#170. 'John Wick: Chapter 4'
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The main event is John Wick: Chapter 4, and it's a near-unanimous group favorite: Sonny calls it three hours of almost pure, uncut practical action from director Chad Stahelski (himself once Keanu Reeves's stunt double), stuffed with sumo-armored brawlers, Scott Adkins in a fat suit fighting under a waterfall, Donnie Yen as a modern blind Zatoichi, a Buster Keaton staircase gag, and a CGI-aided Frogger dash around the Arc de Triomphe — his verdict is an enthusiastic thumbs-up with the caveat that nearly every set piece runs a beat or two too long. JVL goes further, calling it clearly the best entry in the series and defending its melancholy ending, in which Wick finally wins his freedom from the High Table only to realize he has nothing left to live for and lies down to die, as the only honest conclusion to the franchise's real theme: whether identity and authority can ever be escaped. Mike, who saw only the first film before jumping straight to the fourth, gives an endearingly confused recap of the High Table/Continental mythology, admitting he has no idea what's going on plot-wise but loves the "bang bang, shoot shoot, kill kill" of it all. All three marvel at the franchise's freakish box-office trajectory — each entry more than doubling the last, with the fourth pulling 95%+ Rotten Tomatoes scores — and debate whether a Donnie-Yen-centered fifth film is now inevitable given the money on the table. The long opening stretch is pure banter: Braves opening-day talk, JVL bragging on 14-year-old son Flash's unhittable slider in his varsity debut, a tangent into sports nepotism sparked by the Bronny James profile, Sonny's confession that he no longer watches real baseball and cares only about his 20-year-old fantasy keeper league, and a heated argument over MLB's new pitch-clock and anti-shift rules that spirals into riffs on the Savannah Bananas and topless-cheerleader schemes to win over Gen Z.
From the show notes
The best original franchise of the last couple of decades and nothing else is particularly close.
Full transcript
?00:00:00♪♪
JVL00:00:03Sayinging goodbyes. Sayinging hello.
Guest00:00:08You think your wife can hear you?
Mike00:00:10No.
Guest00:00:12Then why bother? Maybe I'm wrong.
?00:00:18♪♪
Guest00:00:21You're going to die. Maybe not.
?00:00:25♪♪
Mike00:00:30♪♪ Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. With me are my two co-hosts who are always under the table and dreaming, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Sub-Beacon.com. You can come subscribe, you can comment, you can listen to us on time. If you're listening to this on the free feed, you're a couple weeks behind. So come subscribe. Sub-Beacon.com. Be a patron. We're going to be talking about John Wick Chapter 4 this week. But first, let's talk about how our weekends and how our weeks have been going. Sonny, you want to kick us off?
Sonny00:01:13Um, no. Can you come back to me?
Mike00:01:16Okay, fine. That's exactly what I wanted you to do. Jonathan V. Last. What's going on?
JVL00:01:22Michael, happy opening day to you. Ah, yes. The Bravos, the Atlanta Braves are, look, we're taking this on Thursday. They won. They are looking quite good. Oh, yeah. This year. Very strong starting rotation. Do you have a good feeling about it?
Mike00:01:38I have a, uh, I am couching, I'm keeping my expectations in the middle because that way I won't be disappointed if this turns out to be another Barves-type season and Braves fans in the audience will know what I mean when I say the Barves, but I mean, look, the World Series. They won in 2021.
JVL00:02:01Is that Led Tasso? What's that? Is, is that like the Braves version of Led Tasso? I don't, I, I've never watched Ted Lasso, so I have no idea what. Oh, okay. Led Tasso is, but.
Mike00:02:11I'm sorry, go ahead. Bar, Barves is, Barves is essentially when, uh, when, when the team lets you down, like all Atlanta teams do at some point at the end, that's a Barves move. So, um. They won the World Series like five minutes ago. Yeah. So, so, but here, listen, listen, 20, this is what I'm gearing up for here. 2021 World Series win. Fantastic. I loved it. It was fan, it was terrific. And then look, nobody expects a repeat, uh, you know, one year and then the next year. Um, but to have the Braves come from behind the Mets and win the division, uh, in the way that they did in 2022 was just, I mean, it was just icing on the cake and anything would have been fine, but, but to have that on top of it. So I, I feel like I'm getting. Getting ready for a letdown. And so that's why I'm trying to keep these expectations middling, but it's a good team. It's a, it's a relatively young team, but it's got some good veterans. Like you said, a good rotation. Um, it, it's, it's an exciting team to watch, uh, but you know, and, and the other thing is the Mets are gonna be awful this season. So it's, it's really gonna be a, a Braves Phillies kind of division and I'm excited about it. How about you JBL?
JVL00:03:26Yeah, I'm, uh, it's fine. I just wanna. Get to watch. I played two innings of baseball today. That's all I really care about. Uh, flash flash made his varsity debut yesterday at the high school level and they brought him in for a two inning close. He's still 14 and uh, struck out three, give up one hit, no runs. And uh, and he was, he was not thrilled. He thought that he should have gotten a couple calls and was annoyed that he got people to pop out. Cuz he likes the Ks. He just, he likes Ks. So, uh, he gets annoyed when he pops people out. Um, it does make me wonder what he will be like as a senior though. Because again, like he's, he's overmatching a lot of like 16, 17, 18 year olds. Uh, he's 14, it's going to be interesting four years from now.
Sonny00:04:18The question, the question to my mind is, um, uh, does he have, does he have the, does he have the second pitch, right? So he's got the fast pitch, got the fastball. Um, how's that slider? How's that slider looking?
JVL00:04:33So his slider is unhittable right now. Um, so he throws a two seamer and a four seam fastball, uh, both of which move differently. He has a change up, which he's not super confident in. He can throw it for strikes, but he doesn't, he doesn't love it. Uh, he, that is a work in progress. Slider is just sick right now. It is. It is. It is a very sick, all three of his strikeouts yesterday came on sliders and that transition when he goes from like fastball, fastball slider, uh, is that's a very good out pitch for him.
Mike00:05:12So what JVL, what is your advice then when he comes off the mound after a fantastic, you know, outing like that, and he's grumbling about, you know, calls or, or whatever, how do you, how do you sort of, uh, channel that and, and, and move him sort of. Forward.
JVL00:05:30Yeah. Yeah. I don't have a lot of ability to do that anymore. Sad. I mean, he's just, you know, he's so far beyond what I have to offer, but you know, I, I just say, well, I don't know. Did you have fun? Did you learn anything? Right. This is the same stuff that I would say when he was 10 years old. Right. Right. Uh, what'd you learn?
Sonny00:05:49What'd you learn? It's important to learn.
JVL00:05:51Life isn't fair. That's what you learned. Uh, it's important to learn. It's important to have fun because this is the other, again, this is a thing, which when I talk to guys. Who have played at the pro level, one universe, there are, there are two things that almost all of them say. And, and one thing that they all say, the funnily enough, one of the things that almost all of them say is, uh, play as many different sports as you can. Don't get caught and sucked into the professionalization stuff at like age 13, where people only swim for all year round, or they only play baseball or they only play the cross. They say, don't do that.
Sonny00:06:26Okay. This is not what we've done. We've done that.
JVL00:06:29But, uh, but the other thing is they, they, they, one of the markers of the, the differences between the, the guys who make it and the guys who don't is that the guys who make it really love doing it and they get enjoyment out of it. And the guys who, for whom it is a grind, they just don't, they don't make it. And because of course, why would they, cuz the truth is in their hearts, they'd really
Sonny00:06:52rather go do something else with their lives.
JVL00:06:54And so, you know, I just, um, I want to make sure that he is enjoying himself. And not seeing it as a job and the day he sees it as a job or something that's, you know, annoying to him or so then he should, uh, just hang it up and go do something else.
Mike00:07:10Right. You know, it reminds me of this LA times story that came out on Bronnie James on, uh, LeBron James Jr. Um, who the LA times did a big kind of profile and frankly it was too long. I didn't even finish it, but the bulk of it was essentially talking about the expectations for this kid, who's, you know, the, the son of, of arguably the goat, one of the goats. Um, and don't say, don't say goat great greatest of all time, greatest of all time. Uh, I'm still a Jordan guy by the way. Um, but his, his son falling short of those expectations. And it's very clear as you read through the piece that Bronnie is not having fun playing basketball. And. That, you know, I'm just thinking about that. I mean, this is, it's not just that he's not sort of performing on the court the way he should, um, and, and in these high pressure situations, uh, it, it's very clear that he's not having fun and, and that's, I mean, that's it, right? If you, if you, it's a game, if you're not having fun, then, then, then what's the point? And then you sort of, I think probably internalizing not having fun.
JVL00:08:22The truth is that you can't force yourself to put in the amount of work that you need to succeed. Right. Yeah. I mean, what year is Bronnie? Jane? Is he in high school? Has he been drafted? I'm sort of out. He's a senior entirely.
Mike00:08:34He's a senior.
JVL00:08:35Um, so, yeah. And somehow he's gonna magically wind up on the Lakers, even though the, the, the, the new David Stern is not to Adam what's his face lurch will, there'll be a cold envelope when he reaches into the bed and go, oh, it looks, look at right here, the Bronnie James goes to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Mike00:08:54Well, this is sort of the other, the other theme of the piece. Which is like, is the nepotism theme. I mean, they say it out loud in the, in the story, you should go read it. I mean, it's, it, it is, it is something that hangs over him and hangs over, uh, I would say the talk that was happening in basketball circles that somehow made it into a, a piece of journalism. I mean, just shows you that it's, it's probably not going to happen, right. And that's, uh, or it's not gonna happen in the way that, that maybe they, everybody had hoped. Um. But we'll see. I don't know.
Sonny00:09:29I mean, it just, there seems to be an underperformance is, is nepotism in sports are real, a real concern now. Right. So like it used to be, it used to be that sports were like the, was like the last real meritocracy. If you were, you were great and you, but, but we, we are now at a point where you have a combination of, uh, like incredible genetic matching and mixing, uh, combined with constant training and early pushing these kids into, into the, the next thing, um, combined with like obscene wealth. I mean, it's not like the, like you, you, they don't have to do anything else. Like is, is, are we, are we kind of looking at a, uh, a, a future of a dynasty athletes?
JVL00:10:18I don't think so. I think what it does is it short circuits all of the early stages of athletic. Right. It lets you fast forward past like everything under like age 18. Right. And even into college. Right. It can get you at a premier college where you're gonna get playing time, but once everybody else catches up to that level, you know, when you, you hit the professional ranks, then, you know, unless you won the genetic lottery, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Right. I, I, I just, you know, you, I don't, I, I think all. All that stuff evens out and the genetic talent component of it winds up taking over. And the truth is at the professional level, the people who are the best are always genetic freaks. It doesn't matter who, you know, what your, your parents getting the genetic freak level to be Jadavion Clowney or, uh, I don't know, Grant Hill, right. And Grant Hill had two parents who were, I guess his dad was a professional athlete. His mom wasn't very athletic, but it's all. It's all a crap shoot at that level.
Mike00:11:28Anyway.
JVL00:11:29Yeah. Well, the, I don't know. I worry more for the people. I'm very happy that like the Agassi and graph kid is playing baseball and not tennis. That strikes me as like the healthiest thing in the world. You know about this? He's a very good baseball prospect out in Vegas. Uh, it seems likely to play pro at some point. Good for him.
Mike00:11:47Right. Yeah. I mean the, the, the place where nepotism is by the way, in, in sports is in coaching, like in the NFL. Right. I mean, this is the whole, the whole issue. It's, you know, these sons, these sort of, you know, sons of legendary coaches or not even legendary coaches who somehow get slotted in to these coaching trees, you know, based on their last name. And, and all of a sudden they're head coaching a NFL team coaching is coaching is coaching
Sonny00:12:12is entirely about maintaining relationships with ownership. Like that's fair enough. That's what coaching much more so than wins and losses.
Mike00:12:18Totally. All right, Sonny Sonny. What's what's what's going on?
Sonny00:12:21Well, I, I do have, I, my only baseball thought is I, I'm glad you guys reminded me of who, uh, won the world series a couple of years ago. Cause I like my, my entire relationship with baseball now isn't is fantasy based. Like I've been in a, I've been in a, uh, keeper fantasy league for 20 years now. And that's the only thing I pay attention to anymore. Like it's totally atomized. I barely, I barely follow what happens with the Orioles. Mostly I'm just trying to find guys I can like pick up off the waiver wire and slot into my team from there because nobody likes the Orioles anymore. That's so sad.
JVL00:12:52The Orioles. It's pathetic.
Sonny00:12:54It is.
JVL00:12:55It's so sad. The O's are gonna be good.
Sonny00:12:57Uh, sure. I take your word for it, but I, I know, I mean, I have, I have Felix Bautista, I have the closer and that's, uh, that's about all I, all I know. I think he's the closer, right? Anyway. Uh, anyway, we're, uh, but this is like, it is, it's super depressing. I was actually thinking about this the other day because one of the guys in the league wants to quit the league and he's like, ah, you know, I just, I don't enjoy baseball anymore. And I'm like, I don't really enjoy baseball that much either. If I think about it on like a game level. I don't watch, I don't watch baseball anymore. I can tell you that much, you know, I go, I go to one ragers game a year when my, when my daughter has like girl scouts night, you sound like blow these life park or whatever.
JVL00:13:37Every three years, you get a story about, you know, Japanese teenage boys and how they prefer porn to sex with actual girls. That's what this sounds like. I just, I don't watch baseball, but I do the fantasy, uh, uh, do the fantasy, oh, do the fantasy.
Sonny00:13:54Yeah.
Mike00:13:55Yeah. Go watch real stuff.
JVL00:13:57Go watch baseball. Get out of your fantasy league.
Sonny00:13:59I don't need, I don't need real stuff. I have my own little, I, I own all of these people. I've owned some of them for years now, you know, they're, uh, well, the thing I'm most annoyed by right now is that the fucking Astros hadn't put Jose Altuve on the DL. I need to, I, I got, I traded for him in the off season and of course he broke his thumb like a week later in the world baseball classics. So now I've got a, I got to slot him into the DL, but I can't do it yet. This is what, this is all I care about messing with me with the draft.
JVL00:14:30How do you guys do the draft?
Sonny00:14:31Uh, we use Yahoo, so it's all, it's all online.
JVL00:14:35Uh, no, but what I mean is, are you drafting with the pro draft and then you wait for them to arrive in the majors?
Sonny00:14:41No, no, no, no, we don't. It's not a, it's not a, like a dynasty league. So there, there are like real advanced leagues that like you can draft anybody who's ever been taken in the pro draft and you can slot them into NA slots. We don't do any of that. We don't do any of that. It's basically like you, if you, if you draft, you can draft guys who, uh, who have only played a game or two in the majors, you know, at the end of the season, we get called up. You can do that, but you have to keep them on the roster, uh, which is, which is hard, um, which is hard to do in a, in a, in a league as, as deep as ours. Um, but, uh, yeah, no, it's so anyway, I'm excited for the start of fantasy baseball. My team is the space. Popes go space.
Mike00:15:21Well, back in the, back in the real world of real baseball. Uh, JVL, any thoughts on the, on these new, these new rules, because there's, it's sort of a mix. It's sort of a mixed bag in terms of like the baseball purists get a little bit. And then the, the, the sort of, uh, uh, you know, command and control baseball, uh, you know, uh, you know, we want to make this into a game that young people will like. So we're going to put a pitch clock in, there's gonna be clocks in baseball. Uh, they get, they get their rules too. What, what, what's your, you know, what you need to do.
JVL00:15:56If you want the young people to like it, have topless cheerleaders on the, on the top of each dugout. I'm not, I'm not there. Then the young people will love it.
Sonny00:16:03No, that's, but that's wrong though.
JVL00:16:06That's what people want.
Sonny00:16:07Gen Z is constantly arguing that we have too many sex scenes in movies that, you know, the there's too much, they, they, they don't want that. They want fantasy.
JVL00:16:15Home runs are worth three runs, whereas a one batted in is only worth half a run. Yeah. Let's do, let's do it all. Let's go. Correct. Let's move the mound back 10 feet.
Sonny00:16:27So only underhand.
Mike00:16:28No. Here, here's what they need to do. I hate it all so much. Here's what they need to do. They need to implement. Yeah. Are you guys familiar with the Savannah Bananas? So this is like the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball. Yes. Based down in Savannah, they, uh, in Savannah, Georgia, that's they're called the Savannah Bananas. It used to be an actual team and now they are essentially an exhibition team and they go around and the whole shtick is like, we make baseball fun. And they do like, you know, uh, tick-tock dances on the field, you know, in between the games. It that's, that's how you get a lot of penny whistle sound effects and like that flips and things like that.
Sonny00:17:03I mean, it is, uh, it is, that makes me, that makes me want to nuke Savannah, like just,
JVL00:17:11just like drop, uh, the fifth largest seaport on in, in America, so you can't do that. Here's my, my, my philosophy about sports. And rules, uh, and it's very similar to my philosophy about movies, right? So in, in movies, especially things like science fiction, right? Anything that, that requires the suspension of disbelief, what you wanna do is you want to require the minimum amount of suspension of disbelief, because if you have a bunch of stupid plot holes that somebody needs to get over, that makes it harder for them to accept like the thing at the center of it, which is that we, we have time travel or something. And in sports, you want the minimum amount of rules possible because all rules are arbitrary. And if any, any time you start adding more rules, you are adding more arbitrariness to the game. When, what you want to do is strip as much arbitrariness out of it so that the outcome is as close to pure sport as possible. And the, honestly, the, the, the thing that really grinds my gears was the three batter players. Oh yeah. So the making it so that you can't, I love, loved playoff baseball where you would have Paul Austin Mocker brought in in the seventh inning with two outs to face a single left-handed batter because there were guys on base and you needed his job. Can you imagine the pressure of your job being to come in and get one guy out like that is woof. Yeah. You know, that's exciting stuff.
Sonny00:18:48You're gonna succeed. You're gonna succeed four out of five times. I'm not that impressed.
JVL00:18:51I, I, I found it very, very cool. And then the arbitrariness of the, against the shift is the worst possible way to deal with the shift. So I agree that the shift is bad in that it has made baseball less interesting, but the answer to the shift is to eliminate all of the cameras and sensors in the, in the, uh, in, in the stadium, that's all just deny them the ability. Yeah. To collect the data. Right. And then you don't have to do anything arbitrary because nobody's amassing this data in the minor leagues, cuz it's too expensive to do. So just, just tell the teams, you can't collect the data anymore. And then all of your shift problems take care of themselves. And instead we got the fucking pie slice and the, well, you have to have one foot on the grass and the other, but if he hops on one foot, then it's okay. Like, oh.
Mike00:19:46You take away the cameras, the Houston Astros say, hold my beer, watch this.
Sonny00:19:50So. They should, they should keep the shift and make these people hit to the opposite field. I'm tired of this. Get better at hitting. That's what I say.
Mike00:20:00Well, I just think, you know, the, the precarious balance between infield and outfield suggests a perfect symmetry and, and that perfect symmetry is the exhilarating tension between being and becoming. I think that's. Being.
JVL00:20:13And becoming. That's what baseball is. Being. And becoming. Greatest Saturday Night Live Sketch ever.
Mike00:20:18George F. Will's Sports Machine, baby. All right. So, well, okay, we'll, we'll, uh, maybe we'll discuss, uh, thoughts more, uh, after opening day ends. Uh, but for now let's, uh, let's transition to talk about the movies and the box office. Let's, let's talk about John Wick chapter four, the number one movie this week at the box office, uh, topping, I mean, it's kind of ridiculous how much in just like less than a week, it's already topped Shazam fury of the gods, which is number two, uh, in total box office receipts, uh, coming in at three is screen six, number four, Creed three, number five 65, uh, John Wick chapter four, uh, big, big week, big start at the box office. Sonny, do you have any thoughts on what's going on?
Sonny00:21:07I find, I find the John Wick movies fascinating and almost totally sui generis. I I've never seen anything quite like this where you have a movie, um, that increases box office. And each of it's for, uh, first outings, but doesn't just increase the box office, like massively increases the box office. So the first movie, um, the first movie I think opened, uh, 14 million or, or let me, let me pull up the actual numbers here. Give me, give me one second.
JVL00:21:36Yeah. And while Sonny's doing that, Michael, what was the percentage decline on Shazam?
Mike00:21:41Uh, I'm looking at it here. It's almost 70, almost 69%, 69%, really bad.
JVL00:21:47So like, like Ant-Man. Oh yeah.
Mike00:21:49Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Jeez. Which is Ant-Man is still, still hanging out at number six. Um, but, but I mean, look, I was looking at the total gross, like so far Shazam has, has Fury of the Gods has grossed like under $46 million and John Wick chapter four is already on top of that with like almost 74.
Sonny00:22:08Yeah. Yeah. No, no. It's, it's crazy. So, so John Wick, um, John, the first John Wick opens to $14 million, uh, and gross is $14 million in its, in its entire run. So multiple three, which is good. It's good. Not great. But like that, that was a solid box office where it really made a ton of money was, uh, at home video. That's, that's why it got greenlit for a sequel is because it did very, very well on home video. All right. So second movie comes out three years later, uh, and it opens to $30 million, doubles the gr the opening weekend gross of the original, uh, and then, uh, legs out to 92 million. Again, a multiple of three, again, it more than doubles it's it's, uh, the, the total of the first one, uh, with the second one, third movie comes out and almost doubles the opening weekend. Again, at $56 million, uh, almost doubles the, the total box office with 171 million. Um, again, the, and these are just domestic numbers. These are just domestic numbers. Um, and then, uh, so this new one comes out, it's 73 million. It doesn't double it, but it adds, you know, that's, that's a solid 30% higher. Uh, it's at 86 million domestic, uh, or so it's gonna, it'll probably, if it legs out like the, the other two leg data, it'll grow somewhere. Somewhere between 210 and $220 million. Um, and it's got great word of mouth, a, an a from cinema score. It's got the best cinema score of the, of the series. Um, but again, I, I have never, I have never seen a series like this. There are series that have increased from the first to the fourth movie, but they're usually fairly incremental increases like lethal weapon, you know, gross to a couple million more and it's fourth one than its third one. Um, uh, but I, I just like, I. I've never, I've never seen anything like this, uh, in a, in a modern, in a modern franchise. I don't know. I, I, I like, you know, we'll, we'll get into, we'll get into spoilers when we talk about it. Um, you know, this, uh, all I'll say is that this kind of leads up to a natural conclusion point for the series. And with the amount of money this is making, they are going to be very hard pressed to end it after this. I mean, just like from a purely fiduciary point of view. Um, So, so, uh, you know, I, I like, and like on top of, on top of the box office results, which are, you know, kind of flabbergasting in and of themselves, this movie has is it's the only series I can think of that has almost completely unanimous critical and audience appeal. So all four movies, uh, are above 80% fresh, uh, on rotten tomatoes in both the audience and the critics category, all four are above 80%. Fresh in both categories. The last one is above 95% fresh in both, or at least it was the last I checked. It might be slightly below that now, um, which is again, the fourth entry in the series. You never see the fourth entry in a series like this being the highest rated one. And this is the, this is the most acclaimed one. I'm like, I am shocked. I'm shocked at how this, this whole series is playing.
Mike00:25:10Um, it's a real, it's a real trial have something to do with the low baseline of number of, of the first one. I mean, just the fact that it's stuck up. Oh yeah. On everyone and, and, and, and surprised every no, just not just at box office, but critically it's surprised critics. And so th there's sort of nowhere to go, but up unless you shit the bed with the sequels.
Sonny00:25:30Well, the yes, I mean, that's definitely part of it. I mean, uh, you're starting at $14 million. That's pretty low baseline, but that doesn't necessarily explain the, the jump from two to three or from, from three to four. I mean like this could have, the wheels could have fallen off this at any time. Uh, and the fact they have.
JVL00:25:46The jump from three to four. Four is the biggest thing, right? There are series like rush hour. I just went and looked up rush hours, opening weekends, which made very substantial jumps from one to two to three. But the problem is that by the time you hit three, the series was so tired that the total box office went down and that a fourth really wasn't practical. Yeah. So I mean, fourth is a really big accomplishment getting to a, getting, getting to a fourth
Sonny00:26:12is a big deal and getting to a fourth that is beloved by critics and audiences is like I, the only other movie I can think of where it actually happened was toy story four.
Mike00:26:21Um, I should say mission impossible.
Sonny00:26:23Right. Well, but mission, but mission impossible is an interesting one because mission impossible two was much hated, hated by audiences, hated by critics, which destroyed the box office for three. Um, the series didn't catch back up to the box office of the second one until I think the fifth or sixth entry. I mean like it's, it's really, again, this it's not, it's not just that the movies keep making money. It's that they have like been on a linear, like 45 degree angle.
?00:26:46Yep.
Sonny00:26:46If you're looking at a chart like it's, there's no dips, there's no like curve, it's not, it's not a roller coaster. It's just like climbing. Um, which again, I just, I, there's, uh, there are examples diehard for instance, diehard gross more first, second, third, fourth, but the difference between three and four is very small. Um, lethal weapon again, same thing, one, two, three, and four, uh, uh, grossed a little more. Um, uh, nightmare on Elm street, I think did, did this as well, but, uh, but like it, the, the jumps, the, the jumps and like gross. And it, the other thing to think, I, I, I can talk about this all day. The other thing to think of with this series is that, you know, the fourth one isn't just, uh, I mean, it's, it's an R rated action original series, right? The fourth one is also R rated, um, but it's also almost three hours long, which cuts down on the number of showings that you can have a day. Like you, you have one fewer showing a day there, there are there at more inconvenient times.
Mike00:27:41And yet the audience still showed up fewer theaters, by the way, than say the, than say a movie. Um, I noticed. So yeah, I have two, two explanations for why four has done well.
JVL00:27:52The first is that we're in a movie desert, right? We are in an artificially low environment where there just isn't a lot of options for people to go see movies. Uh, and it's been like this for a while. And the second is like the stupidest and most obvious thing in the world. It's a very, very, very good movie.
?00:28:12Yeah.
Sonny00:28:13Right. I mean, that's, you know, this is, this is like the series.
JVL00:28:16The whole side, the series as a whole is good, but four, I think is clearly the best of the, of the four movies and not by a little bit. And it's wildly entertaining and it's very good. And this is the flip side of like Shazam and Ant-Man. So the, the lesson I think is being learned over Shazam and Ant-Man and what we've been seeing recently is like, oh, audiences are over comic book movies. I don't think that's the case. I think. Audiences are over bad comic book movies, and we've been getting a shitload of bad comic book movies. And that this is, you know, I'm sorry if you're gonna keep making stuff like Shazam fury, the gods and Ant-Man quantum mania, yes, audiences are not going to show up for those go, go make captain America, the first Avenger again, right? Go, go make man of steel, go make good movies.
Sonny00:29:07Um, I, I think that's mostly right. Uh, I also think, well, I mean, there's, there's a secondary issue with Shazam and Ant-Man and the last month mania, which is. Disney and Warner brothers have trained audiences to expect these movies to be on streaming six weeks later. Yeah. So you're going, you're so like with Ant-Man for instance, Ant-Man open fine. It had the best opening in the Ant-Man series. It did. It did well. Um, and then it fell off cliff, dropped 70% second weekend. And that's because you have these, these movies that the MCU in particular has a core audience of fans that are gonna show up opening weekend because they don't wanna be spoiled. They still like these movies. That's it's what they do. Um, but the, the. A larger, a larger and larger portion of that audience is shifting to watching at home. They're watching it on, uh, Disney plus several weeks later. Um, so the, the, uh, grosses are, are trending down in the second, third, fourth weeks. I mean, uh, you know, I, I think the, I think quantum mania is probably gonna end up underperforming the second one, but we'll see.
Mike00:30:07All right. Well, Sonny, let's, uh, let's have a big boy review of John wick chapter four.
Sonny00:30:14I have a lot of big boy ideas. About this movie. Um, but before we do that, I wanna, I actually wanna kick it to Mike because I'm interested. I'm, I'm very interested to get Mike's take on this movie because Mike, you saw you before you went to go see the fourth one, you watched the first one and then you did not see two or three. And now you're watching four.
Mike00:30:32Is that right? Yes. Uh, I mean like a, like a normal movie goer, right? Like Mike, see the first one.
Sonny00:30:39I want, I want you to explain to me what exactly you think is happening in, uh, the fourth John wick movie.
Mike00:30:49So we've got John wick is somehow affiliated with some vast kind of criminal, you know, governing body. Uh, and actually he's, I guess he's on the outs with them at the start of four and he's been sort of unpersoned by them or stripped of his rights as a, you know, uh, a member or citizen. A good standing with the, this organization, which is called the table, like I gather the table is the name of this organization and the cotton, the continental or the high table, right? The high table, uh, the continental is like one of many continentals, uh, that are like a part or sort of a, uh, I dunno, like a little bastion of this organization within, uh, you know, New York. And I guess there's one in Osaka. There's probably ones all over the country. Uh, and so John wick is trying to get back into it somehow or get them like off his back. And, uh, they of course want to kill John way because John wick is doing John wick things and they can't have that at the high table. And so he goes into the desert, like Lawrence of Arabia and kills at the beginning of this movie. And, and we're off for on an adventure of people killing each other because, you know, they need to be, get this whole criminal civilization under control. I don't know. I have no idea what's going on. I just like the banging, bang, shoot, shoot, kill, kill, stab, stab stuff. Exactly.
Sonny00:32:29Uh, that, no, that, that, that sounds about right. I mean, you're not, you're not far off, frankly. It's, it's close enough. It's good enough for government work. Um, uh, so, uh, John wick four picks up more or less where John wick three ends, uh, at the end of John wick three, remember he gets shot off the roof. Uh, but. By, by Winston, uh, the manager of the New York continental, um, and, uh, he has been picked up by Morpheus, um, and Morpheus and John wick are going to take their revenge against the high table, which, um, there's a very funny, the, the, so the way this movie starts as, as Mike mentioned, there's basically a big Lawrence of Arabia, uh, homage at the beginning, but where it starts is he's going, he's back in the desert trying to track down the elder and he's going to kill the elder. Um, and what everyone said at the end of, after John wick three came out was like, it's pretty good. It's a little bit long. I don't know that we really needed all that desert stuff. You know, did we really need to go? We did. We need 20 minutes in the desert. Was that necessary? And Chad Stileski, the director here is like, I appreciate your notes, but fuck you. We're going right back to the desert. We're going, we're going to go to the desert. We're going to, we're going to do some more killing in the desert. Um, uh, there, I, I have lots of thoughts about the big thematic idea of this series, which I think is actually deeply, deeply interesting and maybe JBL, this agrees with me. I don't know. Um, but I think, I think that thematically, this is a much deeper philosophical sort of thing than a lot of people give it credit for. Um, but the, the only reason this movie, the only reason all of these movies, this whole series exists is to show off, um, giant practical stunt work and big choreographed shootouts. Uh, and this movie is like three hours of those. It's just three hours of pretty pure uncut action. It really is like Stileski. Who once upon a time was Keanu Reeves, the stunt man, um, and has directed all of these movies. Uh, it's like he, he was like, all right, I'm never, I will never again have a hundred million dollars and total freedom to do whatever I want. So I'm going to put like every idea I've ever had on the big screen. I'm going to have like, I'm going to have sumo goes fight armored warriors. I'm going to have, uh, I'm going to put Scott Adkins in a fat suit and have him fight under a waterfall doing giant kicks. Um, I'm going to have.
Mike00:34:46Trash dancing.
Sonny00:34:47I'm going to have a blind swordsman, like a modern Zatoichi. And it's going to be Donnie Yen. And he's going to be funny. I'm going to do a, I'm going to do Buster Keaton fighting up the stairs and then getting thrown down the stairs. And I'm going to fight back up the stairs. I'm going to do Frogger around the arc to triumph. Like it's, it is like, it is, it, it really is just like, it's too much in a way. I've, and I, I wrote this in my review and I, I talked about this on across movie aisle and I got a very, I got a very snarky text message from our friend, John pot hordes, who's like, oh, this is too much. Four hours of justice league. Isn't too much.
JVL00:35:19This is too much.
Sonny00:35:21And it is, it's a little too much. It's just, it's, it kind of, it go every, every action set piece goes on for like a beat or two, too long. There, there is, there is too much going on here, but it is like, I still, I still greatly enjoyed and greatly admired this movie because it really is a giant Bozo epic action movie. I mean, it is, it is, it is amazing. Some of the stuff they do in this, there's this one shot in the movie. Um, it comes late, late on maybe 80% of the way through the movie where, uh, John Wick, uh, is like fighting through a tenement apartment and the camera cranes up and then it gets a, then, then it gets attached to one of the, like, um, you know, the wire systems they have. I actually looked at the gods.
JVL00:36:07I look down.
Sonny00:36:09So, you know, so, you know how, uh, football games have those wire systems, the spy, the spider cams, I think they're called. Um, so. This movie, uh, there's a shot where, uh, a camera cranes up and then gets attached to one of those. And we look down, like we're looking down on a floor plan on Redfin or something. And we're following John Wick as he goes room to room. And it's a single take and it's like three minutes long. And at about, at about second, 120 or so, I just guffawed because I was like, how are they doing this? How is this? How is, how is this shot being done? Um, I don't know. Um, again, I really like this movie. I like it. I like it a lot. And I do think I, I, I want to throw this out there. Maybe you guys disagree. I don't know, but it is a strangely melancholy film. It is a very, very melancholy film in the sense that the whole series has been about John Wick trying to be something that he is not John, like the whole point of this movie is John Wick does not think of himself or does not want to be thought of as the best killer, as the greatest hit man of all time on his tour. He wants loving husband. That's how he wants to be remembered. And at the end of this film, he, he earns his freedom from the high table. He has defeated his enemy in single combat. He has been given dispensation to go live his life. His friend, the blind swordsman has also been given dispensation. He's his friend. Winston has gotten the continental back. And then he realizes he has nothing left to live for. He has, his wife is dead. He has given up his purpose and his purpose is to be the best killer. That is like the purpose of John wick. He's he is, he is, he has achieved his goals. He realizes that his life is purposeless and kind of pointless. So he just lays down and dies. It's I like, am I wrong? Am I wrong to think that this is like an, an oddly deflating way for such an exuberant action series to go? Um, or is it, is it the perfect conclusion to, um, to a movie that is, uh, or really a whole franchise that is about questions of power? Power and authority and where they derive from.
Mike00:38:18Yes. Right. I mean, it's, it's both right. It is, it is melancholy and kind of deflating, but also like proper, right. There's this sort of, uh, I kinda, I guess I kind of agree with you, Sonny, that this is, uh, if there's a theme here and remember I'm speaking, having watched just the first and the fourth one, but I think I get the picture, right? I mean, this is who he is and you can't deny who you are. That is a theme. And the, uh, once you embrace it, um, you, you, I guess you either have to embrace it, uh, or if you fight against it, you end up, uh, you know, having no purpose, um, and that's what I think. But JVL, what, what, what are your thoughts?
JVL00:39:04Yeah. I mean, I, so I don't love the middle two. I really, really like the first one. I, I, I love this one. Um, they are pretty philosophical movies though, right? I mean, the first one is about the burdens of duty because Michael Nyquist's character, who's the patriarch of the Russian family, he fucking hates his own son. He loves John Wick much more than he loves his own kid. But when his kid fucks up, he realizes that he has a duty to protect him, even though he knows it will wind up resulting in his own death and his kid deserves what he's got coming to him. And this one, as you say, is about like the, the nature of. Who and what you are, that if this had ended with John Wick standing up on the steps and then walking down into Paris to get a cup of coffee or something, it would have, to me, it would have been like wonder woman bringing back Shazam, bringing Shazam back to life at the end of, I would have revolted, right? He has to die there. This is what the, what the, everything about the movie demands. And I don't think it's deflating at all. I think it's, it's perfect and it doesn't even conclude the series because God knows. Every single person who sees this is ready for John Wick chapter five, which is just about Donnie Yen. We're all re every one of us is ready for that movie, right? Uh, so I think it's basically here here's, I went on a journey with this. I don't know about you guys, but when you were becoming young adults, the first time you lived on your own and in, in not just in a dorm, but in an apartment where you had to buy groceries and stuff like that, I remember this very clearly it's my junior year in college and I went to the, whatever the, the giant, I think it was the grocery store and I bought stuff and I bought myself a box of Oreos and I came, came home and I made lunch and I took four Oreos out of the box because my entire life as a child, the rule of my house had been, you could have four cookies. That's it only four. Didn't matter whether you were six years old or 18 years old, you're only allowed four cookies. I finished my fourth Oreo and I sat there looking longingly at the box. And I thought, boy, I wish I could have another one. And that's when I realized I can fucking have as many as I want. And I ate the entire box and it was amazing. And then I felt sick as shit. And I felt a little bit about that way with, with John wick four, like I'm having all of the Oreos in this, but then I wasn't sure how it really settled. And every hour since I left the theater, the more I've thought about it, the more I liked it and the more I want to go back and see it again, an extraordinary
Sonny00:41:43thing that, that is kind of how I've also felt about it. Honestly, there's a, the, the way I compared it to, um, I compared it. There's an episode of South park where, uh, Kyle Broflovsky goes to see, um, passion of the Christ because Eric Cartman has like goaded him into seeing passion of the Christ and as he's watching it and you hear like the sounds of Jesus being scourged in the background, you know, um, uh, uh, Broflovsky is sitting there and he's like getting sicker and sicker on his face and then he just like kind of throws up on himself at one point. And that is kind of how I felt watching this movie was just like, I am, I am getting filled with all of the things I've ever, like kind of the opposite of that, I guess, I don't know, but like, I'm like, I'm just, I'm getting overwhelmed and, and, uh, it is, it is, it is a little too much, but it is great. It's a, it's a, I like this movie. I think a little less than you do JBL. I am a total sucker for the second one. Uh, and, and, uh, to a lesser extent, the third one, um, which I do think they, these, these movies all develop the same philosophical idea, which is a question of, uh, I'm sorry, the, the second, third and fourth ones in particular, um, are, are talking about a very specific philosophical question, which is where power comes from, where, who, where does authority come from? Does authority come from the individual and his excellence, or does it come from a system and the system and its rules? Um, and this is why I really liked the second one, which has this great scene towards the end of it, uh, in the continental where the, the Italian mob boss comes and he's going to hide there and he's, I can eat a different meal every day. On this, this menu, um, and, uh, John Wick comes in and, uh, that is the only time in like the whole series where the owner of the hotel gets scared because Winston sees John Wick and he realizes, oh shit, he does not think the rules apply to him in this moment. Um, and if the rules don't apply to John Wick, then they don't apply to anyone. And that is what the, that is what the whole, that is what the whole, um, series has been about has been trying to, to settle that tension. I don't know. I, I, it's, it's, it is very, very good. It is very interesting. And I, uh, I, I am almost, I don't want there to be a John Wick five with Donnie Yen and, and the, the, uh, her rookie Sonata's daughter. I forget what her name is.
Mike00:44:03Um, I, I don't, I don't want they name her Akira. That's right. What about Mr. Nobody?
Sonny00:44:11I don't want, I don't want, I don't want, I don't want a bunch of sequels and spinoffs and all that. Because th th they have, they, they set out to tell a very specific story and asking a very specific question. And they've, they've, they've asked it, they've answered it. They've told that story. I want, I want, I want Chad Stileski to make a new franchise.
JVL00:44:29Also fine with Mike, what'd you think?
Mike00:44:31Did you, where are you? So, so I have a lot of maybe disparate thoughts, but the one thing I kept thinking about again, having only seen the first one and only having watched the first one, like days before the fourth one, um, but I, I actually think maybe that helps, that helps me sort of have a more clear picture of, of what these movies are about. Um, you know, they used to say that Seinfeld killed the sitcom, right? Because it essentially broke down the elements of the sitcom and cast away the things that were sort of, uh, superfluous or, you know, Larry David didn't like or whatever, and kind of got it down to a science, um, and. Broke the sitcom in the process of that, because everything else sort of paled in comparison, uh, certainly afterward.
JVL00:45:22And I thought about that, do it right. If the sitcom had to be reinvented as a one camera show, that's right. By like Malcolm in the middle and arrested development in order to work because of, because of Seinfeld.
Mike00:45:32That's right. And so, um, I thought about that comparison with action movies as I was watching. And, and, and as I walked out of the theater with John wick chapter four, which is. A couple of thoughts. One does, does Keanu Reeves say more than 25 words in this movie, the same thing.
Sonny00:45:53Um, somebody, somebody, how many pages of dialogue it was like, it was like 250
Mike00:45:57words or something in the whole movie, but like actual distinct words. Like he may have only said actually 25 separate, you know, individual words spread out over 250 utterances. Um, So, so the main star of this action film, you know, he doesn't say, you know, Yippee, Kay motherfuckers. Or, uh, you know, so, you know, those awful, uh, Arnold, uh, one-liners in, um, which are really funny in the early movies. And then like by eraser, they're just like, so cheesy. Um, so like none of those, so strip out that aspect of it. Um, I mean, there is a story, there is a theme. I don't want to, I don't mean to dismiss that aspect of it, but you know, we don't spend a ton of time. There's an, a sort of an economy of establishing themes and, and even plot. Um, and then it's all just. Like one giant action set piece after another with some, you know, connective tissue in between. Um, but, you know, but it also all leads up to a point. It's, it's not, it's not sort of, uh, episodic and individual, but it does follow a plot and a thematic. And, and so I, I thought is like, is this broken? The action movie, uh, the idea of what an action movie should be. Um, and are they going to have to just completely rethink, I mean, maybe, maybe this is unsophisticated. Maybe there have been other action movies. Maybe the Jason Bourne movies did this, uh, although that's a little more in the spy genre, but that, that, that was my, that was my initial reaction. Um, I have other thoughts, but that, that that's my first thought.
Sonny00:47:31Well, no, what, what you're describing Mike is that this is the, um, this is the big budget mainstream equivalent of the BOD action movies starring Scott Adkins. Who's the guy who plays the fats who plays. The German who wears the fat suit. Um, so Scott Adkins is like a well-known, uh, like kind of B movie, action movie, BOD guy, right? Makes, he's made a ton of movies, uh, titles like avengement and, uh, undisputed universal soldier three. He wasn't, yeah, he was in, he like, he's in arguably the best of the universal soldier movies, which is, uh, generally considered number four is, is generally considered to be the best of those movies, uh, weirdly. Um, but he is like, he's a guy who's well known in this world. And, um, it's fitting that he is in this then, because this is the apotheosis of that idea on the biggest possible scale. I mean, this is, this is what that whole movement has been building to. And that movement consists of real, uh, real stunt work, real choreography, um, films that, uh, the actors as opposed to stunt men are in it as much as possible. I mean, this is why so many of the characters, so many of the bad guys in this movie are just like either faceless, like covered there, all their faces are covered is because they use the same guys over and over again, right. Um, in each of these, in each of these scenes to do the, to do the various stuff. Um, but they also want the actors acting in them, uh, uh, with them. Um, and, uh, doing it with, I mean, there's, there are a ton of VFX shots in this movie. This, I would not sit here and lie to you and say like, there's no effects work in this. There's no CGI. There's a lot of CGI in this. And this is one reason why I like the Frogger, uh, around the Arc de Triomphe. I'm seeing a little bit less than most people because a lot of that is CGI. A lot of that has like the weightlessness that we have come to dislike from, uh, the MCU style movies and these movies are very much reaction against the comic book CGI. I D oh yeah. These are, I mean, these movies are all, these movies are all working in, in direct opposition to that.
JVL00:49:39Um, so, you know, anyway, but then it, it also has. For, for as, as dialed as in, as it is on action, it has a very, very light touch. So we get to the, the, the final scene, the climactic duel between Danny, uh, Danny Yoon, that is named Danny Yen and, and John Wick. And I forget what it is that happens. And we flashed to the, to the nobody man who is sitting on a bench, watching this all at some long distance. And he just says to him. That's great with a beard, this, this, this totally, you know, any threat, it is not at a sort of, it is almost as if it was, uh, filmed as an improv line or as an outtake because it is so, and I don't know about you guys, but in my theater, that thing landed like crazy because it just, that little light, like touch the little, what was the Italian word for it? The or something. What's the word for it? Something like that.
Sonny00:50:49You know, I don't, you're making up words now.
JVL00:50:52Uh, yeah, I don't know.
Mike00:50:54It's, it's very, I'm sorry. It's very, very good. Well, another thought I had was where I, I do disagree with you on this, Sonny. I, I actually didn't think, I agree that the sequences went long, but I don't think they went too long. I mean, I, I feel like in a lesser movie or with lesser, you know, maybe with, uh, uh, more effects, more, you know, uh, poorer stunt work, um, you know, poor sort of practical, uh, uh, I mean, all the sets were, were fantastic. Like, I think it was just done really well. And I kept wanting them to, I, I sort of noticed they were going on long, but I didn't have a problem with it. It was like, oh no, this is, this is something special. I felt like every sequence I was watching, although I agree, the dark to triumph was a triumph, a scene is probably the least of them, but I wanted them all to keep going because I just, I felt like I was watching, uh, really high quality work. I mean, the, the, that sort of the God's eye view, the, the, the, the, the dollhouse aspect of that scene, I, I was just like in the moment blown away and, and it was like, keep going, keep going, keep shooting those bullets that catch people on fire. And dragon breath, the other dragon breath.
JVL00:52:09I loved it. I was just, when they, when they went to the establishing scene before that, where they showed just all over Paris thugs and gangsters look, grabbing guns, loading up. There's a scene of somebody grabbing a box of dragon's breath ammunition. And when I saw that, I just thought, holy fuck, we're going to get a dragon's breath combat scene. And then it was even better than I check off the bullets, check off sports.
Sonny00:52:35The, the, the, the, one of my favorite, uh, aspects of this series is the escalating bounty on John wick's head, because I really want to know who the guy is. Who's like, I'm not doing this for 50. 15 million, but 18 million.
JVL00:52:47We met him. Yeah. That's the tracker, right? No, the nobody man specifically is like, John, you gotta keep yourself alive. I'm not doing this for 15.
Sonny00:52:54Well, that's why I it's, it's, it is, it's a fascinating little kind of meta idea. Of course, then they, they kind of undercut that by having. Forcing him to actually go against right. Um, wick, but is, uh, I don't know. I love, I love, um, the scars guard. Who's in this, the penny wise.
JVL00:53:10Oh, love stars guard brother. He's, he's quite good, but everybody. Is so the, the girl who plays, uh, Akira, her name is Rena Sawa Yama. And I believe she's a pop star pop star.
Sonny00:53:23She's not an actress at all.
JVL00:53:24No, uh, Hiro, oh, I'm going to get myself in trouble.
Sonny00:53:29Hiro, Yuki, Sonata, I just say Hiroki, Sonata, Hiroki, Sonata.
JVL00:53:35I love that guy. You know, seeing, even seeing him on Nissan commercials makes me happy. Have you seen them that he's weirdly in the Nissan commercials wearing like his very. Nice glasses, very trendy glasses. Uh, you know what? I, I was not prepared for Scott Adkins to be as fun, an actor as he was. I mean, I was, I was super excited having not watched any of his over, but having listened to the board goes to Hollywood where you had the guys on who did the, uh, the big stunty awards, uh, I was super excited to, to see Scott Adkins on scene. They talked about this and, uh, he was just as an actor, he was great.
Sonny00:54:15He's great. I mean, the, the fact that the fact that nobody has figured out how to turn him into like a Hollywood brand name is really borderline criminal and maybe he just doesn't even want that, but, uh, but like he is, uh, do you remember, uh, JVL, do you remember, um, uh, day shift?
?00:54:32Yeah.
Sonny00:54:33So I, like, I was kind of cold on that movie, but there is that one sequence in the middle in the house where they're clearing the vampire house and that's Scott Adkins, that's Adkins is like one of the Hungarian brothers or whatever.
JVL00:54:44Oh, that's funny.
Sonny00:54:45Who is in that, in that sequence. And like, that's the best part of that whole movie. It's like, oh yeah, the whole movie should have been like that right there. And that is, uh, how I feel. That is how I feel. Anytime he shows up in any other movie here, he's just like a great piece of the puzzle.
JVL00:54:59Yeah. Um, I, I, have you watched either of you watched the Ip man series? No, I've not. I mean, I kind of want to have those. This is the, I guess Danny Danny ends big. Yeah. He's he's he's Hong Kong, right? And he's from Hong Kong. Yeah. Well, he's Chinese. He's Chinese.
Sonny00:55:17I mean, he's, he's a, he's a Chai Chai calm Chinese. Yeah. Oh, he's a, he's in good with the party. Yeah. He's a, he's a member in him and Jackie Chan, both. I mean, like at a certain level you kind of have to, um, but also like,
JVL00:55:32so I would say there's only one thing. Only one thing bothered me about the movie, which is that at the level of world building, which has been done in John wick, I was unsatisfied. I was unsatisfied by the economics of the high table. How did the economics of this entire thing work? The cost to train and equip and send these faceless minions by the hundred, the private army, uh, across the world to die by the hundreds in pursuit of John who's minting the coin, how much do the coins sell for on eBay? What all of the, I need to know about the economics of the high table economy.
Mike00:56:15This is not established in the other, in the other movies that I missed.
Sonny00:56:18Kind of, kind of, no, but it's, but it's all, it's entirely insular, right? There's no, there's no actual discussion of like what the crime that these crime bosses do are like, they're not like, are they importing fentanyl, uh, through the border? I don't, I don't re nobody really, it's not entirely clear. I, I, if they're, if they do have to make a sequel to John Wick though, I want it to be about the guy who goes around doing small favors to get the gold coin and then takes it to pond stars and gets the weight, just the weight in gold. Every like, yeah, I'll, I'll watch this guy for you for an hour. Thanks for the coin. Oh, Hey Rick. Hey, Rick from pond stars can be much two grand for this coin. That's what, that's the best I can do is 50 comedy.
JVL00:57:00Did you guys like having Clancy brown in it? I didn't even recognize the Harbinger.
Mike00:57:04I didn't recognize him until, until the, uh, he's an old man.
JVL00:57:07Now that voice of his is unrecognized, uh, not unrecognized. The voice of his is unmistakable. Right? Yeah, right.
Mike00:57:13No, I figured it out. I have a question that, sorry, back, back to the, back to the plot, uh, or the, the, some of the stuff that maybe I was, I missed the, the whole like radio, uh, system they've got going on where the, the, to get, we'll show radio, we'll show rated. Did you pick up on that? So, so w like, was this in the previous movies? Because I, I loved this thing and it was the suicide girls working in the boiler room and all that stuff is always there. Okay.
Sonny00:57:42That, that, yeah, there, there have been, there have been variations.
Mike00:57:45I love that. I thought it was, I, I, I love the way they sort of incorporated it into this, um, kind of fantasy romantic ideal version of Paris too. You know, I mean, just kind of felt like, uh, uh, uh, this thing, a kind of cinematic Paris that I'm like in my mind, you know, like sort of what it's like with the, um, I don't even know what you call the, the, the sort of, it's not an art deco, but it's like a, uh, kind of almost like a steamboat. Uh, element to it. I just, I thought the whole aesthetics of that, that was, was terrific. And I loved the, the girls and the, and the, the one who was like leaning into the microphone and, and, and upping the, the bounty. I thought it was terrific. And Bill Skarsgård was, was terrific as well. It just creepy and fun and like unpredictable and loved it.
JVL00:58:36I, I said one, one last thing, another thing that struck me, but it was how good the lighting was throughout this. Every scene is. Lit beautifully and in interesting ways. And I came away from it really impressed with Chad Stileski just as a director, like not just as an action choreographer, like he, he put together a really compelling movie where the, the, the, the camera work is interesting. The lighting is interesting. The act it's, it's amazing.
Sonny00:59:06What happens when you put a movie on an actual set in an actual room and don't just frame everything against a green screen.
JVL00:59:12Again, like the thing, the thing, the one, the one.
Sonny00:59:15Few false notes in this movie for me are all the stuff that's like clearly computer generated. So the computer cars and the Arc de Triomphe sequence or the, um, the computer sunrise in the, the, the final sequence, um, where the duel takes place. Like I, I found that vaguely annoying. I just was, I was just annoyed because I was like, I know this isn't real. It's too, it's like, it's like the sunrise at the end of matrix revolution. I was like, this looks, this looks just, and like, there's, you, you, you could say it's, well, it's intentional. It's heightened. It's, you know, they're. But it's still just like, so this to quantum mania, like they're, they're not even the same art form. No, no different sort of thing.
Mike00:59:55Uh, wait another quick question. Uh, another thought that I had at the end, the one, I don't know if it was a false note, but it did take me out of the movie a bit. Uh, maybe because it was at the end, but as like, as it's all done and Clancy Brown says, you know, our business is done here at the, at the soccer goal, however you say it. Uh, like my thought was, okay, but this is like one of the most visited tourist attractions in Paris. So like, what, what is the actual like mechanics of cleaning up this whole like apparatus they have here? Like they, they sort of start to do. I, I just like, I said that they'd sort of take me out. I was like, wait a second. The sun is coming up. There've got to be like joggers in this neighborhood, like running around.
Sonny01:00:38Well, there's, there's a scene in the second one where common and John wick are having like a silencer gunfight in a crowd. At Metro station, like on, on, uh, escalators.
JVL01:00:49And yeah, at the rave with, uh, the rave, like people run in fear at the very end. Like while there's a lot of fun there, they just keep dancing while there's this giant martial arts fight going on.
Mike01:01:00That's what the, that's the Molly.
JVL01:01:02That's the Molly.
Mike01:01:04So, uh, any, any other thoughts, uh, fellas on this, uh, on John wick chapter four or the John wick series, I guess, I guess I, I saw some news article that said. Even Keanu Reeves was like, well, maybe, maybe John wick, you know, maybe I, I don't believe this series. I mean, what is that about?
Sonny01:01:22You could never, you, you can never discount the effect that a literal dump truck of money will have on somebody's artistic ambition. So I like Lionsgate. I mean, Lionsgate has a lot riding on this series. Uh, it, it like, it has single-handedly increased the value of the entire company, which is trying to be sold at the moment. So, all right.
Mike01:01:44Okay. Uh, any other thoughts, JVL?
JVL01:01:46No, we'll talk more about this stuff during the, uh, actions franchise draft.
Mike01:01:51Oh yeah.
JVL01:01:52Listen, there's a bonus coming up for the bonus episode.
Sonny01:01:54Bonus episode, action franchise draft.
Mike01:01:57It's happening. Um, okay. Well then, uh, I guess that's all the time where, uh, we're going to do this episode. Thanks for, uh, for listening sub beacon.com, uh, check it out and, uh, we'll talk to you next time.
Sonny01:02:15All right.
Mike01:02:19Any outtakes?
JVL01:02:20You know, I, uh, none that won't get me canceled.
Mike01:02:27Well, okay. Here's why. So, so, you know, I've, since I've started this show, guys, I've, uh, become through the influence of YouTube, mostly a, uh, an Alamo draft house, uh, you know, patron. Um, and I'm mostly going to your old one. I guess JVL, the one on my place, the Potomac mills. That's right. That's right. So, um, and, and I'm doing them like in the middle of the day, just for my own personal life. This is, this is the time at the moment that is working for me. And so there is, uh, the, the woman at the, uh, at the front desk. She's, I, she's definitely now noticing me because I come in by myself. Like I'm, you know, I, I don't think I fit the profile of like, who's coming to see a movie in the middle of the day. Um, so profile.
JVL01:03:15Happy Michael. Just old people. Oh, okay.
Mike01:03:18Let's, let's be honest. Old people who, uh, have all the time in the world and don't have a job. So anyway, so I feel like I'm sticking out like a sore thumb. It's like every, every time I go. And in fact, I'm going to see, uh, after the show, I'm going to see the movie that we'll be talking about next time. Uh, I feel like, like she gives me a little night, you know, a little bigger smile, a smile of recognition. You know, it's just nice to have a, have a home theater. Um, yeah, you're a regular. I am a regular.
Sonny01:03:45It's nice to be a regular, it's nice to be a regular someplace. I went, I, I, there's a Mexican place that I go to here in Dallas, basically every week, you know, two out of every three weeks we, we get, we get dinner there. I take it home and the owner recognizes me now. And we, we, I ordered, I ordered one Margarita the other night, uh, and he was like, I'm a, I get you a second Margarita to take home, put it in the freezer.
Mike01:04:06I was like, all right, how about that free Margarita Mexican restaurants are sort of this, uh, at least, and I imagine that's what it is. It's this way in Dallas. They're, they're definitely this way outside of Atlanta where I grew up. It's, you know, very much a sort of neighborhood place that you go to. And so like growing up, my parents always went to like the same Mexican restaurant, the same, it was like always like Sunday night where they would take us with us. And then when we were older, they would just go by themselves. And it's like every, you know, the Mariachi band that walks around on Sunday nights, you know, oh, they know them, you know, and the, and the weights and they, they bring them the same. You know, uh, they know exactly what to, what they're ready for. And it's like, there was a, there's a nice little, uh, community to it. Uh, and, uh, it makes you feel, makes you feel at home.
Sonny01:04:55Yeah, I'm sure.
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