#87. 'Death on the Nile'
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The main event is Kenneth Branagh's Death on the Nile, and the verdicts split along familiar lines: Sonny likes it as a movie about class and money, though he's driven up the wall by how cheap the CGI Egypt looks (the Nile itself resembles a "PS3 quality cutscene"); JVL, a lifelong Agatha Christie devotee, argues the film centers the wrong character, lavishing screen time on Lynette (Gal Gadot) at the expense of Jacqueline (Emma Mackey), the true tragic heroine of the book, and holds up the 2004 BBC David Suchet/Emily Blunt version — shot on actual location — as superior, calling the novel his favorite Poirot story and better than Murder on the Orient Express; Sonny pushes back, defending Gadot's performance and insisting he prefers Orient Express to this one. Vic scores it a Quadrant B+ / B / B+ / D, with the nudity grade rescued from an F only by a lingering shot of Gadot at Abu Simbel. But the episode really opens with an extended, unusually tender tribute to P.J. O'Rourke, who died two days before taping: Sonny recounts being summoned for cocktails with PJ at the University Club and PJ's insistence on personally calling him to get his father's name for a signed book; JVL remembers being Kennedy Warren neighbors and PJ phoning him rather than just autographing a copy; and Vic, who lived one floor below PJ in the same building, tells the story of splitting a bottle each of Oban and Macallan scotch with PJ, his wife Tina, and Mary Eberstadt on the building's roof on the summer solstice. They also flag Ivan Reitman's death the same week and run through box office (Death on the Nile edges out Jackass Forever and Marry Me, while Spider-Man: No Way Home passes Avatar domestically) before diving into the movie. Spirit of the week is naturally Oban and Macallan in honor of PJ, and they close on Vic wondering aloud whether anyone else got uncomfortable watching Armie Hammer kiss Gal Gadot on screen.
From the show notes
The guys pay tribute to the great P.J. O'Rourke before reviewing the new iteration of Death on the Nile , in theaters now.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the newlyweds Mr. and Mrs. Simon Doyle! You must meet Hercule Poirot. My congratulations, madame. Merci. He's only the greatest detective alive. I suspect you invited me for reasons other than the fun. You had something to hide. We have the Carnock all to ourselves. A chef and enough champagne to fill the Nile. Should've hidden it, shouldn't you? When you have money, no one is ever really your friend.
Vic00:00:45Hello 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.
?00:00:56Go to subbeacon.com, you'll easily find us.
Vic00:00:56Go 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? Normally, we go into how is our week, weekend, what's going on. But of course, two days ago now, I guess we had learned that our good friend PJ O'Rourke had passed. And I think that this might be a good opportunity for us to share some reflections on PJ. A friend and an amazing writer and what he meant and memories of him and his writing. Sonny.
Sonny00:01:38I mean, I didn't want to have to start this. Fucking fuck. Look, I'm the youngest of the group, obviously.
Vic00:01:51That's why I'm going in age order.
Sonny00:01:53Yeah. He was already a very well-established, you know, multiple books, multiple, you know, best-selling books author by the time I was, like, even reading him. To the extent that, like, my dad read him in Rolling Stone, like, as a younger, you know, as a younger person. And had, essentially, had subscribed to Rolling Stone for many years. Like, we would get it delivered to our house. Wherever we lived. And, like, on the off chance that we would get, you know, a PJ or work reported piece. And that is the kind of writer he was. I mean, that is, like, the sort of, you know, the sort of adoration that he had. I mean, the books, they speak for themselves. Parliament of Whores and Give War a Chance, et cetera, et cetera. I have always had a very soft spot for his book about Adam Smith. He, like, basically did, like, a close read of Adam Smith's -- and now I'm spacing on the name of the actual book -- of what PJ's book was. But it's really, really good. And it's just, like, very funny and smart and all that stuff. I mean, I -- you know, again, I was not friends with him. I was not -- we were not -- I was not -- we were very --
Vic00:03:22Did you ever meet him when you were at The Standard?
Sonny00:03:24Yeah. So this is what I -- this is how I'm trying to transition into this. Because I don't -- because I hate -- I hate people who are like, "Here's my hanging out with this famous person, and he told me how great I was one time over drinks." But, like, he never said that about me, for the record.
Vic00:03:41There's a real art to that, by the way.
Sonny00:03:43The humble brag over it. There are people we know who are very, very good at that stuff.
Vic00:03:48Oh, man.
Sonny00:03:49I won't name any names. We won't name any names. But there was -- so there was one time at The Standard, at The Weekly Standard, and I had had the -- I had had the, you know, opportunity to correspond with him on stuff he had written for the back of the book, you know, just sending edits back and forth and trading emails. And he would actually fax over, I believe, still the -- this was when he was still faxing over the, like, typed-out manuscripts. Yes, yes. And I would have to -- I would -- I would then type it and put it into the -- and we would send it back and go back and forth. I think we've all been there, yeah. Very funny. But I remember --
JVL00:04:22Kids listening to this are going to hear that story and it is going to make about as much sense as the old telephones. Right. When you would pick up and you'd say to the operator, "I'd like Brookstone 425." Right.
Vic00:04:32Give me Long Island. I mean, Waterbrook 726. Yeah. As Michael Corleone says, "Give me Long Island." Anyway, go ahead.
Sonny00:04:38Long Beach. Yeah. So this is actually -- I mean, it is, like, just something to think about. He was -- he was a writer who came up in a time when it was routine to write something and then fax it in. And it would be typeset, you know. But, you know, this was -- I was working at the standard between 2005 and 2008. We had email. He could have emailed it. But he was not an emailer. So, anyway, I remember once Richard Starr came around, was like -- he was, like, going up to -- he was going up to people and was like, "Hey, come with me." And he came up to my desk. He was like, "Sonny, come with me." I was like, "Okay." And we wound up going to the University Club, I believe it was. Oh. With Andy and Andy Ferguson, maybe Matt Labash. I can't remember. And PJ. PJ Rourke was there. It was just one of these, like, very surreal, like -- it's the reason you pay assistant editors so little is because every once in a while they get to go out and have cocktails with PJ Rourke.
JVL00:05:38And he looked at you over cocktails and he said, "Sonny, that was a hell of a piece you wrote last week."
Sonny00:05:44I loved your review of Drill Bit Taylor. I loved your essay on Orson Welles. No, the -- but so, anyway, that's one of the handful of times I met him. It was great. It was fun. Like, I don't have any particularly fantastic stories to tell about it except it was just, like, he was a great -- he was great to have drinks with. Here's my one PJ story. So, when I was working at the Standard for my father's birthday one year, I was, like -- I had purchased. I used it. I had purchased a copy of Give War a Chance. And I sent PJ an email. He did use email occasionally. I sent him an email and I said, hey, you know, we met. But I would, like -- I was hoping I could send you this copy of the book to sign for my dad. It's his birthday. It's his, you know -- he loves you. He has read all your stuff, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, I'll send a self-addressed stamped envelope. You just sign it and send it back. It would be great. Really appreciate it. I send this email. And then, like, ten minutes later, I get a call at my desk. Like, hi, Sonny. Hello. This is Sonny Bunch. Sonny, this is PJ. I was like, oh, okay. I just got your email. Don't send a book that's ridiculous. I will just go get one out of my library. And said, now, what is your dad's name? What should I say to him? And, like, so it was, like, this was a million times better. Because it's, like, here you go, dad. Here for your birthday is this book out of PJ O'Rourke's library. Yeah. That he has personally signed to you, blah, blah, blah. And eventually, eventually, he, at one of the, at one of the deadly virtues, either deadly virtues or it wasn't dadly virtues.
JVL00:07:33Christmas virtues.
Sonny00:07:35Maybe it was Christmas virtues. Did he write for Christmas virtues?
JVL00:07:38Yes.
Sonny00:07:39Yeah. So, in the Christmas, I think it was the Christmas virtues one, which I also had an essay in that JBL edited. My, my dad actually came up to DC and PJ was there. He's part of the panel and I think, and got to meet him and blah. So, it's like, it's like the only time I've ever actually impressed my father is through PJ O'Rourke. That's, and that is my PJ. But, but the, but the point of the story is that like PJ O'Rourke, the nicest person I have ever encountered in any aspect of the business. Nicest, absolute gent, very, very decent. PJ Pod had a story about this in his, in his obituary about, you know, getting, getting a piece of the Berlin wall from PJ. And I mean, I, he's just like, he was just like a fundamentally decent person. And this is a business that does not give rise to a lot of fundamentally decent people. It gives rise to a lot of people who are like, how can I, you know, use this relationship to get to the next thing? And he, I mean, he may have been like that. He may have been like that in other, but he, he was not. The sort of, he was not the sort of person to ever look askance at a young writer or a young person or just like a nobody and tell them to, you know, screw off and get out of here. Decent guy. Um, great writer. Uh, and those are like the two of the nicest things you can say about a writer.
JVL00:09:01That's somebody, uh, somebody left a comment on the Bulwarks website. I wrote a little thing about PJ, uh, sharing their own PJ story. And this guy said, I grew up in New Hampshire. Like two towns over from PJ. And I was obsessed with him and was like 25 years ago, my senior year in, in high school, I was taking a journalism class and I just had this idea. Like, what if we asked PJ work to come and talk to our class? And so he, he went to the phone book and there was PJ work just listed. And his teacher said, yeah, if you want to call him and if he agrees to do it, so he, he calls him. PJ answers the phone. And he's like, hi, my name is Steven. Would you, would you come and talk to us over at Stonewall high school? And PJ goes, yeah, sure. Like next Wednesday. And that, that's just it. And he like comes over and he said that the most surreal moment of his life was while they were waiting to go into class. They went to sit in the cafeteria and he bought PJ a chocolate milk. You remember the little Tuscan carton chocolate milks and he like whipped out his 50 cents and bought it. Chocolate milk for PJ. And they just sat there and hung out for 15 minutes before going in and be just, you know, our business is filled with assholes and they all live to a hundred.
Vic00:10:22No. And by the way, before, you know, I just want to say when you're talking about emailing with PJ, he had an AOL email and you know what, but you know who else did was Charles Krauthammer, by the way, as a side note. Do you remember what his AOL email was? I forget the number cause it wasn't one. It wasn't one, but it was like pundit. Oh three. We're still like our pundit. Oh seven. And I always wanted, I wanted to know who was one through six pundit pundit.
Sonny00:10:50Oh, one was Robert Novak. Oh, right. Ah, I can't believe he took it. Right. Right. Okay.
Vic00:10:57Anyway, J J VL.
JVL00:11:00I, you know, I, so there is, I think there's a real dividing line and it runs right between Sonny and us. Mm-hmm in terms of people's relationship to PJ because a little bit, not quite us, but a little bit above us age wise, you get to people who viewed PJ as, uh, an exemplar and somebody for whom you could aspire to be in for us and for Sonny too. Like that was really unattainable. Like, you know, yeah, because the world had the, that world had passed. That world had passed. And that, that's the, but that's what I wanted to, that's what I think the difference is. It isn't about PJ. It's that the world which allowed PJ Rourke to have a career is gone. Mm-hmm . You know, uh, writing long form for Rolling Stone, Playboy, Forbes FYI. Yeah, Playboy. I was wanting to write for Playboy. Right. Car and Driver. Mm-hmm . He was writing long form pieces for Car and Driver. Yeah, yeah. Right. This is, that doesn't exist anymore. You can't, nobody, nobody, Forbes FYI, which I believe at the time was edited by Chris Buckley. Mm-hmm . Sent PJ to Kyrgyzstan. Yeah. For like two weeks or something. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, can you imagine. Yeah. Like trying to get the expense account. The idea is like I, I have this. Yeah. Great writer. Mm-hmm . And I would simply like to pay to send them to. Yeah. Place X. And let them write. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm . Yeah.
Vic00:12:35Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And let them write something great about it. And then you would have to figure out, you know, the, the expenses when they came back. But that was always a running joke. I mean, you saw that in the French Dispatch, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. And that's gone. He got a, he got, by the way, a, a car and driver paid him once in the form of a Land Rover. That's so great. It's, it was a nice big hunter green. Anyway, JJ, go ahead.
JVL00:12:55I'm sorry. Yeah. It's, it, so that universe is gone. And PJ was, I mean, we, I did the math on it. I mean, PJ was like a big famous superstar. Yeah. When we were in high school. Yeah. I didn't realize he was as old as he was. Yeah.
Sonny00:13:11I didn't realize he was as old as he was. Yeah. Uh, you know what? Part of it is just, he was sandy haired. Yeah.
JVL00:13:16And guys with sandy hair always look younger than they are. And also boyish haircut. He had a boyish haircut. Boyish haircut, sandy hair. Yeah. And he had his kids real late in life.
Sonny00:13:23He did.
JVL00:13:24And he's got three kids. His, I think his son. Yeah. His youngest is a senior in high school. Mm-hmm. So like. Yeah. That's right. You know, like this keeps you, these things do keep you young. I, you know, this hit me harder than I thought it would. Uh, maybe because I was surprised I, I hadn't known he was sick. Yeah. I, you know, I, I was not super close to PJ. You know, we, we knew each other a very little bit. Um, we hung out a few times. I think I'm the only person who ever hung out with PJ more than three times who never drank with him. That's shocking.
Vic00:13:53What? And very weird.
JVL00:13:55Well, he drank, but I never. That's why we, I was going to say, no, I can't do, that's why we don't do that. Uh, yeah, well just, I don't, I don't, it's, it's me. Not a, not a, not a, not a him thing. Um, but he's, you know, I, if more people are in our business, we're like him, uh, everything will be different.
Vic00:14:13You know, you know, JVL what it is and you, you brought, you just mentioned this, uh, at the outset, uh, there are people who are outwardly really nice and friendly and hilarious and funny. And then when you get to know them, they turn out to be assholes, you know, and it's like, oh, I wish I didn't know you. And then there are other people who, you know. Like he had PJ had such a vicious wit, you know, and he was a master of satire and poking fun of people deservedly so, um, but could not have been a nicer guy. I much prefer that. Yeah.
JVL00:14:44Yeah. But here's the other, you know, so I, I will compare them to, so John, who's listening to the show right now, John is crunchy on the outside, but soft on the inside, right? I mean, John presents this exterior of like, rah, but, but the truth is he is a Prince among men. PJ's exterior and, and interior were in harmony, right? I mean, he, he, he just looked like this sweetheart and gentlemen and he was. Yeah.
Sonny00:15:13And, uh, JVL, what was it like, what was it like editing him? I think you have done more actual editing of PJ than anybody else on the show.
JVL00:15:19No, I, I think Vic has edited PJ more than I have.
Vic00:15:22Um, I have, but I mean, it's, um, but you, you, you, you are actually working directly without any interference from other editors.
JVL00:15:29Yeah.
Vic00:15:30It was, it was a joy. His copy is good. Right. I mean, there were weird ticks, you know, I mean, there were things that he would get wrong with misspellings and type. I mean, it was very weird, but the form was all there. It was just easy to fix. You know what I mean? There's things you can clean up, but you know, you didn't have to worry about moving.
JVL00:15:44You're gonna move things around because like, structure, structural issues, structurally
Vic00:15:50sound. You just had to fix little corners and things. That's, that's okay.
JVL00:15:54You know, misspelling some weird things easy with it in the way that I'm sure you would say. Right. And in all of our experiences, is it fair to say the best writers are the easiest? Fussiest edits.
Vic00:16:03Yeah. And it's sometimes funny because sometimes, uh, bad writers or inexperienced writers can be the worst. Like you can be the fussiest. They'll push back even though they've been barely published anywhere, but they'll push back about their, it's a weird thing. And whereas PHA is like, sure this, sure that, whatever.
JVL00:16:20So my, my personal, my personal policy on this with young writers. So a young writer who is a dick to edit, my policy has always been to the minute they start acting. Like an asshole. I just stop editing them. I say, great. Okay. We'll publish it right as is great. And then they go on the list that I keep because I keep a list and they are never published again. You know, I, I won't spend another 30 seconds trying to improve their copy. Uh, I'll send them their, their, their pay. And then they literally go on the no fly list that I keep and never, ever published again.
Vic00:16:57You know, what's hilarious is there might be listeners out there like, wait a minute, I haven't published. They're at ages. Oh no. Realize that they're on the list. It sounds, it sounds very JVL, but in fact it's a, it's a very good, it's a good rule
Sonny00:17:11to have.
Vic00:17:12It's a very editor thing to do. The journal does this apparently where if you're the person responsible for gumming up the works because you filed late or you missed the deadline, you get put on a list. Yeah. There should be, there should be lists.
Sonny00:17:23There should be. There should be lists. There should be lists for bad writers. There should be public lists, you know, put up at the, at the New York times headquarters, every, just on the walls. Like, like the 95 theses or whatever, uh, uh, I, I actually had a, I had an issue with a writer. I won't name, I won't, I won't name him, but I like, I was like, I, I, this line doesn't work for the piece and this like second line right after it doesn't really work either. I want to take him out. And he like haggled with me for like four emails. I was just like, I like, I like your writing, but I, you gotta stop, you gotta knock it
Vic00:17:56off. Right. We're trying to make it better. We're not just doing this because we enjoy doing this.
JVL00:18:01And, and I would say also. Also from the other side of the table as a writer, my, my policy with editors, if I get a bad editor, I don't haggle with them. I just like fine, whatever I disengage with the piece, I won't run whatever the fuck they want. Yeah.
Vic00:18:18Uh, and then I never write for them again. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like it's just, it's not worth. It's not, life is too short to have to go through this. Life is too short to. Stomach. To go through these things.
JVL00:18:26It's gonna be upsetting. All writing and publishing is a collaborative process. It is. It's a two way street. And if you find somebody who you know that you should not collaborate again with, don't just, just walk away. Right. Right. Right. Right. I mean, just, you know, move on. Right. Right. Um, but PJ was, God, he was just, he was great. Yeah. He was great. He was a good guy and he could write this. He could write all different kinds of stuff. Yes. Oh, people. Different subjects.
Sonny00:18:50I hate it when people talk about him as a humorist actually, because it's like, I just don't think of him that way. He did everything.
JVL00:18:55He was a great reporter. He was a good reporter. He was a good travel writer. Yeah. He was a good observer. He could profile people. Mm-hmm.
?00:19:02Yeah.
JVL00:19:03I think it is, it is, uh, a very impoverished view of PJ as like, Ooh, America's great humorist,
Sonny00:19:11America's great conservative humorist.
Vic00:19:13And the other thing was, which is like, that is, that is, yeah, he was a conservative humorist. He was, he was so interesting and he had so many interesting stories and knew so many famous people, but he, you know, if you wanted to talk to him about something complete, whatever you wanted to talk about, he was perfectly content talking about what you wanted to talk about. Whereas like if I were him, I'd be like, Oh, you know, you know, let me find a way to bring it back to you. Well, speaking of which, uh, you know, I remember when John Hughes was telling me after the breakfast club, you know, and he's like, wow, but you know, or, uh, you know, his first in-laws, uh, were, uh, Sidney Lumet and, you know, and the, and the singer Lena horn. And uh, I remember him mentioning how he went in to, uh, have a drink. Uh, with his then father-in-law and who, who is there hanging out in, in, in, at the bar in the backyard, but shot coterie. And so he goes over, they said it was really nice guy. And PJ said, asked him, and this is probably late seventies, early eighties, late seventies. And he asked him what, uh, what was the, what movie did you enjoy the most making? And you know what he said? So this is, this is no, this is before. This is before the untouchables. Um, and he said, no, I'm just kidding. He didn't say that. He said, uh, the wind in the lion.
Sonny00:20:39Oh, that's interesting.
Vic00:20:41You know, who directed that? That is yes. John Milius. That's funny that he, so he, he, uh, he, he enjoyed that. Um, for me, um, I lived, uh, w I lived in the same building building as PJ did for 10 years.
JVL00:20:56The Kennedy Warren where it all happened and where it all happened.
Vic00:21:00Christine Rosen was there. Um, the ever stats, the Ferguson's, the Caldwell's, uh, Naomi Wolf, Ann Coulter. But uh, when I got there, uh, a lot of those folks had, um, the Ferguson's Caldwell's ever stats had left, but Ann Coulter was still there and, and, uh, um, Mandy Grunwald, Matt Cooper and PJ. So I was in nine Oh six, I had the studio apartment and PJ was an eight Oh one. So we inevitably would run into each other. And then over the years, you know, lunches and dinners and things, but, uh, I'd say, uh, w one of my favorites. My fondest memories was, um, I, I take the summer solstice very seriously because I hate to be inside. It's the longest day of the year. So I'm like, I gotta be outside as much as possible to enjoy the sun is June 21st. Right. I'm w I'm one with Nate. I'm very paganistic that way. Sunny.
Sonny00:21:48I know. That's very, it's very like midsummer. Yeah. I know.
Vic00:21:52I gotta get into that midsummer. I know.
JVL00:21:54I know. I should go out and find a virgin.
Sonny00:21:56Spend the day with the secrets out. The wicker man on top of the Kennedy Warren and burns it. And if, if it's a good burning, the crops in DC are, are, I mean, you know, it's a side
Vic00:22:12of me that I rarely discuss really where I'm one with nature in my, I have my, uh, I had
Sonny00:22:19no idea.
Vic00:22:20This is, this is all very much news to me, you know, yeah, no, I, I carry, I have the sundial and I w I'm just kidding. Okay. So anyway, I, I go upstairs, I said, I'm going to do some reading. I got, I, you know, got out of work. Early. And, uh, and so I know that's not surprising. That's not surprising. That is. So I go up the Kennedy Warren has a Sunday. So I go upstairs and, uh, and PJ was up there with his wife, Tina and Mary Eberstadt, and they were having, you know, drinks and snacks and things like that. So I, I went up and I said, oh, hi, I just said hi to them and said, you know, let me, they have a little lounge show. Let me just read up there. And they said, no, no, no. You got to come over. Come on. I said, no, no, no. But they insisted. So I come over, you know, what am I supposed to do? Actually now there's the four of us vote matters. Yeah. And so, and I look around and I said, what do we have here? You know? And, uh, the ladies had white wine, PJ had brought up, uh, a bottle of O band scotch and had cracked it up. And I said, Ooh, I said, you know, I've never had that before. So as luck would have it, we have extra glasses. So then inviting himself in. Yeah. So we did. And in cigarillos, cause that's what PJ loved to smoke with those little brands, a little sick. I liked them too, because they're much more manageable than cigars. So it's not ideal, but I liked them. So cigarillos and O band scotch. And I think we made our way to all about half the bottle. And then we took an intermission and I said, bathroom, cause there's no bathroom on the side. I said, let's go, uh, the side of the building. I could have done that into Klingle Valley. And then I said, I'll be back. So then I went, can I get the zoo bar from here? That's right. Yes. The zoo. Very good JVL, the zoo bar. So I went downstairs and at that time, since we were still fairly newly Westernized, we had, I think we'd been married for maybe less than a year. Um, I still had a small bar really quick, of course, Kate was still working, uh, on the hill. So I went downstairs and I said, you know, what do I have? And a friend had given us as a, as a wedding gift, a bottle of McAllen. So I said, I haven't opened this up, but you know what the hell, you know, hang out with PJ and get this bottle of McAllen. So now I brought up the McAllen and now there's the McAllen and the O band. And at this point, at some point, Mary left, Tina left, and it was just us. And it was no longer, uh, daylight. It was now darkness and it was, and both bottles made it to about the halfway point. So basically we split a bottle is I think at the end of the day, but that was, and we, I, you know, and I, I think we talked about Jan Wenner and lots of other things, but, uh, but that, you know, but, and he said, Vic, you're such a great writer last week. And that's my memory. And that's my memory of PJ. And I'm amazing at drinking and writing. And that's my memory of him after the one bottle of, after the, you know, after the
Sonny00:25:10bottle of liquor, all I remember is PJ saying how much he loved my stuff.
Vic00:25:14Yes. I will say this, the idea, it sounds shocking and maybe Sonny can relate to this. We'll find it. We'll find it. But I know, uh, uh, the idea of, oh my gosh, you know, two people finish a bottle of Scotch. That's crazy. It's not so crazy. I it's, it's actually quite doable in the span of a couple hours. I wish you would, Jonathan's not saying anything, but Sonny, I, uh, kind of a friend, a friend
Sonny00:25:37of mine, a friend of mine here in Dallas, I, one of my, one of my very few friends here in Dallas, uh, came over one night with a bottle of, uh, what? Tin cup. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The bourbon whiskey bourbon, whatever it is. I think it's a bourbon tin cup bourbon. And uh, between the two of us, we drank the whole bottle and he, uh, he, he, he, he was exceptionally, exceptionally drunk and, uh, called, uh, called it, you know, called an Uber or Lyft or whatever. Uh, and when he got back to, when he got back to his apartment, he got robbed, he got robbed. He got robbed. And I, to this day, am convinced that the Lyft driver called ahead and was like, I got one. So shit.
Vic00:26:23I got a guy.
Sonny00:26:24Yeah. He's going to go. Because he, like, he went, I mean, he, like, he lived in a, he, he lived in a, you know, just a apartment complex with like outdoor doors. Mm-hmm. And somebody, somebody rolled up on him was like, you know, give, give us your keys, give us your wallet. Oh my gosh. Stole his car. Oh my gosh. Um, like got, got away with it. But, uh, but, uh, the point of the point of the story here is that it is certainly possible to drink a bottle of, uh, liquor between two people and, you know, not die.
JVL00:26:49Just make sure you both live in the Kennedy Warren. Yeah.
Sonny00:26:51That's it.
Vic00:26:52Go someplace classy. I remember. Yeah. Cause you just have to get to the elevator. Oh, there were stairs involved and that was pretty scary actually, cause we did take scares. Yeah. It's like from 12, 11, 10, nine. I was like, I'll see you by, you know, and just, you know, convinced that, no, I don't have a problem. I'm completely fine. You know what I mean? To this day. So, I mean, you know, half a bottle every day is okay. You know? I'm kidding. Sure.
JVL00:27:14Honestly, lifetime. I don't think I've bought one bottle of Scotch for my house and I don't think it's, of course it's still there, but I'm saying, I don't think it's halfway done. This bottle has gotta be 13 years old.
Sonny00:27:26I've, you know, they don't, that's not how they age. No. You have to, it's, it's, it doesn't count once it's in the bottle, once it's in the bottle, it doesn't count.
JVL00:27:35I'm not saying this because I, I think I'm making it better. I'm just telling you that that's the, the rate at which it is drunk.
Vic00:27:41I think that the key to finishing a bottle is when you do not intend to finish the bottle. If you ever go into like, oh, we're going to be so crazy tonight, we're just going to drink it. I think it's much harder to do that than it's very spontaneous just to have another drink and suddenly it's done, you know, and be able to say that you don't have a problem. It's, it's okay too.
JVL00:28:01When you start out with just the tip, it's the, just the tip theory of drinking.
Vic00:28:04I had, I, you know, I lost my transition here, but I was going to say deny. The joke was that denial is more than just a river in Egypt. Speaking of which, over the weekend, Death. I think we can figure out where that was going. That was going, yeah. Death on the Nile sailed to the top of the box office with $12.9 million, followed by Jackass Forever with 8.1 million and in third place, Marry Me with 7.9 million. Box office thoughts really quickly. What is Marry Me? Oh, that's a romance.
Sonny00:28:32Yeah. It's a rom-com. JLo. JLo and Owen Wilson. Ah. So I, it, it actually doesn't sound terrible. It sounds like a very traditional Hollywood rom-com. I have no interest in seeing it, obviously, uh, uh, we don't do, we don't do rom-coms
JVL00:28:48on the show. Hold on. Here's a rom-com we have to do. The Sandra Bullock, uh, Channing Tatum movie that looks amazing.
Vic00:28:57My only concern about that trailer is that I feel like I saw the whole movie. But anyway.
JVL00:29:01Yeah. So what? It's like a better romancing the stone. It looks fantastic.
Vic00:29:05It does. Yeah.
Sonny00:29:07Yes. Go ahead. Sonny. Uh, Death on the Nile did okay. I don't know. I mean, I feel like this is one of these movies that got delayed so many times people thought it'd come out already. I literally heard that from people. They were like, didn't this come out, you know, two years ago? Um, and it was, it was supposed to, supposed to, but a lot of trailers just came, just came out now. Um, uh, Jackass declined about what was expected. The big news, the big news is that Spider-Man no way home past avatar on the domestic box office list. Huge hit. Where is that?
Vic00:29:40What is it? Wait, so where, where does it stand out? What is that? What number is it?
Sonny00:29:44Is it, uh, it is at 761 million or something like that domestic. Um, and then 1.8, 8 billion, billion there were some, some, some, some absurd number like that. Um, so it is a. It probably, it probably, it'll, it, it probably won't hit 800 million domestic and it probably won't hit 2 billion, uh, overseas, but it is obviously where's titanic in this.
Vic00:30:10Is it still titanic?
Sonny00:30:11Titanic is, uh, titanic is higher on, on the, uh, the foreign, the overall, the domestic foreign and domestic. Got it. Got it. But it is lower on the domestic. I think, I think, I think Spider-Man no way home is a hundred million past Titanic. No. Wow. We're so, I mean, it's, it's great. It's not gonna, I mean the, the, it is, it's still very funny to think about the star Wars, the force awakens episode seven or whatever, whatever the full title of that movie is. That is still the highest grossing domestic film of all time by like, by a lot, by that movie. Cause it was so good. Some 900, some million dollars. I mean like American audiences love that movie, you know, who didn't love it. The Chinese did not care for it.
JVL00:30:55Did not go see it. They don't like any star war.
Sonny00:30:57They do not. They do not like the.
JVL00:31:00They don't care for the star war. The star war.
Sonny00:31:02The Chinese audiences do not like the star war. They do not like star war one or star war seven or star war nine.
Vic00:31:08By the way, uh, speaking of star war and knockoffs and such, uh, JVL, uh, over the weekend, I, uh, met my, uh, brother-in-law's brother-in-law, if that makes any sense, uh, Bill Dwyer's brother-in-law, and he said, thank you very much because through you, he's gotten into Leppin.
JVL00:31:26Oh, good. That's it. Uh, that's it. Hey, just a brief star war. Interlude. I, I actually spent for the first time in ever 30 minutes on the Oculus doing a video game and it's the star war, Darth Vader video game, and it blew my fucking mind. So Vic, we need to have, I am, I am dead serious. We need a play date because you are going to go nuts for this thing. Uh, wow.
Vic00:31:54Okay. Good. Yeah. Let me, we, we first, we must have done force awakens for the. Substandard. So didn't we? That was a big one.
JVL00:32:03I think. Yeah.
Vic00:32:05I think you talked yourself into believing that you loved it. It was great. I was going to say, did we, did we say it was great at the time or did we convince ourselves or did we think it was bad because of, uh, no, that's not, who is, who was there?
Sonny00:32:15Star Wars and force awakens was fine. It was a fine soft. Oh yeah. It was fine. It was fine. It's it's, it, it, it was, it was setting the table for a series that went totally off the rails. I mean like, yeah, I, like I, I, I have no issues with star wars of force awakens. It is not like high art. It is not a great movie, but it is like a totally fine table setter and they had no idea what to do with the series after that. They just didn't know what to do with it.
JVL00:32:40So I, here's something I find interesting about force awakens though, as so normally movies are either punished or rewarded for the sins or accomplishments of their predecessors. And star wars force awakens was rewarded for the sins of the prequels and it was people hated. They hated the prequels so much that a, an explicit break with them, which is what the force awakens promised with like, look, we're going to give you Han and chewy.
Vic00:33:10Yeah.
JVL00:33:11Look, look, we're going to get, we know we know we were bad dogs. We rubbed our noses in it and we are not going to do that again. The dialogue and an explicit break with it caused audiences to reward them. That is, that's interesting.
Sonny00:33:28Yeah. However, an explicit break with the last Jedi was not rewarded. The box office on Rise of Skywalker. Yeah. Bad. Very, very bad. Yes.
JVL00:33:43And, and the fans really loved me and Johnson's vision.
Sonny00:33:45Well, yeah, exactly. I liked Rose. That sounds right. I thought Rose was compelling. Nobody. Nobody liked Rose.
Vic00:33:51Poor Rose. Stop it. Okay. Sunny, death on the Nile.
Sonny00:33:55How about a big boy review? Death on the Nile. Spoiler alert. Yeah. We're talking about what happens in this 60 year old book, so, uh, slash series of movies. Um, it was a book. Uh, death on the Nile is Kenneth Branagh's sequel to murder on the Orient Express. Like it is, um, like its predecessor, he directed stars in both. What is interesting about this movie is, uh, that it starts with a five minute prologue about the origin story of Hercule Poirot's mustache. Sure. Um, and then we get into the, then we get into the meat of the plot. Uh, and it is, um, I am, I'm curious to get Vic's read on this because it feels like it, the way I describe it in my, the way I described it in my review is that it is kind of fake convoluted. It is not actually that convoluted. It's pretty straightforward. It's about a, uh, it's about a, an, an, a very wealthy heiress who steals the man of another woman. Uh, and that causes a whole bunch of problems when she tries to go on her honeymoon, uh, there are murders and then the murders are solved. And if you can't figure out what happened in the murder, if you can't figure out who the murderer is, like while the murder is actually taking place, you have never seen a murder mystery before. It was like the most obvious.
Vic00:35:19I am not the, I'm not the sort of person who, how dare you, how dare you make these presumptions?
Sonny00:35:24I see. But here's the thing is I'm not, I'm not actually the sort of person who like tries to guess, guess. I'm not the resolution as the movie is happening. And I like when the thing was happening, I was like, Oh, this, so in the, from the very first scene and here's, here's the very first scene of the, like the actual meat of the movie. Uh, it, it takes place in a nightclub where Hercule Poirot has shown up, uh, and is seeing this fabulously wealthy woman, Lynette Ridgeway, who was played by Gal Gadot in this film, um, uh, meets up with one of her friends, uh, who was played by, uh, Emma Mackey, who I've, who I've never seen in anything before. Striking. Jacqueline, Jacqueline, uh, what's, what's Jacqueline Boven, Boven, thank you both. Yeah. Um, uh, and in between these two women is, uh, army hammer. Basically. I'm not, I'm not even gonna remember bother with his name and Simon. Thank you. Uh, and, uh, it is, it is very, very obvious. Well, look, I, I don't want to actually like just jump in and spoil it, but it is very obvious what's going on with that, that throuple that, uh, he, the, the, the, the, the, um, Simon, what is his name? Simon.
JVL00:36:36Simon.
Sonny00:36:37Simon.
JVL00:36:38What's our, do we need his last name? I guess it's gonna drive you crazy, but we don't need it.
Sonny00:36:43It's gonna drive me crazy because it's, it's actually a good character name. Um, but anyway, Simon leaves, uh, Emmy Mackie and goes to Gal Gadot and it, and if you can't, if you can't see the setup here, I don't know how to help you, um, Gal Gadot and army hammer go on their honeymoon. Simon Doyle. Simon Doyle. Thank you. Uh, and Emma Mackie keeps showing up and they eventually are like, all right, we're just gonna rent out this whole luxury line and we're going to go down the Nile. We're going to get out of here. And she's there again, murders, murders take place and all of, all of the sudden it turns into a, uh, what this, what this movie really is, is a movie about class. And it's a movie about, uh, frustrations, um, economic and otherwise between the upper classes. Uh, and, and in that sense, I, I actually really liked this movie. I'm like, I'm being kind of weirdly snarky and dismissive about a movie that I actually liked quite a bit. Um, the things I did not like about it are all technical. They're all technical. I mean like the, the, the opening mustache bit and the closing scene, uh, where he has shaved the mustache spoilers. Uh, I don't, I didn't, I felt totally unnecessary. I didn't care for any of that structurally. It feels just all wrong for the movie, but the, the, the real technical issue with this film is that it looks incredibly cheap. It looks, I don't know.
Vic00:38:04I don't know. Cause they meant to film it in Egypt, but they didn't.
Sonny00:38:07So they, they shot it all on sound stages. They shot it all on sound stages and any, any shot where the exterior is in the background. So like when, for instance, there's this very great shot of Emma Mackey, uh, the Jacqueline character. She's walking up a flight of steps. She's wearing this like smoking hot dress. She's just like, she just. Looks total bombshell, right. And she looks like a femme fatale and like, oh my God, look at, ah, and like all I could see, all I could see was the glaring shadow problems off the CGI background. The lighting was all wrong. The shadows were all wrong. The number of the light was all wrong. Just like everything, everything about it was wrong. And this happens again and again and again in the movie, there's, there are a couple shots, uh, on the car neck where like they, the characters are leaning against the rails coming out into the, into the Nile river and the Nile river itself looks like a PS3 quality cut scene of a river. I mean like it's, it's, it's really bad.
JVL00:39:10When the gun goes under the water and it's dripping down. Yeah, really bad.
Sonny00:39:13Yeah. That's not good. It's really bad. Like the, the car neck itself, like obviously they can't create a working, it would be very, very expensive to create a working replica of a steamship.
Vic00:39:22The BBC did it. Yes.
Sonny00:39:24The BBC did it. Whatever. Point is it, it would be. And that was a good point.
Vic00:39:28That was a good point. I like that guy too.
Sonny00:39:30He's good. They didn't, they didn't do that. They didn't do that here. And so like anytime you see the car neck on the river, it looks super fake and they have like fake sailboats around it. It's just like, it all looks terrible, but when the camera turns around, when the camera turns around and when Kenneth Browning is shooting just the, like the, the actual ship, when he's like tracking along and shooting the actual ship, which is, which is real, these are like exterior sets that have been built. It looks good. It looks good and not fake and not terrible. And I, I, I just like, it was very frustrating to watch because I liked this movie a lot. I really did. I found it entertaining even if, even though it was like totally obvious what was happening in it. Um, and, and there are, there is like such a lack of care with the, with, with the CGI work that it drove me a little bit crazy. So anyway, that's my, my review is I liked it, but it is like weirdly shoddy in very, very grating way.
Vic00:40:24Yeah. I mean, it's a terrible thing when they can try and it, cause it's, they do not achieve the same effect obviously, but you know, the bad, the terrible thing about the, the CGI route is any moment you can say, Hey, we can have a magic hour throughout this whole movie, you know, and just create that color, even though it's not the same color and your eyes pick up on this stuff. And it's just jarring JVL. What did you, what did you, are you, you're a reader of, of Agatha Christie at all, or I think suddenly you're muted.
JVL00:40:54That's cause I was typing as I was looking up something. Um, yeah, I'm a sucker for. British murder mysteries. I'm a sucker for all of the Agatha Christie movies, uh, and books from Ms. Marple through Poirot, uh, uh, devour the BBC productions of these, uh, in 2004, the BBC did a film. I mean, it was for BBC, but it was a, a film in the way that like, you know, the Granada things did Brides that were visited. So it's a big budget for big for TV and you know, it's shot on location in Egypt and they have a riverboat. Yeah. Makes a big difference. And they just, you know, and, but here's the thing, it doesn't look as cinematic and beautiful, but it also looks better and it's like all those things that are bothering you, right? It, you know, you don't have these grand sweeping shots because they don't have drones yet and you know, they're not flying helicopters and stuff, but it looks, it, I just like it better. I, so I love all of these things that the, and death on the Nile is my single favorite.
Sonny00:41:58Favorite of all of them.
JVL00:42:00And so this is, you know, I have within the last year I have both reread the book and rewatched the 2004 David Suchet version. Yeah. I like that actor. And so I, I have so many thoughts, but Victorino, I am curious to know what you think.
Vic00:42:17Well, it's interesting. So the, it did pretty well on the quadrants. Did it? Yeah. The plot is a B plus. Now here's why. On the one hand. A lot of people's names. It's very hard to keep track of these people. I just can't, you know, they're mentioning people's names. I don't know who's, who's Finley and book and this and that it's too crazy, but. Book. Book. Book. But, and the singer and then the, the niece and it's just too many names. However, it helped. It got a boost in the grade because at the end when Poirot was explanation and they reconstruct everything. Oh yes. Thank you. Okay. Now it all makes sense. Okay. That's one thing. It's funny. Sonny about what I thought in terms of following the plot, there was a scene early on besides the one in the club where, um, I get assignment is supposed to be very upset, uh, about something. And I just didn't buy that. He was really upset and, and the thought already crossed my mind that he's still in love with the other woman. And this is a setup for, uh, to get the money from Gal Gadot. And so it was not really a surprise from the jump.
Sonny00:43:24It is just so obviously, I mean, I'll say it's crossed my mind.
Vic00:43:28It could be, if they want it to be interesting, it could be somebody else. But in my mind, I thought, ah, I can see that this is, it could be this. And the other thing is, um, I had not read the book. However, I did see the night as a kid, I was probably eight, but I saw on HBO the 1978
JVL00:43:46with a young Maggie Smith.
Vic00:43:48Yes. Right. Yeah. Totally dishy Maggie Smith, but she was still, no, she's not old. She's like 30. Davis was in that too. It was crazy. And there's that she's old George Kennedy. Yes. And that's the Peter Huston of Hercule Poirot with David Niven. Uh, and it's funny because some of the violence there, I remember it bothered me oddly. It just disturbed me about it. Cause it's like a gunshot to the head and it kind of bothered me in a weird way as a child. Shocking. Um, duration is a B. Uh, I thought it was fine. Uh, action and violence. Again, I give it a B plus. It's not a lot, but it's interesting. It's interesting violence. I mean, it's on a boat. I mean, and get to the money shot here. Yeah. It's a D but it, it's not an F and I'll tell you why it's not an F because Gal Gadot bending over at Abu symbol. Great shot. And good for her.
JVL00:44:36You're never gonna see her. Gal Gadot recites Anthony and Cleopatra and is asking to get ridden from behind.
Vic00:44:42It's fantastic.
JVL00:44:43That didn't. Yeah. No, that's why.
Vic00:44:46You up to an A plus.
Sonny00:44:47Well, because they're not having any sex and there's no nudity, but they're about to. The whole dirty dancing scene.
JVL00:44:53Yeah. That opening dance scene. That didn't.
Sonny00:44:56Yeah. That's a D for you.
Vic00:44:58It's basically everything Emma Mackey is her sex or is there nudity that it's a strict
JVL00:45:02constructionist interpretation. Sonny, wasn't this, it wasn't it like three weeks ago that we said, and he was like, well, I'm going to give it a B plus because it's PG 13. You can't expect more.
Vic00:45:12It's a PG 13 movie. Oh, we mean after we fell, after we fell, they're actually doing it. You're not seeing anybody. Yeah, that's right. And there's no nudity. There's nobody. No nudity in that movie. I imagined it. In my mind there was nudity. I was pretty sure I saw something in the hot tub. The quadrants are alive. There's no hot tub scene like that. There's no hot tub scene here, you know, so no, okay. I liked it better than Murder on the Orient Express. I think Murder on the Orient Express was good. Oh, this is way better than Murder on the Orient Express. I mean, just the book is better. Everything about the story is better than Murder on the Orient.
Sonny00:45:46You disagree, Sonny. I think the Kenneth Branagh Murder on the Orient Express is much better than this.
Vic00:45:52No, I liked this better. I liked the opening. I thought it was good. Although, here's what's interesting. I didn't realize that plastic surgery was that good in the 1920s when they were able to repair his face, because he's missing a chunk of his face.
JVL00:46:06I don't believe that that is canon, actually. I think this is a totally new interpretation of Poirot.
Sonny00:46:12It's all Kenneth Branagh. It's clearly Kenneth Branagh saying, "We need to give Hercule Poirot a story. He needs to be the anchor of this film." I think that's wrong, actually. I think that is a wrong interpretation. I think that is a wrong interpretation of how these movies work. I don't really care about Hercule Poirot, except for the fact that he's weird and fastidious. Whatever works to make him seem like a reasonable person to solve these mysteries, that's fine, but he shouldn't be the story.
JVL00:46:47I believe that what that serves in this is trying to get around a question about Poirot's... This is a movie about Poirot. It's a movie about love, not about class, and the story itself is about love as well. That is dealt with vis-à-vis Poirot very specifically in the book, which is that none of those things have ever touched his life, and he regrets it, but he can't change it because that's just not who he was, and so Kenneth Branagh's answer to that is he loved once and he loved so deeply and then he lost, and that's why he has become someone else. Something new. And you know, I don't mind that. It's not my favorite interpretation of Poirot, but I don't begrudge him it. I would totally choose Jacqueline, by the way. Go ahead. Well, the problem with this version is that it actually centers on Lynette and not Jacqueline, and Jacqueline actually gets very little screen time when she is in fact the main character, and this movie, this interpretation of it takes Lynette Ridgeway and it makes her the lead, and in doing so, it creates a couple problems, the first of which is that it makes Lynette Ridgeway entirely sympathetic. So in this version of the story, Lynette Ridgeway is this. She's a girl boss, and she's together, and the problem is she just fell in love with this guy. Her heart wants what it wants.
Sonny00:48:29I strongly disagree with this read on her, but keep going, keep going.
JVL00:48:32And part of that, I think, is the problem with casting Gal Gadot as Lynette Ridgeway, because Gal Gadot is just winning, and I'm sorry, you look at that smile on her, and she does not look like a bad person. No. She looks like a really good person.
Vic00:48:50I find her very intimidating, so if I choose the smaller one, sorry, I mean the other one.
JVL00:48:57Focusing on Lynette, and it's also because you have Gal Gadot, this big movie star. Emily Blunt in the 2004, played Lynette Ridgeway in 2004, and her portrayal in the writing in that is much, much closer to the book, which is that Lynette Ridgeway scooped Simon up. In this, Simon has made his move on poor Gal Gadot, and she fell in love, and what was she to do? Look, and in the 2004 version of this, Lynette meets Simon and just kind of thinks, "Huh, yeah, I could have that. I'll take it," and takes him from Jacqueline, her friend, just because she can. And then they wind up married, but she's not crazy into it anyway. She's sort of into it, but not crazy into it, and she's kind of a bad person. She treats Poirot like the help. No, she does not go to him like, "Oh, I'm so scared." She goes to him like, "This woman is a horrible annoyance to me. You are like a policeman. I'll pay you whatever you want. Just make it go away." And by not having any of that, and making Lynette the centerpiece here, we miss out on Jacqueline, and Jacqueline is a fabulous character. And here she is sort of depowered and shoved into the background and is not half as interesting as she is in the book, where she herself has no interest in the money. She is the one who is utterly besotted and is the one who has been moved into all of this by love, because she's in love with this guy, Simon, and Simon is no good. Simon is this idiot and this layabout, and he's the one who fucks up the play. He's the one who's like, "No, we can't get married because I gotta have money." And so she comes up with the idea, "Okay, well, this is how we'll get it." And she comes up with a plan that is perfect. And Simon fucks it up, because he decides he's going to improve on her plan. And that is actually totally cut out of this. So in the book, he goes, and after shooting Lynette, he puts his finger in her blood and draws a J on the wall next to her.
Vic00:51:17You know what? I think in the 1978 version, I think that something like that happened.
JVL00:51:22That's because it's in the story, and the idea is that again, so Simon has fucked all this up because he is such an idiot and and and poor Jacqueline then is forced into all, you know, for Jacqueline has to kill the maid then, which he has no interest into. She has to kill in the book. She kills the this woman who's a novelist, not a singer, any unimportant. The point is, Jacqueline is then dragged down this path by her love of Simon, and she is the one who in this in the kind of product version, everybody's in love and everybody's being pulled this way. And that by love. But but in the book, there's only one person who is trapped by love, and it's Jacqueline.
Vic00:52:03I feel like she could have been played by Marion Cotillard. But anyway, yes, she has that look, certainly sunny. Did you see a completely different movie?
Sonny00:52:11I have to I have to I have to strongly disagree with this read on on Lynette on Lynette and Gal Gadot and how how this all plays out, because I agree with you at the beginning of the film. Gal Gadot is like kind of like very standard movie star, like winning, right? Like she's like she's just a winning presence and personality. Everybody wants to be around her and she's but once she is killed, spoiler, once she is killed in the in the film and everybody starts talking about the ways that Lynette has ruined her life, it takes on a much different cast. I think I think it takes on like a much more sinister cast.
JVL00:52:51I think that is only done in some attempt to make it look like these other people plausible murderers.
Sonny00:52:56No. See, I think I just think I think again, I think it is I think this movie is playing to Gal Gadot strengths, which are as kind of almost a clueless ice queen type. And I like I think I think I think she's actually really good in this movie. And I think I feel like you're I feel like your read on Lynette and this is wrong. I mean, like the story that the the the the maid tells about how Lynette like forced her to, you know, like. Bribed her, you know, would be the husband and he took the money and ran. And then Lynette was like, see, he was no good. Like all of like you, you can't I I just I think I think your read on this is wrong. I have to I have to strongly maybe.
JVL00:53:42But there's too much Lynette is the point that the movie gives too much to her and does not spend nearly enough with with Jacqueline, who, again, is is the most interesting character. And it also again, it makes her a weaker character that, you know, in the end, when at the day, you know, when she and Simon are, you know, he's the one who like pulls the gun and is trying to we're going to figure out a way to fight it out and then she kills them both. Well, the way it happens in the book is they're just there when Poirot figures it out. He has no proof of any of this stuff. And Simon, because he's a weakling and an idiot, just confesses like they were even with his freelancing, they're going to get away with it. But Simon confesses and Jacqueline is just like, Oh, my God, he's ruined our lives. And so they, the, the boat docks and they're being led off by the police and she has gone and stolen a gun. And she goes to kiss him as he's being pulled off in a stretcher because his leg is shattered. Uh, and she, she shoots him first and then shoots herself and Poirot is watching the entire thing and he knows it's going to happen. And he lets it happen anyway, because he himself, he, he is very fond of Jacqueline because he has recognized from the very beginning that this is what, you know, this is what she was heading to. This was the path she was on.
Vic00:55:03And there's this, this great moment where one of my favorite lines in all of like Agatha
JVL00:55:09Christie, um, um, when he first is meeting with Jacqueline at the hotel, uh, before they're on the boat and he's gone to her to try to warn her off. And he says to her, bury your dad, Ben was hell, it's just this beautiful phrase of, you know, you gotta move on from this because he thinks that she, that it's real. And then as they're talking, he understands even there that this is not what it seems and that she is being pushed into some very dangerous pathway by passion and love here. And, uh, it's great. It's so great. I, I wish that this version of the movie is fine. I enjoyed it. I did not desert it, but, uh, if you got, if anybody listening to this likes this stuff, go read the book, which is, I think I have the Christie's best, uh, or go watch the 2004 David Suchet version of this, which is absolutely phenomenal.
Sonny00:56:07Is the book better than murder on the Orient express?
JVL00:56:09I think so. It's sexy.
Sonny00:56:12It's, it's, I do not care for that book. I found that murder on the Orient express.
JVL00:56:16Right? Yeah. I don't think that I think it murder in the, I've never understood why murder on the Orient express became the totem it did. I think it's. Because of the solution that everybody did it. Yeah. Like, I think that's, it's just the, who did it? Everybody did it. And so it became just a, you know, a byword for what British mysteries are like, you know, everybody should go to it. It's it's again, and the book is like sexy and cool and it's great.
Vic00:56:48One of the other reasons I thought that it wouldn't be the other suspects is because they spend little time on the other suspects and it's like, you know, Too much time with Lynette. This is again. So I'm like, well, it would be surprising if it was the lawyer, both the book and both
JVL00:57:02the book and the 2004 spend a lot more time with everybody else in the cast and, and the more you spend with those characters, the more plausible you always figure something's going on with Simon and Jacqueline, but you can't figure out what it is or how they've done it. Also army hammers, the one person I think who's miscast in this, um, Russell brand is
Vic00:57:25great. It's so weird to see Russell brand not being Russell brand. I love them.
Sonny00:57:29I feel like everybody's great in this though. I mean, I feel like this is, this is the sort of movie that army hammer is supposed to, this is, this is the sort of movie, movie that army hammer is supposed to play. He is supposed to be a like very attractive, slightly dumb, but prone to flashes of very vicious anger. And I feel like I've always liked army hammer, much more.
JVL00:57:54So Tom Bateman who played Boosh. Sure. He plays book. He was the villain in cold pursuit. He was a villain, but he would have been perfect in this role had he not been cast in murder on the original one. Right. I mean, his level of charm is what is required of the Simon Doyle character book.
Vic00:58:11Yeah. I kind of felt like he might've been a suspect because what are the odds that he presides over to murder mysteries where people are that with a killer is the same room. That's terrible luck. That's suspicious. But the original, not the original, the 1978 death on the Nile, Jacqueline was played by Mia Farrow, but Simon Doyle was played by a Brit B actor named, I'm sure John Pod is now screaming because he'll know what it is. Yes. Yes. It's Simon McCorkendale who was not only in Jaws 3D, he had the grenade inside the Jaws, right? He was in a short lived TV series in the 80s called Manimal where he could change. Oh, Manimal. He was Manimal? He was Manimal and he was Simon Doyle. Wow. Yeah. So there you go. I like that. Okay. Do we have any other thoughts on this?
JVL00:59:13No. Go to Amazon and buy, I think it's nine bucks.
Sonny00:59:19Well, the original, the 1978 one is on Criterion Channel right now, I think. Really?
JVL00:59:25Yes. Yeah. Go get the one with Emily Blunt. Yeah.
Vic00:59:29Emily Blunt is fantastic. I'm a big fan of hers. She's so good. In general. Spirit of the Week, Corrections, Shoutouts, everything.
JVL00:59:37I think our Spirit of the Week is whatever you drank with PJ.
Vic00:59:40Yeah, Oban and McKellen. 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're there. Tell your friends. Until next time.
Sonny01:00:04You know, it is weirdly sad. I don't know. Like fitting is the wrong word, but it is weirdly sad that PJ O'Rourke and Ivan Reitman died in the same week. Ivan Reitman, the director.
Vic01:00:21Really? I missed that.
Sonny01:00:23Ivan Reitman died. He just died? Ivan Reitman. Ivan Reitman died on Super Bowl Sunday. Oh, I totally missed that.
JVL01:00:31I wrote an obituary about that for him.
Sonny01:00:33I'm sorry. I totally missed that. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Ivan Reitman died. The director of Ghostbusters, Stripes, Kindergarten Cop, you know, junior twins. Dave. Dave. I mean, all sorts of great stuff. But he is also of the National Lampoon Comedy Tree. He was a producer on Animal House. And he was in with all those guys. I think he maybe worked on the radio show or something, but he had some tie to the National Lampoon family, which of course PJ also did as the editor of National Lampoon Magazine. And like losing both of those guys in a two-day period is like, it is for me, like for me, it is, you know, Ivan Reitman was one of the first directors whose name I recognize. And was like, when I go to see an Ivan Reitman picture, it's going to be funny and it's going to be like, it's going to, it's going to be, it's going to be an interesting comedy. And you know, PJ was one of the first writers whose name I was like, if I am reading a PJ or work piece, it's going to be, it will be funny, but it will also be, you know, as JVL mentioned, he is not pigeonholing him as a humorist is wrong, but it will be funny in addition to everything else, poignant and trenchant and all that and like losing both of those guys. My two day stretch is like, I had the foundations of my like comic sensibility chopped out from under me all at once. Yeah. I just like, it is, it is, it is a real, it's a real blow. I can't believe you guys didn't see, I missed that.
Vic01:02:12Of course I saw this. Well, it's all right. We can't end on this downer. But I, you know, I also say, you know, who PJ loved talking about was Doug Kenny. And that's another, from that world, now they're all together. I, I was going to say not to end, so I, not so, so we don't edit on the down note, if
JVL01:02:30I may, or no JVL, you have something, but I can say, you know, I'll do it at the top of the Reacher episode because our bonus episode is about Reacher.
Vic01:02:37So you go ahead. Yes. Yes. Very good. Another Poirot with muscles as I call it. Okay. Um, so was I the only one who got very nervous watching on screen and death in the Nile army hammer whenever he would like put his mouth on Gail? No. That's all.
Sonny01:02:57That's all lies. It was like a little fire. I'm sure it's fine.
?01:03:00I'm sure it's fine.
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