#97. 'Deep Water' (Hulu)
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The main review is Adrian Lyne's Deep Water (Hulu), his first film since Unfaithful twenty years ago, starring Ben Affleck as a wealthy, snail-raising retiree who tolerates (and may secretly relish) his wife Melinda's (Ana de Armas) very public affairs while murdering her lovers one by one, with Tracy Letts as the nosy novelist closing in on him. Sonny gives it an enthusiastic thumbs up, conceding the plot is "a mess" — unpaid-off threads like the snails, the drone-microchip subplot, and the cops who interrogate everyone once and then vanish — but insisting it's still "delightfully tawdry" fun that nobody makes anymore; JVL is more clinical, dissecting exactly which plot points never resolve (whose kink is it, really — his or hers?) and marveling that Affleck's murders are shockingly inept for such a "smart guy." Vic, who watched with his wife Kate, loved it outright and runs it through his Quadrant system for A's across the board — Plot A, Duration A, Violence/Action A (for the blunt-force-trauma kills, which reminded him of The Talented Mr. Ripley), and Sex/Nudity an emphatic A+++. The long opening stretch covers JVL's rage-fueled return to Twitter over the sold-out-in-minutes Omega x Swatch "Moon Swatch" collab and a Bulgari NFT-watch tangent, Sonny's coyote (and bobcat) problem in his Dallas neighborhood spiraling into a fantasy of mounted turrets and sawed-off shotguns, and Vic hosting his visiting father for the week, plus detours into confirmation-sponsor duties, anime box office numbers (Jujutsu Kaisen 0), and movie-theater snack rankings. They also preview a companion bonus episode revisiting Lyne's Fatal Attraction as an "Adrian Lyne double header," and close with no corrections or shout-outs, though JVL teases mysterious unspecified news a few weeks out that he can't jinx by discussing yet.
From the show notes
JVL discovers an investment opportunity. Sonny vs. the coyotes. Vic's dad is in town! And the gang goes deep on Deep Water , a movie that doesn't make much sense but is still kind of delightfully tawdry. The quadrants, they're killed.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00The fact that she's comfortable flaunting all these relationships around all of us, you're better than that. She's different. That's what I like about her. I just want to feel joy in my life. You want to tell me why you didn't come home last night? Not really. This isn't a game, Melinda. It's always been a game.
Vic00:00:30Sub- Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and don't forget about the Sub-Beacon merchandise store at tpublic.com. Gentlemen, how are we? JVL, what's going on?
JVL00:01:00I am in a rage. Ooh, a rage. I've been in a rage since yesterday. I am in such a rage that I returned to Twitter this evening.
Vic00:01:15Wow! Oh, yes! I saw, I happened to glance and saw, and it was something that I thought was clearly a hoax, a fake, a fake, a deep fake.
JVL00:01:27Mm-mm.
Vic00:01:29Explain. It's real. Sonny, did you actually miss this? I have no idea what you guys are talking about.
Sonny00:01:34Oh, you're in for a treat. I've been off Twitter most of the day, weirdly.
JVL00:01:36You are in for a treat. That is weird. On Wednesday night, it was revealed that the Swatch Group had partnered two of its brands, Swatch and Omega, and they made them kiss. They made them make out like that, and they have released a Moon Swatch. It is a $200. $260 version of the famous Omega Speedmaster, the watch which was worn to the moon. Like who? Like Neil Armstrong? All of them. It was the watch that NASA chose for all these missions, and Swatch has made a plastic version of it, which they call bio-ceramic. It's not ceramic. It's plastic. It's quartz. It runs on a battery. It is so shitty. The second doesn't even like hit the marks on the second hand, and it's water resistant like 30 feet, which means like don't shower with it. And it comes in 11 different colorways from bright red to a fake Tiffany knockoff blue. And when I saw this, I was immediately angry because of two things. First of all, this is like it's a sacrilege, like taking an iconic watch like this and self-consciously making a a candy colored knockoff of it. But also, I realized that this would be this was going to sell out immediately. Really? And that it would become a sensation because people are awful. And and that it would within I, in fact, wrote about this on Thursday morning. And I said, you know, within five minutes, these things are going to be going for double on eBay. Now, I was wrong about this. Oh, let me guess.
Sonny00:03:41Let me guess. They were going for quadruple.
JVL00:03:45Ten X. Wow. Oh, come on. Oh, come on. So these two hundred sixty dollar watches were going for two thousand six hundred dollars. One hundred dollars on eBay. Question. Question. Question.
Sonny00:03:59Why? What? How much of a discount is that from the the inferior standard Omega watches?
JVL00:04:08You can buy a used Speedmaster for basically the same price.
Sonny00:04:14OK, so you're what you're saying is that you can get a used non bio luminescent.
JVL00:04:22Yes. Made of made of only steel. I'm sorry.
Sonny00:04:24It's made of steel. You can get so you can get the inferior older used one for about the same price as you. I mean, this sounds like the market working.
Vic00:04:35Here's a question. I can't stop thinking about this. JVL, did you say it was like a limited there was like a limited release or no, it's not even a limit. OK, so if it's not a limited release, why are people why is it being sold for that amount versus people just buying it for two hundred and sixty dollars?
JVL00:04:51Because Swatch is only selling it at. Their boutiques of which there are not very many anymore.
Sonny00:04:58Oh, there's one in Dallas. Do you want me to there's one at the North Park here in Dallas. Do you want me to go get you one Sunday?
JVL00:05:04You need to get it. I am not kidding, Sonny. If there is one nearby, I'd like you to go to it tomorrow by you're only allowed to buy two. They only sell you two at a time. What color do you buy? Two of the Mars watches? Because I'm telling you that the Mars watches are going to be although the fake Tiffany blue. So they are all called the mission to and then there's the mission to Mars. There's even a mission to Uranus. That one is called brown. No, that's the Tiffany blue one.
Sonny00:05:36We're getting that one for Vic. I am telling you, Sonny.
JVL00:05:40I've always wanted to go there. If you could go and buy two of the Mars ones and then just put them up on eBay. Question. Then you could then buy yourself a Rolex.
Sonny00:05:50Question. That's true. If I'm able to get three of these, can we do the Parker Lewis can't lose swatch thing where we put our hands in the middle? Parker Lewis can't lose.
Guest00:06:04Wow. That is a deep hole.
Sonny00:06:06They had swatches, right? Didn't they? They had swatches. I'm sure they did. They put their hands in the middle and they all synchronized swatches.
Vic00:06:12He was like the Ferris Bueller of TV. He was the Fox knockoff of Ferris Bueller. Yeah.
Sonny00:06:18I love that show. I love that show. And he was in the stand. He was that guy, Korn Nemec or whatever his name was, was the-
JVL00:06:27He was the bad guy, right?
Sonny00:06:29Well, he was the nerdy kid bad guy in the stand.
JVL00:06:32Who gets turned by Laura, what's her name? Laura Giacomo. Yeah.
Sonny00:06:37Laura San Giacomo.
JVL00:06:38Laura San Giacomo. Yeah. So if you have a few moments tomorrow, Sonny, please do go over there. I can tell you in order which ones to buy in case they're sold out of ones because I can tell you right now which ones are going to be hot. It is going to be the in order, it will go Mars, then Uranus, then the Saturn. People will love the Saturn. There will be the classic moon one probably towards the middle. And just buy lots of them. Buy as many as they'll sell you.
Sonny00:07:13If I buy three, can we all wear them together next time we hang out?
JVL00:07:18No, we will sell them.
Sonny00:07:20Can we wear them once together and then sell them?
Vic00:07:22The value would be even higher.
Sonny00:07:25I know, it would be the Sub-Beacon branded moon swatch watch.
JVL00:07:30We'll each sign the box. This was the one worn by Vic to Uranus.
Sonny00:07:37JVL, did you see the thing that I sent you on Slack?
JVL00:07:40Which thing? I mean, we were on Slack together all day.
Sonny00:07:43Well, it's a watch thing specifically. The Bulgari Octo. Octo Finissimo Ultra 40mm sandblasted titanium case and tungsten carbide plate. With the NFT. Which like when you open it up and you look on the inside on the wheel, the rotor wheel, whatever they call that dumb part of the watch. There's a QR code that you snap it and it sends you to your own very rare NFT. It combines all of your interests. Watches, titanium, NFTs, crypto. I don't understand how you have not already purchased this. Hold on. Let me check. €400,000 watch.
JVL00:08:24By Bvlgari. My question is whether or not the watch functions as the wallet for the NFT or if they could be separated. So if you bought the watch, could you then sell the NFT and still keep the watch? Or are they are they linked together? I don't know. Is the watch basically like the cold storage for the NFT?
Vic00:08:49And the answer is I don't know. You know what I liked about this Omega Swatch thing was the wristband because on one side it said Omega and the other side it said Swatch. Oh, my God. Have you seen them, Vic? Just the one on Twitter that you showed, the picture. I clicked it on because I said this can't be real. Oh, it's real. It's two different brands, two different, I don't know, clienteles, if you will.
Sonny00:09:13So are Omega and Swatch owned by the same company? The Swatch group.
JVL00:09:16Wow. The Swatch group owns everything. They're like what's the big distilled? Diageo. Diageo of watches? Yeah.
Vic00:09:27Wow.
JVL00:09:28They're the Diageo of watches. They own everything. They're the worst.
Sonny00:09:31It's because they made such a fantastic product. Well, that's why.
JVL00:09:34It's because their watches are so good. Right.
Sonny00:09:37I mean, that's why. And if they break down, you can just buy a new one for like $10. Oh, my God.
Vic00:09:43It brought him out. It brought him out. Just when he thought he was out, Swatch pulled him back in. That's what got me.
JVL00:09:51Yeah. Not politics. What brought me back in was the fucking Moon Swatch.
Vic00:09:56I thought it was fake. I couldn't believe this was happening. Sonny, how are you?
Sonny00:10:02Now I'm excited to go buy some Swatches. You know how I feel about Swatch. It's the watch of a new generation.
Vic00:10:10Yes. What else is going on with you?
Sonny00:10:15In my neighborhood, we have coyotes.
Vic00:10:18Oh, yeah. Sure.
Sonny00:10:20I can see that. I live in Dallas proper. It has a suburban-y feel, my area. I live not too far from a lake, White Rock North Lake. My area of Dallas is not high rises and- No, no, no. You're not downtown. Skyscrapers. I'm not downtown. I live in an area with tree-lined streets and yards and such, but we have coyotes. The other day, I was sitting there. I was doing some work, and all of a sudden, I hear Beth go, "Ugh." I'm like, "Oh, crap. What's happened? Did she drop something? What's going on?" Then she yells, "There's a coyote out front." I go and look, and it's already gone by the time I get there, but she's gotten a picture of it. It was, in fact, a coyote. Did you shoot it? No, but I ran out with a broom. There was a broom. Not like a grown-up broom. It was my little kid's, my daughter's little play broom. That'll stop the coyote all right.
Vic00:11:19In a fight with a coyote, give me the child's play broom.
Sonny00:11:22It's like 30 inches long, maybe, and about a quarter thick. If a coyote had come at me, it would have eaten me, because the stick would have done nothing. The goggles, they do nothing. The broom, it does nothing.
Vic00:11:37I wonder if you do a double tail, the size of it. Because it's like, it's not a wolf, it's not a dog. It's like, oh, wait a minute. You can tell by the look.
Sonny00:11:46A couple days later, a couple days later, I'm driving one of my kids to his school. And we're just driving up the road, and all of a sudden, I look over to the right, and I'm like, oh, no, that dog got loose. Nope, that was the coyote. It's just a big dog. It's like a big, long-- Okay, so that's what it looks like. It's between a dog and a wolf.
Vic00:12:10I mean, it's not as big as a wolf. It's distinct in that way.
Sonny00:12:13It's not as big as a wolf, but it's bigger than your kind of standard. It's not like a Labrador, right? It's got the long face, and it was just trotting along.
JVL00:12:22Long face. And it is scavenging. Don't they travel in packs? Yeah, that's right.
Sonny00:12:27I mean, so Beth has actually seen them in packs running when she goes and runs around the lake. She sees them at dusk and dawn. But they stay way away from people. They don't come near people. Question.
Vic00:12:41For now. For now. Wait until they realize that people are not a threat.
JVL00:12:44Who would you take in a fight? Pack of coyotes versus pack of wolves versus pack of hyenas?
Vic00:12:53Oh, oh, oh.
JVL00:12:55The hyenas have supposedly the greatest bite strength of any animal on the planet. Yes, they do. Yeah, but they're scavengers. But they're smaller. No, no.
Sonny00:13:03They'll eat anything. I mean, we're talking about Norway. We're talking about like North American wolves.
Vic00:13:08Yeah, I'd easily go with coyote. You would take the coyote over the wolf?
Sonny00:13:13The coyote is the worst of all those.
Vic00:13:14No, no, no. I'm saying if I was in a fight with them, I would have to fight off, fend off the coyote. Oh, no. Them fighting each other. No, no. You're picking who you win.
JVL00:13:23Oh, the wolf. More than the hyena?
Sonny00:13:25You and your pack of billionaire friends have gotten together in the mountains and you've decided to pit the animals against each other. Oh, I see. I see. I see. Yes, yes, yes. The polar bear versus alligator. Grizzly bear. Alligator. Right, right, right. Ape versus tiger. Yes. Okay. Got it. In this one, it is wolf versus coyote versus tiger.
Vic00:13:45I don't know. Hyena is very sore. I mean, you're right. The jaw strength is really impressive. On the other hand, I did see the movie Frozen once, and I'm not talking about the Disney movie. I'm talking about the teens who get stuck on the ski lift and it shuts down because they wanted the free ride and then the one guy falls down, breaks his ankle. He can't move. And then the wolves just go to town on him.
JVL00:14:08I think the hyenas are supposed to be superior at tactics though. Like they communicate with each other and they're smart. I don't know. A pack of wolves. I'd like to see it.
Sonny00:14:17Wolves are so... I mean, wolves are big is the thing. Yes. Wolves are exceptionally large. Yes. Yes.
JVL00:14:23You think like... I've seen National Geographic where a...
Vic00:14:25Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones. I've seen National Geographic.
JVL00:14:28What's a dire wolf? Dire wolf. Dire wolf. A pack of hyenas go after a lion and they beat the living shit out of the lion.
Vic00:14:33But don't they usually just wait for the animal to be dead and then they go to town and then they just fend people off, right? I think they'll come out a little bit here and there. This is what I've learned.
Sonny00:14:41What I've learned from Lion King is that hyenas are disgusting scavengers who should be kept out of your kingdom at all costs.
JVL00:14:49Yes, because all the other animals are happy to be eaten by you, the lion.
Sonny00:14:53Exactly.
JVL00:14:54They're just grateful to be part of the food chain.
Sonny00:14:56The Lion King teaches you that everybody has their place. When you have a properly functioning kingdom. All of the people within the kingdom have their place, and it's the filthy, disgusting outsiders with their diseased, mange-ridden skin sack fur, gross, you want to keep them out. You want to keep them away. Just keep your kingdom pure. No. That's the lesson of the lion. Are you allowed- Purity of the kingdom. Oh yeah.
Vic00:15:21We're talking strictly about animals here.
JVL00:15:23Don't get nervous, everybody. Yes.
Sonny00:15:25Sonny, are you either allowed- That is like, it's like the most fascist movie that's ever been made. I'm just saying. Both the live action and the cartoon one.
JVL00:15:32All right, Sonny, what is the Texas policy on shooting coyotes? Are you encouraged to kill them?
Sonny00:15:39I actually, I don't know. I've never actually looked it up because I've never, it's never been an issue before.
JVL00:15:45Because you won't be a real Texan until you've shot yourself a coyote, I assume.
Sonny00:15:49Well, the real question is, what do I do with the pelt afterwards? Can I hang it up like in the front, like fly it like a flag?
Vic00:15:55It's a mangy pelt, though. It's a mangy pelt.
Sonny00:15:57On the front? Do I have to turn it into a hat? Do I walk around in my, my coyote hat?
JVL00:16:03I don't know. I like that idea. Maybe like one of those, like, like Hercules, get a cape, turn it into a cape where the head comes up over your head, like a, like a hoodie.
Sonny00:16:12I like that idea.
JVL00:16:13And you wear the rest of it, you know, tie the front paws around.
Sonny00:16:17I could send, I could send, I could send the pelt off to American Giant and have them make a coyote hoodie.
JVL00:16:22Put it together. Don't let your kid rub his grubby little fingers on it at dinner.
Sonny00:16:26Wow. Don't, don't worry. That would not be a dinnertime hoodie. On the coyote pelt? That would not be a dinnertime hoodie. That would be, uh, a fancy. I don't know. I, I mean, I, I also like- Pigs too.
Vic00:16:36Pigs are a big problem in Texas too. Like the wild pigs, like feral pigs.
Sonny00:16:39There's a bobcat, there's, there's a bobcat, like half a mile from our, from, from where I live that just, that just wanders around, like just giant bobcats just wandering around the yards. I'm actually much more worried about the bobcat than the coyotes. Yeah. Coyotes, like they, they- Don't you have a dog?
JVL00:16:55Well, I do. Your dog is going to die. I have a small dog. I know your dog is going to die. Texas is not meant for, for small dogs.
Sonny00:17:01The little dog. No, no. The, the, the, I'm more, I'm much more worried about, because the bobcat I assume will like hop fences and stuff. Oh yeah. The coyote's not going to hop fences. This is where you see videos of like- Coyotes, coyotes just going-
Vic00:17:10You see those videos where the, the woman calls and there's a bobcat in her kitchen, you know, that kind of a thing.
Sonny00:17:14Yeah. No, I don't. That bobcat, I don't like that bobcat being around. That, that is much worse. Anyway, uh, so the, the big question, I, I mean, I assume, I, I have, I have a, I own a handgun because I am a Texan. I, I carry it around and just, you know, kind of fire it into the air sometimes. Uh, I assume that I, it, it has the stopping power to take down a bobcat or a, uh, or a, or a coyote, but I, I have never tested it. I've never tested it. And I don't actually know. I assume it's frowned upon. You can shoot it in self-defense.
JVL00:17:43I'm sorry. I assume it's frowned upon. The, the chance is that you could hit one of these animals with a handgun or impossible to zero.
Sonny00:17:50Well, that's, that's the other thing. I would, I would have to, I really need to go and get like a Remington shotgun. Yes. Like a, uh, like a $3,000 shotgun, you know, a fancy one, uh, that I can, that, that I'll probably end up shooting my foot off with it, but, uh, that's what, well, otherwise
JVL00:18:05your dog is going to die.
Sonny00:18:07So I, uh, let's be honest if a bobcat or a coyote has my dog, I will not be able to run into the house and get whatever weapon it is that I need and get back outside.
JVL00:18:16You'll carry, you'll be carrying that shotgun around with you wherever you go, like a scabbard
Sonny00:18:22over my shoulder, like Lorenzo Lamas. I was going to say. In Renegade. Sure you will.
Vic00:18:27I was going to say like, uh, Fabrizio in, uh, in, uh, Godfather. In the Godfather. Yeah. Just wandering around the hills, the hills of Texas with my, you know. Just wandering around the hills, the hills of Texas with my, you know. The sawed-off shotgun. Just sling it over.
Sonny00:18:38Yeah. Oh, so I have to get a sawed-off shotgun. Yeah. Again, I don't know what, I don't know. I've got to, I've really got to look into the, uh, the laws, uh, in, in Texas. I don't know what the rules are on, uh, sawed-off shotguns. I don't know. Pretty sure there aren't any rules. Like, uh, carry. I don't know what.
JVL00:18:55I'm pretty sure you can do whatever you want with firearms in Texas.
Sonny00:18:58Yeah. It's also, it's, I think it's also different in, like, I am, again, in the city limits of Dallas. Oh, city limits. Right, right.
Vic00:19:05I think it's, it's probably slightly different than it is, like, out in the.
?00:19:06You need a license for the minigun is what you need.
Sonny00:19:07I mean, I should, I should actually.
Vic00:19:08The Jesse "The Body" Ventura, which, by the way, you could pretty much do with one hand. I don't know if you noticed this. The other one was just for a little bit of, you know, precision, but.
Sonny00:19:17I have been, I have been considering, we have been considering building an addition onto the house. One of the things I, I am gonna look into is a turret.
JVL00:19:24Ooh.
Sonny00:19:25I like that. A turret. So I can, you know, if, if, if. That's good. If worse comes to worse. No, zombie apocalypse. If things get bad. And I can run up to my turret and just like. Pick. Like get one of those chairs. Picking people off. That like rolls out. You know, like rolls out outside of the house.
Vic00:19:38Like. Oh, is that your minigun sound? There was a.
JVL00:19:41That's a good sound. Yes. Yeah. There was a controversial law passed, I think in the 2020 session, out in Tejas, that anybody who wanted to own. A hind 24. Oh. Had to take a, a 90, a 90 minute class.
Vic00:19:59I don't know what a hind 24 is. In order to. Like an MI 24.
JVL00:20:02The gunship. Yeah. It's, it's a, a Soviet era gunship. Was, it's basically a helicopter version of the A-10 Warthog.
Sonny00:20:08Oh. Yes. They have those in Red Dawn. Yes. Yes. Rocket pods. Yeah. That's, that's the, that's the helicopter that comes over. Mm-hmm. At the end of Red Dawn. That's right. I wish I had, if I had one of those, I would definitely. I mean, I would say I took the 90 minute class. I can actually do it. I'm not a cuck. Come on.
Vic00:20:24The, the helicopter is also very different from airplanes. You got, you gotta use both hands. Oh, plus the feet. Yeah. Everything, everything. Plus the feet. I talked to a guy once who was an army helicopter guy and it was just like a whole other world. It's a whole other world.
Sonny00:20:38I've seen Black Hawk down too many times. I don't, I don't, I, when I, when we.
Vic00:20:41They make it look easy, but you cannot fly. Like planes, it's just completely different, so.
Sonny00:20:45When I went to Israel, we flew in a, in a helicopter and I've like never felt more terrified in my life than like flying, flying to the Gold Coast.
JVL00:20:51Did they give you a line about how, oh, don't worry if something goes wrong, you can always auto rotate down. Did they give you that line?
Sonny00:20:59No, no. They were just like, we're, we're doing this and you just don't throw up. Like, okay, I'll try.
Vic00:21:06I went, I went once on the, a test prototype of Marine One that I flew around with. With your Sikorsky buddies? Yes. And it was some rep with Burst and Marsteller at the time, but it was me and Terry Eastland. That's a casual. We're going up there.
Sonny00:21:21That's casual.
Vic00:21:22Victorino, how are you, buddy? I'm good. You know, so as you can see. Were you kicked out of the basement? My, by my father. He's here for the week. Hey. Can you bring him up for the show? Did you guys watch Deep Water together? He's sleeping. It's very late. He's sleeping. Hmm? Did you watch Deep Water together? No, we did not. I watched it on my laptop. I bet he would love it. You know, it's funny. So I brought him down. I went up to Jersey last weekend for my niece's confirmation, being her sponsor. Hey. And so, and, and then, and then I said, I convinced her. I said, come down for the week because you usually, he usually does it, you know, a couple times a year. So I convinced, change of scenery. So he's here at the house. Uh, he, I came home from work today and, uh, my, my daughter is, uh, sitting on the couch and my dad's there watching Wolverine, the one that takes place in Japan. Ooh. I bet he likes that one. Yeah. That's a good one. As he said, lots of action. Lots of action is what he says. Uh, and he, uh, and that's the one that, you know, I still haven't seen that from the beginning to end. So every time I walk in, I had other things I had to do, like make dinner, but I, I felt like I wanted to just watch the whole thing. It's really good. I know. I mean, remember, that's what I told him. I said that you said it was really good and he liked it. Um, but he is a very low maintenance, uh, no fuss guest, you know, he just, he doesn't need to be entertained. He just likes having people around. Question. Yes, Sonny.
Sonny00:22:41Question. Uh, so as, as a confirmation sponsor, if you're-
Vic00:22:46Yes. Twice now with my nephew and my niece.
Sonny00:22:48If you're, uh, is this one of these things? Is it like AA where if they get tempted by sin, they call you? They could.
Vic00:22:56They say, Vic.
JVL00:22:57They would do that to God. I would not recommend it calling Vic if you're tempted by sin. I would say- I'm really, I'm tempted. This is the only- This is, this is the only sponsorship.
Vic00:23:05I've got a venal one. This is the only sponsorship I, I do. I don't do the other sponsorship. Maybe they could just talk to their mom. I'd be a bad sponsor for the other thing, but yeah. Okay. Yes. You know, they were thinking about reduced gluttony. That's right. And I tried to ward them away from it and I said, you know, just, uh, limit the shellfish really, but stay away. And stay away from the oatmeal. I said, stay away from the oatmeal, because that's what comes, oatmeal and beans. And it was funny, I, I brought up again to my dad, his, the insanity of him having shown my kids when they were younger, Pan's Labyrinth at the house. I said, you know, even for my standards, I said that, that was a bit much. And my father completely still, still defiant, by the way, he was like, ah, he goes, it's fine. It's fantasy. It's fantasy. I said, it's not fantasy. He's like, oh, no, no, no, it's fantasy. You know, that fantasy is like, like letting kids watch, you know, a Japanese animation, regardless. Oh, you know, cause it's just, you know, speaking, speaking of anime, over the weekend, Jujutsu Kaisen 0, the movie, sliced its way into second place at the box office with $14.8 million. That could be Kaisen 0, I don't know. And it is ahead of Uncharted, which is still there in third place with $7 million. $7.8 million. And yet perched again in first place is the Batman with $36.7 million box office slots.
Sonny00:24:33One of these days on one of these, on one of these slow weeks, we're going to have to go see one of these random anime things that are in the theaters that just show up.
Vic00:24:41They just appear in second or third place.
Sonny00:24:42I'm like, what is this thing? It's like, it's like, it's like a plus size. It's like a, it's like a plused up version of the, the random like Indian. Blockbusters that will show up in theaters and do like, like four or $5 million and show up on the top tens. Like everyone's like, what is this thing? We have no idea. No, these, these, these like special, like one week or two week, you know, engagement things. Uh, every once in a while they just go and they blow up and you know, people, they, so this is, this is a weird, a weird thing about Netflix that people don't really talk about or understand very much, but their animation is huge. Like Netflix, Netflix does a ton of a ton and ton of business. Uh, on, uh, like animation for adults, for young adults, really an anime, that sort of thing. Um, and it is a, it's a, it's a huge part of their business and for adults who still
JVL00:25:31live with their parents.
Sonny00:25:32Right. I mean, I, I use adults advisedly here. Uh, but, uh, but yeah, it's, it's like they, they, it does, it does, it does huge traffic. Nobody talks about it because it's totally out of the mainstream. It's not, it's not in theaters. And like when one of these things does come to theaters, it's because it has an enormous, enormous following. And, and, and the real world and, uh, people, people are excited to go, you know, see it.
Vic00:25:57All right. Cheap to make relatively. Yeah. How'd you, were you familiar with this one at all as it, no, no, the only, the only one
Sonny00:26:05of these that I ever have any knowledge of when they show up is like when there's a dragon
JVL00:26:09ball movie that pops up in the, well, no, but there that that's different though.
Sonny00:26:16That's like the, the spirited away, the high, high, you know, like, how do you say that?
JVL00:26:21Like in sunny?
Sonny00:26:22Hi. I don't know. Hi.
JVL00:26:25It was good.
Sonny00:26:26No, I, I, I, I, I, no, I, I, but I, uh, I don't, I don't, I don't know anything about any of these. I think you're right at all. It's totally, it's totally like, uh, out of my range of, of cultural, I think we should
Vic00:26:40definitely do it. I, I'd be into it. I like anime, hentai, that sort of stuff is good tentacle art. Hentai animation. But I guess there's going to be a shakeup in the box office next week. It isn't there. Sonny.
Sonny00:26:57Yeah. Uh, the, the lost city. The lost city which JVL was very excited about. Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum. Channing Tatum.
Vic00:27:04We'll see. I want to see.
Sonny00:27:06You haven't seen it yet Sonny? I've seen it. I've seen it. I've, I, I, I'll have a review at the Bulwark, uh, Friday when you're, when you're listening to this, go, go.
JVL00:27:12Give me that review list. Just give me stars. How many stars Sonny?
Sonny00:27:15A solid three out of four. Wow. Solid three out of four.
Vic00:27:19For you. That's big.
JVL00:27:21Yeah. Don't answer the question. For Sonny giving it for a movie where there's a woman as the star, that really, that's pretty,
Vic00:27:28pretty big.
Sonny00:27:29Yeah. I mean it, that it, that's, that's why it's not four. No movie is perfect. No movie is perfect.
Vic00:27:37So. What, what I wonder and Sonny will answer it is, uh, if we were right, we were talking about how much screen time Brad Pitt has because of the trailer and the whole deal and.
Sonny00:27:47We weren't wrong exactly, but we were wrong about the placement. Okay. Of like where exactly we can talk about this. We'll talk. We're going to see it, right? We're going to say, we'll do this next week. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll, we'll talk about it more next week. But, uh, okay. In terms of box office that I, I am like, I've been, I've been looking at the, the tracking numbers on the quorum, um, and it is tracking better. It is tracking, look, I, I, the, the studio is trying to say they're, they're projecting 20 to 30 million. It's tracking, it's tracking like it's going to do 50 or 60.
Vic00:28:21They want to under it so they can say, Whoa, they want to, they want to, they want to,
Sonny00:28:24they want to shoot it. But look, it's, it's, it's still a weird time. This is, this is a, this is a movie that is aimed at women, uh, more than men. I would say it is a, it is a movie that is aimed at a market that is not showing up for stuff. So maybe, and it's, and it's, it's an original property. It's not based on IP. It's not a franchise. It's not based on a comic book. I mean, like there are a lot of reasons why it might not, but it's about IP and it's fictionalized
JVL00:28:51within it. Oh my God. Yeah. Well, I can't with an IP, like a play within a play.
Sonny00:28:56If this movie does what I think it's going to do, it will be the start of IP. It will be the start of a franchise. But I get, I think this, I think I, I would be surprised if it had less than 50 million,
JVL00:29:05it'll be the new, uh, Allen quarter man movies.
Vic00:29:10That's right. Those were good. Uh, is, is, is Daniel Radcliffe where does he, does he have to wear lifts in the movie? No, he's just a small person, a small person. So they just play them as is. Okay. Can I ask you guys a question? Let me ask you a question. When you go to movie theaters these days, cause I don't do this anymore. Do you still get food? Do you eat in the theater? Always. Always. I don't, I don't eat.
Sonny00:29:33It depends. It depends. It depends on where I go. If I go to the draft house, I almost always get popcorn in a soda. Um, if I go, if I go to the AMC, I might, I might get a beer at the, but yeah, I don't
JVL00:29:46eat at AMC, but I see almost everything at the draft house and I try to combine with, with lunch.
Vic00:29:52Oh, so you actually go for a full meal.
JVL00:29:54Well, I, I try to, you know, I try to be as efficient as possible. Yes. Yeah. So I do a meal with it.
Vic00:30:02I'll do a movie at mealtime and, uh, I like the chicken Caesar salad. That's great. Wow. A chicken Caesar salad while I'm watching a movie. That's, that's crazy. I used to like, uh, when I was a kid, you know what I like getting goobers, chocolate covered peanuts.
JVL00:30:14Mm.
Vic00:30:15That was really great.
JVL00:30:16You know what the big mistake.
Guest00:30:17Oh, I see where you're going with this.
Vic00:30:18No, no, no. Hold on. The big mistake was jujifu. You know when that stuff gets stuck in your teeth, right? The only really good kind to get is like, if you went to like, you already know I can't come on. Don't, don't hit me off at the pass here. Don't hit me off at the pass. You know, if you go to some of these like actual confectioner places, you can get them, but there's a place in Cape may that makes the most delicious delectable sweet tasting gumdrops. Speaking of which Ana de Armas stars in deep water on Hulu, which is what we're discussing.
Sonny00:30:51Someone was going, the windup was, and you were running through all the, just to get to go. I knew exactly, I knew exactly where this was headed.
Vic00:30:59Yeah. But did you know I was going to say gumdrops? Did you know I was going to say gumdrops? Really?
Sonny00:31:05I assumed you were going to find something even more perverse. Oh, no, no.
Vic00:31:09Frankly, I figured. It's the first thing that came to my mind was gumdrops. Deep water on Hulu starring Ben Affleck too. This is what we're discussing. And it is on Hulu. Sonny. Please tell me there's a Gene review. Please tell me we get Gene. I have a lot of thoughts though. Sonny, how about a big boy review?
Sonny00:31:29I can't believe Gene didn't show up for this. That's a-
Vic00:31:32You know, the other day I blanked out on his last name. Isn't that crazy? He has a last name? Yeah.
Sonny00:31:38I'm losing it. Shall it? Gene Shall? I know. All right.
Vic00:31:43Go ahead. Is there another Gene?
Sonny00:31:45Yeah.
?00:31:46Siskel.
Vic00:31:47That's fine. Oh, yeah. Oh, by the way, by the way, before you get into the review, I've been watching Old Sign Fields. There is an episode where Elaine falls in love with the video rental recommender, Vincent, right? Oh, I remember that. And turns out to be like this teenage kid. And then Kramer, he loves the pics by Gene. And it's like a weekend at Bernie's and all these horrible movies. Anyway, I always wondered if that was they were just channeling. Okay.
Sonny00:32:13Go ahead, Sonny. Okay. Deepwater directed by Adrian Lyne, the Brit. Last movie he directed was Unfaithful. 20 years ago, but it's best known for his erotic thrillers in the 80s and 90s, among them Fatal Attraction and Decent Proposal, Flashdance, Lolita, Jacob's Ladder, Lolita. He did the Lolita TV remake in 97, I think that was with Jeremy Irons. Dominic Swain. We're going to be talking. We're going to be. Yeah. I think it was. Maybe. I don't remember. Anyway, we're going to be talking about Fatal Attraction in the bonus episode this week. So it's Adrian Lyne double header. This weekend. So check that out. But Adrian Lyne is back. He's back. He's directing Deepwater. It's features Ben Affleck as Vic, who is a retired magazine editor at a idea of journals who has fled to New Orleans to get away from all of his cares about comma splices and such. He is married to Anna de Armas. The character's name is Melinda. But let's just call her Anna. Let's just call Ben and Anna from here on out. I think this guy Vic makes me uncomfortable, you know, I don't know why.
Vic00:33:25The character invented the em dash and then he just went away and then whatever people
JVL00:33:30do with the em dash is up to the royalties on the em dash royalties on the em dash are
Sonny00:33:35unbelievable. No. So in the movie, he he's he invented a microchip used in drones, which, you know, as he says in the movie, you know, could be used to deliver food to starving kids, but it's actually used to kill people. That's what that's what drones are used for. Anna de Armas stars as his wife, Melinda, who is cheating on him. I'm in front of all of their friends and it makes them all very uncomfortable to the extent that at one point early on, she's just flirting with this guy who looks a lot like Brad Pitt looks like kind of a weird. I described him. I described him as a Cro-Magnon Brad Pitt in my review, which is exactly what he's got.
JVL00:34:09He's got like the big four toxic Avenger version of Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt, they couldn't find
Vic00:34:15anybody else. It was like distracting to look weird, weird, but interesting pick.
Sonny00:34:19It's an interesting pick. And, and Ben tells this guy, Hey, you know, I, I killed her last, I killed her last friend. He's gone missing. You know, I killed him and we're, we're not sure, well, did he actually, did he actually kill this guy? Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. I don't know. He definitely killed some people later on because what happens is she keeps cheating on him and he keeps killing people. And eventually Tracy Letts shows up and is like, I'm a writer and I like to find things out and I'm going to find out what's going on with you, Vic Mattis. I'm going to track you down, Vic Mattis, and I'm going to, I'm going to get you. No M dash is going to save you.
Vic00:34:59Um, so Tracy Letts before, was he in Ford, Ferrari, Ferrari, but he was also the woman
Sonny00:35:06in the window. Oh yeah. He did. We do. Did we do that? The woman in there? Yeah. He was, he was, uh, the, I think the therapist.
JVL00:35:14Yes.
Sonny00:35:15In the woman in the window, he did the, he was anyway. Uh, I got distracted because I kept making my Vic jokes. Um, but the, but anyway, uh, so the it's, it, it is, it is like the nineties and eighties a thrill. It is an erotic thriller. It is. There's lots of sex in this movie. Lots of, a little bit of nudity, frankly, there's not really that much nudity because
JVL00:35:38they give you the nudity right up front, then you think every scene after you're like, Oh, it's coming. It's coming.
Vic00:35:45We're going to get this time. I can't believe I saved it to the end. Now I have to rewind it.
?00:35:50Saved what?
Vic00:35:51What am I talking about? What is that?
Sonny00:35:53What are you talking about?
Vic00:35:54Jamie?
Sonny00:35:55I'll just kill.
Vic00:35:56Anyway, this isn't, this isn't, this isn't the worst, like that ridiculous Netflix, like
Sonny00:36:02that ridiculous Netflix movie Vic made us watch this isn't to tease there's, there's a, there's actual sex and, and, and nudity and, uh, it's great. Uh, uh, look, here's the thing as, uh, as a film, as a film, as just a piece of storytelling, as film qua film, movies, a bit of a mess, just as, just as a piece of storytelling, just as a, just getting from beat to beat moment to moment, for instance, again, spoiler Tracy, let's just shows up in the final scene at the, at the, uh, the, the, the quarry or whatever that is, uh, that, that, uh, Ben Affleck is trying to hide his, his most recent murder victim. Um, and. Uh, I have no idea how he got there. There's no, like, there's no shot of him, like, following Ben Affleck.
JVL00:36:53Anna, Anna told him to go there.
Sonny00:36:55That's why. Oh, that's right.
JVL00:36:57Because he found the, because she found the, she left the, she left the scarf there. She left the scarf there on purpose. She knows that he killed it, uh, and she thinks the body's there. She then tells him, and that's why that night she welcomes him into her bed. It is a sort of goodbye.
Sonny00:37:16But she doesn't, she doesn't, but she doesn't find, she doesn't find the wallet until after. She knows he's dead. And that's. She doesn't find the wall. That's just the confirmation. That's the only reason she goes into the snails.
JVL00:37:26This movie's a mess. The movie's a mess.
Sonny00:37:28The movie's a mess. Also, that's what happens in the novel.
JVL00:37:30So. Well, I haven't read the novel. I didn't know there was a novel. Because readings, readings for nerds. Oh my goodness. It's Bishop Shysmith. It's, it's Talented Mr. Ripley.
Sonny00:37:37Author. Same, same, same author. There's something else like that. I don't get to that. It's, anyway, movie's a mess. The, the movie just, again, as a piece of storytelling, it is a mess. It's, like, for instance, maybe Vic, or I'm sorry, maybe JVL, you can explain this, but what is the, what's the, why does he have, like, an office, a, like, a loft office where
JVL00:37:51he's putting up photos. He runs a Poetry and, a Poetry and Photography magazine. Okay.
Vic00:37:57That's his magazine that he, he runs for his, his retirement is that he runs this
JVL00:38:02magazine that seems like doesn't actually get sold, like, it just, he makes it for his own amusement when he's not mountain biking in business casual. Why he mountain bikes in business casual. I don't know. Well, that's how he stays in such great shape.
Sonny00:38:15Why does he, why does he mount, why does he mountain bike to the quarry?
JVL00:38:18Instead of driving?
Sonny00:38:19Instead of driving. Yeah. Could somebody explain? Because I, I understand visually why you would want that in the movie because it's so thrilling to imagine him, I guess, side swiping the SUV with his bike.
Vic00:38:34He was gonna.
Sonny00:38:35I don't understand. Okay. Anyway, again, I think the movie, just as a piece of storytelling, it feels like there's, like, 30 minutes of material. That has been excised from this one. One last question. JBL question. I have Vic story questions. What's the deal with the snails?
Vic00:38:51No idea. This is one of the notes I am for metaphor for. For what? I don't know. I'm just waiting for you to fill it in. Bodily secretions.
JVL00:39:00I, so this is a movie in which nothing is paid off. Well, there's a movie which is constantly offering you little things and then never paying them off.
Sonny00:39:09Okay. So anyway, uh, I don't, I, there were, there were things that are happening.
JVL00:39:12So explain to people. Ben Affleck is obsessed with snails and he has an entire Ben Affleck has like a shed,
Sonny00:39:18a snail shed where he goes out and he just hangs out with his snails and he holds them on his hand and they're like, not creepy at all, slimy, slimy, super creepy.
JVL00:39:26It's not like he wants to fuck the snails probably.
Sonny00:39:29He tells a story about how the snails will climb over a mountain or something to get to the other snail that they love to get to the snail they love. It's again, doesn't none of this.
JVL00:39:42It's fair.
Sonny00:39:43None of this. None of this really works. That said, I still I still like the movie because it's delightfully tawdry in the way that movies these days simply they don't make they literally don't make movies anymore. They don't make movies like this anymore. And I'm pro movies like this. I want more. Me too. Sex romps. Well, this is more.
Vic00:40:05This is more violent sex romps. It's back. It's delivering for you.
Sonny00:40:11So anyway. Well, I gave it a thumbs up. Okay. All right. Thumbs up.
Vic00:40:16Did we actually explain what happens in the movie? Did we? Do you actually explain what happens in the movie? Which is. Yeah.
Sonny00:40:21She's she's constantly cheating on him. She's she's constantly cheating on him and he's murdering the people that she's cheating with. That's what it that's like. That's the whole movie right there. That's right. I mean, that that's it. And then it's it's the the subtext of all of this is that this is how they get off with each other. Yes. She she. Yes. She's like tormenting him with with the cheating and the cucking. And he is then killing everybody and that gets her hot in return. And like that's that's what's happening here. But sick. Anyway, thumbs up for this sick, disgusting pervert movie.
JVL00:40:55Victorino.
Vic00:40:56Yes. I'm going to bet you loved it. I did. It did very well on the quadrants. OK, I gave the plot an A because I thought I knew everything, but clearly I don't. But my sense was that you understood I understood, which is that I understood, which is that picked up the two big things. Yeah. But you have two big things. I got the nub of the of the plot. So anyway, the you know, the she cheats on him and he's killing these guys who cheat on him. And as it turns out, as you mentioned, Sonny, she gets off and she she gets off on it. And and it's almost like, does he get off it like I think he gets off and he gets off on it, too.
Sonny00:41:37OK, that's the plot.
Vic00:41:38Duration was an A. It was under two hours. Right. Hour. It was action violence. J.V.L. You'll be interested in this one. And I wanted to bring this up. I gave it an A. You know why I gave it an A blunt force trauma to the head. Oh, is that why? It was. And it's funny because you mentioned a talented Mr. Ripley. That scene at the end was one of the worst that and also the other lover who bangs his head on the cement in the pool, which the sound of it sounded realistic and awful. But the guy in the end who Ben Affleck throws the rock at and he realizes that in the the blood is on his head. It reminded me very much of Jude Law when he gets the or Hoffman and Phil.
JVL00:42:18Oh, no.
Vic00:42:19Yeah. But it was Matt Damon. And it's him with bangs him on the head. And then it's the realization like, oh, my God, and what is that? And then and then it's over. That was very disturbing. So for for for for for the for the disturbing element, I gave that an A and then sex and nudity. I gave it an A plus plus plus because it's somebody I wanted to see. That's that's all I'm going to say. I want to. She's amazing and interesting and interesting. Interesting how? Just very interesting. I had I had a couple of thoughts, but I'm going to go back. I initially thought, oh, this is a movie about, you know, cuckolds. But I'm like, wait a minute, who's being cuckolded over here? And then it's like cuckolds revenge. And wait a minute. You know, she sees him. She wants him to see him and he is fine. So it's this weird dynamic of getting off on it. And I have other thoughts. But let me throw it to you, JVL.
?00:43:11I.
JVL00:43:12So there are a bunch of things to talk about. One of the things to talk about is that this couple has a child, there's a child who's clearly age five, and this child is present throughout pretty much the entire movie. And yet the two of them have time to pursue the husband and wife, the mother and the father to pursue all of their own interests. And for him to run a magazine hobby and to raise snails and her to just like bang every guy in new Orleans. And they also have time to then like bang it out together and all the time and you know, like they're at parties and she's like jacking them off at parties. And then they go on a picnic with their daughter and this five-year-old just who's an only child just goes and amuses herself for seemingly hours at a time so they can like do it at the picnic site. I just thought to myself.
Sonny00:44:11This is the quietest best behaved five-year-old in the history of the human race.
JVL00:44:15If I took G money, if my lovely wife and I took G money out to on a picnic and then tried to, you know, have some some husband and wife time, I would hear a constant stream that when something like mom, watch this, I found a leaf. Look at this leaf. I can't believe this is an orange leaf. Do you have another juice box? Use the wrong peanut butter. My sandwich. I want to go home. Can we swim? Dad, watch this. Play this rock is pretty. I'm gonna go for a walk. I'm tired. My legs hurt.
Sonny00:44:41You know, like, did you pack my potato batter?
JVL00:44:45That's what the kid is playing with, right? Oh, that's right.
Vic00:44:47Yeah. Yes.
Sonny00:44:49The potato batter is like a little. Well, I think she's a little older than five. I think she's like she's like first grade. I was. I was reminded.
Vic00:44:55I want to say like six. I was reminded of Fatal Attraction again because of the kid.
Sonny00:44:59Yeah. Well, so here's. Can I? Can I? So did you watch through the credits?
JVL00:45:04Yes. Oh, what? They give you outtakes of the kids sitting in the back of the car.
Sonny00:45:07So there's the there's like a mid credit scene. The kid like sitting in the in the car singing. And then as the film comes to an end, they're playing Old MacDonald Has a Farm, which is a song. So here's I think that I think they're trying to suggest that the kid is in on it. The kid is in on the kid is in on the crazy making the kid is the kid is driving the mother insane with the music, the repetition of the music and and knows that all of the murdering is going on. That's kind of hinted in the film. I think I think the kid I think the kid I think the kid. Is the impetus for all the killing in this sick kid because she was a day she said she
Vic00:45:46says it to her dad in the bathtub.
Sonny00:45:49Yes. Crazy kid wants to see the murders.
JVL00:45:52Yeah. Maybe. So the book is much more traditional. Like in the book, Vic is the bad guy. Melinda is the terrorized wife and she and the novelist played by Tracy. Let's hear Don. Uh, are sort of working to expose Vic and they do. And then at the end, Vic is arrested and Melinda is able to get on with her life. Wow.
Vic00:46:23This is movies very different.
JVL00:46:28And the, the most interesting thing about the movie is we should just have a spoiler discussion is that the movie ends on purpose very ambiguously. So, uh, she has set up her husband. And Adarmus has set up Ben Affleck to be caught and exposed by the novelist. The novelist comes and catches Ben Affleck as, as they planned, but then the novelist accidentally dies because he's trying to drive and text at the same time in a scene, which is kind of fantastic because the reason he is driving, the reason he's texting as he's driving is because he is such a self-absorbed writer that he has to tell everybody that he's right. And he's gone, he's found a story that's going to make a bestselling book.
Vic00:47:14I mean, one of the best things is like one of the, one of, one of his final words before he dies in a fiery crash is auto-correct.
JVL00:47:20Honestly, I thought to myself, this is the most true thing in this whole movie. Yeah. That's funny. The picture of the, the writer is this narcissist who views all of this as material for himself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but then when, when Ben Affleck comes home and the wife is sort of surprised to see him show back up. Yeah. We just sort of cut the movies over and it's ambiguous as to whether she is kind of like, Hey, I'm super into it. Let's go fuck.
Sonny00:47:51Again. She, she wanted him, she wanted her husband to kill that guy. The writer.
JVL00:47:57I don't know if that's true.
Sonny00:48:00I think it is 100%. The whole, the whole movie is about her behaving in a way in front of Vic to make him jealous and turn him violent. Like he does turn violent. And then when he does turn violent, she gets into him again and is like grabbing him and rubbing up against him. Like she's, she is turned on by all of us.
JVL00:48:21So that is okay.
Sonny00:48:22So, so I said that is the text of the film. I mean, that's just what happens.
JVL00:48:25I totally agree, but the, so this is a thing which the movie never quite pays off, right? The whole time, the whole time, it is clear that all of this thing is about a kink and the question is, is the kink for him? Yes. Or is the kink. Or is it for her? For her. Right. That's right. Is it that. That's what I thought that. He needs it. He needs this. Well, no, this is right. I think this is right. Um, does he need this to be interested in her or does she need to make him like this so that he will be interested in her, but what is left unsaid, you know, it's never explained to us. Well, hold on. How did this relationship get there? And could we get a little bit of that? When he talks about how we have a kid and she's like, yeah, you want to do that? I didn't want, want to do that. And then there's this series of no payoffs where we're told a lot about the drone microchip and how this is a moral ambiguity. And then it's sort of dropped and we don't ever hear about it again. It honestly is not entirely clear that he didn't kill the first guy. There's a disappearance that happens before the movie. No, we then are led to believe that he didn't do it, but not really. It is still 20% ambiguous. The snails are totally unexplained. There's a scene after he drowns and kills the first, the first boyfriend he kills, uh, where the cops show up and are interrogating all the people at the party together, which seems like maybe not a thing cops do. This was like clue. And then the cops just leave and everyone's like, okay, well never show up. They never show up again. The, the idea that he, the cops are on. We're onto him. Yeah. Never shows up again. Uh, the collaboration between Anna and the writer who she seems to be working with in an attempt to help get Vic discovered that happens almost entirely off screen. We, we see very, very little of it. Uh, and then her betrayal of, of her husband at the end, again, it's left so ambiguous as to not really pay off. Right. Was she trying to get her? To kill the writer or was she trying to get the writer to get him arrested so she could move on and do like her own thing? Like she, has she gotten what she can from him and she's now ready to move on and play these games with somebody else.
Vic00:50:52And we don't know. None, none of this has paid off. There was all sorts of, you know, symbolism and some of it was so like heavy handed. The scene in the car where she gets the apple and then she bites. The rotten apple. Yeah. And she offers it. The apple that's turned. Yeah. And she offers it to Ben Affleck. She's like putting it in his mouth while he's driving. Yeah. You know, it's, it's from the tree of knowledge. You know what I mean? It's Adam and Eve, you know? And so.
?00:51:14I don't get it.
Vic00:51:15It's the complicity, the complicity. It's all about complicity. And the same thing with trying to make this connection with the drones, because sometimes, you know, it's meant to, you know, go after bad people, but every now and then innocent people get killed. And this is like, that was what I thought with her, him with Ben Affleck, killing the lovers. But then every now and then he kills somebody by accident.
Sonny00:51:34Like the writer. No, the stuff, the stuff with the drones, I think is fairly, I think it's fairly obvious, meant it's just. It's just a metaphor for what is going on here, which is that wicked people, cheaters are getting killed by righteous people, aggrieved husbands.
Vic00:51:50One of the weird things is though, is he's not, he's not a very good killer. I mean, he's not an efficient, he's not a, he's, he's not like plotting it out because anybody could walk in at any time. He just happens to kill them and get away with it.
Sonny00:52:02He also kills. He also kills the guy right in front of the writer.
Vic00:52:04Yeah.
JVL00:52:05Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, that's another thing I didn't like. I mean, he's a very smart guy, right? And his, the murders are really stupid. And even after, after he kills the guy with the rocks to get it, to do away with the body, he's like, I'll put him in six inches of water with using my belt to tie a rock to his waist.
Vic00:52:28I mean, it's like, he's good, but he's not good. And it's, you know, couldn't he just have left him there and said, oh, I guess he slipped and fell. People do this all the time. Right. People fall. You hear this all the time over here, you know? So yeah, I, I didn't like that either.
JVL00:52:42I, again, there were, there were parts of it that were lazy and it, I feel like it didn't have the courage of its own convictions to, to actually show us what it, you know, what it really wanted us to be thinking here.
Sonny00:52:54As a piece of storytelling, this movie is, again, it's a mess. It's, I am like perfectly happy to concede that. I still found it very entertaining.
Vic00:53:02Okay.
Sonny00:53:03So in the book, as you were saying in the book, he gets caught weird. It's also funny. It's like, it's, it is like weirdly funny with the, His friends. His friends are not, I like his friends. His friends are funny.
Vic00:53:12That's the funny thing is I like his friends.
Sonny00:53:13I think, I think, I think Ben Affleck is funny in this and I think, I don't know, I, I, I.
Vic00:53:18You know what it is though? It's like, you're not convinced that he's, he's not, he's not a smart killer, but he still is for a guy who just mountain bikes around a lot. He's huge. He's big. You know what I mean? You see him there. He's, he's, he's, he's a strong guy.
Sonny00:53:30So, but these other people. Cause he's in the, in the other part of his loft, he's flipping truck tires over.
Vic00:53:35That must be what it is. No, he's in the police. He's flying from behind. Just like Bruce Wayne. He's like the Hulk. I'm like, geez, okay. But in, in the movie, I thought, not having read the book that there's no way that he, that, that it just ends with him getting away with it because there's too many, you know, loose ends now. Yeah. It makes no sense. They gotta find the body. The body is still out there. Two bodies.
JVL00:53:57The body is tied with his own belt.
Vic00:53:58Right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And the scarf and, and the detectives are, he's in their radar already. So I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But as Sonny said, I, you know, it was still kind of Kate. I watched it with Kate. She happened to walk in and walk in on me. No. She happened to walk in as I was watching it and then ended up watching it with me from about 15 minutes in. What'd she think about the car scene when they're driving home from that party?
?00:54:24Awkward.
Vic00:54:25It was awkward silence, you know, but the, she couldn't, she said she could the whole night. She said she was so disturbed by it. So disturbed. It was so disturbing. Um, I thought again, this movie gets an A because, uh, it's a whole movie where Anna DeArmos gets to call out the name Vic. Yeah. Which is really exciting. I just play that on a loop now.
Sonny00:54:48That's a new, that's a new, that's a new part of the quadrant.
Vic00:54:51Yeah. Who, what if, if, if, if the hot actress calls out my name, you get special bonus points.
JVL00:54:57All right. So I had two, two things before we move off of this. First of all, is it possible that the middle-aged Ben Affleck. Is a much, much more interesting actor than young Ben Affleck.
Vic00:55:10Yes.
JVL00:55:11Yes. Like George Clooney level of, well, you feel like he has entered a period where he is ready to do his best work now that he's 50.
Vic00:55:20I think so. I mean, obviously he's, he's a great director too, but, uh, as an actor too, I didn't like him as a young, I haven't found him annoying, but, uh, but now yeah, I think he's, I think
Sonny00:55:29he's doing, uh, I mean, I've always liked Ben Affleck, but he is doing more interesting work now, certainly than, than he was. Yeah.
JVL00:55:37In his twenties and thirties. But he's also just better at it. Like he's a really interesting screen presence now in a way that young Ben Affleck is not
Sonny00:55:43interesting. He's figured out how to, how to kind of use his like life experiences, brooding, brooding dullness.
JVL00:55:51Yeah.
Sonny00:55:52Yeah. I think that's right. Yeah. I mean, I like, I, I, that sounds very negative when I put it that way, but he has like, he has like a very specific and kind of interesting look that is, that is not always very well used. Right. Yeah. Did you guys see the way back? No. No. I didn't see that. He's good. He's very good in the way back as well. Uh, as the kind of recovering alcohol. Yes.
Vic00:56:15Uh, which is also kind of real. Isn't he, uh, his drinking problem, did he give up drinking or is he still ish ish.
JVL00:56:23And I just rewatched Batman versus Superman and I want to talk about this a little bit on the bonus. Um, I have come around on him as Bruce Wayne.
Vic00:56:31Wow. Maybe the best. Bruce Wayne.
JVL00:56:34What? Yeah. Save it for the, save it for the show. Okay. But here's the other thing I want to talk just a little bit about the state of Hollywood. So we have, we've really observed the decline of the theatrical movie business over the last couple of years. And I think having now watched deep water, I figured out how to save movies. All right, here's what we need. We need to remake wild things starring Ana de Armas and Alexandra. De Dario would that make all of the money?
Sonny00:57:12Yeah. It, it, it, no, because it would just wind up on HBO max.
JVL00:57:16I'm sorry. Is this not the most genius idea ever?
Sonny00:57:22That's great. No, it's not because people don't want to go see it. This is, I mean, this is why this movie got sent to Hulu is because people don't want to go see movies with nudity anymore. It's terrible.
JVL00:57:31They do. That's not true. They just want to see movies with, uh, like Jason Segal. Jason Segal's junk. Oh. Right.
Sonny00:57:38Well, they don't want to see. Well, nobody wants to see that.
Vic00:57:40Yeah. Or prosthetic ones like in, uh, um, that other Pam and Tommy. Okay.
Sonny00:57:46Uh, and.
Vic00:57:47Again on TV. Yeah. Any other thoughts? Moving on. Yeah. Okay. Spirit of the week.
JVL00:57:54Corrections.
Vic00:57:55Shout outs. No. Quiet this week. Same here. Uh, okay then. That's 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.
Sonny00:58:17All right.
Vic00:58:20What do you got? Something. Anything.
JVL00:58:25It's nothing. This stuff that's going on in my life that we will talk about in a few weeks. I was wondering if we were going to talk about it today. No. Can't jinx it. But it has eaten up an enormous amount of time.
Sonny00:58:39How much longer until?
JVL00:58:43Not until things are 100% certain.
Sonny00:58:47No, but I mean like what do you have? How many more weeks until things? Five. Oh, God. So many weeks. All right. I'm sure it'll be fine.
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