The Transcript!
How hard do you want to really judge a movie based on its director and producer, especially if that director and producer is 90 years old? This film – Cry Macho – it was based on a book, but it’s had multiple times when it was supposed to actually be made. Arnold Schwarzenegger like decades ago, almost decades ago now, was supposed to be the original lead. It was twice that it was supposed to be him being the lead, and then all of a sudden, he dropped out for some reason, and now, Clint Eastwood had it.
Clint Eastwood is 90 years old, and I’m not trying to be ageist. I’m not trying to say anything, really. But Wow!
I mean, for a 90 year old man to actually go through all of the work to create a movie. It’s pretty impressive. But this movie did feel like it was made by a ninety year old.
Opening Shot of Cry Macho
Of course we’re gonna start this episode of Movies Are Dumb Sometimes talking about cry machos opening shot. Now, it’s pretty common practice that when you have the first shot of a scene, you want to establish where that scene is at.
However, and I say it pretty, well…I say it a lot. And it’s I just want feedback from people like what do you think? One day I want to make movies, you know, so it’d be cool if I had as much input as possible. Should the opening shot be an establishing shot? Or like the movie Her, do you think the opening shot can be used to tell the story more to, to do something other than establish where the movie is starting
I mean, it’s pretty building blocks, A to Z, if you want to do it just to show where everything’s at. But I mean, nobody shot was nice. Of course, it’s a drone shot because drones are the standard for most things nowadays. But it’s an overshot of Texas, you see his truck driving in the road.
And you know, I’m sitting here trying to think of a good opening shot for this film. I can’t think of one off the top, but like, just right now I’m thinking you could have had just a close up of a cock because this movie had a chicken co star in it. I’m sorry, a rooster! Maybe a rooster could have jumped out of the back of his truck or something. I don’t know.
You know this? Something about the opening shot because it’s the first impression of the movie, for the most part other than maybe the score and the opening credits and opening – what do you call it – was like and video animations, logo animations for the production companies. I don’t necessarily consider that part of the movie. But other than music, the first shot is your first impression of the movie should be something that puts has some more thought into it other than “Hey, this is where we’re at!”
Cry Macho Opening Credits and The Firing
Now, I always thought it’s good that if you have to have credits at the beginning of a movie, to utilize it as part of your story, which is what they did in Cry Macho, where at the end of the credits, it pans over to a newspaper and it’s of Michael Milo, the main character played by Clint Eastwood, showing that how he basically became a broken down rodeo star.
It was kind of cool because it had a picture of the time when he was riding the horse and he I guess he was a bareback rider for all your rodeo people out there. It zoomed into the picture in the picture turned into a video and it was like an old video. Like obviously, Clint Eastwood’s old this movie is slated in 1979. And the video obviously would probably be 30, 40, 50 years…I’m not exactly sure how old Milo Mr. Milo in this movie is. But it would have had to been in the 30s, I would believe
One trope about these types of films about a broken down hero is they usually get fired from a job. And it’s never like a nice firing. They’re always getting chewed out by their boss. I suppose it’s supposed to make you feel sympathy for the main character. But sometimes, the only time I got fired was when I was recruiting for the Army and I was a terrible recruiter because I told them, “Hey, I’m not going to make good salesman.” And I was a terrible at it and they fired me. But I’ve never been when I got fired from being a recruiter. I never got fired like they do in the movies. I didn’t just get railed. Well, I was told I sucked, but it was not like, like they do in the movies. That is a whole different story about my army recruiting experience.
Yeah, they, they really he really tore down Mr. Milo the boss did. He’s played by dwight yoakam. I can’t remember his name, but let’s just refer to him as the boss, who then not but one minute later in the movie shows up at Milo’s house and says, “Hey, I need you to go kidnap my son.”
So he goes from firing this guy cruelly in one scene and not but the next scene. He’s like, “Hey, you remember that time I helped you out? Well, my son’s in Mexico, and I need you to kidnap him.”
Michael Milo Heads to Mexico
Yep, so this kid, the boss’s son, his name is I think it’s Rafael, but they call him Rafo. His mom is quite the lady who wants to have sex with every man, from what I gather in this movie, at least every man that is sent down to kidnap her son, which is weird to me that the boss knows that his ex wife is not just going to hand over his son. He keeps sending people down there to basically ask if he could have his son back. And we go to – we come to find out later in the movie that the quote unquote main reason that he wants his son back, and so he can have leverage for the investments that he made down there under his wife’s name, so he could get some money back. But he also claims at the same time, oh, I just really want my son back. But how credible is that claim?
And this woman in Mexico has a giant house. She has protection. She has at least two bodyguards that are basically guarding her all the time. And, well, she I guess she can’t be that rich. One of them’s pretty dumb.
Milo shows up to the house and basically says, Hey, I’m looking for your son. And she goes, “Oh, well, I guess I want to have sex with you.”
And it’s just like, “What?”
But then she says, “Oh, my son’s off doing cockfighting. I don’t know where he is. He’s bad kid.” So she tells Milo to go check her. She’s Mike. Mike – Michael Milo. She tells Milo to go check this one place where he’s been known to hang out at for cock fights.
Introducing Fighting Macho in Cry Macho
Milo goes down there and it’s in the son’s there. And the police show up to shut down this cockfight that’s not even held in any type of hidden area. It looks like it’s just out in the open all the lights are on. Police cars, just drive up and shut down this cockfight. I don’t know. I’ve never been to Mexico, but from what I see in movies, they should have bigger things to worry about. The police, the Federales.
In this scene, after the police shut everything down. Milo goes back there and he’s walking around. He’s just like, “Rafo, are you here?” like, lazy writing to me. But he’s walking around and then this rooster jumps out and starts running around. And then Milo just decides, “Oh, I’m gonna catch this rooster.”
So he’s running around and he catches it turns out it’s Rafo’s rooster, his cockfighting rooster. And his name is Macho. And Clint Eastwood had one of the best lines in this movie. He didn’t say right here. But he’s, he said later on.
“If a guy wants to name his cock macho, that’s fine by me.”
I thought it was funny. So really quick, the time for this movie is the year 1979. And that’s another question I have for everybody. Do you think it’s good to just put the year that this movie, like the time period of a movie is in? Would you rather discover as the movie goes? Or would you rather just know up front by being told on a title on a subtitle, what year it is or where it’s at?
I find it just more interesting if it’s somehow worked into the script, like dialog or if you shoot something that shows that it’s 1979. Instead of just like putting text up putting text, I mean, it’s when I see a movie, I want to get immersed into the movie. And anything that takes away from that kind of is a bummer. Putting just a subtitle right over the movie saying what year it is or where you are.That kind of takes me out of movie, but what do you all think?
Mommy Problems for Rafo and Milo
So Milo convinces Rafo to go to Texas and he says, “All right, I’ll go I just gotta go get some things.” And so Milo goes back to the kids mom’s house because he thinks that that’s where he went to get his things. He just like, breaks into the house, and just goes to the kid’s room. I didn’t get it.
But then of course, he’s caught finally by the body guards and then the mom, wearing her little nightie gets into bed and says basically, “Hey, I’m ready for your loving Milo.”
He’s like, “I’m gonna get out of here.” So he tries to leave.
So they eventually let him go, because she’s like, he’s not “You’re not getting my son.” And then she has one of her henchmen track Milo, which he probably is the best, like tracker in the whole world. As Milo’s just driving back to Texas. You don’t see this guy anywhere until one day he just pops up like the next day!
The Drive Back to Texas
I don’t know where Milo’s Ranch is in Texas or his house. But from Mexico City to McAllen, Texas, which is the closest city to Mexico City. It’s about an 11 to 12 hour drive. I know this is 1979 and cars didn’t go as fast back then. But if you’re just doing 55 miles an hour, it’s about 650 miles. It takes 11.81 hours to drive that. I mean, I know he’s an older guy. But it takes like two nights to get there and I know the kid cost a little problems, but I felt like this is taking too long to get to the border.
So Milo leaves from the mom’s house at nighttime drives all night, there’s no showing that he’s stopped to rest. And it’s daytime now it’s not early morning, like the sun is up. And then out of nowhere, this rooster, it’s Macho, flies out of the backseat. Milo pulls over and goes, “What the f?” because Rafo was laying in the backseat.
My question is so, so we had to have been driving for at least five hours. When he left Mexico City, it was pitch dark. And when he discovered Rafo was in his vehicle, it was pretty bright out. So did this rooster just lay there quietly for like, at least four I’ll give him four hours? And Rafo just laid back there quietly for four hours. And then when you get to the border, what did Rafo like think was gonna happen? But there this is that kind of threw the movie out for me.
So as they’re getting closer, as they’re driving to the border, there’s a Federales stop. Not sure what the stop is for, but they were doing a police checkpoint, they stop the Milo and raffo just stop in their car and they look and go, “Well, we don’t want to go that way!” So they just turn and drive off a road. And they stopped. It’s not like they slowed down to a halt, or slow down to turn. They just stopped in turn.
And you would think the federal police would have been like, Oh, that was weird behavior-behavior. We need to go down there and see what’s up. But no, they just – there and it didn’t look like the federal holidays. were too busy. Like they didn’t have 10 cars lined up. They just were just sitting out there on the road. Maybe there was something that hinted at what was going on there. And please let me know if there was because this was kind of unbelievable…ubelievable part of the story for me.
Aurelio – the Worst or Best Henchman Ever in Cry Macho?
So as I said his name was our Elio ra ra Leo – Aurelio was one of the mom’s henchmen, and he just showed up, they were stopping to get something to eat, and Aurelio, just showed up. And the kid got all mad at Milo for something after Rafo chugged his beer. The kid went out there. And this henchmen grabbed the kid, and he’s holding the kid, but the kid’s like fighting him and Macho, is attacking a really Oh, and I’m just like, this guy is really letting this 12 year old in this chicken, rooster sorry, like, defeat him.
And this is a pretty fun scene, it was pretty interesting, because Milo came out and punched the dude because he wouldn’t let kid go. And then the Aurelio, like, look, there’s a whole bunch of just random guys standing around, like working on cars or something. And he’s like, “Hey, this gringo is trying to take my son!”
And then Rafo turned around and lifted up his shirt because he had all these bruises and things from living on the street and goes, “This guy is my dad, and he beats me!” And then all the Mexicans went over there and just like, put the guy on the car hood and just started wailing on him. I was like, wow, Milo, and Rafo get away.
And later in the movie, Aurelio shows back up worse, and he doesn’t really have that many bruises on him. I don’t know if they didn’t hit him in the face. I mean, they pinned him to the car, and three guys were just wailing on him. And I’m sure of the 10 guys there, a lot of them got some hits in because this guy is a child abuser. Well, allegedly.
And in this scene, I think there was a line mistake like somebody misread a line or there was a bad edit. Raffo asks Milo, “How did you find me?”
And Milo replies, “Your mom told me. That’s why.” I think if I’m wrong here, please let me know.
The Silence off Screen
So at one point, they’re taking like a bathroom break next to the road, and Milo gets some diarrhea or some upset stomach and he’s gonna go relieve himself. Rafo goes over and says, “Hey, eat this cactus. It’ll make you feel better.” Now see, sometimes movies…there’s just – they need to educate people better because a lot of people think movies are documentaries for some reason, and they will just take anything they hear in a movie as like pure fact. I looked it up – cacti in the American Southwest, anyway, there’s only a couple cacti, I want to call them cactuses, but I believe it is cacti, there’s only a couple that you can actually consume. And it’s healthy for you. Many others around the world will kill you or not maybe kill you. But it’ll it’s poisonous to you. I did read on atozhomegarden.com that if you are going to eat anything off and cactus, you should eat the cactus fruit. And at least know which ones you can eat if you are going to just eat the cactus.
So there may be 30 to 50 feet away from the road. They’re not that far. And keep in mind that this is 1979.
One thing that movies seem to commonly practice is that what you see on the scene, what you see on the screen in the scene, is the only thing that’s going on because this car pulls up to them, not even 30 feet away from them. A guy gets out of the car, shuts the door, goes to their car, opens it and shuts the door. And they don’t hear it until the car turns on. And I’m just like come on, like you could have at least picked a spot in the open desert out there that has like a little slump so they’re at least down down a little hill or something instead of just being 30 feet away. And not hearing this car pull up and these people nice these come to steal their car.
Ah, ah, I mean, it’s like in The Walking Dead you never hear the zombies until they’re on the screen or two feet away from you know, that’s not like not just Walking Dead. I’m sorry for pointing out that specific show. But a lot of zombie movies, or horror movies in general, especially things can sneak up on anybody because you don’t hear them until they’re on the screen. And because it is 1979 they don’t have no electric cars or hybrid cars. So I know that car wasn’t silent.
Breaking Horses and Cell Phones in Cry Macho
Okay, so they end up walking to this town, this little village and they get some work breaking horses because there’s a horse dude there who has like 10 horses and he just has no idea how to break these horses until Milo comes along.
And like, the impression is that Milo gets on the horse and breaks these horses and these horses are bucking. And at the same time, you know, Clint Eastwood is 90 years old, and they did not establish how old Milo really is. And you know, you didn’t get any close ups of Clint Eastwood on that horse breaking a wild horse.
But speaking of it being 1979 sometimes you have to watch a movie, you know, from olden days, or movies based on olden days to really appreciate what it’s like to not have a cell phone. Remember those days before cell phones?
In this movie, Milo has to call his boss in Texas back to give them updates on this thing on the whole kidnapping situation. And in think he calls him like three times to the movie. But imagine if we had cell phones in this movie, that boss would be ringing up Milo every 20 minutes of the day, trying to get his son back. It’s just nice to think about times when we didn’t have cell phones.
Cry Macho’s Martha and a Car Service Idea
So Milo and Rafo find this restaurant where the love interest for Milo, Martha, appears. But Milo decides to take a nap – puts his hat down. We got the side eyed Chloe meme in the form of Macho Side eyed Macho wakes up Mr. Milo and it was – I don’t I don’t know why I appreciated the close up shot of the rooster but I did.
I don’t know if I missed something here. After they’re done at the restaurant. They drive off and they’re driving like out in the open I think this is when they find their vehicle because they had to – they picked up another vehicle in a town because Rafo says in Mexico you can just take other people’s cars – like there’s this car is laying around that you can take and I was like “That’s a great idea, actually!”
[There’s] Some sort of business opportunity there. And I know there’s Zip cars, but I don’t think Zip cars are just hanging out I think you have to go to like motor pools or something for Zip cars. I don’t I think there’s and then we’ll see – we’ll see what that says…Think about it. Think about just being able to go and grab a car and just go, you know, like you don’t have to maintain your car or anything.
It was like it’s like Uber but just for cars and you just can go get into a car and take it wherever and if there are enough cars that they’re always you know, they can’t leave the city or something. There’s just cars everywhere that you can just go grab one and go. And as long as the car is not occupied, then you can go take the car.
Is this a good idea? I think is a pretty decent idea. But that’s just me. Anyways, this you know, that’s why I like watching movies because you come up with some pretty crazy ideas sometimes.
Movie Magic
But then they end up at this church. And apparently, I think it’s another small village. I think, I don’t know I was a little lost here. I’ll be honest, but I don’t think I am wrong. But they end up in this church and Milo breaks down his life to Rafo.
So I was thinking it was kind of funny, because Milo’s laying down with his cowboy hat tipped over, and it’s causing a shadow over his eyes. And he starts telling his backstory, and about his wife and his kid. And then I was like, “Oh, no, he’s gonna start crying, isn’t he? And they’re gonna hide it with the shaded eyes.” And that’s exactly what happens. Uh, tears started rolling down his cheek. And I know he’s old, so maybe he can get the tear ducks go in, or maybe I haven’t seen every Clint Eastwood film. But I don’t know if he can drum up the eyeworks.
But I was like, there you go. That’s movie magic right there, create a scenario in which you have to get if you have to have tears or something, create a scenario where if the actor can’t do it, you can fake it.
Milo is giving writing lessons to Rafo. And during these lessons, he gives the quote…
“Look where you are going, go where you are looking.”
And I was like, that’s not just good horse riding advice. That’s good life advice. Stay on the road, get, you know, focus on what you want, and go for it. Don’t go every which way and try to do a whole bunch of different things to create one thing. Just look at what you need to do and do it.
So near the end of the film, the Federales start to ask questions in the town, the village that Milo and Rafo were in, so they’re like “We need to get out of here.”
Or at least Milo is and Rafo’s like “What? I like to here!”
And Milo was like, “Oh, no, we need to get going!” And then he goes to Martha and in the kids that she has and her grandkids says we got to go. And then so I was like, Oh, so he’s not I thought I wasn’t sure what Milo because he looked like he was falling in love with this woman, Martha, who’s who…She’s a grandma. But she looks like she’s 50 younger than him. But she’s falling in love with him too. So not being ages. That’s cool.
So the Federalist eventually started chasing Milo and Rafo down the road. There are these turns. The police aren’t that far behind Milo. And Milo takes – during one of the turns, like an S curve, like there’s a bunch of curves and some of these roads with some little hills in between. So you can’t see that far. He turns off the road onto the desert, and drives down a little bit. It wasn’t very much later that these cops came around the corner. And I guess did not see any dirt up in the air or a big green blue car out in the desert or anything.
I don’t know, to me, they could have edited this a little better. Or they could have had the cops like tail them farther behind to make this way more believable. But then the cops eventually find they just – well, Rafo and Milo have an argument and Rafo just like jumps out of the car and says, “I’m leaving!” just in the middle of the desert. I’m taking off and he starts leaving and then the federales show up and then federal police go and search their car. Because the Federales apparently think they’re running drugs. And they don’t find any drugs. And then the Federales are like “All right, you can go.”
And then I think no one line that Eastwood said here was:
“If they had a brain they’d be dangerous.”
I was like oh, man. Oh, movie one lighters are the greatest sometimes. But as raffle one mile are back on the road ahead and headed into Texas, Auerlio shows up the henchmen from the mom shows up and knocks them off the road. rally Oh, aureo are the henchmen – I can’t see his name. He gets up and goes for the car. And then macho, again, jumps out of the car and basically beats up this guy. And I’ve never fought a chicken. I’m pretty I know, they’re pretty crazy.
Like, if you’ve ever had a bird come after you on foot, and it’s flapping its wings and it’s pecking at you. Yeah, it’s a little intimidating, but I feel like if I was a bad guy, I would – I – is – you could tell from my stuttering right now. This was way unbelievable.
But they get away. Then we get to the end of the movie. And if there’s one thing you know that I don’t like it’s movies without endings. This movie in particular had a special half ending. We find out that Rafo – he goes to his dad, he actually leaves the US, or I mean Mexico and goes to the US. But Mike, he gives Mike Macho and I guess Mike just goes, “Well Macho can’t go to the US. He don’t have green card,” and he decides to stay and he goes back to Martha and the movie ends with him and Martha dancing.
Cry Macho’s Ending
I know this movie is about Milo, it’s not about Rafo. But at the same time, the whole thing pushing this movie forward is Rafo. And I just wanted to know if Rafo ends up staying in the US or not, or if he decides to go back to Mexico, there could be a whole nother movie, I don’t see them making a whole nother movie off of this. But I didn’t like the fact that the main drive of this story didn’t have a conclusion.
Maybe not the main drive. For me, it was the main drive, because without it, you wouldn’t have had this movie. So I needed to be really satisfied with this movie to know if raffo ends up staying in the US. Or if he goes back to Mexico, and I didn’t need a full like, I don’t get it. I just don’t. I don’t get it. I don’t get how people want movies to leave them to guess what happens.
I know that I’ve heard the whole argument where the audience is the best in writing the movie for you.
And I’m just like, well, I just gave you two hours of my time. Only to be gypped – only to have me just make up – why not just let me make up stuff in the beginning. Why not let me make stuff in the middle? I know a lot of movies have a lot of plot holes. So you kind of have to fill things in on your own. But this is the end of the movie. I just invested all this time into having you tell me this story. And then at the end, you get to go I’m not going to finish it. That’s so lazy.
So Macho – Cry Macho. Thanks for giving me half an ending at least I guess it’s a lot better than some movies that just leave it completely out in the open. And that’s what I thought of Cry Macho, what did you think of Cry Macho?
Should Ageism Apply to Movies?
Should Clint Eastwood at age 90, now 91, keep making movies? I guess if he’s – if he’s making money, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I will tell you though, that when I walked into this movie, I did notice that most of the audience had gray hair. That’s probably why this movie was put into the biggest theater in this small town in the middle of the Midwest, because it was probably going to make the most money just like when I went and saw “Let Him Go” by Kevin Costner earlier this year and Diane Lane there was the audience wasn’t full it wasn’t empty, but it was mostly gray haired people so…gotta know your audience I guess that’s why this theater never actually got The Green Night which I was really excited to see but they decided not to show it after promoting that they were going to get the movie. And don’t breathe too. Oh, I gotta move back into a bigger city
But thank you for listening to this episode of Movies Are Dumb Sometimes where we talked about Cry Macho today. Again if you have any thoughts on the movie, please let me know you go to anchor.fm/MoviesAreDumbSometimes if you want to leave a voice message. I’m right now you know I’m not getting many so I will play whatever voice messages are left. Or you can just go to bloafx.com/MoviesAreDumbSometimes, to see where you can do or follow where you can do where you can follow or like or subscribe to Movies Are Dumb Sometimes. Appreciate you listening and always remember you’re not sitting in the front row….you’re not truly at the movie.
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