#69. 'The Harder They Fall'
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Sonny and JVL review Netflix's revisionist Western The Harder They Fall, starring Jonathan Majors as Nat Love and Idris Elba as Rufus Buck alongside a stacked ensemble (Zazie Beetz, Regina King, Delroy Lindo, LaKeith Stanfield); Sonny loves the electric, genre-hopping first fifteen minutes but says the whole thing is thirty percent too long, squanders its most interesting idea — the Black safe-haven town of Redwood — and drops its big Nat-and-Rufus-are-half-brothers reveal about thirty seconds after landing it, while JVL agrees the film is "weightless" and "utterly forgettable" despite a fantastic, underused cast, and both lament that a Netflix original gets none of the studio-notes quality control an older Warners picture would have had. Vic runs his quadrant on it: plot an A (he followed the twist fine), duration a D (it drags), action/violence an A+ (Wild Bunch-level carnage, though he grumbles it's mostly CGI blood), and sex/nudity an F (barely any brothel action despite the R rating). Before the review the trio spends a long stretch on banter: Vic's outrageous $24 shrimp Caesar salad at a fancy DC restaurant that made him cut his own wedge of romaine and inspired a tangent about tacky erotic bathroom decor; JVL announcing he's been made "coach" of his kid's middle-school baseball team, sabermetrics team and all; Sonny's incandescent rage after someone deliberately wedged an empty Crown Royal bottle under his tire in the Cinemark 17 parking lot (he wishes death by long COVID on the culprit); Vic's Uber driver recognizing him from a previous ride he doesn't remember; and a box-office digression on West Side Story's disastrous $10.6 million opening (JVL, who's hated the musical since childhood, is thrilled by the bomb) versus anticipation for the Spider-Man: No Way Home blowout. The episode closes with a listener correction about Achilles and the Iliad/Aeneid and a segment on an unusually robust round of "dong talk" in the Patreon comments, sparked by a debate over the size of Kevin Bacon's anatomy in Wild Things.
From the show notes
This week JVL gets front office powers. Sonny wants to kill someone. Vic enters the most dangerous time of the year. And the guys review Netflix's disappointing revisionist western, The Harder They Fall . Plus: Dong talk?
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00I know who you are, that love outlaw hunts down those who trespass against him with no mercy. Where is he? Where is who? Your boss. My boss? Clearly, you don't know me.
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. It's not too late. Maybe it is, but it's probably not. Order now.
Sonny00:00:52Reminds me, I've got like $12 I need to send to you guys.
Vic00:00:55Oh, yes.
Sonny00:00:56Yes.
Vic00:00:57Merry Christmas. That might get you. Get me a kale Caesar with chicken.
Sonny00:01:03That's like a full cob that I chopped. You can get the full cob for $12.
Vic00:01:08What used to be known as the Chinese chicken salad, and they changed it.
JVL00:01:12Boys, I got a question for you. I went into downtown Washington, D.C. this afternoon and had a business lunch at a fancy restaurant. And I ordered a- Was it chopped? Shrimp Caesar. Shrimp Caesar salad, an expensive $24 salad. Woof.
Sonny00:01:35$24 salad. May I ask where- It's like one and a half salads from
JVL00:01:39Trump.
?00:01:40Lincoln.
JVL00:01:41Lincoln.
Sonny00:01:42Oh, on like M and 19th or whatever that is, 20th?
Vic00:01:4615th. Oh, the place that used to be around where we used to work. Yes.
JVL00:01:50It was like one of them. Okay. Yes. And this salad was, you know how when you go to the grocery store in the salad section and you can buy bags of salad where it's dropped or you can buy just the package of the hearts of romaine. Yes. Yes. Right? With the lettuce. Well, this salad came with, which is like the big long thing of romaine there. Stocks. And you had to cut it yourself.
Vic00:02:16Oh, you mean like the whole thing was like- Was it like a wedge salad? Yes. The whole thing. Yes. Yes.
JVL00:02:24Yes. That's how you need a fork and a knife. It's a fork and a knife deal. And I just thought to myself, why am I paying $24 to cut my own damn salad when it is chopped for only $18, they will do it for you. And by the way, also you'll get a lot more salad because here you're losing like a fifth
Vic00:02:39of the lettuce with this, what is that even called? I think the stock. The stock. The stock. It's the stock of the romaine. I think-
Sonny00:02:47For $24, they should not just- I was gypped. Oh boy. That was- No problem with that. No problem with saying that. For $24, you should not only get the salad cut up, but they should chew it for you. They should pre-chew it for you and- They spit it in your mouth like a bird into a baby bird's mouth.
Vic00:03:01Four shrimp. Four shrimp.
Sonny00:03:03Four shrimp. Were they big shrimp?
Vic00:03:05Little shrimp. Big shrimp? Little shrimp. They weren't prawns. They weren't prawns. They were not prawns?
Sonny00:03:11No, I don't care for that place. I don't care for that place and I don't care for Teddy, which is the thing I was-
Vic00:03:15They're related. They're the same. They're owned by the same thing. Yeah, they're the same. Same and same. Same and same. Not a fan of either. It's true. Even I'm not a fan. So this is amazing. We all agree on this. Not a good place to go. You feel like cutting into a steak. You're cutting into a salad because it's so big.
Sonny00:03:31Well, see, I like a good wedge salad. Oh, sure. Like a whole- Half an iceberg. An iceberg. Yeah, like half of an iceberg lettuce.
Vic00:03:38Where they pour the blue cheese and the bacon on top.
Sonny00:03:40Oh, yeah.
JVL00:03:41Oh, yeah. That's a party. That's a party. Let me throw something at you. Because, Vic, I bet you do like Lincoln. I've only been there a couple times. Lincoln is this- I bet you've never gone to the men's room at Lincoln because Lincoln is this weird, trendy- It's a hole in the wall. You go into the men's room and it's got these four or five gigantic, like three feet by four feet- Urinals. Black and white pieces of erotica. Oh. Oh.
Sonny00:04:12Wait, I thought it doesn't have the Lincoln murals, the penny murals. It used to have penny murals or something.
JVL00:04:19Yeah, not in the bathroom. In the bathroom, it's got these beautiful black and white pictures of incredibly buxom pretty- Are they playing with one another?
Vic00:04:28I should- And I just- I changed my opinion of Lincoln, by the way.
JVL00:04:32It's a very strange decorating choice.
Vic00:04:36It reminds me of- Yes, that's interesting. That's very- It reminds me- Yes.
Sonny00:04:42I like a little body. I went to a- Sonny. I stayed at a boutique hotel in Los Angeles on the Sunset Strip way back in like 2007- The Standard Hotel. Or eight. No, it wasn't the Standard. It wasn't the Standard. I was like, the Standard was too expensive. The Standard was like $400 a night. I stayed at a place that was like $150. But it was like, I don't know, maybe it was like a mile further west than the Standard.
Guest00:05:05You were at the Ramada Inn.
Sonny00:05:06It was like La Cienega and Sunset, like right at the corner there. I don't know that the hotel is there anymore. But in the room, the pictures in the room, just nude girls, just nude women, just naked women on the walls. And I was like, what if I was a lady and staying in this room? Do they have- Are there rooms for the ladies that are just like dudes with their junk out?
Vic00:05:28No. I'll tell you what, whatever you do Sonny, don't bring a black light to that room. If there's nude pictures of ladies on the walls, yeah.
Sonny00:05:37Just naked ladies. And I was like, first of all, well, I was like, I'm 25, so I really appreciate this decorating choice, but I don't quite understand it. It did not make a ton of sense.
JVL00:05:48Vic, you should go out and do an undercover investigation of this hotel. Just see if it's like that in every room.
Vic00:05:54Right, in every room. You know, it reminds me the craziest thing I'd ever seen in a restroom or a public bathroom was when I lived in Vienna, there's a section of the city where all the nightclubs are called the Bermuda Dry Eck, which is the Bermuda Triangle. And there was like some sort of bar called the Cactus or something like this. And everyone's like, you got to check out the bathroom. So I go check out the bathroom and it's a urinal, not the one that goes all the way down to the floor, but a normal urinal. But, uh, a mannequin's legs, woman's legs on each side of the urinal, like hunched up. And so when you pee, you're going right between the mannequins legs. It's insane. I thought you were going to say Bucca di Beppo because the Bucca di Beppo
JVL00:06:41Yeah, that's another one that had nice, covered like every single inch of wall space has pictures
Sonny00:06:47of like four year old boys peeing.
JVL00:06:49Oh, it's just, it's just like all these black and white pictures. It's like pictures of little Italian four year old boys, you know, it looks like Captain Corelli's mandolin or something. And I gotta say uncomfortable. I don't like it. No, I don't like it.
Vic00:07:06It's a little bit inappropriate there. It's disgusting.
JVL00:07:09Uh, otherwise you're well, otherwise I'm well, I'm, uh, you can refer to me as coach JVL.
Vic00:07:16Oh, you, you got it because you, you got, you got conscripted and now you're actually doing it.
JVL00:07:23My, uh, my agent was able to come to terms with the general manager and we've got, I have full control of baseball operations, and so that means that I have control both of game day decisions, but also roster management and the draft board. I'm going to have my own saber metrics team that I bring in for this and, uh, I'm pretty excited. We, uh, we got a, we had a couple of games against a home and home against St. Mary's of the blind. I like our chances. You know, you're a lawyer.
Vic00:07:53You know, you're like, you're like, uh, what's his name from Newark. I was gonna say, I was gonna say never, never while you could be that, I was going to say never been kissed. Remember Drew Barrymore, his brother, he ends up at the very end of the movie, he becomes the baseball coach. He's living the dream.
JVL00:08:07We'll, we'll talk about this later as the season progresses, but I'm very excited. Congratulations. Congratulations.
Vic00:08:12Sunny. What happened in the parking lot of the Cinemark 17? Oh, thank you for remembering. I wrote it down.
Sonny00:08:18I would have forgotten. Uh, so. And then you couldn't see your head. Yeah. So I'm, I, as you know, I'm a degenerate.
Vic00:08:26Yes. Yes, you are.
Sonny00:08:28It's very funny. I meshed out there while JBL's, uh, hands were doing this and it just froze in that position. It was very wonderful. Uh, but I'll, I have to delete that.
Vic00:08:36So something's afoot at the circle K go ahead.
Sonny00:08:39So I go, I'm, I'm a degenerate. I go to, uh, the Cinemark 17 in Dallas, Texas at 9:40 PM, uh, on a Sunday night. To go see, to go see the matrix, not the matrix resurrections, but the matrix in IMAX. Cause it was, it was, cause I wanted to see it in IMAX. I'll just say that I probably, I would have rather have just seen it in 35 millimeter as I saw it in the theaters three times, uh, back in the day, neither here nor there, neither here. I'm not, I'm not here to talk about that as I, when I, when I got to that, when I got to the lot at, you know, three at like 9:37 or whatever, cause you know, it's not like you have to show up early anymore. Uh, I got out of my car and I like looked to the left and I saw an empty crown Royal bottle. I was like, Oh, somebody said somebody was having a party here. It was like in the little, it was in the little grassy median area, you know? Sure. So I, I took note of that as I was walking in and, uh, and I watched the movie, I get back out. It's, you know, it's like 1230, it's 1240, some, some absurdly late time of night because not only do they show like a full run of trailers, they showed the trailer for the matrix resurrections twice. I saw that twice. So it was just an extra two and a half minutes. So anyway, uh, anyway, I get back out to the car, I get in my car, I back up to drive away. And as I'm backing up, what do I hear explode behind me, but the crown Royal bottle that some animal had taken off the median and put behind my tire. So I would drive over it on the way home. Now I look, I, this happened and I was. It was my first reaction was what the fuck was that? Second reaction was, oh, it's that crown Royal bottle. My third reaction was whoever did this should be put in the electric chair and ex uh, uh, executed because they are, they are a psychopath. They are a sociopathic animal who is not fit for human society and, uh, has no business being alive anymore. I like, it's one thing to like, it's one thing to like see a car, you know, scrawl, you know, some words into it to show your displeasure. It was somebody for their parking job or whatever. It's one thing to like clean me, clean me on the dirty one thing. It's one thing to like find somebody and murder them and like torture them in your basement because you, at least you're there and you're experiencing it. You're getting like a little, you know, you're getting a little thrill out of it, but this person just put it behind my wheel and left. Like what do they get out of that? What do they get? They get nothing except the knowledge that somebody somewhere may have been hurt by what they did. Now, luckily, luckily my tires did not. I did not get shards of glass. My tires, I didn't get a flat. I didn't. Uh, I didn't. And, and even if I had, it's really not the end of the world because the tread's pretty low on them. I need to get them. I keep my, my, you know, the inspection guy keeps being like, you know, you're almost, you, you're just barely passing here. So I'm like, I'm going to need, I'm going to need them soon anyway. But when that happened, man, I could have murdered 17 people. If you had lined up 17 people who had done this before against a wall. I would have machine gunned all of them.
JVL00:11:50Yeah. Was the kid detective, the movie in which Adam Brody catches a bunch of like 12 year old punks is under the Silver Lake under the Silver Lake. Oh, let me tell you, sorry, I would have been in favor of you beating the piss out of the 12 year old boys who did this.
Vic00:12:09Yeah. I mean, it, uh, yeah, uh, before you went to see the movie, you saw the crown Royal bottle. It was empty.
Sonny00:12:18Empty.
Vic00:12:18Empty bottle. And so it's not like a bunch of, it's not like drunks were finishing it off and then they put it there. Somebody just went out of their way to then move it, to put it on your tire.
Sonny00:12:26Somebody saw it there, picked it up, moved it under the tire, the back, the driver's rear driver's side tire of my car and was like, this is a good place for this. I hope he pops a tire.
JVL00:12:40I hope they die of COVID.
Sonny00:12:42I hope they, I hope they die of COVID as well. I hope they die of, I hope, I hope they get, I hope they get the really bad COVID. The one that like makes them linger for months.
Vic00:12:50Not long COVID. Long COVID.
Sonny00:12:52No, I want them to get the, I want them to get long COVID and then die of COVID.
JVL00:12:55That's what I want. I, I just like, I couldn't, I literally, I was like, at that hour.
Vic00:13:00At that hour. I mean, they're up to no good.
JVL00:13:02You know what? At that hour. Up to no good. At that hour. Here's a serious question. So I am assuming in my mind's eye that this is punk kids. It seems like a punk kid thing to do.
Sonny00:13:12I think, I think it's absolutely something that could be done. Anybody, anybody from the age of 15 to 15. Things.
Vic00:13:18Yeah. Could do something like this.
Sonny00:13:20That's how, that's. I, I make no, I make no.
Vic00:13:22I agree. I agree.
Sonny00:13:24Could be kids in their twenties. Could, it could be somebody in their twenties. Could be somebody in their thirties. Could just be some asshole. Yeah. It could just be literally just a sociopathic asshole of any age. Maybe. Probably young though. It's probably somebody in their like late teens or early twenties.
Vic00:13:36Maybe they got pissed off by your coexist bumper sticker.
Sonny00:13:39Yeah. Well, I did, I do have my, I do have my Beto 2024 sticker. Beto 2022 for governor. Some Abbott fan was like, not on my, not in, not in my Cinemark 17 parking lot.
JVL00:13:53Beto. Beto. Okay. How crowded was the parking lot?
Vic00:13:57It was.
JVL00:13:58It was more. Were you the only car there?
Vic00:14:00No, no, no.
Sonny00:14:01That's what I was picturing. Cause who would, right? I would see the matrix. Well, there are 17 screens there. So there's a lot of things to see.
JVL00:14:06A lot of people going to see West side story or whatever.
Sonny00:14:09Uh, but the, but you know, the, uh, I, I, it was not empty. It was not empty. It was like, I would say it was like probably. You know, there were probably 40 cars in the lot, 50 cars in the lot.
JVL00:14:22So how, how, how long will you from here on out, check behind every one of your tires before leaving a parking lot at night, is this going to linger with you for weeks or have you already written off?
Sonny00:14:34Well, so it's funny that you mentioned this because this almost happened to me. This almost happened to me, uh, like four or five years ago, I was at a, I was at a wedding in Kentucky and I parked in. You know, like I, I parked in like a big parking lot area and just left my car there and went to the wedding and went. And when I came out from the wedding, somebody had done almost exactly this, had put a beer bottle right behind, like laid it on its side, put it right behind the tire with the intention of like me driving over it and, and popping the, uh, popping the tire. And I, I like, I spotted it, I spoke, I saw it cause I was walking around and I moved it. I was like, oh, well that was, it was lucky that I saw that and I've never checked again since then.
JVL00:15:15You know what you should have done? You should have taken that beer bottle home with you, gone down to the Batcave, put it in this special machine to reassemble the finger, to reassemble the fingerprints, fingerprints and trace that traced the person who did it and then murdered them with the beer bottle
Vic00:15:32because that shit is absolutely unacceptable. This happened to Kate. This is back in 2012 and she went to, she went to whole foods and when she came back, she noticed somebody had wedged a bottle, like a beer bottle. A beer bottle underneath her, her rear tire. Who does this? Because, and she's pretty sure it's because she had her, her very offensive Romney Ryan bumper sticker.
Sonny00:15:55Well, that makes sense.
Vic00:15:56But you know, in Arlington, that might as well say Richard Spen, I voted for Richard Spencer.
Sonny00:16:02I mean, look, I would say, look, they're like, I, I kinda, look, I don't, I don't, I don't condone it, but at least I understand it to a certain extent that like, you know, if you have like, if you have political statements on your bumper or whatever, but I wouldn't put a bumper sticker on my car if you paid me a million dollars. I wouldn't, I wouldn't put a bumper sticker on my car. If I own the cheapest piece of shit car out there, because I don't do, I don't do bumper stickers.
Vic00:16:26That's like, that's not a thing I do. You know what? I don't have anymore. I used to have a, I had a Georgetown. That's what I put on my back window. Oh, sorry. That was, that was on my Jeep.
Sonny00:16:33I'm sorry.
JVL00:16:34I'm going to drive out to Arlington tonight with a couple of beer bottles and other things
Vic00:16:39and other things, put a potato in the tail, everything. Yeah, right, right, right. Hold on. The tailpipe. Well, he saved that one. Okay. Um, yeah.
Sonny00:16:51So anyway, thank you for reminding me because I wanted to rant. I wanted to rant for a few minutes about that because it is, I like, again, this country,
JVL00:16:58Joe Biden's America, a place where hooligans run around putting, putting crown Royal bottles behind. That's a bad one.
Sonny00:17:07It's a crown Royal bottle. It's not like, it's not like it's a, it's not like it's like a wine bottle or like a, like a, you know, like a. Like a Miller Lite bottle or something like it was like a big chunky bottle.
JVL00:17:20You didn't see this when the Republicans were in power.
Vic00:17:22No, it's only now. It's only now. Hmm. It's true. Victorino. How are you buddy? Uh, I'm doing fine. Um, uh, so, you know, uh, because it's the holiday season, uh, I've been fairly responsible about, uh, Ubering from place to place now. Right. Going out. Oh God. Yeah. No. So, uh, what happened was a couple of weeks ago, uh, I get into Uber. And it was during the day. And then I come back and, and the, and, uh, I was talking to the driver and, and he said, no, no, no, no, no, no. I was perfectly fine. It was perfectly fine. But I said to him, we were having a conversation. I don't know what about, and then we're talking about like where he's coming, where he's from. And he says, he mentions that he's Armenian, but from Turkey. I said, oh, that's really interesting. And he says, yes, I told you this last week when you were my customer in the car, I said, really? Yes, sir. We've had this conversation before. And I did not remember. And he said, well, I said, really, really last week I go, yes, sir. I picked you up in the city. I go, oh. And then he says, you, you seemed really tired at the time. Well, like sleepy. Yes. Yes. I, I, I said, well, I must've been working on something in the, in the middle of the, you know, 11:00 in the morning, sir, I don't know what time it was, but you seemed very tired. It's I, yes, I sleep. Yeah. I mean, by tired, you mean I blacked out, you know, is that, is that what you mean? So that, I don't know.
Sonny00:18:50I don't have a problem. Did you feel judged by your Uber driver? What? Did you check your score afterward to see if your average went down?
Vic00:18:55I had to make sure to give him, give him a special tip in the five stars because like, thank you for bringing that up.
JVL00:19:01Um, anyway. It does seem to me that the Uber app ought to optimize that it never matches you with the same driver twice.
Sonny00:19:10Or it should give you a heads up and say, you rode with. You've had him before. You rode with Tony. Tony. I assume is his name.
JVL00:19:17Yeah.
Sonny00:19:18You rode with.
JVL00:19:19Yeah.
Sonny00:19:20Tony. Joseph. Chad. You rode, you rode with Rob. Uh. Arthur.
Vic00:19:26You rode with Rob.
Sonny00:19:27Did you say Arthur?
Vic00:19:2810 days ago. Yes. That's right. Uh. That's, I think they should do that. Yeah. Um, uh, yeah. What's his name? Uh, not Hobson, but, uh, anyway. Okay. Shaw. Yeah. That's Robson Shaw. Uh, but I do want to say it's, it's, it's a, yes, it's a, it's a nice thing. Thank goodness for Uber to get people like me off the road. I just want to say that it's, it's, it's nice for our kind of people. It's. How are you, how are you holding up during this holiday season? This is weird. We're in the thick of it for you.
JVL00:19:56We are.
Vic00:19:57This is the hardest time of the year for you. Um, I'm pacing myself. I think after like the 22nd or a third, all bets are off. Any, uh.
JVL00:20:03You know, I've been pretty good. Any twinges?
Vic00:20:05No. Uh, I ran today and, uh, and, uh. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Yes. No. Uh, but, but again, you know, the, the, the. Yeah. The worst is yet to come. You know, once you get.
Sonny00:20:17I assume you've been avoiding. Shellfish.
Vic00:20:19The fried shrimp and the oysters. Yeah. It's, it's starting. It's, that's gonna start up, I think, really soon. And, and, oh no, I've been having a lot of cured meats.
Sonny00:20:25How many times have you been. Charcuterie. To the Palm in the last six weeks?
Vic00:20:28Oh, like, uh, okay. Maybe once or twice. And then again tomorrow. But other than that. It's totally fine.
Sonny00:20:36So seven times.
JVL00:20:37Martinis. Something like that.
Vic00:20:39Any, uh, any seafood towers on the, on the horizon for you? I would love that. Um, but we'll see. Oysters maybe. I don't know. But anyway, I, I had to choke. I lost it. But the, the punchline was that there was a place for us. Speaking of which over the weekend, sorry, uh, West side story danced its way to the top, to the top of the box office. It was number one. Wasn't it? Yes. With a whopping 10.6 million, followed, followed by more money than any other movie in America. Yes. It's huge. Uh, followed by in canto with 10 million. It's a place. Ghostbusters afterlife. That, that, that kids show hanging in there with 7.1 million box office thoughts.
Sonny00:21:24So on the bulwark goes to Hollywood. I talked to a guy called David Herron who runs this site called the quorum. Now if you are a fan of box office mojo, you will enjoy the quorum. It is a site that, uh, makes public tracking numbers and talks about, you know, who's excited to see what breaks it down and, and, and makes that makes those numbers public, which are, have never really been public before they, they're pretty, pretty tightly held by a NRG, which is the group that, that generally does this sort of stuff. Um, so they, they have a lot of interesting data there. And what he said to me was he was very hopeful, uh, that West side story would perform well with two audiences, the two audiences that have been most hesitant to return to theaters. Those two, those two audiences are, uh, women just in general, just women in general and audiences over the age of 50 or 60 or so. Sure. Um, so basically like if you're, if you're a woman over the age of 60, you have not gone back to the theaters at all and, you know, depending on this is your moment, but, uh, so the, uh, he was, he was very hopeful that, you know, look, this is a, it's, it's tracking pretty well. This is the sort of, uh, movie that appeals to women, you know, maybe women just haven't been going back cause it's movies like Venom and, you know, Shang-Chi and, and Eternals. These are, these are comic book movies are mostly. Mostly appeal to, uh, younger men, uh, that, that is the, the quadrant that has been well served and the, the other quadrants have not. And I haven't, I haven't talked to David, uh, since the numbers came out, but he has to be disappointed because $10.5 million, uh, for a, the opening of a Steven Spielberg movie would be bad just in general, but this is, this is a hundred million dollar movie. They probably spent another hundred million dollars on prints and advertising and publicity and it just, uh, it's a disaster.
JVL00:23:12This would have been bad. In 1975.
Sonny00:23:14I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a no, well, you mean like not adjusted for inflation? No, no, no. I mean that those are, that's a very, but it would have been bad. It would have been bad for 95. Certainly if this had happened in 1995, this would have been a very, a very bad number.
JVL00:23:30So, uh, you know, our, our buddy Richard Rushfield wrote about this earlier this week and he said he, he's huge fan of West side story, took his daughter to see it without, without he judging her at all. He said, as they left the theater, his daughter looked at him and said, they both fucking die. Are you kidding? And he said, you know, when you put it that way, you know, I, of course, you know, everybody over the age of Romeo and Juliet 40 realizes the West side story is Romeo and Juliet. Right. And the, but on the other hand, that is not a crowd pleasing story then. It tells people, Hey, thank you for spending two and a half hours of your life here. And for spending $18 on your ticket, uh, the two leads you've been looting for rooting for both dead. Enjoy your afternoon.
Sonny00:24:25Bye-bye. Well, they're, they're not, they're not both dead. Maria's still alive at the end, uh, uh, but yeah, no, but it's Tony, Tony dies basically in Maria's arms. And it's, uh, like, and this is, I, it's funny that you mentioned this cause I read that as well, but that is also like the exact thing I was thinking as I walked out of the theater was like. I forgot that he dies at the end of this story. And I, I am like slightly bummed out now there, this is, this might be, this might have like a very high cinema score and it did cause it's, it's really, look, I say this as somebody who does not like musicals just in general, it's very well done. It's a very good musical. That's a big deal for you to say that and in Steven Spielberg directs the shit out of this movie. It's it is, it looks great.
Vic00:25:09Who is the cinematographer? Janusz Kaminski. Yeah.
Sonny00:25:12Janusz Kaminski. Yeah. Has, has been his go-to since like, uh, Schindler's list. Um, uh, and look, it's, it's, it's a good movie, but it is, it is, it's a bummer. It's not a movie that you come out saying like, everybody's got to go see this one.
JVL00:25:25As Richard said, it is not, you're not, you're not sending your audience out of the theater with the valedictory in the way that The Greatest Showman did, which is how you get theater kids who want to come back and see it five times because it's so great.
Vic00:25:38And it feels good. You got to think about, you know what I always think about and Kate talks about this all the time, because it's on TV a lot. The end of Back to the Future, the first one, you know, it's, it's so corny, but you know, the DeLorean flies at you and then it's your kids, Marty, and then what does it say? Like the end or something like that. And then, and then it kicks right into the Huey Lewis song and so it's like, you know, the whole, and then, and then, and then, and then everybody comes out of the theater feeling great. You know, it's not that.
Sonny00:26:05Wait, does it, does it say the end or does it say to be continued?
Vic00:26:08That's what it says to be continued and then the music kicks in and it's like, this is the thing. So, uh, there's something to be said.
JVL00:26:14Yeah. Do you remember, uh, uh, what's the, what's the great Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dishku cheerleader movie? Bring it on. Bring it on. Bring it on. Oh, with the, with the outtakes. With them, did the outtakes of them doing Hey Mickey. Hey Mickey. And it's just, look, you know what, if you've got a good movie and then you throw a little bit up on the end of it to really make people enjoy themselves at the living theater, that
Vic00:26:40will help.
JVL00:26:41I love that so much. I passed out.
Vic00:26:42I was maybe kind of rooting against West Side Story.
JVL00:26:46So I'm.
Vic00:26:47You mean in terms of its, uh, successes, odds of success. Yeah. Yeah. I, I hated the. I hated West Side Story. I've always hated West Side Story. I hated everything about it. I was, I was worried that I was, uh, when I suggested we see something else, I was worried that you were looking forward to it, JVL. Then I was like, sorry. Okay. Pass.
JVL00:27:05I don't feel so bad now.
Sonny00:27:06Okay. Pass. Why do you hate West Side Story?
JVL00:27:09Uh, you know, I probably. There's probably some parental associations with it. Okay. I was gonna ask if you had starred in it. Leave it at that. I believe, I believe my mother viewed it as like the greatest movie ever made or something at one point in my life. Got it.
Vic00:27:24Got it. So, you know, fuck her. Did you, uh, did you, did you, was that, uh, one of your productions when you were growing up or no?
JVL00:27:30No, no, we didn't. We didn't do West Side Story. I don't, you know, I, I had of saw, I saw, I was in some high school at some point and saw that they had the poster for having done West Side Story. I just thought to myself, are you serious? This is gotta be kidding me.
Sonny00:27:48Just do Romeo and Juliet.
JVL00:27:49Come on. Yeah. Okay. So you were rooting against it. Go ahead. I was rooting against it. And I have to say the $10 million is, is better and more satisfying than anything I could possibly have imagined. I, I'm a. Cause that's a disaster. It is, it is a disaster.
Vic00:28:02By the way, Jon Petthorst, just stop listening.
JVL00:28:03It is, it is a disaster.
Vic00:28:04Jon is gonna be in my texts.
Sonny00:28:05Oh, that's it. Jon will be texting me 45 seconds from now. Oh, that's it. Oh, that's it. Oh, man. I'm, uh. I am. I'm bummed. I'm, I'm a little bit bummed by the, by the, uh, by the result. Not, not because I, not because I'm a big musical fan, as you guys know, I did like it, but it's not like I loved it. It's not gonna make my top 10 or anything, but like. It's no pig. But like. Well, it's no pig. That's for sure. Man. You are on a roll today. It's no pig. You, you should watch pig, Jamie. I should. Well, it's on Hulu. I should. It's on Hulu right now.
JVL00:28:36You can, you can watch it in HD. It'll be in your house.
Sonny00:28:38As soon as we finish the show, I'm gonna jump to it. You'll, you'll love it. I think you'd really, really like it, but you know, it's neither here nor there. Uh, but no, I'm, I'm bummed. I'm bummed because I mean, I'm bummed because it's bad. It's bad for movie theaters. I mean, Richard Rushfield also made this point. It's, it's bad for movie theaters for this to happen and it is, uh, it is not a good sign. Luckily everyone will forget about it when Spider-Man No Way Home makes $250 million this weekend.
Vic00:29:01Okay. Yeah. So that's going to defy the whole sort of COVID. Or 70.
Sonny00:29:05It's not gonna make, no. No. I, I. Well, I, I bet this movie, I'll go out on a limb and say it doubles the previous weekend high, uh, that we, we had seen so far, which is, which is venom. Yeah. Uh.
JVL00:29:22Do you think this is going to be over 180?
Sonny00:29:24I think it'll be over 180. I think it, I think it'll get close to 200. I, I thought I, I was skeptical of this numbers and stuff, but, uh, just looking at the number of sellouts on Thursday and the fact that they are, they are, they are adding screens to this movie. Yeah. Uh, in a way I have not seen since end game.
Vic00:29:41I, I, uh, I'm, I'm seeing it on Sunday and when I did the, you know, with the kids and when I did the, you, you suck the seats, it was almost all packed. Yeah.
Sonny00:29:51So it's, uh, it's, it's going to be, it's going to be very, I mean, what 180 is like my is, is a reach prediction, but I actually, I think it, I think, I think there's a decent chance it hits that.
Vic00:30:01So, uh, as you know, uh, as our listeners now know, we are not talking about West side story. No, although we just did in a way. Uh, instead we're talking about a movie that, uh, Sonny, you suggested, I think, uh, that's
Sonny00:30:15right. Earlier on. You mentioned it. You mentioned it a couple of weeks ago.
Vic00:30:19We didn't do it. That it's been on Netflix for a little bit now. It's not in theaters. Was it ever in theaters? No.
Sonny00:30:25Yeah. I played in theaters for a couple of weeks, but like, I mean, it played in like, uh, a dozen screens.
Vic00:30:29Okay. I mean it was, and that movie is, uh, the harder they fall, a horrible, horrible title.
Sonny00:30:36Yes. Uh, Idris Elba and Jonathan, uh, majors.
JVL00:30:42Do we think Idris Elba stars in it? What does he have?
Sonny00:30:46Well, he's very much, it's, it's very much an ensemble cast and they filmed a lot of this during the pandemic, uh, which is kind of, which is interesting, but, uh, don't tell
Vic00:30:55me that it was all green screen because I really thought of it was green.
Sonny00:30:58There was a lot of green screen, but you didn't know.
Vic00:31:01So I was like, oh, they're in Monument Valley or wherever, you know? I mean, that's nice.
Sonny00:31:04They went out there and, well, they, they did, I mean, they filmed a lot. They filmed a lot of it outdoors, but they also green screened a lot of the, so they, it's interesting. They green screened a lot of the internal stuff with the crowds because they couldn't have crowds of extras like, like milling about the set. So like a lot of that stuff was added or it wasn't, it wasn't CGI, but they like, they, they added it, they added in people, you know, kind of, it's, it's really interesting what they did. Uh, but it's, that's neither here nor there. So the harder they fall, uh, I would say the first 15 minutes of the harder they fall are among my favorites. One of my favorite movies of the year. Um, and then it kind of, it goes off the rails a little bit after that, but the first 15
Vic00:31:43minutes.
Sonny00:31:44How about a big boy review? Okay. So the, the, the harder they fall is a revisionist Western. It's kind of a blaxploitation slash Western, uh, starring, um, uh, Jonathan Majors as Nat Love. Uh, and, uh, the film opens when he is a young boy, he's like 12 or something like that. Uh, and a man, a faceless man comes to his house and in, in a sort of nihilistic, no country for old men. Style scene, like super tense, uh, this faceless stranger murders this boy's father and mother and does it right in front of him. We can't stop them. And it's, this is what, uh, kind of sets him on his life. And then takes out a razor blade, takes out a razor blade, carves across an inglorious
Vic00:32:24bastards on him.
Sonny00:32:26Um, and then we, we flash forward, uh, several years later and, uh, Jonathan Majors is now playing the role of Nat Love and the second segment of this movie is like a Django. Unchained style blood bath. It's like, it's like cartoony, violent, uh, a guy is getting shot and like flips over and, you know, the fountains of blood and the, the, the title of the movie, the harder they fall is punctuated with a series of gunshots. It's super stylized. It's very music video, like with the, you know, editing to the beat of the, of the gunfire and the, the, the music, um, and, uh, again, I, I just, I love this. It's like silly and over the top. And fun. And then the third, uh, the third part is like kind of a more traditional, like more traditional 1970 style Western, like a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid where you have a couple of, you know, competing gangs kind of talking shit to each other and getting into a shootout in a box Canyon. It's very, it's very traditional and traditionally shot. Um, and again, the movie, the movie slides through three, these three different genres of Western. These sub genres of Western, like really effortlessly. It's really well done. I really enjoyed it. And then it gets, it gets very, it gets bogged down. It's we, we get bogged down. We go into a town and right after that, I mean, we, we, you know, Nat, Nat love takes his gang into town and they're trying to figure out, you know, what to do with this money. And they're like, oh, we gotta, we gotta, you know, this is, we, we can't steal from the, uh, hold on. What's the, what's the guy's name? We can't steal from the Rufus buck gang. We can't steal from the Rufus buck gang. That's Idris Elba, who is at the beginning of the film, imprisoned on a train. There's a big train breakout on the CW Bozeman carriage. Did you guys notice that little, little Easter egg? No. Named after Chadwick Bozeman. Oh, very nice. Very, very nice. Very nice.
JVL00:34:21I mean, they were transporting him from where to where.
Sonny00:34:23They're transporting him that he's been, he's been imprisoned. He's been captured in the midst of a robbery and the union army is taking him somewhere.
JVL00:34:32It doesn't, it doesn't really matter. Does it stop because a person on a horse is standing on the tracks or do the trains often just plow right through and cut them to pieces?
Vic00:34:40This is usually why they, the villain ties up the person on the train tracks, you know,
Sonny00:34:44because there's not going to stop. I don't think any of that. I think that whole train robbery train breakout sequence sucked and could have been, could have been, could have been done away with. There's a lot of stuff in this movie that could have been done away with all the stuff involving Zazie Beetz who plays, uh, uh, what's her name? Uh, shotgun Mary or I, I can't even remember Mary field, stage coach Mary. Thank you. Uh, and the love interest there, all that could have gone the most interesting thing about this movie and I'll, I'll just get to this and then we can, we can move on. The most interesting thing about this movie is the, the town that the Rufus Buck gang has built, which is kind of a, a, an area for free blacks to come in the immediate post. It's called Redwood. It's like Deadwood, but Redwood. Um, and it is, uh, it's a, it's a city that free blacks can come to and, you know, try to make their, make their fortune. But because Rufus Buck has been in prison, uh, the, the town has been sold out by the man he left in charge. It's going to be auctioned off to the white folks. So the Rufus Buck gang is trying to a steal enough money to keep the town solvent and be taxed the citizens and the citizens are like, we're not paying your taxes and Rufus Buck shoots them. And there's a very interesting, I just want to read one passage of dialogue. Uh, here that, that kind of gets at what Redwood is about. Uh, this is, this is Rufus Buck who again is played by Idris Elba talking. You think I made Redwood for myself? To what end? Redwood ain't a hiding place. Cause I don't hide. It ain't a dream. I don't dream. You know what it is? It's an example. It's an example for others to follow. And you, you are an enemy of progress and he shoots that enemy of progress dead. Again, I find this really interesting and I wish they had done more with it. But the townsfolk just disappear after that. They disappear entirely from the movie. There's no like quick in the dead, uh, style sequence where we see them, you know, hoping for their, for freedom from their oppressors. There's no, it's not like unforgiven where, where the town is kind of like living under the thumb of, uh, Gene Hackman. Like I just, they don't do anything with it. And again, it's a really interesting idea and it's just immediately discarded for like a kind of lame and lazy shootout at the end of the movie, like a good shootout, but not,
?00:37:00not as good.
Sonny00:37:00As like open range, I thought was a better like closing shootout or not as good as the quick in the dead. I mean, I, there, there were a lot of missed opportunities with this movie. Um, and it has the, it has the standard Netflix problem, which is that it's 30% too long. It is at least 20, it's at least 20, there were 25 easily excisable minutes. Um, the, the, the, the, it, it, it, it felt like a first draft that needed another pass and it needed somebody to be like, here's the interesting thing. Theme of this film. You need to tease it out, need to tease it out. So anyway, that's my review.
Vic00:37:36Thank you. Thank you, Sonny JVL. What did you think you were interested in this early on?
JVL00:37:42Yeah, I was interested from the trailer and, uh, cause I thought to myself a blaxploitation Western Western with a bunch of great actors in it. This looks super cool. And it is, as Sonny said, the whole thing is highly stylized and the individual parts of it are just wonderful. The costuming is great. The actors in it are with one exception, fantastic.
Sonny00:38:08Um, let me guess the exception, the girl who plays Cuffy.
JVL00:38:13No, no, no, the, the, the, the, the, the boy, the hot shot, the hot shot on that, the Nat Love gang, who is a, who's just wrong. He's just wrong for the part for him. Yeah. Well, he's just wrong for the part because he, you never actually believe that he's fast. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And it's, uh, the, the whole is a lot less than the sum of its parts and, you know, I, I zeroed in exactly on what you said while I was watching it, Sonny, that the most interesting idea is, wait a minute, hold on. So, uh, Rufus, whatever his name, Idris Elba, Rufus Buck has built this town and he talks about why he built it and he sounds a little bit like. You know, like the, the Soviets, right? I mean, the Soviets always insisted that, uh, you know, go back to the Bolsheviks. I'm thinking about all this cause I'm, I'm rereading an Alan first novel about the 1930s and it's fantastic. Yes. Uh, you know, the idea was like, uh, look, progress is really important and we're doing this for the greater good and we just may have to kill 3 million of you in order to do it. I'm sorry. Right. And that is, and we get that. So you're like interested in, okay, so what is he thinking? Right. With what is the book? Yeah. It's barely even under explained why it is that the town is being sold or something like that. None of that makes sense. And it's dropped as soon as it's raised and it moves on and there are too many characters. So you don't get it enough with any like Regina King is great, but her character just isn't. It's missing like 30% of what it needs to be, to be a fully fleshed out character. So you can. You can't really be invested in her as a bad guy. Right.
Vic00:40:03And like there's a moment where they. She pulls off the crazy eyes.
JVL00:40:06She pulls off the crazy. She's great. Regina King is great and everything she does. There's a moment when Nat Love and his, the girl pretending to be a boy go to rob a bank in a white town. Yes. And the entire town is white. Mm-hmm. Meaning like. It's a literal white town. It is literally a white town.
Sonny00:40:24Yeah, yeah, right.
JVL00:40:25It's just crazy. The ground, the ground. Again, everything about like all this, you know, the air juggling. As you say in the, the opening sequence in the, the, the little mission church where Nat Love kills the, the bad guy with the Scorpion on his hand and he's sort of shot in the air juggled. Everything about that stuff is really neat and really great. And yet the movies, it just, it's, it's weightless. It's a mess. It is a mess. It's a mess. And it's weightless and it has nothing to say. Mm-hmm. And it's filled with really interesting performances. Mm-hmm. And really interesting actors and it looks like a million bucks. Yeah. And at the same time, it's utterly forgettable. Yeah.
Sonny00:41:04I, I, I do wanna highlight that this, this really does have one of the, the great cast. I mean, I, I love Jonathan Majors who folks might recognize most recently from he was the star of Love Field or Lovecraft Country, but he was also he was the, he was, he's the guy who played the king, the conqueror, the character at the end of the Loki miniseries, which was, which was interesting. Um, but also again, Idris Elba, fantastic, but all, we haven't even mentioned like Keith Stanfield who plays Cherokee Bill, who's probably the best, he's probably, probably the best of the villain characters.
Vic00:41:39You wanted to know more about him because he's, you know, he, for, for the amount of time he's on screen. Is he a villain even? That's right. The amount of time he's on screen, you wonder, you know, it's complex and you wanted to know more about him.
JVL00:41:51That's true. Yeah. He doesn't look like Johnny Ringo. Here's a, here's another thing. Delroy Lindo. Delroy Lindo. I love that guy. Anytime he gets work, I love it. The movie ends with a big reveal, which can we talk about it? Is that all right? Can we say spoilers?
Sonny00:42:06Yeah. Spoilers.
JVL00:42:08If you're, if you're ends with a big reveal, which, uh, which tries to turn the entire story into a meditation on fathers and sons and the idea of the sins of the father being visited upon the son, and then even within the context of that reveal, it drops
Sonny00:42:29the idea.
JVL00:42:3030 seconds later. Right. So this big moment where it turns out that Rufus is actually, uh, Nat's big brother, half brother. And the reason he killed this man is because this man was his dad and his man was a monster, but then his man, then the dad reformed and he came to the reason he cut him the cross into his head so that he would know him when he eventually, you know, they came to meet and they're like two trains headed in the center and it's like, well, okay. So this is kind of heavy stuff for a moment.
Sonny00:43:02And then 30 seconds after it's over, Nat Love is riding off into the sunset with Zazie
JVL00:43:06Beetz and the whole idea of what can he get out of this trap? It's just dropped. Yeah. It's just dropped. And Zazie Beetz, who I love and she is almost always the best thing in the best part of everything she's in. And I really truly believe she's going to be a movie star someday. She just hasn't found the role to make her a movie star yet. And in this she is it is a thankless role. She has nothing to do in this movie.
Sonny00:43:34It's a garbage role. It's a garbage role. The characters underwritten. Yeah. Like, I don't care. I don't. There was never a single moment when I cared about her relationship with Nat Love in the slightest. Nope. Did not care even a little bit.
Vic00:43:48Vic, how did it do for the quadrants with you, buddy? It was a real mixed bag. Good violence, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So plot plot was an A. I understood it. Okay. There was one twist at the end, but I got it. I got the twist.
Sonny00:44:03Well, they spell it out for you pretty clearly. It's not like there's a lot of mystery.
Vic00:44:06Two things that help now. It's not like, you know, wild things where they can do a credit scene and they can tell you what happens in the movie. But they do when they jump for at least where they jump from town to town. I know where I'm going. Okay.
Sonny00:44:18I get it.
Vic00:44:19Okay. What says it right there? It helped in huge letters. Very helpful to me because, of course, I can't see as well anymore. Okay. Duration is a D. Man, I was almost done. That is a long movie. Long movie. Okay. Action, violence and stuff. That was an A plus for action and violence. It was a lot. It was like wild bunch level. But of course, I'm beginning to notice this again. It's not as bad as some of these other movies we've been watching lately where there's a lot of violence. But it's like, it's not, I don't know how much of it is squibs versus how much is CGI blood.
Sonny00:44:47And I hate- Most of it is CGI blood. I hate that. I hate it. I mean, the shootout in the church is almost, I guarantee you, is almost entirely CGI blood. Yeah.
Vic00:44:54I hate that. Okay. If not entirely CGI blood. It just doesn't seem realistic. These old movies that, you know, you watch any of these old movies. And it's amazing to watch them because it just has that, you know, your eyes pick up on these things.
JVL00:45:04And then sex nudity- Go back to like- Yeah. Go back to like some of the Sam Peckinpah stuff.
Vic00:45:08Oh yeah, exactly.
JVL00:45:09I was talking about like wild bunch. There's a famous story about him blowing up a lizard on set where they, the idea was like somebody shoots a lizard until they strap the bunch of explosive to a lizard and blew it up. Yeah. And this is wrong, of course. This is why we have those things at the end of every credit sequence, you know, the SPCA has certified that no animal. And the reason they do that is because once upon a time, some filmmakers would actually like fucking kill animals on screen. Yeah.
Vic00:45:37You always wondered about the horses. What was the casualty rate for horses, you know? And then-
Sonny00:45:41I think there's a famous, God, who was the Russian filmmaker? The guy who made Solaris, Tarkovsky, just like shot a horse, just like just had a horse shot on film. I hope not in Solaris.
Vic00:45:55Okay. And sex nudity was an F. It's rated R. It's rated R movie. So you would think there'd be brothels and a lot of brothel action. There was more action in Unforgiven than there was in this. And Zazie Beetz has her little bustier and- It just wasn't enough for you. Yeah.
Sonny00:46:13Come on, man.
Vic00:46:14It was just, you know. Okay. I do have a thought, which is the open, the very, very beginning of the movie, there's so many Westerns that open this way and if you found yourself somehow cosmically transported into a Western and it's at the beginning where there's a happy family enjoying a lovely dinner, get the fuck out, just start running because you know, hostels, hostels, remember we watched hostels open that way, just like, oh no, something terrible is going to happen. And it's awful. It's always some sort of terrible massacre. So get out of there. It was, and then-
Sonny00:46:50How do you, wait, so I'm sorry, in your hypothetical, do you know you're in a movie? Yes. Do you wake up and you're like, oh, I'm in a movie. I'm in a cinematic endeavor and I'm eating happily at a table with my family.
Vic00:47:02I believe it's like the John Ritter movie with Eugene Levy, I think.
Sonny00:47:07Is it called Switch?
Vic00:47:08Stay Tuned? Yes. Very good. Very good. I was going to say Switching Channels, but that's entirely different.
Sonny00:47:13I saw that. I saw Stay Tuned approximately 17,000 times one summer on HBO. Yes, same, same. It was played on a loop.
Vic00:47:22Very good. Very good. That's exactly right. It's like, oh my gosh, and then you just leave it on, you just left it on because you wanted to get to the part where he comes, he's all of a sudden in Three's Company. So anyway, if you see yourself in that situation, run.
Sonny00:47:34I didn't get that joke at the time. Okay.
Vic00:47:36Yes, of course. Because I was like 11. Still before your time. JV, I love Delroy Lindo as well. And do you remember Larry Miller's story about when he did Pros and Cons, right? No. He did Pros and Cons with Delroy Lindo, because I think I probably had mentioned something about the crazy eyes, because he had crazy eyes. Yes, now he's older, but he went to Delroy Lindo's trailer to talk to him about making some sort of suggestion about his character. And Delroy Lindo, the door flies open, he comes right out, and he has to stare. And Larry was like, "So I was thinking, never mind, I'll come back later," because it's so intense and terrifying. But it was a good role for him. Well, you know what? It was a good role for him, but the role doesn't pay off.
JVL00:48:27No. Right? No. There's too many things going on. We are shown that he is such an enormous badass, but then we never really get to live with him when he... That's right.
Sonny00:48:37Yeah. None of the characters get nearly enough time to breathe in this movie. You could do a whole movie about Bass Reeves.
Vic00:48:44Right.
Sonny00:48:45You could do a whole movie about a really interesting guy. Another interesting thing about this movie is that these are all based on real people. That's right. That's right. These are all based on real guys, and Bass Reeves was, I think, the first black marshal or deputy marshal west of the Mississippi or something. But he killed a bunch of guys, he arrested a bunch of bad guys. He's an interesting guy that they could make a whole movie about, and instead, he's just kind of there to be Delroy Lindo. And I love the fact that he's there to be Delroy Lindo, because I could watch Delroy Lindo do stuff all day long. I don't think we talked about The Five Bloods, but he's great in that. He should have won a bunch of awards. Yeah. He just, again, has given nothing to do in this movie.
Vic00:49:30Yeah. I mean, again, the idea is interesting. I had read somewhere that I think one out of four cowboys, I think, was black, post-Civil War. They all were sort of these cattle hands and they all went out west, because then they can do their thing out there. Anyway, but it gets lost in the weeds. Do you have any other thoughts on this?
JVL00:49:54No, that's it. No, it's just disappointing.
Sonny00:49:56It's just... Again, my one big picture idea about this movie is that there is a good movie within it. It just needed a strong executive somewhere at a studio who could say, "I love what you're going for here. You need to do another pass on this script, and we need the..." Or after it had been shot, like, "Okay, we need to take out 30 minutes of this movie, because 30 minutes of this movie doesn't work."
Vic00:50:26Or make it more about Idris Elba. Or whatever.
Sonny00:50:28Yeah, I just... This is... And Netflix does not have that.
JVL00:50:31Netflix does not have that. They don't. This is the problem with the streaming age, is that there is no quality control. And the reason there's no quality control is because the business model doesn't need it. The business model views quality control as unnecessary cost. And this is actually... I'm glad you said this, that you're disappointed, Sonny, because that's how I felt about this. 5% of Netflix movies just pass over my retinas without leaving any mark. And I won't remember this one in a week either. But I was disappointed, because there is a good movie in there, and there's so much talent on screen, and there's clearly talent behind the camera, and if this had been a Warner's movie 10 years ago, this would have turned out to be a different product and it would have been better. There. Yeah.
?00:51:25Okay.
JVL00:51:26All right.
?00:51:27Okay.
Vic00:51:28All right. Onward.
Sonny00:51:30Bummer. That's okay.
Vic00:51:32We should have talked West Side Story.
Sonny00:51:33Yeah.
Vic00:51:34I would have... Again, that was mildly interesting. Oh, look at him go. Wow. I think...
JVL00:51:39You know what? You're a jet to the best you can get.
?00:51:43Okay.
Vic00:51:45Okay. Moving on. What are you drinking? Anything right now? What did you crack open, JVL?
JVL00:51:51I cracked open the Hardy Wood Christmas Pancakes. Oh, yeah. The Bulwark livestream. Are you eating or drinking? What is happening here? A little bit of both. It tastes... It's like drinking a gingerbread man who has been soaked in maple syrup first thing in the morning.
Sonny00:52:09Sounds delicious. It's wonderful.
JVL00:52:11It's something like... It sounds like...
Sonny00:52:13What percent alcohol is it?
JVL00:52:14Drink it with a spoon. I don't know, but I only drank about two-thirds of it before I had to stop because I was doing the big boy job over at the Bulwark and was directing traffic and hosting our livestream, which I think was a very mediocre... It's great.
Sonny00:52:28...success. People seem to like it. Yeah. People do like it.
Vic00:52:32People seem to have a good time. I do have a... Not a correction, just an elaboration. Listener and friend Ryan Schenkel informs us Achilles' death, as we know we were talking about the Iliad last episode, Achilles' death is not recounted in Virgil or Homer. His funeral is mentioned in the Odyssey where his ghost appears in the underworld and the fall of Troy is described in book three of the Aeneid. So there you go. A little bit of classical education for you. Look at that.
Sonny00:52:56Yeah.
Vic00:52:57How about that? What about Clash of the Titans?
Sonny00:52:59Is that a book? Yes. That was Homer's third poem. Ah! Thank you, Sonny.
JVL00:53:04Yes. I remember Homer writing about the robotic owl and how they have a little
Vic00:53:12gorgeous owl. Yes. You're talking about the original Clash of the Titans.
Sonny00:53:16Just stanzas and stanzas about releasing the Kraken. Right.
Vic00:53:21That was the owl. Woo!
Sonny00:53:23He would make... Burgess Meredith. And thus the Kraken roared and splashed into the water. Yeah.
Vic00:53:27Burgess Meredith and Harry Hamlin. Harry Hamlin. Oh. Harry Hamlin. Harry Hamlin. Okay. That is all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, compliments, tweet us @SonnyBunch, @VictorinoMattus. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on Patreon. Just go to subbeacon.com. We are there. Tell your friends.
Sonny00:53:48Until next time. Bye.
JVL00:53:57Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
Vic00:54:12Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Have lunch. Come back. Have lunch.
Sonny00:54:22Three martini lunch. Come back.
Vic00:54:24He can break it down line by line. And then he can talk. Marina Marino now and then.
Sonny00:54:29One thing I would like to mention is that in the comments section at the Patreon, there was an unprecedented amount of dong talk in the comments.
Vic00:54:38From what?
Sonny00:54:39My socks?
Vic00:54:40Just people talking about dongs. From my prick dong?
Sonny00:54:42You mean from that? No. Not prick dong. Just dong dong. Really? Kevin Bacon dong. Bacon dong. Oh, yeah. Of course. Of course. The bacon. There was a debate over how big Kevin Bacon's dong was with one of our listeners, Kerry, saying that he's seen a million... There's a million dongs that are bigger than that. Another listener... Anyway, it was going back and forth. It was a hot... I think the SSEU is going to talk about it on their show.
JVL00:55:08Is this like one of these guys who went to a high school where everybody showered together in one big room? Don't know.
Sonny00:55:14Or something? Don't know. Look, I don't know. I mean, look. I don't know. I'm just saying that if you want in on the action, if you want in on the hot dong action, not prick dong again, dong dong, you got to get to the comments section and sign up.
JVL00:55:25I will say this. Yes. I told you. I saw that movie with my little sister when she was in college and as uncomfortable as it was watching Denise Richards and Neve Campbell go to town on each other with my little sister sitting next to me, hearing the little gasp that she made when Kevin dong knocked the shower door open, Kevin dong, Kevin Bacon knocked the shower door open when he turned around really stripped me of all my illusions and that was...
Vic00:55:56Apparently they had multiple takes. They had multiple takes and they decided to use that one.
Sonny00:56:03It took him a couple of tries to hit it just right to generate enough force to knock the thing open. Yeah. Because again, it's a medium-sized dong according to some of the listeners in the comments. Yeah.
JVL00:56:16No, that's completely normal.
?00:56:17I'm sure it was fine.
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