#5. MANK
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The main film is David Fincher's Mank, the black-and-white Netflix picture about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz and the writing of Citizen Kane, and the three hosts split hard. Sonny watched it twice and loves it, unspooling an elaborate "levels within levels" reading in which the film is a sly, dyspeptic commentary on Hollywood's tradition of political conformity — with heterodox Gary Oldman cast, pointedly, as the lone dissenter. Vic surprises everyone by liking it too, praising Oldman, Lily Collins, and the period craft (Trent Reznor scoring with 1941-era instruments, the visible reel-change cigarette burns), and declaring he preferred it to the actual Citizen Kane. JVL is the holdout — he texted his displeasure mid-viewing and wanted a movie about Mank's writing, not a sideshow gubernatorial race, though he admits he likes it more in hindsight than he did while watching. The opening runs long: Sonny's new Eero mesh Wi-Fi (occasion for a run of mesothelioma jokes), Vic hauling a donated washer/dryer to the Dominican house with his Knights of Columbus, Dallas's professional Christmas-light installers, and JVL's cherished anniversary gift from the listeners — an original 1977 Star Wars #1 comic. The big news is Warner Bros.' bombshell that its entire 2021 slate will hit HBO Max day-and-date with theaters, which Sonny and JVL dissect at length via Christopher Nolan's scorched-earth "worst streaming service" statement. It closes on JVL's new object of hatred: Jack Stuef, the disgraced-journalist-turned-med-student who found the Forrest Fenn treasure.
From the show notes
We had . . . conflicting thoughts about the movie this week.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Tell the story you know. I hear you're hunting dangerous game. This is different. This is about something I've put up with your suicidal drinking. You're a compulsive gambling. You're silly platonic affairs. I gave you a second chance. A wealth and influence can crush a man. Are you hoping I might absolve you of such a personal betrayal? You made yourself court jester. Nobody but nobody makes a monkey out of William Randolph Hearst! You pick a fight with Willy, you are finished. Mank. Mr. Mankiewicz!
JVL00:00:37Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon. I'm your host JVL along with Sonny Bunch and Victorino Matus. Just a reminder that the Sub-Beacon used to be available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher and now is available to you exclusively on Patreon at Sub-Beacon.com We also have a new store. We can buy Sub-Beacon merchandise ranging from masks to onesies to headache shirts. Just visit tpublic.com and search Substandard or Sub-Beacon, one of them. You'll easily find us. Please buy shirts, tell your friends to become patrons, and leave us reviews, suggestions, and ideas at Sub-Beacon.com. Gentlemen, how are we, Sonny Bunch?
Sonny00:01:23Hey, I have a question. Do I look better? Do I look clearer today? Am I noticeably... You do!
Vic00:01:27Is it clearer still?
Sonny00:01:32No, it's Noxzema. So I, as you guys have known for a while, and I don't want to jinx us. I feel like I might be jinxing us here. But my internet has been shaky. My internet has been a little bit shaky, and it's... the problem... The problem was ignorable when I wasn't working from home all the time with my wife doing, you know, four podcasts a week and everything else, watching 17 different streaming devices on 700 different channels. So I went out and invested in an Amazon Eero Wi-Fi system, and let me tell you, it is dramatically improved. It has dramatically improved the quality of my Wi-Fi setup here.
Vic00:02:15So you were able to get something Wi-Fi related, not through your cable company, which tells you, really, you can only go through us for everything, and how dare you?
Sonny00:02:23Well, so I, I mean, I'd been using the terrible Wi-Fi box that they gave us, and it sucked. And I'd been trying to make it work with an extender. I got a Netgear extender, and the Netgear extender sucked because my, I was always bouncing off on different signals, and my computer was never sure where to go. But the Eero uses a mesh technology. I don't know what that means, exactly. It's a mesh.
Vic00:02:48Oh, the mesh, you know, there's a class action lawsuit against the mesh. There's a class action lawsuit against it.
Sonny00:02:54Wi-Fi mesh network. And, uh, yeah, I'm probably going to get, you know, cancer. Is that, is that it, which, which women's health device was that? Yeah, anyway, uh, so anyway, uh, I have to say it's, it's dramatically improved, uh, my, my life, and, uh, I'm now downloading things that like, you know, 400 megabytes a second, 500 megabytes a second, you know, things just, just like that. Just give me, give me a 30 gigabyte video game. I'll do like this.
Vic00:03:2740 bauds per second.
Sonny00:03:31So anyway, that, that, uh, has been the highlight of my week or so, uh, getting that, getting that taken care of.
Vic00:03:39Victorino, how are you? I'm doing great JVL, you know, getting in the Christmas spirit. Uh, Kate was outside putting on the lights while I was inside the house, panning my schnitzel in the bathroom. No, just kidding. I was making dinner. Uh, so, uh, yes. And, uh, uh, doing fine. And, uh, speaking of the, uh, Christmas spirit over the weekend. Uh, so I went to, you know, see my nights and do a rosary. And then afterwards, one of the guys says, uh, could you help us? Uh, we were delivering some equipment or appliance from a woman's home. Uh, uh, a nice lady who was donating it to the, to Dominicans. And I'm like, ah, well, I looked at the guy who's going and I see the three guys. They're on the older side. And, you know, one of them is rheumatoid arthritis. The other guy is bad and easy though. A guy has like, he just got pins in his arm last spring. And I'm like, sure, I'll help. What do we need to do? Oh, we just need to, uh, uh, deliver a washer and dryer. I said, oh, right up my alley. And so I said, how are we working this out? I said, oh, well, you know, our buddy Kenny's got the, the, the pickup truck. So, uh, but we can't fit everybody in the truck, obviously. So I, that's why I'll take, could you take, can we take your car? So I said, oh. Okay. We'll take two cars. So go to this woman's lovely home and it's, you go in the basement and it's like deep in, it's like still connected partly. I don't know what to do at this point, but I have to pretend that I know. Oh yeah, sure. Let's I move washers and dryers all the time. And I don't even go to that part of the basement in my own house. Uh, so we looked at it and then, uh, I believe my exact question was, well, are there wheels on it? And, uh, one of the guys didn't just look at me and says, are you kidding? And I said, yeah, of course I'm kidding. Okay. It's just funny jokes. Just, uh, okay. What are we doing? So the good thing is, uh, they could use me for my, obviously for my strength, as you know, uh, but for my brawn, but clearly not for my brain. Cause they're like, well, uh, we can't get out of this door. So first of all, let's disconnect the stuff obviously, and then throw it in here. And then, uh, we're going to have to pop the door out. And I'm like, yes, pop.
JVL00:05:57The door out.
Vic00:05:58And, uh, so, so yes. And so thankfully the elderly guys who are only in their sixties, uh, were able to do that in like two seconds. The funny thing is about the Knights is, you know, almost all the Knights I know are like they're, they're, they're Masons, electricians, builders, uh, um, craftsman type guys. They're not, not Freemasons. No. And construction and stuff like that. And I guess that's maybe only 1% of them are editors as it turns out. But, uh, so. So they knew what to do. And then we got it in.
Sonny00:06:29100. There's 100 people in your, in your club.
Vic00:06:32That's right. And, uh, we put it on, we put it on the flatbed. Then we had little did I know we was going to the Dominican house, uh, across from the shrine and Catholic university in lovely Brookland. Uh, so drove into the city and delivered it to father Antoninus at Dominican house. And, uh, and that was my, almost my whole day, all Saturday, uh, was doing that and then bringing them back. Uh, but that really is my, my Christmas message to all of you and to all of our listeners, which is if you get a chance, do a good deed this Christmas. And most importantly, tell as many people as, as possible that you did the good deed so you can feel good about yourself.
Sonny00:07:13Yeah. That's straight from the Bible.
Vic00:07:15I, I think I heard that once in church.
Sonny00:07:17It's in the Chinese Bible. Uh, I have, I have a question for you, uh, Victor that has nothing to do with the story you just told. I was more interested in the, the lights part. Do you, in your guys' neighborhoods, are there like professional light putter uppers? No. Are there, are there people who go around in trucks? Yes. I believe they're called dads, except for, except for at my address. Because that's a thing in Dallas. That's it.
Vic00:07:46They're, they're like, uh, they're like, you get people like the leaf blower guys and you get, and then you have people who actually.
Sonny00:07:52Yeah. Who like come to the house and they, they, they all look the same. They all like have these lights. Put up on the gutters.
JVL00:07:58Careful.
Sonny00:07:59No, no, no. The lights, the lights all look the same.
Vic00:08:02Oh, I thought I was thinking what JBL was going to think. Yeah.
Sonny00:08:05They're all, they're all put up. They, they, they're all like, just like white lights that point straight up that go on the gutters all around the house. And then like the arch of the house. And I, uh, I'm, I'm fascinated by this. It's a number. It's many services. There are dozens of professional Christmas light putter uppers, and it's something that I've. I've literally, I just have never seen before, but they're on the lights. They're not your light. I think they are lights. They come and they put, they wrap them around the trees. So it's not like, oh, we got to buy the tile.
Vic00:08:37And then, you know, they, they, they, how much does it cost?
Sonny00:08:40I don't know. I don't, I'm, I'm, I'm next year. We're going to use them because I put up lights on our house and they look like trash. Cause I'm a terrible light putter upper. I'm not a professional light putter upper. I'm an amateur.
JVL00:08:52You like to put her on your house.
Sonny00:08:54I got up, I got up on a ladder and I. Put them on the gutter and they look terrible. Let me tell you, they're pale. They're, they're colored like different colors. They're not all white. So the house, it doesn't, doesn't fit in.
JVL00:09:07Oh, I bet they frown on that at Texas.
Sonny00:09:09Well, uh, that was actually much more awkward than I had intended to phrase it. Uh, but, but like, we have like, we have, you know, we have like multicolored lights. We have like red and green and purple and yellow or whatever, but it's like the only house on the block that does. And I'm, uh, I'm everybody else.
JVL00:09:25As you said, the rest of the neighborhood is tasty. I'm a little bit afraid that everyone is judging us, me specifically.
Sonny00:09:31You're only the new kids from East commenting the way we all come. I always come and look out the window and talk about, did you see, did you see what's going on at that house? I'm glad we, I'm glad we haven't bothered to meet them because nobody, I, I gotta say
JVL00:09:46Sonny, I am shocked that you were a Christmas exterior light kind of guy.
Sonny00:09:53Oh, I'm not.
JVL00:09:56Oh.
Vic00:09:58Well, good for her.
Sonny00:09:59Good for her. Beth is very good. She likes, she likes, she likes decorations. I'm not, I'm not, but I, but I was like, if one of us is going to get up on the ladder and put it up there, it should probably be me. I don't need the neighborhood judging me. That's what my wife said.
Vic00:10:11My wife said the exact same thing.
Sonny00:10:12I don't, I don't need the neighborhood judging me, not only for my bad lights, but also the fact that I made my wife get up there and do it. It's, you know, it's me. Now she's, she's shaking her fist at me through the door right now. Um, yeah, but anyway, it's, it's weird.
Vic00:10:27You know what I'm surprised? Now, having seen your lights compared to the neighbor's lights, the service may probably slip one of their flyers.
JVL00:10:36They'll target you.
Vic00:10:37And you may not say, Hey, it's like the ones I always get about, like, you know, like for your grass and stuff like that, for your lawn, you know, it's like, Oh, clearly, clearly they look at you.
Sonny00:10:46They should come and, they should come and just be like, Hey, we'll, we'll do it for free this year. But next year you got to pay because you look, your house looks terrible. You're bringing down the rest of our house. Housework that we've done in this neighborhood. I don't know. I thought, so this is, I'm sorry. I'm going on and on about this, but like, I, I, I, I am, I can't tell if I like am in a nicer neighborhood than I thought I was, if this is a thing that happens in other, but you live in a pretty nice neighborhood, Vic and JBL, but nobody does anything like this in your guys' neighborhoods, right?
Vic00:11:16No, that must be just something. No, I've never seen this anywhere in, in our neighborhood. And they're all, the lights are all very unique. That's how you could tell also, you know, different, different. Levels of skill, you know?
JVL00:11:28All right. So Sonny, what is the price point at which you would waver on doing it?
Sonny00:11:37Are you saying, uh, what is the most I would spend on this?
JVL00:11:40Right. So, so the, the, the dollar at which you go, I don't know if I'd really want to spend the money on that.
Vic00:11:48Can I put a bid in there too?
Sonny00:11:50Yeah. Why don't you guys guess? Why don't you guys guess here? Wait, hold on. I'll write down a number on my phone and then I'll show it to you guys. The price is right. Give me one sec. Um, okay. I've got a number. I've got a number.
JVL00:12:03Okay. And this includes both set up and rental total price.
Sonny00:12:09The most amount of money I'd be willing to spend on this.
JVL00:12:12All right. Victorino and we are, Vic is not guessing your answer. Vic is giving you his own answer.
Vic00:12:17Yeah. 200, 200 laughing too low, laughing too high. That's what. That's what I'm intrigued by, but go ahead.
Sonny00:12:28Sonny J JVL. What's your answer?
JVL00:12:32Uh, probably 800. Oh, what? That's crazy.
Sonny00:12:38This is what I put backwards. It's two 25.
JVL00:12:44This is an hourly rate, right? I mean, this is, what does it cost? You've called, you pay $400 to get somebody to, to rate the, you know, vacuum up the leaves.
Sonny00:12:54I pay $50 every two weeks for our lawn.
JVL00:12:56There must be a cost I pay for different in Texas than it is $50 every two weeks.
Sonny00:13:05That's great.
JVL00:13:06Wow. In cash. Okay.
Vic00:13:11I'm not finding out 10 99. Uh, okay. Yeah. Very interesting.
JVL00:13:17All right. So can I, can I tell you guys a little bit about, uh, I got, I got a love hate thing for you. JVL start with the, how are you?
Sonny00:13:25How do you, I find it hard. Hard to believe that you hate somebody.
JVL00:13:29Uh, Victorino, did you like my intro? It was very good. It was mellifluous. Thank you. So, uh, I'll start with the love. You guys, uh, know that there are a bunch of holidays that we just don't celebrate in my house. Like, you know, mother's day, father's day, stuff like that. Pass. Don't do it. But, uh, but I, I have one holiday, which I like celebrate the crap out of, which is my anniversary because my wedding anniversary is very, very special to me.
Vic00:14:01Oh, wait a minute. It's like, yes.
JVL00:14:05So, uh, so I'm, I am, but I would pay $800 to have somebody come on, put up lights just for my anniversary. Better than Christmas. Oh, and, uh, our friends at the SSEU got me an anniversary present because my anniversary was this past weekend and I would like to show it to you. Vic is going to blow your fucking mind.
Vic00:14:26Your anniversary. Go ahead.
?00:14:31Okay.
Vic00:14:32There's a little bit of a reflection. Who is on the cover of the Star Wars comic? What is that?
JVL00:14:37That is Star Wars. The original number one.
?00:14:40What?
JVL00:14:41The original Star Wars. You had this when you were a kid, didn't you? The comic book?
Vic00:14:47Yeah. Yeah. I didn't collect it, but wow. Look at that.
JVL00:14:51So this is one of the all time great comic book covers.
Vic00:14:56And it has that behind them because that's not Darth Vader Death Star.
JVL00:15:02The green. This is a green Darth Vader. There's a Death Star here. But what this what is so amazing about this cover is that it is both perfectly balanced, but also exploding with action. Like you get everything is, you know, Luke is stepping out of the frame. You've got X-Wing TIE fighter. Funny. I thought you said why? Wing a wing. They're all sort of flying out of the page at you. You've got this giant Luke up here in the top left, right?
Vic00:15:35Normally the Spider-Man would be there or something.
JVL00:15:38Yeah, it's just it's crackling with energy.
Vic00:15:41And I had this.
JVL00:15:43I remember I bought it at the local five and dime in Woodbury, New Jersey when I was a kid. 30 cents. And I read that comic book. I don't know. Seventy five thousand times until it just fell apart. Disintegration.
Sonny00:16:02Yeah. Did that is that the comic? Did that comic come out before the movie came out?
JVL00:16:07No.
Sonny00:16:08After. OK, because I seem to remember there was maybe maybe I'm thinking of the novelization. I don't remember. There's something that came out before the actual movie came out that was used as really like PR for the movie.
Vic00:16:22Well, so did they have it? Is it like is it like in that in case? It's encased and certified. One of those things. No, no, it's not. It's not.
JVL00:16:31I will probably it's in a very high quality sleeve. I will probably.
Vic00:16:35Oh, very nice.
JVL00:16:36Because my mind was an acid back.
Vic00:16:39Is there an acid back thing?
JVL00:16:40Of course. Of course. Acid free backing. Anyway, it was this is it was like Rosebud. It was amazing.
Sonny00:16:49Speaking of which.
JVL00:16:51No, you know what? Yeah. Let's do speaking of which I will save my hate for the out.
Sonny00:16:55No, I want to. I want to. I want to. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You had hate.
Vic00:16:58I'm sorry.
Sonny00:16:59Wait, hold on. The first issue of Star Wars was published in April of 1977.
Vic00:17:08Really? Yeah. Wow.
JVL00:17:12So this was out before.
Sonny00:17:14So this thing must have been sitting on the racks and had been in the racks because this
JVL00:17:18happened at the five and dimes, right? They would just get new comic books and we'll just sit there as they return on sale. Yeah.
Sonny00:17:24So, yeah, there's I remember. This guy, I'll have to I'll have to send you the name of the book for show notes because I can't remember what it is right now. I think it was Chris Taylor's history of Star Wars. But there is so there was all sorts of pre-movie promo. They went to they went to conventions. They went to comic book conventions. They had this comic book. They they did all sorts of stuff for this before it was even out to create buzz to create, you know, pre-awareness of the movie.
Vic00:17:48That's insane.
JVL00:17:49Well, anyway, I did the my heart was touched by this from Chris. And Ryan and Thomas and everybody in the SSEU. And I I really can't thank you guys enough. And it it was like finding a tiny little piece of of my childhood again. So thank you. That's my love. That's what I have. And I accidentally backed into a transition to speaking of Rosebud.
Vic00:18:17Oh, you don't want to talk about your hate.
Sonny00:18:19I'll save it. All right. Save it. But we can't transition right to make yet. We got to talk about HBO Max. Oh, Warner Brothers.
Vic00:18:28That's right. Good.
JVL00:18:30I don't want to put Vic to sleep.
Sonny00:18:32You're into it.
Vic00:18:33So all the movies are coming out ahead of time.
Sonny00:18:36It's big. This is actually big news. And people were asking if we were going to talk about it. I have thoughts about this. All right.
JVL00:18:42Yeah. So, Sonny, this is pitting your two great loves against one another. Yeah. Because HBO Max decided to destroy the theatrical experience. And you love the theatrical experience. But you also. You also are an HBO Max fanboy. The only way this could be worse is if Zack Snyder weighed in.
Sonny00:19:04Well, Zack Snyder is involved in all this because Zack Snyder is releasing his cut of the Justice League on HBO Max.
JVL00:19:10Right. Oh, I guess. So he's Team Max.
Sonny00:19:12He's Team HBO Max. No, I mean, look, this is this is huge news. The fact that Warner Brothers, that AT&T has told Warner Brothers, and that's how this happened. It's not like Warner Brothers was like, oh, we're going to do this. AT&T has told Warner Brothers. They have to release their their next entire year's worth of film, their entire 2021 slate on HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously. So basically everything from Dune to The Matrix 4 to The Sopranos prequel to everything is going to be on HBO Max at the same time as it is in theaters. And this is look, this is a real. Shot across the bow of the entire theatrical business, I mean, I like it is the sort of thing that happens and you're like, wait, how do theater survive this? And nobody really knows.
JVL00:20:08Nobody quite knows what to make of it. Boy, so much for your great new.
Sonny00:20:13There it is, too soon. See, I told I told you it was a risk. I'm still here. We're still going.
JVL00:20:20No, it's really bad right now.
Sonny00:20:22It'll be back. It'll be back. So.
Vic00:20:26You've been away for 20 minutes.
Sonny00:20:30Anyway, I think it's I think it's a real I think it's a real issue.
JVL00:20:34It was your thing. It is the sort of thing that makes you ask how the theaters can stay.
Sonny00:20:38Yeah, I don't I don't see I the question the big question to my mind is, do the theaters actually play the movies? And I don't think that that's a sure thing. I think that is a I think there's a very real chance that Cinemark and AMC and the rest say, no, we're not going to we're not going to do that. This and if that happens, then maybe Warner Brothers goes all HBO Max all the time. They do that, then it creates all sorts of problems with talent because talent doesn't want to work for a streamer. They they want that theatrical and they want the money that theatrical gives over. Because, look, this is the other problem here is that, you know, Warner's is essentially trading theatrical dollars for digital pennies and they're asking their partners to do the same. They, you know, Legendary, which produced which co-produced. So financed and co-produced Kong versus Godzilla, right, or Godzilla versus Kong, whatever whatever that dumb sequel is, they're getting ready to sue because they were not kept in the loop on this and they are like, we're we're losing out on tons and tons of money. This isn't this isn't fair to us. This isn't what we signed up for. So I don't know. I mean, I think it's a real question. What's going to happen?
JVL00:21:46And the weirdness of this is that, you know, Warner's doesn't finance its movies entirely by itself. That's not how the world works anymore. Right. They're just like, we're losing partners and all this. And because it was impossible to take a move like this and tell five people but not have it told to everybody, they just ambushed everyone. And so you have a whole bunch of people who spent money to make these movies. And Warner's is now going to say screw you. And it's going to change the type of movies get made. This is the other thing. I mean, the economics do not work. For a $300 million blockbuster, you cannot do it.
Sonny00:22:31You cannot spend $200 million on a streaming movie. Netflix did it once with the Irishman. And that's it. Yeah. I mean, like, you just can't do it.
JVL00:22:41And what what that okay, so as you start following the logic chain, so you tell you, okay, well, you can't do giant big blockbusters, which also means then that you are going to stop making the big valuable intellectual property. This is. This is what the valuable thing Richard Rushfield wrote about this this week. The valuable thing about, uh, the movies is that it creates these giant rivers of intellectual property that you use to sell lunch boxes and action figures and theme park rides and all. And you know, ain't nobody nowhere is building a stranger things theme park. Although Vic would love that, um, you know, like just the, the, the cultural impact of streaming is so tiny and minute compared to the movies and the movies can create these giant cultural events that just can't be done on streaming. Can't be done. It's not, not like streaming. Hasn't tried.
Vic00:23:40Yeah. Did they question question since I wasn't paying attention to just now, um, are, is this just the thing that HBO max is doing until COVID is gone?
Sonny00:23:56They say it's for this year. Uh, I mean, who knows?
JVL00:23:59And then like it reverts after the theaters air HBO movie, or, uh, sorry, Warner brothers movies. If you were the king of AMC, what would you do?
Sonny00:24:15If I am the king of AMC, I, boy, I don't know, man, it's, it's because the, the, the problem here is that there's just so little content. Anyway. And there are so few people who are willing to go to the theaters anyway, that if you cut out, you know, a third of the big tent pole releases in any given year, I don't know that you can, I don't know that you can save theaters. I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it unless I was getting something like 70% of the revenue from, from the tickets instead of 50% or 60%, you know, I would, I would hold pretty firm and be like, if you want your movies to be here, if you want your people to be happy, uh, to make movies for you anymore than you, you're going to have to give us 70% of every ticket sold.
JVL00:25:01Who are you rooting for? Christopher Nolan tweeted. Do you have the Christopher Nolan tweet in front of you?
Sonny00:25:09I can pull it up real quick. I'm rooting for the theaters because I do think the theaters are getting kind of screwed here. Um, I mean, they, they obviously weren't told about any of this ahead of time and you know, um, they are, they are in bad straights as it is. But, uh, so here's the thing. Here's, here is what Christopher Nolan said. This is, this is the quote that he sent to the Hollywood reporter. Some of our industry's biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out that they were working for the worst streaming service. Warner brothers had an incredible machine for getting a filmmaker's workout everywhere, both in theaters and in the home, and they are dismantling it as we speak. They don't even understand what they're losing. Their decision makes no economic sense. Casual Wall Street investor can see the difference between disruption and dysfunction. And uh, I mean, that's, that's, that's about right. I mean, that's about right. That's what it comes down to. Um, again, there's a case to be made for streaming. There's a case to be made for, uh, having a streaming service, but as the entertainment strategy guy who is a very, very smart and very, uh, informed, um, uh, taker on the, on these things. He knows, he knows many things. He offers very good takes. Um, you know, the, the simple fact of the matter is that like, if you think that this is the smart thing to do, what you're saying is that each of these movies is worth 200 to $400 million just in streaming exclusivity, each one of them, because all of these movies were going to end up on HBO max anyway, they were going to end up on HBO max three months later. Uh, it makes no sense. It makes no financial sense. It makes no sense to say, well, they're worth, you know, $300 million to have it there exclusively 90 days before they'd be on HBO max anyway, that's just, it doesn't make any sense.
JVL00:27:05So two, two, two points in response, and I know I, we are taxing Victorino's patients on this. Um, the first is that, uh, to the counter, the counterpoint in this is if you were to know, I was going to say, it's the first point is. Even the stock market, of course, didn't like erupt in joy over this, right? If this is such a home run, then you would have expected like a 10% jump AT&T stock went
Sonny00:27:34up like 30 cents or something.
JVL00:27:36Yeah. Yeah. But the, the other point is if I were going to make the counter argument, it would be, let's pretend we are just fast forwarding by a year. And a year from now, I tell you, Hey, HBO max now has 45 million subscribers, a streaming service with 45 million subscribers. How much is that worth? If I were to just stand it up as an IPO, it right. You know, I'm, I'm a new tech company and I have a streaming service and I have 45 million paying subscribers and I'm going to stage my IPO. What would I be valued at? And the answer is probably something like $25 billion or something.
Sonny00:28:17Sure. Here's the PR the problem with this is that HBO already has 40 million subscribers. The problem is that they can't convert those HBO subscribers. To HBO max users for a variety of reasons. One brand confusion. They've done a terrible job explaining this to people. Um, but two, uh, they're still not on Roku. How do you make this deal without a Roku deal in your pocket? How do you do that? I don't under, I like, I don't understand how you announce this enormous world shifting thing without already having the Roku deal in your pocket. Because now Roku just says, fuck you pay me. Like I, like I, I don't get it.
JVL00:28:57Do you remember what John Stanky said about the brand confusion question?
Sonny00:29:02No, I don't remember what he said.
JVL00:29:04So he was asked early in the, when they announced the HBO max details, this was months and months ago. Uh, and people said, wait, hold on, wait, so you've got HBO go and the thing, HBO max. And one of them costs like a dollar less than the other, but has a lot more, but there's still two separate products. Like that doesn't make sense. And his response was, we view this as sort of an IQ test for our customers and, uh, you know, if they are smart, then they'll figure out that they should all just be signed up for HBO max.
Sonny00:29:38Yeah. Yeah. They, they shifted away from that pretty quick.
JVL00:29:41Is that maybe the worst business thing you've ever heard?
Sonny00:29:44Yeah. I mean, the, the, the, the thing that you should always remember about your customers is that they're dumb, is that they're dumb and they don't know what they're doing and that you have to handhold them every step of the way. And if you don't. Have the thing on Roku's home screen where they can just be like, oh yeah, I'd like to sign up for this. They'll never do it. Roku is like 30% of the market, 40% of the market. It's like the, the doing this without having Roku in hand is insane. It's insane. All right.
Vic00:30:11I would, I would, I would describe it as Cinemax max. If they had a Cinemax max brazzers, dark max, how about Brazzers max, like how much more would you get? Uh, do you, I, I got an email from AMC how you can rent the theater for your own private viewings. Now, did you see that? Yeah. Yeah. And it does for parties and such. It would be great. It would be like, I should do that. Like for the first time ever, AMC presents Emmanuel in space would be great. How do you get the movie though? I don't know.
Sonny00:30:47I'm sure there's a list. They have like 40 titles that you can just 40.
Vic00:30:51We should do this just for my law. Yeah. There goes my chances. Yeah.
JVL00:30:56Yeah. I'm a hundred percent serious about this. If we could rent it out for like a thousand bucks or something, we should just rent it out. And everybody who's in the area for the Sub-Beacon come well, I'll hand you a KN 95 as you walk in. We could all watch a movie together in a theater. That'd be amazing. All right. I'm going to investigate this. We're not here to talk about HBO max though. We're here to talk about a new movie by David Finker on the Netflix service called Mac, right? Did I do that? All right. What was that? See, look, it's subpar announcing and I, you know. Mank. Speaking of. Mank. Mank.
Sonny00:31:35Speaking of Rosebuds.
JVL00:31:36Mank. Sonny, would you care to do a big boy review?
Sonny00:31:41Mank is David Fincher's movie about the writing of Citizen Kane. Kind of. It's only kind of about the writing of Citizen Kane. It's actually about one man's struggle with his integrity and the machine of Hollywood and the. Agonies that he faces as he decides how much he wants to sell out and how quickly. I liked Mank, which is directed by David Fincher, who listeners will remember from Fight Club and Gone Girl and other such movies. Seven? Did he do seven? Seven. Alien 3, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Zodiac, Zodiac. The Social Network. The Social Network. It is shot in black and white. It is intended to kind of ape the look of movies from the age of Citizen Kane. It doesn't really because it's a much different kind of black and white. It's, I don't know, it's filmier, it's dreamier. It's not quite as stark or as crisp as the shots that Greg Toland did for Citizen Kane. I like this movie a fair amount. I actually watched it twice. I watched it again last night to prepare for this because I know how much JVL hates it because he was texting us about how much he hated it. And here's what I like about it. I think it is very sneaky and sly in what it is doing. It is nominally about the writing of Citizen Kane and the struggle for credit between Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles, the boy genius. From radio who blew into Hollywood and showed all those idiots how to make movies. But it's only very nominally about that. It's much more about the kind of political and socioeconomic backdrop of Hollywood and America during the Great Depression and just after the run up to World War II. And again, what is kind of sneakily interesting about this movie is what he does with Hollywood and politics. The plot in the film, Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg are trying to win the 1934 gubernatorial race for the Republican candidate. They put the Hollywood dream factory to work for the filthy Republican who wants to defeat Upton Sinclair, the commie agitator. And there are essentially three ways to read this. The first and most obvious and kind of straightforward reading is these, uh, Hollywood stooges, these moguls who aren't really moguls of anything that they're in the pocket of this fabulously wealthy William Randolph Hearst, um, they're evil and they're evil because they're backing Republicans. That's the kind of, that's the most straightforward reading. The second reading is, the second reading is, okay, uh, it's, it's wrong to you. The power of Hollywood is great and you have to be very careful, uh, in how you use it and how you, uh, manipulate the public with your dream factory. That's kind of a, a more nuanced and, and subtle reading. But the third and frankly kind of insane reading is the one I subscribe to, which is that it's actually, so here's, here's a movie that is released in 2020, uh, a year in which Hollywood is unanimously against, uh, one candidate who was running for office. Um, it is, uh, about how the system and peer pressure and all of that is used to crush any, uh, opposition to, you know, protesting against the, the, the, uh, the, the use of Hollywood to elect one candidate over the other. And it stars Gary Oldman, who is one of the most notably heterodox thinkers in Hollywood. Um, he is, uh, often described as a conservative, uh, whatever. Um, and you have him in the role of the dissenter here. You have him in the role of the guy who is saying, no, we shouldn't be doing this. It's wrong. It's wrong to, um, crush people like this. It's, it's terribly dyspeptic about the role Hollywood plays in politics. And it is, it is that way throughout, and I don't think, I don't think that the simple takeaway here is the right one. I think the slightly more complex takeaway is the right one. And, uh, on top of all that, you know, it's a movie about principle, right? It's about Mank standing up and saying, no, we need to be principled. We need to do things that are right. And the only time he ever actually stands up and says, I'm going to do the thing that's right is when it involves him getting credit for the movie that he wrote. It's him saying, I deserve credit for this and I'm going to get it. And my people in Hollywood are going to back me because I'm from here. And they're not going to back you, you outsider Orson Welles, again, very dyspeptic, very kind of, uh, skeptical of Hollywood as any sort of land of idealism. Um, and that's what I liked the most about it. It's actually, it's a very, it's, it's a weirdly dark movie, but we shouldn't be surprised because David Fincher is a guy who made, uh, if you look at like gone girl, for instance, gone girl is a movie that is nominally kind of an airport thriller type book. Right. But it's actually a pretty devastating deconstruction of the American, uh, media complex and the way that that, uh, warps perceptions of reality. Fight club is a movie.
Vic00:37:38Gone girl was like trying too hard to ace my quadrants. I liked the idea that the violence and the sex, but not at the same time, not at
JVL00:37:46the same time.
Vic00:37:48That was like the remake of, uh, of, of, of, of Halloween or whatever it was. It's great. Great. No, you know? I didn't even get a chance to hit pause.
Sonny00:37:58So anyway, and then you have a movie like fight club, which is nominally about the, uh, it's a nominally a critique of consumerism and what it actually is, is a warning about what will follow godless consumerism, godless fascism. Um, it's, it's, it is, he, he is often working at a surface level that is like kind of obvious and pleasing, but has a much darker and deeper subtext. And I think the subtext here. Is uniformity in Hollywood is bad there. I'm done Sonny.
Vic00:38:31You're like a nesting, always like levels within levels of you.
JVL00:38:34Every episode, I believe I texted you. You did midway through and said that I can't wait to hear what you have to say because this, I believe this is the worst quadrant score, any movie. You have ever seen will ever get.
Vic00:38:57It's funny.
JVL00:38:58Am I wrong or am I right?
Vic00:39:00It's funny. The duration is actually longer than Citizen Kane. And there's not really any violence. And certainly, you know, on the other two, you know, quadrants of sex, nudity and and and plot. It's questionable. There was a girl wearing pasties. I. I. I like this movie, believe it or not. Yeah, I did. And that's why I didn't text you at all. I was like, I'll wait till he finds out how I felt. I actually was very much looking forward to this. I'm such a big Gary Oldman fan. I mean, I've seen Citizen Kane and I was somewhat familiar with the RKO story and Orson Welles and Mank Herman Mankiewicz himself. All these guys, I really find it interesting because they were it's basically, you know, they're doing what they're living. It's the Sonny Bunch, you know. Dream, which is, you know, a journalist who then, you know, write for Hollywood. I mean, this is you're almost, you know, it's practically Sonny. So it's written for, you know, I mean, if you think about, you know, who are the guys that they mentioned in the room there? Who are there? George S. Kaufman's in there, right? Ben Hecht, all those guys. I'm into that. I found it very fascinating. And William Randolph Hearst.
Sonny00:40:17I was it helped that great Charles Dan.
Vic00:40:20Oh, and Charles Dance, please. Also, I love. Lily Collins. I really do. And her big black bushy eyebrows, which I'm sure she has to trim a lot. I'm talking about the eyebrows. I loved her. I don't know why. Don't make don't make that face to me. I'm a big fan of Lily. I fell in love with her in the blind side. Do you remember how she was adorable in the blind side? She was Sandra Bullock's daughter. Yes, the blind side was made earlier this year, by the way, that came out earlier this year. I believe.
Sonny00:40:55She was blind side. The 2008.
Vic00:40:57No, no. I'm sure she was 18. You know how a lot of these actors are always older than they portray. She might have been portraying a younger girl, but I'm pretty sure she was 18 at the time. Don't don't. I see. Don't check. Don't check. Anyway, love Lily Collins. And I was like, oh, forget about Amanda Zafried. Lily Collins is where it's at now in 2020. So I was like, Sonny's sitting back there. Don't be scared. We're going to have to bleep this whole section. Get away from the computer. No, believe it or not, JVL. I like this movie. And amazingly, I got it. I understood what was happening. And I liked it better than Citizen Kane, because when I saw Citizen Kane. That's right. Laugh it up. It was like in the late 90s. AFI had come out with their top 100. Like, oh, the top 100 movies of the century. I remember that.
Guest00:41:51Oh, I got it.
Vic00:41:52I printed it out and stuck it. On a thumbtack in my on my corkboard. Go ahead, Sonny. What are you going to say?
Sonny00:41:59So you watched you watched it like the women from Sopranos.
Vic00:42:02I did. I remember the Sopranos. Janice is like something. She made a joke about Rosebud.
Sonny00:42:07Number one movie of the AFI. We should watch it. Right. She wouldn't say she was like, oh, the cinematography was good.
Vic00:42:15And then Janice made a joke about Rosebud. Right. Something like that. So but of course, what I got was, you know, the VHS cassette from Blockbuster. And the quality is so awful on those. You know, I mean, I try to watch a lot of those black and whites. I can name probably in one hand the black and white movies of the time that I actually like. Right. And otherwise, it's just very difficult to watch. It happened one night is a very good movie in black and white and Sunset Boulevard. I'm not talking about modern movies that are made in black and white. So, I mean, the advantage that Fincher has is they spend so much time. I'm paying attention to how important it is to contrast the colors you need to have in order to make it stand out. And and it really was. I thought it was very sharp when I watched Mank and I and I appreciated that. I thought I thought it was. And the music. Don't forget Trent Reznor. They used only instruments that were available, I believe, from 1941. So it really had this dated, wonderful feel. Also, I am not a film person, but I do notice in the corner. Where the mark where they have to change reels. You know what I'm talking about?
JVL00:43:27Oh, they did it.
Vic00:43:29So that's not a that's not an effect. I actually filmed it that way.
Sonny00:43:32As those of us, those of us from a certain age will remember, like the introduction to that and Fight Club, which is the. Come on, Sonny Frozen again. You're back. Repeat the some of us who can remember. Some of us will remember it from Fight Club. The cigarette burns.
Vic00:43:51Oh, he did it for that, too. So, yeah, that's weird.
Sonny00:43:54Explainer.
Vic00:43:55I. I liked it. So I have some other notes. John Houseman is the John Houseman, which is the funny thing. So, I mean, we're watching last week's Scrooge. And there's John Houseman as the narrator, the old man. And of course, he was Ricky Schroeder's grandfather in Silver Spoon. And there he is. So really, absolutely fascinating. And, you know, it really you hardly see Orson Welles. But of course, the big problem was of his enormous ego. And so. Um, and, you know, also San Simeon. I have my notes are very scattershot here. I almost did a tour of it. We didn't have enough time when I was in California, but you could not do like just an entire tour of San Simeon. They broke it up into like three or four different packages. And you only had that. You can only choose one because it took that long to, you know, to tour the entire estate. Fascinating. So, yeah, believe it or not, I like make.
JVL00:44:50That amazes me. JBL. I did think to myself that early in the movie, uh, Mank goes into the executive washroom on the MGM lot. That's exactly right.
Vic00:45:04And the bamboo and Jersey or something.
JVL00:45:07They had a trough, even in the executive washroom on a Hollywood studio.
Vic00:45:13I wonder how many other people notice that because that really stuck out.
JVL00:45:17I mean, I'm like, oh, I literally wrote it down. I have men's room has a trough. All caps with an exclamation mark. Uh, I, so it's a gimmick movie. It's a movie about the making of citizen gain shot in the style of the era of citizen gain. It is in fact, uh, as one of the characters says about his screenplay for citizen gain, they say, oh, it's a hodgepodge of talking episodes that skip around in time. And that's what this is. And I. I don't sugarcoat it. You hated it. No, I do. So this is, I hate is a strong word. I didn't enjoy it. Uh, but with it in the rear, I like it more afterwards than I liked while watching it. Does that, does that, but there are things, there are things that bother me about it. So first of all, it is, it's a movie about politics and not about writing. And at that point, like who the fuck, like what, I'm sorry, I am not especially interested in, but it's not seeing a Norman Mankiewicz movie about politics. I'm much more interested in a Norman Herman, sorry, Herman Mankiewicz movie about, uh, about writing, cuz that's what he did, you know, especially cuz he is this fast we had Vic, you will help me. I am positive. We had like a 5,000 word piece in the back of the book at the standard about Mankiewicz at one point in time.
Vic00:46:47And I always think there's also Frank Mankiewicz, but he's the political guy, he's the campaign guy.
JVL00:46:51He's a super interesting guy. And you know, the key thing to understand about him is that he is half Oscar Wilde and half Oscar Schindler. So, you know, he had been moving the, this entire, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Vic00:47:06That's right.
JVL00:47:07Over to, you know, and just as a, essentially a, uh, underground railroad of just pulling people out of the old country because things were going very bad and he was getting them into America before things went really, really bad and so he is a hero in that way. And he is a mensch in a way that you would not expect from just looking at the surface of him. And that's a very, like, he's just an interesting character. You know, he's a, he's a wit and a gadfly, but underneath it has a heart of gold. That is, that is all very interesting. And so the least interesting thing about. He's, you know, so he is a gadfly with a heart of gold who did something kind of important without people really knowing it, he wrote what may be the greatest movie of all time. And yet we're supposed to be more interested in his views on Upton Sinclair.
Sonny00:48:01And I just, but it's, it's not, it's not his views on Upton Sinclair that we are supposed to be interested in. It's his inability to like actually take a stand when it matters. That we, that we should be interested in. But what, what's amusing about that whole sequence is, you know, while all of this is happening, he's, you know, he's, he's crapping on the new writer's guild, right? He's saying, oh, this is dumb. You know, the, the, the writers all get enough money. What are we, what are we worried about? And then at the end of the film, again, when Orson Welles comes to him and says, you know, arbitration will rule against you. He's like, no, they won't. No, they won't. I will rely on them to get me what I want. Because I am an insider. I can, I have influence and sway here that you don't and never will. Um, and again, it's not, it's not, he's the whole thing is, is, is kind of presaged as his big stand on principle, but there's nothing principled about what he does. It's totally self-serving.
JVL00:49:07But if that's all this is really about, then why did we need this movie with Hurst?
Sonny00:49:11And because, because he, because he is just as he is just as absurd and just as debased as Hurst.
JVL00:49:20I disagree. I think he's, he's much less absurd and much less debased. And to me, again, this is, I am complaining. They didn't make the movie I wanted, but I am much more interested in how a washed up writer, cuz he was washed up and we all know guys like this, the supremely talented, no names, no names, because people will listen to the show, but it is true that we know very, very formerly talented writers who can't do it anymore. And they get by because they're incredibly charming, right? I mean, we know people like this who are super fun to have at parties. Everybody loves, they always are quick witted and all right. But they just, they're washed up as writers anymore. And that's a really like a, a tragic, horrible, very interesting thing. And to have a guy who is at that place in his professional career by like age 44. Shocking. Yeah. And who is then able to pull himself out of it to write citizen fucking cane is really interesting.
Sonny00:50:26You can't dramatize writing. No, you can't dramatize writing. And what they do is they dramatize, they dramatize the decline. I mean, that whole sequence where, uh, Louis B mayor's like, do you know who's paying half your salary? It's this man, William Randolph Hearst. And the look on Gary Oldman's face when he realizes that he's been. Been carried this whole time by William Randolph Hearst, not to mention the gambling debt that was devastating. Well, I mean, yeah, the whole gambling. Go ahead. Somebody, somebody, somebody described this movie, uh, as the ready player one for Hollywood, old Hollywood nerds. Oh yeah.
JVL00:51:06Yeah.
Sonny00:51:06And like the, the scene, the number one, the number one scene here is the, the Louis B mayor's speech to the assembled stars of MGM, which was a real thing that happened. That's a thing that happened. Yeah. Essentially broke the back of the unions for a time being by going to all everyone at MGM and saying, I'm taking a pay cut. I need you to take a pay cut too. And he had orchestrated this thing where Lionel Barrymore stands up and says, I'll do it. Louis LB. I'll do it. And then Shirley temple's like me too. And like, and like, it is a real, the real hero of this movie is Louis B.
Vic00:51:41Mayor, by the way. And if you know that I liked him, Arliss Howard is great. You know what? I
JVL00:51:47Thalberg is the villain. Oh, that's really, you know, I mean, recently until he's much more of a villain than Hurston until recently.
Vic00:51:57Uh, that's the lifetime achievement award was the Irving Thalberg award. I think they recently, I feel like then they rename it for somebody else now or no, it's still, oh, you know what I'm thinking of? I'm thinking of the humanitarian also, no, also the Irving crystal award for AI, which was formerly the one award. I forget. It was, who was it anyway? Um,
JVL00:52:17funny, uh, but it is the, still the lifetime achievement award for the Oscars or I, I do have one, one real sort of meta gripe about this, which is Netflix making a, a loving movie about the golden age of Hollywood, not loving, very cynical.
Sonny00:52:36I don't think it's very loving about how is this a loving portrait of the golden age of Hollywood? All of the moguls who have been raised to believe our great men are. Yeah. Um, the, the, the entire thing, the whole scene with the script writers, like faking a, a shoddy Frankenstein rip off, uh, because they're too lazy to actually write and come up with a, with a real story. I mean, I like, there's nothing loving about this portrait of old Hollywood. It is deeply, again, it's deeply dyspeptic. It is deeply damning. Go ahead. I'm sorry.
JVL00:53:13Oh, that's, so that's an interesting read. I actually read it very differently, which is as a. Quasi nostalgic look at old Hollywood, but the analogy I was going to make is that it would be like Joseph Stalin making a loving movie about the Romanoff family. So, because Netflix has come to murder Hollywood and here they are like, Oh, look at how great things used to be in Hollywood. Like this is, this is what Dolly shots used to be done.
Sonny00:53:39Like, you know, before they had drones, this is such a, this, I think this is such a misreading of the, the movie. I just. I think that's wrong, wrong, wrong.
Vic00:53:50I like Sonny's interpretation about the point of the politics of it and how dangerous it is to use, you know, that, that, that Hollywood can be used for nefarious purposes. Uh, but also, you know, from scene to scene, you would see, it would say interior shot, you know, the, how it types it out for you, you know, flashback, the whole thing, 1934 for somebody like me, I appreciated that. It helped me understand what was happening in the movie. Not, they should have put that, they should have Christopher Nolan should have done that in tenant. That would have been really helpful.
JVL00:54:23Let me, let me say one thing to push back on your interpretation of this Sonny, which is that, I mean, one of, so you say, you know, he couldn't stand up for the most important part of his life. And I think that's wrong because the most important thing he did was bringing everybody over from the old country and the political stuff. Sinclair versus Conrad. What's his face? His face, Conrad Marion, is actually just a sideshow. It's not important. Nobody, nothing changed. The world did not either rise or fall because Conrad Marion beat Upton Sinclair for the gubernatorial race of like 1936 or whatever the fuck that was. But he thinks it's important.
Vic00:55:05Does he though? I mean, he thinks it's important, but he's not like really important.
JVL00:55:08He has a, I think he has a reasonably jaded view of the ultimate importance of one of these guys over the other. And, uh, you know, like that was not an earth shaking election that did not FDR was still the president of the United States. You know, like I, so I don't think that that's, uh, I'm not sold on your interpretation of it. Okay. All right. You're wrong. That's fine. That's fine. So spirit of the week.
Sonny00:55:36Yeah. What are you drinking, Sonny? I'm just, I just made an old fashioned. I was drinking, uh, old granddad, one 17, uh, one 14, whatever. Very nice. Whatever the number is. Very nice.
Vic00:55:48What is your cherry old fashioned? I don't see any cherries in there. I don't put cherries in my old fashioned. How about, well, you have an orange slice.
Sonny00:55:54I don't put seltzer water in there. Mush it up. Make it a fruit cup.
Vic00:55:56You have a, you have a little, a little dull fruit cup.
Sonny00:56:00Gross. Ugh.
JVL00:56:01Oh, do you remember those dull fruit cups? Victorino. Absolutely.
Vic00:56:05The juices in there from, it was mostly pears. If I'm not mistaken, the secret is pears. Go ahead.
JVL00:56:12Gentlemen, do we have any corrections, additions, shout outs?
Vic00:56:15Uh, I do. I do. Uh, which is that listener and friend, Steve Schmidt, not that Steve Schmidt, uh, says that Steve Schmidt from Boston says that siren noise, who I grew up with that siren noise I was hearing back in the day in Tom's River was not from Lakers, McGuire or Fort Dix, but rather the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant. I don't know if that makes me feel any better.
JVL00:56:38Silkwood kind of situation.
Vic00:56:40Uh, yeah. Three mile island situation. Okay. Uh, that's, that's the, uh, that's the only thing I have.
JVL00:56:45Okay. Well, that's all the time. Give me to this episode, questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Sonny Bunch at Victorino Mattis, or leave a comment at JV last.com.
Sonny00:56:58You can tweet at JV last. He's back. He's on Twitter again.
JVL00:57:02We're there. Tell your friends until next time.
Sonny00:57:13So, uh, Wi-Fi update as you. As you noticed, there were two hiccups in the show. I think part of the problem is somebody turned on their computer. I have this mesh system and I'm between two of this. I'm almost like, I'm actually almost right in the middle of all three of them right now. I might be in a weird convergence spot. So I'm going to, I'm going to work on this. So next week, next week, it's going to be better.
JVL00:57:34Cause it just tipped over. You went from like very strong to suddenly very bad.
Sonny00:57:39Again, I think, I think the computer got slightly confused on which of the, the, uh, beacons it was supposed to latch onto. So we'll see. We'll see next week. Next week. We'll be back next week.
Vic00:57:48It'll be mesothelioma.
JVL00:57:51Instead of the mesh. Can I, can I share my, my brand new object of hatred? Okay. Yeah.
Sonny00:57:59What do you hate?
JVL00:58:00His name is Jack's doof. And I read about him in a piece in outside magazine. Do you guys, do you guys recall the forest fen treasure? Yes. So about 10 years ago, this rich guy went and they hit a treasure somewhere in the Sierra mountains and, uh, or Rocky, I don't know, some fucking mountains out West and, uh, wrote a poem about it. And a book was like, somebody will find it and they'll become rich. Anyway, this, this guy, uh, named Jack's doof found it. They found the treasure. Okay. Good for him, I guess. Right. As an undergrad, Jack's doof went to Georgetown. Oh, no, I want to know what class he came out of Georgetown and he went and worked for Wonkette where he was disgraced and fired. Oh, I do remember that guy Buzzfeed where he was disgraced and dismissed. He then somehow got into medical school because I guess. This is a thing that when you fail, I'm sorry, when you fail as a journalist, you then move to medical school.
Sonny00:59:24You got to move down the ladder.
JVL00:59:26I was not aware that that's the direction these things flowed. I thought it was you fail to get into medical school and so you become a journalist.
Vic00:59:35But then he gets into medical school. He doesn't really like it.
JVL00:59:40So he's in medical school and trying to figure out how he's going to get out because medical school is really expensive and he doesn't want to be a doctor and he doesn't really enjoy it. And so he starts treasure hunting and he just goes and all by himself finds this treasure that everybody else has spent a decade.
Vic00:59:56Do I need to ask? Should I ask what's the actual treasure? We don't know.
JVL01:00:01Oh, we don't know. This is a it's all super secret. I think it would be so depressing.
Vic01:00:07It would be so depressing to find out if it's you.
JVL01:00:10No, it's enough that he's going to be set for life probably. And I don't know what sort of lucky star this asshole was born on. But I hate him.
Sonny01:00:21That's all he must. He must just be like he must just have like an enormously high IQ.
JVL01:00:26You think?
Sonny01:00:28I mean, that must be the problem here is that he he's just extremely smart and he thinks he can get away with things. That's why he keeps getting, you know, fired from being a journalist. Then he gets into med school because I'm sure he he nails the MCATs. Right. And then, like, he's like, I guess I'll go solve this puzzle that nobody can solve.
JVL01:00:45I don't think that IQ. Is the problem here.
Vic01:00:50Do you want me to end it now or could I add to, you know, go ahead, Victorino. It is funny. It is funny. Speaking of Georgetown, going back to the, you know, we had to get this this washer dryer delivered and it was from a mansion and really nice lady. And after we delivered it, we had a little small talk and she was like, you know, so do I. How does this work? You know, how much do I do? I owe you, you know, and of course, they're like, no, no, no. You know, this is what we do. I was like, I'll take 20 bucks. I said, but no, I said, never mind. No, no, no. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. And then find out that she I don't know how we found this out. She went to Georgetown as well. And and and then it found out that we're in the same class, class of 95. And this old lady, she wasn't old. She wasn't old. I thought she was going to be old anyway. And then. A friend of mine says, well, isn't it great that you were able to meet this person? I said, yes, it's great to meet a classmate of mine who lives in a mansion is really great. I'm sure it's fine.
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