109: Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Alex gives a spoiler-free review of the new Martin Scorsese Picture, “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Alex discusses the film’s source novel, the current long movie trend, psychopaths vs. sociopaths, DiCaprio, De Niro, and an all-timer performance from Lily Gladstone.
Later, Alex lists the fastest movies over 200 minutes long, and recommends some new movies for What Are You Watching.
Follow @WAYW_Podcast on Twitter and Instagram and Letterboxd.
Send us mailbag questions at whatareyouwatchingpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

0:15

Hey, everyone. Welcome to. What are you watching? I'm Alex with throwing. I'm flying solo today, doing it live all on my own. When it's a new movie like this, especially one that is three and a half hours long, scheduling can be tricky. So Nic is going to share his thoughts with us on this film, I am sure, as we go on, because we are going to be hearing about killers of the Flower Moon directed by Martin Scorsese for many months to come. It's going to ride a wave all through Oscar season. Killers of the Flower Moon. Wow, what a film. I have seen it twice in the theater, both times in IMAX. It was not shot in IMAX, but, you know, whatever, those IMAX screens are really big and they sound really good. So I went and saw it there twice, just finished the book. It is based on I am primed to talk about this movie. Scorsese He has absolutely done it again. It's kind of I mean, I'm still surprised, especially at his age, but I guess I shouldn't be because he's been doing this since 19. He's been making masterpieces since 1973, 1976 out and he still is. It's like decades and decades. So we talked about him for over 3 hours, not even that long ago. And I'm still mesmerized by what this guy can do. So right off the bat, let's talk about spoilers really quick. If it is a new movie, we do not spoil things. We that's one of the reasons why our new movie episodes are typically shorter because we are not talking about the whole thing. I only try to talk about things that happened like in the first act we give you a little bit of the setup. We tell you what we liked about it, but it's I don't like spoiling things, I don't noting all of that. I as someone who has not seen Killers of the Flower Moon, I would not be listening to this podcast episode yet. That is why I have so many podcasts saved in my phone of this movie. Came out in May at the Cannes Film Festival, so I have a bunch of like first reactions The killers of the Flower Moon episodes. I've been saving all those. I am the type of person that doesn't want any info. I had never seen this trailer. I had no idea what it was about before I saw it. So you know, I will not be spoiling anything that I think would be sacrilege to say here. Even though this is based on a true story. I'm certainly not going to talk about where the true story went in full because that would be spoiling things. It will be a safe journey. And then when I'm done talking about killers of the Flower Moon, because this movie is so long, it exceeds 200 minutes. I thought it'd be fun to talk about some of the fastest movies that are longer than 200 minutes, not 3 hours. A lot of movies will go over those 180 minutes. That's a cakewalk for a lot of movies, especially nowadays. So many things go over that 180 minute mark. Very few movies have the audacity to go over 200 minutes, especially with no title cards, no date stamps, no. What the hell do they call those things? I just got to sit here alone and think of it until I can do it. What? Intermission? No. Intermission. God damn, I can't believe I can. That's where we're at now. Killers of the flower Moon. Few fun facts. This is the most expensive film Martin Scorsese has ever made at $200 million and apparently the most expensive R-rated movie ever made. Here it is. 200 million. God, So far it's made $44.3 million in its opening weekend. That is actually better than I thought it would do, considering how long the movie is and considering it's going to be released on Apple TV. Plus in I mean, no less than 45 days, but probably 45 days from when this movie premiered in the theater. So that's good. People went to it. I benefited greatly from seeing it twice. It is long. I was never once bored. It did not appear that anyone in my in either theater was bored. I didn't track. I mean, maybe a few people going to the bathroom, but nothing like incessant words constantly in and out. Oh, I got to go refill my snacks. It was nothing like that. Everyone, you're in it like it. It moves. It is not. It is a long film, but it is not a boring film. That's kind of like the list I'm going to talk about at the end. A movie can be over 200 minutes and it doesn't mean it's boring unnecessarily. It can mean it's taking up a lot of your time, but things can move. You know, we're in a new mode now in cinema. Oppenheimer did this as well. Like the structure of Oppenheimer is bouncing all around. If every time we jumped, he had a little date time stamp, which probably would have been the case, I don't know, 20 years ago if that movie was made and like a city and date, like New York City, 1957, it would help a lot. I mean, it would it would help people be able to track it better. And that's literally spoon feeding you. But that's just the way movies have been done. Or at least the movie starts with like the year is blank. Here's what's happening. Killers of the Flower Moon doesn't do that. It has five really cute title cards that were like less than a sentence each. But it's not saying here's the year, here's you know exactly where we are. It's not showing you a map. It's not doing any of that. It's all in dialog. This movie covers a lot of years and you have to be able and you have to listen to track where you are. And, you know, it's other things, too. Like in one scene, the person isn't pregnant and then the next time we see them, they're pregnant and the next time they've had a kid. So it's passing time like that. The whole movie goes in order. You know, Scorsese will do those little insert flashbacks really quick, like, Oh, she fell funny, or he'll do that stuff. But this this is the movie that goes in order. I would argue that the Irishman that's not really an order like that's a road movie where they're literally on the road on a journey, and we're getting very expansive flashbacks of how we got to the road. And then the narrative catches up with itself and then like the last I don't what third or so of that movie is in chronological order, but Killers of the Flower Moon doesn't do that. It is in order to the whole time, but it is not spoon feeding you anything. And I really appreciate that it made for such an active watch the first time I saw it. That's why I was so compelled to go back. Because I'm telling you now, before even get to the plot, I'm like delaying this plot. I grew up in rural Virginia and in the rural Virginia public school system. You do not learn shit about Native Americans. You just don't elementary school or middle school. I am not joking. What we learned is that Columbus just sailed over here. Good old guy made friends with the natives who are already here. And then they were having Thanksgiving meals. Like a few years later. There's turkey and stuffing. That's the type of shit they sold us. This subject never came up in my high school, and as far as I can remember, never came up in college. I'm sure there were classes that were offered on it, but I took American history classes in high school and college, and this stuff never came up. So I had no idea about any of this story. And Columbus, you know, 1492, quite a long time ago. Everything in Killers of the Flower Moon is 100 years ago. This is not ancient history. This is in the grand scheme of time. This is modern history like. And I was I was embarrassed that I didn't know any of this. I like just watching it. I didn't know. So it was a lot to pay attention to, a lot to catch up on the macro, like in terms of the big picture that's going on. But then also the micro, all the character motivations. I did not know what everyone wanted until I figured it out and I was like, Holy shit, I get what this is now. So briefly, after members of the Osage Nation discover oil on their Oklahoma reservation and the nation immediately overnight grows from one of the poorest groups in America to the wealthiest, the richest group in America per capita. And of course, as soon as white men hear of this oil and hear of this money, they want some to. This is a massive true story. And to distill this down, the film and the book, it's based on focuses mainly on Molly Burkhart, who's played by Lily Gladstone in this film, and her family, which consists of her ailing mother and her many sisters. Molly is a full blood Osage and she is going to be eventually entitled to a lot of money and a local rancher who kind of runs the town. Everybody loves William King Hale, played by Robert DeNiro. He wants a piece of this money, but he wants a piece of it legally. So when his favorite nephew, Ernest, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is back from Ward War one, King immediately sets the two up in earnest. And Molly get married and live happily ever after. That's the plot twist. This movie is actually only 45 minutes long. The end. But no, of course, this is Scorsese. Things go awry, as you might imagine. A lawman named Tom White, played by Jesse Plemons, who works for this brand new weird little federal agency called the FBI, is sent to investigate what's happening to all these Osage people because it ain't just Molly and her family who are being terrorized to one degree or another. Essentially, every Osage in this film has a target on their back. All for money, money, money, money. None of that is spelled out in the movie. You I had to track like, oh, okay. I okay, I get what's going on because it just moves like it drops you down and it moves and it's going. But the movie is not confusing. It isn't. It's a very, very easy story to follow. I hope it would be, because at 206 minutes, that's no joke. I mean, it's 3 minutes shorter than Scorsese. His last film, The Irishman, which I've talked about endlessly on this podcast. I love that film. I've seen it. I believe I'm up to 11 times now. I bought The Criterion, even though anyone with a Netflix account can watch it in time. I love that movie because I think it's a really good movie, not because it's 3 hours and 29 minutes. I mean, that just doesn't matter to me. It holds my attention for the whole time. Every time I watch the Irishman, I usually do it in a way that I don't have to split it up. I just do it all in one sitting. And I do find that movie extremely engaging. I think there's so much history in it and it's paced very, very well. It keeps moving. Keeps moving. Killers of the Flower Moon I already touched on it has a chronological pace, never bored, never stirring in my seat, never, never went to the bathroom, never needed to do any of that because I was really engaged in the story the second time, too. Like one of the main differences here between a movie that's 200 minutes and you feel every minute of it, and that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Some movies are very, very intentionally slow. Usually. Usually a movie is slow because it is taking a long time with its scenes. Every scene is from beginning to end. So if it's a conversation that we're going to see that scene, when the conversation starts to when the conversation ends, we're not jumping in, cutting in into the middle of it. So you get a lot of really, really long scenes that you have to stay engaged with. Some movies are long because they have a bunch of normal scenes, like normal movies do, like a two hour movie does, you know, a two minute scene, a five minute scene, a one minute scene, a two minute scene. It's just kind of moving a pace like that. They just have far more of them than a two hour movie that's Killers of the Flower Moon. There's nothing in it where we're like, All right, here's the 45 minute set piece of so-and-so. And, you know, it's definitely a good time to go use the bathroom. Every scene is just like a quick scene. It just keeps moving. It's just a little longer, that's all. And, you know, people are going to have to make up their mind if they're going to go to the theater and see it. I get it. But I thought it was very entertaining and very well paced. My dad Salt last night just got off the phone with him. He agreed he and his friend were never bored. It's, you know, I would tell you, I promise I fully acknowledge the 206 minutes is an incredibly long time to dedicate to one film, let alone in one sitting. But I don't know when it's on Apple TV. Plus, if you want to split it into like three episodes, take three nights with it, go ahead, do it. I think Scorsese is experiment, which he's now done twice in a row of kind of Fuck it. I'm going to make it as long as I want and as long as the story needs. I think it's paying off because this there was nothing in Killers of the Flower Moon where I'm like, Damn, like, you could have cut that out. Same with the Irishman. I don't watch that movie and think, Oh, there's 10 minutes easily gone, There's 5 minutes gone. There's another 5 minutes gone. I don't. Everything in there feels necessary. Just a really long movie. Well, these are all tours ever make, like. No, no one did. I was going to say, well, these are tours. Ever make, like, 100 minute movie again. But that's what Nolan did with Dunkirk. You know, he was making big, big movies Interstellar really long view and how just going to go make Dunkirk and it was goddamn movie so lean and mean. You got to wonder though if like Scorsese you will ever or I think about it for Tarantino's last movie which Paul What Walter Hauser I haven't brought it up on the podcast, but. Paul Walter Houser An ingenious bit of casting. I've love that guy. I've been watching his star rise, if you will. Loved him and I mean everything he's been in. I Tonya Black Klansman. I thought he was criminally ignored in Richard Jewell. I actually thought that movie was good and I thought everyone and it was really good. And people are just people seem to kind of be done with Clint at this point. But I thought he was great as that title character, and I'm so happy for him that he got cast in Tarantino's final film, Sorry for the Side Tangent. My point was what if that movie's just like the length of Reservoir Dogs? It's like 102 minutes. I don't know, it'd be kind of cool. But then also, like I want like a two and a half hour final Tarantino movie Back to Kill a Flower. Moon So how do you get a movie as good as Killers of the Flower Moon? You do it by assembling one of the best casts and crews around. We can start with this crew, Martin Scorsese. We talk about him for 3 hours on episode 99 of this podcast, and then dedicated even more time to him in episode 100, which is all about my favorite film, Taxi Driver. So you probably don't need this podcast to be told how good of a director. Martin Scorsese. He is a very notable credit he has on Killers of the Flower Moon to me is co-writer. He does not take credit for a lot of his own screenplays. Who's that Knocking at My Door Mean Streets, Goodfellas. The Age of Innocence. Casino Silence. Killers of the Flower Moon. That's it. Those are all the ones where Marty has a co-writer credit. And if you look back at those, it typically means, I don't know there's this more of a personal element. Not, you know, not always, but sometimes I think I even said that on the Scorsese part. And the person he got to help him is Eric Roth. And any time you see written by Eric Roth, think big, a big life, big story, got to distill it down to two and a half, three, three and a half hours. He's one of the most notable screenwriters in Hollywood, Killers of the Flower Moon. Listen to a few of his other credits. Denis Villeneuve's Dune. Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Good Shepherd. Robert De Niro's film Munich Ali The Insider. Forrest Gump, which he won his first and only Oscar for so big movies like that. And he does a great job here. I did just finish the book by David Grande. It was written in 2017. Very easy read, just quick and easy. It's like 400 pages long, but I breezed through it. Interestingly, the book is not in chronological order. Instead, it's split into three parts parts one and two are about equal in size. They're really long. Part one tends to focus more on Molly's perspective of things. And then part two focuses more on Tom White's perspective of things. That's the FBI agent. And then part three is kind of an extended coda set in from the 2017 perspective, talking about all the events that we've just read about. But it is not in order, it's in character order. So it would have been tough to put this in a linear order in. I mean, there are things described very early in the book that are save till I'm saying the final minutes of the movie. So if when you're talking about like spoilers in that way, it's just because it's based on a true story. Like if you click on the Wikipedia page for all these people, like, you know, it's going to be spoiled for you. So the book is just told in a historical nonfiction way that I found just I was literally turning the pages. It was so easy. Rest in peace to Robbie Robertson. I did not know because I knew nothing about killers of the Flower moon, nothing. When I went and saw it, I did not know that he did the original score for it. He did pass away just a few months ago. I talked about him a lot on the Scorsese episode and the collaboration he had with Scorsese over the years. First by making The Last Waltz, which they remember very little of. And it's just his score for this movie is so good. I was just listening to it actually, as I was kind of writing a few notes from the movie. The score is about 53 minutes long, but it really doesn't stop playing. It's always just there. And it took me a while. I'm like, What is it? Because it's very subtle. A lot of the time I'm like, What is what is he going for here by kind of never stopping the music? And I went, Oh, this is a heartbeat. It's just over and over with this drum. And it really honestly underscores everything. It's not a big, loud, verbose over the top score. It underscores everything. But it's like the first, I don't know, 5 minutes or so. I'm like, all right, you know, we're settling in like, what's this movie going to be? I don't really know. And then, boom, you get to go do a Robbie Robertson song with slow motion visuals playing. I won't say what's happening in the slow motion. And I just got this huge smile on my face. That's the song I opened this podcast with this. The song starts playing and I'm like, I see what you're doing. Damn you, Marty, I love you. I just love you. It'd be great if Robbie got an Oscar nomination for this. We'll see. It's good. It's actually going to be a tough Oscar year. I can't, like, for all the best reasons to. All the best reasons. So we'll see. But it would be great. Rodrigo Prieto, cinematographer. We've talked about him a lot. Not only did this man shoot killers of the Flower Moon this year and do an extremely good job doing it, he will likely be nominated for an Oscar for this. The guy also shot Barbie like what a hell of a year. I there's a really good chance he could pull a Roger Deakins in 2007 when Deakins was nominated for best cinematography trophy twice in the same year for filming No Country for Old Men and the Assassination of Jesse James. That is a distinct possibility for Rodrigo here, genuinely. And I love that we've talked about him before. I would love to do an whole episode about him because he's done the Irishman. This is just a few The Irishman. Silence, Wolf of Wall Street Lust Caution. Brokeback Mountain. Oh, my God. Brokeback 21 Grams. How gritty. Four. Our original sin. Whoa, whoa. That's crazy, though. Those I mean, killers of the flower moon, which is going to be one of the most I don't know how much money it's going to make because, you know, it's like it's just so long, but it's going to be one of the most critically adored movies of the year. And no one is going to have anything bad to say about how it looks. Barbie is the smash hit of the year and everyone likes how that movie looks. Even me. I thought that movie looked great because they incorporated so much actual real stuff into it, real production design, real sets. It was all tangibles, all there. What a year is having our darling Thelma. Thelma Schoonmaker, editor, Marty's longtime editor currently I think I mentioned this on the Scorsese part, but it is worth repeating. Currently Schoomaker is tied for the most wins for best editing. She has three wins total for Raging Bull, The Aviator, and The Departed. Now she holds that distinction with three other men. I do not know if she wins for this. I don't know. It's a long movie. I'm here for it. I don't know. We'll see. I do think there's a chance, though, that she could be nominated. And if she is nominated for this, she will become the most nominated editor in Oscar history. She currently has eight nominations, as does Michael Kahn, who edited a lot of Spielberg's work. I want Thelma number one that will that is just such a cool, like nerdy Oscar fact. If she's able to pull that off and I don't see why she wouldn't be there's a lot more people responsible for crafting any film, especially this one. I do think we're going to hear their names a lot come Oscar time we're in for, I don't know if this is Oppenheimer versus Killers of the Flower Moon with Barbie kind of sneaking in on the outside and then like Barbie wins picture or something. I mean, even if it's those three movies, I'm I'm happy I haven't been this happy in a few few years for the Oscars. So. Well, I would love to see those movies. Duke it out. We'll see. Let's move on to this cast. Leonardo DiCaprio heard of him. Six collaborating in with Scorsese. They've been making movies for a little over 20 years. Here's what I realized about Leo watching this movie. I've touched on this on the podcast before, but I was unable to take him seriously. Leonardo DiCaprio seriously, essentially, until The Departed and I thought he had three performances in a row very early in his career. This Boy's Life, which is his first collaboration on screen with De Niro, What's eating Gilbert Grape, which he got nominated for an Oscar for in The Basketball Diaries, which is just one of his best performances ever. Boom, boom, boom. I was sold on this guy. And then, I don't know, it just took until The Departed for me to kind of go back and examine all this stuff, essentially in between The Basketball Diaries and The Departed and go, okay, I was maybe a little too critical of this stuff before. In recent years, I've gone back and looked at things like The Aviator and gone, Oh my God, Like, he's really, really good in this. Leo Is Leo now. I love him most. All people love him. What happened? Because I've always liked him, but I have a newfound appreciation for him in like, what is it? What's going on? So I looked at the last ten years of his career. He's only on five movies if we start in the fall of 2013, because that way we get to avoid The Great Gatsby, which is not a movie I'm going to include in my point here Fall 2013 The Wolf of Wall Street, The Revenant. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Don't Look Up Killers of the Flower Moon. That's it. Now for the point I'm going to make. Let's just take The Revenant out that, of course, he won his Oscar for it. But that is a very dead serious movie. The Wolf of Wall Street. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Don't look up Killers of the flower Moon. Leonardo DiCaprio is completely unafraid to make a fool of himself. And I do not know if that was ever really the case before. Jordan Belfort, I'm the dude could act crazy. The Duke could be sinister like Calvin Candie there. But to make a complete jackass of himself, to be a jackass, to be an ass, to be a complete fool and just lose all of his inhibitions, that has absolute endeared me to him more because like Ernest Burkhart in Killers of the Flower Moon has terrible teeth. He has a nose that looks like it's been punched in many times over, and the man has no common sense. The man is a moron. He's capable of charm. He's capable of a lot of different things, but he's a fucking idiot. And that's part of the allure of the performance. It took me a little bit to realize that, but I'm like, Oh, this guy like, Oh, okay, I think I see what's going on here. And I respect that. Jordan Belfort An idiot from time to time. Rick Dalton A complete alcoholic, drunken, egotistical moron from time to time the flip outs and don't look up completely willing to make himself look like a fool. I respect it. I appreciate it that Ernest Burkhart That's not like the main thing. I would say he's not like the the town jester or the jackass. You know, he's not it's not that, like, clear cut, but, you know, he's not a sharp tack, I'll put it that way. Robert De Niro What? I mean, what am I going to say? The guy still got it. He I kind of got fooled and thinking, you know, maybe he's just going to hang it up and do these a lot of these, you know, direct to streaming, direct to Blu ray action movies that he does like a day of work on. And, you know, I mean, he's got to make money. I don't hate on him for that. But I've always just wanted like, you know, give us give us one for us every time. And he's starting doing that more like the Irishman was really that was really his baby. He produced that. He convinced everyone to do that. He convinced Scorsese. He convinced Joe Pesci to come out of retirement. That was all De Niro is doing now, like all of it's doing. But, you know, getting getting the ball rolling, like getting things moving. He was responsible for that largely. And you can tell when you watch that movie like he cares. He genuinely cares. He well, William King Hale is going to go down as one of the all time great. Robert's in Europe performances. I don't know if the guy is nominated for supporting actor. I think it'd be weird if he wasn't. I don't know if he can beat Ryan Gosling as Ken or Robert Downey Jr and Oppenheimer. I don't know. We're going to see how all this pans out. This is a truly, truly great performance. It is a perfect embodiment of pure, sinister, evil. This is the kind of evil that will kill you in the most callous, cold blooded fashion. Maybe not by his own hand, maybe by his mouth in terms of ordering someone to do something. But he's going to do it all with a smile. He'll even support your loved ones after. The dude is nuts, but it doesn't show what's scarier. What's scarier? Seeing Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men walked down the street toward you or eating dinner with a nice doctor named Hannibal Lecter. They see a dude like Anton Chigurh walking down the street toward me. I'm crossing the street. I'm going to the other side. I'm looking. I'm taking one look at that guy and going, All right, there's something off about him. I don't know what it is, but I don't want to be in his path. I might make eye contact and then suddenly I'm in like, some coin toss for my life. I don't know. I do. Just looks like trouble. Hannibal Lecter. A guy can win, You die. You talk to you about opera for 2 hours, all without knowing that you just ate a human spleen for an entree, psychopath or sociopath. Obviously, any good actor can play both effectively. Another very notable psychopath in cinema history and one that got a lot of airplay on episode 99 of this podcast is Max Cady, played by Robert De Niro in Scorsese's Cape Fear. William King Hale is not that as an audience member in this point in De Niro's career, I loved tracking the cold subtleties of this performance. This begins right away from his first scene, and there is nothing inherently sinister communicated in his first scene. But as the movie kept going, I was like, Wait, who? What's this guy's deal? Is this is this guy not good? And just the evolution I had from questioning, where does this guy like have bad intentions to where it goes is, I mean, again, this true story was 100 years ago. This is not that long ago. I am baffled that I have never heard of any of this. Baffled. Great performance. This is not Max, Katey. This is not Anton Chigurh. This is not a psychopath. This is a cold, calculating, very intelligent sociopath being performed on an expert level. And I'm not even, like, trying to make it a thing. Like, if he's not Hannibal Lecter in this, you know, it's just. It's all. It's all with a smile. It's all with a handshake. Everything's all pleasant. Everything's all good for the entire movie. It's brilliant. It's. Oh, I just love him. He really, really still has it. Bobby Dee Jesse Plemons shows up as Tom White, The FBI agent. Plemons is just always great. I mean, what else is there to say? Like, I've. I've watched his career literally from the beginning and watched him as a little pissant kid on Friday Night Lights, TV show and have Landry Landry and have tracked him from Breaking Bad. Oh, my God. Talk about sociopaths. One of the best sociopaths ever on TV was Todd. That is David Breaking Bad. Jesus Christ. You do nothing personal, right? You love Jesse Plemons. He's great here. I had heard that DiCaprio originally had this part. And then I don't know if it was a switch situation or because I don't know if Plemons was ever cast as Ernest, but there's a version of this movie that could exist, and I think they did it in like 1959, called the FBI Story with Jimmy Stewart, I think a Porsche. I have not seen that. But I think a portion of that movie focuses on this stuff, this these Osage murders, these Osage crimes. And there's a version of Killers of the Flower Moon. I kid you not. That could be either. Totally focused on the Plemons character or I'm dead serious. The movie could be another 30 minutes longer because that guy's life, Tom White, which I just learned from finishing the book, Crazy, Crazy shit, literally stranger than fiction. It is. It is its own movie. And it would be a really good movie. Like, I can't believe this shit that just goes on in history and we never hear about it. While there's a handful of cameos in the movie that I don't want to spoil, there's a handful of I mean, like really good cameos. Like cool, cool cameos. Yeah, there's a handful of great character actors, some of which pop up occasionally in Marty's work. Pat Healy That guy's just like in everything. Louis Cancelmi he's he was the fish guy, you know. What kind of fish was it in? The Irishman I love? He got he has a scene in this that I mean, he his character in Kelly's The Flower Moon has like a sentence of dialog that in both of my screenings, someone in the audience has gone, Oh my God. Like just because of how callous and cold he says it. Oh my God. You got to hear that from the back of the theater. Barry Corbin Remember him from No Country for Old Men? He's like, Tommy Lee Jones is older Uncle Deuce. It is like living in that house. All those cats. Gene Jones is also in Killers of the Flower Moon. He's in No Country for Old Men. We all remember him as the terrified gas station agent who saves his life by guessing the flip of a coin. Scott Shepard That was an actor I like recognized, but I couldn't really place him. He plays Leo's brother in the movie. He's very, very good. Elden Henson You know, Elden Henson Fulton from the Mighty Ducks is in. She's all of that. Oh, God, that's an intense movie. Oh, directed by Tim Blake Nielson. Jesus, the Butterfly Effect. Lords of Dogtown Deja Vu plays Foggy Nelson and Netflix's Daredevil. But you know, that's a guy I've seen that guy from my childhood. He's in Killers of the Flower Moon. I don't even think he has a line. He's just like in the background a lot of times. I love it. I respect it. I mean, I, I hope that was the case. I hope it wasn't like it. Adrien Brody, Thin Red Line situation. But I just wanted to give a shout out because I you know, I've seen that guy my entire life on film. There's a few people in this movie in Killers of the Flower Moon, where I'm watching them and they have big parts. These are not small parts. They have parts that were decisions have to be made by just watching their face. We have to watch them change their mind, make up their mind without dialog. And I have no idea who these people were, just a handful of white dudes. And I'm like, Who are you? Because you can't be an actor because I just never seen you. But you have such a presence and you have an amazing voice. These are guys like Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Charlie Musselwhite, Pete Yorn. I never heard of any of these guys. They're all musicians. They're country musicians, rockers. I never heard of them. Maybe people listening to this had heard of them. Jason Isbell was in a band called Drive-By Truckers. Never heard of that. This isn't this is not intersecting with my musical tastes at all, but they're all great. I've looked him up on Wikipedia and IMDB For a lot of them, it's just their only role because they're, you know, musicians and it's really good casting, really good casting. I also caught two guys looking at them on screen. I don't recognize them. This guy, Tommy Schultz, he plays a very important character named Blackie Thompson, and this other guy named Ty Mitchell, who plays John one eyed John. These guys have never been in movies before, and these are important characters to this story and to this movie. John has like has some very subtle comedic timing that lands It's landed with both crowds. I've seen it, and he gets laughs and this guy never acted before, and they're both perfect. I love that sense of casting where you're mixing like the most famous star in the world, Leonardo DiCaprio. And with Robert De Niro. And they're doing scenes, big scenes, important scenes with people who've never acted before. It's really great. And I've intentionally saved very specific members of the cast for last, Saving the Best for Last. There are many real members of the Osage Nation in this film, including many contemporary chiefs who were permitted to essentially be in front of Martin Scorsese. These cameras and just go. This stuff was not scripted. It was not written. And they went there and, you know, tents or maybe sets made to look like tense. And they're going in. Scorsese includes a lot of this scene in the movie. It's how he starts the movie. It's one of these speeches and it's really, really moving and they're really profound. And there's a lot of really good history. This this is not like 20 minute speeches. They're not going on and on and on. They're concise, succinct, really impactful. And that brings me to Gladstone. Wow. My, my, my. I've seen her part of her before. Kelly Reichardt made a movie in 2016 called Certain Women. I even wrote on my blog that I've never heard of Lily Gladstone, who has most of her scenes with Kristen Stewart in that movie Certain Women. And she stole that movie and she steals this movie. She is miraculous. I could call out any scene of hers, her stillness, her eyes, the warmth in her face in just the way that she handles herself and the way that she makes decisions and contemplate things. Her character, Molly, has to endure horrors that I mean, I cannot even fathom taking place today for in modern society just to witness her relatives autopsy, like just right there with like the skull being sold into this. This happened in real life. The the poise that she carries herself with at times. But then also she just has to break down at times. How do you not? She receives a piece of news at one point she's hiding in the basement of her house. She's got the housekeeper there, her two children, and she loses it and the camera doesn't move. The camera sits there at the top of the stairs and she loses it. It happens in a way. We're like one of the kids in this scene is not old enough to comprehend that, Hey, we're acting now, okay? They're they're not. They're young. And that kid, like, is silence and, like, kind of staring at the woman playing her mom and, like, horror and shock, like, Oh, my God, what's happening? Because that's how effective this breakdown is. There's not like a screaming, tear sobbing thing that goes on for 5 minutes. It's a whale. It's a human whale of terror and horror. I have to assume she will win best actress this year. I don't even if this movie just walks away with that Oscar incredibly well word. That will be a feat of the film. She's going to have some strong competition. I know. And I know maybe I focus on Oscars too much, but bring it on. You know, we've got Margot Robbie and there's Barbie and that poor Annette Bening. It seems like she's going to be nominated for a movie called Naiad, which is based on a real person based on a true story. So she'll probably go back to the Oscars. Oh, again, Warren Beatty by her side again. And she's going to lose to a younger actress who just gave the slightly better performance this year. Hilary Swank did it to her twice in 1990 and 24, and then Natalie Portman beat her in 2010. Whatever, Oscars, the Oscars as a performance as a movie. We're going to be talking about Lily Gladstone as Molly for a long time. This is it feels like the movie was definitely made to tell this story and inform people like me that this did happen. This is real, but it also feels like it was made to give whoever plays Molly a star making performance. And here we are. Here it is. I've watched a few interviews with Scorsese. Of course, actors aren't allowed to do interviews right now because the Screen Actors Guild are still on strike. So Scorsese, he as a writer and director, is allowed to give interviews. He said he had heard about Lily Gladstone from the Kelly Reichardt films Certain Women. He saw it and that was just it. They didn't audition a bunch of people. He went, you know, Do you want to do this with me? Like, Should we do this? Oh my God, I don't want to say too much. You know, it's it's great. It's a start called Whatever You want. Phenomenal, miraculous. Start making all the adjectives, all the things, whatever is going to be thrown her way in terms of a career enhancement, in terms of awards, in terms of little gold men. She's going to deserve all of it. It is a it's a towering performance. I loved it. I loved it. I guess the bottom line is, is killers of the flower moon worth your time? Should you worth your time to go see it in the theater? Let's break it down like this. Obviously, I say yes. You don't have to go do it in IMAX If you don't want to pay the extra money, you can just do it in the regular format. Never bored at at all twice. I likely will see it again before it leaves the theater because it's so big. It just looks so beautiful. In the end. I will not reveal what it is, but you know Brian Cox, an adaptation of them in the end and you've got them it. But both times the credits have started with black behind it. And there's nothing, nothing at the end of these credits. Nothing's going on during the credits. The credits are just going. But because of the previous 5 minutes, no one has left the theater. We're all just sitting there. Everyone has eventually, you know, get up and saunter out. But it's not like directed by Martin Scorsese. And then people are sprinting out to, I don't know, use the bathroom or they're sprinting out because they're bored. It's not that we're all just still sitting there stirring in the effect of this film. Yeah, it's worth your time. It's worth your time to go see it in the theater. It's long if you can't make it to the theater because it's so long. I get it. Of course I get it. Things longer than hell. But it's worth it. Or you can wait till Apple TV. Plus, you know, I'm always. I'm always going to advocate for watching your movie in a single sitting, if you can. I also understand that that is an increasingly rare in today's world. You know, most people can be on Apple. A lot of people are going to be watching it on their phone. And that is how Scorsese intends you to see it on your phone. Where does this rank for Scorsese? I haven't gotten there yet. You know I haven't. Will it crack the top ten? I don't know. It's perhaps. Yeah, perhaps come like Oscar time when I've had more time to think about it. Maybe this is a top ten. Maybe in the way I was really shy about Oppenheimer. I'm like, Yeah, that's my 10th favorite No. One film, which is like, fucking comical. Now call me a break. This isn't going to get that big of a bump. Like straight up the first time I saw the Irishman when was done, as the credits were rolling, that was a top five Marty movie for me, and I had already seen every movie Marty had directed. That was a top five. It's a different impact. The Killers of the Flower Moon has it's much quieter, much more subtle impact. So go see it. It's a good movie and it's directed by Martin Scorsese. And I want to know what you think about it. I W.H. BW Underscore podcast. I really do. I really want to know what you think. I can't wait to hear what Nick thinks. He's going to see it soon, and we will talk about it. You know, it'll it'll just come up when we're doing our Oscar pods or whatever. Maybe he'll make it one of his what are you watching? Recommendations. But talking about it now just right here has actually made me want to go out and see it again. I'm not going to go see it tonight or anything, but I do. But I do want to see it before it leaves theaters again. So I'll probably get three viewings of this very long movie under my belt. And that is fine. Like, you know, silence by Scorsese. Maybe I shouldn't be comparing it to the Irishman. The only reason to compare it is because they are like the same length, but silence. That is not a movie I dislike in the slightest. I actually had a real big reappraisal of that film when I watched it for our Marty podcast because I had only seen it once and it's like I still maintain that is the most punishing movie of Martin Scorsese, his career in terms of the like, the brutality that is kind of hidden in it. You know, it's not anyone getting beat to death with baseball bats and that, but they're like, we've perfected torture so much, we're going to let the waves do our work for us and we're going to make you watch all of it. Like, well, okay, how bad can this be? Oh, it's bad. Holy God, is it bad? The movie's 161 minutes long and silence, without question feels like a longer movie to me than Killers of the Flower Moon. Even though that is 206 minutes long. There's I mean, absolutely I would I would make that argument. Of course, no one can stop time. Time is time. It is silence is shorter, but it does not feel shorter. That's what I'll say. And that's not a dig at silence at all. It's just that's a very intentionally paced movie. Silence is a type of movie. I should have mentioned that. It just I don't know why that movie split my brain when I was talking earlier about movies that have like really long scenes and you're seeing them from start to end. That's what silence is. That's the pace it starts. You're going to watch very long sequences and then they just switch a lot of those together and some of those are torture sequences and they're really tough to watch. Let's move on. Had some fun stuff before I round out. Just a fun just for fun. These movies over 200 minutes that I really like. Again, these aren't necessarily like the quote unquote best movies over 200 minutes. I'm not going to mention John Dillman, which is something we've talked about in the pod that's 202 minutes long. That movie is slower than hell by design. That is not a fast movie, over 200 minutes long. So that's not included in my list. I you know, every movie I'm about to mention, I got ten of them here. I'm looking at them and thinking about the mockery that I could foresee from friends or on social media where they're like, These movies are so long. Every movie I'm about to list is over 2 minutes long. That is the truth. But I'm saying to me, they go by very quickly and they deserve to be that long. There's a reason they're that long. They deserve to be that long. Here they are. I'm going to go in chronological order. 1954 Seven Samurai, directed by Akira Kurosawa. I just rewatched this one a few months ago. This is the personified location of the reason why this movie is 207 minutes long is that it is just a bunch of small scenes, normal length scenes. There's just a lot of them. There's way more of them than there is in a normal movie. The few long scenes that it has are like battles and those, you know, it has a battle that's like 30 minutes or something and I promise that ain't boring. So if you don't mind reading for 207 minutes because it is in Japanese, you're going to see one of the best movies ever made. A lot of the movies I'm going to talk about here are widely considered some of the best movies ever made. And they move their movie moves. Giant directed by George Stevens, 1956. It Moves starring Elizabeth Don't color Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean. You get to see James Dean age in this. I mean, you know, he died so young. So we get to see him as like an old man in this movie. And that's one that moves. I saw that movie with my dad at a movie theater. No one moved. We didn't move. No one moved 201 minutes. But it moves. Lawrence of Arabia, 1962, 216 minutes. I watched that in December of last year. That is a masterpiece. It's like, Oh, this deserves to be Lawrence of Arabia. This deserves to be one of the best movies ever made. It's why it's called that some of these movies, they just earn it. You're like, okay, yeah, That's why it's on every single best of list, why it won best picture. That's why it's all of those things, because it's as good as I've ever heard. And if you rewatch it, it's even better than you remember. At least it was for me. That's. Yeah. And that one cruise is coming in at a very lean 200 minutes flat is Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part two, released in 1974. That one moves. It's a good movie. Some boring, right? This next one, people are going to maybe argue with me on 219 minutes. I talked it at the end of our Deer Hunter pod. It's Michael CIMINO'S Heaven's Gate, released in 1980. This is a long movie. It does feel a little slow. Not this does not Everything moves by super, super fast. But, you know, there's a long fight toward the end of the movie that goes on for like 45 minutes. And it's not boring. Like it it moves in. The movie only covers two or three days. So that's an interesting thing because most of these movies cover like Giant covers decades. A lot of time is covered in Killers of the Flower Moon, but just a two or three days for that amount of minutes. It's interesting. It's not you know, it doesn't move as fast as everything else on this list, but it still does not deserve the reputation of being one of the worst movies ever made. That's ridiculous. It's actually really good. It's an A-plus movie. It's just longer than hell. All right. This one, you also got to give me. I don't even know if I'm doing this. Well, if I'm selling it well, you got to cut me a little break because Fanny and Alexander is thrown in 14 minutes long, and I know that's ridiculous. I do. He did. Ingmar Bergman did. Split it up into a few chapters because it was made for television. So it aired on a few nights in Swedish television. But again, I'm just saying, well, how would you people listen to this or going to sit down and watch 314 minutes of an Ingmar Bergman movie? I don't know. But it moves by fast. I swear to God, I've done it. I did it in like 2011 and just watch in one sitting. And I've done it a few times since that in 2017, when I wrote about Bergman and did it for, you know, our Bergman episode. Our Bergman episode. Shit, How did I forget this? Our Daniel Day-Lewis episode. I don't know why. It's always been our most downloaded episode. I hope people didn't think that we, like, got to interview Daniel Day-Lewis. I mean, the beginning of that is me, like in person doing impersonation and we're doing impersonations of them. Hopefully it's clear it's not an interview podcast. That's our most downloaded this past weekend. Our second most downloaded episode became our Ingmar Bergman podcast. I shared that with Nick and we were like, What? Really? That's episode 81, Just so many downloads. Thank you so much for that. I, I don't I, I texted it, but I was like, I don't know bed. Do we need to like, be doing, you know, talking about European filmmakers born on Americans. Thank you for that love. That's awesome. So maybe people do agree that Sandy Alexander all 314 minutes of it or worth it. Moving on. Sergio Leone in 1984 made once Upon a Time in America, went through all sorts of crazy releases. They released a insanely short version that sucked and they released 229 minute version. It's the masterpiece that you've likely heard of. I did watch this one recently. Like in COVID. It's a tricky movie. There are some tricky scenes, some very, very tricky scenes that I was. It was they were tough. It's it's a good movie. It's definitely worth watching. But And it moves. It does, but it's it you know, it has some real shit in it for sure. For sure. Next one, 202 minutes long. We dedicated all of episode 96 to Malcolm X's. I always do that. We dedicated all of episode 96 to Lee's Malcolm X. I think I literally did that in our very first episode and confused us too, huh? That's how much I like this movie. That's how much it's ingrained in my personality. Malcolm X You don't get many movies over 200 minutes that are faster than this. I'll just spoiler. My next one is the Irishman. We got to jump all the way to 2019. The Irishman, 209 minutes long, I think. I think that's the fastest movie I've ever seen. Over 200 minutes. I do. I love Malcolm X. I've seen that movie many times, but I don't know, maybe it's recency bias. They would vie for that spot if I was ranking it like, okay, no bullshit, fastest movie over 200 minutes. It would be one of those. And I don't know, I might have to give it to the Irishman. I don't know. It's tough. It's tough. And then number ten, Killers of the Flower Moon. 206 minutes long, directed by Martin Scorsese. Martin Scorsese, the only person on the list twice. And I love it. I missed the big one that I have to mention. I do have to mention, I believe the extended cut of Lord of the Rings Return of the King is 201 minutes. Those movies I mentioned before, they're not for me, but I understand that a lot of people love them won best picture. So a lot of people, if they were making a similar list, would definitely have that. So just want to, you know, all's fair. All's fair. I'm fair. That's it. Spoiler free review of Killers of the Flower Moon. Really want to know what everyone thinks about it when you check it out? If you're in the mood for a long movie, a very long movie, those are ten really good ones. Move on to what are you watching here? Completely change gears and just talk about a few new 2023 movies I've seen at all. None of these are as good as Killers of the Flower Moon or any of those ten movies I just listed. But, you know, just for fun, Reptile on Netflix starring Benicio Del Toro, He also co-wrote it, also costarring Justin Timberlake and most notably, Alicia Silverstone loved. Her in it, her and Benicio are married just like a fun streaming Netflix movie. I thought it was much better than, you know, original crime thriller Netflix flick has any right to be. It was good. It just moved the time. Well, I don't know. What do you want me to say? You hurt my feelings. Directed by Nicole Holofcener. I really like her. If you are a fan of walking and talking lovely and amazing friends with money, please give enough said. It's going to fit right in there. It was really good. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Good stuff. This I mean, I'm just talking about this because it's fun. Operation Fortune Ruse Digger directed by Guy Ritchie. I thought the movie was hilarious. I watched it on a plane, but I thought Jason Statham and Josh Hartnett were hysterical. And Aubrey Plaza, Hugh Grant It was, I don't know, just to like, put on and expecting virtually nothing of it because Guy Ritchie is can be hit or miss. But his movie before that Wrath of Man, I thought was genuinely a really good dramatic action movie like Jason Statham is just good in that movie. I liked it. I was stunned. I went, Oh, I didn't know Guy Ritchie. So like, kind of had this in Operation Fortune. Well, far from perfect, of course. It's just a funny comedy. I thought, I don't know. It talked about passing the time, and so it was really good. I thought it was I thought it was a really good, entertaining movie to watch on a plane. I don't know. Saul X, I went and saw Saw X, you know, not too bad. It came up with a different way to live in the world. This is what IP is doing now. It's like, Hey, why are we going to continue this thing? Why don't we do like jump back a little bit and do it's not exactly a prequel because it doesn't take place before Saul, but it kind of takes place in between. Saul Insult two and it did it in a way where I was like, cool. Like I was better than Saul. Nine, eight, seven, six, five. I like the first, I don't know, three or four. I've seen them all, of course, like a lunatic, but I don't know if you like those. I thought it was good. It's Halloween time, you know? No, here's one. No kidding. No messing around. I just thought, was it actually like, a good movie? I knew nothing about it at virtually nothing. And I was in L.A. for the M83 show and just had, like, some time to kill when I woke up, got on fair play on Netflix, directed by Chloe Dumont. I like this movie a lot. I'm not going to say a lot about it, but it stars Phoebe Denver, who I know is on TV. I had never seen her before. Alden Ehrenreich, who took a lot of shit for his performance in Solo when that I mean that the movie is the fault. They're not him, but, you know, and then he took a few years off and he's been in Oppenheimer. He's in this. They are a very convincing couple. You know, things are all good. Like the way the movie starts is is very bold and original. And I went, oh, okay. You got you have some you have you are not afraid to display a little sexuality to be fun, to be very different, but still kind of real. And I went, okay, I see what's going on here. They have some horrific arguments that are so believable. It's just it was a good movie. I'm not trying to build it up too much, you know, premiered at Sundance. Netflix picked it up. Eddie Marsan plays The Boss. I love Eddie Marsan kind of lives in the financial world, like high finance. Like, think of that office that Barry Pepper works in and 25th hour. It's kind of like that, you know, like a hedge fund or I don't I have no idea what the hell they're talking about in these movies. But again, I just need to believe that they believe it and everyone in it believes it. You know, they believe it in that scene in 25th hour. They believe it in Boiler Room. They believe it in Margin Call. Like you're watching it. The big Short, all those movies sell it. Well, Wolf of Wall Street sells it very well. It's selling that stuff. But that's just the backdrop for the movie, for the world to live. And that's the world that the movie lives in. But it's really about this one couple and wow, it's very good. I really I'm definitely going to have my eye on Chloe Dumont's career, the rest of her work. So that would be if I was just doing one. What are you watching? Rick I would say fair play. I was very surprised by that movie. Again, not as good, not as good as killers of the flower Moon, but whoever said it was supposed to be love that movie. Going to be thinking about it for a while. Honestly, can't wait to see it again after reading the book. I'm excited to see it again. Going to talk about it when Oscars are around. That's it. If you're seeing the film, please let me know on Twitter, Instagram letterbox at W AIW underscore Podcast. But as always, thank you for listening and happy watching. Hey everyone. Thanks again for listening. You can watch my films and read my movie blog at Alex Withrow dot com Nicholas Toast Dotcom is where you can find all of Nick's film work. Send us mailbag questions at what are you watching podcast at gmail.com or find us on Twitter Instagram and letterboxd at W aiw underscore Podcast 2023. It's been quite a year for the big heavy hitter directors. Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon. Now we have David Fincher with the Killer. Next time is all about Fincher. All the movies, all the drama. He's a control freak and I love him. After that, we're going to dedicate an entire episode to Fincher's new film, The Killer, starring Michael Fassbender. Cannot Wait. Stay tuned.