#4. Fatman
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The main event is Fatman, the VOD oddity starring Mel Gibson as a weary, elegiac Santa Claus who takes a US military contract and ends up hunted by Walton Goggins's assassin (hired by a spoiled rich kid furious over a lump of coal). Sonny is all-in, repeatedly calling it "elegiac" and deeply hopeful beneath the absurd premise, and pegging it as a future cult classic anchored by a great Gibson; JVL confesses he spent the first 53 minutes baffled before falling head over heels, and reframes the film as the Man of Steel of Santa movies — a "what if Santa were real" story in which Kringle is basically Wolverine crossed with Jean Grey. Vic gives it a straight A-plus, watched it twice (once with his son), and both hosts admit they spent the whole runtime wanting the bratty kid dead. The long opening is pure hangout: JVL still can't figure out how to host, Vic recounts his barber visit, and all three swap living-alone and first-apartment stories — Sonny's stove-less DC basement, JVL's legendary Fox & Friends green-room encounter with Henry Kissinger and Jenna from Survivor. Add Sonny's toddler pooping in the bathtub, JVL's obsessive quest for an impossible-to-buy Melanzana fleece (finally won via online lottery), the launch of the SubBeacon TeePublic store (with a "Gout Watch" shirt teased), Sonny cutting back to one drink per episode, and yet more doomed Appalachian Trail scheming.
From the show notes
T-shirts! We have a store! The designs are kind of cool! Go buy some. It's a surprising show about the weirdest Christmas movie since maybe ever. Vic has a new friend. Sonny is drinking less. And JVL definitely does not have the hang of this hosting stuff. Many spoilers.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00What's the job? I'd like you to kill Santa Claus. I'm looking for the fat man. You can't be serious. I've come for your head, fat man! You think you're the first? You think I got this job because I'm fat and jolly?
JVL00:00:30Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Sub Beacon. I'm your host, JVL, here with Victorino Mattis and Sonny Bunch. You can find The Sub Beacon on Patreon and maybe Stitcher. Gentlemen, how are you? I'm good. Did I leave anything out? Fine.
Vic00:00:57Leave her a review.
Sonny00:01:00You got to kick it to someone. You got to be like, Vic, how are you doing? Or Sonny, how are you doing? Otherwise, you just throw it up.
Vic00:01:06And don't forget names. Always mention people's names because everyone confuses you guys. And elements. We need elements. And blocks. Blocks. Eat the mic. Eat the mic. Eat the mic. Eat the mic. Victorino Mattis, you have a haircut. How are you? I am doing well. I got to my barber.
JVL00:01:27I think I'm going to need to start writing down stuff for the end of the show. I can't just wing the intro. It's hard, man.
Vic00:01:34It's hard work. It's hard work.
JVL00:01:37Okay. Yeah. Do you want to be Hakeem?
Vic00:01:41Oh, you know what? He's another fella. Habib was busy with a customer. I got there almost – people get there early. Lucky for them where he opened up across the street. This is years ago, like four years ago. It was like an empty lot, and then it became a condo or apartment building thing, and now a bunch of people live there. So they're all going, which is nice for him for business. And then when I got there, it was me and two other people, so that's fine. I sat in a barber chair while waiting, and another fellow came in, really nice guy who cut my hair. His name is not Habib. I forget his name. I don't want to get in trouble, so I'm not going to guess what the name was.
JVL00:02:24Probably Mike.
Vic00:02:26maybe jimmy you know i i remember i remember some of their names but i was one of those names khalid no the other place khalid was my another barber at a different location i used to go to he was egyptian i think this guy's moroccan also i'm not sure anyway nice guy he he does for his own hair is he does what you do the shave yeah that's do you use a do you use do you use like an actual like a like an open blade or do you use a machine are you high i have no idea they have no idea same clippers they use on your hair is what i use on my you don't use it like in uh clueless
JVL00:03:04remember you know it's just just the same clippers the whole thing takes like a minute and a half and
Sonny00:03:13it's close enough yeah and you don't have to talk to anybody well that's the key that's the key right
Vic00:03:20finding somebody that finding somebody who you cannot cream on your head and then you do the
JVL00:03:26thing like this like you know michael i don't do a straight razor across my head i just literally i just use the same you plug them in that's it that's all i do do you do it yourself can you
Vic00:03:36can you reach all the way around i like yeah well if you're going completely bald then you just you
JVL00:03:40don't have to worry you just do the whole thing i have not allowed somebody else to cut my hair for 15 years because once I realized that I did not any longer need to force myself to have conversations with strangers then it was liberating it was it was the same feeling you get the first time you
Vic00:04:02are living on your own and you just want to strut around
JVL00:04:06naked well I was gonna say you you can make
Vic00:04:10any show you want
JVL00:04:11like you know what if wait a minute nobody else's car i just make whatever i want if i don't want to eat a box of oreos for dinner i can just have jelly beans that's right that's what it was like it was that liberating i don't
Sonny00:04:23have to live by society's rules i can just have this bottle of scotch for dinner it's fine you
Vic00:04:28know what uh i remember thinking oh it's great to be alone to have my own place and after about a day i'm like i gotta get out of here i gotta talk to people it's driving me crazy you know what's funny about living uh uh alone and doing those things jvl we have in our house a uh like you know there's like a sick pot you know this is this the unfortunate sick pot that you know like if somebody gets sick there's like a tin pot you put it next to your the kid's bed like in case
Sonny00:04:55they go if you have like one you just have one that you keep reusing that like i don't know where
Vic00:05:00it is now but we had a sick pot and they made pasta the other night the funny thing was it was when i lived alone yeah no no it's not strainable comes right out when i lived alone it was my all-purpose pot like for everything but like you know i mean it's weird to think that i ate and of course when i made spaghetti and stuff cooked from the things you throw into throw up into yeah nowadays it's not the reverse so but the funny thing is i never you're like you know i never bothered using a plate if i was you know alone i'm just eating right out of that pot that's how
Sonny00:05:31how he did it that's terrible for the non-stick surface come on man you're just you're just dinging up the non-stick when you're sticking your fork in there that's right that's my pre
JVL00:05:40le creuset days heating like heating up a can of soup yeah when i when i lived on my own uh-huh
Vic00:05:46100 i would never then dirty a dish with it i just right now that takes time it takes time
JVL00:05:52you pour the can into a little pot you put the pot on the stove for three minutes and you stir it and then you just hold the pot there you go not into because you only have one room because you're a student watch you then turn around and sit down on your futon eat out of it while you watch star trek you know cinemax after dark whatever red shoe diary build a soup okay red
Sonny00:06:15shoe diaries that's my first place so my first place i lived in a in a basement in dc and it was amazing but the weird thing about it was that it it had a microwave oven but no regular oven no like a real oven no stove so i could like i could make anything that i could fit in that microwave can of soup you know stouffer's whatever um but anything that was more complicated than that and even like soup really because like microwaving soup is a disaster you can't you can't do that um so it was so like basically basically my my cuisine was entirely like four or five nights a week i'd have like a stouffer's you know dinner right and then the other nights i would i would walk down the street uh half a half a block in one direction there was a chinese joint a chinese takeout joint half a block like right across the street there was a mexican takeout joint and then about a block in the other direction was a uh was a pizza place so i had all of my cuisine covered i mean it was i had frozen foods i had chinese takeout mexican takeout and that's all you need and that that like if you're 22 and you're living in dc that's
Vic00:07:25literally all the food that you could ever the idea that you would spend you know 12 on a salad at chopped you know i mean this is before could you imagine that if you saw a thing like that back then like oh here's a place that's just giving you oh yeah when i was when i was yeah
Sonny00:07:40when i was making like 24 grand a year at roll call be like oh yeah 12 on a chopped salad are
JVL00:07:47you what are you people living in i mean all i can my brain keeps coming back to in your story that this apartment must not have been up to code uh it was not a legally rentable apartment well
Sonny00:08:01why do you say this i think i think it's i think it's a i think it's it was it was very very questionable i would say i would say if i had gone to like dc's you know uh i don't know that it could have worked and technically it wasn't part technically it wasn't a standalone apartment It was like the basement of a townhouse that was all rented, two separate people, but as a group. It was all very shady. It was all very shady. Luckily, it was exceptionally cheap and one block from the metro. So I was not really too worried about not having a stove.
Vic00:08:35I remember friends who lived in these old row houses in the city. And sometimes if you had rotten luck, you'd end up in that basement. and some of those garden apartment apartments uh and those some of those uh part some of those rooms in the basement they're they're literal death traps um a guy i know i remember he had a party at his place and his like room in the basement was like it was a door that led to out there was no windows and nothing sluice floor yeah well no no well that's an english basement i think those are those are legal you just have to have so when you go to sleep it's like pure
Sonny00:09:15darkness then it's like yeah that was the best part that was the best part of living down there if there's a fire on the other hand well i would i would have died that's fine i mean there's a lot of things in dc that i would have died at yeah no doing in 2005 you know in eastern market when i
Vic00:09:29finally uh my avenue when i finally got my uh studio it was at the kennedy warren and it was
Sonny00:09:37That was across the hall from PJ O'Rourke, and Henry Kissinger was the floor above me. I went up and got a cup of sugar from the secretary.
Vic00:09:54You exaggerate. You exaggerate. PJ was on the eighth floor. I lived across from Matt Cooper and Mandy Grunwald. and then uh christine rosen uh was also in that building as was a uh as was ann coulter
JVL00:10:10in that building i never told you guys my one story no so uh a long long time ago i did a hit on fox and friends for some reason i don't remember and this is a million years ago so this is like during the Clinton saga maybe or maybe early and maybe it was early late 90s or early 2000s and I'm in the green room at Fox and Friends and it's you know 7 50 in the morning or something and there are two other people it is me Henry Kissinger and Jenna from the first survivor
Vic00:10:53And so we decided, like, who am I going to talk to?
JVL00:10:57So the three of us are sitting like these three square couches arranged in a, you know, around a square coffee table. We're sitting there. And so I just introduced myself to Henry Kissinger, Dr. Kissinger. I hear you're the author of the Paris Peace Accords. I read that in The Simpsons. And, you know, I work for Bill Kristol at the Weekly Standard. It's such an honor to meet you. oh oh yes and then pretended to have read something i had written the week before you have to tell bill crystal to say he made some joke about it and then did the and i i'm thinking to myself this is kind of cool like i'm just hanging out with henry kissinger and i look over to jenna from survivor thinking that we're going to share a sort of can you believe this here us two random nobodies are hanging out with dr henry kissinger and she gives me the most hateful look i have ever received from another human being and the full text of it written across her face was i don't know who these fucking losers are but i hope one
Vic00:12:07of them doesn't talk to me yeah yeah or why are you choosing what do you want to talk to me i'm
Sonny00:12:11the famous one why are you talking well that's that's the no but that's that's the question though was it was it was it actually that jvl or was it like why isn't he hitting on me why am i
Vic00:12:21like right why is he don't you think why am i not i don't think i was on survivor why am i sharing a green room with these two losers i'm sure she's not thinking i can't believe you're talking to
Sonny00:12:32the guy who brought cambodia percentage chance she knew who henry kissinger was zero two no zero
JVL00:12:38percent jimmy was obvious that all she could think of was who is this weird gross old hobbit and why is he being allowed to share a green room with me and that was when that was when he was in his sprightly 90s he was he was uh you know if he was a day over 80
Sonny00:12:56we uh we used to have a friend who did some work with henry kissinger i won't i won't expose who this person is and i remember asking him one time i was like hey i've always wanted lat maybash no no somebody else no somebody else i've always wanted to interview henry kissinger about his portraits on screen his portrayals on screen oh yeah that's a great one because because i'm i'm certain he has like he has like cataloged all of these in his head i'm sure he's he is like we could have had him do a ranking yeah exactly no but but like sit there and like and like almost like it would almost have to be a book-length project. It would be like sitting there watching movies with Henry Kissinger while he talks about how they have either wronged him or gotten him right. Who do you think is number one?
Vic00:13:45Who do you think is number one? Paul Cervino. Paul Cervino. Number two, Rod Silver.
Sonny00:13:48Go ahead. I don't know. I just I then started.
Vic00:13:53There was a movie about Nixon and Kissinger. It was like a movie series on TV and I'm pretty sure, I could be wrong, you might have to look it up, but I'm pretty sure that uh and the guy who played uh nixon was from uh he played the uh perry white in the adventures of uh lois and clark that actor anyway sorry sunny how are you uh my kid pooped in
Sonny00:14:21the bath tonight that's how i am you ever have that with your with your two-year-old do you
Vic00:14:26remember the poop watch boy the worst just the worst yeah before you reached in kate has told
Sonny00:14:33me stories about this no thankfully thankfully it was thankfully it was nice and solid but it just is one of those things where it's like you every time that you think you're doing everything more or less right in your life you get the poop the poop in the in the bathtub so that's that was my that was my uh afternoon slash evening that that's the long and the short of it honey they're
Vic00:14:55perfectly fine with it too they seem unfazed by it yeah you know he just he just did it and then
Sonny00:15:00sat there and like kept playing with the stuff i was like he can catty check animal you animal
Vic00:15:06right right right sicken me i haven't felt that way since i had four martinis and shrimp
JVL00:15:10yesterday yesterday yesterday that's right uh okay so gentlemen let's talk about box office thought. No, wait. First, Vic, do you want to do your read from DoorDash?
Vic00:15:25You know, it's funny. I was thinking about this. I am wearing Warby Parker glasses and Tommy John long underwear. I miss the... Everything about me is practically our old sponsors. Can I tell you
JVL00:15:37what I'm wearing? Oh, yeah.
Vic00:15:39It looks like you've decided to become a Franciscan friar.
JVL00:15:43I am wearing a Melanzana micro-fleece hoodie. do you guys have one of these oh no because you can't i do because you can't get one i've got two it's it's like it's like the maestro and a place in tuscany from seinfeld no i'm sorry you just can't get a place in tuscany you can't get a melanzana you can't i can get a melanzana at the supermarket tell us about your fancy uh fleece so uh if you guys listened to the jbl show you would have heard this story already but that's okay uh i don't listen to any once again i
Sonny00:16:21apologize you do another podcast all of our friends who have podcasts i don't listen to your podcast because i don't listen to any podcasts i'm sorry i had a very difficult day
JVL00:16:29today where three people from who are guests on the jbl show were all in a battle royale on twitter like clubbing each other over the head and i was like i only have five friends why can't you all
Sonny00:16:42get along it was very weird anyway uh yeah where'd you get these extra three friends from
JVL00:16:48so my buddy matt roberts and i were talking about uh you guys know matt oh sure a friend of the show talking about outdoor gear because it's a subject near and dear to both of our hearts and i was explaining that i need a new fleece i need a new mid-weight fleece you guys would understand this right you have your heavyweight fleece your lightweight you need a mid-weight fleece and i said i was thinking about getting another patagonia r2 and because that really is the best in the business and he said you know there's a god level i said what so yeah well if you if you could go out to leadville colorado and stand in line for four hours on one of the two days a week that this store is open there's this company called melanzana and they make everything right there in the store by hand and they only have one store and there's no place else you can get it except here in leadville colorado and it's just nuts and uh and you know because what people do is they wait in line for hours they go in they buy everything they can carry out and they just flip it on ebay the prices are insane and i was like what because this was basically a dare you know well you can't get a melanzana fleece all right like like jake charmel's glasses question from indonesia or somewhere question yeah what is the watch equivalent of the melon
Sonny00:18:08zano fleece richard meal i don't know what that means make it dumb it down is that like timex plus
JVL00:18:17it's the type of thing where it's a piaget no a type of watch where to own one you have to not only go to the boutique but at the boutique they have to sign off on you like this type of person we want to own a richard meal and uh that's basically what the melanzana is and so i went to ebay and i was like i am 46 years old and i do not make minimum wage give me one of those and i'm
Vic00:18:44wearing it right now it's you it it looks like uh yeah it looks like uh something a franciscan
Sonny00:18:49would wear the color is brown wait is it is it is it a zip or is it a pullover this is a pullover
JVL00:18:55with a kangaroo pocket and then the hood this is the hood is the most interesting part because it's almost it comes up like this look how high up this comes so it's like you're wearing a scarf
Vic00:19:06or something at all times so you got it on ebay so it's it's used by somebody nobody died unused
Sonny00:19:12unused hey can you can you put the hood back up i'm gonna take a picture of this so people
JVL00:19:15people can see it that's right here hold on i'm gonna move my microphone oh yeah let's get let's
Sonny00:19:21get some this is some this is some exclusive patreon content right here yeah yeah all right so here's the punchline we take like a screenshot of this couldn't i so the punchline of the story
JVL00:19:34is that lara mason our friend text friend of the show friend of the show and uh and says hey did you know that since covid has closed the flag closed the store the melanzana store itself is totally closed they've started an online lottery and if you register for the online lottery for the first time ever uh if you're selected they will let you shop through their internet website to buy melanzanas but it's really you know like you've you've fill out your things and then they uh you know they only select a thousand people a week and it's very you the minute you click your link the clock is running and you can only click the link for this anyway so uh shannon won the lottery on her first fucking try out the gate of course because of course and so i commandeered her lottery ticket and i bought two of everything oh everything do they make fleece socks yeah uh they make wool socks and did i buy them uh-huh do you think they're better than darn tough socks i mean i just assume so because they're more exclusive you can get darn tough socks on amazon yeah but darn tough's really good i'm wearing some right
Vic00:20:55oh no i took you know melanzani is italian for eggplant i'm aware victor right now except for it not in sicilian that would be moulinan and that's true i don't make i know sonny you're looking at me that's actually true that's that's not allowed to say that but that's the word that's the word it's gonna wind up on media matters you can't change that's the word for for eggplant
JVL00:21:18it's just like i'm just saying anyway and the punch line is i then had to explain to shannon what the eggplant emoji meant but a bit fun times so there are no movies there is no box office no
Sonny00:21:33box office we do have some business there is some movie business to discuss do we want to talk about
JVL00:21:38that or is that a whole maybe we save that and do a micro episode about hbo max because sunny you are in an impossible position because two things you love or try are locked in death
Vic00:21:51struggle together yeah movie theaters and hbo max it's speaking of speaking oh and that's never mind speaking of disney plus i was going to ask sunny about the mandalorian and your friend michael bean he was so good he looks so old he's like in fact i had to stop i said he looks like michael bean yeah i'm not quite sure if he is and it i mean i mean but his voice is the same that's
Sonny00:22:17why yeah i mean i haven't spoken i mean it's uh different guy you know he was he was he how old was he in the terminator i bet he was probably 30 in that right because he was a long time he was in lords of discipline a couple years before that and he was in his mid-20s then i mean he's got to be in his he's gonna be 70 or so i mean i like he's great he's but he's great in it he's he's very good as the kind of crusty old you know gun for hire um i thought this episode was really great apparently some people don't like rosario dawson oh no she was as ahsoka who doesn't like
JVL00:22:46rosario dawson as anything yeah she's i don't know those people are crazy because rosario dawson is
Sonny00:22:51number one in in sunny bunches i was intrigued she's so good in shattered glass remember shattered glass yeah i saw a bunch there were there were a bunch of pictures going around this week actually of her and hayden christensen together um and i was trying to figure out like when when were those two but of course it's shattered glass that was the yeah but they didn't have any josey and the
JVL00:23:11pussycats she's good in everything no matter how bad it works too wait a minute she was in josey
Vic00:23:17and the pussycats along with what's her name from she's all that tara reed no no well my friend
Sonny00:23:23also tara reed isn't excuse me tara reed what's her name number one fan thank you who who am i
Vic00:23:30talking about JVL, She's All That, remember? Rachel Leak. Yes, Rachel Leak Cook. Wasn't she? Wasn't she Josie the Pushkin? She was Josie.
Sonny00:23:37That movie's had a bit of a resurgence. People say it's good now, but it's
JVL00:23:42still not. I mean, we need to remake it. I believe they're remaking She's All That.
Sonny00:23:47He's All That. They're gender swapping it. It's He's All That now.
JVL00:23:50Oh, that'll make it better. Yeah.
Vic00:23:53What, is he going to be like a nerd?
Sonny00:23:54And then she makes him. Really? I hope so. It's about time guys got to look good on on in the movies i'm frankly tired of this so do we want to talk to do we want to talk about the
JVL00:24:05hbo max attempt to kill sunny's movie theater beloved movie theaters now or do we want to just finish this show and then tape a little micro and uh release that in a separate day yeah we can do
Vic00:24:18that we can do that for next week or some other time all right i mean it's going to be old news
Sonny00:24:24by this is the thing right is that it like happened today so if we're gonna release it we should release it by like saturday okay well i can do that okay all right that's fine all right i don't have to be in that one right no you can you can go you can go away about this fuck out of here you
JVL00:24:44fucking prick so uh we instead all saw oh wait well you know what okay you need help i'll give
Vic00:24:52you i'll give you i'll give you i'll give you a hand off over here had a wonderful thanksgiving uh when you'll reach around when uh went up yeah went up to uh kate may you know what was great about it kate may at this time no bennies there's nobody but there's no bennies and so it was you didn't take your children to a bar on thanksgiving what why would you say that
JVL00:25:10that one no one child services would frown on that i you know they were like you can't sit at
Vic00:25:16the bar i said no we'll sit at one of the little high tops on the side okay that's fine in that
JVL00:25:20picture your children were 100 sitting at the bar no it was a side table the bar is on the other
Vic00:25:25side also a lot of old people there i don't know why that was on thanksgiving night uh i had a martini was on the hard line they're ready they're just trying to get the rona ready to die they got nothing to lose uh and it was a hard martini like the bartender was like so extra dry i'm like no please vermouth unless the vermouth is bad and i think it was uh so that did not sit well with me but uh nevertheless it is a magical place cape may much like the north pole why did
JVL00:25:58you drive all the way down to cape may from tom's river speaking of the north five hours hour 18 oh speaking thank you sonny speaking of the north pole we watched a movie we watched a
Vic00:26:12This movie is called Fat Man.
JVL00:26:14Fat Man. Sonny, would you like to do a big boy review? Yes. I've got to write this down. Vic, can you send me your old notes so I can follow a template? You're killing it. Go ahead.
Sonny00:26:27So I have a question for the people out there. If you've ever wanted to watch Mel Gibson play Santa Claus and be hunted by Walton Goggins, the great walton goggins uh who is playing an assassin for hire uh who wants to kill santa claus because a the scion of some gangster's family uh got a lump of coal for christmas if you've ever wanted to see that movie this is that movie and the so i i have heard from people who do not like the disjunction between the premise of the movie which is inherently fantastically absurd i haven't even mentioned the fact that the u.s military uh contracts with santa to create pieces of airplanes because the elves are the only people who can do it well enough to get it done quickly i haven't even mentioned that i haven't i haven't even mentioned that the government the federal the united states federal government subsidizes santa claus in his gift giving mission in order to boost the economy like there there are so many absurd parts of this movie that it's kind of hard to know where to start the problem some people have with this is that there's a huge distinction just disjunction between that that kind of farcical idea for the film and what it actually is which is a little bit more elegiac it's a little bit more thoughtful and sad um the the movie the heart of the movie is really about chris kringles this is mel gibson santa his his his sadness at his inability to positively affect the world he's sitting there he's he's driving around in his red truck and he's listening to the stories about the kids dropping rocks off the the overpass and he sees all of the sadness in the world and and the reason why he has to take the job with the military is because he is distributing fewer toys than ever more people are getting cold than ever before because more people are bad now and this is 100 percent he is a reflection of the world in which he lives he lives in a fallen world a horrible world a world that could you know elect terrible people to to do the jobs that they're supposed to do and he's he's sad and he's tired of it and uh he needs a little kick in the pants and that kick in the pants comes from walton goggins now i um again it's it's it's it is more thoughtful i think than some people give credit for. I think it is more interesting and, again, a little bit sad, really. But it's also a lot of fun. And I just love the image of Mel Gibson, the great Mel Gibson, as a deranged kind of godlike Santa Claus. I mean, really, and this movie never really discusses the origin of Santa. There's no talk about what he is or who he is, except for the constant kind of references to him being some sort of like godlike figure he's like super strong he's immortal he can heal himself um he obviously you know can do the whole flying around the world in one day thing uh and i
Vic00:29:30by the way they're better off not showing that then yeah yeah totally terrible cgi totally alan
Sonny00:29:36all right no like him going him going through the him going through the ages him going through you know the the night getting getting everyone uh their presence i like this movie quite a bit i like this movie quite a bit um and i am uh i i'm i'm pretty sure it's going to become a cult classic because i think there are a lot of people who are just going to like not see it first off because it's getting you know dumped on vod like everything else um but also because there are a fair number of people who i think kind of hate it but also there are a lot of people who really like it and i consider myself very much in the very very i liked it a lot camp so jvl what did you
JVL00:30:14make of you know voice of the people yes what did you think of fat man don't you i'm sorry hold on
Vic00:30:21did anyone else see it no no oh i totally forgot i didn't even think about didn't even cross my mind sorry uh yeah so shaking said i liked it a lot yeah i don't even say i love it but i am the voice of the people i love it meta was it metacritic cinescore what is it called uh cinescore uh i gave it like an eight tomatoes i gave yeah i gave it an a plus really i did uh well okay duration is an hour 40 it's a piece of cake okay risk plot i got it there were nothing hard this was not beneath the silver lake okay under the silver like under the same uh violence gets a plus plus plus which offsets these the the sex nudity factor which is lack of nudity you don't want that you know i don't want sex though they they did there is there is they did and that's nice but santa and mrs claus get it on spoiler the yeah yeah mel is old mel is old and big uh but um it's funny he i i so i thought it was great um i was nervous at first watching it because people talk about how dark it is and it's you know the the violence uh so i wasn't sure how this was going to turn you know but uh no i i i thought it was just the right amount and certainly everything was saved for act three uh in terms of that and i mean i just wasn't sure how bad it was going to get so i was happy to see it and it had a wonderful message so i was all for it my favorite scene in
Sonny00:31:54the movie i'm sorry jvl we'll come to you so you can you can crap on this in a minute because i get i get the sense you weren't you weren't a huge fan uh my favorite scene in the movie i think we have the favorite scene both i bet i bet mine is yours go ahead is is the scene in the bar oh where the waitress hits on the guy and and she she goes she goes into the back room and chris kringle kind of pulls up to the guy and he's like hey hey man um why don't you go home to your wife and kids
Vic00:32:19mike yeah he knows everybody you know he knows because he knows everything about the guy because
Sonny00:32:25he is essentially a godlike figure again he's omnipotent he's omniscient he knows all he sees all and he can he can uh make it make it all happen so the the shaking his head save it save it i'm sure he's going to nitpick the plot holes here but uh the uh but but in this scene you know he goes up this guy says hey mike you know i i'm uh and gives him some background that lets him know that he actually knows who he is it's like you should go home to your family you should go home and and uh not cheat on your wife with this this woman who cheats on who like screws everybody who comes into the bar like you got it you got to get home and get away from her and it's the only moment uh early on in the film where he's actually happy because he's making a difference in the world because he's actually able to positively impact the world and that's really the key to the whole film this is this is his whole character is he feels frustration with an inability to kind of passively improve the world by giving people gifts his his his kind of positive reinforcement has not worked he feels the need to intervene he actually has to go in there and put boots on the
JVL00:33:32ground and change these people's lives to be in person proactive so i and that's what makes him
Sonny00:33:38happy and that's what that's by the end of the film that's what he has embraced he has embraced this kind of i got to get my hands dirty and you know make these people realize that uh i am not to be trifled with i if they're not good more bad things than just them getting coal will happen to
Vic00:33:53them so that's that's one of my favorite scenes was actually the walton goggins extended road trip soundtrack so i mean they they don't have to show that most movies don't spend that much time with the uh the hitman unless he's the you know main character uh you know like it's like heat or something and instead and it's the different music and just to give you sense of how long they have a pulling into the drive-through i mean they have everything i mean taking a piss you name and the music and the rap and then talk radio hysterical yeah absolutely all right jvl i uh
JVL00:34:30so sunny i'm gonna swerve on you here oh i spent the first i marked it down the first 53 minutes just kind of staring at the screen like george w bush at the 2016 inauguration saying that's some weird shit and at the 53 minute mark i fell in love with it
Sonny00:34:52because it was so, so totally committed to the premise.
JVL00:34:59And what happens at the 53-minute mark?
Sonny00:35:04You know, I don't even remember.
JVL00:35:06I think, I don't remember what happened there. This is, I just have my notes here at 53-minute mark. This is when I went from thinking, blah, blah. It's a, so I want to talk about Walton Goggins and the kid who hires him in a minute. But the first thing I want to say is that you are wrong about what he is. This is a, this is an X-Men movie because he is Wolverine crossed with Jean Grey. And that is, that is planted and earned all the way through.
Vic00:35:41You mean, you mean, you mean it's part Wolverine and part, uh, he can read minds? Or he could phase through walls.
Sonny00:35:47He can regenerate. He's strong. And he's... Yeah, read minds.
JVL00:35:51So he read minds and he's Wolverine. They established that he's Wolverine very, very early. So at the end, when he comes back from the dead, because he's not really dead, that is only a surprise if you haven't been paying attention.
Sonny00:36:04Yeah.
JVL00:36:06And his wife is, Mrs. Claus is too. And the two of them got together some very long time ago and they chose this right they chose to do this with their lives they decided we're going to be santa claus and mrs claus together and uh there's this great line when walton goggins shows up to to kill him and he's totally unsurprised this is like he keeps guns we see him practicing with guns and he says to walton goggins character he says you think you're the first person to do this i've been doing this for a long time they didn't choose me you know i didn't i didn't take this job because i was fat and jolly or something like that right the reason he took this job is because he's essentially immortal because he's with these wolverines and it actually gives goggins a little pause you see in his face right right he's realized his whole holy shit
Sonny00:36:58superhero i mean he's he's essentially i again i i think i think of him more in the tradition of like the nordic uh like the thor tier of gods right like potentially alien but also like yeah i think he's a mutant what it doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter
JVL00:37:18uh so that's great and there's so many little weird tiny throwaway moments these two guys from the government show up right throw one of them is like hi i'm john and and uh he just growls at him goes i know who you are and the guy goes oh yeah they warned us about that right there's a little
Vic00:37:37touch and go with you for you know he's right because he knows everybody's the other thing is the military uh the captain being very impressed at their operations and then he explains but the numbers the elves like oh we go by numbers it's just more efficient that way and and it would be you know we we wouldn't want to repeat the numbers you know and and he was like this is amazing you
JVL00:37:56know so so when on the the comedy bits of it are really funny and so this is one of them the soldiers are all totally incompetent the soldiers can't operate a forklift they can't hammer nails they just the walton goggins mows his way through an entire platoon of heavily armored guys like nothing because these guys have no earthly idea what they're doing and the idea that santa's elves are more competent than the u.s military in every possible way it's just done so beautifully it's just i mean i i don't know i couldn't stop smiling at it because it was so funny i loved i loved just about everything about it except for one thing so i was throughout the entire movie looking forward to santa killing the kid the kid he doesn't kill people though i wanted this kid dead like you can't believe i i wanted this kid dead more than i've wanted to see a movie villain dead maybe since joaquin phoenix in gladiator okay you know i'm just it's from from the third minute of the movie i want this kid to buy it and the kid does such a good job at being such a jerk oh it's great yeah great i thought i actually thought about under the silver lake And I thought about the, the kids, you know, graffiti in the cars and getting beat up. And I thought that's what needs to happen to this kid. And, uh, and he doesn't get it. And I was disappointed at first, but then I even came around on that because there is a, a very deep thing. So the kid is much more evil than Walton Goggins. Yes. Walton Goggins is not a, is not a question. Yeah.
Sonny00:39:42Do we, what do we think he is the scion of?
Vic00:39:45i assumed an organized crime family i didn't get that although he's just a rich kid he has access
Sonny00:39:51i think i think it's i think he is like i think the grandma is actually like the real head of this organized crime family and she's trying to figure out where the money is that he's been like pilfering away to hire walton goggins to intimidate his classmates right uh possible who who is the
Vic00:40:08portrait of in the kids is that napoleon i was thinking i was wondering the same thing because but you didn't see him in the classic hand tucked in the jacket right anyway whoever that is i'm
JVL00:40:17sure i was telling you it was frederick the great but yeah but uh so goggins is and you know there's so many little things like when he goes in to pick up stuff for his hamster and the woman's trying to get him to buy a snake and he's like no and she's like i can tell a snake person he's like no i'm not that person and we learned how much he hates his his family hates his parents and the what santa what's chris kringle says to him is he says i couldn't give you different parents i there are limits this was this was what that kid needed was different parents and it's not his fault he turned out this way because of of that uh and the the evil kid then santa goes and tries to redeem him he spares his life in an attempt to redeem him because he had to put down walton goggins and in fact she didn't actually want to kill he didn't kill he didn't want to
Vic00:41:11kill and it you know it was mrs claus who does it but remember he says enough he says enough right until he had that the gadget and she says sorry she didn't want to do it yeah yeah i i liked just
JVL00:41:24about everything about it i uh i don't know i i think this has to be a classic i think it's i
Sonny00:41:32I think it is much, much deeper and more profound than the initial round of advertisements kind of led people to believe it would be. I mean, it was essentially pitched to people as the movie at the start of Scrooged with the $6 million man, the night the reindeer died or whatever, the day the reindeer died. That's how it was essentially pitched to people as this kind of vaguely absurd, you know, silly thing. And it's not that it really isn't. It's actually again, I keep I keep coming back to the word elegiac because it like it has like a sadness to it that kind of runs through the whole thing. But it is in the it is in a very real way, deeply, deeply hopeful at the end. Now, granted, that hope comes from comes after a massive amount of violence and the implied threat that much more violence will happen if people don't get their shit straight. But like, I, I, I just thought it was, I thought it was really, really pretty. I thought it was really pretty great. And I love, I love Mel Gibson and I think he is great in this. And I just, I, you know, I, I, I quite enjoyed everything about it.
JVL00:42:39Are you ready for me to blow your mind, Santino? Sure. This is the Santa Claus equivalent of Man of Steel. Okay. Man of Steel.
Vic00:42:51But what are you directing that at, Sonny? It's like right over.
JVL00:42:54Man of Steel is the movie that asks, okay, what if Superman was real? And that's what this movie is. Yeah. Well, no, totally.
Sonny00:43:02Yeah.
JVL00:43:02What if Santa Claus was real? How does that look? In the same way that Man of Steel, they're like, geez, maybe the world actually isn't ready for Superman, right? I mean, that's-
Vic00:43:11Is that the one with Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor?
JVL00:43:16He's trying to get you, Sonny.
Vic00:43:17No, he can't get me. He's trying to get you. Can't get me with that. and he cons the all it cons another old lady out of money in that stack of stuff victorino jvl did you allow your son to watch this i did so i watched it twice we watched the first time just me and kate and just to make sure that again i wasn't everyone's talking about the violence and so i'm like okay we'll see and then the second time around uh i watched it with him and he thought it was crazy funny good but crazy yeah whack did he like it yeah he did he did yeah he enjoyed it it was wacky so it was so crazy though he couldn't believe it and i said yeah you know was he rooting for the kid to buy it oh yeah i know he yeah you know spoiled kid he said spoiled
Sonny00:43:59kid i have to say i i have to say i'm shocked that this movie is below 50 on rotten tomatoes that half of the critics that half of the critics thought it was not a passing grade movie um i i just don't i don't i don't understand that at all i mean half of critics i mean critics are
JVL00:44:17down anything that mel gibson yeah yeah that's right that's i mean that's part of it that's
Sonny00:44:23part of it that's right i mean that that's certainly part of it uh and he is great he's
JVL00:44:27great i am not a i'm not as big a mel gibson fanboy as you are sonny i like him quite a lot uh especially young mel gibson but he's he's fabulous in this it reminds it's like almost
Vic00:44:40every character he plays isn't it a dark tortured soul with a dark past trying to heal so I'm trying to think of a character that he hasn't been like the Patriot he's not like that in payback
JVL00:44:50like payback is really funny you and I saw payback we did it's like a dark it's starting to look like hamburger down there yeah that's right yeah I don't know I love the crap out of it I would watch it again this is something I never do I rented it instead of buying it oh yeah I just rented it and immediately regretted as soon as it was over I was like I just wasted $5 I should have bought the thing that's a class you could watch it every year always buy the movie
Sonny00:45:25I will buy this when it comes out on blu-ray
JVL00:45:28don't depend on the stream one day you will not own it
Sonny00:45:31I try not to buy anything digital from anyone agreed unless you know okay to watch it on your oled well one of these days it happened
JVL00:45:41no not yet not yet not yet okay it will one of these days well fat man i hope everybody goes
Sonny00:45:48and watches it fat man thumbs up there's a we have a link to it uh on the the post that kind of uh was a was a preceding this if you need to to click on that and uh watch it but it's on all major vod streaming it's i think it's a dollar cheaper on amazon for some reason than like
JVL00:46:04uh then they paid five bucks yeah uh corrections additions uh shout out i have um
Vic00:46:14ryan shinkel listen ryan shinkel points out in last action hero art carney plays arnold schwarzenegger's quote favorite favorite second cousin frank so not his uncle we said uncle and it's his favorite second cousin frank also his last line uh before he dies was i'm out of here which was very fitting because that was his last uh role was the last action hero you know what else is interesting um the villain in last action hero charles dance charles dance who's having a real moment isn't he he's having a real sometimes it happens to it fascinates me just james cromwell's the same way i always thought you know people who i'm sure they've been acting for a long time and they've been in the business but sometimes their moment comes when they're old and they're not young. They're not Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio and it happens to Charles Dance now. I was thinking about it because of Game of Thrones and because of The Crown where he plays Prince Philip Mountbatten and then in this upcoming movie, Manc where he plays Randolph Hearst and speaking of which, that could be a movie we could talk about in the future. all right spirit of the week spirit of the week oh sonny what are you drinking yes i'm i made a
Sonny00:47:32manhattan uh for this this fine uh sub beacon episode with bulk let's hear it it's balconies or balconies i don't know i'm not sure how to pronounce it because i'm terrible at pronouncing things uh b-a-l-c-o-n-e-s uh baby blue uh corn whiskey um pot distilled 46 alcohol it's it's very good it's made a nice little made a nice little manhattan and your vermouth what's your vermouth oh the vermouth is the um it's the uh no it's the antica formula oh okay yeah and and and just angostura pay show i use i use angostura and pay shows use angostura and pay shows just a little bit of both did you make a picture did you make a picture did you make a picture i did not make a picture sadly i'm i'm i'm triangling myself to one drink per per episode now since somebody uh noted just how incredibly drunk i got on that that comeback people could tell yeah people people could tell so i'm i'm trying not to embarrass myself again but no the uh the balconies somebody uh one of one of the sseu uh folks uh sent sent a bottle of that after my dismissal from my my previous job so uh it was very nice it's made in waco uh down in waco and in texas so very very very good i i strongly recommend it uh for uh you just drive over there from where
JVL00:48:59you are since you're both in texas you and waco waco waco is relatively close to dallas
Sonny00:49:04waco is less than two hours away uh maybe right about two hours away um so that's that's relatively close like austin is four hours away houston's four hours away uh yeah you're really so past those el paso's like 18 hours away i'm drinking something yeah what are you drinking there look at this ufo what is this that's an actual beer yeah that's right winter is it a wheat beer winter
Vic00:49:35blonde must be, like a hefeweizen. A seasonal hefeweizen and wintry delight. That's what it says. It's good. I like it.
JVL00:49:46Well, that's all the time we're giving to this episode.
Vic00:49:52Until next time! And that's all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at SundayBunch, at Victorina Mattis.
Sonny00:50:02At JBLass, he's back. He's back on Twitter, at JBLass. Send him tweets. He loves it.
Vic00:50:06Again, be sure to subscribe to us on Patreon. Just go to subbeacon.com. We are there. Tell your friends. Until next time.
JVL00:50:20You just winged that. It's like muscle memory.
Vic00:50:24Do you have any stingers? I'll take anything. I have one tiny one. So if you have a big one, go for it. Sonny, do you have a big one?
Sonny00:50:33I don't have a good one.
JVL00:50:34I've been doing a lot of thinking about the Appalachian Trail and the three of us.
Vic00:50:38I want to do it. What? Yeah, keep thinking. I want to do it.
JVL00:50:42Could we do it? Could we do it? No.
Sonny00:50:46Absolutely not. No. I would rather die. Yes. That could be arranged on the Appalachian Trail. I'd rather die not on the Appalachian Trail.
Vic00:50:55I don't like dirt. Sand I love. I do not like mud.
JVL00:51:00Are you sure there's no dirt on the AT? What was that? I'm sure there's no dirt on the AT, but it'll be fine. All right, so what's your thing, Victorino?
Vic00:51:08Oh, I had my checkup with my doctor. You know, you have to do that. And in order to so I can continue getting my meds, you know, you can't just go to play and then go switch, go from doctor to doctor. No, no, it's just for my pain, for my back. No, no, the other, I know, I just, you know, I just need one. Yes, Sonny.
Sonny00:51:30I have a thing. finish your story, but don't, don't, don't, I'm sure it's fine. The end of the day, I have a,
Vic00:51:35before you have to meet with the doctor, the nurse guest, you know, she, you know, she weighs you and then everything else and asks you a bunch of questions and her, no, no, she didn't have to do that. Thank you. I do that to myself. And, uh, and, and, and, and they ask you questions about, you know, like mental health stuff again. And then she says, um, and, uh, alcohol. So do you drink? Uh, I go, well, and she goes like two or three times I go a week. Yes. And she goes, uh, no, i meant a month i said yes yes that's also i guess also true right also true i mean look when they ask that so suppose i don't drink for a week and then like or suppose i don't drink for three and a half weeks and then at the end of the month i have like my pitcher of manhattan's which by the way is 50 ounces if everyone listeners want to know this is the bonus you get listening on patreon I'm going to use Vic Mattis' recipe for Manhattan pitcher. And it's 50 ounces of bourbon, 25 ounces of red sweet vermouth, and 50 droplets of bitters.
Sonny00:52:3750 shakes.
JVL00:52:38Victorino, when is the last time you went a week without a drink?
Vic00:52:44I'm sure it's – I don't know. Okay, no, no. Sonny, Sonny, you had your thing. Please.
Sonny00:52:48No, I do have something. So we actually have a tea public store now. We have a tea public store. I teased this, and there was a poll. The winning design was Gout Watch. The good folks at TeePublic are actually coming up with a very nice Gout Watch template, but it's not quite ready yet. But what we do have, we've got three shirts up at the store now. It's the SubBeacon store, the SubDashBeacon store. You can search for it. We'll put a link in the show notes for this, JBL.
JVL00:53:20no we're killing the dash because i didn't get a dash in the the url well if there's a dash in it
Sonny00:53:28so i don't know maybe we can change that there's a dash there's a dash in the there's a dash in the the logo that's the dash has always been there the dash has always been in the logo from the host gator tonight and try no you don't need to you don't need to actually do that it's fine it's fine but we have a we have a we have a t public store jbl will put a link to it uh in the show notes that you can click on and come right here we have the original logo the original substandard logo if you want to if you want a little bit of a uh uh vintage look we've got the new sub beacon uh logo and we have of course i'm sure it's fine
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