iTunes Exclusive Episode The Homesman

The following is a sooner orgator production.
Good morning!
Greetings!
Greetings!
This is only for people that subscribe to the show on iTunes because we want to do this
little something different, little some extra for y'all.
My name is Rob, and I am the executive producer and basic cat Wrangler of this particular
show that airs live every Sunday night, 7 Eastern, 4 Pacific.
You're normally your one-stop shop for all things sports and entertainment, but when we do
one of these, I tend to use these for all of these.
You're usually focusing on the entertainment side of it, and this is no exception because
we're here to review a movie.
And you're saying yourself, Rob, you said we, but I only hear you, but that's because
I'm not the only one in here.
Joining me in the studio for this particular episode is the official fact checker of this
show, and a man who comes from a section of the country, where he's probably seen a covered
wagon at least once.
You may know him as fun, don't go, but his mom and even Don Ford, I'm going to call
him, Don Ford.
Welcome sir.
Thanks for having me.
Yes.
Boat being born in Wyoming, then Montana.
I've seen a couple of games.
Okay.
And horse, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
By the way, the cowboy state, the last great place on earth is what they call it.
Okay.
Great stakes, right?
Well, that's Montana.
And y'all won't know both, but y'all stoned.
Y'all stoned.
Oh, faithful.
Oh, yeah.
Well, today we're here to talk about a movie called The Homesman.
Starting and directed by one Tommy Lee Jones.
Never heard of him.
He's a few small films.
Random fact.
I believe if I'm not mistaken, then I'm pretty accurate on this.
He and Al Gore were roommates in college.
Yeah, they were.
But that's not where we're here to talk about.
No.
His latest film called The Homesman Coast stars Hillary Swank.
And we're going to basically, it's based on a book that I'm glad I didn't read the book
before I saw this.
I'm going to say this.
Basically, the story is Hillary Swank plays a young lady by the name of Mary B. Cutty.
Mary B is what many were referred to as a spinster.
Young, unmarried, no boy friend.
Early 30s runs her own ranch in the territories.
And we never know exactly where they are.
I don't believe.
I think this is Kansas on there.
Did they?
Yeah.
Okay.
Old ones.
Not really good fertile soil where they are.
Can we say that?
She's trying to run her own ranch.
Tills her own soil.
Really wants to be married.
Have a family.
And after a particularly harsh winter.
The people in the town decide that there are three of the wives played by Grace Summers Miranda
Otto and Sonia Richter who need to be returned across the Missouri River to Iowa.
So they can be taken back home because they pretty much lost their minds.
And there's an outbreak of a disease that killed the cattle.
Right.
And so none of the men want to make this journey because it's a five week journey in a wagon.
And so Mary B says, you know what?
I'm going to do it.
Well, they do have a lottery.
Right.
The lottery.
She ends up taking the place of one of the guys in the lottery.
Yeah.
And she draws the short straw as they say in the church with the preacher played by the great
John Lithko.
And so as she's bringing home this wagon that's designed.
To house these three women kind of like a person wagon pretty much.
That's what it is.
Yeah.
She runs into a guy who's been left to hang after squatting on another man's land.
And his name is George Briggs.
And that is played by Tommy Lee Jones.
Mary B cuts him down.
So he can live.
And so now he is in her debt.
And she says, how you will pay your debt as you will come with me on this journey.
Which is about five weeks each week.
Right.
So I think I said that on a point.
No, not in.
So if I've we turned each way.
Through all kinds of horrible conditions.
I mean, everything from heat to cold and everything in between Indians.
Yeah.
The whole nine.
And you'll be robbed.
And then off we go.
Again, this movie is based on the book.
Oh, I thought I had that pulled up.
But I did not.
I will do that right now.
Well, why are you doing that?
First off, we got to think Carol Gayler of Gayler Smith.
Absolutely.
One of our, one of our best friends.
She's so great to us.
The book written by Glendon Swarthout.
I'm sure I'm, I probably completely murdered that name.
You know, you did it better than I did.
But don, let's start with the look of the film.
What did you think of Tommy Lee Jones's vision for his film?
It was.
I liked it.
It was pretty.
It had that old West field when you're in watching this film and you're in the middle of the boom
Docks out there in a really small town.
It's real gritty out there.
It's tough.
And that's how the film looked.
It looked tough living conditions run down.
The, I think the lighting and the look of the film.
Really.
I think you helped to help the.
Try to get in the mood of what the people are like at that time.
Living in that kind of situation.
For me.
The danger in filming and we can call this a Western.
Yeah.
Because it really was.
But different style.
This was a really different style.
This was more of a.
I don't want to say historical Western.
Realistic.
I called it a real.
So it was, but it's more of a.
A.
Dramatic Western versus eight and action Western.
Oh, yeah.
When you film movies like this and you're trying to show sprawling.
Meadows and vast deserts and things like that.
It's really easy as a director and as a cinematographer.
To let it get away from me.
Rodriguez Prieto was the cinematographer on this.
It's really, really hard for that to get away from you and almost pull from the story.
I didn't get that sense here.
I never thought that anything like any of the shots that they use were just nothing but gratuitous.
I was, I never got that feeling.
I felt like the way Jones shot the film was perfect for the story.
You knew enough to know what was going on.
But it didn't take away from the story, which I really, really.
Rough conditions.
It really showed.
I think I could tell that Tommy Lee Jones was a fan of the source material.
Because I think he shot it very respectfully.
You never.
You never got the sense that.
He was putting too much into it.
You know, any of the, anything that was, that was to the story visually.
It was like salt and pepper on a good steak.
It was an overseas and, but it added to it.
Yeah, and it, it showed how in a situation like that.
Stuff's going to wear down. It's going to break down.
Gritty.
Really tough living.
And when growing up in Montana, born in Wyoming,
I went to Wyoming so many times.
Family down there.
You drive through some areas there.
That's just.
That film hit a perfect of what you could see in some of these.
There are their towns in Wyoming that are just ghost towns.
Literally, they're just empty empty.
You run down.
You drive, you see those things.
It's like, you know, this is just, it remind me of being back in, in the old west.
And this was like that.
But just there was a little difference because this was more.
This was land that was still getting settled.
Yeah.
Versus land that was abandoned.
And people that were trying to make a life for themselves and make a legacy.
And there's real no law enforcement.
There is really, it's an open territories.
You travel.
You better have your shotgun ready.
Oh, yeah.
And she did.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
The performances.
Tommy Lee Jones is Tommy Lee Jones.
I mean,
You know, you're getting greatness from these two.
For me, the, the strong performances are the three women.
Oh, totally.
A grace, Grace Gummer Miranda Otto Sonyer Richter.
Just three different women all dealing with different kinds of madness.
But at the same time.
That sense of
They're in this thing together.
Whether they want to be or not.
I thought that was kind of, there was a really good.
Chemistry between them.
Yeah, three kind of bond.
And the chemistry and a very weird way.
Yeah.
The first off the chemistry between Jones and Swank was just.
Enough said.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But again, you know what you're getting.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
You know, but it's kind of bill.
How the all five of them really come together.
Even though the three of them basically don't talk to sit there.
This kind of thing, but they're there.
And it's not like they don't talk to each other.
Yeah.
They don't talk.
I know what they don't.
And this is just the mumbling of their awareness.
And not I'm not giving spoilers away or anything.
But there are times where all of a sudden.
They start to grow and there's a scene in there, which I'm not going to give out.
But it's like, no, we need you.
We need you.
You know, and you know, I'm talking about it.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I don't want you to worry.
But it's just like we're like you're saying, you said, perfectly.
We're in this thing together.
It's a team thing.
And they start to grow as people.
The three women with the craziness.
And maybe then being out of there and something different and having something to fill
themselves.
We have to survive.
We have to do this is our journey.
This is our mission to do this.
They have something.
We can do this together.
They start to grow out of their illnesses.
Totally.
And some great actors in this movie that have just bit parts that you go.
They read to like the guys like William Fitchner.
James Amazing.
James Spader.
James Spader.
James Spader.
Tim Blake Nelson.
The aforementioned John Lithko.
And.
And.
Meryl Streep.
Hello.
Yeah.
And my first thought is that a spoiler.
But they say her name in the opening credits.
So they do it.
Yeah.
And there's a scene and I said this in my written review, which is located at
www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
That's our website.
There's a scene with Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones.
Where I said to.
For the show Dave Scott.
It was with us.
Do you think they were both looking as you're going?
That's Tommy Lee Jones.
That's Meryl Streep.
You know.
Yeah.
It's just two.
That's the part.
Giants.
That's toe to toe in a scene that didn't.
Need intensity because the two of them were so great together.
Yeah.
So many great performances in this film.
And the thing is, they.
This was their acting.
Showed the grittiness.
Because there's some scenes in there.
Where.
To say this politically correct.
Where.
There's like.
Just to say the bedroom.
Hmm.
And stuff happens in there.
Where it's just like.
That is so uncomfortable.
That someone like someone else is in the room.
You know.
But that's the way it was back then.
People didn't care.
This is the way a life and it really showed how.
It was very tough.
It was very rough back then.
But the actors were able to convey that to you there.
If I were to give one criticism of the film.
The opening 20 minutes.
Get's a little.
One key for me.
Because there's so much jumping forward and back in time to try to tell back stories.
That that got a little cumbersome for me.
Okay.
I think your point.
I think some of the scenes.
And especially some of the ones you've mentioned.
Could have been told better in a narrative.
Where maybe the husbands are telling their side of the story.
But maybe someone's like, no, this is what really happened there.
Some of it does get a little graphic.
Yeah, we have to apply.
There's there's there's nudity in this.
There's some there's some violence in there.
There's some gore.
There's some very adult situations.
The best way to describe it.
Some that that's the best way to this adult situations in there.
That were so uncomfortable even though it was normal back then.
This thing's rated our for a reason.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it's a solid two hours.
You prepared for that.
But I think some of that could have been told in narrative versus visual.
But that got the point across.
Yeah.
Definitely got it's point across.
No mistake.
I mean, I'm not going to debate you on that.
I just don't know that it was necessarily necessary.
And dealing with the deaths.
It was wrong.
Ready.
And there's a couple there.
It seems it's just like, but hey, that's what happened back then.
You know, as bad as it was.
I thought the movie flowed well.
I never looked at the watch saying, hey, what's this thing going to be over?
And there are some scenes where your mouth is there's one in particular where your mouth is going to drop.
You're going to go ha.
I mean, during the screening, where they're with good friend of the show Andrew Beckham and
Cynthia Jordan stuff like that.
And when the swan scene happened, and if you go happen, I looked at him.
I'm like, look at them.
And my mouth doesn't have to go.
What?
Did not see that coming.
No.
It will hit you.
It will slap you in the face.
It's good.
It very adds to the story so much.
Well, but man, he has hit you like a ton of bricks.
I did not see that coming.
Any other criticisms before we get to the final analysis?
It's pretty historically correct.
I like the flow, the acting, the look.
It's kind of a new.
Also, I'll say this to the Empire.
It's a new type of Western.
It's not your normal Western.
It's gritty.
It's realistic.
Well, it's it might be a new style to come out, which I really enjoyed on this.
Again, take you to Carol Galer of Galer Smith for us.
So much.
Let's say this.
So that's all I got saying this one.
Let's get to the final analysis.
When we do a final analysis on this show, we don't give you a grade or a number of thumbs-up thumbs-down because our audience, you're better than that.
Our analysis goes into a two-prong question.
Question number one, is would you see this film again?
If the answer is no, then we're done here.
The answer is yes, then it becomes, how would you see this film again?
Would you pay full price?
Would you pay for a twilight, matinee, morning?
Would you wait for it in second run?
Would you wait for it on DVD?
Would you wait for it on cable?
Don.
Would you see this film again?
Oh, definitely.
That's all righty.
How much, how far would you be willing to go for this film?
Me personally.
I probably do.
Because you know about me.
This is always a tough question for me.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I would kind of say for me personally, it would probably be a matinee.
But I would recommend this twilight, at least.
Twilight in the theaters, at least if not full price.
But don't take the kids.
I would see this again.
But I think I would only recommend it to people that are fans of the genre.
If you are not a fan of the Western style of film,
this might not be your cup of tea.
I could see how this could maybe.
Because it's not, it's not a slam bang action film.
It's a story telling film.
And if you're not a fan of period of pieces like this,
you may not get much of it.
But if you enjoy it, because I'm a big Western fan.
Oh, what's happened?
Oh, yeah.
If you are a fan, catch it at a matinee.
You know, go see it and then go about your day.
Because I just think at an evening show, although I think it's worth it.
It's a solid two hours.
Yeah.
You go see the middle of the day.
So you have something your day left.
Yeah.
But again, thanks to.
Thank you, Carol.
So much for giving us the opportunity to see this film.
Go check it out.
The homes.
Go for it.
Tommy Lee Jones, not only a great actor, but also a great director.
He's this is not his first no pun intended.
This is not his first rodeo in this show.
This will not be two hours of your life.
We hope you don't want back.
Because you will not want to.
And I just noticed that the one sheet kind of references a scene that.
Maybe I don't know if it should ever not.
You have to take a look at the one sheet.
All right.
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Show me.
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I'm Rob.
The clubhouse is closed.
And Brittany Palmer probably drive a lot of people crazy back then.
The preceding was a sooner or later production.
Gotta go get a go!
Why?
Because I have to.