#188. 'Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse'
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Sonny gives Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse a rave, walking through its plot at length (the film is really a Gwen Stacy story bookending a Miles Morales adventure about a "canon" of Spider-Man tragedies that Miles refuses to accept) before declaring it one of the most visually inventive animated movies he's ever seen — a collision of a hundred styles, from Spider-Punk's Sex Pistols-collage frame-rate trickery to watercolor and anime — even as he flags that the plot logic undercuts its own anti-trauma thesis and predicts the sequel will cheat its way out by pinning everything on a canon-obsessed Miguel O'Hara. JVL loved it unreservedly, calling it very funny and epic even if it doesn't work as well for kids as the first film. Mike, by contrast, admits the dazzling visuals mostly left him lost — he couldn't track the multiverse mechanics or why Gwen Stacy suddenly mattered more than MJ — and gets ribbed by Sonny for becoming the show's "multiverse new Vic," suffering the trauma of not understanding a comic-book movie. All three agree the studio's decision to drop "Part One" from the title was a bait-and-switch that primed audiences to boo the cliffhanger ending. The long opening banter covers JVL's report from Flash's Perfect Game showcase tournament (eye-opening level of 15U talent, but Flash hurt his elbow after just 30 pitches and faces a Tommy John scare); Mike's confession that he'd been paying $10.99 a month for Netflix's DVD-by-mail service since 2009 and only now canceled it after finding two forgotten discs, The Lives of Others and Logan, that had sat unwatched at his house for four years (prompting merciless math from Sonny and JVL on the effective per-movie cost); and Sonny's saga of attending the Dallas Fan Expo to co-host "Bootleg Safari" with Aaron Reynolds, where an impulse eBay buy of a giant Shattered Glass subway poster has him agonizing over whether to pay Hayden Christensen $150 to sign it.
From the show notes
A multiversal rift within the Sub-Beacon? Could be!
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Miles, being Spider-Man is a sacrifice. You have a choice between saving one person and saving every world. Send me home. I can't do that. I can do both! Spider-Man, always. Not always. What about Uncle Ben? If not for Uncle Ben, most of us wouldn't be here. You can't run forever, kid. I can't lose one more friend. Your doubt isn't what we talked about. You knew it? I had no idea what you're doing!
Mike00:00:47Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. I am joined, as always, by my two fellow co-hosts, Jonathan V. Lastaign and Sonny Bunch.
Sonny00:00:59I love that. I love the phraseology that we've built into this. The questions about who is co-hosting and hosting.
Mike00:01:08Well, I got, somebody got onto me in the comments about, you should really make sure that you indicate that they are your co-hosts, that you are not like some, I don't know. Interloper? Exactly, I don't know.
Sonny00:01:21See, but I feel like now JBL and I have been downgraded to your level, which is wrong. I don't think so, I don't think so. I feel like we're being dragged into the muck, into the Mike Warren, mulchy muck.
Mike00:01:35So, I should be sort of like deferential to Sonny and JBL?
Sonny00:01:40I think you should probably be, you know. Is this an okay intro, sirs? Just be like, you know, I'm here out of the kindness of JBL and Sonny's heart.
Mike00:01:52Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am just your host, Jonathan V. Bunch.
?00:01:55Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am just your host, Jonathan V. Bunch. Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am just your host, Jonathan V. Bunch.
Mike00:01:55Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am just your host, Jonathan V. Bunch. Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am just your host, Jonathan V. Bunch. Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am just your host, Jonathan V. Bunch. Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am just your host, Jonathan V. Bunch. Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am just your host, Jonathan V. Bunch. Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am just your mere sub-level co-host, and I'm joined so graciously.
JVL00:02:02The intern, you know, Flounder from Elliot in the Morning.
Sonny00:02:06Flounder. Hey, you like that? God, Jesus.
JVL00:02:09Is that a good deep cut for you, Sonny?
Sonny00:02:12No, that's a good one. No, the other one is Chad Dukes. Remember Chad Dukes? Who was like an intern on the Don and Mike show. Who was an intern on the Don and Mike show who, or not Don and Mike. Maybe it was Don and Mike. He was either an intern on the Don and Mike show or an intern with the Sports Junkies who then got like upgraded to producer and then got his own show. And then he got fired for racism. He got fired from 106.7 from some mild racism on his podcast. Which is why I always say on this show, we need to keep the racism to a real low-key level. We got to be a real subtle. I'm not trying to get fired from any of my great jobs.
Mike00:02:52There we go. There we go. Well, look, look. Like Chad Dukes. Chad Dukes. I mean, that's a tale as old as time in terrestrial radio, really. I mean, how many interns to radio hosts have been fired for racism? Look, can we just move on with the show, please? Because I don't like the direction this show is already going.
Sonny00:03:11I'm sorry. The way you keep saying with my fellow co-hosts, I feel, I don't know, man. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. All right. I'll stop. I'm sorry.
Mike00:03:23Sonny, do you want to moderate this thing? No, I don't. I don't at all.
Sonny00:03:28You're really helping us out.
Mike00:03:30So keep your yapper shut until I call on you.
Sonny00:03:34As my fellow co-host, Mike Warren.
Mike00:03:38We are going to be talking about, I feel like we've gone into another universe in the multiverse here in this conversation. We are going to be talking about Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse. A little bit. A little later in the show. But first, let's talk about our weekends, our weeks. What the hell is going on? You know what? Not you, Sonny. JVL. Let's hear from you first.
JVL00:04:01I, uh, you know, ah, okay.
Sonny00:04:09What are you trying to spit out here?
JVL00:04:11I was good. So I was going to, do you guys want a report from a showcase baseball? Yes, we do. Because this is one of those things where you hear the urban legends about like, oh yeah, well, there's this one strip club where, you know, the champagne room is all gold and the girls all look like Jessica Chastain or something. Right. And you think, oh, it's not real.
Sonny00:04:36They're all five feet tall.
JVL00:04:41Showcase baseball is the real fucking deal.
Mike00:04:44Here we go.
JVL00:04:46And it was, I was not prepared. For what this would look like, this was a 15U tournament, meaning that nobody there was over the age of 15. Every team I saw would have beaten the piss out of every high school varsity team I saw in Jersey this year, which, you know, many of which were very good teams. I would say every single kid there is likely to play college ball at one level or another. Most of them are likely to play division one. A bunch of kids you could already see were the type of kids that were likely to play who are going to have to choose between getting drafted or going to college. It was it was absolutely nuts. It was a little bit like watching minor league baseball.
Mike00:05:30Now, was this a regional tournament for like the region of the Northeast or the Mid-Atlantic? Like what? Where were these kids coming from?
JVL00:05:39So this tournament drew from as far north as New York, as far Midwest as Detroit. Uh, out into Ohio and down to Maryland. So those are sort of your regional boundaries. It is perfect game. Perfect game is the, the largest of these organizations, which runs showcases. And, uh, part of what they do is they are doing massive amounts of data collection on the, on the games and on the players. And all of that then is made available to scouts and coaches. For, you know, like $800 a month or $4,000, some very large amount of money. Uh, and it was, uh, it was, it was very impressive. I would say it is, you know, you were seeing kids who are going to be playing professional baseball four or five years away from now.
Sonny00:06:38What kind of data are you getting?
Mike00:06:40You're not getting it right. It's the, it's the coaches who are going to.
JVL00:06:44So we're not getting right. You got to keep your own. You get the data on your team. So, you know, your, your team data belongs to you, but also as part of your release for the team, uh, perfect game also owns that data as well. Uh, and so for pitchers, you're, I believe at the main site, they were tracking spin rate, but they were not doing that at the satellite sites where we were. Uh, they were giving, uh, velocity and location of pitches. Uh, they were doing because of velocity and location with batters, they're getting whiff rate. Uh, and, uh, swing rates inside and outside the zone.
Mike00:07:24It's all sabermetrics for 15, it is basically sabermetrics for 15 years.
JVL00:07:30Yeah. And these kids are again, very, very impressive. Uh, you know, we, we played a team with four kids on it already committed, like already signed to division one schools as freshmen. Uh, I mean, it's. Uh, it's very impressive. It was wild.
Mike00:07:53How, so what do go ahead, Sonny?
Sonny00:07:54No, I'm sorry, Mike. You go ahead. I didn't mean it. Well, my, my question, yeah, thank you very much.
Mike00:07:59I appreciate that. Mike, you know, your role, Sonny, you speak when, when asked to, um, so what are the kids themselves get out of this besides being on display for the scouts and getting this data? Like, or is there some kind of social. Yeah. You know, socialization going on with other kids in the region. I don't know why that's, why that's so fun. No, there's nothing.
JVL00:08:27There's no fun. Now the, so this is, so for flash this, that's all this was really, um, because he is playing on a team from the DC metro area. It's got kids from Maryland and DC on it. Right. Uh, and two of the kids are his, his old buddies from his old travel team. So he. He got to hang with them and he, it was like magic, you know, one of them was his, his catcher. And so he had to throw his, his old catcher and that was the good stuff for him. But for everybody else, it is really, this is the, this is the pinnacle of the pinnacle of high school and below baseball. And it's really the last step before, because if you, you know, when you're playing division one, you're basically pre-professional division one baseball now warehouses. All of the kids who used to just go straight from high school into the minor league farm system. Right. So, uh, it was, it was something else, man.
Sonny00:09:28So what was, what was flashes the line? Like, what do we, what do we got for a, for a line here?
JVL00:09:34Flashed it really, really well. Um, so the, the, the, the, the, the caveat here is that things ended badly for him. Uh, he only threw 30 pitches and on the 30th pitch as the ball came out. Out of his hand, like he, he went grab for his arm and, you know, immediately had the coaches pull him out. I don't know if I texted you guys about this. Uh, it was, it was not great. Uh, and we have a appointment with a sports doc in the North Jersey area who specializes in baseball and elbows later this week. Oh no. We're going to have a look. I'm sure they'll do an MRI.
Sonny00:10:12Um, is it, are we looking at TJ?
JVL00:10:16Tommy John.
Sonny00:10:16Tommy John. We're looking at it.
JVL00:10:18I hope not. I hope not.
Sonny00:10:19But that'll turn his arm into a super arm.
JVL00:10:23So I've seen rookie of the year.
Sonny00:10:25Yeah.
JVL00:10:28So he, uh, his line was very good. He, he, you know, he faced five batters, two strikeouts, one walk, one hit, one ground out. Uh, and, um, his, you know, he hadn't worked up to throwing as hard as he wanted to. Uh, but he, he is on the list. Of guys who have been through the perfect game system this year. He's the fourth highest velocity from a freshman in New Jersey. Uh, and is probably would have been knocking on the door of top 10 nationally for, for his graduating year. Um, so he did well. Well, I guess stuff was spectacular.
Mike00:11:07Well, I guess what I was asking more about the socialization aspect is he's getting to see kids at that level play, you know, pitch against kids at that level from. Um, outside of his normal, you know, universe, um, that had to be, you know, I mean, I I'm sure if he continues to do this, he'll see the same kids and he'll get to know them and get to, you know, uh, know their game.
JVL00:11:32So, yeah, it was the other interesting thing about it is, uh, I, you know, I, I've said this all along and it's been true at almost every level. I've been at the assholes are always the kids of middling talent. And the, the kids were the most talented tend to be pretty good eggs. And we saw this, you know, the, the, the best team we saw, um, program called us elite, which boasts that every single kid that they take goes on to play division one baseball. So literally the entire program, everybody's going to go play division one baseball. Uh, you know, these kids were as humble and quiet, respectful as you could possibly hope for. Uh, the one team we played because the personality. Has been beaten out of them entirely. Maybe they play the game the right way, but this is the coach K of, uh, semi-pro high school baseball teams, but the, the team we played in the consolation game, which was the worst of the three teams they played. These kids were such assholes that not only were they trash talking against flashes team, but late in the game. And I'm sitting out in the outfield, this other team is on, is on defense. They're in the field and there is a, a team warming up outside to play next, not to play them just, you know, a team that's going to be on in the game, following them on the field. And these kids are trash talking the kids warming up who they are going to have no interaction with like, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Mike00:13:14Can't turn it off. They can't turn it off. No, I mean, they can't turn it right. It's like crazy and say anyway, all right, well, that's all I got. It was wild. That's great.
JVL00:13:24Uh, am I allowed to ask Sonny to talk or no, no, no, no.
Mike00:13:27What, what, why don't you let me handle this? Um, sorry, sorry, sorry. Um, Sonny, we'll come back to you in just a minute. I want to talk about, about me and my particular dude's chat and topic, which was kind of, I don't know, like I, I was not sure if this would be interesting. So if it is not interesting, you just stop. Me and say, we'll move on to Sonny, but I'll let you know.
Sonny00:13:50I just, oh, thank you. Sonny. Don't worry.
Mike00:13:53Thank you. Uh, so I was cleaning some stuff out and I discovered that I had two Netflix DVDs or dvd.com, uh, in the envelope seal that I have not sent. I've been meaning to cancel my dvd.com. How long have you had these? Well, we'll get there. Um, but it all finding them. Prompted me to, of course, to send them off and then to cancel. And which movies are they? I will get there. We'll, we'll get there. We'll get there. I need to know. Set the table for us. I'm setting in just a minute. It also prompted me to cancel my dvd.com subscription, which I've had since 2009. Um, and I have not used in years. Um, and so when you cancel.
Sonny00:14:40You keep saying dvd.com. What is dvd.com?
Mike00:14:43This is how Netflix has branded their DVD service.
Sonny00:14:47Uh, they own dvd.com. Yeah. Am I not? Am I wrong?
Mike00:14:53Yeah.
Sonny00:14:53I don't know. I don't know because I haven't had Netflix by mail for 10 years now.
Mike00:14:59Yes. They do like Quickster. Yeah. They tried to change it to Quickster and then they changed it back to Netflix. But DVDs, it's like, it's like their own, like internal branding of, it's sort of like wing street at pizza hut. You know, it's like you only find wing street at pizza hut. You only find dvd.com at Netflix anyway. So the, the two DVDs that I sent back, well, hold on, let me back up a second. When you cancel your dvd.com Netflix account, you get the, they, they go through, oh, you sure you want to cancel it? Yeah, sure. Yes. They're, they're going to end the service this year. So yes, I want to cancel it. Um, and then they give you a, you the choice to download and print out your history, which I found fascinating. So I thought maybe we could go through a little bit. We won't go through everything obviously, but the history and sort of maybe it can tell you a story and maybe you could look up your own history. Uh, you folks who have it or had it and canceled it a long time ago and maybe tells you a story about your own movie experience. So the two that I sent back were, um, the lives of others and which I realized I never actually watched. So, so that was kind of a bust and you know what? I cannot remember, uh, the. The name of the other movie, but the lives of others, right? Is this a movie that everybody says you've got to go, you've got to see. And I've been hearing that for, for years, right?
Sonny00:16:29Uh, wasn't there a cover story, cover story for the weekly standard cover story?
JVL00:16:32May, maybe John, if you're listening, maybe the shortest cover story in the magazine's history, because it wasn't that long of a piece that was like an 1800 word piece. Maybe.
Sonny00:16:45Yeah.
JVL00:16:45I'm just asking, just asking questions.
Mike00:16:47That would be a, that would be a good research topic. Um, so, oh, the other one was Logan. The other movie was Logan. I don't know why I had that on DVD. Um, but I actually did not get the, the last time I actually got DVDs in the mail was 2019. Um, so I'm saying these things for four years and paying for it every month.
Sonny00:17:08I just want to, I just want to clarify for people. What, how much did this service cost a month?
Mike00:17:13I think it was something like 10 99.
Sonny00:17:15All right. So you spent, you spent. $11 a month for four years. People, people sometimes are like, how did Netflix make money? They bought all these DVDs and they had to mail them. From idiots like me. They had to mail them all. Let me tell you folks a story about one Michael Warren. Michael Warren here had two movies that he had, uh, held on to for four years. Uh, so that's 48 months at $11 a month. Uh, my understanding is. $528. I was going to say $520. That's, that's, uh, you're.
JVL00:17:4528, 528. You, you, uh. Had you purchased those movies, you probably could have gotten them for $19.99 each. Instead, you paid $264 a piece for those two movies.
Sonny00:17:55You could have bought those movies 30 times each. You could have bought 30 copies of those movies probably.
Mike00:18:00I, I, uh, I'm wondering if bringing up this topic was a mistake.
Sonny00:18:05No, this is great.
Mike00:18:07So I thought we'd have fun instead of, uh, shit on your co-host. Uh, we just have fun a little bit looking at. So I got this account in 2000.
Sonny00:18:17Are, are we not having, are you not entertained? Are you not entertained?
Mike00:18:21I'm not having any fun. I was having fun. Not anymore. Um, so the first movie that I rented in 2009, so I rented, so, okay. So 2009 was my first year. I, the first movie I rented was Idiocracy. I think it's a pretty good movie, um, to, to have your first Netflix rental. Um, I've got another, a bunch of like great movies.
JVL00:18:43And what year was this? And your first rental was?
Mike00:18:46Okay. Um, uh, several other movies that I rented that year, that first inaugural year, uh, the good, the bad, and the ugly, uh, shattered glass, uh, Nick and Nora's infinite playlist. I did not like that one. Uh, I gave it like the lowest rating of the year, actually, uh, unforgiven. Cause you could also see your ratings, what you rated that member. You could rate them, rate the DVDs, uh, unforgiven, uh, rush more, uh, and, uh, run fat boy run. Do we remember that one? I don't remember that one. Um, but it sounds fun.
Sonny00:19:19I don't remember that movie at all. I don't know what it's going to be about.
Mike00:19:22I don't know.
Sonny00:19:23Uh, so is that the one where is it Edgar or not? Um, the guy from Sean of the dead.
Mike00:19:29Yes. Um, whose name is his kid. Yes. It's, it's like one of those movies. It's not in the trilogy, but it would start here.
Sonny00:19:36It's not Edgar, right. But it is, it was, it's the guy, uh, Simon Pegg, Simon Pegg. Yeah.
Mike00:19:41Yeah. It's a Simon Pegg. That's right. That's exactly right. Um, so my biggest year was the next year, 2010. Um, that was also the year I graduated from college was living on my own. I imagine that as a big reason why, um, so lots of great movies, red Dawn, the rock, uh, die hard. I guess there was a somewhat, somewhat of a theme here. Um, easy rider, uh, the pink Panther, the sting. I had 49 movies, uh, that I rented in 2010, um, 2011. Then it starts to get into a lot of like TV shows. Like I re I apparently watched the wire in 2011 because I have like every member. You have to like get every disc of a TV show that you wanted to watch. So it's like the wires, he's a one disc one, the wires, he's a two disc two. And then all of these, and Ooh, this is an interesting one unknown. Is that a movie called unknown or is that, is that simply an unknown movie? I don't know.
Sonny00:20:39So that's a 20, there's a movie called unknown.
Mike00:20:41It must be, but I don't, the other thing is I don't remember seeing half of these movies. Um, yeah, the wire, some curb, your enthusiasm again, I didn't have an HBO, uh, subscription. I didn't have, I didn't have any of that stuff. So, but 2011 went down to 40 and then you can really see like after 2011, the number of DVDs that I rented, like goes down considerably, uh, seven, just 17 and 2012, 16 and 2013, 10 and 2014, 21 and 25. I don't know. Oh, 2015. My first year with, with, with a kid. So maybe that's why I had 21 that year. And then it just drops back down 16 and 2016, 12 and 2017. What, what was going on then?
Sonny00:21:26But that's also about the time that streaming starts. So streaming Netflix streaming starts in 2013 with that house of, I mean, it starts before that, but the first season of house of cards is 2013, I think. Um, and that's when like people really started streaming stuff and that's, that's kind of, that's also about the time that I started streaming. I guess the quickster thing was two or three years later, but like, whatever.
Mike00:21:49But, but, but here's the thing. There were a lot of things you could not get still on. I mean, it was, there was so much that you couldn't get on streaming. And what I remember doing is going through and like searching for a movie. And if it wasn't, and I loved having the service and it's maybe explains why I kept it so long. And it's like, oh, they don't have it. Uh, streaming, but I can get it on DVD and it'll be here in a day and a half, you know? Like, so I did that with a bunch of movies, whiplash. I saw in 2015 because of that, um, 22 jump street, the grand Budapest hotel, the last emperor, like classic movies, new movies, um, the insider I watched in 2015. So, you know, like, and then, and then it really drops off. So like by 2017, I'm watching 12, uh, movies. Some of those are TV shows. Um, and then 2018 is just one movie, 2019, just two movies. And then it's, and then it's done. This isn't that bad.
JVL00:22:45It is bad because Because you would have been better off simply buying on prime video, just purchasing a movie anytime you want it to watch it. And then it's yours for forever instead of paying $8. Cause what you're doing is you're paying like $8 to rent a disc for however long. Well, this is just buy it.
Sonny00:23:05This is, this is, so I used to be the same way as Mike, where I had, I had the DVD service and the blue, the DVD slash Blu-ray service, because there were stuff I couldn't watch on streaming. And I was like, I want to make sure I can watch anything. And then I realized after about a year of this, oh, wait, I'm only getting like one or two movies a month. If that via mail, I am better off just renting, paying the VOD. Rental fee to watch it on Amazon. If I, if there's a movie I want to watch that isn't, and you know, again, some of those movies weren't available. It was, it was, you know, but whatever, but it was, it was, it, it got to the point where it was just like, well, this doesn't make any financial sense for me. They like, this makes no sense at all. And that was back in 2015 or 16. I probably hung up on a DVD player.
Mike00:23:48Uh, I don't know. Yes. A Blu-ray player. It's hooked up to the TV that we never use anymore. Um, that's like our alternate TV, um, in our basement. Um, so yes, I still own it.
Sonny00:23:59What's your main TV. Is it like a Roku?
Mike00:24:02Yeah, it's a Roku.
Sonny00:24:03Yeah.
Mike00:24:03Yeah. So, um, I don't know.
Sonny00:24:07It just, how many movies do you, how many discs do you own that have movie? How many movie discs do you own?
Mike00:24:14I have no idea. Cause we have all these D VDs that like my, my wife and I have like, like pooled together that were from our own collections. Um, you know, like I had like all the Seinfeld DVDs for instance. So that, you know, that's like, you know, a ton of discs. So I'd probably say in my house, uh, and they're just thrown in, in boxes somewhere, you know, and they're not like lined up nicely like yours, probably a hundred, you know, all, all said and done.
JVL00:24:45We have hundreds. Yeah. And when we moved, we gave away almost all of them. I held onto a handful that I like, but I don't own a DVD player. I haven't owned a functioning DVD player in five years.
Mike00:24:57So I don't know why I've held onto them. I should have just given them all away. Well, for a long time, we had our Blu-ray player also had smart TV capabilities. That's why we had it because we did not have a smart TV.
JVL00:25:10So we're hurting Sonny, Mr. Physical media here. Here's the, here's the thing.
Mike00:25:15I really. Appreciate the physical media thing. And the more that we go into this like streaming world that were, that were brave new streaming world, like I can see the value of it more and more, and I'm looking back at this list and like, just, there's all these great movies that I, I got to see because of this service.
JVL00:25:34And I've seen them just by buying them on Amazon prime, but I didn't have Amazon.
Mike00:25:40Like you have to understand, like, this is all like in my twenties where like, I didn't have any money and it was like this, like one indulgence that I had, which was Netflix.
Sonny00:25:51I mean, I like Netflix, Netflix, no cable, no, nothing. Netflix is, uh, Netflix DVD in particular was an enormous boon for people who wanted to really beef up their, uh, cinematic underpinnings. Like I it's like, even, I mean, I, like I, I include myself in this, you know, when I, so I got, I must've gotten Netflix DVD. In 2005 or 2006, I mean, I remember I was living in a basement apartment in Capitol Hill, DC and the, what I would do, I had the three D I had the, I paid for the three discs at a time. So it was, you know, 15 bucks a month or something, but I would, I would like watch one, I'd send it back. I'd watch the next one on that day, you know, the, the first movie would get to Netflix. And then by the time I watched the third one, the, the next movie is on its way. I just like, I watched, I must've wa I, I don't know. I, I wish I, I, maybe I can go find my, I bet you can history of, of viewing, but like, I bet I watched, I bet I watched 80 or 90 movies a year that way, just like cycling through 'em, um, or TV shows or whatever. And that, that was another thing that it was really good for was like, if you wanted to binge watch a show, yep. You get a disc, you watch the disc in a day, you watch the next disc the next day, you watch the next disc the day after that. And by the time you get to. That fourth day, in theory, a disc is on its way back to you. Cuz they had, you know, they had distribution hubs all over the place. It was, it was, you got 'em quick. You got 'em quick. It was, it was, the, the turnaround was exceptionally good on those. So I, uh, I'm, I, I'm a big, I was a big fan of Netflix DVD. I'm I, I wish, uh, I wish more people would, would still watch things on disc and that would still be a viable business model, but Netflix frankly is to blame for killing off. So much of this, that, you know, fuck Netflix.
Mike00:27:47So. Yeah. Yeah. Um, all right. Well, thank you for indulging my little walk down memory lane, uh, Sonny, what, like say whatever you need to say, like do your thing.
Sonny00:27:57Uh, so I, so this it's, it's funny that you mentioned shattered glass, um, because so this, this week, this weekend on Saturday, uh, a, a friend of mine, a guy who, uh, I met who I, I don't, I actually don't know that he is a listener to the substandard or that he, I know he listens to across the movie island, but where it goes to Hollywood, uh, he, uh, is, uh, Aaron, his name's Aaron Reynolds. He's the guy who makes the effing birds. I think he also runs like the swear track account.
Mike00:28:28Yeah.
Sonny00:28:29Um, anyway, he asked me to sit with him on a, he does this, he does this thing at the various comic cons, fan expo shows, um, where he like showcases weird bootleg shit and he talks about it with a, with a random person. In every town. So I'm doing it and I'm doing it in Dallas this weekend with Aaron, I'm going to be, uh, at the, I will be at the Dallas fan expo on Saturday, June 10th.
JVL00:28:54Are you going to be like on a VI pass for the VIP pass for the con?
Sonny00:28:59Well, I got, I got, um, I've got a, I've got a pass and I think I have that I have backstage green room access, not the good green room, not the, not the green room where like John Bernthal and Kevin Smith, they're going to be hanging out, I assume, but like where like the comic book guys are probably going to be, you know? Um, exciting. Uh, so anyway, backstage pass, so that's, that's going to be fun. If you're in Dallas and you want to, I'll be there. I think the panels at like five 30 or five 20 or something like that at the Dallas fan expo, we'll be doing bootleg Safari, me and Aaron Reynolds. But the reason what I wanted to ask is, so, uh, I, you mentioned shattered glass and I love shattered glass JBL. Do you like shattered glass?
JVL00:29:39No, no, not especially.
Sonny00:29:41You don't like chat.
JVL00:29:42All right. Well, that's too bad. I mean, I lived through shattered glass.
Sonny00:29:45Well, this is, this is, I, I, I love it because it really, uh, it gets at a very specific form of DC journalism and does it pretty well.
JVL00:29:55I think, would you concede that medium, medium, well, it gets the, it gets the personalities
Sonny00:30:02of a very specific type, right? I think, um, the, the scene, the scene, the party where Hayden Christensen, Stephen glass characters talking about the magazines he's written for, and everybody's kind of crowded around him and are like absorbing his. Like I've been through, I, I don't, I don't know about you, but I've been to more than enough parties like that in my lifetime to anyway, regardless, I like the editorial,
Mike00:30:25the editorial meetings. Like I, I, I could relate, I could relate to some of that stuff.
Sonny00:30:30I like the movie a lot. Uh, and Hayden Christensen is going to be at this, oh, at this, he's doing, he's doing a signing and you know, uh, an evening talk event thing and I as a little bit, a little bit tipsy, a little bit tipsy a couple of weeks ago and I was like, oh, Hayden Christensen is going to be at this thing. Oh man. I bet I could. I wonder, I wonder if I can get a poster on the, like a vintage poster, like a, you know, one sheet from the, and I looked it up and Googled it and sure enough, there was a place in England that was selling, uh, selling, selling shatter glass one sheets.
JVL00:31:08I was like, I'm going, it's only like 10 bucks.
Sonny00:31:10This is great. I'm going to get it and, and it gets shipped over, it costs more to ship than the, the poster itself. And so I got it and I got it and this is, this is just, this is how big it is. I can't, you can't even really see.
JVL00:31:24Oh, so it's a full size one sheet.
Sonny00:31:26It's it's, it is, it is not a one sheet. I was mistaken. It's a, it's a subway poster. It's a 30 by 40, 30 inch by 40 inch, almost square shaped. Uh, I believe it's, I can't remember, there's like a specific name for it, but I think it's like style poster. It's enormous. It's enormous. And I have, I, now I'm stuck with this and I'm stuck with this thing. I own it. Uh, and I'm trying to decide if I want to spend the $150, cause that's what it costs to get the signature from Hayden Christensen, trying to decide if I want to get the $150. And then if I do this, I'm also going to have to go cause Rosario Dawson is there. So I'm gonna have to go get Rosario Dawson's signature too, which is like another $60. So I'm trying to decide if I want to spend another $200 essentially on top. Um, you know, 30 bucks or whatever, the $20 I paid for shipping and the $10 for the poster. And then if I do this, so then I've now have, now I have this signed 30 by 40 poster that I have nowhere to put in my house. I got, I got, I'm gonna have to spend another $80 on a frame and get that shipped out and then figure out some place to put it in my house. There's nowhere to put this in my house. If I still, if I lived in DC, if I was going into. The Bulwark offices and I had like an office space. I would just put it there. It would be like it take up the whole wall. Um, but now I'm, now I'm kind of, now I'm just like, do I just bite the bullet on the 30? Do I just cut my losses?
Mike00:32:57No. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Sonny00:32:59Do I cut my losses on this or do I, do I, do I go all the way and then, and then I got to hang onto it and I got to find Peter Sarsgaard and I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta send Whit Stillman an email. Be like, Hey man, um, can I ask you to send something to Chloe Sevenier for me? Could you do that? And then like, cause I, she doesn't do fucking cons. Chloe Sevenier is not, she's, I don't know, smoking marijuana in some, some Chateau somewhere. So now I'm like, I'm just, I'm, I'm like, I'm, I'm stuck here. And like, the other thing is we actually do have like a mild professional connection to Billy Ray, who I think is friendly with, with bill crystal, who like, I can like, I could get him probably.
JVL00:33:44I've emailed with Billy Ray.
Sonny00:33:46I could get Billy Ray to sign that. I could get the whole cast and crew to sign my shattered glass poster, which nobody cares about. Steven glass, except for me, I can take it to Steven glass, Steven to himself, Steven to sign it right under Hayden Christiansen. Listen, I don't know what I, so I don't know what to do here. I don't know what to do.
JVL00:34:06I'll I'll tell you what to do. You cannot under any circumstances, pay somebody to sign something that is so humiliating.
Sonny00:34:13It really is. It really is.
JVL00:34:15It really is. That is so humiliating. Look, I wouldn't even ask somebody to sign it for free, right? Unless they were a close friend, I I've become friends with a comic book, uh, semi-famous comic book person.
Sonny00:34:26I was hoping he was gonna be there, but he's not, he's not, he's actually, he, he's in
JVL00:34:30Philly this weekend, um, and was in New York last weekend. Uh, I, and it, it took, you know, I would say a full year of friendship before I got it up to be like, Hey, is there any way you could sign a couple of things for me? Cause I'm such a huge fan. I was such a nerd. The idea of like paying some random famous person, cuz you know what, what the fuck is Hayden Christian Hayden Christensen ought to be asking you to sign things. You're Sonny Bunge. You're more famous and more important than he is.
Sonny00:34:59I don't think that's true because I'm pretty sure if I, if I went power dynamic here, if I went to the fan expo and set up my own little booth was like $150 for my signature. You know how many I'd sell two, they'll two, I bet I could, I bet two people would be confused enough. That they, they would come up to me and ask me, aren't you that guy from always Sonny
JVL00:35:18in Philadelphia? Don't you? Sonny Bunge. Yeah. They think you're the Walton Goggins character from, uh, from Ant-Man. Um, I, I, I think you, you cannot have any self-respect if you go and I don't think I,
Sonny00:35:31I don't think I can. And that's, that's the thing is that now what I, what I was, what I was hoping I might be
JVL00:35:36able to do is bring it and like in the green room bumping with your gigantic, I just started
Sonny00:35:44I didn't realize you were going to be here with airmail tags, airmail tags all over the tube. Again, it's this big, I can't even get it into the entire frame of the video. Hold on. There we go. It's very large, but it's fucking enormous, but I don't know what to do with it.
Mike00:36:01There's something kind of hilarious at one of these, one of these cons that like for Hayden Christensen, you're not asking him to sign a star Wars poster. You're asking him to sign a shattered glass, but like there's something kind of funny about
Sonny00:36:12that. I would bet. There's only two or three people to ask for a shattered glass signature. I bet. I, you know, I bet some people would, would maybe do that Italian pizza movie that he
Mike00:36:23was in, but oh gosh, shattered glass would be, I'd be the, I'd be the only one. All right, well, should we move on guys? Should we?
JVL00:36:34I feel like, yeah.
Sonny00:36:35Oh my gosh.
JVL00:36:36We, we 40 minutes, 40 minutes. We got to cut back on the dudes chatting guys. We got to figure out a way to keep dudes chatting in 20 minutes. The people love it.
Sonny00:36:42The people love it. Dude's chatting. We got, we should just make cut my entire thing.
JVL00:36:47We should cut my entire thing from flash out this week.
Sonny00:36:50We should, we should make across the spider verse, the bonus episode. We should just be like, ah, you know what? That's all the time we're given.
Mike00:36:55Or maybe, maybe we should have a cliffhanger before we actually get into next week.
JVL00:36:59Oh, we'll only do half of the, across the spider verse review and do the other half
Mike00:37:04in the bonus to be continued. Uh, all right, well, okay. Very quickly. Box office, Spider-Man boxes. Let's skip it. Okay. Spider-Man across the universe. Is the number one at the box office, Sonny, give us the big boy review of Spider-Man across the spider verse.
Sonny00:37:20Spider-Man across the spider verse stars, lots of Spider-Man, uh, doing Spider-Man things. So here's, uh, describing, describing this movie in detail would take a million hours because there's like 17,000 characters and I'm not gonna, I don't want to do that. Um, so instead I want to talk about what works about the movie and what I think doesn't work about the movie. Here's what works about the movie. So Spider-Man across the spider verse starts and ends. It's essentially bookended by Gwen Stacy story. If this is anybody's movie, this is not actually a miles Morales movie. It's a Gwen Stacy movie. Movie begins with her and ends with her and it, and it, the problem is she doesn't really have an arc. She just kind of ends up in the same place she was at the end of Spider-Man into the spider verse. It's neither here nor there. It's kind of interesting. I enjoyed watching her, uh, move through her, um, move through her life. And we see the tragedy that, you know, defines her life, the death of Peter Parker and, uh, how that turned her into a Spider-Woman or didn't turn her into Spider-Woman, but like gave her the, you know, um, the tragic death that she needs, uh, to whatever, um, the reason, uh, so anyway, the reason all of this is in there is to set the actual mechanics of the plot in motion at the end of this opening sequence. She becomes involved with this team of multidimensional spider people, uh, who are, you know, they are from all sorts of different universes, different Marvel universes, and they go around fixing interdimensional tears, uh, and making sure that the multiverse doesn't collapse in on itself. Uh, after, after this intro, we go back to Miles Morales and he is, uh, he gets in a fight with the spot, which is a weirdly under baked plot line, all the spot stuff. Um, but, uh, long story short, he goes to the league of Spider-Man and the guy who's in charge of the league of Spider-Man hates miles Morales. Like miles, not supposed to be Spider-Man. He is a, he's canonically, uh, misaligned. He is not supposed to be a Spider-Man. And as we learn in this movie, Spider-Man and spider women, all the spider people, all the spiders people in all the multiverses share the same canonical traumas, your deaths of uncle Ben's or whoever, uh, the, uh, death of captain, uh, captain Stacy, Gwen's father, the death of Gwen Stacy herself. One of the interesting things. Without Gwen Stacy in this movie that she is one of the few Gwen's not to die tragically, uh, in a way that, um, kind of helps Spider-Man to find himself, uh, and miles sees this and sees the acceptance of this amongst all the other Spider-Man and says, no, I'm not going to accept this, this tr I am not defined by my trauma. I'm defined by other things. And he goes off and he, he goes, he goes back to, tries to go back to his universe and, uh, spoiler turns out he goes to the wrong universe. Cause he has the wrong spider DNA. And he goes to a universe that doesn't have a Spider-Man because it doesn't have a Spider-Man. The man, his Manhattan is basically like escape from New York, Manhattan, like a horrible crime ridden hellscape. Okay. Cut to black, uh, to be continued. I find this to be fascinating. I find this to be fascinating. This is, this is essentially, uh, uh, Lord and Miller, the creators of the, the, this, this whole universe. Saying that Spider-Man's reliance on the soak, the trauma plot, it's a, it's this, the, the trauma plot. Um, it's like a generic term to describe the, the, the kind of modern compulsion to have trauma, be the backstory of everything. Trauma is the explaining and inciting an incident of everything they are saying it is. Trauma should not define Spider-Man, um, the way that everybody sees Spider-Man is wrong. Spider-Man should not be defined by the death of uncle Ben or the death when Stacy or the death of, uh, captain Stacy or all of the other tragedies that Spider-Man's Spider-Man goes through a lot of shit all the time and all the universe just endless deaths and horrible things happening to Spider-Man all the time. And they say, no, that shouldn't be what happens. The problem is within the movie itself, within the actual logical. Confines of the movie. The canonical traumas are necessary for the good of the universe. I mean, like we see in, so we see in the Mumbai Mumbatton, the Indian version of Spider-Man, which, uh, imagines Manhattan as like Mumbai, um, the, uh, the death of the captain Stacy figure is averted and immediately the universe starts to fall apart, like starts to blink out of existence, things they, they call in the rest of the spider teams to set up a little holes to stop the universe from collapsing. And then of course the big one is the fact that miles becomes Spider-Man deprives another multiverse of their Spider-Man and that the lack of Spider-Man there leads to total civilizational collapse, just crime everywhere, crime. And so the movie it's within the text of the movie, the traumas are actually necessary. And I'm very interested to see how they write their way out of this. I'll tell you how I think they're going to do it. I think they'll probably end up doing it in the cheapest way possible, which is in the sequel, which is definitely not coming out next year. There's a 0% chance this movie comes out next year. You know why? Because they don't have a script and they don't, uh, they haven't started recording any of the dialogue and they have none of it animated yet. Just telling you, telling you where things are, uh, they, this movie's not coming out next year. This movie will not be coming out to 2025 at the earliest. I would bet and might not come out to 2026. I'm just laying down. That's a marker. That's neither here nor there. The way they're going to solve this, I think, and maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But the way they're going to solve this is that they're going to have the canon obsessed Miguel O'Hara who's voiced by Oscar Isaac. He's playing Spider-Man 2099. They're going to have the canon obsessed Spider-Man 2099. They're going to reveal that he is actually the one causing the universes to collapse. And because he is obsessed with trauma, his own trauma, he can't get over it. He's obsessed with canon. So he's doing it. And once they stop him or show him the error of his ways or whatever, all of the rest of it will stop. I mean, it's it's it's comic book. It's essentially magic. They can do whatever they want. And I'm I'm convinced that this is the way they're going to solve the problem, which feels like an enormous cheat, feels like an enormous cheat with what they've set up in this morning in this movie. Again, maybe I'm wrong. I'm guessing here. I'm just thinking of how this is going to play out once they start putting it all together. Anyway, this is getting hung up on the plot of this stuff, though. It's beside the point because it's one of the most fascinating visual movies I've ever seen in my entire life. It is like it is it is a collision of 100 different kinds of animation styles all coming together in the same place. It's like the first in it's like the first one into the Spider-Verse, except much more so. And in ways that I don't even entirely have the language to describe. So there's like the punk Spider-Man, Spider-Punk, who is animated in a Sex Pistols collage sort of way, which is really interesting and like apparently they did. They did it in different frame rates, even within the character himself, which is what kind of gives it that weird papery janky quality look. But like I mean, there's anime like watercolors, live action, it is it's it's amazing and beautiful and kinetic in a way that I have not seen in a mainstream animated feature in. Almost as long as I can remember, I can't remember a movie that has been this inventive, an animated movie that has been this inventive visually in my lifetime, in a in a in a setting where it is going to gross 400 million dollars domestic and probably another 300 million dollars worldwide. I mean, like this is not a small movie. It's not a small success. It's going to be a huge movie. It's practically experimental with what they're doing. It looks amazing. I can't wait to see the next one. It is very much half a movie, and I am kind of heartened by all of the audiences turning on it at the end when the to be continued because that's the thing I keep hearing again and again. Audiences like almost booing the screen when it cuts to black. Now, that said, audiences seem to be super into it and they're mad because they want more. But there was a definite like, wait, this is only part one. That was not even hinted at in the advertising, but they originally this movie was going to be called Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse part one. They should have just kept it that if they had done that, audiences would have been totally fine with the cliffhanger ending. I think it would have been I think it would have been totally fine, but they pulled the bait and switch. People don't like that.
JVL00:46:26Jay Michael, tell me, tell me about no, no, Michael, I want to hear your thoughts about this. I look, this is a movie that is universally beloved, Michael. Everybody loves it. So why don't you tell us how much you love it?
Mike00:46:39I feel like I gave you guys the misapprehension that I hated. This movie over text, which I don't. I actually like this movie and I want to love it because of all the things that Sonny just went through about the visual marvel that it really is and I felt like I and I still feel like I need to see it again just to catch everything is sort of like watching a Simpsons episode back in the old days where like there were like jokes and things on book titles and stuff that if you weren't watching closely enough, you need to watch it again. So I really like that. I like even the thematic ideas where I where the movie lost me. Is I didn't understand what was going on. For like a lot of it, a lot of what I feel like I have a better understanding of what went on just from Sonny's explanation just now. So for instance. Like, I don't quite understand question.
Sonny00:47:46Had you seen the first one?
Mike00:47:48Oh, yeah. I saw it twice. I like I saw it. And then my wife and I saw it like we like we love that one. So I was like, ready to like this one a lot. But I was confused, for instance, so sort of the big the big twist is that he goes back to the universe or he goes to the universe looks just like his except there's no Spider Man. That's the one that there should have been a Spider Man, but he likes he like became the spot. So then I had to go back and think, wait, so where there are two Spider Man's and Miles was Miles just one of two in his universe. And so that was where that we're fat Peter Parker is now remember the original the the
Sonny00:48:31actual Spider Man Parker Peter Parker dies in front of Miles Morales. Yeah. Okay.
Mike00:48:38The kingpin. That's right. Okay. So like, all of a sudden, I'm like, I can't remember what I saw. Like, the thing that's a little confusing about this whole multiverse idea is like, I can't keep any of that straight. And I feel like part of it is because I did not read comic books extensively as a kid. This feels like a movie and these feel like movies that really reward comic book readers in terms of the structure and the and the way in which the story kind of unfolds. Oh, there's like a reveal here. So like, okay, so then I didn't understand so the spider came from the universe that Miles ends up in, but it bit him in his universe. And so that was bad. Like, okay, I didn't understand why this was like his fault or like why he was a bad guy for being Spider Man.
Sonny00:49:24Like that's I think he's not he's not a bad guy. He's just a canonical mistake.
Mike00:49:28Okay, here's the other thing I don't quite understand. If the whole point is that anybody can be Spider Man, there's a Spider Man in every universe because like everything is like anything is possible in all these multiple universes. Why is it tied down to this whole idea of a canonical event where everybody has this story? Like, I get that. That's like the theme and the point of what they're grappling with. But I don't understand why that even has to be a thing like what?
Sonny00:49:58They're trying to disrupt that. They're trying to break that idea.
Mike00:50:02But why is it an idea? I don't get it. Why is it an idea? Is it is every Spider Man like this, like is every Spider Man in the comics?
Sonny00:50:08Well, that's I mean, that's the whole point of that sequence in the in the Spider Man headquarters. Remember where you see all the people with their like ghost of the trauma behind them and it's all the same thing. Yeah, but it's like a room of trauma. It's the trauma room.
Mike00:50:21Yes, but I don't I don't get why that does not seem to mesh with the idea that anything can like any universe can have a Spider Man.
Sonny00:50:32Anything can't happen. Anybody can be Spider Man, but the same bad things have to happen to all the Spider Man. Otherwise, the universe unravels.
Mike00:50:40That makes no sense to me.
Sonny00:50:41Well, I don't know. I don't know what you want from popsicle Spider Man, but popsicle Uncle Ben has to fucking die. That's what popsicle Uncle Ben has to die. If popsicle Uncle Ben doesn't die, popsicle Spider Man can't be Spider Man.
Mike00:50:56Okay, question. Yes. Where is MJ? I know there's the one with the baby, but like, where's MJ? Like I thought MJ was a big deal and all of a sudden it's like Gwen Stacy this and Gwen Stacy that and I don't really know who Gwen Stacy is or why I should care about Gwen Stacy. My kids know who Gwen Stacy is because. She's on the show that they like to watch with Spider Man. One of those Spider Man.
Sonny00:51:16Ghost. She's ghost. Ghost Spider. On the Spider Friends. Ghost Spider. Ghost Spider. Yeah. What happened to. Miles Morales is spin. It's very, very controversial. Oh, believe me. They don't call him.
Mike00:51:28My five year old. They don't call him Spider Man. They call him spin. My five year old corrects anyone who says Miles Morales is Spider Man. He says, no, he's spin. Yeah. He's spin. So you're. I, I, I don't get what.
Sonny00:51:37Like what happened. Gwen Stacy, the Gwen Stacy thing is interesting because I only, I mean, I started reading Spider Man comics in the late eighties. The only reason I know Gwen Stacy. The only reason I know Gwen Stacy is cuz I read like, I, my, my like first Spider Man comics were these like, uh, five issue reprints, you know, little digests from the 1960s. I got like, I got like the early amazing Spider Mans and just would read them and she was
JVL00:52:03in all 50. I wanna say it's issue 50. I'm gonna look this up while you talk.
Sonny00:52:07But I think it's later than that.
Mike00:52:08I think so. She's the original girl. And then Mary Jane Watson. Is later. Or I don't know because my real, I mean, well, Mary Jane and Mary Jane and Gwen were kind
Sonny00:52:18of competing for, for Peter. So it's like Betty and Veronica dies when yeah, basically Betty, Veronica, one 21. Sorry. Oh, one 20. Yeah. So way later, like 10 years, 10 years into.
Mike00:52:28Okay. My, my point is that it, it, it was so overwhelming to me, the ideas and the visuals and the sort of sense that like things were happening. And being revealed. And it was like the movie wanted you to go, whoa. And I was kind of like, wait, what? I couldn't even keep up. And I feel like a Philistine. I feel like a moron and I don't like being made to feel like a moron, but that's what I feel like. Cause I didn't.
Sonny00:52:59Call this. Follow this movie. We call this.
Mike00:53:02Don't, don't you dare? Don't you dare?
Sonny00:53:05You are, you are fully, this is exactly what I was afraid of. This is you are our multi versus new Vic Mattis. You've suffered the trauma of having to sit through a comic book movie that you don't understand.
Mike00:53:17And it is broken your brain, but it's not canonical for me to get gout. Right.
Sonny00:53:23Is that yes. No, I'm sorry. Damn it. We're gonna be, you're gonna be drinking cherry just before you know it.
Mike00:53:30Not until you're in your early forties. All right. All right. So, okay. But, but everything else about this, I love the different visual styles meshing together. I thought it was great. I just didn't get into the movie JVL.
JVL00:53:42Um, what do you think, what do you, uh, we'll do that in the bonus that I, I, I loved it. I loved it. I loved everything about it. Uh, I, it will depend on how well it sticks the landing. Right. I mean, it, it does become hard to evaluate a, uh, movie like this where it is not its own story. Right. Right. You know, it's not like the fellowship of the ring is its own story. You don't need to tow. I mean, you need two towers, but you know, fellowship of the ring is, is a beginning and middle and end. This doesn't really. Uh, I, I, I fucking loved it. I'm sorry. I don't have anything brilliant to say other than I think it's wonderful and everybody
Mike00:54:19should see it. Am I, am I a moron like, like, am I a fool for not like by, because everybody loves it. So that makes me feel like I'm missing something or maybe I just need to be in a better mood when I see it.
JVL00:54:33I mean, I'm not gonna say that about my co-host Sonny would, I think, I dunno, I look, I'm dying to see it again. Okay. Um, maybe you should give it another watch. Yeah. Here's one thing I'll say. I don't think it works as a kid's movie as well as the first one does because the first one, yeah, this is not as tight as darker too much first one. Yeah. I dunno. I can see it both ways, but it, I mean, this is two hours and 20 minutes and so long it's, it's long and it's epic. I feel like it earns the length, but it does that at the expense of how. Fast, uh, into the spider verse moves from a to B to C to D. I mean, that, that whole movie is just on rails. There's no wasted motion in here. The truth is if they'd wanted to get it down to two Oh five, they could have done that.
Sonny00:55:26I mean, again, like it's, it's a weirdly structured movie where you have these, they try to make it feel like a complete movie by having the Gwen stuff at the beginning and the end, the beginning is like, what is, how is Gwen gonna get out of her funk, which she needs to find a community. And she finds a community in this spider verse league and they, it turns out they suck. She hates 'em. So at the end of it, she's back with Spider-Man noir and spider ham and Peter B Parker, and they've got some new friends, but like she, she like, again, she, it, they it's, it's a simulation of an arc. She just, it's a straight line. She just gets, or really it's like a, it's a circle. She just gets back to where she is. She started.
JVL00:56:07I, I will say like the original, but even more so it is. Out loud. Funny. I mean, I, I found myself guffawing out loud in the theater, probably seven or eight different times. Uh, it's cause it's, it's just so funny and brilliantly conceived.
Mike00:56:26I have a question. Why were those from the first, the, the gang from the first one, the spider pig and the, and the Nick cage, Spider-Man all the, why were they sidelined for this movie? Is there a plot reason? Why? Cause I, I was sort of like looking forward to like, cause I loved all those characters. I loved like Nick cage is like the, you know, moody noir Spider-Man and they, and they like show up at the end. And I was kind of like, oh, I want to see more of them.
Sonny00:56:54God only knows what the contract situation is like when you're dealing with a John Mulaney and a Nick cage and like trying to schedule it and you gotta, you know, in the, I mean, in theory, it seems like they're all going to be back for the next one, but who knows, who knows what any of that. Okay.
Mike00:57:13How any of that results.
Sonny00:57:14Okay. Uh, any final, I would say, I would say that that is more of a business problem than an artistic problem. No, no, no, no, no.
Mike00:57:19My short answer. Well, and I wasn't making an artistic, uh, uh, critique. I was just curious cause they showed up and I went, oh yeah, I like those guys. I want to see more of them. Um, all right. Any final thoughts on across the spider verse? Okay. Nope. Well, that's all the time we're going to give to this episode. Check us out at sub beacon doc. I didn't get to do this at the beginning. Sub beacon.com. You can become a member. remember listen comment you'll get our bonus episodes uh thanks for listening
Sonny00:57:47you have a uh outtake here any spider outtake there we go any more thoughts what are your thoughts on the the the whole central idea the trauma the rejection of the
JVL00:58:03trauma plot well i don't know that it is a rejection though right i mean you're assuming that they're going to decide that uh no spider-man doesn't need his trauma uh i don't
Sonny00:58:15know that that's where they're going to come down look if if if they go the opposite direction and they're like actually miles does have to like sacrifice his father or well he lost his uncle right he lost his uncle he lost his uncle yeah so i mean i like aaron is part of that really an uncle ben situation it's a but it but no i mean like it's there hey again i like i i feel like they have really written themselves into a corner for the story that they want to tell it seems very clear the story they want to tell and it is unclear to me that they are going to be able to figure out how to tell that story well i'm for whatever it's
JVL00:58:55worth i do not it is not it is not clear to me that they want to reject the trauma stuff it seems to me they want to play with the idea and it's unclear to me where they're going to come down i could see that uh that's that's just my read can i say
Mike00:59:08real quick i loved the lego spider-man universe yeah it was so much fun obviously they made the lego movies but it was just it was so much fun i i did feel like these little forays into the other spider-verses i was like i'd want to watch an entire movie in several of them yes yeah so
JVL00:59:30that i i liked it i want to love it help me love it guys daniel kaluuya how do you spell his last name how do you say his last name yeah
Sonny00:59:38i remember when he gave his uh acceptance speech at the oscars and sounded like that and i was
JVL00:59:50like oh he is a good actor that guy's a movie star i love him yeah yeah i'm sure it's fine
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