#114. 'The Fifth Element'
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
Vic's ancient laptop dies entirely before the show starts, so JVL and Sonny carry the episode solo, reviewing The Fifth Element on its 25th anniversary with Vic's quadrant scores relayed secondhand from an email. JVL is an enormous champion of Luc Besson's $300-million-worldwide sci-fi spectacle, recalling that he walked in with zero expectations off a scathing Todd McCarthy review and left "utterly charmed," and Sonny is right there with him, calling it "pop art insanity" that gets better on every rewatch. Both praise Bruce Willis at the absolute apex of his star power for choosing something this weird, Milla Jovovich's underwritten-but-winning Leeloo, Gary Oldman's Texan corporate raider Zorg, Ian Holm's priest, and Jean Paul Gaultier's runway-ready costumes, while Chris Tucker's Ruby Rod (a role originally offered to Prince) is a performance Sonny admits took him years to come around on. They dig into how deceptively French the film is despite being read as American — sanitation strikes, a bureaucracy that never works, an ending that has the leads making love in public — and marvel at Besson's decades of world-building, down to a 600-page series bible nobody ever needed to read on-screen. Vic's mailed-in quadrants land at Plot A, Duration B, Action/Violence B+, and a jaw-dropping A++ for Sex/Nudity in a PG-13 movie, for an overall A-. The episode opens with a long, meandering first act covering Ray Liotta's recent death (JVL is oddly cold on him, calling him "the Goomba version of Keanu Reeves" while Sonny defends Goodfellas and the brain-eating scene in Hannibal), plus tangents on Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the new Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, the family's total indifference to Fantastic Beasts, SodaStreams versus Topo Chico, and, in the outtakes, dueling horror stories about cross-country moving-company quotes.
From the show notes
On this week's episode, we have some technical difficulties. One of our crew can't make it. But which one? We'll let you find out in the first thirty seconds before going on to discuss the 25th anniversary of The Fifth Element.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00We need to find the leader, Mangalores won't fight without the leader. One more shot, we'll start killing hostages. That's the leader. Send someone to negotiate. I, I, I, I, I've never negotiated, I... Mind if I try? No, no, sure, sure, sure. We're sending somebody in to negotiate! Anybody else want to negotiate? Where did he learn to negotiate like that? I wonder.
JVL00:00:48Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Sub-Beacon. I'm your host, JVL, here with Sonny Bunch and Novik Matus.
Sonny00:00:57Novik Matus, we lost Vic!
JVL00:00:59We, we spent... We spent about 30 minutes trying to get Vic logged in. There was a lot of, "Sir, have you, is your computer plugged into the wall, sir?"
Sonny00:01:10We need to restart your router.
JVL00:01:12Anyway, it just didn't work. So, we are doing the show without Vic. Vic is going to bed early, and maybe we'll get him a new computer. I believe his laptop is 15 years old.
Sonny00:01:25I don't know if he's using the laptop that we gave people when the FreeBeacon started way back in 2012. There's a chance it's a 10-year-old laptop. So, you know, we got to figure out what's going on there.
JVL00:01:38So, we'll do something about that. Anyway, so, go to the Patreons, go to the Sub-Beacon store, all that stuff. We're not going to worry about the script this week. Sonny, this is the second time you and I have done a solo entertainment podcast together this week. Yes. That's a little weird. That doesn't happen very often, does it?
Sonny00:02:01I know. It's just now I feel bad that we did The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, just you and me. It's a good show, I thought. We're getting a lot of one-on-one time here.
JVL00:02:10Did it do okay? Do people like it? Are there comments?
Sonny00:02:13You know, I haven't checked the download numbers, but I'm sure they were strong. I'm sure they were very strong.
JVL00:02:19So, Sonny, how are you?
Sonny00:02:23I'm fine. I'm fine. There's a lot of stuff going on in my house right now, which is very annoying. I don't really want to talk about. But it's a sad week. We're missing Vic here. I wanted to talk to him about the passing of Ray Liotta.
JVL00:02:42Yeah, who just died of natural causes, not killed by Vic.
Sonny00:02:47Not killed by Vic. He was not mentioned recently. Certainly not recently. I mean, we talked about him when we did The Many Saints of Newark. That was forever ago. That was months and months ago. You said that you don't care for Ray Liotta before the show. I was kind of surprised by that. I feel like Ray Liotta is generally beloved.
JVL00:03:09I'm sure he is. I'm sure he is. It's not that I don't care for him. I just don't care about him. He has never been a presence on screen that I thought, "Ooh, that guy is compelling." Even in Goodfellas, he just strikes me as inert. He's like the Goomba version of Keanu Reeves. Things just sort of happen around him. And, you know, Keanu Reeves is a valuable commodity, right? People love Keanu Reeves. So maybe Goomba gabagoof Keanu Reeves, there's a reason people love him, right? I mean, I don't know. I've seen an especially powerful presence. Do you think that that guy was out showing interesting bits of Ray? You're doing things that nobody else could do. Did he command your eye on the screen? Yeah, I do. I do think that.
Sonny00:04:00I mean, I like I think so. So Goodfellas, right? Goodfellas works because it insinuates you into the world of the mafia. And it does that by essentially making Henry Hill, who is by any account a deranged, terrible person, seem like the normal center of the mafia. You know, kind of a standard American family. And he has to do this in the face of Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci stealing that movie. Just just really running roughshod over everybody else. And he does it. He sells. He sells. He basically sells you on the idea of mafia life as like kind of normal. And that's not nothing. That's not that's not a I wouldn't say that's a that's an easy thing to do. And it is it is it is well done there. I have always liked him because he he he has he has several modes, one of which is just kind of like Nicolas Cage style derangement, which is you probably see it most clearly in turbulence. I don't know if you've ever seen turbulence. But it was it was it was basically a post con air. I think it was post con air. It was right around the same time. But he plays he plays he plays bad guy on an airplane who like torments a stewardess and airplanes flipping all around and stuff. Crazy. It was a it was a TNT basic cable classic for a while for sure. But I've always I've always liked him. I've always thought he has a he he has this kind of smirk that is very amusing and conveys a like deep well of feeling. And like kind of gross intelligence. If that makes sense.
JVL00:05:57I always thought he's Ekins crosses vapid on screen. Yeah.
Sonny00:06:02Look, I don't think I just died today.
JVL00:06:03I don't want to say bad things. But I'm sure he's a wonderful human being, a great father, brother, husband, friend to everybody around him. And he is beloved. People really love him as a screen presence. I'm just saying that for me, who's not? I'm not always into the mob movies to begin with. If you look at the great mob movies and the great actors in those movies, Ray Liotta is far and away the weakest link on all of them. So I just like he couldn't you can't imagine him in any of the Godfather movies. You can't imagine him a casino. He's in Goodfellas and in Goodfellas. He even though he's the lead. It's like sucking behind teeth behind Pesci and De Niro. Yeah. He shouldn't do anything for me. He seemed like he always struck me as like an amateur. Not like an actual professional actor.
Sonny00:07:01God, that's the this is ridiculous. You're a you're this is a ridiculous series of statements that you have just made. Oh, Jonathan.
JVL00:07:10I understand it's a minority opinion.
Sonny00:07:12So so that's what's that's what's going on in the world of entertainment. JBL is crapping on a beloved dead actor.
JVL00:07:20I don't mean I don't mean to do that. I again, this is a me problem. Not a not a Ray Liotta problem. I'm sure this has more about me than it does about him.
Sonny00:07:29There was a great scene. Did you ever see the movie Hannibal? The Ridley Scott? Yeah. Follow up to Silence of the Lambs.
JVL00:07:36Julianne Moore in the Julianne Moore filling in for Jodie Foster. Terrible, terrible movie.
Sonny00:07:42Well, I so I know it is. It is. It's funny because it is. It was originally considered to be very terrible and has like been reevaluated somewhat in recent years to be like an underrated Ridley Scott movie. I've always kind of liked it, but only because like I don't I don't consider it a like worthy successor to Silence of the Lambs, which is one of the great thriller or even more type movies. And certainly not Manhunter. But I do. I do. I have always really enjoyed that movie and found it to be like delightful. Trashy as long as you accept it as a delightfully trashy film and not not anything higher than that. I mean, there's a scene in that movie where Ridley Ridley Scott has Ray Liotta eat his own brain while he's still alive. That's a fantastic scene. That's a like is fantastic. I mean, he's literally cooking. He's cooking the brain right in front of him. And Ray Liotta is like, oh, that smells good. What is that? Because it's his brain. It's funny. That's a funny scene.
JVL00:08:43I didn't find that funny. I mean, I remember if you remember this, you were like probably in third grade, but like it was an enormous deal when Hannibal came out the book. Like when the novel dropped, I was happening.
Sonny00:08:57I was in high school when that I was a junior.
JVL00:08:59I went to Borders on the day it came out Tuesday or Thursday to buy my hard copy cover of Hannibal.
Sonny00:09:06And I was like, oh, I did. I did not buy the hardcover because, again, I was like a junior in high school or daily variety was like it was the front page.
JVL00:09:13It was like it was the front page of Daily Variety.
Sonny00:09:15I bought the mass mass market paperback as soon as that was available.
JVL00:09:19Yeah, because that's what anyway, it was an enormous disappointment. Everything about that was really you didn't you didn't like them.
Sonny00:09:25I also like that book. I thought it was fine. I the book after after reading that book, I then went back and read Silence of the Lambs. And then I like read them backwards. And then I guess Red Dragon, Red Dragon.
JVL00:09:38Yeah. The truth is, Silence of the Lambs is the only one which is good.
Sonny00:09:42I mean, Red Dragon is pretty good. I like I like Hannibal, too, though, is the thing I actually I actually like. Did you ever watch the TV show Hannibal?
JVL00:09:50The the with Mads Mikkelsen with Mads? No, I love Mads Mikkelsen, but I did not watch it. Was it any good?
Sonny00:09:57I never watched it. I because I I just was like, why bother with this? Why? I don't I don't. Did you watch the speaking of Mads Mikkelsen? Did you watch the the new Fantastic Beasts movie? No. Have you watched any of them?
JVL00:10:11No. And do you have any desire? I am in a big time Harry Potter household.
Sonny00:10:18Well, you are like midnight book party Harry Potter.
JVL00:10:21Yes. And not only do I not have any desire to see or read any of these books, nobody else in my house does either. None of the kids, not Shannon. And again, this house, like we have bought the Nobles collection, Harry Potter wands. We got favorite at times. Turner, I think, for Christmas one year like this. How would that mean? The number of Harry Potter Lego sets we have is astonishing. And yet I even said that I was like, does anybody want to watch from the Fantastic Beasts movie? And everyone just sort of turned up their nose, just said, yeah, no.
Sonny00:10:59Yeah. There's a guy I follow on Twitter by the name of Lex G, who has this phrase zone out. And he he he described the second Fantastic Beasts movie. Fantastic Beasts movies as like the most zone out. He's tried to watch it like 10 times. He just zones out in the middle of it every single time. Can't get through it. Can't can't can't get through a single episode of that dumb, terrible movie series. And I am I find it fascinating because it's such a like I did we talk about this a couple weeks ago? I think we might have. But like I find this whole I find this whole the whole Warner Brothers Harry Potter problem to be really interesting. Because these are like movies that are made for nobody. They're they're movies that are made. They're they're movies that appeal to absolutely nobody. Not hardcore Harry Potter fans. The you know, the social justice type hate. They hate these movies because of J.K. Rowling and Johnny Depp. Like regular movie fans are like, I don't care about this giant property. I don't I barely like the Harry Potter movies. I like the remaking the Harry Potter movies, which.
JVL00:12:07Which are old and B are terrible. Yeah, that's good.
Sonny00:12:12The first couple in particular are very bad. So I mean, the other ones are perfectly like. The thing about those movies is that they are perfectly acceptable, like explications of the book. They are just like, yeah, but that's not what you want. It's just of that should be better.
JVL00:12:29I'll tell you what I did do. Did see tonight before coming on this show. Sonic two for the third time. Three times because Sonic two is now out on streaming and G somebody told this to G money and G money was like, whoa. And I got to tell you, for him, the third time was just as exciting as the first two. He was, you know, sitting on my lap on the sofa like dead.
Guest00:12:56Can you believe it? Excited all the way the end.
JVL00:13:00And Flash is making snide remarks about, oh, so the giant robots mustache smashes. Things about that doesn't make any sense. And G money just is earnestly trying to explain it to him. It's like, oh, yeah. No, we'll see. The mustache is a mustache smasher. And the Sonic and Tails didn't know that it could do that. It's really dangerous. You know, just like a kid that you understand the teenage boys making fun of you.
Sonny00:13:26Have you have you shown your kids the new Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers?
JVL00:13:30No, I think that is going to be our Friday night movie. OK.
Sonny00:13:34I'd be curious to know what they make of it in particular G money, because as you as you know, Sonic is the bad Sonic. Yeah. Ugly Sonic has a large and it's very funny what they do, because like they explain like, oh, this is the Sonic from before when they when he had the human teeth. And they just have the characters stare directly at his mouth while he's talking and get like get like hypnotized by the ugliness of the teeth. It's very funny. The whole thing is very good. I'd be very curious to know what you make of it, because I the way I have described it to folks is it's kind of like a it's it's like an updated Who Framed Roger Rabbit, except incredibly reactionary in ways that greatly appeal to me. Like it's a it's like a fervent defense of intellectual property rights. Like you live in the world. Disney is is like the good guy trying to, you know, the the villain. The the villain in this film is a, you know, a cartoon who grew up to be too ugly to be in the cartoons. So he was cast out by Disney and then turns evil as a result.
JVL00:14:44Disney child actors.
Sonny00:14:45Well, well, so this is I mentioned this in my review, but there. So the I mean, spoilers, right? Some spoilers, some spoilers for this for this movie that we're not really discussing today. But Sweet Pete is Peter Pan and he's the he's the head gangster, right? But like the kid who played who the kid who voiced Peter Pan initially and was also in like other Disney stuff. He was a Disney kid, Bobby Driscoll, like aged out. And when he aged out, Walt was like, get the fuck out of my magical street studio. And the kid like got into drugs and like died in a in a vacant lot somewhere. He was like Barry buried in a pauper's grave. Like Tinkerbell shed a tear.
JVL00:15:30Like Tinkerbell shed a single tear.
Sonny00:15:33It was it's anyway. So this is like there's there's an argument to be made that it is a very dark plot line in this Chippendale movie.
JVL00:15:41But well, we'll we'll see. I think that's going to happen tomorrow. KSA was very excited.
Sonny00:15:47She wanted us to talk about maybe we can do maybe we'll do a little bonus on that bonus.
JVL00:15:52So anyway, so we should just talk about the movie we're going to talk about. I have been pushing you and Vic to do Fifth Element because we are in the middle of it. Because we are in the 25th anniversary of the Fifth Element this year. Yes, almost like two weeks ago, I think.
Sonny00:16:05Yeah, I think it just came out.
JVL00:16:07And maybe that's why Vic suddenly had computer problems because he just didn't want to do this show. I am an enormous champion of this movie and have been since it came out. And I saw it with zero. I mean, I remember going to see the movie at the Courthouse AMC in Arlington, Virginia. Absolutely no expectations. You know, I just read the variety review by Todd McCarthy where he called it a disaster. And I was just utterly charmed by it. Yeah.
Sonny00:16:40It's a very strange movie. Well, first off, we should do justice to Vic here. He sent me the script. I'm going to read the quadrants here, okay?
JVL00:16:50Do you want to do that after you do your big boy review?
Sonny00:16:52I guess I can do the big boy review first. All right, so the Fifth Element stars Bruce Willis. At the absolute apex of his Bruce Willis star power, he chooses to make this crazy original sci-fi movie by a French director who had really only made kind of low-budget crime dramas, Luc Besson, at this point. He'd made a couple low-budget, medium-budget action crime-type movies, right? He'd made The Professional. He'd made La Femme Nikita. You know, he's an interesting director, but not like the guy that you would necessarily tap to helm a huge, enormous movie. And Bruce Willis, there's a special feature on the 4K for the 20th anniversary 4K, which I picked up to watch. But Besson is talking about how, you know, essentially at the time, he got Bruce Willis' script. Bruce Willis was like, "Yeah, I really want to do it." And Besson was like, "If we can't get Bruce Willis, we can't have anybody make it." Because he's the only person I can see in this movie. But to get Bruce Willis, we would have to pay $20 million. And, you know, that would make this thing not a worthwhile proposition for anybody financially. So we, you know, I don't think that's going to work. And eventually Bruce Willis was just like, "I really like this movie. I want to make it. We'll make something work. We'll make the finances of it work." Which is, I think, very interesting. Because around this same time, maybe a year or two before, he also made 12 Monkeys. Do you remember 12 Monkeys? I do remember that. The Terry Gilliam movie? Yeah. Which, again, is super weird. Brad Pitt?
JVL00:18:35Also in 12 Monkeys?
Sonny00:18:36Brad Pitt also in 12 Monkeys. But, like, 12 Monkeys is a super, super weird, you know, sci-fi, original-ish. It's kind of based on a French short film by Christopher Marker. But not a well-known property. And I just, like, I find it fascinating that, again, at the absolute height of his die-hard level star power ability to make basically whatever he wants and get paid, you know, $15 million to do it, he chooses 12 Monkeys and The Fifth Element. Both of which, neither of which, I should say, were terribly successful.
JVL00:19:15Anyway. So The Fifth Element, very successful. So The Fifth Element makes $300 million worldwide. It is, at the time, and everything that's weird about it, European studios did not do science fiction and didn't do big budget. At the time it was made, it was the most expensive European movie ever shot.
Sonny00:19:36When the Europeans also, it's funny, so again, in this bonus feature, the Europeans are talking about how, like, oh, well, you know, this is such an American movie. This is, Luc Besson has sold out. He's made an American movie for the American studios. Which is very, very funny if you watch, I mean, if you just watch it.
JVL00:19:54It's unbelievably French.
Sonny00:19:57It is so, it's like so remarkably, it's so remarkably European. Like, down to the, just down to the very costuming, which was designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. It has this, like, incredibly pop art costuming sensibility where everything is, everything looks vaguely ridiculous and, like, ultra modern, but also, like, incredibly sexy. And, I don't know.
JVL00:20:23We'll talk about the Gaultier stuff in a minute. Yeah.
Sonny00:20:26Alright, so the movie, the movie. So, The Fifth Element stars Bruce Willis as a former military man/cab driver who is forced to protect a beautiful woman, played by Mia Jovovich, who is the titular Fifth Element. She is a perfect being who is here to protect humanity and the planet Earth from ultimate evil. Shows up every 5,000 years or so in the form of a big, dark planet out of a black hole. Just zooms off to kill us. The forces of evil embodied by a corporate raider.
JVL00:21:04Who's from Texas, despite having the name Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg.
Sonny00:21:10Jean-Baptiste Zorg from Texas, played by the wonderful Gary Oldman in this movie, is evil. Ian Holm plays the priest who belongs to an order that was around, you know, 300 years before the film starts. That is the last people who saw the aliens come and leave the, you know, the MacGuffins, essentially. They actually take the MacGuffins. They take the MacGuffins away. And the whole point of the film is trying to get the MacGuffins and get them back to Earth and whatever. Again, the movie is... The only way you can really describe it is pop art insanity. It is like a bunch of ideas got vomited up on the screen and they all work. They all work. It's like a comic book version of Blade Runner, almost, in a way. In the sense that you have the flying cars and you have the smoggy buildings, except everything's bright. Everything's bright and colorful and it's not dark and depressing and rain-soaked everywhere. Well, alright, this is absurd, but it's not unpleasant. It's not a dystopia. It's not a dystopia. Exactly. It's not dystopian. I wouldn't describe it as utopian. No, not at all. It's just the future.
JVL00:22:30It's like a very, very lived-in version of the future.
Sonny00:22:33Yeah. And again, I keep harping on the costumes.
JVL00:22:37There's trash. There's trash in it, right? People see trash.
Sonny00:22:41There's trash at the airport. There are strikes. Pardon our mess.
JVL00:22:45The reason they have trash at the airport is because the sanitation workers are on strike, right? Which is, again, a very French thing.
Sonny00:22:52Yeah. So, again, the movie is very big, very fun, kind of silly, and, like, weirdly deeply earnest. It is very much about the power of love overcoming, you know, the awfulness of mankind and, you know, saving us from everything that we deserve to get. And, again, I keep coming back to the costumes here because they are these fantastic little touches. Just like down to, for instance, there are two cops who are waiting to get their food from a McDonald's. And the McDonald's employees are like supermodels dressed in… Like hunters, right. Yeah, basically, like, dressed like they're, you know, going on to the runway immediately after their shift. Meanwhile, the cops are dressed like something out of Judge Dredd. Like, they're, like, wearing these super bulky, you know, tactical gear uniforms. That make it hard to move around and everything. I just… I love almost everything about this movie. And there are things about it that have grown on me over the years. For instance, the performance of Chris Tucker as Ruby Rod. It's great. The first time I saw it… So, I didn't see it in theaters. I saw it on cable a few years after it came out. And remember being, like, vaguely annoyed by Chris Tucker being like, "Who is it? I don't… I didn't…"
JVL00:24:14Why is he talking so fast?
Sonny00:24:15Why is he so, like, weird and effeminate? I don't care for any of this. This is all, like… None of this is… None of this sparks joy. I want it taken away from my screen. But over the years, I've actually come to, like, really enjoy this role by Chris Tucker because it is absurd and over the top. But also, like…
JVL00:24:37You know who was originally cast for that part? Who? Prince. Prince.
Sonny00:24:42Yeah, I can see that. I can see that. That makes sense.
JVL00:24:45That makes sense. Makes total sense when you think of that as supposed to be Prince.
Sonny00:24:47The, like, incredibly hypersexual, like, kind of effeminate but actually incredibly sexy to
JVL00:24:53women.
Sonny00:24:54Like, omnisexual, basically. Yeah. Like, I could see Prince being that. I think Chris Tucker, frankly, is better at that role than Prince would be. Better actor. Prince would have been… Prince would have been too, like, "Ooh, ooh, ooh." Yeah. Like, weird and subdued about it. So, I have grown to… I've grown to enjoy that. The whole opera house scene, which, again, I remember seeing it the first time and being like, "Stop cutting away from the action. Just do…" And now I understand the techniques of filmmaking that are being used here to tell the story. And it is pleasing to the eye and to the ear. Do you know the other thing that's happening in that filmmaking? No. What?
JVL00:25:33Luc Besson was, at that moment, married to the opera singer, the diva.
Sonny00:25:38Oh, I didn't know that.
JVL00:25:39Which he kills in this scene while he also begins fucking Mia Jovovich on set. So, he, in the middle of the movie, leaves the wife, who he has just murdered on screen, and then marries the ingenue, who he has just saved on screen.
Sonny00:25:57Freudian.
JVL00:25:59The most Freudian and French thing ever, right?
Sonny00:26:03Yeah. And it's… The Besson-Jovovich relationship is interesting. As it goes through the years. I mean, did you ever see the Joan of Arc movie? The Messenger?
JVL00:26:13I did see that. I forgot. I mean, it was like 20 years ago.
Sonny00:26:17Yeah. I like that movie quite a bit. But, again, it is not a… I would say it's not, you know, a hugely popular film. It's something I kind of enjoy despite its reputation. It's funny. I thought The Fifth Element had made much less than $300 million worldwide. Yeah.
JVL00:26:35Almost all of it was in Europe. Yeah. I guess that makes sense. That makes sense. It opened to $17 million in America, which at the time was, you know, good enough for number one, right? It was the number one movie in America. So it made a 3x multiple of that, but it was a huge success in Europe.
Sonny00:26:52Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. Anyway, I love this movie. I have loved it since I've seen it, and I have, like, found new ways to enjoy it and be entertained by it. Basically, every time I watch it, I mean, like this time, I was just like, I've always loved the there's a there's a scene where Zorg is trying to explain, you know, the way, you know, the destruction creates, you know, last economic economic policy, and, and he starts choking on a cherry and Ian Holm comes over and pass him on the back. But there's just this very funny moment in that whole sequence where he like, hits a button on his desk, and this little elephant creature pops out, yeah, his pet and like, looks at him. And, and Zorg's like, help me, and the elephants like, I just I every every time I find I see something else little indifferent that that I enjoy. So good movie. People should go watch it. Thumbs up for me.
JVL00:27:54So what are what are the quadrants because I have to think this movie kills on the quadrants.
Sonny00:28:01It does pretty well. It does pretty well. Alright, so quadrant score for the fifth element.
JVL00:28:05Vic has sent it to us.
Sonny00:28:06Vic has sent it to us.
JVL00:28:07Sonny is going to present the quadrants.
Sonny00:28:09I'm reading Vic's notes. I'll read Vic's notes and then give my commentary plot a I found it refreshingly original religious overtones. See, so this is a movie that is rooted in something Vic, you know, it's not a multiverse nihilistic journey through your stuff, existence, the good versus evil. There is a there there is a religious element to it, even though I would say it's not strictly speaking, Christian. It's, you know, well, the good guys are priests. Well, yeah, but like, I mean, are they really I mean, they seem like a heretical sect. Let's be honest, JBL, if we were if we're if we're I don't know that Rome would approve of the alien worshiping priests, you know, running around with rompers, beautiful women.
JVL00:28:54Rome looks the other way on a lot of things.
Sonny00:28:57Duration B, I guess it is a little over two hours. It's like two hours and five minutes.
JVL00:29:01I think it's under two.
Sonny00:29:02I mean, I think it's two hours and five minutes.
JVL00:29:05If you do credits. But by the time the credits roll, it's like just under two.
Sonny00:29:09A B is pretty hard here. I would I would go at least B plus I would but you know, it's it's not it's not super long, but it is it's a little over two hours. Action violence B plus sci fi action good effects for its time. I actually thought Vic might be a little harder on the the the special effects here because I do think that some of them have aged not particularly well.
JVL00:29:35But they are CGI stuff.
Sonny00:29:38Yeah I mean that's like some of the Flosston Paradise stuff like especially the exterior shots on that like not not not looking great, but I like I do think that for its time it
JVL00:29:48was it was all the stuff that's done with models looks great and all the stuff that
Sonny00:29:53and and and most of it's done practically too. I mean there's lots of actual real explosions like the fight scenes are done practically
JVL00:30:00with the big CGI is like the the pure evil when it sends a skull out into space, right? That's when you're pure CGI and you see the limits of it.
Sonny00:30:10There's some of that. There's also like the morphing of the heads of the like alien warrior guys, the dog warriors,
JVL00:30:18the dog warriors, except that when they are. When they are in their alien form, they are practical heads and they look fantastic.
Sonny00:30:27Right right when that when it's just the practical when it's just like the practical guys looks totally fine. It's when it's the when they're trying to shift between them. It's like, I don't know, not not not ideal.
JVL00:30:37Sex Nudity A for PG-13 only in and I'm not an A++ for PG-13 for a PG-13 movie. This is a solid A+ in the Sex and Nudity, you see Miya Jovovich's boobs with nipple on two separate occasions, maybe three and in a PG-13 movie that Vic cannot give that an A++. I don't even know what to say about that.
Sonny00:31:04Yeah. Overall, A- for The Fifth Element, which solid score, solid score.
JVL00:31:09That's not bad. That's not bad. I mean, there's so many interesting things about this flick. For instance, that the hero and the villain never interact or appear on screen together. This being Zorg and Corbin Dallas, the Gary Oldman and Bruce Willis character. And Bruce Willis does not even know that. Zorg exists. When's the last time you had something like that? The whole world, so, so Luc Besson started toying with this story when he was 16 years old, famously, like you started writing it down. At one point, his screenplay was 400 pages long. And the result of that is that this world he has conjured up feels very, very lived in. It feels like there are backstories behind everything, and you don't need to be given the backstories because it's enough to know they exist. Like for instance, when Zorg walks around, he has a metallic limp, right? It's reasonably pronounced. You hear like metal clumping down and that's never explained or even acknowledged all the clothing designs, all the weird technology, which is, uh, you know, almost a cross between the vector graphic technology of a death star in the original Star Wars mixed with, as you say, like Blade Runner type stuff. It's, you know, it's all, it's all great. The idea that the cigarettes, everybody is smoking and the cigarettes are like seven eighths filter with only a tiny bit of tobacco at the end is hysterical, right? The idea that there's a movie star and the movie star is deaf and candid. Again, this just feels like a very lived in world. Um, the other thing that's interesting about it is that, uh, is the Frenchness, right? So this is like the sci-fi version of a French bedroom farce because everybody keeps failing. Like both the good guys and bad guys just keep failing constantly. You have these dog face terrorists who are charged with getting the stones. They can't do it. Borg goes to get them. He can't do it. Dallas is supposed to, you know, the, the, the priests are trying to get, uh, the, the young priest onto the, the, the spaceship with Leeloo. He felt like every, everything is just wrong. Corbin is being constantly harangued by his mother. Who sounds like a, you know, like, uh, Linda Richmond from coffee talk, uh, and, and, and then the movie ends, right? This is, as you said. Okay. Like, and then it turns suddenly very earnest towards the end. And this, this bedroom forest, which is dressed up as a sci-fi movie ends with Corbin and
Sonny00:34:14Leeloo making love in public, which is the most French thing ever in essentially a sun tanning bed. Right.
JVL00:34:23And it's, you know, it shows this, as you said, that this is a vision of the future, which is a little gloomy, but also kind of fun. Like, you know, you wouldn't necessarily want to live there, but it isn't a dystopia. You can see how. It could be okay. And all of the French cultural prejudices are there. Like those dog face terrorists are clearly Algerians and Moroccans. Yeah.
Sonny00:34:46Right. I mean, like not even, it's not, it's not like subtext. No. They literally, when they, when they're, uh, you know, in their human form, they're, uh,
JVL00:34:54you know, black guys, they, they have this idea that love is the key to stopping anything, even an alien invasion that they, that you have the, the striking sanitation workers and that the, the bureaucracy everywhere never really works. Uh, and it's just, it's just like all friends that the bad guy is a Texan with this Texas accent. Like all of these, it just, it's perfectly French and, uh, and I just, I don't know everything about it. And part of it is that it is made by Bruce Willis. Who, as you said, is at the really the top of his game and me over which, who I, I just think her performance is incredibly winning and what she does is very hard because it's a very underwritten part. Um, she's really good with this made up language. Yeah. Like she just, you know, spouts it as if she's, you know, actually knows what she's, what she's saying. And she doesn't, she doesn't have a lot of English to language. Lines deliver in the movie. Her character has a little bit of an arc, but not really, she's kind of passive. Um, and yet you're rooting for her the whole time. And she is, she's both convincing as a martial arts bad-ass, but also convincing as somebody who is in the beginning, very scared and needs help and protection. And the whole time you just like want things to work out for her. And uh, I don't know. I mean, you know, Tommy Elovich is underrated actress, uh, who just never quite got the high level project. She got a lot of work and she has the resident evil series.
Sonny00:36:45The John, the resident evil series, the resident evil series is like legitimately like for an R rated. I mean, there, there aren't that many like R rated action series like this. I mean, they, they just don't exist. And she made six of those movies. So like that, those, those were, those were making a lot of money. Uh, both, both theatrically and in the home video audience element does not work without
JVL00:37:10her. No, she is. I don't. She's the absolute key to the entire thing and, uh, she has this wide eyed.
Sonny00:37:17She has this wide eyed look to her, uh, when she needs it. Like for instance, uh, when, when she's doing the multi multi-pass LILU multi-pass, it is, it is like just perfectly charming and innocent and silly. And, uh, almost childlike really. I mean, that is like, that's, that's what it comes down to when she shot this. Right.
JVL00:37:43Well, I mean, she, I guess she made this like, she took off after blue lagoon. So she did return to the blue lagoon and then sort of disappeared for awhile.
Sonny00:37:51Well, but she was in dazed and confused, remember, confused. And that was like two years before this. So like, I mean, she, you know, it was interesting. She'd been around, but hadn't, hadn't, hadn't done anything huge.
?00:38:04And then.
Sonny00:38:05Makes this and it's, uh, a big hit, especially overseas. Yeah. Um, yeah, I, I love her in this and like you said, the made up languages, it's all part of the like massive built in, uh, word world building that we don't really see like in, in this, in this documentary, uh, you know, based on us talking about like, uh, why I went back to the root languages. I went back to, you know, like Greek and Latin and just pulled together like 50 or a hundred words and started kind of mixing them into different combinations. I just wrote them down and gave them to her. Yeah. And she did it. She, she just did it. It was like, that's, I mean, that's impressive. That's impressive both from a writing and a acting standpoint, but also a directorial standpoint. I mean, Luke based on his underrated as a director of actors, I think he is, he is very, he is for, for as much as we focus on like kind of the big action stuff, right? Like he is an exceptionally good director of actors. Jean Reynaud has never given a better performance than, uh, than he gives in the professional. Um, uh, Mia Jovovich is so, so good in this. Uh, but I, I was watching, I watched a couple of his movies recently just to prep for this. Do you remember Lucy, the Scarlett Johansson movie?
JVL00:39:23That's not a bad movie.
Sonny00:39:25Lucy's not a bad movie. It's not a good movie. I want to, I want to be very clear. It's not a good movie. It's like ridiculous on about 17 different levels. But it is. It is incredibly entertaining and also just like he gets, he gets a really fantastic performance out of Scarlett Johansson. Who's not, it was a good actress. I should be. It's not like, it's not like he discovered her or anything. Right. Um, but he gets the, a very specific performance out of her, which is, uh, kind of tied to a whole thing she was doing around this time, which is basically like asking the question, what is it to be human? Yeah. What is this kind of almost distant affect to her that based on really pulls out, but that you see pop up again in her and, uh.
JVL00:40:11What is the alien movie she's in?
Sonny00:40:14Under the skin.
JVL00:40:15Under the skin. And then in Ghost in the Shell.
Sonny00:40:17And then in Ghost in the Shell. Where like, again, all of these, all this, all four of these movies are asking the same basic question. What does it mean to be human? What is it that makes us unique? What is it that like we need to do to actually be real people? Um, and he, he really, I think, got to that core better than just about any, any of those other films. You see echoes of this in those other movies, even though I think her might've come out before. I, I would have to check the, anyway.
JVL00:40:47No, I don't think it did. I think, uh, Lucy came out first.
Sonny00:40:51Yeah.
JVL00:40:52Yeah. No, I, I really, and you know, another thing is film, it's really funny. Like it is filled with jokes and humor from the very beginning. And I kind of just. Here's one thing that this time I had never, I, I had one feeling watching this that I had never had before, which was a sense of sadness at how many of these actors are gone. So Luke Perry, who is in the movie for like 30 seconds and it's a weirdly cast. It's one of those very strange things.
Sonny00:41:23Almost stunt casting. Yeah. But like, this was like five years after, well, I mean, it was five years after he was like off of Beverly Hills 90210. So.
JVL00:41:31Yeah. It was a piece of casting. Um, Luke Perry is gone. Uh, Bruce Willis has stepped away and we will never see him on screen again in a new, new role. Uh, and tiny Lister, I did not realize died two years ago. Yep. Um, and he, he plays the president in this, uh, if you don't know who tiny Lister is, you know him from three dozen movies from the Friday movies. You, in, in the dark night, he's the prisoner who throws the bomb over, he's just a wonderful presence. I've always thought he was kind of cool actor. Uh, he got his start in entertainment, I think by playing the character Zeus in the WWE. Uh, is that right?
Sonny00:42:21Well, he was in, wasn't he in like over the top or something?
JVL00:42:24Yeah. Which was then right. So he was in over the top and then the, the character from over the top was imported into
Sonny00:42:31the, uh, real world of WWE and that sounds right.
JVL00:42:35But uh, I did not realize he was gone. He was not old. He was like 60 years old. Uh, and so there's a sad gone too soon.
Guest00:42:44Yeah.
Sonny00:42:45Yeah. I, uh, I just looked it up for the record under the skin and her both came out the year before Lucy. Oh really? Yeah. But, but I do think that this movie like crystallizes that whole thing that she is, she is trying to do at this period of time in her career.
JVL00:43:00Yeah. That's fifth element. If you haven't seen it, you should watch it.
Sonny00:43:03Uh, we haven't really talked about the costumes. The, did you want to talk about Sean, Sean Paul Gautier design brought on, um, that's
JVL00:43:10the other thing that's unbelievably French about this. Every costume in this looks like it could be on a runway in Paris, right? I mean the, the, the guy who is the deaf movie star who has no lines in it, but like figures into a couple moments in the, in the movie, which are funny. He's wearing this elaborate, like white lace thing, uh, like something out of Amadeus. Yes. Ev everybody from the, the stewardesses on the rocket ship to what the diva is wearing to, uh, Mia Yovitch's bandage, her white bandage costume, and then to the thermal bandages, uh, which are amazing, um, to her then like the other weird costume with the orange plastic suspenders, like to, to Corbin Dallas's sleeveless thing, it's again, it just contributes to the idea that this is a coherent world, which people pre exist. We are, when we see the world that is happening in the fifth element, that world has been going on for hundreds of years and we are just glimpsing it for two hours. Yeah. That's that is the effect of having that uniform. Design ethos across even things as silly as the costumes.
Guest00:44:34Yeah.
Sonny00:44:35Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he, uh, I, it's funny. You mentioned, you mentioned all the world building. I mean, he talks, he talks about how he had basically written like a 600 page book, like a Bible for the, for the, for the movie that just like, that's what, that's what people read when they wanted to, to understand what the, the world of, uh, of, of this movie was like, it's, you know, here's, here it is. Here, read, read this Neil Stevenson sized book about, you know, what, what the movie is. Um, which is just, I like, I don't know, man, I guess you see this, you see this happen and, and it is not uncommon, I guess, but it is like uncommon enough that, uh, that it, it stands out to me. And it really is a, like it, it is necessary to understand without having to be told everything. Yeah.
JVL00:45:29If that makes sense. That's exactly right. And the other thing is nothing about this needed a sequel or a prequel. You know, like it's perfectly self-contained and, and I love it for that.
Sonny00:45:39All right. What about the sixth element? Sixth element. Sixth element.
JVL00:45:43When you go back, review a trilogy about the first two elements, you really stretch that out. Those will only be produced by Luc Besson, he won't direct them, they'll be directed
Sonny00:45:53by Luc Besson. Yeah, somebody, uh, somebody joked on Twitter that like the, at the Disney upfront, you know, Disney con, whatever's going on out in Anaheim right now, that it really is telling that like the biggest surprise was, oh, look, here's, here's the prequel show, uh, for the prequel movie that we made and, or, you know, it's like, we're gonna, we've, we've made a prequel to rogue one, which itself was a prequel to a new hope. Like God, this is the most depressing. This is I, what they have done with that entire property is just so, so depressing.
JVL00:46:27I think, well, that's a whole conversation for another night, but, uh, yeah, I, I think star wars is what is happening to star wars is not that far away from the fantastic beasts stuff. Like those are within, you can't throw a baseball from one of those things to the other, but you're in the same zip code.
Sonny00:46:50Yeah. I mean, it, it, at the very least the, the, the, at the very least, uh, the, uh, star wars stuff that Disney has done has been watchable for the most part for, for, I mean, if I, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, you know, make too many bold statements about the rise of Skywalker, but it was at least watchable as a commercial imperative.
JVL00:47:18Yeah. Not as a nobody's clamoring for this stuff. It's because it has to serve as a theme parks.
Sonny00:47:24Yeah. I mean, it is, it is crazy to like go back. I'm rewatching all of the star wars movies in order with our, with our kids right now, which is
JVL00:47:32Which order? Machete order?
Sonny00:47:34No, no. Just standard four, five, six, then one, two, three. And then we'll do, I guess, seven, eight, nine. Um, but the, uh, but it is, you know, our, our six year old is like almost old enough to like follow everything. And I mean, she's not, you know, uh, gonna give us a grand, you know, speech. The empire is good, isn't it? But, but she was, she's very into stormtroopers loves stormtroopers. Uh, but the, uh, but our three year old, not, not able to like really even follow any of the individual things, but it is, it is very funny to kind of watch the prequels again and just be like, you know, for all of the shoddiness of these movies and they are frequently very shoddy, um, for all of the shoddiness, at least they are movies that are about something. No, at least they, at least, at least they are like trying to tell a complete story and it's not solely the story of the Skywalkers. It is, that is obviously a big part of it, but it is like, it is a story about the decline and fall of a Republic to a, to an empire. Um, it's interesting. It's interesting. I, there's nothing, there's nothing even close to that in any of the, uh, any of the sequel movies, which is fairly depressing, but also not surprising.
JVL00:48:53All right. Well, uh, That's probably do it. Do you have any corrections, shout outs, additions? I'm I'm drinking Pellegrino Essenza tangerine and wild strawberry.
Sonny00:49:05That's what I'm just drinking. I'm just drinking Diet Dr. Pepper. We, uh, we bought a bunch of Topo Chico's here at the house. My wife is very into it. It's mineral water. It's just carbonated mineral water from, from France or not from France, from Mexico. Comes from Mexico. The Texans, Texans love Topo Chico. Uh, so, uh, you know, I think Beth is officially fully. I'm
JVL00:49:26a SodaStream when we moved to New Jersey.
Sonny00:49:28Are you, are you, I thought that we were, it's funny, Beth and I were just talking about how nobody really gets those anymore, but you are, you're gonna, you're gonna get one.
JVL00:49:35My sister has one and I, she made me a SodaStream soda and I'm like, this is amazing. It's so good.
Sonny00:49:42What kind, what, what kind of soda was it?
JVL00:49:44Uh, I think she dropped like a little drop of peach flavor in it or something, but it was, it was delicious. You could tell.
Sonny00:49:52How does it work?
JVL00:49:53You get a little CO2 canister that goes in the back of the thing, you screw in your bottle filled with water, you pump it just manually and so you can adjust how carbonated you want it to be. Like, do you like it more carbonated or less carbonated? Then after you're done, you drop a little flavor drop into it and uh, enjoy.
Sonny00:50:14Interesting.
JVL00:50:15It's, it's so great. I'm excited.
Sonny00:50:19I, uh, I mean I just, I couldn't give up my diet, Dr. Pepper. It's the only, it's the only thing I, I drink anymore. Yes.
JVL00:50:27My, my blood is like 80% Dr. Pepper at this point, so, and uh, I don't know what is, what does Vic say here?
Sonny00:50:34And that's all the time we're giving to this episode, hold on, uh, and that is all the time we are giving to this episode, questions, compliments, comments, tweet us at Sonny Bunch Chat Victorino Mattis, tell Vic that he needs to figure out what's going on with his browser. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on Patrion, just go to subbeacon.com. We are there. Tell your friends until next time.
?00:50:56Bye. Outtakes. Outtakes.
JVL00:50:59Any outtakes? Outtakes? Uh, getting quotes from movers.
Sonny00:51:02That's depressing. Yeah, you, you were saying that's, you were saying that's super expensive. It seems very expensive. How expensive was it when you moved cross-country? Well, uh, as you mentioned, uh, when you were, when you were discussing this with, uh, some, some folks, uh, the first question they asked was, well, are you paying for this?
JVL00:51:25Or is your company paying for it?
Sonny00:51:27Or is your business paying for this?
JVL00:51:28Right. I thought to myself, why does that matter?
Sonny00:51:31What is it? What is the difference here? Uh, so, uh, when the one, you know, uh, as, as folks remember, I, I've had a crazy Texas adventure, you know, leaving, leaving Virginia, going down to Texas, job blowing up, et cetera, et cetera. Um, uh, but the, the one nice thing about moving down, I, I'll, there are a lot of nice things about moving down here, but the one nice thing that my work did, my last work did was pay for it. Uh, to reimburse me for it. So I, I think it was, I can't even really remember because I, I like didn't, I didn't write the check myself, but I think it was like 17 or something.
JVL00:52:09So I haven't gotten an estimate that high yet, but, uh, there is enough variance.
Sonny00:52:14Well, I was also moving halfway across the country. I mean, you're moving from, you're moving from Virginia to New Jersey.
JVL00:52:19Yeah. I'm, I'm, uh, I'm a little concerned at the disparity between, because you would think that this is one of those things where the costs should all be clustered right around the same place. Right. Cause you're paying for, what are you paying for? You're paying for the rental and mileage on a truck or trucks. You're paying for fuel and you're paying for hourly wage of four or five guys. Yeah. I mean that there aren't a lot of various, it's not like, well, this, this company does a nicer job of moving you. I mean, maybe there is, maybe there isn't, uh, but so far we have a low bid. And a bid, which is like 80% more than that. And then I'm waiting for, uh, two more bids to come in and I just, I just feel like they're gonna be spread across, you know, like $12,000 of difference between them and I don't understand
Sonny00:53:17it. So I, I, uh, I, I just looked it up actually, cause it was in my computer. I vastly overestimated what we ended up paying. We ended up paying. Uh, we, we got Mayflower and it was 6,200. What? Um, but their, their estimate was like, I remember this now cause now I'm remembering what happened. Their estimate was like $5,000 less than the next closest one. And I remember when the guy who actually drives the truck came up and like looked at my house and just like basically did the like hand in his head, like, like rocking in a, in the fetal position because he's like, they fuck me again. They massively under, but they said that we'd get like $4,000. Four houses in this truck. We're going to get two houses because you have way too much stuff. And I was like, I'm sorry. And he's like, it's not your fault. It's the, it's the guy who books these things. Cause what they do is they radically underestimate how much stuff you have because they just need to sell it. And as long as it's within like, I don't know, 2000 pounds or something, uh, they, they nothing, nothing happens to them. It's me. It's me who gets screwed. I was like, oh, I'm sorry.
JVL00:54:21I didn't. You know what that is?
Sonny00:54:23That's all a bit for a tip. No. I, I, you know, whatever it was, it, it made me feel bad for the guy, but, uh, no, but I remember, so it was like, it was whatever I just said, 6,200, 6,400 or whatever for, uh, Mayflower. And then like, there was one that was like twice that much, a bid that was like twice that much. And then there was one that was slightly lower than that.
JVL00:54:42Nobody has given me a bid that is as low as 6,200. Despite the fact that I am moving from Virginia to New Jersey and not from Virginia to Texas.
Sonny00:54:53Have you, have you talked to Mayflower? Do I need to give you my Mayflower guy?
JVL00:54:56As soon as we get off the, off the show, I'm going to do Mayflower. Do you have your contact still?
Sonny00:55:01I, I, I'll take a look.
JVL00:55:02Or should I just go to the Mayflower website? Because that's where I'm going next.
Sonny00:55:05I'll take, I'll take a look and see if I, uh, uh, I, I think I've got, I, I must have one here somewhere from someone. Um, but, uh, yeah, I'll, I'll forward that to you because it was definitely like, I, I, I, now it's all coming back to me. It was such, God, it was so, it was only two years ago, but it feels like, but it feels, it feels like a million years. It's in pandemic years. It's been a million years. Uh, but, uh, yeah, no, it was definitely, it was one of these things where it was like, where I was just like, okay, I guess we're doing Mayflower because this was much cheaper than everybody else. Yeah. So much cheaper. Um, all right. I'm sure it's fine.
Spot something wrong in this episode? Suggest a correction →
Comments
Loading…