At the Movies: Podcast Transcripts
The Dog Stars & the Rivals of Amziah King
Wednesday, September 23, 2026Intro
[upbeat music plays]
MARIE WESTHAVER:
Hello, and welcome to At the Movies with Mike and Marie, a show where two film professors talk about movies. I'm Marie Westhaver.
MIKE GIULIANO:
And I'm Mike Giuliano.
MARIE WESTHAVER:
And today we're going to talk about The Dog Stars and The Rivals of Amaziah King, starting with The Dog Stars. And Mike, I have my own opinion and can't wait to share it with you. But I'm going to let you go first. Set the stage. Tell us what you think about this new Ridley Scott movie.
The Dog Stars
MIKE GIULIANO:
OK, speaking of Ridley Scott, The Dog Stars is his current release. I have a strong emotional connection to the film for a few reasons. And it's idiosyncratic in that respect. But I had interviewed Ridley Scott way back in 1979, when he did Alien. So I've tracked his career closely.
And he is an impressive director in all sorts of ways, namely that here he is at age 88, still directing. And indeed, he's made eight feature films in the last 11 years. I'd like to see some 20-year-old match that record. Not everything hits. But you know what? He's still working. And there's some strong films in the mix, which we may talk about later.
So that's the first emotional connection, just simply that this is a director who, certainly, has a level of craftsmanship and at the level of smarts in picking subject matter. He's on the A list that way. So that's the first emotional connection.
The second is that the story in this film, it's a post-pandemic-- some sort of influenza-- post-pandemic story set in Colorado. And it involves, among other things, a plane ride from Denver to Grand Junction, which is in southwestern Colorado. So my second emotional point of connection is that I've been in Colorado a lot. And I've actually, on a few occasions, flown from Denver to Grand Junction.
My flight was nothing like the one in the film. It plays out quite differently. Thank goodness, right? I mean, it's a very personal connection. I realized, I know the turf, or the Rockies, if you will. But this is where some other people may share one of the reservations I had.
If you've been in Colorado, and certainly spent some time in the Rockies, you'll realize that the mountains here don't look quite right. And as I was watching the film, I kept registering. Well, I've flown over those mountains, and it didn't look quite like that. And indeed, the film was mostly shot in Italy.
So I'd have to research a little further as to exactly which mountains in Italy. I'll guess the Dolomites. But in any event, these ain't the Rockies. And there are times where if the film seems a little displaced, as in where is this and what exactly is going on, at a basic production level it's like, well, we're not really in Colorado, folks. And so, already, for me at least, again, on a personal level, I realize it's not quite working in that respect.
But those are very personalized observations. Let me broaden it from there to what, in any event, if I'd never talked to Scott, if I'd never been to Colorado, what would still bother me about the film. OK, let's cut to the chase on that. The film, which is nearly two hours-- and it's a decent running time. I'm not quibbling there.
But the film, to me, is a really quirky and often unconvincing mixture of scenes that are overtly sentimental and other scenes that are extremely violent. Now, there's no reason why you can't have both sentiment and violence in the same film. I'm not making some silly dogmatic argument. But you know what? At least at a gut level, you have to feel like there's some sort of connection or that things are sewn together or there's a consistency.
And here, it seemed to lurch from segment to segment. On their own, many of the segments are quite compellingly shot. I mean, that's Ridley Scott, the craftsman. They're really well-made. But when you go from one scene to another, it often seems like it's kind of arbitrary. And that's where I think the screenplay, which is not by Scott himself-- the screenplay is to blame.
The characters are, to some extent, underdeveloped. The whole situation is kind of loosey goosey as to what happened to the world. Why are there only a few pockets of survivors? And so on. And then when some of the survivors, if you will-- the Renegades start attacking-- It almost seems like it becomes a Mad Max movie. It has that quality to it.
And sometimes, emotionally, speaking of emotions, it's at odds with some of the other emotions we've been tracking. In some case it's like, why are the bad guys being so bad? And what's their agenda? What are they out to do? Just to raise heck? I mean, what's going on here? It's really kind of sloppy that way.
And without spoiling anything specifically and doubling back on what I said, I've flown into Grand Junction. And it ain't nothing like what it is in the movie. But in the film, it's such an extreme segment. Without tipping my hand as to why it's extreme, but when they finally fly into Grand Junction, it's like, whoa, where are they? What is this?
And that's where the screenplay is so underdeveloped. You got to think, what world are we in at this point? So if the intention was to bewilder the audience, it did succeed at that level. So now I hand it back to you because I know you're bristling to comment.
MARIE WESTHAVER:
OK, I think this was such a missed opportunity on so many levels. And, I want to start off by saying I love every actor in this movie. I mean, it's an A-list group of people. Although, I did read that Jacob Elordi-- it was supposed to be Paul Mescal. It feels very much like a Paul Mescal kind of a role. But they just aren't given enough to do.
The strange thing is, I actually did read the book. And the book is actually pretty good. The book is much better than the movie. They change things in the movie for reasons I will never understand. Nothing that they changed made anything better. It just made it more confusing and strange.
And I just had the hardest time going with the flow. I mean, you have Jacob Elordi flying this rickety Cessna. Looks like it's held together with baling wire. It's just barely getting off the ground. And then he crash lands it. But all he needs to do is just tighten up one of the wings, and he's good to go again.
And I was just thinking that would just-- that's just impossible. Plus, they never explain like they do with the Mad Max movies. Where are they getting the gas from? Where are they getting all these supplies from? Where are they getting all the bullet-making capability from? It's just, all of this is explained in much better detail in the book, which makes it so much more readable.
The fact that this book came out in 2012 had nothing to do with the pandemic. But we're making it sort of a post-pandemic story. That didn't work at all because you don't get enough information about the disease that ravaged the place. Or like you said, why did some people survive and other people did not survive? And then finally, whoever styled Josh Brolin and Guy Pearce, they set them both up as grumpy, grizzled old man veteran in a hat. And you would think they would have so much in common.
MIKE GIULIANO:
They were almost interchangeable, weren't they?
MARIE WESTHAVER:
Yes.
MIKE GIULIANO:
Great characters. Weren't they almost interchangeable?
MARIE WESTHAVER:
They really were.
MIKE GIULIANO:
I have to remind myself occasionally. OK, Pops-- is this the old man, or-- is this the grumpy old man or the grumpy middle-aged man? I thought it was-- just a simple, visceral level, you want to be able to immediately distinguish them, right? Who's who? But it all seemed like they had the same genetic-- well, maybe it was the genetic connection that saved them from the influenza. I don't know.
But to double back on a few things you've said, there actually is one scene at a gas station, where you see him siphoning gas. However, your point otherwise is very well-stated. And that's to get it in the vehicle. But in terms of the airplane, it seems like he always has plenty of fuel.
And so your point is so well taken. Where does he get the gasoline? Because that plane is flying for hours and hours and never seems to need to refuel. And I thought, well, that's really as strange as anything else in the film.
And then with the characters themselves, they're not really fleshed out enough. You get a little bit of background. The Jacob Elordi character was a mechanic. He's a widower. But it sort of stalls at the basic level of-- he's staying in a rural outpost now. But when he goes back to where his house was, there are fantasy sequences, or flashbacks, whatever you want to call them, where he recalls his wife, and so on.
That's moving sometimes. You go back to the house, which is still intact. The apartment's still intact. You go in, and there's your wife sitting on the bed waiting for you, with a smile on her face. And so you embrace her and so on. And then a moment later, he's sitting by himself on the bed. She was a fantasy, a phantasm.
That's effective. But after they do it three or four times, you realized the story has stalled at some basic level of character development or just forward movement. It's just turning wheels. It's just cycling that way. Again, this is a futurist-- well, near-futuristic story. It's some sort of post-apocalyptic story. You've got to give it some latitude here as to a world turned topsy turvy. I realize that.
But Marie makes a very good, logical point. Within that-- and this is the case in the Mad Max movies-- there's got to be a certain narrative logic. There has to be a certain consistency, a certain level of plausibility-- let's put it that way-- that whatever weird world you're in, that this would work and that would not work.
You know what I mean? Like, there's some level at which you dig in your heels and say, nah, that's not convincing, or that's ridiculous. And one of the most ridiculous things here is-- well, first of all, he's got a relatively safe place to stay out in the boonies. Whether in Italy or Colorado, he's got a safe spot to stay.
And actually, weirdly, in terms of, well, who survives and who doesn't? There's a small Mennonite community next door. And they've made it through. Now, don't ask me what gets them through-- their belief in God, their isolation, or just some other factor. But it's like, well, who made it, and who didn't? And it's just a given in the film.
Yeah, that's not a huge objection, just something like a head-scratcher. But the real huge objection is what Marie mentioned. He decides he's just bored staying there. It's relatively safe. And he's got the codger there with a gun to help protect him. And it's not a bad place to be if you're going to wait out a post-pandemic world.
But he's itchy. He wants to get back. He's not even quite sure what. So anyway, to Marie's point, he gets in the plane. He flies off. It's an old Cessna. I mean, it's supposed to be like a World War II movie, and now he's in this rickety plane. You know what I mean? He's flying off.
And Jacob Elordi has the right physical appearance for that kind of protagonist. And he flies off on his own. And the airplane develops serious trouble, whether it's with oil-- I mean, we see the instrument panel with low on oil, low on gas? Who knows what? But there's a plume of smoke coming out. Bad news,
right? he has to crash land it, which he does successfully. And that's plausible enough. But your essential point-- and it bothered me so muchd was when the plane-- it's not quite a crash landing because he does make it down safely. A little bit of damage. But then when he decides he's got to tinker with it and try to repair it, it seems like the easiest repair job ever, that I could get a roll of duct tape and fix the one wing.
And then I could open the hood bays-- like, think about opening the hood in your car. Like, oh, well, let me do this with the oil stick. It's so basic that way. And we don't even know quite what he does. But honestly, it's like a two-minute repair job. And I thought, this is a serious problem. I don't think you'd have all the supplies and everything you need right here. But for the sake of the story, he gets that plane fixed in no time at all.
Marie, let me force the point. And on the one hand, I don't want to spoil about what they find in Grand Junction because that becomes a destination for him and somebody else. But it's such a weird, almost surreal scenario. It's a genuine head-scratcher.
If you had a scene like that-- without spoiling what the scene is, the Grand Junction scene-- in a Mad Max movie, you would give it that sort of sci-fi boost of the world gone crazy in how characters are dressed and behave. In this one, most of the film actually does not quite go to that extreme, right? And then you suddenly get that.
And to me, again, that's a failure of the screenplay, as in, well, lurching from one thing to another. Let's toss in this. Let's toss in that. And at a certain point, I don't care as much about the characters as I should. And even more importantly, I don't quite believe what I'm watching.
MARIE WESTHAVER:
That is so well put because you just said what I was thinking. I will say this much about the Grand Junction scene. The book ends with it in the very, very last part of it. It's a very small scene. And it does not go down the way it happens in the movie.
And again, I don't know why they made this sort of-- I thought it was like, all of a sudden it's a David Lynch movie. I don't understand the decision to do that. And I don't think it was particularly well done. Although, I love Allison Janney in just about anything.
But again, there was a scene where they found an outpost where this place has a full bar. I'm like, where are they getting the alcohol from? Now, in the book, in terms of the gas thing, they do go into this explanation about how, after 10 years, the gas isn't any good. But somehow, Jacob Elordi has the means at the place where he is hiding out with Josh Brolin to somehow reanimate the gas so that it can still be used.
But still, I'm sure they had to explain all that because experts would be like, actually, that gas wouldn't be any good, and you would need an explanation. I just felt like a lot of that was not very well explained. And I'm glad you had the same reaction to him going up in the air all the time.
I felt the same way, that he was bored and just looking for something to do. In the book, they make it clear that Josh Brolin's the lookout guy. And he's the recon guy. So he's supposed to go up from time to time just to look around and make sure they aren't being encroached upon. But that was not clear at all in the movie.
MIKE GIULIANO:
Well, let me ask you, since you've read the book-- and again, this won't spoil anything within the storyline because he's Jacob Elordi's character is a widower. He's really a combination of being bored and depressed, which is not a good combination, right? He's not even quite sure entirely where he's going or why.
And the reasons he offers he doesn't quite believe himself. But he's got to get out. You got to get out of dodge, get away from the really nice Mennonites. He should just stay with them. They're really nice people. But he decides he's going to fly away.
Now, this is where you can fill me in terms of how it's handled in the book. Within the film, there's the contemplation-- he's flying towards some craggy mountains. And there are at least one or two scenes in the film where you feel like he's going to fly right into them. And he actually does talk about that.
He doesn't get to Telluride. I got to Telluride. He doesn't get to Telluride. He talks about flying there and flying into the side of a mountain. It's just like, like, well, what a way to go, right? You're going to go out in a blaze of not quite glory, but of whatever. It was still a full tank of gas, too. So it'd be quite an explosion.
But Marie, in the book, does he have those suicidal thoughts? Because that really does inflect the character here. He's really such a downbeat in a lot of ways. You really feels like he doesn't know why he survived and there's no reason to go on living.
MARIE WESTHAVER:
It's accurate in terms of the book. There is a scene where he talks about giving up and wanting to just fly that plane right into the side of the mountain. But it felt like a man who was frustrated, not actually suicidal, to me. But I thought the underlying story is about someone moving on after an unspeakable tragedy. So I think that was all part of that not quite enough character development.
I was laughing to myself when you were talking about how when he's up in the plane, it's like a World War II movie. I was thinking Snoopy and his Sopwith Camel. That's what it felt like to me.
MIKE GIULIANO:
Yeah.
MARIE WESTHAVER:
Now, one other missed opportunity, is at no point do we get the two grizzled veterans together in the same scene. I would have loved to have seen them talk to each other.
MIKE GIULIANO:
Well, that's a great point. And I was thinking the same thing. What would happen if they sat down together? That could be a very funny scene. Like, who could be grumpier? And they could-- good-natured obscenities back and forth. And want some more coffee? Ar. The growl at each other. Then again, they look so much alike that you almost could have had the same actor playing both.
MARIE WESTHAVER:
You really could have.
MIKE GIULIANO:
Just put a beard on the guy and make him grouchy.
MARIE WESTHAVER:
And a hat. And a hat. Yeah, I like the idea of the grump-off. That would have been funny. All right, safe to say, I don't think either of us were big fans of this movie, The Dog Stars.
The Rivals of Amaziah King
MIKE GIULIANO:
Well, you know what? We weren't the only ones who were disillusioned. When the film opened, which is very recent, as you and I talk about it, it had mixed to negative reviews. And it really flopped at the box office. I mean, it was a healthy-sized budget, and it just didn't open well.
So as we speak, I think the critics and the public share our disdain that way. But again, all due credit to Ridley Scott. Even if this film, for us, didn't quite work, I've been reading about him recently. He's got like at least a half dozen or so projects in the pipeline right now. You know what I mean? He just keeps going.
I always put it this way. And this is a very personalized observation. But if we were talking about baseball, and a player had a batting average over 300, we would be celebrating him, right? What a great batter he is.
But somehow for film directors, we expect them to bat 1,000, right? And when they don't bat 1,000, suddenly they flopped. Well, come on now. I mean, all the things that can go right in the film, all the things can go wrong-- if you get at least some of it right, that's saying something.
And Ridley Scott, even when the film doesn't work, it is well-crafted. I mean, he knows filmmaking. So it's not a boring film at all. It holds your interest. Sometimes it's because you're scoffing at it, but that holds your interest, right? Oh, come on, you say. And then adrenaline gets pumping there. Come on now, I don't buy this.
MARIE WESTHAVER:
Yes, there were beautiful cinematic scenes that let you know that this was not in the hands of an amateur. But I would not recommend the movie. But I would recommend the book. The book is actually pretty good. So let's move on to The Rivals of Amaziah King because this is the first movie I have seen in a really long time that I absolutely loved. Mike, what were your initial reactions?
MIKE GIULIANO:
I absolutely did not love it. And I'll give a few reasons why. One is a finicky one. It's an unwieldy title. The Rise of Amaziah King, if I say it a few times, we're out of time on our episode. And I saw a movie theater trying to fit it on the marquee, and it don't quite fit. You know? So it is an awkward title.
I'll tell you what really bothered me about the film because I really dislike it. Ostensibly, if it's about anything-- it's actually about a lot of things-- it's about beekeeping. So you have sequences that are about-- Matthew McConaughey as a beekeeper and some things that happened to him.
What really irked me in the film was that it keeps bouncing between genres and moods. Now, again, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But as it gets into what I'll call criminal intrigue scenes, it really pushes hard there. It really goes to extremes with that. And it really jumps around that way in terms of the genre, in terms of tone, in terms of music.
Let me give an example of that. The musical score is kind of overseen by T-Bone Burnett, who is so gifted. He's such a national treasure that way. And some of the music has that down home country feel, and roots music, as they call it, that he oversees. But then it'll go from that to goodness knows what-- all kinds of tempos, all sorts of styles. That's to the ear.
To the eye, in terms of the camerawork and the editing, it's helter skelter. There's some scenes are shot relatively stable camera and routine cuts. Other scenes have a lot of quick cuts and flashbacks and this and that. It never settles down that way or settles into anything. So ultimately, what I felt like was that it's like, well, let's try this. Let's do that. And it just all tossed in there.
And when it does get into that criminal intrigue, as in this beekeeper and what happens to his bees, and yada, yada, that wa, it really becomes a sort of picaresque that way. And yes, it can be loosey goosey and a bit of a shambles because it's a picaresque. But I felt like it was a failed Coen brothers movie at times.
I kept thinking about O Brother, Where Art Thou? in terms of folksy characters, down home stuff, some weird goings-on. It'd be what I call a sort of a grade B Coen brothers movie. But they didn't direct this one. It's Andrew Patterson who's the director and co-writer. So having skewered it that way and just elaborated 25 reasons why I don't like it, tell me why you loved it.
MARIE WESTHAVER:
You know, the funny thing is, it's kind of hard to explain what I loved about it. But when I came home, I played the trailer for my husband. And the trailer does not give you any sort of sense of the feel of this movie at all.
Unlike the one for The Dog Stars, which looked pretty exciting, and then you go and you find out it's actually not that exciting, this looked unexciting, where I felt like it was-- yes, it rambled and took a lot of strange turns, but I felt like it was exciting, unpredictable. I thought Matthew McConaughey carried the movie. You've seen him play this character before. But this one just landed, I thought, with just the right note.
I think the thing I like the most about it was just the overall vibe of it. It had a folksy feeling to it that I felt like I hadn't seen before. It's rare that I see a movie where I don't feel it's a whole lot of recycled other movies.
I loved the characters. I thought the characters were interesting. They acted like real people did, made some questionable choices that I thought were pretty daring for a movie because you risk losing the audience's sympathy. I loved the young woman who this was her first feature film. Angelina LookingGlass, she was incredible given that I don't think there's very many scenes, after she's introduced, that she's not in. She did an incredible job.
I thought the music was amazing. I loved the music. And I agree with you that it was very much like, O Brother, Where Art Thou? in that respect. Again, another T-Bone Burnett production. Back to you, Mike.
MIKE GIULIANO:
Yeah. Well, with Angelina LookingGlass, she holds the camera, in terms of the physical presence of the actor. And it's her debut. And all due credit there. And one of the many story strands-- there's so many story strands here. It is, among other things, a coming of age story.
And all due credit to Matthew McConaughey. It's one of his better performances. It's a lived-in performance. He's really quite good, actually, just gauging it as a performance. But he's a lonely man, a very nice guy, good guy. But he's a widower now.
Back in the day, the character played by Angelina LookingGlass had been his-- it was a former foster child. And they'll reconnect in the film. So on the one hand, I agree with you that she really looks good on camera. By looking good, I don't just mean LookingGlass looking good. I just mean that, as an actor, she has some presence, OK?
The problem I had there was that there were too many of what I'll call soulful close-ups of her. So you're right. Once she appears in the film, she's there all the time. But my goodness, I should have counted how many dozen close-ups you get. And that's the point where they are tweaking and drawing it out. And, OK, already she's got this half smile on her face.
And when I see it, and then five minutes later, OK, I still see it-- and that's where the film can be kind of heavy-handed in that respect. But again, in terms of the shifts, the changes, not only between scenes but within scenes sometimes, to me, it just seemed like the director/co-writer was just, OK, let's juice it up this way and that.
And some of it just seemed to me so arbitrary. Like, why this quick cut? Why that flashback? And that's like doing it because you can do it. And it's not a film with special effects that way, but it's just simply a basic, compositional sense, why shoot this scene like this and then break it up in the way you broke it up?
I felt like he was constantly trying-- the expression I use is juicing it. Let's give it a jolt here or jolt there. Where I do agree with you, and if reluctantly-- where I do agree with you reluctantly is-- I so hate to give ground, right? But to give ground slightly, there are scenes that really work well, in terms of the rural Oklahoma setting.
And that's what you're getting at with the roots feel. And that's why McConaughey's performance is so well-grounded. You're absolutely right about that. There's scenes, for instance, like in local cafes or juke joints or whatever. And if he goes into a place like that, what are they going to order? Well, chicken-fried steak, and a Cherry Coke, and this and that. And he'll sit and play the banjo.
Some of those scenes on their own are fine. They work quite well. But then when you have a scene just before or just after it that's like, whoa, what are they doing now-- and once it got into the criminal intrigue-- and again, we don't want to spoil anything. But beekeeping is a dangerous occupation in this film, and not because of the bees. The bees, for the most part, are not going to sting you.
And I like the way they handled that in the film. It's the people who are going to sting you, and various kinds of stings, criminal and otherwise. And so that's where it just got kind of far-fetched and just, to me, almost kind of silly in terms of what it was. I mean, it's not silly for them because it's violent. But it's kind of silly for me watching it.
MARIE WESTHAVER:
I agree with you about the close-ups because I was noticing that too, that they probably could have edited out 10 minutes of her looking adoringly at Matthew McConaughey, or looking contemplative. They could have either had fewer of them or held the shot a little less. I wanted to ask you, did you find, the way I did, that it had some humor in it that just came out of left field, that surprised the audience?
And people were really taken aback and laughing at the screening that I saw. I mean, just things like how to work a buffet table. I mean, that was a genuinely hilarious scene.
MIKE GIULIANO:
I agree with you. There's a buffet table scene where-- and we all know, when you have a buffet table, you need to strategize. Like, don't fill up too much on the salads because there's roast beef at the end of the line, right? So you learn how to strategize. And that scene actually is, on its own, very funny.
What I found, though disconcerting, is some of the humor in the film is intentional, like that scene, which works really well. There's other comedy where I'm not sure whether I was laughing with it or at it. There's a distinction there. And that's where it was maybe not funny in the way it meant to be.
But going back to those repeated close-ups of her, there are other things like that just get repeated a bit too often. And the film has a running time of 130 minutes. So I think even if you're inclined to like it, it does tend to run long, don't you think?
MARIE WESTHAVER:
Well, I always have a problem with something going over two hours, unless there's some really compelling reason for it. So, yes, every movie should be two hours or less, unless you're really going to make it worth the audience's while. And I absolutely agree this is the worst title of all time, especially because there is a King Amziah historically. So I try never to read anything about a movie going in. I half thought it had something to do with King Amziah.
MIKE GIULIANO:
It's the sort of title-- if you have to explain a title, is starting to explain it, or trying to now, give it up at that point. Not that the title has to tell you everything, but it should tell you enough and maybe intrigue you a little bit. What's that? This is a title that's just simply, first of all, difficult to remember, right?
And then secondly, difficult to understand. It doesn't really-- you liked the film a lot more than I do, but it doesn't really speak to the film particularly, does it? I mean, he does have rivals. Beekeeping, again, is a dangerous occupation. And there are other beekeepers who do not wish you well. So I understand that sense of rivalry. But my goodness, you could take five minutes explaining an already long title.
MARIE WESTHAVER:
I still think McConaughey has a real shot at least a nomination for Best Actor for this film. He's very likable in it.
MIKE GIULIANO:
Well, he is. I mean, the film itself has had mixed reviews and mixed box office. I don't know if it'll have that kind of lasting impact by way of Academy Award voter memory. You know what I'm getting at? Like, I understand what you're saying, but I'm just thinking there's been enough other films out recently that are getting a lot of attention.
Like right now-- and this is a plug for a film we're not talking about at the moment. But Willem Dafoe in a film called Late Fame gives such a great performance. He's getting my vote already for the Academy Award for Best Actor. But it's a small film, and it's just playing art houses and so on. But I wanted to get that plug in there because it's the sort of quiet little film that disappears otherwise.
But Willem Dafoe has given so many good performances over-- this is such a great performance by him. I was just so, so impressed by it. So I didn't want to sound like I was like being entirely negative for this episode. I'm badmouthing everything. So I wanted to offer some praise to something at the moment.
MARIE WESTHAVER:
The final thing I will say about this movie that I did enjoy was, I always like the inside baseball, especially if there's any sort of mechanical machinery going on. I just find it fascinating to see how stuff is made, what goes on behind the scenes. I didn't know anything about bees.
MIKE GIULIANO:
No, I agree with you that some of the beekeeping episodes are interesting just at that level of, how do you keep the bees? This and that. And in fact, and now that you mention it, there really are very few special effects, per se, in this film. When you see somebody who's covered in bees, like Matthew McConaughey and somebody, he is covered in bees. I mean, they really did it. So all due credit there.
MARIE WESTHAVER:
Yeah, that takes guts. All right, that does bring us to the end of this episode. But don't forget to check out our others at atmhcc.podbean.com. And we'll see you next time at the movies.
MIKE GIULIANO:
See you then.
[music playing]
Outro
[music fades down]
PODCAST PRODUCER:
Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed what you just heard, we have a whole universe of podcasts waiting for you. Simply search Dragon Podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. You can also explore our full lineup and discover new shows at podbean.com/dragonpodcasts. That's podbean.com/dragonpodcasts.
[music ends]