#18. 'Wandavision' and 'Coming 2 America'
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A double feature: the WandaVision finale and Coming 2 America, the Amazon sequel to Eddie Murphy's 1988 comedy. On WandaVision, Sonny defends his Washington Post op-ed — which called Monica Rambeau's "they'll never know what you sacrificed" line a "moral atrocity" (Wanda tortured a whole town and flies off scot-free) and argued the SWORD director Hayward is a cartoonishly wasted villain — against a wave of furious social-justice fans he had to mute. Vic pelts them with earnest questions (why does Hayward go to jail while Wanda walks, where did White Vision fly off to, is Monica a superhero now, what's the astral-projection stinger about), which JVL answers with comic-book context on Scarlet Witch's never-reconciled power set; JVL liked the early sitcom-homage episodes but pans the finale as a bad-wrestling-match CGI slugfest and calls yoking Scarlet Witch to the boring Vision "anti-feminist," agreeing the right move was to leave her unredeemed. On Coming 2 America, JVL insists it's a masterpiece for 30 minutes (Wesley Snipes as "Gaddafi meets Liberace," the barbershop, Salt-N-Pepa, the Colin Jost cameo) before falling off a cliff into a warmed-over Christmas Prince rom-com built around a charisma-free new lead, with Eddie Murphy visibly mailing it in; Sonny finds it flatly unfunny — Zamunda is more boring than Queens, and the PG-13 rating neuters what the R-rated original nailed. They then rank Eddie Murphy's filmography. The hangout opens on Vic's gout-tempting shellfish-and-beer Lenten Fridays and oyster crawl through Leesburg.
From the show notes
Sonny is fired up about the Wandavision finale, while Vic has many questions. JVL thinks Coming 2 America is a masterpiece for about 30 minutes. Which Eddie Murphy movies are best? Sadly, no 1984 update this week. Is Vic still reading it? Only time will tell!
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00But the throne must pass to a male heir, a king. It appears you have a son who must be found. Prepare the royal chit. We are going back to America. Oh, hell no, your majesty!
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 that the Sub-Beacon is available exclusively on Patreon at subbeacon.com. We also have a store where you can buy Sub-Beacon merchandise. Just visit tpublic.com and search Sub-Beacon. You'll easily find us. Buy shirts. Tell your friends. Come hang out with us in the comments at subbeacon.com. Gentlemen. Hello. How are you? Victorino, how you been, buddy?
Vic00:01:03I am doing fairly well. It's been really interesting. I have been tempting fate of late by eating a fair amount of shellfish and beer.
JVL00:01:15Oh, no. Sonny, do the sounds. What sounds?
Vic00:01:20Do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Oh, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.
Sonny00:01:22Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.
Vic00:01:23Don't watch. It's been so long. It took a while to find that button.
Sonny00:01:26Yeah.
Vic00:01:27I was like, "Where?" Where's that file? Let's see. Last Friday was Lenten Friday and I took the kids to the Knights to have a little Lenten meal. It was just the three of us. Kate was away. So I had for myself-
JVL00:01:41I know how seriously you take your Lenten meals. As you know-
Vic00:01:44No more than three martinis at dinner on Fridays during Lent. I decided that ... Well, I want to help the Knights. That's why I wanted to spend a lot of extra money on them and I got a pound of shrimp. Yeah, that's good.
JVL00:01:58Yeah, that's good. And also a seafood tower at Bourbon Steak because it was Friday.
Vic00:02:03Fish Friday. That's right. Lenten Lenten meal. That's right.
Sonny00:02:07Lobster rolls, crab rolls. Isn't that what you're supposed to do? I don't- That's right, Sonny. It is.
Vic00:02:12End of discussion. I don't follow your arcane mysticism. That's it. No, that's correct, Sonny. That is. And so I got a pound of shrimp and it was great. It was a lot of spices on there and then but- Veined in? Oh, no. Deveined. Deveined. Very nice. That's what I'm talking about. And all sorts of various spices and peppercorns and things. So really for me, not for the kids. And then a beer because really seafood, shrimp and beer is just a great combo. I'm not a pizza and beer guy. People love, "Oh, I got to get pizza and beer." I'm not actually. That's the truth. I actually prefer Coke and beer. I don't know about you. Yes, exactly, Sonny. That's what I'm talking about. A little- Give me that little-
?00:02:54A little-
Vic00:02:55A little- Give me that little- Give me that little Caesars. Ah!
Sonny00:02:59Yes.
?00:03:00No.
Vic00:03:01You know what I mean JVL or no? When you- I eat pizza. I can go both ways. Do you feel, really? I'll do it if I'm like, "Okay. We're with other." Okay. Have a beer or have a diet Pepsi. They're both great with pizza. No.
JVL00:03:12I don't like beer with pizza because it's too heavy. Yeah.
Sonny00:03:14I find that. It's like heavy thing and then heavy thing. That's right. Beer with lobster. Beer with lobster is one of life's great delicacies. Oh, yeah.
JVL00:03:20No, no, no. I can tell you. Yeah. I can tell you.
Vic00:03:24Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can totally see that. I'm all for that. Absolutely. It's a nice thing because it's carbonated and the whole ... It works well. I can totally see that.
JVL00:03:35One of the best meals I ever had was a beach lobster bake up on the Cape with Sam Adams Oktoberfest and just all the lobster you could eat. Lobster. I'd never thought of beer and lobster before that night. No, no, no. Now, I can never take them apart.
Vic00:03:56Yeah. Beer is great with shellfish pizza, I feel less so, but shellfish, absolutely, or martinis. And then the next day- Much like Jesus. Yes, as he did. The next day I was in Leesburg. I'd never been to ... The old downtown Leesburg, not like Leesburg Urban Sprawl or Suburban Sprawl. I guess you could call it Leesburg. Ex-Urban Sprawl. Yes. Thank you. Ex-Urban Sprawl. But there's an old part from 1800s, whatever. It's a tiny road that is still technically Route 7 in a weird way, I think. Or Route ... It's actually Route 15, but it's very, very tiny with these old buildings. And I couldn't resist and I took the kids to the King Street Oyster Bar, because anything with oyster in the name, I just had to go in. So that's two in a row. And so that time they had an enormous oyster menu and I just had to try. There was an oyster. I tried called Sweet Jesus and you almost like literally said it, it was that good. And then I just think I got raspberry points. And so ... And another beer, I think. Sucking down snot. It's delicious. It's like tasting ... I don't. I don't. It's tasting the ocean.
Sonny00:05:15Every ... Any twinge?
Vic00:05:17Here's ... Here's ... No, that's the weird ... Well, hold on. Go ahead, Sonny. Go ahead.
Sonny00:05:21I don't. Go on your anti-oyster rant and I'll tell you, Jonathan. It's not so much an anti-oyster rant. It's that every ... Three or four years, I forget that I think oysters are gross and I'm like, "I'm going to try. I'm going to try some oysters."
Vic00:05:32Because it's a great ... You ever see ... No, because you see them and you're like, "Oh, this is ..." Go to YouTube and the Mad Men scene with Don and Roger having oysters and martinis is so amazing.
Sonny00:05:43And then I order ... And then I order them and I eat them raw and I'm like, "Oh, God, it's like sucking down ...
Vic00:05:46No, you have ... You know what, Sonny? Embrace the slime. Somebody hawked a loogie in a cup and I drank it.
Sonny00:05:50Disgusting.
JVL00:05:51It's not bad. It's not bad, too. It's not like a loogie. No. Embrace the slime. But it's sure like something.
Vic00:05:57No. I wouldn't know JVL, but embrace the slime. It's delicious. It's ... One of us was in a fraternity in college. Thank you, Sonny. It's sublime. Nevertheless, maybe because I've been running or whatnot ... Hey, a little bit of a twinge, but not ... It looked a little red, but it doesn't look swollen. And that's where I am. Drink some cherry juice. So that is my situation.
JVL00:06:24That's excellent. Yeah. Santino?
Sonny00:06:27How are you, buddy? I'm good. It's hot here in Texas. It's like 77 degrees.
JVL00:06:31It's crazy. In Virginia too. Yes. All week long. It's been the mid-70s.
Sonny00:06:36It is fantastic. I don't ... It's too hot. I need it like 20 degrees colder than this. I want it to be mid-50s, no sun, clouds everywhere, and that is my ...
Vic00:06:45Good luck with that in the summer.
Sonny00:06:47Yeah. That is my ... Summer's a chore. It's not actually as bad ... I feel like we talked about this before, but it's not actually as bad as I thought it would be. It's exceptionally hot. It is exceptionally hot, but it's a dry heat. It's a dry heat. You're fine.
Vic00:07:02You're in the shade. You're fine. It's a joke, but I've been in Dallas in the summer, and it is.
Sonny00:07:07It's weird. I prefer the 105 to 110 degree Dallas weather than the 95 degree Virginia weather. Yeah.
JVL00:07:1585 degree soup. It's just gross. Is there a lot of trees in Texas? A lot of shade?
Sonny00:07:20Yeah. I mean, where I live, we have trees.
JVL00:07:23I don't know. Really?
Vic00:07:25Texas has a gigantic brown hills and scrub brush, but no, there's lots of grass.
Sonny00:07:32I live on a corner lot. We have many trees. I have lots of shade. It's great.
JVL00:07:36Like old trees? Fully mature oaks?
Sonny00:07:38Yeah, like 50-year-old. Oh, wow. Like 60 feet tall, 40 feet. I don't know. I don't know. I can't really judge.
Vic00:07:44Remember the Texas live oaks? That's what John Lee Harvey Oswald shot through to kill Kennedy, the foliage.
JVL00:07:54That's a real vision out there. Speaking of vision, we wanted to talk about the series finale?
Sonny00:08:02Season finale? Season finale?
JVL00:08:04It says series. I thought the last one was. It says series finale on Disney Plus of WandaVision. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know exactly how they're going to make that work. Very true, but I didn't realize.
Vic00:08:15The penultimate episode didn't have a whatever it was, stay tuned or whatever, so I thought that was the end. Yeah, you... I did because she's like, "And you are the Scarlet Witch." Scarlet Witch. And then I said, "Oh, okay. Well, we'll find out what happens to her." That's it. That's it. And then you told me, you texted me, Sonny.
Sonny00:08:30I was like, "Did you watch the season finale?" You're like, "Yeah, I watched it. I watched it last week. It was great." I was like, "No, no. Did you watch the episode that debuted this morning on Friday?" Yeah.
JVL00:08:41So, Sonny, you had wanted to talk about this because I get the sense you had some things to work out after making everybody mad on the internet.
Sonny00:08:49Everyone was exceptionally mad at me on the internet. Well, I don't have anything to work out. I mean, people are just wrong on the internet. Yeah. That's nothing.
JVL00:08:56That's not unusual. Well, I'm sure that annoys you.
Sonny00:08:58That's the regular state of affairs. I will say that... So, I wrote a piece for the Washington Post in which I suggested that the way the show tries to treat Wanda's actions in this television show is vaguely despicable. On the one hand, they clearly... The show... So... So, to catch everybody up, spoilers if you haven't watched it yet, whatever, but to catch everybody up, the way the show kind of shakes out, Wanda has created this kind of alternate reality in this town, Westview, and she has taken the entire town's psychic prisoners. They're all under her control, and when she learns this, when she is freed from their spell by Agathos, played by Katherine Hahn, they tell her that it's torture, that it's like... Psychic torture, that they've been separated from their children, they're not allowed to sleep on their regular schedules. When they do sleep, they have her nightmares, and they literally beg her for death. They're like, "Please, if you're not going to let us go, kill us, let us die." So it's all quite horrifying, and Wanda doesn't immediately say, "Oh, I'm sorry, everybody go. You're free. You're all free. My bad. I didn't know I was doing this." She says, "I'll make it better. We'll do this. Right, we'll be better at this," and then when they complain more, she chokes them until they can't speak anymore. So she has done a bad thing here, and leave aside ... One big problem with this show is that it has no idea what to do with Hayward, who is the head of S.W.O.R.D., the sentient weapons observation and research division, or whatever it's called. They don't really know what to do with him. They make him cartoonishly villainous, like mustache twirly and blah, blah, blah. But even with that, his course of action, trying to kill Wanda, who has, again, taken an entire town hostage, is totally reasonable, as far as I'm concerned. His behavior in this show, from trying to kill Wanda to wanting to bring Vision back to serve as a defensive front against the possible attacks from outer space, right? Everything he does in this show, I think, is basically above board. So I wrote a piece to this effect and noted in my piece that the way the show handles Wanda is they have the moral center and the audience surrogate of the show, Monica Rambeau, who is the- The daughter of. The daughter of Carol Danvers' friend, whatever. She's basically a nepotism case. She's at S.W.O.R.D. because her mom founded it. Basically, the only thing we know about her and her work at S.W.O.R.D. is that her mom ran the place, founded it, and she was next in line because that's how government bureaucracies work. They're fiefdoms handed down mother to daughter.
Vic00:12:07I do like her more than her mother in Captain Marvel, I'll just say that.
Sonny00:12:12Okay. All right. Keep it under control there. Sorry. But anyway, the way the show tries to square the circle is having Monica Rambeau, again, the audience surrogate, the moral center of the show. Something to Wanda, something to the effect of these people will never know what you sacrificed for them. When I was watching it, I think I literally exclaimed, "Ugh!" at the TV because it is an infuriating line. The phrase I used for it in my Washington Post piece, it's a moral atrocity. That line is a moral atrocity. It got to a whole bunch of other things that the show did wrong. Again, about Hayward. Hayward is this weirdly cartoonish villain, instead of being somewhat sympathetic and being a reasonable person, he is just set up as the asshole that everybody plays off of to look better. Anyway, I wrote something to this effect and believe it or not, the social justice-y type fans of WandaVision, not happy with me, not happy with me for this and for the first time in the history of me using Twitter, I actually had to turn off notifications from people who don't follow me, which is a thing you can do on Twitter if you're using Twitter and you're getting annoyed by all the randos we're popping into your feed, you can turn off notifications from people who don't follow you, it will make your experience much cleaner. I actually don't like doing this because I like interacting with people who don't necessarily follow me, I've made friends that way, but like, I had to turn it off because my mentions were just unusable because people were just screeching at me in the mentions, like, "Why
Guest00:13:50would you say that?" That's about Wanda! Were they shrill? Why would you, why would you say these horrible things about this awful, this great show with this amazing woman hero, you're just a hater, you're a man!
Sonny00:14:03That guy has such a high voice! I'm just like, ladies, you gotta, you gotta get out, go do something else with your life because you're bothering me, you're bothering me, you shrill harpies.
JVL00:14:15Go back to another room of the house. Perhaps the kitchen.
Sonny00:14:20No, go back to the media room.
JVL00:14:21I'm in the kitchen, don't let her in there.
Sonny00:14:23Go blog about Ray Lowe's, you fucking losers. So I, like, I have, I have, I had, I had some thoughts, I laid them out in an expert way in the Washington Post and I, the only way people were able to react to it was anger because they were, I was so obviously right and I was so clear cut and succinct in my
Vic00:14:44points. I actually followed a thread of the one woman who in particular was very upset that you had made a joke about her. Which one? Which one? I forget her name, but she had, she is a blue check mark woman and, uh, and all the comments about she, she had no idea that this, you know, that you had done this thing and then, and that, why am I, you know, obsessed over obsessing over this and then, uh, and like, who is this guy? You know? Oh, she made a, she made some comment about you sicking all of your followers, you know, on her. Oh yeah. Yes. That one. And then, and then a guy like, who is this guy? Uh, a listener, I think friend of ours actually then said, oh, you mean him? And then added the link to your Alderaan piece. I think the, I think the tweet was, oh, you met Sonny and I think her head exploded. I think it was fantastic. Fucking kidding me. Is what she said. She was so upset.
Sonny00:15:40It was, it was amazing. I mean, I like the, again, like there are, there are lots of, uh, people who've had very reasonable responses to it, to the show and if, if you like it, it's fine, but the number of people who cannot handle being told that their show has done something wrong and that it has treated one of their characters poorly and that they're very attached to the show or the character. Oh my God. They're, they're just mentally, they're just mental cases is their problem.
JVL00:16:04So Victorino. Yes, sir. Did you understand the end of WandaVision? Okay.
Vic00:16:10Well, that's, can I make, should I just segue into my questions?
JVL00:16:13Please. Oh, you have questions. Oh, I love it when you have questions.
Vic00:16:16I also have two ad hoc, uh, questions here because, uh, just from listening to your conversation study. So maybe I start with those and work my way backwards since you just said, okay, question, uh, the moral atrocity line that you were talking about. These people don't understand your sacrifice. I took that to mean that they don't realize how she fought against Thanos. Was that what she was talking about?
Sonny00:16:36I don't, I don't think that's what she meant. I mean, we're, we're in the context of the show, right? She, she has just had the children that she invented blink out of existence and the husband that she invented. Yeah. So basically she created, uh, she, she tortured an entire town so she could play house with her imaginary children, her sacrifice was that her husband was giving up her husband
Vic00:17:03and kids.
Sonny00:17:04Right. My, my take on this was, was the sacrifice she is making is giving up her fake kid and her fake kids and her fake husband and that, and that they should all feel much better about being tortured, being tortured to the point of wishing for death.
Vic00:17:20Okay. Thank you. Uh, I'm enlightened question for both JVL and Sonny, um, is her, is Scarlet, which is comic book character, uh, equally ambiguous about her not being like completely superhero versus super villain.
Sonny00:17:38That's a JVL question.
JVL00:17:39Yes. No. So she's original. So the first appearance of the Scarlet, which is an X-Men number four, when she is the part of the brotherhood of evil mutants with Magneto. And, uh, and you know, favorite has that as a, as the comic book, I bought her for her first birthday and, uh, and so she's, you know, evil for like two issues and then she
Sonny00:18:03becomes good.
JVL00:18:04Uh, interestingly enough though, is that she is much more classically aligned with the Avengers than she is with, uh, with the X-Men. Yes. And even though she is a mutant, so she's one of the rare mutants who's part of the, uh, Avengers miniature universe or whatever, you know, sub-universe.
Sonny00:18:23I seem to remember her being a big part of West Coast Avengers.
JVL00:18:26Yeah. She was part of the West Coast Avengers when that became a thing. Uh, okay. What it has always been ambiguous about is her power set. Yes.
Sonny00:18:36That's my next question, but go right into it. Yes.
Vic00:18:39No, no. Go ahead. Ask your question. It appears to me, question, what can actually, what, what can Wanda actually do? Because by the looks of it, the answer is everything.
JVL00:18:46Well, everything and nothing. And this is so again, you know, in the originally she would just blast people, right? She might as well be Cyclops, right? She's doing her hex, you know, the, the, the, would you, you know, so what does that mean on the page? Yeah. It means that she puts her hands out and there's red laser beams that go across and like bash
Sonny00:19:11somebody. Basically what she does like on, in the Avengers movies and then the, the, uh, Thanos movie.
JVL00:19:18Right. But then her power set was modified to be more about reality distortion. Right. And, and, uh, these two things are in my view, irreconcilable and the comic books never reconciled them and Disney failed to reconcile them for the movies. And now for WandaVision, and I take this as an enormous mistake because one of the things that makes, one of the things that makes the Marvel characters much more interesting than DC characters is the simple, uh, adherence to definitions of the power sets, right? I mean, DC just expands things. So, you know, the flash is born in DC in 1962 or whatever, and 40 years later he can time travel because he moves so fast and he can vibrate his atoms and they just keep blowing out power sets. And so everybody basically is a God in DC and Marvel's always very good about keeping you out there. There are tons of characters in the more like Banshee. It's barely a power, right? And we can shout, he can shout really loud, you know, Jubilee. Well, she can like make lights, right? And this, this is part of what, you know, introduces dramatic tension and gives part of the character and they, they didn't fix this with, with Wanda, do you have more questions? Yes, I do. Okay. Please keep going.
Vic00:20:50Did I answer that in too much detail? No, no, no, no, no, no. That's good because obviously they don't explain that in, on the, on the, in the movie or the show about her background per se, where she came from. I think Sonny basically answered it with his op-ed in the post, but it was a question. So the guy from sword goes to jail, but the woman who mind controlled an entire town just
Sonny00:21:08flies away. What does he go to jail for? What exactly is he being charged with? Like the worst thing that he did was. Violate the will of a robot. I don't think that that exists. I don't think a robot can sign a legally binding document. I don't care how sentient he thinks he is. Take that to the Supreme court, Hayward, take that to the Supreme court. But secondly, I like the, like, I guess the only thing he, he shot at imaginary children. That's not a crime. You can't send somebody to jail for shooting at imaginary children. He shot at a woman who was interfering with a federal investigation. Screw her. She should have been shot. And I guess the only thing he really did was, uh, was manipulate evidence. So like he was doctoring evidence. He like created the image of, uh, the, her breaking in and stealing the visions body, I guess. Um, which is like the only thing he did slap on the wrist, slap on the wrist.
JVL00:22:05And then, and then he needs to go to jail for mansplaining.
Sonny00:22:08He needs, I mean, that's no, I mean, this is, this is a real problem with the show. Again, the, the, the Hayward character, you could have written him in an interesting way, but he's like, I, I, I survived the blip, but I watched the resource wars. My, my mother died in a food riot, you know, something like I'm trying to stop this from happening again. I'm resurrecting the vision to do this. And instead he's just a punching bag for Darcy who sucks sucky character, uh, uh, and, uh, another sucky character. Um, and then, and, and then, yeah, Kat Dennings sucky character. Uh, and then, um, ouch. And, uh, Monica Rambo, who, again, the only, her only claim to being a, this wonderful sword agent is, oh yeah, my, my mom, my mom started this place. So I should be in charge of it now because my mom started it speaking, speaking of which
Vic00:23:03question, what, um, is Monica now a superhero? And if so, is that cannon unclear?
Sonny00:23:11It looks like she has some sort of cosmic powers by going through the thing, the wall, the wall.
Vic00:23:17Her eyes change color and she's like bulletproof.
Sonny00:23:20And she's like fighting with Scarlet Witch and like holding her own, I guess.
Vic00:23:23Yes.
Sonny00:23:24Okay. I mean, I, this is all a setup for her to be in Captain Marvel too. So she can be Captain Marvel sidekick, Oh, Rambo girl.
JVL00:23:31Okay. Sidekick or love interest.
Sonny00:23:33Hmm. Well, no, that was the, well, okay, no, that's no, the lady from, uh, the lady from Thor. What's her name? She's, she's going to be the love interest.
JVL00:23:43Lady Thor.
Sonny00:23:44No, the, not, um, oh, you're kidding. The Valkyrie. The Valkyrie. I loved her. From Thor Ragnarok.
Vic00:23:51Yes. I forget her. And from Creed. Uh, okay. Now we're getting into the meat of the questions here. Uh, question, where did white vision fly off to? That's the question. He said, I must go now.
Sonny00:24:04Where did he go? JVL. He flew off to Dr. Strange too.
JVL00:24:07He's on a vision quest. Oh.
Vic00:24:09Oh. Go ahead. Okay. Next. Thank you. By the way. And my wife, Kate keeps on referring to mythic quest as vision quest. And I'm like, that is a good movie. That did very well in the quadrants with Matthew Modine and uh, what's her name who I absolutely love that actress. Okay. Um, question.
JVL00:24:26Yeah.
Vic00:24:27You're a real fan of her work. Yeah. I know. So. You know, from, you know, her. I love that. Love that broad. Vision quest.
JVL00:24:35I'm blanking out. I'm blanking out. Too much drinking. I just can't remember people's names anymore. It's not Mary Elizabeth Mastrantoni.
Vic00:24:40Her family will thank you for not saying her name and killing her. So. You know, from men in black. I mean, she's gotta be like 60 now. Sadly. Okay. Uh, okay. Uh, let's see here. Uh, oh, we're at my last question. Okay. In the very end, Wanda is living in a cabin, maybe in Canada, making tea, and then another Wanda looks like she's imprisoned reading a book. What is happening here?
JVL00:25:04JVL.
Vic00:25:05What are you talking about? If you stay to the very, very, very, very end. Post credits.
JVL00:25:10Okay. So, so the credits on this thing were like seven minutes long. Yes. They're very long. I did not say to the very, very end of this.
Sonny00:25:16I mean, you could just fast forward.
JVL00:25:17Right. But that's because I thought that it was over.
Vic00:25:20There is a section of almost every show now on every streaming show. There is almost a, there's almost exhausting. All of them. There is a section where you cannot fast forward. And once you enter that section, you're stuck. And it's where they show you the different, the crew in different languages. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, okay.
JVL00:25:39Yeah. That's where they're giving you all of the, uh, alternate dubbing, the foreign dubbing. Right. And, but, but they do it for all of them. For all of them.
Sonny00:25:47For all the territories.
Vic00:25:48All of the territories. Okay. So Sonny, well, maybe Sonny, you can explain what's going on to JVL since you missed it.
Sonny00:25:53Well, we've, we've seen, so what happens is we go to this cabin and Scarlet Witch is drinking some tea and then we go inside the house and there's an astral projection of Scarlet Witch and she's reading the witch's handbook, whatever that was. Um, and-
Vic00:26:06Oh, she astral projected.
Sonny00:26:07She, it was an astral project. We've seen Dr. Strange do something similar, I believe, where he's like reading-
JVL00:26:12The whole, the whole Dr. Strange world is based on astral projection. Yeah.
Sonny00:26:16Astral projections. So it's, it's based, and there was a reference to her being more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme. The theory being that we're going to see her again and Dr. Strange, the, the multiverse of madness or whatever, uh, that is going to be, um, directed by Sam Raimi. I'm excited to see it, uh, start shooting soon, I think. Um, the, uh, but the, but she, she is, she is learning about being a witch. She is learning what her powers are.
Vic00:26:42I, well, I guess my wife was right. I told her you were. I told Kate you're wrong. She looks like she was being imprisoned. Who's imprisoning her. And that is an imposter.
Sonny00:26:50She got away scot-free. She got away scot-free on this show, despite all of her crimes against humanity. And granted, I know New Jersey, not really humanity, but like still the crimes against us few need to be taken. She needs to pay for those.
JVL00:27:06So I, uh, I watched the first, however many episodes that we needed to watch for our show. And I liked it. First of all, I liked it quite a lot, but not enough to keep watching it. The bar for me to continue watching any series television, even series television, uh, as short as WandaVision with its very limited number of episodes is so high 30 minutes each. It wasn't, no, after the first couple, there are suddenly like 49 minutes each. Uh, so it's a very high bar and WandaVision did not, did not clear it, but I went and
Sonny00:27:42I watched the last episode.
JVL00:27:45So that I could be part of the discussion and it was terrible. There are a 15, maybe 22 minutes of fighting between Wanda and the other witch and they are floating in the sky and the other witch shoots black and purple things and Wanda shoots red things. And one of them goes, oh no. And it is literally staged. Like a very bad wrestling match where one of them you think has knocked the other out and then the other one creeps up behind the other one and then you think she's defeated. But then there's a reversal and then the coven comes in and surrounds the ring. The coven has got Wanda now. God damn it, JR, can you believe what's happening? The coven has come out. My God.
Sonny00:28:38My God. My God, JR. Is that the Vision's music?
JVL00:28:42And it was real. It was really quite bad.
Sonny00:28:48And I have a feminist complaint. Ooh.
?00:28:52Of course.
JVL00:28:53I was talking about this with my very good friend, Matthew Robarts, over the weekend. And he made an excellent point, which is that Marvel has relatively few female characters who are midlife. They get a lot of teenager and 20-somethings, right? So far, so good. You've got an endless supply of Jean Grays and Captain Marvels and whatnot. But the Scarlet Witch is, like Emma Frost, a fully adult woman and to lock her into yet another story about it's her and the Vision, Wanda and the Vision yoked to this other character, which has always, by the way, been the single least interesting thing about her. The Scarlet Witch of Vision, which is an absolute canon in the comic books. When they gave the Scarlet Witch her own series originally, it was Vision and the Scarlet Witch. It was a together, husbandy-wife thing and I always hated that. The Vision is boring as fuck. The Vision is an absolutely uninteresting character and to shackle the Scarlet Witch, instead of letting her be her own person with her own stories, I found disrespectful and anti-feminist. And I'm not even kidding, actually.
Sonny00:30:24This is not a work.
JVL00:30:26There. Sonny, you look unmoved.
Sonny00:30:29I mean, I don't care about any of that. I mean, I actually thought that the storyline with her in Vision was good. I appreciate the whole, you know, she has suffered greatly and her grief is causing her to do bad things. But like, if you're going to, if you're going to have a story about grief, creating
JVL00:30:47she has to be like Rebecca from Ted Lasso. Right. I mean, Rebecca is turned into a monster in Ted Lasso by her grief. And then when she realizes the horrible things she's done to everybody around her, she apologizes and makes it right.
Sonny00:31:02And there's a great payoff. But how do you make it right? I like how would you even make it right?
JVL00:31:05And Wanda does not do that. And instead, if she can erase, as you say, her friend says to Wanda, boy, you know, these never, I, so honestly, that line did jump out at me. As you say, I mean, I don't want to say it's a moral atrocity, but it's basically is a moral atrocity.
Sonny00:31:22It's a moral atrocity. I like, I, it is, it is. I want to know what the conversation in the writer's room was like when they were trying to figure out what to do with her because they have to let her go.
JVL00:31:33You have to try to redeem her.
Sonny00:31:35She has to.
JVL00:31:36In the eyes of the audience.
Sonny00:31:37I just, I don't. Yeah.
JVL00:31:39Okay. Which is a bad, but I think it would have been more interesting to not redeem her.
Sonny00:31:43Don't redeem her. Right. No, I like don't redeem her. Let her be the villain. Yes. Let her fly off and say, I did this and you can't stop me. You can't punish me for it.
JVL00:31:53I'm going to go figure out what I'm doing to let her feel bad about herself.
Sonny00:31:55We often like villains anyway, they need, they need to like Monica Rambo. If you want Monica Rambo to be a character who was taken seriously, she has to say something like you need to give yourself up and pay for what you've done. You need to make it right for these people. You need to do something.
Vic00:32:13JVL, I will say this, the last two episodes of the series I did not like, but the buildup to it, I thought was excellent as they moved.
JVL00:32:21Yeah, we love the sitcoms from our childhood.
Vic00:32:23Yes. So Family Ties and then Malcolm in the Middle and then The Office, I thought it was a great idea and original. Okay. Secondly- We're not actually supposed to talk about this. Yes. Secondly, the other thing is I remembered Linda Fiorentino. There you go.
Sonny00:32:38There we go. Did you have any more questions? May she rest in peace. Vic, have you- No, let's move on.
JVL00:32:42I'm done. I'm done. We're 32 minutes into this and it was only supposed to be a short bit. Because what we're really going to talk about-
Sonny00:32:48WandaVision is way more interesting than Coming to America, which is a bad movie. Tom, I disagree. A bad, unfunny movie. I would like to talk about- You're trolling us here. Oh, no. Coming to America.
JVL00:32:57Hack. Please tell me, Gene. No, no, no. Please tell me there's a Gene. No, I didn't.
Vic00:33:02I didn't do a Gene. I mean, Gene's not here and go ahead, Sonny.
JVL00:33:09I would say that the chances that- That the chances that a Gene review of Coming to America could get Gene permanently canceled are 95%. It depends, yeah. Yeah.
Vic00:33:21Okay.
JVL00:33:22Sonny, you want to do a big boy review for Coming to? My fingers.
Sonny00:33:28Coming to America.
JVL00:33:29I'm doing the number two.
Vic00:33:30Coming to America. I'm doing the number two issue.
Sonny00:33:32I don't really have much to big boy review about this because it's basically, the only thing you need to know about this movie is that if you haven't seen the first movie, which is also called Coming to America, but T-O to America, you won't understand what's happening in this because 90% of the humor is derived from callbacks and remembrances of things past. Now, if you remember, the original Coming to America, directed by John Landis, came out in 1988, it is about an African prince, Prince Akeem, played by Eddie Murphy. He goes to America to find a bride who will challenge him intellectually, as well as stimulate him physically. Uh, and he does that in the form of Lisa and it's, it's great fun. It's fish out of water, but it's also audience out of water because most of us in America don't live in Queens and there was no place more ridiculous in America in the 1980s than New York city and Queens in particular, judging by this film. Um, it's, it's, it's Tom Wolf, it's Tom Wolf and it's this great, it's this great bit of, again, fish out of water comedy that works, uh, because the, the, it's not just the fish. It was ridiculous. It is also the water. That is ridiculous. Um, and, and, uh, coming to the number two, America, um, uh, starts, uh, you know, 30 some years in, in, in the future, the present day and the, the, the king, the king, uh, Joffrey, Jaffa, Joffrey, whatever his name is, he is a retire or he's dying, he's going to die. Uh, and so Eddie Murphy will have to take over, but because he has no male heirs, um, despite having a very, a very go getter, vivacious young woman, who is his daughter, who could definitely take over the kingdom. And if you can't figure out from the first 10 minutes of this movie, how it is going to end, you're an idiot. You deserve to be put out of your misery. Um, but the, the, uh, you know, he's got to find a male heir. So he, he, uh, I'm, I'm all fired up about WandaVision. I've been fired up all week about this, this dumb show, um, uh, the, uh, so he goes to America to find his bastard son. Uh, who then comes back to Zamunda and he has to learn how to be a prince. And then Wesley Snipes plays, uh, the general warlord of the neighboring country next Doria, which is like one of the few things in this that actually made me laugh. The name of the country next story. Um, I don't know, man, it's again, uh, if everything that you remember from the first film is in this, the, from the barbershop, uh, guys who were, you know, which is crazy
Vic00:36:11because if they were about 70, they'd be about a hundred now, but it's okay.
Sonny00:36:15Right. Uh, to the, to the, to the guy, to the singer guy, uh, what's his name, Randy Watson, uh, to, uh, I dunno, man, like the whole thing, the whole thing is no good. Um, and it's no good. Allow me to suggest that one of the reasons it's no good is that Zamunda is much, much more boring than Queens. Ironically Zamunda is terribly boring and dull and all of the people who were there are terribly boring and dull and I don't care about any of it. And I just, uh, I was, I was, I was deeply, uh, I was just deeply annoyed. I was like, I, I just want to rewatch the first one again, even though I just watched it two days ago. I just want to watch the old one again.
JVL00:36:55So I texted you guys 30 minutes into this and said, this thing is a masterpiece. And I stand by that.
Vic00:37:06Oh, for crying out loud.
JVL00:37:08Even though. Five minutes after I texted you, the movie went off the rails and never recovered. Let me, let me make a case here. So Sonny, you say that it is nothing in this movie is good. I strongly disagree. The first act, which takes place almost entirely in New York is at times brilliant, uh, Prissy Wesley Snipes with rhinestones on his lapel. You mean Zamunda, the first act in Zamunda you mean? No. The first act is basically. Yeah. From Zamunda to Queens. And then it ends when we come back to Zamunda. All right. Right. With his son. Uh, Wesley Snipes is like, it's Gaddafi meets Liberace. He's amazing.
Sonny00:37:51Wesley Snipes is fantastic. I, I would, that is the one, the one.
JVL00:37:54If this did wind up being James Earl Jones's last performance, it would be kind of great. Uh, Salt-N-Pepa was great. The scene with Colin Jost, Jost, Jost.
Sonny00:38:06Jost.
JVL00:38:07Yeah. Oh my gosh. That was blue.
Sonny00:38:10He's got a blue face on top of blackface.
JVL00:38:11He starts talking about science and, and Joe says to him, you know, like, and the other guy says, you know, science and he goes, yeah, like Bill Nye, Bill Nye or your guy, Neil deGrasse Tyson.
?00:38:21Your guy.
Vic00:38:22Come on.
JVL00:38:23And he is the grandson of Duke. Come on. He is the grandson of Duke and Duke. The Dukes. Yeah. The, uh, the, the, the barbershop thing was great. Uh, General Izzy's army training shake weights. I mean, there's, there is a lot. That was funny. Really great stuff. And then after 40 minutes, the, he, Eddie Murphy has found his bastard son and brought him back to, to Africa and the movie ceases to be either a comedy or an Eddie Murphy movie. It's just, and instead it becomes basically like a warmed over Christmas Prince and about this other comedic actor whose name I, I can't remember. And who has zero screen presence and zero funny. Yes. He is not funny and it's not a comedy anyway.
Vic00:39:20It's a, it's a, it's a warm up to him.
JVL00:39:22Dishwater version of a romantic comedy and it is, I just didn't understand about the girl that he likes and also we don't care because he's not funny. He is not funny.
Sonny00:39:38Not interesting. Not funny.
JVL00:39:40And, and, and also the other thing that happens after, after the first act is that Eddie Murphy starts mailing it in. You can see where he can just barely be bothered to keep it together on screen.
Sonny00:39:53Well, he's barely, he's barely in the movie. He and Arsenio Hall are barely in the movie together, which is like the biggest mistake of it all.
JVL00:40:01Yes. Because when they're together, it's very, very good.
Sonny00:40:05It's better.
JVL00:40:06And I, I think it's been a long time since I've seen a movie with such a poorly constructed split personality and, uh, and I, I was deeply, deeply disappointed because I was so into this thing for 35 minutes. And after that, it just, I, this is the other thing it's so, uh, and I said it was like a, a bad Netflix style rom-com for the, the finals, you know, second and third act. But it's, it really is a bad Netflix. Like it's, I, but how, so how does that happen? This is an Eddie Murphy vehicle. The movie does not get made without Eddie Murphy. Why does Eddie Murphy, who I assume also has an EP credit on this, decide that, yeah, you know, we'll just like turn the movie over to somebody else. Like what? Nothing about it makes sense.
Sonny00:41:02I assume it was a paycheck. I just assume it was a, you got $20 million. This movie cost $125 million. Did he have to make this?
JVL00:41:11Did he have to make this for Dolomite? Is this the, they, they let him make Dolomite, but he had to do Coming to America 2.
Vic00:41:16And it's also Dolomite director, Brewer. Right. And this is what I'm saying.
JVL00:41:20Maybe this is one of those Steven Soderbergh, one for me, one for you, right?
Vic00:41:25It was, I found it to be such a, it was a wasted opportunity because so remarkably, almost all the people from the original are still alive. I have no idea if the mother, Madge Sinclair, is alive or not. And...
JVL00:41:38Can be Madumbo. Yeah. He was there. He was there. Sorry.
Vic00:41:43I can't do it right now. And, and the only, the only one missing was Lisa's sister, who I absolutely loved in the original Coming to America. I did not.
Sonny00:41:50Well, can I, just one, one little thing. There's nothing in this movie that is surprise, as surprising as some of the things that happened in the original, for instance, like there's nothing, there's nothing in this movie that is as kind of like surprising and shocking and funny as Lisa's sister. Sister giving Akeem a hand job at the, at the basketball game, right? Like there, there's just nothing. There's nothing. There's nothing as, as like weird and kind of outrageous as that. This mo this movie just, it's, I mean, another problem here is that it's a PG 13 comedy. It's a PG 13 comedy. The original was R and it, it all just feels kind of watered down and safe and, and like you say, JBL, just not funny. Just like large stretches are just not.
Vic00:42:38Not funny at all. There's nothing worse than the awkward, you know, this is supposed to be funny and I'm not laughing. Situation.
JVL00:42:44Was it supposed to be funny? Oof. Some of the jokes. The whole thing about stealing the tiger's whisker is again, that is, but is it supposed to be funny or is that supposed to be a journey, you know, hero's journey that you would get in again, an off-brand Disney animated, right? This is like if there was a boy version of Mulan.
Sonny00:43:07I, I think there's even a, a whole montage scene in it, but without there is a montage.
Vic00:43:14There is a montage. You're right. I mean, it's, it's very bad.
JVL00:43:18It's very, very bad. And literally, so I have it marked off in my notes, the shake weight with generalize these are, that's the last joke that is funny until sexual chocolate comes out on stage. I think that's the credits are about to roll. So you do get an hour 20. Without anything. Yeah. Working.
Vic00:43:38Yeah. That's right. Oh, there's some of the barbershop conversations when they come back to it are very funny, but it's, it's so brief and fleeting and it's just, okay, I'm going to, you know, stick this line in there. And that, I mean, I love that kind of humor, but I was so disappointed in this movie and I know I didn't have, you know, that high expectations for it, but I was just really disappointed. I just felt like the, uh, the, the cast from Queens. In coming to America, the sequel, I just didn't feel like they earned my sympathy. Whereas I really liked, uh, the, the, the cast from Queens in the original coming to America with John Amos is the father and then Lisa McDowell and her sister. And I even liked, I mean, it'd be, they were, they were nice and, uh, and they were nice folks and, and also, um, Louie and Louie Anderson and Eric, but also Eric LaSalle. So even the person that you're supposed to hate. You, I, I loved, you know, and Eric LaSalle's character soul glow, um, the son of the soul glow fortune is fantastic in coming to America. The stuff that he says, the snark, he, when he looks at the side mirror and he gives himself the nod, like, yeah, I'm good. And then, and then in the end, of course, the great thing when Lisa's sister says, Oh, you know, you're all, you're soaking wet, get out of these clothes. And he, he does the fourth wall bit. It worked so well. And to this day, I think it's fantastic. But I don't know. It just felt like the, it was like thrown together. It was just as Sonny says, all these callbacks put together as an excuse for a movie.
Sonny00:45:14And there were so many moments, tremendous amount of product placement in this movie, like Pepsi, the official drink of McDowell's and it's, there was like a five second shot of the Pepsi can. There was also, what was the, what was the jewelry that, uh, that she, yeah, like just, and like, again, the, the Bulgari box is just there for like five seconds. Like, look at this thing, this is, we're getting $2 million for this, but there were, you know,
Vic00:45:40in the original coming to America, even in the quieter moments, it was just an enjoyable movie and the story. And it was, it, if I felt like I wasn't rushed at this movie, I felt like they really rushed me through to get from one bit to another. Whereas in the original, I felt like it had a much more leisurely pace. And even in those quieter moments, there were these great little nuggets, uh, in them. There's a, in the original coming to America, there is the, the, the dinner party. Where then, uh, the proposal takes place. And at, uh, Mr. McDowell's house, uh, there's the famous picture, uh, of the bar, you know, the, the man, a impressionist painting, a girl behind the bar and it instead, but she's black in it. And it was just, it was just brilliant. And so there's that. And then there's little, even the little lines, um, when the Reverend at the, uh, the beauty pageant and he introduces Randy Watson for the first time, and he says, you might remember, I remember him as Joe, the policeman in the what's going down episode of that's my mama. I doubled overlap. I watched that's my mama as a kid. I watched almost every sitcom and it was so obscure, but because of that, that's a real
Sonny00:46:49thing.
Vic00:46:50That's a real show. It was a barbershop. Uh, and, uh, and when he mentions that, you know, you might remember Randy, like he had a bit part in it of all things, a very small short-lived sitcom called that's my mama. I just died laughing. I died laughing the theater. And I remember that line ever since I died. It's just that, you know, in my head.
JVL00:47:07How old were you when your parents took you to see coming to America in the theater?
Vic00:47:10I don't think I saw it with my parents, uh, cause I would have been a freshman in high school. I think it's 87. 88. 88. I would have been a 15 or whatever. Wow.
JVL00:47:20So yeah, 15. And you were able to get into an R movie. Yeah.
Sonny00:47:23By yourself at age 15. Yeah, sure. At the ocean county mall. Were you guys ever, I was never carded going to an R rated movie.
JVL00:47:31I never tried. You know why? Cause it was against the rules and some of us followed the rules. Because what if, what if the people at the theater had, had seen it and carded me and then what if they let the Georgetown admissions office know, what would have happened?
Sonny00:47:48Would you have not gotten to see the movie?
JVL00:47:49I may, maybe would have not gotten into Georgetown. It goes right back. And then if I didn't get into Georgetown, then I wouldn't be able to get into medical school. And if I didn't get into medical school, then what would I do with my life?
Vic00:48:00You know?
JVL00:48:01Yes, that's right. This is how 16 year old JVL thought about the world.
Sonny00:48:0516 year old, 16 year old Sonny was like, uh, yeah, one for show girls.
JVL00:48:11So Victorino JVL, don't look it up.
Vic00:48:14All right. Don't look it up. You know, I don't do any of that on, on the show, as you know.
JVL00:48:18How old is Arsenio Hall? And how old does Arsenio Hall look? Okay. Yes.
Vic00:48:26Okay. Arsenio Hall is probably 60, but he looks like he's 80. Am I wrong? What?
JVL00:48:31You can say the other way around. He looks 10 years younger than you do.
Sonny00:48:33No, no. 60 and looks 40.
JVL00:48:35No, he barely looks 40.
Vic00:48:37No, he's done up in this movie. So they put extra makeup on him. You mean how? Yeah.
JVL00:48:43No, I don't mean when he's as Baba. I mean, when he's you're great. He looks like he's 30. I, as I was watching this movie, all I thought to all I could think to myself was blue was weird for Fox to give him a late night talk show at age 12. That doesn't make any sense.
Vic00:48:59You look at him when he had that talk show, he was very young looking. He was there. He, he, he looks, he looks different.
JVL00:49:04He looks different. All right.
Vic00:49:06So I'll tell you, I'll tell you this much Lisa McDowell at first, I thought, oh wow, she's really aged. And then as I watch him, I'm like, ah, she's still cute.
JVL00:49:14So I, we want to do rankings, but I have a confession. This may sound a little bit racist, but for me, the great Eddie Murphy cinematic run, which includes both the standup cinematic versions of raw and delirious 48 hours, Beverly Hills cop two. Trading places coming to America, golden child to me. And even boomerang to a lesser extent, because boomerang is more modern. They all kind of run together for me in ways that my brain just can't keep separate really. So I can't rank the Eddie Murphy, Eddie Murphy movies. So I have a ranking, but I would like to turn the official Eddie Murphy movie ranking over to one of you.
Vic00:50:01Um, okay. I think I'm doing the movie. The movie ranking and Sonny is doing a different ranking as well as you, I'm ranking the alter
Sonny00:50:08egos from this.
Vic00:50:09All right.
JVL00:50:10Professor clump. No, no. Just for the movie.
Vic00:50:13Okay.
Sonny00:50:14No, just from this.
Vic00:50:15Wow. Okay. Uh, okay. So you want me to do, do you want me to go first? Okay. Uh, I do want you. This is one as we have been standard, standard, uh, sub beacon style, uh, 10 to one. Okay. Okay. Uh, number 10, uh, Dolomite is my name. Okay. Interesting. I think we did that show on it. I don't really remember it at this point, but I liked it. It was a nice comeback for Eddie Murphy. Number nine is Bowfinger. I didn't even see Bowfinger, but Kate told me to put it on the list. It's good. Okay. Well, excuse me. I just burped there for a second. Uh, I know. Sorry. That was just water. Uh, number eight, boomerang. As you mentioned, uh, it is an interesting, I like how it's like the player gets played. And so, and, and Robert Gibbons in this, I think basically plays herself. Uh, this is like happening at the time. I can't remember if it was after she was with Mike Tyson or not, but that thing was happening. Uh, Grace Jones is in it as Serengeti and of course a very young Halle Berry and David Alan Greer. Okay. Uh, seven is 48 hours. I know that was his first big movie. In fact, I think it was his first movie, uh, with Nick Nolte, not another 48 hours, just 48 hours. It was fine. Uh, but then it was perfected in Beverly Hills cop. Number six is Beverly Hills cop two. Which had Bridget Nielsen. She was a great villain. Uh, this is after, uh, Rocky and I prefer two to one. That's interesting. Okay. I think a lot of people do. Yeah. Okay. Uh, I, I like, I'd also had a great, uh, song. Do you remember a shakedown by Michael McDonald? Michael McDonald.
JVL00:51:55Great one.
Vic00:51:56Great video. Okay. Number five, the nutty professor. Uh, and I liked it. I liked the guy who plays the Dean. He's a funny fella. Larry.
JVL00:52:04Larry.
Vic00:52:05Okay. Uh, but it's also kind of sweet and, and, and he, I mean, there are moments that are a little bit obnoxious, but still good. Uh, number four, you mentioned the golden child JVL. I think that's an underrated one. It's, it's, it's fantasy. It's him playing a cop, but he still has his moments. And remember who the villain is, is Charles dance, who basically is still the same. He looks, that guy looks the same. Okay. Number three, Beverly Hills cop. That's, I liked that movie a lot. I, the great cop duo, and he's not even really a part of them is, uh, you know, try and hold and the other guy from midnight run, whose name is now escaping me. Uh, Charles. No, he's, he's, you know, the big burly guy. He's the burly cop. Okay. And then, uh, number two for me is coming to America, which I just absolutely love. So you know, yes. Number one is Norbit. Oh no, no, no, no. Number one is trading places. That still holds up. I go back to that, man. That is a good movie. If you haven't seen it, you want my honorable inventions?
JVL00:53:09No.
Vic00:53:1010 tens enough Shrek, Dr. Doolittle, daddy daycare Norbit, the adventures of Pluto Nash, the Michael Jackson videos, and then finally coming to America.
Guest00:53:20Okay.
?00:53:21Sunny.
JVL00:53:22Would you like to rank the Eddie Murphy characters? Yeah.
Sonny00:53:27Why? Again, I'm just doing the, from coming to America here. Can I, I, can I just make a confession here? I am not an enormous Eddie Murphy fan. I don't hate Eddie Murphy. I just, I kind of, he was just kind of before my time that happens. So, so when I'm, you know, when I'm like going to movies in movie theaters, right, it's like nutty professor, Eddie Murphy, uh, you know, Norbit, Eddie Murphy, right? Like that is, that's like the generation of film goer that I am. And like, obviously I love trading places and the original coming to America. That's like, I like all those movies, but he was not a formative. Uh, he was not a like formative, you know, film presence for me. So I, I'm like, I'm, I'm kind of, you know, coming all at this, uh, at a remove, uh, anyway, ranked from worst to best, uh, Randy, the singer, sexual chocolate worst, absolute worst trash character should never be on the screen again. I wanted to, I was so, I was like the board audience watching him even counting his performance in the first coming terrible for, or are we talking strictly including both appearances? The worst, awful, dreadful, shaking his head to number two, a Saul, the bar barbershop customer, the old, the wizened old Jewish man. I love that guy. He's very funny. He's got, he's got outrageous opinions. He's old. I love it. Uh, and number, number one, Clarence, the barber. He's great. He's, he's just, he said he tells it how it is and you know, he, he lets, he lets people know what, what. What's what. So those are my rankings, very much less thought, much less thought put into this, uh, than Vic with his 17 movies that he rattled off there, still missing a few.
JVL00:55:14So I, uh, I wanted to rank cinematic comedians, which is to say not counting people for their standup, no George Carlin, not counting people primarily for TV, so no Seinfeld, just guys, which comedy is mostly notable for being in movies.
Sonny00:55:36Number one, Andrew Dice Clay.
JVL00:55:38Uh, it, it occurred to me that there's really only a top three. You have a second tier with a whole bunch of guys in it, right? And the second tier, you'd have people like Chevy chase, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Robin Williams, Chris rock. Wow.
Sonny00:55:58I don't understand. What is. What are we, are you, you're just talking about like comedians, like any comic actor or like guys who were standups and then went into movies?
JVL00:56:09I mean, guys whose, whose general body of work on screen is comedy and who are the leads. So not, not bit players. And at the, the very, very top, I think there are only three names and they are at number three, Will Ferrell, number two, Bill Murray, and number one, Eddie, I think Eddie is the biggest comedic talent on screen. Certainly of my lifetime. I think he's just a main and you know, his career, you can definitely draw a line in his career when he started doing the nutty professor 17s and the Norbitz. But uh, I mean, when that guy was that is again, that run of movies that I mentioned the 48 hours Beverly Hills cop two trading places coming to America gold.
Vic00:57:00I mean, those things. Are when you look at that on IMDB, it's really, and they're so funny. They're so funny.
Sonny00:57:07This is, this is a generational thing because for me, like Will Ferrell destroys Eddie Murphy, uh, with his run from old school up through like Talladega nights, I think of that run
JVL00:57:19of Will Ferrell's is absolutely, uh, parallel with, this is why I say like that, that top tier and Bill Murray stopped being. Certainly merely a comedic actor, he started doing more drama, but he's still done a ton of comedy work on the screen and it's all amazing. And the gulf between those three guys and everybody else is so big that I don't even, that's why I didn't want to do about Jim Carrey. I would put Carrie and Adam Sandler in the third tier, uh, there was their bigger box office draws, but just in terms of actually how good they are and how good their stuff
Sonny00:57:58is. I don't know, man. The Jim Carrey run from like ace Ventura, putt detective to the mask, no, but, but ace Ventura through like the cable dumb and dumber.
JVL00:58:10I just didn't like any of those movies Truman show I liked, but then he's not, that's not
Vic00:58:15him as comedy.
JVL00:58:16I, I just never, and, and Adam Sandler, I, I like many of the Adam Sandler movies in that run, like happy Gilmore and Billy Madison, but I don't love them. Like they're, they're just kind of there again.
Sonny00:58:29I, I like all of those movies. I, I like all of those movies more than the, the Eddie movies. I mean, I like, I like, uh, basically happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, uh, up through maybe like big daddy, Mr. Deeds, like that whole run right there. I just, I love all that stuff.
JVL00:58:48That's fine. But again, Eddie, Bill Murray, Will Ferrell. I don't think there's anybody else who comes close to those three. I think everybody else, you forgot my little Nikki.
Sonny00:59:00Oh, Mike Myers.
JVL00:59:01Mike Myers is like a one trick pony. He's got, he's got Wayne's world and Austin Powers. That's it. I remember him.
Sonny00:59:11He did.
JVL00:59:12So I married an ax murderer.
Sonny00:59:13And also Wayne's world sucks. You suck. Wayne's world is great. Okay. Wayne's world is hilarious.
JVL00:59:19Take Vince Vaughn any day.
Sonny00:59:21I think Vince, I mean, I think we're, I think we're under, I think we're under appreciating that like that whole, again, this is a generational thing, but that whole frat pattern. That pack group, right? The Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, like that whole cadre of, of actors. I loved, I loved all that.
JVL00:59:43I put them as a repertory group against any other class of comedic partners and colleagues. I certainly put them up against like the Belushi, Ackroyd, Murray. The Chevy Chase. And I think they compare favorably just again, as a total strength of team, right?
Sonny01:00:06If we were gonna... Ramus. Ramus and Murray.
JVL01:00:09Yeah. They're pretty good. Anyway. That's, that's what I've got. All right, guys. Spirit of the Week. Is anybody, were you doing shots Victorino? No, that was just water. Sonny, you're doing Diet Coke. I'm saving, I'm saving for tomorrow. I'm not drinking anything. Corrections edition shout outs. I got none. Nothing. All right. That's all the time we're giving to this episode. If you have questions, comments, compliments, tweet us @SonnyBunch, @VictorinoMatus, or come on, leave a comment and say hi at subbeacon.com. We're there. Tell your friends. Until next time.
Sonny01:00:45Anything where you guys got?
JVL01:00:52I don't know. Did I tell you guys I'm getting a Peloton? Oh, yeah.
Vic01:00:56How about Peloton update?
Sonny01:00:57You did. I think you, I think, yeah, I think you mentioned that.
Vic01:00:59People wanted the Peloton. Peloton was supposed to do the treadmill, and apparently that's way backed up behind, so that's not happening.
JVL01:01:05It's coming. The treadmills start at 2x the price of the bike.
Sonny01:01:12So like five grand? Yeah. For a treadmill?
JVL01:01:15Wow. I mean. So they, is it going to be? And also, the treadmills weigh 500 pounds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Think about how to get that into your. Like they're really, don't think about getting it in, think about getting it out. Because they'll bring it in. Peloton will bring your treadmill in and set it up for you. Then it's there for life.
Vic01:01:35But once it's there.
JVL01:01:36It's there for life. You got to like just give it to the next person who buys your house.
Vic01:01:39Yes, when you move along with your refrigerator and the oven. Hey, don't make me take this. And the Peloton. Do you know JVL? Will they have different instructors for the treadmill versus like, or can the cyclist be like, oh, I can do this too. You could see me running and you could see me.
JVL01:01:58Well, you can get it all on the app. You could, if what you're asking is, can I watch Jess King run on a treadmill? The answer is if she does the tread, if she does treadmill workouts, then you can watch it on the app. You just project it on the side of the moon, put it in, you know, in big, whatever size you want to, to project. You just go ahead.
Vic01:02:22You think these cyclists also do the running things and everything else, or they think like they're strictly that, and then they'll have a new. I have no idea.
JVL01:02:29I haven't even set up my account yet.
Sonny01:02:31Did you get your Peloton or is it, has it arrived yet?
JVL01:02:35I am two weeks out from my Peloton arriving. Now they've told me that as a complimentary matter, they will start my app access right now. So if I wanted to go upstairs and slide into bed next to my wife and put Emma Lovewell on just a, an Emma Lovewell cycling workout on my phone while I, you know, hang out with Shannon, I could do that.
Vic01:02:58Live well and love well.
Sonny01:02:59Oh God, I'm sure it's fine.
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