iTunes Exclusive Episode Truth

The following is a sooner orgator production.
The following is a sooner orgator production.
The following is a sooner orgator production.
If you are 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
where all things sports and entertainment lie every Sunday night, 70s to 4 Pacific.
But it also means you subscribe on iTunes, because it's time for another iTunes exclusive.
Welcome! The 147th one of these.
My name is Rob, I'm the executive producer of the clubhouse podcast.
And I'd like to think I've got a certain amount of integrity of myself.
That's just me. I'm not a low for this particular episode.
Also joining me across the desk is my co-host.
And a man who's done a journalistic thing or two in his day, he is Chad Welcome sir.
Such a fan of this song. And particularly this version of this song.
You're the reason that I'd have it sir.
Also joining us for this particular episode is the official fact checker of this show.
And a man who's kind of bobbed his head over there a little bit.
You may have written a story or two in his day as well.
You may know it's fun, don, go.
But it's a mom and name him Don Ford.
I'm going to call him Don Ford.
Welcome sir.
They want to know everything correctly on the fact checker.
That's true.
If it's for this one, you are the fact checker.
He does have a policy of truth.
Whatever we do one of these, it is usually to review something
and this particular episode is no different than that.
We are here today to review the latest film.
Actually the directorial debut of writer James Vanderbilt.
Based on the book Truth and Duty,
the press, the president and the privilege of power written by Mary Mates, this is called Truth.
And you talk about Avengers assemble when it comes to this cat.
No kidding.
Kate Blanchett, Robert Redford, Dennis Quaid, Elizabeth Moss,
Tofer Grace, Bruce Greenwood, he played Batman.
Stacy Keat, John Benjamin Hickey, Dermitt Mulrooney.
The list goes on and on and on.
This is based on the true story of CBS News in 2004,
who ran a story about questioning George W. Bush's service record
in Vietnam era.
And how things got a little wonky on them.
Before we get, sir.
We got to think of his friends.
Yes, I like it.
So anybody at Sony Pictures classics were invited us to this thing,
but we love ally.
But we do great people.
There's so there are much nicer than ever have.
Oh yes I do.
Alright, Chad, let's start with you.
This script.
Go.
You got to have a certain amount of guts to tackle this subject matter,
especially in this politically charged climate.
And still this close to the actual incident.
And it's a current indeed.
We're still filling the effects of it to this day.
It's not something that should be taken lightly.
The network that it's profiling is not taking it lightly at all,
since we know in the news, CBS is refusing to run any trailers
or any promo for this film.
When you see it rightfully so, I wouldn't either.
Yeah.
You got to protect your interests, I guess.
And I said this in my written review, which is located at www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
Which is our website?
You got to admire the moxie.
Yeah.
Of James Vanderbilt.
This is his first film directing.
You come out swinging for the fences apparently.
And you're already under the skin of CBS and its parent company Viacom.
And the Republican Party.
Yeah.
In some cases.
Yes.
But also remember this is based on Mary Mapes' book.
Mary Mapes is played by Kate Lynch at.
So there might be some colored lenses involved here.
But I thought the story was told very very well.
It's right at two hours.
It's two hours in a minute if you want to be technical.
But I thought the story was told very very well.
And I thought it was told from a place of.
You could feel the tension.
With the way the story was told done.
I thought the plot was pretty good.
I was really interested into the thing.
I didn't really have any big drag areas in this at all.
I could really think of.
Oh, it paced very very well.
But when comes to the plot.
It's just like, you know, are they trying to do a movie that's a documentary?
That's not a documentary?
Well, it wouldn't be a documentary.
There it is.
Yeah, it's a documentary drama.
It's a documentary.
There it is.
What do you call this a documentary drama?
How much of this really happened?
You know, like you're saying, the assumption of this guy to do something like this.
He is.
You're going to have people on certain political views who are just going to rip into this thing
regardless without seeing it.
Absolutely.
I mean, let's just be realistic in this world in day and age.
And of course, we pride ourselves on not being political on a show.
But I'll give it to the director and for his director, his debut in directing.
I think that did very good.
I agree.
Yeah.
So when it comes to the plot and everything else like that, very good.
Now to the look of the film, just like we usually say, there was nothing special
in need to do on this.
You know, so I thought it was shot very well.
Yeah, but no extra CGI or anything like that.
I thought the look of the film was very good.
But there's one thing which I put my right view at the clubhouse podcast.com.
That's our website.
The when it comes to the the Dan Rather issue in playing Dan Rather.
Okay.
I mean, you got Redford.
Now let me just make this one point.
He's brought Redford.
Let's just get.
He's not gone.
Mm-hm.
But he's Robert Redford.
He had the voice in many reasons of Dan Rather.
But I don't think they did enough.
Make up everything to make it look like Dan Rather.
I didn't.
I just saw Robert Redford through the whole thing.
And I tried in my mind putting him as Dan Rather.
But I think that was a conscious choice though.
I thought that was a bad choice in my opinion.
You know, which I'm allowed to have.
No, you are absolutely.
But everything else was the voice, the manorism, everything else was to a T.
I just think they should have done more of the look to Redford on this.
I am of the honest opinion that Redford's just one of those guys.
That's.
He did it.
He did an amazing job.
Let's just let's just call it for what it is.
Yeah, it's exactly.
But it was a little weird to me that they did that.
But it didn't take away from how great his performance was.
And that was the weird dichotomy for me because there were moments that if you closed your eyes,
it was Dan Rather.
But they didn't do any prosthetics or any extra makeup or anything.
And it didn't seem to bother.
I'm kind of glad they didn't because then it would have just looked like Robert Redford was joining
to do his best Dan Rather impersonation.
But that's what he do as an actor when you're playing Dan Rather.
But I see what he's saying.
There's a difference between portraying somebody and trying to hard to play them.
And I think that the conscious choice was made not to do prosthetics because we.
It would have been too much.
It was kind of.
It was almost like the amount of prosthetics that they put on Anthony Hopkins in Nixon.
Yeah, like it got out of control.
And I, but it also could have been a budgetary restraint, too.
Yeah, but don't get everything else.
Robert Redford did was incredible.
Don't get me wrong on that.
That's just one thing that just kept on sticking my mind all the way through.
But the thing that I thought was most fitting in in in in Redford's portrayal of
Rather is that you're seeing a man in Dan Rather who is a Titan of his industry.
Being played by another Titan of his industry.
It's a fair point.
And I think that that balance is everything out.
Again, I'm glad he didn't disappear under a pound of prosthetics and a wig and so much
make up.
And it was, to me, it was most telling whenever they step into the CBS offices in New York.
And you see a picture of photograph of Bob Newhart on the wall.
And you see a picture of Redford.
You know, like, well, that's.
There you go.
Like, since when did Robert Redford work for CBS, but you, you, you, he, he immerses himself
in the portrayal of Dan Rather so well that he just sells it.
I agree.
And you buy it.
And that's and that's why it didn't bother me so much because.
The end of the day is Robert Redford.
Yeah, well, but for me, this the man, I mean, did it take you out of it?
It did some really.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fair.
But that's what we're here for.
That's what we're here for.
That's what we're opinion.
Yeah, no respect that.
And we're here for that's the skulls are opinions on this.
You know, what comes to the acting, no.
I mean, Kate, by a shed and everybody else, they did incredible, the chemistry was
well, there's one scene which.
I put in my written review to call boss podcast.com.
That is still our website.
The Solar Website.
That last what I call boardroom scene, and this is being spoiler-free, she hit it out
of the park on that.
And you know what you want to see, and I'm talking to you about her monologue towards
the end.
Oh yeah, that was incredible in that one scene.
That really put a lot, that's why I think the movie was all about what it came down
to it.
I'm going to hold back a minute and I'm going to let Chad go as far as performance goes.
Watching her just cut the pieces together for airing the whole piece that they were
working on.
On 60 minutes.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, just it was a 60 minutes too.
60 minutes wins day as I think what they call it.
That she has such command over over the room that she's in, over over the piece
that she's presiding over and it's not like, as far as Mary Mape's goes, this wasn't
her first dance because she'd already pretty much shaken the world awake with the whole
abugravence that indeed she did and that, I mean, that predates this and she got a lot
of recognition for it after the fact, but she plays this role with the, with the, the conviction
of somebody that thoroughly believes in what she's doing and you believe in what she's doing
even when she starts to second guess herself.
For me, Kate Branchett gave me exactly what I thought she'd give me.
She's Kate Branchett.
You know what you're getting.
Redford, put the, put the guy in a room by himself and he'll, and the wall will get
nominated for an Oscar.
He's just that good.
Kind of like what we were talking about.
We talked with Prince Spies for me, the surprise here and the person that almost steals
the film and I'm not afraid to put this out there.
It's to for great.
I was I'm right there with you.
He almost stole the dog on things, it's just a manic paranoid conspiracy theorist that
looks for the worst in everything he sees and he's, he's a guy that you know was genuinely
trying to shake Eric Foreman so he can do other things and he really does a good job
of that here.
Like he's, he has a really good intensity to it.
Yeah.
He plays a much better watchdog reporter than he did in Spider-Man 3.
Yeah.
It's a kind of unavoidable.
He got my, he got my non leading roll shot out on this one.
He was great.
He really was.
He really, really was great and thank you for this.
I was hoping you were kind of very welcome here.
You're welcome internet.
You better get ready to fade it at the end, though.
Oh yeah.
We're, we're talking over it, so, but that surprised me.
Yeah.
And I like to overgrace.
I've always been a fan because you know, I loved that 70 show, but he really shows some,
he stretches his wings a little bit, which I was really a fan of.
And he's holding his own against stalwarts like, you know, like the Redford and
Blanchette and Dennis Quaid and, and Stacey Keech, he doesn't get lost in the shuffle
amongst some real greats of their, you know, Bruce Greenwood, I always, he's classy.
He played Batman, but he's, he's just so classy and you love him and you hate him at
the same time.
That's what I loved about him.
There were, you know, some really great performances, some solid performances here, but
I really, really dug.
And it really turned into an ensemble piece, even though you know the thing was going
to be framed around Kate Wangchette, I mean, they moved shooting to Australia, so she could
still be with her family and do the movie at the same time.
And a lot of this takes place in Dallas, and the fact that they were able to make Australia
pass for it, Dallas is a kind of a, kind of a lofty thing itself.
It's kind of hot.
You know, anything else we want to add, who gets the final analysis, no, let's get to
the final analysis.
The final analysis, what we do on this show, we're not going to give you stars, we're not
going to give you thumbs up thumbs down, we're not going to give you letter grades, we're
not going to give you anything like that.
Our audience, the empire, is better than that.
We're going to ask two questions.
Question number one, is would you see this film again, if the answer is no, then we're
done here.
If the answer is yes, then it becomes how far are you willing to go to see it?
Would you pay full price?
Would you go to a twilight, Matt Nay, early morning on a weekend?
Would you go to the second run dollar house to see it?
Would you venture out of your house to go run it from net red box?
Would you stream it on netflix?
Would you wait for it on cable?
Chad, would you see this film again?
I would really like to see this again, but it's not exactly kind of thing that you want
to rush out to see.
How far are you willing to go?
I mean, I, I, I, it, just in order to support the filmmaker, I would go for a Matt Nay.
Okay.
But this is one of those films that holds its weight best on home viewing, because
you know they're going to, if they have any sense at all, they'll put a lot of the editorial
stuff that they kind of slog through when making this thing on the blue ray.
I was kind of bummed out that we didn't get a chance to have some sort of premiere here
locally, so they could have actually brought the subject and question.
Indeed, add at the screening and maybe have a Q and A with or afterward.
Don, would you see this again?
Oh yeah, definitely.
How far you want to go?
Same as Chad.
Matt Nay.
I'm going to go step further.
I would see it again, but I'm going to go Twilight.
Go see it and go have dinner.
Talk about it.
You know.
I don't know if it's, it's a little too heavy for a Matt Nay for me.
Yeah.
My Matt Nay fair tends, for my, my Matt Nay requirement tends to be a little bit lighter
than this.
But it's really good.
Oh yeah.
It's really, really, really, really good.
Yeah.
I found that as, as I am, as I am progressing in years, films like this appeal to me a lot more than they ever did when I was younger, because it's, it's, there's so many talking points to discuss.
This weekend talking points.
We have to think our best friends again.
John.
Oh, I didn't like it.
You guys are awesome.
Sony pictures classics and everybody from, let's see this thing.
Thanks again, guys.
It is called Truth.
It's directed by James Vanderbilt.
Go check it out.
At your earliest possible convenience.
Ready to do the plugs?
Let's do it.
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www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
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I'm at yes that Rob Irvin.
That is called ERVIN.
I'm at chat in PG69.
I'm at fondongo.
And you can email me at Don at the clubhousepodcast.com.
Email Don for information on how we can do things like a live show for your establishment.
We love doing live remote shows and hanging out with the empire.
You can email me if you'd like.
Questions, comments, concerns.
Tell me to go out and send.
I am Rob at theclubhousepodcast.com.
I am Chad at theclubhousepodcast.com.
Charlotte Parker is on Pinterest because we are morally obligated to say that.
And we didn't have plus ones for this.
And so we can't get a Jewels.
Well, I'm a companion.
But I'm sure she's very much looking forward to it.
I'm giving you a report.
Right.
Our normal show every Sunday, night, seven Eastern, four Pacific is your one stop shop.
We're all being sports and entertainment.
Or just keep subscribing on iTunes and you get everything.
So until next time, for Don, for Chad, for the empire, I'm Rob.
Clubhouse is closed.
Pretty Palmer.
Set.
The preceding was a sooner or greater production.
Get a go, get a go!
Why?
Because I have to.
See ya!