Some films get released in the Midwest later on. Studios will release their big Oscar movies in the last week of December to qualify for the Academy Awards, and then they slowly roll out over the next few weeks.

Sam Mendes’ new film, “1917,” arrived on Jan. 10 in St. Louis, so I could finally unleash my review of a movie I screened several weeks beforehand. A highly intense and brutally kinetic war film set in the First Great War, deep in the heart of the British army. Two young soldiers having to make it across enemy lines to deliver a mission abort message in order to save 1,600 soldiers from walking into their surefire demise.

The more this film settled in my cerebellum, the more I understood its significance and ambition. It just took a little while. I explained to Frank O. Pinion and company that it was a highly unconventional war film, ala Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk.” Like that film, the lead characters weren’t played by big stars, yet mostly unknown young actors. It helped the film hit home.

There were more shenanigans on the show, so for the full hour, listen in here.