#58. 'The French Dispatch'
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This week it's Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch, and all three hosts adore it: Sonny delivers a full "big boy review" arguing the fussiness is the point, since each of the three anthologized stories dramatizes a different facet of art and the business of making it; JVL calls it a love letter to their own world and singles out Jeffrey Wright's performance as maybe the best he's seen on screen this year; and Vic scores it Quadrant plot A, duration A, action/violence B+, and sex/nudity a startled "+++" (the movie's full-frontal Benicio del Toro nude-model scene catches him off guard). The trio spends much of the episode marveling that the film — a New Yorker pastiche following editor Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray) and his eccentric writers through stories of art, revolution, and food — is basically unwatchable to anyone who hasn't worked at a "magazine of ideas" the way they all did at the old Weekly Standard, and they trade long, warm reminiscences about real-life magazine characters, beloved New Yorker writers like Anthony Lane and A.J. Liebling, and a grim story about the suicide of Commentary founder Elliot Cohen. The opening banter runs long as usual: Sonny's three-year-old had more fun handing out Halloween candy than trick-or-treating for it, JVL slipped common baseball cards into his candy bowl and made one collector kid's night, and Vic confesses to sneaking into a sold-out Dune IMAX screening without a ticket, which Sonny hilariously prosecutes as theft from the studio, the distributor, and Oscar Isaac and Timothée Chalamet personally. There's also brief box-office chatter (Dune atop the chart despite a steep second-weekend drop, Halloween Kills and No Time to Die trailing) and a nod to a separate bonus Squid Game episode taped with guest Paul Crookston. The episode closes with Vic's correspondence-desk war story about the worst hate mail he ever received at the magazine — a crayon illustration too filthy to describe on air.
From the show notes
On this week's episode there is Halloween joy. And three old magazine hands exult in the tribute to magazines that is The French Dispatch . You kind of had to be there to get it, and by "there" I mean "an employee of a journal of ideas for some stretch of time." But if you were there, well, you get it.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00It began as a holiday, eager to escape a bright future on the Great Plains, Arthur Howitzer Jr. transformed a series of travelogue columns into the French Dispatch, a factual weekly report on the subjects of world politics, the arts, high and low, and diverse stories of human interest. You don't think it's almost too seedy this time? No, I don't. Decent people. It's supposed to be charming. He assembled a team of the best expatriate journalists of his time: Berenson, Sazarek, Kremens, Roebuck-Wright. These were his people. Just try to make it sound like you wrote it that way on purpose.
Vic00:00:51Hello and welcome to another edition of The Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny 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 store at tpublic.com. Gentlemen, how are we? I know that people are probably going to listen to this in reverse, but I'll say it anyway. What a delight to have Paul Crookston on our special Squid Game episode.
Sonny00:01:20We taped the special episode, usually we tape the special episode at the end. After we tape the main episode. But we did it in reverse this week because we wanted to have Paul Crookston, a Korea expert, on the show. And he was very good. JVL got to ask him serious questions. I got to ask him unserious questions.
Vic00:01:41And I got to have him here in person in my basement.
Sonny00:01:44Vic got to put his tongue in Paul's ear. That's not true at all. That's how close they were on that couch.
Vic00:01:51First of all, the cushion is still warm. The seat's still warm. Do you like wood? Yes.
Guest00:01:57What kind of wood?
Vic00:01:59Hard wood. Sonny, very few people even know that commercial anymore. You're always trying to push it. No, I love having Paul. He's so adorable. He's sleeping right there in the corner.
JVL00:02:13I love that guy. It made me happy to see his face. Yeah, same.
Vic00:02:17I love him. I love that guy. Likewise. Okay, so how are you guys doing? Sonny, what's going on?
Sonny00:02:25Not a whole lot. You know, it was holiday. It was Halloween on Sunday. And we took the kids out to do the trick-or-treating and that was fine. That was fine. But the real highlight, weirdly, was when we came back, the kids helped pass out. So we have like a table set up in our front yard, right? Like on the little path, the entryway to the house. I guess a remnant of lockdown, whatever. But we had the table set up and the kids were out there helping pass it around. And my youngest, who just turned three, he was more excited to hand out the candy than he was to actually go to the houses and get it. That's a funny thing. He was so excited. So he would see some kids coming and he would be like, "The big kids are coming. The big kids are coming. The big kids are coming." And he would grab handfuls and he would run up to them and shove his hand in their back. To the point that some of the kids were getting like, "Stop putting your hand in my hand." "In my candy bag, little boy. I don't know what you're doing." But it was very funny. And so then he would say like, "Happy Halloween." And they would go, "Oh, thanks." And he'd be like, "You're welcome." It was all very funny. He was delightful. He was a delight. That's wonderful. And Halloween was, again, more fun handing out the candy than getting the candy. So that's what's going on in my house. We had an innovation, a Halloween innovation this year, something I think we're going to have to do every year.
JVL00:04:02So two of my priest buddies are visiting and staying with us, which is great, Father Harrison and Father Anthony. Father Harrison is a baseball card guy. And so whenever he comes, we go out, we get a bunch of boxes of baseball cards, and me and him and the big kids. We sit, we rip them, we break them, and we look for the hits, and we get autographs, memorabilia, relics, and all that. Anyway, you wind up, when you get this, just a lot of what we refer to as common cards, cards that aren't actually worth anything. And so this year, because we ripped a lot of cards, we had a lot of common cards, and we decided to put them in the candy basket with the candy. So kids could get a baseball card or a basketball. Or a basketball card and a Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Oh my goodness. And I thought to myself, this is not going to be for everybody, right? But we'll get somebody who is into this. As God is my witness, about midway through the night, we had this kid, maybe eight or nine years old, dressed up as a baseball player, who came up and was just like, "Hey, trick or treat." And he reached in, and he looked up and he goes, "There are baseball cards in here?" And I said, "Buddy?" And he said, "Buddy, you take as many of those as you want." And he goes, "Seriously?" I said, "Take 50 of them."
Sonny00:05:29Oh my God.
JVL00:05:30Go nuts. Questions. And I feel like I made his Halloween.
Sonny00:05:33Question.
JVL00:05:34Yeah.
Sonny00:05:35Were these cards, were these like modern cards? Yeah. Did you open up a bunch of new packs, like tops, you know, 2022 or whatever?
JVL00:05:42Tops 2021.
Sonny00:05:43Yep. So it wasn't like, it wasn't like you didn't go out and buy like a case of stadium club cards for like $12 on eBay.
?00:05:50No.
Sonny00:05:50And then just. And then just dump all those in there. Oh. That's good. Be like, enjoy your John Olderud.
JVL00:05:56Nope. Nope. All modern players. All modern cards. Here's a Kirby Pucket for you. These are pretty nice stuff too. I got some, some Donruss Optics, some Panini Mosaic the first time ever. It was great. And threw some NBA cards in there too. Yeah.
Sonny00:06:09Didn't tops like lose the, lose the rights to baseball cards?
JVL00:06:12Yeah. That's a whole, that's a whole thing. We'll talk about it on another show. I mean, the point is it was awesome. And I made one kid's night. That kid.
?00:06:19That's nice.
Sonny00:06:19He is 20 years old.
JVL00:06:20Yeah. We'll talk to his friends. I always remember. Man, I remember there was this one house that I trick or treated at when I was a kid. They let me get like 50 baseball cards.
Sonny00:06:29Was he the only one who took baseball cards or did everyone take baseball cards?
JVL00:06:32No, some people took cards. Some people didn't. But he was the only one who was clearly super into it. Like this kid clearly collects cards at home, you know, like knew what they were, knew what was going on. And I, I was just watching him as he left, like rifling through what he named. Just like, oh, look at that. Oh. That's nice. Made me feel good. That's very nice.
Sonny00:06:52Victorino, how are you buddy? Did you put them in the plastic sleeves or were they just getting their grubby little fingerprints all over them?
JVL00:06:57Grubby little fingerprints. Ugh.
Sonny00:06:59I keep the, I keep the penny sleeves.
JVL00:07:00Those cards are worthless now. Those cards are 1.0s. I keep the penny sleeves for the hits. 1.0s. Penny sleeves are for the hits.
Sonny00:07:05Do you have any of the, do you have any of the screw down ones, the ones with the screws?
JVL00:07:13Nobody uses them anymore. They, they, uh, those things, uh, soft touches are done with magnets. Oh. Oh. Magnets. Because the screw cases are ridiculous, right? And once you screw it in, you're like, ugh.
Vic00:07:25So. Yeah. I just want to say again, uh, you know, sharing this, I didn't, I wasn't sure how we were going to do this logistically, uh, to do this. You're talking about Paul Cruxton again. I'm talking about Paul still. I'd say.
Sonny00:07:36You're talking about Paul Cruxton for the show that nobody will listen to for another three days.
Vic00:07:40Yeah, that's right. Okay. Okay. I'd say the most disturbing thing about having him here, uh, on screen with me is the difference in sizes of our heads. On one screen. I don't know. JBL's nodding. You noticed it. I didn't want to say it. You could fit Paul's head inside my head with room to spare.
Sonny00:07:59Well, it's like Bert and Ernie, like his, his head is narrow. And why does yours, you got a big, big, I was, well, I, I, I started, I started just staring. Move back. Move back from the goddamn microphone.
Vic00:08:10I started, why am I yelling? I started, I started just staring at myself in the screen and I was mesmerized by it. It was very, it was freakish. It was disturbing. Like a bird. Okay. So Sonny, what I want and JBL, what I wanted to tell you, what I wanted to tell you is, uh, Sonny, you were absolutely right. Dune is amazing on IMAX.
Sonny00:08:32You went to go see it on IMAX.
Vic00:08:33Yes. So what happened was I went to see the French dispatch, but I got there early and you know how they have 25 minutes of trailers. So I got there early and so I just happened to pop into the IMAX theater out of curiosity and there was a Dune playing. And uh, I just looked, cause I said, it's either that or the Eternals. If it's the Eternals, I am not going to see that. So I walked in, it had started obviously already. I just walked in the middle of it. The whole place by the way was packed. The IMAX theater, it was crowded. So I had to look for an open seat. I took one on the side on the aisle. Which theater? Which theater were you? This is in Tysons. Okay. Tysons. And I sat there, but even, you know, it's funny, they, they, they always make the argument. They claim that, oh, every seat's a good seat in the house and I'm skeptical of that. JVL's shaking his head. So I'm there just where, you know, the access, the act, the little path between the two sections are. Um, um, um, I'm, uh, behind that.
JVL00:09:29And were you there to watch the whole movie or just to watch 25 minutes, 25 minutes while
Vic00:09:34I'm waiting for the trailers to end. And so I got a little bit of Dune action and wow, the sound part, which part were you? Oh, it just started. It just started. Oh, so I walked in and it's the part that JVL was, was, was making. It was, it was marveling at, which is the, um, the high priest comes down, the representatives of the emperor and the delegation. It's quite a scene. Uh, and then, uh, and then of course, uh, uh, Gurney, uh, sparring with, uh, Paul and then, um, and then, uh, yeah, a great line, a great line. He does it so well. And, uh, and then after that, a little bit on, um, uh, house Harkonnen, uh, and their home planet. Ah, just fantastic. Anyway. Uh, so I'm glad I got to see it.
JVL00:10:16I'm glad I got to see it. I'm glad I got to see it on IMAX. C plus in the quadrants.
Sonny00:10:19You should watch. You should go. You should. Well, it's too late now. It's too late now. Now, uh, IMAX, I mean, you would have to go tonight or like tomorrow you could go midday, but it's, it's, Dune will be done in IMAX until, unless they bring it back in like December.
Vic00:10:34The Eternals isn't actually paying, playing right now.
Sonny00:10:36Is it? Eternals starts on Thursday night.
Vic00:10:38Okay.
Sonny00:10:39I was going to say, because by the time people are listening to this, by the time people are listening to this, Eternals will have taken over all of the large premium, large format screens.
Vic00:10:48Okay. Well, sadly that's all, that's all I had to you, but I had for you guys, I'm glad that
Sonny00:10:53you at least experienced a sliver sliver of what it, what it's like to see that movie and all its glory.
Vic00:11:00Did you ever do that as a kid?
Sonny00:11:02Like go, no, I never snuck into theaters and stole from the movie theaters and stole from the movie. Stealing. I'm already stealing. You're stealing. You're, you're, you're no, you didn't, you paid for the French dispatch. Well, you know, you didn't pay for the French dispatch. Same difference in IMAX. You're stealing. You're stealing from you're stealing here. Let me count. Let me count all the people you're stealing from. You're stealing from the movie theater because they, they're getting, they're getting less ticket revenue. You're stealing from the movie studio. It's a free seat. You're stealing from the movie studio who doesn't get any of the revenue of that. You're stealing from the movie. You're stealing from the movie distributor. Think of Warner brothers, not getting their 15% off the top. You're stealing from Oscar Isaac and Timothee Chalamet. You're taking money. It's right out of their pockets. They're not getting any of these residual payments.
Vic00:11:49I feel terrible about, I feel as terrible about that as when I took the extra mochi from the, from the, from the place.
Sonny00:11:57Can we get the priests? Can you go get the priests right now? The priests are in your house JBL. You bring them in here, you bring them in here and you, and you have them berate. You have them berate Victorino Matus.
Vic00:12:09It's not even close to impure acts and impure thoughts. Okay. They're off the clock. Thank you.
Sonny00:12:14They're off the clock.
?00:12:15That's right. Okay.
Sonny00:12:15They're off the clock. I don't think that's allowed. I think they're on 24 seven. If I walked up to a priest on the street and I was like, I got it, I got to get this off my chest. You have to listen to me. I think they would have to take my confession. Right?
JVL00:12:27Sure. That's how it works.
Sonny00:12:29Isn't that how it works? Sure. All right. Well, the priest can comment in the comments section.
Vic00:12:34Speaking of dune over the weekend, dune remain at the top of the box office with 15.4 million followed by Halloween kills. It's still killing in second place. With 8.7 million and in third place, no time to die with 7.8 million box office thoughts. Thoughts on the drop?
JVL00:12:53I don't, I don't have anything.
Sonny00:12:5662% drop for dune is about what you would expect for a movie that is playing day and date on HBO max. It's better than some of the drops. The, some of the bigger movies have dropped between 69 and 71%, uh, 62%, not terrible. So Part two is going to be awesome in two years, October 20. Did you see that? They put it on the, on the calendar, October 20, 23, I'll believe it along, alongside paw patrol to think of that double feature, which is going to make more money.
Vic00:13:29The treats must flow, which, which is going to make more money. That's what I want to know. Paw patrol.
Sonny00:13:37Oh, well dune part two probably will because I assume paw patrol two will also be on paramount plus and dune. And dune part two will not be on HBO Max really? So yeah, they, uh, legendary w in part in their negotiation with Warner brothers was like, you have to put this in theaters and theaters alone.
Vic00:13:57Will we get to see the emperor? I can't remember it in the original one. I don't think we see the emperor at the end.
Sonny00:14:02I don't think you see the, the emperor in the book. You do. Yes. I don't remember.
JVL00:14:08I haven't, I haven't read the book. Cause the emperor comes down to Arrakis with the Harkonnens for the, yeah.
Vic00:14:13Okay. And you read this book and you hated the book, which is even worse. I hate reading something and not liking it. And it's like, ah, okay.
JVL00:14:21You're right over there. JBL. You seem to seem crotchety. No, you know what? I just, I really want to talk about French dispatch.
Vic00:14:26Okay. We'll get to it. Listen, uh, anyway, uh, if that's all you have to say about, uh, the box office thoughts. Thank you, Sonny, for sharing your big screen box office thoughts. Now, speaking of boxes on the big screen this week, we're talking about the French dispatch.
Sonny00:14:40Oh, Oh,
Vic00:14:42Yeah, that's right JBL, which came in 10th place with 2.6 million in select theaters.
Sonny00:14:51Yeah. It's still only in like 700 theaters, something like that.
Vic00:14:55So I saw mine in, oh, I saw it at Tyson's of course. Um, Sonny, how about a big boy review?
Sonny00:15:03So the French dispatch, uh, is a, it's the new movie from Wes Anderson. It is very Wes Anderson in that it has lots of very meticulously. And fussily framed shots, uh, and set designs and lots of, you know, kind of, uh, I, I hate the, I hate the description of his movies as dollhouse like, but there is that kind of aesthetic to it where he is, he is, uh, you know, setting things up and playing, playing with his toys and his toys are just happened to be like Benicio del Toro and you're a good friend. Yes, I do. And, uh, uh, Francis McDormand. Um, so describing this movie, here's, here's how I would describe this movie. It is a series of short stories that are just, that are constructed to resemble the final issue of a magazine that is very much like the New Yorker. It's called the French dispatch. It was created by Arthur Howitzer Jr. who was played by Bill Murray. Um, and he, uh, lives in on we France on we, on we serve blasts or some, some, some, some, some such nonsense. Uh, um, uh, and is, uh, again, the, the, the, the way the film is structured, it's, it's four short stories, a, a very in brief one. Uh, the first of which is narrated by Owen Wilson. Uh, the second, uh, is talk of the town. Yeah. It's basically the talk of the town section.
JVL00:16:24Right?
Sonny00:16:25Right. Yeah. Yeah. The, the first one is, uh, the, the first full story is called the concrete masterpiece, uh, which is a consideration of the business of art by JKL Berenson, who's played by Tilda Swinton. Uh, the middle story is a look at the politics, uh, and aesthetics of revolution by Lucinda Crements. Um, uh, who was played by Francis McDormand, uh, and the final story is told by Jeffrey Wright's Roebuck Wright, uh, the private dining room of the police commissioner. And it's one of those kind of classic New Yorker stories that begins as one thing and turns into something else. Um, in this case, it's the profile of a chef who cooks for the police, uh, but it turns into a chase for a kidnapped, uh, young man, I'm not going to, uh, sit here and, and talk very specifically about the plot of each of these short stories, um, and list all of the characters and all of the, and the names of all the actors who play them. Because I, I feel like it is, uh, and it is a, it is a waste of the time of the podcast to do that. Um, I will just mention, I want to rattle off some of the names of the people who are in this movie though. There's Benicio del Toro. There's Adrian Brody, Lea Seydoux, Timothee Chalamet, Steven Park, Bob Balaban, Henry Winkler, Christoph Waltz, Matthew Amalric, uh, Liev Schreiber, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Schwarzy Ronan. And just like a ton of other people. I mean, this is, this is one of the most stacked casts I've ever seen. I didn't even recognize.
Vic00:17:41I didn't even recognize her. She was, oh, she was a kidnapper girl.
Sonny00:17:43She was, yeah, she's one of the kidnap. She's one of the call girls, one of the dance girls, Schwarzy, Schwarzy Ronan. Um, uh, what I, what I instead want to highlight is the way in which each of the main short stories, the three main short stories, the concrete masterpiece revisions, uh, of a manifesto and, um, uh, the private dining room of the police commissioner, uh, the way each one of those short stories kind of represents a different aspect. Of art and artists and the business of art, because that is what this movie is actually about. This movie is about, uh, is, is about appreciating art in all of its forms. And I want to, I, I, I feel, I feel very strongly about this because some folks have dismissed this movie as fussy for the sake of fussiness that it is Wes Anderson indulging his ticks and whatever, just because he can, because he can't do anything else. Um, and I think that's wrong. Exactly. I think the fussiness is part of the point here. So the first story. Uh, is, uh, again, it's the concrete masterpiece and it's about, it's about a crazed psychopathic killer who is actually a, uh, extremely talented artist. He is a master of modern art. Um, and that, that is about, that is about indulging an artist and accepting his work for what it is. Um, to a certain extent, and it's also about the ways in which, you know, hype men actually create, uh, uh. Can, can help create artists and help make them renowned and, and that sort of stuff. But it is about indulging talent. And then the, the middle story revisions to a manifesto, uh, that is about collaboration. That is about how the, the artists need to work with other people and how, uh, no, no true work of art is ever made, uh, you know, on, on your own, uh, by, by yourself. And then again, the final story here is, uh, the private dining room of the police commissioner. That is, uh, that, that one is the most interesting to me visually, because the way that, that, the way that, that Wes Anderson kind of constructs some of these shots, these split screens where it's a little, it's, you get it, you get an image of the food that's been created alongside an image of the people eating it. There's almost too much going on at any one time to actually see what's happening in the shots. It's like, it's hard. It's actually hard to see kind of what is happening and what is, what is going on. But again, the, the fussiness here is the point he is, he is showing that, you know, what is, what is fine dining except a form of art, right? What is fine dining except, uh, the distillation of years of experience into an activity that people will enjoy for five minutes per course, you know, an hour for a meal, right? It is, it is filmmaking itself in, in very miniature form. It is, it is the, it is taking all of the skills and all of the talent. That you have acquired to give people an experience they will remember for the rest of their life. That is, you know, 90 minutes to two hours long. That's what it is. And I, I just, I love this. I think, I think there's, I think there's something I think there's, I don't think it's his best movie and I don't think it's his most profound movie. I think grand Budapest hotel and aisle of dogs are two of the most interesting kind of modern meditations on, uh, the aesthetics of fascism that we we've seen in, uh, or I, I'm sorry on aesthetics and the rise of fascism that we we've seen in, in recent years from any, any film director. But this is, I think a really interesting meditation on the nature of art and what it means to be an artist who is trying to create things that appeal to the people who give him money to himself and to the audiences. I mean like that, that is what these three stories are. It's a balancing act of all of those different things. I'm done. Wow.
Vic00:21:40I didn't think about any of that. Obviously I was just enjoyed the, what were you focused on in the let's let's say, let's say from minutes like 15 to 20 or so the plot, the plot is an a it's pretty straightforward. I don't think I was confused. Uh, duration is an a it's tight. It's like what? An hour 45 I think something like that. Action violence actually is like a B plus. It's not bad. You know, there was stuff going on and sex nudity was a plus plus plus three pluses that gives you a French dispatch quadrant score of a, I haven't, whatever reason I have it in parentheses, uh, it was a plus plus and then a plus and then just a and then a minus and then, and then I woke up later on 15 minutes later, so that's where, that's where it was. I, I enjoy, I enjoyed it largely. I didn't like how long the animated sequence went on in the, uh, the chase. Okay.
Sonny00:22:50I, I, I guess it's, it's a march to cartoons, but yeah, there's an, there's an animated sequence in the private dining room of the police commissioner that is designed to look like, uh, the, the New Yorker will occasionally do cartoons, um, of, of this sort, uh, and it is, it is designed to look like that. And again, it is like, I think you're right. Right. Vicki goes on a bit. It's a bit self-indulgent, but a lot of this movie is self-indulgent, right?
Vic00:23:14I don't know how many other people, I don't know how many other people will enjoy it in the way that we do having worked at a magazine.
Sonny00:23:23I want to talk about that.
Vic00:23:24I want to talk about that in a little bit, all the certain types. And it also made me wonder, thank you. It also made me wonder how, uh, connected Wes Anderson was, uh, to, uh, to, it was, it was pretty, um. Um, on the nose with certain things. And I found myself laughing out loud in certain parts in the beginning when they're doing the, and no one else is laughing, but every, you know, laughing out loud. I, I, I loved the, as brief a cameo as it was for Elizabeth Moss, uh, to have her standing in front of a sentence diagram that extreme and being the grammarian and at the editorial meetings. But also, okay. And I'll, I'm going to pass this on to JVL.
JVL00:24:09But the thing that had me laughing the most, I can, I guess, is it when Zeffirelli asks her to proof his thing, he started to critique it and he said, I just wanted to proof it so that you could tell me how good it already is. Yes. That is the most writer thing ever. Yes. No, it's absolutely.
Vic00:24:27I laughed out loud. It is. It's the, you know, it's the Mike, it's the Mike Kinsley line about the best writers, the one who submits his copy and then gets hit by a bus. But no, the one I loved is in the introduction. He was talking about the different kinds of people that worked at the French dispatch and they said, and the writer who goes to the, who shows up at the office every day, but it's never published anything and sort of throughout the movie, he's hanging out, he's having an app, he's having a second, he's reading copy and he's contributing editorially speaking. But, uh, wow, that was just, you know, for, for me and for you, I'm sure, you know, we know so many weird people, JVL, what are your thoughts on this movie?
Sonny00:25:07Yeah.
JVL00:25:08I mean, the reason I want to talk about it is because the three of us can have a conversation about the French dispatch that I wonder if anybody else can have, I maybe I'm wrong. Yeah. It feels to me as if this movie is totally inaccessible unless you have worked for a
Vic00:25:30magazine of ideas and also love the New Yorker or at least the way it was even, even loving
JVL00:25:36as an outsider is different from having worked. For a magazine of ideas, a magazine of ideas, a very specific kind of now look, I'm sure I can watch the player and find bits of an interesting ways, but if I'm not in the industry, I'm sure I'm missing 15 different levels of smart stuff and funny things because I don't actually know Hollywood, right? I'm only an outside observer, three, three rungs removed from it. Um, I, so there are a bunch of things I didn't like about the movie and I. Uh, even at an hour 47, it's at least 15 minutes too long. Uh, each of the three main pieces drags longer than it should be by about five minutes. The score would shocks me for, for a Wes Anderson movie. Each of the three long pieces has a single score in the back of it, which is essentially like a pattern of eight measures repeating over and over almost like video game.
Vic00:26:37Is this Alexander?
JVL00:26:38Is this Alexander Desplot or no, I have no idea, but it's, it's annoying and I wanted it to stop. I wanted to be able to mute that thing in the back cause it just wouldn't step just over and over and over and over and over again. And you know, oh yes. Uh, particularly during the riots, that part, all of them, each one of them has a different, a different pattern in the background, but it's just the same, again, eight measures looped over and over those things aside, uh, I, I just, I loved it. I loved it so much. And I, I just felt like it was a love letter to our world from somebody who somehow understood our world. I don't know how many movies are there out there like that, you know, it's this and shattered
Sonny00:27:17glass.
JVL00:27:18Yeah.
Vic00:27:19I love shattered glass. I love shattered glass.
JVL00:27:21Yeah. And this isn't, this is what people don't know. Like this isn't really a journalism movie. It's a movie about magazines of ideas, which are very distinct subset of journalism. Yeah. It's not, it's not, it's not all the president's men. Uh, and I, anyway, I just, there was a ton for us to talk about. There is. Um, I love the structure of it, uh, from the opening frame with Angelica Houston as the narrator in the Alec Baldwin role of setting the table for it, uh, to the, the unspooling of the stories as if we are, we, the viewer are paging through the magazine, the talk of the town. Yeah. Then the arts, right? So the first one is the arts. The next one is the news of the day, right? You know what? The, the more topical news of the day. That's right. The, the student riots and then to the closing thing, which is supposed to be about food, right? Which again is just how, this is how the rhythms of magazines work. When you're a reader, you make your way through them. Uh, and then even to the, the obituary and the idea of the collaborative writing and that is the last minute you have to, I, I just, oh man, I love the crap out of it. Yeah.
Vic00:28:35Uh, Sonny, you felt the same.
Sonny00:28:37The same way. Oh yeah, totally. I mean the, the, the, the thing that jumps out at me, the thing that he, that Anderson and his, his co-writers and his collaborators understand is the role that Arthur Howitzer jr plays in the magazine as the editor, as the, the kind of guiding light, right? So the funniest thing convincingly, the, the funniest thing about, uh, about, uh, Murray's performance here is the, the leeway with which he, uh, the leeway that he grants his writers, right? The, the ways in which he is exceptionally tolerant of all of their quirks, of all of their nonsense, the way he's almost pleading with them, um, to, to, you know, either file or whatever. And, and the way that the thing that he's most concerned about is expenses. Uh, and, and he's trying to figure out why, you know, why Lucinda Cremins has charged a week at a, you know, seaside hotel so she can write the thing instead of just writing it at her desk, um, uh, and, and, or, or when he picks it up. He picks up the, the scrap of paper that, uh, Jeffrey Wright's Roebuck Wright has thrown to the ground. And he reads, he reads what is the heart of the piece back to him and he says, you have to put this back in. This is, this is it. And the writer's like, oh, fine.
JVL00:29:51No, but this is a beautiful bit of business. So what he, so he reads it and he, the character, the editor's character, Bill Murray's character recognizes that this is in fact the best part of the piece. And he says to him, this is the best part of the piece. And Jeffrey Wright's response is. No, it's not. I disagree. And then he doesn't fight him on it. He just says, well, anyway, you have to put it back in.
Vic00:30:13Yeah.
JVL00:30:14Which is again, that's the dynamic. That is how editors have to manage writers. Right? Like, so you don't get into an argument over whether it's the best partner out. You just say, okay, look, you're entitled to put it back. This has to be in somewhere.
Vic00:30:25Even if you disagree. That's right. Editors are therapists. Writers are weird.
Sonny00:30:30Editors are weird. But also, but also, also just like, uh, let me finish my, my, I got distracted. My, my, my point here. Uh, was that in addition to being totally tolerant of the writers, he's a monster to everybody else. He's, you know, he is demanding that the, you know, the, the, the, the illustrator do the thing correctly. And I mean, not a monster, but he's just, he's brusque. He's like, do this, do that, do this, do that. You know, with the, with the, the printing and the, the little, the guy running around, you know, telling them when, when it's going to go to press and everything, he's just like, you do it this way or you, you know, you're out. And again, that's just, that's just right. I mean, it just like. It just, it just hit, it hit the exact right note.
JVL00:31:10Well, because there's, there's a difference between the magazine staff and the staff writers, because the staff writers are spending most of their time out there. No, it's not just, that's not, that is not right. The, the, the people who are putting out the magazine with him are with him every day. And that's why I, so I read your review when you were saying, oh, you know, he's brusque and stuff. He's a monster. Those, I just don't think that's right. He's brusque, but they get it. They're in on the dynamic and he doesn't really mean it. He's just like more brusque because they're working together every single day. Whereas the writers flip in and out, right? I mean, you're, you know, Jeffrey Wright is out chasing around for three weeks and then he comes back and drops us off. It just, they're like guest stars in a magazine. They're not the immediate family of the magazine.
Sonny00:32:00I didn't mean to suggest that anybody took it. I mean, this is the other thing is that everybody, everybody gets along famously. I, I don't, I don't think anybody had their feelings hurt when Arthur Howitzer Jr. is like, no, draw it like this or, you know, whatever. I mean, I, that's just the way it is like, well, he is a vision for the magazine.
JVL00:32:19This is right. So great magazines have editors with who, who have visions for them and who have interesting obsessions, right? This is a famous John pod ism that a magazine is a collection of the editor's obsessions. And if the editor is an interesting person, then the magazine will be interesting. This is what commentary is so great. Right. Cause John has like super interesting obsessions and a very strong vision for it. And he brings it all together and commentary reflects John. Right. And that's why it's so good. And capable writers to deploy that.
Sonny00:32:49Yeah.
JVL00:32:50But, but in service of, you know, he knows, he knows who he likes.
Vic00:32:53Did you like the, did you like the very short scene about the very arbitrary word rates, the way writers are paid?
Guest00:32:59He's like, okay.
Vic00:33:00I mean, it's, it's an exaggeration and it's absurd because it's like, oh, for the next month gets X amount of, you know, X dollars or Franks or whatever it is. But it is true. I mean, you know, right. All writers are treated differently. Writers don't like to think about it that way when you're on the bottom of that. But the other writers on top like to think about it that way, you know? And I always say, look, I mean, and the other thing I always tell people is, you know, if you go into the business, you know, writers and editors, you know, especially writers are weird. And if they weren't weird, they'd have normal jobs, you know?
JVL00:33:33I mean, you could see Noemi Emery. Yeah. In these characters. Right.
Vic00:33:38Yeah. Which is wandering, wandering around, wandering around, you know, like again, like people like they're just there, you know?
JVL00:33:45Yeah.
Vic00:33:46Yeah. I or writers who walk around in our, in that, in our old office, they would be barefoot or in socks.
JVL00:33:51Well, and, and you wind up with people who are like barnacles, right? They glom on and you're not even quite sure how they got there, but they just become part of the furniture.
Guest00:34:00Right.
JVL00:34:01They're like, yeah, this is a, we just collected this person. Right. They started as an intern. They're here now that, you know, they're just, how did we get to this? Oh, who knows? They just, you know, they're part of the magazine now.
Sonny00:34:11Yes. Are, are, are you guys students of the New Yorker? I, I like, I am, I am a, uh, on again, off again, subscriber to the New Yorker, but not anymore at all. Not at all. A student of like the history of the New Yorker, the only New Yorker. Yeah. I mean the only, the only, uh, the only character I recognized was again, the, the, the writer who was, uh, on staff forever, but never actually filed anything that's based on a real guy.
Vic00:34:35That's like a, well, it's, I, it, it, the first thing that came to my mind was Joe Mitchell, but only because he had stopped writing after, I think Joe Gold's secret. And that was what in the sixties or whenever it was. And the funny story about, you know, uh, when Tina Brown took over and, uh, Joe Mitchell was still coming to the office. And then he mentions to her like on an elevator somewhere that he was thinking about writing something. And of course it would be the biggest thing ever if he actually did, because it would have been like 30 years since he last wrote or whatever it was since Joe Gold's secret. And, and she's like, oh, Mr. Mitchell, you know, we, we, we'd be honored by that. Okay, great. I'll file it, whatever. He never filed it. You know, it just continues on. Um, there are a lot of, of, of things, uh, I'll tell you the one thing, the obituary, if I can jump to the end, the obituary thing, it reminded me of, um, uh, my old friend, Arnold Beichman, uh, the late Soviet, who was, who died in his nineties, he was probably six. And I was out in Stanford and we were hanging out and he told me about the death of Elliot Cohen. And, uh, this is, uh, and I'm curious if pod listens, uh, I'm sure his father might have a different version of this event, but Arnold told me, and this was 1959 and, uh, and Elliot was the editor, uh, and founder of commentary before Norman took over and he had died and he had, uh, so Arnold gets a call from the wife saying to come to the apartment. Because Elliot had died and he had committed suicide. And so he comes over to the apartment and there in fact is Elliot and he's, you know, in the, on the kitchen floor and this is terrible. Did you call the police? And, uh, Elliot's wife said, no, I called you first because, you know, I just thought you should know. And then, and Arnold said, well, that that's okay. Good. Uh, I think we need to call the other, uh, the managing editor or the other editors and let them know as well, cause it's important for them. And then they show up and then they said, well, we need to tell the writers. So the writers show up and Arnold said. By the time the police showed up, the apartment was packed and Elliot's body is still there on the floor and people are standing, they had started to make themselves drinks and they were saying things like, you know, this is awful. I can't believe this happened. By the way, that was a great review in the last issue. Oh, thank you. Yeah. What are you working on now? Because writers are weird like that. But I watched that and I wondered if Wes Anderson knew that or, or not. But that's the first thing that came to my mind.
JVL00:36:57Yeah. It's a, it's just, I don't know, again, I thought, I thought of Naomi Emery and Naomi Emery and just all of the, the people that collect at a place. But the other, the other thing about the French dispatch is, and I, again, I, if you're not in the business, you don't understand this. It is also a very bittersweet look at a thing, which is going away. Those sorts of long form journalism, they still exist, right? And they're, I mean, the New Yorker. They can still do it. There are tons and tons of places online like Believer and the Atavist and, uh, Omni Chrome and all there are lots of places that can put out long form journalism, but they can only do that as a, as a waste of resources, because it is important to the people who run the publication. There is no way to justify. Economically the amount of resources it takes to produce a, a great piece of long form journalism, right? To get a 14,000 word piece in which somebody goes and runs around with the chief of police for three weeks costs a ton of money, right? Uh, you know, you, you've got to carry somebody's entire living expenses, their entire salary for a month to get that right. At least maybe more to get one, to get one piece. Right. And you can do that. If you're a Texas monthly and you're really committed to this, you can do that a few times a year, but there's no reason to do it except that you're committed to keeping this kind of art form alive. Right. And so I look at this as a very bittersweet picture.
Vic00:38:49It was bittersweet because now it's, you know, how many clicks are you going to get and how do you monetize this and, and, and it's, well, we just missed it. Engagements impressions. Yeah.
JVL00:38:58That's right. Just missed it. We were 10 years too late to have lived in this world. We wanted to live in, like we saw it, we understood it.
Vic00:39:07We knew we wanted to live in it 20 years even better. And we just missed it. Uh, and we were there on the, as it was changing already, so like filing systems and things like that. And as it was going, everything was being digitized. I mean, it was just, we were on the, we were at the, it was the tail end of the last days of just a small, yeah, just a glimpse of, of, of what that used to be like because people can't believe that we, you know, when we started, we didn't have email, you know, or the internet always. It was just happening at that time with web crawler and things like that.
JVL00:39:37And you know, can we, uh, can we talk some perfs? Oh, sure. Definitely. Sure. Adrian Brody. Oh yeah. Is fantastic in this.
Sonny00:39:48I, I love Adrian Brody in every Wes Anderson movie. So we, we did at across the movie aisle and our bonus episode this week for Bulwark subscribers, uh, we, we, uh, we talked about our favorite Wes Anderson performances on that show and I picked Adrian Brody because anytime he shows up in a Wes Anderson movie, he is like the most interesting thing on the screen and I am convinced it's because he simply looks, he looks like one of Wes Anderson's, uh, stop motion animation dolls. Yeah. He like, he, he like has this kind of like Gumby like quality to him where he is, he is angular and he is thin and his, his head is very long.
JVL00:40:28Um, and when he talks, he does, he, he will frequently like move at angles. He'll like lean forward at a very precise angle or lean to the side at a very precise angle.
Sonny00:40:40Again, like, like you would position a doll. Um, and I just, I love him in this. I love him in, in all, uh, all of the Wes Anderson movies he is in. And it's interesting to compare him to like Timothee Chalamet, who I think is like not bad in this movie, but is also clearly just outclassed by everybody else who knows precisely what they are doing and like precisely how. Fussy and mannered they need to be in each of those roles. And he's just like, he's trying to do it and he can't, he, he just doesn't have that, that gear.
Vic00:41:12Did you like his, did you like his girlfriend in that, uh, story?
JVL00:41:16Yes.
Vic00:41:17Yes. What do you like?
JVL00:41:19What did you like about her Victorino? I thought she had a great profile.
?00:41:23Oh boy.
JVL00:41:24Uh, Jeffrey Wright, can we just a moment?
Vic00:41:28Oh, he's wonderful. I can't believe I, we just saw him in no time to die.
JVL00:41:33His performance here might be the best performance I've seen in a film this year.
Sonny00:41:39Yeah.
JVL00:41:40Hmm. I, I just thought he was absolutely dynamite and he and leave Schreiber together. The two of them, just as voice actors, the two of them are astonishing.
Sonny00:41:54They are also, those two in that segment are also paying tribute to another kind of long form journalism that is, that is long gone. The Dick Cabot style one on one. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Interview discussion, you know, uh, law again, like long form interview that you just don't, there is not that anymore. It does not exist.
Vic00:42:15The, um, you know who I liked also was the chef in that segment, but played by Steven Park. If you remember, that's Mike Yanagida from Fargo. You know, Marge, I'm so lonely, so lonely Marge. And of course, Francis McDormand is in that movie as well. Everybody's old now. But, uh, and it's. It's so funny because his name is Nescafe, Nescafe, Nescafe, but also a riff on Escoffier, right? Escoffier was the famous friend, uh, the French chef who, um, from a hundred years back or whatever it was, it was from the, even like who became prominent 1890s and then teamed up with Cesar Ritz at the Savoy, uh, really interesting stuff and supposed to be as demanding and et cetera. Um, a little known factoid by the way, uh, Escoffier in Paris, uh, you know, who was one of his busboys was Ho Chi Minh. Ooh, if only he gave him a job anyway, uh, but there's so many other great performers.
JVL00:43:09Victory.
Vic00:43:10Well, how about the last? I loved her.
JVL00:43:12This is great.
Vic00:43:13Perf, right? Again.
JVL00:43:15Yeah.
Vic00:43:16Well, you know, it's funny. Yeah. Great per night. Nice perf. Uh, she and Jeffrey, right? So funny. They were both in no time to die and yet they were both really good in, and they were fine. They were fine in no time to die, but they were really good. I thought in, um, the film. The French dispatch and, uh, what did you like about what they do did with her character?
Guest00:43:38Well, you know, uh, I don't know.
Vic00:43:41I feel like I'm beating around the bush with this answer, but, um, I do have a question. Sonny. Yeah. Oh, maybe JVL knows, but how does it, how does the movie escape an NC 17 rating with full frontal? Cause I thought full frontal would require that. No.
Sonny00:43:58Am I wrong? No.
Vic00:44:00Uh, I mean, I'm glad I'm wrong. I'm just saying, you know, that's, we get full frontal all the time.
JVL00:44:06You get full frontal in the suicide squad. Right. It's more like Lebowski. It's more like what you're doing. It's more like what you're doing.
Sonny00:44:13Full frontal. Full frontal. I, full frontal is not in and of itself, uh, an NC 17 though, male full frontal nudity is, is generally judged a little more harshly than, than female, uh, kind of famously. But like, it's, it's about sex. I mean, if you're not, if you're not like, if it's not, if there's not like thrusting.
Vic00:44:31Oh, right. Right. It's the, it's, it's the action. It's the action versus right.
Sonny00:44:36It's more. Yeah. I mean, and again, this was very brown, brown bunny. This is very, this was very artistic JBL's laughing over that one. Vincent Gallo in that, in that movie, they just have a, they just have a, they have oral sex on screen.
Vic00:44:53It's not, you know, artistically speaking, speaking of characters in the office, that was like, I remember it was our late art director. Our late art director, our late art director, uh, love may he rest in peace. But he was like, Vicky, have you seen brown bunny, Chloe Savini and all those sex? Not simulated. He was very excited about it. You know, it was like, oh, thank you.
Sonny00:45:18Eyebrows.
Vic00:45:19Right. Yeah. The eyebrows.
Sonny00:45:22Let's see. I said, okay.
Vic00:45:24All right. Good to know.
Sonny00:45:26Thank you. And then he stabbed you. Did you, did you overlap with him too? Sonny? Oh yeah. I love, we, we, we always got along fine. Along with most everyone in the, in the weekly standard. I managed to, I managed to, you know, yeah.
Vic00:45:38Can we, he told some terrible jokes. I can't jokes. I can't even tell here on there.
Sonny00:45:42There are, there are names I want to mention the weekly standard that I just, I'm just not going to because, uh, because I don't want, I don't want, you know, I don't want to call anyone out, but like doing what? Like just, just, just again, it's, it was mostly, it was a lot of the, like the, the, the, the guy who was like standing around, not writing and eating apples all the time, but like always there, always there reminded me very much of somebody who, uh, left while I was there. Oh, if you were, oh, okay.
Vic00:46:15Uh, I hope you remember to think about that one.
JVL00:46:19I can't wait for the after show. Yes. Tilda Swinton. Can I briefly just talk about her accent? Oh, say yes. Yes. Um, her, is that, that was, it's like a vaguely, uh, Peggy Noonan-ish. Accent that in, in, you can't quite figure out, but, and she had the funny teeth.
Vic00:46:39She had the funny, right. So she has his teeth and it's goofy and she's, I don't typically like Tilda Swinton. I thought she was dynamite and she plays a great villain in Michael Clayton, but you're right. Generally. I'm not a big fan of her. She's great.
JVL00:46:54Well, no. And she does, you know, that the whole shtick where she is giving that presentation as if she's an art society. But that's actually just, that's not really happening. That is, that is the piece speaking. That is what her writerly voice is, is of her. Cause that whole thing is, is like an impressionistic version of what her piece is. There's a, there's a, there's a, there's nudity of her. Maybe. I couldn't tell if that was, I don't think that's actually her. Yeah. I don't think that was, I don't think that was her at all.
Vic00:47:27I got, well, it's a different, it was body double Victorino.
Sonny00:47:30I think that's a different. I think that's a, I think that's a 30 year younger. Well, I was, I mean, I was so interested by that.
Vic00:47:38Anyway, continue. Um, I, what is this the most nudity in a Wes Anderson movie?
Sonny00:47:43Yes. Yeah. By, by a fair amount. I, I was, I was thinking about this, uh, I was thinking about this during the movie cause I was like, well, I know, I know that Vic's gonna like this one as I texted you, I think shortly after I got out of it.
Vic00:47:55Yeah. Because, uh, and, and, uh, you know, at first when you're watching, uh, Benicio del Toro, um, and he's, you know, doing his painting and, and, and, uh, and last to do is the nude subject. And you see her full fro, but you know, from a distance, I'm like, wow, already it's, you know, you're off to a strong start here. And then he moves up and he walks up to her clothes. I'm like, wow, you gotta be kidding me.
Sonny00:48:19I was, I was saying, so I, so I was saying about this, the, the only other instances of nudity that I can remember in a Wes Anderson film are, uh, is, is Royal Tenenbaums. Mm. Revo Gauche. When Margo, Margo Tenenbaum is with her, uh, lady friend.
JVL00:48:37Yes. I, I, I think that might be it. I just, I just watched that movie two days ago.
Sonny00:48:42There, there, I, oh, there may be some, there may be some in, uh, The Life Aquatic as well. I can't.
JVL00:48:47Yes.
Sonny00:48:48The Script Girl.
Vic00:48:49The Script Girl is top. Yes. Yes. And also, also, uh, Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Sonny00:48:53None of the animals were naked. Yes. So can I. No, they all wore clothes.
JVL00:48:57That's right. They did. Can I say something? Sure. The fact that the editor's will stipulates that the entire magazine be shut down and never publish again upon his death is interesting to me because it suggests something which I never used to really believe in. Right? I used to, I used to believe the magazine should be for forever. And the whole idea of the magazine is that should be an institution that goes for forever. Right? After your time. You want the Atlantic. After your time. You want the New Yorker publishing for 125 years. You want the New Yorker publishing for a century. But it is better for a magazine of ideas to die and go away than to become a zombie version of itself.
Vic00:49:45Yeah.
JVL00:49:46Because you see that. You see that a lot. Because when you see magazines that are zombie versions of themselves and you just think to yourself, this is just sad. Yeah. And it really does.
Sonny00:49:54Which, whichever iteration of the New Republic we're on right now. I'll see if sometimes. A new, new, new, new, new Republic.
Vic00:50:00New Republic. Yes. Uh, and you think that it was the same publication that had, uh, Fred Barnes, Mike Kelly, Charles Krauthammer, uh, Andrew Sullivan and, uh, Mike Kinsley and you know, it's, uh, wow.
JVL00:50:14It's and it really does tarnish the legacy. I mean, look at what vanity fair has become, right? Vanity fair was a serious magazine of ideas and letters and it is not that anymore. It's not even close. Yeah. And they used to have some big essays in there. There too.
Sonny00:50:31I, I mean, I always thought of vanity, I mean, maybe that's just cause I'm young and, and no, and, and I'm, you know, less, less into, but I always thought of vanity fair as like a slightly smarter Vogue anyway. Not really.
JVL00:50:44Well, it has been in our lifetimes, but it didn't used to be, it used to be serious. You know, the Atlantic has, has had a revival, which is great. Uh, but there are, there are other places, you know, like we don't have to, to gap on them, which you just look at and you just think.
Vic00:51:00Well, when I was, when I was in, uh, I was in, uh, the airport, um, early in October during Columbus weekend and, uh, you go, I always, I still go to the magazine rack to see what's there and you'll come across some like, oh, it looks terrible now. You know, as it's just a, it's a shadow of what it once was. Yeah. Do you have, do you have a favorite sort of old New Yorker writers that, that you like or that you've taken to over, over the years, JVL or Sonny?
JVL00:51:29My favorites. They're all, for me, the New Yorker is like Saturday Night Live. Like the, the best cast is the cast of Saturday Night Live when you were in high school, right? That's, that's the golden age. And for me, the golden age of the New Yorker is the New Yorker of my twenties, which of course objectively it wasn't, objectively it wasn't cause that's a lot of like the Tina Brown New Yorker. Yeah. Sure. Objectively the David Remnick is better. Yeah. Um, but I, you know, like I loved the Tad Friend stuff. Oh, he was good. Loved David Grand. God, I loved David Grand. Loved him so much. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, just, uh, Ken Auletta is great. I don't know. Everybody at the New Yorker except for Andy Borowitz is great. Yeah. Yeah. I don't understand how a magazine is so smart about everything else.
Vic00:52:13No, but I don't think anybody does, but obviously there's somebody up there who thinks that he's hilarious.
Sonny00:52:18Boomer bait. Well, no, no. It's not somebody at the New Yorker. It is the legions of 50 to a hundred year old boomers who are very into his very specific brand of boomer bait. Boom.
JVL00:52:30Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. I guess, but you know, in honesty, the shouts and murmurs sections, even when Steve Martin is writing it, I never find it funny. And I know people love Steve Martin. People think Steve Martin is a comedic genius and he probably is. I'm not. I agree with him. I basically find them the weakest, the most weakly written part of the magazine. And it's just not for me. But that's the thing about great magazines is that there are whole chunks that are for different audiences. Right. The idea is that you are not meant to read the whole thing cover to cover. Yeah. I don't. I don't. They're supposed to be sections that appeal to you. Yeah. And sections that appeal to others. That's right. And the magazine is a gathering place for all these different interests.
Sonny00:53:26Funny. For... I am not a... I am not currently a New Yorker subscriber. I let my subscription lapse, I don't know, a year or so ago. But for the last two years that I subscribed to the magazine, I was subscribing solely to read Anthony Lane every week in the closing section as the film critic. Oh, sure. For film. Because I just... I think he is... I know a lot of film critics who really, really hate him, who think that he disdains film as an art form. And there is an element of that. I just love his writing and his sensibility. He was a Tina Hire.
JVL00:54:04Tina brought him.
Sonny00:54:05He is my favorite.
JVL00:54:06I liked his first run as their film critic. He then took several years off and then came back. And when he came back, he did seem a little bit too jaded to me.
Sonny00:54:16The work that is collected in Nobody's Perfect, his collection of essays... That's the early stuff. It's amazing. ...is amazing. I mean, he has this great review of Ronan that starts something like... As I was watching Robert De Niro pull a rocket launcher from the rooftop of an Audi A7, I realized that I was having a very fun time in this movie. I'm actually going to... You guys talk.
JVL00:54:41I'm going to... So, Victorino, he has another essay which he wrote because, again, he would sometimes just write essays, essays about the Bertie and Jeeves. Oh, sure. The books.
Sonny00:54:52Yes. And he... The whole thing is about his...
JVL00:54:56Who's the star? ...uncle who is so obsessed with the Bertie and Jeeves books that he has two complete sets of them, one for his downstairs and one for his upstairs, so that if in the middle of the night he wanted to go and look something up... He doesn't have to go down. ...he wouldn't have to walk downstairs. He could walk to the... And, honest to God, it's 15,000 words about this, and it's engrossing and fabulous. For me... And this... By the way, this story I'm relating right now is why I am positive that nobody who didn't work for a magazine could possibly enjoy The French Dispatch, because you and I understand and think this is fascinating, and I'm sure people have clicked off of this show five months ago.
Vic00:55:38I loved... Yeah, there's five people who are like, "When are they gonna go to the Squid Game?" I loved, in the end, when they say that this film is dedicated to... Because I actually spotted some of my favorite New Yorkers, namely... The list of the... Yeah. ...Wallace Shawn, Lillian Hellman. Yeah. For me, it's A.J. Liebling and a little bit of Joe Mitchell. A.J. Liebling has collected... His food... I mean, he did a lot. He did The Sweet Science. He did boxing, and he did about Huey Long, Earl Long, rather, the Earl of Louisiana, and then he even did D-Day, and I've read his stuff where he's on a transport ship from Norway to the United States during the war, which really... It's long, and yet there's interesting things in there, but for me, it's the food writing that... I mean, it made me want to write about food. I mean, that really influenced me. Between Meals is a good book to get. It's easy. It's just lovely about his early years as a kid. It's just fantastic, and then Joe Mitchell, of course, had famous essays like All You Can Hold for Five Bucks about the beefsteak dinners in New York at the time in the late '30s for five... Yeah, and I love all that stuff. That's what it was for me, so I also enjoyed the... The Jeffrey Wright bit.
?00:57:01Sonny.
Sonny00:57:02"As Robert De Niro stood up on the front seat of the speeding black Audi and poked the upper half of his body through the sunroof, the better to rest the rocket launcher on his shoulder and aim it at the car in front, I arrived at the mature conclusion that Ronan was, all things considered, a rather enjoyable film." And I feel like that is the essence of film criticism as far as I'm concerned. You have to accept a film on its own terms and judge it. You have to judge it from there and on that, in that sense, I think the French Dispatch is an enormous success. It sets out to do a thing, which is pen a love letter to this sort of art form and it does so quite spectacularly successfully.
Vic00:57:48On that note, do you have any corrections, shout outs? Okay. That is all the time we're giving to this. For this episode, questions, comments, compliments, tweet us @SonnyBunch, @VictorinoMatus. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on Patreon. Just go to subbeacon.com. We're there. Tell your friends. Until next time. I have something, but if you have something, you go. I'll bring it. Victorino. Oh, no. It's short, but okay. The one thing that people don't appreciate now is the letters to the editor at JVL. You handle the correspondence page. I did it before you. For many years. Sonny, did you ever handle letters to editor at the ... No, that was never your job.
Sonny00:58:43Was never in my portfolio.
Vic00:58:44That was a thing that just eventually got phased out, but some places still do it. A couple thoughts and then worst letter I ever saw. The first is, I remember when ... When people started that email was going to be a thing and that people were going to be able to send emails instead of letters to the editor. I actually thought, at the time, among many things I thought that were wrong, that the emails, because it involves a computer, were going to be erudite and much better than the letters to the editor that we had been receiving, because you get crazy letters. People writing on the envelopes. It's like a mental institution and they'll write for five, six pages in very small handwriting.
JVL00:59:34And they'd be regular correspondents, like you'd get one a month from these. Yes. That's right. That's right.
Vic00:59:42This is from an insane person. And your job and my job, we had to open up the envelopes, read the letters. I said, "Oh, this will be good when we have email because these people are probably going to be very intelligent." And it's so much worse because, of course, people are just... Very sad. They don't put any thought into it. Right. And they don't have to go to the trouble of getting an envelope, putting a stamp on it, the address, and going to the mailbox, they're just, "Ah," and firing off terrible thoughts that they probably shouldn't commit to. You know what I mean? And then people end up regretting it. So the worst letter I ever saw, it was not to me, it was sent generically to the Weekly Standard. An illustration in crayon of Uncle Sam with his pants down and Bill Clinton and Al Gore servicing him complete with human hair.
Sonny01:00:43What? I can't even say I'm sure it's fine because I don't understand what you just said.
Vic01:00:50Hair was glued on to parts of Uncle Sam's body.
Sonny01:00:55I'm sure it's fine. I'm sure it's fine. I'm sorry.
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