Clint Eastwood - Space Cowboys

0:00 Amber. Are you familiar with the name Ed Dwight. I feel like I should be, but no, we're both space nerds, so I thought maybe you might, but it's not a name everybody knows. Let me tell you a little bit about Ed Dwight. He was born in Kansas in nineteen thirty three and listed to the Air Force in fifty three. Got a degree in aeronautical engineering, was a skilled test pilot, so he was a natural shoe in to go to the Edwards Air Force Base for the Advanced Research Pilot School under Chuck Yeger. He's recommended for Astronaut Group three, which is the group that contained Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins of Apollo eleven, fame, Bill Anderswalt Cunningham, Gene Sermon, all these guys that walked on the Moon. But then after Kennedy was assassinated a few days later, he got orders to ship out to Germany. I forgot to mention this is because he was black, so white exactly now. I bring that up because about a year ago, in May twenty twenty four, he became the oldest man in space.

1:03 Ed Dwight, at ninety years old, got to fly on Blue Origin and he beat out Shatner, who was also ninety but a few months younger. And so I just thought it was a really great story about redemption, about getting to go to space in your old age and those missed opportunities. I'm just found that really really heartwarming. Yes, absolutely, And I'm. Sure you can see why that's been on my mind, because today I was hoping we could talk about a film by Clint Eastwood, his two thousand underrated classic Space Cowboys.

2:00 I'm so excited to talk about this movie. I've watched this movie a bunch. It's one of my mom's favorites. Fantastic, It's it's definitely a departure for Clint Eastwood, which we'll get into. But you know, I'll be the captain on this episode, but I'm not going to be able to do it without my mission specialist here, Amber Lewis. Thank you for joining me. Oh, I'm always ready to talk about NASA and space and NASA in space. Yeah, I feel like you all you and I always get on these episodes. We talked twenty ten a while ago. Yes, Yeah, I actually Jeff called me years ago. My very first episode was one of the nineteen eighty six episodes for Space Camp.

2:41 Oh my gosh, I lived that movie. I lived and loved that movie. I've been to Space Camp myself twice, which is exactly why he called me. Yeah, oh absolutely, I'll share my pictures and my stories. But so tell me, what are your thoughts on Space Cowboys. Well? I always think of my dad because my mom. My dad went to a very small high school in Eton, Indiana, and my mom went with him to his I don't even know what year high school reunion, but it was when he was in his sixties, and she said that watching him with his buddies was like watching this movie.

3:25 It was just like, you know, there weren't many of them, and yeah, you know, they were all big personalities. And so she gets a kick out of this movie because she always sees my dad and his high school buddies. Oh that's that's adorable. Especially just I love the idea of referring to anything Clint Eastwood does as adorable because he's the must scratchy old man. So we're talking about Clint Eastwood. This was a bit of a departure for him. He's he's had a long career as a director, as a writer, as a producer. I've got some fun facts about him, but I you know, I know Jeff likes to have three fun facts, but I also like to break the rules a little bit. So I've got four fun facts about Clint Eastwood for you. First, as just the crazy man that he is, he actually not only survived a plane crash in open water when he was in the Army, he survived in shark infested waters and swam back to shore three to four miles through shark infested waters. That's the one of the coolest things. I would never stop telling that story.

4:28 Serious is terrifying. But then also like I can't imagine the shark that would be brave enough to bite Clint Eastood. They're probably, you know this guy, We're gonna just keep it wide birth. His his skin's like leather. I don't want to bite into that. No, he does credit he was a lifeguard when he was younger, and so he was a very strong swimmer. And he also said he was not aware that it was shark infested waters, otherwise that might have had a very different toll on his psyche. But moving into his film career though as an actor, obviously he has had you know, a crazy career. He's an icon. He was offered some other really iconic roles. First, he was actually offered James Bond for the movie Live and Let Die. He was very early on in the process, but immediately he said, no, that should be a British actor.

5:19 I'm not going to do that, which was the right call for sure. Yes, I mean, I don't get me wrong. You know, he's He's done some characters that I think have James Bond energy. I know, you know, you guys are just talked about the the Iiger Sanction recently and definitely some Bond vibes there, but also very different. He's his own energy, you know. Yes. He also was very very early on and talks to play Superman just because he's he was a name to attach to it. But I mean it's clearly that was wrong and he knew it. So he said, no, pretty were. Just making a list of everybody of a certain age. I think somebody just said, hey, who's big right now?

5:59 Just call him? You know. Yeah, there's no way you look at Clane's to it and thinks Superman. But heat here we are. So the next fun fact is as a director, he is I mean, he's known for being a crotchety old man. I think he was even before he was old, but it comes through in a lot of his work. He does very minimal makeup, very minimal lighting, and he doesn't really let people do a bunch of rehearsals. He says, you know, show up, we're going to get this in one take. He'll do two if there's a mistake. But he really does one takes and burns through it. And everybody says working with him is exhausting, but according to him, it's not because he's fast. It's just because he doesn't stop. It's just one thing and then another and another, and I think that's it shows through. It's a very minimalist way of going about it, but it creates a different tone in all his movies, and I love that.

6:48 I love this story that I've heard from multiple actors that he talks very quietly when he directs because he's used to being around horses and you don't want to shout action and scare the horse, so he says very quietly. When it's time to begin, he'll be like, okay, go ahead, and then when they're done, I'll say, you know, stop or that's enough. Of that crap. Okay, good moving on, and he's just so understated and they're like it takes a while to get used to it, but once you do, it's like pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, he definitely knows his way around a good film. You know, love him or hate him, the guy can make a good film. Yes, it's also funny you mentioned him being so comfortable around horses. He's allergic to horses. I recently found.

7:35 Out, oh my gosh. Which is just of all the. People right, so commercials for Benadrel. With his. Yeah. The last fun fact I got to bring up though, because this plays into his rebel spirit a little bit. His production company mal Passo translates directly to bad Step, and the reason he named it that was when he was offered the role of the man with no Name and a fist full of dollars. His manager said that that would be a bad step in his career, and apparently he never forgot that or let it go. So I love that he's just that that crouchy old man in real life as well.

8:16 Yep. So before we get into the movie, I want to hit you with one last little quote from Clint East two about filmmaking, and I think that this makes a lot of sense given what we know about the guy. But he said, like most pictures that I've done, I've had no idea whether anyone would ever want to see him, but I figured I'd like to see him. It's just that simple, understand, Ye, Humble, that's our guy. Oh my goodness. So let's talk about space cowboys now. But this is pretty far into his directorial career. He started directing in the seventies, so when he got to this one, I love that he went with a different tone. It's not a cowboy movie. It's it's a little more lighthearted. But let me offer you a little synopsis of it here.

9:00 In nineteen fifty eight teen Datalus, the Elite Air Force test pilots Frank, Hawk, Jerry, and Tank were poised to become America's first astronauts, but fate had other plans. Forty years later, a crippled Russian satellite threatens Earth, and NASA turns to Frank for help because only he understands the obsolete system. On these conditions, his old team got a shot the mission they were denied. Now these geriatric flyboys must prove they still got the right stuff as they train alongside younger astronauts, defy expectations, and embark on adventures of a lifetime. So you said you've loved this movie it reminds of your parents. I gotta say it's the same for me. This is the kind of movie that my mom would always well, let's watch something Oh what do you want to watch? Something fun? This is the exact ultimate example of something fun. It's not too heavy, it's not too dark. There's some drama, but you're really watching it for the fun, right.

9:53 Yeah. It reminded me of Armageddon, is of the the joking around and the building of the team, and kind of the adversarial two teams, you know, kind of aspect of it, but just a much more lighthearted version of a doomsday scenario. Yeah. Much more grounded than that too, I think. Yeah, it's especially given that it's it's premise. I mean, I think both were unfortunately very realistic. You know, a meter hitting us could absolutely happen. But you know, this is a movie starring people that were at the peak of their careers during the Cold War, So a nuclear threat on a Russian satellite makes a lot of sense for a very realistic, grounded threat.

10:39 Yes, I did think it was funny though that Like it was like the Russians have never changed, They're still liars. Yeah, dude, grow up a little bit. Yeah, he's still wearing the uniform. Like, Yeah, it's a it's definitely a bit cartoonish, and you could tell Clint eastoo's got some some of his carrying, some of his I don't want to say xenophobia, but his cold war to hatred is carried over into this for sure. The cartoonish evil villain. So this movie is really for me. It's it's a cast movie, it's an ensemble movie. Clint east was obviously leading it, but we've also got the other members of teen Dale, Tommy Lee Jones, James Garner, and Donald Sutherland. Who are the reasons that Clintie should said he wanted to do this movie really, He's like, I want to work with these guys. I think it'd be fun. So let's start with Tommy Lee Jones.

11:30 Let's what are your thoughts on him in this movie. I love his scenes with Marcia gay Harden. Yeah, it's so against type, Like everything else he's doing is typical. Tommy Lee Jones, Texan you know bravado, but his scenes with her are so delightful and have such a sweet sense of humor and you know, some chivalry and I just love that whole part. Yeah, it's not something you see from him a lot. He's kind of flirty, like he's fun, and that's that is not you know, we've seen the gruff and the tough and the sarcastic Tommy Lee Jones and a bunch of movies, but this was definitely a different side from him, and especially interesting coming from an Eastwood movie to get something so wholesome and just cheerful.

12:21 Yes. Also, you know, his character hawk about going into the third act there is diagnosed with terminal cancer, which changes the tone of the movie for sure, and changes the tone of his character. How did you feel about that choice. I was a little ify on it, if I'm being honest. Yeah, I kind of go back and forth on it. But you know, I love that he goes up anyway. You know, they're like he's going to die, like what, you know, it's gonna it's fine, like just send him and you know that ends up being a plot point that is is important later on. I don't at all love the end of his story.

13:09 Yeah, I mean, well we'll get into that. We'll avoid spoilers early on, you know. Yeah, but the way they handle all of that, I think it has a lot of grace to it. Yeah, this is this is one of those things, and you know, you compared it to Armageddon, and Armageddon is my go to example for like sometimes in sci fi you can just turn your brain off and it's fine, like, oh, that doesn't make sense. You know, the classic story of ben Affleck, you know, trying to make it make sense. He's like, you know, why would we be doing this when they could just trainationaluts to Drell. He's like, shut up. Then, yeah, I get that this one because it feels a little more grounded. Sometimes when they make the decisions to you know, oh, he's got cancer, we'll send him up anyway, I'm like, no, they wouldn't. I'm sorry, they don't care about the pr They're not gonna do that, so I you know, I I think that's one of the downsides to keeping a movie like this realistic and grounded, which they did a very good job of, is certain when they do take those certain liberties, I'm like, okay, come.

14:09 On, yeah, next year started pulling it one thread and it all falls apart. Oh yeah, very very quickly. But next is James Garner as Tank. I love James Garner. Oh my gosh, he's so much. He's just he is charming no matter what he does or says, and has been his whole life. I found myself wishing that they gave him more to do. Yeah, he had kind of the least presence of all of the characters. Absolutely, it was kind of disappointing if I'm being honest. Yeah, he you know, he's born again Christian I guess, or a reverend or pastor or something, and so they kind of give him a couple of references to that and ask him to say a prayer here and whatnot. But like, as far as actual development, as far as what he does, you know, he operates the Canada Arm, which grabs the satellite, which they try to make some high stakes thing and I'm like, I've watched them use the Canada Arm. It's pretty boring. Yeah, So yeah, he did sort of feel like he was just there because they wanted James Garner in it. And I'm not complaining because I like his rapport with the group, But yeah, he was easily the most overlooked character, unlike Donald Sutherland, who I think really just took every opportunity in this movie. He's hilarious.

15:28 Oh my god, I have to confess. When he meets Marcia gay Harden and he kisses her hand and he says, you can call me anytime, I blushed, like my whole face turned red. I don't know how she made it through that scene. I would have fainted. It's I mean, it's Donald Sutherland though he's looked old since he was like thirty, right and so, and when he shows up, he's got like this awful long ponytail, like this solid white ponytail. It's just he's coke bottle glasses. Yeah, he's so ridiculous. But yeah, they lean into it so hard. He's like this playboy esque character despite being old man Donald Sutherland is, But he pulls it off, you know what I mean. Not a lot of people could, so I know. Clint Easwood said he specifically did this movie because he wanted to work with these guys, both because they're they're venerated actors, but also just because he thought it'd be fun. And if I had to rank the reasons to see this movie. Their dynamic is top of the list.

16:34 Oh my gosh. Yes. The chemistry that the four of them have is just sparkles. Yeah. And then the exact opposite of that chemistry is James Cromwells. The farmer from Baby and he's so. Mean, he's awful, and I mean he's really good at being awful. Has been in quite a few movies where he plays the bad guy, and everything I understand about him as a person is he is just delightful. He is sweet, he's charming. I remember after he filmed Babe, he went full vegetarian because he was so taken with the animals. I think he might have gone vegan. I don't know, don't quote me on that. But just the sweetheart of a man. And he plays such a dick and he's so good at he's oh awful, he h.

17:21 He several times throughout this movie is making decisions that like you can tell, he's talking, you know, out of one face to this person another one over here. And in the news he puts on his charming you know leader, you just want to punch him. Just such a punchable guy. Uh, And that's perfect to play across Eastwood. The only issue I have is Eastwood doesn't punch him at any point in the movie, and that just seems ridiculous. Yes, he's just screaming for it. You can't put him opposite Clint Eastwood with that punchable face and not have him do it. But I'm sure that's maturing. He is always the boss of him too, So. Yeah, true, very true. I also mentioned Marsha Harden, who is, in my opinion, the emotional heart of the movie, but also just a fantastic character. I love her intelligence, I love her her sassiness. I love how strong they made her role in Nasa as a woman in stem, especially in the year two thousand. I love everything about her except the bangs.

18:19 Oh my god, who did she piss off to get that wig? It's I oh, so atrocious. I don't even I can't even, I don't even know. It's it's painful to look to the point where I watched this one with my wife. She had never seen it before, so we were prepping for this and we sat down and she comes on screen and Devn just says, no, those bangs are a choice. First thing out of her mouth. Yep, yep, I knew that was common there's got to be something. But I love, you know, to your point about her being, you know, this kind of strong figure there at NASA. I love at the end, she's very emotional. She's formed a bond with these guys, and particularly with Tommy Lee Jones, and you know, there comes a point where she's crying because you know, the stakes are really high, and but she holds it together. She doesn't like break down and freak out. She like wipes her tears away, and she's very focused on her job. And I thought that was amazing that she wasn't a cliche.

19:24 Yeah, especially you know, you know, we talked about this being a grounded NASA film, and I think Eastwood took a lot of effort into making it accurate or at least believable in that sense. And so you know, everybody in the control room, including her, who's emotional about what's going on, are still just okay, here's the problem, let's work it, let's solve it. You know, they're not fighting at each other and like at each other's throats as much as I wanted them to punch James Cromwell, everybody's just solving the problem. And I do love that. I love those kind of depictions because whenever they make them all like at each other's throats, and it's like, that's not come on, Like they're professionals. Let's not undermine that.

20:04 So I want to talk a little bit about the production you and I both mentioned earlier, though it's not a lot of production history on this one. I think Clainy Schwood was a little bit tight lipped, but also it just it seems like he's kind of no nonsense. I couldn't find any fun stories or any gossip. So just to give you a brief background. Though it was filmed in July nineteen ninety nine, the majority of it was shot in Los Angeles, but they obviously did some shots at Johnson Space Center Kennedy Space Center. They did some interiors for the satellites and the aircraft and stuff in Burbank. I think to achieve the realism east we collaborated closely with NASA using actual training facilities. They trained in the Neutral Buoyant Lab, which is that big pool you know that you get in with space suits. They trained on actual shuttle simulators in camera. Most of the weightlessness was simulated through combination of rigs and camera tricks and miniatures because they just really don't want to put these old guys on the vomit commet, which is you know, this was filmed with probably about three or four years, I think after Apollo thirteen came out, and I have yet to see a movie before or since that nailed the zero G the way Ron Howard did. But the filming for that is grueling. It's difficult. It can make people nauseous, and I think especially with these guys getting up there in age, and especially the director making the decision for himself was like, I don't want to put myself through that. I'm not going to do that.

21:28 I heard an interview with him where he said that he had never aspired to be an astronaut back in the day. That was not anything that ever captured his imagination being in that little, tiny, confined space, and so I can't imagine him being willing to go through with the vomit comment that you through. I mean, that's funny because I would kill to get on that thing. But that's you know, that's just me. So Ilm handled the visual effects, which I think are stunning. You know, I hadn't watched this one in a couple of years, but I watched it back and I think they still really hold up. It's I was really impressed, especially a lot of space shots. Yeah, there's a shot where you're looking from the satellite into data lists, like through the you know windows, at the crew inside data lists, and just everything about that space shot I absolutely loved. I love the idea of Clint Eastwood and George Lucas collaborating.

22:34 I can't imagine them getting along for even a second, right. I think George was like, here are the keys and I'm going to go now you we. Can communicate via email. That's yeah. It was nominated for Best Sound Editing. I think as it's only an Oscar nom which makes sense. This isn't exactly you know, Oscar bait material, but I love that it's still got something out there because again the effects in this we are really really good. At twenty five years old, and I still loved him. So speaking of sound, we need to mention the score by Lenny Nehouse. We have our Payload specialist Wayne Whited here to give us his expert analysis of the score.

23:15 Over the years, there have been some legendary director composer pairings. Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herman, Tim Burton and Danny Elfman, Steven Spielberg and John Williams. But one that has often overlooked but nonetheless important or substantial, would be the pairing of director Clint Eastwood and is frequently used composer Lenny Niehaus. Over the course of his expansive career of nearly fifty six years, Kneehouse would work with Eastwood no less than fifteen times, usually as a composer for the scores to his films. Kneehouse was very well known in Hollywood as an orchestrator, a talented musician, working behind the scenes with many great film composers like Jerry Fielding, John Addison and Danny Elfman. His association with Jerry Fielding was the greatest, and the two work together on many films and television series, including Straw Dogs, The Bad News Bears in nearly two dozen episodes of Hogan's Heroes. Lynny Niehouse has already known Eastwood from way back. The two had first met when served together in the US Army at Fort Ord back in the nineteen fifties. Neeehouse had worked as an orchestrator on the film's type Rope and The Outlaw Josie Wales, both films Clint Eastwood start in. It wouldn't be until nineteen eighty five that he would actually score a film for the director, his first being a big hit Western Pale Rider. Earlier that same year, he would score Vanessa in the Garden, an episode of Steven Spielberg's TV series Amazing Stories, also directed by Clint Eastwood. Their professional relationship

24:45 would continue for many years, and Niehouse would ultimately score fourteen of Eastwood's projects up until the two thousand and two film Blood Work. Afterwards, he stepped back from his scoring duties and returned to orchestrations, which would allow Wow him to work with the director for another six films before ultimately retiring after sixty years in the business, before passing away at the age of ninety and twenty twenty. The score for the two thousand film Space Cowboys, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring himself, Tommy Lee, Jones, Donald Sutherland, and James Garner, is another unique masterpiece from composer Lenny Nahouse. The film starts off with a soft and beautiful main theme using gentle strings and a solo piano, while the score itself is quite short, there are some great highlights within.

25:33 The composer brings a lot of full orchestra of Gravadis with a heavy use of brass and strings to tell the story with sweeping themes for both the main cast and its younger secondary players. There's also a fantastic fanfare march for the full marching band in orchestra, a definite standout when heard first in the film. Throughout the second half of the film, Kneehouse mixes subtle string harmonies in brass with the and the pieces where the Data List's crew reached to space, as well as the momentasque played for their return home is incredible. It's a wonderful score throughout, which comes to no surprise that it was nominated for a BAFTO Award and one second place the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, shared with Charlie Parker due to the unique production process to create the final mix. Now, this is the point where I usually tell you how the score has been released and how you can get it to listen to it at home. However, like most of Lenny Hawas's films and television scores, the music to Space Cowboys has never officially been released in any format.

26:38 What we did get was an album compilation a CD of popular music and songs heard in the film like I Only Have Eyes for You, the Best Is Yet to Come, and the Frank Sinatra hit fly Me to the Moon, among others, but not a second of knee House's music. Back in two thousand, Warner Brothers did print off an extremely limited number of for Your Consideration CDs of the score for the Academy Award members on the board to hear and consider the nomination, which is a common thing for the studios to do. No more than one hundred CDs were printed, and it is nearly impossible to get your hands on a copy without paying hundreds of dollars, even if you could find a copy. Lenny Neehouse is a wonderful and talented composer and jazz musician, one of the best Hollywood has brought us, and I hope that one day one of the labels will find it time to release Space Cowboys on CD, as well as many of his other works like Heartbreak Ridge, the TV mini series Titanic, which I remember to have an incredibly powerful score, and even the Rookie So the next time you're watching a Clint Eastwood film and see the name Lenny Nehouse appear on the screen, tune in your ears and listen carefully to the music underneath, because you're in for an incredible musical experience.

27:53 Thank you so much, Wayne, Your insight was amazing as always, particularly since I didn't really notice the score to this movie, as I gotta be honest, so I'm gonna have to go back and watch it again with those comments in mind. So moving on, Andrew, how were the reviews for Space Cowboys? What do people think? The reviews were overwhelmingly positive. Roger Ebert called it a minor jam with style. He actually compared it to Armageddon very favorably. As I'm sure you can imagine. It holds a seventy eight percent critics score in Rotten Tomatoes, which it always really comes back to. All of yous come back to the actors' performances and the ILM's effects. Gross ninety thousand, sorry ninety million domestically, which outperformed expectations for a film like this. You know, you don't expect a bunch of senior citizen leeds, no real Hollywood A listers, but it still it did really, really well. It exceeded expectations.

28:48 So yeah, I love this movie. I've seen in a million times, and it seems like the critics agree with us. I remember that summer you could not get away from the InSync Space Cowboys song, and you only hear it for like ten seconds in the movie, and it doesn't even play over the end credits. Yeah, it doesn't, It doesn't. That song was at all everywhere. All right, let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we will talk about the pivotal moment. So what what are some of the scenes that stand out to you. I know we've kind of touched on a couple, but what are some scenes that you think of when you think of Space Cowboys.

29:30 I'm kind of jumping around, but the first one that always comes to mind is when they're at NASA and their training and there's the young team of astronauts and then there's the old team and they go to lunch and they young guys send them like insure cans, and then like a couple days later, they send them like baby food. Yeah, yeah, and I love that scene. I just think that's so fun. There's a lot of good stuff, like that in the training scenes, I love when they're doing their physical and they're they're taking their eye exam. Everything throughout the entire movie is competition between Tommy Lee Jones' is Hawk and Clint Eastwood's Frank, and so they're competing about who can do the best at the eye exam. And once they're finally done, Donaldson's Jerry steps up, covers his eyes. He goes, I'll just do the last line really quick, and just powers through it. As he walks away, he's like, may not be able to see for ship. My memory's fine.

30:32 It's it's a door. It's it's so fun he's so funny. And you know, talking about Clint Eastwood as a director, I can't think of another example where he did a comedy. But that's what I would rank this as. That's how it classify it, because it's there's so many things about it to make me genuinely laugh out loud. Yes, it's very light and lighthearted, you know, right up until like the very end when we're doing serious work, you know, but everything leading up to that is he handles it very well. I love the scene when he's introduced as his older self and he's fixing the garage door opener with his wife and she's like, he's an engine and you know, space engineer, and she's like, do you want me to read the directions?

31:21 Yeah, it's their rapport. I feel like this movie could have benefited from a little more time with those two together. He and his wife are adorable. Inness. That seems great. It's that softer side of Clint Eastwood. But yeah, they don't really get to explore that a whole lot, which is unfortunate. But I do like, I mean, she's got his number. She when oh yeah, Marcia gay Harden and the astronaut leave, you know, She's like, we need to work on your social skills. Yeah. I gotta say. I go back and forth on how I like the opening to this movie. So it takes place in the fifty it's black and white. It's a flashback to when Team Dayless was young. And I love the scenes. They're all great and the guy they got to play young Eastwood.

32:10 Toby Stevens, baby Toby Stevens doing some great eyebrow work. That is Maggie Smith's. Son that he's famus future. Star of black Sales Like I love him and I died when I saw that that was him doing Clint Eastwood. Yeah, I gotta also throws out there, you know who else is in this that I had to literally pause it and rewind really quick to see if that was true. One of the young pilots when they're looking for old Man Hawk is John Ham. I didn't ronize. I knew that, like I knew that guy, but I didn't recognize him until I looked on the credits. Yeah. I literally was like, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. I grabbed them up, pause and round. I was like, is that I think that's John Ham. He's got one lot and he's in the background. But but yeah, so the opening scene the black and white, the decision that I struggle with is yes, overlays all their voices with the modern cast, and it kind of works.

33:07 I feel like he's telling me I'm not smart enough to figure out who's it. Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, these are all very talented actors, you know, and the guys they got playing younger them do a great job, but like they sound like they're seventy because they're seventy. You know, it's kind of a trope at the time, because they do it in a league of their own as well. Yeah, I don't know, it felt more natural than a league of their own, at least maybe to me. I don't know. Something about it just really didn't sit right. And it added to the fact that, again being a giant space nerd, you know, I'm watching this and they bring out the monkey and this I don't even remember the monkey's name, but they say, I'm like, no, that's not.

33:50 The chimp that went up was named Ham. Why wouldn't you just name the monkey Ham like that? But I get it. You know, you're creating an alternate history. You're gonna fudge some facts. That's just me, you know, a dork. So what what would you say? Is the pivotal scene? Though? What what makes the movie for you? I love and this is done a lot in these kind of movies. I love the scene in The Simulator where Tommy Lee Jones says, like, just turn everything off. Switching to secondary. I'm going to man, you can't do that, Coronel. The birds on the computerized track thousand speeds, hair speech too high, stick to their protocol?

34:32 Are you? I got andronic payers? You're going to manual controls? You? Why not do that? From the secondary hydraulic failer. You're gonna come on shore. M Yeah, come on, gee, you can't throw all that at them in the first run. We got three weeks to send four old parts into space. This is flight school one oh one stuff. Oh, this is not a stripped down show play. You got to do it their way. I don't need a computer to tell me how to land a down airplace, not an airplane current. It's a frying brick on approach, and you got to use it on board computer. Well, if the onboard computer fails, it's never failed. Houston Horizon, Go Horizon request secondary landing. Please Houston Horizon request on board computer failure on second landing.

35:29 All right, run it again. And then he just flies it because he's a pilot, And you know, it reminds me of like in the Right stuff when they're arguing and they're saying, like we are pilots. We're not just going to sit in this thing and go up and come down, like we need to be in control of our craft. And so I love, you know, the way he shows off that he can, you know, land anything. And then of course it comes back around again at the end. Yeah, it's I love that callback. It's extremely cheesy, and that's you know, if you look at I mentioned the positives in the reviews, but a lot of the negative reviews are this is full of cliches, and that's definitely one of them. But it's it's an adorable one and it's it's sweet, and if you go into it with that understanding, I think it works. I do love that scene.

36:17 It's actually, uh, you know, our friend Dayton over at Docing Bay uses that scene in his his opening, and I remember, I don't know if you remember this, but it was a while ago. He actually messaged a group of us that had guested and said, hey, anybody got any recommendations for what to add? And that scene for is one of the first ones that popped up. Because I love Tommy Lee Jones's voice. It's fantastic, and I love the way he delivers that line, you know, but yeah, the way it comes back is one of those moments you have to suspend disbelief. This is a space shuttle. It's you can't just like, you can't eyeball it, guys, that's not of his words. But you know, it's it's fun and it's a fun movie. I think I would probably add it that was was on my list for pivotal scene. It is. It's it really says what kind of movie you're dealing with here. It's that that old man energy of you know, ah, these young kids of their new fangled technology. I'm gonna show how he did it, and you know, applying that to space travel, which is silly, but it really encapsulates what the movie is gonna be.

37:20 But I'm also going to add the moment that you know, we as the audience, have known that there's some secret about Icon, which is the supposed Russian communication satellite, but the moment that it's revealed to the astronauts that this is actually a launch system for nuclear weapons left over from the Cold War, and they don't want it to come down because they're word they're gonna get lil and blah blah blah and nuclear war. Everything's gonna end terrible if we don't fix this, because I think that takes the tone of the movie very in a very different direction and actually adds some tension, because up to that point there's tension in the sense that all space travel is dangerous, but there's no real driving force to the action, and you know, like I mentioned Space Camp, the Wonderful nineteen eighty six movie discussed. Yes, it's a silly movie, but all of a sudden, Okay, now we're running out of air. We've got to solve these problems. We got to get home alive. Up to that point in this movie, it was okay, cool, it's just a regular old mission.

38:20 Now it's okay, we've got to fix this. There's issues, there's a time crunch, and I think that that is what keeps it from being overly sentimental. Yeah, because especially you know, they've got them on this like thirty day window to prep and launch, like. Which is just dumb. Yeah, I'm trying. I'm really I'm trying to tamp down to the nerd. That's like, you can't train regular astronauts in thirties, let alone people that have never trained on this. You can't. You can't fly a shuttle after twenty days of training. That's not a thing that you could do. But I'm trying to bury that feeling deep inside. Yeah, i mean, these astronauts, you know, they trained for years before a single mission that is going to go smoothly. But you know that these guys can just eyeball it and all run some numbers real quick and we can totally launch nukesity space or something.

39:11 That's fine, you've got a sex stint, it'll be good. Yeah. Yeah, I do love this movie. I give it a really hard time, but that's just a nerd in me. This is this is such a fun movie, and I'm so glad he made it, especially coming from Eastwood. I forget that he directed this one. All the time. I had no idea until I started the movie. I was like, oh my god, he directed this. So speaking of him directing things, let's talk a little bit about Clint Eastwood as a director. So if somebody's unfamiliar with him, what three movies are you gonna say? If you want to know Clin Eastwood, this is what you got to watch. So I have two that are kind of like they have to be on the list, and then one that's kind of an outlier unforgiven, in my opinion, is probably the greatest Western ever made. I would have a very delightful argument with someone that had another suggestion for a Western that was better. It's absolutely flawless. So I had had that one. Mystic River, I think is just a great adaptation of a great novel that I it was kind of skeptical that they could make such a good movie out of that book. You know, I am blown away every time I watch it. He pulls performances out of those actors that are just it's just unreal.

40:36 Yeah. Another ensemble cast on that one. Oh my gosh. Yeah, everybody in it is just you know, swinging for the fences. And then my outlier is the movie White Hunter Blackheart, which is actually, it's so good. It is a loosely told story of when John Houston made The African Queen with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn and yeah, dragged the production to Africa and then you know, couldn't be bothered to shoot the movie because he was too busy going on safari and trying to hunt an elephant and you know, having you know, adventures in his Hemingway esque style. And Clint Eastwood is in it playing John Houston, and it's absolutely a fascinating look at like obsession and filmmaking and creativity. And yeah, I just watched it again today. It's so good.

41:44 Writing it down now because I'm gonna absolutely check that out. It's on Prime. I have to rent it, but it's there. That's fine, that's fine. I mean, unlike Space, Cowboys are the three on my list. I have all those hard copies, but so I had Unforgiven as well. I think it'd be wild to make a movie. I almost put it back up in case you said it as well, but I was like, no, it's it's it's. It's just you can't say enough about it. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's his performance in it. It's Gene Hackman, it's Morgan Freeman, it's it's the themes of it, and especially it being Eastwood, the themes hit so much harder because it's, you know, knowing where his career has been and what led him to this point. It feels so personal and so perfect for him. I I just I love it. I could gusha about that movie all day.

42:32 Oh my gosh, the music, the cinematography, like everything about it. It's gorgeous. Next, though, I have one that we actually discussed already back during our nineteen eighty six days is Heartbreak Ridge. I had that and I took it off. Yeah that we did actually discuss this one at length. I do love this movie. This is it's quotable, It's got you know, a lot of fun, but it's also, you know, got his gruff, army exterior. And I think if you're going to make a list of Eastwood's work, you got to have at least one war movie in there. He's definitely done much more serious war movies, but this one's probably my favorite, and then my last one is a much more modern version. I think in the last several years he's taken a very different turn as a director.

43:20 And I added grand Tono, which is also just a phenomenal performance by him. It shows you what kind of director he is, what kind of filmmaker he is, And love it or hate it, I think if you want to understand Clint Eastwood, I think it's got to be on the list. I haven't seen that one. I'll have to give it a try. I will tell you it's dark, it's heavy, and he is a grumpy old man, which the last part you probably could have guessed. Yeah, but he seemed a little too unlikable in the trailers. At least I was like, I don't know that I want to watch this. He is He's not entirely unlikable. He is not he didn't pay himself out to be the hero exactly. It's interesting.

44:07 I don't want to spoil it for you, okay, but yeah, he's not the most lovable guy, and that's for dang sure. So one of the things I wanted to talk about in this movie before we get too far gone, is that the actors weren't actually that old, at least I don't think so. The oldest of them was James Garner. He was seventy two. But fun fact, Tommy Lee Jones is only fifty three. That's not that old. I mean considering I'm almost a fifty one. Yeah, I mean Donald Sutherland was sixty five and Eastwood was seventy. So, I mean they weren't exactly you know, spring chickens, but they weren't old either, at least not you know, the way that they're portraying the movie. So I was thinking, if you could make this movie again, you got old actors today, who do you think should be in a modern version of Space Cowboys?

44:56 Oh God, I wish suld Ha warned me this was coming. I'm so bad at this. Oh no, come on, just shoot from the hire and bearing in mind, you can go as young as fifty three, as long as they can play old because like Tom Cruise is I think sixty something, but I don't think he's gonna I think Tom Cruise now is the same age Donald Sutherland was when they filmed this movie. And that's endlessly funny to me. People that age. I mean, you've got Liam Neeson is seventy two. I would definitely he was. On my list for sure. Yeah, he's way too tall to be an astronaut, but yeah, for an actor, he's fine. He could be the bad guy, he could be James. Crack he is, he's a great bad guy. I also particularly love Kevin Costner. I think he'd be fantastic.

45:43 And how about Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe. Ooh, that's a good choice. That's a good choice going head to head. Yeah, and I think they fit that mold of like the actors in this they were young and cool and hot once and now they're starting to kind of age out of that demographic into the more your citizen demographic. Mm hmm. I would also, I was thinking, if you're going to try to cast somebody's Jerry, the comedy relief character, Jeff Daniels would be perfect. Oh yes, yes, because he can have that like gravitas, but then also be silly. Oh yeah he's he lie so well, he's got very Donald Sutherland energy. Yes, all right, so all told, do you recommend seeing this movie? I mean, you know, I know we've kind of talked about how much we both love it. But if somebody asks, are you gonna you're gonna recommend this one to him?

46:37 Yes? Absolutely. It's a fun couple hours, good time with some actors that you think you know and you see him doing stuff a little bit different. Yeah, I do. I recommend this one to everybody, but I always kind of give him the same thing of like, you know, it's not going to change your life, you know what I mean. This isn't like, oh my god, you've got to see this amazing movie, but it's definitely a good time. I also, whenever I'm talking about Clint Eastwood, I like to like, this isn't if this isn't a Clint Eastwood movie. It is, but like, don't go into it thinking you're gonna go watch a good Clint Easwood movie. This is something else entirely. Yeah, But like if you think you know Clint Eastwood or you think you know James Gardner just because you watch the Notebook. You know, you can say, hey, come watch this movie and see him to do something a little different.

47:27 That's fair. That's fair. It's it's got a lot of cliches and it's you know, a lot of silliness, but it works. It's got heart and as my mom would say, it's something fun. So looks like looking at the calendar, here, looks like next week Amber, you guys are gonna be heading to the beach. Yes, we are going to talk about a delightful underrated film by Carl Reiner, Summer Rental starring John Candy, which I haven't actually seen since probably it came out, so this'll be a fun revisit. Yeah, sir, it's been it's been a minute since I've seen that one. That's yeah, from nineteen eighty five.

48:08 I'll have to pull that one back up. That's a that's fantastic. Well, I'm looking forward to hearing it. But until then, let us know what did you think of Space Cowboys? Have you seen it? Did you like it? Do you think we miss something? Let us know on social media Facebook, Instagram, x that You can check us out on a film by podcast dot com for film TV articles. Our entire library is streaming free, but you can also check us out on Patreon, where you can hear Jeff and I doing our ten for two, as well as a whole back catalog of episodes, some with Amber and myself and a bunch without. Let us know what your thoughts are. We'd love to hear from you, and we may just read your response on the show and send you some a film by Swag. I would like to thank Amber again for joining me.

48:53 Yes my pleasure. Thank you again for listening. We love doing this, We love talking space, especially Amber, and we will see you guys again the next time. We want to take a little trip into space. Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars, let me see what spring is like on a Jupiter and Mars. In other words, hold my hand. In other words,