UDT Special Report: Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2024 FT/Rick of Sigma DuoCast

0:00 Hey everyone, Uncle Dad here, and we've got a very special, unique, probably the first time we have done this, we have worked with our good friend from Sigma Duocast, the one and only Rick, or I like to call him Sexy Rick. Now Sexy Rick is going to be our junior reporter, more like a film critic if you will, and he will be helping us out a lot with different things that we can't do for certain on-the-field jobs. For example, we get asked to do a lot of film reviews and stuff along those lines, and we can't always get to that, and we want to provide the most content for our audience. What we're doing now is teaming up with Rick, or Sexy Rick, and he will be kind of our go-to guy for film reviews if we can't get to them.

0:44 Without further ado, I really cannot wait to introduce this episode, so let me introduce it. We are going to be doing a special coverage on the Santa Barbara International Film Festival that just passed literally last weekend. So when you hear this, like last weekend, it was going on from the 7th through the 14th of February. It was such a great time. You know, from what I had seen and been continually staying in research with, the films there were just incredible. And Rick had a lot of great things to say about the films that he reviewed. Not only did Rick review actual film, he reviewed one full-length picture and a bunch of shorts. You'll get to experience all that in two parts in this episode.

1:24 And I really can't tell you enough. Go check out Rick. Go check out his podcast. It's called Sigma Duocast. You can find that on pretty much any streaming platform. You can find that on Instagram. It's literally just Sigma Duocast. One word, check him out. Again, thank you, Rick, for being a part of the team. Thank you for being a part of our little Uncle Dad universe. And thank you guys for listening. If you guys like this film review stuff, please hit me up at UncleDad at UncleDadTalks.com. And then we can throw some more films in our way. If there's stuff you want to see that we review, do we do big time reviews? I don't know. I want to do more reviews to provide more content for our listeners, for our fan base.

2:05 And really, I just can't thank you enough. And I hope you guys appreciate this content. So again, check out Rick of Sigma Duocast. You can find him on any streaming platform and then of course, go to his social media. That's going to be Sigma duo cast one word. And yeah, without further ado, I'm going to hand it over to Rick. Rick, tell them what you saw. What's up everyone i am rick from sigma do a cast or as uncle dad likes to call me sexy rick, uncle dad asked me to cover a few films from the santa barbara international film festival which i was more than excited to do so so thank you to uncle dad for allowing me to cover a couple of these as well as thank you to santa barbara international film festival for hosting such such a wonderful event.

2:52 I, a lot of people don't realize that, you know, when you go to the bigs, to the theaters, the big screen, what have you, like there's a place where a lot of these creative individuals start from, you know, whether it's making movies from your own garage and putting them on YouTube nowadays or anything like that. Film festivals is like the heart of a lot of the film industry where a lot of people get to express a lot of the creativity, a unique creativity as well. So I'm always, always interested what you can find at a film festival. So I was able to view five shorts and one featured film.

3:34 And I'm excited to bring that to you guys today, sharing my perspective and my thoughts on these five shorts and feature film. So I'm going to be giving you guys kind of like a review, but I want it to be more just like sharing my perspective, my own thoughts and opinion on these films. At the end of the day, you know, I don't want to let me say this. I don't want it to be where I'm like telling you, oh, this is good and this is bad. And you go, oh, OK, well, they said it was bad. Therefore, I don't want to mess with it. But if there's anything that bugs me nowadays is that there's people specifically on social media or what have you where they have a big following and a powerful voice and they say, this is no good.

4:20 And then, you know, all 1,000 million billions, whomever followers go, this person said it's no good. Therefore, it must be no good. I don't want to watch it. And that's not the case because there's a lot of things in this world where, or at least in media, where a movie is universally well-received and there are people that hate it. And then there's movies that are universally received as bad, but there are people that love it. So at the end of the day, it's whatever your opinion you have on the project or the film or whatever it is. That's all that matters. If you like it, great. If you don't, you don't. But my goal, ultimately, whenever I do film reviews or share my thought on something is to just enlighten my point of view, my perspective, how it relates to me with the intent and ultimate goal that hopefully it creates interest for you to check out something that you otherwise wouldn't.

5:16 I think ultimately that's what we utilize reviews for and what we try to get from reviews. But a lot of people don't see it that way. It's more of like, this person said it sucks, therefore it sucks. Instead of just taking like, hey, this is what I think about it. This is how it correlated with me. You know, if you happen to like my opinion, then maybe it might be some, if I say, you know, if I share it truthfully, maybe you'd be like, oh, well, you know what? Maybe I should check that out and see if it's any good or what have you. So again, that's my ultimate goal. Now, this is my first time reviewing films from a film festival. Therefore, I'm going to tailor these reviews a little bit differently.

6:01 In addition, I'm going to make this kind of quick because I did five shorts and a feature film. I don't want to spend too much, like a lot of time on this because obviously I can probably speak for a couple hours. Ultimately, when I say it's short, I'm not going to be diving into much of the details of the film. The directors, the actors, writers, backstories, behind the scenes, things of that nature. I'm just going to get really straight to it. I'm just going to give you guys a scoring system that I use, which is a five-point system, where 0.5 is the lowest, where I didn't really care for it, and 5 being the highest.

6:44 Biased now just because again like i said if i give it a 0.5 that doesn't mean the movie's bad or anything i mean just wasn't for me specifically and the way i generally break down these reviews it's kind of like an utilizing that five point system train of thought so the first one would be story and plot just kind of what was the story about was the plot was it good did i you know was i smart enough to get it or understand it or anything like that to acting directing so uh The direction, did the director have a good sense of what's it about? Was the acting well entertained? Is it believable? Three, visual cinematography. You know, if there's CGI, if it's animated, transitions, lighting, like all those minutiae things I like to look into.

7:28 Four, music. You know, the score, composing, soundtrack. You know, I think music's very important in films and sometimes in certain scenes. It really, you know, establishes the, you know, the importance of what the scene is and it helps the carry the weight of the emotion or the intensity of what havers, you know, happening on film. And then finally, there's the fifth one, which is like my miscellaneous. It's kind of like my just about anything. So, you know, was it was the movie long? Was it short? Was the pacing bad? Was entertaining? Was it boring? Did it put me to sleep? You know, like you name it. It's kind of like, you know, free for all. this is where you can really because i've seen a lot of people say with when they review something like it just it kind of dragged and i was just like okay that's valid because you know that could be pacing could be a lot of different things that go into that or it's just like it's very entertaining but then there's like a good 30 minutes of just dialogue but then all of a sudden here's action or drama and then it's back to like nothing and you're like so again that's what i'll be using but again hopefully the main goal here is just so you guys can just kind of hopefully generate curiosity and interest and you go hey you know what let me check that out because maybe it'd be something i would never really watch and because of that i'm not going to include spoilers.

8:49 In these reviews or at least i'm going to try my very hardest to include very minimal things because at the end of the day i really just want to explain what you know what this movie or what what these films made me feel, what I took away from it. Whether it's relatable for me in my personal life or. And to convey that, sometimes you do have to get a little more in depth with the plot of what I just saw. But again, I ultimately just want you guys to check them out. So I'm going to try my hardest to not. So I think that kind of sums up what to expect from my reviews. And I understand this is the first time I'm doing reviews for Uncle Dad.

9:30 So you guys don't necessarily know what I'm into, what I like. I'll just say, to me, film is like music. Like I love almost every genre, every type of film. I mean, I just love film. Like I love movies. The term is cinephile. And so that's one of the big things I am. I'll pretty much watch just about anything. So kind of give you an idea of just my range. It's kind of everywhere. But yeah. All right. So this first part here, well, I'm going to cover the five shorts. And again, I'm just going to go over the title of the film and just kind of briefly what what it was about, what I took away from it, how I felt. No like super in-depth details as I would love to, but I'm not going to do it this time around.

10:15 After that, we'll do a short break. And then when I come back, we'll cover that feature film. Yeah. Alrighty guys. So let's get into it. The first film that I'm going to start off with is None or Never, which is a short animated film. Let me see if i can give you guys the synopsis here so a nun digs a man up from the ground and loses her grip on everyday life can secrets and harmony coexist now for me on this one, of the five well total six films this one's the one i i had less connection to because obviously i'm not a nun and i'm not looking to be a nun but not necessarily that that.

11:04 It was just very unique. This was definitely a unique short film. Again, it was fully animated. So as far as the plot and story goes, from what I took away from it, at least what I was able to translate from what was visually being shown to me was that when it comes to nuns, I think it's safe to say that we all assume the same. So when you see a nun or even like a group of nuns, like they're uniform, they behave the same, like you expect help, sincerity, all that stuff, right? But we don't know who they were before because that's not something they wear on the outside. It's something that they contain on the inside.

11:48 And so what I took away from this film is that the character that we follow is, We got like maybe a hint of their previous life or regular life, I guess, previous life. I mean, I don't know how, I guess that's the way to say it. And then they're kind of just going through that. Again, I don't want to give spoilers. So that was my takeaway from it. So I'm hoping I took the intent of what it was supposed to be, but it was good. I mean, I thought it was very unique in terms of acting and direction. And I mean, there was, there was no dialogue. long they were just like little like like those type of sounds to emphasize emotion or response or what have you direction because it was an animated film i mean they they had full control where they were going with it so i'm assuming what the director intended they got visual.

12:47 Merchandise i'm so sorry visuals and cinematography i don't know why i said that right now It has a very unique and weird art style to, to this little short film. Like it was cool. Like I, I was digging it. I feel like I've seen it before, but yeah, it was definitely, it was definitely unique. I'll say it that way. Even like, I remember I read something about the director they were talking about and it said, yeah, it's like, you know, it's that weird art, which I don't know how to explain it. It reminded me of like maybe, maybe like a elementary school kids, like art, like if they were to draw people, what they would assume.

13:28 And then it comes to life. That's kind of reminded me again. I know that probably doesn't help, but for me, that's how it translates music. There was some good music in it as far as like, you know, composing and how it carried the story. And as far as miscellaneous like i i for me because it was just so unique and i don't want to make that i'm not i don't want to say it's like a negative thing or anything it's just. I was trying really hard just trying to like figure like understand what is being is being told to me so by the whole time i spent too much time just trying to translate everything thing all the visuals so it kind of took away a little bit from the entertainment piece of it, but it was all right overall for me it just it wasn't my cup of tea although i love the animation, and i'm like i said i'm pretty sure i get what they were good where they were getting at with the story it just wasn't for me unfortunately so i did give it a two out of five for none or never a short animated film.

14:36 All right, the next one I did was Les Patines, which I believe is French for the skates. This was a short film, live action. This one was, I enjoyed this one. This one was interesting. It's not as relatable to me, but it's interesting because I think it's extremely relatable to a lot of people in this day and age. So let me see here. I believe I have the synopsis, a quick little one here. Let me just locate it for you guys. So Mina loves to skate. Today, her father, recently divorced from her mother, accompanies her to her first figure skating lesson.

15:18 An ordinary day if something hadn't happened to the skates. That last line's a little misleading in my personal opinion. Him so yes it starts off very beautiful where it's a father-daughter she's going for first lessons to go figure skating very well done they even had a good little music and their little soundtrack where she you know a little montage of her kind of i'm worried like the 80s movies when like you know they're getting all pumped up like it's like rocky you know like i'm gonna start Start working out and just start playing it or some type of Van Damme movie. You know what I mean? And it was nice. It was very beautiful.

16:00 I think it started off really well, but then it took a turn where the divorce aspect of the story, while also including if both parents, if not at least one of them is petty about the divorce, kind of just that took like a little bit of a dark turn for me. And i am pretty damn sure that was the intent in this story so well done i think it was done very well acting and directing between uh the the actress that played mina the little girl and the father because they're like the main two characters um there's other people but those are the main two for what they were intended to do or portray and you know basically what their characters were supposed to be they bring it to life really well great direction in my my opinion visuals and cinematography was great like i said they i love the little montage they did which kind of taken to the fourth point is that music piece like i really really digged how they did all that and everything was well transitioned and it really the you got the, image of where you needed to be whether you were the father whether you were the daughter or whether you were an item and if that makes sense to you so it's really well done miscellaneous.

17:21 I think it was entertaining it was great i for me it was just really it kind of it didn't hit home but it can hit home for some people so it brought the emotion of frustration which i believe was the intent now i am my parents did divorce when i was in my teens but you know we're mexican american family i'm first-gen mexican-american so it's a little bit different there wasn't like pettiness in a sense but what they present to you in this film the if if a parent or both parents have pettiness and what it does to the child you know psychologically and emotionally that's really captured well and you know it was it was it was pretty frustrating pretty sure the intent was to to show the frustration and at the end of it, make you feel for the child and how messed up it is.

18:17 So hopefully, you know, if you're, if you're a child that's gone through this, you know, hopefully opens your eyes. Like, Hey, look at. Your parents can be, they can be jerks. Hopefully you don't get too lost into that. But again, we look, children look at their parents like they're heroes. They're be everything. Ultimately, I hope that parents, divorced parents watch this and they set a better example on how they can be towards their kids. So 3.5 out of 10 out of five less spittins. Like I said, really good. I really enjoyed this film. All right. The third short that I reviewed here was someone's trying to get in short film live action.

19:04 This one is interesting. Not really relatable for me. And I don't really have a synopsis for you guys or anything because I didn't, I wasn't provided that one for this one. So this one's about it's like current events and this can be a touchy subject to some. The whole premise or the whole thing of this film it follows family two parents and two kids i remember correctly an individual they're immigrants i believe from haiti they're immigrating making their way to canada crossing the border to canada and then they get you know they surrender surrender themselves get taken to like a camp but it's like well like it's a nice camp like it's very supportive and providing not much security but it was it's nice and then it focuses on another family to a parent and then a child and with this one i don't necessarily know what the The intent was, I get the message, I believe they were trying to share.

20:14 But I didn't, I didn't, I feel, I don't know. Okay. So going back to my points with the plot, starting with the story and plot, like I just kind of gave you guys the breakdown of far as what it was. And i'm assuming the individual the single individual that's like immigrating like that's the main character that we want to focus on but when you see the outside the other i guess main character which i guess is the antagonist like i don't know to me just it really just generated a lot of hate and i don't know what the intent was as far as was it to bring awareness or was it to.

20:56 Exploit or express what hatred looks like in people because it was dark man without even having to show you anything to be dark just the what the intentions are the acting directing direction like acting was for what the characters were supposed but the actors had to work with i mean they did they did a great job especially the main character. The cinematography and the visuals is really it's actually really good a lot of misdirection i mean there was a moment where i was like i thought it was like gonna it was gonna become a horror film, because the intensity was really drawn up and the way the camera and the lighting was like i was like it's a little scary but it never got to that point i don't really remember if there's music in this one because it was just kind of like a straight story my miscellaneous point it was was short it just ended like it was like it was building to set everything up again with the family and then with the the individual and then you had this other family like we were building like okay we're getting we're getting and then right when we were about to like right when things were about to go down the movie's over like the short film's over and i think that was the problem problem i had with it is that we never really got the intent like the message that the main character from what i took away from was like no matter where you are whether it's your hometown or your home village or home country evil is everywhere and it's pretty much the same.

22:35 And then as far as like the other character that it kind of focused on he just has hatred he just hates people like hates immigrants and took matters into his own hands and he just it just didn't feel good like it just felt very easy so i don't know like this one was a little tricky for me because again i am first generation mexican-american so my family was immigrants but, you know they immigrated to the u.s back when i don't think we had as much hatred as there is now I don't mean to laugh at that, but I mean, nowadays it's, it's bad. So because I didn't really know what intent or direction they're going with on this one. I, I left this, I gave this one a 2.5 out of five.

23:18 It just wasn't really for me. Like I wouldn't want to watch it again unless there's, unless they had like a second part or something like more to it. I don't know. Okay. We got two more films here. These two are actually my favorites. Favorites so the first one is taking back the groove it was a short documentary let me see if i can get you guys here the synopsis this one was really cool and i think this one was very important, on a lot of aspects so taking back the groove tells a story of broxbourne disco superstar richie weeks whose hit song rock your world made us the number one hit on the dance charts in the 80s like surpassed michael jackson prince you name it and i'm sure you guys are probably thinking who is this person richie weeks and so it focuses on you know like many black artists throughout the american recording history you know his talent was strip mine to enrich white owned record labels.

24:17 Weeks and his manager jerome jaraji narrate the story on how they clawed back the rights of weeks music and the ongoing fight to restore his legacy and share his music so this one this one to me you know because yes it does talk about a uh it kind of highlights in that thing you know black artist and i own record labels i think it was just more on for me it's more of just record labels in general or anywhere, contracts, things like that, just how you can create content and then you don't own it. Back in the day, that's how a lot of people managed to take advantage of people. I mean, nowadays, like we all want to put it on stable. Like I own this content. This is my content.

25:00 You know, like if I'm going to put this out, I'm making sure I do everything to ensure that people understand this is mine, which is great. Back then though, a lot of people were We're just looking for a quick paycheck, you know, like, oh, cool. I made this like cool song and someone's like, oh yeah, this, this is going to get airplay, record play, radio play, what have you. Let's, uh, let's go ahead and do this and then just sign this. I mean, I think that was just a normal thing. I mean, if I remember correctly, I mean, Taylor Swift went through all this stuff with her music, you know, she didn't fully owned her catalog and she's making her own stuff. I mean, Michael Jackson, the Beatles, like, I mean, I think it was Paul McCartney for a minute there that literally owned Michael Jackson's records, if I remember correctly, or Queen or someone, I don't know.

25:49 But being able to own your own creative content is very important. And they didn't have that back then. So this was a really cool documentary that they did where, one, it brought this superstar to light. Really good music, by the way. It brought it to light. And I think it's a wonderful story how, you know, Richie Weeks here, he did his music was like a hit for a minute. The record label went under just pretty much like overnight went bankrupt. And then it got purchased. Some other company ended up purchasing them.

26:29 Excuse me. If I remember, it was verse music group, picked them up and picked up all like their catalog and everything so now this record company owned it but then that record company then gets bought out by another record company which is bmg which is birdelsman music group which was a big big like music division german media division company from birdelsman where they actually like worked with sony corporation of america and you know they had a lot of rights of a lot of big name artists now i don't know the full details of where they're at at now because i'm not covering that i'm not looking into that but i mean you can think of a lot of big artists and big names like they had access like and it's it's it's crazy to think that or to to just take a moment to think about that like if you make an album for example it's like yeah you made the album but you don't own it like but that's my stuff no i wrote it and i produced it i did this like okay but we paid the checks we paid the bills we paid the for the lights and everything like you're it's not yours we own it you know we'll give you a portion of proceeds but that's about it we get to use it sample it do whatever we want with it we can sell it.

27:42 And so with richie you follow the story where he like when that company kind of just fell out he just disappeared you know went on to become regular regular joe worked at the post office office for a cool minute and and then here comes this uh this this guy. Jerome where he was like hey i think i really like your music i'm big into this like i feel like you need to get your stuff back and so he kind of explains his process of what he did to support richie and get basically ownership to his to get the rights back and ownership of his music which i think is awesome i really think is awesome and i think it's very important for a lot of people to to understand contracts to read them to how they benefit you what they do for you and to really go on that aspect because again a lot of times people get blinded by the dollar signs, and this happens a lot.

28:43 Yeah, it was a cool story. I really enjoyed this one. I didn't really go through my ranks or anything on this one because I pretty much kind of covered everything. It was just very well produced. It was like a 35, 40-minute short documentary film. Really good. I really loved it. I'm going to go ahead and give this one a 4.5 out of 5. Yeah, I had to go there because, again, And it was cool. And most importantly, what I love about this, not only did it bring me insight on things that happened in the past and things that are currently happening and what people have gone through.

29:25 And even me today as a podcaster, I want to be able to own things. I make some music every now and then. And I'm like, I want to be able to own that. It just really kind of reopens people's mind. Like hey protect your stuff man whatever it is that you do protect it own it it's very important, but what i loved about this is you know at the end of this when i was done with it you know i went on to spotify apple music search for richie weeks and sure enough man there's first two volumes are on there and so i downloaded those suckers and i've been jamming to some disco man and he's He's got some good stuff.

30:06 I mean, a lot of the stuff he was able to, if you watch, I highly recommend you watch the documentary, but when you watch it, you know, he shares that, you know, he had tapes, like copies of tapes of all his work and things that he made that was never released. And, you know, his manager, his now manager, Jerome, is like helping him master and pretty much archive and digitize all those tapes so that way they can live on forever. And man, he's got some dope jams. So taking back the groove, short documentary, 4.5 out of 5. All righty so the final film that i reviewed that was the short films was a film called savvy the cat it is a short documentary now i'll tell you guys right now from the jump i'm gonna be biased definitely biased on this one i am definitely a cat person and the story revolving just the cat if you isolate that is so well done and relatable that that that alone was already like great but what i love about this one is that it follows a couple ken and kyla nisimba or nisimbi and it explains how you know these two people got together fell in love got married and then how how they brought a cat home or

31:37 I should say one of them brought a cat home and it's really kind of you know they they didn't really think it through on how cats react so it created a lot of chaos like it was a very mischievous cat like and I haven't I've had the privilege I've owned personally and we've owned three cats and I've never really had the issues of cats, like tearing things up. So that's been, I've been very blessed with that, but I can only imagine those. Like if you have a couch and they tore up a couch or by your wires and stuff. Like it would suck, man. But thankfully, like I said, I haven't had.

32:18 And so with this and this story, it tells the Ted, you know, shares the tell of what this couple went through and they did experience that to where it created essentially like marital problems you know couple problems and so there's there's action that they take but what i love is the reflection and the revelation that they have on a big action that they take and that they discover that no there's more deeper things and it helped them and allowed them to work things out to figure things out in their relationships to to keep the love and the strong, the bond strong and continue pushing forward.

33:00 But again, there was a major price, a major cost to come to that revelation, which is very disheartening. But as the story progresses, and I really want people to watch this one, so I don't want to share too much. Because I absolutely love this one, this short film. So definitely watch it, check it out, because I'm not going to tell any more. In terms of the story, because it's documentary and what they're telling, top notch. I loved it. Very relatable for me. If you're a cat person, you would definitely enjoy this film and most likely will find this relatable. Even if you're also kind of not a cat person or not an animal person in general, I think it's a really good movie or short documentary film to check out.

33:46 So you can see perspective of an individual and the impact that they have on someone that maybe is. So if you are watching, listening to this and you're a couple and one of you love animals and the other one doesn't, this might give you some insight or visual representation, you know, perspective on what can, uh, what that can be and being brave enough to open up and say, Hey, maybe I'm at fault or you're at fault, or this is how you're affecting me type of thing. So acting direct i mean it's it's supposed to be documentary so unless unless the whole thing was made up then bravo on the acting but really good the direction i love the visuals there's illustrations in between because it goes from like like i said documentary to like kind of like home video clips to like you know just your simple little like be real montage but then there's some animated visual illustrations that they provide that i so well done so well done music i love the music love the music very went with everything they use a couple license tracks from some artists that was really good i actually ended up like googling or not googling but like shazamming because i was like i like this i was like i gotta i'm gonna have to add it to my playlist or just add it to my my music list.

35:01 My miscellaneous thoughts, just loved it. Like I said, really biased because it was cats. Had to do with a cat. And as a cat owner, it was very, I was very understanding to what was being told. So if you haven't got it by now, I gave this one a five out of five. I'm sorry. I just did. I love it. Savvy the cat, five out of five. Absolutely loved it. Highly recommended. So just a quick little recap before we take this little break here. None or never animated short film i gave it a two out of five les patines short film 3.5 out of five, someone's trying to get in short film 2.5 out of five taking back the groove short documentary film, 4.5 out of five.

35:53 And then we had Savi the Cat, short documentary film, five out of five. There were so many movies at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, so many shorts. These were the five that I was given and these were all very interesting, well appreciated. Like I said, my personal favorites, Taking Back the Groove and Savi the Cat. I recommend all five of these hopefully if any of my reviews on any of these kind of sparked an interest please check them out i mean at the very least just check them all out i'm not 100 sure how these are all going to become available because these are all screened for the film festival but once they become available if they're not already just google them find them check them out really good work from these creative minds creative individuals all the people involved in directing writing producing producing acting filming audio i mean there's so many people that are involved in making a movie but to every single person that was involved in making these five fantastic work great job absolutely loved all the love and dedication that gets put into this so all right without further ado we're going to take a short break that uncle dad is providing here for you guys and then when I come back I will be reviewing the feature film it is called the movie man and I love this one guys this one was good so be sure to come back so that you guys can check out my thoughts

37:23 and review of the movie man. Everybody let's give rick a huge round of applause for his work so far it's incredible and i hope you guys appreciate it as much as i do as well without further ado though i want to quickly talk about our sponsor our sponsor is the one and only clandestine brewing clandestine brewing for those who have listened to us for a while know that that is one of our longest sponsors and. Probably one of our favorite sponsors period because they truly offer the most unique beers around in the South Bay of California. Now, the best way to go check them out is going straight to their brewery, and their brewery is located in San Jose.

38:03 And if you go to 980 South 1st Street, Suite B in San Jose, California, you can go down there, tell them Uncle Dad sent you, and grab yourself a very tasty brew. They have a lot of great brews on tap right now. Some of them are, they're some of the most unique brews you could imagine. Like here's one, The Fire and Fury, a chili pepper smoked ale with an abv of 11.5 you tell me where else you're going to get that kind of beer because i can't think of a place another great one is the peanut butter mws that's a milk stout at a six percent abv really such great stuff and they really do have some of the most unique tasting beers in town so please go check them out clandestine brewing you won't regret it and get Get yourself a tasty beer to go. Take it to go.

38:53 Get it bottled up and enjoy it at home. You don't even have to enjoy it there. But go down there. Tell them Uncle Dad sent you. And remember, that's Clandestine Brewing. And you can follow them on Instagram as well, at Clandestine Brewing. And be sure just to tell them Uncle Dad sent you. All right, everybody. Now, without further ado, let's get back to our sexy Rick as he reviews or continues to review these great films. And the next one is a big one. and he was really passionate about it. It's the movie, man. You are in for a treat, everyone. Thanks. Welcome back. So the feature film that I was given to review, honestly, it couldn't have been such a better film.

39:35 I'm so glad that this is the one that Uncle Dad provided because I am a big, like I said, I'm a big movie guy, but I'm also a very big theater experience person. Like i love going to the theater i love the cinema i love just everything about it and, you know since covid like there's been a big diminish of that and it sucks so bad like i've seen it and not only just that but it's also the commercialization of theaters of making them so modern and so like you know. The same it's like going into a like newly built suburban neighborhood and you're looking at the houses and they're all exactly the same you know it's like edward scissorhands are driving down the the the street and every house is the same design colors maybe actually no i think the colors were the same in the beginning and then you know there's routine everyone left and it was just so uniformed so in that aspect like that's kind of how movie theaters have become where at once upon upon a time you know back in the 70s even before that but like 80s 90s and very early 2000s for what i can remember you know there were some unique theaters out there and nowadays like i would love to go and find a unique theater and just experience it it's not even even if there's a movie that i don't want to watch or i already saw or whatever the case may be like just to be able to go into the theater and

41:08 experience it that's what i would love to do and so again with with the modernization of cinemas and you know, since COVID how like a lot of people do that and not even just COVID just digital streaming, you know, digital movies, like back in the day, you would go to the movies. Watch a movie and you'd have to wait like nine months for it to release on VHS or DVD or Blu-ray or what have you, where today it's either, it's available to stream the same day as it comes out in theaters or 30 days from now you can stream it or you can purchase it in a month or or two months digitally or you can purchase it physically in like three months so you know the dvd business is that's a whole nother topic to discuss i mean best buy recently pulled all physical media of blu-rays and film and stuff like that from their stores which is bananas but that's a whole different thing, so the feature film is the movie man and i'm just going to tell you guys from the jump, it's a 5 out of 5 for me personally like spoiler whatever 5 out of 5 but the movie man is really cool it follows a gentleman named Keith Stata who.

42:21 Loved movies so much that he couldn't like pursue his dream of becoming a working like in Hollywood or producing films because he lives in in a small village of Kinmount outside of Ontario Canada and so he couldn't necessarily live that dream so he did what's the next best thing well he can bring movies to people and so he built his own cinema it's called Highlands Cinema and I'll tell you right now folks if i ever have the chance excuse me if i ever have the chance to go to kin mount in ontario canada like that is definitely going to be a spot for me hopefully they're still open that will be a spot i'd have to go just to experience it so what this movie follows is this gentleman keith where it shows how you know wilderness or whatever kind of like in small village 300 people living or what have you he has a home and he decides to build a cinema in 1979 79 he just built like his own theater you know and it's a small you know little theater and from there he started off and like in 1986 opened a second cinema screen in his property and then in 88 another one 95 another one 96 another one so he has five screens but the thing about it is is as you watch this documentary film and it follows for the most part, the story and the journey of Keith and what he's done and what he did.

43:50 What he's gone through, but you start to discover the passion that he has for it and what he puts into it. Because it's the novelty of going there is not even really even to watch a movie. It's to experience it. He has hallways because because he got very creative with the floor plan, because he just kept adding on. So there's long hallways in some aspects, but in these long hallways, it's like a museum. For the most part, one attraction part of it is... There's a museum aspect when you go down these halls like he provides cabinets where it's like through the decades and he would rotate him throughout the like throughout the year but he would have like a 1980s decade cabinet and in within that you know topped up and i'm talking like it looked like three feet by like maybe 10 feet or something but within there it just really broke down like things you would find then it would have like magazines it would have not not memorabilia, just things that are, were made or released or existed in that timeframe.

44:53 And so he would provide those cabinets as an experience. Uh, he was big into film and there's a part you'll notice that he has like so many like old school projectors and we're talking like the real that's R E E L, uh, projectors where it actually has like film strips, like the true authentic millimeter films you know the original prints original press like it's amazing but he has a lot of these and you actually learn that he actually would go around and like go to old abandoned theaters that are shut down and he would like ask because he has like access to, seeing which ones were around and he would ask like hey is it cool like if we can purchase items from it and so or if the theater is about to close they're like yeah we're getting rid of stuff because there's theaters now that are still standing that are you know deserted but they're still old.

45:46 Remnants and i mean i'm sure if you guys go on youtube you guys can find like, youtube videos are like oh we like infiltrated a abandoned theater and you know watch us go through it and possibly run into a ghost or some nonsense i don't know. But you're discovering those stairs there's like a lot of stuff left back and so that's how he was He was able to acquire a lot of these old projectors and he would refurbish them and have them displayed. So it was like, you know, like one hallway was just a museum of of projectors from big ones to personal ones. Yeah. And there's a lot of things like when you watch this film, which I highly recommend, especially if you're a movie theater guy, again, hence the title, if you're a movie man or woman, it really, it really shows the passion through the years and, and what you see in terms of film.

46:36 And I don't know, it's, it's, I mean, one of his like corridors or hallways is called memory lane. And I mean, that's literally it. Like, that's all I kept thinking about. It's like, this is memory lane. like it's like i've been to there's been moments where i've been to like these old thrift shops like in monterey or even like sacramento downtown you know and you see these old school things and you're like whoa look at that like that's really what it is what it looked like to me but film heavily but then you go into the auditoriums that he has you know they're small but they're all unique and for the most part most of them are like crafted by himself and obviously help with others because he was a craftsman and like they're just very unique and you're like man like what like how like i mean i would love to just go and experience it just to see it i have no idea how it the sound or picture looks you do see that he upgrades his stuff like he went to digital projectors which is kind of funny because there's a there's a part where he's in the film where he's trying to like navigate it because it's so expensive these projectors and all these things all these digital things and they're just so like technology is just so irritating because it wants to be so advanced but at the same time it's so fragile and uh drives you crazy but.

47:53 Anyways so he does upgrade his tech and stuff but it's just really cool it's just really interesting to see and again for me it was definitely hitting it was definitely hitting a special place in my in in my heart because again i love cinemas i mean not too long ago i went to pomona right there outside of los angeles and we me and my wife we went to go get some food at a restaurant and there happened to be a movie theater in the shopping center of of the restaurant and as were pulling up because we had to like approach the front of the theater and then turn or whatever they had like these big glass windows and we looked through and it was just so old school like it was two stories like they actually had stairs on both sides so you can get up there.

48:34 Remind me of like just those old school i don't know if you guys ever seen in glory if you've seen inglorious bastards you know towards the end when they're trying to do that that whole thing where they're trying to attack i believe it's hitler and you have like the main lobby and then into the side you have the stairs where they go up so they can sit access the chairs that are up there for like the balconies or whatever like that's kind of what it looked like in the front of the theater like it was like very old school he had like the concessions yeah like the ticket booth kind of in the center almost like a ticket booth and you know new york's what's the the famous new york train station or what's called unfortunately top my head right now but it just looks so nice and then you have these big old like curved stairs on the sides that take you up and And I literally was like, man, I got to like come back at some point just to watch any movie that's here because I just want to experience this theater.

49:21 I want to see how it is because it just very aesthetically looks old school, which I love. I mean, a lot of people nowadays don't realize that theaters, they used to bury them underground partially to create that stadium seating. You would go into, you'd see a building, you know, and it'd be like not too big. Big but then you go inside because there was one where i used to live i used to live in los banos and then gilroy and i remember going to the theater when i was a kid and they would be. You go in it's like okay out from the outside it's like it looks like a little building but then it'd be two screens because that's all they had and you go either the left one or the right one screen one screen two you go in and then all of a sudden you know you're going down like there's an arch down and you're like wait a minute why does it look so big they didn't look this big because it was kind of buried into the ground almost like a bunker in a sense and it was angled so that way it created this like slope of stadium seating before nowadays where it's like literally stadium seating where we have stairs and all that back then it was just a slope and sometimes it wasn't even enough so you'd have someone sitting in front of you and you're like bro be shorter cut your hair or do something like you're blocking my view it sucked back in the day but you know that's old school like those are those were theaters coming up.

50:41 Now, I mean, shoot, the theater I go to, you get like reclining chairs. It's like your own personal living space and you're extremely comfortable in all kinds of crazy stuff, which don't get me wrong. I don't argue that. I love it. But I'm an IMAX guy. So a lot of the IMAXs don't have these recline reclinable chairs with the feet up and everything. I'm all about the big screen. But it's just it's interesting because the film follows Keith going through that, building it, creating it. But then it shows the impact that COVID had on him where he had to shut it down for a couple of years because of it. And that was very interesting because if those that, you know, remember COVID shut down a lot of stuff, like a lot of businesses went out.

51:28 They closed a lot of what would be public attractions. Theaters were shut down. And I'm not talking about shut down like they were closed for like the year. I'm talking about they were like the buildings gone. on like the business just they went out of business and so it's interesting to see the hardship that keith goes through because his theory isn't like all year round it's generally during the summer and slightly beginning of a fall well when summer fall spring summer fall and then a little bit winter because you'll learn in the film when if when i hope you watch it. Because it's Canada and based where they're at, it snows. And when it snows, it snows bad. And I mean, this guy's running it himself.

52:11 I mean, he has like maybe another person that's like maybe all the time employed in a sense, but for the most part, most of his employees are just kids in school. Like it's like a summer job. And so those are the ones that, and there was actually some pretty good banter as far as him showing the youngins how to work hard and do do stuff because he's very old school. I mean, this gentleman, I think he's like in his seventies or eighties at the time of making of this film. Excuse me and so yeah i know you see you see all that the dynamic that he has and it's just really really funny but so it snows during the the winter time and yeah there's no way there's no way because again he's out in the woods like he literally has like chipmunks raccoons there's a bear there's like deer like and it actually shows how he is able to not only support them these like wild animals but even keep them at bay in a sense um so that was pretty cool to see like what he does and you know how he feeds and takes care of them the other big attraction that his highlands cinema has not only is it obviously films because again this is like a little village 300 people so i mean i would assume they have internet and everything there of course but like if they want to go to the theater like he's the only one i don't know where the nearest city is i don't really remember if they highlight that so but not only being the theater and showing movies not only the museum aspect

53:41 of his cinema and the history and everything but he also has like a cat it's like i guess you can call it a cat farm or something because this dude has like. I don't know over 40 cats and it's pretty creative like he created like these walking walking trench paths like on on like or it's like fenced off but they're able to walk and get some air there's like certain cats where they they have where people can go and see i don't know if it's like a full-fledged like petting zoo i didn't really see it being like that it was just more of a novelty of seeing the cats like they know the cats he's met he mentions in the film that like there are regular guests that go and they know the cat's names and stuff but he takes care of it and it's crazy because like during the pandemic when he was shut down.

54:30 Because again, it's just seasonal. And then on top of that, he had to shut down, I believe, two or three years. He takes donations for the cats and does this and does that. And then he has a couple of dogs with him himself. But that was the other big attraction. It's just the cats, the museum aspect, the novelty of all the old school stuff through the decades. And then you have the actual experience of going into auditorium and being very unique. And then, of course, you have the film aspect. aspect but i gotta tell you man like again being one passionate about theaters like this one really this one really hit home for me on that aspect because like i've already said you just you just don't see it anymore and it's very it's very bummerish but this one's very unique it's really cool i highly recommend checking this movie out it's about an hour and a half it's not not bad it's entertaining if anything again if you're into cinemas and passionate about it like it's really cool just to see someone take action and bring that passion to life and share it with everyone and then just seeing the hardships like you kind of get a glimpse of not too much but a little bit of behind the scenes of what it's like to own your own theater, But the uniqueness of it is just by far. And even Keith's personality is just fantastic. He's hilarious.

55:53 He just had me cracking up just the way he interacts with certain people. He's just very blunt in some aspects. And it's just very eye-opening, the dedication and what people had to go through when COVID hit. Because it seemed for a minute there like it was done. He was about to call it quits. But we'll see if it's still ongoing because again when this made when this when this documentary was made it was by the end of it i think they were already like in 2022 2023, so more 2022 possibly so obviously now we're in 2024 so he's been going on for 43 years, and hopefully he just keeps going because one of the big themes that you'll find in this film was.

56:44 What because keith is it didn't seem like he has any next of kin so the question becomes what would happen to the future of this you know for for king for kin mount this iconic cinema one of the big things that they talked about it's like he wanted to pass it to one of his friends that helped them and did a lot of stuff but they're like almost the same age and so it's like we want to give it someone young and it's like well we don't want to you know give it to someone and they just bulldoze it or commercialize it because it definitely has its problems we'll say i think covid and stand still as you watch the film really highlights that and i can definitely see people someone who inherits that or takes over it would be like this is not worth my time or money and they would just be like get rid of it but above everything else on top of like the cinema and the memorabilia and everything above everything else what's most important to keith is who's gonna take care of the cats and so as you guys already heard from the previous segment you know savvy the.

57:52 Cat was my favorite short film there and a little bias to it like yeah there's a little bias in this one too because it's just it's just so amazing but yeah i think that would be a big concern so who knows i mean i don't know what the future holds for keith and and for highland cinemas but i believe that this was a really cool film to be made and share with the public and for everyone to see like i said if for whatever reason if i'm ever in that area or remotely close to it just even if it's like an hour or so drive away or what have you i would I would definitely make sure it's on my go-to if it's still around.

58:34 But I think bringing this film to light to a lot of people and letting it spread, I think hopefully can help people, bring the awareness and hopefully attract more people. Cause I think it's again, I've said it before already. It's very interesting. It's very unique and definitely needs some more spotlight. So the movie, man, again, I don't know where, how this will be available, but if you guys ever have a chance to check it out, obviously keep checking out, you know, wherever you buy digital movies, chances are there won't be any physical. Cause again, the whole separate topic, man, physical media is going away, way but be sure to check out this movie if you ever have a chance to it's a really good documentary, hopefully it pops up in a streaming site so that way it's more accessible like someone like netflix or something because i mean almost everybody has that but i highly recommend it five out of five from me very passionate about cinemas yeah well those are the films short films and feature film that i was able to review for the santa barbara international film festival on behalf of uncle Uncle Dad Talks.

59:41 I hope you guys enjoyed it. I hope I made this as entertaining as I can. As always, I'm Rick. You guys can find me at Sigma Duocast. I'll be working with Uncle Dad. Hopefully I'll get some more projects, bring you guys some more film reviews and really share some of my personal favorite films, you know, growing up. Cause like I said, the genre it's fully open for me i love all of it not really biased to anything and i don't know it's always good to try and live out a fantasy or view a fantasy that you might have and film definitely brings that so, we'll see until next guy next time guys i do appreciate you catch you guys later.