The Rider Review - 2018 Oscar Sprint Profile - When A High Quality Horse Movie Meets Mike1 - Ep 135

Best Film at the Gotham Awards. ***This Review of The Rider has a Spoiler Section*** Intro / we discuss Mike 1’s previous hatred for horse movies - Top of the Show What’s an OSP? - 1:23 What’s next for MMO? - 2:33 Non-Spoiler Review of The Rider Production Profile & the Amazing True Story - 5:34 Cast & Crew & Real Life Cowboys - 11:21 Movie Specs with Sky High Critical Reception Numbers - 13:09 Plot Premise & Expectations - 17:00 Review of the Production Values - 19:21 Review of the Performances - 27:40 Non-Spoiler Script Analysis - 33:00 Oscar Lens - 35:03 Spoiler Warning Dance Music - 39:57 SPOILER-FILLED REVIEW: Non-Spoiler Carryovers - 41:16 Plot Overview - 43:17 (Worst Scenes: The Awkwardness of Friendly Empathy - 45:57) (Best Scenes: Lane Scott’s Story - 49:35) (Done with Rodeo - 52:56) (Apollo and Back to “Normal?” - 53:46) (Best Scenes: Brady Can Act - 56:03) (Best Scenes: The Apollo Parallel - 59:35) (I’m Going to the Rodeo - 1:01:53) (The Final Scene and Answers? - 1:03:53) Final Grades/More Worsts - 1:05:44 Outro/Social Media/Words of Wisdom - 1:07:32 The Gotham Awards chose Chloe Zhao’s The Rider as it’s best film this past Sunday, beating out likely Best Picture nominees If Beale Street Could Talk and The Favourite. So it got our attention, and since it’s newly been released on Starz on Demand, we felt compelled to offer it the full Oscars Sprint Profile treatment. Not gonna lie, both Mike and I were worried about this choice of episode because Mike 1 has come out as vehemently against Horse Movies. It’s a rare prejudice, which he’s admitted is a bizarre and irrational prejudice, but he has refused to change his mind, and these were the stakes. After all the War Horses and Black Stallions, would The Rider finally change the heart of Mike 1? Or would he double down on his hatred for everything horse related entertainment? The format for the episode gives you two reviews for the price of one listen as we do a loaded non-spoiler segment before breaking down the entire plot after some spoiler warning dance music. This film fits our template especially well as we have quite the backstory to tell in the non-spoiler section, and we build on that with specs, the premise, our expectations, reviews of both the production values and performances, and an Oscar Lens, where we cover all the buzz The Rider is getting this awards season. Then we dance, give you a full segment on what the lead actor Brady Jandreau is doing these days as an actual cowboy himself, and then we break down the entire plot and it’s many strong uplifting themes, integrating all our bests and worsts along the way. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to click on our other OSPs. We reviewed all of the major nominees of last year’s Oscar ramp up & there’s a playlist to hear all of those, but we’ve also just created a playlist for all our 2018 OSPs (and there are many), as well as another playlist for all our 2018 movie event reviews. In any case, scroll down our Soundcloud account to catch up on all our reviews & dive into our back catalog for the rest of our comprehensive & caffeinated coverage of the movie world. Chat with us on social media & tell us how you received The Rider. We are Mike, Mike, and Oscar on Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, & Gmail. We’re also at MMandOscar on Twitter, and don’t forget to play along with our movie trivia game SixDegreesOfMMO. Tune into our MMO Weekly episodes to hear our winners and the next challenge. Come for the Six Degrees game & come back for our weekly coverage of all the latest & greatest news on the film world in MMOW. When reality sucks, watch movies with us. We’re Mike, Mike, and Oscar!