iTunes Exclusive Episode Hostiles

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exclusive number 341.
Real close to a big number, you believe that, it's crazy.
Welcome.
My name is Rob, I am the executive producer of the clubhouse podcast and I'm a big fan of
the western.
I truly truly am.
And we're going to talk about one of this episode, but I'm not alone for this joining
me across the desk as he does from time to time, the official fact checker of this show.
And a man that would like to say stay where you are, Pilgrim.
You may know him as fondongo, but his mum and I'm down for him, I call him down for it,
what's up dude?
Stay where you are, Pilgrim.
See, I knew you were going to say that, I'm psychic with that.
But so cheek.
Whenever we do one of these, it is to review something and this is no exception.
Scott Cooper, the guy responsible for directing Crazy Heart and Black Mass, is back with a
brand new film based on a manuscript by Donald E Stewart that he then turned into a screenplay.
It is called Hostels.
Well, sorry, first have this whole thing, this one's a little different.
We want to still think our friends allied in the great of marketing for the invite, who
is that?
Allied in the great of marketing, Josh, we got to think for the invite, big fan.
But this one we actually saw on screeners, yeah, this was a little bit different.
We're actually recording this night that they're screening it, but we were able to be
yeah, I mean, that's a good thing, it's a very good thing.
We were actually fortunate enough to receive DVD screener of this film, as we tend to do
at the end of the year, it's kind of neat.
So you and I actually screen this on separate occasions in our homes, but because we love
our friends at Allied, we want to make sure that they're taken care of as well so we can
send them our review so they can make it part of their deal because they do such an amazing
job.
We want to make sure that they get everything that they need.
Exactly.
I saw this in Pittsburgh.
I did not.
I saw it.
Me and my old man watched saw this in the green room, my father, so he loves western, so
I thought I'd take it out and would watch it together.
So here's what you need to know.
The year is 1892, that's when the chat was about 200 years ago.
No, chat was in a middle school.
Okay.
So we're good there.
President Benjamin Harrison is getting things rolling, he's actually close to the end of
his term, if you check your history.
And Christian Bale is an army captain by the name of Joseph J. Blocker.
Now this takes place in the Midwest and he's just trying to get to retirement.
He's very, very close to retirement to get his pension from the army and live out his days.
But his colonel decides he's got to go on one more mission and this one more mission is
to escort a Cheyenne chief played by the Great West student named Yellowhawk and his family
to the land of his birth in a little area you tend to know pretty well called Montana.
But they've got to go through this horrible, horrible trek to get there.
Along the way, they pick up a young lady by the name of Rosalie Quaid, played by the
Great Rosemind Pike.
Exactly.
He's dealing with some issues of her own.
Now, Blocker does not want to do this.
He does not like the Native Americans.
He has his own reasons as the Chey, but if he doesn't take this mission, then he'll be
under court martial and he will probably lose his pension.
So he's doing this under duress with some of his own men and there's some subplots involved
in this too.
This runs about two hours and fifteen minutes and we'll talk about that here in a minute.
Yeah, we will.
This film is a rarity because you and I have been along with Chad, of course.
We've been reviewing films now as part of this deal for what, four and a half years.
Some other four or five years, you could say.
Probably five and a half at this point.
It is very rare, if I don't know if it's ever happened, that our reviews, we saw pretty
much the same thing out of a film.
Yeah.
And you can see our written reviews at www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
Which is our website.
And we're going to talk about the conundrum that is the runtime here in a minute.
First of all, I don't know if you know this, Don.
This film was also a rarity in the fact that it was shot in sequential order.
When most films are made, they're not shot in the order of the script because of things
like the weather and available actors.
This was literally shot in the order of the script.
Okay.
When you see the film, you kind of see why they had to do it that way because you're chronicling
the journey.
Okay.
So you got that going for you.
Number two, Rosamond Pike in an interview said that she and Christian Bale didn't talk
much if they weren't filming together.
Oh really?
He was trying to help keep the distance from her that the characters were feeling.
Okay.
So there's a couple things that are interesting about this film.
Let's just say it.
I enjoyed this film very, very much.
Did you?
Okay.
Because again, I'm a fan of the Western and this is a modern style of a Western with a classic
sensibility.
Okay.
It's shot absolutely beautifully.
Oh, yeah.
I put my written review at www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
It's our website that this really showed the Old West.
How tough it could be.
It really showed that Western land, the houses.
I mean, so it really felt like you're in the Old West.
The cinematography by Masa Nobu Taka Yanagi.
Yeah.
Boy, I hope I got that right.
Absolutely.
Was that you?
Yeah.
Sorry.
I mean, it's kind of that proposal that I trained with so long for talking about a Western.
But shot absolutely beautifully, gorgeously shot.
A very strong script, very well acted.
I mean, Rory Cochran, you might remember him from CSI Miami.
He's in this.
You've got people like Stephen Lang who you might know from, I believe, the Walking Dead,
Bill Camp, who's just that guy and that thing.
Jesse Plemons is in this.
There's some great actors in this film that Adam Beatch, who you'd recognize from a
bunch of things.
He plays Yellow Hawk's Sun Black Hawk.
Again, a Ben Foster's in this.
Beautifully shot.
Well acted.
A lot of emotion here.
But I have a bit of a conundrum when it comes to the runtime.
This is a long movie.
Yes.
It could be shorter.
But here's the problem.
Yeah.
I don't know what I would cut that wouldn't sacrifice too much from the story.
See, this is where my problem comes into play because it's a long film.
It's a tough watch.
It's a tough watch because it's such a good film.
The opening sequence alone is nothing short of heart wrenching.
Yeah.
Let's be real.
Oh, yeah.
This is violent, but it's not violence for violence is sick.
There's not a lot of gore, which I respected about it.
Yeah.
There's a couple of parts that I cringed a little bit, especially in the opening sequence.
But oh, yeah, it's brutal.
It's our for reason.
Yeah.
And like I said, it wasn't violence for violence is sake.
It just said this is why it was part of the story.
Yeah.
Don't know, like you could cut some of the, some of the, we're on a horse and we're moving
sequences, but it wouldn't, I don't know that if you cut some of those, I still don't
know that it would have been enough to not feel as long as it did.
Like, there's so much going on in this story and there's so many subplots that work
into making a plot.
And I got a little confusing for me too on some of these subplots.
You do have to pay attention to this film.
This is not the film you can just have on the background.
Exactly.
I mean, that's where it got a little confusing for me too.
It's like this person, but without trying to be spoiler free, it's trying to be spoiler
free.
Yeah.
I mean, you're trying to be.
You double negative.
Yeah.
Okay.
But it's, yeah, I mean, it's just, there's, and I can see how you got confused because there
were certain points.
I was like, you know, I was watching it with our lady, the house general who could not
be here for this recording, but there were certain points where we were like, okay,
what happened here?
Okay.
That's who that is.
Okay.
That's the background here.
There are definitely a couple of moments.
Don't, don't do that.
Yeah.
Don't do that.
You know, and there's, there's one subplot that I'm not sure was completely necessary,
but from an emotional standpoint, I got it, happens about halfway through the film.
But again, I don't know what I would cut to make it work better because if you cut anything
from this film, it takes away from other parts of the film.
I think it's just, it's weird for me.
It ended kind of weird for me too.
The ending is very awkward.
Yeah.
And that was the, that was the wording I used as the last, I would say 10 minutes of this
thing.
Yeah, you're kind of like going, huh?
I was like, this is really awkward.
Did Terence Malke get the hold of the last 10 minutes on this?
No, it didn't take me out of it.
Yeah.
I still enjoyed this film.
It didn't take away from my enjoyment.
But it was a very weird ending.
It was kind of like, I don't know if the manuscript just ran out of gas or that's just
the way it was written and that's, Cooper just kind of ran with it.
Yeah.
But it definitely has an awkward ending to it.
Yeah.
But again, not enough to take me out of it.
I really, again, I really, really, really enjoyed this film very, very much.
And it's a film that I think a lot of people, if you're a fan of Westerns or if you're
curious about Westerns, I think it's a great film to see.
Because I love the old Westerns.
I love the stuff.
We actually had this discussion recently when we were part of a, of, who needs sleep, the
36 hours to fight cancer.
We talked about, you know, somebody asked what my favorite Western was and I was like,
wow, that's a loaded question.
You know, where some people were like, you know, they were going unforgiven, like I'm
going deep into like real bravo in the sons of Katie Elder and, you know, the man that
shot Liberty Valence and, uh, this is just, it's a really well shot film.
It's a great Western, especially for people that don't know Westerns very well.
It's a great one to jump into.
I want to say it's a great one.
I mean, it's, it's good, but it's in the modern era.
It's a good one to jump into.
Yeah, yeah.
There's a much better Westerns out there, um, about like to, you know, like you're saying
realistic stuff and, you know, how this was brutal and it really showed the life there.
But the acting like Pike did incredible.
She's great.
She's always.
And West duty is, is a guy that I'll stop down for if he's in a film.
He's just that great.
There's no bad performances in this.
It's just, it's just that weird thing that it's really long, but I don't know what I would
cut out of it.
That's the thing.
Yeah.
I just think I got two, too many subplots, two kind of, especially after the last second
half of the movie, I thought, start off great.
I was really into this and it was, it was a truck went on and some of me subplots hit.
It's kind of like, huh, huh, well, and trying to keep that, I think shot some of the enjoyment
out for me.
I can understand that.
But it didn't for me, but I can understand how it could.
So anything else you want to talk about before we get to it?
No.
All right, let's get to the final analysis.
The way we do the final analysis on this show, I think it was Harris that was President,
not Harrison.
I don't know.
No, it's fact check.
President Harrison.
Okay.
Because he, remember, he has the, because President Harrison's grandfather was also
President.
He had William Henry Harrison.
He had Benjamin Harrison.
Okay.
I just want to make sure you fact check.
Oh, no, I appreciate the attempt, but no, I was solid on this one.
We're not going to give you thumbs up, thumbs down.
We're not going to give you numbers, letter grades.
We're not going to give you a silver bullets, anything like that.
We're going to ask two questions.
Question number one is, would you see this again if the answers know that we're done here?
But if the answer is yes, then from the best of the best of the worst, the best here's
the spectrum of ratings, full price at the theater, twilight, matinee, early morning
on a Saturday, second run at the dollar theater, actually leaving your house to get it from
red box, streaming it on Netflix or waiting for it on cable.
Don, would you see this again?
Yeah, I would.
How far you want to go?
I'm going to recommend this as a second run theater.
Yeah, because it's start off great, but just that kind of, I love the look, some of
the acting was good, but just kind of, huh, and the ending just kind of, this is a matinee
for me.
Okay.
Because I always think westerns, I think, matinee's anyway.
Yeah.
And I think this is a really good, you know, middle of the day on a Saturday, go check it
out and then go on about your business.
Yeah.
It's a good film.
It's an enjoyable film.
You should check it out.
It is directed and kind of sort of written by Scott Cooper.
It is called hostels.
For women's clothing, shout out and we got to take two, and in a grand market and
Josh and Hulk crew.
We love them.
Someday they're going to use our jingle.
They're our best friends doing it.
Yes, we are.
We're such fans of those guys.
They let us see movies early so that we can tell you about it and you can make the best
decisions for your entertainment dollar.
Let's do the plugs.
All right.
Visit our websites.
It is the aforementioned www.theclubhousepodcast.com by that everything you need to know and some
stuff you don't.
You can follow us on social media.
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That was her text earlier.
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So until next time, for Don and the Empire, I'm Rob.
Clubhouse is closed.
I mean, pretty power.
Come on.
It's a Western.
You can put it right in there.
Especially like they're in a city and you can see it.