Guest00:00:00I know you like Ava, but she's a liability, no not her, she's best to breathe, I recruited her, I trained her, she's talking to the targets, Ava, I'm good, I promise you, keep your head down kiddo, management will be watching on this.
JVL00:00:30Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon, I'm your host JVL along with Sonny Bunch and Victorino Matus. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is available exclusively on Patreon at subbeacon.com. We also have a new store where you can buy Sub-Beacon merchandise ranging from masks to onesies to headache shirts. Just visit tpublic.com and search Substandard, you'll easily find us. Please buy shirts. Tell your friends to become patrons and leave us reviews, suggestions, and bad ideas at subbeacon.com. Gentlemen, how are we Victorino?
Vic00:01:11You never know. I see what it's like now on your end. You never know who you're going to ask first. And I was like, oh, who's he going to go to? Hello. How are you?
JVL00:01:24Great.
Vic00:01:25Oh, so, uh, yes, I'm, I'm doing, I'm doing fine. Tired because I had to do two podcasts this week and that's too, too many.
Sonny00:01:34What other podcasts did you do?
Vic00:01:36So I can discuss it now because I think we, while we come out, we'll probably come around out at the same time. I was asked to be the special guest for an episode of a Christmas ham without Mary Catherine
Sonny00:01:51ham, Mary Catherine ham.
Vic00:01:53And we have, uh, sometime, uh, uh, occasional guest co-host in fact, uh, of the, uh, of the sub beacon as well. Uh, so I was happy to return the favor, um, and had to watch a Hallmark movie and I'll, I mean, I don't want to steal the, the, the thunder from the other show, so I won't get into it. But my question to you fellas is, have you ever seen one of these before? This was my first time.
Sonny00:02:19I, uh, I have never watched one of the Hallmark movies, but I have watched some of the Netflix knockoff Hallmark movies.
Vic00:02:28Oh, do they try to do something?
Sonny00:02:29Netflix has like a whole cottage industry of Christmas, terrible, terrible Christmas movies. Uh, and I, I have watched some of those.
Vic00:02:38Are they equally chased? Yeah, for the most part, because there's only one kiss and apparently it's very formulaic and the one kiss is at the very, oh, I said the end. There's not even any making out JVL. You have thoughts. Have you been forced to watch what? Go ahead, please.
JVL00:02:55I can't believe she asked you to do her show and not me.
Sonny00:02:59I, I'm thinking the same thing. I'm sitting here thinking the same thing. Frankly, you don't want, you don't want the Rotten Tomatoes certified critics, Sonny Bunch on your show. No, no, you will. Giving us the imprimatur of.
JVL00:03:11Would that get, go ahead, JVL. The difference is that just this week, no, I guess it was last week. I had the lovely Mary Catherine Hamm as my guest on the JVL show to talk about the Christmas Prince Cinematic Universe.
Vic00:03:27Wow.
Sonny00:03:27And it was one of the great.
JVL00:03:29One of the great episodes of the JVL show ever.
Vic00:03:32Well, she said it was, and I can't believe it wasn't a home and home the way she framed me back to her. Yes. The way she phrased it was, uh, it has been requested. That's the most active voice I've ever heard. It has been requested that I ask you. And apparently it's of some of our, apparently some of our friends in the expanded universe
JVL00:03:50were saying, pick me.
Vic00:03:52And so we did. And again, without getting into a trade. And I think it also, I think she also. She also chose me because the, the movie that we decided to both watch was called Christmas comes twice.
Sonny00:04:06Wow. Okay.
JVL00:04:09And the good news is you actually saw that in 10th grade.
Vic00:04:13Did you, uh, as I said, as I said, I'll give this one piece away, which I said to, I was so disappointed. I told her, I said, Christmas, Christmas didn't come once. What about Christmas?
JVL00:04:23The pizza delivery guy got awful familiar with the main character.
Vic00:04:28Wrong channel.
JVL00:04:29So, uh, JVL, you, you know, different, different spelling of comes. I see.
Vic00:04:35Uh, it's not the Latin, it's not the Latin, uh, for with, uh, version of the, that would have been better. Uh, however, uh, JVL, you, I didn't hear your answer. Do you watch these?
JVL00:04:51I don't watch the Hallmark ones, but I am very, very into the Christmas Prince expanded universe, which at this point consistently. Of six films, it's bigger than the conjuring universe. And, uh, and I gotta say, I love it. There was, so I've now told the story three times on two different podcasts. I'll tell for the third time here. Uh, we were watching, uh, princess switch and the whole family, the other, which is the other half.
Vic00:05:21So it's, it's, there are what channel is this? It's all Netflix.
JVL00:05:26And so it is three Christmas Prince movies. And two princess switch movies. And then there was also a Christmas night. Can I K N I G H T all. And all of these are, are interwoven together. And we are watching the, uh, princess switch starring. Don't turn your nose up. Make is a starring Vanessa fucking.
Vic00:05:46No, I heard a beeping noise.
JVL00:05:48I thought, where was that coming from?
Sonny00:05:49Yeah, that was my phone vibrating. Sorry. Oh, thanks. Yeah.
JVL00:05:53So I know your feelings on Vanessa Hudgens. So don't, don't try to be too good for me.
Vic00:05:59No, no, no.
JVL00:05:59Anyways, we're watching it and, uh, and it's the whole family together and I'm on the sofa and I got little E on my lap curled up. And as I told Mary Catherine, there is nothing like curling up to watch a Christmas movie with one of your adorable daughters, uh, just sort of snuggling up to you. And we get to the end where they do the kiss, the Hallmark channel style kiss.
Sonny00:06:20And, uh, describe the kiss little pack on the lips.
JVL00:06:26Yeah. And literally turns to me and says, Daddy, why are you crying? I said, honey, I'm, I'm just, I'm just crying because I'm happy. Like we're all crying. We're all crying because it's so happy. And she looks around the room and goes, no, dad, you're, you're the only one crying because I love these movies. I love them unreservedly.
Vic00:06:49So better than the ones at Hallmark, then they must be, or are they just cheesy and
JVL00:06:54you're a sucker for these cheesy movies? I'm a sucker for it. As I, as I, Mary Catherine and I both said, we were talking about it. I'm only for Christmas because they make versions of these for everything. There is an Arbor day Hallmark channel movie. Oh, come on. And those things don't do anything for me. It's only Christmas.
Vic00:07:10Uh, I had questions for her that I asked, but I forgot to ask one, uh, question and I had just remembered it. And that one question I forgot to ask, and I wish I did on her family show was do the actors in these movies, uh, keep do, do they use their real names or do they use fake names like in pornos because the movie is so bad. Cause, cause of Christmas comes twice.
JVL00:07:34You know, I believe the actors were Peter North, Ben Dover. Thank you. Uh, okay. That's great. So you do. So you had never done these before. I imagine this to these things were like a Kate Mattis family, a Kate Mattis, a Kate Dwyer family tradition once. No, no, no.
Sonny00:07:55They love the old movie for a hundred years. JBL. Like they're there. The, the, the Hallmark Christmas movies did not start until like, I want to say like six or seven years ago. Yeah. He's really like, yeah. Oh yeah.
JVL00:08:07And then it wasn't running.
Vic00:08:08He's all on a loop. No, it's just on a loop.
Sonny00:08:11Yeah.
Vic00:08:12Uh, no, they, they love the old stuff. Like, uh, uh, what's the, um, not white Christmas. The other was at white Christmas. It's white Christmas, man. That is a terrible movie. They're all horrible. It's horrible. It's horrible.
Sonny00:08:26What about it's a wonderful life. I like that. When I like that one.
JVL00:08:30It's fine.
Sonny00:08:31I like, I like Donna Rita.
JVL00:08:33Something else.
Sonny00:08:34What about the Santa Claus? Oh, the town Santa Claus, which one?
JVL00:08:39You know, I really think the Santa Claus 17 was better than the original. I had it. You know what?
Sonny00:08:43My problem was Martin short as like the ice miser.
Vic00:08:47I kept on. I can't. Well, that you could picture that. I kept on telling people about how much I enjoyed fat man, but I kept on calling it bad Santa. Different, different film.
Sonny00:08:57Very different. Very different. Wait. So you like. Did you like you like fat man?
Vic00:09:00Of course. We discussed. Oh, yeah.
Sonny00:09:02That's right. We discussed it.
Vic00:09:03No, no. You podcast coming out your ears, Sonny.
Sonny00:09:07I'm sorry. I was I was confusing this with a with a different show. Yeah, that's good. I'm glad. I'm glad you liked it.
JVL00:09:14Sonny, how are you? Are you about it sometime? What are you up to, Sonny?
Sonny00:09:19I'm good. I it was funny. I. I got something delivered to the house yesterday and let me. Let me ask you guys a question. Do you guys tip the delivery guys when you when you have something large delivered to your house?
Vic00:09:38Not like food. I believe. No, no, no.
Sonny00:09:41I mean, like, obviously, obviously, you get you. You tip like the delivery guy, right? I'm talking about like furniture or something. If you get like an armoire or whatever delivered to your house, do you tip the guys?
JVL00:09:52Yeah, no, they would be offended if you try to tip them. They're not your servants. Wrong. They are working men just like you and me.
Vic00:09:59They make a low wage and they can appreciate a little extra cash for maybe lunch.
Sonny00:10:04OK, so I always I always tip delivery guys for like large items like that, right? But I got I got I got a new TV stand delivered to the house. And it was delivered. The box was clearly marked. It said this side up. Right. It was like as if to spite me. They were the wrong side up. Like just the arrow was pointing straight to the ground. And the guys were halfway out the door, literally out like three. Two of the guys were out the door. The other guy was there like waiting for my signature. And I was just like, you know what? I'm not I'm not going to tip these guys. And I felt bad about it, except for the fact that like.
Vic00:10:48Why would I do what are you supposed to do?
Sonny00:10:50I mean, I'm going to call the guys back in and be like, hey, can you can you flip this over the right way? I mean, I like I can do that with my wife. We can do that. Like, it's obvious they don't. They don't care. So I just like I feel. But then I then I have like an existential crisis. Like, am I like one of those people who doesn't tip in a restaurant? If you if you, you know, if you get subpar service and you don't get, you know, your drink refilled 17 times like Mr. Pink wants like I like I was. So I was curious. I wanted to get your guys opinion on this. Now, JBL doesn't apparently tip any delivery guys.
JVL00:11:21So I don't know. Look, look, look. Hold on here. I will tip absolutely everybody. For whom it is written in the book of tipping, you're supposed to tip, right? You're supposed to tip your caddy. If you're golfing, you're supposed to tip your waitress, your hairdresser. Oh, I am down with you. What I am against is these hidden classes of tipping where all of a sudden it's like, I'm sorry, I was never in for I'm 40. I just reached the age of 46. And this is literally the first time in my life I have ever heard someone say, oh, yeah, and you should tip the guys who deliver furniture. You should. Yeah. How shocking.
Vic00:11:56How surprising that you would want to give a little extra. Cash to somebody who's heavy lifting at our war. Yeah, I've never heard that one before.
JVL00:12:03No, I literally have never heard that before. Like, I'm sorry. Literally last week, Victorino, the woman wanted to tip you for for taking out. No, but that's not what it is.
Vic00:12:14It's against that. We can't.
Sonny00:12:18First of all, Vic was not offended. Vic would have taken that money.
Vic00:12:20I did.
Sonny00:12:21She was rich. Second of all, though, it's there's a big difference between having the Knights of Columbus, you know, come to your house. And having like like workers, you know, if he was like Meals on Wheels, he wouldn't expect a tip. But if he was working for DoorDash, he would expect a tip.
Vic00:12:42I remember workers when I was still living in the Kate and I were still in the apartment. They were delivering antique stuff, but, you know, family stuff from like when my father in law was even a kid. So from her, from Kate's grandmother's family, China. Cabinet and a dining room table. And and they brought that all the way from Connecticut down to D.C. And, you know, I felt like, well, in addition, you know, and they were kind of gruff guys and they were like, you know, the whole thing. Got to go in that freight elevator, go up to the 10th floor, blah, blah, the whole deal. And then they dropped it off and then you sign some papers. And I don't you know, and then I and then I tipped them and then they were like, hey, you know, thanks a lot. And they said, great. You guys came all the way down. Yeah, we did. They didn't talk to me until that point. And then I said, hey, you guys want a beer? And then, of course, then we all started drinking together and we had a lovely conversation.
Sonny00:13:37How many beers did you drink with the delivery guys?
Vic00:13:40We just had one bottle and we're talking about the antiques and how special it meant to my wife. And they were very nice. They were very nice. I thought they were going to kill me before that, but they were very nice.
Sonny00:13:49Speaking of drinking. Hold on. So, like, I have a transition. I have a transition.
Vic00:13:54So we're done talking about this. Right. OK, fine. Right before we got.
Sonny00:13:58Well, I feel like if people want to tell me what I should have done in the comments of our patron at Sub-Beacon dot com, they can.
Vic00:14:05Tony, I would not have tipped in that circumstance because they really did.
Sonny00:14:09I think it's I think I think it was a slap in my face.
Vic00:14:12Otherwise, I know you do the right thing.
Sonny00:14:14The arrow was pointing down. It was right there in front of everyone. They all looked at it and walked away. And I was just like, you know what? No. Yeah, I draw the line here and no further. But anyway, speaking of drinking. So right before we started the show, JVL, you may have seen me. I tagged you on a tweet from the Restaurant Manifesto Twitter account. Oh, we're going. And the the the the this is what the tweet said. The three martini lunch is a figment of people's imagination from watching too many episodes of Mad Men with workplace ethics under the microscope more than ever before. It's been three iced tea refill lunches for a while now. And that strikes me as wrong. Just wrong on a on a factual level. Certainly, from my own experiences at the Freebeacon and the Weekly Standard before that, whenever I was in the company of one Victorino Vadis, no, that's that's too obvious. V. Mattis. How about that?
Vic00:15:15Why don't we just put Victor last name Reno? As Nevada.
Sonny00:15:20No, I just think it's I think it's like I think that this is I think this is factually wrong. Now, it may be true and like respectable.
Vic00:15:28Only government, you can't do that in government, it's not allowed.
Sonny00:15:32It's probably not allowed at like law firms anymore, you know, because of, you know.
Vic00:15:36I would even venture to say, I would even venture to say, outside of our little world, outside of the standard, most of the people that we went out to lunch with, they rarely treated on their expense accounts.
Sonny00:15:50Certainly, that is true.
Vic00:15:51They would, you know, they would, they loved hanging out with us. They loved hanging out with us. They can get whatever they want and great discussion. Great source material, you know, a lot of good background stuff. And then the check comes and it's always alligator arms. Yeah, no, totally, totally. It's like, oh, wait, what, huh? And they just expect. So I, and even to this day, you know, I understand people want to, I understand. I appreciate that they want to treat, but they tell me, not going to mention any names, but they tell me how hard it is for them to do that, you know, and they have, they're under strict guidance. And these are people that work at publications. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a, it was different. It was different from, you know, this is not to say that that's the reason why I got my face on the wall of the palm, by the way, or my locker at Morton's.
Sonny00:16:42I don't know why, I don't know why the standard ran out of money, but anyway, if you, if you had to guess how many, how many three martini or Manhattan lunches you have had in your entire life, what would, what the number is it?
Vic00:16:58No, no, no, very few because Sonny, most of my martini lunches were at least four.
Sonny00:17:04Well, all right. I, I, the three signifies at least three.
Vic00:17:09Who is not a three or only two is festive. Two is festive. When you decide on the third one, you know, it's a, a lunch that's going to end at dinner and at Arnold's muscle bar. I mentioned Mary Catherine yesterday. In fact, on the way, on the way home, on the way, quote unquote home in my town. Taxi. Yeah. So, yes, it is funny, but I think that what, what, what, where we are, it's a vestige. I mean, there's very few. I think there are very few. I mean, I guess if you work that Condon asked, you know, even to this day, I'm sure it's still like that to a certain extent, you know, but it's not the way it certainly was.
Sonny00:17:49The good old days.
Vic00:17:50Yeah. I, well, I hear, I remember, and this is not to get into any details about my life is perfectly, perfectly civil. And I appreciate the carve out for the three martini lunch because it allows people to, you know, order great things and expensive stuff at restaurants, which then you end up paying restaurants a lot of money and you can give them 20% of that is very generous versus if I wasn't expecting. If I would, if I said, oh, let's split this lunch, I'm going to probably skip an appetizer and I'll have a, I'll have a hamburger or whatever, you know, a sandwich and that's it versus, you know, four or five drinks and then three.
Sonny00:18:28Four or four, you know, different, you know, entrees something we've got from, we've gone from three to four or five towers. I got a tower, four or five. That doesn't include the dessert, wine or the, you know, Kate used to say to me, you live in a fantasy world.
Vic00:18:49When I worked at the standard, she goes, you live in a fantasy world. You have no idea what it's like out there with your crazy four hour, five hour lunches and one day you're going to. Have a different job and you're going to realize how different and how, what the real world is like. And well, there you go.
Sonny00:19:04Yeah, I'm good. I mean, kind of, to be honest, not really.
JVL00:19:09Okay, that's the JBL. Okay. Oh, sorry. I'm waking up now. Um, my, I've, I've three things quickly to talk about before we move on to the meat of the show. The first is that the people have spoken and I'm going to watch Mandalorian. Uh, and then I guess we'll do a show on it. Although the prospect of having to watch a television series feels like I have been sentenced to like March 600 miles at the point of a gun or something.
Sonny00:19:42I, who has time to, to watch a series tell it's easy when you do it a week at a time.
Vic00:19:50Yeah. It's one week at a time, 30 minutes a week.
Sonny00:19:52This is the great thing about the Mandalorian. We discussed this before is that it comes out once a week. It's not 30.
JVL00:19:57It's not an hour.
Sonny00:19:58Uh, yeah, it's like, well, the first episode I think is like 50 minutes and the last episode is, I think about 35 or 40 minutes, but they, but the rest of the episodes are basically 30 minutes a week.
JVL00:20:08All right. So I have two other things. I got an email from a listener who said that she has done the lights, the lights are the putting up the light service that their, their price point in her neighborhood was $250 to put it up. And $75 rental fee and taking it down. So 325 total that after doing it for a couple of years, they upsold her on lights. And they said, you know, if you buy these industrial grade led lights, then you can keep them and you don't have to, to pay for the light rental. So you save 50 bucks every year. And plus it's the strands are really, really long. And so you'll house will look even better. So she spent $500. On the lights and then promptly moved to a place where there were no, there were no light, light per uppers. And so that, that phantom savings of, you're going to save $50 a year in the, it's over just the course of 10 years. These industrial grade lights pay for themselves. They got her good.
Sonny00:21:18If you advertise it out, never, never do it. Just rent. So there we go.
Vic00:21:23Well, I had a thought about this, which was, I, I was also thinking about lights because I thought, you know, Um, for something like neighbors who, you know, who are elderly and they can't, you know, they can't put their lights up or, and this would be a useful service, but I get the impression, Sonny, it's not for the elderly. This light service.
Sonny00:21:40No, no, it's for, it's for people with big homes who want them to look nice and bright in the, in the, uh, winter festival spirit, uh, that we live in.
JVL00:21:52So the, the last item I have for you is that I got an email from my brother who, uh, who. Whose wife was trying to support a local business who is currently, uh, sort of on the edge because of COVID and it's a, it's a local trapeze school. And so they were, they were doing a, uh, live stream and it turns out that their, their live stream wasn't really a live stream. It was a, uh, it was a demonstration presentation that they had done a couple of years ago, old, and that it was, it was like half trapeze work, but also a lot of weirdo contortionist stuff. All being done by high school girls. And my brother said to me that as, as they were sitting, watching this, he felt as though the FBI was going to cover his front door at any minute and that he would wind up going to prison. Speaking of prison, we're here to talk about Jolene, the movie starring Jessica Chastain as a bisexual con artist turned stripper, who talks her way out of jail by seducing the milfy warden. In one of the hottest scenes of the year, Vic, how did Jolene do in your quadrants? What are you talking about?
Sonny00:23:05I don't even know what that is.
Vic00:23:06I don't even know. That's that's, that's, that's, that's way over my head.
JVL00:23:10All right. We're not talking about Jolene. We're talking about Ava Victorino. Your homework is that as soon as we are done tonight, I want you to run over to daily motion and just type in Jessica Chastain, Jolene, and just see what happens.
Vic00:23:24You know, it's funny. Cause I was going to say, I'm not, I'm not a. I'm not a fan of hers in that way. She's not my type. She's not my type. You know, she's everyone's type. I know a little too. I don't know. Hmm. Uh, yeah. No, no, no.
JVL00:23:40Is she a little too masculine? She's a little too masculine. I think, and you go, go, go, go, go deal emotion, Jolene, please. Then come back and tell me how masculine she is. Lily Collins. That's that's the answer is so go ahead, please. Santino. Would you like to do a big boy? Review?
Sonny00:23:59Uh, yeah, Ava stars Jessica Chastain as a hit woman, uh, who is developing a conscience. She starts her, uh, the movie starts with her doing a hit on, uh, Reed Richards, very
Vic00:24:14good.
Sonny00:24:16I, it was funny. I kept, I wrecked it. So she's in, she's in, she's like driving this guy and she's doing a hit on him. Right. And I kept was like, who is that? Who is, I recognize him from something and he was in literally like he was the star of two, $200 million movies, uh, you know, or probably a hundred, but the, but fantastic for, and then fantastic for rise of the silver surfer, Yohan Gufford. He's a, he, but now he's just doing like bit parts in Jessica Chastain hit woman movies, which is kind of sad if you think about it. Um, uh, Ava, sorry, got distracted.
Vic00:24:51And Jessica Alba, by the way, in the movie.
Sonny00:24:54Well, yeah, in fantastic four movies. Well, okay. Um, Ava is, uh, disappointing on virtually every level. It is the, the sort of movie that on paper looks very, very good. So Jessica Chastain plays this hit woman with a burgeoning conscience who, uh, has a history of drug problems and she has fled her home in Boston where she was dating common, apparently, which, you know, is, is if you know anything about Boston, Jessica Chastain dating common, probably going to cause some troubles, uh, over there. Um, but look, I mean, Boston's full of racist, what can I say? Uh, the, the, the, the, uh, Jessica Chastain, her boss, her, you know, runner, uh, in this movie is John Malkovich who, uh, is great in every way except for one. We'll get to that in a second. Um, and Colin Farrell plays the head of this hit man organization. And basically what happens in this movie is she blows a job in, uh, in Dubai or Saudi Arabia or someplace. Uh, and. As a result, she has to be killed. That's, that's what happens, you know, but John Malkovich doesn't want to do it. Colin Farrell is like, no, you got to do it. And then that's, that's the conflict. Here's the problem with this film. This, this, this movie has one very, very big problem. As I say on paper, this is the sort of picture that makes me go, oh, that sounds interesting. I love Jessica Chastain. I think she's great in everything. I loved her in interstellar, loved her in lawless, loved her in the tree of life, et cetera, et cetera. You can go through all sorts of movies, loved her in, it has John Malkovich. Everybody loves John Malkovich. John Malkovich is great in everything. He's fantastic. Colin Farrell. Everybody loves Colin Farrell. Very interesting actor. He's done lots of good work in recent years. This movie does not work for one simple reason. And that is because Jessica Chastain is totally not credible as an action star. And I, I, I always get a little annoyed when there's a certain type of like a manly man who's like, I could never believe that Charlize Theron, this little girl could beat up all of these men. And blah, blah, blah. But like, whatever, there, there's a certain amount of, uh, there's a certain amount of watching movies that is just set suspension of disbelief. You just put that aside and you watch it and you're like, okay, this, this is fine. This she's physical enough. Jessica Chastain is not physical enough. She looks like she's doing everything at half speed. She looks like she is pulling her punches. She looks like she is, you know, like those videos that you see, uh, of people doing self defense seminars in like mall, uh, courtyards. That's what it looks like. It looks like her working through the motions of these moves as she's doing them to demonstrate them to us, the audience, how to do them, except for the fact that that's not how any of this works. It's not how any of this works. Um, on top of that, you have John Malkovich again, who I love. I love John Malkovich, but asking the 67 or 68 year old John Malkovich to be in a fight scene with Colin Farrell and have it look anything resembling a realistic or um, uh, plausible fight scene is unfair to John Malkovich. Like I, I just spent the whole thing wondering why we like, why are we, how are we supposed to believe that Colin Farrell has not killed him in like 30 seconds? Cause he just, he's just old and slow and he is moving cautiously. I don't know. It doesn't work. So this movie is a disaster, uh, basically on, on, on just a very basic believable believability level. I don't. I don't buy it. I don't buy anything that happens in this movie on a physical level. And the sad thing is I actually like a lot of the stuff with the family. So I think, I think Jessica Chastain is very good in the scenes with Gina Davis where she is, Gina Davis is playing her mother and it's like this whole kind of like really bitchy catty, uh, you know, you have disappointed me in many, many ways. And I, I thought all that was fine. Common is a terrible actor. Um, he's not good at acting, uh, but he's, he's fine in this. He's totally acceptable. I don't know. I like. Again, there, there are a lot of things that I could set aside that I could say, okay, this, this doesn't work here. It doesn't work here, but it's still an acceptable action, uh, revenge, John wick knockoff style movie. Um, and this just does not, does not pass muster on that very, very basic level to the point where they even have essentially a knockoff John wick scene, the scene in the casino turned nightclub, which is. 100% like a, an aping of the fantastic John wick nightclub fight scene. And it is, it is, again, it's just bad on every level. It's bad from the action to the choreography, to how they shoot it, to how they edit it. Uh, it just doesn't work. It just, it like you, you watch that and you're like, well, I, I could watch this or I could just watch John wick again. I was, if you have the option, if you have the option, just watch John wick.
Vic00:29:51I was also reminded of collateral and there's a scene where Tom Cruise goes and another
Sonny00:29:56scene that's a million times better. Not just again, it's not just, it's not just that Tom Cruise is a more credible action star in that sense. It's also edited better. It's like edited to the beat of the music. It's, it's edited in a way to make the action seem both immediate and kind of claustrophobic. And this is this, this whole movie, or at least that whole sequence is shot at a, at a remove at like a slight distance. So you can see the whole floor and you realize that there's like 50 people there and they're, and it's like, it's like not, it's not, it's not a crowded nightclub at all.
Vic00:30:31It was, it was a Monday night. It was a Monday night.
Sonny00:30:33It's not a night, it's not a crowded nightclub at all. It's, it's a room filled with extras who are kind of milling about it. Just like every decision in that sequence in particular, but in the movie in general is bad.
JVL00:30:43Okay. Well, what you should understand Sonny is that this is the future of action movies in terms of production values, because this is, if the future of streaming is the future of movies, you cannot afford to make action movies that look like collateral anymore.
Sonny00:30:58But this was not meant to be a streaming movie. This is a movie that was supposed to have a proper theatrical release.
JVL00:31:08Victorino, what'd you think? I was, I was watching this and I thought that if the quadrant system means anything, it gets, what was that? Then you will give this an A.
Vic00:31:20Right. I give it a B. So like duration is an A, right? What was it? Hour 40? 96.
Sonny00:31:2696 minutes.
Vic00:31:28Okay. Plot is definitely an A. There is no twists there except for the very end. Maybe when John Malkovich, she's listening to the recording and, and he says, I'm, if you're listening to this, then, you know, I'm in a happy place or some weird thing like that. What did he climb out like Rasputin? He got out of the, out of the chains. Okay. What is he a happy place? I don't know what he's talking about. Okay. That. And then, um, violence, violence got today. Violence gets an A. It's not great, but it's good. It's good. You know what I mean? It's there. Yeah. It's a lot of violence.
Sonny00:31:58It's not great, but it's there.
Vic00:31:59And sex immunity does bad. It's almost that.
JVL00:32:02There's one scene. The red dress she's wearing when she's in Saudi Arabia, that doesn't do anything for you. If you, what, what did you just give an A to, even though there's no immunity in it? Yeah.
Vic00:32:14You gave an A in sex immunity to Mank. I didn't give an A to the sex nudity quadrant. I gave it a B. You gave it a high grade. That's right. That's right. Uh, so there's one scene and there's one scene. Where they, uh, the Asian lady, the dragon lady is watching, uh, is that her now? Is that her?
JVL00:32:37Oh, wow. She looks better than Gene Davis. We'll get to that in a little bit.
Vic00:32:41Uh, and, uh, it's like, she's watching a girl and two dudes now that, you know, it was like, oh, this is, oh, wait a minute. No. If it's a girl with two dudes, you know where, you know how it ends. I'm just going to tell you. So. The girl watching, you know? Okay. I'm sorry. Three A's. I know. And, uh, and a B. Like, like, yeah. So what is your final grade, Victorino? It's a B plus and technically it gets a B plus and yet it's.
JVL00:33:09How do you get down to B plus with three A's in the quadrants? Yeah, you know. We've exposed some.
Sonny00:33:14We've got like a 90. If it's like a 90, a 90, a 90 and an 80.
JVL00:33:18Yeah. Then you get like an 87.
Sonny00:33:20That's a B plus.
JVL00:33:23I don't know, man. Yeah. Uh, did you like it though, Vic? What was it? Oh, I didn't like it. It was terrible.
Sonny00:33:30It's a B plus, but no, it's a terrible movie.
Vic00:33:33It was really, really just nothing. I mean, the thing is.
Sonny00:33:37Can you describe it as the CBS?
Vic00:33:39Yes. This is the best CBS. I mean, I actually. Fourth wall or whatever you want to call it. I had tinkered with a gene thing and it didn't work out, but the whole thing was that he was rating it or describing the movie in terms of CBS dramas and everything was compared to different CBS dramas. Dramas and specials. But but that's what it was. Yes.
JVL00:34:01I was watching. I haven't.
Vic00:34:04You know what? Do it. Do it. Who's here? The best movie I've seen since 1997 is Bella Mafia on CBS. That's a chastity. It is a killer with a conscience that gives a tour de force performance that likes I haven't seen since Helen Hunt in CBS's Quarterback Princess. And it's got suspense, more suspense than Titanic. The 1996 miniseries with Peter Gallagher, also on CBS. I don't often see made for TV movies, but I'm sure I'm sure glad I saw this one. I give it four TV movie stars, which I haven't done since a woman scorned the Betty Broderick story starring Meredith Baxter, Bernie. But no, it felt like like if you're doing the news for me in that I learned just now on this pod. Cast is that this was meant for actual movie like a theater release, which shocks me because my question was when it's streaming, do they just intentionally aim low and just mail it in? Because I felt like it was all mailed in the acting, everything. It just felt like it was like, ah, we don't have to do that much. We're all getting paid.
JVL00:35:17It got me too. I mean, this whole movie fell apart because the director was it was the middle of the me too movement. He had a domestic abuse beef in his rap sheet. And when that came to light, there was all this pressure to get rid of him. And so you had this sort of ghost ship and they went and brought in somebody else to direct at the last minute. And, you know, you can see the seams in the movie where stuff is just missing. Right. I mean, you see stuff. We're like, wait, I'm pretty sure there should be another scene in here. Everything just fell apart. But Victorino, I can tell you why you didn't like this movie.
Vic00:35:56Are you ready?
JVL00:35:57Because in Ava, the real enemy is alcohol. Oh, yeah. And that is a message that you do not like. I was watching that. I felt very uncomfortable.
Vic00:36:10And I forgot to. Yes. And I was watching this movie and I forgot to. You know, I still take notes. And one of the things, though, I was she obviously it's clear that she had done some homework. Right. Like, how is it like to fall off the wagon? And how would you react? And how does that process begin? And the temptation. And she almost does it. And she doesn't. She almost. And then finally she does. And it's the opening up the minibar. First of all, very expensive. The minibar. That's that's not where you want to go. That's a trap. You never want to get anything for the minibar. When I was a kid, I remember sneaking stuff out of the minibar and then refilling it with water. Anyway, that's that. But I was like, I was like, I was saying.
JVL00:36:57When you say a kid, you mean you were on vacation with your family?
Vic00:37:02Yeah. Anyway, the point is.
Sonny00:37:06A key part of the Victorino Matus mythos has fallen into place.
JVL00:37:11All right. How old were you and what were you drinking?
Vic00:37:15OK, let's see. Probably freshman year. We were we were. High school? We were with a sophomore. I'll say sophomore. You look up might have been freshman year. I can't remember. And we went on a family trip with my friends, the Eustaris family. So we ended up haggling and wheeling and dealing. And Steve Eustaris and I got our got a room, got our own room versus like having it to be me and my sister in a room. You know what I mean?
JVL00:37:45Because and so you've got bombs together at the four seasons.
Vic00:37:48I said it was Cancun or somewhere. I think it was Cancun or Mazatlan. It was like a trip to. Oh, no, it was. Oh, that.
Sonny00:37:57It was freshman. Monte Carlo.
Vic00:37:59No, that was freshman year. No, no, no. It was Mazatlan. And and so but I remember saying, oh, this is great. Come on. Watch, watch, watch, watch what I can do here. And I just I remember. And I think it was probably vodka Kahlua as well, because it's a dark bottle and you can't tell and made like a black Russian because that's the genius that I am.
JVL00:38:20Anyway, that was terrible at Ava. The Mattis equivalent of Ferris Bueller thinking that they can run the Ferrari. In reverse to get the miles off of it.
Vic00:38:30If we just fill the mini bar bottles with water and, you know, your way, just really carefully turn that cap so that you can, you know, like when you close it back, it's a safety seal to make it fit again.
JVL00:38:44But she she has this thing. It brought back a lot of memories where she sniffs the bottle and fall down to the to the hotel desk and say, this is an outrage. I just went to get something from the mini bar and somebody had put. Water in it. Oh, no, no, I did. You know what?
Vic00:39:01But the unlucky guests from, you know, like who probably took that room after us, you know, it must have sucked.
Sonny00:39:06But I was going to a certain point, you know, so this is this. It's all coming together now because it is really talking about the movie. Really, I started at a certain point. I started going to hotels and in the mini bar. It wasn't like you take the bottle and then they charge you for there were little sensors on it. And if you even lifted it up. Yes. That was it.
Vic00:39:28That was that. Then you might as well drink it now. Yeah, we'll drink it now. No, that's that.
Sonny00:39:33Those people like you, Victorino. I like you because like you, you've caused a level of distrust in the hotel industry.
JVL00:39:42The John Dillinger story of Hotel Millie. Well, I am. They never caught him.
Vic00:39:48If I guess right now, D.V. Cooper, if I am.
Sonny00:39:52Renaissance is putting a bill together right now. From the from the now.
Vic00:39:57Funk Ramada is now sending a bill over. Yeah, I feel I feel bad because those things are terrible. Like I think W hotels do this thing where they have the sensor. You know, you just lift it up. You know, you in case you got to drink it now.
Sonny00:40:11You got to eat those almonds now. Oh, crap. I knocked this Toblerone bar off the sensor. That's all.
Vic00:40:17The Toblerone bar, which you would never buy, but it looks so good in there. Like, man, those little pieces of nougat. OK, but she does the thing and she does going back to the movie Ava. She takes a whiff of it and then she does. And then she goes into it. And well, anyway, that was a minute later.
JVL00:40:35She defeats the greatest assassin of her generation in a hand to hand combat.
Sonny00:40:39Even though she's drunk again, but also he defeats her. He defeats her in combat. And then it's just like, I'm out. Oh, right.
Vic00:40:47If you ever see that, he's out.
Sonny00:40:49And then she thought I'm going to have to kill you. And then she like tracks him. The whole movie is dumb. The movie is dumb. It's a dumb movie and it's bad. And I like am slightly annoyed that I got kind of excited when I saw it on Netflix. Frankly, I was like, oh, yeah, I wanted to see.
Vic00:41:05Also, she is bloody to a pulp. The likes I have not seen since True Romance when James Gandolfini, you know, beats up.
Sonny00:41:18Oh, yeah.
Vic00:41:19What's her name? Was it Christy? Shark. Yes. I was going to say Christy Swanson. Arquette. And. And yet, by the end, she's walking down the street, you know, in Boston, like it's no big deal, covering up a couple of cuts here and there. And like, I figured all her ribs are broken.
Sonny00:41:38But no, after Colin Farrell has shattered her rib cage. No, it's fine. Just like he has a really has again. Again, I like I don't like it when people are like, oh, I can't believe that, you know, this little girl beat up these big men. But like, I've met Jessica Chastain. I interviewed her for a movie. She's like. Five foot one. Oh, she's she's not. She's she's a very, very small person. And like Colin Farrell, I like I don't know how tall he is, but I don't think he's very tall either. But like he but he like he's a solidly built guy. He's like not, you know. Anyway, I just like every time there was a fight scene in that movie, I was like, this is so this is so patently absurd.
JVL00:42:21So if I could try to just put a put a point on what you're saying, Sonny, over the last five or six years, we have evolved to the point where fight coordination and fight choreography has gotten so good that in movies where your choreographer and your lead actress are working together, what they do is they don't have the the female protagonist fight like a man. Right. So Rebecca Ferguson in the Mission Impossible movies does not fight at all like a guy. She's it's a very different style of fighting. Clearly cannot match strength for strength or punch for punch when she's with guys. It's a lot of very quick maneuvers, a lot of using like trying to get choke holds and stuff like that. Same thing in Atomic Blonde, Charlize Theron, right?
Sonny00:43:09Right, right, right.
JVL00:43:09And so in a good action movie, that is what you get when you have a female lead. And she's great in Atomic Blonde.
Vic00:43:17She's great in Atomic Blonde. She's great.
JVL00:43:18Same thing with Angelina Jolie in Salt, right? She doesn't fight like a guy. She fights like in a different sort of Gina Carano in Haywire. But you don't even... So that's... That's the top level. But at the next level down, what you just need is, as you say, just physical believability, right? When they... I could not understand why they kept showing scenes of Chastain jogging and running. Oh, God. Because she can't even run. No. I mean, she's just not... There's nothing wrong with it, but it's...
Sonny00:43:51And look, this is... Again, this is a horribly sexist thing to say, but she runs like a girl. And I mean...
JVL00:43:56She runs like somebody who's not a runner.
Sonny00:43:57Well, that's what I mean. I mean, she... Whatever. Like, she just runs like she does not know what she's doing when she's running. Like, it's amazing.
JVL00:44:06Yeah. But all of these things are fixed when you have physically capable actresses like Ben Affleck's...
Sonny00:44:16Jennifer Garner.
JVL00:44:16Jennifer Garner, right? You know, fantastically believable. And in almost all those cases, they are women who have a background either in sports or in Charlize Theron's case, dance.
Sonny00:44:27Yeah.
JVL00:44:28Right. I don't know if you guys remember this, but one of my gripes about the original... Not the original Avengers. The first appearance of Black Widow, which is in Iron Man 2, was that Scarlett Johansson really wasn't physically credible in it. And she has gotten to the point where she's totally credible as an action hero. And this is something that she clearly, I think, has spent a lot of time working on because it's a skill set just like... Accents or any other part of being an actor. And anyway, I don't fault Jessica Chastain for that. Can I ask you a question?
Sonny00:45:05No, but you can't... No, but you should fault Jessica Chastain for this because she produced this movie.
JVL00:45:09Yeah, I'm not sure how real that production credit is.
Sonny00:45:13It's real enough. It's real enough. And I think she wanted to make an I Am Jessica Chastain action star movie. Right.
Vic00:45:21A female board identity. And there is going to be a sequel because you saw the daughter of Colin Farrell.
Sonny00:45:27Who was actually more credible, frankly...
Vic00:45:30Was she more your type, Vic? Yes.
Sonny00:45:33I mean, no, but I'm telling you, because she's a brunette.
Vic00:45:37She's not a redhead. Sorry. Sonny, what happened?
JVL00:45:42Oh, Sonny. That was funny. He's just judging. Nothing happened to Sonny. He's just judging. When is the last time you saw the protagonist in a movie portrayed as a smoker? That jumped out at me. Jessica Chastain is smoking. He's smoking cigarettes. And that is something that I thought Hollywood was not allowed to do anymore. Yeah, you don't see that.
Vic00:46:02And it's not because... Unless it's like taking place in the 50s, and then you get a warning saying that they're smoking in the 50s. And then you know.
Sonny00:46:11Historical smoking.
JVL00:46:12Historical smoking. So I would say that I'm going to point out two things about the writing. The first is that the opening five minutes are the definition. Of telling instead of showing. So to establish Jessica Chastain's character, they literally walk us through her life through a series of pictures. When things like Valedictorian.
Vic00:46:41Oh, right.
JVL00:46:42Off to Harvard.
Vic00:46:43They show that in the credits?
JVL00:46:45They just tell us over and over again, like, this is what... So she's really smart, you know, and she's the captain of the cheerleading squad, and she went to Harvard, and then she's in the army, and then she's... And so one of my gripes about it is actually she's... You look at her qua assassin, the idea is like, yeah, she's a great killer, but she is not a very tactical thinker. She, you know, just like accepts weird things. She does not seem like a particularly smart operator out in the world of clandestine stuff. But the other thing is that in movies like this, often when you say, oh, the writing is so bad, look at the dialogue. Actually, many scenes... Sometimes the dialogue is quite good. You know, there's interesting, funny stuff like John Malkovich referring to the assassin as being client-facing. Is that part of the argument? That's a fantastic, like, funny bit of business speak.
Sonny00:47:45But you are not a client-facing...
JVL00:47:48Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. But writing is not dialogue, right? Writing is story. And the story parts... The story parts of this movie are just a disjointed mess. The movie doesn't really start until 15 minutes in. The story certainly doesn't start until 15 minutes into the movie. And, you know... There's this nice stuff with Geena Davis and Jessica Chastain's character, like, this really, like, truly bitchy and not, like, bitchy but soft underneath relationship between them. But it doesn't really go anywhere. It doesn't... Everything about it is just wrong and disjointed as a matter of storytelling.
Sonny00:48:26See, I... I thought... See, I thought all that stuff worked really well with... It does.
JVL00:48:31It just doesn't... It isn't in service of telling the story that this movie... Right.
Vic00:48:36I didn't buy it. I was really distracted by Geena Davis. What's wrong with Victorino? Let's say it. What's wrong with her... Thank you. What's wrong with her jaw? It's like there's something wrong with it because she got her jaw, like, rewired or something.
Sonny00:48:53She's always had that kind of, like...
Vic00:48:55It's more pronounced now, though. It's like there's something wrong.
Sonny00:48:57She's always had that kind of, like... What, JVL? It's not a question.
Vic00:49:02There's something wrong with her jaw. That's all I'm going to say. There's something wrong with her jaw. Nothing else.
Sonny00:49:07Anyway.
Vic00:49:09You know, the last time I saw Geena Davis was in another great made-for-TV movie, Coma. Long Kiss Goodnight. No. She was in Coma, and she looked... You know, I said, oh, she didn't look well. And in this one, too. So, I don't know. And now she's just fully embraced, you know, like an old mom. But go back, listeners. Go back and re-watch Tootsie starring Dustin Hoffman. And Geena Davis is in that. She's got a bit part.
JVL00:49:41Anyway, you were saying. They can't see you nodding and coughing in your head, Victorino.
Sonny00:49:45I think they all... I think everybody understood. It was... Yeah, the pause. Yeah. Okay. Everybody understood.
JVL00:49:49We're done with Ava. You should all run to Victorino. Go to Dailymotion and look up Joni. Especially... Ridiculous. It's Advent, JVL.
Vic00:49:58How could you? The other thing is, I felt bad for the German general. He did nothing wrong. He did nothing wrong. At some point, I think she has to convince herself when she's like, what did you do wrong? You must have done something terrible wrong. That's why I'm killing you. I mean, is she really fooling herself? Does she really think that? As opposed to, no, I'm a mass murderer. You know, I've killed 41 people. They were probably not that bad.
Sonny00:50:23Including Reed Richards. Poor Reed Richards.
Vic00:50:25Yeah, terrible. All terrible.
JVL00:50:27Spirit of the week. Vic, Sonny, what are you drinking tonight?
Vic00:50:33I'm not having anything right now.
Sonny00:50:37You know what? I don't actually.
Vic00:50:39I saw you. It looked like you were drinking a Manhattan straight up, Sonny.
Sonny00:50:44Yeah, it's just a Manhattan with a high west. I wore a and the Dolan vermouth.
Vic00:50:51Corrections, additions, shout out. It would have been funny if I was drinking, let's say, a Robert Little. A Bushmills variety whiskey like Red Bush. Then we could say, speaking of which, Ava.
JVL00:51:05That's all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments. Tweet us at Sonny Bunch at Victorino Matus at JV Last. He's back or leave a comment at Sub-Beacon dot com. We're there.
Sonny00:51:18We try to answer most of them.
JVL00:51:21Tell your friends. Until next time.
Sonny00:51:27But. So, JVL, you are you're going to watch The Mandalorian season two.
JVL00:51:37Yeah. Are you going to watch season one? Just, you know, you're like three episodes of five. No, I watched like six episodes of season one.
Sonny00:51:45Are you going to watch The Godfather part three coda?
JVL00:51:50Well, yeah, we're going to do it. You got to tell me which of these we're doing first. So I pray. I can shuffle my watching cue.
Sonny00:51:59Why don't you do The Mandalorian first? Since we're still, you know, 10 days from now, we'll still be interested in talking about The Mandalorian.
Vic00:52:07And this episode will come out just in time for everybody before the holidays, because I know everyone's usually busy by the time Christmas comes around. They might not have a chance, but we give it normally that comes out on a Friday, but it's coming out. We're going to have it come out earlier as a treat for everybody.
Sonny00:52:23We're going to have it come out on. Well, I mean, they're going to be listening to it. Wonderful. You know, on. On Wednesday or whatever. So, yeah, I have something I would like to discuss.
JVL00:52:33Sure, sure. Go ahead. JVO. Netflix has added a new feature. Have you guys noticed this?
Sonny00:52:44The quadrants.
JVL00:52:45No, I got to call my lawyer. Excuse me. You can now watch your content at normal speed. Oh, 1.25 speed.
Sonny00:52:57Oh, have you gotten this feature?
JVL00:52:58Or 1.5 speed like a podcast or an audio book. So, A, what would David Lynch say about this?
Sonny00:53:09Fucking bullshit.
JVL00:53:13B, does this not suggest to you that what Netflix is doing is not creating movies? If Netflix is making a piece of content, for their video platform, and they present that content to people where the audience can, if they like, just watch it at 1.5 speed, you know, to save time, should that piece of content be considered, I don't know, eligible for an Academy Award for Best Motion Picture? I'm with Christopher Nolan.
Vic00:53:46I'm with JVL on this one. That's just wrong. And it's not a movie.
Sonny00:53:50I agree it's wrong. Like, you're not going to find any serious critic or... Or writer about movies who says, you know, this is good. You might be able to find, you know, I don't know, some hack from CNET or whatever to say it's fine. But, like, this is obviously insane. This is the exact sort of thing that Christopher Nolan is fighting against. I remember I got... So, about a week ago, I got in a fight with some dumb content purveyor, you know, conventional wisdom sort of tech guy who was like, you know, Christopher... Christopher Nolan really, really screwed up because fewer people consumed his content because he released it in theaters than would have if he had released it via streaming. And I just, I just quote tweeted him. I was like, you know, this is literally the exact sort of thing that Christopher Nolan is fighting against by wanting his movies to be in theaters first. The idea that film is just a form of content to be consumed by the mindless, you know, viewer is, is literally the thing he is fighting against. And he got all, you know, he got all pissy about it. But like, it's true. This is, if you, if you believe in the idea of film as a artistic medium that deserves to be defended and you aren't out there like at the barricades demanding that theaters survive, you have no standing to speak.
JVL00:55:17Well, I would like to, like both of you know, that as part of my continuing protest in this pandemic time, not only will I watch it, but I will also watch it. I will watch all of these fake movies that are really just content on my computer screen and I will not allow them to sully my glorious 65 inch ultra high definition, but I, I plan on watching them at 1.5 speed.
Sonny00:55:39No, don't do that. Yeah, that is not fine. That's right.
JVL00:55:43I am sure it's fine.
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