#91. 'The Tinder Swindler'
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The main review is The Tinder Swindler (Netflix), the documentary about Israeli con man Shimon Hayut (posing as "Simon Leviev," son of a diamond mogul), who romanced women on Tinder and used cash bilked from each victim to fund lavish dates with the next, eventually swindling roughly $10 million. Sonny reads it as the coda to their "late capitalism" trilogy alongside the Fyre Festival doc, LuLaRoe, and WeWork, and is more sympathetic to the victims, chalking their gullibility up to genuine loneliness; JVL disagrees hard, arguing this is closer to Nightmare Alley — the women were themselves grifting, chasing a billionaire they thought they'd landed, and got played by their own greed, especially the woman who calls a random guy who writes like a six-year-old a soulmate after one three-hour date. Vic, who found the doc's pacing flabby and padded even at 1.5x speed and wished it had let the debunking journalists breathe more, scores it a Quadrant B+ (plot) / D (duration) / D (action-violence, mostly alleged) / F (sex-nudity, despite an extended tangent from the trio speculating about the women's inevitable nudes). The episode opens with a long stretch on JVL's giant $7 Batman-shaped pizza-calzone from Little Caesars, a digression into who pays whom for movie-branded fast-food tie-ins (with detours through Subway sandwich-artist confessions and the old McPherson food court), Sonny gushing over his new Nakiri knife, Vic recapping a rigorous one-pound Ash Wednesday fast that cost him a single pound, and box-office chat speculating (accurately, per Sonny) on how The Batman's three-hour runtime will cap its opening weekend. It closes with Vic introducing the guys to Wordle, its geography spinoff Worldle, and the profane spinoff Lewdle.
From the show notes
No, that's not an image of the Tinder Swindler, it's an image of the greatest culinary concoction ever created. JVL talks The Batman Calzony. Sonny gets a new knife. Vic makes a sacrifice. And the guys talk about the Netflix movie in the title of this post. Nyeh.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00I shared my whole heart with him and then he asked me if I wanted to travel with him on a private jet. I was like, shit. He took me to a five star hotel. He said we had a special connection. It felt like stepping into a movie and then in the middle of the night, he said there was something he wants to tell me. He said he has threats against him. He needs our cash. Twenty thousand dollars. Thirty thousand. One hundred forty thousand dollars. His life depended on me. That's when police tell me. The man I love was never real. Everything's a lie.
Vic00:00:59Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to Sub-Beacon.com. You will 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, what is going on?
JVL00:01:19I had the Batman pizza calzone. Oh, wait a minute. Hold on. Wait a minute. You sent a picture. We talked about this on the show last week.
Vic00:01:28I did not realize it was not just a pizza, but a calzone.
JVL00:01:34No. Well, it's a pizza and two half calzones done in the shape of the bat symbol.
Sonny00:01:39It's amazing looking.
JVL00:01:40And the calzones are stuffed with cheese and a white garlic sauce.
Vic00:01:46Oh, yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for that. Who can say what it is? Salty. Is it so big that they had to put it on a flatbed truck? It's very large. All right. Because, you know, for scale, the part of it was scale.
Sonny00:01:58It was hard to tell. Yeah, it was hard to tell from your from your photo.
Vic00:02:01From your photo. Enormous. It looked like a regular pizza that was just eaten on the sides.
JVL00:02:07But in fact, it was folded. It folded like a fold. Like it's like an origami with dough.
Sonny00:02:12Wow. And this thing is amazing. I honestly. It was amazing. So this was a fat Tuesday dinner for me.
JVL00:02:18Yes. Good. Good for you. Even on a great Tuesday, I could only eat half of it. That's how that's a serious half of the pizza calzone. Question. Yeah.
Sonny00:02:27What's the difference between? One fat Tuesday and another Tuesday. All right. You know what?
Vic00:02:31We've been doing this show. We've had, I don't know, maybe five fat Tuesdays now. And it's tough to explain this.
Sonny00:02:40Anyway, I have an important question. Is that when you eat the king cake? I have an important question for you both.
Vic00:02:45That's pretty good. That's pretty good, Sonny.
JVL00:02:47Who is paying whom for this merchandise tie in? So we have the Batman owned by Warner Brothers. We have Little Caesars owned by whatever owns Little Caesars. I assume it's a small man named Caesar. And and but there's a product. But it's really advertised. Who are these Little Caesars paying Warner's to license it? Or is Warner's paying Little Caesars to have a small fee to advertise?
Vic00:03:21I have to imagine personally that it's got to be Little Caesars doing most of the heavy lifting here. I can't imagine Warner. Warner's is going to get that piece that much of that big piece of the pie, so to speak, from every pizza. So I don't know. I don't know how many pieces are going to be sold.
Sonny00:03:37I presume I would presume that I don't actually I don't know. I've never really thought about this before. But I think in a case like this, Little Caesars has paid Warner Brothers some amount of money or promise. See, it depends on what we mean by paid, because like one thing. That the deal could be is like we will we will buy $5 million worth of television advertisements to advertise the Batman pizza. And that's part of, like, right, ad spend.
JVL00:04:09There you go, right? This is because I in the old days, Victorino, do you remember that man comes at the end of the commercial?
Vic00:04:17They always do.
JVL00:04:18The Batman comes out of the return of the Jedi collector's glasses from McDonald's. I think it was what it could have been. But I mean, like, what do you mean? Like I. Glasses or glasses to drink. No, like mugs.
Vic00:04:30Glasses.
JVL00:04:31It was made of real glass, not made of plastic. I vaguely. And there were four or six of them. There's like the one with Jabba and Princess Leia and the one with the Emperor. And this was the biggest thing in the world. That's right. We were like 11 years old.
Vic00:04:45Yes, I did not collect. I was aware of it, but I did not collect those glasses.
JVL00:04:49And I assume, assume that McDonald's wrote a giant check to George Lucas for those rights. Yeah. Yeah. But the world has changed to such a large degree that with a, you know, like a movie now is just desperate to get people in the theaters. Yeah. And so maybe. Oh yeah.
Sonny00:05:10Uh, Warner Brothers is, you know, either greasing up little Caesars, so to speak, or, uh, or,
JVL00:05:17or it's a, a make good for both of them. Like maybe there's no money changing hands. Maybe they both feel like little Caesars thinks we can sell a couple extra pizza calzones and Warner Brothers.
Sonny00:05:27Oh, I think Warner Brothers, I think Warner Brothers almost certainly got some sort of licensing. I mean, like you, you don't, the competition, especially on something like Batman or Spider-Man or whatever, like there are a limited number of properties that are this popular and will attract this much attention that you, you, you, you, you farm those out.
JVL00:05:49I hear what you're saying, but if that were true, you would think that the Victor would be a more prestigious eatery. Then Little Caesars. Little Caesars.
Sonny00:06:00I don't understand. This is owned by the literal emperor of Rome. What could be more prestigious than this?
JVL00:06:05I think Little Caesars is, is like way down on our food chain, so to speak.
Vic00:06:13You would say below, you would say even today below Pizza Hut.
JVL00:06:17Below Pizza Hut, below Taco Bell, below Burger King, below McDonald's. Pizza Hut is not even what it used to be. Below Papa John's. Yeah. Now I, I, I argued Little Caesars pizza is better than all of theirs. But I'm just saying as a, as a glamor property, right, a prestige, if this is, if the Monopoly Board was all about places that sell food in restaurant site ways, this is the like Mediterranean Baltic.
Vic00:06:40Oh wow. Baltic.
JVL00:06:42Yeah.
Sonny00:06:43Yikes. That's, that's. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I, I, I have a question about like, so did you just walk in and pick one up and take it out?
JVL00:06:51Was it just sitting there waiting for you?
Sonny00:06:52No, you ordered on the app.
JVL00:06:53You ordered on the app. Oh, you have to order it ahead? You ordered on the app.
Sonny00:06:56Well, that used to be the thing with Little Caesars. No. Super best. Is that you would go in there and you get the, you, you pay, throw it, you throw five, you ball up like a little $5 bill and you throw it at the guy at the, behind the cashier. And you got a pizza. As hard as you can. Yeah. Uh, and if you hit him on the forehead, you get to take the pizza and you, and you. Two pizzas. It's always two pizzas. It was two pizzas.
Vic00:07:16You treat them like this is a strip club.
Sonny00:07:17That's right. I don't know, but, but I thought that was the whole, I thought that was the whole point of Little Caesars.
JVL00:07:22Yeah. You order on the, it's so great. So you order on the app and then you walk inside, you don't even have to talk to a human being because they've got this large vertical oven and you, uh, your app has either has a QR code that you scan and this oven has like 15 little doors on it. So you can't get somebody else's. Your door opens and your pizzas are waiting for you. You rechanged, you grab.
Sonny00:07:46Are they made to order? Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Like you, you, you put the, you order. Well, I look, these are all questions I have because I don't go to trash pizza places like this. All right. Set up like dominoes, uh, or these are so much better than CC's CC's pizza buffet.
JVL00:08:06Have you guys ever been to a CC?
Sonny00:08:08No, I have been to a CC once I went, I went once, uh, they're all over man. It's chain. It's like, it's a, it's a pizza buffet chain pizza. It's the worst pizza you've ever had, but there's a million pounds of it just there for the taking.
Vic00:08:25So I mean, look, sometimes it's like $6.
Sonny00:08:27It's like, it's like the cheapest, it's, it's not like the Bacchanal buffet that we talked about on the book.
Vic00:08:32The reverse, which is the reverse 70 bucks.
Sonny00:08:35It's like, it's the cheapest. It's like the cheapest piece of shit pizza that you've ever had in your life. But there is just, there are, there is like every, every combination of toppings you would want. And like there are dessert pizzas and it's like you, you get the whole family in there. It's like 20 bucks.
Vic00:08:51Oh, the whole, well, that's good for the, it's a family value. There are certain days I will admit there are certain days where in my mind I want quality, excuse me, I want quantity over quality. It's just the way I feel like I say, I just, I need to be satisfied by volume more than taste. You want to be filled up. I want to be filled up. I'm going to Subway. You know? Acreage. Yes. Acreage. So very nice. Subway, but the problem with Subway is that it's not actually filling though.
Sonny00:09:22A foot long sub at Subway is less filling than like a, uh, eight or 10 inch sub from Quiznos.
Vic00:09:27Ah, well, Quiznos is, Quiznos has more girth. It's water sub. But no, it's really not about the length, Sonny. It's about the girth. Yeah, no, it is. It is. And it's sort of like, but you know what it is though? I really stuff it. I really, I really just shove it in there. Yeah, no, I load it in as much as possible.
JVL00:09:48It's heavy. Do you need an appetizer to get you sort of ready for it?
Vic00:09:52No, no, you know, I just like load it all up with as many toppings as possible and then that's it. I'm not, I'm not necessarily happy, but I'm full.
Sonny00:09:59All right. I want to know, I want to know what your Subway order is. Okay. What is your Subway? You walk into a Subway.
Vic00:10:06You walk into a Subway. I haven't been to a Subway. You walk into a Subway.
Sonny00:10:09I haven't been to a Subway in years, by the way, because there's not one near me anymore. You walk into a Subway and it's, it's Fat Tuesday, whatever that means. And so you're, you're hungry apparently. What is that?
Vic00:10:16What does that meal look like? Okay, I'm going to say, give me a foot long Italian BMT. And I want the mayo as well as the Italian oil and dressing, you know, the shredded lettuce, the tomato, pickles, black olives, oregano, maybe some extra meat. Because I want... You want double meat. I want double meat. Is that a thing? I can't remember. I'm getting confused. That might be just a pot bellies, but no. Okay. Double meat. And yeah, that should do the trick. And, and a bag of chips.
Sonny00:10:44Onions?
Vic00:10:45Oh yeah. Yeah. Onions. Yeah. You know what I do? I told this to our friend Bonnie Benwick once where I said, I can't remember. Maybe I mentioned it on the show where I told her sometimes I would make it my goal to try to replicate an actual Jersey sub at a Subway. Like try to find one that is the closest thing to an actual Subway, a real sub that you would get in New Jersey. JVL knows what I'm talking about. And she just looked at me. She said, that's the saddest thing she's ever heard.
JVL00:11:11But you know what?
Sonny00:11:12Disgusting. It's all disgusting. What's the difference between a New Jersey sub and a sub from literally anywhere else?
Vic00:11:17No, no, no. It's just not the same. It's just not.
JVL00:11:20Well, the first thing is that everything that they serve you at Subway is actually turkey.
Vic00:11:24Oh yeah. There's a lot of... It's actually, I looked into this and it's like the, uh, not the BMT, but they had this other special and it was like with Bologna ham, turkey. It's all turkey. It's all turkey.
JVL00:11:35Yeah. So if I can, if I can just say, let me give you an analogy. Subway is to meet what MDF is to wood, MDF manufactured, uh, particle board, right? Particle board. When you're the stuff you buy from Ikea. Ah, okay. Yes. That part of where it's all just like wood shavings pressed together with glue to make it look like wood. And yeah, that's, that's the version of what Subway is.
Vic00:12:01And the funny thing is the bread smells good. You walk in it. Oh my gosh. It's bacon. The fresh bread. The bread does smell good. Oh, for example, they also have these new, again, I haven't been to a Subway in some time now because there's not one near my work anymore. But, uh, you know, people are, you know, like you see these commercials with these, uh, professional athletes and they're bragging about their, you know, Subway sandwiches with like the turkey bacon and avocado. I would not get the avocado. Okay. From Subway. Cause it's probably get dark, dark green. And here's my one thought on Subway and then I'm going to move on, which is, uh, I, our friend John McCormick, he's a former Subway, a sandwich artist, sandwich artist. I said to him, I could never have that job because I could not be able to resist the temptation of working there. And then some girl would say, I'd like the foot long and I'd say, I bet you do. And then I get fired just like that. Can't do it. It was just, I couldn't resist. So anyway,
Sonny00:12:55And yet, and yet you lasted 20 years at a prestigious magazine. Couldn't last the day at Subway.
Vic00:13:03Not last the day at Subway. Harass. You can do a different kind of harassment. You want the extra meat? Yeah. So there's no way that I could, I could, you know,
Sonny00:13:11I haven't, I haven't been to a Subway in, uh, I haven't been to a Subway in at least two years.
JVL00:13:16I haven't eaten from a Subway ever.
Sonny00:13:17Three years. Ever?
JVL00:13:19Ever. Disgusting.
Vic00:13:21Disgusting. How do you know it's disgusting if you haven't had it?
JVL00:13:23Cause I would go with you when you were getting Subway. Yeah. I'd walk in there with you. Remember, do you remember the subterranean food court Victorino? The subterranean?
Vic00:13:31Oh yes. Yes.
JVL00:13:33Of course. At McPherson?
Vic00:13:35The underground food court at McPherson. Oh right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
JVL00:13:40Yeah. The other. You could, there was a.
Sonny00:13:43Or was that at McPherson or was that Farragut? Yes.
JVL00:13:45At the basement of Farragut North. There was the world's worst McDonald's. Yes. Literally the worst McDonald's in the entire world. Can you imagine what that was like in the kitchen probably? Or what was going on? And the Subway and, and the underground sharing tunnels with the, with the Subway. With the Subway. Literally. The Subway sharing tunnels with the actual Subway.
Sonny00:13:57And there was a, and there was a, there was one of those food troughs. Yes. One of those like hot buffets. Oh yeah. That had like a, it had a sushi stand.
Vic00:14:04Yes. I, I actually got Chinese food from that, from the, from that basement.
Sonny00:14:08Every once in a while, every once in a while I would get the, like a pound of Chinese food for $12 or whatever.
Vic00:14:12A pound.
Sonny00:14:13It was. Well that's how you measure it. It was a pound. It was a pound. It's like, I would like, it's like, I'm going to have a little bit of this, a little bit of this. Oh, one pound of food. Here we go. $12.
Vic00:14:22Okay.
?00:14:23All right.
Vic00:14:23That was a lovely trip down memory lane that began with the Batman pizza.
Sonny00:14:27Wait, wait, how was, so how was the Batman pizza?
Vic00:14:30Delicious.
Sonny00:14:31How was it? Delicious. What about the calzone?
JVL00:14:34Was it everything you hoped it would be? You know, the pizza part, slightly better than the calzone part. The calzone part had a little more dough than I, I would like it to have. I'd like my calzone, the dough to be a little, a little, maybe some of the dough, not all the way cooked through. Hard to say.
Vic00:14:49Well, that was good. You know, it takes work. And also what do they stuff it with? Was it with a ham? Ham and, uh, cheese and mushrooms.
JVL00:14:56I went all cheese. Oh. All cheese and my garlic and the garlic white sauce. You can, you can put in pepperoni there's, there's, there's all different, but I mean, the point is this enormous thing is $7.
Sonny00:15:09Is that, is that, is that, did it, could it feed the whole family? Was it enough for the whole family?
JVL00:15:15Well, no, because I have, I was the only one eating because nobody else would eat it except for me and flash and flash. Can no longer be fed by normal flash now eats elephant portions. We're at the phase of life where for flash dinner begins at 5:00 PM and basically ends when we force him to go to bed at 9:30. Oh man. He just eats the whole time. I miss those days.
Vic00:15:39Yeah. Yeah. Actually. I mean, I still live those days, but I miss those days when I was able to actually metabolize like that. Yeah.
JVL00:15:46That's very impressive.
Vic00:15:47Anyway. Uh. What are you boys up to? Yeah.
Sonny00:15:51Uh, Sonny, what's going on with you? Can we do some knife talk for a second knife, some knives, some knives, some kitchen knife
JVL00:15:56talk?
Sonny00:15:57Oh yeah. Sure. Sure. Uh, I have a, I have a question for Vic. Vic, have you ever used a Nakiri knife before?
Vic00:16:02No, but I've been always, I've always, I've always been fascinated by Japanese knives. I have German knives. Right. Of course. We do. Wusthof Wusthof from Zollingen, uh, Germany, uh, and, uh, but I've always been interested in shun. Now, what is this one?
Sonny00:16:24Tell me about this one. Well, I, I have, I have Henkel knives, which I, yeah, yeah.
Vic00:16:28Also German.
Sonny00:16:29Yeah. But so there's a, there's a Henkel, uh, Henkel makes a, uh, Nakiri knife and a Nakiri knife is basically, have you ever used a Santoku knife?
Vic00:16:38Yeah.
Sonny00:16:39Yeah. Santoku I have. So like, so like a Santoku knife, imagine a Santoku knife, except it is shaped more like a meat cleaver.
Vic00:16:45Oh, sure.
Sonny00:16:46So it's like, it's like rectangular.
Vic00:16:47Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:16:48Um, and it's like, it's what it is. Those are great. It's, it's, it's a knife for. You want, you want to use it to bring straight chop down like that, right?
JVL00:16:56It's not like, it's not like, so I, I just got it yesterday.
Sonny00:17:00I used it for the first time today to dice an onion and I diced that onion in like 10 seconds. It was amazing.
Vic00:17:07It was the most amazing knife. It's also terrifying.
Sonny00:17:09But it was, it was definitely like it was, it was, it is, it is manufactured sharp. So it is like, like if, if I, if I miss by a little bit, gonna have to go to the hospital.
Vic00:17:21Yeah. That's just always watch where your fingers are.
Sonny00:17:25But I have to tell you, man, I was, I, I chopped, I diced this onion and again, like, like tense, I just made my little, my little boom, boom, and then boom, boom, boom. It was amazing. I don't know how I've ever lived without this Nikiri knife.
Vic00:17:37Yeah. No, I just think I use the Santoku for almost everything, almost everything versus the chef's knife.
Sonny00:17:44I just prefer it. I prefer, I, before, before this, I prefer the chef's knife. It was just, it's easier to like, I. There's something about the Santoku knife, which I like and, and use, but it is my second, it's my secondary knife. It's the knife I use if my chef's knife.
Vic00:17:57Yeah. Is dirty. What? Well, yeah. And there's nothing worse than, there's nothing more dangerous than a dull knife because that's where most accidents happen. But I would say what fascinates me by the Shun knife, and I don't know if your Nikiri, Nikiri knife is like this, is those Japanese, those Shun knives, it's all forged from the same like metal. There's no separate handle and then they put the blade into it. It's all one. Yeah.
Sonny00:18:19And the way. These, the Henkel knives are all forged and solid, solid, I guess. I don't, I'm not a knife.
JVL00:18:26Do you own non-solid forged knives Victorino?
Sonny00:18:29Yeah.
Vic00:18:30I don't understand like. No. You know what I mean? The where it's all one, like it's not a separate handle. So like.
Sonny00:18:36Oh, you mean there it's like metal. Yeah. Yeah.
Vic00:18:39Yeah. Yeah. Metal all the way. The entire thing is metal. Even the handle's metal. It's not like a wood thing that's put around, you know, a handle.
Sonny00:18:45Gotcha. Gotcha. It's not a separate handle that's put. No, I don't, I don't have that. That's not, that's not. I was gonna say Henkel knives.
Vic00:18:50On the side. Are like traditional knives. Yeah. But those Japanese knives. Yeah. No, no, I, I. It's like one piece of steel.
Sonny00:18:57Those are, those are very stylish. Yeah. Cut like that. I wish I, like, I wish I was, I, I, I wish I was more of a knife snob. Mm-hmm. I feel like knife snobbery is a thing I could get into. Oh, sure. With like a, with like one of those great like metal magnet bands that you like. Oh, we have.
JVL00:19:12Yeah. That they like. We have those. You have those. We keep our knives on a magnet band on the wall.
Vic00:19:17Yeah. I like, I like that.
JVL00:19:19Uh, you know, so we foolishly, these are all things we got when we got married, you know, they were. Of course. Wedding gifts. Thank you. And we have a bunch of the, the mid range Henkels. Mm-hmm. But we got 'em as a set and I, I now realize the truth is you should never buy things at a set. You just buy.
Vic00:19:36The ones that you need. Knives as pieces. Yeah.
JVL00:19:39Yeah. And. With the exception of steak knives. We took a class at, uh, what, what's the frou, frou. William Sonoma. French. No, no. Um, the, anyway, there's, there's a French, uh, French cooking class anyway, and at the, at the cooking class, uh, they let us use this high end Miabi and it was so amazing that of course I walked out of there with it.
Vic00:20:04Yeah. That's the whole point, right? Mission accomplished.
JVL00:20:07And this thing, like when you look at the, the edge of the blade, you can see where the steel was cold dipped and you could see the, oh, yeah, I, I swear to God that when I take this thing off of the magnetic rack, you can hear it sing, sing like a, like a samurai sword. Yeah. Like a Hattori Hanzo. When you take the Hattori Hanzo, it's like that. It's amazing. And, uh, and now if I ever used a Nakiri knife, no, I don't, I don't cook. I don't cook. I don't do any of those things.
Sonny00:20:36I mean, this is the thing is I actually, I actually cut a lot of vegetables. I like, I, I spend a lot of time dicing vegetables and like, I am, I am now, I have like, have I, I, for the re for the last, like. For the last like five hours, I've been wondering like how I lived for the last two years without this.
Vic00:20:53What I would like is actually to sharpen my knives. It's one thing to eat. Yeah. You know, like have an evener, you know what I mean? But to actually like go to a place where they do it because, you know, I mean, it's a whole separate thing. Evening a knife, you know, with using a whetstone or whatever is much different than actually sharpening it, which is a whole other thing.
JVL00:21:08Won't they do that for you at Sur La Table? Yeah. Yeah. Same thing. William Sonoma does too.
Vic00:21:14Drop off your knives. Yes. Five bucks a knife. Yeah. Yeah. Drop it off. Like, I don't know how long it would take, but then I'd be like, that would be the night that I need that knife or something. So I just haven't gotten around to doing that. Yeah. I guess I should. Well, good for you, Sonny. Yeah. Victorino, how are you, buddy? I'm doing fine. Happy. Happy Lent to you, JVL. Did you give up something?
JVL00:21:32I did. I just don't want to talk about it. Oh.
Vic00:21:35How about you? What did you give up? The usual. What I've been giving up for the last three years. Gluttony? No. Don't be insane. That'd be like I'm giving up breathing. Are you going to reduce your gluttony for lunch?
JVL00:21:45Oh, yeah. You don't have to give it up.
Vic00:21:47You don't have to give it up. You could just RG it. Somebody mentioned RG on Twitter. I could do that. But I did have two pieces of leftover Popeye's chicken for lunch that probably was not in the spirit of RG. No, no. They were leftovers, right? They were leftover.
JVL00:22:00So you were just trying to not have it be a sin of let it go to waste.
Vic00:22:03Well, that's one of my big things. I would be, if anything, I'm like, I would be like the patron saint of wastage. But no, civilization. Oh, you've done that before. I do that. But then that means that I have all this extra time that I have to spend either reading, cleaning or with my family. In that order, by the way.
JVL00:22:24You see? It's very hard. But you need to watch Kate play Civilization. Yeah. And that's pretty hot. That's right.
Vic00:22:31She hasn't played in a while. You just sit behind her while she's... You know what? It drives me crazy.
JVL00:22:36Honey, what are you doing? The eyes forward, Kate. Eyes. Kate, you keep your eyes on the screen. Don't turn around.
Vic00:22:41It drives me crazy.
?00:22:42It drives me crazy.
Vic00:22:43It drives me crazy. I can't watch her play because it's just not doing what I do. I will say this. I managed, yesterday being Ash Wednesday, to do basically a full-fledged fast, which is I skipped breakfast. I kind of skipped lunch. I just snacked on these expired goldfish and some emerald nuts, and then I had dinner. And then the next morning, I ran... This morning. I ran five miles. How much... You know how much weight I lost? One pound. That was... A pound in two days. That's crazy. No. It's terrible. On the BMI chart, I'm like 10 pounds overweight.
?00:23:24That's right.
JVL00:23:25Yeah.
Vic00:23:26Well, you know what? That's fucking fantastic. This is like... Oh.
JVL00:23:30Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. This is like Anna Kendrick bragging about how she isn't very pretty.
Vic00:23:34Oh. I'm so touched. Not to get... Yeah. Okay. Fine. I won't get into any... I don't know. I'm off the charts. Speaking of which, over the weekend, Uncharted remained at the top of the spot, top spot at the box office with $23 million, followed by Dog with $10.2 million, not to be confused with Power of the Dog.
Sonny00:23:54Different movie.
Vic00:23:55And Sam Elliott. And in third place, Spider- No Way Home with $5.8 million. It's the same three movies in the same position from last week. What is happening here? Box office thoughts.
Sonny00:24:06Well, nobody released anything for like, you know, don't worry. Batman is gonna come out and we'll talk about that next week. But then nobody's releasing anything for a month after that. It's not till like Morbius.
JVL00:24:19So Sonny, you were you nailed Spider-Man almost exactly. It's true. Tell me about the Batman's opening weekend.
Vic00:24:30Oh, all right.
Sonny00:24:32On the record, I so I've been I've been I've been eyeballing it. I've been eyeballing it by looking at the show times. And here. Here is an interesting little tidbit. When Spider-Man No Way Home came out, virtually every showing at my local draft house, my local Alamo draft house sold out. Virtually every showing. And if if it didn't sell out, there were like one or two seats that was all weekend. This weekend for the Batman, I didn't check. I didn't check right before the show, but I did check earlier in the day. No sellouts yet. So I think it's not it's not going to do. It's not going to do anywhere near Spider-Man No Way Home, but Spider-Man No Way Home open to what? Two hundred fifty million dollars. So like it's not you know, it's no shame not to open to that. If I had to guess if I had to if I had to eyeball it, I was thinking it was going to do 150. I think it's probably going to do a little worse than that. Like I'm thinking 130. So what? Somewhere between 130 and 140. Let's say that would be my that's my official estimate. All right. I might be I might be lowballing JVL, what do you think?
JVL00:25:45No idea. I I look at it and I really think to myself, does anybody want to see this movie? That's my question. With Robert Pattinson and Zoe Kravitz, who are neither of whom are household names and everything about the trailer looks dark and unappealing on three hours long. It's three hours. Oh, had there been real movies? In theaters like a normal thing, I might have said, I'll take the under on that. But I do wonder if there is just some like, you know, you just want to go out like I'd like to go see a movie. Yeah, people.
Sonny00:26:23This is the only movie that's been released in three weeks. People want to go see a movie. People want to go see a movie. And I mean, look, this is the thing with basically every new release is that everything is getting everything is doing every every all of these big movies are doing slightly better than you might think, just because there's nothing else out. I mean, even Uncharted, I think probably overperformed a little bit compared to what people thought it was going to do. I don't know. I mean, look again, my my my gut sense on this is that it's going to do in the in the one thirty to one forty. And I just I and part of that is, look, there are two other things to consider here. Thing the first is that because it is three hours long, you only get two show times per night. You get a 7:00 p.m. show and a 10:00 p.m. show. But it's on every screen. It's in it's on like 40 and forty one hundred or forty four hundred screens or some some insane number. So it's it's on all the screens and there's nothing else new. There hasn't been anything new in two weeks. And really, there hasn't been anything people have been like desperate to see since Spider-Man,
JVL00:27:26which is months ago. Yeah, I'm Victorino. You're going to have to use the run P app for this. So the hours should have to sit on the hours and you're going to have to do run.
Sonny00:27:37P. I want to. I want to. It's a bonus episode. Remind me to ask this. But when we talk about the Godfather, I want to know when Vick's run P moment was. Well, OK, I won't. We'll save it. Save it.
JVL00:27:49Yeah.
Sonny00:27:50Save it. Save it for the show. Save it for the bonus. Save it for the bonus.
JVL00:27:54Save it for the bonus. Stop. Stop. Don't spoil it.
Sonny00:27:58All right. So we'll get to that. But I don't know. I mean, I feel like I'm probably underselling it here and it'll do one seventy five or something. But like my my gut feels low. It feels it feels it feels like. It feels like it feels under the Dark Knight.
Vic00:28:12Yeah.
JVL00:28:13I mean, I don't know.
Vic00:28:15Yeah. People want to go out. But I don't know how many percent I got to see the Batman again. And have you seen it yet, Sonny? You haven't seen it yet. I have. You have. OK. Well, don't tell us. But I mean, I hope we don't have to go through the whole origin story again. As JVL asked.
Sonny00:28:30Have you seen Batman Begins, Vick?
Vic00:28:32Yeah. Sure.
Sonny00:28:34Oh, really?
Vic00:28:35It's that again. I like that. Oh, my gosh.
Sonny00:28:38It's nothing. It's not exactly the same. It's different. But it's Liam Neeson back? Yes.
JVL00:28:43Oh, he's not. Oh, come on.
Sonny00:28:45OK. Gary Oldman replaces Jeffrey Wright as Commissioner Gordon halfway through.
JVL00:28:50Do we need Paul Dano to like do we need do we need any of these? This is the weirdest casting. Yes. Like, I, I'm sorry, I I'm not excited for this.
Sonny00:29:03You're very down on this.
JVL00:29:04This thing was on the Max. I would 100 percent just watch it at home on the Max. Going to a theater. Yeah, I agree. And I want to go to a theater. I want to go to a movie theater and see movies. And this I just look at it and I can tell it's going to it's my expectations are very low.
Vic00:29:22Who directed this?
Sonny00:29:25Matt Reeves, who did the two most recent Planet of the Apes movies.
Vic00:29:29Oh, right. Yeah, sure.
Sonny00:29:31Was it? And I think he did Cloverfield. OK. He was the guy who directed Cloverfield.
JVL00:29:35Remember Cloverfield? Sure. Wasn't there a? Wasn't there a Batman movie that fell apart because the guy divorced Rachel Weisz, right? That the director who director was married to Rachel Weisz and she left him for Daniel
Sonny00:29:55Craig. Wow. Is this before Batman Begins?
JVL00:29:59No, post. I feel like he had had a Batman in development day post the Nolan Batman thing. I'll effort.
Vic00:30:06Anyway, you guys talk. Hey, you had some concern over another promo for Batman, not a pizza, but rather for a popcorn.
?00:30:13Oh, yeah.
Sonny00:30:14Well, you got to order this. There's a there's a there's a we all I mean, should we save this for the for the Batman episode? Oh, yeah. No, no, no. You're going to get it right.
JVL00:30:26You're going to go to an AMC and get the Batman head.
Sonny00:30:27The Batman had popcorn. Do you get it at the theater?
Vic00:30:30Darren Aronofsky. Darren Aronofsky.
Sonny00:30:32There there was at one point a Darren Aronofsky Batman. There was there was a Darren Aronofsky. Darren Aronofsky Batman year one script that would that had like made the rounds. But I'm pretty sure that was before Nolan. I'm pretty sure that was like before Christopher Nolan. OK.
JVL00:30:47Oh, you are right. You are right.
Sonny00:30:50Victorino. I'm sorry.
JVL00:30:52Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:30:54OK. So we're not going to talk about the Batman head. Let's talk about the Batman head tomorrow. All right.
Vic00:30:58All right. Next week. Next week. I'm just telling you, it doesn't look like it's it's worth the money. I bet you it's not. It's not as deep in terms of how much popcorn you could fit in the head in my not sure how
Sonny00:31:05much you can jam into the mouth. No, no. That's right.
JVL00:31:09The Batman. Hermione Granger had tie in, though, for the for the Harry Potter anniversary was there
Vic00:31:15in a Harry Potter and isn't there going to be a Harry Potter anniversary re airing and they can tie in like it's made by real doll. It's a it's a popcorn holder made by real dolls within Israel's home. Is that a company made it from is that a made in Japan company?
Sonny00:31:31Probably a bunch of perverts over there. The. Yes. The. No, no, no. What I'm what I'm thinking of is I want the Temple of the Doom, the monkey of the monkey brain. I want the monkey brain.
JVL00:31:44No, no.
Sonny00:31:45I'm telling you, you've got like get like jelly bellies.
JVL00:31:46It looked it looked like just say what it is because people don't know what we're talking about.
Sonny00:31:50It's so they're literally AMC is advertising. It's like twenty seven dollars or something. And it's it's it's a large popcorn inside a bucket that is shaped like a a Batman mask like cowl. You know, the Batman cowl. And the the the funniest thing about it, from my perspective anyway, is that they call it the Batman popcorn vessel, which is like such a it sounds like an urn that you buy at a at a discount. That's a funeral parlor that is like how it's the most affordable vessel on the on the the the list.
Vic00:32:32I don't know if you ask me twenty seven dollars for a popcorn container sounds like a real rip off. Speaking of which, this week we're discussing Tinder swindler on Netflix, a documentary. Sonny, this was your idea. How about a big boy review?
Sonny00:32:47I wouldn't say it was my idea. I was just throwing out an option for something we could watch at home. OK, so don't don't I'm all for watching at home. No, I in lieu of doing a big boy review, I just want to read I want to read the plot and background section of Wikipedia. Wikipedia, because it like it gets at both the like banality and absurdity of this whole thing fairly well. All right. An Israeli man born Shimon Hayut traveled around Europe, presenting himself as the son of Russian Israeli diamond mogul Lev Lavev. He used the dating app Tinder to contact women as Simone Lavev and trick them into lending him money that he never repaid. He would charm women with lavish gifts and take them to dinners on private jets using money. The other women he previously conned. He it's basically so I'm sorry, I'm hopping out of the I'm hopping out of the summary for a second. Imagine like a pyramid scheme, but for dating where you like scam women and use that money to scam more women and you just live high on the hog the whole way down. All right. Anyway, he would later pretend he was being targeted by his quote enemies and quote often sending the same messages and images to each woman, indicating that he had been attacked with a knife. His bodyguard had saved them and he was hurt. He then asked the victims to help him financially due to the breach of security, allegedly hindering his use of credit cards and bank accounts. The women would often take out bank loans and new credit cards in order to help. He would then use the money gained through the deception to lure new victims while essentially operating a Ponzi scheme. Later he would pretend to repay his victims by sending forged documents showing fake bank transfers and then break off contact. He would ghost them. It's estimated. He swindled $10 million from people around the globe. Now look, that is like the bare bones explanation of what this movie is actually about. What it really is about is human loneliness and the fact that all of these women are so pathetic and desperate for attraction and so lost and bereft in the world of online dating that they will literally fall in love with a guy over Tinder, have sex with him, and then when he starts asking them for tens of thousands of dollars, take out bank loans and send him the money because they're so desperate for connection. I watched this with my wife, and our main takeaway from this was we could never ever get divorced because dating, the worst thing ever. It was bad before. For who? And now it is.
JVL00:35:25Dating is the worst thing ever.
Sonny00:35:27For who, Sonny? Either way. Either way.
Vic00:35:31It depends on your MO.
Sonny00:35:34Think about how much of your soul you have to give away to successfully pull off the Simone Levin. I could do it. Sonny. I could do it. Goodness. I mean, I'm not saying I couldn't scam women out of tens of millions of dollars.
Vic00:35:45Well, you'd have to be like a shark. You're constantly moving. On private jets.
Sonny00:35:49You're constantly moving. I'd be showing them my Nikiri knife. I'd be like, "Look, a poor person wouldn't have a knife like this." But I wouldn't want to because it would be really, really depressing. Anyway, the whole thing is wonderful, and one last note from the Wikipedia, this is the last entry. In late February 2022, LeVevre launched an NFT collection and merchandise with images seen and quotes heard from the film. So it's the perfect encapsulation of all of the sad fakery that is online media and personal dating in the modern world. When I did, when I sold it to, when I described it for people on the Patreon, I said, "This is, this is basically like a coda to our late capitalism trilogy, the Firefest doc, the LuLaRoe show." Oh, WeWork. The WeWork, the WeWork show. But JVL, you had a different comparison.
Vic00:36:52I will say this, hold on before JVL goes in. I started watching this and midway through, even for somebody like me who's fairly sympathetic to, you know. To what? Stupid people? Sympathetic to what, Vic? Say it. And all I thought was, man, this movie's really gonna bring out the best in JVL. Okay, JVL, go.
JVL00:37:16This is not in the same vein as LuLaRoe, WeWork and Firefestival. This is Nightmare Alley. This is a movie about grifters grifting other grifters because the women in this movie think pulling something over on the world, they think, oh, look at this. I got me a super rich guy to take care of me.
Vic00:37:44Okay, hold on, I see Sonny's face and I see Sonny's face and every single person they're just looking for love and they think that they hit the jackpot.
JVL00:37:57This is the main character in this is what's her name? Celia? Cecilia? Yeah. So she is a grown ass woman who talks about the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast as both an aspirational story and a life handbook.
Vic00:38:16It's real. This is real.
JVL00:38:18She says that what she really wants most in the world is true love. And so she's been on Tinder for nine years.
Sonny00:38:25Yeah, she loves it.
JVL00:38:27She loves it. I haven't come across her yet. This woman is again. Thinks that she has hit the jackpot with Simon and she jumps into bed with him because she thinks he's rich. I I'm sorry if Simon presented as a guy who worked over at Intertrode and was making sixty K a year. Was she going to hop in bed with him on day one? I kind of doubt it. And then at the end of the movie, they're like, you know, are you back on Tinder? And she's like, oh, yeah, I was back on Tinder like the week after. This is the I'm sorry, sweetheart. You're the geek now. You're the show. Wow. Too bad. Wow. You thought you were going to scam this guy into it. You thought you were going to scam this guy into settling down and marrying you. And now you're the one in the geek show. Boom.
Vic00:39:16I will say if I were if it was role reversal, if I met a woman who was like a jet setter and and wind me and dined me, yeah, I would I would probably on the first date. Yeah, that's all. My credit card. Go crazy. I guess. I don't know. Sonny, you feel like you want a rebuttal.
Sonny00:39:39Well, no, but but I think it's I just think it's again, like set aside, set aside JBL distaste for these women, which I share largely. I mean, they seem like they're not sympathetic, terrible and annoying. Like it's not it's not that they're not sympathetic. It's just that they're they're like they're so pathetic. Really, I found I found them to be seem to be they seem to have been doing quite
JVL00:40:03well in life prior to this guy. I mean, these women strike you as being especially high on the cognitive scale. Did do you look at them and think, yes, this looks like the type of intellect which is kind of a totally promising professional career? I don't. I feel like that he was specifically targeting these Scandinavian women.
Vic00:40:26Do they have something in common? Because there is this gullibility thing about these these what is is one finish and the Swedish of like, oh, yeah, there's a pattern here.
JVL00:40:36There's a. No, Norway. It's Norwegian. Norwegian. And the other two are. The other two are from the Netherlands. Dutch. Belgian.
Sonny00:40:44Yes. The last one. The third one is Dutch. I can't remember.
JVL00:40:48I watched this like three weeks ago. So but also I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We get we get verbatim transcripts of what messages to them. We get the audio of voicemails that he leaves them. We get the picture of the letter that he gives the other one, which looks like it was written by a six year old. Yes. Yes. Very. And if if you if you are listening, this guy does not present as a master of the universe. To look at this guy and think to yourself, yeah, no, no, this guy looks like he's worth a couple of billion dollars, requires an unbelievable level of the suspension. Disbelief. And it's because they wanted to play. They were they were grifters who grifted themselves. Let me let me say this.
Vic00:41:41He did, you know, lavish them with, you know, first of all, fancy hotels, restaurants, caviar, the private jets, the fancy cars. And so I can that I would be like, wow, this guy really has a lot of money. The part that would set me off is he just gives off a really shady vibe. So, yeah, he might. He might have these things like the driving around in whatever car there, you know, in the fancy cars and in the caviar and the fancy hotels and whatever else. But just clearly shady, sunny.
Sonny00:42:15The guy the guy is like I mentioned this somebody and I want to be I want to be very careful how I put this. But he he is like a walking, talking anti-Semitic stereotype. Like if you had you had a character like this in a movie, like a shady, lying. Israeli who is like targeting, you know, beautiful blond Scandinavian women. People would be like, this movie is anti-Semitic. This is a this is this movie is filled with anti-Semitic tropes and I don't want any part of it. But because it's real life, you just have to be like, well, he's a he's a he's a shady crook.
Vic00:42:52Well, I appreciate they had a little clip of one of the victims on, I think, Israeli media and the host was saying, I want to assure you that not all of these Israeli. Men are like this.
Sonny00:43:04But then he goes he goes back to Israel and gets like six months in prison and is free again.
Vic00:43:09Yeah. And I don't buy the end of it. He's doing great now. He's got like, is he is he meeting other women who were fully aware at this point of what he has done and they're still doing this? I mean, I want to know, is he still doing the same M.O., which is, oh, here's here's another picture of my bodyguard with the supposed cut on his head. Can I I need your credit card.
JVL00:43:30You know, I bet he's worked out. Worked out a new grift because because here's the interesting thing. He really was running an enterprise version of the same scam over and over and over again, using the same language, same to the I suspect he had scripts, right? He had, you know, the ways that he later, you know, now we're going to do this, then we're going to show the same pictures, the same story. And I think he probably is sophisticated enough to realize that he needed a new one because the other thing is, Israel is a really small country, like you can't hide in Israel really easily and you can't, you know, like if he can't leave because presumably Interpol still wants him, he may not be able to to leave Israel right now.
Vic00:44:17So I would say twice while watching this, I had to stop and write down quotes, two quotes that that that jumped out at me. And the first one is. First of all, the first one was, I think it was Cecilia, who after, you know, you know, they went for a walk, they went for a stroll and the whole thing, and then by the end of their date after after three hours, quote, I felt that he knew me, really?
JVL00:44:50This is this is what I'm saying. These women, they are fooling themselves because they think they just picked up a lottery ticket.
Vic00:44:58Yeah, yeah, definitely. No, I think that I'm again, I'm I'm more
Sonny00:45:01sympathetic to them than than you are, I think a little bit, JBL, just because I like I do think that there is I think that I think loneliness is real, unlike some people on this show. No, no, no, no. And they search for they search for, you know, an escape from it. And if that escape happens to have a private jet, so be it.
JVL00:45:21These people, these women, I'm sorry, they they have Tinder. They never have to be lonely except by choice.
Vic00:45:28How much of it?
JVL00:45:29This isn't about loneliness. It's about lonely. Yeah. They want a certain kind of company.
Vic00:45:33Right. Because I see. Obviously, this is a documentary. I mean, it's this part is fictitious, not her actively. The woman's actually we're not actually watching her swipe left or right. But you know, they go through people, guys who look perfectly normal, like, nope, not in. And all of a sudden, oh, here's the guy. You know what it was? He was on the sailboat on like the Mediterranean. Okay. The other one is this. The other girl, the second woman, Pernilla, who is she is the she is the. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The. The.
JVL00:46:10The. The.
Vic00:46:12The. The. The. The. The.
JVL00:46:17The. The. The. Sweet, I think she's not even a girlfriend, but a friend. She's a third wheel. Her story does not make sense. Oh, no. I just want. Hey, she gave him money, even though she's not getting anything from him, shall we say? So she she just thinks of him as an incredibly close friend and somebody she can trust. And so she gave him a couple hundred thousand dollars. Totally. This is not. So there's. This is not a good time to be here. Yeah. Yeah. Either she herself comes from an insane amount of money. Right. Like, you know, really. Or she something there is something else of relationship or she is. Right. Dumb. I mean, I don't like there's just no other. No, I'm no.
Vic00:46:49Because she gave him how much money and also. Was not dating him because she talks about being flown. Okay, fine. You're a friend. That's that's that's like the double con. Not only does. Simon.
Sonny00:47:02She's like part of the. Right.
Vic00:47:04Not only does Simon get her money, he doesn't actually have to have sex with her. He's just, you know, getting her money as a quote, a friend. And because she talks about meeting the Russian girlfriend. Yeah. And this is the other quote that stood out because you see this Russian girlfriend and and Pernilla says, quote, she seemed very down to earth and it was a picture of her like doing a selfie. And it's like it was like the worst thing I'd ever seen, like her on this boat or whatever. I'm like, yeah, she seemed really down to earth. That's great.
JVL00:47:30Yeah. That didn't didn't really make sense. Honestly, I would have liked to have spent more time with the journalists. Oh, yeah. That part. That part. I think we all like that. Three journalists who investigated journalism. That's great. I like that quad documentary. This is long. Oh, it is padded to so I watch it on one point five speed and it's it's still struggled to hold my attention because it not because the material isn't good enough, but because it doesn't need to be. It's just not even at one point five speed, there's just there isn't actually enough in it. I only talk into the these three women. It's like it actually is thinner than it should be. Yeah. And it's both it's it's flabby and padded. But on the material, there's there should be more material.
Sonny00:48:19I like the thing that they did structurally, where they basically run through the same story three times. It just said each of those each of those iterations should have been like the first one should have been shorter. And the second one should have been like cut even more like if you're going to do that, you have to like keep it moving. You got to really get it.
Vic00:48:38Keep it. It felt like 40 percent of this movie was watching them do Google searches and just typing names. And then you can see the other the Google autofill until I mean, what are we watching here? This is just this is the whole thing was just as Google searches on screen.
Sonny00:48:56I am sure money, I guess I am curious to see how all the lawsuits from this shake out. I mean, so like the bodyguard is suing Netflix and saying, you know, I was I was misrepresented. I think Simon has like threatened lawsuits. But the family, also the the actual Lavev family has sued Simon. Oh, sure. Because he's, you know, been trained as I'm like, I like it's I that is that is a part of the story that I would like to know more about in five years once all these things shake out.
Vic00:49:27Right. I mean, I mostly understood what was happening. Here, except they didn't really explain how he faked the process of him faking his way into the Lavev family. I mean, I mean, because they don't actually tell you until later, I think that, you know, he doesn't love Lavev doesn't have a son and that he must have photoshopped himself. But what about the articles that they found where they mentioned him? So did did Simon Lavev just, you know, did he create these fake, you know, pages and put them up in there? You know, finding that? And I mean, I would like to know a little bit more about that part of creating his legend
JVL00:50:05would have been. Yeah, interesting. I don't know. This is what what the movie really needed was for Simon to be in jail and to talk. So we needed a Tiger King like him on the inside and having it without him explaining how we did it leaves you vaguely unsatisfied. And by the way, do you know that we're getting a dramatic? Version of Tiger King, a movie on Hulu. Is it a movie or a series?
Sonny00:50:35I think it's a series starring terrible starring Kate McKinnon's crazy, isn't it?
JVL00:50:41Yeah, it is. This is if I can't understand anything that symbolizes the absurdity of the streaming wars more than the fictitious series about the docuseries, yes, about a thing that nobody's ever heard of. Right.
Vic00:51:01Right. Yeah, that's wild. Quickly, the the Dutch girlfriend, the third woman in Tinder Swindler, she gets attacked
JVL00:51:10by whom? She is assault.
Sonny00:51:13That is tossed away in a sense to such a degree that I believe that it looks like she was
JVL00:51:19just mugged months before this happened. Yeah. And but yet it is presented with a sort of, well, who knows?
Vic00:51:25Who knows? That's what I thought. There was this suggestion. But there was some connection, but like, really? And I love that. She Oh, I really got even with him by selling his clothes on eBay. Yeah.
JVL00:51:37Oh, yeah, that must have been great. So when they kind of do in the quadrants, it did not do well.
Vic00:51:46The plot again, I had B plus, but there were a lot of questions. I understood. Obviously, he's conning these women easy. But again, as we just discussed, there were still questions like what is going on with this person, that person, what happened? Okay, duration is a D. It was slightly under two hours, but it felt much longer. Again, it's like I felt like most of it is me watching them type in Google searches. Action and violence is a D. Now, there were photos of violence, but they're alleged violence. We don't know. I think the whole thing could have been faked. And of course, he's and he's verbally abusive. Sex nudity, sadly, is an F. I would have given it a better grade. I would have given a better grade if they even talked about details. I don't even care. It's a documentary. You don't have any footage of it. You know, dramatization would be good. And if they don't have dramatization. How about tell us? What did you do? You know, it's no nothing.
JVL00:52:33What do we think the odds are that these women did not do selfie porn stuff with Simon? Because I would say the odds that those things don't exist is around zero. All right.
Vic00:52:50Let me look into it. I'll give you five minutes. I'll let you know.
JVL00:52:53No, let me effort that, as you would say. No, I'm not saying publicly. I'm just saying that they were. They were. They were. What's happening? Back and forth. Oh, yeah. Well, certainly. They suggested some.
Sonny00:53:05You mean? Yeah. You mean like nude nude photos sent back and forth?
JVL00:53:10Yes. Sunny. That is to which I'm referring. Text text. Sexting.
Sonny00:53:15Sexting. Yeah.
JVL00:53:17Naked. Naked images. Yeah.
Vic00:53:20What do we think the odds are that. Oh, no, no.
Sonny00:53:22Definitely. Definitely. Because they were 100 percent. They sent legitimate ones and he sent fake ones.
?00:53:26Even.
Vic00:53:27Probably. Even the sects were fake. That's terrible. Okay. And then in the end, of course, they tried to brace for, you know, they like when they published the story and brace for the comments because there would be a lot of unfriendly people out there. And I just wondered how many of them. Which ones did you write? JVL.
JVL00:53:45That's what I was trying to figure out. Look, I'm not going to like jump on there. You know, I'm not going to celebrate their misfortunes. But also, I have a very hard time feeling sorry for them. Mm hmm. Because the world is filled with real victims. Yeah. Right. And and the world is also filled with people who are victimized through no fault of their own and who had no control over the things which happened to them. Somebody who meets a sub literate guy who's pretending to be Eurotrash, who writes in crayon like he's like he's six and yet claims he's a billionaire and and then decides to decide they're going to take out $250,000 of loans and hand it to him because he has said that we're building a foundation and I want to spend the rest of my life at some point. I'm sorry. This is just Darwinism. Like I you know, I am I am very sorry for your misfortune, I guess, but this is a little bit like being sad for the the animal that can't quite reach the top, but you know, like this is being sad for a panda. The circle of life is speaking. Sonny do you have any other thoughts on this except I do agree with you.
Vic00:55:00It's think I don't know, you know, as as Carrie Fisher said to Bruno Kirby and when Harry Met Sally promised me, I'll never have to go out there again.
Sonny00:55:08Never, never want to have to deal with this. Oh, I never want to have to trick multiple women.
Vic00:55:15No, that's that's I mean, really, I was talking I said the worst. I mean, I would have to do all sorts of again, I would have to do all sorts of camera trickery, you know, because people are judging you before they even get to know your wonderful sense of humor. They're looking at, you know, it's it's you're judging the first and foremost is now strictly physical attraction before they get to know anything else. And I just have to do, you know, all sorts of like angles for my head because otherwise
JVL00:55:42Peter Jackson to help you with your with your selfies.
Vic00:55:46Yeah, like, like, like how we did with the hobbits and stuff like that. Just shrink there.
Sonny00:55:52Stand next to a giant. Yeah, you know, like a gallon of milk next to your head, but let hold it over. Yes.
Vic00:55:58Yes. Exactly.
Sonny00:56:00Sunny. Exactly. Look where it's this.
Vic00:56:03My head's right next to this gallon. Otherwise, JV can help me here. You know who they'll match me. You know who click swipe right will be the the giant woman from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Hagrid's Hagrid's love interest that she'll say, Oh, yeah, perfect size for me. A perfect match. Madam Maxine. Thank you. I knew you would know her name. Okay. Moving right along then. A spirit of the week. Are you drinking anything? Just water. Just water. Everybody is today. Corrections. Shout outs. Anything? No. Okay.
Sonny00:56:35I do want to. Oh, somebody. Oh, somebody.
Vic00:56:38Actually, there was a correction. Keep going. No, no, no. I just wanted to say I wanted to clarify from last week that, you know, something I said was misconstrued and I had been accused of saying that Kate Mara was not attractive. And I did not say that. I said that, you know, she basically like another friend of ours said, looks Simeon and and and there's nothing wrong with she's a hot, hot Simeon. Hot Simeon. She's a hot monkey. Like Helen and Bonham Carter.
JVL00:57:00Yeah. Well, you know, yeah. Yeah.
Vic00:57:03Well, yes. Yes. Yes. Like like I made a joke about Dick Luger. I mean, you know, that they're related. Everyone looks like an animal. You know?
Sonny00:57:10Okay. The correction was Man in the Iron Mask did not dethrone Titanic. It came. It came in second to Titanic at the same time that Titanic was number one.
Vic00:57:18I wonder what finally dethroned Titanic.
Sonny00:57:20It was lost in space a few weeks after that. So.
JVL00:57:24Wow.
Sonny00:57:25Joey Tribbiani. Jake sent in his correction. Thank you, Jake. But he says this is from the from the message on Patreon. Man in the Iron Mask came in second place when it debuted on 3/13/98. The film to dethrone Titanic came 15 weeks, came after 15 weeks at number one, was lost in space a few weeks later on 3/31/98. How long did that last for?
Vic00:57:51Starring the great Lacey Chabert as well, by the way.
JVL00:57:53Oh, yeah.
Vic00:57:54Gary Oldman. Oh, man. Gary Oldman. Okay. And Heather Graham.
JVL00:57:59Wow. What a cast. What a cast.
Vic00:58:02Matt LeBlanc. 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. Please tell your friends. Just go to subbeacon.com. We're there. Until next time. All right.
Sonny00:58:18What do you got?
Vic00:58:26All right. If you don't have anything, I have. But go ahead. Victorino. It's all you. Okay. Are any of you into Wordle?
JVL00:58:36Wordle. Do you play Wordle? You play Wordle. Every day. Okay.
Vic00:58:41Every day I play Wordle. You pass.
Sonny00:58:43Do you know how... For the longest time, JVL...
JVL00:58:45Do you know of Wordle?
Vic00:58:46Yeah. I know of Wordle.
JVL00:58:48Okay. For the longest time, I avoided even understanding... Yeah. And then you said yes because you wanted to have something to talk to people about so that they would be your friend.
Vic00:58:53How dare you? How dare you? You see on Twitter, people are just posting their results like, "Oh, I got in through whatever." So I'm like, "What am I looking at? This makes no sense." So I finally understood, "Ah, I get it. That's interesting." But do you know that there is another version? There's also Worldle. Worldle, if you're into maps and it's like you have to guess the shape of the country and they give you a shape of the country, you have to guess what it is and you get five tries and then it gives you longitude or latitudinal sort of directions how far you're off and by kilometers, which is kilometers, which is really interesting. And then the last one is Loodle, L-E-W-D-L-E, which-
Sonny00:59:31I'm aware of all this.
Vic00:59:32Yes. My brother-in-law says- What is Loodle? Loodle is obscenities. It's Wordle, but it's Loodle. Yes. Five-letter obscenities. My brother-in-law told me, very popular at his construction site.
JVL00:59:44That's what they don't- How many five-letter obscenities are there?
Vic00:59:48It's interesting. There's some really ones that are questionable and like really crude, but- Most of them are four-letter. Are they not? This just makes it really interesting. I tried it once. I solved it in two tries.
JVL01:00:01Could there be 100 different five-letter obscenities? I don't know.
Vic01:00:07I just did it once and solved it in two tries, and the word was .
?01:00:13What?
Sonny01:00:14That was ... I'm ending this. It's not fine.
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