Vic00:00:00Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Lastcheers Sunny Bunch. 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
Sonny00:00:30store at tpublic.com. We're doing it live. We're doing it live. That's all I have to say for people who are wondering. We had some technical difficulties but we're back now. Why would anybody be wondering? We deleted everything and we're starting over again. Vic, now that you're telling everyone, now they'll be like, oh, what did we miss? What gold did we miss on the first version of the show? It was really good stuff and the premium listeners will love it. There's probably an emergency MP3 of it somewhere. Maybe we'll make it a
Vic00:01:00bonus episode. Along with like our experimental first episode, which wasn't that like Jack Reacher? Or was that the actual first episode? No, that was the actual first episode. I don't even remember what the experimental one was. Sonny, I'm looking at you drinking a beer and I'm betting, looking at the back label of it, that you're drinking Scheinerbach. Yes. And you are in Texas. Because I'm a Texan now and in Texas we drink
Sonny00:01:29Scheinerbach. We drink Velvet Hammer.
Vic00:01:33Does anyone drink Lone Star? Or is that like... People drink
Sonny00:01:37Lone Star. People drink Lone Star. Lone Star is like I think Lone Star is in the PBR family. I think it's basically the same beer. I got the sense.
Vic00:01:45I get the vibe that it's a PBR ish as opposed to Scheiner. Yeah.
Sonny00:01:51It's fine. It's all fine. Beer is beer.
Vic00:01:54So what is going on with you?
Sonny00:01:58This week has sucked for me because our two-year-old some administrator at his school got COVID so they shut down the whole fucking school. The whole school is just they sent everybody home and it's been great. So he's been home for all week.
Vic00:02:15Is it an administrator that is in close contact with your child? Well this is what I don't
Sonny00:02:19understand. This is what I don't understand about the incompetence of this school that we send our child to is you know in theory. All right. Look if you get unlucky and the teacher catches COVID, I get it. The class has to shut down. You know that that's one thing but to shut down literally every classroom in the building because somebody somebody was apparently somebody in the school is in close contact. So that's at least 15 minutes, you know within six feet. I don't understand how this is possible. I think they're just idiots and they're a bunch of incompetent morons. And now you're trying I think that's actually what's going on. And now
Vic00:03:03you're trying to hunt down the name to find out who it is.
Sonny00:03:06Well that would be an actual HIPAA violation. Telling us who it is would be an actual HIPAA violation without their permission unlike all the fake HIPAA violations. But I mean there's only a handful of people it could be. There's really only like three or four people it could be period in the whole school. So anyway it's been wonderful having my two year old home while I do my various jobs and podcasts and writing and editing. It's a magical age. It's not at all like 2020 all over again. It's not like that. Oh it's exactly like that. At a certain point again I'm just at the point where like at a certain point we just it's the disease. Everyone's going to get it.
Vic00:03:53Just get it over with. I'm fucking tired
Sonny00:03:55of it. Tired of it.
Vic00:03:57How long is the quarantine as it were?
Sonny00:04:01All through next week. It's like 14 days.
JVL00:04:05That's right. To be safe you should probably make it 21.
Sonny00:04:09Should be 100 days. Nobody should ever go back in that school. They should nuke it from orbit. Maybe 2022. They should burn it to the ground. Nobody should ever go in a movie theater again. Everyone should stay. Everyone should just live in their hermetically sealed bubbles and we'll all be fine. Nobody will ever get hurt. We'll all live under ground and we'll have the machine can send us the food that we need and the entertainment that we want.
Mike00:04:34Stop now. You're turning JVL on. He's getting really excited. Humina, humina, humina.
Sonny00:04:39Keep going. Yes. So anyway, that's what my week has been like. That's unfortunate. It's really annoying. And again, it'd be one thing if it was like your class, your teacher in your classroom got COVID. Your teacher who was fully vaccinated, somebody who was fully vaccinated got COVID and whatever. Like that happens. Okay. Fine. Luck of the draw, roll of the dice, whatever. But this is... But no, this is the whole the whole upper part of the school. Shut down. Shut down. Because some jerk got the disease and they don't have the pods.
Vic00:05:17And didn't want to lie. I'm sure it's just a sniffle. I'm sure it's fine and not get tested.
Sonny00:05:24The worst part is...
Vic00:05:25That's what I would do. I'd say, no, I'm not getting tested. No way.
Sonny00:05:28The worst part is the excuses that they're making. They came to us with this whole long sheet of like, well, because we're a private school and not a public school, we have different rules from different judges and this asshole judge in Dallas who keeps telling everybody they have to wear masks all the time in all the places and then he gets shut down by the legislature, but some things don't get shut... It just is a... It's a mess. It's a mess. It's a mess here.
Vic00:05:56Thank you, Sonny.
Sonny00:05:58So anyway, that's what's going on in my life.
Vic00:05:59Thank you. That's great. JVL, what's going on with you?
JVL00:06:03So, you know, you know that that tone of voice that the five year olds get where you hear them, they're calling you from somewhere else in the house and you cannot tell if, like, they just won a million dollars or if they've cut their finger off.
Vic00:06:23Right. It's like... You know what I mean? Like that excitement or terror.
JVL00:06:27Right. And it could be either one of those. So I get that tone of voice from G-Money a couple days ago. And I'm halfway across the house and I go, run, like Chap King Arthur, running over to him and it turns out he's in the bathroom. And he's up on doing his business. And I go in and I'm thinking, oh geez, maybe like Taurus Sphincter or something. And he goes, Dad! Dad, look! I pooped in the shape of a C. And I sort of pause and he says, no, Dad, look! He's like pointing down, look! So I look in and it's a big old C. And he looks up at me with this angelic little face and he's so proud. He goes, it's a C for c***.
Sonny00:07:19We're gonna have to... That is funny.
JVL00:07:23You can bleep out the just who it's for, but the point is for the first initial of his older brother, it's a sign of Philly love. He pooped. He pooped in the shape of the first letter of his
Vic00:07:39name. It's really great. I would say that's in the spirit of the Frank Carvell joke. Remember that one? You remember Frank Car... Sonny won't appreciate this, of course, but remember... I don't know who that is. The joke used to be, how does Frank Carvell take a shit? And it was like... Fudgy the whale? No, no. It's a physical joke.
Mike00:07:55You have to see me moving around like a soft serve
Vic00:07:57He's doing it like a soft serve. Yeah, he's doing it like a soft serve because the commercials were always
Sonny00:08:01you see... Wait, does he spin?
Vic00:08:03Yeah, if you could see me moving, Sonny, it's really this thing and because Carvell is an ice cream place and it was very popular and Frank always had this husky voice like this. Carvellus, right? He was Greek, but the commercials were all these close-ups of the soft serve machines like pumping down the ice cream and so that was the
Sonny00:08:24joke. Wait, wait, wait. So is this the same like Carvell ice cream cake? Yeah. Yes. That's the one. That's the one. Oh, interesting.
JVL00:08:32From New York. Fudgy the Whale. That's right. Chip. What is the other one? Chip.
Vic00:08:38Cookie Puss. Cookie Puss. I know that one because I was over at a dinner party many years ago with my lovely wife over at the... I'm already scared. Over at the Fartnons. Brian Fartnon, as you know, a listener and friend, and we were at their house and I had a lot to drink. And so, I mean, and it was one of those dinner parties where I'm clearly drinking more than anybody, but I don't care. Is the punchline Show Him Your Cookie Puss? No! Well, this is what I... JVL, I said exactly that because I said, oh yeah, you were talking about Carvell, and I said, remember? And I said, you know what my favorite one is? My favorite of them, because remember Whale of a Day, Fudgy the Whale, and I said, yo, I loved Cookie Puss. No, and I didn't say Cookie Puss, actually. I said, I loved Pussy Cook because I had, you know, my spoonerism kicked in when I'm drunk, and a couple seconds go by, and the whole table's silent, and they're like, what? And then Brian, very, very calmly, Brian goes, I think you meant Cookie Puss. And I go, what?
JVL00:09:47I said, no, Brian. Meanwhile, Kate is just sitting there staring down at her
Vic00:09:50plate. It was the same night that
JVL00:09:52we left. Shaking her head.
Vic00:09:54I feel like she's probably used to it by now. She is. She probably didn't even hear it. And I thought it was brilliant. I thought it was a brilliant mix-up on my behalf that it was completely unintended to actually call it Pussy Cook. And then after that, we were going home and I thought we had passed by one of my favorite diners, Metro 29, but we were way out. We were in Fairfax and I said, yeah, that's right because Metro 29 is not in Fairfax. So I said, quick. I said, there's Metro 29. She goes, that's it. No, no, that's it. That's it. Let's go in. And she goes, I don't think that's it. That's it. So we go in there. It's not the Metro 29. It's a completely different place. I mean, we're out like near Vienna. And so we're sitting in there and like 15 minutes go by. I'm inside and I look around and it's a small rail car diner. It's not very good. And I just said to Kate, something like, wait a minute. This isn't the Metro 29 diner. And she's like, yeah, I've been trying to tell you this, but she just nodded along, pulled into the driveway, went in, decided to humor me. And as I order my Western omelet, because you can get that anywhere, but it was one of those nights. You know, Pussycook
JVL00:10:58would have been an interesting cake design.
Sonny00:11:01I don't know what any of those words or restaurants mean. Meaningless. It doesn't make any sense
Vic00:11:06to me. Meaningless, Sonny, now that you're out there.
Sonny00:11:08You mentioned the Carvel cake and I just ran out of the room because I was trying to find something that I'm reading, but I had to look it up on Amazon instead. But there's, I was very excited to hear you mention this because I'm reading Paul Fussell's class, A Guide Through the American Status System, because David Brooks mentioned it in one of his big Atlantic piece about social anthropology
JVL00:11:32or whatever. Why I love the Bobos now or why I hate the Bobos now. I forget which way David
Sonny00:11:35has gone on them. Bobos are bad, I think, still. I think they're still
JVL00:11:39bad. What's funny is that it took David this long to
Sonny00:11:41figure that out. Yeah. Well, I think he always
JVL00:11:43kind of knew they were bad. I'm pretty sure I realized that when I was fact-checking the first version of the piece. I was like, these guys are the bad guys in the story, David. Why are you so soft
Sonny00:11:55on them? Well, I think, again, I don't think it would, anyway, it doesn't matter. The point is, I'm reading this book because Brooks mentioned it and Carvel Cake is a signifier of very low status. Just as a, you don't want, if you are, you got a Carvel Cake in your freezer, get rid of it right now or Paul Fussell's going to come and laugh at you.
Vic00:12:13It's the best, including the
Sonny00:12:15flying saucers. Because the prole class, the prole classes, as Fussell puts it. The proles, oh, you
Vic00:12:19know what, I know what that, as you know, as
Sonny00:12:21you're, as you're, as you're aware of, the proles is short from 1984. It's from 1984. But, uh, but the, the prole class, uh, they love sweet. They love sweet. It's, it's, their cocktails are sweet and their food is sweet and their desserts are very, very sweet.
Vic00:12:39And the Bobos or the bougie class, like. The Bobos,
Sonny00:12:43well, the, the, uh, so the, the upper, the upper middle and the upper, upper, they prefer uh, more of a, a, not, a not sweet cocktail. Like you're, you're looking at, you know, more, more. Like us? Like you and me, Sonny? Strong. Yeah, like you and me, right, exactly. Yeah. But only before. Only before. If you're drinking martinis afterwards. No, no. You can never drink a
Vic00:13:05martini after a meal. A dry,
Sonny00:13:07a dry dessert sherry maybe afterwards. That would be fine. That's right. That's right. Okay. Anyway, I, this book is fascinatingly snobby. I, I am like, I'm actually very into it even though it's taking me a friggin' month to read.
Vic00:13:19Are you identifying yourself in the book like, oh yes, check, check, check. I'm trying to figure out,
Sonny00:13:22I'm trying to figure out, what I'm trying to figure out as I read it. Because this book was written in 84 or 85. So I'm, as I'm reading it, I'm trying to figure out like what has changed and what hasn't. And, and how much of it is me just kind of hoping things have changed and not giving away the fact that I am low, low status. From the 80s.
Vic00:13:40That's really interesting. A low status individual. So around the same time as that preppy handbook, anyway. Yes.
Sonny00:13:44It's, the preppy handbook is referenced several times in this. It's, it's, it's really, again, it's really just a very interesting piece of social anthropology. Sure. It's a snapshot. It's very funny and it's very mean. It's very, it is, it is a cutting. It's like if Tom Wolf took off the kid gloves. Imagine, imagine
Vic00:14:06that. But I think what's interesting is these things that you're identifying as, or that he's identifying as very sort of pro, right? As very low class, like Carvel ice cream, for example. And it remains that until they decide that they're going to be ironic and then start consuming it and then suddenly Pabst Blue Ribbon and Carhartt Jackets are now trendy, something like that.
Sonny00:14:35Yeah, it's all about what the invisible upper class decides to do. That's like really what it comes down to. Okay. The people who have driveways that go off into the woods, once those people decide. Like Tony Soprano? The people who have, the people, no, Tony Soprano is. Oh yeah, he'd be very
Vic00:14:52very, very
Sonny00:14:54like, he, I mean, he has money, so he's not a pro, but he has pro sensibilities for sure. That's right, how he spends it.
Vic00:15:02Victorino, how are you, buddy? I am recovering. I had a bout of a stomachache that lasted for a while and it's because, so I made a wonderful pork stir fry the other day, but then I couldn't resist and adding to the pork stir fry, which already has soy sauce and oyster sauce mixed in with onion and green pepper and stuff like that. I added the prick dong.
Sonny00:15:28Prick dong! And
Vic00:15:29I had a... Did you slip it in there? I slipped it in there. I had overload. I had an overload, because I actually harvested pork chili, so I put it in there. I overloaded on the prick dong and the lesson is...
JVL00:15:44Is it like spilling out all over your face?
Vic00:15:46That's just, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're suggesting, but my point is, if you have if, being really serious here, if you have for anyone who is interested, to be warned, if you have too much prick dong, you'll be sick to your stomach. Just ask Rod Stewart.
Mike00:16:05I'm kidding!
Vic00:16:06I'm kidding! I'm kidding! That was a lie! That was a lie! Yeah, sorry. I couldn't resist. That's a... But I did have a stomach ache. You tried real hard to resist
Sonny00:16:20it, too. You were like, oh
Vic00:16:21boy, I better not tell this one. I thought, man, I better not bring this rumor up. I better not mention this. It was a rumor. Spread by his bodyguard, who, you know, had a beef with him, so to speak. Anyway, it was a lie. You know what else is a lie, I heard, is the release date for Top Gun. What is going on there? Sonny, you were in a state about it on Twitter, and I don't know if Jonathan heard you rant about this, that
Sonny00:16:47everything is being pushed back. Paramount pushback. Paramount pushback. The release of Top Gun 2 again, which in turn pushed back the release of Mission Impossible 7, or 8, or whichever one it is. And they also took Jackass 4 off the schedule and pushed it back to February of 2022. And, I mean, look, they did it because they're worried about you know, people going to the theaters. People aren't going to go to the theaters because of COVID. They can't go to school, so you certainly can't go to a theater. Can't do that. But, you know, they're thinking as well, you know, it's going to get bad here in a few months and people aren't going to want to go to theaters and, you know, who knows what's going to happen overseas, blah, blah, blah. And what about James Bond? James Bond's still on the schedule for now. That's MGM and Eon, but we'll see what happens with that.
JVL00:17:40It's going to be a direct Amazon Prime at some point.
Sonny00:17:43They are... It's still going to show up in theaters. I mean, look, here's the problem. A, there are several issues with this. The first big issue is that they've been advertising this movie for like a year and a half now already. It was supposed to come out a year ago in July. So it was supposed to come out 15 months ago or whatever, 16 months ago. 12 months ago, 13. I don't even know how many months. Some number of months ago. It was supposed to come out a while ago. And so they've been advertising it for like a year and a half. They've been advertising it for like 18 months. By the time this movie actually comes out, they will have been advertising it for two years plus, two and a quarter years, something like that. And at a certain point, people just tune it out. People are like, wait, I thought that already came out. I thought that movie had already come and gone and I'm waiting for it on Redbox now. That is literally how people think. I assume this is how a lot of people think about the James Bond movie. They see so many
Vic00:18:35trailers that they think. The James
Sonny00:18:37Bond movie had another trailer released this week because it's coming out in a month. They're like, yes, this is one last final push to get this movie out. And I've seen the trailer in front of literally every movie I've gone to for the last two years. I've been seeing ads for this movie for 24 months now. And I think that at a certain point, you just get to the point where people are like, didn't that already come out? What's going on? Why am I seeing this in theaters now?
JVL00:19:06Or are people so excited because they've been jonesing for it. And so it's like edging. It's right up, ready to bust and go anytime. Oh, it's been two years. Oh, I want to go see it. Maybe it could be like that.
Sonny00:19:26No, I don't think that's it. I don't think it's like that. I just think it's it's
JVL00:19:30it's just real
Sonny00:19:34frustrating to watch these theater these movie companies just shoot themselves in the foot over and over again. The people who are nervous about going to the theaters now are not going to be any less nervous in March of 2022. It's just not it's never going to end. And they need to accept the fact that a certain number of people aren't going to come out anyway and write those people off and just and just put put what they have in in hold and ready to go out into movie theaters that
JVL00:20:04AMC no longer needs to show movies to be a viable business. So it's not like you have the distributor. Right. AMC is now a meme stock, which means that it's it is its income and valuation is completely untethered to whether or not people pay money for movie tickets and popcorn
Mike00:20:22and this is I honestly I
JVL00:20:25just I do not think that movie going as we remember it will ever going back to I believe the last pre-pandemic movie I saw in a theater was Harley Quinn and I good question was either Harley Quinn or the gentleman and I don't think we are ever going back to that pattern of consumption for movies I think that is the past like summer blockbuster yeah we're certainly not going
Sonny00:20:58to do it if if the the distributors keep saying we're gonna we're gonna keep pushing things back because I people people stop going to the movie people people will just stop going to the movies people have stopped going to the movies you have to get them back in the habit of going to the movies on a regular basis I'm very curious to see how Shang-Chi does this weekend looking at the
Vic00:21:15so that's a go there's no there's no changing
Sonny00:21:17that no changing that it's coming out it's not gonna be on premiere access I think Disney I think Disney is also very interested to see what it does because if it you know if it opens to 50 million dollars that's pretty bad that's bad sign if it opens to 100 million dollars that's 20 million dollars better than
Vic00:21:35the heart I don't know
JVL00:21:38I'll take the under on 50 million I'll take the under no this is a property nobody knows anything about with no stars in it pass a Marvel
Sonny00:21:47movie it's a Marvel so is
JVL00:21:49Black Widow yeah that had a star in it on a character that everybody knows
Sonny00:21:53so but it was also it was also on premiere I mean look I don't know we'll see we'll see what happens I I I think it does better than 50 million but I I don't know looking at the looking at the Thursday night be close screens and how many seats have been sold yeah it it should be it it it is looking very similar to Black Widow in terms of the number of seats I see sold for the first weekend so
Vic00:22:15an extended weekend a four-day weekend or a three-day
Sonny00:22:17weekend whatever it is we'll see
Vic00:22:18so Black Widow it's just very it's
Sonny00:22:21it's just I like I'm sorry to answer your question yes Vic it is very very frustrating to see the the news about Top Gun 2 because like at a certain point people are just gonna say I don't care about this I don't care about this movie why would I go I like that movie was always well I I don't know I have I have thoughts on whether or not that movie would have been a big hit anyway feels like feels like an old property being resurrected for no good reason but like whatever it the at a certain point like people are just gonna be like I don't know I thought this came out already why is it in theaters now why isn't it in you know
JVL00:22:51why am I not watching it on Redbox I mean the other the other part of this Sonny is that the studios themselves have conflicting motives I mean they are they are all so obsessed with their streaming services because that is where their stock valuations are tied to sure of course that they can't figure out whether it's better to push a movie out and get an extra 150 million dollars in income on the movie in theaters or whether it's better to delay it and then just push it onto P plus and if that gets us an extra 50,000 subscribers then blah blah blah especially because like Paramount is going to get bought anyway I mean this is these things are this entire situation is so fucked and this is an industry which is it's like it's like the meteor is heading towards the earth and the dinosaurs are all fighting each other not realizing that there is an extinction level event heading their way and it'll be amazing if the movie business survives these idiots
Sonny00:23:56it'll be amazing if the theatrical business survives these idiots because I mean you know people still want to watch stuff on Netflix and HBO Max people want to watch stuff but the stuff
JVL00:24:09will be very different Victorino
Vic00:24:11it will be thank you for that JVL I see where we're going I was going to say I am going that is going to be our episode next week is The Legend of Shang-Chi and the Seven Rings and I I'm looking and it's only going to be in theaters so Black Widow also Disney they decided to do simultaneous right in theaters and then their next movie a Marvel movie they decided they're just going to do it I'd like to know why they thought oh we're just going to do it this way the other way and I'm sure Scarlett Johansson is like this is completely unfair and that's why I'm suing but
Sonny00:24:47I mean they're a Disney is kind of experiment
Vic00:24:51they're just feeling their way in the dark here
Sonny00:24:54what works they're trying to figure out what is the best way to maximize revenue for them I think that the again it'll be a very it's a very interesting experiment here the star of Shang-Chi got very upset with Bob Chapek because Bob Chapek in a earnings call I think said this is an interesting experiment you know the results that we're going to see on Shang-Chi are an interesting experiment in the box office and he was like for the millions out there who are waiting for the representation in the screen we're not an experiment we're the future we're the yeah and like okay whatever guy is it the future in
Vic00:25:32China I don't think they're seeing it in China in theaters or maybe they were my understanding
Sonny00:25:36is they still do not have a schedule really yikes
JVL00:25:40but Disney has to Disney has to commit to massacring a thousand Uyghurs themselves Bob Chapek has to personally kill a thousand Uyghurs before the CCP will grant
Sonny00:25:51Bob Chapek doesn't have a thousand a thousand Uyghur souls in his soul stone
Vic00:25:58he's working on it but it'll be interesting to go to the theater then for us to actually see this movie I mean I never stop going to the theater
Sonny00:26:07I go to theaters like every week I saw two movies last week in the theater
JVL00:26:11it was amazing I did Paw Patrol and then I did Into the Spider-Verse oh right on the big screen at the Alamo it was fantastic was it either crowded? between the two showings combined there was one other person wow yeah
Vic00:26:27so that's the big question because I went to see Pig and that was like a medium it was one of those smaller theaters but for something like Shang-Chi it's going to be a bigger theater it'll be interesting to see how crowded it is on Labor Day weekend Pig?
Sonny00:26:45oh Pig
Vic00:26:46but after this I don't know I'm looking forward to this and afterwards I'm probably going to go to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate maybe I'll get a happy family as long as it's not followed by a happy accident speaking of which this week we're talking about Bob Ross happy accidents betrayal, greed, love, murder, death sorry Sonny this is on Netflix Sonny how about a big boy review
JVL00:27:07if you have a happy family and then there's a happy ending do you get a happy ending?
Mike00:27:13it depends
Sonny00:27:14I gotta say B- transition there you know there's only so
Vic00:27:19there's only so many of these I can do
Sonny00:27:22so Bob Ross happy accidents betrayal greed that's a thing that's on Netflix alright so when I first saw the promo materials in an email from Netflix for this movie cause you know I'm a very important film critic yeah I didn't get that email I get all of the you know advance release images and trailers and stuff and they're like please Mr. Bunch tweet this out so the people can see about our movie and I'm like well you know have a little bit of self respect when I first saw I'd be like the movie minute when I first saw the trailer for this I watched it and I was like this feels like a parody this feels like a parody like they're making a true crime parody documentary by taking like a generally beloved figure and I think Bob Ross is still 25 years after his death considered to be a beloved figure amongst you know just the general population people like him people like his happy little trees he's got a very soothing voice you know everybody loves Bob Ross and I thought they were again I thought it was a bit I thought they were doing like a comedy thing where it's like Bob Ross betrayal and greed what is going on we can't even show you the trailer for this movie because there's so much hidden drama we could get sued and I was like okay this is interesting this is like let's see what's actually going on here and it's not it's not a parody it's a straightforward documentary that is like half about Bob Ross's rise and you know the various things that he did on TV he was you know he had mentors and he you know did the whole learning how to he was in the Air Force he learned how to paint then he became he was doing traveling around the country giving lessons and people loved him so like you should have a show and then he had a show and the show went on for 15 years it was great everybody loved it but the betrayal and greed part of this is like the thing that they're selling here and the betrayal and greed is the most boring controversy I've ever seen put to film ever
Vic00:29:44I felt like it took up all of 15 minutes at the very end
Sonny00:29:48this is this is what the this is the crux of the film is that there is a conflict between Bob Ross's son and the people who run the Bob Ross Institute or whatever Bob Ross Institute or BRI Bob Ross Incorporated whatever it is the people who run Bob Ross Incorporated it's this married couple Annette and Walt Kowalski you know and he was in the CIA and he recorded his business phone calls with a suction cup and it was Annette and Walt it sounds like kind of screwed Stephen Ross out of you know his familial son out of his kind of like family inheritance it sounds like he got kind of a raw deal out of this I don't give a fuck I don't care about any of these people I don't like I don't know any of them I don't care about the son I don't care about I don't care about these two creepy old people like we're talking about like a little bit of money we're not talking about like billions here it's not like shareholders were built out of you know it's it's just it's a petty dispute amongst people I don't know and don't care about which is why that's like the whole that's the whole hype of this movie is like look at this look at the betrayal and the greed and I don't care don't care about any of it don't care it's not an interesting human drama nobody talked on camera for this thing they they keep talking about how like everyone was afraid of getting sued and and Annette and Walt Kowalski don't talk on camera there's it's so it's basically just the son complaining and and and one of Bob Ross's old friends they got a lot of photos together kind of arms over shoulders oh Dana the other artist am I am I wrong no that I was yes you're wrong was the movie throwing off a vibe
Vic00:31:42oh I didn't get that vibe it was a different time anyway it was a different time
Sonny00:31:46so anyway the the the the long and the short of it is that the movie is boring it's just it's an incredibly boring movie JVL you texted us you were like every single Netflix movie every single Netflix documentary needs to be watched at two times speed 1.5
Mike00:31:59if they had two times I would
JVL00:32:01watch it in two times at 1.5
Sonny00:32:04speed and totally I like there's nothing interesting here there's nothing worth watching it is it is absolutely it is the apex of algorithmic programming it is this idea that Netflix you know they have there's there are things that work well for Netflix one thing that works really well for Netflix is true crime you know type from Tiger King oh yeah to the to the Boston Arts show that we talked about to the the the what's the killer in Los Angeles the Richard Ramirez documentary the Night Stalker documentary like all of these things are like they do very well for Netflix they're not expensive to make they're they're you know true stories so people are very into them and this one is no exception it was in the top 10 of Netflix's trending you know it was number 8 number 8 most watched maybe that's not really what it means but whatever number 8 and people people are into it people are talking about it people talking about Bob Ross documentary people want to see the Bob Ross documentary but it is just it is like it is like a computer program sat down they're like let's find the most incongruous true crime story we could find and make it a thing and we're gonna it's gonna be Bob Ross the happy guy with the happy trees what if there's a dark under belly to his whole empire and it's the fuck it's the worst it's the worst it's very boring and the funny thing is I there there are little bits and pieces here and there where they could have made this into a funny thing they could have made this into they could have made this into into a real like actual real life comedy but it would have been cruel it would have been cruel to Steve Stephen Ross Steve Ross it would have been cruel to everybody else involved with this thing it would have been it but you could have made you could have made a funny real documentary about these people that is just about how ridiculous they are and JVL I wish exactly like a Christopher Guest
JVL00:33:58documentary about this yes
Sonny00:34:00but JVL I wish you hadn't sent us this text message because this is my absolute favorite thing about the movie and I wanted to spring it on you guys to surprise you but you saw it at the end of the movie the big the big triumphant finish is Stephen Ross Steve the Steve Ross decides to start painting again this is Bob's son this is Bob's son who nobody gives a fuck about nobody in the entire universe cares about Steve Ross at all but Steve Ross he like he gets back to the painting and he is doing it he's getting on the horse again and he's sitting there and he's painting and you're like god look at that landscape it's so good and then over him over him in the studio looking down on him like the holy mother herself is what I can only describe as a 1970s van painting it's like it's like ripped off the side of a van that is inhabited by somebody who loves Boston albums and smoking weed and reading J.R.R. Tolkien and like it's like a topless woman climbed up on top of a man with like waves in the background and that's it that's the only thing on the wall it's the only it's the only piece of inspiration he has up there
Vic00:35:18it was like something that was like I don't know it was like Eros Aphrodite if I get that correct or it was like the Pygmalion thing it was like something weird was going on there like Venus in the clamshell almost did he paint that?
JVL00:35:32I assume he painted it
Sonny00:35:34I would assume he painted it I don't know
JVL00:35:36we are never shown him painting anything other than landscapes
Sonny00:35:40but this is for me if you were to make an interesting version of the movie it's all there in that two minutes it's all there where you have you have this clearly deranged person who is deluded into his sense of importance in the grand scheme of things and frankly the sense of importance of his father who again people really liked him was an inspiration but like he's not Michelangelo
Vic00:36:05and it sucks that the son does not have ownership of his own father's paintings I get that that sucks
Sonny00:36:09totally I mean it is one of these things that is like life is not fair it sucks I feel bad for the guy but I also don't care I just don't care but like there's a nugget of a movie that is just that shot of this person who is doing these wholesome landscapes with the naked woman just uh
Vic00:36:31this is literally the Chris Guest
JVL00:36:32Michael McKeon Michael McKeon plays the Steve Ross character and he's talking about all this Chris Guest would be Bob Ross
Vic00:36:41JV it's so funny that you should mention that because when I saw that because I saw it almost simultaneously as you had sent the pic so I immediately you sent the pic first and I saw just the little image on my phone and I said I'm not going to click it on yet and then all of a sudden I see I know exactly what he just did which is he took that picture and the first thing that came to my mind was from Spinal Tap when he plays that beautiful song and they go what is that called Lick My Love Pump I call that Lick My Love Pump you know it's like oh what and it was exactly that and of course I mean there it is it's perfect that would have been it JVL
JVL00:37:22what are your thoughts on this uh you know I I have a lot of thoughts I watched on 1.5 speed it's an hour 37 minutes long and it was still way too long and dragged even on 1.5 I think there might be 30 minutes of interesting material
Vic00:37:41compact you can you can speed through the years we did not actually have to go through each season of this
JVL00:37:46the Bob Ross this should have been a 4,000 word essay in Atavist this is not a movie I don't know what Atavist is it's just one of these like you know prog prog literary magazines um and it's it's totally unimportant it's forced it's hackish it does not hack hackish is the wrong thing it does two things interestingly just quad documentary that I did appreciate and one of which is that all of the moments in which crappy documentaries do recreations while they're you know somebody is doing voiceover and talking yes are done in the style of oil paintings yeah which is nice like that that's a like as opposed to a nice choice and the other thing is there's a lot of moments when uh they go to voiceover and what they do is they give you a they just sit the camera somewhere doing b-unit footage of a very beautiful piece of landscape which is a very bob ross homage again like hey look we're just gonna stare at this mountain while somebody else talks because this way we don't have to show their ugly faces i thought those were both nice choices i guess this is the netflix netflix people who think that netflix is going to become tesla or apple netflix is like cbs but minus the artistic ambition it's it's it's at at best netflix is a roided up version of the discovery networks and when you look at what they do everything they do is some you know those discovery disaster porn shows it's like you know what will happen when the cascadia plates shift right and it's like a whole hour of the recreation of how
Sonny00:39:33seattle is going to be destroyed earth without humanity or whatever yes that would people
JVL00:39:37of seattle have 19 minutes before the tsunami hits right and these things cost nothing to make and it's just content you just put the content of somebody somewhere will click on it and that's what netflix is doing and i maybe that is sustainable but how that doesn't get ultimately replaced by like tick tock or something right i have no idea i mean because this this is so low interest uh i mean i i could barely keep myself focused on it while listening at 1.5 when i had other things i was like i could be doing email i could be doing work i could edit a piece while i'm listening to this horrible horrible thing that doesn't deserve to exist but i do have one one serious point to make about it but i'll save that for a little bit victorino what did you think i mean quadrant wise it's short you could understand it and it has that painting and it has that painting it's basically
Vic00:40:38like an a-minus because there wasn't much violence but uh i had i had i had a certain i had about a lot of thoughts on this i think because uh i remember the i remember watching it at the time i mean what surprises me is that it went on until 1995 doesn't it i always
JVL00:40:56thought to myself really i always thought when i was a kid that i was watching reruns of something that had taken place 15 years ago i never imagined that what i was seeing in like 1988 or 1990 was brand new so like one of the crazy one of the weirdest things
Vic00:41:13when he tries uh to do the kids show oh and but it was like a casino when sam rothstein does aces high you know and and he's there they don't do the show but he does a show the sam right exactly which is a great by the way which is a great little scene there um and that's the only way you can gauge because if you look at the kids they're sort of they're little kids but it's the 90s so you can kind of tell but he himself has not changed since 1979 you know what i mean like he still looks the same so that was the weird thing when i was watching when they're showing the old um the clips i wondered to myself is it old because of time or was it just always that bad and when we watched it at the time we never thought about it like if you look at stuff from 20 years ago footage from 20 years
JVL00:42:03ago right from two thousand was always it was always cheap yeah i mean it was it was
Sonny00:42:07a public access show i mean it was it was it was a it was a public television show but it had the you know affect of a public access show they it was not it was not an expensive and in the whole the whole thing about the show was that he is just like a soothing presence his voice they talk about this a little bit in the in the show in the in the movie that his his voice is like it's like he's talking to a single person and that's what he's yeah and and like it's it's just it's calming and soothing in a way that is like pleasant right
Vic00:42:37it's sleep stories before sleep stories that's exactly and that's what i remember is you know saturday afternoons as a kid you come across it and what my dad is watching it because my dad you know he when he's not working or doing other things he he also paints on the side he he likes to paint and he's painted since you know i was a little kid and he enjoyed watching them and i remember watching them as well as at that time and you just fall asleep you know it's like around the same time as you'd watch like i don't know on other channels you know on a sunday afternoon it's kung fu theater which i think was on amazon channel seventeen but um uh but i but i liked it and it was uh but it's interesting because a couple things one the basic structure of the netflix documentary now is so i mean it's so as you were saying it's so formulaic i mean they're they're all sort of this there's a like any of us can do this now because we know what the elements are the other weird thing is um they do you were talking about the oil and the landscapes and stuff just for the for the dramatization and that's something that all these uh documentaries are doing now just to stretch it out again i mean again we can get it down from an hour 36 or 37 to at least an hour um you remember the the night stalker documentary they were yes like rats
JVL00:44:00all the time like you know they just show animals because it's straight it's stretching
Vic00:44:04it out because you got to stretch slow motion and you had to stretch it out um it is interesting the world of public access and obviously the the the the the real money was to be made in the merchandise because he had such a look as silly and ridiculous as he looked it sold and people liked it in you know again in the popular culture and uh you can identify with it and it also is identified with somebody who's very calm soothing relaxing very nice fella um but the public access stuff is really interesting and i watched i don't know how much i i used to watch a fair amount even when i was like you know already like after college on a saturday i would i would watch you know some of those channels for the cooking shows and pbs had some great ones but what you don't what you know i i didn't realize at the time is it's not everywhere it's like every different affiliate decides what they're going to pick up or what they don't pick up yeah um but uh and you think because you think of pbs is just a network qua network and that it's across the board but it's not like that at all uh and i enjoy particularly the cooking shows there was one called uh martin yan can cook with martin yan and of course jacques pepin had a great one and justin wilson who was ridiculous who was this cajun chef i watched all those shows uh and uh just a little bit of an interesting aside um a very good friend of mine kathy mccabe who i went to college with uh and she's had started a newsletter called dream of italy and you know develop a following about where to go if you go to italy and then a few years ago before covid she finally uh got her own show on pbs uh called uh dream of italy uh and and it's great uh so if anyone out there is listening you want to check it out there's at least two seasons and i remember asking her about it and the amount of work that goes into not just the production but the hardest part is getting the funding that's the hard you know i mean because you have in order you got to go to everyone and do it i mean you're just going out to everybody and having to do the pitch over and over and over again to so many different people to see who's going to bite in order to convince pbs to carry it and which which to each station can decide whether or
Sonny00:46:19not they're going to it's it's a ten thousand dollars from no it's hard lockheed martin
Vic00:46:23right oh right and it looks and it looks like oh everyone's like oh man i wish i could do a show like that but it's not like they just come to you and say hey we want you to do the show it's she's doing the entire everything she has to do everything so um anyway that
JVL00:46:36i thought that was interesting were any either of you guys struck by the weird inclusion of the moment where they're talking about bob ross getting cancer and they cut to one of his artist buddies and they give him like 90 seconds to say you know he was always over that paint thinner and a lot of paint thinner and the allegation that it's like i just wonder if maybe that didn't that isn't what gave him non-hodgkin's lymphoma i thought to myself what the fuck are they doing to leave this in there like i'm just you're in the editing
Vic00:47:11bay yeah and you've got this guy again a person nobody cares about this is this is this is this this is the good stuff jay that has nothing to do with anything else no this wasn't it was just his friend it was just like it had nothing to do with anything he always mysteriously
Sonny00:47:27left the paint thinner cans open the thing the thing he loved most paint thinner is what
Vic00:47:34killed him in the end again just editing choice they show him slapping these slapping the brush and and uh but that because they had to create some sort of tension all right here's the other thing uh the the relationship with the kowalskis right and are we to sue i assumed it they looked old then are we to assume in 2021 they're still alive because i think there was a phone they are no they are still because there's a phone conversation i think the daughter agreed to speak on the phone very briefly the daughter was giving an interview somewhere
Sonny00:48:05else archival phone footage it was archival phone footage it was like a radio interview there's a there's a card at the end that said they they they had refused to grant an on-camera interview and then they answered questions after all right had been finished and said we didn't do nothing right we didn't do it well it's in the contract which is true wasn't me you got to read the fine print it wasn't me the i don't care who cares the idea
Vic00:48:29oh there was sex involved the idea that bob was stepping yeah that's right there's this
JVL00:48:33woman i'm like of all the people really i got the sense i got the sense that again i
Sonny00:48:40think it was a swing documentary the way the documentary made it sound is that he was just
Vic00:48:46kind of into anything well yeah the old man you know down for whatever chipmunks the the other uh he's got that squirrel the husband and wife the husband and wife who were the again this is kind of like a flower painting husband and wife and the the old man was like that was the 70s and it was you know so everybody was what it was that kind of a oh he says
JVL00:49:06something like every his wife gives him this look like don't because he lit he almost literally says yeah we're all banging everybody right and his wife's
Vic00:49:15what's fascinating what's fascinating okay so that of course like really if you're gonna cheat on your wife with her okay that's something and then the second thing is the certain the groupie demographic because there are certain a lot of women who love them but you look at the crowds uh that were like asking him to sign autographs and stuff it's a certain type if you're into that type that's great i guess but that's not really the same as saying it's not like it's not like other other group the joy of
JVL00:49:45painting groupies yeah that's not like nfl groupies i'm we could just leave it at that right they they look like uh like the anna gasteyer uh oh delicious dish remember the
Mike00:49:58the the like those are the the joy sweaty balls sweaty balls sweaty balls i i do want
JVL00:50:05to say one thing semi-serious though because there is a lesson there's a lesson in in this story uh except that the that the film itself gets the lesson wrong that when you look at this the kowalskis who are these these villains and are the bad guys of the piece the truth is they didn't get anything they just got some money they own some ip they own the rights to use his likeness uh supposedly millions but what matters is the work and Bob Ross even though he is dead is the guy who did the work and Bob Ross even though he is dead is the guy who people remember and this is anybody who is involved in the creative life be it as an artist or a performer or a painter the only thing that matters is your creative work all of the money stuff all of the right stuff all of that the the the world is the history of mankind is littered with creative types who got the short end of the business stick because they were not into the business end they were creative they were there to be artists and the idea that like the Kowalskis have gotten something of value here is nuts and the movie doesn't understand that the movie treats all of the value as just the money in the IP like the only thing that matters is the value in the IP that is not true. Bernini is who gets remembered right you everybody remembers Bernini they think about Apollo and Daphne and the Fountain of the Four Rivers and the column and you know like who do people remember is you know Scipione Borghese they do because only because oh he's the guy bankrolled Bernini that that's the work is it and this is something that I I tell. I tell any whenever I talk to somebody who's starting a book and the thing I tell them is that the only thing that you can have as a measuring stick for success on your book is whether or not you are proud of your book because everything else after that is out of your control your control you can't control the reviews you can't control the sales you can't control whether you're booked here or there or everywhere else the only thing you control or is the words on the page. And so that has to be enough because the rest it is a recipe for madness to go through the go through life deciding whether or not you think something was a success or a failure based on factors you personally can't control and the extent of that this movie misunderstands the creative life I found like almost mystifyingly stupid did you find it also a little bit of
Vic00:52:59a distraction the whole thing in the Netherlands going over there and and then the the interview the the art buyer over there yeah and and then and then the allegations. Forgery there were four allegations of forgery see that's that was the the whole yeah no
JVL00:53:13but again I mean for a a documentary about an artist to misunderstand what is important in being an artist is like almost hysterical yeah well I mean it's happens it's a pretty solid metaphor for Netflix fair tough but fair wow am I wrong I mean no you're not wrong
Sonny00:53:33I I I I describe this as algorithmic programming um and I have a I have a piece that should be up at the Bulwark by now we're recording this on Wednesday I'm pretty sure it's going up on Thursday but like the the the whole point of algorithmic programming is that you can watch it without actually watching it you can watch it and just sit there and futz around on your phone or talk to somebody or you know whatever it doesn't matter because it's just kind of background noise um and it and and that is that is this is the this is the most this is the purest example of Netflix background noise I think I've ever seen. um which is saying something because there's been a lot of it there there's been a lot of it and there's been a lot that's not very good but this is just this you throw it on and you and like you said JVL you answer emails or you you you run some numbers you do a little bit of work that you didn't get time to finish yeah while it's playing in the background
Vic00:54:24uh case in point after the show and by the way I I did want to mention uh I watched it with Kate and she said this was like Tiger King for 90 year old women is how she described uh this that's pretty good. because they get pretty good they they're getting they get excited about the oh what's going on with the uh arts and crafts world you know the dark side but at least at least
Sonny00:54:46in Tiger King there's like an actual murder yeah like guys in jail for old people uh like I mean like there there's at least the the Tiger King show was again it was like it's like everything else with Netflix it's you know 30 too long probably that was like that
Vic00:55:00was multiple parts that was and that was like documentary at its apex yeah but that's like
Sonny00:55:08the best version that is the best version of Netflix true crime true crime documentary because again they they talked to a bunch of people they had a bunch of like weird interesting characters who they actually got on camera and there was there was like an actual murder
Vic00:55:20attempted murder you couldn't believe they're actually talking about plotting it and hiding and you know where they were going to kill carol etc but case in point after the uh uh the the movie ended uh I noticed they had the other there's this other documentary called count me in uh about uh the the the passion of drummers right what drummers love so I look at the trailer the trailer is great right the trailer talks about I forget who's being interviewed and talking about how is it Dave Grohl it's all yeah Dave what about it Dave no it wasn't Dave Grohl because that that you would think it would be but it wasn't him and but yet they were talking about how everyone everyone wants to be like John Bonham right everybody wants to be like John Bonham he's the best right the whole thing okay so I said this is good uh I I stopped after 15 minutes they stretch it out so long before you know and they're they're just people who are just drumming in general and just doing their thing and you know they're interviewing some interesting people animal skins were
Sonny00:56:17found stretched over bones and caves some interesting stuff but it's so slow and they're
Vic00:56:24talking you know and and they're and they're talking to you know the drummer from Iron Maiden who's talking about his love of uh the the drummer uh from the Dave Brubeck band and you're just watching old black and whites of the Dave Brubeck but you know fine and I like Dave Brubeck but I thought it was gonna be much on bottom based on the trailer and it wasn't and that's something to be done uh because and that would be really interesting uh and I'm surprised there isn't one yet for Led Zeppelin because I think Sonny uh we're coming up on 50th anniversary of maybe Led Zeppelin 4 there's a couple of Led Zeppelin books coming out this fall who
Sonny00:56:58knows yeah it's it's been a long time for all this everything everything in the 70s is now coming up now it's coming up I'm just excited for the 50th anniversary of the Bruce Springsteen in the E Street Band albums coming out so you know there's gonna be a whole new vinyl release gonna be like oh look at this remaster we're gonna remaster all these are you gonna get probably I'll probably probably buy them probably I'll probably buy them because I'm an idiot I'm sucker I'm a stone-cold sucker okay do we have any other thoughts no okay then this this was like more entertaining than that and just watch this just listen to this over over podcast instead of and get and get some of our merchandise honestly great this
JVL00:57:45show with this show was 300% more entertaining than this stupid show on Netflix okay wait
Vic00:57:54till next week's man it's gonna be big that's all the time we're giving to this episode questions comments complaints tweet us at Sonny Bunch at Victorino Matus again be sure to subscribe to us on patreon just go to subbeacon.com we are there tell your friends until next time
Sonny00:58:13you skipped corrections somebody on somebody on the comments had a correction for us but I forgot what it was hey how do we do on the we never make mistakes how do we do on the
Vic00:58:28Val Kilmer poll oh let me pull that up right now talk amongst yourselves okay well let's see here captain bill dwyer my brother-in-law said to me because his wife is such a you know she she's a very serious runner and he says we're being put to shame because she's doing a lot much more running than we are we're doing running why don't you and I we should do we should do on our own we should do a triathlon but an easy one but it is such a thing as a is it easy triathlon like one mile you maybe 10 laps and then you bike for maybe bike to 7-Eleven bike to 7-Eleven all right okay I pulled
Sonny00:59:14up the results here right now as it stands now Vic Mattis has 99 votes Sonny Bunch has 150 oh and JBL has 162 votes what but I there was there was no option to like set a time limit on this so I think people can just keep voting on it well I guess I don't know what the I don't know what the you you got killed Vic on heat and I only got a chance to pick one I
Vic00:59:42couldn't pick two good ones that's my problem well you one good one Vic and then after that I got one pick Sonny I got I got one I got one pick and then and then like ten picks later I had one more again yeah I know it was one you took five Jonathan took five and then the next one the next one I took was the next one I took was that Moses it was like he real
Sonny01:00:16man and Moses step up to the plate they say I got I messed up I messed up I did bad taking two I never get to take two I did wrong I did wrong with my picks you know what it's a jip that's what that is so you can't say that you can't say that uh the so the any anyway my understand so there's four hundred eleven votes that's like that's only a quarter of our listeners you could still tip it to me Sonny Bunch your favorite uh if you wanted to but I I don't I don't I again I wasn't I wasn't 100% sure how to set time time limits on this I gotta I gotta look into how the patreon polls work but it's still open if anybody wants to if anybody wants to try and try and get in there it's not fine steal it
Vic01:01:00from JVL give it to me it's not fine
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