#23. 'Boss Level'
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
The main film is Boss Level, the Hulu time-loop action movie with Frank Grillo (plus Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts, and a scene-stealing Will Sasso). Sonny's verdict is that it's "deeply fine" — he likes the Groundhog Day-as-video-game concept and its lean 85 minutes, but the lazy script buries the movie under wall-to-wall Grillo narration explaining everything on screen, and Edge of Tomorrow (which he rewatched right before) does the exact premise far better on every level. JVL agrees Edge of Tomorrow is the superior film and is unimpressed by the steroid-ripped Grillo. Vic lands on a quadrant A-minus (B plot, A-plus duration, A-plus violence, C sex/nudity) and, contrary to the others, loved the constant narration for helping him follow along. The opening is the standout: JVL spots the Echelon bike at Costco and gleefully IDs it as the total Lepin-style knockoff of his still-undelivered Peloton (down to the font and friction knob), which spirals into off-brand talk. Sonny then recounts a credit-card fraud saga — after he wrote a check to a door-to-door magazine-subscription kid, a string of Geico charges appeared under the name of a onetime "most wanted" Dallas gangster, Markeith McWright — which triggers a long, funny rant from JVL about hating door-to-door fundraising and just wanting to write the check for what it actually costs.
From the show notes
This week on the show: JVL finds a new Lepin (see the photo below). Sonny has a new name. Vic's transitions are gold! And the gang discusses what works, and who doesn't work, in Boss Level , Hulu's Groundhog Day-meets-video games action flick. All this and more on this week's episode! Here is Lepin Bike:
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00I used to complain that every day felt the same and now every day is the same. Hey, Jake! I have died 144 times and every day ends like this. But it doesn't matter. Not when you've lost everything you've loved. Venter. Man who's had me killed 150 times. The power to rewrite history is mine.
?00:00:30The power to rewrite history is mine.
Vic00:00:35Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Lastceans, Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com. You will easily find us. Please subscribe. Tell your friends. And don't forget about the Sub-Beacon merchandise store at tpublic.com. Listener Adam Bradley was just showing off his onesie. Not on him, of course, but on his adorable baby. So thank you. Adam JVL, what is going on?
JVL00:01:04So I had something happen to me. Okay, I'm ready. So you guys, you are aware that I have joined the Peloton. Oh, right. Yeah.
Vic00:01:17And we're waiting for it to arrive.
JVL00:01:20Well, so I was surprised when I ordered the Peloton. It said it could take up to like eight weeks to get to you, but I got a very fast five week date. And then on the morning of the delivery date, after getting the whole, you know, for a full week, an email from Peloton every single day saying it's happening. Get your place ready. Here's your confirmation number. That morning, the email to say, oh, we've had some difficulties. We're going to have to reschedule. I believe that they knew from the moment I gave them my money that that they were never going to deliver on that date. But that's okay. They gave me a. Couple hundred bucks back for my trouble.
?00:02:02Really?
Sonny00:02:02That's fine. So they gave you 1% of the bike back.
JVL00:02:07Something like that. So, uh, fast forward to last night and I am over at Costco and as I am walking through Costco, I see, I'm going to show this to you guys and Sonny, I'm gonna have to send this to you and you're gonna have to put it in the, uh, on the episode. I see this. Hold on.
Sonny00:02:29We hit a little lower, but there you go. Wait, hold on. So am I taking a screenshot of this? Hold on.
JVL00:02:35No, no. I will email you email.
Sonny00:02:37I'm just, I'll just take a screenshot. It's fine. Like, ah, screenshot. Okay.
JVL00:02:40Echelon, Echelon, Echelon, and the Echelon is, I guess the Lepin version of the Peloton. Yes. It's one of these things where the knockoff is so complete and total down to the design cues and. The logo and the name. And I just don't fully understand how this is legal. Right. That they haven't been sued yet for.
Sonny00:03:10Well, but, but Peloton, I mean, we we've talked about this before, but Peloton's whole thing isn't the bike itself. It's the, it's the courses, right? That's why you get Peloton.
JVL00:03:19Echelon does that too. You mean there are Echelon trainers?
Sonny00:03:22Oh, yeah, but, but again, like Echelon, you can't, you can't like copyright or patent, you know, training. Uh, on bikes on the internet. That's not like, that's not a patentable thing.
JVL00:03:34Does it look like, does it look like the Peloton? What I'm saying is everything about this, the, the design of the bike itself, the design of the, the friction knob, the, the name, the PA everything about this, honestly, it would not surprise me that if you went into the Echelon, uh, class that you find that you could ride with Keska Jing or. Or Gemma Roadwell.
Vic00:04:00Oh, that's good. That's good.
JVL00:04:02Uh, Victorino question road. Well, yes. Love it. Oh, I love it. Yes. I know it was good.
Vic00:04:07Although I like, I like Keska Jing is my favorite though. You know that I moved on quickly. I, I honestly can't understand. Look, you can't walk into Costco and buy and buy 11, right? Cause here's a question wrong. Did you look into. What is Echelon? Like if I had a choice, did you buy the Echelon?
Sonny00:04:27Did I buy the Echelon? Did you tell Peloton to go F off and buy the Echelon?
JVL00:04:32No, although I did do some internet sleuthing. Cause I was curious for exactly this reason. And, uh, it's the bargain basement. It is literally the Peloton knockoff. It is, you know, where the Nordic track version tries to be its own thing. There, you know, there are, there are now as many. There as many bike versions of Peloton as there are foam mattress versions of the Casper, right? So this is, you know, it created its own little sector, right? Uh, but the Echelon, everybody else tries to do their own thing. The Echelon is basically like, we're going to try to trick people into thinking that it's the same thing.
Vic00:05:12Is the font similar?
JVL00:05:14The font is similar. I had, everything is the same.
Vic00:05:17The funny thing is if you told me that I had to come up with, uh, this particular prototype bike with, uh, you know, where you follow the trainer online and the whole thing streaming, and I had to choose between the name Peloton and Echelon. I choose Echelon because Echelon is an actual word. So is Peloton.
Sonny00:05:34Peloton's a word. Haven't you ever watched?
JVL00:05:36It's not biking. It's a cycling, but Peloton is the group.
Sonny00:05:39That I would not know about at all. Peloton's the group. I've never heard of that until the bike. When you're breaking away from the Peloton. That's when you're like.
Vic00:05:47Didn't know about it until I sat on it. Uh, is Echelon Chinese?
JVL00:05:52I, uh, I, I assume that everything about this is is manufactured in China. Yeah. And for all I know, the same is true of Peloton. Yeah, that's true. I, I don't know, but every, the level of knockoffness of this astonished me. And again, if you're simply listening to us, you, you, you have to go to the site. And look at the figures of this thing, because it's amazing.
Vic00:06:18Uh, what is the price differential?
JVL00:06:22This is one. You know what? Here I, I will effort that. Okay. Uh, but I believe it's, it's a fraction. I was gonna say so.
Vic00:06:31It's less than half. It's gotta be, it's gotta be cheaper than Peloton because you know, if you're gonna, you might as, if you had a choice between the two for the same price, you would choose.
JVL00:06:40Less than half close to one third.
Sonny00:06:43I think. What was Lepin was 10 cents on the dollar basically.
JVL00:06:48Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lepin was a, a much bigger discount than this. This is still quite a lot of money. Oh yeah.
Vic00:06:55So several hundred dollars. So since. You found it there, that means you have, you have to lug it yourself on your. Yes. Yeah.
JVL00:07:04And assemble it yourself, which Peloton does for you.
Sonny00:07:07Oh, the Peloton, they bring the people there. They white glove. They, they send up. I put, I put together the chair I'm sitting in. It took me like two hours the other day.
Vic00:07:19Do you have, does, does Peloton then, uh, do, so they'll wheel it into your, where you have to have the whole thing ready for them to set up, obviously with various COVID things as well. And then you go in and you just tell them where to build it.
JVL00:07:32Yeah. You show them where you want it. They set it up. They set it up there.
Sonny00:07:36Do you have a Peloton room?
JVL00:07:39Yes. It's called the garage.
Vic00:07:40Okay. Do you, you should, you know what you should change your light bulbs to make like purple or blue, like they do in those, uh, um, what is the, uh, soul cycle?
JVL00:07:50I care so much.
Vic00:07:51Like I was going to say, yeah. Like soul cycle, which they used to have in the old, well, the last standard offices we had, there was that gym and there was like that tucked away room. And the people were doing that hardcore. It was like dark except for neon lights in there. I never went into that room. It always scared me.
Sonny00:08:09Was that at the, the examiner office? Yes.
Vic00:08:11The examiner office one. Uh, yes, I'm used to it because the one it's funny, the one at the Kennedy, the one at the Kennedy Warren, which is, you know, it was such an old building. Now it's fancy, but when we lived there, the gym was in the basement and it was separated from the other parts of the gym with like chain link. The kind of chain link that goes up. And I brought up my, when my buddy Stevie stares, he's visiting. He looked at me. He goes, he said, it was like, my God, this looks like Oz. You don't want to get caught. You don't want to get caught like on the bench press or doing the leg thing. You know, when you're on your stomach, you don't want to get caught on that.
Sonny00:08:46Cause then the wicked witch will show up and she'll, she'll mess you up.
JVL00:08:50That's one of my favorite arrested development jokes. When young Michael Bluth settled down to watch Oz.
Vic00:08:56That's all I've got.
JVL00:09:00What do you, what do you guys got?
Vic00:09:01What's going on, Sonny? You said you had something as well.
Sonny00:09:05I, uh, so the other day I'm, I'm driving to the gym cause the gym is reopened. And, uh, or the gym has been open this whole time. Cause in Texas we barely shut anything down, but I am, I am finally fully vaccinated. Second shot is in me, uh, two weeks, two weeks done. So I am, I am, uh, the Highlander. You can only kill me by cutting my head off at this point, uh, and stealing my quickening, but the, so I'm, I'm like driving to, I'm driving to the, the gym. I get to the gym and I, uh, I, I got, I didn't even get an alert. I was just checking my bank account for some reason. Uh, because we had a, we had a big credit card payment or something. I wanted to see if it had gone through. And I looked at the, I looked at the account and there's a, there's a charge to Geico. And I was like, that's weird. I don't, I don't have. Geico, uh, I don't have Geico insurance already. And so I, I, I took a screenshot of it and I sent it to Beth. I was like, Beth, do we have Geico insurance? Did you get like supplementary Geico insurance for something? She was like, no, no, that's, that's not, uh, we don't have Geico. I was like, oh, okay. So then I searched in my search. I searched for Geico in my bank account and there were five other charges to Geico. Two of them under my name. For some reason, and three of them under the name Markeith McWright.
JVL00:10:33I don't know these charges for me.
Sonny00:10:35Uh, it was grand total about, about a thousand dollars, like 800 to a thousand dollars, somewhere in there. But what, what appears to have happened is that Markeith McWright who in 2015, there was a Dallas morning news story about how Markeith McWright was one of the most wanted, uh, gangsters in Dallas. He had finally been arrested Markeith McWright. Uh, he, uh, apparently he had, he had set up, uh, he had set up a Geico insurance account and used my card to pay for it. And when I mentioned this to a friend, I mentioned this to a friend of mine. I was like, this is so just a weird story. He's like, well, I can't believe the most wanted gangster in Dallas had car insurance under his own name. That is good point. I, but it was, it was just one of these really random and bizarre things. I have an idea of how this happened. Yes. Um, uh, cause it was on my, you know, cause I, we, we don't pay for anything with check. I don't use my debit card on anything. I don't, I don't ever use my debit card except to get cash like once every two months, um, just to have a little extra around the house, you know? And then, uh, we send checks to like the, we send checks to, you know, the Atmos energy or whatever, whatever, you know, energy provider we have there was, however. A young man who came to our door selling magazine subscriptions. And about a month after that young man showed up at our, at our home to buy highlights for children subscriptions for the local hospital. Uh, you'll never guess what started happening. Mr. McWright got car insurance.
JVL00:12:19Did you buy highlights from this using your cream? You gave from a guy. It goes door to door. You gave your credit card. No, I gave him a check, which was even stupider.
Sonny00:12:29I gave him a check, which was even, it was your routing number. I thought at the time I was like, God, this is, this is dumb. I shouldn't do this. Like, I know I buy everything from all the, from all the, like the, the kids at the elementary school, you know, we've bought cookie dough, we've bought girl scout cookies, whatever. And this, and I, and when, and when this young man came around, I was like, I probably shouldn't do this. And then I thought to myself, wow. Well, this is, this is my implicit bias showing up. I can't, I can't give in to this. Uh, and, uh, sure enough, I got screwed.
JVL00:13:03Um, so did you get the highlights at least?
Sonny00:13:06No, I, I bought it for, I bought it for the children's hospital. That's who I was buying it for.
Vic00:13:10I don't think you thought did you get a tax deduction on that too?
Sonny00:13:13I got a receipt. I got a tax receipt.
Vic00:13:15So, you know, the funny thing is the salesman actually worked for a computer company called inner trode.
Sonny00:13:21No, this is the thing. It's totally, it's like, it's, it's, it's like something out of office space, man. Uh, and anyway, so, so I'm, I'm like, I like 90% sure that I ran into Markeith McWright jr or something. Um, and he took the check home to dad and was like, well, we found a sucker, found a sucker in the nice neighborhood. Uh, and anyway, so that was my, that was my, I had to spend, I spent most of, you know, or I spent like, I, it was actually not very hard at all. I called up who I do my banking with. I should probably beep that.
JVL00:13:55You don't need to know who I do my banking, um, after all this number on social security number. Did you read that out for us? I think you repeat that again.
Sonny00:14:08Uh, no, but I, uh, I, I called up, uh, God damn it. And, and, uh, and, um, and I was like, Hey, I, uh, I have, uh, I have, uh, an issue here. I I've been charged by Geico and the guy Orlando on the other end of the line was like, uh, do you, have you ever authorized Geico? I was like, no, I've never done anything with Geico before. This is, he was like, okay, this'll be easy to take care of then. Um, so in theory, in theory, I should be getting the money back here shortly. Uh, and no harm, no foul, except for the fact that I had to change my checking account number because there is check at the mark at the McWright household, just floating around there.
JVL00:14:50Hold on now. I, I, I gotta think this through. I am not myself a criminal mastermind. Sure. But it seems to me that it is probably not Mr. McWright who did this, because if you do something like if you use the proceeds of theft like that under your own name, then if somebody unravels it, you're right there holding the bag. Yeah.
Sonny00:15:21I don't know.
JVL00:15:22So this seems to me like somebody else maybe was using. I don't know. Or him really go to real Geico. Is there another shell company?
Vic00:15:31Is this guy is funny? Is this guy behind bars? Is he, or is he out?
Sonny00:15:36Great question. I haven't really, I haven't really tried to figure out where he lives. I'm not going to go. Sound. Is there somebody at your door right now?
JVL00:15:42Sonny?
Sonny00:15:42I'm not going to go ask for my check back.
JVL00:15:45So anyway. Nobody's selling magazine subscriptions.
Sonny00:15:48Anyway. Uh, fun story, fun, fun times at the, at the bunch household. Anyway. Uh, like, like I said, it was actually very easy to get a new checking account number and all that. Uh, and we, and I, like, I don't have any automatic payments set up through my checking account. I do it all. Uh, I do it all through my credit cards so I can get the points, you know, like a, like a civilized person. Um, so anyway, it was, uh, it was, it was a, it was a kind of a, a learning experience. And like I said, I knew, I knew when I was writing that check, you know, I was making a mistake. I knew these things.
JVL00:16:19It is, it is like, why did you know it?
Sonny00:16:22Cause. I was like, who reads highlights for children anymore? Come on. Even the kids, even the, even the kids read rolling highlights.
JVL00:16:29We get highlights and cricket and spider at our house.
Sonny00:16:33I don't know what cricket and spider are there. Those sound fake. As long as you don't get a spider cricket.
JVL00:16:38Oh no. Those are the graduate up from highlights, right? As you get the kids progress from that. And we get Ranger Rick jr. And national geographic jr. Like tons of kids. Magazines here is, uh, just highlights.
Sonny00:16:50Did you steal my check?
Vic00:16:52Does highlights still have Goofus and gallon? I don't believe that they were two boys.
Sonny00:16:59I seem to remember them getting rid of Goofus.
Vic00:17:01And that's too bad. Galant. I, I, I thought it was hilarious. Goofus was hilarious. Uh, okay. No, you know what? When we moved in, when we first moved into our house as a young couple and we didn't have kids yet, um, we got the same thing. A kid came to the door and then, uh, um, asked about subscriptions and we're like, yeah. And I'm like, come on in. And then I think I probably got a subscription to like Esquire or whatever it was at the time that we really did receive the magazine. But clearly it didn't occur to me later because he's talking about, oh, I'm going to school, going to UVA. And I'm like, he didn't look like he was going to UVA. I don't know. He looked kind of young and, uh, and I should have asked questions and, you know, but you're like, oh, okay. And, oh, I have a friend who goes to UVA and, uh, and, you know, he just sort of like, oh, I hope he doesn't ask any questions. More specific than that. And then, and then, and then, and then he left. And then I thought to myself, not until later, I thought, you know, that's probably just the thing that they go from door to door. And, uh, but then we became friends and then I send him a gun. I'm just kidding.
Sonny00:18:08I buy magazines from him every year.
Vic00:18:10Christmas cards.
Sonny00:18:11I've got seven.
Vic00:18:12We were fine, but we don't, we were fine, but we don't, we don't do that anymore. Um, but I do feel bad one time, uh, we, we did get a, uh, a knock on the door and there's a, uh, it was a young guy who was selling, um, like donation subscription for, I think it was WETA, not WETA, but the classical music station here, uh, in, in the DC area. And we liked that Kate. And I listened to it from time to time. It's a, you know, and, uh, and I'm like, I don't know, you know, I just see one-on-one. No, no, it's 90 points. Yeah, that's right.
JVL00:18:44So, uh, and we, and I felt bad that I, and I actually thought maybe I should, I said,
Vic00:18:49I'll look into it. And I didn't, I didn't. I didn't commit to it. And then I actually went on their website and I saw the guy on the website. Like, he's like, they're one of their official guys. So, I mean, it happens, but you know, so I, I don't know if I, I had to do this sort of
JVL00:19:06stuff all the time in high school. Right. Right. This is the thing. Raising money for choir, raising money for the basketball team, right. You know, door to door and I, we're selling grapefruits. We're selling wrapping paper. We're selling. I hated it so much. And I resented it so much that when flash's team had one of these fundraisers where the kids were supposed to sell like $300 of popcorn or something, I called the coach and I said, look, what is your take from this? You guys get 50%. He's like, yeah, I think we get 50%. I said, can I just write you a check for $150? I don't want my kid to have to do this and I don't want the popcorn because I'll just eat it all and get fatter than I am now. So, uh, can, can I just, can we just cut to the chase here? Because this is like, this is like the tipping thing, right? Like there are all these hidden rules of it. Just, just charge us what it costs. That's all just, just charge us what it costs. Tell me what it costs and I'll pay for it. You don't make my 12 year old kid wander around the neighborhood. To like a bunch of neighbors. He's never met before. Uh, yes, the, uh, I don't have time to supervise that. I don't have time to hold his hand, help him figure out. Yeah. I don't want him to grow up to be, uh, an encyclopedia salesman or vacuum vacuum
Vic00:20:34cleaner salesman, but the funny thing is all the high school kids, uh, do it. But you know, after sometimes you're like, oh, who are these people? But the funniest thing, and then, you know, you worry about situations like in Sonny's experience. But then, uh, I remember one time I'm like, you opened the door because, you know, the they, they, you know, they're knocking throughout. They used to knock throughout the day and you'd be like, what? And then they like, oh, I'm, you know, from, you know, the, the near high school and this and that, and I go, and then, and then he stopped and he just, he looked at me and the kid said, I used to live here. And it was wild. And he was, he told me his name and they, he was the son. I said, oh, you're kidding. That's very weird. And, uh, it's weird that he used to live here.
Sonny00:21:14We lost the house. Now I sell magazines.
Vic00:21:17No, they moved up.
Sonny00:21:19That'd be a good bit. Actually. That would be a good. Big house to house. Be like, I used to live here before my dad got addicted to crack.
Vic00:21:26Did you know there's still a stash of that if you look in the basement. Okay. So that's it.
Sonny00:21:32You'd have to do a lot of research. You'd have to find the names of all the people. Yeah. It'd be, it'd be, it'd probably be more effort than getting a real job at McDonald's, but. Oh yeah. Think about how much money you'd have. Yeah.
Vic00:21:41But you, it's the internet. You could find all that stuff out. So anyway, uh, that's it.
JVL00:21:46Yeah. Also the, the legit door.
Sonny00:21:50Did or high school kid. They always come in teams.
JVL00:21:54And there's always, uh, I don't know if this is true in your, the legit ones. There's always like a parent waiting in waiting down. Watch. Yeah. Like on the sidewalk or whatever. And that's, they don't let the kids go by themselves. House to house. I know. It's such a.
Sonny00:22:07Disappointment. I mean, this is this.
JVL00:22:10And also Vic, you'll notice if you invite them in, they, they are not allowed to come inside.
Vic00:22:14I don't, it's just like, come on in. No. I mean, it's, it's, it's like, I, I will, I'll do it. I'll give depending on the sport. I'll give depending on the sport.
Sonny00:22:24I, I, uh, no, it's funny. I like, like I said, so I live like a block from an elementary school. So like we get these kids all the time. We get the sixth graders doing the, you know, the cookie dough sales or whatever we get, you know, the, the fifth graders doing the wrapping paper or whatever. And it's always like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fine, fine, fine, fine.
Vic00:22:43Yeah.
Sonny00:22:44Anyway, in the future, I'll just make sure no more highlights for children. And that will be, that will be the thing I look out for the highlights for children. Not, not the person selling it or any of that stuff. Highlights for children is on my enemies list.
Vic00:22:59Victorino, how are you buddy? Like I said, on the tech, uh, on the text. Fine. Nothing going on. It feels like every day is the same day over and over. Speaking of which this week, we're talking about a movie boss level on Hulu. Thank you. I, uh, I, I didn't get a chance to ask my sister about using her to log it. So I got it. Cause you still have like, what did they give you? Like a month free or something like that? That's great. Yeah. Seven days, 14, whatever. Now, uh, you have Disney plus, don't you? I do.
Sonny00:23:31Did you get, wait, did you get the, did you get the one with the commercials or the one without the commercials commercials?
Vic00:23:38But if you're watching a movie, there's no commercials.
JVL00:23:42Yeah. There's a commercial at the very beginning. Yeah. At the very beginning. Oh, Victorino. Hulu is bundled with E you get Hulu ESPN plus. And Disney for like a dollar more a month than just Disney. Yeah. I don't pay.
Sonny00:23:53I don't, I don't, I don't pay for Disney.
JVL00:23:55Oh, you're stealing your sister's Disney as well. Okay.
Sonny00:23:57I bought it. I bought, I got a year of Disney plus, so I don't do the bundle, but when, when my year of Disney plus is over, I'll I'm going to switch to the bundle. Uh, Hulu is actually strangely expensive. It's like 14 bucks a month or something, which is like, if you go for the premium one for the ad free one, cause I don't, I don't do advertising. I feel like Hulu has gotten punched in the face by my television than watch an advertisement.
Vic00:24:18I feel like Hulu has gotten. Better since the last time I tried Hulu for a month. Yeah. I sent you some select. Yes, you did. I'm open to all of those. I'm open to all of those things. But before we get to that, Sonny, how about a big boy review?
Sonny00:24:30Boss level stars, Frank Grillo, Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts, and Will Sasso. Uh, Frank Grillo is Frank Grillo is a retired Delta force type, uh, who is jacked and stacked and wakes up every day with a bunch of people trying to kill him. He has no idea why, uh, it starts in media res. This is not. Groundhog day where we, we move through, uh, the, the day with Bill Murray or, uh, uh, edge of tomorrow where, where we start with Tom cruise and he dies and then he wakes up again. It's like, we're in it, we're in it and it's happening. Um, and this has pluses and minuses. The plus is that in, in a better scripts hands. We are now familiar enough with the groundhog day concept that I don't think you would need a ton of explanation in this movie's hands. There is this. Endless narration that explains every little obvious thing that we are seeing happen on the screen. And it, I, I, I, it didn't bother me a ton. The first time I watched it, it annoyed me a little bit, but it didn't bother me a ton. The second time I watched it, I was just like, shut up, Frank Grillo. Shut, shut up, shut your mouth. I'm tired of hearing you talk. Um, and that's kind of how I reacted to the whole thing. I mean, look, I, I like, I like the, I like the concept. I think it's. It's amusing and clever. Even if edge of tomorrow does the whole repeating life as a video game better without actually being, you know, a video game, it, it, it ha it uses all the tropes of video games and all the ideas of video games, like learning levels by rote memory and, you know, melee weapons and all that sort of stuff. We'll come back to edge of tomorrow in a second. Cause I, I watched that again too, and it's so much better than this movie. Um, but, but boss level's fine. It's fine. It's, it's got some amusing villains. Um, Mel Gibson is kind of wasted in this. He's kind of a straight guy villain. Um, will Sasso is weirdly my favorite thing about this movie. I w so will Sasso is like the 500 pound guy from mad TV. Um, and he plays a, he plays a heavy in this and he doesn't have a ton of screen time, but he's, he is, he's amusing. Um, and it's got, it's got a, a whole like treasure trove of, uh, you know, high concept villains, like the, uh, the midget. IRA bomber and the, uh, Asian swords woman and the German twins, the black German twins. There's a lot of like weird German stuff in this. There's the black German twins. And then there's also the red head who buys Hitler's pistol. I like, I'm not a hundred percent sure what's going on there. Um, and there's also just, there's a, so there's a subplot in, in the middle of the film that is all about, uh, Frank Grillo coming to grips with his, uh, paternity. He has a son. He wants to get to know him better, but of course he keeps dying. Um, and, and, you know, can't, can't reveal, reveal it to his kid before he does. Um, because he doesn't want to disappoint him, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know, man. The movie is fine. The movie is, is deeply fine. It's only like 85 minutes long, uh, without credits, which is a big plus for something like this, but it is, it is, I, I, I am annoyed by the laziness of the script and you know, I don't know, uh, look, I it's, it's always hard to say that a script is lazy. Cause we, without actually reading it, who knows what happened in post-production there, there was a, there's like a two hour cut of this movie floating around somewhere. Um, I actually have a hundred minute cut of this movie somewhere on my hard drive when it was being from when it was being shopped around, uh, because it was in kind of post-production hell for a long time. Uh, the, the studio Saban entertainment or whoever kind of wanted to unload it. Um, I think Hulu picked it up just to have something to put on, on the service. Um, it's again, it's deeply fine. It is no better than that. It could actually be much, much worse than that. Frankly. I I'm, I'm curious to see what, uh, JVL makes of it, uh, because like I said, I, I watched edge of tomorrow, uh, yesterday I watched edge of tomorrow yesterday before I watched boss level again. I see what you did there and, uh, and edge of tomorrow is just so much better. It's it's just, it's better on every level. I mean, Tom Cruise is better than Frank Grillo. Simon is better than, um, uh, thank you, Joe Carnahan, who I like, I actually liked Joe Carnahan a lot. And that's one of the reasons I think I'm a little bit disappointed by this film is cause I really like narc. I think smoking aces is fun. This has like kind of a smoking aces vibe to it. Um, except it doesn't really lean into the silliness of the, the, the villains. They're just kind of, uh, one note there and gone. Um, I don't know, man, I, I, I don't love this movie and I wish I did. I wanted to like it a lot more.
Vic00:29:16You texted us. You said it was very fine.
Sonny00:29:19It's very fine. It is, it is like the, it is the definition of a mediocre movie for me.
JVL00:29:25Like the apple juice. Do you remember that?
Vic00:29:27A very fine apple. Yes, of course. That's like a vending machine choice.
JVL00:29:31Uh, I don't know what that's gone. It's a relic of the eighties and nineties.
Sonny00:29:35Yes. Yes. I don't know. That's before my time. Uh, I don't know. What did you, what did you guys, what, how did it do on the quadrants?
Vic00:29:41Vic? Oh, uh, the quadrants did great, uh, by and large. Uh, the. I gave the plot a B, you know, obviously there are, uh, some, the derivative aspects of it, you know?
Sonny00:29:53I mean, it was, it's not hard to follow because they say everything that's happening on the
Vic00:29:57screen. Sonny. I wish every movie had like a Frank Rillo narrative to it because it helped me a lot. I had no questions until the end, but I had, I was like, oh, okay, this is what's happening because of that. It helps reinforce what I think is going on in the movie, but I'm not quite sure. And half the time I miss things. Maybe I'm it's maybe it's my hearing, but I'm like, I don't know what he just said, but you know, okay. Let's go with it. And at least, oh, okay.
Sonny00:30:18It's got a mouthful of marbles because it's Frank Rillo.
Vic00:30:20Okay. I'm like, I was wondering if it was just me duration is an a-plus. That's a short movie. Violence in action is an a-plus, right?
Sonny00:30:29How much of the like $15 million budget do you think went to Frank Rillo's head being cut off his shoulders repeatedly? I, that's what I want to know. I percentage of the budget, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what they obviously used a lot
Vic00:30:44of CGI for. Explosions. And you could tell the explosions are because it has that smooth. I don't know. There's probably a professional term for it, but it just looks like it's almost transparent
Sonny00:30:54in a way. It looks like, it looks like a bad Photoshop. It looks like it's been laid on top of, it looks like a, it looks like it's been laid on top of the image instead of like interacting with the environment.
Vic00:31:03Right. Still a lot of great violence. Sex, nudity, obviously a C. Um, the dent, the dental hygienist, ah, okay. What? You know? All right. Whatever. Uh, and, uh, Naomi Watts, she got old. She did. No, no. But she's cute. Yeah. You know, I give it a C. Uh, so it gets an A minus. Um, I, it was, I thought it was entertaining, um, but we'll get to Will Sasso, by the way, you'd mentioned Will Sasso as the, the, the, the, the henchman Brett until the end. Or maybe, yeah, until the end credits, I thought it was, I was suspecting it was the actor who played the mountain in game of Thrones. I know who is apparently as much. He's much giant, much more of a giant, you know, he's, he's, he's, he's got muscles.
Sonny00:31:50Yeah. I know.
Vic00:31:52I couldn't tell. I figured, I figured he just let himself go, but will Sasso, you're very talented.
Sonny00:31:56So I was like, oh, I like, I mean, I've Will Sasso was always my favorite thing about mad TV.
Vic00:32:01Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:32:03I know what you mean.
Vic00:32:04Okay. I have questions and things like, but I want to, let's get, I want to get deeper here. JVL. Your thoughts.
JVL00:32:11So we get a lot of shirtless, Frank Grillo.
Vic00:32:14He's ripped. I don't know how old he is, but he's ripped.
JVL00:32:16I was going to ask you boys to, based upon his, his definition, what his age is.
Sonny00:32:2446.
JVL00:32:25I was going to say 43 now, 40, 56.
Vic00:32:29Whoa. 56. It's an old man, ripped body.
JVL00:32:32It's an old man ripped body. No. That's steroids. Oh. It's steroids. There, there is. That guy is.
Vic00:32:40It's the, it's the old man who's been using steroids for a long time, buddy.
JVL00:32:44Yeah. And, and that he looks like Scott Steiner. Basically. He looks like big pop up.
Sonny00:32:52His traps are a little smaller, but yeah, I can, I can see that. So Scott Steiner's still alive.
JVL00:32:59I don't know.
Sonny00:33:00I think one of the Steiners is dead.
JVL00:33:02I can't remember which one. Rick is a real estate agent.
Sonny00:33:04Oh really?
JVL00:33:05Yeah. Rick Steiner is a real estate agent and the dog face gremlin. If you go, you could get him to sell your property in Florida. Oh, that's awesome. Uh, so the writing, it's, it feels like either something that is really pushed together in choppy ways in post or the, just the drafts, you know, you're, you're in an early draft of a script that was never fully developed, but the biggest problem with the movie, honestly, is Frank Grillo. I, oh, I didn't mind like Frank Grillo. Just fine. He's not a movie. He's not a movie star and he is, if it's gonna sound, I feel terrible saying this about somebody. He is a soap opera level actor. Oh, wow. That's he is not. And a movie like this, which has a ton of exposition in it, you need somebody with an interesting voice who can do interesting things, who has personality, right? Because you have to be there for the personality. You can just imagine the voice of, if this was Robert Downey Jr in the part, right? Imagine the movie becomes 10 times better just because he's an interesting actor to listen to and spend time with and grill. This is the difference between a $15 million movie with a C-level actor and a movie with a real movie star in it as the lead. And I, you felt that every single time there was narration, right? The jokes don't land because he's just not as funny. He's not as interesting. He's not magnetic.
Sonny00:34:44All of those things like, well, this is, this is, this is all I could think about when I was watching edge of tomorrow was, you know, who is an actor star is Tom cruise. Tom cruise can do all of these things. He's magnetic to look at on the screen. Uh, he, he does interesting things with his voice, but also just with his eyes and like how he moves and Frank Grillo, who I like, I like Frank Grillo a lot and I like him in dumb small action movies. I like, I, I, I don't think he's, he's terribly miscast here, except for the fact that they ask him to talk through the whole movie. They ask, they ask him to narrate this movie. And like, if you, if you had fuck, if Naomi Watts was narrating it and like trying to explain to us what he was going through, that would have been more interesting. Or if you would had Mel Gibson narrating it being like, all right, let's go. Like you could even do it. Like Mel Gibson is watching his different progressions or something like, all right, let's go to number 44. Let's let's see what happened at 80. Something like that. Just literally any other, any, any other ideas. Yeah. For the narration that is not just Frank Grillo sitting there talking would have been a million times better. I just, I, it drives me batty.
JVL00:35:52He's just not a good enough actor to, to do that work that, that well, okay.
Vic00:35:57That goes well, that, that answers my question was, does this make Frank Grillo the next action star?
JVL00:36:02No, no, I really, and I think he can, I was surprised.
Vic00:36:06I didn't know anything about his, I mean, I remember him from like winter soldier and stuff and you know, he's fine in small bits.
Sonny00:36:12No dialogue. He has a whole, he has a whole, there's a whole bunch of Frank Grillo movies on like Netflix, Netflix originals. There are a couple with like Anthony Mackie who is about the same level of actor as, as Frank Grillo. Uh, so they, they work well together. Um, I mean, I like he, he worked, he, there was a, there was a, there was a mode of filmmaking that he is very good at. Um, and I, I, I kinda, I kinda want to see, I want to read the original script to see if it has this narration all the way through. Um, or it was whatever the original shooting script was, because I can't imagine it was not a first draft JBL because there are, there are like three teams of screenwriters credited on this thing. I mean, it is clearly like it's put together in, in, in post. It was taken apart. It was chopped down.
JVL00:37:01And like, it's a Frankenstein in a lot of ways, but actually I think you can, a lot of times when you get a Frankenstein project, you can't tell what everybody, anybody ever saw in it. It's not the case. There are things about them. When you said it's fine. I think there are things about it, which are charming, but I mean, there are, there are great notes. There are moments that when I'm like, yeah, this is sort of fun, I honestly, it was 85 minutes. That was totally enjoyable way to spend 85 minutes. Yeah. It did not overstay its welcome with me. That's right. I was, I was perfectly happy and contented. I didn't look at my watch. Um, and uh, you know, like, like the, the hit lady with the Hitler gun, that whole story, that whole little moment in that scene with her. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And that's a nice piece of writing. Like that's a, you know, it comes out of nowhere. Cause it is out. It's a left field moment. Right. Yeah. Right. And there's some stuff like that. The, the, the black German brothers. It's great. Like they're little details like that. Little gray stones here. Very brief. Yeah.
Sonny00:38:02Um, I mean, it, it, it, it has, it, it has that little bit of smoke and aces in it where you can, you see like, okay, I can, I can see why Carnahan was attracted to this project. He, you can, you can kind of guess where he was inserting himself into the script. Uh, I don't hate it. I just, I just don't, I just hate a very large portion. I hate it. I hate an inextricable portion of it.
Vic00:38:25I would say what, what makes it different from, you know, groundhog's day, uh, edge of tomorrow, a happy death day or whatever is, uh, they actually try to explain why I guess they do that edge of tomorrow, but more so the difference between this and groundhog's day. They actually try to explain why he's repeating, but even still, I, I wondered how they were able to decide, you know what, we should do a movie that's going to repeat. And even though there are a bunch of movies like this, where we should still do it because it's, it's the new thing. I mean, I don't know. You know what I mean? Because again, it's, you feel like it's been done, um, but they did it anyway. Uh, and even the explanation that they give is, it still leaves me wanting, I have all sorts of questions. Like why, why do you do your questions?
JVL00:39:11Okay. I want to, I want to do a total frame shift of us on this movie, but I want to hear your
Vic00:39:16questions. All right. Um, first of all, I, I did think the pay, I thought the pacing was great because again, it's a short movie and I think it was nice and compact. Um, uh, I did not have, by the way, uh, a lot of sympathy for the kid. Uh, I felt the strongly for this kid as I did for the girl in gone with the wind, the one that dies on the horse, it's like, I just did not care, you know, it's like, oh, thank God. So, you know, the steeplechase, she dies on the steeplechase, you know, a lot of animosity here. Sorry.
Sonny00:39:51Yeah. 80 year old movie.
Vic00:39:53I know. Sorry. I'm rigging it up. But you know, just back then kid actors could not act back then. Okay. Uh, so question, um, does the, why does the, why is the world ending every time? Because I thought the whole machine is just so you can replay it, but apparently the set,
Sonny00:40:11you know, Cyrus spindle, uh, if it does, if it isn't reset, it destroys the world. I don't know.
JVL00:40:19I don't think there's anything more. Here's a, here's a, an even deeper follow on question, Victorino. Is it just the planet earth, which is destroyed or the universe, or does the Cyrus spindle destroy the entire timeline for that particular universe?
Vic00:40:36And every time he's been resetting, how many times it's a whole different thing. Yeah. Right. The, the, the great cheat is, uh, Naomi Watts as the scientist, uh, saying, well, you know, even I don't really understand like how it, you know, she admits, okay, well I guess that settles that. Cause if I, if, if the scientist doesn't know, then why Bob, I'm not even gonna bother wondering why is this happening? But I did wonder about it. Like, even if he gets killed, if he got killed, was the world ending after that? Or does that ever stop? And then, and then reset again, you know, if he, you wouldn't know. Yes. We don't, we don't know.
Sonny00:41:13Okay. I think it resets. I think it resets every time he dies. So when he dies, when the world ends, it resets.
Vic00:41:17Okay. So even though when he was able to figure out about the, the, the, the implant, the molar, the, you know, how they were able to follow him, he removes it and he could spend the whole rest of the day with his son, the world ends anyway, regardless. So, I mean, even when he lives, they don't kill him at the end. You see them, the giant bubble, uh, coming at you. Okay. The he's only, you know, how Mel Gibson was talking about, oh, you'll be able to go back in time, you know, and re fix history like Hitler or this and that, or whatever. But I get the sense it's only repeating the same day. Otherwise what we're talking about is time travel. Not necessarily.
JVL00:41:52No, I think it says she sabotaged it.
Vic00:41:54Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Well, I think, all right. Not clear the very end of the movie and he says, okay. And then he wakes up cause he, you know, he puts himself into the machine, the spindle and the world does not end, but then he wakes up and he goes, now I just gotta make sure I don't die. Is that the video game equivalent to I'm down to my last life.
Sonny00:42:16And so it leaves you hanging, but you assume it's more like, it's more like after you beat the game, some games will give you a setting where you can play through, uh, but you, the game ends when you die there. There are games like that. Right. Uh, and he can't, I think one of the Diablo, one of the Diablo's might have, um, but like, it's like, it's the same basic idea.
Vic00:42:40All right. Thank you. That's all I got.
JVL00:42:43You know, it's interesting. You say that Sonny, because it is clear to me that nothing in the movie is real. And in fact, he is in a video game. He is actually a video game, a video game that's yes. So this is Serenity and my guess is it is a video game constructed by his son. But if you look around, the big tells are the diner. They're you know, they're just happened to be the NPCs with various bits of information that he needs, which is very different than the, the edge of tomorrow. Right? So the edge of tomorrow is right. So edge of tomorrow is it's, it's like a sandbox, right? You can go anywhere and do anything and things can turn it differently. But in this, this scenario, it is a set pattern where there are places you need to go to get information, which you cannot defeat the other, right? The sword lady. So there's the security expert who has to tell you where the chip is. There's the sword lady who has to teach you how to sword fights that you can beat the other sword lady at the right. And these are all video game tropes, not real life tropes. And I think it's pretty clear. And again, somewhere buried in one of the script versions of this, I would be shocked if they do not make it. Explicit that in fact, this is a video game that he is a character within a video game.
Vic00:44:15Edge of tomorrow. More serenity.
JVL00:44:17Yes, exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
?00:44:20Right.
Sonny00:44:21I mean, I, I, I don't, I don't think that's a wrong read. I mean, I, I, I think, uh, I think part of the issue here is that the movie is just really lazily scripted that, that, uh, you know, having, having the people who conveniently have the information, you know, exactly where you need to have it is just like, that's, that's how we're here. That's how we're gonna move the plot forward.
JVL00:44:41No, cuz otherwise why can't he shoot, right? So when he shows up and there's the, the evil sword lady assassin with the gray hair who I bet Vic loves, um, why, why can't he shoot her? And the answer is, oh, yeah, and he had a machine gun and she's jumping all over the place. It's a machine gun. He can't ship.
Sonny00:45:04Right. This is, this is a tell.
JVL00:45:06He has to learn how to fight with the sword. This is a tell that he is, you know, you are not allowed to pass that level. Without. And I think that is part of all the attempts and I, I think the, the movie is signaling you in a bunch of ways, like for instance, spending so much time in an eighties arcade, right. And you know, they're really look at all the video games, ah, there are video games, you know, using the attempt numbers and all, I, I think it is trying to signal to you that this is all a fantasy. Uh, It is happening within a game and not something, it's not a real story in some fictional real world.
Sonny00:45:44Oh. But isn't that all fictional stories are, isn't it just a different type of fictional story that
JVL00:45:52We're in a simulation right now.
Sonny00:45:54Yeah. We're, you know, aren't we all just brains and bats? The, uh, well, okay.
Vic00:46:00Quite possibly.
JVL00:46:01But I don't like that is, is what I'm, what I, what I was saying to you is I don't like that. I, I like it more as I wish they. This is a weakness of the plot. And I think that it looks to me as if Carnahan eventually realized that it was unsatisfying to have it all be a video game, which is why he tried to humanize, make it look like it's a real story that he's telling you like a, a real thing happening in reality.
Vic00:46:25Yeah. Well, I'd say the one difference also is that he, he actually, in his many narrations describes what it's like to die, whereas the other movies don't. And so it's just not, you know, you just don't go blank in some of these instances. Cause it's awful. I found that pretty funny actually.
Sonny00:46:41Well, but that's, but that, but that's been done before and better in edge of tomorrow. I mean like this is, this is, so there, there, there are two different ways to talk about
Vic00:46:49the tongue tasting like steak there.
Sonny00:46:51There are two, there are two different ways to enter a groundhog day style movie, right? You either have the person you're, you're either you're, you're either with the, uh, subject of the film when he gets trapped in the time loop, that's groundhog day or edge of tomorrow. Or you do it or happy death day, right? Or, or you do it kind of in media res and that's what they try here in boss level and they do more effectively in Palm Springs, uh, which is another Hulu movie, actually the, the comedy with Andy Samberg. But the, the problem with comparing this movie to Palm Springs is that even though Palm Springs is better and even though it does it, uh, does what it's trying to do more efficiently and more cleverly, it still has kind of a cheat because you wind up with the, um, you wind up with the, the woman who gets trapped in the time loop. She ends up being your surrogate. She ends up being the one who learns how this all works and explains it to you, et cetera, et cetera. So, I mean, I, I like, I, I think I, I almost wonder if this type of story, despite, despite what I was saying earlier about us knowing perfectly well how these time loop stories work, how these groundhog day scenarios work, uh, that you, you simply can't do it in media res in a satisfying way. I don't know.
JVL00:48:07I, I'd say one other thing, which is just unsatisfying is of the three major characters in it. We spend our time with the least interesting one. So Frank Grillo's protagonist is much less interesting than, uh, his not wife for Naomi Watts, right? Naomi Watts is more interesting. Mel Gibson's bad guy villain is more interesting. We are stuck with the person we are least interested in. Yeah. So, yeah. That's it. I don't want to like be down on it. Look, if you, if you have an hour and a half entertaining hour, an hour, no, an hour and a half would've been too much. If you have an hour, 20, uh, you have 84, 84 minutes. Yeah. It's, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's very fine.
Sonny00:48:54As I said, as I said, Frank Grillo, there are funny, there are funny things. Like when Frank Grillo is driving the car and he gets hit by the bus and he goes flying through the bus, like a crash test dummy. I mean, I don't know, man, I like there, there are just little, there are little bits of it that are good.
Vic00:49:11It just, the, if this came out before tomorrow, you'd like to say no, but even if this came
Sonny00:49:19out before edge of tomorrow, they never would have made edge of tomorrow. Cause they'd be like, this has been done.
Vic00:49:24Yeah. Okay. So you like Palm Springs, Sonny?
Sonny00:49:28I like palms. I like Palm Springs a lot. I thought Palm Springs is very, very cute and clever and very, very, very much a good pandemic movie. You know, when we're all living the same day, not for long places. Okay.
Vic00:49:43Do we have any other thoughts on boss level? No, no, I would love, I would love, you know, I wish there was a place that had old eighties arcade games near me. There isn't, I mean, and if there is, it's like maybe two or two, maybe two video games. You know what I mean? That's like, you'll, you'll find a place where two or three machines, those upright machines, but not like a place like that. Where it's like, I'm like silver spoons, you know, with just a wide array of different video games.
JVL00:50:12Victorino. Yes. Out, out in Seattle. Oh, I was out in Seattle with my brother. They have a whole, or at least had, this is now like six years ago, a whole subculture of barcades. Uh-huh.
Vic00:50:25Yes.
JVL00:50:26And so they are retro arcades where you can get a beer and play. Dig dug.
Vic00:50:33Ah, it's so crazy. So crazy. Uh, you know what?
JVL00:50:36Yeah.
Vic00:50:37What could be better?
Sonny00:50:38No.
Vic00:50:39I went to.
Sonny00:50:40I love those. Went to one of those in Portland, not Seattle. But yeah, same basic, same basic idea.
Vic00:50:43There, there was a place like that in DC. I don't know if they're still around anymore. It's a shame. There was, you know, uh, Punchbowl social in Arlington had a small room like that. But again, it's just a handful. The funny thing is how much do those machines cost? If you were to buy one of those giant machines, like that you would have like Gallagher or full size. Full size.
JVL00:51:03I've looked into this. You can do it for like a thousand bucks. That's crazy. Yeah. Because when you were a kid, this is, that would be the most craziest, the craziest thing. I think, I think it's like videotapes actually, the prices are just down. Do you remember? They were, but to buy an actual video game cabinet when we were kids would have been like $7,000. I think. Yeah. I'm making this up.
Vic00:51:25I could be wrong. No, you're right.
Sonny00:51:27And then it's gone down now because well, for obvious reasons. How did the economics of those work? Do you have any idea? Was it like, if you bought a King Kong machine, did you get like.
Vic00:51:34A Donkey Kong machine you mean?
Sonny00:51:35A Donkey Kong machine. A Donkey Kong machine. If you bought a Donkey Kong machine, did you get like 12 cents of every quarter put in and you had to send the rest to Nintendo or.
JVL00:51:42No, you bought it.
Sonny00:51:43You owned it. You just bought, you bought the machine.
JVL00:51:45You owned it.
Sonny00:51:46And you got. Every quarter, every quarter in.
JVL00:51:48And arcades were a big thing.
Sonny00:51:50Yeah. Of course. I mean, I, I used to go to arcades all the time.
JVL00:51:53Yeah. Were you ever, uh.
Sonny00:51:55This is always, this isn't the thing that I hate about like Dave and busters or whatever, cuz it's all new games. I don't wanna play new games.
Vic00:52:01I don't want new games either. I don't feel comfortable with them.
Sonny00:52:03I wanna play. I wanna play Street Fighter. Street Fighter two.
Vic00:52:06Oh yeah. That's ready.
JVL00:52:08That's a new game. Sonny.
Vic00:52:10That's too bad. That just happened. That's like two years ago. Uh, I, I like time pilot and there are a lot of that's your game.
JVL00:52:18Time.
Vic00:52:19It's so intense though. I like, I can't because of my blood pressure. It's too much. It's so intense. That's a good one. It's too much. No time. Pilot is very intense. And once you get to like, I don't know, uh, after Vietnam and they start shooting off missiles and stuff, it's pretty. It's pretty intense stuff. There are other great games like commando, um, where you just go up, you just go up and you can rotate your gun as you're shooting and very, very exciting. I love those games. Okay. That's it. Uh, corrections and shout outs. I have a couple, uh, listener Kevin. Oh, go ahead. You're gonna say something.
Sonny00:52:59I said multiple.
Vic00:53:00Yeah. Multiple. Okay. So listener, Kevin says he knows of the horizontal. Beam of which you spoke JVL, uh, he says, quote, it is called a fire stop. They run between the studs in order to stop any fires that start low in the walls, parentheses from an outlet or something or basement from traveling inside the walls and all the way up the attic. I have no idea what that means, but I'm just reading it to you. Okay.
Sonny00:53:27Um, and also, but they stopped working. If you drill holes in them, all the fire goes right up through the hole.
Vic00:53:33It's like, you know, it's, it's like, I do know. You know, with like old brick houses, like our house is an old brick house and every few bricks, there's the bricks that go, uh, the other way, you know, lengthwise or whatever width wise. So it's like, you know, instead of just stacking them all in a row in between you have every now and then, yeah, their place the other way for stability sake and, and, and trestle trust. My brother-in-law who came up, uh, Bill Dwyer, he looked at the attic, just saying words.
JVL00:54:01Yeah.
Vic00:54:02I'm just saying, yeah, trust, trust. I don't know. He's just showing me the, the old, the attic, you know, this is built 1939, 1940. So they just like they overbuilt, you know, they put all this extra stuff on it and just to make sure. So, um, anyway, uh, there you go. So thank you. And then finally, uh, a shout out to, um, listener, Josh Christensen and friend, I'd like to call him a premium listener because he's subscribing at what I like to call a premium level, which is more than a buck. Thank you, Josh. Very appreciated. Um, that is all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, compliments, tweet us@sunnybunch at Victorino Mattis again, be sure to subscribe to us on Patreon. Just go to some beacon.com. We're there. Tell your friends until next time, I looked at this, you sent the picture of this sunny
Sonny00:55:20and it looked like it's the mother box from the mother, from, from, from justice Snyder
Vic00:55:28cut.
Sonny00:55:29Yes. So, uh, I don't know, like two or three months ago, there was a thing. I saw, I saw a thing being advertised that is, was basically blue. You know what blue apron is, right?
Vic00:55:40Where you, you order the meals and you, you make them, but it is, it is essentially that,
Sonny00:55:49but for losers as JBL, uh, is suggesting for giant nerds. And I am a giant nerd loser. So I bought one because I was like, this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. I have to do it. Um, I just have to do it, uh, from a. A guy that was going door to door in the neighborhood. He was like, Hey, we're selling Snyder cut dinner. You wrote him a check. Yes. I'll take 10. Uh, here's the check for a thousand dollars. Uh, so, uh, uh, it is, it was, it was amazing. It was amazing. We, we made, uh, we made it go down.
JVL00:56:25Tell us what was in it and tell us how much it was because we have to know how much you paid for it.
Sonny00:56:29I don't, I can't remember how much I think it was. I think it was actually like a hundred bucks. I think it was about a hundred bucks. Um, but it's basically, I mean, it's a meal for two, it's a, it's a meal for two people with like six little snack pack things and like three different desserts. I didn't make any of the desserts or have any of the, the snack packs. Um, but it was also like, it was, you know, it's like an entree with like a second kind of entree that was more of a appetizer to share, uh, between, between the two of us. But it was, uh, they, it's like, it, it's a burger from the burger chain, big belly burger. Yeah. Big belly burger. Um, and it was, I'm just throwing this out there. It was actually amazing. It was, they, it came with this like burger sauce. It was very good. And like a cheese sauce. I'm just checking here. You drizzled on top of it.
Vic00:57:16So you have to cook it like blue apron or hella fresh. Yeah. You cook it.
Sonny00:57:20You cook it. It's like grill it. That's part of the fun, man. That's part of the, you're making it. It's a homemade meal. So, uh, so it was at, and then there was a fish and chips thing that was basically like a potato pancake more or less. Um, that you, you, you heat up in the, in the oven and then you put cod on top of it. It has like fresh cod, you know, and then there was a special tartar sauce with like a little tangy zingy taste to it. It was called trench sauce because in Aquaman, you know, the trench, uh, and, uh, and that was, that was the, that was the all-star of the meal. That was amazing. That was fantastic. It was really, really, it had like, it had like the crunch. Crunchy things that you can get from, um, like the, the crunchy things from like long John Silver's, you know, like that are on like the ends of the fish. I, people will know what I'm talking about, but like crunchy crunch crunchies, the batter is crunchy. Yeah. Kind of, kind of, but you, but it's like, it was separate and you like, you put it on top. Uh, and then, uh, it came with, it came with a couple of beers. Uh, uh, I, I, yeah, I'll hold on. I actually took a picture.
Vic00:58:29So this box came with burgers and cod.
Sonny00:58:32Cool. Brow. Cool.
JVL00:58:35Brow beer.
Sonny00:58:36Uh, I guess I, I don't, I, I'm not a hundred percent on that. Um, but it, uh, uh, and, and it has like, it has like a, uh, a wonder woman themed dessert that I haven't had yet. It has a souffle raised from the dead souffle. You guys are gross. God. Uh, Amazonian cherry pie, uh, and I don't know, and like, and like I said, it has like
JVL00:59:02it has, it has some like, or, or they donuts energy drink, come on, the pie is not Alamode. You eat it.
Sonny00:59:12Bear you guys, you guys. Uh, but anyway, it was, it was, it comes, it comes in the mother box, which is itself a collectible item. It's a very collectible item. You can't, you can't get this anywhere else. Guys. Uh, I have one of the very few that were ever made. I will put many things in it.
Vic00:59:28It's like a cardboardish material.
?00:59:30Yeah.
Sonny00:59:31It's like a heavy cardboard. It's like a heavy cardboard. Yeah. It's like a heavy cardboard. I'll put a lot of chords in there.
Vic00:59:36That's what this is going to end up being. The image of it. If you share it with us, I mean, it, it, it, you, you could sort of fool me from an angle and depending on your lighting that it looks like, oh, this looks really heavy.
Sonny00:59:46Like the, I mean, it was, it was full of, I mean, it had like, it had a bunch of stuff in it. Uh, I mean, look, it's, was it, was it worth a hundred dollars? No. Sounds like it was probably not, but it was a lot of fun guys. It was a lot of fun making my Snyder cut meal. I'm going to go watch it again tonight. Celebrate.
Vic01:00:04I'm sure it's fine.
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