#67. 'King Richard'
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This week's movie is King Richard (Will Smith as Richard Williams, on HBO Max), and the panel is fairly aligned on it being a fine-but-unremarkable Oscar biopic. Sonny calls it a paint-by-numbers, 140-minutes-too-long showcase for Will Smith "doing a lot of acting," and singles out one of the strangest scenes he's ever witnessed: a gang member who threatens Richard is providentially gunned down by his own crew moments before Richard can retaliate, after which the same gang shows up at the courts to pledge their support to Venus and Serena. JVL is angrier, arguing the film quietly ages the sisters up by several years (their real Compton grind and discovery happened when they were four and two, not the near-adolescents depicted) to make Richard's methods look merely eccentric rather than genuinely extreme, and he's bothered the movie never mentions Tunde, Richard's stepdaughter murdered in a 2003 shooting despite setting the moment up repeatedly. That kicks off an extended tennis-nerd tangent covering Venus and Serena as tennis's version of pro-wrestling's face/heel dynamic, whether the sisters' two-decade dominance was good or bad for the sport, Venus's famous "we don't vote" Jehovah's Witness press-conference answer, and life at the Rick Macci academy. Vic's quadrant gives the plot an A, the overlong duration a D, action/violence a B+ (tennis counts), and sex/nudity an F, and names the spirit of the week a hardy wood bourbon-barrel gingerbread stout, correctly guessed by JVL at 11.5% ABV. The long opening banter covers Vic finishing the Iliad for pleasure (grading it A+++ on violence, F on sex, and sparking a dispute over whether Achilles actually dies in the poem), everyone's Christmas-decorating routines, and previews of The Matrix Resurrections (Sonny is unexpectedly hyped) and Licorice Pizza.
From the show notes
On this week's episode, the guys discuss the Iliad. Or is it the Aeneid? Christmas decorations are going up. And lots of tennis talk! About King Richard and other stuff.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00I wrote me a 78-page plan for their whole career before they was even born.
Vic00:00:06These girls so great, how come I've never heard of them?
Guest00:00:09They're from Compton. It's okay. They're just not used to seeing good-looking peoples like us. She's nervous, make a step up. Maybe she ought to take a few more steps up, just get someplace safe. I think you might just have the next Michael Jordan. Oh no, brother man, I gots me the next, too.
Vic00:00:30Hello, 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.
?00:00:59The holiday.
Vic00:01:00The holidays are upon us. Order now. Gentlemen, how are we JVL?
JVL00:01:05Welcome back. Thank you, boys. It is excellent to be back. You know, I, I always, oh, here, here's the answer to our question. 11.5%. Did I. Or whatever that is. Did I just call that? I called it. You did. Thank you. Um, whenever I listen to the show and Jon Putt-Hartz is on it, I think to myself, shouldn't Jon be on our show every week? It's so good. It's so good when Jon is on. It's so good. Now maybe, maybe part of that is because it's a, a rare delicacy, but I don't know, man.
Sonny00:01:40I would say, uh, I, I would say that that's a, that's a, that's a good idea, except we would also have to bring in Rob Long or Jonah Goldberg to like, get him to, to keep a tighter reign on the conversation. Cause I feel like none of us, none of us jumps in and says, Jon, you gotta, we, we gotta, we gotta move on. No, it's better this way.
Vic00:01:59It is, it is a delight. It is a delight to have Jon on the show. It's like, it's great. It's like, it's like Blinney's and caviar. But if you had Blinney's and caviar all the time, what would that be like? We don't know.
JVL00:02:09Amazing.
Vic00:02:10Ah, amazing. Yes. Um, I like asking Jon, uh, I always have a ton of New York trivia for him.
Sonny00:02:16Yeah. That's the best.
Vic00:02:18When he talks about New York stories. And, and he always delivers. Yeah. There was one last week we weren't even taping anymore. And I was asking him if he, we were talking about fashion and I asked him if he ever went to Fred the furrier. Oh. And he did once. Oh. Fred the furrier.
Sonny00:02:32Okay. I still don't understand that reference. It sounds, it sounds like something for the wild things episode.
Vic00:02:35It was a, it was a commercial. It was a guy. He'd say, I'm Fred the furrier. And it was about going, you know, when people wore fur coats.
JVL00:02:39Once upon a time, fur coats were such a thing that there were TV commercials. TV commercials.
Vic00:02:45For furriers. For coming to affordable, affordable, Antonovich and Fred the furrier.
Sonny00:02:49It's like Maury's wigs.
Vic00:02:51Yes. Don't Maury's wigs.
JVL00:02:53Don't come off. My, my aunt still has a, she has a, a fur coat. A big expensive fur coat. Like a real fur coat. And it is delivered to her by the furrier around this time every year. And then at the end of winter, the furrier comes and picks it back up and takes it for the special fur coat storage. Yes.
Vic00:03:13Or something. Fur coat storage. But it's like concierge service.
JVL00:03:16Like the freezer in Goodfellas.
Vic00:03:17For the.
JVL00:03:18Yeah. Yeah. It's real. So anyway, I'm, I'm great. I don't really wanna talk too much because I have so much tennis talk I want us to do. So let's just go right to you boys. How are, how are you fellas doing? Sonny, what's going on?
Sonny00:03:29Uh, not a whole lot on my end. It's the end of the year, which means it's award season for movies, which means I've just been watching like two movies a day.
JVL00:03:37Yeah. Well, there've been so many good movies this year.
Sonny00:03:40There've been, there've been, well, they're all, they all come out in the, uh, the answer
JVL00:03:44is Nomadland. I hope you voted for Nomadland. The answer is Pig. Sonny is gonna, every list he's gonna say that Pig is the best movie of 2020. Number one.
Vic00:03:53Number one option. You liked Pig. What is that voice? What is that voice change? Pig.
Sonny00:03:58That sounded like mockery.
JVL00:03:59You liked Pig. I didn't see Pig. I didn't see Pig because I couldn't get to see. We did a show where I did something else because I couldn't find Pig in a theater.
Sonny00:04:06That's right. It wasn't you. Well, you haven't even seen Pig then. You haven't even seen the best movie of the year.
JVL00:04:10A movie about foodies.
Sonny00:04:12We should do a whole, we should do another episode about Pig. It's on Hulu now.
JVL00:04:16You can watch it.
Sonny00:04:17Ah, yes. I rewatched it again this week. Does it hold up Sonny?
JVL00:04:20In glorious high definition. For the ninth time?
Sonny00:04:22Does it hold up? For the, for only the second time. And it, uh, it's very, very good. It's very good. The movie of the year. So far. I still need to see Licorice Pizza. The new Paul Thomas Anderson joint.
Vic00:04:31Will that ever be made widely available or am I going to have to travel a lot?
JVL00:04:35It's really, it's really, we can talk about this. It's out already.
Sonny00:04:37It's out and it's already gone. It's already gone. We talk about this in box office talk, but they, it's doing very well and it's limited run and they are like, it's not supposed to go wide until Christmas.
JVL00:04:45Is Licorice Pizza the first movie ever made in which the leads look like real people?
Vic00:04:52Yes. Same observation.
JVL00:04:56The leads don't look like the type of people. You see on movie screens. It looks like people you might've actually known in the seventies, which tells you something.
Vic00:05:03And I can't you, I don't know how many times you've watched the trailer. I've watched it a couple times and every time I'm like, I'm just like transfixed by this, that idea. It's, it's so weird.
JVL00:05:12The trailer is two minutes, 26 seconds long and by one minute 45 Victorino, you're sitting there going, I don't know. Well, maybe she's okay.
Vic00:05:19I don't know. Oh yeah. I started off the trailer being like, what hard pass and then, ah, well, okay.
Sonny00:05:25And then by the end, you see her with Sean Penn. She's good enough. Sean Penn.
Vic00:05:29I knew at first I thought it was Jeremy Renner and then I said, oh no, it's Sean Penn.
Sonny00:05:34Uh, did we, did we do an episode on inherent vice? No, no. What is that? I don't think so. Was that before the show started? It might've been before the show started.
JVL00:05:43No, I think we just never got to, got to it. It's based on a book that you wouldn't be into it.
Sonny00:05:49It's like, imagine the big Lebowski, but immensely more complex and like, and, uh, uh, funny more and more open at the end, more open ended than the big Lebowski. That's you wouldn't. I don't think you would care for it. I would like to get a, maybe we could do a bonus episode on that. I think it's a good, it's a good quadrant movie.
JVL00:06:07Kind of. No, it's long.
Sonny00:06:09Wow. Well, it's long and it's complicated, but it does have violence and it, and it Vicks favorite quadrant comes in quite nicely.
Vic00:06:17I think JVL and I are the, you know, we have enough time for one. We'll just do another wild.
JVL00:06:23You know what? I think every episode is going to be every bonus episode for the next year is going to be about wild things. Yes. I, we could do that.
Vic00:06:30And again, once a week for the next 52 weeks, and again, it's going to be, this is going to be a great episode, but you have to subscribe.
Sonny00:06:37You have to subscribe. Well, you have to subscribe because if we're going to get canceled for any episode, it's going to be this one. And I demand that people pay for the privilege to cancel us. That's right.
Vic00:06:49You know, cause I do enjoy, I do enjoy getting these wonderful tweets by people who are just now catching up to old episodes, which means they're listening on. iTunes.
JVL00:06:58Come on, man.
Sonny00:06:59Oh, come on.
JVL00:07:00Sign up. All right. So how are you Sonny?
Sonny00:07:03What's going on, buddy? Uh, I'm fine. I rewatched, uh, I, I talk about watching all these great award season movies, but last night I rewatched matrix revolutions and that movie is still, that's that movie. I don't hate it, but it is a mess. Um, and, uh, I, it doesn't change the fact that I'm very excited for resurrections, the matrix resurrections.
JVL00:07:22Are you serious?
Sonny00:07:23I'm so serious. You guys, I am, I am so. So excited for this movie. I didn't think it would be possible for me to be excited for a new matrix movie. I thought, I thought, uh, the, the, the joy had fled question. Yes.
JVL00:07:37Has the Wachowski cause it is just one Wachowski, right?
Sonny00:07:41Yes. This is just a Lana.
JVL00:07:43I believe which house has the Wachowski figured out that nobody cares unless we're inside the matrix. Well, because the big problem with the second and third movies is that they take place increasingly outside the matrix and we, the audience. Don't give a shit about that.
Sonny00:07:58Well, so, so I, again, rewatching the revolutions last night, the, the thing I realized as I was watching it is that it, uh, it, it didn't just largely take place outside of the matrix and like, I, you can make a case that some of the Zion stuff is interesting, the doc fight, whatever, but the big problem with it is that is that Neo isn't in the movie for like half the running time for like half, for like half the movie. He's just not in it. Like the, the there's an in. Almost all of the big action set pieces until the, the final one in the, the matrix, which looks terrible, which looked bad at the time. It didn't look great at the time, but it looks awful now. Just like, like a, like a terribly animated cartoon. But the, but the, but the problem with the movie is that like for the, the, in the, the whole opening, uh, Neo is in that train station, right? He's not really doing anything. So there's the big fight out in the leather club and the, the big, uh, then there's, uh, the trip to Zion, right? And like, I, again, for like an hour of the film, he's just not in it. And the, the only reason the matrix is interesting is because we want to see what happens to Neo and with his relationship to Trinity. That's like the heart of the movie. And I think, I think judging from the trailers, uh, that, uh, Lana Wachowski has figured that out and that this is going to be what resurrections is actually about.
JVL00:09:22I don't think we really care about the shipping between Neo and Trinity. Like that's nice. What we really care about is what is the matrix? That's what we care about. And we need to find out what the matrix is from within the matrix, because the outside, the matrix stuff is normal and we have seen the outside, the matrix stuff a hundred times in movies. Yeah. The matrix is the stuff we haven't seen before. That's where we, as the audience want to spend our time.
Vic00:09:48I, I only saw the first matrix, which plot that's not true.
JVL00:09:55You and I saw the second one together.
Vic00:09:57No, that's not true at all JVL. I did not see the second and the third one, but you know why? Because you told me don't see it. And so I did it. I may have done that. Yeah. And you were describing to me like the, the two guys with the white hair and the whole thing.
JVL00:10:08And you know, the Merovingian.
Vic00:10:09Yeah. So I gotta say, I just, I went to watch, I don't feel like I missed anything.
JVL00:10:13I went to watch the first matrix with flash a couple months ago thinking like, oh, it's gonna blow his mind. After 20 minutes, he looked at me, he said, I'm out.
Vic00:10:23This is, this is lame had, had things started going within 20 minutes. So like the, the revelation of the, or just was it too slow of a, we were, we were, we
JVL00:10:33were not even to the red pill, blue pill. And he was like, this is, this is beat I'm outta here. Oh, and I just thought to myself, man, the new generation, not into it. Well, kids are trash, so, you know, look, if it's not Tik TOK, he doesn't want any part of it.
Sonny00:10:49Well, I mean, this is the, it's destroying their attention span. If you can't, if you can't follow the matrix, uh, anyway, my son watched it with my, with
Vic00:10:57my dad. But then again, my dad also showed him pan's labyrinth.
JVL00:11:01That was, uh, that was where they were really small.
Vic00:11:04I'm like, why he was at the time he was probably like 10. I said, why did you do that? Oh, I thought it was fine.
JVL00:11:10He said, anyway, I mean, I guess it's, it's pretty, it's, it's a pretty terrifying moments
Sonny00:11:16for children.
JVL00:11:17The pale man.
Vic00:11:18Yeah, no, that, the guy gets shot through the face, I think, and the, the fascist who
Sonny00:11:23goes, well, that was okay. Cause he's a fascist.
Vic00:11:25Well, you know, it's actually, it's fantasy.
Sonny00:11:27Okay. Uh, anyway, I'm excited for a matrix resurrecting resurrections. That's what it comes down to. That's what you're doing.
JVL00:11:34I've talked myself into it. Victorina. How are you buddy? I am.
Vic00:11:38Been a long time since I've seen you. Yes. I'm hanging in there busy. Uh, I do have a, a major, uh, uh, announcement, which is, uh, not counting books that I have to read work related, but in terms of books for pleasure, I just finished another one. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What? Yes. Yes.
JVL00:12:00Because my son was reading it. So we were taken with him. It's Johnny Tremaine. It's gone.
Vic00:12:04Oh, that's too complicated. Lying the witch. Forget it. I'm not even up to that level yet. Uh, the Iliad written by Homer. No last name. Just home. Wow. Yeah. I don't know. And, uh, I have to say, uh, cause I never, I didn't read that in school. We did not read that in school. Um, and I have to say that if you did a book quadrant, it would have been an eight plus plus plus on the violence. I was really surprised. The description of violence, it, at least in this particular translation was very vivid. Yeah. Uh, duration is that's it's long.
JVL00:12:39It does great on the sex though. With Patrick.
Vic00:12:42Okay. Well, that's the thing. All right. I think like I imagine that there's lots of things going on there, particularly what the Greeks are wearing and not wearing and Achilles it's, it's unspoken, but Achilles, he's only
JVL00:12:55angry because Patrick was used to hold. His armor.
Vic00:12:58So well, they're just bros loved. He loved how much Patrick, Patrick list took care of him and, and then the, and he sits out the end. So I guess you're the new chicken licker, save that for the bonus episode. Uh, but that was really interesting and, and it was very weird because they do a, a funeral games to celebrate, but for Patrick, this is funeral at the end, which is weird. Also Achilles does not die at the end of the book. Everybody did. Cause I saw the movie and, and, and Achilles, you see Brad Pitt, he dies in Troy and in the Iliad it's, it's, it's off, it's off season off scene. It's his death is predicted. It's predicted, but you don't actually get there. It's very interesting.
JVL00:13:44So how does, how does the version you read and, uh, with, let's see, Hector's body is,
Vic00:13:53uh, returned.
Sonny00:13:54Well, I think, I think, I think Achilles. I think Achilles dies in the Iliad, right?
Vic00:14:01Isn't that there's probably listeners screaming at us right now.
JVL00:14:04I, I, I can't, I don't know what that is.
Sonny00:14:08There's a, I, I, I have not, uh, I, I am, I'm very rusty on my classics cause it's been 20 years. Uh, but, uh, I, I think Susan Crystal's head as she's listening, it's so embarrassing.
Vic00:14:24There is something else called the odyssey. I'm going to check that out. Okay. It, nevertheless, um, uh, other than that, but it's been so busy. Have you guys gotten around to doing any Christmas decorations yet?
Sonny00:14:35Yeah. We paid somebody to come put lights up.
Vic00:14:38Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh, it's that time of the year, Sonny. That's how they do it out in Tejas. It's that time of the year where the professionals come in to do all the lights. Do you give them the lights to do, or they just do it?
Sonny00:14:48Yeah. We had to buy the lights. We, we buy the lights and then they like put them up around the trees and stuff.
Vic00:14:53So that's already up for you. That's very nice.
JVL00:14:55I stuck my three lasers. Out in the, in the front lawn and they are shining on the house. It looks great. The entire setup was done in five minutes.
Vic00:15:04Very nice. You just paid yourself. Uh, yeah. And Kate set up the lights in our house.
JVL00:15:08Oh, good. Yeah, she did.
Vic00:15:10Thank God. Did you have her up on the roof? A professional. I had a professional.
JVL00:15:14Her. I paid her.
Vic00:15:16Uh. Oh. Oh. Sorry. Anyway.
JVL00:15:21Uh, but you know what I was thinking? Her brother listens to this show.
Vic00:15:23That's true. It's true. It's true. I'm kidding. Uh, but, uh, I was thinking, you know what I should do? My mother used to have, you know, she was big on the Christmas village. She had a big, it started small. It started small with just a couple of things and then it just, it began to grow and it's probably somewhere in storage. But I was thinking about that. If I had room, I'd light it up. It would be a magical village. And speaking of magical villages over the weekend, Encanto was at the top of the box office with 13.1 million followed by, very nicely done. Thank you. Do you assume that's what it is? I assume that's what it is because I have not seen it. No, it's a magical house.
Sonny00:16:00It's not a magical village. It's what? You're close enough. It's a magical house. The house is magic. Not, not the village.
Vic00:16:06But close enough. I saw the trailer and I was like, this is as much as I'm going to see. Uh, that was in first place with 13.1.
Sonny00:16:11Next week we're doing Encanto.
Vic00:16:13Yeah. Followed by, uh, Ghostbusters Afterlife with 10.4. And in third place was House of Gucci with 7 million. Gentlemen, box office thoughts.
Sonny00:16:24Well, you mentioned licorice pizza and licorice pizza. Is doing, uh, like pre pandemic per screen numbers. It's, you know, it's grossing $50,000 per screen or whatever. Um, which is very good to the extent that I am, I am a little bit surprised that they did not rush out, uh, to get ahead of Spider-Man no way home. I I'm a little, cause there's nothing in theaters. There was nothing in theaters last weekend really. Um, and there's not really a ton in theaters this weekend except for West side story. Um, so I, I don't know. It's the best opportunity, uh, but you know, I don't know if it's going to see West side
JVL00:17:01story is exactly the audience who might see licorice pizza.
Sonny00:17:05I, I'm not a hundred percent sure. That's true.
JVL00:17:09I think, I think no one in America under the age of 35 is going to see licorice pizza.
Sonny00:17:14That's I think that's actually wrong. I mean, I think Paul Thomas, see, I w I would say it's more, it's more likely that nobody under the age of 55 is going to go see West side story.
JVL00:17:23Um, also possibly true.
Sonny00:17:25Yeah. I mean, I, I, I feel like. Uh, Paul Thomas Anderson has enough cache with like the young, you know, kind of fill me in. I don't know, but I don't know. We'll see.
JVL00:17:36Uh, no theater kids are going to go see, uh, West side story though.
Sonny00:17:40I mean, theater kids are going to go see tick, tick, boom. That's that's big with the theater kids, the Andrew Garfield, uh, Lin-Manuel Miranda, it's on Netflix now. Actually they don't have to go see it. Um, but, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't have a ton of box office thoughts cause everything is just kind of in a holding pattern. And until no way home drops in two weeks, uh, and that King Richard, I think King Richard has less than gross, less than 20 million bucks theaters. King Richard, King Richard is like all of the HBO max movies in that the, uh, that there are, there are a handful of big event pictures that have done okay. Basically Godzilla and Congress, Godzilla, or I'm sorry, Congress, Godzilla and, um, uh, Dune are like the two that have done okay. And by okay. They, they broke a hundred million dollars domestically just barely. Um, and, uh, everything else, cry macho, King Richard, uh, the little things, et cetera, et cetera. They, all of those movies have grossed like 15 to $25 million. They just don't, they, they, they die because people stay home and watch them.
JVL00:18:47Um, how, how would, uh, how does the Ghostbusters hold? So what did it do? Cause I missed, I missed all of this.
Sonny00:18:53So it was okay. Uh, the second weekend hold was, I think it dropped. It dropped 45% and then I think it dropped another 50% this weekend.
JVL00:19:00That's really good for pandemic time, isn't it?
Sonny00:19:03It's pretty solid. I mean, it's, it's at about a hundred, it's a, it's a little over a hundred million right now, a hundred, 2 million, something like that. Uh, it'll probably get to 125 or so it'll, it'll end up, it'll outgrowth 2016 Ghostbusters domestically at least. Uh, and it will, you know, considering it had half of the budget that has to be considered a big win for Sony, uh, but it's not, it's not. It's not, it's not an enormous blockbuster. It's not gonna, it's not gonna, you know, get up to 200, $300 million, which is, how's
Vic00:19:33he, how's he turtles doing now? It's about 4 million I think is still on the top five, but I was what doing eternals, uh,
Sonny00:19:42eternals. Yeah. Eternals is in, is still the top five. Um, it was at, uh, 157 million or something like that. Last I checked, which, uh, it might, it might get higher.
Vic00:19:57Higher than it deserves. Is that what you're saying JVL? Yes. Okay.
Sonny00:20:01Yeah. Yeah. But it, but it also like, it also dropped pretty sharply. I mean the opening weekend was what? 70 million, something like that. It's not, it's not going to do a multiple of three. Terrible movie. I don't know.
Vic00:20:10Um, JVL, are you, you're a Paul Thomas Anderson guy. Are you excited for licorice pizza or no? There was a, I always feel like maybe there was a time where you would have been more excited. You don't, I don't get the sense right now.
JVL00:20:20Yeah. I, you know, I, so I was early on Paul Thomas Anderson back when I was in my LA phase.
Sonny00:20:27Uh, I, you were a big heart eight fan.
JVL00:20:28I was a big heart eight fan, huge boogie nights fan. I remember hanging out with our friend Jackie. Oh yeah. And one of Jackie's very close friends out in studio city one night and it was, you know, it's like three in the morning, we're at a diner and this girl has just read, uh, the screenplay for Magnolia because they, you know, they're all friends with PTA because you know, if you're a studio city kid of a certain age, you just grew up with them. Yeah. And was like, this movie's gonna blow your mind. What? Uh, I, you know, I look, I love him. I think he's probably one of the, the, if not one of the great filmmaking talents of his generation in America, uh, and yet his stuff hasn't really spoken to me in a while. That's that's a me problem. Not a him problem. I'm sure it's, you know, I'm older and, uh, yeah, I don't know.
Sonny00:21:23Did we, did we, I can't remember if we talked about Phantom Thread.
JVL00:21:27Yeah. We did. I did not love it. But again, it's, this is, this is a me problem. I'm sure. Not a him problem.
Sonny00:21:34Man. Okay. I bet you'll love this.
JVL00:21:37I feel like this is. It feels like Almost Famous meets Boogie Nights. Yeah. At which point Vic and I are in.
Vic00:21:43Yes. And sometimes you watch, you're watching the trailer and I'm getting confused. Uh, and I, I'm forgetting who's the director because it feels like it could be a, uh, somebody else's movie. You know, it could be Cameron Crowe. It could be Cameron Crowe. Yeah. It could be Cameron Crowe. It could be Cameron Crowe. I'm into the mix there or something. Um, now this week of course, uh, we are talking about King Richard.
Sonny00:22:04King Richard. King Richard. We wanted to, we wanted to wait until JBL came back to talk.
Vic00:22:07That's right. King Richard. King Richard. A court, a court, my kingdom for a court. Oh.
JVL00:22:12Thank you.
Vic00:22:13Uh, on HBO Max. I don't get it. Sonny, how about, Sonny, how about a big boy review?
Sonny00:22:20King Richard stars the Fresh Prince himself, Will Smith. Uh. Will Smith is playing Richard Williams, father of the, uh, famous Serena and Venus Williams tennis stars. This is, uh, the, essentially the origin story of how Serena and Venus got to be so good. And spoiler alert, it's cause their dad, he's a crazy person, taking them, making them play tennis out on the courts, keeping them, keeping them away from the gangs. In the ring. Um, you know, this is a, this is a fairly standard Oscar Beatty biopic type movie about a, a, a misunderstood genius who, uh, you know, is a little rough around the edge. Is, uh, and has some quirks that Will Smith can really sink his teeth into, uh, and, and, you know, turn out, uh, turn out an Oscar caliber performance where he's doing a lot of acting, um, uh, and, uh, at the end of the day, the hard work and the perseverance pays off, uh, with a loss to Arantxa Sanchez Vacario, uh, but, uh, an enormous, uh, endorsement deal from Nike. So it's, it all, it all worked out. Reebok. Thank you. Reebok. Not, not Nike. Uh, unrelated. I off topic slightly, but Arantxa Sanchez Vacario, my absolute favorite tennis name, even more so than Anna Kournikova, which was another great tennis name. Did you just like saying Arantxa Arantxa Arantxa Arantxa Arantxa Sanchez Vacario. I love it.
JVL00:23:47Uh, anyway. The flukiest French open of all time was the year that she and Michael Chang won the French open at the same time.
Sonny00:23:55That's right. Two kids, two kids. Ninety-one, ninety-nine, ninety, when was that? Yeah. Something like that. Anyway. Uh, anyway, I, I, I, I want to talk about the tennis stuff and we'll, we'll, we'll get to that in a second. As a movie qua movie, it's, it's, it's fine. It's too long. It's like, it's, it's 140 minutes, so it's, it's a little bit too long. Again, it is, it is very, it is very Oscar Beatty biopic paint by numbers. It does however, have one of the weirdest scenes I've ever seen. In a movie of this sort and it comes, uh, it comes, I don't know, maybe 30 or 40 minutes into it. Um, the, the girls who, you know, grow up, they grow up in Compton, so it's, you know, gang bangers everywhere. Right. And it's, it's, there's, you know, race problems and, but the, they're playing tennis on the court and, and all the, all the Williams girls are there, including, you know, the ones who don't play tennis and these, this gang bangers like hitting on one of his older daughters, like, Hey, come here, baby, let's, you know, suck my dick or whatever, like whatever. Um, and, and Richard Williams is like, I told you, you, you gotta leave, leave these girls alone. These girls are not your girl. You gotta leave them alone. And so this gang banger stomps, stomps shit out of him, beats, beats him badly in front of his kids. Uh, pistol whips him, puts gun to his head as like, I, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna smoke. You're not worth it. You're not worth it. Fool. Um, and walks away. And like the next scene is Richard Williams, uh, driving the streets of Compton, trying to find the guy. And he does, and he pulls out his work, pulls out his work gun and he's walking across the street to, uh, you know, take care of this guy who is threatening him, him and his daughters until he is miraculously like an angel came down from heaven, uh, killed right in front of Richard Williams, like, like, like God has intervened and said, no, Richard Williams, you are not the one who is meant to end this fool's life. It is. This is my, my job. This is my job to do drive by. And then later, later the gang comes by the tennis court and is like, I just, we just want you to know that we're with you, Venus and Serena Williams, it's, it's the, it's, it is the most mind boggling thing I've ever seen in a movie of this sort. Was it the guy who killed the guy who said that? No, no, no, no, no. It was, it was the guy's own friends, right? It's I'm pretty sure it's the same car, same car, same. It's the same guys. It's like the four there's, they were, there were four, there were five guys. Now there are four guys, but like they're, they're coming, they're coming to the courts. They're like, we believe in you, Richard and Venus and Serena, you're going to change the world. And it's just like, I have never seen anything like this in an inspirational biopic. This guy got murdered and that's good for everyone involved.
Vic00:26:47It's just a big win.
Sonny00:26:50It's just a big win for the entire world because if Richard Williams had killed that guy, he would have gone to jail, Venus and Serena never would have gotten, never would have gotten onto the pro tour. You know, they would never have been able to do all these things, but thank God the angel came down and smoked that fool right in front of everyone. So anyway, uh, it's the movie's fine. I have, I have no objections to it. I didn't love it, but it was, it was entertainingly acted. Will Smith is again doing a lot of acting as Richard Williams. Um, uh, I thought the other thing that I will say, uh, just, uh, again, as a movie qual movie is that the tennis stuff in it, it looks like people who could actually play tennis were playing tennis, which is not always the case. I thought, I thought they, the, the, the, the juniors in particular were very, very good. The guy's playing, uh, Pete Sampras and John McEnroe. I was like, okay, let's luckily we didn't spend a lot of time with them because I probably would have gotten angry, but, but the junior stuff was all very good. They, these kids look like they actually play tennis and belonged on a court, um, which
JVL00:27:52is no small thing in a movie of this sort, the best tennis I've ever seen. Yeah. In a movie.
Sonny00:27:58Yeah. I think that's, I think that's a fair.
Vic00:28:00Oh, you're saying this movie? Yeah.
JVL00:28:02Yes. Okay. Yes. Representations of tennis. It's a small, you know, it's match point and Wimbledon are our only comparisons, but this is far and away the best.
Vic00:28:10Oh, match point. Match point. Yes. Or strangers on a train. That tennis movie with, uh, that Woody Harrelson one with Scarlett Johansson.
JVL00:28:20Isn't that, uh, that's match point was, yeah, that, that did very well.
Vic00:28:26I was gonna say, you know, on and off the court on and off, uh, uh, okay. JVL.
JVL00:28:34I, you know, I, the, the whole thing made me vaguely angry, uh, in what way? So it isn't a whitewash exactly of Richard Williams because they towards the two thirds of the way through, we get a scene in the kitchen. The Florida house between, uh, or a scene and Richard where she basically says, everything is about you and you're the one taking credit for everything. And it's as if the rest of us are just here along for the ride. And the only reason I'm sticking this out with you is for the girls. And that is the moment, the only real moment of honesty about who and what he is because he's a weird character in that. He's not a monster. The tennis world is filled with parents who are actual monsters. Stefano Capriotti, Agassi's dad, Mary Pierce's dad, right. Which Williams is not at that level. Um, he's also not beneficent and the, the, the big tell in all of this, uh, is that what people who are watching the movie can't understand unless you're like deep into tennis lore is that the movie plays this trick in order to make him seem. Like not a monster. And the trick is that we begin this movie with Venus being 11 or 12 years old and Serena being eight or nine years old. And we are in Compton. They have not been discovered. He is working them out on the courts. They're out playing the rain. It's tough love. It looks a little crazy, but on the other hand, you know, like they're 11 and nine year olds, right? In reality. This period of their life was taking place when the girls were four and two by, by ages 11 and nine, the two of them were being written about in the New York times, like all that stuff about like, you know, down at the, down at the, the Machi Rick Machi Academy in Florida, they were down to the Machi Academy by the time they were like, you know, 10 years old, they were discovered. When Venus was seven, all the stuff, this, this nonsense about how he, he wasn't going to let him play juniors. Yes. Uh, okay. So, so Venus played juniors and, and she was 63 and 0 on the USTA junior circuit. Okay. And they, he pulled them out of juniors by the time she was 11. Now I think that turns out to have been a pretty good, pretty good idea, but again, she had dominated the junior circuit. There wasn't anything for her to do on it. Serena Serena started playing juniors at four and a half. She played her first juniors tourney at the age of four and a half and over the next six years, she won 46 of the 49 tournaments she played in, and then she was pulled out of USTA junior competition at age 10. So when you, when you look at it with those ages on it, then that Richard Williams stuff looks a lot less quirky and a lot more insane. Right? So, so all of this, like, you know, he w he had these two, he had Michael Jordan and he was going around begging people to take a chance on them. Um, but they were already fully formed tennis players by the movies version of this, right? In reality, that stuff is happening when the girls are like four and two years old, and you can imagine the skepticism and, and by the time they are, they are discovered at age seven because Paul Cohen, who is the guy who sees, you know, he Richard Williams bar in the movie barges in while he is working out Pete Sampras and John McEnroe, Paul Cohen sees them when Venus is seven years old and he immediately flips his lid and was like,
Vic00:32:26this girl could be the greatest female tennis player of all time by the great Tony Goldwyn.
JVL00:32:30Yeah. And, and the, the, the scene where they, you know, she, the, the girls hit with Pete Sampras. Again, this happens when the girls are like seven years old, that that's what I, so the, the idea that like nobody was recognizing his genius again, not true. I was a, a high school senior in New Jersey, pre-internet, and I knew by the time she was 12 years old about Venus Williams. And I knew that her little sister who was two, who was a nine year old or a 10 year old was supposed to be even better. This isn't the case that like they were these hidden geniuses that nobody believed in. They were practically tiger woods, right? In the sense that tiger woods was on the tonight show when he was like five years old, bouncing golf balls and stuff. That's how good they were and how early it was all apparent. And so was the movie shifts all that time. Um, purely in order to make Richard not look like an insane person.
Vic00:33:30Was it accurate that, uh, Richard did think, uh, well that the, the original chosen was, was Venus, but that, but that he always knew that Serena was going to be even bigger.
JVL00:33:41Well, I mean, you know, who knows what he ever thought? I mean, he told people was that what he told people was that they, he knew they were going to be great before they were even born. And then again, the movie is stacking the deck to make him look like a misunderstood genius. Except you have to understand for every Richard Williams, there are 10,000 crazy parents who run around at age four saying that their children are going to be who are trying to, trying
Vic00:34:06to convince Victor Aiden or Paul Cohen or whoever that it isn't the case that, you know,
JVL00:34:11Richard Williams was genius. It's like, he's the one guy who happened to be right in the insane claims he was making because of the genetics, right? This is, you know, he, he had, he had built these, you know, perfect tennis players.
Vic00:34:23And I.
JVL00:34:26This bugs me a little bit primarily because I am an enormous partisan of Venus Williams. I fucking love Venus and I have always believed way more than Serena. I mean, for, for like a dozen different reasons, I've always believed that she gets shafted. You know, the genius is always on everybody else, right? You know, Serena's better. And Richard is the mad scientist who created them and all this in Venus is this like unbelievably sweet kid. He did something unbelievable. It was way harder for her to be the oldest for who's the, you know, the financial, uh, situation of the family was riding on her the whole time. She had a much, much harder part in it and was just, you know, but again, by all accounts, much nicer person, uh, a very sweet kid, a beautiful game. I mean, her game is beautiful to watch and always was Serena's is much more just over, you know, dominating power, which can be is interesting and, and exceptional. But isn't as pretty to watch as Venus, right? Venus playing at, at her top was always more aesthetically pleasing than Serena playing at her best.
Vic00:35:34And, and did the, and then the whole Williams family really live in the, yeah, they all
JVL00:35:39went to the whole, the whole family and again, all of that happens by like age 10 for Venus. They're all, they're all in Florida at a Compton by then. And here's the, yeah, I'm just talking too much. I'm sorry. It's cause I, again, this is good. It's like a podcast. We're all a podcast with three tennis nerds on it, talking about this movie that nobody in America has seen.
Vic00:36:03But the other thing I like the reference to Tommy Ho.
JVL00:36:07So you know, I mean, there are, there are all sorts of funny stories about when the girls were at the machi academy. And I think that Richard's one stroke of genius really was keeping them out of juniors after age 11. I think that was, that was very smart and good for them. Long-term development. I mean, for one thing, why let the rest of the. Of the tennis world catch up to them that early, right? I mean, they were playing a different kind of game. The they, they're very important. The Williams girls, uh, just in the development of women's tennis, they, you know, they're a handful of, of women over the course of the years who, who revolutionized the game. The, the Williams girls are some are, are two of them, uh, it did, however, stunt their growth a little bit, not playing matches. Like this, right? So, so Venus goes pro at 14. She doesn't win her first major for six years. She's on the tour for six years before she wins a major. Now, again, she has longevity and it, it does pay off in the end, but it isn't like, uh, that this was a free no brainer, right? There were, there were a lot of people for those first six years who thought, you know, she hasn't learned yet how to put together points, to put together games, to put together tournaments and, you know, Cause she was clearly the most talented tennis player from the moment, you know, in, on the circuit from the minute she walked on the court. Yep. So in ways that much less gifted players like Hingis, Martina Hingis won a lot of slams very early because she had, had played the match stuff. Now, again, this is not, you know, I, this is not to say that, that Richard Williams was either wrong or right, but that it wasn't a slam dunk. You know, this idea to like his, his great insight to pull them from the juniors. It's not like he came with no cost. It did have a cost to it.
Sonny00:37:59Right. Right. We could talk more about this.
Vic00:38:02He wasn't immediately vindicated.
Sonny00:38:03Well, I wanna, the, the, the thing I remember, the thing I remember, uh, as somebody who didn't really like pour over, you know, news about juniors and, and stuff was Richard Williams being on TV all the time, all the time, like the, the, the, you know, uh, who's, who's the crazy dad in the NBA the last couple of years ball, um, like that, that guy, but 20 years ago. Like all always on TV, always talking up, uh, himself and the kids and like being like, you know, I got, I got so many different jobs. I don't even know if I want to be, you know, coaching their tennis game or, you know, like I, that is the thing that I remember the most and this movie hints at that a little bit. Um, but does not, does not really, I think, uh, did drill down into like just how much credit he was taking for these kids at the time.
JVL00:38:53Or a scene divorced him. Yeah. Yeah.
Vic00:38:57They don't mention that. They don't mention that in the epilogue.
JVL00:38:59Not mentioning the epilogue, not mentioning the epilogue that 10 days killed in a very tragic way. Right. So the older sister 10 day. I didn't know. I didn't know that.
Sonny00:39:07So 10 days killed in 2000, 2003, she was, she was Richard's daughter from a previous
JVL00:39:13marriage. No, she was Orsing's daughter from a previous marriage. Okay. Okay. And she, this is very tragic. So she's in Compton, she and her boyfriend are like standing, um, she's like standing by their SUV talking after dinner, I think it was, and they get shot by a bunch of Crips who think who, who, who mistook them for members of another gang. Oh, it was just one of these senseless, senseless, horrible things. I was surprised the movie didn't talk because that's, yeah, that 10 days death is a, is a huge moment in Venus and Serena's lives and a huge influence in everything about them.
Vic00:39:53I'm really surprised. And there's no mention of it at the end. Yeah.
JVL00:39:57Either or anything. Well, they, they're foreshadowing it over and over. And so I thought, okay, well, we're gonna talk about this at some point.
Vic00:40:01Right. Cause they said, oh, she's gonna stay there. He even says, because the whole family's moving, but Tonday's gonna stay.
JVL00:40:05And Tonday, Tonday was, yeah, again, she was valedictorian. She was involved in there. She was a manager. Right. She was part of the Williams team. Mm-hmm. And she's, you know, she's a good kid. Nice lady. Wow. Yeah. So yeah, I, I, you know, I was bugged by, by that aspect of it. Um, cause it, I don't know, like this idea that. Richard Williams takes credit for the genius of Venus. I mean, he gets credit for pushing her into tennis early, but you know, she's the one who's out there doing it. She's the one out there on the court.
Sonny00:40:34Right. Right. Right. Do you, do you have an issue with this? So, I mean, like this is, this is like a, I, I think a, a legit question to ask is you have, you have a movie that is about the two, arguably the two best female tennis players of all time. Um, certainly like the best in Serena and you know, one of the top five or 10 and Venus and it's, it's, it's all about their dad. I mean, it's all about, you know, somebody else like he, is he, is he worthy of this sort of thing? Or can you even make a movie about Venus and Serena and have it be dramatic because of their early success and then, you know, later dominance.
JVL00:41:10You know, it's, it's hard to do a movie about them when they're kids because kids are such ciphers, you know? I mean, who knows what I, the, the, the girl who plays Venus is, I've never seen her before. Yeah. She's great. She's great. Fantastic. She even walks like Venus. Like she has the walk down the physicality, the smut, the sweetness. She just, it's a fabulous performance. I loved it. Um, you know, Vic, when we were kids and you thought about like Boris Becker winning Wimbledon at 16 or Jenny Capriati winning at 13, it didn't seem like such a big deal. Right. Well, that's just what happened. Now that you have a 13 year old in your house, you know how young 13 really is.
Vic00:42:03Yeah.
JVL00:42:04Yeah.
Vic00:42:05They're kids. It's, you know, it's right. I mean, it's insane to think that, and that you would be the parent over somebody who's winning a national championship at that age is, is really quite remarkable. I thought they were very unfair to Jennifer Capriati. She didn't have such a bad end. I mean, was that real? What happened to her? Yes.
JVL00:42:19I'm kidding.
Vic00:42:20I'm kidding. But she came back. I mean, she got her life. No, no, no, no, no. Did she? I want to happen to her. The whole thing is he does not Richard Williams does not want his daughters to become like Capriati.
Sonny00:42:33And I do remember the whole thing in Florida and the drugs. Yes. Can we, can we interrupt briefly to get a quadrants?
Vic00:42:40Oh, movie qua movie. Keep this in mind. Movie qua movie. Movie qua movie. Well, the plot is an A. It's pretty straightforward. You know how it ends. The dad did it. Okay. We know how it ends. Although duration is a D. I thought it was going to be enough because I thought, man, we're only at this. This tournament doesn't end at Wimbledon. You know what I mean? Because then we got a lot more tournaments to go. So no, the duration's a D action and violence action. I gave it a B plus for on the court action, which I thought was great. But my question is, was there, is there any CGI for the tennis?
JVL00:43:14Yes. A hundred percent. And it's all done very nicely, nicely done.
Vic00:43:19So I'm staring at it. It's obviously not like Forrest Gump with the pink. How about, how about the Capriati?
JVL00:43:24No, I don't know. They were, I assuming that it was like deep fake technology where they're, you know, they're taking Jennifer Capriati shots from the den, but, but however they did it, the girl who played Jennifer Capriati or the CGI entity who was CG looked amazingly good. Yes. Yes. That was foul. Same with Sanchez.
Vic00:43:46Yes. So the FA that's always like, oh, are these actors who are these professional tennis players who could act enough and they happen to be really good tennis players or because if you're looking at, for example, obviously the placement of shots and, you know, like the whole, you've been to tennis, you've all been done tennis camps and whatnot, or tennis lessons. And the goal of hitting the corner of the box was a big thing. If you can do it, get near it, but to actually, and so, you know, and, and of course a placement where she's having, you know, Venus is mopping the, you know, mopping the court with the other player and you know, the, the cross court action is fantastic. So I was wondering if there was much CGI in that. Text nudity is an F you're telling me not once they read, didn't run into Anna Kornikova in the locker room.
JVL00:44:31Come on.
Vic00:44:32Kornikova was older than they are.
JVL00:44:34Yes. Yeah.
Vic00:44:36She was in Kornikova was a, she's mentioned, I think she's mentioned she is mentioned. She's mentioned.
JVL00:44:41Yeah. And she, she never won a tournament. Not, not a major, not a major, never won a tournament, never won a singles tournament.
Vic00:44:49She won a tour. You know what? She did win a tournament right here.
Sonny00:44:52That's where she won a tournament. No, she, she never, she never won a singles tournament. She did. She won a couple of doubles majors.
JVL00:44:57The most, one of the most overrated figures in all of Dennis. Oh, well of course.
Sonny00:45:02No, totally. She's, I mean, she, she was an actual media creation, like, and you could tell more, more cover girl.
JVL00:45:08If I could just say, you could tell even when she was at her peak of hotness, you could look at her and see the Russian babushka and know exactly what she's gonna look like at age 50. Yeah. That face is gonna look like Boris Yeltsin at age 50.
Vic00:45:22How old is she? Oh, come on. That's just, I don't know. I don't know. Uh, you remember the story about her and the complaints about her in the hotel room with Enrique Iglesias and that the complaints, because it was so loud coming at the noises coming out of that room was so loud. Yeah. Yeah. I bet. I was in the other room cuz I had actually made the hole in the, in the, in the wall. And I was like, this is too loud.
JVL00:45:43So I, I mean, I have a bunch of questions for you guys. Yes. Yes. JVO. So tennis is always been a little bit like professional wrestling in that it is a sport sport, which has very real heels and faces in it. Right. Yvonne Lendl, Justine Hennin, Dimitri of Muster Jockovich. These are all heels.
Sonny00:46:06And then people like Kim Kleister's and Chris Everett and Pete Sampras and Roger Federer
JVL00:46:11are the, the baby faces, right? They might, it might as well be Hulk Hogan versus King Chris Everett versus Navratilova
Sonny00:46:18Federer. Federer did both. I mean, Federer was a, was a heel at first when he was a baby throwing tantrums on the court. But he was the rock of, uh, he was the rock from, from the nation, from the nation of domination to, uh, to, you know, the rock.
Vic00:46:33So, so Mac and row two back in row two became a favorite. Everybody hated people hated Mac.
JVL00:46:38He was a heel. Yeah. He was an absolute heel, but you know, you live long enough and eventually you become right. Ric Flair. And this is, this is what, so this is what's very interesting to me. So Venus was always a face, right? Everybody loved Venus. She was just the sweetest kid. You couldn't not root for her. And Serena was. It's more like Ric Flair. She was sometimes a face, sometimes a heel, she would flip back and forth. I mean, she, you know, there was the, there have been, there are many incidents. You go back into her history. There's the, her shouldering, the, the person during the changeover. There's the, oh yeah, her, her defaulting the finals of the U S open because she threatens to harm the lines woman. I mean like these things, but she, but again, like Ric Flair, I forgot about that. You get to the end of their career and you're like, well, it's Ric Flair. Yeah. You know, he's, he's bigger than everybody loves him. Even when he's a heel, everybody loves him. I think that's the place Serena is in. But my question for you guys is for 20 years or so, Venus and Serena were women's tennis. Was that ultimately good for women's tennis or bad? I don't want to sound like wind Duffy here, like you remember wind Duffy, the character of justified, who was always like, he's the crook who was always weirdly fascinated with women's tennis. Whenever Timothy Alphonse would come into his trailer, he'd be watching, uh, watching women's tennis.
Vic00:48:08Might be like, shh, this is a break point. You know, there's fantastic stuff.
JVL00:48:12Was it good for, for tennis, for the Williams sisters to dominate the way they did? Because I feel like the re here's my thesis. I put it to you boys and you guys tell me what you think of it. Uh, tennis, professional tennis is best when you have parody and what parody really means in tennis is that you have 10 or 12 players who all believe that they are good enough to win a major on any given day. And during the Venus and Serena's time, there really weren't any, but nobody really thought they were good enough to win majors if Venus and Serena were, were playing well. And so what you have was you have 20 years. Almost where it is Venus and Serena and whoever over, you know, like, like every, every semifinals Venus Serena and whoever over, you know, two, two Eastern European, Russian women who you can't tell who they are. Uh, I mean, there there's this run where a Williams sister won 12 of 17 Wimbledon's, you know? Yeah. And so what, what that is, is you get a whole generation of players who just didn't think they could win majors. Were the Williams in the draw. So they just, and then when they stepped away, that's why you didn't have young players winning when the two of them stepped away, we have this dry spell where majors were being won by journeyman players like Marion Bartoli and Francesco Schiavone. We're like 85 years old.
Vic00:49:43And just for that one moment and then onto the next.
JVL00:49:45Yeah. And it's well, the, the, the, the, the parallel here is really the men's game with Federer and Nadal, except it's as if, as if the Federer Nadal were brothers. Yeah.
Vic00:49:54And then that's it.
JVL00:49:55Yeah. I'm sorry. So I'll stop. Was it good or bad?
Sonny00:49:59Sonny. Uh, I, I was gonna say it is, it is, I, I, I don't know if it was good or bad for the game. I, I don't, I don't really have a, a way to, uh, to, to, to answer that question, except to say that I think it was bad for the game overall to have that coincide with Federer Nadal, uh, and then Djokovic basically you had a 15 year stretch where there were like people on each side of the draw who were always going to be dominant. And I, I think that that was bad for the game as a whole because I gotta be, I, I stopped watching tennis. Sure. I stopped watching tennis. Uh, I don't know. It's 2008, something like that. Yeah. Because I was just, I was bored. Me too. I like, I didn't, I didn't really care about it as much anymore. Now, you know, part of that's just getting older and you know, not, not caring as much, but like, uh, it was, it was, it was a very real thing where it was like, well, it's going to be the Willie, it's going to be probably Serena Williams and either Nadal or Federer depending on the surface. That's right. Yeah. That's the problem with the game.
JVL00:51:00That's a problem for the game. Well, you know, the good news is you don't get generational talents like that very often. So, uh, it will work itself out and I, you know what, especially V I will forever love Venus Williams. I love watching her play. It is the two of them carried American tennis. They carried United States tennis for a generation all by themselves. And that is no small thing. And, uh, whatever their other faults, they refused to be used by outside actors to advance other agendas at every turn in their careers. And I think there is something very memorable, very admirable about that. I'll, uh, I think I've talked about this on the show before there's a press conference from the Australian open Venus is, is being interviewed and it is January 20th, uh, 2009. And so Barack Obama has just been inaugurated and Venus has won her second round match, the Aussie open. And she's at the, uh, at the, the post-match press conference. And she's being asked over and over, well, how, how much does this day mean to you? With that great man, Barack Obama being inaugurated president. And she sort of dances around it like noncommittally and they keep asking her and she finally, she says, I'm Jehovah's witness. We don't, we don't vote. Uh, if other people are happy. Then I am really happy for them. And if you want to talk about tennis, I would love to talk about that.
Vic00:52:30Right.
JVL00:52:31And that a lot of people were not happy with that answer, but this was again at every tennis is a very progressive sport, right? The establishment in tennis is, uh, this idea that it is a, a rich conservative thing. It is rich, but it's always been a rich, progressive sport. This is, you know, like going back to the seventies, Billie Jean King, um, the. This would have loved to really use the Williams girls to advance all sorts of it's it's things political proclivities. The William sisters were just uninterested, right? In all of that. And I think, again, I just think it's admirable.
Vic00:53:12It was interesting the, uh, when, uh, they talk about, uh, when, when Richard Williams is, uh, trying to, um, raise the stakes when he's talking to rich Machi about, you know, whether or not, and he's, you know, I got a call from, you know, he was talking about, uh, Rick voluntary voluntary, the Nick voluntary account. Uh, and, and that got me wondering, I, to get into those camps, was it just a matter of you had to pay? It wasn't like, there was like, it was like a broad thing though.
JVL00:53:42I mean, you didn't have to qualify it or some of that is some, so, so I had a, I had a guy who went to one of the, I think he went to voluntary, a friend of mine, Mike sell. Yeah. Mike sell went to voluntary.
Sonny00:53:54Oh wow. Um, there were. There were tiers of this, right?
JVL00:53:59So there were the kids who were auditioning to get in mm-hmm and those kids were paying. Yes. Right. Mm-hmm. And just to say that they, they, they could say, oh, I went to the academy. They were the people that the academies were recruiting to get in mm-hmm and those kids did not have to pay. Yes. I see. And it's one of these things where you should, you know, parents should have been sophisticated enough to know that if you have to pay for your child to attend voluntary academy, then your child is not gonna be able to make money as a professional. Mm-hmm.
Sonny00:54:26Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
JVL00:54:29This is where they want it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. This is, and there's moment in that actually at the matchy academy where he says, uh, Rich Williams says to the matches are walking through the first time he says, oh, that looks like chum. What he means is a bunch of, a bunch of players who are here. Mm-hmm. Uh, as students who aren't actually good enough to be, you know, top hundred players. Mm-hmm.
Vic00:54:48Mm-hmm.
JVL00:54:49Mm-hmm. But yeah, anyway, my, before we get out of this, I would say one of my favorite Rick Machi stories of the Williams sisters, uh, came from Annie. Andy Roddick, who was there at the same time. Oh, he's mentioned. He's in there. He is. He is mentioned. Yeah. They, they see. Yeah. His brother John. Yeah. His brother was there. Yeah. His brother. Yeah. And he says, you know, I use his younger brothers even better. I can't wait to get him. And Andy talks about how he was there at the same time as Serena at the same age, I think. Mm-hmm. And he's, he said, yeah, when we were there, I weighed like 84 pounds and Serena was already bench pressing dump trucks.
Sonny00:55:23Like it just.
JVL00:55:25Yeah. Just. Yeah. Serena hit the ball so much harder than he did. Yeah. And a lot of that is, you know, like, you know, early onset puberty. He, he was. Sure. A late puberty guy. But. Sure. And he was like, you know, even again. That's funny. At age 10 and 11, Andy Roddick, who was at that point already the future of American men's tennis. Yeah. Was watching Serena Williams and it was obvious that she was possibly the greatest player of all time.
Vic00:55:48Mm-hmm. I would say, by the way, we, uh, speaking of Rich Machi is, uh, anytime Jon Bernthal is on. I'm liking the movie. I don't think there's a movie that I've seen. He was great in this. Wasn't he? He's very good. This is how all these coaches talk. Yeah. Yeah. I know. He was very good. He was very good.
JVL00:56:06The patter, right? Yeah. The patter. Yeah. That, that's exactly right. There was a lot of tennis coaches have a lot in common with like campaign managers. They have to be great talkers. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Vic00:56:15Yeah. That's right. It's too bad. Uh, you know, it, it would have been great to have a piece about this movie from like Tom Parada. If you were around. He passed away. Yeah, I know. Great. Great. That's what, that's what I meant by it. Um, I would say the one, the thing that I found very uncomfortable watching, um, I thought, um, Will Smith did a very good Richard Williams in terms of sort of the way he looked the sort of the eyes very wrinkly and, and, and sort of grizzled looking and the hunch. But every time I stared at him and then later on they show pictures and the, and the video clips of actual Richard Williams, I, I felt like I was looking at myself, like I, I feel like I have the same. Large head. Large head. Yeah. I'm very, I'm like Asian Richard Williams. It was very disturbing to watch that. I'm pretty much, I feel like I'm his age now and sort of just hunched over and same, same head size and, and, and head shape, the head shape was the same. It was very, very uncomfortable. Um, okay. Uh, do we have any other thoughts? Anything else on this? Okay. Wonderful. Um, corrections, shout outs. You have a spirit JVL.
JVL00:57:17Oh, we can, we're drinking this hardy wood bourbon barrel GBS gingerbread stout.
Sonny00:57:23I think maybe I prefer the normal.
JVL00:57:27It's gingerbread stout.
Vic00:57:28He showed it to us a little bit too much for me, I think, and I asked what was the proof on it. And I said, and I guessed 11% and it's 11.5, a little smoky. Yeah.
JVL00:57:39Is the, the non one is just no crisper.
Vic00:57:42Just get bourbon at that point. Just go for the bourbon. Okay. I do have a, a, not really a correction, but an amplification, if it will, if you will. Good friend, Ian Brody, one of our Canadian listeners. Uh, it says that ghostbusters wasn't just quote shot in Canada, but rather at Fort McLeod, Alberta around the corner from where legends of the fall was shot and not far from the revenant, the revenant, uh, Alberta, which I believe is just a little west of Montreal. Okay. Uh, that is all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, compliments, tweet us at Sonny Bunch at Victorino Mattis. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on Patreon.
JVL00:58:20And if you don't show up for this. Uh, special bonus, wild things, episode, you are missing out.
Vic00:58:26Come on. You are missing out. Just go to sub beacon.com. We're there.
Sonny00:58:30Tell your friends until next time.
JVL00:58:42So got anything I get into crypto a little bit while Shannon was away.
Sonny00:58:47Oh boy. Speak. Yes. Not really.
JVL00:58:51Really? Yeah.
Sonny00:58:53Yeah. That's right.
JVL00:58:55How many NFTs do you own now? I, you know, who could say three, I own three NFTs now. I think that's a sign that the whole thing is about to, to, to actually collapse in on itself though.
Sonny00:59:05Do you, what, what crypto currency are you into? Is it just Ethereum? So you can buy the NFTs?
JVL00:59:10Get a little bit. I'm spread around a little bit, a little bit of a Matic, which is the polygon network crypto. I, a little bit of Ethereum, a little bit of Bitcoin. A little bit of sushi swap. But what this, I really do believe though, it'll be like 20 different things. By the time we're done with this, this is, this is the moment when the whole thing collapses in on itself, like a neutron star, a little bit of black hole. That's right.
Sonny00:59:41Oh, I'm sure.
?00:59:42I'm sure it'll be fine.
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