#21. 'The Last Blockbuster'
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
A two-host episode — JVL is off for Holy Week — so Sonny and Vic cover the Netflix documentary The Last Blockbuster. The memorable stretch is the opening 12 minutes: prompted by a commenter sneering "why do Vic and Sonny keep JVL around," Sonny drops the irony for a genuinely impassioned defense of his friend, explaining that JVL is the reason the show still exists (he pushed the Patreon move and took over hosting when Vic wouldn't), that he's actually the sharper critic of the two, and warning that he'll "burn it down like James Caan at the end of Thief" and ban abusive commenters rather than let them insult his friends. On the doc itself, Sonny's verdict is a padded 90-minute nostalgia grab that should've been 40 — the one genuinely interesting thread it fumbles is the business/logistics story (revenue-sharing, the doctrine of first sale, how Blockbuster's computerized inventory system was its real innovation) — with Kevin Smith the standout talking head; Sonny also reveals he himself worked at a Blockbuster for two weeks in the winter of 2000–01 (after four years at McDonald's), scarred forever by the endlessly looping Virgin Suicides promo. Vic is the more sentimental of the two. The hangout opens on Spy Wednesday, William Devane gold-vs-silver ads, and Vic's new obsession with pricey Luxardo maraschino cherries and barrel-aged Manhattans; he signs off reading The Bonfire of the Vanities.
From the show notes
On this episode, Sonny gets drearily earnest. Vic is back as host! JVL is on vacation. And while all three of us are planning on doing an episode next week on Godzilla vs. Kong , whether or not this episode on The Last Blockbuster is, in fact, the last episode of the Sub-Beacon is entirely up to you guys! Listen to the first 12 minutes or so of this episode to see why.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello and welcome to another edition of The Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan Last at Sonny Bunch. Jonathan is out this week. Just a reminder, The Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends and don't forget about the Sub-Beacon merchandise store at tpublic.com. Are you telling me you really don't know what a headache shirt is?
Sonny00:00:47Nobody knows. I don't know either. It's one of the enduring mysteries.
Vic00:00:50Yep. Jonathan took that one to his grave. Just kidding. It's Holy Week. He's taking the week off. Happy Spy Wednesday, Sonny. What is going on? I don't know. I'll explain that one to you later. I don't know what that means. Yes, I'll explain that later. I don't know what that means. Is that a Catholic thing? That is a Catholic thing. It's when Judas made the deal with the Pharisee or the Sanhedrin or something, Caiaphas, Herod. I'm not sure. I'm really good at this stuff, trust me. Everyone's yelling at me now. I can feel it, our listeners.
Sonny00:01:17The knights.
Vic00:01:18The knights are rioting. The knights are very disappointed about it. It's 30 pieces of silver, which by the way, silver is the big thing now. You know? If you ask William Devane- Oh, it's silver.
Sonny00:01:29Has silver replaced gold? It's silver. If you ask William Devane-
Vic00:01:32It's not gold anymore. Silver has replaced gold. I trust him with all of my financial- Smart. Yeah, of course. Smart. What is going on?
Sonny00:01:42Him and catheters. Yeah. William Devane and catheters. That's where all my money is.
Vic00:01:46Yeah, catheters. You know what? I like the catheter, the stunt pilot, the airplane pilot who used the catheter and to prove how good it is, he does the loop-de-loop with the catheter.
Sonny00:01:57Yeah.
Vic00:01:58That's pretty good.
Sonny00:01:59That's pretty good.
Vic00:02:00That's pretty good. You can't beat that. No, no.
Sonny00:02:03Doesn't splash all over him while he's doing the loop-de-loop.
Vic00:02:06Very comfortable feeling. Didn't even know it was in there. Forgot to take it out. Okay. What is going on with you, Sonny?
Sonny00:02:13Not a whole lot. I'm a little bit annoyed because I have to be earnest right now. I have to do an earnest thing. As you know, as a Gen X adjacent individual, irony is the only thing I understand. So earnestness makes me itchy. So JBL is not here. As people who are listening will notice, JBL is not here. And that's because JBL is ... He took offense to some of the comments. And I can't say I blame him for a couple of reasons. But first I want to tell a slight story, a small story about my own failures. My own failures. So people who aren't on Patreon don't know, but there's a function where if people stop being patrons, they can fill out an exit survey and tell us the reason they're leaving the show. And sometimes these are interesting, usually they're not. Usually it's like, "I can't afford it anymore," or whatever, which is the nice way of saying they don't want to pay for us, which fine, I'm fine with that. But one person in the why are you leaving field left a story that was on the bulwark, a link to a story that was on the bulwark about voting rights or something. It was about HR1. And so he stopped listening to the show. He stopped listening to the show because he didn't like a political thing that was written by neither of us, neither JVL nor I, just published on the site where we both work. And I saw that and it annoyed me a little bit, but mostly it made me realize that I have failed. I have failed. One of my long running projects, one of my, for years now, has been fighting against what for a while I called the politicized life. Do you remember these pieces, Vic? I do.
Vic00:03:55I do. You told me about them.
Sonny00:03:59It was basically an argument that allowing politics to invade every part of your life is poisonous. It's bad. It's not good for you.
Vic00:04:08Can't eat here. Can't shop here.
Sonny00:04:11Right. And this is usually something that you see. This is currently usually something that you see on the left, a lot of. People right now, people saying, "Well, how can Marvel make movies in Georgia because of the voting?" Whatever. Again, I don't want to talk about politics. It's not about politics. This show's not about politics. The whole point of the show was to be beyond politics. That's why we started doing it at the standard.
Vic00:04:28A refuge from.
Sonny00:04:29Right. We were just talking about movies. Talking about movies. Talking about sports. All we wanted to do. Candy drafts, whatever. Mulch. And so, again, part of my intellectual project, if you will, has been to create this space where people of varied ideological beliefs can come together and enjoy movies. This is probably most explicitly done on Across the Movie Isle, which is another podcast that I've done. But like here, too. I mean, it's just like the show's not about politics. So when when this person quit. Because of a totally unrelated political thing to to the show, I was a little bit bummed out by that. But I will be honest, I would much rather people quit that way than come into our comments section and and say things like, you know, what what this this jackass Bishop Walsh said that set JBL off. And I don't blame JBL for being mad. This guy comes in. He's like, you know, why do? Why do? Why do Vic and Sonny keep JBL around? And you know what, man? If it wasn't for JBL, the show would have gone away. The show would have gone away and it would have gone away because because I didn't want to do because Vic didn't want to do it.
Vic00:05:39I am so I'm just don't think Vic didn't want to.
Sonny00:05:42Vic didn't want to host the show. You know, we weren't we weren't really getting paid for it.
Vic00:05:45You know, it was it's it's it's not by the way that changed everything for me. Hi.
Sonny00:05:50Yeah. Well, that changed everything. That changed everything for Vic. You know, we weren't getting paid for it. We were super busy with everything else. And we weren't we weren't having as much fun. But JBL wanted to keep it going. And JBL figured the way we could figure out how to keep it going was a get on Patreon, make a little make a little money to keep Vic the rolling in French Cabernet or whatever. And and also that JBL would take over hosting duties now without I don't really want to get into whether or not JBL works as the host or not, because that's not the point here. But him hearing constantly. From people. Why do they keep him around? Why is he doing? Why is he doing the hosting? Why? He's doing the hosting because Vic wouldn't do it. And if it wasn't for JBL, the show would would have gone away. Now, look, if you don't like JBL hosting. Stop listening. Stop listening. Don't don't sit here and say, you know, why are they keeping around? Don't talk about my friend that way. This is the thing that that actually pisses me off the most is because it's not like these people are talking about some random, you know, jackass off the street who we have on the show to to talk about movies or whatever. He's a friend. He's he's one of our I mean, he's been friends with you for twenty five years now. That's right. You know, I've I have known JBL since 2002. So almost 20 years now, I I get I get angry when people insult my friends when they could just go away if they don't like it, because here's here is what will happen to the show. If this if this doesn't stop, if if people don't, you know. If stop being shitty to JBL, the show will the show will go away. It will go away forever. We'll just shut it down. We'll burn. I will burn it down like James Caan at the end of Thief burning down his his successful used car lot. I will I will happily walk away with this because I value my friendship with JBL more than I value the money that we make from the show. And if if folks don't appreciate it, then then stop listening. Just stop list. Just go. Just go away. And I'm not like I get it. I. It's strange. People don't like whatever. But don't come in here into my my house, my Patreon house and insult my friends. I don't I don't I don't care for that. And I'm not going to put up with it. So like from now on, the the ban hammer is going to be much more liberally applied in the comments. And I don't like doing that because, you know, I feel like if people want to if people are paying money to listen to the show, then they like the show and I don't want to take things away from from people that they like. And if if if people don't stop, you know, being being just being dicks like and it's a small it's a small number of people. It's like five percent of five percent of the listeners who who who are dicks. But stop being a dick unless you want to ruin it for everyone, because once again, like like Jimmy Conn, I will just I'll throw a match. I'll pour gasoline all over my laptop. I'll throw a match on. I'll walk away. Thick. That was very. How's your week? How's your week been?
Vic00:08:52That was very earnest of you.
Sonny00:08:54I. I get I get angry. I get angry when again, I get angry when people treat my friends this way and like I get I get angry when, you know, JBL said something to us that, you know, he thinks that there are people who like me more than him and that that that's, you know, kind of part of part of, you know, where where the hate toward JBL comes from. And I don't know that I agree with that. But I do remember so back when I was running Rebeller, we had a writer, a female writer, wrote a piece for us, really great piece on costumes in Walter Hill movies, kind of an esoteric topic. Great piece, though. Fantastic. Everybody loved it. But she got a bunch of weird comments from people about like, why are you why are you got broads talking about movies on this, you know, dude dude movie site? You know, why? Why? Why? Why are these? Why are these women here? You know, why are they talking about lady things like costumes and clothes? And I and she didn't tell me about this and I like I when I found out about it, I was a little annoyed because I would have liked to have known. But I don't blame her because she didn't. She just didn't want to. She didn't want to put up with it anymore. So she stopped writing for me. And I, I am I am slightly worried that I have attracted that sort of listener and reader. I don't know if it's via my Twitter personality or what, but I don't I don't want people like that listening. I don't want people listening who insult my writers and insult my friends because they, you know, they think they have to put up some sort of tough guy front or they have to, you know, oh, they think they're engaging in constructive criticism. You're not you're not my fucking editor. You don't get to constructively criticize me. So you know, from now on, again, I hate this. I hate having I hate having to say this. But I just I want I want people to know how serious this is. Because it's serious.
Vic00:10:44It's very serious.
Sonny00:10:45We will shut this four year old show down. We will do it.
Vic00:10:48And we will never never like quiet, relaxing Thursdays.
Sonny00:10:52I know. I mean, that's the thing is like it's not it's not like it's no work.
Vic00:10:55We you know, it is I put it together, you know, well, when I host I put together a script, it takes a lot of work. And it takes the chemistry of three people, three guys, who are gonna see how shitty the
Sonny00:11:07show is today.
Vic00:11:08Oh, in fact, there's we're halfway done with the show.
Sonny00:11:10I mean, the show is gonna the show is not going to be as good because we don't have JBL here. And like, I know, I know, some some folks are like, Oh, what, you know, he's he's not a good host. But like, set that aside. And, you know, again, I don't I don't want to hear it. Set that aside. The thing about JBL is that he is actually a better critic than I am in very, in very real ways. Like he has very interesting insights into the movies.
Vic00:11:37He has deeper thought, as you know, I mean, I don't read about I don't read this stuff,
Sonny00:11:41as you know, well, he's got he's got a deep base of knowledge in a bunch of subjects. There's a thing we're going to talk about today that I would have liked to talk to him about. But we won't be able to know.
Vic00:11:49He's not here. Save it.
Sonny00:11:51But we'll save that for we'll save that for the last blockbuster when we get to that,
Vic00:11:54there you go. A lot of it is all sorry. Sorry, everyone. The you know, you've thrown me off, Sonny. I had there were three different points that I was going to I should write these things down while you were going on your notebook. Yes. No, no. I agree. I agree. One hundred percent. And the other thing is because of your outsized influence on social media, you and JBL have a lot of followers and a lot of strong feelings. Going there back and forth. I have less than 10 percent of the followers you have. Right. I have about six thousand something followers on Twitter at the moment. And most of them. The only thing we have in common is that we're interested in shows like Datelines to Catch a Predator and things like that.
Sonny00:12:44You know, Chris Hansen fans.
Vic00:12:46Yeah. You learn. You learn things. You learn things, you know, about that. Do's and don'ts. But anyway. And there was some other topic. You know what? Later on, I'll probably remember what it is I was going to say and then I'll bring it up. But anyway, I'm obviously with you 100 percent. This place was, you know, this is where we get to talk about things other than politics. And so please, let's keep it that way, including booze. Are you drinking anything right now?
Sonny00:13:16I'm not. I haven't had a drink in like a month. I've been trying to.
Vic00:13:19I mean, it's not even secretly you were giving it up for one. That's OK. That's OK. You didn't tell us, but you knew it was it actually converted real. You didn't even know. Well, you know, if you want to keep the show, keep the show going. Sonny will convert. And I don't want to go to hell and I'm like, yes, OK. But I did want to tell you something very interesting. So a few weekends ago, our good friend, our good friends, the McCormick's came over to visit John in his house. You know what he got? Sonny. He got a miniature. Barrel, a little barrel the size of like a piggy bank, maybe slightly bigger, where he is aging Manhattan's. Oh, yeah.
Sonny00:14:04One of those.
Vic00:14:05And you can get you can get it personalized. The whole deal. I don't know where he got it, but it's got a cork and the whole deal. And the only thing that you said, I think he said the thing that you're not supposed to put in the barrel is the bitters. You add that to your drink, I think, is how it works. But otherwise, you know, and you could put he put old old overhauled of all, you know, you don't have to get fancy. Just put all over. You know me. I like Evan Williams.
Sonny00:14:32Do you have a sweet vermouth, too? Or.
Vic00:14:35Yeah, I think so. So it's all in there and and it and it and it just ages and a couple of bars do this. I remember Derek Brown in Washington, D.C., had a place called Southern Efficiency, and you could just, you know, Manhattan on tap or on draft. And there's there's a the great thing about that. It's just how easy it is to pour yourself. And it's great to make drinks. But if you're entertaining, you just turn that spigot, you know, and there it is instant for you. So he brought it over. He brought he didn't bring the barrel over, but he filled up like a bottle or two of the Manhattans and brought it over to our house. And it was great. The other thing that he brought over, however, and I know you for your Manhattans, you don't do this. I will put, as you know, the maraschino cherry. You put in the maraschino like that, like I don't put I don't put like a slice of orange.
Sonny00:15:28No. Right.
Vic00:15:30That's right. That's right. Like an old fashioned or something. Right. That would be an old fashioned. Yeah. Manhattan. So I use I just use a maraschino. You get it at the supermarket. It's fine. You get a little bit sweet cherry juice in there. You get a little bit of a party, especially when you get to the bottom. So in your mouth. That's right. And everyone is. Everyone is invited. Yeah, that's right. Invited. But you know what he brought over was a jar of Luxardo, the original Maraschino.
Sonny00:15:53Right. The real man. Italian. So the best. The best of the Maraschino.
Vic00:15:58That's right. At the top of the crop, if you will. It is the real cream of the cream of the crop. That's what I meant. And it's it's real cherries, right? It's sour, dark cherries. And the cherry juice is a thick, dark syrup. So it was so good that I ordered on Amazon. Two jars. That was a two jar special. Do you know how much two jars came to?
Sonny00:16:29Twenty dollars.
Vic00:16:32Double that.
Sonny00:16:33Forty dollars on cherries.
Vic00:16:35On cherries. So I thought at first.
Sonny00:16:37I guess we can't quit this show.
Vic00:16:38No, I need it. I need it because I'm not going back to those. I'm not going back to supermarket Maraschino cherries.
Sonny00:16:43You're not going back to trash cherries.
Vic00:16:45Fuck that shit. So it was really quite it was a game changer. And I thought I was being had. I looked into it and people have written. And websites have written on is it really cost as much. So it really does cost about twenty to twenty three dollars per say for a for a jar. But somebody calculated it that it came to forty cents a cherry. That's that's what it came to. But anyway. And it.
Sonny00:17:08Yes. Price is no object. No, no. When it comes to.
Vic00:17:12No. A good cocktail cocktail. Good cocktail. So I have the two jars now. And when I do it, it is just the syrup is heavy. But it really you have to. It takes a while to stir it and get it in there. But. Wow. What a difference. Speaking of which, this week we're talking about the documentary The Last Blockbuster. Wow. What a difference. I'm not. I'm not. Oh, sorry. That was the catchphrase in the commercials. Wow. What a difference. See. There you go. Underappreciated. But it's just the two of us. Yeah. JVL is not here.
Sonny00:17:47There you go. He would have appreciated that. Because you know why? You know why the show works? It's because it's like I'm the kid brother and you're the two older brothers.
Vic00:17:52Yeah.
Sonny00:17:53That's right. What you guys talking about? What you guys talking about? I don't understand. What are these TV channels in New Jersey?
Vic00:17:59I remembered. It's me. It's my impression of me. Thank you. That was me. That was you circa 1989. I remember what I was going to say. The Sub-Beacon is like a White Russian. Without one of the ingredients, all you basically have is milk and vodka. And that would not be good. You'd need the Kahlua. So JVL's the Kahlua. I'm actually the Kahlua. Let's face it. I was going to say.
?00:18:22Yeah.
Vic00:18:22I'm the Kahlua. Although I did write about vodka.
Sonny00:18:24You wrote a book about vodka. Yes.
Vic00:18:26I did. It's hard to say. You're all the ingredients. I'm kind of all the ingredients. I'm not milk. That's you guys. I also appreciated this show, by the way, because it was a safe space for Appy. Appy? What is Appy? No. You're not woke in a friend? I don't know what Appy is. That is the Asian Pacific Islanders. Thank you.
Sonny00:18:44Oh. Yeah. Yes.
Vic00:18:47It's Appy Friendly, the podcast. Okay. The last blockbuster. The last blockbuster, which actually, Sonny, came out, I think technically they did this documentary a year ago or so, but it just arrived on Netflix. And I was a big blockbuster person and I want to know your thoughts on it. But first, maybe a big boy review.
Sonny00:19:09Yeah. So the last blockbuster, the problem with this movie is that it is entirely a nostalgia grab. It is trying to get you to remember things that you loved from the past and to say, "Oh yeah, that was pretty cool, huh?" Remember blockbuster? Because that was a cool thing that we did for a long time.
Vic00:19:27Member berries.
Sonny00:19:28Member berries. Everything in this documentary goes on for like twice as long as it needs to. It's 90 minutes long and it should have been 40 minutes.
Vic00:19:38I said an hour, but you think you could cut it down to 40?
Sonny00:19:41I think you can get it down to 40. There's nothing really that interesting in it, except for people talking about how they used to go to blockbuster. And there is an interesting story to be told about blockbuster insofar as there is a big business story here that has to do with logistics. This is the most interesting thing in the documentary, it's one thing I would have liked to have talked to JBL about. Because what blockbuster did was not revolutionize the game of video rental by expanding and putting a store on every block. They did it by having a computerized system to keep track of who was renting what and where, and what to get rid of, what to increase stock of, what to decrease stock of. And to do this on a massive scale, to do this on a scale that allowed them to negotiate terms with the studios. I mean, there's a really interesting piece of this documentary that's not really drilled down on at all. Because I don't think anybody... In the documentary understands the business of it or really wanted to talk about it. But when they were talking to one of the execs who worked there about revenue sharing. So what happened? So the way video stores used to work is a video store would pay $100 for a new VHS. And once they had this, they could do whatever they want with it as doctrine of first sale. They could rent it to people, they could resell it, they could do whatever, once you pay that $100, right? It's yours. You can do whatever you want with it. And so this is why starting a video store was insanely expensive. They talked about how one of the stores, I think it was one of the Pacific coast stores or Pacific video stores cost like $400,000 to get going. Back then. And like, that's a crazy amount of money for just again, for just movies. Like if you bought $400,000 worth of movies right now, you could open a store with like 30,000 movies.
Vic00:21:49I hate to interrupt a big boy review with question, but I do have a question while we're on the topic. When you say that they could do, cause I was trying to figure this out and I didn't cause they showed you, you know, Empire Strikes Back for $99, which of course insane. And you could sell it for that. Could you, they could not duplicate though, the tape.
Sonny00:22:08No, no, no. So the, so, so the way, the way it used to work at the beginning of the VHS, you know, revolution, right? The, the tapes were like $900. 90 to a hundred bucks, 110, $120. And the, the studio sold these at insanely high markups and the theory that like if, you know, if people are paying $7 for a ticket and you have five people watching it, you know, you gotta, you gotta figure out how to make that the economics of that work. Um, and they, and they also just kind of had, had a monopoly on it. You couldn't use a VCR to like record things off the TV, right? You couldn't, you couldn't, uh, they, they, that technology didn't really exist.
Vic00:22:44My dad did the, you know how you do it, you, you take, you connect your, your camcorder to the VCR. Yeah. And you get all sorts of stuff.
Sonny00:22:51Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well eventually, again, this was like another Supreme court case. Eventually the Supreme court ruled that you could, that consumers, uh, were allowed to do that with their VCRs. Basically like the, the studios were trying to shut down, uh, VCRs, uh, saying that they were essentially piracy machines that like people were using them to, um, and I think it was, I think it was like a five, four decision. I'd have to go, go back and look at my books, but it was, it was a very close decision. And what the, what the, what the Supreme court said. If I remember correctly was something like, uh, if you, uh, you, you, you are allowed to record something to watch later. Um, and once you allow that, like it's impossible to stop basically everything else, um, in terms of recording off of TVs now recording tape to tape is still, you know, not really not. I, I think it's, it is at the very least a gray area, uh, and you see that you see the, you see the end result of that now with pirate bay and, and the like, where people are just, you know, massively pirate movies. Uh, so anyway, there's, there's a really interesting story to be told about logistics and, and, uh, price points and like how the actual business of blockbuster came to be. And this movie kind of touches on that, uh, again, if a 40 minute version of this, where that is like 20 minutes of the documentary and then 20 minutes is, you know, kind of focused on this one last blockbuster, which is what the hook of this is, you know, the, the very last blockbusters. In Bend, Oregon. And they talked to a bunch of, uh, you know, kind of, uh, famous people, Kevin Smith and Doug Benson. Emphasis kind of sheer, uh, yeah, italics kind of, I mean, Kevin Smith's Kevin Smith.
Vic00:24:32Thank God for Kevin Smith without him that it's like, like 80% of it is Adam Brody.
Sonny00:24:38Well, they should have, they should have had Kevin Smith narrate it because I mean, I'm sure it would have been too expensive. You know, this was a Kickstarter documentary. So, I mean, like, I'm sure. I'm sure from a hard time paying, paying Kevin Smith, you know, 20 grand to narrate the thing probably would have been out of their budget. Um, but he would have been, he would have been much, uh, much better, much more interesting than the, the narrator that they have. I, the whole thing is fine. It's fine. It just goes on too long. And like some of the people are really annoying. Like there's this star Wars voice actor who keeps trying to do Christopher Walken and it's the worst Christopher Walken I've ever heard from a professional voice actor in my
Vic00:25:14life. I did a double take at first. I saw the star Wars, obviously he does the star Wars, the clone Wars. He does clone Wars, uh, and he's in a studio. And when they first showed him, cause I, the first thing I see is the cutout from the clone Wars. I thought, oh my gosh, it's like Mark Hamill or somebody, you know, cause Mark Hamill did voices, but he didn't do it for Chloe. He did voice for the Joker, but I thought, oh my, no, it's not Mark Hamill. It is some dude who does, and he kept on going and they kept you maybe, but they kept on, they just kept it going. They weren't like, they were just like, yeah. It's like, yeah, roll with it and we'll include all of it to stretch this thing out to an hour and a half.
Sonny00:25:50It just kept, it just kept going, kept going, kept going. And like, I get it. You need a feature to be 90 minutes or people are like, ah, but this could have very easily been 75 tops. Yeah. Like the smash mouth guy.
Vic00:26:05Okay. Oh, I, I do have a, I have a question later on question they used to, I, I understand that. Um, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? It's, it's a startup, right? A kickstart. This was, this is not a, you could tell this was a very low budget documentary, right? They had, they did the best with what they had. Yeah. Uh, one of the things I noticed, they had two songs that they've played almost fully and that was the, uh, all, all star song from smash mouth. And then the six pence none, the richer kiss me. But I could, I could have sworn that it's not their vocals, but somebody else doing the singing. And I said, you know, one of those situations. Yeah.
Sonny00:26:45Yeah. Hard to say. Yeah. Well, the smash mouth, the smash mouth, uh, track was weird too. It wasn't the, it wasn't not the original like radio version. That's exactly what I'm saying.
Vic00:26:54It didn't sound like we're a vocal either.
Sonny00:26:56So. Yeah.
Vic00:26:58So was that, is that your, is that the full review or does anything else you want to add to it?
Sonny00:27:02I, I, no, that's about it. I mean, I like, I have a, I wore my, I actually wore my, so I am a, I am a blockbuster, uh, I am a blockbuster, uh, alumni myself. I worked at a blockbuster for two weeks.
Vic00:27:14I in Stafford County, Virginia, I didn't even notice because the microphone was blocking the logo that you were a blockbuster. Talk about burying the lead, which, you know, I, I'm an expert in these things now. Uh, you totally buried the lead should be, I worked at a blockbuster.
Sonny00:27:32I, uh, I, I worked at a blockbuster, but only for like two weeks.
Vic00:27:36Why two weeks?
Sonny00:27:37Well, so I worked, uh, before blockbuster, I worked at McDonald's for like four years. I worked from like 15 to almost 19.
Vic00:27:44You could have done a hamburger.
Sonny00:27:46I could have, I like strongly considered it. I was like, do I want to go to the university of Virginia, like a sucker? Or should I go study under Ronald McDonald? Uh, cause I, there was like a sh there was like a page in the back. It was like, you know, if you were the general manager of a store, you could make, you know, you can make some big money. Uh, and like the guy who owns the place, you know, he, he made decent, decent, decent bank. But uh, I, uh, I chose instead foolishly to go to the university of Virginia. Um, uh, but I, so I, I, I just didn't, I did. I couldn't go back to McDonald's. I was like, I can't do this. I needed to earn some money during a winter break and I was going to come back the next summer, but I ended up getting a job at a golf course instead with some friends, which was, which was a much better option made. I made like a ton more money, um, uh, and, and, uh, I don't know, but I, I still have, I still have, I still have the blockbuster shirt.
Vic00:28:42Did you have to go through a ring? Did you have to go through a rigorous training?
Sonny00:28:45I mean that you watched like a video video. You watch a video. Yeah. I mean, it's like any, it's like any other minimum wage.
Vic00:28:50Like in succession. You have to wait when they work in the, uh, amusement park. Okay. Uh, and, and then did you have to just give two weeks notice and you just said, Hey, I'm leaving today.
Sonny00:28:59Well, I was like, well, it was the end. They knew that I was only going to be there for winter. Cause I was, I was like, I just want to, I just, I'm just filling in for the winter break. I was like, you know, somebody, somebody had like left for the, for a couple of weeks. I was filling in. Cause I was like, I'm coming back. I'm coming back in the summer. Don't worry.
Vic00:29:13I'm coming back. And I never went. So was this sort of during the waning years of blockbuster then when you were there?
Sonny00:29:19No, this was like 2001. Oh, okay. Yeah. No, that's still big. That's still big. Summer, the summer between, uh, first and second year. So it was, it was the winter, the winter, it was, I'm sorry, it was the winter of 2000 slash 2001. Wow.
Vic00:29:37So they, they had fully had, they fully transitioned to DVDs at that point or were they a little
Sonny00:29:41bit. Some DVDs. There were some DVDs, but it was still, it was still a mix of VHS and DVD.
Vic00:29:46What, what was, what did you do? What was the best part of your job and the worst part of your job?
Sonny00:29:51I mean, it was like, there was no best part and worst part, it was just like, it's just, it's just, it's the most, the worst part was they had the same promos for movies playing over and over again.
Vic00:30:02I'm on the TV screen too.
Sonny00:30:04I must've seen the promos for the Virgin suicides 400,000 times that winter. Uh, I must. I like, I, I still can't actually watch that movie because I just, I flash back to like the, the, the promos of it. Uh, so that, that was probably the worst part. I mean, it's, it's, it's just, it's a, it's a monkey's job because you're just like getting, you get the things out of the drop box, you make sure they're rewound, you check them back in, you put them back on the shelf. Like it's not, there's no, there's no skill to it. There's no talent.
Vic00:30:36They have like rewinding those separate from the separate rewinding machines.
Sonny00:30:41Every once in a while. And this was before the age of IMDB and smartphones or whatever. So every once in a while somebody would come up and be like, Hey, what's that movie with Robert De Niro and clerks, they were the, yeah, it kind of, except it was always something really terrible.
Vic00:30:55Did you have a, you know, they talk about being able to, I don't know if blockbuster did that. If, if you could actually be an arbiter, as they say, an arbiter of taste, did they have like, Oh, Sonny's picks. Cause I think that would have been hilarious.
Sonny00:31:08It would have been, it would have been, uh, I don't. I think we had, I can't remember if I got to actually make a pick. I may not have been there long enough, you know, to have my own, my own window.
Vic00:31:19You know, if I, if I worked there, they would have like Vicks, Vicks picks, it would have been like about last night, um, hot dog, the movie and, and blown away and not the one with Jeff Bridges, right?
Sonny00:31:32The other one with Nicole Ager, no, no adults movie.
Vic00:31:36I think that would be the biggest disappointment if I worked there was like, wait, okay, where's the beaded curtain? I mean, that's, oh, how dare you?
Sonny00:31:43And they would be kind of mixed in though. Right? Like, but it would be like a lot of like, like what, like the, you know, like the teen sex comedies.
Vic00:31:49Like, yeah. But, but, but there's nothing, it's all like, it's not the same. No, it's R is your maximum at blockbusters. Oh yeah.
Sonny00:31:56There was no NC 17. Right. That was like, and you know, that's like the other thing about this documentary is that like it is, it is so nostalgia tinged and hazy and gauzy that like nobody really wants to talk about the fact that, uh, blockbuster was actually kind of terrible for, for the world of movie rental in terms of like introducing people to new things. Yes. Like if you want it, if you want it, 5,000 copies of, you know, fight club.
Vic00:32:19Studio controlled dominated. Yeah.
Sonny00:32:21Yeah. I mean it's, it's studio dominated, but like there's also just not, there was never a great international section, whatever. I mean, I, like I, what's interesting, what's kind of interesting and I wish they had focused on this a little more is the fact that, you know, this, this, since this is the last blockbuster and since they are like the keepers of the flame, they can do something a little more interesting with the, uh, with the. With the movie selection. And there's the bit where the, the general manager is like going to target and just like picking up the new.
Vic00:32:47That I think is shocking. So that's where they're getting the DVDs from. She's got to buy it.
Sonny00:32:51And. Oh, well for a while, uh, best buy had like, remember, remember the, remember the glorious age of like 1999 to 2003 or so when best buy would just put out new DVDs and they were like $8. Right. It's like, you want, you want to get, you know, the matrix reloaded on DVD for $8.
Vic00:33:12No, that's, that's, that's what my, my, my, that's why my dad's video collection, you know, DVD collection is so massive because he would go to places like that at that time. Yeah. Just a million. You just go and you just get like, whatever.
Sonny00:33:22Like, ah, sure. I might, I might not watch this more than one, but because, because they were so cheap, they had to put limits of like, you could only buy like four or five copies or something. Uh, because what would happen is that instead of, you know, instead of going through the studios, blockbuster and red box, uh, when red box was starting, this is actually what they would literally do. They would just go to. They would go to like every Walmart in town and every target and buy like five of every new movie and put it in the machine. Um, because it was, it was cheaper to do that than to go through the studios is less of a hassle. Right. Um, and again, doctrine of first sale. Once you own it, you can do whatever you want.
Vic00:33:55Right. Except for duplicating.
Sonny00:33:57Yeah. Yeah. You can't, you cannot, you can't do that.
Vic00:34:00How many, how many copies of the movies, like when you worked there, I imagine like for things like Titanic, you'd have to have multiple, you know, a ton. Yeah.
Sonny00:34:09I mean, by the time I was there, Titanic wasn't new. Okay. But it was still, you know, it was also one of, it was definitely a double VHS. Yes.
Vic00:34:16And in, in, in other, oh, it, you, it was two.
Sonny00:34:18Oh yeah. Double VHS. Oh yeah. Same with deer hunter. I remember I rented deer hunter once on VHS.
Vic00:34:24You know what? The first, the first, if I, I bet you, um, the first VHS of deer hunter ends after the wedding.
Sonny00:34:31Basically. That's not. You remember how long the wedding was? It's not far. It's not far off. It might be.
Vic00:34:37It was a Polish wedding. It went on forever.
Sonny00:34:39I remember. I remember. It was deer hunter. I watched deer hunter, uh, you know, maybe, maybe in my, like the summer after my freshman year of college, maybe. And I remember watching it with like, you know, it was me and a couple of friends. We like, we're like, yeah, deer hunter with the, you know, with the roulette scene, the Russian roulette scene. It's like this vicious movie about Vietnam. It's like for an hour, this wedding is going on and we're like, and we're like, we're like the kids watching the Pucci episode of the Simpsons. We're like, when are they going to get to the fireworks factory? That's like, that's how we felt about, uh, about, uh, Vietnam. Right. That's how we felt about the Vietnam War. No, right.
Vic00:35:14That doesn't happen to the end. Speaking of Christopher Walken, that doesn't happen to the end. Um, okay. So, uh, that, that was my question about, uh, about how much did they have, but I was really surprised. There are, are things about this documentary I thought were definitely interesting. And as you say, if you compressed it into 40 minutes or an hour, it would have been much better because it drags at certain parts. Do you, are, are they compelled to make long documentaries? Is that what's happening here?
Sonny00:35:41It's not even a long documentary. It's just 90 minutes. I mean, it's, it's just, it's just, it's just, you know, basically like, can you not sell
Vic00:35:48a doc?
Sonny00:35:49Yeah, go ahead. The, the minimum respectable length of a feature is basically 90 minutes. Yeah.
Vic00:35:54Like that's, that's kind of what it comes down to. Right. Um, but there are interesting things. One, I genuinely did wonder because I have been following the story, how many blockbusters were, uh, available, uh, we're still around rather, uh, at the end. So that kept, that kept me interested at, and I cannot, I see. Their device because then you're going to get the call and then is it going to be that they're renewed now who is renewing her, the woman who runs it?
Sonny00:36:20It's dish TV. Dish TV owns like the blockbuster copyright at this point.
Vic00:36:24At this point they have to, it's become such a thing. So after I watched the documentary, I looked it up and because of the, uh, the Netflix documentary, um, a couple of stories had already popped up about in, you know, is it still there in the year 2021 in Bend, Oregon? And it is. And because it's only one, uh, it's become a real, you know, pilgrimage site, if you will, for, for, uh, video buffs. Yeah.
Sonny00:36:50I mean, they have, like, they have these guys in the, in the, in the store who have come from like Spain and France and like, we see them for like 10 seconds, so we can get more of Paul Scheer, Paul Scheer.
Vic00:37:02Did you see the guy with the weird, like sort of cross-eyed thing?
Sonny00:37:06I know that's Doug Benson. Oh, right.
Vic00:37:08That's Doug Benson. By the way, you just cleared your eyes exactly like that. Doug, that was really impressive. Just now.
?00:37:13You just, sorry.
Vic00:37:14If you only saw high, uh, the, okay. So, uh, that was the first thing, uh, I have many other questions here, but the, uh, what I, what I think is interesting is so they, you know, I mean, you want to get to that point of, is it just one? And then of course it is, uh, just one, but they keep on going. And I thought, I have to tell you, it felt kind of, it felt kind of sad, but not in a bunch. I felt sad for some of these people that they really were like, unless they were just playing it up because they're being interviewed in the documentary about how strongly they felt about blockbuster.
Sonny00:37:49Uh, I mean, look, it's a thing. It's nostalgia. Everyone, everyone wants to be nostalgic for something like one too many times into that. Well, in terms of things you can be nostalgic about blockbusters far from the worst, I guess. Uh, but you know, it definitely, I would do it if it wasn't much meat on the bone, if
Vic00:38:06they did, if they did the last Howard Johnson, you know, which closed in 2017. I would have, that would have been a great documentary.
Sonny00:38:14I did.
Vic00:38:15And you know, and I, and I've, uh, written about it. Uh, there was a great, uh, book called like 10 restaurants that changed the world. And, uh, there's a whole chapter devoted to Howard Johnson and they had, uh, it's still to this day. I wonder what it was like. They had, you know, he made so many of these, his own, uh, ice cream flavors and one of them was great nut. And I said, I bet I hate great nuts, but I bet you that was a good flavor anyway, back to the documentary.
Sonny00:38:39Um, did you know that grape nuts were like? Unavailable for months recently? Uh, no, because I'm very just like off the shelves. I, they, you couldn't, people couldn't get them now. Now they're back. Apparently.
Vic00:38:49I don't know.
Sonny00:38:50Who needs, who needs great nuts is the question. Grape nuts are delicious.
Vic00:38:52Grape nuts are great. Okay. Now you're just trolling. You're just trolling me now. You know what I love? I love that. There's no flavor. That's what I love. I just like it gets, it's all business. And you know what that business of the, you know what the business of grape nuts is, it's
Sonny00:39:04like, man, you gotta, you gotta stay regular and blow.
Vic00:39:07Um, okay. So back to blockbuster, if you will. Uh, and I. You know, I do have a script. I have, I have notes here. Um, it is interesting. They do get to the point.
Sonny00:39:16Quadrants. What are the quadrants?
Vic00:39:18Quadrants do not apply. Although I will say, uh, plot plot is straight forward. Plot isn't a, Oh, it's the last blockbuster. That's kind of interesting. Um, duration, even though it was an hour and a half, I still give it an F it should have been much shorter, you know, and then violence and nudity. There's not a lot of people I wanted to see naked in this documentary, except for Ioni sky. So they found like old eighties. People. She is aged. Well, I'm going to assume she's probably in her fifties and she's a mom, but she, I, the thing is, I bet you, if you dated Ioni sky net from, uh, say anything, if you dated Ioni sky in your mind, you would still see her as she was in say anything. That's that's my thinking. Take your word for it.
Sonny00:40:02Take your word for it. I'm seeing it right now.
Vic00:40:05Um, okay. So the other thing is the, uh, the, uh, the big question was, did Netflix. Kill Blockbuster. And I really thought it was interesting and we thought, okay, go ahead. I thought it was interesting there to think about, you know, debt Sumner, Redstone, the whole thing.
Sonny00:40:20I think it was really interesting. Yeah.
Vic00:40:22No, that, that, that is very interesting.
Sonny00:40:23So there's, there's a bit in the, there's like kind of a tease at the beginning where like all of the people who are being interviewed were like, yeah, I guess, you know, Netflix killed Blockbuster. I guess Netflix killed Blockbuster. And one of the last execs, I can't remember what his, I can't, I can't remember his name or his title. One of the last execs was like, everybody thinks that Netflix was a CFO, but Netflix didn't kill Blockbuster. It was, and then we find later it, it basically died because of the, uh, because of the financial crisis in 2008, they, they, they had no liquidity, they couldn't get more debt. Uh, and Netflix was, I mean, Netflix and Blockbuster were at the time about even about, you know, they were kind of neck and neck with each other. Um, and Netflix just had more capital.
Vic00:41:03And that's what Netflix was. They were not streaming at, it was their own DVD service, but that's the most, the most
Sonny00:41:11common business decision. And I, I have never understood this and I'm glad they, they called this out.
Vic00:41:15I know what you're going to say.
Sonny00:41:16The, the decision to get rid of late fees, just the dumbest idea in the entire world. Not because, not because people like late fees, nobody likes late fees, but if you don't charge a late fee and you don't have a membership program, if it's not like you can only rent out one thing at a time and you pay $15 a month.
Vic00:41:33You basically just bought it for $4.99.
Sonny00:41:35Yeah. You just, you just bought the movie.
Vic00:41:37Yeah, that's right. John Antioco from Taco Bell. That was his idea. He came over and did that.
Sonny00:41:44Uh, I, again, I like, I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm not a MFA. I don't have a business, uh, MFA master fine arts. I'm not a, I'm not a businessman. I'm not a, I don't, uh, I don't know dollars and cents, but I do know that if you get rid of late fees, people just aren't going to return the movies.
Vic00:42:01That's right. And Ione's guy actually brought that up because she would go to somebody's house and they'd have like a stack. Yeah. And they're just not returning it because I mean like you would be, I would be my mindful of, oh, I got to get it back, you know, because that's just what you do. Right.
Sonny00:42:16Yeah. But at the same time, how many times when you had the Netflix discs, did they just sit? Oh yeah. On your, you know what? On your, on your counter for like three weeks.
Vic00:42:24That's totally, that's totally true. I did that with, uh, public enemies, uh, which was a great movie. I just, I don't know why I just could not get around to watching it for one reason or another. And, uh, and I was going to say, uh, another movie, but I re just realized that movie was one that you lent to me anyway. Sorry.
Sonny00:42:40What? What?
Vic00:42:42What was that? It was Sully. Sully. Oh yeah. Sorry. I remember that. That's why.
Sonny00:42:49Yes. Go ahead. I've, I broke the rules and I lent you, I lent you the Academy, uh, screener disc that I got for Sully and you just didn't bring it back for like a month.
Vic00:43:01It took me a while to transfer it over to, uh, my relatives in the Philippines and they uploaded it. You had to like, you had to burn it and then. Yeah, yeah. It takes a while to get that. Believe me. It paid well.
Sonny00:43:13Um, the, uh, there's a, there's a copy of Sully in every, in every Filipino. That's right. That's funny.
Vic00:43:20Bunch. It says it on the bottom there. Don't worry. They'll never fail. They'll never figured this out. Uh, the, uh, the other thing is, okay, the people who they had on, you talked about Kevin Smith, right? And he really did carry this movie, uh, this documentary because he had, he brought it, he brought sort of this voice of assuring authority and wisdom to that situation, which is amazing. Okay. How about, uh, Jamie Kennedy? Oof, man, you know, what's disturbing I'll tell you, cause he talks about, uh, w w what the funny thing is he talked about how he got his start and, and how he did that thing where he was part of the blockbuster team that included Jim Gaffigan. Yeah. That's why that's very funny. But you look at him and I looked at him and all I could think of is I cannot believe he had briefly dated Jennifer Love Hewitt. Wow. It makes it made me sick.
Sonny00:44:09It made me look. It was different then.
Vic00:44:12He did. He was nevertheless.
Sonny00:44:14No, no, nevertheless. He looks like a troll. Yes, he does. Yes, he does.
Vic00:44:18There were a lot of, there were a lot of interesting people. On this thing. Here's the other Adam Brody. Oh. Adam Brody.
Sonny00:44:25He still looks the same, but you know, he does look the same. I have heard very good things about the kid detective. You mentioned this.
Vic00:44:30We should do a show on that. I don't even know what that is.
Sonny00:44:32Is it? It's a straight to straight to VOD.
Vic00:44:34Oh, well that works out unlike the movie we thought we were going to talk about today.
Sonny00:44:38I wanted to talk about nobody and you were like, I'm not going to the theater. I didn't know it was in the theater.
Vic00:44:43So I went, I went, I went to, I went, I went downstairs to the basement where I am now. I turn on the TV, I go to Netflix, I go to Amazon and then I went back to Netflix. I said, maybe I missed it again. No. Where is it? And then is it on Hulu? Where is it? Oh no. And then you're like, it's in theaters. And then I checked my AMC app and had crossed out all the numbers, but it was only because the times only because it was thinking it was for today and I'm like, well, I couldn't do it today. But, uh, yeah, sorry about that. That's that app. I don't know. It's so easy. Again, this is case in point with the, with the, with the death of blockbuster, um, it's just so easy to just turn on your TV and get it instantly instant gratification. It's the same way with, you know, music you, you want it down, you don't have to go to tower records, you know, or you want to even figure out what the song is. The internet is there to tell you what that song is. And here's the other thing. And we talked, you know, with Netflix, even when they were still DVDs, uh, you could drop them off at any mailbox, right? You seal it, the envelope, it gets back to wherever it's going. Uh, blockbuster, if I'm not mistaken, you were a former blockbuster employee. I believe you could, you could not like take blockbuster, a vid, a DVD or a video from
Sonny00:45:52one blockbuster and drop it off at a different, no, you're not supposed to do that.
Vic00:45:56Yeah.
Sonny00:45:57Did people ever, it happened. It happened. Oh really? But yeah, but you're, you're not supposed to do that. I remember that usually it's just like, uh, you know, a couple of miles away.
Vic00:46:05So it's like not the end of the world, but she, yes, uh, well I remember this happened way, way back in, maybe it was 2002 and I, uh, rented a movie with my future wife, Kate. Uh, and when Harry met Sally, cause I thought that would do it. It did not. Uh, but I thought that would do it and we rented it from the blockbuster, uh, down where she lives in Capitol Hill. And then, uh, for some reason I ended up with it. Oh no, yeah, we must've picked it up there, but we went back to my apartment and watched it there. But of course there's a blockbuster in Cleveland park up the road, but I could not bring, I had to bring it all the way back. And if anyone else is wondering what happened, cause they talk about it a little bit about romance and blockbuster, renting a video with your girlfriend. Number one, she was not my girlfriend at the time. Number two, she suffered from a gastrointestinal distress that night.
Sonny00:46:59And then we went to, we went to too much information, too much information, but you know, anything
Vic00:47:06for the show, really sunny to keep and, uh, uh, we had gone to Potomac mills and we went to Cinnabon and we haven't been there. Don't go to Cinnabon.
Sonny00:47:15I can't believe I shared that.
Vic00:47:20Uh, okay. But, uh, okay. Do we, Oh, here's the other thing, uh, when you started, I mean, obviously you were going to rent videos before blockbuster. When you lived in Stafford, were you going to like mom and pop stores then too?
Sonny00:47:36We had a, so there was a family video, which I don't think was. I think it was like a, I don't think it was a chain. I think I'm pretty sure it was like a standalone, uh, and that was in the, the, uh, quiet town center. It was like right outside where a quiet town center that's right where that's right. And it was right next to the comic book store as well. So I could take care of my whole, my whole week's business in one run and get my comic books. Get my video.
Vic00:48:00Did you ever, did you ever, what I, you know, they talk, they joke about the, Oh, the smell and this and that, but it is true. It was a very distinct smell when you walked into blockbuster. Uh, maybe you didn't wasn't, yeah, it was, it was a very, I can, I can, I can picture it now. Um, and I always loved that they had all these candies and concessions, although I never once bought them.
Sonny00:48:19Literally. Never. Literally. I, I never understood it.
Vic00:48:23I was like, who's buying candy from blockbuster? A movie experience. He's doing a movie experience. Now, uh, did you ever see people buy it when you were there? Of course.
Sonny00:48:29Oh really? People would, I mean, they have it there for a reason. People buy the, buy the candy, but I'm just like, why would you, I am also the sort of person who never buys candy or, or popcorn really at the, at the movies.
Vic00:48:39People don't anymore, I guess. And I used to get Goobers and you know what? I don't even know if they sell Goobers anymore. I cannot understand how Raisinets beat Goobers. I think, I think they still sell Goobers. Raisinets are everywhere. And I think that's insane. But what I was going to say to go way back to about the whole thing about dropping it off. Well, no, I already brought that up about that. Oh no. It's like, it's not like a rental car or anything else where you can't just, you know, go from one place or another. You have to go to the space, the same space, but we talked about that. Okay. Um. Good show. It's a good show. Uh, yeah. It's a good show. Don't blame Carl Icahn. That's what I was going to say. It was Sumner Redstone who basically.
Sonny00:49:13Yeah. I mean, that was, again, that was interesting. It was very interesting. Like all the business stuff that I, I did not know was, was kind of interesting. Yeah.
Vic00:49:20You know, the, the, the. I could have had more of that and tighter.
Sonny00:49:23I can't believe Paramount bought Paramount or Viacom or whatever, bought, uh, them for 8.4 billion, 8.6 billion, something like that.
Vic00:49:33Billion. And that is back in the nineties. Uh. Uh, the place that was near us was called A to Z Video. Uh, in Tom's river and, um, that did have a back room by the way. Not that I ever went there.
Sonny00:49:46My other buddies did.
Vic00:49:47No, I, anyway. Uh, but you know what? The weirdest thing is they were always certain videos that you'd walk by and look at. Well, like sometimes you would spend forever, like, what am I going to watch? What am I going to bring home? Because sometimes there just wasn't anything. Um, and there were, but there were always two that I, that were always staring me in the face. One of them was called, uh, steal justice. And that starred Martin Cove crease from karate kid. Sure. He, that was like his vehicle. That was going to be, he was going to be like the next, that was his Rambo. If you, if you want to, if you want to find Martin Rambo too. Yeah. And he wasn't Martin. He wasn't Rambo too. That's right. So this is what is supposed to be his thing. I looked at it. I never once got it. And the other one that I always looked at was called career opportunities. And it was with Frank Whaley and Jennifer Connelly. And the only, the great thing about it is look it up. It's a great, uh, poster, a cover because Frank Whaley being his goofy Frank Whaley with the crazy hair is like on the bottom part of the poster or the picture. And Jennifer Connelly is on top, like leaning over him with just hanging over his head.
Sonny00:51:00Hmm.
Vic00:51:01Yeah.
Sonny00:51:02That was her.
Vic00:51:03I can, I can picture it. Yeah. Look it up. It's that kind of a show. All right. Uh, do you have any other thoughts? Not bad. No. You ran it. Okay. All right. Good. I'm done talking. Uh, do you have, uh, uh, corrections, shout outs, anything? No corrections. No. I don't think so. I self corrected with Houston cause they're still in it and they're still in it. Um, so, uh, if, uh, a Gonzaga has to lose, but of course, eh, we'll see what happens. Um, okay then that is all the time we're giving to this episode questions, comments, complaints, tweet us at Sonny Bunch at Victorino Mattis compliments only compliments again. Be sure to subscribe to us on Patrion. Just go to some beacon.com. We're there.
Sonny00:51:50Tell your friends until next time.
Vic00:51:59You got anything?
Sonny00:52:00No. I don't have anything.
Vic00:52:02Do you have anything? Uh, well, I can't remember if I mentioned on the last show, you know how I finished 1984. Did I tell you what I'm reading now?
Sonny00:52:10No.
Vic00:52:11In the category of books I have lied about or at author slash books of books. I pretended to read bonfire of the vanities.
Sonny00:52:20Oh, yes.
Vic00:52:22Who is this? Tom Wolfe guys.
Sonny00:52:24Pretty good. I, it's going to take you a long time to read that book.
Vic00:52:26It's a big, I am, uh, I'm, I'm a little over 50 pages in, so it's so you've had a week
Sonny00:52:3250. So you're in like in two months.
Vic00:52:34I could. Yes. Depends on my day. Uh, I was skeptical. I was skeptical at first, um, but it starts to grow on you. It's such a weird peculiar style that he has. I remember, you know, when you switch, I mean, it's just every writer, obviously every author is different. I, you know, I remember Joe Epstein saying, you know, never use exclamation points and of course Tom Wolfe is, you know, new journalism type and everything is, you know, the, the exaggerated sound effect of a phone ringing across the page with the 10 Rs and things like that. And, uh, it's, uh, it's interesting in, in sort of a little time capsule of New York in the eighties. And I remember New York in the eighties. So I think that's interesting. I'm looking forward to that. And then, I don't know, maybe some other, uh, book that I haven't read after that, whenever I get done, you know, maybe Macbeth.
Sonny00:53:26Have you read any, have you read any other Wolf or is it, is that, I'm sure it's fine.
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