Ep. 631: MeatEater Radio Live! A Live Turkey, MeatEater Menu, Reviewing "The Edge"

Smell us now, Lady, Welcome to Meat Eater Trivia.

The Meta podcast.

Welcome to our special Thanksgiving episode of Meat Eater Radio Live. It's the day before Thanksgiving, coming to you, not quite live from the Meat Eater HQ in Bozeman, Montana, because we're not coming to work on Thanksgiving Day. We love you all, we love our jobs, we love this wonderful company, but no thank you. I'm your host, Randall Williams and we're joined today by Seth Morris and Corey Caulkins. We've

Yeah, I do one that started recently, meaning last year, just the buddies get together and do like a whitetail haunt of some sort. Last year was with me, my buddy Sam and Chester, and Chester actually killed a thirteen point buck on Thanksgiving morning.

A thirteen pointer. Yeah, so this is a tradition that has happened once.

Well we're doing it this year again. We're doing a big dough hunt this year.

I think you're kind of counting your chickens before they hatch.

Well, it's happening, Corey.

What about you. You're not on the camera, but we'll just pretend.

If you are.

Yeah.

I certainly have a tradition that's kind of been paused, I guess since I've had a kid, which is who's six year old? Six years old? So I can't wait to bring this tradition back to life. But growing up in western Montana, we would always go out to eastern Montana every Thanksgiving weekend and go mule deer hunting. So I can't wait to pick that back up here in a couple of years with my kid.

Yeah, that'll be fun.

We have a Thanksgiving tradition in our house, but it's hunting for bargains, especially when there's a great Black Friday sale. Just a reminder for all you listeners, we've got the Meat Eater Black Friday Sale going on now, our biggest savings of the year, up to fifty percent off your favorite gear across our Meat Eater brands, and that sale

Now.

Joining us in the studio is a very special guest. We have Broken the Turkey, accompanied by our colleague Connor Smith, who's an associate at the Meat Eater's store in downtown Bozman. Connor also holds the Montana state record for the fortieth largest bull elk ever taken and was on episode five thirty five of the Meat Eater Podcast. That episode title

Thank you.

Uh tell us how's it been going at the Bozeman store these days?

We're doing really good on sales.

And getting a lot of holiday shoppers. Oh yeah, excellent, excellent.

Are you guys open over this this Thanksgiving weekend? Oh you are Ooh nice tough GI store shopping.

Yeah. Now, introduce us to Brogan here. When did I mean, what is this thing? Uh? When did you get him? What's he like? How many pounds? Would you say? Well, we got him about a year ago.

M h He kind of gobbles a lot.

Mm hmm, pretty noisy on occasions, and especially in the spring.

Did you get him as an egg or as a as a bird?

Got him as like a It was like a two day old chick or whatever.

Oh wow, fresh out of the egg.

Yeah.

And then they shipped it to like the ups place and you had to go pick him up.

There, gotcha?

Hmmm. He's uh got through the mail. Yeah, nice, I've done that before with chickens.

When he came in, his his snood was erect. Yeah, he seems now, Uh, just dangling. So he's he's comfortable with us at this point. M yeah, I would say so, Uh, Corey, you want to try to get this guy to gobble here for us? This is just to add some sort of seas no festivity to the show here.

I can try a little some might be a little out of season.

But.

Always puffing, keep going, keep going with you guys better. Oh that's fantastic. Oh man, that's a big bird. Our audience, our audience didn't get the privilege of watching this thing jump up on the table and take a dominant posture over me earlier. So if you're picking up on some weird body language right now from me and broken here, it's because we almost came to blows just a few moments ago. Now, does he have any sort of misgivings

No, he doesn't realize it.

Huh, must be easy life for him.

Does he have any brothers, sisters, friends?

He's got two different hens. Oh nice family, Yeah, nicely done. Uh, I want to hit him with another gobble here, come on, go for look at his he's getting mad. That's wonderful. Well, uh, Connor, thank you for bringing this turkey into the podcast studio. Here, Phil, I think is eager to get this bird out of his place of work.

Well, Karin was out of the room when I said this, But if anything, if he did decide he decided he needed to relieve himself, I would not be cleaning it up. Karin would so, and you know what, I think she'd be fine with that and probably happy.

I think it would be working.

There's there's a nice role of of cellophane down on that seat, just in case there are any sort of ventings from the back end of that thing. All right, well, thank you again for bringing broken and have a happy Thanksgiving. Thanks for having met the Black Friday Rush.

Happy Thank you guys.

Alrighty gang, Now we're going to talk about different ways that we like to cook Brogan's cousins. This is our next segment. Oh Jesus, burn out of here, you guys. Calm down a bit here, shake.

Yeah, your snood looked a little around.

Yeah, we're gonna do a We're going to talk about some Thanksgiving foods that we like to cook and we like to more importantly eat and for for we're gonna do sort of a hybrid segment here of meat eater menu and top three we're gonna select. It's going to be a competitive top three. So Seth, Corey and myself will each draft our top three Thanksgiving foods. Once a dish is picked, it's off the table. We're going to

Boys? Yeah, I'm just going to try to think of stuff that Phil like.

No, don't do that that spoils it, all right?

I won't.

But Phil's a solid American. I'm sure that his taste buds are very traditional.

I don't think we need this is an interesting strategy because Seth has no idea what my preferences are. So I'm excited to see how this turns out to be honest.

I'll stick with it. I'll just go with what I like that.

All right, Seth, Well you're going first. So what's your number one pick? Here?

My number one favorite thing on Thanksgiving is stuffing?

Stuffing? Ye, excellent choice, excellent choice. Uh any part dealer type of stuffing? Do you do like a little sausage in there? Do you like do some oyster stuff?

No meat, just just bread and moist bread and seasoning.

Yeah, that's a competitive choice.

Stuff it in a bird.

Corey, you got number two.

Here, candied yam damn?

Oh my goodness.

All right, going straight for the throne.

Well, I've got two picks in a row here because we're doing this a snake draft. So I'm gonna go with gravy. Oh, just heavy brown gravy, brown gravy, and uh, I'm gonna.

Okay, man, can we get can we throw in desserts?

I'm gonna go turkey. Yeah, absolutely, I'm gonna go gravy and turkey. I feel a little white bread now, I feel like I only have one pick left, so I'm to have a really boring collection. But I didn't think turkey could slip to blow. The fourth pick and gravy is an obvious number three choice, So back to you, Corey.

Now excuse me, gravy out of the path or are you making.

Making gravy driven? Yeah?

Yeah, that's that's what I had down. So pumpkin pie, pumpkin.

Pie, candied yams, and pumpkin pie.

Interesting strategy. He's going with a lot of I guess, yam, things that grow out of the ground.

Gordon dishes or in a can or in a can.

Seth, you got two in a row.

Green bean cast role that's good out of a can. Last pick for something.

That my mom makes which I don't probably not a lot of people do this on Thanksgiving is baked corn.

Baked corn yep, just like this fantastic dish I wrote down baked Pilgrims, baked corn. I should focus on one's job at a time.

I quit the baked Pilgrims a long time ago.

Corey. It's your final decision here. Last pick.

Sometimes people just skip straight for the leftover hot turkey sandwiches. Day of you know you have your dinner at noon. You can still do hot turkey sandwiches by four or five pm. So that's my third pick.

I don't know if we can accept that. I don't think we're gonna it's I mean, Randall already claimed turkey, and the turkey sandwich is an amalgamation of several different.

Otherwise, otherwise my first pick would have been Thanksgiving leftover hash the day after with poached eggs on top. Well, but I'm not doing that because that's a medley of Thanksgiving dishes. So pick another. Please, Cranberry sauce. That's that's what I thought that was gonna slip through the cracks out.

Oh yeah.

The best kind is when you you just pop the can open. You gotta punch a hole in the bottom so it comes out and it's it's the shape of the can.

Oh love that stuff.

Got it?

This could make or break you rand on no pressure or anything.

I really screwed up this draft.

I mean, you guys are missing a pretty big one here.

I would say mash taters. Yeah, but see now I have turkey, gravy and mash taters, which I feel like is not a bad.

It's just not very interesting interesting.

Yeah, I feel like I feel like if your if your school cafeteria was gonna do Thanksgiving dinner, that serve what I just picked. So I've got turkey, gravy and net mash taters. Corey has cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and candied yams.

I must have a sweet tothe.

Seth has stuffing, green bean casserole, baked corn. Phil, do you need a minute?

I had this, This was settled a couple of minutes ago. To be honest, I'm just Corey. I'm gonna start with you. Uh, You've got the broadest selection. I mean too, I mean that's not the right term at all. You're just the most unique lineup, I would say. Unfortunately, it's gonna end you up in the last place there. I mean, if I'm sitting down for a meal, taking all these things together into account, I think I'm just walking away with diabetes.

I mean you you probably am already.

But that's okay.

You got cranberry sauce, which doesn't go with your other two picks.

It sure could, Phil, cranberry sauce on my pumpkin pie.

I haven't tried.

So, So what you're saying is it's down to me. In set it's down to you. It's turkey, gravy taters or stuffing, green bean castle and baked corn.

And we've got Randall with the classic lineup. But here's the thing. Seth has my number one pick, which would be green bean castle.

I knew that would hit Phil hard. So the.

Rub here is I think most stuffing is whack Randall. You've got You've got a boring white bread lineup as you put it. But it's a classic for a reason. Doctor Randall Williams is the winner.

Be Thanksgiving to me, Phil. We Actually this reminds me when I used to deer hunt in Kentucky. Would go down my buddy and I would go down every weekend leading up to Thanksgiving tom at the same farm, and every weekend we would go buy a rotisserie chicken, would buy a box of instant mashed potatoes, would buy a box of stovetop stuffing, and would buy a thing of the jelly cranberries and would just do Thanksgiving and then Thanksgiving leftovers every weekend leading up to Thanksgiving with the

Yeah, you gotta watch that trip to fan. Is that what it is in Turkey?

Yeah, that's that's what they say on the internet. All right, Well, now that that's settled, we're going to hit some audience submissions that of meat Eater menu items that we think are appropriate festive. So Phil wants you to bring up our first selection here. This is actually not festive at all, but it.

Is Turkey non traditional.

This is orange turkey like orange chicken, breaded with cornstarch, deep fried in peanut oil. This is from Cold Barclay. He used fresh navel oranges, marmalade, tamri, and honey for the sauce. It's served over Korean sweet potato noodles. And actually the Korean sweet potato noodles just did it for me.

I think that looks terrific.

I mean, it looks terrific. You can't argue with orange chicken, but that kicked it up a notch. Next, we have another turkey recipe. This is wild game perlough. Is that the correct pronunciation? This is two cups of Andy's White House Farms, Charleston gold rice. Oh, that's a mouthful. Some

It looks like many things you could stuff a turkey with.

And if you don't like turkey, try grouse. Phil hit us with that. Next one, O, this is a grouse that who's this? Read and Bree shallow grouse from reading Bree Shallow shot it in Colorado followed a recipe in the Meat Eater Wild Game Cookbook that turned out amazing. I would also suggest, if you're still planning your Thanksgiving dinner, take a look at the Wild Game Cookbook because there's a lot of tasty recipes in there, and we also have the pleasure there of seeing Boots the cat hovering

That looks amazing.

This looks like it should be like a Halloween meal.

Yeah, the knife plunge, it.

Does look like like you'd serve this at a Halloween party or sort of prop at a hunted house.

Yeah. Well it's good though.

Yeah, that gravy looks like glue. It's gonna stick to your ribs.

That's what you're looking for. Well, I think that does it for our meat Eater menu. Next, we're gonna talk to Steve Kline joining us on the line from Centerville, Maryland. This is Steve Klein, President of the Eastern Shoreland Conservancy. Steve how are you doing. Oh, I'm wonderful.

I'm getting hungry.

You should be hungry for some birthday cake, as I understand it.

Yeah, it is my birthday, guys.

That's right, So Steve, Steve's coming to us from Centerville, Maryland. He also said that we could introduce him as coming from second place in the AFC North after an exciting Monday night football game. I was watching that last night biting my fingernails, wondering what Steve Klein would get today. Would we get a Ravens win or a Lamar choke job? Steve? So, I'm glad that they pulled out the dub.

We're not doing that any more.

Steve, could you tell us for our listeners who aren't familiar, what is the quote eastern shore and what are some of the challenges facing fish and wildlife in your area?

Sure?

So, the eastern Shore of Maryland is the part of Maryland you probably didn't know existed.

It's the rural part.

The central part of Maryland is kind of Baltimore, Washington.

It's the ninety five corridor.

Eastern Shore just means the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay essentially, and it's a pretty magical place. It is very close to a lot of urban centers, but it is still very rural, still very agricultural in nature, a lot of open space and a place worth protecting, and that's what we're doing to the SLC.

So can you tell us a little bit about your organization and how you preserve some of that habitat and as working lands that you're talking about, and can you clarify for our audience there's a term that gets thrown around quite often, a conservation easement. What exactly is that and how does the ESLC use that to achieve your desired outcomes? There?

Sure, I think you know. Our organization is the largest private regional land trust in Maryland. We serve a sixth county region. For anybody familiar with the area, it's Cecil County up in the north down to Dorchester County, which is where Steven cal did a little Sick of Deer Hunting a few years ago for the show. And we have protected north of sixty thousand acres in that sixth

But then we do have to work with.

The landowners when the easements do come out of compliance, and usually that's kind of a partnership arrangement, right. We don't want to have to, you know, wave our finger at anybody or wag our finger at anybody. We prefer to work with folks to get them back into compliance. But we have three hundred and thirty easements across those six counties I mentioned. We just closed on our three hundred and thirtieth last week, So we've got somebody, as I said, on those, every one of those every year.

To cover what the drone does.

As your folks can appreciate, this gives us kind of that bird's eye view of the property and and helps us see impacts. Frankly, that probably would have gotten missed just with you know, buy boots on the ground HM.

And so you're so essentially what what the easement is doing then, is you know, ensuring that a reservoir of wildlife habitat stays in those places, especially as I imagine in close proximity to an urban area, there's there's fewer and fewer areas like that where you have an open, working landscape.

Yeah.

I would say in other parts of Maryland that kind the kind that come to mind when you think of Maryland. It's I'll use Howard County as an example, kind of an exurban county along the ninety five corridor that within the memories of people that are about our age, they can remember being pretty rural. And what we found is that if it's not protected, then it's going to be developed.

Those as well.

It's water quality is the name of the game in the Chesapeake Bay, as you guys know.

Yeah, now, Steve, you mentioned you just closed your three hundred and thirtieth easement. Can you tell us a little bit about that one and sort of the backstory there so folks can get an idea of what this actually looks like.

Yeah, I mean, I uh, this is a property that's been in the same family for you know, more or less I think one hundred years, and they really want to protect their grandfather's vision for this place. And you know, that's what makes this work really so spectacular. I worked on Capitol Hill in my previous life. That's the capital behind me over my fireplace, and that was one kind

It gets pretty special. We have got an ease property here at.

Eastern Shoreland Conservancy that has been in the same family for I think thirteen or fourteen generations.

The property has never been on real estate market.

It was a grant from the King of England and it remains in that same family's hands. I mean, really that is kind of obviously fish wildlife for the reason why I do this work hunting and fishing, but it's the human element of what does it mean to protect these places, because there's tremendous pressure on this landscape, you know, and there's a lot of money to be made on this landscape. Generally it implies some kind of development, some

It's a treat to work with these folks.

Well, that is meaningful work, Steve, and I'm glad that we could share a little bit about what you're doing with our audience here. It is delightful to see you, sir. I wish you all the best and have a very happy Thanksgiving.

You guys too. Thanks for having me on.

Okay, we'll see Steve, We'll see a happy birthday.

Alrighty, now we've got them. Migration report from Matt McCormick.

Hey guys, I'm Matt McCormick with Flying V and welcome to the Meat Eater Migration Report for November twenty six, twenty twenty four. As we near the heart of migration season, the snow line across Canada continues creeping southward. Heavy snow cover blankets much of the North with moderate accumulation moving.

Through the central provinces.

The southernmost edge of that snow line right here is passing through the prairies and along the US border. Although that southern line is kind of patchy right now, like here in Montana, the forecast suggests that that won't stay that way for long. A powerful Arctic front is expected to sweep.

Through all the North Country in the coming.

Days, bringing widespread snow and freezing temperatures that will.

Accelerate the migration southward.

This incoming weather system is likely to reinforce all that ice build up along the northern lakes and rivers, closing the remaining sources.

Of water for all the birds in those central provinces.

Areas are currently holding snow, free ground and open water, particularly in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, they will see rapid changes as temperatures plummet and snow begins to blanket the region. This shift will further compress all those staging grounds and push that all the birds further down south into all

Good luck out there, be safe and happy. Thanksgiving back to you guys.

Man that should have been a weather man. Fantastic.

I know we've got to invest Phil, I know your top of the line here for for tech upgrades, but I think we could do wonders with a little with some green green screen key action.

Yeah.

Kind of remind me of John Madden a little bit. He could have been up there.

A little more like Doppler radar and stuff it. Totally, that'd be great.

Totally. Well, our next segment is tattoos, I regret.

Oh, yeah, he talk is my old friend looked at my tattoo. Lookgain. It really seemed like such a good idea when I was drunk last summer and the pizza. The tattoo says a person a pot will always find more bees. Does that mean it's a tattoo? I regres.

Oh, it's two weeks in a row on that one.

It's so good.

And I think when you take a tattoo break so people don't get sick of it, because people get sick of these, I'm gonna have to do more, which you know, I guess that's not about no.

No, Actually I first heard that particular jingle. What would you call it? Your your drop, your drop?

Sure?

Uh, drive down the Paradise Valley. It was dark, the road was empty, and I was just watching the lights, you know, go by, and man, it really hit, it really hit. I'm well. Today's regrettable tattoo comes from day Jason Dejardines. Is that de dejar Dan. If you have a hunting or fishing related tattoo that you regret, please email us at Radiated Radio at the meat Eater dot com. I'll repeat that again because I screwed it up. Radio at the meadeater dot com.

What would radiator at the meat eater dot com be like selling car parks?

We need to expand. Yeah, get into.

A new uh send us your huntry.

Get into a new sphere.

Uh.

So this, Jason writes in I thought I would share the hunting tattoo I most regret, which is an interesting way to put it, because he has it seems that he has several hunting tattoos that he regrets, but this is the one he most regrets because she had done a great job on all of my others. I let her do my turkey well. The job she did was fine. The placement and lack of scene was not. I trusted

Here's referencing it correct.

Six one, four, three on the little thing hen office bow there. I don't quite understand what that is.

Turkey's.

But here's the turkey he regrets.

Here's the thing about this turkey. It's tail fan. Appears to be a Jake tail fan, and it's got a full beard.

It's got a big beard.

Oh, and who's the guy in the bushes back behind about to shoot one right at.

The right, shoot one right behind him?

Well, the geometry of it, yeah, I was gonna say, the geometry of it makes me think that that hunter is shooting something on his bicep rather than the turkey on Or is that a leg? Oh God, that's a leg. No, I've I've totally screwed this up. So it's an elbow.

I think it's an elbow.

I wish I could see whatever it is at the end there, I'd be better able to tell whether it's an arm or a leg.

You gotta wonder if he straightens his arm out, if it'll if the point of aim changes.

Oh yeah, I know this show isn't live, but for those watching it live, sound out you think it's an armor a leg?

Yeah, because it does sort of look like an ankle at the bottom. But now I see that he's probably wearing khakis. Yeah it's a wrist. Yeah, I thought this was an ankle bone anyway. Anyway, Yeah, I mean, Seth, you've pointed out some sort of incongruity here with the turkey biologically speaking, and.

That's that's an inaccuracy. I would not have picked up on it just looking at the art. I think that's a fine tattoo.

I know, detail is impeccable. Yes, I know. I wish it is good artwork.

I wish I could see around the corner just to get a sense of the full scene. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know that he should regret this one.

Yeah, take it to the grave.

The hunter, though it is, the aim point is strange. It almost made me wonder whether that hunter was part of a different scene.

Yeah, maybe there was a scene under that turkey that he Yeah, he really regretted that one, so he slapped the turkey on top.

There's more ink down there.

I mean, I will say, of all the tattoos we've seen thus far, that's probably the least regrettable, other than honking for a bonkin, which I maintain is not regrettable in the least. No but Jason, thanks for sharing your ink and please if you have a tattoo that you regret again, that's radio at the meat eater dot com.

Did we want to there's a there's a third one here that I oh, oh that silly me? Yeah yeah, yeah, Now what part of the body is that again?

That's the gnome?

You guys can talk about the nome. Well, this thing processes. I didn't have the third one ready, I didn't see it.

Yeah, actually coming up the gnome, I'm not sure that if you showed me that, I don't know how that varies from the T shirt. I feel like it's a fairly uh realistic reproduction of that of of that original artwork.

Nowother great looking tattoo in my opinion, But here's the here's this the third one.

Yeah, this one's incredible.

Oh yeah, So it's a it's a buck.

I have no clue.

It's it's a buck skull. And on the right antler uh from the viewers right, there is a gnome perched up between the G one and G two, and then on the crown of the skull, uh, there's a unicorn and it seems that the gnome is about to ambush this unicorn with an arrow uh and on the left antler. From the viewer's perspective, the G one and G two look like sort of trees. They've grown into trees, and so it's a it's a fantastical setting.

There's also some names on the UH signatures in there.

Benjamin M.

It's missing A. It's missing a bullet hole.

No, that's that's Kelsey's the originals right there.

That's not too far off though.

Well, I I like this. There's a lot going on. Uh, there's a lot to look at. Phil What what are you getting out of this? You're an art man?

No?

Actually, I was thinking I have a shirt that looks that's like a it's like a tree growing out of the ground, but it looks like a hand. There's a bunch of like fung guy and trees grown out of the out out of the hand. It kind of reminds me of that What's.

Who's Who is this guy's name again, Jason Jason uh Dejad?

Your tattoos are great, man, I don't I don't think these are regrettable at all.

Yeah, yeah, fine, he okay, by me. I like these they're not they don't take themselves too seriously. That's that's one thing that I really feel strongly about in the tattoo world, just.

Like honking for a bum.

I look at the I just I just see Matt McCormick giving a migration update on this one.

See the birds up top.

Oh yeah, up there, it'd be all.

Over that they headed north or south.

Well, the sun is that's all right?

Oh hey, so so Brady our one minute fisherman, Oh, he's here. He's in the call, all right, so we can bring him in.

Our next segment is one Minute Fishing.

Oh do I feel lucky?

Well, do you go ahead make.

My cast.

Now?

One minute Fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing and they have one minute to catch a fish, and if they're successful, we'll make a five hundred dollars donation to a conservation group. This week, our angler is Brady Bush coming to us from Michigan. Brady was on Trivia episode six hundred when we recorded from the University of Michigan. While we're on the Tailgate tour, and Brady will be fishing for a donation to the University of

Well, I am standing on a river, on the bank of a river.

And it feels like it's twenty degrees out, so I'll be fishing for some baths. But it might be a tough But what are you? Now's your what's your rig here? Today?

Show you here.

It's gonna be throwing a little jig.

All right, nice?

Nay, Yeah, looks good.

Guessing the water's pretty cold, so they'll probably be right on bottom.

See what we can do.

Alrighty sir, Well, your one minute will begin with your first cast, So whenever you're ready, I'm.

Gonna have my dad hold the video for me.

Fantastic, Were all good, yes, sir.

Whenever you're ready and.

We're off.

Cast.

It's very relaxed.

Yeah, what a calm evening out.

Well, I was speaking more about his body language and demeanor with that first cast. Casually hugged it out there.

It's like he's been there before.

Yeah, he knows that you can't you can't force it.

Ope, he's bringing it in cast to the sun looks low in the sky.

Yeah, he's when the hogs come out to play right here.

He's working it. We've got twenty eight seconds, thirty seconds. Sorry, this is counting upwards, which is unconventional. Same spot, another cat, what's going on? Fifteen seconds left here? Come on, come on, Brady, don't let us down.

Seven seconds five full three two one man, it's not easy, Brady, times up, buddy.

You know what, You're not alone. We're in kind of a slump.

Yeah, we're in a slump right now. That's why we we went to you. We thought you'd be at the golf corresponding. You could break our you could break our slump here.

I know.

I wish I could go to the secret spot. I'll save that for will.

Yeah. Well, you guys stay warm there and have a very have a very happy Thanksgiving. Say hi to the boys, and we'll catch you next time. Sir, Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Go blue.

Oh h.

Somebody says, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we are good kid, good kid, tough fishing this time of years tough.

Oh yeah. I know when we launched this segment, I don't think there was a lot of forethought put into seasonality.

Yeah, so I think things will pick back up when we can start drilling holes or we're gonna have to go south.

We should go south. That's in the budget, right, yeah.

Or find people right after we get that, we get that green screen practical, we'll get a couple.

Of bus tickets. All right, gang, It's the moment you've all been waiting for. It's the Meat Eater Movie Club.

I've been on the edge of my seat.

There we are.

This week. We're reviewing the nineteen ninety seven film The Edge, and I was trying to decide whether I should read this faster because a lot of people hate this and there are a lot of comments to that effect, and then a lot of people love it. So I thought, maybe I should try to do a better job of just articulating and pronouncing. Pronounce Jesus. At any event, we're

Yeah, I can go on, No, you should.

Just as Kurtz goes native and reveals the savagery underlying European colonialism, Bob's veneer of sophistication cracks to reveal his own predatory intentions. Charles, like Marlow, maintains his civilized perspective while recognizing darker truths. His survival depends on acknowledging and

So that's the end, well said, took the words right out of my mouth.

I'm glad you take it home.

Well.

I appreciate you guys support. I was beginning to get a bit self conscious. I think I've taken this too far and we need to scale it back a little bit.

I disagree now.

In preparation for this segment, other than composing that, I looked at a review from Roger Ebert, who gave it three out of four stars, and he actually hit on one of the points I wanted to discuss in this film, Saul, he writes better than I could, he says, having successfully negotiated almost its entire one hundred and eighteen minutes, the Edge shoots itself in the foot after the emotionally fraught final moments, just as we're savoring the implications of what

Oh yeah, Yeah.

There's an emotional scene, incredibly poignant line, and then it fades to just say, here's running down hopkins face.

It says, thanks to Bart the bear this film. The original title for it was Bookworm.

You know he does love to read.

Yeah, he spends the first third of the movie reading that book as secretary gave him.

Yeah, it's called Bookworm, and it was written for the screen. The all inter titles were Wild Wilder, the Wild, Into the Wild, Wilderness, Now Dead, Hunt, Deadfall on the Precipice, Over the Precipice, Edge, the Edge on the Edge, the Bear Roared, the Bear in the Brain, and Bloody Betrayal. I think the Edge is probably the best.

Of Yeah, it kind of a it suggests a precipice.

Yeah, so that's that's good.

Harrison Ford and Dustin Hoffman both turned the role played by Hopkins down. De Niro Robert Denier actually read for Hopkins' part, but he was too concerned that having an animatronic bear wouldn't work with viewers, and so he turned down. For that reason, he was reluctant to work with a he thought it would just deflate the film. Alec Baldwin showed up for shooting this with a full beard, and he refused to shave it. They almost shut down production and

Love it.

Now.

I also read that this was his second movie with Bart.

After that was what I.

Yeah, they were reunited. I went into this thing. Oh, it's Baldwin and Mammot here. We're gonna boot up Glengarry Glenn Ross. But I didn't realize that there was also another. Yeah, the real was more recently, and it was Legend The Fall Bart the Baron, Anthony Hopkins.

Gentlemen, Uh, really really quick, because just just right up top. I normally I kind of hate the argument that a movie is bad because it is unrealistic. Like you sit down and watch a movie or play, you're already suspending disbelief. Is it like we're watching people pretend to be other people, pretend to laugh and cry and say words that they're

I felt the same way about Star Wars at A lot of it's in the details.

Yes, much like the Jake tail feather you just called up. Yeah that's not something I would have noticed.

Yeah, a lot of us the details.

Like I feel like it's Steve always, you know, the Revenant, Stephen. The Revenant's a big thing, But I feel like most of Steve's beef with the Revenant, is that like, oh that doesn't look like North Dakota or whatever. Not that the movie is like is up its own ass and work for you know, a bunch of other reasons.

But I think this movie rocks spellbinding scenery.

Oh oh yeah, oh yeah.

Remember when movies used to be shot on location? Yeah, yeah, I know.

The headquarters for the filming was can Moore, Alberta. Yeah, and they filmed some of it in Baff and around Baff, but they filtered those ewalk village looking lodges specifically for the film.

Really yeah, the one on stilts in the river bottom?

Well did all of the buildings were just built out of like raw? I mean, the docks were outrageous. But just getting ahead of myself here. Initial thoughts on the film? What was your reaction, Seth. I hadn't seen it before.

I seen it, No, I watched it for the first time last night. I just couldn't help but pick out all the details that were just so wrong in this film. It was overall, it was it was a cool film, entertaining, not my favorite, but.

Lots of details. Yeah, like from the beginning all the way to the.

End, Corey, you've seen this several times, but this was the first time not edited for television, so you got to enjoy the full mamm At screenplay.

Yeah, and the you know coin curse words there are maybe everybody's favorite part.

Oh you just get that mother effort?

Yeah yeah, yeah, no, I've seen it probably ten times, nine in a row on AMC. And then this was the first time getting to watch it unedited raw on Amazon.

That was great, much richer experience. I sure, I'm sure.

And it's been remastered, so yeah, the cinematography was gorgeous.

What what about I mean, I'm sure we have plenty of things to pick at from an unrealistic perspective, but what for you guys? Was there anything that you thought was redeemable from an out and experienced outdoorsman's point of view?

Well, like things are where things that worked for you and you didn't go this is absurd?

Oh I thought. Yeah.

I thought they did a great job honestly keeping it, keeping it pretty realistic.

I mean, there's a lot of mine.

I mean, I go, I have a list of stuff that I was just jotted down when I was sure watching the movie.

Sure, well we can. Why don't we go into what's unrealistic.

Yeah, I can go Yeah, I can talk about that more than the realistic stuff. Lots of things were wrong with the plane, like the whole all the scenes in the plane, one of them being when they're just in the cockpit all talking to one another and the pilot like didn't have his head set on and no one else head of your muffs. That's not how it works.

They're not screaming out it's so loud inside. Yeah, that doesn't work, tough.

Let's see criticure.

The guy who owns the lodge said he wasn't hunting. He would be out hunting, but he's not hunting because his rifle wasn't sighted in. They asked him why his rifle was in sighted in because he said he didn't have a bench rest.

Oh yeah, and then Anthony Hopkins said, an ironing board makes a good ben yeah or anything.

Yeah, ironing board might be kind of flimsy.

Yeah.

They kept saying it's a Kodiak bear. Yeah. I thought that was a red flag. They would. They would multiple times.

They showed it snowing down low along the river and they'd get up in the high country, looked like it's summer.

Yeah, it was a very uh. I thought the vegetation also was strangely inconsistent. Yeah, they just go from like conifers to aspens and I Sydney and I had a long conversation trying to figure out what season it was.

Yeah, same, which that plays into another point. One more thing.

Though, the the squirrel that they trapped was a grey squirrel.

Yeah, it was a great It was a great basket trap.

Away from it, it kept me thinking, whatever happened to that squirrel?

Yeah, that when the helicopter came out, right, Yeah, they were so close to a meal.

Yeah, and then yeah, I stopped taking notes after this point. But the first from the time that they wrecked the plane till their first meal was the flesh from the grizzly bear. Yeah, which seemed like a lot of days, but I don't I couldn't hard track, I couldn't keep trapping.

Were a few nights, yeah, I think it was only two or three nights before they killed the bear. Yeah, unless there was some sort of time skipping that happened.

But yeah, and the only time they they kind of stopped for water is the waterfall they come across, like up in the Highkon tree and they kind of just like wipe their face with it.

They don't ever really drink.

Oh I liked it, didn't I believe Alec Baldwin told the other guy to stop drinking, didn't He like the he's like drinking from the water and he's like, come on, what are you guys doing?

I think I think, I mean Alec Baldwin, notorious asshole. I think he's great in this movie. Oh yeah, it's such a hard part to pull off. I mean, it's like like the biggest asshole bit, but he doesn't like very realistically and with just like I mean, he just puts it all.

Out, smarmy, smarmy Lithario.

And the behind the scenes you know, gossip plays into that a lot.

Oh yeah, I like, yeah, those didn't look like blanks that he was loading into his lever action either.

To no no no.

So I I mean I thought probably one of my favorite parts of the film was the spike ball attack that they's done the bear. Like, of all the traps that they were going to make for the bear.

Was that just to piss it off or it was they trying to get.

I think they're trying to kill it. But what the problem is is those spike balls had only previously been deployed in Return of the Jedi by.

The e.

The at Sts, I believe, the Chicken Walkers. Yeah. So I was struck by the similarity between that little booby

Killed Bart instantly. It was cool, It was cool, but I was.

Like, do you think there was like a missing like a deleted scene where he and Alec Balder were saying, hey, you saw Braveheart, right, Yeah?

I just thought I just thought it was Yeah. I mean, I mean we talk about this as being the glory days of when there wasn't a CGI and when we had original screenplays, and I was like, man, they should have just done something else to kill the bear that didn't look like Braveheart.

Yeah.

Well, Bart did a hell of a job in that movie.

Incredible.

Oh yeah.

Although I thought that if I had to pick bone with Bart's performance, I thought that frequently his facial expressions were hard to parse. There were sometimes like when he was bouncing the log and it just looked like he was sort of like smiling.

I'm sure he was playing with it.

Some of those shots though, with his lipsticking Alley, Oh yeah, that was terrifying.

Yeah, no, I mean real bears and movies. It's just what are we doing?

After they killed Bart, I was shocked.

And how fast they Oh yeah, yeah, I say I was a lukewarm on this movie until it cut to them wearing the Highway and I.

Was like, this movie rips.

Yeah, yeah, this makes no sense at all, and I'm here for it.

I love it. Yeah, that's what it alive to me, And I was fully bought in.

He at some point he yeah, Alec Baldwin adopts sort of an apron and cape.

Yeah.

And then Anthony Hopkins wears a leather tunic like a like a viking. And I also thought there were a couple of times in the movie where like they both went through very obvious like shifts in how they were playing these characters and it was just like whoa, he got weird all of a sudden. And at the end of the film, I kept thinking that Anthony Hopkins was Sean Connery because he just sort of adopted this like Sean Connery persona.

I mean it was, you know, it's a it's a classic sort of you know, unlikely pair. I mean, Anthony Hopkins is clearly like on the spectrum in some sort of way. And also did they ever say what he does or is he just a rich guy?

No, the guy's like I liked it at the beginning, Like the grubby guy working at the floatplane dock was just like Earth the airplane hanging. He's like, you're Charles Morse, the billionaire.

Let's just establish our characters.

To your point about him being sort of spectromy for lack of a better term, I thought that Anthony Hopkins character was very similar to Hannibal Lecter.

Yes, a little bit.

They're both big readers. They retain everything they read, they have a photographic memory, and they're sort of eccentric geniuses that obviously have a difficult time connecting with people in a genuine way. I saw this and I thought, man, no wonder Hopkins got cast for this role.

Yeah, you really feel bad for him towards the end too. I mean, oh, new buddy that he's stuck in the woods with tries to kill him for his wife, and.

I think, I'm just sorry this is going on. I have two more reactions.

A little one plenty of time.

One, if you're cheating on your spouse, don't get the spouse a watch that says happy Birthday. And then that your adulter or I guess adult adultering partner a watch at the same time, and the same receipt has both of them, and the one says for your birthday, the other one says for all.

Thanks for all the nights, Just like, don't get a watch that says I committed adultery with you, wink nice like like you.

You were talking about the performances being all over the place. You're you're right, But it kept me on my toes because I was wondering, like, Okay, is Baldwin's character going to just be an asshole throughout the whole movie? And then but you know, there's a point after they kill the bear and they're they're wearing the Yeah, they're they're

As far as how he's a billionaire, I got some sense to that by that sandwich he made at the beginning. He put yeah, she asked him she's laying in bed, which if I were him, I would be like, this is the most that was. I thought the most unrealistic part of the movie is this beautiful woman lays down in bed and pulls the blankets up to her chin

Good for him?

Yeah, yeah, I found that to be very odd, the sandwich request, but that I guess it made sense because they wanted to get him down in the kitchen so they could yeah, surprise.

But if I were him, he took it like this is a everyday thing. Yeah, it was just like, oh, your midnight sandwich, of course.

Already, and you probably brush your teeth.

Yeah, that was the eighties or I guess the late nineties. Nobody brushed their teeth back then, my memory serves. So would you recommend this movie to someone's fellow outdoorsman? Could you recommend it to them without losing all of your credibility?

It would be low on the recommendation list for me.

For me, but if you're even just the least bit baranoid, I wouldn't watch it.

Phil, What do you got big movie star performances in a movie shot on location. It's it's a relic of the past that I think we need to hold on to. Yep, I give it thumbs up. I recommend it.

I mean, you guys texted me to ask if we were still doing media or movie club when I was about an hour and ten and it's into this thing, and I was so pumped at that point in time. It's rare. Is it there a movie where I'm just like, I wonder how much of this is left? You know? Or I'm sorry?

Rare?

Is there a movie where I don't ask myself how much of this is left?

Oh?

Yeah?

I followed along. I thought it killed the time pretty quickly, and I was enjoyable, and I would recommend it. I'll watch it again.

I gotta say, when I was watching it, there wasn't a point in time where I'm like wanting to shut it off.

Yeah, yeah, no dull moments. Yeah yeah. That's the highest compliment you can pay a film. Yeah, as a cinema file these days, especially well, gang, I'm glad. I took nine pages of notes on that apologize for the lengthy intro. But listeners out there, if you're in the chat way in with your thoughts on the edge, and with that, I think that's all we have for today's show. So

Yeah, Happy Thanksgiving folks.

That's about as sentimental as I'll get. Meet her to radio live, signing off

Look out for bird strikes.