#130. 'The Gray Man'
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The main event is The Gray Man, the reported $200 million Netflix spy thriller from the Russo brothers starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans, and all three hosts land somewhere between unimpressed and appalled. Sonny is the most forgiving, calling it "so relentlessly generic" but conceding he didn't hate it — better than Red Notice, with a genuinely good on-location Prague shootout and interesting (if poorly integrated) Russo drone cinematography, the kind of movie you watch "while folding socks at nine at night on Wednesday." JVL is far harsher, likening it to a direct-to-video Blockbuster-era rental with movie stars but a script that never should have left the shelf, and singling out a disastrously bad plane-jump sequence (an inferior echo of the Mission: Impossible — Fallout HALO jump), Chris Evans's bizarrely campy "Jim Carrey's Riddler" villain clashing against Gosling's flat Jason Bourne routine, and characters who are told to be Harvard-smart but never shown doing anything intelligent. Vic, who watched with his wife Kate, mostly agrees it's a disappointment but enjoyed the European location work (Prague, Vienna, Berlin) and scores it on the Quadrant: Plot B, Duration B-, Violence/Action A-, Sex/Nudity F (an R rating squandered on a nearly nudity-free Ana de Armas). The first third is classic Sub-Beacon banter: Sonny recounts his 40th birthday omakase dinner at a Dallas restaurant called Te-On, including a certificate of authenticity for the A5 Wagyu presented "with two hands like a business card"; JVL recounts, at gross length, his first experience watching a septic-tank pumping at his new house, including a "silkwood shower"-worthy aerosolized mist and Flash's prank about the "clean tank"; Vic previews an upcoming family road trip through New York and Connecticut traffic; and the trio runs through the weekend box office (Nope winning with Sonny and JVL disagreeing over Nope vs. Get Out vs. Us) before landing on the news that Netflix has already floated a Gray Man sequel and cinematic universe despite the film's mediocre "hours viewed" debut (it fell just short of The Kissing Booth 3).
From the show notes
The Gray Meh is more like it amirite.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00What do you know about the Sierra program? Reckless mystery men you guys send in when you can't officially send anyone else. They're great men.
?00:00:15Lloyd!
Guest00:00:16They got an urgent locate and destroy. That could be fun, the man's got some street cred.
Vic00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and don't forget about the Sub-Beacon merchandise store at tpublic.com. Gentlemen, how are we? Sonny Bunch, happy birthday. Belated birthday.
Sonny00:00:56Thank you.
Vic00:00:57Thank you.
Sonny00:00:58A big one, wasn't it? Yeah. 40 years old. Wow. 40. 40.
Vic00:01:04Turned 40.
Sonny00:01:05This is 40. Hey. That's how I feel.
Vic00:01:09How did you celebrate?
Sonny00:01:10It was nice. Beth and I went to a nice Japanese restaurant here in Dallas. Benihana. Place called Te-On. Te-On. No, not Benihana. You know it was good because there were actual Japanese people in there eating.
Vic00:01:26That's always a good sign. That's always a good sign. And I do that with many, many a restaurant. Yeah. It's a good gauge. Yeah. Also, you want the people who work at the restaurant to be of the same ethnicity.
Sonny00:01:38Yeah. I was a little bit worried because the guy who was waiting on me was like, "Yeah, I just started three weeks ago. This is a little bit nicer than Outback." Outback where I work. But he was actually very-
Vic00:01:49The skills are portable though.
Sonny00:01:50The skills are good. He was very, very good and he was being watched very closely by the boss who looked much like the sushi chef from Kill Bill. Oh, yeah. Sonny Chiba, I think. Sonny Chiba.
Vic00:02:04Yeah, of course.
Sonny00:02:05Hattori Honza. Was like kind of watching in the background, like making sure everything was okay. But he was- Well, did you- No, it was great. It was really good.
Vic00:02:13I assume you were there with the whole family.
Sonny00:02:14No, no, no. Just me and Beth. Just two- It's his birthday, Vic.
JVL00:02:18Going to a restaurant with your whole family is something you do when you want to torture yourself. Yeah, that's an obligation. Not when you want to celebrate.
Vic00:02:25It is. Well, it was connected to my son. It was connected to my second question, which was, was this like a hibachi performance thing or no?
Sonny00:02:33You just didn't- No, no. It's not like Benihana.
Vic00:02:36Because I was going to say, because that's where the kids would love it. It's a big- Smell like Benihana.
Sonny00:02:40Volcano. No, no. It's like a nice Japanese place where they have the good omakase menu and homemade soba noodles.
Vic00:02:50Okay.
Sonny00:02:51There's like a ... So, the omakase menu is seven quarters. It's a seven course thing, right? And they have the actual Japanese Wagyu beef. Yes.
Vic00:03:05Like A4, A5, whatever the grading is.
Sonny00:03:07Yeah. It was like A12 or something. It was like some crazy-
Vic00:03:11Did you indulge yourself?
Sonny00:03:12No. I mean, this was just ... I mean, it was not a cheap meal, but this was like just part of the ... It wasn't like a upcharge or anything, right? Yes. But it was very funny because the waiter brought out a certificate of authenticity. Right. Like from the prefecture of Japan was like, "Here, you'll see that it shows you the- Oh, come on. I've never seen that anywhere. I was like, "This is where it's from."
JVL00:03:36It's presented to you the way the Japanese businessmen do their business cards with the ceremonial- Two hands.
Sonny00:03:40Two hands like a business card. It was not far off of that, but I looked at it appreciatively, I was like, "Oh, this is good to know. This is ... Thank you.
Vic00:03:49Thank you." The cow died happy listening to gentle music while being massaged drinking beer.
Sonny00:03:53Exactly.
Vic00:03:54Exactly.
Sonny00:03:55So anyway, it was very, very nice. Great meal. Great ambiance. Vic, if you ever come out to Dallas, I will take you there.
Vic00:04:03We will have- Very exciting. Greater sign, lesser sign than Sushi Nakazawa?
Sonny00:04:08It's right up there. Apples and oranges. I would say it's slightly different because Sushi Nakazawa is like a more traditional sashimi and sushi place, right? Yes, strictly. The sushi at Sushi Nakazawa was definitely, I think, better than the sashimi I had here, though the sashimi I had here was great. I mean, but the overall experience, I mean, again, it's very similar, a very similar sort of- Wow. Again, like- Really fancy. Throw yourself in the hands of the chef. He puts it together for you. And again, the homemade soba noodle finisher course was amazing, very, very good, so- I think you're turning Japanese. If you guys ever come out here, we'll go there. That's very exciting.
Vic00:04:54It's very exciting. Do you remember the sushi at Sushi Nakazawa? I believe it was still alive. It was. I think they just cut it right, like Hannibal Lecter style, like with Ray Liotta, they just took it right out. Well-
Sonny00:05:07Yeah, this place is very similar. This place is very similar. They go through a whole spiel like, "Oh, we got it. This was out of the ocean 22 hours ago off the coast of Japan." What? It's from, they like air express it overnight. They just overnight it and they get it there and they- The air expressed it by- So again, it was very, very good. Very good.
Vic00:05:29They took it from a helicopter off of a cargo ship. And then shortly after the helicopter left, the cargo ship capsized because of a giant lizard.
Sonny00:05:37Yes, exactly. It has the breath of Godzilla on it. On it. I watched that today.
Vic00:05:45Which one?
Sonny00:05:46Godzilla vs. Kong.
JVL00:05:47The Emmerich one? Oh, okay. Godzilla vs. Kong. G Money wanted to watch it. And? No. I want to repeat viewing. That's what I want to know. You know, it's terrible until Godzilla and Kong start fighting in Hong Kong, at which point the final 20 minutes are so amazing that everything else is forgiven.
Vic00:06:09Which is because they travel around the globe. They're like literally globe trotting, hopping all over the place.
Sonny00:06:15Well, they go like through the globe. Don't they? Don't they take that tunnel?
JVL00:06:19There's a tunnel. There's a tunnel. There's a tunnel. Well, so King Kong goes through the earth. Godzilla, for his point, merely from Hong Kong, uses his nuclear laser breath to blow a hole that goes all the way to the center of the earth. So Godzilla is standing in Hong Kong and the planet did not like. Well, it's a hollow earth.
Sonny00:06:41So it makes sense.
JVL00:06:42No, but his laser goes all the way to the hollow earth and then Godzilla looks down into it and sees Kong looking up at him. Oh, come on. But on the other hand. Kong does a Superman punch UFC style. Yes, he does. I don't know. I know that which makes it worth it.
Vic00:06:59It's everything I hoped it could be. How often do you think would people say, oh, I was recently watching Godzilla? Do they actually refer to the Matthew Broderick one?
Sonny00:07:09That's a good question. That's a good question.
Vic00:07:11I used to be on TBS, wasn't it?
Sonny00:07:12Used to be on HBO all the time.
JVL00:07:15That was terrible. Maria Petillo.
Vic00:07:17Oh, it was. That's exactly who. I was going to say Maria Bello, but that's entirely different. Petillo. Petillo. Horrible.
JVL00:07:24Horrible. Boy, are we done with that? Yeah. With that Japanese restaurant segment? Because I felt like that was just a minefield that we successfully got through. Arasumashay.
Vic00:07:34Oh, were you greeted? Were you greeted? Arasumashay. Arasumashay. Because you're not supposed to say, "Lip my stockings, Mr. Bunch." No. No. No. No. Oh, very good. Very good.
Sonny00:07:49Lost in translation. Lost in translation there. No, it was great. Highly recommended if you are in the area. Again, it's not cheap, but it's not crazy expensive either. All the cards is 125 bucks a person for the seven course menu. I figure for a 40th birthday, that's a totally reasonable price to pay for a meal. Good for you.
JVL00:08:10Isn't that like the price of a Sunday brunch in most places in DC?
Sonny00:08:14But that's the thing is that like 125, not crazy expensive. I mean, it's not-
Vic00:08:19For a super fancy nice dinner? That's good. Did they give you any wild sushi?
Guest00:08:23Sea urchin?
Vic00:08:24No, it was pretty- Did you get sea urchin?
Sonny00:08:26No, no, it was the sashimi plate. So the sashimi plate was one of the seven courses and it was like, honestly, it was like the least impressive part of the whole thing. It was fine. Again, it was very, very good. Don't get me wrong. It was very good, but it was just like kind of straightforward, like here's some fatty tuna, here's some salmon.
Vic00:08:46Okay. Well, I'm sure it was very good. I just hope for 125, like the sushi, the nigiri or the- I should say the roll that they give you is not a California roll.
Sonny00:08:56It was actually a California roll. No, it wasn't. It just came in a little plastic box. Yes. With a little- With a fake green divider. It had some green dots and it had a little packet of soy sauce. You just pour it. Yeah, so that's good.
JVL00:09:12Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did this have a conveyor belt, this place? Yes.
Sonny00:09:15We picked it off. Yeah. Yes. You sit around- That's for 200. It's a sushi bar, but it's actually a conveyor belt.
Vic00:09:21It's amazing. If it was 500, I could probably- Yeah. Get my $500 worth. I'm just going to say that. Well, happy birthday, JVL. Thank you. How are you and how is the bathroom situation? I don't know how to put this because I forgot the words. There was a... I saw a photo of- Septic. Septic. That's the word. It was a septic tank truck. And you were standing, looked like you were heading behind it. And the other thing is, if you look on the ground, sometimes the septic trucks, they leave a trail. And I was just hoping whatever's happening, you're not walking behind it. What happened?
JVL00:09:59We pumped the septic tank for the first time.
Vic00:10:04Oh, okay. So this is a normal thing you were supposed to do.
Sonny00:10:08It's a thing you're going to have to do like every six months, right? Every year?
JVL00:10:12So... Every month for me. So we... I just called up the company that used to service this house and said, "I don't know when the last time this thing was pumped was." And they said, "Well, it looks like you're probably-
Sonny00:10:23Probably do. Chrissy Moltisanti said, "Hey, oh, we'll get a guy out there with a truck tomorrow. Hey."
JVL00:10:29Look, I mean, you laugh, but the name of this company is the most Italian thing ever. And- Probably shouldn't mention the name, but-
Sonny00:10:38If the- Guido Sarducci's.
JVL00:10:40If the septic business is on the level, I would be shocked.
Vic00:10:45Well, I mean, it-
JVL00:10:48I assume it's like dry cleaning and the trash business and the cigarette machines.
Vic00:10:53It's all- Yeah. Connected. Well, again, and it works out really perfectly for certain people because you have a trucking
JVL00:11:00route.
Vic00:11:01Right.
JVL00:11:02All sorts of things you can do. Yes. So, when we did the home inspection, the inspector was very, very adamant that when your septic system gets pumped, you got to be out there and watch it because if you don't, they can screw you. They can say that they've pumped a thousand gallons. But not actually do it. And that's why if you don't watch them, they'll screw you. And so, I went out there and the nice gentleman- You watched it.
Sonny00:11:33From- Shot the shit with him, so to speak.
JVL00:11:35Connellini was like, "Yeah, you've never done septic before?" I said, "No. No, I haven't." And he's like, "Yeah, come on over, let me show you what it's all about." Oh, wow. And he's like, he's got the pole, he's stirring it up, he's like, "Look in there." Right? No, no, he didn't say that. He didn't say that. "Oh yeah, we're talking and we're just talking while we stir it all up and watch the giant hose." You were literally stirring the shit storm.
Sonny00:12:06Can I ask, so I don't understand what this looks like. Is the septic tank under your house? Is it next to your house? Where is it located? Underground. It is underground. Right, no, no. I understand that it's underground.
Vic00:12:19Sonny wants to know how do they tap into it?
Sonny00:12:21Off to the side. It's like a manhole cover. Oh, okay.
JVL00:12:24No, it's literally like a manhole cover exactly like it, in fact, is a manhole cover. That's what it is.
Vic00:12:32Is this a front yard or side backyard? It's off to the side.
JVL00:12:35Okay.
Vic00:12:36We got a lot.
JVL00:12:37We got acreage. Oh, okay. We're not lacking for yard. Yeah. And this gentleman was lovely and I really appreciate it. He said to me, he said, "Look, you take care of it and it'll take care of you." And I just thought, "Oh, my God."
Vic00:12:54Did he say that?
JVL00:12:55That's great.
Vic00:12:56"I want to die, just take me now, Jesus." These people are also belong to that category of workers who definitely deserve whatever it is they earn or more because it is nothing that many of us just would not want to do.
JVL00:13:12Yes. So, it's all happening and it's being sucked away and again, he was great. Lovely guy. Great. I was... Look, happy to - Question. I spent three hours with him while he pumped - Question. Question. Shit out of my yard.
Sonny00:13:27Yes. Does he have to like aim the hose in there or does he just - do you just like plop it down and it like - Well, the hose is like - Or does he like - does he have to like a -
JVL00:13:37Ten inch, eight inch diameter hose maybe. It's a big old hose. Yeah. And he drops it down. You got to, you know, sometimes there are problems if people let fatty stuff get in because we have two different systems. We have a gray water system and a black water system. And, you know, you get kids flushing matchbox cars down the toilet. That'll screw things up. You got to reach out for that. The distribution box, obviously. You got to carefully - the distribution box, Victorino. And the problem you get in the gray water tanks is if people go putting like congealed oils and fats down the drain - Yeah. Then that stuff over time will turn into hard as rocks, right? It'll soon the pipes and you got to go - anyway, he's like, shit. Again, great. Wow. I am so happy that I've learned all this. And then I was asking him - So, what do I - you know, how often are we supposed to do this? And he's like, yeah, you got six people. He said, I'd say every two years. Two years? Can we do it every month? Oh.
Vic00:14:34I was going to say.
JVL00:14:35Can we just get this taken care of every month?
Vic00:14:37You want it to be - yeah. You don't want to be like, we'll fill it to the brim.
JVL00:14:42I don't want to - anyway, and then, you know, the pumping truck, which is pumping everything out. You know, like, it's not perfect. Like, it's not - you know, not everything is sucking in some air, and whatever - however the system is, in the giant tank on this enormous diesel truck, it has some sort of mechanism in which it is venting excess gas out with, I'm sorry, aerosolized particles, and by the time this was over - Oh, it's everywhere. And I realized - it's like, I need a silkwood shower. I was going to say, was there like a mist? And even that is never going to - In a mist? Yes. Like, oh, it's awfully foggy. Yes. Why is this like, there's this brown fog? In my pores, in my hair, and it's never - and I have to stay out there, because if I don't stay out there, you know, one of these guys, one of these fine gentlemen will screw me, so says the home inspector, I - the whole - it was - it was just vaguely horrifying. But I made it through, and look at me, I'm all - I'm all grossed up now.
Sonny00:15:47Yes.
JVL00:15:48Question.
Sonny00:15:49Mm-hmm. Do they - do they charge per, like, the metric - A ton of filth extracted from your home, or is it, like, just a - is it a flat rate?
Vic00:15:57Service charge. Like -
Sonny00:15:59I think it's a service - flat service charge. You show up here, it's like 200 bucks to pump your house.
JVL00:16:04So interesting you ask that, Sonny. They charge a flat rate for the first thousand gallons, and then a per hundred gallon rate after that. Now, you may be asking yourself. How do they calculate this? The answer seems to be the eyeball method. No.
Vic00:16:29They must have some sort of a gauge inside the measure. Must they? Must they? Yeah. This fine gentleman said, "Yeah, I think it's about 1,500 gallons."
JVL00:16:38There's all sorts of gauges. He just sort of eyeballed it, and I didn't see any gauges, and he was just like, "It's about 1,500." And he just wrote it up, and he says, "Here." Yes. Thank you. He was a guest of it. Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate it for making it go away. Anyway, and I get inside, and Flash says to me, "So it's all cleaned out, right?" I said, "Yeah, it's all cleaned out." And he goes, "No, it's not, dude." Boom! I just dropped the first deuce in the clean tank. I was just like, "Oh, my God. You ridiculous bro. Get away from me." He was very proud of himself.
Sonny00:17:12Did you burn the clothes that you were wearing?
Vic00:17:16I should've. I should've. Actually, Sonny, that tank top JVL has on now was once white. See? It's now gray. I imagine the truck that that guy drives has to be the safest truck on the road because nobody wants to run into you.
JVL00:17:30Well, you know, I mean, between the well water and the septic system, and I'm thinking about getting solar panels on my roof, you know, I'm going to be just fine when the shit goes down. You're going to be self-sufficient. We'll be self-sufficient. Then we're going to start raising chickens.
Sonny00:17:48You'll be fine until somebody shows up with an AR-15 and takes that place over. You got to, you got to go, if you're going to go full, uh, you know, mountain man, you got to get an armory too.
JVL00:17:58I'm just going to get a bullet reloader and I'm just going to pay Sergio and Salvador protection money and then they'll take care of any, any, any, that's how you wind up with
Sonny00:18:08Sergio and Salvador, uh, owning your home over your corpse. That's right. You, you need to get some home defense. Let me know.
JVL00:18:15I can take care of them. They'll take care of me.
?00:18:17Hmm.
JVL00:18:18Okay. All right. Victorino. How are you buddy? They're people, Vic.
Vic00:18:23I know that you'd be totally into this and be like, yeah, they're great. I I'm all for it. Uh, construction, waste management, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a living, uh, I'm heading through that area tomorrow, uh, as we're heading up to Connecticut, are you taking the tap? That's the question.
JVL00:18:43Isn't it the tap and Z because as you get the tab, you'll be driving literally a mile away from my house. You might as well just stop over and get a cup of coffee.
Vic00:18:52That's no, that is way up there.
JVL00:18:53Cause you'll be going on 287.
Vic00:18:55Yeah. Briefly. Uh, cause usually what happens is you're on the turnpike. And then if you decide to take the tap, then you gotta go up the garden state until it you up. Garden state to 287. Yeah. And then you're into, and then you're texting, you know, it's the New York through.
Guest00:19:09Just stop by.
JVL00:19:10Look, it's, it's a great place for you to take a break. I'll make an espresso. You can go to the bathroom. You can defile my, my very clean septic system. My, my goal might, yeah, I might have to use it if I have to use it up like that.
Vic00:19:22That's it. We're pulling in. Uh, my goal is to get through to Connecticut because like New York is bad, but Connecticut is worse. And it, cause it's like a two, you know, interstate 95 becomes basically like two lanes. It's two lanes. It has no roads. They don't. And it just 95 or the merit and that's it going all the way to Rhode Island and then up to Boston and everybody's on that road. The worst part is, um, when you get to Connecticut, uh, they usually. We have science warning you that there's traffic and delays and traffic congestion. And you know what it'll say from exits one to nine traffic congestion, you get to nine and then it'll say traffic delays, 11 to 20 and then you get the 20 and it'll be like 22 to 40 and then it's just like every step of the way. Like don't tease me, but what about the magic Deegan? Can you do the major Deegan? You gotta hold on. That's white knuckle. That's white knuckle territory. I was just, I was just reading a, you know, it's a. In bonfire of the vanities, all those places are mentioned. Gun Hill road. It's all there.
JVL00:20:27It's all through there. Yeah. You like this Jerome Ave. I love when we do new England highway talk, right?
Vic00:20:33It's almost as good as Jersey rest stop. That's right. That's right. Get me too. But I want to, you know, you see it, you gotta stay on the left side. Cause then it'll say to new England and then, uh, off you go heading towards in the direction of new Haven. But man, oh man, you gotta go through co-op city again. That is fine. And it's nothing compared to the traffic in Connecticut. So that's it. But I'm looking forward to getting over there and then, uh, cause you miss your kids so much.
JVL00:20:58I miss my kids.
Vic00:20:59Can't wait to get them back in the house.
JVL00:21:00Yeah. Because that's still so empty without them. And you're like, what am I even doing?
Vic00:21:04What did you eat this week? Oh, what did I, what did I eat this week? I ate a lot. I ate a lot. I went out, I various restaurants, went out, uh, it was at a French restaurant yesterday, last night. I just had some leftovers today. I was supposed to go out, but that, um, the dinner got canceled. Um. How many trips to the Palm? We cooked a little bit at home.
JVL00:21:25Hm? How many trips to the Palm?
?00:21:27None.
Vic00:21:28It was supposed to be one, uh, last week with our friend, Mary Katherine, but she, she has hand, foot, mouth from the baby. That's not how they get you.
JVL00:21:40We sent her, we sent her cookies from one of the best cookie bakeries I've ever seen around here as a, when you get over hand, foot, mouth, you guys must've done that at some point with the kids.
Vic00:21:51Never had. Ugh. Never had. Knock on wood. Oh my gosh. No. So, uh, uh, but we're going to go up there for Connecticut and then we're going to go down to Jersey. I'm looking forward to the shore and I'm looking forward to getting my pizza and my frozen custard. And by the way, you know what I was talking to her about with Mary Katherine ice cream sandwiches, but the kinds that are in the shape of discs, do you know what we call them? This is dangerous too. It is because it's Jersey and you're not sure if it's like, is it going to be something really not to fear, not to feel what I'm looking forward. What I'm looking forward to eating is, uh, the flying saucers. Speaking of which over the weekend, nope. Scared his way to the top of the box office with $44.4 million followed by Thor love and thunder with 22.6 million. And in third place minions, the rise of grew with $18 million, uh, box office thoughts, uh, uh, JVL. Uh, I don't think you were you or I did not. Neither of us saw. Nope. Nope. Not pay me enough. Nope. Okay. Uh, Sonny, you saw it. Nope. Nope. Is better than worse than get at us. I think everyone, everyone loves get out. You feel the other way. I don't know. What do you, what do you have to say?
Sonny00:23:12Uh, I like, I, I mean, I have slightly contrarian views on the shocker. Um, uh, I prefer us to get out. Wow. Because get out is like a, get out is actually a perfect screenplay. It's like perfectly structured. It like nails the metaphor it's going for. It's like sneakily deep in certain ways. It does. It does interesting things with the topic, but it is like, like a clockwork, like from beat to beat from point to point, uh, everything makes logical sense. It all, you know, like there's no plot holes. You can't, you can't really pick it apart and be like, oh, but what about this? Like it all works. It all works. So long as you buy the basic premise of. Uh, uh, what is going on in that movie? Um, uh, us on the other hand is like, is, is a mild, uh, mess in terms of the logic of the metaphor at the heart of it. It doesn't actually really make any sense. So like the, the, the, the central premise of us is that, uh, essentially that there is a doppelganger for every American, uh, and they live underground like chuds and they come up in a rebellion, an uprising, but it's, it's, it's. It's a class metaphor. It's a class metaphor as opposed to a race metaphor, which I like, which I actually like more. I mean, I think it's more interesting, frankly, but that's cuz I'm a racist white person. Um, uh, the, uh, but I actually, I actually prefer the weird nightmare logic of us. It's I find it much more terrifying than get out with its clockwork precision. I like the, the, the like weird idea of like just the subterranean, uh, you know, group of people hanging out down there, like being abused. No good reason.
Vic00:24:53And then they come up and they, you just have to not ask yourself questions. Like you gotta shut your brain off. What did they get? Food clothing.
Sonny00:25:00Yeah. Doesn't make any, it does not make a lick of logical sense, but it does have, it does. Again, it has this like kind of interesting nightmare logic to it, which is like, well, what if, you know, like, what if there was like a dark version of you? What if there was like a, like, you know, abused, terrible, terrible version of you somewhere that wants to take revenge. Um,
Vic00:25:22You mean there's a happy version of you somewhere. Yeah.
Sonny00:25:26Where's did we lock the happy JVL up in the catacombs? Um, so I, I, I prefer us to get out, but I, I am happy to, uh, exceed the most. Nope. Nope. Is interesting. I, I kind of, I kind of like it. Uh, I like it because it's doing a lot of different, interesting things. Um, and it has a lot of great performances in it. I love Daniel clue in it. He's fantastic. Steven you, he's great. Uh, um, Um, lots, just lots of really good performances. It's kind of a mess. It is all over the place. It is doing too many things at once. Um, but, uh, the, the like basic overall idea is the addiction we all have to filmed trauma and spectacle. Um, which again, kind of, kind of interesting.
Vic00:26:12You pay a price for that.
Sonny00:26:14There's, there's a lot, there, there is actually stuff we could talk about on the show, but I, and JVL, I actually, it's not really that scary. It's more like, it's a bit like. Uh, it's a bit like close encounters by way of jaws.
JVL00:26:26Um, which I probably live with that.
Sonny00:26:30You could, I, I don't, I, I like, there are a couple of scary children spider crawling
JVL00:26:35at me.
Sonny00:26:36Yeah. But there, there's, there is one sequence like that. There is one sequence like that, but like, uh, but it's anyway, do you agree with, uh,
Vic00:26:47Jay pod that he found the most compelling thing to be something completely unrelated to, which was the chimpanzee story?
Sonny00:26:54Um, well that, I mean, so this is one of the problems with the, the movie. And from, in my point of view is that that actually is by far the most compelling thing in the movie. Yeah. Um, and he is not the main character. Steven union's character is not the main JBL doesn't know what we're talking about.
JVL00:27:09No, I do. He runs the rodeo and his backstory, his backstory is child performers, all the champion. I'm with you.
Sonny00:27:17Okay. Yeah. Anyway, that guy, that guy has the most interesting arc in the film. But he is not the main character and that's, that's, I think the big structural problem with this movie is that like it just has the wrong main characters, which, you know, that's a mild problem. Yeah. Um, but I, I enjoyed it. I, I think it's interesting. Again, it's interesting.
JVL00:27:35And I think the Asian guys should be the lead and not the black man.
Sonny00:27:38Okay. I, well, you said it.
Vic00:27:40I'm all for that. We don't have them. How often does that happen?
Sonny00:27:43Okay. Yeah, I know. Come on. Uh, so, and everything. So I, uh, I, I don't know. It's interesting. The box office on this is, uh, like nothing. It's not actually great. I mean, look, 40, $44 million or whatever for a original R rated film is a good open no matter what. But it's like, uh, I think about 30 million less than us was, um, it, uh, you know, it's got a B cinema score, which is, you know, is, is not terrible for a movie that was marketed as a horror movie and is really closer to a sci-fi, uh, Western horror hybrid. Um, uh, so, you know, we'll see how it does in its second weekend. I, I would be, I'd be kind of curious. I would be surprised if it, if it held super well, cuz it, it has a, again, it's a weird movie. Um, and I, I think audiences will be vaguely annoyed with it, but maybe I'm wrong. I mean, the cinema score's not terrible.
Vic00:28:41What was the drop this week for Thor, love and thunder, Thor, love and thunder
Sonny00:28:45dropped another 50% or so in its third weekend. So not, not terrible, but it's not holding great. I mean, the, the two best movies. Again, top gun, Maverick and Elvis both held like 16, they had 16% drops or something. I mean, like those, those two movies are, um, are doing really, really well. Just, I mean, uh, you know, top gun Maverick is, uh, is the first film aside from Titanic or avatar to make more than $10 million in its first nine weeks. Yeah. So it's the third movie ever to do that. Yeah. Um, which, you know, that good for it, it's doing really well. Great. I love it.
Vic00:29:22So, so, um, this week, uh, we're actually doing a Netflix movie, uh, by the Russo brothers called the gray man, starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans, uh, Sonny, how about a big boy review?
Sonny00:29:37The gray man, the gray man, uh, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, who are the two highest grossing directors of all time, not named Steven Spielberg should be noted. They, uh, they made, you know, some $11 billion. Uh, on the, uh, making the Avengers and captain America movies.
Vic00:29:56Um, did they do both all, did they do all the Avengers? Like right?
Sonny00:30:00No, they did the, they did the third and they did end game and infinity war. Remember Joss Whedon did the big one, the first, yeah, Joss Whedon, who has been airbrushed out of history. Nobody, nobody remembers Joss Whedon anymore. Um, uh, so anyway, Russo brothers, highest grossing box office directors of all time, not named Steven Spielberg, uh, direct Ryan Gosling. As a, uh, a CIA black ops agents as Jason, who as basically as Jason born, I wrote identity on here by the way, uh, basically as Jason born, who, uh, uh, in the midst of trying to get some Intel off of a, uh, uh, who trying to take out and get some Intel off of a guy learns that CIA is and they're, and they're trying to, they're trying to kill everybody. Um, you guys want to just do it because that would be easier than please being interrupted every time I realize we're doing, I try to talk, uh, Ryan, I, I, it doesn't, the movie's not very good. It's, it's super generic. Um, the, the performances veer between like kind of nondescript, uh, with Ryan Gosling and like weirdly terrible with Chris Evans and his dumb mustache. Um, Anna de Armas plays a CIA helper who is made to wear. Most unfortunate costumes ever. Just total, total waste of Anna de Armas, Billy Bob Thornton, Billy Bob Thornton actually gives my favorite performance in the movie as like the, uh, CIA guy who's being, you know, tortured, uh, to the, the scene where he's being tortured and he's like, yeah, give it, give me more. I, that, that was actually a pretty entertaining. Um, the movie itself, uh, look, it's a $200 million Netflix movie, which means it's actually really more like a $100 million studio movie because a hundred million of that is going to. It's going to be for Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling and Anna de Armas and Billy Bob Thornton and the Russo brothers. I mean, between those six names, you're probably looking at 80 to $90 million worth of, uh, uh, salary, you know, salary, um, cause they all get paid upfront, they all get their number upfront. Uh, and you know, that's, that's not nothing. So it's really more like a hundred million dollar movie. If you think of it that way, it looks pretty good. Looks pretty good. Uh, the, the, the, the, there, there are three things. I want to discuss. The first is the very terrible airplane jump sequence. We will go into this more later. I'm sure JBL has thoughts. He was texting me how terrible it is, but it's, it's a really bad action sequence. It's like the worst possible way you could do that action sequence. Um, the second, uh, thing is that the shootout in Prague actually looks pretty good. I actually liked how that looked. It looked real. They were like clearly shooting things. They were blowing stuff up.
Vic00:32:47It was, I got the sense that was actually on location.
Sonny00:32:50It was on location. In Prague. Like it felt like a real place that they were doing Bay ham in, which is like, that's my favorite moment of the movie when the, the, the like a good CIA agent is like, what are you doing? And, and Chris Evans and his mustache are like more, more guys blow it. So I, I kind of like that. The, the third thing that is going on in this movie that is interesting is the way the Russo's use drones. Yeah.
JVL00:33:15Um, and I, for those establishing shots where they swoop down around.
Sonny00:33:21Yeah, it's, it's interesting. I mean, they're, it's not just that they are cre they're doing a different thing with establishing shots, right? Like they are getting both like super intimate with the actors and also like zooming out, you know, but not zooming cause they're it's part of the drone. So it's just like you, you get to see a ton of space and it's super intimate all at the same time. The problem is they don't, nobody quite knows how to make all of this footage work with regular footage. Like Michael Bay doesn't know either. I don't. I remember if we talked about this. Did we do ambulance?
Vic00:33:55I don't even remember.
Sonny00:33:56No, we did not. Um, but I, but Michael Bay does a lot of drone work in ambulance and that movie has some like really interesting drone shots. Like there's this one really cool shot where he has a drone, like following a guy through a space that's about as wide as my laptop and it like, it like keeps the action intimate and up close while also allowing the camera to instantly like pull back and zoom out and you can see everything. Uh, they just. It's nobody quite understands how to meld all of this with regular footage and it looks weird and um, kind of cut together like it's in a blender. Now in a Michael Bay movie, that doesn't really matter here. It matters more because it, it messes with the sense of space and action. I mean overall, I actually didn't hate this movie. I liked it more than red notice.
Vic00:34:40I'll give it that much better than red notice came to my mind as well. Even though when I started refreshing my memory about red notice, which was a terrible movie, I mean in my mind, I think the only thing they had in common is that they were both on with it. That was another Netflix movie, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it was a different plot because they were going, they were looking for something I guess, but I still had, for some reason my mind, I associated it slightly with this movie as well.
Sonny00:35:04Well, red notice is like a super generic Indiana Jones type movie. This is a super generic spy thriller in the born identity mold as you guys were saying. So I mean, I, I like, I actually don't hate this movie. Um, I hate a couple sequences in it. I really like a couple other sequences in it. It's just, it's, it's just like a, a thing that you watch while you're folding socks at nine at night. On Wednesday.
JVL00:35:27That is, that is not a strong endorsement. I'd rather listen to an audio book.
Vic00:35:32Yeah. The kind of movie where you can leave for a couple minutes, come back and you really didn't miss anything.
JVL00:35:37Do you know what else we didn't talk about with Michael Bay? And I can't believe that we left this on the cutting room for last week, the Michael Bay Victoria's secret commercial, which in the, in the Victoria's secret thing they show is I had forgotten about it and Victoria's secret. Secret gets Michael Bay to direct a commercial for lingerie and he manages to have helicopters and explosions.
Vic00:35:58I mean, this is something to be, to be celebrated. There's a great scene in that commercial where a Victoria's secret models opens these French doors, the sliding doors open and it's a great scene. It's a great scene. Uh, yeah, it just is go back and find, you'll know what I'm talking about. Uh, JV, I get the sense JVL and I did not like this movie as much. As you did Sonny, uh, JVL, what, what are your thoughts on this? This very sort of, I thought it to be very derivative and I had other issues with it, but go ahead.
JVL00:36:29I, uh, so it, it struck, this is the following that struck me and maybe, maybe Sonny's not old enough to remember this. Vic, do you remember going into blockbuster shit? Yeah. You're a junior in high school or a senior in high school. When you go into blockbuster and you find out there's no back with the heated curtains, you find out there's no beaded curtains and you're going through. The new releases wall. And there is the movie that you, the blockbuster movie from seven months ago, the big, big movie from seven months ago, that's a new release. And then there is also a movie that was not like quite a big deal in seven, but they've, you know, and they've got, they've got 50 copies of the, the big movie, like, uh, like con air. And then they have like 15 copies of, uh, runaway bride. Right. And then they've got like four or five copies of this other movie with a bunch of movie stars in it that you've never heard of. And you think to yourself, wait a minute, what did I miss this? Did it just come through theaters so fast that I missed it? And you look at it and like, oh, it went direct to video. Right. It's always like, it's like Christian Slater was in it. Yeah. Right. Somebody who's Christian Slater and Sylvester Stallone, like to be like, they're movie stars, you know, their names. They're not quite, you know, they're not quite all the way up at the level of Julia
Vic00:37:56Roberts and, and then you decide to actually rent it out of curiosity.
JVL00:37:59And so you rent rent every once in a while. You do right. Cause you forget and you bring it home and you watch and you're like, oh, this is just a piece of shit.
Vic00:38:06Or this is why, this is why it went direct to video is why it went direct to video.
JVL00:38:10And that is why movies go to Netflix. Why is the gray man on Netflix instead of released into theaters, because this is the control on Netflix productions is so low that they get, they get projects where everything from the script level to the conception of it simply isn't good enough to be released in theaters. And that's what red notice was. That's what this is. That's what all of the Netflix feature films are. Uh, and this thing is, it's very bad and we, we could talk, it's bad in ways which are astonishing to me. So there is, there is a sequence in which Ryan Gosling is in a plane and he gets through a fight in a plane. The plane blows up around him and he's, he's falling through. The point is, this is what, this is what the halo sequence, the halo jump sequence from mission impossible fallout would look like if it was directed by like a film student and, and that's okay. But what I don't understand is the Russo's choosing to include this in the movie when it is so clearly inferior to some, this would be like, uh, two years after Goodfellas came out deciding, you know what, I'm going to do a, my movie, I've got this movie here. I think we have in the script a single take shot where we go through a club, uh, you know, all in one take and meet a bunch of different characters and, uh, you know, like. We'll try it too.
Vic00:39:52And maybe it'll be like the Copacabana scene or maybe it won't. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's funny. You mentioned the airplane scene and Sonny did as well. Um, I watched this movie with Kate and she said that, that for her, she thought was a, that was a scene that stood out to her as being particularly bad.
JVL00:40:09Well, but also somebody has just done the perfect version of this scene. Like don't, don't do that again. Come up with some other reason.
Vic00:40:18I was, you know, I mean. This sort of thing has been done, uh, in many movies over the last, you know, few decades, but, uh, I was actually reminded cause I had recently seen, as I mentioned on this show, uh, eraser. And even that movie has an interesting airplane sequence because of course it's, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger holding onto the, and, and, and there's, you know, all this stuff that's going into the engine, uh, the intake and it, so it's to slow it down. And then, and then of course he gets out, I mean, it's ridiculous, but it's, it's interesting. It's original. And you can make, you can, you can visually see what's going on this, this one, it was so crazy.
JVL00:40:56And this movie, I mean, tonally it's all over the map, right? You've got, you've got Ryan, what's his name, Ryan, Ryan, not Ryan Philby, Ryan Gosling, who is doing a very straight Jason Bourne thing. And then you've got Ana de Armas, who's kind of doing salt. Yeah. She's, she's doing this very serious and then you've got Chris Evans who is doing Jim Carrey's Riddler from Batman forever. Yeah. You know, like that, he is playing a quirky, funny villain, not like a real villain. And it's like, it's, it's just wrong. The kid they cast, like the girl who from once upon a time in Hollywood, Julia Butters, she's not very good in this. She is not very good. Did you, did you, did you, who was she in? Who was she in? Once upon a time, she was opposite.
Vic00:41:50Uh, Leonardo DiCaprio in the Western sequence, you know, she's the one who whispers that
Sonny00:41:55was the best acting I've ever seen.
JVL00:41:57She basically is almost like the same character. I thought Her screen chemistry with Ryan Gosling here does not work at all. Like they just seem supremely uninterested in each other and Ryan Gosling's sort of like quiet, disinterested guy thing really only works if there's a whole lot else going on in the film, like around him. Right. Because then, you know, You know, he's, he's adding by subtracting and, you know, he's not, you know, here it's just like boring.
Vic00:42:27It's, it, I find it interesting. You like how, like, you know, you notice how some people say it's curious. You said this, which in fact does not actually curious. They have an opinion they're about to share it, but it's curious that you should say that Chris Evans is so bad JVL because I happened to watch the IMDB interview with the actors from the gray man and they were talking about Chris Evans's performance. And one of the other actors described it as the great, one of the great villain performances of all time.
Sonny00:42:56Hmm. That's what the actors of this movie said, who said, well, I mean, it must be true. Then you have to go to a lot of movies.
Vic00:43:04I'm not sure. Oh no. It was one of the, it was one of the, um, uh, the, uh, it was one of the CIA bad guys. It was the, the man and the woman were interviewed together and they were talking about those,
JVL00:43:18those two. I'm, I'm sorry. The entire CIA is run by 28 year olds. That's insane.
Vic00:43:23It reminds me of, it reminds me of Fred Thompson. Remember when Fred Thompson came to the standard and he was complaining about the new show, um, that was supposed to be the law and order spinoff with the 30 year old district attorneys. Cause you know, that's how old the DAs are.
JVL00:43:38The, uh, no, this is, you know, it's funny to say that there, there is a sense in which the quality of acting, the quality of the, the thespians in this after the top line drops down to us. A network level.
Vic00:43:52Totally agree because I'm like, I'm willing to give, I'm willing to give anybody, I don't have to know you to enjoy the show. There are people who I've never known before say, Hey, and then I would find out that they've been in other things, but maybe for me, it's the first time I've ever seen them. So I, you know, every, I'm going to give everybody a good, you know, a fair shot at this. And yet during the delivery of some of these lines, the female CIA, um, official her, her,
Sonny00:44:17her, uh, performance, Jessica Henwick from the matrix resurrection. What?
JVL00:44:21Remember that movie? What is she doing in this movie?
Sonny00:44:23Terrible.
JVL00:44:24Terrible. I, I, I was cringing.
Vic00:44:26Terrible character.
JVL00:44:27Terrible. I'm watching. It was like, uh, you know, so here I, I have a, a genuine question, a business question about Netflix, correct me if I'm wrong, Sonny, but the two most successful things that Netflix has done ever are stranger things and squid game, uh, basically.
Sonny00:44:47Yeah. No. I mean, in terms of hours. I watched it's it's stranger things in squid game.
JVL00:44:53Oh, how many top line stars are there total between those two franchises?
Sonny00:44:59It depends on how big a star you consider Winona Ryder, I guess.
JVL00:45:05So roughly zero, one, one ish. Why are you spending a hundred million dollars on the salaries for Gosling or, or like red notice with the rock and Gal Gadot and Ryan, like, see, this is, this is what makes no
Sonny00:45:20sense about their entire movie strategy to me. Why would you spend $200 million on a thing that is two hours long when you can spend $50 million on four things that are 10 hours each. If you're, if your only goal is to capture eyeballs for certain amounts of time, why aren't you just pouring, you know, and now the problem is they make a, they make a shit ton of TV shows and most of them don't pop off like that, right? Most of them are not a squid game. Most of them are not a stranger things, uh, or a crown or a Bridgerton or what have you, right? Like the, the, those are, those are the rare exceptions. But that said, I mean, I, I don't, I don't know. It doesn't makes no sense to me why you were spending $200 million on a movie like this instead of spending $20 million on 10 TV shows or even again, like $40 million on five TV shows. Like I, I just don't, I don't, I don't get it. It doesn't make any sense to me.
JVL00:46:18Doesn't this feel like. We'll do this project because then maybe we'll be able to be in the Russo brothers business. Right? I mean, everything feels like favor trading and it feels like the publishing industry circa 1995, but where the Russo brothers like, yeah, let's just give her a $400,000 advance and who cares if the first book is no good, you know, this will, this will really get
Vic00:46:41her the second week. We've seen this. We've seen that. But with the Russo brothers, do you think that they looked at this and said, yeah, this is really good. Or do you think they're like what they can see?
JVL00:46:50And said, let's get, let's go buy yachts. Yeah. Okay.
Sonny00:46:54Just, okay. All right. I mean, I got, God only knows. I would never presume to know what a filmmaker actually thinks of their, their product. Um, here's, here, I, I don't understand. I don't understand what they get out of this aside from money because it, the movie's not good and it doesn't, it doesn't look good. And, but like, but I, you know, they produced extraction, which like compared to, compared to this extraction is like the best movie I've ever seen. Extraction might be like, like, and I don't, and I thought extraction was pretty mediocre. It had a couple of very good sequences, but it didn't have any embarrassing sequences
JVL00:47:40either.
Sonny00:47:41Yeah. And like, I, so, you know, extraction, which at the time I was like, ah, this is, you know, this is so mediocre. Like, I look back on that now. I'm like, actually, that was great. That was a great movie compared to some of the stuff we've gotten since then. And I like the, the, the whole blockbuster strategy for Netflix doesn't make any sense to me because the Oscar strategy makes some sense, right? You, you give, you, you give, you give Martin Scorsese $150 million to make the Irishman. You give, you know, Quarone $40 million to make Roma. You give Spike Lee $50 million to make the, the five bloods. I understand that because then if they win Oscars, you get prestige. People are like, I want to watch, I are, it's not even for the customers. It's for, it's for the artists. It's for the people who work on Hollywood. They're like, I want to work with Hollywood cause maybe I can, you know, win, win an award or something. But the blockbuster strategy, like the whole point of blockbusters is to make money. And I, I just don't see anybody signing up for the network to watch the gray man. And let me tell you this movie, like I am shocked at how. How bad this movie looks. I watched it. I watched it in a theater cause I wanted to review it. I didn't know.
Vic00:48:55What do you mean you watched it in the theater?
Sonny00:48:56The gray man? They, it played, it played in like, it played on like 400 screens for a week before it came out on Netflix and nobody has any idea about this because they didn't advertise it at all. They didn't. It just was, it just kind of sat there and like literally how much money it made. It was literally me. It was literally me. And like 37 other people in the country who watched it on those 400 screens over that week. So, uh, so anyway. So I went and actually saw it in a theater and it was like visually illegible. Like I could not see what was happening on the screen.
JVL00:49:27So let me, let me point out to some of you, not just the, the, the parachute jumping scene. Uh, one of the very first shots in the movie is a, in Bangkok at a hotel New Year's party. Yes. And there is a scene in which there, there's a party going on and we are seeing, uh, a I think it's Ryan Gosling is, is there, and there are people behind him dancing. I believe you can see six extras and the six extras are all doing the, you know, you can tell that there's no music going on. They're just dance and it feels, it just looks small, right? It looks, it, it looks like they did not even bother to fill the frame to make it look like you're in the middle of a large rabbit. It just looks like what you would do on TV. Wow. And the whole thing just feels like burn notice all the, all the way down. Like the character.
Vic00:50:25Yeah. What did you say? It was like, what did you say on text? It was like USA today or TNT.
JVL00:50:29It was like a USA network show, you know, like we're gonna do care. What is characterization gonna be? Oh, it'll be, uh, it'll be Ryan Gosling's character, picking the flavor, picking bubblicious instead of saying gum like, oh, he likes bubblicious chewing gum. That's his character.
?00:50:50Wow.
JVL00:50:51How many times did they say Harvard in, instead of, instead of showing us that the characters
Vic00:50:58are smart because none of the characters at smart, they tell us four separate times that the characters went to Harvard, you know, I was like, Yale seems to be the, the, they're
JVL00:51:09trying to sell the idea that the bad guys are all incredibly intelligent, but none of them do anything intelligent the entire movie.
Vic00:51:17And so they just keep telling us they all met at Harvard. You know who I thought of with Chris Evans, Chris Evans character, actually, I thought of Otto played by Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda. Yeah, I could see that a little bit. Because remember Kevin Kline, he had the mustache and also he loved, he was, loves talking about Nietzsche, right? And what is the opening scene with Chris Evans talking about Schopenhauer? Oh, he's so smart. But of course, Otto was not smart and it's like, so when I see this, I'm like, ugh.
JVL00:51:48And then at the end. Yeah. They, you know, the final sequence is they walk into the maze from the Goblet of Fire. Did you see the Goblet was actually there, they should have taken it. They get into this again, it's just the, the, the incomprehensible direction and screenwriting of this, this show where, uh, Chris Evans's character and Ryan Gosling's character get into this fight and, uh, Ryan Gosling's character is beating the ever loving shit out of him. Mm-hmm. Until Chris Evans remembers that he has a knife in his pocket. He's like, oh, I forgot.
Vic00:52:24Get out of that. I have a knife. Weren't they supposed to be like a fist fight? Oh, you didn't, you forgot about that? It was like, uh, yeah, it was like Gary Busey, Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon One, the first one. All right, let's go. But terrible. Mono, mono. Yes. Right? But, but terrible. Okay. But terrible. Uh, so just in case our listeners are wondering about the Quadrant score, it was not good. Uh, a plot I gave a B because it's pretty straightforward, but I still have questions such as maybe you guys can answer this. How did Ryan Gosling get out of the pit that he fills up with water buoyancy, but, and
JVL00:52:59it exploded, right? They shot up to the top shot, so he, he created a bomb and, uh, put the, so the bomb floated up with him. Okay. And then the pressure created, right? Cause the bomb is on by filling up that space with water, water is able to create overpressure, which blows the.
Sonny00:53:19The answers. None of it. No.
JVL00:53:22And he got out of it. How did he create a bomb with, with this? Because he's also MacGyver.
Vic00:53:26He's Jason Bourne, but he's also MacGyver. That was a MacGyver scene. Okay. Duration is a B minus action and violence is an A minus. Some of the action was interesting, but I give it the minus because I'm pretty sure I saw CGI explosions and fire. Oh, you sure did. Yeah, probably. Okay. And that is so disappointing. And sex nudity is an F because it's rated R and it stars Ana de Armas.
Sonny00:53:48How? Really disappointing.
JVL00:53:50What is it rated R for? Where, what is the R rating for? Uh, fingernails, violence, fingernails. F-bombs, probably.
Vic00:53:54Is it? Is there an F-bomb?
JVL00:53:56I don't know. That was kind of, the only interesting choice in the entire thing is Chris Evans choosing to play the psychopathic villain is gay. That was a weird off-kilter choice because there's no reason for it. Wait, wait, wait. Because it's like a Freddie Mercury mustache? Is that why it was? Well, and the loafers without socks and the very tight jeans and tight, tight t-shirts and then she, the other CIA character talks about the bromance that he and her boss had
Sonny00:54:25at Harvard.
Vic00:54:26So clearly these guys were public school chums or whatever the Harvard version of that is
JVL00:54:34during their undergraduate years.
Vic00:54:35Were you at all reminded of John Wick when they want to get all the assassins are going to come after them?
JVL00:54:39You know, everyone's coming after them. That felt a little bit like, yeah, but again, like, but the dumb version, no, it felt like Burn Notice, like season eight of Burn Notice when things were, when things were, when everybody in that show was mailing it in.
Vic00:54:51Yeah. Yeah. I would say for me, the highlight and Kate was saying the same, the highlight was the on location scenes, by the way, because it's there, I've spent a lot of time in that area, obviously. So I loved seeing Berlin, Prague, and of course Vienna, although too, Prague has the longest scene. Uh, Vienna and, and, and Berlin are very brief, although, and lots of movies love to film in these areas, but, uh, and the shootout was great. And I think the, the, the train, and then it just gets out of control. Uh, and of course they seem impervious. To, um, death, uh, because there's, yeah, nobody's even hurt. Like, no, I mean, they do a tumble and yeah, from the train into the car and, uh, things like that. Godzilla had more realistic injuries from their battles in this.
JVL00:55:36I mean, at least, at least King Kong, I don't know if you recall this, but he gets his shoulder
Sonny00:55:41dislocated shoulder.
JVL00:55:42And then before he can join the final fight against Mecca Godzilla, he has to Mel Mel Gibson and lethal weapon style. Yeah. Push his shoulder back in using the building.
Vic00:55:53At least he suffers some consequences. Uh, okay. And let me ask you guys about the ending of this movie. Uh, he escapes from the hospital where he's convalescing to rescue the girl spoiler alert. Uh, and what happens to the Harvard people? They nothing to be continued. Was this just, they, they, they were, they were doing this because they. They expected there's going to be a sequel.
Sonny00:56:20They'll handle that in the gray man too. Right.
Vic00:56:24I, I, that's, that was my sense.
Sonny00:56:25Oh no, I think, I think the, I think the African American fellow was going to jail. Uh, and, uh, Jessica Hanwick going to jail, not Yale.
JVL00:56:35Okay. He's going to go get his MFA now and then he will reach his revenge.
Sonny00:56:41Jessica Hanwick's going to be the new number two. I don't know. It doesn't matter. Wow. I love that. Netflix has announced a sequel to this and a whole gray man. Cinematic universe. I.
JVL00:56:51Oh, stop it. Are you kidding?
Sonny00:56:53You're kidding. Oh yeah. They are. They already know. And that was facts. These are facts. I mean, the other thing is the, the, the, the numbers came back on this and this is only Netflix's fifth best opening weekend in terms of hours viewed. It's behind like, oh God, hold on. I got to find the end of wire headline. You guys talk amongst yourselves.
JVL00:57:09The fifth most minutes of the first 45 seconds rounded up in the history of the original feature films, which are over two hours and two minutes.
Sonny00:57:23Ah, here's, here's the headline on IndieWire. Uh, the gray man falls just short of the kissing booth three as Netflix's fifth best movie debut.
JVL00:57:33That is a dagger of a headline.
Sonny00:57:37Wow. Nine, 88.55 million hours viewed over its first three days, uh, still did not quite beat, uh, the, the kissing booth three.
JVL00:57:48Does that count? The autoplay previews. So when you, when you open up your profile and it just starts playing, uh, something
Vic00:57:57without you, you're in the middle of channel surfing or something, and then it just all of a sudden it is on. Yeah. I think that probably counts those. They counted that. Yeah. Wow. Boom. Okay. Uh, yeah, that was very disappointing. I was hoping for more considering the, they, they, oh, it's the Russo brothers and it's Chris Evans, Ryan Gosling and, and, oh my gosh, it's gonna be amazing. Just disappointment all around.
Sonny00:58:19I still didn't hate it, honestly. I like it. It, it, none of it is very good, but none of it with the, again, with the exception of that airplane sequence is terrible. Exactly. It just is kind of, it's so just so relentlessly generic.
Vic00:58:32Um, yes it was, uh, okay. Um, this is interesting because this is, you know, you think about the last movie that Ryan Gosling and Anna de Armas did together and it was so much like runner 20 49. Mm. Okay. Uh, any other thoughts?
?00:58:49No.
Vic00:58:50No. Okay. All right. Uh, that is all the time we're giving to this episode, questions, comments, compliments, tweet us at Sonny Bunch at Victorino Matus, and again, be sure to subscribe to us on Patreon. Just go to subbeacon.com. We're there. Tell your friends.
Guest00:59:06Until next time.
JVL00:59:15You know, I did go to the movie theater this weekend. What was that? You know, I did go to the movie theater this weekend for a show, the gray man we're gonna go talk about in the bonus episode. Oh my gosh, uh, of fury, the legend of Hank, which I discovered shortly before going to see it. It was an animated children's remake of blazing saddles, a movie which featured the N word 78 times, I think I'm sure it's fine.
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