#147. 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever'
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Guest Paul Crookston fills in for Vic (given one more week off before facing a three-hour CGI slog) as Sonny and JVL tear into Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Sonny calls it maybe the worst Marvel movie since Eternals — 160 soggy minutes torn between a mournful Chadwick Boseman tribute and a quippy franchise-expanding blockbuster, crippled by an enormous charisma deficit after losing Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Daniel Kaluuya, and (mid-film) Angela Bassett, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus's baffling CIA subplot and Martin Freeman's inexplicable American accent the only unintentional entertainment. JVL agrees it's bad, calling it fundamentally a "blockbuster about female mourning" undone by story problems — too many good actresses given too little to do, a 500-year-old villain (Namor) whose supposed wisdom never shows, and a genuinely interesting beat (Shuri confronting Killmonger in the ancestral plane, tempted toward vengeance over nobility) that should have been the whole movie instead of a throwaway scene. Both agree the only fully working stretch is Shuri and General Okoye (Florence Kasumba) as fish-out-of-water in Boston, and that Ironheart's Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) can't match Shuri's established scientist-genius charisma. Paul, the most positive of the three, reports his fiancée Lauren "found it quite touching" for its girls-in-STEM message, though she noted the movie has essentially no Asian characters. Before any of that, the episode runs long on banter: Paul's wedding planning (an Eastern Market lunch reception, a Baptist ceremony, cutting the open bar to save money, a tangent about Claudia Anderson's dashing Blue Angels son Tom "Wink" Anderson), JVL's rocky debut as a girls' middle-school basketball coach (new whiteboard, new whistle, a roster that may struggle to advance the ball past midcourt), and Sonny's triumphant, blow-by-blow account of rewiring a broken garage-door sensor and installing a new mudroom LED fixture himself — a DIY high that, via JVL's new motion-sensor light switches, curdles into both of them griping about walking their houses turning off lights like their own fathers.
From the show notes
Paul Crookston sits in for Vic (we gave him one more week so as not to drive him fully mad by making him watch a three hour CGI fest) while Sonny and JVL vent about how bad the new Black Panther movie is.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00*Music*
Sonny00:00:30Sub- Welcome back to the Sub-Beacon. I'm Sonny Bunch, co-host along with Jonathan V. Last and Vic Matus who continues to be out. We decided to give him one more week off just because I didn't want to drag him back to the show to do a three-hour CGI MarvelFest, which I imagine would make him activate the other seven days. The seven Gabriels that they found in his head. Oh, I'm sorry. I said too much. Instead of having Vic here to complain the whole time, we have Paul Crookston who is rejoining the show. We got Paul back. He's here for the week. Paul, how are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you, guys. It's an honor to be back. Tell the people what happened. How was your weekend/the last 12 weekends, however long it's been since you've been on the show? You know what? If anyone ever tells you that they don't love every second of wedding planning, well, I don't know what is wrong with them because it has been a nonstop joy. Yeah. So many decisions to make. Booking vendors, choosing napkin colors. It's been wonderful. All right. Question. Question. Serious question. How many venues did you actually go visit to see what the space was like? Visit was, I think, four. So like a full on like tour of the facilities and they showed you like you're going to do it. You do it here. Priest would be here. Reception is here. Like what? What would the I mean, I assume you're getting married in an actual church. So I guess you wouldn't need a place for the priest. You didn't just get you didn't do it all in one place like a hotel like me.
JVL00:02:27Minister. They don't have a priest. Whatever. Whatever.
Sonny00:02:30They're bad rabbi. Yeah. Baptist. Very good memory. JBL. Mullah. Yeah. So I don't know. You're Claudia Church. You're getting married at the club. I am. Right. I am. Claudia Anderson will be there. Another reason why. Yeah. No, it's going to be a good time. So I think it's funny how often she comes up on the show, by the way. It's she especially some very original idea. The show exists. We would never occur. To her that podcast. Maybe she listens to like an art podcast or something. But I can't imagine she is listening to podcasts about this. But yes, she will be there. We will be married by one of our pastors. And it was going to be the ceremony. Very straightforward. The church does a lot of those young congregation, you know, a lot of marriages every year. The reception is the tricky part. So that's where all the touring and figuring stuff out. The complicated things have been poured into the reception largely. So you've gone to look at four places. Yeah, for the reception venue, we actually chose the venue in the grand scheme of things. We actually chose it relatively quickly, which is good. So most of the work has been after we know where we're going to be, which obviously is is huge. So all in all, it's probably. I should say it's probably gone smooth compared to, you know, most people's experience, frankly. So my complaining is not warranted.
JVL00:03:58Two hardest parts are guest list and seating chart. Hmm. That's where it all breaks down, because you're you're capturing. Do we want to invite so-and-so? What do we think the yield is going to be? And then, you know, you're you're assuming that 10 percent of the people will not be able to come. But then what if, oh, my God, are going to be bankrupted if everybody just says yes? And then can you put Ted with? With Elise, or do Ted and Elise have to be on separate sides? And would Marge, Aunt Marge, like sitting with my college roommate? Would they enjoy each other? And so how is how is your have you started planning out a guest list?
Sonny00:04:40So, yeah, the guest list is pretty much done. And seating chart we haven't started on, but we've talked about it a little bit. So we have an idea. And most of it actually breaks down pretty straightforwardly. There's like my college friends, her college friends, my family, her family, family friends. So actually, I think it's going to break down pretty easily just from from my current vantage point.
JVL00:05:08Now, are you going to have Vic emcee the reception?
Sonny00:05:12Oh, tragically, can't be there. Oh, yeah, I know that was a downer.
JVL00:05:17It looked like he was going to be able to make very good. Very good at these things. He could be the DJ. He could be out there and yeah, doing the hustle and hand-handing.
Sonny00:05:29Yeah. You know, my mom, my mom would love to have met him for sure. Well, I'll have to orchestrate a meeting at a later date.
JVL00:05:38Very exciting. Sonny, what are you up to, buddy?
Sonny00:05:40Well, can I I don't want to I don't want you to give what kind of space is it? What kind of what kind of location is it? Oh, it is. I can just tell you it's the Eastern Market North Hall. So it's that big. Oh, yeah. That's the market. Yeah. Yeah.
JVL00:05:53And what time and on what day so that everybody can just show up?
Sonny00:05:56Yeah. Yeah. You the it'll be a lunch reception. So it'll be daytime. And I think that's going to work out. That's going to make it a little more chill for everybody, I think, including us. That's nice. Although it does present some slight challenges with timing, you know, getting the photos done, getting the makeup done, doing it all before the ceremony. And then you still have a lunch reception. So a lot is going to be packed into that morning. But we both get up early, so we should be up for it. We I remember the thing I remember most about planning our wedding is how much we they they like nickel and dimed us on certain things. So, like, we got married. I got married in a hotel, did the whole thing in a hotel ceremony reception. I remember I was there. I know it was a good it was a good wedding, wasn't it? JBL. It was it was a fabulous woman. It was a fabulous wedding.
JVL00:06:48It was a fabulous wedding because Beth is great.
Sonny00:06:51Well, that's true. Fabulous. That's true. That's true.
JVL00:06:53But everything else, everything else is absolutely beside the point. Exactly. If the guy and the girl are awesome together, then it's great.
Sonny00:07:02Yeah, that's that's right. But before you get to that point, before you get to that greatness, you have to we had to deal with. So we got married in a hotel and it was like it was essentially all inclusive. They would they handled everything, the tables and we brought we brought like the DJ. And I think that was about it. But you have to, like, make decisions on every individual thing. And the like I said, they like nickel and dimed us on everything. It was like, do you want the fancy chairs with like the ridged cane backing? Because that's that's an extra like three dollars per person per chair. You know, or do you want do you want like the fancy silverware, you know, with the fluted handles? Because that's an extra dollar fifty per person. And I was just like, how does this even make any sense? Why isn't this all just but whatever. That's their business. That's that's how they make their money. But the funniest thing, I'm certain I've told this story on the show before. But the funniest thing was they we were talking about the bar because, you know, we have an open bar because we're a bunch of degenerate alcoholics. And like we know we know what our we know. I mean, it's going to be a bunch of lay bash types there. You know, it's you can't you can't have that. So we were talking about the open bar set up. They were like, all right, you've got we have two bars and then, you know, you can add. You can add a third bar if you want it. But it's it's it's one hundred dollars. And I was like, oh, my God, it's one hundred dollars a person. It's like one hundred dollars per guest at the at the reception. And she was like, no, no, no. It's just a flat one hundred dollar fee. And I was like, so it's less than a dollar. You're nickel and diming me on these dumb ass chairs and you won't give me. And you're like you're worried that I don't want to spend one hundred dollars on a third bar. And now here's the thing, like the third bar after the first 20 minutes of the wedding is totally superb. Like every nobody's waiting for a drink after that first initial rush to the bar. But like for that 20, we're basically I was like, we're just going to pay. We're gonna pay the hundred dollars to let people through that line a little bit quicker. Now, Paul, I know that you are not friends with a bunch of degenerate alcoholics. So that that is, I assume, not a problem for you at the at Easter. Well, yeah, well, I am friends with some degenerate alcoholics, but they are going to come to my Baptist church. They are going to come to my Baptist wedding and be sorely disappointed if they are expecting an open bar. I will say I'd be open to the idea and it wouldn't be a problem for an offsite reception. My church wouldn't have any issue with it. And Lauren and I wouldn't have an issue with it. But frankly, it was the easiest thing in the world to cut for for cost and complexity reasons. It was just like neither of us drink and it's just the easiest thing to cut to make the whole thing. No, that's that's that's totally fair. All right. That's awesome. Congratulations. JBL, how was how was your weekend? How's your week been? Did you buy it? Did you buy us a second leaf blower?
JVL00:09:52I didn't. Let me tell you a quick a quick Baptist wedding story from actually from Paul's church. So I we've talked on the show about Claudia Anderson, our former colleague at the Weekly Standard and her son, Tom, who who basically is Maverick. He was a naval lady, a naval 88. Aviator. He was a member of the Blue Angels. And for years, years, Vic and I had rhapsodized over how great Tom Anderson is. Call sign wink because, you know, of course, he has a call sign and is over the same age. You know, I had met Tom when we were both 22 and Vic and I were at the standard. And he's contemporary. And I would say things over the year, of course, the years in conversation with him. Like, oh, you know, that Tom Winkler boy, he is amazing and he's so handsome and he's dashing. And, you know, did I mention that he went to Top Gun? And and so we go to Claudia's wedding at your church, Paul. And in the receiving line after Tom is there and he is in his navy dress whites and we make our way down the line. And, you know, he and I see each other. We embrace each other. We embrace and we're like, you know, ah, this is so great. I'm so happy for your mom. And I introduced him to Shannon. And she sort of anyway, 30 seconds after we're past him, she sort of, you know, my wife sort of breathlessly looks at me. She's like, OK, now I get it. Now I get it. I was like, right. Right. This is that guy. That guy has got it all going on.
Sonny00:11:36Just walked right out of a Tony Scott movie.
JVL00:11:38He really, really did.
Sonny00:11:41Yeah. But can he catch an italicized comma?
JVL00:11:45You know, yeah, I think a bolded period. Me went to UVA for undergrad and then I think he did law school. So he probably got an undergrad. Yeah. It's anyway, he's ridiculous. So, yeah, I'm I am good. We have had our first girls seventh and eighth grade basketball practices. It's I have three girls who are familiar with most of the rules of basketball.
Sonny00:12:17It's good. I mean, you know, they don't really need to know those.
JVL00:12:21And the league rules stipulate that everybody on the team must get equal playing time. So I can't just lean on these girls the whole time, which means that I think there's a fair chance. That there may be stretches of games that last an entire quarter where my team is unable to get the ball across midcourt without committing some form of violation. Even if the other team is not pressing, even if it's just like the other team makes a basket, they all retreat back to their side of the court. And all all my girls have to do is inbound the ball. And dribble it up across half court within ten seconds. I believe that they're going to be long stretches of quarters, in which case, depending upon the personnel I have on the floor, that is not achievable. All of all of my dreams about one three one trapping zone defenses and switching out full court pressure and we're really going to it is. It's not going to be like that.
Sonny00:13:35Did you buy one of those flip sided whiteboards? Fuck yeah I did. It came from Amazon this morning. X's and O's on.
JVL00:13:41I'm so fucking loopy and I have my whistle.
Sonny00:13:44And it has the basketball court on it, right? So when you draw the X's and O's.
JVL00:13:49Hold on, hold on.
Sonny00:13:50Yeah. I bought, you know, it's funny you say that because I have it right here.
JVL00:13:53So Amazon has, of course, any number of these. And they have the one that is just the plain white. But I didn't get that.
Sonny00:14:00Yeah.
JVL00:14:01I paid the extra dollar for the one where the court looks like this. Oh, look at that. Look at that. We love it. You've got a half court and a full court. Yeah, that's right.
Sonny00:14:08To just, you know, I can just scheme it up.
JVL00:14:09You can just diagram. I'm going to scheme it up, bitches. You can just diagram all day. That's awesome. Wait. Shannon wanted us to ask about the whistle. How is your whistle?
Sonny00:14:16Oh, the whistle is amazing.
JVL00:14:17So she got me a whistle.
Sonny00:14:18And this thing is, it's a really impressive feat of engineering. The tip that goes into your mouth, you know, the tip that goes into your mouth, you know,
JVL00:14:24the tip that goes into your mouth, you know, the tip that goes into your mouth, you know, the tip that goes into your mouth, you know, the tip that goes into your mouth, you know, the tip that goes into your mouth is like rubber coated. So it's not hard. It's a, it's a very pleasing sensation on your lips. You can see how, uh, you could just sort of keep it in your mouth. Yeah. Chomping on it like a cigar. If you were waiting to use it and it's somehow, uh, it does not have like a little, maybe whistle technology has advanced since the last time I had a whistle when I was six years old, but they used to have like a little ball bearing in them or something. And you would like blow in the whistle. It would blow in the whistle. And what made the sound was the little metal ball or plastic ball rattling. This has nothing in it. It achieves its whistle sound through simple, I guess, era, fluid dynamics and precise engineering of the plastic from the finest factories in the Guangdong province. And, uh, it's, it's great. I put it on a lanyard. I haven't used it yet because I don't want to make the girls cry. But, uh, it's been pretty good.
Sonny00:15:34Pretty, pretty good. You gotta be, you gotta, you gotta use it at least once to get them used to it. You don't want them to be scared by the referee's whistle the first time it goes off.
JVL00:15:43That's, uh, that's right. Um, I, I don't know if I, uh, yeah. Yeah, I, I don't want to say, say much more. I've got, like I said, three girls who, one girl who is like an actual real basketball player who I think is, is fine if I could just leave her on the court. But, again, we can only play for like a total of seven minutes a game because of league rules. So, uh, you know, gonna be great. First game is on Sunday. Next week I'll let you know how much we lose by.
Sonny00:16:14Well, that'll be fun. I'm sure it'll be fun.
JVL00:16:16Yeah.
Sonny00:16:17Wait, did I accidentally end the show? Is the show over now?
JVL00:16:20No, we have to talk about Wakanda.
Sonny00:16:22Fifteen minutes. Forever. Fifteen minutes.
JVL00:16:25Forever.
Sonny00:16:27Forever.
JVL00:16:29Yeah, the aptly titled. So, I don't want to jump the gun here. But would you say that this movie, Black Panther, Wakanda, forever.
Sonny00:16:38We haven't talked about my weekend yet.
JVL00:16:40Is better than the Eternals? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah.
Sonny00:16:44How was your weekend, Sonny? How dare you?
JVL00:16:46How dare you? How was your weekend, buddy?
Sonny00:16:48You tried to skip my triumph. Let me tell you about my triumph this week. Oh. I triumphed. So, I have to set the scene here. The scene begins maybe like five days ago. We're putting the garage door up, or we're putting it down, and all of a sudden it does the blinky thing and it goes back up. Basically, like something has gotten in the sensors. Yeah. So, there's nothing in the sensors. I know what you're talking about there, big guy. Nothing is in the sensors. So, we press the button again and it immediately starts blinking again. It's like, "Okay. Well, something's clearly- Battery? Something's clearly gone wrong here." I took the- I took the door off the motorized train. I did the emergency release so I could pull it up and down and just to see if there was something going on there and press the button again just to see if the train would move and it wouldn't move. It's blinking, blink, blink, blink. Then I realized- What do you got?
JVL00:17:48You got a lift master?
Sonny00:17:49What's that? You got a lift master? I don't know what kind. I have no idea what it is. Ridiculous. It's whatever came with my house when I bought it. It's not like I put it in myself.
JVL00:17:59So you didn't go replacing your garage lift as soon as you walk in? Yeah, you'd have to be a crazy person to do that.
Sonny00:18:06Yeah, no, I wouldn't do that. But I realized pretty quickly at least what was broken. I knew what was broken because there was a wire that had been hanging down loose from the rail. There's basically ... On the rail itself, there are these two little guiding canals almost, and there were two power cords that ran out, and one of them had ... I had noticed several weeks ago had kind of slipped off that track, and I was like, "Maybe I should put that back on there." I was like, "Ah, nah, it's probably fine." It wasn't fine. The wire itself, the electrical wiring, the copper wire came apart, came apart, and I realized looking at it that this has happened before. This is not the first time this has happened because there was electrical tape around it, electrical tape around it that had kind of slid down. I was like, "Okay, I think I could probably fix this, but what actually is it?" There are two power cords that run along the length of the entire track over the door and then down to the little sensors, right? I guess the idea is that if you trip, if you break the laser beam, it cuts off the power to one of them or whatever, just somewhere, and then the door goes back up. It's perfect. All right. I understand how this setup works. I go and I unplug the whole garage door system, turn it off at the power breaker, unplug it, get up there on my ladder, and I look at the little wires, and sure enough, it's just like you just twist them back together and tie some electrical tape around it, put it back in its little track, and it all worked. It all worked. I fixed it. I fixed it. I fixed it. So this is all prelude. This is the first five minutes of Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring. So I then realized, I then realized, I then realized, oh, wow, I've actually fixed an electrical thing. I fixed an electrical thing. I've tampered with the primal forces of nature and survived, so I can do this. I can do this. And as I mentioned months ago on this show, there's an LED light in the mudroom of the house, and it's on the fritz. It's blinking. This LED light that was supposed to last for 45 years, that I'm sure was installed four years ago, is on the fritz. Shocker. Whatever. We won't get into that again. But the long and the short of it is, I now have the confidence- To attack it? To get in there and fix the problem. So I go to Home Depot, and I get a recessed LED thing, and I figure out which breaker it is, because the breaker panel, of course, is not labeled at all.
JVL00:21:04Turning off the breakers is for pussies.
Sonny00:21:06Well, I'm sorry. I'm only going to barely tamper with the primal forces of nature. I'm not going to stick my hand into the socket and put my finger in there, or a fork in there, and figure out what's going on.
JVL00:21:18You hire up a handyman, and he comes over and sees you turning off the breaker? Did not hire a handyman. He would literally just laugh at you. In Texas, he might shoot you.
Sonny00:21:28Did not hire a handyman. I did it all myself. So I went, and I turned off. I flipped the breaker. I come back.
JVL00:21:33You know who turns off the breaker? Biden voters. Rhino cooks turn off the breaker before they do some electrical.
Sonny00:21:42Well, I'm glad I turned off the breaker, though. So I go up there, and I take the thing all the way off the mounting, and I look in there, and the junction box or whatever it is, the box that holds the thing, it is turning. If I had the power on, it's probably throwing off sparks. It's just rubbing all around in there. So I'm like, all right, well, this is clearly very good work that was done by somebody at some point. The ceiling is crumbling and falling all around it. I was like, this is a nightmare. So I went and got the recessed light that I had purchased and I went to put it up in there. It's like, oh, this isn't going to fit. It's not even going to come close to fitting because this box is here and it's taking up all the space. So I got on Amazon and I found like an actual flat flush mount light.
JVL00:22:37You want like a flush mount dome light or something like that. I can't believe you thought you were going to put a recessed light in.
Sonny00:22:44Well, I was like, why can't I put a recessed? Why wouldn't I be able to put a recessed light in there? It doesn't matter. The point is, the point is I couldn't use the thing that I bought from Home Depot. So I got on Lord Bezos's Amazon.com and I looked for flush mount LED setups and I found one. I found one immediately. And it's basically like a smoke detector. You know how you have the smoke detector? You put the thing, you put the base on and then you turn it around and it goes in there. And that's in it. So I unplugged the other light, took it all down, threw it away. Put the other one in. Used the wire nuts. I used the wire nuts to twist it all together. It just went right in there. I twist it in and twist it in. White to white, black to black. Didn't need a ground. Doesn't need a ground wire because it's a plastic. It's all plastic. There's nothing that can conduct electricity in this light somehow. And I went and I flipped the circuit breaker and it works. It's all working fine. Light is working fine. So before I do all of this, I've put the little base thing into the junction box. I like screw it into the junction box. And that's great except for the fact that, again, this junction box is, as best as I can tell, is not connected to anything. It's just wobbling all around.
JVL00:24:09Just replace it.
Sonny00:24:11Oh, I'm sorry. That takes this from a 20-minute adventure to like a three-minute adventure. A three-day quest. So I'm not doing that. But I got the little base plate screwed in and I went to actually screw the light, you know, put the light in. You put it in and you turn it. And because this junction box is such a piece of shit, I'm like pushing it up and it's like going up into the roof. I can't actually get any purchase because it all works by force.
JVL00:24:42Is it between the joists? No.
?00:24:45No.
Sonny00:24:45It's like, again, it's just wobbling all around.
JVL00:24:48It's just free flow. Where are the joists? Where are the ceiling joists?
Sonny00:24:51I don't know, man. I don't know where the joists are up there. It's just wobbling everywhere. So I get this thing in. I finally get this thing in, like lined up and just like have to very, very carefully. This actually took longer than everything else. Everything else I've described up to now took about ten minutes total. Getting the thing actually like screwed into the plate, I like sweat is dripping down my face like 15 minutes later after like serious hard exertion. I was like, I got it. I got it. And the nice thing about this light is it has several settings. I can make it I can make it a bright white or I can make it a soft yellow. And whatever color it is right now is the color it's going to be forever because I am not taking it down. I'm not taking it down again to change. The light I hope I really hope Beth likes it when she gets back from D.C. She's up and doing a work thing. This is going to be a nice surprise for her. But I hope she likes what color it is because that's what color it's going to be forever. There's no there's no alternating that because I'm not taking that light down again until it fails in four years. Like all these piece of shit LED lights do. But whatever that's that's neither here nor there. That's we talked about that another time. But I did it JBL. I did it.
JVL00:26:08I conquered. I'm very proud of you. I conquered. You're all grossed up. The lights. So I have been 40.
Sonny00:26:16I'm 40. And I finally figured out how to change a light fixture in a house.
JVL00:26:20I have been going through the house and putting in motion sensor switches in certain. They're not for every room because there are times that you want to be in a room without the lights on, you know, like your TV room. You don't want to. But for things like the kids closets where they always leave the lights on in their closets. Or the hall closet in the, you know, the main floor, like when you the coat closet, right? That everybody uses people forever just turning the light on and leaving it off. And I got tired of yelling at the kids like some old person from a 1960s movie. Turn off the light. You're wasting electricity. Do you think money grows on trees? And I just didn't want to have that in my life. And so I threw these little motion sensor switches in and they only cost like $28 each. And LED costs are insanely low. So I think we'll have to be in this house for basically 150 years to hit the break even on the motion sensor switch versus the energy waste of just leaving the LED lights on full time.
Sonny00:27:36Well, that's I thought that was the whole point of the LED lights. You just leave them on all the time. It doesn't matter.
JVL00:27:40This is what I'm saying. Like you could totally you could just leave them on for forever and it would cost you almost nothing. And instead, like a sucker, I went and put in motion sensing switches, which which cost like $28 each.
Sonny00:27:55Well, no, that that does. But I feel you on the I frequently walk through my house now and think to myself grumbling every fucking light in this house. Every every single fucking light in this house is on.
JVL00:28:10And like, what am I made of money?
Sonny00:28:13I've never I've never cared about that before. It's Dr. Rick, man.
JVL00:28:18In my old Dr. Rick. You're turning into your parents.
Sonny00:28:22I've never, ever thought of this once. It's like, have you seen the ads for the guy? I don't even know what it is. It's like Capital One or maybe a cell phone or something. But it's the guy who teaches you not to be like, yes, that's Dr. Rick.
JVL00:28:35Oh, is that? Yeah. Yeah. What is that? What is that? You're turning into your parents. I think it's progressive, maybe.
Sonny00:28:42Yeah, maybe progressive insurance. It's that is that is exactly how I feel.
Guest00:28:48Wah.
Sonny00:28:50I feel that way all the time now. Again, this just started. This just started like six months ago.
JVL00:28:57This is 40.
Sonny00:28:58Six months ago. And you're scaring Paul straight. I swear to God.
JVL00:29:03Paul is like, how can I get out of this room? This is like the ghost of Christmas future.
Sonny00:29:08I walk. I walk around my house thinking who turned all these lights on. Why didn't they turn them off? Why are all the lights in this house on? Finish your food.
JVL00:29:16There are children starving in Ethiopia.
Sonny00:29:18I'm literally the only one in the house for like 12 hours today. And I walked through the house and I was like, how did I turn all these lights on? I wasn't even in this room. Anyway, that's what my life is like now. I got to say one thing about listening. Every week to the show is it makes me terrified of homeownership. And the good reason all of this for sure is more more of a of that. Lauren can definitely handle the wire. All these lights on role in the house because she has already given me that speech a couple different times at her apartment. It's fair. It's fair. Oh, I mean, and look, the thing about homeownership is that it is great. It's just also terribly annoying all the time. I mean, there's like like there are things that break and you got to fix them or you have to pay somebody three hundred dollars to come out and do the thing that should take you five minutes to do. I mean, like that garage door thing is the perfect example. Like that garage door. I've talked about this on the show. That garage door has been the only thing that has been a consistent pain in my ass in this house. It is broken on three different occasions, one of which was our fault. Car parked car parked right. Right. Right. Yeah, whatever. But the other two times it like wrenched off the rails. You know, like like that's not a thing that I could that I could fix on my own or another time it like hop it like hop the the the track or whatever. And I was like, I can't fix that. But this is the thing I could fix. And I did it. And it led me to fix something else in the house that that those two minor like total expenditure of time. Thirty minute jobs probably saved me like seven hundred dollars. And that's what you have to think about is that every every little thing that goes wrong. Paul. It's three hundred dollars right out of your pocket.
JVL00:31:05Think about it because his wife is going to be a lawyer. Well, I guess that's true. That's the genius of it. Speaking of not being able to fix fix things. Sure. Princess Shuri is not able to fix T'Challa.
Sonny00:31:21Oh, womp womp. That's a very sad way to start this. This this review of Black Panther Wakanda forever, forever.
JVL00:31:31Do you want me to do you want me to do the big boy review or do you want to do the big boy review? Well, you have to do the hosting duties and I feel bad that you have to do both.
Sonny00:31:42Do you make Paul do it? Paul, can you do it? I don't know if I'm ready. He got terrorized. He got his eyes went into terror mode.
JVL00:31:52Well, it is. It is also these Coke bottle glasses are like Wakanda forever stars Letitia Wright starring as the sheriff. The princess of Wakanda who becomes the queen of Wakanda who becomes the new Black Panther after Wakanda goes to war. Kind of with Prince Namor, the Submariner, who is now a Mayan instead of like a weird vaguely Teutonic antihero. I did the whole. This might be the worst Marvel movie since Eternals.
Sonny00:32:29Well, there haven't been that many since Eternals, so that's that's a small list. But it is. It is. What can we talk about? We have to say more than that.
JVL00:32:37I just feel like this is Wakanda forever. Everybody wants to see it. It made one hundred eighty million dollars. It's really quite bad.
Sonny00:32:44Yeah. Well, so I let's let's let's just set the scene here because I do think that there are this. This is basically three movies in one. Right. The first movie is.
JVL00:32:55It's barely one movie in one. What? No. But here's.
Sonny00:32:58But this is the problem with the movies that it's trying to do too many things. The first movie is it is a feature length. Mournful tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who played T'Challa, died of colon cancer unexpectedly in 2020. You know, like crazy, crazy sad story. Everybody was very sad. Ryan Coogler is very insistent on not recasting him. We're not recasting T'Challa. You know, we're going to we're going to pay tribute to him. And then, you know, you I think you could you could kind of get away. With a movie like that, that is just like kind of a big, sad, mopey blockbuster type movie. I think you could do that, but you can't do that and have it also be big, quippy MCU tie in movie where we're introducing a ton of characters and we're bringing Julia Louis-Dreyfus back. And here's girl Iron Man. And we're we're doing we're we're we're moving the MCU forward, moving the MCU forward. Oh, back to sad, back to sad. And now we're doing the big action set pieces. It again, it's like it's it's basically again, it's two two different movies in one in competition with each other. And as a result, it's one hundred and sixty very soggy minutes. It is not helped by the fact that it has an enormous deficit charisma having lost both Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan. The best scene in this movie is Michael B. Jordan showing and Daniel Kaluuya and it also loses Daniel Kaluuya and Angela Bassett,
JVL00:34:25because they kill into the first movie at four fucking movie stars in it. And this this one has one movie star in it and they kill her halfway through. Yeah, that's a problem. That's a very big problem.
Sonny00:34:39That's a problem. Another problem with this movie is that the first one had a very interesting ideological conceit at the core of it, which is basically Killmonger, who is played by Michael B. Jordan, says it is immoral that Wakanda has a movie star. Moral that Wakanda has sat by and done nothing with its great wealth and power and scientific advancements while the rest of the world carved up Africa and abused its people and and sent them around the world in in slavers chains. And like we get we can argue about whatever the the role of colonialism in Africa. But it's an interesting idea to say, no, we should be an empire of our own. We should be enforcing our will on the rest of the world. We should be defending our people and not allowing them to be not not and not stand idly by as they are. They are they are abused by the rest of the world. Interesting idea. Interesting idea. And the problem with that with with this movie is that it takes instead of taking the next logical step. So at the end of Black Panther, T'Challa and the Wakanda and say, we're going to set up outposts around the world. We are going to use our technology to better the world. We are going to stand up against the oppressors. OK, fine. In this movie, this is they have retreated from that. Now they are they are once again being victimized by the colonial powers. They are they are being forced to stand, stand back and try to remove themselves from the world instead of, like, stepping into the role of an actual global power. And so when the conflict with this ridiculous version of Atlantis, this I'm sorry, like the. It's so dumb. It is so dumb. The problem isn't just that it's dumb. You can get away with dumb. The problem is that it is they are basically like, OK, it's underwater Wakanda. And they also are worried about colonialism and the oppressors.
JVL00:36:35But more and they also have cold fusion. He created a stable sun underwater. That's cold fusion. And I think I don't think it's actual.
Sonny00:36:46I think it's just the light. I think it's just a big spotlight. It's an LED, actually.
JVL00:36:50I think it's a big light. See what Prince Namor did was he went to Home Depot and he got a recessed light and it's an LED in the coral. Once he put it into the coral, he couldn't change it from the twenty seven hundred Kelvin to the fifty two hundred Kelvin because it took forever to get the junction box. Right. Exactly. So he knew he knew it was gone.
Sonny00:37:13But again, the problem here is that they are trying to do the exact same thing where you have like the super powerful nation that just wants to be like, left alone and then they decide, oh, we have to we have to attack the world to be safe. It's the same movie, except now there's no reason there's no reason for them to be fighting with the Wakandans. It makes no sense whatsoever. None. Nothing that happens in this movie makes any sense. None. I'm down to down to whatever is happening with Julia Louis-Dreyfus's CIA character. I can't even I can't tell if she is trying to interfere with Wakandan politics or she's trying to keep the U.S. from invading. I like a totally unclear answer. Totally unclear. Any all that stuff. None of it makes any sense.
JVL00:37:50Julia Louis-Dreyfus is acting in everything that she's been in. She is in a different thing than everything else in the MCU. She does not make any sense as a character. No. And her approach to it as if she's still on Veep. Just it's the clash in tone. I don't understand why they keep trying to make this happen.
Sonny00:38:12Yeah. Well, they're going to keep trying to make it happen because you need a new Nick Fury, I guess. I mean, I guess that's all it is. As best as I can tell, that's...
JVL00:38:21Use Colby Smothers. They have Colby Smothers right there. Make her Maria Hill. Done. Boom.
Sonny00:38:26None of this makes any sense. The movie is bad. It looks bad. I don't know how you guys saw it. I saw it in IMAX. It looks dark and muddy.
JVL00:38:35I saw it in Dolby Cinema.
Sonny00:38:37How did it look on your screen?
JVL00:38:39Not great. Not great, Bob.
Sonny00:38:41Were you able to make out what was happening on the riverbank nighttime scene?
JVL00:38:46Yeah. Because in Dolby Black, they have really good blacks. They have, you know, this used to be black in cinema, the movies, and now this is Dolby Black. Yes, the screen is still on. So, yeah.
Sonny00:38:59Yeah, yeah. Well, I will say in IMAX, it was very dark. It was very hard to see what was happening. And it was very hard to see what was happening in the underwater city of Talakon as well.
JVL00:39:09Oh, I saw it in Talakon.
Sonny00:39:11Let me just complain about Talakon for a second. There is an interesting and good movie to be made about a defeated band of Aztec warriors who get exiled to the ocean after the Spanish show up and start, you know, killing everybody with smallpox and whatever. And they then decide to embark on a quest to sacrifice everybody with their vibranium human sacrifice tools, right? That's a cool, interesting idea. You know, you could do some fun stuff. That would be a terrifying enemy to have to come up against. And instead it's just this like, "Oh, we were, you know, we were oppressed and we went into the sea and we're never going to be subjugated again." And it's, again, it's just like it is the same exact thing from the first movie except somehow.
JVL00:40:00And they're so powerful that they invented cold fusion underwater because they had vibranium. It's the most improbable fucking... Alright, I will complain more about this, but I'd like Paul to complain first. Unless, and here I feel a little bit bad, you didn't love it, did you? Because I will feel very guilty about crapping all over this movie if you were about to say, "Actually, I really liked it."
Sonny00:40:25I didn't love it. I will say I was more positive than either of you guys. But you know who was more positive than any three of us? Lauren, who I went and saw it with an IMAX. Oh, no. So, Lauren found it quite touching.
JVL00:40:42Pull off the wedding.
Sonny00:40:44Lauren found it quite touching. What did she like about it?
JVL00:40:48Has she seen any of the other MCU movies? Did she see the first Black Panther?
Sonny00:40:52She thought she had seen the first Black Panther. And then afterward, we were talking and she's like, "No, I actually don't think I did." So, you know, she's not exactly super plugged into all this. But here's what she said afterward about Lady Iron Man and the princess. She thought it was really good seeing young girls accomplishing things in STEM.
JVL00:41:18Oh, my God.
Sonny00:41:20So, she was very touched by that. She did say she understood that sort of like the Black Lives Matter message is part of the whole deal and the idea of the franchise. She did want to point out, however, she doesn't think there was a single Asian in the whole movie. So, that was her one criticism. I think that's true. I told her, you know, we can watch the first one sometime because there is the Korea scene there. She'd like that.
JVL00:41:50I mean, the character of Riri Williams, who is Lady Iron Man, utterly uncredible. Just not credible as a scientific genius in ways in which Letitia Wright as Shuri has always been totally. She has that sort of quirky Tony Stark ish thing about her in and the choices that Dominique Thorne, who plays Riri Williams, makes do not work. And I don't know if the whole here's the thing I and I just watched Black Panther before I went to see this. And Black Panther has like seven different characters who all have arcs and who you all care about. And the this thing is just thrown together and it doesn't give even the characters that you love. It doesn't give them anything to do. And then the villain name or here's the thing I don't understand. The most wings work. The no. The most notable thing about Prince Namor is that he is 500 years old. He's essentially immortal. And what that should have taught him is like the long game, right? I mean, somebody's been around for 500 years, has literally seen everything, and that should be the defining thing. Because instead he acts like a 22 year old king might like, oh, this this thing that just happened is all of a sudden an existential threat to our rule. And so we must go to war. We must go to war, which is simply not what somebody who'd been on the throne for 500 years would do. It just it doesn't. It doesn't make any sense. None of it makes any sense. And it Martin Freeman. What the hell is Martin Freeman doing in this movie?
Sonny00:43:56Nothing interesting. He's running. He's running through the woods, the forests of Alexandria. Everybody, everybody cheered at that park because we were all in a theater in Alexandria. Where's the worst part about that sequence? So is it that like you can have him in Virginia or whatever? He just needs to be on Roosevelt Island. That looks like Roosevelt. I like it. It's not Alexandria. I was very upset by that. Well, Alexandria, I think, encompasses like part of what we call like Springfield. So, yeah, it's not. Come on. Looks like looks like nothing in Alexandria. Come on. But don't mess with me, Paul. The Martin Freeman. The Martin Freeman American accent is the only interesting thing about that entire plotline with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and everything. I'm just like I'm just like trying to figure out how that voice is coming out of his body, which shouldn't surprise me at this point because I've heard it before. But literally, that's the only thing that can hold your attention during those completely pointless like CIA, America, intelligence community, whatever. Nova Langley. If you. If you if you cut out if you cut out all of the Martin Freeman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ironheart stuff. If you cut all that out of the movie that saves you 30 minutes, it gets it closer to like two hours, 10 minutes.
JVL00:45:18But it doesn't set up the Disney Plus series.
Sonny00:45:20But it doesn't set up the Disney Plus series. So what's even if you're corporate service, not audience service? What's the point of making a billion dollars at the box office if you can't also introduce a bunch of people to a character that they're going to be kind of baffled by and not care about?
JVL00:45:34So the only part of the movie that works for me is when what's the actress's name? Florence Kusumba. She plays the general. And she's great in everything she does. When she and Princess Shuri are together doing their like fish out of water in Boston stuff.
Sonny00:45:59Oh, the lady from The Walking Dead. Dan, Dan, I. Yeah. I'll look it up.
JVL00:46:05I'll look for that. Anyway, they're they're really good together. And the movie works when those because those are very nice actresses and they they work well on screen together. And when they have something to do, the movie sort of moves along and is OK. But that's a reasonably small amount of time in the movie. And then we're sort of away from them. And we're back to like Martin Freeman is in a car with Julia Louis-Dreyfus again. Like what? And then Angela Bassett again. Angela Bassett is a movie star.
Sonny00:46:39This movie is a huge dearth of movie stars, which is kind of a problem.
JVL00:46:45Then she's dead. And I don't know. I mean, the entire conceit of the name or character just does. It's just not interesting. I don't think I'm wrong. I just find it boring as I understand. It did very well. It made 180 million dollars.
Sonny00:47:04Yeah. I'm curious to see how much it drops because it definitely it first got an A from CinemaScore audiences. First one got an A plus. So I do think there is a little more. And the reviews have been much more subdued on this one. I mean, I think if you look at the baseline, you look at the baseline reviews, I think it's like 86 percent fresh, which is pretty good. But then you look at what the fresh is fresh. You look at like the fresh excerpts and it's a lot of like, you know, this movie is too long. And it's kind of soggy and it's, you know, it's hard to care about lots of parts of it doesn't look very good. But, you know, the tributes to Chadwick Boseman are so stirring and moving that I, you know, I was moved. I was moved to tears by it. It's a lot of that. There's a lot of very like dancing around the fact that this is a bad movie that is still kind of important. And the first movie, look, the first one was both important and good. This is, you know, important and not good. And that has led to a lot. I mean, it's funny. I was looking back at the I was looking back at the initial reviews for Black Panther, the first Black Panther. And that movie is I think it's like 96 percent fresh with all critics. It's 100 percent fresh with top critics. And I can't remember when I've ever seen that happen before. I like maybe like Paddington two or something.
JVL00:48:22There was another movie recently that we we talked about with we were laughing about who would dare to. Who would dare to say anything about it? I forget what it was. It was get out.
Sonny00:48:37No, no, no.
JVL00:48:39Yeah.
Sonny00:48:40Anyway, I but the but the reviews for this have been much softer. And I think I would not be shocked if this has like a 65 percent drop second weekend. I think it could be I think it could have a have a pretty, pretty sharp, steep drop. We'll see.
JVL00:48:59I don't know. It's there's one choice in it. So from a story perspective that I I enjoyed. And it was when when Shuri drinks the herb and goes into the ancestral plane and who she sees there then is Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger. Right. And he says, look, you can be noble or you can take care of business. And that's great. That should have been the central conflict of the entire movie. Yes. Like this is this whole movie should have been about the character of Shuri trying to decide whether or not she needs to be T'Challa or Killmonger. Well, that's the movie you could do. You could do two hours around that idea right there. And it'll be interesting. And there are things to say.
Sonny00:49:49And let me let me ask you a question, JBL and Paul. Sorry, Paul's not Paul. You're not. We're not. We're not getting in here enough. I'm sorry. Let me ask you guys a question. Does it feel to you like there is a remnant of a subplot in which T'Challa has been killed by the Americans or some other that he was he was killed? He was felled by some sort of biological weapon because they're there. They're it's very it's very weird how they don't really talk about the disease that killed them at all. But whatever. Maybe that's just like that's just a nod to whatever happened. And in real life. But also there's a moment after he has died where sure he's like I want to I want to watch the world burn. And that's a weird thing for somebody who is in mourning to say not necessarily because it's not something somebody who was in mourning would say but it's not necessarily what that character would say unless she had a reason to say it's unearned for that character. It's it's totally unearned for that character. And there's there's I mean there's all sorts of other stuff with like the assaults on the Wakandan naval vessel. And you know the the and and again that that bit with with Killmonger there I just feel like I feel like there there was a at one point in the in the writing of this film there was at the very least a very strong implication that T'Challa had been assassinated by you know the the Western world. Well Alyssa said on her podcast. Alyssa said on across the movie aisle another show of which I'm a devoted listener that something like that could have been it could have made it better I think she had three suggestions for things that could have made the story better two of which I thought were good. And the third of which I believe was for the princess to bang it out with the fish man which she may have liked the Shape of Water more than I did but I do think it's a it's there it feels like there's stuff missing like like there there was something like T'Challa being assassinated or there's a really aggressive like economic push to trade with Wakanda for vibranium right that was one of the things Alyssa mentioned there's like something about the world geopolitics situation that like would have made the conflict more alive and more interesting that is just like not there and there's this lacuna and it very well could be that they changed or jettisoned a plot line around T'Challa being assassinated I let me let me just say I just want to highlight one thing here it's it's in like this idea that because the Black Panther is dead Wakanda is open for being invaded or whatever is totally insane if if any of these nations have seen 1/10 of what the Wakandan armed forces can do like I I don't know America makes mistakes but we don't make mistakes that are that dumb JBL do you think I'm do you think I'm stretching here on the aborted assassination subplot
JVL00:53:04you know I I don't know I can't tell but I do think that having him die of an unexpected sudden illness is the kind of choice that needed to be made for audiences for this movie I I I think that paralleling because you just can't walk into this pristine right everybody carries the baggage of understanding what happened to to Chadwick Boseman and having the characters death parallel his death I actually think was kind of important and okay in terms of having audiences accept it I think making it something different would have been a mistake and so if there were if they had originally meant. You know actually it was Captain America who killed him or something where it was the Baron Zemo I think that would have been a mistake it's better to have him die in the same way
Sonny00:54:00the Chadwick Boseman passed away yeah I I agree with both of you I think you're both exactly right because they're you're and they might have realized this at some point in like pre-production or even production where it was like emotional. This is not gonna land if we try to use his death as a plot point in a way that's inauthentic to the man because the man Chadwick Boseman was important to so many people kind of like the character Black Panther is important to people so yeah they were in a situation where it was the only authentic thing that they could do and then there might be something missing though from their vision for the movie because it just it does feel undercooked and like stuff got taken out or something I really see the problem I mean I really liked Letitia
JVL00:54:55Wright in the first Black Panther and I especially loved all of her business that she did with Chadwick Boseman like their older brother younger sister stuff was some of the best stuff in the whole movie she's a wonderful actress but I think asking her to carry this whole movie with her is probably a little bit too much and especially without without Boseman's character as a foil there for her because again the heart of her relationship is really that she is the Black Panther's kid sister and to not have that to play off of sort of leaves that character a little bit at sea and I don't know again as we said at the very beginning like this movie misses having movie stars in it which the first Black Panther Chadwick Boseman Michael G. Michael B. Jordan Daniel Kaluuya Angela Bassett I mean it's you know Forrest Whitaker has more of a more of a role in the first you know just a lot of wattage on screen in that first movie that isn't here this time.
Sonny00:56:13Yeah I also think they did a like I really like the Winston Duke character in Baku I enjoyed him in the first one as kind of a oh yeah he's great semi comic foil and just totally totally not used enough in this one.
JVL00:56:33Yeah I could have had more much more of him. Well can I just say I think maybe not just more of him.
Sonny00:56:42Not just charisma deficit. Maybe a bit of a testosterone deficit. Maybe a little too much too much estrogen. Okay too many women on screen. You heard it here first. Lauren's not going to listen to this. She's going to be very disappointed. Is this what you told Lauren when she said she liked it? Like of course you liked it. There's so much estrogen on the screen. Nope did not say that. And you know she doesn't have the she doesn't have the Patreon subscription I don't think so maybe I can just Well I it's funny I a friend of the show jpod sent sent us or maybe just sent me a review of the movie that was like oh it's it's such a powerful movie. It's a powerful blockbuster about female mourning which yay hooray that sounds awesome and fun to watch.
JVL00:57:29Is that apparently?
Sonny00:57:31No that was an actual review. Jeez. Blockbuster about female mourning.
JVL00:57:38No my my criticism is that they've got a bunch of. They've got a bunch of very nice actresses in it who are not given enough to do. Like they just they just aren't given enough to do. The problem is a story problem. Yeah.
Sonny00:57:53Well it has it has an enormous story problem. And also like I'm sorry the whole thing feels like the first act of a movie like the the the scene at the end where Namor is in his little painting room and he's like no don't you understand. The Wakandans will stand with us now because we're friends. That should have been the end of act one. Yeah. That's the end of act one in a movie. And instead it's the end of this whole all two and hours and 40 minutes.
JVL00:58:25He's 500 years old and he wants to destroy the surface dwellers. So his opening move is to declare war against the only other country that has vibranium. Yeah. Mitz basically is New York is is innocent. The only the only innocent country. He's just that sounds great. Yeah.
Sonny00:58:47That makes a lot of sense.
JVL00:58:49I believe that we have absorbed the wisdom of the ages.
Sonny00:58:53We're all very we're all very negative on this except for Lauren one. Yeah. On the show next time. If you guys could indulge me one kind of meta level thing that this movie made me think about is everything is. Are we just in an era where. The minimum is two and a half hours instead of two hours. Like multi-person madness was a hundred hundred and twenty one minutes. Something like that. It was two hours. Fine. Yeah. I just be too. Oh, sure. I feel I feel like almost have practically everything is running 30 minutes longer than it needs to. And I don't know if it's since Infinity War. Block blockbuster bloat is a real thing. I don't think we should dismiss that.
JVL00:59:38Well, but that's because blockbusters now serve two purposes, which is one is making money in the other, which is launching streaming tie ins. And this is a problem, right? I mean, it's I don't think it's an accident that the horror movies are shorter. And it's because the horror movies only have to make money theatrically. They do not have to launch a Disney Plus series. Yeah. Right. Jesus. Julia Lee drivers, who, by the way, I love Julia Lee. Dreyfuss. I don't want to. She's great.
Sonny01:00:08I'm bad at everything else. That's not Marvel.
JVL01:00:10This is she's just totally wrong. For everything else that's happening.
Sonny01:00:16Yeah.
JVL01:00:17Bah. Bah. Go watch the first Black Panther. Don't go see Wakanda forever.
Sonny01:00:22Better movie.
JVL01:00:23Better movie.
Sonny01:00:24All right. So do we have any correction? Shout outs? No, but I have what I'm drinking.
JVL01:00:30You can tell that I'm slurring. I'm drinking the Hardywood Farmhouse pumpkin. And it's eight point five percent. And I am. Whoa.
Sonny01:00:39Look at you. Are you hammered?
JVL01:00:41I'm basically hammered.
Sonny01:00:42You hammer time right now?
JVL01:00:44I'm basically hammer time.
Sonny01:00:46I'm just having my diet Dr. Pepper. There's nothing. Nope.
JVL01:00:50Nope. I was out till midnight last night going to see Hamilton up in the city. And save that for out.
Sonny01:00:57Save that for outtakes.
JVL01:00:58Save that for outtakes.
Sonny01:00:59All right. All right. That's that's it for today's show. Make sure you go to tpublic.com and look for Sub-Beacon merchandise. There's lots of it there. T-shirts, etc.
JVL01:01:11Hey, T-Public guys who are listening. I think my kids school wants to set up a spirit store. Do you think we could do that through T-Public? Just asking.
Sonny01:01:22You should just you should email our guy. Email our guy and he'll set it up. Go to go to the Patreon at subbeacon.com because we're not we're not putting that in there. Because we're not we're not putting things on iTunes anymore. You got to sign up for the show if you want to listen to it.
JVL01:01:39Is it true we don't put it on iTunes at all?
Sonny01:01:41I don't I've stopped putting it on iTunes. I just don't I just don't do that anymore because we stopped doing the bonus episodes.
JVL01:01:47Well, we'll be back to bonus episodes. Once the theatrical business recovers, we're going to be back to bonus episodes.
Sonny01:01:54We'll just get right back to it. I can't I can't wait. All right. That sounds great.
JVL01:02:01We'll see you guys next week. All right. I'm totally hammered.
Sonny01:02:12You went to go see Hamilton.
JVL01:02:14I did.
Sonny01:02:15Was it is it like the touring production or did you go to Broadway?
JVL01:02:19I went to Broadway. I lived like, you know, we are door to door. Thirty five minutes from the milky with the Great Milky Way, the Great White Way. What do they call Broadway?
?01:02:30We're there.
JVL01:02:31The answer is we're there. We drove in. We parked at Port Authority. I went to the Port Authority bathrooms to, you know, just check out how things are. And then then we went out to dinner, a nice dinner in the city with our children.
Sonny01:02:45Oh, would you guys go for dinner? You'll go to Guy Fieri's.
JVL01:02:50Just a place on Eighth Avenue, an Italian place on Eighth Avenue, a few blocks away from the theater district in the kitchen, as as Matt Murdock would say. In Hell's Kitchen.
Sonny01:03:00In Hell's Kitchen. And you didn't get murdered by one of Kingpin's goons?
JVL01:03:06We did not. Bullseye was there. I could sense him, but he didn't attack us. And then we went to it was one of these things where I almost couldn't believe that my children, not all of them, gee, money stayed home. But the other three kids, we all went to like out for dinner in Manhattan and then to see a Broadway show on a school night. And it was a total success. Everybody had the time of their lives. It was great. I love being a New Yorker. I go get my Yankees hat on. It's great. Hey. Oh.
Sonny01:03:40Oh. No, I'm sure it's fine.
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