#16. 'I Care a Lot'
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The main film is I Care a Lot, the Netflix crime thriller starring Rosamund Pike as Marla Grayson, a court-appointed guardian who runs a scam seizing control of wealthy elderly people's finances and severing them from their families. Sonny's big-boy review frames it as a stinging indictment of a legal system that can leave people with zero recourse (the Britney Spears conservatorship is the real-world echo), and calls Pike terrifying — JVL declares Marla the most frightening screen character since Pike's own Amy Dunne in Gone Girl, and admits he spent the movie praying John Wick or Peter Dinklage's Russian mobster would just kill her. Dinklage is the only character anyone roots for; Dianne Wiest steals scenes as the "wrong target" mother who reveals hidden menace. They dig into the film's ideas — Sonny defends the much-hated back-half tonal shift as consistent, and JVL reads it as a portrait of toxic feminism (a mirror image of Birds of Prey's toxic masculinity) and of capitalism fused with state power, agreeing the "layer cake" ending where Marla finally dies is the only thing keeping the audience from rioting. Vic scores it A-minus on the quadrants. The hangout opens on the false Variety report that Emma Watson retired at 30 (Vic's brief grief, Sonny's quick debunk, and the theory that Lily James has quietly supplanted her), a preview of the coming Snyder Cut episode via the fawning Vanity Fair piece and the Whedon/Gal Gadot mistreatment rumors, and updates on Vic's 1984 read and JVL's son Flash's guitar and rising fastball.
From the show notes
This week the guys were moved—some might say terrified!—by the new Netflix Original, I Care a Lot . Rosamund Pike is more evil in this movie than anyone has been onscreen since Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl ! Plus: Vic mourns a loss. A preview of the Snyder Cut coverage to come. And a 1984 update! All that and more on this week's episode of the Sub-Beacon.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00My name is Marla Grayson. I'm just someone who cares. Marla Grayson, you've had amazing success. What's your secret? There is no secret, Peter. She forces them into the home, auctions off their house. And uses the proceeds to pay herself. Because caring is my job. I will grab your dick and balls and I will rip them clean off.
JVL00:00:30Hello, everyone, 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 store where you can buy Sub-Beacon merch. Ranging from onesies to headings. If you want to make shirts, just visit tpublic.com and search Sub-Beacon. You'll easily find us, buy some shirts, tell your friends to subscribe. Come and hang out in the comments at subbeacon.com. Victorino.
Vic00:01:15JVL.
JVL00:01:16Buddy, you okay?
Vic00:01:18I'm doing fine. Why are you asking?
JVL00:01:19I'm worried. Really? Oh, no.
Vic00:01:21Bad news. Bad news.
JVL00:01:23I'm worried. Today, the news broke that Emma Watson Mm-hmm. Human rights ambassador, fashion icon.
Vic00:01:33She is.
JVL00:01:34Ivy League graduate.
Vic00:01:35Oh, mm.
JVL00:01:37Has retired from acting.
Vic00:01:39At the ripe old age of 30.
JVL00:01:45Are you holding up okay, buddy?
Vic00:01:47You know, I could always see her in her best roles. That's the good thing. You know, let's see, Beauty and the Beast.
JVL00:01:54The Circle. The Circle. Beauty and the Beast. Do you remember the Perks? Your laminated Beauty and the Beast. Yeah, I do. For new listeners, that is one of the all-time great episodes.
Vic00:02:06That's a deep pull, so to speak. And she was in a movie called, like, The Perks of Being a Wildflower, all of which were teases, by the way.
JVL00:02:17More of a tug than a pull.
Vic00:02:19No, but it's like, you know, she's calling it--
Sonny00:02:22The bling ring.
Vic00:02:23The bling ring. Yes, and of course, the Sorcerer's Stone. But she's calling it quits. You know, at this age. And I'm like, where was her havoc? That's my Anne Hathaway reference. You know, don't you have to do that before you--
Sonny00:02:37I've got great news for you.
Vic00:02:39Please, Sonny.
Sonny00:02:40She's not actually retiring. This was a fake news report in the fake news media. She is not done with acting. There's still time for her to make her havoc. Good, thank you.
JVL00:02:51Are you serious, Sonny?
Sonny00:02:53Yeah, no, it was-- What? Fake news. Not retiring.
JVL00:02:57Her havoc, her bully, or her bound. Oh, bound.
Sonny00:03:02One of the three.
Vic00:03:04There's a-- Well, okay. I was going to mention bound later because, yes, but--
JVL00:03:10False alarm. False alarm.
Vic00:03:12But you know what? I imagine for her it must be very difficult because I feel like all of her roles are now being taken by Lily James. You like that? Yes.
JVL00:03:26I just saw a trailer on Netflix for-- Well, Lily James can act. Yeah.
Sonny00:03:30Lily James is a good actress. So-- How dare you? So that makes sense.
Vic00:03:34How dare you say that about her? Makes sense that this would happen. She is in this Netflix, dare I call it, content, The Dig with Ralph Fiennes, and she's there again. And she was also in that other movie that I feel like went straight-- Manc. Yes, Manc. Manc. And also the movie that went straight to-- The movie that went straight to streaming, which was-- Oh, what was that movie that she was-- Oh, The Guernsey Project movie. Again, there she is. And of course, she was in Yesterday, which was in theaters. She is everywhere. And I just feel like this should have been her.
JVL00:04:13Lily James did to Emma Watson what Keira Knightley did to Natalie Portman.
Vic00:04:22I'm Ron Burgundy.
JVL00:04:24I remember Keira Knightley was Natalie Portman's stand-in.
Vic00:04:28She played the fake Padme.
JVL00:04:31And then all of a sudden, she turns out to be a gifted actress who's getting all these-- She's a beanpole tomboy sexpot.
Sonny00:04:37But Keira Knightley never supplanted Natalie Portman. I feel like they had a--
JVL00:04:42Natalie Portman just stopped doing good work. And Keira Knightley became a legit star who was a very good actress.
Sonny00:04:48Natalie Portman won an Oscar while Keira Knightley was making Pirates of the Caribbean. Let's not get nuts here.
Vic00:04:56Natalie Portman also did one of the great Quadrant movies of all time, Black Swan.
Sonny00:05:00Black Swan, great movie. Great Quadrant. Really? That worked on confusion for you? Oh, no. No, it didn't.
Vic00:05:06But the other category, whatever category that was, was A++++++ and sort of counterbalance.
JVL00:05:14The length category. Is that the one you're talking about? Yeah, that's the one I was talking about. Duration.
Sonny00:05:18Solid duration. Hour 55 minutes. That's right.
JVL00:05:21Vic is like, "It was a seven hour movie." Vic is like, "It was a seven minute movie. What are you talking about?"
Sonny00:05:25I've seen the clips on Dailymotion. It's fine. That's all I need to see. It's not that long. That's the movie.
JVL00:05:30It's not that long. What? There was ballet? What?
Sonny00:05:32No, but Emma Watson, not done. She's still with us. Good. She's still with us. Thank goodness.
JVL00:05:37You know, this was not a bit. I thought it was real.
Vic00:05:39Me too. I mean, you said the thing and it was in the papers, as they say. The papers.
JVL00:05:46So you're good, Vic. Everything's okay?
Vic00:05:49I am. Otherwise, I am fine. Are you dry tonight? Tonight, I am. Actually, my mouth is actually cotton mouth dry. But we had a lovely Saturday night. So our friend, Mary Catherine Hamm, a very nice fan of hers who works at a very prestigious winery in California, the David Arthur Winery in Napa, sent her two bottles of very, very expensive Cabernet, really even beyond my price point. And so she thought
Sonny00:06:27They sent her a $25 bottle of Cabernet.
Vic00:06:30They sent her a bottle of Red Bicycle. And she said, well, she likes wine, but it seemed like it was larger than a 750-milliliter bottle, right? It was close to a liter. It was not quite a Magnum or something, but it was larger. And so she thought, who could I share this with? Because I don't want it just to be, you know, sometimes the bottle's too much for one person. Barefoot makes those big versions. Barefoot makes those big bottles, too. You can even get them in a box. You can even get them in a box. Franzia.
Sonny00:07:00She got a jug of table wine.
Vic00:07:02That's right. That's what she got. Yes. And so she kindly said, oh, well, me, I would, of course, appreciate a fine wine. And so she asked, perhaps she could bring one of those bottles over. And I would, of course, supply dinner. So I was put on your French maid outfit and went right to the kitchen. I did make I made a Bordelais sauce, which is involving I chopped up cremini mushrooms and red wine and did all that stuff, shallots, of course. And I just made a roast. And and then she and her lovely manly husband came over and we finished that bottle and the estate for several hours. And so, you know, I said, whatever you want, you all she likes martini sauce. I give her martinis and things like that. So I gave her martinis. And in the middle of it, she decided to tweet out a picture of her on her second martini, said, you know, getting my whatever. She had said something to the effect of second martinis with Vic Mattis. I never saw any comment to this tweet. And I said, that's really strange. And so I went back and walked and she had she had sent it to the at Vic Mattis. There's another guy who took that. I think I remember at the time when I joined Twitter that somebody had taken Vic Mattis. Anyway, it's this guy. So then everyone's making all sorts of jokes about this thing. And so finally, I decided I would retweet it. And I just said, actually, with at Victorino Mattis, apologies to other Vic Mattis. And he's a guy who I don't know where he's from. And but the funny thing is, he actually is a foodie. His name is Vic Mattis. He's white. And yes. And a couple of days later. So he's probably not on Twitter a lot. He retweets my retweet clarification. And all he says is this post saved my marriage. It's very funny because, you know, sure, somebody was like his wife was wondering, oh, why are you having drinks with Mary Catherine Hamm? So that was television personality. That was. That's right. But there is another Vic Mattis out there, which is very interesting.
JVL00:09:09You know, you are about twenty four months away from being able to have a drink. From being able to hang out with Mary Catherine and her husband all the time because you will be able to supply them with a babysitter. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's so you'll be able to say, hey, how about this? Oh, and she's I will come drop off the babysitter. You guys come over and we will just hang out and they won't have to. And everybody's happy. And Michael's upstairs playing civilization without having to deal with his sister.
Vic00:09:40That's right. It is a win. It is a win win. Also, if listeners are curious, if you have, for example, a a giant bottle of Petrus or Dominus or a tour. Sixty one. Let me know and I'll arrange something. I'll I'll I'll cook something up and come over and we'll try that wine.
Sonny00:09:58There you go. So wait, I'm sorry. What food did you make?
Vic00:10:01I made a roast. OK, that's it. Same thing with a borderly sauce.
Sonny00:10:06Right. You're right there, big guy. I'm fine. I mean, good. Yeah, I made it. You survived. You guys hear some thunder in the background. That's because we've gone from snowstorms to thunderstorms.
Vic00:10:16And what is what is the what is the temperature now up there? Is it up?
Sonny00:10:21Well, today was in the 50s, but yesterday it was like seventy five. So it was it's been back to normal. It's been it's been wild. It's been a wild few weeks here. I'm fine. I'm fine. You know, things do you want to stay in that state?
JVL00:10:35Yeah, I think. Well, I knew Lara and Ryan. Yeah. I mean, I would say that, like, it's a.
Sonny00:10:41It's a it's a where we live is very nice and our house is very big. And because we're we're both telecommuting, so we don't have to really worry about our commute at all. We've got, you know, nice school schools are open. Our kids are in school, which is a big plus compared to some states out there. So we're we're pretty happy here in the great state of Texas.
JVL00:11:05I got an answer on our basement question. Did I tell you that? Yes. Yeah. Which is that in the house to Houston, however you say that house to Houston, the Houston metro area. The reason they do not have basements is because of the water table. It's very, very high. But in the rest of the state, it's because there's limestone. And so you start digging down right into it. So, yeah.
Vic00:11:30Up here, it's it's this terrible clay. It's a Virginia clay. It's really horrible. It's interesting you talk about the basement thing. That was one of the things not to go back to the movie Zodiac, but that was one of the things in Zodiac because he lived in a basement. And there were very few basements in in L.A. at the time.
JVL00:11:50All right. Sorry. Go ahead. So Victorino, I'm Victorino. Sonny, do you want to do you want to preview a little bit? The big Snyder cut since we had that monster trailer. Vanity Fair. Oh, slobbering wet kiss with zero critical questions asked. It was the most entertainment journalism thing ever. Plus the trailer about how great Zack Snyder is and how finally the first time ever Hollywood is doing right by one of our great artists.
Sonny00:12:20And well, why don't you have anything to say or why don't we save it for when that show comes out so you can you can attack the guy who stepped out or killed himself? So we had to step away from the. Wow. Wow. You know, then then we can talk about that. I'm not attacking him. I'm just saying that. There was a little bit of a tone. Our Snyder cut.
JVL00:12:41Our Snyder cut show is going to be seven hours. And so I thought we could bite off one little chunk of it here. No, I don't. And we might even do a special special for the platinum level members. An audio accompaniment of you watching the Snyder, all four hours of it. And just so if they would like to watch the Snyder cut with you in their ears.
Guest00:13:06While they're doing it, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to.
Vic00:13:11What's happening there? What's that? What's that about?
JVL00:13:14I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to be an Eddie Murphy.
Vic00:13:17Yes, yes, it is. Yes, it is. What is his reputation? No, no, it's because it's his impression of the honeymooners. And it's Ralph and Ralph Crabb to do it with his with his neighbor. I thought it was Mr. T. There was a Mr. T. He does a great he does Mr. T in that. But he also does a great Ralph Cramden. And nevertheless, I saw I saw the trailer to the movie I'd never seen. And it looks interesting. I feel like it's trying to ride the coattails of Avengers because I've never seen. So it's all these superheroes together. But my question, what I'm really curious is having not seen what we should do is adjust.
Sonny00:13:59We should do we should do a Snyder Cut episode where you guys just talk the whole time and I don't say crazy.
Vic00:14:04Listeners would be. That would be a very funny bait and switch. It would be totally the ultimate troll of trolls. Our listeners trolling our listeners. But we got you good listeners. We got you good. Thanks for the money.
Sonny00:14:16Come back next week. We'll have the real Snyder Cut episode.
Vic00:14:19Right, right.
Sonny00:14:20Sixty minutes of this. Mark this down listeners.
Vic00:14:22Sixty minutes of me asking what is Cyborg?
Sonny00:14:25Why was Joss Whedon involved in this movie again?
Vic00:14:28But my question is what I'd like to know when this comes out on HBO Max. Is it really going to be that much different than?
Sonny00:14:36Yeah. Well, I mean, this is. Yeah. I mean, look again, we should we should just discuss this all during the actual Snyder Cut show. We're doing it already. We're doing it now. But the the the in the Vanity Fair piece they talk about, you know, Joss Whedon basically rewrote the script and reshot the movie. I think something like 75 percent of what was on the screen. Oh, that's a big deal. In the Justice League was was shot by was shot by Joss Whedon. So that means that only 30 minutes of it is Zack Snyder. Zack Snyder's, which means that there's three and a half hours of Zack Snyder footage that's going to be in this four hour miniseries event. Have they?
Vic00:15:11Is the is the ending different?
Sonny00:15:14Yes.
Vic00:15:15Oh, OK.
JVL00:15:16Well, that that would be a big end. So the two things that I found interesting about the Vanity Fair story will link to this
Sonny00:15:22in the in the show notes, by the way, if you if you're if you're interested in reading this excellent piece of journalism, hard hitting investigative journalism about one of our great artists. Great artists who had been done wrong.
Vic00:15:34So Warner Brothers, the first it was as hard hitting as like my profile of any chef.
Sonny00:15:41OK. Yeah. Chef Michelle Richard. This is the the maddest cut of the Michelle Richard profile.
JVL00:15:47The first was that Warner's thought the Whedon cut was a turd but couldn't do anything about it because they were already on their reshoot. It was one of these things where. Yeah. You've already pulled the plug on one. So they they it wasn't just that Snyder walked away. So Snyder walked away in the middle of a daily battle with Warner Brothers because Warner Brothers didn't like what he was doing.
Sonny00:16:11Right. They were trying to. And so. They desperate. Kevin Teixeira or however you pronounce his name desperately wanted a two hour cut of the movie. He was like. Yes. The movie has to be two hours.
JVL00:16:23That's it. And. Good for him. Because as Infinity War proves. Yeah. You simply can't make money on a. Movie that is epic.
Sonny00:16:30And that.
JVL00:16:31Anyway. So. So they hated the Snyder cut and then they really hated the Whedon cut but were boxed in because once you've changed directors once you can't do it twice on a film. The other interesting bit was the little throwaway line about Gal Gadot and Joss Whedon. Did that catch your eye.
Sonny00:16:51Well I had heard this before she she had said something to this effect before that she she he had mistreated her on set. There was there was a butting of heads and there there is a there's a formulation in
JVL00:17:05the Vanity Fair piece makes it sound a lot less like creative differences and a lot more like the Joss Whedon story.
Sonny00:17:13Well there's there is a there's a there's a shot in Justice League the Joss Whedon cut where Flash lands on Gal Gadot's chest. Yes. And just like sits there for a second.
JVL00:17:27Like he's like he's doing sex on her. Right.
Sonny00:17:29That's why it is funny. It's funny because it's like she's they are intercoursing. You know what. Now I do want to see it. Now you go. Now you want to watch the Justice League. So the yeah I I had heard something to this effect before that she she was unhappy with his behavior on set. However we want to take that I have I have a very hard time believing the Joss Whedon like put the moves on Gal Gadot. In the middle of this reshoot because he tends to aim for the actresses who are a little bit less experienced, a little bit less power to catch my drift.
JVL00:18:06So in in my imagination, the way I hope this scene played out was that Mr. Joss Whedon, all big in his britches, came in there and thought, huh, I could even I could even lord my power over Gal Gadot. Wonder Woman herself. Miss Israeli IDF. Slash slash supermodel slash the biggest swinging dick in the entire D.C. universe in terms of grosses basically chopped his nuts off. That is how that is what I hope happened and that she then went to Warner's and said this asshole is never alone in a room with me again.
Sonny00:18:44I mean, I would not be shocked if that is if if some some iteration of that happened. I mean, you know, Joss Whedon is is a bad person and has has a reputation for being a bad person.
JVL00:18:57Around his female by all accounts, Gal Gadot, good person, Gal Gadot, good person.
Sonny00:19:01I mean, by all accounts, by all accounts, like everybody involved with the movie is like kind of, you know, like from Zack Snyder, Zack Snyder, Deborah Snyder, like they're all everyone's very highly of them, especially Ben Affleck. Nice guy. Renowned. Nice guy. Ezra Miller. Nice guy.
JVL00:19:21So, OK, so, Sonny, you have anything else you want?
Sonny00:19:24No, I mean, the only I mean, the only the only the only. The only, you know, Snyder cut preview stuff. I think I might have to buy the OLED TV before the Snyder cut because it's being released on 4K, of course, in the Dolby Atmos.
JVL00:19:37This is probably the time for it.
Sonny00:19:38This I got to pull the trigger. I got it. I got it.
JVL00:19:40I got to do it because you care a lot.
Sonny00:19:43Now, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
Vic00:19:47oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
Sonny00:19:47When she listens to this in two weeks, she'll be like, wait, Sonny, Sonny's stepping all over the TV.
Vic00:19:53I didn't. I heard it. I got it, JVL. Thank you.
JVL00:19:56Give me a grade.
Sonny00:19:58That's a good day.
JVL00:19:59I missed the secret about my transitions. Can I tell you a secret about my transitions?
Sonny00:20:03I missed the transition. Do it again.
JVL00:20:05See, he stopped. He didn't even realize he stepped on it. I never planned them out. Oh, it just happened. I winged them. OK, I winged the transitions.
Vic00:20:13There were a couple of was interesting. There are a couple other opportunities there about, you know, ripping her ripping his dick off and stuff like that. That's another thing. Oh, that's a guy. You're right. That.
JVL00:20:22So we are talking about a JVL.
Sonny00:20:25How are you doing? Oh, yeah. Dark. Wait a minute. We 20 minutes.
Vic00:20:29And we didn't ask about you.
JVL00:20:30It's too much.
Vic00:20:31It's too late.
JVL00:20:31We have. It's 20 minutes. Come around the back. 20 minutes in.
Vic00:20:36So to speak.
JVL00:20:37We used to say in organic chemistry, it's time for an SN2 backside attack.
Sonny00:20:42I don't know what that means. Wow. No idea what that means.
JVL00:20:44A little science humor for you people. So a. I don't even know. How to talk about. I care a lot because it seems to be labeled as a dark comedy. Oh, I don't know why comedy. And it's a Netflix movie. And Santino, would you like to do a big boy review?
Sonny00:21:07So I care a lot is a dark comedy might be the way to describe it. I wouldn't go so far as to say thriller. It's more of a crime, a crime comedy almost. I don't know. But it stars Rosamund Pike, who people will remember as the amazing Amy character from Gone Girl as a a person whose business it is, is to be the legal guardian of incompetent adults. And these are, you know, older people who are judged and deemed by the courts and their doctors to be incompetent. They're assigned guardians or conservators. Right. And she she fills that role. She has created a nice little scam for herself. She has 60 or 70 adults who she is the legal guardian for. She bills by the hour like a lawyer to represent them in court and to deal with the deal with the homes in which they live. And, oh, yes, they also have total financial control over these people's lives. They can sell their homes. They can liquidate their assets in order to pay their own legal bills to Rosamund Pike's character, whose name is hold on. I'm just going to Marla. Marla, whose name is Marla Grayson. So Marla in this movie, she is, you know, kind of she's kind of a small time crook, basically, is what it comes down to. She's a con. She's a con woman. She's a con woman. She she gets a person. She gets an old person. She gets control of their lives. And as the movie opens, a an aggrieved son who is played by Macon Blair in this film, the great Macon Blair.
Vic00:22:43Where is he from?
Sonny00:22:45He's he was in a movie called Blue Ruin, which is very, very good.
Vic00:22:48And he was very good in a small part.
Sonny00:22:50He's very. Very good. He's great in this. I love him. And I highly recommend seeking out his other work. Anyway, Macon Blair plays plays a son who's like, I can't see my mom. I can't go to the home in which she is residing and see her. They won't let me see her.
JVL00:23:05Because that's the other thing she does is with her wards. She cuts them off entirely from everything, cuts them off from everyone.
Sonny00:23:11And as as Marla explains to the judge played by the great Isaiah Whitlock, Jr. All right.
JVL00:23:17From Wired.
Vic00:23:18You remember his line in The Wire?
Sonny00:23:20I see it. Very good. So she she explains to the judge, you know, look, sometimes these these adult children, they come and they try and steal the resources. They don't they don't take care of their parents. And then once we get involved, they're worried about losing their inheritance, blah, blah, blah. Well, we find out that her whole shtick is stealing the inheritance of these these people and funneling it into herself and her business.
JVL00:23:43And she has crooked, crooked managers, doctors, the whole system, the only the only honest person.
Sonny00:23:50And this seems to be the judge who does not appear to be on the take. He just seems to be trying to help help these folks out. It's not it's see, I thought there was going to be a scene where she was like donating to his reelection campaigns.
JVL00:24:02We don't know that.
Sonny00:24:03And we and there was not there was never anything like that. But anyway, long story short, she sets as her mark this woman who appears to have no living family who was loaded. She was a an investment baker there. Her doctor tells tells Marla, look, you can. You can take this woman and nobody will ever fight for her because she is alone. She's really rich. You will suck tons and tons of money out of her. She's a what do they call her? A cherry cherry.
JVL00:24:31And she's in good enough health that she can live for a long time. Right. So the other key.
Sonny00:24:36Yes. Lots of money here. Sorry, I've been talking a lot.
JVL00:24:41Doctor by the great Alicia Whip.
Vic00:24:44Oh, you beat me to it. I thought I was going to spring that one.
Sonny00:24:47And it turns out that this woman is not. Childless. She has a son. The son is played by Peter Dinklage. And, you know, part of the part of the joy of this movie, I guess, is figuring out exactly what his deal is. But it turns out he's in the Russian mob and he is he is setting his mother up with his own assets. And, you know, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I, I, I agree with you, JBL. I'm not entirely sure how to characterize this movie because it's not a dark comedy insofar as it's not funny. It's terrifying. This is actually like I got I got this is like as angry as I've been in a movie at a character, specifically at a character, not like angry at the movie for being not good or not, not angry at the, you know, the storytelling or anything like that. But I like this really hated this character so much. And I was glad to see texts to that effect from you as well, because I was I was just like I was like livid as I'm watching this. Let me let me tell you. What this reminds me of a little bit there, there's a documentary out on Hulu now about Britney Spears and her conservatorship. So she is her parents or her dad really has like kind of taken control of her finances in her life. And and in that that documentary is very milquetoast and it's like kind of boring and it's not very good. But this is this is the movie that that documentary wanted to be. It is like a ringing, stinging indictment of this whole system and the ways in which people can abuse the legal system to. Absolutely disempower and disenfranchise people and leave them with no recourse whatsoever. I mean, that's like that's like the most horrifying part of all this. And Rosamund Pike is great in this role as the kind of ice queen, steely, amoral, psychopathic crook. She is perfect in this role. And it reminded me again a bit of Gone Girl. She has basically played now the two scariest characters I have seen in film in the last 10 years in between Gone Girl and. This. I, I, I, I don't think this is a great film. It has like kind of it has this kind of weird tonal shift halfway through that a lot of people hate. A lot of people really hate the second half of this movie. I don't. I think it I think it is more or less in tune with the the the first half. But you just have to realize that this is a like it's a crime thriller. It's not a issue picture. Right. I mean, this is a it's kind of a it's kind of an over the top crime thriller. Anyway, Vic, what did you think?
JVL00:27:26Quadrants.
Vic00:27:27Oh, quadrants. A minus. So hold on. Let me get my sheet out here. It's well, plot is an A. It's pretty straightforward what happened. She's a crook. She's a grifter. And then but she gets the wrong target. Duration is an A plus.
JVL00:27:41It was like a well under two hours.
Vic00:27:44Two hours.
Sonny00:27:44Well, it was like an hour. It was like an hour and fifty. Yeah.
Vic00:27:48OK. I don't stay through this. OK. Action violence. A plus. Pretty good stuff. Sex nudity. I mean, you know, it's a B with, you know, it's no atomic blonde. OK, well, hold on. We should we should say she's a lesbian. Yes. Yeah. That's what I mean. It's pretty.
JVL00:28:04She has a very attractive girlfriend. She does. She does. And they do it in the shower.
Sonny00:28:10That one. Yeah, but it's not. It's after they both almost died up after up against the wall.
JVL00:28:16Right. For a little bit.
Vic00:28:18A little tease. But again, it's it's no atomic. And it's certainly no bound.
JVL00:28:22Say what it is that you say. What's different about it, Victorino?
Vic00:28:27Oh, I know nudity. OK, so that's what that's what I that's how it does on the quadrants. That said, it is it is. I would say this. If we have any listeners who are old, don't don't watch this movie. It's a horror movie for you. Terrifying. It's terrifying because what I want to know, I mean, I have no knowledge of this particular world, but how much of this is real? I mean, obviously it's exaggerated, but how much of it is real? Because it is. Go ahead.
Sonny00:28:58It is not exactly based on a New Yorker story, but there was a New Yorker story about this sort of thing that came out three or four years ago, basically about a woman who trapped these old people in these in these guardianships and these conservatorships and like drain them dry and and did this for years and years. And it's it's it's a thing. That has happened, didn't the New Yorker story did not involve like the Russian mob or anything, right?
Vic00:29:25No, no. But if I find it terrifying because, you know, as soon as they take her phone away, then she has no contact at all with the outside world and she has to contact the front desk. But then the front desk defers to the guardian. So every time you just keep on hitting this wall and there's there is no there is no way out, like much like the the guy in the beginning of the movie who cannot see his mother for, you know, you know, for any reason whatsoever. And and of course, this person does not appear in court. You never see the the the, you know, the the client never appears. Am I the only one who thought who she that she was when Pike's character reminded me of Elizabeth Holmes? Oh, Theranos.
Sonny00:30:07Well, there was there's definitely that bit at the end where she's doing her whole girl boss, like march through the journalistic institutions like I'm, you know, I'm just making it happen. You know, I'm if you believe in yourself. There's right.
Vic00:30:21And I would also say in terms of you mentioned Gone Girl because and she's that most of the movies she's done that I've that I have seen her and she's played bad, bad women. Wasn't she also a villain in Die Another Day in the James Bond movie, which was very young and she was also in Barney's version. She's nice. But other than that, you know, so it is scary and Gone Girl is is horrifying, particularly because it was doing so well in the quadrants and then and then you know, it's like violence and gore, but also the sex nudity combined in one and I just don't like that with Doogie Howser. Yes, I just I just don't like it.
Sonny00:31:01I couldn't like her being bathed in blood.
Vic00:31:03I couldn't reach for the pause button fast enough.
Sonny00:31:08Wow.
Vic00:31:09JVL. What did I got to get on my couch? Oh, no. Oh, no. JVL. What do you think?
JVL00:31:15You know, funnily enough, Rosamund Pike also plays one of the kindest characters ever on screen. She plays Jane Bennett, the unbelievably sweet tempered and good souled Bennett sister in the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice. Yes, which is inferior in every way to the PBS BBC version, except that I actually like Rosamund Pike's Jane better than the BBC Jane. There you go. The BBC. Okay, never mind.
Vic00:31:50I, you know, I, I refuse to have a conversation on this podcast where two men are discussing Pride and Prejudice. Yeah. You guys should really go for it. That was scary. That'd be great.
JVL00:31:58Okay. So, uh, I'll talk about, I care a lot in a moment. I would like to tell you guys a little story. W a neighbor of mine was an older gentleman who had divorced his first wife, I think midlife gotten remarried. They didn't have kids. He became estranged from his first marriages, kids. And a few years ago, his wife got sick and suddenly this young woman was living in his house with her children. And she had, they had met at his church. He went to one of these evangelical type churches. It's a trap. And, uh. She was there and she met him and she was just at a tough place in her life and needed help. And so he took her in and so they moved in. And then a few months later, his wife died. And then a few months after that, my neighbor just disappeared. And shortly after he disappeared, uh, this woman's long-term boyfriend moved in and they now live at the house. They've lived there for several years. The house was never sold. It never went on the market. They had a big yard sale where they sold all of his furniture. And it is not clear to me that the house, I have not, I have not gone and looked up the title to see whether or not the house has legally changed hands, but I, I don't believe that the, it is a registered sale that you could see on Facebook.
Vic00:33:50Like Zillow, that is so creepy.
JVL00:33:52And this is one of those things that I assume happened all the time before we had, uh, a more complete system of laws, keeping track of these things. And so what this is, is the story of an updated version of something, which I imagine has happened throughout a long time, right? Uh, you know, you'd see this and I'm sure like Agatha Christie mysteries, but now you the power of the state to accomplish the, I don't even know what the word is, but it's like a locust descending upon, uh, you know, an anthill or something, right? Where they come in and just take everything. I'm probably messing up the insect roles. Uh, so I care a lot. The, the Marla character, I have not hated a screen villain this much that I can remember, and I believe what I texted you guys about 15 minutes into the movie as Diane Weist, who is her mark, right? The, the woman who is being, and I like the Diane Weiss is great.
Vic00:35:00Who's great. Oh my gosh. She's so good.
JVL00:35:01She's always been great. She's so good in this movie. Uh, and we can talk about Diane Weiss in a moment, but as she is being dispossessed and locked away and drugged by the corrupt doctors and long-term care for the nursing home administrators, I texted you guys and I said, the only thing I want in the world right now. Is for John wick to walk into this movie and just kill the fuck out of, uh, Marla
Vic00:35:26and not this character needs to die, but, and not even a quick death, you know, not a quick death.
JVL00:35:32And so, you know, uh, I care a lot is it's just dark. Oh my God. It's dark. And it is a bleak, bleak movie. The only thing I could compare it to tonally maybe is the grifters. Do you remember that? John Cusack, John Cusack movie. Right.
Sonny00:35:50Which is just like dark, dark, dark all the way through.
JVL00:35:53Yeah. And dark. And you know, we're, can we talk spoilers? Yeah. Spoilers. Spoiler alert.
Sonny00:36:00Watch out for spoilers folks.
JVL00:36:02So Peter, Peter Dinklage is a Russian mobster and he figures out what's going on. And there's, there's a whole lot of like interesting things that we can, we can talk about, but what the, what the movie doesn't, we want him. I don't know about you guys. I very much want Peter Dinklage. I want Peter Dinklage to kill her. I'm rooting for Peter. And so he kills the, he kills the doctor, like the corrupt doctor gets offed and he.
Vic00:36:28And again, I wanted to see that.
JVL00:36:30I want to see that. I want to, I want the girlfriend dead. I want all of them.
Vic00:36:33But, and you don't know how, because, oh, it might've been a suicide. So I have no way. You'd like to see what did they do? Did they make her take pills? Did they make, you know, what did they, you have no idea.
JVL00:36:41Right. Okay. But what happens is that in, in the end, the, she, Marla escapes him. And decides to go after him. And so she goes after him. And then in the final moment, he says to her, when she is trying to ransom her, you know, get him to ransom himself out and get, you know, she says, give me $10 million for you to get out of my conservatorship. And he goes the other way and says, you know what, actually, I'm happy to give you the $10 million, but my, my door number two is let's become business partners and let's do this at industrial scale. And part of me was really angry at this because I don't want to see her profit. But another part of me saw this as completely in keeping with the bleak ethos of the movie where she's not even punished by the guy who, who she screws over the old, which says, so let me, before we go backwards and work our way through it, I will just say this while we watched it, the movie pushed a lot of buttons for me, but I didn't know what I thought about it. And I have not been able to stop thinking about it since it closed. It has stuck with me. Now, I don't know if it has stuck with me like a food poisoning or stuck with me, like, you know, just something that really like touched something that I can't stop.
Vic00:38:03I think it's food poisoning, but Kate and I watched it last night. So I had the benefit of seeing your texts because that I wasn't getting as upset, but it really looked like she was going to get away. I mean, it really did.
Sonny00:38:15So I, do you guys think the end is a cheat? Let me, let me ask, because I do think. The, the movie kind of wants to have its cake and eat it too, where she gets away with everything and she is like girl boss, Elizabeth Holmes. It's layer cake. It's layer cake. But then they pull the layer cake ending. They pull the layer cake ending.
JVL00:38:33But you know what? They had to, because if they didn't do that, then I would have, I would have rioted at my television. So I, I appreciate the bleakness of making her the thing, but, but in terms of just making the audience not hate your movie, she has to die.
Sonny00:38:50Own sense of self.
Vic00:38:51Kate was getting so upset thinking that she was getting away with it. And she's like, I can't believe I just sat through this, you know? And then when he comes through in the end, the, the other guy, you know, as soon as he
JVL00:39:00walks, as soon as we see him on the street, I automatically thought, oh, layer cake. Thank God. Thank God she's going to die.
Vic00:39:06But, uh, you know, Kate said she couldn't get, you know, she couldn't stop thinking about it last night. You know what I mean?
Sonny00:39:11It's like, so it's terrifying because it's terrifying. I mean, look, this is, so I, I compare this movie to gone girl for a very specific reason, which is that. Gone girl is another, not just because it stars Rosamund Pike gone girl is another movie in which somebody gets trapped and they cannot extricate themselves from the situation. They just can't in, in gone girl. It's about the media, the world of the media and, uh, the world of the police. And there are certain, there are certain victims and certain crimes that simply do not get scrutinized. Right. And if you find yourself in one of these traps, uh, you are, you are kind of screwed. Now gone girl is like. Is, is, uh, I mean, it's, it's ridiculous in its own. I like gone girl a lot, but the plot is kind of ridiculous and like very arch and very Hitchcockian. This is just, it's like real life. It is. It's just like real life and it's terrifying. And it like, honestly is the sort of thing where like everything that you see happen in the movie, you think, oh yeah, that could totally happen.
JVL00:40:11A hundred percent.
Sonny00:40:12Like all of this, all of every, everything, all of this could happen and it would be awful and terrifying. And like, I. I, you know, again, the people who talk about this movie taking a huge tonal shift halfway through, that's not right. I understand not necessarily what do they, what is the argument is the shift here? There are people I, I've seen a number of reviews that like, it goes totally off the rails an hour into it. I'm like, no, actually it doesn't. It's the same movie.
Vic00:40:40The only thing that I was, I would say that I noticed differently in the second half is they spent a lot more time weirdly trying to make her a little bit more sympathetic and like, as if you're going to forget what she does, uh, cause they spent a lot of time with her and her girlfriend and her surviving that crash and everything else.
Sonny00:41:00The movie, the movie, they, the, they, they make it, they make a conscious effort to put you into her perspective and they try to make you root for her. And I would say that that is, they, they fail in that because there is no point in this movie where I was like, I hope she gets away with it. Exactly.
JVL00:41:16Like there's, there's, see, I thought that was just, I don't think they actually want you to root for her. I think they want to make you uncomfortable in the fact that you're not rooting for her.
Sonny00:41:24I think it's kind of like, it reminds me a little bit of the place of the writing.
JVL00:41:28It's, this is to me, this is the movie that you guys said uncut gems was, uh, no, I think,
Sonny00:41:35well, yeah, I can see that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I can see that. I can see that as well. But it, it, it reminds me more of wolf of wall street, which is a movie. It's a movie where you have all of these people doing terrible things. And yet at the end of it, and Scorsese is a better film. Maker. So I think he gets away with it. You're kind of hoping that they get away with everything that they've done at the end of the movie. Like they, it, it makes only Peter Dinklage.
JVL00:41:58I'm only hoping he gets away. Yeah. I didn't feel that about her.
Vic00:42:01Just, yeah, he's great.
JVL00:42:03There's, I, I, I was really deeply impressed with the writing. Um, it's one of the things that I thought was so interesting is that the Marla character is a. Sociopath and she is such a sociopath that when she is being threatened by, by Peter Dinklage, who says, I'm not just going to kill you. Like I'll kill your mother. And he shows her, you know, like a video of her mother. Her response is go ahead. I don't give a shit about that fucking sociopath. Right. So she's so crazy. She can't even understand that she's the sociopath and not right. Not her mother. Um, she's just blind to her own pathology, but she is. She has this. Fundamental. She, she talks a number of times about how it's a jungle and there are only two people, there are predators in prayer, lambs and lions, right? Lambs and lions. But she doesn't actually understand that it's a real jungle. She thinks that the jungle is civilization, right? She thinks that the jungle is the court rooms and the pieces of paper that doctors will sign, which is why, when she is confronted by Peter Dinklage, she is thoroughly unprepared with how to deal with him. And there's this fantastic, when the he's interrogating her and they're like in this quarry and he's captured her and she thinks that he is the one who has broken the rules and she is just shocked that he would, you know, you people brought guns to a nursing home, you know, and she re she in that scene, and again, this is the combination of the writing and Rosamund Pike's brilliant acting there. She thinks that she has him by the balls. She has no, no, no. No conception of what the real jungle is. And I thought that was just a fascinating portrait of the character.
Vic00:43:56It all, you know, I mean, she clearly was ready to accept death, you know, she was not scared, uh, but it surprised me that he didn't try to, I don't know, beat it out of her in order to get his mother out, you know, torture her instead. It was this thing.
Sonny00:44:10And I don't, I think he realizes that he's not going to get anywhere where there, I mean, the, the, the big miss, I think the biggest misstep of this movie is him doing the whole, uh, bond villain. We are going to create an incredibly complicated way for you to die and that will be, you know, like the, between the, the fact that they don't just put a bullet in her head or the girlfriend's head and they have these kind of like long drawn out complicated things to make it look like they died accidentally. Like, eh, right. That was the one misstep in my view. Yeah.
JVL00:44:44Okay. Do you want to talk about the feminism in the movie?
Sonny00:44:48Ooh, yeah.
Vic00:44:49I wanted to talk first more about Lisa Witt. What do you remember her from JVL? Maxim.
JVL00:44:56Okay. Yes. I don't know if it was the cover of Maxim or the cover of FHM, but there was a cover when she was a starlet for five seconds and she's a musician. I don't remember, but she, yeah, she's from con she went to conservatory and I think she's, she's either a violinist or a cellist, I think, who then decided to go into acting and she was just everything about her, the role. Redhead, the pale skin was just like when we were 22, which is, well, I mean,
Vic00:45:24it's interesting because you know, the redhead is not my type, but she was so attractive that I was like, wow, she's really hot, uh, for me, I, she had a, there was an episode of the Sopranos called and she's great in it and there's a scene, so very nice.
JVL00:45:41Okay. Go ahead. So this is a movie about toxic feminism. Oh,
Sonny00:45:49this is the whole, the whole girl boss thing at the end, again, like there's a reason Elizabeth Holmes jumps out as a, yeah, but it is the, the extent to
JVL00:45:57which Marla is so self-consciously feminist and you know, everybody who works for her as a woman, the, the painters who are hired to repaint the house, she's selling, uh, our women, the whole office, pretty much the jeweler. She goes to as a woman, the movers are women and it's, I laughed. One, cause there are funny moments in it. One of the funny moments is that. Peter Dinklage is using a hit woman to go and kill and take care of all these people. So he uses both men and women. Um, and it's, it is because of her feminism that she is blind to the things that are happening around her because she is so motivated by hatred of men that she is blind to understand the one, the one moment that I thought was a possible false character moment is the end when Dinklage offers to be partners with her. Would she, would Marla really have taken that because it's, it's money from a man?
Sonny00:46:59Well, but she, she, her whole thing throughout that was being rich, right? It's having enough money to use it as a weapon and like $10 million as a start, but that's not enough. Um, and she, she's the face of this thing. Like she is the, you know, she is the, she wants to build an empire. Yeah.
Guest00:47:17Yeah.
JVL00:47:18But it is, it is a mirror. Image of birds of prey, I think, which is birds of prey is a very positive view of feminism, uh, and, and it's about toxic masculinity. And this is a deeply negative view of feminism and it's about toxic feminism.
Sonny00:47:34That's actually a really interesting comparison. I had not thought of that, but that actually is almost exactly right. And even, uh, what's his name? Messina, Chris Messina, right? Chris Messina is great in this. Oh, the lawyer? He's so good as the lawyer in this. He's really good. And he was, he was the, he was the crazy killer in, uh, birds of prey, wasn't he?
JVL00:47:50Zazz.
Sonny00:47:51Zazz, yeah.
JVL00:47:51I think he is Mr. Zazz. Uh, it's, and it is also a, I think it's anti-capitalist or is that me reading my own stuff into it? I think that's you.
Sonny00:48:01Oh, I think it's, I think it's pretty, pretty clearly.
JVL00:48:04Well, it's her sort of.
Sonny00:48:05It is certainly, it is certainly. Abusive. Capitalism skeptical. And it is, what's, what it's skeptical of is the marriage of capitalism and the government. And the government. Because. That's right.
Vic00:48:13That was Kate's take. It was merely about the government.
JVL00:48:16But this is what you guys don't understand. Capitalism always winds up getting into bed with the government.
Sonny00:48:23Always. Well, any, any, any form of economic power.
JVL00:48:26And, and that is the, the scariest thing in the world is when capitalism buys its way into the power of government because then they control the guns. Right. Then, then they have gotten themselves in the business of the sanctioned use of force.
Sonny00:48:38They have the police there to take you to the old folks' home.
JVL00:48:40Yeah. Yeah, they do. It's, uh, I, I don't, I can't stop thinking about it. And I don't. It's haunted. I, it's like, it's like. It's weird that I kind of think to myself, I'd like to spend the time watching the movie.
Vic00:48:54Well, I don't know about that, but it is.
JVL00:48:56Not today, not tomorrow, but I feel like I'll come back to this thing.
Vic00:49:00It, it reminded me.
JVL00:49:00The score is interesting. Yeah. The color palette is interesting. Everything about it is.
Sonny00:49:05It's also just a really well shot film. It's like stylish without being overly stylish. That's, yes. I would say that, like, it is, in, in the realm of Netflix original movies, this is by far in the top tier. It's like not, it's not, you know, it's not Oscar, Roma, you know. The Irishman, whatever. But it, it is, it is like very much in that top tier of Netflix originals. And that's, again, I was very surprised by the mixed reaction to this movie, which I don't think is perfect. I think has some missteps. But the, the, the work done by Rosamund Pike is just so good. It's so good.
Vic00:49:39It's not enjoyable per se, but it is, it is certainly fascinating enough that you, you, you, again, we're still thinking about it. So there you go.
JVL00:49:47Peter Dinklage, Jack Dorsey. The beard.
Vic00:49:51I, I, I have loved Peter Dinklage since Station Agent, I think. I love, Station Agent is such a wonderful movie. And if you haven't seen it, please do so. It, it also shows you a wonderful other part of our great state of New Jersey. He is, you know.
JVL00:50:09He is such a leading man. He is the most unconventional leading man in the history of Hollywood.
Vic00:50:14He's also funny in Bruges, but, you know, he's great at everything.
Sonny00:50:18Well, he's, this is, this is. This is one of the few roles that he gets to play where him being a dwarf is not like a hot point. Right, right. It's not, he's just, he's just the character.
JVL00:50:28Just the, he's amazing. Diane Wiest. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love her. First of all, one of the more underrated district attorneys.
Sonny00:50:37Oh, right.
JVL00:50:38In the history of Law and Order. But the way she switches from investment banker, retiree, nice, sweet woman who like listens to concertos in her home to Russian babuchka is, Sonny, you'll have to note the time on this because you're going to want to bleep it. But when she says to Marla at one point, she says, have at it, you little crock of ****. She's so. What is Patreon? I don't know. Do you have to bleep that? And she is, she narrows her eyes to slits. And then when she just casually starts strangling her. Yeah, yeah. Much to her. Much to her own. But this is, again, Marla just doesn't understand what the real jungle is. That's right. Marla can't conceive of people like this.
Vic00:51:28And she's totally blind to it and still has her eye on the ball. Yeah, but Marla wins. Yes, that's the thing. Marla's right. That's the thing.
Sonny00:51:35The jungle is the thickets of the court system.
Vic00:51:38No.
Sonny00:51:39She can get her tangled up. She can get, she planned that whole thing. She planned to get strangled. That was all part of the plan.
JVL00:51:44Oh, I thought she just used that towards the end.
Sonny00:51:47No, no, no, no. No, but Marla has to go. She taunted her. She taunted her and she left herself wide open. She knew what she was doing in that scene. Can I just, one little bit of writing. Right by the camera. One little bit of writing that I really liked. And it's the moment when you realize that Wiest's character is not what she thinks she is. It's when she unlocks her phone and the code is just 111111. And what I thought to myself was, that's not an investment banker. It's somebody who does not think in numbers.
Vic00:52:22If only she lied and said she didn't have a phone. But again, why would, you know, it's, they gently ask you these things. They gently get into your house and the next thing you know.
Sonny00:52:32Well, every movie now, every movie now, every thriller, every crime drama, everything that requires suspense, there is a scene where they figure out how to take phones away from people. Right. That is like. Because then you're helpless. We can't function. The phone is the get out of jail free card of modern filmmaking. You got to figure out how to take it away from people.
JVL00:52:51But there is, I mean, there is a moment when Diane Weiss' character shifts and she, and you think that she's drugged and her eyes narrow and she's like, oh, has he come for you yet? Right. Right.
Vic00:53:04Oh my gosh. No, it's great. When she calls her that. It's fabulous. When she calls her that to Rosamund Pike, even Kate, she loved it. It was like, yes.
JVL00:53:12You know, the other movie this reminded me of a little bit was A Simple Plan. Oh, okay.
Vic00:53:16Just in the, again, in the bleakness. Yeah. Of the unrelenting bleakness of it. Too good to be true. Also reminded me of coma. It's just, you know, it's also sort of the perils and evils of that, you know, that medical pharmaceutical world, except for it's more drawn out where your helplessness is over the span of years as they suck you dry.
JVL00:53:42Another of the funny moments is when the Chris Messina's lawyer is reporting back to Peter Jinklage from. From the trial. And he says, that judge is an idiot. He drives a fucking Subaru. And again, it's just a fabulous little character moment. How does he explain how dumb the judge is by telling you what brand of car he drives?
Sonny00:54:05And again, again, the judge drives a Subaru. He's not on the take. I really, I really, I think that I think the judge is like, I think you may be right, but
JVL00:54:13he's done. He's so dumb that he just buys into the Marla thing. I don't know. I think I really liked it. But I'm, but it's possible I didn't. It's, it is possible there is pleasure and pain, but it earned the reaction. This is, so look, I don't want to say hostile provoked a reaction, right? This is not like a physiological response. It isn't gross out. I think there's something more interesting going on here.
Vic00:54:40Well, it clearly did its homework in terms of how does that business sort of work if you were to put it on steroids.
Sonny00:54:45Like I, I, again, I, this is in the top tier of Netflix originals. For me, this is, this is one of the better Netflix originals that I have seen. Yep.
Vic00:54:53Right up there with, right up there with Barb and Star. No, I'm sorry. That was not a, right up there with the dirt, the dirt.
JVL00:55:01Remember the Motley Crue?
Vic00:55:03Oh, no, no. It was, it called that. It's called, it's called the dirt.
JVL00:55:06Yeah.
Vic00:55:07Just that was it. It was called, wasn't it?
Sonny00:55:09I think so. Didn't, did you watch that with me and Harrison? Yes, I did.
Vic00:55:12We finished the half a bottle of like wild turkey or something.
Sonny00:55:15That's right. It was, yeah, it was, it was either a bottle of wild turkey or a bottle of Jack Daniels. Probably a bottle of Jack in the, yeah. We drank most of it, the three of us. Yeah, that's right. Those are the days.
JVL00:55:25All right. Good old days. Anything else on this or should we move on?
Sonny00:55:29That's good.
JVL00:55:30It's not what you did, Marla. It's who you did it to, right? This is, this is the problem of these movies. Spirit of the Week, Sonny, what are you drinking?
Sonny00:55:39I am drinking Rabbit Hole, Derringer. What? Straight bourbon whiskey. I don't, D-A-R-E-R-I-N-G-E-R.
Vic00:55:49Where is it from, Kentucky?
Sonny00:55:51It is from, I don't know, it is from Louisville, yeah. Okay, there you go.
JVL00:56:00How many, you seem to have a different one every week. I mean, how many different brands do you have in your house?
Sonny00:56:07I am still working through bottles that were gifted to me after the great Sinistate collapse.
Vic00:56:11Oh, that worked out for you.
Sonny00:56:14Yeah, oh, I mean, I haven't, I haven't had to buy a bottle, I've bought a few bottles, but I haven't had to buy a bottle. I haven't had to buy any in a gift box.
Vic00:56:20I'm always running out of gin. I don't know why.
JVL00:56:23Yeah, you could say. Corrections, additions, shout outs. You fellas have anything?
Vic00:56:29Yeah, I do, I do. Eritrean, Eritrean Barrister, that's his handle, or her handle, his handle on Twitter, follows me and said that if I gave a shout out to Georgetown Lacrosse, he'd subscribe to Patreon, and he showed me, he did a screenshot of him subscribing to Patreon, so there you go, Georgetown Lacrosse delivered a crushing, defeat to Villanova, 16 to 1, go Hoyas.
JVL00:56:52Thank you. Call me up when they beat Hopkins. They're a good one, aren't they?
Vic00:56:58They're a good lacrosse team, Hopkins?
JVL00:57:00I think they were good like 100 years ago. I don't think they've been good since the- It's been many years since we were- 85 or 90. I honestly, but you know what? I would pay money to watch Hopkins lose to a third tier program like Georgetown. Oh no, Georgetown is up there.
Sonny00:57:19I think UVA has a pretty good team. I feel like UVA-
JVL00:57:22Yeah, well, there are only 20- I think there are only 20 top flight lacrosse programs in all of college sports. And I think it's University of Maryland, Princeton, Georgetown, UVA, Loyola, Hopkins. And all of these programs are within 200 miles of one another. Right, I assume Duke- All centered on- Yeah, I think Duke got good for a little bit. Brown got good for a little bit. It's, you know, lacrosse is a real mid-Atlantic sport. Yeah. Okay. That's all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at SonnyBunch, at Victorino Matus, or- At JV Last. Go hang out- Make sure to get it to at JV Last. Yeah, I'm not on Twitter, so- He's on Twitter. Good luck. Or go hang out in the chat at subbeacon.com. We're there. Tell your friends. Until next time.
Sonny00:58:19You got something?
JVL00:58:24I added something little, but if you have something good, we should do what you got.
Vic00:58:28All right. So, you can go first if you want, I don't know.
JVL00:58:32So, Flash continues to spend a lot of time on his guitar. Oh, hey.
Sonny00:58:41So, he's a baseball-playing, guitar-playing bro. Yes. Is what you're saying. What you're saying is you were raising- You're saying the exact opposite of Jonathan V. Last. Yes. In Flash, the Flash man.
Vic00:58:54What kind of a guitar is it? Is he doing electric? Is it like a Fender or is it acoustic?
JVL00:58:59He has an acoustic. He has an electric. He has a Les Paul. Wow. And he, I mean, I- Guitar is great. I find it funny that he only plays like the sort of rock that I listened to. But he is also starting to branch out a little bit into like doing a little bit of Ozzy, a little crazy train. He just loves hard rock. I listen to a lot of Metallica. I was never a Metallica guy. But this morning on the way to school, I was like, you know that song, Mr. Brownstone? I was like, yeah.
Sonny00:59:44It's about drugs, isn't it?
JVL00:59:46I said, son, let me- Let me tell you something. All of those songs are about getting laid or drugs or getting laid while on drugs.
Sonny00:59:59That's what- Every Guns N' Roses song.
JVL01:00:01All of those songs that you are learning to play, Stairway to Heaven, Hotel- Every single one of these. It's just- That's rock and roll, man. And he was like, right on. It's good. It's good. Also, his fastball is now in the low 70s.
Sonny01:00:18Flash is going to win. I do enjoy going to the frat party college visits. That's, you know, unlike his old man.
JVL01:00:26It's going to be fun watching him this season. Holy crap, because this is his last season at the 55-foot distance to the plate. Before they move up to the next year will be- Next fall will be at the full 60 feet 6 inches. And it is not fair that kids should- Should have to try to hit against him at 55 feet. So what do you got, Victorino?
Vic01:00:56Oh, I just wanted to give an update on my reading of the book 1984. Ooh. Yes. What's happening with Oceana? Yes.
Sonny01:01:06Are they still at war with East Asia?
Vic01:01:08Yeah. No, Eurasia. And they just did it in the wood, in the clearing, in the brush. So there's- I can understand how this could have been a racy thing to read in high school. Because there's sex involved. But it's very illicit. It's, you know, you're not supposed to enjoy it. I mean, it's a weird thing. It's really interesting. But I did want to say-
Sonny01:01:29Well, she's part of the anti-sex league, right?
Vic01:01:30Yeah. You know, I mean, ostensibly. And then, you know, she does this, obviously, on the side. And she's young. And a listener and friend, Ryan Schenkel, when he heard that- Hey, Ryan. I was reading this book. He gave me all sorts of insights and emails from B. Crystal. And things about George Orwell, et cetera. And then he had this deep thought about sharing that there's a reference to 1984 in Czeslaw Milosz's book, The Captive Mind. And I said, you know what? I have The Captive Mind because I took Eastern European History class in Georgetown. And if any listener wants it, I will sell it to you. It is in mint condition.
Sonny01:02:10Never been read. Uncracked spine. I'm sure it's fine.
?01:02:19Subtitles by the Amara.org community
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