#179. 'Air'
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The main event is Air, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's Nike/Michael Jordan drama, and Sonny is by far the most enthusiastic: he calls it "entertaining as shit" from start to finish and spends a long stretch dissecting it as a brilliant piece of corporate propaganda — a self-serving "brand movie" (like Tetris) in which Affleck and Damon's new studio, Artists Equity, dresses up a huge Amazon payday as solidarity with workers, all while whitewashing the real Sonny Vaccaro's history of bribing AAU coaches. JVL loves the tight, funny first half but says the movie deflates in the third act once the drama shifts to unseen, offstage tension over whether Jordan will sign, argues it should have been structured as a heist film, and is annoyed by the wall-to-wall 80s needle drops and the film's rehabilitation of Vaccaro (and, by extension, Jordan) into a folk hero. Mike pushes back, calling it a "hangout movie" he enjoyed straight through, praising Jason Bateman's late-night office scene with Damon and Viola Davis's understated turn as Jordan's mother. Before any of that, the hosts open with a long Lego debate (Sonny's kids free-building at a Legoland versus JVL's preference for instruction-following kits, framed as Rousseau versus Locke), JVL's increasingly unhinged saga of his son's disastrous, badly-coached high school baseball season (including a locker-room "gladiator games" incident with zero consequences), and Mike's rained-out T-ball chaos, plus a box office detour covering Super Mario Bros., the Return of the Jedi 40th-anniversary re-release, and John Wick: Chapter 4. An extended outtake has JVL reading the Encyclopedia Brown books to his son G-money and being startled by a dated, coded "sissy" characterization of a fashion-obsessed kid, spiraling into a discussion of how the original 1920s Hardy Boys books were bowdlerized (and stripped of ethnic slurs and violence) when rewritten in the 1950s and 60s.
From the show notes
Brand movies are the best movies.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Nineteen eighty-four has been a tough year. Sales are down, our growth is down. Sonny, I brought you in here to grow the basketball business. People don't know what the hell a Nike is. What's a Converse? NBA All-Star shoe. There's nothing cool about Nike. You would have to have a pretty compelling pitch. I can tell them the one thing the other companies can't compete with. Our basketball division is terrible. I do not love it.
Mike00:00:30Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me as always are my two co-hosts whose shoes are just shoes until they put their feet in them. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. We'll be talking later in the show about Air, the new movie directed by Ben Affleck starring Matt Damon and Viola Davis. But first, Jonathan V. Last, Sonny Bunch, how are you guys? What's going on? What's happening?
Sonny00:01:05Not a whole lot.
Mike00:01:07You first, Sonny. What are you up to, buddy? Wow, not everybody at once.
Sonny00:01:11Yeah, we took the kids to a Legoland this week. And I don't know if you guys have ever been to a Legoland. I don't know if this is like, it's not the Legoland. What this was, was basically like a giant play space with Lego stuff that had like a Lego Ninjago movie playing in a theater and had like a big model of Dallas. It was very weird, but my kids were incredibly into it, so I was happy. I was happy to like have them distracted for two hours. And I guess my big question coming out of this was, and we've talked about this a little bit on the show before, but I don't know that we've ever really gotten to the bottom of this. So like when I go to, when I go to a toy store or like the toy aisle at Target, or when I go to like the Lego store in the mall, the Legos all come in giant sets. It's like kits. It's like you're putting together a model and we gave you, we're giving you all the pieces for the model. But when I was growing up, the way I played with Legos was I just had like 2000 blocks. I'd like, I had like 2000 blocks and I, and there, and I had some, like, there were some, you know, like pamphlets that had instructions on how to build various things. Like if I wanted to build a house or whatever, but like it was, it was just like, here are a bunch of blocks, build some stuff by yourself and use your imagination. And I feel like Lego is not that anymore. And one of the things I really liked about this was that it was not like they didn't have a bunch of kits. It was just like they had bins of Legos and the kids were putting things together, which I feel like is the natural state of Lego. The platonic ideal of Lego. Is like, here's a bunch of crap, put it together and make it yourself.
Mike00:03:01You're, you're getting quite the, I don't think so. Look from JVL on that comment.
JVL00:03:07Well, he's thinking, he's thinking I, so that is, I believe the state of nature for Lego. That is the Rousseau and state of nature for Lego. And if you put children who are uncivilized savages into a room and they have two things, one is a box. With Legos bagged up by step, you know, bag one bag, two bag, seven bag, nine and instructions. And then you also have a gigantic bin with 2000 Legos. The children, the uncivilized savages will absolutely gravitate towards free building. Sure. Those of us who have been civilized, however, much prefer to follow directions. I don't want to put my imagination to the side. What I want is I want some perfection. I want some professional fucking Danish person who has been obsessively building Legos for 42 years, who has already thought through how to make the Avengers Helicarrier and has spent, you know, years of their life devising the exact best way to make the Avengers Helicarrier. I want to take the set that is based on that person's design. I would like to build that myself.
Sonny00:04:19Well, you'd like to buy it from the Chinese knockoff factory.
JVL00:04:22Well, of course. And then you want to. I'd like to buy the Leppin version of that.
Sonny00:04:26So. All right. So I understand this, but I want to I want to make a key point here, which is that you're talking about building a specific piece of intellectual property like what you're again. This is like we're talking about model building here. This is the equivalent of when I was a kid going to the model store and buying like a Ferrari Testarossa kit and putting it together because I wanted I wanted a Ferrari Testarossa to have on my shelf and be like, look at this cool car that I'll never be able to buy. Never be able to afford. But look at it. It looks cool, doesn't it? It looks really it looks really cool. And so, like, I understand I understand that angle here. Like, basically, this is an extension of fandom. It's an extension of the intellectual property ization of of all childhood. I get that. But I like again, I don't think that that is I don't think that that is actually. For me, it is not what Lego represents. When I think Legos, I think like big old bucket of block. And I put together a square house with like a little roof on top. And then I destroy it.
JVL00:05:32Lego is a business. And and that in that thing you're just talking about, that is a business which can provide indestructible products for human beings between the ages of, say, six and 11 or 12. By branching out also into the modeling business and selling things like this amazing. You know, square block French restaurant set or the Taj Mahal or something like that. They also are able to sell things to people who are not children, right? People who are grownups who enjoy putting stuff together and the the joy of assembling something.
Mike00:06:11But but there is something to the creativity part of the Lego builders brain that, you know, sort of stymied by just like. Sticking to the sets, right, like a couple of years ago, there's a there's a railroad museum near our house that's like open every Sunday. It's like not a big place, but once a year they bring in people who build their own model like railways that they can bring in and display. And there was also a Lego like model railroad, but like that was not built from a set that was like this guy, this adult who like. Built it from his own mind and and sort of like used all like this was entirely sort of self generated is not reading instructions here and it was really impressive and like like wowed my now eight year old who was like five or six at the time that like he built that like all out of his own brain.
JVL00:07:13All right, I don't want to be judgmental here, but the truth is that an adult of forty forty four year old man, I'm a man, I'm forty. Who who sits down to build the Lego Taj Mahal set is maybe a little eccentric in his uses of his time, but is still basically within the bounds of being a well adjusted person. An adult who spends the hundreds and hundreds of hours it would take to come up with his own free build model train and perfect it to be able like I'm sorry at that point you're not within the realm of normal, right? You should not have enough time to do that. You're a grown man. You have a job. You have a family. You have responsibilities. You do. You can have time to build. Assuming facts, not in evidence.
Sonny00:08:00Not necessarily.
JVL00:08:01Well, I mean, this cannot have the time to do that sort of stuff.
Sonny00:08:06Well, this is how I have always felt about train people, by the way. Like this is one of this is why I think one of the great gags at the end of the Sopranos is the the the hit man who kind of like works with Bobby baccalaureate who like works his way up in the family and turns out he's. He's a model train dork and everybody, everyone just makes fun of his model train stuff because like and that and that isn't how he ends up dying. He ends up died. Spoilers for that fifteen year old at the model train store. He ends up he ends up dying at the model train. No, he's he's buying. He's buying a blue comet and he gets shot by by assassins. Assassins come.
JVL00:08:43Oh, that's too bad.
Sonny00:08:44So but no, but but again, this like I take your I think I think you're basically right here. If you're if you're a grown adult and you're doing this sort of thing, it is a little bit weird. But I also think that like the the free play experience with Legos is the key, most fundamental and most important part of Legos. Like, I think that's actually the thing that is best for children is putting.
JVL00:09:08I got to say that I am shocked, Sonny, that you are on the Rousseau version of the something and I'm on the lock version of it. Normally, it's the other way around.
Mike00:09:17But I just think that this is just the crazy stuff that happens when you start talking about. Talking about Legos.
Sonny00:09:22So you have to you have to get through Rousseau to get to luck. You have to live through the state of nature before you can learn the value of labor and how it all it all comes together.
Mike00:09:33But it's also it's also kid and personality specific, right? Because so my two Lego playing children are completely different in the way they've approached Lego. So the oldest is very is like Rousseau, like Rousseau would kind of be like. Whoa, chill out a little bit with like the way that he just kind of comes up with stuff that makes no sense. But because he had that brick at hand at the moment, that's what he built. Whereas my middle son is his until recently until he started sort of following his brother in the sort of let's play with these Legos. We've built mode like his idea of what to do with Lego was to build the model exactly as the instructions. Said then to immediately take it apart and then build it back together. Like there was a boat that he must have rebuilt 20 times over the course of like two months because he just enjoyed the putting together and taking. I mean, he like he will be an engineer, but it's it is interesting now that also like in terms of playing with a brother or with a sibling that brings out the free play element as well. Because then it's like well now I've got to sort of up the little minifig warrior that you've built with something that's even crazier in his the little vehicle that that you've built. Well, mine has, you know, three different shooters that can, you know, and so then it becomes like a little more competitive and collaborative at least in my house.
JVL00:11:14So look, I think we can all agree that the most important thing here. Regarding Legos and children is that we want them to play in whichever way keeps them fucking quiet for as long as possible. And if if free building keeps them quiet for longer than great if following instructions keeps them building for longer than great. We just are paying money for these little plastic pebbles to get them out of our hair for a couple hours.
Sonny00:11:42That's all I mean and this this goes to another point I have which is that I like Mike. My kids still cannot put together the thing properly without without without help which actually is more frustrating to me because I will like see I will see the pieces are in the wrong place. I'll be like you missed this step. Why didn't you put this here? Why is it here? And then they feel really bad and they're like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I failed you and I'm like I'm not smart enough dad should you should be sorry, but don't be sorry fix it. Make it make it right. So I would I wish I wish they could do I wish they would do more free play honestly because then. I can just be like, oh, that's nice instead of being like, no, this is wrong.
JVL00:12:21Ask for my help.
Sonny00:12:23Just do it. Just do it. Exactly. Just do it.
JVL00:12:26Well, oh nice transition.
Mike00:12:29That would be a nice transition, but we got to we're not ready to transit yet. Exactly. No transition yet JVL. What's going on? What's happening?
JVL00:12:37Oh, just trying to get through the downslope of our first high school baseball season. Yeah, which I've been reluctant to complain about here because you never know who's listening to what but done. It has been the worst experience we've ever had with baseball Wow fucking team is miserable. Most of the kids on the team are miserable and the coaches are utterly out of their depth and the you know, you hear a lot about how you know, if you had 17 and 18 year old baseball players and they did things like curse out an umpire at home plate and you were a coach, what would you do?
Mike00:13:24I'd say you say that again. And I'll I'll whoop your ass at practice next week, right?
JVL00:13:29I mean, there's a there's a threat to the play where you bench them right away, right? Because we have so easily. Yes, totally. Well, that that sort of thing happens every game and nothing ever happens. We had a this team just seven seniors on it and is playing 300 ball and they commit base running errors, which is the most like the if you're looking for a sign of a poorly disciplined team, look for base running errors, right? Because nobody should be screwing up running the bases in high school, right? Every single game. There's a base running error or more more than more than one or more and at the game earlier this week and one of the seniors commits. A horrible base running error and as he, you know, comes back into the dugout and one of the coaches starts lighting into him. This kid says, you know, shut the fuck up and walks away. And this coach responds by turning around to the kids who were on the bench, the dugout and screaming at them.
Guest00:14:35I don't ever want to hear you people talking to coach like as the kid who just told me
JVL00:14:41get fucking lost walks off with impunity. It's I've never seen anything like it. Is there a blackmail going on?
Sonny00:14:48Yeah, I don't understand why on here. Is it just they is it just a function of like not wanting to not not feeling comfortable benching the players because they're afraid they're going to lose. I don't what is what is caused this?
JVL00:14:59I don't know. I think it is just a I think it's a bad organ. I think it's a toxic organization and when you get bad organizations, this is the sort of thing that just happens everywhere. You know, there's you see organizational failures at every level and you see it in the the. In game management where the pitching changes are always made like an inning too late, you know, like it's obvious watching the game like when a pitcher needs to be pulled and they don't do it. You see, you know, they're still starting kids who are hitting like 120 on the season because they're seniors and you're like what what they the offense has been incredibly anemic and at the end of every game the coaches yell at them and the thing is the thing they said. They is, you know, you guys got to turn the offense on you guys got to like, you know, I don't know why we keep saying this to you and you don't do it and we don't know what we have to say to get through to you and it's it's like their vision is that hitting is a button and that the problem is the players are choosing not to press the hitting button and they simply need to be cajoled into pressing the button to get more hits. So it's the just make it strategy from it's just make hits just just make it what we're
Sonny00:16:15only going to make hits.
Mike00:16:16And anyway, it's it's been have you suggested the coaches that you know, they need to turn
JVL00:16:23on the coaching, you know that this is I have not I have not but but here is and here is what's here is what is is truly maddening and why this the season has been such a trial. It is one thing to be on a bad team. It is one thing to be in a bad organization. But to be on a bad team where both the players and the players parents all carry themselves as though they are the 1927. Yankees is fucking wild. I mean these the kids on this team are basically like the villains in every high school 99 in high school 90s movie, but in the high school 90s movie like they're the state champs and half of them are going on to play in college and these kids are like the gang couldn't shoot straight. But they're all a bunch of d-bags right and the parents like the chest puffing and the shouting from the state like they're the worst parents like you'll be there.
Mike00:17:26They're the bad news bears with the attitude of the Icelandic ice hockey team.
Sonny00:17:30I guess it sounds like you're describing to me as New Jersey.
JVL00:17:36No, we play a lot of New Jersey. We play all the New Jersey schools and we play some very good schools and they are not like very strange.
Sonny00:17:46It sounds like it's what it sounds to me is like there's a threat of implied violence against the coaches if some players aren't played, you know, and then the kids are out there, you know, just doing their strutting and you know, it is why is Tony the Piccolosi
JVL00:18:00still starting right? He's going to start. That's why it's going to start.
Mike00:18:05He's going to start every fucking game.
Sonny00:18:07I feel like I feel like there's a there's a undercurrent here of, you know, intimidation and bad bad attitude. I don't know.
JVL00:18:16So it's weird. So they so flash is the number three starter, even though he's the probably the best pitcher on the team and because they are they are so senior heavy and they insist on starting seniors. They they DH for him. They won't let him hit because that's a chance to get a senior and an at bat and then on days when he's not pitching, they tend to play him in the JV games and in JV. He's hitting like 850 with 16 stolen bases. Or like something obscene and it's weird. It's the whole thing is weird that none of it makes any sense. Did I tell you guys about the the gladiator games they did? No, no, they they had an incident. Maybe I shouldn't say this. I don't know. Well, I'll say this and you can cut it after the fact if you want that an incident pre practice where the lacrosse team and baseball team, the upperclassmen got together in the locker room one day and they selected a freshman. From each team and told these kids that they had to fight each other for their amusement. And if they didn't, then they were going to beat the shit out of them. And so like these two kids fought for the amusement of, of these kids and a teacher walks in on this and we get a series of emails from the athletic director and the coach and the principal and the priest who's the head of the school, but how, you know, this is, this is an incredibly bad incident. And we. Are going to get to the bottom of this and we take this stuff seriously and it is absolutely unacceptable. And I just assumed that people would be expelled for this sort of thing. Uh, not only was nobody expelled, uh, nobody missed a game, nobody missed practice. There were, there were zero consequences for this. And again, like I just look at that and it, this organizational, this screams like an organizational series of failures.
Sonny00:20:14And, uh, well, I mean, that's, that's on the. School. I, all, all the stuff you're describing is on the school. There, there, none of it should be adults, none of it. Yeah. Well, and the coach, right.
JVL00:20:22You know, a, a strong coach would not tolerate, but here's, here's what I'm saying. Like if, uh, if you tolerate kids doing gladiator games to each other in the locker room, then of course you're going to tolerate them coaching, cursing out rumps. Right. And of course you're not going to enforce discipline about running the bases. And right. Uh, and unless you are blessed with an unbelievable, you know, array of just natural stud athletes, you're going to play 300 ball.
Sonny00:20:46Well, I mean, I, I, the gladiator games, that doesn't bother me that much. I mean, it gets, it's gotta learn, it's gotta learn, uh, how to defend themselves at some point. But the, on the field stuff where winners and losers, that's, that's what, that's what matters and the failures on that level are simply unacceptable.
Mike00:21:04That's well, well, all right, well, listen, don't, I don't want to just continue talking about baseball, but we're having very similar issues.
JVL00:21:12JVL your kids also doing the gladiator stuff on the T-ball team.
Mike00:21:16It's. Really bad, you know, um, you know, four-year-olds telling me to, uh, you know, go fuck myself when I go fuck yourself coach, exactly. It's, it's, it's a problem.
JVL00:21:25And I guess it all comes back to me and stealing each other's goldfish in the dugouts, right? I bet you had a kid who threw an orange peel on the ground instead of even the trash can, and if you don't clamp that down and you bench that kid, maybe even like tell him to go cut himself a switch, then who knows where that leads? I mean, all. I do is scream and scream and scream until my voice is hoarse. Let me ask you about base running errors. Your kids don't ever commit base running errors. Do they Michael?
Mike00:21:55I guess you can't because you literally can not run more than one base per hit. So now, well, here's the thing about our baseball situation, which is, it's interesting to hear JVL that you guys are like on the, on the other side of the halfway point, I guess, for your, for your season, because we feel like both of our boys who are playing baseball haven't really started their seasons. So we've had a ton of rain as I'm sure you have in, in New Jersey, here in, in, in Northern Virginia. And so it has canceled games. It is postponed games. So we were supposed to have from Friday last to Monday, four games total, three double a games, three kid pitch games, and a T-ball game. We got one of those games in because of rain and not just rain, but like rain out, uh, sort of like rained out fields that were sort of flooded, you know, days after the rain, um, that's a whole other thing because you know, the, the little league manages the fields, but they're owned by the county, but the only reason that we're allowed to play on them is because we agree to manage them. But of course it's an all volunteer organization. It's a whole mess, but, uh, it is literally a mess sometimes. So like we've only played one kid pitch game this whole season.
JVL00:23:17That's amazing.
Mike00:23:18It's it's it, I feel bad. I like mispractices and all those things because of rain. So, um, hopefully we will be turning the page, but the season goes through, um, through June, you know, like mid June. So, um, we'll get through, but the T-ball game that we did play was great. It was fun. The I am, I don't know if I've talked about this before, but the S the struggle again is not enough kids touching the ball throughout the game. And kids just like, by the, we got to a third inning and by, by that point, nobody's paying attention. Like they, they are just turned around or like we have video of my, of my middle son getting a pretty good hit off the, off the T and like, then you look in the background and see what's going on with all the other players. And it's like, there's a one, the kid playing second base is like sitting in the dirt, looking toward the outfield, I am first base coach and the kid who's on first base is like pointing to the, the mascot, uh, of the team that they have a hanging in the, in the dugout. And I'm like, you could just see me like yelling at him, like, go run, run, run. The ball was hit. So, um, it's fun. T-ball's fun. It's, you know, but we got, I gotta, we gotta whip him to shape.
Sonny00:24:34This is how it all is with all these kids sports. So I like my, my son again is, is doing soccer again this year. Thankfully I'm not the coach. Uh, it's, it's all his little, little friends from, uh, pre-K. But like all of the kids, you know, there's one kid who is, is happy to dribble up and down the field and score goals and then all the other kids kind of stand around or sit on the ground or like hold hands and skip around. Like I w I don't understand. There's, there's very little point to, to child athletics. I don't, I don't entirely get what they're, what they're going for here, but, uh, it's, it's annoying. I don't, I just, I, I just want to skip ahead like five years. All right.
JVL00:25:15Can I, can I, before we move on now, you know what, I'm going to save my, before we move on to, uh, after the show, Doug, all right.
Mike00:25:24All right. They are teasing it. That is a good tease. Well, uh, we're talking about sports, so let's talk about, uh, this week's movie. And actually, before we talk about air, which is kind of a sport, it's not really a sports movie, but let's talk about the box office, the most important part of sports, which is the money, the money, the money of sports. But, but, but let's talk about the money of a movies first. Ooh, there we go. Um, so, uh, domestic box office, uh, for last weekend, what do we have? We've got the super Mario brothers movie still on top at number one, number two, evil dead rise number three. Are you there? God, it's me, Margaret. I, I don't understand. It's not making that much money, but it's there at number three. Um, I guess there's a re-release of return of the Jedi as well. Maybe I'm off base here. Maybe I'm not looking at the right numbers here.
Sonny00:26:15No, you're looking at the right numbers. The biggest movie in the country this weekend, uh, the number four biggest country or biggest movie in the country this weekend, I think was return of the return of 40, 40 year re-release of return of the Jedi. People want, people love to see those movies on the big screen. That's that's what, okay.
Mike00:26:30And number five, John wick chapter four. So, uh, box office thoughts on this, like what what's going on here, Sonny?
Sonny00:26:35Well, I mean, I, the, the biggest story is super Mario brothers movie, which is an enormous hit and has dropped. I think it's dropped like 33% the last two weekends. I mean, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's an enormous. Moneymaker it crossed a billion dollars this week. It's gonna, it's gonna keep me. It's again, it's gonna get to like $600 million domestic. It's just put, just putting up absurd, absurd numbers. Um, and I, I think it'll actually hold okay against guardians of the galaxy. Not necessarily this weekend. I think this will be like the first big drop, but starting next weekend, because the new guardians of the galaxy is not a good kids movie. Just gonna throw that out there now before we even start talking about it. It features a lot of animal torture and, uh, uh, character character gets his face ripped off like, uh, two face in the dark night. Like if you, if you, if you don't think that, uh, your kids should be looking at, uh, Thomas Jane's face half melted off, um, you should not, uh, let them go see guardians of the galaxy volume three, just FYI, duly noted. Um, nobody's gonna mention my Thomas Jane joke there. Fine.
JVL00:27:40Whatever way I was just thinking to myself, I was going, I know it's not, I was there with you thinking about it. I was like, wait a minute, Aaron Eckert, not Thomas Jane, but they look alike, wait a minute, it's Thomas Jane in garden.
Sonny00:27:53It's the same guy. They're the same person. I'm convinced. All right. Uh, all right. Um, uh, but no, I, I don't know. I don't know what else there is to say. Uh, well, this is like, well, this is like a weird time, right?
Mike00:28:06I mean, cause like we're, we're just before the summer releases and Mario was the only is really the only big movie that's that's come out. It's just, it just seems like more of the same, right? That's the long and short of it.
Sonny00:28:18Yeah. I mean the, the, uh, it's, it's good to see John wick for cross 400 million worldwide. It's, it's now the highest grossing John wick movie, but it has very much slowed down in comparison to, uh, the previous entry. So like previously in the John wick series, it was interesting. They, each, each box office entry had basically doubled and, uh, it is kind of plateaued. Uh, I think partly this is because the movie so long it's nearly three hours long. It's hard to, uh, it's hard to do the repeat business that some of the other ones did. Um, uh, but you know, what, whatever it is, what it is, it still has done very well. It's it'll more than make its money back.
JVL00:28:57Right. Um, I have a question for you both. Yeah. If, uh, if Disney were to take a new hope and fully restore it to its most perfect, pristine print, uh, and. And I don't mean like add more special effects bullshit. I mean, like just beautify it up and make a big to do about re-releasing it. Not just like a one weekend engagement, but as a like, Hey, we're gonna put this thing in theaters for you guys again and run it in the movie desert period that we have, I assume next year there will be right or don't we, we have a movie desert coming sunny one, one of your guests on basically after, yeah, after.
Sonny00:29:44I think after October it's or after the September, October, November stretch is gonna be pretty, pretty rough. Right.
JVL00:29:50So in one of those, which is now a thing we have, because we have fewer studios and the studios make fewer movies per year, so if Disney were to do that and put it in theaters as a real wide release, how much money do you think it could make? Geez.
Sonny00:30:08I don't know, but it could, I could see it doing 40 or 50 million. I, I don't know that it would be, I don't know.
Mike00:30:12Not a hundred couldn't get that high.
Sonny00:30:14I mean, I, I, they would, they would, it would have to be something more special than that. It would have to be something like. Come see the original. Yes. Unspecial edition version of Star Wars. Han shoot.
Mike00:30:26They did that. There's no Jabba. Yeah.
Sonny00:30:29If they, if they had done, if they did that, if they were like, come see the original theatrical with like premium format for the first time we've remastered it for IMAX, you know, it'll, it's in Dolby Atmos or whatever I think I, that could be that, that's the sort of thing that could do a hundred million, I think. But like, I do think there is a, there is a mild ceiling. I mean, look, the, the return of the Jedi did pretty well. I think it averaged almost $10,000 a screen this weekend. I mean, it, it did, it did very little promotion with very little promotion. I didn't even know.
JVL00:30:59Yeah.
Sonny00:30:59I, I was, I mentioned it on the show. You don't even pay attention to me. Uh, I, um, I, uh, I, I was, I wanted to take my family, but we couldn't, we just couldn't make it work with our schedules last weekend. They were super packed. Uh, so we, we, we didn't. End up going, um, but I totally would have taken, taken my kids if it had been playing at the, uh, my local draft house, which it wasn't, it was only playing at like AMC and cinema, which is interesting. I, I wasn't, I wasn't sure why that was happening anyway. Uh, I mean, I think you, you, you, you could make a lot of money off of that sort of thing, but it would have to be a, like, it would have to be like, we're, we're doing, we're, we're, we're de-specializing the we're, we're, we're
JVL00:31:40screwing George Lucas, I mean, just it's leaving money on the table. Right. It costs them almost nothing. Okay. All of a sudden we cost them very little, all things being equal and it would keep star Wars as a thing that people go to see in theaters, which it hasn't, right. People haven't seen a star Wars product in theaters for how many years now? And it's how many years off. Yeah.
Mike00:31:59But we get ours now, but we had book of Boba Fett. Okay. We had book of Boba Fett, I guess, Phil fills the gap. Here's my question though, and maybe this deserves like a, a bulwark goes to Hollywood treatment or something like that, but it, the, the whole concept of like re-releasing movies, it feels like if there's any time for it, it would be now, like, I remember growing up, you know, like they would re-release all the time, all the time, snow white and the seven doors was like in the theater. And like my mom took us to see it.
Sonny00:32:29But that was pegged to a very different media environment. I mean, I like star Wars, a new hope is on every household that would want to see it anyway, is instantly available in any household that wants to see it. Cause it's on Disney plus, um, in a, in four years. 4k HD, whatever, like it's, it's right there. So like you, you would, it would have to be a special thing. Um, and you know, I, I don't know exactly, I don't know exactly what.
Mike00:33:00You are like the, um, but the Alamo draft house, for instance, like does these very well. So, uh, you know, these sort of like special screenings. So maybe I'm thinking of it in terms of the way they promote it, which of course is not how most people go to see. Movies in the theater, but sure.
Sonny00:33:15No, I mean, look, I look, we're doing a, so we're doing an across the movie aisle thing at the crystal city Alamo draft house on Tuesday, May 16th, 7:30 PM. Six, six tickets left last I checked. Uh, but the we're doing it, we're doing it there and it is, I mean, like it's almost sold out now. Part of that is because we're, again, we're doing the live podcast thing. Like people are coming for that too, but like that's a 40 year old movie that I don't think is especially well beloved war games, like people, people like it. But like, but the draft house. The house does these, does these special events. They do, they do sell pretty well. Uh, and, um, you know, I'm, uh, I think you could, you could, you could do something like this for a new hope. Or anything else really you, but you, you have to give them a reason to come. That's the, that's the trick. You have to give them a reason to come beyond just like, come see it on the big screen. Now I look, star Wars is one of these things that has always mythically been best on the big screen. So like, you know, maybe, maybe that doesn't need as big a, as big a reason. That's some other stuff, but.
Mike00:34:15Well, all right, well, let's let, yeah, let's go down, down the domestic box office list for the movie we're here to talk about air, which is at eight on the box office list air, uh, a Amazon movie that is about to be available on Amazon prime after, uh, in like two weeks, I think.
Sonny00:34:34Yeah.
Mike00:34:34Yeah. After being in theaters, but, but for a limited time, I guess, uh, Sonny, let's, uh, let's get a big boy review of air.
Sonny00:34:42Well, it's interesting to think about. The business of this movie, because it ties very directly into the, to the actual theme of the film, which we'll get to in a second, but like, so this movie was made by, uh, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's company artists equity. It's like the, you know, the United artists for a new generation and their whole shtick is we're going to, we're going to make our money and we're going to distribute it amongst all the people who work on the project, we're going to give it to the, to the IATSE folks. And we're going to give it to the cinematographers and we're going to give it to the writers and we're all, we're all splitting this pie and it's great. Hooray for solidarity and like, all right, that's, that's all well and good, but the, the, this only there, there's a very limited universe in which this works the way it will work on this movie. So the way it worked on this movie was, uh, Amazon bought it for $90 million or something like that, and, uh, they, they are paying essentially everything upfront, all the residuals, et cetera. So they're buying out back ends and all that stuff, profit participation, et cetera. So. So that is what will be, that, that is what will be divvied up amongst the folks. Um, and, uh, you can, you can do that. Netflix has a whole model based on this. This is the red notice model, right? This is the, uh, the gray man model. This is, this is how they do it. Um, and what Amazon has done here, which I think is very smart is they put it in theaters and what you put it in theaters and there is a cost to putting something in theaters, there is a cost, uh, they probably spent 40 or $50 million on PNA, uh, but if you recoup that money in theaters, then what you have on your hands is an event movie that people will want to watch on streaming. Every single piece of data we have shows that a movie that plays in theaters does better on streaming. It just, that is, that is, that was true before the streaming revolution. Um, back when you would have a, you would simultaneously have movies that were released in theater day and date, they call it in theaters and on, um, VOD, uh, if you looked at that, if you back in, you know, 1999 or I'm sorry, back in 2019, 2018, if you looked at direct TV, you would see a tab on the, the pay-per-view, uh, area that was like in theaters now, and those movies always cost more money and they always did better. You did, you, you got, you got more sales and higher revenue off of something that was in, um, the in theaters now section on VOD, uh, and that translates to today movies that premiere, uh, this is, you can see it, especially on HBO max because HBO and Warner brothers have such a close relationship, obviously, uh, right. The, the movies that play in theaters do better when they hit streaming. This is true on Disney plus the movies that play in theaters do better when they hit streaming. This is just a, just like a truest a equals a, this is, this is a fact. Um, so what, what Amazon and what artists equity have done here is very smart. They, I mean, what artists equity has done is very, very smart. Uh, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, they, they got a shitload of money up front. The, the box office returns didn't really matter that much. Um, even though they've been fine, I mean, this movie is going to make somewhere between 90 and a hundred million worldwide, which is not good for a movie that costs $90 million, but that doesn't actually matter because where this, what Amazon bought this for is to put on prime video for it to be a, for it to be a thing that will be on prime video, maybe it gets some award season buzz because people like Ben and Matt, I don't know. Um, but we'll see, uh, anyway, the, the, the, the point here is that, uh, this ties very much to the, the big theme of the film, so the big theme of this movie, which is about the efforts by Nike to woo Michael Jordan and, uh, have him be their first huge, uh, basketball star, save the entire basketball line of shoes at Nike, which had been struggling, um, uh, is kind of summarized at the end. When Viola Davis is talking to, uh, uh, Viola Davis who plays Michael Jordan's mother is talking to Matt Damon, who plays Sonny Vaccaro, who's the, the basketball shoe guy at, uh, Nike. And she says, you know, every once in a while, somebody comes along and changes the business changes, changes how things are distributed, blah, blah, blah. And that is what this company is trying to do. They are trying to change the business of Hollywood. And this whole movie you could think of as a two hour advertisement for changing the business of Hollywood for, for giving. Giving the artists more, giving the artists more money. Um, and it helps it as an exceptionally well done movie. I mean, look, it, it is just entertaining as shit from start to finish. Uh, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are great. Ben Affleck's, uh, he is, he is the bear that dances of our moment. He is a very fine director, uh, who was, who is an actor as well. Um, uh, he is, uh, the, the movie, the movie tells a story that should be boring and dumb and dull, which is how do you get a basketball player who, uh, is not a professional to sign a contract. And it is entertaining as shit. It's really, it's really well-written. It's really, uh, zips along. It doesn't outstay its welcome at about 110, 115 minutes, whatever it is. Um, and it's just, it's just, it's just good. It's a, it's a good, fun movie. I think people, uh, have really taken a shine to it. It is holding very well at the box office. Um, uh. And yet I, I don't, I, I, I say this and I'm only half joking is that I love these movies about, I love these brand movies. I love this movie about Tetris and how great Tetris and Nintendo are and how the, the, there are no borders on a good idea. And we're gonna, we're gonna get everybody into the business and everybody's gonna succeed when, when one person does well, we all do well, right? That when we all do well, everybody does well. Rising tide lives all boats. Yeah. And that's the same thing here. This is a brand movie. It's a movie about a brand. It's a movie about a bunch of rich guys who are gonna get richer and everybody's happy at the end. And I love that. I love that. It is so self-serving. It is so, it is, the whole thing is so incredibly self-serving down to the title card at the end where, uh, I, I assume this had to have been a writer from Phil Knight to get his participation. Two billion dollars. There's a title card at the end. And out of nowhere, just out of nowhere that says Phil Knight has donated $2 billion to charity. And I was like, what, what does that have to do with anything? What does that have to do with anything? It doesn't have anything to do with anything except to say, Hey, you know, what's good is when we make money, when we make money, everybody gets money in order to, in order to fund it with our profits.
JVL00:41:34Mr. Wayne, they have to be some profits, be some profits.
Sonny00:41:38And so again, I like there's, there's this, there's this. Element of there's this element, there's this very surface element of like progressivism. Like we're doing this for the workers, blah, blah, blah, but that is a lie. That's actually a lie. So like the truth of the Nike, Michael Jordan negotiations was they came to Jordan. They were like, we will give you a piece of every shoe. We sell, we will give you, we'll give you a piece of every shoe we sell and you will make lots of money that way. And that is, that is how they got him. And by reversing that, by having the worker be like, I demand a piece of the pie and the Nike people are like, Ooh, I don't know. They are, they are trying again, it's, this is a, this is not a movie about basketball shoes. It's a movie about Hollywood. It's a movie made by two of the most popular people in Hollywood saying to Hollywood, you will pay us more money and you'll be happy to do it because we're going to make you your dumb streaming shit and people are going to watch it. And, uh, but you got to give us, you got to give us the cash. It's an exceptionally interesting movie to come out right now, right ahead of the writer's guild strike. It is, um, again, it helps that the movie is very fun and it's. It's good and it's entertaining, but it is, it is an absolute masterpiece of corporate propaganda. Um, and I, I, I find it, I find it, I find it, I find it totally interesting and fascinating on that level as much as anything else. Well, that's all I got for you.
Mike00:42:58Yeah, I'm, I guess I hate this movie now. Like, I don't know, like I, I had the same reaction, but like, now that you put it that way, I, uh, I see it a different light JVL. What did you think of air?
JVL00:43:11You know, I liked the first half of it quite a lot and I, I liked the second half, not a lot. And I, so first of all, I think it is possible that we are in a moment where, uh, brand movies could become the new comic book movies. And so we could think of like the Steve jobs movie and the social net and social network as like the blade, you know, the early proof blade and the first X-Men with Hugh Jackman, early concept. And now we have Blackberry and Tetris and air, and you know, who knows in a couple of years, we could have a pogs movie or maybe even a Marvel movie, a movie about Marvel and how Marvel was born. Right. And then, then we could move on from forget brands. What about movies about things? Do you remember that there was a rash in the publishing world, like 20 years ago, books like salt. Yes. Like the history of salt or even they could do, they could do the egg, right? The egg could be a movie or work with me here. Vodka, the movie.
Mike00:44:21Whoa.
JVL00:44:22Oh, Oh, what do you think? This is where we need to be headed. I, I love it. So here's what I didn't like about it. Uh, so there is, you know, the, the degree of difficulty challenge in taking a story that everybody knows how it ends is. Is introducing tension to it. And the third act of this movie is all offstage tension, which we, the audience don't buy it. The tension is, well, will, will Michael Jordan take their offer or not? And so we get montages of Sonny Vaccaro walking around, staring at pigeons in the sky and, you know, and having drinks and what we, the audience is supposed to be like, oh no, he's really tense about whether or not Michael Jordan will accept the offer. I guess I should feel tense about whether Michael Jordan will accept the offer, but, but none of that works because we're already done. Like the, the highlighted Tetris movie is, uh, like a car chase, right? And, and so that's, we don't know how that car chase ends. We know how Tetris ends. We know that we all get to play Tetris on our game boy, but we don't know how the car chase ends and here there is no action, right? The, the central tension is all just this thing happening off screen while Michael Jordan is considering the offer. And so the movie. Flates over the course of this, really the whole second half, but really the third act. And I came, you know, in thinking a lot about my disappointments with air, I think that it was misconceptionalized and it should have been a heist movie. And so, so this should have been a movie in which this misfit group of thieves, which is where Sonny Vicar was. Our protagonist, even though he's not the boss and Phil Knight is like the underboss who he reports to. And then they've got this eccentric shoe designer with a lisp. And then you have Jason Bateman who was just kind of like everybody's buddy and that they, they are basically going to pull an ocean's 11 on the greatest basketball player who has ever lived to get that guy to sign with their struggling company. And that becomes a much more interesting movie because you can then sustain the interest, like how does the heist work? Right. And this starts out with a little bit of that, but then begins splitting its focus to the Jordan family and giving more and more focus away to the Jordan family as it goes. I, I enjoyed the choice to not ever let Michael Jordan himself be seen on screen, or I think even speak, they may have somebody do his voice at one, you know, in, in one moment, but only one, I liked that choice, but I don't like. Splitting the photo again, just as a piece of narrative storytelling, I think it derails the, the third act of the movie. I like the references. I was annoyed by the constant needle drops of the, just like, we're just gonna throw mid eighties songs at you over and over for no reason other than to remind you that this is a mid eighties movie. I hated that. And I did feel very, very old in the beginning because it begins with a montage of eighties things. Yes. And I understood and recognized. And remember in real time, literally every single one of them, there was not a single moment where I had to think, hold on. And what was that from where, and that was, oh, made me feel old. I don't know. Did you guys like that? I also Sonny Vaccaro is a fucking pimp. That's the other thing. So Sonny Vaccaro is absolutely famous within the entire basketball industry to the point where in the, in the early 1990s as a college student who just happened to follow basketball quite a lot. I knew who Sonny Vaccaro was right? It isn't like he was some faceless guy at Nike who know, like if you knew anything about basketball, you fucking knew who Sonny Vaccaro was because he was an emblem of everything that was wrong with the industry. This is a guy who's running around trying to bribe high school kids and pushing the legality of what they could do and risking their college eligibility, uh, all because he's trying to influence and make a buck. Right? And this recasting of him as if he's fucking like Cesar Chavez or something, uh, the hero to the workers, I was blown away by the dishonesty of that.
Sonny00:48:53That's the whole movie though. The whole movie is saying, again, the whole movie is a re-imagining of this, uh, this corporation as like friend of the worker, you know, you know, who, you know, who benefits when Nike benefits all everyone. From the players to the charities, all of society. It's interesting. I don't know.
JVL00:49:16I mean, you know, like Sonny Vaccaro would be in the projects handing out shoes and going to like the corrupt AAU coaches and giving them money. Right. This is the other thing. Like he wasn't just giving out shoes to high school. He was going to the AAU coaches to the high school coaches. He was basically bribing them so that they would then exert influence over the kids who were. We were playing for them with it.
Mike00:49:42When I say pimp, pimp is not too strong a word for what this guy was doing, but instead it's, it's Matt Damon, you know, America's Matt Damon looking schlubby, you know, with the gut hanging over the belt and like looking kind of like a sad sack, right? Like that first, that first scene where he's like sitting in the high school gym, like he looks like a guy who, you know, is just one more dog. Yeah. One more slip away from falling, falling, falling by the way.
JVL00:50:10So he's almost like Shelly from, uh, when Gary Glen Ross, you know, he's not doing anything wrong. Gene, he just needs the good leads. Put that coffee down.
Mike00:50:20Uh, yeah. So I had a different view than you JV. I'm a little more on Sonny's side in terms of being entertained throughout, throughout, because I, for the second half, because the first half is very entertaining.
JVL00:50:33All the business with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck together, Sonny Vaccaro, Phil Knight stuff in, you know, in the office. Going at each other is fabulous. The David Falk stuff is fabulous.
Mike00:50:43Falk stuff is great, but I don't know, like, I just view this in terms of tension as like, it's an actor movie, right? It's like actors saying lines in these scenes where they're going back and forth. And, um, I don't know. I, my takeaway is it's a hangout movie.
Sonny00:50:59It's a hangout exactly what I enjoy doing. I like hanging out with, uh, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and like the weirdo shoe designer guy. And like, I just, I enjoy being. Around all of them. It's, it's like being in a workplace that doesn't suck.
Mike00:51:14That's right. That's, that's how I felt. And even the scene, I mean, my favorite scene was actually the one, it's probably about, about a third of the way. It's probably the beginning or maybe the end of the second act, beginning of the third act where, uh, Jason Bateman and, uh, and, and Matt Damon, Sonny Vaccaro are talking like the night before the meeting and they're in, they're in the office. And they have this like moment, uh, which I thought was very, it was very well done by Jason Bateman as a, like as an actor, um, where he sort of lays out to Sonny Vaccaro, like what's on the line for him. You know, he's got this daughter that he never sees. And I, I just, I loved that. I, I just thought it was like the, the movie kind of moved from conversation to conversation in a way that I just wanted it to keep going. So I was not, I didn't feel like it dragged in the second half of the movie. I agree that it did sort of. Reorient toward the Jordan family, but I found Viola Davis as, as Michael Jordan's mother terrific. I, I've never quite understood Viola Davis as a, like what, what, what the appeal is, but I also don't think I've seen her in a lot of movies. Like the movies she's been in are not movies that I've seen before, uh, a lot of, uh, before. So to see her do this. And I thought, I always thought Viola Davis was kind of like, if there was a hit against her, is that she was sort of an over-actor, but I did not, I did not pick up on that at all in this movie. It was very sort of understated in, um, and she sort of is like the center of the movie in a lot of ways. So I dunno, I, I enjoyed it. Uh, again, my unsophisticated view, I was having a good time the whole time I was loving the eighties tunes. Like they were, it was, it was, it was great. It was a fun, it was a fun hang.
JVL00:52:58Uh, I, I thought casting Jay Moore as the unctuous German, just American thing of the German was funny. Yeah, that was, I did not casting.
Mike00:53:09I did not realize it was Jay Moore until the second. And I think the last time he was on screen, like the first time I was like, who is that? And the second time I was like, oh, that that's Jay.
JVL00:53:19That's Bob sugar. Thanks. Uh, yeah, I don't, I don't know. I, again, the, the second, the first half I liked so much and I, I really, the script is very tight. The dialogue is very, very catchy. They sort of go the extra mile to make jokes land. And then the second half, I just felt like the whole movie.
Mike00:53:39Deflated did you, um, I did feel like they got a lot of the way people talk about basketball or, or sports who are not like actually playing it very well. And there was that great sort of bookend scene, uh, scenes where he goes into the seven 11 at the end of the movie, Sonny Vicar does to the, to the same kid who was here. Yeah. Who, who at the beginning or near the beginning of the movie is, uh, is, you know, again, this is taking place in Oregon. So, uh, he's a Portland trailblazers fan and he's glad at the beginning of the movie that they did not draft Michael Jordan, you know, uh, Jordan's not going to do it.
JVL00:54:18Yeah, that's right.
Mike00:54:19That's right. And, uh, and, and at the, uh, at the end of the movie, you know, it's, it was so perfect because how many conversations have you had with people like that? Like where it's all of a sudden he's going, I was saying from the beginning, I was saying we should have gotten Jordan, which we know he did not. I just, I thought that was such a, that was such a very true topic. To life. And there were just moments like that again, it was, it was a great character work and, and, um, and I loved the other whitewash that's going on here.
JVL00:54:48Cause as, as you say, this entire thing is, is propaganda and it's propaganda for everybody. And including for Jordan, who is, I mean, he's not Ty Cobb. He hasn't murdered anybody that we know about, but in terms of, you know, uh, character guys in sports. Absolutely not one of the people that like, we, we want the kids to be like, he's, he's a very, very bad human being. And, uh, you know, I, I don't know, man, really interesting.
Sonny00:55:24I mean, I like a winner. He's a killer. He's a, he's a, he's a winner. He is. That's all. So is LeBron James.
JVL00:55:31LeBron isn't like that. So is Roger Federer. Roger Federer is not like that.
Sonny00:55:34LeBron James has his own character issues. Uh, the, the, I mean, I like. I, I would, I don't, I don't, I like, I, I've never been bothered by Michael Jordan's sociopathy, but I was also a Kobe Bryant. I'm not bothered.
JVL00:55:46I'm not bothered by it, but I do not like whitewashes of it because I don't think you can understand Jordan without the sociopathy.
Sonny00:55:54Yeah. Well, yeah, but the movie's not actually about basketball. Again, the movie is, this is not a basketball movie. It's a, it's a, it's a movie about how great. It's a movie about how great. White collar office corporations are. In reality and how they make dreams happen. That's, that's what this movie is about.
JVL00:56:13Yeah, just like Tetris, just like Tetris. I'm excited for Blackberry because I assume that Blackberry will be a corporate. Implosion movie.
Sonny00:56:23Maybe I think it's, I think it's more of a black comedy. Uh, my understanding, I haven't actually seen it yet, but my understanding is that it's more of a black comedy than that.
Mike00:56:31That's what the trailer looks like. It has a sort of rise and fall and yeah, black comedy. Speaking of brand movies, by the way, did you guys, I just saw this. Like earlier this week, apparently there's going to be a, a movie about the run-up to the first episode of Saturday Night Live.
JVL00:56:48Like a movie, which like it's another brand movie.
Mike00:56:51I love it's another brand movie. And it's like, but it's also so, I mean, it reminded me of what the elevator pitch for this movie would be, which is like, how can that be interesting? How can like a bunch of actors and, and like set designers and makeup artists, like getting ready for a show be interesting. But.
JVL00:57:09I'm sure, I'm sure it will be, we need a, we will tell you how we need a fictionalized, not a documentary, but a fictionalized we work movie and it could be hysterical, right?
Sonny00:57:17Make it a black comedy show. There's a, there's a, we work TV show with, uh, um, Jared Leto is Adam Newman. I did not know that it's on Apple TV. I think it's on Apple TV plus. It's not, I don't know. I watched like two episodes of it. It wasn't, I, and then I stopped. So it wasn't that good. Uh, no, but you know how you make the SNL story interesting. It's very easy, simple drugs. Drugs, there's so much drugs, just endless rivers of drugs. That's how you make that story. Interesting drugs. And also Lorne Michaels, who's just in just a hilarious figure standing there around, around all these drugs.
Mike00:57:55So while we're, let's go back to air real quick here. I mean, what do we think you mentioned Sonny, uh, about Ben Affleck sort of being the dancing bear at the moment. I mean, this is a, um, I. I thought a well-directed movie from, I, I guess I'm not up on all of what Ben Affleck's been making for the past couple of years, but I also made Argo.
Sonny00:58:18He made Argo, uh, and, uh, which was okay. I mean, yeah, he made the town, the town. I mean, I like, I like Ben Affleck fine as a director, but it's a, it's a, it's an old, it's an old, uh, William Goldman that I believe where he, he, he always would be like vaguely annoyed at the acclaim that Clint Eastwood got as a director. Right. Because his, the argument being that like, yes, Clint Eastwood is competent, but like, and great. I'm glad that he's competently making movies, but acting like he's the greatest director of all time, just because he, he was an actor first is, is, you know, kind of, um, foolish. And like, I, this is, and this is what the, this is what the dancing bear is like. The, the bear doesn't dance particularly well, but you're so excited to see a bear dancing. You're like, look at that dancing bear. Look at it. That bear is dancing. Can you believe it? Can you believe it? That bear is doing a jig right now. And like, that's, that's how, that's how Ben Affleck gets treated sometimes. That said, I mean, I like, I like, I like, uh, I like air a lot. I like, uh, uh, the town a lot. I liked, uh, uh, Argo a great deal. Uh, like it's, it's, uh, he's he, and the, the interesting thing about some of his earlier movies where he was also the star is that he is often as the star, the kind of like black hole at the center of the movie, not necessarily saying he's the black. At the center of the movie in Argo, but he's definitely like the least charismatic part of, of this, but in this movie where he is like the comic relief, the kind of serial comic relief, he's actually perfect. It's like, that is, that is actually the perfect way for him to direct himself in a movie like this.
Mike00:59:54Um, so anyway, I guess, I guess I'm wondering if when, when Damon and Affleck burst onto the scene, if it was, it always understood that, that of the, of the two of them, Affleck would be the one going behind the camera. Or because I don't think that this used to be a big joke.
Sonny01:00:12There's like a fam, there's a famous, there's a family guy. Yes. That's what family guy jokes where, uh, Matt Damon and Ben, it's like a flashback, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are writing the script for Goodwill hunting. And Matt Damon is like, you know, hunched over, going over every word and he's, he's, he's, he's banging it out. And like Ben Affleck sitting on the couch, laying there, like throwing, you know, spitting up in the air and having catching it back in his mouth or something. And like, he's like, all right, now just put my name on there too, Matt, come on. And Matt's like, no, come on. I wrote the whole thing. I. You, you didn't have anything to do with this. It was all me. And, but like, I think, I think, I think time has shown that, I mean, I don't, I don't think anybody thinks Matt Damon is a dummy or anything, but like, I think time has shown that Ben Affleck is actually the more accomplished writer director of the two. Yeah.
JVL01:00:53I don't think anyone's the more accomplished and the more durable movie star at Damon's the movie star. Ben Affleck is the director. Yeah, right. Right.
Mike01:01:03By the way, the, the, the joke in that family guy thing is Matt Damon challenges Ben Affleck. To write a line and Ben Affleck lifts his leg and farts is there there's there's a line. So thank you.
Sonny01:01:14Thank you for, thank you.
Mike01:01:15That was, that was, that was, well, that was my impression of, of, uh, Ben Affleck basically up until I started paying.
Sonny01:01:21I, yes, no, I think that's, I think that's the, I think that is, that was the generally accepted wisdom until I don't know, the mid, mid 2000 and then started directing movies.
?01:01:30All right.
Mike01:01:31Any other thoughts on air or Jordan or air Jordans? Um, did, did you guys ever have air Jordans?
Sonny01:01:37Do we, why don't we, why don't we talk about shoes in a bonus episode? You guys want to do shoe talk?
Mike01:01:42I'll do some shoe talk. Sure. Hot shoe talk. All right. Uh, well that is all the time we're going to give then to this episode. Sub beacon.com. You can come, uh, become a patron, listen, comment, uh, hear those bonus episodes. If you become a patron at sub beacon.com, you could follow Sonny Bunch Bunch at Sonny Bunch on Twitter, uh, at Michael R Warren for me on Twitter, JVL, not on Twitter, or you are on Twitter, but we're not referencing your Twitter account. Don't follow him. Okay. Uh, and, uh, we will see you next time.
JVL01:02:25So, uh, I am reading the encyclopedia Brown books to G money.
Mike01:02:32Ah, did either of you guys, did you guys do encyclopedia Brown?
JVL01:02:37Yes, that was not a thing for me. Not a thing for you.
Sonny01:02:40Wow. That's interesting.
JVL01:02:41Uh, so encyclopedia Brown, for anybody who does not know, they are books with very short stories. It's like a six page story and it ends encyclopedia. Brown is the kid detective, right? Uh, but he's the real kid detective, not, not the Adam Brody kid detective. And it ends with encyclopedia saying, I know who the thief is. And then you're supposed to figure out how encyclopedia knows this. And it says, okay. Uh, you know, turn to page 93 to find out how encyclopedia knew. And the, the, the trick when you are a child is that you are supposed to try to think the whole way through and figure it out. I have, I have two observations as a kid. I was often vaguely annoyed by these books because it struck me that the solutions that encyclopedia hit on were, uh, we're basically unknowable. And that the only person who could know that this is how encyclopedia figured out this case is the author, right? And that, that you could not. And, but you know, I was seven years old when I was reading these things and who am I to really judge? And I have not revisited them until now. And now I can tell you, absolutely. This is the case. Yeah. I would say in more than half of these as a magic trick, there is no way for you to reading it to logically deduce. It's always facts, not in evidence, right? It's, you know, Well, actually, as they were standing there, encyclopedia looked out the window and saw moss growing on the tree. And he realized that boss only grows on our side of the story. Anyway, uh, but the other thing is, so I, uh, we bumped up on a story last, last night in which encyclopedia brown was, uh, confronted by a boy, a local boy in his town, Idaville, and the boy shows up to encyclopedia garage wearing only a green towel. And this boy is described as the best dressed boy in all of Idaville. And he has a name that is something like Thurgood Winston jr. The third or something like that. Uh, and he is very, very into fashion as a 10 or 11 year old boy. And he makes a lot of snide remarks about what people are wearing. And colors clashing. And, uh, he, he, in fact, in the course of this, this mystery has gone to watch a new girls football team so that he can critique their uniforms. And while, while doing this, he was accosted by one of the girl football players. So we, and cycle, he hires encyclopedia Brown encyclopedia Brown takes him. They go over to talk to the girl football players and. And the girl football player denied what Mr.
Sonny01:05:39I'm sorry. What mystery are they trying to solve?
JVL01:05:41Yeah. What is the mystery here? Unimportant. And don't worry about the mystery. Okay. But, uh, the girl football player in denying that she has assaulted young Thurgood explains to encyclopedia. I don't hit sissies. What was the copyright on this book? So I did, I did think to myself. As I was reading it, wow, that's, that's really something that's amazing.
Sonny01:06:14You know, it's so it's interesting. I growing this, maybe this is going to get me in trouble.
JVL01:06:20And the characters are 10 years old, right? Right.
Sonny01:06:23Like the characters are not, can I, can I just say, I, when I was growing up, I never understood sissy to mean homosexual. Uh, I always thought it just meant like. Uh, like, I don't know, like we'll see. Yeah. Like we'll see.
JVL01:06:41Like, and I, I present this to you again. I had the same thing as a child. I believe that that's, but as a grownup reading this, seeing sissy paired with the, all of the exposition about him and clothing and fashion, like then it was, it is a hundred percent clear. They are calling this 10 year old kid. Gay, right?
Sonny01:07:04Well, but this is, but I think. I think that that is that, which I mean, the author is describing him, right. No, but I think, I think this is what, what like people, the generations before us meant when they said sissy was like, look at this, look at this gay over here, but like, it's very, it's, it's just interesting how words change because when I was growing up, that is not what sissy meant to me at all. Like sissy just meant like, just meant like, ah, what's you get, put, rub some dirt on it, baby. You know, if you started crying or something, cause you skin your knee, like I, like I. I never, I literally, until I was like in my thirties, I never actually picked up on like what the word actually meant, but like, I, but what you are describing right now is like essentially how it is essentially like how I was like, oh, wait, that word, that word means a feminine homosexual. I did not realize that until this moment.
JVL01:07:55The other thing is again, and as I was again, as an adult in 2023, America reading this, I thought to myself, this is a very strange description of a type of child. Who I really don't think exists. It's like, I don't think there are look gay men were 10 year old boys at one point. Sure. I don't know that a ton of them basically presented themselves as if they were 35 year old Queens.
Mike01:08:18Which is what this child character is presented, but it sounds like it sounds like there's, it's almost a mashup with like kind of waspiness and kind of dandy dandy, right. Which is not necessarily, it does not like connect homosexuality. It's just, it's like, oh, well, he's. Well, he's rich and like foppish, but not, it's a odd thing, but the whole thing was weird and uncomfortable, but you know, I find these like kids books from earlier eras. So bizarre, I, speaking of, of mystery books. Um, so yes, uh, my oldest has been reading encyclopedia Brown. He's also been reading, uh, the boxcar children, mystery books. Um, and we have read a few of the Hardy boys books, which are like, the Hardy boys, the Hardy boys are weird though, because there are, you know, there are like two versions of the Hardy boys books. There were the ones that, you know, and I know, and that most of us have read who are like alive today. And those are like the, those are the bowdlerized versions of the Hardy.
Sonny01:09:18The ones that were written in like the 1980s.
Mike01:09:21Yeah. Or actually more like the fifties and sixties. They were rewritten from the original ones from the twenties.
JVL01:09:26Oh, I didn't know that.
Mike01:09:28Yes. And in which there were, um, like it was much darker and much kind of, um, like the, the people, I mean, some of it was rewritten even in the fifties. It's interesting. They were kind of writing out some of the kind of out at that time, outdated bigotries from the twenties, which is like kind of odd to think about because that seems to be what we're doing.
JVL01:09:48Hey, Joe, that's one of the Chinaman, right?
Mike01:09:51Not quite, not quite that, but like lots of like anti-Italian stuff that they like got out, uh, from Frank. For one of those greasers has shown up in our street. Exactly.
Sonny01:10:01But then there's a little mix drunk again.
Mike01:10:04Exactly. But there's like these little vestiges of it in the, cause like they weren't like done very well anyway. But, but also just like, there was like a lot more violence and the ones that you and I, we all know are the reason they're kind of like weird and tame and plot wise don't always work well, which I have found and rereading them is because they literally like chop them up in order to resell them in the fifties and sixties and they're, and they're on. So like plot points are like missing because they, cause, cause you know, yeah, the, the, the drunk Mick, uh, who crashed his car, uh, uh, you know, into the jalopy, like, you know, that's all gone.
JVL01:10:39So that's so funny that you said, because I reading the fifties and sixties versions of the books to me, the single most anachronistic part of them is the way in which the adults countenance all of the violence. And so a typical thing that will happen in a Hardy's boy book is Joe and Frank will sit down at dinner and they will explain to their mom that. Over the course of the day, uh, somebody threw a grenade into their lab and then they were up in an aircraft with their buddy who was on it and people were firing machine guns at them and so they have to leave town for a while until the heat cools down and their mother's response to this will be you boys. Be careful and it literally is like machine guns and grenades and stuff and, and the mother and told that these, you know, the 16 and 17 year old boy are gonna have to get out of town. So, so that this army of people who are trying to murder them, it's like, oh, you be careful. And that's the thing. It isn't that they don't have phones, right? It's the, the parental and adult response to the children and day child endangerment that you read it. You think, okay, well, this just doesn't make any sense.
Mike01:11:54Make America great again, you know, sure.
JVL01:11:58It's fine.
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