#79. 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' (Apple TV+)
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The main review is Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth (Apple TV+/A24), his first solo directing effort without brother Ethan, starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand and shot in a stark, expressionist black and white that all three hosts admire (comparisons range from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to Sin City to Schindler's List). Sonny loved it on a second watch (having been underwhelmed streaming it in low-res without subtitles the first time), praising Washington's descent into a "crazed mad king" reminiscent of Training Day's Alonzo Harris, though he found McDormand a bit flat and miscast on age; JVL had the same arc in reverse — cold at first, then it "marinated" into genuine love, and he ranks it number two on his personal list of the four best filmed Shakespeare adaptations (behind Kenneth Branagh's Henry V and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, with the number-one slot the subject of a running joke about the Steve Coogan movie Hamlet 2). Vic, coming to Macbeth totally cold (never read it, never seen it, watching alongside his Shakespeare-savant wife Kate as informal commentary track), gives it Quadrant grades of Plot B, Duration A, and Sex/Nudity F, and shares his regret at missing a Teller-consulted stage production of the play at the Folger years ago. The long opening runs through JVL's story about a listener/WSOP bracelet winner and an extended poker-rules digression, Sonny's account of his three-year-old catching COVID and a tangent comparing Encanto's Mirabel to The Incredibles' Syndrome, Vic's rant about a new nickel plastic-bag tax and a rambling mochi-shop/poke-bowl anecdote, and a quick rundown of the Scream/Spider-Man: No Way Home/Sing 2 box office. They close with a shoutout to a friend's newborn fourth daughter and riff incredulously on the newly announced Heat 2 trailer/novel from Michael Mann.
From the show notes
Poker talk, covid talk, bag talk, Macbeth talk. All the talks! Make sure to tune in for Monday's special episode on Joss Whedon and The Book of Boba Fett .
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00The devil damned thee black, thou creamed-faced loon. Where got'st thou that goose look? There's ten thousand geese, villain. Soldier, sir. Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, thou lily-livered boy. What soldier's patch? Death of thy soul. Those linen cheeks of thine are counselors to fear. What soldier's way-face? The English force so please you. Take thy face, hence.
?00:00:30What soldier's way-face?
Vic00:00:39Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends. And don't forget about the Sub-Beacon merchandise store at tpublic.com. Gentlemen. How are we? JVL. Benvolio. Ooh, that's a great name. What's that a reference to?
JVL00:01:04It's from a movie. I don't want you to know. Listen, I got something for you guys this week. I got an email from a reader who I was chit-chatting back with. And you guys know this. One of the best things is getting to know your readers. This gentleman, whose name I will not use, has a World Series of Poker bracelet. And he is a winner. What? And so I immediately said- Oh, come on.
Vic00:01:33I had no idea Matt Damon was watching our show.
JVL00:01:35Okay, okay. And so I asked him a bunch of questions. And he sent me, he sent me the clip- What was the game? Of his final hand. And I went and watched it. And it's amazing. Oh, that's fantastic. And so I asked him to walk me through his thought process. Because in the final hand, he has dealt American Airlines. And so he has a- Ooh. A slight chip advantage.
Sonny00:02:00What's the game? What's the game? No Limit Hold'em.
JVL00:02:05No Limit? No Limit Hold'em.
?00:02:07Pot Limit?
JVL00:02:08So he's holding on to two and he's going to exchange three. No. That's not- That's not how it's done. Really? Hold'em. No Limit Hold'em is the rounder's game, Vic, for frame of reference. So he has dealt American Airlines. And I said, you know, so here you have-
Vic00:02:24Which means an ace and an ace for our non-poker players.
JVL00:02:28And I said to him, so I said to him, I said, okay, so walk me through what you're thinking, because when that comes to you and you're on the final table, you are playing heads up in the last two and you've got a small chip advantage. What you have to be thinking is how do I not scare him off, right? You got to how, because this is your hand to make your big move. But if you make a big move and scare the other guy off, then you don't get anything. So- You don't collect anything. What he did was he sat there, the guy's playing raises, he just calls him. The flop comes and he's got to figure out what to do. He says, if he calls the guy and there's a chance that this dude is playing for an inside straight, you don't want to leave him stay in the hand, right? Because then if he hits the inside straight, he beats you. So he wants to push him out in case he's got playing for an inside straight. If you go all in right now, you're going to scare him off. And so what he decides to do is he decides to minimum raise him. And so he does a minimum raise. And thinking that if this guy looks at it, then he'll like, okay, and so he minimum raises and on the TV broadcast, you can hear one of the commentators and he says about the movie goes, I hate this play tremendously. But after minimum raising, the other guy comes all in, because the other guy is sitting on queen queen. And so they are all in and they're just waiting on the turn in the river praying it's not one of the two queens. And it's he is, you know, as I'm reading his email, I just thought this, I feel like I am living rounders and it's the first time I've ever gotten to like quasi hang out and interact with somebody who is a winner of a World Series of yeah, who's in there.
Vic00:04:21So what in this in this version of poker, you just you don't have five cards, you just have the two and you have to wait for the other way to come out.
Sonny00:04:29The way hold them works is everybody has dealt to two whole cards face down. Those are those are your cards only yours. And then there's community cards. So on the first on there, you do a round of betting with what you have in the hole. Then there there's what is called the flop. That's the first three cards, they come face up, you do another round of betting. The turn is the fourth card, another round of betting. And then finally, after the turn, there's the the fifth card, the river, which is there's there's the final round of betting. And then you make the best hand that you can make out of any five cards that are either on the board or in your hand. So that is that is how Texas Hold'em works for and they're watching as you get to take
Vic00:05:09the card that you get to take cards from the community don't take they just sit there because
Sonny00:05:13you can both use they they just sit there on the board, anybody, anybody can use all any of the cards that are on the board.
Vic00:05:19How so how did he end up with I mean, besides the two ways no, so they each had a pair. Wow, he won with it. He won with a pair of aces.
JVL00:05:27Queens. Right. And their queen. And this was and I believe then he went home with Famke Jansen. No, I'm kidding. Actually what's funny is you could see his wife in the background. So his wife is like, you know, in the little bullpen for like close hangers on of the players. And she just loses it when he wins and he's a Georgetown guy. He's a Hoya. Oh, and it was it was a super thrill to
Sonny00:05:54get to hang out with.
JVL00:05:56And so I said to him, I said, do you wear it all the time? He said, you know, originally I, I thought I would wear the bracelet everywhere, but it turns out I'm, I'm terrified of losing it. So he says, so I keep it in a display. It's like a shadow box said it hangs on the wall so you can look at it, but it has an alarm and a lock on it. It's not even worth that much. It's not the question. It works.
Vic00:06:21It's like, but no, but it's, but, but he earned it. It's something that you earn. It's like the last place you would want to wear it is in Vegas. Oh, you don't want to mark yourself. Like if you're sitting at a table, no one's going to want to play, you know? So that's weird. What casino was that in?
JVL00:06:34Uh, I want to say it was the Rio, but I could be wrong. What year? Uh, I don't want to give it away cause I don't want to give away his, his identity. Was it the main, the, the, the main hold them tournament.
Sonny00:06:50Yeah.
Vic00:06:51The grand event. You're talking about the, the, the end. The, the final that you get a bracelet out of that along with winnings. Oh yeah. The winnings are, well, it's just so interesting.
Sonny00:07:00I can talk about it. You get it. You get a bracelet. Any there? Well, there are like, there, there are dozens of events at the world series of poker. There's like a, there's like a, there are, there are various levels of hold them. And then there's also like other games, Omaha and et cetera.
Vic00:07:13Yeah. Because Sonny, you were a poker player. I don't play poker. I mean, I play, I like I used to play blackjack and then I moved on to craps.
Sonny00:07:19I used to be, uh, I used to be a competent poker player. I'm a poker player, which is to say that I, uh, won money more frequently than I lost, but I, but I was, I would not say I played poker.
Vic00:07:31I, well, I mean, poker is a poker. I think poker is a very good fit for you, Sonny, because you have a poker face. You know, you're not, you know, I, it's hard to tell you're, you're rarely smile. So it's hard to tell even if you had, you know, two aces, it would be hard to tell.
Sonny00:07:47I'm also, I'm also incredibly, I, it is weirdly the thing I am most patient at is poker. Cause I'll just sit there and fold and fold and fold and fold until I get like the, the, the hand I want, uh, which is kind of the, at the stakes I play at or used to play at that is like the key to not losing money and like winning modest amounts of money. Stretch it out and just have a nice time. You just, it's not really, it's, it's like six or seven hours. You're just sitting there like folding 90% of your hands for an hour. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, that is, that is, that was my style of play, which was again, it was profitable. It's not, I wouldn't describe it as like terribly fun, more profitable or less profitable than
JVL00:08:32writing.
Sonny00:08:33It depends on who you're writing for, right?
Vic00:08:39What were your stakes?
JVL00:08:40Yeah.
Sonny00:08:41Uh, I, I would, I would either play three, six limit or two, four, no limit with like a max buy-in of, you know, 200 bucks. Yeah. 200 bucks or 300 bucks. Something like that. Um, depending on it, I mean, it would just, it would also depend on like what tables were available and what was open. Yes. Um, but I, I liked, I always liked three, six limit because you know, with the, the people who are playing three, six limit that, you know, you, you have a good mix of like very bad, um, and also like fairly cheap players. So if you, if you know, if you can get a read on how the table is playing. Yeah. You can either, uh, you can make, you can make, you can make a lot of money very quickly. You know, if you can't, when you're playing.
JVL00:09:28You can't spot the sucker in the first 30 minutes, Sonny. You are the sucker.
Sonny00:09:32And that is, and I, it, it got to the point where I was like more frequently sitting down and being like, fuck, I'm the worst player at this table. I just, I'm, I'm out. Well, and, and the other, well, the other thing that happened was, uh, I, I, I'm going to talk about.
Vic00:09:46You could do a whole episode on gambling.
Sonny00:09:49When I, uh, when, when they. Shut down poker stars, when they, when the, when the government shut down online poker, it was like, it was like a real thing. It was like, all right, I'm done. Cause I like, that was the easiest way for me to play. I could sit down for an hour and play what, uh, they're called sit and go tournaments. Basically a one table, uh, tournament with like a $10 buy-in and you know, the winner takes home 50 bucks. Uh, and they, those take like 40 minutes, 50 minutes to play and you know, that's not a bad rate of return. Um, for that sort of, that sort of thing, I, uh, I, I made enough money playing those to fly myself out to Vegas twice. Wow. I mean, it's, we're, I mean, it's like, I mean, I made a thousand bucks over the course of like 18 months. It's not, again, it's much better pay than writing certainly when you're, when you're, when you're 18. Yes. Yeah. Uh, or yeah, 20. I'm sorry.
Vic00:10:4321, whatever age you have to be, to be, uh, you know, the dynamic, however, is so different than other games because you're playing. Against the other players at the table, you know, this is what I, this is what I prefer
Sonny00:10:52about poker to craps or blackjack because it's like, no, like house odds are not a thing. There's just the rake.
Vic00:10:59I love, you know what I love? I love, I love playing craps and then I go on a hot streak and then everybody loves you.
Sonny00:11:05Uh, maybe that's just me, but that's that, that I, why we all know that's why that's
JVL00:11:11why Vic doesn't like poker.
Vic00:11:12Yeah. Oh no. Oh, forget that. I don't. Have you ever played a poker at a casino JBL?
JVL00:11:18Never. I've never played a poker at a casino. Yeah.
Vic00:11:21I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Yeah. It's not my kind of, it's again, I love getting in and there's playing craps for me. There's nothing more exhilarating than hitting, hitting the point if the, and the point's like four. Oh, sorry. The point, you know, I'll like, you know, when you roll is like, oh, the point is four and man, you know, it just, then it just like leave it present. Then it gets crazy. Um, okay. Um, very interesting and that, what a nice reader, a listener. Yeah, it was awesome. It was great. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Sonny, what's going on with you?
Sonny00:11:52It's been a, it's been a week. It's been a week. I don't, uh, I don't, I don't know how much I want to talk about what is happening in my house. Uh, but one of my, one of my children caught COVID from school, uh, and it has been a, it's been a stressful, stressful period of time because they are at home. I hope he or she is feeling, you know, it was, so it's a three year old, uh, he, he had a, he had a minor fever. Mm-hmm. Like a 100.5 degree fever for one day. Mm-hmm.
JVL00:12:21Mm-hmm. And that picture you sent, he looked super sick. And he was kind of sick. He's down with the train set.
Sonny00:12:25Yeah. I mean, he like, he. Ha ha ha. Yeah. Oh God. He's like, he's, he's, he is now like back to full strength and it is wearing, uh, me and, uh, his mother down quite a bit. But it's, uh, it's, it's like, it's better that, I'm glad that he's feeling better. That's right. I'm glad he's, he's not, you know, uh, but, uh, luckily nobody else in the house has caught it yet and he came home with it seven days ago. So we're, we're. Yeah. Uh, getting through that period of infectiousness, fingers crossed.
JVL00:12:56You know, can I, can I say something that it's gonna sound bad, but some of my favorite memories from when the kids were little, little is when they got real sick with fevers. Not throw up sick. Mm-hmm.
Sonny00:13:12Throw up sick is miserable for parenting.
JVL00:13:13No. But fever sick, when they would just be lethargic. That was pretty great. Yeah. Oh yeah. Because they would just kind of like want to lie, you know, lay on your chest and you know, just hang out and there was, there was no like entertain me or just like, here, have some Tylenol. It tastes like grapes. Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:13:32Those are good times. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was definitely, uh, that was an easy, it, it, this was like a super again, very fortunate, you know, but it's, it's just been, it's just been, uh, it has been a lot of like, it's been a lot of like mid 2020 when the schools were shut down and we were trying to do the zoom schools and also work full time. It was just like, it's not, it's not ideal. So I'm, I'm exhausted. Uh, but whatever. It's neither here nor there. Turn in the corner. JVL, did you want to talk about Joss Whedon?
JVL00:14:03Oh, you know, save that for the bonus episode. Let's let's talk a little bit about Joss.
Vic00:14:10You want to find out, you want to find out about that. You bet. You got to subscribe.
JVL00:14:16Somebody forwarded me a tweet from a guy who said, man, I mean, I just gotta say that if I had been that age with, uh, with all that going on with me, I would've, I would've acted the same way as Joss. I thought to myself, if that's true, you don't say that in public. What, what is, what are you doing?
Sonny00:14:41Well, I saw, I saw somebody, I saw somebody, I saw somebody quote. Dr. Dr. The guy who used to be Dr. Box, Dr. It's David. I don't know who that is. Is he a person he's a, he's a, he's just Dick Dick bag on Twitter. But the, uh, but the, uh, I saw that because somebody quote tweeted it with, you couldn't
Vic00:15:00have gotten that tweet out of me and get my, you could, you could not, you have to, I don't know exactly. I don't know, uh, much about this, uh, except for that he's obviously things have come out about him. So, uh, I can't wait to find out.
Sonny00:15:15Yeah. There's, there's a big, there's, there was a big profile in the New York, we're going to talk about that. Okay. All right. Uh, the other thing, uh, I wanted to, uh, just mention briefly here is again, we've been, I've been listening to the Encanto soundtrack a lot recently, a lot, a lot, a lot of Encanto soundtrack. And during my third or fourth run through it the other day, during the, during the third or fourth run through it the other day, uh, I, I came to a realization, uh, which is that the protagonist of Encanto is not really all of that different than the antagonist of the Incredibles.
Vic00:15:51What was his name? It was played by Jason Lee.
Sonny00:15:54Yeah. Uh, I, I forget what his name is, but he's the, the villain in the Incredibles. Remember the film starts and he's like a kid who's trying to help Synergy or whatever. Synergy, Synergy, Synergy.
Vic00:16:03I think it's, uh, uh, it's definitely sin something, sin syndrome syndrome syndrome. Yeah.
Sonny00:16:10Uh, so the, so syndrome as when it starts, he's a great name. He's a kid and he's trying to help the supers and they don't want his help because he's just in the way. He's like, you're not special. You don't have any power.
Vic00:16:21He does not have a power.
Sonny00:16:23And then, and the, and the end of the movie, he is revealed to be the villain and he's trying to kill all of the supers because he wants, uh, he wants to be special and he wants to get rid of all the, and, and it, it strikes me again that like, uh, what's Mirabelle, is that her name? JVL. JVL. Mirabelle's. Yeah. Listening to the opening song, the family Madrigal, uh, over and over again, these past several weeks, uh, listening to it over and over again, uh, what jumps out time and again is her insisting, I am part of the family Madrigal and that's what makes me special, but she's not special. She's not special. And the, the, and her inability to, her inability to, to accept the fact that she is the black sheep of the family. She is not somebody who is going to help them, you know, spread, uh, the wealth of the, the town is, is what I almost literally destroys the house. Now they have to, they have to turn all that around at the end and make, give it a happy ending. But the, uh, but she is, she, she is basically syndrome, uh, just, I think you're looking
JVL00:17:33at this the wrong way. The, the real, the real insight here is that syndrome is actually the good guy in the Incredibles because he stands for equity, right? The progressive value of equity, which is that you, you know, you cut all the people off at the knees, but none of them can see over the baseball field.
Sonny00:17:51This is, but this is, but this was my, this was my second level thought while I was listening was this, was that you could actually kind of track the evolution, shall we say, of thinking in these films, uh, just by looking at these two and seeing what is valued and what is not valued and what, uh, what values people are supposed to strive for. Um, it is, it is interesting.
JVL00:18:17I like the idea that the Disney animation film is in dialogue with the Pixar film.
Sonny00:18:23We can, I mean, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of avenues to, to walk down with, with this.
Vic00:18:28Oh yes.
Sonny00:18:29But, uh, anyway, long story short, Mirabelle, uh, a villain can't accept that she's, she's nothing. Victorino, what's going on big guy? She can't accept her nothingness.
Vic00:18:37You know, uh, the county keeps on throwing stuff at me and here's the leader of, we had the compost bucket. Oh no. Who's using that by the way? Okay. That's the first thing. Now, uh, the, the board has unanimously voted for a nickel tax on plastic bags because you can't recycle them. But you know, you're not supposed to use paper because you know, the trees, so you got to bring your own bag. So you go to the store and you go to the self checkout because there's nobody actually checking people out anymore, right? There's one, there's like 20 aisles or whatever. It's just one person. So you can't go there. And how it works is when you get there, they ask you. How many bags did you use? And you have to yourself report. Oh, is this like the mochi? Yeah. I want you to guess how many, what number do you think I, what number do you think I put in for how many bags I use?
JVL00:19:22I'm going to guess a nice round zero.
Vic00:19:25Yeah. How many mochi did you take? Oh, you know what? And that place is gone now. So it doesn't make a difference anymore. It was. Oh, the poke bowl closed. Oh, that was like one week into the pandemic.
Sonny00:19:38Everything, everything, everything.
Vic00:19:39That was no way. I survived that.
JVL00:19:42And I liked the lady who worked there. I'm sorry. The Asian peoples, they know, they know from pandemics, they could see the writing on the wall.
Vic00:19:50That's, that's right. No, you know, there was the guy who ran it. It was such a weird, that just a brief aside.
Sonny00:19:55He's like a New Jersey guy.
Vic00:19:56A brief, yes. So it was like a brief aside. This, this, this sort of this middle-aged, heavy set sort of white dude. And, but there was this older half Asian or Asian fellow who he took care of, but sometimes he would always be yelling at him. And, uh, he, it was like his place. Apparently, like, I don't know if it was, I have no idea what the story was, but he hung out there all the time. And one day he died and then they had a plaque on the wall. They, that's true. They had a plaque on the wall and it was like telling that the guy was like, he was like a, like a, he worked for NASA and all these different things. And I said, this guy was like one of the early, he was like an early, he was like a pilot and he worked for NASA. And, and I didn't know that until after he died. All I know is that the, the manager guy was just yelling at him. He was just the guy getting yelled at? Yeah. He was just the, he was just the. Not, I'm not saying it was elder abuse, but I guess because. I should. Yeah. You know exactly who you're talking about. Do you know who I'm talking about?
Sonny00:20:42I know, I know exactly who you're talking about because when, when he, I, like when you, I mean, it was, it was, it was, it was clear. It was so weird. Look, it was, it was clear that the older gentleman was not all there. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And was, was, was at risk of wandering off.
Vic00:21:00Yeah, he had hurt himself. He had fallen, I think. And so the guy was like, you have to see.
Sonny00:21:03So there was, and, and so he was, so he was, he was being, he was keeping an eye on the guy. I, I like the, the matter of fact way that you said. He died, I shouldn't have laughed because I remember reading about this in the post
JVL00:21:17when he died and it was something very, very strange about this because he, as he was dying,
Sonny00:21:23he was said, I just need one mochi ball to live.
JVL00:21:29Looking for it and turned out that somebody had taken an extra mochi.
Vic00:21:36Yeah. Well, you know, there were none do it. And so if you didn't have the, if you didn't have. If you didn't have the minimum 20% tip option, then I wouldn't have given the mochi, but I'm telling you, uh, you know, this, this bag tags, that's just ridiculous. And so I take the, not only that, then I take the bags home. And then after I empty the groceries, I just let them on to the street. It's like American beauty.
Sonny00:21:59So they get caught in the trees.
Vic00:22:01Yeah.
Sonny00:22:01Like America, you go find it, you go find it, you go find a bird nest and you put it
Vic00:22:06right in the, where all the little chicks are sticks in the tree forever. Nobody's ever going to take that down. It doesn't.
Sonny00:22:11You find a, you find a turtle nest and you shove it in the turtle's mouth.
Vic00:22:15Eat this, eat this plastic bag, you piece of shit.
Sonny00:22:20Eat this, eat this, eat this fucking bag. I'm getting my five cents worth.
Vic00:22:26That's right. Get nickel and dime, you know, kill, kill me now. Speaking of which, over the weekend, Scream, Scream slashed its way to the top of the box office with $30 million, followed by Spider-Man No Way Home with $20.1 million. And in third place again, Sing 2 with $8 million. Sing 2, amazing. Box office slots.
Sonny00:22:49I think the, I mean, the only interesting thing about what's happening at the box office is whether or not Spider-Man No Way Home reclaims the number one spot at the box office next weekend, which I think it almost certainly will. Yeah, what's coming up? I mean, Scream 2 is going to drop 65% at least from first weekend to second weekend and Spider-Man will probably drop 40% and I think that that will be enough to.
Vic00:23:15And there's nothing else.
Sonny00:23:15If I have done my math correct. Oh yeah, there's nothing. There's like a, there's like a two hour, 20 minute historical romance that's coming out that I can't even remember the name of that is, nobody's, nobody's going to go see that. There's just, there's really nothing hitting theaters until, I want to say the next Jackass movie, Jackass, Jackass Forever. Yeah. And also Moonfall. Moonfall, I think comes out that.
Vic00:23:42I keep hearing about Moonfall. I tell you what, I saw an ad for a new show. I think it's a movie on Netflix called After We Fell. It looks like that it might do pretty well on one of the quadrants. Just look into that.
JVL00:23:59Yeah. Is this a foreign film?
Vic00:24:03No, no. But I think it's like teen romance. So I don't know if I, romance. I said romance. What's wrong with romance? It's a little teen romance, but it looks good. So I don't know. We'll see. It might be a tease. I'm going to look into that one. Do you have thoughts on what's going on in box office, JVL?
JVL00:24:22No.
Vic00:24:22No. Okay. All right. Well, we're not actually talking about those movies. We are, in fact, talking about a movie that is on Apple Plus.
Sonny00:24:33Apple TV Plus.
Vic00:24:33Apple TV. Excuse me. I don't want to get in trouble. Apple TV Plus. Was this movie, by the way, in theaters as well?
Sonny00:24:39It was. It was in theaters. It was in theaters for a couple weeks. Okay. We are. It was produced and released by A24. A24. Yes. And I think Apple also got in on the production costs on that as well.
Vic00:24:52So the movie we are doing is The Tragedy of Macbeth. Not just Macbeth, but The Tragedy of Macbeth.
Sonny00:24:59Tragedy of Macbeth.
Vic00:25:00Starring Denzel Washington and Francis McDormand. Sonny, how about a big boy review?
Sonny00:25:07I'm going to kick the big boy review to JVL. Oh, JVL.
JVL00:25:10JVL, do you want to give us a big boy review? Don't kick it to me.
Guest00:25:13So here's, I have trouble talking about this because, look, it's Macbeth.
Sonny00:25:20And Macbeth is a very good play. I don't really know a ton to say about it. On Across the Movie Aisle, Alyssa Rosenberg had a much better discussion of Macbeth qua Macbeth than I ever could have because she's actually very smart about this sort of thing. And I think JVL knows more about Macbeth. Macbeth than I do.
Vic00:25:40You're a theater person. I'm so glad you made the assumption that it would not be me.
Sonny00:25:46Yeah. So I was hoping maybe JVL could talk about it a little more. I mean, I could talk about it as a movie. I think it's interesting as a movie because it's made by Joel Cohen. It's his first film without Ethan. He is Joel Cohen of the Cohen Brothers. He wrote and directed this, obviously based on the play by William Shakespeare. There are some interesting alterations. Alterations that have been made to the play. But visually, what is what is very interesting about this film is that the whole thing avoids the trap that a lot of film plays fall into because it is it does not feel like a filmed play. It does not feel like, you know, they're on a stage. It's not a movie. It's not like Hamilton. It's not like Fences, which Washington Denzel Washington starred in and directed, which was again, it felt like it was it felt like it was, you know, just kind of shot around a stage. And it does that by making every single set look like a stage and like just just going from scene to scene. And it has heavy echoes of German expressionism. There's a lot of the cabinet of Dr. Caligari and that sort of stuff. Like, again, this is like stuff that other people can talk about better than I can. But I I I really like the look of it as much as anything else is is what I would say. And my big question for JBL is. My understanding of Macbeth again, I've I've seen I've seen it live once. I've watched several of the filmed adaptations, but my understanding of Macbeth is that Denzel Washington is playing a slightly older Macbeth here than than is traditionally the the the the case that he is a it is more traditionally a like younger middle aged man who has, you to to be king. And when with Denzel Washington in the role, who is a little bit older and a little bit a little bit like paunchy, I mean, he's just older. He looks older. He's he's he's he's an older guy. He, you know, has all of the wear and tear of an older person. And as a result, the the way the character comes off in this movie is less as like a striver who is who is trying to succeed and fails because of his hubris. So much as a man who has been passed over in life and is given a chance to take the throne essentially by these witches, the three weird sisters, and kind of seizes it. And it changes the whole it changes his whole character into more of a crazed mad king at the end, I think, than than a the more traditionally tragic version of Macbeth. But I don't know. Again, I'm not I'm not I am by no means an expert on Macbeth and the various iterations of it.
JVL00:28:42Yeah, I'm not.
Sonny00:28:43Anyway, that's that's my big boy review. I like I like this a lot. I watched it twice. I like it a lot. It's like it's weirdly funny and it looks great and I love all the performances, but I don't know how to talk about it in relation to other Macbeths. And that's kind of the only way to talk about this sort of stuff. So JBL, I want to kick it to you.
JVL00:28:59I have a question for Victorino. Yes. Can you name two characters other than Macbeth and Lady Macbeth? Like Macduff? Yep. There's one. Okay.
Vic00:29:11And oh, and don't say Lady Macduff. No, no. Banquo. Banquo. There you go. Banquo. Well done. Well done. Thank you. And that's keep it. Well, keep in mind, I've never read Macbeth and I've never seen Macbeth. So this is the first time I saw this like a movie. And wow. Your mind was blown. Mind blown.
JVL00:29:34Actually, this is very interesting.
Vic00:29:36So as somebody who comes. So this is totally, completely fresh. I knew there was going to be murder. I knew there was murder. I knew some of the lines ahead of time because you can't avoid Hurley Burley and things Hurley Burley and Fatal Vision and The Dagger Before Me, et cetera.
Sonny00:29:52Yes, Sonny. Did you did you watch with subtitles or did you or no subtitles?
Vic00:29:56I wanted to. I asked. No. Okay.
Sonny00:29:58I asked seriously because I have the first time I watched this twice, the first time without subtitles and the second time with subtitles. And the second time was much better for me. I have to read Shakespeare. Okay. I can't really listen. I got no ear for it.
Vic00:30:11I was going to make a joke about subtitles because no, I did not put on subtitles. I'm assuming the subtitles are going to be actual Shakespeare's verse, you know, in iambic potential. I mean, it's not going to be like a translation into modern English of, and then I saw The Dagger. It looked like that. No, no, no.
Sonny00:30:26It's just, it's just, it's just the dialogue, but I like, I have to read it. I like, I, I can't, I have to read Shakespeare. Seeing it perform doesn't work for me.
Vic00:30:34The funny thing is, really quickly, I want to get to JVL is. Um, I started to watch it, uh, a second time because it is a, I, I, you know, you really makes you, I was thinking about it a lot. I mean, it was so interesting that, uh, uh, the second time around, I picked up so much more than the first time you get overwhelmed. Now the, what, you know, the weird sisters, I, I, I understood them the best, but sometimes with everybody else, everything is going so fast. It's just, okay, JVL.
JVL00:31:01I had a, a very strange experience with this, which is that I didn't like it at first and it, uh, it has stayed with me and now I love it really, really love it.
Sonny00:31:15And it's, you know, it's have you, did you watch it again or is it just thinking about
JVL00:31:22it? Just marinating with me. I mean, part of what I didn't like initially was the look because early in the movie, it looks as though everything is green screened and maybe it is all green screen, maybe the entire movie. Nothing has been done on location.
Vic00:31:39I liked, I fooled myself into thinking it was in a location because I hate to think
JVL00:31:43that, but by the end, I mean, then once you're in the castle, the brutalist, the brutalist architecture, which reminds me of a massive public library built in 1974, um, which is what the castle, right? You know, the interior fountains, the library at Georgetown is exactly this.
Vic00:32:04Yeah.
JVL00:32:05Uh, I. I don't know if that was real or CGI'd in, but I liked, I really liked the way they played with light and shadows and the, the black and white is so good. Yeah. So good for something like this. Um, you know, it's funny, the filmed adaptations of Shakespeare are very rarely performed as stage on the film. Like they're, they're almost always shot sort of in vivo. Um, and you can do so much. I mean. Um, the, so the, here's the other reason when I first watched it, uh, Denzel's Macbeth begins the movie very flat. It's a really flat version of the character and it isn't until he murders Duncan, which is when he goes crazy and his, his descent into crazy just sort of pops off the screen and comes alive. And this is what you get at, right? Sonny, the, the sort of by the end, he's the mad King. It is because he's old. He's too old for the part. Francis McDormand is too old for the part. Yeah. Um, and what you get is that they're both insane and they, they, she, I think comes across as more born insane and he goes insane because of the crimes he commits against nature. Right? This is the, I mean, the Macbeth is more than any of the other Shakespeare plays obsessed with the idea of cosmic justice and that, uh, crimes which are committed are committed not, not just against. A person, but it, you know, murder is a sin against nature itself. And, uh, I don't know. I, I just, I really liked it. I like a lot of it. Francis McDormand's fantastic in it. Oh yeah.
Sonny00:33:50Really? I thought she was flat. I, I thought, I, I thought I, I didn't really care for this interpretation of lady Macbeth again. I think it doesn't work for her because she is too old and like, it just, it, it doesn't, it doesn't work for me in the same way that like Denzel being. Older did.
JVL00:34:08Yeah. I, I liked it. And then there's, you know, Brendan Gleeson who plays Duncan is great. Steven Root has a tiny little scene as the porter and he's unbelievably good.
Vic00:34:18He's very good.
JVL00:34:19And he's Steven. You can see Steven Root playing Falstaff right in, in, in one of these. And then Catherine Hunter, who is this, you know, old British actress who plays the, the weird sister. She is hot. Like everything, like just how bendy she is. Yeah. Contortion.
Sonny00:34:37Just, uh, she put, she plays the opening scene like a crow, right? Like she is like a, she's like a human crow, human made crow. Yeah.
JVL00:34:46Uh, I mean, did you guys like it? Just honey, do you know, was this filmed on locations? Cause all I could think of was this looks like a pandemic movie where they, they never let more than three people be on, you know, on a set together and it was all, it was all just green screens in a studio.
Sonny00:35:02I, I do not know. I do not actually know.
JVL00:35:04I'm curious about that. Uh, cause it feels. It feels stripped down enough and small enough that it's almost like a side project, you know, like, like something that, that, uh, Joel Cohen did really just to scratch an itch that you could do only in a moment when the industry was basically frozen in Amber for, you know, 18 months and nobody could do stuff.
Vic00:35:29By having this theme of this because of the weather related to the, the murders and everything. And so you're just in this eternal fog, but it was like the others. You know, which is like, you just get constantly surrounded by fog. I had a question about, uh, you mentioned this is Joel Cohen. Has Ethan, Ethan Cohen ever directed without Joel, or is this the first time they've not done something together?
Sonny00:35:51Uh, early on, uh, only one of them was credited as director and they were both credited as writer, but, but they were both directing the films. Um, so like the, the, there, there are, there are questions of credits. Like, uh, they, they have worked as a team. Since, since I don't know, blood simple. Okay. Um, yeah, yeah.
JVL00:36:12Um, I, I did give a quadrant score for this.
Vic00:36:15Oh, please. Quadrants for Shakespeare, which is very interesting. Uh, the plot, this is very interesting. You'll find this very interesting, but there's various qualifications to this. Um, uh, the plot, I gave a B. Parentheses. Yes. On the one hand, I have no idea what they're saying. On the other hand, I thought it was pretty straightforward murder for power. Okay. Got it. There was no twister. Oh, there's a nice twist at the end because I thought, man, oh man. I mean, that gets to the action and violence a man. There's a, it's a pretty high kill count and pretty awful too. You know, kids, not a surprise. People have been doing this since King Herod and before his time, obviously just, you know, you kill everybody who stands in your way to the throne. Duration was an a, that was like a hour 40 something or something or 45. Really that I, I hate to give sex nudity an honest grade of an F because I don't know if any Shakespeare has any sort of. From opportunities for that.
JVL00:37:08Maybe Romeo and Juliet famously. Oh, yes, of course. Who's the, the one from the sixties, the one from the sixties where Juliet gets naked on, on screen.
Vic00:37:16Yeah. So there you go. Okay. So it's an honest, it's an honest stuff. And I guess I pretty much knew that really, did he direct that?
JVL00:37:22Yes.
Vic00:37:23Let's say it's Frank. A pod is probably screaming at us either right or wrong, but I'm going to say that. And, uh, um, I knew that there was not going to be any of that. As soon as Francis McDermott says unsexed me. Okay. Well, that's it. It's over. Uh. Um, but, uh, the other thing that really helped is, uh, I watched it next to Kate. And of course, Kate is very, she's learned. She is learned.
Sonny00:37:45Kate is smart. She's smart.
Vic00:37:46She went to George, she did, she did. And she knew the lines before even the lines are said and the whole thing. And, and, and she would tell me, she would coach. It was like an audio commentary. Cause she'd be telling me like, okay, so you understand this recurring theme of the unnatural, this is unnatural. And this whole thing, it was very, it was very exciting to watch it with her naked. Okay. So, uh, I do want to say people are shocked. I guess it's true. It is true. I have not, it was not assigned reading Macbeth and, uh, in, in, in high school, you know, I mean, we had Hamlet and, uh, midsummer night's dream Othello. I liked that. Uh, Richard, the third was probably the favorite of the plays I read and obscure. I read Richard, the second number of people have read that. Um, so, but, but for whatever reason it. Fell through the cracks and I just never got around to it.
Sonny00:38:39So most of my Macbeth knowledge comes from the, uh, cartoon gargoyles, uh, in the, in the, in the early 1990s. No, I joke, I joke. Cause I've actually, I've read, I have read Macbeth and I, again, I've seen it a couple of times, but the, uh, but the, uh, but I, I've mentioned this before, but like the, the, the cartoon series, gargoyles, tons of Shakespeare stuff, there was a character, there's an actual character named Macbeth, the millennials out there. Are, are listening to this. They're saying, yes, I remember this and it's great, but there was a character Macbeth, the weird sisters are in it, uh, there's a, there's a, uh,
JVL00:39:14anyway, so I, my favorite scene and the, the, a lot of great lines. So there is, there is a, there are some things that film can do better than stage and the, the, is that a dagger I see before me speech in, in this filmed adaptation is. Done with, uh, Denzel Washington walking slowly down a hallway.
Vic00:39:44Yes.
JVL00:39:45And that sort of the metronomic, uh, quality of his steps as he's moving and that relentlessly forward towards what he sees is like, there's a gleam of light that looks, you know, like it could be the glint off of a, just the, the ability to have continuous motion. In a single direction, which is something you can do on screen, but you can't do on stage really makes that scene much more powerful on screen than, than what you can do in a stage version. I just think in general, Joel Cohen uses the advantages that film can give you. In ways which are really useful to telling the story.
Sonny00:40:34The first time I watched it, I watched it. I watched it in the middle of award season. I watched it on kind of a crappy, you know, 10 80 stream, uh, without subtitles. Uh, 10, 80, I know, 10, 80 for pores. Uh, but the, uh, but I, and I was like, oh, this is fine. This is like, this is Shakespeare. It looks kind of cool. It's, but it's, it is, it's, it's just okay. And then when I watched it again last weekend, I was like, this is actually great. This is actually a great adaptation. And I like, I totally slept on it the first time around for reasons that you mentioned the the the movement and and the advantages of film and the advantages of being able to build a number of different sets and use them all uh very well um but also just like i the the advantages of being able to shoot the same woman playing three different characters like the the the uh other other little things like that what did you make of ross in this movie uh
JVL00:41:36so ross so you know in in the play ross is one of five of the thanes and they basically just condense that all into a single character and the thane is that's that's their title the lord it's like right yes uh and i really liked the guy who played him uh i feel like i've seen him before but i don't know if i and everything about him like he's he's i think he's played as gay that's why he doesn't have any kids sorry and but just interesting and i don't know everybody everybody's face is interesting in this movie yes they only cast people with interesting faces yeah uh i don't know there's another arresting scene where lady macbeth is standing on a cliff and she is shot from sort of the side but the the middle distance and again i think it was almost certainly cgi right right but it's a beautiful arresting image and did you guys at all think about the man who wasn't there in just the feel of the black and white never saw the way it's shot because the because the no something about the the specific kind of texture to this black and white reminded me the man who wasn't there which i didn't really love as a movie but which is again there's black and white and then there's really beautiful black and white uh and the manc was a very beautiful black and white this is a very beautiful black and white what it what it reminded me of more than
Sonny00:43:14that then this speaks to your cgi point and and green screen point but what it what it actually reminded me of was uh sin city yeah the kind of the kind of uh the kind of fakey black and white is almost is almost the way to put it like it it is but it but it it worked i mean it i love sin city i think sin city is great uh and this had that same kind of feel to it for me it's it's a
JVL00:43:39weirdly understated hyper stylization of what's going on here but this is all the set design too
Sonny00:43:46i mean this is i mean it is if they are sets well there there were i mean there were definitely sets i mean they were like they had built you know there there are built sets there but like it is it is it again it calls it calls to mind fw merno and guys like that what what i liked is that
Vic00:44:03i mean he clearly has a very good handle on how to film black and white whereas you know if you look at there was a lot of old films if you look at some of these old films on turner classic movies which i see from time to time it's terrible you know the quality and the production and it's just there's there's no actual distinct shadows between black and white everything is just gray you know i remember seeing rebecca and was like oh you know it was just there's it's not really there schindler's list is a very good black and white you know spielberg has a very good handle on that and the same thing with this movie i thought it was great
Sonny00:44:36if you're if you're shooting in black and white now you're shooting it in it for an aesthetic reason and for a purpose and you're doing you're doing it with intent and yeah and that's when
JVL00:44:46you're thinking but even your costume choices right your costume choices are chosen for how they're going to look in black and white and so it's funny to think about what it looks like when
Vic00:44:54they're filming and you know what i mean if you were there to if you were there to see them you know filming it in color it would be somewhat different this is like yeah what i what i learned about uh schindler's list they could not have green anywhere because the color green comes off very weird oh interesting yeah i mean i i was i found myself really looking intently at the
JVL00:45:15the textures of the fabric in the tunics yeah that the the characters are wearing because what you because you're not getting color the the black and white they have is really pulling out the textures it's almost like you could reach into the the screen and touch it yeah um well i well
Sonny00:45:32this is another nice thing i mean like again watching it on 4k it's like you can like see that the hairs on the individual hairs on denzel washington's face yes yeah um and there ain't he like we haven't really talked enough about his performance which is just i i think wonderful i mean like especially in that last hour or so uh the the when he is when he is essentially doing uh the alonzo harris character from training i can't believe you're gonna say that because i
Vic00:46:01thought about that but but as like a crazy very end at the very end yeah yeah yeah i mean just
Sonny00:46:07like i i just i loved i loved everything uh about that and and his his sense of invulnerability his like resigned sense of invulnerability that he thinks he is protected by this this you know this legend or curse by a man of woman born etc etc i like i i thought i i just i thought he was i thought he was very good in it uh and i i love the guy who plays uh bank woe the bank woe's eyebrows should
Vic00:46:38get uh you were amazing yeah um wow yeah it was very interesting uh i you know you were talking about productions of macbeth you know what i really regretted was not seeing uh the production of macbeth at the folger at the shakespeare folger do you remember this uh it was um i don't know 15 maybe 20 and it was uh the consultant they had for that was uh teller from penn and teller because they had all sorts of the visual effects with the blood and everything it was supposed to be really quite scary like in a great an amazing way so i i wish i've never been to the folger same never been
Sonny00:47:20yeah it's very nice i've been i've only walked past it outside you guys should go there sometime it's really it's quite lovely i regret that i uh i have a ranking for you boys a ranking of if you would
JVL00:47:30like it yeah i have a ranking of the four best filmed adaptations of uh of william shakespeare plays oh okay oh yes yes okay number four kenneth bronnock's henry v which is fantastic number three boz lerman's romeo plus juliet oh it's so good it's it is balls to the wall and and it's great it's just as great number two i think the tragedy of macbeth oh boy number one can can either of you guess i know
Sonny00:48:19what i would pick is it arnold schwarzenegger's hamlet to be or do you ever what is he and he
Vic00:48:25has to light it he blows it up not to it was fantastic not to be not to be uh i'm gonna you're not gonna i i'm sure it's not this but i would say mel gibson hamlet thank you
Sonny00:48:36i would have said mel really okay well there you go i made a joke about that
JVL00:48:40on on one of my podcasts the other day i love lethal bodkin that's great which i think is one of the funniest jokes ever i saw you say that yeah all right you ready wait i'll guess uh
Sonny00:48:53i will guess it's the the denzel much ado about nothing
JVL00:48:59hamlet two oh for people who do not know hamlet two is a steve coogan movie in which he is a frustrated playwright who takes over a high school production i believe yeah uh and he decides that he's gonna have them perform his play a sequel to hamlet which stars among other characters jesus and uh and utilizes time travel to have the characters all go back in time to fix their relationships with their fathers and it i mean elizabeth shoe was in that right elizabeth shoe is in that yeah what the whole the truth is the movie does not deliver on the promise of how funny it could be yeah but the the idea of it the idea of a frustrated high school art you know theater director writing a screenplay for hamlet 2 a sequel to hamlet
Vic00:50:07and putting it on earnestly is just okay let me ask you a question jvl what did you think of
JVL00:50:14kenneth branagh's hamlet i loved it really loved it loved it loved it i also loved uh mel gibson's
Vic00:50:23hamlet i was i thought it was two star heavy kenneth bronox and it was i found that distracting like jack lemon i i don't know i was just i found it and of course duration was f minus yeah it's really long much to do but much to do with nothing i saw that and and you know who is a real denzel washington of course is in that and he's great and but it was a real it was obviously vehicle for kenneth bronagh and emma i was going to say watson sorry emma thompson yes uh but
JVL00:50:51keanu reeves is in that yeah keanu's in that he's good yes jvl uh there there was a michael cinder mcbeth just a few years ago with marion coltian i don't know mixing marion she confuses me so much because as you say victorino it's the she she combines the raw sex with the crazy
Vic00:51:18with violence like you know i'm at some point she's going to beat the shit out of me she might kill me but it's worth it is that what you're saying yeah okay sure
JVL00:51:28basically all three of those things seem to be present in basically every role she she takes oh she was perfectly normal in inception i thought uh and the idea of her is lady mcbeth i think maybe i don't want to see it oh i was gonna ask
Sonny00:51:45did you see it because i know that's one of that's one of the ones i have seen and it is uh
JVL00:51:49what do you think it's is it weird wanting to bone lady mcbeth why isn't aren't you supposed
Sonny00:51:55to want to bone lady mcbeth isn't i don't
Vic00:51:57think so i think is she not a femme fatale i think she's not because in my mind it's now francis mcdormand permanently in my mind the answer is no because that's how i began to see this um i i thought the greatest uh sort of big surprise of all is at the end that the next king of scotland was dudley dursley thank you jvl he appreciates that sonny no nothing nothing nothing
Sonny00:52:23oh oh he's the kid from harry potter that's right yes yes that's right he was also in uh he was he he he was in one of the segments of the coen brothers uh western oh really anthology the ballad of buster scruggs he was uh yeah he's he's the one he's with liam he's in the liam neeson segment he's the he is the oh he is though the the the the quadra play
Vic00:52:44that was him yep how'd he grow his arms back so far just kidding great question no one knows wow it's one of those one of those hogwarts spells how did it was magic and gorgo hey that's a different one don't don't don't cast that one at night jvl or in the morning all right in the morning we're going off the tracks here we're going off the rails of all the actors from harry potter i think he was the he's the best one what a surprise i'm looking
JVL00:53:13at the other ones and i'm like ah okay um do we do we have any other uh do we have any
Vic00:53:20other thoughts on this no okay well no quite a delight uh spirit of the week corrections shout outs everything good no yeah i got a shout out oh to our buddy dan who just had little girl number four oh yeah our buddy dan yes yes congratulations you know think
JVL00:53:42think about girls all of us who have been blessed with daughters think about how great our daughters are getting to have four of them without have to dealing with any of the from the boys sounds like heaven he he he's
Vic00:53:56he's practically catholic okay uh that is all the time we're giving to this episode questions comments compliments tweet us at sonnybunch@victorinamatus again be sure to subscribe to us on patreon just go to subbeacon.com we're there tell your friends until next time
Sonny00:54:15so we're gonna do uh joss whedon and boba fett in the
JVL00:54:26bonus episode yeah yeah we gotta do joss whedon the bonus i don't want to do joss whedon
Vic00:54:30out in the public all right did you guys have uh heat two thoughts i thought this was some sort of a joke oh my god i thought this was a joke amazing aren't you guys excited i don't
Sonny00:54:39understand i'm watching it but michael mann michael mann put his name on the cover so he clearly has written this sequel novel it's a prequel and a sequel novel but it's a video
JVL00:54:51trailer well this is this is what people don't understand is it is a video trailer that has been released which does not tell you what it is until the very last frame all it is just telling you heat two michael mann heat two michael which might as well be as bad
Sonny00:55:08as hamlet two honestly no no this is gonna be great we're gonna learn about vincent hannah
JVL00:55:14and his time and then you get the name of some woman attached to to heat two oh here's your
Sonny00:55:20problem wait a minute hold on women can't write novels about well no because they don't tell they
JVL00:55:25don't tell you that it's a novel until the end so they just throw this woman's name on the screen you're like okay is she the new have they have they is this like ghostbusters we had to have
Vic00:55:36lady heat because that's interesting you're telling me this is this is a novel is it but they use the music the music they just kept on playing the music over and over it's a novel
JVL00:55:45by somebody so it is a ghost written novel co-written you're saying ghost written there
Sonny00:55:54they were in the room together for months working on this hand in hand trading pages how dare you how dare you uh the great michael man jvl you bite your tongue i'm sure it's fine
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