how to talk about this without spoiling the whole thing. So you definitely should go watch this movie. But it’s probably not what you think it’s going to be. The whole time I wondered if it was going to be kind of a whodunit.
Greg: Where are we going to discover things. It’s a movie that shows you the same 18 minutes from three different perspectives. And each of those like the first 18 minutes takes like 40 minutes and then. Yeah. And then the second 18 minutes takes like 33 minutes. But I thought once we saw the film from all three perspectives, then it would end with something that explained things and it totally doesn’t, which I think has really divided the viewers of this movie.
Greg: Most people are appreciating it, but a lot of people are like, why on earth did I just watch that? And so I feel like we have to accept it on its own terms, which is the definition of a great bad movie. A lot of the time, you know, we’re watching Roadhouse and it’s ridiculous, but we love it. We’re watching Fast Five and it’s ridiculous, but we love it.
Greg: You know, we accept its terms. So this movie requires you to accept its terms when the credits roll. And I feel like a lot of people are divided on that experience. But you know we have a podcast called Great Bad Movies. And so sometimes when credits roll you’re like that was it. Awesome. And this happens to also be a near perfect production in my mind.
Greg: Yeah. I can’t imagine it looking better. I can’t imagine it feeling more tense. I can’t imagine a lot of the performance actually just about every performance is incredible. I think some of the writing has some question marks in my mind. Some of the characters, some of what they’re doing in this movie, I don’t know if it really helps.
Greg: In fact I don’t really know why some characters are in this movie. So I think the weakest part is the writing. But this movie was Kathryn Bigelow’s idea and she got Noah Oppenheim to write it. So I think, I think we can blame the script, but I think we can blame all of the creators of this movie that they went along with this script.
Greg: So that’s that’s why I would say it’s not a perfect film, but it is incredibly great. Let’s hear the scene where Rebecca Ferguson calls her husband.
Clip: Hey, do me good. Get in the car and just start driving. Right. What are you talking about? West. Go west. Go west as fast as you can. Get away from any urban centers. What’s going on there? I’ll call you, I love you. I love you. Can you get me for me? Just get.
Greg: Me. Okay. Two things I love about that phone call. First of all, it starts with the phone going, which is the universal sign for. Craig is stoked. He’s watching this movie, but also seeing a new way to say bye to somebody really fast. Which is either an in-sync reference or just the way I’m now going to end every phone call you said.
Greg: It totally threw me off when she did this. She covers her mouth and just goes, bye bye bye. And I loved it. But she’s about to lose it right there, you know? Yeah. So, Joe, do you want to introduce like, what happens in this movie? What’s the 18 minutes that we that we watch three times?
Joe: So basically it opens with, Army base or air force base in Alaska getting a notification that, nuclear missile is on its way has been launched.
Greg: Yeah, Fort Greely.
Joe: I think so in Alaska. Yeah, yeah. And they’re trying to figure out if it’s real, if it’s a test where it came from. And for whatever reason, the satellites are down so they can’t pinpoint the exact location. It’s basically on a collision course for the United States, you know. So the first part of it is them just trying to figure out if it’s real, like is this, you know, tests, right.
Joe: You know, should they be worried. Is it the North Koreans. Is it the is it China. Is it Russia? Is it all you know? Right. But really those people about base are just more concerned about is it real and then reporting it up the chain of command. And then you kind of watch and then they narrow it down.
Joe: They try to shoot it down. They don’t they aren’t able to shoot it down. And then they kind of narrowed in on like, you know, where it’s going to land. And then kind of as it gets closer and closer. It’s Chicago is where it’s going to land. And then there’s you know how many people are there. It’s 10 million people depending on prevailing wind.
Joe: That’s going to be another you know 100,000 people are going to or another million people are going to be killed 10% downwind.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. And so there’s you know, those are the stakes throughout it. There are conversations of is it real?
Greg: Right. Is it really that day in my life right now, it’s kind of what everybody’s dealing with. Yeah.
Joe: And there’s like that denial that everyone just kind of lives through and like, is it going to malfunction? And it could like hit Chicago but not explode.
Greg: Sure.
Joe: And then it ends right as, as it’s going to hit. And then we’re at a new scene. So it is vantage point which we have done, done better to me because vantage point, if you have seen the movie Vantage Point is a ridiculously great bad movie. That shows the same thing from, yeah, multiple points of view, right? But so many points of view that you just want to bang your head into a wall by the end.
Joe: It’s just like, I get it, lots of people were affected by this.
Greg: Yeah, we should say we haven’t done that. Yeah, that was one of our practice episodes before we started really saying yeah, yeah. And it is a great movie.
Joe: It’s a yeah, it’s, it’s I highly recommend it. Yeah. And it is not what we’re discussing today.
Greg: It invented this and this, this movie perfected it maybe.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. And so this is, this movie is really shot in three acts of there’s kind of right. Rebecca Ferguson and the people in Alaska, dealing with the situation. Then there’s kind of the Department of Defense and kind of the classic war room that your would think of.
Greg: Stratcom in, Nebraska.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: With Tracy Letts. Yeah.
Joe: Then there’s the president’s point of view on it, right?
Greg: Yeah. And the Pentagon.
Joe: Yeah. And you kind of see you hear parts of different conversations throughout that are the same or that you hear them, but you kind of get the different perspectives and I thought they did a really good job with that. It is hard to go back for me the third time once you kind of get the conceit, okay, it’s going to be this kind of movie.
Joe: Yeah, it is a little hard because like the tension builds through each of the acts, to this just like pressure cooker of a moment. Yeah. And then you’re like, now we’re going back again.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: So that’s hard. And so I’m glad it only has three times.
Greg: Sure.
Joe: And I would just say they never answer the question when it hits Chicago. That’s the ending. And I love that. Yeah I’m in on that ending. Like I can make a case that it it blows up. I can make a case that it doesn’t. Yeah. And that is the beauty of art. Ten people can watch it and walk over ten different ideas of what happened.
Greg: This movie isn’t about who launched the missile, and this movie isn’t about what happened. Once that missile reaches Chicago, this movie is about what happens when human beings have to react to a nuclear bomb headed for America. Yeah, that’s the whole thing. And so when the credits roll, I was like, oh, it was really just about the people and how we’re all human beings.
Greg: And this is probably the chain of command and the list of things you would go through in real life, the people like you and I, who have some who have trained a lot and some who have not trained much. And so it’s just such a fascinating thing to kind of stew on after the credits roll. I really loved that.
Joe: I watched it last night. I’ve still think been thinking about it all day today. Yeah. And yeah I, it’s rare that a movie sticks with me like this I also got shades of the movie Dunkirk. Because that is a similar kind of disaster movie. It doesn’t do the repeating the same timeline. But that is a pretty fascinating movie.
Joe: It doesn’t build character the way that I think Kathryn Bigelow was able to do, where I really liked. Yeah, there are characters I really liked, and there are people that I don’t like in this movie. Sure. Whereas Dunkirk, the characters are kind of an afterthought and also, I think as I’ve been on my Christopher Nolan kick, the score of this movie really reminded me a little bit of tenet and just the, like, unsettling score.
Joe: Whoever did the music on this movie just killed it to me. Yeah. Oh, it’s like a horror movie score.
Greg: It’s like jaws.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: Pretty haunting.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So what I hear you saying is Dunkirk is worse than vantage point.
Joe: By a long ways.
Greg: Not how you would fix Dunkirk is.
Joe: You would take advantage point.
Greg: Matthew Fox, we got some Dennis Quaid, obviously my man. Forest Whitaker’s in there. Yeah okay. Great. Yeah. So this whole movie has this score all the way throughout it. It is so tense. It’s unbelievable as that music is playing. It says at the end of the Cold War, global powers reach the consensus that the world would be better off with fewer nuclear weapons.
Greg: Screen goes blank. And then that era is now over. And so this is about, you know, what are we doing with those 12,000 nuclear weapons that are on the planet right now? We have over 5000. Russia has over 5000. And then, you know, there’s a bunch. But then they introduce the first third of the movie with the words inclination is flattening.
Greg: But they don’t say you know part one it just says inclination is flattening. Very confusing. So now I’m starting this movie by pausing it and googling what does inclination and flattening mean. Awesome. So a rough start in this white hard household because I’m googling what on earth does this mean? What am I supposed to know about this that I don’t know?
Greg: And it wasn’t that helpful. It’s not like a common phrase. Yeah. So and this movie just came out. So the SEO on any of these things, it’s horrible. But yeah. So each of the threads have like a title and the first third is inclination is flattening. You mentioned that they all kind of come to a crescendo in the end.
Greg: All three of these parts with the sound that’s on the inside of my heart, a cinematic boom. So I wondered if we could take a journey of hearing these different booms as they go throughout the movie.
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: Here’s the end of the first third of the movie.
Clip: See your orders, Mr. President.
Greg: Kind of a subtle boom right there at the beginning. You know what? Tasteful. Yeah. You got to start somewhere a couple of clicks down so that you have some place to go. Right.
Joe: Get it. You know, start at 11. You got you got to earn it.
Greg: So here’s the end of the second one. I’m a guy.
Clip: Okay. Your orders, Mr. President. I ordered.
Greg: Way more. Basically that’s 11 and peaks and two. Spoiler alert it peaks it. Yeah. And then here’s, here’s the third one.
Greg: The title of the movie shows there, with that last note. So, drinking game, it doesn’t really happen with the sound effect. The boom is when we go to black, but, pretty solid. A lot of booms in this movie.
Joe: Yeah, it was great. And when it ended, I was so hoping that that was the end, because I’ve seen that movie. Right. Or that moment where and you’re like, what’s going to happen? What is this, the end? And then, right, happy ending malfunction, you know, you know, and then you kind of get the reaction shots of everybody around the, you know, all the different cast of characters, right?
Joe: Being relieved and high fiving and.
Greg: Right, meeting up on the beach. Me as pregnant.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. You know, that’s five reference panel arrows are there. That’s.
Greg: Totally.
Joe: Vin Diesel’s holding his Corona really awkwardly. I really hate it. You know, all of that.
Greg: Yeah. So this wasn’t Fast and Furious ish.
Joe: No, no, it did. Not at all. And I was so happy when that was it. Yeah. Credit. No. After credit. Yeah. It was just okay. That’s what happens.
Greg: You’ve been talking about this recently in our episodes. Like you hate the ending.
Joe: Yeah. This one to me. I think I even texted you like, stuck the landing. To me, it’s just like. Yeah, no notes on the arc of this movie. There are few like Rebecca Ferguson is struggling with her American accent.
Greg: So many fake American accents in this movie. Yes, it’s really amazing.
Joe: Yeah, it was almost to the point of like, just let her be from Britain.
Greg: Yeah. Or she’s Scottish. I think she’s Scottish goddess.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. But you know it didn’t take away from, from the performance for me. But there were a few struggling moments of American accents throughout this movie. The other part is they there’s a scene. It’s kind of played up more in the first act. They’re trying to shoot down the the warhead.
Greg: Right? Yeah.
Joe: Basically they shoot two missiles at it. You know, they use the analogy of shooting a bullet with a bullet, and it’s basically a, you know, it’s a 61% chance is what they say in the movie. I’m doing it. Yeah. But why they didn’t launch more. What is my question like? Yeah, it’s all of them. Sure.
Greg: You know they have 50.
Joe: Yeah. What if they launch other ones at us and we’re left. Right. Yeah. But like or you stop this one from hitting. Yeah. That was you know, there are a couple moments like that which do start putting it on the path to great bad movie versus. Yeah, great, great movie for sure.
Greg: But that’s plan A and there is no plan B.
Joe: Yeah we’re going to shoot two missiles at it. And if we miss well sorry Chicago you’re out of luck right?
Greg: Right. It’s surprising that there’s no plan B. So this movie is rooted in interviews with people from the Pentagon, former people who worked in the white House. And so it’s really kind of supposed to be a very realistic look of what would actually happen. Kathryn Bigelow wanted to do a real time dramatization of what would happen if a nuclear weapon was headed for America, and then she found out it would only take like 18 minutes.
Greg: So they had to kind of figure out what to do. And so that’s why they kind of show these 18 minutes three times. But I don’t think there’s much fluff in here other than Rebecca Ferguson was told there’s no crying in the Situation room. She works at the white House in the Situation Room I think they call it like the viewing room.
Greg: It’s 24 seven. They’re kind of viewing what happens around the world. And, my first thought was when they show the Situation Room, like, there’s no way that’s actually what the Situation Room looks like. This is totally it’s the movie version of it. But apparently the guy who was their consultant, he walked in and thought he was. He was like, oh my gosh, this is exactly what it looks like.
Greg: So they got very close. And all of the locations that they talk about in this movie are real locations that have been, you know, built to prepare for this since the Cold War or during the Cold War in some cases. So let’s let’s talk about Kathryn Bigelow. We had a great conversation about Point Break from 1991, which was kind of the one of the maybe the first time all of us had heard of Kathryn Bigelow.
Greg: She had made a couple of great movies before that Blue Steel, but Point Break really kind of put her on everybody’s radar in kind of popular American culture. You really the human lead dislike that movie? Yeah. In 2025. So when did Kathryn Bigelow movies get good to 2025? Joe?
Joe: Strange days. I really like strange Days.
Greg: Yep. D day Lewis.
Joe: No. Ray finds Juliette Lewis. It’s a it’s a kind of futuristic movie. That’s probably the first one that I remember. I have watched Blue Steel as well. That’s a good super intense. Yeah. Movie. I think The Hurt Locker was probably the next one that I remember. And then I think Zero Dark 30, obviously, and then this one.
Joe: So she doesn’t make a lot of movies, like she’s one of those directors, I wish directed more movies because I do her use of a handheld. Yeah, camera is second to none. And she makes big movies like, this is a big movie. I think Zero Dark 30 is kind of a big movie, but they do feel really personal and intense.
Joe: From the opening scene, I was like, oh, I’m in trouble because it’s already tense. And I was like, so tense. Yeah, throughout it. And that is the hallmark of her movies to me, that there’s just you never feel like you get a breath until the end of them.
Greg: Can I walk through the texts that you sent me last night while you’re watching this? Okay. Yeah. The first text. This movie is really good so far. I asked you, how far into it are you? And you said, I think I’m a half hour in. And I didn’t want to say anything about what was what was about to happen.
Greg: 20 minutes later, it’s text me. It’s vantage point. You know.
Greg: And then I didn’t hear from you until the end. You said this movie totally stuck the landing. I really was questioning from the minute you said it’s vantage point, I wondered, which way is Joe going to turn on this?
Joe: Yeah, it was close because I was a little annoyed.
Greg: Oh, let’s get into that.
Joe: You know, I was like, oh, it’s this, this is what you’re doing.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: But to me it’s just a credit to the to the actors and to the script and to the direction of like, oh, I was like, okay, this is what we’re doing, you know? Yeah. Because you kind of in the first one, you don’t really hear the president’s voice very much. But I knew Idris Elba was in it. I figured he was the president.
Joe: Sure. It kind of, to me, parallels a little bit of almost like the thesis question is like, what if the Obama administration kind of faced this? Because kind of they do some parallels of like the relationship of.
Greg: Wright with his wife. Yeah.
Joe: You know, and I remember thinking to myself also when I had those moments of like would they really do this or why isn’t there more urgency. And there’s that famous shot of George W Bush from the Twin Towers. And he’s reading a book, right to kids.
Joe: In a school in Florida. And they’re like whispering into the air. But he, like, stays there for 20 minutes because nobody knows what’s what to do. And what’s happening.
Greg: Right.
Joe: Now is like the parallels of like, what really happened when there was a catastrophic terrorist attack on in the United States on 911. Yeah. And this movie like that totally hit home where he is at a WNBA camp, and Angel Reese is there. And right then they’re whisking him away, you know, and you’re kind of like, why is he not in the situation room?
Joe: And you’re going, okay, there’s only 17 minutes or you know, whatever. It’s like, oh, this is why. So you kind of get the story. And every time I thought I knew kind of what the arc was going to be, it made a less turn for me. And I always love a movie that does that.
Greg: Totally, totally. The first lady is played by Renée Elise Goldsberry from Hamilton. But she’s very. Yeah. Michelle Obama coded. Yeah. But this movie stays away from political parties. It’s a very apolitical movie which I really loved about it. You know, let’s not make it about that. Let’s just make it about. There are human beings in these roles.
Greg: Someone has to be in the chair. I think about this a lot when I go to the doctor, you know, like, what if I’m going to my doctor and they’re having a bad day and they’re, you know, thinking about, like, their kids or they’re thinking about something else, like, I’ll make bad calls at work, and I don’t know why I expect my doctor.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: To be just bulletproof all the time. My doctor. Everyone in my doctor’s office is actually really great. But I often think like I’m sure doctors make bad calls all the time because we’re all just people.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Let’s move on to the second act of this movie which takes place in Nebraska with Tracy Letts running Strategic Command, Stratcom there in like this kind of war room. They say it’s underground, but they say an unknown depth or something like that. Yeah. Anything that the military uses to track nuclear bombs, whenever we cut to them, it says somewhere in the Pacific, somewhere in Pennsylvania or whatever, like, yeah, it’s either they’re hiding it or the military has no idea where anything is.
Greg: Yeah. The military has not figured out how to measure depth of this room yet.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Anyways, so it’s Stratcom. They’re in Nebraska, they’re underground. We have Tracy Letts that if people don’t know who Tracy Letts is, my favorite moment of Tracy Letts is when he is running the Ford Corporation in the movie Ford v Ferrari or Ford v Ferrari. So what.
Joe: It was, I think I think.
Greg: So that Damon great movie, but Matt Damon takes him for a drive and it’s so intense and fast that Tracy Letts, the guy who runs Ford, just immediately burst into tears. And it’s I’ve laughed out loud every time I’ve seen the trailer and every time I’ve seen the movie. It is such a great performance. But he plays. Yeah.
Greg: No, no, the Colonel talking about the all star game that happened the night before. What was your take on this second act of the movie?
Joe: I think the second act is the weakest of the three. Really, and I think it’s because we’ve seen that character in a million movies. Yeah, like gung ho warmongering general that just we’ve got to retaliate and not retaliation means weakness and all of that. And so we’ve seen a million versions of that character in a million movies.
Joe: And yet I think the first act is my favorite.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Me too in it. And there’s definitely a movie I want to watch again.
Greg: Yep. Yep.
Joe: And it’s like to me the first act is a ten out of ten. Like no notes. It’s perfect. Second act is like a 9.5. And I think the third act is probably close to a ten as well.
Greg: Oh interesting.
Joe: You get some really interesting humanity. From the president. Yeah. He’s talking to the person in the third act. I’ll talk about the second act. But like there’s just moments where you just, there’s an unexpectedness to this of like you know Greta Lee’s characters at a Civil War reenactment.
Joe: To me that was the most political. Yeah. Like is that the thesis of this movie that, you know, we’re in the middle of a civil war basically.
Greg: Yeah. What were they trying to say with Gettysburg.
Joe: She mentioned how many people die there. And it’s, you know, it’s famously one of the most bloody battles of the Civil War, right? Like 40,000 people died or something. Yeah. You know, so, yeah, I was trying to find some parallels. I this is why I want to watch it again so that I can really kind of go, okay, what are they trying to say with this?
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: So many great actors just coming in for a day’s worth of work. To me, it shows the power of like, I want to be in a Kathryn Bigelow movie is what it seems like to me. Yeah. Because even like the daughter of the secretary of Defense is, she’s a famous actress as well. She’s in it for 30s. Yeah.
Joe: You know. Yeah, she’s in the last of Us and some other stuff. And so, yeah, I think the second act is probably the one that’s to me the, my, my least favorite, because I think that that character is played well. Like the actor he is great. Like I have no question about that. It was just like, oh we’ve seen the general in the war room, right?
Joe: Saying that we need to fight fire with fire, essentially.
Greg: That’s interesting. I like the first act more than the second act, which I like more than the third act. I watched it a couple days ago, and as I’ve kind of lived with it, I’ve realized, oh, wait a minute, I think I really like what they were trying to say with the third act. So I think I’ve, I’ve kind of changed my thoughts on it, but my experience of watching it was subverting my expectations of what I thought it was going to be and then what I wanted it to be.
Greg: And now that I’m kind of just taking it on its own terms, I’m kind of like, this is kind of amazing what they did with the third act. Caroline Baker was played by Caitlin Dever.
Greg: Yeah I see you were talking about and Secretary of Defense Reed Baker is played by Jared Harris of Mad Men and Foundation. And you know it’s kind of all over the place and everything. Also not American.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: So Tracy Letts he has this three minute stretch in this movie where he is explaining, in the interest of keeping our country safe, here is where we’re at. Here’s what we need to do to make sure we can continue as a country. And as I was watching him, I was thinking of that super military dude in avatar, the guy who’s a little bit nuts.
Greg: Yeah. And he’s just kind of like war for war sake, almost. I didn’t think that that’s what Tracy Letts was doing. I felt like he was just doing what he had been trained to do, based on the best Intel, based on the best minds that had put this thing together. And I kept thinking that he was going to tip into, like being angry at the president or the deputy National Security Advisor, Gabriel Basso.
Greg: But he doesn’t. He is just even keeled. And they are kind of freaking out about this decision they have to make. And he’s just like, this is what’s happening. And this is the best thing we can do right now. That’s like a three minute scene. Should we listen to it.
Joe: Yeah I think so. I mean and I want to say at every moment that you think, you know, where this movie is going to go. Yeah, it doesn’t go there. And so while his character is you’ve seen a character like that in every movie or like lots of movies. Sure.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: I don’t feel like it goes over the top. And I agree that, like, if you’re in his role, your job is the head of the armed forces or whatever you’re going to want to protect the country. Nobody gets disrespectful around what’s happening. Like, everyone is kind of playing their role, and it’s rare to see that in a movie like this, right?
Joe: You know, there’s usually like someone screamed and then someone capitulates because someone is screaming. There’s none of that. Like it’s a really nuanced movie and it’s you don’t see this happen very often in movies, especially the movie is that we you the nuance is not so at the top of the list when they’re making the movies. We like.
Greg: There’s a conversation that President Idris Elba has with his secretary of defense, Jared Harris, where they’re trying to remember when they were trained for this stuff. And Idris Elba is like, do you remember the one time we walked through this? And Jared Harris kind of doesn’t? Yeah. He was like, I guess we kind of just went over the stuff that was most likely to happen.
Greg: You know, the moment I heard an interview with Rebecca Ferguson and Kathryn Bigelow where people in those roles might do this like once a year. But the people who are the general, Tracy Letts, they do this 400 times a year, more than once a day. They do this to prepare for this. And I think that’s in his performance.
Joe: All right. I’m, I’m coming round. And I hate.
Greg: That he practices this more than once a day. And he has to explain to civilian leaders of our country what the deal is you know. Yeah. And so I kind of hear that in his conversation that he has with the president and the Deputy National Security advisor or if.
Clip: This sort of black box available right now, that’s crazy. I the hell is that look cast on Mr. President? Significant time and expertise were devoted to designing these options. You’ll find a range select, limited and major depending on the scale of the response you feel is warranted. I suggest you allow Lieutenant Commander Reeves to brief you 3055 rent high class destroyers on the moon.
Clip: Jesus Christ, I got action and crime aboard sirens in Tel Aviv, sir, everybody knows we missed the airborne. Mr. president, we’re seeing some concerning activity from our adversaries on a number of fronts. Well, concerning the record, did I. Okay, sir, the USS Virginia reports it’s just lost contact with its shadow. One of four Russian submarines we’re tracking in the North Atlantic.
Clip: Each presumably armed with 16 SL BMWs. Until we know differently, we have to assume this may get worse.
Clip: Colonel Brady was trying to do the jobs here. We need a.
Clip: President, right.
Clip: There’s no way he can make an informed decision under these circumstances. Mr. president, Mr. Barrington, slowing down is one luxury we just don’t have. These are the circumstances and little more than seven minutes. We will lose the city of Chicago. I can’t tell you why or why we’re seeing North Korea, Russia, China, Pakistan and even Iran raising their alerts and mobilizing their forces to cross air, land and sea.
Clip: Perhaps, as Mr. Barrington suggested earlier, they are simply and innocently responding to our posture. It is also possible that they’ve seen our homeland is about to absorb a catastrophic blow, and they are readying to take advantage of that, or this is all part of a phased, coordinated assault with far worse to come. I simply don’t know. What I do know is this if we do not take steps to neutralize our enemies now, we will lose our window.
Clip: To do so, we can strike preemptively. What risk a hundred ICBM launching our way? At which time this war will have already been lost?
Clip: And if there is no war.
Clip: If this is it.
Clip: I think we’d all welcome any indication of that. Yes. As unfathomable as it was just five minutes ago, I’d accept the loss of 10 million Americans. If I could be absolutely certain it stops. There is, of course, an absence of that certainty. We can all certainly say a prayer and rely on the goodwill of our adversaries to keep us safe.
Clip: Or we can hit their command centers, silos and bombers while they’re still on the ground, eliminating their ability to take further action against us. No, sir. Chairman, we’ve already lost one American city today. How many more do you want to risk? And question? Is that this is insanity, okay? No, sir.
Clip: This is reality. Six minutes to.
Greg: Impact. That’s the scene.
Joe: So good.
Greg: It’s un. I mean, just incredibly stayed it incredibly acted. This people basically on a zoom call this maybe happens on zoom. Do we see Idris Elba?
Joe: Not till the final.
Greg: We only hear him. We don’t see him until the third act.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: We should say that. As he’s saying all this, we are constantly cutting to a bunch of different things, mostly like the screens they’re looking at. We’re looking at a missile slowly make its way around the globe for this entire movie. It’s like a triangle or whatever. It’s. Yeah, yeah, I can’t take my eyes off of it. So I, I really liked the second part of this, because I feel like these actually are the people spending all day, every day training how to keep us safe.
Joe: Yeah, that’s that’s interesting. You know, it’s this movie is riveting. Yeah. Start to finish. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen, like, 12 Angry man.
Greg: I haven’t, I need to it’s a huge blindspot in my movie watching.
Joe: Yeah, life. But that’s another one that, like, you know, it’s a jury deliberation. It takes place in one room. It’s basically a play.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: It is again, like this movie. Riveting start to finish of the characters and what’s happening in it. And you would think, okay, an hour and a half of just like 12 people in a room talking about and it is so good. And that’s what this movie kind of reminds me of. It’s like old school filmmaking in a sense.
Joe: You’re not watching it because there’s big production or big explosions or action scenes, right? But it is every bit as engaging as, yeah, you know, some of the best movies that we’ve watched, right. And there are moments where I was like, oh, this is the character that’s going to do this. There’s a moment, there’s a person that’s carrying the president’s football, which is like basically it was like, is this person a bad guy?
Joe: And there’s a conspiracy. Yeah. And it’s like that. I have seen that character and we’re going to see the twist. And it’s not. No, he’s just the guy that carries the football. He doesn’t make any decisions. He’s just answers questions that the president has. And they have an interesting conversation.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: But you’re like I’m ready for like, oh it’s going to be this at every turn. And it’s just like, no, everybody is actually just doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Yeah. And it’s just a crazy moment.
Greg: I’m going to watch it. So many times.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: I am so glad Aaron Sorkin didn’t write or direct this movie.
Joe: Yeah, because I’ve been so much walking and talking and.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I feel like this is one of the best episodes of the West Wing that was ever made. And The West Wing is my favorite show, so whatever that means about my life, just like people doing their job, trying to make the best decision in an impossible situation and potentially, you know, like realizing this might be it.
Greg: It’s so interesting. Something that I liked and sort of disliked about this movie is every single person in it is given a personal hook. One of the pilots, you know, has like a stuffed animal for his kid, who’s three. Yeah, another pilot has been married three times, you know, and it’s not working out. Every single person has some sort of real life, you know, personal hook in their character.
Greg: And after a while, I was like, oh, okay, we get it. Yeah. But that was when I thought we were watching a movie where we were going to find out. Who did it, what’s happening, what’s what’s. But that was actually the point of the movie. The people we met along the way. That’s weird.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. The real treasure is a friendly made so.
Greg: Silly which is the point of the show. That’s what you do. Yeah. Exactly.
Joe: Exactly. Yeah I think what I appreciate about and I think this is a credit to the script and to Kathryn Bigelow is that in disaster movies it’s just so over the top of them trying to build character and like trying to build. Yeah. Oh, I like this person. I’m thinking of like Independence Day and movies like that where they’re just sure hitting you over the head with, this is what you’re supposed to feel for these characters, right?
Joe: And you’re given just a little bit in, in a scene that feels normal. So like the opening scene is someone kind of having probably a tough conversation with, I assume their girlfriend or their.
Greg: Yeah. Is that Anthony Ramos?
Joe: I think so. And then he comes in and he’s upset and he kind of takes it out on the people because he’s the boss, right? Yeah, but that’s it. That’s the end of it. Like everybody’s had that moment, right. And then everyone’s back into doing their job. Right. But it just like it gives just a little bit about him.
Joe: And there’s a scene right before that of two people talking. And like he said I’ll write something down like have a nice day on oh, sure, piece of paper. And it’s like, you know, when you stop laughing, I’m going to stop doing this. And it’s like, I’ve done stuff like that with people.
Greg: Little personal moments at the beginning of the work day. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: Yeah, those little moments are the ones that make it perfect because it didn’t feel shoehorned in the way that they can in disaster films where, yeah, they’re setting the stage and like, we’ve got to know that 3 or 4 different locations and they’re all kind of working to probably meet at some point. And we got to know the archetype of these characters.
Joe: It’s like it’s none of that. We have 17 minutes to save the world or save Chicago. Yeah. Do they do it? We don’t know. And it’s awesome. Yeah.
Greg: Let me throw in a couple random tidbits of making this movie based on stuff you’ve talked about. First of all, Greta Lee actually was at a reenactment of Gettysburg when they filmed that. That’s awesome. They didn’t stage that. That was the actual reenactment that they were just filming during. Apparently was 100 degrees, and she was miserable. But they did it.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Oh, Rebecca Ferguson, kind of cries a bit. Apparently there’s no crying in the set room, but in the performance, she started having a moment and she walked away from the camera. Kathryn Bigelow was like, what are you doing? She’s like, oh, I was starting to cry and I was crying and was just like, cry, we’ll film it, you know?
Greg: And so, her kind of tearing up was her interpretation of what this would be like. Oh. And so I wanted to say that they don’t stage and block the scenes. What they do is they just have cameras everywhere and they capture whatever the actors decide to do in each take.
Joe: That’s awesome.
Greg: So Barry Ackroyd, who is the cinematographer, he’s worked a lot with Paul Greengrass and he worked on, The Hurt Locker, actually with Kathryn Bigelow. He didn’t work on Zero Dark 30, but he’s worked on, the Paul Greengrass movies, like the Bourne movies. Captain Phillips United 93. Most importantly for our show, he worked on contraband with Marky Mark.
Joe: A movie I famously hated a lot.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, but he comes from documentary film, and I actually just heard a director talking about working with him. His secret to making things look real and feel real is you can see behind the characters, and a ton of stuff is happening behind them. They set up a camera, like in the corner. Like in real life, people don’t know a movie is being filmed.
Greg: I don’t know if you saw that movie bombshell about Fox News.
Joe: Yeah, I have not seen it, but I know of it.
Greg: But kind of a similar thing, kind of a newsroom vibe, kind of an All The President’s Men lots of stuff happening in the background of the of the newsroom, also in the big shorts, very similar thing, cameras in the corner. And just tons of stuff is happening in the background. So that’s I feel like that brings a lot attention to this movie.
Greg: There’s a lot of stuff happening in the background in these rooms and the Situation Room and Strategic Command at Fort Greely in Alaska. Anyways, Barry Akroyd, I feel like he is one of the key people that made this movie what it is. And maybe that’s always the case for the cinematographer, but I feel like especially in this movie.
Greg: Let me ask you some questions, Joe. Sure. When Rebecca Ferguson gets to work, she stuck behind a new person in line. The new person is ordering something. Rebecca Ferguson says. When did you start? She says last week. How did you know? And Rebecca Ferguson says egg sandwich or oatmeal? Anything else holds up the line. Do you think that’s true?
Greg: There must be other things that take less time than an egg sandwich or oatmeal.
Joe: I was just assuming of like what they had pre-made. And also Rebecca Ferguson wasn’t very nice to that new person.
Greg: Sure, sure.
Joe: But then you’re also kind of set up for like, what’s going to be the conflict and the resolution between those two characters, because that’s what we have been indoctrinated to like.
Greg: Right.
Joe: Have happened in these sorts of movies, and there’s no other interaction between them. It’s just like.
Greg: Right, that’s.
Joe: At the moment that that’s it. That’s what the moment was. You know.
Greg: I really wish the new person had said, can I have a banana? And the guy behind the counter said, sure, that’ll that’ll take 25 minutes.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: Rebecca Ferguson walks into the Situation Room and the guy that’s sitting at her desk that, you know, she’s taking over for, they they go 24 hours a day. He says NSA is itchy about an uptick in chatter between Tehran and their proxies. Do you think they’re being a little over sensitive about that one?
Joe: Probably. You know.
Greg: Would that make you itchy.
Joe: Man? I mean, Tehran’s always a little uppity. These days.
Greg: Though. Okay, okay. This is like I’m pre funking for the important questions right now. Yeah. This is amazing. There’s a moment where we cut to where the rockets are going to shoot up. And hit the bullet with the bullet, you know, break our nuclear weapon that’s on the on its way to Chicago. And here’s what it looks like and sounds like there before that launches.
Clip: Shot high point three.
Clip: So place shelter in place. Nice. Confirming clamp. Cells open during launch status.
Greg: Screen showing launch status. This is what this whole movie sounds like, by the way. Just people repeating their official business to each other and praying music is happening. When that missile launches, it’s pretty amazing. In a movie where basically nothing happens. That was pretty awesome.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: My question to you is.
Joe: Like anything about the missile. All right.
Greg: This all this is all been precursor to the cold on my question Joe. The movie we watched this week. They’re told the shelter in place. My question to you is there’s got to be other places to shelter, right? Yeah. If you were making that shelter announcement, what would you suggest?
Joe: Yeah. Shelter at that place or over there or nearby?
Greg: I would say like shelter in Hawaii.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. If you can get there in 17 minutes, do it.
Greg: Yeah, totally. There have to be other places to shelter in. Place is a very boring. I feel like shelter in place is like 2010. Yeah guys it’s 2025.
Joe: To find another place to shelter.
Greg: We’re losing Chicago. You might as well treat yourself right and shelter someplace else okay. Yeah. See based X-band radar is somewhere in the Pacific. Indo Pacific Command is in an undisclosed location. Strategic command is an undisclosed depth underground. What’s happening here, Joe?
Joe: I don’t think anyone really knows what’s happening. Because we don’t know enough about these places to know where they actually are. So they just kind of the more vague we make it, the more they’ll believe it. But, you know, we.
Greg: Built this way underground. Isn’t that enough? Why do we have to now have to measure it?
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Tracy, let’s, has this enormous coffee mug, and the guy who works for him goes to get him more coffee. And Tracy Letts asks for eight sugars for their ramen.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: How many? What’s the most amount of sugars you’ve ever put in a coffee?
Joe: It’s probably like 3 or 4. Oh, nice. I mean, I used to drink my coffee with, sugar and cream, and now I just take it black like I got intended.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: Once it gets too sweet, it’s just. I can’t do it. But I would try it.
Greg: Do you think eventually eight isn’t enough for Tracy Letts?
Joe: Probably not.
Greg: Do you think, if the guy only puts seven in, do you think Tracy Letts would take a sip and then spit it out?
Joe: Probably. And like.
Greg: Like and, like, yell at the guy?
Joe: Yeah. And fire him on the spot. Probably.
Greg: My guy knows seven sugars, which are. Yeah. They had gotten dual phenomenology on on the thing that they were taking a look at. Did that feel like enough to you?
Joe: I mean, I would have liked a couple more phenomenology on that.
Greg: I don’t you famously love a triple.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: The USS Nevada is somewhere in the Pacific.
Joe: I know the Pacific being our largest ocean. That I mean that could be up near Alaska. Could be way down by, you know, somewhere in South America or. Yeah, somewhere in the Pacific is as vague a term as you could almost have. It’s like, well, somewhere on Earth is this thing.
Greg: I mean, it’s in the Pacific.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: What more do you need to know? But also, it’s not possible to know where these things are as far as I’m concerned.
Joe: Yeah. Some of the like the like, you know, somewhere in the Pacific or at an undisclosed location, have, Mission Impossible vibes for me all over it. Yes. Yeah. And I feel like the last couple really leaned into into those pretty heavily. So.
Greg: Totally.
Joe: This isn’t my theory, but people talk about, like, suspension of disbelief when you watch these movies. Yeah, and the big things are the easiest. So the fact that there is a nuclear warhead on its way to, you know, blow up Chicago like you’re or in. Yeah. The most unbelievable part of this when we meet Rebecca Ferguson’s character, she is up with her sixth child.
Joe: Right. It’s got a fever of 102. If anyone’s ever had a two year old with 102 fever, they are not wild playing. They are in bed and they are the most pathetic, sad looking things in the world.
Greg: It’s so brutal. Yeah.
Joe: That was the most unbelievable part of this entire movie. Was that the fact that the two year old had 102 fever at three in the morning and was being wild and like playing with toys, right? Because I have been that parent and 102 fever is there pretty much the saddest, most pathetic little like bundle of like, I don’t know, you’re just like constantly worried and I don’t know.
Joe: So that’s been that was my. Yeah. Nope. That’s never happened ever. In the history of the world moment.
Greg: And does that kid give her the dinosaur when she walks out. Maybe maybe that seemed right to me. Yeah, that was Rebecca Ferguson’s thing, by the way. She asked if that could happen. I just realized that we haven’t talked about the third act of this movie. Yeah, we buried the lead. Is it the lead? It’s the third act now.
Greg: We didn’t really.
Joe: Know.
Greg: We’re talking about the lead at the proper time.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Tell me about the third act and what it was like for you to watch the last third of this movie.
Joe: Once I knew what the, like I said why don’t I knew the conceit of the movie, I knew that the third act was going to be the president. Yeah, sure. So I was I was expecting that that was going, going to happen. And it didn’t disappoint in terms of what you see of the weight of the decisions that he has to make.
Joe: Yeah. As the president you know it kind of starts with him talking to his wife who in Africa on a you know mission to save the elephants.
Greg: Right.
Joe: And then he’s going to the WNBA thing. He’s I think starting to get some calls about things and then they whisk him out of the WNBA thing like the Secret Service basically just grab him and like right is in the car and he’s like on the satellite phone talking to people. And then you were kind of hearing the same things you’ve heard him say at different points throughout the movie, right?
Joe: Like I said before, like, there’s the person with the nuclear football who’s like at a brisk case. I just follows him around.
Greg: A briefcase, you.
Joe: Say? Yeah, a briefcase, briefcase, a second, maybe going to my head.
Greg: And he’s talking to, Secret Service guy.
Greg: Yeah. In the scene where you think this guy might be a bad guy.
Joe: Yeah. Even how they’re shooting him, you’re like, oh yeah. You know what’s going to happen right.
Greg: He’s given some evil stares. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: And nothing happens. He’s just someone that’s doing his job. And you know, his job is are literally hold this, this briefcase, as I like to say. I call him briefcase.
Greg: Let’s get this thing started.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. You know, and then there’s some interesting conversations as the president is getting caught up to speed on what’s happening.
Greg: Yeah, I think that that conversation, while it was happening, I was like, oh, they’re having this conversation. So we can see that the guy holding the briefcase or the nuclear football is a bad guy, and he’s in on this whole thing, and it’s and I’m still kind of in whodunit mode.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: In retrospect, I think that was the thesis of the third act of the movie where the Secret Service guy is saying, I’ve this is my third president I’ve worked for. They’re all aloof and ridiculous. At least this guy reads the newspaper. And I think what they were trying to say is the presidency is kind of an unserious thing.
Greg: And we have been watching two acts of this movie where it’s the most serious people who you want in the chair for this kind of thing. And then we get to the civilian leader of our country who is kind of aloof. Yeah. You know, Idris Elba is noticeably hunched over. He’s noticeably kind of like buffoonish. And just kind of the way he’s just like, you know I don’t have the knees for it.
Greg: And he’s just he’s just a politician it seems like. Yeah. And the air kind of leaves the movie because of that. And so suddenly it’s not the thriller that it was, but in retrospect if we’re taking this movie on its own terms, it’s even more stressful that this guy is making the call.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Genius. Yeah. Really? Absolutely. I’m so on board with every decision. But I did watch it twice and then have to stew on this for a minute. Like what on earth happened in that third act. And I was like oh wait a minute. Idris Elba was just being a dude. Yeah. That’s incredible.
Joe: Yeah. And you, you have him kind of getting the weight of what the decision that he has to make as he’s like pushing back on all the options and all the options are terrible.
Greg: Yeah. Yeah.
Joe: The best case scenario, as they say, is that we only lose 10 million people. And so how do you make a decision in 17 minutes. And it’s probably even less by the time he’s making the decision. There’s like three minutes to make it.
Greg: Yeah. The binder comes out late with those options. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. To me again it just comes back to the brilliance of this movie of the stakes and Kathryn Bigelow turning up the heat.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: To the end where he’s making a decision. He’s got the binder. He’s made a decision. We just don’t know what it is. Just again it’s such a brilliant decision to to me end it right there. Yeah. And not give us the Hollywood ending that I was expecting I expected another scene. Where either the bomb goes off but there’s no other bombs that are coming in and like okay that’s the best case scenario or it’s a dud and it doesn’t explode and everyone’s happy.
Joe: And we went through this for nothing. But we know we’re better off for it or something like that. Like we don’t get that resolution.
Greg: We do get a lot of clues.
Greg: There’s a certain point in I think all three acts where the cell towers go down and there’s a screen in the Situation Room, that’s, that’s Blippi and they don’t, they don’t know why it’s not the screen. It’s something. And so you kind of have this feeling like they’ve been hacked into the satellites that should have caught this missile headed from somewhere.
Greg: Didn’t catch it which is a huge red flag like somebody hacked into it. And so we didn’t detect this missile until it reached Fort Greely. And so that’s all kind of like stuff that if we’re in whodunit mode, it seems like this is a first missile before a lot of them. Yeah, but they say over and over again in the movie it might just not detonate.
Greg: That happens all the time. So there’s a chance this thing just, like, goes into the ocean, like the end of Mission Impossible for. Yeah, outside San Francisco.
Joe: I mean, to me, that’s. And this is probably where the debate is. I love that I can make a case that ten different things happened at the end of this movie.
Greg: Sure. It’s not what this movie’s about.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Yeah, but if you had to guess, what do you think of it?
Joe: I think it goes off.
Greg: It goes off.
Joe: Because one of the last scenes of them showing, you know, there’s kind of a subplot within it is people who are on a list to go to a special bunker.
Greg: Raven Rock. Yeah. In Pennsylvania.
Joe: Yeah. And so there are people that have been selected to go to a bunker, right. And one of the last shots is people being dropped off their helicopters coming in.
Greg: Real place, by the way.
Greg: Built during the Cold War. Yeah. Like decades and decades ago in Pennsylvania.
Joe: Yeah. So if I am playing along as I did throughout this movie. Yeah I think it goes off.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: I don’t know that I think that there’s other another volley of missiles coming in. What, what do you think happens. I have one other thing I want to mention, but what do you think happens, Greg.
Greg: I think that we’re trying to figure out if it’s like North Korea or if it’s Russia. I feel like they’re in some other place. China. We’re trying to figure out if it’s China. I think it’s North Korea. And I think it doesn’t go off.
Joe: Yeah. And I think that there’s ample evidence that that that’s the case.
Greg: But then more come.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Or. No I don’t think Mark. I think they they successfully hack into something. And while everyone was diverted by this missile that was coming, we didn’t notice some malicious things going on in our systems.
Joe: Interesting. Right. And they make an interesting piece of like, why would North Korea do this. And there’s like there’s interesting logic of while they’re just going to surrender. Yeah. But they’re going to get all this kind of aid coming in because there’s the rebuilding that needs to happen after you know. So they’ll, you know, they’ll admit that they did it, but they’ll be able to turn that into, a financial gain for their country, essentially.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Which I thought was interesting. There’s a yeah, in the book catch 22. I think it might even be in the movie as like a US soldier talking to someone from Italy, because it kind of takes place in the Italian theater of World War Two. And he was like, yeah, Italy has been losing wars forever. And that’s our plan.
Joe: And we fight in them and then we lose. But then the winners come in and rebuild us. You know, that is the whole point, you know, and they kind of goes through the history of Italy losing wars. Yeah. Kind of on purpose because then they get to the winners, come in and rebuild them and prop them up economically and so that was kind of the logic that I thought that they ascribed to North Korea and why they would do this.
Joe: You know, they would kind of like fall on their sword and say, don’t hurt us. We’re sorry. Now help us rebuild. And so it’s like like it’s a it’s an interesting. Yeah. Diplomatic strategy, I guess.
Greg: This is a conversation with greedily who by the way when she first gets called, she’s like, it’s my day off. What are you doing. But they have said like this is happening and the president’s on the line. She’s like it’s not I’m I’m not even working right now. Yeah. Well that happens a lot in this movie where people’s their first inclination is like no I’ve got a, I got a thing right now.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But she says if you’re losing the game, why not just clear the board off the table or something like that?
Joe: Yeah, it doesn’t matter. Just like, I’ve been there. Yeah. I’ve ever had a family game night when you’re, you know, anywhere between 8 and 12. Yeah, that’s a pretty good bet that that’s going to happen to someone to kind of like, oh, I’m losing anyway. Why not just, yeah, go out in a bang. The last thing I wanted to mention before we get into some of the back of the box in our questions and stuff like that is.
Joe: Yeah, you know, I listened. There was a podcast. It may have been a, Malcolm Gladwell or something like that, but it was talking about some of the war game scenarios that they do and all the normal ones that you think of, of like Russia or China or North Korea attacking, you know, we have plans for those, but they actually purposefully create and bring in just kind of regular people to do these like simulations where they’re like, what haven’t we thought of that we should think about?
Joe: Yeah. And prepare for. And that’s what kind of this movie thought also provoked me of like, we can all make a case, oh, China’s doing this, but what if it Cambodia? And then they create a scenario of like, why that country would do this so that they can kind of think of the things that they would not think of because, you know, there’s the normal threats in the world.
Joe: But and so the US military does this pretty regularly to bring in kind of people and then play out a scenario that is never, you know, it’ll never happen. But what it does is it helps them think about all the different possibilities that could happen. And so like, oh, that’s actually probably pretty smart and interesting that they would go to those lengths to have those simulations and not just kind of fall into the trap of it’s got to be these three people that hate us.
Joe: And if it’s not them, then you know, right? You don’t know why someone would attack us type of thing. So that’s.
Greg: Interesting. Well, you know, it occurs to me that there’s a chance some people have no idea what we’re talking about right now.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And you remember back to like, when you used to rent movies at Blockbuster Video. You could kind of walk down the halls.
Joe: Oh, yeah.
Greg: I think we should replicate that here. And, pretend like people are walking down the halls of their blockbuster video, picking up boxes off the shelf, reading the back of the box to see if it’s what they should watch that night. That’s right. It’s time for the back of the box.
Greg: It’s the back.
Joe: Of the box alone. Nuclear warhead is bearing down on the United States. Its origin unknown. Its target unknown. Its capabilities unknown. Now, in a race against time, can it be stopped? Should we retaliate? And against to House of dynamite. We’ll keep you breathless until the last second. Don’t look away or you will miss it.
Greg: Watch this movie. Is that what you saying?
Joe: Yeah. Watch this movie? Basically.
Greg: Yeah. You should look at the screen of your TV while you’re watching this movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: Pay attention to the sounds and the and the.
Greg: What people are saying and like what we’re saying.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: You know what? I feel like it’s good advice. It’s a solid look at the box.
Joe: Yeah, thanks.
Greg: But that’s just like the marketing one. Let’s go on down to Honest Town and let’s get the joke guy Tucker real back in the box.
Joe: All right, house of dynamite and any other director’s hands could have veered into cliches very easily, but Kathryn Bigelow knows how to create tension instantly and plays with her audience as she slowly and steadily turns up the heat until the very end. In a movie that could easily be turned into a play, every glance means something. Every cut holds nuance, and the audience is at the whim of the director.
Joe: At the top of her game, house of dynamite is as unsettling as it is good.
Greg: Totally, totally. So, Joe, should we keep moving on to, the box office and what the critics are saying about this movie?
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: All right, let’s do it. Well, you know, this movie actually was in theaters for a couple of weeks before it came out on Netflix last Friday. Very limited release. And we actually I can’t find any box office information about it. So and I also can’t find any budget information about it. This is basically a Netflix release last Friday.
Greg: So the only stat I can give you is Netflix announced that it had 22.1 million views in the first three days.
Joe: Is that good for Netflix? I have no idea anymore.
Greg: It’s really good. Okay. Yeah, it made it the number one movie at the time in the space. Here’s what constitutes a view on Netflix. They take the total time that people have watched it, and then they divide that by the length of the movie. Okay. And it only counts once they’ve watched it for two minutes. So someone might have watched it three minutes.
Greg: And so, you know, they just kind of like all of that time. It could be the same person watching it over and over again. So that’s how they get to 22.1 million views in the first three days. So I hope that Netflix got a lot of subscribers. I hope that people are talking about this movie, and I hope it’s a win for them, because I think any other studio would have changed the ending.
Joe: Don’t you think 100%.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. I don’t think there’s any way that this gets a full theatrical release with that ending. So that’s a, that’s a success. I am really happy that Netflix let this movie have the ending that it did. And that it’s done well on Netflix. You know it’s a movie that is designed to make you think and it shouldn’t make you feel comfortable either.
Joe: So I appreciate it.
Greg: Yeah yeah yeah. What do you think the Rotten Tomatoes critic score is for this movie?
Joe: I mean it feels like a 70 because we’re doing it on our show. Yeah, I worry that the ending is going to be divisive, And so I was going to push the score down. I’m going to go with like a 60.
Greg: To 78%.
Joe: I mean. Oh, all right, better than I way I was, way off on this one. Okay.
Greg: Yeah. Nice. And had 207 reviews. 78%. Let’s talk about the audience. There’s a popcorn meter score on Rotten Tomatoes. We have over 100 verified reviews by the audience. What do you think the popcorn meter is for this movie? It’s a horrible sample size.
Joe: Yeah. I’m going to say stick with the 60. I think audience, maybe critics will like it more than audience as well. So I’ll go 65.
Greg: They do like it more. Critics were 78 audiences. 77.
Joe: Wow. Okay. Way off. Okay.
Greg: Let’s hear what some of the critics have said about this movie. Justin Chang from The New Yorker says, when the experience was over, my cuticles were entirely intact and throughout, the only alarm I could muster was, for Bigelow, a creeping fear that she had gone to battle with mediocre material and lost.
Joe: Wow. I disagree with that pretty strongly.
Greg: Dana Stevens from slate says a House of Dynamite’s brisk 112 minute runtime barrels toward what looks like an inevitably catastrophic conclusion. Yet the film keeps surprising you right up to the end.
Joe: Great.
Greg: The New York Post says dynamite is an overcooked casserole of lofty ifs.
Joe: Not a fan, apparently.
Greg: This is maybe my favorite name of a publication we’ve ever reviewed we’ve ever featured on this show.
Joe: Oh my God, no.
Greg: Mayor Adams, who writes for the AARP movies for Grown ups. Which is a real thing, says this dramatic third choice oddly dampens rather than heightens the suspense from that moment, a house of dynamite fizzles. Three out of five stars.
Joe: Oh, disagree. Hard disagree.
Greg: Yeah. Mark Kermode of Kermode and Mayo’s Take, which is a great podcast that I listen to out of the UK. The film is very much the start of a conversation. It doesn’t provide answers. It raises questions great, the Associated Press said with riveting efficiency, Bigelow constructs a taut, real time thriller that opens explosively but dissipates with each progressive iteration.
Joe: I don’t agree with it, but I can see their point.
Greg: It’s also two and a half out of four stars, so I think this guy liked it, and I think that I don’t know if I completely agree with that, but I feel like I was saying the third act has more purpose than I thought the first time I saw him. And, they did it on purpose. And I think it’s kind of amazing, but it’s not what I expected.
Greg: I expected it to sell. Better be. Yeah. The incredible president saves the day you know.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: The Hollywood Reporter says purely as a feat of adrenaline pumping editing and cinematography, the movie is a knockout.
Joe: I agree with that.
Greg: Totally agree. Yeah. Glen Whipp of the Los Angeles Times says perhaps the most interesting decision Oppenheim the screenwriter makes is giving all the key players a measure of confidence.
Joe: That is a really interesting point. We don’t watch a lot of movies where everybody is. Yeah, like good at their job.
Greg: Right. Kind of Michael Mannish in that way. Yeah, yeah. Two more Kevin Ma of the Times UK. This is the guy who wrote that hilarious review of Mission Impossible seven where he panned it, and then he liked Mission Impossible eight.
Joe: Right.
Greg: Here’s his review of this movie. Kathryn Bigelow, the thinking person’s action director, returns to cinema after an eight year absence and delivers an extraordinarily accomplished, feel bad thriller.
Joe: I agree with all of that.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Kevin Meyer and the last one I want to read is Stephanie Zachary of Time magazine. We read her stuff quite a bit. She says it’s a movie with a seemingly endless number of moving parts cut with diamond precision.
Joe: I agree with that. I think a shout out to the editors on this movie.
Greg: Oh, and it’s, it’s, David Fincher’s editor.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: But also we have to give Noah Oppenheim, the screenwriter. He weaves an incredible amount of things together in this. Yeah. All right, Joe, I think it’s time for some drinking games.
Joe: I think so, okay, let’s do it. We’ll start with our stop drinking games. Doesn’t have to be alcohol can be whatever you’re drinking. Water, soda, juice, a smoothie, you’re being healthy. Drink it, drink whatever. You know.
Greg: So get together with some friends, assign a drinking game individually to different people in the room they have to drink whenever these things happen.
Joe: Exactly. So silent helicopter. Low flying helicopter. Oh, you’re drinking in this movie for sure. Yeah, there are a couple in it. Especially in the last last act.
Greg: The president’s in one.
Joe: Yeah, the president’s in one. Yeah, there’s a couple other. So there’s a fair amount of of helicopters in there and planes, if you’re really thirsty, you know, add the planes into that. So push in and enhance. I gave this one because there’s a lot of cuts to the missile flying in.
Greg: So anytime they’re looking at a screen take a drink. Is that what you’re saying.
Joe: Pretty much in this movie you’re drinking.
Greg: Wow. That feels like a stretch for this one.
Joe: And maybe when two people share a slow motion look in the middle of chaos, there are some in this where people are, like looking at each other across the room.
Greg: In slow motion.
Joe: And slow motion. Kathryn Bigelow she uses slow motion, a fair amount in this movie. It’s not John Woo, it’s not Tony Scott. It’s got its own flavor. Okay, okay. But Kathryn Bigelow slo mo is going to be a thing because I think that she does it in a way that feels natural and you don’t really notice it. Yeah, yeah.
Greg: So this is slo mo for grown ups.
Joe: Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Great. Because you’re a gentleman and you like your slo mo, but you also don’t want to be beat over the head with it. So I’m sure there’s no silent suffering or explosion. There’s no explosion in this movie. No opening credits scene. Does a title walk into the sound? Well, opening credits scene? No, but we do have the title locks into place with the score at the end of the movie.
Greg: So take a.
Joe: Drink. Take a drink.
Greg: Finish strong.
Joe: Yep. Does it flash back to dialog this one. Maybe you should have water for this one because you’re flashing back to what the dialog is. There’s so much that’s happening. I gave it great bad shots because we missed. And you know, we shot two things at the at the missile and.
Greg: Perfect great bad shot every time they miss.
Joe: Yeah. Take a drink. Yeah. And are the streets inexplicably wet? There is a scene where someone is running on wet streets in this movie. So take it. We do not have. Give us the room and people or cell phones. Smash. Those are our stock drinking games. All right, Greg, I will toss it to you for your first drinking game.
Greg: Every time they say is it GBI? There’s GBI to the things that they fire out of Fort Greely. Yeah. To try and intercept the missile every time they say GBI take a drink.
Joe: Okay. Every time someone says or writes have a nice day. Take a drink.
Greg: That’s that’s solid. Every time the iccv is separating from the GBI or at least it’s supposed to do that. Take a drink. Yeah.
Joe: Perfect. Every time you’re struck by the fact that Rebecca Ferguson is struggling with her accent, take a drink.
Greg: Any time they talk about a coin toss or 5050.
Joe: Oh, that’s a really good one. I have every time there’s Kathryn Bigelow. Handheld shots. Take a drink.
Greg: Is the whole movie handheld?
Joe: It could be.
Greg: So, yeah. Do a cake stand. In the opening credits.
Joe: Yeah. With water and then good luck.
Greg: Okay. My next one is any time the text on the screen refuses to tell you exactly where something is, take a drink okay.
Joe: So every time they show a shot of the countdown clock, they go through.
Joe: Apparently by an IV, you’re going to have alcohol poisoning if you’re trying to get away with that. But the actual coconut water.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Yes.
Greg: Anytime someone mentions the baseball player, Francisco Lindor.
Joe: Oh. So awesome. Take a drink. That’s a good one. Anytime someone says dead list, take a drink.
Greg: Oh, any time a phone is set to vibrate.
Joe: So I make it drink. Any time there’s a shot of a kid’s toy, take a drink.
Greg: Any time. Gabriel Basso, who is the deputy national security advisor. Is that what he’s doing?
Joe: I think so, yeah.
Greg: He does this thing throughout this movie like 6 or 7 times where he says something and then, like, punctuates it by, like, walking away or turning away, bouncing up. He’s constantly doing stuff where he says a line and sells it. Somehow, any time Gabriel Basso sells a line.
Joe: Take a drink. I’m in. I have one for him, too. Anytime he’s running in this movie, take a drink.
Greg: That’s good. I’m out. Do you have any more?
Joe: Okay, I have a few more, I have any. There’s a shot of a flag. Take a drink.
Greg: That’s good. Yeah.
Joe: Anytime someone passes a note on a piece of paper, take a drink. And then anytime they say podcast, because there’s a couple conversations of, like, I listen to a podcast about this. Take a drink. The title.
Greg: Of this movie comes from the president of the United States saying, I was listening to a podcast, or are they this great gift that’s a house full of dynamite.
Joe: Which is unintentionally the best lead into tropes ever? That I have a new trope and this movie has very few tropes. I think I only have two.
Greg: It’s time for Joe’s trope Lightning Round, aka signs. You’re watching a great bad movie.
Joe: So my new trope is anytime someone in a movie says the name of the movie, that is a trope.
Greg: Great.
Joe: So House of dynamite, as you said, comes from a conversation that the president’s having. And he says House of dynamite. So that’s the trope. The only other one that I could really put is maybe for the president as an honorable man trope. But for our normal action movie tropes that’s it. I had to create a new one and kind of shoehorn in one.
Joe: So to me sign of a great movie is lack of trope. So awesome.
Greg: That’s it. All right. Well Joe, there’s some things we need to talk about here. We have not accomplished in the last eight hours of recording. Let’s get to important questions. First. Important question did this movie hold up last Friday when it came out?
Joe: I think so.
Greg: I think it did. Yeah, yeah. But hold on. Follow up question.
Joe: Okay. I mean yes. Hit me with it.
Greg: Does it hold up now?
Joe: I think it does.
Greg: It does. Yeah. It’s hanging in there
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: How hard do they sell the good guy.
Joe: Who is the good guy.
Greg: Doesn’t apply does it.
Joe: Yeah. Doesn’t apply.
Greg: How hard they sell the bad guy.
Joe: Again doesn’t I? Who is the bad guy?
Greg: We don’t know. And it don’t. Why is there romance in this movie?
Joe: There. There isn’t. It’s beautiful. I mean, there’s some sweet moments between Rebecca Ferguson and her husband and Jake and his six months pregnant wife. And that’s about as much romance as we have in this movie, is I one phone call between the president and his wife. But that romantic or just she’s in Africa and you better call her because the world’s going to end.
Greg: Yeah, I think their conversation is the evidence of a mature relationship between two people.
Joe: Yep.
Greg: And the guy who sits next to Rebecca Ferguson, he’s going to propose.
Joe: Oh right. Yeah. Yeah.
Greg: So why do you think they had those that romance in this movie.
Joe: I think it was really for a character development so that you kind of see them as full people. Yeah. And for the most part, and I don’t even say for the most part, I think it works. Yeah. I was in on it. I wasn’t turned off by it though.
Greg: Because what are we without a relationship? So the other people are friendships. Yeah. We’re nothing. All right, Joe, are we bad people for loving this movie?
Joe: I think this is one of the rare exceptions. Well, for not bad people.
Greg: Completely in this movie. This is. This is my first. No, I think. Yeah. Is a brand new day. A great bad movie is.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Next important question. Does it deserve a sequel? No, no.
Joe: I would say it’s perfect as is.
Greg: Agree to disagree.
Joe: Okay. What is a I have a feeling you have the best sequel ever in your head. So hit me with what your sequel is.
Greg: The sequel is we opened with the bomb hitting Chicago. It’s a dead okay. Everyone so relieved. Oh my gosh that was incredible. What a weird 18 minutes that was. And then another one shows up and we do it all exactly the same again.
Joe: Okay I’m in on that okay.
Greg: Great follow up question. Does this movie deserve a prequel.
Joe: No not here.
Greg: With that, I completely agree to disagree.
Joe: Are you just going to replay this movie again? No.
Greg: Well, actually, yes. Let’s do that.
Joe: Okay, okay.
Greg: Except it is 1983.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: And it’s that time that they mistook high clouds. For a nuclear attack that they allude to in this movie.
Joe: Right.
Greg: So the prequel is 1983. The last time this happened. Okay. That is exactly the same. Okay. Except everyone has much better hair and that’s exactly.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: All right. We usually ask should this movie have been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars? But this movie probably is being released by Netflix in October with the idea that it might be nominated for Best Picture. So, Joe, should this movie be nominated for Best Picture?
Joe: Yes, I think it should be. Wow, I really loved this movie, and I think it’s an exceptionally well-made movie and deserves to be recognized. How do you feel about it?
Greg: I think it’s a long shot.
Joe: I 100% agree that it’s a long shot. I do feel like it deserves it though.
Greg: But hearing your reaction to this movie has pushed me over to okay, I think it could be in that kind of top ten. Yeah. Kathryn Bigelow won Best director for The Hurt Locker in, what, 2006? The performances in this movie are amazing. So. All right, Joe, how can this movie be fixed? AKA who should be in the remake?
Joe: Either you go full schlock and you just go into, like, escape from New York land.
Greg: Okay?
Joe: Or you keep it as it is. And I honestly, I wouldn’t touch this movie. I think it is near perfect.
Greg: Weight in the full schlock. Does that mean Kurt Russell?
Joe: Isn’t it? Yeah. That means like the basically it’s it starts as the sequel where the world is wiped out.
Greg: Nuclear fallout. Yep.
Joe: And we’re in some sort of dystopian future post nuclear fallout.
Greg: Yep.
Joe: That’s kind of the the silly way to go. But honestly, I feel like this movie is near perfect, so don’t touch it. How would you make it better?
Greg: The only thing I can think of is I wasn’t 1,000% stoked that we watched the same situation three times. Especially when the spies are separating from the EC, CVS if I’m remembering any of that. Right. And then they miss, they kind of milk that moment. More than I thought they needed to. They could have sped it up a little bit the second and third time.
Greg: So I am on the fence, I kind of wonder if rather than having it play in sort of real time, if the whole movie had been those 18 minutes and we were able to cut between the different, worlds. And so, you know, it’s it’s really 18 minutes on the clock, but it’s also a two hour movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I would love to hear from Kathryn Bigelow and Noah Oppenheim. Why they didn’t do that. This must have been something they talked about at lunch. So this is more of a question mark. I don’t know if this fixes it, but I would be really interested to hear what the trade offs were if they had approached it that way.
Joe: Yeah, I think I alluded to this at the beginning, but that’s kind of the what Dunkirk does is it’s like it weaves together multiple storylines that happen over the course of a day. So I think I agree with you on I think it’s, it takes the like real time this out of it because it makes it kind of hard to you know, you’re counting down from whatever, you know, 18 minutes to not zero.
Joe: But I think if they weave them together into one story versus three, I think it is a better movie. So yeah, I agree.
Greg: Okay, okay. You know, they can do it on the next one or the last one. The prequel either way.
Joe: Exactly.
Greg: How do you guys want to do it?
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: All right Joe, maybe my favorite question what album is this movie?
Joe: This actually came to me very quickly.
Greg: What first time that’s ever happened.
Joe: Yeah. So to me this is a director returning to form. And nailing it. Yeah. To me this album is one of my favorite albums from an artist that kind of returned the form for her. So this is PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake.
Greg: Wow. That is high praise for you.
Joe: It is high praise.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: PJ Harvey, one of my favorite artists of all time. Yep. In the top three of like if you said who are your favorite musical artists? She’s in the top three. Yep. This album comes and it’s a concept album about the impacts of World War One on England.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: And it’s has some of her best, most heartbreaking work on it and kind of a new sound that she goes with. And so it is also in the top three of her best albums came out, and I think 2011. And it’s now when I listen to within the last week. Wow, it is so good.
Greg: Who produced that album?
Joe: I think flood did, but I’m not 100% sure on that. Okay, I think that was when she was working with him pretty consistently.
Greg: Yeah, okay.
Joe: She may have also done some of the production on it. The musicality of it is much different than anything you’ve ever heard her music sound like.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: She does a lot on like, autoharp. She basically wrote the lyrics and then just sang them with different instruments until she found the instrumentation. So it’s anyway, it’s it’s an exceptional album. Well, and to me this is an exceptional movie. So what album is this for you? No pressure, but PJ Harvey is all of them.
Greg: Well I went, I did, I went kind of prestige as well. For me, this movie really has stuck with me, you know, for upwards of five days now.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But in a way that the movies we watched don’t because it really did make me think like, oh my gosh, what if, what if? And there’s a song that really makes me feel that way, and it’s a song called Here Comes the Flood by Peter Gabriel, and he has released this song a few times. I don’t like any of the versions except for one, and there’s one that gives me chills every time I hear it.
Greg: And it’s this is a little bit of a cheat because it’s on his greatest hits from 1990, but it’s a different version of the song. So that’s the song I’m going to put on our our Spotify playlist. Great bad movies, music. You know, there’s like 12,000 nuclear bombs out there. Like over 9000 of them are like up and running.
Greg: And we know work. And so this really is just kind of, you know, these things could fall in the wrong hands and, and it really could, things could break bad. Yeah. And there’s a line in the song that gets me every single time and it’s don’t be afraid to cry it what you see. And it really gets me whenever I listen to it.
Greg: And this movie kind of had a similar like, Yeah, I think I need to look at the people around me and, let them know that, you know, they’re important to me. So yeah. Boy, both of us love this movie. We’re throwing some really interesting songs for us at this.
Joe: Yeah. And I would say the song from this album is all in everyone, which I think opens with Death Was All Around Us.
Greg: Oh, interesting. All right, Joe. Well, it’s all come down to this. All right. Time for us to rate this movie. Great bad movie. Good bad movie. I don’t feel like I need to say the rest of the scale. You rate this movie.
Joe: I’m even going off the scale. This is to me at worst a great, good movie and at best a great great movie. I can’t even convince myself that it’s a great bad movie. So I think this is a great good movie is where I would write it. I’m going off the scale and I’m going to break brains along the way.
Joe: Sorry everyone.
Joe: Where do you rate it?
Greg: Well, I’m I’m really kind of taking this in because I don’t I want this to be a great, great movie. If we deem it a great, great movie. I don’t think with this script I can say it’s a great, great movie. I think there are things like the FEMA character I didn’t entirely understand. Yeah, the like press secretary person.
Greg: I didn’t entirely understand. There were just parts of this movie where I was like, I don’t know why this is happening. I feel like I’m losing the plot a little bit. This isn’t a shade of color that I needed on this painting. So I’m gonna say great bad movie. I’m going to say okay. Just incredible. Having said that I might put an asterisk on it.
Joe: Yeah. Dot dot dot.
Greg: Yeah. This is a feat of, of moviemaking. I would watch this, you know, a couple times a week if I could. And I suppose there are enough movies out there that we probably could watch an amazing movie. Yes I recommend it. So yeah we just do not do it. It’s a life choice. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah fairly. People make amazing movies all the time.
Greg: So it’s a great, great ish movie. Can we do that.
Joe: Great, great. Yeah. Great great ish movie. I think it would be. I would, I will allow because I can’t for some of the reasons you pointed out, I can’t go to great, great with it. But I can’t go great bad either. Sure.
Greg: Okay. Great. Great ish. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Look at us. Just making it work. All right, well, Joe, we did it.
Joe: I mean, it’s only been five days. Six days? Is this for me?
Greg: It’s plenty. It’s, plenty of time. Yeah.
Joe: This is the conversation that needed to happen.
Joe: I think we can allow other conversations to happen. I just think this is still going to be the conversation that has happened about this movie.
Greg: Sure. At some point, people will recognize exactly.
Greg: I mean, we said this at the beginning, but also, as always, spoilers for a has the dynamite.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we basically ruined this movie. So for anyone who hasn’t seen it, if you if you listen this far.
Greg: So yeah. Listener. If you’ve enjoyed this check out our website Great Bad Movies. If you want to reach out to us and suggest a movie that we watch, or a movie that you have watched with a friend of yours that you feel like we should cover, you can email us through our site. You can find us on Instagram at Great Bad Movies Show.
Greg: You can comment on YouTube. Do whatever you want to do to reach out. Tell us what we got right. Tell us what we got wrong about this episode. The best way you can help out our show is to rate and review it on whatever app you’re listening to us on, and until a friend.
Joe: Hit that like and subscribe button. That’s a thing I want to say. So please do.
Greg: Absolutely. All right, well, listen, Joe, this has been great, but oh my gosh, I’m getting another Jeep alert. So I should probably Google what a Jeep alert is.
Joe: Yeah, that’s that’s good. I’ve got to go to. I’m running late. I’m taking a tour of this situation room. I wonder if anything is happening that I should know about. We’ll see.
Greg: I listen, I want to say, first and foremost, this has been a great time. I don’t want to take away from how great this has been.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Yeah, but I did just get my food in the cafeteria at the white House. I unfortunately ordered something that was not those two things that Rebecca Ferguson mentioned. So now that I have my order, I probably get to work.
Joe: Yeah, probably. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I’m going to a Civil War reenactment. I wonder if this will be a parable about what the movie, I think has about. Oh, sure.
Greg: Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, it seems to me that the military has no idea how to measure anything in this world. And so I’m going to go help them measure things and let them know that that’s, you know, they need the permission to be given to them, that they can measure things.
Joe: Yeah. That, that that tracks. I’m going because there’s a nuclear warhead heading towards Chicago. I’m only going to shoot two of our missiles at it. If we miss. That’s all right. Chicago dies. I don’t know, I don’t make the rules. That’s just that. I just follow them. So.
Greg: Okay, that works for me. In fact, you know what? I’ve been drinking this coffee, and I think it only has seven sugars in it, so I need to go talk to my guy and set him straight.
Joe: That tracks, that tracks. Anyway, I just realized I left my SAS card in Chicago. I hope that’s not a problem.
Greg: At least Tony, Tony and Tony are easy to remember.
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Greg: Well, that works for me because I am a little bit concerned. I don’t want to frighten anybody, but I only have single phenomenology on a piece of information, and that is concerning to me, you know. You know, I like to at least do all.
Joe: Yeah, at least do a phenomenology on these things.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Anyway, I’ve got to go to the doctor. My two year old is got a fever, but also is like doing gymnastics in the back room.
Greg: So classic hundred and two is that it sounds like classic 102. All right. That works for me because, I, I don’t know how to say this, but there’s been some chatter between Tehran and its proxies. I don’t know if I should say this out loud, and, it’s given me an itch right here, and I need to get get looked at.
Joe: Yeah, I probably should get that look that I just cried in the Situation Room, and I think I’m going to get fired. So I got to go.
Greg: Can I give one more random piece of information that I wanted to say about this movie?
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: And then I obviously have to go right after that. Yeah.
Joe: Please.
Greg: All of the scenes where like, people are talking on zoom with each other.
Greg: They were really doing that in a live take.
Joe: That’s awesome.
Greg: Yeah. So all of those things were actually filmed simultaneously. They had like all of those different sets built next to each other in new Jersey. It’s like three dimensional chess and wonder.
Joe: This movie was awesome.
Greg: And now somebody has to tear down those three sets. And so I got to go.
Joe: Yeah, I got it. Yeah. I am not that Drax. I’m out. So.
Greg: All right, well, you being out works for me, so.
Clip: Bye bye bye.
Joe: Yeah. Obviously.
Joe: You did?