The Couch Critic
The Couch Critic is your laid-back guide to movies and TV shows that deserve your attention—or maybe don’t. Nathan dives deep into storytelling, character development, and cinematic style with a sharp eye and a wry sense of humor. Whether it’s a blockbuster hit, a hidden gem, or a cult classic, Nathan’s relatable approach ensures every episode feels like a cozy chat with a friend who just happens to love film. Perfect for casual watchers and cinephiles alike, The Couch Critic brings thoughtful critique without the fluff. Grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let Nathan guide you through the world of screen entertainment.
The Couch Critic
The Art of Storytelling: Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" Unpacked
Ready for a cinematic journey into the depths of a true crime tale? Join us, Natey and Katy, as we unpack Martin Scorsese's epic masterpiece, "Killers of the Flower Moon." We're diving deep into the film's narrative nuances, exploring the power of perspective, and questioning the art of long-story film making. We applaud the genius of Scorsese's narrative switch, enhancing the emotional impact of this chilling real-life tale, but don't shy away from the movie's minor flaws either.
Can a trailer truly prepare you for a four-hour-long emotional rollercoaster? We discuss the necessity of preludes, suggesting a more immediate immersion into the story might be more effective. We also share our thoughts on the casting choices and how the creative use of a 1920s radio show brings closure to our characters post-film. Katy brings an interesting angle to the conversation, arguing this film's complex narrative could potentially shine brighter as a mini-series. Stay tuned for hints on our upcoming review of "Five Nights at Freddy's." We're stoked to have you on this cinematic journey with us! Share your own thoughts, we'd love to hear them.
One's a movie buff, one watches movies, just enough. Together, fun will be had by all. This is Nady and Katie at the Movies. Hello everyone, and welcome to a brand new episode of Nady and Katie at the Movies. I'm your host, nathan, aka Nady, of course, and with me today is my good friend Katie. Hi, katie, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm fantastic, I'm just in the car. So if you hear me honking and screaming, I'm just, it's my road rage. But everyone don't worry, I'm using a hands-free device. We are safe, safe-ish.
Speaker 1:If you could see what I'm watching right now, everyone you would be scared for Katie's life, but thank goodness you can see. But you know what you can see. The movie we're about to review right now and that is Killers of the Flower Moon, the almost four hour epic movie. But before we can get into it, I got to go over the synipsis. Members of the Osage tribe in the United States are murdered under mysterious circumstances in the 1920s, sparking a major FBI investigation involving J Edgar Hoover. Killers of the Flower Moon stars Leonardo DiCaprio, robert De Niro, lily Gladstone and Jesse Plummins.
Speaker 1:So this movie is based on a book which is actually based on a true story that happened during the 1920s. We watched our quick reactions. We both enjoyed it. Of course it was a bit long, but we did enjoy it.
Speaker 1:But what I have heard some criticisms, and I guess we can get into this a little later too is that the movie changed the perspective that was in the book. It's from the perspective of one of the investigators who does show up in the movie. But in the movie, martin Scorsese made the decision, which I think was a good decision, but he made the decision to portray it through the perspective of the Osage tribe who were going through this terrible true story. So let's get right into our likes and dislikes. I'll go first One of my obvious big likes. If you know me, if you listen to the show, you can probably already guess the acting. The acting in this movie was phenomenal. There's only one person and I'll talk about him a little later. There's only one person in this movie and his acting is kind of controversial. People have been talking about it actually, but every single person in this movie did a fantastic job with the characters that they were portraying.
Speaker 2:I would second what you said, nathan. The acting was absolutely incredible. Even when we say acting, we're not just talking about the lines read, we're talking about the facial expressions, we're talking about the mannerisms. We're talking about every single piece. I was very impressed. I do want to do a quick disclosure as well. I've been trying to do better every episode to say this, which is to catch you. If you're listening right now and you haven't seen it yet, please stop, so we don't spoil anything for you. This one is definitely worth going and seeing. So if you have not seen it yet, please pause, go see it.
Speaker 2:The first thing I loved was this story. It kind of reminds me of the story that we did with Grant Charismo and it reminds me of the storyline from Oppenheimer. Just what a great story to tell. So I think that's the number one choice. Right, there is what stories help, and I would agree.
Speaker 2:Another big like I had was what you mentioned, that it's through the perspective of, in a way, a tragic love story. We're using some creative license there, right, we don't really know the true, true every detail of what that relationship looked like between Ernest and Molly. If there was true love, if it was manipulation just to get her money. But I really appreciated that perspective and it humanized it. And I also think in Mark Scorsese apparently had a conversation with Leonardo Caprio, it was like hey, if we make this about the FBI guys, it kind of focuses a story on the white dudes and you know, there it's almost like telling their story. And he really wanted Apparently they'd already started writing lines and de Caprio and him pause and we're like no, we don't like this, we want to change the angle and I think it was the brilliant choice and it created for great storytelling.
Speaker 1:I Grew with the story. The story was compelling. I know it was a four-hour movie because you had trailers and they had Nicole Kidman opening. Still, let me go on a soapbox real quick about that. I Believe that if a movie you know a movie is gonna be three and a half hours long, you should not have trailers, or At least you should not show them a cold kid mid-thing.
Speaker 2:You're right. You're right, she's not some like hey, here's what the rules are moving there. It's just a complete filler. That's a good point. You can drop one or two trailers off. Most trailers we're seeing on YouTube anyway. I think that's a really valid point. That's 25 minutes. Of course I don't watch those anymore. I intentionally show up 25 minutes late. That's what you gotta do, nathan.
Speaker 1:Well, and I try and I tried to do that, but then on top of that, after the Nicole Kimman thing, they had a Martin Scorsese introduction Saying thank you for coming to the theater. So I'm like you have like all this stuff on top of each other. They could have just treated it like how, when Maddie and I went to go see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Special event, they did not have any trailers, they just had like a behind-the-scenes thing, a countdown on the bottom, and when the movie started, the movie started boom. That's what they should do with movies like this, because then you have people on Facebook and the internet saying how they should bring back movie intermissions for movies that are like four hours. I wouldn't go that far because to me that just adds Even more time to it and you won't get out for an even longer time. Just cut the trailers, cut Nicole Kidman.
Speaker 1:The Martin Scorsese thing was okay because I had to do with the movie, but just start the freaking movie and let me enjoy it. I mean, that's, that's all I gotta say about that.
Speaker 2:Thank you for your thoughts on that, nathan. Well, you'll be in our prayers. Other things that I liked was I felt like the Town that they created like because and again, maybe it's the length of the movie they really created like a town for me and they and I was invested in the community. I understood the community and I really appreciated all the details there and I think they incorporated a lot of history. This may blend into my dislikes, but the fact that they included as much as they did about what happened in these murders is Is shocking. That they could fit it into four hours, I think. So that is truly, to me, a miracle that they included so so many Moving parts and pieces. I mean, you're really watching multiple movies. You're watching a love story, you're watching a true crime, you're watching or like a drama and then you're also watching like a murder mystery and then at the end it's one of those kind of court case you know like kill a mockingbird type. You know just courtroom scenes. I would like to put that a little towards my the dislike category if I could speak to those now.
Speaker 2:I think the biggest dislike I have of this movie is not of the content itself. It's the choice to have made a movie. So hear me out on that. I feel like it was a disservice to this storyline, even a disservice to the actors and to the writing, to wedge it into a movie. This could have easily and should have, in my opinion, been a six-part series or maybe even an entire, like kind of In a Brother sort of thing, like a 10, 10 episode, 12-episode series, because there's just so many people involved, like by the time you're in the end of the movie you've kind of forgotten what happened, like I don't even remember the names, and you could have developed. And I think again, because of how they piece, there's so many different types of stories being told. I felt like it should have been broken up much more and gone even further in detail, because even at four hours they left a lot of things out and I'm shocked that they were able to put as much as they did.
Speaker 1:Well, especially nowadays, when you have these big box office franchises splitting themselves into two, three films and they're just like random action movies, you know and then you have a movie like this, like you said, that deserves a story, that deserves to be told in a way that is more I guess, palpable Is that the word I'm looking for, anyway in a way that is easily digested by the viewer, and the fact that this was an Apple movie is kind of like why couldn't it have been an Apple miniseries and put it on?
Speaker 2:an.
Speaker 1:Apple streaming service or something. But I think one of the reasons why they didn't do that is because would they really be able to get big names like Leonardo DiCaprio, robert De Niro for a miniseries? They could I'm not saying they couldn't, but they probably are like, hey, we want to get this made, we want to get this green lit, so we need big names to get it done.
Speaker 2:Because it is a story that needs to be told. And there's two other pieces. One would that take them out of the category in terms of Oscar, like they're a TV show versus a movie? Definitely I understand that that affects things. But yeah, I mean listen, sorry, four hours. That's four of the episodes right there. What's two more hours at that point?
Speaker 1:Obviously, one of the dislikes is the trailers. Nicole Kidman, that whole unnecessary added of time. I'm conflicted on saying this is a dislike, because I was glad that this actor was in this movie. He's had a hard time in Hollywood and he's finally making a comeback. He was in the Whale, which was a fantastic movie. Brandon Frazier is in this film.
Speaker 2:I saw him in the trailer.
Speaker 1:I saw him in the trailer and I was like, ok, cool, brandon Frazier is in this. I saw the movie. This has been a big debate with people who have seen this film whether his acting was justified or whether it was just too over the top. I'm in the two over the top camp.
Speaker 1:He made his character become like a caricature of a lawyer and I didn't believe it. I thought it was just too much. I get what he was doing and I get where he was going. I just felt like he needed a little more direction. I don't know what Martin Scorsese told him to do. I haven't read the book so I don't know if he was going off how the characters described in the book. I just wasn't a fan of his choices, which is a shame because, again, I want Brandon Frazier to do well, because if you know the history of Brandon Frazier in Hollywood, he has been through some stuff. The fact that he's finally making somewhat of a comeback is a really good thing for him and, I think, for his fans. What did you think of? Did you notice it was Brandon Frazier? Did you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I guess he very much felt like he was just being shoved in there to be like, look, it's Brandon Frazier. And same with the other guy whose name escapes me, the other lawyer.
Speaker 1:John Lithgow.
Speaker 2:John Lithgow. They both felt like what random? To be honest, I'm chugging along and enjoying the movie and then both of those characters, like actor choices, took me out of the movie. They almost made it with comical relief, like what are you guys doing here? Why are you in this movie?
Speaker 2:So didn't love either one of them playing the lawyer pieces. My biggest dislike is the length of the movie, but I would also say not just length, because it should have been split into more parts. I also felt like there was some scenes that really dragged for me, especially in those court like the courtroom area. I mean by this point you're kind of having movie exhaustion. So to have the end of the movie be the most boring part, where it's just like courtroom scenes, that was hard for me. Like I wanted to see that. Like I said, I think I'd be really invested if it was on TV and I was like watching that was a brand new episode. But on the tail end of everything and all the excitement we just gone through, it dragged for me quite a bit and so I didn't really love the ending there.
Speaker 2:But to go back to a like that I forgot very end of the movie is so clever. They kind of most movies that are based on a true story. You know they have the same old thing. They might social still shots of the real people, and then they have a little script across the middle of like here's what really happened after this. You know, here's how it ended, but no, this was a super creative way of doing it. They essentially tell the rest of the story using like a 19, what would you say? 50s or maybe still in 20s, like a true crime.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure, radios were around in the 1920s, but so they were doing like a 1920s radio show to basically summarize where all the characters went and what happened to them. I thought it was brilliant for multiple reasons. I thought it was brilliant because all of the people in the radio show were white, and so it kind of emphasized the fact that during this movie they keep on saying the Osage tribe keep on saying that they're disappearing because the women are marrying white men and so they're saying eventually our whole race of people will disappear because they'll be married and have children who are mixed race. And so it really solidified that fact that the story had started to be distorted and poked fun at, parodied. And then at the very end spoiler sorry Martin Scorsese himself comes up to the microphone and I'm sorry, I found myself getting a tad emotional because I just thought it was a beautiful way to end the film and he reads the obituary of the main female character, molly, and mentions the fact that they made no mention of the murders, no mention of the case, no mention of anything that happened to her entire family, basically in her obituary. And so I just thought it was a beautiful way. I mean, that was one of my likes as well, because it was just a creative, beautiful way to end that film and to go back to the length of the movie.
Speaker 1:I felt the way about this film that I felt about Oppenheimer, but I felt like I was more invested in this movie than I was in Oppenheimer. If a movie has good acting in it, I really don't care how long the movie is. I'm invested in the characters. And if I'm invested in the characters, then I'm invested in the story, and I, for me, were there times that I was like trying to keep my eyes open. Yes, but that's because I knew how late it was. It wasn't so much because I thought the movie was boring, it was because I already knew going in, that I was gonna come out of this movie at like 8.30 at night because I went to the 4.45 showing. So I already knew how late I was gonna get out and so I guess my mind was already telling me you're gonna be tired. It had nothing to do with the movie, I was just fully invested 100% of the time.
Speaker 1:I'd be surprised if it doesn't win best picture, because it just did a fantastic job at telling this story. I think Martin Scorsese is the best you could to respect the Osage tribe and I think he knocked out of the park. I think he did a great job. So we could be talking about this for another four hours, but I don't think we're going to so before we give our Ratings, I would like to give our listeners a little sneak peek of what we're gonna be reviewing On our first episode of November. So take a listen. This place can get to you.
Speaker 2:It's been a weird night. Sounds like fritties, I have a job for you the security gig. I Will take anything. All you have to do just keep your eyes on the monitor Back in the 80s. We're going to have so much fun together.
Speaker 1:Some kids went missing the police search Freddy's.
Speaker 2:They never found the kids. That's why the place shut down. There are ghost children possessing giant robots. Thanks for the heads up. Technically they're animatronics. What do they want? They want to make her like them. I'm always get the weirdos. Is she doing your? I couldn't find a sitter.
Speaker 1:I'm not done yet. Let's go. Hello, tell me how to stop them. You don't.
Speaker 2:Too late. He's coming. Welcome to Freddy's.
Speaker 1:That's right. We're talking five nights at Freddy's, the movie based on the popular video game franchise. I'm assuming Katie's probably not gonna watch it, so it may just be me or I may have a special guest, I don't know. We'll see. I'm gonna go ahead and I'm just gonna tell you I'm gonna give it what I gave up and Hymer, because I thought it was brilliant. I thought it was great. The acting was great. It kept my attention all four hours, even though I wish Nicole Kim Manhattan showed up. I'm gonna give this movie a perfect six out of six stars. Katie, what would you give? Killers of the flower moon?
Speaker 2:I'm close to six, but I'm very adamant about this being a Lot of the story untold. So I think they were trying their Oscar grabbing and that's the only reason they decided not to do TV series. So for that they did major deduction of point five. That gives me a five point five rating from me.
Speaker 1:Well, and there you have it, folks, killers of the flower moon the longest, probably the longest movie we've seen in this season. I think it was longer than Oppenheimer. So there you go, and that is our Halloween episode. Sorry we didn't go, you know, horror movie for you, but I think that this story, the fact that it's based on a true story, is actually pretty scary. So that is killers of the flower moon. Katie, do you have something to take us away with for this episode? Thanks for listening to Nadie and Katie at the movies. Feel free to leave us a review so people can find the show. Follow us on all our social media platforms and if there's a movie that you want us to watch, feel free to contact us at Nadie and Katie at gmailcom. Thanks for listening and have a great day.
