Unforgiven

Dennis and Bonnie from Sublime Cinema are discussing the Best Picture winners and nominees for the Oscars. They mention Clint Eastwood's film Unforgiven and the other movies it competed against, such as A Few Good Men, The Crying Game, Scent of a Woman, and Howards End. They share their thoughts on each film and some trivia about the actors involved. Hi, welcome to Sublime Cinema. I'm Dennis. And I'm Bonnie. And we are here counting down the Oscar winners for Best Picture from worst to best. And we are all the way up into the key of number 18. 18. Yeah. So what do we have in store today? Today, we're going to be talking about Unforgiven from 1992. Yes. What's your history with Unforgiven? Yeah, that's the first time I saw it. I did. Yeah, I guess I must have known. I must have heard of it because I guessed Clint Eastwood after we talked about it. I somehow associated that. And it is, in fact, a Clint Eastwood movie. Not only is he starring in it, but like he does everything. Yeah. Well, he didn't write it, but he directed it and produced it. Yes. And he did eventually get, last week, a Western. Once I remember Clint Eastwood, then I was like, well, because he usually did. Well, except for the other Clint Eastwood movie that we watched was not a Western. Yes. Yeah. So he directed two Best Picture winners. Because he's done a lot of Westerns, right? Yeah. Well, he got his start acting in Westerns. Okay. I think his first directorial movie was, I think it was either an outlawed Josie Bales or High Plains Drifter. I don't remember offhand which came first, but he directed Westerns first. Okay. Yeah. And, yeah. So, to start off with a little trivia question, because I'm sure if you were watching Unforgiven for the first time, you would recognize a lot of faces. Yes. In fact, we've already podcasted about five movies that feature cast members from Unforgiven. Yeah. Okay. I wonder, how many can you name? Ooh, not five. Let's see. Certainly Gene Hackman. He was in a movie that took place in the 70s. I called it a buddy cop movie, but you said it wasn't. But it was, it wasn't that long ago. No, it wasn't too long ago. Wait, where is it in there? Is it that one over there? The French Connection. The French Connection, yeah. Yeah, we're always touching your mind there. Well, let's see. Morgan Freeman. Yes. Has he been in any movies we've watched? Yes. What's his other? The other one with Chloe Swift. Oh, yeah. We've watched another one with Chloe Swift. We just talked about it. We did. It wasn't Amadeus. They weren't in No Country for Old Men. No, we just talked about it. The Million Dollar Baby. The Million Dollar Baby. That's right. They were both in that. Yes, they were. They were both in that. I don't think you're going to get all five then. Yeah, I recognize those two. I don't, who else did we know? There was a woman that looked very familiar. Okay. Yeah. Was she in a movie that we've seen? Did you give up? This is painful for everybody, right? So, we have the French Connection and the Million Dollar Baby. Oh, here. That's right. Oh, that guy. I did not recognize him. It's the tall, skinny one. Yeah, skinny in the brothel owner or the billiard parlor owner. Don't tell me that one's from the cop movie. You should tell me. Well, you really like the heater, too. In the heat of the night. Okay. It has the night thing. Wow, I'm sure you've had more coffee. So, I should play this. Richard Harris plays Inglis Bob in Unforgiven, and we saw him in Gladiator. Oh, he did not look familiar to me. He's the one that I would have. Yeah, he was also the first Dumbledore in the first two movies. Then he passed away. Okay. And the trilogy that we watched? No, Dumbledore is Harry Potter. It's Harry Potter. Okay. He's not Gandalf. And then Francis Fisher from Strawberry Alice in Unforgiven. Also played Kate's mother, or not Kate, Rose's mother in Titanic. Oh, that's right. That's right. Rose's mother in Titanic. Okay. Okay, yeah. I'm so terrible at this game. No, that's fine. That's right. Yeah, so let's get into the losers. Because Unforgiven did win the Best Picture Oscar for 1992, and there were four other movies that it prevailed over. Do you remember a few good men? I do. I've seen that one probably at least twice. Oh, okay. Yeah, this is a... Rob Reiner directed it. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, he's on quite a streak there, and it's a military courtroom drama. I watched another Rob Reiner film this week. Yes, yeah. In this year. Directed The Princess Bride. He had such a streak in the late 80s, early 90s. Yeah. This is Final Tap. Oh, that's his too? Yeah. This is Final Tap, Stand By Me. Wow. The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally. Oh. Misery, and then A Few Good Men. I've never heard of Misery, but... Yeah. It's very stupid. Wow. Misery's great. In fact, I would put A Few Good Men at the bottom of that list. But then he just really kind of dried up, and I think his last really good movie was An American President a few years after this. Okay. So Michael Douglas won with, I think you saw it. Independence Day. No, Michael Douglas plays the president at Penning. Yes, I did see it. Yeah. Anyway, you like A Few Good Men? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Yeah, that last courtroom scene, of course, it's just fireworks. Yeah. Jack Nicholson is pretty... Yeah. Strange. Everything. The two of them, with Tom Cruise, they play off each other so well. They really do. Why is that? Well, they're both great actors, and it's very useful. Is it okay to say I think a lot of people could have done the Demi Moore stuff? Oh, totally. Okay, that's okay to say. That role is so forgettable. Yeah. It's not really her fault. It's just a very underwritten character. I think this is an Aaron Sorkin screenplay based on a play that he wrote. Oh, okay. He has his terrific dialogue. He's known for his dialogue. Yes. His dialogue is incredible. Even here, I think he does get better at plotting. I think this movie is just kind of lame in terms of the plot mechanics. There's not a lot of setup, but it's repetitive until it gets to that explosive scene at the end. I don't think that's what I remember about it. Oh, yeah, that's what everybody remembers. I don't love Tsukua too much because it's an effective scene, and it's enjoyable enough. You can't handle it. I know. So you're glad it didn't win? Yeah. I don't think it should have been anywhere near the nominations, but it was. Kevin Bacon was in that movie, too. Yes, it's very useful. It's a very useful movie for the Kevin Bacon game because there's a lot of people in it. The Crying Game was also one of the losers this year. I'm sure you haven't seen that. I have not heard of it. I don't know if I've heard of it. Yeah, I mean, this movie just kind of came out of nowhere. It's a small Irish drama about the Irish Republican Army. Irish actor Stephen Ray plays an IRA agent. Early in the movie, he takes a political prisoner and ends up kind of befriending him. And then when he goes back to Ireland to deliver a message to that guy's girlfriend and develops a relationship. And then there's a really shocking plot twist and a lot of political intrigue. And so this movie, it's an Irish-English movie that was kind of flopped in England. I think just because the politics of it were close to home. But it became a smash hit in America. It was one of the 20 highest grossing movies in 1992. Shockingly, because Miramax was the studio behind it. We've talked about them before. That's the studio headed by the Weinstein. Yeah. Yeah. Ever heard of them? Yeah. It's terrible, but really great at marketing. This is where they really put themselves on the map, because they marketed the plot twist. They promoted it as the movie everyone is talking about, but no one's giving away its secrets. And so there's kind of an urgency to try to get to it before it spoils. Oh. Yeah. So what do you think? Worth watching? I haven't seen it since 1992. I was going to watch it again this week, but I had a hard time finding it. I don't think it's the type of movie you'd enjoy, but I really spend 30-some odd years. Have I surprised you in any of them so far, of movies that I enjoyed that you didn't think I would enjoy? Oh, yeah. Oh, I have? Okay. Platoon. Oh, yeah. That was surprising. Definitely was surprising. I mean, it's not like I would watch that all the time. No. No. I was worried about how you would take it apart, but you liked that. Yeah. I think you surprised me in a few of them. Yeah. You're growing a lot. I'm growing. Yeah. So that's The Crying Game. Son of a Woman. Oh, I haven't heard of this movie. Yeah. I don't think I've seen it. Yeah. I wouldn't recommend it. Are you talking about Al Pacino? Yeah. Al Pacino plays a blind, cantankerous, retired colonel. Oh, I definitely don't recognize that. I'm not familiar at all. Yeah. Chris O'Donnell is a prep school kid who, to make some extra money, he takes a job at caretaking, this cantankerous person, and then it's kind of a coming-of-age buddy picture. That's two hours and 40 minutes. That's a long movie. That's really long. Amadeus was three hours, and I love that. It doesn't have that epic scope. This is just kind of a buddy movie. So that's really, really plodding, I think, for a movie of this style. Just keep going on like this. I watched it fairly recently and had a hard time staying with it. So far, this isn't the stellar lineup. No. No, but I do love Howards End, which is an adaptation of the great E.M. Forster novel. From the early 20th century, E.M. Forster is a British novelist. Are you familiar at all with the novel or E.M. Forster? No, not really. Okay. Yeah, he was a novelist that really had these incisive takes on British, post-Victorian, Edwardian social hierarchies in England. He was a British guy. He was, I think, openly gay, or at least maybe, as it was then, an open secret type of thing. So he did have that perspective as an outsider, and I think made it some kind of incisive or insightful as to the hypocrisies in society. This is a terrific movie. E.M. Forster was kind of all the rage at the time. We talked about last week, one of the losers, Amadeus, was A Passage to India, which was an E.M. Forster novel. And then Room of the View was also a Best Picture nominee, losing to Platoon. So we talked about that a while ago. So how does that compare to a Jane Austen novel? The novel? Or the movies? I think it's wonderful. This is one of my favorite literary adaptations. I just love how it happens. I really find it involving. I just love the characters and how everything comes together. Jane Austen, I think, is one of the great novelists. I don't even know what would be my favorite Jane Austen movie. But did Howard's End become a TV show? I think there was a British miniseries. I'm not familiar with it. It seems to me the most famous adaptation. It introduced a lot of audiences to Emma Thompson, who plays the lead role. She had been in a few other things with Ken Sbrana, who was her husband at the time. But here she co-stars with Anthony Hopkins, coming off an Oscar for The Sons of the Lambs. Which we'll see. Which we'll see, yes. Vanessa Redgrave, a very early role for Helena Bonham Carter. Oh, yes. Yeah. It's terrific. I really like Howard's End. But I really love the year 1992. Because there's a lot of movies that didn't make the Best Picture lineup. I just have so much nostalgia for it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think The Player by Robert Altman and Malcolm X by Spike Lee are two that were kind of in the mix to maybe get a Best Picture nomination. And get upset by a few good men and some good women. I think those are much more worthy. But you also have Quentin Tarantino's first movie with Reservoir Dogs that came out this year. It really didn't make a whole lot of a splash until it got a lot more attention once Pulp Fiction came out. And now it's probably one of his more acclaimed movies. Uh-huh. But my cousin Vinnie was here. My cousin Vinnie. She has a much sharper take on the legal profession than a few good men. Oh, really? Although I have no – I work in the legal profession. I really know nothing about military justice. But still, it's absurd. My cousin Vinnie is just – I mean, it looks – I mean, you see the previews in 1992. It looks terrible. Really? It's so great. It opens up beautifully. And it's like you don't think – like, you know, here's this kind of fish-out-of-water comedy. And it stars, like, Joe Pesci and the guy from The Munsters. Oh, right. And Marisa Tomei. And it's not like – And I know she won an Oscar for this role. Yes, she did. I've heard that there was controversy and that people thought it was – should have gone to somebody else. Yeah. Well, we'll get into that in a bit. We'll do that, okay. Yeah. But, I mean, she's hilarious in it. I really love – and it's just kind of a seemingly kind of – it's a fish-out-of-water – it's kind of even-handed about making fun of both sides, like the New York City people and the backcountry groups. And it's not like they're trying to railroad these two guys. It's like they still want justice, but they think they're guilty. Yeah. Right? It's not like they're all corrupt. Yeah. And Fred Grimm is also great. It's kind of overlooked as the judge from The Monsters. Oh, is it? Okay, yeah. Yeah. What's his name? Fred Grimm. Oh, I didn't even know that's what his name was. Yeah. Yeah. He was in The Monsters. The Silver Monster. And he's the judge. I love his – what? What did you say? Ute? Yeah. What's a ute? But the biggest moneymaker of the year, suppressing even the Batman sequel, was Aladdin. Aladdin. I helped that. Yeah. I want you to see that in the theater. Laura – let's see. We saw that at the very end of the year, so I don't know when it came out. Yeah, it came out around Thanksgiving. Yeah, so we saw it at the end of the year. Laura loved it. She was only one. She wasn't even two yet. She was only one. She was only one. She sat through the whole thing. It was wonderful. And then I feel like Adam was back from deployment, and he spent most of the time with CJ, who was an infant, in the lobby. But of course, we've seen it 14 million times. Very watchable movie. Robin Williams. Robin Williams. They have a movie of their own. I think very much holds up well. I've never heard of them. I've never heard of the Women's Baseball League before this. But it's not just like a historical drama. It's like you really have built up a lot of stakes for these women, and probably the best Madonna performance in a movie. Yeah, and there's a lot of quotable. Still Crying in Baseball. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Tom Hanks. Yeah. John Lovitz was great in this movie. Yeah. And then Sister Act. Oh, yeah. Sister Act is this year. Sister Act. Yeah. I don't think really a Best Picture contender, but a fun movie. I've watched it several times. I love the movie where you see the preview, and you're like, oh, that was so terrible. Yeah. Whoopi Goldberg's Hilarious. Yeah, really hilarious. Yeah. And how many times have we heard the Sister Act version of these Marian hymns? You know? How Holy Queen? Yes. I've heard it in the movie. Yeah. I Will Follow You. I mean, you haven't been at church where they've done that? No. I've been at church events where they've done that several times. Oh. Okay, that should be interesting. So now, when they play it, I expect for it to be the Sister Act. So is this Mike? No. What's his name? The Batman. Is this the- Converter? Oh, Michael Keaton. Michael Keaton? Yes. The last Batman. He only played the first two Batmans. So this relates to another Best Picture that we watched. It's Birdman. Birdman, yes. Oh, exactly. Yeah, because it was really about his no longer doing that. Is that Nicole Kidman? No, that's Michelle Pfeiffer as the Captain. Oh, Michelle Pfeiffer. Yeah, she's great. Nicole Kidman was in the third Batman movie. Okay. And David DeVito played the Penguin. Oh, okay. Yeah, so kind of a stack here. Yeah, that is a lot of- Yeah. So I know a lot of movies from this time, just not the Oscar lineup. Okay. It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he's got and all he's ever been on. Yeah. Oh, I guess they had it coming. We all had it coming, didn't we? Yeah. So, Bonnie, what is Unforgiven about? I should have thought about that, because you always ask me that question. Yeah. So Unforgiven is about the Clint Eastwood character. His name is Money? Mm-hmm. Will Money. Yeah. And he plays this guy who used to be this really big, I don't know what you call him, a criminal, Old West. Yeah, like a gunslinger. Yeah, like not in a good way. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of, you know, an anti-hero, right? Yeah. Who then gets married, and his wife tames him. Yeah. So we're seeing him 15 years later, maybe. Mm-hmm. Probably not 15 years, because the kids are younger than that. No, I mean 15 years after his first union days. Oh, right, right, right. Okay, yeah. All right. And he goes on this sort of vigilante justice thing. Right. Because they're the two bad guys that had stabbed a prostitute. Yeah. And were not held, you know, the prostitutes didn't feel like justice had been served with their punishment. So they put out a bounty on them. And so he was, through this series of events, follows he and his former partner, who is Morgan Freeman. And then this young guy who, I don't know who he is, who went out, set out to get this bounty and kill the guys that have done this. Gene Hackman plays the town sheriff. Mm-hmm. And yeah, that's what it's about. Okay. So what did you make of Unforgiven? Yeah, so I hadn't thought about what I made about it until you said before how I've grown. Because I do think that I, it's not really, I don't really like Westerns in general. Okay, great. And this is not the kind of movie that I really like. But I did appreciate some themes in this movie. It's got some really intriguing themes of, you know, about, you know, morality and justice. Yes. And, you know, what is, even the title, you know, Unforgiven, I've been kind of pondering, you know, what, you know, why'd they choose that title? Is it that he, and who's, you know, Reformation and not Reformation, and can people change? Right. Or do they only, you know, or do they only stuff it in? And then who, I don't know, there's all sorts of interesting themes that I found, you know. So do I prefer My Cousin Vinny? This is another movie that I'm kind of intrigued by. Yeah, I quite like this movie. As far as the title goes, well, first of all, I think it's just an improvement over the working titles that it had originally. I think the script was written actually in the 70s and was kind of in production limbo for decades. But I think the first title was the Will Money Murders, and then for a while it was known as the Cut Horse Murders, which I think would be a terrible title. But as far as Unforgiven, it's almost, it's, I think the surprise in the movie is that it's kind of set up like a redemption arc. This guy with this burden of the past. Like, okay, here's this quest he's going to go on that's going to, he can, gives him a chance to kind of redeem himself from the sins of his past. And really by the end of it, what we're kind of left with is just the man who accumulated more baggage, or more stuff that he's just not going to be able to forgive himself for. And so it kind of undercuts that kind of Western mythos, deconstructing that kind of quest narrative. Yeah, and also it deconstructs heroes. Yeah, because really the bad guy is the tough on crime law man. Right, Gene Hackman. Yeah. Yeah, well what's interesting is, who's the good guy in this movie? You know, there's really not any. I kind of love how even the victim are prostitutes, right? Yeah. You know, are there... Sex workers. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's a proper term for... Billiard employers. Billiard employers. No, I mean... No, they are. You know, so it's... That's why it's so intriguing is it doesn't try to take the easy way out. Even the people who are trying to do good... Right. ...have some ulterior motive. Exactly, yeah. At almost Machiavelli, you know, the doing wrong so that, you know, good can prevail, right? Right, okay. Including the, as you say, the sex workers, you know, because they're, you know, maybe they're prisoners, maybe they're being held, but they're also, you know, who knows? That's such a complicated, you know, whether they have free will or whatever. Or what other capacity do they have to make a living. What other capacity do they have to make a living and that, how'd they get there? We don't know. We don't know. I can kind of say that about most people, right? Well, exactly, yeah. So it makes it more interesting that these... It's much more interesting that these are prostitutes... Right. ...who are actually, you know, doing this as their... And effectively scrounging away money, you know? So they actually are, you know, making money. And I love how they, throughout the movie, are given agency and insist on their agency. They do, right. Yeah, which is pretty powerful. The lawman is... He is the bad guy, right? Right. But he's not, you know, no guns in the town or whatever the rules are, you know? His motivations are impure, obviously. Right. But you can also envision a version of the same plot where he's the hero. Right. He's very tough on crime and he's incredibly brutal. Yeah. But really, everyone he abuses has violated the law in some way or another. Right. It's not to justify it, but it's something like in another movie where you don't see humanity in the people he's beating, that he's just like, you know, because he does have a vested interest in cramping down on this kind of vengeance, vigilante culture. Yeah. And not wanting to, you know, his role is to instill justice, right? Right. Not to defend him, but... Right. In a different movie, he would be the hero. And I think his motivations are in a way more defensible than the money, who is in it for the money, really. Right. He's in it for the money. And we can see why, because he's trying to care for his kids and the hogs are sick. Which also makes it more, makes the whole thing more nuanced, because we have that, they make it more interesting by making it murder, right? Right. But if it had just been stealing food to feed your children because you're poor, you know, we all kind of give somebody a... Yeah. Give a pass for that. Well, that might be illegal, but it's not immoral. But this makes it more, again, interesting and intriguing because we'd all kind of agree that killing is immoral. Right. It is wrong, right? So even if you have a good motivation, it's still wrong. Yeah. And his motivation is to feed his family. And I mean, from those opening scenes, you can see why Strawberry Alice is motivated to seek her own justice, because it's brutal what they do to this poor, who seems, we don't really know how she was before this incident, but seems to be the most vulnerable of the women there. Right? She has probably the kindest heart of anyone in the movie. Yeah. I think you said stab, but her face is cut up, so... Yeah. Yeah. We don't really see her normal face in the movie. Right. Although she's still beautiful after that. Oh, she is beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I think, but just to go back to that, when you see Gene Hackman as Little Bill comes in to deal with the justice, I mean, it just, it smacks of these women are property. Yeah. And that's how he sees it. Yeah. He is in a kind of a no-win situation, because what do you do? She wants them hanged, and is that justice, or what do you do with them if you don't have a prison system like what we have now? You know, is whipping them that much better, or what, you know, how do you handle that? But just going back to the theme of forgiveness, really the only time in the movie we see somebody, in a way, even close to asking for forgiveness or trying to make amends, is when the guy's partner, one of the two guys that was let off easy, actually brings back an extra pony for the woman that was cut up above and beyond the sentence that they were given, because presumably he feels bad for her. Yeah. And this guy didn't, you know, I mean, he was with another prostitute, I think it was Strawberry Alice, and didn't actually do that or condone it, but was just with his buddy. And that kind of act of penance, for what it's worth, is just kind of thrown away, right? Yeah. Strawberry Alice, for reasons that we completely understand. Yeah. No, that's ridiculous. Right. And I tried to check on my re-watch, but I think that the horse that he wants to give her, that they send him away with, is the horse that crushes him later. Oh. Yes. But it's hard to tell if that is the same horse, because it's not really made a point of. Yeah, yeah. But it is interesting that that's the first guy who's killed. Yeah. And he's murdered. Mm-hmm. In a way, that's just very hard to watch. Yeah. Just kind of gets shot in the belly and, you know, screaming for water. Yeah. Yeah, and there's so many interesting things about that. You know, you had the three guys going out for the bounty, and the most reluctant of them, you know, is the one who actually does it, right? Yes. The other two are more gung-ho. I mean, even the Morgan Freeman, he seems more, you know, heading into it. He seems less conflicted. Right. You know, the Cliff Clint Eastwood character is so, like, his wife, who's passed, wouldn't like this. Right. You know, he's changed for her. And then all the way through, you're like, you know, has he really changed, or is he just, did he just stop doing those things because she wouldn't approve, right? And it's kind of unresolved by the end. It is. You know, you could argue it both ways. Right. But he's the one who actually, you know, they both kind of can't go through with it. So the one that's the least reticent, or the most reticent, is the one who actually kills him, but he's also the one who says, go get him water. I'm not going to kill you. Go tend to him. And he's the least vengeance-seeking out of everybody who's actually doing this. Yeah. The other big thing that I was thinking about in this movie is, this is 1992, so well before social media. But there's so many social media, like, fake news things that are, this movie is kind of prescient about it. And I think particularly about the newsman, who's writing a story about this great character, right? Right. And about this great gunslinger character, heroic guy, which is this... English Bob. English Bob, right? And throughout the course of this, he realizes that he's been completely duped. Yes. But he kind of gets duped twice in this. He does. Right? And it's so much like our social media today. It's hard. All you know are the voices that are coming at you. And this guy's only after the truth, but the truth... Right. Somebody sincerely seeking the truth can also be diminished if you're only hearing whoever's the loudest voice coming at you at the time. Yeah. Well, do you think he's after the truth, or is he after the... He's after the story. Yeah, the story that's going to sell the... Yes. I love how his change of perspective is manifested in the screenplay, because you have... His book is called The Duke of Death, right? And Little Bill sees it and calls it The Duck of Death. Right. Right. Which is kind of a little gag, but you see... Little Bill is Gene Hackman. Right. As Beauchamp, this novelist guy, is changing his perspective on English Bob, he starts calling him Duck. Oh, yeah. So then the duck... I mean, Duke. Yeah. Yeah. So you can see it's belittling this legend of the Duke of Death that he's really just all washed up. And it also shows the distinction in perspective, because what he called The Duke of Death is a big deal, and once people did fear him, until you put him next to Little Bob, who's Gene Hackman. Little Bill. Little Bill, right? Then it's like, well, next to him, it's not so much of a deal. And then Gene Hackman, next to Clint Eastwood, is also diminished. And that's where it just kind of reminded me of this whole social media, finding out how people sort of get all puffed up. Yeah. And a lot of it is fake puff up, and then you can see them diminish. Well, you don't always see them diminish. It's developing a narrative. It's developing a narrative, right? Yeah. And mostly it doesn't. And also, it's like modern day, probably not just modern day, but politics in general, where you have people of varying motivations, varying impure motivations. They're all kind of either start out bad or become corrupted. Right. And it's just like, this is really like all politics. Yeah. It's like the conflict that we have going on in the Middle East, but it could be any conflict. Death and killing is something that needs to be reckoned with. It has consequences. That's one of the legacies that I think Clint Eastwood's grappling with, with the Western, which is the genre he's been always associated with, is this heroic, someone gets in your way, you just kind of shoot them down. But here, when somebody is shot, there is an actual consequence. There's a weight to the death. That changes people. That changes people, right? And you get in kind of a cycle of violence, because, you know, Strawberry Alice wants these two guys dead, but their deaths mean something, and they create other consequences. And, you know, there's kind of this huge body count that accumulates from just this thing that starts off as, you know, the unfortunate encounter in a brothel. Right. Yeah. And, you know, so when people try to take politics nowadays and simplify it as to, like, here's the good team and here's the bad team. Yeah. You know, you have, like, false divisions that are created and false narratives that are created, because it's not like that. That's why I love that quote that you played at the beginning. Oh, right. Yeah. It's really very profound. You know, he's grappling with it. Then he tries to rationalize it. No, the other, the young guy tries to rationalize it. And then he's like, well, I guess he had it coming, though. You know, I did this terrible thing. I'm out. I can't, you know, I feel, I had no idea I would feel this way for, you know, I shot this guy, which is what I had intended to do. But I shot him while he was in this terribly vulnerable position. I don't feel heroic like I thought I was going to. Right. And here's someone who had filled his mind up with the narratives. He had filled his mind up with all these narratives, right? Yeah. And then it's not quite what he thought. And then he tries to rationalize it. And he's like, well, I guess he had it coming. And then Clint Eastwood, you know, he's like, well, we all have it coming. Yeah. Yeah, I do. I also like how it plays, really plays with our expectations where we kind of expect the heroic turn. Like the first confrontation between Little Bill and Lil Mooney. Interesting that they have the same name, Bill and Lil, as William. But you're thinking, oh, he's faking a fever. And he's going to eventually bust out the guns, and there's going to be this huge fight out here. And he just gets beaten. But he actually does have a fever. People get sick, and what are you going to do? And kind of has to stumble out of the saloon a loser. Later on in the movie, he does kind of have a heroic shootout that's just kind of unsatisfying. You do get the hint of, oh, Little Bill's still alive. There's going to be this big confrontation. And almost makes it worse, because now he kills him, just not in self-defense at all. Which you could definitely argue for. And he starts drinking again. Yes. Yeah, and that's a nice, because in that clip I played, the kid is drinking from a whiskey bottle. And then when Lil finds out that his partner has been killed, and kind of put out like a decoration, he reaches for the whiskey bottle that his friend has. And it's kind of, the movie doesn't bring a lot of attention to that moment. But it's like that's really what his wife must have cured him from. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and then I kept expecting that he was going to get killed. I figured it would either be one way or the other. It was like he was going to get killed, or that maybe he was going to marry this, or take this woman who had been stabbed. They do have a connection. They have a connection, and they both see the humanity in the other. Right. Yeah, and he actually objects to the prostitution because of the selling of his flesh. Right. Yeah, he won't participate in that. Yeah. Yeah, because he says because of his wife. Right. And she assumes that his wife is alive. Anyway, so she's not. And then his impure motivation actually ended up working out for him. It ends up being kind of a Machiavellian, that the bad ends up bringing good. How so? With the ending of the movie. Yeah. Well, we don't really know, right? Well, I mean, they tell you in the print at the end. Yeah. Well, I think the print says no one knows where he went, but it's like there's a rumor that he went off to San Francisco. Yeah. Yeah, I kind of like that book ending where it's almost both of them are centered on the wife that we never meet in the movie. There's no flashbacks. It's all just stories, narratives. And both sections, the book ends, focus not just on her, but on her mother. So there's a relation that we never see to the character that we never see, and her judgment of this guy. I guess we don't know that she's ever met him. Right. So as far as she, he's not, that's true. He's unforgiven in the eyes of the mother. Right. He's completely unforgiven in the eyes of the mother. Yeah. They indicate that he was able to take this money, use it, and better the life of his kids. Right. Which would probably, I mean, as a grandmother, I would say that would at least take some serious steps towards doing that. But instead, what he was, yeah, that's interesting, what he was known for before, he became famous and idolized for these bad things. And then an actual, just take out the murder and stuff at the end, but the actual good thing he does at the end is unrecognized. Yes. Yeah, because the wife's mother only knows the narrative that she has, right? Yeah. Who she believes this guy is, because she apparently lives far away and just believes that he leads to her daughter's death. But really, from her perspective and what she cares about, that he actually did do the right thing, that he did clean up his life and build a family and take care of the family. Right. Yeah, but she's in a way vindicated. Yeah, so I like unforgiveness quite a bit. Yeah. So, do you have your limerick? Yes, I do. In a town where the whiskey's been given, a gunslinger's past is unforgiven. He rides for revenge with the six shooters avenged. In Clint's Wild West, crimes are driven. I mean, the crimes are driven part is the least. Yeah, but let's follow the better ones, I think. Oh, no, yours is better. Okay. Well, money embarked on a quest in this dark, bloody tale of the West. As the body count rises, all one can surmise is that killing will make one depressed. That's very good. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, so unforgiven got nine Oscar nominations. Okay. Two Acting nominations. Can you guess who? Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman? No, Gene Hackman. Yes. Okay. Yeah, Clint Eastwood, Lost Best Actor to Al Pacino for Son of a Woman. This is first Oscar win, I think, on this solitary nomination. Okay. And Gene Hackman won Best Supporting Actor. Oh, okay. Yeah. Emma Thompson won for Howard Glenn, Best Actress. And you already said that. Marissa Tomei. Marissa Tomei. Who was the favorite for Supporting Actress? Yeah. Because that was some sort of an upset. It was a big upset. Judy Davis, a great Australian actress from the Owl movie, Husbands and Wives, was a front-runner. But there was also talk of Vanessa Brentgraves, veteran actress from Howard Glenn. Howard Glenn. And Joan Plowright, a great veteran British actress from a movie called Enchanted April, won the Golden Globe. So she was kind of in the mix. And then the other nominee was Miranda Richardson from a movie called Damage. But the same year, she was also in Enchanted April and The Crying Game, which was a Best Picture nominee. And she also has a case because she had a great year with three high-profile movies. So Marissa Tomei, actually, when the nominations came out, she wasn't on anybody's radar. So it was a real surprise when she was nominated. And so it was kind of a story between the announcement of the nominations and the ceremony. You have these four veteran British slash Australian-Irish actresses, classically trained Shakespearean actors, and this young New York actress who was best known for being on the Cosby show Spun Off a Different World before getting fired before the second season. Oh, I didn't know. I never watched A Different World. Yes, she was in the first season. OK. I think only white character. OK. Oh, maybe I do remember that, yeah. Yeah, and then she was fired by the second season. Yeah, so there was a lot of commentary about it's kind of funny to have her in with all the others. And one of these things just doesn't belong. Yeah. There is a really interesting red carpet moment where Rob Reiner going into the ceremony, the person was saying, oh, and a few good men is up for best picture. Are you guys excited? And he goes, yeah, we have about as much of a chance as Marissa Tomei. Oh. And this was kind of a joke because everyone knew that she's not. But she did. She won. And there was a rumor that Jack Collins read out the wrong name. Uh-huh. But it's not based on anything. It's just, you know. We've had that happen. It's just kind of a thing. Where they read out the wrong name. Maybe we'll talk about that next week. Oh, we could. We'll probably talk about it. Yeah, and so that kind of rumor kind of persisted. And the Academy always said, well, if someone reads out the wrong name, we're going to come out and correct it. And people were like, yeah, right. They're not going to do that. But now we know that. Now we know what happens when you read a wrong name. We'll probably get into that pretty soon. Yeah. But, yeah, Marissa Tomei actually won. I thought she was fantastic. She's so funny. Yeah, I mean, there's, yeah, she's great. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's a great comedic role. Uh-huh. Judy Davis and Vanessa Redgrass are just much meatier roles. But she had to do a lot in My Cousin Vinny. She does. She kind of carries the end of the movie. I think she's hilarious. I don't know that I would have voted for her that year. But you can kind of see how those other four may kind of cancel each other out. And with five nominees, I mean, you could win with like 20 to 23% of the vote. Uh-huh, right. If everyone's kind of losing on parody. Yeah. So, who knows? We don't get the voting results. Right. But I think people still watch My Cousin Vinny to this day. Yeah. And, yeah. That's great. There you go. Yeah. Okay, so that's good. Yes. I want to see if you can name the tune of the year's best song. Okay. Are you ready? I think you'll get this. I can show you the world. Shining, shimmering, splendid. Tell me princess, now when did you last. Yes. Yes. So, good job, young Aladdin. Obviously one of the best songs. It's not my favorite song from Aladdin. It's not mine either. Yeah. In other news, we have nothing left to choose from. This is yours. You have to choose. So, what do you think is coming up next? Well, I'm rooting for Moonlight so that we could go right into the Oscar thing. But I also have Parasite, The Best Years of Our Lives, Schindler's List, and Gone With the Wind. Yes. Yeah. I think Moonlight's coming up soon. I'd like to see it make one more stop so that it matches its year and be kind of symmetrical. It's in 2016. Oh, okay. But it won in 2017. Okay. At any rate. So, I think at this point, I'm just going to do one guess. Because back in our birth year. Well, you have to replace. No, I don't. You don't have to replace? Well, here's what I'm thinking. Because since our Birdman podcast was when we kind of drafted a list of what's coming up next. And we both have five. And we're getting points. It's really unfair because, you know. Because I knew nothing. Right? And I'm familiar with these movies. And plus, my own rankings contribute to it. Right. So, I kind of know what has bonus points and what doesn't. Okay. That's true. No wonder you're winning. Yeah. And I've already kind of clinched the win in that sense. Because I'm up by 12. And there's really only seven movies left that haven't been taken. Yeah. Or eight. And really, of the ones left, I don't think any of them are going to be 17. Really. I think you can stay with five. But I'm just going to do one pick that I think is going to be next. All right. You just do one pick. And I'm going to do The Silence of the Lambs. Really? Yeah. Okay. All right. Oh, man. Yeah. I don't know if I'm ready for that. I did Platoon, though. You'll be fine with The Silence of the Lambs. Okay. I don't think it's as terrifying as No Country for Old Men. Oh, really? That was very terrifying. It's great. That guy is still, like, picturing him, and I'm, like, freaked out. Oh, Moonlight. Moonlight. Okay. I won, right? Yes. This is probably the role that I'm probably on. Yeah, so this will be an interesting discussion. Okay. Moonlight. Yeah. I don't know anything about this movie. Yeah. Other than I've seen the Oscar thing, so I know it has a mostly black cast, if not an all-black cast. Yeah. This will be an interesting test, because in my experience, it's always very beloved among film buffs, but casuals seem to really hate it. Oh. Of course. Well, it'll be a good test. I hope you like it. Okay. But, you know, we'll discuss it next week. It's kind of, the style is kind of nomadland. Okay. Okay? It's not very similar to nomadland, but just that kind of structure, so I don't think the main girls will like it too much. Hopefully you'll enjoy it. Okay. And if not, we will talk about La La Land next, I mean, Moonlight next week. Boy, Bonnie and Clyde, they just didn't have it. Oh, yeah. Well, we'll get all into that. It'll be so fun. Bye. Bye.