#151. 'Avatar: The Way of Water'
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With Vic gone, John Podhoretz ("J-Pod") fills the empty chair alongside Sonny and JVL to review Avatar: The Way of Water, and all three are effectively raves: Sonny calls the HFR 3D Dolby-cinema experience "the most amazing thing I've ever seen in a movie theater" even while conceding the plot is paint-by-numbers and dividing the runtime into a meh first hour of setup, a plotless-but-astonishing second hour of Polynesian-ocean immersion, and a third hour of maybe the greatest action filmmaking ever shot; JVL loved it and argues Cameron is as much an auteur as Paul Thomas Anderson, just operating at giant-corporate scale (illustrated by contrasting its jaw-dropping "dollar per screen" value with the cheap-looking Red Notice); and J-Pod, despite loathing the film's politics ("humans are the bad guys... it makes me sick"), delivers an extended riff crowning Cameron the Cecil B. DeMille of our era — a populist visionary who invents his own technology — and argues Avatar has no cultural footprint precisely because it can only be experienced in theaters. A long stretch covers box-office mechanics: Cameron's historic "multiples" (how his films hold rather than open), the China COVID lockdowns suppressing what was expected to be an $800M gross down toward $250–300M, and a spirited debate over whether the Academy can snub Avatar, Top Gun: Maverick, or Everything Everywhere All at Once for Best Picture without indicting itself (with a detour into J-Pod's dim view of the "butt plug" multiverse sequence versus his genuine tears over Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan's family drama). The opening third is packed with the usual tangents: dueling $25 Timex Indiglo vs. $5,500 Panerai Luminor watch talk, wedding-ring and umbrella neuroses, JVL's deep dive into Broadway box-office economics and restaurant profitability, J-Pod's Hanukkah gift triumph and family generator/coffee-table horror stories, and Sonny's saga of his four-year-old son jamming a popcorn kernel up his nose during The Nightmare Before Christmas.
From the show notes
J-Pod joins Sonny and JVL as the gang goes back to Pandora.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Why do you come to us? I just want to keep my family safe. Treat them as our brothers and sisters. Teach them our ways. Keep up, Forrest boy! If you want to live here, you have to ride. Let's do it. Just breathe. Breathe.
Sonny00:00:47Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Sonny Bunch along with Jonathan V. Last and longtime friend of the show John Podhoretz. Sitting in for the empty chair now that we just leave. We leave in the corner of our collective houses. We don't we don't have you know, it's like tiny the tiny Tim chair from the Ghost of Christmas Future in Christmas Carol. But John, thanks for joining us. Thanks for joining us this week.
Guest00:01:14Well, as you know, I listen. I listen every week and I'm always waiting for those Easter egg moments when I mysteriously appear. I feel like I feel like you get a shout out about once every week and a half
Sonny00:01:27It's like it's not quite every episode
Guest00:01:31Nobody know nobody but me knows so that's why it's a that's why it's the perfect Easter egg. John, I'm sorry maybe this
JVL00:01:37You just flashed your wrist across the camera. What do you got? What do you got strapped to that thing? It's all white dial and some Arabic numerals
Guest00:01:48Honest to God The only watch that I ever wear JVL it is a Timex Hey, was it a Timex and Mickey Mouse in the glow? Yeah in the glow. Can I tell you why it is a Timex in the glow? I am now lined as a bat. Mm-hmm And and if I wake up at three o'clock in the morning There is no way for me to see any clock any number anything and so the Timex in the glow is the perfect solution It's a great watch problem. It's a closet $25 and if my dog Choose the band I can just buy another one for
JVL00:02:31$25 John everybody who loves watches will tell you that a Timex in the glow is a great watch our hatred is reserved for people who spend like $400 on a shinola fashion watch that that's what we don't like. Okay, we love purpose-built tool watches Which is what the Timex in the glow is. Anyway, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to derail us there I just flashed across the screen
Guest00:02:56I do want to tell you one trout jumping at a fly. I had to get in there tell me So I was reading I think I was reading airmail, which is which is the Vanity Fair. Yeah The gray the Graydon car. Yeah, and Somebody oh No, no, I'm sorry. This was Matt. I have to say it's Matt Bellany of puck Who does? The Hollywood stuff at puck and does a really pretty Pretty great podcast. Yeah called the town and I don't listen to the podcast, but the newsletters great Right. So they had some gift guide the puck gift guide so Matt Bellany is like I like my watch And it's really great because you know it At night a blind I can push a button of the light shows the light and I'm like That's maybe I should look so I click through to see what this watch is and It costs fifty five hundred dollars now if I'm Matt Bellany. I'm not sure I want to be telling the world That I'm sporting a fifty five hundred dollar watch and that maybe what was the watch gift that you wouldn't what is the fifty five hundred?
JVL00:04:12dollar watch that when you touch it it glow I would I would honestly have to
Sonny00:04:16Why don't you talk amongst yourselves so I can find this for you? Okay effort this like I feel like a fifty five hundred dollar watch in Hollywood it's like an entry-level watch. I don't I don't think that that's like. I don't think that's a particularly like Expensive what if you're a journalist? Yeah, but he's a lawyer though. It's what he was a lawyer right? It was like he like ran Hollywood reporter It's not like he's it's not like he's you know he's not a journalist like one of us
Guest00:04:45Yeah, I know but Jonathan runs the publication. I run a publication We're not buying any fifth sonny used to run a publication what sonny used to run?
JVL00:04:54A publication we are all three of us. I mean executive level journalists
Sonny00:05:01I'm not saying I couldn't buy a $5,500 watch if I want it if I really want it but the the point is I I feel like in Hollywood a $5,500 watch is not is not like Is not like a thing that is like oh wow a 55 that's that's extravagant. You know
JVL00:05:19That is probably true. I I could be wrong
Guest00:05:24I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge that I could be wrong It's a Panerai Luminor. Oh the Panerai Luminors. Yeah, sure. Yeah, that's very very Really good movie theater, you know, it lights up and you can see it
JVL00:05:40Yeah, it's a sandwich style. And so they the Panerai eyes are just like loom Nutball looms. I don't know what that means. What does that mean? They glow they're very glowy They glow they glow almost as well as a Timex Indiglow
Sonny00:05:55Here's my question John don't you just have your phone by your by your bedside? Can't you just like tap the screen and see what time it is?
Guest00:06:04You know, I suppose for a long time. I did not have my phone by my bedside I sort of do now but now I'm used to having the Timex Indiglow, which is a Perfect watch in this sense because it's so cheap Because it's so cheap, you know, the band can fall out if things could happen to it you can replace it very very readily and I I I Find that if I you know, take it off. I take it off the shower I forget to put it on and I leave the house without it. I'm like you feel my watch
JVL00:06:32Like I feel very odd when you don't have your wedding ring on right you take your wedding ring off to go for a run And you come back home And if you forget to put it on right away you find yourself just like touching that spot on your your ring finger with your thumb Looking for it subconsciously
Sonny00:06:47How far will you get from how far will you get from the house? Before you go back to put your ring on if you've forgotten it because I everyone So now once I went once every three months I will like be driving away from my house in my car and realize I don't have my ring on and be like ah Do I go back and get it and if I'm within if I'm within like two blocks of my house? I just pull a u-turn and go back and get it
JVL00:07:10Well, you have to because you need to have that talisman to ward off the ladies Because if you if you're out there without the ring, I mean, you know, you'll get swarmed like a young Harry Styles
Guest00:07:24So I don't take my ring off. I Never take my ring off now in this I follow I follow my mother my late mother who Had her wedding ring and then had kids and stuff and at some point Whatever happens in the course of life and aging and edema and various other things She could not have gotten this ring off You know without it without an amputation The ring was not ever going to come off her finger now my father Never wore a ring This was a there was a I I had I had been led to believe there was a deep Jewish tradition that men wore no jewelry and he his father didn't wear one and he didn't have one and all of this In fact, I was lied to Jewish men are and have traditionally been obliged to wear Oh wedding rings so this was a This was a Eastern European custom that you know men didn't adorn themselves with jewelry, but that wasn't necessarily the case but so As between my father who never wore a ring and my mother who never took off her ring I never take off my ring My wife takes off her ring and then she forgets it and then you know We we were on a vacation once for two she forgot She forgot her ring at home all of that Women are often in a terrible position because like my sister one of my sisters had her ring stolen at the hospital when she Was giving take it off there. Yeah
JVL00:09:07So we the three of us once worked with somebody who? Upon going shopping with his fiance for their wedding rings They they went to whatever the jeweler was and they purchased their put in their orders for their wedding rings And then he circled back The following day by himself and said to the jeweler. Yeah, I was in here yesterday I would like you to make me a spare Because I know I will lose it and I will just pay for the second one now Just make it exactly like the one I ordered yesterday And I will tuck that away so that three years from now when I lose it at the gym or something I don't have any mishigas over, you know
Guest00:09:50It was genius, right? But you see if I took ever My ring off I would lose it like I like I've been wearing a woolen hat, you know since it got cold It's gone. I don't know was in my pocket now. It's gone. I get gloves One of them is one of them disappears
Sonny00:10:10Umbrellas, that's how I enter the umbrellas umbrellas I like I my parents once gave me like a nice umbrella like, you know Like a 40 or 50 dollar like really really nice umbrella and I I had it for about two weeks and I lost it and I Was just like never again. I'm never spending more than five dollars on an umbrella ever again
Guest00:10:28See, this is a big issue the umbrella because what you should do is always have a cheap umbrella Right because it's ridiculous and they you lose them and it's so easy to lose them But cheap umbrellas are awful. They break they are awful And if there's you know, if there's two mile an hour winds they flip inside, you know So this there is no good answer on the umbrella except to train yourself never to have an umbrella Get a parka with a big hood wear something, you know
Sonny00:10:57Like just don't carry a poncho around because have one of those plastic bag ponchos in here in your coat pocket at all times
Guest00:11:05Yeah, I don't know. So John, how are you buddy? I am I am I'm I'm very good I'm I have to say I'm very good. I what as in the midst of Hanukkah, right?
JVL00:11:15As you're taping which night are we on? Is this night four of Hanukkah? This is night four of Hanukkah
Guest00:11:22and the gifts Very successful gift-giving this year can be touch-and-go, you know
JVL00:11:31What is never know what happens so far?
Guest00:11:34My wife so I have two Teenage, but one in college one in tenth grade two teenage daughters. My wife is over to friends house and she sees Her friend has this Says oh, you know, I don't know. I've just moved in. I don't really have a lot of illumination Let me take this out and take out a thing that looks like a book and then she opens it and it's not a book. It's a it's a lamp that Activates as you open it like a book and she's like that is fantastic. I'm gonna get this for both of our girls because we have one daughter in boarding school one daughter in college and It's great. And I was like, that's great. I didn't say I hadn't seen it. I was like, oh man I don't know how this is gonna go because Maybe they'll think it's cheap or it's you know, or though that whatever I was I was really a bad kid about getting gifts. Like I really was always disappointed in the gifts. I got So do better dad. Yeah. Well, they were pretty my parents were pretty bad. My mother gave me a pillow That was one year. That was her That was her big for me. Anyway, very very flat pillow. So My 16 year old opens unwraps the press opens the box And it's like, oh my god, oh my god, this is so fantastic I you know what? I saw this on tik-tok Like it was kind of a mom on tik-tok like three months ago and I just wanted it so much I even thought about asking you but I thought you go. No, what do you need a lamp for? She was so excited and it was like that is Like what a fantastic thing like and it really wasn't very expensive and it was very modest kind of object But it was everything you ever wanted in giving your kid a gift That you know fantastic. I know and it was particularly because it was a unexpected B it hit a sweet spot and it wasn't like when you labor to get something that's expensive or complicated and they're Excited, but you're sort of like you're not $250 excited like I don't like the excitement level. You're sort of like at about $99.99 excited and The gap between what I spend on your excitement level is just is not acceptable like that This this was just like a return very high return on investment emotional investment Dial it up. There you go. That's great it was great and Yeah, so we're going to Disney on Christmas Day for four days And we are a Disney family. I think I may have talked to you are we've talked about this here We have talked about this and it's going to be freezing cold So my view is it's not so terrible to go to an amusement park when it's cold because it's bracing and you're walking like 10 miles a day and It's probably better that except for the water rides like obviously you're screwed on the water rides
Sonny00:14:45It depends on if it's just cold. That's fine, but if it's cold and windy that's yeah, that's the killer because like cold as You wear a jacket you walk around you're fine but if you're constantly having to like shield yourself from the from the on the knife the knife said when cold is
JVL00:15:03Florida cold Orlando cold is what 55 degrees no no I mean it's supposed to be in the 30s in the morning
Sonny00:15:12The the cyclone there the bomb cyclone bomb or whatever is it's coming down. So I'm gonna be it's gonna be It's gonna be 11 degrees in Dallas Even like two days from now. Yeah, it's gonna be 11 degrees. It's gonna be crazy
JVL00:15:28The gas distribution problem that they had when you guys said you're my other ease
Sonny00:15:33My understanding is that things should be should be fine or it wasn't a gas. It wasn't gas It was the power grid the power grid right? I thought it was the natural gas power. No Well, maybe I don't know it doesn't it doesn't matter point is I actually never lost power because I live Nice fancy rich neighborhood. It was the pores the pores that lost power now No, I my neighborhood's not that nice, but it's uh, but it but it uh My understand we have been told that ERCOT has got it under control
Guest00:16:04There it is fun. We'll see Jonathan where you are are the power lines
JVL00:16:10Buried no or are that they're not buried. No, I don't think they could so I you know Like I'm in the I believe this area was once referred to as the Iron Hills and so it's real rocky real hilly No real way to bury power lines and so much so that nearly all of the houses You know within about a mile of me at least have generators right, yeah to prepare for just sort of as a matter of course and so we have like a a Big whole house generator, which is wired in with all the main wiring and runs off of the natural gas line Because the expectation is that you're gonna lose power a couple times a year from storms, so
Guest00:17:00You know another family story So my parents had a had a had a house in the cheap seats in Hamptons Not not not the fancy Beach area a less fancy area up North of the highway as they say and they had a bunch of rich friends And this was the 90s and the rich friends said well you have to get a generator You got how do you know how you got to get yourself? a generator, so My father did what he always does in these circumstances Which is that he bought himself the most expensive generator he could possibly find And Which he did not need I'm sure since the house was you know wasn't 15,000 square feet It was 3,000 square feet nonetheless. He bought this very expensive generator and Every weekend every Saturday at 11:00 a.m. The generator
JVL00:17:53For itself test yeah, okay, so
Guest00:17:58They owned this house for 20 years The generator I believe was only in use During the blackout of 2003 and during Hurricane Sandy But every Saturday it was like it's 10 of 11 Stop what you're doing because the Generator is going to go on at 11:00, and we have to make sure that it goes on It's I'm not quite sure. I don't remember how you would know there was like maybe a little like well Did you lift it you have to did you have to like car starting? Yeah?
Sonny00:18:38I mean did you have to like stop doing what you were doing. I know what I don't remember your files on your laptop
Guest00:18:44But it was like you know what this happened It was like I don't know 15 20 years ago that it I don't remember what the specific all I remember was the neurosis and the anxiety because it's like This generator better work every single time it tests once a week because I paid through the nose for this thing that I don't really need and Because the thing is like it was this it was a summer house So you know if the power goes out you could just get in the car and go home You know you don't need to anyway, but so that's my that's my family neurotic, so my dad We're ready And was very anxious his generator so that these are the two little bits of Norman Podhoretz trivia your your your Listeners are getting tonight here Santino, what's up with you buddy?
Sonny00:19:37Not not a whole lot. I had a very exciting adventure with my My my son who is four he's four years old hmm, and he the they are my kids are both home this week They're home this weekend. They're home next week. Oh, that's wonderful It's awesome. It's all this family time. It's great. It's not like I have anything else to do
JVL00:19:58During the week cherish these moments sunny
Sonny00:20:02But it's by so fast. It's it's honestly fine. It's honestly fine there They're they're pretty good and and you know they have a fun time But they were on on Monday on Monday morning Monday afternoon. It was Monday afternoon We said they could watch a movie you guys watch a movie. We're gonna finish up our work, and we'll you know and They They they're watching God. What were they watching a nightmare before Christmas or something and They're sitting out there, and we pop them popcorn. They're eating their popcorn. They're watching nightmare before Christmas They're having a great grand old time and at one point During the movie my son was standing up on the couch and doing Deadfalls onto the ottoman like just flopping right onto his face on the ottoman having The time of laughing is laughing his head off the whole time. He's doing this It's like it's like a trust fall, but there's nobody there. He just goes straight down Right right on his face But it's it's it's you know it's a nice kind of fluffy There's plenty of padding and there's there's it's a big ottoman - I mean it's like it's like the size of a sectional you know thing So anyway, that's that was fine I'm so anxious right now, but I'm but I'm like keeping an eye on him kind of out of the corner of my eye I'm like you see he's like I just stop it stop doing that and then like two minutes later. He's doing it again And then about 15 minutes after that He comes he comes running out of the room crying I got my nose. I'm in my nose, and I'm like oh god Did you fall and you hit your face on the table or something? I'm like going. I'm expecting there to be like blood gushing out But no it wasn't that it was like he was like no I got in my nose I got it in my nose I'm like you got what it guy buddy What do you got your nose like I put I put a seed in my nose I put a seed in my nose And I'm like you put a seed in your nose. What are you talking about? What do you what is what seed? What are you and then I look and I see the bowl of popcorn, and I'm like oh fuck he is you I know exactly what you've done. Did you put popcorn in your nose? Yeah, I put one of the seeds in my nose I can't suck We're like all right You've got to cut you got to calm down because if you don't stop freaking out you're gonna like suck it all the way into Your brain and I don't know what we're gonna do so so he's he's standing. He's like sitting there He's like kind of sniffling and And Beth goes to get a pair of tweezers And comes out with the tweezers, and she tries to put him in there, and it's it's the the nose the nostrils - - Small can't really get tweezers up there, so I was like wait wait go get a go get a Bobby pin go get a body So she comes back with a Bobby pin she comes back with a Bobby pin, and we can like we can actually see up in there It's like kind of right on. It's like it isn't really that far in it's like right on the edge of the if you're not just Blow down wall right on the wall couldn't couldn't get in there couldn't quite get in there with him So I like take the Bobby pin, and I go to put it up there, and he starts freaking out again It's like no no don't put it in there. You're gonna hurt me. You're gonna hurt me. I'm like no guy. It's it's alright, man It's alright I'm down look look all look I'll show you and then I shove it in my nose and like run it around like a q-tip or whatever and he's like Oh, okay, I immediately calmed down So I go I was able to get in there and just kind of come in from the side and just pop it right out Just came right out, so it was it was fine. Everything was fine We didn't have to go to the emergency room or anything, but I've never seen him more terrified before he was like He's like it's I stuck it in there. It's never gonna come out. I'm fine. I got a seed in mine a seed
Guest00:23:53You need an HGTV show is what it was it was amazing DIY that is some medical DIY. That's very well
Sonny00:24:02I mean again luckily it was it was literally just right there you could look up the nostril and see it It wasn't it wasn't like a you know He had shoved a crayon all the way up there or you know a Lego or something You could it just it just it popped right out And I thank God because I was not I was not in the mood for a trip to the ER sit in the you know yeah, kovat factory for three hours waiting to be seen by a by a Doctor to get the the seed out of his nose, okay?
Guest00:24:34Can I quickly tell you an ottoman horror story so my this is literally 40 years ago because I think my nephew is now your dad was doing trust falls onto an ottoman No, my nephew Jake was doing was at my parents house my parents had a fancy coffee table by a famous coffee table maker named Nakashima And it was a natural wood table many many decades before there were natural wood tables And so it had edges and ridges and things like that and my nephew who was like 18 months was jumping around from chair to ottoman and all this and there was this moment at which he missed the jump and He went straight down into the bang into the corner of the coffee table right in the Middle of his forehead and there was much it this is like blood vision behind my eyes like for 40 years Having watched it almost in slow motion There was a whole cut you know commotion and in the end He wasn't even taken to the emergency room because the the skin was only slightly abraded But my grandmother my father's mother was sitting there while this was going on she of my Father's mother who came to America at the age of 17 never lost her Yiddish accent was a very interesting funny clever woman But I had no sense of humor about herself. It's hard to describe so she's sitting there. Everyone's running around I'm like white as a sheet my sister is you know putting band-aids on herself and on her son trying Taking ice and putting on her head so she can show him Sort of like Sonny with the bobby pin that you know he could put ice on his forehead and all this at my grandmother's sitting There and out of nowhere she says thank God. I never had any children That is my hand to God A true story. Thank God. I never had any children said my grandmother, so there you go
Sonny00:26:31That's a lot of wisdom in that JBL how how are you? How is your kids?
JVL00:26:37Everything's fine. I want to move us along because I actually think we will probably have a lot to say about Avatar The way of water I will just say I would just say that John I need to have a whole like hour-long conversation with you because I am I am getting so down the rabbit hole about Broadway economics And I am learning everything I can about it and it is Fascinating it is way shady. We're gonna more shows. Yeah I was at into the woods last night and hadestown the week before that and he said I've seen more shows in the last 12 weeks than I have in the rest of my life put together and Anyway, I'm learning so much like for instance, and these are things which I'm sure, you know, John, but other people do not Broadway show a Broadway show is a legal term Yeah used in contracts and what it denotes is you're in a theater in Midtown Manhattan
Guest00:27:43with more than 500 seats more than
JVL00:27:47499 I'm sorry. Yes, correct more than 499 and if you are an off-broadway show it is from 100 to 499 I think an off-off-broadway is under 99 and so Tons of the economics of this are dictated by the fact that there are a limited number of Broadway venues and they are owned Almost all of them by one of three conglomerates the the the Schubert the Nederlanders and Jake Jameson Jameson. Yeah, and that these guys are basically just like landlords with the rake and they they're All they do is they open their doors and there's a line of people lined up Just you know, hey take my money so I can put my show on for a week and it is the whole thing is fascinating Oh, it's so fascinating has has Broadway recovered
Guest00:28:46In the post kovat era like seventy percent. It's it's it's better than the movies You know, which we can discuss the yeah Apocalypses upon us But it's better than the movies The interesting thing about Broadway is that it is literally like panning for gold in this sense Yes, if you hit and this this was never this is only true in the modern era Because there were a lot of shows a lot of theaters and things ran for a short time and were much cheaper to stage and people Could sort of make money running but if you get one of these shows that hits Just give you a quick example of this in 2012 somebody figured out that the director the director of Wicked which had by that point run for a decade the director had made a hundred and twelve million dollars off wicked as The director not the writer not the songwriter Steven Schwartz not the book writer Winnie Holtzman the director Joe Mantello had made a hundred and twelve million dollars off of wicked. How is this possible? Well, the royalty productions there are 22 productions in the world He gets a 2% cut of all of them So you can now imagine if you think about that how much money say Julie Taymor who directed The Lion King Which is the most successful? entertainment product in the history of the world The Lion King theatrical presentation has made upwards of 10 billion dollars You know, she has like 6% of that It's so if you hit you make hedge fund money Or you can work on a show for five years make $10,000 Over the course of that five years as it goes from nonprofit theater to nonprofit theater and then it closes and you made
JVL00:30:48$10,000. Yeah, this is the you know, something like 80% of shows Go bust just go belly-up, right? And so like nobody nobody gets their money back You know the investors the investments are raised in twenty five thousand and fifty thousand dollar tranches Yeah, which is a stock like that's how low dollar the investor. It's not like You know, it's not like Hollywood where you go around asking for like a million or two as your as your minimum buy-in Yeah, and so this is there is no mid-budget success story in Broadway. They either You know 80% of them just just die and then the other 20% make people
Guest00:31:31Fabulously wealthy. Yeah, and you know, it's interesting because it's like the this is that my fascination is with the business and we're night Which which is? Restaurants, I literally cannot understand how a restaurant makes money at all ever I don't care except for the Cheesecake Factory, which I understand Cheesecake factories are all full and they have one menu and The same menu across the country and their people are waiting online and they it's the same design and it's like a machine It's amazing But you these restaurants you hear about like the build-out cost two million dollars and now they're serving You know, they have they have 200 tables a night You know they gross $40,000 I don't understand how they have to pay rent. They have to pay salaries. I have to pay for the food
Sonny00:32:20There's something going on
Guest00:32:22There's some the whole business is a sham the whole business is a money I'm convinced it's all a money laundering scheme. No, no, it's it's it's literally
Sonny00:32:35It's just alcohol like that without without alcohol sales No, no food company can make it work because a the markup on on Meat or pasta or whatever is very minimal like you you can't really mark it up that much But you can't what you can do is charge a hundred percent Of the cost of a bottle of wine or like three hundred percent of the cost of a bottle of wine and people but it's very
Guest00:32:58Much like theater in the sense because ninety percent of restaurants fail or something like that. Yeah, yeah but I feel like Maybe they're not really failing. It's like goodfellas You know, they're sort of like they're running the money through it and then they put then they light it on fire And that's you know, and then it closes or something like that. All right Yeah, Michael Riedel's book I have a Riedel's first book who is my colleague at the you're my friend colleague at the New York Post It's called razzle dazzle. I am in the middle of it. It's great Yeah, and it explains a lot of this although a lot of that's old and the accounting is now much more much more complicated and sophisticated but okay avatar
Sonny00:33:41Speaking of box office avatar the way of water gross 135 million dollars or so it's opening weekend. Well, we'll talk about that in A sec here, but I do I it's it there are two there are two very interesting box office things happening right now with avatar The first is that the numbers came in softer than projected I I had seen you know 500 million worldwide 150 to 170 million dollars domestic and instead it came in at 135 domestic and 440 I think 435 something like that worldwide Which you know again, it's softer Look at it, but and then well we'll talk about trying to that's that's the other thing here But the the the first thing to note here is that the Monday and Tuesday numbers have both been Very good. I think it had the second best Monday of the year after Top Gun Mavericks Memorial Day Monday And the best Tuesday of the year so like this is a movie that's gonna gross You know a hundred million dollars a hundred thirty million dollars on the weekend, and it's gonna gross another seventy five million dollars probably over the Four days of the week and then in the next weekend It'll probably do a hundred million and then probably sixty million and then like eighty million and fifty million I mean it's gonna it's gonna do that for the first month or so that it's out because What is happening with this film is that people are waiting to see it in the proper format, right? They're waiting to see it on the IMAX or Dolby or whatever
JVL00:35:13Sonny and John because this is you just talk briefly about the idea of the James Cameron multiples because that's what With Cameron movies the opening box office is actually not important it and not just positive What's important is the hold because his movies unlike literally anybody else who makes movies are about how they hold
Sonny00:35:36Well John you you sent us a box office guru link from 1997 when Titanic came out what what it what did that say?
Guest00:35:44I'm now I'm now straining straining to remember but what it said was it did well That was a very good first weekend It's pretty open million dollars It's a made a lot of money also making a lot of money like never been kissed or something like that like it wasn't It wasn't like Titanic opened and it was it was endgame and it made three hundred and fifty five million dollars It had a really good first weekend, and then it had a really good 14th weekend And it didn't really change much from the first weekend to the 14th weekend and of course this is until until the world in which
JVL00:36:22It ended up at six hundred million domestic, right? Yeah, something like that
Guest00:36:25Yeah, it did a multiple and get this brandi wrote this box-office piece said I think Titanic is gonna make a hundred and fifty million dollars when all is said and done and It made four times that which is taking the over Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, so that's Cameron on Titan avatar Exactly the same story made seventy seven million its first week at a time when people were movies were Routinely then making in excess of a big big blockbusters. We're making an excess of a hundred million dollars a week
Sonny00:36:58Well, I mean it came out he came out in 2009 It came out at the end of 2009, you know the year before that the Dark Knight had opened to 150 million, right?
Guest00:37:07like yeah, so the point about Cameron Who is the second most successful director in history and maybe if you were to take His nine movie record as against Spielberg's 45 movie record or Lucas's five movie record he may be the most successful director who's ever ever lived because Nothing ever made including the abyss lost money and I think six or seven of the nine movies that he has made are You know were were sensationally successful and he had the two biggest movies seriatim right in in 97 and 2009 So he is something special, you know, he's like Stanley Kubrick only his movies make three billion dollars By the way, Stanley Kubrick to be fair to Stanley Kubrick 2001 was was one of the first blockbusters Yeah, you know it and Sound of Music were like made oceans of money Sound of Music was really the first modern blockbuster, but You know and Kubrick sort of ran on that fumes those fumes for many many many years Cameron just you know, every time he comes out of the box and I'm not a big fan of the Avatar movies, but he as Now known to enough people that he makes something Where you're gonna go to the movie theater and you're gonna see something you have never seen before
Sonny00:38:52Yeah, that is I mean is the the multiple so the multiple on Titanic was 20 the multiple on Avatar was something like 10 And again, well when we say multiple what we mean is the the final gross Divided by the first weekend, whatever whatever number the average is 2.7 If you're if your movie opens really big but has bad word of mouth something like Batman or Superman Dawn of Justice, right? That had a multiple of about 1.9. I think Or two in that range and if you get if you in like sometimes A movie will open kind of soft and just stick around forever like what was the Hugh Jackman the greatest showman, right? The greatest showman had a multiple of like 22 or something like that, but it also opened Relatively low it did not did not put up a huge number. So that like kind of doesn't count but the but but but Avatar is is Very famously had like I think a 2% drop In the second weekend. Yeah, it had some some absurd number and there was a snowstorm the first there was a snowstorm in New York Well, it's really interesting actually like I everybody kind of forgets about this There was there was a massive blizzard in 2009 up in New York, which like shut down basically the whole Northeast movie going So like that that that that drop and that that multiple are like have like a mild asterisk next to them So like if you so looking at looking at Avatar the way of water, you know You look at a hundred thirty five million dollar opening and you say okay if this you know If this has a multiple of five, which would be his worst his worst multiple basically. That's still a 650 million dollar movie six hundred seventy million dollar movie something like that Domestically, which would put it in the top What's that the top ten top top eight top eight? Yeah, top eight movies of all time It doesn't it's at one three billion and if it does a ten it's at one point three billion which would make it the highest Grossing film domestically by four hundred million dollars, so I figure it's it's gonna be somewhere in between that range I think it's probably gonna be closer to the five than the ten but whatever the problem for them the problem for Disney and James Cameron is that the movie is not performing as well in China as Everybody was kind of counting on everyone every box-office watcher Who I talked to in the last year going back the last 18 months or so now? Just assume that this movie would do eight hundred million dollars in China. They were like This movie the Chinese people love avatar. They love James Cameron. They love 3d They love showing up for these big IMAX movies covered. It's funny It's but it's but but where China is right now with kovat is basically where America was in early 2021 The the cases are through the roof And China actually has a very draconian Passport system, you know the QR codes that turn Red if you if you could have a close contact with somebody and you have to report to quarantine camp for like two weeks It's a it's it's it is the sort of thing that makes people very hesitant to go to the movies Which is I think I mean I the numbers I've seen now suggest the best case for Avatar the way of water in China are like 250 to 300 million dollars, which would be you know again It's much much less than what they were counting on That said I think I think this movie is gonna. I think it's gonna hold really well in the States and in Europe I think the numbers we're seeing Even with the soft start on the first Monday and Tuesday are just kind of outrageous
Guest00:42:38So we'll see I see what what strikes me is interesting is somehow we've all gotten into the position of somehow rooting For this movie to do really well in China. What do we care whether it does well in China or not? I mean Disney invested, I don't know what no, I'm not this is not a criticism of you. I just think there's an interesting thing. It's like somehow now Everybody is rooting for this because this is one of these things that could save The motion picture business. Yes, that's why and it can't because it's in its own what it is and that's also true of Top Gun Maverick is unduplicable almost by definition so What is the special sauce here? special sauce here is You don't want to watch it You don't want to if you want to watch it. You don't want to watch it on your TV. Yep China has a huge piracy business You don't want to pay 30 bucks to watch whatever you pay you didn't read maybe, you know You don't want to pay that to watch avatar on your TV. What's the point of watching avatar on your TV? It almost drags you Yeah To the theater that is not duplicable He spent five years making this movie Five the years he spent making this movie one movie so five years
Sonny00:44:06Longer than that really. I mean, well, he started filming building with technology. Yeah, I mean, it's it's crazy Edie Falco had a funny story on the Today Show or something She was like, I thought the movie came out and and failed and bombed because I didn't hear anything about it I just thought I shot my scenes In 2018 and I didn't hear anything about it. I just assumed it had come out and gone
Guest00:44:26So the kid who plays the feral that we haven't talked about spider who is the feral human boy? Ages three he's like 13 when the movie Phil he aged three years while they were making it he is like Three years older in some scenes than he is in other scenes and you know, they did a little sort of de-aging I don't know how you de-age somebody Who was like five feet taller than he was earlier? I mean, I guess you can do anything, but he said like There's a scene where he's being tortured and he was little then and then in the next scene He's like three years older because they filmed it three years later So, you know, that's that's an interesting example of you know
Sonny00:45:13Yeah, Sonny one review. Yeah, we've talked all about the business and that's because that's really the most interesting thing about this movie as a movie qua movie it is Fine, it's it's a it It's really it's really interestingly old-fashioned and I say that in the sense that this feels like a movie that was written in 1983 because it has plot points that revolve around there's like an anti whaling subplot There's a there's like the scenes where it looks like Colonel Quaritch who was back. He's back in avatar form To hunt down Jake Sully and his family Whatever. That's the plot here That's really the whole plot is Colonel Quaritch is back to hunt down Jake Sully who has fled to the water island nations of Navi and must learn their ways the ways of water But there's like a whole there's like a whole scene where it looks like Quaritch is about to do like me lie on The Navi people it feels like it feels like an anti Vietnam movie made from like by Brian De Palma in 1985 or something But they get away From that because and then they shift to the anti whaling stuff anyway And it's got all the weird hippy dippy mother Gaia earth You know, we're we're all in one. We're all in tune with the mother goddess of the planet blah blah and yet for as dumb and as cliched and as Like just paint by numbers the plot is and Despite it being incredibly weird and having the whole sequences with like talking whales talking about their feelings To the to the swimming Navi people their composers the wells as they're writing Broadway shows
Guest00:47:08but they can't get a loss of royalty cut there, but they're what they're they're composers their philosophers as
Sonny00:47:14as as kind of dumb and and silly as the plot is it is It is a genuine Marvel to watch on the screen It is a you know, I don't know what format you guys watched it in I watched it on a Dolby cinema HFR high frame rate 3d 4k projector and it was the most amazing thing I've ever seen in a movie theater Just sui generis. I've never seen anything like it totally immersive The the it's it's hard. It's almost hard to describe because it's so different from anything else that I've ever Experienced in a movie theater we did it we did an episode on Gemini man, and I really liked how they how Ang Lee used the HFR 3d in that movie and this is like a whole nother level I mean it really is just a whole nother level like there there were there are moments in that movie where I just like have To sit back I had to sit back and like think like nothing that is on the screen right now has ever existed Like nothing that is on the screen right now has ever been there or was ever there it is and it's just an insane visual achievement and You the only way to experience that is in a movie theater, and this is you know back to our point like This movie makes the case for theatrical presentation in a way that no other film can
Guest00:48:46My take on it is it's three it's got three hours and the hours are very neatly divided so the first hour Takes us back to this moon or planet or wherever it is and aura So it says oh what's been going on in the 13 years since you saw avatar well the guy who became the who became permanently an alien Now has four kids And there's also this other kid he that he adopted one who's a mysterious parentage Girl who is virgin was of the pregnant issue Of the avatar of Sigourney Weaver and no one knows who impregnated the avatar of Sigourney Weaver It's interesting by the way that an avatar could have you know functioning Reproductive system you would think that was something you might want to leave out of your fake body That you're using to let someone walk around on this planet where no one can breathe but okay, so they he's got four kids and he's like hard on his sons, he's nice to his daughters and meanwhile the Are coming back. They're coming back. They've been gone for 13 years and And and Jake our hero becomes like a guerrilla fighter Blowing up their train and and and giving them a hard time He is and then they bring back the villain from the first movie in an avatar body who starts going after Jake and his family because of course His wife they teary killed him killed. She's a great garage finally Has an understandable motivation right is that he was killed right? But his memories have been downloaded into this avatar body, and so he is like he wants to kill Jake and kill kill Nate Erie because she killed him and and they have to run and that's the first hour, and it's not great It really it's I thought it was kind of lame I went back and I saw the original avatar which I had many problems with but You know the guy is a is an incredible story tell he invents this entire he gets an amazing amount of plot and world building in the first half an hour of the original avatar the amount of information that you are fed that is clear understandable about this guy how he gets there even though he wasn't trained and what he learns and how again what the planet is like and what and His divided mission he's working for the scientists, but he's also a marine So he's also working for the bad military people and all of that and He got it all in there, and it's kind of and this is kind of like yeah, I don't know. It's fine It's not it's watchable, and it's amazingly beautiful And then the second hour is they flee to the water to the you know to the village on the the Hawaiian You know the Polynesian village without the hill And they're in the Polynesian village where instead of rowing boats like in Elvis's blue Hawaii movie they can ride on animals and go underwater and hold their breath for a while And they're in the water for a long time and all of this and That's amazing to look at and it goes on forever. It's an hour. There's no plot There it's like James Cameron invents a world and then shows you a nature Documentary about what it's like to be in the oceans of Navi and who all these creatures, and then there's the third hour when the violence starts and that is awesome That is some of the greatest action filmmaking that has ever been maybe the greatest action filmmaking that has ever been done because of the incredible seamlessness of the things that are real like boats and ships and things like that and the things that are not real that are totally interacting with you know, there's a scene where Neytiri takes a human person and Grabs the person and puts a knife to his throat and says I'm gonna kill you She's not there. There is no Neytiri There she's not there No You wouldn't know she's not there. And meanwhile boats are crashing into anyway, it is James can't it's like the end It's like the last half hour of the terminate of Terminator 2 Only way better and it's very reminiscent of true lies in the sense that true lies was the first incredibly seamless use of high-end CGI and conventional action sequences with this fight harrier jet Flying over a bridge in Miami that jet wasn't there No one had ever tried this before it was awe-inspiring. This is like 2,000 years in the future from that Compared to that and I don't know like it's that's my experience is that the things that don't you don't go wow Look, they're fish and there's a whale and they're swimming. They can hold their breath and look how pretty it is here on the shore It's this seamless insane attention to detail in the in the hour-long single action sequence in which the Navi turn on and And and and defeat the bad people that is just jaw-dropping. I mean and there's nothing like it in the original either because there wasn't that much interaction between the humans and that not this is they're both together in the same frame and and There are 20 different things going on and everything that you're seeing Has been done In a room and a volume and they on a computer, you know, it's like the guy has a Visionary quality that even though I hate his politics and I hate the politics of this movie I hate that humans are the bad guys. It makes me sick I really don't like this trend of you know, oh everything would be great if only there were no people but Man, is he a genius? I mean he is some kind of crazy genius and he's been rewarded for it Jonathan
JVL00:54:57What about you? There's a weird way in which he's making these giant money-making movies but he's also every bit as much an auteur as Pick as Paul Thomas Anderson, right as you know, I mean he is he is telling stories that He is in total command of and that he is incredibly passionate about in exactly the way that he wants to even if it meant Spending a decade inventing the technology in which to tell the stories. I mean, this is auteur theory Except that it's auteur theory at like the giant corporate scale, which is kind of astonishing. I Loved it for For all of the reasons which both guys said the high frame rate is really interesting and Makes a big that's to me one of the big leaps between the first avatar and this I went back and watched the first avatar In 3d on an IMAX, but you know four months ago. I think we did that show And I said at the time I can't believe how well it holds it holds up, right? It was still like the best special effects I had seen since avatar came out however many years that is right 17 years ago 13 years ago, whatever 13 13 years ago and This is Even better. I so I said this to you guys over over text, and I can't I think I didn't express Express what I was trying to say One of the things I have thought about a lot over the last year is looking at movies and I couldn't see where the money went like you just couldn't see it on screen and The example of this is red notice Which looks like shit. I mean it Just it looks terrible every single scene in that movie looks terrible From when they're outside with the helicopter at the prison to when they're in like the the Indiana Jones Thing to when they're racing at the end of the car everything looks terrible and the budget on that was what?
Guest00:57:12150 million, I think they said
JVL00:57:14150 - I think it was 200 Yeah, so if you if you if you take If I were to show you like I was saying we're gonna do all we're gonna plot Like you know dollar per screen value And I say this is what two hundred million dollars looks like and I were to show you red notice And then I were to show you avatar and say so how much did this cost? You would say I don't know five trillion Right, I mean you would just if if the red notice if what a dollar gets you on screen is That for red notice then this thing Must have cost the entire economic output of Switzerland for a decade it's It's astonishing and I can't understand why anybody would ever see it in any format other Than big screen 3d high frame rate
Guest00:58:08Yeah, right. This is why this is this is why? Avatar doesn't have a cultural footprint. Yes. Yes. Thank you John reason. Thank you the movie is to see it in A very specific place in a very specific way. No one's seeing it for the story though The story is you can't see it as a basic cable class, you know, we could never see it as a TNT classic Yeah, but he has this undeniable storytelling, you know freak storytelling gene Because he sets up in the first act of the original avatar this Thing of there's something weird going on in this planet and it turns out that it's every creature on the planet is kind of Tied through fiber optics or something to every other creature and the earth goddess mother can actually Summon the giant rhinoceroses to come and destroy all of the bad human Machines just at the moment at which you think well, they got nothing You know, everything is everything is lost and he he sets that up with incredible care at the beginning of The first movie I think we'll learn if he ends up making all these other ones that there's all kinds of plot points in this movie that are setups for the for the for the next ones and that it's actually reasonably careful, but
Sonny00:59:27It's very funny kind of watching this movie because there are things that just get tossed off Like this dying in the first that in the first 30 minutes. They're like earth is dying So we're gonna bring everybody to the planet where nobody can breathe Like oh, okay. Okay, fine. Yeah, interesting interesting And then also we haven't even mentioned the fact that the reason they're hunting the whales is because the whales have brain juices that grant immortality to humans
JVL00:59:54Yeah, just kind of tossed out there just like and this stops aging this this
Sonny01:00:00serum from their brains stops the aging Just never really addressed again. Just kind of comes up. They're like Ed. This stuff is super valuable a You sure is because it's because it creates the immortals Never mentioned again. I mean, I like it. That's what I mean
Guest01:00:17I mean, there's gonna be all this stuff is gonna be in that he's already made The third movie or he's made, you know, he's like made the first pass at the third
Sonny01:00:25Yes, supposedly he's already shot three and four
Guest01:00:27Well, he shot three but I mean, we don't know what shot means because we don't know, you know He's got a render every Second of every you know, it could be five years takes him to render the next stuff But I was thinking about this question you raised about What he's doing because he's inventing technology in order to tell a story. Yes Which is itself a kind of amazing thing, right? And I can only think of two directors or two people in the history of movies that he can be compared to one is Stanley Kubrick, there's a great I'm not and I I'm not a fan of 2001 a Space Odyssey but there is a book by Michael Benson called Space Odyssey, which is about the making of 2001 and this is exactly what happened on 2001. There was no template for 2001 there was no template for what's it like to be on a spaceship? What's it like to be on a spacecraft in zero gravity? What happens if you what happens if you somehow go into a black hole or whatever it is That happens when they go into the mystical length. What's that gonna look like? How's it gonna work Kubrick was inventing lenses? creating forms of special effects and Thinking about things and trying to create and visualize things that had never that for which there was no analog That were all in his head and the other person Who is like this and this is really the comparable person to Cameron is Cecil B DeMille Cecil B DeMille? Who is probably best known to people for making the Ten Commandments, which was his last movie Cecil B DeVille invented? Hollywood Ten Commandments comes out in 1956. It is again one of the first It's the most successful movie since gone with the wind It is the most successful movie until sound of music comes out after that. It is still on the list of the top Adjusted for inflation. It's on the list of the Top seven or eight movies that's ever been made but he had already been making movies For 45 years and his movie the squaw man was the first movie made in Hollywood Cecil B DeMille invented Hollywood He was running away from Thomas Edison and this effort to control and can control every piece of film on Earth and he was trying to get out of the reach of the of the patent of these sort of patent thugs and he goes To Hollywood he builds a studio right by where the 101 left It's off near the Hollywood Bowl and he makes this movie the squaw man and he invented long foreign filmmaking And then he made these movies that were often very serious special effects things wildly populist Biblical same things Cameron humor lists, you know, very earnest And and you know, he made them intermittently over the course of a forty some odd year career Never had a failure never had a flop and took two years to make Ten Commandments Two years they filmed ten commandments for two years Kubrick filmed, you know eyes wide shut for 17 months like it's a whole different kind of being a movie maker and again by definition the problem with the thank God for avatar because it's gonna save motion pictures is Only James Cameron can be James Cameron. There is no baby James Cameron
JVL01:03:50I mean, they're they're wonderful directors, but you can but the studios can learn to Look to tell stories that that makes sense For the big screen, right? I mean that's yeah, you can think that way I so I asked you guys this question over over text, but didn't quite get an answer I Proposed if the Academy of motion picture arts and sciences Does not give avatar its best picture award at this moment in time at this moment in history in this economic climate Then they're fucking insane and they all deserve to die and go extinct anyway
Sonny01:04:33Well, it's either this or tough or I mean, I feel like yeah I feel like if if if if avatar the way of water or top gun maverick neither of which I think is the best movie of the year but you know The Oscars are Hollywood trade show it's a trade show it's it is the Cleo's or you know, whatever but for movies and This is what? Hollywood says to the rest of the world This is what we do and what we are the best at and this is this is what we're making and if you aren't if you Aren't if you give it to something like fucking coda again You might as well put a bullet in the brain of the collective academy not cold put it put it down over coda coda
Guest01:05:20Wasn't the bad one nomadland was the bad one
Sonny01:05:23Hey, let's watch the dormant shit in the bucket Both of them. I'm sorry. I'm so at least parasite was a theatrical feature, but like you know parasite is a parasite
Guest01:05:33I don't again. I'm not a big fan of parasite, but it was One hell of a piece of filmmaking which I can't say for coda or I love coda by the way
Sonny01:05:42But I can't say for coda or coda is a very nice TV movie. Yeah, but nomadland was nomadland was I thought very good I thought Madman was very good, but it's it was a movie that came out on Amazon Prime. Nobody saw it. There are three, you know possible
Guest01:05:58Sensible not insane the industry is destroying itself choices this year one is avatar Which I don't think will win I think people Like so so much of the money was spent in New Zealand That there isn't that much like that the trades academy. I probably don't like Cameron because he doesn't spend Enough money in the States or that you know, it's it's it's not that great for them Topcon Maverick, which is the most beloved movie of this year and which I would analogize to something like Casablanca I went back and I looked at the Casablanca Comps the Best Picture nominees of 1943 and you know Casablanca was a melodramatic potboiler Nobody it wasn't made to be great. Nobody knew what the hell it you know, blah blah blah It was just made to be some you know And it was the series of unbelievably happy accidents and incredibly witty script. They cast the right people really great director and this Timeless masterpiece is made that actually got recognized by the Academy But only because people really enjoyed it and Topcon Maverick is that movie for this year? It's a flawless piece of popular practically flawless piece of popular entertainment and it has mystical possible religious plot there to add a little less soup song of Spice and then the third is everything on everywhere all at once a movie. I also don't like but which like avatar is something That had to be a movie that that breaks boundaries that breaks the form That that takes a relatively conventional family Story about a depressed daughter and an uncaring mother in a bad marriage and puts it in the most craziest blender and If one of those three wins that will be an admission by the motion picture industry that they know That something big is that they need to acknowledge that bigness and ambition and storytelling ambition And and and you know like that has to be has to be Yeah, I could so so neither none of them is gonna win in the banter
Sonny01:08:19She's in the Sharon what's gonna be tar it's gonna be tar the banshees right and I like banshees
Guest01:08:24I really like banshees. I like a lot two movies. I like I haven't seen have you seen tar I haven't seen tar yet. You should I know I should I should you've got to see Tom I should But I do think Cameron will win Best Director and I'd say I say this Because the only again the only possible person who could who could win Best Director in any way shape or form would be these two Guys the Daniels who made annuals. Yeah, who made the two guys who made it Everything everywhere all at once because these are directed not to Joseph Kaczynski who made Top Gun did did a fantastic job with Top Gun, but I mean these are each advancements of the form in different ways and It would be kind of amazing if neither of them Won for director. I don't think everything everywhere else is gonna do too Well, because they just came out with this short list in in minor categories the the movies, you know the ten movies that you can vote on to pick out which five you're gonna You're gonna nominate for like costume and this and that and the other thing and everything everywhere also was stiffed In almost every category, so that is not a good thing came out. It came out in March came out But it's not a good sign that the trades Don't like it also, but the other thing about everything everyone wants is it's a huge hit like it was made for 25 million dollars It made 75 million dollars Made for 15 made for 15 made 75 million and will play like Pulp-fiction or something for 30 years people people that I know my kids various other people Love this movie and are watching it again and again It's like one of those movies that makes people fall in love with movies even though I didn't like it move
Sonny01:10:02I remember coming out of the theater after having seen everything everywhere all at once and thinking this I this is the This is the best movie. I I don't know if it was that's the wrong way to put it I came out of the theater thinking this is a movie that I ever I've not seen the likes of since the first time I saw the matrix You know I saw the matrix when I was 17 or whatever right say like Had an enormous impact on me, and this is the first movie to have that sort of impact on me Since then that said I do I think it I I think it's problem is that it is a it is a very It's a movie that's going to do very well with the newer younger voters in the Academy But the Academy is still largely comprised of old Yeah You know kind of more traditionally oriented people which is why it's gonna be Elvis Elvis is the movie that's actually gonna win best and that's
Guest01:10:57That's all she wrote although to be fair Elvis is also like directed. You know to a fairly well. It's so directed It's directed it is
Sonny01:11:08Tolerable, but it was a hit over directed. It's over directed, but it was a hit and also it is like it in a kind of It's in a standard musical biopic Format people understand you know the voters understand what is happening in that movie even though. It's not really a musical biopic It's a superhero. Yeah, I mean this is we talked about this on the show. It's it's a superhero. It's not a musical biopic That's the anyway. We're good. We're going long
JVL01:11:34You're saying you are show we got a you know to wrap it up because also I wrap that hit the wrap it up on you All right spirit of the week
Guest01:11:43I'm not tricking Diet peach apple that's that's that's that's that's My spirit this week and every week Well, that's that's what I got for you. All right
Sonny01:11:54All right That was a that was a fun fun show That's all the time. We're giving to this episode you got questions you got comments shoot them to me on Twitter at Sonny Bunch I'm the only one on the show that's on Twitter anymore, so you know it's Is what it is subscribe to us on the patreon we're not going anywhere go to sub eating sub beacon comm we are there Tell your friends until next time What do we got I'll take
Guest01:12:33I Want to explain why? Everything I'm sorry. Well, it will fail with the with the before you do that
JVL01:12:39I die, you know, I do have to know we did finally get a Navi nipple Did you notice? Oh?
Guest01:12:48Finally got a full Navi breast was it was it was it the was it the teenage girl or was it?
JVL01:12:55Or was it the was it Kate Winslet? I think it was the one in the one somebody in a tank Maybe oh she was in a tank somebody was in a tank and you got a little Navina in the first 30 minutes Yeah, it's in the first 30 minutes. You finally get it so super exciting Okay, so I'm there. I bet there's a subreddit. That was really pleased for that I
Guest01:13:21Am the I'm the oldest person on this podcast. I am yes. This is an actual term sexagenarian I am a sexagenarian Yeah You are and I will tell you why older Academy voters are not gonna vote for everything ever were all at once because I I Wouldn't this was the thing that made me go look. I don't like this movie It's the butt plug, and I'm sorry the butt plugs There's a whole thing about how the whole plot of the movie is you have to do something in order to break into the multiverse you have to do something you would never in a billion years do and some of this is very clever because it's like you have to you have to Tell somebody you hate that you love them and mean it and then somehow the multiverse will open to you and somehow if you jump Onto a butt plug and it goes up your high knee You can then get into the multiverse and that sequence was like I'm sorry. I am too old for this shit
Sonny01:14:21Well, I mean I think just on a much more prosaic level like Paul Schrader's wrote something about this on Facebook that he has Never felt older than watching this movie because it was it wasn't just the butt plug stuff You know Paul Schrader's not approved about that sort of thing But the but it was it was it was the it was editing basically all of these it was like it's it's like editing a tick-tock and video games and YouTube and movies and TV and animation all together at the same time and that is the world in which young people live now People don't you know people don't grow up with this fragmented. This is a movie theater This is where I go to see the serious art. This is television This is where I go to watch game shows and and sitcoms. This is you know, these are books I read books when I want it. Yeah, it's like everything everywhere all at once and it's just thrown together now This is the world in which people live and like I'm just on The cusp of that I I'm still I'm still young enough. I think to be able to like Get that pretty intuitively, but even I was like kind of overwhelmed by it. I like it's it's it's a lot. It's a lot
Guest01:15:34It's the weird thing for me is I was very moved by the actual conventional story Which is about this struggling couple running? running a business and having trouble with the IRS and having awkward relations with a with a daughter who has disappointed them and and and with a with an elderly father who was disappointed in them and Just those two performances By Michelle Yeoh who should win and I haven't seen Cate Blanchett in tar as you know I don't like Cate Blanchett and she's already won twice and Michelle Yeoh should win the Oscar and won't because of Cate Blanchett probably though KY Khan who plays her husband is probably going to win the Supporting Actor Oscar I imagine because it's a Great story he was short round in the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and he was in the Goonies and then he vanished And he's those are two beautiful moving Performances, and I would have happily seen a movie about them without the multiverse That's the odd part. I mean, you know Kind of a remarkable and very vivid and vividly staged and what it's like to work at this laundromat and live above the laundromat and have trouble with the IRS and have your prop troubles with your receipts and your Lesbian daughter and her girlfriend and you don't know what to do because you're worried your your elderly father is gonna be disgusted by the fact that his granddaughter is a lesbian that all of that was just Beautiful I thought
JVL01:17:03Yeah, John you didn't see it. Oh I know I did. I feel I think almost exactly the way you do. I Didn't like it the stuff I liked about it was exactly what you're talking about. I was intensely grateful that It got made. I found it unbelievably interesting You know, it just didn't sort of all hang together for me That's all it's it struck me as exactly as you say what cinema should be about I absolutely understand why it's a cult hit and if the If the economic environment of 2022 Hollywood was what the economic environment of 2019 Hollywood was Then I would be a hundred percent fine with it winning Best Picture the only reason I'm I say that it it really should be avatar or maybe maverick, but should probably be avatar is because of Hollywood is you know circling the drain anyway I'm sure it's fun
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