#99. 'The Lost City'
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
The main review is The Lost City, the Sandra Bullock/Channing Tatum romance-adventure that opened at number one with $30.5 million (ahead of The Batman and RRR). Sonny likes it despite acknowledging it looks cheap, has weak CGI, no real action, and hacky ADR-added quips, saying the Bullock/Tatum/Brad Pitt chemistry papers over the flaws; JVL is much colder, arguing every joke lands two levels below where a movie like Old School or Miss Congeniality would land it, and objecting to Daniel Radcliffe's villain turning into a mustache-twirler and to the film's clumsy earnestness; Vic grades it on the quadrant system — Plot A-minus, Duration A, Violence/Action B-minus, Sex/Nudity C (for Tatum's butt) — and spends much of the discussion tracing the film's debt to Romancing the Stone and the Richard Chamberlain King Solomon's Mines, with JVL revealing he hated Romancing the Stone as a kid for daring to follow Raiders of the Lost Ark. The long opening third covers JVL detailing his hopeless, cut-less Catholic middle-school baseball team (Sonny recommends a Full Metal Jacket-style scapegoat strategy), an extended dissection of the Will Smith/Chris Rock Oscars slap that Sonny half-watched while deep in a fantasy baseball draft (including his read on Smith's people-pleaser memoir and the Japanese uncensored broadcast), and Vic's story of curing his decades-old alopecia via an intense scalp massage from his old Korean hairstylist Sandy. They also riff on Sandra Bullock's filmography (Speed, Demolition Man, The Heat), Daniel Radcliffe's post-Potter oddball career, and the directors' bizarre next project, a Masters of the Universe movie, before closing on JVL's bit about Nicole Kidman's wandering accent in the AMC theater ads.
From the show notes
The guys review The Lost City . PROGRAMMING NOTE: The bonus episode coming Monday is no longer on Romancing the Stone , which they discuss here. Instead, it is on Bruce Willis, following the news he's retiring. Apologies for the confusion. Please enjoy this episode and also Monday's episode.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Miss Sage, I enjoyed your book about the lost city, and I believe you're the one who could help me find its treasure. I have to respectfully decline. I'm afraid I must insist. Unchain me! That's your seat belt. Loretta Sage is missing. I'm gonna rescue her. I just want her to think of me as more than a cover model. Alan, what are you doing here? We're here to save you. I'm certified in CPR, I'm certified in CrossFit. I have snacks.
Vic00:00:45Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, The Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and don't forget about The Sub-Beacon merchandise store at tpublic.com. JVL, what is going on? Is your life any calmer this week? No. No, it's not.
JVL00:01:13Same? More? In fact, Friday, we're recording this on Thursday night. On Friday, it is the first day of practice for my baseball team. Oh! And I now have a little bit more visibility in my life. A little bit more visibility into what is going on with this team. If we lose by an average of less than 40 runs per game, I will be shocked.
Sonny00:01:38You're saying if you lose by—you're expecting to lose by more than 40 runs per game on average?
JVL00:01:44Per game. On average.
Sonny00:01:45Why? Isn't there a mercy rule in your league?
JVL00:01:49No. No, there's no mercy rule. After, like, you know, ninth—no, sorry. Nine-year-old little league, there are no more mercy rules. It can just go on for interminable if it's bad. So what I—I finally got my finalized roster. This school, most schools, I think, the middle school team is open to seventh and eighth graders. This team is going to have fifth and sixth graders as well.
Sonny00:02:13That's not middle school. That's elementary school.
Vic00:02:16Did you make cuts?
JVL00:02:18No.
Vic00:02:19Did you say, like, you know, put it on the door? If you want to know if you're in or not, it's on the door. No, I didn't make cuts.
Sonny00:02:25You didn't make cuts? How can you have a baseball team without cuts?
JVL00:02:28Because I have 15 kids in this tiny little Catholic school who are coming out for the team.
Sonny00:02:34If they're not good enough, you should play with eight.
JVL00:02:36Of the 15 kids, only seven have ever played baseball before at any level. And of those seven, three of the seven are fifth and sixth graders.
Vic00:02:49I should try out for this team.
JVL00:02:51Which means that they're, like, three and a half feet tall. And they weigh 75 pounds.
Sonny00:02:55It could be, like, Never Been Kissed. Wait, no, wait, what's the one where, what's her name, Drew Barrymore goes back to school? Yes, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's you.
Vic00:03:04And, you know, David Arquette, who plays the Fantastic Brother. And he ends up, remember, he sneaks his way into school as well. And then in the end he becomes, like, the assistant baseball coach. That's you.
Sonny00:03:17That would be, yes. You would be a player.
JVL00:03:19I cannot field nine players. Nine players, all of whom have held a glove before our first practice tomorrow. What's the other teams look like? That's the question. That's all that matters. I guess, but I, again, just looking at it, I don't know how we're going to get, I mean, you have to get 21 outs, seven in a game. I don't know how we're going to get, like, nine outs. Because the other thing is, I don't know if I have anybody who can catch Flash. Like, you know, so, like, I don't even know if I can pitch him.
?00:03:50Right, right, right, right.
JVL00:03:50Because I don't know if there's anybody on this team who can catch him. That's interesting.
Sonny00:03:54And you don't want to, you don't want to send Flash out there and to tell him to tone it down, because that will create bad habits. Right. Well, you just can't.
JVL00:04:02He can't. I mean, you know, like, you can tell him, like, yeah, go throw 80%, but it doesn't really work that way. Anyway, it's going to be a disaster, and it's going to be fun. We're going to make it fun.
Vic00:04:15It'll be like Walter Matthau on the Bad News Bears. That doesn't sound like fun at all.
Sonny00:04:19That sounds terrible. You know what I would do? You should just disband the team.
Vic00:04:22I'm going to make them run. You should just disband the team.
Sonny00:04:24Yeah.
JVL00:04:25Just give them up. Every time the other team scores, everybody on the field has to drop and do push-ups right there on the field.
Vic00:04:30That's good. No, no.
JVL00:04:32You do push-ups. And who cares if they're stealing bases while you're doing push-ups?
Sonny00:04:36I don't care. We're going to teach you a lesson. No, what you need to do is you need to find the worst kid on the team. Find the kid who is just absolute dog shit.
JVL00:04:43The fifth grader who's never played before? Because I have a couple of those, too. I have fifth graders who have never played baseball before on this team.
Sonny00:04:48Find a fifth grader who thinks he is left-handed and doesn't know how to throw a baseball. And then every time he messes up, you make the rest of the team do push-ups. But not him. Like in Full Metal Jacket. You find the absolute worst piece of shit player on the team and you punish everybody else until he gets better. And that will bring them together. That will bring them together in hatred of this one person.
JVL00:05:12And a code red. Don't I wind up dead in that scenario? You're going to wrap the soap in the towel? Doesn't Vincent D'Onofrio shoot Arlie Ermey in the chest?
Sonny00:05:20Yeah, look. I'm not saying that you – I'm not saying that this doesn't have drawbacks. I'm not saying that nobody is going to get their hands – nobody is going to get out of this with their hands totally clean. But you'll teach them an important lesson about teamwork and getting better.
Vic00:05:36And don't take jelly donuts out of the cafeteria.
JVL00:05:40Here's what you guys have to look forward to. All right? We tape this show on Thursdays. Next Thursday afternoon is our first game.
Sonny00:05:49Oh, boy.
JVL00:05:50So when we sit down to tape next week, I will have a report from our first 47-0 loss.
Vic00:05:57You might still be out there when we're there. So I don't know. I think if you had to make cuts, I would say you would – inside their lockers, you put a little red ribbon in there. Isn't that how it works? You put the red ribbon in there.
Sonny00:06:10Well, it's a Catholic school, right?
Vic00:06:12No, I was saying it's major league. Wasn't that the whole thing? No, no, no.
Sonny00:06:15I'm saying it's a Catholic school, right? Yeah. You put an upside-down crucifix in there.
Vic00:06:19You're out. It's a bad sign. It's a really bad sign. You're out. It would be a bad sign. Good luck to you, JVL. Double. Sonny, what's happening?
Sonny00:06:29Not a whole lot on my end.
JVL00:06:34We are not talking about Bruce Willis, right? No more coyotes. We're going to talk about Bruce Willis' bonus episode.
Sonny00:06:39Yeah, we'll talk about Bruce Willis on the bonus episode. I don't want to – We were going to talk about Romancing the Stone on the bonus episode. We're going to incorporate it here. We'll talk about that in the last –
Vic00:06:54Quatermain? Was he Quatermain or Quartermain?
Sonny00:06:57Quatermain.
Vic00:06:58Quater.
Sonny00:06:59I think. Quatermain. That's right.
Vic00:07:02That's right. Quartermain? No, no, no.
Sonny00:07:05Main. Like French. Quatermain.
Vic00:07:08I've never seen any of these movies. Starring the very manly Richard Chamberlain.
Sonny00:07:11I've never seen any of them. I don't know what these are. That was a joke for JVL. You'll have to explain it. You'll have to explain them to me. That was a joke for JVL. Okay.
?00:07:18Do we want to talk about the slap?
Sonny00:07:19JVL.
Vic00:07:20Yeah. Are you slapped out? Or is it – You are –
Sonny00:07:24I feel like it keeps on going. JVL was very upset about the slap. Sure. He said he hated everything about the slap.
?00:07:30Yeah.
JVL00:07:31I have thus far gone without engaging with this bullshit story even once. Until now. I have no –
Vic00:07:43Just for our listeners. Just for our listeners.
JVL00:07:45No interest in really breaking that. I don't have anything to say. Sonny, were you the only one watching the Oscars?
Sonny00:07:51I would assume I'm probably the only person. Only 16 million people watched the Oscars.
Vic00:07:55Were you paying attention because it was – before they were announcing a documentary thing, were you like doing stuff and it was like what?
Sonny00:08:01I was actually in the middle of a fantasy baseball draft. I'm in a long running keeper fantasy baseball league. Seems to be the day.
Vic00:08:09Yeah.
Sonny00:08:10Are you all right?
Vic00:08:11Yeah.
Sonny00:08:12You were just talking – who were you talking to?
Vic00:08:15To you. I said everybody seems to be in these fantasy baseball drafts. I was just talking to somebody the other day.
Sonny00:08:20Yeah. It's because it's the baseball season. You know what fantasy baseball is, right? No.
Vic00:08:24I've never played it.
Sonny00:08:25So you have the whole league and you pick players. You pick players. Yeah. In this version of fantasy baseball, which is again a thing that people have done for literally like 40 years now. 40? It's not a new phenomenon. But you have to be into sports ball to be – Oh, okay. I appreciate it. No. But in my fantasy baseball league – I've been in this league for like 15 or 20 years now. And it's a keeper league. So we have players that roll over. You keep a certain number of them that roll over. So I'm in the middle of like arguably one of like the five most important nights of my entire year in addition to like trying to watch the Oscars and like I'm kind of like – I'm also like – I've also had a frozen margarita and three corona lights at the same time.
Vic00:09:12At this point. You're like Paul Rudd in Knocked Up.
Sonny00:09:15And like on top of this, on top of this, I'm also trying to live tweet it, right? So I'm like – I've got like four different screens open on my computer. I've got the Oscars on my TV. I've got one eye closed because I'm trying to actually see what's happening because I'm starting to see double. And all of a sudden, all of a sudden the sound dumps out on the TV and I'm like, oh, what? Is the fucking Spectrum app broken? Is it – like what is – what's happening here? And then it like cuts back like two seconds and then it jumps ahead like 15 seconds. Really? Like what is happening? What is happening here? And like all of a sudden like Chris Rock is like, whoa, I just got slapped and like clearly something is happening. So like everybody – so I'm – again, I go like right to Twitter. I'm like, what's happening? And people are like, I think Chris Rock just got hit. What happened? And then the live – the like uncut live footage from Australia and Japan starts coming in. Yeah, I saw the one from Japan. The one from Japan is fantastic because it's like it's – it's like watching Isle of the Dogs. There's that scene in Isle of the Dogs where that's like – so like Chris Rock is like – it's translating Chris Rock and it's like a slap of the shit-o. And it's like – I'm like, what the fuck is happening here? So anyway, piecing it all together was like part of the – part of the journey in figuring out what had happened. I mean, I like – I am genuinely – it is a – it was a genuinely shocking live TV moment. It is one of these things that like I – so I just so happen to have listened to Will Smith's memoir at the gym over the last like month, you know, just like –
Vic00:10:56Oh, wow.
Sonny00:10:57Does he – does he – He reads it. He reads it. Fresh Prince reads it. And it's – and it's very interesting. And I've talked about this a little on Across the Movie Isle, but it's very interesting to watch all of this happen after having listened to that book because there's a whole – there's a long chapter in the book where he talks about having to like retrain himself to not be a people pleaser all the time, to like – to essentially, you know, he spent 20 years of his life signing every autograph, taking every photo, you know. Anytime somebody asked him to do something, he said yes because he was trying to be the biggest star in the world. And that made him miserable as I – you can only imagine it would. And so –
Vic00:11:37I don't even know what – I don't even know what you're talking about.
Sonny00:11:38Vic would be like, yeah, thanks. Well, let's just keep – everybody come to me. I want to do things with everyone.
Vic00:11:45Does not compute. Does not compute.
Sonny00:11:47Go ahead. But he talks about how he had to like retrain himself to like if – he tells a story in this book about how he was at a gym. He was in his gym at a, you know, at a fancy hotel for a press junket and he was like, all right, I've got 30 minutes. I can get my cardio and my weights in and I'll get back to the – I'll get back to the room and it will be fine. And as he's starting his workout, somebody comes up to him and is like, yo, Will Smith, I love you, man. My little brother, he's Down syndrome. The only thing that makes him smile in the whole world is Fresh Prince. Can you just like – just take a quick, quick – do a quick video for me. He's already got his – Video. He's already got his camera out. He's like – he's putting – she's shoving the phone in Will Smith's face to like take a video. Oh, my gosh. And Smith like talks in the book about running through everything that's going through his head. He's like, on the one hand, yeah, I should just do it. It will take five seconds. It will make the guy happy. On the other hand, I don't want to do it because I'm trying to work out. I'm trying to – and this guy is just shoving a camera in my face. He's invading my privacy. This is not – so in light of all of that, it was very interesting to watch the sequence of events which if you see the footage, it's something like this. Chris Rock tells the G.I. Jane joke. Will Smith laughs. He does. Then Will Smith looks over and sees Jada Pinkett Smith is super pissed off. And it cuts back to Chris Rock so we don't see what happens next. But like the – but what I can – what I imagine going through his head is something like this. I'm supposed to laugh at this because this is my job. It's my job to get poked at, fun at, my family, whatever. But I don't want to laugh at this. I don't want my family to be the subject of fun. So I'm done with that sort of thing and he just goes up there and he hits him. And there's like a Scientology element to all of this apparently. It's part of the tone scale. Yeah. Like if you are – if you – I mean – Well, he's an operating thetan so he's
JVL00:13:34clear.
Sonny00:13:35He can do whatever he wants. Well, so but this is – anyway, I like – I'm not going to get – I don't want
Vic00:13:38to get into the thing. It's like the Max Burns sub stack thing.
Sonny00:13:41Yeah. It's fascinating. Yeah, yeah. So it's really interesting. But like the whole thing is just – the whole thing is very sad and it was also very funny in real time. I like – I don't know how to – I don't know how to square that circle. I don't know how to like fix those two contradictions because it was like watching a guy have a mental breakdown after like 30 years of striving for this one thing in his life to win an Oscar and then like having a legitimate mental breakdown. And 15 minutes before it happens, the whole thing was amazing.
Vic00:14:13There were previous jokes told at their expense but it was about the open marriage jokes before that. There was –
Sonny00:14:19That led up to Gina Hall. Yeah. And like Chris Rock – and Chris Rock has like taken shots at Jada Pinkett Smith before. Oh, in the past. Oh, yeah. Like not once or twice but like as a regular thing because she's – because she's a crazy person. Yeah. Like I don't – Yeah, of course. She's like –
Vic00:14:35I don't know anything about her except for I liked her in The Nutty Professor but she looked like – she looked like somebody you wouldn't want to mess with.
Sonny00:14:44She has like murder eyes. Like some people have crazy eyes and it's like – but she has like murder eyes. Like if she has the eyes that you – you look at her and you can see that she's trying to figure out the six ways to kill you before she gets to you. And I – so like again, the whole thing was like incredibly entertaining and also deeply sad and like – anyway. Yeah.
JVL00:15:10That's my take on the slap. Well, I hope that Will is cool now that violence is socially acceptable. We got to stand and go. You know, somebody goes up to him and asks him to take a photo and he says, "No, thanks," then you know, they can hit him.
Sonny00:15:22Slap him right in the face. That's cool. That's right. My Downs brother wants this video.
JVL00:15:26Yeah. How dare he be mean to them. Now, I do think it's hysterical that he has to retrain himself to be a people – from being a people pleaser only after he achieves what he wants, right? This is – I had to be a people pleaser so I could be the biggest star in the world but then once I got to be the biggest star in the world, I didn't have to take pictures with these assholes anymore.
Sonny00:15:46No, I mean that is – and like I get it. I get it. Like I imagine – I could imagine being that person and it making you miserable and realizing that's not what you want. Like I get it.
JVL00:15:57Which is why he went and became a monk, right? Oh, no. He kept making movies and going on press junkets and asking people to write about him and help him make money.
Sonny00:16:04I'm just saying. I – you know, I'm a – Yes. I'm a public figure. I just go around and slap people.
Vic00:16:12You know? Oh, yes. Sonny, you don't want people – people are scared to go up to you.
Sonny00:16:16Paul Crookston came up to me once and I slapped him right in the face. He was like, "How dare you? How dare you, Paul?"
Vic00:16:20He never made that mistake ever again.
Sonny00:16:23We love Paul.
Vic00:16:25Yes. I have – Go ahead, Vic. Do you have any other thoughts before I – I want to hear you, Vic. No, no, no, no, no. I thought at first – I saw it the next morning when I'm on the throne. And I was like, "What's everyone talking about here? What is this?" Because, you know, on Twitter, I'm like, "What is going on?" And then I see this video and it happened to be the Japanese one, right? That's what is a special treat because it's completely uncensored. And not only that, but the audio is superb when it comes to Will Smith. Keep in mind, Will Smith doesn't have a microphone.
Sonny00:16:57Well, this is – I mean, this is like the actual – And you heard it. This is the actual most frightening part of the video. It was. Oh, that was. That was more frightening. Him screaming at the top of his lungs. In front – again, in front of like tens of millions of people.
JVL00:17:11My wife's name. Yeah, 16 million.
Sonny00:17:13Well, I mean, around the world.
JVL00:17:14One ten of million.
Sonny00:17:15Around the world, there's probably, you know, tens of millions. But it was – Because people are –
Vic00:17:22It was crazy. People laughed. People laughed when Chris Locke said, you know, "Oh, you know, Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me." He slapped the shit out of me. And then – but, you know, if you look at Will Smith's face as he's walking back to his seat, it's like crazy. The Locke – it's like he's – a lot of things are going on and it's scary. And then when he says, "Keep" – what does he say? "Keep my wife's name" –
Sonny00:17:47"Keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth."
Vic00:17:49And you heard, "Who?" And then was it Lupita Nyong'o sitting next to her? You know, again, her reaction. And then the second time he said it, you could hear a pin drop. And that did stump Chris Rock for a brief moment.
Sonny00:18:03There's a great moment where Chris Rock clearly has a comeback joke – Yes. – like lined up and he just puts it in his pocket. And this is actually my biggest takeaway from this is Chris Rock is the most – is the pro's pro. He's the most professional guy in that room because he keeps that show rolling. He gets right to the next award. Yeah. Those poor people. I mean it's like – Like, anyway.
JVL00:18:27Questlove. So is Chris Rock – when Chris Rock gets heckled the next time at a comedy club, can he go and hit the person who heckles him?
Vic00:18:37Yeah. The other way around. Somebody else is going to try to – I think it's the other way around. Oh, it doesn't go both ways? Because Will Smith – oh, because he did it. Now the other people – I mean look. He's in Boston now. There's a great profile. One of my favorite writers, Jeff Edgers –
JVL00:18:47Oh, people in Boston would never do anything that I love. To Chris Rock. Yeah. No. I'm not worried about that at all.
Vic00:18:55No. They need to do like – somebody was saying they need to have like the chain link fence like in Blues Brothers to prevent you from the crazies. But Jeff Edgers – The chicken wire. Yes. Jeff Edgers has a good profile. The chicken wire fence. Anyway. No. My only thought is the whole thing now is that alopecia, right? Because he didn't know she had it and that's why it was very sensitive about her condition. You know, JVL might remember, maybe he doesn't remember, I had alopecia like 20 years ago. And it was – I don't know, I had it for – weird. It just happened and it was like for maybe, I don't know, four or five months where like hair starts falling out. It was really weird. Is that a thing that comes and goes? Yeah. No. It was stress. It was stress for me. I think it was working too hard. It was stress. Yes. And I remember like, you know, you try to take like the alopecia and different things. It doesn't work and it's not. And I'm just like, I don't even want to touch my hair because I feel like every time I touch it, you know, hair is going to fall out. And so I would have these really short haircuts, which I still do. But anyway, you know when it changed, JVL?
JVL00:20:00When?
Vic00:20:01I went to my hair stylist. Do you remember Sandy? Sandy at Pee Off, the Korean girl. And you know how I feel about Asian women, as you know. She was Thai, wasn't she? Korean. Korean?
Sonny00:20:15Korean. My hairdresser in DC was Thai. The one who died.
Vic00:20:18Oh. Okay. Well, Sandy was wonderful. She ended up, she moved to Brazil with her husband. But she's there at the time and I tell her about my situation, my condition. And she says, "You're doing this wrong. You don't avoid it. You need to stimulate it." Stimulate your scalp. And so what you need is a real serious scalp massage. And so she gave me at that moment, and I must've been one of the, I think I was the last customer there. I remember this. And it was like one light on and it was like, and she starts giving me this massage and it's going on forever. And you know what? Your penthouse. I never thought this would happen to me. That is what happened to me. That's right. No. Well, again, because we all thought about this, like, well, you know, I'm already in the position reclining and that's, that's how I prefer it. What position? You know, I was going to make a, I was going to make a Madison Cawthorne joke, but I won't, but I'm just going to say to slide there, these two girls walked into the convenience
JVL00:21:18store at 2:00 AM.
Vic00:21:20Just, I don't know. I was getting the shower. No, no, no. I was in the, you know, where you get the shampoo, where they lay, you know, recline you in the chair.
Sonny00:21:26I am familiar with the chair and I'm trying to figure, I'm trying to figure out what position
Vic00:21:33you're in. I'm just lying there. And then I'm like a picture. In my mind. She's on top of me, but she's not okay. But in my mind, like she'd straddled me, but she wasn't straddling anyway. I'm just telling you, she gave me the most amazing massage and you know what? It grew. It cured.
Guest00:21:48It grew.
Vic00:21:49Speaking of hair raising adventures over the weekend, the lost city found its way into the top spot of the box office. Stop the show.
JVL00:21:59Yeah.
Vic00:22:00A plus, plus, plus, plus hair raising. Transition.
Sonny00:22:06Okay. Thank you. It's not a hair raising adventure.
Vic00:22:09That doesn't even make any sense. You know what? I was hoping too. I was hoping that I would find ... You know what? Had we ... I think, Sonny, when we were in the forum at Caesar's Palace, wasn't there a rainforest cafe there or something? And I made a joke about the rainforest ... I can't remember because then I would've said speaking of rainforests. Anyway- Oh, no.
Sonny00:22:25It wasn't a rainforest cafe. Ridiculous. It was like that. It was the Vanderpump- Oh, yes. Vanderpump. Vanderpump Lounge or something.
Vic00:22:32Yes. Yes. Yes. Vanderpump Garden. It was a Lost City. Anyway, the Lost City found its way into the top spot of the box office with $30.5 million followed by The Batman with $20.5 million and in third place, RRR, an Indian movie with a period piece with $9.5 million. Box office thoughts?
Sonny00:22:58I thought the Lost City would do a little bit better. Honestly, I-
JVL00:23:04You thought it would do a lot better.
Sonny00:23:05The range was between 25 and 35 that people were predicting. I thought it would pop higher than that. The tracking was pretty good, but if you go back and look at the tracking, there is an interesting downward tick on the interest in seeing in a theater at the last minute, so I don't know what happened there. I thought this movie would do 45 million. I thought it would blow up. Now, here's the thing. This is not actually that far off of Sandra Bullock's similar Sandra Bullock openings movies like The Heat and The Proposal. It is in a normal range even pre-pandemic for her, so maybe it holds real well and people keep showing up. But then it could get killed by Morbius, huge hit coming next week. Huge movie.
Vic00:23:52Yeah, I anticipate it's going to be ... ... movies.
Sonny00:23:54I can't ...
Vic00:23:55Sonny, you've seen it already?
Sonny00:23:57Oh, I've seen it. It's terrible. I can't wait for Vic to see it and just be miserable the entire time.
Vic00:24:01Yeah, all right, because I don't want to see any more comic book movies.
Sonny00:24:04And yet ... I'm into it. How long is it?
Vic00:24:07How long is this movie?
Sonny00:24:08It's very short, thankfully. Oh, okay. It's only like 100 minutes long.
Vic00:24:11Wow.
Sonny00:24:12Okay, that's a plus. So you'll ...
Vic00:24:14That's me right there. I don't think I'm familiar with Morbius at all.
Sonny00:24:18I played a video ... The Living Vampire. Morbius, The Living Vampire. I have a whole riff on this in my review that's going up tomorrow, or this morning, I guess, when you're ... Yes. It'll already be up by the time you're listening to this. But Morbius was always a shit character. He's always been a mid-tier ... He's always been a mid-tier shit character. If this is what Sony is going for with their Spider-Man universe, it is DOA. They got lucky with Venom, because Venom was a huge property in the 1990s. People really, really love Venom. So that makes a certain amount of sense, but Morbius is not a huge property. Morbius is a shitty Dracula knockoff that has had several chances at a real series and has never been able to carry his own book. So nobody cares about Morbius.
JVL00:25:05Nobody wants this movie.
Sonny00:25:07Nobody wants this movie, except the only person who wants this movie is Tom Rothman. Tom Rothman at Sony Pictures wanted this movie, and he should be... If Kevin Feige isn't on an airplane right now to the Sony lot to have the talk, the talk with Tom that involves putting a spider head in his bed, I don't know, man. They got to get something going there.
Vic00:25:37Okay.
Sonny00:25:38Well... Anyway, box office thoughts. I didn't see that Indian movie, because I don't see these...
Vic00:25:41It's the way you know, it's interesting. No, foreign . It's interesting. I read about it. It stands for something in, I think, India.
Sonny00:25:50What's it stand for?
Vic00:25:51One of the words is rage. Rage, rage, rage. It's a colonial piece. Little bit of...
Sonny00:25:58Pro? Is it pro-Britain?
Vic00:26:00Oh, it is not. What did you say, Sonny?
Sonny00:26:03Pro-Britain?
Vic00:26:04Oh, guess again. So I guess, though, this week, we are talking about the number one movie at the box office, The Lost City. Not to be confused with... The Lost City of...
JVL00:26:14The Lost City of...
Vic00:26:15Or The Lost City of D? Yes.
Sonny00:26:17Oh, it's just The Lost City. The Lost City. It was gonna be called The Lost City of D, and they decided to rename it, because that's too easily lost.
Vic00:26:22Did they want it to be that obvious? Did they want it to be that obvious as a riff on The Lost City of Z by our friend JVL? David Graham.
Sonny00:26:29David Graham.
Vic00:26:30David Graham. No, I don't...
?00:26:32Played by Brad Pitt.
JVL00:26:34Yes.
Vic00:26:35Yes.
Sonny00:26:36No, it's not... It's not supposed to be a riff on that. It's a riff on, like, Romancing the Stone. Yeah. We can talk...
Vic00:26:41We'll talk more about that in a bit. It's like The Lost City of ZD. It's another letter, I figured. You know? Okay.
Sonny00:26:46Sonny, how about a big boy review? All right. So, Lost City stars Sandra Bullock as... What's her name?
JVL00:26:52Loretta Sage? Is that... Is that... Is that her name? A romance novelist who is tired of writing romance novels.
Sonny00:26:58She hates doing it, 'cause she's tired of hanging out with Alan Capri Sun. That's his... That's the character name. Is that right? Capri Sun. Capri Sun. Who is played by the charming Channing Tatum. Impalanted. Charming Potato, as we like to call him. And he is like a Fabio-like cover model, right? She is tired of hanging out with him. He thinks that, like, the books are just as much his success as they are hers, and he's not far off, judging by the fans who were at the first event on the book tour, as the book tour kicks off. It goes terribly. She gets kidnapped by Daniel Radcliffe, who's playing basically like a deranged Murdoch heir in this film, a deranged scion of the Murdoch clan who wants her to help him find a priceless artifact, yada, yada, yada. Channing Tatum enlists the aid of Jack Traynor, CIA agent-turned-extraction artist, Jack Traynor, who is, you know, in the... in the rescuing business. They head over to the small island in the Atlantic where he promptly rescues her, much to the chagrin of Alan Capri-son. I'm gonna just call him Capri-son for the most part.
Vic00:28:16Capri-son, yeah.
Sonny00:28:17It's gotta be in his office. And then he's killed. Big first-act twist, beginning of the second-act twist. Anyway, they have to learn how to blah, blah, blah, get along together. Romantic comedy. Romantic comedy. They fall for each other.
Vic00:28:36So here's the thing. You said blah, blah, blah, but last episode you said you liked this movie.
Sonny00:28:40I do like this movie. So here's the thing. I actually do like it. It is a fairly standard rom-com. It is entertaining enough, and the chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum and Brad Pitt, importantly, is good enough that it overcomes every other problem with this movie. There are many. I mean, first of all, it looks like shit. The movie actually looks garbage. It looks like garbage the whole time. It's terrible.
Vic00:29:10Are you telling me they didn't film on location? They had to film some of it on location. Terrible.
Sonny00:29:13Come on. Don't tell me that. Well, some of it was filmed on location, but there's a ton of really bad CGI backdrops. There are no good action sequences in the movie. There's no real exciting action or fun, exciting action sequences. And there are a number of really terrible ADR, after dialogue recording jokes that you can tell somebody at the studio was like, "We need some more quips in this." And anytime you hear one of these where both of the characters have their back turned to the camera, they were clearly added in post and they're all just miserable and hacky. Even with all of those problems-
JVL00:29:58And yes, five screenwriters. Five screenwriters.
Sonny00:30:01Wow. Even with all of these problems. Yes. I still enjoyed it. I enjoyed watching Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum together. I thought Daniel Radcliffe was really good as the villain. I like Daniel Radcliffe. He's doing his thing. He's had an interesting career. And this is the sort of very basic rom-com that Hollywood used to make a ton of and is not quite as good at it as they used to be. To be honest, I re-watched Romancing the Stone this week because we were going to do it for the bonus episode. We can just talk about it here instead. Romancing the Stone is not that good. I mean, it's okay. It's fine.
Vic00:30:42It's slow where The Lost City really cuts to the chase and you get to the jungle. There's a lot of dragging in the beginning of Romancing the Stone before you get to the better parts. I mean, like Michael Douglas- All of those movies start really slow.
JVL00:30:55It's really interesting. Ghostbusters starts really slow.
Sonny00:30:57Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. Well, Michael Douglas doesn't show up to like 30 minutes into the movie, which is fascinating. Right.
Vic00:31:03She's on the bus.
Sonny00:31:04It's going on. Romancing the Stone is a very weirdly structured movie because the villains exist solely to move the plot along. They just show up any time. Right. Right. Right.
Vic00:31:16They just show up any time they need Kathleen Turner to go somewhere. There's basically two. Yeah. Two villains-
Sonny00:31:20There's Danny DeVito and the- And Hefe. Colombian guy. And Hefe. And the alligator. Yeah. Okay. So anyway, The Lost City is ... I found it to be charming. And that's all it needed to be. I don't think it's great, but I enjoyed it.
Vic00:31:36Thank you, Sonny. JVL. You, like I, the trailer, I was very amused by the trailer. I enjoyed the trailer. You had mentioned, "Oh, I'm looking forward. Let's see this movie. We want to see this movie." Me too. I said, "Oh, we'll see." Because it's pretty funny. What did you think?
JVL00:31:52I didn't like it. Mm-hmm.
Vic00:31:55Yeah.
JVL00:31:56I- Disappointed? Didn't like it? Or what? Yeah. This is ... So ... And what I didn't like about it was that there is a good movie in there somewhere, but they didn't make the good movie, and at every turn, the movie is less good than it needs to be. Right? I mean, this is ... For me, the best kinds of movies are the ones that are better than they have to be, and I think of Old School as the quintessential version of this, right? Old School is a phenomenally successful story, because at every point, they go two extra levels in the joke, right, and it becomes funnier and funnier, and this is like ... Every joke is two levels too low than it should be. There aren't enough of them. It's not funny enough. The chemistry between the leads is good, but not quite good enough, and there are age problems. It looks terrible. The story itself is totally uninteresting and unengrossing, and the beat-to-beat that we talk about. Like, moving the story along, it's very ... None of it makes a ton of sense. Again, I don't mean to be holding this to some standard of cinema, but even as a generic rom-com, it didn't work for me at almost any level, and I am a sucker for Sandy Bullock. I am a sucker for Chan Tatum. I think they are very nice on screen together, and I gotta say. And when they did the closing credits and they showed the number of writers on the project, I just thought to myself, "Yeah, okay. Now I understand."
Sonny00:33:38Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely a ... This is the sort of thing that went through several rewrites and they were trying to figure out how to make the plot work in addition to punching up the humor, and it just like ... All that ...
Vic00:33:52It's weird because you think it's there. I mean, it should be all there, but it's ...
JVL00:33:56Well, you know what? Everything that works is actually in the trailer. Yeah. Yeah. That's the other thing. I feel like there is two and a half minutes of material in this that works really well, and all of it's in the trailer.
Vic00:34:08I now know why Brad Pitt was in the later trailer, to bring in the extra crowd, because as Sonny was saying, there seems to be this drop off in the number of people who are going to see this movie. And I'm sure word of mouth is not going to be that great, again. And I'm with you, JVL, Miss Congeniality, The Proposal, she does these movies. Yeah, she's really good.
JVL00:34:31Miss Congeniality is so... That's another movie that is better than it has to be at every single turn.
Vic00:34:36That's right. Is that William Shatner? Is it William Shatner, who's the judge?
JVL00:34:39Yeah, yeah, yeah. So... That movie could have been this level, but it isn't.
Vic00:34:45Yeah. So for me, the quadrant score is a meh. The plot is an A minus, so it's pretty straightforward, but I was bothered by the geography of this thing, because at first they was talking about this undiscovered island, but they don't fly directly to the undiscovered island, they fly to a nearby island, and then I spent the rest of the movie trying to figure out where the hell are they, and it's like off the coast of West Africa, but then there's like a Spanish villa in there that is like so... Because they...
JVL00:35:19This undiscovered island has a city in it.
Guest00:35:22Yeah, yeah.
Vic00:35:23So I'm like, "I think it's a separate island that rose out with the volcano." And of course, the agent Beth, she has to fly to Guinea, right? And so I'm like, "Okay, so now we're near West Africa."
Sonny00:35:30All of the Beth scenes could have been cut. Every single time they cut away from her to like her with "Oscar from the Office," or with the younger publicist, the social media person, all of that stuff was added by one of those teams of writers who was trying to find new characters to put into it, so they got a credit, and almost none of it works. Yeah. What really works is the social media girl who is amusingly vacuous, but that's a one note joke. Yeah. You do that joke once during the first bookstore.
JVL00:36:10That's right. Also, she's too old to be that vacuous. Yes, and I couldn't figure out who she was. That's what's wrong about it. She's 10 years too old to be that.
Vic00:36:16She reminded me of a young Rose Byrne, but it wasn't her, obviously. It was somebody else who I didn't know who it was. I also thought it was ... It's fantastical to have a publisher that cared that much for
JVL00:36:30the least realistic thing in the movie. Right. Can I say, it also ... The other thing I didn't like about it is it gets super earnest in ways that- Oh, right.
Vic00:36:43When they're on top of the mountain and in the hammock together. Yeah.
JVL00:36:47Yes.
Sonny00:36:48You don't know me.
JVL00:36:49There aren't enough laughs, and there is not enough action, and the earnestness honestly doesn't ... It doesn't work.
Sonny00:37:00Do you mean the earnestness in terms of like when-
JVL00:37:04White girl Stella got her groove back, right? The movie, it settles away from Romancing the Stone, or King Solomon's Mines, or any number of action-adventure rom-coms, Six Days and Seven Nights, right? Yes. It settles down instead in a girl powers how Stella got her groove back, and that ... It's fine. That's a mode of storytelling, I guess, but it didn't quite even earn that, because there's this weird tonal tension between, "Hey, we're a comedy-adventure rom-com," and then this other stuff. Yeah. And also, he's too young for her by 20 years.
Vic00:37:49Okay. She is 57. I'm sorry. I know, and I love her. I love her. And she's 57. She's an amazing 57. I love her.
JVL00:38:00She's 57, but also, she's too young. The character of somebody who has been married and has a PhD, she would not be interested in that. She's not supposed to be ... Her character is not supposed to be 57. Well, she's not.
Sonny00:38:13It's more like 37. He wins her over with his try-harding, with his puppy-dog effort.
Vic00:38:20Because she's not pretending to be a 57-year-old in this movie. Whereas in The Proposal with Ryan Reynolds, she is supposed to be an older woman, and in The Blind Side, she is definitely much older, and much older looking in The Blind Side than she looks here. The Blind Side starring the great Lily Collins, by the way.
Sonny00:38:40Well, in The Blind Side, she's also playing a ... She's playing a housewife. Mom, housewife.
JVL00:38:46Butt Texas, housewife.
Vic00:38:47So, I do have a question. Wait.
Sonny00:38:50You haven't finished the quadrants yet. Oh, I have to finish the quadrants. Okay. So, plot is an A-minus. So, the story was A-minus.
Vic00:38:55A-minus. Duration is an A. That was under two hours. Duration is an A. Okay. So, the violence is like a B-minus. It's derivative. What action is there?
Sonny00:39:05I mean, again, it's ... There's the motorcycle chase. Right. The motorcycle chase. Well, the Brad Pitt scene is pretty good. That's the violence.
Vic00:39:12And I'll tell you what surprised me about that. It's the most surprising Brad Pitt death since, come on, Burn After Reading. Remember that? Yeah. Where he's in the closet? Yeah. Do not expect that one. And this surprised me, too. I knew he was going to be sidelined. We talked about it. And you said, Sonny, it was going to be a cameo and this whole thing. I figured that he would have to be rescued.
Sonny00:39:36Did you guys stick around for the mid-credits sequence where Brad Pitt comes back?
Vic00:39:39No.
Sonny00:39:40Give it to me. What do you got? Brad Pitt. Oh, I wonder. Charming Potato and Sandra Bullock go to the retreat, the yoga retreat. And as they're doing it, guess who's there? It's Jack Traynor. He survived. He survived the gunshot wound to his head.
Vic00:39:56Is he all wounded and marred or does he look normal?
Sonny00:39:59He looks normal.
JVL00:40:00So it wasn't brains that was in Channing Tatum's mouth? He got nicked.
Sonny00:40:05You only use 10% of your brain, so he just uses a different 10% now. That's what he says in the thing. It was so clearly something that was added after the fact that the scenes with Brad Pitt obviously tested better than everything else in this movie. Yeah. Yeah. That is the best part. The best stretch of this movie is from when she wakes up on the island to basically Brad Pitt getting shot.
Vic00:40:34Yes. That's right.
Sonny00:40:36That's the highlight. That's the best stretch of the movie.
Vic00:40:38And people are excited by that. He's got the moves, the whole thing, and obviously screen presence. Sex nudity, by the way, is a C, right? How does it get that high?
Sonny00:40:47Because there's technically nudity. You do see Channing Tatum's butt.
Vic00:40:52As an originalist of the quadrant, originalist, is there nudity? There's nudity. Technically, yes. Question, is that even him?
?00:40:58I actually wondered that.
JVL00:40:59I wondered if that was a body double or not. So here's another thing I didn't like about it. I didn't like the Daniel Radcliffe character because he changes. So the Daniel Radcliffe character is very funny in the beginning because he's not a villain. He's trying to win her over. He's just this kid who hates his little brother and is going to find this thing. And everything about that is constant until... We get to the second act, at which point he just becomes this mustache-twirling villain. And also he stops being funny.
Vic00:41:34Yeah, he just becomes a problem. It's a problem. Angry over the top.
JVL00:41:39But not even in funny ways. Yeah. There's nothing.
Sonny00:41:43Again, just bad writing. Yeah. No, you needed him to stay in the mode of he thinks he's just bringing her along on an adventure. Right. The whole time. Not that he's trying to kill her. Yeah.
Vic00:42:03Because in the end, they're shooting and they're killing people.
Sonny00:42:04Come on. We got to go. We got to get on this boat and go to the island. Come on. Come on. Let's go. And instead it's like, all right, do it or I'm going to murder you.
Vic00:42:11Yeah. I'm tying you down to this desk and you even get a chance to use the bathroom. Is there, Sonny, is there an end credit scene or no? There's just mid credit.
Sonny00:42:20No, I think it's just the mid credit.
Vic00:42:21Okay. I was wondering if there was an end credit where you get to meet the villain's younger brother. And it turns out to be Ron Weasley. That would be funny. That would give you an extra. That would be a funny reference. That would be a funny reference. I'm sure he did. I get it. But I felt like he was trying so hard to not be.
Sonny00:42:38Well, Daniel Radcliffe has had an interesting career post Harry Potter. In the same kind of way that Kristen Stewart or Robert Pattinson has had an interesting career in that he is constantly doing things to try and separate himself from the teen movie image that he was in. Kill Harry Potter. Yes. I think that Robert Pattinson get tons and tons of praise because they're in all these serious movies. But like Harry Potter. Harry Potter. Daniel Radcliffe has just been in a bunch of like very weird random ones. So like this is the most I think this is like the most mainstream movie he's done in a while. But he was in this movie called Guns Akimbo where he plays he basically plays an internet troll who had he has guns like nailed to his hands and he has to fight to the death with other internet trolls to like a very, very weird high concept. Interesting choices. Yeah.
Vic00:43:29Dead soldier one where he, you know, farts his way through. Right.
Sonny00:43:32The one with Swiss Army Man where he yeah, where he plays a he plays a corpse that farts across the I didn't like that one as much, but at least again, it's weird. It's kind of interesting.
Vic00:43:43With Paul Paul Dano.
Sonny00:43:44And he was on he was on that TV show that was like a doctor's yeah, the doctors something angels. I don't know.
Vic00:43:53That's yes. Yes. Okay. Something. Who's older? Is it Sandra Bullock or Brad Pitt? It's weird to think that they're both approaching. Yeah, they're both. They're really hard. They're both about the same. Yeah, because that would have been more age appropriate. You know, how that worked out, but that's why it makes sense.
Sonny00:44:12Like that whole sequence is great, because it makes more sense for her to be into him.
JVL00:44:16Yes. Give me a give me a top three Sandy Bullock movies.
Vic00:44:23Oh, speed is up there. Help me out here, because this is the thing.
JVL00:44:34She's a wonderful actress who has not made a ton of great movies.
Vic00:44:38Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because Miss Congeniality. I like that, too.
JVL00:44:41Miss Congeniality. Definitely. Yeah. For me. But like you look, you look at her filmography and it's like, I guess she doesn't she doesn't make a ton of movies. She's got like 59 credits total and only like 30 since she became a star. And it's not.
Sonny00:45:01She does not make either.
JVL00:45:03She doesn't make great choices or she's not a very strong producer because she she gets producer credits on all these. And I assume that she is. This means that she's either not very active in managing these projects or she is and she's not great at it. And here's my lovely as she is on screen.
Sonny00:45:23Here's my answer. It's Speed Demolition Man.
JVL00:45:26Love her in Demolition Man. She's great. Demolition. She's the best thing in that movie.
Sonny00:45:30Yeah. Demolition Man. Great movie. She's great in it. She's cute. And also don't forget The Net. Oh. With Dennis Miller.
Vic00:45:38Yeah. Don't forget. The Net. You know what she says, Sonny? They can get to me.
Sonny00:45:43They can get to you. No. My, my, my. Not The Net. My, my, my other option would be The Heat, which actually is very, very funny. Oh, right. I didn't see it, but I'm sure it was. Lady, lady, buddy cop movie. It's very entertaining. It's it was in that weird stretch. Where Melissa McCarthy was like. The biggest star in America. Arguably the biggest star in the world. Everything. Like she was. She was in that. All of Melissa McCarthy. Bridesmaids. Yeah. The. You gotta seize the moment. I spy or spy. That's right.
Vic00:46:10Spy something. My spy. I don't know.
Sonny00:46:13She was like. The one with Jason Statham. Every trailer. She was like every trailer was Melissa McCarthy. She was in, she was in everything and it was, and it all hit. Yeah.
Vic00:46:19For like, for like a 27 month stretch. Oh. So I did have a question by the way. I don't know. I think we didn't answer it, which is. Uh, was Sandra Bullock de-aged for this or is it just makeup?
Sonny00:46:34I don't think so. It's just makeup.
JVL00:46:36Okay. There's a lot of makeup. Not that.
Sonny00:46:39Look. She looks better than me.
JVL00:46:41And I love her. I love her. She is 10 years older than me. Yes. And she looks 10 years younger than me. Absolutely. Don't, you know. Absolutely. Don't, don't make. And I, again, I feel bad about, because my complaints are not about Sandra Bullock.
Sonny00:46:51My complaints are about the writing in the film. Yeah.
JVL00:46:53Yeah. The writing is not strong. She's great. She's really good. Yeah. The writing is not strong. She's really good.
Sonny00:47:00Yeah. The writing is not strong and the direction is not strong. I mean, this is, again, it's just a movie that doesn't look good. It doesn't. Right. It doesn't look like.
JVL00:47:08It looks like a Netflix movie. So, this is directed by a pair of guys who have exactly one directing credit prior to this of a feature film. And it is called, a movie called Band of Robbers and it is an indie film starring your friend, what's his name? Help me out. He wrote for you. Sondheim. No. He wrote for you at the old place. Merchant. The actor, Stephen Lang. Oh, Stephen Lang. And so, Band of Robbers is a high concept indie which posits that Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer are now 20, late 20s, early 30s and they live in the modern world and Huck is just getting out of jail and Tom is a crooked cop. And they decide that they are going to get together and take down one last score. But it's a hard R.
Vic00:48:06Ah.
Sonny00:48:07Okay.
JVL00:48:08Okay.
Sonny00:48:09And then from that- Why do they have to be Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer? I don't understand how that comes into it.
JVL00:48:14Because that's who they are. Okay. Those are the characters.
Sonny00:48:17Their names are just Huck and Tom.
JVL00:48:18And then from- They are. And then Injun Jim is in it. That's Stephen Lang's character. And Melissa Benoist is in it as Becky, whatever her name is. Becky. Oh, Melissa Benoist.
Vic00:48:27Becca Thatcher? Or is Becca Thatcher from the growing-
JVL00:48:30Wait, wait. Stephen Lang-
Sonny00:48:32Sorry. Stephen Lang plays Injun Jim?
JVL00:48:34Mm-hmm. That's right. Anyway, all I'm saying is I have not seen this film, but it seems kind of interesting. And the type of thing that you would think is promising, except that these two gents, then their next film is this, what we just saw is Lost City. And they are currently working on the cinematic adaptation of Masters of the Universe.
Vic00:48:56Ooh, as in He-Man Skeletor? Yes.
JVL00:49:00Not as in Tom Wolfe, as in He-Man Skeletor and Battle Cat.
Vic00:49:04Yeah. Yeah. Oh, oh, very exciting. Battle Cat. Very exciting. Okay. That sounds terrible. Yeah.
Sonny00:49:12Yeah. Do you guys have Romancing the Skullbots?
Vic00:49:14Oh, right. Romancing. Well, no, this is the first thing I thought about in this movie. And I was reminded of it because the ... And I don't know how conscious they were about like, are we going to do this on purpose as an homage, an homage, or just we're going to just rip it off?
Sonny00:49:26Yeah. It's just a straight up rip job.
Vic00:49:28Yeah. The opening's the same. She's an author. She doesn't go out. She stays at home. And she doesn't lead an adventure. But she writes about these adventures, except for it's pre-internet. And then another thing that's similar is, well, obviously takes place in a jungle. And there's a man involved. And then a romantic lead, except for this one is hapless, whereas- And there's a man involved. Whereas Michael Douglas is like a ... He's got his stuff together.
Sonny00:49:51The movie has both men and women.
Vic00:49:53It's the only movie that does that, by the way. Yeah. And I'm spacing out. I'm so tired. And the other thing is there's a respite in the village. And they do this when they get to, I think, Cartagena in Romancing the Stone. And they dance. And also, and they do this here with the respite in the Spanish village for some reason. And that's how they figure it out because the legend is the lyrics are in Spanish. And also, it turns out that the cops are in the pocket- Cricket. Cricket. Yeah. The cricket cops are owned by the villain. And the same thing here. That's all I have. I remember, I don't know about you, JVL, I think I saw Romancing the Stone in the theater, but- Yeah, 100%. I remember being very skeptical of it because I'm like, you can't ... The balls for them to do this movie after Raiders of the Lost Ark or whatever, I'm like ... And the poster, it looked the same. It looked like they're trying to- Total. Total rip off. Right. And yet, I remember being surprised. I was amazed how amused I was by this movie, especially once you get to the middle.
JVL00:51:01I hated it. Oh, you didn't? You didn't like it at all? No, because I was such a Raiders stan, I was like, "This is ... What is this garbage? Why is this love story happening? Ugh." Homeless man's Raiders.
Vic00:51:12Yeah.
JVL00:51:13But I mean, so this is ... The guy and girl having adventures in the jungle goes back to, I guess, Tarzan, and on the screen it goes back to African Queen. Yeah. There are dozens and dozens of these movies, and my favorite schlock one is the Richard Chamberlain King Solomon's Mines.
Vic00:51:34With the great?
JVL00:51:35Which comes out almost the exact same time. It's 1985, and what year is Romancing the Stone? '84. '84. So it's the year after. Yeah. And it clearly is a response. Gotta do it. Gotta do it. So this is a rip-off of a rip-off, and it is almost purely a B-movie. And, you know, Richard Chamberlain as a manly action star is an amazing piece of casting because it does not work at all. But unlike Romancing the Stone, this thing knows what it is, and it's really funny. And also the entire thing is buoyed by, first of all, it has John Rhys-Davies in it. So having someone-
Vic00:52:25It was an Indiana Jones, and all, oh, wow, he's double dipping, double dipping.
JVL00:52:29Which is a real, like, what? But it has, it is the first breakout role of Sharon Stone, who, I went and looked this up because I thought that she was like 19, and she was actually 27.
Vic00:52:40I looked it up, too. Yes, I looked it up, too.
JVL00:52:42And this, so it's 1985. Richard was older. Chamberlain was older. I'm 11 years old.
Vic00:52:49I'm 11 years old in 1985. Let's keep this to a family show now.
JVL00:52:52And when I saw- All right. Sharon Stone and whatever she had going on. I didn't understand it, but I knew that it was amazing. That's all. Okay. That's all I'm gonna say. All right. Anybody who doubts me, you think Basic Instinct Sharon Stone is hot. You go back to King Solomon's Mines, and I don't know what the, what the, the, the, the adjective is, like, you know, the gamine or the, just whatever, nubile, I don't know what it is, but she's all of the adjectives in that movie.
Vic00:53:25Yes. Yes, she is. Done. More so than Kathleen Turner, although Kathleen Turner and Body Heat. Kathleen Turner, Miss Piggy. Kathleen. Okay. She is the live action Miss Piggy. No.
JVL00:53:35No. No.
Vic00:53:37I'm not gonna go there.
JVL00:53:38Oh, how dare you. That's terrible.
Vic00:53:40You know what? How dare you. She's awful. You know what? Fine by me. Oh, come on. Fine by me. Miss Piggy and Body Heat was great. I'm just gonna say that. All right. Boo. Yes. Yes. Oh, you know, Channing Tatum, he, he really can dance, can't he?
Sonny00:53:54He's got the moves. He started, I mean, his, his like first roles were the Step Up to the Streets movies. That's right. He was like an actual, he was like an actual dancing.
Vic00:54:02And of course he's amazing in Hail Caesar.
Sonny00:54:04Right. He's got that great sequence in Hail Caesar where he does the, the, the, you know, No Dames.
JVL00:54:10That's right. That's right. Which is very good. It's such a great movie. JVL.
Vic00:54:15No Dames. One last thought. Did you enjoy, or maybe Sonny, you picked it up too at the very, very end of the movie and he's trying to impress her with Latin, but he only knows one line. And then the other word, he, the other thing he throws out was Buca di Beppo. I saw that.
JVL00:54:30I thought to myself, how many people get that one? What a bizarre joke.
Vic00:54:34I know. It's like, I, like how many people know what Buca di Beppo is? I figured.
JVL00:54:38That doesn't work. Like you can find a better joke to that.
Sonny00:54:40Yeah. Right. They, they gotta, they gotta, you know, have dinners.
JVL00:54:43Buca di Beppo.
Sonny00:54:44So I wondered if that was. So this is, I. Brought to the, the weekly standard office.
JVL00:54:47So that and the, uh, the Bulgari, right. Did you, did you notice, catch the Bulgari, their, uh, the, the watches, right? So they watches are prominently displayed in this. And I kept wondering, huh? I wonder if there's a sponsorship, are we going to get a closeup? And at some point we get here, take this watch. It's a Bulgari.
Vic00:55:06Yeah. Oh, that's right. That's right. He's trying to hock it.
JVL00:55:10Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, okay. So I wondered if, if the, uh, the, the, um, the Buca di Beppo is your neighborhood.
Sonny00:55:17Is your neighborhood burning? Yeah. Maybe. I took my ear.
Vic00:55:21I'm not gonna look. I thought it was, I thought it was over here. I thought it was around my neighbor. You guys finished the show. I'll just mute myself. No, no, no, no, no. That's fine. That's fine. Um, in fact, JVL, a listener, uh, of the show, um, had a question about a watch, um, and it's a, it's a picture. So I'll send it to you. Cause I don't know what the watch is. He wanted you to, uh, confirm what it was and I'll send that to you later. Okay. Uh, do we have any other lost city romancing the stone? Alan Quatermain thoughts? No, I'm done. Remo Remo Williams.
Sonny00:55:50Is it Remo Williams? I like this movie more than, uh, you guys did, but I am shocked.
JVL00:55:55I need to say in, in our, like the history of our weird splits on a movie, yes, weird splits. Sunny liking this over me and Vic is as oddball as sunny liking, uh, Aquaman over me and Vic.
Vic00:56:07Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I usually expect sunny to like the more weird stuff. Okay. Uh, spirit of the week, corrections, shout outs, anything we're good now.
Sonny00:56:18All right. JBL JBL's houses. Yeah, I know.
Vic00:56:21Let's wrap it up. What are those? What are the Aurora Borealis? Okay. Thank you. Uh, that is all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, compliments, tweet us at Sonny Bunch at Victorino Matus. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on Patrion, tell your friends, go to subbeacon.com. We're there until next time, I only have, I have, I have a weird complaint thing, but do you guys have like, Oh, I want to hear old man yelling at the moon. Okay. Well, I mean, if you have something else I go, I can go first, but, uh, I got nothing.
?00:57:04Okay.
Vic00:57:05This, this thing. Okay. So you watch 25 minutes of trailers, right? And then you go into the, oh, I don't what I know.
JVL00:57:15Hold on once again, because I have a question at the Alamo for, for lost city. I got two trailers. It is. And the Alamo does not do the AMC style 27 minutes, but I have never gotten fewer trailers than this. Good for you.
Sonny00:57:33Uh, it, at my Alamo it's 15 minutes. I mean, it's like on a clock, but this was, this was, this was five minutes.
JVL00:57:41It's the shortest.
Vic00:57:42I wonder what that was and why, why, okay. 25 minutes. And then they give you, so the first one is okay. Settle in. And then they, you know, they get ready for the AMC trailers. Right. And then the second one. After 25 minutes is okay. Movie's going to start. Turn your cell phone off. You know, you know, don't talk, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Now I'm ready. And then they give you the other promo for AMC again, uh, with Nicole, Nicole Kidman. Okay. What's going on there. And what, what, what I think is weird is, um, again, here's another woman who I want to know how old she is. I forget, but also, and she's not that much older than us. I think she's like 53, 54. Uh. She has accents all over the place in, in, in her promo. Have you seen it? You know, and she's not watching. Yes. She gives this talk and then she just says, and she goes, she's like this. She says, AMC theater, because here they are, and I'm like, I know they are, or they are, and it's theater, but theater. And she's all over the place. I don't, I don't, I, it's just like muddled. I don't know what's happening. And it annoys me every time I see it. That's all.
Sonny00:58:49Well, she no longer ha I, I have never understood how actors are able to maintain their like home accents. Like I don't, if you, if you, if you're from Australia or whatever, and you spend all your time in Los Angeles and you're in most of your working life, most of your, well, even Mel Gibson was like born in America, moved to Australia, you like moved back to back to America, but like, but like a British actor who spends their, who spends like 30 years in Los Angeles and like spends most of his time doing American accents.
JVL00:59:18I don't understand how they don't just like anything else, like, you know, you're raised in Boston, but you moved down to DC. You still keep it. And well, no, they, you know, you lose your accent, but then the minute you're home, oh, pick it up your home and Southie, then it, you just laps right back into it. Right. Isn't this the way all accents are like, you know, once you're, once you're amongst
Sonny00:59:36your people, I guess. But, but I mean, but the, the point is that the accent is like, they, they have it for like interviews and stuff. It's not like, it's not like they're hanging out in, you know, it's not like she's in Melbourne.
JVL00:59:48They're playing a role, right. They're playing them. They're playing. I am now the real life version of myself. Oh, right. I mean, so she's doing this and Nicole, Kevin, that's what she's doing here.
Vic00:59:58And we all wonder why Will Smith and then she says are, I don't know, which is, and
Sonny01:00:02we all wonder why Will Smith lost his fucking mind on live TV in front of, you know, 16 million people.
JVL01:00:07Like, yeah, I'm sure it's fine.
Spot something wrong in this episode? Suggest a correction →
Comments
Loading…