The Clubhouse Podcast

iTunes Exclusive Episode The Bronze

December 24, 2017 Season 6, Episode 126

Rob, Don, and Chad review the film "The Bronze," a debut feature from director Brian Buckley co-written by Melissa Rouch and Winston Rouch. The film stars Rouch as Hope Annabelle Gregory, a washed-up bronze medalist gymnast living in her father's basement in Ohio who takes a coaching job for money when offered $500,000 to coach a rising young gymnast named Maggie Townsend through an upcoming international sporting competition. The hosts praise the film's humor and performances from its ensemble cast including Sebastian Stan, Thomas Midditch, Haley Lou Richardson, and Cecilia Strong, though they warn it is an R-rated adult comedy with heavy profanity and sexual content not suitable for families.

About this episode

Key takeaways

  • The film is R-rated with frequent profanity and sexual references; viewers should avoid bringing children
  • The story takes unexpected narrative turns rather than following a predictable happy-ending formula
  • Melissa Rouch's Ohio accent and vulgar dialogue are integral to the character but may grate on some viewers
  • The film premiered at Sundance and was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics; it will rely on word-of-mouth rather than wide theatrical release
  • The ensemble cast delivers strong performances, with Haley Lou Richardson providing balance to Rouch's abrasive character

Q&A

What is the plot of 'The Bronze'?

Melissa Rouch plays Hope Annabelle Gregory, a bronze medalist gymnast from an earlier international sporting competition who now lives in her father's basement in Ohio. She agrees to coach a rising young gymnast named Maggie Townsend through a campaign to an upcoming international competition in Toronto after the girl's former coach passes away and leaves her a letter offering $500,000 for coaching Maggie.

Who directed and wrote 'The Bronze'?

The film was directed by Brian Buckley in his first full-length feature and co-written by Melissa Rouch and her husband Winston Rouch.

What is the movie's content rating and why?

The film earns an R rating for its heavy profanity, sexual references, sexual situations, and nudity throughout.

Would the hosts recommend this film?

Don would see it again at a matinee or twilight showing. Chad would only watch it on cable and says it is not his thing. Both agree it is a well-written, funny film for audiences who enjoy edgy comedies like Family Guy or South Park.

Read Transcript

The following is a sooner orgator production. Good morning and, Dioy Arvia Ready for the Jamz I alright it's for the Jamz ´ Grini AmpertsCR Feltera ´ ´ Grini AmpertsCR Feltera ´ Greetings Empire member and or members. If you're hearing the sound of my voice, it means the following conditions have been met.

At least once in your life, you have listened to the Clubhouse podcast, your one-stop shop for all things sports and entertainment live every Sunday night at 7 Eastern Forward Pacific. It also means you listen to this show on iTunes, because it is time for another. iTunes, exclusive, I am Rob, I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast, kind of proud of this one.

Your welcome internet. Joining me across the desk is my co-host and a man who is a gold medalist at life. Who is a gold medalist at being Don Ford.

But you may call him Don Ford, welcome sir. They may know me as fond, don't go, don't go, don't go, don't go, don't go, don't go, don't go. Whatever we do one of these things, it is to review something and this is no exception.

We are here today to interview, act out the interview, but to review, see the wheels are already gone, the wheels are gone, we lost two wheels already. The new film, from first time director Brian Buckley, he's on a lot of shorts, he's never done a full-length feature. Co-written by Melissa Rouch, who you might know as Bernadette on the Big Bang Theory.

Co-written by her and her husband Winston Rouch, I feel like when I say his name I should have a sniffed her a brandy in my hand. Excuse me, Winston Rouch, what do you think of the contest of baseball the other day? It is called the bronze.

Before we start this whole thing, we had to think Josh and our best friends are bait out. All I didn't agree to marketing what's up, we love you guys, thanks for being by Josh. So this film, Melissa Rouch plays Hope Annabelle Gregory, who in her younger years was a bronze medalist at something that we can't call the Olympics so that the film doesn't get sued.

International sporting games. Correct. In gymnastics, after she was on the balance beam, Briggs Arancel does the whole, who was that said?

You can do it, thing. Carey struck. Carey struck.

But the problem is we fast forward a present day and she still acts like she just won the medal yesterday because she should we say exhibit some diva type behavior? Yeah, 12 years later. And she just kind of, she lives in her dad's basements.

Basically takes advantage of everybody in the town because she still lives in her hometown. Uh, I just lost it. It plays, it's in Ohio, trying to find out to where the, in all of her past and door soap monies dried up all that stuff.

Right, but you know, she's, she's just a mean, dark, soul person. Well, another young lady from her hometown is on the rise as a gymnast. And her name is Maggie Townsend played by Haley Lou Richardson with her old coach.

When her coach passes away, she gets a letter in the mail that her coach wrote before she passed, saying if you will coach Maggie through this campaign up to the new games in Toronto. To coach her through the campaign, I'll give you $500,000. Oh, that kind of changes things for young Hope and a Bell Gregory and her dad played by the great Gary Cole.

So she decides to take this on for the money and then here we go. I'm just going to say this up front. This is not for the family.

No, it earns it's our rating in about 90 seconds. Yeah. The word potty mouth, I think, would be an insult to people with a potty mouth.

Melissa Rouch finds curse words that I didn't know existed in this film. I will say this the first, it's, it's, it's just about an hour 40. It's, it's kind of slow in the beginning, but once we get everything established, I thought it was past really, really well.

Yes, it's very nicely. I, I laughed a lot. Yes, so did I.

If for nothing else, the Ohio accent that she puts on a loan. Chad, you're off a quiet over there. Yeah.

Why so? She just grated on my nerves with that accent. To me, that was one of the things that just like, oh, God, that voice.

But, but that was part of the bit, though. I know, but that's how they talk. I know, I know, I know, but you know, you tend to enjoy things that rub people the wrong way for the most, you're a huge, you're a huge fan of, of always sunny Philadelphia and those, but those people deserve what they do.

I'm just saying that that you tend to kind of get a little bit of joy other things like this to worry me. I'm just like, they're irritating. So I'm clocking out.

I tended to just tune it out after a while. It's like a screaming child at a grocery store. I was just like, I can't, I can't.

I'd rather leave the room than just sit there and wait for somebody to quiet them down. You've also got in this film, Thomas Midditch, who you might have known he was in the Wolf of Wall Street. He's currently on Silicon Valley on HBO.

Oh, yeah. Also in this film, Sebastian Stan, we know that guy, the Winters Soldier, about to see him in a couple of plays or coaching foil. Also, Cecilie Strong, who you know, I'm a huge fan of from Saturday Night Live.

She's my fifth future ex-wife. That's, that's a beautiful girl. I like to say this movie is really, really funny.

Yeah. This was, this was the, one of the darlings of last year's Sundance Film Festival, which was also produced by the Duplas Brothers, one of whom Mark Duplas was on the league. They also have a show on HBO right now.

I believe it's called Togetherness. But I don't know, would you, and Chad, I'm going to post this question to you. I don't know that I could classify this as a dark comedy, but it walks that line.

Yeah, I agree though. It tends to find humor in a relatively dark place on several occasions, but it doesn't make a habit of it. Right.

So it's kind of, I don't know how I would classify. It's an adult comedy. Yeah, for sure, on multiple levels.

Because it's not just the cousin. I'm just letting you know now. Yeah.

There, I have to, one of the, there's a lot of sexual references, sexual situations, nudity. It's our, for a reason. I mean, when it's a full opportunity of spending.

Yeah, I'm putting that. I put this one. I mean, the first scene she's watching the video on, which is, yeah, that's what I'm saying.

That's what I mean. She's watching role Olympic films. Yeah, it starts the whole thing.

Yeah. It's a fair point, but for Doris. Yeah.

I wasn't going to mention this, but I want to disagree with with Chad that the accent didn't bother me, because that's the way they are. You can disagree with me. Yeah, no, and you're welcome to disagree.

Yeah, it's not, no harm. No, but it didn't bother me. I thought that's how they talk.

That's the thing. I'm a lot of the people up there and everything like that. To the path, I think one thing that turned me off a little bit on it, which I put my written review at www.clubhousepodcast.com.

That's our website. Too much wearing too much. It definitely, there were a couple of months.

I was like, okay, we can slow this down. Yeah, but now you're right. I'll agree with you on that.

That's one, then when my grites about it, one thing I do like, and this is a minor spoiler, it doesn't end in all roses. You know, I can understand myself. It's somebody be predictable, but it's not all roses.

And if you take a couple of left turns, yeah, what's I do like? But if I'd taken one more left turn, then it would have been a right. And then we're all confused.

Yeah. Where do you all are? Where do you all are?

I just want to say wait for it. You're welcome. God.

We're getting 1984. That's the album. This is from.

No, the first song that intro did jump. But this is what you want. This is what this gives the people what they want.

I'm on 1984. They need play this. Then you produce the show.

They're boys. Performance wise. I thought everybody worked really well together.

I kind of like, I thought Sebastian Stan was really good in this. Playing these slimy. If you want to bronze, I want to silver and a gold.

What's up? He puts the D in D fan. He really does.

Yes. I really liked Hayley Loo Richardson. She was so sappy sugary sweet that she balanced the potty mouth of hope really well.

You know, cute is a bug that. Yeah. And how she played the part after having that one drink.

Yes. Yes. She definitely showed range in this.

Yes. She did. I thought middle to the middle ditch was really good as Ben.

I thought he brought kind of a he reminded me a lot of Seth Meyers's brother. He's one of those guys that you've seen a bunch of stuff and not realize it was him. He looks a lot.

He's like the same thing in Silicon Valley. He has the same mannerism. That's why he's known for his kind of nervous guy who's with no you know, no backbone.

You know, that kind of thing. The, you know, real subtle, very unaggressive person. I mean, I really dug this flag.

So I think this is one of those films that I don't know it's going to word of mouth is what's going to get this film where it needs to be. Because again, it was a debut at Sundance last year. Sony, Sony isn't Sony classic to pick this up.

Let me find out. It was Sony pictures classic. Okay.

And stage six films along with the Duplast Brothers production company called Duplast Brothers Productions. I think that it's going to find its audience, but it's going to take a while because it's not going to get a real wide release. So people are going to kind of have to seek this out and understand me when I say this.

If you can't handle family guy, you can't handle this film. No kidding. I mean, it's it has no problem offending anybody and everybody can find.

Again, like I said earlier, she finds cuss words that I've never heard of. Yeah, I feel like South Park, you'll like this. You know, she's, she's as far as her dialogue go, she out Melissa McCarthy's, Melissa McCarthy agreed, especially in the heat.

Yeah, I'm going to say especially in the heat. But again, if you can handle those films, you can handle this, but do not bring the kids. And if you do, you're on your own.

We warned you. We've warned you. I mean, yeah, I mean, that quote romance scene was one of the funniest things I've never seen any romance scene like that before ever.

In which way, me by the romance. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

If that's what the kids want to call out these days. Yeah. Great performances all around, very, very funny film, very smartly written.

And just like Don said, it's not real formula way. It takes a couple of turns on you, which is kind of nice and refreshing to see. You know, you still may film, you see, it's going to handle and all happy and everything's just perfect.

This one, it doesn't halfway. I'd say there's some things that resolve and ways you think they will and some things like that as well. Yeah, absolutely.

Anything else you want to add, chat? No, no, I think we, I think we covered it. So we're ready for the final analysis.

Let's go for it. The way we do the final analysis on this show, we don't give you films up thumbs down. We don't give you numbers, letter grades.

Anything like that. Wait for it. Wait for it.

Good and forward. You're welcome, Internet. You just caught that.

Our audience and we affectionately refer to as the Empire. They want us to go deeper than that. So we will.

I'm going to ask these gentlemen two questions. Question number one is would you see this film again? If the answer's no, then we're done here.

If the answer's yes, I want to know how far they're willing to go. Will you pay full price? Will you go to a twilight?

Will you go to a matinee? Will you go early morning on a weekend? Maybe you wait for it to dollar theater.

Maybe you go to red box. Maybe you stream on Netflix. Maybe you wait for it on cable.

I'm not here to judge you outwardly. Let's start with Dawn. Dawn, would you see this film again?

Yeah, what? I enjoyed it. Sorry, there you go.

Because of the extra cursing, I'm going to give it a matinee or twilight somewhere there. All right, Chad, will you see this again? No, probably not.

Really? No, it's just, it's just, it's just not my thing. This is one I think I would watch on cable if it was on.

I think your cousin would really, really like this, probably. Because it's right up his alley. I think you're going to hear some new words being floated around in the vernacular over the next few months.

Probably because of this film. But it's fun. It's a fun movie.

She's a true vulgarian. You love the hater and then you hate the lover at the same time in this film. It is called the bronze directed by Brian Buckley.

Yeah, for we end this up again. Thank you to Josh and our best friends at all. I thank you so much.

Thank you guys. You're so good to us. And we appreciate it.

Very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very much. Let's do the plugs. Visit our website www.thuclubhousepodcast.com.

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I am it. Yes, that Rob Irvin that is called ERV. I am at Chad N.

P. G. Six.

Nine. I'm at Fondongo. You can email me at Don at clubhousepodcast.com.

Email Don for details on how we can come to a live show at your particular establishment. We love doing live remote shows and hanging out with the Empire. We really do.

You can email me if you'd like questions, comments, concerns. Tell me to go pound sand. I am Robert the clubhousepodcast.com.

I am Chad at the clubhousepodcast.com. Charlotte Parker is on Pinterest because we are more likely obligated to say that. Should we all mix opinion?

Kind of right there with me. Fair enough. Our normal show every Sunday night at seven Eastern for Pacific is your.

I mean you. You that's listening to this. You.

Your one stop shop for all things sports and entertainment or just keep subscribing on iTunes and you get all the cool stuff. So until next time for Don for Chad for the Empire, I'm Rob. Clubhouse is closed.

Brittany Palmer Gymnast. I bet she could pull it off. The preceding was a sooner or later production.

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