#8. 'Wonder Woman 1984' (With Special Guest MKH!)
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Mary Katharine Ham guest-hosts (Vic's off in Cape May) for a New Year's Eve review of Wonder Woman 1984, Patty Jenkins's blockbuster that landed day-and-date on HBO Max. Sonny and JVL are brutal: the whole plot is a Rube Goldberg machine engineered to resurrect Chris Pine, the magic wishing stone obeys no consistent rules, there's a ~60-minute action-free dead zone, the action is weightless (Sonny half-jokes the real problem is no Zack Snyder around to ghost-direct the set pieces), Barbara Minerva/Cheetah is wholly extraneous, and the finale is just a much worse Dark Knight ending set to the worst Hans Zimmer score they can recall. MKH is the softest touch — she genuinely enjoyed the first hour as a Diana-and-Steve Hallmark romance before hitting the RPG-lasso moment and going "now I'm mad." All three still concede Gal Gadot's magnetism carries the Diana Prince role, and JVL floats wanting a low-stakes Wonder-Woman-and-Steve-solve-a-murder vacation movie; the hosts also spitball how a smarter third act (the kid's wish, no Cheetah) could have fixed it. The pandemic-box-office angle looms large — a COVID-best $19.6M opening and a vague "half our retail subscribers watched it" HBO Max claim prompt a real debate about what "hit" even means now. The hangout is anchored by MKH's instantly beloved Christmas story: her plan to surprise husband Steve with adoption papers for her daughters was blown when he spotted the lawyer's charge and, at the gym, Googled it into a "divorce lawyer" panic. Plus the national bike shortage and JVL scheming an Appalachian Trail trek with his spunky mother-in-law — over Sonny's firm ruling that JVL has not earned the right to call it "the AT."
From the show notes
On this very special edition of the Sub-Beacon, JVL and Sonny welcome guest host Mary Katharine Ham back to the show to talk about Wonder Woman 1984 . MKH tells a heartwarming Christmas story. The gang tries to do a Gene review. Sonny tries to snuff it while JVL drones on and on about "the AT." (Don't call it that.) QUADRANTS. All that and more on this episode.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00The citizens of the world, I'm here to change your life, anything you want, anything you dream of, you can have it, you look like you saw a ghost, Diana, look at you, it's like now one day has passed.
JVL00:00:30Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon. I'm your host, JVL, along with Sonny Bunch, and today's very special guest, Mary Catherine Hamm, sitting in for Victorino Matus, who is probably at a bar with his children in Cape May. Just a reminder that the Sub-Beacon is available exclusively on Patreon at SubBeacon.com. We also have a store where you can buy Sub-Beacon merchandise, ranging from masks to onesies to headache shirts. Just visit TeePublic.com and search Sub-Beacon. 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. Mary Catherine Hamm. Hello. Merry Christmas. How are you?
Guest00:01:17Thank you so much. You know, Christmastime is actually sort of confusing for me because I get a lot of merry, and I think that people are talking to me, and they are not talking to me. But Merry Christmas to everyone, nonetheless.
JVL00:01:29I have a request. What's that? I have been told to ask you to tell the story about trying to surprise your husband. I myself have not heard this story, but I was told by multiple people.
Sonny00:01:45I read the thread on Twitter. On what? On the Twitters.
JVL00:01:49I'm sorry. I don't go to that website.
Guest00:01:51You know what? It's better this way. I'm glad I get to surprise you with the story. This is substituting.
JVL00:01:58Can I put the quarter in the machine?
Guest00:01:59Yeah. I was shopping for my husband. He is difficult to shop for. He buys everything he wants. He is very particular. He does not stop buying things for himself in November as he should. We're going to have a conversation about that.
Sonny00:02:15I've always liked him. He sounds exactly like JVL and Sonny and also Vic.
Guest00:02:20Yes. He just keeps ringing up stuff that I would have bought him, but no. Now, you have to know a little bit about my background, as many of the listeners do, to understand this story. My husband and I got married in March. I was married-
Sonny00:02:37March of the plague year. That was this year.
Guest00:02:40Last weekend, you could have a wedding. It was a good party. Guilt-free. Nobody got sick. Yay. And then, but I was married before to my first husband for four years, Jake, who passed away in a cycling accident in 2015. We had two daughters. I was pregnant with the second one when he passed away. Long journey. Enormity of life. Take it all in, everybody. It's been five years. And during that time, I met Steve, my now husband, about two years after Jake died. We dated for two years. We get married in March. And Christmas comes around this year, and I think, you know, he's very hard to surprise, but he did say one time he wanted something specific. And I thought, this will work. I can pass this out to everybody in the family. He wants all weather mats for the Jeep. Great.
JVL00:03:29Ooh. This is a fantastic present. Yeah, you gotta have those. Weather tech? Or did he have a different brand? Cover King?
Guest00:03:35I actually went with Jeep specific because I knew it would bother him if it didn't say Jeep on it. Obviously. We're straight to the source. But I'm like, this is a perfect price point. I'm going to give this to the whole family to say, you can get on this multi-level marketing scheme and sponsor a floor mat for Steve and make him happy this Christmas. He'll get something he likes. It's very hard to do. Join me in this. This mission. So you're like, great. I have my friend Kelly buy the mats on her credit card and Venmo her so it doesn't show up. And then normally he's not at home for deliveries. On this day he was. And the dealership showed up with a plastic bag, clear, full of floor mats. And they put them in his hands. And I was like, pretty ticked because I like surprises. And I was like, well, you know, my OPSEC was not perfect. This was a mistake. But I have the most epic Christmas present in my back pocket. I'm going to blow him away. We have obviously talked about this before. I'm not the paperwork person in the family. So I went and got a lawyer. And I had the papers drawn up for him to formally adopt the girls. Because we'd already talked about this. But I'm also during COVID times, it's hard to get legal stuff done. So I was like, I'm going to run with this ball. He's never going to see this coming because I don't do that kind of thing because I'm not organized. I have a zoom meeting with the lawyer. She's like, this is easily done. I'll have the papers drawn up for him to sign on Christmas. It'll be beautiful. I'm like, look at me. I'm writing my own Hallmark movie. This is this is going to be great. I told them it was a Christmas present. Again, my OPSEC is not perfect. I walk out of the meeting. He thinks it was a work meeting. Like, oh, you're going to the gym, babe. Great. I'll see you later. He's off to do his thing. While he's at the gym, a deposit for the lawyer hits the credit card. Now, I didn't think he was quite this vigilant. I was mistaken.
Sonny00:05:47Question, question. So do you guys have a joint credit card? Do you do you put all of your charges on the same cards?
Guest00:05:54So we actually have it's two different numbers, but it's the same accounts. Philosophically, you gotta have a burner card. Yeah, well, I so we had just combined everything. So like two months ago, I did have my own card. But in the process of being putting everything together, so whatever, it's all together. A deposit hits the account. And I didn't I thought, again, we're gonna have a conversation about this. Maybe in December, he would take it easy on checking all of this. But in his words, the holidays are a big time for fraud. So I can't take it easy.
Sonny00:06:25So fair, fair point.
Guest00:06:27So he, he sees this chart. He's like, that seems sort of weird. I should investigate thoroughly and immediately. So he's at the gym and he Googles it and it comes up such and such and so and so divorce lawyer. And he's at the gym like, I mean,
JVL00:06:52it doesn't say family law, which is the normal euphemism for that.
Guest00:06:56Well, it's divorce law. It's been a year. But has it been that year? I don't like I don't feel like that's where this was headed. So he works off some steam, evilize some people at the gym, comes home. I was in the guest room wrapping packages and I feel the door swing open with authority at my back. There's like a whoosh of wind. And he's like, why are you paying a divorce lawyer? And I was like. And I meet like it took half a second and I dropped all my wrapping dramatically and turned around and was like, well, sweetie, congratulations. You've ruined your second. And he's like, oh, and I said, just think about it for a second longer. I don't get it. Family law, Steve, it's family law. And then he goes, mark the time. Well, this has been a fucking emotional roller coaster. Oh, and in the end. It's getting dusty in here. It's like, it's lovely. I'm glad he ruined it in such a funny way.
Sonny00:08:05So you eventually just got him some Amazon cards, right?
Guest00:08:07Yeah, I was like, well, now that's off the table, buddy.
Sonny00:08:10Go buy something for yourself.
JVL00:08:13So did you have him open something like open? Yes, I still gave him the girls heads or something.
Guest00:08:19No, I still gave him the papers and the whole thing. It was it was very nice. But I am glad he ruined it that way because it gave me so much content. Look at me.
JVL00:08:29That was that was amazing. We had a good eight minutes out of that. So how was your Christmas? Was it a good a good Christmas?
Guest00:08:36It was very good. I find that it's like once you hit Christmas, you're like, did I stop to enjoy like the reason for the season and take it in at all? Yeah. And I think I did a little this year. I tried. I gave up Christmas cards, which I think helped.
JVL00:08:53Oh, that's very smart.
Guest00:08:55I just was like, nah, we ain't doing it.
JVL00:08:57And so I did. You could you could just say I did do Christmas cards to the post office. I am so sorry.
Sonny00:09:06Everybody else got their cards.
JVL00:09:08Everyone would buy that this year.
Sonny00:09:10You should just Photoshop your card into one of your friends hands so you can show to all of your other friends.
Guest00:09:17Oh, that's a good point.
Sonny00:09:18I don't know.
JVL00:09:20You could just dummy up on Shutterfly a Christmas card and then tweet out the image of the Christmas card. You would have. I'd be like, see, this is the card this year, everybody.
Guest00:09:31I can do that. Maybe I should go back and do that.
JVL00:09:35That's good.
Guest00:09:35No, but we had a really nice time. We had a good time.
Sonny00:09:38Beth does all of our Christmas cards. I don't even I'm not 100% sure what ours even looks like this year.
JVL00:09:43I'm sure mine got lost in the mail.
Sonny00:09:45I'm just kidding, Beth. It was lovely. I've seen it. It's very nice.
Guest00:09:48Beautiful.
JVL00:09:48I did not get my bunch card this year.
Sonny00:09:50Well, I once again, yes.
JVL00:09:53Right. The post office. Yeah.
Sonny00:09:56How was your Christmas, Santina?
JVL00:09:58Did you guys celebrate the reason for the seasons? You do a lot of the infant Jesus.
Sonny00:10:06Was it was stimulating the United States economy? Oh, that one. Yes. Yes.
JVL00:10:10The fat man. We did a lot of that. We did a lot of that man twice more.
Sonny00:10:13No, I have. I'm waiting. I'm waiting to watch it again on Blu-ray. I'm waiting for it to come out on Blu-ray. It doesn't come out on Blu-ray till like January 15th. Annoyingly. Not till after Christmas. But once it once it does, I will watch it again. Christmas was fine. It was a Katie got a bike that is slightly too big for her. So she like where she she had a tricycle. She has a tricycle. And we're doing the balance bike method where she like kind of walks along on her toes, except she hates it. She really hates. She's like, I just want to pedal like too bad. I took the pedals off already. You got to just walk.
JVL00:10:52So you didn't get a dedicated balance bike. You've got a normal bike and pedals off a normal bike.
Sonny00:10:58And you take the pedals off. And then once she can do that, you put the pedals back on and she starts to pedal. She can already pedal because she has the, you know, tricycle.
Guest00:11:05I'm not feeling I'm not feeling dumb because I have two versions of the same bike.
JVL00:11:10And I have a balance bike version and not and then another bike.
Sonny00:11:13And I don't even. Is this a thing that you can buy? You can just buy like a balance. What is a balance bike?
JVL00:11:19It's just a bike with no gears or pedals or gears or anything. It just do two free spinning wheels. But it's really expensive. Because it like teaches Montessori or something.
Sonny00:11:31Well, yeah, no, I like again, we went to the when we went to the bike store, the guy was like, what you're going to do is you're going to take off these pedals. And you got to remember that one screws this way and one screws the other way. And I was like, all right, you know, engineer at Ford. I don't know what you're talking about. So I brought them home and I like had to watch like three different videos to figure out how to to take them off. Because apparently street bikes have different like. With hex nuts or something, whereas in road bikes. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, man. But I figured it out. And so anyway, she she's trying. We're trying to teach her that. And my Christmas was my Christmas was great. That's Christmas was great. Charlie's Christmas was great. All the Christmases were wonderful.
JVL00:12:18I'm surprised you were able to find bikes because this is one of those things that we have a national shortage of.
Sonny00:12:23Well, so it's interesting. I think what happened, honestly, was that there there was a huge run on. Bikes earlier in the year. There was a huge run on bikes and like in like March, April, May, June. Right. When everyone was like, well, we're stuck at home. We can't really do anything. So everybody bought all their bikes then. So bikes were not quite as popular this year at Christmas because the bike shop was full of bikes. I love the bike shortage.
Guest00:12:45The bike shortage was great in the spring because it gave me license to cheap out on a bike. And I got a used one off of Facebook market.
JVL00:12:53Yeah.
Guest00:12:53Honey, what am I? I can't find a new one. That'd be crazy. They're not anywhere.
JVL00:12:58I gave up on hunting for a bike for Flash in October. Really? Yeah. Just couldn't find them anywhere. I just literally gave up. You know, you couldn't like order one. No, I couldn't order them the same thing. You go to the bike shops and bike shops just say, yeah, you know, we all the bikes come from the same three factories in China. No, we have standing orders. We never know whether or not we're going to get anything or, you know, if we get shipments, they will come on a Thursday. All you can do is call us on a Thursday. Thursday morning and say, do you have any bikes? And so I did that for all the local bike shops for weeks and weeks and then just gave up. It's like a post-apocalyptic thing in the Washington, D.C. area.
Sonny00:13:42I don't I mean, I don't know what to tell you. Dallas is full of bikes. Lots of bikes in Dallas, Texas. Once again, land of freedom. It's why everyone's coming here.
JVL00:13:48I guess that's right. I guess that's right. You know, so I am glad to have Mary Catherine here because I want to seek some advice. OK, you you're quite outdoorsy kind of gal.
Guest00:14:04Pretty. Yeah, I would say hiker. Yes.
JVL00:14:07Mountain mountaineer.
Guest00:14:08Yes. Here and there.
JVL00:14:10You you may or may not know that I have been workshopping my dream to do the Appalachian Trail. Oh, I have not been getting a lot of takers because it's a terrible idea.
Guest00:14:23Takers on the principle or takers like they're going to go with you.
JVL00:14:26Takers on going with me.
Guest00:14:27OK. And on what time line are you going to do this?
JVL00:14:32Unclear.
Guest00:14:33OK.
JVL00:14:34Unclear.
Guest00:14:35The wife is not several children.
JVL00:14:38I just the children are not into it. Sonny and Vicar not into it. My work wife is not into it. Tim Miller is not into it. Basically, I can't find anybody who's into it. So I have a new idea.
Guest00:14:50OK.
JVL00:14:51My mother in law. So, Mary Kavanagh, if I wanted to take my mother in law, not on the whole 80, but just like a five day section. Which section should we do? And how should we pack for it? Now, I just go into this assuming that you've done multiple sections of the 80 coming.
Sonny00:15:12Please stop calling it the 80. It's like when they call it the OC on Arrested Development. You've never actually done the Appalachian Trail. I don't think you get to call it the 80 until you have done it.
JVL00:15:25Now, you know, we will not be pink blazing it. We have a very cordial relationship, but we'll be just doing the white blazes and some things to keep in mind. I assume you're going to tell me that there's a section in Southern Virginia where it's pretty flat and mostly meadow we, uh, my mother-in-law Peggy Jane has never hiked before. Okay. I am not sure of the last time that she walked more than two miles in a day. Her knees are questionable, but the thing is
Guest00:15:54she's up really nicely, but the thing is she's
JVL00:15:57the best. And she and I have so much fun together that I really, and truly have always wanted to take a vacation just with the two of us and like go on an adventure and do something awesome. And walking through the woods with her for a week would be forking amazing.
Guest00:16:15I, I love where you're.
JVL00:16:16I will, I will have a body cam for this whole time be, and it would provide decades of amusement to her children and mine, and we would just, it would be amazing. Now I will have to carry all the gear for both of us. Yes. So let's just assume that right off the bat logistically, how could we make this work? Okay. So how could you get me and my mother-in-law out on the trail? If we came to you and said, we, we need you to just outfit us here. How do we do this? Where do we go? What do we pack?
Guest00:16:47Love where your heart is on this. Um, try to think, so I haven't, I haven't done a ton of segments of the AT.
Sonny00:16:58Mary Catherine can, she can call it that. Not you JBL. I don't know. Not you.
Guest00:17:02But I, I, I made a, not a grave error, but I, I made a decent error one time in attempting to do the Maryland segment of the Appalachian trail in one day. It's like 37 miles or something.
JVL00:17:17That's a bad idea. And the Maryland segment is pretty rocky, isn't it?
Guest00:17:20Yeah. And I went from like 3am start to 10pm the next day and it rained about 8pm. 8 inches on us during that day. It was more rain than Maryland had seen in years. So that I do not advise. I did not complete that. I think I was about 10 miles short of the, of the segment. I should go back out there and do it. But I think there are, there are parts of that segment that are plenty flat and you could do a couple overnights with a couple, I don't know how many miles a day you'd like to do. Would you like, is five miles a day something that makes sense?
JVL00:17:57I think that five miles a day is probably a good goal to shoot for. And so it's a question of, could you set it up? So you're doing five miles where you're hitting, you know, you do it through Shenandoah. So you're hitting campgrounds with restrooms. Or could you find a spot where the AT runs back and forth through all these little towns quick enough that you could stop and like, you know, do put her in a bed and breakfast
Sonny00:18:27overnight or something.
JVL00:18:29I'm not sure. I'm not sure how she would really be down with the idea of, uh, you know, like personal, personal wipes and that sort of thing.
Guest00:18:38Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. So you need to be going, you need to be going through towns to stop and maybe she'd be
JVL00:18:45totally game for it. I don't know. Maybe I'm selling Peggy short.
Guest00:18:48Cause yeah, I would, I would look and she was 24.
JVL00:18:50She, she went to Monte Carlo by herself and like rented, rented a Corvette and drove around Monte Carlo. And played roulette. Like this is, she may look like a grandmother now, but this woman is spunky.
Guest00:19:03She, yeah, she, as I was gonna say, she has spunk. Um, yeah, I would check out some Virginia parts of the trail. See if you can get some that go through some small towns where you could get somewhere to stay or back it up from Harper's ferry and go from somewhere in Maryland to Harper's ferry, which is a very nice place to end, uh, which was my plan, which I did not complete. Um, but Harper's ferry is a lovely reward for you guys to have. You could do some shopping there, have it. Let's see, see some sites. So, and not all of that Maryland area is Rocky. She, I believe in her.
JVL00:19:35Could I keep my pack weight under 50 pounds if I'm carrying for the both of us?
Guest00:19:41If you're going to be out there. Yeah. If you're going to be stopping in civilization, I think so. Yeah.
JVL00:19:46Right. Yeah.
Guest00:19:47But you would have to be stopping in civilization. Probably.
JVL00:19:49It's the volume more than the weight. I'm trying to like, if, if I've got to have a sleeping bag for her, like two sleeping bags, just taking up a lot. A lot of, a lot of cubic center boys, Sonny dying here. I love it. Yeah. A lot of cubic centimeters.
Guest00:20:03He's I'm sure he has trail mix thoughts that are terrible.
JVL00:20:06Yeah. Well, jerky, right? I mean, as, as terms of volume and weight to calorie, you just got to have jerky. Yeah.
Guest00:20:12I just, I just did salami and mozzarella or something. It was just all those ready-made packs.
Sonny00:20:16Yeah. Do you have the trail mix with the M and M's in them? Because those are, that's the good stuff. That's what you need.
Guest00:20:22You got to pick those out. You're the guy who picks those out and leaves everyone else the rest.
Sonny00:20:28Well, no, I wouldn't do it. Come on. I just put it in my hand and shove it into my mouth like a savage.
JVL00:20:32My mother-in-law is a wonderful woman.
Guest00:20:36Speaking of wonder woman.
JVL00:20:39Oh, wow. The sequel to Patty Jenkins, critically acclaimed blockbuster debuted on the max on Christmas Eve.
Sonny00:20:47Somebody calls it the max.
JVL00:20:49How much did it gross?
Sonny00:20:51The max is a, the max is a restaurant and saved by the bell. It's not a, it's not a streaming service.
JVL00:20:57How much did wonder woman 1984 make?
Sonny00:21:02Well, at the box office, it made, what was it? 16 or $19 million. I don't know. I'm so out of touch. I don't even really, uh, pay super close attention to this anymore. Uh, it may, it had the best opening weekend of any movie since COVID started. How about that? That's a good thing, right? Uh, it, it did actually. Cause so tenant tenant did tenants reported first weekend gross was $20 million, but that was actually. It was actually $20 million over like five or six days, not $20 million over a weekend.
JVL00:21:32Um, this was the best movie of 2020.
Sonny00:21:34According to you, we're going to come back. I assume we're going to come back to that because I wrote that list almost entirely to troll you, but we'll, we'll, we'll be, we'll be back to that in a sec. Um, uh, but, uh, yeah, so wonder woman 1984 gross, it was either 16 or $19 million. I forget which, um, 19.6 million. Maybe I don't there. I feel like those numbers are all in the, in the mix there somewhere. Um, and, uh, you know, that, that's actually a big number. That's a big number for a movie in, in theaters these days, uh, where it actually made money was on HBO max. Um, and so this is the interesting thing about this movie, of course, is that it is the first legitimate giant blockbuster to go straight to streaming during the whole COVID, uh, nightmare, right? It is not a movie like trolls world tour that was always going to be kind of a middling thing, um, and went to PVOD it's not like Mulan, which did the weird hybrid, we're going to be, uh, we're going to be on PVOD, but it's only going to be on Disney plus, so you got to go there. But then a month later they put it on Amazon and everywhere else. Um, this was the first, you don't have Hamilton. This was Hamilton. Hamilton has, was not, uh, was not on my radar to be a blockbuster. Uh, you know, maybe, maybe it would have been, who knows. Um, uh, but I'd rather slip my own eyeballs than watch that movie again. Um, uh, the, but the, the, but the, the, the. I'm sorry, it's bad. It's a bad, it's a bad thing. It's full of bad things. Nobody, nobody should watch that. Um, the, uh, so where this movie made its money was by people signing up for HBO max or alternately, uh, now that Roku and Chrome cast and all the other services have gotten on board switching over their HBO and HBO now and HBO go apps to HBO max. This was the whole, the whole, the whole point of this was to get people onto the HBO max platform, to get them in the HBO max ecosystem. Um, and in that regard, we have no idea. We actually have no idea.
JVL00:23:39I, I, I mean, I rush out a press release saying, so they did.
Sonny00:23:44So Warner brothers put out a big press release that said, this was, this movie was viewed by half of our retail subscribers who knows what that means. I have no idea what that means. No idea what that means. It was like, this, this has been. Watched by the most people while we have, you know, exceeded all expectations of sign up, but they put out no actual numbers. So it's impossible to tell how it actually did. I will say anecdotally, anecdotally, this is the movie I have seen most talked about since the, the, uh, coronavirus started. Uh, and that includes 10 of that includes trolls world tour. That includes Palm Springs, a lot of everything. Basically everything that has been released Hamilton in more than much more than Hamilton. Um, everything that has been released, uh, just in terms of, uh, on streaming and all that, this is the thing that I have seen talk the most about. It's the thing that I have seen generate the most think pieces. And I, I, I should have done this before the show. I didn't actually think about it until literally this exact second, but I think it's probably the movie that has the most reviews on rotten tomatoes, which I think is actually an interestingly good proxy for like, what is actually being seen by people and what is being seen by critics and what is, what is being talked about, um, I, I would have to go back and check that please don't please. I'm sure someone will, will, will correct me on this if I'm wrong, but I think it is the movie that has been released since March that has the most reviews on rotten tomatoes by probably a fair amount by had to guess, I don't know, maybe now that tenant is out, uh, on VOD, it's up there as well. Um, but the, but yeah, I mean, I, I would say that it is, it is a success in so far as it is a thing that lots of people are talking about many of them very negatively, um, but a, it is a, it's, it was, it, as far as HBO max and AT&T and Warner brothers are concerned, this thing is a hit and you can tell it's a hit because they instantly greenlit the third movie, um, despite the, you know, frankly middling box office. I mean, who knows what the, what, what this movie would have done in. In a regular year, my, my, the guy who writes for us, uh, on, on exhibition and distribution at, uh, uh, at the Bulwark, James Emmanuel Shapiro. He, uh, he said that when he was forecasting what movies were going to gross this year for the Alamo draft house, um, in their analytics department, he figured that wonder woman 1984 would be the highest grossing movie of the year. So take that with a grain of salt. Um, you know, I, whatever, whatever, uh, people were expecting this movie to do in January, obviously it was not going to work. It was not going to end up doing that just because of the, the landscape we find ourselves in. Um, but it, it seems to be also the patriarchy. Well, the patriarchy wasn't able to stop the first one, sadly. Um, you know, it, it, it kept it.
JVL00:26:40It kept imagine how bad I imagine how big that movie would have been if not for
Sonny00:26:44the patriarchy without the patriarchy, it would have done black Panther numbers.
JVL00:26:47Um, I don't know, uh, big boy review. I'm Ron Burgundy.
Sonny00:26:54You want me to do a big boy?
JVL00:26:55Yeah. Unless you want to have. I'm going to do the big girl review, right?
Sonny00:26:58Catherine Ham. Do you want to do a big girl review?
Guest00:27:00I don't, I don't do a big girl review, a feminist masterpiece.
Sonny00:27:06All right. Uh, wonder woman 1984, uh, is the movie that would result if you got together with a bunch of people in a Warner brothers C-suite meeting and tried to figure out how to bring Chris Pine back. From the first wonder woman, after you killed him at the end of that movie, that's, that's, that's what this movie is and that's the central flaw, um, and uh, weirdly it's greatest strength is, is the, the single minded decision to bring him back and make sure that he was in this picture. Uh, so wonder woman 1984, um, has two openings. It has two opening sequences. One takes place, uh, on the, the, is it the Mescria, the Mescria, the Meskira, the Meskira, uh, slash paradise Island. Are we still allowed? Are we still allowed to call it paradise Island? Is that allowed?
JVL00:27:55You're canceled.
Sonny00:27:56Is that allowed? Um, uh, so it's, it's, it's on the T H Island, uh, where we see wonder woman as a young girl, uh, learning how to be a, uh, you know, successful. Amazonian, uh, Olympian, I guess, don't forget the Amazon Olympics.
JVL00:28:13Don't forget the brief glimpse we get at Amazon Quidditch at Amazon Quidditch.
Sonny00:28:19Well, I just, I couldn't tell what it seemed like. There was like a, there was like a decathlon going on and also like some sort of weird super powered marathon that was the warmup super weightless. Yeah. It looked very Quidditchy. Um, and this sequence, I've seen a lot of people praising the sequence, but I did not care for it because it all looks so weightless. They're just kind of jumping from thing to thing and there's no heft to anything. It's very, it's like weirdly anti Amazonian. Actually it is, it is based on speed and flightiness as opposed to strength. Um, which I did not, I did not care for. Um, uh, and then there's a second opening sequence, which brings us to the modern or not modern day, 1984. Uh, and it involves wonder woman stopping a robbery in a landmark mall, actually landmark mall, just down the street from where I used to live, uh, just up the street from where JBL lives, um, uh, and it's kind of sideways from where it's kind of weirdly in the middle of all of us, I think almost, uh, um, or at least where I used to live in Virginia. I don't live there anymore. Uh, but the, uh, the, and, and in this sequence, again, it's another action sequence. That's slightly better, but still not very good. Uh, she, she stops, she stops the crime and she also gets little girls to believe in themselves at the same time, which is super important, obviously. That's the reason for the season. Um, uh, and then, then begins the longest single stretch of action-free superhero cinema I think I've ever seen. I, I like, I, I, I should have been timing it, but basically from minute 22 or 23, to literally an hour 23, there is no, there's no action in the picture. There's nothing except for like one random drunk guy getting punched. That's it. That's, that's, that's the entirety of the action in this, which is a weird, a weird choice to make, but it's a choice. Um, and, and this, this brings me to the central dilemma of the film, which is the whole thing is, is somebody in an executive suite somewhere trying to decide how we get Chris Pine back. And they were like, well, why don't we have this max Lord guy who can grant wishes and then work backwards from there? I don't know. I don't actually know anything about Maxwell Lord JBL. You're the comic book. Uh, you're the DC comic book guy. Is he, is this his actual power in the comic books? Is he a wish grantor, a monkey's paw holder?
JVL00:30:41No.
Sonny00:30:43Okay, good.
JVL00:30:44So they, they just make this not a con man. He's like a legit businessman. He's, he's more like a JV Lex Luthor then.
Sonny00:30:55Anyway.
JVL00:30:56Uh, so they have, he's quasi good and he's, he's, you know, he's sometimes good. Sometimes he's a little more complicated in the book. Yeah.
Sonny00:31:02Well, in this movie, he's actually kind of, well, and this brings me to the third problem with the movie, but we'll get to that in a second. Um, so anyway, the, the, the, the, the problem with this film is that the, the whole thing is centered around a magical wishing stone, um, the, the actualities of which I don't understand in any way. There's this whole like monkey's paw. You gotta be careful what you wish for element to it. Except sometimes there's no, there's no drawbacks. To the wishes. And then once Maxwell Lord, who's played by the Mandalorian absorbs, uh, the, the energy of the stone and becomes the wish granting thing, he can choose whether or not to take things from people. There's no, it doesn't make any sense. It's just magic and magic is always dumb in these movies. And it just, it, there, it obeys no rules and therefore sucks. Um, yeah. So, uh, while all of this is happening. Uh, wonder woman makes friends with Kristen wig, uh, who turns into a cheetah lady, uh, by the end of the movie for some reason. Um, and it's all just kind of terrible and bad and, uh, and, and it ends not with a big battle as people tell us, but with a prayer for peace, except it ends with a big battle and ends. This is the stupidest line of praise I've seen for this movie where they're like, it's trying to do something different. It's trying to end without a big fight between the hero and the villain, but it ends with a big fight with the hero and the villain, and then there's just kind of a code at the end. It does what the dark. Night did except much, much worse. That's what it comes down to. It's like a much shittier version of the dark nights ending. Um, I dunno, man, it sucked. I didn't, I didn't care for it. And, uh, I thought the, uh, special effects sequences were all kind of terrible. I could imagine the flying through the fireworks scene, um, that we get after 30 minutes of Steve Trevor ripping off captain America's fish out of water, out of time, a bit from the Marvel movies. Um, I could see. See that being, being kind of wonderful on IMAX, but watching it at home, it's just like, okay, this it's all right. This is all fake and lame. Um, and there's no sound design here enveloping me and the fireworks that I'm sure are going off all around in the, in the Dolby Atmos that I should be watching
JVL00:33:12this and that's really an endowment of your own home theater set up as well. That's true. That's true.
Sonny00:33:16I gotta, I gotta work on that. I gotta work on that. I don't know, man. Uh, it, it's not good. It's not, it's not ideal. The, the, the only character with a real arc in this film. Is the villain, um, the, uh, the Mandalorian, uh, slash Pedro Pascal slash Maxwell Lord, um, who realizes that he just has to be a good dad, I guess. Uh, is that what, what happened at the end? I don't know. Pass hard pass.
JVL00:33:41So tenant is the third best movie of the year, but you hated wonder woman 84. Mary Catherine. So I, do you want to start with the quadrants or do you want to work your way up?
Sonny00:33:55Get to the quadrants.
Guest00:33:56I quite enjoyed this film for about an hour. And, but here's why about 45 minutes in, I was like, I think I'm watching a Hallmark movie about gal and Chris pine. They're going on a, they have a wacky makeover scene where he's wearing different outfits. Uh, they go on a tour of DC. They're seeing the sites. They go on a fighter jet tour of fireworks, which inexplicably, neither of them knew it was the fourth, but anyway, then yeah, has is, is, is Steve
Sonny00:34:31Trevor supposed to have like never seen fireworks before he wasn't born in the 16 hundreds didn't, he didn't live in like, he's not unfrozen caveman lawyer. But like, I think it was never from the air.
Guest00:34:44I, I liked these two together and I've enjoyed watching them. And then we came to a wonder woman lassoing an RPG and picking up the children. And I just thought. Okay, I think I'm out now about, and then it, it got progressively worse, uh, from there, but it was worth having Chris Pine just in both of these. I really enjoyed the first one or woman, the end of this wonder woman made me wonder whether the first one was actually as good as I remembered it. Cause I really enjoyed it. I cried at the end of that movie and this one, go ahead.
Sonny00:35:18Well, that movie, I mean, another problem with this movie is that it does kind of, it tries to hit all of the same beats again, and it just does it much, much better. Much more poorly. I mean, like remember the first, you know, after they leave a paradise Island or whatever, whatever it's called, um, in the first one, they, they, they have that whole fish out of water sequence with Gal Gadot and trying on different clothes, trying on different clothes and like meeting a baby, like the baby that was it, but now it's
JVL00:35:47like trying on different clothes and being ridiculous.
Sonny00:35:49Yeah. Now it's Chris Pine being like, whoa, the future. Well, I would, I'm so out. I'm not, I'm not supposed to be here.
Guest00:35:55I did. I did think there was one thing that succeeded both times. So there's one Chris Pine line in each of these movies that maybe laugh out loud. The one, the first time was when she asks, are all men from your world like you? And he says, I'm above average. And he delivers it so perfectly. And in this one, I enjoyed the line where he's, or she says, you found me in the phone book and he says, I guess some things are just future-proof. And so I appreciate him enough that he, they got me through an hour and then woo baby, by the way, a very 2020 take on this. Pedro Pascal, better with a face covering. Oh, poor Pedro, just like as an actor, I find him totally compelling as the Mandalorian and then this, I was like, Ooh, that's a lot going on, man.
Sonny00:36:38Can somebody explain to me why they went with the quantum leap style, um, Steve Trevor in some other guy's body thing to, can anyone explain that to me?
Guest00:36:48What does that poor guy do while Steve is occupying his body? Well, I, he didn't make a way out of it.
JVL00:36:55I wish no, can anybody else see him as Steve Trevor? Or is it, are we just looking at him through her eyes through the entire movie?
Sonny00:37:03Well, she, even she sees him as the other guy. She just like thinks to herself, okay, you're Steve Trevor. So it's, it's fine. Like he sees himself in the mirror as Steve Trevor. We see him as Steve Trevor, but everybody else, including, uh, uh, wonder woman sees him as this other guy. Cause remember she recognizes him when he comes out of the building, right?
JVL00:37:25Maybe. Yeah, I don't know. Uh, I don't know.
Sonny00:37:29There were, there were times to the end of the movie. JBL. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Did you make it to the mid credit scene?
JVL00:37:37Oh, I didn't know there was one. Tell me what happens.
Guest00:37:42I didn't realize there was a, uh, well, uh, if you stick around long enough, if you're not angry at the, at the end of the movie, uh, you will see a wonder woman looking woman walking through a street and she saves a baby by holding up a giant, I don't know, Tim piece of timber or something. That's falling. Um, she has sort of a blue Cape and dark, thick hair. Uh, and a woman runs up to say, thank you for saving my baby. And she turns around and it's a stereo. Is that her name? The stereo, the woman who we thought was killed in her sacrificially at some point, and she's played by Linda Carter.
Sonny00:38:19And it was, I like thumbs down, thumbs down on that. Yes. Cheap nostalgia. No, again, this goes, this is like, that's a very bad.
Guest00:38:29It also, it also speaks to how bad the end of the movie was that when I got there, I was like, that made me feel better.
Sonny00:38:36Yeah.
Guest00:38:37By the way, there were music cues in this movie that I could tell were telling me I should have emotions or telling me that I should understand the implications of what was going on, but none of it made sense.
JVL00:38:50Yeah. You know, I'm so glad you mentioned that Mary Catherine, because I thought from very early on all the way through the movie, that this is the worst Hans Zimmer score I can ever remember hearing.
Sonny00:39:05It's like they left the temp track in.
JVL00:39:07Yeah. I mean, the score was cartoonish almost in how weirdly it is as if you went into SoundCloud or one of these clip art, you know, RL clip art things and just look for superhero music. You know, this is what you would, I was really. Shocked by how poorly he served this project.
Sonny00:39:28No, to the extent that they literally reuse, uh, Adagio and D minor, which is like a very famous track from the movie sunshine, um, that Hans Zimmer did not score that's a, that's a John Murphy score, uh, and they just, they just slapped it in here. It's like, what is, what are you doing? Yeah. What are you doing with us?
JVL00:39:46So Mary Catherine, so we're quadrant this out for me. What do you, did you like it? Did you not like it?
Guest00:39:53So the, well, the quadrant, sorry. You guys are helping me with this in case I forget a quadrant.
JVL00:39:58No, no, your own quadrants. You don't, you are not bound by Victorino's quadrant, but Vic and I have someone not have to make a sex and nudity quadrant here because he's a pervert.
Guest00:40:07That's true. But Vic and I have similar, uh, careful movie tastes, I think, which is.
JVL00:40:14And where are you on widows?
Guest00:40:16I actually haven't seen widows. Okay. It's a little on the nose for me. Um,
JVL00:40:23wait, we went to a dark place there.
Sonny00:40:25Yeah, it's going to pull that one back.
Guest00:40:27It's fine. Um, but no, I'm going to just, I'll do Vic's quadrants real quickly. Um, because I think the one that's important to me is like, well, duration.
JVL00:40:38Yeah.
Sonny00:40:40How is this two and a half hours? How is this movie?
JVL00:40:42Two and a half hours long. I can tell you how it's two and a half hours long because it needs 50 minutes
Sonny00:40:48of Chris Pine dicking around DC.
JVL00:40:50No, because they shoehorned the Barbara Minerva storyline in there, which has absolutely fuck all to do with. Anything that is happening in the main story. The movie is trying to tell the character of Barbara Minerva does not belong in this film period. The end.
Sonny00:41:07I don't know. Explain to us what Barbara Minerva is in the common Barbara Minerva is the cheetah.
JVL00:41:13The cheetah is wonder woman's signature foe. She is, she is the joker to, to wonder woman's Batman, uh, and she has been done in ways which are incredibly stupid and also in ways which are really quite interesting. And here she is done kind of stupidly, but that's not the problem. The problem is that her character is totally extraneous. This is like two face in Batman forever. Right? This is, this is the whole movie. I actually kept thinking that it felt like the nineties Batman franchise where we are back in a sequel, which we don't really need. Where they're trying to hit the same beats that they did before. And we have one too many villains who is ancillary to the story that is trying to tell, and, uh, and I just don't even understand why it's there. And again, you take her out and that's 45 minutes of our life. We get back, you know, you're down to an hour and a half movie and maybe that's why it's there, right? They decided we have to have somebody who looks like a super villain in a way that max Lord doesn't right. I mean, Maggie, Maggie. Max Lord is just, he's it's like a cross between Bernie Madoff and the, uh, you know, the Somalia grifter, you know, the guy who stole all the wine from famous DC people and, uh, and you know, like it's not sexy as a villain, although I think it's actually quite interesting.
Sonny00:42:44Yeah.
JVL00:42:44I like very much the idea of max Lord as of this sort of villain, the idea of taking the monkey's paw and having it embodied, you know, and made. Flesh into a person. That's a really interesting idea.
Sonny00:42:58Question. Would this movie have been salvageable if instead of having Chris pine come back and essentially be wonder woman sidekick again, they had that role filled by Barbara Minerva's character and she secretly wishes that she was more like wonder woman and as the movie progresses, she gets more and more of the powers. And then at the end of it. Nor near the end, uh, wonder woman is essentially presented with the, the Austrian bargain, what's your wish and she thinks of Steve Trevor and he appears and he's in the movie for like five minutes and that's it no, no, I will tell
JVL00:43:34you, I don't think that would be in a moment, but I, I've interrupted Mary Catherine who is going to quadrant.
Guest00:43:39I will also, I I'll say to you, I, I liked Kristen Wiig playing Barbara Minerva, but I, her heel turn and the whole thing wasn't developed very much because you had to be doing max Lord and I think I would have enjoyed it. Uh, if I had seen that developed, I like her as an actress and I sort of enjoyed her at the beginning.
JVL00:43:59Again, I'm not blaming Kristen Wiig for any of this. It's a story problem.
Guest00:44:03People were done dirty in this, in this script.
Sonny00:44:07Again, I think if you could, if you could watch her evolve as like Wonder Woman sidekick and then like, she starts doing shit that's bad and evil and you're like, oh wait, she's, she's, she's got, she's losing her sanity as, as a Wonder Woman tells us.
Guest00:44:20So wait, what else is on the course duration? And then we have, um, plot. Uh, because the monkey's pod didn't make any sense about what its actual consequences were. I kept trying to puzzle that out and maybe Vic would have just let it wash over him, but I kept trying to put the logic together and it was very frustrating. And, uh, so I give that a thumbs down too, which means that next we have sex and nudity, which is almost none. Although I really enjoy both Chris Pine and Gal Gadot. So maybe I'll just give that one's a thumbs up and keep a chase, um, cause I don't don't, I don't need what Vic needs in a movie and violence, eh, nothing really
Sonny00:45:01creative, so terrible, the action sequences in this movie are all terrible. Yeah.
JVL00:45:06Yeah. That was really one of the things that surprised me because there are a couple, I mean, the first wonder woman's final sequence is terrible. It's just generic CGI battle. However, some of the smaller stuff, especially in like the alley in London, right. Is really wonderfully done. Right. So when they are ambushed in the alley in London and Chris Pine doesn't quite understand what she is yet. Right. And she's just, you know, whooping ass and moving faster than bullets. That's really nice work just as a, you know, directorly thing. It's showing us something that's actually a little bit different and is enjoyable to watch. And this has none of that anywhere.
Sonny00:45:51It's like, I know man's land sequences a million times better. Than anything in this movie sequence is fabulous.
JVL00:45:57Right.
Sonny00:45:57From, from like, from the, from her moving across no man's land to like the house to house battle where you see again, where you see like the strength of the Amazons, that's always been, you know, like, it's not, they're not like nimble and agile. I mean, they are, but like, that's not where they're, they're, they're not. You know, when she's like busting through walls and stuff, that's like, okay. Yeah, this is good. This is good and interesting. Or the assault, the assault, the German assault on the beach, uh, at the mascara, right, is like a great, a great sequence. I, you know, I don't have any inside information or anything here, but I will suggest that not having Zack Snyder on hand to ghost direct your action sequences is probably, uh, you know, no, I, if I had to guess, I had to guess is probably a reason that your, your action sequences aren't going to look as good.
JVL00:46:47I can't believe you said that. So the problem is that Patty Jenkins didn't have a man there to clean her up.
Sonny00:46:53No comments. On that, no comments on that. Wow.
Guest00:46:57All right. So, so what do you, why was it said in 1984? Is that just no idea?
JVL00:47:02No reason. I can tell you why. Do you want to know why? Cause of guardians of the galaxy?
Sonny00:47:06No, no, no, no.
JVL00:47:07The reason he came out and like, people went crazy for period stuff in the eighties. And then we had captain Marvel set the nineties as a period piece.
Sonny00:47:15People like, Hey, no, no, no, no, no, that's not it. The reason why is solely because of DCEU nonsense. They couldn't set it after justice league. Um, and they couldn't, they couldn't set it. They, they couldn't, they had to set it after it could have been literally any time between 19, 19 and 2017 or whatever. I mean, it could have been literally anywhere in that, that, that stretch.
JVL00:47:38And that's the only reason we have the entire landmark mall sequence is because they have the conceit of this happening in 1984, right?
Sonny00:47:45They want it to look like stranger things.
JVL00:47:47Yeah. It's a, that was really bad. So can I defend parts of the movie? Sure. Go for it. Gal Gadot is not a great actress, but she was born for this part. She's wonderful as Wonder Woman, and it has nothing to do with her acting. It's the magnetism she has. Because the key to Wonder Woman is the Diana Prince part of it. And what Godot does is she just walks with this total quiet confidence and she holds herself really still. Like she's got a secret and she knows nobody else can ever find it out. But even if they did find it out, that'd be fine too. You know, like it's just, it's she's great. She's great in it. And she sells the idea. And again, this is such, this is very much a Canon Wonder Woman. The Canon Wonder Woman is the Wonder Woman who wants to save people because she's good. And, and, and she loves the world. I actually prefer the. The version of Wonder Woman, which is a little more hard edged, like the Darwin cook new frontier or, and more feminist, to be honest, like the Greg Rocca, uh, Hecatea, which is Wonder Woman is doing all this business of saving stuff because she's duty bound to do it and she is not super happy about it. She's incredibly Royal in the sense that she kind of holds herself above the rest of the world because she's better than the rest of the world and she knows it. And she does this stuff cause she has to. Uh, and she really hates the bad guys. You know, she's not looking to redeem people. She's much more dark. Now I prefer that Wonder Woman, but I love the, what Gal Gadot does with this version of it. And I thought the entire second act was great. Exactly. As Mary captain said, I, as she was running around with Steve Trevor, I was so happy to be in that movie that I thought to myself, would I really want to, is I want a Wonder Woman movie where she and Steve Trevor are on vacation and at some resort in the Caribbean and there's a murder and they have to solve the murder and there's never any crime fighting, there's never any superpowers. There's like, they just good news. They're having adventures and together because the two of them together are just super fun. It's good. Good news.
Sonny00:50:17She's in the, she's in the, um, murder on the Orient, uh, sequel, but I don't think Chris Potter.
JVL00:50:24Pine is sadly, uh, and she plays Lynette in, in, uh, in death on the Nile. Anyway, so that's, I, I just, as long as the two of them are on screen together, having fun, the audience is having fun, right? And it does, even if it doesn't really serve the story, it doesn't serve the
Sonny00:50:40story, it doesn't serve the plot. It just, this is why the movie is two and a half hours long is because the best part of it, the most like fun to watch part does actually nothing for the story.
JVL00:50:49Well, but the problem is you take that out and the movie is dog shit. Right?
Sonny00:50:54The movie's dog shit anyway. No, there are parts of it that are enjoyable to watch.
JVL00:50:59Again, I think it's a C movie.
Guest00:51:01I really, I really enjoyed the beginning. I was watching with my brother and we were both like, are we supposed to be angry yet? And then about an hour and 15 and I was like, now I'm mad now. I'm now I'm out.
JVL00:51:11Yeah, I, you know, I, and the other thing about it is I really like the idea of, I mean, her, her big, the conflict for wonder woman is the idea. Of letting go of her wish because she's so selfless that she, you know, she, the idea of why can't I just have this one nice thing? You know, I do everything for everybody else. Why can't I have this one? That's a great internal conflict for her. I, I, I like that a lot. I like the max Lord, the idea of, you know, the bringing the entire world to his end. Let me tell you how to fix third act, please. So, uh, so the key to this is that she should, the cheetah should not be there. There should be no bar. I remember, uh, wonder woman realizes that the power of chaos is so great that there is literally nothing that can be done to stop it. Um, she can't stop what's happening. Uh, she can't, Superman could not even stop, right? The whole world has gone mad because of this crazy wish stuff. But what she does is she's wonder woman. She just loves people and she's trying to save people and she winds up saving his kid because the kid is in danger. And when she saves the kid, the kid. And wishes to have his dad back. And that that is what ends the whole thing.
Sonny00:52:28Boom, the end, but the kid does wish to have his dad back, but that's not what the kid, the kid wishes to have his dad back and his dad doesn't come back.
JVL00:52:36Right? Wait, the problem with this kid wishes to have the same powers as his dad and doesn't get them. Did you notice that?
Guest00:52:43Yeah, the kid has two wishes and they're both not operative, not fulfilled.
JVL00:52:47Yes. So this is, this is the way that the movie should have, should have. And so wonder woman. Why is up saving the world inadvertently because she's trying to do good in the world. This is, it fits the mission of everything. It fits the character. Sure.
Sonny00:53:01That would have been a million times better than what we got.
JVL00:53:03This is how we could have, could have fixed wonder woman 1984. Also, we could have just set it like today.
Guest00:53:09Yeah.
JVL00:53:09You know, like Superman is off doing Superman stuff. Like why, why can't this is again, Marvel understands this. Like the answer is why can't we get somebody wish Superman out of existence?
Sonny00:53:22You just have a Lex Luthor wish Superman. Out of existence.
Guest00:53:25Also, do people only get one wishes? Do they get one?
JVL00:53:29Do they only get one? Do they get multiple?
Guest00:53:31I thought it was just one. I was.
Sonny00:53:33You only get one. Cause remember there's the scene, there's the shot where he asked somebody what his wish is and the guy is like, and then he's like, oh wait, did I ask you for your wish yesterday? He's like, yes.
Guest00:53:41Except, uh, Chris, uh, Barbara Minerva gets two wishes. And is that because the first was the stone and the second was him as the stone?
JVL00:53:51I know Barbara and Minerva's first wish. Is to be more like Diana, but then she wishes, she says that thing on the
Guest00:53:58plane and then she becomes right.
JVL00:54:01So she gets two wishes.
Sonny00:54:02Again, it's the internal logic of it is smashed because magic is bad and dumb. Magic shouldn't be in anything.
JVL00:54:09And also if, if you have to have Barbara Minerva in it, exactly as you said, Mary Catherine, her, her evilness is not earned. Like suddenly she's just evil because right. And this is, you know, it doesn't. She's fascinated by apex predators.
Guest00:54:25All of a sudden she wasn't bullied. She didn't seem like a bullied nerd who was simmering with rage at all. There was none of that there.
JVL00:54:36And in fact, Diana was like, you know, the one person who was like a gal pal for it. Right. They, you know, Diana calls her and says, I need help finding this stuff. And she's like, yeah, let me go. This is why actually, Sonny, I liked the idea of, if you're gonna have Barbara Minerva, have her be, uh, you know, Diana's bestie who. Comes to learn her secret or something and does. Yes.
Sonny00:54:55If you have her in the movie, if you have to have her in the movie, you give her the, the Chris Pine role. I mean like that, that both moves the plot forward and it like allows. Kristen wig to do something with the character other than have her, you know, change on a dime.
JVL00:55:11If Chris Pine isn't in this movie, it's absolutely lifeless.
Guest00:55:17And poor Steve has to go twice for, yeah.
JVL00:55:23Uh, so it's, uh, I don't know.
Sonny00:55:25It's not, I'm excited to see how they bring them back for the third one. Frankly, can we get a, can we get mixes in there and then have them, have them wish, wish Chris Pine back.
JVL00:55:35It's funny is that Steve Trevor is absolutely part of the DC universe in lots of different ways. In, in the whole DC superhero girls stuff. He's just like one of the guys hanging out. This is a little too early for both of you, but you will get there in about two years.
Sonny00:55:51Oh, no, we're there. I'm there. This is great. Yeah. Yeah. Right. D he just hanging out at the, the DC superhero high.
JVL00:55:57Right. And I don't know. I, whatever.
Guest00:56:00I thought it was, I have a dumb question.
JVL00:56:03Yeah.
Guest00:56:03Can wonder woman fly?
JVL00:56:05Yes.
Guest00:56:06I was like, was that always the case? Yes. I thought she only had the plane. I just, I didn't realize that that was, did you guys, did you guys love the fact
Sonny00:56:14that they made it so that a man had to fly wonder woman's invisible jet?
JVL00:56:19I, uh, you know what I liked, I L I actually liked the way they I thought earned her power of flight. I thought that was lovely. And I really liked the, uh, the fireworks thing.
Sonny00:56:32Honestly, I thought it was, I thought that I that's the, that is the only sequence that I watched and I was like, I bet that actually plays really well on a big screen. I like, I was like, I bet that actually plays really, really well in a theater. That, that feels like a big spectacular moment, but all the other action stuff seemed cheap, just like, like it was shot cheaply and quickly and with no real care. Um, and I, like, I, I, I, I, I, the, the, the whole highway chase sequence is the sort of thing that I kind of enjoy intellectually just because I like enjoy watching, you know, this, uh, Gal Gadot who is played, who is, who is playing wonder woman here, who is an actual IDF vet, like kick the shit out of some tin pot, Arab dictators, security force. Uh, who wishes for like the, the colonial, the, what the colonizers to be pushed into the seat, like there's something actually like darkly amusing and kind of tricky there that they got away with, um, that the, the left is like just starting to realize, and I'm like seeing the think pieces pop up now about how terrible this was, but like the, the, uh, that, that is all very amusing, but like the, the actual action sequence itself is just so lame and boring.
Guest00:57:42I like, there were, there were several moments where I thought to myself or said out loud, if Gal Gadot can not make this look good, it can't look good. Something has gone very wrong.
JVL00:57:51Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I agree. And this is true in literally every action series sequence in the film.
Sonny00:57:59Uh, the one thing, the one thing I will say that I did like, I liked the, uh, the idea that being an intern in the white house gives you the confidence to hit on wonder woman, like that is, cuz that's actually very true to DC. There's like, there's, there, there are a number of little things that are actually very good about DC in this movie. That's one of them, like the actual geography of it all. Um, is very good. Like her, her working at your shout out on Alexandria.
JVL00:58:23It was right.
Sonny00:58:23Like, like it, it actually, like, it actually all kind of works out. Like they, they have a scene in the actual DC Metro. Um, one minor gaffe that I, that I caught, there was a silver line badge, uh, on the end, but also there was a green line badge or the green line didn't open until like 91 or 92 or something like that. Um, so like little things like that, but like, it was actually nice to see something that was like clearly actually shot in the DC Metro. I was like, oh, that's not Toronto. That's nice.
JVL00:58:51All right. Anything else from. Wonder Woman 84. Is there, can I ask a quick question? Cause you guys are on the Twitters. Is there, is there controversy about this? Is there, are there woke wars about this? Are people getting canceled for their views one way or another on Wonder Woman?
Sonny00:59:06There was a fight, uh, on film Twitter because somebody pointed out rightly that like the initial run of reviews, uh, were from sites like nerd reactor and slash film and IGN and the, the initial like rotten tomato score was like 88% or something like that. And it's all the way down to 62 or 63% right now and might get to rotten by, by the end of the week. So there was, there was some controversy there because, because like, because real critics were like, well, this is what happens when you give it to a bunch of like fake nerd sites and the fake nerd sites were like, we're real critics too. We're real toys. Love us.
JVL00:59:45All right. Spirit of the week in honor of my mother-in-law, Peggy Jane, I am drinking Baileys and soda. Not really Baileys and soda though. Kirkland Irish County cream and giant brand club soda. And I've now had about seven of them and it's amazing. And I'm just like thinking about hiking.
Guest01:00:04I will try this, but I can't imagine that it's good.
JVL01:00:08You should wait until you're 70.
Guest01:00:11Okay.
JVL01:00:11I think once you're a 70 year old grandmother, you will age into this drink and you will love it.
Sonny01:00:18JVL is 70 in spirit. Always.
JVL01:00:21Santino, what are you drinking?
Sonny01:00:22Just an old fashioned Buffalo trace. Old fashioned.
JVL01:00:26Mary Catherine.
Guest01:00:26Was it just a, I am a, that is a, whatever Pino. My dad opened upstairs. So thanks dad.
JVL01:00:34Yeah. Corrections, additions, shout outs. Anyone. All right. And I'll do it to Mary Catherine ham for coming on. While I, you know, I should have asked you to come up with a gene review for us. That would have been. That would have been okay.
Sonny01:00:54Wonder woman or like blunder woman.
JVL01:01:00Cheetah. She's the cat's meow.
Guest01:01:04I think you guys, you guys nailed it.
Sonny01:01:07I don't even, I have nothing for Max Lord.
JVL01:01:09That's all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments. Tweet us at Sonny Bunch at MK Hammer. Although you should just thank her or leave a comment. Yeah. Okay. Sure. There too. At subbeacon.com. We're there. Tell your friends. Until next time.
Sonny01:01:35I actually have one. I have one for Max Lord. A Jean, a Jean Max Lord. Max Lord. This is set in 1984. Shouldn't it be Fax Lord? I just came up with that. That was me. After a giant old fashioned.
JVL01:01:52That's pretty cool. That's pretty good.
Sonny01:01:53I'll use my lasso of truth. Sorry.
JVL01:01:58I'd like to see her wonders. You guys have anything?
Sonny01:02:05Not really. I have a dishwasher question.
JVL01:02:08Yeah.
Sonny01:02:08Here we go. So I had a wooden spoon fall off of the top rack and onto the heater coil.
JVL01:02:16Okay.
Sonny01:02:17Of my dishwasher. Has this ever happened to you?
JVL01:02:20Well, no, because I don't put wooden implementations. Into a dishwasher because I'm not a farmer.
Sonny01:02:24Why wouldn't you? Do you not put? Am I wrong here? Mary Catherine?
JVL01:02:29What if I was in a dishwasher? Yeah, would never, ever, ever, ever.
Guest01:02:33I do it sometimes. But if it's only if I have something cheap that I'm not worried about losing because it will crack or it will fall onto the thing.
Sonny01:02:40It's a wooden spoon. Wait, it's not. Wooden spoons don't cost more than like $3, right?
Guest01:02:45I put mine in the dishwasher, but I understand the concern.
JVL01:02:47No, it's not about cost. It's about so wood is porous and it absorbs. Or things, especially when it gets hot. And so you do in the same way you season wooden bowls, right? Or you see you season your wooden spoon the same way you really wouldn't put cast iron because you season these.
Sonny01:03:05Yeah, right. Well, cast iron is like an actual like cast iron is different than the wooden spoon, which again costs like $2.
JVL01:03:12It's not about the cost of it. It's that, you know, you put it in and you're essentially bleaching the thing. And then while you're bleaching it, pushing in, God knows what all the other. Yeah. Uh, yeah. And chemicals into it. It's a, you take your wooden spoon out. Uh, when you're done using it, you wash it out under more hot water, you know, with, with your hand, you scrub it off. And speaking of my hand, not, not with your hands, using a sponge, uh, you don't use anything other than maybe a tiny bit of dish soap. And then you let it dry.
Guest01:03:42There you go.
Sonny01:03:43Anyway, I was asking because I had one fall off the top rack and onto the burner, like the heat oil, and it like literally burned all the way through it. And now my, uh, now my, the inside. Of my dishwasher smells kind of like a barbecue pit. It's got like a little, it's got like a little wooden Oki flavor to it. It doesn't, it hasn't actually like none of the dishes come out smelling like barbecue chips. Oh, it's too bad. Cause I was going to say, put your old fashioned glass in there and then you'll have, but no, it would actually, I wish I wish, but it's definitely a, so I was, I was curious if anybody else had had that happen, but apparently I don't know how to do my dishes. So I got my wood spoons in there.
JVL01:04:19Well, I'm going to take us out of here. I bragging. Myself a little bit. Do it. Santa brought my girls a gigantic trampoline.
Sonny01:04:31Oh, I saw some pictures of this.
JVL01:04:3315 feet by nine feet tubular steel. It's a rectangle. It is large and in charge. It came in three boxes, each of which weighed in excess of 150 pounds.
Guest01:04:47Jeez.
JVL01:04:48And, uh, how he got it down the chimney and into my family room. I will. You'll never know, but I built this thing in the freezing cold. Go ahead. Give me, give me a time over under.
Sonny01:05:03Wait, it's not 70 degrees in Northern Virginia right now.
JVL01:05:06No. On the day after Christmas, it was like 25 degrees.
Guest01:05:09They get bikes and warm weather paradise. Thermoskia or whatever. Yeah.
JVL01:05:16Paradise Island. I came in just under three hours.
Guest01:05:19That is very impressive. Look at that.
JVL01:05:21Yeah. I felt so butch. I felt like I might be an Amazon myself.
Sonny01:05:28I'm sure it's fine.
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